Season 1 of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power TV series on Amazon Prime Video ended in a very complex place and Season 2 will be released on August 29. All eyes are fixed like that of the Dark Lord on where the series will go next and a recent feature in the New York Times delves into what that will look like.
To recap where we are, the elves made the first three of the titular pieces of jewelry. A Harfoot left the caravan to help The Stranger journey to the East. The armies of Numenor returned to their home to find that the king has died in their absence, a fact that the Queen Regent does not see because of having been blinded in battle. And Sauron the Deceiver, finally unmasked by the elf who hunted him, descended into the "land of Mordor where the shadows lie."
Says journalist Isabella Kwai, "the new season is also a darker, more psychological exploration of the common ground between heroes and villains, and how evil can manipulate even innocent desires." This is a good continuation of how "Lord Halbrand" wandered into an elven smith's workshop and made metallurgical suggestions on how to concentrate power into a ring. When the idea is appreciated, he wryly says, "call it a gift." In a trailer for Season 2, the fair-faced and golden-haired "Lord of Gifts" is seen to working with Celebrimbor, the elf who created the first three rings in the Season 1 finale, who expresses his horror at having enabled the creation of these Age-changing weapons in the form of jewelry.
The second season looks to be built around a significant ramping up of the extant tensions. The show does compress the timelines as described in The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, but it is firmly set in the Second Age. While the showrunners "have outlined a multiseason arc for 50 hours of television, and are already working on Season 3," one of the major demands of the show will be the lead-up to the Last Alliance. The fresh-faced and striving Isildur who struggled to find his place in the armed forces will someday be the man who cuts the One Ring from Sauron's hand and takes it for his own.
he bellicosity of the scenes from the trailers denotes the beginnings of that war and Kwai highlights this, noting the shooting of a "gritty battle scene inspired by films like "Saving Private Ryan." Charlotte Brandstrom, who directed half the season, confirmed this:
"I kept saying constantly on set: more blood, more dust, more mud, more everything."Charlotte Brandstrom
Showrunner Patrick McKay also comments that "the chessboard is set and all the pieces are starting to play."
On a more personal level, familiar characters from Season 1 have an intensified interpretation of their roles. Morfydd Clark, who plays elf warrior Galadriel, learned to "shut out the noise...you can't try and do what Cate Blanchett did." She has impressive shoes to fill, but is also approaching a character who is very different from the Lady of Lorien from the Peter Jackson films. Charlie Vickers, the Dark Lord Australian who ended the season with Mount Doom in his sights for the first time, said that "It helped me, this time around, to have a greater understanding of how I wanted to pitch [the role of Sauron." McKay says that the relationship between Galadriel and Sauron is a "fresh favor":
"It's like a little HItchcock in there...And also the sense of descent and a very dark, toxic relationship.""Patrick McKay
With all of these considerations and the news that there is a plan for 50 hours of television, what is the showwrunner's end goal? Says Kwai, "To use several TV seasons to craft one holistic story that Tolkien never wrote as a novel - the epic about the battle for Middle-earth, the rise of Sauron and who gets control of the rings that are so pivotal to this world's future."
The first three episodes of Season 2 will be released on Amazon Prime Video on August 29.