The Most Pleasant Surprises of 2024 and 'War of the Rohirrim' Reactions
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All Middle Earth knows the tale of the War of the Ring. But 200 years before that... Riders of the Mark! Brothers of Rohan! There was an older tale. Hello, welcome back to House of R. I'm Joanna Robinson. That's Mallory Rubin. And sorry, I forgot I was on this podcast where I do the introduction. I'm going to do this again. Okay.

I was impressed with your TV mode. Let's go back. Okay. Hello. Welcome back to you. How so far? I'm Joanna Robinson. Joining me today, she's got a wolf on her shirt. That means she's in her happy place. It's Mallory Rubin. Mallory, how are you doing? Hello, my darling. We are at the beginning of a week in which we will be recording, I believe, five times just together. Yeah.

So that's a lot. Everybody's in the pre-holiday bank mode, but also it is thrilling. I can't believe I get to see you so much. I know. It's going to spoil me and then I'm going to go through Joe withdrawal over the subsequent weeks. So I'm going to need you to commit right now to sending me daily voice memos during the holiday so that I can hear from you and just hear your tones, your dulcet tones. Little podcastitos on the phone just directly to you. I'm going to need them. Hello. We're recording a lot of podcasts this week. Oh.

our pals over elsewhere on the wing river so before we get into what's going on elsewhere let's tell you what's going on here today it was our plan to talk to you about war of the rokiurum and craven the hunter yeah craven the hunter the the conversation you've most been clamoring for from us um and uh then uh

Over the last few days, one of our pals over on the Midnight Boys Pew Pew, I'll let you guess which one, demanded a House of Midnight crossover episode discussion of Craven the Hunter. So I regret to inform you, bad babies, you will have to wait one more day at least to hear our thoughts on Craven the Hunter because we are doing it with the Midnight Boys on a special House of Midnight episode. We're very excited about that. I believe I'm calling this a sort of like

you know, obituary for the Sony spider villain verse. That is what we're going to be doing. So a movie so bad, it killed a franchise and forced a team up. I frankly cannot wait to gather in the house of midnight to celebrate the abdominal muscles on display.

The number of times that chameleon said, I'm just like a chameleon. And all of the other highlights of this astonishing cinematic installment. Cannot wait.

Mallory loved the movie. She thinks it's wonderful and without swans, but I can't wait to hear it.

And because I'm old and washed, did not realize that because my phone is connected to Bluetooth in my car, any videos I attempted to record at red lights had no sound. So it's going to have an impact on the edit, but that's not going to stop me.

Now you know what your holiday gift is. I've seen some preview clips, and I'm excited for the full masterpiece. Yes. Did Alayah discover me at the AMC Century City taking one of my selfies alone in front of the Craven cutout? Was I found in real time, crouched before the abs? I can't confirm or deny. But then you got the whole team in front of the abs, and that's what really matters. Okay, listen. It's true.

Mallory didn't merely crouch in front of one Craven standee this weekend. She crouched in front of at least two because she also went to the theater to see War of the Rokiram and sent me a selfie from the Craven standee that is, I believe, by the bathroom is what you told me at the end. Yeah, this was the hardest one to take a picture in front of. Many of them have been tucked into some sort of recess space.

Not this. This was in a high-trafficked area at the AMC Burbank. I've been all across Los Angeles in the last few weeks to various different multiplexes and have thus taken many photos in front of the Craven cutouts for you. This was the most embarrassing selfie that I had to attempt because there were so many people around. Yeah. But you gave me the courage that I needed. And I did. I did. So I believe I've sent you five Craven selfies over the last few weeks. At the very least. I will be making a collage at some point. Okay. Okay.

So Mallory saw War of the Reherum. I saw War of the Reherum. So we are going to talk about War of the Reherum, but this is not going to be a sort of typical house of our deep dive because, spoiler alert, we did not love War of the Reherum with every corner of our hearts, though there are certainly things to praise and we will talk about that and there's some fun lore stuff to dig into. So we are going to get into some of that.

But because we did not want a, hey, Kraven was so laughably bad, we have to do another podcast about it. And hey, War of the Reherum was kind of a bummer. We thought this is the last week of the year that we're recording together. We wanted to bring some levity to this pod. So we also thought we would do talk about a few things this year that pleasantly surprised us. These are maybe a couple of things that disappointed us a little bit to varying degrees. Certainly I'm not putting War of the Reherum on the Kraven level, but

But we want to talk about things that we weren't expecting that overperformed, I guess, in our own personal estimation. So that's the plan today. Things that pleasantly surprised us in 2024. And then a chat about War of the Rookerium. Some things we like. Some things that we have some notes on, et cetera, et cetera. And then we'll be back for Craven the Hunter with the Midnight Boys. Also.

Also, both pods, Midnight Boys and House of R, will be covering Skeleton Crew. That's right. A show Mal and I are having a blast with. Yes. Talking about things that pleasantly surprised us to a certain degree. The Midnight Boys just mere moments ago...

potentially committed to another podcast this week, but I'm just going to leave that vague because who knows what happens in this mixed up crazy final week of the year. And then the Mint Edition crew is going to do a Sonic 3 reaction pod as for us.

In addition to the skeleton crew check-in that we're going to be doing with episode four, we will be covering, because we are dedicated professionals, the end of Doom Prophecy. So there will be an episode covering episodes five and six.

of Dune Prophecy that will go up after the finale. Yes. So that is a gift from us to you. And last but not least, in the final moments of the year, you will have our classic House of Art Top Moments of 2024 podcast. Always one of my favorite recordings that we do. So fun. I can't wait. I've already started my list. I'm very excited about it. So, and then we'll see you all in the year for a regularly scheduled skeleton crew, deep diving, et cetera, et cetera. So that is the plan for,

That is why we are recording five podcasts together this week because Mally Rubin's taking an actual week off from podcasting or at least this podcast and we couldn't be prouder of her. So please clap. So that's it.

So that's a lot. That is, that's a lot of House of R stuff. There's a lot of Ringiverse stuff. We're doing a lot of Prestige TV content. I am sure you're being pulled in to a thing or two. Mal, how can folks keep track of all we got going on this week? Yeah, it's simple. Follow the pod. Follow House of R. Follow the Ringiverse.

Follow any other Ringer pod that you love on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Follow the new Ringerverse YouTube channel as well. I said new again. You know what? End of year. If you haven't heard, guess what? It's new to you. Hit subscribe. While you're at it, follow the Ringerverse on the social media platform of your choosing. The Ringerverse is on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, et cetera. And...

Send us an email. The inbox is open now and always. Send us your holiday year-end emails at hobbitsanddragons at gmail.com. If you have not yet sent Joanna a photo in front of the Nosferatu sarcophagus, guess what? Not only do you still have time, you now have precedent. Joanna, back to you in the studio.

Thanks so much, Mel. James, my new favorite listener, sent an actual photo with the Nosferatu sarcophagus from the AMC. I believe it's the AMC Metreon in San Francisco. So shout out, James. Someone I do not know, despite his Bay Area roots, sent us a photo. And may I note that James, in the photo that he sent, you know, proximal to the sarcophagus, is

Is striking a pose not wholly dissimilar from Alexander Skarsgård himself, who was also snapped near the Nosferatu sarcophagus over the weekend because his brother's bill is Nosferatu himself. So be like James, be like Alexander Skarsgård, stand next to the Nosferatu sarcophagus, you cowards. Mallory took a selfie near a bathroom. So, you know. I also did send you a picture of the coffin. You did. But only of the coffins.

I did not go into the coffin. Perhaps if I had had company at the theater, I am seeing a movie tonight with Adam. If I stumble upon the coffin, perhaps I will climb into it for you. What are you seeing tonight with Adam? Flo. Oh, of course. Can't wait. I can't wait for this. You guys are going to have a blast with that. Okay. I'll probably cry a lot.

I know you will. I've seen it. You're going to love it. Okay. Spoiler warning. Okay, listen, we've seen War of the Rohirrim and we're going to talk about it. So, you know, it might have helped for you to have seen War of the Rohirrim because we're going to talk about it. Also, I would say anything pertaining to Rohan.

That happens in the Lord of the Rings. And how, why not? All of the Lord of the Rings. There you go. Any appendix, any unfinished tale is potentially on the table today. Also, while we're in sort of a, you know, announcements mode, I will just say, I will plug really quickly that

Speaking of videos that go up on YouTube, bring her TV launched last week with both Prestige TV and the watch episodes now going up on ringer TV. And of the many, many can't wait to see how much of a husk of a human I am by Friday of the many podcasts and things I'm recording this week. One of which allegedly is a live, uh,

potentially live video that CR and I are doing a mailbag in the middle of this week. Just talk like answer all of your TV questions. So ringertv at spotify.com and

is where you can send questions for Chris Ryan or yours truly, and we will answer them at lunchtime on Wednesday. Whether live or no, your questions will be answered. So ringertv at spotify.com. Mel, do you want to submit a question? I'm going to tell you right now that if you see a question from somebody and it says, if you smashed your pinky into smithereens...

and an oil rig, and someone said to you, do you need to go to the hospital? Would your response be, just bring me a cigarette and a Dr. Pepper there in the cooler? If you see that question, it is about Landman, and it is from me. As soon as you said oil rig, I said, oh, I know which Taylor Sheridan versus...

Oh, man. She's talking about, did you read the Vulture article about, I know, I'm sure you watched the episode of Taylor Sheridan inserting himself into. I caught up on it just a couple days ago. Yeah, I hadn't seen it live on Sunday night. The now infamous strip poker sequence in the penultimate yellow stuff. I have not seen it because as you know, I have not seen a single second of a Taylor Sheridan show, but I did read the Vulture article and I just have to say, wow, wow, wow, wow. We live at a time.

Okay. And that's it. That's it. That's all the shilling, the shelling. We're going to get down to something I'm calling Act One, in which we discuss three-ish things that pleasantly surprised each of us in 2024. I like these hearts you've put in the Google Doc. Beautiful. I was looking for like fleur-de-lis. I wanted to do like a... Sure. Like,

Like a script, a beautiful, like, you know, scripted sort of thing. But instead, we have black heart emojis. This is the digital age we live in. These are the better than they need to be champs of 2024. I told Mel that we would each do three. And then, of course, we each have brought many more than three to the table. Mel, do you want to go back and forth to our whole list? What do you want to do? Okay. Yeah, I've got my top three most pleasant surprises. I'm excited. And then I didn't know how much overlap we'd have.

Right. Should we define the exercise? Like how, like what do we mean by to us most pleasant surprise of the year? These are things that sort of we knew were coming or maybe even didn't know were coming and didn't have them on our radar at all.

