Taking It Down: Does ‘Ted Lasso’ Now Suck? Just How Bad Is ‘Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania’?

“The Shots and Scenes of Barry Episode Five and How White House Plumbers Is Hilarious” – Episode 157 – Transcript (Unedited)

Each week, Taking It Down includes an unedited transcript for the podcast episode.

Taking It Down – Episode 158 — “Does Ted Lasso Now Suck? Just How Bad Is Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania?”

Taking It Down – Episode 158 – “Does Ted Lasso Now Suck? Just How Bad Is Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania?”

Blaine:

Hey YouTube people who get the unfiltered, unedited version, you, this is the bonus, you get a special hello and you get to see exactly what we say when I don’t come around and cut things out. So, hi.

Nat:

Did you create YouTube people or U2 people?

Blaine:

YouTube. 

Nat:

U2, YouTube people.

Blaine:

U2, which is the Edge, of course, Adam Clayton,

Blaine:

Larry…

Nat:

Sorry.

Blaine:

We’re here to talk about Ted Lasso to begin. Let’s talk Ted Lasso to begin. Here’s the thing. Adam’s back stateside. Our cohost Adam, he’s back stateside. Our traveling erudite studio musician, he’s back. But the thing is, he’s having some technical difficulties today. He’s not with us. He’s around. He’s not with us. But he sends us a message, he sends Donovan and I a message, I hope he doesn’t mind me telling tales out of school here. And he says, oh god I should pull it up, he says, guys does Ted Lasso suck? Question mark. And that’s where we are today. That’s how we’re beginning. I don’t, I don’t, I don’t know. I watched it last night in the most recent episode and I’m trying to- debated myself and what I was doing was looking at it through the lens of Natalie and Adam especially and thinking they think it kind of sucks. What is it that’s changed or shifted or not up to par? Natalie?

Nat:

Everything. It’s all terrible. Everything has changed.

Nat:

None of it’s up to par.

Blaine:

It still has the same vibe and everything, right? To me, does it? No?

Nat:

But it’s not… Ted Lasso works when the rest of the cast and the rest of the script and the rest of the story works around him. This is not… This is dumb. This is stupid. This

Blaine:

it.

Nat:

is silly.

Blaine:

Okay.

Nat:

This is not

Blaine:

The

Nat:

clever.

Blaine:

one thing I know. Okay. Oh, there’s something we can attach to. It’s not as clever as it was. I think I see that. Is it not working for you because it’s not as centered on Ted Lasso anymore? Because last night’s episode, this week’s episode, I watched it last night. I had almost no Ted lasso. He was at the beginning and then he was at the end.

Nat:

think

Blaine:

And

Nat:

that’s

Blaine:

there’s been

Nat:

it.

Blaine:

a couple of episodes like that.

Nat:

I think it’s just, though, overall it’s just not well written. It’s not well edited.

Blaine:

Mm-hmm.

Nat:

It is

Blaine:

Mm.

Nat:

entirely too predictable. I think I said what, two weeks ago or sometime on the podcast, I said, yeah, Roy and Keely are going to end up back together because that’s how this season is going. A good season would not have done that, at least not this quickly.

Blaine:

Yeah, I think there are three episodes left, two now, two episodes left now, three episodes left and they got back together. The predictability is high, but I’m trying to think that it wasn’t that all kind of signaled in a way that we figured that this is, even in season two, we were like, we think probably Nate’s gonna come back around and be an okay person. We think, I mean, Roy and Keely broke up this season, but we kind of thought that anyway. It’s telling a predictable story, right? I mean, it didn’t.

Nat:

It is, but it’s doing it in such a heavy-handed way that it’s like, give us a job to do as the audience. Like let us figure

Blaine:

Oh, this?

Nat:

it out and get there. Don’t just like throw it all out at us.

Blaine:

I like that. Give us a job to do as an audience. That’s what I appreciate in good art. And you’re saying it’s not. I’m questioning it because I still enjoy it and I still think it’s pretty good, but I think you, maybe even Adam too, if we can speak for him, I hope he doesn’t mind, that you guys don’t even think it’s that good anymore. Whereas I think it’s okay. It’s just, it’s still fine.

