The Rings of Power cast tease Sauron and Adar's rivalry and season 2 surprises

The Rings of Power season 2 will see Sauron have his "tentacles spread across all Middle Earth", with the villain's re-emergence leading to all out war the cast tell Yahoo UK.

Prime Video's The Lord of the Rings prequel saw Halbrand (Charlie Vickers) be revealed as the Dark Lord at the end of season one, with new episodes will see JRR Tolkien's heroes on the back foot. It'll be hard to face the threat he poses, with Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) desperately trying to regain her Elven brethren's favour and making an unlikely alliance with villain Adar (Sam Hazeldine), while Sauron disguises himself as Annatar to create the remaining Rings of Power.

Speaking to Yahoo UK, the cast and showrunners JD Payne and Patrick McKay reveal what fans can expect from the series, but be warned there are minor spoilers for the first three episodes of season 2.

Adar and Sauron's rivalry

One of the major storylines weaved into the narrative of season 2 is that of the rivalry between Adar and Sauron. Episode one reveals how the villains came to be at odds when Adar and the Orcs betray and kill him in a bid to stop him from using Rings of Power to control them.

Vickers tells Yahoo UK how their relationship is complicated in season 2, particularly because of the bloody way in which their last encounter went: "I think it's quite complex because you have their shared history hundreds of years before, and you see in the opening scene a bit of their back story and that they were very close allies.

"Then there's the sequence when you jump back to the present time when Sauron gets captured, taken prisoner by Adar, and what I love about the scenes —and Sam and I talked about it in quite a bit of depth— is that there's this unspoken thing going on beneath the surface, because there's gotta be a twinge of familiarity between the two of them.

"These beings operate on this higher level, there's threats and there's conflict on the surface but underneath we were kind of playing this knowing Adar's saying Sauron is dead but then there's this element of [doubt], of 'maybe you're Sauron' from him to me.

"I think the cool thing is that even if Adar knows that I'm Sauron he can't do anything, there's no point in trying to kill me because he knows he can't. He's done it once already, you know?"

Payne explains that it was important for them to "go back way to the beginning, or almost at the beginning of their relationship" in the new season, to give viewers a better understanding of what the characters are trying to achieve this time around.

Read more: Galadriel and Sauron's story is 'far from over' in The Rings of Power

"We're excited for fans to get to delve into a little bit of their deep past and get to see really what Sauron's gone through," he explains. "We felt a really tantalising hole that Tolkien left in the legendarium is what Sauron is doing for the first part of the Second Age, we have these activities up to the end of the First Age and then he doesn't show up until a couple of centuries into the Second Age where he shows up at the Battle of Eregion.

"So what was he doing all that time? We've sought to answer that by talking a little bit about what his relationship with Adar has been. But really we're going to see that they are both rivals for what direction Middle Earth is going to go in.

"Adar sees the Orcs as his children, he sees himself as the father of the orc nation, for Sauron the Orcs are just cannon fodder. They're a means to an end, and Adar can't imagine a worse possible fate for his children than to be enslaved under the under the thrall of Sauron as the Dark Lord."

Payne's co-showrunner Patrick McKay describes the pair as "snakes in a basket"

Annatar's manipulation of Celebrimbor

Sauron will not be one to be taken lightly again, though, and he is doggedly determined to make his vision come to pass, of bringing all of Middle Earth under heel using the titular Rings of Power. To do so he visits Elven smith Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards) and "reveals" himself to be an ethereal being known as Annatar, sent to him to forge the rings meant for dwarves and men in secret.

Celebrimbor's manipulation is one well known to fans of Tolkien's work, who have been looking forward to seeing how the Prime Video show addresses the key storyline in the history of Middle Earth.

Edwards tells Yahoo UK that "it's been a joy" to bring the narrative to life on the series, joking: "The moment Annatar was confirmed to be appearing —he's quite busy [and] none of us were sure that Annatar would be available, but he became available— then we knew that we were gonna be telling that story.

"We always knew we were going to be telling a story, but this one is obviously special."

Vickers concurs, adding: "We became huge fans of this time period as well, and we read about the Rings of Power and how Annatar is a huge part of it. For us to tell the story so closely to what is in the books is really exciting."

