So I have thoughts of my own on what the season outline should look like, thoughts I have been trying to coagulate for a while now. In the interest of forwarding conversation, I’ll do it one episode at a time.
In the season premiere, we are going to have our work cut out for us with the frame. We're introducing a setting even hardcore fans will not be able to recognize on sight, and most people not even by name. None of the characters will clue the audience into where we are, and only one of them will be familiar. All of this said, my recommendation is to make the frame story the B plot of the episode rather than try to pack all of that into two short scenes.
In a similar vein, in order to simplify the first episode, I think we should consider something a bit radical by putting the focus of the A plot on the journey of the Beorians prior to their meeting with Finrod. They *willI* meet Finrod, of course, but late in the episode. This will allow Episode 2 to be about Finrod and Beor’s relationship and possibly Beor’s death if we so choose. If Beor is already pretty old, we could even have Adanel as a child in the first episode, allowing us to hear Beor passing on their cultural history to her, as she’s someone both wouldn’t know this history, but at least has the cultural context to understand it. This would also allow us to portray the first contact with elves as the climactic event we need it to be.