The Cake Eaters - 9. Game Changers Episode 9: Head Games

Episode Date: July 27, 2021

Heath & Brandon discuss middle school relationships, Viper Freeze, Legally Blonde, crazy grandparents, public marriage proposals, and then break down the rest of Episode 9 of the new Mighty Ducks: Game Changers series on Disney+.   Follow us at www.thecakeaterspod.com and on Twitter (@thecakeeaters) and Instagram (@thecakeeaterspod)   Email us at [e-mail]

Remember, it's not worth winning if you can't win! Welcome back everybody to the Cake Eaters podcast. We have episode 9 this week, which is titled Head Games. Welcome back, everybody, to the Cake Eaters podcast. We have episode nine this week, which is titled Head Games. And we finally get the moment of truth, the moment every young kid goes through, Heath. The moment where you realize you got to fire your mom. Been there, done that. You know, I'm just kidding. I could never fire your mom. Been there, done that. I'm just kidding.

I could never fire Mama D. She would be absolutely devastated at the thought. But she also wouldn't get in over her head coaching in the first place. No, no, no. Mama D, she's better than that. She's got a good head on her shoulders. I will say, though, Alex took this firing like it didn't even fucking face her. Yeah, she took it. Zero reaction.

All in stride. There was no head game getting played there. And I love, like, Evan comes in, and he's pacing. Like, he is so nervous. He's biting the fingernails, you know. Getting a pep talk from Nick. Did you catch Nick's pep talk? Oh, did I catch it?

He calls Alex the momster. Like monster, but with mom instead. The momster. Absolutely. Not only does he call her the momster, because our boy Nick, this is his cup of tea. He gets it from his mom's hyper supportive, always going to lift you up and bring you and help you rise to the moment. And so he lets Evan know right off the bat, your mom is off the rails, dude.

She's going to make me cry at States. You don't want to hear me cry. It sounds like I'm laughing. It's very confusing. Bless you, Nick, for that wonderful line. And then he does like an impersonation of it where he starts like laugh crying. He's like, do you hear that? It's terrible. I kind of get it though, because I don't know if you know this, I tend to laugh when I'm uncomfortable. And so I'll be like, yeah, I don't know. And so, and I do it sometimes at inopportune times.

Like if you're on the phone with a really mean customer and you kind of are uncomfortable and laugh, that doesn't always go over well. So I get it, Nick. It does not. That's a tough situation. Yeah. And it's, you know, it's always weird

when you're going through an emotion, but it presents itself as another emotion. People tend to get confused. They misread your intentions. I get it. What is Nick doing here? Why is he laughing about this? Oh, no, he is insanely crying.

So we get the pep talk, and it's a hell of a pep talk from Nick over to Evan. And the head games are starting already. Here we go evan jumps in and he does not hold back when he breaks the news to alex he's just like hey listen we gotta let you go honestly fantastic firing maneuver he just ripped the band-aid off no you just cut right to the point there's no need to waste anybody's time let's get this over with. And then validates the firing with the reason why. And I think that's why Alex was able to take the firing so well, because Evan delivered the messaging in a way that she was able to digest it. She was mean to their puppy dog, Logan. I love that he calls Logan

a puppy dog. Of course, Logan's the puppy dog. He is sitting at home with a sad divorced dad all day making depressed pancakes like that's all he has right now and then alex is mean to him at the last game that was kind of fucked up like poor logan of course they wanted to fire her yeah deservedly so i mean they should have fired. They shouldn't even have hired her in the first place. You know, it's nothing about hockey still. Exactly.

Still nine episodes in don't know a lick about hockey. Absolutely. Out of necessity. The thing that I didn't get about this scene though, is that Evan's like, listen, we're going to fire you as the coach, but I want you to be there as my mom.

And Alex is like, no, it's okay. You guys need to go fly. You're on your own. Good luck. Godspeed. And I just, why wouldn't she go? Like, why wouldn't you go watch the games?

You kind of were there the whole way. She just got fired, Heath. So she has, like, maybe there's some hurt feelings? Yeah, yeah. I mean, she handled it so, the firing's so emotionless that I would assume she's crying a river inside, you know? So on the inside, she is, like, ugly, crying in the shower. Yes, and then Evan has the gall to, you know, throw a participation trophy her way it'd be like

you should still come as my mom though like hey i realize i just dumped you but i'm getting married this weekend do you want to come and watch me get married that's exactly what happened not the best coach but number one mom at her i don't know her mom skills leave a lot to be desired. That's a Brandon parenting corner. The ups and downs of Alex's parenting skills. The parenting corner with Brandon, it's been brought to my attention many times that people are not super fans of people with no kids giving parenting advice. But I'm going to keep doing it.

We're, you know, the podcast is that spinoff podcast is going to keep going strong. I'm not going to let the haters win. You, you can't let the haters win. That's absolutely factual. And listen,

that's on those parents because if they don't have open minds to listen to other people's opinions, to see if they can gather you know information and make themselves better that's on them exactly and like you got to be able to take constructive criticism you know you got to be able to take that and like the the the famous saying goes those who can't do teach and i can't do being a parent, but I can teach you, you know? That is absolutely beautiful. Parents, listen up. Brandon has a lot more advice headed your way. Let me be the Phil Jackson to your Michael Jordan of parenting.

Wow. The Zen master. You are about to be the Zen master of parenting. Absolutely. Absolutely. I love it. right spin-off podcast headed your way keep your eyes and ears out for that but to get back to where we are we have a cut scene after alex handles the firing better than than anyone could have ever imagined considering all the time and effort she's put into it and And we have a delightful bus scene. We've got the kids on there. They are fired up.

Yeah, so one thing about that, so Bombay comes into the bus hot, and he goes, I assume everybody knows I'm going to be your – Alex is not coming. I'm going to be your coach at States. Do you think Evan talked to him beforehand about firing Alex? Do you think Bombay was aware that he or do you think it was like sprung on him i feel like instinctually he felt the writing was on the wall when him and the kids worked together to usurp alex's power by doing the spatula play at the end of that game. Yeah.

So Bombay just used those coaching instincts to know, hey, something's wrong. Something's not feeling right. I know her time's coming to an end. Yeah, and I'm not a very good assistant coach

maneuver either. I would have loved a scene to explore that dynamic a little more where Evan is going to Bombay and being like, we got to get rid of Alex. And then Bombay has to wrestle with the emotional dilemma of firing the love of his life and taking over for her. Because I mean, she takes the firing so well.

And then he just hops in the coach seat. Like, boom, I've been waiting for this. I've been waiting for you to fire her. That's what it felt like. He was like, I was waiting for the day that this happened.

So I'm thinking in between the cut scene, you know, Alex takes it really great so evan's like hey let's give bombay a quick call and they put him on speakerphone in the room they're sitting with bombay on speakerphone evan and alex and they're like hey bombay it's evan and alex we gotta let you know we fired alex she was a real fucking piece of work last episode you were there you saw it she was mean to logan like what in the actual fuck was she doing but so she's stepping aside you're gonna take us there even though you haven't shown the most responsibility in the last 10 years

we are gonna have you chaperone 10 12-old kids alone in a hotel room and coach them. Yep. And so that's my other question. So they get on a bus and they take what looks like a hefty bus ride because they pan out after everybody's on the bus and they start leaving. They pan out and they show wide minnesota highway with like no city in the in in the view where is states being held would you not would it not be in the twin cities would you not hold it in minneapolis or saint paul i'm not sure because well we can find that out really quick we can do some internet sleuthing because the end scene is like them showing the Minnesota ice.

The Minnesota igloo. It's not a real thing. I looked into that. It's not a real thing. That's fake. Fake news. Okay. I mean, I figured it would be somewhere in the Twin Cities, but you're right.

It made it seem like they were road tripping. They live in the Twin Cities. Yeah, yeah. They're road tripping outside of the Twin Cities to go to states. Yes. Yeah, yeah. They're road tripping outside of the Twin Cities to go to States. Yes, and then there's another scene I think right? Isn't there Yes, travel schedule

made no sense. There was another scene when you talk about when they go to the igloo, the Minnesota igloo, the rink that States is at from the hotel. It seems like it's another long-ass fucking bus ride. And at that states is at from the hotel it seems like it's another long ass fucking bus ride and at that point like if why why would the hotel not be right next to you know the the rink that you're all playing at or across the street from it you know if you're gonna go on a

massive bus ride to states why would you stay at a hotel and it was everybody was staying at that hotel so it was a it was state sanctioned hotel all the teams were there why is it not closer to the arena so let me throw a theoretical scenario at you that might help us align this this travel schedule so let's say because it's the youth hockey it might not be held in the twin cities because they're not going to book out like something like the target center in order to and i don't it might not be the target center anymore but the last time i was in minneapolis it was the target center where the t-wolves play um yeah there's the target center there's also um where uh i think i don't know if it's called this anymore, but there's of because one of my friends went to school there.

But maybe it's at a smaller place in Mankato. You can always go to Duluth right on the lake, some nice picturesque views. Exactly. And with some of those smaller towns, they would book up with that many teams really quickly. And so you're going to have some hotels that might be further out or you might have to stay like the next small town over well that well the hotel i assumed was specifically for every single team at states because a they should there was a whole bunch of things oh there's a gala there was everything i don't know if i'd call that a gala it was fucking it was dance is a 12 yeah it's a 12old. There was arcade games.

It's not a fucking gala. That's true. That's my kind of gala, a whole bunch of arcade games. That's sick. And then they had the gift shop there, too, where you could buy all of your Minnesota Youth State Championship gear that you want, which Nick bought all of it. Oh, I have some of that coming.

Maybe before we get too far into it, Nick has some great lines on the bus. Like, Nick crushes this bus scene. The bus scene is great. Absolutely crushes it because Nick steals the show. We've been asking for more Nick for a long time, and he really starred in this episode. I think that was the saving grace of this episode.

So he's out there, and he's like, oh, my gosh, Bombay's in charge. Kids get to run crazy. We're going to go around and push all the elevator buttons, maybe wear the shower caps from the room. I don't know. I don't know. The world is our oyster.

