‘Rings of Power’ Showrunner on Why Season 3 Is Changing Up the Release Strategy

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is about to enter its third season, and fans will notice something different about the show this time around. There are still elves and dwarves, wizards and orcs, and an extreme interest in magical jewelry. But the episodes aren’t arriving in the same way: instead of the usual weekly release, we’ll be getting the series in blocks. Episodes one through four arrive November 11; five and six arrive November 18; and the final two episodes drop November 25. “We’re always in conversation with Amazon, and we’re advocating for what we think is best for the show,” Patrick McKay, the co-showrunner of Rings of Power alongside J.D. Payne, told io9 at a recent press day for season three. “We generally, as the creators, feel that the show plays better on a binge because it really is so highly serialized and there are so many storylines. It’s the kind of show, just as viewers, that we find that you really have to pay attention to and you want to get that feeling you get when you’re hooked on a show where it sweeps you away,” he explained. “And we find when you watch it, boom, boom, boom, boom, it sort of works better. So we’re always advocating for more episodes sooner, and then this particular season, we really wanted it to be out by the holidays. We wanted people to be able to binge it over the holidays. So it’ll be a quick release, but then you can watch it at your leisure.” Another change this season is the introduction of Marnûkh, maybe the most evolved orc we’ve seen in any Lord of the Rings project. Without revealing too many details, he has a specific agenda he brings to one of the season’s central quests, and in doing so, he adds a unique perspective on Middle-earth. “We are obsessed with dimensionalizing our villains, which is not the same as humanizing our villains or saying our villains are secretly the heroes or anything like that,” McKay clarified. “We find that a villain who has a motive that is understandable even from a twisted perspective makes them more compelling. And it makes them scarier sometimes.” He continued, “The idea of an orc who maybe doesn’t want what Sauron wants—and then is willing to work with his sworn enemies to try to stop it—felt like a really intriguing way into the season. We loved the idea that you maybe weren’t sure where his true motives lie, and then we liked how that challenged each of our characters. Galadriel is someone who, grudgingly, over two seasons up to now, has come to see that there are more to orcs than just beings to be killed. They have desires of their own, twisted though they might be, so she’s sort of willing to hear him out. But Arondir doesn’t feel that way, so their disagreement [is] a motive of drama between the two of them. The orc playing them against one another—all of that evolved very organically in the writing process.” Adam Young as Marnûkh. © Ben Rothstein/Prime McKay praised actor Adam Young, who plays Marnûkh, saying he “took to it like a duck to water … I remember the first rehearsal, everybody who’s now, you know, three, four, five years into this journey going, ‘Oh wait. There’s a new player on the field here who’s sort of challenging us to up our game.’ We really like that story and we really liked that character.” An orc with an inner life isn’t the only new creature we meet this season on Rings of Power. We asked McKay why season three was the right moment to bring in the flying fell-beasts, the Mûmakil war elephants, and others. “One of the things my co-showrunner J.D. Payne and I are always doing is we’re looking for different parts of the mythology and of the books to bring to the screen, and one of those things is creatures,” McKay said. “We work with Jason Smith, our amazing visual effects supervisor, to build not just the CGI monster but [make it] a character. He’s thinking about how these beasts act and move and react.” A familiar face also returns in the beastly horde: as was previously revealed, it’s the Balrog, who will be voiced by Simon Pegg in season three. “We’re in conversation sometimes in the writing room about, ‘Here’s the creatures this time.’ We always want to give you something new. We don’t want to repeat ourselves. Even if we’re revisiting a creature like the Balrog, we wanted to do something very different like this season. He’s a character, and [his scene is] a negotiation with Sauron—it’s not just a fire monster, although he’s that too.” The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power season three begins November 11 on Prime Video. Want more io9 news? Check out the best movies and TV shows to stream this month and all the upcoming sci-fi, fantasy, and horror books that should be on your radar.