The countdown is on as the premiere ofThe Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Powerdraws closer and closer. The new season will deal with the fallout of the Sauron (Charlie Vickers) reveal at the end of Season 1, as well as a rising darkness in Middle-earth facing Galadriel (Morfyyd Clark), Elrond (Robert Aramayo), Arondir (Ismael Cruz Cordova), and more. Now, with just over a month to go and anticipation growing, Prime Video has provided us with a new batch of images hinting at where we’ll find our characterswhen Season 2 premieres on August 29. The batch also includes a Collider-exclusive image featuring master smith and ring-maker, Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards).
The images tease plenty about what is to come when the series returns next month, and include a harrowing look at Nori (Markella Kavanaugh) in the desert of Rhûn, a far cry from the green hills she calls home. There’s also new looks at Arondir, Elrond, Isildur (Maxim Baldry), and Queen Regent Míriel (Cynthia Addai-Robinson). We also get a look ata couple of key encounters— Sauron and Celebrimbor, as well as Galadriel and Adar (Sam Hazeldine), the leader of the Orcs. Our Collider-exclusive image shows Celebrimbor alone at his forge, teasing big things to come for the smith, whosework has already taken a turn for the world-altering.
Most chilling, perhaps, is the image ofSauron as Annatar, the Elven guise he usesto place himself closer to Celebrimbor. Collider’sSteve Weintraubhad the opportunity to visit the set of Season 2 with a few other reporters and participate in a group interview with showrunnersPatrick McKayandJ.D. Payne,where the pair offered a lengthy response to Weintraub’s question on what the new season was about. One element they teased was that the new season wasall about the villains, with Payne saying:
“You remember in Season 1 how it didn’t end exactly as he would have hoped; Galadriel cast him out, and he’s left with basically nothing. She has the three rings. He has no friends, he has no army, he has no allies, no weapons, basically no resources except for his own cunning. Season 1 was all about the heroes and about setting the table with Galadriel, with the Dwarves, with Númenor, and with Southlanders.Season 2 is gonna be all about the villains, and specifically all about Sauron. We’re going to watch as he uses deception, manipulation, lies, coercion, cunning to start to set the chess pieces in motion. He’s gonna go to this person over here and sort of set this group against that group over there and start using people’s inherent trusts and mistrusts and fears against them to start to set up the situations that are all beneficial to him.”
What Will Sauron Do in ‘The Rings of Power’ Season 2?
During the set visit, the showrunners also teased what to expect in Season 2 — the opening of Season 2, specifically. The pair teased that the lengthy sequence will revisit a familiar location through a new lens, offering more context to a few key moments in Season 1 before bringing things full circle. The new season will also push past where we found the characters last year, with their approach to Sauron now reflecting the fact that the audience knows full well who he is. As McKay said:
“We saw in Season 1 that Galadriel, who in our estimation is one of the great heroes of Middle-earth, her pride and her PTSD were a crack that he could get into and manipulate her to get everything he wanted. Now, he’s gonna do that with everybody. Andthe joy of Season 2 is we know who he is, and so instead of a Season 1 where Sauron’s in the dark — maybe that’s him, maybethat’shim, maybethat’shim — this is just about understanding his psychology and how he works.”
Payne went on to say that though the three rings for the Elves had been forged, the rings for the Dwarves and the Men still need to be forged, as well as the One Ring, of course, to which McKay added:
“But Celebrimbor’s destiny has not yet been written. We know Númenor has big things to do with Sauron down the road, as do the Dwarves in Khazad-dûm and elsewhere. We know that the Southlanders who had a home in Mordor that has been utterly devastated and destroyed are now essentially refugees. How does that play into it? We know Men are weak. We know Men eventually take rings.What is gonna be happening over the course of Season 2 is every single one of these societies and heroes that we set up in Season 1 are now facing serious cracks in the foundation that Sauron can exploit.What we’re hopefully gonna start to realize as the season goes on is that this is not a story about several different worlds, this is a story about one world, and Sauron is the spine that connects all of it.”
Sauron as the connective tissue to the rising issues in Middle-earth is something Galadriel will also grapple with, as she feels guilt for the role she played in allowing him to rise to the heights he already has. As Payne said:
“In addition to being about the societies, it’s also about the individuals and the characters. It’s how people reckon with the evil that is inside them. I mean, Galadriel made some pretty questionable choices in Season 1 and really empowered the Dark Lord to really rise from nothing on the raft to the point where he could, as Patrick said, have access to some of the big power players in Middle-earth. She’s got to deal with that in Season 2.Her friends might look at her differently and not trust her as much, and then she has to really come to terms with that.“I thought my compass pointed north. I was the most righteous certain Elf in all of Elvendom. I literally went so upside down that I was helping the Dark Lord. What does that mean?””
Tolkein’s Stories Are Stories of Hope
It’s not all bleak though. With McKay reminding everyone that though there’s possible trouble ahead for Galadriel and Elrond’s friendship as the Sauron issue becomes more of a problem, we’re also remind that ultimately Tolkein’s stories are stories of hope:
“What does it mean for the rest of the Elves? How does Elrond feel about that? Elrond loves her and trusted her and was worried about her and everything he feared came true — and it’s a lot worse, potentially.So, what’s gonna happen when he finds that out?We’re talking a lot about darkness and horribleness and misery, and that’s all a part of it — Tolkien takes you there — but the other thing that we really love about Tolkien and this material is that there’s hope everywhere, too. We know there’s an unnamed wizard heading out to parts unknown and exploring the huge parts of the map we’ve never seen before on screen or even in the books, only talked about in myth and rumor. Perhaps that destiny is gonna tie back into the rise of Sauron over here.”
Stay tuned for more coverage of Collider’s visit to the set ofThe Lord of the Rings: The Rings of PowerSeason 2. The new season premieres on August 29. Season 1 is streaming on Prime Video now.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power
Epic drama set thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s ‘The Hobbit’ and ‘The Lord of the Rings’ follows an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared re-emergence of evil to Middle-earth.
