Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Rings of Power season 1 finale.
The first season of Amazon’s high-profile Lord of the Rings reboot The Rings of Power concluded in explosive fashion. The eighth and last episode of the prequel series’ debut run ended with the shocking emergence of legendary dark wizard Sauron onto the scene. Well, OK, so we always expected the franchise’s most iconic villain to appear, but exactly how he did is what’s blown the fans’ minds.
So, given that, naturally faithful followers of Middle-earth lore are wondering when we’ll get the chance to return to Tolkein’s fantasy universe for the sophomore season of Rings of Power. With season 1 long gone, having aired its finale over a year ago, fans are getting naturally impatient waiting for more information on the second installment.
When will The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season 2 arrive on Prime Video?
Do you want the good news or the bad news, first? Let’s go with the good news. So, an encouraging update is that Rings of Power showrunners Patrick McKay and JD Payne signed a very promising three-year deal with Amazon MGM studios in early 2024, which bodes especially well for the future of the Lord of the Rings prequel. According to The Hollywood Reporter, season 3 might not have officially been ordered just yet, but McKay and Payne are already at work breaking the initial story outline for it.
Meanwhile, the bad news is that season 2 is still left without an official release date beyond the general window of “2024.” The episodes were filmed all the way back in 2022, which feels like a long time to get the show release-ready, but considering Rings of Power is arguably the most ambitious, and certainly the most expensive, TV series ever created, it takes a long time to make.
Our best bet is that, following the release schedule for season 1, which was equally filmed two years before its September 2022 release, season 2 could come out in the Fall of 2024.
There was a huge change to the series behind the scenes for its second season, however, as production was relocated from The Lord of the Rings‘ traditional home of New Zealand to the U.K., with the former now set to serve as the show’s base of operations going forward. Fans may be sad to see the show lose its connection to the original LotR movies, but maybe it’s only right that the universe should return to its ancestral place of origin, considering Tolkein’s own status as a native Brit.
Fans should get excited about the new batch of episodes, considering McKay said the team aimed to make season 2 “bigger and better” on “every level … by an order of magnitude.” Everything else has been kept generally under wraps, except for a roll of new cast members, including Ciarán Hinds, Rory Kinnear, and Tanya Moodie, and one seemingly innocent post from the show’s official X account on Tolkien Reading Day.
Fans believe the three Tolkien passages shared by the Rings of Power socials contained hints to the possible storylines of the upcoming outing, such as more of the Three Rings of Celebrimbor, the Dwarves of Khazad-dûm, and the Elven-Smiths and the Fall of Eregion.
