The Bechdel Cast - Companion with Sammy Smart and Henley Cox

Episode Date: October 16, 2025

On this episode, fembots Jamie, Caitlin, and special guests Sammy and Henley from Too Scary; Didn't Watch podcast discuss Companion (2025)! Follow the podcast Too Scary Didn't Watch on IG at @tsdwpodcastSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Hello, America's sweetheart Johnny Knoxville here. I want to tell you about my new true crime podcast, Crimeless, Hillbilly Heist, from Smartless Media, campside media, and big money players. It's a wild tale about a gang of high-functioning nitwits who somehow pulled off America's third largest cash heist. Kind of like Robin Hood, except for the part where he's still,

from the rich and gifts to the poor, I'm not that generous. It's a damn near inspiring true story for anyone out there who's ever shot for the moon, then just totally muffed up the landing. They stole $17 million that had not bought a ticket

to help him escape. So we're saying like, oh God, what do we do? What do we do? That was dumb. People do not follow my example. Listen to Crimless, Hillbilly Heist on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, it's Ed Helms host of Snafoo, my podcast about history's greatest screw-ups.

On our new season, we're bringing you a new snafu every single episode. 32 lost nuclear weapons. Wait, stop? What? Yeah, it's going to be a whole lot of history, a whole lot of funny, and a whole lot of fabulous guests. Paul Shearer, Angela and Jenna, Nick Kroll, Jordan, Klepper. Listen to season four of Snaff. with Ed Helms on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Two rich young Americans move to the Costa Rican jungle to start over, but one of them will end up dead and the other tried for murder three times. It starts with a dream, a nature reserve, and a spectacular new home. But little by little, they lose it. They actually lose it. They sort of went nuts. Until one night, everything spins out of control. Listen to Hell in Heaven on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The murder of an 18-year-old girl in Graves County, Kentucky, went unsolved for years, until a local housewife, a journalist, and a handful of girls came forward with a story. America, y'all better work the hell up. Bad things happens to good people in small towns.

Listen to Graves County on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to binge the entire season ad free, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. On the pectocast, the questions asked if movies have women in them are all their discussions. just boyfriends and husbands or do they have individualism the patriarchy's effing vast start changing it with the Becdell cast Jamie wake up the episode is starting the weather is a thousand degrees

fuck me okay oh my god oh my god welcome to the Becda well maybe our most feminist introduction yet And I'll go to sleep, Jamie.

I don't want to hear from you anymore. Ugh, okay. Look, is it, I mean, this movie got me in so many ways. I was like, do I want to be negged by Jack Quaid sometimes? There are days. That is kind of your kink. There are days where I would accept it. Okay, the feminism continues.

Welcome to the Bechtel past. My name is Jamie Laughness. My name is Caitlin Durante. This is our show where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens using the Bechdel test, simply as a jumping off point, but Jamie, what the hell is that? Well, I'll tell you, the Bechdel Test is a media metric created by an iconic friend of the show. Our best friend. Who iconically has not sued us.

Alison Bechdel was originally made as a joke in her wonderful comic series Dykes to watch out for and has since been adapted into a more mainstream media metric. There's many versions of the test. tears ours. We require that two characters of a marginalized gender robot question mark speak to each other about something other than a man for two meaningful lines of dialogue. Also, they need names. Shouldn't be hard, but people still struggle with it. And I feel like, weirdly, with the fascistic conservative bent we're on, it's going to become a thing that doesn't happen again. They're like, oh, we had women talk in movies for a couple years, but thank God,

it's over. Yeah, thank God that's not happening anymore. RIP. But here today, we are here to talk about a recent release. We haven't talked about a lot of recent releases this year, and I feel like this is kind of the ideal movie for us to be talking about because we just revisited her. We've revisited, I feel like, the Fembot canon in the last year or so. So, I feel ready for spoiler alert today's episode, Companion. Maybe if you haven't seen the movie and you want to, maybe go watch it. Don't listen to this episode because, I mean, obviously we're about to spoil it. But it's a movie that feels like a movie, number one.

Number two, it's a movie that the less you know about the twists, I think the more rewarding the watch so very true but also i will say uh i really uh enjoyed the the rewatch it is it is very fun to kind of it rewards on a rewatch it it holds up yeah because some movies like the story logic completely falls apart once you know the twist and you're like well why did that character do that thing huh but i feel like it it gets kind of better in many ways when you realize why especially with the character cat who we're going to be talking about a lot today like in my first viewing I was like, what is this girl's problem on the rewatch? You're like, I get it.

Team cat. Okay. So before we talk about the movie, more, let's get our wonderful guests into the damn chat. Let's do it. They're the hosts of the podcast, Too Scary, didn't watch. It's Henley and Sammy. Welcome. Wake up.

Wake up, Sammy. Wake up, Henley. Be-boop. We are not FemBots. We just do a podcast. Yep. Wow. We should always intro our guest this way. Our next guests are not fempots. They just do a podcast. We just do a podcast. That's all. Thank you guys for having us. We're really excited to be here and talking about this movie. We are also very excited. Yeah, well, first, before we get into it, please tell us about the pod. Yeah, our podcast is called Too Scary Didn't Watch, as you just heard. And it is Henley and I and our other.

dear friend Emily, talking about horror movies. I love horror movies. Henley and Emily are too scared to watch them. And so I basically recap horror movies to them and to our listeners who are too afraid to watch it. There's a lot of people who like to read the Wikipedia summaries of horror movies. So you want to be in on the conversation, but maybe you don't want to be seeing those images for yourself. And we try to just giggle and laugh and have a good time. and not feel too many sad feelings. Which is sometimes hard. Which is really tough.

Even without the visuals. Basically for me, it's just an excuse for me to get to hang out with my two best friends. And then also get to do a podcast at the same time. But really, it's my way of, like, secretly just getting to see you still every week, sometimes twice a week. That's, like, actually all I care about. That's beautiful. And also, I've heard about every single horror movie. I mean, my God, there's so many and they'll never end.

So we will have like an endless supply to talk about. But as someone who doesn't like horror movies, I can tell you so much about horror movies. Yep. So much. That's great. Well, the nice thing about companion is that it's not that scary. In fact, maybe not scary at all, question mark. There's a few graphic scenes, but...

Thriller? Like, I don't know how you would... quantify it. Yeah. Yeah, thriller seems closer. There's violence and like blood and so that's if you're sensitive to that. Yeah, people have different scary tolerances. We've found that, yeah, some people just can't handle blood or violence and some people can't handle jump scares and whatnot. So, yeah, I would say that this movie is not scary, but Henley as the Scaredy Cat, what did you think? I thought it was, yeah, I didn't think it was too scary. It does get gory at the And there's definitely some blood and violence throughout, but at the end that really, you know, doubles down.

Our wonderful genius, beautiful editor, Grace sent me completely unprompted because she knew I was coming on your podcast. She edited companion for me and took out any scenes that involve violence or like scary noises. Angel, oh my God. Can you believe an angel on this earth, Grace, truly an angel on this earth. but I watched the real one, even though she, I was, I really debated, but I felt like if I was going to talk about this movie in a real way, I really needed to actually see the full thing. The full version. The full version. So, um, it's okay. I'll just show my kids that version, um, that grace made. It won't go to waste. Um, my four-year-old will love it. It's about a nice

lady that goes on vacation. A beautiful home in the woods. It's about a robot. That's so cool. But so anyway, I really enjoyed it. I'm glad I had an excuse to watch it. Amazing. Yeah. Sammy, what about you? What's your relationship with this movie? I did see this in theaters without knowing anything about it, which I think is probably

the best way to have seen it. And I had just heard a lot of people saying, you know, that it was really good and you should see it. And so I did not know any of the twists. I had not seen the trailer. And that was a very fun viewing. experience. I was very, very surprised, even though I feel like I maybe shouldn't have been as surprised as I was. But, but, um, and then, yeah, just rewatched it for this. So, and you're right,

the rewatch is rewarding and fun. And I, yeah, was happy to, happy to rewatch it. Nice. Hell yeah. Jamie, what about you? I also saw it in theaters without knowing anything. I don't know how I managed to do that. I was, I, there were two movies this year that I was told to go in without, any context and it was this in sinners and unfortunately someone got to me about the twist and sinners I forget who it is but it's because I've cut them out of my life I suspect but but this movie I didn't manage to go in without any prior knowledge and the twist got me as well I didn't see it coming and I feel like it's a well executed twist because you're like oh this people being mean to a random woman scans for me completely tracks so

so unfortunately it's very plausible that this just would have happened um so i got got by the twist and yeah i thought that the the rewatch is very rewarding i think like the back half of the movie i did not like as much on the rewatch but i think the front half of the movie is really great it feels it kind of falls apart for me towards the end but yeah i'm excited to talk about it i love I love a Fembot movie, and I like that, you know, there's still, that people are still finding original takes on it that feel very, I don't know, unfortunately, scarily modern. So I'm excited. Kitlin, what about yourself?

