[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 2 finale and Tolkien book plot.]
Darkness took over The Rings of Power in its second season, but there was still hope after the dust settled in Eregion. The Season 2 finale saw tragic ends for more than one character and the besieged elven city, but it also revealed the identity of the Stranger (Daniel Weyman) and established a new home for the elves. Sauron (Charlie Vickers) is still very much at large and stronger than ever at the episode’s end, but his final moments with Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards) and Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) have changed him.
Here, the stars and creators break down The Rings of Power Season 2 finale’s biggest moments, reveal behind-the-scenes details, and explain how the episodes set up the potential third season.
Why Sauron cried when he killed Celebrimbor
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The season-long tragedy that was Celebrimbor’s arc ended with a direct adaptation of JRR Tolkien’s writings. Sauron kills Celebrimbor in the finale by repeatedly shooting him with arrows to torture him into revealing the location of the nine rings for men. When the craftsman won’t spill the secrets, Sauron impales him on a spear against a column in Celebrimbor’s destroyed workshop.
“I was absolutely pumped to shoot him with arrows,” Vickers tells TV Insider with a laugh, because “that’s canonical.” Despite their dark scenes throughout the season, Vickers assures that he and Edwards had a wonderful time working together. But why did Sauron cry after he killed Celebrimbor?
“It just happened, and these things just happen sometimes when you’re acting,” Vickers reveals. “But looking back on it, there’s a number of ways that I could explain it. He’s lost a great partner in Celebrimbor, someone that he could have used, but also someone that he greatly values. But also he loses control, which is not Sauron. He loses his inhibitions.”
The master manipulator doesn’t take kindly to defeat, Vickers says, and he absolutely “has been defeated in that moment” even though it was Celebrimbor who dies. The elf never revealed the location of the nine rings (Galadriel had them), and calling Sauron a slave to the rings makes the sorcerer “lose control” according to the actor. “And in doing so, he can’t get the nine anymore because he’s killed his one way of finding the truth.” The single tear, Vickers says, is “anger, it’s frustration, it’s all this pent-up chaos. He’s lost control in one moment and you rarely see him lose control.”
Sauron’s feelings for Galadriel explained
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Galadriel and Sauron’s only scenes together this season came in the finale when the once allies crossed swords in an epic duel for the nine rings. This came after Sauron had a rogue band of orcs murder Adar (Sam Hazeldine) in the same Ides of March-style brutality Adar used on him all those years ago. Vickers says Sauron didn’t want to fight Galadriel because he still feels connected to the elf, but he would do whatever it took to get those rings (and hers).
The duel made clear that Sauron still has powerful feelings for Galadriel, which aren’t necessarily explicitly romantic but are the truest show of emotion Sauron can give. Vickers says Galadriel is the only person with whom the Dark Lord can be genuine. He transforms himself back into Halbrand momentarily during their battle, and then eerily invades Galadriel’s mind to say “the door is still open” to him. She rejects him again and declares, “The door is shut.” This is the only moment in the duel when Sauron explodes in anger. Vickers explains why, noting that even when this fight began, Sauron believed Galadriel still wanted to join his side as his queen.
“It’s a lot of pent-up anger at her rejection of him in the first season, and then now all of a sudden he has to deal with the fact that she’s rejecting him again,” he says. “It’s a process of him letting go of this idea that she could have joined him. And then it goes from, if you’re not going to join me, then I’m going to end you and try and end this whole thing that has muddied the waters of my goal and my intention. It reinforces his hatred for the elves.”
Sauron’s offer for Galadriel to be his queen was “genuine,” Vickers says. “He means it, although I don’t think the dynamic would’ve been he’s the king, she’s the queen. It was like, you can look like the queen, but you’re really the court jester.” He wanted her at his side like a decorative jewel on his crown. Galadriel is “like another ring” to him, Vickers says. Galadriel, meanwhile would rather literally throw herself off a cliff with her ring, Nenya, in hand than let Sauron believe she wanted to join him.
Why is Galadriel the only person with whom Sauron can be genuine? “There’s not many people that have the level of wisdom and power that she does, and there’s no one on his level,” Vickers explains. “They had this shared connection when they met. Their time together [in Season 1] meant that going into the next season and into the future, they always will have that shared bond.”
