House of R - 'Moon Knight' Episode 4 Deep Dive

Episode Date: April 22, 2022

Mal and Joanna return to talk about the winding fourth episode of 'Moon Knight' and dive deep into the lore of this Egyptian mystery (04:54)! They uncover the new motivations of Mark and Steven along with what a trip to a creepy mental hospital might mean. They also take a trip to egyptology corner (76:49), uncover their favorite Easter eggs, and answer your mailbag questions (92:53). Hosts: Mallory Rubin and Joanna Robinson Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Social: Jomi Adeniran Additional Production: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Okay. First. Yeah. Great. Before I belay. Thank you. What's belay? I still can't tell when you're joking or not.

Oh, sh- And welcome into the Ringerverse here on the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Mallory Rubin. It is my absolute pleasure to invite you not only to this screening of Tombbuster, but also to join us on the Ringers' Nexus podcast feed for all things fandom. joining me today. Now that she's finished telling me, she has to say,

she feels like she's been waiting for this her whole life. The adventure she means. It's my house of our Joanna Robinson. Mallory Rubin, how much of this episode? Did you watch from behind your hands? Because you don't like horror. I was, I was, I was, I was, I was,

scared more than once. I'm not too proud to admit. I was a little spooked. Joe, we have so much to talk about today. It's so wonderful to be back with you again. I've missed you. I've missed the whole gang here. But before we descended to the tomb, a few quick programming reminders, as always, the midnight boys. We'll be back on Wednesday with their instant reaction to the highly anticipated episode five. The instant reactions have just been phenomenal. all season long this past Wednesdays was such a joy to listen to, so fun. Also, if you have not heard Dan and Charles on their ringerverse takeover of the rewatchables breaking down Spider-Man, please go give that a listen. It was a tremendous episode. We will, of course, be back next Friday

for our episode five, deep dive. Joe, how can you follow that? Oh my gosh. We are all over the socials. You can follow us on Instagram. Follow us on Twitter. You can join the Facebook group and say maybe mean things about us. And then you can join the Reddit and say nice things about us. You can do whatever you want. But Jomey will be there. Trust our social media master.

So just hang out. It's a cool vibe all over the place. Halo made his TikTok debut this week on the Ring of Roast TikTok. I forgot about the TikTok. Oh, my God. Halo is an instant TikTok star. Instantly shot to the top of our most watch. TikToks, just Halo wild and out doing some

Moonnight jokes. Great stuff. You know, he has the instincts of a star. I had Adam standing by to wiggle a finger to get Halo to look up, but a bird flew by and he did it all on his own. Just knew. Knew what we needed. Here's my favorite thing about stage mom Mallory. I've heard that story, I think,

three times down. I'm pretty proud. Pretty proud of my guy. Yeah, so if you want to tune in for more adventures of Halo, the Wonder Cat follow us on TikTok I Ring reverse. And of course final reminder

before we dive in. Bear in mind our friendly neighborhood spoiler warning today and always today's podcast will feature plot points from the most recent episode of Moonnight episode four of the tomb. So proceed with caution. Proceed with as much caution as Layla

would when navigating a minds of Moria-esque cavern with flares at the ready. She was prepared. They call it to mine. Mine. Oh, boy. I love that impression.

It's wonderful. Great stuff. Joe, what an episode. Have you never heard my Gimley impression? No, I haven't. It's one of my favorites. I love it. What an episode?

For me, best by far. Best by Leaps and Mounds. And I've been enjoying the series, but I loved this episode. A big, big fan of the, of the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, Mummy horror stuff worked for me. The clicking and the soft focus and all that sort of stuff like that. But then, of course, the twist at the end, which we're going to talk about at length. But that really, I think, brings the show to a new level of appreciation for me.

How about you, Mallory? Genuinely just pulled a neck and upper back muscle shuddering when you mentioned the clicking. This was also my favorite episode of the scene. season by a considerable margin. Last episode, I did not get to chat with you about episode three, but I will just state for the record that it was my least favorite of the season by a considerable margin. And this is my favorite. I have also enjoyed the season overall. I thought that this episode was fantastic in so many different respects. Another 53-minute installment. So we've got about 46 plus minutes of content before we get to those end credits directed by Justin Benson and

Aaron Moorhead, they will be directing Loki season two. I can't wait to see what they do with Loki, which is obviously a very different story, but lends itself to a lot of examinations of that nature. You mentioned the horror. It was a scary episode. We got some of the horror at last. And I was spooked, Joe, I was, but not prohibitively so. I think something about just knowing that this was an MCU episode prevented me from ever

getting too deeply unsettled, though Adam pausing and saying, doesn't this remind you of the dissent, which is one of the least enjoyable viewing experiences of my entire life as a person who absolutely cannot handle horror movies and was deeply traumatized by watching the dissent? That didn't help. I love the dissent, and I wanted to talk about it because, like, it's, so the dissent for people who haven't seen it, is a fantastic Neil Marshall film about a group of female friends, quote-unquote friends, who go splunking and encounter, spoiler alert for the dissent.

Fast word if you don't want to know. There's bad people, bad people eating people in the cavern. Really great, fantastic, claustrophobic film. And I think not only the clicking mummies and the soft focus of the clicking mummies, you know what I mean? Like we see them the heck of priest we see in soft focus in the background of most of the shots where it appears, which I think is a really effective. like don't show us the full monster, like, show us, like, the mask face up through the cracks in the floorboard and stuff like that, you know, like all of that.

But also, Layla's use of flares throughout this episode. That's very the dissent as well. So that's, I mean, that's a movie that I love that also has an ending that is, is, you think you're in one reality and you're not, again, sorry, spoilers for the dissent. But go watch it. It's so good. Scary. Mallory just doesn't like horror. I don't.

The dissent is. a classic. And we moved across genres inside of this episode. That horror stretch, that horror-laden stretch was in the middle of the episode. We had a overt Indiana Jones

Tomb Raiding, quest adventure, stretch and sequence throughout this episode that we then, of course, examine in a completely different way when we are ported into the VHS of Tombbuster

after Harrow shoots Mark. Mark falls into what initially appears to be a couple inches of water. We get one of the now signature, vintage moon night swirls of perspective where someone goes from upside down to right side up or right side up to upside down.

The bullet wounds and the blood that were expanding across Mark's chest vanish and we are ported into the VHS film and then out of it into the screen of the hospital. A seismic shift at the end of this episode. Joe, we have so much to break down. We'll be talking about this. here at the top throughout the entire episode.

What is your read on how this episode concluded and what happened here? I loved it. I mean, first of all, I think we have to wonder if this is why journalists were given four episodes, which we've already talked about was like an unusually large amount.

And if maybe they wanted to say like, listen, we're going to do this. Like, I don't want you to just think it's going to be a straight Oscar-Ira-Iraising adventure. We're going to do this interesting twist. You and I have been talking about the, Lemur Greenwood book throughout the Moonnight book run. And I think that I have an appetite for, I could have had the whole season be this. And I would have been thrilled to move in and out

of this space. I loved the FX series Legion for at least two seasons. It ran longer than that, but for at least two seasons, I loved that show, which follows David Holler, who has mental health issues and you're in this like fantastical he's in a mental health institute in the first season you don't know what's real what's not there's strong legion vibes going on here um but i loved it and something that we know is that oscar isaac has said that fagy in order to get him on board gave him the script for episode one episode five so i think five is just going to be like pure balls of the wall uh what is happening here uh i have i have my story strong, strong theories. How did you react, Miller?

I loved it. I thought it was sensational. And I agree, both as a fan of the Lemire run and as someone who just really enjoyed the final 10 minutes of this episode, I would have been delighted for this to be like our entry point into the story. But I think ultimately is effective to establish this adventure-laden palette for the show. And then heavily shift our expectations for what we might be getting the rest of the way. I wish we had a little more time to spend in this version of the show, because of course, we only have two episodes left now. And I think we'll talk more today about the idea of the dual episode groupings that give

us these maybe three slivers, three aspects of the show. So while I wish we had more time in this framework of the show, and I did not, I'm not like missing Moon Knight or Mr. Knight, even though. though I enjoyed spending time with them. I didn't miss the the fighting and that version of like the Marvel CGI action because I think that this is so interesting in the psychological introspective examination and nature of the character study is I think so rich, so rich to explore. I do think though taking this long to get there ultimately like made it land quite impactfully.

And I just hope that we have to and think we will have to action, packed, jam-packed, incredibly intriguing and thought-provoking hours of TV ahead of us. I'm so interested to see how much of this ends up feeling self-contained because there were so much discussion heading into Moon Night about the freedom that came from not having these ties to existing Marvel canon, to existing MCU canon. But will that be the case coming out of it? And like that question, I think as we talk today about what, how we are processing and theorizing about what we think is quote unquote real, or how we should even be thinking about the nature of that question

inside of this show and for these characters, there is a little bit of an element of, okay, it was self-contained heading in, but will it really be self-contained heading out of it? Like MCU cynicism, and I say that as like a giant MCU fan that I can't quite shake when I'm trying to land in a certain theory camp personally. But we'll get to all that.

I wanted to ask me because I didn't get a chance to talk to you about it last week, like what he, or even on the, uh, the Thor trailer breakdown. So I'm dying to know, like, since we've been talking about Christian Bale's character Gore, the God Butcher in, in Thor, um, Love and Thunder. And since we're, we've met the Egyptian pantheon, or at least their avatars in this, uh, show, is there any universe? The Midnight Boys are out on this theory, but is there any universe in which Christian Bale shows up at the end of this season? Is this Mephisto or is this Kang? What are we chasing?

Jomey just wanted you to know we got our Bifisto mentioned in in the first 30 minutes today. That was for you, bud. I'd do what I can. Gore the God Butcher is a personal fave

and that Jisneran Thor run is one of my favorite comic runs, period. So I would be delighted to see Gore enter in any capacity at any point. Obviously can't wait for

for Gore in love and thunder. I could see it I did wonder as we waited for the trailer if that might be part of the reason why we were waiting. Obviously, that no longer feels like the reason. Though we didn't see Gore in the trailer. We didn't see Gore in the trailer. So it still could be that the next trailer that we get

connects to something that comes in the end of these couple episodes. But yeah, I guess the reason I mentioned that connection possibility. And like I kept thinking too, as we were making our way deeper into the tomb toward the sarcophagus and got the ultimate. Alexander the great reveal. I was just like, will that be, will that be Rabatut? Are we going to get Kang?

