Prime Video released the first four episodes of “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” Season 3 on Wednesday, November 11th, 2026. Episodes 5 and 6 follow on November 18th, 2026, and the last two arrive on November 25th, 2026. The season opens five years after the Season 2 finale. Sauron (Charlie Vickers) rules from Mordor and still cannot forge the One Ring while the Elves hold out in Lindon and Rivendell. Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) explains all of it in a voiceover over an animated map. That map is the smartest thing in the premiere. It resets the board in minutes and lets a lapsed viewer jump back in.
The reviews split along a familiar line. Vulture’s recap of the fourth episode says “Halfway through, this looks like the series’ best season to date”, and Radio Times finds that “it finally feels as though the series is hitting its stride.” Decider calls the show “proudly an idiosyncratic, raucous, nerdy, and extremely metal show.” The dissent is just as blunt. The A.V. Club writes that “Season three is hasty. Sometimes to a fault.” IndieWire says the new run is “too content to witness the inevitable.” The camps are describing the same show. It is leaner and louder than before, and it still carries more storylines than any hour can hold. The question is whether the speed is a fix or a disguise. Warning beyond this point there are spoilers for all four episodes of “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” Season 3, including the ending of the fourth.
It is leaner and louder than before, and it still carries more storylines than any hour can hold.”
The premiere, “Marnûkh”, opens in Barad-dûr. Sauron tests a new ring on an Orc who bursts into flames. “All creation requires sacrifice”, he says. He cannot finish the work because he killed Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards) and destroyed the Elven-smiths’ records last season. Celebrimbor’s skeleton hangs on his wall and a vision of the dead smith tells him he will never master the Elven rings. An Orc named Marnûkh (Adam Young) speaks up and Sauron sends him to find the missing knowledge. The Orc who delivers it will be the “Orc who won all wars.” A flashback then shows Galadriel meeting Celeborn (Jamie Campbell Bower) after a First Age battle. They spar, dance and fall in love. In the present she fights beside Arondir (Ismael Cruz Córdova) and her ring warns her of an ambush. A black-masked Ring-servant, one of the Nazgnagôl, still forces her to flee.
Rhûn sends envoys to Mordor with an offer of alliance from the Dark Wizard (Ciarán Hinds). Sauron has another idea and his Orcs kill two of the envoys while the survivors fight over a single Ring of Power. The winner is Khamûl (Zubin Varla) and the ring turns him into a Nazgnagôl. Khamûl then warns Sauron about Gandalf (Daniel Weyman), who wields the Secret Fire, and Sauron says he will see to the wizard himself. In Rivendell Elrond (Robert Aramayo) wants to stay safe and Galadriel wants to ask Númenor for help, but they reach no decision. Arondir, rattled by a vision of Theo (Tyroe Muhafidin) on the battlefield, plans to check on the son of Bronwyn in Pelargir. That port is now a Númenórean outpost run by Kemen (Leon Wadham), who has the locals felling the forest to build ships. Kemen throws away a summons from Mordor and Theo picks it up and is whipped.
Khazad-dûm carries the family drama. Durin IV (Owain Arthur) secretly supplies weapons to Elrond while the Dwarves stay officially neutral. His brother Thrain (Eddie Marsan) skips the welcome ceremony and starts drinking in a tavern. The Dwarf-lords who paid Durin’s late father want the Dwarven Rings but Durin refuses to hand them over and Thrain backs him. Then Thrain reminds Disa (Sophia Nomvete) of an old fling. The brothers come to blows until Marnûkh walks in and says he has “knowledge that could save Middle-earth.” In Lindon, Gil-galad (Benjamin Walker) and Círdan (Ben Daniels) glimpse the Orc in a shared vision from their rings. The episode ends in Mordor, where Theo and other men arrive to ask Sauron for rings to use against Númenor. Sauron offers one ring to whoever wins the fight and the credits roll before the outcome.
The second episode, “The Gift of Men”, moves to Númenor. Isildur (Maxim Baldry) tries to assassinate Pharazôn (Trystan Gravelle) during a parade. The attempt fails with casualties and a Faithful accomplice is captured. Pharazôn and his adviser Belzagar (Will Keen) argue over whether to move against Sauron while a rebel called the Man with the White Flame raises an army. The Faithful follow the exiled queen Míriel (Cynthia Addai-Robinson), and Isildur’s sister Eärien (Ema Horvath) is their spy inside the palace. She questions the prisoner, arranges his death to end his suffering and points the blame at a servant. At the Bay of Elros, Míriel scolds Isildur for the attack and rejects his us-and-them thinking.
