Inconsistence in 'Welcome to Derry' and 'Plur1bus' Goes Beyond A.I.

Hey, y'.

All.

It's taking it down.

America's favorite TV and streaming podcasts.

We.

We may be Britain's favorite TV and streaming podcast, too.

It's hard to say.

Folks come here to get their TV recommendations at the beginning.

No spoilers there, and a lot stick around after the break to hear our insight.

Maybe the best insight this side of the Mississippi on those TV recommendations that we brought up.

This week, it's only Donovan and me, and we will be talking very briefly about stranger things and non spoilers.

And then the majority of our episode will cover the most recent for us episode of welcome to Derry and the most recent episode for all of us, including you, of Pluribus.

If you're listening on day of release, which hope you are, I don't have a lot more to add.

Let's just go ahead and get Donvan in here, start the show.

A Alabama take projection.

And here he is, as promised.

There's no stranger thing than this guy.

No, that was cruel.

Keep it in there, Blaine.

Let the people know what you really think.

Donovan, you did get to see the first two episodes of this final season.

I did Stranger Things 5.

What'd you think?

Okay, so I learned in my HR training that there's such a thing as protected classes, right?

So, like, if you're discriminating based on, say, age, that's a protected class.

Religion, race, things like that.

Do you want to know what's not a protected class Plane?

I don't know.

Where are you going?

Nerds.

Nerds.

I wanted to bully these children.

You wanted to.

I loved them.

I have finally hit.

I don't know why it annoys me so much, but I finally hit the point where, like, the shtick that every season they have, like, a monster and it's.

They are be able to be like, oh, it's a Dungeons and Dragons monster.

And they.

Fortunately, the manual exactly describes what it can do in its powers.

It was always annoying to me.

And then jumping back into it, I just felt annoyed.

Like, his name's not Vecna, it's Henry or some shit.

Act like adults.

Yeah, Henry.

That's right.

So, okay, you said it kind of annoyed you.

You know, initially, like, season one.

Well, we're.

Yeah.

When they were like, oh, the Demogorgon.

Well, that's what it's.

All its powers are.

It must not like fire, you know, because it doesn't like fire.

In the rule book, I always took.

It like, they just.

It was so comparable.

They were just like, oh, that's so close to.

I Mean, they didn't get to the nuance of it.

There's a bit in, in the first episode where Dustin gets into a tangle as he.

Right before he gets into this, this fisticuffs, he starts talking about what happened in a damn Dungeons and Dragons game he was playing.

Have you ever, ever been around people who are like telling you, like, here's what happened in my Dungeons and Dragons game.

And it was so funny and you just got to sit and listen to the God dang thing.

I've only been around a couple of people who've ever brought D and D up.

Bring back bullying is what I'm saying.

Okay.

Other than that, I agree with you and Adam.

You know, it is a.

They're a pretty fine tuned machine at this point.

Right.

Like they know.

I don't think we're seeing anything we have never seen before.

But if you like.

I feel like a lot of things I reviewed in the past couple months have been like, if you already liked X, you will continue to like X.

Like, if you already liked it, I think you'll continue to like it.

I don't feel as invested as maybe I would have been a couple years ago.

Yeah, I didn't think I would be, but I, But I'm, I'm so interested.

Interesting.

Yeah, I'll probably, I mean, I'll probably finish it out if.

If for nothing else so that we can talk about it.

I just like that these, this season, it's.

They've probably written themselves into a corner where they just have to trim the fat.

I know they run an hour and over, but at the same time it's all get this done, get this done.

And it's.

Yeah, mostly it's a lot of let's.

Get this done, let's plan for it, then we'll do it, then we'll execute.

And that can get, I don't know, that can get a little repetitive.

But okay, I enjoyed it fine.

Yeah, I didn't hate.

I didn't want to claw my eyes out, you know, Like, I was like.

But you're only two episodes.

I'm only two episodes in.

That's, that's fine.

I think three and four are really good.

I probably would have watched more, but they are getting into the, you know, the over hour runtime just with other things going on in my evenings.

Yeah, it's like, oh, this is a little bit harder to schedule in.

They're basically movies.

Yeah, they're getting that way how?

Like one of the episodes.

Well, we're on in the theater.

Yeah, the.

One of the Christmas ones.

Right?

Yeah.

And I'm not.

I don't remember off the top of my head.

I don't know the details of it.

We touched on it last week with whatever.

Who knows what's happening with Net.

Warner Brothers now, you know, Paramount seems like they're trying to get.

The head of Netflix has said things, you know, that's like, yeah, people don't want to watch stuff in theaters.

You know, they want to watch it at home.

That's just the way things are.

Which we.

You can agree.

Which you can agree or disagree with.

But I'm so.

I want to be a fly on the wall where they're like, okay, we already have this attitude.

But like Stranger Things, that's what people are going to go to the movie theater to see.

I'm just curious.

Like, I don't think they're wrong.

I think it's cool to put things in a movie theater.

I'm just curious.

The internal discuss.

What the internal discussions were there.

Yeah, well.

Money motivated.

Well, sure.

But I mean, you know, if we're thinking that.

I cannot think of his name.

But the obviously.

Ted.

Ted Serenos.

Thanks.

Taking over Warner Brothers.

Talking about how, you know, obviously the money's.

It's cheaper for them not to release things in theaters, obviously to put it right out on their own platform to cut out the theaters entirely.

But this one.

Yeah, I mean, I'm sure it is money.

