Amazon Prime Video’s The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power returns for it’s second season with a renewed vigor and attention to storytelling that puts it a step above its premier season from 2022. This new season kicks off with a three episode premier, and it is a good thing that it does. The first season ended with the show’s sprawling cast of characters spread far and wide across the map of Middle Earth, and so the series has to spend some time in getting everything back up to speed and moving forward again.
As we check back in on J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth several thousand years before the time of the Lord Of The Rings proper, we find that the elf lord Elrond (Robert Aramayo) has grown distrustful of the three Elven Rings of Power forged at the climax of the last season, the Stranger (Daniel Weyman) and his two harfoot companions (Markella Kavenagh and Megan Richards) continuing their quest to discover his identity, political upheaval on the island nation of Numenor and in the dwarf kingdom of Khazad-dum are threatening peace there and the evil Sauron’s (Charlie Vickers) deceit of the elves is leading to them helping him forge his rings of power for the dwarfs and men. Of course, these lead into new complications including a brewing war between the orcs and the elves and the rising threat of a Dark Wizard from the uncharted lands to the east of Middle Earth.
But we’re two seasons into the the show’s five season planned story arc and many of these characters are so wrapped up in their own storylines they have yet to interact with others. And in some cases, like the harfoots and the Stranger’s deeper journey into Rhun, it doesn’t look as if they’ll be meeting up with anyone else’s plotlines anytime soon. The show’s epic scale is at times overwhelming the stories themselves. Tolkien fans familiar with the larger legendarium beyond just The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings will have a good idea as to where the elves, dwarfs and Nuemenorian storylines are heading. But the show shouldn’t be relying on some viewers’ knowledge of these things to be the glue that holds the series together. And sometimes that foreknowledge can undercut dramatic tension as to the fate of certain characters. The storyline featuring harfoots Poppy and Nori and the Stranger is made up whole cloth for the show and in some ways, the mysteries there make it the most compelling of the shows plots. Frustratingly, it is also one of the show’s most under-cooked.
The pacing of each episode seems to be vastly improved over last year’s more laconic tempo. Where the show previously seemed content to luxuriate in the locations and world-building of Middle Earth, it is now getting down to the solid business of telling of the struggles of the people of its Second Age as outlined by Tolkien in his Lord Of The Rings appendices. If anything, the pendulum swings a bit too hard away from the previous season as there are times when it feels as if the show is rushing a bit, anxious to make up for lost time.
To be sure, many of the things that upset Tolkien purists last season will still upset them this season. The series continues with its collapsed timeline, folding events that take place over years and even centuries into a more manageable time frame in terms of the demands of televisual storytelling. But on the whole, more new elements are additive rather than subtractive from what Tolkien established. The creators of the series may stray a bit with a momentary bit of coloring outsider the lines, but the overall result is still a show that entertains while exploring the events that would still reverberate across Middle Earth thousands of years later.
