‘The Rings of Power’ Bosses Reveal Season 1 Lessons That Led to ‘More Mysterious, Mistier and Darker’ Season 2

“Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” returns for a darker second season that incorporates equal parts a natural flow of the story and alterations made behind the scenes.

Season 1 of Prime Video’s massive swing into the fantasy genre landed to overall praise, but not nearly what was expected given the show’s price tag – reportedly around $465 million. Production on Season 2 was already underway while Season 1 was airing, and according to co-showrunner Patrick McKay and executive producer Lindsey Weber, the reaction to what was and wasn’t working didn’t affect the story the team was telling.

“When we were launching Season 1, we were about a month from starting Season 2 and it was all very much happening at the same time,” Weber told TheWrap. “We found lots of opportunities along the way, things evolve, our amazing contributors make suggestions that we think are fantastic, but I think the story has very much the same intention that these guys originally envisioned.”

For McKay, he admitted that a season of experience in Middle-earth helped himself and co-showrunner JD Payne handle the trials and tribulations unique to a show this size.

“[A]nytime you’ve done something once, it’s not necessarily easier the second time, but you have that well of experience to draw on,” McKay told TheWrap. “In the leadership of the show, all of us having done it once, we were maybe a little more seasoned in our jobs in terms of running this specific show with its particular challenges.”

One of the big changes heading into Season 2 was the show’s filming being moved to London. McKay said the wetter, muddier environment only leant more to the darker turn Middle-earth takes at this point in the Second Age.

“It’s Sauron’s season, it’s a season that’s dominated by villains, a battle between two villains in Adar and Sauron,” he said. “I think the environment and the weather has also seeped in and very much harmonizes with that darkness. I think people will feel, not in any specific moment but in the collective over the course of the season, it is decidedly more mysterious, mistier and darker.”

Below, McKay and Weber break down balancing fan expectations vs. telling their own story, casting Tom Bombadil, and that enemies-to-lovers energy viewers are picking up between Galadriel and Sauron.

Where do you think the balance is between fan expectations and telling the story that you’ve had in your head since the beginning?
Patrick McKay: In some ways, that’s an easy answer because there’s this mythology in Tolkien that is the Second Age, which is the setting of the show. JD and I always had a plan for where we’re going to tell these particular stories. That becomes the anchor of the entire enterprise. In Season 2, we start really delving into parts of the lore that big fans have been dying to see for so many years. In staying true to that, hopefully you’re delivering on those expectations by telling the story that you want to tell.

Besides rain and mud, what did the move to London bring to the show this season?
Lindsey Weber: There’s an excellent crew base here, so we have some wonderful new department heads. Our amazing production designer Kristian Milsted and his team, for example, did a great job. There are these great old-growth forests around the U.K. that are so inspiring, that feel so Tolkienian, perhaps the forests that inspired him when he was writing the books. It does feel like it belongs here in some ways.

P.M.: We very much want the second season to feel of a piece with the first – it’s Middle-earth. We don’t ever want you to be thinking of New Zealand or England, we want you to be thinking that you’re being transported to this immersive other world.

This season is much darker. How were you balancing that darkness with the genuine earnestness and sentimentality that comes with Middle-earth and Tolkien’s writing?
P.M.: I don’t know that there’s anything in conflict with being earnest and being dark. Certainly, we’re not approaching the show from a cynical perspective. As audience members and fans of Middle-earth, we’d be stunned if there was a cynical adaptation of Middle-earth – that’s just not what it is, that’s not Tolkien’s work. In some ways that’s the easy part.

In terms of the darkness, I would say JD and I were very blessed and fortunate to get this gig six years ago now because we had a plan for this 50-hour mega-epic. The plan was always that Season 1 was going to be this bright, lush reintroduction to Middle-earth in this different era where places like the dwarf kingdom is at it’s height, Numenor is this spectacular and beautiful place. The journey of the Second Age is every one of those societies falling into chaos, conflict and war. That meant that decidedly the road would darken as we went forward.

