House of R - ‘VisionQuest’ Episodes 3-4 Deep Dive

Episode Date: October 22, 2026

Mal and Jo are back in the mind space to dive deep into ‘VisionQuest’ Episodes 3 and 4. They break down the introduction of Jocasta, Ultron’s turn, Paladin’s backstory, and more! Plus, they discuss some Easter eggs and their theories about what’s to come in the second half of the season. (00:00) Intro (03:40) Opening Snapshot (33:08) Deep Dive (01:31:52) Theory Corner (01:39:19) Easter eggs (01:41:46) Wig Watch Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Mallory Rubin Producer: Carlos Chiriboga Production Assistant: Scott Lee Studio Production: Jacob Cornett Social: Jomi Adeniran Additional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, welcome back to House of Our. I'm Joina Robinson and we're old now on our body sucks and it might be time to retire. It's Mallory Rubin and also me. Hey Mal. You. Interesting. I feel like you're a little bit more of a Becky than I am. It's genuinely a fact. Hi. We're here to talk about Vision Quest episodes three and four. Really excited to get into it. We're halfway through the season. That is wild. We're going to talk about all of that. right after this. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. Hockey seasons it's here. Uber Eats is delivering game day deals

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Get the good stuff in store at Marshalls today. All right, quick programming reminders. What can we say? We can say that we have seen the films Wildwood, Wicker, and one of us has seen Clayface and the other one will have seen it by tomorrow. Yeah. Going to have some fun movie chats. Fun and find time in the movies.

Full movie extravaganza. That's right. On House of Art. That's coming. Excited. More Vision Quest is coming. That's right. Other things are coming.

Stay tuned. Great. How can folks find out all of the things that we're up to, Malory Rubin? Thanks for asking. Here's what I would recommend. Follow the pot. Why not? Come on.

Come on. Follow House of R on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. At? House of R You know what? Out House of R quiet. Months of silence. I know. Cowards. Yeah. It's just

at House of R. Yeah. The only name in the game right now on Instagram. Ticot. At House of Our Pod. Follow us. Follow the Ringaverse as well, of course. And follow the pod. Follow the Ringervverse channel. Watch full video episodes of House of R and Midnight, boys, Pugh, Pue, do it all. Send us your emails. The inbox is open.

Hobbits and Dragons at gmail.com. Listen, to those of you in the comments right now on our fun little posts that we've been doing, saying where's the Paul of Fame? We're going to do the Paul of Fame. Stay tuned. Stay tuned. It's not due yet. We have some Paul of Fame plans. Don't worry. We don't like to overpromise and under deliver. Yeah, we've never done that before. But we do have, it's on the schedule. We will be doing a Paul of Fame. Stay tuned. Maybe sooner than you think. Something to think about. Okay. Spoiler warning today. Yeah. What do we got? What do we got?

Through episode four, Vision Quest. Duh. Yeah. All of Marvel Comics. That's right. all of the MCU. Nothing about the Elizabeth Holmes documentary, though, because I haven't seen it yet, so shut your mouths. Me neither. And you know what? I feel sad that I am not participating in this moment. I will see it soon.

I came so close to going on Saturday. As you know, I was out of town. This is the worst time of my life to be out of town, but I had a delightful time in New York. Yeah, tell us about the fall foliage. Give us a little fall foliage corner here. Gosh, the yellows, the blazing red oranges. Wonderful.

And you're in a very uncumnal fit. I'm just still in a New York state of mine, honestly. I'm still there. I get it. It was wonderful. You brought me, because you are a good friend, despite you being, of course, Team Green, yeah. In the Red Apple, Green Apple, Apple Wars.

You're an angel. And so you brought me a red apple. I don't, because... I've never seen that before in my life. I don't know what that is. It just appeared. You brought that to me, for me to enjoy, even though you would not partake, obviously. I don't know what that is.

I've never... And I look forward. I would never touch that with my fingers. Wow. Jeez. Sheesh. So that's a spoiler warning. That's right.

Yeah. And an Apple warning. Mm-hmm. Let's get into it. Great. These episodes are called reboot and malware. Malware. I like how you did that like we were in inception, though, with mall.

Yeah. Mallware. Great. Written by Cindy Apple, perhaps. That's her name, maybe Appel, but it's close to Apple. Michael Taylor and both direct. directed by Ganges Montiero, who we talked about at length when we covered Agatha. Great director, did a great job I thought with these episodes.

Also directed an episode of Plyuribus. So just like a really talented person. As I mentioned at the top, we're halfway through the season. So I just thought we might start here and say, we're only two weeks in, but we're halfway down with the story. Does it feel like we're halfway down with the story? How are you enjoying this show so far? And how does it feel to be smack dab in the middle of everything?

Yeah, I think, you know, my preference is always for shows to run one per week so that we have the longest possible experience to share things with each other. Marinate. Yeah, with the bad babies, marinate, the play around on Theory Corner, etc. So it's always, of course, sad when we move through a season a little bit more quickly than that. You know, I posed the perhaps Strawman question last week of whether the fact that there were too meaty, like hour-long episodes a week would slow down any of the math. partaking, you know, if it would in any way be an inhibition for people opting in and watching in real time. I don't, I still don't have a feel for that. I have no idea if that's the case or not. Hopefully not. I will say, episode four was my favorite of the season by, like, quite a bit. I thought episode four was wonderful. Mind Palace stuff. Just like really creative, fun interior. Yeah, the concepts. It actually like, I have a question I want to do. to ask you based on how good I thought episode four was about like a potential alternate structure

for the season. I want to hear your overall thoughts first and then we can circle back to that. But yeah, four was like, I was thinking back to our discussion after episodes one and two about how there was so much kind of work to do at the beginning of this show. And we wound up more quickly than we had anticipated in certain places like Vision and Tommy being together. Now at the midway mark, episode four being the strongest, it gives me like an even more confidence, I think, than we already felt that the back half of the season is just going to be, like,

really fun and really good. So I'm excited for the rest of the road from here. You know, not everything to this point still is, like perfect to me. I think episode three was like much like episode one and two, a little bit mixed for me. Before it was humming. Four, we were just like at the right frequency. I'm ready to rock from here. Yeah, I was talking about this with a friend last night where he was having a very mixed reaction and he was like, everything inside of vision is working so well for me. And he's like the outside is really mixed. The Paladin stuff is mixed. The Tommy stuff is mixed.

And I agree in some areas and not in others. But I think with the introduction of Jakasta and whatever is happening there with Dr. Joe, that's, you know, and we have like an infiltration of a gala and a heist and stuff like that. All kinds of things that I like. Like I think the opportunity there is really exciting. I think, you know, the ending with Ultron occupying Vision's body is. like extremely exciting. That was cool. Really, really great shit from Paul Bettany. I think episode three was kind of weak. I do. And I think a problem with this show, and again, episode four is really energizing and I'm really excited for the back half. But I think a problem in the show is like,

we're pretty sure where this is all going to end, which is vision accepting Tommy is one of his, there's not a lot of tension? I'm like, is vision going to discover his inner well of emotionality and step into his role as a father and accept Tommy is Billy in the season. I don't know, but Tommy and Billy as his children. And like, he's resistant. There's no tension for me there. So there has to be something else. If there's no question as to where the story's going, because it's a Disney Plus show and it's not going to end with Vision being like,

and you're not my son by, you know? To quote Wanda from a famous iconic Wanda vision show, like, that's not the kind of show it is. Exactly. So then there needs to be something else inside of it to keep the juices flowing. Do you know what I mean? For sure. And I do think we had unsurprisingly to that point, given it is the halfway mark of an eight episode season, more progress for vision on that front inside of this episode going from like Wanda Maximoff, full name, clinical, distance, remove, emotionally, into by the end a moment where Tommy's like, wait a minute, that's the first time that you haven't made a distinction between your old self and you. So like, we're kind of, I mean, we have. I mean, we have. more road to cover for sure. But we've actually already made quite a bit of progress. He's in full dad joke mode throughout these episodes, which was pretty entertaining, I thought. And he gets into more crucially than that and the comic value of that, which is entertaining,

protective dad mode. He is just fully in like, you will not hurt Tommy. Tommy is saying things. This is very hot when he said it. It really was. The hottest white vision is ever, but it's powerful, certainly powerful. You know, and like Tommy, we have all of the. characters as they have been doing the whole time saying, you know, the thing out loud about family

and what gets us to that point. And so we, we are, we are moving quickly to an outcome that I think, you know, I assume most of the people watching the show are in the same place as us. Like we are anticipating is not even a strong enough way to put it. Sort of like, assured. But like I don't, but, but on the other hand, like, I don't know what's going to happen with Ultron. I don't know what's going to happen with Jakasta. Like there are elements where I'm like much more invested in sort of the like, what side of the, you know, Ultron, and this Spader performance is like, It's unbelievable. All time.

Spader and Bettner are just fantastic. Every single line, just like so good. And Ultron is doing such a good job of like tiptoeing both sides of the line where it's just sort of like we see him be, you know, sarcastic and acerbic, but also like give good parenting advice or be kind to Edith or all, you know, all these other things. And then kill your fave, President Roslin without batting a. a cybernetic eye. So, you know, it's just sort of like, where is Ultron going to net out is actually the real question for me? Vision's going to be a good guy and a good dad at the end of the day. But what is Ultron going to do? And how does this Jakasta element, you know, he's so intrigued by her. He's so captivated by her. So like, is she going to pull him in one direction

or another? Does it, do we flip the sort of angel and devil on Vision's shoulder to an angel and devil on Ultron's shoulder? Like, where are we at the end of the day with that? I think this is to this point, we have more to go here, but to this point, when we consider Wanda Vision, Agatha and Vision Quest as a trilogy, the biggest, well, one of, but the biggest distinction, I think, that this show has to the other two is that those, like, larger plot, in addition to character, but plot mysteries were real drivers. This one is, for our central figure, I agree with you, less of a where will it net out? That doesn't mean, though, that it's not compelling to watch, even if we have a real sense of the inevitability of the landing point, because I think the

show as the caper, the bow at the end of this connected project, is overtly interested in, and obviously this is the not just subtext, the central text of the show for the characters, like, what is human nature? What does it mean to open yourself up to those connections? And so I find that even though the tension that you're identifying around those aspects for Vision and Tommy specifically, and even how Vision relates to other versions of himself, to history that he has not lived, but downloaded and is now immersing himself in anew. Just sitting quietly, kind of watching him think about that and weigh that and considerate is actually interesting to me. I'm with you that the Ultron stuff is, I think, just riveting.

It is kind of amazing. It's so fun to feel this way when you're watching a character. Last week, after the first two episodes, we were having the discussion on the pod of, like, you know, the 50-50, but it feels thematically, likely, apt, appropriate in this story that we could be watching. The things Ultron is saying about art and emotion and human nature, we want to, like, lean into believing that's possible, right? But there's this voice in our head still that is, of course, because it's Ultron pulling us back, he's one of our leading candidates. it's when we go to Theory Corner last week on the pot, etc. Right. So there's all this evidence that something good and true is there, but we're like, oh, we want to believe that we're still skeptical.

