House of R - '3 Body Problem' Season 1 Deep Dive

Episode Date: March 26, 2024

It's time to leap across time and space! Mal and Jo are here to tackle the entire first season of Netflix's '3 Body Problem' (07:13). They take their deep dive character by character and analyze this stacked cast along with the show's epic story (22:44). Hosts: Mallory Rubin and Joanna Robinson Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Additional Production: Arjuna Ramgopal Social: Jomi Adeniran Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Nathan Hubbard, spring has sprung, the birds are chirping, and the pop girls are pop-girling. Oh, and you know what that means, Nora Prenziotti. Every single album is back. This spring is packed with new releases from some of the biggest pop stars in the world, including our girl Taylor Swift, and we'll be covering it all. We'll of course break down every angle on the tortured poets department, and we'll also cover new music from Beyonce, Duolipa, Maggie Rogers, Casey Musgraves, and Ariana Grande. It's Pop Girl Spring on every single album.

New episodes starting March 28th. On Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. The playoffs are here, and you can predict the action all the way to the finals. With Fandul Predicts. Predict the spread, total points, and even the game winner. Sign up and get a $25 bonus. Offered by Fandual Prediction Markets LLC, a registered futures commission merchant. 18 plus.

Bonus is non-withdrawable and expires seven days after receipt. Trading derivatives involve significant risk and may not be suited. for all investors. Manage your activity with our consumer protection tool. Restrictions apply. See terms at fanduel.com slash predict slash bonus dash offer dash terms. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, reliable internet means everything for your business.

And even this podcast, that's why I trust Spectrum Business. They keep companies of all sizes connected with internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, mobile services, plus 24-7 U.S.-based support. millions of business owners already trust Spectrum business. So visit Spectrum.com slash business to learn more. Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas. Greetings and welcome House of Our, a Ringerverse podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Mallory Rubin and it is my absolute pleasure to invite you not only back to Oxford, but also to House of Our's newish podcast feed. Joining me today,

Telling me that I should try it. Reading, she means. It's my favorite physicist, Joanna Robinson. What's up? Bad babies. Mallory, how would you feel if I told you that you were Speed 3 pretty? I mean, given the context of that, I think I'd be really flattered. Even though it's incredibly rude, I'd be extremely flattered.

You're better than that. You're the best. Joe, we are here today to dive into season one of Netflix's three-body problem. But before we order up some 30-year-old McCallin, some quick programming reminders, we will be back on the House of Our later this week. Bada la Bada da da da Bada

Bada To talk about X-Men You're on a roll today Over on the Ringiverse It's a busy week

Once again Button Mash New one for you Today Midnight boys Poo-Pew Poo Poo Poo Poo Double Pod week

Thursday Invincible and X-Men 97 Friday Godzilla and Kong Also And Kong That's right. And it's an end to this time.

Tons of three body coverage on the ringer.com. What a great website. A ton. Check it out. Great primer pieces. Great reaction pieces. More to come still. It's the Kramis.

The Kram. Who, of course, joined us for our three-body book club segment last week. You can catch up on that if you haven't heard it yet. Wrote a fantastic piece. This is one of his favorite book series of all time, his day to take, which you can read all of the, the nuances in particular and learn more about is that the show not only measures up better better better better than his favorite thing oh there are staff exit surveys pieces from her villa charity claire

on and on the list goes check it all out joanna hi how can the people follow along oh my god thrilled you asked me that question do you have a headset for them only if you're invited no everyone's invited. Everyone, look out your window. There's a white engraved box with your name on it, ready to listen to podcasts. Hit subscribe. Yeah. Ring over us, obviously. You're already subscribed. House of our, go ahead and do it. Why not? Follow us on social. I think that's a really good idea. On Twitter, on Facebook, on Instagram. Email us. Hobbits and Dragons at gmail.com. The dragons are going to be back very soon. We spent a long time. I'm talking about them last week.

We had a blast. Best time ever. Hopas and Dragons at Gmail.com. That, I believe, is that. Yeah. Spoiler warning. It's our friendly neighborhood. Spoiler warning, and here it is.

Anything that happened in season one of three body problem is part of the discussion today. We are doing the entire season, episodes 1 through 8, all in one pod. We're going to go. character by character. What that means, honestly, is that we're going to be talking about the whole season, really the entire way.

We're not breaking it up by episodes. So if you haven't finished the season yet, please go do that and then come back. The podcast will be waiting for you, and Joanna just told you all the ways that you can find it. Here's why it's complicated. The show has pulled,

we did a book club on book one. We read book one in full. Mallory has dipped her toe, I believe, into book two. Anyway, but the show has pulled characters from book two and book three. into, so it's not a clean book one to season one adaptation. So that's slightly, ever so slightly complicates things, but I, but not tremendously, I think.

We'll be chatting about some of the stuff we learned in book one as we read it. I am very early into the book two, only just started it. So we don't have book two and book three knowledge yet. We will at some point. We look forward to it. But if we know for sure that a given character was moved up from, say, book three to season one of the show, we will say so. We will not get into plot particulars and reveals from future seasons, just clarifying some of the characters who were moved up because that is the nature of the adaptation.

Anything else on the spoiler front? Anything else on the programming reminders front? I think we have absolutely smashed this and we should move on. Which of those social media platforms did you discover Landonarison? This is a big thing for me as a McLaren fan. Oh, TikTok. How did Lando make his way to you, TikTok? Of course, I should have known.

Yeah. Lando Norris went on a chicken shop date. And was incredible. And then I texted Mallory because I knew you would care. Well, I was like, who are you? I had no idea who he was. And I was like, who are you? You're not a musician or an actor.

I have no idea who you are. You're probably an athlete. And then I googled it. And I found out that is all too much for little Lando Norris. Yeah. This is what's waiting for you, Joe. when I finally convince you to watch all of Drive to Survive. And then I welcome you to Papaya Hive.

Big weekend for McLaren. What do you think you're going to get me to watch first? F1, Gilded Age, or the current season of Survivor? I think I'll take it in reverse order of how you listed them. Current season of Survivor won, then Gilded Age, and then F1. But I will prevail on all three fronts eventually. All right, Joe. Here it is.

Our ticket to the end of the world. Let's pod. We're going to get to our opening snapshot. We're going to start with our overall impressions of season one. And maybe just like a quick refresher for anyone who didn't hear the book club chat of what your journey with like the world and the book was as well as you made your way to watching this season of television. How did you feel about all of this? Thank you so much for asking me how I feel about this. I really appreciate you.

Listen, I struggled with a book. and I probably only finished it because I said I would to you and to Zach because one of the last chapters, as I've mentioned, nearly killed me dead. We're going to get to the Sophan soon. We should say this series is, of course, the literary series that it's based on

is Liu Sushin's Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy, the first book of which is called The Three Body Problem. I enjoy the show much more than I enjoyed the book because the show addressed, it's not just me, there's a common complaint from people who read this first book, I think especially, is that though the sci-fi concepts are intriguing, it is a bit lacking on the, like, human relationship emotional front. And so Weiss and Bennoff and Alexander Wu in their Infinite Wisdom

did a lot of rearranging, and as we mentioned, pulling characters from other books in order to create a sort of network of friends with emotional relationships that will draw you in a bit more. So I enjoyed the show much more than I enjoyed the book. I would still say, though, this is only like a B plus BB plus show for me because I didn't like love it start to finish. There are aspects of it that felt top tier quality storytelling and then some where I felt myself sort of drifting a bit.

So that was my experience with it. How about you, Mel? How do you feel? Got to see the first episode with you in person. It's south by. Always an absolute thrill and a joy and a delight. I really enjoyed this season of TV. I really liked it. I had a good time with the first book.

I'm excited to keep reading and keep going, I think especially knowing that while there's, I think, of course, variance person to person. There seems to be a lot of consensus that books two and three are really the ones that just like hit another level. So I'm excited to keep reading. I, yeah, I think there's, you know, certainly some unevenness across the season. I thought some of the, some of the episodes gave you that like, holy shit, we're watching

something at like the scale that we don't always get to see and enjoy together. So that's like an exciting and fun thing. And then I'm always like, will everybody be watching this and talking about it and excited about it? We'll get to whether that seems to be happening in a minute. But it's such a, I'm really curious to hear your thoughts more on like the adaptation specifically, but broadly, like it's such a, I'm interested that we chose to structure the pot around characters, right?

I think some of that is like a deliberate choice because that's how we like to talk about story, but it also does feel like a real recognition of one of the things that works so effectively in the show compared to, as you noted, how much of the propulsive plot of the book is not necessarily entwined with like learning a ton about the interior or connected lives of the characters. And so getting that in the show, getting the set pieces like the Judgment Day ship takedown. I thought a lot of the performances were incredibly compelling. I have notes on a couple.

I thought the season was broadly pretty well paced. I was really intrigued once I realized how quickly we were moving through the first book to see what that meant for the back half of the season. And I was a little nervous and trepidious about it. And then you realize that episode five, in essence, concludes the first book. I mean, there are a couple things that are present

from book one in the final three episodes. But I ended up enjoying, I liked all of it, but I ended up enjoying episodes, six, seven, and eight, I think even more than episodes one through five, maybe that's because we're making our way towards some of these, like, concepts that you hear fans of the book, books talk about. You know, we got to learn what a wallfacer is at the end of season one, et cetera. I think some of it was like, it was just so effectively oriented around the heart of the relationships between these people and then that balance between the massive mission of something

like and the ambition of something like the staircase project and what it would mean for that to center on like your history with a person. It's, you know, the question of like who can do character inside of some sweeping epic, here they are again, our guys, Benioch and Weiss, and Alex and Alexandra Wu. And I do want to ask you about that. Like, long before we got to season, the end of Game of Thrones and the mass disappointment that still pains us, that we carry with us to this day of how Thrones concluded. The ability to establish a world on screen, to take something that had been labeled for quite some time as quote unquote, unadaptable. Undaptable, yeah. And to take the heart of the thing and the strands of the thing and stitch it

together into a way that worked on screen is the thing that Beniof and Weiss were known for doing at the highest level before it all fell apart with Thrones. So did you feel like, hey, we're We're back like in the hands of people who know how to adapt a tale in a way that is unique. And again, we want to keep mentioning Alexander Wu as a part of this show running team. How did you feel about just not how successful it is as a show, but as an adaptation? Again, I think those changes are so smart and so, you know, speak to their understanding of emotional storytelling. So I want to give them due credit for that. I do think three body problem is suffering for me standing in the shadow.

of Shogun, which I think is like an absolute masterpiece of adaptation that is currently running on FX that I think is like on the top like thrones at its best is what I think Shogun is accomplishing right now over on FX. So when you talk about like masterful adaptation, I'm like, well, I'm watching that over there and this isn't quite that. But I do, like, you know, there are moments like when a character starts quoting Samuel Taylor Coleridge or whatever, like, talking about Kubla Khan. I was like, oh, that's, that's Weiss and Benny.

Like, there are moments where I was just like, I'm familiar to be back in this world with these people. And so there's comfort in that familiarity. Though, you know, I watched the chair, their other Netflix show. Like, I just, I don't, I love Zach Cram.

I'm so glad that he did the book club with us. I'm so glad that he is thrilled. But when he was like, was the end of Game of Thrones just a fever dream, I'm like, no, that's still happened. And there's still like some things about this that like don't fit together perfectly for me. But in terms of like, you know, emotional intelligence when it comes to story and pathos and tension, you know, a lot of that is in there. And I do appreciate them at that.

Did you have a favorite Thrones tie-in, whether it's a member of the cast or a director? Do you want to say yours? I feel like mine has to be the same as yours. I'd be astonished if it's not the same. What if it's not, though? Oh, okay. On the count of three. On the count of three?

Are we saying the human being's name or? The actor's name. I would be tipping my hand a little bit here. The actor's name. Let's do it. One, two, three. Conlithill. Yeah.

Seeing Veras's Port Gregory killed me. I could not have been happier in that moment. Same. Bliss. Absolutely. But like I told you, When we were, when we watched three body problem at Southby on the big screen and watched like all the extended opening credits, which they didn't do for every episode on Netflix, and we saw names like Rameen Javadi on the score, Nina Golden casting, Brady Cawfield and producing, Deb Riley in production design, Jeremy Podessa, like directed a couple episodes. Like these are Thrones.

This is the Thrones team, especially Brady Caulfield and Deb Riley. that's like core Thrones team brought over to do this that excited me you know I love it but yeah but yeah Conliff Hill

I was just I was like holy shit is that mass I was thrilled and tremendous a great big bushy beard like tremendous

tremendous wonderful stuff wonderful stuff okay well we'll hit we'll hit a few more of the did this particular adaptive choice work questions as we go through

some of the characters and plot points. Broadly, I thought the decision to move these figures, these key figures from books two and books, and books two and three up, so that this is a story where the key participants are interacting meaningly from the word go is, it's a hard thing to radically alter the structure of your story

that significantly, and I think it really bore fruit. Some of the other stuff about, like, how to make the science, because we talked about this a lot in our book club. Like, on the one hand, it's a sci-fi book, and it's a hard sci-fi book, and there's no shame in that. That's part of the joy of it for sci-fi fans.

But how do you strike that sweet spot of making that, of not being ashamed of what story you're telling, right? But also, like, making it accessible to people. I'm interested to discuss that as we go through today. What is your sense of how the show is doing, both in terms of, like, the reception critically, but also the thing that is a little more,

amorphous and intangible, but ultimately I think as important, maybe more important, which is like, is this a thing that you're getting the sense people are talking about? Is this animating the zeitgeist? This is a question I asked you the other day when we were deciding like, you know, the timing of the podcast

wherever. I was like, what's your sense over the weekend of like how this is doing? And it was hard for me to tell. I couldn't, like, sometimes it's just so obvious that a show is a hit. This doesn't feel like an obvious hit to me, though it might have a long tail on it, like some good word of mouth and a long tail.

