“Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” Season 2 is finally here, and Sauron is making a bigger play for power.
Season 1 of the series introduced us to the Second Age of Middle-earth – thousands of years before the stories of “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings.” The season packed quite a lot into just eight episodes, jumping all over the continent, dealing with elven and dwarven cultures one moment and revealing the “proto-hobbit” Harfoots the next. It’s a lot of story to untangle to prep for Season 2 but these are the major players and events to remember to get you ready.
Dive into our “Rings of Power” Season 1 recap for everything you need to know to get you ready to head back to Middle-earth.
Galadriel’s quest for revenge
The series begins with the elves bloody victory over the eminently evil Morgoth. During that war, Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) loses her brother Finrod in a battle with Sauron. Despite reports that both Morgoth and Sauron were defeated, Galadriel remains convinced the latter remains alive and in hiding.
Consumed by her need for revenge, Galadriel puts together an expedition tasked with scouring Middle-earth for any sign of Sauron. After a number of dead ends, she’s told to put aside her quest by the elven High-King Gil-Galad (Benjamin Walker) and return to Valinor – the elven homeland.
Reluctantly, Galadriel boards a ship set for Valinor knowing that if she goes, she won’t be returning. At the last moment before crossing into her homeland, she leaps from her ship and begins the long task of swimming back to Middle-earth. It isn’t long before she comes upon a shipwreck of men. She’s pulled aboard some of the flotsam by a man named Halbrand (Charlie Vickers) and the two bond before being rescued by Númenoreans.
Against the odds, Galadriel and Halbrand manage to convince Queen Míriel (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) to send a contingent of soldiers back to Middle-earth to help take back the Southlands – which Halbrand mentions was his home. The pair head back to the mainland with a small Númenorean army that includes General Elendil (Lloyd Owen) and his son Isildur (Maxim Baldry).
Elrond, Durin and the Dwarves dig too greedily and too deep
After sending Galadriel – he thinks – back to Valinor, Gil-Galad informs Elrond (Robert Aramayo) that the elven light that gives them their power and influence in Middle-earth is fading and once it does they will all have to leave. The High-King tasks Elrond with visiting his old dwarven friend Prince Durin IV (Owain Arthur) in Khazad-dǔm to see if they can help.
The pair’s friendship starts rocky because Elrond neglected to visit Durin for 20 years – a blink of an eye for elves but not for dwarves. Eventually, the two put their squabbles aside and Durin confides that the dwarves have discovered a new ore with unique properties called mithril. Gil-Galad becomes convinced mithril could be the power source the elves need to save their kind and Elrond manages to convince the dwarven prince to help him mine it.
Durin’s father King Durin III learns of his son’s hope of mining some of the mithril for the elves and forbids it. The pair end up going about their business in secret, but are still unfortunately caught by the dwarven king who seizes the mine for his own, banishes Elrond from the mountain, and disowns his own son.
The dwarven greed for mithril blinds the king who forsakes his son in order to continue mining the mithril. Little does he know, all that greedy digging has unearthed a Balrog deep within the mountain.
The Southlands burn
The Southlands are a region of Middle-earth that largely contain men who sided with Morgoth during the war. A contingent of elves were stationed there to keep an eye on the people, and that’s how the elf Arondir (Ismael Cruz Córdova) enters the story. While most of the elves take the Southlands posting as a place to slack off, Arondir notices a growing group of orcs in the area.
This new army is led by Adar – a name in Elvish that means “Father” – who has his orcs digging ditches and tunnels through the Southlands. The army is also launching attacks on Southlander villages, recruiting the men loyal to their cause and killing the rest. A village attack is how Bronwyn (Nazanin Boniadi) and her son Theo (Tyroe Muhafidin) end up refugees in a fort where Arondir is.
Bronwyn and Arondir have pretty immediate chemistry, and while love is in the air for them, Theo sneaks off and manages to find himself in possession of the snapped off hilt of an ancient sword that Adar’s looking for. When Adar learns who has the hilt, his army of orcs besiege the fort. Arondir leads the refugees and elves out against Adar and manage to hold them off just until Galadriel, Halbrand, and the Númenoreans arrive as backup.
Unfortunately, that impeccable timing isn’t enough. Adar gets his hands on the sword hilt Theo found and of course it’s actually a key. He uses it to trigger a number of seismic events that trigger a volcanic eruption – hello Mount Doom – and covers the Southlands in a permanent cloud of ash.
Licking their wounds, Galadriel and Halbrand head off to Lindon to meet Gil-Galad and the Númenoreans agree to return home after Queen Míriel was left blinded in the battle and Elendil falsely believes Isildur was also killed.
Starting with the Mount Doom eruption, the Southlands started going by a new name – Mordor.
The stars get strange for the Harfoots
“The Rings of Power” introduced a new clan of people dubbed early in the show’s history as “proto-hobbits” called the harfoots. They’re a secretive and nomadic people who stick to their own and hide from just about every other living soul their caravan comes across.
Nori Brandyfoot (Markella Kavenagh) is the exception. She dreams of stepping off the path and seeing the wider world. That wider world comes crashing right down to her one night when a ball of fire crashes from the sky, which Nori and her friend Poppy (Megan Richards) investigate to find a man. This Stranger (Daniel Weyman) has no recollection who he is and only speaks in a mysterious language.
At first, Nori and Poppy take care of The Stranger secretively as they travel, but the others eventually learn of the man. Right as he’s about to earn his trust, Mount Doom erupts and The Stranger uses a mysterious magic that he struggles to control to put out some fires. It spooks the harfoots who banish the man.
Wandering on his own, The Stranger comes across a trio of Mystics. They confront the man assuming he’s actually Sauron reincarnated. Nori – feeling bad about the banishment – catches up to her friend right around this point and The Stranger again uses magic to defend her from the Mystics. Using this magic confirms to the trio that they had their assumptions wrong. The Stranger isn’t Sauron but an Istar – the same race of Wizards that include Gandalf, Saruman, Radagast and a pair of blue wizards.
It’s unclear if The Stranger is one of these wizards or someone all new. But The Stranger wants to know as much as the audience and he and Nori set off east to Rhǔn “where the stars are strange” to learn more about his identity.
The three elven rings are forged
Although Elrond was banished by King Durin, he managed to get some mithril out with him. He returns it to Gil-Galad, who’s brought in famed elven smith Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards) to craft a crown to help the elves. Around this time, Galadriel and Halbrand also return to the mix.
Halbrand gets some one-on-one time with Celebrimbor and convinces him to use the mithril to make three rings rather than a singular crown in order to maximize the amount of power contained within. The smith listens and begins his forging.
With Celebrimbor busy with the rings, Halbrand approaches Galadriel for the big season twist that nobody saw coming – he’s actually Sauron. He’s become quite interested in Galadriel throughout their Season 1 travels and suggests the two could rule over Arda together. Galadriel rejects Sauron’s offer to be his queen and the man formerly known as Halbrand escapes Lindon.
Galadriel, Celebrimbor and Gil-Galad are left reeling from the news about Halbrand but are left with the three elven rings of power – Narya, Nenya and Vilya – to hopefully use against him.
The season ends with Sauron returning to Mordor ready to reclaim his power.
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