Mumbai: The battle for Eregion has ended, Celebrimbor is dead, and Sauron has emerged from the wreckage with the Nine Rings intended for mortal men — having manoeuvred Middle-earth several steps closer to his planned dominion.
The third season of Amazon MGM Studios’ The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power moves further into the Second Age and the escalating war between the Elves and Sauron. But it also introduces a complication the Dark Lord did not account for: Celeborn, Galadriel’s long-lost husband, played by Jamie Campbell Bower.
The ‘Love Triangle’
Showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay have explicitly confirmed the dynamic. Asked at San Diego Comic-Con whether it was fair to call it a love triangle, they answered: “Yes. The answer to your question is yes, absolutely” .
Charlie Vickers, who plays Sauron, predicted the showrunners would “regret saying that” . “There’s no love lost here,” added Morfydd Clark (Galadriel) .
But Vickers acknowledged the complexity: “When Sauron meets Celeborn again, in a long time… they have their own shared history as well. And then all of a sudden he’s like, ‘Well, I actually kind of know your wife now.’ So it’s a bit more complex” .
He elaborated elsewhere: “They’ve both been around for hundreds of years. So they have their own kind of thing… And then there’s also this other added thing of, by the way, ‘I’ve been hanging out with your wife'” .
Celeborn’s Return
Celeborn has been absent since Season 1, presumed dead. Bower said what drew him to the role was not starting with “Galadriel’s husband” but asking where the character’s later wisdom comes from — concluding that sometimes you have to “go through the shit” to get there .
Bower described the chemistry read with Clark as “such a beautiful experience,” calling it “the best time” . He also spoke of the character’s sensitivity: “There’s a vulnerability to him. There is a beauty to him” .
Sauron’s Struggle
Season 3 picks up five years after the fall of Eregion. Sauron is forging the One Ring — but Vickers said his character is not as in control as before. “He is haunting himself,” he said, with Celebrimbor’s legacy playing on him as he tries to complete his work .
Vickers described the forging scenes as physically demanding: “It took a lot out of us. But then you just have to pinch yourself and be like, what an incredible job” .
For Bower, the role fulfilled a childhood dream. “There’s the inner child in me who watched the films growing up, who’s screaming,” he said .