Nat:

I think if this season were how the other seasons were, it would be fine.

Blaine:

Mm-hmm.

Nat:

Like I wouldn’t be upset about it. Like this is

Blaine:

Okay.

Nat:

just a show to watch. But the other two seasons were just so good, especially season one. That’s like to see how far it’s fallen is really disappointing.

Donovan:

Yeah, there was a definite dip in quality in two. I’d still like two, but I think I, not having seen three, I think I agree with what you said, Natalie, that it comes down to it can’t just all be Ted. The writing of everyone around him has to be sharp. And it just wasn’t quite as sharp. And, you know, one to two and apparently now three.

Nat:

That 3 is a shit shoe.

Blaine:

Natalie mentioned last time we talked Ted last so it is a deliberate She can deliberately she can blatantly point to the lack of Bill Lawrence

Nat:

For sure.

Blaine:

That can happen. You take away a big show runner, one of the main writers, and you can pinpoint exactly when a show does this or that or veers in one direction. And I think I can see it sometimes. Boy, I wish you guys could have seen me last not watching the show. I was, you know, I had my hands on my chin and I was like, okay, where is it faltering? Where is it dropping the ball? I thought that… One thing that sort of felt like dropping up the ball was the handling of Danny being suddenly

Nat:

Mm-hmm.

Blaine:

cruel for the Mexican game, Mexican Canada game. That felt like something maybe Bill Lawrence wouldn’t have done. Do you want to comment on that at all or was that a plot line you just didn’t care about?

Nat:

I don’t think that’s the most offensive thing they’ve done this season. To me,

Blaine:

Okay.

Nat:

a couple of episodes ago, when they had all their penises tied on a rope, I looked at

Blaine:

That’s

Nat:

Adam and

Blaine:

right.

Nat:

I said, they’ve jumped the shark, this is it. The show is over, the show is dead.

Blaine:

Penises tied together,

Nat:

Donovan, you’ve

Blaine:

yeah.

Nat:

not seen this.

Donovan:

I’m missing a lot. Hahaha.

Blaine:

They were clothed, by the way, it was under

Nat:

But still,

Blaine:

the shorts.

Nat:

like that was a really long bit that we were supposed to find funny. It’s like, you got the wrong, this is, this is what’s his name? Who’s Ted, Jason Sudekis? This is SNL comedy when we had Bill Lawrence comedy, when we had something way better.

Donovan:

That is one of the reasons I never really liked Jason Sudeikis until this, until Ted Lasso, because that’s always his style of

Nat:

Yeah.

Donovan:

comedy. And it’s fine. Like,

Nat:

Right,

Donovan:

it’s just fine.

Nat:

it’s fine. But they set the bar really high, and then

Donovan:

Yeah.

Nat:

they have missed it.

Blaine:

I feel one of the things the show’s doing, maybe too early to say, but there are only two episodes. There are some plot threads that they’ve laid out and just never decided to tie them together or tell us where they’re going to intersect. Do you feel that too?

Nat:

Sorry, I cut out for a second there. I missed your half of what you said.

Blaine:

One of the things the show’s done this season for me is that it’s laid out some plot threads, but it hasn’t decided to pick them up and tie them together or at least hint at where they’re going to intersect. Do you think that’s true too?

Nat:

Yeah, but… I don’t know. I don’t know that. I think they think that they’re doing it. Because it all feels

Blaine:

Mm-hmm.

Nat:

very shallow. Like they’re like, oh, we’ll just mention this in passing and now it’s covered. We don’t have to worry about it.

Blaine:

That’s, I think all Ryder, all Ryder’s rooms think that, where they think, oh, we’ve done this. That’s, I think the worst case scenario in a Ryder’s room is probably they look around and go, this is pretty good, this will work, you know? And it’s just not happening, maybe with Ted Lasso. I’m still thinking it’s okay. I don’t think I’m as detrimental on the season. I’m not a fan of the Barbara character. She, every time she’s on screen, I think to myself, I don’t want to hear what she has to say. I get that she’s a foil for Keely. You’re putting Keely in a new office with brand new people. You need somebody for her to play off of. I just do not give a shit for this Barbara character. She’s very one dimensional. Just to be there as a foil. And I get you need foils. You need somebody to display the characteristics of the other person. But That’s one gripe I definitely have with this season.