Like, is this going to be Kang? And I just couldn't shake that watching the episode. And so I am so excited to talk to you today and talk with you today about the various potential interpretations of what we saw here and what it means. I will tease. I will foreshadow. A foreshadowing has been a big part of this episode and the big part of the season of Moon Night. that I can't quite bring myself to say nothing we saw leading up to that point is real.

In part, for various reasons. That's not the camp I fall down in for various reasons. One of them is, I think that people making MCU stories want to be able to include these characters in other properties moving forward. That's why people are like, oh, Mark's going to die, or he and Conshu are going to be split forever. And I'm like, no, they want Oscar Isaac again, as we've mentioned again and again and again, only signed up for six episodes of television. He just wants that option. If this all crashes and burns, he's just going to be like, well, I did that by, like, he's been through apocalypse. He knows when to walk away, right?

And, but Marvel wants to have a moon night. They want not just a moon night, but like a, you know, a conshoot. So thinking about that, thinking about pitching the character forward. I think is a useful way to think about it. You mentioned the three sections of the season, and I just want to shout out really quickly, this great breakdown of the opening credits, which have been changing subtly as the season goes on.

I saw this at Vin Wright's words on Twitter had this post where they aligned the shots. And what you see is like, in the first two episodes, you see a shot of London, it's like a cityscape, and you see the Cairo Tower, which is this beautiful tower with the spire, spire, inverted. And then they flip places and you see the skyline of Cairo and then it's Big Ben that's inverted. And so that I think underlines this idea we had that maybe it was like the London episodes or two episodes and then the Cairo episodes are two episodes. And now where I'm so curious to see what the episode five credits look like. Because if we are in like some sort of underworld space or whatever you want to call this and we're going to talk about all those like options, how is that going to be depicted in the opening credits?

And the other thing that that side by side of the opening credits tracked and another person pointed out that this has been happening in the episodes as well is that you start in the episode one titles with a sliver of a crescent moon and the moon is steadily waxing in the open. credit images and also in the show as Mark cinematically jumps in front of the moon or we get various shots of the moon, it is slowly waxing leading up to probably, because we've seen shots from the trailer, probably like a full moon finale showdown, which is exciting. I love that for so many reasons, not only thinking about the passage of time, the nature of cycles, this idea of something that is always there, but we cannot always see in full and what is necessary in order to work toward that moment of full clarity and full

visibility seeing the whole picture clearly. But also just thematically, if you think about what a full moon can often symbolize inside of stories, I love the idea of challenging that notion and coming at it from the other way, where Mark and Stephen and we assume Jake, the third personality, shaking inside of the sarcophagus. guess we'll talk about Jake a few times today, I think. Moving toward a sense of cohesive self, moving toward a whole version of who he is. And I really, I really love that. I think that's great.

Yeah, the idea that we just, we start with a sliver and we're working our way towards a whole. Yeah, I love it. Exactly. Exactly. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, reliable internet means everything for your business. And even this podcast, that's why I trust Spectrum Business.

They keep companies of all sizes connected with internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, mobile services, plus 24-7 U.S.-based support. Millions of business owners already trust Spectrum business. So visit Spectrum.com slash business to learn more. Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas. Before we dive into everything in a little more detail, speaking of things we can or cannot see. Did you want to talk for a minute about the

feedback on how dark the episode is? We got a bunch of tweets about that. Was that something you wanted to hit on? We got so many tweets about this and I did not have this problem at all, but let me tell you about my experience with the infamous Game of Thrones episode centered on the Battle of Winterfell. This is like a long discussion we had about that. And at the time, I was doing a Thrones podcast with my pals, Dave Gonzalez and Neil Miller. You could hear us on trial by content on the ringer network. And Neil, Mr. One Perfect Shot Twitter account, Neil Miller, got on his soapbox and was like, all of your settings on your television is wrong. And like, he instructed all of us on how to change our settings on our TV to be able to see that episode. And true facts, I rewatch the episode and was able to see everything crystal clear. We call those the Neil settings. And so maybe it's because my TV is on the Neil settings. I had no problem with this episode, but a lot of people did.

And, you know, a lot of people like watch this stuff on their phone or watch this stuff, you know, wherever they can. So I don't know, Mallory, did you have any trouble seeing in this episode? Not really, no. So similarly, like on the big screen, on the big TV, thought it was fine. I am now flashing back to watching the long night for the first time at the Ringer offices, is preparing to go do Talk the Thrones Live. And that TV was not on the proper settings and I could not see a fucking thing.

And I was like, someone tell me, does anyone just like so worried about getting that wrong on Talk the Thrones Live? The anxiety is washing back over me right now. Let it go. We are months out of New Thrones. Just let it just like,

come back to me. Deep. Deep breath. Deep breath. Boy. That really took me back, Joe. Our throne PTSD is real. Like, it is real.

The amount of stress I felt every Sunday night. Jesus. Anyway. Boy. We don't have to deal with that right now. Check back in on the ring of verse later this August. For our house of the dragon coverage, we cannot wait. No, sincerely, we cannot wait.

No, I'm so, like, we talked about this. I'm so excited that I get to do Thrones and be over the moon. Yeah. over the moon is not something I intended to say. Anyway, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, I guess a lot of people had trouble watching this episode. And thankfully, like, the best of, I think, which is the last 10 minutes, is in bright white atmosphere. Positively, like, severed floor at Lumen-esque in terms of the brightness.

Someone I know was asking me, like, did they just lift the set from Legion? And I was like, I don't remember Legion being this blindingly white. And then I looked at shots of the mental health facility in Legion. And it is like a much softer like ecru, soft light, golden glow sort of all white facility. This is like, you know, eye squintingly. Apple. Steve Jobsian white. Yeah, exactly.

Take us into it, Joe. Take us through the hospital sequence. Let's go beat by beat here. And as soon as we got there, I mean, not just having read the book, which I really, you know, we've talked about it a lot. I really, really cannot like recommend it strongly enough when the directors of the episode will be talking about some of the interviews they gave, but they were doing the like interview circuit this week. And, you know, we really cannot understate how much that book influenced this show. And it's a really interesting new world for Marvel, I would say, because, and maybe this has to do with Kevin Feigy taking. more control of the company because the comic world and the film world used to be

surprisingly separate in terms of the way the company was structured and that's no longer the case. And so we're seeing more and more, this isn't the question you asked me, but I want to say anyway, we've been seeing more and more of like more literal pickups from comic books. So we talked about this a lot with the fraction run and the Hawkeye show. Obviously, in our breakdown of the Thor trailer, we're like everyone was talking about this one panel that was like lifted directly from the Thor comic and put in the trailer and into the film. And so the way in which the Lemur run is really, really influenced this show.

Again, can't be understated. But for me, I have just been in the genre television trenches for too long. And I was like, oh, I know, I know exactly what we're doing here, right? Because this is, this is a, I don't remember what to say common, but it's a known film TV trope, this idea of putting like a, especially in a genre setting, putting our hero in a situation where they are forced to question the nature of their reality. The first comp that comes to my mind, a lot of people's mind, is this Buffy Vampire Slayer Season 6 episode Normal Again, where it cuts back and forth between Buffy fighting like an adventure in Sunnydale as a vampire slayer and being in a,

mental health facility and being told that all of this is a delusion that she has created in her head and she just needs to admit that and she can be normal again. That's in the title. And the delusion trope really plays into, especially like someone like Mark and Stephen who are grappling with not only terrifying, clicking zombie mummies, but their own sort of mental health stressors, right? This idea, if you just admit that this is true, that this is all inside your head, you can be normal again or you can feel fine again for whatever normal is. It's usually a test of some kind. There's usually some sort of external demonic force. So let me run through some of the other comp. So like Buffy the Vampire Slayer normal again. Of course, by the end of the episode,

well, two things. Number one, Jocelyn has said that the end of the, that episode is supposed to be ambiguous, so it's possible that you could make an argument that all of Buffy Vampire Slayer took place inside Buffy Summer's Head. Okay. But in the context of the episode, we see that this is like a delusion that a demon is created to sort of try to sap the slayer of her strength and make her give up. Hey, have you heard of the TV series lost, Mallory Rueh? We have to. So much lost in this episode of Midnight. It was. palpable in the present.

There's a great episode called Dave that centers on the character of Hurley, where Hurley is on the island and seeing this sort of imaginary friend that he created

when he was in this mental health institution, Santa Rosa, back in L.A. And this guy, Dave, is like, are you kidding? You really think you're on an island?

Like, you really think that there are polar bears and smoke monsters? Nobody. You're still in the hospital. Come on. Jump off this cliff with me. And you'll be fine.

this whole, like, you know, except that this is not really happening to you. It's a couple of other... I thought about Dave, too, just in terms of, like, Libby and, like, seeing the characters in more than one setting and how that, on the one hand, crystallizes something. And on the other hand, on Moorze, you both as a viewer and a character. Yeah. Dave. Community has a great...

It's like a clip episode called Curriculum Unavailable when Abed is, like, in a mental health institution or in a therapy session sort of thing. Smallville has an episode called Labyrinth, Supernatural has an episode called What Is and What Should Never Be. Ms. Roa has an episode title that I'm not going to be able to say out loud, but it's like the sitcom episode where they're like bouncing around sitcom settings. And then if you think about movie comps like return to Oz where they like try to convince Dorothy that all of her Oz trip was, you know, inside of her head, I think about the movie identity. Not a great movie, but a movie I think about a lot. Or even like Labyrinth where, you know, Sarah travels to this one. and there's a goblin king.

But there's this, there's this sequence in the middle of labyrinth where she's taken, she just wants to leave. She just wants to be a normal teen again. She doesn't care about her baby brother, et cetera.

Spoilers for labyrinth. And this goblin woman comes and like, puts her into a room that looks like her room. And she's like, you're home again. And she's like, oh, I'm home.

And then she realizes that's just a trap to keep her off the set. So this idea of like trying to distract or trap or whatever, your hero. I think is what we're dealing with here. It's usually, as I said, a test that you pass by holding on to what is real, to holding on, again, to who you actually are in the face of a bunch of people telling you're not who you are. All of this, of course, is complicated by the fact that Mark has DID and also appears to be dying if not dead.

