Rings of Power Season 2 Episode 7 recap: Fire and blood fall on Middle-earth
Prime VideoEregion crumbles in Rings of Power Season 2 Episode 7, as the Elves fight to protect their city from the Orcs while Celebrimbor witnesses the terrifying extent of Sauron’s power.
The Siege of Eregion, Rings of Power’s biggest battle to date, is finally here. In last week’s episode, the city’s skies were lit with the fire of catapults as Adar and the “Uruks” launched their attack, hoping to wipe Sauron from Middle-earth.
That’s not all that went down, though. Tom Bombadil took the Stranger to find his staff… and left him at a neverending, barren clearing of trees. Adar tried to ally himself with Galadriel but feared her “drive to prove her virtue” would play into the Dark Lord’s hands. And Miriel took the fall for Elendil’s ‘treason’ and survived, by the will of the Valar.
Get ready, because Rings of Power Season 2 Episode 7 – the penultimate episode before next week’s finale – has a big death toll.
Obliviousness is bliss for Celebrimbor
Prime VideoWhile Eregion is engulfed in the darkness of ash, lit only by fire and scored only by screams, Celebrimbor is having a great time. Without any disturbance and seemingly armed with enough mithril (even though it was just Sauron’s blood turned into something resembling mithril), he proudly forges the nine rings for mortal men.
Now and then, something seems a little off: he notices Fëanor’s hammer is missing one of its jewels, and when he looks in the mirror, his face is sooty and even scratched. However, when Sauron walks in… everything returns to normal. “You know how forgetful you can be?” Sauron tells him.
Celebrimbor drops a sobering fact into conversation: he’s been forging the rings for weeks, meaning this (admittedly impressive) illusion has been concealing the destruction and bloodshed outside his home for all that time.
“The Rings of Power are nearly complete,” he tells Sauron, who says it’ll be a sad occasion when they part ways. “All things must end,” Celebrimbor says, with more than a hint of relief. “A pity, is it not?” Sauron asks, and his face falls into a scowl as he walks away.
Outside, Adar’s attacks have filled the sky with so much smoke that they’ve blocked out the sun. The Elves are eager to fight back, so Sauron takes command of the city’s forces and permits a counter-attack. “Celebrimbor’s mind is gone. We are alone,” he tells Mirdania, who softly takes his hand.
“When the time comes I will see that you’re duly rewarded,” Sauron tells her, but he’s distracted by Adar’s siege engines falling silent. Meanwhile, the Orcs turn their catapults away from the city towards a cliffside down the river, and their ingenious strategy becomes clear: they want to dam the river to clear the way for a ground assault, and it works.
Back in the forge, Celebrimbor sees a mouse, the same one who scurried past him earlier. Strangely, it behaves in the exact same way – almost as if his surroundings are playing on a fixed loop in lieu of Sauron’s presence.
Durin and Elrond reunite
Prime VideoNarvi tells King Durin about Eregion, who shows no concern for the Elves – he’s more interested in the spoils of war. “I need the mine taken back now. Every hour that we delay costs us unthinkable wealth. We must take it,” he tells Narvi, believing he could charge an unholy premium to arm the Elves with mithril.
Prince Durin and Disa await the king’s men down in the mine, who soon arrive with their pickaxes in hand. Thankfully, Narvi reveals that they don’t support the king, and tells Durin that an Elf (who’s been banished from all Dwarven lands) is waiting outside for him.
Yes, that’s right, we finally get to see Durin and Elrond back on-screen together. They don’t have time to catch up, though. Durin is about to overthrow his father, Elrond needs the Dwarves. “I know I ask too much of you, but I need your axe my friend, I need it now,” he tells him.
Celebrimbor learns the truth about Annatar
Prime VideoWarfare ensues at Eregion as the Uruks run towards the city, with Elven archers picking off as many as they can from its walls. Mirdania spots other Orcs rolling a “ravager” (basically a battering ram) towards them.
Meanwhile, Celebrimbor studies the “patterns” around him, like the little mouse constantly running around, or the fact his candles haven’t burned an inch. “Captivating,” Sauron says with disdain, but Celebrimbor knows that he’s wandering around a fallacy – a space out of time.
