Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - Ethan Hawke: The Last Cool Guy? | Ep. 309

Episode Date: November 25, 2025

Daniel discovers two prestige TV shows that apparently materialized out of thin air, Soren admits he gets all his entertainment news from bus benches, and the guys spiral into how impossible it is to know anything that’s on television anymore. They talk canon mishaps in writers’ rooms, Roger’s theoretical bang bus arc, Haley’s secret basketball obsession, lore in Tolkien and Game of Thrones, and why Ethan Hawke might genuinely be the last cool man alive. Plus: a shocking Thanksgiving twist.Follow the guys on Bluesky!https://bsky.app/profile/danielobrien.bsky.socialhttps://bsky.app/profile/sorenbowie.bsky.socialBonus episodes 2x/month at patreon.com/quickquestion OR Apple Podcasts

I've got a quick, quick question for you all right. I want to hear your thoughts on to know what's on your mind. I've got a quick, quick question for you all right. The answer's not important. I'm just glad that we could talk tonight. So what's your favorite? Who did you get? When will I be?

I remember. What's it out? Where did all? Why do we know? Oh, forget it. I saw a movie Daniel O'Brien. Two best friends and comedy writers. If there's an answer, they're going to find it.

I think you'll have a great time here. I think you'll have a great time here. So, hello again, and welcome to another episode of Quick Question with Sorin and Daniel the podcast, where two best friends and convoy writers ask each other questions and give each other answers. I am one half of that podcast, senior writer for last week tonight with John Oliver, author of How to Fight Presidents. And at the moment, hiatus boy, once again, the once and future king of doing nothing. Daniel O'Brien, joined, as always by my co-ist, Mr. Sorin-Booey. Soren, say hello.

Hello, I'm Sorin-Booey. I'm a writer for American Dad. It's occurring to me now that this is a great show. This is a great show. That's occurring to you now? Just now. This is a great show. what I'm really liking is that we are we just it's a conversation between two best friends yeah it's always a conversation between two best friends you're basically you're sitting in on the party line between two friends who live on opposite sides of the country and as they catch up with each other's lives yeah now in an ordinary conversation I stuff comes up all the time in my life where then I'm like later I'm like oh fuck there was I learned something or there's like a nugget I want to like check back in on and I've got no cataloging feature from the conversations that I've had for my

world history. So I think that's also true of this show. There's no conceivable way to, if you heard something on the show that you liked, you'll never find that again. That's just going to exist in your mind because we can't title these episodes in a way that's helpful

because we talk about all kinds of stuff on every single episode. It moves from like us talking about home repair to being hit by a car. And then on top of that, there's like, within like what we're saying to each other, there's no like you can't get like a transcript or something like that there's just no way to ever conceive of like finding something that we previously said here and uh i think that's beautiful we've found that with um the show that i worked for last week tonight with john oliver catch it now and reruns we find that with like specific jokes that become canonical jokes like certain wells that we can go back to and how disconnected most of of the jokes are from whatever the topic of the show is.

And we'll be like, someone will be searched for something who's like, what is, we did a long run about how John wants to be not like fucked by an adult size lobster, but like pinched by an adult size lobster and there's something sexual about it. When did we do that? What was the context? It was like, oh, that was our episode about COVID vaccines. Of course.

Of course it was. Right. Right. You're never going to, you need, what you need is somebody on staff who, is the elder, like the encyclopedic elder, who just knows everything. And they have this cataloging ability in their brains. Like, we have somebody like that in our show. Shout out to Parker Day. Parker Day, who I would not call an elder because he's not like an old man or anything. But he's been on the show, I think, longer than anybody. He started at a PA, and now he's here.

Now he's like, now he is an EP on the show. PA to EP. That's a show. And he knows everything. He knows every single thing and he loves the show so like if we're in the room and you're talking about like god it would be really fun if we could do an episode where Stan wants one of Steve's friends to be his buddy like Stan wants one of Steve's friends to be his son like he's he's cheating on Steve and you're like okay that's fun like but I feel like I've heard it before let's go check in with the elder and you go to like you go to Parker you're like did we do this and he's like yeah It's this episode. I think we did it in season.

Let's see, Weber was here. So season 12. And you're like, oh, shit. Okay, great. Thanks. And then you look at it and you're like, yeah, we're not doing that. Parker's Path reflects a trajectory in television that is so foreign to me and seems like it doesn't exist anymore and never will again. But I remember going to see the writer Brian Cogman talk.