So all of that is in the mix here. But I think this idea that is this a sort of like purgatory? holding room for Mark as he's dying. Is this some version of the Egyptian underworld we can talk about? But no matter what, I have to believe that something is going on here that Harrow and Omit are involved in trapping Mark Kieran trying to convince him that he's not a super hero. What do you think? I am and I agree.

That is also how I feel. I think it would be fun to run through some of the alternate interpretations. but that is the camp I am currently in as well, though I will say I am totally open-minded about where this could go in a way that's already fun. And I think they've positioned it to ultimately move forward with really any number of scenarios and interpretations and have them land.

You know, I think back to that moment earlier in the season where Harrow said to Stephen, I'm curious, do you think that Contchu chose you as his avatar because your mind would be so easy to break or because it was broken already? And Stephen responds, no, I'm not broken, just need some help maybe. And how crucial both parts of that exchange feel right now as we think about what we saw and what it might mean moving forward. Because I think that really supports. And I should say, we have a lot of lines and comments and moments with Harrow about his own. Arthur Harrow and this new Dr. Harrow about his own struggles, his own history, what he went through, how Conchu looked to weaponize his own circumstances against him, right?

Your torment forged me, the ending of the prior episode. But when we think about Harrow's role inside of the story and what the parallel of Harrow, having previously been an avatar, might be leading toward or why that would be relevant. and there are numerous reasons, I think that that understanding of how a God or any other being could look to take something about you and turn it against you and warp it and try to make you feel insecure and full of shame and small and how a big part of what Mark and Stephen

and any other personality will need to work through and have been working through, and there's a huge, huge movement forward inside of this episode where they embrace each other. embracing a full sense of self is to reject the idea that you need to be ashamed of something about you that other people would seek to make you feel that way about, right? And in the Lemur run, if we think about, again, like even these more overt and direct comic adaptations from the recent history, as you noted, like even within that, there are plenty of tweaks and updates always

for comic to MCU canon. Like that happens all the time. But, you know, just knowing that inside of the Lemire Room, which is clearly so foundational here, Dr. Emmett, you know, Amit, is this figure and everything, we've, we've talked about it already in earlier episodes, but everything that ultimately is revealed about Conchu and Conchus role, again, and putting Mark into this position of doubt, it's almost like inside of that comic, which I think we'll probably be returning to many times in the next couple episodes, and inside of the show, it feels to me less even about what the actual answer to the what is real and what is not real question is, and ultimately about interrogating why that matters and what it means for us as viewers and for Mark and Stephen and everybody

inside of the show to be asking that question. So when Dr. Harrow says to Mark here, like, I know that you're having a great deal of difficulty being able to differentiate between what's real and what's in your head. And we just think about the way the show is marketed with that recurring line across all of the trailers with Stephen saying, I can't tell the difference between my way. waking life and dreams. Like, I, I, you can't do it without doing the accent. I can't do it. He can't tell the difference and I can't do the accent.

Joanna. I can't. But I think that whether this is, I think this is in Stephen's mind, but how exactly this is in Stephen's mind, whether it is purely, purely inside of, and I'm using kind of Stephen and Mark interchangeably here. Mark, whether this is all been in Mark's mind, whether this is now. in Mark's mind as a delusion, as a test, somebody else putting him through this experience, whether this was caused by some sort of magic from Harrow or Ahmed inside of the tomb, falling into

the water. I think there's some interesting stuff to parse about what we've learned so far about the connection between the gods and the physical spaces around them. Like, it is real for him. It is the experience that he is living through and processing and trying to better understand. And so, like, one of the key moments of the episode, I think, was, was, was, Dr. Harrow is saying to Mark, Mark, we don't live in a material world. We live in a psychic world. We're only able to make indirect inferences about the nature of reality. Like take, for example, this pen. To me,

this is a writing utensil, right? To my dog, it's a chew toy. Both are accurate. It's just a question of context and perspective. And that's like what you were saying before, right? You have to be able to embrace that interpretation before you can move forward in any way. You have to be able to accept, that perception and perspective define reality in order to then really grapple with what that reality is or how it impacts everything that we're seeing. There's a version of this story where this is just simply Mark and Stephen and perhaps Jake, if you ever gets out of that sarcophagus, like processing their own fractured identity or coming together. But this idea that it is something that Harrow and Ahmed are pulling the strings on, like what that forces you to ask is, why? I mean, like, Mark seems dead. He said, shot the chest twice. So why would they be messing with Mark and Stephen inside his head this way? And there's a couple, there's a couple ideas here. We know that Harrow got this sort of like supernatural glimpse inside of Mark's head when he did, when he, and Stephen's head, if you prefer, in the first episode when he sort of did the scale thing, the old scale trick. And he says there's chaos inside of you. right? And I think that informs what Harrow knows about what happened with Layla's dad,

that there's another possible interpretation of that as well. But what it means is that he would have all the information he would need to mess with Mark in a very specific to his own life and memory kind of way. But what would they want from that? Is it just to keep him out of the picture. Maybe my preferred interpretation, this is a theory I've seen floating around all different kinds of places, is that they still need something from Mark slash Stephen in order to unlock and fully awaken Amit. And this idea that perhaps because Kanshu has also been inside of Mark's head for so long. And we got that quote, that melancholy quote from Kanshu in the last episode where he says, I remember that night, I remember every night, that night being the night that

Amit was trapped. So Conchu has inside of him some knowledge, I would guess, of how to free Amit. And since Conchu has been trapped in Noshapti and can't give up that knowledge, perhaps it's residual in Mark's head. And this whole thing is a trick and a trap to get him to give up that information somehow so that he can unleash and waken Amit. And I think he's going to get, like, I think he will give up that information and that Amit will be woken. and then the finale is going to be dealing, you know. I think there will be successes in failures in this dream space. Failures in terms of giving up information that he, to Harrow and Amit that they need.

But success in terms of what exactly you're talking about, that full embrace of all the selves, making him powerful enough, you know, grapple with Amit in the finale, giving him that stronger together thing that he needs at the end of the day. Interesting. I think that's really smart to interrogate the why or what Ahmed slash Harrow would be seeking to achieve here. And I think like if you look at that from the other side, which is, again, this is clearly we've established now, not the camp that either of us fall into, but this is certainly a line of thinking out there, right, that the nothing we saw before this point is real. Right. Not how we feel about it, but if we think about that for a second and you start to think about the evidence that you could use to support that or what we could point to to support that. And I think there's a lot that you could point to to refute it. But in terms of what supports it, I was thinking back a lot to the staying awake sequence in the first episode, which we talked about a lot at the time. Yeah, Barbus Cues. They're sexy. You know. Yes.

And the Rubik's Cube, one of the many people, objects, ideas that we see in the hospital setting and we'll run through more of them as we go. But one of the lines

that stood out to us at the time as potential foreshadowing and I think it's hard to shake here is when we hear the voice from the staying awake app

say, imagine being in the story you're reading. Is there an exciting chapter you'd like to be a part of? And then we cut right to

Stephen looking at the Ennead chapter of the book that he's reading. So that's compelling. You know, Layla in the hospital sequence here when Layla emerges and talking about the winning bingo card, one of the first things that Layla says is that she changed the movie, changed the movie, talking about Toombuster. In the Lemire run, Stephen is a film producer, right? And this idea of crafting a story. where fiction allows you to parse reality in your own circumstances, like a very present idea there. But also, like you said, the Rubik's Cube, just this idea of solving a puzzle.

That's the other thing, right? Let's start with trying to solve a puzzle. Solving puzzles is a great way to keep your mind awake. So like, why the Rubik's Cube? Why the emphasis? Something that is like scrambled, right, disconnected, and then you need to try to align. And only when the pieces are together,

unified as they should be, does the whole come into focus? I think that's compelling in any number of interpretations here, honestly. But the thing that I was like, that hadn't really stood out to me as much the first time that I found more notable rewatching that scene was, just remember you'll need about five hours to keep your natural self. This idea of the natural self, like basically the length of the season of TV and where we will get at that endpoint, that full moon moment that you noted.

I think that's so interesting. And like, I'm curious, Joe, what do you think about one of the other interpretations that's out there, which is that Mark is entering this afterlife you noted? Sure seems like he is dying or dead. Yeah. But we also get a mention of the fact that that had happened before that he had been shot. This is something we've talked about a lot this season, right? So is it possible? Our pal, Eric Voss, floated this week, the idea that, like, what if he's been making his way through the field of the field of reads the entire season?

and that this entire thing has been the afterlife. Or, of course, you could say, what if he had been resurrected before and is going through some sort of resurrection now? This gets into a lot of the symbolism of protection and rebirth across various gods and elements of this episode. What do you think about any sort of afterlife

or underworld interpretation? Yeah. Like, I think it's so smart that all of this is happening. And then there's also, we've been leading up to this idea of the Egyptian underworld. And you and I've talked about this before, especially with Amit, the idea that the underworld for the Egyptians is also a trial of selves, of self, and putting yourself, weighing your heart

against a feather. This whole thing that Amit is explicitly involved in in the nature of the Egyptian underworld. So this idea that he's undergoing a test, a trial of his true self, you know, absolutely reads. And I think the foreshadowing has just been here all along. And I think what's possible is we'll walk out of this with the possibility of multiple interpretations. Though, as you say, going forward in the MCU, if we want Moon Night around, then like the conclusion we'll probably come to is that, you know, the real world was out here with Ethan Hawk and Cairo. And this is just some sort of way station. But, you know, and I'll bring it up, you know, so you don't have to. But like, you know, the, you know, the. the famous scene in Harry Potter. Oh, my favorite line. You know, where Dumbledore says, of course, is happening inside your head, Harry, but why in Earth should that mean that is not real?

My favorite line. That's so huge. And this idea, I love my favorite theory that I've seen going around that I love, is that they're on some kind of boat here. And there's a couple things. One, you get the swinging lights that is very inception, right, when you see the lights swinging in the hallway feel like it's moving back and forth. In the Egyptian underworld, you know, much like sort of in the Greek pantheon with the river

sticks, like you, the pharaohs would take a boat to the underworld. And in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, director Aaron Morehead said, we've talked about this scene, meaning everything that happens in the institute, feeling like it's underwater or not just because he's been sedated, but because the entire audience has just been subjected to an entire worldview shift of what the show is. Why is there a weird Indiana Jones knockoff movie right in the middle of Moon Night?

