The Rings of Power season 2 is an even stronger expansion of Tolkien’s mythos

The first season of Amazon’s The Lord of The Rings: The Rings of Power series was a spectacular piece of storytelling that took details from J.R.R. Tolkien’s appendices and forged them into an intricate exploration of Middle-earth’s history. Uneven pacing sometimes made the show seem like yet another fantasy slog borne out of Hollywood’s exhausting obsession with trying to will “the next Game of Thrones” into existence. But The Rings of Power’s visual splendor was nothing short of astonishing — especially for a streaming series — and each of its lead performances was a testament to how much more compelling classic fantasy characters could become when given the chance to exist beyond their canons.

The Rings of Power feels even more grandiose in its second season now that it no longer has to dance around the first’s big secret about Sauron’s newest face. With that (admittedly important) bit of plot now spelled out, the show has the space to dig into its many subplots. That digging gives The Rings of Power organic reasons to go bigger with its action set pieces and delve deeper into the minds of its many characters. The new batch of episodes also firmly establishes that showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay have an impressive grasp of how to temper their own ideas with pieces of Tolkien’s lore. What stands out this time around, though, is how much more Amazon really, really wants you to see The Rings of Power putting its sizable budget to work.

After introducing Halbrand (Charlie Vickers) as a shipwrecked refugee early in its first season, The Rings of Power took great care to keep viewers and its other characters in the dark about his actually being Sauron in disguise. Much to the annoyance of other elves like Elrond (Robert Aramayo) and Gil-Galad (Benjamin Walker), Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) never believed that Sauron was truly dead. But the truth of Halbrand’s identity still came as a shock to her because of how close they’d grown during their journey across the Sundering Sea.

With the nature of Sauron’s deception now revealed to its audience, The Rings of Power shifts gears to give you a deeper understanding of why Lord of the Rings’ villain is such an infamous figure. Season 2 adds more complexity to Sauron with glimpses further back into the past that explore what he represents in a world filled with all manner of magical beings. To some extent, he’s a cunning person whose aspirations for world domination make him seem all too human. But one of the more fascinating ideas the series highlights this season is how Sauron embodies a dark, primordial force older than the world itself.

Elements of Christian mythology have always been present in Tolkien’s larger legendarium, and The Rings of Power’s second season leans into them heavily through its depiction of Sauron as a shapeshifting deceiver whose power stems from playing on people’s desires. In the show’s present, that idea is unpacked thoroughly through its focus on elven smith Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards) as he ponders what else he might be able to make with the newly discovered magical ore mithril. And in the much more distant past, the depth of Sauron’s treachery is unpacked with a zoomed-in examination of Adar (Sam Hazeldine), one of the world’s very first orcs.

The long-term, Machiavellian nature of Sauron’s scheming is one of the character’s most defining and well-established features in Tolkien’s books. But Vickers makes these chapters of Sauron’s story feel fresh with a more quietly imperious performance that sells him as a kind of fallen angel whose deadliest weapon is his corruptive influence over others. Seeing Sauron / Halbrand interact with a wider array of characters as his true self this season recontextualizes everything about his season 1 dynamic with Galadriel. It adds a deeper significance to the time we’ve already seen Sauron / Halbrand spending in the orc-infested Southlands as it was transformed into an early Mordor. And Sauron being increasingly transparent about the nature of his ring-centric plans makes the show’s approach to weaving its multiple subplots together feel all the more necessary.

Because of the show’s size, it still struggles to make some of those subplots — like the drama unfolding with queen Míriel (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) and politician Pharazôn (Trystan Gravelle) in Númenor — shine as brightly as others. The Rings of Power feels most like a Game of Thrones aspirant when it’s focused on its human characters. To be fair, they give this season another way of illustrating how Sauron’s existence brings out an existential darkness in the world. But their stories just aren’t as exciting compared to the more magical things going on elsewhere in Middle-earth.

When it’s following Galadriel on her quest to convince other elves that their already-forged mithril rings are an asset too precious to destroy, this season comes alive with an intrigue that showcases Clark’s ability to make the character feel like a more nuanced presence than her depiction in Peter Jackson’s films. This is true of Aramayo’s Elrond as well, who exists as this season’s voice of reason cautioning everyone to steer clear of anything that might be tainted by Sauron’s influence. And that recurring beat plays beautifully into the way this season deploys Edwards’ Celebrimbor as a reminder of how doomed many of The Rings of Power’s characters are in the grand scheme of things fated to play out down the line.

Even the show’s proto-Hobbits Nori (Markella Kavenagh) and Poppy (Megan Richards) become more fascinating as they continue on their adventure with the Stranger (Daniel Weyman) to Rhûn. A lot of that has to do with the fact that the Stranger just talks a lot more to his diminutive friends rather than accidentally unleashing magic that terrifies them. But it’s also because The Rings of Power puts those characters in new, more interesting places and pits them against threats that give their arcs a welcomed sense of urgency.

Whereas you could see season 1’s budget in the visual intricacy and grandeur of places like Lindon and Khazad-dûm, season 2 shows off its expensiveness with a surprisingly large number of action-focused set pieces featuring CGI that looks magnitudes better than what other streamers are offering up. Almost every episode features a climactic moment that genuinely feels like it’s meant to be watched in a theater with composer Bear McCreary’s majestic score blasting. And they all work to reinforce the larger idea that Middle-earth is entering an era of peril that none of its heroes are really prepared to navigate with any sense of certainty.

The Rings of Power has always been an experiment in bringing Tolkien’s ancillary footnotes alive and using them to add texture to an iconic myth. The show succeeds on that front even though it sometimes tries to do a bit too much with all of its interweaving threads in just eight episodes. But in that short span, it’s clear this season is cooking (or forging) with some real heat.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power also stars Ismael Cruz Córdova, Owain Arthur, Sophia Nomvete, Maxim Baldry, Tyroe Muhafidin, Lloyd Owen, and Leon Wadham. The new season’s first three episodes hit Amazon Prime on August 29th.