The Big Picture

• Season 2 of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power will likely feature the forging of the One Ring by Sauron.
• The exploration of the land of Rhûn in Season 2 could introduce new characters and potentially involve the Blue Wizards.
• The Golden Age of Elf-Dwarf cooperation will be a significant plot point in Season 2, focusing on the kingdom of Khazad-dûm and its relationship with the elves of Eregion.

Season 1 of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power made quite a splash with viewers by plunging them back into Middle-earth. With Season 2 debuting sometime in 2024, we can sneak a look ahead thanks to the writing of J.R.R. Tolkien. If the stories sketched out by Tolkien are to be any indicator, what Season 2 will bring promises to be dramatic, tragic, and remarkably action-packed.

Of course, the series is going with a condensed and reshuffled timeline, so the sequence of events has not been the same in the show as in Tolkien’s appendices. Given the scope of the first season, it is also unclear how deeply into the narrative the series will go, and which elements will be invented, left out, or shifted in time to another place. That having been said, the shape of Tolkien’s narrative combined with the promising position of the plot at the end of Season 1 gives a fairly strong indication of what is coming. From the (almost) obvious to the conjectural, here are the most important plot developments that are most likely to happen in Season 2 of The Rings of Power.

The Return to More Familiar Characters

One of the early revelations about Season 2 has been that audiences will finally get to see Cirdan the shipwright make an appearance. Cirdan, among many other things, made the ship that brought Elrond’s father to Valinor and was eventually given one of the three Elven Rings.

Another notable absence that might be rectified is the return of the elf, Glorfindel. Glorfindel died in battle against a balrog in the First Age, but became one of the few elves who was reincarnated and decided to return to Middle-earth; Tolkien noted that he did so sometime in the Second Age. Glorfindel has usually been written out of the film adaptations of The Lord of the Rings material, but a show that focuses on the Second Age would do well to bring him back at some point.

Of course, there will undoubtedly be a great deal of newer material included in the upcoming season, but the positioning of each of the storylines would seem to indicate that there is a lot of the canonical storyline that will be shaping the drama of the story of Season 2 and beyond. But until then, the theories and conjectures will merrily go on.

The Forging of the Ring (and the Rings)

The final shots of Episode 8 established Sauron (Charlie Vickers) coming to Mordor to retake his place as the Dark Lord (on his Dark Throne), but while this scene promised an interesting reunion between Sauron and Adar (Joseph Mawle), it also placed Sauron in just the right position for some significant events from Tolkien’s timeline. Given that the three Elven Rings have just been forged, it is more than likely that the other Rings will be forged soon enough. As Sauron created the One Ring in the fires of Mount Doom, and has been conveniently placed in Mordor for the start of Season 2, it is almost a guarantee that Sauron will forge his Master Ring in the upcoming season.

Another curious corollary of this is the question of when and how the other Rings of Power are going to be distributed, and why they are given to each character. A few of the Ring-bearers are named by Tolkien, but many are unknown and offer the series ample opportunity to play with the potential recipients of each of the Rings.

The Potential of Rhûn

The season finale also set up The Stranger (Daniel Weyman) and Nori (Markella Kavenagh) as about to journey to the land of Rhûn in order to find out the secret of the strange constellation he is following. While the storyline itself is an invention for the series, the pathway to Rhûn opens up quite a few possibilities that will almost certainly be explored in Season 2.

For one thing, one aspect of this adventure is very likely to connect with the storyline of the forging of the Rings. Rhûn is noted by Tolkien as being home to the Easterlings at one point, and one of the lords of the Easterlings is a man named Khamûl. Khamûl is one of only two named lords of men who became the Ringwraiths, so a lord of the people of Rhûn is likely on the cards for the upcoming season, and it would not be surprising to see a strange gift arriving for him via Air Mordor, either.

