Whether you liked it or not, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power became a hit series for Amazon. As we have reported on multiple occasions, the series has – expectedly – been renewed for a second season, whose eight episodes will premiere later this year. It is going to be interesting to see how it all develops, especially in light of several important announcements made by the showrunners ahead of the upcoming premiere, which is certainly going to be one of the major events of the summer. As you might expect, the upcoming season is already being talked about, and what interests us here is the novelties the season is going to bring.

As we have reported, series showrunners Patrick McKay and J.D. Payne teased, in a recent interview, a very different second season, which will be dedicated to the villains, and that, of course, means that the focus of this season is going to be Sauron’s rise, which means that Season 2 is going to bring the famous story on the big screen for the first time.

In case you’ve forgotten, McKay and Payne discussed the upcoming season in an interview for Total Film magazine, revealing that the whole second season will be dedicated to the villains rather than the heroes, as was the case with Season 1. They further elaborated on that by saying:

“This time, Sauron’s agenda sets everything in motion: Adar [Sam Hazeldine, taking over the role from Joseph Mawle] and his army of orcs; Galadriel [Morfydd Clark], Elrond [Robert Aramayo] and Gil-galad [Benjamin Walker] and their armies of elves – all of which will come crashing together in the most ambitious battle our show has seen yet, a battle from which many big players may not make it out alive.”

Source: Total FIlm

This makes it painfully clear that the second season is going to be about Sauron, and despite the fact that the casting for the series has been criticized, we are actually looking forward to seeing what the series does with Tolkien’s greatest villain. And it seems that the plans are big.

J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay recently gave yet another interview about the upcoming season, this time for Empire, in which they revealed how they plan on handling Sauron’s rise to notoriety:

“If you had to pick one reason to make this show and set it in this era of the mythology, that’s it. From minute one, we talked about Milton’s Paradise Lost, Walter White and Tony Soprano, and how Sauron has the potential to be like these great villain-heroes – hero meaning protagonist. That’s the great untold story on the screen.”

Source: Empire

McKay then continued about Sauron’s role in the first season and the evolution of his importance in the series:

“He was hiding amongst our story. The opportunity now with Season 2 is: the audience is in on the con. We know who he is. We have a pretty good sense of what he wants. The fun is watching other people get ensnared in the web. As the season unfolds, the plan starts. One hammer after another starts to fall until, by the last couple of episodes, you realise the level and extent of how evil he is and how deeply he’s strategised this whole thing out. All our stories start to become one story, and the one story is the way the re-emergence of Sauron touches everybody and threatens the whole world.”

Source: Empire

Finally, Charlie Vickers, the actor who plays Sauron, also provided us with his comments n his increased role in Season 2:

“I was so excited to get to this point of the story, because this is the canon of this time period. You have Sauron and Celebrimbor working together, making rings. Everything Sauron does is to serve other people, to appeal to someone else. In the same way the whole Halbrand thing was for Galadriel, this new look is for Celebrimbor. This is the best way to get him to do what he wants him to do: make a bunch of rings that’ll dominate everyone else.”

Source: Empire

This is what we have for you as of the time of writing. The season is coming up quickly, and we will see all these things and much more in the eight episodes that will start airing in August. Until then, be sure to keep following us for more updates on the series in general.

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