Warning: This review contains spoilers for the Amazon series “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” Season 2.

The second season of Amazon’s “Rings of Power” somehow managed to be worse than the first season of the show, which is a rather high bar.

The first season showed a disrespect for J.R.R. Tolkien’s world, but this season made things worse. It seems as if the showrunners don’t understand the basics of fantasy—or even storytelling.

Before I get into the great sins of the season, I’ll address a few smaller quibbles.

The second season introduced “the Faithful,” a religion in the kingdom of Numenor, and failed to give even the slightest taste of what the religion involves. It also introduced the barrow-wights (which the Peter Jackson movie adaptation of Tolkien’s “The Fellowship of the Ring” cut out).

There’s just one problem: the barrow-wights shouldn’t exist until far in the future of Middle Earth, because the person responsible for them—the Witch King of Angmar—hasn’t received his ring of power yet. It also presented the Palantiri, the seeing stones that made a big appearance in “The Lord of the Rings,” as corrupted when they don’t become corrupted until far in the future.

Yet these sins against Middle Earth pale in comparison to the great solipsisms of storytelling the show commits.

Everyone and their mother in this show somehow knows that Sauron (the main villain in “The Lord of the Rings”) represents a vast ethereal evil on the horizon, yet the show doesn’t bother to give the audience a reason to fear Sauron.

Charlie Vickers gives Sauron a great presence on the silver screen, but the show’s horrible writing prevents the audience from truly fearing him.

Season 2 opens with a scene in which Sauron gives a speech to orcs, and Adar (Sam Hazeldine) proceeds........

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