Middle-earth is different in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season two. Season one ended with an eruption, both the literal and figurative kinds. The Southlands became Mordor in a fiery instant. Galadriel learned she had a hand in helping Sauron return. Darkness is creeping in. That darkness and the looming of villains came up often during Nerdist’s visit to the set of The Rings of Power season two. Along with a group of reporters, we spoke with The Rings of Power showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay about season two. Here’s what we learned about Sauron, Galadriel, the Stranger, new locations, and more.
The Psychology of Sauron
Sauron walked Middle-earth and Númenor as Halbrand for nearly all of season one of The Rings of Power. But now Galadriel knows who he is and we, the audience, know. McKay said, “We saw in season one that Galadriel who, in our estimation is one of the great heroes of Middle-earth, her pride and her PTSD were a crack that he could get into and manipulate her to get everything he wanted. Now he’s going to do that with everybody. And the joy of season two is we know who he is. And so, instead of season one, where Sauron’s [identity is] in the dark, this is us about understanding his psychology, and how he works.”
Payne said of Galadriel, she thought, “I thought my compass pointed north. I was the most righteous certain Elf in all of Elvendom. And I literally was so upside down that I was helping the Dark Lord.”
But that’s Sauron’s specialty. He’s going to be influencing all the peoples of Middle-earth and beyond. “We know Númenor has big things to do with Sauron down the road,” noted McKay. “As do the Dwarves in Khazad-dûm and elsewhere. We know that the Southlanders who had a home in Mordor, that has been utterly devastated and destroyed, are now essentially refugees. How does that play into it? We know men are weak. We know men eventually take rings. And what is going to be happening over the course of season two is, every single one of these societies and heroes that we set up in season one, are now facing serious cracks in the foundation that Sauron can exploit.”
And really, it’s about the evil every individual must face as things change. McKay said, “There is good and evil in Tolkien. That’s really important, we feel. What side are you fighting for is something that everyone has to struggle with in Tolkien. And that to us, is like… Evil is not something over there that’s other, evil is in here.”
The Stranger’s Visit to Rhûn
When last we saw the Stranger, a currently nameless wizard, and Nori the Harfoot, they were starting a long journey to Rhûn. McKay said, “We’re really excited about that. We’ve never seen deserts on-screen, in Middle-earth. And we’re really excited to go there. We think deserts are beautiful and awesome, and we’re doing our own Tolkienian Lawrence of Arabia. And one of the things that’s been fun about that is, Rhûn is really a blank canvas.”
He continued, “There’s little hints. There’s talk about magic cults and talk about the stars being strange, and there’s rumors of wizards having adventures in Rhûn that may or may not have gone well. And we’re drawing on all of that, all those seeds, to hopefully continue to tell a story that feels worthy of the other canonical stories in here.”
McKay noted, that at the time of the set visit, they had just spent five weeks shooting in a far-flung location for spectacular vistas. As a viewer, he sees Nori and the Stranger and thinks about E.T. and Elliott or the Iron Giant as far as a similar sense of wonder in their journey. Payne added that going through the experience with the characters keeps the story grounded.
As for the Stranger’s identity, Payne explained, “The wizard doesn’t know who they are. If they did, then it might feel a little cheap. It would be like we were just withholding, just for the purpose of withholding, but the wizard is on a journey of self-discovery, and learned a couple key things about himself at the end of season one, learned that he’s an Istar, and learned that he has a destiny in the East. So now, we are on that journey of self-discovery with him, where he’s learning how to control his powers. For us, it’s really delicious to watch a character who could eventually become one of great power, not yet be there, and then have to figure out, ‘What are the mistakes they’re going to make along the way?’”
Though the Stranger used a line from Gandalf in The Fellowship of the Ring in season one, that was not necessarily meant to be a hint. “Despite what some folks might think, we’re really not about a game, we’re really not about a puzzle,” McKay noted. “But we don’t want to take for granted where characters will end up. We want to see them grow and change along the way. And we hope that, in the end, you look back and it feels inevitable. But in the moment, hopefully… Yeah, I’m trying to say but not say.”
Payne added, “We also try to make it delightful that there are several possibilities what that could end up meaning. Could that mean that the stranger is Gandalf, and that, ‘He says that, then he says that later on?’ It could definitely mean that. Could that mean the stranger is Saruman? And that’s something that you’re going to realize that later on, Saruman said that to Gandalf, and then Gandalf said it. There are always ways you can pinball it from the legendarium to the story, and there could be delightful paths that could come out of either eventuality. We like to keep those doors open.”
