The Rings of Power has always been about Sauron, even if the Dark Lord didn’t actually reveal himself until the final minutes of Season 1.

“We knew Sauron was such a powerful spice in the soup,” co-showrunner Patrick McKay tells Inverse. “We wanted a season to be about heroes and Middle-earth and have Middle-earth be beautiful. Meanwhile, along the way you’re learning who Sauron is. You just don’t know it yet. And that gives you the opportunity to be deceived by him.”

But mere minutes into The Rings of Power Season 2, it’s clear McKay and his co-conspirer J.D. Payne were working with one ring-covered hand tied behind their backs. Played by Charlie Vickers (now tasked with portraying two of Sauron’s disguises as both the human Halbrand and the Elf Annatar), Sauron plays a pivotal role in the show’s second season, driving the plot forward while everyone else does their best to respond to his terrifying presence.

“Sauron affects everything,” says Morfydd Clark, who plays Galadriel, one of the few Rings of Power characters to also exist thousands of years later in The Lord of the Rings.

The Dark Lord casts a dark shadow over Rings of Power Season 2, and it extends from the island nation Númenor where Men rule to the dwarven mines of Khazad-dûm. Ahead of the show’s long-awaited return, Inverse spoke to the cast and creators — including the villain himself, Charlie Vickers — to unpack how Sauron’s plan begins to come to fruition, and what the rest of Middle-earth can do to stop him.

The Tale of Sauron and Galadriel

Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) contemplates the ring Nenya in Rings of Power Season 2.

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Sauron’s deception of Galadriel instantly adds that “spice” McKay is speaking of. It quickly reframes Sauron’s rise to power as much more complicated and roundabout than it is in J.R.R. Tolkien’s appendices, which Rings of Power adapts. Vickers points to one line that Galadriel speaks in Fellowship of the Ring as the inspiration for Sauron and Galadriel’s dynamic in Rings of Power: “I perceive the Dark Lord and know his mind, or all of his mind that concerns Elves, and he gropes ever to see me and my thought, but still the door is closed.”

Rings of Power interprets that quote by Tolkien into the relationship we see in Season 1, in which Galadriel accidentally befriends Sauron, in “fair form” as the human Halbrand. They become close allies (and maybe more), with Sauron finally revealing himself to her and offering her the ultimate temptation: be his queen and rule Middle-earth with him. She rejects him, but Vickers says his determination to win her over remains strong in Season 2.

“There is definitely that element of this cosmic connection, that their proximity doesn’t mean that he doesn’t think about her,” Vickers tells Inverse. “He needs to prove her wrong, prove to her she made the wrong decision. They’re definitely on a collision course in that way. He’s more determined to achieve his goal because of the rejection.”

“There is definitely that element of this cosmic connection, that their proximity doesn’t mean that he doesn’t think about her.”

Galadriel begins Rings of Power Season 2 on the back foot. Reeling from Sauron’s deception and ashamed for giving in so easily to her enemy’s whims, she starts the season rushing to stop his influence from spreading. But in admitting how she was deceived by Sauron to her close friend Elrond (Robert Aramayo) and the high king of the Elves, Gil-galad (Benjamin Walker), Galadriel essentially becomes persona non grata, and the Elven rings become an uncertain element.

Gil-galad is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Does he use the rings to save the fading light of Valinor? Or have the rings already been corrupted by Sauron’s touch?

“You see elements of his suspicion, his unease, his inability to trust those that should be trustworthy, whether it’s Galadriel or his own instincts,” Walker tells Inverse.

In Tolkien’s books, Gil-galad is one of the few Elves to not trust Annatar, a fair stranger who calls himself “Lord of the Gifts” and an emissary of the godlike Valar. Rings of Power plays this distrust in a different way since Sauron’s identity is now out in the open. But there’s still plenty of conflict for Walker’s Gil-galad to navigate.

“It’s important that we remember this is uncharted territory,” Walker says. “We’ve never had rings before. As fans and viewers, we take that for granted that they’ve been given this technology that, in spite of their experience, they do not understand.”

Galadriel and Elrond — friends no more?

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The Galadriel of Season 1 was a proud and vengeful Elf whose single-minded hatred for Sauron led to her allying herself with Halbrand, whom she believed to be the heir of the Southlands. But this is what led to her accidentally helping Sauron in his case, Clark says. “She was too preoccupied with her own pain in Season 1. That, ultimately, is what led to her being deceived,” Clark tells Inverse.

Newly humbled, Galadriel in Season 2 gets to “fall in love again with Middle-earth,” Clark says. “She can be stronger when she’s fighting for everyone and for the smallest little things in Middle-earth and the beauty of Middle-earth instead of fighting for her own revenge.”