Then this week, he actually stages the takeover. We have more reason than to say it was all trial and we never should have believed. And I'm in, I swing the other way on it where I'm feeling more emboldened than ever to believe that he can be both. Yeah. Then he could have been this entire time working his agenda to escape containment. and also believe the things that he's saying, you know, and, I mean, that's what Ultron has always been, is like, I believe this is for the greater good. What I'm doing is for the greater good. Don't we all tell ourselves that, you know? So, yeah, I agree. Like, I don't know, it's interesting,

all these characters. Paladin as well, like, what is going on with all these characters? Paladin remains a real stumbling block for me, and we got an email about this, and I'll read in a second, but like, it really feels to me, and this is not complimentary, that he is, like, in agents of shield, like, that he's just, like, in a different show altogether, and I reserve the right to, like, change my mind about that. Or, like, is this, I mean, I don't think this is the last we'll see of him, but, like, you know, he got fired. Like, you know, and episode four was your favorite episode four, no Paladin. So, you know, it's just sort of like, meanwhile, and that's what makes the show feel samey. The Paladin stuff to me feels samey to other.

superhero stuff I've seen before, whereas the mind palace, like ingenuity of the production design and sort of the literalization of the processes and stuff like that, is wholly distinct and so fun. And that's what Wanda Vision and Agatha had going for them is just this like really distinctive. You don't see this in another Marvel show. You don't see this in another superhero show. This like extremely creative fun platform for the ingenuity of the production team or the writing team and the performances. I mean, I think Emily Hampshire as Edith is just like, delightful. One of my favorite new additions. You know, I put it up there with like Madison and Yelena. Like, you know, these are like, I don't. Top tier, man. But I'm like really invested in Edith.

You know, this is great. So this gets to what I wanted to ask you, float to you. I think we try to not, this is across the pop culture shows at the Ringer podcast network. You will hear a lot of hosts say, we don't like want to fall to the trap of talking about the show we didn't get or that we thought we should have gotten. But just because here I think it is, there's plenty of room to ask this given the two shows that this project is most closely connected to. Should Vision Quest have been in its entirety what we got in episode four, which I don't think only had to be in the mind palace? No. Because we got versions of it in both spaces here. the heist gala infiltration, that's the real world.

And then the Interpol sequence, which I just thought was... I think it's the best thing the show is done. Unbelievably entertaining. End to end. Every single decision in the entire investigative, because it's not just Interpol, it's also just sort of like their murder board and the corner moment and like every single beat of that. Yes. So here's the question.

Should every episode, and maybe not literally every, but like 70% of the episode, episodes had a kind of gimmick, a concept like Wanda Vision. We went through the decades of the different sitcom homages. And then in Agatha, we started, we thought, oh, Mayor of Easttown, it's going to be the TV. No, it wasn't. Then we shifted. But still, we went through a structure broadly where, you know, of course, we get the two backstory episodes for Billy and Agatha. But what we got most of the season was every episode is a trial, a themed trial. Yeah. So some worked better than others. For sure.

You know, like the real housewise one, I, you know, like. Yeah. Would a version of Vision Quest, where both in the Mind Palace and then also ideally in the real world, the characters are engaging in genre play? Yeah. Have been not only more of a piece with the other shows, but based on what we saw here. If not 10 out of 10 no notes, like 9.8 out of 10 no notes? I mean. anything that could result in more time inside of the Mine Palace and especially, yeah, just like playing inside of tropes of something.

I think specifically, like, the fun they had with the props. Yeah. Of the murder board or stuff like that or the costumes. Like, you know, what everyone's wearing, the trenches, the like Holmes and Watson get up, you know, like, let's just find an example. You know, and that was a fun. The costume department had a really fun time with Agatha and with Wanda, you know. So, like, yeah. We got the Little Morg moment, but that could have been an entire episode.

I don't want to set an episode of the morgue. Sorry. Even if it's with Edith and Ultron, I'm grudgingly realizing that they're on the same page. I'm not a CSI person. It's not for me. It's not for me. Yeah, that's, I mean, it's a, it's a fun idea. Somebody to think about.

Maybe if they get a second season, they can contemplate it. All right, let's hit some mailbag questions real quick. Less questions, more comments. Moes said is a huge fan of the series, 12 monkeys. I can confidently tell you that Paladin, played by the great Todd Stashwick, will 100% be redeemed and become a hero. Without spoilers for 12 monkeys, plays a villain who you loathe but kind of admire

and subsequently through various flashbacks and heroic actions, redeems himself to be a very likable hero. Episode 3 with the synthesoid, mind-clawing paladin, gave us the thematic seeds of his origin story needed to turn him into a good guy by the end. So if he's being typecast,

based on what he did in 12 monkeys, this listener feels confident that this guy is going to join the good guys by the end of the day. The number of 12 monkeys' Easter eggs that are in these episodes. Lost on me even though I watched some of that show. Off the charts, in a way, like the big, like scientific organization that I guess Tony Stark got like all of his AI data from, which you have some feelings about? Not really.

It's just actually. So Mark Ridge Biotech? Yeah. I'm delighted to have President Laura Roslin here in any capacity, obviously. brief though it was. It is interesting to me that it's another retcon, which I will say this one.

We talked last week about the, that's an update that Vision just kind of like tucked, didn't kill Ultron despite canonically being the one in the movie who's like,

we got to make sure we do that. Retconning the history of AI tech development inside the MCU, it's an update. I don't mind. it for a couple reasons. One, I think the idea that Tony, who, you know, we have plenty of evidence early in the MCU about like, hey, claw? Yeah, I used to hang out with that guy at

arms dealers conventions, like the number of people in different corporations or black market walks of life who Tony was interacting with. Plausible. Mostly, I just never thought that the way Tony and Bruce talked about AI as a breakthrough in Age of Ultron made any sense. frankly, in part because of Jarvis's existence at that point, it was always like really bizarre every time I watch it. I'm like, this does not make sense. Right. So I have more room in my heart for it because of that,

but it is a pretty big update. It is. But wild to say the name of the company that I'm going to, you know, is at the center of this murder mystery and all these other things. Yeah. Is the name of the company that, I guess, creates the big virus that is at the center of Toll Monkey. So he's like, he took his sky net and he just like brought it.

poured it into the show. That's insane to me that Marvel's just like, sure. Let's make it somewhat of an interconnected universe. Like, why not? I mean, sort of nominally only, but like that's wild to me. Katerina, which is President Roslin's actual name, the character name, is the name of the head scientist in, not the same last name, but it's the first name of the head scientist, 12 monkeys. You know, it's just like again and again and again. I'm just sort of like, wow, okay, man, you do you. A listener who has identified themselves as big gay Travis wrote in to say the behavior discussed in the last pod about the butcher birds, about them stabbing their prance, spikes and thorns, and other fun things had many purposes. But one of the purposes that behavior fulfills is attracting mates. That's how I go about it too.

Now, this week we have learned that the butcher bird killer is in fact Acosta, or quote, the bride of Ultron in the comics. And all of her kills have been bringing her closer to, quote, finding her mate. Not sure if the show will go fully there with four episodes, but my bird nerd brain was tickled by that. So the idea that the butcher bird is a killer and uses that as a way to lure an attractive mate. And I mean, Ultron's interest is clear as day. She's an artist and a murderer. And he's like, that's pretty hot. Both those things combined.

She made her art part of her murder. Great. But yeah, that's a fun ornith. a ornithology fact, so I thought I would share that. Who knew? Not me. And I do love birds, as you know. Learned a new thing here. Great. Tell me about your love of bird.

Like, watching birds in your yard is what I know about your bird. Yeah, well, and you know that once I saw a pigeon on the streets of Chicago and said, nature. I love to watch a hummingbird and then various other birds. Basically an ornithologist. What's the person in you and ornithologist? Those are my questions. I just love it. Seeing a hummingbird is one of the great thrills. It just makes me so happy. It is one of the few things of the world that can actually, no matter how bad of mood. I'm in, I see a hummingbird and I'm like, life is amazing. The world is incredible.

And you're like the butterfly meme? Okay. Exactly. Our listener Lacey wrote in with something, with something, with something. I think in a friendly disagreement, let's have a conversation. Okay. Lacey titled her email, Lone bot, and cub, and says, I think we have another lone wolf and cub story on our hands. He's not 100% daddy, but he's something. The kid has great and terrible powers. He can't control. Daddy is morally iffy with the terrible past. a battle black hat cowboy grandpa dressed like Karl Marx is haunting them from an intangible digital realm. Is that part of the trope? Is Ultron there Werner Herzog? Looking forward to this vision accepting his role as dad and that'll be his foundation for connecting to

people slash humanity at last. Not looking forward to probably all the other inner AI characters going out one by one like victims in an Agatha Christie story. So I think Lacey has her answer inside of the end there because I just don't think this can qualify as a lone wolf and cub story when like the entire

vision family, even if they are not tangibly in the real world space, are along for the ride. The fact that, like, Ultron and Edith are popping into the motel to be like, hey, talk to him about boxing. Sit down here on this part of the bed. Sit right here. Have a conversation. Edel's showing up with her manic pack. Yeah. Facts was so good.

Really good. Yes. You know, Ultron being like, hey, part of being a dad is saying no. You know, like all that sort of stuff. Like, this is a fast and furious family sort of. story. Let's fire off the grill and sit down for burgers, for sure. That and then also, of course, as we talked about a lot last week.

Plus, Lisa's here. That's right. Lisa is here. Lisa's back. Lisa is back. I'm excited to talk about the coat of arms gala get up for the comma connection reasons, but also I have some questions for you about whether you think you'd be able to identify a fake pair of hands out in the wild. There's the question I just asked it.

Well, if you're looking at them directly, yes. But if I'm chit-chatting and form aware outside of it, a gala with some other important people. And I'm just sort of like, yes, yes, yes, Ruta Bega, Ruta Bega, Shmoo, shmoo, shmoo. And someone is like, I mean, what I'm more to be alerted to, not the fake hands, but just like the lone person, not in our group, just, like, sidling up in our periphery the entire time we're talking. Yeah. I do have notes for Lisa. Lisa got the job done, and I love that for her. But like, also apparently digital scan tickets did not connect to the actual, like, identity of the

invites. I've got some notes for President Laura Roslin on the security. She's trying to keep around her, but in a number of ways they failed here. A, why have fancy digital tickets in the first place? Exactly. Exactly. B, why not have your entire AI army just, like, craft you a couple, 3D print you a couple of digital tickets? It seems like a miss, given the things that these people work on.

The code of arms concepts. Yes. Yeah. I think I would notice somebody who's, that unnatural stillness to me feels so conspicuous because I, as you know, can't sit still. I think it would work really well on a subway. Like, you know, we're all packed in like sardines. Yeah.

I think that would work really well. But then there's a jolt and everyone else reaches and coat of arms just sits still and you're like normal. She's got excellent core. You'd have to have excellent core string. You would. Drop the Aberdeen, Lisa. Just like plant. Oh, my God.

