The second season of the American fantasy television series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is based on J. R. R. Tolkien's history of Middle-earth, primarily material from the appendices of the novel The Lord of the Rings (1954–55). Set thousands of years before the novel in Middle-earth's Second Age, the season depicts the rise of the Dark Lord Sauron and his plan to deceive the Elves into creating more Rings of Power that he can use to dominate the free peoples of Middle-earth. The story builds up to the climactic Siege of Eregion. The season was produced by Amazon MGM Studios in association with New Line Cinema and with J. D. Payne and Patrick McKay as showrunners.
Amazon acquired the television rights to The Lord of the Rings in November 2017 and made a multi-season commitment for a new series. A second season was ordered in November 2019, and writing began during an extended first-season production break that started due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Amazon announced in August 2021 that filming for the series would move from New Zealand to the United Kingdom starting with the second season. Filming began in October 2022, with Charlotte Brändström, Sanaa Hamri, and Louise Hooper directing. Much of the series' large international cast returned from the first season, as did composer Bear McCreary who started work when production began. Location filming took place around Surrey and Berkshire as well as in the Canary Islands, and filming was completed in early June 2023 amid the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike.
The season premiered on the streaming service Amazon Prime Video on August 29, 2024, with its first three episodes. The other five episodes were released weekly until October 3. Third-party analytics companies estimated viewership to be high, despite a significant drop from the first season, and Amazon said it was the most-watched returning season on Prime Video. Reviews were generally positive, with praise for the visuals and McCreary's score but mixed thoughts on whether the writing and pacing had improved. Audience responses were deemed to be more positive than for the first season. The second season received various accolades including a Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Award nomination.__TOC__
Episodes
Cast and characters
Starring
Supporting
Other
Production
Development Amazon acquired the television rights for J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings (1954–55) in November 2017. The company's streaming service, Amazon Prime Video, gave a multi-season commitment to a series based on the novel and its appendices that was believed to be for five seasons, to be produced by Amazon MGM Studios in association with New Line Cinema and in consultation with the Tolkien Estate. The budget was expected to be around per season, and the streaming service had to give a formal greenlight to future seasons before work could begin on them. J. D. Payne and Patrick McKay were hired to develop the series in July 2018, and were named showrunners a year later. Prime Video ordered an eight-episode second season in November 2019, and announced the series' title, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, in January 2022.
In August 2022, Amazon explained that the deal with Tolkien's estate required the company to keep the series distinct from Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings (2001–2003) and The Hobbit (2012–2014) film adaptations. Despite this, the showrunners intended for it to be visually consistent with the films. In December, the second season's directing team was revealed: Charlotte Brändström returned from the first season to direct four episodes, with Sanaa Hamri and Louise Hooper set to direct two episodes each. Brändström was also made a co-executive producer for the season, which was executive produced by Payne, McKay, Lindsey Weber, Callum Greene, Justin Doble, Jason Cahill, and Gennifer Hutchison. Several key creatives did not return from the first season, including producer Ron Ames, costume designer Kate Hawley, and production designer Ramsey Avery.
Writing The series' writers' room was disbanded once production on the first season began in February 2020, but a longer-than-usual four- or five-month production break was planned following the filming of the first two episodes to allow the writers to reconvene, review the early footage, map out the second season, and write the majority of its scripts. This break began earlier than expected due to the COVID-19 pandemic, taking place from mid-March to the end of September. Writing for the second season was expected to be completed concurrently with post-production on the first between August 2021 and June 2022. The showrunners said most of the second season was written before the first was released. The writers' room for the second season included Payne, McKay, Doble, Hutchison, Cahill, Helen Shang, Glenise Mullins, and Nicholas Adams.
After introducing the Second Age of Middle-earth and its heroic characters in the first season, the showrunners said the second season would focus on the villains and go deeper into the "lore and the stories people have been waiting to hear". Following the reveal that the Dark Lord Sauron was posing as the human Halbrand, he disguises himself as an Elf named Annatar in the second season. The story involves him deceiving the people of Middle-earth into creating Rings of Power that he can use to control them, leading to a three-episode battle between the Orcs and the armies of the Elves led by Galadriel, Elrond, and Gil-galad. The showrunners said the Elf-smith Celebrimbor was the "principal protagonist" of the season and his relationship with Sauron is central to its story. McKay felt the season would be more impactful because of the time Sauron spent with other characters posing as Halbrand, compared to if they started the series with Sauron as a prominent antagonist. The showrunners added that Sauron would be exploiting "serious cracks" within the societies that the first season introduced, including the Dwarves. Expanding on Tolkien's explanation that the Rings of Power stoked the Dwarves' greed, they decided to explore King Durin III going mad and becoming a villain after receiving a ring.