Let's get wild. What does he say? He says, this is the first night I've ever spent away from my two moms. I'm going to live it up. Yeah. He's living it up could you imagine the the freeing feeling of being able to wear the shower cap as soon as you walk into the room that had to have been a beautiful moment for that young man yep yep although to be fair i feel like i'm not the only one that did this but like as a kid as soon as you got into a hotel you jumped on the

beds and if you had two queen beds you were doing some nice jumps back and forth between those beds number one absolutely absolutely not like a full flip but like you do the front flip where you land on your butt on the other bed like a somersault of sorts yeah like a somersault of sorts. Yeah, like a somersault flip. Yeah. And so Bombay gives him the speech after Nick gives just an absolutely wonderful little back and forth. And then, I mean, I'm a little nervous about Bombay being in charge, but I'm sure he'll be fine.

He's kind of been stepping it up a little bit. And then they end the bus scene. Well, not they ending the bus scene, but they drive off trying to chant go don't bothers yeah and it doesn't go very well it does not ring off the top no it's too many syllables don't you know it's it's not built for chance no it just solidifying worst team name ever yes oh absolutely absolutely worst team name ever but the so then then they show the do they cut anywhere else or is it still the bus scene where they're driving now right they're

driving and then they zoom in they zoom in on our girls because this is where we start to get girls girls night girls girls girls like they they get the chant going they're very excited like spraying each other with with like 12 year old perfumes oh i have a we will get to that when it comes because there's some cut scenes we will get to that but i did actually pause this scene and i brought uh kelly who is my partner i brought her in because i had some questions about what maya was packing because i needed some clarification on what she was packing and what was going to make this great girls weekend. Because Maya comes out.

What was she packing? So she comes out and she's like, listen. I'm terrified for this. First of all, before we even start, beauty comes from the inside. And everyone should know that. It's not on the outside. It's on the inside. You can be beautiful, but don't be a terrible person.

So beautiful message by Maya. If that were the case, then everybody would be able to see your inside teeth. Which is just foul to think about. But anyways, Maya has the goods. She has a lip gloss collection, which I would be. They talk about lip gloss extensively. Extensively. I'd be curious to see what she has there, what kind of flavors.

Obviously some kind of bubble gum is going to be in there, maybe a strawberry, but a nice lip gloss collection. Strawberries the tried and true, for sure. Yeah, absolutely. And then she also has a face roller, which face rollers are used on your face to help with skin wrinkles yeah okay so that's that and then they also had highlighter which i didn't know what highlighter was but it's a pressed powder that you put like in your eyes and your nose and your cheeks or anything that kind of

needs to get like brought up a little bit you know a little bit higher highlighted than the rest you didn't know what highlighter was i don't know anything about makeup i only know you didn't know what face roller is either right yeah i was like well what are they what are they doing a face roller for what would you not use a face roller for you i don't know i feel like i should get one now well yeah everybody should have one i don't know i for i i guess i i forget that a lot of people a lot of a lot of lot of males don't know the very basics of makeup and makeup etiquette. I spent the vast majority of my childhood essentially raising my younger sister. Okay.

So I know a lot about the makeup game. Oh, so you helped do some tutorials. a nice big brother listen brandon i mean it was it was it wasn't but you're nice oh it definitely was mean i was not a and it wasn't it wasn't done out of out of niceness it was done out of like it was it was a sad boy logan situation we were we were in dire straits i was the last the last line of defense it was not it was not out of the kindness of my heart. Wow. At least you're staying on brand. So we have

girls night. They're getting super fired up and then they go up to the boys and we see Evan turn around, make eyes with Sophie. They do a nice little wave and evan's like all right guys it's time to spill the tea they gather around yeah i'm gonna ask lock it down absolutely time to time to ask logan has already given him congrats like he's accomplished something he hasn't even asked her yet i feel like that jumped the gun a little bit and then sam sam drops the my

one of my favorite lines he he says it's time to dtr define the root beer no drink the root beer drink the root beer drink the root beer if you don't define the define the relationship drink you don't define the root beer i mean if i were to define the root beer, it would probably be mug root beer. I feel like that's what I drank the most as a kiddo with my ice cream with my root beer floats. Yeah, I'm more of an IBC guy. IBC all the way. Oh, wow. Okay, okay.

Not all of us were fancy. We had to get the mug root beer on sale, Brandon. I was never a big fan of Bug. It was either IBC or you go with I don't know how regional store brand store brand soda names are. But you had like was it Dr. K or something was the

Oh, we have like Mountain Lightning and Dr. Thunder if you wanted to get some like Walmart brand. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's like those, but there was like a specific, now I'm blanking on it, but there was like King Soopers is like the regional grocery store in Denver and Colorado.

They had a specific brand and it was something K. I want to say it was like Dr. K, something K, but then they had their own little whatever brand. So it was either IBC root beer if you're going to splurge or if you're out at a restaurant. But if you were going grocery store, it was whatever the fuck that name was. Just a regular store brand. Yeah, which I prefer mug.

That's great. I didn't care for the weird-looking bulldog on the can of mug. You're right. That's how you knew you were a badass drinking badass root beer. Look how tough that dog is. I feel like that dog, there was something in his eyes. I feel like he was hiding something. He wasn't being entirely truthful about this root beer.

The false eyes of the mug root beer doll. Yeah, there were dead eyes like a doll's eyes. So Sam is telling Evan to define their relationship. I had to stop myself from doing the Jaws monologue there. The listeners

were not here to listen to you recite jaws brandon i think that probably would be nice i think that's that's the the other the other spin-off podcast i get going is where i just it's just me and i do a dramatic reenactment of each and every jaws movie just just by reading the script no voices you play every. You just read it straight through. Well, I would do voices for each character. I would make it a – it would be a production, but it would be just me. One-man show. One-man show.

There's some great Audible readers out there. Yeah. I'm going to be the next big one. I love it. Climbing the charts. Okay, so Sam is telling Evan to define the relationship. Logan hypes up Evan. He gives him, oh, you have some nice soulful eyes,

a raspy voice just above five feet. You're in total package. He describes him like he's a fucking blues singer, which was very weird. Like a little blues brother all of a sudden? Like raspy voice, soulful eyes. What the fuck? Are we looking at the same person, Logan?

Logan sees the world through a very romantic lens, I feel. He's a very soft soul, and that's why he had that description. That is a good point, because there's an exchange him and Nick have later on where he gets very romantic and very, you know. I can see that, yeah. With that hair, he has just – with that hair and now his newfound hockey skills, Logan is probably just absolutely the latest man of middle school. Yeah, and this is the happiest he's ever been of middle school. Yeah, and I get this is the happiest he's ever been

in his life. Yeah, absolutely. Like, sad dad doesn't matter anymore. He's at States. I don't think sad dad even made the trip. He's probably just crying at home by himself. And Logan's like, finally, finally, just me and the boys. Yeah. Listen, dad,

I've got 10 frozen pizzas in the freezers. We got we got two cases of beer plenty of hot water go fetal beer shower cry it's fine you'll be fine for four days well the idea of of logan stocking up beer for his dad he's like he's gonna need this i gotta absolutely maybe throw in a bottle of Jack Just to be safe Has fake ID going out to the local Twin City liquor stores It's about to be a real sad weekend

We better grab some whiskey And then This is another Nick really was a bright light In this episode Because he comes in and I don't know how to describe this move because he has a special move that he's willing to share with Evan when he asks out Sophie.

And it's like, he like does a wave of his arms and then does like a robot hit the hand and it swings over Evan's shoulder. And it was smooth. It could possibly put the fake yawn and stretch. Like, you could put it out of business. You don't think so? You think that's just too tried and true? Yeah, and, like, that's quick and easy to, like, pull off.

Like, the fake yawn, and then you're over. Nick's move requires too much, like's move requires too much time before your arm goes over the shoulder. He puts one elbow on their closest shoulder to him, does a little move, and then hits it over the other side.

It's just it's too much prep time and I feel like it could easily go awry. You have to have the right amount of cute It's too much prep time, and I feel like it could easily go awry. You have to have the right amount of cute lovability to pull that move off, and Evan doesn't have that. Evan would accidentally pull something awkward,

maybe accidentally jab Sophie in the face with an elbow, getting carried away with that dance move. I wouldn't be surprised there. So I'm glad Evan decided to let Nick's move stay with Nick. That was probably a safe choice on his side. Yes. And it struck me that Nick had not attempted that move in the wild yet. He's strictly been workshopping that with himself. I don't think he's tested it out yet. He's strictly been workshopping that with himself. I don't think he's tested it out yet.

You gotta test that out once before you start handing it out to people. Nick is a little gunshot. And so he knows this is a move that's in beta testing. He wants to give someone the opportunity to get

it out of beta testing because you don't give it to evan though on the wall you don't give it to evan though that's his best friend that's why that's the mindset well you give it to logan he's got he's got more best friend vibes with logan anyway well that's true evan has never reciprocated the best friendship. Yeah, very one-sided for sure. Poor Nick. But I also, and then he closes it off with, better add a fire emoji because that's hot. Right? And gets real carried away and screams it on the bus.

Yeah, well, because classic middle school, you know, love story there. Sophie and Evan are not talking to each other about any of this. They're just texting back and forth yeah yeah so yeah yeah nick is like make sure you put a fire emoji on your text you know really let her let her know what's up because that is hot and and then i kind of feel bad for evan poor evan and sophie a little bit because maya comes in hot and shuts evan's text yeah like hey what is this prom asking her to prom yeah right this is a girls weekend no not happening yeah straight girl weekend i we just thought about it we just like hey i wouldn't mind oh yeah so sophie and there's definitely mutual attraction between sophie and evan they are you know star-crossed lovers for sure um and yeah but maya was not having any of it she's like we're having a girls weekend i just

we just rolled each other's faces okay this is a girls weekend just had a little bit of a perfume fight while we're at right after we're discussing this so yeah so it's like sophie sophie sends him the tech before that happened sorry i jumped the gun a little bit sophie gets talked out of it so she sends a three princess emoji see you there text back to evan which yes i don't know how anyone knows what that means but sam seems to understand that evan just got hit with the friend zone yes well i mean sam appears to be the the the sage the sage uh advice giver here because he's the one who talks about you need to dtr you gotta define this relationship you know you gotta as nick says you gotta lock it down before she gets away so sam maybe seems to have a little bit higher maturity level.

