Everything to Remember Before Rings of Power Returns

The debut season for Amazon’s Lord of the Rings prequel Rings of Power took quite a bit of a while to get going before things really started coming together. That’s good news for season 2—which finally hits the streamer this week—because it means there’s a lot it can hit the ground running with. But if you need a reminder of what’s gone down in the Second Age so far before we hit that ground running, we’re here to help.

Galadriel, Meet Halbrand

When we met Galadriel in season one, she found herself frustrated in years of fruitless search for the seeming return of evil to Middle-earth: the supposed arrival of Sauron, Morgoth’s dark lieutenant, come to take his fallen leader’s mantle for his own. Haunted by her brother Finrod’s death at Sauron’s hands, Galadriel chased the mark of evil across Middle-earth, much to the chagrin of the high king of the Elves, Gil-Galad. Granting her the “reward” of a one-way boat trip to Valinor, to live a life of forever peace in the West, Gil-Galad thought he had put to bed Galadriel’s ceaseless warnings of evil’s return… only for Galadriel to leap off the boat to Valinor at the last minute and swim back towards Middle-earth. Along the way, she encountered the Totally Unsuspicious human named Halbrand, the survivor of a ship torn apart by a giant underwater creature.

Deciding they’d be better off working together to survive and make their way back eastwards, Halbrand and Galadriel managed to float a threadbare raft from the remnants of the destroyed ship towards the isle of Númenor, home to an isolated society of humans wracked by political turmoil.

Meanwhile, on Númenor…

Númenor, it turns out, is not exactly fond of Elf-kind. It’s currently ruled by Queen Regent Míriel after her father fell too ill to rule, and the messy power balance on Númenor is rocked by Galadriel’s arrival. Learning that Míriel and her father have access to a Palantir—a magical seeing-stone that granted them both a vision of Galadriel’s arrival, and with her, the seeming doom of the entire isle—Galadriel uses Númenor’s archives to discover that Halbrand is apparently none other the heir apparent to the long-lost line of Southlander royalty, and that Sauron’s plans for his resurgence could imperil the remaining human settlements in the region.

Treating with Míriel—much to the dismay of the Queen Regent’s political rival, the traditionalist Ar-Pharazôn—Galadriel manages to convince her to support Halbrand’s claim to the Southlands, dispatching a force of Númenorean warriors to combat the forces of evil taking root there. Led by General Elendil (who finds, to his own chagrin, his rebellious son Isildur part of the expeditionary force), Galadriel returns to Middle-earth with a legion of Númenoreans and the would-be King of the South in tow, as she and Halbrand find themselves getting more and more intrigued by each other.

The Battle for the Southlands

Did we mention how Sauron’s plans for his resurgence could imperil the remaining human settlements in the Southlands? Well, bad news for the Southlands: that imperiling is already here. As the Elves withdraw from watching over the men of the region to focus on their own matters, a ranger named Arondir finds himself swept up in the growing darkness—and falling for a human woman named Bronwyn, a healer in a nearby village—as a mystery man named Adar begins marshaling orcish forces to pillage the Southlands. After Adar manages to tempt many humans to his side, Bronwyn, her son Theo (who finds himself attracted to the darkness after discovering a mysterious artifact), and Arondir rally the remaining villagers to mount a defense against Adar’s forces.

Successfully repelling the initial wave—only to learn that they hadn’t killed any Orcs, just their fellow humans—the villagers found themselves hopelessly outmatched by Adar’s orcs. With Bronwyn grievously wounded and the surviving remnants surrounded, Arondir and the Southlanders prepared to face their end… only for Galadriel, Halbrand, and the Númenoreans to come charging in at the last moment, routing the orcs. Hooray for victory! Well, no.

Just as Galadriel begins to interrogate Adar over Sauron’s plans, only for him to tease her that he’s already killed Sauron, a surviving dark acolyte steals the artifact Theo found and uses it divert huge currents of water beneath the ground… triggering a massive volcanic eruption that devastates the Southlands. Many are killed in the carnage as the region is almost immediately transformed into a hellish, ashen wasteland, a dark mountain at its core—and with Míriel blinded and Isildur presumed dead during the chaos, Elendil makes the choice to withdraw the expeditionary force back to Númenor, vowing to return and help the humans of the Southlands relocate and found a new kingdom. But surviving Númenoreans return home to a shock: the island nation is draped with black banners, announcing the death of the King, and placing Míriel and her dwindling allies in an even more politically tenuous position.

