The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is returning this August with a second season that somehow promises to be even bigger and more ambitious than its first. The forthcoming season will introduce a few new, noteworthy faces, like Tom Bombadil (Rory Kinnear), and also adapt several major, canonical turning points in Middle-earth's history, including Sauron's (Charlie Vickers) deception of the Elven-smith Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards). By all available indications, the latter storyline will give The Rings of Power Season 2 the chance to deliver some of the bigger moments that J.R.R. Tolkien fans have been waiting for ever since the series was announced.
That said, one character whose immediate future has been shrouded in mystery ever since the penultimate episode of The Rings of Power's first season is Isildur (Maxim Baldry), who disappeared during the volcanic transformation of the Southlands into Mordor and was subsequently presumed dead by his fellow Númenóreans. Fans, of course, have known all along that Isildur didn't actual kick the bucket in The Rings of Power Season 1. Now, thanks to some new information out of San Diego Comic-Con, they also know a little more about his storyline in The Rings of Power's upcoming season.
Spoiler alert: It involves an appearance from one of J.R.R. Tolkien's creepiest characters.
Isildur isn't heavily featured in the Rings of Power Season 2 trailer that was released last week. However, he is briefly shown battling a spider in a confined, mountainous space. The moment in question quickly led Lord of the Rings fans to begin speculating about whether or not Isildur would be forced to face Shelob, the terrifying, giant spider that attacks Sam and Frodo in Return of the King, in The Rings of Power's latest season. Those suspicions have since been proven correct by Den of Geek, which has exclusively revealed that Shelob will be featured in The Rings of Power Season 2.
Unlike the version of Shelob that was presented in Peter Jackson's Return of the King film adaptation, The Rings of Power's take on the character will, according to senior VFX supervisor Jason Smith, be more visually reminiscent of tarantulas and black widow spiders with "long, thin legs." Maxim Baldry, meanwhile, told Den of Geek that Isildur's showdown with Shelob will help push him further away from the rebellious, wide-eyed youth that he was when viewers met him in The Rings of Power's first season. “He leaves Season 2 a man; he is no longer a boy," Baldry teased. "He’s hardened, he’s blunt, he’s a little bit more of a mercenary… more warrior-like.”
Thanks to his infamous legacy as one of the eventual bearers of the One Ring, Tolkien fans know a lot about the journey that Isildur has ahead of him. Whether or not he spends the entirety of The Rings of Power Season 2 fighting to get back to Númenor and his father, Elendil (Lloyd Owen), or he manages to return home a few episodes before the season's end remains to be seen. Either way, it sounds like the hardships he's going to endure along the way will do a lot to turn him into the unbending, capable warrior he is when he cuts the One Ring off Sauron's hand. Seeing all the things he survives in order to get to that point may, in turn, make his eventual corruption by the One Ring hit even harder.
While Tolkien himself never wrote about Isildur fighting Shelob, it’s a detour that makes sense following the events of The Rings of Power Season 1, which ended with Isildur stranded inside Mordor. It is, after all, said that Shelob made her home in the Mountains of Shadow, which line Mordor’s western and sourthern borders, long before Sauron even staked his claim over the region and began to build his fortress there. Shelob being in Isildur's path home is, canonically speaking, a sound development.
We'll have to wait to find out whether The Rings of Power Season 2 manages to truly justify Shelob's involvement in its story, especially considering that fans know neither she nor he will bite the dust as a result of their encounter. It certainly isn't the boldest choice that the Prime Video series has made as an adaptation up to this point, but it is one that could be met with either excitement and praise from fans or a sigh and a shrug. In the end, viewers' collective response may be determined by just how well the show actually makes them feel the fear caused by Shelob's presence.
Will The Rings of Power be able to outdo what Peter Jackson did over 20 years ago? Or will its trip to Shelob's lair pale in comparison?