Kemen returns from Pelargir to lead a campaign against the Faithful in the West. Isildur proposes using a palantír to warn their father Elendil (Lloyd Owen) and Eärien says she can steal the key. Pharazôn’s court corners her afterward and tries to turn her into an informant. Eärien answers by jumping from a high window.
In Mordor Sauron stops Theo’s fight when he spots a scar on Theo’s arm from the sword hilt his father left him. He kills Theo’s opponent and then teaches him necromancy. Theo cuts out an Orc’s tongue and Sauron uses it to speak with the dead and name Theo’s father. He also says Theo’s mother killed the man. Theo calls Sauron evil and Sauron answers that “There is only power.” He promises Theo a future as a conqueror, a sorcerer and a king. Elsewhere Marnûkh surrenders to the Dwarves and Elrond comes to collect him. Marnûkh tells Galadriel that Sauron is working on the One Ring and that the last Elven-smith, Maitalle, is alive in the fortress of Gundabad. Elrond decides to seek help from Númenor and Galadriel and Arondir head north with the Orc. Two Nazgnagôl arrive in Khazad-dûm and demand Marnûkh. Durin refuses and Thrain cuts in with a belch and calls the visit a declaration of war. He then meets the Nazgnagôl in the woods and tells them he has set a trap for his brother.
The third episode, “The Secret Fire”, goes east to Rhûn. The Dark Wizard wants a ring from Mordor to bring life back to the desert. Khamûl refuses to give up his own ring and the Dark Wizard’s followers start chanting “Hail Sauron.” Gandalf and Tom Bombadil (Rory Kinnear) watch the confrontation undetected and Gandalf calms a war oliphaunt on his way out. He wants to break the Dark Wizard’s hold on Rhûn and Tom answers with riddles and a song before leaving for the Withywindle. While looking for food, Gandalf meets the Secret Fire in the wilderness. It tells him that five servants were sent to Middle-earth and that the Dark Wizard was once Pallando. Pallando murdered his partner to gain power and the crime turned Rhûn into a wasteland. Gandalf is meant to save him rather than defeat him. He returns to find Tom gone and puts on his signature hat.
Númenor gets a shorter scene. Anarion (Andrew Richardson), the brother of Isildur and Eärien, drills the Faithful army in the west. Elendil tells him there is a traitor in their ranks on word from Eärien and the two plan to catch the spy, but it is a trap. Kemen captures Elendil and tells him Eärien is dead. Anarion kills several soldiers but cannot stop the carriage. On the road to Gundabad, Marnûkh leads Galadriel and Arondir around a planned Orc attack and recites a poem for a fallen comrade. Two Nazgnagôl close in and Galadriel hides the group with a swarm of butterflies. Marnûkh then taunts Arondir about the death of Bronwyn and the two nearly come to blows. Galadriel tells Arondir to go back and find Theo. When he sees the attack Marnûkh predicted, he returns. In Mordor Sauron crowns a new Ring-servant and learns that Marnûkh was a torturer at Eregion. He poisons a captive Elven couple to make them talk and orders his fell beast saddled.
The fourth episode, “Gundabad”, opens with Sauron’s saddle problem. His Orcs cannot get a saddle on the fell beast. Sauron explains that these creatures were once Great Eagles until Morgoth corrupted them, and that this one wants living flesh. He gives it some and flies north. In Khazad-dûm the Dwarf-lords demand the Rings again. Thrain points out that Durin’s father wore a Ring when he named Durin his heir and the brothers settle the claim by trial by combat. Thrain offers to drop his claim for the Rings and threatens to expose his fling with Disa. She tells Durin first and he takes it well. Then their son Gamli (Lee Braithwaite) says he saw her alone with Thrain. Durin enters the fight in a rage and Thrain knocks him out and takes the throne.