Oh, and from, was it last episode or the episode before? He talks about he had a girlfriend. Oh, that's right. Yeah, so he's experienced. He lost her because of the socks. Yes, but I'm assuming he stopped wearing the socks. Maybe he got her back. Maybe he doesn't need her anymore.

Yeah. I mean, he's a star hockey player. But it's the States. His options are endless right now. Yeah. He's going to be singing some Sound of Music at them. You know, so long, farewell. See you later.

Get out of there. But I love Nick's response to the emoji and Sam's comment. He's like, wait, how could you possibly think that that's a friend zone? Who does a princess fall in love with? A prince. Doesn't he go on a Frozen thing? He's like, except for the Frozen girls, they are wildly independent.

They are very independent, which, you know what? Good for them. That's just, Disney is trying to right the wrongs of all the damsel in distress movies that they made that just you know frustrated people a lot and so they needed a movie where those frozen girls they were very independent i love the soundtrack for frozen very very yeah solid soundtrack they have quite a few non-Damsel in Distress movies. Well, now.

Brave, Mulan. Even back in the – well, yeah, Mulan for sure. But you had Hercules was Meg, I think was the love interest's name. And she specifically – she says like three or four times in the movie, I'm not a damsel in distress. And she is very pivotal in Hercules winning the day. And then Jasmine was a damsel in distress and she is very pivotal in hercules you know winning the day and then jasmine was no damsel in distress either she had a fucking tiger as a pet well that's very true maybe the the older older ones in the 50s and 60s so okay cinderella snow white yeah those were you know know. But I loved Nick trying to talk them out of it.

He's still trying to provide a sliver of hope for his man, Evan. She's saying she's a princess in need of a prince. And then that's when they go back, and we have the three girls having a perfume fight. Yeah. In a bus. Yeah. Now, I don't know if those are perfumes exactly okay they've just been like um like scented mists you know where it's not like it's not like actual perfume but it's like a

because they weren't like they looked like they were in like plastic bottles you know it looked very diluted it didn't look like we're getting like as strong of a scent as a perfume, you know? Okay. So we're thinking these could potentially not be perfume bottles because if it was, that would be a disaster in the bus. That would smell horribly. They're definitely like scented sprays,

but I would not, I, I am assuming because they're in plastic fucking bottles and they're for 12 year olds that they're not, they they're not as strong as a perfume. B, they're like – they probably cost like $5 a bottle. So the damage that you thought was happening to that bus is I think minimized because it's not. And they were spraying it in each other's eyes, and none of them were like crying like none of them faced so i think it was just like like scented sprays when i saw that all i could think of is like if it was like an ax off like four different sprays blowing up and just the

damage that would do and then just how mad bombay would be and like the headache you would get from that and he would just be stewing in the front of the bus for those two tip gotta drive with the goddamn windows down stupid girls with their fucking perfume you know what I was really hoping for and I I would have loved it so much uh is if uh Bombay gets like right when they are on the bus Bombay gives his speech and then he's like hey guys we're going to states and he turns around I would have loved are on the bus, Bombay gives his speech, and then he's like, hey, guys, we're going to States. And he turns around. I would have loved it if the bus driver was MC Ganey,

the limo driver from the first movie. Just like a small little like he like high-fives him or something, like a little cameo where it's just like boom, and then we go on. That would have been fun. Never address it again, just a small little like MC Ganey cameo. I would have loved it. Just like a little wink to all the big Ducks fans out there. Yeah.

And I don't know how many people. So I love that MC Ganey is the fucking limo driver in the first movie. It's one of my favorite things about that movie. Because why is a movie star as big as MC Ganey at that time? I mean, granted, he wasn't like a fucking movie star, but he was in fucking Con Air. He was a legit action movie actor, and he just plays a limo driver.

That's a whole other rant for the first movie, but I love me some MC Ganey, and I was really hoping for him to be the bus driver. Again, Disney, let us write this fucking, let us write and cast this fucking show because I will get MC Ganey back in. There are so many epic moments that were just missed out on. Yeah.

So many Easter eggs that they just dropped the ball on. And would have been easy. Yeah. I mean, how much is MC Ganey charging for a five-minute cameo? You know, like fucking whatever it is, it's worth it. Pay the guy the money. Could have just gotten him, hired him on Cameo, I'm sure. Website where you hire celebrities to, like, call your friend.

Yeah, but he's got to, you would need him in the bus. It would be weird if they just, like, cut to a. FaceTimed him. FaceTimed him. Cut to a makeshift cameo of MC Ganey, and he's like oh yeah i'm driving the bus how's it going anyways okay but so after the the perfume spray that's when we we cut to uh because what do you say we're rolling up to states they get to the they get to the hotel um they in the a they just they bombay says I'll get everybody checked in.

Everybody just leaves their bags at the, not even at the front desk, right by the front door. Well, they were loading them on the baggage carriers. So I'm assuming there may have been like a bellhop there helping take all the bags. There was what looked like a bellhop there, but they legit just throw them down and then leave. Bombay leaves too. I mean, I would never do that. That's all your hockey gear. There's so many thieves.

That was a very, very poor move to leave those unsupervised, but they did have a nice entrance though. The girls did. The boys just had an entrance, and everyone was like, oh, jeez, Evan's obsessing over the Sophie text.

But the girls have, like, the badass girls weekend entrance with the hair flip. Nick has a good entrance because he's the first one in the door. He comes barging through, and he immediately smells the chlorine, and he knows there's an indoor pool that's bombay says all right team breathe it in it states breathe it in and nick looks at him he's like ah smells like an indoor pool yeah hell yeah yeah that's i mean that's that's the second thing i do when i get to a hotel room after jumping on the bed is I throw the swim trunks on, and we're going down to the indoor pool. And or if you're lucky enough and you're in a climate that allows it, outdoor pool.

Do you just go in hot with a cannonball at the hotel pool? It depends. If there's like – if nobody is at the pool and it's like just me and the crew that I go down with, they're probably absolutely ripping a cannonball right away. If it's a crowded pool and there's a lot of people in there, then no, you can't go in hot. Yeah, yeah. Safety first. That makes sense. And Nick's not wrong because we all know the smell when you walk into a hotel and you're like, oh man, yeah, that indoor chlorine hotel pool got to kill all the children's pee.

So I had the craziest fucking nightmare yesterday. I took a two-hour nap in the middle of the day and had the craziest dream about getting chemical burns at a pool from like the chlorine. The dream gets real weird and real gets weirder and crazier than that. And I'm still like mentally processing that through my, you know, it's definitely something I'm going to talk about in therapy, but. Wow. We're here for you, man.

It was, it was one of the worst dreams I've ever had in my life. It for sure killed my vibe for the rest of the day. Wow. That's, that's tough to hear. I in workaholics did an episode like that where Adam and Blake were trying to get Anders out of swim practice. So they, the swim team got in and they were like losing their hair and shit. Yeah. You gotta, I mean, you gotta be careful with the, with the chemicals in those, in those pools. You can, you can fuck yourself up real quick.

Yeah. But, like, this entrance, too, is, like, super loaded and moves very quickly. Did you notice that? Because as soon as the girls' weekend hair flip happens, Maya's like, cool, I'm going to go get some swag. She's gone. Comes back. Two seconds.

And she comes back with a boy. Who? So I got to talk about the boy his name first of all is zander yeah great fucking name love it zander and then he's so i was trying to figure out and i wonder if uh this so i was trying to figure this out so he comes in she's like hey this is zander uh we're in love we're're going to get married. It's going to be fantastic. He's so cute. He's a good looking fella. He's tall. He's probably pushing 5'8", 5'9", at this point. He's only

12 years old. Hopefully he's not like me and tops out at that. I was a tall middle school kid. I hit 5'11 when I was in 5th grade and then nothing after that. That was the end. Done. I got lucky. I did the same thing, but when I got really big, I got up over six foot.

Okay. I just missed it. Just missed the cut. It's really not that big of a deal, per se, except for the tender profile takes a hit when you say you're 5'11", instead of six feet. That's a huge minus. But Xander fucking cracks me up A, because his name is Xander, and then B, he's wearing what I assume is

his team's quarter zip. Because you see all the other teams, all the Ducks people, they have the quarter zip on with the logo. There's a couple other teams but zanders sure doesn't have a logo it has like a stylized word mark on it and the word mark says viper freeze whoa that is a team name right there i really hope that's a team name i really hope

that's one of the team's names is viper free we'll get into it later it's either it that's a team name. I really hope that's one of the team's names is Viper Freeze. We'll get into it later. It's either a team name or he is already sponsored by like a sick ass energy drink. Viper Freeze does sound like a hockey energy drink that you would have. You're about to play hockey tomorrow morning. Come grab your Viper Freeze. It's full of vitamin B and poison. So I really hope that gets explored more

because that's all you get from this episode. He doesn't mention what team he's on or anything like that, but I really hope that's the name of his team is viper freeze that would be amazing and then like poor lauren and sophie you know they are not there lauren and sophie are the two friends that need the third friend in order for them to like successfully hang out you know what i mean and so you could feel that as soon as maya took off they're just like oh crap and then sophie has buyer's remorse like what the hell they had that nice handshake they had the sweet handshake you know they're stealing the friendship with a handshake but

yeah maya bailing on girls weekend to go hang out with xander is a real blow for the the two of them they were their bond is not strong enough to to keep a girl's weekend going you know no and you could have with those two you could have like a girl's lunch you know or a brunch there's no there's no way that bond is lasting a weekend though absolutely not maya was the glue that was going to keep them together but so sophie's bummed about blowing off evan now because i did this for the girls like what the heck i would have gone with him if she was going to do this. By the way, dick move from Maya. Absolutely.

Let's call a spade a spade. It was a dick move, but it was also a very typical middle school move where selfishly you set up the girls weekend, then selfishly you bail on the girls weekend because you found a very cute boy. Yeah, it's a dick move. But granted, if I show up at States and Xander's looking my way, you best believe I'm bailing too. I'm bailing on girls weekend. Especially if he's sponsored by Viper Freeze.

