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Warning: The following contains full spoilers for the Season 2 finale of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. If you haven’t watched the entirety of Season 2 yet, you should steer away now.
So much happened in the Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power Season 2 finale that it’s hard to know where to begin. The beginning probably makes the most sense. The Season 2 finale kicked off with a major death as Durin IV (Owain Arthur) faced off against his father, Durin III (Peter Mullan). The king managed to chisel his way into a gigantic cavern of Mithril before awakening a giant Balrog. The monster got through to the king in a way that his son had not previously, and King Durin took off the corrupting ring of power and sacrificed himself to the fiery beast to save his people.
Durin’s sacrifice allowed his son to finally send dwarf troops to assist Elrond (Robert Aramayo) and Gil-galad (Benjamin Walker) in defending Eregion. Unfortunately, it was too late. Sauron (Charlie Vickers) had already tortured Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards) to death. The dwarf troops allowed Elrond and Gil-galad to lead refugees away from the ruined city, but the orcs turned on Adar (Sam Hazeldine) and joined Sauron. The Dark Sorcerer then faced off against Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) and won, taking the nine rings of power Celebrimbor crafted for the humans off of her. Gild-galad and Elrond were able to heal her and create an oasis for the surviving Eregion elves, but Sauron remains at large.
Across Middle-earth, the stranger (Daniel Wyman) decided to stand by his harfoot friends rather than claim his destiny as a great wizard. Wouldn’t you know it? That’s what he was supposed to do all along. He saved Nori (Markella Kavenagh), Poppy (Megan Richards), and their new fellow halfling friends from the Dark Wizard (Ciarán Hinds). As a reward, he was delivered his staff and we can finally call him by his name: Gandalf. It took far too long to get to this point.
It will be a surprise to no one that the humans are also a mess. Pharazon (Trystan Gravelle) used the mystical ball to stage yet another coup in Númenor, but it looks like this one is going to stick. Eärien (Ema Horvath) finally developed some family loyalty and gave Elendil (Lloyd Owen) a heads up and he was able to escape before Pharazon’s troops came to execute him. However, Tar-Míriel (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) stayed behind to face Pharazon on her own and was sentenced to death. Kemen (Leon Wadham) took troops to Middle-earth to set up a human garrison and ran into Isildur (Maxim Baldry). That’s how the Middle-earth humans found out Pharazon had taken control and all of Míriel’s promises from Season 1 were now void. Theo ) and Estrid (Nia Towle) remained behind to work for Kemen because he refused to allow low-class people aboard the ship to Númenor with Isildur, who decided to return home after Kemen’s political update.
Major events happened for all of our main characters in the Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power Season 2 finale, but we still have a lot of questions. Read below for the biggest queries we need answered next season.
