A Lord Of The Rings Expert Explains Every Exciting Detail In The New Rings Of Power Trailer

This post contains minor spoilers for "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power" season 2.

"The Rings of Power" charged into San Diego Comic-Con to amp things up before its hotly anticipated second season. While the cast and crew were present for a full-bore Hall H hype fest, the biggest news to come from the weekend was the arrival of an absolutely gargantuan trailer. Clocking in at three minutes and 39 seconds, this is one of the longest promotional clips I've ever seen. We're not talking about a continuous sequence, either. This thing features a relentless procession of 219 seconds of fast-paced teaser-trailer footage. We're shown people and places that span the gamut, from the far-flung regions of Númenor and Rhûn to the Elvish heartlands of Middle-earth, where ring-mania has taken full possession of the show's storyline.

The sheer size of this thing means there is an overwhelming amount of details to digest — and a lot of blink-and-you-missed-it reveals, to boot. Fortunately, I've spent multiple hours combing through every second of footage to catch the most exciting details. Here they are, explained both in the context of the show and J.R.R. Tolkien's larger world based on my only-a-little-bit obsessive knowledge of Middle-earth. (I'm staring at a shelf with dozens of Tolkien's books and supplemental material as I write this). Here are the top takeaways, presented roughly in order of appearance. Enjoy!

Around 43 seconds into the trailer, Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) and Elrond (Robert Aramayo) step up to the ruins of a broken bridge. A green chasm yawns before them, and they look shocked and confused. This could be the beginning of a side quest that leads them straight into the floating arms of the Barrow-wights (more on those ghoulish apparitions in a minute). Here's the line of reasoning with this one.

In the days leading up to SDCC, Looper revealed two new characters for "The Rings of Power" season 2. One of these was an Elvish cartographer named Camnir (played by "Bridgerton" alum Callum Lynch). Part of Camnir's official description from Prime Video reads: "After unforeseen danger requires finding a new path to Eregion, Camnir's bravery will be put to the test when Elrond's band of warrior-elves encounters an unexpected attack on the road: The Barrow-wights." Could this broken bridge be part of the unexpected danger that leads Elrond down another, more haunted road to Eregion?

We've known the barrow-wights are coming ever since Empire Magazine revealed back in late June that Tolkien's creepiest villains would be in season 2 — and they glided right into view one minute and 11 seconds into the SDCC trailer. These ghostly creatures feature early in the "Fellowship of the Ring" book when one of them captures Frodo and his hobbit friends. Some timely heroics from Mr. Baggins and jolly ol' Tom Bombadil get them out of that scrape, and then we never really see the haunting spirits again.

The open-ended, largely unexplained nature of the Barrow-wights gives showrunners JD Payne and Patrick McKay a chance to flex their creativity by working these Third Age creatures from "The Lord of the Rings" backward a few thousand years into their Second Age storyline. This trailer is our first glimpse of the wights in motion, and they look pretty gosh darn good.

For instance, the "Fellowship of the Ring" book says that there is no sound as the Barrow-wight approaches. The wight is described as "a tall dark figure like a shadow against the stars," with two eyes that Tolkien says were "very cold though lit with a pale light that seemed to come from some remote distance." This silent, terrifying aura and piercing gaze are definitely there in the brief glimpse in the trailer. Hopefully, if they talk, we'll get a good iteration of their voices, too, which the book says are distant, deep, cold, immeasurably dreary, and "sometimes high in the air and thin, sometimes like a low moan from the ground." Spin chills, anyone?

One minute and 15 seconds into the trailer, a new and improved Sauron (Charlie Vickers) makes a fiery entrance in front of Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards). When the latter asks what he should call his long-haired, pointy-eared kind-of new acquaintance, the immortal we all know is the Dark Lord in disguise replies, "A sharer of gifts." My guess is that we're witnessing the show's reintroduction of Vicker's character as they pivot away from season 1's non-canon Halbrand persona.

For the record, while I didn't love it, I still think the Halbrand detour works since Sauron does change his guise regularly in Middle-earth history. Tolkien even says in the book "Unfinished Tales" that early in the Second Age, "Sauron had as yet no single name, and his operations had not been perceived to proceed from a single evil spirit."

By the time the Rings of Power come onto the scene, though, Sauron does take on a familiar form. When he arrives in his fair hue to deceive the Elves into making overpowered jewelry, "The Silmarillion" says, "Sauron took to himself the name of Annatar, the Lord of Gifts." Season 2 is introducing a newly minted Dark Lord in disguise, and it's clearly hinting at this new identity via Vicker's line in the trailer.

Showrunners JD Payne and Patrick McKay have promised to take "The Rings of Power" where no Middle-earth adaptation has gone before — not just by backing up in time but by branching out, geographically speaking. One of their biggest foreign forays was hinted at the end of season 1 when Daniel Weyman's "The Stranger" headed off east toward Rhûn with Nori Brandyfoot (Markella Kavenagh) in tow. Now, the trailer is giving us a serious glimpse into what kind of adventures await them there.