But, like, I heard anecdotally, purely anecdotally, I heard from way more people over the weekend that they were watching The Gentleman on Netflix than people who are watching Three Body Problem. But again, it just might be like a slow build to more people watching it. I heard it from a lot of colleagues who were watching Three Body. But it's like Ringercore. Yeah, it's like, yeah, part of our orbit. You just mentioned 90 people who worked for The Rigger

who wrote a piece about Three Body Problem for The Rigger.com. None of that were the ones who I heard for Mother of the Cram, though. But yes, fair point. Yeah, Chris and Andy were texting us about watching Three Body. Yeah. Chris was mainline in those screeners, man. Andy was really into it, too, for sure. The fact that it was not number one on Netflix at certain points this weekend,

that it was behind Homicide, New York, struck me as a bad sign just in terms of like how many people felt like it was a central weekend one viewing and we're making their way maybe through the binge. We always have the question of like, is this well suited to a binge? On the one hand, the mystery really does drive you forward in the show. Like you get to the end of an episode,

you want to know what happens next, I think. But it's, I think, irrefutably, the kind of show that could have benefited from room to process and discuss. It is number one on Netflix now. It got there. So like you said, what will the long tale be? hopefully it's the kind of show that people, yeah, here, oh, hey, check this out. And then they do. And it has a long and vibrant life. No word yet on a season two renewal. I wanted to ask you if you had any insights as a TV and industry expert on whether you think, because Benioff and Weiss have this like massive overall deal with Netflix, right? Do you think that that in addition to just what a big bet this is, how high profile it is, how much money went into it, that that has a bearing on how likely.

Netflix will be to proceed that these are people they have invested in more broadly? Well, the chair only got one season on Netflix

and that was like surprised to me because that did have positive, critical, but I don't know the viewing numbers. I also,

let's just say it, Netflix can say whatever they want is number one on their site. Like they control that ticker and I never

trust it fully. But in terms of the overall deal, I don't think the overall deal inoculates them from cancellation, like given what happened with the chair. But I think that to your point, the, like,

fanfare that Netflix has presented this show with, the splashy, the splashy Southby premiere, the big, like, installation we saw at Southby, you know, all the like,

moderated panels and everything that they've done, like, I think, you know, to save face, they would want to at least, at least do two seasons. But I can see this only being a two-season. And given how far forward we've gone on the story, like, I can see this just being like a two-season sort of experiment, you know? Jeez. I really, really, really, really hope they get to make another season. I mean, I hope they get to finish the entire adaptation. I hope they get a second season with an, or like, you know, If it turns out to be a massive hit, as many seasons that can sustain, I'm not like trying to condemn them two seasons. But like, if they only get two seasons, it would be great if Netflix told them you're only getting two seasons so that they could like pace out the rest of the story over a final season rather than being cut off, you know, abruptly. This series like ending without the ability to conclude the adaptation. Obviously this happens with adaptations all the time. It's always painful for the fans of the story. Shadow bone, baby. Yeah. But like, that would really.

suck. I mean, we are left at such a delicious place here at the end of this season and just so badly, you know, want to know what happens next. I really hope that they get to make another season. I hope that people keep finding the show. I would love for stories that are this ambitious and grand to get a multiple season of green light from the beginning and to be bland and approached that way. You know, we'll see. We'll see what happens. I mean, Avatar got picked up for seasons two and three in tandem. Like, who knows? Despite my like BB plus rating, I definitely think it made the case for itself to have a second season. Like this definitely feels like, I'm not saying, you know, but we'll see. We'll see. Did you know about one in three people with plaques psoriasis may also develop psoriotic arthritis, which causes joint pain, stiffness, and swelling? Does this sound like you? Listen to what it sounds like to be a million miles away. Trimfaya, Gusalcumab taken by injection, is a prescription medicine for adults with moderate to severe plaques

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Corn salsa. Forty grams of protein. Made to keep up with whatever comes next. New sweet green wraps hit different. Order now at order.sweetgreen.com. Okay. Should we get to our character dive? Let's do it.

Joe, we're going to kind of go in clusters and we're going to take it by character inside of that. Let's start with the Oxford five. I broke out my Oxford shirt. I was the shirt for when I got to go to Oxford. And I was like, if not now, when? I had to put it on today.

Had to put it on today. Absolutely. When you went to Oxford, did you punt? Did you go punting? I wish. I wish I had done that in Cambridge. That would have been the dream. the absolute dream.

Just day trips to both. This was during my semester brought in London, but what memorable days they were, including lunch and a pint at the Eagle and Child, which was mentioned

in this television program. It sure was. Delightful. Tolkien, Joe, is he... The professor is always welcome to this podcast. And there's slander, Tolkien's slander in this show.

Yes. Boy. I had, I actually remember the steak and ale pie. I had it, Eagle and Child, it was fucking delicious. I bet it was. I mean, I love a steak and ale pie. I bet it was. Wonderful.

Okay, we're going to get to the actual five characters who make up the Oxford five momentarily. But before we do, just like the fact that this friend group exists in the show, this is different. This is an adaptive change. It's one of the bigger ones to take all these people who, some of the, them are book characters with different names who were moved up. Saul is a book two character. Gin is a book three character. Will is a book three character. Jack, as I understand it from Cram,

this is a very tenuous connection and not really a full one has like some, basically the beverage company money that he then gives to the Will character comp and that's kind of it. Book three, Augie the closest comp to a primary figure from book one. She takes on the nano fiber nanotech, nano genius entrepreneur. Let's make the nanoblades to slice the ship. Aspect of Wong's plot, Wong Meow's plot from the book, one of our primary figures in book one.

Some of Wong's book one plot goes to other characters. characters like gin and Jack, play the game, not Augie. So it's, it's not quite an even tidy divide of like who maps onto whom, but that's generally the division. And the key thing is, they all know each other. They're the Oxford Five, their geniuses, their scientific geniuses, they know each other from their time at Oxford. They all know Vera, who's suicide, is the inciting incident in addition to just what is going on with science, science is broken, that brings them all together to start the series. is this a purely good and smart and effective choice?

Is there an aspect of this that you think is like a demerit in a way because the implication that the fate of the world and humanity rests on a handful of people who used to drink at the pub together makes the story in some way feel smaller? Or does it just work for you and strike you as quite smart? I mean, that is interesting. I think once we get towards the end of the season, we're expanding out, like, when Saul goes to the U.S. and, like, is part of the Wallfacer program and all of that sort of stuff like that, I think, breaks it out in a wider way. But I do think

it's fascinating, like, how they managed to ensnarl all of our characters in this opening that we have Vera's suicide and, you know, and then, yeah, is Vera's mother. And then Mike in a book change being her father. And then, you know, and then Wade and Claren's, like, like investigating, like everyone's just connected right from, right from the start. I think this is brilliant. I think this is the most important thing that they did. I think it is incredible. You and I agree that not all of the Oxford Five are created equal in terms of our, like, emotional investment and enjoyment of them.

That's correct. So that might be a ding. But other than that, like, I think this is just startlingly brilliant. What a move. Same. Penny off and twice. They still got it. You too, Wu.

You too, Alexander Wu. Let's talk about the members of this group. Can we start with Jin? Jin Chung. My favorite. Okay. Jess Hong, I had never seen in anything. And was, I thought a lot, I would put a number of people in like this was a

sensational performance. I thought this was wonderful category. But she was the breakout star of the series to me. I think in part because I was not familiar. but in part because I just thought this performance was astonishing. And it gives you everything. She is a driver of multiple aspects of the plot. She is a key engine.

She's part of the mystery. She's part of the solution. She carries an incredible amount of the emotional weight of the plot because of her relationships with other people. But like can come in with, I think the absolute hilarity of like, with that kind of levity you don't even know you need in an intense sequence and seeing like when she's asking Augie if she went to the neurologist and what did he say? And Augie's like she and she's just like Jesus and has to like the look on her face when she realizes that she just assumed the neurologist

was a dude was like little moments like that just made the character feel so full and vibrant to me. She's so good at tossing something away. She doesn't like she's not over delivering any of her funny lines. The emotion is quite subtle and therefore just so human and relatable. To watch someone who feels so human and real in such an extraordinary circumstance is one of the most important thrills of a genre story of a sci-fi story. And so it's not some like was born for this swash buckling hero or whatever. It's Jin, and she's wonderful.

And, like, I am so, like, even there are things that work better than other things in terms of, like, her connections with people. But I was never uninterested in her in any of those scenes, you know? Like, I'm just always invested in her. Yes. I was always glad to be spending time with her. Yeah. Exactly. There are scenes where I was like, oh, it's another blank scene or whatever, but never for her.

And, like, the... We're really building up to this room. reveal. But yeah, I thought she was wonderful. And, like, again, Nina Gold who cast this, like, is one of, it is like just a genius. Just a genius. So this is great stuff. Oh, man.

The fact that Jin's superpowers to run with your, you know, you find yourself at the center of this fantastical thing. Point are her heart. her empathy, her desire to actually figure out how to save somebody, whether it's the people in the mysterious world in the game before we know all of the details there or humanity or or or on it on the list goes. There's always someone Jen is trying to help, trying to figure out a solution for. And that gets to the other superpower, which is Jin's brain and that's awesome. And that's obviously the case for a lot of our key figures here. It's cool that a story of this,

of this scale involves so many people who get to help try to solve something massive and consequential by figuring something out, by thinking it through, by puzzling out what a solution might be. So as mentioned quickly earlier, Jin is a book three, based off a book three character who has moved up here to season one and again, take some of Wong's book one plot, playing the game, etc. Lines up at the center of basically every aspect of the story, whether it's the VR, what is this helmet, what is this world, what has happened here, the Santee recruitment, the counter recruitment from Wade & Co, Project Staircase, on and on and on.

So let's kind of take all of those things quickly. We obviously have a lot of characters to get through so we won't linger too long in anyone person, but there's a lot we wanted to hit with our Oxford Five Pals here. Yeah. The first to play the game. So let's both talk about Jin's relationship to this, but also use this as an opportunity to talk about the helmet, the game, the three-body game.

How did these scenes translate from book to show for you? And how did having Jin as the, quite literally in this case, avatar, one of the avatars along with Jack, to take you into that world work for you? There's some cool adaptive, the slight adaptive changes being like this idea that the, maybe the game adapts to the player in terms of the worlds, the wild worlds that it's presenting. I thought that was really fun when you watch Jack go from, you know, the game that's built for her to the game that's built for him and he looks, you know, like in Tudor England.

But then like the added comedy of him explaining to Jin later and she's like, I've lived in England. I've lived there for 12 years. So good. So, but all that, I thought all that stuff was really good. And, like, Jack, there's, again, these relationships are so important. We talk about this a lot in adaptation. Adapting from a book to the screen, you can't take an inner monologue with you, so you need to turn inner monologues into dialogues.

And so to have not just one character in the book, Wong, play the game, but to have Jen and Jack playing the game together and being able to talk through the problems together. brilliant. And then it also just feels like a bit more, like you're gaming with your friends. With your pals. Whomst Among Us hasn't, well, I'm not a gamer, but whom's among us in theory, hasn't gamed into the night, into three in the morning with their pals and woke up it up to find their really hot boyfriend there and your hair is all greasy and you're like,

sorry, I was on with Jack playing games. Rock finding gin in bed, like playing a video game, but basically like he had found her logged into like a cam site or something. Oh, I didn't know you were wrong. It was just an incredible moment. And then apartment's a mess. And she's just like, lost her stuff.

As was Jack's reaction to when Jin like rolled over the whiteboard. He's like, oh, God. Yeah, I love that though. She's like, it's my job. Come on. Gin preps for her podcast. That's what that told me.

I think, oh my God, I would love to see her podcast notes. I think the thing that Tatiana, who is the wild-eyed sort of, a zealot believer. The character says when she's recruiting, she says that gin is the highest reading of cingulate cortex they've ever seen. So, yeah, this is essentially like empathy. And I just, I think this amazing,

and then they add this flood in Hubei, like sort of backstory for Jin. And there's like a similar reference that Augie makes to like, she's like, I saw what my mother and my aunts went through, something like that. The flood in Hubei reminded me a lot of station 11 and the Sancroix flood backstory for Miranda.

But, you know, the way that Tatiana is, like, playing on Jin's vulnerabilities and her backstory, the way that the game is used as a recruiting tactic by the Sophanes and by the believers to try to, like, inculcate, like, you know, the brightest minds is fascinating. And I think, you know, something we haven't talked about yet is Weiss and Beniof went from all the money in the world in the final seasons of Thrones to a more limited budget on Netflix and I would say occasionally

and this is, I will say, this is also true over on Shogun. Occasionally, their eyes were bigger than their stomachs in terms of like what they could conceivably do with their budget and digital effects. And occasionally I was just sort of like,

you didn't have to do that and then it looks kind of chinty. But in the game world, it doesn't matter because you're in a game. And it's like so, Like some of the effects look like, you know, oh, that's a digital horse, like, whatever. But like, but it's a game, so it doesn't matter. So that all kind of like worked for me.

But it's wild. Given how sped up we're speeding through book one, it's kind of wild, like how quickly we run through the game, which is such a huge aspect of the story. What did you think? I, it was slightly disorienting at first because we went to the premiere at Southby, then we read the book, then we went back and watched the season. So I think the,

I loved the three body game chapters in the book. And it was like a little disorienting to acclimate to the particular visual nature of, but also like when we were going to meet the figures from history and how much time we were going to spend with each civilization.

And the way that Sophan is deployed, in the game and the show. But I ultimately really enjoyed it as well. I could have spent even more time there, I think. Yes, I agree. The cameos that were used inside of those sequences, this was an interesting thing because on the one hand, it was like perfectly calibrated.

We already talked about Conlon Hill and what a treat that was. Let me say this. If they want to give Mark Gaddis and Emmy for his like four minutes as Isaac And specifically the choice to put up the middle fingers, as he's saying, I've developed a system called calculus. I'd be fine with it. I felt similarly about Phil Wang, who I love a British comedian is Aristotle.

The petty, shitty, shitty, childish arrogance of all the various scientists in the game, delightful. Absolutely wonderful. And so that was part of what ultimately really worked for me about it. It was like you're building toward the Cizogy sequence, which I thought was like astonishing to read on the page. And then honestly, part of my initial reaction was like, does this like not look as cool in the show as it looked in my mind? Which is like sometimes an experience.

That's part of the joy of reading is like it looks as big as you want it to in your head, right? But I like the way we move through times. And I think ultimately here's where I landed. I surprised myself a little bit by ending up here. I think moving through the game a little bit faster than I had anticipated based on the book, not only doesn't surprise me but makes sense, because on the one hand, it's the signature part of the first story. On the other hand, I do think the mystery is harder to stretch out when you can just see it.

See the three sons? Yeah. You know, it's like, I think maybe the. pace they went with me. I solved it. There are three sons in the sky. When you have Gin utterly assured in her own breakthrough, challenging these complete hubristic assholes,

it's really effective. When you pair that with Jin, her determination to save sweet little follower, no matter what it takes. I actually do have one nitpick, if I may for a minute. Okay. Follower, the little reveal that follower in the game is young Vera, because we see the picture of Vera as a kid.