Or when we thought about them, we're like, that's probably not going to be amazing. That's probably going to be fine. Or that's probably going to be okay, pretty good. And they wound up being way better than we expected them to be. So that's what we're doing. Did I do it? Did I properly define the thing that I came up with in the first place? We have like...

degrees of surprise across a year. For example, like, I think we both would say that Agatha and Skeleton Crew have been among the true, great, genuine surprises and delights of the year, but we were really looking forward to them. And so they're not eligible for this. Yeah.

It's like they somehow exceeded our already high expectations to stand the test of time, like things we will be talking about on House of R, like hopefully for a really long time. So that's – if you're like, why didn't you guys pick Agatha? You really loved it. It's because we had it at one and two respectively, I think, on our height meters. We're really looking forward to it already. Yeah.

So yeah, let's just dive in. What's number one for you? What do you have? I'm just going to do a first trio. You've got little grouplets, so I'll just do little grouplets. And I will say the first trio that I have are all things that we covered.

And none of which I expected to blow me away the way that they did. The Penguin was one that I was quite worried about. You had it high. You were really high on it. So it's not going to show up like necessarily at the top of your list. But I was quite worried about it. And we both agree that it was incredible. And I was quite worried about Dune. And we both are like, Dune, you got two more episodes to pull it back around. Okay.

So the Penguin, I think is like the number one, like this was way better than I thought, than I was worried it was going to be. And I went on a whole journey with that property because like when it was first announced, I was like, Colin Farrell. Yes, yes, yes. And then, you know,

I was reading the tea leaves incorrectly and I just got stressed about it, but I was incorrect. Wicked. I had no expectation that Wicked would be as good as it wound up being. I, you know, I was reasonably interested in it, but like going back to the casting, I was like, Ariana Grande, what are we doing here? And I was incorrect. Um,

She was delightful and she was wonderful. She really was. And I was wrong. So Wicked had a great time with. And then X-Men 97. This is one that, like, I don't think I had it, like, terribly low at any point when we were talking about it. I just wasn't, like... I love the original cartoon. I was just sort of like, sure. I mean, and, like...

Disney animation. Like, what if like, I haven't been having like the best time with it. And so I was just sort of like, okay, this will be, this will be a new X-Men, whatever. And I didn't expect it to absolutely destroy me from head to toe and rip my guts out and stomp on all over it and squeeze my heart to bits and pieces. And, and even when it wasn't doing that, just like enthrall me with the language and the concepts and everything. They just like went way harder. Um,

than a reboot of a 90s animated X-Men show needed to. So those would be my top three. Love it. Where are you sitting? Yeah, so my top three for my most pleasant surprises of the calendar year 2024, which is somehow winding down. Astonishing stuff! Yeah.

We have one overlap, so I also have Wicked in my top three here. I was looking back at the annual House of R Hype Draft that we do. It was not a Hype Draft selection for any of the four participants in the annual House of R Hype Draft. It was not on my fall Hype Meter pod that we did more recently. We were not even initially planning on podcasting about it. We sure weren't. Oops. But...

as we discussed on our on our Glicked double dip Glicked it still doesn't still hasn't really nope hasn't really popped for me Defying Gravity that's that's the better Defying Gravity really was the winner wonderful stuff

I had a fantastic time at the theater watching this movie. And not only did I really enjoy part one, now as a result of that experience, my excitement and hype for part two is really pretty high. So that's fun. Like not only did we get to enjoy this experience, we now have something else to look forward to next year. So that's awesome. My next –

selection for most pleasant surprises of the calendar year 2024. We mentioned it's winding to a close.

is three-body problem. Netflix is three-body problem. Now, I don't think it would be fair to say this was not a thing that we were talking about a lot and anticipating. This was a fifth-round selection in the hype draft by Benjamin Lindbergh, who we always like to say on the hype draft, it's not about predicting what's good. It's just about what we're looking forward to. However, if you look back at this year's hype draft results, Ben clearly won such that there is a winner. He has the strongest roster of things that ended up actually being good. Though,

He did pick, once again, a property that didn't come out this year. Always interesting when that happens. Will he pick it again in the next hype draft? Maybe that should disqualify you. You know what I mean? Maybe. I love this energy from you. I love it. I don't think we ended up having this on a hype meter, a seasonal hype meter, because given that we have never once abided by the actual definition of a season on a hype meter, it fell between...

It fell between the 2023-2024 winter hype meter and then the 2024 spring hype meter, which began April 1st. It, like, fell between them. I was certainly looking forward to Three-Body. I had wanted to read the books for a long time and hadn't, despite the recommendations of many people whose opinion on sci-fi I really trust. Netflix was pushing it so hard. But I was also nervous. You know, the trailers were so-so.

Benny Off and Weiss have been responsible for one of the great delights of my life and also for wounding me so deeply. I still think about it to this day. But I just really loved the show. I loved covering it with you and talking about it. We had the pleasure of like watching the premiere together at South by and that was really fun. Yeah.

And thinking back on the year, like it's one of the shows really that I did enjoy spending time with the most. And also like I think in part because it did the thing that I love and always really appreciate, which is it just made me want to like fall deeper into a given fictional universe. Like it made me really interested in the world and that's a feeling I really adore. Number three. In my most pleasant surprises of 2000- My life is melting away. It's Lego Star Wars Rebuild the Galaxy.

The most Mallory thing. Possibly the most on brand selection ever. But here's my question. How is this not something that you were like super, super excited for? I like, this wasn't on my radar at all. Right. Okay. At all. I think that's why. So it's not that I like knew it was a thing, but thought it might be bad. It just, I kind of missed that this was coming. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And actually only, I'm sure I would have caught up on it eventually, but I only watched it

And around when it dropped, it dropped as a four-episode mini-binge. The episodes are 20-ish minutes each. You can blaze through this. It is delightful. I would highly recommend that you do. Because I was like, what am I going to pick for September Rigorverse Recommends?

That was how I ended up watching it. And genuinely, anyone who listened to that Ring of Rush recommends knows how I feel about this already. I genuinely thought this was one of the most delightful Star Wars installments in a minute. Like, it was so charming. It's about, I won't get into too many of the particulars, but it's about brothers, Sig and Dev.

Jedi Bob is here. It's this idea of like the cornerstone of the galaxy. So it's a very thematically rich story about change and choice and consequence and

also Legos, which I love. But it was so deft at being a self-referential Star Wars story. Like the jokes, the humor, subverting our expectations, leaning into things that the internet has been obsessed with, like the idea of Darth Jar Jar, but making it all feel somehow like

a thing that needed to exist in this form rather than just a string of references. It was just super fun and really cute. A string of references, you say? I wonder if that'll come back up this time.

Exactly. So I loved it. And honestly, when I finished it, I was like, if they put one of these up a day, I would watch them every day. Like, it was wonderful. Really, really wonderful. So I just absolutely loved it. I loved it. I cannot recommend it highly enough if you just want like a fun little burst of joy on a given afternoon. Delightful. Truly delightful. Look at someone else that you're doing. Rebuild the Galaxy for Mallory. Thank you. Give her a little daily meditation. Thank you. She would appreciate it. Yeah.

Okay, my next trilogy, my next trio is just like three movies we did not cover. And I did not have high hopes for or even have on my radar. And yet here we are. The first two are, you know, IP expansion sequels that I did not think would have any merit. A Quiet Place Day One and Alien Romulus.

Two films with colons in the middle of them. And I ended up really liking A Quiet Place Day 1. I was really, really skeptical. I liked the first one. I thought the second one was whatever. And this I thought was just like really fun. And Joe Quinn and Lupita were wonderful. There's a bit with a cat.

You know, there's a lot of stuff with the cat, which is always a surefire recipe to get us engaged. So A Quiet Place Day 1, if you didn't check it out in theaters, you know, I would recommend checking it out on streaming. Not just a cat. Hail a stoplight anger. Okay. Which I will just say.

in addition to this being a horror film, ensures that I will never see this. Because the idea of seeing any cat in peril, but certainly a cat that looks exactly like Halo is an absolute non-starter for me. Did I tell you about my recent experience finally watching Sort of Ish, A Quiet Place, for the first time ever? Oh, from like underneath your couch? From behind your couch? From under blankets? On an airplane. Oh, next to someone. On someone else's screen. And

Particularly interesting because obviously I couldn't hear anything, though. That maybe enhances. In that franchise of all franchises, that felt somehow fitting. And I kind of couldn't take my eyes off.

eyes off of it. So I was like, maybe one day I'll give this a proper try. Emily Blunt is just giving everything in that movie. One of my many wives. She's wonderful in the harem. Okay. Alien Romulus I have a lot of issues with. In fact, part of Alien Romulus might show up on Trial by Content's worst thing we saw this year. So I'm not saying it's the perfect movie. I have some major issues with it. But it was way better than I thought it was going to be. And some parts of it were generally wonderful. And in that sort of very stripped down

you know, this is supposed to go on streaming sort of way. So like there, there's some great performances in it, some great set pieces in it. So alien Romulus, something I thought was going to be quite dumb. And I wound up seeing the theater and just sort of like clenching the armrests of the chair the whole time, either in anger or in fear, who's to say. Okay. And then last but not least, and I've said this, I've mentioned this movie a ton over on the big pick and elsewhere, but I just will not miss a chance to say my old ass, which is,

which is one of my top movies of the year. And it just was not on my radar at all. This is a Sundance film. Um, and it sort of came out of nowhere and I just sort of saw it out of idle curiosity at an Alamo draft house one afternoon. And I just absolutely loved it. And I can't stop thinking about it. And I recommend it to everyone. Uh, the way, the reason it qualifies for house of ours, because the premise is Aubrey Plaza plays an older version of a young woman who is on the verge of leaving home to go off to college. And all of a sudden this older version of herself, uh,

like sort of shows up to be her guide through these final days at home. So that's, that's beyond natural, we would say. Supernatural. So I think it qualifies as genre. And I just, I just, you know, if you asked me the movies I was most excited for this year, I would have been like, what is My Old Ass? That sounds like a dumb title and a movie that I don't really want to see. And I was wrong. And it was wonderful. And I loved it. And it is streaming, so you can watch it.

I have not seen this yet, so I'm excited to catch up on this with the holidays. Oh, I really think you would love this, actually. I genuinely do. I think you would love it. Yeah, I've had my eye on it. One of my favorite holiday traditions is always to just catch up on a bunch of movies that I haven't seen, the kind of simultaneous catch up on things from earlier in the year, get ready for the Oscar season, and then I just, as you know, like –

mainline big pick episodes that I couldn't consume in real time. It's one of my favorite traditions. It's great. Real sicko behavior. I love it. I love it. Yeah. I love it. Okay. Great. Great picks. I'll call these, this next trio, these are my runners up. So they're not my top three, but they were things that were on my mind when I was considering my top three. And they are quickly, two of these are animated films. The Wild Robot, which I know you love.