I'm just cute.

Curious to me.

Speaking of Netflix, the.

You didn't happen to see the new Knives out movie from Rian Johnson?

Nope.

But it's on my list.

Been getting good reviews and I. I'm dead, man.

Is this one.

I think we did the last one, Glass Onion on this one.

And I'm.

I'm on the record of enjoying that.

I enjoyed the first two very much.

Yeah, I will continue to watch.

I. I guess I'm just gonna continue to watch this franchise till I die.

Yeah.

If you like quirky mysteries.

I mean, this.

It is a perfect fit.

I thought it was good.

I think I do for the first two, appreciate the way that Daniel Craig is kind of overacting without going into annoying.

Yeah.

You know, like, it's like, it's like.

Which I think is really hard to do.

Like, it could be really annoying.

But Daniel Craig is a good actor and he knows what he's doing, so I found it funny.

And I think the supporting cast has been great.

I have no reason to think it wouldn't be great for this one.

Looking at who's in it?

Yeah, this one's on my list.

It's a two and a half hour, you know, so we gotta.

You gotta.

Not that that makes it like, oh, it's so long, it's gonna be boring.

I'm sure it's great, but you know, you gotta.

But you gotta budget in your time.

It's.

Yeah, it's the tempting.

I didn't think we would have much to say on HBO's show Welcome to Derry, the it prequel.

But I have a few thoughts and questions.

I have a little thought that has been picking away at me.

Did the episode produce a toothy grin from you?

I do.

We were asking why.

Why is this the HBO Sunday night slot?

Right.

Why is this one?

I'm not sure if the answer isn't as simple as people like it when Bill Skarsgard is Pennywise.

I think that you're exactly right.

You know.

And I do think they've actually been pretty judicious with his use.

I don't.

I think it would be really tempting to overuse him.

I don't think they have done that necessarily.

And I think like when he's on there, it's just like, yeah, this is the shit.

Like, give me more of this.

Kind of.

Is the.

The show's inconsistent?

I think the show is very inconsistent.

I would not give it the adverb.

Wildly inconsistent.

I would just say it's.

It's inconsistent.

I would say it's inconsistent.

And I think my.

This might be more appropriate for spoilers.

But I think my kind of thing that I've been rattling or is has a little bit to do with its tone, a little bit to do with what it seems like maybe it's trying to set up in its intro with it.

With its opening credits and I think is part of its inconsistency.

Yeah.

But you know what you'll get in terms of a grade.

It's.

It's between a C and a B.

It's a C plus.

It's a B minus.

I'd say we're.

We're hover as an overall.

We're hovering around the beam or.

You know, most of the time Chris.

Chalk's acting better than he needs to, I guess.

And when thing.

When things are effective, they're.

I think they're very effective.

Yeah, they do.

It's just.

Yeah, it's like.

I can't disagree with you.

It's just, it's.

It is inconsistent.

For better or worse, the most recent episode for us, we produce on Sunday Afternoon and then Release on Tuesday morning.

So we've seen episode seven.

It's the penultimate episode.

The Black Spots, the name of it.

And I thought it was the most engaging and lacked the least amount of incongruity.

Yeah.

I'd give it a. I was really.

When we got at the end of episode six with some of the things that had happened, I was kind of like, I don't know what the hell this thing's about to go off the rails.

But worked for me.

Yes.

Frankly, I won't specify, but I love the cold open.

I thought that was very good as well.

If anyone watched, you know what that is.

But we'll save more of that in spoilers.

And I feel like poor Bill Skarsgard.

He's just being typecast as like, gangly monster man.

But he's so good at it.

Yes.

And he's more to say about that.

Yeah, Well, I just thought that this one was well shot and had a little emotional heft to help get to the last episode a little bit.

Yeah.

More.

Yes.

We'll say.

I might say more later, but I agree that this was one of the better ones of.

Of this series.

And I think we'll end up talking some pluribus too this week.

It's Apple TV show player One bus.

Is that how you pronounce it?

It's the Apple TV show made by creator Vince Gilligan, he of Breaking Bad and better Call Saul fame.

This show stars racy horn.

She's a Lady admits what?

Either a alien invasion or dystopia.

It's open to interpretation.

Even at seven episodes, they are going to air nine episodes total.

You think that's enough to put a bow on some of it and leave people satisfied?

Man, I don't know.

But I tell you what, I think we're incapable hands.

You know, this.

This last episode that we watched, I just kept having over and over the thought, which I think other people, I'm sure other people have had just like, I cannot pin down what this show is.

I cannot put my finger on it.

And this is not a criticism.

I would.

I was not thinking that in a critical way.

More in the way that it's like, this is constantly surprising me.

It's really been taking on big themes and then all of a sudden it'll like pop you down to just like human level drama.

Yeah, this is.

This is a weird.

This is a weird show.

Like watching it.

I think if you just watched it and didn't think too much about it, it's not that weird.

But as soon as you're sitting down and really getting into it.

You're like, this is.

This is a weird.

Like, this does it.

They're doing 20 different things in this show.

Yeah, they are.

And it's not bad and not bad, interestingly, not inconsistently.

I think that's why I feel that we're in very capable hands, because I think this could really in different hands, you know, because they're doing so many different things.

It would be like, oh, well, I look like a little thing A.

But thing C kind of bores me.

So whenever thing C is on, I kind of tune out.

But I have not felt that way.

I would say it's evolving, and normally if I would say that about anything, I would say they didn't know where they were going at first, but they got better.