Does that make sense? It's sweet. But I'm like, these are supposed to be people who know Vera really well. None of them have ever seen a picture of her as a kid. Do you know what your professor looked like as a kid? But they're like in each other's lives. I don't know. Maybe this is a weird thing I think.

I was like, I think most people, I think a lot of people I've met as adults. I have no idea what they look like as kids. All right. Fine. Maybe I'm just too caught up in the Instagram era of people being like the throwback Thursday. Here I was seven. I will say you know an inordinate amount of details about like everyone we know. You have like a dossier on everyone.

This is particularly like me nitpick, I think. I'll move on. I'll let it go. Well, I thought follower, because follower is like this, it's quite in. Follower very sweet. No, like insidious. Yeah. This is not insidious.

It's incredibly manipulative, but that's why it worked. Help me. You have to help me. Oh, man. I'm just a sweet little alien. You got to help me. You know, like. Yeah.

I love a scary, a sweet seeming yet actually scary child. We saw that child dehydrate and get folded up into a skin sack. That was wild. We'll scroll. Yeah. What do you think of the show earning its nudity rating because of one sequence where all of the rehydrated people came out of the water nude? Was there any nudity in the show outside of that?

I swear, I didn't go back to look. I think that Saul's like the woman that Saul is sleeping with when Augie calls him is topless. In bed. In bed.

I was too distracted by Augie's completely unfounded and absurd. Oh, you're with someone? Critique of Saul who is no longer with Augie and can fuck whomever he wants. And it's been trying to fuck her

but she's like, no. But then he's with someone else. Anyway, speaking, Speaking of, well, should we talk about spy games, I guess. Let's do it. Yeah. Gin is a spy. Gin making her way into this world.

I loved how uncomfortable she was with it. Like she should be, right? Yeah. If she had gone into this a debrief, pre-brief rundown with Wade and Clarence. It was like, cool, I got it. I'm ready to roll. I have no questions. It would have been like, what is happening here?

But she doesn't understand how this has become her life, how this has become life. how this has become life, right? And every step along the way, the nerves with which she asked to see the address again, the address that you know she knows for the meeting with Tatiana. Like the way, all of those moments where you're like, I'm like,

I actually cannot relate to being a physics genius, but I can relate to how freaked out I would be if all of the stuff was happening around me. And it just further underlines when she is self-assured in her science. Yes. You're just like, yes, this is not a person who's cocky and self-assured and everything she does. But when she knows something,

She knows it. And that's like, also that goes back to this like interesting binary that's in the books and in the show, which is this idea of like belief versus no, science versus God, all of that sort of stuff. And so it's just sort of like, no, she knows. She knows until she does it, until it's the launch at the end. And she doesn't know because I have some notes for everybody on that one. Can I wait to get to that.

I love that point because, you know, when Dr. Yeah says, you know, how will you be? be remembered, Jin Chong. And Jin says as someone who fought back, like, that felt really earned by that point in the story. And it made me think of the moment in the book, we get that line in the face of madness, rationality was powerless and how Jin is a really important counterweight to that idea. Actually, rationality and logic and reason and science is the thing we have to hold on to. It's what can anchor us in this sea. It can be our little paper boat that we sit in, right? I can't wait to get to that later. So there's so much fanaticism, so much room for belief and how it can lead people to something powerful or lead people astray.

And to be in a room of scientists hearing from Wade, like, I gathered you here at Witchwood Manor. I have no notes on the name, sensational, to save humanity. And everyone in that room. Did it make you think of Torchwood? Uh, it's just as you know, now since I've been with you, everything makes me think of the wider Hoover. Did you see the Daleks on Jack's merch collection shelves? I was like, there they are the Daleks.

I think the most Doctor Who moment was all the news footage of like the world falling into chaos was like such a doctor who. How's everyone reacting? Let's check in with the local news. Shitty panic is what we got going on. Okay. Oh, man. Great stuff. But like everyone in that room.

it's like it's not going to work. We can't do it. Here's the problem. Pointing out problems, not solutions. As my mother likes to accuse me of feeling. True story. And Jin is willing to try. And again, I think that's in like a kind of nice through line with the group.

There's that fun moment elsewhere when they're trying to figure out what the headset is. And they're like, wait, you knew it did X, Y, and Z and you put it on your head, like, very funny. and Jack's cigar aficionado giant magazine covers just in the background of the entire conversation. Deb, I'm telling you, Deb Riley. Deb Riley is like, you know what we need? A huge blowup of cigar aficionado. So funny. With John Bradley on the cover.

So good. Just absolutely. No, no. Absolutely wonderful. And like, Saul's like it's not my field. And what's the response? Like, maybe think about it for more than 10 seconds, right? It's easy to say I don't have any answer.

It's easy to say I'm not. the one who should be able to figure this out or who should have to figure it out. And so the characters who were going to ultimately put the most emotional stock into and feel the most invested in are going to be the ones who say, what if we tried this? And I think also it's this like, like balance on a knife point, balance between the head and the heart. Yes, we talk like that her brain is a superpower, but her empathy is also a superpower. And I think the other characters can swing in one direction or another and miss a beat.

And that's why we end up with like two of them left. Well, it's what happened to Will is obviously not his fault. But like, you know, that Will is like so much more because he's given up on his on his brain is so much more the heart than the head. You know, so it's, it's, I think. I had a dream on Friday night about where Will's brain had floated off to. I couldn't stop thinking about Will in his floating space brain. And I literally dreamt about it. Brain box, the little brain in the Will brain box.

It's got chili pepper in it because he likes spicy food. That was some real, I don't know if you were emotionally traumatized by my girl as a child. I was. I was. When she's like Thomas Jane needs his glasses, that's how I felt when she was like, he loves spicy food. Oh, man. You think adding the seeds fucked up the. the math because the weight changed.

And that's why the brain box is on a solo journey. Oh, boy. Let's talk about the heart. Let's talk about some of these relationships. We're going to talk about Augie a lot more when we get to Augie section. What would you like to say about the gin Augie Bond in the gin section here? Because their friendship in particular is one of the real buttresses of the season. We return to them a lot.

We return to scenes with them a lot. Is this our opportunity to officially request a spinoff for Rufus, the karaoke guy who hits on them in the first episode and is like completely flummixed by their reveals that their super accomplished successful smart people. Yeah. Oh man. This is where I will introduce a recurring segment, which is I have some notes for the music supervisor on three body problem because all of the songs have been incredibly on the nose lyrics. I'm not mad about this one. He's singing Piano Man, which is a classic karaoke song, that's fine. But he's like, I'm going to sing and then it's like sing as a song and your piano man.

But they get worse and we'll talk about them later. But we're going to start here with Piano Man. Sitting next to me. Making love to his tonic engine. He says, son, can you play me a memory? I'm not really sure. It's melody. But it's sad and it's sweet and I know it.

Isn't it son, can you play me a melody? Is it memory? I think it's memory. Oh, wow. Do I not know the words of piano, man? It's possible I don't know the words to piano, man. Incredible. Oh, man.

Great stuff. Oh, it is memory. Wow. Okay. You'll learn something new every day. Three body problems. Part of why I felt like a, you know, here we go. Memory.

Remembering the verse past. Mm-hmm. You get it. You get it. You drink a lot in the show, tonic and gin. Actually, okay, speaking of the Augie and Jin moment, my favorite friendship moment for them. Mm-hmm. was when she was like, drink the vodka, you'll feel better.

And then Jin, like, fakes it. She's like, no, really drink the vodka. And then Jin's like, okay. She wanted the pills. She did want her pills that you pop. It's a very UK pill situation where they're like popping them out like their pieces of gum. Having a problem with that. Okay.

More importantly. Oh, man. Yes. Let's talk about hot, boring, Raj. So hot, so boring. So hot, so boring. Please. Yes.

So Raj is there to, like, create a love triangle for Will and Jen. And it's just a really unbalanced love triangle because Will is so endearing and Raj is so hot and boring. And this one is what I was going to say is when we go to the scene. And Will, Will, when he's on Dilaudid, which he says deluded, but when he's on, when he's high on drugs in the hospital and sees a hat on Jack's head. And he says, that was a great moment. Raj, he is death, he is chaos. I was convinced I was like, Raj is a stealth bad guy. Like, you know, and then, no, he's just boring, unfortunately.

But the family dinner scene where she goes to meet Raj's family, and that's important because we need to get the, you know, the flatbread lesson from her, which was good. And we got a really interesting story from Raj's dad that you and I both flagged immediately. as like this seems like a clue when he says, I laid there slowly freezing until the Pakistani soldiers all came out. And that's when I threw my grenade. I killed them all.

And I took the oxygen and supplies from their camp back to my men. And we all survived. Yeah. There's a lot of seeds planted this in this per season of like, not just the seeds in Will's brain probe. No, not just the chili pepper. Story seeds too. But I was invested in that scene.

because I'm invested in gin, not because I care at all about Raj. Because I just... You just kind of spend the whole season wanting her to move on from Raj. Yeah. That seems... So what did you make of that?

We're lingering on that story from Raj's father in such a meaningful way. Like, does it just feel like this is something that is going to inspire a plot of Jin's? Like, we will lure the enemy into a false sense of security.

And that is how we, By the way, you think it's... We don't know what happens. Just want to reiterate that. We don't know. Like, so when any speculation is like pure speculation. When we speculate it is freely, we have absolutely no clue. It's about to happen.

We don't know. Probably. I mean, I think any story, any... There's just a few of these that you and I both flagged in our notes as we took for the season that just feels like, okay, this is going to come back. Hopefully not via cheesy flashback when Jin is trying to, or Saul or someone is trying to figure out what to do in the future. with the Santee.

I found the Raj Jin relationship. It was effective to me because I care about Jin and it was effective to me because it helps us understand why Will is so reluctant to declare his feelings. Jim is in a relationship. He respects that, which is actually like kind of cool that he respects that, right? Like, good for him.

the thing ultimately I'm like I'm not really feeling it with these two so I'm not invested in their happiness but the things that I found effective inside of their relationship this question of like the secrets we keep right more broadly this is interesting to me in this story because we end the season so communication is a theme throughout right go back to the Red Coast base like this isn't a weapons base this is about communication all of it is about how do we communicate first contact how do we communicate inside of our our relationships, our families, our friend groups, our jobs, our countries, our faiths, whatever it might be, with beings from other planets, et cetera. So anything about communication is interesting. Anything about secrets is interesting. But then, like, particularly, like, everything with Wallfacer, this idea of, like, the only edge you have is the thing inside your mind. We're going to get to Saul soon. We're going to talk about the fascinating play with God exchange that Dr. Yeah and Saul have on the bench and what that might be signaling.

But again, that's about like a shared language, a joke that only two people can understand. There's this concept as I understand it. Again, I don't know where this is all leading. But I did come across this concept from the books. the chain of suspicion. And I can only really apply it to the first book because that's all I read. I haven't read book two and three, and I don't know what happens to them.

But this idea of like, which is there from the start when the character of by betrays, yeah, with the book, right? This idea of distrust and who can you trust and then later her colleague steals her work? Like, who can you trust? Who can you confide in? Who can you open yourself up to? And in the book, and I mentioned this in our book club that we did with Cramm, but like in the book, the concept that the character of you who has been so traumatized by all the things, all the betrayals, losing her father, that initial pain point that we get from her. All of that has made it so that she cannot be bothered to try to connect with her husband. This is a book difference.

But her husband who loves her, who is right in front of her. she cannot connect with him and her eyes are up on the stars and trying to like cast out and connect to a god or or an alien or whatever like that that's a more comfortable relationship to try to have been something that feels closer to you. So this idea it doesn't it's not a one to one with Jin because Jin is genuinely very close to her friends. But the idea that Jin has Raj there who is like you know they have the argument about like who had clearance for what and why didn't you tell me this and blah like all of that. But I don't know, it just kind of, it does make sense to me that she would have someone who on the page is like perfect, but she's just kind of holding him out here a bit, you know? Yeah, absolutely. I also thought it was more effective because Jin finds herself in a couple different exchanges about the greater good and what are we willing to do and what horrors can we justify inflicting. Wow. Oh, man. Steve and oldie.

Wow, from the fold. Oh, man. Great job. Wow. Wow. Wow. That was just wonderful. I've never been so sensual.

Absolutely sensational. That was magical. Oh, man. I stay ready. Oh, boy. Great stuff. The Augie, like, you work for a murderer stuff, was to me much less effective, mostly because I'm confounded.

by where, how we're supposed to be tracking Augie's morality at any given moment, which we'll get to. But Raj in this car ride, like saying to Jin, what do you, basically, what do you think war is? Like, it's easy when you're at your desk and you're at a remove to make it seem okay, but, like, you're doing the same thing that I am. Like, you're a part of this, too, and you have to, like, stare, stare nakedly at what that really means was interesting to me. And so to take, like, his role and how he relates to his work and have that inform her view and our view of her as well was I thought interesting. And I think both the book and the show do a good job of engaging with the complicated nature of science and innovation where it's like there's so much good you can do with this is mainly, most overtly on Augie storyline, obviously. but like there's so much good you can do with science and innovation and then there's so much death and destruction and evil that you can do with science and innovation.

Oppenheimer gets like a double shoutout in the series. But like this idea that this is a story that like, you know, venerates scientists and scientific brains and all this sort of stuff like that, but does not ignore the other side of this. the world. Yeah. Last thing on Raj. We're going to talk about Will and Jin in Will's section. Chin going by the seat that Raj saved on the plane.

Raj going into the back cabin and saying, did you dump me and forget to tell me? Yeah. Was wonderful. Has that ever happened to you? This is just fantastic. Oh, Raj. Great stuff. Should we talk about Saul?

Let's talk about Saul. I can't wait. I'm really excited to talk about Saul. She always said you were the smartest one. This is what Dr. Yeah says of Saul. I want to say outside of our Thrones alums and like Benedict Wong, blah, blah, blah, Jonah Deppo, who I just love in everything he ever does. He was amazing in the show.

Watchman, Babylon, blah, blah, blah. Like, I was so excited when I saw that he was in the cast for the show. And what I will say about the Saul character is that he spends a lot of, it's very like, it's not quite on the level of like Zandaya and Dune 1 or Florence Pugh and Dune 2. But it kind of feels that way for like two thirds of the season. I'm like, why did you hire him to play this character if you're going to like not have him, he's supportive. He's supportive of Augie.