Did not love as much as I did. But do not – I'm not with you and Sean. You were not turned into a puddle, reduced to a puddle of tears the way that I was. I could barely cope watching this beautiful movie. All right. Loved it. This was absolutely wonderful. I really found this, like, touching and also visually mesmerizing. And then –

For that episode of The Big Picture that Sean and Charles and I did, which was about Wild Robot and Venom, we also were going to quickly talk about some of the other top animated films that had come out to that point. So I watched Transformers 1, which I had not seen, and I honestly thought it was awesome. Really? Really, really fun. Particularly, I had a little bit of trepidation watching.

in the opening stretch, but by the final act, it was...

really good, very clever and compelling as an origin story, visually quite arresting, and some really, really, really great voice acting performances from a just loaded cast. So that was a really fun one that I did not have on my radar at all. And then the next one for me is Fallout. And this is a little bit of a – like, my –

reason here is different. This is not that I was not looking forward to it or didn't have on my radar. It's kind of like the opposite. I was pretty excited about this because we're in such a fascinating moment for video game adaptations, right, in the Streaming Wars era and Prestige era. The mushrooms love to just... That's exactly right. Yearning tendrils always. Always. The cast not only is excellent, but features just so many of our personal favorites. Correct. Like, I

Like, I just can't believe that this is a thing I get to enjoy. And then I really did not like the first couple episodes. Like, to the point where I stopped watching it for maybe, like, two months. I didn't realize you had caught up with it, actually. Yeah. When did you get back into it? Hmm.

I can't remember. Earlier this fall. Like earlier this fall, Adam and I just – Adam really wanted to finish it. And he was like, I'm just going to finish it without you. As you know, a source of genuine stress in our marriage. Yeah. Though at least he said it out loud this time rather than just doing it. Than just doing it. A great moment the other day when he was like, yeah, black toast is great. I was like, what? Yeah.

What do you mean? You know, while you're so busy every night, et cetera. Okay. So he really wanted to watch it. Watch Black Doves again. It'll be a real Christmas treat for you. Yes. I think it must. It has to be on the holiday list. So either I'll do it without him or he can do it again. So he really wanted to revisit it. And I kind of felt, I think the completionist in me felt like the compulsion to do it, even though I had not enjoyed the opening of the series. And I ended up...

I was way more interested in the final two-thirds of the season and particularly the end of the season than I had been at the beginning. So that made me excited to see what they do in the future. And it was just something that, like, had been pretty low in my estimation initially that I ended up finding pretty entertaining. So that's why it made the cut there. Yeah.

What's your final bundle? I love that. I didn't even realize you had finished Fallout. I would definitely be on my list if I had watched it yet, which I still haven't. And that's a real holiday goal for me. But I was just sort of like, I know it's going to be great. Everyone I know says it's great. I just haven't watched it. And it wasn't something I thought was going to be good. I don't know what it was about the first couple episodes. It could have been

like the time I watched them or something I don't know what it was I just could not get into it and then I was like really glad I returned to it really glad I can't remember what was happening but whenever it came out we were just like yeah underwater with something else and like I was just like we weren't covering it so I was like I'll just get to it and then I was like what do you mean you haven't seen Fallout what do you mean you're not covering Fallout dude our guy Goggins is just fucking crushing it

Do you think when we podcast together about White Lotus, which we're going to do on the Prestige TV feed starting February 16th, should we wear – I've already asked Rob this question. Yes. The Goggins goggles in every single episode? Yeah, it's a given. I mean, it's a summery tropical show. I mean, sunglasses or eye coverings of some sort are, I think, a requirement. No free ads. And so why should they not be the Goggins goggles? No free ads except for Goggins goggles. Yes.

Yeah, it's a bust. And then we'll just like zip through the rest that I have here. I will say Squid Game season two, which is not out yet, but I watched over the weekend because Rob and I will be covering it on Prestige TV. Rob and I both were quite skeptical about Squid Game season two, and I actually really liked it a lot. And I know you're going to love it, Mal. It was number two on my head there. I can't wait. Yeah.

I like that you just like the Golden Globes will not be hindered by the fact that this has not come out. It's like, let's get it on the list. I love this. Stokingly enthusiasm. It's already present. I'm just letting people know that it's good, actually. And I was quite worried about it. Cannot wait. And then...

I saw the TV glow, a very strange film that wasn't really on my radar, another Sundance movie, but I really, really, like, I can't stop thinking about it. I really, really loved. And then last but not least, you mentioned, like, watching Lego Star Wars colon rebuild the galaxy for hype meter. I will say

I will say that for, for a ringer verse recommends, I will say this about ringer verse recommends, which our beloved colleague Ben Lindbergh has asked us to do every single month. And I committed just to myself alone and nobody else that I was going to do book focused recommendations. And it kept me reading a new brand new sci-fi fantasy book every single month. And I really love that. That's how partially how I spent the year. Um, and,

And so one title I will shout out from the list of titles that I recommended this year on Ring of Heroes Recommends is Bright Sword by Lev Grossman, only because like Lev Grossman, who wrote The Magicians, Bright Sword is an Arthurian retelling of sort of like some of the characters in the margins of King Arthur's exploits. And it was just way better than it needed to be. Like, I don't know. I was just sort of like, oh, sure, Lev Grossman's going to do Arthur. Sure. And then I was just like, oh, okay.

This is wonderful. So unlike the other ones, which I sort of was just like following, you know, several people who are more tapped into this world,

months a month. This is one that like was on my radar because like, I know love Grossman. I care about Arthur, but I was like, no way this is going to be great. And it was great. So, um, that is my list. Anything else you want to mention here, Mel? No, my, my, my third bundle is just like, I'd pick them if I hadn't hyped them. Told you. Where I liked them. Cause then I think they're not, just like, I think they're, they're, they're ones I wanted to shout out, but I, I,

I didn't think I could in good faith do it because I – like I had – but you mentioned them. So we got – they got their shine and that's all that matters at X-Men 97 and Penguin. I had picked X-Men 97 in the hype draft and as you noted, Penguin, I had fairly high on my hype meter, though not as high in hindsight as I should have. But yeah, even though I was looking forward to both of these, they exceeded my expectations by like a considerable margin.

margin. And I really love them both. And obviously, they're two of the highlights of the year. And there are also shows that

you know, fell into a different coverage rhythm for us. You know, typically if we're covering something at all, we're doing it weekly. And like, these are ones when I think back on the year, I'm like, fuck, I really wish we had gotten to talk about those shows every week together. And that's, that's like a notable telling thing, right? Like they're universes. I wish we had gotten to luxuriate and even more frequently together and celebrate together even more regularly. So like, that's a, that's a nice, a nice feeling upon reflection. If I were to change one thing about our programming this year, it would be,

Not having Penguin start during the busiest time of the year. That would be my note. I'm going to say, would I trade that for something, something, doom, prophecy? No, I will say, yeah, covering Penguin week to week would be the one thing I would hope we could change about this year. Okay, that's it. Those are just things that we thought were awesome this year that we saw. Just to prove to you that we do have love in our hearts for things and...

Now I will let the ice crest over my heart as it does the body of Elm Hammered. But your knees are unbent. They're unbent. Here we go. Unbound, unbent, and broken as we talk. Act 2, in which the Professor is always welcome. Always. Always welcome. This is the Lord of the Rings, the War of the Reherum. We are here to talk about it. We saw it. We have thoughts and feelings. This is the opening snapshot. ♪

This film was written by, take a deep breath, everyone. Come along this journey with me. Jeffrey Addis, Will Matthews, Phoebe Gittins, and Artie, ooh, Papa Georgiou. I think I did not F that up. Phoebe Gittins, by the way, has a famous mom. Her mom is Philippa Boyens. Philippa Boyens is a producer and writer on the Peter Jackson films.

And she has a story by credit for this particular film. And a lot of the bigger swing narrative moments that people have some questions about in interviews, the various writers have made it very clear that those were Philippa's, uh, ideas. So if you want to blame someone, you can blame Lord of the Rings royalty, though. I'm not, I'm not mad about all the choices that were made here. Um, this is directed by Kenji Kamiyama, uh,

who, among many other things, has directed Ghost in the Shell adaptations and an episode of Star Wars Visions. Fantastic. A fantastic Visions episode. Okay, great. This movie is two hours and 14 minutes. Why? Long. And this is what I will say. I will say too long for an anime, not long enough for the story that it was trying to tell, is how I feel about it. So...

So.

Some more info can be found in the Battles of the Fords of Ice and Chapter of Unish Finishtale. It's not much more. I went and read it. It's not much more information than you would find in the appendix. The real meat is in the appendix. And as lovers of the Rings of Power, we know that an appendix can be mined for plenty of interesting storytelling. We are really in the appendix era of adapting Middle-Earth IP. We really are. So New Line, Warner Brothers New Line, made this movie –

And the word that is being bandied about is, quote, hastily in order to retain the film rights to Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, the same reason why Sony is constantly rebooting Spider-Man, though never quite as hastily as this. It's never gone wrong over there before. No, no, no. Always perfect. They always have all their ducks in a row and they're like, pull the trigger. Here's my question for you. It's not when will we next see Paul Giamatti's Rhino, though I am always thinking about that. It's...

Um, can't wait to talk about Rhino with you tomorrow. Holy shit. It's a, it's, it's, do you, do you think that because we're mining appendices here, do you think that they looked at what Amazon did with rings of power and they were like, Oh, Oh, we can use the appendices. We didn't know that. Like, let's go for it. Is that,

Do you feel like that's on their mind? Certainly Zaz Love over at Warner Brothers saying, like, we got to squeeze this Lord of the Rings IP is certainly a reaction to the Rings of Power over on Amazon. That is for sure. Yeah. That makes sense to me. And I think it feels, I say this based on knowing literally nothing. It seems like to me reasonable to deduce that it's a combination of that and also the

The idea that this is the antithesis of The Hobbit, right? This is like, don't take a well-loved, well-known thing and really stretch it. Look for a kernel, like a little ember of knowledge that superfans will probably already know, people who have been paging over the texts and the appendices for eons on end. Shout out John Richter. Yes, shout out John. But...

If you're going to look to stretch, don't do it with...

something like The Hobbit, do it with a couple bullet points where you have a lot of room to play and in fact then can say, we had a lot of room to play and you kind of have that baked in cover. Whether people find that to be an acceptable approach obviously I think varies based on the quality of the adaptation. But yeah, I do wonder if that was also a part of this. And also just like, you know...

