The Bechdel Cast - El Camino Christmas with Cerise Castle

Episode Date: December 8, 2022

On this episode, Caitlin, Jamie, and special guest Cerise Castle take a trip to El Camino to chat about El Camino Christmas. Listen to Cerise's podcast, A Tradition of Violence! And grab tickets for our upcoming tour at linktr.ee/bechdelcast  (This episode contains spoilers) For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast Follow @cerisecastle on Twitter. While you're there, you should also follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante, and @jamieloftusHELPSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, the President of the United States. One was the protege of Charles Manson. 26-year-old Lynette Fromm, nicknamed Squeaky. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer, this season on the new podcast, Rip Current. Hear episodes of Rip Current early and completely ad-free and receive exclusive bonus content by subscribing to iHeartTrue Crime Plus

only on Apple Podcasts. Hey, everyone. Jake Storielli here from John Boy Media. I want to tell you about my podcast, Wake and Jake. I've been a sports nut my whole life, and there's nothing I love more than talking about it. If you're a sports fan, Wake and Jake is the place for you. Covering all the hot topics from the sports world. A lot of baseball, a lot of postseason coverage, mock drafts, awards, guest interviews, all of it.

New episodes every Monday and Wednesday. Come watch along on the Wake and Jake YouTube channel or listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Attention Bechtelcast listeners. It's me, Caitlin, and... And me, Jamie. And guess what? What? Wait, should we say it together?

One, two, three. We're going on tour. That'll sink in the ad eventually. Imagine that but with more enthusiasm because we're very excited. We haven't gone on tour in three human years. That's 21 dog years. Wow, that's so true. I know.

I am really good at math. And put a pin in dog because that's going to come back in a few seconds. But for now, we're going to just tell you some preliminary facts about the tour. Yeah. It's on the west coast of the United States. So we're going. Sorry, everyone else. So we're starting in Los Angeles.

Ever heard of it? Yeah. With a show on January 26th at the Elysian Theater. The movie, Get Ready. And that's where the dog comes back in. And it is a dog coming of age movie. It is a goofy movie. We've been getting requests from this since the beginning.

And it's finally time to cover a goofy movie. We can't wait. A coming of age dog movie. Can you believe it? Can you believe it? Then we are going to be scooting on up on foot, I believe. Caitlin and I will be hiking. That's why there's a bit of a gap.

All the way to San Francisco for San Francisco Sketch Festival. We've done it before. If you've been before, come out again. That's on February 1st. And where is that, Caitlin? That's at the Gateway Theater in San Francisco. And we are covering George of the Jungle. Sorry, sorry, sorry. And we are covering George of the Jungle. Sorry, sorry, sorry.

George, George, George of the Jungle. Then guess what? We are continuing to scoot on up to Portland, Oregon. We will be at Curious Comedy Theater, another theater we love. We're doing two shows in Portland. The first is with the wonderful Sarah Marshall of You're Wrong About and You Are Good. We're going to be covering The Goonies. Yes. And then at 9 p.m., Caitlin, tell me more.

Okay. Also, this is on February 2nd. Oh, shit. Did I not say that? Groundhog Day. Oh, yeah. Don't think about the movie Groundhog Day because that has nothing to do with our tour. We covered that.

We did it already. Sorry, bitch. Six years ago. Okay. So first show is at 7 p.m. with Sarah Marshall, The Goonies. Second show is at 9 p.m. It is a surprise mystery guest and a surprise mystery movie. Hello?

It's going to be a banger. I'm very excited. Come to to one come to both come to both none of my business but it'll be different different shows and then finally we are scooting on up continuing our journey on foot to seattle and on february 5th we're doing a show at Laughs Comedy Club, and we are covering The Goonies again. Because guess what? It's hard work to do a tour, and it's a lot to do a bunch of different movies. Well, yeah. We're doing Pacific Northwest classics.

Yeah. And so if you're in Seattle, come on up for The Goonies in Seattle. And yeah, we're really excited to go. We're really excited to see everybody again. We will have merch for you. We sell exclusive posters and stuff like that. Designed by Jamie, the one and only. Designed by Mrs. Jamie herself.

Yeah, we can't wait to see you and hang out. And it's been 84 years since. It's been 84 years. it's been 84 years it really makes you think so what you're gonna do is go to our link tree which is it's always so weird to say the link of link tree because it's l-i-n-k-t-r dot e-e slash spectral cast and that's where each of the ticket links will be to buy tickets for our shows. We love you so much. We're really excited.

Get your tickets now because they are actually genuinely going fast. Usually when I say that I'm lying, but this time I'm really not. This time it's true. And yeah, brag. Our tickets are moving fast. So you're going to want to grab them soon.

All right. And we'll see you there west coast see you there on the bechdel cast 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 bechdel cast. Knock, knock. Hello? Hi, it's me, your son, Jamie. Oh, what? I don't have any children. I'm Tim Allen, and I'm mad.

Yeah, you're TV and film's Tim Allen. I'm your son. Okay, well, I... What do you want? This is going well. You know, what I want is maybe narratively unclear. So I think a relationship with you. I'm not really quite sure. It's going to change several times over the next 75 minutes, but we'll sort of land on it has something to do with your feelings from Vietnam. We'll figure it out. I think I want a relationship with you even though you're

horrible and also i want a a nice little son i want a nice little son of my own cool welcome to the bechdel cast i think that went extraordinarily well my name is jamie loftis my name is caitlin durante and this is our show where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens using the Bechdel test simply as a jumping off point what is the Bechdel test though Jamie my son well I guess that what we just did technically didn't I don't actually it's complicated actually you identified as Tim Allen so it doesn't pass okay we use it as a jumping off point for discussion not the be-all and end-all of anything including this show but the the version that we use requires that uh two

people of a marginalized gender with names speak to each other about something other than a man for more than two lines of dialogue and it should be narratively impactful. Ideally. This movie, this movie is a head scratcher. In more ways than one. Are there women talking? Yes. What's going on? I'm never clear. We're not sure.

Horny mom. Horny mom. And I was like, that's her mom? I thought they were roommates. That's her mom. That's her mom. I do love a good horny mom character. Call me, you know, throw me in a garbage can.

But a good old-fashioned horny mom, I'm laughing. I support it. But not at this one because this movie is horrible. We have an amazing guest to talk about this incredible piece of cinema. Yes, a returning guest from the episode on what is that movie even called? Oh, Den of Thieves. Yes, starring the Phantom of the Opera himself. Yes. She's a reporter and writer of the investigative series entitled A Tradition of Violence, the History of Deputy Gangs in the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, which was published in Knock, LA.

She's also the host of the podcast, also called A Tradition of Violence. It's Cerise Castle. Welcome back. Welcome back. Hey, thanks so much for having me. And thanks so much for indulging in copaganda. There's truly no one we would rather talk to on this specific cursed subject absolutely so the movie we're covering today is called el camino christmas from 2017 but before we get into the discussion of that cerise we just wanted to talk to you about your investigative work, your podcast. Yeah, specifically about like adapting this amazing series you wrote for Knock into podcast format. So for people who haven't started listening to A Tradition of Violence, set us up.

