Rings of Power S1E3 Recap: "Adar"

Welcome to the Podcast of Power. We are talking about the Lord of the Rings. Rings of Power episode three. At are of course, I am Mike White, your host joining me is the mostess with the hostess. What Chris Stash, you take me to the one they call Adar.

We are talking orcs in this episode, so happy talking to works that can't stand the sun. Ah, right, but they I was waiting for one of them to ask about maggoty bread. But the steaking death. Oh yeah, yeah. So we are continuing our walk through a whole lot of different storylines, and I think the one that gets the most play is Gladriel at Newmanoor.

That feels like it takes up a lot of the time. And yeah, we've got a lot of castle intrigue type stuff going on here, stuff about the king that we don't see, a friend of the elf. Yeah, wow, what do you think of this episode, Chris. So we're finally getting into the part of this show where they're introducing characters now that we have ostensibly heard of. So I mentioned in the last episode, Oh that's a Silder at the end of the second episode.

Apparently I'm wrong, that's Lendel a Silder's father, which again, if you've seen The Fellowship of the Rings, which if you haven't, how are you watching this show now? Weird? Weird? Yeah, if you've seen that. At the beginning of that movie, the King gets murdered by Sauron sealed or cuts off sorrow on his fingers lose, he loses the ring of power every I mean, we this old hat at this point.

So that's a main part of this. And we have not, again in film medium, seen these characters walking, talking, doing anything more than Kay Blanchet narrating. So it's interesting. I was it's a Game of Thrones but doesn't have that nasty edge that Game of Thrones does, And that's again George R. Martin was kind of taking the piss out of JRR.

Tolkien in a way. Tolkien's very not wholesome, but not Martin, and Martin's like the opposite of that. It's a little bit more real, a little less fantastical. I haven't seen one episode of Game of Thrones, so I'm gonna buy, which I find immensely interesting. Like, I would be curious what your take on that show would be as someone who loves Lord of the Rings, as much as you do.

Because again, like you know, you and I are close in age, but you read these books growing up. Oh yeah, like you have this like leg up on me with the amount of like time you've spent with this narrative. And I would be curious to see, like what your take would be on something that, like it's intent almost is in a lot of ways as a subversive response to Tolkien. I mean, Jay R you know J George R R. Martin's r R.

Where do you I mean that is in reference to Tolkien. That's intentional, so you know, I mean Martin has gone on has spouted his mouth off about plenty of Tolkien stuff recently, like Gandolf should have stayed dead, Like I don't, we don't care, guy, Like shut up, come on, why don't you get busy working on that last book? Buddy? There's another show on right now that's taking up way too much of his time, and that this show is being compared to almost damn near constantly. I don't think I can read an article about this show without them talking about how House of the Dragon.

Well, we're not going to talk about House of the Dragon, thank god. I want to hear Chris talk about House to Dragon. Go over to Game of Bros. You can hear him talk all about that. Yeah, here we're talking about some Tolkien esque type stuff esque, I think, and there's some esque.

There is some esqueness in this episode. Yeah. So I've heard of Newmanoor and this is the first time I believe we could to see it. This little island kingdom over here to the west of Middle Earth, and that's where we end up with Galadriel and what's the name of this other guy, valen Or I think it is hall Brand. Hall Brand definitely not the witch King of Angmar.

No, No, he's not, not yet, not yet. But um, everything with his character felt like it you've never seen Game of Thrones. But yet I would contend that scene that takes place in the alleyway with his character is Game of Thrones in its presentation, especially the scene where the guy's arm gets snapped. I don't know what this show's obsession with boone breaking is, but they I noticed in the intro to this episode they re showed the uh ankle snapping with the hop Yes. I was thinking, I was thinking myself, I can't wait to talk about this with Mike because I know how much.

It didn't like it the first time we saw it, But then in this episode a guy gets his arm braced up against a door jam and then snapped backwards and you get to see the whole thing in like brutal cgi special effects and like that is Game of Thrones esque. That has really no like there's nothing like that in any of the Lord of the Ring stuff that we've seen. Even that ankle thing was a lot. Yeah, yeah, it's pretty brutal. Like that's scene with how Brandon, those kind of new Man Orians who were telling them to get out, you know, make New manual grade again.