Well, actually, I was about to say you can't just keep remaking the same things forever, but obviously the present state of pop culture proves that that is not true. And God, I shudder to think what we're actually just going to remake the original trilogy, a perfect trilogy that should never be touched. Yeah.

One day in the future, if we get the chance to remake those movies, I hope no one pulls that clip and says, Mal said they should never remake those movies. We're here. We're going to remake it? You and I? We're ready to head to Middle Earth whenever anyone wants us to. New line. We're ready.

Unlike Rings of Power, because this is Warner Brothers, we get to have a direct, you know, and Wingnut Films is, you know, accredited producers on this. We get to have direct connection to the Peter Jackson films. So we get to use Miranda Otto's voice as Eowyn. We get to use Christopher Archival's voice.

Christopher Lee voice acting, which we'll talk about a little later on. We get to use the Rohan theme from Howard Shore's music and all of the Lord of the Rings film designs it pleases us to use. So Helm's Deep can look exactly like it does in The Two Towers. Reception. 10.3 million worldwide on a budget of 30 million. Not right so far. Yeah.

3.2 on Letterboxd, B CinemaSore, 54 on Metacritics, 51% on Rotten Tomatoes from critics, 83% from fans. So mostly we're hearing like fine to disappointing is sort of how people feel about this movie. But plenty of people are like, it was fine. But some people are like, it was fun. And actually, I was really trying to watch this with like the lens of...

a lot of just kind of patchy stuff that I loved as a kid. And I'm just sort of like, if I... I bet there's a generation... Similar to like... No, that's what I call pod racing. I bet there's going to be a generation of kids who watch this movie. Though, it's a little bloody and tough for like real little kids. But like, there's going to be a generation of young people who watch this movie and grow up and be like...

I know the War of the Reherum has some problems, but I love that movie growing up. I feel like this is going to stick with some younger folks, is how I feel about it, who don't have the same questions we have about why you would abandon a Prince of Rohan in the middle of a field for no good reason. I did believe that the entire podcast today would be about Hama and his old washed horse. So I feel much like the ab-centric marketing for Kraven the Hunter, the lied to and deceived.

We can talk about Hama now and for all of eternity. Should we do it in song? Did you bring your laugh out? Yes, I held on to it, even though there was a desperate need to burn wood of any sort. And I kept it in order to carry forth our tradition. It's a cherished object. Okay, did we like this movie? Mallory Rubin. So my enthusiasm for The Lord of the Rings, The War of the Rohirrim is pretty muted. Yeah.

I thought this was fine. Like, I did not think this was actively bad, but I was kind of disappointed by it, I think, just because my hype was so high. Some of the particular things that we're going to go through, so I won't linger on them all here, but...

How fully embraced and realized was the visual style if you're going to make an anime, you know, is something I want to chat about. The story beats and the characters, you have this mythic, epic legend and an opportunity to tell a story that actually, as we just discussed, like the masses might not be as familiar with.

If there were high points inside of the film, I think like the stretch where...

Helm becomes a ghost story in real time. 100%. Super fun. Really good. Super cool. Yeah. I'm obviously always here for a great eagle, uh, gnashing on a haunch of meat. Um, but would you, if you had a chance to befriend a great eagle, would you, yeah, Mal Hammerhand, uh, haul a haunch of,

As long as your leg up a mountain and hurl it up in the air. Now, outside of text, I'd be like, do you want some Postmates? Send me your order. Text me your order by 445. I really, I really misheard part of that. Okay, go ahead. You know, the characters, how memorable are they? Because Lord of the Rings is a story, is a world oriented around love.

Some of the most memorable and then iconic figures in the history of fantasy tales. So that's a tough measuring stick to match, but you do have to kind of crush it. And I think the fact that we don't really know the – I don't feel that we got enough of the backstory and motivation for a number of the characters actually to feel invested in them. I think also we have –

This is a little bit of a, I could go either way with this. We have a very narrow focus, right? This is a realms of men story. Like, and on the one hand, I think not every Lord of the Rings, the core premise, if we pan back, like for the anime style of the film, where we are in the timeline, the fact that we're focusing on the War of the Rohirrim, right?

Actually, all of that is super appealing to me. Like, I don't think every Lord of the Rings story or every story in any fictional universe should always seek to be the same. Like, I love – that's part of why I thought Star Wars Visions was so brilliant. So, I –

conceptually zooming in a little bit more was really interesting to me. But because of that prior thing I just said about how fleshed out and compelling were the characters, ultimately, I would be lying if I said I didn't find myself thinking during the process of watching the movie, boy, we could use some dwarves, we could use some elves, we could use some hobbits. I just missed that. Levity. Some levity. Yeah. And also...

Even more, like in a more macro sense, I think the spirit of a Middle Earth tale, which is so much about fellowship and the coming together of different peoples and different cultures. You still had a clash inside of this story, but it wasn't as fully realized. Yeah.

There was something about the script that just did not work for me. In terms of the actual, not just the story beats, but literally the writing, the lyrical Tolkienian quality of the prose and the dialogue that you just hear it and you know you're in a Lord of the Rings story. I did not feel as keenly here as in some other adaptations and tales.

And so, yeah, like I watched it. So I went to the theater and I watched it in IMAX. And that was a to your point about the audience response. I will say like when the movie started, people cheered. When the movie ended, people clapped. Like I think that there were a lot of people in the theater who had a lot of fun. And I did not.

have a bad time, but I didn't leave it thinking like this is something that I'm going to incorporate into my tradition of rewatching and revisiting every year, which is like kind of instantly how I felt about Rings of Power. So yeah, that's my overall sense. I'm looking forward to diving into it a little more fully with you here. What about you? How did you find War of the Rohirrim?

Thanks for asking. You're welcome. Follow-up question. Did you get the Helmhammer popcorn bucket? I didn't. I did see it. It was there. I was hurrying to get to my seat in time, but I did end up getting a popcorn anyway, so that

I can eat. And so then I had some regret. I got some red vines, which I don't usually go for. Oh, I love red vine. I'm a Twizzler enthusiast, but I've been on a bit of a red vine kick. I'm really having a bit of a red vine renaissance. And popcorn and a soda, cherry Coke, no chicken tenders this time. Tried to control myself a little bit because it was mid-Africa and it wasn't mealtime. And then I thought, why didn't I get the custom popcorn bucket? But then I think I have

to control myself you know that i have i i like to collect merch and i like to to surround myself with uh toys and collectibles memorabilia and i think that i have to like not allow myself to develop a real habit for popcorn buckets because i don't think that that's something that i have like a lot of space for in my home or frankly in my heart will i have the strength to follow through on this declaration that i've made to you in real time i think it's unlikely but uh

But sometimes here or there we can exercise some restraint. Okay. How did I feel about War of the Reherum? I felt... I co-signed most of what you said. I think the characters felt very thin. To your point...

You mentioned Fellowship. Lord of the Rings is not just about iconic characters. It's about the way in which those iconic characters relate to each other. It's about relationships. And I just did not feel the connection between even like brother, sister, father, daughter, like these people, a little bit sort of like badass shield maiden, nurse maiden, and young woman. But like for the most part, the real sort of...

relationship dig down tell us why we need to care that these people are under siege tell us why we need to care that this person has an act of heroism tell me why we need to care that this person has been banished um you know all this sort of stuff like that i think it was really missing to your point about like language and a number of other things you and i this is not true of any every tolkien fan certainly uh though i think it's true of more tolkien fans than than care to admit um

We love Rings of Power. Like, it's not a perfect show, but we really, really love spending time in there. And I just more than ever appreciated it.

The work that JD and Patrick have done, admittedly with much more runtime, but the work that JD and Patrick have done to make sure that they are really deeply engaging with Tolkien themes, Tolkien language, all of that sort of stuff. You know, it's just like, I was like, they really get it. And unfortunately, I think the people who made this film don't. They have the trappings there. The shells are there. I think we're coasting on some of the fumes of Tolkien.

I mean, I got excited when I heard the Howard Shore Rohan theme. Same. I got excited about it. It does something to me emotionally, but that's not enough. It can't stain you. I got excited hearing Miranda Otto do her breathy Eowyn voice. And she was like, breathing it up even more to give us like Cate Blanchett in the end of the prologue. I got really excited. We're doing our annual Lord of the Rings watch next.

next weekend we've invited a bunch of people this weekend that's the light at the end of my tunnel this week you know like yeah exciting Lord of the Rings Day is this weekend for us and so it's just sort of like I'm excited it's time but I

This just wasn't it at all. For me, I didn't think it was a beautiful film. And I love to appreciate beautiful animation. And this just, again, that idea of like, he felt hastily done, low frame rates, very odd 2D, 3D sort of conjunctions, stuff like that. And you just want, you want something like this to just be beautiful, just absolutely gorgeous. Especially when you're dealing with like,

You know, that swoop into Edoras, which is like something we're so familiar with from the Jackson films, or you're seeing the Hornburg for the first time. You know, like these are iconic images that we have seen rendered beautifully in live action. And so to see it sort of like slightly shabbily done in animation was a little bit disappointing for me. Yeah.

So my question, my larger question before we get into sort of some of the particulars of the, of the lore and the story itself is like, what does this mean for the Warner brothers and the Lord of the Rings sort of

brand, we know a couple things are happening, right? They're really excited to mine this IP as they are excited to mine all of their IP for further installment. So we know that they plan to have a Lord of the Rings, colon, The Hunt for Gollum directed by Andy Serkis in 2026. Well, you say, fuck yeah, and I kind of agree, but like, that's so soon. 2026? I know. And they haven't like really even started? No.

Like, I don't want another, don't be hasty. That's from Lord of the Rings. So on the one hand, yes. On the other hand...

Push back that release date and I will be less stressed about it. Has Andy Serkis ever for a moment stopped inhabiting Gollum, though, I guess is the counterpoint. Perhaps this has been in some capacity for 20 years. Not even while he was Venom-ing did Andy Serkis stop Gollum-ing. That's true. Okay. So they have plans for... I mean, it all depends on how this goes, how much money they're going to pour into and what their sort of payback will be for them. But they have plans to make a number of films...