Engage the core. Make it work. That's another reason that I'm like, no, because I have no core string. You're solving all of this. Listen, so in addition to the Lisa factor, the other Mind Palace AI, et cetera, as we talked about last week, Agatha ended with Billy declaring that he was on the hunt for Tommy. As you already said at the top of the pod today, we don't know if and when Billy will appear. It's our assumption based on how Agatha ended that he will at some point. But we should mention there was like a rando in one of the Tommy scenes early on that like a young man with dark curly hair that a bunch of viewers are like,

is that Tommy? And Terry Mattis has come out and said that was not, that was not, that was not Billy. That was not Billy. So don't, so don't, don't worry about it. Yes. But like, that's, that's also obviously part of the story. The idea that Billy is out there. And in theory, we assume they will be reunited at some point. But also the Wanda of it all. There is more than just the lone wolf and cub relationship between the two of them. But that is a, I think the lone wolf cub element is, uh, the most, one of the most potent little. bit of accelerants. It's like a catalyst because the AI family. Reluctant guardian, I think that element is sort of bordered over. It's supercharging the emotional evolution for vision. Yeah. And even though Tommy is the one who says, oh, like, you're your Fab Four? You don't want to do this Scottish accent. I don't think I'm capable of it. What if I got you some iron brew? Would that help? Let's find out. Let's find out. Oh, a family. Like Tommy himself is crediting this other family there. But I do want to say, before we move to the next email. Tommy's like, I'm a scholar of pop culture.

I've seen Buffy Vampire Slayer. You've got your family, and that would set to you apart from all the other chosen ones. Oh, man. What I really am taking from Lacey's email is that last week when I was like, we're all thinking about Grogue and you said, are we? Lacey gets it. I think Lacey started thinking about Grogu after you said that. I think you incepted her like malware. Okay. Our listener McKinley wrote in, talking about the Star Trek comp,

McKinley wanted to make a comp to another classic sort of 1960s, yeah, star-based property, which is Lost in Space, which is based on Robinson Crusoe, Swiss Family, Robinson, et cetera, et cetera. No relation, but deep in my heart, the Robinsons matter to me. No relation. Thanks for clarifying. You're welcome. Swiss family or Lost in Space or otherwise, the Robinsons are important to me. And most importantly, in Lost in Space, there is a character. Dr. Smith, who is an incredible schemy schemer and constantly trying to like find wedges

inside of the family and sort of make plots. In the most recent Netflix version of this, plots and schemes. The most recent Netflix version of this, Parker Posey played Dr. Smith and that was like extraordinary stuff, really, really good. But Dr. Smith is just like a juicy, great character. And I do think the Ultron Dr. Smith comp is a pretty good one. if the entire family inside of Vision can be the Robinson's. Danger Tommy Shepard. Danger Will Robinson is what they say in Lost in Space, as you probably know. Okay.

Backpack on Jets is how this person identified themselves in email. To disagree with your retcon issue about Ultron? Observation. Not an issue. Observation. Observation is the word. Okay. This listener and a couple of other people, I've seen this going around, this idea that, like, Ultron was always inside of vision because from his inception when Dr. Helen Show made it that like Jarvis and Ultron were always, I heard everything you said.

Yeah. And I just think that like, I really like the way this email ended, which is like, I think should they have chosen to, the writers of Vision Quest could have further delineated Ultron and Jarvis as being original to the programming Mind Palace. and then Friday, Edith, Dummy, and You as being the gracious guest to White Vision's lovely processors. So that's, like, one take that people have had. I will say that when I've heard Terry try to explain this, he has another idea, which is just about Ultron being in, like, cold storage. Yeah, that's my reply to this is I think that that email, and frankly, anyone who's watched the MCU in its entirety, I think could have received a premiere of this show where Vision just said, I was definitionally the culmination

of all of these different technologies. He's embedded in my code the way that like Edith and yeah and I surfaced and separated out and like restored basically those component parts. That's just frankly not what the show

told us inside of the premiere when Ultron said hey I didn't ask to be backed up and copy pasted out of Sukovia. Like it's just not what they're they're literally telling us it's a different thing. Yeah. So I just I agree that there is a

of the MCU that supports that, but that's not what they're doing in the show. I think what this person and of the other people who are clinging to this theory are doing is exactly what you said, which is like, hey, maybe the show I wish I could have gotten is one where this is the explanation for Ultron. I think in general, the fact, though, that Ultron is a part of vision is undeniable and important as not only we go through the P-pop, pop, et cetera, this idea of grandpa and the father-tree son, you know, obviously there's a rich textual moment in this episode at the gala when we get the, the, I keep wanting, I, it's going to be hard not to say President

Laura Rosal the entire time. You can say, Roslin. I just might. I frankly just might. You know, any excuse to talk about Battlestar, what a delight. Obviously, wonderful, wonderful choice. Is this my, is my moment to talk about sneakers? Because Mary McDonnell is also incredible in sneakers.

Actually, it's my favorite Mary McDonnell performance. So, you know. Is President Laura Rosal in second? Sure. That's a very muted shirt. She doesn't mean the same thing to me as she meets to you. I know. I mean, Adama and Rosalind, though, just there.

They're the OTP. They're the OTP. But yeah, I mean, they're a part of each other. They are apart of each other. That's part of what the story is interested in identifying and interrogating. So I don't think there's any need for us to talk ourselves out of that. Inextricable read of the connection between the characters. It's not that.

It's just that the show. Some of the lines of the air. Needlessly, I think, kind of said another thing that makes it odd that vision would have done that when it is in direct conflict with another thing that he said in the side of the MCU franchises and certainly ones that cover this much time and this many properties do stuff like that all the time. I managed in the span of like two episodes of the Obi-1 Konobi show to talk myself into the Obi-1 little lay stuff despite that. I would say a reccon of New Hope is a more meaningful choice than reconing one exchange from age

of Voltron. Like, it's fine. I still don't think they should have done it. I still think they should not have done that. Okay. Remember what he looked like in that show, though? Just unbelievable. Obi-Wan in his absolute best.

How often do we think about the Obi-Wan show? That feels like a long time ago. What a whiff to have you and McGregor's Obi-Wan and have a show that feels as inconsequential as that. Speaking of the McGregor family. Fourth Wingcasting. You want to talk about it? Esther McGregor?

I mean, it's just... Violet. This is a monumental moment that we have gotten Violet and Zayden officially cast. There's been, you know, speculation on the internet for, what, two years at this point? So that's it. That's the extent of my commentary. We've been texting. We have.

You have some thoughts. Maybe we'll share them more in death later. Oh, yeah. Stay tuned for our V-Day Quickie in February. It's October 22nd. Will you have read Threshing Day by then? We have a busy few months ahead. Yeah, we do.

I think I will definitely have read Threshing Day by then. Will I have caught up completely on Akitar by then? I think it's a feeling unlikely. But I'm going to try. I'm going to try. This episode is brought to by Google Pixel. Whether you're at the game, your kid's party or a wedding, you want to capture the moment, but you also want to stay present.

So you should probably check out Google Pixel 11 Pro with just one tap, magic capture on Google Pixel 11 Pro. Captures both video and high quality photos, then finds the best ones. So you can get back to what's important. Ask more of your phone. Try the Google Pixel 11 Pro. Check it out at store.gooko.com. Visit BetMGM Casino and check out the newest exclusive. The Price is Right Fortune Pick.

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In 2002, Ryan Wedding was an Olympic snowboarder at the top of his game. Ryan's style is really gunned and gold. And in less than a minute, it slipped away. But he continued to chase the high. Brian James Wedding, he controls one of the most violent drug trafficking organizations in this world. I'm Michelle Shepard and from CBC Podcasts and the Toronto Star, The Most Wanted Olympian. The Most Wanted Olympian, available now on Spotify. Should we go now to our deep dive?

Let's do it. Vision is bleeding out and no one can help him except for Tony Stark who is dead and Dr. Banner who yada, yada, yada. I don't know what time this takes place in relative time to Spider-Man. Nobody thinks to call Shuri. Shuri who, when she looked at Vision was like, I am on this and you guys fuck this up. She's like, why didn't you do this? She's like, why don't you do this? and they're like, oh, we're too dumb.

Did we learn no lessons? Did we learn no lessons? Sure he's out there. Yeah. I did like that we got the opening, the paint, you know, the drops of blood-like paint drops from Ultron into the oozing, like, ne. Goose. Yeah, the fluorescent, kind of. Yeah. White, blue.

Just in case you didn't already know this, when you see viscous goop in film and television, it's almost always K. Y. Jelly. Almost always. No free ads. it's almost always some sort of loop. There you go. But it's K.Y. Jelly. Oh, my God.

All right. Tommy knows about Tony creating ultra. Like, what Tommy knows and when he knew it? Yeah. You know, like, there's just a lot of information. Like, what did everyone know about what the Avengers were up to? What did everyone know about what Tony Stark was up to? They knew that Tony Stark created Ultron and then Ultron's responsible for Sokovia, but Tony is just like, fine.

Ain't that the way with billionaires, you know? Indeed. There's only one actual question here. No consequences. Has Tommy canonically established history of the Avengers scholar, canonically established passionate reader, read the only book on this that actually matters. Your New York Times best-selling MCU book. That's the question. Tommy loved the MCU of the Rain of Marvel Studios.

Thanks so much for asking. He really liked the paperback most of all. Did Tommy show up at any of the book events? If he did, he was so speedy. Zipped to the front of the line? So speedy, I didn't see him, you know? Interesting. Crucially inside of this episode, now I know what the technical answer.

The technical answer is the snap was the act of snapping and the blip is the time that happens afterwards. But I am so out on blip as a term and I always have been. Yeah. And I just call, why not just call it the snap? You can just call the whole thing the snap. The snap happened and then everything that happened afterwards, also the snap. Yeah. The snap rules.

It's a great term. Blip is stupid. So, fuck that shirt. Fuck any use of blip. I'm also a blip denier, like the person who owns that car, except for different reasons. They're a conspiracy theorist, and I just think it's a bad term. Good t-shirt as well, you know? Burn the shirt.

Here's my journey with this. Initially, could not have agreed with you more. They wore you down. I thought. Sad to hear. This will be not the first and probably not the last time today that I mentioned. Grogu? Very reminiscent to me. When we first heard Grogo's name, I, like, legions of others, like, absolutely not. Yeah. And now he's Grogu to me. But what did the blip have in terms

babbles and coos and gurgles to get you on its side? There's one thing and one thing only. One thing and one thing only. For a long time, I was resistant. I kept saying the snap. Stubberingly, I kept saying the snap. Sometimes I still do. Stay strong. It's happy Hogan saying blip beard. Snapbeard. Grew it in the blip. Blip beard. It's something about the way that he says blip beard. Stupid.

It got me. Terrible. Weak. Okay. You're going to burn all that merch, but, you know, I guess you can afford to burn it. You don't have room for any new merch because you've got all your Thanos was right mugs. You only need one. Makes sense.

You really only need one Thanos's right mug. No. What if you chip it when you're learning the dishwasher or something? You don't want to back up? No, if you, if you just, you just. Chip a mug, it becomes part of the mug's character. It means you've used it and you love it. Depends on where the chip is.

What if it's on the exact, like the lip bed where you take your sips from? You can take your sip from any part of the circumference of a mug. Can't. Yeah, you can. No, you can't. Absolutely can't. Absolutely. You can't.

It's a full circle. Your lips belong anywhere. Not right above the handle, but anywhere else. But then where your hand is because of the handle, it just there's only, there are only so many things that make sense with a mug. Not true. All right. Vision's Mind Palace is glitching out like Wanda's Magic did in the hex, which I think looks really cool. I love the production design on the broken down house.