In Lindon Gil-galad and Círdan count the cost of a victory over an Orc attack. Elrond arrives with a plan to seek help from Númenor, the kingdom founded by his twin brother Elros. Pharazôn has already sent a refusal so Gil-galad will sail there to plead king to king with Elrond beside him. In Númenor Kemen tells the captive Elendil that Pharazôn killed his mother and spared him, which he calls an act of mercy. Anarion ambushes the carriage, frees Elendil and takes Kemen prisoner, and Elendil says the boy is worth more alive. In Gundabad Marnûkh walks Galadriel and Arondir in as his prisoners and the Elves start to doubt him. Then he turns on the Orc guards and frees Arondir and the two search for Maitalle but find her already dead in her cell. Another prisoner calls out and proves to be Celeborn, held so long that he knows the fortress. He will not leave once he hears Galadriel’s name and the couple meet with no time to talk before Sauron arrives.
Marnûkh fakes a surrender and then opens the prisoners’ pens and the fortress erupts. The group fights its way to the roof, where Galadriel signals a Great Eagle. A Nazgnagôl attacks Marnûkh just after Arondir saves him and the Orc’s fate is left open. The Nazgnagôl then tells Arondir to leave and removes his mask. It is Theo. Arondir begs him to take off the ring and for a moment Theo listens. Then Sauron arrives and orders Theo to kill Arondir and Theo stabs him. Celeborn pulls Galadriel off the roof into the eagle’s grasp and the two escape while Arondir is left behind.
The Marnûkh quest draws the warmest notices. Gizmodo says “Young is a fantastic addition to the cast”, and But Why Tho calls Marnûkh the “orc with an arc” and “an unexpected delight.” The A.V. Club says the Orc “becomes Sméagol to Galadriel and Arondir’s Frodo and Sam.” The complaints land elsewhere. Inverse says the Númenor drama “was always a slog”, and IndieWire calls Númenor “a bland, human-centered snooze-fest.” Vulture finds that “the Gandalf-focused scenes are the season’s least lively to date”, though it adds that “there’s quite a bit of intrigue around every storyline.” Empire praises the craft and says the show “continues to impress with its sheer production value.” It also warns that Arondir “seems to have a storyline that runs out of road.” That line reads differently after the fourth episode.
The deaths change the show’s footing. Vulture notes that Eärien was created for the series, and Inverse says Arondir was one of its few original characters. Vulture warns that “anyone whose fate isn’t explicitly laid out in Tolkien’s text” is at risk. The ending also points toward the Third Age. TVLine and Inverse both read Theo as a candidate for the Witch-king, and Inverse notes that the Witch-king was infamous for riding a fell beast, as Sauron does in this episode. Showrunner Patrick McKay told Inverse that the Nazgnagôl keep their human form on purpose because “they can pull off their helmets and they’re human, which maybe makes them even scarier.” Vulture calls Theo “increasingly looking like the show’s Anakin Skywalker.”
The back half has plenty to resolve. Elrond and Gil-galad are bound for a Númenor that now holds Kemen as a prisoner of the Faithful. Durin has lost his throne. Sauron still lacks the One Ring, and the last Elven-smith is dead. Galadriel and Celeborn are in the air on the back of a Great Eagle, and Gizmodo expects the season to “lean into the Celeborn-Galadriel-Sauron bizarre love triangle.” Prime Video is releasing the rest in batches instead of weekly. Episodes 5 and 6 arrive on November 18th, 2026, and episodes 7 and 8 follow on November 25th, 2026.
The first four episodes fix the old pacing problem. The plot moves and every storyline has a clock. Sauron is finally the villain the series needed and Vickers plays him without a disguise. The cost is depth. Gandalf’s best hour doubles as a lore lecture, Númenor keeps repeating its intrigue, and the Dwarf plot telegraphs its villain from the first hour. The quest to Gundabad is the strongest idea of the four. An Orc, a Wood-elf and Galadriel carry the show and the story earns Arondir’s ending before it spends him. That is rare for this series and it is the reason to keep watching.
What Do You Think? Did Arondir’s ending earn its place, or did the season spend him too fast? Should Durin have fought Thrain at all with his temper known to everyone? And is Theo already lost, or is there a way back for the boy Arondir raised?
Catch up properly: every Middle-earth film and series in chronological order on our Timeline Hub’s Lord of the Rings timeline.
See you on the next binge!
