The Rings of Power Recap by the Elf and the Hobbit. This post contains affiliate links, you can find out more on our policies page or in the disclaimer at the bottom of the blog.
Gearing up for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season 2, it’s good to get a quick re-cap of season one. There were so many different storylines and characters to follow. And we met so many key players from the original trilogy that is so beloved. Here’s our best quick re-cap of The Rings of Power Season 1.
Here’s the trailer for season one as a quick visual.
LOTS OF SPOILERS FOR SEASON ONE BEYOND THIS POINT
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We mean it! A lot of spoilers ahead, if you have not watched season one, start here instead!
SPOILER WARNING
Where the characters ended up in this The Rings of Power Season 1 recap.
The Heroes
Elves in Season 1 of The Rings of Power Recap:
The main character of season one is Galadriel the elf. Her brother was killed in the war against Morgoth and she is determined to route out Sauron and the evil that still survives in Middle Earth. She is offered passage to the undying lands by king Gil Gal-ad to silence and end her quest, which he believes is antagonizing evil and other elves.
Eventually, she is proved right. But Sauron is able to manipulate her determination and gain her trust and invade her mind, which will surely come back to bite her later in the series even more than it already has. Galadriel continues to do her best to lead and root out evil for the good of Middle Earth.
Elrond is an up and coming leader in the Elf community. He is great friends with Galadriel, but these passionate leaders often clash. At the end of season one, only these two know who Sauron is masquerading as.
Celebrimbor is an artist who is known in the Lord of the Rings community as the creator of the rings. Halbrand (Sauron) gains Celebrimbor’s trust and convinces the Elves that making these rings is the only way to save their people.
Harfoots in Season 1 of The Rings of Power Recap:
The Harfoots are predecessors of the Hobbits. Instead of town homebodies, they are a wandering folk. Their wandering day song was one of my favorite things about this season. Check out this cover. Nori is an adventurous Harfoot who struggles sticking within the fearfilled lines of the people she lives with. Her best friend is a rule follower, who is alone- rare in that community, Poppy. The Stranger crashed near by the Harfoot’s camp. Because of Nori, they decide to help The Stranger. Eventually, the Harfoot group moves on and Nori stays behind to help guide The Stranger, with her families blessing.
Dwarves in Season 1 of The Rings of Power Recap:
Durin is the king of Khazad-dum. His son, also Durin, is friends with Elrond the elf. While they start out the season estranged, they really try to work together and help one another. Durin’s wife, Princess Disa, has a huge impact on them working together. They discover mithril deep in their mines but disagree about whether or how to get it. At the end of the season, the viewer sees that although they have found a huge vein of mithril, they have also awoken the Balrog below.
Southlands in Season 1 of The Rings of Power Recap:
In the Southlands we meet the Elves stationed at an outpost keeping an eye on the Southlanders because they were aligned with, or enslaved by, Morgoth. One of those elves is Arondir who is in love with Bronwyn, a human. Who has a son named Theo. After the elves are ordered out of their outpost, because they believed there was no more threat from Morgoth or Sauron, these main characters discover a huge threat.
Bronwyn leads her people to safety, along with several other towns, and many of them leave because they feel their only chance of survival is aligning with the Orcs. A faction from Numenor and Galadrial join them and fight the Orcs (and their fellow townsmen). They win one wave of the battle but ultimately loose their land. We see the Southlands turn into Mordor on the map. Bronwyn, Theo, and Arondir survive the battle.
Numenor in Season 1 of The Rings of Power Recap:
We know from the Lord of the Rings that Numenor fluctuates between the hero and villain section, as do most groups of men and dwarves. The Queen Regent has led a troop to the Southlands, they were underprepared and outmanned. She becomes blind in the process and comes back with a lot of dead soldiers only to find out her father has died. The people are unsettled. Some are interested in aiding Middle Earth, but many are willing to bring about a civil war in Numenor to avoid it.
We also meet Captain Elendil, who is friendly to the elves (he is a descendant of elves, though that is not something he flaunts.) And he starts working closely with the queen after rescuing Galadriel and Halbrand from the sea. Elendil’s children play a very large role in the coming ages of Middle Earth. The daughter, Earien, is a new character for this series and aligns herself with her boyfriend and his father over her father and the Queen Regent. Meanwhile Isildur talks about going West with his brother and leaving Numenor behind. He’s known as a greedy hero turned villain in the Lord of the Rings series, I’m excited for him to have a larger backstory here.
The Wizard in Season 1 of The Rings of Power Recap:
We meet (presumably) Gandalf at the beginning of the season as ‘The Stranger’. Nori convinces the other Harfoot’s that The Stranger is a friend that needs their help. The Stranger does help, but also accidentally sets fires and kills bugs as well. Towards the end of season one, the viewer is not supposed to be sure if The Stranger is actually Gandalf or Sauron. Whoever the being is, he is powerful and lost. But at the very end of the season, we find out that Halbrand is Sauron and that The Stranger is a wizard, who is being helped by Harfoots. So there is little doubt that this is Gandalf.
The Villains
Sauron in Season 1 of The Rings of Power Recap:
We meet Halbrand in the middle of the ocean as he is rescuing Galadriel. Throughout the first few episodes, we know that he’s going to be a significant character, but not who. He seems like an Aragorn character. A begrudging king living as a nomad who will eventually save the day and claim his title. Watching the season again, knowing who he is. You can see how he is manipulating everything and everyone around him to make that his own reality. Unfortunately, at the end of season one. Only Galadriel and Elrond know who Halbrand really is, and that will come back to bite them.
Orcs in Season 1 of The Rings of Power Recap:
The Orcs are being led by Adar. They have been tunneling under the Southlands. As soon as the elf army withdraws from their outpost there, they attack. The Orcs have been growing in number. They have been slowly enslaving and killing all the men that they meet, in search of a key. At the end of the season we know that they do not want Sauron to come back, and see them officially take over the Southlands. With an explosion that rocks all of Middle Earth. In a very artistic scene, we see the map change to rename the area Mordor.
Thanks for checking out The Rings of Power Recap of Season 1. You can check out our related content here:
–Themes from The Rings of Power Season 1
-Episode Guide- Starting with Episode 1
-You can also watch Season 1 of The Rings of Power here
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