House of R - 'Alien: Earth' Episode 4 Deep Dive

Episode Date: August 27, 2025

Mal and Rob are back to dive deep into the fourth episode of ‘Alien: Earth.’ They talk about Wendy’s new skill, Morrow and Slightly’s chats, the xenolung, and more! (00:00) Intro(03:29) Opening Snapshot(09:34) The Opening Montage(13:09) Diagnosing Wendy(51:06) The Xenolung(57:54) Nibs’s Session With Dame Sylvia(01:04:45) Wendy Shows Hermit Her Room(01:08:02) Peter Pan Corner(01:11:52) Morrow and Slightly Have a Chat(01:18:17) Arthur Implores Dame Sylvia(01:27:35) ​​Morrow Levels Up His Control(01:31:13) Atom Reminds Hermit Who’s in Charge(01:37:04) Boy and Wendy Have a Chat(01:45:12) Tootles Requests a New Name(01:48:25) This Poor Sheep! Hosts: Mallory Rubin and Rob MahoneyProducers: Carlos Chiriboga and Jon JonesSocial: Jomi AdeniranAdditional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is brought to by Paramount Plus. Beth and Rip are back in a new series, Dutton Ranch. Kelly Riley and Colehouser returned, and this time they're taking on Texas. As Beth and Rip build a future together, peace will have to wait as they face corruption, danger, and a ruthless rival ranch, willing to protect its secrets at all costs. Legacy is a beautiful thing, but only if it survives. Dutton Ranch starring Colehouser, Kelly Riley,

Annette Benning and Ed Harris now streaming on Paramount Plus. Want to support your gut health? Take Activia's gut health challenge by enjoying two Activia yogurt today for two weeks and see if you feel a difference. With billions of probiotics and 20 years of scientific expertise, Activia is one of the easiest and tastiest ways to start your gut health ritual. Try Activia today. Enjoying Activia twice a day for two weeks as part of a balanced diet and healthy lifestyle may help reduce the frequency of minor digestive discomfort, which includes gas, bloating, rumbling, and abdominal discomfort. Greetings and welcome to House of our. A Ringerverse podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Mallory Rubin. He's here to ask us all to stop frowning.

It's not awake. We're on a voyage of discovery and he has a colonic in 30 minutes. It's Rob Mahoney, our very own boy, Cavalier. I'm a busy man. I don't know what to tell you. I'm booked solid today. Yeah, you are a busy man. You just moved to Los Angeles. How's it going? Welcome. It's going great. I don't have an actual colonic, but I do think I have like a spiritual, uh, Colonic of all my belongings. We're really going deep on what is necessary and what is not in my life. Indeed. I guess one of the things that made the cut as necessary was podcasting today with me. There's never been a question now.

Here at the Spotify Complex about Alien Earth episode four, observation. That's what this one was called. Pleasure to be here with you to talk about what I thought was a spoiler alert, wonderful episode of TV. It really hit. Very excited to get into this today. Rob, before we do, some quick programming reminders, House of R later this week, Joanna and I reunited. You're getting the boot. Peace out. Joe's back for the end of the week episode.

Frankly, good. There's the reason I am not on the logo, you know? Oh, man. We're so fucking back. Welcome back, man. Welcome back officially to Joe. We're back. Like she never left.

And not only that, but like, what an embarrassment of riches here in person for the reunion pods. Oh, my God. I can't even imagine. our Stranger Things, Season 2, Revisited Pod. And I cannot fucking wait. I cannot wait to talk about that season with Joe. And you've got some potting with Joe as well. What is next on Hooked?

What's coming? You know, it's great suits. It's better ad copy. It is vibrating undergarments. Mad Men on Hooked this week. Very excited for all of it. What a tease. What a tease.

You're a pro's pro. Thank you. Truly. What's our spoiler warning for today? Here it is. It's Alien Earth episode 4. Again, we have not watched ahead, so we have no idea what's coming in the rest of the season. We will be speculating.

We'll be making some predictions. We'll be anticipating, but we don't fucking know. We have no clue. If it's ever happened in an alien movie anywhere in the canon, it could come up today. There you go. All right. Are we doing spoilers for Peter Pan? Is the plot of Peter Pan a spoiler?

No, I kind of feel like that's fair game. I mean, I think if there's something from late stage Peter Pan canon that you feel convinced predicts the end of season one of Alien Earth I'd say use your discretion about whether or not

to share that but if you want to use some context to guide us continue to make some character comps, some thematic points of residence and note I think that is frankly what we do here.

I was going to say that the show is a shot for shot. I know you don't typically read books though, so. I've never famously I've never read a book but I have seen a movie. I've certainly seen Hook.

I mean, dude, same. I used to fucking. and love hook. I used to love Hook when I was a kid. Love. Not shocking to me. Yeah. A movie about getting so obsessed with the book that the characters come and take you away to a magical world.

Frankly, the dream. Why would that be Mallory coded at all? Frankly, the dream. I haven't seen that in years. Feels like it's time to revisit it. Now I know what I'm doing this weekend. You're welcome. All right.

Let's get to our opening snapshot. We have a lot to get you in the deep dive in a minute. We are actually going to go chronologically through the episode instead of going by characters today because we want to hit. Every scene. Before we do, very quickly, set the table for us. What did you think of Alien Earth episode four? I loved it. Same. I just thought this was great genre storytelling. I thought it was great ensemble storytelling in a way that if you will allow it, did feel very throensy to me. Felt very, we're bouncing around. We're talking extensively about means of control, means of power, why people are kind of under the thumb of corporations, their superiors, human beings, robots. Like, there's a lot happening. But all of it is about leveraging other people for your gains for the most part.

I also thought this was great. This was easily my favorite episode of the season so far. When finished watching, my husband turned to me and was like, good luck to you and Rob both doing that in like less than four hours. I would say challenge accepted, but we're just going to go over the four hours. We're being spared from that otherwise inevitable fate by the fact that you have another recording in two hours. That's the only thing keeping us in check today. We'll see. Literally the only thing.

I thought this was great for the reasons you're noting. I thought that this was like a really rich character-centric episode. And there was plenty of action. This episode, I thought, really ratcheted up the horror in a way that I was like, I mean, as you know, I'm a... When it's creature-centric, you know, an alien, a vampire, a zombie, a werewolf. I'm like, I can hang. You can do with that. But like a horror or just a horror movie, a slide.

Like, I can't do that. Though my tolerance is really, I think, changing as I age, as I wither. No, I think you're growing. I think you're expanding your horizons. I think as I'm just one foot in the grave. You're feeling more in- Part of my decline. I'm like, well, you know, things that make me think about death, mortality, the end,

waiting around every corner. You're greeting death as a friend. I think that is maturity. Thank you. Yes, that's what they say about me is I'm famously mature. Absolutely. But like, where we're going to get to some of the heart elements, you know, just even the opening where there's like this doll's head bobbing in the wave.

Right away, I was like, okay, my heart is racing. I'm on edge. The sheep scene, our poor beloved sheep, we were right to be concerned about the animal welfare in the lab. Immediately everything went to shit as we knew it would. This was a scary episode, but it was so anchored in the dynamics, either pre-existing or rapidly developing in real time between the various character sets. And this also was, I thought, a great, great, easily the best so far, villain episode. This was a tour to force from both Morrow and Boy.

But Morrow's a hero. He's happy to tell you that, which is how definitively you know he's a villain. Those are the best kinds, right? They're the best kinds. Like, we are so invested in what we're watching with these people, even as they do and say things that make us, of course, cringe. or judge or fear. So I thought this was really awesome and I'm excited to go beat by beat.

And also I'm just like, in that spot I love to be in in the middle of the season, which is like active despondents that were already almost at the end of the journey. Like how was it halfway already? It's flying by. But also like, whoa, we have four hours left. We have so much room left to like do a cool, great thing here.

So that's very exciting. And in terms of the arc of the season, there are so many things that are kind of just starting to crest, like ideas that are just starting to be explored. or dynamics that are kind of just starting to fill out. But you're right to point out the horror elements. I thought this was the most successful horror-oriented episode by far. Just in terms of the creepy visuals, everything that we get with the eyeball, alien.

I think the vibe is exactly where you want. And the body horror stuff with alien is so important and the eerieness is so important. And special shout-out for the direction of this episode to Uglah Hoxeter. Incredibly directed episode. I just think tonally, we are in an alien story. And maybe it is more Alien 3 at this point or even Resurrection at some point. But like that will come up today. I feel like I'm in the world.

Yeah. On the directing front, the deftness of the intercutting, I think sometimes obviously that can feel heavy-handed. Like, okay, you're really trying to draw our attention to which characters are in it together, not only in terms of an active storyline and plotline, but thematically. This all felt really deft in this episode. I don't think it would be accurate to say it was solid. but it was effective. Certainly, when we're cutting to Kirsch, for example, there's a reason, right?

It's priming us to wonder what is he thinking when he's observing. What does it mean when his head tilt a certain way? Like, all of that really works to kind of heighten the tension. If you're coming to Alien for subtlety, I've got bad news. It's going to burst straight out of your chest. You're in the wrong place. You're just straight up in the wrong place. Oh, man, I can't wait to get, I mean, we're going to have to wait until the end of the pod to get to the sweet little,

we were calling him a zino poll last week. graduated to Zeno Lung in this episode Little Boba just wants a head scratch He was adorable Pet lovers here Yeah, it really got me Looked like ready to curl up

On the couch With a good book by the fire For a nice relaxing night Yes Do you think that's how the second half of the season goes? I can only imagine Is Wendy Zeno Mommy? Wait for an hour into our conversation

To find out, I guess Listen, one thing that I heard About a different character admittedly but in this episode was that, remember, you're not the mother. This is an IT issue. Rob, not a gab fest. So that would be what? This is an alien specimen issue.

Yes. Not a gab fest. But it's always a gab fest here at the House of Mar, isn't it? Let's get to the deep dive. Let's do it. Okay. Is there anything else that you would like to say about this episode's opening montage? I've already invoked the, I thought, frankly,

unnecessary and outright cruel bobbing doll's head. We've talked before across the season so far about these glimpses because that's intended to catch us up. It's like a very organic what happened last, but then these incorporated elements of things we have not seen yet. This was a really rich text on that front. What stood out to you most? I mean, seeing a doll's head in an alien story,

how am I to not think of Newt? Just like lugging around her little doll's up. Nute is always on our mind. She honestly is for better and worse. sometimes. And all of these lost boys, all of the children with their stuffed animals and their toys, it just feels quite ominous.

It feels quite ominous, especially in an episode where we get nibs holding various dolls and animals very close. I don't know who this doll belongs to. Maybe none of the lost boys at all. Maybe it was from, you know, an actual first batch of children who underwent through this process and have been summarily

dismissed from duty. Didn't think it was possible to go to a darker place than what if one of the immaculately maintained mid-century modern dorm rooms as infiltrated, and the nest of toys somehow winds up on the beach. Do you think on that front, I was going to save this until we got to either the scene in Dame Sylvia's office or the scene in Slightly's room or the scene in Wendy's room?

Do you think that Herman Miller is a formal presenting sponsor of the first season of Alien Earth, or do you think that Noah Holly is just like, this is the vibe. I would like to give you a catalog. Here are some stores in Los Angeles that you should check out. Sure. I mean, I have seen multiple items

that were in this episode definitively at a Herman Miller story. And I have no notes. I think it looks incredible. It does look incredible. I'm jealous. Would you like to interrogate first why you are site ideing Herman Miller merchandise?

I, okay. So I'm an enthusiast. I love the chairs in particular Looking at some shelving recently Did my husband and I have a conversation last week As our wonderful Cat Halo Just like really resplendently positioned himself On a Herman Miller-Ottoman

About whether we've aired We've aired in our lives by not making him a furniture influencer Oh wow Like you think about what could have been It's true And you realize that you haven't lived your life to the fullest Yet Yet

Like there's no reason that can't start today. Herman Miller. Get at us. Herman Miller. Hello is standing by. I don't know what it is about a pet on an Ottoman. It's just the best.

It really hits different. Does your pup love an Ottoman? She does, but she's slightly too long for it. I have a corgi. So she kind of hangs over the edge a little bit. The tush just kind of like. It's adorable. I got to say, like it's just a thing.

How is your corgi liking Los Angeles? You've got like a four-day sample size here? It's a little early. So she actually has not been introduced to the environment yet. She's currently away. Okay. For this moving process? You're getting the house settled.