What's the show about? Yeah. So the show is about these secret criminal gangs that are operating inside of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. I've been investigating these deputy gangs for the past two years, and I have uncovered 20 different criminal gangs inside of the L.A. County Sheriff's Department. They're at different locations throughout Los Angeles County, sometimes even operating at multiple locations, one single gang. They have killed at least 19 people. The figures are probably a lot higher than that, but it's incredibly difficult to hunt down a lot of this information because of laws surrounding disclosures around police information. But we do know they've killed at least 19 people. All of those people were

people of color. Seven of them were in the midst of a mental health crisis. And the podcast is digging into who exactly these deputy gangs are, where they come from, and why it is they do what they do. It's like, it's truly like the original series at NOC is so incredible as well, and has had, for listeners who don't live in the LA area or aren't aware of it, has had such a huge impact on LA and I think like across the country and beyond of just your incredible work uncovering this and opening people's eyes to what is going on publicly funded right in front of them. So for the podcast, I guess, how did you go about expanding on that work? And like, what were your kind of goals in or like, because it was coming out over a year later? What has it been like kind of bringing this work to this format?

It's been a lot of fun. It's been really great being able to put a lot of these stories in audio form and having people be able to hear directly from the people that have been impacted by this deputy gang violence. There's a lot of stuff that I've uncovered in the year and a half since publishing the series that are also included in this podcast. For example, when I wrote the initial series, I only knew about 18 deputy gangs. But since then, I've been able to uncover two more with the help of some really great sources that I've been able to uncover two more with the help of some really great sources that I've been able to develop. And the really unfortunate part is that I have been able to connect a lot more acts of deputy violence to these gangs, which is really awful and tragic to see play out in data.

But at the same time, it also confirms for a lot of people that have been talking about this for generations, things that they've been saying and no one has really been paying attention to. There are a lot of things like that that have been confirmed by research. I was reading yesterday a lot about weathering, which is a phenomenon that happens to Black Americans as a result of stress. It's these tiny little lesions that you get on the brain. And that's just because of having to deal with racism constantly. And it means that you are a lot more susceptible to disease, you're a lot more likely to die prematurely, you're more susceptible to disease you're a lot more likely to die prematurely you're more susceptible to things like Alzheimer's that kind of thing and it's really unfortunate and it's so important

I think like it's really horrible to like know something like that um but you know how many people have told you like wow like dealing with this stuff is really getting to me it's really having an effect on my health and I think it's so important to have things that you can point to to say, yes, this is true. This has been confirmed by research. God, that is fascinating and so upsetting. And that I, I'd never heard of that term before. Caitlin, had you heard about it? No, I wasn't familiar. That I'm always like, yeah, always really fascinated and about how willing people are to dismiss how the pressure and like constant anxiety of racism has absolutely no effect on your body. Like it's just completely absurd.

So what can we're going to be directing our listeners to the podcast? Is there aside from just starting at the beginning, is there anything in particular that you're like, you know, happy to have out there on this run, which is kind of surprising that this happened. And I'm really grateful for it is the voices of police officers. A lot of the skeptics that I get are like, well, you know, of course, the families of people that have been, you know, murdered by police officers, of course, they would say these things. But it's been really exciting for me to get so many deputies and people ranking higher than deputy to sit down with me and say, yeah, this is true. I want to tell you about my experiences with these deputy gangs. I want to tell you about the time I was invited to join a deputy gang. I want to tell you about the time that I saw a

deputy gang member commit a murder cover up a crime threaten me threaten me with death and it's it's been it's so powerful to hear those stories and get that confirmation from the inside because you really can't talk about this without having someone on the inside to really explain it because it is so insular and so secretive and it's also really great um to be able to throw that back at the haters and say, you know what, like, actually, a lot of cops really support the work that I'm doing. And, you know, a lot of cops think the department should be completely scrapped as well. God, it's it truly is like, I mean, you're the original series is incredible, but getting to like hear, you know,

like you've built it out in such like a beautiful way that just, yeah, hearing some of the audio that you've collected, both in interviews and just like source from other places in this series is like, it just brings a whole new dimension to how fucking infuriating and deeply illegal everything going on is. It's one thing to read it and another thing to hear it.

And we on the Bechtelcast famously don't read, so an audio medium is really helpful for us. I can't lie. Yeah, the original series, I did have to have my computer read it to me. It was like a tradition of violence. And then that for like a couple hours. But I think I took it in.

I got to try that. It's actually a really maddening experience to hear your own words read with no emotion back to you. It's interesting. You should try so you know everyone we're going to be linking to a tradition of violence the podcast in the original series on knock la in the description but um and thank you for for talking to us about it cerise yeah um and for the rest of this episode we're gonna have some fun with some of the weirdest copaganda these eyes have ever seen yes el camino christmas was this a netflix original yeah okay it feels like that um okay so el camino christmas it is a

2017 movie directed by david e talbert who seems to only direct Netflix Christmas movies. Yes, correct. So I was like, okay, so he's not a cop guy. He's a Christmas guy. Didn't expect that. He's also directed Almost Christmas and Jingle Jangle, A Christmas Journey. So he's a bit of a Christmas lad.

It's written by, oh, I mean, shocking that people put their names on this. Someone named Christopher Wehner and then also Theodore Melfi, written by oh i mean shocking that people put their names on this someone named christopher christopher wainer and then also theodore melfi who had previously written and directed hidden figures i'm like how do we get from a to b here uh i'm sure it's and it's starring i mean kind of kind of only all hitters uh someone named luke grimes does anyone know who that was i didn't know who that was sure did not vincent d'onofrio dax shepherd of podcast fame his wife famously loves the sheriff's department just want to put

that out there wait can you give us quick context for our listeners? Yes. Quick context on Dax Shepard. So last Christmas, I believe this was actually around the holidays. His wife, his wife, I'm sorry, who play I can't remember her name. Is it Kristen? Kristen Bell. Kristen Bell. I almost said Kristen Smart. That is bell his wife kristin bell took it upon herself to go visit deputies at the lancaster sheriff's station and post about it on social media how much she loves and supports the los angeles county sheriff's department so kristin bell also known as veronica mars huge supporter of corrupt law enforcement departments. How absolutely fucking vile of her. I forgot about that.

But I feel like she's very emblematic of like, she's like, I'm a liberal. I'm with her. But also the sheriff's department gets me horny. I'm with him. I'm with Villanueva. Right, right. And they do not see any gap in this logic.

I didn't make the Dax connection. So we've got Dax. We've got the dad from That's Evadisho. Yes. And we've got Jessica Alba. We've got Jimmy O. Yang. Yeah. And of course we have Mr. Karl Marx Communist Manifesto Wikipedia himself, Tim Allen.

A.K.A. Scott Calvin. A.K.A. Santa Claus. A.K.A. Tim Allen. Tim Allen is like a known like right wing fucking weirdo. Yeah. Yes. Yes. So I wasn't shocked that he was in this movie, but I was also like, Tim, you're Christmas

canon. Why? that he was in this movie but i was also like tim your christmas canon why like must you smear the only thing about you that i liked which was santa claus one well yeah el camino christmas there's also oh another can i say another fun fact tim allen please please yes did you know that tim allen is a federal informant and he was convicted for cocaine trafficking and he was able to get out of it and start a Hollywood career because he cooperated with the feds and turned on everyone. And that's why he's a movie star. What? Yeah.

So lots of ties to law enforcement with this. I must say. Oops. enforcement with this cast i must say oops the tim allen cocaine saga like never ceases to amaze me of like how and also how like publicly available that information always was that wasn't like something that came out later in his career i think he like talked about it in his stand-up at one point like he was famously a police informant and everyone was like, let's put him in a children's movie. Let's do that. And then let's put him in another because he's a third.

