Here's the timeline again with the episodes marked.
View attachment 2760
I really do like this method of visually representing the timeline with storylines and the episodes. It helps to specify what is going on at a glance.
I do have a few concerns about pacing, but of course this was a very preliminary attempt at dividing out the season, and we had to start somewhere!
My first issue is how densely packed the episodes in the middle of the Season are.
In Episode 6, by combining the Fake!Amlach at the Council incident with the Battle at the Stockade incident in a single episode, we would be forcing both Amlach and Haleth to be more minor characters than we would like by making them share screentime for their 'major' events. I would prefer if they each got to shine as the 'primary human storyline' of the episodes where those events occur. After all, the build up to Annael's revealed treachery works well to make the audience anticipate this. We would therefore consider Annael the A plot, Amlach the B plot, and Haleth the C plot. That's just...not okay, since we get only one more episode with a Haleth storyline in it at all.
A similar issue occurs in Episode 7, where the culmination of Aredhel's story - her escape, return to Gondolin, murder, and Eöl's execution - is sharing screentime with the romance of Aegnor and Andreth. This, naturally, makes the story of Andreth and Aegnor a more minor note in the season, and I'm not entirely comfortable with relegating them to a B-plot. Also, this is the episode where we introduce Maeglin, and we probably would want to have at least some earlier glimpse of Aredhel raising child-Maeglin in Nan Elmoth, and Eöl taking him off to visit the dwarves and such. Probably room for that in Episode 5 (as 6 is already crammed full). So, this could be the first time we see the nearly-fullgrown-Maeglin actor, but probably shouldn't be the character introduction.
We have traditionally had a 'hinge' episode for the Season around Episode 8 - something that changes the direction of where things are going. The Trial of Melkor in Valinor during Season 2. The Shipburning in Season 3. The Dagor Aglareb wasn't until Episode 9 in Season 3...but the Kinslaying reveal is what the entire first half of the season was building up to. I think that the death of Aredhel is a good 'hinge' event for a central episode this season
....is there another alternative for that 'hinge' point?
Episode 11 is currently pretty empty, which is a problem. We definitely need to spend time with Hador there, probably a young Barahir as well. So I agree with that. And tying up the Dwarf storyline makes sense. I recognize that the reason this episode feels so nebulous is that we haven't yet come up with Hador's storyline. So it's not so much that it's empty, as that it's undefined/unwritten. I imagine that if we include the double wedding of Hador's kids with the Haladin, it will be in this episode.
I do want to include the incident at the Pass of Aglon, but I'm not very convinced that we want that to happen in FA 402. I think it will probably work better much earlier, possibly in Bëor's lifetime. Having it so late - after the Stockade battle with Haleth - means that it is no longer answering the question of how Men fare in battle against Orcs, which was part of the point of it. I do like the opportunity to show Hador fighting, but I don't think we need to show Andreth's father fighting - we have already answered the question that the House of Bëor will fight beside the elves. Having it not
seem like a time of war to Andreth is part of the point of her bitterness. Yes, she lives in a borderland, but she could quite easily go her entire life with no actual warfare occurring. The 'time of war' viewpoint of the elves doesn't match her timeline. Also, what the heck would Hador be doing at the Pass of Aglon? Let's make his storyline revolve around Fingolfin, Fingon, and Dor-lomin.
I think that Bëor in Episode 1 (Man-centric) and other two Edain Houses in Episode 2 (Laiquendi-centric) is a good plan. It gets all the players on the board quickly, and introduces the tension between Men and Elves in interesting ways. Just as we have some elf subplots in Episode 1, we would want some Men subplots in Episode 2 - I think we can probably manage to get through Bëor's story in the first 4 episodes, not waiting until Episode 5 for him to die. But, that's the kind of detail that is easy enough to shift around as the rest of the episodes take shape. I'm more concerned with the densely-packed Amlach-Haleth-Andreth episodes, and naturally the solution to that is to let them expand into the Bëor and Hador episodes (which there are currently plenty of).
I feel that waiting until Episode 3 to introduce Aredhel's storyline would be a grave error. She's a major character throughout this season (or well, at least the first half of the season). We do want Aredhel's death somewhere around mid-season, probably, but if so, then we *definitely* need to show her restless in Gondolin in Episode 1. Sure, it would be a minor subplot compared to the major 'Bëor and Finrod meet' plot, but we need to see her right away. Fingolfin, too, needs to appear in Episode 1 - so either he or Aredhel is the C-plot, but they should both be on screen.
I guess that brings up the point of how we want to handle Aredhel's storyline - if it's going to be told in 'small bits and pieces' throughout each episode of the first half of the season, or if we're going to have 2-3 Aredhel-centric episodes broken up by episodes in which she does not appear at all. Because, in the outline you have given, Episode 3 focuses on her decision to leave Gondolin, Episode 4 is her adventures in Nan Dungortheb and meeting Eöl, and Episode 7 is her escape and death. Is that...going to be enough?