And he had written some fantastic. episodes of Game of Thrones and a few other, I don't know what he's doing now, but he's just a very good writer. And he was talking about how his job in the Game of Thrones writers room for a while, he just noticed that he wasn't a writer. He might have been a writer's assistant or a PA, but he just happened to notice that like between the lore of the book and the lore that they built in their own world, their own adaptation of the book, no one was really keeping track of anything. So he for a while was just a guy who was like, aware of all timelines, knew physically where everyone was in Westeros, and knew what all their family sigils were, was just like the keeper of information, just like the living encyclopedia for this show, and making himself useful that way. And then eventually the creators were like, man, you're so helpful. All right, you can write an episode. And it's just like, they threw an mind-boggling thing to me. That's great. Here's the thing that happens regularly on our show, really is tough to track, is that we will come up with a room joke, like a joke in the room

that we're really into. When we come up with this joke, we generally try to get it in the script because it's making us laugh. But a lot of times, like, it won't end up in the script because so much ends up on the floor, right? And then you're not, you can't remember canonically whether that stuck around or not, because you're not also working on the same episode the whole way through. So maybe like an episode came through, you were in the breaking of it. You came up with a joke. A good example of this is we really wanted Roger to drive have a bang bus and for roger to want to like he's constantly looking in the rear of your mirror and like trying to get in on the action but no one has invited him to the back of the bang bus yet

but he's like trying to work his way up and so he's being very patient about it but also kind of like getting a little frustrated that his ceiling is so low and so uh we had so many jokes about about that on that run the episode that it was for it never ended up in but you know that group of people who then they worked on like the rewrite of it is not the same people who came up with the original idea. So that group of people who came with the original idea are like, okay, so we know that Roger's been on a bang bus.

Let's put him back on the bank bus. And then you have this throughout the whole history of the show, it gets lost in terms of what was the stuff that caught fire in the room and what actually made it to the show. And there are times where you'll be working on something and all of a sudden everyone will go, oh shit, you know what?

I don't think we've ever even talked about this on the show. I don't think the audience is broadly aware of this at all. And we know that. And it's such a bummer because once you like you build the history, then you get to play the game. And now you got to go back and do the dirty work of building the history again. And so like I think, I think at this point, I'm pretty sure there is a B story in one of the episodes where Roger is a driver in the bank bus that doesn't get invited back. And then like they pick up a new kid and Roger's like immediately with a modicrum of power is like lording it over this kid. but the kid immediately gets fighted in the back

and Brutcher is losing his mind. But it's very fun to have these things that, I shouldn't say fun. It's actually very frustrating. But these things that are fun in the room and then you're like, fuck, I don't even sure that that's ever even made it. We talk about it all the time.

Haley loving basketball is another one. Haley on the show for so long, it started with an episode where in the closet, for whatever reason, just had drawn a basketball in Haley's closet. And we were so tickled by that, that it was so antithetical to who she was on every level that we were like, she loves basketball. And then from that point on, like, whenever there was dead, like, you're in the room

and you're trying to think of a pitch for a joke that's got Haley in it. Guarantee, there's a basketball joke in there. To the point where suddenly Haley just started loving basketball. And it became just like a part of her ethos that she's like. like really into basketball. We have two very strange canon things at my show, and one of them is something that I started writing into scripts years ago. When we would get, in my mind, a little bit wonky and a little bit sort of bogged down

by stats, I would have a character in the audience named David from the audience who would shout out things to John and it was like it was sort of my way of making fun of the the show it never never got on the air but it would be like John Oliver would be at his desk and he would say and this is the the largest country in blah blah blah and then David from the audience would say my population or land mass my population or land mass it's like these super because they were always like inspired by actual corrections that we would point out on the show like he would John would say, this company brought in $15 million. That's equivalent to the GDP of Chad or whatever.

So, like, I would cut off the, that's equivalent with someone from the audience saying, like, now say it in GDPs, thank you, say it in population of this. You know, just like weird, wonky stuff. People who want something weird do you have to do anyway. Yeah, my bosses were really tickled by the idea that not enough to put it in the show ever, but it's now like every single rewrite features one of my bosses jumping into the character of David from the audience shouting at the rewrite screen and just playing with it enough that like new writers have come on and they're like hey what are they doing what does it mean are we supposed to play too and it's like no it's just like a fun thing that we do to that at some point I'll be gone and no one will know what we're talking about anymore. Right.

One of the early landmines that I stepped on in our show was there's a writing team that now is broken up, but there was a writing team who famously had bad titles for their episodes. On purpose?

I don't think at first, but then they steered into the skin a little bit where like they understood the role that they were now playing and I think they tried it after that. But like, bad. Early on they were trying

and they were just like, first of all, no one gives a shit about the title, except it has to be so egregious for you to for everybody to be like, hold on, what? And like try and figure out what they're trying, what the pun is or what it's supposed to be. So they had bad titles, I guess. I didn't know this coming in. I'm just trying to learn the job.

