‘He’s ripe for play’: The Rings of Power’s Tom Bombadil will ‘upset’ The Stranger when they meet in season 2, star teases

Who is the stranger in The Rings of Powerr? It is one of the largest, if not the the biggest questions on viewers’ minds since his introduction in Season 1.

Well, if you were hoping for the arrival of the fan favorite Lord of the Rings character Tom Bombadil is supposed to provide some long-awaited answers, then you have to adjust your expectations. With the two meeting soon, I suspect audiences were expecting Rory Kinnear’s enigmatic ‘Old Tom’ to help us solve the mystery surrounding The Stranger’s identity.

That won’t be the case, though. Speaking to TechRadar ahead of The Rings of Power The first three episodes of season 2 dropped on August 29, with Daniel Weyman, who plays The Stranger, suggesting that ‘Old Tom’ isn’t exactly willing to give up that information. In typical Tom Bombadil fashion, his penchant for riddles and apparent moral neutrality means the latter will have a hard time finding any answers in the second season of the hit Prime Video show.

“There’s a tremendous amount of guilt and fear,” Weyman said when I asked him about The Stranger’s continued inability to control his powers; the final incident that led to him being separated from Nori and Poppy in Season 2 Episode 3. “Everything he’s seen or heard or learned has come from his interactions with the Harfoots, so all of the things he’s picked up are directly tied to these friends that he may have lost. He’s literally not been alone [since his season 1 introduction]which is very disturbing for him.

“As he stumbles through the desert and eventually comes into contact with Tom, he’s ripe for play because he’s so vulnerable. The Stranger has existed in this small sphere of consciousness with the Harfoot community, but as he moves further into this adventure, there’s an expansion of his reality and his place in this world. Tom’s fear isn’t just about Middle-earth; it’s universal. He’s also moving back and forth through time at the same time. If the Stranger is moving through that aura, what does that do to a being who also has that power in their DNA but doesn’t fully understand it? Ultimately, I think the Stranger is hoping for some answers from Tom, and it seems to me that he’s not giving them up easily.”

Fair enough, but surely Tom will drop some clues about The Stranger’s name, where he comes from, how he channels his powers for the greater good, and/or act as a magical guide helping The Stranger figure it out for himself, right? Just like in The Lord of the Ring Things aren’t quite so simple when it comes to Amazon’s TV editing either.