Much of The Rings of Power season 2 was about how much of Middle-earth was not having a great time, unless you were named Halbrand, Annatar, or Sauron. The good news for actor Charlie Vickers, was that he was in fact all three, as the Dark Lord made his biggest moves yet in manipulating the creation of the titular rings. But now season 2 is over–and our heroes are bruised, but defiant in the face of an ascendant Sauron got almost everything he wanted. So what’s next?
“Shadow and Flame”, the season 2 finale of Rings of Powersees Sauron, furious at Celebrimbor’s defiance of his offers, slay the forge smith he’d spent all season manipulating and making his biggest moves on the show so far. With Eregion besieged, Sauron turns Adar’s orcs against him, nearly kills Galadriel if not for one inconvenient cliff face, and, of course, ends the season with full control of the Nine Rings forged for mortal humankind. And with Ar-Pharazôn over in Númenor seeing visions of Halbrand in the palantir, anyone familiar with how Tolkien’s pre-Lord of the Rings worldbuilding goes knows that Morgoth’s former protégé is only just getting started.
“I couldn’t pick one, there’s too much,” Vickers recently told io9 over Zoom of what he’s most looking forward to as Sauron really comes into his own going forward. “I genuinely don’t know what is to come, but there are things that we know in this time period have to happen. The story that the show is going to tell, the downfall of Númenor, the creation of the One Ring, the battle of the Last Alliance, all of those things. It’s like the death of Celebrimbor and the crafting of the rings–the exciting thing is that the crafting of the rings is just the first of many things that I have in my mind from reading the books… I’m so excited to be a part of how these remaining stories come to life.”
In a fitting climax at this point of Rings of Power‘s story, Vickers’ Sauron–the mask of Annatar truly fallen at this point–spends much of his time in the season 2 finale battling, with barbs and blades alike, his two biggest scene partners on the series so far: Charles Edwards, bowing out in defiance as Celebrimbor, and Morfydd Clark as Galadriel, as she finds herself face-to-face with the Deceiver once more. Locking swords with Galadriel for control of the Nine required Vickers to think, and act, in a way he’s not really had to as Sauron up to this point in the series.
“For me it was all about economy. It was like, he has to fight in an economical way where it required, particularly early on in the fight, the most efficiency” Vickers said of developing Sauron’s fight style for duelling with Galadriel. “That was part of my development of his movement: there was nothing extraneous. And with fighting, it was like… he is probably, in hand-to-hand combat, the most powerful person in Middle-earth. So what can show that? For me that is like there’s nothing fancy, it’s how can I get my intention done over and over again, and how real people fight. You see throughout that fight scene he underestimates [Galdriel]and she’s stronger, so he’s starting to have to use more and more effort to finish her off.”
But for Vickers, it was one last episode with Edwards carried a special resonance more than anything else in the finale: many of his scenes in Eregion with the actor this season had been filmed in chronological order, so getting to the moment where Sauron is brutally torturing the smith to death carried an extra weight. “I think it was complex, because we were said that w were coming to the end of this really cool, amazing opportunity that we’d had as performers,” Vickers said of filming Celebrimbor’s final moments. “But then I was also really excited, because these were the scenes that we were really looking forward to.”
“It’s kind of everything that lead to these scenes, you know? [Celebrimbor] realizes that Eregion is falling, and Sauron revealed the blood trick to him, and then of course, Celebrimbor’s death. That was a scene that has imagery that is really drawn from Tolkien’s works, and we were so excited when we got to see that was happening,” Vickers continued. “That was a big day, and it was really… a really lovely way to end. It makes me sound very sadistic when I say that,” the actor joked. “But you know, from a performance perspective!”
Celebrimbor might come to his end a pincushion of arrows and raised up on a spear by Sauron, but he gets one final act of defiance against his manipulator, cursing him that the rings he’d manipulated Celebrimbor into crafting will ultimately be his doom–the comment that sends Sauron into the petty rage that ultimately strikes Celebrimbor down, moments after he was still trying to turn him to his side. “I think there’s probably a bit of self-reflection [coming out of season 2],” Vickers said of just how much Celebrimbor’s final words really got to Sauron. “Celebrimbor quite clearly says to him, ‘You are the Lord of the Rings, and they’re controlling you,’ but Sauron, because he’s all about control, and I think he truly believes that these rings are going to do good for Middle-earth, I think Celebrimbor makes him realize that he’s descended into madness, and darkness, and that this desire for control has become something far more horrific.
“And that causes Sauron a lot of sadness, and anger, and rage, really. When [the episode] leaves on him with Fëanor’s hammer, he’s thinking about everything that had come before and everuthing that is to come. That’s why their relationship was so good, because it’s not just like puppet and puppet master. It works both ways.”
Rings of Power season 2 is now streaming on Prime Video.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.