And then his co-director, Justin Benson, pointed out that in the Lemire comic, at one point, he's like somewhere, and he opens a door, and he finds out he's on an airplane and he jumps out of the airplane. And so he says, there's one sequence of particular where our hero has been trying to escape

from mental health facility. He finally gets out, he jumps out, but it turns out he was on an airplane and he's free falling. So I like this idea of combining that with this Egyptian. And there's a mural in the tomb in Alexander the Great's tomb of the Hecca Priest's on a golden bark, on a golden boat. And then we've seen in the trailer. And again, we said before, the trailer footage is, there's not much left that we haven't seen in the show.

But there's an incredible stunning shot of a boat, of a big mystical-looking boat on the sand dune. So Boat and Gus's tank, too, right? Yeah, very good. Like, it's, it brings in a lot of that underworld stuff into this other fantastic TV trope that I, that I've always enjoyed. So, yeah, I'm a big fan of this. I love it. Yeah, I, you know, I have spoken at length over many prior ringer pods about why that quote from Deathly Hallows is, like, legitimately one of my one of my favorites of all time. And so much of that is because I think it speaks

to like the power of stories, right? And how a story that feels real to you and that you fall into can become such a meaningful part of your life. One of the other important ways to think about an idea like that, of course, is considering the perspective, as we've been outlining, of a given person and what feels real to them and what is real to them. So like when you think about again, this question of is what we're seeing here real, well, are our mark and, and Stephen. Mark in his white, Stephen in his darker gray, after Mark, here's a rumbling inside one of the, inside of sarcophagus says he's making his way through the hospital. One of the many mazes and many kind of parallel images. We have the eye of Horace and the maze inside of the

tomb. We have now this hospital-like maze. We've had the museum-like maze. In the end credits, which you broke down already, so much of the end credit, intrigue earlier, but you have like the cut image from the hospital hallway to the storage locker hallway, for example, right? All of these like parallel mapping, mapping, mappings. And Charles made some great points on the Midnight Boys about the corollaries between the eye of Horace map and the map inside of Mark's mind. So, like, literally, of course, what we are seeing there is not happening, right? Mark and Stephen are not two separate bodies.

They are not two separate beings. but when, but that's not relevant, right? It is like not germane because the thing that matters when we see that sequence is thinking about what that means for their journey and the moment of magnitude of that embrace for parts of a self who have spent the entire season to date not trusting each other, right? Including inside of this very episode, all of the back and forth with Layla and about Layla and Stephen just saying to Mark, I thought you were out, man.

I thought you were gone. Like, I thought it was my time now, right? That they were, they were barriers and blockers for each other. And now the only way to move forward is to embrace each other quite literally, but also, of course, figuratively and find that cohesive trust

and ability to move forward. So, like, when you think about the death possibility, I'm more compelled by the, whatever the answer there is, by the idea of rebirth. right and what comes next and mark falling into that water is like you know we talk a lot of whether it's lost or any other story right about this like this healing water and maybe there is something don't don't bring up the temple water let's talk about the temple water you want to do it

i don't want to do it good old temple water what a nightmare but maybe it's more symbolic like falling almost into this water is like a like a womb, right? And if you think about the number of mentions of death, not only across the season, and we've talked a lot about the exchange between Stephen and the young girl at the museum about the, I'm not dead, am I right? But just inside of this episode,

like we had Mark mentioning how Stephen should be nervous because there's no more country, which means no more suit, which means no more healing, right? We get a reminder of the absence of healing. Lela talking about her father and saying it was a dream worth dying for and he did then saying

it's not such a bad way to go is it let's find out then we get Stephen when he's up in the in the loft talking about self-regeneration right? Yes. The snake skin of regeneration.

Absolutely. Yeah. Like but also I think that also ties into because Mark in talking to Stephen about control the body and also the Layla stuff. He says, one thing he says is, I wish I could just disappear, really, I do. Which is like a suicidal kind of thought.

And then he also says to Stephen, you know, if you kiss her, like if you try to get together with Layla, I will throw both of us off a cliff. And he also says, what are you going to do try to drown us now? And then that's what Stephen says. And Mark says, yeah, I should. Yeah. So they'll discuss self-harm more than once, yeah. Exactly.

So it's not just, you know, van beautifully and hilariously and, rightfully pointed out that that whole like, I'll throw us off a cliff is a real insal move from Mark. But it's also speaks to an intensive self-loathing that he has. Then that feeds just right back into making him vulnerable to someone saying, wouldn't it be easier if you were just a mental patient? And this is just, wouldn't that, wouldn't that be, why don't you do that, you know, like, because he just wants to leave his existence. Right. Right. Yeah. And I know one of the things you want to hit on a little bit later, is some of the theories about flashbacks

and what we might learn about Mark's past and the episodes to come. But we've talked about this idea of a key incident and the origin of Mark's trauma. And I think that one of the things that is worth all of us keeping in mind is that there's not just one moment of trauma

in a person's life. And for Mark, who knows what we will learn about Mark's childhood inside of this show. But I think we can safely say that what is happening now, for Mark and Stephen is a source of trauma that could be leading to a change. And also that what happened with Layla's father

is clearly a source of trauma. And so when you think, when you're talking, like I think of that when you're talking about that guilt and that shame, because one of the things that Leila, that Mark says to Layla is, and we'll theorize later about who the partner might be,

but in terms of Mark, he says, he shot me too. I was supposed to die that night, but I didn't die that night and I should have. So not only the connection between one moment of a near death, what should have been a death, and what we're seeing now, which maybe also should be a death and won't be, and foreshadowing this additional rebirth for Mark, but that survivor's guilt that not only does Mark feel culpable in part for what happened to Layla's father, he doesn't feel worthy because of his connection to this of moving forward. I think also in all this like TV trope, underworld, et cetera, et cetera, stuff that we're talking about. We've talked throughout about whether or not this depiction of DID is exactly, you know, representative. But like this idea of a trauma, a good old-fashioned trauma response to being shot in the chest, you know, and just like break with reality.

Like that's, that's another thing that we're looking at here. The barriers between identities like crumbling and this flashback to having been shot before. That's PTSD at play here. The idea of one inciting traumatic incident is I've been told by no, like, because people beautifully have been responding to my request to know more about DID. And I have heard from a couple people that, like, usually there is a major inciting traumatic incident in your childhood. But as you say, that doesn't mean that the trauma ends there.

It can be ongoing. But, like, you know, will we find out there is one in the comics, whether or not they're going to do that? We don't know. But yeah, I'm really excited to find out where this leads. I hope that episode five is, I mean, episode five is absolutely, you know, wild. That's my hope for it. Me too.

You know, on the sense of self-front, what I was really struck by, it was small, but it really hit was when Mark is asking Stephen what the last thing he remembers was. And Stephen says Harrow shot us and just like using the word us to reflect that they're one. I just thought it was so lovely and important and meaningful. And, you know, there's this idea across the episode. Harrow says it about Mark as he's falling into the water. I can't save anyone who won't save themselves. But then Dr. Harrow says it to Mark in the hospital sequence of just a slightly tweaked way. I can't help you if you don't help yourself.

Mark and Stephen embracing that. And it's in such stark contrast to like Layla, someone who knows him well. I can't wait to talk about Lila and Stephen in a few minutes, by the way. I thought before everything that happened in the final 10 minutes, we would spend the entire podcast

talking about how Stephen wanted a blowjob. That's what I thought our entire podcast would be about Joe, until how the episode ended up developing. Alas. Lelah was saying that he'd want to do the lone wolf thing about Mark, right?

It's not happening. We're not going to do that. And Stephen embraces teamwork, but not with Mark. And so it's a change even for Stephen, even for the character who, you know, trumpets how Lela is there to help him and how he just needs help in general. So I don't know. I think this part of the story is just really lovely and I'm excited to see. There's, yeah, there's also that thing that Harrow says

where he says it's more pain than anyone can bear, you know. But together, Mark and Stephen. 100 free events. 6,000 kids. One mission. Clinic kids is using sports and evidence-based wellness coaching to help kids build confidence, resilience, and the tools they need for life's challenges and opportunities. Up through August 2026, they're running 100 free sessions for school and community-based organizations near you. Learn more at clinickids.com slash 100KK. That's clinic with a K. LinneKKKKK. This episode is brought to by Paramount Plus. Beth and Rip are back in a new series Dutton Ranch. Kelly Riley and Cole has are 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. Dunton Ranch starring Colehauser, Kelly Riley, Annette Benning and Ed Harris now streaming on Paramount Plus. Speaking of Fractured, should we talk about like perhaps a big civil war that happened with the Egyptian gods on the show? I don't know. Let's do it. When do you want to talk about the opening of the door and the screams that ended the episode later? Yeah, I think we should talk about it later.

Okay. In Egyptology corner, right? Naturally. This riff between gods and men, which was mentioned a lot. You and I didn't get to talk about it in episode three, but this idea that something happened long ago that made these gods who are not actually gods, they're really beings from this other dimension, if you want to call it that, just abandoned men. And we see that when Conchu is placed in the wall, that there are like 10 other Shaptis there of other gods that have been zapped there. So if you think about like Captain America Civil War, you think about the Aeneid Civil War, it feels like the winners of the war are the gods who are still sitting on the council.

As we mentioned, there are no longer nine. There's not even seven. It's five. And the losers are the ones stuck in stone. statutes on a wall somewhere. And it seems like the losers were the people. It's, it, you know, reminds me of speaking of, you know, brains cooked on mythology. It reminds me of like Prometheus, like Prometheus, wanting to help mankind by giving him fire. And the, the Greek gods punishing him for that. The idea that these Egyptian gods wanted to help mankind. And the other part of the

pantheon was like, no, we're out. And also, if that's what you think, into the Ashaphti, with you. I don't know. What do you think about all that, Mel? I'm fascinated by the Alexander the Great Choice and what bearing you think that might have on all of this and the connections of this. I'm also, I'm digging a lot of the Ushapti theorizing. Like, is Taurit one of the gods who is imprisoned in stone is that part of why? She is there in the hospital sequence or, you know, is it because everything that we see there, all of these connections to the other parts of the larger world and story are things that exist in Mark's mind and he has brought there with him.