But what's also true is that like even before it was broken down and it looks like so cool with like the slanted shelves and all the stuff like that. They had a bunch of stuff that didn't make sense. They put out a little featurette on the production design of the house last week where they talked about how they wanted to make it look like AI slop. So you have like banisters that are all like, you know, like warped. Like, a lot of the stuff is meant to look like AI tried to give you a Magritte painting and, like, effed it up. And AI tried to give you a potted plant, but oops, it's on the wall. You know, like all of that stuff. Good counter-programming to our story about how all of these synthesides can find the capacity for human connection inside of that.

No, possibly, but also cautionary, this is a wild cautionary tale. Of course. It's like, we imbued, if we imbue AI with our own humanity, uh-oh. Actually, maybe that's worse. These episodes in particular had actual dialogue about this idea of playing God. That was one of the reasons that having President Laura Roslin here and making the Battlestar tie so over was really smart and fun. And Terry Matalas is a huge Battlestar Galactica fan, so he's like, that's not coincidental cast. Yeah.

Yes, for sure. Is this all we're going to see of her? Are we going to get like some flashbacks up? Because I really don't, I could be wrong. This is when I get like sort of who, who. is a casting spoiler and who is not wrong all the time on like prestige. Rob and I'll be like, surely that person. Because you're like, this is a person I've been obsessed with and the rest the world. It's like, I don't know who this is. This person is in speakers and that matters. And so

she can't show up for one episode. When she showed up in like that interview footage, I was like, holy shit, Mary McDonald's in the show. Like, that's great. She's going to be a huge character. Then she gets vaporized by episode four. And I was like, that can't be it. I mean, at least if they had been airing them every week, we would have gotten to enjoy her for two weeks. I know. I hope that this is not. I assume, I mean, look, so much. So much of the show for the vision of it all, but also the Tommy of it all, and as we've talked about,

the Ultron of it all. And now in this episode, we get, like, Edith learning her human avatar, was Edith Marks, and what does that mean? The past is... Ultron can say all he wants about,

it's not the past that makes you want to keep going. It's the future. The past is central to this story. I'll say this. If we're getting a fucking Paladin flashback, I demand some of the flashbacks as well. Let's hear your childhood trauma. Yeah.

We invite you to share it with us. Right. Tell us about your daddy. issues. Exactly. Exactly. Visions constantly talk to no one I've talked about before about how much this is a trope that I enjoy, Slings and Arrows, the Canadian show being one of my favorite

examples. But I was thinking a lot about Paul Bettney being cast in this and thinking about a beautiful mind. No spoilers for that, I guess, if you've never seen a beautiful mind. But it's- Check it out. It's funny casting. Check it out, yeah. If you have.

What do you like more on the trope front? Talking to no one or a description of carvings or etching. bird-like wing-like imagery, and then you look at it, and you're like, that looks like an angel, it makes us think of the Bible. And then later, in that stretch of story, we get a Bible pulled off the shelf and an exorcism. Bible stuff go, also present here, talking to no one, present here. Fun, fun, fun. Yeah, I'm curious how much, that's so interesting. I had not, those did not look like angel wings to me, but I'm often thinking about birds and very rarely thinking about angels, unless they're vampires.

But the playing God talk, the idea of the fallen angel, the devil, the devil, the shoulder. And it's funny, too, because actually when I watched it the first time, even though literally it's like Programmer's Bible that Edith pulls off the shelf, to me, it just felt like a spell. I was like, oh, they're doing a Wanda Agatha witchcraft connection, but it is clearly meant to be like a religious ceremony. Well, that bit did not work for me at all until Aldron comes in with the power of Christ,

the power of code compels you, which was. Hilarious. Hesderical. Very good. Edith Ultron. Spinoff. Spinoff. Series of companion webisodes.

Yeah. With Madison and Wong? I mean, what about a series? They are always welcome. The professors always welcome in Madison. A series of spin-off webisodes that are just called dynamic duos. And it's just sort of like our favorite pairings inside of the MCU. This is taking me back to, let's see if I'm capable of remembering why we

did this. Oh, the Punisher. Yeah. And basically all of our bishops. Connected to that. It's like, oh, we have a type. Oh, any. World by Night mentioned in this episode. World by Night mentioned Punisher. It exists. Daredevil. Speaking of. I can't believe. We've briefly mentioned fourth wing casting.

Joanna. Mallory. The internet is demanding to know if you have seen the Quinn campaign. I'm curious why you would bring like our private text messages. A bunch of listeners, a bunch of listeners, tag me in the latest. Quinn as, as you know I'm aware. You're aware. Wilson Bethel, Bullseye himself is doing, has Donna Quinn story. Said in a diner. Quinn for you're just joining us. And some people are. Quinn is audio erotica. And they've been like drafting some of the like most coveted internet boyfriend type people.

to narrate these. I would say specifically from shows that we cover. There's a lot of the genre properties. As you know, we're huge a summary. I turn pretty people. I haven't seen it. Really feel like I missed out. But yeah, Wilson Bethel has voiced something for them.

Mallory has been sending me, hopefully, some of the updated things. They're powerful. I feel like it's too powerful to exist. And I don't like engaging with it because it's too much. It's too perfect. It's too much. Only one way to find out.

I'll be signing up at long last. Maller is like, should I be with you when you're listening to this? I said. No. It just feels like an important part of our shared experience. We didn't even see Wicker together. We couldn't even sit next to each other for Wicter. Oh, God, and that was a powerful experience.

Does Quinn do like basically screeners, you know? Oh. Something we should look into and consider. Throwing it out there. We've got a lot of free time coming up. So should we formally cover the Wilson Bethel? What's it called? Quinn, let's see.

It's something at the diner, right? Dead at the diner. Dead end diner? Dead meat diner. Dead meat is certainly not in the name of a Quinn story. Let's see. Dead end diner. I'll be checking it out.

I've said that now about the Matt Smith one. You have yet to do it. What will push you over the edge? Youa McGregor. Oh, my God. I mean, that's like a. Harrison Ford. And like.

Harrison Ford. I mean. Harrison Ford in an Amish-themed sort of story. With a lot of smoldering yearning. Yeah. Taping on the roof of the car. That would be great. I probably would.

You'd never see me again after that. And I certainly would not want to be with you while you were listening to it. I like to think we're very close. Vision does the dad lecturing driving stuff. We already mentioned the want to max them off to sort of like distance himself. Vision, Tommy and Ultron give him. us more previously on recaps and I really hope that's the end of it. We got like another Wanda

Vision recap. What happened to Wanda at the end of Multiverse of Madness moment from all from that trio. That being said, all of that's worth it. All of that didn't quite work for me is worth it for James Spader saying you want to watch

a porno. It has this wonderful stuff. You want to watch a porno? I mean, in essence, I just asked you that. Do you want to listen to Quinn? Wilson Bethel's Quinn with me? Ultron come on the pod, you'll be right at home. I've got to say, a lot of very, very zippy, funny lines from Ultron, but from the whole gang in this episode. On the, this was quite rude from, I think that Tommy asking if he should take Vision to the Apple store or a TV repair shop was not nice.

That was funny. Not nice. This friend that I was talking to about Vision Quest, he was like, I see a lot of overlap between him. And Ultron, just in terms of their, like, wow, asuric nature. Would you say that to his face? I did. Yeah.

And he, like, weirdly flattered because Ultron rules. Not weirdly. He was like, what a huge compliment, honestly. He was like, I too wish I could say mean things whenever I wanted to and get away with it. And I said, if you give it 10 years, you can just, like, blame it on senility. Yeah. And then he sent me back.

You can say it try podcast. He sent me back a meme of Ultron saying that, basically, like, that I'm the Ultron in that scenario. But anyway, like, I do feel like we should all aspire to live long enough. to be old enough that we can say whatever we want and no one can stop us. You have a microphone in a public platform. Go for it. You cannot say whatever you want into a microphone and you know that better than anyone else, Smalley or Rubin. You know how much of your slurs we have to edit out of this podcast.

Stop! That's not true! Ultron joins Vision in the movie in the movie theater inside of the Mine Palace as we're sort of getting to the climax of all of this to give him a glimpse of. to show him the Family Ties episode of One Division. Who is the boss? Who is the boss? Family Ties mentioned, that's where my parents got the name Mallory. Fun fact that I've shared 900 times previously.

I, every, anytime we're in the little movie theater, I kind of like it, the screening room. I just always kind of like it. It's fun. It makes sense. It's like an appropriate use of that space. It makes sense that the characters would be behaving this way. I thought that the, you know, what Ultron, because so many of the lines are just cutting and witty, those moments, whether it's like you were talking about earlier, what he says about fatherhood or something here, like, why do you, what makes you want to go on.

I just am really interested in parsing how much we agree or disagree with what he says. I find that to be one of the really compelling things about the character. Like there is always a little bit of a current. This is, you know, it's just another manifestation, ultimately, of the angel devil thing that you're citing. Like, you feel yourself lured in by what he is presenting. But then I almost always work to a place of disagreement with him. It's kind of interesting. Like, I think the past future framing here, there was something about it that made real sense to me.

And I thought was a compelling pitch. You carry forward because you want to know what awaits. But you also do it. And certainly vision. in this story that is about soaking up all of these memories that he didn't actually experience directly in this particular manifestation,

the past is kind of the point. Like, the past is his portal to the future. I think Ultron's right in that moment. And I think he's also right when he says, you get to be the next version of what you once were to eat it. Like, I... But he's also manipulating them all the time. All the time. But he can manipulate them with the truth. That's what I'm saying.

That's what's interesting. The most convincing lie. Yeah. Wrapped inside of a truth. So you feel yourself kind of on guard constantly with his counsel. I thought the thing he said about parents was I had more of an issue with, actually. But I think the fact that he said the ones, not that it's important to say no, but that they say no more than they say yes. Because again, that's an interesting.

I think it depends how well the kid is. But it's an interesting lens into Ultron psychology and what his motivation is. There's nothing altruistic. It doesn't mean he's not capable of helping the person on the other end of the conversation. But his motivation is inherently selfish. So he is a character defined by his desire to control and his lack of faith in anybody else's ability to do something well. So, of course, he looks at it from the position of say no, not yes. Having just spent the last couple days with an 18-month-old, I just feel like no was like 85% of gently.

No, no, no, no. Just keep them from hurting themselves. I mean, of course. Protect your kids. Yeah. Yeah. But, like, why is he actually saying all this? Because he wants to be the one to make the decision for everyone.

100%. Fascinating character. We get this Stranger Things-esque pool party moment. We got this great email from our listener, Aaron, who said, if I had a nickel for every time one of Juana's Maximoff's sons had to perform an emergency suvied to kickstart some water into a desperate life-sasing treatment, at the end of the third episode of a Disney Plus show, that introduces their character into the M-PU. I only have two nickels, but it's still weird. It happened twice.

It's funny. I personally preferred Billy slash William slash teen using a literal suave machine to bring the sink caldron to a boil to whip up the wine poison antidote as opposed to Tommy slash Thomas turning himself to some kind of energy suvied machine to jumpstart vision systems. Maybe that's just where I fall on the fantasy slash sci-fi spectrum. So hysterical observation, I like, to me, like the suvie, we're in the kitchen. and we have to use the Stinkas a Cauldron in the third episode of Agatha, while the idea of that worked in that space because it was about the coven and everybody playing a role, like everybody going to find their ingredient, right? And so it made sense and was a good fit there.

