"Udûn" is the sixth 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 Nicholas Adams, Justin Doble, and showrunners J. D. Payne and Patrick McKay, and directed by Charlotte Brändström.
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. Brändström was revealed to be directing two episodes of the season that May, including the sixth. Production wrapped for the season in August 2021. The episode-long battle for the Southlands is the culmination of several character arcs, bringing key characters together for the first time and featuring them in multiple action sequences. It ends with the eruption of Mount Doom, created through visual effects, which turns the Southlands into the dark land of Mordor.
"Udûn" premiered on the streaming service Amazon Prime Video on September 30, 2022. It was estimated to have high viewership and received positive reviews, with praise for its narrative focus and the execution of the action sequences. Multiple critics found it to be the best episode of the season. "Udûn" received several awards and nominations, including a Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Award nomination for its sound editing and two wins at the 21st Visual Effects Society Awards.
Plot An army of Orcs and their leader, Adar, march on the tower of Ostirith searching for humans from the village of Tirharad. They find the tower abandoned, and Arondir triggers a booby-trap that collapses it on many of the Orcs. The humans, who are back in Tirharad, celebrate. Meanwhile, Galadriel and Halbrand make their way towards the Southlands by ship with Queen Regent Míriel of Númenor and her soldiers. Galadriel meets Isildur and learns from his father, Elendil, that Isildur's mother drowned.
Arondir attempts to destroy the broken sword that the Orcs are seeking, but is unable to with conventional tools. He tells Bronwyn that he is going to hide it as Theo watches on. Arondir helps the town prepare for the next assault. He professes his love to Bronwyn and promises a life together with her and Theo after the battle. That night, the Orcs enter Tirharad. The Southlanders trap and kill them, but soon realize that many of the enemies they just killed were actually humans who joined Adar.
Orc archers shoot at the Southlanders, killing and wounding many. The survivors retreat inside the tavern where Theo and Arondir cauterize a serious wound on Bronwyn's shoulder. Adar and the Orcs enter the tavern and demand the broken sword, killing more people and threatening Bronwyn. Theo reveals that he knows where Arondir hid the sword and gives it to Adar. The latter orders the rest of the humans to be killed, but is interrupted when the Númenóreans arrive on horseback. Adar gives Waldreg a task before attempting to flee; he is chased down and captured by Galadriel and Halbrand. The Númenóreans kill or capture the remaining Orcs.
Galadriel interrogates Adar, discovering that he is an Elf who was corrupted by the first Dark Lord, Morgoth, and turned into one of the first Orcs. He claims to have killed the second Dark Lord, Sauron, and is now focused on creating a home for all Orcs. A celebration is held where Halbrand is hailed as the King of the Southlands. Theo realizes that the broken sword is missing: Waldreg has it, and uses it to unlock the dam beside Ostirith. Water rushes through the Orcs' tunnels to the mountain Orodruin, entering a magma chamber beneath the mountain. The resulting pressure causes an eruption that covers the Southlands in lava, ash, and smoke.
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. Justin Doble joined the series as a writer by July 2019, and Charlotte Brändström was set to direct two episodes of the first season by May 2021. 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. Amazon said in September 2019 that the first season would be filmed in New Zealand, where Jackson's films were made.
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. The first season focuses on introducing the setting and major heroic characters to the audience. Written by Nicholas Adams, Doble, Payne, and McKay, and directed by Brändström, the sixth episode is titled "Udûn".
Writing
The showrunners wanted to explore the Second Age in surprising ways and then show an evolution to the way things are in the Third Age. An example of this is the eruption of Mount Doom which turns the Southlands into the dark land of Mordor. McKay said the writers wanted to have a "major centerpiece moment that we hoped would kind of brand the show", and said the eruption was supported by references in Tolkien's writings to the volcano going dormant for centuries and then reawakening. Environmentalism is a key theme in Tolkien's works, and the showrunners felt it was appropriate that Mordor be a corrupted version of a once beautiful land just as the Orcs are corrupted versions of Elves.
