Rings of Power S2E4 Recap: "Eldest"

Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Rings of Power. Sorry, let me say that again. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the podcast of power. The only podcast on the entire Internet in the world, no matter where you're at in the free states of Europe or the United States. We're the only ones that are talking about this show.

It is the Lord of the Rings, the Rings of Power. There's a lot of rings in there. We're talking about the fourth episode of the second season called Eldest, written by Glenise Mullins and directed by Louise Hopper and, sorry, Louise Hooper and Sanaa Hamri. And that came out September 5th, 2024. Of course, I am Mike White and I am joined by Mr.

Chris Stachut. I prefer to go by Tom Bombadilio. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. I was so excited, Mike.

I popped so hard when Jesus made an appearance in Lord of the Rings. Fine. Oh, man. Oh, man. They leaned right into it.

They were just like, and he's God. Get it? He's God. And he's God. He's literally God.

I mean, yeah, that was pretty obvious from the book. And yeah, here we just have it. I was here when I was the first person ever. Okay. No subtlety whatsoever i mean i.

Is he god is he jesus is he adam. He's god i mean i think he's just god i mean jesus is a jesus is a christian construct right god is a god as a all i guess god or whatever you want to perceive as like the all-powerful being yep yep so yeah here's what in like a field somewhere just like yeah whatever old. Tom yeah Well, as a fan of the Lord of the Rings, it's so odd to see Tom Bombadil here, since he was eliminated from the movies, and for good reason for me. And I loved that Philippa and Fran and Peter all took... I'm on first-name basis with all three of those.

My pals, yeah. I like how they took all of... bombadil's lines there's so many of bombadil's lines and they just gave him tree beard so that it's odd when bombadil is doing those lines in this episode and you're just like oh those are all tree beard lines like the whole you know eat dirt drink deep all that stuff when the tree uh tries to swallow up uh maybe gandalf and i'm just like oh yeah yeah i remember this scene from the two towers that's one of my favorite scenes. Canon, I feel like Tom Bombadil just told the trees about that, right? The trees heard it from him. Maybe, yeah.

I don't know. Okay, let's talk. Why don't you like Tom Bombadil? I don't like Tom Bombadil because of the little sing-songy things that he does. It feels like he's insane.

I try to stay away from insane people if I can. Okay. At least I got the costume right. I mean, as soon as I saw this guy show up, I was like, oh, it's Tom Bombadil. Fuck me.

But I have a feeling that it hurt. It really hurt seeing him show up. Yeah, I've never been a Bombadil fan. No, no, not at all. That's a very skippable part of that book.

So I really like Tom Bombadil as a character. So I'm going to bend Tom Bombadil for a second. I'm going to get on my soapbox. Uh, I, I, I understand where you're coming from. And I mean, again, I think Lord of the Rings has a lot of Tom Bombadil adjacent stuff.

Cause there's a lot of singing, sing, songing in those books, uh, A lot of, you know, oh, the songs of the dwarves. This is the thing that Bilbo Baggins hates. I love all of that in the books because for me, it adds a depth of world building that only stuff like that can do in books and in the written media. But also I understand in the books why Tom Bombadil, at least in Lord of the Rings, he brings it like a screeching halt. Like a screeching halt.

But I like the back and forth that he has with the characters that he interacts with, because it's with Frodo and Sam, and that's it. Ring-a-dong-dillo. Sam flies in the grass and bees around the willow. I just don't care. Tom Bombadilio, baby.

Okay, take Tom Bombadil out of it. How glad were you to see Rory Kinnear? Who is Rory Kinnear? He plays Tom Bombadil. Oh, okay.

Well, what else has he played? Uh, he was in Men. He played one... He was opposite Daniel Craig in all those Bond movies that they were in together. Uh, he played Frankenstein in Penny Dreadful.

A fair amount of stuff. I mean, I. I know Rory Calhoun. Rory Kinnear was also in, um. Are you saying he's the bald guy that worked for M?

Really? That's the same guy? Yeah. Wow. Okay, no, I...

Honestly, do you remember, uh, the actor that worked a lot with, um... Christopher Nolan, I think he ran a hotel in Memento, and he is one of the crooked cops in Batman Begins. That's who I thought this guy was, though, like 20 years younger. Yeah, Rory Kinnear played Tanner. In all those Craig Bond movies, at least after.

I mean, he was from Quantum all the way to the end. But he was in Men, which is an Alex Garland film, which is the one that came out. I want to say that was the one that came out before. Yeah, that was the one that came out before Civil War. Remember that movie that we watched many moons ago?

Yeah. Yes, I was thinking of Mark Boone Jr. That's who I was thinking. So, yeah. Rory Kinnear is like, I would say like pretty much just like British stuff for them.

But men is really good. I mean, he looks too young to be that same guy. He looks very young in this episode. Well, it's that facial looking. Yeah.

Like a man. They gave him some great facial. They did, yeah. But I love Rory Kinnear's Tom Bombadil. The energy that he gives the character, I think, is good and needed for this show.

I think it's fun to see him playing off of Gandalf because Gandalf has that energy in Lord of the Rings. So a little bit of it, we're seeing kind of where maybe Gandalf got some of this from, the way that Gandalf is kind of like, you know, with the, with a wink of my eye and a finger on the side of my nose, like fucking Santa Claus. Like there's Tom Bombadil is God. So he's just being very wry and like, well, I could do something about it, but it landed in your lap. So have a nice day.

