Rumour has it that Prime Video’s The Rings Of Power is the highest-budgeted TV show ever made — though the maths depends on including the vast amount paid for the rights to J.R.R. Tolkien’s magnum opus, The Lord Of The Rings. It certainly looks expensive, from its extensive locations to the huge sets. More importantly, however, the plot lives up to the packaging.

It may be cobbled together from tag-ends of material in Tolkien’s appendices, but this packs more incident and excitement into its second season than some entire books. If you’re going to throw money at a TV screen, you can only hope it looks and sounds as good as this.

Admittedly, showrunners J. D. Payne and Patrick McKay are standing on the shoulders of giants. They have Tolkien’s unmatched worldbuilding, and the visuals owe a heavy debt to illustrator John Howe as well as Peter Jackson’s films. Even Bear McCreary’s (excellent) score riffs on sounds and instruments from Howard Shore’s work on Rings; and Shore himself wrote this show’s theme music. That’s all incredibly important in convincing us that we’re back in Middle-earth, an age before the one we know. But let us also give credit where it’s due, because Payne and McKay’s storytelling decisions live up to that legacy and give us just as many thrills as anything we’ve seen before.

They open with a genuine surprise, an origin scene with horror elements for Charlie Vickers’ Sauron, taking us from the fall of his old boss Morgoth to his reappearance on the raft where Morfydd Clark’s Galadriel met him last season. After that we’re off to the races, as Galadriel tries to beat her buddy Elrond (Robert Aramayo) back to Linden to stop him raising the alarm about the new rings she’s forged. If the Galadriel of last season was single-minded in her conviction that Sauron lived and remained a threat, this one is mortified by her failure to spot him at once, and desperate to undo the consequences of that mistake. It will not be easy, because Sauron is feeling much perkier now that she’s put this great idea about rings in his head, and he even reckons he can talk the Elven smith Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards) into giving him a hand.

Meanwhile, the guy we’re still supposed to call ‘The Stranger’ (Daniel Weyman) is seeking his destiny and perhaps a tall staff in the ominously named desert lands of Rhûn, with only the Harfoot, Nori (Markella Kavenagh), for company. There’s also serious political turmoil in the human kingdom of Númenor and the Dwarvish kingdom of Khazad-dûm, which bodes ill for the future. The presence of invented-for-the-series wild cards like Sam Hazeldine’s Orc leader Adar and Ismael Cruz Córdova’s soldier Elf Arondir allow room for invention and innovation. They keep us guessing even if we’re pretty sure Galadriel’s going to survive all this in one piece — and Sauron in several pieces.

Of course, that barely scratches the surface of a plot that spans a continent and its islands, but still finds time for personal grudges and the occasional love story. Some moments and characters verge on fan service (not just Ents but Entwives! A Hill-troll!) but others are used delicately and to great effect. Rory Kinnear’s Tom Bombadil absolutely makes the case for his own inclusion in any and all Rings adaptations from now on, and while Ciarán Hinds’ ‘Dark Wizard’ — he of the suspiciously straightened hair — could have used a little more nuance, he has a mesmerising scene late in the season. There are also images that are going to stay with you, one at a Númenórean coronation; another involving Peter Mullan’s gruff Dwarf king Durin III. And battles, oodles of them, with Elves and Orcs struggling in the mud and coming up with inventive new things to do with arrows.

It’s rich, heady stuff. One can absolutely nitpick a few elements — the Harfoots remain peripheral; there are occasional moments where a CG sheen lies on the generally strong VFX — but these are small cavils next to a banquet for the eyes and ears. From the prettiest Elven dress to the most grotesque Uruk scarring, this has been hand-crafted to transport us to Middle-earth and carry us through its most horrifying, inspiring and sentimental moments. It might not be to everyone’s taste, but if you’re a Tolkien fan, it’s hard to imagine what more you could possibly ask for.