THE RINGS OF POWER Season 2 Will Have a Dark Opening Scene Involving Sauron; Here are the Details

Some new details have been shared regarding the opening of The Lord of The Rings: The Rings of Power Season 2. These details were shared by Patrick McKay and J.D. Payne, and it teases a dark flashback sequence involving Sauron.

While talking to GamesRadar, McKay asked, "Do you want to hear the opening?” He then proceeds to share the opening of the series!

McKay said: "We open in the darkness, an orc walks in, and we see there are thousands of orcs gathered. He’s about to be crowned, pitching his vision of Middle-earth, and right before they lay the crown on his head, his right-hand man, Adar, turns it upside down, and stabs him in the back. It’s the assassination of Sauron."

That opening will set the tone for the new season, which is said to be "all about the villains." I like that we will get to learn more of the history between Sauron (Charlie Vickers) and Adar (Sam Hazeldine), as it takes place at the end of the First Age, after Morgoth has been defeated and Sauron is demanding fealty from his followers.

McKay adds: "Right from the beginning, Sauron is the center of gravity. It’s an ensemble show, but the focus is starting to get pulled towards him. He’s driving everything."

It was previously revealed that Season 2 of the series will tell the story of Sauron’s ascendancy, and when talking about that, McKay said: “If you had to pick one reason to make this show and set it in this era of the mythology, that’s it.

“From minute one, we talked about Milton’s Paradise Lost, Walter White and Tony Soprano, and how Sauron has the potential to be like these great villain-heroes – hero meaning protagonist. That’s the great untold story on the screen.”

In Season 1 of the series, Sauron was sneaking around in the guise of Halbrand, but after being discovered, he takes on a new persona, the elegant Elf, Annatar.

When discussing his reinvention, McKay said: “He was hiding amongst our story. The opportunity now with Season 2 is: the audience is in on the con. We know who he is. We have a pretty good sense of what he wants.

“The fun is watching other people get ensnared in the web. As the season unfolds, the plan starts. One hammer after another starts to fall until, by the last couple of episodes, you realise the level and extent of how evil he is and how deeply he’s strategised this whole thing out.”

McKay goes on to explain: “All our stories start to become one story and the one story is the way the re-emergence of Sauron touches everybody and threatens the whole world.”

Vickers also talked about his character, saying: “I was so excited to get to this point of the story, because this is the canon of this time period. You have Sauron and Celebrimbor working together, making rings.

“Everything Sauron does is to serve other people, to appeal to someone else. In the same way the whole Halbrand thing was for Galadriel, this new look is for Celebrimbor.

“This is the best way to get him to do what he wants him to do: make a bunch of rings that’ll dominate everyone else.”

The series takes place “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.”

In Season 2, “Sauron has returned. Cast out by Galadriel, without army or ally, the rising Dark Lord must now rely on his own cunning to rebuild his strength and oversee the creation of the Rings of Power, which will allow him to bind all the peoples of Middle-earth to his sinister will.

“Building on Season 1’s epic scope and ambition, Season 2 of Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power plunges even its most beloved and vulnerable characters into a rising tide of darkness, challenging each to find their place in a world that is increasingly on the brink of calamity.

“Elves and dwarves, orcs and men, wizards and Harfoots… as friendships are strained and kingdoms begin to fracture, the forces of good will struggle ever more valiantly to hold on to what matters to them most of all… each other.”

The series is being developed by showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay. The Rings of Power Season 2 premieres August 29th on Prime Video.