Amazon has released a final trailer for the second season of “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” – and it may leave viewers with more questions than answers.
With the highly anticipated second season of the series premiering on August 29th, fans of The Rings of Power are wondering what the second season will have in store.
In an interview with Deseret News, “The Rings of Power” showrunners JD Payne and Patrick McKay hinted at some of the key storylines for the latest season.
This is what fans can expect from season 2 of “The Rings of Power”.
Sauron gains power
In one of the most interesting – and controversial – twists of the first season, Halbrand (Charlie Vickers), a seemingly human man who accompanied Galadriel on her journey, turned out to be Sauron.
Now that the secret has been revealed, Season 2 will focus on Sauron and his rise to power.
“Season 2 is really the focus,” McKay said. “If Season 1 was about the heroes and Galadriel’s journey, Season 2 is about the villains and Sauron.”
In Season 2 of The Rings of Power, Sauron rises to power by using his most powerful tools: manipulation and deceit.
According to Payne, “(Sauron) specializes in taking your strengths and turning them into weaknesses, exploiting your desire for good and using it to achieve his own evil ends.”
Galadriel is humiliated
Following the events of the first season – in which Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) is deceived by Sauron – the second season finds Galadriel humiliated and forced to deal with the consequences of her decisions in the first season.
According to McKay, “Galadriel is offered the ultimate power. She is a character who is so proud and thinks she knows better than everyone else.”
Payne described it as “all part of her development of wisdom.” We will see Galadriel transform from a “young, hot-headed, impetuous swordswoman…” to the “wise, matronly Lady of Lothlórien that we know.”
“In Season 2, she is on a journey of reckoning, a journey of redemption both in her personal relationship with her friend Elrond and the king, and in her relationship with herself,” McKay said.
We learn more about the stranger
McKay and Payne talked about one of the most mysterious characters in “The Rings of Power”: The Stranger (Daniel Weyman).
At the beginning of the second season of “The Rings of Power,” the Stranger’s identity is still unknown – but after season 1, we know a little more about his character.
In Season 1, the biggest mystery was whether the Stranger was “a force for good or evil,” as McKay put it. Now that we know he’s a force for good, the Stranger will learn more about his powers in Season 2 – because “violence is dangerous, no matter who wields it.”
“The Stranger, Daniel Weyman’s character, has a really interesting journey in Season 2. … It’s about learning how to master his mysterious powers, how to control them and how to figure out what his bigger purpose is,” McKay said.
And what’s exciting is that fans will finally learn the stranger’s identity in Season 2.
“We can confirm that. You will also learn his name,” McKay said.
Things are starting to go badly for Númenor
Númenor is one of the most interesting storylines for anyone familiar with the Second Age. As it is an Atlantean-like myth in Tolkien’s legendarium, it can be exciting to see the events on Númenor play out on screen.
Most Tolkien fans already know that things are not going to end well for the Númenóreans. In Season 2 of The Rings of Power, we will see the beginnings of the tragedy.
According to McKay, “(In Season 2) the rifts (on the island of Númenor) begin to open. Númenor is ultimately a tragedy. … We want that tragedy to hang like a cloud over the islands throughout the seasons. And in Season 2, it begins to rain.”
“It’s a cautionary tale,” Payne added, “about a fallen people and a people facing tragedy. I think it’s a warning for our times in some ways.”
In Season 2, the gap between Mìriel (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) and Pharazôn (Trystan Gravelle) and the Númenóreans becomes clear – a gap that, according to Payne, is “growing wider and wider”.
The Tragedy of Númenor will have particular resonance with modern audiences because its story is, as Payne put it, a cautionary tale about “the dangers of tribalism.”
Middle Earth is in “danger” – and we will see more of it
Not surprisingly, Season 2 of The Rings of Power delves even deeper into the Second Age.
Audiences will witness the creation of additional rings (notably the Seven Rings for the Dwarves and the Nine Rings for Men) and the appearance of characters not depicted in previous adaptations, such as Tom Bombadil and the Entwives.
According to Payne and McKay, Season 2 will even explore parts of Middle-earth that audiences have not seen before, such as the lands in the East.
“We want every episode to be better than the last, we want to raise the bar with each season,” McKay said.
In Season 2, as Sauron rises to power, the stakes in Middle-earth are even higher than in Season 1.
McKay says, “Every world is in danger from minute one, and it gets worse as the season progresses.”
