What RINGS OF POWER Season 2 Teaches Us About Leading With Courage
By Movieguide® Contributor
THE RINGS OF POWER’s royal cast is opening up with Movieguide® about Season 2 and what they’re reminded of when it comes to leadership and sacrifice.
“You certainly think about leaders throughout history, you know? Be they queens, kings, prime ministers, presidents because they all are in this very unique position,” said Cynthia Addai-Robinson about her role as Queen Regent Miriel in the show. “Obviously, all very different contexts, different circumstances, but I always thought about, you know, that sort of top tier of society where it’s a very small circle and that that circle of concentration, it just shrinks and potentially it can be that question of like, ‘Do you have reliable people around you? Who can you trust?’”
“It’s lonely at the top. It can be very isolated, and so I often thought about those things, but there wasn’t necessarily tapping into any one figure or sort of using that in a way [of example],” she told Movieguide®. “It was more about…thinking through the idea about emotionally kind of what is that like what would that be like and obviously, many leaders throughout history have written their own autobiographies and have diaries and there’s plenty to mine from sort of like the thought process of various world leaders.”
Benjamin Walker, who plays High King Gil-Galad, believes much of a leader’s job is “herding cats,” but it’s also a parental role.
“There’s something about kind of being a loving parent in the sense that you’re parenting teenagers and you know what you have to do is going to be unpopular and they’re going to fight against it, but it is for the better good of your people and especially for someone like Gil-Galad, who’s been alive for thousands of years, he has the experience to back up his decision,” he told Movieguide®. “But also has to have the grace to allow for mistakes and growth of those who serve under him, and so certainly, there’s a lot to glean from past leaders, and there’s also a lot to glean from Tolkien. The source material is the best material, frankly.”
Addai-Robinson’s character suffers from blindness. The actress instinctively knew how that disability should be portrayed as a strong monarch.
“I was keenly aware of wanting to make sure that it was never about a situation of pity and that it was really about ‘I accept this situation’ and ‘I will continue to lead and I will continue to be the leader that my people deserve,’ and so it was very important to me that it, you know, when she found herself in that situation, that it didn’t diminish her. You know, the people have doubt toward her because she lost a battle, you know,” she explained. “It isn’t necessarily ultimately her blindness, but it’s more that you know she still has to be a public-facing figure and a leader and maintain that strength on their behalf.”
“But I did think a lot about, you know, when your vision is sort of taken from you, how you sort of turn inward and that your inner life is rich, and there’s a lot of inner turmoil for Miriel this season,” she continued. “So you know, I love sort of what the showrunners have laid out for her for Season 2 and how she navigates all of the challenges ahead, you know, with her loss of vision, but also with I believe a newfound strength as well.”
In the show, the elves have the option to live in eternal paradise, but many of the elves stay back on Middle Earth. Walker thinks of it like a sacrifice, similar to the sacrifice that parents make.
“You have to remember especially for the elves, when you’ve lived so long, to see everyone you know and love die over and over again the question becomes how do you muster the strength to love? How do you muster hope? And…these are the elves that…chose to remain in Middle Earth when presented with paradise,” he said. “They said, ‘No I’ll just stay on this dirty rock where everything that lives here wants to kill each other. This will be fun.’”
“And there’s something beautiful about that, not unlike the metaphor of being a parent,” he continued. “I’m going to fail at this. I’ve never met a parent who aced it, but love and hope is the reason that you do it — that I’m going to take what I was given and build off of that and then give the foundation for those that come after me to build off of that. I can’t think of anything more loving, and it’s that’s quintessentially Tolkien.”
“And also… over time, we get better if we pay forward the love and hope that was given to us, and I think that’s self-evident in our show. I think that’s self-evident in the books, and I wish it were more self-evident in our daily lives,” he said.
Season 2 carries some darker themes than Season 1, and Gil-Galad is frustrated that the problems Middle Earth faces were preventable.
“His issue is not only with potentially having to abandon Middle-earth, but his relationships and how he’s trusted his most trustworthy hands,” Walker told The Wrap.
Movieguide®’s review of THE RINGS OF POWER: Episode 2.2 reads:
Episode Two of RINGS OF POWER: Season Two is one of the program’s best episodes. Posing as Halbrand, the evil Sauron visits Celebrimbor (“Kella-brim-bore”). He uses deception to seduce the elf lord to make nine rings of power for men. Meanwhile, Galadriel hears that Sauron is on his way to visit Celebrimbor’s city. She appeals to the Elf King to let her go there to confront him, but the King is reluctant. Also, the dwarves in Khazad-dûm face a deadly new threat. Finally, five evil henchmen from an evil wizard threaten the lives of the Stranger and his two hobbit companions.
Episode Two of RINGS OF POWER: Season Two is extremely well-written. The episode expertly brings out strong Christian, moral themes. It promotes guarding against evil, temptation and gossip. It also extols wisdom, humility, repentance, forgiveness, fighting evil, and protecting life. There’s even a profound beautiful reference to God as the omniscient “Judge who sees all.” However, Episode Two of RINGS OF POWER: Season Two has some scary malevolent characters and brief but intense action violence. So, MOVIEGUIDE® advises caution for older children.
The show’s co-showrunner Patrick McKay said there might be a Season 3 after Season 2’s results come in. He previously hinted, “All we can say is, we’re working on it. We’re cooking. Let us cook!”