Nobody's telling you how to do the job. You're learning from watching everybody around you. You're like a baby bear watching its mom. Like, oh, that's how I find berries. So they, this script came in. everyone on the thread for the script starts like shitting on the name and like coming like they're like

you didn't even think of this or you didn't think of that and I was like oh we're coming up with a new name for this episode so I'm just creating a list of names for the episode and they're going to call on me and I'm going to be ready yeah so I'm like I'm not going to send all these so I was like I was like what's my favorite one and I was like what about this

and then somebody from the show messaged me privately and they're like what are you doing and I was like I was helping and they're like, no, no, no. This is the, what they named is the name of the episode. Stop trying to, what do you do? Yeah, like, this isn't, that's not funny. Now you're being really hurtful by trying to give options that aren't this, that are, that aren't getting to that. Yeah, you're being really hurtful.

You probably apologize to them for offering something that you think is better. Early on, there's like all kinds of stuff. the show where I was just like, and it happens to every single person. I've tried to now be very helpful. As much as I can, when new people come to the show, I'm like, hey, this is how this part works. This is how this part works. But, you know, stuff slips to the cracks for me, especially now that I've been on the show

for so long, a guy that got hired, shout out to Curtis Cook, Curtis came on the show, and we found out that we have a Halloween party, but it was over Zoom. And the Halloween party is not really a party. It's not something that the rest of the writers generally participate in. Really, but it's over Zoom. Zoom. And it's also something that's for, I don't, they're like, I think that they're more administrative people in the show who would like do that with their kids or whatever it was. But the writers had never really gone to it. And you start to like learn those tacit things. Like what do the writers go to? What don't they go to? What do we animate? What is like the artist? What is their thing? What is not their thing? And Curtis didn't know any of this. And we didn't talk about it in the room. And so he showed up. Also, I should preface this by saying that Curtis is, I think, six foot. nine. Curtis showed up to a Zoom in a cookie monster costume, a giant cookie monster costume.

And it was him and a bunch of kids, like people with their children, who then walked away from the computer so their kids could all talk. But like, he didn't know. And then later he came to us. He's like, where were you guys? We're like, oh, you don't go to that. What are he talking about? Oh, well, well, well. Speaking of television, I got some stuff for you, Soren.

Oh. I lied before. Just because it's a natural segue from television, that's something that I wanted to talk about. You were a big fan of Succession, right? Hell yeah. Now, what if I were to tell you about this show with Matthew McFaddean from Succession,

Tom Wamsgant? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Playing Charles Gattot in a stacked cast, including Michael Shannon, friend of the show, Shea Wiggum, and Nick Offerman. it's about a real life assassination of a president I love that

that sounds amazing it's already out Soren Wait a second And Sorren you like you like succession right Hold on I so regularly check the bus benches in my neighborhood And this has never once been on there I check it for the comings and goings of new shows It's called Death by Lightning

It's got Eddie Gilpin in it too It's very good four episode series on Netflix Soren, you like Succession? I do. Bet you're wondering about Sarah Snoke, Shiv Roy. She did a little departure. She went to Broadway for a while and crushed Broadway. I do know that Sarah Snook is in a show.

Oh, you do know that she's in a show. Okay. Yeah. Well, that was going to be the next part of this game was... What if I told you there was a show with Sarah Snoke and Jake Lacey from White Lotus and Abby Elliott from the bear? I would like that as well. And it's already out, Soren.

Wait. What is the... Is that... Is that she's, it's her, all her fault? All her fault. Yeah. Okay, that's the one I'm thinking of. I don't know the other Sarah Snook show.

That's, that's the one. Oh, okay. You thought of the right one. Yeah. Okay, great. No. But I had these, these thoughts, as I watch both these shows, because I'm in the specific situation where my, my pregnant wife goes to sleep early, so I can watch whatever I want.

And I'm like, truly just, what is new? What's on Netflix? What can I see anywhere? And that's how I found Death by Lightning. which is like the insane true story of Charles Gatot shooting President Garfield and all the corruption of the New York City comptroller at the time. Incredibly up my alley, would not have known about it, if not for this specific situation of scrolling around. And all her fault was similar.

My wife and I watched that together in a haze of like, well, we watched all of the morning show that's available to us and there's no Warriors game on tonight. So what is what is happening? And it's a show that I like the whole lot. Everyone in it is very good. Michael Pena, always great to see him doing stuff. I do like him a lot. I love that little Scientologist.

I know, I know. I know there's weirdness there that we don't want to get into. But he's like, I hope he's doing well. I think he's genuinely a funny person. I think the good thing about Scientology is it really feels like It's on its way out. And so, like, there's going to be a split where a bunch of people go really crazy, crazier. And then a bunch of people, like, move on to the next thing.