She's very particular. We do this too. Halo cannot be introduced into a new place until it is ready for him. Ready to receive him. The chaos of a new home is already a lot, much less all of these boxes. It's dangerous for an animal? Unlike the monsters at Privacy Corp, we want to make sure that our homes are safe spaces for the pets that we love. All right, well, we'll await your update in future weeks and subsequent weeks.

Let's get to the scene-by-scene break. down. I don't want you, my co-host of this episode, our producers, Mir Feed Away, or the bad babies listening and watching at home to be alarmed when we spend probably 30 minutes talking about just this scene. I don't want anyone to be alarmed about what the pace of the episode is going to be as a result of that. This opening scene, the like diagnosing Wendy scene, what is going on here, was such a rich text because so many characters were in this scene. Okay, I just thought this was like fabulous, basically start to finish. Before we get to some of the, the historic iconic instant

like pantheon things we heard from Boy Cavalier, which is what we'd be spending the bulk of today's podcast on. Anything you want to kind of circle back on just, we got confirmation because we were theorizing last episode. We were speculating was Wendy actually like physically walking down those holes. Corporially in those holes. Yeah. Was she in the lab? Did everyone just say,

tough shit, sister? We've got to get this Nino pole into your brother's lung. We'll check back. and leave her on the floor. And it turns out the answer was, yes. And they just kind of... Look what just left Wendy on the floor. That's so fucked up.

Just moodily breezed past her. Oh my God. Didn't even look at the body. Unbelievable. Genuinely crazy stuff. I mean, we saw Kirsch walking with that, with the xenopol. Like, with such purpose and intent, not even a glance back. No.

I'm astonished. This shook me. To be fair. Yeah. Of all the times, to be very focused and careful in the thing you're carrying. this might be one of them. You know what? It's a strong point.

However, I feel like Kersh, first of all, he knows he's safe. He's a synthetic. Now, does he want to let it, like, slip out of his hand and run down the hall

and infect, and plant itself into Boy Cavalier's chest? Stay tuned, because I think over the course of this episode, the answer becomes, it seems like that's maybe we're headed.

I don't think he'd be too bothered by it. I think he'd be fine. Speaking of Boy, Cavalier, He charges in. And I thought that we saw here in a really undeniable fashion why people like to work at Prodigy Corp. Not the Herman Miller. That's an extra perk. Okay.

It's really about Boy Cavaliers' demeanor, style, and ability to inspire as a leader. I can only imagine the keynote. Rob, I would like you to power. rank the following boy cavalier lines. I would love to. And as we go through these, feel free to predict at any point what you think the substance of what he says to his various charges would impact that might have on, I think we can not even say if, but just when they're likely to turn on him and try to overthrow him

via alien specimen. Okay, here we go. He comes in and he says, stop frowning. It's not a week. We're on a voyage of discovery and have a colon. in 30 minutes. I got it. First question, who's performing the colonic? And is this why Kersh hates him so much? Oh, interesting. I mean, he's like the science officer. Interesting. But there's got to be like a whole separate medical division, right? Like lifestyle division. Wellness division. It's a big complex.

I mean, they don't have-H-R there. That's clear. So like there's some departments that are unaccounted for. Okay. I think what we can say definitively is that boy is not going off-site. No. Everybody's coming to him. Do they? have to like pop by for an appointment or is everybody just there all the time? The fact that Adam and his later like threat to hermit basically says unsurprisingly, all right. If you want to quite sure there's the door, you can never come back. This is a private island. Really kind of just reinforces something I think we already understood about Neverland, which is like invite only. Yes. And the invite is kind of an impertuity like you stay once you come. Seems that way.

So colonics on demand. And highly secretive too. We did see in the some of the like newsreel screenshoting earlier that it's like no one quite knows where this place is which is why morrow can't just show up mystery location mystery location so you can't just be having like mystery location unless you have put a fingernail circuit chip into the neck of a young hybrid and without question have his GPS location again i know it's not a human fingernail at that point came out of the fingernail bed but it still upsets me to think about it absolutely terrible I really don't like it. I do have some questions.

We'll hit some of these as we go, but I have some questions about like the level of awareness and kind of scanning and stuff of various. Like, it makes sense to me that slightly doesn't consider. I mean, he goes far away to have the chat. Yes. It makes sense to me that he wouldn't wonder if someone could hear him because he just learned last episode

about the retinal cams. So the idea of him being constantly monitored and spied on is very new to him and he's a kid. He's of the age where it's like, if I put the blanket over my head, no one can see. Exactly. I'm just under here with my flashlight and nobody knows. Definitely not. When Arthur and Dame Sylvia like basically just go to the like office water feature, I think it was a little further removed from that. We could have this conversation and it's

fine. And it's like, why would they not know they're actively being monitored on CCTV? That was, those were like a few notes like that in the episode that was otherwise, I think, very strong. That struck me as maybe Arthur thinks he has observed where the cameras are. He's like, this is the one spot in between the coverage that might be safe, but he's undoubtedly wrong. Yeah, he's not privy to the secret cams. Like, only Boy Cavalier and Adam know about that. And then Boy has some beyond that

so that he can charge it and say to everyone all the time, just assume I'm ahead of you always, which he says to Kersh. Which, don't you have little, you know, little experiments to run? These creatures aren't going to discover themselves. One of the many times in this episode that Kersh was basically like,

all right, fucking, like you, fuck you ass. Just with the classic Timmy stare down, the withering eyes. And I love it. Just the best in the business at that exact thing. No one can make you feel dumber, faster than Tim Halifon, when he wants to. It's the best. Can also make you feel like the most important person in the world, as I often do when I watch him on screen.

Same all the time. Not feeling like the most important person in the world right now, curly. Really made the big push, the big teacher's pet push. last episode and here's what Boy Cavalier says this time. Go push some buttons and turn some knobs while the grownups talk. He will come back later after Wendy Chitters. Sure. speaks Zeno and say basically fuck off with your boast about how you learned French.

Can you do that? So Curly had taken a lot of shots from Boy in this episode. Curly then actually, this is why this one's a stealth contender on the power ranking here. Yeah. Because Curley then goes and does that. Just just standing there, turning knobs and pressing buttons. Taking the instructions very literally.

For the rest of the scene, which I found genuinely like heartbreaking to watch. That was painful. To Dame Sylvia, ah, careful, you're not her mother. It's an IT issue, not a gab session. Iconic stuff. Just so cruel to everybody in the room,

including Dame Sylvia and Wendy. And then when Herman enters, Oh, good, it's the brother. We'll obviously have an entire separate section later, just about all the things he says directly to Wendy about Hermit. Not pleasant. Another quiet contender here, how's the new lung? Because later, Adam is just going to say, like,

you're going to pay us back for the lung? You're going to pay it off with your hard work, the rest of your life? That was very direct. Here, how's the new lung? I thought a great way for Boy Cavalier to just remind everybody in the room of what they owe him. Yes. And the extent to which, quite literally, his influence over their lives has encroached on their very, like, person. Which of these is your favorite for the top boy cavalier line of the scene here?

The Clonix probably takes the cake. Amazing stuff. Yeah. I guess literally. But ultimately, all these lines tessellated next to each other, I think is just like an incredibly efficient previously on alien Earth. Like, you were getting the snows. snapshot, at least who all these people are to Boy, very, very quickly. He's the one dished in the quips, but they're all, you know, voicing their concerns. You get a sense very, very quickly of,

oh, this is what Dame Sylvia cares about. This is what Arthur cares about. This is what Kirsch, that Kirsch wants to get back on mission, right? We're establishing all that stuff so quickly and reminding everybody where everyone stands in relation to Boy Cavalier, which is under, clearly, and being twisted in all of these various ways and bossed around, as bosses tended to do. Yeah, like, of course, all he sees in them is a collection of spokes in the wheel that help him achieve the next thing. And so how does he ensure that the wheel is always turning? Some sort of emotional manipulation or leverage, being able to know something key about them to tell them something they want to hear to motivate them, or to say something withering to remind them that they ultimately serve at his pleasure. And because he will say, like at the end of this scene about Hermit, just like, remind them.

remind him that it's up to me. It's mine. I get to do what I want. He doesn't have any say. Makes it explicit text. I find this much more effective as a way to remind us and them of his standing. Arthur starts adjusting the frequencies. They're trying to get Wendy's hearing back online. The scene is playing with sound. What's Wendy not hearing you're hearing? What is everybody else hearing you're hearing? And Hermit comes in and he says, hey, biscuit, and he smiles at her. And we've been talking about this the last couple of pods. I thought that was the first. first time, like the looks on their faces as they just sat there with each other, especially like a hospital setting, right? Of course call. And they're going to discuss the visits or lack

thereof at the hospital and what contributed to that. But calling them back to like the last part of their shared history, which was Marcy being sick, being in a hospital. And so for him to be able to be there in her moment of need and look down at her and smile and support her, That was like the, I think, most effective moment for me to date of feeling this is like a brother and a sister and they have history and they care about each other. Feeling something at all, honestly. I think you get that warmth. You also get later in this episode, the little bit of tension as far as that visitation goes and sort of like the why that didn't happen and whether we believe those things or not. Gee, I wonder if Boy Cavalier will find a way to bring that up.

I can't imagine he would. You just simply would never do such a thing. but also I think they're increasing desperation over the course of this episode to stay connected. Now that they have reunited what they are willing to do to be in each other's orbit is a really powerful thing. And like this is just kind of what we were waiting for. Like can we establish some of the emotional stakes for these characters beyond just like, that's my brother and therefore I should care about him. Yeah.

Like if the choices in front of you are in some way to you very apparently deplorable, but you make them anyway because the alternative is to not be with this person again. Yeah. we understand definitively who you are to each other. Especially when everyone in Everland is compromised, right? Like Arthur and Dame Sylvia

are confronting that idea really directly. This is not science what we're doing anymore. This is not responsible. We are on the vanguard of something really important, but we both know this is fucked up. Yeah.

And the question over the course of the season is like, when do people like Wendy start to realize this is fucked up? Right. When do the children start to understand like how deep they are in something that they can't control?

Yeah, and it all gets back to the questions we were asking at the very beginning of the season of like, well, what is everybody's particular reason for being there? How much of it is about just like the pursuit of scientific achievement? How much of it if your Adam is like, well, is this a deflick, is this an ironclad trillion dollar idea? Or is it the snuggy? The snuggy catching a stray in this episode? I know we're jumping across scenes now. Shocking stuff. Truly. You feel like a snuggy oriented person. I take that as a compliment. I mean it as one. Thank you. I Commitment to comfort?

Exactly. And especially home comfort. Absolutely nothing wrong with that. Now, I will say, to be clear, that I have never owned a snuggy. I don't even know if I've had the pleasure of using a snuggy. I might have one of my friends might have had one in college and I might have tried it once. But it always seemed great. Yeah.

I just have such a vast supply of fleece blankets around me all the time anyway that I kind of feel like I'm making my own snuggy all the time. Yeah. But now that I'm thinking about it, especially because my cat really likes what I would describe as the left arm nook. Okay. Like, he likes to cuddle right here. And so often, I will take my arm out of the blanket to wrap around him because he's on top of the blanket. If that arm were in the sleeve of a snuggy, do they still make snuggies? I believe they do.

This already sounds adorable. Like, HAL is, like, living in the sleigh. You're basically wearing a Jedi robe and HALA's just tucked in there. I guarantee you that if they still make snuggies, they'd be. you can get one that looks like a Jedi room. It tracks. And by Ken, I mean, I will be doing that. Here's the thing.

If not a snuggy for you, I think you should invest in like the, I can't remember what the brand name is, but Boban Marjanovich, the enormous NBA player, now former NBA player, sponsored a like giant blanket that is like big enough for, to cover your entire couch, your entire room. Not interested. Let me tell you why. Okay, please. I don't want, how can I say this in a way that doesn't sound sociopathic?

I'm just going to say it. I don't really want anyone else under the blanket with me. It's for me. And pets. And Halo. Yes. And Adam is as far away on the couch as he could possibly be and feels the same way and is comfortable under his blanket. And that's the preferred setup.

Here's the thing. We've been married for a decade. I wasn't even suggesting anyone else should be in the blanket. Simply that you could have a splendor of blanket all to yourself. But then it feels too cumbersome to control. Like I am a fidgetter. I don't know if you know this is somebody who's done podcasts before. You never.

me. I can't sit still. And so I need to move. I want to change what side I'm on. I want to change how my legs are positioned. And I need to sometimes be able to, without having to reach forward, either because I'm too lazy or because this is helping our runtime today for sure, or because more crucially, I don't want to disturb Halo. I need to be able to, if my feet are cold, tuck the blanket under my feet for warmth with my feet. I need to be able to do that. You got to be able to maneuver it without a giant cumbersome blanket. It wouldn't be right. It wouldn't meet my needs.

