More thoughts below, but keep in mind that I neither hate RoP enough to fisk it nor love it enough to defend it.

-Weepy McPermastubble at 0:07: Don’t recognize him; if I had to guess at a character, it would probably be Anarion, Isildur’s brother and Elendil’s other son. Interesting resemblance to Kiefer Sutherland in his Brat Pack phase. Man, I hate permastubble on men and especially permastubble on men in historical/fantasy settings without electric razors.

-Durin IV talking about a Great Evil: presumably Balrog.

-slimy, possibly tentacled thing at 0:13: I’ve seen speculations that this is Shelob hatching or an alternate form for the Balrog (go read Gandalf’s account of his fight with the Balrog in Two Towers. I said “read” not “watch” – PJ didn’t cover this part.) Could be one of those, but could also be associated with the sea monster seen later in the teaser, or the Adepts that Probably-Gandalf (aka Meteor Man or the Stranger) fought last season.

-Elves at 0:23: Morfydd Clark is more believable here as a keyed-up veteran of many battles than she was in most of the first season, and I’m always happy to see Robert Aramayo’s Elrond, but wow, those are some of the the laziest sword twirls I’ve ever seen. If the dude in the middle is Celeborn, I approve. I like his vibe, no matter how lazy the sword twirls.

-0:28: Moths, therefore more Adepts. “He worms his way inside your head…” voiceover – I want this to be Celeborn, who in show continuity has been MIA since the wars of the First Age, and presumably a POW of the forces of evil, and therefore possibly tortured by Sauron. Can’t rule out the recast Adar, though, and given that it falls during an Adept scene, it may also refer to whatever fallen wizard Probably-Gandalf is going to encounter in Rhun.

-Tree roots snaking everywhere at 0:31: I got nothing. Might be something relatively innocuous in its original context, like the forests of Lindon flourishing under the use of the Rings of Power, but certainly giving Evil Dead vibes in the teaser context. No ideas on the brief shot of humanoids (some are elves, not sure about the rest) trekking through the forest.

-Celebrimbor sees glowy light with a shape in the middle of it at 0:37: alot of people are interpreting this as being Sauron’s arrival in Eregion as Annatar, posing as an emissary of the Valar. Could be, but reads more sinister to me in this context, like an explosion.

-Charlie Vickers sauntering through chaos in Eregion with elvish hair and ears at 0:46: I didn’t like the handling of his first-season visit to Eregion as Halbrand, but this strikes me as a reasonably successful attempt at using one actor in different guises to convey what Sauron does. It does mean we’re stuck with the Sauron/Galadriel shippers a bit longer. For a clearer view of Vickers in Annatar mode, check out this poster. I still don’t get why people find him attractive, but he’s believable as an Elvish-looking guy you would not at first blush recognize as that human guy from last season.

-0:50-0:52: No idea which coastline that is or where Galadriel and Elf Guy are galloping to.

-0:53: 95% chance it’s Miriel, Queen of Numenor, in the water (vision or reality I neither know nor care). 5% chance this is Elendil flashing back to his wife’s death (implied or stated to be by drowning in season one).

-0:54: sea monster from season one trying to eat someone who’s in the process of shimmying up a rope we can’t see very well, or has been tied to the rope in that position. Don’t think it’s Miriel.

-Bad stuff going down in Khazad-dum: Balrog related, presumably.

-King’s Men aligned Numenoreans holding Elendil back from something at 0:59: I assume the arrest or execution of someone Elf-friend aligned. (Or of the Eagle seen later in the trailer).

-Galadriel screaming in a red-lit, underground-looking place at 1:00: only interesting question is where she is. My best guess is either Khazad-dum or Evil POW Camp where Celeborn is being held.

-Orc licking blade at 1:01: so what?

-Panning shot over what I assume is Ost-in-Edhil in Eregion: nice looking. Stupid catchphrase (“the darkness will bind them” or some such blah blah.)