But here it feels very appropriate because so much of the story is about vision, confronting the past so that he can move into the future. And so, of course, him taking Tommy on some sort of parallel journey, Tommy having to face the water, face the pool, tell Vision what happened to him. Vision actually listening to that. Actually, I have a question that makes me want to ask you, I want to ask you a question about the simulation thing before I forget. But it felt right that they had to go back into the pool in order to. It felt on the nose. Clunky. Yeah. It felt like obvious to me. But I mean, I think. But it looks cool. Yeah. I think that's how like a lot of the show has

been so far, right? Like, we are watching literal footage of the past or the character who is trying to find a connection to the idea, the seemingly impossible to reconcile idea of his parents, says he likes sitcoms and realize... Can phase through phase. Yeah, like, I think, I wouldn't say that, like, subtlety has been the show's strength. No, but I think more complex, and we've already talked about some of the complexity, Like when Ultron is saying something and we both maybe agree but also realize that he's manipulating or when like President Laura Roslin is up there and talking about AI and we're like yeah, there are ways in which AI can be used for like positive sort of healthcare reasons, which she is sort of intimating, but also a suit of armor around the world, which is what, you know, they ultimately like sold their tech to Tony Stark and that's what Tony Stark decided to do with it. Like those complicated ideas are on a different level than the boy gets traumatized in pool. so he needs to get back in the pool to heal his father.

I just feel like the show is like sometimes operating up here and then sometimes operating down here. I will say, though, I think that even the Ultron stuff, while it is working better for us, is a little bit more maybe because of the performance than the storytelling. Like a number of the exchanges between Ultron and Vision have literally involved the character saying,

do you just want to kill everyone? Oh, maybe. And it's so hysterical. Eric Cole to watch Beat or say, huh, that I love it. So good. But it is literally just the character saying, wait, do you just want to kill everyone? Which is, again, like, pretty... This is another good example.

But those are just, like, tossed off, like, jokes inside of the Interpol scene versus, like, this is the culminating event of the episode. Yes. That's a really, that distinction and performance, I think... Yeah. Dovetails really nicely into the next thing I want to talk about, which is, like, there's a hard reboot, and there's also the way in which Jarvis's code sort of see... into the various AI, but no matter what the cause, they're all behaving a little bit differently, maybe a bit more human if you prefer, a bit more emotional if you prefer, and whether or not that's the infusion of Jarvis inside of them or a result somehow of the hard reboot.

But I don't think so because it predates the reboot, especially like what Friday goes through here. So Friday has this big like sort of no more sacrifice, losing Tony Stark PTSD moment. Edith has her sort of introspective I'm going to get all these album covers out and go through the record the Stark Industries records which is so fun and then dummy and you are

verbal now and like contributing to with Keats or Danny Boy or like onstage padder so they're all Keats was great different than they were before and some of it really landed for me and some of it didn't so the Friday stuff

I don't know fell really flat for me and the Edith stuff really worked for me and I don't know if that's just performance or what's going on there. But, like, I really wanted the Friday stuff, especially it gets connected to one of the most important pop-cultural moments that has ever existed. And it just didn't quite connect with me the way that I think it wanted to.

No, I agree. I thought that the... It's very emblematic of a distinction between, I think, the nobility of the show's intention with a certain choice being not only clear, but I think probably right. and that's not necessarily the same as it working. Yeah.

Like I think that Friday, tears pulling in Friday's eyes and Friday saying, like, I was there when Tony died. I ran over a quintillion strategic calculations. Like, it wasn't enough. And the idea that it's not just vision. It can't just be vision. I mean, it could be. There could be something about that distinction, ultimately.

But the idea that they are on not only this found family share journey of unlocking emotional depth for each other. But that this group of AI that all have this history, not only like this shared space in the mind palace, but this connection to Tony, this connection to our experience as viewers, the history we bring to it with the MCU, that they are not just there to perform a function. Like when we have heard these allusions to the time, the passage of time, multiple years that they've spent together, teaching vision about human nature. If they're not on their own journey with that too, then it just lacks some of the depth. It lacks some of the ability that a parallel structure can have to heighten some sort of message for us and, of course, for vision. But I just was like, I'm not feeling it. I'm just not feeling it in that moment.

Maybe this is just like the subtlety versus not or like this is a Disney Plus show that needs to hit to like, you know, the kids, the cheap sheets we need to like, cheap seats we need to like say the thing. But when she says no more sacrifices, she says that first, no more sacrifices. She says about Jarvis. She's also saying it about Tony. And I'm like, I get it. She's talking about Tony. That's really cool. And then she just like.

That was enough. And then she just like says it for a while, you know? For sure. Yeah. The Edith stuff did really work for me. What she finds out or what we find out in this sort of record search of these physical inspoes is that Friday is based on someone called Allison Hogan, which is. everyone, you know, seems to agree they think is Happy Hogan's mom potentially.

Great stuff. So it's the idea that like not just Howard's Girl Friday, but also someone who helped raise Tony's, this idea that Tony was like raised with Happy as sort of like siblings of a kind is beautiful to think about. And also very beautiful, very touching, love it. And also just classic Tony to be like my lifelong dearest friend. My driver. Yeah.

Classic. Classic. Honestly. Happy will carry your bags off. Peter. Valet. Yeah. Unbelievable.

I thought the Edith sequence was really good. Edith discovering Edith Marks. What Ultron was able to do in that scene, you know, the comforting words, the tenderness, the sweetness, the advice, you know, the who you are advice, but also just like to go from in the span of one conversation that did he think she laughed in the face of death? Because that's been this through line, right? The idea that so much of this is about what learning something in the past can open up for you. And that for Edith, we get to see very quickly that it has the opposite effect, right? That confronting something, why would he, like the way that she says, why would he, why would Sark pass that on to me? I'm supposed to be the fun one.

I just thought that was really powerful. You know, how much time are we going to spend with Edith thinking about this moving forward? I'm not really sure. I don't know that there's like a ton of room for that. But I think very quickly that heightened our ability to feel like they're all on their own journey of reconciling with who they were based on. Does that matter? Does it need to matter? Well, and who can you be, you know, evolution.

We get, you know, the evolution of man sort of image, like, and the way in which can. Can you change your programming? Can you change your code? You know, can you break free of what you were told you had to be, what you were invented to be? AI constantly evolving and improving and all of that, obviously scary. Very. You know, is true.

But the way in which that aligns with this human desire to reinvent, to evolve, to change. And you want to say about grief is the inevitable tragic demise of love, which Ultron says. You know, we're just, we continue to play with a lot of playing with the hits. Yeah. We know what our Spotify Rapp is going to be for the season of TV, for sure do. All right. All the best paladins have daddy issues. Let me quickly ask you if the fact that we run all those simulations with Vision and Tommy,

did that in any way put you on, not in a bad way, but did that put you on guard in any way for like whether we will know for sure if we are watching a real thing or a simulation moving forward in the show? I mean, there's a couple things. that for sure we just need to be ready yes because they've given this to us yeah as a possibility yeah and i think also the sort of like this is the physical inspiration for who we are uh you know and and and for edith and for friday and we already knew that for jarvis yeah and then we get it for joe in this episode yes for joe but no she is she is dr joe um but like Like, you know, Ultron says he's one of one. Is that true?

He has the moment at the end of the episode when she says, Peace and our time. And he has this real moment of like, Peace and our time. Way. There are like three distinct moments in these episodes where Ultron, the show goes out of its way to have Ultron say a version of or be confronted with a question about. Like, Edith is like, why did you pick that avatar?

Right. So the show is, the show wants us to be thinking about. Exactly. It's because of the other characters, but also because Ultron himself is engaging with it. The baguette-sized breadcrumbs that are being dropped here. Yes, exactly. All the best pelicans have daddy issues. What do you want to say about any of this?

I agree with you that this was pretty clunky and didn't really work. I mean, I think that giving us, again, the desire to give us insight into and thus potentially empathy. Our quote-unquote villain makes sense to me as a pursuit inside of the show. I think also certainly the idea of like a commonality with our hero set, right? You know, the question of what makes a family a family, right? The fact that his actual father was clearly a piece of shit, was cruel to him, you know, told him that he was weak, that's a toy his mom gave him, made him weak. Like, all horrible. We see that very quickly and then that guy is shot in the head in front.

of him. And, you know, we get to see the paladin crest. Well, okay, that guy, prior paladin didn't have an air of his own. So he picked this paladin. That's a lone wolf and cub story looks like. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah. So, you know, the idea that it's not just your literal DNA or bloodline. It could be your adoptive father who turns you into a killing machine from a young age. Your oath. Your code. It's got to come from somewhere, folks. It's got to come from somewhere. So I understand, you know, why that's all here. And certainly what. it might lead to in the future. It was pretty clunky.

It was pretty clunky the writing. I think even just the kind of stylistic presentation of it, while it makes sense because we're, you know, fingers in the mind, it just feels like blaring sirens were telling you his backstory so that you have some tenderness in your heart. Yeah. I did enjoy him being like all battered and bruised and talking to his handler inside of his van and just sort of like going through all of that. I thought that was fun.

I find his performance really, really fun so far. Yeah. I agree with what you're saying more broadly about just kind of the intent maybe of a figure like this in an MCU show and how interesting that is at this point. When like the kid is walking his dog and sees the dog grooming thing on the truck. It's funny. It's funny. That stuff's fun. It is great.

Yeah. Also the fact that he has names for his drones. Yes, bang, bang boom. Boom. Good stuff. Those look to me, I don't know. Not a drone expert. Let me say that.

Add it to the list. We're not doctors. She is an ornithologist. But she's not a drone expert. Those to me looked like stark Edith drones that he took and painted black. 100%. A. Yeah.

It's like I thought far from home. B. I mean, because those drones were just like everywhere all over London. So like, you know, whatever. Anyone could go pick up three drones and paint them black if they want to. But does that mean Edith would have access to those drones? Fun to think about. Just asking questions.

Haunted house. We had this cool invasion after the hard reboot. of Jacosta being like, vision. And then everything turns red. The red light in the trailer made us wonder if this was Wanda. Like, you know, when we see vision floating and there was like a figure sitting in front of the television, turns out it's Edith. But we were like, is this Wanda in the trailer or a different witch in the trailer? The red light is associated with Joe and with Ultron, the red eyes, all of that sort of stuff.

But the red, it's a little confusing because this is so chaos magic coded. And I don't think chaos magic has anything to do with this. but like it is a visual associated with Jacosta. Yeah. We get images inside of her mind. We get like a red button. We get some ants. I don't really know what any of that is.

But we get inside of her mind. We get the exorcist joke. We get Terry Mattel is cameo. He's the person interviewing President Laura Roslin on the television. But I think the most interesting, and this is all very stylistically cool, the dummy and you being sort of like possessed. Ultron just like flicking him away, which I thought was like a. interesting demonstration of his power versus like earlier when he let them like manhandle him.

Yeah. He just sort of like flicks them away. But I think the conversation between Vision and Joe, they always make another. Yeah. I thought that was really compelling. And feels true, you know, not just true to what we have seen in the story, but true to something about human nature and the human capacity. A lot of the story is about embracing the good, right?

good that you can find in your heart and your soul if you connect to another person and seek not to distance yourself from what it means to be human, but give yourself over to it. But then the hubristic aspects of humanity that lead to all of the mistakes, the mistakes that in every sci-fi story that people have been reading for decades and watching for decades that we are now living through, would you say? They were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think about whether or not they should. That's exactly what I would say. And that these characters in some cases, you know, were like, I did think about whether I shouldn't.

