The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power First Reviews Call It “The Most Striking Fantasy Show of the Year”

Emmy-nominated series The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power is back for a second season on Prime Video with Morfydd Clark, Charlie Vickers, Markella Kavenagh, Daniel Weyman, and Megan Richards starring in the series from Patrick McKay and John D. Payne based on the world built by J.R.R. Tolkien.

The first three episodes are out now, and the reviews are rolling in from critics who have gifted the series a Certified Fresh score of 86% on the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes.

Charles Pulliam-Moore of The Verge says, "The Rings of Power is even more grandiose and visually stunning in its second season", and Tessa Smith at Mama's Geeky says season two "kicks off with one of the best episodes of television all year".

Kaiya Shunyata of RogerEbert.com believes "there will likely still be some pushback from fans of the original film trilogy and Tolkien's written work" but says, "this is undeniably the most striking fantasy show of the year."

There's a sprinkling of negative critique among the glowing reviews, as Alison Herman at Variety says season two "has the same problems as the first", and Angie Han at The Hollywood Reporter says the show "starts to feel like a story shaped backwards from events we already know will need to transpire, rather than one driven forward by the motives and choices of its characters."

Check out more reviews of The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power season two below.

The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power Season 2 Review Roundup

• Empire Magazine: Lavishly made, endlessly beautiful to watch and substantive enough to make you care, this is fantasy at its absolute highest level.
• Slashfilm: Though it doesn't quite reach the heights of Tolkien's original novels or Peter Jackson's adaptations, The Rings of Power feels like the next best thing: a confident, thrilling, and gloriously nerdy return to Middle-earth.
• Independent (UK): The result is like being on a mirthless rollercoaster ride: thrown around, spun upside down, but always wondering when the fun is supposed to kick in.
• indieWire: Not everyone leaps off the screen and a few nuanced emotional beats could've been portrayed with richer specificity. But The Rings of Power does take advantage of TV's mightiest weapon for building empathy, interest, and overall investment: time.
• Paste Magazine: There will undoubtedly be plenty of viewers who find the sacrifice of smaller, more intimate character moments well worth it for this kind of epic storytelling which, admittedly, takes some big swings and looks great doing it.