Oh, if he's got a mini fridge full of Viper Freeze up in his room, dude, go time. I'm in. You know, normally I'm going to be loyal to Monster if I'm going to drink an energy drink, but I'd cheat on it with some Viper Freeze. I actually don't drink energy drinks. They're really bad for you. But if I do, it's going to be a Monster. See, I haven't had a fucking energy drink in years.

But when I did drink um it was red bull red bull all the way sugar-free red bull and then the next thing we move to after we see maya bale on the girls is we have coach t laying down the law with his team which i love of course coach t fans on the podcast right here. Big Coach T fans. He's sitting there letting them know. Coach T is featured prominently in this episode.

They tease good guy Coach T halfway through the episode. I was here for it. I wanted it. I need good guy Coach T. At this point in time, he's talking to the ducks he's giving him the lay down and he's like hey we're here to fucking win you know if you can't if you can't win big

you know why are we here so he's like you get one hour one hour at the the party gala whatever you want to call it uh tonight yeah one hour bed checks at 8 8 p.m 7 8 we're waking up at 5 30 we're no we're not waking up at 5 30 we're meeting in the lobby at 5 30 and we're going for a run yep and the winners do yes they prepare he said my favorite line is he he looks at him and he goes i don't need you mingling with the riffraff i wrote that down too classic coach t line that's why we love him yeah because he's right yeah they're to win not mingle with the riffraff that's a don't bothers move they're just there for fun they're not there for business to win because but then stephanie's stephanie's daughter ruby after the right after the riffraff line ruby she like turns to whoever's next to her

I assume Trevor they don't really show it though but I assume she turns and she goes or after after he says one hour at the party she turns and she goes everybody's gonna think we're lame and coach T goes no they're gonna think you're defending champions that's what they're gonna think exactly you know what I wrote down for that I said that was a real clark move by ruby worrying about what the riffraff are gonna think about her that was a that wasn't a stephanie move that was a clark move yeah yeah she's which so right after well so right after this you get bombay and coach t they have a little little where Bombay is – well, Coach T is trying to like badmouth the don't bother.

He's like, you know, you guys don't even bother unpacking. You guys won't be here long. And then Bombay just like flips it around on him and is like, yeah, you're right. We definitely won't be. Yeah, we might not be. And I love it when Bombay is like, yeah, you know, honestly, it was a surprise to all of us to be here. It really was.

And Coach T is like, what? you know, honestly, it was a surprise to all of us to be here. It really was. And Coach T's like, what? What are you talking about? He's like, you can't get in my head, Bombay. And then Bombay goes, you're right, unless I'm already there. Yeah. Bombay did play a little Jedi mind trick on Coach T. I was kind of surprised that he did that right there. Yeah. Well, so I remember – because they do the little previews, right,

at the end of the previous episodes. They give you like little – what, like 15 – or like one-minute sneak peek to the next episode, and they show some clips. Yeah. They showed part of that clip in the previous preview. They showed it where Coach T is like, what does he say? Where he's like, what are you guys doing here?

You're not supposed to be here or something like that. And the way they set it up, I thought there was going to be more of a – Confrontation? More meat to that confrontation. Like, you know, I don't know. I thought there was going to be more to that instead of just a weird little like mind trick thing. I was a little bit disappointed because I built it up in my own head.

When I was watching this for the first time, I paused it quick to start getting my notes going. And I wrote epic Bombay versus Coach T throwdown and ended with, well, I guess Bombay is in his head. So it didn't, it didn't really live up to it, but that's like this whole episode is like very quick moving. And there's a lot of, there's a lot of characters moving in a lot of places,

which I'm actually okay with. It's the first time we get almost every character really involved throughout the entire episode yeah i thought honestly this is one of the granted there's no there's zero hockey in this episode but it's a fun episode i enjoyed it i thought it was one of the better ones for sure i i did too i thought it was i thought it was fun i thought that they out of everything i thought that they nailed the kids plot line of like the middle school interaction and the dance it was so authentic i think that's what made it enjoyable and like like we have been saying this whole time this was kid and team

100 focused episode you get you get a couple scenes with stephanie and alex uh back back home and then at the end you get um some a tiny little bit of alex bombay but the vast majority of this episode is kid and team focus which is what we've been calling for so very very welcomed episode i thought it was it was one of the better ones for sure yeah absolutely and so after that quick interaction, they move again really quick and we see, I loved it. Nick is flush and he's just going hard at the merchandise. He's getting, he's getting everything. And I actually really related to that because every time I would go play in a tournament, my parents would always, I had t-shirts from like every basketball tournament I've ever had. And shout out to Mama D's laundry skills.

Like these are like 20 years old and they, I was just home not that long ago and they still look like new. Those old t-shirts. Cause I've just been wearing XL since like middle school. I was never, I was never, I was never a gift shop guy at any of the tournaments that I went to or any of that stuff. I was not a any of that stuff. It wasn't my forte.

Mama D would give me a 20 and say, hey, go buy yourself some memories for this tournament. Bless her and Big Mike for letting me do that. You know what they need to do? She needs to frame all of those tournament t-shirts and

set up like a Hall of Fame shrine for you in one of the rooms. She has all of the t-shirts saved and she's going to make a quilt. Oh, okay. There you go. Quilt. Even better. Pinterest. I don't know. I don't get it.

Maudie always one step ahead. She's going to be a frequent co-host on uh parenting with brandon for sure she she could teach you a thing or two she's a real stickler though so like if if you're gonna break any rules around her she's gonna give you the business and and so nick's flushed he's at the merchandise stand he's buying everything sophie is talking with lauren is like hey i'm gonna go find evan i'm gonna go ask it is it be like yeah i'm gonna go to the dance with you lauren's like cool on my own girls day lip gloss gets another

shout out really quick and but when we get to evan mj is doing a quick interview, and Evan's like, oh, coach speak. Like, the game will work hard. The game will go okay. He's like, hey, can we off the record this really quick? I need to talk to you about something. And MJ gets the wrong impression and is like, yes, Evan, I'll come. Yeah, yeah. He's like, if I like a girl, how do i ask her to a dance essentially and mj reads that

as oh you like me yes let's go to the dance which i mean i i didn't i did not understand i assume it was just like a panic move um and that the fact that she was just right there that he asked mj for advice um i that struck me as weird if anything go ask lauren you know i think it's because where the fuck is winnie why is that's who should have been driving the bus that's who that's who we need on the trip is winnie where the fuck is winnie winnie is maintaining the ice palace we've already talked about there's no there's no customers just shut it down for the weekend. She is the backbone. It is midwinter. They are in the throng of five-year-old birthday parties

to be hosted at the Ice Palace. Someone has to hold down the fort. I guess. I guess. That would have been prime Winnie advice time, though. She would have fucking crushed that. She's sharpening their skates, and Evan walks into the room.

He's like, listen, Winnie, I need some advice on Sophie, and she's pulling a Hans. She pulls the ketchup on the finger trick. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. And then that's when they finally drop the ball that Winnie is Hans' great-granddaughter. See, honestly, that's all.

You wouldn't even have to bring it up. You could just have her do the ketchup trick, and then the people that know would know. Would know, and that's all that matters. Yeah. But the big payoff for this is that Sophie, on her way, hears MJ and Evan going to the dance together. She sees it.

She's fucking heartbroken. Absolutely, and I will together she sees it she's fucking heartbroken absolutely and i will have to say she's not she's not heartbroken she is enraged yeah she is pissed yeah he just asked her and then asked someone else and sophie does a great storm off i she she's stormed off a few different times in the series and she really has it down like the big heavy hard steps the pronounced arm swinging like she does an excellent storm off so shout out sophie for your ability to storm off just just had to say that so so then we jumped to what was the the biggest surprise to me was that we go to the office. Alex is hanging out.

This is my favorite. We said the episode is more kid and teen focused, but there's like five, eight minutes of Stephanie-Alex scenes, and they are the best. Gold. Prime fucking Stephanie. This is where you find out that Stephanie and Clark are getting a divorce. Getting a divorce. Well, and Alex is stealing, I think her name might have been like Debbie or Karen. Oh, yeah, she's stealing.

Stealing Twizzlers. The secret desk candy, yeah, yeah. It not only steals the candy and then proceeds to use her own personal back massager. That's – I take more offense to you than the candy. Violation of personal property. Just can't do it. I didn't like it. I didn't like it one bit, but we do find out.

Thank God we're in a work-from-home environment now, Heath, where people can't just steal your fucking Twizzlers. And they can't sneeze on their hands and then reach into the jar and grab them. Yep. Because that's what happens in the office. People are disgusting. I know. They're like talking about bringing people at my company

back to the office, and I am not here for it. If they tell me I have to go into the office more than like two days a week, I'm just going to quit over it done quit cry a little bit and get over it hard now can't deal with that yeah but anyways we've got clark and stephanie getting divorced she's kind of processing it in front of alex which is a kind of it definitely crosses the line of boss employee oh well i mean she crosses the relationship stephanie crosses that every fucking episode every episode every interaction she has with alex is a violation of those boundaries but so she so when alex first walks in she overhears stephanie on the phone with clark and so she's yelling at clark and she's like

my favorite thing is she goes uh i forget exactly how the conversation starts but then hears Stephanie on the phone with Clark. And so she's yelling at Clark and she's like, my favorite thing is she goes, I forget exactly how the conversation starts, but then she's like, no, Clark, you can't take our kids to Hawaii. Those are our miles. Which I love that Clark's first instinct after he realizes he's getting divorced is I need to take the kids to Hawaii.

Using the miles that they built together because we established the first time we met Clark, that guy sucks. It's the fucking worst. And so of course he would do and use all of the points that they earned together without a second thought, because that's another, that's another thing.

All right. Cause I, a, I don't have any kids and and B, I haven't been blessed with the experience of divorce. That's a thing you never

really, at least I never really thought about, though. You gotta work out the divvying of assets and that kind of stuff, but credit card models, you gotta divvy that up, too. That's a dream. That's why you don't stuff, but credit card models, you've got to divvy that up too. That's why you don't get a joint credit card. Just get your own.

