Hi there, I'm Stephanie.

And I'm Lydia.

Come along with us as we explore and learn about the world of Tolkien through deep dives on lore, characters, beatalons, and lafflons.

We are excited to have you as a new friend on this journey with us. Welcome to Speak Friend and Enter a Lord of the Rings podcast. Hello, hello. Hello.

Alrighty, so get this. Stephanie is off having a high adventure, living up the life in The Shire Proper. Here I am stranded about to lose my publishing streak. So I'm pulling out the big guns here. We've got no Stephanie, but we do have Tessa, the producer. That's right, it's me.

I'm forcing her to do this. So the way this rolls, we're basically going to talk about a few things. And one of the main things that we're going to talk about is what is it like to watch Lord of the Rings for the first time? Because Tessa, due to my excellent education, has now seen it.

But it was a work in progress. So I've got a couple of questions from Stephanie. I have a couple of questions for myself. And let's just get to it. So Tessa.

Yes, that's me. What are some of your favorite scenes or things that stood out to you when you watched Lord of the Rings for the first time last year? Oh, that was so long ago. But definitely the All Helms Deep was really great. I love all of that. I think one thing that I did notice this time around when we just finished at this Christmas was the lighting.

Because some shows it's just like the dark scenes are so dark that you can't tell what's going on. And they thought, actually I saw a really funny movie quote. I don't know who said it.

But it was along the lines of somebody was complaining, wow, this lighting is unrealistic. Oh yeah, the same place. Yeah, did you say something?

Yes. The quote is something like, this lighting is unrealistic. It's not dark enough. And the guy was like, the lighting comes from the same place the music comes from. And honestly, that might be a Lord of the Rings quote. I'll have to look that up.

Yeah, it is. Peter Jackson. It was like Fredo asking or something. Oh, okay. I love that. So Helms Deep, this is a 10 out of 10 choice. The audience will give you no grief for this.

This is a safe bet. You don't have any like, rusty scenes that you love. No way. What?

Actually, I do like the bits where Gollum's talking to himself and finding the demons. Well, I've got all my friends. Okay, what else?

Pretty soft. Other than Helms Deep. I like the Arwen and Noscle horse chase. Yes. It's so good. Yes.

One of the best scenes ever. I don't remember the name of Arwen's horse. Embarrassingly enough, it's gorgeous though. Oh yeah, great horse. Okay, what else? Let's see. I also like, during Helms Deep, not just the lighting, I like the big siege ladders.

Yes. When they pull them out and you're like, scenes can't get worse, but then they get worse. Is that where Grown comes in? No, this is the last movie. I should have never told you that name. It's too funny.

It's so bad. I remember watching that with you and it's, I guess, the last movie. We've gone through all the characters. We know everyone and I'm like, Shalee, one of these is Lydia's favorite and then- And you asked me, which one is this? No, I didn't even.

You did it and they whip out Grown and you're like, that's my favorite character, Tessa. Yes. The wolf siege hammer in the third movie. Okay, so those are your favorite ones. It's Helms Deep, straight up Helms Deep and Arwen. Another straight banger.

Okay, very good. We definitely felt that those last Christmas, but it's so infuriating when we're watching Helms Deep and then all of a sudden it cuts back to Frodo and we have to watch Frodo do a stupid little ring mission. Yes, there is a lot of pain this time around. Deeply involved in Helms Deep, deeply involved in the ends and then sudden Frodo commercial. I'm just read. For the record, I liked Frodo, so I did not feel that pain, but other people were feeling it. I felt it. All right, so that cover is your favorite scene.

Very good. We have not seen the third movie. We are mid-watch, so we haven't seen the third movie and I was asking Tessa earlier, hey, what's your favorite scene from the third movie?

And she was like, what's the third movie? So we'll have to get back to that. I have no memory of that. I feel like all the stuff I remember happens in the first and second movies. Yes, because those two are amazing.

Yeah, and then the third movie is just, I don't know, they throw the ring in the fire, I guess. Nope. Oh, actually, I do remember that. That's the big charge. Yes. The battle apps. What?