I decided the answer was yes and that that's pretty damning and bad, too. So there's a film coming out this year called Artificial, which is about Sam Altman. And it's, I saw an advanced screening of it is one of the best movies ever seen, I think. But there's so much overlap here in terms of just sort of like the actual intellectual curiosity behind this. And then just sort of like the cat's out of the bag, like you can't put it back in. You know, like, what have we done? And like, this is not our intention, but does intention matter when like the end result is the end result? I mean, you know, on the battles, obviously this is like this is what Battlestar Galactica is about.

But, you know, makes me think back to like our, when we were doing our best of the year so far episodes and the speeches. And, you know, there are so many great speeches in Battlestar. But the Adama one that I picked was from the miniseries that. kicked it off because it centers on that question. Like, do we even, all of this is about, let's try to save ourselves. Like, what are we trying to save? Yeah. You know, do we deserve it?

And how important it is to ask that question so that you can hopefully get to a place where the answer is yes and meaningful and true, right? I was getting, on the, you mentioned a stranger things earlier with the pool. Like, I thought this looked so Creel Mansion and the upside down, you know, with the demo bats, that visual when we're outside of the Mind Palace and that space. So that was kind of fun to think about. And then, yeah, I don't know what the ants were about. I mean, obviously the birds, we have the butcher bird. We have all the bird stuff. But

there's like these clusters. Yeah. The swarms. And it's a very organic, like how do organic things swarm versus inorganic things. Yeah. Anytime now in a now like recently over the last years, basically since last of us, anytime I see a bunch of ants in a genre story like this, I have mine. I get nervous. Tough. Are the mushrooms out there? I don't know. Yearning tendrils. All right. Who detected better Agatha or Team Vision?

We already talked about a lot about this. I just want to once again reiterate how fucking good this sequence is. And I want to shout out a few things we haven't gotten to. Let's hit the highlights for sure. Maps with pins. It just says maps with pins on the board behind them. The other boards also are hysterical dead people is the name of one of them. And human murder board.

Also, clues. Clues was so good. Human murder board was sort of like the overarching thing. And then it's mass with pins, clues. dead people. So funny. This was so funny. And having just made a conspiracy board for our cake chair cover it, I was like, I was

matched with pins. I really admired it. We did a lot of pinning. Vision's suspender shirt. Oh my gosh. His button down shirt that had just suspenders on it, which is very similar to like Edith's bow sweaters that she wears that like the bow is sort of embroidered onto. Once again, I think this is very like AI sloppy.

Oh, also. Cosplaying, yeah. Some people have noticed that Edith has Morse code on her fingernails for the letter V. What's the message? It's the letter V. I love that she calls him V. I think it's really fun and like really cute. Very sweet. So that does to me, that gives me vision is making all of the AI family. Again, it gives me the doctor strange.

And your nails will be my name. I'm like everyone else in your life, I don't work for you. Like, let them go on their own. our own journey. Their nails don't have to be about you. Maybe it could be an E. All right. The fire hydrant capture test, incredible. This, I was really in stitches watching this. This was so funny. And this is Ultron not his best. Like,

he's so adamant. He's so sure it's five, right? But the fact that he's not just so sure he's, that it's five and he's wrong, he's like, are you sure that it isn't actually just in this bullshit? Yeah. This fucking dumb test made by dipshits. And when he's like, I would like to submit this many possibilities for the password. He's like bullshit. That killed me. Shout out Sir Job of the Mud. Anything you want to say about Sir Job of the Mud? Um, you know, big... His mom's an Astros fan. That's right. Big, big moment for baseball as well. So not to take any of

the shine off of Sir Job of the Mut, which killed me. I had to pause because I was laughing so hard of that. It was just so good. Just a hysterical sequence. The little flipbook for like the Instagram post. It really, really was wonderful. I loved it. I was just having a blast. And then when we get to like When Ultron is like Let's find out more about the body And like don't you want to switch costumes And Eve's like I hate you but thank you for the opportunity

On the it hurts to hear You know worst person you know made a good A good point front How How deep did the bullet from Ultron in bed When he said Where most lonely middle aged humans spend their time social media. I was real like, it me with that. Like, oh my God, you just doob scrolling

Instagram at 2 a.m. when you should be sleeping. Ultron does know. He gets it. You live a vibrant lifestyle, Mallory. That's me. Thriving. There are hummingbirds of plenty in your yard. There are some. I wish there were more. I wish there were more. But I don't want to get one of those feeders because I worry that if you don't keep it clean, you hurt them. So I'm scared. Someone also mentioned something about like hummingbird diabetes and I have some thoughts and concerns about it. I thought maybe you were going to say you really related to Ultron when he basically hit them with a phrasing when Edith says nobody likes a surprise rear entry.

Incredible stuff. And he basically from the corner said phrase. He didn't. He said, do you even hear yourself? But he should have said phrasing, honestly. He's ready to pod. He is. All right.

It's a high. Yeah. Give Ultron a microphone. It's a heist. All right. We've already talked about a lot of this. Anything else you want to say about this heist moment? I found the moment, you know, the Bettney performance.

Wonderful vision. We're rooting for him. We're invested. Not only does he speak Italian, he has full mastery of all 34 regional dialects. What more do we need to know? Great stuff. That was delightful. I've also thought that, you know, we've been on Fitwatch. This Cabernet, Velvet. Yes, I am handsomer than you and any measure. That was great. That was amazing. That was a really funny exchange with Lisa and Tommy Vision. But that was just an incredible. Incredible talks. The like cranberry crushed velvet look. He's ready for the Oscars. Fantastic stuff. Love that. I thought that was great. Ruri rhymes with Brewery, who plays Tommy. He is Scottish and Italian. So I think they put that in there because he's just like can speak Italian. Look that. Wonderful. When anything you want to say that we haven't said about Rosalind's speech being like a transhumanist? I mean. Fascinating. She seems like she sucks. It's obviously all very worrying. everything that this group was up to.

So, okay, I actually... Rest in ashes. I will... Dude, she got... She got disintegrated. She got got. That was tough. I...

Here's the thing I did not, even though I really liked episode four overall, did not love about it. This is a little bit different, but connected to your broader point at the top about, like, how keen is the tension so far across the episodes? it just took too long for the characters in the show to get where we were with like, obviously it's the fifth person in this group of five who's butcher bird.

Well, I think more crucially, two people died. They both worked for the same company and they're like, who could the third person possibly be? Yeah, exactly. And I'm like, guys, there's a pattern already existing here between these people. That whole time, it's like, I'm glad we got the interpoles sequence and all of it. But every step taken to connect these dots that were like with the one. Light as Sharpie already connected? Maybe it's just there to make you feel smart. You're smarter than the AI. You're faster than the AI, Mallory. Malware.

That's not many think about. I don't know. I thought that was odd. That was odd. What did you, what did, there was like, so when we're getting, because we get when, when Joe, you know, to her friends. Dr. Joe to her friends, by the way. Yeah.

It me. It ate you. Evil robot. You'd be a great evil robot. You'd also be a great. robot for good. Oh. Yeah.

But I'd probably be evil, honestly. I think so. At least you would dabble. You would definitely dabble. I would have good intentions. It would not go well. In what episode of an eight episode season is your redemption arc? Seven and I die in eight.

But then you're restored in season two. Three. Oh, three. Okay. For two, we think we're gone. We mourn. And then in three. Thanks.

I chose like, I didn't ask to be caught the impasted out of Socovia. But here we are. Dr. Joe. When Dr. Joe, I'm sorry, you were saying something about Dr. Joe. I'll say this. When Dr. Joe envisioned fight, I thought it looked great. I thought the two of them, like, shout out Paul Bettney's stunt double. I thought they looked incredible.

Shout out Paul Bettany who got into the white makeup to snarl, like, if you touch him, I will end you sort of thing. He was so good in that whole final stretch. I agree. That fight was really fun. Getting to see speed and action, very fun. The really popable concern that Vision has four or two. Tommy, Ultron's persistent, this is a bad idea, don't bring the kids.

Oh, you brought the kids. And then immediately the episode ends and Ultron's like, Tommy, I got something to talk to you about. Times talked to Pop Pop. All of that was great. I thought that Bettney, you know, we're looking at Bettney's face, Ed Vision's face, but we're hearing Spader's voice. That was a thrill, obviously. That was incredible. It was really good.

The lip sync alone, but like the performance is very like smirk simper. Snear gave the elevator eyes to a good old Dr. Joe. Like it was really good. He was sort of sashaying around. Like just like we've seen Paul Bettney play various versions of vision. That was hard to say, various versions of vision. We've seen him do that for like a decade or whatever. But to see him play Ultron was so fun. Yeah, it was wonderful.

That was great. I really enjoyed that. You know, the choreography of that fight, the way that Ultron immediately knows how to get the upper hand so that he could say, like, I honored my word. I didn't kill you. Here you are, but also now you can't take this thing. Ultron loves the fine print. Wonderful stuff.

I thought, you know, because we see at the beginning the third mystery kill and butcher bird going up in the elevator and emerging and we just get the eyes, the hood is still up, you know, until the big reveal here in the gala sequence. But just seeing the eyes. The hood, by the way, which she like creates, like for no reason other than drama, honestly. Thank you to Tommy, by the way, for asking the tough questions. So you've just sort of been naked this whole time. As the day he was born.

Just sort of been naked the whole time. And on a hotel bed, no less. If you're made of metal, can the hotel bed kudies get to you? I don't know. He has a lot of open, gaping, leaking, festering, vibranium holes. So I wouldn't risk it. Good metal fester. I don't know.

This is an important question. But yeah, it was, you know, the second you see those red eyes, You're like, that sure does look like Ultron. And then the full reveal of a very Ultron-like design, obviously, for it to cost. That was just all really fun. You know, we have like throughout these two episodes, we've obviously had the deployment of newspapers, but the news footage in particular across all four episodes. We talked last week many Butcher Bird mentions, obviously then it's brought to the four here in these episodes.

But the little nuggets that we get is the research beginning. what we're hearing or reading or someone is learning. You know, we get like, except for the project, co-lead, Joe Carrington, who died of natural causes in 2008. We've got a lot of, like, interesting things to chew on right away. But then when we actually see Joe and Katerina Wells interact, and it's like, well, what- thing you took from me?

Yeah. What does that mean? What exactly is the history between that group of five that we're introduced to? By the end of this episode, they are all dead. And Joe is the one who's like, but I'm back. She lives. I live in this other forum. It's me.

It's me. Yeah. So how much time will we be spending learning about that history? Presumably, that's going to be very crucial moving forward. And this is how Mary MacDonald gets her flashback money. I sure hope so. So that was all, you know, intriguing. Let's talk about this casting.

Yeah, please. Tona Miller is playing Jacosta, Dr. Joe. I know this performer best from Bligh Manor. She's been in a number of Mike Flanagan projects, but Blahy's, Bly Manor is by far in a way my favorite of her performances because she plays someone who like there's a reason why her memory is wrong, but she sort of glitches through time. And it's just this very beautiful, like emotional, emotionally warm, like tragic performance. And it's just she's just like such an incredible performer. And I'm so excited to see her play an evil robot. Like I just like, I think she's looks incredible. when they, like, you know, sort of like flash into her human face. Yes. You know, when she's like, I am her, like, all that's so good.