“You sought peace, I gave it to you,” Sauron says. “Whatever this is, it’s hardly a gift,” Celebrimbor replies, and demands to know what’s happening to him.
“No emissary of the Valar would do this,” he adds, and asks to know who ‘Annatar’ really is. “I am the one keeping the storm at bay, balancing the very sun above your head, all to give you this one chance to prove your worth… now, I want the nine,” Sauron screams.
Celebrimbor throws his hammer at him, which smashes a nearby window. Suddenly, the truth leaks all around him: parts of the forge’s ceiling have collapsed, he’s covered in dirt, and the mithril he’s been using now looks like black gloop.
“True creation requires sacrifice,” Sauron tells him, and Celebrimbor immediately realizes that he’s the Dark Lord.
Celebrimbor ‘kills’ Mirdania
Prime VideoHe stumbles outside, online to get smacked to the side by the crash of a boulder. He runs to find Mirdania, telling her how Sauron made him a “prisoner of the mind” and forced him to forge the nine rings. She not only doesn’t believe him, but she looks scared.
He orders Eregion’s troops to seize him, but they refuse, (understandably) believing Celebrimbor is to blame for the chaos around them. He tells them to cut Sauron open to see his black blood, but when he holds up his hand, his scar is red.
Mirdania offers to take him back inside, but Sauron uses an especially malicious trick: Celebrimbor is still under his influence, so he makes him throw her off the side of the city wall. She plummets to the muddy ground, where an Orc plunges an axe into her face. Yikes.
“All this can end. Finish the nine and I will spare your city,” Sauron tells Celebrimbor. His goal is simple: to “create a perfect and lasting peace.”
Adar gives Elrond an offer
Prime VideoSauron hears Elrond’s army in the distance, who barrel towards Adar and the Orcs. “Death to our foes,” Elrond shouts.
However, they’re stopped in their tracks when one of the Orcs reveals Galadriel in a cage with a spear to her throat. Elrond orders his troops to halt.
Adar demands to see Galadriel’s ring, but Elrond tells him he doesn’t have it. Galadriel says he should have kept charging, and Adar threatens to cut out her tongue if she keeps talking.
“Sauron is my enemy as much as yours. Give me what I need to defeat him and we will all be rid of him,” Adar offers, explaining how Eregion and its people already belong to him. Elrond refuses to believe Celebrimbor could be corrupted, but Adar reveals that he welcomed Sauron (when he looked like Halbrand, mind) into the city.
Adar has a reasonable offer: help him kill Sauron and Galadriel will live. “You must know you can’t defeat me in battle… you will fall,” he warns, but Adar’s Orcs look a bit nervous about the likelihood of death if the two sides actually fought.
“The ring for Galadriel’s life,” Adar offers again, but Elrond tells him: “Ask me on the field, and the neck with a blade against it is yours.”
“I will meet you there with her head on a pike,” Adar says, so Elrond asks if he can say goodbye to Galadriel. “Forgive me,” he says. “Win,” she whispers.
And then we get a weird moment: Elrond kisses Galadriel (if you know what happens in the books, you’ll understand). Even Galadriel looks a little startled, but it seems like it was just a way for him to pass her a key to her cuffs without anyone noticing.
Durin rallies the Dwarves
Prime VideoIn Khazad-dûm, Durin tells the Dwarves: “The great tale of our age is being written, and it falls to us to decide whether it’ll end in tragedy or triumph.”
He reveals that Sauron has returned and tried to forge rings that’ll enslave them and everyone else in Middle-earth. The Elves need them, and Sauron wants to stoke their greed and “turn their hearts to ash. and sweep us from the field.”
“We are stronger than he knows. There is something all Dwarves prize far more than riches, more even than this mountain we hold dear: fight with me so all the world can see that Dwarven loyalty is a force stronger than any sorcery, more powerful than any army, deeper than the bones of the earth. Will you fight with our friends, will you fight for Khazad-dûm?”
The Dwarves are fired up, so Durin orders that they march for Eregion.