I don't think that's quite the case here.

They probably have a plan, an idea or 60 in place, and it feels.

Like there's a master plan, at least for this season.

I can't speak to.

But as a viewer and watching it, you just feel, okay.

So now we're focused on this aspect, this element of living or what?

Yeah.

And I. I do think that this job, this job, this show has done a good job.

I. I think.

I think you used a good word which is evolving, because I think that this show is building what you learn from each episode.

It's kind of building, like, as you're focusing on other things, it's like.

But you have the background and the foundation of what we already did.

Whereas I think an inconsistent show would.

Would be.

It would.

You would feel like you're more jumping around and there would be less like, well, why the hell did you show me, you know, how all the other Survivors, if we were not.

If we're.

You know what I mean?

Like, it would just be.

And it remains.

Yeah, it remains.

I find that it remains intriguing, I think, too, you know, if you think about Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad, I think that those were shows that evolved as well, but were not.

Did not evolve in the sense that they didn't know what they were doing, but as they kept going and building.

And I think.

I mean, obviously, you know, there's things like, I think pretty famously, Vince Gilligan said at the end of the fifth season's the last of Breaking Bad.

You know, the.

The.

The bit with, like, Walt and the machine gun, he's like, I just thought it was cool.

So I put it in, and then I was like, I'll just write to see how this.

How we get out of this.

Yeah.

But I do, you know, I do think there was that, like there was a plan.

But also it kind of built and built and built.

And I think Mad Men's a show that does that as well, where it evolved.

So I'm, I'm obviously Vince Gilligan's not involved in Mad Men, but just thinking about how good and audacious it is to take like you have to evolve as a show.

And that seems like this is built into this thing's DNA from the beginning.

Both on AMC or those were.

Yeah, funny enough, the, the golden age of amc.

I suppose this was the.

It was the golden age.

Let's take a break and on the other side, we can talk about some of this in specific terms.

We'll.

We'll do welcome to Derry and Pluribus, in that order.

Don't miss it.

On the Alabama take in the coming weeks will be the best of TV of 2025.

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There might be more.

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One more list.

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All right.

Back at Dairy D E R R Y.

You know what I was thinking about during the break?

And it has nothing to do with dairy, but you just mentioned the golden age of amc.

And don't you miss.

You'd fire up Mad Men and it'd be over and then AMC would kind of lean in and be like, you want to watch some low winter sun?

You do, don't you?

Nobody did.

Well, let's.

Let's don a ribbon in her hair.

How's your toothy grin feeling?

Yeah, that intro is astounding.

One of the best I've seen.

It is a good intro and.

And I think I'm gonna quibble with it a little or talk about the tone that it sets up, I guess is what I mean.

Yeah, it kind of presents one thing in the show's another.

Yes, I will get into it.

Okay.

Well, you know, it starts with that cold open that I mentioned.

Actual Pennywise father and his daughter from 1908 in the cold open.

You know, I, I thought it had A certain downtrodden, corny charm to the whole thing.

Absolutely.

There's even some.

I mean, I think this is a case of, like, this is not great writing or anything, but I felt like Bill Skarsgard gave it some Pennywise, some pathos, like we've already seen.

You know, he's kind of like drinking behind the scenes and.

Yeah.

And whatever.

And there's the bit where he's.

He's talking with his daughter and he.

She's.

He's thinking.

He's thinking about going back to the circus one day and he kind of, like, gets a little.

And Bill Skarsgard doing that.

I think you can take or leave the accent.

I'm completely fine with it.

But he kind of says, like, I'm gonna show him something they've never seen before.

Really?

Because we know what's going to happen to this guy.

That's kind of sad.

There's some pathos there.

Yeah.

And it.

I think it works well enough to demonstrate why old Mrs. Kirsch, grown up, is so focused on seeing her father again.

It was.

They had a nice, loving relationship.

It was not what I thought it.

Was going to be.

And they were able to do it in a.

In a cold open, and.

Yeah.

You know, I thought, that's pretty good.

It was pretty good.

They got it done in the 5, 10 minutes.

Clearly, she does not have a lot of love in her life in the present.

That's true.

With her husband.

Yeah.

Yep.

I did have some questions, some of which I hope.

You know, I was under the impression that Pennywise only harms kids, but here he's got.

He's had his gullet full of adult blood.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I think he's an equal opportunity harmer.

Maybe he just likes kids the best, you know?

Yeah.

Because it seems like that's what he's eaten the most of.

You know, the.

The Native American folks gathering.

I think they say how many kids, and it's like 18 or something like that.

I don't know if this is, like, in the mythos or the lore.

Like, I looked.

I was.

Last week, I was at a toy store that had the copy of it, and I looked at it and it was thicker than my Bible.

And I'm like, I don't.

I just can't.

I don't know who has the time.

Maybe when I was 12.

But it does seem that there's.

It's at least set up or understood that, you know, like, he likes those big explosions of violence kind of towards the end of his, you know, before he hibernates.

So I guess that's the adult part of it.

I don't.

I don't know enough to.

Yeah, I'm with.

With this.

I'm kind of like is, you know, like, tell me whatever you want about Pennywise.

As long as it's not super inconsistent, you know, I'm fine with it.

Whatever.

You know, he's a spa.

He's a space monster.

Extra dimensional being.

I get it.

He's a weird dude.

Yeah.

Kind of takes the form.

Well, think about how he.

In 1908, how he comes to him.