And we know that he mentioned Tyret earlier in the season, right? There are any number of possible ways to go with that. It made me think, though, seeing the statues of like the Hall of Faces, made me think of the House of Black and White in Bravos and Thrones. and this collection of the foes you have thwarted, but that you still seek to use in some way. And listen, they make great decorations. That wall looks beautiful.

I love that there was like just a spot waiting for conshu when they're like, when we fuck over consue once and for all, this is exactly where he's going. Yeah, but like you and Dave theorized last week about what connection Harrow might have to the remaining active members of the anime. And, you know, seeing that the Ushapti's were collected in mass like this made it stand out, because I'm with you, I was really struck in episode three by the nature of their

interaction and what that might signal, made it like even more bizarre that he would be allowed a private counsel with Kanshu's Ushapti unless they are in cahoots in some sort of way. And that I think lends, again, further credence to the idea that this is some sort of manipulation being deployed against Mark here. I don't know, man. Gore's going to come in and fuck all of this up. Gore won't have it. So you mentioned, yeah, you're right.

We probably shouldn't just like save it to the Egyptology corner. But you mentioned how are it, and just in case people haven't been like feverishly Googling Egyptian gods between now and, but that's the hippo-headed god that appears at the end of the episode is an Egyptian god. That lost fans will be very familiar with. Yes. But I do like this idea that she has been trapped in a new Shopty because she was on the other side of the Civil War, perhaps, and is in the underworld, which might mean that we could see Conshu. I have a question about this.

So I've known for a while, just because it was, like, reported out somewhere that this actress had been cast as the hippo god. and the fact that she Antonia Silibe and the fact that she is like such a drop dead gorgeous actress and no offense to like voice actors everywhere but like I don't know that you cast someone as smoking hot as this person

just to do the voice so I'm wondering if we're going to see a more humanoid representation of her which leads me to wonder are we going to see F. Murray Abraham like are we going to see humanoid representations of these gods in this

underworld's overvoid space. You know, I don't know. That would be great. Yeah, but that would be really fun. The other thing that, you know, in, in, we'll get more into, to where it as we go forward. But like, speaking of alliances, like, if, if Osir, if the Avatar of Osiris is in alignment with Harrow, which is possible or not, who knows, the person who is being most helpful to Mark was Hathor, right? And Hathor in Egyptian mythology is very much associated with

Tewar it, like very much. So this idea that she, a friendly god on the Aeneid sort of council, if you want to call it that, could have, I don't know, because I don't know how does this work? If you whisper to the stone Ashapdi, like, can it hear you? We saw Haro monologuing at Kanshu Zusha Shapti. Like if Hathor, like, Mosey's on over to the wall of Ushapti, and just finds the hippo-headed one is like, hey, go help Mark. He needs your help. Is that what's going on?

I don't know. Love to, love to theorize it. I'm trying to remember everything we've heard. So there's the funny joke about, in this episode, Layla saying, can you hear me? And Stephen thinks she means Alexander the grape, but of course she means Mark.

But then last episode, I think they do say that Conchu can hear, right? So yeah, that does seem probable, actually. I would not be surprised if Torr was like, Hathor sent me to help you. Right. Like, I'm here to help you. And one of the things that she tells Mark in episode three is like nobody,

part of the reason that she guides him to everything with Middict Man and Sunfus tomb is because not even the other gods don't know, right? The other gods don't know where Amit is. So that, again, kind of supports the idea that Harrow and Osiris might be aligned because maybe Osiris is just as invested in finding Amit's tomb as anyone else. Doesn't actually know. Right. There's another possibility, which is that those gods are heavily invested in no one ever finding Amit's statue.

And maybe that's why Leila's father was killed because he was so close to figuring out where she was and the tomb and stuff like that. And so, like, we know what happens in the comics. What happens in the comics is that, you know, Mark's partner, Bushmen, who they said they're not doing, you know, wilds out and choose people. But, like, were the gods involved in Layla's father's death? We don't know. Yeah, Charles theorized about this on Midnight Boys, right? That if Layla's father was invested in bringing the gods to light and many of the gods did not want that, right? Yeah, or proving that they walked among us at some point.

You know what I mean, was his stated thing. Yeah, that was, I thought that was really smart Charles. There's another theory that the, I can't remember the Midnight Boys talked about this, but the Empire Pod was talking about this, that Harrow was there when Layla's father died, that Harrow was Conchus Avatar at the time. And that, you know, because it was several years ago and that, and whatever happened there was maybe the reason why Harrow got dropped as an avatar for Mark. Harrow gets booted.

Mark gets picked up. Harrow says that thing in episode when he says, I know you, you're the mercenary to Mark. And he knows what happened with Layla's father. Does he know that because he's been inside Mark's head? Or does he know that because he was there when Layla's father died? We got a mailback question about this. Yeah, I think that's interesting.

So Christel asked, do you think that Harrow was there when Conchu took Marcus's new avatar, i.e. did conch who leave harrow for Mark. Is that why he knows so much about Leila's father's death and even recognized Stephen calling a mercenary in the European trip? So, yeah, people are wondering about this. I think that's interesting. The time, I really hope we get some timeline clarity about who was Avatar when and when these key events happened. Because, you know, we have like 10 years, we know it's been 10 years based on the beginning of episode 3 since Lela had been back to Cairo. We have all of these other questions about the timeline and how long Mark has been.

Conchus avatar when Harrah was, you know, we have the established canon inside of the show about even about Amat's final avatar being part of this betrayal and changing circumstances. Does that mean that Alexander was the last avatar of Omit? Yeah. Seems likely. Right. Based on what we learn here. So that would be a long, long, long time ago. Listen, Mallory, I think you and I could both agree a long nap sounds pretty nice.

Namit was going to just wake up refreshed and ready to, you know, eat people's hearts. It does. It does sound. Who doesn't want to snack after a lug nap? It does sound lovely. You know, one of the things that Osiris said, Osir's Avatar said in episode three of Conchu was now he's tethered to this place. So does it track if we extend that logic that Amit is similarly tethered to the tomb that she is. is in to the Pharaoh Alexander the Great's tomb where her Noshapti resided inside of his like throat cavity.

So could then, could Mark falling into the waters that are connected then to that tomb, tethered to that tomb, lead to some sort of other like weighing of his scales? That would I guess be part of the avatar question. But also to your point from earlier, maybe that's part of what will trigger the waking, the waking. Yeah. Of Amit. Could he become her avatar because of all of this? He's not...

I don't think so. I think Harrow is, you know, he would be pretty pissed if Mark cut the line. But I think he is going to unintentionally lead to her awakening. Stratknot's a smooching. Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. I love this. I don't know where you got.

The blowjob thing? Oh, I'm happy to explain it in great detail. if you'd like. All right. Hit me with some loose detail. So, first of all, I would just like to sincerely applaud the direction and cinematography

in this sequence with numerous shots lingering on Oscar Isaac's crotch as... I'm talking about the crotch harness sequence. Yes, as Lila is fixing, adjusting, tightening Stevens harness before they blest.

into the tomb. She belays. Stephen punches himself in the face. People seem to think that's Mark punching him. I'm just going to throw out that I think that's Jake punching him. Didn't seem like a Mark move. As the harness is initially being attached, tightened, maneuvered, strapped it.

He says, Stephen says, I have to say, I feel like I've been waiting for this my whole life, the adventure I mean. And he is just like so happy. transported to another plane of existence indeed. Layla has that amazing line that is like this cute and flirtatious thing in the moment, but also has this great thematic significance.

She says, I know we want what we've never had. And Steven's like, yeah. And it really did feel like a key line even just outside of the heightened chemistry and sexual tension in the sequence. Like Harrow's motives, everything with the Mark Stephen dynamic, Layla's own longing, etc. But then we get, of course, the, you smell like him.

I mean, why wouldn't you write, you know, whiff, the deep lean and the, whiff, the near kiss, the exchange about Mark's motives, and then the honesty, then an actual kiss. Very sweet, very awkward. And then Layla saying, after the kiss, I'm going to go down first. And Stephen looking so excited and so delighted at the I'm going to go down first line. And I was like, that was a show. That was where it was like, does Stephen think he's about to get a blowjob?

Oh. And then mere moments later, when we're doing, when we get the eye of horror. tracing in the sand in the tomb. We get a real emphasis on tongue. Jesus, right. We do. Maybe Stephen was going to be the one to go down first, Joe. Seems like a generous lover.

How do you think Mark and Steven compare in bed? Yeah, Stephen's probably like a little needy and insecure and that can pay out in many ways. But Mark might just like approach things a little bit more confidently and forcefully. And the thing that I've been saying this whole time, is that Layla deserves both, that I am pro-thruple, that I am pro-Leyla getting the best of all possible worlds. This is, okay, so usually I come to the defense of Charles.

I'm rarely in a mood where I want to, like, bury any of Charles takes, but I will say this. Charles Holmes on the Midnight Boys, saying that you smell like him, line sounded like corny and dumb and did make any sense, I wholly disagree. that I did that visceral chemical smell of someone that you're in love with um or you know even just sexually attracted to but especially someone you love and you just smell them like that is a that is such like a physical overwhelming sensation and so I thought that that was a really powerful thing thing for her to say she is just powerfully drawn to him in all of his

versions and she's processing what it means to be attracted to different versions of him and want different versions of him. Yeah, I loved that moment. I love the small moment. It was great. There's a couple questions about like when Stephen was quote unquote created by Mark. In the comics, we should say in the millimira, like Stephen is Mark's like childhood imaginary friend. So has Stephen been around that long? If he were, it would seem like he would know who Mark was or something like that. Was he created? when Layla's father died, was he created just mere months ago? Like, who knows?

Was his creation born out of guilt for not being, for the shame and guilt he's feeling over his involvement in Layla's father's death? Is Stephen a creation of, this is the version of me she deserves, this is the better version of me, the nicer version of me, the version who would never, who was innocent of this crime, who matches her in every way? And then my question is, if Stephen, if Stephen is created for that purpose, and again, we're not speaking how, like, literal DID works in the real world. But if Stephen is created for this purpose, is Jake what happens with the leftovers?