Hope in a Time of Darkness
Though the stakes are large and very real in J.R.R. Tolkien’s works, the story also has a sort of coziness. While season two is inherently darker, they’re trying to be aware of not going too far and only doing what makes sense for the story. McKay said, “Journeys have to go to darker places as they go forward. Every saga that we love, that’s sort of the classical structure. I think, when we think about Peak Bleak, it’s not necessarily about the level of the stakes or the scariness of it, or whether people could die. It’s more about, ‘Is there a…’”
“It’s the core ethos at the center of it. Is it nihilistic bleak…” Payne said.
“Or cynical,” McKay said.
“Or cynical where people are just screwing each other over for their own self-gain without any sense of redemptive quality at the center of it? And in Tolkien, even the villains often have something redemptive at the center of it. Even Sauron, in his own twisted way, thinks he’s healing Middle-earth. So I think that’s one ways, is that there’s always a core there, that isn’t just darkness for darkness’ sake,” Payne explained.
McKay added, “There’s an earnestness to Middle-earth and stories in Middle-earth, and we happily embrace that. It’s really hip to be cynical and roll your eyes, and be postmodern, and winky-winky, and we’re just not going to play that game.”
Releasing Seasons More Quickly
The Rings of Power‘s first season debuted in 2022. Season two is coming out in August 2024. The showrunners have mentioned a five-season plan and at the current pace, that finale would be far into the future. McKay said, “We took this insane ambitious project on because we had a story we wanted to tell, and we felt needed to be told, and we were willing to give our lives for a long time to tell it. The plan hasn’t changed. There’s opportunities all the time. When you meet an actor who inspires you, it gives you a new idea. There’s always room for that. But this was always the plan, was to continue telling this five-season story. And we’re now in the sixth inning of making—maybe the fifth inning of making, depending on how you count it—the second piece of it.”
McKay continued, “We have all kinds of ideas for the third and the fourth and the fifth [seasons]. But there’s a long road ahead, in terms of really developing them. In terms of the timeline…”
Payne jumped in, “Some things speed up in season two, because we’ve cast a lot of the show. So that process is a little further this time around. Some of the things have been designed in terms of costumes to the world. There’s a lot of new things that you’re going to do as well. Some of the machine, that’s time that you save there a little bit.”
McKay noted, “Which is the machine of production, how we actually physically make the show.”
They pointed out they didn’t have COVID in the middle of season two, so at the time of the interview, they thought it would take about as half as long to make as season one did. What that means for release dates for season three and beyond is not yet clear.
New Locations in The Rings of Power Season Two
Season one of the fantasy series traveled throughout Middle-earth and past that land’s borders. And season two will expand the show’s locations. McKay said, “We talked about Rhûn a little bit, that’s certainly a big opening up. The Southlanders are going to Pelargir, an old Númenórean colony. We know that’s a place that has a significant destiny in the legendarium, and how the colonies of Middle-earth relate back to the parent country, back in Númenor. So, that’s a story that’s kicking off. And we love the idea of an old Númenórean colony that had become now adapted to Southlander life, and what might that look like, and it’s quite rugged the way that that world tends to be, and really beautifully designed, I would say.”
Then there’s seeing more of locations we already know. Payne said, “The Dwarves are going to be digging deeper, and going to new parts of Khazad-dûm we haven’t seen before. There will also be journeys within lands that we know, but new parts of those lands, and seeing new creatures. There’s a lot of creatures this season.”
“There’s the Grey Havens in Lindon. That’s expanding that,” McKay recalled. “In Númenor, a lot of the story this season… It’s a really exciting Númenor story. We’re doing the old quarter of the capital city in Númenor, and really going into the ethos of the faithful and starting to set up what people who love the mythology know is a civil war, and a battle of ideologies, and what does their faith mean to them, and what did old Númenor mean to these people, versus what does it mean to the more Pharazôn-y folks? That’s all stuff we’re exploring. So hopefully that’s a whole new side of that world.”
Filming moved from New Zealand to the United Kingdom for season two, and they’ve been leaning into that. Payne said, “We’re shooting in some of the very forests and country sides that inspired Tolkien, and that really gave birth to Middle-earth. And so, we’re taking full advantage of that. We’re shooting in these forests that have thousand-year-old-plus trees. We’re able to bring to life the forest of Eriador in absolutely spectacular fashion, and see the strange wonder things that might be lurking therein.”
The Rings of Power season two premieres on Prime Video on August 29.