He.

He was a kid with a horrible haircut.

Yeah.

It was creepy.

I liked it.

I mean, we all knew it was gonna happen, but I like it.

Yeah, it was creepy.

I'd also understood Pennywise to live off the fear of children, but is that he's just drawn to it.

He gets power from it.

He just loves it.

You know.

What's his relationship of fear versus eating people?

Tastes better, right?

I guess.

Yeah.

Or if they're afraid it tastes better.

There's something that's giving him nourishment in the frightened victims.

There is a book I read last year.

I thought it was stellar.

The book is Tender is the Flesh by Augustina Basterica.

And there's a bit in there where they talk about the adrenaline.

I don't know how true this is, but the adrenaline makes the meat softer, better.

It adds something.

There are parallels to this in real life.

So I should.

What I'm going to say is something that I learned about folks in South Korea.

And I learned it because there's a huge burgeoning pet industry in South Korea.

People have a lot more Western attitudes towards pets.

They have dogs, cats, they love them because there's more animal rights organizations there.

So, you know, dogs that were headed for.

For slaughter essentially are often rescued by these organizations.

And I think in the past couple years, like, laws have been changed.

I know it's a horrible racist trope to talk about Asian folks eating cats and dogs, but this is.

This is real.

And so I want to say all that with like, there are tons of people in South Korea who have dogs and cats.

And, you know, I'm not saying that they're like barbarians, but when you.

I learned this in this newspaper article.

I read that the dogs would often be like, hung up and things like that because it was felt that like, the dog that was in pain or fear tasted better before it was slaughtered, which I think is hor.

And obviously the animal rights people and everyone also over there in South Korea, they.

They tend to agree with us.

But I thought that's.

That's really interesting that, like, that's like a real thing that, like, human beings have thought.

Yeah.

So what we're getting at here is that trying to piece together some of this penny lore on our own.

You know, he likes it when people are scared and then when he eats them, it's better that.

That could very well be the case.

Yeah.

I wonder, you know, it's better.

Maybe it gives him something.

Right.

Some nourishment he needs.

Yeah.

He can't just go on a rampage.

You know, he's not a spree killer.

He's a fear killer.

Right.

He's more serial killer than.

He is more serial killer than random.

Yeah.

In the middle of all this, Pennywise, there's also the very real horror of racism in this episode.

Yeah.

That's almost the thing that I'm gonna quibble with in that, I think the show.

It almost feels like it's been kind of like flirting with these very big, very serious themes.

Things about civil rights movement, of course, horrors of racism.

And I'm not going to quibble with them putting it in there, because I think it's good that it's in there.

What I'm going to quibble with is they almost don't kind of take it seriously.

For me, the black spot attack was honestly a little bit undercut by the understanding we have at this point that Pennywise makes everything worse in Derry, that he makes people more violent, more angry, which we've seen.

And to me, you can't have that and also have us have an understanding of this is baked into America.

This is part of us as well.

Yeah.

And I think that's where I'd quibble with the opening, which is a great opening, by the way.

But I think it kind of wants us to set up with like, we're.

I think it was.

T.S.

eliot once wrote that Sweeney saw the skull beneath the skin.

And it kind of sets up to me, like this wants to show us the skull beneath the skin of America, of early 60s America.

But Derry is like, sort of a magic exception.

Not a magic exception, you know, but it kind of like, sometimes it's like they pull back from saying, like, this is.

This is not just here because of Pennywise.

Maybe what they're trying to say is Pennywise feeds here because, you know, this.

This gives him power, this grows him.

But I feel like they kind of need to take it seriously, and maybe that's unfair.

But I feel like with something as horrible as what they showed at the Black Spot, you can't just kind of tease it out by saying, well, you know, Pennywise especially, because they've brought in things about, you know, like, the Native American land that's been taken, you know, and.

And the civil rights movement and all this kind of stuff.

But it does feel a little bit like they've been.

They've been flirting with it.

Yeah.

I agree a lot with that, because not putting in there would be really ridiculous.

Yeah.

But if you could have it stand on its own for a little bit and then maybe incorporate the Pennywise thing.

Yes.

I don't know.

And sometimes whenever I think of something like this where I feel like it's not quite as effective.

There's a bit in 30 Rock where Tracy Jordan's talking about making movies, and he's like, I want to hold up a mirror to America and get an award for the biggest mirror.

And that's what.

That's my.

That's always my review of, like, it's not quite hitting.

The shootout and the burning of the bar was violent.

And, you know, some could say it's too violent, comically violent in the context of what we're talking about.

But I'd say that it was.

It gave me a what could happen next feeling, and it just happened to be Pennywise showing up in the extreme.

The show.

This is like a pinpoint for it being inconsistent, because at least for me, and maybe I'm just easily manipulated, but I found the big shootout like.

Like, scary and terrifying, and I was afraid for, like, people in there.

Yeah.

And.

And even some things, like, you know, once it kept going and we get more supernatural elements, like Chris Chalk has to dit.

Halloran starts talking to dead people.

Yep.

Which, of course, as anyone who's been in a haunted house knows, you never talk back to them.

That's.

That's when things start to get really bad.

Yeah.

In the previous episode, the.

The Cuban Kid, Rich, he jumped behind the drums, pummeled him well enough to sit in with the band.

Was silly at the moment, but it was still.

You know, I think that it maybe endeared him a little bit more before he had to be the narrative sacrificial lamb.

Here.

He was the sacrificial lamb.

