The Rings of Power Season 2 Is Upon Us. Here’s Your ‘Wait, Who’s That Guy Again?’ Guide to the New Episodes

If Rings of Power had an alternate title, it might as well be Young Galadriel. When Cate Blanchett played her in Jackson’s The Fellowship of the Ring, she was around 8,000 years old and “the mightiest and fairest of all the Elves that remained in Middle-earth.” (Need the skincare routine.) In Rings of Power, we meet Galadriel as a young, headstrong warrior elf driven by a desire to track down and eliminate Sauron, the future Dark Lord—who, we learned at the end of season one, was right there beside her the entire time. She gets one of the three rings of power of the elves.

Halbrand/Annatar/Hot Sauron — Charlie Vickers

Everyone knows Sauron was a fearsome and terrible Dark Lord that tormented Middle Earth.

Rings of Power asks: What if he was also hot? During season one, the entity we’ve only known as a giant flaming eyeball pretended to be a humble mortal blacksmith named Halbrand, played by Charlie Vickers. This season, we briefly see a flashback of him in the body of Scottish actor Jack Lowden, before he assumed Halbrand’s form. Sauron then goes full fantasy hairstyle when he assumes the disguise of Annatar—canon from the books—a supposed emissary from the Valar, the divine beings of this world. As Annatar, he tricks everyone around him even though he is in fact the same guy they’ve been dealing with, just with a blonde dye job.

Adar — Sam Hazeldine

Created by Amazon Studios

Sam Hazeldine as Adar (left)

Ross Ferguson / Prime Video

This character gets slippier for two reasons. First, Adar was invented by Amazon for the purposes of this series. Also, when the original actor who portrayed him, Joseph Mawle, left the series after season 1, we got a classic sitcom switch-up, with Sam Hazeldine taking over the role for season 2. The character is meant to be one of the first orcs, who sees a life of self-determination for his people, and turns against Sauron to give them that. He’s also the mastermind of the plan to trigger Mount Doom at the end of season one, turning the Southlands into Mordor. “Adar” is an Elvish word for “father,” so basically, Daddy Orc.

Elrond — Robert Aramayo

Robert Aramayo as Elrond

Ben Rothstein / Prime Video