How 'A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms' and 'How to Get to Heaven From Belfast' Get It Right!

Hey, y'.

All.

Welcome back to Taking It Down.

Podcast of TV and streaming.

This week we're going to be talking about three shows.

We're going to talk about A Night of the Seven Kingdoms.

We'll talk about the most recent episode of Shrinking.

And we'll also talk about the back half of how to get to Heaven from Belfast.

Netflix show.

If you haven't seen it, might be worth your time.

We'll tell you if it is worth your time, maybe if it sounds like something you would enjoy in the first half because we don't spoil anything.

And then in the back half, we talk some specifics about each of those shows I just mentioned.

If you haven't yet donated to the Alabama take in this podcast fundraiser.

We've only done one before and we try to hardly ever do them if we can help it.

We won't NPR you every February and early March, but we do have our podcast hosting bills do as well as website hosting things like that.

Things that cost a little money.

We pay them yearly.

Sometimes we need a little help.

And if you enjoy what we do, feel free to go to the first link in the podcast notes in your podcast app that you're listening to.

If you're listening on YouTube, it's right there.

It's first link.

Pause the show right now.

Go make a small, medium or large, whatever you want because every little bit helps and we appreciate it very much.

But now you know what we're going to be covering.

You probably knew from the description.

Anyway, here we go.

Let's dive in.

I'm going to talk to Adam and Donovan, my co host.

Get them in here, see what they have to say about these three shows.

Alabama take projection.

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We have a few more who have helped out the site and the podcast and all that.

So thanks to three more folks.

Thanks to Kevin Halbrook, Josh Hamilton and another who asked to remain anonymous.

So.

But if you wish to help.

Times running out.

It's early March.

We're shutting this thing down.

We'll stop funding on Saturday.

March.

What would that be, the eighth?

I think it's the seventh.

Is it?

See, that's, you know, you know what's happening there.

The madness has already taken Lane.

It's.

It could be bad this year.

You all are in a different world.

The madness is seizing you.

You're doing yard work.

I got a foot of snow in my backyard still.

Yeah, it's been 50 for like three days in a row and I still have a foot of snow.

Like that's how much snow we got.

But hey, UConn's still playing basketball.

They're trying to.

Yes, Yukon men and women's team are notorious for winning.

I'm not saying I disagree with this, but the state of Connecticut has set up very inflammatory signs at its interstate crossings.

So if you come in from Massachusetts, this is Connecticut basketball capital of the world.

But if you come up from New York, they've put up a sign that says Connecticut pizza capital of the world.

Oh, shit.

Yeah.

I'm telling you, inflammatory statements.

The choices were made.

Yeah, I would have thought Indiana, the basketball capital of the world.

Well, how many national championships does that Indiana have?

Men's and women's, Blaine.

I mean, I just think Hoosiers.

I just think, clearly this is why Connecticut needed to educate people about where the basketball capital of the world was.

Hey, times change, man.

They're the football champions, if I'm not mistaken.

No, you're not mistaken.

Basketball now an off season sport in Indiana.

Yeah.

Hey, we have a comment this week from our guy, 87 Jedi.

I meant to have it pulled up.

I don't.

I wonder what his favorite car is.

It's not that.

That's a.

That's an inside joke.

In fact, let me explain that.

That's a old Dexine songs.

It's kind of hard to find.

Okay.

It's an old Deine songs.

That's kind of hard to find written by John Smith.

And I don't even think you can find it on YouTube.

I've looked for it, but it's.

That's lore right there.

Yeah, it's lore.

Yeah, it's an old punk one.

But yes, he submitted a comment on the site, which is awesome because it's easy to get to that way.

Easy for me to see those.

And it says.

He says, class, quotation marks.

Right, Quotation marks and question mark, class.

While I'm quite flattered, I haven't done anything to merit such a designation.

Been a fan of the podcast since the beginning and enjoy and appreciate every episode.

And then he uses an Irish term that I cannot pronounce.

Is it slanty, fellas?

Slanta.

Is that it?

Cheers.

Ah, it's something like that.

I didn't say it exactly correctly.

And anyway, he used that word, which I'd never heard out loud.

This is one of the differences between the Northeast and Alabama.

There's not a well developed Irish culture down there.

Now up here, do you know how many of my neighbors are flying Irish flags?

Some of them I don't think are even Irish.

Oh, really?

I. I have my suspicions well, he

continues, coincidentally, the night before I listened to this episode, I also started re watching Lonesome Dove for the umpteenth time.

And that's funny.

He says great minds thinking alike.

Not only is it is it greatest miniseries in television television history.

It also features Blaine's former short takes guests James McMurtry in a brief but memorable row.

And I remember that.

It's really funny.

Thank you so much for that.

And I'm not so sure that Mr. Jetta's not of Irish descent, so that makes sense.

Oh man, this is.

I just, just remembered this play you were talking about Lonesome Dove and I just flashed back to be probably like four probably.

And like my parents watching TV and seeing a commercial for it.

Like I have a couple things that I can remember from Pretty Young and I hadn't thought about that in years.

We were living in our house in Virginia.

But I think it was for that mini.

It must have been for that miniseries.

Y' all should try it on for size.

That score, man.

Just the score alone.

I gotta read the book first.

Yeah, read the book.

I think I might.

This year I've been reading big ones.

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is first on non spoiler list.

I don't know.

It's done.

Goodbye for now.

The one thing I can say is there's certainly a second season already in the works.

Yeah, they're.

They're filming it now, right?

Yeah, they're like my understanding.

Yeah.

Which is great because they're filming my.

It's not really a complaint because I think it didn't overstay its welcome.

But my, you know, it left me wanting more.

Oh, I wanted.

With only six episodes, I wanted.

I wanted it immediately.

Not a complaint.

No, I think that's good.

It was that good.

Six is a little on the short side, but I almost think.

I feel like this is a kind of recurring thing we talk about.

Was it too long?

Was it too short?

I think I'm leaning into.

I'd almost rather it be too short than too long.

Yeah, it worked that way.

There was the era where every Netflix show had about was about three hour long episodes longer than it needed to be.

And it just.

It kills.

It kills the momentum.

Sure does.

A Night of the Seven Kingdoms.

If it follows the novellas though, the next season would almost have to be a couple episodes longer from my understanding.

Overall, now that it's done though, high praise for me.

I thought it was great.

I'm with you.

This is what America needed.

Would you like to expand, expound upon

that, you know, it's February, there's stuff going on.

What, you just want to watch a

little bald boy run around carrying a jousting stick?

Yeah, sure, Sure.

I really don't think I have anything too different to say from last week because I remain convinced that this is, like, this is an example of a team getting back to fundamentals.

Well, there's a reason for that.

It's because this episode served really as an epilogue.

It wasn't tying up any loose ends.

I enjoyed may have been the most HBO last episode of a season that I've ever seen on an HBO show.

They made this kind of episode famous as a last episode.

Yeah.

The penultimate has the.

You kind of just pull some pieces together in the fallout.

I mean, say goodbye at the end.

It did very much feel like watching season three of Game of Thrones where you're like, okay, the battle is over.

Here's the setup.

House of the Dragons.

Did you catch that trailer right before

Night of the Seven Kingdoms coming back in June?

It looked incredible.

I, for one, am ready.

I felt with House of the Dragon, you know, the first season was okay.

I really got into the second season.

I did, too.

That was another one.

You know, they.

I mean, I understand why they did what they did, but their place setting was almost a little too.

It was almost a little too obvious.

A little too much.

Yeah.

And then there was the daemon storyline where he kind of just sat in one place.

And you kept thinking, quit sitting in one place and visualizing things.

No, I like imagining.

I like Matt Smith, so I was fine.

Yeah.

I mean, Matt Smith having psychedelic experiences in a castle.

You could be worse.

Yeah.

I think that's basically a premise of an episode of Doctor who.

Yeah.

But, man, this trailer, it may be a bad season.

We don't know, but they put the trailer together quite well.

It made me.

This trailer flashed me back to.

We talked about it last time, but the one where, like, we really see what a dragon can do in a way that no other Game of Thrones TV show, which I thought was fantastic.

I foolishly went on YouTube and watched the Joffrey scenes where he spoils everything.

And he spoils House of the Dragon, too.

He does.

Yeah.

It continues to be awful.

And he's just.

He's so giddy about the little dick.

I remember how much I hated him when I watched his YouTube videos.

I do think one of the other great things about the wrap up of Night of the Seven Kingdoms is that it gave us a really solid argument for comprehensive sex education.

Well, you know, if a girl comes up to you and says, the next morning I'm pregnant and I think it's

a boy, maybe think twice.

I think if you had good sex ed, you might have.

You might know what's going on there.

Adam, are you caught up on shrinking?

I am, yeah.

I thought it kind of got back to a little base level.

As I watch this program now, all I can think about is how much you hate it.

I don't.

It's coming back around.

That's my point.

That's my point in non spoilers on shrinking is that I think it came back around this week.

It was like, this is a base level episode and it was fine.

I feel like I could explain why you liked it without spoiling.

Can you do.

What is there to spoil in the show?

You know, I mean, I suppose a few things like events.

But was it.

Was it because it was heavy on Harrison Ford?

It was, but I, I think it was probably more.

Because some of the.

There was more of a zoom around characters that you like.

It was this episode and I think not just.

I'm not throwing you under the bus.

There are characters you like, but possibly stronger characters.

Got a little more screen time this time.

Did it make my argument for Sean a.

A more valid one?

I think the, the tough thing is that we like him.

I don't know that his writing is any better or any worse than anybody else's in terms of like, I mean, he's more tolerable on screen, he says.

Less dumb.

You know what I mean?

So like, but aside from that, like his, the arc of his issues as this is like people living out therapy essentially.

I don't know is any more compelling than anyone else's, but he is.

It was fun to watch all the, all the youths got together on screen.

Yeah, that was fun.

Harrison Ford, obviously doing Harrison Ford stuff.

I, I thought, I think I like the psychology talk.

I thought there was a few more minutes of that this week and I, I really like that.

I mean, because these guys are psychologists.

Why not talk some psychology stuff?

That's like all they do.

This felt like he had a level where I learned something.

Okay, what's can.

I mean, it doesn't really matter if we spoil like what scene in particular,

but just the stuff between Harrison Ford's character and Jason Siegel's character.

Okay, just those things.

I'll leave it at that.

But interesting.

It wasn't too bad of an episode and I went in expecting it to be just a.

A regular third season episode, which meant kind of low, but instead it was more on their level of season one and two when it was hitting some good notes.

Yeah.

We'll also cover how to get to Heaven from Belfast.

We're actually going to probably do a wrap up on it.

Donovan may jump back in next week and say a couple final things, but that should be it.

The back half is.

It is as good as the beginning?

Oh, hell yeah.

You think so?

Yeah.

Okay.

We kind of talked last week about kind of like some of the characters perspectives and the.

As far as like the mystery part goes, but having gotten through most of it, I think they're playing pretty fair with you.

Like there's stuff that they'll get.

As far as teasing out the mystery goes, I don't think there's.

I mean, there's stuff that like, of course you wouldn't have known that.

It's.

I just think it's handled very well.

Like the.

I'm.

I'm not annoyed.

I'm intrigued at it.

While still it hasn't completely taken over the show.

I'm pretty impressed because I feel like this is hard.

I assume this is hard to do.

I don't know what Lisa McGee's background with writing mysteries is, but it does

seem difficult to assemble that the sandbox to play in for that where everything has to be pretty.

In order.

Yeah.

Pretty buttoned up.

It feels like there's a high level of craft that goes to this.

So if you're making me laugh and interesting me in the mystery and making me feel like you're treating me pretty fairly, like you're.

You.

You're clearly good at your job.

I saw somebody on.

It was just a comment on Reddit.

Somebody said that it, it reminded them a bit of Twin Peaks.

Whoa.

Now that's a jump.

At first I thought, huh.

I don't, like, I understand maybe some of the, you know, the way that we talk about Twin Peaks versus actually watching it.

Like there is so much goofy stuff happening in Twin Peaks and so much like the soap opera way of shooting and like, yes.

The Americana involved and all that.

And I think that's what they meant

is like the, the absurdity level.

The absurdity, it goes beyond like just quirkiness and into like, like a.

Something you feel in your bones.

And so it's not just like cute.

It's like they have crafted an environment I think is what they were acknowledging.

And I, I agree with that.

That's a pretty good.

That's a pretty good point.

Yeah, I see the parallel.

I don't know.

I Guess because I put Twin Peaks on a high shelf.

I see the point with it though, where it's like, it's not all Coop, you know, it is like even just in the first episode, like silly, like 50s looking teens, like doing silly things with.

With soap opera, you know, heightened dialogue.

Right.

This isn't a Twin Peaks episode.

But lynch really manages in all of his stuff to.

To give you the absurd, goofy, pretty funny and then terrorizing.

And I don't know how he ever maintained that balance in anything, but he did in almost everything.

Except for probably Dune, but.

Well, we won't get into that either.

I mean, that's.

Yeah, that's a whole other thing.

The back half of how to get to Heaven from Belfast.

I thought it was really entertaining.

I thought there might be about one or two mini twists.

I'm still excited.

I watched it.

I thought.

I think that there was.

There's one thing I. I thought about this morning and it's thoughts are still coming to me even though I've finished it a few days later.

I always love that if a television show or a movie can make me think a couple days later you've done something, it might be bad, it might be good.

In this case, it's good.

But yeah, I was like, oh, there's also that.

There's also this thematic thing I'll talk about in spoilers that's going on.

Maybe I could see your point of the twists happening a little too much or.

It was busy.

You know, in a way, that pace

was busy from the start, though.

Yeah.

Yes.

That was an intentional thing.

Totally.

It was controlled and it had a purpose.

But we are also a group of guys who like love train dreams.

We're like, what.

What really happens?

You know, obviously we can say ABC&D happened in that film, but are that novel.

But there's a lot happening here and I.

You kind of.

I had to just kind of like say, all right, I'm going with the ride.

Same here.

Yeah, for sure.

Same here.

That's exactly what I thought.

This isn't anything thematically a bigger thematic thing.

But one thing that I had not thought about, although I should have with Dairy Girls and was thinking about this, is she does a wonderful job of making the like character actors that are a little bit one note hilarious and not wear out their welcome.

I feel like one of the best characters in this one has been the.

Was the guy that's running like the hotel that has the bar.

Oh, right, right.

Seamus.

He could just be one note, but he's hilarious.

Like when the president.

The bus gets damaged and he's freaking out, it's great.

I think that's a real skill.

I'm with you on him.

There's another character that pops up in the second half that I think is the opposite of that.

It's where she shows up, and she had a quirk that it got to me.

I already know who it is.

I know exactly.

I was watching.

I was like, blaine is not gonna like this.

Yeah, that was my thought as well.

And I like the actress.

Did it super duper Have a problem with that?

You did or didn't what you're talking?

Did not.

We're dancing around spoilers and, you know, this thematic stuff we could really talk about in non spoilers because there's no pieces to connect, but we'll.

We'll put it on pause, we'll take a small break, and then we will come back and spoil things for two shows.

We'll do A Night of the Seven Kingdoms.

You know what?

We might do a couple things about shrinking.

I might want to work some.

Some of my psychological problems out on that one.

Now he's got to talk about it,

and now I got to talk about it.

And then we will do how to get to Heaven from Belfast.

All three we just brought up, so join us there.

If you haven't yet donated to the Alabama take in this podcast fundraiser.

We've only done one before, and we tried to hardly ever do them if we can help it.

We won't NPR you every February and early March, but we do have our podcast hosting bills due, as well as website hosting things like that.

Things that cost a little money.

We pay them yearly.

Sometimes we need a little help.

And if you enjoy what we do, feel free to go to the first link in the podcast notes in your podcast app that you're listening to.

If you're listening on YouTube, it's right there.

First link.

Pause the show right now.

Go make a small, medium or large, whatever you want, because every little bit helps and we appreciate it very much.

Let's talk about A Night of the Seven Kingdoms.

It ended.

We're really only talking about the last episode.

I think they really nailed this one by having six episodes where Sir Arland's gigantic dong had nothing to do with the plot.

Like, I was worried at the end of episode five that it was going to become crucial in episode six, but it turns out it was just hilarious.

It was just shock value, hilarity.

It was an epilogue.

That's what I kept thinking, and I love it.

For that, I don't mean that as a disparaging remark.

What we have here is Dunk goes to.

Is he the king?

Is Makor the king?

Maekor is the king's son.

Oh, the king.

So the king's back at king's land and kind of old.

The king is still alive.

Is he bedridden?

I don't know.

Interesting.

So he goes to Maekor prince, and he's also debating whether or not to take on Egg as a squire.

And they both kind of are in opposite directions at two different times.

Right.

Well, Maekor's kind of offering him, you know, hegwil only.

And then Dunk turns him down.

He says, I don't, you know, I don't want to be serving a prince.

Yeah.

And that's what, you know, obviously the offer for Egg is off the table at that point.

Yeah.

But then Dunk comes back and doesn't, doesn't he.

Am I confusing this episode with something else?

Does he come back and say, I will take him on?

And then the prince Maekar says no.

Well, he's not going to be.

He wants him to go to Summerhall.

Yeah.

Makor doesn't want Egg living rough.

Like living the hedge night.

Yeah, but that's how your dick gets big, apparently.

So sleep under a tree and projectiles your way through.

Salt pork.

They keep talking about, what is it?

The salt beef?

Salt beef, he ain't gonna eat it.

You know, the whole thing is in a way is loss of innocence too strong a word to describe this arc.

Which is really saying something because you of that flashback where you see like how could someone who experienced all of this still be kind of starry eyed.

But you really feel in that final episode like he kind of got what he wanted in a way, in this really messed up way, but also got like a full dose of what the top is really like and was like, I want nothing to do with this.

You could just feel like he looked like shit.

He felt like it.

He wants to get out, away from all of these people.

And like I.

It made you feel that the whole time.

And now you've.

It set up this excitement that oh boy, seasons two, seasons three and four, he's going to get good.

And you're wondering what Martin has in store.

Being a non reader, you're wondering what Martin has in store because that's the expectation.

That's the Netflix version.

That's the, you know, old fashioned broadcast TV version.

He's gonna get good as a knot.

Here's this guy who's all heart.

We just gotta shift him into something.

His sword fighting ability is gonna be like, wow.

But no, something else is in store for him.

And egg.

And of course, we know a little bit of egg as an adult.

I don't know if it will get that far in the show, but I'll say this.

I have not met a character as lovable as Dunk in a long time.

Since scene one, I was like, man, I want this guy to do everything he can.

He had such a likability.

We talked about it last week, a bit like, this is such a white hat, black cat show.

And it's.

I mean, we're just so used and conditioned with Game of Thrones being intentionally obtuse at times that it's like, oh, the first truly deeply likable character.

We're all like, this guy's the greatest.

That's true.

But I'll put, you know, I am going much further than Game of Thrones universe.

Sure, sure.

It's a lot of credit to the actor.

You know, he's.

I think I said this is his first role.

This may not be his first role.

He's been acting for three years, which means he's probably been doing maybe some stage stuff or just some things on British television.

But he did such a good job in this last episode of really seeming like a guy trying to figure out what the price of his entire integrity is.

Right.

And it carrying a weight of sadness.

Like, yeah, you could.

Forgive me.

You could see it in his one eye.

But, yeah, there was an understanding.

Like an understanding that he's giving things up, that he's closing doors.

Yeah.

To keep his integrity.

That and that and that.

Yeah.

And he's gone through hell.

What do you call it?

Not exactly loss of innocence, but like the stage on this step through adulthood.

Right.

Like, he's.

He's gone through a liminal space.

He can't go back maybe a little oddly late in life, but he's probably still pretty young guy anyway.

How old do you.

How old do we think Nanki is?

22.

Oh, I was gonna say 20, you

know, no older than 22, I guess, is what I'd say.

I was gonna keep 20.

And he's just huge.

Like, he seems like I. I could be wrong, but like, part of what seemed to be going on was like, he's a little old to not have been knighted, to just be a squire.

Yeah, like, I was kind of thinking of that, but like, so, like early 20s, but not.

He was drinking ale, so he's over 21.

Sure.

I'm sure they're very stringent upon that.

Yeah.

I don't know that I have a lot more to say.

I think you guys nailed it with this.

Now he's someone else.

Well, now he's tied to the most powerful people in the world.

No shit.

Like nothing.

There is no who.

Who are losing faith with people and losing popularity and losing maybe some of that power you're talking about.

He's.

He has to play a game now that he didn't see himself having to.

I mean, I'm sure he just imagined he just rides from encounter to encounter and helps the good guys.

Right?

And like now that's not.

Not going to be his future at all.

I do hope he rides to the Baratheon stronghold.

It.

What storms in, is.

It storms in?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I hope he gets there at least and checks in on Lionel.

Well, I hope they get a better maester before then.

That was a very funny scene.

That was good.

What was the line?

What did he tells him?

He said, oh, this man is dying.

And he said, ah, he's a shitmeister.

Such a hit for HBO in a week where HBO kind of took a hit, quite possibly selling to Paramount, which is not a good sign politically, if you into that kind of insight.

And could also not be a very good sign beyond programming wise.

So, I don't know.

Brutal.

Very uncertain.

At least they're filming season two.

At least we'll get that.

Yeah.

You know, I guess my final thoughts on this.

We opened it saying, it's nice to just have a kind of tight story happening.

There's a beginning, middle, and end.

And when you guys were talking about House of the Dragon at the top, if you asked me to tell you what happened last season, I could like maybe broad strokes my way through it.

I'm sure that in like two years, if you're like, what happened in season one of Night of the Seven Kingdom, I could tell you most of the beats.

It's a small story.

It's great.

Not to contradict you, but I remember a lot of Houses of the Dragon Season 2.

Season 1, not so much because of the time jump I was.

Season two stuck with me a little more.

But I agree with Adam, which is like, it does.

It's funny how much.

My last thought, I guess is like, it's really interesting that we're calling.

I feel like it was a big swing for them to not go big.

And it paid off.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's not what we're expecting from the franchise.

It's the gamble is Restricted.

Good for you.

Good.

Yeah, good.

Good for you.

Like, that's.

I think people more.

Are more likely to err in the opposite direction.

Like, well, I'm gonna take a big swing and go big.

Let's jump from there.

A little bit of shrinking from this past week.

Hold your horsies.

Horsies.

Yeah, that's what I said.

So we're going to jump into shrinking.

Hold your Horsies is the name of the most recent episode that we've seen.

I think they may.

They may release on Tuesday or Wednesday.

It's a Wednesday program.

It is.

What an odd day.

Okay, so you may be listening to this right before you watch the next episode.

So hold your Horsies comes from a line where Gabby is debating or had the decision with her Derek on, you know, what their relationship might look like in a couple of years.

It brought back the other Derek.

I like him.

You know, I thought the writers, the editors must have been listening to the pod say more because you wanted more.

Other Derek.

I like that.

And then he appeared.

You literally said it last week.

You created this, spoke it into being Blaine.

He manifested it.

And there was a good amount of Harrison forbidden.

And it wasn't just him going to the doctor and being sick.

It was a little bit more of, I'm definitely retiring, but I'm not yet retired.

And I just really like the psychological talk.

The psychology of it felt more in depth than normal.

It almost felt like they brought in a real psychologist to say some things to help them write.

They may do that all the time.

I don't know.

I would hope that they.

I mean, I know Scrubs was pretty renowned at its in its day for, like, they actually consulted for all the medical stuff.

Is that right, Donovan?

Yeah.

Wasn't it pretty?

Like, as goofy a show as it was?

They got most of that stuff right.

And then there, you know, even with, like, the gimme stuff, like, oh, when he holds up the X ray at the beginning, it's backwards, you know, and the creator's like.

Because they're inexperienced.

Like, it was intentional.

Yeah, I feel like I hope they do that too, because I do feel like, I mean, even though something's a comedy or dramedy, like, I do think that there is care that you have to take when you're telling things.

People things about psychology and therapy and things like that.

I was going to say it would be irresponsible to me if the.

I'm sure that there is somebody in the room.

That's my exact thought in a way that's like, I'm not going to do, you know, surgery.

You know, you're the.

This idea from a therapist, if it's.

If it's not good, right.

It could.

It could lodge my brain and do things that are not great.

Quick plug.

No show does this better than the Pit.

If you watch it on HBO Max at the end, they'll give you like a little three minute segment with a.

With the real doctor who helped them.

That's cool.

It's so fun.

It's like, no, this is a real disease and this is what happens.

I gotta watch that show.

But I'm terrified of cut.

Like a whole show that's based around scary emergencies.

The thing I thought that viewers would not want to watch about the show is that they would just think it was ER too.

But they never go home with the doctors.

It's just.

All right.

It's all there, right?

There's no drama.

There's.

Excuse me.

There's no love drama.

There's no.

It's just the drama is life and death, and I just find that so compelling.

But we're not talking about the Pit.

Everybody watch the Pit.

It's good.

The Jimmy and Brian singing the Les Mis song on the way to the airport went on so long that it got funny.

I actually looked at Natalie and said, this is.

We know that they're out of ideas for this show.

You know that they devoted so much screen time to this.

You thought it did the thing where it was like, kind of funny and then got unfunny and then became funny again.

Yeah, well.

And then tack on Harrison Ford at the end saying, did y' all invent that?

That was pretty good.

That was okay.

Mostly.

Cause I deeply identify with that.

Yeah.

If somebody started singing it, I wouldn't know.

No, I'd have no idea.

I did recognize Les Mis, but if it would have been anything else.

I think I have a personal problem with Les Mis.

If I could talk about that.

The floor is open every time that there's like a remake and there's a trailer.

Like the most recent one.

There was a trailer.

And I'm like, is there.

I.

What?

I was at the movie theater.

It's like, is there going to be a film about the French Revolution?

This could be unbelievable.

And then they started singing and I was like.

It infuriated me.

I hate it.

Anyway, there was the recent one.

Was it on pbs?

That was not a musical.

Well, nobody knows if it was on.

I mean, if it was on pbs, no one has any clue.

I thought that that went.

It deactivated that channel when Ken Burns wasn't playing.

I'm jumping around on shrinking.

But end credits was a horrible version of Not Swimming.

I don't know who that was.

It's Jason Seagull, right?

That's the joke.

Oh, was it?

It was horrible.

That's the joke.

Is that.

Doesn't he say when he kisses?

He's singing Night Swimming.

He.

Me?

Yeah.

Well, yeah, definitely brings it up.

But I did not know that was him singing it.

I just thought it was a.

A cover.

I think.

I think that was the end universe joke.

Yeah.

I cringed.

I thought, God damn, that's bad.

I also said aloud, why would.

When the original is conceivably just sitting right there to plop on the timeline.

Why not?

But I. I see what they were doing.

Yeah.

Michael Stipe gets paid either way.

So, you know, I talked last week how there were four types of characters, and I said, there are some that are kind of.

They have their good moments, they have their bad moments.

Jimmy and Gabby being the two.

Sometimes you care about Jimmy, sometimes you don't.

Same thing with Gabby.

I think Gabby this week, you know, she backed down off of her resentment toward Jimmy, and it was more about, how am I going to move on with my relationship?

And she sat a group of people down and said, look, I need your advice.

What are we going to do?

What should I do?

What are the pros and cons?

And that, for her character worked much more so than being angry at Jimmy.

Yeah, that felt like more of a natural development for her compared to last week.

Just hanging on to somebody, hanging on to resentment.

Not an inaccurate human behavior at all for a character.

But this is more in keeping with season three of the TV show because

the show has a little bit of problem of recycling or hanging on to the same story.

Yeah, I mean, I think that's a limitation of the setup.

Right?

Like, that it's.

It's so built around.

Forgive me for saying, like, therapy speak.

I think it kind of boxes itself in.

Like, they always have to have a problem to solve.

And if it's like, if you.

I can't help but compare it to Scrubs, you know, like, that's an easier.

Like, they wheel a patient in, and then away you go.

This.

It's like you're in a hospital.

Of course sick people come there.

These people are just living their lives in there.

And I know we.

We are constantly dealing with our own brains, and that's.

That's how that works.

But to see it brought up in Like a group way like that is always kind of like it feels a bit forced, I think is maybe one of the disconnects of the show.

Yeah, let's get into how to get to Heaven from Belfast.

But before we do, I want to tell the guys something.

Off mic listeners, if you want to know, message us.

I'll tell you.

It's about the pit.

We let Donovan say goodbye because this is the first time ever in this podcast that he has not wanted to be spoiled on a television show.

He's the guy who does not mind spoilers.

I don't know what that says about this show, how to get to Heaven from Belfast, but that's.

Something good happened.

It's a Donovan endorsement.

He's saying it's that good.

We can talk about anything from episode four to the end here because that's where we left off last week.

I thought that the pacing was excellent.

Pacing may have gotten the best of it a couple of times at the end where maybe it should have stayed on a particular character or storyline to make it more clear for me.

But who am I to say that they need to hold my hand?

Is there any particular instance that you're thinking of?

I am, yes.

Yeah, we're in spoilers.

Greta's real mom and her sister Jody were.

I needed more about them.

And then when they go to visit her and she's in the nursing home and she's really old, I needed just a little bit more like, what happened there.

And that might even be a season two thing.

Maybe not, because they definitely set up a season two.

They weren't shy about that.

Yeah, they were not shy.

And that may have been the most shocking thing of all the twists is that I thought it was a one and done.

And then that last scene, I thought, no, really get a season two out of this.

But I suppose the layers that they

have to peel back on the whole backstory, I think it was handled pretty well.

I think, you know, Donovan talked at the top about perspective.

You know, like we're.

We're kind of presented with a certain set of facts, even though maybe even other people in the room can add more to the story.

You know, it's maybe the difficulty of, like, in literature.

It would be like a first person perspective, like, if we only stayed with the core of the three women the whole time versus the zoom around that happens.

I think that slow reveal of what really happened in the cabin in the woods.

You know, there's a version of that that could have been extended maybe to the cult commune, whatever was happening to the whole childhood thing for Greta.

Is that kind of what you're saying, like, you wanted to know more about.

Yeah, because I'm so confused by that.

Yeah.

But I think that may have been intentional.

Right.

Because, like, who's really telling.

Who's a reliable narrator in that situation if it's intentional?

It worked.

And I'm jumping all the way to the end here when they find out how the symbol came to be or what it represented, which I loved, by the way.

I was gonna say that may be one of the first times where something like that has happened in the show and you didn't kind of think to yourself, oh, come on.

I thought, oh, that makes.

That kind of makes sense now.

I love when she started talking about the idea of, like, thin places and say that again.

Places.

What is that?

I mean, that's a pretty Irish term.

No, it's like a classic understanding of, you know, like, you may go somewhere and it doesn't feel haunted necessarily, but it has a vibe and that they.

I've never heard of this.

They were ascribing to this really old.

I mean, there's places in Ireland that are old, old, old.

You know, in England as well.

It's like they.

They don't know.

It's prehistory, you know, like, people haven't known.

This would have been a mystery for thousands of thousands of years.

How this, like a place like Avebury, where they don't really know how those rocks got into place or whatever it is, that this is somehow a significant place that still has some sort of energy.

So them going there to try to, like, find God, it made sense.

And that something weird would happen there too.

You know, they're dabbling there in, like, a folk horror kind of idea, which immediately I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm on board.

Let's go there.

I don't know that they totally fulfilled that.

You know, it ended up.

I don't know if they did it previously enough to say that this is how it ends.

It really didn't end up influencing the story.

You know, like, she's really explaining why they were there at one point, but it had no bearing on what.

I mean, correct me if I'm wrong in that perspective.

And what actually went down in modern day, the story's resolution didn't really have that much to do with that location other than as a piece of Greta's history.

That's correct.

Yeah.

I think it's around episode five, where it loses.

That might be a harsh word, where it takes A step back from its darker look at the march of time and begins to be a bit more of a caper.

And that's when it starts piling on the twist.

And they're trying to get away from Booker and they're in the church, and

that's St Patrick's Day in Dublin.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Felt a little Netflix y, like we need just the one more episode of Action of Get Away.

It maintained that pace, so I think it's fine that it was there because it was entertaining.

And it also fit with the religious overtones that they're in a church.

Booker's not going to bother them in a church.

Of course, you find out that Booker and the.

You may have called a name.

I did not.

The Sisterhood of Scissors or something.

Was there a name?

Yeah, there was a name that I am totally blanking on now, but I

do like that it was these women helping almost all other women who needed it.

I think there may have been a guy that they helped at one time.

It tacks on a little reminder, fits the motif of the religious overtones that they're trapped in a church and Booker as part of the society, you know, it's not gonna bother them there.

So they think.

But as it turns out, the lady Booker is much more involved in helping ladies than hurting them.

You know, even if it takes hurting someone to help the ladies, I suppose.

Yeah.

And I think that it was an interesting payoff.

She tries to get them out of trouble several times.

Right.

I remember that one in particular where she's facing and says, you are now involved in something bigger than you can understand.

Just, she was trying to get the box right at that point.

Like, just give me the box.

None of this happened kind of thing.

And, I mean, that's a pretty classic evil villain thing to say, right?

Right.

Yeah.

So you don't.

Obviously, you don't know how that's going to play out, but it ends up being true.

And they.

I think they have that payoff in a fun way.

And, you know, by the end, Booker reflecting on the three women and saying, as she's kind of defining who is good at doing that job, you know, who's attracted to it, who can pull it off for these women who all enter the story feeling kind of stuck, I don't know.

That's an easy arc to make, right?

Like that they discover a sense of adventure, or they're good at something they didn't know they'd be good at, or there's something in their character unexpected, but it's still Fun to see it play out.

I think it's a fair arc.

I think.

I don't.

I don't think it's too redundant or overused.

No, not at.

I don't.

I think that it's almost like a hero's journey, right?

In a way.

But in.

In this one, it's more.

Maybe mischievous is the right word.

You know, like it's flipping back to like dunk.

Dunk on a hero's journey is pretty cut and dry.

You know, these women, you know, it's happening and like he's trying to be a good guy the whole time.

These women, even when they're on it, crack me up every time that they would like be in a life or death situation or have just gotten out of one and they have like a glass of wine sitting there while they're trying to figure it out.

They're still or just like taking too many pain pills or whatever.

They're kind of just floating through this insanity.

You know, you got to be a little twisted to do the work that Booker does.

And I think that they have proven themselves to be pretty, you know, out of the box.

Yeah, I would have liked to know more about that society because it probably would have hindered the pacing to have done so.

But they ended up killing off their boss and many of the other in the circle near the boss and instead only left them with Booker.

The.

The young lady, what was her name?

Feeny.

Was it really?

That's what this says.

Okay.

Feeny being one of the ones who make it through because she's right next to Booker.

She's sort of Booker's right hand lady.

Almost raised by her, would you say?

Yeah.

If not, I mean, she was, she tells how old she was.

It was like 13, right?

Or 12 or something.

Mentored maybe through adolescence and rescued from

abuse, Is that correct?

But she also.

She rescued herself from abuse and then was rescued from that situation by the society.

And Feeny, played by Shirshi.

Monica Jackson of the Aerie Girls, big appearance in these last three or four episodes.

She's one of the youngest of the society.

And this is what we were talking about in non spoilers where I would have preferred if she could have pulled that performance back a bit.

It's almost as if they said McGee, the creator, writer, showrunner, said to her, you were great in Derry Girls do that, except more.

And I just, I don't know, it

seemed like the kind of thing where like if you, if this was your job, if you're an actor and you were presented with this character.

And you got to throw everything at the wall.

Like, I bet she had a lot of fun doing this.

Yeah, that.

The whole time I thought, that is someone who's having a good time, reunited with this director, writer with a good script and now just being the most outlandish character.

And, you know, I thought the episode before, when they end up back in Derry, I thought, how much of a flex would it be if they showed that mural?

And they did.

And then the next episode, they're sitting there eating ice cream in front of it, and she's framed, you know?

That was wild.

It was great.

I love that.

I figured you would.

It made me pause, even.

And I don't have as much of a soft spot for dairy girls.

I suppose it was an interesting.

I don't know if she would have even framed it like this when she wrote it, created it.

But if you're living in a world in which dairy girls exist, then that was such a story about women, girls of a certain age in a certain place, very tied to.

And their gay buddy.

Yeah, don't forget.

Can't forget him, the wee English fella.

But tied so much to, you know, the.

You didn't finish the show, Right?

That's right.

But it's okay if you.

If you.

It ends at such a pivotal moment in Irish.

Northern Irish history.

Yeah.

The tying their adolescence to that.

That then puts the characters of.

They would be maybe slightly.

They'd be slightly older than the girls were Belfast when the events happened.

Am I making sense there?

So, like.

So there's a way of.

They're saying things about.

And there's one scene in particular that I'm sure we're going to get to about when they're in the cabin and they are told for the first time why Greta killed the journalist and, you know, sold this lie that she has to kind of concoct there.

And they immediately logic out.

I mean, it takes them not even a minute to say, can we really go to the police?

When X, Y and Z is true about.

Is true of being a woman in Northern Ireland at this time, you know, And I think that the system of support and justice and all of these things having to be something that they create for themselves goes hand in hand with Booker and her whole reality.

And that was a moment where I thought, oh, this is.

All of a sudden, the show has, like, laid its thesis card on the table.

Yes.

In a really earned, unexpected way.

And I thought the.

The repeated images and mentioning of women helping women worked really well.

And it's like you said, that was probably a heightened idea.

The.

There were a few in there where if you list out the fact that they're repeated in some way, didn't add up as well.

You know, what is this really saying about religion or folk tales?

And it might be what you mentioned last week, where it says it's as much about what's fiction and what's reality, and where do those lines blur?

And if so, then maybe that list does add up to something interesting.

Yeah.

I mean, I think they're pretty on the nose about it with her writing the situation into her show.

Yeah.

You know that they're constantly in the process of writing as both myth making an effort to create an external thing, but also to process internal stuff.

I don't know.

I like that.

I don't really have anything else to say about that.

I just like that.

That meditation on.

While we're watching a piece of fiction.

Yeah.

What is it saying about.

You know, and then throwing.

If you want to throw religion in there and folktales, like you said, it's just layer on layer on layer.

Yeah.

And if you take that away from it and still are entertained and got as much hilarity out of it as a lot of us did, then it's pretty good.

Probably a season two.

Surely they have to address how these ladies aren't going to jail, Right?

Yeah.

Even there's so many little moments, like when they're on the plane and they realize that they have to cause a scene in order to be escorted out by security so the booker can't get them.

And it's like, what's worth being on the do not fly list?

You know, if you did that here, like, I'm not sure that you're getting back on a plane in the next 10 years.

No, you're not.

If ever.

And I don't know.

That is a funny thought.

Is like, how do they keep.

I mean, I guess a lot of it is happening in the countryside.

You know, that's.

That's one way that they're getting.

Or they actually have involved law enforcement in some way.

And there could be the fact that the law enforcement that they're mainly dealing with is Liam, who's totally forgiving.

Right.

I really liked him.

He was great.

Good character, good writing for him, and well played by the actor.

And maybe season two is where they tell us a bit more about this society that I was wanting to know.

You know, that might be a season two plot point.

If that's what they're wanting to do.

It Seems like the obvious pivot would be that Booker and Feeny now have to build back the society.

And who are the first three recruits?

I mean, that seems pretty on the nose.

You know, I think the other thing that the show leaves you with, and we touched on it a bit early on when you said you wanted more history or more on that scene with Greta's mom.

Again, we're right back to the matter of storytelling and reliable narrators.

All of this, the facts of, you know, we want to know who's a good guy and who's a bad guy when we watch a story.

The facts of Greta are not great.

There's a trail of bodies behind her.

Right.

Like, even if she's only.

It is a situational thing that it's just survival for her.

It's.

It's still like, how do you have that many?

It's a lot.

And I think her mom saying she's pure evil, she is manipulative, all these things.

Like, she clearly could be depending on your perspective on everything that just went down.

Right.

Like, I mean, she could have masterminded this whole thing in a way.

I mean, I think the, the scenes, maybe.

Maybe she would do it just for the sake of shoring up her character.

But like when she called her daughter and had that very emotional, like, just, I think wanted to hear her voice again, that was.

That seemed pretty pure, you know.

But you do have to wonder, like, when they show the guy who gave her a ride at the end with the screwdriver sticking out of his neck and not on the side of his neck.

That would have been self defense for her.

Right.

It was not facing the passenger side.

Right.

So there was no like, struggle and she.

Unless she got out of the car and went back and went through the window for him.

Yeah.

And that's the pink bag.

What's happening in the pink bag.

Yep.

The only person whose morality seems fairly cut and dry is Booker in a way.

And the women seem.

You can't even say that they.

Do they.

Are they good people or did they just want to solve this mystery?

Dara seems like a good person.

Yeah.

You're just speaking of the women, though, right?

Because I think Liam fits the mold.

Liam's a good guy.

He's a nice one.

But they, they keep dangling the.

What happened in Dublin over him, you know?

Yeah.

Yeah, that's true.

If they, if they proceed like we think they're gonna.

With season two, it's definitely going to be a lot more of.

Sometimes it takes women helping women and not relying on anyone else.

And that's a good.

That's a good thematic foundation to build upon, I think.

Yeah.

And I think that could maybe be a.

Not that you were saying it this way, but like, that maybe a more reductive storyline in other hands, you know, But I think the way it's played here, it's so universal feeling that, like, you know, it's really calling into question, like, what justice can you expect from conventional systems of power such as religion, which is.

Or the state or.

You know, I'm just thinking back to when they didn't go to the police in the first place when they were teenagers all the way through.

Like, it's such a tangled web.

How can this messy thing.

How can.

How can the state really handle justice in this situation?

Which I think is really the balancing act of that and how goofy the show was.

Again, just tip of the cap to the.

The writing there.

Yeah.

Well balanced.

Did you know the talk show host?

Is that a real guy?

I did not.

Is that a real.

I'm not that.

I'm not that deep in the UK kind of.

Yeah.

Irish.

It's kind of funny, though, because everybody loved him and they were there.

That scene was hilarious.

It was pretty good.

My last question for you is, what do you make of these bill less caps Dara wears?

She's got.

Natalie wants colors.

Yeah.

I don't.

I don't really have a take other than.

You want to know something?

When I was 16 or 17, I wanted that and could never find it.

Did you just cut the bill off a cap?

I nearly did, but I just thought, there's no way I could do it and make it look good.

Yeah.

I wanted.

It is a funny thing.

What's the purpose?

For me, it was just a style.

Pure style.

Yeah.

Back then for Dara, I suppose.

Same thing.

You know, she.

She makes that style choice very blatantly with.

Give me your husband's clothes.

Yeah.

Don't give me the ladies clothes.

Which is.

Right.

She's got the Chuck Taylors that are thrown about at one point.

Yeah.

And if you want to take that into account, it's a funny moment.

But if you want to take that into.

How does it fit into the rest of the puzzle?

What an interesting piece to say.

I'm not accepting the.

The men style.

And then Tyvet, you know, that's.

It's an equal sign to Booker and what she's doing.

So there you go.

Interesting stuff.

Donovan may come back next week and tell us even more, but tell us what?

We were wrong.

He'll listen to this and maybe critique our critique.

As well he should.

So that's it this week for us.

We're.

We're wrapping up.

Hope you enjoyed it.

If you wish to donate to the fundraiser for the Alabama take in these podcasts, please do.

I am Blaine, and for Adam and Donovan, we hope you don't encounter the Society of Sisters with Scissors trying to avoid that term.

Take care, everyone.