It was fine.

Complete.

Aside from this, I'd like to commend all of the young people playing in this.

I think they're actually all really good, including Richie, the actors.

I mean, it would be so easy to just be incredibly annoyed by.

By them.

But it was a little like, all right, he's.

He's out of here.

That's sad.

Yeah, I found it to be kind of a little sad.

I want to really dig into this a little.

The.

The critic on Vulture complained that the I love you from Marge Too rich felt too soon.

But I thought, no, that's pre teen kids.

Absolutely what you do.

That would be the first thing they would say to one another if they both thought they were about to die.

I mean, they're supposed to be what, like 14, 15, I think.

Yeah.

13.

14, 15.

Yeah.

It doesn't matter if they've known each other for band dating for a full year.

Exactly.

No 14 or 15 year old can say I love you, you know, in.

In the way that like an.

They will as an adult.

That's right.

And it brings me to this point that I think most horror or even dramas, they want to be realistic as possible.

They tend to avoid death of kids.

And it reminds me, another motif I forgot with Stephen King, at least with it and a few other things, is that both he and his movies, it goes there.

Well, yeah.

I mean, look at something like Pet Sematary where like the central horror and trauma is every parent.

I mean, and he's talked about, you know, he's.

He bases things off of his life.

He's like, it's every parent's worst nightmare.

Yeah, that's the point.

Right.

And I'm not bringing up killing off children as praise for a show, although I've always been one who accepted his fiction as fiction, you know.

Yeah.

If this is fictional and you want to really hit a gut punch, then you know, you know what you could do.

It's just fiction.

You know, if there's a death of a child, I realize the actor's very much alive.

Who plays riches.

Even Richie, who did a good job.

Yeah, he's there.

Charlotte, that's Will's mom.

She.

For.

She forbids Will to leave home.

And it's not because the Pennywise attack are appearing at the black spot or sneaking out to it.

It's because, as she states, the real horror is the horrible racism here, which I think she and her son, the community face.

It's.

It's a good moment.

But it maybe that what you were saying earlier is it needs to be more of a moment, more than a moment.

That was my feeling for that.

I thought it was a good moment.

But it's also like, Derry's the real.

And it's like.

But we've got this almost like Cop out for the way people act where it's like, well, Pennywise is exacerbating every bad impulse in us.

Instead of like, it was fine, it was a nice moment.

At least they had it.

That's right.

For some reason, I'm a dunce at times, but I'd forgotten that the backbone of any version of it is about friendship and the importance of relying on.

Especially as a kid who's not the mainstream kid.

And you need others to turn to.

And that's why I thought it was kind of a little sad to have little Rich die in this episode.

Some of that kind of came back to me.

And it was kind of funny watching Stranger Things, having been watching this, where I'm like.

Like it's so baked into Stranger Things DNA, you know, like, you almost can't imagine without Stephen King.

Stranger Things.

And I kept laughing because it's like the.

Everything from, like, you know, you've got the misfits to the monsters that feed on children or captured, kidnapped children.

Yeah, it's.

They, they.

It's kind of funny to watch both.

It was very.

It was very funny to.

To see both at the same time.

But hey, that entire fire sequence, before we leave it, I thought it was so well shot.

Oh, incredibly well shot.

It gave me the feeling of.

It was scary.

A person would feel.

I've always been afraid of being trapped in a burning building.

Yes, I've.

The way Richie died, I think is a horrible way to die from.

From my understanding.

So that's scary enough for me.

I don't know, I wonder if Marge really would have survived.

Wouldn't that wouldn't have gotten real hot in there.

It's questionable, I suppose.

Yeah, it doesn't matter.

It's a TV show.

At least Rich died of smoke inhalation and not the actual burning.

That's how a lot of people die in fires.

Yeah, right.

They die smoke inhalation first.

And then I did.

I. I did have another half thought and I was like, you know, this happened.

This incident happened on federal land.

This is an army base.

Right.

Is like.

The Air Force seemed really casual about a bunch of folks from town showing up and killing 20 some airmen.

I don't know, maybe.

Maybe the army is just incorrigibly racist or the Air Force is incorrigibly racist as well.

But I kind of wondered.

I kind of wondered that.

That like an invasion of federal land of the Air Force base where airmen are murdered, that seems like somebody might lose their job over it.

I guess it might have Been a little off base.

Well, but it was used for old storage, wasn't it?

Oh, because they had to open those gates.

I don't know.

Maybe I'm wrong.

Excuse me.

I just don't know enough about.

Because obviously, you know, I know.

And this is something where I'm.

I should do some more reading.

But obviously, like, even though the military is integrated.

Right.

Like, you look at the experience of black soldiers at Vietnam and of course they're still facing racism in the ranks.

Oh, for sure.

You know, that takes us to Chris Chalk again in this series.

Maybe listeners are tired of us heaping praise upon him, but I'm going to tell you something.

You'll know it's warranted if you go to that scene and watch his reaction to his friend Major Leroy Hanlon asking him post fire you all right?

And his choice how to vocalize.

No, no, I can't even do it right.

And he vocalizes.

He says no twice.

And that is why he's deserving of this acting role and more.

Yeah, that's why you get him.

It's like he was a changed man.

Chris Chalk, in my opinion, also is.

Is a deserving recipient of the Chad Powers Better Than It Needed to be Award for 2025.

Yeah.

He does not have to be as good as he is.

He doesn't.

But I thank God for.

For him that he is.