It's like, but again, I think once the initial, like your, it's Tom Bombadil, I don't like this character. I feel like he is going to be an interesting addition to the show because the energy that he's bringing to the show is very different from like anything else. It almost feels like all of a sudden Gandalf's on like a side quest. Same with, uh, Nori and, uh, Poppy. It's like, well, Matt, now we're going to go hang out with desert.

Yes. Yes. The stores. Yes. And their friend, nobody, um, who kind of, he's got some, uh, Yahoo serious hair going on in this.

And I was just like, What? And when they said, oh, he's a Harfoot or whatever, I was like, really? Is he? Because he doesn't look like you guys at all with that big fucking hair. I think it's because they're short.

So the stores in the Harfoots, I mean, I think what we're leading towards, I'm assuming, is Stusatz is the Shire, right? Oh, that's what I would think. Yeah. They're like, oh, it's a place where you could. I mean, they literally are like, you could dig a hole in the ground and live there.

It's like. Exactly. They're basically like the tribes of Israel that have been, you know, cast apart and eventually they need to find their homeland. So hopefully there's no Palestinians that are living there that they have to slaughter. There are these vaguely Middle Eastern-looking people there when they get there.

It's the real dark history of the Shire. You'd think all of these hobbits are really nice. They've been tortured. They've had horrible things done to them during the previous war. And then what ends up being is that they're worse genocidal maniacs than anybody else.

And they're in control of the entertainment industry in Middle Earth. They're in control of the banks in Middle Earth. Yeah. And don't say anything bad about them. Are you an anti-Hobbit?

No. I don't even know. An anti-Shyrist. Yeah, that's right. This is our homeland, and we will kill anyone that is in it.

Yeah, and that's where Saruman really got a bad rep when he was Sharky, because he was just trying to help those Palestinians. And I guess for those of us, we'll probably jump down our throats for leaving out of the last episode, so I will make sure I don't leave it out of this episode. In Westron, Adunai, which is the language they speak in Lord of the Rings, Suzatz means the Shire. Oh, okay. Thank you.

So for those of us that had to like, you know, translate that into a fake language, into another fake language, there you go. So that is the shy I mean again like but is any of this a surprise like that's where this show is like been essentially like tipping its hand right it's showing us how things that we are familiar with came how did Gandalf become I mean correct me if I'm wrong I believe by the end of this interaction that he will have this side quest with Tom Bombadil I'm going to go out on a limb and say we're going to know he's Gandalf, right? That's what I would think, yeah. What's it feeling like here? I like that he mentions, Tom Bombadil mentions, he's like, you're not the first Estir that's come my way.

And the way that he introduces the dark wizard a little bit more through dialogue and talks about, you know, yeah, this was another guy that passed through here and I thought I helped him out, but now he's evil and he's trying to get all this power. Yeah. So is that Saruman then? I don't know. I don't know.

Like, again, it comes back to this whole thing of they're doing that with certain things where that's clearly meant to be Gandalf. But other things, it's like, is this that character by name or is it just someone representative of that kind of thing? I don't know. The dark was like, there's going to be a moment where it's like, my name is Saruman. I believe you pronounce it in your tongue, Saruman.

Saruman. Maybe just like how they're like, oh, that's a wizard. I mean, you mentioned how this feels like a side quest. This episode really feels like I'm playing Dungeons and Dragons. And I got that the most from the elves and their quest and not the stuff with Galadriel where she's seeing the future with the ring.

But literally the future, apparently. Literally a feature, same exact shot. But when they go to where the people had been buried and all those barrel whites come out, I'm like, oh, yeah, barrel whites. Those are pretty typical, you know, first level creature that you're going to face. You know, like, oh, yeah, they keep coming back.

You know, you really got to get them with like, you know, the weapons of their elders and stuff. So like, it just felt like I was, you know, trying to roll a 20 and get some double damage here. And I like that we finally get to understand more of the limitations or the unlimitations of Galadriel's ring. She just heals one of them. Kamnir, I think is the character's name.

He just gets healed by her. And then we see the second shot of the future, which shows us literally later in the season, which is fucking me. Which is funny because Galadriel has been kind of associated, at least in Lord of the Rings, associated with precognition because of the big you know the the scene pool that she has Frodo look into and that's all the scurrying of the Shire the sharky stuff that I was just talking about like that's basically if they had ended the the third movie with another ending and had that you know because that's true to the books are you are. You disappointed that they left that out of the movies oh no no no. I was absolutely fine with that Yeah, I was really okay.

I mean, I was kind of bummed that they left out Saruman's death from the theatrical cuts. But I mean, for me, there really is no theatrical cuts anymore. It's just the extended versions. And I noticed even when they did the replays at the theater earlier this year, 2026, that it was all the extended versions. And I'm like, that's good because we don't need the shorter versions ever anymore.

I happened to accidentally watch one on an airplane and And I was just like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Where's the whole thing with the three hairs off of Galadriel's head? Like, where's this thing? Where's that? Like all these little items that just, to me, add up to everything.

And seeing that, the short version, I'm just like, no, doesn't work. I mean, it's a good movie and everything, but the extended versions are great movies. Did I wander into an alternate universe or something? Yeah. No, man, he asked for one hair off of her head, and that ties back into the earlier dwarf leader who was obsessed with Galadriel.

Anyway, that's our good friend Max with Airplane Facts, the guy who does all the airplane repair stuff and then goes into the Lord of the Rings history, which I always enjoy his stuff. I would love for the show to not telegraph this stuff so bad. Yeah. I know that it has to with some of the Galadriel and Elrond stuff because I think that's main. I would say that's the show's main storyline is, you know, the stuff with Galadriel and Elrond and especially now that she has a ring, like we're getting to see the rings of power up close and personal.