Pelodor fields, I think. Yeah. So good.

Poor food. No, Tessa. So one of the things that has happened now that Tessa has seen Lord of the Rings is that she's been opened up to a whole new world of memes.

It's been interesting. This is not my fault. It's Portia's fault. Yes. So let's see.

Second question. What was confusing? Or what topics did you have questions about or wish you knew more about when you saw it the first time?

Well, when I saw it the first time, I wish I could tell Mary and Pip in a part. How badly did you wish it? It was really hard. Why didn't you just call them the hobbits in your mind and just call it a day?

Especially when they split up and I couldn't tell which one was doing what. And I'm like, you go, little hobbit man. Very good. And you also said you had issues with Gondor and Rohan. It was so confusing. I remember we're in the second movie and Thaden goes, where was Gondor when the Westfold fell? And I'm like, aren't you Gondor?

Who's Gondor? So yeah, that was rough. Who, where, what, the important questions. I don't know what did you learn from those movies? Because this house, I give you didn't know what Gondor or Rohan were. It was hard and I had forgotten where Boromir was from. So we're in some old junk with the Boromir's family and I'm like, I thought you guys were Gondor? They are Gondor.

They are Gondor. That's rough. Yeah, you have heard the book. So it's just been a long time.

Yes, it's been a long time. Yeah, so maybe this year we should do a reread together. But yeah, if you're making me read Wheel of Teen Time, I don't have time for... What do you mean?

You can't read more than one book a year. Interesting. I'm busy now. You're busy now. I have a school. All right.

And then you had one more comment. Oh yes, I was really confused by the fact that the ring is suddenly mega evil because we're here in the Hobbit and it's like, ooh, shiny ring. I'll just put that in my pocket and it doesn't do anything evil in that moment. Nothing at all.

It's just fine. And we're just like, oh no, Gollum's sad anyways. And then he gets a load of the rings and it's like, hmm, I'm out of ideas for this next book series. I know the ring is evil now. I think it's possible. Don't quote me, but it's possible he planned this from the beginning

just like he planned everything else from the beginning. I don't know. But we'll see. I don't actually know. I think obviously the Hobbit was published first, but I don't know. Wait, was it published first?

I don't know that.

It was just really sudden. It was really sudden when you go from the Hobbit to the Lord of the Rings. Why does the ring just sit idle for all these years? And then we don't learn anything about it in the Hobbit. Maybe if there was some foreshadowing like, Bill, though, you're going to regret this. I wonder if there was. We just need to reread the Hobbit.

I do think it would be funny for the ring to have every vice imaginable but one great virtue. Patience. Maybe. Okay. Stephanie also asks, how has learning podcast editing been? Been pretty easy. Because of the YouTube apps?

Absolutely. Watched maybe four YouTube videos, took some tutorials, and then I ranked it out. Three hours together, figured out the YouTube tutorials. The YouTube tutorials are easy. The whole concept is easy.

It's just the software. Yes, yes. My favorite part is your little routine is you go down to your little computer desk, you have a little snackaroodle, you set up, what was it? My show.

What is your show? Confess. No. Do it. I shan't. You have to. No way. Admit it. Do it. That's it. Voltron. Legendary Defender 2016. Very good. It's probably a really stupid show. It's not. It's a great show.

In my mind, it's probably a really stupid show. I've been trying to avoid watching it with her so that I don't get sucked into an actual good show. It's so good. No, it can't be.

It's for titties. All right. What was it like growing up as Lydia's sister? I should say this is not past tense. This is present tense because you're still little.

That's not true. Well, I don't remember when you were in the house with me. Yeah, did this. I asked her this question. She's like, no memory of you. Yeah, I don't know.

Try again. Because I have a few memories of course of being there, like the Brownie incident. Yes, of course. The tragic Brownie incident. And that bit where I stole back her birthday bracelet.

Yes, of course. But I don't remember you being in the house at all. Yes, I was unloved. But I have proof straight from the mother. Oh, by the way, Tessa's my sister. So my mom tells me that when Tessa was three, two, something small, I had to leave the house. It must have been two since this was after I was at Melina's house. Yes, it must have been two.