But, like, just this casting alone. Yeah. Has me really excited for this. I haven't seen Blymatter, but I loved her in years and years of a miniseries. Yes. And I quite enjoyed. Really good. Yeah, I'm super excited as well.

DeCosta the character, created by Jim Shooter and George Perez, first appeared in The Avengers, number 162 from August 1977. The reason that the bride of Ultron sort of comment keeps coming up is basically Ultron created her from Janet Pym. Hank Pym created Ultron, created her from Janet. So Janet Pim is both like his mother and also the inspo for his bride. So that's why we get Jakosta, if you know your Greek myth, why that name would be in there. But sort of similar to the Bride of Frankenstein story doesn't really go well for Ultron. The same way doesn't really go well for Frankenstein.

Not happily ever after for those two crazy kids. But their sort of connection inside of the comics has been really excited for like, and how clearly intrigued both Spader as Ultron and Bettney as Ultron are by this extremely hot killer robot. Yeah. And the fact that vision... Sorry, synthesized. Sythzoid. Thank you. Yeah.

The fact that vision is, of course, the one who is on the... the front line of saying, like, right away, with literally no evidence to support it, but just a kind of core to his identity belief. We can fix her. We can fix her. He didn't extend that to Roslyn, unfortunately. He said, don't kill the robot. Yeah.

And then Ultron is like, that's not really my intention. I've got other things on my mind. There's a draw. There's a magnetism. He's like, I'm not interested in fixing her. That's right. To me, she is perfect. I love you.

just the way you are. Yeah, this was interesting. And then, you know, again, we don't get much time with Katerian Wells, but the fact that we have glimpsed these little like, so am I guilty? People want to know, am I guilty? And it's this very kind of cold initial presentation in the footage and the newsreel footage. But then when she gives this speech at the gala and we get the little history lesson

about the Horton, about Phineas Horton and about Jim, and we'll talk about that more in a few minutes. But like, then there's this real regret and apologetic. But like, how much of that is real? much of that is all my colleagues have been killed. Exactly. You know, she's like, I am not her. I've evolved. Right. And we understand that like evolution is, and like that interview she gave, I think it was supposed to be right after Socovia. So it's like a little while ago. So yeah, she had time to see the error of her ways, but I really don't think that's what's going on with her here.

Actually, one of my favorite details of this entire episode, like two episode arc. Yeah. Is how old her headshot is on the gala thing. Relatable concept. It's just like you get a good headshot, you just sort of like, why would I get another one? You know what I mean? You just stick with it. And you're like, I don't know it because I've never had a good headshot, but I do understand. No, you're your, your headshot is beautiful. And it is also from at least five years ago. One of them is, yeah, we have new ones now. None of which have, but I had a more recent one than the one that I tend to use and I did not use it. Not because not because that one was definitely not good. Yeah. Ma'am. The overall like,

the transhumanism pitch that she's making and everything that she's saying, which like, the characters in the show, we as viewers at home are going to be inclined to mistrust, obviously, you know, big biotech here to tell you it's definitely all okay, worrying. Obviously for me, the more, and I think for you and for probably most people watching it, the more interesting thing was how that was received by the characters in the show. So just like, I did really like that exchange between Ultron and Vision before the takeover, before that just give me control it'll be fine. Everything I've been saying to you is, I'm here to help. It'll be fine. At the wheel of the ship, we're moments later. It wasn't fine. It was not fine.

A monument to playing God, Ultron says, celebrating the wonders and dangers of an evolution they themselves created. Tell us all this time, right? Vision says that's not my interpretation. Of course it is an Ultron says, and what is it you see? I see a family tree. Then we had to go back to repeating a line from the past. You remained unbearably naive and I groaned. But before that, I was in it. And the idea of vision, not, you know, just seeing a failing there from humanity, very important in his character, not just seeing the error of hubris, but seeing family of a form a part of a whole.

That all was interesting and made sense. I really liked thinking about when they're looking at the gym painting returns in this setting from the mind palace into the real world here. He was the first of us, miraculous, but flawed. the idea that there are multiple versions of this family tree for a character like Vision, right? That he is thinking about that the show is thinking about the family tree, the humans to AI on the Battlestar front.

I've mentioned this before, but one of my favorite Battlestar posters is the evolution poster, but it starts with an actual toaster and then it ends on six, just wonderful stuff, great stuff. I used to have it, and then it got ruined in a move. I got to find another one of those. But the human to AI family tree that Vision is thinking of, but also the AI evolution, that he looks at this story of the original synthetic man and is thinking about how they are all connected to each other as well.

Yeah. That was interesting to see. You mean he felt to death. It's tough. It's tough. Do you want to talk about Jim? Yeah, let's do it. So we mentioned this on the previous podcast, but like, Jim, Hammond, the first of us, Jarvis talked about him in that painting.

We get the flash, the end of the episode between the painting and the sort of macket, his skeleton. But yeah, so overwhelmed. It doesn't have the mindstone there to sort of help him process his emotions. And as these various AI wonder if they can experience emotion, if that's something available to them, is that an advantage or a disadvantage? Guess what? It's probably going to be an advantage because this is a Disney Plus show, but like something

to think about. But like what role we have seen in the trailers, Jim Hammond, like this is a character in the show. So like what is interesting to you about that? I mean, I think a number of different things potentially. You know, again, the idea of vision as a character who is preoccupied, perhaps in a way that could like leave him feeling stuck, right? If you're always studying the past to Ultron's point, how do you move into the future? but that he is a character who is so interested in thinking about, I see a family tree, that means not only progress and evolution and change over time,

different versions, the fact that Catarina Wells presents, you know, you've got Ultron here, but then you have vision as like the ideal manifestation of this. Katarina loves wordplay. So does Ultron, your blind vision, right? Or but also the one with the vision to see things differently. You know, the vision. It is one of the better ones. It is one of the better ones, the vision.

I don't, you know, how much of this is just about the way he thinks about lessons. Like, okay, is Tommy saying you mean he fell to death and then very quickly going into, it's not just like, yeah, okay, I got to correct you, dad. It's not just that he was lacking a mindstone. He was lacking family, right? So there's like the kind of lesson and the idea of the embrace. And then very quickly, he's like, wait a minute, did you just say five? I hated all of that, so I can't, I can't even engage with it.

It was really clunky for him to, like, be so Ultron's the devil in the self-same episode. Like, if you wanted to do this of, like, make the fact that Ultron's living inside a vision something horrific to Tommy, then we needed, like, his connection to Sikovia or like people he met at Sikovia or whatever, Ultron is AI Hitler or whatever. Need to be something for him from the beginning, not in the self-same episode where it is sort of revealed that he's inside of him. Like, that did not work for me. I mean, I think that it would be. reasonable to say that to basically every living person, Ultron is despise.

Absolutely, but you come from like a TV writing point of view. I'm not like, oh, why does Tommy not like Ultron? Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I think the, even like, you know, Ultron coming in was helpful a little bit because he's like, Freudian slip, how very human, you know, the idea that vision like wants to be found out. That part worked a little bit better. But yeah, not the smoothest part of the episode. But broadly, even though it was a little bit wobbly, the secret. That core question.

Okay, is the idea of someone feeling to death like a harbinger, a warning, a scary cautionary tale about the danger of opening yourself up? Or is it going to be? I was thinking about lanterns a few times watching these episodes. You know, in some ways actually, like one of the good things I like, you know, reminded me of our conversations about, you know, what's a lantern without a ring, right? Like, you have to, we get to watch the true detecting. And so the ingenuity, the fact that Vision is like, depowered.

Let's go through all of the ways that he's depowered and all of the parts, the things that don't work. And so what do we lean into instead? The more human aspects and the AI army inside of his mind. Yeah. And I like all of that. I just think this is also just the ongoing constant problem the MCU has with vision being overpowered character and then being like,

90% of his functions are not functioning. Don't worry about it. For sure. Otherwise, there's just like no question about the fight, et cetera, et cetera. Ultron's out, as we mentioned. I expected Ultron to get out. I didn't expect it this quickly. This is similar to like the Tommy and Vision being, you know, on a road trip together.

Yeah. Yeah, I think I, you know, it's funny. Now that you're saying that, I don't know if this is earlier than I would have expected this or actually later than I would have expected it. If Ultron and episode one had been like, time to go do some villain shit, I would be like, yeah, that feels right. So, yeah, I don't know. I guess I'm glad ultimately that we have enough episodes to continue to explore what this means. I think, no, I think midseason's a good place. It's just like, I'm like, I'm only two weeks into this story.

What's happening here? What did you think about the real literalization of the ship, you know? Were you waiting for Ultron to update his line from Don't Be the ship, Be the captain. Be the fucking. I'm the captain now. Don't be the ship. Be the mutinian captain. Went in.

Have been great if I'm the captain now was playing on the TVs instead of the wave. Waves that we got, the wave footage. That would have been amazing. I'm the captain now. Okay. Two things. Number one, Ultron right before good old president, Roslyn, gets vaporized. And Vision does the very like, shall we dance sort of moment, you get to see reflected in her, and a lot of oversized glasses in these last two episodes. Friday, Edith, Roslyn, we're all just like rocking. And I love it. I love to see it. In her oversized glasses from probably Celine or something like that. You can see Ultron, not Paul Bettney's face, but Ultron's face reflected in the glasses. So that's a very cool moment. And then.

It seemed like Dr. Joe needed that biomarker. What's she going to do without that? It's just a pile of ash now. Can't just sprinkle ash on whatever you need that biomarker for. So what are you going to do? It's a great question. I don't know the answer. Are we inventing time travel and going back in time?

I don't know. Ultron likes to be in control, right? He doesn't want other people to have the choices. Interesting. Yeah. All right. Pop. Sorry, I should call him Pop Pop.

Yeah, please. You can call me Popop fucking killed me. This guy rules. Let's go down the Theory Corner. Okay. Lovely fonting on that. Great new graphic guys. Love it.

That's probably been here for like four weeks and we just didn't know this. No, Carlos told me this morning. Brand new? Brand spank and new? Yeah. Love it. Okay. So biomarkers, why?

What does Dr. Joe need the biomarkers for? Okay. So I'm not a CEO. I'm not an entrepreneur, oligarch, any of that. And I'm not, and I've never participated in a heist. But I've watched a lot of movies. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I'm down.

Yeah, let's go. Let's haze something. What? Well, don't know like, where should watch? This is the second pod in I think the same week where I've talked about doing a heist. Rob and I talked about doing a diamond heist on slow horses. So we do a diamond ice? I haven't watched the finale yet.

No spoilers. It's not about ice. Okay. I don't know if you've ever heard of the Presti TV podcast. We talk about a lot of stuff that has nothing to do with anything. A diamond heist? You want to, should we join our forces for a diamond heist? I'm in.

Okay. Are other jewels part of it, like Sapphire. Whatever you want. Emerald. You want a ruby? You want a ruby? I'll take a sapphire. Okay, you got it.

It's my birthstone. I mean blue really suits you. Okay. Is that right? September? Is that right? I'm an opal. That's all I know.

