[octothorp]

I loved all the things that LotR book fans can dig into in S2E4.

Spoiler!

Ent-wives! Stoors! Tom Bombadil! Barrow Wights! Particularly cool to have the Wights and Bombadil in back-to-back scenes. Connecting the Harfoots and Stoors and being able to shape a larger story there is really promising for future seasons, I think.

And yeah, I'm convinced that the Stranger is Gandalf, I don't think they're being subtle about it and at this point it would be too upsetting to viewers if he wasn't. I do think especially with his fearful reaction to his task of opposing Sauron, there's a really cool character arc that ends with him returning to the Valinor, a time jump, and then being dispatched to middle earth again, and meeting Cirdan upon his arrival in ME again.