At the minute and a half mark in the trailer, a shot pops up with a glowing sunset revealing a horseman riding across a sandy landscape. This is followed by reveals of a group of masked individuals looking mysterious and using telescopes to spy on passersby. This is likely our first introduction to the Men of Rhûn, a large and diverse collection of human tribes that live east of the main Middle-earth drama. Tolkien never tells us much about Rhûn, other than that Sauron is eventually worshiped among them as a god, and their armies occasionally fight Gondor later on.

Amazon Studios

Oh yeah, and then there's the author's mysterious, underdeveloped Blue Wizards who also operate in Rhûn, as does Saruman for a while. And what's that we see at the one minute and 44-second mark? A cloaked figure holding a staff in a temple, surrounded by what look like season 1's magic-wielding mystics. It was recently confirmed that Ciarán Hinds (who is joining the show for season 2), will play a wizard who hunts down The Stranger. This is very likely the Istar himself.

I almost titled this section "Pharazôn greets an eagle," but I'm not falling for that again. In the first teaser trailer for season 2, the clever production team sliced and diced the footage to make it appear that Pharazôn (Trystan Gravelle) arrives in Númenor on an eagle, even if that is very unlike his canon character. In this trailer, we clearly see that the winged messenger arrives solo and Pharazôn approaches it. Based on the fact that in the first teaser he also draws his sword, there's a good chance this guy is about to attack this hallowed harbinger from the heavens. If I had to guess at the inspiration for this airborne confrontation, it would have to be from "Unfinished Tales," which says that a small enclave of Eagles live on the island. "The Silmarillion" also describes eagle-like storm clouds threatening Númenor in its final days of corruption under Pharazôn.

Amazon Studios

Along with facing down eagles, the trailer shows Pharazôn using a palantír just shy of the two-minute mark. This is a big deal, as Tolkien's seeing stones are both powerful and dangerous tools to use. In "The Lord of the Rings," Denethor II (John Noble) uses a palantir to see Sauron's armies and it causes him to become depressed, ineffective, and self-destructive. At the same time, Aragorn uses one to threaten Sauron and successfully distract him from Frodo's quest. In this case, Pharazôn's darker character arc makes me think he's leaning toward the first scenario, but time will tell.

Right before the two-minute mark, there is a slightly over the top but still pretty sweet shot of the balrog leaping into a chasm. He forges a fiery sword mid-jump and plunges it into the rock to slow his fall. I'm not going to lie, the shot is fun, and the shadowy, smoke-like look of the demon's wings (and its lack of flight) remains perfectly noncommittal in the classic debate of whether balrogs actually have wings or not.

That said, it's actually the shot right before this one that I would like to humbly bring to your attention. One minute and 55 seconds into the trailer, we see gift-giving Sauron looking at a flame. If you watch the fire closely, for a split second, it becomes clear that it is shaped like a tiny balrog. What the heck is happening here?

Amazon Studios

To be honest, I have no idea why a balrog would appear in holographic form, "Star Wars" style, in front of the Dark Lord. He doesn't really cross paths with the monster in Tolkien's writings. But there's no doubt that he would enjoy the thought that a balrog is loose in Khazad-dûm, terrorizing the locals. This may also be the first time we're seeing Annatar in the Dwarven mansion, something that Tolkien never specifically says happened, but which could make for some very juicy drama in the show.

This next one requires some connecting of the dots. Two minutes and 12 seconds into the trailer, there is a scene on the shores of Númenor with Míriel (Cynthia Addai-Robinson), who is presumably now the queen of Númenor after her father died in the closing minutes of season 1. The royal wades out into the ocean (remember, she's blind after her pyroclastic encounter with an erupting Mount Doom). The water comes up to her neck before the scene cuts away.

At first, I wasn't sure what to think about this. Then I remembered another scene from the first trailer, where we see a woman floating deep under the water, facing a gigantic sea creature. You can't see her face, but if you look closely, she is wearing the same flowing white dress and shoulder bands.

Now, let's back up once again to season 1, episode 4, "The Great Wave," which opens up with a vision Míriel has of Númenor crumbling under a gigantic wave. As the cataclysm reaches her, she wakes up from her day dream — a vision that book readers know hints at a very real future for the island nation. Could the two trailers be pointing to another earth-shattering vision in store for the troubled ruler in season 2? I'm starting to think so.

Tom Bombadil is a merry fellow and arguably the weirdest (and most beloved) character in "The Lord of the Rings." We also know that Bombail will be played by Rory Kinnear and will hop, skip, and dance his way into "The Rings of Power" season 2. But this trailer is the first time the oldest creature in Middle-earth (okay, it's either him or Treebeard) has appeared in live-action.

