The Rings of Power bosses talk paths not taken, goals for season 3

The second season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is over and done with. The final two episodes answered a lot of questions (who is the Stranger? When will the balrog show up?) and brought up a lot more (why is the Stranger? When will the balrog show up again?). Showrunner J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay are out there talking about all of it.

Let's start with the Stranger, the amnesiac wizard who we finally learned was a young(er) version of Gandalf, the most iconic character from J.R.R. Tolkien's original Lord of the Rings trilogy. "How do you make a Lord of the Rings show without Lord of the Rings‘ most beloved character?" Payne asked Deadline. "I think at the end of the day, what we came to was you can’t. If there’s any way we can justify him being around, it’s just too tempting to not go there."

Debatable. I thought the Stranger's arc was a little listless and weak this season, particularly as the focus shifted from his relationship with Nori to his friendship with Tom Bombadil, a minor character from The Lord of the Rings who is by nature distant and uninterested in the wider goings-on of Middle-earth.

I also think you could tell that neither Payne nor McKay knew that the Stranger would end up being Gandalf when the series started, but made it up as they went. "We talked about other options," Payne told The Hollywood Reporter. "There were blue wizards who were around in the North during the Second Age who went to the East. This just felt like the story that wanted to be told."

And at the end of the second season, despite finding out who the Stranger will become, I still don't feel like I know much about him, perhaps because he himself still doesn't have any of his memories. How did he get amnesia in the first place, anyway? In Tolkien's mythology, the wizards are sent to Middle-earth with a mission to oppose Sauron, and you kind of need your memories to carry that out. "Those details we might reveal as the story continues to go forward," Payne said. "But he did have an identity before that moment in the crater."

We also have a new mysterious wizard whose identity we can argue over: the Dark Wizard, played by Game of Thrones veteran Ciarán Hinds. THR points out that he probably isn't Saruman, since Gandalf begins The Lord of the Rings trusting that particular wizard. "I think that’s a very safe presumption," McKay said. "We know that in the history of Middle-earth, some wizards become corrupted. So there is precedent for this, but that doesn’t mean it’s the same guy. As you say, it wouldn’t actually make sense for it to be Saruman."

So that's one option down. We'll just have to wait to see how Gandalf's story connects back to the rest of the show. "I think it’s very important that this story that has gone so far east is going to come back west, so to speak, and we’ll link up and he has an important role to play in the grand scheme of things moving forward," McKay said.

The Balrog and Durin III were supposed to fight earlier

Another big moment from the finale was when King Durin III leapt into battle against the balrog deep in the depths of Khazad-dûm, which means his son Durin IV is now the king of the dwarves. "We’ve spent five years crafting story to build and hopefully we earned that moment. It was originally going to be the ending of Season 1, but we felt there was so much story here, and we love Peter Mullan so much and there’s so much to be had between him and his son at loggerheads," Payne said. "We decided to let breathe over an entire season."

I really enjoyed the back-and-forth between the Durins so I'll glad we got to spend more time with them. That said, I was surprised that the balrog seems dealt with, at least for now; in Tolkien's reckoning, the balrog is what drives the dwarves out of Khazad-dûm, so I doubt we've seen the last of it.

"This is a thing where, how do societies fall?" McKay explained. "Usually it’s gradually, and then all at once. If you want to use climate change as a metaphor, climate change is not an event. Climate change is a process that ebbs and flows, that’s always headed in a dark direction. I think a kingdom as great and powerful as Khazad-dûm does not fall in a moment. The fall is the product of many disasters over time. And I think it would sell Khazad-dûm short for the Balrog to get out and then it’s all over. It’s more complicated. We think there’s a bigger story to be told here."

When will Sauron make the One Ring?

Sauron, the dark lord from the original trilogy, played a huge in this past season, even being named "the lord of the rings." Obviously, he has big plans for the future. "Sauron starts the season with nothing — no rings, no army, no allies," Payne said. "He ends it with an entire army of Orcs. He’s got the nine rings for men, he’s distributed the seven rings to the dwarfs. So his plan for Middle-earth domination is well on its way."

So what's next for Sauron? You'd think that he'd get to work on the famous One Ring. "Can’t comment on that," Payne said. "All we can say is we’re deep in the works on Season 3 and it’s going to be cool."

McCay offered a little hint for the road: "The last time you see Sauron in episode 8, he’s now inherited the heirloom hammer. And in her voiceover, Megan Richards’ character Poppy Proudfellow is talking about, after a defeat and a great loss, all you can do is pick yourself up and build something new. And that seems to imply maybe the next step in Sauron’s journey. But that’s all we can say."

What Sauron has lost is the help and friendship of Celebrimbor, the great elven smith whom Sauron impales. I think the show has done a great job of humanizing Sauron without taking away his menace or villainous ambitions. "There’s something broken in Sauron, that his partnerships don’t work out," Payne said. "This is yet another rejection and failure to truly connect with another powerful being that could bring to pass a vision with him. I think there’s a genuine mourning, a sense of failure and of loss as he’s seeing Celebrimbor, who could have been his friend. But he couldn’t help but corrupt and manipulate and destroy him, and then he responds to watching him die."

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season 3?

Amazon has yet to officially announce a third season of The Rings of Power in development, but everyone involved sounds pretty hopeful, including McKay and Payne. "We think the show is just hitting its stride, and we anticipate that season three will be onward and upward," McKay said.

There is definitely more story to tell. Take what's happening on the island nation of Númenor, the most advanced civilization created by mortal men and women then in existence. "Númenor is a big, big epic story that we wanted to tell over the course of the show, since the minute we got there," McKay said. "The heat has been turned up on the pot of water and all of the characters are like frogs and things are starting to boil. There is really thrilling stuff to come in Númenor, and we’re really excited for where that’s going to go next. Every season of this show, different worlds are going to become more prominent in the world of men over in Númenor or this season you’re watching it take a turn, but once the turn is complete, things are going to get really dangerous."

Unfortunately, we have to subsist on teases for now. "So we’re working very hard on it and are deep in the writing process and are really excited about where it’s going to go. But I don’t think, we don’t have a date right now." See you in 2026, probably.

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