I also saw it in theaters, though I had it, I would not say spoiled for me, but someone compared it to X Machina. Oh, that's basically spoiling. it jail and so i i knew something was up going into it i knew that there must be some sort of like AI robot or something and i kind of anticipated the first twist but then there's a second twist that i didn't see coming and we'll get to that in the recap but um yeah i i still really enjoyed it i still found it to be a fun interesting movie that gives us a lot of lot to talk about. Also a huge year for this specific lead actor, Sophie Thatcher, who is in

this and what am I call it in Heretic, back to back, which I also saw in theaters and which I also really liked. Heretic, I don't remember a damn thing that happened, but I just was like, oh, it's Hugh Grant being like, you can't leave. And I'm like, yeah, I'll go see that. It's Hugh Grant doing a similar villain character as his villain character in Paddington, too. And I'm here. for it. Also a big gear for Zach Kregger because he didn't direct or write this movie but he produced it.

And then he also has weapons out or weapons that came out earlier this year. But lots of fun people involved and I'm excited to discuss. Yeah, let's get into it. Let's take a quick break first and we'll come back for the recap.

Hey, it's Ed Helms, and welcome back to Snafoo, my podcast about history's greatest screw-ups. On our new season, we're bringing you a new snafu every single episode. 32 lost nuclear weapons. Wait, stop? What? Yeah. Ernie Shackleton sounds like a solid 70s basketball player. Who still wore knee pads.

Yes. It's going to be a whole lot of history, a whole lot of funny, and a whole lot of guests. The great Paul Shear made me feel good. I'm like, oh, wow. Angela and Jenna, I am so psyched. You're here. What was that like for you to soft launch into the show? Sorry, Jenna, I'll be asking the questions today.

I forgot whose podcast we were doing. Nick Kroll. I hope this story is good enough to get you to toss that sandwich. So let's see how it goes. Listen to season four of Snap-Foo with Ed Helms on the I-Hart Radio app, Apple Podcast. or wherever you get your podcasts. All I know is what I've been told,

and that to have truth is a whole lie. For almost a decade, the murder of an 18-year-old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky, went unsolved, until a local homemaker, a journalist, and a handful of girls, came forward with a story.

I'm telling you, We know Quincy killed her. We know. A story that law enforcement used to convict six people and that got the citizen investigator on national TV. Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica Curran. My name is Maggie Freeling.

I'm a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, producer, and I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find. I did not know her and I did not kill her. or rape or burn or any of that other stuff that y'all said it. They literally made me say that I took a match and struck and threw it on her. They made me say that I poured gas on her. From Lava for Good, this is Graves County. A show about just how far our legal system will go in order to find someone to blame.

America, y'all better work the hell up. Bad things happens to good people in small towns. Listen to Graves County in the Bone Valley feed on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to binge the entire season ad-free, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. And one-year-old woman, fall in love again. And I help a man atone for an armed robbery he committed at 14 years old. And so I pointed the gun at him and said, this isn't a joke. And he got down, and I remember feeling kind of a surge of like, okay, this is power.

Plus, my old friend Gregor and his brother tried to solve my problems through hypnotism. We could give you a whole brand new thing where you're like super charming all the time. Being more able to look to people in the eye. Not always hide behind a microphone. Listen to Heavyweight on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In early 1988, federal agents raced to track down the gang they suspect of importing millions of dollars worth of heroin into New York from Asia.

We had 30 agents ready to go. with shotguns and rifles and you name it. But what they find is not what they expected. Basically, your stay-at-home moms were picking up these large amounts of heroin. They go, is this your daughter? I said yes. They go, oh, you may not see her for like 25 years.

Caught between a federal investigation and the violent gang who recruited them, the women must decide who they're willing to protect and who they did. to betray. Once I saw the gun, I tried to take his hand and I saw the flash of light. Listen to the Chinatown Sting on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere you get your podcasts. And we're back. Here we are. Back again.

We're awake. We've been woken up. And let's talk about companion. What happens, Caitlin? Caitlin's famous recap. Yes. So we open on a dream slash flashback of Iris, played by Sophie Thatcher. Feels very Stepford Wives reference coded right from the jump. Indeed, yes.

Also, we see her having a grocery store meat cute with Josh, played by Jack Quote. Wade. And then I was reminded of another grocery store, Meet Cute, and another horror movie from recent years, Fresh. I was thinking the same thing. I didn't even see Fresh, and I was thinking that. The Sebastian Stan, meet you. So don't meet a man at a grocery store because it's going to end horribly and he's going to be a horrible person. I will say a man had to ask me for my number once at a grocery store and I said no. I was really, really caught off guard and said, no, sorry. I don't do that here. I don't mix business and pleasure like that.

I'm not here for that. Also, it's like no one's going to a grocery store to be seen at this time in history. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Usually after I've, like, had a sweaty workout and I don't want to be perceived, actually. I, you guys, I just saw a TikTok, though, of a young man getting dressed up to go to the grocery store to try to meet someone. I literally just saw TikTok about this. Whoa. And I felt for him because, honestly, how do you meet people if you don't want to meet people in the apps that's true how do you do it that's true

I don't know I don't have an answer but it's not that I feel for these these these ones who are doing it in good faith not if you're trying to put me in a basement and murder me no thank you no yeah sure which I guess in media we are led to believe that the guys you meet at the grocery store are trying to kill you over and over again it's a trope at this point yeah it feels like it yeah what is that is that just demonizing meeting people IRL I think the problem is ultimately there is no good way to meet people because most people suck. Like, you're like, should I do it on the computer in real life? I'm like, either one. Ods aren't good either way. Unfortunately. Yeah, doesn't matter.

Yeah. Anyway, so Iris and Josh meet at the grocery store. He spills oranges all over the place and they're giggling about it and it's so cute. But there's also a voiceover from Iris that foreshadows that she's going to kill him. Cut to Iris waking up. She and Josh are in his like self-driving AI or whatever car on their way to a weekend getaway with Josh's friends at this house on a lake.

It's all very rich and expensive and remote. And the house belongs to Sergei, played by, oops, I forgot to write his name down. Oh, my God. I was shocked. The guy who plays Sergei Rupert Friend, and I was like, I know this guy. I know this guy. But this is, I'm not used to seeing this guy with a very put-on Russian accent. Guess who he is?

He's Mr. fucking Wickham from Pride and Prejudice. I looked this up too. As I was watching it, I was going, who is this man? This is not a Russian person. What is this man doing? He's also very obviously not to the point where you're like, what is this choice? I guess it's not a slapsticky film in that way.

It is funny, but this feels super slapstick. And, yeah, Mr. Wickham, I was shocked, too, from Pride and Prejudice. Yes. I just, who could have seen him coming? My fiancé was like, oh, from Wes Anderson. I was like, that doesn't resonate. And I was like, oh, Mr. Wickham. What range this actor has?

I guess, yeah, everyone from Pride and Prejudice has to come and do something unrecognizable. Tom from Succession, same thing, where you're just like. So true. Where did this come from? So true. Well, I was thrilled to see him, but also that was the third twist of this movie for me, is that that guy is somehow Mr. Wicco. Right.

So that's Sergei. He is the boyfriend of Cat, played by Megan Surrey, a friend of Josh's. Also at this house are another couple. Eli, played by Harvey Guillen, and Patrick, played by. Lucas Gage. We love Lucas Gage. Yeah, love them, love them both. And we love, yeah, Harvey Guyan is one of my faves. Just the queer icons all around. Mm-hmm. Shout out what we do in the shadows. Mm-hmm. So Sergei is older and doing a very stereotypical Russian caricature and he's creepy. Iris, meanwhile, is nervous about making a good and

in front of all these people. And Josh, quite dickishly, is like, calm down. Just smile and act happy. And then you're like, oh. Right away, we're like, oh, he's a prick. Well, and he's like a very like movie guy kind of prick because he's like, why don't you smile more? And it was at this point in the movie where I was like, this was written by a man.

Because there are there, and I say that with love. But sometimes when a man is writing a misogynist, they're like, oh, the kind of guy that says smile more. so everyone gets settled in and they have dinner together Patrick recounts the story of how he and Eli met at a Halloween party which is a great great runner and then during dinner we see a Chekhov's electric wine bottle opener so don't forget that device and then after dinner Iris and Kat have a conversation Cat does not really like Iris, or at least the idea of her.