Now, I'm willing to try it if Herman Miller is under. Now, they actually only have very, very tidy, small throws. Oh, yes. Minimalistic, I would think, for the most part. But, look, I respect your methodology and your process. And I'm sorry for even insisting that a large blanket would serve your needs. A bed is different. But a fleece for the couch, I wanted to, like, yeah, cover and full, of course.

I want to be able to snuggle under it, perhaps, any snuggy. but practical. It is practical. Here's the thing. Does the Snuggie, we've asked this question in many ways with Alien Earth in terms of the cultural touchstones

that they have cited specifically. Would the Snuggie have enough of an imprint to survive to last the test of time? Serious, genuine serious question because I think we've been having some fun with this. Why Ice Age?

Like, why? I'm already epic. What's such an impression? Why epic? Why the Snuggie? Do you think there is a deliberate commentary at play here about what has lasted? Because something like Mr. October, that was clear, right? You understood why Joe's father was telling him that story.

And the way that that had been passed down over time as like a way to enforce how you can achieve greatness and rise to the moment made sense. The concentration in a certain span of time, to your point, of like what has lingered. I'm trying to wrap my mind around that. I feel like there maybe is something about not wanting to overcorrect and say that everything that's happening in our future is from the future because then you have to like say what all those things are. And then you just run the risk of immediately feeling really outdated, like which happens now when you watch old movies that are supposed to be set. I don't know. Do you have a theory for like, because it's not other than we talked about the way the Maginot looked, but like other than. than that, there's not, some stuff feels like it's more of a like tie to the movies.

Yes. But that's not what's happening with like Ice Age. So some of this is very practical, right? Yeah. It's just difficult to concoct a futuristic looking animated movie or failed invention. Yeah, they can't watch a movie that hasn't come out because then we don't know what it is. It's easier for an audience standpoint. If you're just going to flash an image faded in over Wendy's face of the Ice Age critters.

Yeah. Like, okay, we understand what's happening there very quickly. The visual language is just a little bit crisper. I do think there's something, though, of like, if you ported in someone from the year 2000 to now, honestly, a lot of the cultural touchstones are not that different than the ones that they're already used to. And over time, if we're insisting or implying that we're just going to be coming further and further reduced in the things that we understand and consume and that are parts of popular culture, I don't think that take would be wrong for what it's worth. Yeah, and I guess particularly so in a world where, as we hear actively discussed later in this episode, everybody basically said voting.

Government doesn't work. What are your takes on voting? I've got some thoughts. The corporations should rule and they'll solve everything and this further consolidation of not only like active power and oversight, but of what we even think of as like, life. It's corporations and it's about consumption, all of that, right? So that all, I think, makes sense. Obviously, there are plenty of things that are actively futuristic. Like, I don't know, the creation of the hybrids, the cyborgs, the cyborgs, the sense. It's not like the show doesn't take place in the future, of course. But yeah, the, I'll be curious if

across the back of the season we're seeing, like, anybody watch a movie from like the 50s? Like a Wally style, you know, like an old school musical. Like what's, what's, what's, going on? How far back do these touchstones go? But I think you're right that the text and the subtext of the show are very concerned with clearly immortality. Human immortality. What lasts and what doesn't in a very corporeal, physical

sense. And also, like, culturally, like, what is it that we take with us? If we put ourselves into robot bodies, how does that change the arc of human innovation? How does that change? Because, like, in the same way that when people of a generation create new things, they mostly create new things that kind of look like the thing they grew up with

or kind of look, like, when you make a flying car, it just looks like a car that flies. Right. You need a huge amount of turnover to actually change the way the world looks and feels. Right. And maybe like the implication of all this stuff is that we're not really going to do that. And we really especially won't do it if we start putting ourselves into robot bodies. Yeah.

And I think like one thing that seems very clear to me, I am interested in the specific choice of what they're watching or talking about or listening to. But like, one thing that seems I think undeniable is just the decision to consume it that way at all. to sit with a person in your life and like watch a movie that's being projected on a screen. Yeah. Or when you are moving down a river to listen to the game, it's in such apparent active contrast to, we'll stop calling him Tootles as requested, Isaac, saying, just uploaded a bunch of new chips. And I learned all this stuff. Now I understand it.

It's like in the... You think you understand it. Right. You understand it in the Ian Malcolm Jurassic Park. sense. Like without the discipline necessary to attain it, you understand some things. Exactly. You're a big Jurassic Park guy. I just keep stumbling into it. I don't even know how this is happening. But look, it's an all-time great movie. What can I say? Really is. I recently watched finally rebirth. How did you feel about it? I have some notes. Okay. I have some notes.

We'll get them to the appropriate parties as soon as possible. Wendy's sharing some notes on her experience. Here's what happened. Woke up, heard the sound. Here's how she describes it. Like bugs rubbing their legs together, which I loved because it's just such a childlike way to explain what you're hearing. I thought that was great. And then what was

the screaming, Rob? Was it the eggs? No, it wasn't. It was the baby screaming. It was the baby screaming, our beloved xenopol. I found this distressing and upsetting as I think we were intended to. Protect the xenopole. At all God.

We simply must. At all cause. Honestly, it's becoming more and more adorable, especially as it sort of hatches out of the lung and becomes a little like xeno-worm, xenosnake thing that we can discuss when it comes up a little later. A lot of coiling. It's just very cute. I'm sure it will remain cute and that nothing terrible will happen.

That is always what happens in these stories. It's usually how it goes. The end, episode four. Yeah, we did it. That's the end of the season. Arthur and Hermit, they would like this to stop. To make the sound stop, to stop, to stop, inflict the this upon Wendy. And in unison, Wendy and Boy both say, no. Like, we have access to an alien

language. How could we not continue to pursue that? And Wendy says something beyond just, oh, the pursuit of knowledge, the pursuit of insight. She says, I think they picked me. They're talking to me. I want to hear them. Now, we've been talking since the beginning of the show about this kind of like chosen one. I'm special. weird special belief that has been actively cultivated in them. And across this episode, we have a furthering. We've been talking about the like the ruptures, the fractures, the cracks in this family that have been there starting to spread and like spider web from the very beginning. Really widening in this episode.

And some of it is inside of the group. Like why do you slightly saying later like why are you, why do you get this stuff and we don't? Fair question. Totally reasonable. I'm on slightly side. Yep. Always. Maybe until he started standing outside Herman's window at night, watching him planning to snatch him and take him into the lab to meet with a face hugger. That was probably where slightly lost me. That was tough. Do you think this is true in this case? Like, it is apparent that it is only Wendy. Right. Who can hear the alien noises. Yeah. And we talked about this last episode because this is not just post-encoun. and post-fight with the xenomorph, post did something get planted in her brain theory corner,

when they went to the ship, to the crash site, already she could hear something. Kirsch reminds us of that. In this episode, we talked about that last week. So before the active encounter, Wendy was attuned to something that the others couldn't hear. We had the, like, hearing beyond the human range test scene with Wendy and Arthur in the premiere. But it's not just Wendy versus the humans. it's Wendy compared to all the other lost boys. Boy says to Curley, can you hear this?

And Curley's like, pretends briefly. Very sad. I know. That was tough. Pretends that she can and then has to admit that she can't. It's only Wendy. Called in to be the failed control group. Disaster. Oh.

Just a worst case scenario. Brutal. So mortifying. Here's the thing. If you are in her position, just make a noise. Like, just make more and more noises. Boy doesn't know other than what Wendy is saying, what this sounds like. But then imagine the horror. if Wendy's like,

that's not what they sound like. Wow, that would be tough. And that's definitely what would happen. That is worse. You're right. Because they're all dunking on each other all the time. So what do you think? Because at the end of this scene,

Adam and Boy will have an exchange where Adam says, and I thought this was a notable prompt for the group, I think when a hostile alien species decides to speak, one needs to ask why. Now, Boy is like, I think they're just talking to each other. Like, we don't necessarily know they're talking to her. Maybe she's just able to hear them and listening in. At the end of the day, once she starts to be able to convey what they're saying,

actively communicate in turn with the xenolong at the end, there's a question of what the xenomorph's original intent is, but it kind of ends up being moot in the sense that like whether they were trying to communicate with her or not. That's not moot because that's an interesting prompt. But like, she can communicate with them now and that's true regardless. So where are you at this right now? something about her tech compared to the Lost Boys tech that allows her to access their language on this frequency. Tell me if you have like another touch point here. We're kind of now talking

about basically like this opening scene and the last scene all at once. I think it's hard not to. For sure. She goes into the lab. The xenopol explodes through the lung and the glass. They kind of like shrink back and then inch toward each other. She scratches his head. It's great. they have a conversation basically. The closest comp I could come up with was from resurrection. Yep. Where Ripley is actively communicating, but Ripley is communicating with like basically her offspring.

Daughter and grandkid, spoilers. Very weird movie. I think fair game spoilers, though. I agree, absolutely. So that's like a genetic. Yes. TIE. There's a biological way. Yeah, that sparks that communication. This is different. What do you think is happening here? Obviously, we don't actually know. We're still in active theory territory. Where are you on this right now? I would guess that Wendy's assumption that she has been chosen is wrong. I don't think she has actually been chosen. I think this is a kid in the way that all the lost boys have exhibited over these last couple episodes, wanting to believe that they are special for whatever reason, because they have been singled out for this thing. That's what I think. And kind of imposing that framework on a few. discrete actual facts.

One of those facts, she can hear this thing that the other lost boys can't. She's also further along in terms of pushing on the boundaries of what she can do than the other lost boys are. And I wonder if it has something more to do with, not that their tech is different, but that she has learned to manipulate it in a way that the other lost boys haven't. She's tapped into the mainframe. She has observed the camera. She has spoken through the HR bots.

She is plugged in on that stuff and widened her range of ability in a way that even Boyd doesn't understand. Yeah. Like he has kind of bowed to the idea that this thing I have kind of created, kind of imported, however you want to view hybrid life. Yeah. Is capable of things that I can't wrap my head around and I can't explain and I'm going to defer to that. And I think this is kind of an extension of that idea. Okay.

So I want to hit both of those points. So to the first point, I agree, I think thematically it is the most likely, based on what we've seen so far, the most in keeping with what the show is interested in parsing and the most thematically rich, ultimately, if when. Wendy is like, I have been selected for this important thing. And that's just not the case. And then she has to confront that. Because it's a lot of characters in their own way confronting that may be something about their circumstances special. But that doesn't mean they are quote unquote special in the way that people like to think

that they are. Maybe somebody is just telling them that to be able to use them as a tool. As people do with kids all the, like, again, the level of child exploitation. As Marl is doing with slightly, like throughout this episode, which is like, very intense. Okay, to the second point, though, where are you on this basically, like, I'd say this has been the case in general,

and it's actually, like, active text in this part of the conversation in the scene where boy, like, invokes the HR bot, because he's basically like, can you play us a tune? Yeah. Make the sound. And she's like, how he's like, you're a speaker, right? Do what you did with the HR bot. Like, figure it out.

He gives the old, magic, technology, indistinguishable, quote. He credits that quote to Isaac Asimov, which I found fascinating because I would say that 95 to 99% of the time this is brought up, either on podcasts or in works of pop culture, Arthur C. Clark's three laws are cited as the origin of this idea. and I'm like, and then Asimov workshops it, plays with it, incorporates it, but I'm like, what is that telling us about boy that he's pointing to Asimov as the person who did something with it rather than necessarily Clark as like, anyway, I thought that was kind of like,

I'm like, is that on purpose? I don't know. It's hard to tell sometimes with this show. I don't want to ask one day. But the fact that he was basically like, just do it. Just make it work. on the one hand, I don't mind if they're consistent

and that's kind of how the show works. I am left wanting a little in moments like that for more specificity about what is happening and how. Though that can, of course, lead to all sorts of problems. Did this feel to you like lampshading by just saying, like, we're not going to actually like explain the like mythology of this? Or do you think it was just put a pin in that we're not ready to say exactly what's happening and we'll come back to how Wendy is doing all this.

