Rings of Power Season 2, Episode 1 BREAKDOWN

We are back, ladies and gents, diving into  another season of The Lord of the Rings:   The Rings of Power. We had a big  premiere night with the first three   episodes of the season all dropping,  so let’s dive in and get right to it! Real quick, if you enjoy Middle-earth,  be sure to hit that subscribe and the   bell so you don’t miss future Rings  of Power breakdowns, film coverage,   gaming, and of course my weekly lore  videos here on Nerd of the Rings After a “previously on” segment mostly  recapping season 1 in about 3.5 minutes,   we get our first shot of Season 2, which is  of an orc carrying a pretty sweet evil-looking   crown. And during this time, we hear a  voice talking about how when the shadow   is defeated it takes a new shape and grows  again. For the benefit of of us watching,   and maybe any orcs that you know haven’t met  him before, he introduces himself as Sauron. We get a title card that this is Forodwaith - the  lands to the far north of Middle-earth. This land   is also commonly known as the Northern Waste.  We are told this is the dawn of the Second Age,   so immediately after Morgoth is defeated  by the Valar and cast into the Void. While   Sauron would come to be synonymous  with Mordor by the late third age,   the choice of Forodwaith makes sense here, as  Morgoth’s strongholds were always in the northern   portions of Middle-earth, as we can see on this  combined map of Beleriand and Middle-earth. Sauron says he seeks a new kind of power -  not of the flesh but over flesh, power of the   unseen world. We’ve heard these words before  in Season 1 when Adar is talking to Galadriel   and we see Adar witness these words here. While  harnessing the power of the unseen world doesn’t   really mean a whole lot lore-wise, there is  some apparent connection with the ring magic   that Sauron concocts, as the Unseen is where  the ringwraiths will one day primarily exist. Sauron talks about enslaving Middle-earth, which  sounds good to the orcs, but then follows that   up with “many orcs will die”, which seems  like a not-great hype speech method. Still,   it seems a pretty reasonable assumption if they’re  going to be enslaving all Middle-earth. This   leads to an orc going straight to mutiny,  which seems maybe a bit bold and hasty. After an orc says in black speech “Sauron  lies”, the dark lord points out that they   have nowhere else to turn, then thwarts the  assassination attempt quite brutally. Sauron   loses his cool a bit and we see his veins around  his eyes go all black like Halbrand did at the   end of Season 1. Adar makes as if to crown  Sauron, but turns it upside down and the   orcs join in stabbing him. Sauron puts up  quite a fight, but in the end is slain. We hear some whispered black  speech as Sauron’s body dies,   but when prodded a huge flash of light emanates  from the corpse, making the entire fortress and   lands surrounding it the icy locations  Galadriel came across at the beginning of   Season 1. Sauron’s body is gone and we see black  blood oozing down the crevices of the floor. Now this is where I can’t help but think back to  Season 1’s prologue which showed Sauron becoming   master of the orcs and he is in his full-on  intimidating evil form. During that portion,   Galadriel tells us how the orcs spread  to every corner of Middle-earth,   multiplying under Morgoth’s most devoted  servant - Sauron. So perhaps this is a   bit of a retcon of what we saw in season 1. It would seem more logical for Sauron to appear  to the orcs in his domineering form - and for   the orcs to fall in line under him, as he is  Morgoth’s chief lieutenant. That being said,   the idea that orcs would not take seriously  a fair form of Sauron is not wholly foreign   to the lore. In Nature of Middle-earth,  Tolkien talks about orcs from the East,   who had not experienced the power and terror  of the elves or valour of the Edain were not   subservient to Sauron and that “while he was  obliged for the cozening of Western Men and   Elves to wear as fair a form and countenance as  he could, they despised him and laughed at him.” Back to the show, Adar takes leadership of the  orcs, and we then get a montage of symbiote Sauron   crawling and eating his way through Middle-earth  inch by inch. In the books, we do know that it   takes Sauron a significant time to regain his  physical form if it is destroyed - and each   time it happens, it takes longer to regenerate  - the first of these coming in the Fall of   Numenor - although I must admit I always pictured  it being disembodied spirit and less oozy. Sauron latches on to an unfortunate cart  driver, but for the animal lovers at least   the horse got away. This enables him to take a  human form once again. Sauron comes across some   refugees from orc attacks and has a nice  little conversation with an old guy about   turning to a new path. And we find out that  the pouch Halbrand carried all during season   1 is carried by this