The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power returned to Prime Video on November 11 with its third season, and the question hanging over it is the one Esquire put in its headline: is it still worth watching? The first four episodes arrived at once, with four more to follow, and the early reviews suggest the answer depends on what a viewer wanted from the show in the first place.
Season three picks up five years after the events of season two, at the height of the Elves’ war against Sauron. Rings of Power showrunners J. D. Payne and Patrick McKay have described the season as a soft reboot, and the story now turns on Sauron’s fixation with forging his master ring. Charlie Vickers returns as Sauron, alongside Morfydd Clark as Galadriel, and the season follows their search for the secrets of the ring before Sauron can finish it.
Critics received seven of the eight episodes in advance, with the finale withheld. The reviews that have appeared so far agree on more than they disagree on: the season is better than the first two, the storytelling is tighter, and the show still has the same faults that divided its audience from the start.
Rings of Power season 3 earns its best reviews yet
FandomWire called Rings of Power season 3 the best the series has been, giving it 8 out of 10 and singling out Vickers as magnetic as Sauron. The review said the dramatic logic is tighter and surer of the tragedy it is telling, and that viewers who spent two seasons keeping a ledger of everything the show got wrong should put the ledger down.
But Why Tho gave Rings of Power season 3 a score of 7.0 and called it an improvement on a fatally flawed vision, saying it delivers large battles and gripping dilemmas less often undercut by the mistakes of the past. The review said the season finds worthwhile stories to tell, even if it cannot reach the bar set by Tolkien’s books or Peter Jackson’s films.
Rings of Power season 3 keeps its old faults
Not every critic is convinced. Inverse called Rings of Power season 3 “pretty good,” the same verdict it gave the show as a whole, and said that despite promises of a reset, the third season is very much the same: thrilling highs and plodding lows, with the show starting to buckle under the weight of its lore obligations. The review said the season gets fresh energy from new characters and narrative ideas, and that it remains one of the most engrossing fantasy epics on television.
PopBase was cooler, calling Rings of Power season 3 simply just fine and saying the first episode does a poor job of drawing viewers into the story. The review said the season grows considerably stronger in its second half than in its opening stretch, and that the writing and pacing remain a mix of hits and misses. It also welcomed one change: the Harfoots, the hobbit ancestors who featured in the first two seasons, are gone.
Erik Kain, writing on Substack, said almost every problem with the first two seasons persists in the third. He wrote that viewers who enjoyed the first seasons will enjoy this one immensely, and that viewers who did not will almost certainly not be won over, however hard the show’s makers frame the season as a reboot. He added that he still thinks it is worth watching, as an example of how far an adaptation can drift from its source material and how hard it is to make good fantasy television.
Rings of Power season 3 sets up two more seasons
The season is built around a clear spine. Galadriel, Arondir and the new character Marnukh are on a quest to find the secrets of the master ring before Sauron, and the first four episodes carry the titles “Marnukh,” “The Gift of Men,” “The Secret Fire” and “Gundabad.” The fourth episode holds a large action sequence that Inverse picked out as a highlight.
The show is planned to run for five seasons, so this season is the middle of the story rather than its end. That shapes what it can deliver: the ending is already known from Tolkien’s lore, with the story heading for the slopes of Mount Doom, and the question is how the show gets there.
For viewers who stayed with Rings of Power through its first two seasons, the third offers the strongest version of it yet, with better pacing and a clearer focus on Sauron. For viewers who left after season one or two, the reviews give little reason to expect a different show. The season premiered on November 11, and the remaining episodes will arrive weekly.