I think staying true to those themes led us, potentially, to an even darker path than any of us anticipated.

You mentioned that 50-hour mega-epic. Are five seasons still the plan?
L.W.: We serve at the pleasure of our Amazon friends, but we’re very lucky to be here finishing – we’re actually still finishing Season 2 – and in the early days of Season 3. We’ll keep doing it as long as they tell us we can.

P.M.: We feel like we’re just hitting our stride.

You’re already juggling a number of iconic characters in their earlier days, but the announcement of Tom Bombadil appearing this season really got fans excited. A lot of us missed him in the “Fellowship of the Ring” adaptation, so was there any added pressure bringing him into live action for Season 2?

P.M.: I wouldn’t say pressure so much as an opportunity. Tom Bombadil is enigmatic, whimsical, eternal being, and he’s around during this story. The idea that our characters might stumble across him, hopefully in the most delightfully unexpected way, was always appealing to us.

L.W.: If you’re thinking what could you want out of a “Lord of the Rings” and Middle-earth in the Second Age, Tom would be high on the list. We couldn’t pass it up.

P.M.: I like to say that he’s sort of the most “Lord of the Rings” thing in “Lord of the Rings.”

Rory Kinnear got the gig as Tom. I’m curious what boxes you both were looking to be ticked when casting him?

L.W.: That’s a good one because you can’t reduce Tom to boxes. There has to be that twinkle and that mystery. He’s the most enigmatic, the most wise, the most unusual. He’s singular. All the boxes have to be ticked and how many people can do that?

P.M.: We have to throw love to our amazing casting director Theo Park. We described what we wanted to do with this character, how we saw them fitting into the story, and she was like, “Rory Kinnear.” We had one conversation with him, he was in Cornwall directing an opera. Tom Bombadil’s his wife’s favorite character, and he’s just a delight to work with. He’s funny but he has these dramatic chops, he sings – he sings a couple times – and really he’s sort of exactly what you want.

It must be nice having the Sauron reveal in the rear view. Was there an approach to writing him in Season 2 that changed now that you didn’t have to maybe dull some of who he was to help maintain the secret in Season 1?

P.M.: When JD and I invited Lindsey to join the circus, one of the first things we charged her with was, “How do we protect this secret?” The first season is very much designed for rewatchability, where hopefully on the first time through you’re like, “Oh, this guy seems pretty cool,” and the second time through there’s a whole riptide through it constantly. You’re looking at everything he says and every interaction he has through the prism that he’s Sauron. I don’t know that we were ever trying to dull it, it’s just the ambition of telling a story in Season 1 that was about Sauron — but the first time you watch it you don’t know it.

L.W.: I think it’s also a really interesting creative exercise to pick up with the villain this season after some audience members in Season 1 were charmed by him, maybe had a little crush on him. Liked his charisma and energy with Galadriel and other heroes and then to sort of reckon with that in Season 2 in the same way that Galadriel has to. I think it makes for a really interesting way into watching a villain and looking at what he is.

Fans of the show have been picking up on some enemies-to-lovers energy between Galadriel and Sauron through the first season and even in trailers for Season 2. Is that just fans doing their thing or something you were consciously trying to bake into the season?

L.W.: I think part of it is the writers’ intention, part of it is they have a connection in the books. I think part of it is also Morfydd and Charlie. We did a chemistry test before we cast either of them and they just were magic. They got on so well and there was a certain spark to it that was really compelling. I think as they’ve grown into these roles, the flame has brightened in Season 2.

I think it’s such an interesting question to see it through that lens. What’s she going to do when she sees him again? The last time she saw him she called him on it, the big lie was revealed, and then he proposed to her, tried to kill her and disappeared.

P.M.: The entire season is the two of them on a collision course. Without spoiling anything, near the end they will finally collide.

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