And then we get this sense that maybe Cat and Josh either used to date or maybe they're still into each other or there's something going on with Cat. Yeah. And we'll talk more about that. This scene plays great on the rewatch. Yes. Yeah, it does. Smash cut to Josh and Iris having sex and Josh busting. going a great bust we could all agree a great comic bust very funny cut and made me never want to have sex again

and then Josh tells Iris to go to sleep the next morning he's like I'm hung over Iris you get a head start and go down to the lake so she goes to the lake and Sergei shows up and starts to grab her and force himself on her So she stabs him in the neck with a knife that she mysteriously finds in her pocket. And then she goes inside and tells Josh and the others what happened. And then Josh once again says, Iris go to sleep. And then this time we see her eyes glaze over and she like turns off because twist. She's a robot. Which everyone already knows except for.

Iris. They tie her to a chair and discuss what to do. They're going to call the cops and tell the truth that Iris killed Sergei, that she must have glitched, and that's why she was violent. But first, Josh wants to say goodbye to Iris. So he turns her back on and tells her that she is, in fact, a robot, specifically a companion robot. That's the name of the movie. Or, as Joss describes it, she's an emotional support robot that fucks. He's like, I hate the term fuckbot. He's so sensitive and thoughtful. There's so much more than that.

Meanwhile, she found out she's a robot truly less than a minute ago. And he's already going, I hate the term fuckbot for you. I would say, you know, in terms of learning your whole life has been a lie. She takes it, like, quite well. She will. Yeah. She's like, got it, got it, got it. Okay, well, what now?

Yeah. She does have a hard time believing it at first, but he explains how it all works, that he can customize her however he wants as far as like intelligence level, the sound of her voice, her eye color, the language she can speak. He explains that her like, quote unquote, memories are fake. It's all just a part of her programming. And also part of her programming is that she cannot lie or physically harm humans, animals, or other companions, with some exceptions that we'll discuss in a moment. But we first get a flashback of Iris being delivered to his home by this company called Empathics.

And I was, I don't know if I was just like not paying close enough attention when I saw it in theaters, but he's listening to the song, Iris, when she arrives and you're like wow thank you 90s radio for giving me that information right so my head cannon was like oh fuck I have to name her I don't know oh that song I was just listening to Iris good enough it's great it's great yeah this reminded me of the feeling I got in don't worry darling when you find out at the end sorry for spoilers for don't worry darling but like that same feeling of like oh god this is where he lives and like you're just wheeling her in and this case and he's like clipping his toenails and it's really fluorescent lighting. I would say I've only ever seen men do this. I'm pretty sure. Just like clipping the nails wherever the fuck

they feel like. Straight onto the ground. Do it over a trash cancer. What are you doing? Nasty. Nasty business. Yes. In any case, she gets delivered. Josh establishes a quote unquote love link with her, a.k.a. the meat cute scene at the grocery store we saw at the very beginning. And we cut back to the present and Iris finally believes, okay, yes, I'm a robot. But she's like, well, we can still make this work. We can go home and I can cook for you and make love to you and make you so happy. And he's like, no, thank you. And then cat comes in and she's like, Josh, what the hell? What are you waiting for shut her down and he's like you can't say that in front of her so they go off to another room and have a little chat and we learn that they planned this whole thing josh planted the knife

on iris so that she would kill sergey so that they could steal his money he has like 12 million dollars in cash in a safe the sergey character is so all over the place because there's a random throwaway detail about sergey that comes back later that i feel like like doesn't really matter but yeah because they're like oh he wasn't that bad of a guy but I'm like well he still has a safe that has Stalin's birthday as the code so I would say and the and he's an assaulter so yes why add the detail that like he wasn't actually a bad guy like we only saw him be a bad guy I didn't need to know that he didn't get rich in the least ethical way possible I don't know right right because at first they're like he's a mobster and human trafficker

And then later, they're like, no, he's just a molester who's obsessed with Stalin. You're like, okay, I still don't care that he's dead. Right. Yes. So while Josh and Kat are having this like sidebar in another room, Iris, meanwhile, not wanting to be shut off, she undoes her restraints, takes Josh's phone that he uses to customize and control her and escapes into the woods. So Josh and the others freak out. They're trying to figure out what to do. It turns out that Eli and Patrick were not in on this like murder plan.

So they're just kind of now finding out about it. And then we also learn that Patrick is also a companion robot. That's the big twist that I didn't see coming since I already kind of knew something was going on with Iris. Right. I feel like, I don't know, for me, the twist that Lucas gave. as a robot. I was like, hmm, I'm rooting for him. I don't care. Like I'm still rooting for Harvey Julianne's character because you could never make me hate him. And I think the movie kind of feels that way too. The movie sort of decides like, oh, we're not going to turn people

on. I think their relationship is supposed to be kind of a foil to the other relationship, the other human robot relationship, because it seems like they actually love each other. Yeah. And like that's possible amongst a human and a robot. You can genuinely love each other, which is, I think, important to establish in this movie, which you might otherwise walk away from thinking, well, I guess, like, you don't, that doesn't really happen. So for them to show what happening makes it all the more Jack Quate's character, all the more, like, atrocious, I'd say, exactly. Yeah.

So we learn all of that. So the other characters are kind of freaking out, and they take Sergei's gun and go into the woods to find Iris, who. now knows that she's a robot who has been lied to and manipulated and forced to commit a murder by a man who she thought loved her and whose programming has been modified because Josh has this like hacking modifier device that he used to turn up her aggression and self-defense response and enabled her to enact violence and doing all of these modifications is very illegal. So if the cops or empathics, the company finds out that they modified her,

they're fucked. So they have to go find Iris, who meanwhile is in the woods with Josh's phone. And she uses it to turn off the voice command that Josh uses to, like, control her slash shut her off by telling her to go to sleep. And she also adjusts her intelligence. Josh had her intelligence. Josh had her intelligence level set at 40%. And she's like, wow, you bitch. So she boosts it up to 100%. So now she's like super smart. And she forms a plan to hijack Josh's car and get herself back home so that she can get cleaned up, grab some money, and get away from Josh for good. But before she can get to the car, she crosses paths with Eli and Patrick in the woods, who don't spot her right away. but she overhears them talking and she overhears Patrick revealing that he knows he's a robot

and that that like Halloween party meet cute thing was just like his fake memory love link thing. And then you get one of my favorite lines in the movie, fuck you dad, I'm in love with a robot. Yes. Followed like kiss kiss kiss kiss. Kiss kiss and maybe they're about to fuck in the woods question mark. But then they hear Josh's phone vibrating. on Iris. So they go after her. Eli attacks her. They scuffle. And then Iris ends up shooting and

killing Eli. And she runs off. Josh hears the gunshot. He's nearby. And then he chases her back to the house. She gets in his car and tells it to drive her home after she like adjusts her voice to match Josh's voice since it only responds to his voice commands. I love this. It was just as enjoyable the second time as it was the first of the like, just it's like and then randomly Jack Quaid's voice exactly mode. Yeah, exactly. It's so hard to do.

Convenient for her. But it's a fun scene. And a good twist on like why you can't leave the house. You always have to figure out why can't you leave the house in the middle of the woods. And this would be one way. It's voice-activated car. Yeah. Sure.

So she's driving off and getting away, but the car stops when Josh uses Sergei's phone to report the vehicle stolen and to call Iris and say, like, we can go back to the way things were. We'll just blame everything on Patrick. And Iris is like, no, thank you. I'm breaking up with you. so he's furious again Josh goes back to Patrick in the woods does a factory reset on him establishes a love link with Patrick

and then uses the modifier device so that Patrick will do whatever Josh wants and he tells Patrick to find Iris and bring her back cut back to Iris in the car a cop pulls up so she programs herself to speak German knowing that the cop won't be able to understand her and knowing that she can't lie. This is her little workaround.

Clever, clever. She's got that 100%. Intelligence. But then the cop eventually sees the bloody knife in the car and is about to arrest her. But just then, Patrick shows up all like Terminator mode and he beats the cop to death. and abducts Iris and brings her back to the house. She's in sleep mode now because he like got to the phone and like reactivated the voice command. And Kat is like, well, fuck this.

