Frodo, Sam, and Gollum leave Henneth Annûn and continue on their quest with Faramir’s blessing and two (not three) shiny new hobbit-sized walking sticks. Gollum is totally over that betrayal business at the pool and surely isn’t planning any kind of revenge, which is nice; and there’s nothing at all creepy about the fact that they have to stay off the road because, y’know, invisible things may be watching. Also in this episode: blindfolds, wood-nerdery (not a typo), plus, what special object would we want for our Tolkien collections if money was no object?
Recommended Reading:
Tolkien, J. R. R. The Two Towers: Being the Second Part of The Lord of the Rings (Mariner Books, paperback) “Journey to the Cross-Roads”, pp. 679-82
Tolkien, J. R. R. (Christopher Tolkien, ed.) The Silmarillion (Mariner Books, paperback)
Carpenter, Humphrey, ed. The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (Mariner Books, paperback)
Fonstad, Karen Wynn. The Atlas of Middle-earth (Revised Edition) (Houghton Mifflin, Paperback)
Re double meanings in chapter titles as is hypothesized for The Window on the West: Three’s Company is an obvious pun. It’s both a shortened inversion of the saying “Two’s company, three’s a crowd” and (by changing the contracted “is” to a possessive apostrophe “s”) a reference to the company that Black Riders keep with Frodo, Sam, and Pippen.