Season 2 Sauron Explained in Lord of the Rings Prequel

SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers for the first three episodes of Season 2 of “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” now streaming on Prime Video.

Grab your rings and your fellowship, because it’s time to head back to Middle-earth with “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” Season 2.

Charlotte Brändström, the Swedish film and TV director who helmed standout Season 1 episodes “Udûn” and “The Eye,” returns for twice as many outings this year, including Episodes 1, 3, 7 and 8 of Season 2. Between working on the seasons of the “Lord of the Rings” prequel, Brändström also ventured into the violent worlds of “John Wick,” with the Peacock miniseries “The Continental,” and feudal Japan, via FX’s Emmys favorite “Shōgun.” Each series showcased her talent for crafting action-packed set pieces, with her “Shōgun” episode “Tomorrow Is Tomorrow” featuring a memorable ship battle sequence.

In Season 1, Brändström helped create the infamous Mount Doom of Mordor in the fiery episode “Udûn,” which nabbed a Creative Arts Emmy nom for its sound editing. That episode was packed with orc battles, the volcanic eruption of Mount Doom and its ash-filled aftermath. Now, she ramps up the Middle-earth madness with two episodes in the three-part premiere and the final two episodes of the season — which include a massive, multi-part battle.

Season 2 starts off by revealing Sauron’s origins thousands of years ago in a prologue. In a surprise twist, Jack Lowden (“Slow Horses”) plays an earlier form of the evil elf who gets murdered by a pack of orcs. Sauron is later reborn out of some evil-looking black goo, and he takes the familiar form of star Charlie Vickers. We see this early Sauron get taken in and clothed by a kind stranger on the road, but Sauron betrays the man and doesn’t save him when they get swept away by a flood. The premiere then connects to Season 1 when Sauron, disguised as Halbrand, meet Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) after being shipwrecked and drifting in the water on a raft.

After jumping back to the main story, Galadriel reveals the truth about Sauron’s identity and the origins of the rings crafted by Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards). She, Elrond (Robert Aramayo) and Gil-galad (Benjamin Walker) feel the mysterious, dark pull of the rings — but they have no idea what’s in store.

Meanwhile, Sauron is being held captive by Adar, who’s now played by Sam Hazeldine after Joseph Mawle originated the role in Season 1, and his army of orcs in Mordor. Sauron knows he can manipulate the elves, but he also pledges his support (for now) to Adar. Using some magic trickery, Sauron commands a wolf to attack his jailer, and he’s able to escape free on horseback.

After having put fans in a theory-frenzy over his true identity, the magical Stranger (Daniel Weyman) is back, and he has a bit more control over his powers. He’s traveling through the deserts of Rhûn with adorable harfoot Nori (Markella Kavenagh). They’re later joined by Nori’s friend Poppy (Megan Richards), but that may not be the only person following them. Finally, the premiere episode ends on a cliffhanger as Sauron returns to meet with Celebrimbor at his forge where he crafted the first three rings.

With Variety, Brändström discusses directing 200 orcs in the premiere, crafting Sauron’s prologue and why Celebrimbor and his rings are like J. Robert Oppenheimer and the atomic bomb.

What did you learn from directing your two episodes last season, and how did they affet your approach to your four new episodes?

The episodes I did last season were like a premise of what I did this season, because it set up this darker tone and edgier storytelling. In this one, we go right into it. You go much more into the characters. It gets stronger because it gets more dramatic and there’s more conflict. The scope is still there, it’s still cinematic and we’ve still worked on visuals, but we are able to do less exposition. It’s less presentational. We had to take that time in in Season 1 in order to set everything up. There’s so many different worlds, and there’s so much to set up.

We also did a lot of research, cinematically and visually, to see what kind of look we would give the second season. We really wanted to find a darker undertone this time. I said it in Swedish once to Swedes and they translated it — the whole world has translated it as “being more dirty.” That was not quite the word I meant! But I did mean that I wanted to be more authentic, more edgy, more dangerous. I also wanted to use as much as possible the elements in nature, like the dust, wind, rain, mud. I wanted everything to be very real. So the films that we looked at when we were prepping were “Saving Private Ryan” and “The Northman.” We love the battles in “The Northman,” and also the very long oners. In Episode 8, I have big action scene that I did in one shot with one camera. We rehearsed it so much. We shot it very, very quickly and everybody was shocked — it took two hours to do. I finished at noon that day; they had planned all day. We did, like, five takes and it was done.

What else can you tease about this massive battle?

The last three episodes, 6, 7 and 8, are a huge battle. It’s going to go on over three episodes. It’s not only action, because it’s going to be intercut with a lot of very strong, intimate and emotional character moments within those episodes. But the battle keeps going on.