Too many people are dead now. I'm just going to take my portion of the money and leave. So Josh has Patrick stop cat, which he does by stabbing her because Patrick is like 100% aggression mode. this is where the movie loses me where they just kill off cat like it seems like because they're like because she has to die for the rest of the movie to work we'll talk about it but this is on the second viewing this is where I was like all right and then she says the weather before she dies and I'm like all right women be reporting the weather to jack quay right so then Josh wakes iris back up and has a little chat with her over dinner.

This is the part that really lost me, because I'm like, why are they having this conversation? Wouldn't this scene go differently based on everything that's happened up until this point? I found it a little too, like, movie. But anyway, she's like laying into him. She's like, you're pathetic and entitled.

So he turns her intelligence down to zero percent, making her like a mindless autops. Homaton forces her to burn her arm on the flame of a candle and then to shoot herself in the head, thinking that that will like destroy her hard drives so that they can easily just like pin all of these crimes on her for when the two guys from the empathics company show up played by comedians and friends of the show Matt McCarthy and Djibuki Young White who reveal that they're going to scrub through all of Iris's footage because everything she sees and hears is recorded and stored in her like memory CPU whatever which is not in her memory torso exactly it's in her

abdomen dayusx memory torso and so they're able to reset her and boot her back up but because she's recorded all this like incriminating footage Josh has Patrick kill the two empathic guys which he successfully does with Matt McCarthy's character and then Patrick

is about to strangle Djibuki's character Teddy but Iris shows up and manages to help Patrick remember that Josh is not his love that Eli is and Eli is dead. Oh no.

No, so Patrick ends his own robot life. And so Iris goes back inside to confront Josh, but not before she has Teddy give her, like, total autonomy and self-control. So now she can lie and hurt people and do anything, and Josh has no control over her anymore, which makes him furious and he starts throwing her around very violently, and they're fighting, and he's about to kill her. But then she goes, go to sleep, Josh.

And she drills the electric wine bottle opener into his skull, killing him. So powerful. I didn't know they were that powerful. We need to be careful around those. They can go through a human skull. That's nuts. I guess so. And then the movie ends with Iris getting cleaned up.

she tears off her like burnt skin on her hand and exposes her like robot arm she takes the $12 million and drives off in Sergei's vintage Mustang and then as the credits roll she drives past a man and a woman in a car and the woman looks just like her but with like different hair implying that she's also a robot. So Iris waves her like exposed metal robot hand at her to communicate like, hey, you're a robot too. So get the fuck out of there, lady. Get away from that man.

The end. Yay. Hell yeah. Let's take another quick break. And we'll be right back to talk about companion. We'll go to sleep. Yeah, everyone go to sleep. Hey, it's Ed Helms, and welcome back to Snafoo, my podcast about history's greatest screw-ups.

On our new season, we're bringing you a new snafu every single episode. 32 lost nuclear weapons. Wait, stop? What? Ernie Shackleton sounds like a solid 70s basketball player. Who still wore knee pads? Yes. It's going to be a whole lot of history, a whole lot of funny.

And a whole lot of guests. The great Paul Shear made me feel good. I'm like, oh, wow. Angela and Jenna, I am so psyched. You're here. What was that like for you to soft launch into the show? Sorry, Jenna, I'll be asking the questions today. I forgot whose podcast we were doing.

Nick Kroll. I hope this story is good enough to get you to toss that sandwich. So let's see how it goes. Listen to season four of Snafoo with Ed Helms. on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All I know is what I've been told, and that to have truth is a whole lie.

For almost a decade, the murder of an 18-year-old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky, went unsolved, until a local homemaker, a journalist, and a handful of girls, came forward with a story. I'm telling you, we know Quincy Kilder, we know.

A story that law enforcement used to convict six people, and that got the citizen investigator on national TV. Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica Curran. My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, producer, and I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find. I did not know her and I did not kill her

Or rape or burn or any of that other stuff that y'all said it They literally made me say that I took a match And struck and threw it on her They made me say that I poured gas on her From Lava for Good This is Graves County A show about just how far Our legal system will go

In order to find someone to blame America y'all better work the hell up Bad things happens To good people and small towns. Listen to Graves County in the Bone Valley feed on the IHeart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to binge the entire season at free, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Jonathan Goldstein, and on the new season of heavyweight,

I help a centenarian and a broken heart. How can a 101-year-old woman fall in love again? And I help a man atone for an armed robbery he committed at 14 years old. And so I pointed the gun at him and said, this isn't a joke. And he got down, and I remember feeling kind of a surge of like, okay, this is power. Plus, my old friend Gregor and his brother tried to solve my problems. Through hypnotism.

We could give you a whole brand new thing where you're like super charming all the time. Being more able to look people in the eye. Not always hide behind a microphone. Listen to Heavyweight on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In early 1988, federal agents raced to track down the gang they suspect of importing millions of dollars worth of heroin into New York. New York from Asia. We had 30 agents ready to go with shotguns and rifles and you name it. But what they find is not what they expected.

Basically your stay-at-home moms were picking up these large amounts of heroin. They go, is this your daughter? I said yes. They go, oh, you may not see her for like 25 years. Caught between a federal investigation and the violent gang who recruited them, The women must decide who they're willing to protect and who they dare to betray. Once I saw the gun, I tried to take his hand and I saw the flash of light. Listen to the Chinatown Sting on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere you get your podcasts.

And we're back. Everyone wake up. Everyone wake up. it's beautiful outside let's get into the discussion henley sammy what stands out to you feel free to kick it off um well i feel like i was thinking two things when you're you're recapping it um well overall it's just fun it's like a fun movie to watch i had a good time it's a rump yeah if i'm gonna like critique anything maybe it's just that i wish it had gone deeper into some of the themes it was trying to explore for me the latter half of the movie makes a lot more sense if we see jack quade's evolution

into like becoming a sociopath more clearly when she calls him and breaks up with him in the car she uses all the classic breakup lines she's like it's not you it's me she says all the classic things and he's like are you breaking up with me and you see in his face like i think anyway something's shift like this is she has activated a deep wound some kind of deep wound has happened here. And literally it's like a light switch. All of a sudden, he's like a supervillain, which he really wasn't before in the movie. And I think that that shift could have been like, I don't know, we could have just had a little bit more about him to really believe that part of it. Because, yeah, when they sit down to dinner and he's like sitting

at the head of the table with like a goblet of red wine and he's like, wake up, Iris. I'm like, who are you? Like, where did you come from? You were like, I thought you were a coward. Like, what is Yes. And yeah, like, makes sense in a satirical way of like that shift being, that's the moment to completely change personality. Like, I've been rejected and now I must kill you and make you suffer. But the movie's not super satirical in that way. And so, yeah, it does feel a little jarring. I agree. Especially when he's, yeah, sadistically torturing her and making her feel pain is. Right. Yeah, where does this, where does come from? It's a bit jarring, but for me, I think the movie does a pretty good job of characterizing an awful man, but showing a more like maybe modern and like almost nuanced version of misogyny versus like what we've seen in the past with a lot of movies and something that we talk about all the time on this podcast, like the patriarchy, the man type of character. Right. See, I think this is the new Patriarchy the guy character. I think we're going to be seeing a lot of this guy. I feel like the first time I clocked this variation of Patriarchy,

the guy was in Promising Young Woman, the Bo Burnham character. I was going to say Bo Burnham. I had that thought, too. And we've been seeing a lot of this guy. And actually, specifically, Jack Quaid has played this guy more than once. And he also plays this guy in Five Cream. In Scream. Oh, Screen Five.

Green, fine. Where, spoiler alert, he's one of the ghost faces. And he's the nice supportive boyfriend. I did not get it. But yes. He's the five cream ghost face. So this is like a type of character who I feel like I've seen many times at this point. And I wanted more of it.

Because I agree with you, Henley, that like it felt very abrupt, especially with, and I feel like so much of the stuff that I was, I don't know. I didn't think any of this on the first time I watched this because it's a movie to watch on a Friday night. Like, don't overthink it, but also that's what we're here to do. So, but I felt like a lot of the issues I was having in the back half could have been solved if like Kat remained a relevant character because I feel like so much is left on the table. And when he goes super villain mode, it did not scan for me because he cared about Kat.

