It’s hard not to group The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power and House of the Dragon together. Not only are the two shows similar in genre and budget but they’ve also aired their first two seasons in close proximity to each other. Both have made, along with The Witcher and — to a lesser extent — The Wheel of Time, ambitious plays for the title of the Best Post-Game of Thrones Fantasy Show on TV. Neither has managed to really fill that monumental series’ shoes yet, but their shared desire to achieve similar levels of success has been apparent from the beginning.
On top of all of that, The Rings of Power and House of the Dragon released very similar debut seasons in 2022. That is to say that their first seasons both turned out to be, for all intents and purposes, extended prologues to their core stories. House of the Dragon and The Rings of Power were both dinged for that choice, and viewers were forced to wait two years to see whether their second seasons would deliver on the long-winded promises of their debuts.
House of the Dragon, for its part, failed to do that. Outside of one memorable midseason episode, the HBO series’ sophomore run left plenty to be desired. It was full of the same long stretches of table-setting that viewers got from the show’s first, as well as superfluous Game of Thrones tie-ins and an ending that functions more as a trailer for what’s to come than an actual climax. The Rings of Power, conversely, hasn’t made the same mistakes. The Prime Video series’ second season isn’t just better than its first; it has also delivered everything The Rings of Power promised it would two years ago.
The key to Rings of Powers’ success? Momentum
When you compare The Rings of Power‘s first two seasons, the immediate impression one gets of its second is that it is definitively darker than its predecessor. That’s by design. The season’s increased focus on Sauron (Charlie Vickers) allows it to explore the darkness at the heart of The Rings of Power‘s story far more extensively than the show’s admirable but misguided first season. The greater darkness provided by Sauron’s central, outwardly antagonistic role imbues The Rings of Power with a more palpable tension and sense of danger this time around. By forcing us to watch Sauron manipulate his way to power, the series instills a feeling of dread in the viewer, along with a desire to see someone stop him.
The race to thwart Sauron before he finishes forging his highly coveted Rings of Power also gives the series a more satisfying and engaging forward momentum. Its second season’s present-day storyline begins literally in motion with Elrond (Robert Aramayo) and Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) trying to reach the Elven kingdom of Lindon before the other. The season’s momentum is sometimes halted when The Rings of Power turns its attention back to its weakest and most stagnant storylines — namely, those involving Isildur (Maxim Baldry) and The Stranger (Daniel Weyman), the latter of whom spends the entirety of The Rings of Power season 2… um… searching for his wizard staff. For the most part, though, the season feels more well-paced and cohesive than The Rings of Power‘s lackluster, meandering first.
The narrative arcs are richer … and more satisfying
For much of The Rings of Power‘s debut season, the slow corruption of Middle-earth was too vaguely drawn and defined to dramatically ground or propel it in any tangible or compelling way. By using the forging of the Rings as its dramatic anchor point this season, though, the series finds a way to tell a clear story across its latest episodes. The goings-on of Middle-earth’s Elves, Dwarves, and even the Men of Númenor all feel intricately tied in The Rings of Power‘s second season to Sauron’s manipulations and his overarching campaign for tyrannical domination. That means the series not only feels more narratively cohesive this year but most of its plot beats also feel genuinely important. They carry with them a dramatic weight that is both immediately obvious and impactful.
Many of The Rings of Power season 2’s final moments seem inevitable right from the outset, but the series builds toward most of them — like Celebrimbor’s final stand against Sauron and the latter’s retaking of his Orc army — patiently and deliberately enough that you are nonetheless moved by the tragedy of them. This is a series that is trying to cover broad themes with equally big, operatic creative strokes, and in most of its second season’s episodes, The Rings of Power‘s large-scale scope feels both real and justified. The same cannot be said for House of the Dragon season 2, which has no clear beginning, middle, or end, and which rarely figures out how to fully weaponize and maximize its impressive budget.
Rings of Power fulfills the promise it made when it began
There are many surface-level ways in which The Rings of Power season 2 is an improvement on the show’s first. It has, for example, more of the kind of awe-inspiring action sequences that help it stand out as a legitimately blockbuster-sized TV experience. More importantly, though, The Rings of Power‘s second season doesn’t leave you feeling like your time has been wasted watching it.
The landscape of Middle-earth fundamentally changes over the course of the season, and its eight episodes consistently fulfill the promise of Sauron’s ominous reemergence at the end of The Rings of Power season 1. Can anyone say the same thing about how House of the Dragon season 1’s final, foreboding closeup of Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy) was followed up this year?
Despite what many of its critics expected, The Rings of Power has done what its biggest competitor couldn’t. It has returned with a second season that isn’t just better but actually feels like it tells a complete, satisfying story. It’s a season that, unlike House of the Dragon‘s sophomore batch of episodes, does more than enough right to give viewers hope for The Rings of Power ‘s future. One only wishes the same could be said about House of the Dragon season 2.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power seasons 1-2 are streaming now on Amazon Prime Video.