Warning: This review contains spoilers. 

(REVIEW) After a wildly uneven first season, the second installment of “Rings of Power” returns as a thoughtful and exciting celebration of Tolkien’s ever-expanding universe.

To say that the first season of “Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” was divisive would be like calling the trip to Mordor dangerous: An understatement if there ever was one.  

Tolkien fans and YouTube film critics like The Critical Drinker mocked the show for being “a horrible, bland, disrespectful, corporatized piece of clumsy fan-fiction.” Much was made of the treatment of Galadriel’s “woke” re-imagining from a motherly queen to a stereotypical “strong female character.”

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I count myself among those who were unimpressed with the two-episode premiere I watched to review (which you can read here). I found it to largely be a boring mix of shallow Tolkien tropes remixed with very modern anti-Tolkien cliches. Whenever a character would quote a wise saying, or make an inspiring speech, it always sounded like it came from a middle schooler’s Instagram post. (“Why does the boat float? Because it looks toward the sun.” never stops being mocked by me and my friends). Or “wise” sayings that directly went against Tolkien’s ethos like “sometimes you have to touch the darkness.”

While Tolkien’s heroes were noblemen who found themselves tempted (and often succumbing to) evil, the protagonists of “Rings of Power” largely stood out as shifty and manipulative (such as how the Elf King requires Elrond to deceive Galadriel and his Dwarven friend Durin to gain his favor and rise in society). Likewise, while the men in the series were strong and good; the women were stereotypical, modern Hollywood “girl bosses” who had to overcome their physically and morally weaker male counterparts. 

And yet, having now watched the premiere of the second season, I can safely say that this is pretty close to the series that it always should have been.

The second season picks up where the last one left off. Sauron’s return is revealed to the Elves, who now are at odds on whether or not to use the new rings of power. Meanwhile, Sauron travels to the great elven-smith Celebrimbor to get him to make the rest of the rings that will help Sauron control Dwarves and Men as well.

The main problem with both seasons of the “Rings of Power” is that it’s really two shows. One is the “Diet Tolkien” remixed with modern cliches; the other a thoughtful fantasy that builds on, develops, and sometimes even subverts both Tolkien and modern adventure fantasy tropes in a reverent way. You even see the beginnings of that in the first season, but the series finally finds its footing to be much more the second (much better) show more often than not.

The strongest part of the show (and of this season opener as well) are the villains. Sauron and Adar are incredible characters. The show finds ways to bring depth to them while still keeping them clearly villainous, particularly Sauron. Sauron was the lieutenant slave of the Dark Lord Morgoth.

With Morgoth defeated, Sauron wants to be a new dark lord, but a different one than Morgoth was. Instead, he wants to be one who is manipulative rather than tyrannical and who will rule the world to save it rather than oppress it. You’re never quite sure how much of his noble intentions are true or just meant to manipulate others. To the degree that he’s sincere, it’s fascinating. 

Adar, who was invented by Amazon Studios for this series, was Sauron’s lieutenant and hated him as much as Sauron despised Morgoth. Adar kills Sauron to be free from his rule and claims he only wants to make a home for the Orcs, which he accomplished last season. Yet, his obsession with killing Sauron for real draws him back out. And he shows that he’s as cruel as Sauron ever was when it comes to achieving his goals. 

At the same time, the heroes are written better this time as well. The Elves are no longer cynical politicians lying to each other behind their backs for the greater good, but statesmen directly arguing with each other about how to defeat the oncoming threat. Both Elrond and Galadriel feel more like heroes than before — even though they both are being pushed to desperate acts and personal betrayals by their desperate circumstances. 

Galadriel is a really good example of how the show has grown beyond its own apparent cliches. The fact that Galadriel’s “I’m right and everyone else is stupid” strong-female-character Ripley trope attitude led directly to Sauron’s rise subverts the very tired archetypes that online fans accused the show of perpetuating. And yet, she’s still a hero and is still often right when others are wrong. This makes her, dare I say, complex. I can actually see these experiences teaching her the humility and wisdom that she exhibits as Galadriel when we meet her in “Lord of the Rings” proper.