guy, a descendant  of the servants of the southland kings. I gotta say, his part is really short,  but I rather enjoyed this character,   who we find is indeed the dead man Sauron  took the pouch from - though he was very   much alive when Sauron took it. As  someone who really hoped the whole   repentant Sauron thing was a ruse in Season  1, it was nice to see the villainous bits in   the early going here - him taking the  pouch and leaving the guy for dead,   and the evil smirk when Galadriel shows up gives  me hope that its all part of his manipulation We also see Sauron seemingly have  some power over the fish-dragon,   making it leave instead of attack. This naturally   makes you wonder if he somehow summoned  it in Season 1 when it attacks the raft. We then get the title card for the  show and I was like - holy smokes,   we are 20 minutes in - that’s kind of  wild. Quick note on the title card,   rather than the straight gold logo, this time we  have green lettering with gold accents throughout. Next we see Galadriel chasing Elrond  on horseback, trying to get the three   rings from him. Turns out they’re racing to  Gil-galad to tell on each other. Real quick,   they pass this tree that kind of reminded me of  the one Frodo sits in in Fellowship of the Ring,   but I did a quick glance and confirmed it is not  the same tree - still…it’s a nice tree. Also,   I gotta feel bad for these horses racing all the  way from Eregion to Lindon - that’s somewhere in   the neighborhood of like 500 miles. When Galadriel  arrives, she’s greeting by guards. Elrond beat her   there, so she gets escorted to the king. Along the  way, we can see a lot of leaves on the ground, so   not only are the leaves of the main tree of Lindon  falling, but the entire forest is giving off the   autumn vibes - presumably this is a symptom of the  larger problem and not just a changing of seasons. Elrond and Galadriel tattle on each other -  Galadriel says Elrond has rings that will fix   their tree problems and Elrond has already  told on Galadriel having hid Halbrand’s true   identity from them. Now this is a part of  the show that I’ve been really curious to   see play out - how will the show handle  Galadriel lying about Sauron’s identity   to her fellow elves. Even in this scene  we see her trying not to fess up to it,   and it was nice to see Gil-galad call her out on  this. She finally reveals Halbrand was actually   Sauron and I kinda love how Gil-galad is just like  “gaahhhh” like “you gotta be freaking kidding me.” Elrond asks how could you and when Galadriel  says she was deceived Elrond fires back “you   were blinded by your own pride” and I gotta  say, I was really glad to hear Elrond say   this as its pretty accurate. Personally,  I didn’t find Season 1 Galadriel to be a   very likable hero and have been hoping there  would come a pivot point in her arc where we   could see her start aligning more with what  we’d expect of such a great character from   the books. I said this in Season 1, but I  think Elrond will play a role in that turn. Galadriel comes back saying Elrond failed  at Khazad-dum, which, I think if we are   keeping score, not securing a metal from  a hostile king vs helping return the dark   lord to power might not be the scoring  contest Galadriel wants to open up here. Gil-galad rather quickly I must say, comes around  to the idea that they must risk using the rings   for the sake of all Middle-earth - because if the  elves don’t heal the tree they’ll have to leave,   which means abandoning the men and dwarves to  whatever evil Sauron is cooking up. And briefly   they kind of touch on an interesting element  of the three rings from the books - they aren’t   made with Sauron’s direct involvement, but  they are made using the methods Celebrimbor   learns from Annatar. Essentially, what  this means is that they exist in this odd   middle ground - they are actually good and  positively preserve the elven lands where   their bearers reside (this being Rivendell  and Lorien later in the story). However,   since they are made with the same craft, they  are under the control of the One Ring. So when   Sauron ultimately makes his Ruling Ring, the  elves will not be able to use their three. Elrond tells Gil-galad that Sauron has not amassed  forces to conquer Middle-earth yet and that these   rings may in fact be how he gains power…which  I must say, seems a reasonable concern to have.   