Amazon Prime’s $1,000,000,000 Lord of the Rings prequel series, The Rings of Power, is coming back for a third season, and it just made a show-saving decision.
Since it first arrived in all its high fantasy glory in 2022, Rings of Power has been fighting a battle tougher than Helm’s Deep to win over the beloved franchise’s fiercely protective fanbase.
The epic series, starring Morfydd Clark as Galadriel and Robert Aramayo as Elrond, is set thousands of years before Frodo ever sets foot outside of the Shire, as we trace the origins of the eponymous rings, including the one to rule them all.
Despite the mammoth budget, sweeping sets and expansive world-building, the first series didn’t resonate with the masses. It may have attracted more than 150million global viewers, but it only secured a measly 38% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Criticisms ranged from disappointment at how Tolkien’s work has been adapted to the ‘awful pacing’ and ‘convoluted, padded and boring plot’ – and that’s some of the nicer commentary. I can understand the gripes; it took me two tries of the first season to properly immerse myself in the show.
A big part of my discontent was thanks to one subplot that has been a real slog to get through from the very start, and that is the Harfoots – early ancestors of the hobbits – to whom Gandalf first crash-lands on earth.
Essentially, we see young Harfoots Nori (Markella Kavenagh) and Poppy (Megan Richards) taking the stranger (Daniel Weyman) – as Gandalf is first known – under their wing while he tries to figure out who he is and his purpose.
The acting is fine enough, but the tedious stretching out of this plot across two seasons, especially when the stakes grew higher every episode with action-packed sequences and riveting storylines, was almost difficult to watch.
I would find a groan escaping my lips every time we would return to this trio of characters, even tempted to skip forward with the remote because I could already see myself nodding off.
Now, the Rings of Power showrunner J.D. Payne has delivered music to my ears by telling Empire that we won’t be seeing much (if any) of the Harfoots in the upcoming season.
‘It was time for them to take a little bit more of a backseat,’ he said, adding: ‘But I will also say: never count a Halfling out.’
Without a doubt, the second season is leaps and bounds better and kept me mostly hooked from start to finish as we witnessed Sauron’s manipulation of elven-smith Celebrimbor, the comings and goings in Numenor filled with bloody betrayal and Gandalf’s ongoing origin story.
By the end of the second series, Gandalf has revealed himself and is at Tom Bombadil’s house, having bid adieu to his Harfoot friends. And good riddance, I say.
I’m not sure if I’m yet convinced by this storyline in its entirety when there are far more interesting goings-on with Sauron and the ever-precarious politics of Middle-earth, but at least we won’t have to endure any more trekking through the desert with inane chatter.
At least I hope.
If the show leans into all that has made it engaging and special in this third season, we very well could see a turnaround in sentiment. Perhaps naysayers could give the show a try.
I’ll certainly be recommending it to more people, knowing they won’t have to endure the more dreary aspects of the tale.
And it seems as though there is plenty to look forward to with the new season as Jamie Campbell Bower comes on board as Celeborn, the husband of Galadriel.
Meanwhile, perhaps most excitingly of all, the showrunners have teased that the One Ring will finally be forged this season.
So, as they say, out with the old and in with the new. Amazon Prime’s Rings of Power might just save itself from doom.