Oh, Buzz Lightyear. And then Home Improvement. Oh, my God. He's a piece of shit. And bizarrely on the Bechdel cast this holiday season, we are covering two Tim Allen joints because grace freud is returning to cover the the santa claus mini series so yes and then no more tim no more tim this is i'm putting my foot down i've had enough of this tim allen character who's someone who's been famously bad his entire career yeah uh so cerise what is your relationship with this movie El Camino Christmas?

Yeah, I really didn't have much of one before coming on this cast. I picked this movie because I really wanted to talk about a law enforcement film because, you know, sitting and having these intersectional conversations about police representation in our media is really important, especially with two such as yourselves oh thank you thanks and this is like this movie in particular is like such an all-over oh this movie feels like it was written by a hundred different people all of whom had different political views like it's so confusing yeah with all due respect this is one of the worst movies i've ever seen not i can't wait to not even just like story content and politics wise but also just like looks like shit sounds like shit it sounds the music is playing louder than the people almost the whole movie it's so frustrating did you really want to hear what they were saying though jamie good point maybe it was a vengeful editor that was like oh i don't need it turn up

drown out this horrible dialogue yeah i had never heard of this movie until you suggested it for this episode and um i mean i'm glad i've seen it now just because i enjoy hate watching things from time to time so this allowed me to indulge in that there's so much you would love my recommended list on netflix is it all like cursed propaganda yes um shall we shall we get into it shall i do the recap yeah best of luck yeah right actually let's take i'll i'm gonna need to take a quick break first and then i'll gather my thoughts and we will come right back Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now.

The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It was December 2019 when the story blew up.

In Green Bay, Wisconsin, former Packers star Kabir Bajabiamila caught up in a bizarre situation. KGB explaining what he believes led to the arrest of his friends at a children's Christmas play. A family man, former NFL player, devout Christian, now cut off from his family and connected to a strange arrest. I am going to share my journey of how I went from Christianity to now a Hebrew Israelite. I got swept up in Kabir's journey, but this was only the beginning. In a story about faith and football, the search for meaning away from the gridiron, and the consequences for everyone involved.

You mix homesteading with guns and church, and then a little bit of the spice of conspiracy theories that we liked. Voila! You got straight away. I felt like I was living in North Korea, but worse, if that's possible. Listen to Spiraled on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everyone.

This is Jimmy O'Brien from John Boy Media. I want to quickly tell you about my podcast. It's called Jimmy's Three Things. Episodes come out every Tuesday, and for about 30 minutes, I dive into three topics in Major League Baseball that I am interested in. Breaking stories, trends, stats, weird stuff. Sometimes I make up my own stats. Sometimes I do a lot of research and it ends up, I was wrong the

whole time. So that's something you can get in on. Use Jimmy's Three Things podcast to stay up to date on Major League Baseball and to make you just a smidge smarter than your friend who's a baseball fan. You listen to me and then you go tell him, hey, I know this and you don't. So I make you smarter than your friends. That's what Jimmy's Three Things is all about.

Listen to Jimmy's Three Things on iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also find it on the Talkin' Baseball YouTube channel, and new episodes drop every Tuesday. And we're back. All right. So El Camino Christmas.

We open on a violent shootout. We see members of the Sheriff's Department. We see Vicente's liquor store, but we don't really know what the situation is yet. We cut to 39 hours earlier. It's a few days before Christmas. We are in El Camino, Nevada, which is not a real place, I discovered upon some research. I got so confused. Well, because I assumed that this was taking place in California for some reason. Same, but no. And then it turns out it's Nevada. I figured that out a half hour into the movie.

It took me a while. Yeah. Oh my God, I'm really down to my last four brain cells, so this was a challenge. So we're in the small town of el camino nevada we are at the sheriff's department precinct sheriff bob played by kirkwood smith is yelling at deputy carl hooker played by vincent d'onofrio for being bad at his job carl is an alcoholic who is drinking and or drunk in pretty much every scene we will see him in. Meanwhile, this guy, Eric Norris, played by Luke Grimes, has arrived in El Camino and he goes to a motel for a room.

Behind the front desk is Bill, is Bill, a.k.a. Bill. I was like, what is his last name i don't know i don't care but that's like you're like you know what no never mind uh that's not worth it that's dax shepherd's character who we also saw in the first scene as a sheriff's deputy so he works as a hotel clerk and a cop which tracks i mean a lot of cops i know have these weird little side gigs that they do interesting i did not know that what are what would be like an example of a of a classic cop side gig classic side gig of course is private security or private investigations um also um bodyguards security services but then you get the cops that are like real estate agents or nutritionists or trainers even though that was allowed to be alex vianueva

actually owns a crossfit gym oh gross it's too on the nose yeah predictable um okay so then we cut to kate played by michelle milet and her young son seth they cross paths with eric at a diner we also meet a news reporter named beth flowers played by jessica alba who is heavily greg. Gregnant? She's heavy with Greg. And she's... Wait, was that intentional? Oh, yes. Gregnant. Any person who is pregnant is actually Gregnant.

I see. Excuse me. Excuse my ignorance. Yes. It's quite all right. They're expecting a Greg any second now. Yeah. She's about to explode with little Greg.

Yes. We also meet a camera operator played by jimmy o yang i don't think we ever learn his character's name i don't know if he had one yeah i don't think yeah he was he was there to quip i look i'm very pro jimmy o yang um getting money sure same which i hope is the only reason he did this because the movie is just so god-awful it's trash yeah they're like local reporters that i think okay this was one of my favorite bad elements of the movie where the local the local reporters are like resentful that they've been given a fluff piece and she describes it as like oh like a local like she specifies that they're handicapped for no reason and she emphasizes that word in a way that feels extremely ableist yes yeah you're like the subtext to this line is very gross and also confusing but she's like oh it's

like a local person's passion project which is later revealed to be a really straightforward nativity play i'm like whose passion project was this do they know that this story exists already like the church of christ i was expecting like you know like glenn gary glenn ross or some shit but they were like no it's just a nativity play and that's their passion project the writing in this movie is so funny okay horrendous yeah okay so meanwhile deputies bill and carl are tailing eric this you know newcomer to town they think that he might be involved in meth manufacturing or running because they see him with a jug of drano. Which is like the first of many funny, what is that called when there's a product, like product placement moments?

Oh, yes. There's so much product placement. Bud Light Lemon. Bud Light Lemon. They say the full name every time. And Vincent D'Onofrio, who's the evil character, is like, get me a Bud Light Lemon. I love that.

Bud Light Lemon. And then Tim Allen brings it over. He's like, here's that Bud Light Lemon you asked for. And then he sips it and he's like, it's pretty good. There are at least, yeah, like 10 different direct references to different brands of alcohol. It's just like... It's very funny.

Like, but I... The Drano got me good because they literally prefaced the Drano Spawn by being like, this is a main ingredient in meth. And then it's like cut to a bottle of Drano. Drano, make your meth with it. Only the best methamphetamine. No store brand for me.

I make my methamphetamine with original branded Drano. So bad. So they're tailing Eric. Then Eric goes and knocks on the door of Tim Allen because Eric is looking for a guy named Michael Roth. Eric had found this 15-year-old letter and the return address on the letter is Tim Allen's address. We don't really know who he's looking for or why, but he's like, I have this letter and this is the return address. But Tim Allen is very hostile. He's possibly drunk because he also is an alcoholic. He says, I'm not your daddy. He says, I'm not your daddy. You leave me alone.

But then he's like, if you buy me a beer, I will tell you about the guy who lived here before me. So Eric takes Tim to a bar, but you shouldn't do in the movie and you shouldn't do with Tim Allen in real life. Real life. No, Tim Allen continues to be a piece of shit at the bar.