If you, like, put your best and most angelic self to the forefront, what happens to the darkest, messiest bits that you jammed into a red sarcophagus and buried deep inside of you? You know what I mean? Yeah. These are questions. I just myself every day. You know, there's that exchange between Stephen and Mark earlier. I think it was episode two where Steven says, how long you've been doing this?

And Mark says, I don't know. It's a long time, long time. He's like breathing deeply and seems really pained as he's saying it. Like, I feel like Stephen has been around for quite a while. But I think your point about Jake and what's left is a great one. And, you know, you mentioned the E-Dy. interview with the directors and one of the things that they mentioned in that interview was how Ethan Hawke modeled this Dr. Harrow rendering off Carl Young, right? And like the psychoanalysis and the,

the various ways that thinking about the study of the mind make their way into this episode, like thinking about the three aspects of the self. The id ego and the super ego. ego, super ego. Yeah. Like, there's a way to map that on pretty cleanly here, actually. Very cleanly, I would say, yeah. Yeah, by the way, if you want to laugh, please go look up what Carl Young looked like and then also look up what Ethan Hawk looked like as Dr. Harrow. And it's, like, hilarious. Down to the mustache angle, like, how Ethan Hawk modeled himself on Carl Young. I mean, obviously, the makeup department helped him. But, like, from what the director said, this was Ethan Hawk driven, where he's like, What if David Koresh in the streets, Carl Young in the sheets? Like, that's what I'm going to. These are my inspoes, my vision board for this. You talked before about Mark and Stephen learning to embrace each other, that like hug that they share.

And in that EW interview, Morhead says, talks about this one particular image from the Lemire comics of Mark and and Stephen hugging, you know, in white and gray. And how he says there's this antagonism between Stephen and Mark and they're starting to learn to work together and gain some mutual respect. So when they first see each other in person, they would instinctively just embrace. That was something we were really leading towards with all the other episodes. We wanted to earn that moment. And so it's in the comics, it's a hug goodbye. Right.

But in this. Amazing. Yeah. In this episode, it's like a desperate. clinging to something familiar and true. Yeah, love it. Love it. I love too.

Like we talked again about how many lost parallels there are. And it would be so easy to think of just given the way they are costumed in that sequence to think about Jacob and the man in black. But I love that it's not that. You know, that it's actually about learning to embrace the different aspects of who you are not. You know, like you said in episode one, this isn't a war story. It's a love story ultimately, right? Self-love, the journey to self-love. We love it.

We love to see it. What else before we head to Egyptology Corner, Joe? I mean, just shout out. I mean, it's been covered, well-covered on the Midnight Boys, but like shout out to us. The, is this real life ending is my favorite part. But I love a rip-roar and Egyptology tomb-rating adventure. So, like, just shout out to the mummy and Last Crusade vibes of this episode. Stephen Van both very correctly asserted on the Midnight Boys that Indiana Jones and Las Cursade is the best Indiana Jones movie.

That is obviously true. There's also this cutscene from the episode. Because there's some question, you know, like we see Harrow and his people. And then we see like that the camp has been like curiously attacked or decimated. We're not sure what's going on. There's a lot of like blood and guts and gore and goo inside the tomb itself implying that the heck of priest. to be attacking RIP to Billy.

I mean, rest of peace is my dude. You sucked. But, way to go. But Marvel.com accidentally, you know, Marvel.com has these recaps of the episodes

that are obviously like done in advance because they have more information than we have. And they included a description of a cut scene. And it's, meanwhile at the dig site, Harrow and his disciples uncover the entrance of Amit's tomb. However, the crew is hesitant to persist forward, worried that the area may cave in and bury them alive.

They don't let the land rest a beat. However, with victory in sight, Harrow speaks to his congregation to reunify and invigorate the weary acolytes. He presses that every moment they lose another unworthy being is able to harm another innocent soul. They must break the cycle. He understands their hesitancy. But he himself will push forward.

When he reaches on it, he will be able to kneel before her and say he gave the deity his all with speed and devotion. And the whole of his heart, Harrow takes up a torch and enters the tomb. Slowly his disciples follow one by one. And so in theory, then they get like picked off by these haka priests. I love saying haka priest. It sounds very northern California, 80s to me, 90s, hecka. But this idea that Harrow is like very willing to not only put himself in danger, but his people, you know what I mean, that he is a bad leader. I don't know. What else? I don't mind that this scene is cut. But I do think it felt like there were some little holes in

like what's going on here. Part of that disorientation helps with the horror, but also I'm just sort of like what are we meant to understand happen here? Did the heck of priest leave the tomb and attack the base camp around because we see that their entry just caused the activation by the mere

fact of it. Did something else happen? Right. Yeah. Do they come out at night mostly? Like what happened here? You know what I mean? So yeah. Interesting. You know, on the Harrow Tombbuster front quickly too, like were you struck by because obviously the protagonist in Toombuster

is named Dr. Stephen Grant. That's one of the like, oh, moments, right? But he looked so much like Harrow with the long hair. Like, he, I thought, it seemed to me like deliberately was made to resemble Ethan Hawk,

not Oscar Isaac. And I thought that was really, like, fascinating because Dr. Harrow goes out of his way to quote, the quote-unquote villain of Tombuster when he's talking to Mark about the movie. He says, I liked the villain. No tree can ascend to the light of heaven if it doesn't descend to the depths of hell.

And who is he quoting, actually? We didn't get to see that part of the film. I love that in the EW interview, the directors mentioned that they filmed a lot more of Tombustor release. We need to see it. We demand to see it. But, you know, that quote is, again, very similar to an actual Carl Young line. No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell.

So there's that actual mapping and corollary. but also this question of how Harrow sees himself. And of course, the villain always thinks they're the hero. This is a third line of storytelling. But I just thought that was really interesting because he, the character and Toobuster, we think based on a minute, that's it, is the hero.

Looks like the villain. Whig study is usually your department, but I'm struck by the long hair. I love it. All right, what else on Egyptology Corner, Joe? You have the foot of a former full statue after the Black Rock has left you with one limb and you are taking up residence in the chamber beneath it and have walked us to Egyptology Corner. I'm weaving some things in my sandals. No, yeah.

So for people, to wear it, the hippo-headed goddess that shows up here that was alluded to earlier in the season with the hippo-hippo. the stuffed hippo toys and the museum gift shop. Lost fans know her pretty well because there's this, if you've watched the TV series Lost, there's a bunch of like mystical, mysterious Egypt, Egyptian-esque stuff happening on the island, one of which is a huge statue. It is actually not a hippo-headed statue. It's a crocodile-headed statue. But because Toirid is the goddess of like sort of birth and fertility,

and the whole plot line on loss is about like women can't give birth on the island, I don't think it's officially tore it, but it was just sort of like what everyone assumed that statue was. And so, you know, those of us who dug into the corners of theories for that show are like super familiar with that goddess. But she's fertility, birth and protection. So yeah, is she a path to rebirth? You mentioned rebirth a couple times.

Is she a path to rebirth for them? The cutscene from the fake movie that you mentioned, according to the directors, Dr. Stephen Grant, I have to think of Dr. Alan Grant when I hear Dr. Stephen Graham. It's Dr. Stephen Grant. His character said, sometimes I wish I had chosen my birth mother instead of nature to raise me is what they said. And we know that Mark has this strained relationship with his mom that in theory we're going to find out more about in the flashback. And we know that Stephen has this, like, nice relationship with his mom.

So it's like motherhood, quote, unquote mom, right? Is motherhood, is all of that going to play, is all of that wrapped up to this? I have questions about that. I mean, great way to honor a lost legacy while putting your own twist. Make it all about moms instead of dads. I love a mommy, you know, go see everything everywhere all at once. Like praise that movie for its use of mommy issues instead of daddy issues. But like, yeah, I love the idea of rebirth, a new birth for.

Mark is interesting, but I got this, I was going to talk about this later, but, you know, I got this really interesting, long, very strongly worded email from a listener who wishes to remain anonymous, but who felt frustrated by the depiction of Mark as, like, a Jewish character. That his Jewish identity is so important to who he is. And thus far, we've only seen, like, the flash of a star of David. Now, obviously, a flashback heavy episode five. and Jeremy Slater, I think, has said that Mark's Jewish identity is important, you know, whatever that.

And there's a Judaism consultant listed in the... Right. So we're hopeful that that's a big part of episode five. But I will say this. I'm hesitant to... I mean, you'll let me know what you think because I'm an atheist. But, like, I'm hesitant to point out the obvious, like, Jesus imagery here because, I mean, Jesus was Jewish. But, like, I don't want to get to, like, Christian and all of that.

this. But like he falls into the water and this sort of like cross pose. This idea of resurrection rebirth is really heavy here. Obviously, that's not unique to a Jesus figure, unique to a Christian. But I'm used to interpreting things through the Bible because of my Western brain. But I don't want to do that and like ignore the like the important Jewish identity of Mark here. So yeah, I don't know if you have any thoughts or feelings about that. No, I think that summed it up nicely. I am curious to see how that is incorporated into into the story in the final two episodes. And this is, um, this is not an answer to that, that question. But I think more generally, I'm wondering if we'll get flashbacks for all of the characters in some capacity, because that in credits

photograph, that Polaroid, that's young Layla and her father, right? I think, I think so. Yeah. So I wonder if we'll see young Layla as well, perhaps, and just learn more about everybody's background and everybody's family. I mean, I think we're definitely going to see... We'll see her father's death. Her father's death. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Just a quick zoom through the rest of Egyptology corner because you got a little bit more to go before we leave. The Two Valleys Under the Great is, you know, a famous missing tomb. There are many of them in Egypt. Alexander the Great. As Van pointed out a Macedonian, as Charles pointed out, an outsider who comes to Egypt is a maid of Pharaoh. When he was dying, he wanted to go back to Macedonia to be buried there. But Ptolemy stopped him and was like, no, you're going to be buried here. So he's buried. His tomb was on display for a long time. Like, people knew where the tomb of Alexander the Great was for a long time. So it's not like you could just hide on it down his esophagus. By the way, terrible, terrible archaeology in this episode. Stephen just jamming his hand down

Alexander the Grace throat without a single thought to how he was like desecrating this tomb. I think he would at least hesitate before he did it. Two true out of character moments in this episode. That one from Stephen who is full of reverence elsewhere and like literally says he would be thrilled and shit his pants

if he was asked a riddle when they enter the tomb. And then Layla who I adore and it was another incredible Layla episode. Like I would watch 10 seasons of a show just about Layla moving. forward. I did have a, is this the moment? I was so frustrated. Come on. Layla would not do this. It was such bad. That was bad writing. Yeah, that was bad. I mean, I loved this episode, but I'm like Layla girl. Layla would. She would? No. Yeah. Never. When they do uncover Alexander in this episode, he's got that golden axe that, that, that he picks up to wield and there's the whole, I mean,

one of the famous stories about Alexander the Great is the Gordian knot, which is like, you know, leads to a problem that you saw by just like slicing a sword through it. He is a sword. The axe is not really, but like that idea that Alexander is famous for cutting through something. I think it was cool that he had that like golden axe there. He needs. The axe.