I think there's a degree to which, even if Wendy did understand how to do it, boy would never know how to ask her to do that because he doesn't have the hardware that she does. But he's always one step ahead. But not of her. I mean, that's his hope, right? Is that he's going to create something

that will be a step ahead of him. Yes. I think this is him bowing to that idea a little bit of like, I can't tell you how to be you. You have done things I didn't think were possible. And we did, like you said, we talked about that astonishment that was really like palpable.

where he realized, wait, did we give her that ability? And so there's something exciting to him. In a way, the fact that he doesn't know is just further, like, cementing of his genius. Yes. That he put something in the world that could be beyond the capacity of human understanding, even his own. He wants to be the stepping stone to a different kind of sentient life. Yes. And I think that's, like, in a way, an admirable thing about a weird and flawed and creepy character.

Let's just say it. We want to work at Brodagey Corp. The mission statement? Check. The furniture, check. The outfits? The outfits are great. Would you wear shoes if you worked at Prodigy Corp?

Or would you just be like... Yes. Stop. Yes. I mean, see, mostly because I love a pair of kicks. But I feel like if you're like, sign me up to be a part of the cult of boy cavalier, it's not on the realm of possibility that you would be like, I want to do the barefoot thing to like show him. Solidarity.

Yeah, that I'm a attentive disciple. But then he would probably be like, fuck off, that's for me only. You're being a poser at that point. He wants true originals, which is, you know, why he has kind of bonded to Wendy in the first place. It's like, this is a thing I can't understand. This is the thing I can't explain. I would be shoes off in my little dorm room for sure. Well, I mean, you know, you can't bring a pair of sneakers into your charging bed. Come on. I'm also not tracking xeno acid into the bedroom. Like, that's just not something I'm interested in doing. Plensing fully before you go into the little dust. Full like,

you know, chemical shower before I walk into my dorm room. That's basically what I'm. I do here in Los Angeles might go home every day. You know what? More accurate than you would be led to belief. Ultimately, I think as far as like this part of it, your mileage will certainly vary. I think you need a little bit more actual tangible explanation with this stuff than I do. I'm kind of cool with the let's just leave some of this up to magic element. I think in part because I come somewhat from the looper school of like, if we do this,

we're going to be making diagrams with straws all day. I don't disagree with you in general. To me, it's very story in world-specific. And this is a story about innovation and science. And now I sound like Arthur, like, that's not science, you know? But, like, I don't know. I'm going to keep reporting how I feel about this, I think, as we go. And it's also like, I'm, as we talked about at the beginning, thrilled the Noah Hawley is, like, playing in the sandbox and expanding the lore and the canon.

I think that's overdue in the franchise. I want to like understand what is at play then when that is happening. But we got four episodes to go. We do. I think as long as there's a critical threshold that crosses where it's like, this has gone from technology as magic to magic plot device solving machine. Yeah. Yes.

Right. Like full on deus ex machina. Like I don't want that. That's a no. Even though she might be like a literal deucex Machina. But like that's a conversation for episode eight. Yeah. Wendy makes the sound.

We have a on the ground. report to share, which is that our sensational cherished, adored pod manager, Arjuna Ramco Powell, let us know that Wendy making the sound, the xenomorph sound, gave him a migraine, triggered a migraine so powerful he then could not go to a screening he was supposed to attend. What that tells me, first of all, I hope everyone's feeling better. But what that tells me, honestly, is that Wendy did a great job. Because I feel like it should be, with apologies to Arjuna, this should not be a pleasant sound for a human to hear. And yet it's like, you kind of...

I thought it was sort of soothing. It is like a touch soothing and also very unsettling. It's like right on that edge of like, I want to hear more of it, but also please turn it off. I know we shouldn't. Yeah. Like full on like whale sounds from hell was the vibe that I got from Matt. I love that. I thought like many moments in this episode and across the season, all of which we've been tracking.

that this was one of those great moments where it is just like talking about humanity. What does it mean to be a person? Adam is going to basically assign Hermit with this work later. Like, let us know. Is she your sister? You just can't forget that she's a machine when you're watching something like this. You can tell yourself that there is humanity there. Wendy can tell herself that.

Hermit can tell himself that. She's doing something here that is made possible because she is a synthetic creation. and that is undeniable. Also, like, pretty undeniable. One boy, you know, hermit's like, she needs to rest. And he's like, fuck off her lithium ion battery. Power a small city. Or when she takes Joe to her room and she's like, this is my bed.

It's actually a charging station. He's like, you don't sleep? She's like, well, I don't need. Why would I sleep? Yeah. I don't need to sleep. Like, there were a lot of moments like that yet again. Forget that, like, do Android's dream of electric sheep thing?

Like, it's like, why do they have bed? Oh, it makes sense that they have a little, a cute little dock to plug into a night. And a dock that makes them feel like they're in their bedroom, their bed in their childhood room. Yes. They've got their drawings on the wall, their little desk, their bookshelves. It is cute. All provided by fine folks in Herman Miller. I also think the construction of these hybrids lends itself to a level of interrogation and thought about what those things mean.

And what does rest mean to someone like when? in a way that if you're just a simulated AI consciousness made from say like every podcast I've ever recorded and every text message I've ever sent, poured it into a robot body, that body does not need rest. But if this is a human brain and consciousness, somehow poured it over it.

That brain does need a kind of like emotional rest. Yeah. I think the question of like if you want to take the like what charges your battery somewhat literally, it's like, is Wendy an introvert or an extrovert? Like if she's someone who needs time in her room to read to recharge or see someone who's like out in the world experiencing things and recharging.

We've seen her. She likes to watch a movie. She likes to sit with her stuffed animals. She likes to draw. Right. And yeah, there's also just the like, there's the what actually matters to her and is a part of her routine and a part of her personality. And then there's the like, what does she need to tell herself now in this phase of her

new life is a part of her personality as important to her because like that is part of being human and staying up 24 seven and working through the night. Like, I think we can say with 100% confidence that Kirsch is not like, I need to pretend I'm sleeping now. No. That's just not a thing Kersh does because he's the guy who sits on the other side of the couch and it's like, she's not human. Why are we pretending she is? He goes in the stands in the closet. He's like, I'm good.

Don't even worry about it. He does the mag safe, quick charge. Ready to roll. Back in the lab to rub his hand on a gooey eggshell. But look, if you're a kid who's been transported into a robot body, maybe you need something. different. I love all of the childlike elements of these characters still, Wendy especially. I mean, down to the final shots

where she's meeting, you know, like the new Zeno lung, basically. Yeah. And the way she kind of creeps under the table looking up at her new little pet. Like there's so many things like that and things where she clearly still needs the trappings of a human life in some ways. I think because we probably won't go back to that scene since we've talked about the bulk of it

as the book end of the episode. The other thing that stood out to me about the way Wendy looked at the xenolong at the end was like especially in this episode where okay like when Boy says here to Curley the you know okay fuck off you can speak French you're like okay when does Curley

with a lot of the characters were like when do they turn on Boy with Curley it's just like when does Curley actively try to take Wendy out Yes. I think she's on team boy Yeah she's gonna be chasing after his approval until the day that she turns to nuts and ball So it's like is she gonna try to like kill Wendy what's gonna happen there? Okay so

slightly saying at the ice cream party like why do you get to have your brother here we all have brothers the ruptures are expanding wendy saying they chose me feeling this division in the group and then looking at that little xenolong who she can communicate with it felt like she was like oh this is where i belong yeah right and not only i belong here because you make me feel special you made me feel chosen, but because like we're both on the outside, right? And that's genuinely what I saw on her face there, which I thought was really interesting. And like to your point, too, about the, in terms of the room and everything, all those, and the look up from the edge of the table, that childlike nature,

then we have the kind of moments that feel like they ping on the opposite side of the spectrum. Like when hermit's worried, boy, oh, the brother's having a feeling great shit, boy has yet to miss. yet to miss. I'm going to be sad when he, I assume, dies in like two episodes. Who do you think gets him? Like the eyeball monster

rising up the board this week. Okay, so I'll just say this is my theory currently. Could change. I think that Kirsch, who clearly knows what's happening with Slightly, because he's been crunching the Morrow Slightly tape. Grinding tape. Knows what Slightly is about to do, obviously,

and that he's not going to stop him, but he's going to sub out the body. So I think Slightly is going to try to take Hermit in, and Kersh is going to be like, how about boy? That's my current theory Is it even like a conversation Or does he just kind of like

Swap out the bodies Discreetly himself? I think the fact that he opened up This kind of philosophical exercise Was slightly in this episode Going to the room Talking about the Three Wise Monkeys Makes me think there might be more

of an active partnership there I could see it But I don't know He's really like team Tootles right now Said I wouldn't call him Tootles there I did it Fuck, Isaac Isaac! We apologize

Sorry Isaac But the other thing that was so childlike about Wendy's interactions with the Zeno, I think, is the sort of like, it gave me the vibe of when you are a young kid and someone tells you you're good at something. And that just becomes your life for a while or maybe for your entire life. It's like a first grade teacher liked your essay. And it's like, I'm just an English kid now. Like, that's just what you end up doing. And so this idea that she has this language capability that the other kids don't. Yeah. She's leaning into that.

Isaac has found that he loves science and wants to lean in this direction. And most importantly, He's going to name himself after Isaac Newton. Completely. And he's downloading new information. He's getting all this stuff because to him, this is a special thing where he's been giving the greatest drug of all, more responsibility.

Especially for a kid, like that's what they're craving and wanting so badly that. Self worth direction, reinforcement. They all want to be more mature than they are. They all are trying to get older as fast as they can as kids do. Okay, so to that point, when Hermit was trying to basically say,

like, let's stop this. Wendy said, I can speak for myself, right? Which reminded me a little bit different context, but of the moment when they were in active combat and he's basically like, all right, I'm going to protect you. And she's like, I'm the one now who will protect you. And seems very eager in those moments to assert not only her capacity

and her maturity, but like comparative maturity, right? I am not only stronger than I was, I'm stronger than you. are. Right? And that's simultaneously like, again, part of a coming of age thing, right? When do you graduate to that next degree of capability? But it's also like a way to sort of say, let's fast forward on all of that. Right. Like I don't want you to think of me as somebody in that phase anymore. I'm here. I'm past you. Let me be the one who says what I'm ready for or let me be the one who walks into like the literal drooling jaws of the foe. For sure. Especially in the context of the family where it's like to your parents, to your older siblings,

you kind of always will be the little kid. Like, that's just a part that's baked into your dynamic. And I think it's telling, too, that even though Tootles wants to be Isaac now. Yes. Wendy has never really pushed back on the idea of being Wendy. She was kind of like jazzed at this like reinvention. First of all, Wendy, unlike the other names, as they, as like Nibs has pointed out, it's very fair.

It's not like cute code name. It's a human name. What would be your... But also, it means you're the favorite. It does mean. That's what Wendy means. It absolutely does. What would be your first pick of the other names?

You don't get to be Wendy, but who else would you want to be of the other lost boys? Let's see. I kind of like Nibs. I mean, I don't want to be where Nibs is right now because it's fucking dark. Terrifying. But Nibs is a cool name. Nibs is cool. I think Nibs and Smee are the most name-like.

Yeah. Tootles slightly like, these just don't feel like names to me. Curly. That's an absolute no. I don't like it. Yeah. But ultimately, like, I don't, I don't, maybe we'll get to the point where she wants to reclaim her old name, but I think it does feel telling that Hermit is the only person who's like,

Marcy, right? Marcy. This is the Marcy that I know. And she's kind of saying, like, I'm one day now. I'm a new person. Well, that's this other, the variance across the group. Like, at the end of the ice cream parlor, that was great too. Hermit's like, this tastes like motor oil.

And they're like, this is delicious because it's code. It's a line of code, as Isaac explains. But, you know, when Isaac tells us, like, about his new name and Slightly's like, I didn't know that we could do that. And Isaac's like, well, I don't know about like, can, but I did. And when they talk about them, though, we should ask if we can have our brothers. That's what Smee says. And Sleely's like, no, we should demand.

And Curley and Isaac are like, I don't really want to fuck this up. Like, I like this more than where I was before. I like that I have been allowed to like realize my potential here. It's not like everybody is aligned on whether they want to continue down this path, revert to a different sort of experience, challenge the, that has unlocked this new existence for them. So that's fascinating. I think that's kind of a natural segue point into the nib stuff too,

because so much of where we are in the season right now is about these kids in their robot bodies, understanding or not understanding the power that they have. It's like, on the one hand, no one can tell you that you are not Isaac. And if you're a robot with a child brain, there's no therapist in the world that can stop you from leaping across the room and choking out your therapist if you want to. snoring, gasping during sleep, feeling fatigue, ask your doctor about Zepbound, terseptite.