All That Is Gold Does Not Glitter

While all this is happening, back in Elf-dom Gil-Galad is not having a particularly great time, either. The leaves on the golden trees of Lindon are being blackened by a mysterious illness, a dire portent that the time of the Eldar is coming to an end in Middle-earth. Faced with all of the Elves sailing back to Valinor and leaving Middle-earth to the mortal races, Gil-Galad tasks Elrond with treating with the dwarves of Khazad-dûm. The dwarven kingdom had just uncovered the powerful, magical mineral known as Mithril in the depths of their mines, but were ordered by King Durin to cease delving due to the apparent danger Mithril represented. Believing that Mithril could hold the key to curing Lindon’s sickness, Elrond reaches out his friend and King Durin’s eldest son, Prince Durin IV, in an attempt to acquire a sample of the mineral.

Durin IV finds himself between both a proverbial and almost literal rock and a hard place: he’s hurt by Elrond’s long absence, a 20-year silence between the friends that was nothing for a long-lived Elf, but a good chunk of the life of a dwarf, making Elrond’s return bring up old wounds. He’s also frustrated by his father, believing his superstitious fear of Mithril, and of digging deeper into Khazad-dûm’s mines, is holding their kind back. Durin IV patches things up well enough with Elrond to eventually agree to provide a small chunk of Mithril to the Elves of Eregion—and develop a massive forge at the behest of Eregion’s leader, the master Elven forgesmith Celebrimbor—to work the magical mineral into a crown for Gil-Galad. But doing so creates a dire rift in Durin IV and his father’s relationship: Elrond is banished from Khazad-dûm, and King Durin strips his son of his princely title.

But They Were All of Them, Deceived

Things come to a head when Galadriel, Halbrand, Elrond, and Celebrimbor all unite back in Lindon. Elrond gives Celebrimbor the Mithril, only for the forge smith to be advised by a peculiarly insightful Halbrand that perhaps rings would be a better form to shape the mineral into, rather than a crown. Suspicious, Galadriel checks the Elves’ own records of the Southlands’ royal lineage and finds that something is up with Halbrand’s claims… leading to his revelation to her that he is none other than Sauron in human form. After she rejects his poisonous offer to rule alongside him as dark queen, Sauron flees back to what has now become the land of Mordor, and Galadriel warns Celebrimbor and Elrond not to ever treat with him again.

But it’s too late to stop what’s already in motion, and the Elves need a way to cure Lindon’s debilitation. Deciding instead to forge three rings instead of one from the Mithril, Celebrimbor crafts the first rings of power: Narya, Nenya, and Vilya. Elrond, meanwhile, finds the same documents that Galadriel did, realizing too late what she now knows, and is unable to stop Celebrimbor from forging the rings.

Concerning Harfoots

A zillion miles away from the rest of all this is Rings of Power‘s most isolated (yet also one of its most important) storylines. Early in the season we encounter a nomadic group of halflings called the Harfoots: predecessors to the Hobbits of the Shirelands, the Harfoots roam Middle-earth with little concern for the world of the tallfolk around them until a curious young Harfoot named Nori is thrust into adventure when a falling comet crashes near her Harfoot tribe’s latest encampment… revealing that the comet is actually a strange man. Struggling to keep the mysterious being, known only as the Stranger, both alive and a secret to everyone but her best friend Poppy, Nori attempts to befriend the man and overcome their language barrier, as well as the Stranger’s seeming amnesia and otherworldly powers.

Eventually the Stranger’s powers become too difficult to control, and he and the Harfoots part ways, only for Nori to chase after him and find the Stranger beset by three white-robed acolytes with similar abilities. Believing him to be the returned Sauron, the acolytes confront their would-be master, only for the Stranger to awaken to the realization of his power and at least part of his identity: he is one of the Istari, also known as the wizards, a powerful agent of the Valar themselves meant to confront evil’s rise in Middle-earth. Now knowing that he is too dangerous to stay around the Harfoots, the Stranger plans to head to the lands of Rhûn, feeling a mysterious pull that the eastern realm could hold the answers to his true identity. But a tearful Nori, unable to pull herself away from her new friend, decides to bid farewell to her family and the rest of the Harfoot colony to join the Stranger in his journey.

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