# Halls of Stone

"Halls of Stone" is the fifth episode of the second season of the American fantasy television series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. The series is based on J. R. R. Tolkien's history of Middle-earth, primarily material from the appendices of the novel The Lord of the Rings (1954–55). Set thousands of years before the novel in Middle-earth's Second Age, the episode shows the Dwarves' reactions to their Rings of Power. It was written by Nicholas Adams and directed by Louise Hooper and Sanaa Hamri.
J. D. Payne and Patrick McKay were set to develop the series in July 2018, and a second season was ordered in November 2019. Filming began in the United Kingdom in October 2022, with Hooper and Hamri joining the series to direct multiple episodes. Production on the season wrapped in June 2023.
"Halls of Stone" premiered on the streaming service Amazon Prime Video on September 12, 2024. It was estimated to have high viewership, though there was a drop from the previous week. The episode received generally positive reviews, particularly for the performances of Charlie Vickers as Sauron and Charles Edwards as Celebrimbor.

## Plot

King Durin III uses one of the new Rings of Power for Dwarves to help rebuild their infrastructure and bring sunlight back to Khazad-dûm. The ring also makes the king greedy; he plans to delve deeper for riches, and requires the other Dwarf lords to give him half of their riches in exchange for the other Rings of Power. Disa discovers that there is something evil living beneath the mines and Durin IV warns his father to stop the mining, but Durin III dismisses their concerns. He reinstates Durin IV as his heir.
In Eregion, Celebrimbor and the Dwarf Narvi celebrate the Dwarven rings by unveiling a new Western gate for Khazad-dûm: the Doors of Durin. Sauron, posing as Annatar, insists that they start work on Rings of Power for Men. Celebrimbor refuses to be involved, believing the risk of corruption with Men to be too high. While testing new ring designs with Annatar, Elven-smith Mirdania is transported to the unseen world and sees his true form. He convinces her that she actually saw Celebrimbor.
The new king of Númenor, Ar-Pharazôn, tasks his son Kemen with cracking down on members of the Faithful who remain loyal to former Queen Regent Míriel. He interrupts a memorial service that Elendil and other members of the Faithful are holding in Númenor's oldest shrine. When Kemen destroys a sacred relic, Elendil lashes out. This leads to a fight between Valandil, the friend of Elendil's son Isildur, and Kemen that ends with Kemen killing Valandil. Elendil is blamed for starting a riot and arrested.
Durin IV meets with Celebrimbor to express his concerns about the Dwarven rings, and Celebrimbor confronts Annatar to ask whether anything was done to the Dwarven rings that was not done to the Elven rings. Annatar notes that Celebrimbor lied to High King Gil-galad about making the Dwarven rings, suggesting that Celebrimbor's deception has caused any negative impacts arising from the Dwarven rings. Celebrimbor agrees to help make rings for Men in an attempt to redeem his work on the Dwarven rings.
Elrond returns to Lindon and warns Gil-galad that Adar's Orc army are marching to Eregion. Gil-galad realizes that Sauron has been manipulating them and believes the Elves cannot defeat him and Adar alone. As the Orcs arrive at the city, Adar proposes an alliance between himself and his prisoner, Galadriel.

## Production
### Development

Amazon acquired the television rights for J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings (1954–55) in November 2017. The company's streaming service, Amazon Prime Video, ordered a series based on the novel and its appendices to be produced by Amazon Studios in association with New Line Cinema. It was later titled The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Amazon hired J. D. Payne and Patrick McKay to develop the series and serve as showrunners in July 2018. The series was originally expected to be a continuation of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings (2001–2003) and The Hobbit (2012–2014) film trilogies, but Amazon later clarified that their deal with the Tolkien Estate required them to keep the series distinct from Jackson's films. Despite this, the showrunners intended for it to be visually consistent with the films. A second season was ordered in November 2019, and Amazon announced in August 2021 that it was moving production of the series from New Zealand, where Jackson's films were made, to the United Kingdom starting with the second season. The season's all-female directing team was revealed in December 2022: Charlotte Brändström, returning from the first season; Sanaa Hamri; and Louise Hooper.
The series is set in the Second Age of Middle-earth, thousands of years before Tolkien's The Hobbit (1937) and The Lord of the Rings. Because Amazon did not acquire the rights to Tolkien's other works where the First and Second Ages are primarily explored, the writers had to identify references to the Second Age in The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and its appendices, and create a story that bridged those passages. After introducing the setting and major heroic characters in the first season, the showrunners said the second would focus on the villains and go deeper into the "lore and the stories people have been waiting to hear". The season's fifth episode, titled "Halls of Stone", was written by Nicholas Adams and directed by Hooper and Hamri. The title references a line from Tolkien's "Ring Verse" poem: "Seven [Rings] for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone".