Nat:

I don’t have a problem with Barbara because everybody,

Blaine:

No problemo boy.

Nat:

everybody this season is one dimensional. If you just came into season three without any knowledge of season one and two, you would think

Blaine:

Mm-hmm.

Nat:

all of these characters are one dimensional.

Blaine:

I like how Roy’s being done though. I think that this was coming for him. He’s a little softer, he’s a little gentler, he’s getting older. I think that his character’s been played and written well.

Nat:

Yeah, I agree. I think he’s gotten the best treatment, but I think that’s because

Blaine:

Mm-hmm.

Nat:

of who Brett Goldstein is. You know, he’s

Blaine:

That

Nat:

a

Blaine:

might

Nat:

much

Blaine:

be

Nat:

better

Blaine:

it.

Nat:

writer than Jason Sudekis.

Blaine:

That might be it. Yeah, I don’t disagree with that. Brett Goldstein has really shined this season. I think he’s carried this season.

Nat:

except for when he had everybody tie their penises together. And then he just giggled the whole time. That was horrible. That was the worst moment in television this year. I’m saying that in May.

Blaine:

I do love how he doesn’t use a whistle and he just yells whistle.

Nat:

Yeah, that’s funny.

Blaine:

That’s pretty good. One of my favorite bits, I’d be interested to know who wrote it, was Will acting like Coach Beard for just a couple scenes.

Nat:

That was pretty good, dude.

Blaine:

That actually made me laugh, so

Nat:

Yeah.

Blaine:

kudos there. Right now we’ve got everything starting to come in for its landing. Roy and Keely back together. Hannah Waddington’s character. What’s her name?

Nat:

Rebecca?

Blaine:

I just went blind. Rebecca, the owner, Rebecca, she’s refused Rupert’s advances as well as the… Super League, which is a wise choice and did so with a rousing speech. So, just what are they going to do with Ted? He’s, he’s been pushed to the side. A lot of speculation online that he’s going to return to the States and be a father, uh, they’re in person. Um, and that Nate is going to take over Richmond. Is that

Nat:

I think Roy takes

Blaine:

your?

Nat:

over Richmond. Nate gets

Blaine:

Okay.

Nat:

another coaching job. Ted goes and coaches whatever Kansas City’s MLS team is.

Donovan:

Sporting K.C.

Nat:

That’s the one. I knew they had

Blaine:

That’s

Nat:

a dumb

Blaine:

right.

Nat:

name.

Blaine:

Yeah, I can’t stand that name. Worst name in sports if you ask me.

Donovan:

No, I think the worst name in sports is Real Salt Lake, because it makes absolutely no sense.

Blaine:

Say it again, it’s what?

Donovan:

Real Salt Lake, like Royal Salt Lake.

Nat:

Oh, I thought

Blaine:

Oh,

Nat:

it was like…

Blaine:

okay.

Nat:

Is that really what it’s supposed to be?

Donovan:

because it’s like Real Madrid is Royal

Nat:

Right.

Donovan:

Madrid.

Blaine:

mm-hmm

Donovan:

Real Salt Lake. No, no sense.

Blaine:

I’d never heard of them, so

Donovan:

horrible.

Blaine:

maybe I agree. Ted Lasso kinda sucks for Natalie and Adam, and for me, I think it’s okay. Some of this I’m gonna have to wait to see how it plays out. I will make my opinion after episode 12.

Nat:

I will be validated in my opinion after episode

Blaine:

Yeah.

Nat:

12.

Blaine:

I mean, maybe so, especially with, you know, we laid out some… possible predictions and speculations, if that’s what happens to the T, then you’re right it is predictable.

Donovan:

They haven’t done another solo coach beard episode, have they? Because that one was just filler for me last season.

Nat:

Have a good one. Bye.