Philippa Boyens told Empire that they're making The Hunt for Gollum and they have another film that they haven't announced yet, but they have sort of like very well sketched out. Unlike previous films,

this isn't a two part hunt for Gollum movie. These are two separate films, but allegedly they will both star have Gandalf in them. And she was basically to embark. She's like, I think that's why Ian McKellen was confused. So not only have Gandalf in him, but perhaps have Ian McKellen's Gandalf, uh, in them, which is, I mean, let that man rest. But if he's excited to put on the gray hat, then I'm excited for him. Um,

Oh, man. So they're doing all that. And then she said, quote, we're playing around with a number of ideas. And most of those ideas do include Gandalf. So Gandalf would potentially return for two live action films. We have an absolute banger of a second film that would be incredible as an anime. But let's see if there's an appetite for it. So given sort of the tepid response to War of the Ruhirrim,

Does that diminish? I mean, it sounds like it does not diminish at all your excitement for the live action. But how do you think Warner Brothers should like what lesson should Warner Brothers take from this and moving forward with their plans with this property? So I think that it would be a mistake if the lesson from this is let's not do more.

animation. That should not be the takeaway, I don't think. That would actually be kind of tragic, I think. It's much more about the specific execution of this film than it is about the pursuit of telling animated Lord of the Rings stories. Obviously, there's a long tradition of that. And the idea of...

exploring the world of anime and incorporating anime storytelling into middle-earth storytelling, to me, remains still quite exciting. I would actually, like... I would go the other way with it and say, really do that then, right? Really do that then. And I don't know that that's what happened here. I think that even just the setting... And I think that then...

to give us these very visually familiar beats. Okay, like you said, we're going to pan in to enter us. Okay, yeah, that hits something inside of us. It gives us that familiar visual cue, much like the familiar auditory cue of the score. But it puts a cap, I think, on a particular style being incorporated into the world and on some entirely new visual rendering. So we have some questions on...

getting the Watcher in the water when and how and where we did. But a stretch like the mangled

rabid zombified oliphant being swallowed whole by a ravenous watcher in the water was like visually pretty fun the looming specter of helm as we hear whispers of a wraith like form ravaging the camp at night yeah was really visually cool that like pan up of the

Like the moments actually where you weren't looking at things that felt as familiar were much more interesting to me. So I hope that if the – because the critical reception is –

middling to poor fan enthusiasm higher, as you noted. And the box office is like slightly behind maybe what the, the expectations are, though, obviously this is like, was not, this was, this was never going to be a massive box office movie, like to be clear. Um,

I hope the takeaway is like, let's take our time to tell a better story, not let's see speaking animated Lord of the Rings. I don't think that should be the deduction. Let's take our time to tell a better story and make something that is more beautiful to look at. I was like, frankly, a little offended when like a few of the people who worked on this film invoked Studio Ghibli, like in sort of their inspirations. And I was like... I thought that was outright strange. Yeah. Just...

Yeah. Okay. So that's sort of the opening snapshot. Let's go to some book reader context, some lore dives. Okay. Is the rest of the pod about Hamas horse?

Is the rest of the pod about Billy Boyd and our guy Dom voicing the orcs Shank and Rot? Shank and Rot are incredible orc names. Genuinely wonderful orc names. Rot, W-R-O-T. Yeah, that's the most important part. You've mentioned a couple times, and I really agree with you, that the stretch of the film that deals with Helm Hammerhand...

Wraith King out there just fucking up the, the, the Don Lending's, um, is definitely best friend movie. And it is no coincidence. I think that this is the most evocative part of the appendices. Um, so let's just, let's just talk about what's here in the appendices. What, what is here that is in the movie? Um,

We get King Helm Hammerhand of Rohan, who, yes, uses said hammerhand to punch a dude to death. Yeah. I only hit him once. Rest in pieces, Frecka. You think if Bobby Baratheon were here, he'd say, hit him with a hammerhand? That guy's son...

Yeah. Why is it called Helm's Deep? Because of this very battle, right? There's a long-ass siege. This is all from the appendix.

Helm's sons die, though in a different way. No slow horse for Hama. But both brutally, though. Honestly, both brutally. No slow horse for Hama. Helm himself goes out and kills a bunch of dudes in the long and very wintry siege. And this is where I'm just going to read a part of what the professor said about this.

He would go out by himself, clad in white and stocked like a snow troll into the camps of his enemies and slay many men with his hands. It was believed that he bore no weapon. No weapon would bite on him. The Dunlending said that if he could find no food, he ate men. That tale lasted long in Dunland. One night, men heard the horn blowing, but Helm did not return. In the morning, there came a sudden gleam. The first...

Great stuff. Yeah.

Wonderful. And then this part of the appendices ends, and then Helm's nephew, Freylef Hildesund, saves the day with a band of ragtag desperate men who get the jump on Wolf, etc. So that's what's in the appendices, essentially. And it's absolutely sick. That section is absolutely metal. It is so cool. But instead of making Helm, who is the main character of the section, our POV character, they've elevated his daughter, who Tolkien, of course...

Just kind of forgot to give a name. You know, it's classic J.R.R. Every day. Every single time. Helm's daughter. The film is named her Hera. Hera. Our POV character. She's spunky. She's a shield maiden. Yep. She gets to befriend and then utilize the great eagles. She has a showdown with Wolf and a cursed question mark wedding dress question mark. Yep. Yeah.

and I just have to say, I was just like wildly unsurprised when I found out that the director of this episode also did ghost in the shell because the way that she is animated is very boob forward. Uh, is all I have to say about that. I didn't mind. I did not mind personally. Yeah. Um, Hmm. The reason that they gave her pudding from, and like, to be clear, I have no issue. Some of our favorite characters in rings of power are sort of like,

show-invented or show-embellished characters. I have no objection to elevating the daughter of Helm Hammerhand as our POV character. The thing that the writer said is that we know how it all ends for Helm Hammerhand, but the story continues, and so we needed a POV character who could take us through past his death into the rest of the story. And so since...

And shout out Helms' two dead sons. Since his daughter is the only one who survives, they were like, we'll make her our POV character. And what Eowyn says in the sort of opening prologue of this film is, quote, do not look for tales of her in the old songs. There are none. And so the writers felt gave them license to...

do whatever the fuck they want, essentially, because they're like, this is not just a tale that was not written down, you know, in the books. This is Eowyn telling this story. So how would Eowyn tell this story? What changes would she make? What would she boost up or overplay or underplay, et cetera, et cetera? Right. So what do you want to say about that? Your issue is that you hate women, right? That's the... Oh, massively. They should not.

have swords or shields. Why did she get to ride? I mean, like, women should be protecting the children and cowering in the caves of Elm's Deep. They should not be fighting. I was wondering if part

a part of this was like and I'm sorry to Miranda Otto for making her like do all this sword training that they did for the two towers and they cut the sequence where she actually like fights or I'm sorry to Liv Tyler as well because Arwen was also at Helm's Deep and they're like cut cut I don't know if it had anything to do with that anyway yeah I hate women and I don't I think this is some real woke lib bullshit oh man you're the best um

So I was struck in real time watching it, hearing that note from AON. It gave me a real, like, oh, there's a kind of fire and blood aspect to this, right? What happened that didn't make the histories? So I'm kind of, like, here for that, and I don't mind that. I think Hera, compared to some of the other characters...

We have a little bit more access to what drives her, but still not enough, I would say. Right? We know she doesn't want to marry anyone. She's like, I want to fight. Yes, the legend of the shield maidens, this idea that this is the type of life she wants to live. Obviously, like you said, Eowyn being the character who is passing down this story given Eowyn's role of like...

Why should I not stand and fight for my home and for the people I love along with everyone else? That all makes sense to me. You know, just like with everything else, I wish we had a little bit more time to understand what her childhood was like. I found that brief little glimpse we got of...

the Hera wolf, the very like Arya, right? Very Arya playing with sticks, you know, wanting to train with swords. Really interesting. And obviously that was there really to tell us about wolf. But it made me long for more of that from Hera's perspective. And I think especially because we build, you know, toward –

some touching moments with, with her father and her and this question of like who not only should get to fight, but who can lead and who can protect and like who should be entrusted with the care of the people of Rohan. Um,

I just wish we had a little bit more there. One of the relationships that I was actually most interested in was Freylef and Hera because they're off on their adventure when she's captured and he stands by her to defend her.

And of course, when she has the plan to go seek out the help of the great eagles, he's the one who she reaches out for. And they have their like sweet little moment at the end where she's basically like, congrats on starting the second line. He's like, you know, it could have been you should have been you. She's like, I'm good. I'm going to go find Gandalf.

So that strikes me as the kind of thing where, like, to your point earlier about sort of felt too long and not long enough at the same time. I think if this is, like, a six to eight episode series, that relationship is something that we can explore much more fully, the relationship between Hera and her brothers. You know, you sort of understand that she's sad because her brothers died, but, like, that should be devastating. But let me care about them. Let me care about them, too. You know? Yeah.

Yeah. Absolutely. I agree. Like Hera, like her as a POV character in principle, I have no issue with obviously, but like, and it's an archetype that has, you know, given me some of my favorite stories. I love Aria, obviously. I love Eowyn. I love Alana and the Alana books. Like this sort of like, let me fight just because I'm a girl doesn't mean I can't fight. Of course. Like, of course. But just,

Just saying that, just saying like the empty shell of that and giving me nothing more, nothing actually profound about that desire is then you just feel like you're playing the hits rather than actually like giving me a full person. Yeah. And I think by making her the POV but failing to actually give her depth or give her depth of relationship with these people is

You're by nature of the runtime, then also just robbing me of time with these other characters. Talking about these other invented characters or existing characters and how do they fit into Tolkienian archetypes we know and love, they just kind of don't. Right. And...

doesn't feel like a fully formed character even though we both agree he has the sickest part of the whole movie it's so cool if this were just like if it were just like a vignette if this were like Star Wars visions but Lord of the Rings visions and it was just like here's King Helmhammerhand going out and wraith fucking a bunch of like Dunlendings to death um

I would have been like, that's one of the coolest things I've ever seen. But unfortunately, it's not. Like, Wolf doesn't feel like he has... He's like a shitty little incel who... Yes, they killed his father, but like...

Makes nothing but bad, petty, immature decisions and is still somehow as successful as he is until he's not. I don't understand. At least like Ramsay, I was like, Ramsay makes some smart moves. Wolf, I just like didn't understand how he was kind of like failing upwards the way that he was.

Six siege tower, though. I did like when they cut it down and it became a bridge. That was very good. That was good. I love siege weapons. Freilauf, as you mentioned, he gets banned at the beginning of the film, right?