I mean, I don't know what else that's in reference too, but they're saying things like first you come for our jobs, and it's like, oh, like yeah, yeah, yeah, it took our jobs. What's next our women? Like how fucking gimme a break? Yeah, this whole thing of like evil coming from the South, I'm just like, you mean, like Mara Lago what well? I mean, So in the story the Lord of the Rings, the south Lands become more door right right, the south Lands are where Mount Doom is.

Moundoom explodes, turning that whole area into more door. That's coming in this season. I have not watched any of the previews anything, and I do not watch the coming next week stuff. Really, I just I am watching these episodes. Just that's that I stayed away specifically from the previous The only thing I saw was that teaser that we talked about last week, the one with the metal the molt, which I never even saw.

I actually didn't watch any of the promotional stuff for this until like people were like, like I was reading things online, which I shouldn't be doing but find myself doing anyways. But you know, but again, the whole thing about this show that I think I wasn't expecting, and I don't think they did a very good job of letting the audience know how dark this show probably is gonna get, because I think this show is going to get pretty dark. I mean, it's the rise of Evil, right, and it's the rise of evil with there I mean, the evil does die at the end, so we do know. I mean again, like that happens in the Fellowship, Like this is not anyone spoiling anything, you know, Like that that happens at the beginning of the Fellowship movie, that's already happened in the books.

By the time we get to that story, so yeah, we know where this is going. But yeah, this is like the rise and the vanquishing of evil, because I mean, I'm assuming the people who fought Saraon initially when they when they passed on at the end of their lives, they didn't assume Saron would come back again, right right, nobody did for twenty five hundred years. Almost. Yeah, Yeah, it's interesting. It's it feels so foreign, but it does feel very familiar, you know.

I don't know how else to explain it, Like Newmanor feels weird, but at the same time, it does feel kind of gone door esk Well tell me because we were confused over here watching it. And I watched this episode a couple times because I was a little confused because of the white tree. What's going on with the white tree in Numenour, Because I'm like, wait, there's a white tree in Gondor. I believe the white tree from newman Or gets uprooted and planted, or a seed from it is planted in Gondor that tree comes to the too Middle Earth. It's like, this is way this story is so weird to me because it's like a lot of this stuff that's happening, like we see it in the context of those other movies, and nothing is made of it like that, you know, we're seeing this imagery and we're seeing these other things in here.

It's like, no, here's the tree, and the tree is just this is the original tree. And I believe that that tree is a tree from a seed from the tree that was in valen Or to begin with. Right, okay, so, but the thing is with Newmanor is the new Manorians, like they mentioned in this episode, they were given the island because they sided with the elves and they helped the elves feet more God, but the humans didn't side with the elves, but these humans did. But something has happened that they have now rejected the elves and drove the king out. Basically now he's a prisoner in his own tower because they dislike the elves so much or something.

And I'm like, all right, we've got to find out what's going on here, why the elves are no longer welcome here, right, And I don't know, it seems like we're not going to figure that out, right, We don't figure it out in this episode, not in this episode, No, But I mean, it seems like at the end of this episode they're setting it up for them to leave Galadriel and is seal Door and Lendal and I guess his daughter as well, So they're setting that up for them to leave to go to Middle Earth. At least a seal Door is going to take him. But again we know where they end up, so we know Lendal has to get to Middle Earth somehow at some point. Well, and it's weird too because of this whole thing of the daughter reapplying for some sort of guilt ship or something and she got it now and the father's like, well they never reconsider anybody was like okay, it's there, like weird political things going on behind the scenes.

Because then also at the very end when the queen is like the Elf has come and it's like, all right, is this a prophecy that you're talking about now? The show is so again like a lot of this stuff I don't want to say too much because it's covered in the Silmarillion. Well, like some of the stuff is like not these so like that House of the Dragon show. The show the things that the reason these shows are so easily compared right now is because they're both drawing from source material events not source material dialogue and character dialogue, And does that make sense? Those events are described in the books, but it's like a couple of sentences.

They're like taking this and like blowing this into a season or two's worth of story arc. So there are things happening new Minore that are if you've read the source material, you know where it's going. And I believe these things that they're kind of slowly dripping out to us as the audience are in that direction. So I don't want to like spoil too much for you as someone who hasn't seen and or read some of the more extensive stuff, because the new like new manOur and everything, Like, I believe I know where this is going and it's going to be interesting. Because again they don't talk about Gladriel's part in this, because that's not mentioned in any of this.

