Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is back for a second season after a two-year wait. Perhaps it’s that long wait that persuaded the studio to drop three episodes at once for the premiere, rivalling the theatrical cuts of Peter Jackson’s Middle-earth films. It’s no secret that the first season’s reception wasn’t quite what the studio was expecting, with the show getting review-bombed and seeing declining viewership. So they really had to show for season two that they listened to the concerns and try to fix the show. And while The Rings of Power isn’t at the desired level of prestige television yet, so far season two is a massive improvement over season one.

The obvious remains the same. The Rings of Power is the best-looking show on TV, perhaps ever. The set design, production value, and scope are jaw-dropping at times, with some shots being reminiscent of a painting or of the concept art coming to life. The production has moved from New Zealand to Scotland, but this move hasn’t hurt the show, even if you can tell sometimes the landscape is different. But the show has also expanded to film in Spain, which doubles as Rhûn and offers some fresh landscapes we’ve never seen in Middle-earth before. Even the costumes, which I was critical of in season one, look better and more ornate this time around, especially when the elves are concerned and the Easterlings. Bear McCreary returns to do the score yet again and builds upon the themes and motifs he used for season one and once again provides a great score that feels like it belongs in the Middle-earth we know from the movies, while also being his own thing.

One area that did seem to showcase an improvement though was script, specifically in the dialogue department. While characters still speak in metaphor a little too often, overall the writing is better and more focused. More importantly, it never hit us over the head with lazy preaching, like season one’s “elves are stealing our jobs” scene, or any call-and-reply moments that felt wildly out of place. It is very dialogue heavy and the show will not explain to the audience some of the finer details of the lore (if you don’t know what “Manwë” means, the show will not explain it, but nor does it really matter). It can be a little stiff at times, but overall, I found it to be an improvement over season one’s dialogue, which sometimes felt clunky or on the nose. So far, I haven’t felt that with this season. That said, season two so far does have a tendency to lift lines of dialogue straight from the Peter Jackson films, going from fun wink to lazy eye roll pretty quickly.

Galadriel, who was the source of a lot of criticism in season one for being far too brash and ignorant, is quite different now, being written to come off as more sympathetic as she grapples with the fact that she got played. She’s also no longer the lead, as it seems that each season will focus on different characters across the Second Age, much like The Wire for an easy comparison in terms of seasonal structure. At this point in the season, there doesn’t seem to be any mystery boxes in the writing, allowing certain mysteries to just be unsaid for the time being, such as the identity of the sinister-looking wizard Ciarán Hinds is playing. We don’t know, but the show isn’t hyping up the reveal to us, which is a relief as that was an annoying part of season one.

Sauron is very much at the heart of the second season, which I have to say I liked. I particularly liked the opening flashback sequence with Sauron (under a different guise) while he was in his sorcerer mode. He was more regal and a little unsure of himself, but commanding nonetheless as he attempted to fill the role of his fallen master. Following his transition from power to shapeless back into a human body was a neat sequence. The show thankfully hasn’t tried to make us sympathetic towards him, but we get to see him in action a lot, which usually involves him manipulating people to his advantage. The target of his plans at the moment is the Elven Smith Celebrimbor, who is unaware that the guise of Halbrand is Sauron. He’s quickly coaxed into making more rings when Halbrand convinces him that he’s, in fact, an emissary of the Valar named Annatar and that making more rings is basically a divine request. Celebrimbor, searching for that perfect project, falls for it. It’s actually a great moment and a great aspect of the show thus far. Everytime Charlie Vickers is on screen, I’m the most invested in the show.

Season one of The Rings of Power could be accused of jamming too many plotlines in a single episode, but season two felt more focused, with some plotlines not even appearing in some episodes. Numenor only shows up in episode three, while the Stranger and Nori sit that one out for example, while the dwarves only show up on episode two. It allows more screen time for the characters and there’s also less whiplash. The show still suffers from the same season one issue however by having some plotlines be far more interesting than others. The elves and dwarves remain the backbone of the show, but I’m not as invested in the struggles of the Southlanders. So that made the third episode feel a lot slower than the first two, as we focused mainly on that plotline and the Numenorean, which does seem to be picking up the pace by the end up the episode but still hasn’t reached that sense of tension that will eventually come in this arc.

Overall, I have to say, Rings of Power season two is off to a pretty good start! It’s proven to me that it’s taken a lot of the feedback from season one and applied it, making a better second entry. It still suffers from inconsistent storylines and is maybe a little too jam-packed, but I was invested in the overall story and am on board to see what comes next. I do think dropping three episodes at once was a bit excessive, especially since the third was the weaker of the bunch for me, and would’ve been content with two to start, but that’s just personal preference. Stay tuned for more reviews, which will be more spoilery as we get into the season.