The Two Towers opens with Gandalf falling down into the pit with the Balrog. The crazy guy turns out to be not so worthless after all when he kills the thing on the way down. Finally, he lands at the bottom and find a bottle labeled "Drink Me."
No, sorry, that's part of the summary of Alice in Wonderland. He ends up sort of dead, then comes back as Gandalf the White. This teaches kids an important lesson: if you fall off a cliff, you turn into a cooler version of yourself. Why don't you try it right now? I'll wait.
Meanwhile, the captives Merry and Pippin were being carried to Isengard by the Uruk-hai. However, the Uruk-hai were ambushed by the Rohirrim, which are apparent so important they get their own plural form. The riders kill all the orcs (for being orcs) and burn their corpses, because digging graves is hard work and not nearly as fun. Somehow, Merry and Pippin's brains start functioning and they escape during the battle.
Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli ran into the Riders of Rohan, who thought about killing the three but decided not to. The riders, led by Éomer, take the three to the smoldering pile of corpses, where it appears Merry and Pippin are dead, which they aren't. The two hobbits actually wandered off into the woods, where they met an Ent named Treebeard.
As the two hobbits are hanging out with the walking tree, Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas get notion the hobbits are still alive and wander into Fangorn forest looking for them. The three run into Gandalf, who is now Gandalf the White. He explains to them how he came back: "a Wizard did it." He tells them Merry and Pippin were probably already eaten by the Ents and that they need to go to Rohan.
At Rohan, the maiden Éowyn suspects Grima Wormtounge, advisor to Théoden king, is up to something, and indeed he is. Grima, for the longest time, has brainwashed the king by inserting backwards messages into his music until he began to believe three things: Saruman is good, Gandalf is bad, and Paul is dead. The first two fact don't bother him, but the thought of his favorite Beatle being dead sends him into a nearly comatose depression.
Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, and Gandalf make their way into the Hall of Théoden, after being strip-searched by the guards to make sure they weren't terrorists and having to leave all metal objects in a basket outside. Once inside, Gandalf heard the king mumbling "I bury Paul" over and over again. Gandalf tried to explain that Paul wasn't dead, but Grima kept pointing out the "clues" on the cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (a translation of the Elvish name Sergeant Peppero eressëar óri nossë lindalemo.) Finally, Gandalf resorted to the tried and true method of knocking people senseless, this time Saruman from hundreds of miles away, bringing Théoden back to his senses.
Théoden knows an attack on Rohan is imminent, so he decides to take all the people of Rohan and, in a brilliant display of strategy, move them into a fortress called Helm's Deep that would be impossible to escape from during battle. The Rohirrim and the four former Fellowship members walk toward Helm's Deep. Here, for whatever reason, the movie makes it appear the shieldmaiden Éowyn loves Aragorn. (In the book, she loves Glorfindel.)
Meanwhile, Treebeard summons the other Ents and begins a thing called Entmoot. The first two days are taken up by the Ents agreeing Entmoot would be an excellent name for a rock band. It takes them nearly forever, but the Ents vote to go to war against Saruman.
At Helm's Deep, reinforcements arrive from the Elves, in the form of archers from Lothlórien led by Glorfindel. A huge battle ensues, and a bunch of stuff gets blown up. Eventually, though, the Rohirrim emerge victorious.
The Ents, on the other hand, attack Isengard and utterly annihilate Saruman's forces, teaching the recurring moral that trees are dangerous things to be feared and respected, and all must love them and despair.
And that wraps up our summary of the Two Towers... Wait, I think Sam and Frodo were in there somewhere...
Frodo and Sam made their way to Mordor, but somehow managed to get lost and ambushed by Sméagol/Gollum, the schizophrenic creature that wants the Ring, which he calls "My Precious." Sam wants to kill him, but Frodo decides to enslave Gollum and force him to show them the way to Mordor.
Gollum leads the two the Black Gate, where they see an oliphaunt, which Sam is really excited about. This may not be an important detail, but I like writing it, because oliphaunt is a cool word. There, the two hobbits manage to get captured by Captain Faramir.
In the book, he doesn't want the Ring and pretty much lets them go. In the movie, Faramir plans to take the two hobbits, and the Ring, back to Minas Tirith. However, a Nazgûl attacks, and it wants the Ring. It splashes red paint all over Frodo and tries to get the Ring from him, screaming "Kaili! Kaili!" Frodo tries to remove the Ring from around his neck and give it to the Ringwraith, but he can't get the chain back over his head. However, he manages to escape somehow.
They find Gollum, who has a good explanation for what's happened so far :"a Wizard did it, yes they did." The second movie ends with Gollum planning to take the hobbits to the lair of Shelob, but the book continues. Gollum does lead the two hobbits to Shelob. Frodo, in his heroism, gets caught and a web spun around him. Sam, in desperation, uses the first thing he could grab, the Light in a Jar that Galadriel gave Frodo. Since that did nothing but hurt the spider's eyes, he stabs her in the stomach with Sting and she runs off. Guessing that Frodo is dead, he takes the Ring and sets off from Mount Doom on his own.
Discussion Question
What happened to that guy from The Hobbit that could turn into a bear? You never hear about him anymore.