That's true. That's true. There are some great advice, not necessarily parenting, but some relationship advice. Joint accounts are not all they're cracked up to be. Oh, absolutely. That's just a dangerous game. There are so to be if you're absolutely that's just a dangerous game

there are so even if you're in the happiest relationship in the entire world there are so many benefits to keeping not necessarily like all of the money separate but keeping separate accounts um for for individuals i'm not saying you have to like exactly divide it up like her money's her money his money's his money or his money's his money, his money's his money, or his money's his money, and his money's his money. But there are many, many benefits from financial taxes, all that kind of stuff, to keeping separate accounts. Yeah, exactly. And if you do decide to do a joint account, don't put all your eggs in one basket. No.

Keep your own separate accounts. Use the joint account for paying bills and silly stuff like that. Yeah, yeah. Anyways. You got to treat your relationship like a business, Heath. You keep your relationship money and your relationship account and your personal money and your personal account. Just like you would keep – you got to separate your business money from your personal money. You gotta, you gotta keep the, you gotta keep the paper trails separate,

you know, kids, you better listen up. You are getting educated by Brandon, the accountant right here. And this is some advice to listen. I don't have any kids, but I do have two companies.

So they're, they're, they're my children. Listen up. I think that we do have to give Stephanie a quick pep talk here, though, because Clark sucks. She should not be super beat up about this divorce. She should be ecstatic to be shedding the dead weight to get back out there and be a badass again. I know they were number one and number

two in law school. He was number two. Stephanie, of course, wins. I was going to bring that up. This is a scene a little bit later on, but I think we'll just lump both these scenes together because she dropped some great stuff about her and Clark's relationship. It's all the same. The fact that they were

law school sweethearts. Number one and number two. He was, of course, number two, though. You know, you think fucking Clark's going to beat Stephanie? Yeah. And then she talks about how they're – They can't just go skiing. Yeah, they always got to go big.

They can't just go skiing. They got to go hella skiing, you know. She's got to jump out of that airplane and keep that propeller, just to remind her every time, you know. i don't know how people do stuff like that i can't even ski like a bunny hill let alone jump out of a helicopter and do it that's wild but props to people that can do it yeah i mean i i so i even though born and raised in colorado i'm the world's worst skier um i have zero ski skills like even going down like like you said like bunny hills it's just it was it was never never something i really cared to do that being said if it was something that i care

cared about and had practiced and was like actually good at then best believe i'm going scheme you know but that was a good interaction between stephanie and alex right yeah you know what i mean yeah it was good and it's right at the end of the second scene that we're talking about with between alex and uh stephanie alex drops the line because stephanie gets like real she's like spills her whole life story she gets real depressed talking to alex and alex says something along the lines of, I think depressed. Stephanie is my favorite. Yeah. Yeah. She does say that because there, there are a few interactions like there's,

and we'll get to in a second, like where Stephanie smokes her in the face with the golf ball. Like I love all those interactions there. They're so great. But we, we get a vulnerable side of stephanie which it just it just cements that like even though stephanie really was the worst in some episodes and she'd say things and you're like oh god just why do you have to say that she's still an amazing character well she absolutely crushed it she even says she says that about herself in in the scene where she uh she's

talking to alex and she's like alex you know i'm super jealous of you you had you're super nice and super cool your kid's a sweetheart which a evan's not a fucking sweetheart but she's like i'm super jealous of you alex is like oh you're jealous of me that's crazy she starts talking about hockey like how good her and evan are at hockey and stephanie goes well you're not that great you're number two you know, number one. She's like, I did it again. Yeah. Did it again. Here I go. Just being a bitch. So, you know, she's got some self-awareness. I think what we gathered from this episode is that it's really Clark.

Clark is the terrible influence, you know, he's ruining, not only did he ruin Stephanie, now he's actively trying to ruin the kids. Yes. And the kids are turning into little clarks and that sucks for everyone and you could you can understand that like stephanie was just probably this big badass powerhouse and she's like well i better marry this other powerhouse and then like a month into the marriage classic uh classic guy sucks but adopts it you know she she did what l woods almost did almost ruined her life she almost she made stephanie married her warner you know whereas l woods legally blonde was able to realize the error of that way and you know divvy and then she goes and marries luke wilson stephanie didn't have

that realization she went down the warner path, you know, look where it gets you. It gets you divorce and two kids that are bullies, you know, such as life sometimes, I guess. Anyways, that's it. That's a great scene. And then we cut back to the party and Nick. Oh, I forgot to mention, sorry, this is way back in the bus scene, but I forgot to mention,

did you see the first showing of Don't Bothers gear? Nick had the Don't Bothers stocking hat, the yellow stocking hat. Yep, they finally have merch. They finally got merch. I meant to say that earlier. That was one of the first things I saw. I was like, oh, we have Don't Bothers merch, and so that's an exciting revelation for them. Plus, we still have the, from last episode,

we got the t-shirts that Paula and, I don't know why I can't remember his other mom's name, but Nick's mom's made the putting fun first, the hashtag. Putting fun first. Those shirts, those shirts and the beanies. We finally got some team merch. So that's an exciting revelation for them. But when we cut and we see nick i this is why i love nick

he's wearing all of the merch that he just bought at the stand to the dance that everyone else is at yeah what a great kid yeah he's such a sweetheart of a kid i just thought that i thought that was just like because it's the most real thing too, right? Like there's always that one kid on the team that buys the merch and then wears it immediately afterwards. Not even just on the team. There's that person in every single aspect of life. You know, there's the kid. Say you're going to like a, you know,

like a fucking Aerosmith concert. There's the kid that shows up in an Aerosmith hat and an Aerosmith shirt, you know, or you're going to, I mean, sports games are a little bit different because you're expected to wear that stuff. But, like, if you go to, like, if you were to go to a WWE event, there's the dude who's wearing the John Cena hat, the John Cena shirt. He's got the wristbands.

He's wearing the jorts. He's all decked out. He's ready to go. I went as John Cena for Halloween one year, and I had the toy spinner belt it was the best halloween ever hitting everyone with the you can't see me and i bought i bought the hat did you ever did you were you even able to to interact with anybody if they couldn't see you it was tough it was tough to to go to the party but but I actually played the song when I ran in. Echo location.

It was awesome. Favorite Halloween costume that I've ever had. Okay. Anyways, let's get back to Nick and Evan interaction, because Nick is devastated that Evan asked MJ, and I love the way he describes it, because Nick and Evan. He makes it seem like it's like a whole like lifelong thing that he's been feeling when we know that's not true because he was head over heels for winnie in episode three you know i get that was in an appropriate or in an

appropriate relationship he was aspiring for but come on you're just gonna you know he's gonna you're gonna drop winnie like that like a like a bad habit so quick. Brandon, we find out in this episode and it's very true in middle school, love is fleeting. Like it can ebb and flow by the minute, by the second, let alone by the hour in the day. And I love the way Nick described it though. Cause Evan's like, wait, you, you don't even talk to her. Like i've never seen you talk to her outside of the podcast and nick is like well i'm a lion in the grass waiting for the hunt and and evan's like this is like the most secret relationship ever my favorite thing is nick when he's doing the lion uh analogy he goes i'm'm waiting in the grass for the proper time to pounce. And then when that time comes,

I still don't do anything because I respect women. I feel like that's like your move, Brandon. That's absolutely the Brandon. That's the Brandon, yeah. You just wait it out, you know?

I actually put that in my notes. Yeah. I can totally see this move becoming the Brandon. I put it in my notes. But, like, because you respect women. Exactly. You're going to not pounce. You're going to respect them.

I would never pounce on a woman. Never. Never. You will cordially greet them and ask them kindly if they would like to join you for a coffee. Exactly. And maybe not even do that. Just a permanent friend zone situation. Yeah.

But I do it to myself. I friend zone myself. The self-inflicted gunshot wound. Yeah. How's your love life going it's great i've friend zoned myself with like 10 chicks yeah it's going fantastic i've got 15 best friends right now it's awesome and then so while while that right after that happens mj comes up to join them and i love that nick gets real awkward really quick and bails for some cocktail Franks.

Oh, yeah. Oh, are those cocktail Franks? And then Evan gives MJ the most awkward interaction, a friendly jab kind of awkward punch to the shoulder. Yeah. Because they're awkward punch to the shoulder. Yeah, because they're all punched to the shoulder. And then immediately we get whipped around because MJ

goes, whoa, new power couple. Power couple. Who else? Here to steal the show. And they kind of do. They kind of do look like a power couple. Trevor and sophie though trevor yeah i couldn't believe it i mean who else would it be you know i mean she does do a great

job coming in immediately making evan jealous right off the bat and she's the she's the only one who's like he's like actually dressed for a party. Everybody – like MJ is wearing like a freaking – Is it overalls? Overalls over a sweater. And then Nick is decked out in his state championship t-shirt and hat. And then everybody else is just wearing like – like Evan I think is just wearing a jean jacket over a t-shirt.

Yeah. And yeah. So, and, but, but Sophie comes in and she's got like a, like a nice sequined top, you know, looking great. They both look sharp. With the light bouncing off the disco ball and hitting the sequins, you know. It's excellent, but everyone is jealous,

but then the camera immediately moves over to Maya and Lauren. And Lauren's just sitting there all alone. She sees a different group of girls having a girls weekend. Oh, and heartbroken. I almost cried at that point. That was so sad, especially because like Lauren is such a nice person and she's a female warrior and she just wants a good friend. And then she gets bailed on, but she's so nice. She just doesn't even, you know, think anything of it. And then Maya doesn't even think about her feelings. It's just like, oh my gosh, Xander's the one.

Yeah. So we get, she comes in first hot with the Xander is amazing. I love all the Viper freeze. It's fantastic. And then, you you know she keeps coming back every once in a while like every every like cut scene or whatever is is her coming back and you know at one point xander's the best the next point xander's the worst then she's like you know uh you know he just he doesn't really get me but like the chemistry's so good when the

chemistry is this good do you let it go or do you fight for it yeah because because the next interaction it's coming up before that interaction is it the some some coach t and bombay initial bonding but i know yeah so yeah and like the coach t this is where they tease you know good guy coach t a little bit because you get um he's getting the business from a parent which after what transpires had to be a plant right you think so just like with the hockey mom's episode where they conspire to get the don't bothers in i think i think coach t hired that that parent to you know just be a dick to him so he could so he could weasel his way into bombay's nice side. I was shocked he let that happen. That parent was like, hey, you need

to earn your check. You better play my kid more. They're just bonding over those bad parents. Parents do get so aggressive with all that stuff. I mentioned on the podcast before, I used to ref middle school and high school

girls and boys basketball summer league games. And I would get screamed at my parents. It's like, dude, I have been working seven to four and now I'm reffing your kids, shitty basketball game. And with no air conditioning in the middle of the summer, please stop talking to me. Like, I don't care.

