Amazon's Lord Of The Rings: 10 Crucial Second Age Events It Must Include

In the years before this story takes place, Númenor has been kind of isolationist, content to be its own island paradise and let the rest of Middle-earth go to ruin (shades of Black Panther there, another of the most enormously successful recent screen fantasies).

At first, therefore, Sauron (the big bad here, as ever in the movies) would be a largely distant threat in the show. His growing power over Middle-earth would be something happening far away and that doesn't immediately concern the Númenóreans who have their own political affairs to deal with.

Ar-Pharazôn changes all that, however. In a mix of a show of force and a genuine desire to liberate the common folk of Middle-earth from the rule of Mordor, Pharazôn leads an enormous army in a march on the dark kingdom and, seeing the might of Pharazôn's forces, Sauron surprisingly surrenders.

This would be a great season finale, building up to an enormous clash between Pharazôn, a character thus far largely presented as an antagonist, and the greatest villain from all the previous movies.

We'd get to return to an army marching on the Black Gate just like the end of the last Lord Of The Rings movie, only this time the audience's expectations would be subverted when, instead of fighting a spectacular battle, the Dark Lord simply gives in. What could be his larger plan in the season to come?