Blaine:

No. But do you remember what I said about it? That if you, I was behind about three episodes, so

Donovan:

Mm-hmm.

Blaine:

I watched like three in a, about three nights in a row and it didn’t feel as much like filler. If you kind of are sort of binging it,

Donovan:

Okay.

Blaine:

it kind of felt okay. Anyway, no, they haven’t done that, but they have left Ted off to the side. And to me, Ted’s the… I’m interested in Ted, Roy, and Rebecca the most.

Nat:

Were you gonna say

Blaine:

And

Nat:

Ted’s

Blaine:

when they-

Nat:

the main character in a show called Ted Lasso?

Blaine:

No, I was just

Nat:

Yeah.

Blaine:

trying to figure out who I’m most interested in. It’s Ted, Roy, and Rebecca, no doubt. Jamie Tartt to a good degree. Okay, those are our thoughts, brief thoughts on some Ted Lasso stuff. We’ll come, we’ll probably have to come back around to it because I think we want to see where, how it, how it ends completely. And if this seems like it is the end. We’ll say hello to our host. We say hello a little later in the show. Here they are though. We’ve got with us as always, this guy just bought a goddamn house. It’s Donovan Reinwald, homeowner.

Donovan:

terrifying to be here, Blaine.

Nat:

Yeah!

Blaine:

terrifying to own a house. And also with us, you’ve heard a lot from her. She hates everything about this podcast.

Nat:

Today I do.

Blaine:

It’s it’s miss Natalie Morrow. We are going to take a quick little break and come back and talk some Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Again, our YouTube people, they get a little surprise here. Anybody y’all wanna shout out on the video feed?

Donovan:

Who’s watching?

Blaine:

No one.

Nat:

Jeff, is Jeff watching?

Donovan:

Jeff!

Blaine:

No one watches

Donovan:

Let’s

Blaine:

the

Donovan:

shout

Blaine:

YouTube

Donovan:

out Jeff

Blaine:

feed.

Donovan:

then.

Blaine:

Anyway. We’re back into it, it’s Ant-Man and the Wasp, directed by Peyton Reed, one of the MCU’s most recent entries. Just landed on streaming. We’ve sort of transitioned this podcast into TV and streaming only. So that’s why we’re covering Ant-Man and the Wasp today. I have a lot to say about this movie.

Donovan:

Hahaha

Blaine:

None of it’s good. None of what I’m gonna say. Uh, where should we start? Just kind of in chronological order of the movie?

Nat:

Let’s start with the name

Blaine:

Ish.

Nat:

of the movie.

Blaine:

Okay, go ahead.

Nat:

It’s horrible.

Blaine:

I

Nat:

I’ve

Blaine:

don’t

Nat:

been

Blaine:

even like

Nat:

calling

Blaine:

it.

Nat:

this movie The Quantum Menace for years, and I can’t stop, because that would be a better name than Quantumania.

Blaine:

It is pretty dumb quantum mania, like a lot of quantum. Is that what you’re?

Donovan:

Right at the beginning it sounds like it’s promising something it can in no way deliver on and no way has any desire to deliver on.

Blaine:

Donovan you haven’t seen it and you’re gonna love this.

Donovan:

Haven’t seen it, just seen trailers.

Blaine:

You’re

Nat:

You’re definitely

Blaine:

gonna

Donovan:

Red reviews.

Blaine:

love

Nat:

going to want

Blaine:

what we-

Nat:

to see it after we talk about it.

Blaine:

Uh, Natalie sends me a text around Wednesday or Thursday and says, yeah, it’s as bad as, as they say. And it is boy oh boy the first thing I noticed was there were some poor directing choices via edits in those first 10 minutes when they’re trying to establish like Ant-Man’s back in San Francisco and things are kind of back to normal the cuts were entirely too fast it’s almost as if they filmed it for A reaction shot from one of the actors and then you didn’t even get it. It’s like they were about to do a face and then boom you’re done. I thought that was… it felt cheap or like a rookie director or something.