He doesn't tell Eric anything. So Eric storms out. As Eric is returning to his motel, Deputy Bill and Carl stop him and arrest him because they find weed that Tim Allen had left in Eric's car. And they're also like, you have Drano, so you're making meth. And they're like, and you don't even know anything about your car. So that means you're a criminal.

Which again, tracks. This is great representation of how police actually function in my experience. Up to this point, this is incredibly accurate I must say I was kind of surprised at the specificity of like a totally like bogus like weed charge as an as an excuse to arrest someone that they just wanted to arrest anyways and then also how it's like and we'll get into this in the discussion later but how at the beginning it's established that like uh Vincent D'Oonofrio's character is not arresting enough people and so his motivation going to is like he just needs to make arrests so he appears productive right yes yes this was also the thing that tipped me off that they were not in california because i

was like oh weed is not illegal in california but it's legal in nevada is it okay was it in 2017 i have the answer please tell us jamie the the reason why this movie feels like it takes place on another planet is not only because it's bad it's because the script was written in 2007 oh this was in development for over 10 years so i think mr hiddenures was really embarrassed that it actually came out at some point. They developed this for 10 years? Humiliating. I mean, I think you can see

what a labor of love it was for everyone involved. A passion project, perhaps? A passion project. Yeah. The passion project that just ends up being a bad nativity play.

So, okay. Anyway, so they've arrested Eric and they bring him into the whatever, like jail cell. And Deputy Carl beats the shit out of Eric. But the next morning, Deputy Bill, that's again, Dax Shepard, lets Eric go. But this is something that Carl doesn doesn't know about and carl spots eric driving away so deputy carl chases after him they both end up at vicente liquor mart where kate and her son also are where tim allen is and where the owner vicente is and carl comes in guns blazing and tim allen who is ex-military and he has a gun on him he shoots carl in the leg and then in this kind of scuffle eric ends up with

both guns for some reason i kept forgetting his name was eric i just kept writing down his name in my notes as drano mr drano i was like drano's got a crush drano needs a dad whatever drano has two guns now and it turns into a hostage situation where eric aka drano is holding everyone there hostage why and sheriff bob and Deputy Bill arrive. Eric tries to escape, but the cops have him surrounded. There's more shooting. Meanwhile, Beth Flowers, a.k.a. Jessica Alba, figures out that something is going on, so she and Jimmy O. Yang show up on the scene to report about it.

The shooting kind of calms down, and everyone in the store is like hey eric why are you holding us hostage just turn yourself in and he's like pass and it takes us at least it took me a while to understand why he's holding hostages but i guess it's because he's trying to clear his name from his arrest last night. And he's like, I'm not going to let everyone go until. Cerise, what was your take on why Drano was holding them hostage? I couldn't.

Yeah. I wasn't even clear if he was really holding them because it seemed to me like the hostage situation was sort of like Carl was really the catalyst for that. He's like, you're holding us all hostage. And a couple of times, Eric Drano even said like i'm not holding anyone you can go yeah but then the cops started shooting so of course no one would want to leave at that point right so i i wasn't even really clear if he was like even holding them and and carl was really the one saying like he's got hostages he's got hostages right's got hostages right and they overpower him and shut him up as a result of that so like did the writers even know

if eric was motivated to hold these people hostage i don't know to me it really seemed like he ended up with the guns in his hand the call had gone out and no one was able to leave at that point. Right. Right. And he was viewed as having escaped, I guess, because. Right. That was another. Well, I don't know if we want to get into this in the discussion, but like the way he left the jail was not clear. It was not clear if he had been released, if he was an escapee. Unclear. I mean, Dax Shepard's shepherd's like i'm gonna go take a dump

i'm gonna leave the door open i'm gonna give your keys and if you're not back when i get back well then shrug i don't know what happened right but it's like is he setting him up to be now an escaped convict or is he actually being like my partner is a piece of shit and I feel bad for you, so I'm letting you go? Unclear. Because there's paperwork that needs to happen. Like if you've booked him as an arrestee, you can't just let someone like walk out. You need to process them or they're still going to be in the system, which presents a whole. it as dax shepherd is extremely incompetent as a cop and so he was just like well i'm just gonna let him go and he so he wasn't like setting him up necessarily he was just like well i'll just let you go no big deal it was just a weed charge i was sort of unclear on that too yeah because the dad from that 70s show like mostly what he's doing is calling dax shepherd a fucking fool all the time where he just like every word out of his mouth he's like dax shepherd who by the way sucks at everything

like so it's like we're definitely supposed to think that and he does but also it's like you don't know how he but like even even uh fucking fools who don't know anything have feelings and i'm like i don't know how he feels about anything it was really so confusing yeah yeah and also it's we didn't touch on this yet but like carl yeah like carl incites this event to the point where he like you know shoots a gun in the air and then says shots fired to right so he's also like accusing Drano of additional things he didn't do. He's making it sound like Drano was shooting when it was Carl. Totally. Who shot, I think, twice before getting into the store.

Right. So a semi hostage situation unfolds, but it's not eric is actually holding anyone hostage it's because this corrupt cop carl instigates this whole thing and gun violence ensues gunshots are fired by a bunch of people and then so now it's just too hostile of a situation to like de-escalate safely kind of thing right so that's what's going on inside the liquor mart. The cops outside, namely Sheriff Bob and Deputy Bill, are trying to figure out who is inside and who is the gunman who took the others hostage, quote unquote. They do suspect Eric is the gunman and they figured out who else is inside the store, except that they don't know that Tim Allen is inside and that will become

important later. And after a few hours, the cops decide to ambush the store to take down the gunman and save the hostages. But right before this happens, Carl shoots Eric with a secret gun that he had the whole time. It's kind of a plot gun. A plot gun that he was hiding in his butt crack, question mark.

It's so poor. And it's like also knowing anything about like this stage of Vincent D'Onofrio's career. I'm just like, I feel for him that like he's, oh, it's just, it's just all such a bummer. And once we're in the the liquor store it's like pretty much paid advertising all the way like there's in the background of every impactful shot there's like a tito's vodka oh my god my favorite scene is um tim allen and his and reno to me alan and reno are talking about vietnam and it's cutting back and forth between a shot of like Pop-Tarts and like instant ramen. And the labels are so prominent that he's like, you were never there for me, Pop-Tarts.

I couldn't be there for you, instant ramen. It's really, it's really special. So Vincent D'Onofrio shoots Drano with a secret plot gun he has in his butt. Yes, exactly. This movie rocks. Eric shoots Carl back and fatally kills him. That's not how you say that. But the cops hear the gunshots and open fire on the liquor store. Vicente gets shot. Everyone is freaking out. Silent Night is playing on the liquor store vicente gets shot everyone is freaking out silent night is playing on the soundtrack because it's christmas eve you also haven't mentioned the single mom in a while which is showing how much the story uh cares about her yeah correct and then tim allen starts telling

a story about the vietnam war and er Eric is like he sure does I already know because I read your letters because you're my daddy and Tim Allen is like yes son I should have been there for your mom or something meanwhile Jessica Alba's pregnancy has reached critical mass and she goes into labor on air as she's reporting honestly i didn't think they would do it i was like okay if a movie is like written and directed by like cis guys if there's a pregnant character that's chekhov's greg and that greg is gonna like rock it out like a t-shirt gun at some point in the movie they can't help themselves you can't let someone leave the movie still pregnant even if it takes place over the course of 37 minutes or whatever the fuck.