The majority of Season 1 was driven by Galadriel and Halbrand’s (really Sauron) unlikely alliance-turned-friendship. While the two of them are split and on opposing quests this season, McKay reveals that “they’re on parallel journeys.”

“As the season unfolds, part of her season is reckoning with her relationship with Halbrand and Sauron in disguise, and how she is taken in,” McKay says. “And the real question is: What will happen when they collide at the end of the season?”

Sauron’s Plan for the Rings of Power

The rings of power.

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Before Sauron and Galadriel collide, Sauron’s deception claims another victim: the great Elven smith Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards). Celebrimbor met Sauron in his Halbrand form in the final episode of Season 1, and the two immediately became close collaborators after Halbrand subtly nudged him toward crafting the first rings of power. But in Season 2, Sauron approaches Celebrimbor as “the Lord of Gifts,” Annatar. Also played by Vickers, but now with flowing blond hair and Elf ears, Annatar urges Celebrimbor to forge the rest of the rings of power — seven for the Dwarfs, and nine for Men. Ecstatic over the success of his three Elven rings, it doesn’t take much to convince Celebrimbor.

Where Season 1 focused on Galadriel’s deception by Sauron, Season 2 focuses on the deception of Celebrimbor.

“When he introduces himself as Annatar, [only the audience] knows who he really is,” McKay says. “So it has this incredible riptide to it that you have to earn by having already been deceived by him yourself once. That was always the plan, and now we’re able to reap the rewards of this storyline.”

Sauron (Charlie Vickers) dons the Annatar form in front of Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards).

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Vickers revels in getting to play the Elven manipulator this season, which allowed him and Edwards to fill in the gaps of Sauron’s manipulation of Celebrimbor and the Elven smith’s brutal downfall (no spoilers, but it’s one of the darkest fates of any Lord of the Rings character).

“I was incredibly excited to do this time period because there are two chapters on the Rings of Power and the Akallabêth [the downfall of Númenor], and some of it is quite ambiguous,” Vickers says. “But what we did learn painted the picture of quite a detailed story for us and for me in crafting this character.”

Vickers reveals he had “some ideas that I’ve had for a long time” in portraying Annatar, from how he moves to the way he talks and presents himself to others. “That was all very different to Halbrand,” Vickers says. “But there was a consistent element of his sense of purpose and his sense of trying to achieve what he really wants to achieve that I tried to maintain through both Halbrand and Annatar.”

For Edwards, who mostly hung around in the background in the first season, getting to portray a pivotal part of such a tragic character’s arc was a dream.

“When I got the role, I didn’t know who Celebrimbor was, and I looked him up and was very happy to be entrusted with playing this role, because of the places that the story takes him in partnership with Annatar,” Edwards tells Inverse. “[With] Tolkien, as with many of the stuff in the appendices and elsewhere, it’s sketched and you get a great story, but in a few lines. It’s our job to color it all in, fill in the gaps, really inhabit it and enhance it. The darkness of the story has always appealed to me very much.”

A Collision Course

Adar (Sam Hazeldine) and Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) meet in Rings of Power Season 2.

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From the deepest mines of Khazad-dûm to the doomed kingdom of Men, Númenor, Sauron’s presence is slowly becoming more and more keenly felt.

“It’s not just the individuals,” says Morfydd Clark. “The Earth is bubbling and bad. All this badness is coming up. There’s monsters that haven’t been seen for ages. He’s everywhere, whether they like it or not.”

“They know him better than anyone. They’ve looked into the whites of his eyes.”

This season of Rings of Power will see the show building up to great battles and devastating turns of fate in the ongoing fight against Sauron. Even back in Mordor, things are uncertain, as the Orcs’ new ruler, Adar (Sam Hazeldine, taking over the role from Joseph Mawle), finds himself facing off against his old boss, Sauron.

“He’s not really fighting for power particularly,” Hazeldine tells Inverse. “He just wants a safe haven for the Uruk to live and not be enslaved or destroyed, wiped out by Sauron, or the Elves, or anybody else.”

But with Sauron back in the open, Adar and Galadriel, oddly, find themselves fighting against the same force. “They know him better than anyone. They’ve looked into the whites of his eyes,” Clark says. Adds Hazeldine, “Yeah, and it wasn’t good.”

The pieces are falling into place, and Sauron’s evil scheme is coming together. But McKay is still tight-lipped on what we can expect for Season 3.

“We’re very excited about it. We have a ripping yarn coming. Stay tuned.”

The Rings of Power Season 2 premieres its first three episodes Aug. 29 on Prime Video.