He had a crush on her. They'd been friends for a long time. So when the Jack Quaid character does not react to that at all, that was when I was like, oh, he is a patriarchy, the guy character, because that's like a completely irrational way. Even if he's a misogynist, which he is, it just like his behavior in like the last half hour just like kind of didn't scan for me at all because he's ultimately a coward. And I felt like he was not going, he was not choosing cowardly things in the last half hour. and his crush died in front of him because of him it was his fault like I don't know I guess I wanted to see him kind of crash out and you can crash out in a misogynous way we've all seen it um but like I just sort of I guess was wondering why there wasn't a reaction to that she just felt so like oh yeah we have to get rid of this character or the movie can't end but it was like there's so much left on the table with her that that conversation between her and iris at the beginning is so cool

to rewatch because it's like cat is feeling frustrated because she's being treated like a robot and then there's like a moment in that conversation where she's like well look who i'm talking to i'm talking to a fucking robot about misogyny great and at that you're like okay let's explore that more but once the twist happens i feel like cat her like significance is the plot drops off significantly to the point where they're like, um, and then Lucas Gage kills her question mark. Like, it just felt like her character was, I don't know. I, yeah, on this watch, I was like, why did they make those choices about her? Yeah, I agree with all of that. I guess my thing is like, and yes, this is a version of the like patriarchy, the guy character with what

we see in Josh. And then we get like one of the more classic versions of that. character with Sergei who is like a rapist but with I don't know with with Josh yeah we're seeing this trope of like this version of the patriarchy the guy character in more recent movies but I still think it's a kind of a refreshing alternative to the more cartoonish version that we've seen in whatever years past I guess it's like his massage isn't quite so mask off it's more covert the way that misogyny is more covert these days it's still very present but I feel like misogynists have gotten better at masking it a little bit more and I feel like Josh's character is like for a heightened thriller comedy yeah his character is like a decent

representation of that yeah still not perfect but like I think it's it's handled like decently well in this movie yeah he reminds me i feel like it's almost stripped straight from online culture this version of misogyny and manhood because i don't know for me anyway i feel like i see a lot of content about people being like the men who have like done me the dirtiest in brooklyn are all reading bell hooks yeah they're all right you know they're performative they're performing some version of feminism that whether they know it or not, they don't actually mean, um, and is for selfish purposes. And who knows if they actually, you know, read a single line of bell hooks, um, in reality. But they're carrying

it around with them at the subway. So try to signal to everyone that they're a good person or a good guy. Um, it's like those, the signals have changed. Yeah. And that's what we're seeing a little bit here with Jack Wade. Right. Definitely. He's really, I mean, he's really, I mean, he's really good at playing this part yeah and yeah like you're you're totally right katelyn that like with sergey we sort of get the for some reason via mr wickham another famously shitty guy so maybe that's the through line there um but that like we're seeing different kinds of guys who suck um yeah i guess i i'm just like maybe it's a personal preference thing but it's like i i just wanted something new because i was like, okay, I got got got by Bo Burnham, but that was like five years ago. I got to give me a new

flavor on this guy. Well, the thing is with Josh is that I don't think the intention of the movie is that you get got by him because his misogyny is pretty on display. It's maybe more subtle than the Sergei character. But that scene where they arrive at the house and Iris is expressing her insecurities about like oh my gosh what if I embarrass myself in front of your friends or say something stupid and then he's like shut up oh my god you're just now bringing this up 20 feet from the door just be cool chill the fuck out you know he's not using quite that language but he's saying like it's fine just act happy and smile and then obviously his misogyny runs way deeper than that because I mean, he's a man who wants a romantic partner who he can control and he has her intelligence

level set to a small fraction of what, like he wants someone who he can manipulate and maybe what I'm getting at is like, I guess what I part, because the performative guy thing is is everywhere in the real world right now. I feel like there's a lot of guys that like saw me too happen 10 years ago. They're like, okay, I have to adjust the language to be a dickhead now. but I feel like a lot of them are not aware they're doing it and so I feel like it starts with Jack Quaid being an asshole but like an asshole who still fundamentally thinks he's a good guy and then at the end he's acting so villainous like not flinching when his dear friends are being stabbed by robots in front of him that you're that it felt like it kind of like lost sight of the kind of shitty guy I thought he was that's true right because yeah his friend Eli dies his friend slash crush cat died eyes and he's like, well, moving on, I need that $12 million. Yeah. I definitely think the scariest part of the movie is the scene with Sergei, where he's just

like slowly like pushing the boundary and like asking her to put on sunblock for him. And like that part was so effectively upsetting. And I think that's probably like the part of the movie where I was the most like scared. Me too. Yeah. He's also manipulating her because he says something like, oh, do you like this nice house? Right. Do you like this delicious food that I've provided?

Are you comfortable? Well, if so, I did that and therefore you owe me something. You owe me your presence and your company. So stay here with me and blah, blah, blah. And then he gets more overtly grabby and assaulty. But yeah, he's trying to manipulate her up until that point. and because of her program, but also there's like a societal mirror of that of like women being socialized to be polite and accommodating. She's like, yeah, you're right.

You did invite me here and I am enjoying the nice house. Which becomes even like wilder when it's like, oh, this is also how she's been programmed likely by men to behave in response to something like that. I wanted more of it where she again with I'm going to just like fixate on the fact that I wish that she and Kat had like had a more because Kat is coming from such an interesting place where she is being treated like shit by Mr. Wickham also she is frustrated like it seems like it's one of those choices where there's two women in this movie and they hate each other for reasons unclear probably related to a guy like okay we've seen that a million times but when you rewatch it, you're like, no, she hates, like she doesn't trust robots, which I think

is a very reasonable place to be coming from. And I guess I wish that they got into that a little bit more outside of the idea of a romantic relationship because I don't think that it is, again, it's tricky because I love Fembot movies and I'm always rooting for the FemBot to kill everyone. But also, you know, I'm in real life, I'm really not rooting for the robots to kill anybody. I actually, like, really don't want them to. Yeah. And I'm afraid of them. And so I feel like there is like a, I don't know.

I was really kind of connecting with Kat on this viewing where you're like, well, would I be nice to a robot? I don't know. Also, if you are like a single woman in the world and sexual politics is already complicated enough, that like the playing field is already imbalanced enough. And then you throw in fucking fembots into the equation. So like now I've got to compete with a robot who's literally designed by men to be like perfect quote unquote and perfect and do whatever they want. And the version that they've designed is so demeaning actually at the end of the day

and depressing because literally the only point of her existing is to serve Josh. I think that also as like a human woman, you would be thinking how, how, how am I to live in this world where the man gets to have a fembot and everyone thinks it's okay? That's another thing. This is clearly normalized in this world. No one gives a shit. Everyone's like, that's cool. You get a fembot. You do you. You would think there'd be some level of shaming, some level of like you can't even bag a human woman. You have to get a robot. No, they don't care. They don't care about that at all. And as a human woman, that would bother me. Yeah, yeah. And the word she uses is you make me feel

so replaceable and it is like yeah depressing thought to think of men being like oh yeah let's get rid of the human aspect and just make a little fuck butt. I have an automaton who exists only to serve me and accommodate me and who the men have to put in no emotional effort to care for them because the men can just be like go to sleep because there's also that scene like right after they have sex and he busts. She's like trying to kind of connect with him emotionally and have like aftercare and pillow talk and then he's just like go to sleep and like and they I feel like the movie plays on that really well of like on the rewatcher like oh I just thought he treats women poorly but he he's treating women poorly in a way

I didn't even understand like and that's another cool I don't know conversation where it's like that to some extent is happening like you can have an AI girlfriend now and you know whatever I don't really even want to wait into the shallow end of that discussion. But, but I feel like in general, so much of why these performative men exist, I feel like is because they're like, okay, now I understand that in order to have access to women at all, I need to treat them with the most basic veneer of respect. But when you put the fuckbot into the mix, that goes away. Like, they're like, I can treat this robot however I want there is no like if you're a piece of shit you're like there is no advantage to treating any woman with a measure of respect because I can just have

my fuckbot at home who cares and we learn later in the movie from Matt McCarthy's character that some men are using their robot companion women as target practice or that they chain them up in the basements and torture them it's like yeah yeah i see that well okay so i i agree that like the conversation that cat has with iris really rewards on the rewatch because at first you think cats may be jealous of iris because she and josh either used to have a thing or that she has feelings for him and then when she says that iris makes her feel replaceable that implies oh cat and josh used to date and then he broke up with her in favor of dating iris that's what you interpret from the first watch from the second watch you're like oh cat is resentful of this world where men have these

fuck bots that exist to serve their every physical and emotional and housekeeping need also it seems like she does like the cooking and cleaning for Josh and all that and so that would make any human woman feel yeah like replaceable inadequate etc but I think that cat's anger is a bit misplaced sure like she doesn't necessarily want to hang out with a robot lady but I don't understand why she's not more upset with Josh or men like Josh who would choose a robot over a robot over a human woman or like whatever the company that's creating these fembots so i wish that had gone like i don't know i wish that it had been handled differently and i think if it was not written by a man if this movie was written by a woman her attitude would have like her anger would have been

maybe directed elsewhere the other part of that dynamic is how having a fuck bot would affect a man This is another part of like patriarchy harms everyone, which is, sure, it sounds nice having a relationship that is so deeply convenient and frictionless and easy and they do everything you want. However, Josh Quaid, or Josh Quaid, Jack Quaid, Josh Quaid, Josh Quaid, sure, that's his name now. He kind of hates her. Like, even from the beginning, he doesn't like her. And it's because she's just him. She's just a version of him. Yeah.

