# Elven Kings Under the Sky

"Elven Kings Under the Sky" is the first 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 Elves' reactions to their Rings of Power. It was written by Gennifer Hutchison and directed by Charlotte Brändström.
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 Brändström returning from the first season. Production on the season wrapped in June 2023.
"Elven Kings Under the Sky" premiered on the streaming service Amazon Prime Video on August 29, 2024. There was a significant drop in viewership from the first season's premiere, but viewership was still estimated to be high. The episode received generally positive reviews.

## Plot

At the dawn of the Second Age, the sorcerer Sauron declares himself to be the new Dark Lord following the defeat of his master, Morgoth. Sauron shares his plan to enslave the peoples of Middle-earth using an army of Orcs. Adar, the leader of the Orcs, and others of his kind seemingly kill Sauron. However, Sauron's spirit endures and forms a new body over thousands of years. Taking the name "Halbrand", Sauron joins a group of humans who become shipwrecked. This leads to him meeting Galadriel.
After Galadriel learns that Halbrand is Sauron and rejects his proposal to join him, she encourages the creation of three Rings of Power while Sauron travels to Mordor, a new land for Orcs ruled by Adar. Galadriel reveals Halbrand's identity to High King Gil-galad and his herald, Elrond, convincing Gil-galad that they must use the rings to restore the fading power of the Elves in preparation for a war against Sauron. Elrond objects, fearing that Sauron is manipulating them, and escapes with the rings.
In Mordor, Sauron again poses as Halbrand and is brought to Adar. After being tortured by Adar's followers, he reveals that Sauron has returned and offers to go to Eregion—the Elven realm where the rings were forged—while Adar raises his army. Waldreg, a human follower of Adar, is killed by a Warg that Sauron enthralls.
Elrond takes the rings to Círdan, the oldest and wisest Elf in Middle-earth, who agrees to throw them into a great chasm in the ocean. However, Círdan accidentally sees the rings when a wave bumps his boat and he believes they are true perfection, choosing to put one on. At the Elf-capital Lindon, Gil-galad tells the Elves that they must abandon Middle-earth to its fate, but he is interrupted by Círdan's arrival. Galadriel and Gil-galad put on the other two rings and the faded power of the Elves is restored.
The Stranger—a Wizard who is slowly regaining his memories—and the Harfoot Nori Brandyfoot get lost on their way to the land of Rhûn in the east of Middle-earth. They are followed by Nori's friend Poppy Proudfellow, who brings Harfoot maps of the area that help them find their way. They are also followed by mysterious riders. Though Gil-galad sends a messenger to warn Celebrimbor—the Elven-smith who forged the three rings—of Halbrand's true identity, Sauron arrives at the gates of Eregion first.

## 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, and Gennifer Hutchison joined as a writer by the following July. 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 first episode, titled "Elven Kings Under the Sky", was written by Hutchison and directed by Brändström. The title references a line from Tolkien's "Ring Verse" poem: "Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky".

### Casting

The season's cast includes Robert Aramayo as Elrond, Morfydd Clark as Galadriel, Charles Edwards as Celebrimbor, Ciarán Hinds as the Dark Wizard, Markella Kavenagh as Elanor "Nori" Brandyfoot, Megan Richards as Poppy Proudfellow, Charlie Vickers as Sauron, Benjamin Walker as Gil-galad, and Daniel Weyman as the Stranger. Also starring in the episode are Jack Lowden as Forodwaith Sauron, Ben Daniels as Círdan, Sam Hazeldine as Adar, Nicholas Woodeson as Diarmid, Geoff Morrell as Waldreg, Amelia Kenworthy as Mirdania, Virginie Laverdure as Abigail, Jane Montgomery Griffiths as Astrid, Berynn Schwerdt as Eamon, Robert Strange as Glüg, Zates Atour as Brânk, Jamie Bisping as Calenwë, Emily-Jane McNeill as Ídhiel, and Arkie Reece as Kilta. Adam Basil and John Macdonald play unnamed Orcs in the episode.

### 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. Alex Disenhof returned from the first season to work with Brändström as director of photography. The production wrapped in early June 2023.

