Is Shelob in The Rings of Power Season 2?

Warning: The following article contains spoilers for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 2, Episode 3, “The Eagle and the Sceptre.”

Isildur runs afoul of a lot of spiders in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 2’s three-episode premiere. But is The Lord of the Rings trilogy’s Shelob among the eight-legged beasties in Rings of Power Season 2?

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Is Shelob in The Rings of Power Season 2?

Yes, Shelob is one of the spiders—or, to be more accurate, spider-like—creatures in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 2. She’s the oversized (but not yet gigantic) brood mother of the other, small critters living in the cavern where Isildur starts out in Episode 3, “The Eagle and the Sceptre.” Shelob isn’t referred to by name on screen; however, Isildur actor Maxim Baldry confirmed her identity in a post-launch interview. “I remember reading [in Episode 3’s script], ‘Isildur awakes in the Spider Cave,'” he told Empire. “Then it said: ‘And it’s… SHELOB!!!’ I thought, ‘No way! That’s so cool!’ Shelob is someone that I grew up adoring from the books.”

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Baldry added that The Rings of Power Season 2 includes a subtle clue to Shelob’s identity in Episode 3. During Isildur’s scrap with Shelob, he jabs a blade into one of the arachnid’s eyes. This is apparently a nod to Peter Jackson’s 2003 adaptation of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, which depicts Shelob with one of her peepers scabbed over. “There’s a little hint: I stab her in the eye,” Baldry explained. “So it’s my fault [that Shelob is missing an eye in The Return of the King], which is great. I like marrying the Third Age with the Second Age. It gives fans a little bit of juice.” That said, due to licensing issues, The Rings of Power and Jackson’s films aren’t officially connected.

Is Shelob Alive in the Second Age in the Books?

Yes, Shelob is already on the scene in the Second Age in J.R.R. Tolkien’s original Middle-earth canon. While Tolkien never gives an exact age for the malevolent webspinner, he nevertheless makes it clear she’d made her home in Mordor long before Sauron set up shop there. What’s more, Tolkien describes Shelob as the spawn of another, even more monstrous spider-spirit, Ungoliant, who started cranking out kids in the First Age. That’s thousands of years before The Rings of Power‘s main narrative—so, if anything, the adolescent Shelob may be a tad too young in Season 2!

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 2 is currently streaming on Prime Video, with new episodes dropping Thursdays.