Mystery box storytelling can get a little tricky when viewers start putting the pieces together earlier than expected, and The Rings of Power may have run into some of that with the Stranger. The show spent its first two seasons holding back the identity of Daniel Weyman’s amnesiac wizard, even though plenty of viewers had already started to suspect he was Gandalf fairly early on. That prolonged ambiguity gave the character a slightly cautious quality, since the series could only push him so far without confirming what many people already believed.
With the season 2 finale finally saying the name out loud, season 3 now looks positioned to explore a more fully formed version of the character. Weyman, speaking to SFX magazine ahead of the Nov. 11 premiere, suggested that this next phase marks a clear shift. “It’s really interesting how this character has progressed,” he said (via​​​​​​Games Radar).
“Season one was very distinctive in that The Stranger knew nothing; he had to learn everything. Season two, he felt more grounded. He found something of himself. And season three, the big difference is that he has grown into himself and realised what his purpose really is.”
Season 3 drops into Middle-earth at the height of the War of the Elves and Sauron, with the Dark Lord having spent those five skipped years conquering nearly everything while the Dwarves seal themselves inside Khazad-dûm and the Elves hold out in Lindon and Rivendell behind the protection of their Three Rings. Co-showrunner Patrick McKay has framed the jump as arriving at the “tipping point” of an “epic war between Sauron and the Elves,” and the show has been fairly open about treating the new season as a fresh start, with McKay citing Battlestar Galactica and Halt and Catch Fire as models for the kind of time skip that reorients a series without rebooting it.
Weyman’s read on the character is also quietly reassuring for anyone worried the show might turn its newly confirmed Gandalf into a generic action wizard. “The thing that I love about Gandalf probably most is the way he sees the good in other people, even if they can’t see it themselves,” he said. “Then, when Tom Bombadil begins to disappear because he knows that Gandalf is ready, his story suddenly becomes pretty epic.”
That detail about Bombadil receding is a nice structural touch, honestly, since Rory Kinnear’s take on the character functioned in season 2 as a kind of enigmatic mentor, and Tolkien’s Bombadil was always defined by his refusal to participate in the world’s great struggles. Him stepping back because his pupil no longer needs him tracks with the source material’s spirit, even where the show invents freely around it.
