Rings of Power‘s return has put the spotlight of its season two story firmly on Sauron, especially now that he’s made himself known to Middle-earth after slumming it as Halbrand in season one. But in doing so, it gave the show a chance to show us just what it actually means for the Dark Lord to transform himself into new form… in ways expected and unexpected.
Rings of Power season two opens with a bit of a sideways step. Or rather, a step back, all the way to the climax of the First Age and Morgoth’s defeat, as we witness Adar and Sauron attempt to rally the remnants of Morgoth’s dark forces to accept a new leader. Except, Sauron is not played in this flashback by Charlie Vickers, but Jack Lowden… because we have to watch him be turned on by the orcs, slaughtered, and undergo a horrifying, viscous transformation as he seeks new flesh in order to survive.
“We felt it would help you understand how he sees himself and what he’s endured, and also maybe make you look at season one through a different prism and see it through his eyes,” showrunner Patrick McKay told io9 at a recent press junket, speaking about the decision to open season two with the First Age. “Sort of see what he was after in a fresh way. It felt like a great place to start.”
Part of that, as we mentioned, was getting to glimpse a vile form we’ve never seen Sauron in before: after he’s attacked by Adar and the orcs, Sauron’s body transforms into a goopy, stringy mass of black flesh, devouring anything and everything it can get its tendrils on as it climbs its way out from the darkest depths and back into Middle-earth, where a feast on a passing human allows him to finally transform into the man we knew as Halbrand.
“The amount of time and fun we had designing the puddle creature, as we called his most evil, pure form that he has to crawl back from murder and betrayal in… we looked at weird viruses and bacteria and like… things you can’t kill,” McKay continued. “Rotting meat, Francis Bacon paintings. It was one of the real joys of the season.”
Although Vickers did not actually play the amorphous black glob that he came from, opening the season with Sauron’s personal history was a huge boon for the actor. “Revisiting Halbrand at the beginning, right from the beginning of the [First] Age, and seeing his journey in the prologue, that was really rewarding. Because to be honest, it’s one of the things about working in something like this… it answered a lot of questions for me.” Vickers reflected on the opening. “And it was very rewarding to really go through that process and get that out of my system and then be like, ‘Now we’re doing it, now we’re doing Annatar.’ And we were super lucky that that was all chronological, and all our scenes [between Vickers and Charles Edwards as Celebrimbor] were chronological as well.”
But as Vickers notes, the black-goop-into-Halbrand glow-up is not the only transformation of Sauron’s we witness in the opening episodes of the season. After managing to slowly worm his way back into Eregion and Celebrimbor’s orbit, despite Galadriel’s orders for no Elf to ever treat with “Halbrand” again, Sauron makes his big play and reveals to the Elven forge smith he’s not who he says he is. In a moment, Halbrand’s affable human nature twists, and he becomes distant and knowing… before stepping into the fires of Celebrimbor’s forges and emerging reborn as Annatar, the Lord of Gifts, a fair, Elven form that leaves Celebrimbor in awe.
“It was all on one day,” Vickers said of shooting Annatar’s revelation scene. “We had the Halbrand bit [of the scene], and then I went and got changed, and then did the Forge bit. It was very cool to experience that. But I remember the top of the scene, that really felt special, like a meeting again of these two characters and that question—’did the rings, did they work?’—felt very truthful.”
Edwards, playing the increasingly doomed role of Celebrimbor, had an awe in the moment akin to the Elf craftsman as well. “It was an amazing day, shooting that forge stuff… the flame and everything. You read it on the page, but you don’t know how it’s going to be shot, you know? They had this huge camera that ran along the ceiling of the entire set on a line, but the extent of it, the scale of it, was extraordinary.” ”
He continued. “I remember watching from side stage, we were watching Charles do the sequence—because it’s all one take, the fire comes on, you knock this thing over—and it’s amazing. All of that coming together, the level of craftmanship,” Vickers added. “I think I asked Patrick [McKay] at the end of the day, I was like ‘So, what do you think?’, and he was just like ‘It’s a miracle.’ I think it’s a miracle that it all worked, and the Annatar thing worked, and everyone was really happy.”
Well, everyone except the denziens of Middle-earth, it seems, because Sauron’s Annatar thing working means that dire times are only going to get direr. Rings of Power season two is now streaming on Prime Video.
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