The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is set to return on November 11 for its third season on Prime Video, and when it does, the life of its leading Elf Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) is about to get a lot more complicated. After two seasons of going it alone and contending with the unrelenting manipulations of Sauron (Charlie Vickers), Galadriel's long-lost husband Celeborn, whom she'd believed dead for centuries, is set to finally make his debut.
Played by Jamie Campbell Bower, the actor behind Stranger Things' standout villain Vecna, Celeborn is a vital new character in The Rings of Power. According to showrunner Patrick McKay, once Celeborn enters the series, "everything will be different from that moment forward."
Together with his co-showrunner J.D. Payne, McKay has shepherded this latest on-screen iteration of J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth since the beginning, and in season 3, they're poised to finally bring some of the most integral parts of their Second Age story into sharper focus. The Nazganôl, early incarnations of Nazgûl. Sauron's quest to forge the One Ring. The Balrog. Rivendell. An alliance between Elves and Men. We're getting ever closer to the world of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and the coming reunion of Galadriel and Celeborn is a major step on that path.
Winter Is Coming had the opportunity to interview Patrick McKay during the lead-up to The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season 3, and Celeborn was one topic we covered. McKay discussed the long-game planning that went into the Elven lord's inclusion in the story, and why this was the right season for him to come into the picture.
Celeborn's entrance has been almost a decade in the making
J.R.R. Tolkien famously poured many years into the creation of Middle-earth and all the characters, cultures, languages, and stories that resided there. It's fitting then that McKay and Payne have been preparing for the introduction of Celeborn for quite some time, long before the show was anywhere near season 3.
"Amazingly we first started talking about it nine years ago," McKay said. For those keeping track, that dates the earliest conversations about Celeborn to 2017 or so, when the show was first greenlit and three years before it would even begin filming its first season in February 2020.
"When you take on a project like this... you're trying to solve the problem immediately in front of you — what episode are we working on, what season are we working on — but also laying track for down the road," McKay explained. "And we always knew that part of the journey of the show for Morfydd Clark's character, Galadriel, would be that you're going to watch her grow into the venerated wise woman of the woods, with her partner at her side, and her, you know, amazing realm. And that that would be something she would assemble over the course of the show, and you would meet her in a raw, unformed state."
It was this concept of The Rings of Power exploring Galadriel's formative journey into the character she becomes by the time of The Lord of the Rings that provided a natural path for Celeborn in the series as well.
"From that moment, and that overall trajectory, it followed that maybe her husband and the stability of that relationship is something that we can experience with her, finding and earning," McKay said. "We always had the idea that he would join her at a certain point, and he would join the show. We didn't at the time know that we would meet a wonderful actor named Jamie Campbell Bower to play him and embody this part, but we always had this idea that around the middle of her journey, the husband she thinks is dead will turn back up and T-bone the show. And everything will be different from that moment forward."
The Rings of Power season 3 was built around two key storylines
In a show with a stacked ensemble cast like The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, it can be hard to know just how prominent any one character will be in the story, let alone a given season. It's been crystal clear from the trailers and promotional material for season 3 that Sauron will be front and center, perhaps even moreso than he was in season 2. How could he not be, when this is the chapter where he'll finally forge the One Ring to rule them all? Every other character will be affected in some way by the machinations of Sauron this season.
But Sauron isn't the only character who will have an outsized impact on the overarching story of the season. McKay confirmed that Celeborn coming back into the picture for Galadriel is the other central plotline that serves as a sort of backbone for season 3, around which many other stories will coalesce.
"I think when we first started really getting into the nitty gritty of season 3 there were two stories we knew we were going to build the story around," he said. "One was going to be Sauron's journey to make the One Ring, and the other is Galadriel's long-lost husband shows up. And then the how and the why and where, and how that fits every other story, that becomes the journey of sculpting and building these seasons."
Stay tuned for our full interview with Patrick McKay and director Charlotte Brändström following The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power's season 3 premiere on Wednesday, November 11.
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