A battle is brewing on The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. In “Udûn,” Arondir (Ismael Cruz Cordova) and Bronwyn (Nazanin Boniadi) prepare to face Adar (Joseph Mawle) and his orc army.
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The Tower
Adar prepares his orc army for battle, but first he plants seeds. He whispers in Elvish “A new life, in defiance of death.” Among the army are the humans who pledged their loyalty to Adar. They make their way to the tower only to find that it is empty. But Arondir is waiting for them.
Arondir is alone and he has a plan. He kills many orcs with his arrows. When the orcs are in place, Arondir shoots an arrow of flame towards the tower. The flame ignites a rope causing it to break. The tower was unstable and held together by a rope. Now it falls.
Many orcs perish in the crumbling of the tower, but Adar and Waldreg (Geoff Morrell) survive. In the distance, Bronwyn and the rest of the village survivors watch the tower fall. Bronwyn knows that the remaining orc army will come for them. They are heading back to the village to prepare for a battle.
Land Ho!
Isildur (Max Baldry) wants to get a glimpse of Middle Earth before they land. Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) joins him and they chat. Isildur admits that he joined the expedition to get away from Númenor. He says ‘that place’ is not the real Númenor.
Isildur tells Galadriel his name and she recognizes him as Elendil’s (Lloyd Owen) son. The sun rises and Isildur is delighted at the sight of land. Elendil walks up and Isildur leaves. Galadriel asks what happened to Isildur’s mother. Elendil says she drowned.
Elendil reports to Queen Regent Míriel (Cynthia Addai-Robinson)and they go over their journey. He says it will take a couple of days to get to the vale. Míriel feels a sense of urgency and orders her ships to make haste.
The Last Bit of Hope
Arondir tries to break the hilt, but it only breaks his tools. So he has to hide it. Bronwyn asks where, but he says no one must know. Not even her. The villagers plug up the holes in the ground and sharpen their weapons.
Bronwyn and Arondir address the villagers. They say to wait until every orc crosses into the village to attack. The tavern will serve as the keep and those who can’t fight will be barricaded inside. The sun is setting so they have to get into position,
Theo (Tyroe Muhafidin) asks where his position is and Bronwyn sends him to the tavern. He wants to fight and that’s why she needs him to protect those inside. He asks his mother for words of protection and comfort. She hugs and kisses her son before he bids her well.
Bronwyn and Arondir sit by the well for a moment of peace. He gives her seeds and tells her to plant them. A new life in defiance of death. Arondir tells her that the elves believe that one of the Valar watches over growing things and those who tend to it. They will plant the rest when the battle is over together with Theo. Bronwyn makes Arondir promise her that they will. He makes the promise with a kiss.
Round One
The orc army arrives. As soon as Bronwyn sees the last orc enter, she attempts to light a match. The match won’t light and an orc is quickly approaching. Bronwyn kills the orc and uses his torch to light a barrel. She pushes the barrel away from her, making it light up the entrance to the village so the orcs can’t escape.
Another wheel barrel is lit on fire and pushed in front of the orcs, trapping them. Arrows begin to fly, so the orcs head for the tavern. The villagers attack the orcs before they get to the tavern and the battle begins. Arondir finds himself face-to-face with a large orc. He has a hard time fighting off the orc, and is almost defeated. Bronwyn saves him by stabbing the orc in the back.
When Arondir stands up, he looks around and sees that the villager army has defeated the orc army. Everyone sighs a breath of relief, until Arondir notices that one of the orcs is bleeding red blood. Orcs bleed black blood. He takes off the mask of the orc and finds a human underneath. The villager army were fighting their own people who had turned on them.
Round Two
Arrows begin to fly again, this time coming from the real orc army waiting outside the village. Bronwyn is hit twice. The only thing that Arondir can do is retreat. He picks up Bronwyn and tells everyone to get inside.
Theo freaks out when he sees his mother. They have to remove the arrows but that means Bronwyn will also lose a lot of blood. The only thing that they have to stop the bleeding is iron and fire. He prepares the iron while Arondir holds Bronwyn‘s hand.
Theo codifies Bronwyn’s wounds. She screams in pain and eventually passes out. Theo thinks she’s dead, and he begins to cry. Moments later, Brown takes a breath and opens her eyes. Adar arrives and the orc army descends on the tavern, breaking in.
The Hilt
Galadriel and the army from Númenor arrive in Middle Earth. They ride as fast as they can towards the Southlands.
Meanwhile, the orcs enter the tavern. Arondir tries to fight them off, but there are too many. Adar enters and asks for the hilt. Arondir says he will consider it if Adar lets the humans go. Adar wonders why Arondir would sacrifice their lives for a little thing like the hilt.