Gil-galad then kind of puts Elrond down - saying  the decision is basically above his paygrade and   he risks his position by not obeying. Elrond  realizes he is clearly the smartest person   in the room and decides to exit the room by  jumping off the cliff into the waters below. I like that Galadriel seems to realize what  Elrond is about to do a split second before   he jumps. Now, this action taken by Elrond  could very well be a reference to a famous   part of his mother’s story. Elwing, who  possessed one of the Silmarils - basically   the trouble-making precious objects of the  First Age - jumps from a precipice into the   sea rather than be captured by the Sons of  Feanor during the Third Kinslaying. She is   transformed into a bird by the vala  Ulmo so that she may fly to reunite   with her husband Earendil. Unlike his mother,  presumably Elrond just goes for a bit of swim. Next we cut to a shot of Mount  Doom as we get our first look   at Season 2 Mordor. Sauron has gone  and got himself captured by the orcs,   and in the previous wide shot we see some  orcs snacking on a delicious Numenorean horse. We find creepy old dude Waldreg is Adar’s hype man  and tells all the captured humans to bow to Adar   or, as we see with the first dude, get stabbed  through the gut. Once they swear allegiance,   they get a brand on the back of their  neck of what in Season 1 was thought to   be Sauron’s symbol, but turned out  to be a rudimentary map of Mordor. Here once again we get Adar face to face  with Sauron, though he doesn’t know it.   And I gotta say, I think this works far  better when we as the audience know this   guy to be Sauron. Rather than guessing along  with the mystery box, we can see how he is   pushing buttons and manipulating people  in these early episodes. For instance,   here he not only dangles the carrot of having  information about a great sorcerer, but   says how Galadriel sought out this person because  of what Adar said about power over flesh. It’s not   enough that he just has information about Sauron,  but he brings this blow that Adar’s own words led   Galadriel to seek out Sauron’s aid. This is the  kind of manipulation I was hoping to see in a   Second Age Sauron and I really hope to see it  continue throughout the season and the series. I also really appreciate Sauron’s reaction  to Adar’s threat - explaining his value,   but when he delivers the line “you can’t kill me”  - we know the hidden meaning here - Adar tried,   but Sauron is so much more than a mortal  man or even an elf, and no mere blades   will destroy him. They throw Sauron in prison  and Adar reassures an orc that Sauron is dead,   but you can pretty much tell he’s not  sure about that. Real quick, I gotta say,   I think Sam Hazeldine is thus far doing a good  job with the Adar character. Taking over a   role is never the easiest task, especially after  Joseph Mawle was one of the standout performances   of season 1. That being said, I think  Sam has brought a lot of consistency in   the voice and performance here to make the  transition easy for viewers, which is great. Next up we get a brief dream sequence of the  Stranger (more on his identity on the way in   my Episode 2 breakdown by the way) where he  finds a staff sticking out of the ground and   when he grabs it, he gets quick flashes of  visions - all of which feature in episode   2 - first there is magma in Mount Doom,  followed by the other wizard in the east,   hands being sliced by a knife, and himself  and Nori in a duststorm of some kind. Nori and Stranger chat about his dreams and  we see their being watched by someone in a   gold mask. Nori says they’re lost  and that they’re going in circles,   which admittedly would seem kind of  hard to do in a desert area like this,   but I guess following your nose might  sometimes lead you back where you came from. They’re running low on food, so Nori  convinces the Stranger to attempt his   tree healing trick and he makes her move  really far back so he doesn’t risk hurting   her. We hear him say “A tule Cuiviëna” this  essentially translates from Quenya to “Oh,   come, healing.” Unfortunately, this does not do  the trick, as the tree explodes. Fortunately,   a bunch of huge bugs come out of the  stump so they have something to eat. They bond over their bug feast and the Stranger  has what is probably one of my favorite lines   in the episode saying “That which is left behind  can be the heaviest burden to carry.” It’s quite   a lovely quote and sentiment. He goes on to talk  about his home that he can’t remember, saying it’s   just beyond the sunset. He is certainly talking  about Valinor here, as the sunset in Middle-earth,   like our own, is in the West - so whatever he  is vaguely feeling but not quite remembering   is definitely Valinor, where the wizards  originated and not whatever lies in the east. Next up we see Sauron get some  facetime with the rabid Warg,   which will come into play later. Waldreg shimmies  in and continues to be a jerk to Sauron which is   kind of ironic since he was all desperate  to ally with Sauron last season. After   getting beaten by Waldreg, Sauron used the  food to get a jump scare from the Warg. Now, I gotta think that him appearing all  banged up and weak is him playing it up. I mean,   we just saw the dude in the opening scene take  like 15 stabs and keep on fighting. As the warg   is gnawing on the bone, he starts speaking  in black speech and seems to take command   of the animal. Now, black speech is one of those  Tolkien languages with very little written