Overview
In 2022, two big fantasy shows, both part of existing hit franchises, arrived in short succession. First came Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon. Then, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power jumped into Middle-earth's history. In 2024, the pair are each returning, both in winter. And in the lead up, they've each dropped trailers on the same day.
House of the Dragon's new sneak peek at its second season is the latest of several. For The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, however, this is the first glimpse at the show's next batch of episodes. The latter has also revealed its comeback date: Thursday, August 29, 2024, which is when Prime Video will take the elves, dwarves, orcs, wizards and harfoots to your streaming queue again.
Set in the fantasy realm conjured by up JRR Tolkien — as The Hobbit movie adaptations and OG live-action Lord of the Rings films were — and telling a tale in Middle-earth's Second Age, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power boasts familiar names among its key figures. In season one, a young Galadriel (Morfydd Clark, Saint Maud) had a mission to hunt the enemy, after her brother gave his life doing the same. She saw fighting for fate and destiny as the work as something greater. A young Elrond (Robert Aramayo, The King's Man) was part of that journey, and the big bad who needed staving off was Sauron (Charlie Vickers, The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart).
With the show charting how the rings were forged, Sauron's rise and the impact across Middle-earth, season two brings the latter back after he was cast out by Galadriel. So, it's a battle between good and ascending evil, then, as the Dark Lord keeps pushing his shadowy influence — and sporting a different appearance. Also, more rings will be created.
Prince Durin IV (Owain Arthur , Coffee Wars), Arondir (Ismael Cruz Córdova, Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities) and Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards, Under the Vines) are among the returning characters on the Prime Video hit, which was unsurprisingly huge when season one debut, attracting more than 100-million viewers. The platform first announced the show back in 2017, then gave it the official go-ahead in mid-2018 — so if it feels like this series has been hovering around for several ages even though it only has one season so far, that's why.
If you're a little rusty on your LOTR lore, the Second Age lasted for 3441 years, and saw the initial emergence and fall of Sauron, as well as a spate of wars over the coveted rings. Elves feature prominently, and there's plenty to cover, even if Tolkien's works didn't spend that much time on the period — largely outlining the main events in an appendix to the popular trilogy.
The Rings of Power remains separate to the big-screen Lord of the Rings revival that was first announced in 2023 and now has new movie Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum in the works. If you're a LoTR fan, there's no such thing as too much for this franchise, though — like breakfast for hobbits.
Check out the first teaser trailer for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season two below:
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season two will be available to stream via Prime Video from Thursday, August 29, 2024. Read our review of season one.