The handle. Yeah. So all of that, The Eye of Horace, we talked about already. And then I just wanted to like shout out the, the accurate mummification tools that were on display in the Canopic jars. where you put the various innards,

and all of that stuff was very creepy and very cool. The hook is especially evocative and disgusting, and I'm glad it got some play. But that's, yeah, that's my main Egyptology tour. Absolutely incredible. I love it. Is it time for Theory Corner? We've done a lot of theorizing already.

Any other theories we want to hit on? I guess the big one is just talking for another moment here about Jake and theorizing about whether. Jake is the one who killed Layla's father. This is an incredibly popular theory on yield interwebs since this episode aired. So here's the exchange. I will say, Dave and I talked about this last week.

Yes, indeed. I was so happy to hear you talk about it because it was one of the things that I wanted to talk about from that episode. So Layla confronts Stephen, who is happy to give the body over to Mark in that one moment to have this fight. And Mark says, of course not. of course I didn't, meaning kill her father. But you were there.

You were there. I was there. Yeah, I was there. And how did he die? My partner got greedy and he executed everyone at the dick site. So Jake being the partner, the quote-to-quote partner is a very, very popular theory. I'm of, I can't wait to hear what you think about this. I'm of two minds.

I'm very compelled by it because I think the idea, again, of a part of who. Mark is being responsible for this. And Mark's feelings of guilt and shame would align quite well with his overall arc and his overall journey. I think the next beat of that, which was it the partner then shot Mark, introduces some Did he shoot himself? We saw him punch himself in this episode. Yes.

Did you have the same thought on the punch? Did you think that was Jake, not Mark? I thought that was Jake. It could have been. It was a very confusing moment because he punched him and then he fell backwards and then he fell into, later fell into the tomb. There is a theory going around that it wasn't, that Jake punched him out and then it was Jake, not Stephen, uh, in the tomb. And I'm like, absolutely not. Like, that was absolutely Stephen freaking out about the Egyptology stuff.

But like, Jake is the partner. Does he say his partner shot him or does he say he got shot? He says, I tried to save your father, but I couldn't save him. And I and then Lela says, no, but you brought a killer right to him right. And then Mark says, yeah, he shot me too. I was. supposed to die that night, but I didn't die that night, and I should have. Okay. So the part, yeah. So this is, are we going to watch him turn a gun on himself? Like, you know, because like, a theory I saw was like, Jake killed everyone. Mark comes back, tries to save the father. And then Harrow as Conshu's avatar, you know, shoots Mark. But like, it sounds to me like the partner shot him. And so I don't, I don't think it can be Jake. And here's another reason why I don't think so.

And I'm happy to be proven wrong. But, like, if the whole idea is you have to embrace all of you, I think even if Jake, if Jake is currently shoved in a red sarcophagus somewhere in the mental, like, they need to, it cannot be Mark and Stephen versus Jake. It has to be Mark and Stephen and Jake together. Aligning. Absolutely. I agree.

Yeah. Yeah. I think that's my, I do like the theory, but I think that's the biggest hurdle for me is exactly that. They have to all three align to move forward as we've been. as we've been discussing. I guess like one of the flip sides is because we only have two hours left and we haven't yet met Jake, I do wonder if absent some sort of like seismic-specific Jake moment like that,

there's enough time to kind of show how Jake connects to this larger story. But maybe it's the, you know, the other thing that you and Dave talked about last week and people have been talking about like how much of the moments that we haven't seen was Jake the one who was responsible for, right? So there are other ways to achieve that. The question is then if it's, you know, you just ran through some of the possibilities, but who else could it be? This is where I get to one of my,

this is less Ethereum, more prompt, but it's, I guess, something we can theorize about that I wanted to throw out to you, which is where is Frenchie? We're four episodes into the show,

we don't have Frenchie, and we know he's in the call log, right? Huge character in the Moonnight Comics canon. In the call log, I have to, so can't just be there as an Easterer, and a wink, right? So could Frenchie be the partner?

But I don't, I personally hope not, because I think that Frenchie as an ally and a friend of reliance is a better way forward inside of this story. But maybe Frenchie was a part of that. And maybe Frenchie will help him here. You know what I mean? Because that's in the Lemire comics like Frenchie and also Crawley, the living statue,

who we see calling the bingo numbers in the, you know. But it's also possible that they just want to keep it focused in on Oscar Isaac and are going to like make it about Stephen and Mark working together. There's a theory that I've seen that Jake is not even going to show up until like the very end because there's this really cute promo video that Oscar Isaac and Ethan Hawke and and Maia Kalamai made where they were talking about spoilers and things they couldn't talk about. And at the very end, Oscar Isaac says things like, and at the end, it turns out it was Jake and then like gets cut off or something like that.

Like it's really cut off and really subtle. Some people think that like Jake isn't even going to like pop up to like the end, end, end, end, end. Like that the post credits is Jake or something like that. I don't know how I feel about that. But the Stephen stuff and what does. Stephen need to accomplish in this dream space is really interesting because that sequence that that we talked about in the in the comic with the hug goodbye mark.

That's all about Stephen accepting that he's not the main idea, that he's an alter identity, that he's a construct. And there's this like really striking shot in the trailer of Oscar Isaac sort of beating himself as Stephen like sort of beating himself about the head. And I think it's going to be about Stephen just like processing. and accepting that he's... But isn't that Mark? Because Mark's in the white, right?

I was watching the trailer, too, because I thought Mark is in the white and Stevens in the gray. And in that trailer shot, you sort of, Mark is the one like, kind of hitting his own face and you see the back of Stephen's shoulder

sort of looking at him, I think. Interesting. Okay. But I still think the larger point is completely right, which is that Stephen has to come to terms with the fact

that Mark is the primary personality there. Oh, Stephen. Jake, not coming until the stinger would be strange. I hope that we see. Jake sooner. But I don't know. I'm so invested in the Mark Stephen journey at this point. This is our classic every show episode four. We're like, is there enough time for thing X? Every time. Every time. And usually at the end, it turns out that there wasn't. So also, and I'm going to, I'm going to yes and my pals over at the Empire podcast and say, I think three is the weakest episode because it has the least amount of Stephen in it. And I think Stephen is a really special part of the show. So I agree. I love Stephen. What a guy. The old eggs. The basket. Reach in.

What are your faves? I mean, the asylum is just a cornucopia. We've already talked about the Inception lights. That would have been my favorite, like the lights on the ceiling sort of moving. And in Inception, you might remember that that is because they're like in a van, slow-mo falling into a river. Inception, what a movie. But in the asylum, I'll call it one thing in the asylum and it's going to, ah, cupcakes.

Yes. It's a cupcake cart. Cupcake trolley, cupcake truck. How fun. What do you got? I agree. just everything in the hospital sequence. And, you know, I think I tend to think of Easter eggs

as callbacks to other properties, but the connections of every single thing that we had seen in the first three and a half episodes of the show manifesting in a different way. Even just the architecture of the space in the Dr. Harrow office in particular, the cupcakes. I guess I would have to just,

I got to be on brand here and say, I would have to pick Gus then, seeing dear sweet Gus there. I love the whiteboard with the postcards and all of the clues on the whiteboard and the way that Layla was interacting with it, but also just because we talked so much earlier in the run about the postcards and what they might signify about how Stephen or Mark are communicating with each other, etc, etc. Obviously, like seeing Billy and Bobby in the hospital. We see so many characters. We see Donna.

You mentioned Crawley, Layla, of course, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But specifically because of the roles that Billy and Bobby play, as we've talked about before, as the hospital orderlies in the Lemuron, seeing them in that setting here was, that was one of my favorites as well, I think. All of the sculptures, the moment when Mark notices the cane and then catches a glimpse of the sandals in the mirror

is also very special. I mean, that whole, that whole sequence was just, it was just amazing. It really was. Do you have a secret scroll? I had a hard time with Secret Scroll this episode. Tough one. My secret skull is one of the camels, but not both camels.

Oh, boy. I'm going to go with the disemboweled Billy. Oh, okay. For Billy, the secret scroll. All right. It's mailback time. Jomi. It's good to be here.

When I was watching episode four, I didn't think that Lela and Stephen were out here, you know, trying to get to third base. But, you know, that's why you have you. now. That's what Mallory's so special. That's what makes her the best at her job. I can't help it. It was all I was thinking about. I'm sorry. You don't take 45 seconds to say the word tongue and have 20 camera shots that linger on a pant-boleged unless you want people thinking about this. You do if you're later going to have your character go dig a statue out of someone's throw.

Yeah, that's one way to think about it. Listen, there was a lot of throat talk this week. Not out of the realm of possibility. Episode five, the Lord's Kiss. What do you think? Maybe that's the stinger. Oh, boy. It contains adult content.

All right, our first question comes from Sagar. They ask, might there be something to the, fact that every character poster Marvel has released is non-human. We've got Gus the Goldfish, Stevens Museum name tag, the scarab, a cloth with Egyptian hieroglyphs, the Conchew stone figure, and a bingo card. Is there anything to that pattern? What a great question. It's so interesting. Wow. That's a really great observation. Obviously, there's the Mr. Knight poster, the Moonnight poster, and the Mark poster. But yeah, every other one is...

