Rick and Morty serves up a bit of the ol’ ultraviolence in “Look Who’s Purging Now”. We discuss what it takes to earn a TV-MA rating, bad screenwriting, the social-economic version of power armor, Jerry hitting rock bottom, and how we feel about Hearst Castle. As always, our initial review and episode discussion are spoiler-free…
HBO’s The Deuce wrapped up it’s second season in fine style, with the finale episode “Inside the Pretend”. Simon and Pelecanos did an admirable job putting all their players in position to make the jump to the 80’s. The pimps seem on the wane, the porn industry is still waxing, but the men and women of the industry don’t seem to be enjoying their ascent as much as it would have seemed at this season’s outset. It’s hard to have a sunny outlook when people you care about wind up dead; that goes double when you’re the one doing the killing. Can’t wait to see how things shake up next year, we’ll see you then!
This week’s episode of HBO’s Westworld, “Vanishing Point” does a excellent job of setting up next week’s finale. That finale has a lot riding on it, with seemingly endless permutations of possibilities of who’s a host, who’s a human, what’s real and what’s simulated that have to be coalesced down to a single possiblity. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves, because if you watched this episode purely for it’s plot mechanics you missed out on a lot of wonderful writing and acting that lead to some amazing character development for most of the main cast, revealing brand new relationships we didn’t even know were there, giving more depth to the ones we had, and utterly shattering a few more. And yeah, there are just a ton of theories involving who is a host and what will happen in the Valley Beyond next episode! Can’t wait to discuss it all with you then!
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Watch us record the podcast, including all the sound checks, flubs, and riveting research breaks that you’ve always wished you could see… Hey, at least you can hear the podcast before anyone else.
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The Instant Talk podcast is our aftershow, with our own quick thoughts about the episode followed by an interactive chat discussion with our fans, live on YouTube. The first half is released as the Instant Take podcast. The audio from the interactive section is released as a premium podcast just for our club members.
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This is a podcast where Jim and I, using tools created for the purpose, randomly generate a title for a fictional TV show. We then pitch ideas to each other based on what that show would be like if it were real. We like to call it, “Quit Yer Pitchin’!”
Jim and A.Ron are nearing the finish line of their retro-re-watch of Game of Thrones season two. This week is one of the all time great episodes, “Blackwater”. There aren’t many heroes or villains in this one, just brave men fighting each other in desperate and bloody fashion. Great action, but even greater character moments for Sansa, Cersei, Tyrion, and the Hound. We have a lot of fun gushing over this episode, then we bat clean up with feedback and our SpoiLore section at the very end of the podcast.
We’re back for another in-depth review and recap of USA’s Mr. Robot, episode 209, “eps2.7_init_5.fve”. Starting off slow, it builds to a few intriguing possibilities in the form of wheezing man at the Susan’s house, a knock on Darlene’s door, and our least favorite attractive crazy person, Joanna rolling up on Elliot. We discuss morphine pops, crazy A.I. and Tyrell theories, and try to unravel the timeline issues from the last two episodes. All this plus all the feedback you can shake a Pwn Phone at!
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Watch us record the podcast, including all the sound checks, flubs, and riveting research breaks that you’ve always wished you could see… Hey, at least you can hear the podcast before anyone else.
Episode 209 of AMC’s “Better Call Saul”, entitled “Nailed”, is superlative, and takes us on quite the intense and unexpected emotional rollercoaster. We can’t wait to see what goes down in the finale next week! But first things first, we talk about Mike’s snatching a total moral defeat from the jaws of victory, Chuck’s crazy pants theory that just happens to be true, Kim’s very nuanced and perhaps conditional acceptance of Jimmy’s wily ways, and much more, including tons of great feedback from our fellow fans.