I think a lot of the actors are.

Are really great.

I think so too.

And I think that's a material that's, you know, a little inconsistent.

I would agree with that.

I think that the acting, by and large, is really good.

And I think it kind of does, you know, like in the.

To go back to an earlier example when Will's mom is like, you know, the real monsters are here.

You can like, be like, well, did the show set it up well?

Think she's doing a good enough job where you can be like, yeah, I like, I believe her.

Exactly.

That's like, exactly.

Believe the writing that got us here.

Yeah, exactly.

Okay.

Ms. Ms.

Angry Kirsch only now realizes that's not her dad after a long bloody conversation.

What?

What, what gave it away?

That was.

That's literally what I said.

Was it because he wanted to take a nap and your dad never napped?

That's exactly what I, What I said.

Where, where she go when she go like, literally out loud to the tv, like, what gave it away?

Cuz, like, you know, she knows that, like, having this bloodbath is going to bring him here.

Yeah, I do kind of.

And I did.

As silly as it was, I enjoyed dull Skarsgard and his funny accent going like, I'll be back.

Yeah.

I always seem to.

You're like, I'll come back.

I always seem to.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Almost in a way that makes like maybe I'm reading too much into it.

But I feel like there was an intriguing question of like, what kind of sentience does this creature have?

Like, does it even have an understanding of its own life?

He's like, well, I'm gonna sleep now and I'll probably be back.

I've been back a zillion times before.

Way back in 27 years.

Yeah, exactly.

Well, once the elders of the indigenous people met to sort out the 27 year pause of death you mentioned.

Yeah.

How many deaths did we.

It's, you know, we protected this many others.

That's kind of important.

Yep.

I was happy to hear one of the elders say, shit asses.

That was hilarious.

I cracked up.

It's like, I'll see you shit asses in 27 years.

That was hilarious.

Such a good term of endearment.

I.

You have incorporated since reservation dogs.

Yeah.

That's good.

That made me laugh too.

Yeah, it's good.

Good.

I'm also appreciative that it felt as if all were pretty safe.

Since Pennywise wish to hibernate for 27 years, I thought maybe next week's episode would be more of a wrap up.

No, he's.

He got out.

He's out and about.

He's going to scare Will to death.

He got.

Yeah, he.

His ass got woken up.

Yeah.

Pretty scary moment when he's on the phone with Will and then turns around and he's there.

That's always a. Yeah.

You knew.

You knew it was gonna happen.

But I liked it.

Apparently the lots Pennywise reveals to victims are called dead lights in some of the king lore.

It doesn't kill the victim as much as make them catatonic.

Like Ingrid Kirsch.

Okay.

Because that's why she's medically leaving the fire and she's almost catatonic.

She can look around a little.

She's responding to some.

I thought maybe I was curious because I was like, did he get.

Does he like get into their heads too?

Because it seemed like she was responding to weird stuff.

Yeah, it's kind of.

It's called the deadlights or Deadlights.

But it all came down to the military destroying one of the stones that kept Pennywise pinned inside of dairy instead.

They want.

It's a bit of a twist.

I mean, I hadn't thought too much about it.

You know, I mentioned how can they harness it to protect from Russia or China or the Communist countries?

And instead, what they want to do is they want to just keep America in line through fear.

I don't know.

That's kind of interesting.

Yeah.

You know, you've got the generals.

I mean, it's not, like, great, but you've got the general saying, like, we're tearing each other apart.

But of course, instead, like, it is kind of like, you know, if you've got a hammer, every problem's a nail.

Right.

Like, instead of fixing underlying issues, he's like, we'll just make everyone too afraid to yell at each other.

Yeah.

You know, but that's a.

You know, that's real.

That's a real tactic.

We've seen.

For sure.

Yeah.

I mean, we've seen everything.

Time.

You know, people in riot gear get deployed somewhere.

There's at least an echo of that thinking.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I was never too keen on having all this knowledge of Pennywise, but now I think I've changed my tune.

I think seeing more of the man who was a little down and out with his daughter in the carnival, only to be drawn into the woods by this scary kid with.

Who needed a haircut.

Yeah.

It may be invested in the entirety, I think of his.

Of his story as a human.

I'm just glad they showed his origins.

Yeah, I like that, too.

As inconsistent as this show is, I'm honestly a little surprised that they haven't overdone Pennywise.

But I don't think they have.

I think.

I think they have an understanding, you know, that he's your.

He's your big.

He's your.

If you put them in a scene, you got it.

You got to use them sparingly.

You use them for an hour, you're not gonna.

It's not gonna have the same effect.

That's right.

If you go to message boards online, that's the biggest complaint of fans.

Where's Pennywise?

We want to see more.

And, like, interesting.

This is a case where I sometimes think fans don't know what's good for them.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, it goes back to your statement that people just love Bill Scarsgard as Pennywise.

I. I mean, he is very good.

Poor, poor Bill.

He's never gonna get.

He's completely locked out of romantic comedies at this point, I think.

But.

But he's good.

He's good.

Yeah.

Okay, let's do some spoilers for the most recent episode of Pluribus on Apple tv.

Creator Vince Gilligan, Carol, she's kind of relenting.

She's trying to find some enjoyment in life, even if it's just singing songs.

A little sadness and desperation there, I think.

Yeah.

This was like almost sadder to me than when she was just angry all the time.

Yeah, it's true.

Very scene appropriate songs.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I can see Vince Gilligan and company getting really pumped up to read on the various things in nature that could kill you in Central America.