### Casting

The season's cast includes Cynthia Addai-Robinson as Míriel, Robert Aramayo as Elrond, Owain Arthur as Durin IV, Morfydd Clark as Galadriel, Charles Edwards as Celebrimbor, Trystan Gravelle as Ar-Pharazôn, Peter Mullan as Durin III, Sophia Nomvete as Disa, Lloyd Owen as Elendil, Charlie Vickers as Sauron, and Benjamin Walker as Gil-galad. Also starring in the episode are Kevin Eldon as Narvi, Amelia Kenworthy as Mirdania, Leon Wadham as Kemen, Ema Horvath as Eärien, Alex Tarrant as Valandil, Calam Lynch as Camnir, Sam Hazeldine as Adar, Rachel Payne as Brenna, Laura Jane Matthewson as Revna, Jeany Spark as the Commander of the South, Selina Lo as Rían, Charlie Rix as Vorohil, William Chubb as the High Priest of Númenor, Kai Martin as Zhor, and Robert Strange as Glûg.

### Filming

Filming for the season began on October 3, 2022, under the working title LBP. Episodes were shot simultaneously based on the availability of locations and sets. Directors of photography included Laurie Rose and Jean-Philippe Gossart. The production wrapped in early June 2023.

### Visual effects

Visual effects for the episode were created by The Yard VFX, Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), DNEG, Outpost VFX, Rodeo FX, Midas VFX, Monsters Aliens Robots Zombies, Untold Studios, Atomic Arts, and Cantina Creative. The different vendors were overseen by visual effects supervisor Jason Smith.

### Music

A soundtrack album featuring composer Bear McCreary's score for the episode was released digitally on the streaming service Amazon Music on September 12, 2024. McCreary said the series' episodic albums contained "virtually every second of score" from their respective episodes. The album was added to other music streaming services after the full second season was released.
All music is composed by Bear McCreary:

## Release

"Halls of Stone" premiered on Prime Video in the United States on September 12, 2024. It was released at the same time around the world, in more than 240 countries and territories.

## Reception
### Viewership

Luminate, which gathers viewership data from smart TVs, said the series was watched for 372.7 million minutes in the week ending September 12. This was a drop of more than 50 percent from the previous week and placed it fourth on the company's chart. Selome Hailu of Variety noted that there was less new material to watch during the week, which included several days of viewership for the fourth episode in addition to the fifth episode's debut, but still felt the drop did not "bode well" for the series. Whip Media, which tracks viewership data for the 25 million worldwide users of its TV Time app, again listed the series second—behind Hulu's Only Murders in the Building—on its US streaming chart for the week ending September 15. Nielsen Media Research, which records streaming viewership on US television screens, estimated that The Rings of Power had 747 million minutes viewed in the week ending September 15. This was below the previous two weeks which both had more than 1 billion minutes viewed for the series, but good enough for it to remain the second biggest original streaming series of the week behind Netflix's The Perfect Couple. Samba TV, which also gathers viewership data from smart TVs, listed the series sixth on its chart of top streaming programs for the week ending September 15.

### Critical response

The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes calculated that 85% of 13 critics reviews were positive and the average rating for the episode was 7.1 out of 10.
Leon Miller of Polygon praised the episode as the best of the season so far and highlighted its focus on Sauron's ability to manipulate others, a key element for the character during the Second Age that is not explored in Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings or Jackson's films. He added that the episode was a "solid platform" for the rest of the season to build on. Reviewing the episode for The A.V. Club, Matt Schimkowitz graded it a "B-" and praised the performances of Vickers and Edwards. He said the episode was "a little heavy on plot and light on spectacle" and felt the main storyline was moving "a little quickly for Tolkien", but found Sauron's deception of Celebrimbor to be more fun than the first season's story due to the audience being aware of Sauron's plans. Schimkowitz also found the Númenor scenes to be effective due to "the shorthand of Kemen being a total prick", despite there being little time in the episode and season dedicated to that storyline. Samantha Nelson at IGN gave the episode 7 out of 10 and also said it was the best of the season so far, attributing this to it not including the season's Southlanders and Rhûn storylines. She praised the episode's main story and the performances of Vickers and Edwards, but thought the strength of their scenes showed how "one dimensional" the Númenor characters are.
Collider's Arezou Amin gave the episode 8 out of 10 and praised the way it brought the stakes of the season's plotlines together and focused on Sauron's manipulations of different characters. Keith Phipps of Vulture gave the episode three stars out of five and said the main storyline was compelling and intense, while the scenes in Númenor were less so and came across as simplistic with the "straight-up sneering villainous turns from Kemen and Eärien". He found the episode to be well-plotted despite inconsistencies in the time it took different characters to travel between locations. Writing for Gizmodo, James Whitbrook said the increase of pace in the episode was "a kick up the rear Rings of Power needed to get this season into high gear", but he felt it came at the expense of rushing key storylines: King Durin III becoming corrupted by his ring, Sauron's manipulations of Celebrimbor leading to his downfall, and the rising civil war in Númenor. Whitbrook partially attributed this to the showrunners' decision to condense the events of the Second Age into a short period of time, meaning events that take place over centuries in Tolkien's history have to play out far quicker in the series. He said the series needed to "find a middle-ground to actually develop its characters [or] the impact of the spectacle to come is going to be blunted".

## Companion media

An episode of the aftershow Inside The Rings of Power for "Halls of Stone" was released on September 12, 2024. It features actress Felicia Day, the host of The Official The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Podcast, interviewing the showrunners and cast members Arthur and Owen about the making of the episode, with some behind-the-scenes footage.