Rings of Power Showrunner Teases Forging of One Ring, And It’s Not What We Expected
The Lord of the Rings is having a real renaissance of late, with multiple Lord of the Rings projects currently in the works. Among those are the upcoming movies, The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum and The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past, as well as the highly anticipated third season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, Prime Video’s prequel streaming series. The series began in 2022 and has provided much closer looks at the stories of major characters like Galadriel, Gandalf, and the villainous Sauron himself.
The series has admittedly had mixed reviews, with some viewers finding that the show doesn’t hold their attention or match the magic of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies (which, frankly, are nearly impossible to touch—even Jackson couldn’t repeat that success in his trilogy of movies based on The Hobbit). However, at San Diego Comic Con (SDCC) 2026, some major updates on The Rings of Power season 3 have come through, and in addition to the thrilling news ahead of the con that Jamie Campbell Bower is playing Galadriel’s husband, Celeborn, some of these details are truly wacky.
The Rings of Power Season 3 Will Be Full of Surprises
Among the announcements about The Rings of Power season 3 that have been revealed during the SDCC panel is the confirmation that the forging of the One Ring will be depicted in the upcoming season, along with the description of this event as “unhinged.” That’s a particularly interesting word to use for this upcoming moment, and it’s one that audiences likely wouldn’t expect. Daunting, stunning, or even terrifying, sure, but unhinged implies that something major is coming that viewers won’t expect.
The teaser trailer does show stages of this process (although none that necessarily read as particularly unhinged yet) and show clips of Bower’s new character Celeborn with Galadriel, in addition to clips that make it clear that season 3 is about to be even more intense and high stakes than what has happened in the show before. In fact, it’s possible that Prime Video and the creative minds behind the show have heard what audiences are saying and applied it to the new season, as this teaser feels much more action-packed than The Rings of Power has been thus far.
Additionally, and frankly even more unexpectedly than the description of the forging of the One Ring as “unhinged,” is the confirmation that, not only will the Balrog have an appearance in The Rings of Power season 3, but also, he will speak in this new installment. The panel also confirmed that the Balrog will be voiced by Simon Pegg. Unsurprisingly, that’s gotten a rise out of people, as there was no indication in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring that the Balrog could speak—although it would have been funny to see him argue with Gandalf.
Clearly, The Rings of Power season 3 is going to be full of surprises, some that are likely to be popular with audiences, and others not so much. Only time will tell how the new season will be received overall, but thankfully, the wait won’t be too much longer, as the confirmed release date is November 11 of this year.
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