So her being there is not not that it's not possible. I guess again it is theoretically possible, but it's not mentioned in the source material that she's there. Does that make sense? Oh? Yeah, One, it was nice that they had that painting with el Rond in there, and that's the only time we could to see el Rond in this episode.

Yeah, it was a little disappointed. Yeah, I was a little disappointed as well, and also no bron Wyn and her son kind of thing, and it was I mean, really, it's this episode feels like it's very much in three parts. There's the glad Reel stuff going on in New Manore, there's pitching up with the har Foots, and then there is a lot of stuff and I feel terrible because I still don't know this ELPs name Rode, thank you Ronde, or all of the things with the orcs and just Tim trying to escape from this, and I was very surprised that he didn't. But then I guess now we have the introtruction of Adar coming up with the next episode. But yeah, this is weird.

I don't know what's going on with these what these Orcs are having all of these people digging for and what they're doing, and it feels like they've been doing this for a long time because you can see at one point there's a long shot and you can see all of the like tents that they've build up along this long path that they're doing, and he says that they're having them dig for something, and I'm like, Okay, what is it that they're looking for? Definitely not the Ring of Power? No, yeah, of course, right, So yeah, I don't know. I have no Earthly idea, no Middle Earthly idea, no Middle Earthly idea, zero. I have no idea what they could be digging for.

Again, I'm not the most well versed on the lore, but again I'm not sure any of this has lore in its background. I don't think Adar is a completely new character, right, So again the show. We know who the main battye of this show is, but we can't expect that they're not going to have like sub villain characters throughout the show's run, even though again like ostensibly we know who the bad guy of this show is gonna be. We know where this show again, we don't know maybe where this show ends, but we know the end game of the final season of this show right for sure. But there's got to be like smaller weird villains in between now and then, because again, I feel like it would get really boring if it was just Saron over now.

Yeah, I mean that's the thing that I like about the Order the Rings the movies, is you know, you've got worm Tongue, and you've got Sourmond, and you know you've got the well the witch King of Angmar, and all of these other villains. And it's like even the guy who looks like Harvey Weins singing the Orc at the end, it's like he kind of shows up in the third movie and it's like, Wow, you could have been in here a lot more. And he's a lot better of a villain than that guy with the one arm from the Hobbit movies. Anything's better than those cgi nightmares. And and you know what, again, back to this show, all of these Orcs seemingly prosthetics, seemingly makeup, and man, they look really good.

They look good. They sound really good as well. Their voices are terrific. Somebody said, you know what, that whole weird accent that means a New Zealander accent or Australian accent, that down under accent that the Orcs had in the previous installments of this series. Great.

I mean, that's that's why, you know, I would contend probably one of the reasons Hobbit didn't work. They never really let those Orcs talk. They were only they were always speaking orci ish the orc language. They were never interacted with him in any substantive way. But man, I mean that's those first three movies, you know, Man, flesh meets back on the menu.

Boys, like a lot of there's a lot of really memorable lines of performances from the Orcs, So we're seeing it again here. It's like a return to form in a lot of ways. Yeah, I'm curious because I know there's that whole idea of what orcs are fallen elves or something corrupted elves. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know if that's going to play a part in this, or if the whole thing with eight hours going to kind of sweep that under the rug or what's going on.

But yeah, this whole thing of them not being able to stand stand the sun, that's to me more trollish. I suppose though they controls turned to rock when you expose them the sunlight. So yeah, I'm very curious where they're going to go with all of these Orcs. And they do, like we said last week, they seem like a threat. Yeah, oh yeah, and they seem like a threat here.

I mean, you have a rondeer seemingly get the upper hand on them several times, but ultimately no, yeah, oh yeah, and some of that is brutal. When the one guy gets the axe in the back, I was like, oh, that's not good. And I knew when he got up to the top and the guy was just standing there, I was like, oh, he's got a big old air on the chest and bo amir style. Yeah, he gets booramere. It's pretty good.

Yeah, But again, like I was really not expecting the show to be this dark, and like it's it's pretty yeah, it's it has a pretty interesting violent edge to it. Then I'm not saying that the original Lord of the Rings didn't have it, but the original Lord of the Rings was rather bloodless, and this isn't bloodless. I mean there's decapitations and severings of arms and legs. In the original Lord of the Rings. At least there's heads getting cut off, and the first movie, the big Orchi gets his head cut off.

I mean there. I mean there's plenty of it in that second movie with Helm's Deep and in the third movie with Me and It's Tiariff, but it's rather bloodless and in this it's not. And I appreciate that in a way. Oh yeah, yeah, I like that, and even the hard Foots are pretty hardcore when it comes to this whole thing of like, you're going to be in the back of the caravan and if can't keep up, here's a whole list of all the people that couldn't keep up before, and they're basically assumed to be dead. You know, we we have people in the back of the caravan.

They don't make it all the time. So here let's read a whole list of folks that we just don't see anymore, right if I guess, Yeah, the back of the caravan is the is the death knell if you're part of the hard foot community. Yeah, it's interesting. You know again, I wondered how they were going to tackle these characters of the Hobbits, because again, we know, we know that these Hobbits esque characters are where the you know, the final care chaters, the Hobbits, these kind of like mild mannered Hobbits end up. But these are not mild mannered characters in any like stretch of the imagination, which I really appreciate.

But I would be curious to see, like where if we see it during this show, or if it's just implied that over time they softened, but I would love to again, like don't They don't soften though, but they kind of do because in the original movies they're like, you know, we don't want to get involved in in the in the in the you know, the acts of the people out in the world. Well, Bilbo's more concerned about his mother's china and his tea towels than anything else. Yeah, yeah, I don't steal my spoon. Sackville Baggins is right, Yeah, I don't. I don't know.

I don't know where those characters are going. I don't even I'm still I'm not even sure if that can character is Gandolf. Now I'm I don't per the mythology of Tolkien, it can't be Gandolf, right right, I mean we know that much, but like it could be one of the Blue Wizards, but I don't think that characters Gandolf anymore. I still say it's Tom Bombadol. But you know, God, I guess it couldn't.

It could be until it's not, I mean, right, right, any any theory is as good as another at this point until they say one way or the other. This whole thing of it was interesting because Lenny Henry is doing almost the same thing that el Ron did in the first episode, where he's looking for the right words to say. You know, l Ron was providing a script basically to the King of the Elves, and here you have Lenny Henry trying to figure out what he's going to say in the next scene to the rest of the hard Foot. So I was like, Oh, that's kind of a nice little parallel that they have here, him trying to come up with the whole like full carts, full bellies type of thing. Yeah.

Yeah, And I don't know, I'm enjoying these characters. I'm curious to see where this goes. I was really glad when they finally exposed Foe Gandolf for Tom Bombadell to the rest of the group and that um what's her name nor that she didn't rad out her friend. I was like, oh, that's good. You know, she took the rap there.

That was good. Yeah, you know, I was gonna say, I'm I'm really starting to enjoy all the performances in this show, like you know, from you know, like you mentioned Lenny Henry already, and the girl who plays Nori is really good. She has a lot of you know who. She reminds me of a lot, and I'm sure it's intentional. She has those Fellowship of the Ring Elijah Wood vibes.

Oh yeah, she's very like lit very I don't know, she just you know, if you see her, if you're watching this show, if Frodo is not what comes to mind almost immediately, then maybe the show's not doing as good of a job with it for you as it is for me. But when I was all I could see every time they showed her in this episode, I was like, it's just they're doing the Frodo thing. Well, she's got those big eyes focusing on quite a bit as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah No. I also really like Lloyd Owen, who we just have only had to see in this episode as well as Lendil.

He's again a different kind of character than I was expecting. Also, Lloyd Owen super nice guy. I was thinking like he looked really familiar. I talked to him like the longest time ago for a found footage movie called Apollo eighteen, where like he's like an astronaut that goes to the moon and it's like the last Like why did we never hear about the last moon landing. It's because of aliens on the moon.

It's actually kind of fun. But he's really he's a cool dude, super sweet guy. I'm glad that he has again a role in this show because he's one of the main he is one of the main characters, but he's actually I mean, the characters we get introduced in this episode, I already like them, Like Maxim Baldrys, Is Silder. His introduction is very interesting, not what I was expecting for that. Characters written very differently from what my expectations were with what I know of the character as someone who has read a little bit of the backstory.

Yeah, it's kind of day because I you know, I don't know that much Lord of the Rings definitely not compared to you, and I would think that my wife might no less than me, but she's watched the movies, you know, a thousand times as well, and it was kind of nice when a Silder got introduced. She's like, oh is Silder And I was like, okay, yeah, good, you remember right well. And again like there are very there have been very few kind of points of reference that you can go back to if you have not read I mean even the books, but any of the other like source material or lore stuff. There has been very few characters to latch onto other than really Galadriel and maybe Gandolf, whatever the stranger is or whoever he is.

But like with the introduction of Isildor and Elendal, you kind of have these characters that you at least know where they're going to end up. And you know that Isildor has interaction with something that shows up in those original movies. He interacts with the one ring. He is the reason all of this happens, which is such a sad thing because again, like that's you know where this story is ultimately going. It's, you know, the will of men fails, and Isildor is the one whose will fails for all of us.

His will fails, is the way it's at least put by hell Run Yeah. Yeah, And it's like you want the best for the guy because he seems like a very decent dude. Like seen this episode and like I'm very curious about him looking off in the distance and hearing the woman's voice calling his name. It's like, oh, what's going on with that? Yeah?

He well, and again it's it's it's this whole idea of there's like an eight he's faded, right, and they kind of, I mean, Alendale kind of hints at as such. The way he talks to Galadriel. It's like, you know, you still have friends here. You know, my name means elf friend, and it's like okay, so like you're I see where this is going. And I like that the show is kind of being very obvious.

But I think with a show that has a its feet firmly rooted in like deep source material for a series that a lot of people have only a casual, surface level appreciation of, because again, those Jackson movies don't really get into the nitty gritty, which I think is the benefit of those movies. They never slow down to exposition dumb really, which is such a shock given how much stuff goes on. Yeah, I think the closest we get to that is those voiceovers from Galadriel where it kind of ties us together, which I'm fine for. You know. I like how every once in a while we'll take a little pause and she'll give us a little you know, hey, here's what's going on, and I'm like, all right, cool, that's cool.

But it doesn't feel like it doesn't feel like an exposition dump. No, But again, like that I think was one of the issues with those original movies that people were always worried about, was how do you tell this story that has this much backstory and like working parts under the surface without pulling that back and explaining every single one. It's like, we'll just ignore it, like not ignore it, but like that's not what's important. It's the action that's important and why the characters are doing what they're doing now. None of the old history of Middle Earth is important, and a lot of the stuff that they cut out in those movies is stuff that just enriches the backstory of the events of the movies.

It doesn't even really get into exposition on its own. Some of the scenes do, but a lot of it's just stuff from the books, and that stuff's not really about the previous world. Like the previous world stuff is really The fact that they have to put it at the beginning of Fellowship makes sense, but they're not doing a lot of that even in the book. The book is all about that whole journey to destroy the Ring. Jackson had to put that stuff at the beginning of the movie to give you a idea of where this is taking place and the world that you're about to step into.

And I think that this show is still doing a pretty good job of giving the audience drip drip, drip drip drip of new stuff, but still building this world that we're kind of just getting used to, because yeah, we're in a new place again, the third or fourth new place of this show in as many episodes. Yeah, and who knows where our foots are going to end up, right, because now they're on the move again, and the stranger is the only reason that the the Brandy Foots are not going to get eaten by god knows what by the bees. I guess, God, yeah, the bees can kill you here even And then I'm curious as far as where our elf friend is because he doesn't know this whole thing of like he was carried here. I'm guessing that all of the people from that village that was destroyed, I think they're all in this place as well.

So whatever, you know, all these orcs moving all these people in order to do this manual labor. It's like, but he doesn't know where he's at, and he's like, you know, once somebody gets up to the top of this hell, run like hell and send back a legion and we'll take over. But for now they don't know what's happening. Yeah, and I also like that they revealed what that symbol means. Oh that was nice, Yeah, because it was and that was hiding in plain sight, right, which I appreciate it again, like I hadn't even thought of that.

I'm sure that there are you know, plenty of people online and or smarter than me watchers of the show realized it. But yeah, I mean, I guess that symbol is just signifying where to go in the south Lands to meet I guess all the orcs are convening. And again we know we know that given where the show ends up, given what happens with the south Lands and turning into mort Or, like we know we know where that's going. But it's nice that this is like we're so far removed from that that this is like the south Lands or where the hard Foots are running around, which is like scary to think about knowing where we know this is going to go, Like where are they gonna go? Because if they don't get out of there, like you know, there's not going to be much left for them to stick around for so again, like it's interesting because again I didn't realize that maybe that's why the Hobbits are where they are is because of what happens in the south Lands, right, because if memory serves, the Shire is upper left hand corner of the map of Middle Earth.

Like I don't know what, I don't know if we compare Middle Earth to like the United States or something, but basically they'd be up near Washington and Idaho, those kind of things. And again like you know, yeah, it's for those of us that are trying to like place where this world is that we've seen before, but not in this like state that it's in. It's interesting to see. Yeah, the Southlands before became more door or you know, it's I don't know. I'm appreciating that this show is really kind of just taking its time because realistically we've only gotten we've only gotten like five six scenes with Nori, like overall so far in the show, Like with Arondere, we've gotten like maybe five scenes.

Like it's really throwing its net rather wide, and we're still in the growing phase of this show. We're still getting new characters introduced, and I'm curious, like we if we're gonna be having new characters introduced all the way until the final episode of this season, or is there going to be like a moment where all right, the pieces are on the board and now we're going to start moving him around. And like, I'm curious if the next episode is that moment or not, because it's got to get there at some point this season. Yeah, I mean, we did take those breaks in Lord of the Rings to move to Here's what Sarmon is up to, Here's what worm tails up to. Those kind of things, but are worth our wormtail in Harry potter Land worm Tongue is up to, but they're very few and far between.

We really dealt with our heroes more than our villains. I'm curious if they're going to focus on some of the villains a little bit more in this episode in this season. Yeah, well, and I hope so, because again, like this episode is titled Adar. You know Adar, the character that they show at the end of the episode, And yeah, I mean it looks to me that he's an elf. Yeah, yeah, I'm almost wondering if maybe he fall from the sky too, But he would have had to have fallen a long time beforehand, right, and he's eight hour is an Elvis word, I think yeah, which means father.

I think so. And he's played by again once again another Game of Thrones connection. He's played by Benjan Stark's Joseph Mauley Mally, yeah Mauley. And he's one of those actors that was in like the first season of Game of Thrones and then I forgot about his character until the second to last season showed up once and that was hit. So he might have that similar kind of role in this show.

I don't know, maybe he'll be a season long villain, but they did a good job of setting him up as kind of the leader of whatever's going on here with the Orcs, and again, like there's a level of intrigue here that again it's not that I didn't have it with the original movies, but you know where those stories are going. There's very little intrigue to be had unless you just genuinely don't know the narrative and you don't know that Gandolf's gonna come back, and you don't know that Gollum goes into Mount Doom with the ring, Like there are some things in that that if you don't know that narrative, those are surprising, but and I really like that in this is like yeah, even as someone who has read the books in the film, really and like even I am glad that it's like they're introducing things that I have no idea.

I'm just as much along for the ride as you are. Yeah, I don't need to see how all the puzzle pieces fit together before you know the puzzle was built. It's just like, no, no, just take me out a ride. That's what I want, right, And the best kinds of these stories, you know, like the best Star Wars stories where they go back and they're giving the characters, you know, stuff that they did in between, because now like well you know, like between Return to the Jedi and whatever, like, you have plenty of stories there to mind for any of those characters, for the comic books that you want to tell ver Han Solo what he was up to between Return of the Jedi and the Force Awakens. Like that's a long period of time.

But again, I praise I cannot give this show enough praise for setting it thousands of years ahead of time. Yeah, thank goodness. Yeah, because it's still paying off dividends with this show, Like it really is, because the things feel really familiar, but at the same time they feel so just a little tweak different that again, you know, even though we've seen these Orcs before and we've seen the Hobbits before, they're different enough that you're like, Okay, I'm I'm I'm on board, and I you know, I know we said we weren't going to talk about it, but like the hate for this show, I just I don't get it. I don't get it either. I mean I get it from like a theoretical standpoint, like you're taking something that I love and you're expounding upon it in a way that maybe is less than your perception of respectful towards that source material.

But the show itself is not bad. Yeah, I mean really, what can men do against the reckless hate? It's so dumb. I mean yeah, because we're both on the same Reddit groups and it's just like, what what is your fucking problem? Man?

Like people just losing their fucking minds about this. Yeah, it's just it's just a TV show. It's a relatively well made TV show. I don't think people would be getting as upset if it wasn't Amazon. I think the whole Amazon connection makes it a little easier for people to shoot on because it's more like, oh, we're taking our kind of we're taking our two cent potshot at bezos as opposed to really taking a potshot at the show.

Right, because everybody who made the show, they had the source materials, best intentions in mind. You know, it's clear to me this show is not being made cheaply. The show is not being made poorly. The show has good writing and good performances. If this show looked like shit and the people who were performing weren't invested, then I would agree it is a bad show because it's again, the last six, seven and eight years of Game of Thrones were expensive TV.

Those seasons of West World that you don't like are expensive TV. Just because it's expensive and it's being made by a big studio. It doesn't mean it's going to be good. But you like, you can hate on the show all you want for whatever reason, but don't say it's a bad show. Because it's not a bad show.

It's maybe just not doing the source material, the service and lip service and strict fucking religious devotion that so many people expect of this kind of show. It's an expectation thing. That's all the spoils down to. Yeah, just get them under control. Folks.

You know you should have already been disappointed enough by the hobbit that you shouldn't be looking forward to anything right again, Like, you know, if that's where people want to really, if this is the hell people want to die on, I'm just glad that we're getting more Lord of the Rings in twenty twenty two. I'm sorry. I am going to be that guy who says I'm glad that we're getting more content of something I love. And hopefully this show continues to be good because this episode, yeah, we don't get to see my favorite part of the show so far. But I'm still on board and I still really like this show.

I'm still enjoying this show immensely. You were asking a lot of questions. It's this is a build up episode. This is a set up episode, and honestly, this has been the weakest of the first three episodes. I think I will agree with you, just because we don't get very many answers to this.

I described it to Andrea as a connector episode. You know, we're just moving from point A to point B. We'll get more l Ron. Next episode, I'm sure we'll just keep moving those pieces around and that's right. I'm okay with that.

I'm okay with us moving these pieces on this chess board as long as we're moving in the right directions, right, and again like that, you know, it's it's funny because this is really mirroring Game of Thrones that first season very hard, where it's like, we're going to introduce you to the core characters in that first episode, and then the second and third and probably fourth, maybe even fifth episode, we're going to send them out into the world where they're going for the rest of the season, and then probably right at the end of the season, maybe the last or second last episode, we'll take them out of that setting to set them up where they're going to be at the beginning of next season. But like, that's like, that's so Game of Thrones because that's exactly what that show did, and I feel like it's and again, I feel like this show is going that way, and there's nothing wrong with that because that show is immensely successful in its first season, first couple of season, and if that's where this is going, like cool, because the characters they've introduced or interesting.

The situations that they've put them in are hopefully going to pay off in interesting ways. And yeah, we've got four more years of this, so at least we know that the story is in its infancy now and it can only continue to expand, and at some point they'll have to stop expanding. But like where they go next, I don't know. I don't know. It's exciting though, And to your point, from either last episode or the episode before, I mean, at least they have a plan for five years and then out they go.

Yeah, yeah, I don't have to worry about whether or not Adar is going to be a villain for the next three seasons. He's probably not going to be. He might not even be past two episodes from now. So yeah, but that's again, I don't watch a lot of TV live for this reason because it's like a lot of problem well, it's a lot of prognosticating. Yeah, and a lot of these shows where these kinds of not this show, the show that we're watching, but this kind of podcast show.

A lot of the time is spent on prognosticating what do we think is going to happen next, And it's like, ultimately I'm still gonna watch, so you know, like I don't, I don't know, like I what happens next. I think I think we all know where this season ends up, obviously, but I don't know. I don't know where the next two or three episodes go. And that's exciting for me because I don't watch TV like this very often. My prediction is that by the end of the first season there's going to be some rings forged.

You think by the end of the first season we're gonna get that. I feel like it, at least the plan to forge him is going to be complete. We'll have that scene where Kelli Brimbor actually unravels that scroll and shows it to l Rond exactly. Yeah, you think that's how the end the first season ends with him like looking at a ring like this with Mount Doom exploding in the background, Like, oh shit, Yeah, yeah, that's what it's gonna be. If that's not it, I'll be surprised.

I mean again, like this the show has to telegraph certain things. But yeah, well, I'm glad we're not making a lot of predictions because one of my most favorite things in the world was watching screen rants just implode when they were doing recap shows for one division, and it was just week after week after week it was like, Mephisto is going to be showing up. Yeah, Mephisto's coming. Oh, here's another point. Oh you see this, that means Mephisto.

Mephisto's gonna be here. Da da da da da da. And then when Mephisto didn't show up, I was just like, man, fuck you. That's why it's like, I don't That's why I don't want to traffic in that. It's like, ain't it ain't fun for beat me, it ain't fun for you.

Yeah. I have listened to plenty of West World podcasts where they spend half the time, well, this is in the real world missing, And by the end of the season, it's like the yarn that you spun was much more interesting than the one that the show did, and in a lot of ways, in a lot of ways, that hurt my enjoyment of the show, you know exactly, which I you know, the other thing I want to say about this show. They are definitely not asking me to wonder where they spent the money. Oh no, those some of those shots of them going into Newmanore, for fuck's sake, man, that is just stunning cinematography. There's no way they're shooting any of this stuff on a boat in a harbor.

I mean, I'm just watching this going this is all like fake stuff, but it looks so real. Right, there's They're not shooting this in a harbor when they have people coming off of these boats and stuff, Right, this is all fake, I would assume. So that's what I'm thinking. I think so. And it looks gorgeous.

It all looks amazing them out on the water. I was like, oh my god, this is great. Yeah when they're when they're going on those ships, when Galadriel and hal Brand are on that ship with Elendel going into Newmanour, It's like, oh my god, yeah, Jesus Christ, like, yeah, this is setting. You know, we we talked about The Mandalorian. I think we've talked about this, like off recording, Like The Mandalorian has kind of set the tone for I think TV and like the quality of the effects and stuff, because every episode of that first season of The Mandalorian is like a little movie, you know.

The cgi quality is so crazy. But this show, I think is going to be like what show could ever be more expensive? Than this show at this point, right, like really like what show could do more cgi wise than this show is? Right? Right?

Game of Thrones doesn't. Like even when Game of Thrones was doing its end game stuff in its seventh and eighth season, even it wasn't even if it had the budget of this show, we would have gotten the version of that show that we wanted. It's almost like Game of Thrones ran into its budget problems when it needed to. Not this show is never going to have that problem. Amazon.

Like Jeff Bezos clearly, if the rumors online or to be believed that his nose is sticking into the Lord of the Rings aunt pile, He's probably never gonna let this show alone and he will never make sure. He will never let this show look like shit, that's for sure, And it hasn't so far. I mean, everything about this show production wise has been impeccable. If it doesn't win some awards for that alone, I will be surprised. Yeah.

Yeah, I imagine they're going to be sweeping the award categories next year. Yeah, I would. I would hope so. Because man from Bear McCreary's music, which is getting better with every episode, to just the I mean again, the visuals have been ramping up every episode, but now when you have this approach into New Manure, it's the show is really flexing its visual muscles, both the CGI aspects to it and just the quality of where they're shooting. I mean they're shooting in Middle Earth.

I mean New Zealand is Middle Earth? Like I'm sorry, oh yeah, you know, like you see it and it's just like we're home, folks. Like that's the way it feels like it's you know, I don't know. We talked about this a long time ago on your episode of your show, The Projection, both about The Frighteners where they shot that movie in New Zealand trying to be California. It's like there's nothing you can do to take New Zealand out of New Zealand.

That look is just so when you watch something like Dead Alive, you know, because that's set in New Zealand, like that has that feel to it. But then when you watch something like Lord of the Rings, it's that same feel because Middle Earth, whether or not Middle Earth, was being set in you know, England, and that's where it's supposed to be in the books, Like it will always be New Zealand for me visually because it just looks it. It just looks it kind of makes me want to go to New Zealand, Sam the hobbiton to go see. Oh yeah, yeah, that would be something else to see. I feel on the next episode, we're going to be talking about episode one point four.

Got to love those title names. Man, Yeah, we were wrong about this episode. Maybe the next episode will be titled Mythrill because I would assume the next episode we have to revisit the Dwarfs. They're not gonna go two episodes without coming back to l Rond and the Dwarfs exactly. Yeah, maybe it'll be title Mythril fa owned oh yeah, with an exclamation mark question mark.

But until then, Chris, where can people find you? You can find me over at cstashot dot com. Cstacchiw dot com. That's my link tree. Go there for all the things that I work on, mostly TV shows from the seventies involving old curmudgeony white men as cops.

Yes, yeah, and Mike is on those episodes two because we do those episodes together, Colombo, Barney Miller. You can find all that at cstashut dot com. What about you, Mike, Where can people find you and your shows? Well, when I'm napping an old white curmudgeon detected from in the nineteen seventies, I am talking about movies at the Projection Booth, which you can find at Projection Booth podcast dot com. Yeah, until then, we want to thank everybody for listening.

Come on back next week as we talk about that famous episode one point four and I guess we're never getting title for a baby. We're not getting those titles. So we'll talk about that next week on the Podcast of Power