But like, why isn't there a Leila poster? Why isn't there a hero poster? I don't know. That's really fascinating to me. Maybe it, like, plays into what we see in this episode with the asylum, like, all those little things and little details. Yeah. And how they come back, Gus being one, you know.

Yeah. The Big O'Card gives me real lost fives, of course. Absolutely. But, you know, like the cupcake, the map, all that sort of stuff. I don't know. I'm fascinated. Do you have any theories, John? I just think Marvel marketing is bored right now.

You know what I'm saying? Because we've been giving them a lot of crap about their posters in the past. You know, like, hey, who's designing them? You got like six graders out here at the Marvel internships. So just like, you know what? That's not nice. It's, hey, I didn't say that. That's not my words.

I love parsing a poster for clues. That's not my words. But, you know, maybe it's just like, all right, man, I'll keep them. complain there you go boom inanimate object you can't complain about it inanimate object on a poster life and online fans will find a way let me just say that my guy guess my guy gus is alive alive and thriving and also that the cupcake looks delicious in this poster yeah i like what you said joe i think like the these clear elements that you can identify across these renderings of reality but you know you also it's hard not to think about like you mentioned inception earlier like something that could

become like a totem, you know, a real touchstone. Yeah. My real question is this. Where is the Rubik's Cube poster? We have a couple episodes left. Maybe that's the last one, you know? Because just like a Rubik's Cube, Mark has a lot of sides to him.

Wow. Jomey. Wow, wow, wow, wow. Deep in my bag for that one. That's my one good thought of the day. Our next question comes from Fist of Marvel. We saw Harrow shooting his game at Layla. While I don't see her falling for it and joining him,

do you guys think she may tag along and see how he releases Amit? Maybe she could use that to release Conshu. Hashtag Moot Night. Thanks, guys. Well, we didn't spend a lot of time talking about that scene, so I do want to just shout out that scene that I thought was really good. Ethan Hawk's stillness. He's talking a lot about how he wanted to make his character really still.

So, like, I love to, like, emotionally manipulate someone from across a cavern inside a tomb. Like, what could be better? Yeah, they're going to have her captive. I think it's going to be, like, a real Marion and Raiders sort of thing. I don't think she's going to pretend to, like, be honest. Well, Mary does that. Anyway, we'll see. But that's that would be my guess.

What do you think? I think it will be one of the key ways in which we reported back to that version of reality and anchored in, yes, this is happening. These things are happening, is that Layla is still there. And that's like, that is, that's something I meant to say earlier. Obviously, Mark and Stephen are our primary point of view characters, but so many of the scenes that we've seen take place from other points of view, whether it's Harrow or Layla. And there's the actual, just literal storytelling, like, how would we have access to that, right? But also just, I think we're really invested as viewers in these arcs and we'll need to see that they are real. But I loved, I loved that scene too.

And I'm glad you mentioned the stillness joke because it stood out in such stark contrast to the literal like crumbling rock face, right? And the screeching crawling hands. I think one of the scariest moments was the after Layla pulled the arm off, the like bone shard knife coming out of the forearm. Repelant. But I did love and cannot end the episode without calling out a, toasting. After Harrow said you handled that beautifully, Layla saying, why do all men like you feel it necessary

to be just so condescending? It's iconic. She's the best. Yeah, I'm out of your point. Ethan Hawk, like being so chill while the earth is falling around him is like legitimately like

it is kind of scary. And for for Layla, I think, we know she has the Ame Aisha. empty, right? So, like, just following clues, it looks like she's going to get gotten and she got to come up off that thing. So, you know, I'm sure she'll put up a fight, but yeah, it's going to be tough. They killed Mark. For all tests purposes, they killed Mark. I don't know if Layla can get out of that one.

No, Layla's going to be fine. I mean, one of the many things that we had listed in our, you know, we could always spend an hour just talking about the Easter eggs and we end up spending 90 seconds talking about them because we're in the midst of making a two-hour podcast by that point. But one of the things that caught our eye was the the little the the literal scarlet scarab drawing on the bandage on lela's finger in the hospital sequence like we're i think you know joe you had asked like is the yeah were the flares the the image that we had talked about when we were discussing uh rosy knight's scarlet scarab theory yes it seems clear now that the flares that lela was using in these episodes are the the visual from that end credit scene but i think we're heading towards that that feels increasingly clear that

we're heading toward Layla emerging as that character. We'll have Layla around for a long time. And I'm thrilled. I don't think she's going to be damseled. She's like, as we said again and again, she's like so competent. And I don't mean that in a condescending hero kind of way. But I think, you know, she's massively outnumbered right now. So she's going to be tough.

She's in a tight spot. Speaking of tight spots, I just want to say really quickly, this triggered a phobia of mine. And it's true and it's real, which is I do not ever want to be in a crevice. No. Anytime I see someone go into a small hole And I told you that I saw the Last City last night, the Sandra Bullock movie. And they're looking down this small hole they have to go through. And I turned to my sister and I whispered like, absolutely not. And then as they were shimming through, I was like literally clutching my throat the whole time.

I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't. So you're anti-crevas. How do you feel about nukes and or crannies? Oh, okay. I can do a nook and a cranny because you can see your exits from there.

Right? A crevice is like no way out but through. That's making me crave Thomas's English muffin, but no free ads here on the ring or worse. Always have an exit strategy. Joanna Robinson, 2022. Exactly. Always have a way out. Always know your exits. Know your exits. Got to. All right. Next question comes from Mick. In the end section, Layla, you know, in quotations, takes marks winning being a card and tells him she'll share the prize this time. Does Mark view Leila as having taking something of his? Also, what would the price be? Also, what would the prize be? Interesting question.

I did. I was struck watching the episode by Layla saying this time, like she had not shared with him previously. I think that lends further credence, Joe, to what you were sketching out earlier about this being a trap and a test and a trial and other characters, Amit Harrow, trying to put Mark in a position of vulnerability. One of the surest ways to do that would be to turn one of the people in his life that he actually does trust and position her as somebody who had maybe misled or deceived him before. I also just want to shout out here because we haven't talked to, and we briefly talked about

the bingo card and the lost vibes, but we haven't talked about that at. length, and that's obviously like a treasure trove of Easter eggs, if you want to know what those numbers might mean or what they might be pointing you toward in terms of the classic Marvel, like license plate, you know, street sign, bingo card, whatever the case may be reading list. Rosie's nerdist breakdown this week has a incredibly robust reading list based on the bingo numbers. You've got to check that out if you're interested. Painstaking. Yeah, it was amazing.

Mainstaking. On kai up. Yeah. I am too lost adults to go down the number, uh, number out ever again. Press the button. Uh,

if we're talking about sharing prizes, um, I'm, I'm gonna, in my like slightly more PG-rated version of Mal's thought process, I'm going to go back to my Thruple theory. And our happy ending here is a shared prize. And it is throupled them.

So Jomey, what's the prize? Maybe Lail. is just holding it over like, hey, you kind of, you killed my pops. So, you know, I'm going to just keep, you don't need this prize. Like, I got it. You know what I'm saying? But, you know, maybe it's the marshmallows that she's been snacking on.

She seems to be a Turkish delight. She sees, oh, it's Turkish Delight. Disgusting. Disgusting. You don't like Turkish Delight? Oh, disgusting. I can't. Delish.

Like a little bit. Come on. I've said, I've said this. I think I must have said it during Falcon. a soldier. And listeners were like, listeners were like, what's wrong with you? And they told me the brand to order to try it. And I promise you, I ordered it and I tried it. And it's still not for me. So I do not mean to, with love and respect to everyone who, including any and all children of Narnia, I cannot. Always makes me think of Narnia. Always. We're learning so much.

Joanna Robinson doesn't like crevices does not like Turkish delight. Correct. Oh, boy. All right. Our last question comes from, I love this name, your sister in Conshu. That's great. If we get an Amit Avatar flashback, do you think Alexander the Great or Mr. Great, if you're Stephen,

was specifically the one played by Colin Farrow, a Colin Farrow, if you will? Great stuff. I lost my mind. Okay, as much as I hate Turkish Delight. and cremises. I love Colin Farrow. It made me laugh.

So funny. All day when I saw that yesterday. Including the little trademark and symbol in the tweet is just like chef's kiss. Wonderful. Alexander the Great. So we touched on this, but it seemed like something people were confused by. So the idea is that Alexander the Great, a Pharaoh of Egypt, was on its last avatar. And he betrayed her and was like, go ahead.

Put her in my throat when you bury me. like whatever. So he betrayed her. So he is responsible for putting her in the Ushapdi or a complicit in doing that. So that's what

Alexander the Great has to do with Amit. You know, did you love my Alexander the Great impression? Anyway. Incredible. Yeah.

Okay. What an episode. Turkish delight for everyone. Any other thoughts before we wrap? Yeah, I think we're, like I said, only Midnight Boys on Wednesday,

but episode five, I think is going to be one of the best penultimate episodes of television we might ever see. Oscar Isaac with Oscar Isaac, that's television magic. That's beautiful. Some people are calling out the penultimate episode of Wadivision where she takes, like, the tour through, you know, her backstory, right? That's okay. Okay, I love that episode. That's okay. But, like, it's funny that, like, these two penultimate episodes seems like they're going to be similar.

You know what I mean? Oh, yeah, that's true. That would be great. Yeah. I can't wait. I loved that episode of Wanda Vision. That's right. A tour of the mind, Jomi. A tour of the mind. You have to start saying the mind the mind. You do your gimly. The mind. They call it a mind. They call it a mind. It's going to be great. Oscar Isaac, and a walking hippopotamus. Come on. Oh, come on. That's that's TV right there. Can't wait. Can't wait for next week.

Joe, any final thoughts? Layers, chaos. I miss hearing that. All right, friends. Crawley's getting another game going, so it's time to wrap. Thank you to our Stephen the Great,

Steve Holman, for producing this episode. Our Tombbuster, Arjuna Ram Gapal, for his additional production work on this episode. And our favorite bingo partner, Jomi Adan, for his work on the social for this episode.

Please tune back in next Wednesday. and Friday, respectively, for the Midnight Boys, Moonnight, Episode 5, instant reaction and the House of our episode five deep dive. Check out the House of Midnight Thor trailer breakdown from this Monday if you haven't yet. Until next week, if we need a recipe for a protein shake or something,

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