And I'm hoping that he's on the correct side of this. Yeah. But anyway, I, these shows, it seemed like pure magic in both cases that I and we found them. And it's, it speaks to a larger thing about how I feel about our industry. We don't need to spend the whole podcast talking about our industry. I think people might actually enjoy that. If this were 10 years ago, and I know it's not, but if it were, and you had a show like Succession, which was the Emmy-winning drama, dominant at the award shows, everybody loved all those people who were doing things in that show. And then you had the next television follow-up from two of the most important.

parts of that show you'd know about it it would be news we would all know what sarah snook's new show was or what matthew mcfaddyan's new show was we would all know what abby elliott from the bear was popping up in and now i don't these shows just get dropped on fucking peacock and they get thrown into like the the netflix trending page which is a mix of holiday movies and movies honoring Diane Keaton because she ate it recently and also this like what's this death by lightning show it just feels so insane to me I as someone who wants to make television I feel uh out of my mind about like if I make it so far that I create a show and it gets made how do I how do people find out about shows nowadays if there's someone like Sarah Snoke and it just seems like

You would have, there used to be systems, machines in place that would make sure people who knew and liked you would be made aware that you have a new show coming out. Well, I, sorry, I don't mean interrupt you. No, that's okay. I'm out of control. I think, I've been thinking about this a lot as well because I don't have to like just reiterate what you've said. But it's a situation where it used to be that on the screens, on the screens is how. would find out about new screen stuff. So it was like you're watching TV, there'd be commercials.

You went to the movies and there would be trailers. Like, I was so much more aware of trailers just 10 years ago than I am now. Trailers for shows, trailers for movies. But that's because you need screens in which to see those on. And like, they need to be advertised to you. But I don't, I'm not watching broadcast TV anymore. Like, I'm not seeing circumstances in which TV, like, which commercials arise in my life anymore. So, like, the screens don't work for.

that purpose anymore, which is why I'm getting all my news from bus benches of the comings and goings of new shows. Like I don't know about any of this stuff until like I'm finding out in like the most obscure weird ways. Occasionally like a billboard on a street I'm not even on. I'll peek over and I'll be like, oh, look at that. Clive Owen is in something new. And then like I will. And then if I have like the presence of mind, I will go seek it out. Like, I read a book recently called Project Hail Mary And I was like, this book rules This is very, very good

This should be a movie It's been a movie, man It's been everybody's excited about this movie I had no idea that it was even going to be out Like I didn't know it was coming out It's so fun we get some cat content I'm really sorry for our listeners But there's a cat on so on screen

I think making a debut That's pretty cool stuff Look at that little twitch she's doing with her body I don't know what that is There's gonna be some like cat people who were like, your cat is extremely agitated. Stop talking. So, yeah, without, if you can't, if you can't be like, hey, you like stuff on screens, apparently, because you're watching a screen right now, here's some other stuff that's coming up on screens.

I don't know how you ever find out any information. I will find out about HBO Max shows because I suddenly watched tasks six years two later, whatever, and I will find out, oh, there was some other stuff I really would have enjoyed. I guess I should go check that out. I find out American Dad comes back when you tell me to, which is very useful for me. It cannot be the system. It's not how we used to know things. And it's wild to feel like I am simultaneously being advertised to everywhere in my life without exception. It's the most successful thing in the history of time has been advertising's ability to penetrate every surface.

of my life without being reined in and I still don't get served the things that I would like to see. It's still not customized for you somehow. I'm not, I'm not a Mark Wahlberg fan, but I'm a Shane Black fan, writer and director of lethal weapons and kiss, kiss, bang, and the other guys. Monster Squad. The nice guy's Monster Squad, of course. Iron Man 3 He is just a writer-director that I've loved for a very long time

And I recently I found out the day before his A movie of his called Play Dirty I found out the day before it was coming out That it was coming out Straight to Amazon Prime

Starring Mark Wahlberg And Lakeith Stansfield And Tony Shalube and Rosa Salazar People that I know and like And it's based on a novel by Donald Westlake whom I fucking love and I'm just sitting around

being like the perfect audience for this movie and no one's telling me about it I have to find it out from like a vulture article that is like this movie's not good and I'm like whoa

there's a new Shane Black movie and it sucks all right sign me up I think there might be two things happening at once one is that yeah it's hard harder and harder to reach an audience like us anymore.

But also, I'm, I guess now that I think about it, I was actively searching that kind of thing out previously. The same way I would like hunt out new music, I would be like, what movies are coming out soon? And I would just watch a half an hour of trailers for upcoming movies and get like a sense of what was out. And I don't do that kind of thing anymore. I certainly don't have time for that anymore.