She is so pregnant and in labor that Dax Shepard later hands her a water bottle and then she throws it at someone else and then says, it hurts so bad. Because that's how being in labor is. God. Jessica. And it's like Jessica Alba is like like a parent she knows that this isn't how she have two kids yeah she knows that this isn't how pregnancy works i mean i know it hurts very bad the way she was acting though it is but the way they had her positioned i thought she had also been shot and i was like oh no wait she's the pregnant character so of course she's giving birth well because this movie is I think in theory a comedy yes but it took me so long to figure that out because the comedy tonally it's just a very very weird movie there are attempts at comedy in it but it rarely lands or makes sense or there's just like so much tonal dissonance it's absurd

i don't know what you're talking about it made total sense to me a hundred percent right right and i was cracking up there i did laugh whenever it cut to pop tarts um i laughed at the parts that you're not supposed to be right laughing at so so then the fbi shows up and kate and her son leave the store which they probably could have done the whole time yes i think so no one was ever going to shoot them so now it's just eric and his dad tim allen and tim allen decides to take the fall for this. And he acts like he's the gunman who took the hostages in order to save Eric. But not before he makes a weird pass at the second most prominent woman in the movie, which is a cardboard cutout of a PBR model. Good stuff.

Incredible writing. Flawless. No notes. Okay. good stuff incredible writing flawless no notes okay so he goes outside with the cardboard cutout of this sexy lady and then he pulls out both guns so the cops shoot down tim allen and kill him but that's his like redemption thing then we flash forward to 182 days later. Very specific number. Vicente has lived. I feel like that had to change. That had to be a script note. He was so dead.

And like. Extremely dead. So dead. He's fine and on vacation in the epilogue. It is. I mean, I'm glad his character lived. Right. But that is not how that

was shot at all yeah yeah he was also 32 million dollars richer and he made a comment of if you do the math that's eight million per bullet which is just again that note about comedy and tone i just i'm like i didn't even catch that line that's miserable right god i'm not sure okay so it's 100 it's six months later but they call it 182 days later we check in with all of the characters such as deputy bill is running for sheriff beth flowers is a reporter in austin texas now kate's mom is dating a weather guy from la and laughing at his horrible joke vicente is still alive and he got this huge settlement out of being shot by the cops and eric is hanging out with kate and her son at a diner the end his daddy died but now he's daddy now he's daddy it's like the santa claus

there can only be one daddy it's like the santa claus it's like the godfather there's a lot of parallels you gotta take down the first daddy and then you're now you're the one now you're the daddy exactly the daddy now and then the movie is like all right it's over and then it movie is like, all right, it's over. And then it cuts to like iMovie credits. And Vincent D'Onofrio singing a terrible rendition of a Christmas song. All right, let's take another quick break and we will come back to discuss. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhearts the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption

that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It was December 2019 when the story blew up. In Green Bay, Wisconsin, former Packers star Kabir Bajabiamila caught up in a bizarre situation. KGB explaining what he believes led to the arrest of his friends at a children's Christmas play. A family man, former NFL player, devout Christian, now cut off from his family and connected to a strange arrest. I am going to share my journey of how I went from Christianity to now a Hebrew Israelite.

I got swept up in Kabir's journey. But this was only the beginning in a story about faith and football, the search for meaning away from the gridiron and the consequences for everyone involved. You mix homesteading with guns and church and a little bit of the spice of conspiracy theories that we liked.

Voila! You got straight away. I felt like I was living in North Korea, but worse, if that's possible. Listen to Spiraled on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everyone. This is Jimmy O'Brien from John Boy Media. I want to quickly tell you about my podcast.

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And we're back. Okay, so we've already started to get into this, but in your professional opinion, what is this? What is going on here? And how... In your professional opinion, what the fuck? What is going on here? And, and how professional opinion? What the fuck? Yeah. With all due respect, what the fuck is happening in this movie? Is there because it's like you were you mentioned it a few points like that is actually like a pretty realistic thing

that a sheriff or a member of the sheriff department may do. How do you feel this movie did in terms of that? In terms of representing how a lot of sheriff's department officials, a lot of police officials treat their job and relate to people in their profession, I thought it was pretty spot on. constant drinking that carl is doing on the job his manipulation of active crime scenes of evidence of beating people in custody that are handcuffed i've seen all of that before multiple times the sheriff himself when he arrives on the scene this is all taking place at a gas station and the sheriff is chain smoking throughout this gas station constantly um he even makes a remark about um that they're gonna send in the gas and gas all these people out of the structure um that gas was actually used in waco texas when the branch davidians were in this stamp a very similar standoff and i thought a lot

about the branch davidians watching this actually i was a lot about the Branch Davidians watching this, actually. I was like, who is the Koresh of this liquor store? Yeah. And when they did that to Koresh and his followers, that gas is highly flammable. And we saw what happened to those poor souls in Waco, Texas. They were all burned alive. And again, this is happening at a gas station.

And he's starting to bring in this highly flammable gas. And then at the end, when Billy is campaigning for sheriff and he is in uniform illegally campaigning whilst on the job, that's another thing that we saw throughout this past election cycle when our now sheriff, soon-to-be ex-sheriff Alex Villanueva, did this multiple times throughout the election cycle when our now sheriff soon to be ex-sheriff alex vianueva um did this multiple times um throughout the election cycle so as far as oh my god and my favorite part in this movie before carl dies he guilt trips everyone in the store and says who was the one you came to when you had a problem um ostensibly as a member of the sheriff's department,

you know, it's your job to do something when, you know, a woman comes to you and says that she's a victim of domestic violence. Right. You're not a hero for doing your job. Correct. Well, that was like one of the things that pinged for me where I was like, is he implying that he did a good job in that situation?

Because it's like the sheriff's department also has a horrible record with preventing domestic violence it seems like they are causing it more often than they are preventing it right and he implied that he really didn't do anything when he talks about the man that was hitting katie he says i ran him out of town which to me doesn't sound like oh i you know pursued a case got evidence and saw him prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Instead, he behaved like a vigilante and ran this person out of town where he, you know, I'm assuming he's probably gone on to victimize another woman in

another city. Right. Oh, my gosh. So my question is, while a lot of the behavior and actions of the deputies and sheriff tracks with real life sheriff department behavior how does the movie feel about these characters though because at certain points i'm like oh they're they're showing us like, look how corrupt Carl is and isn't that horrible. Look how incompetent Bill is and isn't that embarrassing. And shouldn't we have, you know, better people on the force? But then the movie, especially the way it ends, it like does a lot to, I think, encourage the audience to empathize with, especially Sheriff Bob and Deputy Bill. Yeah. Because it checks back in with them and it's like

haha aren't these moments funny where Bob is getting hypnotherapy question mark to try to stop smoking and Bill is like having a goofy moment with this woman who keeps having raccoons on her property I'm like how does the movie actually feel about law enforcement? And is it coming from the right place? That is something I was never clear on. Both times I watched this movie. You watched this movie twice. I did. That is, that is the appropriate response. Well, in my defense, I also only have four brain cells left and i have to watch a movie twice you can't catch all the gorgeous nuance of this film on only one watch yeah you need to see it twice yeah i felt i had some similar like i mean this movie is so like this movie felt like it was

written by so many people yeah that from scene to scene it felt like its loyalties would shift like in one way or another because even like the because i i agree serious that like the guilt trip that carl does at the end is like very in character of what a real life member of a sheriff's department might do but then like the music that backs him right sort of makes it sound like oh reconsider think about that yeah yeah this changes everything when right no it's so bizarre and but it's also like tim allen's character is like against the sheriff and is like almost the voice of reason in the scene which is like very but he's also a vietnam veteran who like lovingly recalls like bombing the fuck out of a village that i had to that is one scene that i did re-watch to be like

did i did i get that right where the story he tells and please either of you correct me if i misunderstood this because i was just like this can't be it he's talking about he's he's very romantically recalling being in Vietnam he's in some sort of leadership position he sees a village full of innocent families and says let's not murder this village. But then the Vietnamese armed forces instead kill not just the village, but also a bunch of Tim Allen's buddies. And so Tim Allen is like, I really wish that I had just killed those innocent people like that. Well,

