You want a season finale? You’ve by-god gotten one. In the final episode of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power ’s terrific second season, writer-creators J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay and the show’s go-to director, Charlotte Brändstöm leave no stone unturned, no confrontation unfilmed, and (almost — sorry, Círdan) no major character behind. The result is a jumbo-sized episode that still feels like it’s over in a flash. It’s an hour-plus of television involving dozens of characters spanning thousands of miles that, if anything, feels like it needed more. And you know what they say in showbiz about leaving them wanting more.
The Dwarves: King Durin III is dead. Driven mad with greed by his Ring of Power — which nevertheless does give him the ability to find the biggest motherlode of mithril silver in the world — he breaks through into the chasm where dwells the Balrog, a monstrous being of shadow and flame that served as one of the Dark Lord Morgoth’s top lieutenants back when Sauron was his second-in-command. Finally convinced of his folly (I think? it’s also possible he’s just being protective), he removes his ring and takes a suicide run at the beast, temporarily re-sealing it away.
During the chaos, Durin IV sends the Dwarf army to Eregion to help save what’s left of the Elf population and drive back the Orcs. Now he’s left in charge and has to figure out what to do about various rival lords and claimants to the throne, including his own brother. Meanwhile, the ring sits temptingly close by…
The Númenóreans: Secretly using the palantír, the usurper king Ar-Pharazôn discovers that Tar-Míriel allied herself with Sauron back when he was pretending to be human. He uses this to falsely accuse her and all the Faithful who support her of treason, rounding them up in a midnight pogrom. Míriel gives herself up, but not before giving Captain Elendil a mighty sword called Narsil, the White Flame. He rides off to the western end of the island, a stronghold of the Faithful where his son Anarion lives.
The Regular Humans: Don’t worry, the Númenóreans factor into these poor guys’ lives too. Elendil’s long-lost son Isildur says goodbye to his young friend Theo and prepares to return home — with Estrid, who has finally confessed her feelings for him. (Powerfully, at that: There’s real bitterness and fire in the way she says her betrothed’s promise of a life together forever made her sick.) But Pharazôn’s loathsome son Kemen shows up with a contingent of soldiers who officially commandeer the whole town to use the site of a fortress and watchtower.
Celebrimbor: The doomed Elf craftsman dies with his city, Eregion. Sauron kills him in anger after torturing him fails to force him to divulge the location of the missing Rings of Power, but not before Celebrimbor correctly predicts his downfall will be due to the Rings: “Your only craft is treachery so pure it shall betray the very hand that forges it.” True! He also officially pronounces Sauron “Lord of the Rings,” but only as part of his dying curse against him.
The Elves and the Orcs, aka Galadriel, Sauron, Adar, Elrond, Gil-Galad, and Arondir: Undaunted by Celebrimbor’s death, Sauron woos the orcs sent to find him and uses them to ambush and murder Adar — who only minutes earlier, partially healed by the power of Galadriel’s Ring, made an apparently sincere offer of a permanent peace between Elves and Orcs once Sauron is destroyed. So much for that.
A witness to the whole scene, Galadriel duels Sauron for control of the Nine Rings, which are in her possession. Shape-shifting back and forth between his Annatar and Halbrand forms, he also appears as Galadriel herself, embodying the darkness within her. He defeats her by stabbing her with Morgoth’s crown — telling her he’d have made her his queen in the process — and takes the Nine.
Galadriel is found by her pals Elrond, Gil-Galad, and Arondir, who spotted her plummet from the cliff where she and Sauron had been fighting. Elrond also finds her ring nearby. Overcoming his reservations, he uses it in concert with Gil-Galad to heal her from the enchanted wounds. The foursome ends the season ready to lead the Elves to war against Sauron — who has the hammer of Fëanor, the godlike Elf craftsman who inspired Celebrimbor. What on Middle-earth could he be planning to do with it, I wonder?
The Wizard and the Halflings: Having chosen to rescue his friends Nori and Poppy rather than search the wasteland for his supposed destiny, the unnamed wizard reaches the Stoor village, where the Dark Wizard is waiting for him. An old friend of the Stranger from their pre-wizard period, he says he wants to cast down Sauron and replace him — seemingly legitimately concerned about the threat the Dark Lord poses, but either oblivious to or lying about the threat he poses himself. (“Pity will not defeat Sauron,” he says, explaining his methods; this is kind of a lay-up, I realize, but it’s worth pointing out that pity, specifically Bilbo and Frodo’s pity for Gollum is exactly what defeats Sauron in the end.) When the Stranger rejects his terms, the Dark Wizard destroys the village and escapes. Nori and Poppy depart with the now-wandering Stoors, leaving the “Grand Elf” to return to the mysterious Tom Bombadil. But in the ruins of the village he finds his staff and realizes this was all a test. Now, thanks to Tom and the Halflings, he has a staff and a name — Gandalf.
And the verdict: I want more. That’s the main thing this episode made me feel. I’d very much like to see the continuing adventures of Charlie Vickers’s sociopathic Sauron, whose real superpower isn’t shapeshifting or telepathy or immortality, but lying. I want to see how Morfydd Clark’s Galadriel continues to deal with the confusion, and even attraction, his power of deception implanted in her brain, like George Costanza singing his own last name as a jingle. I want to see more of Robert Aramayo’s scarily convincing Warrior Elrond. I want to see Elendil and Isildur on one side and Pharazôn and Kemen on the other build their respective factions. I want to see how long the newly crowned King Durin lasts with a ring on his desk and a Balrog in his basement. Last season, all I wanted to see was the closing credits.
Admittedly, a change in mindset played a major role here. I am a lifelong Tolkien fan. I read The Hobbit in kindergarten. When I got my Covid and flu shots the other week, the pharmacist recognized the White Tree of Gondor tattoo on my arm. I bow to few in this area. As such, I could , if I had so chosen, spent the season screaming in psychic anguish — about Gandalf showing up, about how the show plays fast and loose with what’s known about the creation of the Rings of Power, about Galadriel and Sauron literally dueling for them, about “trial by abyss,” you name it.
Instead, I simply chose…not to do that. It’s more fun to like things than hate things; it’s more fun to love the books and like the show because they’re two different things than to love the books and hate the show for the same reason. This season, at least, I felt like I was getting enough Tolkienishness to excuse the sins against canon. Daniel Weyman’s Gandalf, Rory Kinnear’s Tom Bombadil, and Charlie Vickers’s Sauron felt like those characters to me. Robert Aramayo’s Elrond is well on the way. Owain Arthur’s Durin is Dwarfish as hell. Morfydd Clark’s Galadriel, the highlight of Season 1, remains so in Season 2.
And it wasn’t just the performances, or the improved writing that livened them up, that made this season work. It was also just all the cool stuff . A Balrog, a giant troll, a Watcher in the Water, a sea monster, Sauron as a puddle of gelatinous tendrilled vampiric goo. The Battle of Eregion, the season’s climax, was masterfully put together over the course of three episodes, really allowing us to feel the endless bombardment and mounting threat of destruction. (Kudos especially to Charlotte Brändström, who with these final two episodes proves she can hang with any TV director where combat is concerned.)
It’s an exciting show now, is what I’m saying. It’s a show to get excited about, too. The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is a surprise and a success.
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