Season 2 of The Rings of Power is over, and with it, the bane of all racist nerds everywhere. What will white guys on YouTube yell about now? Unless Kamala Harris suddenly goes on NPR’s Fresh Air podcast and declares that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was overrated, they’ll be grasping at straws until the next major Pokémon release. As for the rest of us casual Tolkien fans who don’t have aneurysms the moment a fantasy adaptation deviates from its source text, the departure of The Rings of Power simply means a momentary lack of confusing names to remember. (By the end of Season 2, I was referring to Míriel as ‘Visually Impaired Mother’ and Galadriel as ‘Baby Cate Blanchett.’) Unfortunately, it also means that we’ll have to wait at least two more years before we can see Baby Cate Blanchett kiss Baby Hugo Weaving again. Actually, come to think about it, can we make it infinity years before that happens again? Anyway, I will now speculate wildly on Rings of Power Season 3 since we’ll have to wait an entire Congressional cycle for its release.
Here are my unhinged predictions.
*spoilers, obviously*
Sauron gives rings to both rulers of Numenor
At the end of Season 3, Visually Impaired Mother was at the mercy of King Traditional Values, who convinced all of his followers that she was a witch despite having no supporting evidence. However, now that Sauron is armed with the Human Rings of Power, he can give rings to both rulers and force them to lip sync for their lives. In their last chance to impress Sauron and save themselves from elimination, they must perform a rendition of “Old Tom Bombadil” by Rufus Wainwright. If they fail, then they will be fed to the Magic Liopleurodon that almost ate Visually Impaired Mother when she went free diving the other week.
Joffrey Malfoy gets stomped
There’s a new blonde bitch in town and her name is Joffrey Malfoy. Well, actually, her name is Kemen, but I’m not going to commit that to memory, since Kemen is obviously going to be trampled by a herd of ents in Season 3. These talking trees go on a Twitter rant every time a character wastes paper, but Kemen thinks he can mine their whole forest for timber next season? Girl bye. Kemen and his little colony of lumbersexual influencers are about to be canceled by a herd of angry trees, henny!
Other characters get names
In the final episode of Season 2, The Stranger was finally revealed as Gandalf, infuriating Tolkein fanatics while also shocking no one. My boyfriend predicted that this guy was Gandalf after Season 1 Episode 1. But why stop with Gandalf? Why not introduce a beautiful blonde elf who says things like “I’m on seventeen” and “I see shapes of men and of horses,” and then wait four seasons to reveal that he’s Legolas? And since the time-space continuum has already been broken by the show’s writers, why not just say “f*ck it” and have Elijah Wood appear as a fortune teller?
The harfoots accidentally get rings, too
We’ve already departed from “canon,” whatever that is, so why not give the harfoots some rings, too? Though Sauron delivers two Human Rings to Númenor, he accidentally loses the other seven rings after a small hole forms in his backpack, which he bought on Temu. Unfortunately, when he’s daydreaming about Baby Cate Blanchett, they fall into a small rhododendron bush where seven harfoots are sleeping, thus bestowing upon all harfoots the dual powers of showering and stable housing. Drunk with omnipotence, the harfoots then develop powerful military technology and become the dominant race of Middle Earth. Poppy and Nori become crime lords.
The dwarves share their teleportation technology with the world
Season 2 of The Rings of Power had a similar problem as Seasons 7 and 8 of Game of Thrones: The characters suddenly could teleport. Baby Cate Blanchett and Baby Hugo Weaving somehow never made it to Erewhon to warn Kale Bimbo about Sauron, but Dwarf Prince and Baby Hugo Weaving could teleport between Erewhon and Dwarf Chicago without a problem. Sure, you could explain this with something like “geography” or “the writers needed the Rings of Power to be made for plot purposes,” but I’ll go with a more rational explanation: teleportation. In Season 3 of The Rings of Power, the dwarves will finally share their advanced quantum teleportation technology with the world, instantly winning the war against Sauron.