That's my child trying to open the door. And she's like she's to like basically he's seen himself in her. I mean, how could he not? Oh. That's my husband trying to get my four-year-old to not burst in here because he really wants to talk about fembots. We need the take. Yeah, he watched the edited version.

He was a huge fan. He has so much to say, so much on his mind. Sorry, that point got interrupted. But basically, like, he hates her, which we see by the end of the film, he mean he's torturing her by the end because he must be harboring some hate for her and is inside of himself because he doesn't act. This is not what anyone wants. No one, this is not real connection.

This is not real. This is not life affirming. This is not making us better people. This is not like adding to like how dynamic and beautiful life can be. This is really tiny, is a way to live your life in the tiniest little. see his little box. Slatening it, yeah. And he on some level must know that and hate that about himself.

And it just sucks for everyone, basically. Totally. That's a really good point. Yeah, that like he, and again, it's like, I wish that we had seen that a little more. Same. This comes from a place of insecurity and self-hatred. And that is like a useful thing to see and understand men. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah. it all feels like all of the opportunities and like everything is there and you can see it but the way it comes together just feels like there's like a lot left on the table because I'm not even like I wouldn't even really care that cat is rude to Iris at the beginning if that pays off in some way but it doesn't change like she's just like fuck her I hate her even when she's like she's seeing these like shades of gray in her friend Josh Quaid that and she doesn't really react to it either I was like so are we just to believe that every person in this movie except sort of Harvey Julian is a tremendous piece of shit like I'm on

board for that but I need to understand like why they're not reacting to certain things I don't know I mean I do like I love I love a tech thriller and I just I feel like with especially with how people are feeling about AI at this specific moment, it only kind of went like surface level where there's so many things to be scared of us. Right. Yeah, it does feel like that first act is like, was the impetus of the idea. And they were like, oh, this is going to be so good. It's going to be so good. Sold it on that. And then, yeah, like, we're like, oh, yeah, we have to write the rest of it. Okay. Like, let's fill that in. So I agree. It does kind of. It's super satisfying in the first third or first half even.

And then, yeah, a lot of those threads get dropped or just kind of watered down. So it's a fun movie that doesn't like, doesn't stick with me as much as I would like it to because I'm just, yeah, didn't quite get all the way there. But here's a question. Can I even think off the top of their head of a Fembot movie that was like made by? a woman not to put anyone in particular on blast but like I feel like most of these movies are made by men uh for going to blade runner for going to ex machina these are movies I like stepford wives step for wives I'm pretty sure Westworld like these are movies that I'm pretty sure made overwhelmingly by men and and and what I mean I know why but like but but but but maybe

Maybe don't. I don't know. I have no power, but it's just like, I love a Fembot movie, but I usually have some kind of issue with it that is similar to this that just feels like maybe if a single woman, the movie doesn't even have to be good. Women's wrongs as well. But like, I just feel like there's always like, there's always something that just feels like weirdly and very obviously left on the table.

And if you're choosing to make a fembot movie, you're walking into a feminist discussion. Like, if you didn't want that, then you shouldn't have made a fembot movie. Like, there is going to be a discussion around gender with this. But it is just like, this, I mean, this is like not a call out to this movie in particular, but just as I was like going through the other fembo,

oh, and we just covered her. Another, like, male-oteur movie. Who made Mithrigan? Here's a question. That's a man, I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure, man. And look at God. Yes, written by a woman.

So that's good. Written by Akila Cooper, who also co-wrote malignant, hello. So, I mean, like, it does, but I mean, I don't know, just like another otore movie about a fembot by a guy. I'm like, maybe next time, let's try something different. Someone else do it. I love the version of this movie if, okay, let's take this movie. movie we make it 20 minutes long all right all right everything that happens i love it already 20 minutes then she because it's like in a way a coming of age film for a robot right that's really

interesting too her character development she's wearing like 1960s clothes in the beginning that she's been given by empathics by the end she's got her robot arm revealed she's wearing leather and jeans and she's like about to ride off into the distance so okay so let's say that happens 20 minutes in and then it's like what does this bitch do you know like what happens next does she run for office like what what is what's happening is she gathering all the other robots together and making a robot army for an uprising is she doing a robot uprising is she just having a small cottage core life like experiencing you know maybe like spalunking going into you know doing some like fun whimsical things in nature i don't know But it's kind of fun to think about that version of this story, too.

Yeah. That brings up another question. I know it's like silly in a joke of the robot uprising, but her scenes with the Lucas Gage character, I feel like that I was also having not really questions about, but maybe like could there have been more there? I actually like can't remember now even anything they will said to each other. It's implying that they have consciousness because he can feel, he describes love.

Patrick, the robot, describes his love for Eli in very poetic, beautiful human terms. Like, it seems like this is a robot instilled with consciousness, which is a whole other conversation we could be having because it seems pretty obvious these robots have consciousness. And for these humans who are ignoring that, I'm like, would it be that easy to ignore someone who seems like a feeling? thinking person and treat them that way? I don't know. Yeah, I wrote this down and then was like, this is out of my pay grade. But like, I just wrote down Turing test question mark. Because theoretically, okay, like if it's a reveal that Lucas Gage is a robot and some people don't know that Lucas Gage is a robot unless they're told, then like he's clearing the Turing test. If you're clearing the Turing test, you have consciousness. And if you have consciousness,

is theoretically there would be like I don't know like there implications for that right right like yeah like you're saying like people would be behaving a little differently or there would be some conversation around like they meant there is kind of like a yada yada like empathics will get in trouble but it's like not clear if it's like I don't know right there's like legal limits to what their intelligence can be or something like maybe they had put some sort of limits on or intended to put limits on them and yeah, I don't know. I mean, I guess, yeah, getting into the legality of it is maybe not. Should you have to do a robot court drama?

The movie touches on this very briefly without being specific at all, but it's this flashback scene where Iris is like being delivered to Josh's apartment and there are a couple empathics employees to like facilitate. that and one of them is kind of going through a few different logistical things with Josh and he says like there are about a billion government regulations here so obviously we can't like they can't have super strengths or super intelligence so even if you set it to a hundred percent intelligence that would be the equivalent of an Ivy League grad which doesn't necessarily even imply intelligence that just implies that your parents are well connected and have a lot

of money. But it's not as though their 100% capacity. Like they have these regulations that limit the intelligence and limit the strength, but also like additional limitations as far as like they have no capacity to lie. They have no capacity to be violent unless their behavior has been like hacked and modified with these like hacking devices. I'm fine with the hacking device. I'm like a vague hacking device, why not? A hacking stick? The hacks. Love it. The hack stick. The mystery box? Sure.

Why not? And then it's implied that happens all the time when your friends are wheeling them out and they're like oh, she was definitely modded. Like of course she was modded and they're so casual about it. Like it happens all the time. This happens all the time. This is not the first robot murder and it won't be the last. Yeah, I don't know. But yeah, speaking to

like her, Iris's relationship with Lucas Gage, again, I'm like this to me does not feel like a movie where everyone has to die except for iris like it felt bizarre to me that people kept dying after i felt like it made sense i guess where like cat dying felt like i don't know killer and like sort of similar to lucas gage where i was like okay now we're getting into like robot suicidality like does that mean lucas gage thinks he's going to see harvey julian in heaven does he believe in heaven? Does he believe in God? I don't know. Why? I don't know. I guess that that is like supposed to illustrate the point that like he does have consciousness and he can experience

such tragic loss that he could experience suicidality. But I'm also like, I'm also fine with Iris and Lucas Gage robot going on a road trip. That's what I was, you know, rooting. I think that that's what I wanted. As we're talking about it, I'm thinking, yeah, they can they can both ride off into the sunset right um but that's no what happened that's no one happened i kind of forgot like on the rewitch i was like what does happen to the other robot and then you're like oh okay yeah that like his death scene felt so like to me tacked on or like oh we just need to get rid of him so he does that but i'm like i don't think you need to get rid of him like i think i would have liked to see either human woman and fembot unionized or robot and robot unionized.