in it,   so this is some form of neo-Black Speech  derived for the show. I couldn’t pick up   any words I immediately recognized except  perhaps the suffix -ûk which means “all”. Back in elven lands, we get our first look at  the Grey Havens in this adaptation, which as   we can see is much much smaller than the ones we  saw in the Return of the King film. To be fair,   they still have at least a few thousand  years til that point in the timeline,   but they’ve already been hanging out here  for 1000, so they’re gonna have to pick   up the pace if they’re gonna catch up  to that. In addition to a lighthouse,   we can see there’s a few elven ships, bearing the  same swan design elements we’ve seen previously. Some soldiers ride through looking for  Elrond, who is hiding under a bridge,   then we get our first introduction to a huge  canon character - Cirdan the Shipwright. We   see him moving along guiding other elves in  making their ships by hand and he points out   that perfection is only found in Valinor. No  doubt, those only familiar with film and tv   adaptations will notice Cirdan is unique in that  he has a beard - this is no odd choice as Cirdan   was one of only two elves in history to have a  beard. This is because he is so ancient that he   is well into his third cycle of life - where  such a thing was possible for elves. Indeed,   he is so old that he was born at Cuivenen,  the awakening place of the first elves. Yet,   he would never set foot in Valinor until the  last ship would depart the Grey Havens - his is   an amazing tale of putting aside personal  desires in favor of serving others - for   more check out my video on Cirdan here. We get an  ever so slight hint of his longing for the sea,   and to sail to Valinor in this shot of him  looking to the Sunset. Cirdan discovers   Elrond hiding out in the boathouse and perceives  Elrond carries something louder than the sea. We then get a short clip of Gil-galad sending  a messenger to Celebrimbor with the message   Halbrand is Sauron. Personally, I think I would’ve  sent more than two messengers if the fate of the   world hung in the balance, but admittedly I’m not  a High King. Here we get Galadriel and Gil-galad   having it out a bit, as the high king kind  of took Galadriel’s side earlier with Elrond.   Galadriel almost thanks him, but Gil-galad  points out that the reality is Galadriel’s   actions put them in a position where they had  no choice but to test the virtue of the rings. Gil-galad name drops the Ettenmoors,  which are a mountainous area north of   what will soon be Rivendell. Also called  the troll-fells, it is named after the   large creatures. Galadriel turns to go and  as she turns back she gets that crazy look   that usually precedes her doing something rash  or insulting, but instead we get kind of this   nice moment of understanding - Galadriel  says she won’t stop until she puts this   right and destroys Sauron and Gil-galad says  she wouldn’t be here if he thought otherwise. Galadriel figures out that Elrond would go to  someone trustworthy and wise. We then get a really   nice scene, I think, for Cirdan in particular. He  talks about Celebrimbor wishing to create objects   that could change hearts and that perhaps,  if these rings have turned elf against elf,   he succeeded. I gotta say, I’m really  digging Cirdan’s portrayal so far. In   Return of the King, Cirdan is described  by the following: “Very tall he was,   and his beard was long, and he was grey and  old, save that his eyes were keen as stars;” So far, I think we are mostly seeing a Cirdan  that is wise from years beyond count - he doesn’t   even wish to look on the rings, he seems almost -  almost - above these squabbles even if its around   the fate of the world. They have this really great  moment where Cirdan points out that the elves will   cease and abandon Middle-earth if the rings are  destroyed and Elrond says if the alternative is   falling prey to Sauron’s designs, that is what  must be. And Cirdan says he does his father proud. Galadriel shows up to find that Cirdan has already  sailed out with the rings to cast them into a deep   underwater chasm made by the breaking of Beleriand  in the War of Wrath that ended the First Age. Cut back to the Stranger and  Nori and they’re being followed,   but it turns out to just be Poppy, which  checks out because only a Harfoot would   fall for this boobytrap. Ironically, I  gave the show a bit of credit last year   for not doing the “I’m coming too” with  Poppy and Nori, but…I guess they did. Turns out Poppy’s Wandering Day song last season  has hidden meaning that guides you to Rhun,   naturally, this makes me wonder if they would  sing it in reverse to go back? It was nice to   hear the tune of that song again though, as it was  one of the musical highlights of season 1 in my   opinion. They make it to Rhun, and the Stranger  says he’s been there only in dreams and we see   they’re still being followed by the weird helmet  guys. One of