The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 2 will premiere in 2024.
Prime Video announced the release window on Wednesday, February 28, along with the news that series creators J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay have started to break the initial story outline for The Rings of Power Season 3. The duo has also inked an exclusive, three-year overall deal with Amazon MGM Studios.
While the series has yet to be officially renewed for Season 3, Prime Video says production is expected to move from Bray Studios to a brand new production facility at nearby Shepperton Studios in the U.K. when it is. With Season 1 breaking every Prime Video viewing record in 2022, it seems that a renewal is all but certain for this epic fantasy series based on the works of J.R.R. Tolkien.
This is the first series update since 2023. Here, we break down everything there is to know so far about The Rings of Power Season 2.
The Rings of Power Season 2 Cast
Ciarán Hinds (L), Rory Kinnear (C), Tanya Moodie (R) for The Rings of Power (Rory Lewis/Pål Hansen/Prime Video)
The Rings of Power Season 2 cast will feature the same stars as before. Morfydd Clark returns as Galadriel, with Charlie Vickers, Robert Aramayo, Charles Edwards, Cynthia Addai-Robinson, Ismael Cruz Córdova, Nazanin Boniadi, Sophia Nomvete, Owain Arthur, Peter Mullan, Maxim Baldry, Trystan Gravelle, Markella Kavenagh, Ema Horvath, Tyroe Muhafidin, Lloyd Owen, Megan Richards, Dylan Smith, Leon Wadham, Daniel Weyman, and Sara Zwangobani. Sam Hazeldine replaces Joseph Mawle as the villain Adar.
Other new cast members for the Emmy-nominated series include Ciarán Hinds, Rory Kinnear, Tanya Moodie, and Ben Daniels, as well as Oliver Alvin-Wilson, Stuart Bowman, Gavi Singh Chera, William Chubb, Kevin Eldon, Will Keen, Selina Lo, Calam Lynch, Gabriel Akuwudike, Yasen “Zates” Atour, Amelia Kenworthy, Nia Towle, and Nicholas Woodeson. Character details for the new cast members have not yet been revealed. A supposed casting leak says that Lynch will play Celeborn, Galadriel’s husband whom she said was previously lost to her in Season 1. But only time will tell if that rumor is true.
There are characters we’re hoping to see introduced in the new episodes, such as Círdan, one of the three Elven ring bearers in Tolkien’s books. Galadriel and Elrond are the other two “Keepers of the Three Rings.” We’re also itching to find out if Weyman’s The Stranger is a younger Gandalf, like the Season 1 finale implied.
The Rings of Power Season 2 Plot (Season 1 Spoilers Ahead)
Charlie Vickers as Halbrand in The Rings of Power Season 1 finale (Prime Video)
The Rings of Power brings to screens for the very first time the heroic legends of the fabled Second Age of Middle-earth’s history. The drama is set thousands of years before the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings books and takes viewers back to an era in which great powers were forged, kingdoms rose to glory and fell to ruin, unlikely heroes were tested, hope hung by the finest of threads, and the greatest villain that ever flowed from Tolkien’s pen, Sauron, threatened to cover all the world in darkness.
Beginning in a time of relative peace, the series follows an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared reemergence of evil to Middle-earth. From the darkest depths of the Misty Mountains to the majestic forests of the elf capital of Lindon, to the island kingdom of Númenor, to the farthest reaches of the map, these kingdoms and characters will carve out legacies that live on long after they are gone.
The Rings of Power finale showed the creation of the three Elven rings of power. The series is obviously about the forging of all of the rings of power, as indicated in the show’s name, and it won’t waste any time making more in the next season. Clark confirmed at a Rings of Power event on May 7, 2023, that Galadriel will wear one of the three Elven rings in Season 2 and that there will be more rings forged.
The finale also revealed the identity of its ultimate villain. Vickers’ Halbrand was not the true King of the Southlands like he claimed to be, but rather Sauron in disguise. His powers of manipulation allowed him to take on the appearance of a random man, not that many in Middle-earth would recognize the ancient’s true form. Vickers told TV Insider after the Season 1 finale that he was “most looking forward to the season we’re currently filming, where Sauron is just wreaking havoc. He’s just being Sauron, you know? It’s a new phase for him.”
The season ended with Sauron walking into the newly formed land of Mordor, which Adar and the Orcs spent all of Season 1 attempting to create. They succeeded in Episode 6 when forcing the eruption of Mount Doom that destroyed the Southlands.
Morfydd Clark & Tyroe Muhafidin in The Rings of Power Season 1 Episode 7 (Prime Video)
We know based on the books that Sauron commits his time to making sure the rings of power, and of course the One Ring to rule them all, are made. Expect to see that in Season 2. Galadriel will likely be terrified to reveal her connection to Sauron moving forward, as it will put her judgment and character into question among the Elves.
Clark told TV Insider after Season 1 that she “really liked that they melted down [Galadriel’s] brother’s dagger at the end, because now she really, truly has to try and protect Middle-earth.” Hunting down Sauron in Season 2 is no longer just “about chasing a foe because he has personally hurt her, even though he really has.”
We also saw a glimpse of the Balrog beneath the Dwarf kingdom of Khazad-dûm in Season 1, a seriously dark omen, and the blinded Miriel (Addai-Robinson) is now the Queen of Númenor following her father’s death. But what unrest did Pharazôn, her head counsel, stir up in her absence while she led the fight for the Southlands with Galadriel?
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, Season 2, 2024, Prime Video
This story originally appeared on TV Insider