The episode depicts a plan by the Orcs and their leader, Adar, to unlock a dam and send water rushing through tunnels to set off the volcanic eruption. The mechanics of this are "loosely based" on the real world physics of what would happen if a large amount of water entered the magma chamber under a volcano, as explained by writer Gennifer Hutchison's father who is a geologist. The showrunners said the plan to ignite the volcano was put together by Sauron on the orders of the first Dark Lord, Morgoth, to create a land where their forces could retreat to in the event of defeat. Adar has co-opted that plan for his own purposes, which is to give his "children"—the Orcs—a home of their own. This aligns with Tolkien's idea that evil can only corrupt, not create, with Morgoth intending to corrupt an existing land for his forces, Sauron cruelly enlisting the Southlanders to build the dam that will one day lead to their home's destruction, and Adar "corrupting" their plans into one of his own. The writers considered beginning the episode with a cold open that showed Adar's backstory with Sauron, but they decided that there was not enough time to do the sequence justice; it was used as the cold open of the second-season premiere, "Elven Kings Under the Sky", instead. Adar prefers the term "Uruk" instead of "Orc" when referring to himself and his followers. "Uruk" is the name for Orcs in Black Speech, one of Tolkien's constructed languages. The character's preference was inspired by Adar actor Joseph Mawle, who personally disliked the word "Orc" being used on set even outside of filming. The episode's title, "Udûn", is the word for "hell" in Sindarin, one of Tolkien's Elvish constructed languages. "Udûn" later becomes the name of a valley in northwest Mordor, where the episode takes place.
Since early writing work in 2018, the writers knew that the sixth episode would be the culmination of key character arcs for the first season, including those of Galadriel, Elendil, Isildur, Arondir, and Bronwyn. The writers' room had a board tracking the season's major characters and many of them had a pink card with a volcano on it, reflecting that the eruption is the major event of the season that impacts many lives. Despite the episode being very action-heavy, the showrunners liked the quieter character scenes that it includes such as Galadriel's discussions with Isildur and Elendil, and the scene where Arondir and Bronwyn plant seeds before the battle begins. The latter is reflected by Adar doing the same at the start of the episode, showing that he still follows some Elvish customs. The seeds that Arondir and Bronwyn plant are the same seeds that Bronwyn gave to Arondir in the first episode, "A Shadow of the Past", and Arondir uses some of them later in the episode to help heal Bronwyn after she is wounded. It was important to the showrunners that the episode have strong emotional stakes rather than just be about action sequences and special effects. They felt the audience would care about the fighting because they already cared about the family of Bronwyn, Theo, and Arondir.
The showrunners acknowledged that the scene between Galadriel and Halbrand late in the episode, where they discuss how they feel fighting together, could be perceived as romantic. However, they hoped by the end of the season that audiences would interpret it more as an acknowledgement that the two characters feel they are at their best when they work together. Earlier in the episode, Bronwyn comforts Theo by telling him that "this shadow is but a small and passing thing". This line is based on a similar one from The Lord of the Rings when the characters Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee are making their way through Mordor. That is McKay's favorite Tolkien moment and he felt it was "fair game" to use because it was not included in Jackson's films.
Casting
The season's cast includes Cynthia Addai-Robinson as Míriel, Maxim Baldry as Isildur, Nazanin Boniadi as Bronwyn, Morfydd Clark as Galadriel, Ismael Cruz Córdova as Arondir, Tyroe Muhafidin as Theo, Lloyd Owen as Elendil, and Charlie Vickers as Halbrand. Also starring in the episode are Joseph Mawle as Adar, Geoff Morrell as Waldreg, Peter Tait as Tredwill, Anthony Crum as Ontamo, Alex Tarrant as Valandil, and Phil Grieve as Bazur. Jesse Turner, Mike Homick, Robert Strange, Jed Brophy, Edward Clendon, Luke Hawker, Ellyce Bisson, Rob Mackinnon, Hori Ahipene, and Tim McLachlan play unnamed Orcs in the episode.
Filming and design