"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.
Plot 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 seeing stone 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.
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. Gennifer Hutchison joined the series as a writer by July 2019, and Wayne Che Yip was set to direct four episodes of the first season by March 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 Hutchison, Payne, and McKay, and directed by Yip, the eighth episode is titled "Alloyed".
Writing The episode reveals that the human character Halbrand is actually the Dark Lord Sauron in disguise, 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. 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. Alternate scripts were written, and the real finale script was given to the actors with large sections redacted, to hide the big reveals.
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. "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. 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 Great Wave", 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. Actor Charlie Vickers acknowledged that the one time Halbrand is alone in the season, during "Partings", 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. 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. 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.
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. 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. The showrunners noted that when the two characters come together in this episode, they reflect on their interactions in the premiere, "A Shadow of the Past", where Elrond encouraged Galadriel to leave Middle-earth. 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.
The showrunners believed the series would not feel like Middle-earth without Wizards, 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. One version of Tolkien's history has the two Blue Wizards arrive in Middle-earth during the Second Age, so the showrunners used that as the basis to include the Stranger. 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). 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.
Casting
The season's cast includes Cynthia Addai-Robinson as Míriel, Robert Aramayo as Elrond, Morfydd Clark as Galadriel, Charles Edwards as Celebrimbor, Trystan Gravelle as Pharazôn, Lenny Henry as Sadoc Burrows, Ema Horvath as Eärien, Markella Kavenagh as Elanor "Nori" Brandyfoot, Lloyd Owen as Elendil, Megan Richards as Poppy Proudfellow, Dylan Smith as Largo Brandyfoot, Charlie Vickers as Halbrand, Leon Wadham as Kemen, Benjamin Walker as Gil-galad, Daniel Weyman as the Stranger, and Sara Zwangobani as Marigold Brandyfoot. 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.
Design