I think so. That's what I took from it. Yeah. Just a baffling way to make us and we're supposed to like really like him in that it's just so dissonant and bizarre right because this is like the beginning of his redemption arc and then he's like well i wasn't there for you as a daddy maybe if i had just killed all those innocent people i would have been a good father to you. I think is,

is this, is the takeaway. And then he's like, well, I threw my life away, but I can still redeem myself. If I go outside and take the fall for this hostage situation, pull out my guns for some reason

and then get shot down and then as he's dying i didn't mention this in the recap but as he's lying there bleeding out he says something he's like looking up to heaven presumably and he's like well i hope it's better up there in heaven like what does he say it's something like that you're not going there tim no i'm kidding you're going straight to hell bro but then there's other moments oh it's so hard there's other moments where at least in regards to how the other characters in the gas station view the sheriff's department where i'm like all right they're nibbling at something there where like i feel like very often in movies that feature cops sheriffs any sort of like violent law enforcement it like underestimates the average person's ability to understand how

obviously corrupt the authorities are and it sort of is like everyone is just like completely loyal and they're like it's a police officer it's a sheriff they would never hurt me and the characters in this movie while terribly written do seem to like constantly acknowledge how corrupt the sheriff's department is like it seems like everybody is kind of aware of it to the point where even tim allen like calls out the hypocrisy of the sheriff and like right true i thought that was interesting where like vincent d'onofrio was saying like oh tim allen you're a drunk and tim allen's like well i don't drink and drive or drink and arrest people like you do. Which is like, yeah, facts, bro. Yeah, he kind of nailed it. It was so confusing.

I'm just an asshole when I'm drunk. You. I do like when Tim Allen, I guess, gets so drunk that he passes out for what seems to be a large portion of the hostage situation because he's just snoozing snoring on the ground that bud light lemon bud light lemon right to sleep the bud light lemon the pabst blue

ribbon the svedka vodka the pop tarts the cheetos i mean oh there was also the romance scene near the cheetos i really like the cheeto scene. You know what really gets me going is a nice hot Cheeto. Oh, perhaps even a flaming hot Cheeto. Can we, I guess, talk about the women in the movie? Yeah, it'll be a short discussion. So we've got, well, this was another thing that was, I think was a pretty baldly gross precedent that this movie seems to want to explore, which is that our main character, oh God, I've kept writing Drano's girl, Kate.

Kate is a young single mom of, what we learn in the scene where they're introduced, it seems of a boy with autism or his doctor is suggesting I think your son may be on the autism spectrum and Kate immediately denies this does not want to listen and we are supposed to be firmly on her side about this correct she is coming in with an extremely ableist stance because she seems to be firmly on her side about this. Correct. She is coming in with an extremely ableist stance because she seems to be horrified at the thought that her son would be on the autism spectrum because... Or like neurodivergent in any way because she's basically like,

he is normal. And it's like, well, what do you mean when you say that, Kate? Right. Well, the way the doctor describes autism spectrum disorders is extremely ableist, too, because she says something like, you know, children can seem perfectly normal with only minor anomalies. And it's like, that is not how we talk about neurodivergence, doctor. Also, what are you a doctor in? Like, it was also very unclear what the appointment had been for.

That scene was horribly done. And then I was like, God, I hope that, because it seemed like the reason this even came up is because her son, Seth, question mark, was nonverbal and hadn't begun speaking. I don't know how old the character is. It doesn't matter. Five. We learned he's five years old he's five okay so he he's five and he's non-verbal his mother is not willing to talk to a doctor about this but the doctor's also horrible the story plays out

they're held hostage for no reason they could have left at any time and then it's like implied by the movie that Drano becoming a father quote-unquote cures yes Seth's non-verbal yeah and then all of a sudden he's speaking in full sentences because Drano is his daddy now it's just like fucking absurd and gross that is the logic of the movie could I track it no but that is what the movie seems to be suggesting yeah really bizarre um and then we already talked about jessica alba's characters ableism yeah so that's horrendous well and the fact that all three women who appear in the movie are just like defined by mommy like their mommy mommy the single mom she's there to be mommy her mommy is also there to be mommy but but that also oh my god horny mom yeah can we talk about horny mom

really quick well there are three what a horny mom look there are three stages of momminess there is currently pregnant mommy yeah there is young mommy who has a small child already and then there's older horny mom mommy and also she's technically horny grandma as well another beloved trope on the pectal cast exactly but and she's she's so horny she can't parent like that's how horny this woman is like i have to go bowling with dennis the dental hygienist and we're like what do you have a sexy bowling shirt i will say of all the actors in the movie i feel like horny horny mom was did the most with the least no one is doing anything in this movie but horny mom she tried to make the best of it did it work no? No, but she tried. She tried. She did.

Same with Vicente. Yeah. Given nothing. Vicente, justice for Vicente. I want to shout out a few of my favorite moments in the movie. I mean, speaking of Kate and the lack of characterization she is given, one of the most absurd scenes to me in the movie was, it's toward the beginning. She's working at the liquor mart behind the counter the only person working there she's behind the counter she's supposed to be like

you know making sure things are running smoothly eric comes in that's about as much as the movie knows about running a store too it's like um working at store and you know etc etc yada yada yada um eric comes in kate is behind the cash register but she's turned away facing like 180 degrees away from the entrance the cash register the counter she's also hunched over a book and listening to music on headphones so he has to be like hey excuse me he's he grabs her this startles her and she's very pissed off about it but it's like yes he shouldn't have grabbed her but you were doing your job so badly like you were turned away from everything you should have been turned toward and anyone could have come in and just like stolen everything like okay caitlin i will say

that's not the comment i was because i have done that job like that i have i absolutely worked at a desk not facing the people i was supposed to be serving um actively blocking them out absolutely i understand... I actually support her doing her job that way. That being badly. She's studying microbiology. Yeah, that's not like other girls. She's a woman in STEM. She is literally a woman in STEM. Will that become relevant?

No, she's a mother. I just was... I like that they just threw that out there for no reason. I was just confounded that she was so mad that he startled her when she was doing her job not well. Anyway. I guess I just, I hate Drano so. Drano's such a fucking flop. Yeah, he's awful.