Just like Eomir does, only to come back just, just, just as Eomir does at the turning of the tide. Right down the same hill. Right down the exact same hill, backlit by the moon instead of the dawn, but just like Eomir does. And as a result, like we check in with him, I think like once at his campsite and barely. And so as a result, this character who's going to be the future king of Rohan is...

is not even really a character in this film. And that would be okay, because, you know, Eomir doesn't get, like, a ton of screen time in Two Towers. Like, that's okay, but, like, there isn't enough going on around him for us to feel like, well, it was okay that this character just left for...

an hour plus of runtime of the film and we didn't see him. There's a character of Leaf, a little like page boy, essentially, who's like, seems like a very slapdash attempt to give us like a Mary Pip Sam figure. My friends and I who are watching this on home and on screeners. So just don't get us mad. We were not yelling things in the theater, but we're watching it at home and we called him like Fumble Bumble. Like that was his, like, he was just like,

Do you know? It was just like a faint echo of an archetype we like. And then Olwen, I will say, Olwen who plays the former shield maiden who was raised Hera, like, she's my favorite character. So whatever, they gave her some great lines, I thought, some real wisdom, some real warmth from the actress voicing her. Like, I...

this was the closest I felt like I got to like a full character in this movie. What'd you think of any of these folks? Yeah. So I think Wolf was the most disappointing to me in part because I had such high hopes and also he's super hot. I told you he was okay. Can I just say, I sent a photo to you and I was like, this is the most, he's not Jon Snow in character, but I was like, this is the most, they gave him a Northern accent. They were like, I was like, this is, he's wearing a bunch of

His hair, he's wearing a bunch of furs. He's so Jon Snow-coded, you can't even believe it. And I sent a photo to you. I was like, this is the most Jon Snow-coded. And you said, does he have a wolf? And I was like, his name is Wolf. That is canonical. That is from Tolkien, but I'm just saying. It was... Okay, anyway, go ahead. It's great stuff. And this connects, Wolf connects to...

Uh, Freck, uh, even though he is with us very briefly, one punch before one punch takes him off this mortal coil, but also just that, that entire, uh,

cast of characters the other side of the war of the Rohirrim and and of course like with the Dunlendings you know across the tale like we as readers or watchers of the trilogy can feel and hear Saruman making the appeal to you know these these men like take back your lands from the horse lords we know where this is going we know where what where it stemmed from and

And that's like really rich and interesting.

And that group, that slice of the realms of man is, I think, a ripe group to explore because there is kind of a like you're presented as violent or filthy. Like, but you were wronged. You were. And so I'm always interested in that. Orcs deserve a homeland too. That's what they do. That wasn't.

It really was missing from the movie in a way that I felt keenly when Freckle and Wolf come to make the marriage proposal in the first place. Now, listen, I have some notes on the marriage proposal, right? I'm sure we all did. Obviously, Harrod did. But there's this part of my brain watching that that's like, well –

Yeah. Does Helm deserve to be king? Like, is he a good king? Now, we have, as you said, some information in the appendices. We have, like, the history of the lineage of kings. But there's nothing, nothing in the movie about that. There's nothing to tell us who's right and who's wrong. And I really, like –

found myself longing for that. And then, you know, because our introduction to Wolf is not only like, oh, look at this like brooding hottie. But then we get the like, well, actually, I do love you long before he becomes, just to be clear, like a violent,

who I am not endorsing. There's this moment, though, where it's like, oh, they have history. They had some sort of depth of feeling between them in the past, which we will get to very, very, very briefly glimpse. He's banished. Should we feel bad for him? And then he just becomes like an outright, like you said, not only villain and a would-be usurper, but someone whose own mind

men and troops are constantly questioning him, asking why he's doing certain things, telling him he shouldn't be or that he's wrong. He has like one lieutenant who's always right and never listened to. Yeah. Yeah. Didn't end well for that guy. But so like it's hard to –

I think there could have been actually more of a push-pull on who we actually felt was deserving or worthy, and that was obviously not present at all. But even though we don't feel the pull toward Wolf and his cause, we don't really have that reason to invest in Helm's clan other than the fact that Hera is our point-of-view character, as you said. So I did think the action sequences in the battle were interesting. Like when...

When Haleth, the older son, is sort of like briefly victorious and scaling the wreckage and the carcasses and then is immediately felled by an arrow through the neck. I'm like, am I supposed to like weep or laugh? You know, like...

He went out sad. He really did. I will say, my guy Hama, that was actually genuinely really sad to me. Yeah, I texted you. The first thing I texted you when the movie ended was that I felt the deepest kinship, not with Hera or any other human figure, but with Hama's sad, old, tired, washed horse who just basically ran out of steam in the middle of a field of

I was like, wow. I really – I feel seen and known. And you responded. Who did I say? You said it. It's me. This is gross.

The haunted crone of Warren Bird. Great stuff. Yeah. Just creeping and snooping around and presenting haunted wedding dresses to shield maidens. Wild stuff. I feel like Owen as well. I agree. I think, again, that's an example of where –

If we had had a little bit more time inside of that relationship, like one of the moments I really loved was the story about the shield, not only because that builds a bridge toward Hera and her future and what she wants and what she will be prepared to stand and defend and fight for.

But it gives us a new kind of insight into Helm, actually, right? Because the story is about him and Owen. But also, like, this moment in the history of Rohan. Because we are playing in a different stretch of the timeline. And so that's, like, an opportunity. And so how did the shield maiden kind of fall off?

right? And then how will they like return is really interesting. And I loved the way that she talked about the shield and that moment that she had shared with Helm is like not broken and needing to be replaced, but like worn in, battle tested. That was really cool. And I think if we had gotten even more moments like that between Olwen and Hera, the story would have felt richer as a result. The possibility that I saw here was like when Arya is talking to Tywin about her

And like, and, and like, she's a heroine of yours. The cool women of history who have informed her desire to be a fighter. This is what this story should feel like for Eowyn. This is a story that made Eowyn romanticize the shield maidens of Rohan. And did not give us that, but that is the hope and the dream of it.

I want to talk about Hama and Halith just really quickly and say, Hama, who's our sensitive musician boy, gets a fairly, I think, drab riff on Where's the Horse, Where's the Rider, a little song that he is writing for his sister, I guess, as she rides up. It's all about she and her on her horse and all that sort of stuff like that. He's got a slow old horse, which Mallory feels great kinship to. But why none of the soldiers who are riding with him...

The surviving prince of Rohan, the heir to the throne. They just leave him in the field with his old, old horse. Wild. What are we doing here? Why? Yeah. He was like, I'll catch up. But still. What are we doing? Okay. And then, Hollis.

And this is, I will acknowledge this is a personal foible of mine. It's my own fault. I understand. I'm broken inside somehow. But it made me enraged. Yeah. When we meet Hedda and Hama and sure, Helm Hammerhand has a vaguely Scottish accent because it's Brian Cox. Hama and Hedda sound like very similar. Posh English or whatever. Southern, right? Hama, for no reason...

a goddamn northern accent like I did not like the fact that they had Wolf have a northern accent to not only further his Jon Snow coding but just to sort of like give them this other these are these are from these are other people from another place okay

And Falef, who is like also I think part- Also hot. Yeah, also hot. Also part- Like part-Dunlunin perhaps? Like, okay. But Halit, the crown prince of Rohan has a northern accent. Literally why? Literally why? Why did that happen? And I was so enraged about this that my friend that I was watching with was like, maybe he was warded somewhere. Like Theon Greyjoy. And I was like-

Maybe! Anyway, this is my own fault. I understand. It's my own issue. But I just, like, it was so confusing why this happened. But to your point about, like, okay, we're going to talk about the Dunlendings a little bit more in a second. But, like, the...

The idea of Ederos, of the people, the Rohirrim, of Rohan as a place worth defending, worth protecting, this is something we talk about a lot in Tolkien. We talk about it when we talk about Rings of Power. We talk about it when we talk about Lord of the Rings. This idea of giving us time inside of a culture to let us understand why it's worth defending. Why it's worth going out, as Helmhammer Hand does, in like, I don't know, a loincloth, essentially, and killing a bunch of people in the snow. So where...

Not as where's the horse, where's the rider. Where is our Bilbo's birthday party? Where is our time in this era of Rohan that makes us understand these... It's basically Hama singing and that's it. And so I just... Again, I feel like they're just leaning on the fact that, well, you know Rohan. You care about Rohan. We played the music. You know the music. You're feeling it, right? And I'm like, no, you have to do the work inside of your own story to make me care about this place. And then you mentioned...

This idea of missing dwarves and hobbits and elves because of the nature of fellowship. But I would also just say, where is the humor? Where is the levity? This is something that Tolkien knew how to bring to his grandiose epics. These are stories he started as bedtime stories for his children. He knew how to make them sort of wild and wonderful and entertaining, but also kind of silly sometimes. And other than my babe, the crone,

Who I would argue was sometimes bringing some weird, fun, weird humor. Yeah. It was pretty. And I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Of course, I want to pay homage to Shank and Rot. Obviously. Who did their best. Rot was a laugh riot. Who did their best. But you know what I mean? I did laugh when Helm was like, I only had him once. I did. But other than that, I think you're right. Yeah. All right.

let's talk about some of the connective tissue to text we know, uh, and just sort of like how this feels woven into a larger tapestry that we care about. We should say at the Hornburg, uh, and Helms deep, there are two statues, one destroyed beyond recognition, but the other one was of home. This is Helms deep. This is named for this King. Um, and,

And at the Battle of Helm's Deep, in both the film and the book, a great charge is made to the sound of Helm Hammerhand's horn in the film. Theoden says, quote, the horn of Helm Hammerhand shall sound in the deep one last time. And then, as denizens of the internet know, Gimli does his due diligence on the horn of Helm Hammerhand. Yeah.

And Freylef, who takes over the throne from the line of Helm, which is cut short, is, if I'm reading the family tree correctly, Theoden's great, great, great, great uncle. So this is where we are in all this. And then you mentioned the part where Saruman is recruiting the Dunlendings and the two towers. And they send in a dish, the only addition worth watching. Is there any other? Yeah.

He says to them, they show up so beardy and scraggly too. Like they are not hot like wolf in Peter Jackson's films. They are mountain men. And he says, the horsemen took your lands. They drove your people into the hills to scratch a living off rocks. Take back the lands they stole from you. Burn every village alive.

They could have just cast you rather than using archival of Christopher Lee. Definitely have that Christopher Lee resonance. This is before, of course, he says, there will be no dawn for men. Yeah.

My favorite. The best. What a guy. What a guy. So good. Anything you want to say about that, like, sort of connective tissue to the text we know? Like, this is enough for me. And then we'll get some sort of, like, stuff that kind of strains the leash a little later on. We have a little roundup of some of those. But, like, this feels...

