Rangz of Power show-runners gave an interview to Hollywood Reporter. They claim Celebrimbor was gay for Sauron (I'm not joking)

!ringbearers !bookworms

You mentioned their relationship might remind people of their own relationships, including romantic. There were times watching Celebrimbor and Annatar that I wondered if there was some romantic, or even sexual, underpinning to what was going on there?

MCKAY I would say the nature of this relationship and its closeness, and the even the sexual tension in it, has been a source of speculation by may fans of the source material for many years. Anytime you're dealing with such powerful emotions as seduction and deception, I think it's easy for your imagination to go there.

PAYNE I think you can see it from the beginning of their interactions together in the second episode. Sauron is pulling Celebrimbor in by saying, "There are things I can only tell to you," and, "You always saw me the way no one else could" and "You're safe with me." You're seeing this intimate dance that Sauron is doing. So certainly we could see how people could take that a step further and ship them.

AAAAAAGHHHHHHHH

I thought shipping the Dark Lord with Galadriel was enough but apparently Celebrimbor/Annatar fan-fiction was important to the plot too.

MCKAY And it's also a story of the orcs, right? Adar is an orc who believes that orcs could be something more. They could have a home. He even seems to promise Galadriel they'll leave the rest of Middle-earth alone. In some ways, it's not just the story of how Sauron claims the orc nation, it's also the story of how there was a chance that orcs could have been a people in their own right

Muhh uruk lives matter. NOOO YOU CAN'T MAKE THE ORCERINOS BAD!

https://old.reddit.com/r/Rings_Of_Power/comments/1fzkmz5/rop_showrunners_think_celebrimbor_sauron_might_be/

The chud sub discussion

https://old.reddit.com/r/RingsofPower/comments/1fv22gu/bookfocused_discussion_thread_for_the_rings_of/

And it looks like not even the normie schlock site enjoyed the finale

Also, the Balrog destroying Khazad-dûm is just like the heckin climate change

Over in Khazad-dûm, I always had the impression that once the Balrog was released, he wreaked havoc and drove everyone out of the mines immediately. But in your story, this is more of a gradual corruption process. That city is still occupied and they're still going to be fighting for it going into season three.

MCKAY This is a thing where, how do societies fall? Usually it's gradually, and then all at once. If you want to use climate change as a metaphor, climate change is not an event. Climate change is a process that ebbs and flows, that's always headed in a dark direction. I think a kingdom as great and powerful as Khazad-dûm does not fall in a moment. The fall is the product of many disasters over time. And I think it would sell Khazad-dûm short for the Balrog to get out and then it's all over. It's more complicated. We think there's a bigger story to be told here.