From Shogun to Shadows: Our Top Picks of 2024 Revealed

Hey, welcome to Taking it down.

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Actually, more than us involved with that, it just hit me that today, if you're listening on Tuesday, some of you do.

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To whatever holiday you celebrate, that's great and we hope it's a good one.

Today on the podcast, I'm going to be asking the two hosts about what brought them pleasure in 2024.

TV shows.

Of course, that's our forte, but we will stretch the boundaries of the show just a little.

I'll ask them what things they found delight in this year with books and things.

Movies, of course.

And then still in the non spoiler section, we will be talking about what we do in the Shadows.

Its finale.

It ended it.

The sixth season ended and that's the end of the show.

Then the spoiler section.

Donovan and I will talk about what we thought about the series kind of as a whole and the series finale and what it did, what we liked, what we didn't like, if it worked, if it did not work.

We also get into a little of fan culture, fans wanting to write the show as part of what we do on in the Shadows Talk in the spoiler side of things.

Again, if you're new, we do non spoiler talk.

Then we do a break and then from there we'll do spoiler talk in case you haven't caught up on the show or you want to save it for later.

And again, if you're listening on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, have a great one.

I hope you get what you want.

Hope you're able to get your kids what you want.

If you need anything, let us know.

And if we can help, we will try.

Okay, get in the show.

Projection.

Welcome, Adam and Donovan.

Thanks for spending some of your day with me.

And gentlemen, this is our last episode of the year.

We'll be off next week so that a couple of us can gather in person.

So I want to give you both a chance to tell me your favorite moments from 2024, which Adam will hate because he sees New Year's Eve as arbitrary time for any list Making, resolving or reflecting.

He does it on a morning by morning basis.

He updates his best of the year.

Every day at 9:30am over coffee, sometimes a cig.

You guys are on the email list.

You get it?

Yeah, yeah.

Let's start with our forte.

It's television.

Now, I.

My list will go up on the website, the Alabama Take site this week.

Sometimes you tell me what was your favorite show or even episode of television or something about TV or streaming you enjoyed in 2024.

I think attentive listeners will not be surprised at my answers, possibly everyone's answers.

Is it going to be that you are going to commit seppuku here live?

What a staff meeting.

Did you guys see, I want to break away briefly that Joe Burrow gave his offensive line authentic, like katanas or some sort of sword.

Yes.

And they were all like had stories of where they'd been used and all of this stuff and.

But he has been hit so many times this year.

I mean, he's had the best season in the NFL as a quarterback, yet is just getting pummeled and they're not a very good football team.

So reading between the lines, I think he watched Shogun.

Yeah, he did.

You know, the honorable thing to do.

That's exactly what's going on.

No, number one show for all of me for, for the year for me was Shogun.

Best episode being the last one because they just threaded the needle so well with it.

Great finale or season?

Finale.

I thought very, very technically started came in this year, which would be the end of Fargo Season 5.

It did not air until January of this year.

And I thought they threaded the needle on that ending very, very well too.

Started in December and then ended in January this year.

There you go.

I mean, I think we're all going to share Shogun, right?

But I'll tack on say nothing.

Oh, of course.

As a favorite for me, those two are just head and shoulders above everything else.

And I know me and Donovan were discussing right before we started our tendency towards recency bias, but I think obviously Shogun was from early this year and say nothing's going to hold up, I would have to think it's a bookended year of television there.

Yeah, Shogun was one of those shows where I kind of can't believe it exists and it worked like, it looks great.

It's well acted, it's got real, you know, real heart.

It's funny.

We love the engine.

We got some mileage out of that.

Yeah.

I'll give my most improved award to House of the Dragon.

This year too, they had one.

Their dragon battle episode absolutely thrilled me to the core.

And I found the rest of it much more interesting than the first season.

I could see that.

Probably not hard, right?

Like you have two dragons fight each other.

It's like take my money.

Yet a lot of people would say that not a lot happened this season.

I'm okay with what happened because I felt.

I felt like it had more happen than the.

The first season was just some.

So much setup.

I was okay with this one.

Talk about staff meetings.

Let's rank the bosses of this year from best to worst.

Best is of course from Shogun.

But you know, Matt Smith in as as Damian in House of the Dragon makes a really good argument for worst boss.

Well, I do enjoy.

He truly frustrated the general population who wanted like a Game of Thrones thing because they're, you know, he dabbled in crazy and then went a little bit further but didn't go like far enough to be truly off the rails entertaining yet and just there was no resolution.

They were not interested in offering anything in the way of a bookmark on that.

If you're not in the mood to see Matt Smith wander bare ass naked around a giant castle, then the show's not for you.

Why do you even pay for HBO if you're not in any?

For that you're flushing your dollars away.

I'm picturing a 76 year old woman with a checkbook writing her check to her HBO subscription and then in the four line Matt Smith.

But it's a really long explanation.

Maybe like a little heart or smiley face next to it too.

Let's switch to movies.

Seems like we.

When I say we I mean the country still aren't back in theaters like we were pre pandemic times.

That's probably an obvious statement.

I know we.

I know I have it.

But for me personally it's as much a result of familial life.

The fact is we haven't seen a lot of releases from 2024.

Me less so.

With the exception of those that have hit streaming.

We've watched those.

Do you have any favorites that with those qualifications in place and I think Adam might have snuck to the theater a few times and Donovan did too.

In the way that we started with Shogun.

Talking television.

Dune was great.

Dune is a movie.

A theater going experience was excellent.

I don't know that it was my favorite movie that came out this year, but I.

We're some months removed and I feel safe saying that I will remember that evening going to see that in the way that I remember, like a flashback, 10 years interstellar, that sort of thing, just as a really strong.

Like an event, a spectacle.

And then the other stuff that I saw in the theater, I saw the.

There were standouts, make me look at movies in a new way or really teach me anything new.

But the new Alien movie was pretty good.

It was pretty fun.

And then I think in terms of pure joy and surprise and something that I have become an evangelist for, the kneecap movie.

It's on Netflix now.

But as a theater experience, that was also very fun to hear.

You know, the thing that you don't think about with going to the theater a lot of the time is the sound.

Like how.

I mean, obviously we know the sound, the louder it is.

It's fun.

Everybody talked about that with Oppenheimer, all that stuff.

But the sound of listening to kneecap music played at a blisteringly loud volume with a very fun color palette on screen was just a good time.

It helped that I was the only one in the theater in Florence, Alabama that day.

But yeah, those were fun theater experiences.

I've yet to see it, being the commoner that I am.

But will Nosferatu be my favorite of the year?

I don't know.

Reviews on that seem so split with people I respect, like being all in or saying it was kind of boring.

So I feel like it's gonna be a, hey, you gotta watch it for yourself movie.

Things that are accused of being boring, usually that's like a selling point to me.

Great.

Didn't come.

It came out in the US this year.

So I'll say probably my best theater going experience was early this year.

I went to see Godzilla minus one, and it was actually great.

It was.

I'm so glad I saw it in theaters.

It's an interesting story.

Really kind of fascinating to see them really explicitly linking stuff like the firebombing of Tokyo and Godzilla attacking later and all these kind of guys who are left over from the war and have various wounds having to do what they basically said they'd never do again.

I thought that was a great movie.

I didn't manage to see it in theaters, but it's very funny to try to keep track of what's happening in the Godzilla expanded universe, because there's one that came out recently that was truly terrible.

Right.

And so I kept getting that confused with this one, getting buzzed about.

Fortunately, didn't watch the wrong one.

I'm with you if that was a great time.

They made it for like 15 million bucks.

Too, which is just, oh, wow.

In the Marvel.

Or like, other worlds where it's sometimes, like, you can tell they threw gobs of money at whatever action scene and it looks terrible.

To just have something be made so smartly and look so good is incredible.

Sometimes you hear that there were budget restraints, and so they do things like, you don't see the monster.

You don't.

They use tension instead of spectacle, all that kind of thing that.

It didn't come off that way.

No.

There's tension and then there's big payoffs, too.

Another one not coming out that did not come out this year, but that was more readily available this year that I was surprised and delighted by was hundreds of beavers.

Yeah, I'm an evangelist for that.

They got some air down here.

More.

More widely available.

That was the hardest.

I watched it with friends, which is, you know, when you're younger, you watch movies with friends all the time.

And this was, like, the only time that I had people over to my house to watch a film this year.

And it was.

Someone was laughing, I think every eight seconds.

This is a dense, dense joke ratio.

That movie is so funny because, like, it knows 100 what it is.

It is.

You know, we kind of had this discussion the other day, right?

Like, Adam, I think you said, like, a lot of success when you're.

When you're an artist really comes from, like, kind of having a clear idea of, like, who you're making this for.

Yeah.

This was.

This was off.

Off recording.

Yes.

We were talking about this and this.

Clearly, this is one of those ones where it's like, well, you were either had me specifically in mind when you were making this, or you made it for nobody but your, you know, your own crazy self.

No Gladiator 2.

Shout out from either of you.

I still haven't been.

Oh, I thought you both went.

Sorry, that's in my plans.

And I don't know that it would crack this list, but I do want to see it in theaters because, I mean.

Yeah, yeah.

The first one, I mean, I would pay full price just to go see the opening battle of the first Gladiator on the big screen again.

Oh, hell, yeah.

Yeah, I've yet to see it, too.

My best movie of the year is, you guessed it, Ant man and the Wasp.

Quantumania once again takes the title.

Spent three years in a row.

I know.

Maybe you'll finally stop texting us about it.

No, but of the few films I did see this year, and I could talk about them being good, happening at home, my old Ass, I think, would take the title.

That's.

I think I was.

I was hoping to either set you up or you to.

Yeah, to bring that up, because that, man, that was.

Is in my top five or whatever for the year.

Yeah, for sure.

So as few of movies as I watched that came out this year, that was my favorite.

I would put.

I saw the TV glow pretty high simply because it just captivated me.

Made me think.

But again, movies don't tend to be my forte unless they are streaming, so.

And we do cover an occasional streaming movie here.

I've got plans to go see Nosferatu and the Dylan movie.

I almost said don't look back, but that was his documentary, Don't Look Back in Anger.

Or that one.

That.

That's the Oasis movie starring Dylan.

There we go.

He plays both galleries.

Yeah, that would be great.

All right, a little more on.

On the year 2000, 2024.

Does anyone remember when Conan O'Brien used to do the year 2000?

Yeah.

That's where we are, gentlemen.

All right, I'll open the floor to anything this podcast doesn't usually cover.

We'll just open it up.

A book, an album, concert, even.

Just a moment you'll look back on for years and years, or you just enjoyed.

Man, this is definitely Recency Bias.

But seeing Rocket and Ride a couple weeks ago, like the band.

Yeah.

Brides kick off for their North American tour in Hartford.

Not a little place right above New Haven.

Not even.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

Camden Town called Hamden.

It was great.

It was so fun.

This is not Recency Bias.

The Magnetic Fields were doing the entirety of their 69 love songs.

Oh, yeah.

Cut across two nights.

So Beth and I went to a night of that, and that was very fun.

You know, they gathered everybody, like, who was still alive basically, to do their original parts, and it was.

That was really fun.

And those are two almost completely different experiences, as you can imagine.

Donovan, did you see Dinosaur junior This year?

Or was that late last year?

Yeah, that was last year.

That was.

Man, that was amazing.

That made a previous year's best of.

Yeah, okay, okay, Sorry.

I'll pair it.

Donovan.

And say I saw Slow Dive in May in Birmingham, and it was like a perfect late spring evening in Alabama, and the sun was going down and Slowdive was playing, and I think that was pretty much the mountaintop as far as live music experiences for me this year.

They had Drab Majesty open who were very, very good and made me think, I need to design my life in such a way that I can play A jazz chorus amp at this blistering volume because that looks very fun.

But that was a great show.

This is always one of the more challenging podcasts that we do every year because I have no sense of time.

Agreed.

Like the.

To see bands, you know, Slow Dive was touring a record that came out somehow the year before, you know, and it just all like gets jumbled in my head and maybe because we watch so much that's streaming that, you know, like I remember I went to see Dune and it was this kind of night and you know, but like when you just watch it in your house, it's kind of like, when am I.

Uh huh.

Yeah.

It could be any day.

That's fair.

Now, one thing that I do remember, the one moment that I want to throw out there that I enjoyed very, very much, we were texting about how unsatisfying this year of college football was.

Yeah.

Especially the first round.

But all of that to say it was worth it for the Michigan Ohio State fight.

So I would like to tip my hat to that moment at this point.

I think that fight was great, number one.

And number two, that it kept spontaneously happening throughout that day as people were planting flags or in the sun, Devil's case, planting a pitchfork in the middle of their rivals fields.

The kids have the bug.

The Alabama Shakes reunited 2024.

We didn't see that coming, but Adam literally saw it with his own eyes.

It's true.

There's a moment for people to consider, but there were a lot of people that we know there and who could tell us a little about that.

My comment on all of that is God bless Bo Hicks.

Yeah, like.

Like the last guy in Tuscaloosa even trying to do anything.

And like, if not for him, right.

I mean, God bless Bo Hicks, last.

Man standing in that kind of doing.

Great, doing great stuff.

Certain things are just kind of undeniable.

You know, we talk about what.

Where art derives its power from.

And it was.

It was cool to see people that I have.

I've spent a lot of time around in and all of them a little bit.

Brittany least of all.

But like, you know, it was when you put certain people together, certain things happen.

And it happened again this week and it was cool to see.

And it was, you know, for a band that was in my mind already pretty huge and on the cusp of like, if they played their cards right for the next two records, who knows what kind of level they could be at to reunite for Bow in Tuscaloosa of all places.

Like the.

I think I told y'all the schedule for the evening was like written in sloppy handwriting on a sheet of notebook paper.

That was.

Someone took a picture of that and that was the schedule.

There was no day of show stuff most of the time.

Like when we toured with them, we would get to a venue and there would be like different color tape on the floor to lead to the dressing room and one to the stage and like signs that said, today is Wednesday, you're in Asheville, North Carolina, and had like down to the minute list.

And this was just like a bunch of friends getting back together.

Tip of the hat to them.

And I.

People are rightfully excited.

It'll be fun to see what they do in 2025.

Our quote in Rolling Stone was very endearing on how she wouldn't have gotten them back together anywhere else except Tuscaloosa, you know, which is an allusion to Beau, I suppose.

Yeah, well, in a moment too, you know that it's.

I think maybe we're kind of in a.

More of the doldrums right now in terms of music in Alabama and maybe live music everywhere.

Maybe that's not just an Alabama problem.

I don't know.

But tip of the cap to a moment in time and certainly Beau is like a pillar of that.

I was going to say I don't read a lot of current books, but I actually am thinking about the ones I've read and I've read about half the books I read this year were.

Were new and really like the.

The biography of Randy Newman.

If you're a Randy Newman fan or are curious about him, he.

It was really good.

We had briefly mentioned college football and it's.

It's demise played live on tv except for the flat.

Except for the flag planting and fighting.

The.

The book by Armin KTA and that came out this year.

It's called the Price what It Takes to Win in College Football's Era of Chaos.

That documents how nil sort of came to be and then the aftermath.

I mean, right up until the book cuts off right around March of 2024.

So they got it to a publisher fast, but it just infuriates you.

But it's so well done and it's well written in that it documents everything.

It's.

It's very detailed and.

And.

But doesn't bore you.

I can.

I would shout that book out if you're curious about how we got here.

If you're curious about why those playoff games were.

Does it offer any solutions?

No.

I will give a few moments of 2024, but it ends up being close to home here.

Two of my favorite moments this year.

This podcast gained more and more listeners this year, more so than any year previously.

Really grateful for that.

We set out to do this not as popularity, but just as fun.

We had no designs on numbers we weren't going to reject.

It did.

Especially when we roped Donovan in around episode, what, 2030.

We decided this is really good excuse just to see one another every Sunday, if at all possible.

Yet we had some jumps in listenership this year.

Hand in hand with that is the other one I was going to mention is a creator and writer for the beautiful series.

Somebody somewhere became a listener of the show.

I dare not say fan, but Paul Thoreen even said hello to us in messages and in the publication deadline.

And that just made me have faith in social media at a time when I was quite close to just shutting it down and not ever looking at social media ever again.

So I really wanted to make sure to talk about those, reflect on those for a second.

It's, you know, we've.

We've mentioned it before.

It's very upsetting to know that my opinions are heard by other people.

Gets a little concerning now, doesn't it?

Yeah, it's like, what did I say?

So I know both of y'all love the election.

Do you want to talk about that this year?

You just were thrilled.

Yeah, I mean, you know, the race for city council was pretty crazy this year, but things were said that can't be unsaid.

But I think we're gonna, you know, the snow still gets plowed.

Did you mean something else?

Plan?

No, City council.

It's exactly what I had in mind.

City council up there in where you live.

Beautiful.

Manchester, Connecticut.

Okay, that was it.

One of my favorite moments from this year actually came from Blaine's kid when I found out what she had named her new pet.

The official name of said pet being King.

King Cinnamon Roll.

Duncan, I just think, is it vital.

To know he's a bearded dragon and he's not like, a cat or anything?

I don't know if it is or if it isn't.

I don't know either.

But I'm just like, that's.

That's King Cinnamon Roll.

That one's.

That one's been cheering me up for, like, six.

What a weird year.

Did seem like the first year that was, like, firmly out of the pandemic shadow solidly.

And I don't know what that means.

I just get the sense that, like, in.

In my day to day life and possibly in the way that art is being made and consumed.

Like we're in like the dust has settled on all of that.

I think so.

I think you can definitely say that this is like the, the post pandemic reality, right, where it's like whatever is going to be is not settled, but it's like solidified enough that it's not how it was in 2019.

While we're still in non spoiler territory, we'll discuss some broad strokes on the FX Hulu series what we do in the Shadows.

It's a mockumentary in the style of the Office, about three vampires who room together.

Staten Island, New York.

Along with those three, that energy vampire and a human helper who has designs on becoming a vampire as well.

It finished its sixth and final season and we often found ourselves talking about it both on and off the podcast.

Season as a whole.

I thought it was good.

I thought it kept it up.

And I think maybe they ended at a good point too, because the show has really never swerved from what it was in the first.

There's been some development, but really like the, like there's.

There's an element of the show where it's like these people are in hell because they just do the same dumb shit all the time.

But they also don't care at all that they're like.

The joke is they don't care.

They're too completely self obsessed to even realize that they're just.

And I think this season wore that in to get to hear Matt Barry's extremely eccentric pronunciation of anything.

Of anything.

Yeah, we get some good Colin Robinson Nandor saying Colin Robinson will never not be funny.

Nausea develops.

The banana phone.

I mean, this is all still good stuff.

I'd watch more, but I'm okay with them ending it.

Yeah, yeah.

I thought the season lacked the jokes.

They didn't hit as well, but it wasn't as bad maybe as some people probably think.

Nah, I thought it was fine.

I was still laughing and I felt like we had some really.

There were still some really strong episodes.

The one where they're filming a TV show in their neighborhood.

That one's pretty good.

Pretty solid piece of television.

That's a really good one.

Yeah.

Because I still think yesterday I wore a hooded sweatshirt and I still think of the phrase sweated shirt, sweated shirt.

Just everything bad be like, I want that sweated shirt.

And then explaining what it.

Like what a sweatshirt is.

Let's draw a line.

We'll get into spoilers about, I guess everything What We do in the Shadows, because it's a.

It's a full completed text now.

So if you haven't watched what We do in the Shadows, especially the sixth season, you may want to wait until you're finished and then come back and hear the next segment.

So we're gonna get into spoiler territory related to what we do in the Shadows, specifically the six season and maybe even a little before.

If you're a little afraid of being ruined on any part of the.

Of the show, this may not be for you.

All right, Donovan, let's unpack what we do in the Shadows as a sixth final season television.

And maybe the series is a whole kind of.

We'll do it.

We'll do our best.

Let's start with that final episode as a standalone.

You said earlier that you thought the season was good.

What about this final episode?

Honestly, worked for me.

And because it was very knowing, I think, about what the show is and what the episode it is.

Right.

Where they just straight up put up, hey, endings are hard.

Sometimes you hit them, sometimes you don't.

And also the revelation that this is not the first documentary that the vampires have sat for, that they just are like.

They're literally in hell, where they're just completely repeating the same old things over and over and over and over.

So I was like, that's.

That's pretty good to me.

Awareness of what the show is, awareness of what the episode's doing, and we got some laughs.

Like most of the season, in fact, I think it's a testament to the.

Or maybe a exemplar of the whole season.

The ending was very intelligent for me, and I appreciated that, but it was not nearly as funny as maybe episodes in Season 3, 4.

Having the documentary come to a close is something I hadn't considered as an ending, but it's a perfect way to do it.

Perfect.

It allows the show to address its ending as fiction and then as metafiction, too.

Like, you're talking.

Yeah.

Yes, that.

Yeah, that's kind of what I meant.

Like, it's very, very aware.

Yeah.

It knows you're aware of what.

What's happening here.

Which I liked.

I thought that was smart.

And they haven't referenced the camera crew a ton since season one occasionally.

But not like they had in this episode.

That there's a crew there filming.

Yeah.

Not.

Not as blatantly.

And showing them as.

Well.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think it was season one where like, maybe two.

Season two where one of them got attacked or killed.

Yeah.

One of them gets like, eaten.

Yeah.

The 1958 footage was a great touch to do two smart nods to the audience.

I thought it let us know that they're just to be continuing the same old.

And we aren't going to miss anything.

Literally the same thing.

And, of course, it gave us Jackie Daytona one more time.

That's such a good gag.

Like, just the second he.

You know, he comes in with the two.

Two, no one recognizes him.

He takes the toothpick out.

It's me, my love.

It's.

Arizona is where he was from.

Arizona.

It's such a good.

It's such a good gag.

It is great.

And.

But that also, that footage from 1958 House meetings, it showed us how.

How much the idiocy tells us, no, they don't grow, they don't change.

You're not gonna miss anything once the cameras stop rolling.

And that is so perfect because they're vampires.

I.

I liked how.

Yeah, like, it really is eternal.

You know, it's just gonna.

They're never.

I mean, there's almost like a.

If you wanted.

I don't think that we should, like, take a lesson or a moral from this, but, like.

But like.

But also them.

Nadja and Laszlo constantly calling Guillermo Gizmo.

Well, is still a great joke, but as you know, there's.

There's some point in there with Guillermo really understanding that.

Yeah, you know what?

It's time to Maybe to move on, to have another.

To try and redefine this relationship.

Although I did appreciate the.

You know, Guillermo wants to give a good ending so badly that he.

We have a couple plays with, like, people coming to resolution or having endings where really, it's like you said, Blade, you're not.

They're gonna.

Then the shenanigans will continue.

Yeah.

Swaths of the Internet are up in arms that Guillermo and Nandor didn't become a couple.

They don't.

You know, you don't want to date Nandor Gizmo.

It is perfect that Colin Robinson is an Internet commenter.

He mentions.

He's on Reddit saying such things.

There's a joke that I thought was actually really funny.

Not in this episode, but in the one where they're filling the television show where he's looking up something on the Internet, and he's like, the show is a pleasant piece of Copaganda cr.

Oh, that's me.

He found his.

He's got his own post.

That is good.

Good, good.

Good delivery, too, from Colin Robinson in this episode with the.

The Found family speech.

And.

But it's all it's really that he just hates them.

Yeah.

He's like, I.

I lost my family in 1906.

Now I have to hang out with you smelly turds.

The writers did employ a reference to the old 80s show Newhart.

Yes.

That was funny.

I laughed.

I like that.

Yeah.

Okay, that's interesting.

Not only did it, like.

It didn't give a certain segment of the Internet the Guillermo and Nandor love, but it kind of looked down their nose at that audience with this placement.

Like, sure, surely a few people got the scene, but it basically says that they're.

That assumption you have of them being in love and not friends or loving friends was not real in the way that you may have seen it.

That's the way it felt to me.

It's why I read it.

Okay.

I.

Yeah, like, I know that there's folks, I think, for really.

Especially for really, really good reasons.

Right.

We like to see that kind of representation.

But also for me, it's like, guys, guys.

It's not that kind of show.

Yeah.

They're not gonna.

You know, it's not that.

It's not that kind of show.

They're.

They're not gonna, you know, they're not gonna, like, have a.

Suddenly be Tinder or.

Exactly.

Nandor.

Right.

I also personally like that because I find Caven.

Is it Caven.

Caven Novak, who plays Nandor, is actually really good at impressions.

Really?

I didn't know that.

I mean, like, do you remember the episode where they were all.

It was.

It was him, but they were all, like, transforming into Nandor, so he got to do, like, his impression of Colin Robinson being Nandor and his impression of Matt Berry.

Yeah.

This one where they tried, like, the.

The.

It's like the gym girl they're trying to.

To.

Yeah, yeah.

Funny.

And I.

I found.

I just found his, like, his impression very, like, very funny.

In this little.

Little scene as he's.

Right.

Yeah.

He normalizes.

He was the normal guy in the bed.

Yeah, it was very funny.

Yeah.

Good.

Good throwback.

By the way, what we do.

In the Shadows did three different versions of that nausea hypnosis.

Each.

Each version mimicked a different show's ending or movie.

Even.

I.

I saw the New Heart version.

I'm assuming you did, too, from your.

I did.

Yeah.

I didn't know that others saw the Usual Suspects.

Okay, man, I got it.

I gotta watch this.

I had no idea.

Yeah.

I don't know how to watch it because I pulled it up on Hulu two times and it still gave me the same One.

I don't know what the third one is.

I'm headed to YouTube.

Yeah, I guess you could.

Yeah, YouTube would have it.

And then there's even another fake ending with Guillermo acting as if he's heartbroken.

That, to me, kind of played like thumbing your nose at certain audience members as well.

And I love writers giving a middle finger to people who try to write the show.

Sure.

I love that kind of shit.

Sure.

Because the Internet's become such a big base for people to say, this is what I want.

Give it to me.

Yeah.

I mean, in any form.

Go to Amazon and order it.

You get it tomorrow, and it is.

And in some cases, that's really good and convenient.

In other cases, that not what should happen.

The writers and artists aren't there to give me what I want every time.

Yes.

I think that I don't want to get hate mail or anything.

And this is not every single person who's a fan of something.

But there's seem big chunks of people who are like, self determination describe fans of whatever that.

It's just like.

It seems like the point of the exercise is to, like, be pandered to or.

Yeah.

And then if you.

If you're not utterly pandered to in the way that you want to be, to just have, like, be mad with strange, you know, strange complaints about whatever.

This cuts across a big chunk of folks.

Right.

Like, I think it does.

I mostly try to ignore this, but there was some of the discourse for even like, House of the Dragon.

Yep.

It's like God, this year.

It's like, God, is this fun for you?

Mm.

Well, it's.

What do you want?

Yeah.

We're commenting on fan service.

Yeah.

I think, you know, and sometimes it's great to be pandered too.

Right.

Like, if you've got the thing.

I mean, we've all had the experience of like, wow, they basically made this exactly for me.

But also, if I could.

I mean, I'm not.

I'm not a real creator.

But also, like, if I could write it, why would I watch it?

I would want to see another human being's take on stuff.

Maybe I did.

Maybe I didn't think, you know, maybe they've got something I didn't think of.

There's a lot different for me in interesting ways.

Yeah.

There's a lot of fun in subversion of expectations.

Yes.

You know, I would say that subversion of expectations works 90% of the time, more so than.

Or there's probably a ratio that I'm not good with Here.

But there's probably a better ratio of subverting expectations that work.

Honestly, you know, my top show of the year, I think that's one of the reasons it was so good.

Because on that finale, we never got what we thought it might be built.

We got something much different, and I think much better.

And then there's.

And here's what happens with fan service versus not fan service or, or more so of these people who are wishing for it when they, when they kind of want to write the show or want to dictate what it should do, and then when it doesn't do what they think it should have done, it's bad, and they just have no objective view anymore.

I think too, like, in my own life, you know, I just loved Star wars as a kid, right.

Yeah.

You know, as did I.

Yeah.

But I think that like, like I've hit the point in my life where I'm like, you know what this does?

Putting aside that it's.

It's all crass commercialism from Disney at this point, you know, but it's like, you know what?

If this doesn't work for me, that's fine.

Not everything has to be for me.

Hopefully I'm slowly getting to that point, you know, where it's like, this is.

And also, you know, it's a child show for children.

Like, it's okay if they do stuff pitched at kids.

Right.

That's fine too.

Well, this takes us into Skeleton Crew, which I haven't watched one episode because I see that that is a show for basically kids.

Yeah.

And for me, I never liked the Goonies very much so, which I did.

When I was a kid, but I don't have to see it again.

Yeah, that's kind of.

That's kind of.

That's kind of the way I feel.

Like, yeah, I think it was great when I was a kid, but I'm a.

Yeah, I'm old now.

This is.

This is not in any way to support Disney's commercialism over art.

But it's like, you know what?

Like, everyone has that thing that they saw when they were a kid that's like, if you were 20 years older, you'd be like, yeah, I've seen this before.

But like, it's new for you.

So if this is new, for example, if this show is new for some 8 or 9 year old and it gets them really fired up, that's great.

It's not for me anymore.

It's okay that it's not for me anymore.

People will make things that are for me.

Well, hopefully there's enough people in this world.

Yeah, hopefully.

That's probably a discussion to be had too.

That's true.

That's true.

Is that taking up too much bandwidth that it's not.

It's pushing out things that are going to be made for us as for what we do in the shadows.

It wasn't the best in terms of funny this season, but I thought it was great.

And.

And.

And I thought that the ending itself was kind of.

I read it as.

This.

As asking a subset of audience to off.

And I kind of like that.

Although I.

It wasn't necessarily hilarious in.

In that it did.

But just doing that, to me, is.

The awareness is fun in its own way without being funny.

Yeah, I thought I did a good job just with reinforcing the theme.

Yeah, that's true.

It did.

It did have some good moments, I thought, though, the finale, the.

The one that really made me laugh was.

And she has rarely made me laugh.

Is the God easing into xenophobia by saying that there are other immigrants entering the country illegally?

That's pretty good.

Guillermo.

Like, no, no, no, we're done.

And he's like, cut.

Cut that out, please.

That was actually a really funny moment in a episode that wasn't necessarily quite as funny.

A lot of comedies, when they do a specific kind of ending and maybe they have a narrative of a bit going throughout its season seasons, they tend to not be as funny in the finale.

So I get it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I wonder if they're.

And this is a completely other.

But, like, I wonder if there's just something inherently more difficult at ending a comedy than.

Than a drama.

Or maybe it depends on what kind of comedy.

Right.

If it's.

If you're Shakespeare, you end it with a wedding easy, you know?

Yeah.

I always think about Cheers is ending, and they did a pretty normal episode for its ending versus, except for the.

Probably the last five minutes.

Yeah.

And that's the thing, right?

Like, do you just do.

Especially if it's like.

Like, do you do a very special episode, or does it just fit in with what you've done before?

Right.

I don't know.

I think it matters too if.

If your comedy is just a episode by episode sort of show, like, you can watch them out of order even.

Yeah.

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah.

Like, for instance, the Simpsons ever did a finale.

You can watch the Simpsons out of order.

Oh, yeah.

And people do all the time.

Oh, yeah.

Did you.

Did you enjoy the monster?

Everything?

The monster, the bear.

You know, Guillermo tries to be sincere.

That Was actually kind of funny for me.

It was okay with the.

Just as they're like.

He's like, you just can't hear what he's saying over the.

The wrist.

I mean, and it's just like.

It just completely underlines the show for me.

Right.

Like they're self absorbed.

They're not really gonna grow or change.

Yeah.

The opening of the description with Colin Robinson and Laszlo.

You know, Laszlo's trying to explain that he has needs and desires and he's growing as he's turning more human.

And Colin Robinson's like, he's horny.

He's horny.

I'm gonna.

Man, that's.

I'm gonna.

I liked too that like this was a finale, but I think this did more in.

In my opinion, more in the line of.

Hey, this is kind of like in line as another episode.

Right.

This is just kind of an arbitrary.

Like, here's where it ended.

As they say, we're going to be doing the same thing when the cameras are gone tomorrow.

So it also reinforces how much I'm going to miss the cast and how well.

How well.

How well they all played off of each other.

That's true.

I will.

It's one of those shows where I do believe I'll come back and pull up a random episode here or there.

Some of my favorites.

I could see myself doing that.

Just.

Yeah, absolutely.

25 minutes to kill.

I think I'll go and watch what we do in the shadows, which doesn't happen often with shows and me.

But this one, it's got enough funny stuff going on, especially in those middle seasons.

I do still recommend it highly for.

For people still.

Even this week I was recommending it again.

Same.

Is it great art?

I don't know.

Does it have something to say?

Sort of.

Is it fun?

Is it funny?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's really funny.

If you look at that last episode as a answer to.

I'm going to say this negatively, though I am a part of it.

As a comment to Redditors, then it's.

It's kind of enjoyable as an ending and even beyond because there's some funny bits.

Colin Robinsons of the world.

That's so good.

Yeah.

But super smart, that 1958 footage to tell us, oh, they did this.

They did this.

Same.

It's the exact same scenario 50 years ago.

God.

Okay, that's so.

Yeah, we got the.

We got the witch's hat back again too.

That was a good.

A good nod.

His cursed witch's hat only difference in 1958.

There was no Sean Shawnee.

I know, right?

Yeah, it was a.

There was a Jerry who hisses at the camera.

All right, we're gonna end here, but you can reach out to us.

Just a programming note.

We won't be in your.

In your feed, in your podcast feed next week, but that's okay because we're gonna be back in weekly, I suppose, when the new year starts.

I haven't looked at the calendar on how that falls, but I think that's right.

Yep.

New year starts once Christmas tide is nearly over.

No episode next week, but we'll be back around the 7th of January.

So happy holidays, Merry Christmas, happy New Year, and we will talk to you all in two weeks.