Yeah, a teaming app. Yeah. Would have been good. I feel like that would have been fun. I agree. Speaking to the different times where like the movie starts to kind of say something, but like those threads unravel or doesn't like stick the landing in a satisfying way, there's that monologue or I guess it's a dialogue.

between Josh and Iris at the dinner table at the end where Josh is describing how, oh, the world is just a big game and it's rigged against people like me, which feels like commentary on cis-hete white men feeling as though, oh, I... There's a war on men. Everyone's against me. Yeah. Because he says then, like, I'm a good guy. I'm nice.

I'm decent. and in the world he's implying like the world owes him things just because he's a quote unquote nice guy which of course he's not but he thinks that about himself so he feels entitled to you know women and money and blah blah and iris then responds with like yeah we all know how much you think the universe owes you but you know you're an entitled prick who always needs to be in control And then she also makes a dig about his penis size, which is something that we've talked about on the podcast before, which like, yeah, that's probably going to hurt a lot of people's feelings if their penis size is insulted, but there's like inherent problematic things with just using that as an insult, period. But it just felt like another example, that whole dialogue of like, there's commentary starting to be made, but then it kind of. tapers off into nothing much as you actually said. How much of that does it mean if that is

immediately followed by us seeing a woman shoot herself in the head, you know? I'm like how like, you know, whatever. I'm fine if the movie, if the FemBot movie is like we have nothing to say about women, that's a choice. But it's like, I feel like this movie says something and then shows you something else. I don't know. I was, I wasn't really buying the, the feminist empowerment speech at the table. I wasn't, I wasn't feeling it. Right. I was thinking that scene at the table really I was feeling so many feelings. And one of the first feelings was him sitting like so smug with his fucking goblet of wine. Like truly he might as well have been patting a cat or something. Truly so villainous, so evil. And the only thing I could think was he has failed upwards.

Like he has totally gotten to this point only because. because he's made one mistake after another mistake, after another mistake, after another mistake, constantly getting things wrong, never judging the scenario correctly. Everyone around him has died. Everything has gone to shit. And look at the audacity. Look at the audacity of this man who says now, now is my time to be like super confident. And it's like that to me also, oh, just makes my like, I get goosebumps.

Because I do feel like I have worked with some subbed who are like that and they do exist in the world. And it's remarkable how the human brain can really trick you into anything. Yeah, I don't know. Right. Like you said, that happens in real life all the time, men failing upwards and then being like, well, I've moved upwards. Look at my accomplishment. Look at the proof of my success. I've killed everyone else.

So I must deserve this. So I must be awesome, and this confidence is deserved. Yep. I don't know. Ultimately, I think my takeaway from this movie is that I want women to make Fembot movies going forward. Nothing against, I mean, like, it's nothing against this filmmaker, anything like that, but just like, leave the FemBots to the girls.

I think men have really had their say. Yeah. And they've had plenty of opportunities to make a comment. And it does feel like this movie is trying to say something about it, but it just like doesn't quite come together. Also, yeah, again, and just like going back to just like time-worn horror tropes where this movie feels more like a thriller movie than a horror movie anyways. I don't think everyone needs to die.

But by the end of the movie, basically Iris is the final girl. And the gays have been buried. The people of color all dead. So is Jack Quayette. Like everyone's dead. But it just didn't feel like that was needed. I don't know. Yeah, it focused more on cranking up the violence and deaths than like the actual story itself.

That said, it's like, again, very fun. A fun surprise. But then, yeah, when you really dig into it, there's less there than you. Substance than you might. Than you wanted. Yeah. Something that bumped from me. me was the violence toward the very end where he, where Josh is like very violently throwing

Iris around. It felt like, I already know he's a bad guy. Like, why, it felt like kind of reveling in a man being horribly violent toward a woman. Yeah. It would have been nice if they added some, like, a twist on that because she's theoretically like made of metal. So him like trying to hurt her in that way and maybe not being able to because she's much heavier or something. I don't know. Like I kind of was expecting something a little different in that scene. And then, no, it was just him being violent towards her in a way that was like hard to watch. Yeah, it was really hard to watch. Right, because at this point, Iris has total autonomy. This is after the Teddy Empathics guy, like, gave her autonomy.

It's DeaSX Djibuki. In theory, she probably would be stronger and sturdier than a human person. Yeah, why doesn't she go into, like, again, Terminator mode and, like, rip him in half? Yeah, true. We've seen Lucas Gage do it, and so it does feel like it kind of wanted that scene to be in there where he realizes he's not stronger than her maybe empathics is really sexist and they make the like male coded robots out of like titanium and then they make the like women ones out of like aluminum soap yeah yeah i didn't i guess i didn't even think about that but there's like i mean

just going back into horror tropes we've talked about since the show started of like i am both very pro corkscrew to the head the very creative haven't seen that one before and also is it not a household object, whereas Lucas Gage robot, it has a fucking Glock, like, the whole time. Everyone has a gun except our final girl who is still using the household object to get the final kill. She does wield the gun for a minute and then shoot at Josh. But, yeah, it gets dropped pretty shortly after that. Yeah.

And I guess I appreciate also the, for having a quote unquote fuck bot in the movie, not having like a very graphic sex scene is I think the right choice like all of the sex scenes are either off camera and you basically only hear Jack Quaid like busting that's true that's true or getting close-ups of him you never see any really any overly sexualized shots of Sophie Thatcher at all so I appreciate that decision very true yeah I guess that that is kind of like a hallmark of the Fembot, they're like, she's not a person, so look away. And you're looking at her, like, perfect titties. Yeah.

The factory made boobs. And then she, like, grabs them. She's like, wait, are these good? You're like, yeah. That's true. That is true. That shows, that shows some restraint, and I respect it. So restraint.

But also the bar is in hell for that. You're just like, wow, for a man making a movie about women, like, she didn't grab her tities. Wow. ally ally does anyone have anything else they want to talk about this is not really here nor there

but I did see in the trivia and just wanted to say it that Sophie Thatcher can cry from one eye from each of her eyes on command which I just that happens in Babylon

and I thought you know that that well that could never happen in real life and apparently Sophie Thatcher can do it so just she can do like one eye at a time and like choose which i apparently i mean according to i mdb trivia so it's you know not a hundred

percent reliable but i'm going to believe it actually i'm going to say yes yeah talent that she rocks she's having a year a fembot thing to me i know she's actually a robot yep no no no but um wow that's that is quite something yeah just seemed important to share i'm excited to see more sophy thatcher i'm like yeah she's also just for what it's worth like her her performance i feel like is like the movie doesn't work if she's not yeah convincingly a robot and still very sympathetic and she she kills it she's great i i have a friend who just worked with her on a on a movie and also says that she is wonderful so that's always nice to hear too hell yeah um and then yeah i mean i guess the last thing i had to say and i guess this is i mean you guys know better than anyone like it's

I feel like horror movies are single-handedly kind of keeping like original storytelling alive. This movie was financially successful. It's nice seeing. And it's the filmmaker's first, first movie that he directed. So even when I have various little gripes, I'm like always happy when an original story comes out and is properly marketed and successful. So that rocks.

Totally. And it really could have been way worse. I have heard way worse. way worse than horror movies, way worse. So this is like a fun walk in the park compared to what they could have done with female sex bots. It's true. Yeah, we have the evidence.

It's all around us. Amazing. Well, I guess with, does it, I forgot to pay attention. God. Does it pass a Vexel test? I had a question mark on this because, and you guys. We're the experts in theory. You're the experts, but the only real option is.

that conversation with Kat. And I do feel like they're mostly talking about their respective boyfriends. I mean, there might be an exchange that passes, like, inside of that conversation. She says, it's not you that I don't like. It's the idea of you. You make me feel replaceable. And Sophie Thatcher says, like, but Kat, you're so brave and fierce. And confident.

Yeah, I wish I could be more like you, but I wasn't. But it's all kind of about the larger context. four men. Yeah, right. Exactly. So I was confused if it did or not. Like maybe it's a technical pass, but also looking at the larger circumstances, maybe not.

