The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 3 finally confirms one of the most persistent theories that has dogged the Prime Video show since the very first trailers debuted!

**Spoilers for the first four episodes of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 3, now streaming on Prime Video**

In The Rings of Power Season 3 Episode 2, Theo (Tyroe Muhafidin), the disaffected son of Season 1 healer Bronwyn (Nazanin Boniadi), becomes one of the Naznagôl, aka Ring-servants. We’ve known that Theo has a dark streak in him ever since he found himself drawn to the evil sword hilt in the Southlands that was literally the key to creating Mordor. However, we couldn’t have predicted how much Theo’s journey from “low man” toiling underfoot like a slave to begging his mom’s hot Elf boyfriend Arondir (Ismael Cruz Cordova) to save himself would move us.

When we reunite with Theo in The Rings of Power Season 3, he’s five years older; meaning he’s now a young man. The King’s Men of Númenor have essentially transformed their Middle-earth colonies into prison camps, where the few survivors of the Southlands’ transformation into Mordor are whipped and worked to the bone. So when Sauron’s (Charlie Vickers) servants bring a letter to Kemen (Leon Wadham) inviting the Númenoreans to Mordor to treat for a Ring of Power, Theo and his fellow scrappers jump at the chance to take the haughty courtier’s place. (Doesn’t hurt that Kemen throws the missive in the mud right in front of Theo).

Once in Mordor, Theo fights his friends to the death to not only survive, but receive a Ring of Power. Sauron sees the mark left by the hilt and spins a yarn (that may or may not be true) about how it means Theo is a descendent of a great steward of Mordor. However, just when it looks like Theo is truly a lost cause, he reveals himself as a Naznagôl to Arondir, begging the archer to flee. Bronwyn’s beloved refuses to once again abandon her boy and Sauron compels Theo to kill his former (step)father figure.

DECIDER caught up with Tyroe Muhafidin over Zoom a few weeks back and he revealed what exactly was going through Theo’s head during that tense Episode 4 scene and why his Ring-servant moves at such a slow, deliberate pace…

DECIDER: First of all, when did you first know that you would be getting a Ring of Power this season? 

Tyroe Muhafidin: I found out about three months before we were shooting. I got a call from [showrunners] JD [Payne] and Patrick [McKay] and essentially they just laid down what my story was — intentionally leaving out some bits — but they did tell me what was to come and I’d be getting a Ring.

But it’s interesting, I’d been literally asking for the last five years: “Do I get a ring? Do I get a ring?” And they never gave me an answer. But they also never didn’t give me an answer. They would just turn to me and be like, “Well, do you think Theo should get a ring? Like, what do you think?” And then I’d kind of freeze and be, like, “Oh, I don’t know…”

The first time we see Theo this season, it’s actually through Arondir’s point of view. He sees Theo’s face in the face of a boy he’s just killed. I’m very curious, where do you see the relationship between those two characters at the start of this season? Is there any love there? Is there regret? How is Theo thinking about Arondir? 

I think Theo himself, I think maybe he’s feeling a little hard done by Arondir. I don’t know. Yeah, he feels a bit like he’s been left and he’s been abandoned. Now, don’t get me wrong, that’s definitely not what Arondir thinks. It’s only been five years. Where for Arondir that’s not very long, but for Theo that’s a quarter of his life. He’s just kind of disappeared. He’s also seen Arondir save these [other] people so many times. Maybe at first, at the start of those years, he was expecting him to come back and he would save them again, but he never did and he never showed up. At this point in the season, at this point of Theo’s life, I think Arondir is dead to him, I guess.

Even just with a brief reintroduction to Theo, we can see why he would find the summons to Sauron and find that appealing given that Kemen has been treating you guys like garbage. When your character and the other Southlanders go to Sauron, how badly do they need or want that help that they’re going to Sauron, the Dark Lord, for this help? 

I guess it really is life or death for these people. I think they’re at a point now where they would rather die than be living the life that they do. And they’re giving a last ditch opportunity to take over, take back some of their livelihoods to have some kind of say into what these people can do for themselves. We’re at a point where everyone’s angry and everyone’s tired and no one has anything to lose. And that’s ultimately what brings them there, yeah. 

I was kind of tickled by sort of these like awful tests that Sauron’s putting these men through. I wrote down my notes that it was like The Dark Knight with the Joker and the pool stick. But what was it like for you and the other actors in that scene to just have to fight it out for your lives?

Yeah, I mean, it was messy, but very coordinated messy. I think we worked on that sequence for like three or four weeks, like every single day. We were ready, we were prepared, but it was tough because the specific situation — the set was incredibly hot. It was so hot in there because we filmed in the middle of the UK summer, and, yes, we were in a studio, but they can’t obviously have the [air conditioning] on because the fan for sound. So we were all just drenched in sweat and blood and just constantly having to go again, again, again, and it was exhausting, but ended up looking cool. So happy about that. 