So around two-ish, I leave the house for good. And Tessa went on a year-long hunger strike that probably permanently stunted her throat. She did. I'm a shorty now. And now she's a shorty. But I feel great about it because that was how bad she loved me.

She was so mad that I was leaving the house, she wouldn't eat. It was a hard time, I guess. Yeah, it's okay. You don't remember, but that's okay. I remember.

There were some other recent incidents that have tried our relationship. Yes. Last night. Very tried. She made me watch this awful scary TV show.

It was called And Then There Were None. And she goes, hey, Tessa, since you're staying at my place for a bit, why don't we watch some TV? And eat our dinner. And she sits me down on her little couch and she goes, okay, Tessa, let's watch some Agatha Christi. And I said, okay. And then she pulls up this TV show and they like, bass boosted everything.

Everything was bass boosted and I have a massive subwoofer. So the guns are going off. I'm like, oh no. Guns are going off. Letters are being stamped. Writing is happening.

Doors are being shut. Everything bass boosted. It was amazing. And they played scary music the whole time. Yeah, for three solid hour long episodes, they played scary music. Every scene, if it was like, if we just swapped out the soundtrack, not every scene, but most scenes with a new soundtrack would have been so chill, but

everything was scary music the whole way through. It's just walking through the house, sitting down to have tea and they had this freaky, shrieky violin stuff in the background. Yeah, yeah, they did stuff. So not cool. So we did a lot of screening last night and it was great. And we all had nightmares afterwards. You didn't. I didn't. I read the book.

Book superiority strikes again. No. Yes. All right. So I've done one good thing in your life. What is it? Probably video games.

And I don't even know how to take this. This can't even be a compliment. This sounds like the miseducation of Tessa. No way, because I was just a little thing and I didn't even know what computers were. And I was like, no hand-eye coordination. Yeah, I had taken a few typing classes. I had to do typing for 15 minutes every Tuesday. Really?

I remember it. And I would sit there on my little computer and stare out the window like, ooh, typing. And then you came along and you were like, hey Tessa, but what if we use the mouse too? That is an advanced move. I will say though that when I added the mouse, I reduced you down to like four keys.

This is true. These are the movement keys on the PC. It's WASD.

That's it. But these are too hard for children. So we started off with Halo, which was way too hard. We should have done a 2D platform or something.

Anything else. And we started off with Halo, which is a shooter game. And we were on a team and I cannot tell you how many times she shot me in the head. Okay, it wasn't just that. You would stand behind me and you made me go in front of you.

And you would be all, hey Tessa. That's cannon fodder. Yeah. Hey Tessa, I'm just going to send a bomb off real quick, but you would tell me. You only thought that in your head.

Yes, it's true. And then you'd blow me up every time. Yes, you would be walking forward and I would say, frag out.

But I would say it in my mind and not with my mouth. And then all of a sudden you'd walk into my grenade and then it would be your fault. Oh, also during Halo, this was hilarious. Good memories.

Don't tell the parents. So Halo, I remember this as just like a simple, you know, first person shooter till the alien type game, right? And for the most part it is. And then I think halfway through the first game. Was it the first game?

This was Halo 2. Maybe the second game. Okay, I see.

So halfway through the game that we were playing. We are down in like a dungeon place. It's a little bit spooky. Oh, go into the silence lab. Nothing bad will happen. Yeah, nothing bad can happen in the silence lab, but we didn't think about it. So we go down into this lab and in the name you find like a camcorder on the ground. And I should have like instantly remembered, but I didn't. I was like, ooh, that's a little spooky, a camcorder.

Nothing good ever happens when you walk into an empty place and there's like a video camera sitting somewhere. Yeah, so obviously Lydia was all, it's going to be rainbows and unicorns Tessa. It's going to be great. I was so excited.

I was like, this could be fun. Anyways, so it launches into this nasty cut scene where they introduce face grabbers and chest poppers and all kinds of like it's zombie aliens, essentially. It's mucho, mucho scary. Those headcrabs, they mess me up. Yeah, it was scary. I couldn't see.