I get it. I'm here. I'm inside of the story. I understand. Like, the fact that his name is Helm is like half the battle, honestly. Oh, Helm's deep. Helm Hammerhand. Okay. You know. You know, you remember the old Grantland rubric, overrated, underrated, properly rated? Like, I feel like we should, you know, give that treatment to our guy, Helm Hammerhand. It's like, are we sure Helm deserves to be this

Pretty sure he got his sons killed for no reason and led his people to war for no reason and then died out in the cold. Definitely, for sure, for no reason. For sure, for no reason. The Wraith stuff was sick. It was. The Wraith stuff is super sick. But I have some notes for Helm, other than that. I do. I have a lot of notes for him as a father. I have a lot of notes on his punching style. I mean, he only punched him once, Joe. I'm not sure if you've heard. He only hit him once. He hit him once. I mean, he's like...

sure, it's not appropriate in my hall, but like men can go outside to brawl. Catch me outside. Catch me outside without your men, just you and me. Wild, wild stuff. You know? Yes, of course it is. It is genuinely cool and interesting as Lord of the Rings fans to see the horn, the deep, like how these things got their name and how these moments and these places that will be so consequential, uh, to our most cherished figures, uh, uh,

you know, 183 years down the canonical road were etched into the history books. That obviously is fun. Yeah. I do need to do some counter-programming to the propaganda work that you and Ben Lindbergh do and just say... Hashtag make Solo 2 happen? Is that what you're talking about? The way that Han Solo gets his name in Solo A Star Wars Story has kind of forever tainted... Wow, that actually is what you were going to say. I can't believe it. ...has kind of forever tainted...

And then we called it Helm's Deep. Holy shit. I know that that's just told game. To be clear, you will never catch me defending how Solo got his name in that film ever. Rest assured. Okay. Even I have my limits. Here's a question. We simply have some questions is what I'm calling this next section. Yeah.

How does it look? I already talked about this. Anything you want to add on the animation front? No, I feel we've covered that. Yeah. Okay. Should this have been a miniseries? Our listener, Nari, certainly thinks so. And this is what Nari wrote. And you've already touched on some of this in terms of, like, the Dunlendings and...

She says,

had his call for the mercy after the battle to let the Dunlendings return to their homes, etc. All of these character moments would hold so much more weight and hit a lot harder if the historical context of the Dunlending cycle of violent displacement, new settlement, conflict with powerful neighbors, allying with more powerful and or evil parties that backfires horribly, violent displacement was actually meaningfully present in the text of this movie. I think this is

particularly galling to me at this moment when brings a power added season two. So recently with a new manure about to start the process of dispossessing and displacing the indigenous peoples of the region who will become the Dunlendings. This is truly the flattest depiction of them that I could have imagined when they're supposed to be a big part of the specific story. I'm not even going to get to the mama kill writing Corsairs, her dream who get absolutely do get absolute dirt in this movie, but,

After 20 plus years of critiques and discourse about their and the Easterlings depiction or lack thereof in the text on our films, they got the exact same treatment all over again, straight up one to one. It's honestly disorienting. We don't even get a half big sopping wet, pathetic bad boy. So, um, yeah, just in case people don't know, just really quickly on the, on the, on the Dunlendings front. Um, they're originally from the East, um,

From the same origins as the people who founded Rohan. They treated with the Numenoreans when they first got there. And they're like, wow, these people are tall. They are hot. They live for a long time. They know their crafts. These are gods. We love them. And they hoped and prayed for their return. And then they came back.

Exactly what I say every time I see a Lendil. To be fair. Oh, I thought you were going to say me. Okay. And then they come back. Also what I say every time I see you. I'm very tall. And they come back. And the Numenoreans start clear-cutting the trees. Kevin, you asshole. That's a Rings of Power reference. Okay. So is your opinion in general on this entire experience in any way altered by

Now that we have one more excuse to blame Kevin for something. Are you compelled by that? Slightly. Slightly. Same. We hate him. We hate him. The Numenoreans come and as is hinted at the end of Rings of Power, they cut down all the trees. Devastating levels of tree cutage here. And the people who will become the Dunlans...

flee to establish Dunlin. There's also people who go up to Bree, like all this sort of stuff like that. So, as a result, as you might imagine, the Dunlindings do not fuck with Gondor or Arnor because those are Numenorean in origin, right? And then, later on,

yada, yada, yada, a steward of Gondor carves up some of the Dunlaping land to create, wouldn't you know it, Rohan. So yeah, the Dunlapings hate the Rohirrim too because, again, they're constantly dispossessed and eventually the Rohirrim get driven out entirely. The Rohirrim drive the Dunlapings out entirely from the neighborhood. So I just think that I really love this email from Nadia and I think that, like, to your point about, like,

giving us empathy for these people who have been constantly used and abused and dispossessed would be a really compelling story. Especially like, you know, something that

Philippa Boyens was sort of, or at least one of the writers was crediting Philippa Boyens for this, this idea that like, Wolf is a, you know, oftentimes in Lord of the Rings stories, our threat is supernatural. It's Sauron, it's orcs, it's wizards, it's this, that, or the other things. This is men v. men. This is just like, you know, humans versus, messy humans versus messy humans. And Philippa Boyens is like, you know, the death of Freca gives...

Well, humanity, empathy. And I was like, oh, you really blew it, though. You really blew that lead by just turning him into an absolute paper-thin villain as a result. When, in fact, you could have given us maybe one of the more morally complex conflicts in the Lord of the Rings universe. We're talking about people who are actively spending the last few years on the internet shipping Sauron and Galadriel. Like, we would have been interested in some complexity here.

The problem is they're so hot together. Do you know what I mean? You know I love a hot cartoon. One of the things I... No, no, no. I was going to be like, should we do cartoons we most want to fuck? Oh. And let's put a pin in that for another day. The Fox and Robin Hood. Okay. Robin Hood. Yeah. I have no notes. I mean...

I'm, I'm, I'm, dear me. Of course. Always great to hear bees. I am, of course, not alone in that. I understand that there are hundreds of thousands of us. Okay. And then I, I do want to shout out our listener, Steven, who sent this email a while ago, anticipating more of the Rohirrim after wanting to see one of the trailers. And he just wanted to talk briefly about the Oliphants and just say, cause we get them, uh, here as well. The Oliphants or the Momokil if you prefer. Um, and, uh,

Stephen was like, listen, guys, I also love the Peter Jackson. I'm just going to paraphrase his email. He's like, I love the Peter Jackson films. Yeah. What's with that Oliphant death being like sort of a comedy moment in Return of the King when Tolkien's like,

Love the animals, don't cut down the trees. This is not what Tolkien would have wanted. Similarly, probably would not have wanted a rabies, a rabid Oliphant getting swallowed by a watcher in the water. He also would be like, what's the watcher in the water doing down in Rohan? But that's a story for another day. Something that Peter Jackson added...

Steve is just basically like, I don't like it. That's all he has. It's a question, but really posed as like, I don't like it. And it seems counter to what Peter Jackson, what, what Tolkien would have wanted. So I don't disagree. Justice for the Oliphants. Yeah.

Why don't we do, you're about to see Flow. I'm excited to hear what you think about Flow, a movie, a story told from animals' point of view. Yeah, I can't wait. An Oliphant point of view story. That'd be wonderful. Yeah, a story of an Oliphant family. Maybe escaping the cruel harnesses that they're put under. But also, anyway, okay. I'm in.

Great. Call us Warner Brothers. We would like to make the Oliphant POV movie. I'm thinking sort of like the Cimarron's Spirit of the Spirit of the Stallion of the Cimarron, whatever that movie's called. But make it Oliphants. Okay. Love it. We're now going to play a game I'm calling...

Good Lord of the Rings reference or bad Lord of the Rings reference. This is a by no mean exhaustive or complete list of Lord of the Rings references. These are just what I wrote down when I was watching. You might have some to add. Who's to say? We get Kremen from Dunland. Uh...

Good Lord of the Rings reference, bad Lord of the Rings reference. I'm going good. Okay. I also agree. Yeah. This is a harmless... Yeah. Dunland is such a key part of this story. It's not just like random, but yeah. Exactly. Kremen from Dunland. Okay. Which are the spy birds. If you don't watch Lord of the Rings every year, by the way, it's the spy birds. It's one of... If you don't watch Lord of the Rings every year, we both have...

A recommendation for you because it is a tradition that we both have. Do it. Okay. Do it. The Watcher in the Water and Rohan. Yeah. So I'm going to... Can I say both?

Good and bad, because it was confusing and kind of distracting in its confusing nature. But also, I was like, this looks pretty cool. It looks cool. Why not make it just another critter? As we learn in Rings of Power, there are nameless things, you know? There are. It could just be something else. And this one's Supper. Amazing impression. They should hire you for Rings of Power. Okay. I mean, call us.

Galadriel, yeah. All right. Galadriel, yeah. Freiluf banished from Edoras a la Eomir under very thin pretext, I would say. How did you feel about this? Bad. Yeah. I'm just going to combine this with

And returning, I wrote this down, is look to me at the dawning of the something moon, the fifth month of the moon. You know, like... Yeah. It's just so copy-pasted in a way that is boring. And like also in a way that was...

As soon as he's banished. And then like we've, like you said, very briefly, it's not like recurring, but like very briefly, like visit the camp. He's sort of like, it's been a minute since we've heard from him. I'm like, I don't know, maybe go check in. But like you have the triple whammy of Helm's reaction just seemed like

Not sensible. Disproportion, yeah. Yeah. So, like, again, it was one of those things that made me think, like, wait, is this the guy I'm supposed to be, like, invested in as the legend and the figure of Laurie just seems like kind of a dipshit to me? Yeah. Two, the long absence. But then three, it just felt so clear that this was building toward –

mimicking this iconic fabled moment. And so on the one hand, it's like you kind of know that relief is coming and it, it, it,

It saps a nut on the one hand. These are on the same hand. You know it saps some of the tension because I'm like, it will just be okay. We know they're going to come. The eagle went. It took the armor. Like there's only one thing that's going to happen here. But also then it's like almost distracting again because I kept waiting for it. I'm like, I'm looking, right? I'm waiting. I'm waiting. I'm waiting. I should be focused on the ghost bride gown. So yeah, that's a bad. I'm going bad.

Not wanting to call on Gondor for aid. Good. I agree. This is just the geopolitical state of things. Yes. And that's fine. That made sense and I liked it. Helm's speech fairly heavily plagiarized from Theoden's very famous Arise Now writers of Theoden speech. Yeah. This made me mad. Bad. Yeah. Bad.

This made me mad. Sorry. There is at least inside the film a dedication to Bernard Hill who passed away. That really got to me in memory of our beloved king of Rohan, Bernard Hill. Me too. But yeah, please do not plagiarize Théoden King. And also if you're going to plagiarize Théoden King, there's one line that you have to find an excuse to talk about humor. Yeah. You got to get Who Am I Gambling in there somewhere. I don't know.

thing when we were watching. It's just like, turn it and be like, who am I? That's some real tell me of your home world energy from you guys. Yes, it totally is. Consistent. It totally is. And I just like really wanted Helm to be like, you know, especially when he's in his cannibal, I guess, cannibal wraith form. Like, who am I?