So I'm certainly not proactive. And so it has to be like passively given. into me which ads are supposed to be but man there's just no room in my life for ads anymore i know where the ads generally go and i've turned blinders onto those spots and so there's i'm not i'm unreachable i was just thinking and when i said task i was like oh yeah how did i find out about task i liked an artist that came across my spotify mix called dan deacon and i was like this guy's great i'm going to go find more of his stuff and i started listening to more dan deacon at the gym happened to get onto a song where i was like this song's different than all the other one

What is this? And I looked at it, and it was from a show called Task. I was like, what's the show called Task? And he does all the music for it. Found Task through Spotify. Like, that's not how it's supposed to work. I don't think that's not where the marketing spend for that movie went, for sure. As frustrating as it is for me as an audience member who is like trying to, who would genuinely love to find stuff that I'd like.

I can't imagine how maddening it might. must be for the actors and writers and directors involved in this thing. If you're Sarah Snoke and you're probably being very careful about your next move in your career because a lot of people didn't know you, then you did succession, now everyone knows you and everyone loves you, you're getting awards, it's great, you do a turn on Broadway and a one woman show about Dorian Gray and that's great and everyone loves that and there's Tony attention. And you must just think, like, in the old school way of things, that there is a way to manage your career correctly and pick the right movies, interesting projects,

and do them. And then you spend all this time filming a fucking eight-episode show in Australia. That just gets dropped on Peacock. And it's just like, what, what, how do I, how do I get people to watch this thing? How do I, how does anyone get anyone to watch anything? We've run into that. I mean, we've been doing this podcast for seven or eight years, right? Every single week. You and me? Yeah. I think for seven years.

Woof. I know. There are still people who are like, I see people show up. They find me on blue sky or whatever. And they're like, I didn't even realize you were here. Like, oh, man, I missed the old days of crack. Are you guys doing anything now? Like, yeah, man.

For a while. Like, the same way where we can't, we can't. reach any of that old audience. There's a bunch of people who were diehard cracked fans who are now like, God, those were the days. Too bad all those people died. Yeah. I think we didn't make it easy on them. I think not having websites. We didn't make it easy on them. It seemed like for a while Twitter was our websites and now neither of us are on Twitter. And it was truly like, if you were my number one fan and you wanted to keep up with me, you had to see every single tweet I made, buried in jokes and reposts of articles, was the one about how I no longer work for crack.com, and then

eventually one about how I worked for last week tonight. And then eventually nothing because I deleted my Twitter account. And you would have to have found the podcast to one or two times that I tweeted about it under duress. Yeah. I mean, I do that with, it's how I live my life too. I get mad these people who are living the exact same way I do, which is like, even with music, I will find a band that I really enjoy. They'll have an album that I think is absolutely perfect. And I'll be like, this is great. And I've been listening to it since 2008 or whatever. And then all of a sudden, a new song of theirs will come across my plate somehow. It's been fed to me. And I'm like, oh, it didn't even occur to me that they were still making music. That's great, that they

have a new album. And then I'll look. I'm like, oh, they've six new albums. It's quite a few. They've been busy. It's rough. It's, it's. I listen to so many podcasts about our industry and I read so many articles because it's our industry and I try very hard to be like, don't turn it into another podcast where we talk about this industry falling apart. Well, oh, I see. Yeah. I don't know that it's the end of the industry by any means. It means I think it's, I think this is a us problem, which I also think is not a great. A great premise for a podcast is two old guys who are like, what is this, what is this, what is that? What is this? What is that? What is this? What is this other thing? How come I'm not hearing about these things? But I don't know. I think it's okay. I think the industry is going to be fine. Because people still do love long form content. And I do expect to The way that I've solved this problem

Is Thanksgiving's coming up And You can count on O'Brien's Collectively to have watched a bunch of things To get around the table See each other for the first time in months To be like slow horses You watching slow horses? No, lowdown

Are you watching lowdown? Lowdown's good You gotta get up on lowdown Department Q All right, see you guys next year Yeah, did you see weapons Sorry You fucking watching lowdown No man

I'm not but I love the idea of it I'm a noir fucking fiend It's so good Ethan Hawk is so goddamn cool I can't even stand it He might be one of the last Like cool guys Alive

This is about I'm having right now I can tell Because like cool doesn't It doesn't really exist anymore as a concept. What does that mean? I don't know. You don't think Miles Teller is cool? No, I think he's a scumbag.

Uh-oh. What did he do? Oh, okay. Here's another thing as I'm also out of touch in terms of like who we've fucking gotten rid of. We've thrown out with the trash because they're bad news. Did he do some bad shit? You don't have to tell me what it is. Just give me a good thing.

I don't think they're like I've read enough articles and seen enough interviews with him where he just seems like kind of a doucheback. Not like, we don't need to cancel him or send him to jail or anything like that. I just like, I think this guy's kind of a prick. Okay. All right. All right.

