‘The Rings of Power’ Season 3: Spectacle Without Invention

Amazon Prime Video will release four episodes of “The Rings of Power” Season 3 on Wednesday, November 11. Two more episodes follow on November 18 and November 25, completing an eight-episode season.

Elena Vasquez delivers a blunt verdict on the third season of the costly five-season plan. The first two seasons were “pretty good by blockbuster standards,” she says, but the third strips away goodwill earned through spectacle, scale and literary pedigree.

Amazon’s series carries what Vasquez calls record-breaking costs and the status of television’s most expensive series ever made. It did not produce the expected viewership spikes or comparable cultural impact, she argues. She also frames the production as Jeff Bezos’ pet project.

What did the first two seasons establish?

Vasquez allows that the saga was flawed but ambitious. Its sets, sound design, costumes and vivid colors delivered the spectacle she praises. Mount Doom and the Siege of Eregion supply her strongest examples. She ranks that visual polish below “House of the Dragon,” however.

The filmmakers’ giddy excitement for battles and twists remains evident, but craft alone cannot repair weak storytelling. Her longer criticism has three parts: excessive deference to Peter Jackson’s films and other adaptations, an obvious bid to become TV’s next “Game of Thrones,” and underdevelopment across characters, stories and twists, except for the dwarves.

She also found little use for J.R.R. Tolkien’s text at any depth. Season 3 adds exposition, little deadly combat and a wary, exhausted tone. Vasquez says it treats the adaptation like supplementary material. Scale remains visible; invention and urgency do not.

Does Sauron carry enough menace?

Vasquez’s plot summary begins five years after the Elven city of Eregion fell. Sauron now controls more of Middle Earth than ever. His orcs hunt the remaining rings. Those rings remain with elves in Lindon and Rivendell, and with dwarves in Khazad-dûm.

He still seeks the One Ring. Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards), the only Elf who knew how to forge it, is dead. That leaves Sauron increasingly desperate.

Charlie Vickers carries the scheme, but Vasquez finds his affectless performance unable to embody Tolkien’s “an image of malice and hatred.” Peter Jackson gave evil an all-seeing eye; Vickers lacks that cinematic force. He concealed Sauron as Halbrand in Season 1. The reveal produced neither a larger nor a more sinister performance, she says. Attempts to humanize evil fared no better.

Season 3, she argues, breaks the balance between what Sauron means and what he does onscreen, so his schemes dominate without generating the intimidation required to make the sprawling conflict consequential. A late climax deploys shifting aspect ratios, operatic music cues and dead-eyed stares. They fail, in Vasquez’s view, to create the intended spectacle.

For Vasquez, Sauron remains a symbol more forceful than a character, and the season gives him too little with which to threaten.

Which characters carry the story?

Númenor remains the weakest setting in Vasquez’s assessment. Its warring cousins, Míriel (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) and Pharazôn (Trystan Gravelle), anchor a bland, human-centered narrative. The desert empire of Rhûn fares slightly better through Ciarán Hinds’ Dark Wizard. Daniel Weyman, now confirmed as Gandalf, remains a mysterious symbol rather than a developed presence.

Prince Durin (Owain Arthur), Princess Disa (Sophia Nomvete) and the “rambunctious, sunless dwarves” face a predictable plot whose turns the first episode effectively announces. New additions appear slotted in, with emotional weight expected from name recognition alone. Celeborn, Galadriel’s long-lost husband, receives that treatment.

Old favorites receive less attention, while Nori and Poppy remain absent through seven episodes. Theo (Tyroe Muhafidin), the Southlands boy turned tree-chopping, Mordor-enslaved man, receives too little development. Arondir (Ismael Cruz Córdova) is wasted supporting less compelling characters. Vasquez finds that a full season without evident ingenuity or attentive investment strips away the franchise’s nostalgic sheen.

In plain terms, the supporting cast is less a story than a set of roles awaiting development.

Can five seasons justify more Tolkien?

Season 3 marks the midpoint of a five-season plan. Vasquez calls the third season a sudden nadir, though she allows that it may be a temporary dip intended to prepare two final seasons. She rejects that possibility as an excuse for the writing, however.

“The Lord of the Rings” can generate goodwill and some leeway for “The Rings of Power,” but Vasquez argues that a full season lacking ingenuity and attentive investment has already exhausted that allowance.

The burden is structural. The series draws from appendices to “The Lord of the Rings.” It recounts a story Peter Jackson’s films treated almost as an epilogue. Expansion across five seasons therefore requires justification.

Not every step, beat or ring needs to appear onscreen, she argues. The inevitable can remain implied instead of occupying eight episodes without sufficient invention. Her final formulation is severe: showing the inevitable is Season 3’s greatest ambition. The production maps a familiar route rather than choosing a consequential new path.

For the franchise to progress, Vasquez’s standard is clear: stronger characters, sharper conflicts and narrative risks must replace repetition.