The season stars by showing Sauron’s origins long ago, and his transformation into Halbrand and the character we know now. How did you conceptualize that opening?

That was meant to be in Episode 6 in the first season. Then there was no room, so they decided to keep it for this season. They opened the season with this look back, and I think it’s a very smart way to get into Sauron’s character. Because what the showrunners are really trying to show is that everybody is a real character. The evil characters aren’t just black; they have a lot of nuances to them.

How much time passes between the opening scene with Sauron’s original form and when we later see him, disguised as Halbrand, meeting Galadriel in Season 1?

In the moment he meets Galadriel and the moment when he comes back and he’s reborn that’s thousands of years. First there is the first Sauron — that’s the very first scene thousands of years before. He takes this new shape into this blob and this creature, that’s thousands of years before. Then when he becomes Halbrand and meets Galadriel — when he comes back it’s like six months later after he has clothes on, and meets the old man on the road.

To me, he’s not necessarily a 100% bad character, because, as Tolkien said, nothing is evil from the beginning. In the beginning, we didn’t want Sauron to be 100% evil. So when he meets the old man on the road and looks back at the dark clouds over the trees and he makes the choice to go with the people onto the ship, he still doesn’t know what he’s going to be up to. He hasn’t made a choice of becoming what he’s going to become. I think the choice happens when the sea monster attacks the ship, it starts sinking and the old man is asking him to help him, and he doesn’t.

I interpreted that scene as him plotting and waiting for the right moment to strike, but was there a part of Sauron that may have been good?

No, we wanted it to be a moment when he was at a crossroads; he was trying to make a choice. He probably always had this inside him, but we had a lot of discussions with showrunners about who he was at the very beginning. He still says, “I want to heal Middle-earth.” So he thinks he wants to do good. He’s not there to destroy it. Even Adar wants to find a home for his children. He wants a home; they’re refugees, in a way. Sauron wants to help everybody, but he wants to do that with the ultimate power and the ring. He is getting into everybody’s head and manipulating everybody. This season is really about how Sauron is going to accomplish what he’s going to do. He’s starting off with nothing, he’s by himself, no army. He’s all alone. How is he going to basically conquer Middle-earth and also have Celebrimbor make the ring for him?

Sauron and Celebrimbor have a very tense meeting in the premiere episodes, who has the upper hand between the two of them?

Celebrimbor believes all the time he has the upper hand. He’s being tricked, and Sauron gets into his head. He has him imagine things, and controls him all the time. There is a very strong scene between the two of them in Episode 8, a faceoff between them. It’s going to be a fantastic scene. I sometimes compare Celebrimbor to Oppenheimer. I mean, what did Oppenheimer know about what he was doing, right? He was still making [the atomic bomb] — he didn’t want it to end the way it ended.

I don’t think Tolkien necessarily thought about that, because he wrote this probably during the First World War. What is great about his stories is they’re all so relevant to today. They were relevant because they’re about power and corruption. The One Ring is the ultimate weapon that can destroy Middle-earth and the world.

How difficult was it to shoot all the orcs in the opening sequence?

I needed 200 orcs as extras. This year, we wanted to use more prosthetics and special effects, but not visual effects, on the orcs. We wanted them to be as real as possible. Each prosthetic took hours to put on each extra. You imagine in the morning, when you have everybody arriving, you don’t have 1,000 makeup people, so we were getting them sporadically on set. I would start my day with five orcs. Then I have 10, then 20, then 50, then 200 for three hours and then I had to send them back again. I knew I only had three hours to accomplish the shots that had a lot of people. We feel like we had a lot of time compared to other episodes, but at the same time we were always pressed for time because of all the logistics. It’s a great creative show, and there is a lot of creative freedom, but there it’s very technical, so it needs to be extremely well-planned out. You can’t just wing it. That’s impossible.

Finally, what can you tease about where the rest of the season is headed?

It all revolves around Sauron. He and Celebrimbor have an incredible relationship, because it’s really how Sauron tricks Celebrimbor into creating these very powerful weapons that could destroy Middle-earth. But at the same time, Sauron wants to heal it. He thinks he’s doing the good thing in his way. Then there’s Sauron and Adar. Are they going to try to destroy each other? Then we have Elrond and Galadriel, who are amazing together. Elrond is going to have an episode on his own in Episode 7. It really relies on him. Then we’ve got the Númenóreans and all the politics and the Stranger and the hobbits.

There’s much more at stake. There is more danger, and we can now get into the characters, so they’re gripping. It’s getting stronger and stronger, and I think it will end with a bang at the very end.

This interview has been edited and condensed.