I just, I don't need to see the future shots of the show in that you can get that across without showing literally edited shots. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, that is a little much and Yeah, it feels like we know where a lot of this stuff is headed without even thinking about Lord of the Rings, just where a television show like this is headed.

Right. Yeah. Speaking of the, because we kind of talked a little bit around it or a little bit about it with the Hobbits, but what did you think about where Nori and Poppy are with their own side quest? Yeah, it's interesting. It's always interesting to see how other people live and Yeah, what's the social structure here?

I like that it's very much a matriarchy with the Gund, and I don't know where she gets her name, the Gund, but yeah, I was like, okay, well, this is interesting to see how these folks live, and then, of course, when she happens, Nori mentions the leader of their tribe that suddenly triggers a little bit of memory in the main Stut or Snut or whatever, and Yeah, it starts to lay out the whole history of the Harfoots. I'm like, okay, well, yeah, this is nice. Kind of give us, again, like you're saying, like, okay, this is how they came together and will form the Shire. And we already know, like, you know, even when Frodo's given his... Sorry, Bilbo's given his speech at his 111th birthday, that he's like, you know, oh, yeah, the Brandywines, the Proudfeets, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

It's like, okay, yeah, we know that there's a lot of these different groups of... hobbits that they all still maintain their kind of cultural identity. It's, I guess it would be like, you know, the Welsh, the Scots, the, the, this, the, that, you know, when you're on, um, on Britain. Is it, is the, I mean, you said the proud feet, right? That's one of them. Yes.

Well, what's wasn't, doesn't that mean that Nori and pop even somehow they're like lineages will cross possibly. Yeah. Andy foot and proud fellow are their last name. Ah, right. Yeah.

No, that makes sense. It's, I do like some of this because again, like we're so far removed from the other stuff that we can see the, like the burgeoning moments of this, which doesn't, which doesn't feel as, how'd you get that scar on your chin kid? What is your name? It doesn't feel like that. And that's always the issue with the prequel show is unless it's just characters you don't know completely, storylines you're unaware of or have never been brought up ever, you're going to have to have these things where it's like, we've got to tie it back, we've got to this, this, and that, that, that.

It's like, this show kind of sidesteps it a little bit. I think it still gets hit by some of the kind of blowback from that, but I think it sidesteps most of my issues with that. But it is leaning a little bit into the frequently territory a bit for me. It kind of veers a little close to the edge and comes back, but... I'm not a super big fan of prequel stuff because of this.

I don't care, personally. Yeah, it's like you've got a cogwheel out there that doesn't have any of the marrying cogs to go into it, and you're just waiting. As we get farther into seasons three, four, and five of this thing, I feel like we're going to really start to see stuff mesh and be like, oh, and this is how this locks in, and this is how this locks in. It's like, I'm not a fan of that either. I would rather leave a lot of stuff more vague.

And be like, well, this might lead to this, but we don't know. I don't need every single little thing explained and lined up. Well, and it just goes back to the thing of like, there are so many people in this world whose storylines have nothing to do with all of this. But yet we now once again have a cast of characters who are all connected to this one thing. And clearly that's what this show is going for.

So there's not any room for like a Sopranos-esque level of just, And this is what the tertiary characters are up. And this is how the world is reacting to the things. There's not really any room for that because the show is already kind of packed to the gills as it is. But even for a show set 3,000 years before the other things, it still is beholden to stuff in a way that I was really not expecting it to be. Because I assumed it couldn't be because of the removal based on time.

3,000 years is a long time. I mean, but yeah, even in the previous episode, one thing I didn't mention was the marshes, the dead marshes. So I'm just like, okay, yep, this is where, you know, as soon as Il Sildor passes through there, I'm just like, don't look in the water, hobbits, you know? And then this one was interesting because you get some quicksand, which I thought was going to be a much more dangerous thing when I was growing up. But here it is.

And I kept waiting for Il Sildor to be like, don't worry, Charlie, my foot's on the rail. But it turned out it was actually like a giant snake thing. Yeah, yeah. And then when Astrid goes and rescues him, I thought for sure she was just like, okay, well, that's a good way of solving my problem. I'm out of here.

But yeah, when she puts the stick in the water and ends up being that big old, looks like a men in black snake thing, I was just like, oh, okay. And I was not surprised at all. Speaking of Men in Black, when the elf cuts his way out of the stomach, I was like, okay. And I was just like, man, those two guys are going to stink all day long. And listen. can find some good water going on here.

Digest of a once again Lord of the Rings showing that in the water of the middle earth may be the most terrifying things of all because we have first season or at the beginning of this season but technically also in the first season the thing that destroys the boat now Sauron is on in fellowship we get whatever the fuck that thing is at the door in front of you know the speak friend and enter door to Moria and then this that's like the like water bound creatures in middle earth that are just literally talking Right. Well, and then there's that big white snake that eats both of the Hutt twins. Oh, wait a second. No, that's a different... Wait a second.

Different thing. Same idea, different. Yeah, and there's the thing in the desert that, you know, they throw the... Oh, wait, no, that's in the... That's still Star Wars.

That's still Star Wars, Mike. Erendir, though, essentially, like, lantern hangs on that he's like, in the world of Middle Earth, there's all sorts of wild shit. It's like, we know. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. I did like. Remember how. Those mountains fight each other? Remember how fucking stupid that is?

That was wild. Yeah. It's a mountain fight. Yeah. As opposed to, there's a fell voice on the air, which is one of my favorite lines.