You were too little. Yeah, and they would, they would just jump at you like that. Face grabbers.

I didn't have the hand-eye coordination to shoot them. So that happened to me a lot. Yep. So this did this. Basically, we were forced out of our normal little shooty game and into a nasty horror zombie survival game. And I solved this right away by adding a mod that gave us infinite ammo and infinite grenades. And so that instead of picking a different game, we just had four bullets. Instead of picking a kid appropriate game, we continued on.

We forged on. Okay, level three is even worse. You don't know because you haven't played it with me, but I played it with Gage. Well, it was scary. Oh, geez.

More face grabbers? Yeah, it's just the flood is everywhere. Okay, gross.

It's really spooky. So anyways, we then had a new routine. Previously, we had worked out our little, we had worked out a little tiff before of like shooting each other.

We had gotten to the point where we weren't doing that anymore. I take the left side of the door and you take the right side of the door. We were forced to walk on separate sides of a 20-foot corridor to not shoot each other. And then our new modus operandi was to get to a doorway and just touch grenades for nigh on minutes. I have fond memories. There was this little balcony over that first room where the face rippers come in and we just stood there for 20 solid real-life minutes.

Really? And we just threw grenades. We were so scared. We were screaming and crying.

Screaming and crying and throwing up. Yeah. Yeah, I have a lot of memories of throwing that. And now we don't hit each other with our grenades.

Because we say that out. We learned a lot. Yeah, so basically the only thing I've done good for Tessa is play more video games. So Halo, Portal, Volhain. These are the classics right now. Yeah, very good. Good stuff. So Tessa has no memories of me growing up. I have memories of her though due to my advanced age. What is our age gap?

How old am I? Hold enough. I'm 13. How old are you? Too old. 29. Anyways, a lot. We can't do math on air. Bid to age gap. So, until I was first born, there were a couple of us still in the house. We had to take shifts feeding Tessa at night. I remember watching a lot of anime while bottle feeding that little creature. It was great. Was I not the sweetest child though?

You were a little bit of a creature. All children are. Alright, next question.

If you could bring one character from Lord of the Rings to be part of your family, who would you pick? Okay, no hate to our father because he might listen to this. No hate. She says that she says something hateful. I see her tearing up.

She's getting ready. I would pick Sam so that he can cook good food while our mother's gone. This was very recent, but our mother went to Germany with Lydia here. And then our dad was all, okay, let's have some good food while she gets gone. Then he went to the store and he picked up one of those pizzas that you put in the oven.

And I was like, okay, a classic. And we had that pizza. And then you starved. We had some leftover salmon soup.

Yeah, we starved. We had some leftover salmon soup. And I was all, what are we going to cook now, dad? And he said, go eat some mac and cheese, Tessa. So would you say, what are we going to cook? What you meant was, father, what shall you feed me?

Yeah, I don't know. I expected my father to feed me. Yeah, that was expecting much. So Sam, but only for his food, not for his other lovable traits. He's also pretty relatable. I like the bit where he's all, well, guess I'll take some salt with me on this journey.

And he says only bad food. I feel bad. Very good. All right.

Well, I have a couple of questions for you too. So all based off of your first watch, who is your favorite Lord of the Rings character? Okay, it's a tie between Sam, my best bud, and Aragorn.

And what is Aragorn's epithet? Not best bud, surely. No, he's the cool dude.

The cool dude? Just like me, because my middle name is in fact Aragorn. That's true. That's true. Close enough. One letter off, close enough. Yeah, every time someone asks, and I say that, they're all, ooh, from Lord of the Rings.

Did they say that? Yes. Oh, that's funny. A lot of the time, it's happened multiple times. And I'm like, no, no. What do you tell them? Do you even know? I tell them yes. You tell them yes from the Lord of the Rings? Yes, it's easier than the truth. The truth is, it's from Catherine of Aragorn,

who is one of Henry VIII's wives. But that's hilarious. You just tell them yes. I just say yes. I'm like, yep. Yeah, my parents are Lord of the Rings fans.

