Ringheads

A very trudge-focused section! The dreary people of Edoras are hightailing it out of town to the fortress of Helm's Deep, and trudging is what they do. Éowyn is boy-crazy for 87-year-old boy Aragorn, and shows it by serving him a stew of raw raccoon meat floating in hot saliva. Meanwhile the new comedy duo of Saruman-N-Wormtongue get all giggly thinking of wargs eating children. Plus: we've got elves again.

We're hanging out with the horselords for a while. Having funerals, discussing imminent war, performing wizard-exorcisms. It's a fun place these days. Also, Edoras: magnificent seat of kings or scrubby little town? Finally, the new duo of Saruman and Wormtongue start their twisted relationship, and all the couples counselors in Middle Earth can't help them.

This part of the movie has lots of critters emerging in Middle Earth: incredibly big, incredibly dumb trolls; beautifully-styled godlike horses; giant tree-men who recite their own bad poetry; other trees who are basically serial killers; and maybe most astonishing: dudes who ride horses! Is this the turn of the tide, or is the newly resurrected version of Gandalf a shiny white liar? Find out!

Gollum gives a tour of the Dead Marshes, which is full of ghouls, evil intent and, possibly worse - it really really stinks. And Gandalf is back from the great beyond! He brings great light and hope, but stresses that he is color-coded differently this time. No one else understands what he means.

Saruman keeps hating on trees. Trees keep hating on him, and everyone else. Trees are weird as hell. Also - it's Rohan time! Wormtongue makes a strong, wormy entrance. Plus: find out why the Rohirrim are "horse famous" even though they might be more closely related to bears.

What, there's another movie?? We begin delving, in our usual excessively greedy and deep fashion, into the second film of the Peter Jackson LOTR trilogy. It contains a certain number of towers. Also: Gollum's back in town, baby!

We've reached the end of Fellowship of the Ring. So that's it, there's no more Lord of the Rings movies! ....hahaha. Ha. No. Wrapping up FOTR with some of most emotionally wrenching parts of the entire trilogy [*sniff* Boromir *sniff*], plus a twisted pain-loving Uruk Hai leader with a goofy name, hobbits who can throw rocks with the deadliness of bazooka fire, and even more crying (by Aragorn, Sam and especially Bill).

Galadriel is fully over the demon witch-queen thing and sends the fellowship off with her best hippie commune vibe. Aragorn and Boromir bring “Mom and Dad are fighting” energy to the gang’s boat trip. The Fighting Uruk-Hai show up and quickly rebrand as the Dying Uruk-Hai.

It's Maia vs. Maia in a steel cage death match: Gandalf vs. the Balrog, fire vs. flame, small elderly guy vs. giant devil guy. Results ensue! Then the gang escapes to Lothlorien, where Gimil tells the elves he wants to poop on them. Yep.

We head into the trendy underground restaurant Moria, which specializes in the best Ripe Meat Off the Bone in town. It's a dangerous four-day trip, the place is kinda claustrophobic and full of rotted skeletons, and the waitstaff is demonic, but... a big party is waiting! Plus: dwarves are weird as hell.