‘The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power’ Returns November 11

While The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power has dramatized the making of the Three Rings for the Elven-Kings under the sky, the Seven Rings for the Dwarf-Lords in the halls of stone, and even the Nine Rings destined for mortal Men doomed to die, there is One Ring remaining to be forged at the fires of Mount Doom in the lands of Mordor, where the shadows lie.

That last part of the Ring Poem will be part of the series’ objective when it returns November 11th on Prime Video. The streamer revealed the premiere date during its annual Upfront presentation on Monday — much to the joy of the show’s fans and even those who decry the program for breaking J.R.R. Tolkien‘s Middle-earth lore. That debate, though, is for another day. In the interim, enjoy this first photo from the new season of Sauron (Charlie Vickers) as he inches ever closer to his final form.

And as the Prime Video press release confirms, Season 3 will jump forward several years — a time when Sauron is engaged in an open war against the Elves. The conflict, known in the lore as the War of the Elves and Sauron, is about to reach its critical zenith just as the Dark Lord embarks on his greatest effort of skilled craft: the making of the Master Ring to rule them all.

Of course, we strongly suspect the season will also finish up the Númenor storyline with Sauron losing the war thanks to the seafarers’ decision to aid the Elves. But as their own long-simmering corruption grows, he uses the opportunity to get his revenge on the Men of the island — not only for their most recent slights, but also their decision to ally with the Elves in the wars of the First Age. It’s one of the strongest aspects of Second Age lore Tolkien wrote down (best known in a long-form story called The Akalabeth which charts the rise and fall of Númenor) and, oddly enough, a place for Prime Video and Amazon to end the series as a whole if they so choose.

And, oddly, the show’s future is as much a part of the drama as anything occurring between its characters on screen. Though Prime refers to the series as “one of the highest performing and most-viewed titles” on the platform, it is forever dogged by criticisms of its initially untested showrunners, various creative choices, and its whopping budget. Legend tells the program was licensed by the Tolkien Estate on the promise that it would be a 50-episode series. The two extant seasons bring that number to a mere 16. Now at the height of the War of the Elves and Sauron, the show only has a few big ideas left to explore: the fate of Númenor, the founding the Kingdoms in Exile, and the War of the Last Alliance. Those latter two events could fill out the remaining seasons (presuming this upcoming year is the Númenor tale), but it is unclear if the will is there to do it — to say nothing of the episode deficit if the show continues on its current eight episodes per season structure.

In the meantime, we can start to speculate on how this season will shape up while we anticipate its return on November 11th.