The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season 1 played a lot close to the chest. There was the secret of who The Stranger is and where he came from; the secret of where Sauron was, and who he might already be (such that it was secret). But if the trailer that just dropped at San Diego Comic-Con is any indication, there’s a lot more out in the open in season 2.
For starters, it appears the elves might be wise to the subterfuge of Sauron (Charlie Vickers), something Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) hid from them at the end of the last season. Instead of revealing his betrayal, she watched as Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards) forged the three elven rings of power.
But there’s more ring trouble on the way. As previous trailers showed, Rings of Power seems to be headed into the part of Middle-earth history where Sauron disguises himself as an elf and entices — then later, tortures — Celebrimbor into working with him to make the other rings of power (the seven rings of the dwarves and the nine rings of men). The duo will have help Celebrimbor’s protege Mirdania, a new character for the season, but not a lot else was known yet about where exactly that leaves the elves, men, or dwarves in season 2.
The SDCC trailer has some more clues: The dwarves will get their rings (and Durin will get kicked across the throne room by his dad); Sauron will tell someone to “give him the nine;” Celebrimbor will yell, “What have you done to me!”
In this extended trailer The Rings of Power fan service also seems to be just heaped in front of us: we have Shelob (or at least some sort of spider, sorry to stereotype); a Balrog falling calamitously through (probably) Moria; Entwives(!); what looks like Sauron’s helmet (sans face mask); and would-be-hero/definitely-chill-guy Tom Bombadil, pushing The Stranger to help “every soul in Middle-earth” (who Bombadil describes as “in peril”). It feels a lot like, after a season 1 spent mucking around in the quieter end of the Second Age, season 2 will go bigger and bolder into the parts of Lord of the Rings people are more familiar with now that the story is well under way.
And we won’t have to wait much longer to see it: The Rings of Power season 2 drops on Prime Video on Aug. 29.
You can find all of Polygon’s coverage of SDCC 2024 news, trailers, and more here.
The post Rings of Power’s SDCC trailer actually looks like the Lord of the Rings show we were promised appeared first on Polygon.