### Visual effects

Visual effects for the episode were created by Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), Rodeo FX, Outpost VFX, DNEG, The Yard VFX, 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 August 29, 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

"Elven Kings Under the Sky" premiered on Prime Video in the United States on August 29, 2024. It was released at the same time around the world, in more than 240 countries and territories.

## Reception
### Viewership

Analytics company Samba TV—which gathers viewership data from three million smart TVs, weighted based on the US census—calculated that the episode was viewed by 902,000 US households in its first four days. This was a significant drop from the premiere episode of the first season, which Samba found to be viewed by 1.8 million US households in its first three days. The series was in seventh place on Samba's list of top streaming programs for the week ending September 1. Luminate, which also gathers viewership data from smart TVs, said the first three episodes were watched for 63.2 million minutes on their first day of release, and for 553.5 million minutes over the following four-day Labor Day weekend. Whip Media, which tracks viewership data for the 25 million worldwide users of its TV Time app, listed the series second—behind Hulu's Only Murders in the Building—on its US streaming chart for the week ending September 1. Nielsen Media Research, which records streaming viewership on US television screens, estimated that The Rings of Power had 1.02 billion minutes viewed in the week ending September 1. Around 70 percent of those were for the second season's first three episodes. It was the top original streaming series of the week, second overall streaming series behind Prison Break, and the third biggest debut for Prime Video in 2024 behind Fallout (2.9 billion minutes) and The Boys (1.19 billion). The number was 19 percent lower than Nielsen's calculation for the opening week of the first season (1.25 billion minutes).

### Critical response

The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes calculated that 86% of 14 critics reviews were positive and the average rating for the episode was 7.6 out of 10.
Keith Phipps at Vulture gave the episode three stars out of five and called it a "pretty compelling season premiere". He praised the visuals and the cast, felt the episode was successful in outlining the overall story for the rest of the season, and said the action moments indicated a "more kinetic season than the first". He thought some viewers would be frustrated by the episode falling into the same rhythms as the first season and also criticized the fact that the episode did not work as a standalone installment. Arezou Amin of Collider gave the episode 7 out of 10 and called it "a densely packed episode with no shortage of big moments". She questioned the decision to release the season's first three episodes at once, feeling there was so much in the first episode that it would have benefitted from giving the audience a week to think about it before releasing the next episode. Amin said Galadriel and Elrond's storyline was the strongest and most emotional of the episode, and also praised the backstory given to Sauron as well as the reunion of Nori and Poppy. She criticized the amount of exposition in some scenes.
Writing for Gizmodo, James Whitbrook said the episode did a "noble job" catching up the audience on key plotlines from the first season, and highlighted Vickers work as Sauron in the episode. He felt the audience's knowledge this season that Vickers is portraying Sauron worked well for scenes where he interacts with other characters in disguise. On the other hand, Whitbrook criticized the extended drama of Elrond running with the rings and attempting to destroy them considering the audience is aware that the three rings will not be destroyed. Matt Schimkowitz at The A.V. Club said the series returned "more steadfast in its ways" with a lot of heart and more nuance than the first season. He particularly praised the focus on Sauron, but was less positive about Hazeldine taking over as Adar; he felt the first season's Joseph Mawle brought more gravitas to the role. Schimkowitz also felt the arrival of Poppy too closely mirrored the arrivals of Merry Brandybuck and Pippin Took in Jackson's films, saying "Rings of Power's over-reliance on Jackson's cinematic language can get tiresome".
Leon Miller of Polygon felt the episode was "more of the same" from the first season, with some changes from Tolkien's lore that worked in context and others that did not. He appreciated the "attention-grabbing" opening sequence, feeling it was a response to the slow start of the first season, and highlighted Adar's role as a supporting villain. Miller felt the central storyline of the coming war between the Elves and Sauron was not as "narratively interesting or thematically rich" as the showrunners thought it was, but he found the episode to be "inexplicably watchable" and thought the same would hold true for all but the "most die-hard Tolkien truthers".

## Companion media

An episode of the aftershow Inside The Rings of Power for "Elven Kings Under the Sky" was released on August 29, 2024. It features actress Felicia Day, the host of The Official The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Podcast, interviewing cast members Walker and Vickers about the making of the episode, with some behind-the-scenes footage.