He's supportive of Will. But I was like, this guy is a star. Like, why is he not have his own plot centering on him? And then it turns out, like, we get to him. And every implication is he will be just at a massive part of everything going forward. But I was impatient in the first two-thirds of the season for that, you know? Yeah. I think undoubtedly Saul benefits the most from the decision to devote those final three episodes to future plot.

everything with Saul and Will, which I just found So good. Really was not anticipating their relationship being such an emotional, giving me such an emotional

wall up toward the end, but I thought was wonderful. Obviously Wallfacer and how everything that sets up for the future and how massive it seems like that's going to be. And this conversation

with Dr. Yeah, who chooses When she gets to Red Coast Base and Tatiana shows up, she's like, you're here to do the thing that I came to do myself. Like, she knows it's a wreck. She's going to end her life. Yeah. And the final thing that she chooses to do other than switch her seat on the flight to sit next to.

Great move. Collins was tracking her, which was so funny. That was like an Ocean's 11 move when she's like walks up to him in line. Absolutely. Wonderful moment. And he's like, sorry. You're like talking about, yeah, you're right, it's a long flight. RIP that guy.

Yeah, tough one. Tough way to go. I mean, no one can survive Tatiana. Not even me. The decision to devote her final moments to seeking out Saul, to calling him and saying, you don't want to see me, let's talk. She is on the receiving end of some vicious but justified feedback from. from Saul about what she did to Vera,

what she did to humanity, the extent of her culpability. They move to the bench. They sit and they share one of the most... Yeah, move over Raj's dad. Sorry, sorry, your war story has to take a back burner. This is just like... Portentious story.

When sirens blaring, like, this is a signpost for something meaningful. Steve, can we... But this is also just like a beautiful... scene. The acting for both of them is wonderful. Steve, can we hear this entire thing? So Einstein dies. He finds himself in heaven. And he has his violin. He's overjoyed. He loves his violin more than physics, even more than women. He's excited to find out how well he can play in heaven. He imagines he'll be pretty damn good. So he starts tuning up.

and the angels rush at him. What are you doing, they say? I'm getting ready to play. Don't do that. God won't like it. He's a saxophonist. So Einstein stops. He doesn't play.

But it's difficult. He loves music. And there's actually not much to do in heaven. And sure enough, from high above, he hears a saxophone. It's playing Take the A-Train. Do you know that one? I heard it. Einstein knows it too.

And he thinks, I'm going to do it. I'm going to play with him. We're going to sound great together. So he starts playing, take the A-Tree. The saxophone stops and God appears. He marches over to Einstein and kicks him in the balls, which hurts even in heaven. Then he smashes Einstein's beloved violin to bits. eternity without music.

Heaven has become hell for Einstein. And as he writhes on the ground, holding his smashed balls, an angel comes over and says, we warned you, never play with God. Never play with God. You don't like it?

No, it's not that. It's just never play with God. Humor is a very, very, personal thing. Some people understand it and some people don't. Some jokes are so private. They only make sense to two people. The jokes are important. We wouldn't survive without them. Don't you agree? Just really quickly. I love that Weiss and Pennyoff and Wu are like, we're not sure if they get Ramin Javadi. Can you put the most like consequential ominous? score underneath this, please.

They should just clip this and make this an early trailer for season two, right? I guess so. This is so weighty and so significant. Again, we have not read what is to come, so we don't actually know what this is pointing to or what specifically it means. So if we're theorizing and we're wrong, like apologies. That's the game. That's the game.

The, to me, this was about, again, again, communication. It felt significant that this was, not just that she chose to seek out Saul because of how smart she thinks he is, how smart Vera thinks he is, but that Saul then becomes the wall facer, one of the three wall facers. And this is part of like a fun, the fun like cause effect, what decision sparks, sparks, what consequence, et cetera. In the story, like, part of what we glean from the wall facie sequence is that he was chosen because of this conversation. Yeah, like he has become significant to the Santee. Yeah.

No longer the Trisillaran's sad. To the Santee, because. Santee's better. Sondi's way better. Because of this exchange. Because the Sonti are also like, what does it mean? What does it mean? What does it mean?

The question of, do they know what? it means. Do they know? We're going to talk more when we get to Yow NGA's section about like the face turn at the end, that last ditch effort for some redemption and to see if there's a way to give humanity a chance. That's the context from that character's perspective, which we also then bring to this exchange, right? She's trying to give Saul some crucial clue. And then the show is giving us a crucial clue. So it seems to me like this is about communication, a shared language, a secret language,

the idea that a joke could be something that only two people understand and make sense. The recipient of that being the guy who's told, you have to keep everything inside of your mind. You can't speak your attentions out loud because then the enemy will know, like feels like a potential connection, but then there's also the God element.

And like, how are you perceiving that part of it? Is that Because Vera Dr. Yaz's child Saul's former colleague

and professor there's that whole do you believe in God exchange with Vera who found out

that her mother was a part of all of this fueling all of this and then like our attention is repeatedly drawn to that like Saul brings it up later

Jin's like strange question Don't you think? Now, God comes up a lot in the context of like zealotry and belief and fanatism, all the stuff we were talking about earlier. My Lord. So it's not necessarily related to whatever path Dr. Yes, trying to lead Saul down. But maybe.

What did you think of all of this? Here's my best interpretation is like it's about a power imbalance, right? And it's about drawing attention to yourself because nothing would have happened to Einstein if he hadn't picked up that violin and drawn attention to himself. And, yeah, you could say that's what, you know, Dr. Yad did when she sent the message out in the first place, as she, like, drew attention to herself. And what it makes me think of is this conversation that the Sofon had with Mike when talking about fear and fearlessness, right? I'm going to do my best Sophan impression.

Do it. You have a really good one. The Sophan says, for us, fear is something we experience as one. And then Mike says our ancestors were like that, tiny mammals who survived by hiding. But it appears you have ceased to be afraid. Why do you say that? You contacted another planet. Is this the act of a timid species?

Not a species, no, my lord, a woman, a singular fearless woman. Are there other fearless humans? Well, they show from time to time. and we often look up to them as inspirations for others to follow. A lack of fear leads to extinction. If your ancestors had followed the fearless, you would not exist. Humanity must learn to fear again. So, ominous.

Quite. We'll come back to that like fear again thing. Yes. But this idea of like it was an act of fearlessness for Einstein to pick up the violin and it was an act of fearlessness for Dr. Yad to send that message out in the first place. And it's sort of for her, what do I have left to lose anyway, sort of attitude. But that that fearlessness, that drawing attention to yourself is, you know, not the best way to survive, I suppose. I don't know.

Yeah. So this is fascinating to me to consider also in the context of, and this is, you know, it's, again, more from the Dr. Gia perspective than Saul, but it all is a part of this sequence. Before going to speak with him, we see her pick up two books. And the eye is drawn. The camera lingers.

We see game theory. Okay. And we see Fermi's paradox, which younger, yeah, had mentioned at Red Cross. coast base sitting there explaining that paradox to to Yang in the context of like this is why this is never going to work. So how are you factoring that in as well, seeing those two books and what that signals like right on the precipice of planting this seed with Saul?

Fermi's paradox show. You a big, you a big Fermi's paradox head? Where's the life? Where are the aliens? I'm a huge Fermi's. The Fermi question is where is everyone, right? Like, if if there were aliens would we not have seen them like if the galaxy the we're brimming with life where are they yes um and the game theory one is like I mean she also has this like very anvilitic like voiceover like maybe I have one last to go my sleep you know like I don't know if they added that later or whatever but it just seemed very like I'm about to make a move sort of moment for her um And so game theory just feels like how can she outthink the sofond who are omniscient?

So like what can she do? What is the last gambit that she has? And then Fermi's paradox is, again, it's that idea of like communication, as you say, communication, drawing attention. Is there life out there? That's all in the stew and the brew. And I feel like we. we need you and I need more information. Yes.

In order to draw a definitive conclusion. But book readers are like, hey, dummy. You know what? We're so often those people, it's kind of fun. Part of me is like, as furious with myself for not having finished. Furious with myself for not having finished the trilogy before the season. I had this moment with Adam last night where I was like, if I had just started by date X, and it's like, what is the point of perseverating over that now?

But it's fun to be able to speculate and guess too. That's nice. On the, I guess, the, that's nice, she said. Yeah. We, we get more of a emphasis on the fact that the Trisolarans, their planets or the Santee, I'm just going to start trying to say Sondi. I'm sorry. Just say Santee.

They're, that Alpha Centauri. like they're it's the closest star and so it seems like so far away by the way on the iconic lines front the clarence's response to like 400 years and wade like going full darcy from dark or way now space space is big space is so funny to me it's like how space space is fine space is big great stuff but the idea that something so far away could still be the closest version of that thing and it's like so this amplification with the sun, this massive breakthrough, this thing that changed the nature of human history, the course of human history, there's still the closest possible beings that we could have found. What else?

What else is out there? Yeah. Well, and Jin now has her own star, so I wonder if we'll find out. I wonder if that will possibly come back in the way. What would you do if somebody bought you a star? I know we're not on Will yet, but what would you have a reaction to that be? If they bought me a star for 19 million pounds, yeah. I would be like I could have done so much more with 19 million pounds.

I would have had some notes on whether it was like, I would have been so mad. I would have been like if you have gotten a better deal. If you spent like a hundred bucks on a star, I'd be like, thank you. But 19.5 million pounds. Yeah. I'm like, do you know how many pairs of rare Jordans this is? First of all, I know you can't take it with you. Secondly, we definitely don't want his sister to get her.

grubby little pause on it. So, like, fine, we'll spend your fortune. But on a star. I mean, maybe like... On a scam. What could you have gotten for like 10 mil? Yeah. Then we have to go all the way to 19.5.

I don't know. Yeah. Because the other half a mill is like renting the cottage and the supply of marijuana, right? Yeah, the Cornish pasties. Like, they weren't free, you know? Yeah. Okay, back to Saw. We'll get to Will.

This sequence with Nora. So Saul is, he's a party boy. He likes to sleep around. He likes to drink. He likes to do drugs. He wants to drop acid with people who just met at the bar. He's a good time. He's ready for a good time.

And Nora, one of the one-night stands, has some notes for Saul on his desire to invest in the future of humanity. This felt like a really clear global warming. Without, right? the clearest. We're destroying our planet without any thought for future generations and whether the sacrifices

that we might make in our lives would be worth it because they benefit other people if not us. Without a doubt, yeah.

If you thought the White Walkers were about global warming, allow me to introduce you to this. Shout out Nora, who gets absolutely plastered onto the pavement. And shout out

this anti-WAMO propaganda. Do you get a bunch of Waymo's in Los Angeles? These are the self-driving cars. I've seen a lot of the, like, little delivery. Oh, the bots. Bots and bikes, but I don't know that I've seen too many cars, but also you have to remember here you're asking. I'm not like out there often.

No, it might be that Waymo is San Francisco. It might be San Francisco based. But if you're in the city, you'll just see them, these ghost cars driving around. I hate them. They're so scary. I was with my brother-in-law. We saw a bunch of them. He's like, oh, yeah, that's because there's a nest nearby.

I was like, can you not say nest of these self-driving cars? This is so terrifying. Anyway, I fucking hate Waymo. I think they're so scary. All self-driving cars are so scary. So shout out to this, like, anti-waymo propaganda that we got. Westwood was also full of anti-self-driving car propaganda, and you love to see it. Because they're going to murder us.

Why do we keep relinquishing power to the machines? Oh, man. You know, is this the plot of... This keeps me up at night, man. Every sci-fi story ever told. I'm sure it'll all be fine. Sure to work out great. Yeah.

Don't worry about AI. It's fine. You ever think about how weird it is to be living through the plots of so many of the stories that we grew up consuming? And just like, I mean, obviously stuff has been brewing, but like just the last year and a half around AI, I'm like, I just want to shriek like has no one seen The Terminator. I just don't understand it. Anyway, well, let's think about how we can create our own Wallfacer project to defeat the future Insidious AI. Oh, man. Wallfacer. I thought this was great. Secretary General Joseph, as played by the absolute icon legend CCH pounder. This was, I like gasped.

This is such a casting coup. She was phenomenal. Hopefully more scenes coming? I hope to God. She's just, she's always been the best. Commands every room she's ever been in. And I was like, perfect. Perfect casting for someone I'm going to fucking pay attention to.

And I also love her whole like, sure, yeah, you can say you're not a well-faced. Like, yeah, you can do whatever you want. Saul trying so hard to refuse the position. Nobody allowing him to live in that farcical existence for even a moment, really something. This idea that the wall facers are tasked, the three of them, with figuring out how to beat the Santee, figuring out how to save humanity, they can do whatever they want, right? Take you need money. You need X.

You need Y. your wall facer, it's your prer you got to keep all the details in your head because the thing that they don't know is what is in our minds. They cannot read our minds. This is the basis of what we call the wall facer project.

This is like one of these fascinating sci-fi concepts that you're like when a creator is capable of thinking of something like this and we learn from Wade we'll get to like his kind of light bulb moment when we talk about his character a little bit more. But I loved that moment when this occurs to him

And like, it's connected to a real thing in the world and to take that inspiration and figure out how to apply it. It's so interesting. Well, and the fact that, like, you know, not to jump the whole Mike letting the cat out of the bag that we lie as humans. But the idea of taking your... You blow it, Mike. Taking what the Santee consider... I mean, this is a real book changed because in the book, they were just going to decim-it. It wasn't as virtuous.

You're liars. We can't coexist with you. This is the opening to book two. This is the first chapter of book two is the Red Riding Hood. Yeah. And so then we have this clarity after the fact of like why they abandoned humanity. Thank you for the clarification. I'm only three chapters in.

So that's the literal extent. The only other thing I'm prepared to share with you is that the aunt who's crawling through the cracks is also in chapter one of book two. That ant. Big, big, big opening from the end. That's it. Okay. Now I'm out of book two knowledge.

But the idea of taking, I love this in any story, but usually it's like a genre story because it's like, okay, they consider us, we humans, frail for this reason or that reason or that reason. But it's like, how is that actually a strength? So if the, if the santi, yeah, like, if this, I love you, if the santi are. incapable of lying. They're like literal-minded and, you know, to know it is to communicate it. Yes. And that's, that's just it for them. Then they can't crack. This is a very, this is a very human. Yeah. Secrets. Secrets and lies and obfuscation is a very human, hard to pronounce word, thing to do. And so like that very humanity, humanness is going to be the thing that we have to save ourselves, hopefully. I don't know how these books are. Do the book get? Do the book

with humanity all dead? I have no idea. I hear, though, that if one of us survives, we all survive. All of them. Okay. Yeah. So as long as Will's floating brain box, well sees, well-seased into brain is just out there in the galaxy. That was the one thing.