The duel took one week to film but months to prepare, he shares. Vickers made sure his fighting style as Sauron and Halbrand were different when he reprised his Season 1 persona. “You only really see [Halbrand] fight in the alley [in Season 1 in Númenor], but he was very vicious and human,” he says, “whereas Sauron, it’s economical. That was the word I kept coming back to. He’s probably the best fighter hand to hand in all of Middle-earth. It would be this level of ease he would have to have with Galadriel early on, and then he underestimates her and has to start putting in more effort.”
The Rings of Power cast always knew the Stranger was Gandalf
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The Stranger was confirmed to be Gandalf in the finale. Given the direct references to some of Gandalf’s famous book and film lines last season, as well as the character’s overall look and his woodland-themed staff, it’s not surprising that the mysterious figure is actually the most well-known wizard in this universe.
The cast was asked when they found out the Stranger’s name during a screening event in New York City on September 24 that I attended. Markella Kavenagh (Nori) gave a detailed answer about how the name didn’t matter as much as the character’s essence, and then Ismael Cruz Córdova (Arondir) piped in, “We all knew,” making the whole audience laugh.
In a later interview, Cynthia Addai-Robinson tells TV Insider that it was “like knowing without a confirmation.” Kavenagh tells us that she got official confirmation of the Gandalf reveal just before filming the Season 2 finale.
Kavenagh says, “We had a rehearsal, I think, and then afterward — I am just remembering this now. I spoke to J.D. [Payne, showrunner] and I was like, so we’re finding out who the Stranger is, so who is the Stranger? Now you can tell me. We’re about to get the scripts. And I can’t remember if it was then or if it was when we got the scripts, but it was definitely very late in the process.”
Were the elves in Rivendell at the end of The Rings of Power Season 2?
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Galadriel sustained more potentially fatal wounds from Sauron stabbing her with his crown than she did falling from that cliff. The dark magic infected her, and only Nenya could heal the wounds. King Gil-Galad’s (Benjamin Walker) ring didn’t have that power. Elrond (Robert Aramayo) put on Nenya to save Galadriel, bringing his season-long resistance to the elven rings to an end. But Aramayo tells TV Insider that Elrond using Nenya was out of pure necessity; he’s still not endorsing the rings completely.
“It’s necessary, man, it’s necessary,” Aramayo says. “He’s not on a vendetta against these things. It’s like when you exist in a world where, as Gil-galad says, [Sauron] can sculpt your very thoughts, he can infect your mind, you can’t trust what you’re seeing yourself, and you can’t trust what other people are telling you. So he’s right to mistrust these rings because he saw with his own eyes how close Halbrand was to them. It’s not a vendetta, but it’s obviously more complicated once he’s put the ring on and she’s healed. She’s survived impossible wounds. I’m not a hundred percent convinced how he feels about them, but he can accept a larger, broader sense of good surrounding these rings.”
Elrond guided the elves who survived the siege of Eregion to a new land that they say is magically shielded from Sauron. It’s pretty obvious that this is Rivendell, but the actors can’t say so themselves. “We can neither confirm nor deny, but that’s very astute of you to glean that,” Walker tells TV Insider, teasing that the show “won’t tell us anything” about Rivendell possibly being confirmed in a potential third season (as of the time of publication, the show is not renewed, but all signs point to more seasons).
As gorgeous as that landscape was, the final shot of the season (pictured above) was filmed in a comically bare-bones way.
“We were in a parking lot for that one,” Walker reveals. The elves below them, the ones cheering on their heroic leaders, filmed on a separate location in England’s Windsor Great Park, Aramayo adds. The parking lot used for the final shot was presumably on the Bray Studios lot in Bray, which is a short drive to the aforementioned park which is also home to Buttersteep Forest, where the Battle of Eregion was filmed (dive into the behind-the-scenes details of that production in our set visit coverage).
Aramayo says the production staff built the rock and the ledge on which Galadriel, Elrond, Gil-galad, and Arondir are standing in the season’s final moment. “That was just literally looking at forklifts,” Walker teases, saying it was a “tiny little practical set.”
“They needed the natural light for an area of Middle-earth that would be so beautiful. Still remains to be unnamed,” Walker playfully adds, “but I remember it started raining and then it was a thunderstorm and it was a whole thing.”
Now, fans begin the expected journey of a Season 3 renewal update. But we imagine the epic fantasy tale, which truly upped the ante for an enthralling second season, will have a long future at Prime Video.
The Rings of Power, Season 2 Finale, Streaming Now, Prime Video