Nat:

That didn’t bother me as much, but what immediately took me out I mean, just complete disbelief is that Cassie would call them grandma and grandpa. She does not

Blaine:

Cassie’s just gonna call him Grandma and Grandpa. Totally unrelated to these people.

Nat:

Just hasn’t known them long enough.

Blaine:

seems weird. I haven’t seen a movie in the last 10 or 15 years that looked as bad as this one did other than maybe like a DC movie

Donovan:

Heh.

Blaine:

that I’ve been lucky enough to forget. It’s easy for me to compare this movie to some recent Star Wars entries and when I do that I can conclude whoever works on Star Wars and plans and develops what the aliens look like is much more adept or puts much more thought into it than what this one gave us. It was… it seems so rushed. Like, I don’t know, we’ll just make this alien look like a blob.

Nat:

Okay, sorry.

Blaine:

Did we? Oh, okay.

Nat:

Sorry, I don’t know what’s going on, but I lost you in my headphones for a second.

Blaine:

Okay. Are you with us?

Nat:

I am, my picture is frozen, but…

Blaine:

We’ll just, what’s the last thing you heard me say?

Nat:

Star Wars.

Donovan:

Ha ha.

Blaine:

Mmm. Okay. Okay, what I was saying was… It’s really easy and obvious for me to compare this movie to any of the recent Star Wars entries. And I think that in so doing, anyone can tell or conclude that whoever works on Star Wars stuff has more time and more sense in developing what aliens should look like and is more adept at doing that than what’s here.

Nat:

I mean, to me it looked like they just got the same people that were doing like all the background design for the Star Wars shows. Or just maybe it’s all Disney now, so maybe they just stole some backgrounds and threw it into this movie and maybe just changed the color palette. I mean, they were essentially storm troopers just with different helmets on.

Blaine:

Yeah. Yes, the blue

Nat:

Yeah.

Blaine:

helmeted guys were definitely in the same vein. Just those quantum people, aliens slash people who were like a tribe of people. They were just members of them that were just blobs. It’s like they just gave up.

Nat:

Yeah.

Blaine:

Just a blob. Just be a blob. Just put us a blob in the CGI. In its theatrical run, all critics made sure to mention that Janet should’ve or would’ve told her family about Kang or some of the specifics of the world. But boy this movie insists upon making that point for us. I counted at least three, if not four, times where she says, oh I just didn’t have time to tell you, or I just didn’t want to tell you this. It’s almost like they knew they had to patch that up.

Nat:

Yeah, I mean they, yeah. There were so many. They expect us to believe- okay, going back to the Cassie calling them grandma grandpa thing. If we’re expected to believe that they have a relationship- then, but there are no connections being made between these people other than it’s grandma, grandpa. Half of them know that she’s really smart. The other half have no idea what’s going on in their basement. Like, are they not talking to one another? They just went through a massive world, half the world is dead situation and they’re not talking?

Blaine:

It didn’t make sense in huge swaths of the movie.

Nat:

Can I also have one more

Blaine:

What

Nat:

random beef? I’m sorry, I have so many beefs

Donovan:

Hahaha

Nat:

with this

Blaine:

No,

Nat:

movie.

Blaine:

dude, this is all about, we’re just laying it out.

Nat:

I obviously watched this movie by myself. Wasn’t gonna subject Adam to it because I knew going in it wasn’t gonna be good. So I’m sitting on the couch watching this movie and within two seconds of them going into the quantum realm, they’ve already talked about, oh, this is a way into the quantum realm or to communicate with the quantum realm. They fall into it,

Blaine:

Mm-hmm.

Nat:

they hit the ground. First thing Cassie says is where are we? And I said, you dumb bitch, you’re in the

Donovan:

I’m

Nat:

quantum

Donovan:

back there, you

Nat:

realm.

Donovan:

can have it. Hahaha.

Blaine:

Shout out Johnny Bananas there. This movie, this was the dumbest point of the movie. And I’m a fan of this kind of thing when it’s done well, but this movie really wanted to equate homeless people to the quantum beings tribe.

Nat:

Mm-hmm.

