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SME115: Celeborn finally shows up.

After two seasons of Galadriel mourning a husband the show refused to cast, Amazon dropped the Rings of Power season 3 teaser at Comic-Con with Jamie Campbell Bower in the role and one line of dialogue: “trying to get back to you.” Jeff Haecker, Fr. Bryan Shackett, Rob Leonardi, and Rob Story work through the whole thing frame by frame.

Fr. Bryan’s theory on where Celeborn has been: prisoner of Sauron. It is the tidiest explanation for a two-season absence, and it hands Galadriel’s story the ballast it lost in season 2.

Then there is the Balrog. Simon Pegg is voicing it, and for the first time on screen a Balrog will speak. Fr. Bryan points out that the lore allows it, since Gandalf describes the Balrog casting a counter-spell at the chamber door in Moria. Rob Leonardi’s worry is presentation. This show has trained its audience on Peter Jackson’s snarling flame demon, and hearing one speak is going to land strangely no matter what they do to the voice.

The Rings of Power season 3 release schedule runs 8 episodes over 3 weeks: four on November 11, two on November 18, two on November 25. The season opens 5 years after the fall of Eregion.

What the panel likes: no harfoots, Númenor finally getting the army it was always supposed to have, Elendil in full regalia, and a shot of the dark wizard so ominous that Rob Leonardi says it is what the show should have been doing all along.

What worries them: a talking orc riding with Arondir and Galadriel, immediately nicknamed “Boblin the Goblin,” who Rob Story is certain will turn out to be walking them into a Shelob-style trap.

Underneath the joke sits a real Tolkien question. Are orcs redeemable? Jeff points out that Tolkien never landed on an answer, and that the mercy of the Valar was open even to Sauron, if he had gone and asked for it.

The teaser also introduces the Nazgnagôl, Amazon’s coined Black Speech word for ring-servants who have not yet become wraiths. They ride, they turn up at Khazad-dûm, and Durin sends them off with “there are no friends of Mordor here.” The panel reads that as the opening move in a dwarven succession fight, and maybe the seed of the dwarves who sided with Sauron at the Last Alliance.

And Sauron forges the One Ring with Fëanor’s hammer. Rob Story calls that the whole character in a single prop. Sauron cannot make anything, so he takes the tool that made wondrous works and bends it.

Where is it heading? Jeff’s read: the War of Sauron and the Elves closes, Sauron lets Númenor carry him home as a prisoner, and that sets up the Akallabêth for season 4.

Plus: Robert Aramayo playing Elros as well as Elrond, Disa singing to the mountain, how many Balrogs actually besieged Gondolin, and Pope Leo XIV quoting Gandalf in the listener feedback.

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