So not, not him. No. All right. So cool doesn't exist anymore. Miles Teller sucks so cool doesn't exist anymore. Yeah, except Ethan Hawke is just like a cool, cool guy. Where's the sunglasses and hat in that show? And he's like walking around.

You know how movies work. And you said this is a thought you're having just, I know. I know. He's fully formed. He's wearing women's sunglasses, as far as I know in the show, because he got beat up. Yeah. It gets beat up so much.

It's awesome. Yeah. So he's getting into scraps. Is it that he's, he looks very comfortable in devastation on the show? Like, he's just like comfortable looking like shit. And that's cool. He's comfortable looking like shit. There's, in the most recent episode I watched, he spends the night with someone.

and it's the morning he's still covered in bruises and bandages he's in a white tank top he's got like a real punch in this show he's got in this white tank top and tidy whitties that no one wears anywhere anymore and he is just like swaggering about the room and like just being cool and being loose and being comfortable with himself and and like being romantic something. Somehow. It just fucking rules. I love Ethan Hawke. Yeah. I guess I understand that. The people who are just like, despite their appearance are still like insanely charming. Yeah. And confident. You're like, how? But I do. I said I love noir. Obviously, I talked about it on the show before. Connoisseurans will know that I fucking, that's my shit. That's right at my alley. And I have taken a look at, I've seen like the opportunity is arisen where I'm like, oh, I can watch the lowdown tonight. But I'm like, no. No, I'm going to save it. It's going to be one of those shows that I watch all at once.

It's going to be great. You know what I am watching again? A show I hate, Rings of Power, but I'm trying to fucking catch up on the lore of Middle Earth because I don't remember all of it. And I'm reading my son, Fellowship of the Ring. Did they, is there a second season of Rings of Power? This is what we are talking about, people.

I used to know how many seasons there were of shows I didn't like. and now I'm completely in the dark. Yeah. So I, I, I, I, that lore is so huge. And I'd forgotten that in Fellowship of the Ring, that's all it is. It's them walking and stopping every once in a while to talk about the fucking lore of Middle Earth that talk about like the history of it. And everybody calls each other like Thrain, son of Dane, like that kind of shit where you're

like, okay, now I got to figure out who Dane is. And they're constantly mentioning where they're going. Like, you're not provided a map at the beginning of this book. It's just like, hey, good luck. You're going to need to know where these mountains are compared to these mountains. You're going to know what the southern lands are. You're going to need to know all these things. But you're, I'm not going to give you any help.

And so I'm like. Truth be told them. I don't know exactly where they are either. You can't be wrong. I'm just trying to get like a handle on what's going on. And you're introduced to people where you're like, oh, in the Silmarillion, this person's super important. That's why you're not getting anything here that's telling you like what they look like, who they are. because it's assumed that you already know.

And I'm like, well, okay, all right, then let's fucking try this out. Let's, like, let's just do, I'll do the backlog work. So I'm like, I come up with a character like Tom Bombadil in Lord of the Rings. And I'm like, okay, this guy seems important. He's obviously, like, hugely influential. He can touch the ring and it doesn't bother him. Got to find out about Tom Bombadil's history. Dan, nothing.

Really? Yeah, Tom Bobadil is just this guy who runs across hilltops and sings the whole time. a fucking weirdo who wears like red, it talks about his yellow jacket and his red pants and he's a lunatic and he just runs across hilltop saving people all the time but contributes absolutely

nothing to the story other than he gives the hobbit some weapons. The Game of Thrones books are like that too with all the lore and all the details that I'm expected to remember and this is some spoiler stuff for books and show but

and I might get it wrong so maybe it's not a spoiler But, like, in the show, Matt's radar is definitely dead. We watch him die. In the books, it's less clear that he dies. And there's, like, the possibility that he'd switched places with someone who died in his place. And that's the kind of thing you need to keep in mind across decades of reading books. And then I get to a, I'm in, like, a caravan with a bunch of soldiers. And the book will linger on, like, oh, there was this person over there with their beard.

And then there was this stranger with a long, gray beard in the hat strumming a lute end of chapter and I'm like who had oh yeah oh god who had a loot someone else someone else played fuck someone else played loot all the time and the book wants me to remember that and I don't know oh it's mans rent okay all right oh where's my where's my notebook where's Brian at cockman who is loot who is loot um so I mean I'm not to get two of the weeds on this. But I fought fucking, the king of the north killed Mance Rader. They had

to in a fight. How did Mance Rader die? In the show, he was, his he surrendered his army when Stanis and his army came and John Snow and Stannis teamed up and Mance Radar. I was like, I don't want any more of my people to be

killed. And Stannis took him hostage or took a prisoner. I was like, you can bend the knee. All of your people who bend the knee, are welcome in my army and you can be freemen you got to fight for me and Mancerator was like

this is my whole thing is I don't bend the knee I will not kneel and so they're like all right then we're gonna burn you to death and so they tied him to a big pole and they lit a fire

to burn them to death and that's a rough way to go and so John Snow took an arrow and shot him through the heart while he was fighting for as a kindness yeah I was like I'm pretty sure John Snow

kills Manserader I didn't know why that was in my head. But, yeah, I also have not found my notebook that tells me everything I didn't know about that book. Yeah, there's, I felt the same way about The Witcher. I did not play any of the Witcher games. The first season of The Witcher came out and I was like, I didn't realize that this was my shit, that I was a nerd. I'm loving this. And then, like, the next season came out two years later or whatever.