Oh. That's nice. But here's what I know from movies. If you buy a marker, it's because you're trying to get into something. Yeah. It's a vault. Yeah. Something.

Something. She's got an eyeball. The, I need biomarkers to access something. That part seems just clear. Yeah. But what are we trying to get to? What's in the box? Right. Exactly. What do we think? Something evil, I would say. Well, something that they worked, some tech that they worked on. Yeah. Yes. Right? Yeah. Has to be. Or money. Has to be because it's the people. The people from this five.

If it's a Mark Ridge money, like that's... What if it's art? What if there's some beautiful art for Ultron to look at? More Jim Hammond paintings. Yeah. Just a Bosch or two. What if this is really just the goldfinch, you know? stolen painting Donna Tart you're always welcome here but yeah the fact that these dead people now

tough were part of this group of five at the forefront of the evolution of AI consciousness so something that connects to that is accessible via their biomarkers I guess the question is when do we learn what it is like what is it but also when do we learn what it is

and then is it a definite undeniable threat to our characters or is it something that they could potentially benefit from use. Like a Stark drone. Can't go either way. Usually bad. Will it help us check in on Brad's latest text messages? I'd like to know.

Me too. I'd like to know. Okay. Jim Hammond, we already talked about it. I don't know what's going to go on there, but like this is clearly something that they're laying the track for. In footage that Marvel has released, Paul Bettney is playing Jim Hammond.

So that is just a fun opportunity for more perhaps Paul Bettney on Paul Bettany acting. Great. Possibly. Will it lead you to any Al Pacino theories? Guess what? I've learned my lesson. Oh. We should say.

Oh, God. Terry Metallis, it was in an interview with our paleric boss. That Terry Mattalus is first of all, A, that's not Billy in the background. And then B, when it comes to who hired Paladin. Territalus so clearly how to like Please don't go Mephisto crazy on this He's like that's not what this show is So he's trying to temper our expectations

That it's not like it's not gonna be doom Or you know something like that Like he's like we're not Yeah yeah yeah he's like keep it Contained Right But so what does that where does that I mean that makes sense

But like so does that just mean it's more likely That's somebody we already know Like Ultron right or something Already are leading contender, right? So that's a... He's like, don't go big like Sharon Carter. Keep it small. Have you updated any of your suggestions here?

We do have one fun suggestion that I think is a bit in the Mephisto vein. Him C. Scott, who says, I'm following the Sunder probably unlikely, but fun to think about it. In the winter soldier, we learned that Zola uploaded his consciousness into a computer system, which is then destroyed by the missile strike meant to kill Steve and Natasha. But his willingness to go down with the bunker has always... felt a little off to me. This man devoted so much time, energy, and ingenuity to preserving himself only his sacrifice at all for an attempt on Steve Rogers that wasn't even guaranteed

to work. If he could communicate with the outside world to help coordinate that strike, could he also have had a way to upload himself elsewhere? Basically, he's saying, what if it's ola? Wonderful email. No bad ideas in a brainstorm. No bad ideas in a brainstorm. I'm inclined to say, no. And I'm inclined to say, feels like that would be more at home in a show that had more to do with Cap and Steve Rogers than Tony. However, let us never miss an opportunity. Let us never miss an opportunity to recall that when we went back in endgame, fucking Howard Stark is just like, Zol, my guy, what's up?

So wasn't it all the same story? It is. You know, all of this has happened before and it will all happen again. So that would be wild. I don't think that's going to be it. But that would be, you know, Solo is always welcome. That's my take. I don't think it's a...

I don't think it's a woman. I don't know how much you can manipulate a voice. The handler is doing... The handler and Paladin were saying him a lot. Okay. In this episode. But that could be a misdirect. Okay.

But they said him. Uh, all right. But that might not mean anything. Hobbitz and Dragons at gmail.com if you have new theories about this. Let me find what they said him. I'm going to do a control F for him in my Google Doc. 79 results. It's not ideal.

Let's see. Let me do handler. Instead. Only six. Great. Let's see. Your new body sucks. Handler and Paladin both refer to the client as him. That's all I wrote down. Didn't see it worth going back to find. I did right. Did it specifically write. Handler and Paladin both refer to the client as, quote, him, quote.

Yeah. to make sure that I knew it was a direct quote from the show. Yeah. So there's that. There's that. That was from episode three. Huh. Okay.

Yeah. It was history on the client front. Here's something that we hear the client say. It was history itself that recommended the paladin. That is to me a very AI synth thing to say. Okay. I assessed all the data and it was history itself that recommended the paladin. This is what handlers.

says. Boss, I've got the client on the line. He insists on speaking to you. I've told him you don't want to talk, but he insists. No. Put him on. Okay. So. There you go. He, him. Yeah. Do you agree? It was history itself that recommended the paladin. Seems like an AI thing to say. It doesn't not. Yeah. Stock the fridge with Easter eggs. Great. Yeah. It's a very jaunty tune. Yeah. Very jaunty tune. Loved it a lot. Any Easter eggs you want to call out in particular. that we haven't mentioned already. I mean, I think it goes beyond certainly being an Easter egg,

but for me, all the Battlestar ties in these episodes were my favorite thing. I just thought that was delightful. And I love thinking about one of my favorite shows ever. So that's probably it for me. What about you? The fact that Edith Marks is wearing the Edith glasses.

Yeah, that was good. Pretty great. Once again, shout out oversized glasses. Oh, dear, being the track name on Jarvis's Al album, right? Because like the other ones, it was like Allison Hogan, then Friday was the track name or like Edith Marks, you know, like whatever, but it was like Edwin Jarvis, oh dear. Yeah. Great stuff. Sybil. Mm-hmm. Sure. A reference to the idea of like hearing multiple voices in your head. I thought that was really fun. We already mentioned who is the boss. And then there's an IT crowd reference. Try turning it off and turning it back on again. And I'm always here.

That was great. My guy, Richard Iowadi, from the IT crowd, among other things, is crushing on a taskmaster this season. So any chance to mention taskmaster, I know. Sad. I'm missing out. Yeah. I know. They're doing a live show at the Hollywood Bowl next summer.

Never been. Like, sold out multiple times. We can manage. Oh, no, I got tickets. I got tickets. I got tickets. Actually, Rob Mahoney got his tickets. Very excited.

Never been to the Hollywood Bowl. L.A. 13 years. I went to the Sing-Long Sound of Music with a music. Kim Renfro and Daphne. Legends. Legends both. I've driven through Hollywood traffic,

quite a bunch, including last night when I almost missed a screening as a result of it. Speaking of events in L.A., this Saturday, it's sold out, but this Saturday,

they're doing a screening of Werewolf by Night with Michael Jekino doing a Q&A after. And that was announced before this episode came out, but I was just sort of like, oh, it's in the water.

A fun like Halloween, go, I would, if I weren't busy and also it sold out, I would definitely go see Warwolf by Night on a big screen. Someone can get you in if you want. Okay.

I've put it out there. I'm busy. The prestige back in theaters. Oh yeah. Well, that's because Nolan wants that Oscar. It's in January. Fun stuff. That's an Oscar play.

For sure. All right. Needle drops. Yes. Sky says, love hearing you flag the ship themed songs and it immediately made me think of the song The Rec of the Edmund Fitzgerald by Gordon Lightfoot. If we get it later this season, I will absolutely lose my mind. Thank you so much, Sky.

That's a great show. out. I would love the record of the Edmund Fitzgerl would really fit with like Calypso and the other sort of ship things. We did not get any ship themed music that I could parse, but always something there to remind me, even though it was very on the nose for a flashback, but always something there for them remind me by naked eyes, great. And the theme from the greatest American hero, one of the greatest theme song, TV theme songs of all time, believe it or not, I'm walking on air, right? Yeah. Never thought I should be so. free E, or if you're a Seinfeld fan

Believe it or not, George isn't at home. You know, please leave a message at the beat. Whatever you prefer. Remember answering machines? I do. We get Mozart and Beethoven inside the mind palace. Nothing too huge a shout out here, but I'm going to keep this corner going no matter what.

Last and not least, wigwash with me, Joanna Robinson. Do you wear wigs? What about? That one. That was so fun. That was great. That was great. That was great.

Mary McDonald's what's happening. Also, on the wicker front... Couldn't tell it was a wig. I just, it doesn't occur to everyone I'm watching. I don't even think about it. I don't even think about it. Okay.

On the wig, watch front though. So have you seen Olivia Coleman on the wicker press tour? Yes. Looks amazing. Have you seen that Alexander Sarsgaard wore that wig to a wicker Q&A this past week? No. I haven't. The long iron-grade curls.

I haven't. I'll be on a lookout for it. Yeah. I've been served a lot of reels of their, you know, their press appearances together, which are obviously all delightful. You know, them getting to see the popcorn bucket for the first time. Very memorable. But I haven't seen him wearing the wig.

I look forward to seeing it. Mallory has promised that if I say on a podcast, I can get into anything. And I'm just going to put this on a podcast. Get Mallory or Rubin that wicker popcorn bucket thing. You know, initially I was going to be at the movie theater tonight for a different film. And I'm like, great news. I'll be able to buy the wicker popcorn bucket. But then I saw the movie already, and now I don't.

Well, I'm going to the movie theater tonight, so I'll see if I get it. I found the person who can get the popcorn bucket. Oh, no. Solved. It's me. Anything else you want to say on the wig wash front? I mean, the Mary McDonnell wig is wonderful, but it is wigging. Oh.

I'm, I learned so much from you all the time. You believe me? Okay. Yeah. Any other wig commentary from these episodes? That was it? Okay. What a wonderfully inert way to end a podcast.

Anything else you want to say? Let's see. Anyone else doing any interesting things with wigs? In the world? Yeah. Huh. Yeah. I think about.

Any wig-based properties we might be interested in? Let's see. I mean, certainly. Yeah. So we'll cover on the podcast. God, is that tomorrow? Yeah. Jeez.

Clayface, Wicker, and Wildwood. So there's some wigs to talk about there. Sure. And obviously the stop motion animation hair. Yes. Fascinating to discuss. Really good. Incredible.

Absolutely incredible. Really good. Wildwood, visually astounding. Man. Looked amazing. What a peppier way to end a podcast. Oh, man. A better way to end up.

We're done. Well, thank you so much to Jacob Cornett, who's here. Hey, thanks. Charaboga, who hit us with some new animations that dazzled us. Amazing. Arjuna Raq Powell? Not here. Ghosted us.

Scott Lee? Scott's here. Shout out Scott. Shout out Scott. I mean, shout at Arjuna too. He did slack us. He was like, I won't be there, but I'll see you tomorrow. Okay.

He's always with us in our hearts. In our hearts and our minds. We'll be back with the fall movie extravaganza, as well as some other fun announcements next week. And we'll see you soon. Bye. This episode is brought to you by Wild Horse 9, only in theaters November 6th. earning rave reviews at the Toronto International Film Festival. Don't miss this wildly entertaining movie

that critics are calling easily one of the best films of the year. Starring John Malkovich, Sam Rockwell, Steve Bouchemy, Parker Posey, and Tom Waits, and written and directed by Academy Award winner Martin McDonough. See Wild Horse Nine, only in theaters, November 6th. For most of the history of professional sports, there was a wall between the game and gambling. then suddenly it was everywhere.

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