It wouldn’t be The Lord of the Rings if there weren’t, like, ten endings. Time to review them.

Holy Balrog! So much happened in the final episode of The Rings of Power season 2. There were somewhere between five and seventeen storylines to wrap up, and the show pulled it off. Let’s untangle everything we just saw.

The Rings of Power season 1 welcomed us to the Second Age, a time of peace and recovery in Middle-earth. The kingdoms of elves, dwarves, and men (on the island nation of Númenor, at least) were thriving. But there was just enough dissent, hardship, and greed for the shadow of evil to sweep in. So by comparison, The Rings of Power season 2 was *much* darker, and the conflicts that had been brewing started to bubble over.

It was also, finally, literally about rings of power. Sauron, who revealed himself at the end of season 1, convinced the elves to forge almost all of the magic baubles he’ll ultimately control with his one ring to rule them all: three for the elves, seven for the dwarves, and nine for men. Only a few of those rings have found bearers, but now that they’ve been forged it’s only a matter of time. That’s a problem for The Rings of Power season 3. Until then, here’s what happened in the season 2 finale and what it means.

Durin’s father, the dwarf King, dies fighting the Balrog.

The final episode started off with bang. On his magic ring’s guidance, King Durin III kept digging by his lonesome in the Kazad-dûm mines until he found a chasm full of mithril that the dwarves could use to make and sell armor. The problem is that all of that digging woke up the Balrog–a terrifying fire demon that will latter go on to attack Gandalf in The Fellowship of the Ring (even though he pretty clearly says “you shall not pass”). On his son’s pleading, the King has a last-second change of heart, takes off his ring, and dies fighting off the Balrog. This tragic ending had been building for a while in season 2, but I still feel like it happened wildly fast!

Kazad-dûm is safe for now. The dwarves were able to dip to Eregion for last-minute battle assistance, but now our pal Durin is King Durin IV, and other dwarven lords (including his own brother) are on their way to challenge him. This is significant because Durin IV refused to share the other six rings unless the lords agreed to trade. Now that they’re free for the taking, all hell might break loose… literally.

Sauron loses his friends and gains an army.

Long live Celebrimbor, greatest of elven smiths, who died doing what he loved: getting tortured by the Dark Lord, this time physically in addition to psychologically. How brutal was it to watch Sauron shoot arrows into Celebrimbor at close range and then basically say “why are you hitting yourself” to his bloodied face?! With his last words, Celebrimbor predicts the rings of power will be Sauron’s downfall. Having seen and read The Lord of the Rings trilogy, he wasn’t that far off! “One alone shall prove your utter ruin,” Celebrimbor says, which IMHO is referring to a ring (thee ring) and not a person.

Sauron befriends the orc army attacking Eregion and, off-screen, convinces them to join him and betray/murder their father and leader. RIP to the dark elf Adar–sorry we only got to see your yassified face the one time. Once that was done, Sauron confronted Galadriel and demanded she give him both the nine rings for men and her own ring, Nenya. They dueled. He taunted her. He proposed to her (basically) for a second time, promising to crown her and bind her light to him. “The door is still open,” he says, but Galadriel resists. While he does manage to get the nine from her, she jumps off a cliff before he can take her own ring. (These two are nothing if not dramatic.)

What’s next for Sauron? My best guess, based on what I know about the lore, is that he’s heading back to Númenor. He has nine rings to give to men, and the most powerful men and women at this time are there. Mark my words: his next target, after Galadriel and Celebrimbor, will be Pharazôn.

The elves descend on Rivendell.

Gil-galad, Elrond, and Arondir rescue Galadriel. Elrond even uses Nenya to heal her injuries, which is a big deal considering how ring-skeptical he was at the beginning of the season. The survivors of the siege of Eregion take refuge in an idyllic valley just North of their former home. Anyone with a map of Middle-earth can tell you that they are in what will become Rivendell, the elven haven where the Fellowship of the Ring forms.

In the final scene of the episode, the elves debate whether to go on the offense or defense. The most important part of this scene (to me at least) is they finally ask Galadriel for her advice. “It is not strength that overcomes darkness,” she says, “but light, and the sun yet shines.” That’s kind of a non-answer IMHO. But it is inspiring.

Míriel gives Elendil one heck of a parting gift.

At the end of Episode 6, Númenor’s most notorious opportunist Pharazôn peeped into the Palantir and saw Halbrand, aka Sauron, unmasked. In the finale, he spins that in his favor. Without revealing his source, he announces to the court he believes Míriel “bewitched” the sea worm with Sauron’s help. He also declares all members of the Faithful, including Míriel and Elendil, are traitors and orders them rounded up.

Elendil makes for the Western shore where the Faithful are not (yet) persecuted with the help of his daughter Eärien and the Queen, who opts to stay behind. She gives him Narsil, the ancestral sword that will eventually be passed down to Aragorn, and tells him to reclaim the lordship he lost when the people of Númenor first rebelled against the Faithful. He reluctantly escapes. The next and last time we see Míriel, however, she’s in handcuffs, so things went from bad to worse for her.

Isildur’s love triangle gets even more complicated.

For once, it seems like Elendil’s son Isildur is having a good day. He’s packing up to head back home to Númenor. His crush Estrid comes to tell him she no longer loves her fiancé. They kiss a little. She agrees to run away with him. Everything is looking up!

But then friggin’ Kemen, Pharazôn’s smug Draco-meets-Joffrey son shows up in Middle-earth. He rudely forbids Isildur from taking Estrid home with him. That awkwardly leaves her with her fiancé, who had no idea she was planning to leave him. Kemen also tells the people of Palagir their colony is now a military fortress and in order to live there they need to become lumberjacks and supply Númenor with timber.

It’s a low-key cliffhanger until you remember the surrounding forest is full of Ents who do not like it when you kill trees. That might create an issue in season 3.

And The Stranger loses his friends and gains a name.

Our wizard goes looking for his halfling buds, Nori and Poppy. When he finds them, they’ve been captured by the Dark Wizard, who makes a really unconvincing argument for really being a cool and chill guy just looking to chat. The Stranger refuses, so the Dark Wizard destroys the Stoor settlement. Nori and Poppy help their new halfling friends pack for their first ever migration, saying goodbye to The Stranger.

The Stoors call the Stranger “grand elf” on their way out, which sounds suspiciously like… you guessed it! Gandalf. The Stranger has been Gandalf this whole time, as many have theorized.