A recent promo for this week's penultimate episode of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power amped-up the drama by announcing that "Mordor will rise; heroes will fall," and while the second part of that statement proved to be a fake-out, tragedy did strike for more than one main character.
Major spoilers for this episode and the works of J.R.R.Tolkien follow.
"The Eye" picked up immediately after the events of last Friday's episode, with Galadriel and the other survivors of Mount Doom's eruption attempting to regroup and escape the scorched lands that will soon come to be known as Mordor. While the Elven warrior encounters Theo and sets off to find the Númenórean camp, we see that Queen Míriel is travelling with Isildur and his friends... well, make that friend.
Isil finds the blonde fella (let's call him Red Shirt 1) laying dead under a pile of rubble, and soon joins him when the rest of the flaming structure collapses. Now, unless this show has made a massive alteration to the source material, we know Isildur survives, but everyone else - including his distraught father Elendil - believes otherwise.
As for the Queen, it's soon revealed that she's been blinded by the fires of Mordor. Though some seem to be under the impression that this character was created for the show, Tar-Míriel was indeed the last ruler of Númenór in Tolkien's lore. She never lost her sight, but was ultimately drowned along with the rest of her people when the Valar destroyed the island kingdom.
Míriel returns to Númenór with the grieving Elendil and the rest of the survivors, but vows to make her way back to Middle-earth to continue the fight with greater forces. Meanwhile, Galadriel sets off with a wounded Halbrand, who may or may not be Sauron. We'd bet on him turning out to be either the Witch King or the King of the Dead, but there have certainly been some hints that he will ultimately be unveiled as the Dark Lord.
Will Sauron finally be unveiled in next week's season finale? Check out a promo below.
Amazon Studios’ forthcoming series brings to screens for the very first time the heroic legends of the fabled Second Age of Middle-earth’s history. This epic drama is set thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and will take viewers back to an era in which great powers were forged, kingdoms rose to glory and fell to ruin, unlikely heroes were tested, hope hung by the finest of threads, and the greatest villain that ever flowed from Tolkien’s pen threatened to cover all the world in darkness.
Beginning in a time of relative peace, the series follows an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared re-emergence of evil to Middle-earth. From the darkest depths of the Misty Mountains, to the majestic forests of the elf-capital of Lindon, to the breathtaking island kingdom of Númenor, to the furthest reaches of the map, these kingdoms and characters will carve out legacies that live on long after they are gone.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power stars Morfydd Clark, Benjamin Walker, Charles Edwards, Charlie Vickers, Markella Kavenagh, Nazanin Boniadi, Ismael Cruz Cordova, Tyroe Muhafidin, Maxim Baldry, Cynthia Addai-Robinson, Owain Arthur, Trystan Gravelle, Sir Lenny Henry, Ema Horvath, Sophia Nomvete, Megan Richards, Dylan Smith, Leon Wadham, Daniel Weyman, and Sara Zwangobani.