Ultimately, Theo is saved by the mark on his arm that he got in the first season from the hilt. I thought it was really interesting because we know he got the hilt from Waldron’s floorboards, but he tells Sauron his father left it for him. Can you kind of extrapolate more on that and how much we should take into Sauron’s claim that this means that Theo is a descendant of a steward of Mordor? 

JD, Patrick, and I debated over this a lot with Charlie [Vickers], on whether he was telling the truth. I think the beautiful thing about this scene is that we don’t know, but the thing is that Theo has been searching for answers for so long that the first answer he gets is what he’s going to believe. I think Sauron knows that as well, so he knows that this is prime real estate for manipulation right here. Like he is going to just say whatever he can to get Theo to do whatever he wants him to do.

I like to believe that Theo’s dad was just a normal dude. And Sauron just thought, “Hey, it’d be fun to play with this kid.” But I honestly, I like to leave it up to interpretation. I think some days I believe what Sauron’s said and other days I don’t. 

Speaking of Sauron, Charlie has changed so much over the years just playing first Halbrand and now he’s Sauron in all his glory. What was it like physically on set with him in that imposing armor? Because it just looked so crazy on screen. 

Well, it was actually crazy because Charlie is one of the nicest, humblest, sweetest dudes. Even when he’s in all his get up on set, he’s exactly like that. Nothing changes until the moment the cameras are rolling and then he’s so scary. Like I had to do no acting at any point where I had the look him in the eye and feel that power because he is so, so good at it, really. It’s just super inspirational in how passionate he is about his character work. Looking at his notes on his script, I’ve never seen anything like it. He fully breaks down everything and I have the absolute utmost respect for him as a friend, as a colleague, as an actor. He really was just like the best.

Speaking of costumes, you get quite the Ring-wraith-esque get up with the crown and mask and everything. How often when we see your character all masked up is that you?

I mean, I’d say 90% of it was me. There would be some days where maybe I only had like two or three hours left of shooting and I was fully masked up. So I would just say, “Can we get the double to do it? Cause he’s been here all day and he hasn’t done anything and I want to go home.” So then everyone won in that situation. But it was crazy. Automatically putting that costume on, there was no character work to be done. I think the biggest thing for me was the gauntlet, to have the gloves on. Immediately looking at your hands in that moment you can feel the power. Or just looking at the Ring on the finger can do enough to really feel everything. Oh, yeah, the mask; I couldn’t see anything in it. So anytime you see me walking in the mask, you’ll notice that sometimes I might be a little bit wobbly or like I’ll be walking really slow because I genuinely could not see where I was placing my feet. But I tried to play into it and be like, “I’m just powerfully taking my time. That’s why.”

You heard it here first: the Ring-wraiths move slow because they can’t see.

Episode 4 is huge. At first, Theo tries to beg Arondir to leave. He didn’t have to reveal himself to Arondir. Is there a reason why he wanted to? 

Yeah, firstly, I think there was no way that Arondir wasn’t going to put up a fight. I think Theo knew that. I think the only way that he won’t fight me is if he sees my face. But I think it doesn’t really matter. I feel like if they fought, Theo with the Ring would have won that fight hands down. So I think he didn’t want to get into a fight because he didn’t want to hurt him. He took off the mask and told Arondir to leave because he didn’t want to hurt him.

I think out of Theo’s whole life and all the pain and everything he’s gone through, Arondir was maybe the only person that wasn’t a perpetrator of that. I feel like the whole reason he’s got the Ring on is because he’s angry at the world and he wants power over the world. I think the one person that he didn’t want power over was Arondir. And that moment, you know, he tells Arondir to leave because he’s saying Sauron wants, Galadriel and Celeborn. He really does not care about Arondir. He knows Sauron doesn’t care about [Arondir], but he’s gonna make me kill you. Please leave before I have to kill you. And yeah, the rest is history, I guess. 

Working with Charlie, knowing that Sauron is in Theo’s head, he can control his hand… Did you guys talk about that in any kind of way like puppet-mastering or anything like that? Like do you in your head have Sauron there? 

We spoke about how much control Sauron has at this point in time. The One Ring hasn’t been made so Theo still has autonomy over himself and he can still make his own decisions. He’s not completely bent to Sauron’s will, but Sauron has obviously tampered with these Rings and used dark magic to create them. So there is some force of control that Sauron has, but I think the main thing that we kind of spoke about was we wanted to leave that space for when Sauron has the One Ring.

So I think a big thing is that at this point in time, Theo is still a man, and he’s a Ring-servant rather than a Ring-wraith. That journey begins when the One Ring is created. So, yeah, there still is, I’d say temptations that maybe the Ring is putting into the air, but I wouldn’t say any of that directly comes from Sauron yet. Yeah. 

The first four episodes of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 3 are now streaming on Prime Video. The next two episodes will come out on Wednesday, Nov. 18 at 3 a.m. ET on Prime Video.