Rings of Power season 3 opens with Sauron failing to forge the One Ring — his test orc burns down to a pile of bones
Prime Video’s 'The Lord of the Rings' show will put its biggest villain centre stage — along with the prize he’s set on forging.
Prime Video is gearing up for a bold return to The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, and we have a proper peek into what they have planned for Season 3. The latest tease centres on Sauron himself, at long last trying to bash out the infamous One Ring in his volcanic lair—and, interestingly, cocking it up rather spectacularly the first time around.
Here's how co-showrunner Patrick McCay explained the new direction in his chat with Entertainment Weekly:
"Beginnings are very important, and in bringing people back to this show, we wanted to start in a slightly different way. Season 3 is the one where Sauron makes the One Ring in the volcano. He has the nine rings for Men, and he's spreading them across Middle-earth, and his armies are ascendant, but for him, on a personal level, it's a bit of a struggle to craft a ring more powerful than any that have ever been crafted before."
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The writers are making a bit of a meal out of Sauron’s work at the forge. Script pages show him deep in Barad-dûr, welding away on what he hopes will be his pièce de résistance. But things don’t exactly go as planned. He drags in a ‘trembling’ orc, tells the poor sod to put the ring on, and waits for something magical to happen. For a few seconds, nothing—bit anticlimactic. Then, in classic Rings of Power fashion, the orc’s hand goes up in ‘unearthly flames’ and the unlucky test subject is reduced to a pile of bones. So Sauron’s apparently having a rougher go of forging magical jewellery than Tolkien ever let on.
Sauron’s Season 3 arc
Where’s all this heading? According to the showrunners, this attempt to craft the One Ring (the weapon the whole franchise revolves around) is not just spectacle—it’s about showing Sauron grappling with how bleeding difficult it is to pull off the ultimate bit of bling. On one hand, his armies are on the rise. He’s already fobbed off nine rings to the humans, and he’s getting his claws into Middle-earth more than ever. But his greatest creation isn’t coming together quite so easily—and we’re set to see that frustration boil over throughout the series. It’s a more ‘hands on’ Sauron than you usually get. Practically artisan, with a body count to match.
Sauron tries out his first One Ring by forcing it onto an orc, and the result is just a pile of charred bones—so that whole scheme’s clearly off to a flying start.
The early glimpses are all about raising the stakes: Sauron doesn’t just instantly suss it, and the road to the One Ring is looking properly bumpy. Expect more disaster, more strange magical mishaps, and plenty of scorched earth as Sauron gives it another go.