The showrunners wanted to explore locations and characters from Tolkien's novels that had not been seen onscreen before, including the eastern land of Rhûn, and the Númenórean colony of Pelargir. The season also features the whimsical character Tom Bombadil and the wraith-like Barrow-wight creatures from The Lord of the Rings. Both were omitted from Jackson's films but were previously adapted in the Soviet television miniseries Khraniteli (1991). Because Tolkien kept Tom's origins and intentions mysterious, the showrunners interpreted his descriptions to create a reason for the character's inclusion. The showrunners saw Tom as a rare light for the season, and felt it was important to embrace the hope and earnestness in Tolkien's works rather than let the season's darker story become nihilistic and cynical. Rhûn is visited by the Stranger and the Harfoots Nori and Poppy, where they encounter a tribe of Harfoot-like Stoors, Tom Bombadil, and a Dark Wizard. The season confirms that the Stranger is the Wizard Gandalf following speculation about his true identity. The showrunners wanted this reveal to be a journey of self-discovery for the character rather than a surprise for the audience, with hints throughout the season allowing most viewers to be "several episodes ahead of him".
Location
Amazon Studios head Jennifer Salke said in June 2018 that the series could be produced in New Zealand, where Jackson's films were made, but Amazon was open to shooting in other countries; Scotland was also considered. Amazon confirmed in September 2019 that filming would take place in New Zealand. Production for the first season ended on August 2, 2021, at which point the New Zealand crew were unsure when filming for the second season would begin. Amazon considered filming the two seasons back-to-back, as was done for the films, but there was now expected to be a hiatus of at least a year. This was to allow post-production on the first season and writing for the second to be completed. Amazon retained its lease on the series' Auckland film studios so the sets could remain there for the duration of the hiatus.
The week after filming wrapped for the first season, Amazon announced that it was moving production to the United Kingdom starting with the second. The company was in the process of booking studio space in the UK, and Scotland was reported to be the frontrunner for new shooting locations. Amazon planned to ship the first season's sets from New Zealand to the UK and hire a new UK-based crew since the majority of the first season's crew was New Zealand-based. Factors that played a role in the change included Amazon already heavily investing in UK studio space for other productions; a belief that the UK would be a more economical choice following the high cost of producing the first season in New Zealand; the opportunity to film in European countries near the UK as was done for the series Game of Thrones (2011–2019); Tolkien's estate wanting the series to be filmed in the UK since Tolkien was inspired by locations there; and New Zealand's restrictive pandemic-era border policies which prevented Amazon executives from visiting and monitoring the production and forced many international cast members—more than half of whom are British—to stay in the country for nearly two years during filming for the first season. Amazon had offered in August 2020 to pay for the use of hotels and rental properties as private quarantine facilities to give the production more flexibility with travel, but this idea was rejected by the New Zealand government due to the supposed need for additional services related to quarantining.
The cast and crew expressed regret that they were not returning to New Zealand for the second season. Weber said it was difficult to leave and they would not have been able to make the first season without the New Zealand crew, many of whom previously worked on the films. In contrast, McKay felt they would be "bring[ing] the property home" to the UK. He added that the new lands being visited within Tolkien's world would justify new filming locations, and Amazon's television head Vernon Sanders confirmed that the second season would take advantage of the new locations available in the UK and across Europe. Pre-production was expected to begin in the second quarter of 2022. Production was set to be primarily based at Bray Film Studios and Bovingdon Airfield Studios outside of London, and the showrunners were scouting for additional locations in June 2022.
In September 2024, a retracted social media post from Bovingdon said the season had an estimated cost of (). A year later, production costs for the season were reported to have been "dramatically reduced" from the first season's budget due to the UK's tax incentives, which include up to 25.5 percent reimbursed through the high-end television tax relief program. Financial statements through the end of filming in June 2023 revealed a UK spend of () and rebate of (), giving a net cost of () to that point.
Casting