And they're like, hey, remember all those places that you already know from the game and from the last season? And I'm like, no. And they're like, well, tough shit, because you're going to have to know them. very important. It's load bearing that you know where everything is geographically in this show. Can I ask you as a non-viewer of The Witcher? Are you still watching The Witcher? No. Oh, okay. Damn. No. Because in headlines

I'm seeing, as I'm just like desperately trying to find out what shows that I might like are out in the world, the headlines I come across are that there's, that Henry Cable is not Witcher anymore. Right. And it's Liam Hemsworth. Yes, I did know that. I was just curious if you if it's like, is it a new, is anyone returning from the cast? Is it a brand new character who is also a witcher? Is he taking over the role?

Of which. Yes. Is he going to, yeah, is he taking over the role in the same show or is this a new show following a new person? Or is this a complete revamp? Right. Is this a revamp? Are there lots of The Witchers or are people going to see him and be like, hey, how come the witcher's like way smaller?

to what you're used to be. I can't, I can't answer that question for you. I don't. I have no idea. And I've, I've lost interest. After that second season where they were like left me behind, I was like, well, I'm not going to catch up. So I'm abandoning this project. But that's why a show like ours is so great, Dan, because they're all bottle episodes. Who gives a shit?

There's nothing. There's no continuity. You don't have to know anything except that Stan is married to Francine. And Steve loves the male. That's it. Alien Roger has characters Roger has personas

Those are the load bearing things Yeah Personas forgive me Yeah and Haley loves basketball Haley loves basketball That's all you got in now My show's also Kind of a bottle episode kind of show

Yeah I mean you People are using that as their bus bench They're like Well I don't really follow politics and I need to know what's going on. Ah, here's a show that makes it very easy for me to digest it. Man, that's some sad stuff, but oh, we had some laughs along the way.

Yeah. Yeah, we're all having a lot of fun until the show comes back and we need to remind people that it's a continuing endeavor. And it didn't just, it's a very easy show when the, because the season finale to us is meaningful. And like we usually do some kind of big stunt to do with it. But to an audience, they might not close. clocked as the season finale, or they might have missed this week, which was the season finale,

and they might just, like, see it on YouTube with a different title that doesn't identify it as a finale. A couple weeks will go by. It's sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas. They go on Sunday night and they don't see it, and they Google is last week tonight on tonight, and AI is like, no. And they're like, ah, well, guess the show's gone. That's it.

That's how I, when I was watching Rings of Power the first time. there's a very big moment in the first season where like Mordor is formed this volcano in the middle of these terrible lands is formed and it's done because these weird or people conspire to make it happen and I was like oh wow that's a pretty good ending to the season

I can't wait to see what happens next season and then did never check in on the show again until recently and I was like oh no there was still like five more episodes in that season after that but nobody told me Oh, television. Get your act together. Or don't.

It doesn't seem... Don't. It doesn't matter. I watch the two shows that I bring up as examples of shows that no one told me about. I watched them completely. I mean, something's working. Yeah, you got there eventually. I wonder if they account for that now.

Oh, I just got in the mail recently an opportunity to be... This is connected. Don't worry. as he's connected, an opportunity to get a new investment checking account through Charles Schwab. No, I got in the mail an opportunity to be a Nielsen reviewer or a Nielsen reader. Oh, shit. I know. And I don't think it's probably a good idea.

You can have so much control. You can dictate what happens for the future of our industry. My first thoughts were, I don't watch broadcast TV, and I think that it was. would be important for me and my job if I started. And I don't want to have to have that kind of responsibility. My second thought was, I really like the streamlined look of both of where my televisions sit. I don't want some sort of clunky box there. A little box.

And Nielsen isn't okay with the honor system of you just like telling them what you're watching and what you like? I can't tell. Even to like log in to even find out if I can do it, I have to use a QR code. immediately, I was like, that's a lot of work. I might have to put an app on my phone. Too many apps on phones. Forget it. I wonder now, though, if Nielsen accounts for streaming or if it's only still broadcast television, because if it was broadcast TV, I would have to change my lifestyle.

