Rings of Power Returns With the One Ring Forged
Prime Video dropped four of season 3's eight episodes at once today, five years on in-story, at the height of the War of the Elves and Sauron.
The Rings of Power season 3 premiered today on Prime Video with four episodes, reaching the forging of the One Ring.
The Rings of Power returned today, as Prime Video released the first four episodes of season 3 at once. [The Rings of Power season 3 premieres: Sauron forges the One Ring — premiere-day roundup citing Decider, CBR and Comic Basics] [November 2026 TV preview: Rings of Power season 3 — Metacritic]
The eight-episode season opens five years after the season 2 finale, at the height of the War of the Elves and Sauron, and reaches the forging of the One Ring the series has promised since the first season. The full season lands within three weeks. [The Rings of Power season 3 premieres: Sauron forges the One Ring — premiere-day roundup citing Decider, CBR and Comic Basics]
The release pattern is the strategy: half the season today, the rest inside three weeks, a compressed rollout showrunner Patrick McKay has framed as deliberate. McKay and J.D. Payne run the series as a planned five-season, 50-episode arc across Tolkien's Second Age, and Amazon says it streams in more than 240 countries and territories. The premiere arrives more than two years after the season 2 finale aired on October 3, 2024, a gap long enough that the four-episode drop doubles as a re-onboarding for everyone who drifted. [The Rings of Power season 3 premieres: Sauron forges the One Ring — premiere-day roundup citing Decider, CBR and Comic Basics] [November 2026 TV preview: Rings of Power season 3 — Metacritic]
First reviews split in an unusual way. The Rotten Tomatoes score sat in the 70s in the first hours, on fewer than 30 reviews, below the first two seasons' 83 to 85 percent finishes, while the Metacritic average, 73, is the best of the three seasons against 71 and 67. Both numbers will move; the disagreement between them is the honest summary of a show critics have never agreed about. Prime Video hasn't formally renewed it, though The Hollywood Reporter reported in May that work on a fourth season is already underway. Season 3 was billed as the season the show was always about. The One Ring exists now. The remaining episodes decide whether it was worth the wait. [The Rings of Power season 3 premieres: Sauron forges the One Ring — premiere-day roundup citing Decider, CBR and Comic Basics]
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