Alloyed (The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power)

"Alloyed"
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power episode
Cover art for the episode's soundtrack album
Episode no.	Season 1 Episode 8
Directed by	Wayne Che Yip
Written by	Gennifer Hutchison J. D. Payne Patrick McKay
Featured music	"Where the Shadows Lie" by Fiona Apple
Cinematography by	Aaron Morton
Editing by	Stefan Grube Cheryl Potter
Original release date	October 14, 2022 (2022-10-14)
Running time	72 minutes
Additional cast
Ken Blackburn as Tar-Palantir Alex Tarrant as Valandil Will Fletcher as Finrod Thusitha Jayasundera as Malva Maxine Cunliffe as Vilma Beau Cassidy as Dilly Brandyfoot Bridie Sisson as the Dweller Edith Poor as the Nomad Kali Kopae as the Ascetic
Episode chronology
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The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season 1
List of episodes

"Alloyed" is the eighth and final episode of the first 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). The episode is set thousands of years before the novel in Middle-earth's Second Age. It was written by Gennifer Hutchison and showrunners J. D. Payne and Patrick McKay, and directed by Wayne Che Yip.

The series was ordered in November 2017. Payne and McKay were set to develop it in July 2018. Filming for the first season took place in New Zealand, and work on episodes beyond the first two began in January 2021. Yip was revealed to be directing four episodes of the season that March, including the eighth. Production wrapped for the season in August 2021. The episode reveals that Halbrand (Charlie Vickers) is the Dark Lord Sauron in disguise, and that the Stranger (Daniel Weyman) is a Wizard. It also introduces the first Rings of Power, represented in composer Bear McCreary's score by the song "Where the Shadows Lie" which is sung by Fiona Apple during the end credits.

"Alloyed" premiered on the streaming service Amazon Prime Video on October 14, 2022. It was estimated to have high viewership and received generally positive reviews. The episode received several awards and nominations.

Nori Brandyfoot, Poppy Proudfellow, Marigold Brandyfoot, and Sadoc Burrows search for the Stranger in the Greenwood, but he is first found by the three mysterious women known as the Dweller, the Nomad, and the Ascetic. They tell him that he is their Lord Sauron, and plan to restore his memories and power.

Galadriel arrives in Eregion with the gravely injured Halbrand as Celebrimbor decides that they do not have enough mithril to save the Elves. Halbrand begins to recover and grows interested in Celebrimbor's work. He suggests they combine the mithril with other elements to create a small object that would give them power over the seen and unseen worlds. High King Gil-galad is against this but Galadriel convinces him that it is worth trying. Still, she grows suspicious of Halbrand and asks for records on his lineage.

With King Tar-Palantir growing ill, Chancellor Pharazôn organizes members of the Númenórean Builders' Guild to begin designing his tomb. Eärien is given an hour by the king's bed to plan a design, during which the king awakes and mistakes her for his daughter, the Queen Regent Míriel. He leads Eärien up his tower to the palantír (crystal ball) and warns her not to look at the visions it shows for too long. The king dies soon afterward, before Míriel and Elendil return from Middle-earth.

The Harfoots attempt to rescue the Stranger from the women and Sadoc is killed. The Stranger regains some of his memories and uses the Dweller's magic staff to banish the women to the unseen world. Before they go, they realize that he is an Istar. Nori, Marigold, and Poppy return with the Stranger to the other Harfoots where he explains that Istar means Wizard, and he needs to travel east to the land of Rhûn to learn more about his powers and purpose. Nori decides to go with him.

Halbrand and Celebrimbor plan to create two small, circular objects. Galadriel receives records on the Kings of the Southlands and realizes that Halbrand is lying. She confronts him and he reveals himself to be Sauron. He asks her to rule Middle-earth at his side and flees to Mordor when she refuses. Galadriel keeps this secret and encourages Celebrimbor to move forward with three objects instead of two. Elrond finds the records and deduces what happened, but too late: three Rings of Power are forged.

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.^[1] It was later titled The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.^[2] Amazon hired J. D. Payne and Patrick McKay to develop the series and serve as showrunners in July 2018.^[3][4] Gennifer Hutchison joined the series as a writer by July 2019,^[4] and Wayne Che Yip was set to direct four episodes of the first season by March 2021.^[5] 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.^[6] Despite this, the showrunners intended for it to be visually consistent with the films.^[7] Amazon said in September 2019 that the first season would be filmed in New Zealand, where Jackson's films were made.^[8]

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.^[9] 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.^[7] The first season focuses on introducing the setting and major heroic characters to the audience.^[7][10] Written by Hutchison, Payne, and McKay, and directed by Yip, the eighth episode is titled "Alloyed".^[11]