That's super funny. Because this is a consequence of the American inability to renounce the name Aragorn. Because I say Aragorn. Yeah, everyone says Aragorn. And in the show, it's Aragorn, because there is an R in there.

It depends on how I'm feeling. I have a hard time saying Aragorn, because that's not what I'm used to. My middle name is Aragon.

I say Aragon. That's very funny. It's hard for me. Okay.

All right. The music is very important to me in this show. So what is your favorite music from Lord of the Rings?

Probably the Isengard theme. So good. So great. I really liked that first skim over evil Isengard with all the trees going into the fire and the freaky orcs coming up.

Yeah, it goes very hard. And my other second favorite music is the bit where Mary and Pippin are dancing on the table in the Shire and it plays that groovy fiddle music. Groovy fiddle music. This is a girl who's never fiddled in her life. When I was nine, Miss Heidi had me play two fiddle songs on my violin.

Two. I did fiddle for at least three years. That's funny. So those are good ones for you. Oh yeah.

Okay, excellent. Any differences between the books and the movies? I know it's been a while since you read the books. So is there any major differences that you still remember? The only major thing I remember is that guy, I don't remember his name, but his crochet pattern is called the Jolly Woodsman of immense power. And I remember that he's not in the movies for whatever reason.

Yes, I think for the better, but I am a Tom Bombadil hater. That's it. That's his name. All right, Lee's favorite subplot.

Go. Probably the Frodo plot. Ah, it hurts, but it's true.

It's so true. In that bit where it's, you've got all the good stuff going, you've got Helms Deep and you've got the Ents and then all of a sudden you have to cut back to Frodo and he's just whining and being stupid. Okay, I will defend Frodo here. He's suffering immensely. Why is Gollum the smart one?

No. We love Frodo on this podcast. Don't listen to these haters. Yeah, Gollum's all like, don't follow the lights Frodo. And then Frodo immediately follows the lights.

Immediately face diving. And he's like, ooh, don't mind if I do. Ooh, let's go see in there. Ooh, don't.

These dead bodies won't do anything to me. Yes. All right.

In the movies when you first watched them, did you cry and where? Yes. Good.

I cried when Gandalf and Boromir died. Spoiler alert. Yes. Those are important bits. So I was really worried. We tried to watch the first, we tried to watch Lord of the Rings twice. The first year we fell miserably because Tessa fell asleep.

Well, in my defense guys. It was New Year's Eve and it had already been a late night. So it's like 8 p.m. and I'm just little and I like to go to bed early.

Even now. So it's 8 p.m. It's only 8?

Yes. It was like 8 p.m. Oh my gosh. We're starting the show. I bet it. And then we start the show and I'm like, oh, I feel like we started earlier.

You fell asleep at 8. And then he kept going. And then how long is that show? It's got to be, it was 10. It's like three and a half hours.

Yeah. It was 10, 11 when I started getting tired and I was all, Lydia, I can't do this. And she was, do it Tessa.

Yeah. And then I couldn't do it and I just fell asleep. She failed.

But that's okay. We tried. And then we tried it in the next year.

I was really worried that maybe we had missed the formative window. You've got to make sure you hit it just right amount so that you'll cry in the right places. But she did cry in the right places. And there was one more place where you cried. I cried at the end where Frodo sailed off to Elfland. A.K .A. The Greyhaven's.

And I was all, oh, he's gone. Sam will be sad. But Frodo's gone now. Oh, daddy here with you. Oh, my goodness. All right. This one is a curiosity of mine because I would like to know what the uptake is in the young generation. You are the young generation. You're the extremely young generation.

This is true. How many of your friends have seen World of the Rings? Okay. Well, Hadley and I were going to watch it. Hadley was going to watch it with us this year and then she left on vacation. Yes.

Tursed at vacation. But Hadley and I saw the first movie together and it was pretty great. So one friend out of your many, many, many, many, many friends. Well, actually three of my other friends have seen it already. Okay. Okay. So week uptake. It sounds like you have a lot of evangelizing to do.

This is true. Okay. Hadley and I are going to get to work. Okay. Very good.