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and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems. Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-99-9 or visit Zepbound.lily.com. So, yeah, let's just go through that scene. We'll jump to that because Nibs arrives and we'll circle back. But Nibs arrives interrupts this conversation between Arthur and Dame Sylvia, and then Dame Sylvia takes her into, again, it's just astonishingly beautiful office. Also, congratulations to Nibbs on your expected pregnancy.

Dude, this was so dark. Like, I thought that Dame Sylvia, who had been, you know, in the scenes with Wendy, very, like, obviously actively maternal, in a way others are challenging. For sure. But also, like, very encouraging of, actively encouraging of the continued belief that the humanity is present. Yeah. And this was a moment where Dame Sylvia had to confront the other side of that and say, like, I thought she seemed appropriately, I would say, like, ashamed before she got to the point of active terror, that they have not prepared these kids at all for who or what they are. And Nibs doesn't want to look at the diagram, kicks it, doesn't want to

hear about the synthetic nature of the body, doesn't want to believe or accept that, doesn't want to be asked to think back to the terror of what she witnessed with Tio Seles and the cat. And Nibs, I'd like to say same. I don't want to think about it again either, and I get it. Okay? But is like curled up in that chair, holding that stuffed animal in a way that makes you think this is like a, like a, I mean, like, it seems great, but like very young kid. Definitely. And then saying, I'm pregnant and then like you said hurling, the idea of like a forming actively still in real time child's mind in a terminator's body. Oh my God. Do you have to confront it in a second on the other end of that, how the fear manifests, how the anger manifests, how the desire might manifest. manifest, nobody would be able to withstand that for even a second. And, like, this is what they've wrought, right? And are living with it openly in a way that, like, Kersh is skeptical of containing the xenomorph, for example.

He's very careful about that. But these are fully powered robotic human beings out in their midst with a lot of autonomy, as we've seen throughout this episode, like going outside, hanging out. Wandering freely on their own. Can go to their little ice cream party. Like, they have all of this. freedom, and yet there is nothing that any of them could really do to contain them. Like, if the kids, if and when the kids decide that they have the power, which they do,

it's over. It really is over. Like, pressing a button and saying level three event, like tell your supervisor, he'll know what to do. It's too late. It's way too late. It's too late. Right? I think what I love about the construction of this show is like, maybe there was a world where

a version of Boyd Cavalier who had his eye on the ball and a version of Prodigy that actually had everything coordinated could. have actually acclimated these kids into their bodies in an organic and sensible and way that would actually take for them. But he's so distracted by everything that's happening with all these aliens. Send them into the field. Sent them into the field. Completely. Like he's so distracted by all of that. And now even that everyone's back, like they've seen things that can't unsee. They've experienced things that can't unexperienced. And they're all terrified and they don't know what to do with themselves. And no one can tell them no. Right. And for Nibs, like this is again a very

relatable childlike thing that you see something that scares you and it takes root. Right. Like when I was a kid, went to a friend's house, and his older brother made us watch child's play. And for like longer than I care to admit in my life moving forward, I like, if I saw Chucky, like, on a VHS cover at the old Hollywood video in Rochester Town, Maryland, I would like have to cover my eyes as I walked out. So this is the opening montage dollhead trauma, really coming to bear. Yes. I didn't think about it that way, but clearly that's what's happening yet. Just lay down on the couch. Tell me about your childhood, no. The fact that it's a very normal relatable thing for you to see something that scares you and then have a hard time processing it, struggling with how it makes you feel,

and that the way that Nibs deals with that, the way Nibs copes is to kind of spin a tail, a delusion. Also, that's a human thing. Absolutely. But then to have the capacity to challenge so actively anyone who stands in her way. And then I think the other things we were just talking about with Wendy, this idea of like, I've been chosen. I thought it was very interesting, even though with Nibs here, our hearts are breaking and this comes from a very like, I am scared and don't know quite how to like make sense of what has happened and how it makes me feel and where I am and how my body works, all of it. Do you know where babies come from? God brings them.

Yes, on some level, we have a conversation about the physical process, biology, and the nibs invoked it. Jesus and says his mommy didn't do that and he was born. So like the God complex is present here too. And that is like a thing that the power brokers here have actively encouraged. And so like when it manifests, how can they be surprised? Maybe surprised by the exact nature of that manifestation. Yes. Clearly. But the fact, right, exactly. The fact that it's happening at all. I mean, And, reap what you sew? What happens when Nibs comes out of timeout? What happens when she tells the other lost boys, like, well, they locked me in my room. That was harrowing.

Like, to see the other kids just outside on their benches and their pillows with their flavor strips. And it's like, Nibb's in, they didn't seem to fuss. But they, I mean, like, we know Nibbs is in active confinement while this is happening. And then you do start to wonder, well, like, okay, if they all found out, if they find out, I assume, what will their responses be?

Like, again, the differences in how they're responding to their circumstance feels like such a good choice and really right. Because that is part of being human. And so that should, in theory, transfer over. Curley, last episode, we talked about this in the scene with Boy, where he's like, you know, she's like, no, I like, I love my new body. It doesn't make me upset that I'm a synthetic.

And Nibs is like, I don't want you to show me that piece of paper or make me think about this at all. If they find out that Nibs has been contained in her chambers by security in a level three event. It won't surprise me at all if slightly, I mean, he might be otherwise engaged, but let's say he's got a free hour. All the space owners really latched on. I don't know. I would see, I would expect slightly to try to help. Even though we have seen Curly in a condescending way as we discussed, but try to kind of like calm nbs before. I would kind of expect Curly to say like seems like she's maybe going to fuck things up for me. Yeah. Do what you need to do. Or just like

Curley to me reads as the kind of character who would say, like, oh, you misbehaved and you are being punished, but I didn't do that. And so therefore, I'm going to be fine. I have nothing to be afraid of. Did you have anything else that you wanted to note about the scene where Wendy brought Hermit to the room? I thought it was very sweet when he saw her drawing of him. That was very cute. That was great. And then one of the pictures on her desk was like the arms out, you know, holding the lost voice, like big strong when she was recruiting them into this new hell.

And then the conversation about basically being mad at each other, right? So she asks if he's mad at her, kind of quickly dispenses with the falsehood that she's asking about the thing that just happened. And she's like, because you had to go to the cemetery for me. That was very sad. Incredibly. Oh, my God. And he's like, I don't blame you. I blame these people in this place and dad.

Yeah. And then we realized, and this was, I was not expecting this. This was an interesting surprise. she's upset with him. He didn't visit at the hospital. He says he wasn't allowed. He was on the other side of the world. There was a war.

If there had been any way, he would have been there. Unsurprisingly, as we already noted, Boy finds a way to bring this up and be like, I would have done it later. I found her okay in response to his explanation. Okay. Pretty unconvincing. And clearly this is an open wound.

Definitely. And something that Boy is going to poke, but also that Wendy needs to, like, figure out if she is ready to heal. Did you find Hermits, explanation to be convincing about being on the other side of the world and in the world. I think there's the question of, is this just one of those adult things that only grown-ups kind of understand of like, yes, technically, maybe you could have gotten discharged from the

war and gotten across the world, but it's like there's a level of hurtling that would be required that is almost impossible, maybe not actually impossible, but almost impossible. Or is it the kind of thing where he is kind of betraying the fact that maybe he could have gotten there more easily than he's letting on? In a way that I thought was important and kind of new in the flow of the show so far, this was a time where I was like, I feel disappointed in Joe Hermit, right? And I think we were supposed to. Definitely.

I think we were supposed to ask exactly that question. Because when they first start talking about this, the idea of him visiting her and what wasn't allowed, you're just like, oh, literally, because this corporation is stealing children, of course he couldn't visit. Nobody could know what was about to happen. and nobody could have access to the conversations between Noah Hawley playing their father and Boy Cavalier or Adam or whoever he sent to say, like, give me this kid. But then you're like, wait, well, what about all the times before that? Yeah.

It seemed like there was a window there that there would have been lots of potential for him to find a way to come visit. And he, for whatever reason, chose not to or thought he couldn't or whatever it was. And we have a lot to learn about the circumstances of that stuff. I'm also very disappointed, yet even still, you introduced Ice Age to your younger sister and basically ruined her life. What would you have shown Marcy and stuff? I mean, does like Kiki's delivery service not exist?

You know? Like there's lots of great child texts. Many other great movies you could show. Especially now that, I mean, Hulu is kind of part and parcel of the Walt Disney Corporation. Like, you've got options of things you could show. I mean, Kikis would have been a great choice. I fucking love Kiki's delivery service.

Really great. too. We know what boy was consuming and it was Peter Pan because he read more of it to us in this episode. More of it to everyone. More of it to everyone. He's broadcasting. Apparently. So here's my question for you. Yeah. I mean, he's basically sitting like where we are. He's got a mic. It looked like it. I was looking. I was like, is this a shore USB mic? Is this a road USB mic? Seems like a blue yety guy. He's got his ringlight or his bar lights. He's ready to roll. He's got his tripod. Yep. Would you listen to Boy. Cavaliers podcast?

No. Absolutely. And do you think that Samuel Lankin, who is giving such a memorable performance, should record a new audiobook of Peter Pan?

He definitely should. First question, I'll take the first part first. Would not listen to the podcast? Would hate watch the social media clips? The breakouts. You'd be just crushing those reels. Oh, I think it'd be great content. Think of what it would do to your algorithm.

It would take it down like just a developer innovator rabbit hole from which it would never recover. Yeah. I mean, they design it that way for a reason, man. It's sad. But I do think Samuel Blanco would be great on an audiobook. By my understanding, I'm not a huge consumer of audiobooks,

but he does have a very distinctive and warm voice that I think would translate pretty well to the format. Is that the goal? Like, what kind of voice presence do you want for an audiobook? Oh, it just depends on the book. True. Depends on whether you need a lot of different, like. Voices, characters.

Yeah, different voices for different characters. Is there sound design on the given? audiobook, etc. Are they doing the clumps and cleeps? Sometimes there is sound treatment to accompany the text. You don't read or listen to books in any form so you don't. Only nonfiction. I want to clarify, only nonfiction.

So you do know how to read. I do understand vaguely how to read slash download a book into the back of my brain. One of those two things is true. You know? They're everywhere. Arthur's got him. Isaac's got to me. I know all about it.

What did you think of this particular passage, this selection of text from Peter Pan? Always interesting to see what Boy chooses to highlight. Some talk here about nightlights. In the two minutes before you go to sleep, it becomes very nearly real. That is why there are nightlights. Absolute nightmare fuel for Boy Cavalier. Do you think he's picking the thematically resonant passages or is it just like pure chance? I wonder if he just reads the entire like thing cover to cover.

How long is it? Peter Pan? Yeah. So I've been revisiting the text while doing this podcast. Look at you. And when I'm, when I need, I love to hold a book in my hand, but when I, as I've mentioned before in House of Ar, when I need the text for like pod purposes, I like to have it accessible on the Kindle.

Definitely. You'd be able to grab a passage, as you saw me frantically do in 30 seconds before we started this podcast. I think my Kindle estimate was like five and a half hours of read time. that's short. Yeah, that's breezy. Yeah. That's a novella.

I can't remember the paper page count. We both have computers. We could Google this. We could, let's find out. I like leaving it up to the mystery of the universe, you know? Technology being indistinguishable from magic and all that. Yeah, exactly. Like, let me give an answer that is specifically tailored to my reading pace as calculated

by the machine in my hand. Feels fitting for this exercise. The good news is once this goes out in the world, no one would dare refute you. No one will fact check anything you say on there. It's never happened before. While we're listening to this Peter Pan passage, we're getting these glimpses, intercut of Kirsch who's listening in on something of his own. And thank goodness, honestly.

I agree. I was actually, like, right before we saw that he was monitoring, I was like, are we supposed to believe that like no one knows this is happening, which I think would have been obviously unacceptable. And it's not what happened, so it doesn't really warrant discussion. But, Kirsch is aware. He's checking in on this conversation and the one that we will get to shortly. And I got to say, this is a great conversation to listen in on because Morrow is, I

I think riveting. These scenes are amazing. This performance is exceptional. The writing. Babu Sisei is so good on this show. He is magnetic. And the language in this conversation with Slightly was beautiful. I was less smitten with the visual nature of these scenes.