Galadriel escapes
Prime VideoMeanwhile, Elrond fights Orcs in the woods, who kill his horse by slicing its neck. Elrond has his revenge: he stabs the Orc in the chest and straps him to a catapult.
At this point, Orcs have started climbing into Eregion and scrapping with the archers, with the ravager slowly dismantling the wall.
Galadriel slyly escapes, covering herself in a cloak and sneaking out of the camp as Adar cremates the dead Orcs. “In flames they return to darkness,” he says. She’s almost caught, but Arondir shoots a few arrows from above and saves her.
He’s hellbent on killing Adar, but Galadriel tells him: “There’s a dearth of Elven heroes this night. It’d be a pity to lose another… the true fight with Adar will come later.”
Over in Khazad-dûm, King Durin kills the Dwarves who don’t carry out his orders. Narvi asks him to recall the army, otherwise everyone could die – especially if the king keeps mining.
Galadriel finds Celebrimbor
Prime VideoAs Celebrimbor finishes the rings, Sauron tells him not to be afraid. “All of our sufferings will be worth it… you must know it pains me to treat you like Morgoth treated me,” he says.
“Do you know what it is to be tortured at the hands of a god? I see the end, Celebrimbor, so clearly. I have seen it from the moment I awoke. His end… it was different from mine, for what he wished to destroy I wished to perfect. Sometimes, the pain almost became a reward, became a game, a contest to see whose will was the mightier.”
Celebrimbor asks why he’d want to inflict the same pain on him. “You chose it, not I. It all depends on the rings and since you forced me to torment you to bring them into being, I am but a victim of your obstinence. And you… the true author of your own torment,” he explains.
“You truly are the great deceiver. You can deceive even yourself,” Celebrimbor replies.
As blood is spilled over the marshes outside Eregion, Celebrimbor tries and fails to destroy the rings. He puts them all in a bag, chops off his thumb so he can remove his hand from his handcuff, and flees. His troops try to seize him, by “order of Annatar, Lord of Eregion”, but they’re stopped by Galadriel.
Celebrimbor explains that he was enslaved… and it was his fault. “A part of me knew, a part of me saw… but I wanted what he offered. So, I blinded myself to what he was,” he says, and Galadriel says the same thing happened to her.
Galadriel tells Celebrimbor to use the old Dwarven tunnel to escape, but Celebrimbor tells her she needs to be the one who takes the rings. “I built this city, my place is here,” he tells her. “It is not strength that overcomes darkness, but light. Armies may rise, hearts may fail, but still light endures and it’s mightier than strength.”
A troll!
Prime VideoGaladriel takes the rings. Meanwhile, Elrond tasks Rian with causing an explosion with one of her arrows. She’s brought to her knees by Orc archers, but she manages to stand up and arm her bow, successfully setting the area aflame.
Elrond and his men run in as Rian dies, mowing down countless Orcs, but Adar has a backup plan: Damrod the Hill-Troll.
As he stomps into battle, Sauron hunts for the nine rings. Celebrimbor’s soldiers surround him, but as Sauron reveals, everyone in Eregion is under his power – so he makes them kill each other and themselves. “You will give me the nine,” he says.
Arondir, Elrond, and Gil-galad team up to kill Damrod before he can bring down the wall. The rest of the Orcs run into battle, just as the sun starts to rise… but the Dwarves don’t arrive. “Kill them all,” Adar commands, and while Gil-galad holds his own with the help of his spear, there’s more than a few casualties.
Notably, Arondir finally faces off against Adar, who stabs him in the stomach and shoves him to the ground (it seems like he’ll live, though, so don’t worry).
As the Orcs bring down Eregion’s wall, Adar finds Elrond and takes the ring. “Have you forgotten your Rúmil? ‘Never make war in anger,” he says, as he throws him to the ground.
Make sure you’re up-to-date with our Rings of Power Season 2 release schedule, and check out our other recaps below:
You can also read our predictions for the Dark Wizard’s identity, and check out our guides on Círdan, Forodwaith, and if Rings of Power is considered canon in Lord of the Rings.