Meanwhile, the war for Middle-earth will continue with season 2 of Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Although season 1 failed to inspire lives lost for some people, season 2 could still stand to capitalise on the foundational epic of season 1.
While we await the return of Middle-earth’s heroes to our TV screens, here’s everything we know about the second season of The Rings of Power.
When will season 2 come out?
The new season will premiere the first three instalments on 29 August 2024, just two days before the show celebrates its two-year anniversary. The remaining five episodes will debut each week thereafter, with the finale set for 3 October.
Is there a trailer for Rings of Power season 2?
The Lord of The Rings: The Rings of Power – Official Teaser Trailer | Prime Video
Amazon released the first trailer for the new season on May 14.
The second trailer, released on 26 July following its debut at San Diego Comic-Con:
Tolkien’s words continue to inspire. #TolkienReadingDay pic.twitter.com/tzJ0oJOSLq
— The Lord of the Rings on Prime (@TheRingsofPower) March 25, 2024
And the Rings of Power X (as it was renamed after its acquisition by Twitter) official account returned to life in March with a tweet featuring three passages from the Lord of the Rings trilogy in advance of Tolkien Reading Day. One ofauron, speaks to what fans will get to know this season, while another, referencing the Dwarves and the Elves and the Three Rings, anticipates the subject of the second instalment.
What will happen in Rings of Power season 2?
We’ll have to wait to see what happens in season 2 – though, since this series draws its content from The Silmarillion, clues as to what will follow. According to Tolkien’s book, in one version of events, King Pharazôn and his armies will sail off to Middle-earth, where they’ll capture Sauron as their prisoner; the dark lord will convince Pharazôn and his men that they deserve to live forever if they forsake the gods and worship Morgoth instead.
With King Tar-Palantir’s death in season 1, Pharazôn could even attempt to seize the throne while Míriel sails home in season 2. Looking into the Palantir is hardly a novel act for Pharazôn, and appears at the end of the most recent trailer, a moment traditionally reserved for a character’s death, which could be a reference to Pharazôn in turn falling victim to the wiles of Sauron, as Sauron had done to Saruman in the Third Age. So Tolkien-watchers might see the story of Sauron developing on Númenor as Pharazôn’s ill-informed lackey, from which arises his doomed effort to invade Valinor and the eventual destruction of Númenor itself, hinted at by Galadriel’s premonition of her new home, as a flooded city.
What does the latest trailer reveal about season 2’s plot?
However, such events are a long way from the tale we viewed in the trailer for the second season. It’s one that looks as if it will explore the heroes in their quest to find Sauron and in their war against the Orc armies of Adar.
The trailer reveals that Galadriel and her Elven allies have begun to argue over whether to use the three Rings of Power. After her closest ally of the season, Halbrand, was revealed in season 1 to be the shapeshifting Sauron in disguise, Galadriel resolved not to allow Sauron’s gifts to go to waste – despite how disapproving his Elven peers like Elrond are of her decision to use the gift of her Ring. It seems that Galadriel’s own decision might also have the effect of pushing her and her peers to the precipice of darkness.
The new footage also sees Sauron materialise to the Elven smith Celebrimbor in a new and previously unknown Elven guise (presumably as ‘Annatar, the Lord of Gifts’ in the source material). The thought is that Sauron will trick Elvishsmith into forging the other 19 Rings of Power (one inducted in the hands of Durin III is first revealed here). By rights, then, Celebrimbor is the series’ principal protagonist this season, with his alliance with Sauron becoming the ‘central relationship’, according to the showrunners McKay and Payne.
Meanwhile, the Stranger is also seen in a desert, presumably the land of Rhûn; the narrative left off with him venturing there with Nori and the sandy landscape suits Tolkien’s description of ‘eastern Rhûn’. Rather than return to the Shire, this might be where the magus will learn what he is supposed to do in world-war with Sauron.
The creation of the remaining Rings of Power
Despite the fact that only three Rings of Power have thus far been forged, prime targets for any fan of Tolkien lore, season 2 will likely be filled with Sauron and Celebrimbor creating the other Rings and handing some over to the Dwarves. In the latest trailer, audiences also hear Sauron declare that Celebrimbor will bring him ‘the Nine’ (based on the context, that would likely be the Nine Rings, a.k.a. the Rings intended for the Kings of Men, which, in the story, Sauron would later use to create the Nazgûl). So, very soon Galadriel will likely be dealing with the ramifications of making the first three Rings, conscious of Halbrand’s true identity.