I woke up from my dream about Will's floating brain and I was like, Adam, because he's, Adam has read all the books and loves them. And I was like, don't spoil a thing for me, but also I'm going to just constantly ask you question. like enraged that you can't reply to them. And I was like, Adam, I dream about Will's brain. The series is called Remembrance of Earth's Past. If one of us survives, we all survive.

It's Will's brain all we need. And he just like, he actually was like, it's so painful for me to not be able to talk about this with you. We can never do this again. We can never watch. I swear to you, he's like, we can never watch a show where I've read the book and you have it. It's too hard. And I was like, what do you think it has been like? Do you know?

For 15 years with Harry Potter and Game of Thrones in this relationship. That circumstance is in reverse. How dare you? Do you remember? He just wants to share a story, you know? Will's very sweet. Will Spring goes into that little box and then it gets like kind of freeze dried. Yeah.

Right? He's not like, he's not like, no, yeah, but he's not like pickled, right? No, just froze a negative 150 degrees. I was thinking that if he were like pickled. in there and then you add the chili pepper like kimchi kimchi kimchi brain no no no no the brain is just like on ice yeah it's on it's and it's unseason state do you think when he wakes up and eats a banana he's going to vomit everywhere and then he's going to be like I was really worried that sweet collio when he vomited I was like is he going to die or are we going to let him this tech isn't ready

I was very concerned yeah also I was like I'm not sure I could do the like orange squares squares and started the circle thing like on like a Tuesday at this point. Like, calling it after coming out of cry. I'm amazing. And I was really relieved that it was just described. Molly's like, Molly's like,

I'm going to need a nap. Five extremely large bottles of water. Three coffee. Three coffees. A snack. A yogurt or a soup. A bathroom break. And then maybe I can answer your question.

Yeah. That's what I'm about to hit you and Steve with. about the second half of the pod, you know? Oh, Joe, let's talk about Will. Will Downing, played by Alex Sharp. Wonderful. This was another fantastic performance. So winning.

Yeah. It's not going to shock you to hear that I just was a complete sucker for Will and absolutely loved him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, what I wrote a couple times in my notes is like, this shouldn't work, but it's working. And I attribute a lot of that to Alex's performance. Yes.

Yeah, he's wonderful. Sweet Will. What a sad but also, you know, hopeful and empowering story for Will here. Let's talk about it. He's a teacher. He's the member of the Oxford Five who doesn't think he's as good as everybody else. Doesn't think he's as smart. Doesn't think he's as accomplished.

doesn't think he deserves whatever accolades they receive, the love of somebody like gin. And also doesn't come from money. It comes from a very shitty family. We find out late in the game. Very apparently terrible family. That was a heroin team. But a terrible family that invested all of their resources in him.

And so for him to then feel like a failure, it carries this extra loaded thing to us. Maybe the parents were supportive, but the sister, garbage. What a piece of work. Human garbage. When he's teaching the many worlds theory and that sequence then just blurs into the cancer diagnosis, it's like a montage of the cancer diagnosis, which I thought was really. So good. Elegantly done.

Yes. Right? Yeah. I rewind that to watch that a few times. And then they're playing Rolling Stones, Moonlight, Mile. And as we all know, Mallory Rubin has, like, young. boomer dad music taste energy. So she was like, yeah, it's my jam.

But here's another on the nose lyric from Moonlight. I love Moonlight Mile, by the way. It's a great song. But the On the Nose lyrics, I'm sleeping under strange, strange skies, just in their mad, mad day on the road. My dreams are fading down the railway line. I'm just about a Moonlight Mile down the road. So Strange Trades feels very like many worlds theory to me.

But then also just like the coming to the end of your road. narrative for Will. A lot of the needle drops are on Will's story because Will's is the most emotional story, so it's the moment where they really wanted to hit us with the pop jams.

And we'll talk about some more later. But you want to talk about the brain box more? Let's talk about the cancer. Let's talk about the staircase project, but the thing that makes Will the candidate for being in the brain box is the fact that he finds out he is dying. Move over, Dr. Ye's Einstein joke.

I got another big flag metaphor for you. They even call it out on the script. When Will is in the hospital, Jack and Saul pay him a visit, and he is off his rocker on Delotted. And he said he spoke to his cancer, and Jack says, oh, right, is that a metaphor? And he says, no, he spoke. Turns out the cancer is not inherently evil, right?

It's actually just looking for a place to live, like we all are, I suppose, with its children, which is fair enough. But obviously, I said, best not all right with me. I'm using my body at the moment. Can't just move in. So anyways, we made a deal. It gets to stay in its own little corner of my pancreas, and I keep all the rest. Did this have you flashing back to secret invasion? I never flash back to secret invasion if I can help it, Mallory.

Oh, my latitude. Give me a flashed back. attitudes. But the idea that you can bargain with a cancer that you can say, okay, you get this one little quarter of my pancreas, but I need the rest of my body, when, of course, the cancer just swallows all of Will's body is, you know, it's invaded by a species. Yeah. It's not so secretly. Yeah. This made me think of there's a, so this character's not in the show, but one of the the characters in the book pan and there's that description using cancer as a way to explain the nefarious effect that technology has had on society he believed that technological progress

was a disease in human society the explosive development of technology was analogous to the growth of cancer cells and the results would be identical the exhaustion of all sources of nourishment, the destruction of organs, and the final death of the host body. Now, uh... That's a one body problem. That, uh, character,

not necessarily, like, working for good, but even so... But that technophobia, again, like throughout, yeah, for sure. Using that as a comp. Mm-hmm. This idea will... We'll... chat about like all of the friendships and like the duos inside of this larger group

from all of their perspectives. We'll chat about like some of this from Jack's perspective when we when we get to Jack. But when Will tells Jack about his cancer and Jack says like fuck that, right? You're not giving up on your own fucking life. Now part of this is that Jack is a person who has accomplished great things and been immensely successful and is sort of inclined to believe that you could pay your way or work your way to a solve. But that was in my mind. Watching women fart on birthday jeans. Dude, that was unbelievable. iconic stuff from Jen. Like, tax, they don't know my search history. Well, you know, anybody has their thing, I guess. It was specific.

I can't explain comedy. Comedy is a very personal thing. Humor's a very personal thing. But to me, that is perfect. Oh, great stuff. It's truly sensational. Oh, man. Oh, God.

I think there's a wonderful. I think it's a wonderful woman in the show. I think it's a wonderful woman in the show. I think it's the specificity of birthday. I think that's what makes that joke so funny for me. Yeah, you could pop out of a cake, but no. No, you're farting on a birthday cake. Oh, man.

That was extra, like, I'm just thinking about that now, like, after the moment where... Oh, they're looking for his, like, sex toys? Will, like, we should we, like, clean up? Like, are there any, like, anal beads that we should be getting up before his family gets here? sex toys, porn, etc. And they just find these like very sweet childhood photos and Man City figurine.

I mean, they will know what Jack looks like as a child. Thank you. They didn't look at the picture and say, Who is this? Anyway. I think for some of the, in some of the scenes, right? There's a lot of this like, Will, why won't you fight?

Will, why is this a choice you're making? Right down to the. Why won't you tell her? Why won't you do this? Right down to that final push from Saul as Will is hitting the numbers on the iPad. And so like... That was really good. That scene is amazing.

I like this other side of it, which is like Will deciding to participate in the Staircase project is him getting to work big finally. It's him in a way not giving up on his own fucking life. It's him trying to have a purpose and do something beyond what he felt like he was able to achieve on Earth. But it's also, it's also he's like, to Jin, he's like, this will be a big deal for you. It will be a scientific achievement of a lifetime. If I can donate my brain and your little nuclear plus nano sale idea works and the, and the, Santee reconstruct me with or without chili pepper, like whatever. it'll be good for you.

And so he's like, you know, to the far for a better thing. Like, this is self-sacrificial. Definitely. I bought you a star with 19.5 million pounds. I didn't tell you. I will put my brain in a box for you. I would do anything for me.

Step on me. Step on me, Jen. But here's the thing when he's like, he's like, she's like, sure, we have a lot of other candidates. He's like, and then he's like, oh, you don't have anyone, do you? And I'm like, what don't they have? Any other people, other, smart people of dying. smart dying person

He's the only one Versus and something Great, so that was that was perplexing Not the most perplexing thing But certainly perplexing And I love when Wade is like Describe me and he's like

We need He's someone smart And they're also dying And they should probably have A book of fairy tales And maybe a goldfish And a bowl next to them And look great in hoodies

And enjoy an ocean vista Yeah Yeah I wonder what I found someone like that. I found most of the Will Jin stuff really worked for me, but the one place it tipped was the like, I'll sign a loyalty oath to her.

But not to humanity. He was like, all right, let's dial it down, buddy. Dial it down. But to that Wade point, this interview that Wade conducts with Jin observing and will refusing to sign the pledge. And Wade's like, you pass the test, right? He sees what he gets to see.

Gin, in one of her many sensational outfits, follows him, just like, is this one of those high tuck, like button down high tuck. A lot of wide leg pants and high waist. Yeah, wide leg, high waist. Yeah. Yeah. I've really been gravitating toward a looser leg.

I've never seen you in a trouser. I've never seen you in a trouser. I don't know if I'll... You're not ready to debut them into the world? I'm going to dabble. I don't know. I certainly have recently purchased some looser, wider leg jeans. I did get a trouser.

I did get one. It's like a lilac. Are you on a jinko journey? Like how wide are the legs of your jeans? Not, should I get you a... Should I get you? Should I get you a chain head?

I was a kid. I can not tell you. Did you have a chain on your wallet? I don't, I didn't ever have the wallet chain, but I had a lot of, I had a lot of jingo jeans. I had a very long phase where I wore backwards hats with no fear patches that I ironed onto them on the sides of that. You were like every sixth grade boy ever do.

That's like incredible. I love you. So I still am, honestly. Well, like, I can't wait to see, I can't wait to see your ginkos. I'm going to send you guys some pictures. I'm going to find, I'm going to send you guys out. Will you send me a photo? Will you send me a photo and I'll put it in a little box with the man you.

Also, we're off like a hemp chokies? Oh, yeah, me too. I can make those. If you want to get back into that, I can do that very. Did I ever tell you that I got kicked out of my basketball league, a game in my basketball league once because I refused to cut off my hemp necklace, which I tied on. And I was like, this is a product of Malinale Hempco, USA, a business that my dear friend in case she doesn't want this to me don't. I won't put her full name out there. Al. I couldn't be. I got kicked out of the game.

Couldn't finish the game because it had beads on it. They said it was a hazard. Now, I wasn't going to get a basketball, so it didn't really matter for the team. But will you this evening? Put on your new jinkos. I don't have any. I don't have any. I'm sad to say. I don't believe you. Put on your soft lunching your jinkgo phase right now. Put on your jinkos and the, and the, and the, the game helmet that the rebate game helmet that they gave us at South by and pose in the mirror for me, please. I will.

Thank you. Actually. I'll put it in a box. Oh, God. What an amusing digression that was. This is what happens when we record during meal times. What an amusing digression that is? Are you still at Oxford?

I wish. I wish. God, what a life imagine. The particle accelerator path, not for me. No, pass, hard pass. Steak and alpies and pints and chatting about fantasy stories, sign me up, twist my arm. Wade's assessment of will. He's our man? Because he's not our man. Gin says he really might not be. And Wade says, I know.

He really might not be. That's why they'll go out of their way to pick him up. But then, record scratch. it turns out if you don't test. Yep, that's me. I bet you're wondering. Very sad when this happened, Joe. Three, three detonations. It was so drawn out.

It was 297 left to go. I'm like, obviously this is not going to like, why? Did this remind you the nanoradiation sale? Did this remind you of Count Duku's ship from Clone Wars? I was like, holy shit. They did Duku's ship. No, but it reminded me of like... Now I'm sure Duku's thing, but to me, I was like, that's Tuckoo's sale.

Wow. It reminded me of like every scene in Apollo 13 where I wanted to die because I was so bored. So this is like, this is some real dad-core astronaut movies stuff. Stray at Apollo 13. Astronaut movies, not for me. 90-ish minute mark of this podcast. This is what being like a grown-up means. A grown-up means you can just say with your full chance.

As to about movies, not for me. Okay. All right. How do you feel about Armageddon? Oh, well, that's a masterpiece. But that's more of an oil... That's more of an oil drilling movie. It's more an animal cracker movie.

Yeah. You're right. You're right. So, Joanna, what's going to happen here? What are your theories again? We actually genuinely do not know. We've got the brain going off of its trajectory, floating out into space.

We hear from Jin a very alarming estimate of how long until he's going to get into the path of another planet, how long until he'd float out of the Milky Way. As Will is dying. Yeah. So the little paper boats that gin makes. Have you ever seen science to sleep? The Michelle O'Gondry film?

I have seen, I saw that in the theater in college. Believe it or not. There's just this really beautiful sequence of- West God Street, Syracuse, wonderful theater. I saw it at Sundance. It's a really beautiful. Sick flex. Well, I know.

I got a covered burrito and Alco Cinco after, so. Well, I got altitude of sickness. So there's this beautiful sequence of this, like, stop motion animation of the main characters on a horse going into a boat that sails away. That is just, like, I think about it all the time. And it reminded me a lot of that. It also reminded me of midnight mass. But anyway, we don't need to talk about that. That's a horror thing.

I won't bother you with it. But, yes, him and his little CGI dream boat, little paper boat on the water. beautiful imagery. Keep seeing these boats when he's like... Imagine this is you and this is me. Mortal coil.

I mean, the brain is still, you know? The rain stops. Is he just going to sit in that dry boat? Right. Right. So he's in the boat

as he's dying. I mean, again, the brain is frozen and preserved. So like we can, as the characters do discuss, this is not really dead, right?

In some capacity alive, it seems to be indicating to us that his consciousness is like sailing on, but then the rain stops. part of this larger like fairy tale focus obviously like we get the fairy tales with evans and using the fairy tales hansel and gretel little red riding hood bit of a misstap evans we have some notes well we lie we're liars you're not heard of lie this is like pests metaphors lies

to educate the santi and then fairy tales are very present for will so again like when we we think of these clues if you thought that game theory book got a close-up. When do you get a load of Will's fairy tale book? Yeah. And it's there so often. And like we get the really like kind of sweep, but also sort of that like awkwardness of when you realize another person has feelings for you. And like he's like, I know the exact moment and date that you gave this to me. And it was like four days after my birthday with gin. Like they open it, Sleeping Beauty. He mentioned Sleeping Beauty. Like our attention is drawn to it so often. What is all of this pointing toward? How are you putting the fairy tale, the boat, Will's brain box

floating out to space together. What do you think is going to happen here with Will's brain? I mean, this is absolutely not the last we see of Will's brain box. It's absolutely coming back. And if the Santee don't reconstruct him, somebody else better do it. So like, someone out there has got to find that brain box and reconstructed. And we also have Chekhov's like, we're going to cryo someone. Here's what I feel.

