The One Ring is forged in the teaser for The Rings of Power season 3

If there was any doubt about what big moments the next season of Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power might bring, the first teaser trailer it dispelled them: we'll witness Sauron forging of the One Ring in Mount Doom, the titular macguffin that drives the main story of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.

It's a moment that's been a long time coming in the series. The first season (launched in 2022), introduced us to all of the principal characters in the Second Age of Middle-earth and Galadriel's quest to track down the last members of the Dark Lord Morgoth's armies, including his servant, Sauron, and in the second, we see the creation of the first three rings given to the Elves, the seven for the Dwarves, and the nine for men.

The second season left the world off in a dark place: Sauron had been growing in power throughout as he forged the rings, and we see some of their corrosive power as they're used – the Dwarves in Khazad-dûm encounter a Balrog and it attacks them, while Sauron kills Celebrimbor and escapes with the Nine rings that he'll eventually distribute to the human lords.

This upcoming season will jump the action forward by five years, putting us into the middle of the war between Sauron and the Elves, who're putting up a valiant – but difficult – fight as they work to keep Sauron away from their three rings.

Series co-creator J.D. Payne told ScreenRant that the goal was to "reset the table in a way that's really satisfying for audience members," and it looks like we'll be in for plenty of movement: Sauron's been mustering his forces – including the men that he's corrupted with the Nine: the Nazgûl, which Empire Magazine notes are still men who're serving Sauron. And of course, they've ripped the bandaid off for the big reveal of the season: the forging of the ring at Mount Doom.

The series has had its ups and downs since it first debuted in 2022. First announced back in 2017 at the height of the streaming wars, it was the latest in a series of big-budget adaptations and projects from various streaming services as they fought to get the attention of viewers and their subscription dollars.

An original-ish Lord of the Rings adaptation was always somewhat controversial: Tolkien was famously dismissive of efforts to adapt his work, and his son, Christopher, wasn't a huge fan of Peter Jackson's adaptation. Amazon spent an exorbitant amount of money to just acquire the rights to adapt bits and pieces from the trilogy's appendixes, and from there, has plotted out a five-season series that will bring the action from the early days of the world's Second Age, presumably up to the events that we saw in the prologue for Jackson's trilogy.

The series has been met with a bit of a mixed reaction: I've generally liked it, even if they've taken some liberties with characters and timelines (and there's some chunk of internet fandom that's mired in bad-faith arguments about culture war fodder that's best left ignored). While there was a lot of anticipation for the series, viewership for the second season was down quite a bit, and it wasn't until February 2025 – well after the second season finished – that Prime Video announced its renewal for a third season.

But even as I've enjoyed the show, I've been a little wary of how the series at times feels like mere content to serve the interests of Amazon's bottom line and to further The Lord of the Rings name as a franchise, rather than a story that's being crafted for the sake of storytelling and entertainment – just look at Jackson's LOTR trilogy as a labor of love verses his Hobbit trilogy as an example.

We're now well into the series as envisioned, and it'll be interesting to see how this serves as a new boost in the arm for it. Amazon seems to be fairly committed to seeing it through its five-season arc, and hopefully they'll make it to the finish line.

Season 3 drops on Prime Video across three nights, starting with four episodes on November 11th, with the next two on November 18th, and teh final two on November 25th.