Season Two of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power will, unsurprisingly, be all about the rings. And while J.R.R. Tolkien provided details on many of the 19 rings of power (and their master) in his writings, he didn’t delve much into the seven dwarven ones.
The Rings of Power series is planning to fill that blank space in LOTR lore. “There are tantalizing hints in the source text that the dwarven rings didn’t really control the dwarves the way Sauron might’ve liked, but it did stoke their greed,” co-showrunner Patrick McKay told Entertainment Weekly. “That sent us down this rabbit hole of ‘What about Peter Mullan [who plays King Durin III] going mad as a villain in Khazad-dum in Season Two?’”
He added, “The whole idea of doing a show in the Second Age was that it’s not a fixed target, there’s an enormous amount of room for creation and improv within a loose framework. The dwarven rings are a great example where it’s like, ‘What exactly did they do? How might that play on a father-son relationship?’”
We’ll get to see what McKay and the rest of the creative team envisioned when the second season premieres later this month. We’ll also get to see their rendition of the deserts of Rhûn, where Nori Brandyfoot (Markella Kavenagh), Poppy Proudfellow (Megan Richards), and Gandalf the Stranger (Daniel Weyman) are headed.
In Tolkien’s writings, all we really know about Rhûn is that humans and elves were “born” there, that Sauron hides there for a while, and that two Blue Wizards traveled there while Gandalf, Saruman, and Radagast were in Gondor (something that perhaps means that the Stranger is not Gandalf, though my lembas bread is still on Gandalf and the Stranger being one and the same).
Co-showrunner J.D. Payne called Rhûn a “blank check” from Tolkien that allows the show to “go somewhere that’s never been depicted before.”
And what inspired Payne and McKay for their take on Rhûn? “We’re huge admirers of Lawrence of Arabia, one of the greatest movies ever made, and we love Mad Max: Fury Road,” McKay told EW. “These are movies that are set in a vast desert landscape, but they make the desert feel beautiful. We’ve never seen deserts before in Lord of the Rings, so the idea to have a spice like that thrown into the mix was really exciting to us.”
We’ll get to see that spice when Season Two of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power premieres on Prime Video on August 29, 2024.