Another force to be reckoned with that is at work in the area of Rhûn is, of course, the Blue Wizards. Tolkien suggested that the most mysterious of the five wizards were the earliest to arrive in Middle-earth and worked against the plots of Sauron in the east during the Second Age. While the final episode of Season 1 suggested heavily that The Stranger is Gandalf and not a Blue Wizard, there is still the possibility that they will come across the Blue Wizards in the context of their adventure in Rhûn.

The Golden Age of Elf-Dwarf Cooperation

While Khazad-dûm was in dynastic turmoil at the end of the season, Tolkien’s writings suggest that there is a great deal more to be told about the dwarf kingdom and its relationship with the elves of Eregion. The time of Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards) in the Second Age was a golden age of cooperation between the two peoples, and it led to further refinement of mithril production, including the creation of the glowing mithril-based substance known as “ithildin,” which was used by Celebrimbor and the dwarf Narvi to create the glowing West Gate of Khazad-dûm as a symbol of the cooperation of the elves and dwarves.

Pharazôn’s Schemes for the Future

The role of Pharazôn (Trystan Gravelle) in the first season was significant, but muted in comparison to his ultimate importance to the story. While there is no way that Season 2 can encapsulate all of his significant actions within the history of Middle-earth, there is bound to be a massive step forward in his influence in the near future, based on his role in Tolkien’s story.

Pharazôn himself admitted to having ambitions for gains in Middle-earth in Season 1, and it is canonically how he rose to prominence and great personal wealth and influence, as well as military success. All of these possibilities are ripe for the picking for the next season, as Míriel (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) clearly also has a desire to return to Middle-earth. Míriel’s blindness also seems to be playing into another key plot element for the future. Pharazôn ultimately ends up usurping the throne from his cousin and taking over the kingship of Númenor, and it seems likely that his progress toward the throne will begin with Míriel leaning more on her most trusted advisor to help her rule going forward.

Another corollary of Pharazôn’s military and commercial ambitions will likely be the introduction of the Black Númenoreans. Originally part of the party of King’s Men (of whom Pharazôn was the leader), the Black Númenoreans formed colonies in Middle-earth and became corrupted by Sauron in the Second Age. Three Númenorean lords ended up becoming Ringwraiths, and the Mouth of Sauron was also in origin a Black Númenorean, so this splinter group from the island kingdom is likely to grow in importance in the upcoming season.

The Sack of Eregion

While the sequence of events is not absolutely certain, The Hollywood Reporter mentioned in a conversation with Patrick McKay and J.D. Payne that Season 2 promises to include a “massive two-episode battle” as presumably part of its climax. The battle itself has not been explained, but there is an extremely strong candidate for the subject of that battle: the sack of Eregion. It has elements that would combine most of the major storylines of the show so far, and it is a battle sequence that goes back and forth for quite some time.

In the fall of Eregion, Sauron attacked the elves there for the purpose of taking the Rings of Power and using them for his own ends. The currently-missing Celeborn distinguished himself in this battle, and Elrond (Robert Aramayo) was sent by Gil-galad (Benjamin Walker) with a relief force to assist the elves who were under attack. Eregion fell, however, Elrond was pushed into a defensive position and only saved by a sortie of the dwarves of Khazad-dûm, and Celebrimbor was tormented into giving up his knowledge of most of the Rings. Even the elves of Lindon were hard-pressed until a relief force of Númenoreans turned the tide of battle and pushed Sauron back to Mordor.

Such a dramatic battle sequence would make sense for a two-part episode, and the storyline may combine this event with a much later one in history for the sake of streamlining the timeline. In Tolkien’s telling, it is the future Númenorean king Tar-Minastir who saves the kingdom of Lindon and pushes Sauron back, but the timeline established for the show makes it more likely that Pharazôn will be the one who takes the role of Tar-Minastir. This would provide the showrunners with the opportunity to combine this war with a later one that Pharazôn actually fought against Sauron, where he took the Dark Lord captive and brought him back to Númenor, whereupon he corrupted the hearts of Pharazôn and his people, leading them all to their eventual doom.

Season 1 of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is now available to stream on Prime Video in the U.S.

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