I found something very distracting about slightly. Because like, as I understand it, they did film like on location and island. But this had such like we're in the volume or on a green screen looks to me. Now we should say we're watching on screeners so like maybe it could get cleaned up. It's possible that that will not be the case when folks are watching

the live episode. I'm actually going to check because I want, I was like, this is like... Let's fact check that one. Weird. On the version we saw the background's behind slightly look, I would say quite bad. In a way that... What was going on with that? Your version of was this quote misattributed was me going, is this bad CGI

on purpose? Is there like a true and show chicanery happening. Dude, but what if that's it? Look, I don't... What if he thinks he's outside and he's not? The more likely answer is... I would buy that. This is TV CGI and sometimes TV CGI doesn't look very good.

This is us last week being like, is Wendy casting her mind into the astral plane? It's like, nope, Kirste just left her on the floor. What are we here for, if not, casting our minds into the astral plane slash debating whether CGI is bad on purpose? It's true. I have no follow-up points on that. So Slailey's just in Stranger Things mode, just like, uh,

the house of our. Friends don't lie. Okay? Friends don't. Why aren't they watching fucking stranger things still in the future? I guess because this is an FX show and that's an FX show. Probably that's a simple. Probably that's simple. All right. We don't have time for us. Put a pin in that and we're, we're, we are following up. Okay. You're out like you've never done it or you're out like you've given up and you're not interested in more? I did the first three seasons and I'm good. Oh my God. I just, I just, I just, Robert Mahoney. Look, they lost me in the weight. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm just I've only got so much time.

Okay, but let me throw this out. Very quick attempt to bring you back. Okay. To Godfather three, you get one pitch. I think the weight at the end of the day made it even better. Did it? Yeah, because you're like, can they possibly, can I still care? Is it possible?

I care. Can it be good? Season four, I was like, fuck yeah. It was great. Well, I guess we'll talk in 10 years when they finally polish this thing off and I'll get to actually watch it. Holiday season, 2025. We'll be completing our journey together. So they say.

You'll have 50 hours of podcast waiting for you on the House of Our. Morrow, you mentioned this, you alluded to this earlier. He's got a lot of compelling replies waiting for Slightly here. And this was one of them. Well, I didn't know if you were a hero, a villain or a hero. Slightly says hero and Morrow says me too. And since we're both heroes, I need your help. Very insidious.

But like, what a perfect idea to weaponize if you were trying to manipulate a child in your act of war. Are you a hero or a villain? What kid isn't going to say? I'm the hero. Yeah. I want to be the hero. How can I be the hero? How can I feel like the hero?

And then there were like a lot of, again, active manipulations, but like philosophical exercises here. How can you steal from a feat? Is this another riddle? A moral inquiry. And then when Slightly is like, well, like, this is my home. They saved my life. Moro's reply is, now you're talking about loyalty.

It's a very different principle. That gave me a chip. This is what I'm talking about with the thronesy nature of this episode. It's like, especially because there are so many children, so many scenes felt like either people scheming on how to manipulate other people in the show or someone trying to, like, bend Tom and's ear to, like, guide him in a particular direction or something. And this is one of those like... Oh, boy, well, that went fine.

Historically always goes, well, all these means of control and power being exercised all over the show right now. How do you keep people in your good graces? How do you keep them moving along the directions that you want? them to. One way is this, right, of making them feel special, of challenging their sense of morality, of being like, don't you want to be the hero? Well, I'm a hero, so you have to be aligned with whatever I say. Heroes help. Yes. Heroes correct their wrongs. It also felt, in addition to the kind of Thrones part of that, remind me a lot of shows like the Americans or the agency of like, how do you turn a human being with their own wants and desires into an asset? Yes. And that's exactly

what more was. We're watching an active recruit. Completely. Yeah, for sure. And I think that question of loyalty is a very rich text to do that because part of what Morrow is saying, like, people do all kinds of terrible things in the name of loyalty, which of course can be true. But also, like, we talked about this last week, slightly was the one who, in the slightly Smey Morrow scene responded to, like, would you do this like that? Well, like, do my friends need me? Yeah. Right?

And so this question of like loyal to what and loyal to whom to your, Kirsch will refer to boy elsewhere in the conversation with Isaac as their leader, which felt like such deliberate language, like begrudging and resentful. Respectful, but begrudging and resent. Our leader gave you those names, right?

Okay, so you're loyal to right now, this idea of this second chance. Who are you ultimately loyal to? And this will become what slightly says to Kirsch when he tests him, right? And that's what being an adult is. It's a constant test. Ain't it just? Ain't it fucking just, Rob?

Good God, that was great. Slightly's loyal to his friends, as he says. At the end of the day, the test here is clear. It's like, you've got to be loyal to your family. You have to be loyal to the people who have been there for you, who you love, who thought you were gone, and now they know you're not. And what are you going to do?

Let them down? Yes. So, like, loyalty is not a cut and dry, clear thing because you have multiple sources of loyalty and multiple holes on that loyalty. And to go back to Thrones, that's why we sometimes get wonderful lines. Like, love is the death of duty.

It's like, aren't love and duty, both the form of loyalty? Well, what happens when they're in active conflict with each other? So it's very rich. I think where we're seeing that conflict of love and duty is in characters like Dame Sylvia and in to some extent, and Arthur, right, of like what is our responsibility as people who are kind of like overseeing and mentoring slash like the guardians of these kids?

Yeah. Versus our mission as a company as prodigy employees. So we'll finish up the Morrow slightly thing in a minute, but let's just hit the Arthur Dame Sylvia scene quickly because we've brought it up a couple of times. and let's just kind of like put a bow around that. Yeah. Did that seem work for you? That was like the thing, part of the episode I was least compelled by.

And I mean, I liked what they, the substance of their discussion. I like that Dame Sylvia's inclination is to defend boy. Maybe this is why he's so far ahead. I thought that was fascinating. What an interesting idea to put out into the world and to play with. She practices like a kind of humanism that is so galaxy brain that she can empathize with anyone even when they're doing insane. things. Yeah, and how much of it is that she really believes it, how much of it is, like,

again, this is where she's found. I've put all myself worth in this place and this direction. But Arthur, like, when he's like, well, like, isn't this distracting from the mission? And on the one hand, we've said that, we think that. But also, her counterpoint was just like, can't we do more than one thing here? I'm like, well, yeah, like, what's the count? There's no counter than that. Like, that makes sense, you know? And Arthur then saying, like, well, like, a best case, worst case, a bunch of AIs running around, like broken AI, or like we killed six kids.

And she says, like, we're not flipping about that ever. Of course, eluding to, like, their own history with trying to have a family of their own. And he's like, I just needed you to hear this as, like, your husband. And then she goes over and kind of like, they nuzzle their heads together. And she's like, I'll make you dinner. I'll make you dumplings.

And I was like, that sounds great. But also... Is she rapping the dumplings? I mean, you're the expert here on all things, home-cooked meals. Look, dumplings not the hardest thing to do. Okay. I think easier if you buy the rappers than make the wrappers. I'm just like, I'm bad with a rolling pin, honestly, is more my problem.

But you can also hand-put, like, there's options. There's options available to them. I just want to know the mechanics of the meal that she's making. I'd like to know that too, and I'd like to know more about what, like, their relationship is like, because that was kind of the thing that took me out of the scene was just, I think similar to what we've talked about with Hermit and Wendy slash Mark. I'm like, the relationship, the personal relationships, the professional relationships like Kirs and Boy, that's different. Personal relationships that like predate the events of the show

are just not so far nearly as compelling to me or as convincing to me as the ones that we are watching develop in real time. I am riveted watching Morrow and slightly. Oh, completely. Riveted watching Boy and Wendy. These are all new. And I wonder if the show will be able to unlock something like Arthur and Dame Sylvia or if it even really cares to or if that's a little more incidental. But you get a scene like this and I'm sort of like, what am I supposed to make of Arthur exactly? Yeah. Like we're halfway there and I don't totally know. I think he is, like he has a heart clearly and I think his intentions are in the right place.

But he is compromised in a level that I don't think he's fully reckoning with to say the least. And I think what you're putting your finger on is like the macro world building. of Alien Earth, I think really works. The micro-world building of some of those pre-existing relationships, whether it's these two, whether it's Terminator Wendy, whoever you want to kind of look at, is a little hit and miss. Yeah, and I think in an episode like this

where the relationship dynamics felt stronger than the one... Than the lived-in ones. Yeah, the character sets where that's further behind, it's even more notable than in contrast. I think the best thing you could say about this sequence, it did feel like we're kind of saying the obvious parts out loud.

We want a character voicing their objections very clearly to what is happening. happening here. And we want to like prime the fact that these are two people who even though they are husband and wife, and we want to remind you that their husband and a wife have do some like philosophical division and how they think about this stuff. I guess what I'm like bumping on is I'm like, well, what did Arthur think he was signing up for? These kids are prisoners. Exactly. Like they're straight up prisoners. So somebody getting to the point to what you, as you're saying, getting to the point of maybe having to acknowledge and confront their like how complicit they are

or the nature of their hypocrisy, I'm interested in, for sure. Bumping on the fact that your shiny object, distracted, a boss is like, let's put a pin in your life's work and, like, do this other thing instead. I could see how that would be annoying, for sure. But what did Arthur think he was bringing into the world?

Exactly. Yeah, it's a great question. He's one of the characters we spent the least time with, and it's kind of papered over by the fact that it's just like, an understandable worldview brought to life by a very likable performer. He is lovely. He's just wonderful.

Fargo High Prize. I mean, this is the thing. It's a pitch straight down the middle as far as like an audience surrogate type perspective of like kind of in the middle, kind of interested in the innovation. Why can't we stay on task? And also these are human beings. Like he's conveying a sweet spot of something I think is very understandable. Yeah. But not always deployed in a way that I think is like narratively the most satisfying.

Yeah. Like I think I want him to say. to function fully and successfully as the audience avatar, I want him not to say like, well, we're off the path with the hybrids and more like, I mean, I guess he gets at this with the best case, worst case, but then I want to know that he's been tormented about it

the whole time. Yeah. Let's get back to the child soldier business, you know? Stay on task, folks. Speaking of child soldiers, one of the ways that Morrow is like, to the Americans point, right, like really working to build this bond,

to bring slightly, to ensnare him fully in his plot, right? We've got to cement trust. My name is Kumi. Tells him his name. What's yours? Arush. Arush what?

Arush what? Arush what? Best moment of the season so far. The vocal silings of Malarubin, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you very much. That was just so great. Arush Singh knows his family name and of course immediately the smile on his face like I have a way now to gain ultimate leverage over this young boy who was going to be terrified about me killing his family.

My heart sank the moment that slightly set his name out loud. Sank. You know exactly where it's going. We didn't have to wait long. If you're a child out there, if you're a child, the many, you're a child, the many, children who listen to House of Bar, who cover their ears. Every time they hear the bad babies drop, like, don't tell strangers your full name. Don't give them any personal information about you or your family.

This has been a public service announcement from the fine people at House of Bar. Thank you. Thank you for that. I would say also if you walk into your room and Kirsch is standing there, walk out. I'll come back later. Walk out. What did you think of his lesson here on Cino Evil, Here, No, No speak no evil other than clearly big texter, big emoji guy, and also obviously has recently

watched White Lotus season three and seen the rally of siblings in these exact poses that seem clear. He's basically like Buddhist teaching about avoiding evil thoughts and deeds, but then says, come to mean something else, right? It's come to mean, as we all know, when we are sending these emoji to each other, I don't want to know. I don't want to see it. I don't want to see it. I don't know. I'm looking away. I'm pretending I don't know. Basically, Arthur's whole world. view as far as we can tell. He is all three monkeys at once. Arthur! So we've talked about this a little bit with where we think this might be heading with Kirsh and slightly and what Kersh obviously

knows. He basically is like, he is asking slightly a lot of questions, right? If I did something wrong, what would you do? This is where we get the test. That's what being an adult is a constant test. But this is what Kersh is doing right now, ultimately, is that Kersh has this information and is not sharing it. Kersh knows about this active plot to get Utani's egg back to her evolving over the course of this episode

into just get a person in that lab so that the facehugger can latch on. He knows all of this and he has not told Adam, he has not told boy. He has not done anything other than go rub his hands along the secretions of the egg to think about what he's going to do with this information. That was one of the most upsetting visuals of the episode. Just the caressing.

of the alien egg. So goy. Slimy. Again, the K.Y. Jolie budget, incredibly expensive. It's voluminous. Was your

interpretation of Morrow chiming in with a careful just that he can hear, he can eavesdrop on anything at any point? I think so. Slightly is a hot mic. He is a hot mic.