Yeah. Yeah. Because I don't really understand the order of operations of Jin understanding that he was in love with her because he says, like, I see you. when I'm in love with you. He does the thing with the date on the book. She already like, kind of, you got to, you got to know. She knows. But like, I guess you could say to your friend, like, I love you.

But the way he says it is pretty on the state. I see you and I love you. And she's like, cool, bro. Well, I'm not going to be here when you die because you asked me to her, whatever. And then Wade's like, didn't you know he bought you a star? And then she goes, she does. Classic Wade. She does the love actually run through the airport.

When Harry met Sally, got to get there. and then he's gone. He's dead. It's scooped the brain already. The brain is already in the box. Well, it's on the way to the box. Okay. So that is such a star-cross lover's misconnection moment that I feel like she's got to get cry-oed and he's got to get reconstructed.

And they will meet at some point in the far, far future. On her star? Or somewhere. But probably on the star. DX-390. Yeah. The star has got to come into play. Whether Will ends up there or not, I feel like Jen is going to maybe build a base there.

Also, to get back to Fermi's paradox, like, is there life there already? You know how in Eternal Ascension it's about this mind? They're like, meet me in Montauk. It's like, meet me on TX3906. As I've told you before, now, anytime that's referenced, all I can think of is 1923 and Alex and Spencer shouting to each other. Mom, Donna. I won't.

I'll meet you in Mom, Dada. I won't stop saying it. You can't, you can't bully me into it by bringing a Yellowstone. Oh, man. It's the extended Yellowstone universe. Thank you. The EYU. I'll meet you at Dutton Ranch whenever you're, whenever you're good and ready.

Put them to the bottom of the list below F1. Oh, man. the other thing with Will on the clues front, you alluded to this earlier, the many worlds theory and the beginning of that sequence, like we hear him say to his students. So if the many worlds theory is true, that means there could potentially be an infinite number

of Jessica's and visuals or Mr. Downings in the multiverse. And some physicists even think that if there are exact carbon copies of your body out there with the exact same quantum processes, then all of your thoughts and feelings are simultaneously, arising in an infinite number of elsewhere, an infinite number of times. So when your consciousness ends in one world, it could continue to exist in another world in many worlds. Now, again, I have no idea. I have not once gotten the impression that this is a multiverse story. I don't think that's going to be the case. But this was yet another sequence and speech and insight that in some way

centered on a link, like a mental link, right? And so that feels like the deliberate part to be thinking about with Will. And also, again, in a story where like quantum entanglement is so present with the sofas and how can you communicate across time and space. Like, are we supposed to be thinking about that? Is that the takeaway from that stretch with Will? That reminds me, I'm going to quote another thing. Is it, is it Fisherman and the Golden Fish? Or are we talking about Pushkin? You know, I'm always down to talk about Pushkin. But no, there's a line in Cloud Atlas, the book by David Mitchell, one of my favorite books, that was turned into a less sometimes exquisite movie. And the upgrade this line got in the movie, occasionally bad,

but sometimes exquisite movie, the upgrade that this line got in the movie, as spoken by love of my life, Ben Wischaw, when he says, I believe there's another world waiting for a sixth Smith, a better world, and I'll be waiting for you there. I believe we do not stay dead long. Find me beneath the Corsican stars where we first kissed. It's like one of the most beautiful lines that has ever existed. Storn him. I should have read that to you when I was like reading romantic quotes out. But like, yeah, like meet me on the star that I bought you ill-advisedly with 19.5 million pounds. That got a better deal. Sure. Get him. Yeah. I, you know.

Maybe if that starts up saving humanity, it'll feel like money well spent. Will and soul. Oh, boy. Will and Saul. Joanna. Yeah. We're like, Saul and Augie, Augie and Gin, Will and Jack. And then out of nowhere, Will and Saul, like, they're spending time together at the cabin,

they're sitting watching the sea together. And then like... It doesn't, I don't know. It doesn't feel so out of nowhere to me. I never feel closer to someone than when I'm sitting silently watching the ocean with them. True. Though I think, okay, I think part of why I felt this is because, like, it seemed to me, this connects to what we were talking about Saul.

Like, Saul is the one who's there because he has nothing else to do. Yeah. Less because of like the depth of devotion and affection between him and will necessarily, though maybe that's not right because like he's at the hospital too with Jack and like the instantly iconic funny little at sequence. John Pratley's reaction to that when he was like, I was waiting for you to notice. It's just so cute.

That was precious. So this scene that we referenced, it's the end. It's done. Will has made his decision. And so you could say that like on the heels of the, let's remember the good old days of the eagle and the child and when that Christian girl was about to do some very un-Christian things with you,

that Saul, on the one hand, he's like trying to save his friend. He doesn't want to say goodbye. He wants to make sure he's thought everything through. He wants to do his due diligence. On the other hand, you could say, like, is it, like, fair or right to, like, put these thoughts in Will's head when he's made up his mind? But I think wherever you land on that, it was such an effective scene for telling us

something essential about both of them, right? How they both see the world. How they think about the risks that are worth taking and the sacrifices that would, like, be worth making. Also, just from a TV-making storytelling point of view, the absolute tension of you have four things that you have to, and he's just doing it while Sal's talking. And you hear the little ding. And you just like, they hear the little ding happening. Steve, can we hear this exchange?

You need to think this through what it means. You're floating in endless frozen space, not alive and not dead. Maybe for thousands of years, maybe forever. I'm completely unaware the whole time. So basically dead, which is what I was going to be seeing anyways. No, Will, that's best case scenario. Because if they find you, they'll rebuild you. And maybe they just turn you into a program and they communicate with you through an interface.

You can't see, you can't hear, you can't feel. Like an isolation tank question goes in, answer comes out. Whether you like it or not, they just read your mind. So they read Dari of a nobody. Then they switch me off and we're back to dead. Okay, but maybe it's not an isolation tank. Well, they want to know everything about what it means to be a human being. And maybe the only way for them to do that is to interact with you.

So they bring you back. They run experiments on you to learn how we experience. How we experience things. What makes us happy. That sounds pretty good. What makes us unhappy? What makes us so unhappy that it could be used against us? How do we feel exhaustion?

How do we feel fear? How do we feel pain? How do we suffer? How much can we take? Oh, harrowing! So good. But how many people get this opportunity, Joe, to say a proper goodbye to a good friend?

as Will asks. Very emotional. A series of emotional conversations for Will because he gets that visit from his foul family. And in that moment, as the tear drips down his cheek and he looks over a pushkin, he says, my life didn't amount to much. I never loved anybody who loved me back, which is one of the saddest things I've ever heard the character say. It's also just not true. That's why it's sad. Even like without the gin, but even without the gin element, like his friends love him. Exactly. You know, like Jack loves him. Saul loves him.

We'll talk about hockey, but I don't know. But, you know, and Jin loves him. Yeah, Jin loves him. That, I think we've hit most of the will gin stuff, but like when Raj says, you loved him, and she says, I love him. He's still alive. And, like, everything that she is processing after he's gone. Made of chili pepper in the future. Well-seasoned brain brew.

Rehydrated. On the Will and Gin front, do you want to say that we have not hit yet? We're just going to hit two more needle drops, okay? Massey Stars fade into you, which I think should be banned from all TV and film soundtracks. It's just, I love it. It's been played out. For how long? What's the moratorium?

Like, forever? Until Will's brain box reaches some aliens. That's a long time. Will doesn't want to tell Jin how he feels because he's going to put her in a tough spot, right? And so Mazzie Starr's Fade Into You is playing, and here's the On The Nose lyric. Like, Fade Into You, Strange You Never Knew. Fade Into You, I think it's Strange You Never Knew. Like, Jin never knew that he loved her.

And then when he's buying her The Star, we get Lana Del Rey's video games. And the on the nose lyric is, it's you, it's all for you. Everything I do, I tell you all the time. Heaven is a place on Earth with you. Tell me only things you want to do is better than I ever knew. They say the world is built for two. Only worth living is somebody who's loving you and baby. Now you do.

So that has been on the nose lyrics from needle drops in three body problem from Joanna Robinson. What's wild about this? Because we haven't even gotten to the most a great just one yet. But what's wild about this to me is that Gary Kalimar, who's the music supervisor on the show, is responsible for one of the best needle drops in all of TV history, which is the SIA that plays in the six feet under finale. Like I was looking at this guy's TV. I was like, he's got some bangers on here. So I don't know what was happening with the needle drops in the show, but not for me.

Speaking of not for me, back to you, Mallory. My God. Let's talk about Augie. I have never seen you dislike a character more. My least favorite character in the show by a comfortable margin. I've never gotten such salty texts from you about a character when we've watched a show, ever. Okay. I'll just run through a couple of things. So again, as we noted earlier, Augie takes on a lot of the long plot for book one, the nanofibers, etc. This pioneer genius, this company that can change the world. Okay. The first like main figure in the story who sees the countdown. So like Augie's fears are fear. We're very much with Augie at the beginning of this mystery. Like what is happening and why? This idea. that we will learn in time of the Santee needing to thwart and halt,

break science so that they can cease human advancement because they actually know that the humans will beat them. That human advancement, where there are not these restart civilizations constantly in these catastrophes, humans are progressing quicker than they did. And they will figure out a way to beat them and stop them and win. The way more army is because the mess. It's all coming back from the mess. And as the countdown starts in Augie's eyeline, we hear, I'll be gone in a day or two.

No, I just think of last of us. I sang that song in college. I always make to think of college. But I'll be gone on a day or two as the countdown starts. Next, moving along. It's very direct. I did think seeing the countdown like blur the face of the child on the train was really good. Haunting image.

Especially because that moment in the book when Wang's trying to like navigate the countdown and figure out what's happening and he's like, I couldn't bear the thought of seeing it over my child's face. The child who then. It's just gone from the book. Just unimportant. What do I even can't think of everything that's happening to our guy Wong couldn't tell you. Could not tell you.

That kid just disappears narratively. Oh well. So something else I couldn't tell you is why is Augie such a judgmental jerk and a bad friend? Is that the word you have an nose? I put it in the nose. With Saul in particular, like they have history, right? They've been involved. Okay, things can be awkward with your ex.

That's fine. But like, the judgment that meets Saul in every interaction, like you're a child. and it's not cute. Like, why does Augie get to be mad that Saul is sleeping with a stranger on a given night when he answers the call? Saying, by the way, that he'll go meet her wherever she is. Like, he's about to abandon this woman, toppless in his bed. Where are you? I'm home.

What does Augie get to be outraged about there? Actually, don't understand that. It was just really alienating. And then the worst part of all of this is the, like, absolutely abysmal implication at the end where he's, Saul was talking about will-loving gin. And he's like, he's like, you know, no one's ever loved me that more. Like, I can't imagine what it's like to have someone love me that much or whatever he is. He says, and Jin's like, maybe someone already does.

And then we cut to Augie in Mexico, like, filtering the water. And I was just like, oh, is this a grand love story. Augie is so in love with him that she's like an absolute asshole to him all the time. Bitter, fine, sure. That's terrible. Hated it. I also struggled a little bit with tracking. Now, I think it's okay if characters are ping ponging in a story because they're unmoored, they're unsure.

It's disorienting. They actually don't know what is right. But Augie always feels in the moment like a character who is driven by certainty and the strength of her convictions and is ready to tell other people why they're wrong and why the people they've surrounded themselves with are wrong. And so that was like unmooring for me to track in the season. Because I think any single decision Augie makes with the possible exception of, I found this astonishing, the WikiLeaks scene genuinely hilarious when Porlock is just typing.

It's like, by all means, finish your tweet. That killed me. I'm going to try that on someone. It's like, I'm waiting for Andy to say that to Chris on a Zoom recording while they're doing the watch. By all means. By all means. Finish your tweet. But I was like, actually, this was emblematic to me of like how confounded I was by this decisions Augie made.

By all means, Mallory, finish your Instagram real. Finish your real. The impetus. The thrust behind this is that Augie does not, first of all, does not want to leave her tech in the hands of these people who she doesn't. and trust in who she knows we use a frail. Okay. The solution to that is to send it out into the entire world where we're supposed to believe that this character who is being positioned as somebody

who's driven by that, I ended up on the wrong side, lament about her own life, and wants to do things that help and that are good, wants to heal, not make weapons. Like, okay, we can understand that. What does she think the people who receive this power are going to do with it? Every person who has that ability now to make nanobliads is just going to use it to filter water. No one's going to make a weapon. No one else is going to. This is from the person lecturing everybody about being murderers and weapons manufacturers.

That just doesn't make sense. Use it like cheese wire to just absolutely shred a boat and a bunch of kids. I just found that like very, genuinely difficult to understand. It's a tough character. Tough hang. Not a fan. Anything else? Anything else in the other say about Augie?

Join a joining way, quitting. We can skip to Jack. Let's just, let's sit bright in the mood. Oddly. When he got stabbed at the jugular at the end of episode three died, I was like, surely not. Oh, I was like, surely. That was what happened. This was my journey.

It was like five minutes. And I'm like, oh, no, right. They really just wanted John Bradley in the show for a few episodes because he's a delight. Well, yes, that, but also it's a classic, it's a, yeah, it feels like a Med Stark. Like, yeah, you know John Bradley, you love him from Game of Thrones. We're going to kill them. Don't get attached. You could lose anyone at any point to bleed out in your den of merch.

It's hard for me to think of a tougher way to go. But I guess he gets to look at Milnear. His den of Merch is also his bedroom, to be clear. I know. That's why I loved it. I just like to remember. Your millionaire is in your office. If you had Kep's shield,

you would hang in your office. I do have. I have, so I actually have Peggy's Shield. Way cooler. It's out in the living room. Way cooler. But I would put it in my bedroom.

