Rings of Power season 2 still can’t quite capture Tolkien’s world

The debate over what matters most – faithfulness to JRR Tolkien’s original Middle-earth canon, or telling a story that works on its own – burns hotter than the fires of Mount Doom as fans rework The Lord of the Ring. Prime Videos The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power has embodied this push-pull since Season 1 debuted in 2022, and Season 2 remains firmly on trend. The second season’s three-episode premiere brings a dwarven vault of changes to Tolkien lore that will irritate purists. Some work in context. At least as many don’t. The conclusion? The Rings of Power The first three episodes of Season 2 are more of the same — with all the good and bad that entails.

(Editor’s Note: This story contains spoilers for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season 2, episodes 1-3.)

First, the good. Showrunners JD Payne and Patrick McKay seem to have taken on board feedback about Season 1’s slow start; it opens with a flashback where Sauron (played in his OG form by Slow horses‘ Jack Lowden) gets the pincushion treatment from Adar and his orcs is certainly attention-grabbing. Sure, Adar’s rebellion (like Adar himself) is one of Payne and McKay’s inventions, but it serves its purpose within The Rings of Power the broader story of season 2. The reborn Sauron is still hiding his true agenda (and nature) behind his new “Annatar” angelic emissary glow-up. As such, someone else must fill the obligatory Dark Lord of Mordor role.

The same goes for the way Payne, McKay and the show’s broader creative team The Rings of Power‘s titular jewels. It doesn’t jibe with Tolkien’s writings, but it’s necessary to the drama of the piece. Season 1’s decision to rush the introduction of the Three Rings — moving them from the last rings to the first — means that they can’t be the (relatively) benign bling that Tolkien intended. They have to be an actively corrupting force, even without Sauron and his as-yet-unforged One Ring to infect them. Your experience will differ as you watch the canonical comrades Galadriel, Elrond, and Gil-galad clash — and trade awkward, decidedly un-Tolkienian dialogue — but for the Three’s sake, the proceedings would feel rather limp without this conflict.

The Rings of Power Season 2 also deserves props for visiting a realm that doesn’t figure much into Tolkien’s account of the Second Age (or his broader continuity, period): Rhûn. This barren locale makes its live-action debut in Season 2, and while it’s been somewhat underused in these first three installments, it still breaks up the glut of verdant havens, twisted fortresses, and other familiar elements that have dotted Middle-earth’s landscapes thus far. The character of Ciarán Hinds, the Dark Wizard, who Payne and McKay have thus far maintained is not Saruman — is also a welcome addition, even if he is another departure from the established lore. Tolkien named five wizards, and of these only the Blue Wizards went permanently to Rhûn and maybe switched sides. So unless the new Istar of season 2 is a Blue Wizard with a different palette, he doesn’t really fit into the legendarium of Middle-earth. But does it even matter? Like I said before, Sauron putting himself aside for the time being demands that other villains rise up, and a rogue wizard backed by a group of magic-infused fanatics is nothing but that.

Through this lens, you can also see the logic in continuing to shorten the Middle-earth timeline. If Payne and McKay stayed true to Tolkien’s chronology, nothing that happened on the island kingdom of Númenor would make it into the show. We wouldn’t see any of the political wrangling of the shady chancellor Pharazôn, nor the apocalyptic consequences his rise to power promises. That counts for something, since the gradual moral decay of an entire civilization – and its disaster-movie-level consequences – isn’t exactly something that other Tolkien adaptations have given us. Cutting this content would result in a more faithful (and focused) Lord of the Rings show, but also a duller one. To borrow a phrase from The Return of the Kingnot all of the canon changes in season 2 are bad.

Some do, mind you. The biggest culprit in this regard is without a doubt the constant Gandalf Stranger origin story. Tolkien devoted a handful of lines (top) to Gandalf’s arrival in Middle-earth. His cosmic masters ordered him to go, and after a brief crisis of confidence, he obeyed. Assuming the stranger is indeed Gandalf (and come on, how can he not be?), Payne and McKay have built this into a mystery-box-esque quest that feels increasingly pointless with each installment. Worse, it’s just not that engaging. There’s a reason Tolkien didn’t do any backstory for Gandalf’s original staff: nobody gives a fuck. The Stranger and Nori’s adventures in The Rings of Power Season 2 won’t change that, if the first three episodes are anything to go by.

Speaking of things that aren’t interesting, that’s a pretty adequate summary of the Khazad-dûm and Pelargir subplots from Season 2. Both rely on garish window dressing – a volcanic earthquake and marauders from Mordor – to liven up dull and disorienting modern family dramas. It’s hard to imagine Tolkien writing the toothless father-son feud between Durin III and IV, let alone the “you are not my father!” scene we see between Arondir and Theo. Isildur’s encounter with Nia Towle’s Estrid also falls under this heading, though it at least foreshadows villainy to come. Hopefully this is a sign that Khazad-dûm and Pelargir will soon be hitting their stride; Durin III’s incoming Ring of Power and Theo getting captured by an unseen force are further signs that they might. For now, though, they’re only marginally more essential to The Rings of Power the plot of season 2 than the Stranger’s Rhûn road trip.

There’s also a downside to shrinking Tolkien’s timeline: everything is super-rushed. Sauron manipulates Celebrimbor into making more rings with almost cartoonish ease. It makes the Elf smith seem petty and gullible, rather than a well-meaning man desperate to prove himself. Lip service is paid to Celebrimbor’s lifelong fixation on his grandfather Fëanor’s legacy; it’s not rather enough to justify selling his principles with some (poorly telegraphed) psychological manipulation. Likewise, Pharazôn’s power grab against Míriel needed more time to materialize. Sure, revolutions often move quickly, but Míriel is ousted so quickly (by a giant eagle…?) that it doesn’t really feel earned. It makes me wonder if the Fall of Númenor would have been better told as its own dedicated miniseries. But you can’t do that without drastically cutting down The Rings of Power‘s scope and intrigue.

This highlights the biggest problem with the first three episodes of Season 2 (and The Rings of Power broader): The central premise of “War of the Elves and Sauron” may not be as narratively interesting or thematically rich as Payne and McKay think. Tolkien was incapable of boring worldbuilding (even his fictional genealogies are surprisingly engaging to read), and there’s a ton of cool stuff related to the forging of the Rings of Power. Yet he also told it in paragraphs, not pages. It wasn’t The Lord of the Ring‘ main course; it was a salad — and Tolkien knew it. So he invested his energy in the Fellowship’s mission — with its focused storyline (destroy the Ring) and thematic clarity (friendship, sacrifice, hope, and more) — instead. Three episodes into the second season, The Rings of Power still lacks that specificity. Despite Sauron’s return last season, the mission to defeat him remains vaguely defined and strangely devoid of urgency. Meanwhile, the larger ideas that underlie it (unity over division, letting go of the past, and the dangers of arrogance) are scarcely better articulated.

But, incredibly, none of this is enough to completely ruin the whole thing. The Rings of Power season 2 episodes 1-3. Despite their various shortcomings, they’re inexplicably watchable — and they ultimately position the second season largely where it needs to be. By the end of episode 3, more rings arrive, and with them the promise of more storylines converging in the future. The plans of Adar, the Dark Wizard, and Pharazôn should keep those who don’t buy in hot, bubbling water anyway. Will it be the perfect Lord of the Rings adjustment? Far from it. But based on what we’ve seen, it will just now good enough—and faithful enough to the source text—to keep all but the most die-hard Tolkien-truth fanatics tuning in every week.