The first season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is over, and fans are still sorting through the fallout. The story pivoted in lots of new directions. For instance, the harfoot Nori and the mysterious Stranger (who may or may not be Gandalf but probably is) are setting off to the land of Rhûn, which series writer Gennifer Hutchison is eager to explore. “That’s a world that exists in the Legendarium, and we know a little bit about,” she told Looper. “We don’t really get to see as much in the primary text … When you’re doing a show that you have that space, it’s such a temptation to go into that world and get the opportunity to expand it since it’s there. We love the idea of exploring it.”
That said, the biggest reveal was definitely that Halbrand, the supposed King of the Southlands we’d been following all season, was actually Sauron, the future dark lord of Middle-earth. But right now he’s not quite at that stage, as actor Charlie Vickers told Polygon.
“I think when you look back to where he is, at the beginning of this season, it’s that he’s in this period where he’s rebuilding,” Vickers said. “Tolkien talks about him lingering in Middle-earth, and then very slowly he sort of regathers strength and returns to power. And I think we’re seeing him in that state, that kind of repentance stage. The question is whether the repentance is genuine or a facade. And I think you can view the season in both terms, whether he’s manipulating his way through and manipulating Galadriel in order to return to power, or whether he’s genuinely seeking a different life and trying to be a good person. What’s interesting is that those things aren’t mutually exclusive. He could be thinking he’s trying to do one thing, trying to do good, but really, in order to do that, he can’t resist manipulation.”
"And I think he’s motivated to heal Middle-earth. And he talks about in the last episode, when Morgoth was defeated, “It was like a great clenched fist and released its grasp from my neck. And then I realized I have to undo all the pain that I caused” — something along those lines. And I think he’s trying to heal Middle-earth from the destruction that it’s had over the First Age, to rehabilitate and reorganize it. While these things are a product of what happened in the First Age, and then what’s happened in the Second Age, I also think that he’s had these things built into his being, his personality. This desire for perfection. It’s craftsmanship."
The connection between Sauron and Galadriel isn’t romantic (although you’re free to interpret it that way)
As we saw in the finale, whatever plans Saruon has, he wanted Galadriel by his side for them. But Vikers doesn’t see Sauron’s interest as romantic, however much chemistry he may have with actor Morfydd Clark. “I think that any complication there in terms of chemistry and romance, it’s something that just naturally occurred, it wasn’t really a conscious decision,” he said. “I like to think of connection to be something greater than romance, but I also think it’s really interesting that some people have interpreted it that way. But I think if that’s a byproduct of what people took from the relationship in the show that’s really cool.”
"Sexy Sauron… that’s all the makeup and costume departments’ work [laughs]. I’m just a pretty regular-looking guy in real life."
Hutchison agrees that any connection between Sauron and Galadriel is more spiritual than sexual. “So much of what we were building to was less intentionally a romantic thing and more a meeting of the minds — this idea of this team together challenges each other to be their best in a lot of ways,” she said. “She inspires him, and he helps push her. That was what we were thinking about writing that scene — him selling this idea of ‘Together, nothing could stop us.’ That was the intention behind it. I love people being able to look into a scene and bring what they bring into it and get their own reads from it.”
We’ll learn more about the relationship between Sauron and Adar “pretty quickly” in season 2
In the scene where Saruon reveals himself to Galadriel, he gets pretty intense. Vickers found inspiration from an unlikely source: Homelander from The Boys, another Amazon Prime Video show.
“While we were doing this show I was watching The Boys, and Antony Starr did such an amazing job with Homelander. There was an element of things that are going forward with the character. And then in that last scene with Galadriel he has something scary that just sits beneath the surface of what he’s doing. So I was inspired by that.”
"And he has the manipulation without it, most of the time, without being unhinged. I think that’s interesting with Sauron because a lot of villains have this capacity for being really scary in the sense of there’s something out of control. Whereas Sauron is all about control. And there might be elements of his personality where he loses control, because of the circumstances that he’s come across in the First Age, but his manipulation comes through seduction and gaining trust of the people that he comes across. And so it’s quite unique to strike that balance, because he’s not your traditional villain like the Joker."
Finally, Vickers teased a bit of what we can expect in season 2, specifically between Sauron and Adar, the warped elf played by Joseph Mawle. “They have a complex past. They have been in conflict for quite a long time now. We see an element of that in the sixth episode. And I think it’s pretty obvious when you watch the show that there’s going to be more of that relationship. We’re going to learn more about it. So I don’t want to speak too much about it, but pretty quickly in the second season, we learn more about that history. But it is complex, and it has deep roots, and I think that will be exposed as the show goes on.”
We’ll have to wait a while before finding out specifics. Expect the second season of The Rings of Power to come along no earlier than 2024.
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