I was curious when he's got the piece of the big snake thing, and he's like, oh, we've got supper for tonight. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. I never thought about what elves eat. Like, are they more... Meat eaters?

Vegetarians? Lembas bread. Yeah, well, I know, like, lembas bread is a big thing for them, but what else do they eat, you know? More lembas bread. In The Hobbit, they're having that, like, feast at Rivendell.

We just see those guys being vegan. Yeah, yeah. I mean, they live a long time, and I think that's one of the reasons why. I was going to say, like, you know, when you're kind of supping with nature the way that the elves... I guess you'd probably be inclined to not, but then you have to, like, can't kill anything.

I don't know, but maybe it's like we grow our own food. That's so easy to eat. Yeah, it definitely is. Okay. Snake meat, which is good eats.

And by the way, Ents, voiced by Jim Broadbent and Olivia Williams. Oh, yeah, so funny. So funny. We were just talking about Jim Broadbent. Yes.

Yeah. One, it was a nice scene, the Entwives. And I'm like, oh, okay. Andrea's like, oh, female Ent. I was like, yeah, yeah.

They don't know what happened to the Entwives. Well, maybe we'll find out in the show. Right. Well, they just said that the Entwives went away. Right.

It's kind of like the female dwarves, right? Is it? No. The female dwarves. Some people say there are no female dwarves.

But then again, maybe it's because they look so similar. And then Aragorn does the, it's the line but that was nice chops yeah yeah yeah adisa definitely has a good pair of mutton chops going on um yeah so galadriel huh yeah yeah just uh doing what that ring says and yeah just being a real cnx tuesday to elrond here just like oh yeah well i'll uh don't worry i know that the we are going to be under attack you guys head out i'll take care of things here take the ring And I did like Elrond being like, yeah, she's not protecting us. She's protecting the ring. I was like, that's really nice. Yeah.

Well, and that's why I like Elrond as a character in the show so much, because he's just like, she just keeps trying to put one over on me. What a bitch. And I know exactly what she's trying to do. Yeah. And I like that they don't make them romantic partners at all.

There's none. It's just like they're doing a job and that's it. And Elrond is just suffering none of her bullshit, which is funny given where the relationship will end up, you know, versus where it is now where Elrond's just like, oh, head fuck. Yeah. I mean, I can't imagine how much, I mean, these people live for thousands of years.

How many years did it take for him to be able to trust her again? Well, that's, I was going to say, that's the other question I have is exactly that. Like when, when did they must repair their relationship at some point? Because right now it's rather frayed to say the least. And there's, I think it's definitely a point of Lord of the Rings that she's in one elf place and he's on another elf place and never the twain shall meet.

I mean, I don't, do we see those two together? I know we see them together in the Hobbit, but do we see them together in Lord of the Rings? No, you see it together in the Hobbit and that's it because that was needed. Oh yeah. Everybody remembers that wonderful part when I, When you're reading that book in the seventh grade and you're reading about those cave trolls turning to stone and all that stuff, and then hard cut to a bunch of people just talking about Sauron and stuff.

And you're like, what? Who's Sauron? What's going on? Is that the dragon? What?

Right, yeah. It's kind of like how I was so confused by Sauron and Sauronmon. When I was reading the Lord of the Rings books in ninth grade or whatever, I was like, wait, is this a typo? Is this the same person? Same person?

I was going to say, you know, it is, it is maybe to your point, maybe they don't repair their relation because, you know, the Hobbit of it all is kind of without Tolkien. Yeah. I imagine some of it's from like the Silmarillion or the appendices or something, but I don't know. I'm not going to track it down because I just don't want to be bothered. I mean, I'm sure that that whole werewolf or berserker guy, that's probably a whole thing, but yeah, I don't necessarily, was he in the Hobbit?

I don't know. It's been a while. I guess I need to break out the book and read that. I bought that for my granddaughter a couple years ago for Christmas, but I don't think she's read The Hobbit yet. Hopefully soon.

I like the first three books. I like The Lord of the Rings. Yeah. I mean, The Hobbit is what it is. It's a good intro to everything, and that, for me, is a really good kid's story.

Yeah, and to your point, it is a great intro to a fantasy world that doesn't feel overwhelming. And Lord of the Rings, Lord of the Rings is not high fantasy. Lord of the Rings is not high concept fantasy. That was not Tolkien's intention. Correct me if I'm wrong, isn't Lord of the Rings technically supposed to be Britain?

Pre, pre, pre, pre, pre, like inspired by pre, pre, prehistoric Britain, pre-age? Yeah, I mean... i can see so much of that plus i see a lot of parallels to you know world war one and stuff so i'm just like okay yeah the the evil happening in the east and stuff but apparently that's not what it's about so you know the author says what the author says yeah yeah yeah yeah. Remember that weird tolkien movie that they made that has like sorrow on in it running around. I barely remember that that was even a thing so maybe we need to do that as a. Uh We should.

I would never watch it. I just remember the trailer shot of what looked like Sauron from Lord of the Rings in that movie. Because it's supposed to be like, the things that inspired Lord of the Rings. He did not see Sauron on the fucking planes of World War I. Like, what are we talking about?

Big old pointy crown. Yeah. So it was nice seeing Ents show up and they... help uh get theo back because everybody wants theo back uh who's up in the big old tree cage um and yeah and they sing the uh the beautiful ant wife with her um cherry blossom uh hairdo and everything so i kind of like how they announce her with the cherry blossoms falling before we actually see her and then you get the reaction of the elf looking up and just like oh okay so I. Was really glad to see the Ents. Like you said, the Entwives and that kind of being such a big part of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the story that they tell in the Two Towers about the Ents and the Entwives.