I'd have to figure out how to get broadcast TV again and how to watch every syndicated episode of American death. Like, man, people in this area are watching a lot of American dead Our records show that within the Southern California area It's the most popular show on television By 100% of families All right

Well, I do have one more question for you It is unrelated I'm trying to decide if I should even bring it up Yeah, I feel I feel bad because I started this episode before we recorded, and I was like, Soren, I have nothing to say. And you were like, I have things to say. And then I steamrolled you with what felt like a pretty prepared rant. About how cool Ethan Hawke is. Viewers on YouTube will see me reading something on my screen. It's my scripted manifesto about how cool Ethan Hawk is in underwear. He's very cool. I mean, just to go back to that. for a second. He's had some ebbs and flows to his career. There was a time when I thought Ethan

Cock was the most uncool person in the world. I think right around great expectations. I thought, who is this fucking sweaty, upper-lipped guy that they keep trying to force into movies as a leading man? I don't recall him being forces leading. I guess even when he was doing like Gattaca, a movie, everyone in my family frequently likes to reference that. I don't know. has had the kind of pop culture penetration. I think it has. It has. I think people know Gattaca.

Yeah. Gattaca. Even in that when he's leading man, it still seemed like he is being kind of a weirdo. He's always been a little bit of a weirdo. It's rare for him to be like just straightforward action hero or romantic hero. Maybe great expectations. I mean, I haven't seen great expectations. So I don't know.

I just feel like he is somehow managed to hold on to some amount of indie. creed for a truly unfathomable stretch of time. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's right. I think they were trying to turn him into something that was a little bit more vanilla than he could hit. And it was, I think when I saw reality bites as a child, I was like, I don't like, I don't particularly like this guy. Yeah.

I found him unappealing. And it was, and alive. Like, he's in all these movies where he's just like, there's something unnerving about him that I couldn't. really put my finger on. There was like the pointedness of his lips and everything. And the way that he, his actions were like his head bob and stuff was like really bothersome to me. Dead Poets Society is a great example. He just seemed kind of like a, God, I hate using this word. Just seem kind of like a wuss. Sure. And, and I was off put by that when I was young because I was looking for something a little bit more masculine and strong. Where was the Witcher? And I didn't care for him. And I have done a complete 180 on him throughout the rest.

Like it's since Training Day, I feel like. Since then, I've been, I'm all about him. I think he's wonderful. He's awesome. Yeah. And he does horror movies all the time, which is like, I love that turn for a lot of current actors that they're like, really prestige actors. They're like, and I also do horror because horror is fun. Yeah.

What's his nuts? Patrick Wilson and Vera Formiga doing 700. at this point. It's just like, that's nice to you guys. That's cool. That's really, that's so sweet of you. Daisy Ridley, is that her name? That's someone's name.

Yeah. She's in a, she's in like a new horror movie that's coming out. And I was like, good for you. What a pivot from Star Wars. Yeah, that he would do, like, Ethan Huckton Sinister. He's in Blackphone or something. He's in The Purge. He's in Black Phone, too.

And like, I haven't seen it yet. It's written by a friend of the show, Cargill, Robert Cargill. And Ethan Hawk, like, truly doesn't need to be in that. It's a guy in a mask. He does need to be in the movie. But he's just like, eh, I'll do it. I'm Ethan Hawk. I like to work.

I'll be a guy in mask. Who cares? What a fucking pimp. Oh, he's so cool. He is pretty cool. Last cool guy left on Earth. I think that's what we established here. That's what we're saying.

Well, Daniel, I was going to ask about your horrible shitty Thanksgiving meal that you were planning. And I was all emotionally prepared to hear about the dumb shit you're going to eat without butter. But I think we're just going to pass on that for now. Oh, do you want it to moose-boosh for a future episode? Yeah. And we're going to end it as soon as I say this. And like, Gabe, I want like an explosion or like a Thundercloud or something like that. It turns out I might not be lactose intolerant after all.

Thank you for listening to the show, everybody. This has been quick question with Starren and Daniel. You knew that. If you liked our music, that's our theme song. That's by me, Rex. If you liked this podcast in general, that's by Gabe Harder. He's our sound engineer, producer, editor. If you want to see this podcast and you've only been listening to it,

you can go check that out on YouTube. And if you like this podcast so much that you're like, I want more, go to our Patreon, become a Patreon subscriber, and you'll hear more episodes of this podcast that we do behind a wall. Goodbye. I've got a quick, quick question for you all right. I want to hear your thoughts on a know. what's on your mind

I've got a quick, quick question for you all right the answer's not important I'm just why that we can talk tonight So what's your favorite Who did you get When do I be What do you know?

Oh forget it I saw a movie Daniel O'Brien Two best random comedy writers If there's an answer They're gonna find it I think you'll have a great time here. I think you'll have a great time here.