Joe, just picture this. What's stopping you? What's stopping you? Jack or any sitting in bed, cranking it to a girl farting on a wedding cake. As the back to the future Nike mag sit, displayed on a shelf. Boss, Horford and Harry,

tie fighters, the Millennium Falcon, he's got Legos everywhere. This is just the most Mallory-coded thing I've seen in my entire life. Like, down to the angle

that the Mielnir is sitting, you know what I mean? It's just like, I know it naturally tilts, but like, oh, man. I see it behind your head every single time

my podcast with you, and I saw him on Jack Rudy's wall, and I was like, Jesus Christ! So, Malar Rubin. We, Adam and I paused to try to identify every single thing that was displayed. Yeah, Mallory Rubin, when you die, do you need me to go through your bedroom and look for anal bees and or drugs and or a box of childhood mementos? I mean, like, I'd like to think that anyone in their life who has good friends can count on someone doing a sweep.

Okay. I got you. I got you. No need to call, no need to call Al or anyone else. I'll be there. What did you think of the fake ad that they put on Twitter, on the three-body Twitter and Instagram for Jack Snacks? Crunchy, light, tasty as fuck.

I just loved everything. Honestly, everything about this. Like, all the Jack Snack stuff was so good. The vodka crayon, the cans of vodka crayons. So good. Here's my last and most egregious needle drop. and then we're going to drop this bit because it's the last one I have to do. They paid big money to get Karma Police by Radiohead on the soundtrack.

Yeah. And as Tatiana is just the blood is just spurting out of Jack after Tatiana has done her work, pooling on the rug, inching towards Milneur. And Carma Police plays, and the most on the nose lyric is this is what you. you get. This is what you get. This is what you get when you mess with us. Oh, man. Okay, I'm done. It's a lot. On the nose needle drops the chairman. It is always nice to hear karma police, though. We very recently got this invincible. What do you, fabled sports fan, Joanna Robinson, think of making Jack Rooney a Man City fan. The little figurine that Will finds, it's the, it's his, his wallpaper on his computer. Man City.

I want to us. No, I know what Man City is. But I didn't look at that figurine and say, clearly, by the powder blue jersey, I can tell that that's Man City. Fair enough. Fair enough. But mere seconds. That we're good on the Mirz seconds. John Bradley is like a fable Man United fan.

This is like a brutal thing to do. Oh, that's fun. And I apologize that earlier I said them as if they were interchangeable. I know they're different. Man City is a team. Oh, man. But if I were to love them, I would keep a little figurine in a shot glass as well. You ever watch any footy?

Yeah, I've watched some footy. This is about Laris jacking off to Allison's feet, right? Is that what you're referring to? Do you think Laris would enjoy it if Allison farted on a birthday game? Tell me. Oh, B's always great when Bees joins us. I've seen some footy. I'm aware of, like, Arsenal.

etc. I know the best part about going to a football game in the UK or the bullying chance set to songs. All right. Did we do it? You covered White Lotus season two. You heard, oh, it's blow and bubbles. Yeah. Go hammers. Thank you. Thank you for reminding me of that. You're a West Hampton. Anyway, should we chat about our next group of characters? We are two hours and... Two hours in. And we've cleared the Oxford Five. The rest are going to be faster.

We have hit a lot of the relevant points for these other characters in talking about the Oxford Five. Let's talk about the Santee contingent Joe. Let's chat about yeah, when, yeah. We get two exceptional performances here across time. Wonderful. Great stuff. Really good stuff. This is the character.

This was your favorite part of the book. Yeah. Well, they cut my favorite part of the book. Which is, yeah, murdering her husband and her boss. It's an adaptive choice to remove that. Certainly, certainly. Take us through what we do see from the past. Well, we get the Cultural Revolution.

This is where we start the show. This is where the book starts as well. Though Kram told us that really interesting, Tibin on the book club pod that we did, that the Cultural Revolution stuff, the Chairman Mao, Chinese Cultural Revolution stuff, was originally sort of hidden in the middle of the book. book, but in the English translation it's brought to the front of the book because that's

more where the author wants it, but in order to not get the book banned, they sort of bury it in the middle of all this techno babble in the original edition. Anyway, cultural revolution stuff, the desperately sad, definitely channeling Aria and Sonsa, Ned Stark, death of a father to the cheers and the cries. The Silent Spring, Fuck you by, by the way. Like, fuck this dude who approaches her. Brutal. Like, it's even worse in the book.

I think worse in the show because they have a romantic attachment in the show. So it's like, feels like even, even, as we stopped these betrayals. I thought there was kind of like an implied romantic. It's like we watched that fuck in the show. Yeah, we do. And then like he just stands there like a coward. Yeah, you're right. At least it happens face to face.

That's worse. than him, like, off-screen being like, I do not know this woman. So, By's betrayal, then she goes to Red Coast Base. By the way, before she goes there, she has that harrowing interrogation scene with that terrible woman who, like, dumps cold water on her. Here's about her sister's betrayal, more about her mother's betrayal, all of that. Then she goes to Red Coast Base is just the smartest, tallest poppy in the field, and then her fucking colleague who in the book is her husband, betrays her.

doesn't betray her in the book, but she does kill him when she kills her boss. She does collateral damage. The betrayal, betrayal, betrayal, stack in all of these moments that inform how she's completely lost her faith in humanity. Anyone would welcome the alien invasion after this, right, Joe? Yeah, especially when you hear from another santa, he was like, don't answer. Don't do it. Don't do it.

Listener. We talked about listener in the book club pod, loved listener. This is why the whole, like, the Sonti's intentions don't change until they hear the Little Red Ridinghood story. A book two thing doesn't make sense to me because why else would the listener say do not answer from the jump? Well, the invasion is always planned, but the like lack of no longer feeling like they could work with the humans. I just feel like do not answer is like we're going to come and kill you. Not we're going to come and just take one little corner of your pancreas. we're going to come and kill you.

Well, so, you know, I was going to bring this up in the Evans section, but we can do it here because this is an interesting point. Like, one of the changes in emphasis and focus, like the different factions of the movement, the ETO in the book, the Adventist, the redemptionist, the survivalist is so central in the books and this idea that even inside of this movement to welcome the Santee, Drisselaerans in the book, there's

do you want them to wipe out humanity? Do you revere them the My Lord camp? They're going to reform humanity. Reform humanity wipe out humanity or your survivalist which is like anything it takes to survive this thing.

And like some of the characters fall into those camps but that's not and we get like in some of the news broadcast like this like oh there's this like religious agitation that is spawning but the fact that this wasn't on the betrayal front on the betrayal front like mike in the book betrays her because their belief schism he hides the whole judgment day like communication stuff from her

like it's a big schism inside of the movement and here they're just sort of like they're working together they fucked they made a baby i clocked by the way you might have too because we've just seen too much television but like when he shows up at the funeral the beginning i was like I was like, I was like, that's her dad. That's, for sure. Fear is dad, 100%. Incredible references to how bad of a father he is with both Clarence and Wade. When Wade's like, doesn't sound like he was much help around the house.

It's really good. And Clarence is like, boy, I thought I was a shit dad. And he was like, I'm sure you are. All of those interrogationsies were wonderful. Oh, my God. Yeah, it was really good. This is great. Just fit fantastic.

but the interaction with the Red Guard who killed her father, who then refuses to repent every single thing that happens. In the show, we hear, for state of Clarence, our civilization is no longer capable of solving its own problems. That's her stance. In the book, we get this line. It was impossible to expect a moral awakening from humankind itself, just like it was impossible to expect humans to lift off the earth

by pulling up on their own hair. To achieve moral awakening required a four, outside the human race. This thought, which is sparked by her reading Silent Spring, everything else comes after, determined the entire direction of Yeah's life. Like we read the other passage on the book club pod about like humanity being like inherently evil. This takes root in her and is reinforced by then every consequential thing that happens to her.

And so while we cannot, of course, forgive. And it's like cathartic to hear other characters say to her like, this is on you. Like you're the chief traitor in the history of existence. I think I don't really love her. Yeah, but I don't really love the change that they made on this character here because the whole idea, she goes to this whole arc in this version of the story where it's like you reached out, you were dumb dumb, you were wrong because they're coming to kill us sort of thing.

And she has this like shake of faith and then she's like, I got one more move, like face turn, game theory, et cetera. But she in the book, she never calls them, my lord. That religious sort of fervor is not from her character, you know. And so like in elsewhere in this story, when she talks about, you know, do you believe in God? You know, and she says, we're not believers in this house. We're scientists. like it seems counter to this whole like she's got a scientific mind and it's other people that take it to this like religious zealotry place.

This is part of why flattening it so that the redemptionists aren't like a... It bothered me. Yeah. It muddied it for sure. Yeah. I agree with that. I think that's a valid critique for sure. What about the way that she thinks about and talks about her daughter?

She wasn't strong enough. That's what she says, to know the truth. It's time when Lannister coded. No? This was tough. Very, very, very tough. So on that face turn point, thought in the interrogation sequences that build toward that,

including like her exchange with Jin, because she gets to like hear Jin say that she's going to fight, et cetera. She has this acceptance initially of everything that's happening. The raid? Like, they wanted this to happen. Why am I answering your questions? Because nothing I could tell you matters enough to them anymore to prevent me from telling

you. And so why not, basically? Yeah, indeed. I loved that. Do I want to believe in my own importance? Of course, I have my vanity. I'm sure you do two lines. And so she's like really forthcoming, but then also...

That's of a piece when they're like, uh, it's, Gin, right? They're like, gin, greatest science of her generation? Yeah, better than you? Nope. Flex, if you've got it. I love it. She's still so dug in, even though she's being like cooperative and forthright with what she knows. Like, that challenge to Clarence, I wish I could show you what the future looks like. There was a part of me that also, you know, again, like we get the, here's the little tape recorder, listen to these messages, learn the truth, think about what you've done. Spark as part of the larger, you're all bug, you are bugs.

Sequence. But right up until that moment, she's like, actually, Steve, let's just hear this clip. This does a good job of clarifying her position. You're here to shatter my belief, but it's stronger than you are because they are stronger than you are. You've gone from known to believe in half a minute, but that's okay. Faith's good. I have faith too.

Fate that when they get here, we're going to wipe them out. Your faith seems even more ridiculous to me than mine must to you. Incredible from both of them. But like, she until the second that she doesn't still believes in the power that she has put her entire life behind. What does you make of the decision to say, I've got one more trick left? I don't know. I need to read more of the book, I think, to understand this adaptive choice. because I think their move she makes clearly in the second book that I don't,

that maybe track better with the way that they've changed her character. But I have a hard time understanding. I don't think I have enough information. It was interesting to her maybe cop-out answer. Self as the first liar when she's speaking to the Santee. For me, it's more like what I found so strong about her in the book is like when things happen, And she kills her boss because her boss is getting in the way of her communicating with these people. And she wants, she's desperate.

And then she kills her husband because he's there. And she's just like, so many things will be sacrificed on the way. This is just like a small little blip. You know what I mean? And I would have loved maybe a bit more of that energy around Vera, you know, like a bit more of like these are the sacrifices we have to make to get where we need to go sort of thing. I agree. I think they're like counting a little too much on the almost reflect. reflexive innate response we would have to like a mother.

Yeah. Making decisions that led to her child taking her own life. But it's a very soft landing for her in the way this whole arc ends. The beautiful sunset. Yeah, we are any like, if not a position of forgiveness, we are in a position of like grace at the end with her character. which is this. It's interesting. Papiana couldn't wait to sit and share a moment.

I'll be very curious how the reveal plays, like when she walks out at the, I don't know, it looked like a modern art gallery installation to me when she walked out at the gathering and it's like you're expecting it's going to be Jonathan Price as Mike Evans because they're, you know, Clarence a waiter like, how did he get off the boat? We never saw a move. How do you do that? Oh my God. Dun, dun, duh.

It's the grieving mother. But so, you know, for folks who haven't read the books, I wonder if that was like a cool moment. We'll never know. Should we talk about Mike Evans? Let's talk about it. Jonathan Price, our guy. Loves to lead a group of fanatics, Joe. I definitely wrote high sparrow energy a couple times in my notes.

So he's the son of a tycoon who winds up meeting, yeah, in the first place in China because he wants to save a bird. species of bird. How many get the chance to save an entire species? Well, well, well, we are so glad. You asked. Forming Red Coast Base to that alliance and partnership they have, but also immediately kind of having to confront the imbalance

of Evans being the one who is in communication, in constant contact, aided by, as we'll learn, the sofans and this ability to communicate in real, time, not just wait in eight years to get a response. I would have just loved more out of that. And I think I, like, I don't mind shifting Mike to being the father. Like, that's fine. I think even though they had like Ben Shnuts or a lot who played young Mike Evans,

I really, I've liked him in anything I've ever seen him in. But like, I felt more like build up to something between, yeah, and by than I did between, like, when they start making out of the boat, I'm like, yeah, I knew this had to happen because she has to start, she has to fuck him sometimes because she's going to have his kid, but like, it seemed like a really weird moment for it and it just didn't seem like, you know, anyway, that doesn't work as well for me. Some people need to see a girl fart on a birthday cake and some people need to learn about the latest alien correspondence.

Whatever gets you going, you know? I hear you. I'm with you. Maybe he should have read her a story? Sure. That always works out. Steve, can we hear this? We think we understand now.

See, that's why you need us. My lord, we can help you. Help you understand us better. A liar is someone whose words are false. A liar cannot be trusted. We cannot coexist with liar. My lord My lord

We are afraid of you The absolute panic when he realizes he blew it Fucked up This is so Westworld coded to me Should we talk about judgment day? Yeah, okay So cheese wire through the boat Nano fiber cheese wire through the boat

A nano lattice This is a very gross part of the book as well, but way less gross because as far as I recall, there's no mention of children being aboard. It's like soldiers and mercenaries and sort of thing. And there's this great moment where the show character, Clarence's character, says, like, we can't do it at night because they'll be lying down sleeping and they might not get vivisected by the nano wires. Because they only have so many materials. So there's like a gap between those. Yeah. So he's like, they're like, They got to be standing up.

It's got to be daytime. But the, like, emphasis after emphasis after emphasis on the children. And then, like, what was the worst part? Had to be severed child leg with a little pink conver on it. Like, you know. A little chunk tailor. Yeah. Yeah.

It's tough. The kids at play. The kids dining with their families. The back, like the slicing of the cutouts that the kids, like their arts and crafts project. Have you no mercy. Also, I just don't. Do not understand how this is the best plan. Because they turn the boat into a flaming wreck.

