There is a key tactic used among series writers, where a character mysteriously disappears, and then later reappears bearing some unknown injury, and this is definitely a tactic the 7th episode of Rings of Power used to make the audience more suspicious of Halbrand. The Southland king went off-screen at some point during the explosion of Mount Doom, and the escape of the orcs, and resurfaced towards the end of the episode bearing a terribly infected wound that only elven magic can heal.
The character of Halbrand is already suspect enough, with many fan theories believing he will become Sauron, and this new injury could have many hidden implications to back up this unknown piece of the Rings of Power narrative, including placing him in exactly the right place at the right time to forge his master one ring, that will devastate the lives of Bilbo and Frodo in years to come.
When Galadriel first sets eyes upon Halbrand as he lays in the infirmary covered in blood, Arondir explains “the Southlanders found him on the road like this, yestereve” and Bronwyn informs them “the wound soured overnight. I thought to try and heal him on the road.” But as it happens, the damage is far worse than it at first appears, and the she-elf appraises the wound to discover that it is beyond the healing medicine of the men. There, Halbrand must be fit enough to ride, and together, they head in the direction of the elven kingdom of Lindon, which is in dangerously close proximity to the forge current being built in Eregion. This could spell disaster for everyone if Halbrand is in fact Sauron, and if his wound reveals far more danger than Galadriel bargained for.
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This idea links in with an earlier episode of the series, where Galadriel interrogates Adar to find out his evil plans with the army of orcs he is building. From the start of the series, Galadriel has been chasing the lingering evil of Sauron which she still fears to be waiting for the opportune moment to strike, and as she demands the dark lord’s whereabouts from one of his original moriondor, Adar professes to have killed Sauron, telling Galadriel “I split him open.”
This scene comes shortly after Galadriel and Halbrand chased Adar in the first and captured him. During this earlier exchange, as Halbrand leers over the tainted elf, he asks “do you remember me?” There is a hesitation, and a look of something akin to fear, in Adar’s eyes as he responds no, which again have added to make people suspect that Halbrand is Sauron, and that Adar didn’t recognize him because he is appearing in a disguised human form, but that somewhere deep within him, Adar could sense the terrible reckoning that is coming to him after betraying and stabbing his master.
If this theory is true, it will all come to a head when Halbrand arrives in Lindon, and the elves begin to treat his wound. Perhaps it looks so festering and corrupted because the soul inside the body is not actually human, but is the evil Ea of Sauron himself. And when the elves remove Halbrand's shirt in order to get a closer examination of the gash, will they perhaps find that he already has another wound along his chest, an old scar, from where he was cut open many years ago by Adar, whom he once thought a loyal servant? Taking on the form of Halbrand, gaining the trust of the most powerful elven warrior in Middle Earth, and then receiving this mystery wound which no one actually knows how he obtained, would be the perfect ruse to get him to the elves, where he can regain his strength to rise again, and to influence Celebrimbor to create the rings in Eregion.
If this proved true, there would be a powerful irony with what Gil-galad said of Galadriel in the very first episode of the series, that “she might have inadvertently kept alive the very evil she sought to defeat. For the same wind that seeks to blow out a fire may also cause it to spread.” Indeed, she would have kept Sauron alive in the oceans where they were stranded, given him ships and means to travel to Middle Earth, made his a trusted king among an already very vulnerable race of people, and then escorted him directly to Lindon to receive healing, where he can wreak unimaginable damage upon the world that will last for another thousand or more years. All will be revealed during the season finale, which is building up to be one of the biggest anticipations since the series began.