This is just me making sure that I've educated you correctly. What is the correct time to watch World of the Rings? Obviously Christmas time.

Obviously it's a Christmas movie. Yes. Yes.

So I just remembered something funny. One of my favorite Frodo bits is the bit, I think it's at the end. Is this more Frodo hate? No, this was Frodo love this time. Really? So you know how Legolas and Frodo have never had a conversation, right?

Have they not? He speaks like three words to Frodo and there, and you have my bow. It's true. There are conflations of Legolas talking to Frodo and they're like two minutes on. Okay.

Okay. And it's a bit at the end where everyone's coming in to talk to Frodo while he lies in his sick bed and he's all arrogant, gimly, then Legolas walks in and he's just like, he doesn't say Legolas's name.

Legolas just stands there and says, he doesn't even remember his name. He doesn't say his name. I don't think he knows his name. So it's Ergon, gimly, Ergon's elf friend.

Gandalf. Actually, that is hilarious. It's super funny. Oh my gosh. That's super funny.

All right. There's a couple other funny things that I thought we talked about because this year, we had a couple people for Christmas and some of them were the nephews who are very young and who have now seen what? The fellowship and half of two towers? One and a half. One and a half. Quite get through.

So one and a half of two towers and the fellowship. And I just wanted to tell some funny stories about their comments because they're what, between eight and 10. Yeah. So little, little, little dudes. It was hysterical. It was the funniest thing.

So the first thing was they all found Deladule immensely creepy. Well, it wasn't just that. We're there and we're at the awful kissing scene.

Oh, that was hilarious with Aron and Ergon. And so we're all cowering and covering our eyes. Not I. And you need to go one more date. And then we were all sad. And Hugh, this is the eight year old.

He goes, I hate that creepy lady. That's right. We mean Aron. And he goes, she's maybe my second favorite least character. Yeah. Second favorite.

The other evil creepy lady in the first movie. And we're just like racking our brains. Like who is he talking about? Because always truth.

He was Arwin and like he hasn't met a one. So I'm like, what? Anyway, then we remembered Deladule and I realized, yeah, the whole scene where Deladule freaked me out. That still freaks me out. Yeah. The whole scene where Deladule gets tempted by the ring. This just like the blue lighting gets me good. It's a little bit too over.

It's too hard for the to comprehend. So we had pre-medelatrual. Imagine being a little dude. You're just watching this adventure moving. Then all of a sudden creepy lady. They have no idea what's going on. All right. So Hugh supplied a lot of her very funny comments. This one really got me because it's the end of the fellowship. Boromir is dying. I'm just weeping. We all did the big gasp when that one Rukai showed up.

We're all cowering and holding each other's arms like this. Oh, which one do you mean? The one with the ponytail on the bow. Oh, with the boat. Yeah.

So, oh, that's true. They did flinch. But we're all like, we're at the scene where Boromir is dying. And Hugh said the funniest scene. He's so on the nose sometimes. So we're all weeping to set the children.

The children are totally unfeeling and have no tears in them. Yeah. Charlie was sitting there like, haha, sick moves Boromir.

That's true. But Hugh says, he just like started monolodding. He goes, Boromir was the one most tempted by the ring. But now he is spending the last minutes of his life saving the others.

And he just said this. I was just like, you can't see this kind of drop while I'm crying. Anyways, it was very funny.

We had some other funny scenes. So somewhere in the two towers, we see a nozzle for the first time on a Wraith, right? So it's like in daylight. And Hugh says, yay, now I finally did a good look. His favorite color is black. Yeah. And he sits up real tall. He's like, yes. You were so excited. I feel like you. I think the nostrils are his favorite characters. Probably.

Let's see what else. Everyone agreed that scary Bilbo is the scariest. Scary Bilbo gets me good. Yeah. There were screams.

There was a big jump stair. Scary Bilbo is so scary. Yeah.

Crushed it. Charlie is slightly older and he is now finding out all the things that I like ripped solid from Lord of the Rings and stuffed into his D &D campaign. Like the watcher in the water. We did to that scene. And he's like, whoa, just like our D &D campaign. I was like, oh, buddy.