But also, I have a theory that movies, especially ones that are written and directed by men in the modern era know about the Bechtel test. And they're like, shit, I have to write a scene that passes. Right, right. Yeah. Oh, there are two women. I have to make them talk or else everyone. will yell at me and i would say like spiritually for me this movie i don't know like spiritually

yes and no because iris is a great character like i'm rooting for her the whole time yada yada but it's like if you if you as a male filmmaker decide to make a movie about a fembot and you're having these this clearly like intended to be performative male guy there like I needed to pay off in a more meaningful way than this movie does. I don't know. Also, it's like if cat doesn't like Iris, which gets clearly established in which cat more or less says, why is she then like, I feel like that scene needs to be framed differently where like kind of Iris pulls Kat aside to be like, hi, can we like have a little

like one on one chat, girl to girl or what, or something like that. But it's like, I guess we don't really. Yeah, how does that, what motivates that scene happening? I thought it was just because they were just kind of bored and the men in the room were ignoring them. Yeah, right. Right. But that's why I think, I think the way it's framed makes that scene almost feel tacked on and like further supports my theory that it's like, oh no, I need to write a scene where women interact. Oh, my God.

Because it's like the way it's framed, it just, again, it feels very, it feels kind of wedged in and you could take out that scene and basically nothing about the narrative would change. Yeah. So I feel like it could have been maybe like justified narratively a bit more if it was, again, like Iris having the agency to approach Kat and be like, hey, it seems like you don't like me. Can we talk about why or something like that? Or if they like ever spoke again after that, which I think now I'm like maybe that scene was added. Yeah, I was going to say, you just need another conversation. Yeah. Well, part of me wants to watch that scene and then just the little scene of after cat gets stabbed and she goes and sits on the couch and she just bleeds out quietly next to iris who's turned off and she's just they're both looking outside looking at the weather and part of me wants to like watch the first scene of them talking and then immediately watch that scene because it's like wow look at where that conversation got you guys it's not in a good place. Yeah. Yeah, where it's like, I don't know, in other fembot movies that I also like, because I do like this movie for everything that we've said. Right. It's fun. But like for other fembot movies,

I feel like when women don't talk, it is for a clear reason. Like the reason women aren't talking in ex machina is because Alicia Vicander is locked in a cell. Like there, she is being intentionally kept. And Oscar Isaac has programmed his other fembots to not be able to speak at all, question mark like just dance yeah right like it is it is important to the story that like women can't talk to each other because when they do they kill oscar isaac right right but in this it's like it just feels very unmotivated why there are no further conversations and then the only other woman is like killed off to me it just felt like because the story never really decided what to do with her yeah yeah i think that's the biggest takeaway for me is just like that exactly we said a lot

left on the table there and an opportunity to have a more interesting conversation that didn't happen. And then the most important metric of all, the pectoral cast nipple test. Yes, where we rate the movie on a scale of zero to five nipples, examining it through an intersectional feminist lens. For me, I think this is like a split down the middle. It's not like, it's trying to say something. It's trying to comment on gender and it's trying to comment on the type of misogyny that, especially in like, hetero men or men who are interested in women and want to be with them romantically and or sexually, but their

misogyny means that they hate women and don't view women as human beings with thoughts or feelings and in this case it's a man who wants a partner he can control and customize and who not have to be emotionally present for yep who will obey his every emotional need but he does not have to reciprocate that at all who won't like upstage him intellectually or anything like that he he has a very specific idea of what he thinks he wants from a romantic partner and look how it ends up because Henley to your point like really horrible men might think they want a woman who they can control or who we won't have to do any like emotional reciprocity with or anything like that but it's so surface and superficial that that doesn't

actually serve anyone but he but he thinks that's what he wants and needs and then it gets him killed so there's commentary that like is present i think we just all agree that it could go a it could have gone a bit further and it would have been a more satisfying movie and again jamie to your point led people of marginalized genders literally any fucking one else like it just literally like just not another white guy making a fembot movie i just don't think there is something new to say from that demographic at this time. Definitely. So I'll say two and a half

nipples and I'll give them to Sophie Thatcher and Megan Surrey who plays cat and my half nipple to the hack stick. I'll go two and a half as well.

Yeah, I think that like a lot of movies in this genre like it start i don't know it's so weird talking about like this genre of movie like post get out because i feel like there is now this expectation that there needs to be overt social commentary in every movie um but like not if you don't really have anything to say um going two and a half netballs i'm going to give one to iris i'm going to give one to jibuki i'm going to give the half one to harvey julien i wish he had stayed alive longer i know um sammy henley how about you agree

about the nipples I agree about the nipples full agree yeah I'll I'll do I'll do three nipples why the heck not why not? Hell yeah

just go for it Sammy do three just slightly tipping towards positive in that I yeah I think

it tried they tried we didn't get there but I will give the three nipples to the cool exposed robot hand. I really liked that. One to the beautiful house and Lucas Gage Terminator style. Yes, I would love to see another Lucas Gage Terminator concept.

Just a spin-off. Thank you. Thank you both so much. for coming on the pod and going full Fembaugh with us. Thank you. Thank you so much for having us. This was great. And I didn't even know that I like really needed to get into my feelings about this

movie because on the first viewing, I kind of watched it and then immediately forgot about it. And this was really great, really digging into it. Yes. Thanks for doing it with us. I was very happy to have an excuse to watch it. I probably wouldn't have watched it otherwise. And it was, I was really enjoyable.

And it made me, it made me think. about some things, just a few things, just a couple of thoughts. Not too many. Don't take it too seriously. But it was fun. And yeah, I love Sophie Thatcher. Yeah. And Josh Quaid. Yeah, this is, it's really, yeah, it's really fun to get to talk to about with both of you. So. Oh my gosh. Likewise. Thank you for having us on. Where can people follow you? Check out your podcast, etc. We are too scary. watch and we are on Instagram at TSDW podcast and we're kind of on TikTok now we have a social media manager hell yeah excuse me I don't personally go on there but I was going to say brave

it exists I know I don't even know what she's she's pulling some clips and hopefully we're not embarrassing ourselves too much online yeah although that's probably unavoidable and I'll just plug I mean because why not we've Jack Quaid has been on an episode of ours he re-kept Sean of the Dead with us so if you're a Jack Quaid fan check that one out he was a delight he was very kind in person not like the second half of this movie you imagine if he came on our podcast and treated us like that not at all he gaslit us he tried to kill us well we're big fans of the show thank you so much for coming on thank you guys for having us And you can follow us on Instagram

and the best way to support the show is to subscribe to our Patreon aka Matrion where we do two bonus episodes a month plus you get access to the back catalog of nearly 200 bonus episodes all for $5 a month at patreon.com slash bectalcast And with that, let's go to sleep.

Go to sleep, Jamie, go to sleep. sleep Sammy, go to sleep Henley, and go to sleep, Caitlin. Go to sleep listener. Bye. The Bechtelcast is a production of IHeartMedia, hosted and produced by me, Jamie Loftus. And me, Caitlin Durante. The podcast is also produced by Sophie Lichtenen. And edited by Caitlin Durante. Ever heard of them? That's me. And our logo and merch and all of our artwork, in fact, are designed by Jamie Loftis, ever heard of her. Oh, my God. And our theme song, by the way, was composed by Mike Kaplan, with vocals by Catherine Voskrasinski. Iconic and a special thanks to the one and only,

Aristotle Acevedo. For more information about the podcast, please visit Linktree slash Bechtelcast. Hello, America's sweetheart Johnny Knoxville here. I want to tell you about my new true crime podcast, Crimeless, Hillbilly Heist. From Smartless Media, campside media, and big money players. It's a wild tell about a gang of high-functioning nitwits who somehow pulled off America's third largest cash heist. Kind of like Robin Hood, except for the part where he steals from rich and gives to the poor. I'm not that generous.

It's a damn near inspiring true story for anyone out there who's ever shot for the moon, then just totally muffed up the landing. They stole $17 million and had not bought a ticket to help him escape. So we're saying, like, oh, God, what do we do? What do we do? That was dumb. People do not follow my example. Listen to Crimless, Hillbilly Heist on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, it's Ed Helms, host of Snafu, my podcast about history's greatest screw-ups.

On our new season, we're bringing you a new Snuff. every single episode. 32 lost nuclear weapons. You're like, wait, stop? What? Yeah, it's going to be a whole lot of history, a whole lot of funny, and a whole lot of fabulous guests. Paul Shearer, Angela and Jenna, Nick Kroll, Jordan, Clepper. Listen to season four of snafu with Ed Helms on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Two rich young Americans move to the Costa Rican jungle to start over, but one of them will end up dead and the other tried for murder three times. It starts with a dream, a nature reserve and a spectacular new home. But little by little... They lose it. They actually lose it. They sort of like nuts. Until one night, everything spins out of control. Listen to Hell in Heaven on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

The murder of an 18-year-old girl in Graves County, Kentucky, went unsolved for years until a local housewife, a journalist, and a handful of girls came forward with a story. America, y'all better work the hell up. Bad things happens to good people in small towns. Listen to Graves County on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And to binge the entire season, ad free, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast.