Rings of Power S1E4 Recap: "The Great Wave"

Welcome to the podcast of Power. The Well, it's not the only show, but the best show that talks about the Lord of the Rings, the Rings of Power. Oh, those rings that we have heard such marvelous things about. We are talking about the fourth episode of the first season. We're talking about the Great Wave serves up.

Dude, Yeah, right in that great dwarf in wave? Is my name is Marl Rod? Is it the dwarves that call that caused the big wave, the wave that we see in this episode? Yeah? No, okay, he who who?

He who receives the wave? It is he who created the wave, as the new manorians are soon to learn. I was hoping you would introduce me as Dougie l Rond, because that is a man. That is really what l Ron looks like. With that haircut, he looks like Doogie Howser.

I can see that. Yeah. Oh, by the way, this is Chris Stashu. I'm Mike White. So it's good talk with you again, Yeah, is it?

Yeah? I think so. Yeah. This shows this show is good. Yes, this show is good.

So it is good to talk. You know, judging by the online discourse, though, you would think that we're watching I guess state sanctioned snuff films. We are watching someone that is dug up J R. R. Tolkien's corpse and just as having a skull fucker too, I guess.

So. I just wow. The Lord of the Rings subreddit and the LTR meme subreddit was somewhere that I used to enjoy going too. It was somewhere I used to like to go. Yeah, not so much anymore, but hey, you know what, at least we got a title for this episode.

At least it's not episode one point four or whatever it was being billed as before they released the title the day the episode came out. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know why the secrecy, but you know, okay, if that's how you're going to run it, that's cool. We didn't used to know what the episode titles were, and there's a lot of shows where you watched the whole show and you never know that there even is an episode. Yeah title, Yeah, that's fair.

So this episode is all about New Manure and the Dwarfs. It's interesting this show really well, I guess about the Orcs, right, right? The Orcs that there should just have their own show. Yeah, but our and the Orcs, right, I would I would watch that show, but we don't get any of the hard Foots. So it's weird, like the hard Foots aren't in every episode.

I don't know if you've have you noticed that, it's like, it's not it's like every other episode, it seems, well, maybe ill Rond. I don't think l Rond was in last week's episode. Yeah, No, I don't think he was either. No, we didn't even check in with the Dwarves last week. Yeah, so you're getting three stories right now, or three of the four storylines are going on.

Yeah, so we have yeah, el Ron, then we have theo son of the woman who loves the Elf, who's captured out in the wilds by the Elf father or the Orc Father, I guess. And then yeah, we have the entire newman Or story with Galadriel. So why don't you think of this week's episode, Mike, Well, we're getting to the point where Andrea is walking out of these episodes and not asking me to pause because she's completely confused because of their cross cutting. I like it, and I like where we went, and I like where we were taking this story. So I had a good time and I was glad that we don't know a whole lot about eight Ar after you know, makes his appearance last week was named after him, even though he was just shown in a very blurry image.

But I like that we have the Elf Captain returning to Bronwyn and we're getting those two storylines converging a little bit more. That was nice and very curious to see where the glad Reel story goes. And yeah, I really like seeing Duran and el Ron hanging out together. It gives me a lot of Legolas Gimily vibes, so I'm enjoying that quite a bit. Yeah, I was thinking the same thing myself this episode.

It's like there's a lot of the interplay between el Rond and Duran. I would say, is the focus of the episode. That's the that's the A plot, and then the B plot is what's going on in new Manore, and then the C plot is everything that that's happening in the south Lands with Bronwyn's son who still there are some weird things now happening in this show, so not weird things, but again we don't know what was happening in the world at this time. Per Tolkien's text. This is just kind of Soren is rising to power.

So what does that mean for the world and the people in the world, because they're obviously just like with Morgoth, there were sympathizers for Morgoth so and they were human. So Darrown undoubtedly going to be surroun sympathizers as well, who are more than likely human. And we're kind of seeing that already, which is interesting because I didn't expect it to be. In the fourth episode of this show. Oh well, it does really feel like the elves were an occupying force, and so after a while, the humans the men were just really hating on the elves, even though the elves were obsensibly keeping them safe, though apparently not doing that great of a job since we've had the rise of the Orcs again.

But they're there to protect the humans, and the humans are just like a lot of them don't like that they're there, They don't like their presence. So it feels very you know, Germany nineteen twenties and thirties kind of thing to me. Yeah, well, and that's clearly where Tolkien was drawing inspiration from with his original source material text. So yeah, you know, it's it's interesting, you know, this is really a part of the Lord of the Rings world that we've never seen. We've never seen the reactions to the Elves be discussed and abject, just like anger and hatred towards them.

We haven't seen that, and now that we're seeing it in this show, it's Yeah, it's interesting because again, like the my perception of the Elves at the time of the Lord of the Rings story is, you know, they're they're leaving, They're leaving the world of their own choice, and they're getting the hell out of Dodge as soon as they can because they refuse to help, because they've already helped two other times. There are three other times even so, yeah, I don't I don't know. It's interesting. It's an interesting story direction because again, we haven't seen anything like this in the Lord of the Rings world yet. This whole thing of them setting up that Saaran has many names.

I mean, it almost feels like we're starting to do this who is going to be the Dark Lord type of thing, like will it be Theol, is it Edar? Is it this person? Have we not seen them yet? It's just like kind of a weird way that they're going with us, and I hope that they don't start playing this game where it's like watching The Mentalist and it's like, oh, is he read John? Is he read John?

It's like no, enough, you know, read John's probably going to be somebody we've never even seen before. Well, and that's the thing that we've kind of talked about already with this show, is how are they going to introduce real villains because they've introduced Adar already, but he let the elf go to tell him, you know, hey, you know, like go make a deal with your people, because otherwise, like, go make a deal with your people, Rondea, otherwise like we're coming to get you and like their surrender the south Lands or else and then supposedly the Orcs that he has have found something again we don't know what, which is I can't exciting for this show because yeah, there is a lot of I think we've gotten to the point with this episode where there is a lot of familiarity with what's going on, and at this point it's like oh, yeah, you know I Oh, here's Galadriel and all the palant here and all a new Manoran.

Oh you know sa they finally mentioned Saron and oh, you know, here's the essentially like a more gold Blade like we're getting to the point where they are. They're introducing a lot of things that even the most casual viewer might recognize from the original series. But what's weird about this episode is it feels like, I mean that it is obviously the midway of the season. I mean, this is we're already halfway done with the first season of the show, which is crazy. But it really feels like a big moment in the show that they have, you know, the new Manorians going we are going to help the men of the south Lands, and it's a big moment.

I'm surprised it's in the fourth episode of the show because the New Minor stuff, I'm not gonna lie to you, the New Minor stuff is probably my least interesting. It's so kind of muddy, and it was getting real old, real fact castle intrigue. It is not yeah yeah, I really just did not need all this. I mean, and we get to see the king, but he doesn't even get to say work right, yeah, well yeah, we get his you know, the Queen Regent tells this story about how he helped the elves, and because he helped the elves, the people of Newmanour didn't appreciate that, and so they brought her in to be the true leader of Newmanour. But they have the palantier, and the palanteer shows how Newmanor gets destroyed.

I mean Newmanor gets destroyed, sunk back into the ocean, and you get I mean that is what's going to happen. I mean, the visions are real. I mean they say as much multiple times in the show, like, these visions are going to happen. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. But I'm just kind of surprised that they're setting this they're setting this up so early because this is this feels like a storyline that wouldn't be taking place in this show until the second or third season.

And they're like fourth episode of the first season, They're already like newman is going to be destroyed. It's like, whoa, yeah, yeah. It makes me question just how big the scope of the show is. Right likewise, if this is the midway through the first season, okay, great, you know, is it going to be the last episode of the first season, will be like the seventh you know, we've only hit have four more to go, right, And it's so interesting that I mean new Manor is basically a stand in right now for Atlantis. The way that we're playing this idyllic society, there's so much more advanced than any of the humans that are over on the mainland.

And yeah, they're going to get wiped off of the Earth. Yeah, and now we know that as an as an audience member. Again, before it was you know, if you knew the source material, that's where it was going. But now it's you've seen it as an audience member, so you're essentially going to see that shot, maybe not that exact same shot, but Newmnour is going to be destroyed. Again, that's not really a spoiler.

That's just where the show's clearly already made its case for going. And I think that's also the other issue with the Nubanar storyline. It's the fact that they've already mentioned you know, oh, it's going to be destroyed to the audience, and not just if you're an audience member, you know where this is going, Like what's going on with the dwarves. You know, they don't say bell Rog, but if you know that's what's going on, I mean, that's what's happening, That's what King is attempting to prevent Is that them digging too deep for all of the myth thrill, But they don't say like, oh well, if we dig too deep, we're going to find a bell rog, like you know what I mean, Like, I don't I don't know. I don't need the show to be that over the head was stuff?

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm glad that you know right now they're not telegraphing who else Oldor is and where he's going to be going in his life. And his stuff was fairly interesting. It's okay, though I felt like Boatmaster really overreacted. Yeah. Well, it's like you ruined everything and you brought shame upon your family and it's like because you didn't catch a rope.

Yeah, sorry, all of that, Like, yeah, there was a rope mishap in the last episode, and you didn't say this is the last time ill Solder. Yeah yeah, I again, the stuff in New Manure, I think, I don't know, I don't want I don't want to say it's been the weakest stuff so far in the show. It has. I think it has been there. Yeah, I actually think everything with Galadriel has been It's not as interesting as I would have hoped given where they started out right the first episode, when she was killing that you know, snow troll and all that, I was like, Okay, this is really cool.

Yeah, but right now she's kind of a damsel in distress. She's not the master of her own fate, and she has to rely on the decisions of others right now, and they're mercy before she can actually start to act again, waiting for her to get back to the mainland. Right me too, it's like this, you know, it's kind of it kind of reminds me a lot of Game of Thrones, like season two through six with Daniis had her doing her own thing in another place for like three or four seasons. Really yeah, yeah, it's that show has a multitude of problems, and taking one of the main characters and keeping her separate from the main shows cast for almost all of the show is but one of them. But I was genuinely concerned and still kind of am that they're treating Galadriel's character in that same way where it's like, we're going to keep her away from all the big stuff until it's like, now the big Now, we're not going to keep herway from the big stuf.

We'll keep her away from the build up up to the big stuff, but then when the big stuff happens, she will be the most important part of It's like, I don't like that storytelling, because right now her story is not interesting. Like you said, she's not given a lot of She's really not given a lot of she's not given an ability to make decisions for herself none. And again like, yeah, we have, you know the character of Farrazon, who plays a rather big part later in the story. The character of Muriel, and then the character or of Lendel are kind of all there with their own machinations, but it's just not particularly interesting. We're not given enough, you know, frankly, what the real problem is, We're not given enough information about any of those other kind of castle characters like Muriel, like Farrazon.

I mean, we know who Lendel is, we know who a Sealder is, but that's because they're connected to one another. Outside of that, it's like, I don't know, you know, Farrizon just shows up this episode like he's going to be a huge part of this story. But they're just like, oh, and here he is, Like we're supposed to know again, it's this weird thing where the show does go well, you know the story. So we're not gonna be like, oh, here's Farrizon, We'll tell you all about him, but at the same time, like you haven't told us essentially anything. And for people who don't have any experience with the source material, which you have to assume, some of these people who are watching the show are going to just be less than even casual fans.

They're just watching it to watch it, you need to explain who that character is to them, at least more so than what they did here, which is not really do anything. Yeah, Frazon is the guy with the big beard, right and the great big bushy beard and the great hair too. Yeah, he was in the very first time that we came to that court. We saw him because I kept wondering, who is this guy in? What is he in relation to the queen?

Because he looks old enough to be your father. I know he's not, but I'm just like, who is this? And then I also kept wondering, is that Michael Sheen? Is that the guy's name from like good Omens It's it's not, but it looks like him, right, Yeah, it does. Look like him, Tristan Grevail or something that's his name, but yeah, not Michael Sheen though.

I really was like, oh, here's another familiar face. Yeah. Yeah, he plays a really big part in the downfall of New Minore. But it's kind of weird because, yeah, he's an important character obviously to the whole kind of high intrigue of what's going on in New Minore with the Queen Regent and the king who saw the future and paid for it. It's interesting.

Again, I don't know. I appreciate what they're doing by having Gladriel go to Newmanor, and it'd be like, look, she's an Elf out of place in a place where elves are not welcome. But again, isn't that a little on the nose, Like, isn't it Why do we need to see another another scene of a bunch of new Manorians screaming about how terrible elves are, Like I get it, Like I think the audience gets it at this point, because almost all of the interactions Galadriel has had with anyone at Newmanor have been You're an elf. You're terrible because you're an elf, And it's like, oh, so, is there nothing else? To this character's interactions with these people here, like why does she care?

Like why why do they care? Why does she care that they care if I were hurt, just like I'm out of here, like whatever. But it's it's weird the way that they're writing the characters in Newmanour. There's like this separation between the people that she's interacting with and then like everybody else, And that's it's a little realistic, I guess, given that everyone she's interacting with or these like high noble people. But yeah, I could do without these scenes of you know people, you know, common folks screaming in the streets about how terrible elves are.

It's like this a little on the nose show. Yeah. Yeah, when that guy was out there preaching, I was like, ah, do I need to see this in Lord of the Rings, like really, yeah, yeah, Yeah. It's it is tough because these I mean, I like the the actress that place Gladriel, and I would like Alendel the father. Nobody else seems to have a lot of charisma.

They're just not capturing me as far as like, oh I want to know more about her, Wow, she seems really interesting, or him he seems great. It's like they're just kind of there, Like to your point, they're underwritten, they're not using them very well at all, right, right, and maybe suddenly they'll develop personalities. Two episodes on the line. Well that's the that's that's the question that I have is like, if you're not doing it, now, are you to do it when Farrazon is a large part of this story because he will become a very large part of this story veries, maybe not very soon, but at some point. And it's and again, yeah, to your point, it's like, well you can't build him up then, right, so could you do it now?

Like you're going to spend time having the scene with him out and about amongst the people, you know, saying, you know, kind of speaking his piece. But again, like I don't why would anyone listen to him? Is the question? Right, It's not been established why he's important. He just looks important.

And I'm yeah, show don't tell is fine, but you gotta tell us something. But then we get to the stuff with the elves and the dwarves, and then it kind of redeems almost everything else. Yeah, I mean that's super entertaining. And I'm also now I'm very intrigued the whole thing with Peter Mullen, where during the elder is so I with during the Younger, I'm just like, Oh, what's going on here? This is good?

And then I was really glad you were right on the money of course with the myth Room, and they did have that nice little like oh, I think in your tongue it'd be something like this, And I'm like, oh, okay, they're gonna really hit the nail on the head. No benieve it's pronounced Mythril trademark a Tolkien family estate. I was. I was glad we had more of Duran's wife, who I think we both find it be very lovely. Oh yeah.

And but the scenes of el Ron sneaking around the caves, I was just like, this feels a little alec ginness in the Death Star. But also, how's this self just wandering around these caves with nobody saying, Hey, what the hell are you doing here? Yeah? Yeah, look, oh Jesus. As much as I like el Ron, which I do like el Ron a lot, Robert Arameyo, the look of him.

He looks like a dweeb. He looks like a doork. He looks like Doogie Howser, Like his haircut makes him look like Doogie Howser. But he's like he has charisma that the rest of the show in parts lacks, like most of everything in Newman Or Laxey a charismatic lead other than Morphid Clark, who's you know, I have a tenth pest inside me. Okay, yeah, Like again, you know, those lines are cool if they're given an opportunity to be in a scene that matters, but like they're giving a lot of it to el Ron still like really again, Like he even gets this fantastic monologue where he's, you know, Dorian is complaining about his father stopping the mining of mythrill good idea, and he you know he Dorian comes in and he's like, well, I never want to have to talk to him again.

He's such you know, he's such an idiot, blah blah blah, and el Ron just goes, you know, dresses him down. He's like, hey, I wish I had one minute to talk to my father ever again, let alone him still being alive like yours is. And that whole monologue is really great. It is yeah, yeah, and it just shows again, it shows what happens when the show is parading on really oprey on all cylinders. It really is a well written show when it's able.

Yeah, I don't. When it's good, it's great. Yeah, when it's me it's really not good. Yeah, you know this. This episode is written by JD.

Payne, Patrick McKay, and Stephanie Folsom, and they wrote everybody but Stephanie Folsom wrote the first episode, and then Jennifer Hutchison wrote the second, and then another group of people wrote the third. This is now, in my opinion, the weakest episode of the four so far, and I think it really feels like too It does kind of feel like too many people pulling in too many directions. We gotta have this, we gotta have It's like like that stuff with THEO and Saron feels real tacked on. Like as much as I appreciate it and I'm interested to see where it's going, it's like all of a sudden, there's a fifth faction that's being introduced. The Humans for Saron faction, Yes, you know, yeah, the the what was it, the people for the cheating the Cheetah is eating my face party?

Yeah yeah, Leopards the yeah, the Leopards ate my face party for sure. I mean that's I mean, that's again, that's where I assume that story is going with the humans and Saron is they're about to learn real quick why you don't ally yourself with the Dark Lord. But right, I as much as I appreciate that scene, once again we get to see the Orcs being real scary in the scene with THEO and his friend going to steal food back and then of course THEO has to push the issue and go get more food. I appreciated that scene for the cinematography, but it falls into this camp of and again Game of Thrones kind of ruined this for me. Like shows, these like high fantasy shows, they can't do evening scenes worth a shit like at all.

And I don't get it because it's like, okay, so we have to admit that there's no way to light these scenes other than like torches and campfires, and it's like damn near impossible to see what's going on in in most of the scene with THEO, just like in The Lord of the Rings in Game of Thrones, in the last season of that show, one entire episode is dark, and they were like, well, your TV's are just too dark, turn the brightness up to quait a second here. Yeah, and it's weird because this show did it too, and like it just always stuck in my mind since I saw it in Game of Thrones when they were like, well, it's just your TV that's the problem. It's not our show being too dark, and it is an issue with these kinds of high fantasy shows, now, you know, I don't I don't remember there being that big of an issue lighting Helm's Deep, right, and that was all at night?

Yeah, I mean you have one single source of light, if memory serves, or at least you know, like it looked like it was all coming from behind the keep, right, And yeah, I didn't need to know. I didn't need to see, like, oh no, actually there's these huge lights that we have set up here because we thought of this long time ago at Helm's Deep. Now, sometimes you just have to admit that this is a fucking movie or a TV show and it needs to be lit. Not everybody needs to be you know, God Alexander Innaratu, the guy who directed the Revenue, we need to shoot it in natural light. Like, again, it looks better, but I don't think it looks better when you can't really tell what's going on, and that that's again, you know, I don't know.

That was a thing in Game of Thrones that I noticed, and here it's just like, m don't I hope it's the show doesn't have a lot of night scenes because it was kind of hard to tell what was going on. But then we have a Rondeer showback up, which feels very Dave's ex elf and all right, I'm about to murder you and I'm still waiting. I heard the noise. I'm dead now, shack. Yeah, yeah, very convenient.

I actually liked all the stuff with a Rondeer and Adar. I think it's interesting. Yeah. I think that the actor who plays Adar got an interesting look to him. Oh yeah, yeah.

And he looks almost familiar either both in and out of the makeup, and I can't place him though I've seen as philmography and I'm just like, yeah, I'm not picturing you in any of these things. Yeah, I mean, like I had mentioned, he's he's kind of a Game of Thrones weird kind of hanger on too that show because of the way they treated his characters. So my hope is they give him more to do here. He's an interesting villain. I mean, this isn't the kind you know, we haven't had none.

We've kind of had non orc villains. I mean we've had like the Monsters of the World villains, but we've never had a villain like this before. So it's going to be interesting because it's a sentient, corporeal villain that's not an orc, which, yeah, you can really have a conversation with you, right, it doesn't require the mouth of Saron. Yeah, nothing wrong with that, right. Uninterestingly, I was able to engage with his character and kind of get a little bit more of his insight on him, and he didn't talk for like half an hour, like came in that Loki finale, right.

Well, and again that's the other thing that I appreciate is not it wasn't like an exposition dump of the highest order. And that's what I was expecting. I was expecting eight artists be like, well, let me tell you something, and he just goes into this. Yeah. He starts twirling his mustache and telling them, you know, well, this is what I plan on doing, and this is how we plan on doing.

It's like he doesn't tell him anything, He's just like you know, go tell your people give up, surrender or we're going to kill him. It's like, okay, yeah, you leave me wanting more. I want to know more about this guy, please. Yeah. And I can only imagine we're going to get more of it, if not next week, the week after.

Again, they seem to be giving one of the stories a week off. It would seem so next week. I don't know who. I would assume probably It seems like the story that is getting time off is always going to be. It's either the l Rond story or the hard Foot story is getting time out because we've seen Galadria almost every week, and we've seen Rondeer and Bronwyn almost every week, one of them or both of them.

So Elron stuff and the hard Foot stuff is seemingly I guess the swappable bee plot. It's an interesting way of telling the story. Not I'm trying to remember if Game of Thrones went full episodes without checking in on anybody. I think they must have. It's weird for this kind of story, because again, I don't associate that with Lord of the Rings.

I honestly I don't. I don't think that the pacing is that off though, for this first season. I was wondering to myself, like, does this show feel rushed and again with some of the new minor stuff, it does, but it honestly feels like I can't I'm having a hard time understanding what the point of anything in New Manor was other than to just meet Alendil and is Sildor She's gone from there? Yeah, theoretically supposedly, so we're being led to believe by the way the episode ends. So I don't know.

I'm excited to see where the I guess I'm excited to see where the glad Reel story links up with the Adrial story. I feel like has to link up with the Rondeer story at some point, because they're all going to I don't know, they all are converging on the south Lands, are they not? What it feels like, yeah, already, Like we're in the first season to this show, right, and the Harfords are in the south Lands, A Rondeer and Bronwyn are in the south Lands, and Galadriel and those boats are going to the south Lands. So how is it that everybody's already meeting up in the first season to this show. They're already going to be very close to one another, is what I'm getting at.

Is it going to be okay, this season, we're going to concentrate on this and then over here we're going to concentrate on this other thing, whether it's taking place at the same time or a little bit later. That's what I wonder because again, like the show, I thought was going to have a longer runway for some of this stuff, and it feels like it's just like like some of these like things, She's already she was in New Menore for two episodes and she's already out of there, like all right, like all right, fine, like cool again, Like I'm not I can't fault the show for wanting to cover a lot of ground because it feels like it has a lot of ground to cover. But I guess I just didn't. Again, with the show like this, it's hard to really understand what their timeline is other than five seasons.

So I don't know. I'm I'm digging the show. You know. Everybody keeps saying, you know, is it better than Game of Thrones or is Lord of the Rings better? I think they both scratched different niches.

I think this is definitely this is a show you could watch with your family. This is like a more of a not a family show, but more of a even kid friendly, but it hues closer to the lore and the lore and the Lord of the Rings is not as over the top is Game of Thrones is. I think this shows still a little bit better than Game of Thrones, but I think they both are having the same issue of like not feeling like we're given enough time with any characters enough to get to know them. This show it's because there's so many and in that show, it's because they keep time jumping every episode. Like Game of Thrones, they've gone from they've gone like four years already through four episodes, Like they'll come back to the show and it'll be like six months later or a year later.

It's like, whoa, whoa, whoa. I can't get my bearings here because you're jumping time in between episodes every time. This show is just like this show is pinballing around really really hard. Even I mean to the point about your wife walking out of the room, like the stuff in Newmnour. The fact that they come back to it so many times in this episode is just it's excessive, Like I don't know I'm I'm honestly like already sick of the New Minour stuff and that's going to be terrible to say, but like it's not interesting.

They haven't made it interesting. Yeah. Now I'm to the point where I'm just like, Okay, do I go back and watch this episode again with Andrea? Do I go back a few episodes and say, let's rewatch this whole four hours Now I don't know what to do or if she's just checked out completely, Well, wouldn't I wouldn't blame her for checking out because when the show is putting the focus on the new Manorian characters who are not are just very poorly one dimensional. I don't know, it's just weird.

Like I would have I wouldn't have expected this show would struggle as hard as it is with its Game of Thrones adjacent stuff that it's doing, because that's what it feels. The New Minoris stuff feels the most like Game of Thrones, but like really poorly written Game of Thrones. And again, I think that's because Lord of the Rings doesn't have that stuff baked into it at the core, Like I don't know Lord in Lord of the Rings, at least in the Silmarillion, which I know that this isn't drawing from You didn't have kings fighting for succession and all that and love. That's a huge part of Game of Thrones. I mean, that's the name of the show Game of Thrones.

Lord of the Rings never had that, and so what's weird is they're trying to like sort of inject that into the show. To me, it's just like, this is not this isn't Lord of the Rings. And I might actually agree with the people on the internet for the first time some of this stuff and this some of the stuff in this episode is a little nod Lord of the Rings. But I think it's primarily because of a time and a place that we existed now where we can't put the cork in the bottle of Game of Thrones anymore. I can't do that.

So I don't know. If you like Game of Thrones, go watch that. If you like Lord of the Rings, go watch that. This is not fucking DC and Marvel. You can like both.

One existed long before the other, so and one is directly influenced by the other and one is direct kind of response in a subversive way to the other. So you can like both but I think it is a tad unfortunate that they're both out on TV at the same time, because it's just the amount of comparisons and the amount of bitching feels amplified because people will be like, well, Game of Thrones did it better. It's like, well, then just go watch that, right, just go watch that. Then we're not forcing you to watch that. Nobody is Bezos isn't forcing you yet gets actuated the cling clockwork Orange.

You're sitting there in Lord of the Rings, dripping it into your eyes. Elbe you're gonna watch. I don't want to see the elves. I don't want to see the Dwarfs. I don't want to see any of it.

I want to see more dwarfs singing, singing to the rocks and resonating with the rocks so much that the rocks are like vibrating. I really like that. Again, everything with the Dwarfs is so far for me, the Dwarves have been the best part of this show. The Dwarfs and then the Orcs are a close second. Right when you're getting stuff with the Dwarves that you you got a little bit more for the Hobbit, and just like what dwarf culture is like, right, and you didn't get I'm talking about the Hobbit the book, and you didn't really get that in the Hobbitt the movie.

It was just like, like I said, last week or the week before, it was just like I don't know, seven twelve dudes or whatever that just all had funny names and there was very little that stood out. But you know, I felt like I knew the dwarves and really felt for the dwarfs. So then when you know, Gimily shows up, it's just like, oh, cool, dwarf care character, and that's great. You know, I was more excited for a dwarf than for the elves. Well, I'm with you.

I mean, you know, I think I said it probably in the first or second episode that we did the same thing. Like, dwarves have been the underutilized characters in the adaptations of The Lord of the Rings, not the books, the adaptations, And yeah, Gimley is a great character, but he's a B character in those movies. I mean, he's an A character in the second movie, but in the first movie. In the third movie, he's kind of a B character. But here in the show, like Dorian is a lead he is one of the leads of our show.

And yeah, getting to see Kaza Doom before the bal Rogs show up, but knowing that the bal Rogs are going to show up, which is thoroughly depressing in a really terrible way. But I mean, look, all these characters for the most part that you've seen that aren't elves are going to be dead, are long dead by the time of the Fellowship, So it's again, it almost doesn't matter that they die because they're they're dead anyways by the time you get to Fellowship. So no, I'm I'm, I'm every I think what the Dwarfs is really the best part of the show. And if people have a problem with the Dwarf part of the show, then I don't know how you can find any enjoyment with the show, because as far as I'm concerned, the Dwarf, the Dwarfs and the l Ron l Ron's interaction with Dorian and Disa are just whoever's writing that stuff gets the source material, put that person on everything else, And that's gotta be the way they're writing the show, right is like certain teams are tackling certain story beats or something because it's clear it's not just one team writing this show.

It might not even be one team writing these episodes. There are you know, one or two people listed on the episodes. But I can't help but wonder that the core writing room is probably getting in notes on everything along with one Jeff Bezos. So I don't know. I feel like, hopefully by the end of the season, we'll have seen a turnaround on the newman Or storyline.

But yeah, everything else is really I think everything else is really compelling, but they're just given a lot of time to that stuff with Galadriel. And I hope, like you said, now that we've left ostensibly we're leaving new manOur, we're moving on to the Southlands, back to Middle Earth. Maybe it'll start picking up. We'll get to see her doing anything other than being locked in a cell for three episodes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, like you showed us how cool of a character she could be.

Yeah, she's a little different than the character in the movies. Sure, but you know what, thousands of years later whatever. But I don't want to see her locked up anymore because you didn't even let her. You didn't let us see much of anything with her to begin with, and then to just be like, well, now she's locked up in New Minore. It's a god damn it show, Like, come on, give us something, yeah, for real, for real, give us something because I you know, as much as I care about the plant here, Oh my god, it's okay, you're showing us the same thing twice now in one episode because they open I was in the opening of the episode's pretty successful.

It's showing us something that again we've never seen, we've only ever heard about. But then of course it's a dream because at first it is because again this is the third up of the fourth episode of the show. So it's just like so strange to me. I don't know, I'm I don't know. I'm enjoying the show, but I am starting to wonder if if there are parts of the show that are just never going to excel in ways that other parts of the show too, which would make perfect sense.

Game of Thrones had the same problem. These kinds of shows have that problem where you've got eight or nine different storylines, not all of them are going to be winners. Yeah, yeah, with the opening, it has to be so annoying to watch television or movies with me, because with the opening I was just like, and wake up and then cut she woke up. Okay, but I mean again, like it's it's so it's smacks of laziness. Some of the stuff is lazy.

Like that is just yeah, like there's I was thinking for myself the same thing. I was like, they're not destroying new Manori this early on in the show, like, no, no, it's a dream. Yeah, and then it's like and then they have to reinforce how it's a dream in the construct of the world because it's not really a dream. It's the palant here. Oh okay, yeah, yeah that was a little weak, but it's all right.

You know what I'm looking forward to. I'm looking forward to the fan editors to take this. But you know what they're gonna want to do immediately is they're gonna want to take Rings of Power, and they're gonna too early. They're gonna try to like append it to the Hobbit and to Lord of the Rings, and it's just like, don't do that. Don't do that.

Just if you want to rearrange the storytelling, if you want to make it, you know, a little tighter and stuff like take your eight hours and shrink it down. Tore like, I don't know six, I'm sure you could probably do that and just put some stuff in different places. That's fine, go for it. I'm I'm cool with that, you know, and taking away this little you know, dream sequence that that seems like a good thing that you could chop. But also at the same time, don't take it and be like, Okay, we're slavishly going to reorder everything in the order of the appendices and oh my god plays just award of warning fan and editors don't go nuts like that.

Well, I was gonna say, I mean, there are going to undoubtedly be by the end of the season, there is going to be one or two storylines that are not or having anybody revisit. I mean again, yeah, we've talked about before the idea with this show that the show is they know how long they've got, they know how many episodes they have, they know where the story is going. But by the end of it, there's going to be one or two stories that were like this just wasn't that interesting. Yeah, And that is what fan editors are for. Not every fan at It needs to be the Spice diver Dune fan at it where he goes in rhodoscopes in blue eyes.

I mean, you know, there doesn't need to be like he said, that level of commitment, but somebody will undoubtedly do something with this once this show is over. But that's fine, right, do you know what they're gonna do? There's god, I've already seen stills where people have started to do this with Ai. I've seen stills where they've taken little black aerial and read on her as a white girl with red hair. And I'm like, you gotta be fucking kidding me.

What kind of racist piece of shit do you have to be to do that? And there's gonna be those same a holes are going to be turning elves and dwarves and everybody else white, And it's like, oh my god, really, so just be aware of those. Alrighty, so talk about computer wizardry. But right Marco there, yes, exactly, the Lord the j R R R R R right Wing Edition, j r R right Wing Edition, Special non woke Edition. Yeah, those the Rhonda Santist cut you look again, it's like such so fucking sickening anymore that this is constantly a constant But guess what, I don't personally know anybody who gives a shit about the color of anybody's fucking skin in any of this ship period anymore.

And you know what, I don't know if you do either. Oh, I mean personally, No, personally, I have no one that gives a shit. There can be any ethnicity on screen and they're not going to care. So yeah, I'm glad that those are the people I know, and I don't know the other ones. I don't know if those other people exist outside of the Internet.

It's more of what I'm getting. I don't know if they exist like in real life, or if they're just like bots. That's what I'm saying, Like, I don't I don't know if they're real or if they're just like someone on the internet going and being like I'm gonna stir the shit up, which like, you know what, like kudos to you for being that guy for just why I'm gonna stir the shit up, But like there are plenty of ways that you could do that and be constructive, Like you don't have to be like black aerial, Like how about broken judicial system or not giving kids free meals at school and making their fucking parents who can barely afford to food on the table at home, maybe do something about that. Like it just feels like one hand over here doing something and everybody else is focusing on the Lord of the Rings and the black Elves, like there's a vested I'm not saying there's a vested interest in keeping our attention on stupider things.

But if we're focusing on the color of aerial skin, we're not focusing on kids getting food at schools, or people who are struggling with addiction or mental illness or any of the big issues. So, like you said, just to keep in perspective, you lord of the Rings fans, not that I would consider you lord of the Rings fans, because if you're a real Lord of the Rings fan, you would shut the fuck up about it. If you don't like the lore, that's fine. I actually understand being upset about the lore. But this is also a fucking adaptation and you're not adapting it and you never will because your ideas are bad and no one wants to listen to you.

And maybe these people's ideas aren't any better, but they're the people whose ideas they're going with, and if they're not good, then we can talk about how not good they are. But let their ideas be bad first before you run them out of town on a fucking railroad. Because that's the other thing. It's like, the show hasn't even the show was not even out and people were angry, and now the show's out and it's like, well, we're still angry, and it's like, oh shocking, Like I'm surpri surprised as anybody else, So yeah, you know what. That's That's why I'm like, I don't want to say, like I'm done with this show, where this show is, you know whatever, because I don't want to be lumped in with the rest of these totally fictitious people that don't exist.

But people get a life, as William Schattner once said on that snl skit, get a fucking life. This show is even at this show's middle of the Rhodesiest, which is kind of this episode. As far as I'm concerned, it's still decent, still looks nice. The money that they're spending to make it look nice, it is still on screen. That's reserve.

Those dwarf masks are cool. The dwarf masks that open like this, that's great, that's pretty good. I'm just I'm I'm an idiot podcaster. I'm used by stupid things. Yeah, well Mike, yep, well yeah, well put not much more I can add to that, Chris, not much more.

I much more I have to say, really, other than what are we talking about on the next episode TB A titled episode number five? Yes, one point five, that's what we're talking about. So yeah, until we get to see episode one point five, we are Mike and Chris. So, Chris, what is happening with you? Sir?

If you want to find out about this idiot podcast, there's more terrible opinions about, you know, racial equality and giving a shit about one another. Cstashu dot com, cstacchiw dot com. That's my link tree. Go there for all the things that I work on. There are a lot of them.

And yeah, there are a lot of them. What about you, Mike? Where can people find you? You can always find me over at the Projection Booth podcast, which is available at Projection Booth podcast dot com. Oddly enough, well, I want to thank everybody for listening.

If you've given us a review and rating over on iTunes, I'm a ready yet. I'm very curious if anybody's going to do that. But that might be kind of cool. Wokesters. They're Wokesters exactly.

That's exactly what we're gonna looks like Wokesters are back on the menu. Boys, God,