-Three elves holding up ringed hands at 1:04: might be Celebrimbor with Narya (later to pass to Cirdan and thence to Gandalf), Galadriel with Nenya, and Gil-Galad with Vilya (later to pass to Elrond) plus three of the Seven or possibly three of the Nine. (We see what seems to be one of the Seven a moment later, and it’s done in a different style.) I don’t really have a problem with Gil-Galad wearing lesser Rings of Power in addition to Vilya, except for the problem of them passing to other people; Sauron ain’t takin’ those by force from an elf so strong he would later tag-team with Elendil to kill Sauron’s mortal form at the end of the Last Alliance.

-Tree: who cares? Okay, Tolkien cares. I don’t.

-Durin III picking up what appears to be one of the Seven at 1:07: Are we getting my preferred variant from Unfinished Tales, where the king of Khazad-dum gets one of the Seven as a gift from the Elves of Eregion? Color me…maybe not excited, but at least moderately interested.

-Pointless Arondir wirefu: Actor seems like a nice guy, so glad he’s still employed on this show, I guess. character didn’t do much for me last season.

-Eagle arriving at Armenelos in Numenor and Pharazon threatening it with a sword 1:12: No, he wasn’t “riding the eagle.” At full screen, it doesn’t look like there’s anyone on its back as it flies in, and there’s definitely nobody on its back as it lands.

-Weepy Theo, tortured Isildur, rando battle stuff: who cares? Well, maybe it’s a shock for the people who, due to lack of genre savviness or determination to believe the worst about the show 100% of the time on general principle, thought Isildur was really dead. And maybe seeing (probably) a bit of the siege of Ost-in-edhil will shut up the people who’ve been obsessing about it pretty much since the first season ended.

-recast Adar at 1:15: I don’t care who plays this sanctimonious Orc-rights activist, but I do care that the makeup effects appear subpar. I don’t believe Bray Studios has witnessed a creature makeup job that bad since Evil of Frankenstein, and that’s a 62-yr-old movie.

-Old Man Doing Magic With Staff at 1:16: the people telling you that the Stranger and the harfoots aren’t in the teaser are only telling part of the truth. The harfoots either aren’t here or are extremely well-camouflaged, but this is definitely the Stranger. The guy holding onto the rope in the windstorm is might be him but the hair looks more like Elrond.

-More rando battle stuff, followed by Elrond in full battle-rattle at 1:20: he looks a lot older with the hair covered up, doesn’t he? Haven’t seen that happen to a character since Robotech.

-Celebrimbor pitching lesser Rings into the fire at 1:21: I suspect this is something relatively trivial like him melting down lesser rings he’s dissatisfied with, but it’s edited to look like it’s part of the Ost-in-edhil stuff and he’s trying to destroy them to keep them out of Sauron’s hands. It’s followed by footage of Annatar apparently being arrested, if anyone cares.

-Possibly unconnected scene of a ball of ice exploding outward from what looks like a stronghold of evil 1:27: Sauron hanging out in what will later be known as Dol Guldur, to the south of Mirkwood?

-Coming August 29, about 3 and a half months out. Welp, that was something. Didn’t feel as incoherent as the season one teaser, but leans too hard on PJ derived shot compositions and rando battle stuff. They are apparently following the same pattern as season two of Wheel of Time, so they will drop three episodes the first week and then one a week for the five weeks after that. This worked reasonably well for Wheel of Time; because by the end of the third episode I and the people I was watching with had some grasp of what the core cast was up to and were curious about what would happen next.

-In other news, Rings of Power will not continue with Bray Studios for its third season shoot, but will instead move to Shepperton Studios. Apparently the producers are not aware that Sir Christopher Lee can haunt them from the afterlife as conveniently at Shepperton as at Bray.

-in other news, Peter Jackson is hard up for money and making some kind of spinoff about the Hunt for Gollum, starring Andy Serkis, WETA cgi overlaid on Andy Serkis, possibly Viggo Mortensen and Ian McKellen and the WETA cgi overlays necessary to make them look younger, and hopefully also starring Ian McKellen’s sobriety coach so he won’t give a completely stoned, bewildered, Hobbit-movie-grade performance this time.