You don't understand. I needed a picture of a tentacle creature. And I thought, I know where to do it. We briefly convinced him that everyone had died. We tried so hard.

We crushed. Yeah. And they didn't get to the bit where he gets up and talks. Oh, yeah. I mean, he was moving.

We convinced him it was his dead corpse on that horse. That's true. That's true. Anyways, and they didn't even cry. Yeah.

Children. We were all, I was doing some good, fake, sad faces. I was all, oh no. Eridra, I miss him already. Oh no. Sometimes I can still hear his voice.

Yeah. Hugh said about Fellowship of the Ring at the very end. He goes, I was not expecting so many people to die. And I was like, oh, well, tell me more, buddy. He counted three deaths. Dandolph, accurate, Boromir, accurate, and Bollen from Moria. I guess he was really hit by that one.

I don't know. That was a core memory for him. Yes. It was so funny. My sister, older sister, has some really funny comments about Leblis that I cannot quote, but just accusing him of being essentially a himbo. She was all, oh, he's so pretty, but so stupid. Exactly. And every time he opened his mouth, she'd be like, tell us more, pretty boy.

Yes, exactly. It was very sassy. I think my favorite part was that the kids, not even once, I don't think, to tell Ergon and Boromir apart.

That's so funny to me, because even I got that. They look so different. Yes, they look different to me.

And I'm questioning it. I'm like, OK, is it just bearded man? Is this like the level of facial recognition we're working with? Well, you saw my facial recognition last night. Yours was not great.

Those two old men with mustaches looked exactly the same. And for the record, I don't even think both of them had mustaches.

They both had mustaches. And I remember, because I was trying to tell them apart by mustache shape. Oh my gosh. All right. So this is from R. And then there were a nun watch. There was an older man probably in his 50s or 60s.

And then there was a younger man probably in his 30s. She could not tell them apart. They looked the same. They were so different. One had red hair. The other had white hair.

Red hair. Yeah. So I'm no longer feeling bad about the way I am kind of like a little bit face blind.

I see now it's genetic and we're all screwed. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So those were the questions. Those were the first time reaction. So overall reaction to Lord of Reigns.

Has it changed your life? Thoughts? Sure. Sure, she says.

I'll give it to you. It did unlock some new cool crochet patterns. It unlocked new crochet patterns.

And I think I like intimated at this before. I feel like every time I watch like a big popular theme that I haven't seen before. It unlocks a whole new world of memes. And that is priceless. Yes.

So if there's any reason to watch Lord of Reigns and you're like of a meme age. I just love the Ikea one. You should. It's so good. Which one? Okay. It's the one where they're going to Rivendell and it's Ergon goes, we're going to Ikea Master Gamgee and then Sam goes, did you hear that photo? Ikea, we're going to see the shelves. Yeah, that's terrible.

But now these terrible memes are intelligible to you. And I support that video. And actually you were wrong. That was not my first experience with Lord of the Rings. What? My first experience was when I was just a little, maybe eight and I played Sesame Street. Sesame Street games all day, every day on my little computer. Damn.

Yes. And I was like, mom, let me play Sesame Street. And she would say, okay, one more hour. And then I would pull up Sesame Street. You had a different childhood.

I was not allowed video games. She told me that a lot. And then there was this Lord of the Rings type thing. It had cookie monster in it. It was cookie monster and it was like a little platformer and you had to jump over stuff and catch rings. It was basically 2D Sonic. And I, for some reason, this made me think Lord of the Rings was like Sonic. No, no, I thought it was like middle age Sonic because it had all the vaulted ceilings and Cookie Monster was wearing a Lord of the Rings type outfit.

So you had a terrible experience. I was really confused. I didn't really understand it. I love that. I want to be able to clear that up for you. All right.

So we'll report back next year probably with what Charlie and Hugh think about the last movie. I don't think they're going to make it through this year. But yeah, first time reactions, first time intro to Tessa, our sweet producer who made it happen. I have fiber. You can hire me. That's right. You can hire her. All right. That's it. That's all right. Okay. Okay.

Thank you.