them hops on a horse and we see a   symbol that sure looks like an EYE. No doubt, this  conjures theories of this being the Eye of Sauron. In the books, Sauron repeatedly flees to the  East when needing to regain his power. In fact,   it is to the East that Sauron goes rather  than Forodwaith at the end of the First Age   as he bides his time to take over as the new dark  lord. Now, it sure seems as though this version of   Sauron hasn’t had time to go to the East based  on what we’ve seen thus far. It seems his time   has been pretty occupied between getting killed  at the dawn of the Second Age, oozing around,   then landing on the shipwreck. Still, one can hope  that we get an east influenced by Sauron somehow. Cirdan goes to drop the rings in the  sea and a wave splashes the boat,   leading him to look at them. Sauron sees the shot of the orcs from when they  killed him, then wakes to find Adar, who tells   him a story about drinking wine with Sauron. He  says he was chained at a dark and nameless peak,   which I initially thought to be Thangorodrim, the  mountains where Morgoth’s fortress of Angband is   located. This could still be the case, though  it would have been a great name drop moment,   with a name that does appear in The Lord of  the Rings, so presumably without rights issues   to consider. This would not be the first time  someone is chained to Thangorodrim - Feanor’s   son Maedhros hangs by the hand from  the peak for years before his rescue. One thing I wasn’t clear on is why  Adar was chained to the peak and why   Sauron offering him wine when meeting him was bad. Sauron then proposes Adar let him go so that  he can use the elves to seek out Sauron while   Adar marshals his legions to destroy him. No  doubt this is him planning to use the elves   and orcs to destroy one another - hoping to  remove leaders of both in one fell swoop.   Waldreg steps in to do his hype man duties, and  Sauron swears allegiance to the “Lord of Mordor   to the end of my days and his.” And smirks at the  camera…it’s quite roundabout way of kind of not   swearing allegiance to Adar, but himself - and  getting in a dig about the end of Adar’s life Sauron leaves, and Adar says to make  sure he is followed. Then creepy ol   Waldreg comes in to discover the  Warg’s collar on Sauron’s bed,   which is kind of an awesome way for him to get  taken out by the very master he wanted to badly   to serve in Season 1. I kinda love that Sauron  just smiles when he hears the screaming too. We then hear Gil-galad singing about  the end of the elves in Middle-earth,   when Cirdan shows up sporting new jewelry  - Narya, the ring of fire. He amends his   earlier statement, saying that  perfection isn’t just in Valinor,   but that Celebrimbor has made it. While  Cirdan sports Narya, Nenya, the RIng of Water,   falls to Galadriel’s feet and she puts it on.  Gil-galad then puts on Vilya, the ring of air,   and we see the lighting change along with the tree  being healed. We can see the black goo being kind   of burned off as well. A quick note - the black go  does have some resemblance to Sauron in symbiote   form earlier, so maybe this is an indication that  all of this was just sauron playing 3D chess. Elrond seems torn by all this and departs, as  the bearers of the three hold out their hands   comparing bling. It’s a real dilemma set forth  by the show forging the rings out of order. While   in the books they make the ring for selfish  reasons, they are completely duped by Sauron.   There’s certainly an element at play here of  the elves willingly playing into Sauron’s plan   that still doesn’t quite sit right with me.  Hopefully now that this healing is done with,   the show can kind of merge back onto the  road and align closer with the canon tale. Next up we see Celebrimbor and his team firing  up their brand new forge, while hoping the   rings worked so they can remain in Middle-earth.  Turns out a messenger has come - not from Lindon,   but the Southlands - Sauron has returned to  Eregion and the episode ends hanging on the   question of whether Celebrimbor will grant  him entry - and we’ll see in episode 2 how   Sauron seeks to gain a foothold in Eregion and  move forward with his Rings of Power scheme. And there we have it folks, one episode  down, seven more to go this season! What   did you think of episode 1? As usual, I’ll  save my review to the end of the season,   but I gotta say, I really enjoyed Cirdan  and I think the show did acknowledge some   of the things I felt it needed to with  Galadriel. There’s a lot that feels off   to me in regards to the situation around  the three rings, but we’ll see how it goes.   I’m intrigued by Sauron’s machinations and am  eager to see this play out in future episodes. As always, let me know what you think  in the comments, and don’t forget to   check out my breakdowns after each episode  - including episode 2 and 3 from this week! Thanks so much for watching and we’ll  see you next time on Nerd of the Rings.