While the Elves remain the most interesting of the heroes, the other groups we see are given plenty to do as well. Dwarves Durin and Disa remain charming as ever and Durin’s growing conflict with his father is engaging. The humans in Numenor shifting quickly into pro and anti-Valar/Elvish factions, with some unexpected shifting alliances, always kept my attention. Gandalf and the Hobbits can be the slowest story but is also in many ways the most clever.

Making Gandalf both a wise wizard and someone who needs guidance to become who he’s meant to be — an old man on a quest to become a wise wizard — is a very clever remixing of familiar tropes. You can definitely see him becoming the Gandalf we know, and having his affection for the Hobbits he does. 

The visuals are also more impressive than last season. The first had beautiful landscapes, but they often felt far more like backdrops rather than environments the characters actually lived in. This time, the characters feel like they live in that world, with the forests, grasslands, caves and cities, all looking like they are enveloping the characters inside them. This is a small thing, but adds up to a big thing in a genre that’s about putting in a different world. 

That said, the show is still far from perfect. Diet Tolkien still pops up far too often, particularly in the Gandalf-Hobbit sections. Wise sayings and speeches that sound like discount Hallmark cards, while less numerous this season, still abound. 

The show often still struggles to portray its heroes as deeply noble in the way that was a hallmark of J.R.R. Tolkien’s work. All the characters, from Frodo to Sam to Gandalf to even Borimer, felt like basically noble people struggling against being tempted by – and sometimes succumbing to — the darkness. By contrast, while the heroes in “Rings of Power” are capable of great nobility (and far better than the first season), they still seem steeped in moral grayness that makes one wonder why the rings are needed at all to make them fall. When the series does try to portray inspiring nobility, it often comes off as cheesy, which might explain why they do it so seldomly.

Some of this problem is a legacy of the first season. Because the heroes were established as so morally gray before the advent of the rings, it’s hard to truly feel the contrast and how their newfound desperate circumstances — and Sauron’s manipulation — have driven them further into the realm of shadow. The best example of them doing this well in the second season opener is with the character of Cirdan. He’s so convincing as an unassailable good person. So when he decides to keep the rings, with grand sounding excuses, it sends a chill down your spine. 

The show’s treatment of religious faith is a bit inconsistent as well. To be fair, Tolkien’s treatment of religion himself in his Middle Earth stories changed from book to book. His Catholicism is well known and it leaps off the pages of his books. But he specifically didn’t portray any religion in his “Hobbit” or “Lord of the Rings” stories. In fact, the closest we get is an idea of providence and divine sovereignty, which comes out most clearly in Gandalf’s classic line, “There are other forces at work in this world, Frodo, besides the will of evil. Bilbo was meant to find the Ring. In which case, you were also meant to have it. And that is an encouraging thought.”

And yet, in his book “The Silmarillion” and other writings, he established that the world of Middle Earth has what’s essentially a combination of pagan mythological and Christianity. It creates a character to be God, and then has him create angelic beings who essentially function the same way gods would in pagan mythology. It was the mythological deities that Tolkien loved to read about, but subsumed into a Chrisitan worldview.  

“Rings of Power” tries to square the circle between the “The Lord of the Rings” wider Middle Earth treatment of religion, and it often is more confusing than anything. The Elves and Men will one minute be talking about the Valar as a matter of fact. And then they will make vague references to their being “something” that is guiding them toward the good. As if they didn’t know exactly what that “something” was!

While the second season opener of “Rings of Power” is far from perfect, it’s a giant leap forward toward the kind of show that “Lord of the Rings” fans deserve. It honors Tolkein’s legacy and the way he imagined the world. I can’t wait for the rest of the season to see if it lives up to the opener. If Tolkien fans were turned off by the first season, I encourage them to give this one a shot. 

Joseph Holmes is an award-nominated filmmaker and culture critic living in New York City. He is co-host of the podcast “The Overthinkers” and its companion website theoverthinkersjournal.world, where he discusses art, culture and faith with his fellow overthinkers. His other work and contact info can be found at his website josephholmesstudios.com.