From the promising start, The Walking Dead tripped and fell it’s way towards a disappointing first half of season six. WTF is the problem? Can they recover? Should we care any more? All these questions and more are pondered by Jim and A.Ron with our fellow fans. Regardless of where we’re at now, we WILL be back for the back half of season six, rain or shine, and hopefully you’ll be there with us.
You know, I can’t really adequately sum up in this one little text box how we all feel about this season of The Leftovers, and at this point, you already know if you’re going to listen or not, yeah? You got two hours of hardcore The Leftovers talk coming your way from two dudes who are saying this is the best season of television they’ve ever personally ever seen, so how about we cut to the chase and just push “play?”
A.Ron and Cecily unpack the shocking revelation from this week’s American Horror Story: Hotel, “The Ten Commandments Killer”; Cecily doesn’t actually know the Ten Commandments! All kidding aside, other than the fact that we’ve seen this revelation coming, it was a perfectly fine episode of American Horror Story. Although I guess it does kind of re-contextualize Sally. And the “adultery” couple switching hotels kinda came out of no where. Never fear, we’re not above resorting to multi-verse theory to explain away any troublesome retconning or rewriting Murphy has to do to bring this beast on final approach and landing. All that, our ongoing love fest for Dennis O’Hare, and a pretty healthy mailbag, and lots of opinionated opinions coming your way!
FARGO WINS THE WEEK! In “Loplop”, Fargo hits all the notes; comedy, drama, suspense, without ever causing any tonal conflicts, and sets the season on it’s final, no doubt bloody, and most likely weird, trajectory. It wasn’t perfect; we felt a little uncomfortable with this episode’s timelines, and geographic orientation, which we discuss in the cast proper and in feedback, but Peggy as hostage taker, Ed as gangland negotiator, and Hanzee as the anti-Malvo were all fascinating and satisfying to watch. A.Ron discusses watching Miller’s Crossing and how it has him resurrecting his old “Hanzee as a double/triple agent” theory, and Jim gets to bask a bit in the glow of his hangman notice in the previous episode memorably paying off. Lots of praise, lots of great listener email, a good time is had by all.
Jim and A.Ron were blown away by the twist at the end of The Leftovers episode “Ten Thirteen”, which we probably should have seen coming. Kind of amazing that you can pull something like that off with millions of people obsessing and collaborating over the internet, but welcome to The Leftovers! We do a deep dive on Meg and her motivations and her spin on the Guilty Remnant, her epic show down with Matt, what is going on in Tommy’s head, what’s she using plastic explosives for, tons of listener feedback, and speculate on just where are we heading towards in what will no doubt be an epic screwjob of a season finale next week. We can’t wait!
The Walking Dead schleps it’s way to a mid-season finale, “Start to Finish”, and we’re right beside it, covered in guts, shambling right along. Unfortunately the mid-season finale was kind of blah. It wasn’t especially good, and it wasn’t especially bad, but in the context of wrapping things up for a long hiatus, that means it’s not doing it’s job. Lots of monologing about ideas we don’t care much about between characters we’re not interested, a few really fantastic pieces of writing and performance for Deanna that are undermined by how we feel going into the episode about the character, and more sloppily staged action and set pieces. But, we’re not done! We’ll be back next week to wrap things up and try to generate some excitement for the next half. Hopefully you’ll help out. Send us your predictions, thoughts, complaints, praises, and spoilers and we’ll talk about them next Tuesday!
Jim and A.Ron give their off the cuff opinions and thoughts about the mid-season finale of The Walking Dead, “Start to Finish”.
“Did You Do This? No, You Did It!” I think we’ll both take the credit/blame for this latest podcast on Fargo… Lots of stuff to talk about, from Simone’s tragic end, to Mike Milligan’s desperate gamble, to Mama Gerhardt’s turning snitch, Lou triumphant, and say, what the heck has Peggy, Ed, Dodd and Hanzee been up to during this episode? Lots of phone calls and a few dead bodies is all we know, hopefully we’ll catch up with them in the weeks ahead. All this plus some stellar (ha!) feedback from our fellow fans. If this isn’t a good podcast then, well, I’ll cut off my big toe!
Jim and A.Ron try not to drink the water while recapping the dreamy/supernatural events of The Leftovers episode 208, “International Assassin”, because we do not want to forget a thing… We discuss our core beliefs of this episode, and where we fall on the “is it real?” or “is it a dream?” spectrum, and the answers may surprise you. We then discuss birds, Windex, Neosporin, the many faces of Patti, inexpensive knock off bourbons, and some shocking real life Jeopardy coincidences. All this, tons of feedback, and a burning need to see next week’s episode, like, yesterday, and it’s all coming at you. See you next week!
A.Ron and Jim come, not to bury Glenn on The Walking Dead episode 607, “Heads Up”, but to pull him out from the dumpster and resurrect him… So yeah, maybe that wasn’t as bad as it could have been, or maybe we’ve just spent four weeks accepting the fact that this just wasn’t going to end in a way that made sense or paid respect to the character or our devotion as fans, who knows. We commit to addressing it and then honor the not-dead by moving forward and living our lives. We talk about that, a little Morgalizing round table action with Rick, Michonne, and Carol, ponder the different directions Rick and Carol’s personal ethos are heading, what disaster Ron’s gun training is going to lead to, and debate the verisimilitude of CGI balloons. All that, a ton of feedback from all ya’ll, and we’ll see you back this weekend for the mid-season finale!