Blaine:

You know, the whole look out for the little guy. And then you even, and I swear to you Donovan, this is true,

Donovan:

TCH

Blaine:

Michael Douglas even mentions socialism at one point.

Nat:

Is his character just doing, like, just sleeping with ants? Is he just having sex with ants? I mean…

Donovan:

Hahahaha

Nat:

How many times did

Donovan:

Hahaha

Nat:

he say, I just like ants? Where are the ants? I need some

Blaine:

Yeah.

Nat:

more ants. Are there ants here?

Donovan:

This is getting to like great gonzo levels of like, hmm.

Blaine:

It’s not even so bad that it’s funny. It’s just bad.

Nat:

it’s

Blaine:

One of the, the honest, I talk about that whole trying to equate homeless people with the quantum people and saving them or not overlooking the little guy. That’s just, they’re trying to stitch that together. It’s bad, but the worst, worst thing I’ve ever seen in a Marvel movie, oh God, it really tried to do Modoc.

Nat:

Oh my gosh, it was so bad.

Donovan:

Huh.

Blaine:

I felt so sorry for so many actors in this movie, Bill Murray in particular, but maybe none more than Corey Stoll, who’s a pretty good actor. He’s not a bad actor. But I thought for the longest when this movie was in its theatrical run that when pictures of Corey Stoll as Modoc, I always thought it was a Photoshop joke.

Nat:

I did too.

Blaine:

I thought that’s a joke. They’re just saying this movie’s bad and they’re just using that as a joke.

Nat:

Yeah, I thought the same thing.

Blaine:

Donovan, his character, as Modoc says…

Donovan:

Mm-hmm.

Blaine:

It’s never too late to stop being a dick as he kinda sorta saves the day at the end. And he says, he says, stop, I’m gonna stop being a dick. He says that twice.

Donovan:

Doesn’t

Nat:

Well,

Donovan:

Modok

Blaine:

It’s.

Nat:

he got the

Donovan:

stand

Nat:

good pep

Donovan:

for

Nat:

stock.

Donovan:

machine organism designed only to kill? That seems like it’s

Blaine:

Oh,

Donovan:

out

Blaine:

and

Donovan:

of

Blaine:

that’s

Donovan:

canon.

Blaine:

a point of reference.

Nat:

Several.

Blaine:

That’s a point of reference.

Donovan:

Cool.

Blaine:

They milk the modok character for everything they can and let me tell you something there’s not a lot in that utter to begin with It the modok thing was If he would have been Visible once quick little joke gotten rid of maybe it could have worked but

Nat:

They should have never lifted the helmet.

Blaine:

Never

Nat:

Why did they do that?

Blaine:

It was. Bad is the only… there’s gotta be a better word than bad. It was… hilariously stupid.

Nat:

embarrassing.

Donovan:

Would you even

Blaine:

Did

Donovan:

call

Blaine:

you notice?

Donovan:

it inept? Like it just never, like everyone

Blaine:

Yeah,

Donovan:

working

Blaine:

it was totally

Donovan:

on it? Yeah,

Blaine:

inept. It

Donovan:

like had no

Blaine:

just

Donovan:

clue.

Blaine:

all felt rushed. It all felt rushed and like, we gotta do this. We gotta film this. I couldn’t care less about the tribal lady quantum leader. She was in the Mandalorian. She’s the lady who’s kind of doing the torturing. She’s still kind of involved with the Empire. Remember her?

Nat:

Short hair girl? Yeah,

Blaine:

Mm-hmm.

Nat:

yeah.

Blaine:

Yeah, she’s she’s barely even a device much less a character in this movie

Nat:

Can we talk about how terrible… This is, we’re talking about a movie that stars Paul Rudd, the most charismatic person, actor, whatever. And yet somehow he and Evangeline Lilly, that’s her name, right, have zero chemistry.

Blaine:

That is your name.

Nat:

How do you not have chemistry with Paul Rudd?

Donovan:

Hahaha

Blaine:

Yeah, I never believe they love each other.

Nat:

No!

Blaine:

I never have.

Donovan:

They didn’t have a lot of chemistry in their previous movies

Nat:

It’s

Donovan:

either.

