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One of the most offbeat figures in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings saga is finally making an on-screen appearance in season 2 of the Amazon Prime Video spin-off series The Rings of Power. Yes, that’s right, it is Tom Bombadil.
Announced via an exclusive first look by Variety, it has been confirmed that the all-signing, mystical woodland dweller Tom Bombadil will make his adaptation debut in The Lord of The Rings: The Rings of Power season 2. In the image, we see Penny Dreadful’s Rory Kinnear as the eccentric character dressed in an embroidered green coat and a pointed brown wizard-like hat, with an overgrown beard and staff to match.
Now, if you are a fan of Peter Jackson’s Oscar-winning live-action trilogy but have never heard of Bombadil, that’s okay. Fans of Tolkien's book series will know that we first meet the god-like yet highly mellow Tom in The Fellowship of the Ring where he breaks his neutrality and uses the power of song to rescue the hobbits from being swallowed by an angry tree and then again from malevolent spirits. But he was actually introduced a lot earlier as he appeared in the author’s 1934 poem called The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, which also included other Middle-earth inhabitants.
Fans are overjoyed by Bombadil’s debut, as soon after The Rings of Power’s Twitter account shared the exclusive, the admiration for the character started pouring in. "This is the best thing I’ve seen this year. Welcome home, Tom," said one fan, while another replied, "He looks just like him! Damn, can’t wait. I was very sad that he didn’t make any appearances in the movies. He was central in the journey." The excitement is not surprising though, as earlier this year when more Lord of the Rings movies were announced, fans were asking for Bombadil’s very own film.
It is interesting though, in terms of timeline, that this character will appear in The Rings of Power, which is set a long time before the events of Jackson’s movies. However, in Tolkien’s books, Bombadil is described as "older than the old," and is believed to have been born at the very start of life itself, thousands of years before the events of The Lord of the Rings, making it perfectly acceptable for him to show up in ancient times.
In an interview with Variety, co-showrunner J.D. Payne gave some insight on what we should expect from Tom in the series. "Season one set the pieces on the chessboard, and in season two the pieces are in motion and it’s really about the villains. Really, Tom is sort of a curiosity within that structure because while it is darker, Tom Bombadil is singing," Payne said. "So he sort of defies the tonal shift of the rest of the season and is a real point of light amidst an otherwise sea of darkness."