He's the worst. Also, like, I love when a whole movie could have been a text or something like that. Like, he could have just, like, emailed Tim Allen and this whole movie would have been a text or something like that like he he could have just like emailed Tim Allen and this whole movie would not have happened and it would have made more sense but whatever yeah but I kind of forgot that they told us that Kate is like going to school for anything because it's never relevant like her problems are she is I mean with a real problem she's a single mom struggling to get by okay but that's the only thing that's ever really relevant is like that she has a young son that she struggles with

caretaking for because she doesn't have a lot of money enter horny mom who's not helpful but it's all mom problems it's and then and then on top of that they throw in and she loves Drano she's got a little crush on Drano but she's so I guess my point is for this scene is that the writers for some reason wanted to establish conflict between Kate and Drano but the way they do it just makes her seem to me just makes her seem very unreasonable and like yes illogical and i'm just like what so that is what the way that she's characterized in that moment is what bothered me but yeah the movie my favorite woman was the cardboard one and everyone talked to her it's true including oh yeah vicente is like don't worry my dead wife i'm not gonna cheat on you with

the cut out cut out lady she's kind of the hottest lady in town everyone's literally in love with her oh everyone loves her i oh god that that scene the way that they because that's the only characterization vicente gets everyone gets like a sentence except for drano and tim allen who get the rest of the movie but this vicente like it's the kind of scene where it's like well no one else is in here and we need to know that vicente is mourning his wife so that the sheriff can guilt him about it later right and that's the only thing we ever learned about vicente other than he's a real sweetheart and gets seth a toy and also i wrote down at some point i was like hopefully vicente is like keeping track of how much they are eating and drinking the sheriff's department i'm glad he got 32 million dollars in that clearly rewritten ending. But what about the $300 worth of Bud Light lime they drank the one hour they were in there?

Right. Also, there's that scene where Carl comes in and he like buys a bunch of stuff. And then he just throws down maybe like 73 cents. And he's like, that's all I have. Yes. He strong arm robs Vicente. Yeah. Yes.

Add that to the list of corrupt cop things that carl does one of my favorite scenes is when tim allen is also also i the way the movie depicts alcoholism is questionable anyway yeah vicente kind of sponsored it no right it's like we're gonna make a movie about alcoholism and just have a bunch of spawn con for various alcohol brands that's actually a great that's a good yeah both of the like vincent d'onofrio and tim allen are both ruined by alcohol but they're also like but they love this bud light lime you want to ruin your life? Have you considered Bud Light lime? It's the same logic of the

Drano spawn. It doesn't make any sense. Also, do you put Drano down your toilet when it's clogged? I don't know if that's a thing. No. Anyway. Right? I didn't think so. It's for your sink. It's for the drain. It's Drano. That's what I thought.

Drano is worthless. Yeah, I kind of kind of i honestly i don't know why i assumed the movie was smarter than me in that moment where i was like well i guess you can use it for that too interesting well speaking of uh repairing things kate can fix the cooler in the store but vicente can't so a woman can fix it a man can't and that's feminism anyway this one of my favorite lines of dialogue or like exchanges of dialogue is when vicente is talking to tim allen and he says why don't you find yourself a nice lady you wouldn't need all this liquor and tim allen says this is how this works i give you money you give me booze it's simple capitalism and we're like incredible dialogue perfect so good and then vicente keeping in being a sweetie pie is like

all right you can have a free six-pack for what for what you just yelled at me they're so confusing vicente i mean i think that like well vicente is the one of the only uh this is like a majority white cast and i think it's like telling how uh non-white cast members are treated we don't even know what jimmy o yang's name is he certainly has no arc uh jessica alba does have an arc but it's completely defined by the fact that she's about to explode with greg like so really not much for her as well but i think vicente especially we should talk about because he's the only i mean he is i think that when when carl dies it's meant in the movie to be like and that is kind of his just desserts here he he deserves it why we kill vicente but then bring him back to life i just i did not like

it i did not like that they brutally killed vicente could not make heads or tails of that i think another i mean another example of the movie actually depicting police behavior is being very realistic is when carl says very racist to to Vicente which is again like very par for the course for law enforcement overall but the fact that we know very little about Vicente he's pretty incidental to the story and then is brutally shot in that final shootout but then comes back to life and meets a sexy lady on the beach love that for him but i also feel like it's suggested that she only likes him after she learns that he's worth 32 million dollars yeah i'm not sure anyway justice for vicente And they make the joke about how many millions of dollars per times he was shot by a sheriff.

Like, it's bad. The director of the movie, David E. Talbert, is a black filmmaker, which I was surprised to learn based on the way that characters of color yeah are represented on screen no kidding wow did not know that yes look so i'll say it i would recommend his other his subsequent christmas movie jingle jangle i thought it was a delight i still need to see it it's good but it's a good one um yeah i it's i i i mean someone needs to be held accountable for this movie's existence i it's very unclear to me like i'm normally i'm very quick to to blame the director but in in this case he is very clearly already like there's some sort of situation where he has to direct one netflix christmas movie a year or got him locked up at netflix and they're saying right you gotta

do this propaganda christmas film so i'm curious that maybe how much he i'd be curious to know how much he wanted to direct this movie and then it also seems like i mean theodore melfi who is uh he's a white writer even he had thoroughly backed off having written this because he wrote it 10 years before it was ever produced and then hopefully like read a fucking book at some point and it sounded like by the time the movie was made even he like no longer stood by what he had written. It just seems like was anyone involved in this project voluntarily? I don't know. I mean, I think Dax Shepard was.

I think Dax Shepard. I mean, maybe maybe the cast. I don't know. But it just was very bizarre. It was also produced by Theodore Melfi's wife. Like it was a whole family affair making this bad movie. Interesting. I couldn't find any information about it because, well, obviously, I always begin my research on scholarly journal Wikipedia.

Of course. And this movie has one of the sparsest Wikipedia entries I've ever seen. Well, because it's like no one did press around it. No one wanted to draw attention to the fact that this was released. People wanted to forget about it, but my Netflix algorithm wouldn't let it happen. Cerise's Netflix algorithm trounced this movie's determination to not exist. I mean, I guess it's like, I'm glad it's not popular. Right.

Again, never heard of it till we recorded this episode. Cerise, I guess I was interested in your final word on this. In terms of like, as someone who I know has consumed a lot of copaganda, it's in your algorithm.

You can't escape. How does, for its five trillion faults we just discussed, how does El Camino Christmas stack up against your average copaganda? My average copaganda or average Christmas copaganda, because there is that subgenre. Is there? Please unpack that. Well, I mean, you got the classic.

You got Die Hard. You got Die Hard 2. Oh, of course. El Camino, Christmas. I mean, there are a lot of feel-good Christmas movies involving the police, which is a whole other conversation. I picked this one because it was recent.

I incorrectly assume that it took place in Los Angeles. But it seems like I wasn't alone in that assumption. And the way it was. I'm sure it was shot in Burbank. It probably was. How does it stack up? Man, I gotta say. I like it because I don't like it.