You know, the mics are always hot here at Spotify HQ. They're hot around slightly. Yeah. They're hot at Prodigy HQ as we're learning. Like, be very careful

what you think are dead spot. I'm unclear on whether he can see anything that's happening. Clearly, I think he can eavesdrop in to a degree. And of course, he is in Slightly's head and not on speakerphone. Yeah. But what he can see, I don't really know. Private line. Private line.

Just locked in. As he says, let's hit the other, since we're talking about that, the other Morrow Slightly conversation when he's like, look who I found mom. Okay. What does this do? The fact that we learned that his mom thought he was dead. What does this do to your understanding? of how prodigy is acquiring these children.

Is your read on this that it was just like Slightly's dad without telling the mom? Not unlike Wendy. Yeah. Or that like the parents didn't know at all in this case and Slightly was like stolen. What do you think? I took away that we've just kind of,

I think you naturally fill in the gaps to assume that most of these family situations are going to be roughly parallel. But in reality, all of them could be very different. Which makes sense. And it's of a piece with like they're responding differently to their bodies or their names or their new jobs, etc. I think they've actually done a really smart and effective job at differentiating all of the lost boys and their circumstances.

And this is like one more wedge between them in a way of I have all these brothers at home and I don't get to see them. But Hermit gets to be here. Like how is that fair? And especially when you're agonizing him by hearing his mom's voice in the process. I think it does just amplify all of the differences between Wendy and everybody else slightly, obviously first and foremost. I thought that, you know, the fact that we get such an active line from Morrow, you know, remember, we've had a bunch of conversations already about protecting your family, why it's important, why it's right, about what being right, what doing the right thing he means. And then he literally says, this is that. And like, fucking terrifying.

She's spine tingling and genuinely terrifying. And then, yeah, the way that slightly is, when he shows up and sees Hermit, there. It's interesting. It is such, it is hard to do this well, but they really are. Yeah. Like, I care about Herman. I care about Wendy. I'm glad they are together. I'm like, yeah, of course slightly's right to say we all have brothers. Why? And like, boy, we'll get to the boy Wendy scene in a minute, but like, he says that. Now he's starting shit. He's doing it on purpose, but he's kind of like, well, the others don't get brothers. Why would you? And then the immediately comes into play in a way that like it should like the other kids at least one of them

should be bumping on that and I was glad that happened but then it's like I thought that Wendy's response to that was so interesting like she's just like well like you know I'm the oldest and slightly is like no you're not and she means of course again I'm chosen right I'm the shepherd I was the one who brought you in I showed you how this all worked so I do get special treatment I am different. And like, of course everybody else is going to rebel against that. That's what kids would do in real life. Completely. And yet it's hard to argue with the evidence that she does get special treatment. Yeah. And I think that's what's so fascinating too about the Hermit and Wendy conversations with Boy as well, as far as like negotiating for the ability to stay together. I guess with Adam in, in Hermit's case. It's like, hermit probably doesn't need to do this like Turing test report on your sister kind of work. It's like what they want is the alien duolingo. And if they get that, then she's going to get special privileges.

And you're going to be able to stay here. Which boy literally says to her. But Hermit doesn't know that. And it hasn't really been established yet. It's like based on the timeline of the show. And so it's like, why not use the leverage we have to get something out of both of these people? Why not twist everyone who thinks they are under our thumb, even though one of them is a superhuman robot who we might be able to turn off. But honestly, at this point, who the fuck knows?

Yeah. I thought that scene with Adam and Hermit was great. Really great. Like, I like that we're getting a little more time with our guy, Adam, terrifying. genuinely terrifying. I thought that the repeated insistence on instead of saying Wendy, saying the unit you call your sister

was so unsettling and disturbing, obviously intentionally so, in a way to remind everybody of whose universe they're in and by whose grace they get to be there. And he'll say, he's like, you know, you're never going to see her again. You have to leave this private island if you decide to quit.

Yeah. If you stay, what do you mean? And I think Hermit, I got to say, it was like a little slow on the uptake here when he's like, when can I take her home? It's like, what the fuck are you talking about? But like, you can never take her home because she's our property. Which you can only get away with when you call her the unit you think is. Yes.

And then to, but to pair that in not just the same episode, but the same conversation with this prompt, this like homework assignment when you are actively reminding that other person that you don't think she's a person. Yeah. You don't think that she's his sister. You just need to be able to have him say that and her believe it so that you can go to market and say, how does he describe it? A prototype for a transhuman product, which once refined will create human immortality. This man doesn't need to be the muscle.

He needs to be a copywriter. Again, it's just jumping off the page of the catalog. Incredible. How do you think Adam and Don Draper would get along? Quite well, actually. Yeah. How about Roger? I mean, as far as people you work with being completely full of shit,

Adam has lots of experience. It's true. I think it would go very well. I agree. He'd be great. He lives, I can tell this guy likes a drink cart too. I feel sure.

So you believe she's your sister. She has her memories, her sense of humor. Doesn't that make her Marcy? Actually, that's something we'd like to note to. And then later, did you really download my sister's consciousness into that body?

Is it her? Those are two different questions. I could have done without the ensuing. Right. And this is the existential prompt. It's like, yeah, we know. That's implied. We're watching the show.

But I did think as a prompt, genuinely, to set that to Hermit, to say like, okay, the test is really not whether I believe it, whether the people making this believe it. It's like, does Wendy think it? Do the people who knew Wendy find this convincing? It really, it's very reminiscent to me of one of my favorite Black Mirror episodes, be right back. I thought about it a lot. not just during this episode, but the whole show, down to the where to the robot's sleep, logistics.

And how do their bodies work? And like, I mean, it's just all of it. Spoiler alert. It's like, yeah, how long could you? And is that the journey we're about to watch with Hermit? Where right now, much like I can be right back. Spoilers, there's like this euphoric initial reception. Yeah.

This gift that you have been granted of your grief ceasing. The wonder of like, how is this possible? I lost you. I thought you were gone and now you're here. And then every conversation, every minute, there's another reminder that it's not exactly the same. And one of the things I wonder is like, okay, well, Ash is like a one-to-one attempted recreation. Yes. So every difference would feel even more notable and palpable, tangible.

I wonder if the fact that, like, Wendy has a different name, even though Hermit's like not viping with that. Wendy has a different body. Wendy doesn't look like Marcy. If that degree of removal makes it easier for him to process and accept the differences and just celebrate the similarities and the things that feel like they've lasted, I don't know. It seems possible. But this is the very delicate needle that they're threading, not just with the show and the kind of existential ideas behind it, but with this character and the circumstances that Hermit now finds himself in. With this conversation with Adam, Hermit needs to think that this is his sister enough to want to stay and to put. and to participate to whatever degree and whatever test they're trying to do.

But he needs to have the germ of an idea this might not be his sister enough to even engage with this idea of like, is this your sister and we want your help in determining that? And to sign up for her being a prisoner here in the first place. Right. It's like if you believe 100% that this is your sister, you got to get the fuck out of there.

But this is like this is a xenoseed of a different sort, right? Where like it takes root whether you want it to or not. He's basically, My read on the scene is he's like saying like, okay, because he needs to say okay, because that's the only way to avoid being cast off on the next shuttle out of town. Not because he's actually interested in engaging with this idea, but once it's been planted, how can you not feel it like thrumming against your rib cage, right? Like it's impossible to ignore once it's in there. And then what does that do to you? Yeah, I agree.

Like, he should be, and even though, like, because we hadn't seen until they came back in this episode, Siberian and Rashidi since the beginning, the premiere. I think they're probably there setting up the inevitable soldiers need to contain the hybrids confrontation, I feel like. Yes. And also, because they kind of, there was a very quick line about like, you're here, the whole unit, like, are the ones of us that are left. Yeah. But also to kind of further lull permit our reluctant new resident of Neverland into like a familiar space. You are sisters here. your platoon mates, your unit is here. Like, what else do you need to be able to, like, believe that this is where you should be? Your lung is here.

Dude, I love the boy. You'll never believe. Oh, boy, buddy, wait till you're here. To be fair, you would never guess. You would never guess what they did with it. Boy Cavalier, genuinely incredible. Okay, so let's talk about the boy Wendy scene, this chat that they have. Weird day as a greeting.

Just I am in stitches watching him. think he's so funny. He's great. He invokes Peter Pan multiple times in the scene. He can't help himself. He's like, what did I feel like fighting an alien? Makes a Peter Pan cop immediately. It's like, the crocodile. Honestly, embarrassing that it took him this long to piece together the crocodile. This is the one book you know. You have one bit of bedtime reading and it's this. Like, you should have connected the dots immediately there. He is so dialed in on Joe Hermit, on the brother in this scene. And I think there is, let's go through kind of the different things he says,

I think there is a lot in the brew here. Some of this active manipulation of Wendy. Some of this coming from a think of genuine place of like, that is a relationship that I don't have. Yeah. Okay. Here's what he says. When Wendy says it was hurting Joey, he says, all right, the brother. Just love it. All of the brother drops. The brother

is having a feeling. It's just so funny. I was so mad. Just vicariously, I was so mad. And, like, it's a little detail, right? But we're spending so much time from the Wendy Lost Boys perspective talking about what a name means and to just refuse to call him Joe or refuse to call him Hermit and call him the brother.

It's a label. It's a role, right? It's just, like, perfect. Just, like, again, lording his power over everybody by reminding them, like, it's up to me if he sees you and if you see him. Then he just says he hates brothers, fathers. mothers always telling us what to do. I would like to read you a passage from Peter Pam that I read last night at like 1 a.m. when I should have been sleeping. I'm doing great. But your mother gets letters?

Don't have a mother, he said. Not only had he no mother, but he had not the slightest desire to have one. He thought them very overrated persons. Wendy, however, felt at once that she was in the presence of tragedy. Wendy and Peter in the passage there. That is literally the scene we're watching here. Yes. This is like, to your point of like how much of Peter Pan feels like a spoiler, I mean, that's just, that's actually like beat for beat with this conversation. Wendy and Peter in the book. And boy and Wendy here. Also a direct echoing of your personal views on mothers that they are very overrated persons. My mother listens to this podcast. As you know, because she then sometimes emails Joanna when I mess. mention my failing vision, and she'll send Joe an email and be like, can you ask Mel to go to the eye doctor? That is a healthy... Have you gotten an email from my mom yet? I haven't yet, but I look forward to it.

And I, too, will encourage you to go to the eye doctor and, frankly, many other doctors. I think this is an intervention, and we are trying to help you. I'm going to start by checking in with Boy about the colonic. We'll branch out from there. Start wherever you like. Anatomically, your choice. Did this comment from boy here impacts anything you were thinking or feeling about his history and family? Because we kind of speculated about this last week based on crunching the zoom in and looking at the newspaper headlines.

Heads and decks always here at this journalistic institution, House of our. What did this? We were like, did he lose a sibling? Did he lose a parent? What did this do to update your latest thinking there? Well, there's some very carefully deployed ellipsies. happening in those like excerpts that we could see. Yeah.

So before he fully articulates, I think it was implied that he had lost some family members and what that did to animate him. And like, you know, we had thought, okay, maybe this is why he's has this hunt for eternal life.

Maybe this is why he's like looking to overcompensate for human mortality. Now I kind of wonder if he was glad to be rid of them in a way that like opened up his freedom and worldview and allowed him to be the most boy cavalier he could possibly be. That is where I'm, I am too. And if part of why he's like, get hermit out of here is because he thinks that it's going to hold Wendy back. Like tamps down her potential. Yeah. In a way that he would not want to be

held back. And even his response to her, like when she suggests that he send the aliens back, which by the way, when Adam was like, we've got some notes about like these aliens. And what do you think and you do? We give them back to you, Tani. It's like, you can express concern. about our peril, imminent peril, certainly. It's an alien property. Don't suggest we send the find back to the competition. Come on.

Wendy at least is like sending them back to space. So you just want them out of the corporate machine. I think that if you're my, I'm a business tycoon. You're my right hand. And you say to me, send this thing back to our, corporate foe.

It's a non-starter. Like, that was also, I will say, when Carly at the ice cream party was like, can you tell us about the five? I'm like, shouldn't they know? Like, I know they were young kids, but it's like the way the world is run. I felt that was odd. But do you know the way the world is run when you're eight? I got to be honest, I'm 38. I know. I can't understand it wrong. I can't

wrap my mind around it every day. I'm more confused than I was the last. Fair counterpoint. Okay, but, but, so to go back to this like idea of thwarted potential when When Wendy's like, send the aliens back and he counters, he's like, why don't we send your brother back? And this is where he says the none of the others gets have brothers. What makes you so special? I'm not special.

