Rings of Power showrunners tease episode 8: “The stakes feel bigger”

Warning: The following contains spoilers for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power episode 7! Turn back now if you have not seen the latest installment in Amazon’s epic series.

The Rings of Power’s first season will soon be coming to a close. The Lord of the Rings series only has one episode remaining before taking an extended hiatus, and while many storylines seemingly came together in the seventh episode, there’s still a lot to wrap up.  

During a Q&A session following a screening of The Rings of Power, attended by Total Film, showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay teased what to expect in the finale. “There are some plotlines that will come together,” says Payne. “We’ve sent some people off, in some places the Númenóreans going home, and there are surprises waiting for them there. You’ve watched Galadriel and Halbrand head off somewhere. We’ve left Elrond in a predicament where all he has is one piece of mithril, what’s he going do? The Elves are still fading. That tees us up to have something that has been brewing all season to collide in hopefully an unexpected and fun way.”

“We always like the idea of going underneath it,” adds McKay. “It can become very tempting to end your season on a huge battle. We like the idea of a more intimate, emotional battle, at least that was the aspiration. And then going deeper and deeper and deeper into character. And hopefully, when you watch the eighth episode, that’s what it feels like. We want the stakes to feel bigger, but not necessarily in the scope or the special effects. A temptation and a pitfall we see quite a bit in movies, and in some of these big shows is like, you’ve got to keep topping yourself. You have got to keep Keeping Up With The Joneses. More aliens in the sky over New York. More giant lasers shooting up to the cloud. [We’re saying] ‘no, no, no, no, let’s go deeper in.’ And if it feels that way, awesome.”

A few character moments that could possibly happen: some sort of revelation regarding Sauron‘s true identity, The Stranger being given a name, or Adar‘s next plan being revealed. There are a few potentialities, but we will have to wait for the finale to drop on Amazon Prime Video to find out more (here is the full Rings of Power release schedule so you know when it’s dropping).

I’m the Senior Entertainment Editor here at GamesRadar+, bringing you all the latest movie and TV news, reviews, and features. Plus I look after the Total Film and SFX sections and socials media channels. I used to work at The Independent as a general culture writer before specializing in TV and film