Yeah. I'm not going to blow the whistle because I'm tired and I want to go home. Yeah. I, uh, I umped, uh, baseball for a couple of years and it was,

uh, yeah, the parents were the fucking worst. And then I had, so my, uh, when I was playing, I had,

uh, my grandpa would come to all my games, and my grandpa, God rest his soul, was not a great person. And he was the parent who would, in my 10-year-old freaking Little League games, would be screaming at the umpire, like, that's a strike! That's a strike! Just shit like that and yeah and it's like i'm 10 years old the ump is 17 calm down grandpa like you're why are we

screaming at these people yeah he was he was uh god i feel like god god rest his soul um well and it wasn't only that like so he had uh my family has season tickets to the denver broncos and i uh he my that grandpa got him in like 1960 whenever the broncos started i think it was 1960 so he's had him forever like that was a diehard broncos fan and i would go to the games with him and he would just get so riled up there. He would proceed to get just blackout fucking drunk. And then he would pick fights with fans of the other team. And it's like, and I,

when I would go to the games with him, I would be like 10, 11, 12 years old. And it's like, grandpa, like I, you're on your own here.

I can't, I do not have your back. I cannot hold my own in a fight. I honestly, I can't, I can't fight this. I wouldn't want to. Yeah. So it's the thing that was like, as a 10-year-old, I can't fight these people.

And as a, you know, a non-terrible human being, I refuse to fight these people. I don't want to. It's football. Like, no one loves their football teams more than me, but it's definitely not worth fighting over. No, oh, God. I was traumatized. That's why I don't follow the Broncos at all anymore because it's just fucking, it's just too much trauma involved.

You know, I can't handle it. But I, so Bombay and Coach T, they saddle up together at the bar. They're getting ready to- Bombay's just drinking Cokes though. I saw, I actually put that note. I saw Bombay drinking soda and we're

proud of him here on the podcast you know we want to make sure that he's being safe and healthy and he's getting out of the basement of the ice palace you know we're hopeful for him exactly yeah he's uh he he tackled that demon let's not let's not let it back in your life bombay you know absolutely and so he is trying to do what he did to Iceland where he, you know, cut back to the dance and we see some slow dancing going on a a love hecticon is taking place if you will that's the five-sided shape right i'm i'm not good yeah yeah i think so let's have some you said hexagon right oh no i said hecticon but maybe it's a hexagon i don don't know. It's one of those shapes. I think hex is five. Okay. I could have our research team. Look it up later.

I specifically skipped all geometry classes. It's a hard pass for me. My geometry teacher was kind of mean too. So that didn't help. I don't think there's such a thing as a nice geometry teacher. I think it's part of the requirements. You've got to be just the worst. As if math isn't hard enough,

every math teacher is a hard ass that makes you want to cry a little bit. Yeah. Especially when you're throwing in shapes. You know? Triangles and shit. Like sine, cosine, and tangent. That was useless information.

Less than useless information. Show kids how to do their taxes and how to responsibly manage credit cards. Exactly. I forget. Oh, I think it might have been Minnesota. There was news I saw the other day. I forget. It was one of the Midwestern states. They made financial literacy a required high school class.

Oh, that's. I forget if it was Minnesota or not, but whoever it was, good for you. Yeah, congrats. We approve of that. Yes. So what do you think about Evan's awkward dancing with MJ? I got a really good kick out of that because we see. So to set the picture, we have

Evan and MJ dancing and Evan is facing Sophie and Trevor dancing, but then behind Sophie and Trevor dancing is Nick kind of holding up the wall as kind of being a wallflower

to speak. And every time Evan wants to make Sophie jealous, he puts his hands on MJ. But then he sees Nick in the background and he takes his hands off of MJ really quickly. And so he's doing this hands up, hands down, hands up, hands down kind of dance. And Nick is at the wall and he turns to his friends

and says, boy, I just don't know what's worse. Watching my best friend dance with my crush or watch what my best friend thinks is dancing. Yeah. Yeah. Nick, Nick calls him out for it. And then even like a, a little bit later on, Sophie, Sophie is talking to Evan and he's like, she's like, you're the worst dancer in the world.

You look like a drunk penguin. And he really did. That's a very accurate description. Evan just doesn't quite have those dancing skills down yet, which is okay. 12-year-old boys, it's always the same. I feel like if you gave him a non-fucking emotional minefield to wander through while he's dancing he probably

wouldn't have been that bad but give it give him a chance where he can just be loose and and shake his tail feather a little bit then then he would be okay yeah yeah where there's no there's not two people staring daggers at him regardless of what decision he makes i also loved uh logan's line to nick where it was oh yeah this is where you get romantic logan again yeah oh yeah but it's both sides of the coin he's like well hey you know there's a chance that maybe they she's just not meant to be his girl well what what no what he says is uh he goes don't worry don't worry nick you know if if you are meant to be, if she's meant to be your girl, then it'll work out in the end.

But if she's meant to be his girl, if she's meant to be Evan's girl, then it probably won't work out. Thanks, Logan. Feeling real good about that. Solid advice. So happy. And then we go over to Maya, who is just in the thick of some middle school drama.

I love that she was like, I only play power ballads or something like that on Spotify. She's yelling at Xander, and she's like, I can't believe you told him to play rap. I only listen to power ballads. That's the only thing that's on my Spotify playlist. How do you not know that? And then Xander says something about, I can't believe you listen to power ballads. That's the only thing that's on my Spotify playlist. How do you not know that? And then Xander says something about, I can't believe you listen to that stuff. It literally makes my ears bleed or something like that.

Yeah. Maybe you need to branch out. How are power ballads making your ears bleed? I don't know. Do you happen to know a popular power ballad off the top of your head? I was trying to think of one. Any like, like eighties hair metal love song would be like a power ballad.

Like, like totally clips of the heart. Yeah. Power ballad. That is one of my favorite songs to karaoke. Yeah. That or great song. I'm trying to think,

you know, I'm blanking. Anything journey does. Yeah. Yeah. Like, uh, you know I'm blanking anything Journey does yeah yeah like what's the what's the main song why can't I think of any Journey songs don't stop believing that's a power ballad

there we go don't stop believing you can tell how much I love Journey by my extensive knowledge of all their songs well Glee kind of broke journey for everyone it kind of got a little played out after after they really made it blow up again well it's glee and then and then the fact that every motherfucker at karaoke wants to sing don't not believe in yeah that's true that and sweet caroline pick new songs don't even get me started

on sweet caroline i hate that song it's one of the worst songs ever written but what did you what did you think about them immediately having middle school uh pet names for each other too because after i didn't blow up i didn't catch the pet names what were the pet names okay so once again subtitles i i had them on for this but i must have been like in the middle of writing a note or something so so she's back complaining to Lauren, like, oh my gosh, it's like, he doesn't even know me. And Lauren's like, yeah, it's almost like you didn't meet two hours ago. Like just a voice of reason. Lauren is too logical to be 12. Like that's what happens when you're that logical.

You can't always hit it off with every kid. She's just too much like an adult. But so, and then Maya sees Xander behind and he's like, my, my. Oh, she's like Zandy or something. That's right. Okay. I got terrible. And he has the little, and I was totally with Lauren though. She actually like put her cape up to block out that disgusting display

of nonsense and so they kind of got back together a little bit whatever but then we flash scene over to what really matters and it's back to coach t and bombay at the bar yeah yep and this is where you get a little more good guy coach t they tease They tease it a little bit. They're talking about the stresses of, you know, coaching, and Bombay starts giving him the recruitment story about how he got – he got banned from coaching NCAA. Real quick before we get into that story, we have some great Coach T lines where he talks about a dad trying to sue him for benching his kid yeah yeah and then there was another one where he was like listen man one time i dunked orange slices

in red oh yes i wrote to the kids i wrote that i wrote that down that's so good so good yes coach t listen if you are just not liking the energy at practice, you got to give the kids some orange slices. But if you need to lace them, that's okay. Yeah, you got to get the boys buzzing a little bit, you know? Get them going. You're not going to wheel snipe Sally when you don't have the juices flowing. Exactly.

You know, in Leonard Kenny, they got it from dip, you know, when they don't even do a lipper, not a dipper. Come on boys. But yeah, I thought you would enjoy that coach T dunking orange slices, but then yeah, like he gives, you know, some bonding moments like, Oh, you're the Zen master Bombay. And then Bombay gives them NCAA story. Did you notice they switched gears on it, though? Before, in the earlier episodes, Bombay, when he was talking with Alex,

he was like, oh, yeah, I gave the kid some tape for, and I got fired for it, but this time, he made it seem like the kid was poor, and Bombay gave him, like, money for his family. No, I don't... He gave him cash. He didn't give him cash. They're not insinuating that. Oh, really? You didn't think so?

He's talking about the tape. Worst recruiting violation ever. He mentions the fact that the kid's poor when he's telling Alex to. Oh, really? I don't think he... He doesn't specifically call him poor, but he says the kid couldn't afford the tape.

So he just gave him to it. But yeah, it's dumb and it's dumb that he was it's a dumb recruit which makes no fucking sense yeah i hated everything about where this is going it was my least favorite thing yeah but they needed some drama i think it was oh it's such manufactured nonsense drama because this is actually what i was waiting for brandon i have to be honest with you i was waiting for you to rip into this episode and i can't believe it took this long for for you like i said i enjoyed the rest of it that all the team focus stuff i thought was fantastic it was good all the kids stuff the dance stuff all their stuff I thought was fantastic. It was good. All the kid stuff, the dance stuff, all their stuff,

I thought was fantastic. But this thing – They took a lot of liberties. Well, this Coach Bombay stuff, they – In classic sitcom fashion, it's a problem that's created in the episode and then resolved at the end of the episode. But they create this problem at the very end of this episode. It's like, what? There's like eight, ten minutes left tops of this episode.