I'm glad we got to see that. That, for me, is the thing that I... When we talk about prequel things, that's what I like in prequels. And look, the Entwives, remember? It's like, no, here they are.

Nice and subtle. I like that more than I will ever appreciate somebody clubbing me over the head with some subtlety that I, the subtlety with like, for me, subtlety is needed when making a pre, because if not, you're just, I don't know. You're, you're just retreading old ground while thinking you're doing something different. It's like, you're not even, you're not even doing that. Your thing can't be super successful without the other before it.

So you have to either do your own thing or you risk just kind of being seen as completely extraneous. And I don't see this show as extraneous. It has not veered into the only time I would say the show is extraneous is the new manure stuff. Everything else I've really enjoyed in terms of where it's going, the story it's trying to tell, the characters that it's introducing, the new characters that it's introducing. I think that for the most part, the show has been very successful.

And to go back to the kind of the stranger or the Gandalf of it all, could this show have been a massive failure by putting Gandalf at the center? Sure. But I actually think by having there be like half of the show is characters we already know and the other half isn't. But we recognize what they look like. They did something really smart because Elrond, Galadriel and Gandalf are the main characters of the show.

And then they have characters that surround them that are reminiscent of other things or then remind us of other things. It's very smart. And again, I want to mention something else about this show that probably we haven't really talked about enough. What a goddamn jam-packed show this is. The fact that they're introducing Rory Kinnear into this show or new characters is crazy.

Because this show is like endgame levels of characters being introduced constantly. Absolutely. I have to say that I thought that I was having a little bit of a a mental breakdown while I was watching this episode, because we've got the elves who we see fight the barrel Whites and they're continuing on. And then at one point they see a whole army of orcs that are marching and they're just like, oh, this is interesting. And we came looking for Saruman, but we're sorry, we came looking for Sauron.

But we ended up finding Attar. Okay. You know, are these guys at war? Are they working together? We're not really sure what's going on.

And then we see some arrows fly and Elrond's like, whoa, whoa, they're not shooting at us. They're shooting at something else. And then we cut to seeing these orcs who are trying to, it looks like, capture a horse. And I was just like, wait, is this Beric? Are we back in the previous episode?

Like, Is it just two random black horses like Beric and another one? Or what the hell's going on here? Because I swear it's the same orcs that were going after Beric. And I think it's the exact same thing of when they say like, oh, well, he ran away. Let's turn around and go.

I mean, I'm not insane about this, right? I don't want to say I'm not crazy because I know I am. But like, it feels like that is a very pointed like the timeline is kind of messed up like from the previous episode to this episode like we I guess it's because things are running parallel and now the two storylines have caught up. Together Well, I was going to say, I think it's probably reminiscent of what we see in the first episode. The first or second episode, I guess it was the second episode, where Doran and Disa are feeling the effects of the thing with Mount Doom.

Right. We're already at episode end of the show. It's that same thing where there's like, I wouldn't say it's like Rashomon, but we have all these storylines going parallel and they kind of are intertwining from time to time, but we're not seeing them all at the same time. that's my, maybe it isn't the same. It seems like it. Like it's gotta be.

Cause I mean the one back over and over again. Otherwise, yeah. Cause the one, uh, orc, there's two orcs in this, uh, world that have very distinct looks, uh, One of them looks very much like the orc, and I know it can't be, but the orc that starts talking about Shelob in the beginning of Return of the King. Where it's like, Shelob's had her supper, blah, blah, blah. And he's the one that helps take Frodo, who's all wrapped up in the webs, away from him.

He also reminds me, and this is going to sound weird, he also reminds me of Donald Moffat. Especially Donald Moffat when it comes to like, Clear and Present Danger, where he played the president, or whatever the other one. Because Donald Moffat has those huge eyebrows, right? Most people know him from The Thing, I guess. For me, it was Logan's run TV show where he plays a robot.

But he's got a distinct look. There's a guy who looks like that here. There's also the guy who seems to be Atar's right-hand man. And for whatever reason, there was a dark shadow under his nose. I thought he was an orc with a mustache for the longest time.

And he just looks like a working class orc. He kind of looks like the Bob Belcher of orcs. You know, people are probably going to get all over us, Mike, for not talking about the orc baby and woman from last episode. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Andrea was asking me. She's like, wait, wait, wait, wait. I thought orcs just grew out of the ground. I was like, I think that's the orc high. I think orcs have a natural life system.

I don't know what it is because the, the, there was a fair amount of controversy surrounding that scene from the last episode. And by us kind of, I mean, I wouldn't say like we did a, we did ourselves a disservice, but I think we kind of did ourselves a disservice by not mentioning it because I guess people were really upset and I'm not sure about what, I guess it is to your point. Like, well, you know, we have been told that orcs don't do that. Like I, I don't know. I guess it's one of those things where, like, in my mind, the people that made this show have made a choice now, and they're making some choices that aren't canon, say?

Mm-hmm. Well, I don't know. According to the Silmarillion, orcs multiplied in the manner of the children of Iluvatar, which are referring to humans and elves. They fuck. Yeah, they fuck.

Yeah. So what's the deal, then? I don't know. I mean, it's, you know, the first thing that comes up if you do a search, it says that orcs are not magically spawned from mud pits or grown in vats. That was a movie invention.

But again, I always, just in my mind, I always have a very distinct line between Uruk-hai, orcs, and goblins. And like the goblins are the ones that are really, you see them a lot in Cause of Doom. And then orcs are the ones who are more like Yeah, they don't need their legs, like those guys. And then the Uruk-hai are the ones that are the real badass, you know, I serve Saruman, that guy, you know. Right, right, right.

Yeah, they shire rats, that whole thing. Well, and that for me, I think, is, you know, I guess what my assumption was people were getting upset about. Oh, yeah, right. People are always going to get upset. Well, there are female orcs.

Yeah. Yeah. Now I'm going to get turned on by an orc? Well, too bad. I already got turned on by Fiona from Shrek.

So, yeah. Joke's on you, mister. Shrek loves Shrek his life. That's right. The orc baby and orc mama was just a weird thing to be like, okay, people were upset about that for like two seconds or questioning the validity of the canon.

Can I just say something here? And this is going to sound really funny to anybody who enjoys canon and lore as much as I'm sure you and I do. who gives a shit? Yeah. Oh yeah. Like who fucking cares?

Like if it adversely affects your ability to enjoy this, like ask yourself why? Because I don't think it's the people making. Oh yeah. I think it's. I mean, I'm, I'm upset about black orcs, black dwarves, black elves.

Oh, black little mermaid. I'm upset that this is written by women and directed by women. Oh gosh, this is terrible. You know, I saw that little mermaid movie. You know what?

The worst part about that movie was it was two and a half hours long. Ugh, yeah, you don't need that. And it was Melissa McBride as well? Is that her name? Melissa McCarthy?

Oh, boy, it's Ursula? Yeah, ugh. Yeah. Yeah. What fucking, you know what, like maybe ignore the fact that they're just casting people of all colors and races and look at something critically and tear it apart that way.

Because you know what? Melissa McCarthy in a movie for two and a half hours is Ursula. Not a good choice. Two and a half hour long Little Mermaid. Not a good choice.

Like this shows the problems with this show that it has has nothing to do with black dwarfs. Has to do with the stuff that looks like Game of Thrones, frankly. Mm hmm. And that's why I enjoyed this episode so much more than the last one. Because the last one was so Numenor heavy that I'm kind of a little hesitant with the Numenor episodes because I'm not sure how excited I am for those episodes versus like a dwarf episode or an elf episode or a Gandalf episode even.

But the Numenor stuff compared to everything, because I think we've seen all the storylines now this season. In these first four episodes, I think we've seen everything from the last. Right, right. Plus, we've got introductions of some new characters. I think the only people that we haven't seen are probably some people that we're not going to see again until maybe the end of this season or in future seasons, which are Nori's tribe.

Because she's left them and we're probably not going to see those folks show up for a while. Right. Is there anybody else that we've... No, no, no. Yeah, I guess that it...

Yeah. So, like, I can't really imagine that the show is going to have... Like, there's nothing else for it to introduce in terms of Like his stuff from the previous season, like we've had everything reintroduced to us. And of the storylines from the last season, it's the Numenor stuff that I'm the least excited to continue. But I think the stuff for me that I'm most excited to see more of, and you're going to probably, of course, is the stuff with Tom Bombadil and Gandalf.

I'm curious if it's going to be like a sensei pupil type of thing or how much he's going to even be in the show when it comes to Bombadil. But I do like that. you know, we're getting more of the staff and the whole thing of like, oh, I'm just going to pull this branch off here. It's like, oh, did you ask the tree to give it to you? Like, what are you doing? So I enjoyed that.

And yeah, I actually enjoyed the stuff with the other Harfoot tribe and all that. So yeah, this was a very solid episode and some good action too towards the end. I really liked when Galadriel throws the lantern up in the air and shoots it with the arrow and it sets those three orcs on fire. I was like, okay, yeah, this works pretty well. That's the thing that we have to remember is that she's a real badass.

Yeah, even if we don't like her as a character. Right, exactly. It's intentional. Oh yeah, because I love her when she's Cate Blanchett. Cate Winslet would be a whole different person.

I love her when she's Cate Blanchett, but it's going to take me a while to forgive this one. But I do like the actress that plays her in the show. Oh, she's great. It's just the intention of the show is to really paint Galadriel as a character that I don't think we've seen the bottom yet. I think we'll get that redemptive arc at some point in this show.

Right. But we're not there yet with her character. If I could see. It's with the character that we had from the first season with the whole thing of her being so driven to get vengeance for her brother. And I think she was really blinded by all of that.

And then her blindness and the promise of being able to, you know, help repair things. But it is interesting that it's just like, you know, that she just not want to admit that this is Sauron or anything. It's like, oh no, these are good things that are coming out of this. I mean, it's like, hey, this guy is... pretty much directly responsible for the death of your brother. Yeah, and that's what I don't...

With her, I don't understand is like, what is the end goal with her character? I think her husband coming back is going to be a huge part of it, but... Oh, yeah. I'm still trying to figure out, like, where does her character kind of go? Because she does seem kind of, since the first season, just kind of like, well, I'm dumb because I let Sauron in, but now I'm going to continue to be dumber.

What the? What the? Right. Well, how much is that ring already affecting her brain, you know? Right.

Well, that's the other big question. What are the links that the ring of power is corrupting? And at one point, are we going to get a scene where it's just, hello, Galadriel. And it's just, you know, fucking Sauron talking to her. Cause you know, it's going to happen.

It's going to have to, you know, that's going to be the moment where she realizes the kind of the jig is up and she's been, you know, you've been had once again. And I'm looking forward to that. Like I'm, I'm really am like this show is setting. We talk about this on our Soprano show. Like the show is really setting the table and moving the pieces.

And this is a moving the pieces, introducing the pieces and moving the pieces. Because I don't, I don't know. Gandalf will probably be with Tom Bombadil for a handful of episodes. Nori and Poppy will be with the stores for a handful of episodes. And then they'll probably reconvene.

Maybe, maybe that's the last we see of them together for a while. I don't know. Like it could, you know, Game of Thrones was notorious for having characters, you know, separated for seasons on end so who knows but i have more faith in the showrunners of this show than i ever did in the original series of game of thrones because at least the people that are making this show seemingly love lord of the ring and want to do right by the franchise as a whole and i don't think that you would say that. I'm very curious at one point we get the uh people the writers that wear the skull masks come into the um the stute camp and talk with um uh, gunned the gun to the leader of the whole stoot, uh, people store.

Sorry. I keep saying stoot. I mean, stores. And he says like, do you know why I wear this mask? And it's, it's like, um, well, nobody cared until I put on the mask.

No way. Do you want to know how I got these scar? No, but he does say something about like, you know, if you betray the dark wizard, like then you would know. And I'm just like, Ooh, I wonder what these guys look like under these masks now. And like, I know they're not ringwraiths, but they kind of remind me of ringwraiths a little bit.

And I'm also very curious, going forward in this show, if we do get to see more of how the sausage was made, I'd love to see how the nine humans with their rings basically become the ringwraiths. But then at the same time, they talk about... Sorry, I'm going to go down a rabbit hole here. There's the... castle that they go by that is right by Mordor. And it's the green castle with the light that comes up.

It's kind of like the sky beam kind of thing. And you see the ringwraiths kind of fly out of there and stuff. And I was just like, okay, I want to know more of these guys. I want to know more of what's happening here. So I'm curious about that and who these guys.

The castle that the steps are above? Yes, yeah. The secret entrance to Mordor that Gollum brings him to. So what you're talking about is Cirith Ungol, right? Thank you.

Love that name. Yeah, yeah. Because that's like... Because one of those... At least one of the ringwraiths is a king.

So I'm very curious, you know? Like the one who says, no man can kill me, that guy. So that's Minas Morgul is where they're coming out of. Which. At one point, Minas Ithil.

So I'm again, you mentioned it already, like there's more characters to be introduced in this show. There are a fair amount. Oh, yeah. I mean, if they're going to talk about giving rings to men, there's there's not nine humans in this show yet. So.

And none of them would get ring. Right. Yeah. I can't think of any characters in the show that would get a ring other than Isildur's dad. But I don't that that he's we know that he's going to be part of the fight at the end to kill Sauron.

You know, he's going to get one. It's probably fucking Farazan. He's going to be like, well, I represent the Numerians. I deserve one of these rings. Well, yeah, I mean, that's but that's it.

Some of the Numenorean stuff may be like the rings of Numerians. Right, right. But yeah, we don't know about, we haven't seen anything really about Gondor, the Westfold falling, any of that kind of stuff, or the Riders of Rohan. So it's like there's a whole world of men out there that we just have yet to explore. I mean, we've got three and a half seasons left that we can explore that stuff.

But yeah, I'm curious to see where they go with that. Where's Boromir's great, great, great, great, great, great? The steward of Gondor? The steward, steward, steward, grandfather, grandfather? Where is that?

I mean, that's what we're going to get at some point, I assume. I'm just growing this tomato plant here. I think tomatoes are delicious. And I think all of my children will really love to just have sex, mouth sex with a tomato. Children?

Yes. Sing a song for me. Yes. You think Tom Bombadil will get that? He's got to, right?

Just like, I've fucking been here since the beginning. I'll be here till the end. I'm going to be here 3,000 years from now when these dickhead hobbits come running through here with a ring. What is Bob? Bobadil's just like, I guess I'll just sit here all day and smoke weed.

Yeah. Talks with the trees. Talks with the trees. So, is he talking with the tree then? Oh, yeah.

What the hell is he talking? Oh, he's definitely talking to the tree. Yeah. I mean, he says the same thing that Treebeard says, obviously. No, no, no, no.

In the episode from Remember, there's a woman's voice that Tom Bombadil says. Oh, right. Thank you. He's like, I ain't nobody here but us chickens. It's like.

Yeah. And since I watch everything with captions on, they did give that person a name. I don't remember what it is, though. Thank you. So, yeah, I guess we have to hashtag who is Goldberry.

I think Goldberry is like an element. I think that's where we're going to get like really leaning into like the God of this whole thing. I would not be surprised. No. I don't know.

I just, I want to, before we end this episode, I do want to say the one more thing about Tom Bombadil. As much as I like the character, I don't like that they gave away what he is immediately. Yeah, that was very quick. I've been eating it his whole time. Like, God.

Yeah. Apparently, Goldberry is played by Raya Yarborough, who is mostly known as working in a music department. So probably, actually, you know what? She's married to Bear. Yeah.

So, yep. So, yeah, I guess I should have asked Bear about her when I was talking with him a few years ago. Well, I was doing them in 2024 because it was for the release of the second season. So I kept my word. Took me a couple of years to do it, but I kept my word.

Mike is like the Joker. That's right. That's right. You want to know how I get these cherry tomatoes? All I think of now is if they don't show that when they do the Gondorian story, I'm going to be so fucking disappointed.

Oh, boy. Have the gondolins i just love those tomatoes for some reason yeah. I'm so disappointed that when i interviewed that actor i forget what the fuck his name is i didn't ask him more about that but i was also. Oh john noble yeah i was trying to. Be serious about it but he was so fun he was such a nice guy but that show tomatoes is oh it's so good yeah a little show he was on fringe.

I do remember that i think we should do that as a uh one of our tv series but probably you know 2035 or something. I'd watch that man. I was a, I was a champion of that show early. Same second or maybe whatever season it was where she goes to the other side and it ends the season there. And then it opens the next season with her on the other side.

That's where I stopped watching. So I think like three, probably. If memory serves that whole series starts off as just an X-Files ripoff. And then the last episode of the first season ties everything together. And you're like, Oh man, there's actually something bigger at play here than just like basically X-Files stories.

Right. And then the rest of the show is that tied to the problem. Yeah. It was very odd. Like how they went from monster of the week to now there's this other dimension and we need to worry about this stuff.

So Joshua Jackson. Oh yeah. John Noble and Leonard Nimoy. If I remember correctly, even. Oh yeah.

And what was, what was Olivia's name? Uh, Oh, she's got a great name, too. I just watched her in a movie called Book of Revelation. She's really good in that. And she plays two roles, even though you're not supposed to know that she plays two roles.

Remember when she was in Mindhunter? I do. I'm still waiting for that next season. Fuck me, too. Waiting for that, just like I'm waiting for the director's commentary for Alien 3.

No, there would be too many lawsuits. We have to wait until Walter Hill and David Geller are dead. Okay. Anna Torv is... Anna Torv, great name.

Yeah, Olivia's name. She's got a great name on her own. Yeah, yeah, she does. Yeah, yeah, that was a good show. I totally watched that.

It's a great one. And then they have those... I wonder if they're in the DVDs. They would have the little messages between the commercial breaks. Do you remember that?

It would be like... Oh, it was like... They would have pictures of stuff between the commercial breaks, and then if you paid attention long enough, you realized that those pictures... were actually codes, and you could start to solve the codes. There was also that whole thing of. The bald guy showing up at the fucking stadiums and shit, and they were catching them randomly on the cameras.

Do you remember that? I do remember that, and I also remember that the guy that played Henry's little brother, Mikey, is in that, and he works at a bowling alley, and he's kind of like a Jesus figure in that show, and he just... kind of shows up and then disappears, I think. Remember how Supernatural had a Jesus figure? I would not be surprised. Oh, right.

Yeah. Yeah. I do remember Chuck. Well, I thought that Curtis Armstrong was writing the stories, wasn't he? curtis armstrong he was uh a god type figure in that too god well there was locally. Curtis you're right it's not chuck oh okay yeah yeah when they're writing the stories yeah yeah yeah yeah all right why do they need these characters why did i mean what lord of the rings i understand them right right and they and in the books like they have that whole thing that they do in the show where it's like well he's a god but he doesn't get he's Is he a God?

Yes. Is he the God? Who knows? There are, I mean, if Sauron has been here for a long time and then Tom Bombadil is God, he's been there a while. So I just, I feel, I feel like they gave away something they could have sat on for a while.

Wait. Oh yeah. Yeah. But yeah. And that's the thing.

That's what you have to balance, right? Is as a fan of Lord of the Rings, as soon as I see that dude, I'm like, oh, that's Tom Bombadil. Like there's no fucking way that's not Tom Bombadil. But then as a noob to it, who is Tom Bombadil? So do we wait and have that as a reveal?

Because who's it going to surprise? You know, it's not going to surprise me. And if like, I don't know, my mom's watching this show and he goes, yeah, I'm Tom Bombadil. She'd be like, okay, cool. Like no, no idea who he is.

So I think you're kind of caught between a rock and a hard place with a reveal like that. Well, and that's the other... I guess I'm more curious to see what they do with it, because those are rather large stakes, and to introduce that character into Lord of the Rings... Look, let's not beat around the bush here. Sauron is effectively...

If the devil exists, you know, ipso facto god has to so is it a little maybe hammer meets nail to have tom bombadil being god in the world running around sure but so is sauron sauron is a human avatar or elf avatar and atari walking around in the world so it's not that unbelievable it's just i guess i don't know if we're gonna see tom bombadil do anything other than mr miyagi we've seen sauron doing things I don't know if we're going to see Tom Bombadil showing up as Harry Potter's about to die and stopping Voldemort. You know what I mean? Oh, that's the thing. Yeah, I don't know. We'll see that.

There's no point in seeing. So I hope not. No, I see the devil having a much more active hand in things and God just being like, no, you guys are good. You'll figure it out. I trust you humans.

It's like, yeah, maybe, maybe actually fucking do something. You know, you can't just create us all and then just leave us to rot, which is what it feels like. Well, you know what they say. What if they did send an emissary, an orange blonde haired emissary? Oh, thank goodness.

I'm glad we're back on that subject. I was talking about L. Oh, of course. L. Ron Hubbard.

Yes. He was orange and blonde hair. Well, Chris, until we come until we come back next month to talk about the halls of stone. What are you working on these days? Well, I'm working on the same thing that you are, which is podcasts.

And those can all be found over at weirdingwaymedia.com, where this show, your main show, The Projection Booth, my main show, The Culture Cast, and a whole raft of other things can be found. But if you want to hear things that can't be found there, Mike and I used to do a show called Ranking on Bond with our friend Richard Haddam of Richard Haddam's Paranormal Bookshelf. Three of us talked about every single James Bond movie, which is like 30 plus episodes. Around 30, a little over 30 episodes. So if you want to hear that, head on over to my Patreon, patreon.com slash culturecast, or Mike's, patreon.com slash projectionbooth.

If you don't want to hear those James Bond episodes, we will be doing a Harrison Ford podcast that can be found there a month early and add. Please like and rate the... Please like, rate, and review the show wherever you get it.