Bombadil's story arc in the show is in Rhûn. According to showrunner JD Payne (via Vanity Fair), "In our story, he has gone out to the lands of Rhûn, which we learn used to be sort of Edenic and green and beautiful, but now is sort of a dead wasteland." Two minutes and 16 seconds into the trailer, we see Bombail showing the Stranger that wasteland.

We also see the immortal enigma in a home (which the showrunners have taken the liberty to give him in Rhûn), and he utters the fateful line, "Every soul in Middle-earth is in peril. Will you abandon them to their doom?" (Presumably, this is spoken in conversation with his Istar visitor.) One riddle that still remains, though, is whether Kinnear's Bombadil can hold a frolicsome tune, something the character is well known for in Tolkien's books.

The Ent storyline is one of the most quirky, fun parts of "The Lord of the Rings." The ancient tree-people rising from legend to stop the advance of evil is a heart-warming beat in the story. Book readers are well aware that the Ents don't operate in a vacuum, either. Like most areas of Tolkien's world, they have a rich and tragic backstory, part of which involved losing their better halves: the Entwives.

These are, for all intents and purposes, the female half of the species. They are distant love interests of the Ents (the two groups live separately despite their romantic overtones), and the Entwives mysteriously disappear at some point during the Second Age. This makes them a shoo-in for the "Rings of Power" story, and now the trailer has revealed that we're getting Entwives as early as season 2.

Just over two and a half minutes into the trailer, a creaky feminine voice says, in a slow, ponderous tone, "Forgiveness takes an age." Shortly after this, we see a shot of an Entwife-sized tree in the dim dark attacking a small figure (probably Arondir). This seems to echo the first introduction to Treebeard in Tolkien's books, when he nearly tramples Merry and Pippin after mistaking them for little orcs. The dialogue is also interesting; it indicates a sense of bitterness or pain. From Treebeard's perspective in Tolkien's writings, the Entwives more-or-less abandon the Ents in favor of their well-ordered lives. Perhaps we'll be getting the other side of the story in the show.

Speak, friend, and enter. Remember that line, carved into Middle-earth history on the doors of Moria? In season 2, we're going to meet Narvi, the Dwarven craftsman who teams up with Celebrimbor to make those legendary doors. The new canon character will be played by Kevin Eldon, and we get a lightning-quick glimpse of him in the trailer, right at the two-minute and 47 second mark, as he stands next to Princess Disa (Sophia Nomvete) with an ax in hand.

Amazon Studios

About five seconds later, we also hear Prince Durin IV (Owain Arthur) rally the Dwarves of Khazad-dûm with the stirring words, "Fight with me. Fight with our friends!" We see a quick shot of a subterranean hall filled with short-statured, passionate people. This is likely depicting the lead-up to a part in "Unfinished Tales" when Sauron attacks Elrond's army with overwhelming force. The book says, "[Elrond] would indeed have been overwhelmed had not Sauron's host been attacked in the rear; for Durin sent out a force of Dwarves from Khazad-dûm." This could be the genesis of that assailing army.

Shelob is an old monster-spider by the time of "The Lord of the Rings." In fact, the "Two Towers" book introduces the arachnid horror by saying, "There agelong she had dwelt, an evil thing in spider-form," adding shortly after, "How Shelob came there, flying from ruin, no tale tells, for out of the Dark Years few tales have come." It adds that Shelob predates Sauron's presence in Mordor. If you cobble together Tolkien's hints and riddles, it's likely that Shelob fled toward the mountains surrounding what would become Mordor after the fall of the first Dark Lord Morgoth. In other words, Shelob could very easily already be around during the "Rings of Power" timeline, albeit several thousand years younger than when Frodo and Sam bump into her.

The press release that Prime Video pushed out along with the trailer also confirms that the trailer includes a glimpse of "a young Shelob," and Lo and behold, at two-minutes and 48 seconds, there is a quick shot of Isildur fighting off a giant spider. Now, when I say "giant," I don't mean "Two Towers" Shelob size. I mean more like the big eight-legged crawlers that attack Bilbo and the Dwarves in "The Hobbit." You know what, though? Those are offspring of — you guessed it — Shelob.

Finally, it's no surprise that this trailer features nearly all of the show's titular trinkets. Early on, there are multiple clips of the Three Elven Rings, which we saw forged at the end of season 1 (an event that purposefully changed the Tolkien timeline). In the middle of the trailer, we also get multiple glimpses of Durin III (Peter Mullan) wearing a Ring of Power and even fighting off his son when Prince Durin tries to get him to take it off. This is probably the Ring of Thrór, the most famous of the seven rings for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone.

In the fading moments of the trailer, we also get the chilling line from Annatar, delivered like a dagger to the heart: "You will give me the Nine." I don't think this one needs explaining. Nine Rings for Mortal Men doomed to die, anyone? Apart from the rest of the Dwarf-rings, there's a single ring ominously missing from the bunch: the One Ring to Rule them all. The question is, will we see that one forged this season or will we have to wait for season 3 for that climactic moment? Fans will have to wait until season 2 premieres on August 29, 2024 to find out.