Adar turns his attention to Bronwyn. Theo tells them to wait and says he knows where the hilt is. He hid it in the floorboards. Arondir doesn’t want Theo to give it to them, but he feels he has no choice. He hands the hilt over to Adar. In the distance, they hear rumbling.
Adar goes outside and tells Waldreg that he has a task for him. The Númenor army enters the village. The orcs try to kill the villagers in the tavern while those outside start to run. Isildur watches from atop a hill where the Queen Regent waits. She takes one look at him and tells him to join the battle. Isildur arrives just in time to help his father.
Galadriel makes her way into the village and find Arondir. She asks him who the leader of the army is and he points out at Adar. Adar is getting on a horse with the hilt wrapped in cloth. Arondir tells Galadriel that Adar cannot escape with the hilt. Galadriel chases after Adar and Halbrand chases after her.
Prisoner
Galadriel gets close to catching up with Adar. Halbrand shows up in front of Adar and trips his horse, causing Adar to fall. Adar reaches for the hilt, but Halbrand stops him. Halbrand recognizes Adar and almost kills him. Galadriel stops him, saying she needs Adar alive. But she doesn’t know what he did to Haldbrand. Halbrand never says. He just walks away.
The remaining orc army and Adar are taken prisoner, put into a barn, since they are sensitive to sunlight. Galadriel recognizes Adar as one of the first elves that were taken by Morgoth. He is one of the sons of the dark, the first orcs. Adar prefers the term Uruk. She asks where Sauron is, but Adar doesn’t speak. She threatens to take the other orcs into the sunlight to make him talk.
Adar tells her that Sauron wants to heal Middle Earth, wanting to bring the land into order. He didn’t like Sauron’s methods, saying Sauron pursued a dark knowledge that hid itself from everyone. Adar sacrificed enough of his children for Sauron’s aspirations. So he killed Sauron. Galadriel doesn’t believe him.
Uruk
Adar questions why Galadriel doesn’t believe him. He and his children are just as worthy of life and a home as she is. He says the land will be theirs and then she will understand. Galadriel says Adar’s kind was a mistake made in mockery and she vows to kill them all, except Adar. Just so she can tell him that all of his children are dead.
Adar sees that he’s not the only elf alive that has been transformed by darkness. He antagonizes Galadriel for not being able to defeat Morgoth’s legacy herself. She pulls a knife and holds it to Adar’s throat. Halbrand stops her from killing him. Galadriel walks away and Halbrand follows. Before he leaves, Adar asks who he is, but Halbrand does not answer.
Halbrand finds Galadriel sitting by the river, cooling off. She thanks him for stopping her. She tells him to let go of whatever Adar did to him. Halbrand wasn’t sure he could until now. He liked fighting at her side. He wanted to hold on to the feeling. Galadriel says she felt it too.
Queen Regent Míriel summons Halbrand. He finds her talking to Bronwyn. She commends Bronwyn for her bravery and leadership. Bronwyn says that she wishes that she didn’t have to carry that burden. And the Queen Regent introduces Bronwyn to Halbrand. Bronwyn recognizes the pouch that he carries with him, and asks if he is the king that they were promised. Halbrand confirms that he is the true king of the Southlands. The entire village welcomes him home.
Udûn
Arondir tells Galadriel that the men of these lands have been waiting for their king. Galadriel says the elves have been waiting too. She gives the cloth wrapped hilt to Arondir. He sees Theo sitting alone and goes to talk to him. Theo says he feels loss. He’s talking about the hilt. When he held it, he felt powerful. Arondir tells him to rid himself of it. He gives the cloth wrapped hilt to Theo and tells him to give it to Numenor to toss into the sea when they return home. Theo opens the cloth and finds a plain ax inside.
At the tower, Waldreg has the actual hilt. He also has the symbol on his arm that activates the hilt. With Waldreg’s blood, the hilt forms into a full sword. Waldreg puts the sword into the keyhole and a gate opens, releasing water.
Isildur tries to tend to his horse’s wound. Elendil approaches and the horse calms down. Elendil says the horse senses his rider’s pain … Isildur’s pain. He knows alot about horses that he learned from Isildur’s mother. Isildur asks his father to teach him.
They hear rumbling and water starts to burst through the holes in the village. The orcs in the barn start chanting “Udûn.” Adar hears them and lays on the ground, listening to the water rush through the tunnels the orcs dug through the village. The water rushes toward the top of a volcano. The water violently hits lava, causing the volcano to erupt. Molten rocks fly through the air, hitting the village. Everyone runs for cover, some are hit with the rocks. Galadriel watches the volcano explode as black smoke approaches. She is the only one standing still when the smoke reaches the village.
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