And they create this issue. So essentially, to jump ahead, I guess, essentially, so Coach T now realizes Bombay is banned from coaching in the NCAA again. Just so happens that this Minnesota Youth Hockey Championship is an NCAA sponsored event. Technically, Bombay is not allowed to coach in this because you can't

coach for an NCAA event. Coach T rats him out. Bombay is called to a little hearing with the board or whatever. There are some gems before the hearing and everything, though. So we'll get to all that. Essentially, though, it gets resolved, and Bombay is allowed to coach during the event or whatever.

And so this event or this issue gets created with less than 10 minutes left in the episode and resolved five minutes later. It is such drama for the sake of drama. This, this, they spent five minutes on this whole fucking problem and it's, it has no bearing.

It was not needed. It was completely unnecessary. You could have taken these five minutes and focused on literally anything else. And it would have been better served. Or just coach T and Bombay having a crazy rivalry or fighting back and forth and getting shots back and forth at each other. So there's one of two directions you could go with this

to make it infinitely better, is you keep playing the Bombay-Coach T mind games, where they're feuding, they playing little like tricks on each other whatever they're fighting whatever you want to do with that or you go which with what I thought they were going to do which is where you have like a good like what they did with Stephanie

where you have like Coach T you see the good side of Coach T you see why he is the way he is maybe there's a little sliver of hope that he you know sees he comes. Maybe there's a little sliver of hope that he, he, you know, sees he comes back around. He's he, you know, turns a corner.

He pulls a Grinch where his heart three sizes that day. And so what I was really hoping is that they would tease that a little bit. Right. So you get a coach T being, you get a little good coach T and then, cause like, like we mentioned before at the end of this season they're happy they have to there's got to be something where either bombay takes over the ducks or the don't bothers become the ducks or something like that team

resolution needs to happen between these two conflicting teams and so what i was really hoping they would do is you tease good guy coach to you here, and maybe a little more in episode 10. And then when the inevitable switch happens, you bring coach T along as an assistant coach. He's now, he's under Bombay together and coach Bombay shows coach T the, the meaning of having fun. Exactly. And then, and then, you know, you can eventually, you know, like thinking, you know, like then and then you know you can eventually you know like thinking you know

like three seasons you know a couple movies down the line coach t becomes your new bombay you know you can you can focus you know emilio can run off in the sunset and you get uh dylan playfair as like the new kind of coach guy which i would love i love dylan dylan playfair i think he's a fantastic actor uh and i love coach t the character i think it's a fantastic actor. And I love Coach T, the character. I think it's fantastic so far. Yeah, he could have been the new Bombay and ride off into the sunset, but they just kind of kept him as a bad guy.

Because what I'm afraid is that whenever the switch happens and the ducks are no longer the bad guys, is that Coach T just disappears. Yeah, I don't want that. We need Coach T in season two. so no matter what happens with this because we'll get to it i i wrote it was extremely ballsy for coach t to be standing in the hearing oh yeah it all unfold i loved every second of that but we'll get to the hearing here uh in a minute before that, I just had to say, so before that happens, because it cuts to, because like Coach

T and their empathizing with each other, whatever, and then Stephanie and Alex are bonding, and I love it because Stephanie is like complaining about Clark again, and she's like, don't mansplain how to cut a bagel to me.

I'm not the one missing a fingertip. Clark's missing a fingertip. What did he do? Did he lose it by cutting a bagel? I assume so. That's what I assume. He was cutting a bagel, and he cut off his fingertip. I loved everything about that.

I wrote that down. I was like, what did Clark do? What a dumbass but that was just a really quick scene where they're like oh we're friends we're drinking wine hey let's go raid the big boss's cheese bridge he has a cheese bridge which i'm sure there's like a delicious smoked gouda in there you know maybe some kind of a nice monster i'm sure there's some really delightful cheesers hopefully they have some nice water crackers to. I'm sure there's some really delightful cheesers. Hopefully they have some nice water crackers to accompany them.

Hopefully there's some crackers, maybe a little baguette. That would be delightful. But that might be asking for too much in an office. You're probably just getting some Ritz. I don't know. You're going to the trouble of a cheese fridge. You have to have a company

for it. That's true. That's a good point um but then that was like the quickest scene ever and there wasn't a lot of contacts in there other than like those kind of like quick moments well it showed it was mainly there just to show you that the bonding the bonding because alex says she's she's like all right maybe i should leave and stephanie because step because Stephanie is staying at staying the night at the office because she doesn't want to go because Clark is busy packing all his shit and she doesn't want to go there. And so then

Alex decides to stay the night with Stephanie there. She's like, oh, you know, we're best friends now. I'll stay with you. Just like Nick and Evan solidifying their best friendship with the slumber party, Stephanie and Alex cement their newfound friendship with the slumber party. At the office.

Yeah. After they raid the cheese fridge and they have their slumber party, we get back to the culmination of the dance, and we see Evan finally breaking it to MJ. Hey, I was just trying to be a nice guy. I panicked. I didn't know what to do. He has the fight with Sophie beforehand at the photo booth.

Oh, that's right. They're in the photo booth. They're arguing back and forth. And he was just like, why would Trevor want to go out with you? And like really hurt her feelings and was just not very nice. Yeah. And then he comes out and he he goes right up to mj and he's like hey i'm sorry if i gave you the wrong impression my

my favorite thing he says is he goes i'm sorry if i gave you the wrong impression i just didn't want to i didn't want to kill bad vibes yeah i didn't want to i didn't want to give you bad vibes i didn't want to throw those bad vibes out there so i just you know great excuse great excuse like listen i was trying to dodge the bad vibes i staved them off for a little bit but i'm just gonna have to put these bad vibes on you now that's my bad i should have just thrown it out there right away um but mj says oh perfect i was just using you to get it nick have you seen this pass in the hall you can cut the romantic tension with a butter knife yeah yeah that's pretty amazing

talking about bad vibes though i was trying to remember i was having a hard time but that line fucking cracked me up because it reminded me so much of i don't know if you're have i told you about the the show the real bros of simi valley it's uh it's it's on facebook watch um it's free even if you don't have a facebook account you can just like type it in and you can find all the episodes it's like it's like a spoof on a reality tv show like the real housewives but it's like it's a these group of bros but it's all like um like you know the the sir dude guy yeah he's one of the characters in it um there's there's it's just like a bunch of weird like like instagram and uh like youtube people um vine remember vine by vine but it's legitimately

hilarious it's the it's the dumbest show i've ever seen but i'm convinced it's the greatest piece of american art in in like the last two centuries it's so good but what at the uh at the end of the very first season and all the episodes are like 15 20 minutes long it's real easy okay it's you know there's yeah it's really quick watch and i think the first episode or the first season there's only like four episodes and i think those episodes are like seven minutes long so it's like real quick But at the end of the first season, one of the characters, the subdued guy, proposes to one of the girls and she says yes.

And then at the beginning of the second season, she calls it off and she's like, I can't do this anymore. I don't want to marry you. I can't do this anymore. And he goes, well, if you didn't, why did you say yes if you didn't want to marry me? And she goes, well, you know, everybody was all happy. They were you say yes if you didn't want to marry me and she goes well you know everybody was all happy they're all celebrating stuff i didn't want to kill the

vibes and that's understand that actually probably happens more than most couples are willing to admit because they just wait and get divorced 10 to 15 years later yes and maybe not even that and he the that proposal was very public it was in front of all of their friends after they had just like done something cool and we're celebrating or whatever like out of nowhere in front of all the friends like you it's a lot of pressure you're not going to say no no you would be in that would be so awkward if you said no you know and the people that do say no are live in infamy on the internet and then they get ostracized from those friends you know yeah yeah for being so heartless and it's like well

what do you want they get married for five years and then get divorced it's the same result in the end i'm a huge opponent of i don't know if that's the right phrase, a huge opponent of public proposals. I think it's the meanest and most manipulative way you can propose, is to do it in front of a crowd. Like go... Like at an athletic event? Get your shit together. Do something that means something. Any kind of crowd, especially if it's like friends or family.

Unless you have talked about, like if it's an impromptu proposal and you do that. If it's like, if you and your significant other have talked about it and you're like, yes, we should get married. We both agree. Then that kind of public thing is not that big of an issue. But if it's like an impromptu, like out of fucking nowhere proposal and it's in front

of people, you're an asshole. Go fuck yourself. Yeah. And you're probably manipulating them because you know there's a chance they might say no in private. Yes. Yeah. So we're not big fans of the super public sneak attack proposal. Not fans of that here on the podcast.

You need to be respectful and make sure that both of you are on the same page before jumping into that commitment that's not a commitment that you surprise someone with it's not like it's like oh hey surprise i bought us a new couch or a new car like this is like surprise you're stuck with me forever yeah well well not forever surprise i can take half my shit later you're you're stuck together till the vibes run out you know and then the vibes are done anyways the big the big ending of the dance is that evan walks mj over to nick and he unites them. He's like, you like each other, go. Our star-crossed lovers are finally united. It's beautiful. And we're happy for Nick.

It's not the relationship that I thought I wanted, but it's the relationship I needed. And we should have known, we should have seen that writing on the wall just because you don't get to be the number two podcast in Southeast Minnesota

without a little bit of romantic sparks flying. You as a big fan of Hallmark movies, Brandon, you have seen this plot line time and time again. They love the old two people working at the radio station together. Oh, but they're, they're not in love, but they are in love, but then they end up falling for each other during the Christmas season. Yep. Classic Christmas in July. It's the best time of the year. I don't agree. I'm not a big Hallmark movie fan, but I won't sit here and I know a lot of people love them. And so I'm not going to take that away from people. I'm going to let others enjoy those. It's just not for me.

That's fair. I love Christmas movies, especially like the old Claymation movies. A Year Without a Santa Claus is definitely one of my favorites. Obviously, A Christmas Story. Kelly enjoys Christmas movies with me, but we don't get to start until December 1st. But from December 1st until December 25th, it's all Christmas TV and movies nonstop. See, I feel you on that. I don't personally care for Christmas itself as a holiday but I love Christmas movies

I love Christmas TV shows and you best believe as soon as I finish that last little bite of mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving dinner the plate's cleaned off I'm flipping on Hallmark channel and we're watching fucking Christmas movies until the end of the year.