The episode reveals that the human character Halbrand is actually the Dark Lord Sauron in disguise,^[12] and also that the Stranger is an Istar (Wizard). For the latter, dialogue references a line spoken by the Wizard Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings, but the episode does not confirm which Wizard the character is.^[13] When asked whether they wanted the revelations about Sauron and the Stranger to be surprise twists for the audience or inevitable reveals, the showrunners said they were more interested in the character dynamics than the specific reveal of who each of those characters are. They hoped that audiences would re-watch the season and feel that it is clear who each character is through their interactions with other characters.^[14] Alternate scripts were written,^[15] and the real finale script was given to the actors with large sections redacted, to hide the big reveals.^[16]

Based on a line of dialogue from The Lord of the Rings where Galadriel says "I know [Sauron's] mind, and he gropes ever to know mine", the writers inferred that the two characters could have met before and wanted to explore that idea by having Sauron appear in disguise throughout the season.^[14] "Halbrand", the lost king of the Southlands who can unite his people against the Orcs, was designed to be the exact person that Galadriel needs to achieve her goals.^{[17]: 2:21–38:35} Some of his dialogue is repurposed lines that Tolkien wrote for Galadriel, including "the tides of fate are flowing" which is his first line in the series. The rest of his dialoge has double meaning to be "true to a certain extent" for Sauron. In the fourth episode, Halbrand tells Galadriel that "the way you beat your enemies is to figure out what they need and figure out how to give it to them" which is what he does to her in the season.^[18] Actor Charlie Vickers acknowledged that the one time Halbrand is alone in the season, during the fifth episode, he appears to be truly conflicted about going with Galadriel to Middle-earth. However, the actor considered an alternative explanation when filming that scene: the Valar could be watching and Sauron is trying to deceive them as well.^{[19]: 4:46–13:10} The final confrontation between Galadriel and Sauron in this episode repeats more dialogue that Galadriel says in The Lord of the Rings when she is tempted by Sauron's One Ring.^[14] Sauron discusses wanting to bring order to Middle-earth, which is how Tolkien described the character's motivations during the Second Age. Vickers felt Sauron's offer to make Galadriel his queen was not a romantic proposal and came from a place of wanting to use her.^{[19]: 4:46–13:10}

Though the Rings of Power for Elves were made after those for Men and Dwarves in Tolkien's history, the writers chose to follow the order used in the "Ring Verse" poem which starts with those for the Elves.^{[17]: 2:21–38:35 [20]} They wanted the season to justify the "Faustian deal" that the Elves accept when they make the rings. Galadriel and Elrond go on separate journeys throughout the season: Elrond attempts to reverse the Elves' fading power in Middle-earth with mithril while Galadriel gathers an army to fight the forces of evil. When they both fail, they turn to the creation of the Rings of Power out of desperation.^{[21]: 1:48–3:37} The showrunners noted that when the two characters come together in this episode, they reflect on their interactions in the first episode where Elrond encouraged Galadriel to leave Middle-earth.^{[17]: 2:21–38:35} A piece of mithril from Elrond's storyline and metal from Galadriel's dagger—representing her brother and her hunt for Sauron—are both used in the creation of the three Elven rings. McKay said these two elements added an emotional grounding to the rings and symbolized the end of those two character arcs.^[18]

The showrunners believed the series would not feel like Middle-earth without Wizards,^[22] and wanted to have a "Tolkienian relationship" between a Wizard and a halfling similar to Gandalf and Frodo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings.^[18] One version of Tolkien's history has the two Blue Wizards arrive in Middle-earth during the Second Age,^[23] so the showrunners used that as the basis to include the Stranger.^[22] One of the central themes for the series that the showrunners set early in the writing process was the idea that being good is a choice. They noted that there is precedence for Wizards to turn to evil in Tolkien's stories and so it was a big moment for them in the finale to have the Stranger declare "I am good". This scene was inspired by the end of the film The Iron Giant (1999).^[14] The episode is the first time that the Stranger is able to speak clearly in the common tongue. Star Daniel Weyman worked with dialect coach Leith McPherson to settle on an accent for the character that felt appropriate for a powerful Maiar being, but also included "a little twinge of the Irish lilt" that the Harfoots speak with.^[15][22]