Nat:

worse now.

Blaine:

Yeah, it is worse. It is. And also, I’ll say speaking of acting, even either the actors weren’t giving a good performance, and we can speculate on why that could be directing there. Or Jonathan Majors is just that much better of an actor.

Nat:

I think it’s

Blaine:

I know

Nat:

two

Blaine:

he’s

Nat:

things,

Blaine:

got his

Nat:

yeah.

Blaine:

I know he’s I know he’s got his controversy, you know, I get that but I’m just talking about what’s on the screen. Once he was on the screen, I was just Instantly more engaged the movie almost has something when Kang first meets Janet in a flashback And when Kang threatens Lang when he’s got both him and Cassie jailed it’s almost got something there

Nat:

I wonder if that’s

Blaine:

but

Nat:

like

Blaine:

because

Nat:

a generational thing of younger actors or at least newer actors are coming on just by the nature of the industry with more green screen experience. Whereas older actors

Blaine:

Hmm.

Nat:

don’t have it and are struggling in those kinds of worlds. And this movie is 100% green screen.

Donovan:

That is a very interesting thing to think about. I have to think on that one. That’s so good. That’s an interesting observation.

Blaine:

His performance, especially early in the movie when he first appears as Kang is so good. I don’t know that I’ve seen a comic book movie performance as interesting as what he’s doing. And at times subtle, at times not that subtle, but also not overdone. It’s not overcooked. It’s good. The premise though that Kang can do, I guess seemingly anything. But really all he wants is for Ant-Man to retrieve his own little mother box? I- you know, I don’t know if that premise holds- holds water. It’s too dangerous for him to go down there and get it? I don’t-

Nat:

I don’t think he would have a way to… He could probably go down there, but he wouldn’t have a way to get it back to the size that it needed to be or whatever. He needed their PIM particle

Blaine:

Oh,

Nat:

technology.

Blaine:

I’ll come, I’ll come. The one part that could have worked, and I thought the movie was going to do this with the trailers, was Scott wanting to ensure his daughter is safe. And again, that’s Majors who’s selling that, because he’s really the dangerous

Nat:

Mm-hmm.

Blaine:

person here. But they just kind of drop that too, don’t they?

Nat:

I dropped everything. Nothing is consistent in this, maybe.

Blaine:

By the way, Donovan Kang can be defeated because the ants lived 1000 years in a day.

Nat:

Yeah.

Donovan:

What?

Blaine:

That’s what happened. Yeah, exactly. That was my reaction too.

Donovan:

What?

Blaine:

The

Donovan:

What the?

Blaine:

ants got sucked down into the quantum level and for them, one day is a thousand years. So they’re really smart now. And they can attack Kang.

Donovan:

Huh.

Blaine:

Mm-hmm.

Donovan:

Hmm. Gonna have to

Blaine:

Exactly.

Donovan:

pray over that one. That sounds really stupid.

Blaine:

Donovan you probably can comment on this as well as Natalie and I. Marvel’s strengths are becoming its detriment. They can create as much as they want because of money but

Donovan:

Mm-hmm.

Blaine:

that’s saturated and dulled the interest. They can do multiverse stories but this movie is not just confusing but also inane. Like this is a variant of Kang and not the same Kang that the Loki person, which was horribly explained. They can bring back characters because they can afford the actors again, but yet they do so with Darren becoming Modoc. Darren from the original Ant-Man. And they keep calling him Darren too, by the way. They keep saying Darren, it’s really you. Compare this one to that second Ant-Man. That second Ant-Man’s kind of breezy and funny and fun and I don’t know, liked. And this is just a sad turn for this particular Ant-Man franchise.

Nat:

What are they gonna do with this multiverse story? I don’t understand what, I feel like we’ve had three movies now that have dealt with the multiverse and all three of them have had different explanations about what’s happening to the multiverse and nothing’s connected and I don’t know why they’re doing this.

Donovan:

I don’t think they know. Ha ha ha.

Blaine:

Yeah,

Nat:

They need the

Blaine:

it

Nat:

Russo

Blaine:

was a major

Nat:

Brothers

Blaine:

worry

Nat:

back.