I just, please. And his response is dripping with disappointment. Disgust. Oh, come on, come on. What kind of intellectual argument is, please? This is not the path to the conversation on the mountain top that he wants. Please does not get up on the. the mountain. Absolutely not. He's like, this is my life's work. Someone's sitting there sadly asking

me, please, like any actual kid would do or any actual person. That's not what Boy Cavaliers after, though, of course, I liked that Wendy did that because it felt very human. And then he pokes at the old woman by saying, if I was your brother, I'd find a way. So what's your read on what Boyd is doing with Wendy here? How much is it motivating her? Because he offers her that deal, like we talked about. Find out what the aliens are saying, and your brother can stick around. How much of it is trying to actually turn her against Joe? let me remind you of how he wasn't there for you. Let me remind you of how I would have been.

And how much of it is actually that this is part of the experiment, right? Testing the lasting nature of the human attachment. Testing what aspects of what came before feel like they matter to you now. Or is it a little bit of column A, a little bit of column B, a little bit of column C, maybe you've got a column D? What do you think is going on here? What's your read on this? I think it's less the testing, but I do think it is short-term, long-term. It's like right now present tense, you care about your brother.

We're going to wield that against you. So you will do this work for us. But long term, I need you to trust me more than him. When push comes to shove, you have to make a choice. You're going to have to make a choice. Completely. And you're going to have to pick me. Will I stroke the egg again?

That'll be one choice. Apparently everyone wants to. Everyone in the show wants to stroke eggs. They just can't help. It's in their biology. Even the hybrids want to stroke the eggs. They just aren't affected by it. But ultimately, like,

He needs her trust. And the only way to do that is to start creating that division. Because in the 11th hour, he's like, you can't trust this guy. He never came to visit you. She's not going to buy it. He needs to put those ideas in now in the hopes that they grow in the way that all the other doubts we've been talking about house. Latch the face hugger on now. Yeah.

Give it the gestation period. Has to happen. Has to happen. We need to talk about what actually happens in the lab. Before we get to the sheep, though, let's talk about the Tootles Kirsch, name choosing just for another. second, because we talked about the Tootles part of it, what it means to say, like, I wanted to choose the name of a scientist. I thought like there were two other notable things about this. One was when Tootle said, it's not what you call a man, you know, a serious man, that that was a, felt to me very notable in contrast to boy to the Peter Pan energy. Not everybody wants to remain a kid forever, right? There are plenty of people here in the Lost Boys and elsewhere who are like, I want to grow up.

actually. The thing that I want to do is feel like an adult. Not stay in this perpetual state of arrested development. So that felt notable. And then I just thought that when he picked Isaac and explained why, the way that Kersh looked at him and said, yes, I think that's right. Kirsch has been a joy and a delight to watch, incredibly entertaining. I wouldn't say he's been tender or warm. this was the most I felt tenderness from him. When he looked at Tootles turning into Isaac and said, yes, I think that's right. He's the one who's like, they're not humans,

we're not their parents, why are we pretending? But I felt like a paternal protective, and most of all, I felt pride. Now there can be scientific pride, pride in the work, pride in the achievement, but this was pride in him saying, this is who I want to be. That felt really, like, crucial to me.

What did you make in that scene? I think there is definitely an element of respecting the kid who is most like you in a way. It's like the similar interest set like all along the path. I'm the one giving him the responsibility. I see him growing in ways that I personally, even as a synthetic, a proof of. All of that is in the mix. But I think Kirsch is going to be on his own journey as our Dame Sylvia and Arthur of like, how protective should I be of these beings that are kind of me but kind of not.

And where that line will ultimately be drawn from. And I wouldn't be surprised if for all of them, the answers are different. Like, Dame Sylvia in this moment is terrified of Nibs. Yeah. Kirsch in this moment, I think does show a bit of pride about where Isaac is. And, like, if nothing else. Yeah, you're right. And he also doesn't respect the authority of the institution enough to say, like, you have to go by your code name.

It's like, I mean, this sounds right. Sure. Let's go for it. Yeah, he can't wait to find little ways to say, like, as boy, episode after episode, basically reminds him that he's just like a, like a stooge, right? to say, you don't have to do, even though he literally in the scene says, our leader chose it, like, you don't have to do it because he said. No.

Do your own thing, right? He believes that he is superior to boy. And like, what is the ultimate way to prove that to himself and to boy? By just like we talked about last week when he gleefully shut that lab door and was like, Oh, yeah. You can't be in here, but I can. Best way to show the vulnerability is to actually put it, let him watch. Let him walk over to that egg after all.

Let him watch me as Kirsch manhandle this face hugger. I got to say, it was incredible to watch in episode three. I'm just him grabbing that thing, slamming it on the table. Did. What control? Well, they all watch an experiment of note in this episode. And this was the scariest thing I've seen in sometime. I got to say.

This was incredibly upsetting. And I thought also like a really great scene in a disturbing way. that I will take with me. T.O. Sellas, our guy. Pupils McCornia. That's what I'll be calling him now. I still like eyeball jockey for what it's worth. I'm trying to make eyeball jockey happen. Jellio juggles. We've got a lot.

A creature of many names. Absolutely. Many pupils and many names. He's back. Very rapidly makes his way to the sheep eye and pulls it out of the socket, burrows into the brain. And then I thought, all right, now I'm What did you think was the most like nightmare fuel-inducing aspect of this scene? Here are your nominees.

There are many. Right after the burrowing, which also is a nominee, obviously, that was just gross. The sheep stands just on its hind legs to like, sheak dangling eye off so that it plops on the floor, haunting. The sheep with eyeball jockey. now embedded in its brain, controlling it. Just watching Kirsch and Tootles, and we get eyeball cam, and Kirsch is talking, he's narrowing, and he's like, look, look how it's tracking.

Playing a little peek-a-boo. Look how it's watching, yeah. And I'm like, I know this is this, like, active experimentation and scientific inquiry. I would just run. Oh, I am so out. Hermit didn't book passage on the first shuttle out. Great, there's a seat for me. Yeah.

I'm gone. Here's the thing. Not all of these people in synthetics and hybrids have seen the xenomorphine action yet. But you see this shit. You're done. I'm on the first thing smoking. I'd like to add this to your can't wait to get out of Neverland Consideration. Not only is this thing fast and strong. Yeah. Rob, it's smart. It's not what you want to hear. We get a whole exchange, a whole discussion about the wavelengths and the brain activity, the gam, problem solving concentration, highly intelligent creature.

And then it's just watching them, plotting methodically how to kill them all. Oh, yeah. And the glare specifically at Boy, who's like, kid at the aquarium, banging on the glass. Sir, do not provoke the aliens. Unbelievable. The hubris on this dip shit, taking his ball and launching it at the glass. And then literally pointing and saying, me taunting. I mean, he is looking into the eyes of the creature that is one of the creatures

that is a candidate to kill him. And he's like, I own you. I feel like a strong candidate at this point. And frankly, I'm on the eyeball jockey side on that one. Me too. I think it would be perfectly justified. Especially now that we know that Boy Cavalier has been like just recording all of these readings and he can remain in our life in another way. It's true. He's immortal in audio book form if nothing else. This scene was really scary. Very, very good. Very scary. Again, this is some of the best horror stuff, and like the contained in the room living this moment quality of the way that it's shot and composed. I think it's just really, really taught, like, suspenseful filmmaking. The creepiest to me is by far the sheep standing up.

Horrible. Horrible. And I think also conveys a moment. Like, we were talking about the uncanny differences of, is this really your sister in all the ways that might manifest? Right. This is also a parasite that doesn't really know how to be a sheep. Yeah. And so the fact that it would, like, stand up for a moment and shake out the eye and be like,

Am I supposed to stay like this? Or do I need to get like, how my sister be is both terrifying and also very fun to watch. Yeah. Makes me even more concerned for the bunnies when I already was. Are we on Bunny Watch or Bunny Warning? I mean, I guess we should just theorize now, even though it's upsetting. All right. Eyeball Jockey went to the sheep.

Zinopole has already gone into the lung, but of course there are more eggs. There's so many eggs. It's just everyone is still on Zeno Watch. And maybe a queen somewhere? Okay, do you think? I just don't know where the eggs came from. It's very hard. If we were to suppose that the crew of the Maginot killed the queen or stole the eggs, I'm just not sure I buy that.

So this gets back to a question we asked each other in the first pod. When are we getting some space flashbacks? That has got to be coming, right? I would think there's a little more of that. I think especially as we're ramping up our morrow screen. screen time. When he, oh man, when he's telling Slightly what to do, and Slightly's like, and he goes through all the beats, whole time frame.

And Slightly's like, you know, what's going to happen to the person I choose? And Maro's like, it's going to be a rough day for that, fucker. I'm going to make sure they're very comfortable. You're just reminded very effectively, he has seen this all before. Yeah. He's the one who made it out. And all of our questions that we were speculating about previously. who knew what when, what happened, why.

I just feel like those answers, surely given his centrality in the story, not just the alien centrality in the story, but Marrows as a force, like, have to come. I would think so. I think the diversity of those perspectives and motivations is important. Honestly, similar to the way that among the aliens themselves, I love the idea that Jellio Jiggles is incredibly sentient, right? that this is a smart eyeball monster

that knows how to problem solve, that knows how to play creatures and people to its advantage. In a way that I think we're getting some indications that maybe the xenomorph has like some trapplaying ability, some like vested interest, some like cognitive capacity. But ultimately, they are the perfect killing machine.

They are the like drop on the planet and it wipes out the planet. They are the nuclear option. They are not the like targeted strategic tactical one. And so the idea that, that in this lab, there are many things that can kill you, all of which would be exercised in very different ways. Incredibly exciting for what's going to kill anyone,

but especially boy cavalier, which it will be coming. Can't wait. Truly can't wait. We still haven't seen what the Florifana thing can do. Nope. I do worry that maybe that we might learn that via bunny. Oh, that'd be a tough one. But here's the thing.

That would be upsetting. The Florifana is quite large. That's a small little snack for a guy that big. You're right. I think a sheep now. No, boy. A human. Which person?

Probably one of like the red shirt soldiers, to be honest with you. Someone in the little company. I feel pretty sure Arthur's going to die. You think so? Yeah. I mean, odds are all of these people die. The list of who makes it out is much shorter than who dies ultimately, for sure. So on the queen front, I guess like we could see that they took the eggs from the queen at the location where all of this was and then left, got away.

Somehow we know they lost a lot of members of the crew. Yeah. That's a lot of people, though. If you don't have a flamethrower, that's tough work. Yeah. The queen could be in the mix still. Could be. You could have a new queen?

Hmm. I mean, democracy failed. We're ready for the monarchy. Going to be tough for Wendy and Curley because they're both like, I'm the queen. I'm special. It's true. Anything else. We ended up jumping around a little bit.

Did we miss anything? Anything we didn't hit that you want to hit any scenes, any moments, any ideas? Honestly, I think we were pretty. comprehensive. I think we got it all. I think we got it all. I think, again, the most exciting episode so far. Really good. In terms of the execution, in terms of the tone, terms of the ideas that it's presenting. I'm just so fully on board for the vast majority of what the show is doing right now. We only have four left. But think about how much ground we've covered in four. It's been a lot. It's exciting. It is exciting. We have four left. Yes. There you go. You just gave me an old little

flavor strip. There's so much left to do. I went from it tastes like motor oil to a taste like chocolate ice cream in just a second there, man. We needed to think about that line of code differently. Okay, we did it. We did. Thank you to Rob Mahoney. Thank you, Mel. What a joy to be here with you in Los Angeles, my goodness.

Thank you to our little family here, our crew aboard the Maginot. Hopefully it'll go better for us. Dibs on the crash pod in the floor, please. I'm going to hang out. You guys can stay in the pods with the facehuckers. Oh, man. Carlos Chiroboga. John Richter.

John Jones John Jones first time here at the House of the R. Usually the watch gets to hoard John. Today, here he is with us. We're a treat. We only creaked the table 9,000 times.

I wonder if Chris Vandy ever make that mistake. Probably not. They're so disciplined. And still, and of course, Arjuna Ram Gapal and join me a dinner on. Rob, enjoy your colonic. Thank you, Mel. It means a lot coming from you. All. Pay off your home, travel for life, drive a Ferrari. In celebration of the world premiere of the Monopoly Big Board Buckslot Machine by Aristocrat Gaming, Yamava Resort and Casino and San Manuel is giving one person a $1.6 million dream package. The biggest prize in Yamava's history. Club Serrano members can earn daily instant

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