And that's not to mention filming those nice drives Manatou says takes before hitting the jungle.

Yeah.

You identified it as.

This isn't quite like something that they do in Breaking Bad or Better Call Saul, which is like, okay, you're kind of watching someone do something in real time and you're not quite sure what they're doing.

And akin.

I mean, you know what he's doing.

But it was kind of akin to that for me where I'm like, I'm just kind of fascinated like this, how's this guy going to get north?

Yeah, me too.

I know it's going to take forever.

It could have been boring.

It was not boring.

I was actually very invested in.

Is it Manusis?

Well, he says, he says it enough in the episode.

Shame.

I know.

Shame on us.

Mentus us.

Well, he goes from perilous to insane when he takes a burning hot machete to his own back after the fall into the Chunga palm.

I thought there was a really poignant bit too where like he gets to the.

It's the Darien.

Is it the Gap?

I forget what they call it.

The Darien.

That's right.

And there's just clothes and clothes and clothes and teddy bears and things like that all over the ground from all of the people who used to be trying to cross it.

Yeah.

And you know, people die every single day trying to cross that.

And like it wasn't heavy handed, but it was there.

It might have been a little light handed.

Well, you know, it makes you think.

I thought it was very good.

Right.

Because it's sad.

I think it's a sad thing that happens in our literal real world.

But to me it was kind of an underpoint of underscore of like, okay, is this dystopia because nobody's waiting here to die anymore.

Yes, you know, that's a good point.

No, I was a little ignorant.

I just thought, oh, he's come to a junky area.

Oh, it's horrible.

It's where people placed where, I don't.

Know, you know, just throw the trash or something.

But as yet, you're right.

Yeah.

People trying to get to the United States will travel north through.

They have to travel north through that and people just die all the time.

Or you have, you know, like the smugglers who take you through.

You know, if they know the paths, they'll to then take advantage of you.

All kind.

All sorts.

All sorts of horrible things happen to people there every single day.

Right.

I want to talk about that scene, though, where he had the machete to his back.

Holy smokes, man.

The music in that scene hints at more than just boneheadedness or stubbornness.

If you go back and watch that, there's a menace to his refusal of help.

Yeah.

I don't know how that'll play, but it was.

It wasn't the.

The score of someone who's trying to medically help themselves.

Yeah.

I thought.

I don't know why, but I really liked it when he talks, finally speaks to them and he's like, you can't give me anything because everything you have is stolen.

Yeah, nothing.

Which is kind of yours, which is sort of an attitude.

I don't think Carol's probably the closest to it.

We haven't seen that too much from other people.

Yeah.

It brings me a lot of questions, that speech about ownership in society.

Yeah.

He wishes to save the world, but he may have ideas for a better.

At least for him.

Or what he thinks.

A better world than what Carol may think.

Yeah.

Maybe he.

He may lean closer to a communist point of view, if I can, to simplify it.

Maybe.

Yeah.

I don't know if we know enough about him right now.

I mean, obviously that is sort of one of the.

The underlying tensions.

Right.

Like to put the world back the way it was.

Your take.

Like, for all of.

As much as I love my individuality.

Yeah.

You're.

You're.

You're putting back war and does, you know, inequality, maybe.

I would say famine.

Although we now know that these guys are going to.

Can't really take care of themselves.

But then I thought.

I thought too, like, in a very subtle way, the episode did a great job of like, asking, like, well, are there things that are.

Are really gone?

And that's tragedies.

Songs, for example, that she's singing, they don't sing.

It doesn't seem like they do.

You know, she goes to Georgia o' Keefe and Museum and steals a painting, as we all would.

But it's like, you know, I think that kind of asks, like, do they.

Do they make art?

Do they make anything?

Yeah, I Can see Gilligan toying with expectations, having him get to Carol, and now they don't agree on how to.

On how to fix.

Yeah, I could see that.

Especially now that she's reunited with Zoa.

Yeah, right.

She might disregard his pleas or something, but it's.

It's 36 days is the account, and Carol's reached her end.

She paints on her culdes sack.

Yeah.

You know, come back.

This is right after seeing how she doesn't move an inch when I toppled.

Fireworks.

Shoots right at her almost.

And she's now resigned to put the fire out, even.

Yeah.

And then she paints the message, I guess soon after, maybe the next day.

I think if you're not too far gone and you're like, I was willing to sit and let a firework blow up my face.

Maybe that's when you like, perhaps I should talk to somebody.

You weren't too shocked that she reached out in that way Fire?

I was.

I was somewhat surprised.

But also, it's like you're in a bad place if you're like, there.

There are better ways to go than killed in a fireworks accident.

And we were talking about how it evolves.

I think that now it's as much about the insanity that loneliness can bring as much as it is about a version of AI.

Yeah.

I mean, that.

That was Carol's.

If you do want to, like, take it into the AI direction, you know, many people are.

Use ChatGPT, as in to alleviate their loneliness.

And you know, right now, even though that's not like, it can't feel anything.

Like, we don't know that the alien, the entity can't truly feel.

We don't know that.

But it asks you those questions of like, well, can that be a meaningful substitute for human relationships?

You know, right now, in my own state, CHAT GPT is being sued because they, the, the lawsuit claims that Chat GPT, there's this guy, I think he had paranoid or schizophrenic delusions and CHAT GPT reinforced it, you know.

Yes.

They're after you.

Yes, they're looking.

