The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 2 Directors Reflect the Female Filmmaker Landscape

One of the most thrilling action sequences to air on television in a jam-packed 2022 is the sixth episode of Prime Video’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Considering it is the most expensive series ever made, it is hardly surprising that this brewing clash delivered a spectacle of this scale and an intense, bloody battle to the death. Director Charlotte Brändström was responsible for “Udûn” (as well as the following installment, “The Eye”), and it has been announced that she is returning for four episodes in the forthcoming season. Sanaa Hamri and Louise Hooper round out the list with two episodes each, making this an all-female directing team.

Mentioning gender in reaction to this news is a catch-22 situation, as it shouldn’t be newsworthy that women will helm all eight episodes. Considering how much vitriol and attempts at review bombing have already been thrown at the series, it will no doubt receive criticism for this directing line-up (a glance at Twitter reveals this is the case). However, the previous experience each director already has (not to mention how good Brändström’s episodes are) and the visible groundwork that has been laid by other genre shows female directors, this shouldn’t be viewed as diversity point scoring or out of the blue. 

Brändström’s exhilarating “Udûn” was a much-needed jolt after a slower first half of the fantasy epic, which sometimes struggled to balance the many different corners of J.R.R. Tolkien’s world. Not that a battle is expected straight away, but the sixth episode cemented the scope of this adaptation. Her previous credits point to television with big ideas, including a shipwrecked desert island episode of Outlander, Prime Video’s alt-history The Man in the High Castle, two episodes from The Witcher’s first season, and the forthcoming Shōgun adaptation coming to FX on Hulu. 

Pulling double episode duty on The Witcher links Brändström to Hooper, who has a mix of streaming hits like The Sandman and offbeat acclaimed dark comedy Inside No. 9 credits to her name. Hooper is also the lead director on the Charlie Cox-starring spy-thriller Treason, debuting December 26 on Netflix. Meanwhile, Hamri started her TV directing in 2007 with Desperate Housewives and has a balance of popular network titles (including Elementary and Empire) and critical darling cable shows like Rectify. More recently, she directed episodes of American Horror Stories and Prime Video’s The Wheel of Time.

Brändström, Hooper, and Hamri are far from the first women to occupy this big-budget fantasy space, and the foundation has been laid by figures like Michelle MacLaren and Mimi Leder. MacLaren directed episodes of Game of Thrones (the only woman to do so), The Leftovers, The Walking Dead, and Westworld. In 2022, Susanna White directed three episodes of the brilliant Andor, Deborah Chow took the reins on the entire Obi-Wan Kenobi Disney+ miniseries, Meera Menon was behind two Ms. Marvel installments, and House of the Dragon already doubled the Game of Thrones tally with Clare Kilner and Geeta Vasant Patel.

Another significant ratio that hasn’t made headlines is The Handmaid’s Tale’s fifth-season directing line-up. Of the ten episodes, only one was directed by a man (Bradley Whitford, who also stars). June Osborne herself, Elisabeth Moss, first stepped behind the camera last year on the series she headlines, demonstrating her double threat status — she also directed episodes of Shining Girls. Yes, the stars of the show have more access and shadowing opportunities, but progress has been made since Gillian Anderson became the first woman to direct an episode of The X-Files (which was in its seventh season at the time).  

Research conducted by the Center for the Study of Women in Television & Film indicates that while the number of female directors on streaming has nearly tripled from 10 percent in the 2017-18 season to 29 percent for 2021-22, there is still significant room for improvement and opportunities beyond these steps. 

It has gone in the other direction on broadcast, dipping from 30 percent (2018-2019) to only 18 percent (2021-22). The increase in streaming lines up with the rising number of shows being made year-on-year; after all, more shows mean more jobs). However, on all programs considered in 2021-22 in this research, women comprised 23 percent, a decline of one percent from the previous year. 

Earlier this year, a clip from a Hollywood Reporter drama actress roundtable from 2016 did the rounds that speaks to how much has changed in the last six years. Sarah Paulson mentions that a woman has never directed an episode of American Horror Story, which was going into its sixth year. It went viral on Twitter because Kirsten Dunst lists the many female directors she has worked with in movies. Of course, there are differences between the film and TV landscape, but there is value in Dunst’s suggestion that “to give opportunity to first-time directors is key” to leveling the playing field. 

Brändström, Hooper, and Hamri are far from the first women to occupy this big-budget fantasy space, and the foundation has been laid by figures like Michelle MacLaren and Mimi Leder.

In fact, action was taken after this roundtable conversation when American Horror Story creator Ryan Murphy stepped up and admitted his hiring bias. He told E! News in 2016, “The system for 25 years, since I started out, has always been a lot of people who have had a lot of experience and those people are usually white, middle-aged men. It’s just the truth of it. And what I realized is that I had an obligation to step up and mentor people who deserve a shot.” There has not been an all-male directing American Horror Story roll call since.  

We have already established that the Rings of Power trio are far from first-timers. Still, we need to talk about this groundbreaking directing line-up to ensure that this will be the norm one day and these headlines will no longer be required.