"It is, it really is," Edwards adds. "It's an example of a story that is told as is on the page. However, Tolkien didn't write the whole [thing] — as always what we find ourselves talking about a lot with this show is that Tolkien gives you sign posts, and there's stuff in between that is left void or suggested, or for you to imagine, as in all the best books so you can create the world in your own mind.

Read more: The Rings of Power's Rory Kinnear 'put aside' fan expectations to play Tom Bombadil

"So these scenes between us are certainly following very clearly what Tolkien laid out, but there's plenty of stuff going on in between that's very exciting and really fun to play."

Owain Arthur and Sophia Nomvete, who play dwarves Prince Durin and Princess Disa, spoke of how their characters come face-to-face with Annatar in the opening episodes, unaware that they're bartering with the Dark Lord himself when he pretends to be the Giver of Gifts. The pair are wary of this stranger, but it was fun for Arthur and Nomvete to have their characters interact with the villain for the first time.

"It's great because we build different worlds and when they come together it's so exciting," Arthur explains. "I mean, it's stressful for us in terms of the scale of the work and the technicality that comes into play, but it's worth it. It's really exciting to see different beings in one space and communicating with each other."

Nomvete adds: "How we communicate with each other, how we receive each other's information and each other's characteristics and watching two races exist in one space is always so exciting. So it was lovely, and Charlie Vickers does not take himself seriously at all so he's great fun.

"He'd be chomping on a banana asking me advice on random life insurances whilst completely kitted out as the Dark Lord. So it's good fun off screen and then when we're on it's this wonderful eclectic mix, so it's great."

War is coming to Middle Earth

Now The Rings of Power is in its second season the "game is afoot", McKay teases to Yahoo UK, and that means that viewers are set to experience all out war in Middle Earth now Sauron has emerged. The many characters within the series will be brought together in their fight against the Dark Lord, from the Elves to the Dwarves and Men.

Representing the realm of men in the series is Isildur, the future King of Gondor and ancestor to Aragorn, and actor Maxim Baldry shares how the villain's impact will be vast: "Sauron has been revealed in season 2 and his tentacles have spread across all areas of Middle Earth, and whilst Isildur may not encounter him first hand the darkness and the shadow is going to bring monsters and evil that he has to overcome.

"Arondir [Ismael Cruz Córdova], Isildur and Estrid [Nia Towle] go on a journey together, we're all grieving so just being together, overcoming evil, bonds us and we learn from each other. There's also romance for Isildur, he falls in love in the process.

"This guy, he goes through everything, this is just an emotional rollercoaster of a season for Isildur, he's been abandoned in Middle Earth and realises 'I'm in love, do I want to go home now?' He has to learn whether or not his love for Estrid is greater than his love for home, and there's a battle in his mind between his heart and his head that he has to deal with."

Season 2 will culminate in the characters coming together for the Battle of the Elven kingdom of Eregion, where Sauron dwells as Annatar. In Tolkien lore the villain's machinations creates the One Ring in the city, and then attacks it in order to gain control of the seven rings for the Dwarves and nine for Men.

"There's a lot of action in the season," McKay teases. "Most of the storylines all build to one giant battle in the latter half of the season, the Siege of Eregion, which is famous from the mythology if you're a super fan.

"This is basically the most ambitious battle we've ever attempted, it took an enormous amount of resources and time to film. The performances are incredible, it's pulling together not just action but the emotional arcs of half a dozen characters."

"It's really extraordinarily ambitious and we're thrilled with the results that Charlotte Brändström our amazing producing director and Vic Armstrong, our incredible second unit action director, have pulled together. We can't wait for people to see it, stay tuned for Episode 7 guys."

McKay goes on: "Season 1 we always thought of as the primer, it is gonna open up the Second Age and hopefully pull people into the universe of Tolkien who maybe were unfamiliar with the books, or hadn't even seen the films.

"Now we're in Season 2 they're in our house, right? So every season, from now to the end, we have these big canonical tentpole moments that we're building things around. I don't want to spoil how close we're going to get toward the books and the films, but there are big canon moments to come in every season, and at a certain point every episode."

The first three episodes of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season 2 are available now, the series will continue airing weekly every Thursday on Prime Video.

This article originally appeared on Yahoo TV UK at https://uk.news.yahoo.com/rings-power-sauron-adar-annatar-prime-video-071956034.html