Let me rephrase that. I appreciate that there are moments where the police are portrayed in ways that are accurate to people that go anywhere with that right and those instances they attempted to laugh them off in a weird way right like the comment about the bullet i think there was also a remark made about eric being beaten up in custody which is just yeah why i don't know what that is supposed to serve right yeah hey maybe there is a way to do comedy about the police where they are well actually i know there is i think like what a lot of things that are happening on reno 911 i think are really smart and are possibly a good way to talk about the police in a comedic lens i love that show although i haven't seen it in a while but i was a huge fan for a while yeah from what i it's been a while too but from what i remember what i did like about that show is like yes this is how the police behave and like this

is funny we can laugh at it but there are a lot of like real things at play here i feel like this was like attempting to do something like that but whiffed incredibly truly yeah i i will say i was i was nothing about this movie was a pleasant surprise necessarily but i i was fully going into this with the I mean even Tim Allen's involvement I was just like well this is going to be explicitly pro-cop all the way down I was surprised that it even approached a criticism of the sheriff's office or the idea of a sheriff again it's like because the movie is so poorly written it's really hard to know how we're supposed to be feeling but it did feel like there were a few flavors of corrupt sheriff presented poorly but presented where it's like dax shepherd is like an incompetent carl is drinking and uh inciting violence and making

false arrests and then the dad from that 70s show is the one who's like setting those precedents of like, you're not arresting enough people and is, you know, and so it was like a lot of, it seems like, as far as I know, from listening to and interacting with your weeks, Reese, like, classically sheriffy things to do. But yeah, but it like goes nowhere. And we still are supposed to like them enough at the end that you want to see him go to a hypnotherapist and stop smoking so not successful what i think it is is what little criticism there is about a sheriff's department is mostly directed at carl and he does seem to be the most corrupt one but he's the baddest apple exactly the message is

like well there's one bad apple so you know you can't let it spoil the bunch but but the movie is like well yeah Dax Shepard's character is incompetent but you see him improving he's getting better at police work because he's like, yeah, I ran the license plates. And then Sheriff Bob is like, wow, good job, buddy. Great cop work. That's like cutting to the end of a movie about a chef. And then he's like, look, I turned the heat on. And they're like, yay, that's awesome, Dax.

Good job. You get to keep your job it's a mess um but does the movie pass the bechdel test no i actually it doesn't think it does those were the scenes it does okay is it with horny mom there are a few scenes between kate and her mom whose first name we never know but i feel like she's a oh okay okay okay so she they have several conversations about you know the mom going on a date with a man and oh mom i need you to watch my son but there is a brief exchange where her mom is like hey you should ask for a raise if you want something you gotta growl for it and then kate says i'm waiting for the day you tell me i'm adopted and then her mom says you just keep on waiting wow wait but

does that pass because she works for a man i mean there is some subtext that you could argue maybe it doesn't but he's not explicitly i guess the spirit of that like i mean look the point is and this is a fun place to to just remind our listeners as we have to every so often although the the film twitter um gestapo will never will never listen to this part but a movie passing the bechdel test doesn't really mean that much. It's really not that important. Right. And the movie cannot pass the Bechdel test and it doesn't make it bad necessarily. It's just a basic metric to get a discussion started of, hey, if this is a whole movie and women never speak to each other, that feels weird.

Like that's why the comic was written right but but that said i take back everything i said this is a feminist classic i agree with the whole thing kate fixes a cooler yeah anyway and also i will say my my favorite part it like knocked this this memory loose where when drano like he tries to do like a little flirty gesture by paying for like their breakfast at the local diner and it brought me back to this memory I have of being at an IHOP in Boston in like 2014 where I was eating dinner with my friend after work and someone, an admirer, I never learned who it was, sent a single over easy egg over to the table. And I think about it all the time.

I was like, was that my husband and her wife? Like, who was that? Who did that? And why? A single egg? That is some nutty shit bro it was but i i found it so the twisted part for me is i found it so romantic i was like really i thought it was kind of hot that someone did but you are the hot dog girl i don't know yeah

i feel like it's the horniest egg and over easy egg i was like wow the egg that comes like it's the horniest egg and over easy egg. I was like, wow, the egg that comes. It really made me think. Wow. And so when Drano did that, I was like, damn, maybe it was Drano. Maybe it was Drano. Mr. Egg, if you're listening. Send another. Jamie loved it. If you're listening, please do not contact me.

Leave us alone. I don't want to hear from you. All right. All right. contact me leave leave us alone i don't want to hear from you all right all right well it's time for our nipple scale in which we rate the movie on a scale of zero to five nipples based on looking at the movie through an intersectional feminist lens i would give it a half nipple really or generous that's nice i know for as we've discussed, not well executed attempts to provide some kind of meaningful critique on corruption and incompetence in a sheriff's department. But it does try a little bit, which was more than I was expecting. But again, it doesn't land. The criticism is flimsy. Everything else about about the movie various characters being extremely ableist the way the way people of color are characterized in the movie the way the women are characterized in the movie it's just all extremely lazy and horribly written again one of the worst movies i've ever seen um i'll take it down to a quarter nipple because I just want to give something to Vicente.

Justice for Vicente. But that's it. I guess like with that framing. Yeah, I guess given the quality and cast of this movie, I fully expected this movie to be thoroughly pro sheriff. Right. And so introducing even the remotest criticism I guess exceeded my expectations I do still feel like I have to give it no nipples though because it's so bad yeah but I guess as an asterisk to that I think it intentionally or not did show like you're

saying Cerise showed some actual sheriff behavior but didn't really go so far as to be actually critical of it in a way that was cogent. So, and as far as representing any marginalized person, it was horrible. I guess if I had nipples, I would give it to the Pop-Tarts, but I don't have any to distribute.

So it's going to be nothing for no one. Hey listeners. So normally we would have our guests also give their rating right about now, but there were some technical issues and our guests audio dropped out from this point on. I think Cerise gave the movie somewhere between zero and one nipple. But more importantly, we want you to check out Cerise's podcast, A Tradition of Violence, that examines deputy gangs and their violence and corruption, all happening within the L.A. County Sheriff's Department. So please check this podcast out.

You can also read Cerise's series, A Tradition of Violence, published in NOC LA. Cerise has done and continues to do an incredible job reporting on this topic. So please check out A Tradition of Violence. And then for us, you can catch us in all kind of the normal places, Twitter for as long as it exists, and Instagram at Bechdelcast. We have some tour announcements that will be out by the time you hear this episode. So we'll probably record something separately for that. You'll be getting tickets to the shows.

You can follow our Patreon, aka Matreon. Five bucks a month gets you two additional episodes a month. And this month we are of course doing the lindsey lohan christmas movie which i have seen some of the green screening in and it is um i can't wait i can't wait i cannot wait i think she and the the lead actor are possibly filming from different states um and certainly nowhere near snow i I can't wait. I'm so excited. So scoot on over to the Matreon for that at patreon.com slash Bechtelcast. You can also go to tpublic.com slash the Bechtelcast for all of your merch needs. It's the holiday season.

It's time for gift giving, etc. You don't know what to give your loved ones as a gift? What about a podcast they've never listened to? Could be interesting. Or if you're like, hey, loved one, you're not sure what to get me? Well, hint, hint, the Bechdel cast sells merch. Yeah, you know, just some ideas. We won't know if you don't. So don't worry about it. Don't don't lose any sleep over it. And here's me, Caitlin, again, jumping in with just a reminder about those tour details. We're doing shows in LA, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle in late January, early February. The ticket links, the exact dates and venues and movies and all of those details, that can all be found on our link tree, which is linktr.ee slash Bechtelcast. And you can check our Twitter and Instagram for those

details as well. We hope to see you there. Thank you for listening and catch you next episode. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unnerves the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. In California during the summer of 1975, within the span of 17 days and less than 90 miles, two women did something no other woman had done before, try to assassinate the president of the United States. One was the protege of Charles Manson. 26-year-old Lynette

Fromm, nickname Squeaky. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer, this season on the new podcast, current here episodes of rip current early and completely ad free and receive exclusive bonus content by subscribing to i heart true crime plus only on apple podcasts hey everyone jake storielli here from john boy media i want to tell you about my podcast wake and jake i've been a sports nut my whole life and there's nothing i love more than talking about it if you're a sports fan, Wake and Jake is the place for you. Covering all the hot topics from the sports world.

A lot of baseball, a lot of postseason coverage, mock drafts, awards, guest interviews, all of it. New episodes every Monday and Wednesday. Come watch along on the Wake and Jake YouTube channel, or listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.