You know, you should be worried to the point where he killed his mother and then himself.

Wow.

You know, so I think there is.

I don't think they're quite as on the nose about that.

No.

But.

But I do think that the question of, like, is this, could this be.

Is this meaningful?

Yeah, I think for Carol, it's going to be for a while.

Yeah.

I mean, just like, if I, If, If I was lonely, if I was in solitary confinement and someone Gave me chatgpt.

It would probably be a lifeline.

Right.

It would help.

You know, this episode's titled the Gap is the amount of time alone for Carol that we don't see as important as what we do see of her.

I think so, because we can see that she's.

She's slipping.

You know, she's hitting golf balls in.

Downtown buildings, though, is not a bad way.

It's not a bad hobby.

It did kind of make me laugh because it was like, this is the first time that Carol has been somewhat like some of the other survivors, where it's like, well, I can do anything I want now, I guess.

But she's breaking windows instead of.

She's not necessarily living this hedonistic lifestyle, smashing windows in office buildings.

I thought that was funny.

Yeah.

It's interesting, too, that it took a month for Carol, which is just time alone for her, but it took almost dying for Mensis to break.

I don't.

Well, he didn't even officially break.

He just.

He didn't break.

They just rescued him.

He never broke.

He did not ask to be rescued.

He did not.

I wonder if they're gonna address that at all.

Because we've had the entity tell us, like, well, you know, if you have agency, we can't really interfere with you.

And so isn't it his.

If he's got agency, like, it's his right to die horribly.

Right.

By himself, refusing help.

We'll see.

I don't know if that's going to be a plot point or if it'll just be like, you know, what if he died here?

That would make a very boring show.

I couldn't help but think towards the end that he's putting in the effort and not giving one inch.

While Carol does occasionally shrug and say, I want a nice dinner.

I mean, she's always been.

It's like he's.

He's the.

Like, I won't even interact with you.

Right.

Whereas she's always been more compromised in her relationship with the.

The entity with the.

The thing.

More Americanized.

I don't know.

Maybe.

I mean, it.

A chunk of the episodes was.

Was him siphoning gas while she just stops at a gas station.

Yeah.

And asks.

Calls and asks the pump to be turned on and won't take anything.

You know, he's collecting rainwater to drink where she's asking for a Gatorade.

That's right.

Such a good contrast.

And he leaves cash everywhere.

He takes anything, which makes his statement to the aliens that they're stealing it all yes.

You know, he's not hypocritical.

He's.

In many ways, he's the Batman of this show in that you can tell he won't change one bit.

But it's like there's a.

There's almost like a kind of sweet sadness to him leaving money, like, the world will ever go back.

And I agree with what you just said.

It underscore.

It was a great thing to put in.

And then have him say, you're stealing everything.

He clearly doesn't think he's doing that.

And we saw that too, back at the.

The, like, storage place that he was working at.

Right.

Like, he's as.

He's taking things from people's storage.

He's, like, writing notes about, you know, like, I'm sorry, you will be compensated.

You know, things like that for the people who are gone.

You know, they're not people anymore at this point.

Not people as we understand people.

That's right.

Might be more of a side note, but Carol playing scratch off cards didn't feel without purpose.

I felt I was.

I was thinking about that too, but I was like, maybe.

Maybe it's just like she's kind of.

She's clearly at the, like, fuck it, nothing matters point.

Yeah.

So maybe, you know, like, she's scratching off cards and it's like, it doesn't matter.

I want.

I would have won $10,000.

Yeah.

For four weeks ago, you know, and now money's meaningless.

Yeah, that's a good point.

Or an illusion of that.

She's gambling with how she's treating these alien human people now.

Yeah, maybe that's true.

That's a good point.

Apparently, the sound design for the helicopter scene that ends the episode was amazing in surround sound.

I bet it was.

It didn't sound quiet.

The.

The reports where it didn't sound quite like a helicopter.

There was a fuzziness to it because he was kind of in and out of consciousness.

Yeah, that's what I was saying.

He's kind of in and out.

But they said, you know, people have been reporting that it's cool to hear.

And, you know, that's great for the.

For the future of tv, I guess, that they're putting in that kind of effort.

Yeah, for sure.

This is not.

I'll say this.

This show, you know, they're not doing think by halves.

Thanks.

Thanks, Apple, for throwing a bunch of money at these people.

Because, I mean, I think it does make a difference.

Not that you can't do things well cheaply, but this has felt like the production value is very high.

And I think that, you know, not.

Again, not that you can't do things cheaply and do them well, but it's.

I think it's helped for this show.

Yes.

Especially for the scale that we're like.

To help us think about the scale of what Carol's dealing with.

Yeah.

Well, that.

I think that takes us to the end of what we wanted to say.

The only big idea I still have left is, you know, it kind of.

And I think this is just kind of the question in your mind, or.

In my.

Sorry.

In my mind, especially based off of the revelation that these.

These things are gonna.

Some of them are gonna starve to death.

A good amount of them will starve to death.

And I think it's done a good job of also raising the question of, like, how is that a tragedy in the sense that, like, is it a tragedy when my skin cells fall off?

Are they people?

Are they individuals anymore?

Are they just cells?

Because I'm made up of all kinds of cells, but I don't get too wound up when one of them dies.

Interesting.

Well, this is the end of our episode, and for Adam, who's out today, but for Adam and Donovan, I'm Blaine, and we hope you find your mantra for walking in the woods, even if it's in another language.

See everyone next week.