The season's cast includes Cynthia Addai-Robinson as Míriel,^[24] Robert Aramayo as Elrond, Morfydd Clark as Galadriel, Charles Edwards as Celebrimbor,^[25] Trystan Gravelle as Pharazôn,^[24] Lenny Henry as Sadoc Burrows,^[26] Ema Horvath as Eärien,^[24] Markella Kavenagh as Elanor "Nori" Brandyfoot,^[27] Lloyd Owen as Elendil,^[24] Megan Richards as Poppy Proudfellow,^[26] Dylan Smith as Largo Brandyfoot,^[28] Charlie Vickers as Halbrand,^[25] Leon Wadham as Kemen,^[24] Benjamin Walker as Gil-galad,^[29] Daniel Weyman as the Stranger,^[27] and Sara Zwangobani as Marigold Brandyfoot.^[28] Also starring in the episode are Ken Blackburn as Tar-Palantir, Alex Tarrant as Valandil, Will Fletcher as Finrod, Thusitha Jayasundera as Malva, Maxine Cunliffe as Vilma, Beau Cassidy as Dilly Brandyfoot, Bridie Sisson as the Dweller, Edith Poor as the Nomad, and Kali Kopae as the Ascetic.^[30]

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the design team was unable to bring in extra help and resources from outside New Zealand once production was underway. This forced them to cut back on some plans for later episodes, including Celebrimbor's forge which production designer Ramsey Avery originally intended to be a full new set. He and his team instead repurposed an existing set that had been used for the Númenórean dungeon and Hall of Lore in earlier episodes. Avery said they did this "kind of at the last minute".^[31] He and the design team talked to real ring makers in Auckland and took lessons on how rings are created in real life. Avery noted that this is usually done by casting the ring from a mold, which is different from illustrations of how the rings are forged in Tolkien's works that tend to show someone hammering the metal into shape. The designers worked to come up with a compromise between Tolkien's descriptions and the reality of creating rings, plus the showrunners still wanted the sequence to feel magical in some ways. The triskelion-shaped prop that is used in the creation of the rings was inspired by traditional Celtic designs. There was not enough time to make the forge set and props fire-proof, so the only fire seen in the sequence was either filmed separately or created by the visual effects team.^{[32]: 20:00–23:00}

Production on episodes beyond the first two began in January 2021,^[33][34] under the working title Untitled Amazon Project or simply UAP,^[35] following an extended filming break that began due to the COVID-19 pandemic.^[36] Yip confirmed that he had begun filming his episodes by March.^[5] Aaron Morton was the director of photography for Yip's episodes.^[37] Clark and Vickers had many discussions about the sequence in which Halbrand is revealed to be Sauron, but it was not until they started filming that Clark saw Vickers's Sauron performance. Clark compared the sequence to Shakespearean performance. It was filmed over three weeks,^[38] including two days for the scene where Galadriel confronts Halbrand by a stream. Around 3,000 plants were added by the series' greens team for those days, many of which were grown out of season.^[39] Filming for the season wrapped on August 2.^[40]

Visual effects for the episode were created by Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), Wētā FX, Method Studios, Rodeo FX, DNEG, Outpost VFX, Cause and FX, Atomic Arts, and Cantina Creative.^[30][41] The different vendors were overseen by visual effects supervisor Jason Smith.^[42] Rodeo handled much of the Harfoot storyline, including environment augmentation, scale work, and fire and magic effects.^[43] When the Stranger vanquishes the three Mystics, they briefly appear to be "skeletal, spectral figures" similar to how the Nazgûl appear in the unseen world in Jackson's Lord of the Rings films. Payne confirmed that this is how the Mystics appear in the unseen world and McKay added, "We're riffing on the visual language of that".^[18] Cause and FX contributed to various effects throughout the season, and were entrusted with the final scene in which Sauron enters Mordor. The company created a digital matte painting of the Mordor environment, added effects for the erupting Mount Doom and general atmosphere, and then combined those with the live-action elements to complete the sequence.^[44]

Outpost VFX was responsible for the forging of the rings, and looked at a lot of references for molten metal and different liquids combining. They were able to see the series' title announcement video, which features macro photography of real molten metal being poured, before it was officially released. For shots where the camera movement was motivated by the pouring of molten metal, the actors had been filmed pouring shampoo. Other shots were filmed with no reference liquid. Outpost visual effects supervisor Richard Clegg said a challenge of making digital molten metal look realistic was getting the interaction of light correct, because the metal is a light source itself but also forms a crust that other light interacts with. He also said the addition of mithril to the molten metal was difficult to make realistic due to it being a magical process; they noticed that when it is first added, the mithril forms a shape similar to the Eye of Sauron. There were discussions about how much to lean into this imagery versus keeping it subtle. The company augmented the scene with coals and flames, and adjusted the practical lighting to more correctly show the high exposure on the camera that the molten metal would create. Three artists worked on the 20-shot sequence for two months, which Clegg said was not much time for such complex work.^[45] Physical rings were made for the end of the sequence but these were enhanced with visual effects. Producer Ron Ames explained, "No ring that we could have built practically would have been special enough".^[46]

