 Queen of Numenor cosplaying as the Little Mermaid. They don't want him to know what Durin is up to. They don't know what you guys' long-term plan is. I guess we're gonna have to stay tuned to find out. Well, the Rings of Power episode four did not disappoint. Once again, we were delivered some comedy gold. Scattered throughout the episode, we had some great moments where one of my favorite things is when I guess that would be considered comedic irony. So when you have a character, they say something very, very dramatically. So it sounds like it's supposed to be deep wisdom, but it's not. So we've got our new Minorian dude walking around sharing his wisdom. Statecraft is the art of attending to small matters just as diligently as grandmatters. I like that's not really good advice for any kind of workflow. Heads of state don't really go around checking in on individual people as diligently as they work on statecraft because that would be a terrible way to run your country. Then we have Elrond sharing with us that there is no secret worth concealing with deception. I'm pretty sure that the nature of a secret is that it is something you conceal and sometimes employ deception in order to do that. But okay, whatever. Not a fan of deception, gotcha. And then we have Halbrand advising Galadriel by saying that you would do well to identify what your opponent most fears and then give them a means of mastering it. Like I can't think of any situation in which that would be good advice, but cool. I did start to think that maybe the show realizes it's a comedy because we do have some like genuinely comedic beats with some comedic timing. We have Galadriel declaring that there is a tempest in me cut to locked up. We have Halbrand suggesting that you should identify what your enemy most fears. And Galadriel responds, and exploit it. And then we've got like a full-on sitcom rom-com going on with the Sealdor sister and the Numenorean guy. But going through the episode a little more chronologically, we start out the episode by seeing the queen of Numenor cosplaying as the little mermaid. I think she heard about the new Disney movie coming out and so she was just real hype about that. Get this great scene where we see what's going on with the small folk of Numenor and they are about to riot because elves are gonna steal their jobs. I mean, it's just Galadriel right now. She's literally the only elf that's in Numenor and I don't think she's interested in any jobs. But Numenorians know exactly what to do when there's an unruly mob. You give them alcohol because that will definitely de-escalate things. We've had all this hype right about who this Ad-ar guy is. Ad-ar, Ad-ar, Ad-ar, take him to Ad-ar. Ad-ar turns out is this homeless looking data guy. Then we check in with the world of men and our lovely townsfolk who have evacuated into this tower fortress theme. All these people are gathering. There is probably hundreds of them and they only just realized that, oh, shit, we are down to literally five potatoes. Who saw this coming? Rut roe, butter some of the lads to the market, except don't send the lads to the market. We will figure this out. I don't know how we're gonna figure this out but we are gonna figure this out. Really don't know what their plan was if the boys had not gone to get food. I also don't know what their plan is now that the boys have gone to get food because that's it. That's all the food. So don't know what you guys' long-term plan is. I guess we're gonna have to stay tuned to find out. But yeah, so kid who goes to get the food, brave soul that he is, to avoid the orc that was randomly lying and wait for him in a tavern. Not sure what the orc was doing until kid showed up but he was ready. So he's chasing after the kid and then the kid gets into the well and there is no splash when he dives into the water but the orc checks it out anyway and is like, hmm, walks away but he's like a few feet away when the kid resurfaces with a huge splash orc doesn't hear shit. Okay, so we're done with the world of men. Now we're gonna go check in with the dwarves where Elrond and his wife are being real sneaky. They're keeping secrets from Elrond. They don't want him to know what Durin is up to. And so naturally, Durin and his wife have a little chat about this in the most conspicuous place imaginable. Durin seems skeptical about trusting Elrond with the secret of Neethril. He thinks that's why he's there in the first place. He's like, I don't know if I should tell you about this. I don't know if you should know about this. I don't trust you. You're my best friend in the whole wide world but like, I don't trust you. So he does show Elrond the Neethril and Elrond's reaction to this of course is to take it, turn around and walk away with it. And then for some inexplicable reason, Elrond is very concerned with what they are calling this miraculous substance. And Durin is like, well, I guess it would be called Neeth something and Elrond is like, no, Neethril. Dun, dun, dun. Okay, so now we cut back to Galadriel. So Galadriel in the previous scene was like, I wanna see the king. And the queen was like, denied, throw her in a cell. And Galadriel does not know why she's in a cell until Halbrand is like, I think you're in the cell because you asked to see the king. And Galadriel's like, mind blown. But so she escapes, no problem. Hardly an inconvenience. Wham, bam, no armor, no sword. She doesn't need it. She's got girl power. So she skedaddles on out of there, immediately goes to see the king where the queen already is and just like, how did you know that this is where I would go? And the queen's like, because I, unlike you, not a dumb dumb. So yeah, give this woman an army for her. Then we check back in with the world of men where they are running slow mo from the orcs. We have an elf catch an arrow and fire it back, but still they're outnumbered and they run into a sunny field. And you're like, that's a wrap for them. Nowhere to hide, no backup. But orcs are now vampires and can literally not go into the sunlight whatsoever. Love that for them. Then we cut back to the world of dwarves where we have this unexplained dwarf gospel member. And Elrond is like, the fuck was that? But Elrond gives his pal Durin a little pep talk about the importance of family. So Durin goes to see dear old dad and he goes into the throne room and the throne is at the end of the room facing away from him and he is standing by the door and Durin's like, can you not even look at me? Bruh, you're standing behind the throne. Like what do you expect? I am intrigued by the mystery of how Hal Brand got out of jail because we do see him just free as can be roaming around Numenor by the end of the episode. I would love the story of that jailbreak. Yeah, we end the episode with the mob screaming that they will serve. I mean, I'm pretty sure that they were about to riot because one elf was going to steal all of their jobs but cool, you know, do you? So yeah, that was episode four. What have we learned? We have learned that Eladriel is a credulous idiot, that the queen of Numenor is a slightly less credulous idiot. It was a big fan of Little Mermaid. Dwarves spontaneously break out into gospel numbers and orcs are now vampires. So I don't know about you but I'm super excited to see where we go and where all these interesting plot developments take us in next week's episode. Limiting your thoughts about this fantastic comedy show, if you're enjoying it, if you're not enjoying it, if you are unironically enjoying it, whatever you wanna let me know. I post videos on Saturdays, other random times, probably Saturdays while I can subscribe. Join my Patreon if you feel so inclined and I'll see you when I see you.