And the only reason that that, you know, there's an implication in the book that if the fibers had cut through clean cut and they could reconstitute it, it would be fine. But in the show, it seems like the only reason that thing survives is because he felt, like Mike fell on top of it is the only reason that thing doesn't burn with the rest of the shitting. The fact that any of him is in fact. I thought this sequence was extraordinary, but like that is that, well, that's a little bit. I don't understand why we couldn't do like

sleeping gas at night. You know, something like that. Knock everyone out. I know they mentioned like, if we do a commando drop, it'll give them time to destroy it. Yeah,

they go through all the scenarios of why they can't let them run to delete the data. I really feel like we could have, he still ran and grabbed the thing. And if he had just had the wherewithal to jump overboard, like, you know, anyway. That is one of the things about, so drawing it out obviously made it an incredibly harrowing and an effective jaw-dropping setpiece in a TV show. Like, I thought this was amazing and an incredibly fuck-up. Oh, gross. Very cool, gross.

Yeah, like the way the bodies are slicing and squelching and just a real flesh descending wetly. And it was like what was so cool about it is it was like all their lower halves. So, like, they're top half, like, they're still people. They're not just goo as they fall. They're still people, but the bottom half is just goo. It's just goop and goo. It's not great. And, like, the way that, like, because their momentum is carrying them,

so the way their body is, like, slide and break it. It was just the extent to which they will go to show us something horrific is, I think it's a genuine and sincere gift that Pennyoff and Weiss have. But to your point, because they're drawing it out in order to heighten the dramatic tension and the viciousness. It's just snicked, you know? It does seem like someone could have maybe like jumped off. Like, yeah.

Run to the hedges in it, but no. The fanning, like that description in the books of like it's fanning out like a deck of cards. Like that was, poof, boy, wild. And then it just lights on fire. And I'm like, if this is a reconnaissance mission, I don't think you want the thing to light on fire. I hope the cat is okay. Felix was not okay. I hope the cat got out.

Not okay. The cat might be small enough. I don't really want to think about it, but the cat might be per-Persha's book insight about like, don't let them be sleeping. You know, like the cat maybe is, I'm going to go with the cat is okay. Okay.

It's off playing with surpounds somewhere. Still alive. They're in Mexico. I love serpounds. Sweet surpounds. Great set piece. This did seem to be, to our question earlier,

of like, are people watching this show and how many into, like, what? This definitely seemed to be sparking some conversation, this stretch, for sure. Yep. Anything else you want to say about the sofa? Cool move to make it a hot chick, as you said, and Cramm, let us know that that's, like, a future book. We're like, way to make the proton supercomputers, a hot chick with a katana.

And then it's like, oh, that's a future thing. Cool. It worked. I thought it was really good. Great stuff. When a scientist dies, this is from the book, another will take his place. But if his thoughts are confused and science is. over. So this quest. Yeah. The idea that they can just like manipulate what we see is so scary.

The weed plane thing at the end was. Yeah. Oh, I'm not, I'm worried for you for season two. I mean, I don't know if there's more horror, but that was my thought. I was like, oh no, if it's just like horror show. You know, how is Miller going to handle this? The opening quote that we heard, in place, in place of truth, we gave you miracles. We wrap your work. world in illusions. We make you see what we want you to see. We are everywhere, anywhere, always watching, learning all your secrets, uncovering your lies, and we will teach you how to fear again. So scary. Which dimension are you potting from right now? The 11th. The scariest part is not, and we will teach you how to fear again, which relates back to that whole, like, fearless conversation with Mike. It's in place of truth, we give you miracles. That idea of, like, hoodwinking the masses

into this like religious again religious fervor scary scary it's a it is disturbing and distressing to see how easily we talked about this in the book that that's one of the like the number of people who are like yeah

I'm happy to let you come to my planet I welcome it is so upsetting and like the number of people who would be either duped by a miracle or driven to the brink by the fear or who would say, like you told me not to answer, but I will. My Lord is really one of the more distressing aspects of the story. Did you like the, in a good way, like, muting the extent of the scientific explanation

for everything that happens with the photons? Like, we get the visual aids. We are able to understand what is happening, but we do not spend an entire chapter. And I'm like, is that so hard? Is that so hard? Chapter 33, which is by far the longest chapter of the first book, is just them talking about unfolding protons and it's like all the dimensions. Mind numbing. Did you look at this adaptive change with the same wide doughy eyes?

Tatiana. This, Marlowe Kelly, my babe, I loved her. I thought she was perfect. She was great. I absolutely refused to accept that she could crawl away from the raid and not be captured. They showed her crawling. They showed her crawling into the brush. This is an operation to save the earth that no one saw her.

I'm excited that she's back in action. She's got, she was invited. She's got the headset now, man. It's all popping off in that. I just want to say, if I'm Dr. Yeather, though, and I am trying to use. use this seems like I'm trying to use this video game to recruit people to my cause to welcome the Santee. Tatiana's not my emissary. Because can you imagine someone else had been in that room with Jack and Jen? I feel like someone else would have seemed less cuckoo bananas.

But Jack's like, I'm out. Have you seen your eyeballs? You have lost the plot entirely. I'm just like, he's like, this is definitely a scam. This is who I would send to stabbing. him in the neck, but it's not who I would send to like, great job of that. And like, welcome into the fold. This is a wonderful note. Thank you. H.R. I have some notes for you. Okay. Let's talk about somebody who usually has a pretty good feel, though, for how

to proceed. Thomas Wade. We are back with Liam Gunningham, and it is, frankly, a privilege and a pleasure. An honor. An honor. He was wonderful. Sublime. Wonderful in every scene. Sublime.

Yeah, exactly. The head of not the PDF, not the PDA, the PDC. That's great. And he wants you to know, Joe, he's not just, it's not just focus on the project. It's about the plan. When he said only advance, it's impossible for all the Davos heads out there not to think of Stannis, right? We marched to victory or we marched to defeat, but we go forward, only forward. Damn it!

What did you think of his management style? Oh my God. Fucking with Raj is one of my favorite things that has ever happened. That's the most interesting, Raj. Raj has ever been. Can you open a window on your way out? And then he's like, can you close the window on your way out? No, you don't, my guy.

You don't. Playing Augie and Raj are two least favorite characters, I think, against each other. Great stuff. Loved that. You know, manipulating Will into being into the staircase project. Great stuff. Yeah. I loved him.

I thought he was wonderful. I do think we should note, though, when he's like, I know that you want to talk about what his plans are for his, like, cryo on cryo one week out of every year. But we should, we should mention there's so much that he's doing that seems like it's like, you know, for humanity, for the earth and protecting the earth, blah, blah, blah. But he is also ensuring himself immortality and survival. And there's something, like, quite hubristic about that. You think he's like a step away from making Horrockses? I mean, you know, hide your, Hyde, Helga's cup.

Like, I wouldn't leave a diadem around him is what I'm saying. But like, like, what are, what are his plans, Mallorbin, for his cryo, uh, sleep? I'm just going to read this quote. I thought it was perfection. I should have pulled this sound like, what the fuck is wrong with me? What the fuck is probably? He's going to go in cryo, Joe, right? He's first in.

else can get in line behind him. And he's going to wake up one week a year so that he can really stretch it out and make sure that he's there at the moment of consequence to face the foe. And here's what he's going to do over the one week here that he's awake. Fix the fuck-ups. Visit mum. Now, unless he's also putting mum on ice, I don't know how long that's going to work. Yeah.

Hire people. Fire people. go to Wimbledon and go back under. And I love this not only because I believe that Thomas Wade would spend part of that one week going to the grass courts,

but also because like, dare we be bold enough to imagine that Wimbledon will survive. Society collapses by Wimbledon and Doors. Oh, man. What would you? do if you came back one week every year. Do any people I know and love also make it into cryo or do I not know anybody in the future? Am I on my own? Well, I mean, your mom will survive

as long as Wade's mom probably. Halo's in there with you. He's with me. That's a given. Do you and Halo? Yeah. I honestly think then I'd probably mostly just sit on the couch with Halo and read and watch TV like I do now. Maybe have some Jack snacks, you know, some chili lime, a grand vodka. You wouldn't go watch the O's play? Watch the O's. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. That would be my version of like the mentioning the Mets and end game. Talked about the O's. Did you hear that Gunner Henderson hit a home run at spring training the other day? He sure did. Gunner and Adley both homered yesterday. It was fucking great.

Couser made the team. Don't ask me about Jackson Holiday getting sent down. I'm not prepared to discuss it. I have received a few emails about it. I will not bring it up. Did you know that it's their year? It's their year.

Wow. It's their fucking year. Cool. It's their year. It's always Thomas Wade's year, I feel like. So this was actually great. Because you're like, how often is he just a suit in a room telling other people to figure things out?

But then the moments where you see the light bulb go off for him, I found really rewarding. So when he's arguing out in the front of which would matter with Jin and Augie and just says only Will Downing truly knows Will Downing. And then he like pauses and you can see the wheels turning. Like what? I'm thinking of a number between one and a thousand. Do you know what it is?

No. That's right. You don't neither do they. And then he goes and makes the call to, we know not whom about the wall facer idea? And like this is his plan. Like he comes up with this. The secretary general.

The secretary general. Bighead from Silicon Valley, who was the assistant to the secretary general. I'm in charge of your liaisons. Fantastic. This is great. I love that day. Absolutely fantastic. And then like I liked to the.

Not that we really need confirmation that Wade matters, but when the Sophon shows up on that plane and he's like, Well, it's like astonishing that they haven't. Why haven't they already killed him? That's the question. Why would they leave any of these people alive? Why aren't all the Waymo's constantly trying to run over all of these people? He is in an airplane that they very clearly, canonically established. They can just. Crash. Why wouldn't they? Oh, man. All right. Anything else on Wade before we wrap with the, the, let's go to. of Wongers. It's, it's phase Wong, it's long season. Benedict Wong is here. Good old Clarence. Regular Joe.

Okay. There's a few things that I love about this. When he's like, I don't know, I'm from Manchester. Great line. But also when he calls Marks and Spencer, Marks and Sparks, which is one of my all-time favorite UKisms.

I went to Marx and Spencer's. I went to Marks and Sparks. I was just like, you, adorable man. I thought it was really nice to bring groceries, but he's like, they must be feeding you shit and there's like a beautiful

array of like canned tomatoes. Also, yeah. No, it depends on the size of your marks dispensers, whether or not you're going to get actual good stuff from it. But, okay,

Clarence's son and Will's sister are like the two notes I have where I'm just like, no one is this, no one sucks this bad. No one is this. mean and evil and terrible we it's nice to learn more about yeah clarence's life like he had a wife she died he has a son his son his son his an ingrate and thinks his father's a joke

but do you think the heart snatcher whatever it is is that is that gonna is that going to come into play in a future season. Like plot-wise or like when they release the companion game? I don't know. We just like came back to it. A tasted bluff that time. It just like seems like it might. Maybe.

I think that's entirely possible. Also, his son Reg's business plan could come back into play. Oh, I bet it will. We really looked through that deck in detail, Joanna. I bet he will be a very, if we're going to cry out, I bet it'll be a very successful. is the dude who pulled August? Sure is. Funding, yeah.

That bald motherfucker who threatened her with deportation. Yeah, classy. Classy move. I need to talk about Clarence for a second. Clarence who I just loved and Benedict Wong is great and everything. Wonderful. Big fan. Big fan.

Do you believe even a detective played by Benedict Wong could identify Tatiana by by voice alone having met her once in a graveyard? Okay. I'm going to go the other way. on this. I know she was a creepy and he was clocking her. Outrageous that he didn't in the graveyard interaction, like... Take a photo and go out.

He's like... In his car with like a long distance lens snapping photos of like anyone who's doing anything at any point. We pan to the grave and it's like clearly like, well, I want to say, I can't remember like Edith or something. Like he could have taken five steps. It was like 1873. Yeah.

determined that she was lying. I don't know. That was a little bit odd. A little bit odd. I recognize her voice. I met her in the graveyard. I was like, what? I mean, you know, he's on guard because of the scrubbed footage and who would be

able to do this? Like if some rando came up to you as you were putting a red velvet cupcake on your wife's fucking gravestone, I feel like you'd be, like, Baltimore really came out there when I said Stoon. Stoon. You'd be like, let me follow up. one of the great lines for the book. I'm a simple man without a lot of complicated twists and turns.

Look down my throat. You can see out my ass. He's a lot more crass in the book. Boy, yeah. Really, really wild. But it's not just detective work. It's not just heart snatching. It's not just assessing the merits of a business plan.

He is responsible for the, clear eyes, full hearts, can't squash those bugs, pep talk. It ends the season and gives our heroes the belief they need to keep going.

People hate bugs, he says, in the show. I've been trying to get rid of them forever, but look around. They're not going anywhere for the bugs, and then he pours out the... And then he pours out so much. Canonically now,

very difficult to get alcohol. Like, the whole bottle. One glug for the bugs, Like one glug for the bugs. See, this is why you're the best. Did you just come up with that? What's wonderful? I don't think it's a saying, but please,

Thomas and Dragons is gmail.com if you have heard one glug for the bones before. So it's like, you got to put that. This is like in Forrest Gump. You got to slap that on a t-shirt or bumper sticker or something, man. That's wonderful. Wonderful. This passage in the book, which we read on the book club pod, is just like the like, the like,

fuck yeah, we can do it. rallying cry. This long war has been going on for the entire history of human civilization. But the outcome is still in doubt. The bugs have not been eliminated. They still proudly live between the heavens and their numbers have not diminished from the time before the appearance of the humans. The Tricilarence who deem the humans' bugs seem to have forgotten one fact. The bugs have never been truly defeated. If you want to sleep tonight, don't Google spider layer of the atmosphere, because this is something I learned from TikTok this week and I regret it. So don't Google it. But the bugs,

you know, there's a layer of our atmosphere made of spiders. I'm serious. What are you talking about right now? So serious. Is this in any way connected to spider person, the spider society? If not, I do not accept it and we'll not allow it. Yeah. Anyway, our spiders, I don't even think are bugs anyway. Anyway, um, are they arachnids, right? Different. Okay. I don't know. I'm not a scientist. Do we do it? We did it. Three hours on three body problem? I mean, it is eight episodes of television.

Nearly. Our coverage of eight episodes of television would be like 20 hours. Nearly one hour per body of this problem. There you go. Beautiful. Any final thoughts? No, I'll just be thinking about spiders for the rest of night. Thank you so much.

I'm going to go get some jack snacks. Thank you to Steve Olman for producing this episode, Arjuna Ramgapal for his additional production work on this episode. and joe me a denner on for his work on the social for this episode. Remember, we will be back with you next, no, this week, later this week for so hungry and tired. There's spiders everywhere. Jerry, you know how in the theme song again? Valerie send me photos of you and Jinkos.

Button mesh up for you right now in Ringervverse Two Midnight Boys Poo phew coming later this week Until then, just remember In podcasting Nothing exists alone