Composer Bear McCreary began work in July 2021,^[47] and started by composing the main themes for the series.^[48] He wrote an "anthem" for each culture and then created individual character themes that relate to their culture's music in different ways.^[49] At the time, McCreary asked the showrunners to tell him Sauron's true identity in the series so he could plan the music accordingly. They allowed him to read the finale's script early and he was able to compose the themes for Sauron and Halbrand with the reveal in mind. McCreary wrote Halbrand's theme so playing it backwards or inverting the musical notes would turn it into Sauron's theme. The two themes are not heard together until this episode, to hide the connection between them.^[50] McCreary also asked the showrunners whether the Stranger would turn out to be a hero or a villain, which allowed him to make that character's theme more ominous at the beginning of the season before becoming more heroic in this episode.^[51]

In addition to the themes that McCreary had been using throughout the season, this episode introduces a new ostinato that he called the "Forging Theme" that can be heard in scenes related to forging the rings.^[50] A theme titled "Where the Shadows Lie" was introduced during the end credits of the first episode, and McCreary used a chord progression from that theme to represent Celebrimbor and mithril during the season. This episode reveals that "Where the Shadows Lie" is McCreary's theme for the Rings of Power and it is actually a song, featuring the text of Tolkien's Ring Verse poem as lyrics. McCreary had wanted to compose a similar song to those heard during the credits of Jackson's films and settled on the idea of creating a "haunting melody" for the Ring Verse poem that could be used during the finale's end credits. He described this as a "side project" that he kept secret from the showrunners for months. They and Amazon were enthusiastic about the song after hearing a demo that McCreary played for them, and they wanted to get a "world-class artist" to sing the final version. McCreary and the showrunners all said they were longtime fans of Fiona Apple, who was hired to sing the song, and praised her performance. McCreary felt she "brought new depths and narrative intention to the song".^[50][52]

The version of "Where the Shadows Lie" featuring Fiona Apple was released digitally by Amazon Music on October 7, 2022.^[52] Amazon also released a soundtrack album featuring McCreary's score for the episode on October 14;^[53] McCreary said the album contained "virtually every second of score" from the episode.^[54] A CD featuring the music from the episode is included in a limited edition box set collection of the first season's music from Mondo, Amazon Music, and McCreary's label Sparks and Shadows. The box set was released on April 26, 2024, and includes a journal written by McCreary which details the creation of the episode's score.^[55]

"Alloyed" premiered on Prime Video in the United States on October 14, 2022. It was released at the same time around the world,^[56] in more than 240 countries and territories.^[57] For two weeks leading up to the premiere of the second season on August 29, 2024, the episode was made available for free on the streaming service Samsung TV Plus in the US, Canada, Brazil, the United Kingdom, and Germany.^[58]

Whip Media, which tracks viewership data for the 21 million worldwide users of its TV Time app, calculated that for the week ending October 16, two days after the episode's debut, The Rings of Power remained the second-highest original streaming series for US viewership, behind Disney+'s She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.^[59] JustWatch, a guide to streaming content with access to data from more than 20 million users around the world, placed the series third on its list of top 10 streaming series in the US for the week ending October 16.^[60] Nielsen Media Research, which records streaming viewership on US television screens, estimated that the series was watched for 1.1 billion minutes during the week ending October 16. This was an increase with the finale's release, moving the series up to second-place on the company's list of top streaming series and films, behind only Netflix's The Watcher.^[61] Parrot Analytics determines audience "demand expressions" based on various data sources, including social media activity and comments on rating platforms. During the week ending October 21, the company calculated that The Rings of Power was 43.4 times more in demand than the average US streaming series, a 10 percent increase that moved it up to second on the company's top 10 list for the week.^[62]

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The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes calculated that 85% of 26 critics reviews were positive and the average rating for the episode was 8 out of 10. The website's critics consensus reads, "The Rings of Power's central mystery is finally answered in 'Alloyed', a finale that is by turns sumptuous and staid while hinting at a more propulsive story to come."^[63]

An episode of the official aftershow Deadline's Inside the Ring: LOTR: The Rings of Power for "Alloyed" was released on October 15, 2022. Hosted by Deadline Hollywood's Dominic Patten and Anthony D'Alessandro, it features exclusive "footage and insights" for the episode, plus interviews with Vickers, Payne, McKay, executive producer Lindsey Weber, Yip, and McCreary.^[19][67] On October 14, The Official The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Podcast was released on Amazon Music. Hosted by actress Felicia Day, the eighth episode is dedicated to "Alloyed" and features Payne and McKay.^[17][68] On November 21, a bonus segment featuring behind-the-scenes footage from the episode was added to Prime Video's X-Ray feature as part of a series titled "The Making of The Rings of Power".^[39][69]

• "Alloyed" at IMDb