This would be doubly the case if season 2 were to follow the above-mentioned event in the book – Sauron attacking and conquering the Elven kingdom of Eregion, led by Southland star Ismael Cruz Córdova as Arondir and solemnly portrayed by Robert Aramayo as Elrond, respectively. Such a climactic battle has been rumoured to be featured in a twoépisode array in the series, which will see Arondir and Elrond leading a fight against an Orc army and the defence of Eregion. It could be indeed the showdown between Elves and Orcs as teased in the recently-released trailer.
Meanwhile, when it comes to the Dwarves, season 2 could see them closing the magical Doors of Durin, the gates to Khazad-dûm, since Sauron is once again now on the rise. But in doing so, they might trap themselves with something far worse, for as season 1 established, their mining activities have awoken from its slumber a Balrog in the bowels of the earth. Indeed, the trailers do show Khazad-dûm collapsing, and the Balrog flying around in action. This fiery demon is finally emerging from the depths to destroy the Dwarven city, and become Durin’s Bane. This is the cataclysm against which Gandalf fights in The Fellowship of the Ring.
Who will appear in Rings of Power season 2?
Most of the cast will be coming back for season 2, but the former Elf and Orc king Adar, who fell from grace in season 1, has been recast from Joseph Mawle to Sam Hazeldine. We’ll see if Hazeldine can deliver a replacement for Mawle, who in a season of dominant performances stands out as a particularly tragic villain.
Similarly, season 2’s cast will include new faces: Gabriel Akuwudike, Yasen Atour, Ben Daniels, Amelia Kenworthy, Nia Towle, Nicholas Woodeson, Oliver Alvin-Wilson, Stuart Bowman, Gavi Singh Chera, William Chubb, Kevin Eldon, Will Keen, Selina Lo, and Calam Lynch. The veteran Ciarán Hinds will also join the show as one of the Istar (or ‘Wizards’), with Rory Kinnear playing Tom Bombadil, a stranger who embodies the power and ancient nature of the Wild, immune as he is to the curse of the Ring’s evils.
While most of the new characters are obviously unknown, according to rumours the part of Sauron in his original form could be won by the very shapely Indian actor Gavi Singh Chera. He could even play the Dark Lord in the flashback from the Comic-Con trailer in which – at least, it looks this way to me – Adar defies Sauron by skewering him through the crook of his crown.
One of the trailers also shows the Ents, the talking and walking Tree-folk to whom Merry and Pippin are taken by Genuine in The Two Towers. Several of the Great Eagles soaring to Númenor were filmed for the trailers, suggesting they might be part of the fight against Sauron and Mordor.
On top of that, it appears to suggest that the series will feature the show’s version of the spider Shelob, or at least a very small, immature version of her. She is, of course, best known as the giant arachnid who attacked Frodo and Sam while working as part of Gollum’s plan to ambush the hobbits and steal the One Ring, but why she is in the prequel series is anyone’s guess.
Furthermore, a BTS featurette informs us that the heroes will do battle with the Barrow-wights – vengeful revenants created from the bodies of fallen men – and the VFX supervisor Jason Smith describes the scene as a ‘short horror film in Middle-earth’.
Who is directing Rings of Power season 2?
Season two of J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay will again serve as showrunners behind the camera. Charlotte Brändström, who directed six of the eight season 1 episodes, is the only one so far confirmed as a director on season two, with the first, third, seventh and eighth episodes her remit.
What will Rings of Power season 2 look like?
A season 1 that established the world of the story and set up the mounting conflict has been followed by Brändström’s promise of a season 2 that will be ‘darker’, ‘edgier’ and ‘more character-driven’.
‘I feel like it’s going to be a good season,’ he says in an interview with Collider, ‘this season we tried, I think, to make it more gritty than it was in the first season, or at least dirtier – I don’t know – in the image, but as real as possible. And we have a lot of really nice surprise turns and things in it.
After all, ‘it should be a dark story, and if it is a good dark story, then it should be fun’ – and season 1’s cliffhanger (Mount Doom smoking, the Southlands set to be incinerated, the heroes preparing their own destruction at the hands of Sauron) should make for an epic-emotional, epic-shocking payoff from the series’ second season.
