The debut season of Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power—for those that actually ended up making it through all eight episodes—often struggled to really really feel there was narrative moment outside of that one hella cool moment when a mountain blew up. By its climax, it felt like things had barely just started, in spite of us already being at the end of the season. That, at least, seems to be changing for season two.

While we got our first look at Rings of Power’s return a few days ago, this week Prime Video also released a new behind-the-scenes featurette for the new season, united in a common thread from all the tidbits delivered by the show’s stars: you will actually feel like things happen this season!

It’s kind of funny just how regularly everyone goes back to that beat—and acknowledging, in various diplomatic ways, that season one was a slow burn set-up to allow things to occur this time round. Even what we’re shown emphasizes this, with lots of stunt work, lots of action. Lots of orcs, lots of fire, lots of orcs on fire, things of that nature. The message being sent is very clear in its attempts to hook back in the people who dropped off season one: this is the season that you were probably wanting the first time around, whether it’s in terms of the action and the scope of it all, or wanting your eight-episode TV show to actually feel like things had narratively progressed beyond “well, that mountain did blow up and it was extremely sick.”

We’ll find out whether the long road there and back again was worth it, when Rings of Power season two begins streaming on Prime Video starting August 29.

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