Blaine:

of mine. When they said that they were doing a lot of multiverse stuff, I just thought that is too confusing to be engaging. And it requires too much explanation. It requires too much exposition to get away with that kind of… It’s just hard to do. You know, everything, everywhere all at once, manage to do it. It’s rare to get it done well.

Donovan:

I think that drawing from the comic side of things, and I haven’t read every comic everywhere, but the multiverse thing seems to mainly be, like the attraction of it is that they can do one of those what-if stories, right? Like they used to do in the

Blaine:

Mm-hmm.

Donovan:

comics.

Blaine:

Mm-hmm.

Donovan:

The thing about those what-if stories is they were usually one issue.

Blaine:

Mm-hmm.

Donovan:

They didn’t take down, both Marvel and DC have done multiverse stuff, but I think like what Marvel’s trying to do is like, it’s fun, but it’s one issue, it doesn’t take over the whole series.

Blaine:

Yeah, I think they wanted to do it in Marvel Cinematic Universe to do the things like they did with Spider-Man with having Andrew Garfield and

Donovan:

Mm-hmm.

Blaine:

Tobey Maguire. And it worked there, kind of. But it worked as far as getting those three characters on screen and having some fun and, you know, smiling about those three guys getting to play off each other as Spider-Men. It’s not working as a storyline, though. It’s just… It would take a certain kind of routing that’s not happening, I think.

Nat:

Yeah, it’s bad. They can’t do it.

Donovan:

I mean,

Nat:

They can’t

Donovan:

you do

Nat:

do

Donovan:

get

Nat:

it.

Donovan:

that kind of writing where it’s like, you know, I do think that one of the strengths of this, all the Marvel movies is that they’re pretty like consistent and that you know pretty much what you’re going to get when you sit down and watch one, but also they fall prey to this sort of bland uniformity where it seems like everything is done by a formula and it’s like, we have a joke here because we have to have a joke here. We always have a joke here.

Blaine:

That was 100% quantum mania. That they did nothing to step away from the formula at all. And it was very predictable as well. We talked about Ted Lasso being predictable this season. This movie was, you could have given me the first 20 minutes and I could have told you everything that could happen.

Donovan:

Could you have predicted the ants?

Nat:

You didn’t predict the ants.

Blaine:

to

Nat:

Hey. Yeah.

Blaine:

a degree I think. They’ve got it.

Donovan:

Hahahaha

Blaine:

They’ve got it coming to play somehow.

Donovan:

I mean, that’s true, I’m just not sure I could’ve predicted that reason.

Blaine:

Yeah.

Nat:

I kind of miss in movies where there used to be like a bit of a preamble before the action started, where you kind of, you know, dive into the lives of your characters, see what’s going on, not two and a half

Blaine:

Mm-hmm.

Nat:

minutes of, hey, guess what, Cassie’s a genius. And now we’re in the

Blaine:

Mm-hmm.

Nat:

multiverse, like, or in the quantum realm, wherever we are. It’s like, give me something to invest in

Blaine:

Mm-hmm.

Nat:

before we just jump into this ridiculous action.

Blaine:

They were so rushed and poorly edited

Nat:

Yeah.

Blaine:

in those first

Nat:

Yeah.

Blaine:

15 minutes. So badly edited because they were trying to rush it. I would like to see what some of those scenes ended up being on the cutting room floor because there’s at least a few of the actors’ reaction shots. Oh man. Anyway, we had, I don’t know why we do this to ourselves, but there you go. It was on streaming. We picked it up. Speaking of streaming, I think the next thing we’re covering is… HBO Max? Bama Rush?

Nat:

Hell yeah.

Donovan:

Oh man, I can’t wait.

Blaine:

I can’t wait. We’re going to try our best to squeeze that one in before some of us take vacation. And that’s the end of our episode this week. So if you are not a subscriber, follow us on Apple Podcast or Spotify or Stitcher, wherever you get your podcast. And what we’ll do is we’ll talk to you next Tuesday. See everyone later.