Snow Troll. Who am I? Hera. Duh. Okay. Hedda heaves open a door a la Aragorn. Let me say this right now. Yeah. No. No. Follow up question. What if she had been dripping? I would have more room in my heart for it, but this is... I'm always changing my exact power ranking.

I mean, number one is pretty much forever fixed as Harrison Ford in Witness drumming on the top of the car in the barn listening to Sam Cooke. But this moment is pretty perennially number two on my the hottest anybody has ever looked doing anything that was committed to screen power ranking. And I think it is a mistake to invoke it if it's anything but Vigo. Period. Sorry. Guess I also hate women. Tough. Yeah.

Don't belong out of the kitchen. Gatting about with shields and swords and opening doors. How dare you open a door?

It's not that she opened the door. It's the way she opened the door. They knew what they were doing. Okay, last but not least, and this is Tolkien's fault entirely, Deus Ex Great Eagle, one of Tolkien's favorite moves. Here we are again. Yeah. Can we really blame them? No, I can't blame them. I always like a Great Eagle. We had a very fun Rings of Power Season 2 Great Eagle moment, like a misinterpreted omen that we had a lot of fun observing and talking about. It's here for me. It's here for me. It's definitely here for me. I walked toward it.

It's for me. It's for me. I did like when Hera scaled, you know, this, because we open with the, again, the meat, the hunk of meat.

the snack for the eagle. So we know that she's interested. There's this, this, this intrigue, a fascination. And so when she has the kind of not only idea and the impulse, but the courage to go seek out one, one of the great eagles, I did love on the, one of the visuals that I thought was more striking is like what the moment when you feel the scale, just the size of the eagle. That was, that was cool. Yeah.

So I guess I liked the Eagles. I'm kind of always here for the Eagle. I don't mind it. What about you? I think it's one of the sillier things that Tolkien does, but listen. Yeah. You just made me miss Farazan. Farazan. Rings of Power Season 3. Come on back to us. Fucking love that. Love that guy. Love that maniac. His crazy eyebrows. I'm going to call him a maniac. Okay. What's a moment that reminds you most frustratingly of something else? I guess this is going to be like good illusion, bad illusion. Okay. Okay.

King Helm holds the door. Yes, in the appendices, King Helm dies outside with his knees unbent. But not while defending a door that, to be clear, he had all the time in the world to get through. He had time to gently cup his daughter's face through the crack in the door and tell her she could lead.

He had so much time and for no reason, he stood outside and decided to hold the door, essentially. So how did you feel about this? Not just because of the timing, but also of the hodor of it all. Yeah. I'm relieved that no direwolves were harmed in the sequence of the story. I still have so many thoughts and notes. Okay.

On an episode of television that I broadly love. This was actually a moment in the very crowded IMAX theater I was in where when we cut to Icicle Helm, everybody laughed.

I don't know if that's the response that they wanted. That's not what you want. And then they kind of, I think, the laughter subsided and people were, I guess, moved. But yeah, obviously he could have gone inside. I guess he's like, I just got to make my grandstand and become a legend. But yeah, could have gone in. Also, somebody could have maybe thrown about like a cloak, like a warmer bit of garb. Yeah. Some torches. Yeah. Just seemed entirely avoidable. It really did. Entirely avoidable. Really avoidable. Oh, okay. Yeah.

Here's next on the list, and I know, I know, I know. You're listening to this and you're like, listen, Joanna and Mallory, you're a little Thrones cooked and you see Thrones things everywhere. It was impossible not to think of this. It's not our fault because listen, it's not just that she's a feisty ginger, which she is. It's the rosy-fingered dawn cresting upon the ice wall as Harry's

climbs the wall and I was like the climb is all the climb is all there is Hera climbs the wall a la Ygritte no no no John De Smooch but here she is climbing the wall sadly sadly um a smoother ascent for her than for John and Ygritte you know so that's nice but yeah it was impossible not to think of this impossible

This one comes from our listener, Michal. Could have used torment for some humor, like you said before. Yeah. I know you never fucked a bed. I know you never fucked a bed. Okay, listener Michal wrote in, I'm paraphrasing. We get this flashback of Wolf and Hera playing as children. And she's like, this could not be more Snape and Lily coded if they try this idea that Snape feels entitled to Lily because they played together as children. It does not help.

that we get the long, dark hair on Wolf and the red hair on Hedda. How are you feeling? I mean, it's not really fair. No. Hashtag not all gingers. But does this feel, does this pottering feel fair to you? No. Okay. Because the thing that makes The Prince's Tale, The Prince's Tale, is everything we then realize about Hedda.

the secret acts of protection and good that this figure was responsible for. And as we've now chronicled, there's no equivalent of that for Wolf. Cool. We've never had a Snape debate. Maybe someday. When everyone feels ready for it. Last but not least, secret tunnel through the mountain. Secret tunnel.

This is the mountain path that Aragorn mentioned. Aragorn, they're talking about in the Two Tower. Is there no other way out here for the women and the children? Yes, there's a secret mountain path. Send the children and the women through the mountain path. And we see Hedda discover it via bloody hand mark on the wall. This is the secret tunnel through the mountain. Yeah.

We just had to sing the Avatar song as it happened. Any thoughts or feelings about that? Secret tunnel. Secret tunnel. I like the secret tunnel part. That was kind of fun. Yeah. Though I do think that if Hera spotted the bloody handprint, other people should have been able to when they're like, where's Hera? Where'd Hera go? I'm like, well, she was standing right there. Where did Helm go? Where could the bleeding king have gone? Should we follow the trail of blood? I'm not sure. Okay. Last but not least.

Did really, really, did we, I'm going to do that again, guys. Sorry so much. Last but not least, did we really have to with Gandalf and Saruman? Let's take them one by one. Yeah. Saruman shows up.

And this is directly from the text, quote, it was at the crowning of Freylef that Saruman appeared, bringing gifts and speaking great praise and valor of the Rahiram. All thought him a welcome guest. Soon after, he took up his abode in Isengard. So Saruman shows up at the end of this movie. I was prepared in advance that they were using Christopher Lee's voice for this. It's only one line. It's very brief.

I am in general anti using people's dead people's likenesses or voices. So that's a me thing. But in the, in the grand scope of things, this is no targeting. Like this is fairly brief and harmless. Right. How did you feel about it?

Uh, it, it, it, I immediately Googled it when I got home to see like what levels of permission had been granted by like his family and estate and stuff like that. Cause yeah, I, I, I immediately was like, uh, um, uh,

But more broadly, you know, I'm in general, I don't not only don't mind, I tend to really like I often like like a little cameo or appearance or some sort of bit of connective tissue inside of a given universe. So I didn't mind it. But I think the double whammy of Saruman and Gandalf felt like. Tell me about the Gandalf part. What what happens with Gandalf and how did you feel about it? You know, we build toward Hera is like going off on this.

Mission. Would you say she doesn't want it? Doesn't want it. Despite her really hot cousin being like, do you want it? It should be you. And I was like, women can't leave. What are you talking about? They would just slip off their tiny little heads. What are you talking about here? You'd have to use the ghost bride gown for some fabric bobby pins. Come on. Okay.

The moment where, like, we see, oh, you know, he has many names. So we're sort of, like, building. Oh, is it going to be? It's going to be Gandalf. Oh, he has many names. Okay, it's obviously Gandalf. Turning the envelope. This is Mark. This is Mark. And, you know, there's, like, a little bit of, I think, almost, like, it's reflex, it's instinct, like,

A little bit of a jolt that you feel when you see something like that of excitement. But I think seeing Saruman and then these ties to Gandalf back to back, I'm kind of like... On the one hand, I think because of... I want to really be careful to avoid rings of power spoilers here for people who aren't expecting that. But I think because of some of the conversations we've been having recently about just Gandalf's role in general across the story, I'm like...

a pretty captive audience and, like, interested for more connections and ties. But I then start to tip the other way and, like, worry that everything starts to, again, feel the same. Small. Small. And small. And it's like, it shouldn't. There's no reason for...

Middle Earth to feel small, and this is part of the... I was kind of lamenting earlier the narrow focus on just this group of characters and longing for hobbits, elves, dwarves, wizards, etc. But then when we got it, I was like, we didn't need that here. We didn't actually need that here. We could have just focused in on this family, this moment in time, and the history of Rohan and this conflict, and that would have, I think, actually felt more fully realized than needing to seek a tether to something else. Can I just tell you something about...

makes me feel like an asshole, which is like this movie ends and, and all in are about to write off and, and be shield minions together. And, uh, women can't do that, but okay. Let's say that they can. Um, and then she's like, there's this wizard, but I'm like, she, she said he has many names. And I was like, Oh, they're just going to end it there. I love that. Yeah. And then they just kept going for like four more beats to make sure you really understood, uh,

is Gandalf. Like, I was just like, he has many names is like a fun little cheeky thing to say the end, you know, but that's not what we got. So, um, yeah. And apparently this is, this is a Phillip Boyan's idea. If you're going to quote, if you're going to introduce the dark, you have to introduce the light as well. You can't have Saruman without Gandalf. I would argue you can, but that's okay. Or neither, whatever you feel like you prefer. And that has been,

our journey through War of the Rohirrim, a movie we wished had been better than it was, but nonetheless opens up some tantalizing possibilities for the future of Lord of the Rings storytelling inside of the appendices or elsewhere. You know, there's a ton of stories that I would love to see done, but done like well and with a little less haste.

Anything else you want to say about what we're hearing before we go? Okay. Well, we will be back, if all goes according to plan, with the Midnight Boys. Be a pew for House of Midnight episode on Mal's favorite movie of the year, Crave and the Hunter. We'll also be back with a Skeleton Crew coverage, with Doom Prophecy coverage, with our Top Moments of the Year coverage. Please do send us emails, and by us, I mean me, emails to ringertv at spotify.com for the

Sort of lunchtime mailbag thing that I'm doing with Chris Ryan later this week. I would really love some submissions from you all so that Chris has to talk about IP television. Does that sound fun? I think so. Thank you to everyone who works on this show. Our personal fellowship. That's right. It's Steve Allman. Steve, back in the habit. Welcome back, Steve. We missed you. It's John Richter. World's number one Lord of the Rings fan, John Richter. It's our Juno Ranga pal.

For everything he does. Currently on his honeymoon. That's right. Safe and happy travels, my guy. And Jomi Adoneron, author of the complete musical masterpiece that currently exists on the Ringiverse YouTube channel. Go watch it if you haven't already. We'll be back soon. Mallory, I love you. I love you. And I look forward to talking to you many, many more times this week. And we'll see you all there. Bye!