Wow. That's, I mean, Hey, props to you. That's there's one. There's a great scene in Bob's burgers where they just finished Halloween. I think.

I'm going to put the Christmas tree up, and Linda's putting the Christmas tree up. I love, I always love that. I'm not that, I'm not that gung-ho about it. I wait till after Thanksgiving, but as soon as Thanksgiving's over, it's fucking Christmas time. It's good time. We always decorated my parents' house after Thanksgiving.

Yeah. That was, that was post-Thanksgiving, we would start the decorations going. But anyways, that was a great Hallmark movie, Rand. We would start the decorations going. But anyways, that was a great Hallmark movie, Rand. I wanted to get you going on that. I know you love some Christmas in July. Oh, yeah. Best time of the year.

We got the epic conclusion to the dance of Nick and MJ getting together. So now it flashes to the next morning there at breakfast. We learn that Maya and Xander have officially broken up. She's done with them, moved on. He just didn't get her.

Yep. Sophie walks in. Evan slides over. Hey, Sophie, come sit by me. She gives him a cold shoulder. Go fuck yourself, Evan. Yeah, just a real kind of like whips her hair around too when she kind of gives him a cold shoulder. Go fuck yourself, Evan. Yeah, just a real, kind of like whips her hair around too when she kind of gives him that shoulder.

Once again, Sophie has that kind of like, fuck you, get away from me, walk away. Yeah. Like she crushes that. It's deservedly so. Evan, the last interaction she had with Evan, Evan was like, you're completely unlovable. Nobody would like you. So obviously, go fuck yourself, Evan.

Yeah, trying to say that Trevor was only trying to get team secrets. He didn't actually like her. Which is bullshit because we've, at least I have noticed, the sexual tension between Sophie and Trevor since episode three. You know, when he, I think it's three. It's either three or two. Whenever they do the pizza math date, whatever that is. Trevor's jealous. He doesn't like seeing Evan there

with Sophie. He was like, hey. Drops the book, starts like insulting Evan, you know. Gently sets the book down. Yeah. The modern kid bullying. Yeah, you can tell right from that get-go uh from that scene that you know trevor's trevor's got a case of the sophies

i also have to did you see the product placement when during this interaction the scene is littered with honey nut cheerio boxes every kid is eating honey nut cheerio not only are they they not only are they eating honey nut cheerios with the bowl that each kid has the the box next to them perfectly placed in front of the camera so that each screenshot for each person has a minute mini box in front of their face great job i buy honey nut cheerios anyways we've talked about this on the podcast helps lower the cholesterol they just updated from all circles to now they have circles and hearts and i think that's how it helps lower your cholesterol yeah i did uh i did just buy a box of honey nut cheerios

so you know i i understand you i i it been – I call bullshit on the cholesterol stuff, and I've read a few articles to where it's all just, you know, it's just marketing speak. But they're still good. They taste good. Yeah. One of the better cereals. It's not like Cinnamon Toast Crunch or maybe some Crunch Berries

or like the Reese's Puffs, but it's still a wonderful cereal. It's great, and it's a good middle because like the ones you mentioned are fantastic, but it's like so much sugar with those. Yeah. To where it's like Honey Nut Cheerios is a good middle ground between that and like, you know, Raisin Bran. Yep. I was going to say Raisin Bran

too. Yeah. We're in sync on our series. I'll get down with some Raisin Bran or some special K with the strawberries, the free-stride strawberries. Those are okay. But yeah, that's a good assessment of Honey Nut Chew. Some Grape Nuts?

I used to crush Grape Nuts when I was a kid. Some Kix? Like the plain Kix? Yeah, Kix are good too. Anyways, the product placement, it just got me because they really pumped it in front of us with the Honey Nut Cheerios. Kids love eating Honey Nut Cheerios. Go buy some, kids. And then we have Nick just on Cloud9.

And I love that, you know, Evan's like, Sophie hates me. And Nick's like, who gives a shit? Whatever it took to get me and nick's like who gives a shit whatever it took to get me and mj together i'm in love nobody cares about you evan and and he's and he also lets evan know hey i always thought i was your sidekick not anymore i'm the guy that gets the girl well he thought yeah he goes he goes huh i'm the one who ends up with the girl. Who would have thought? Roll credits or something like that. Yeah, roll credits. It's over.

And so as that's all going down and Nick's on cloud nine, I actually put this in my notes. Bombay walks in dressed in the Brandon special. Yeah, yeah. He's got his dress clothes on. The flannel, brandon special he walks in somewhere going somewhere fancy yeah he's got it he's got to be looking extra dapper and nick is smiling at him like a lunatic and i love that he calls i was like yeah you're you're

making me uncomfortable quickly let's get out of here um but then they find out. The guy walks in. Coach Bombay, we have a serious deal. Okay, we're going to have the hearing. But then Evan gives a quick call-up to Alex, and he's like, Mom, you got to get here. We got a lawyer up. We got a lawyer up. So that was another thing I didn't get.

Bombay is a fucking lawyer too. Like, I mean, I didn't understand what Alex is bringing to the table that Bombay couldn't have done himself, you know? Alex is bringing the effort and the drive that shaped Bombay long ago. Yeah, she's doing the effort and the research, which, I mean. Bombay's not doing the heavy lifting there. He's going to the bar and probably like, well,

I'm not going to coach anyways. May as well break this and take a shot. He does give a fantastically emotional speech, though. I actually put that note. Gives a rousing speech. Yeah. One of his better speeches, yeah. Bombay hits those out of the park, and they always do a nice

job bringing the music in towards the end and they're like man you're really here for those kids he's like yeah I am here for those kids and I love they're like doesn't matter you broke the rules tough shit yeah yeah I love that and Kuma's like you missed the message

you missed the message and then Alex and Stephanie come barging through and Alex has her fucking – the thing that gets Bombay out of it, which I didn't understand. This was so convoluted and fucking stupid too. So Bombay is banned from coaching NCAA events. Yes.

And this is an NCAA-sponsored tournament. And what makes it an NCAA-sponsored tournament is because all of the kids are prospective student athletes for the NCAA. Yes. Because they were scouted during the season. Yes. So that's the basis that they lay down for you. And then Alex comes in with the loophole, which is. That doesn't apply to the don't bothers because nobody scouted us.

Yes. They didn't even bother. Does it? I just. So the loophole to that loophole is Sophie was probably scouted. Yeah. Before she was on the Don't Bother. Or the scouts who are coming to watch the other teams, they're coming to the games where they play the Don't Bothers. How the fuck do you know they're not scouting the Don't Bothers as well?

Exactly. That was my thought. It's like, hey, they didn't come to the Don't Bothers, but they may have they may have shown up for some maybe they just made sure not to show up for those games that's the only thing i could think of that's i mean that's a i guess maybe and but i didn't but you bring up a good point about sophie i didn't even think about that sophie for sure would have been that's her whole that's the whole point of her fucking life is to be scouted those first three games she's getting scouted on the ducks and so their loophole could get crushed by that. Yeah.

Oh yeah. So it was, I hated it. It was a dumb problem. It was a dumb fucking problem to bring into Bombay's backstory in the first place. Then they doubled down and made it an issue in this episode. And then they tripled down and gave us the stupidest loophole in the fucking

world to fix it. It's just like, just scrap this and focus on literally anything else, and your episode would have been way better. Yeah, so that was tough. But you know what I wrote down? Because they just had Alex start to spurt some stuff that sounded legalese. I just put bird law, Charlie Day.

Bird law. Alex is just in there throwing some Bird Law at them, and they didn't even know what hit them. And so we talked about it. The conclusion is Bombay gets to coach. Yay, okay, cool. And then the hearing's done. They celebrate, and the hearing's done.

I love that you wrote Bird Law. My notes just say, this is so dumb. That was my version of this is so dumb, Bird Law. Yeah, Bird Law. I know a bit or two about bird law. Well, so then – so yeah. So this is the other thing that threw me for a loop. Okay, so the loophole works.

They're like, okay, you can coach. Bombay can coach because it's an NCAA-sponsored event, but the Don't Bothers are not technically sponsored by the – I don't know, fucking bullshit. But so Bombay can coach. But then – so then they go – like all the kids come around. Everybody's like, oh, thank you, Alex. You're so good.

Thank you so much. You saved the day. They like instantly forgive Alex for what they fired her for. They're like whatever. Unfired. You're – well, yeah. So she goes – she says, don't worry, guys. I'm just here to help bombay out i'm not don't like i'm mom alex not coach alex i'm not your coach and then all the kids are like no no

no no we want you to coach come back and coach and it's like well if that was the case just why did we go through this whole thing just you coach him and let fucking bombay go sit on the stands like i thought the same thing like just let her come in and coach yeah instead of make it but they wanted to be together it's i kids are so fickle i'm not surprised like hey you saved the day you know what you can be on the bench with us we forgive you now because she saved the day kids are fickle yeah they're not that fickle though yes 12 year olds i was i wasn't that fickle i was uh i 12 year olds. I was, I wasn't that fickle. I was, uh,

I fucking, I held grudges for decades when I was that young. That's because you have hate in your heart, Brandon. That's fair. That's fair. I didn't have a, you know,

I didn't have an MJ to my Nick to, you know, warm my, my, my cold soul. There was nothing melted on Brandon. You just became the, Mr. Freaks, the ice man.

Exactly. What's a, what's Nick Miller say? Uh, when he's like, I love getting old. I feel like I'm finally growing into my personality. Yes. That's that is you, Brandon. Even as a, even as a 12 year old, I was just like, when, uh, come on, let's speed this up. When am I going to be, when do I get to be 50? When do I get to scream at people and not get in trouble for it? Exactly. That's the only thing I'm missing is I don't have my own lawn.

That's what I need to get so I can start yelling at kids. My ultimate life goal is to be the crazy old man that lives at the top of the cul-de-sac or whatever. Yeah. Where they're like, oh, that's old man Axelson's house. Don't mess with him. Has anybody ever talked to him? Oh, no, no. Nobody's seen him in years. Or something like that.

And has weird lawn ornaments. Oh, yeah. That just don't make any sense. Crazy satanic lawnmowns. Yeah, that's my life goal. That's what I aspire to be.

My house is entirely painted black for some reason. Was it like that when he bought it? No, it was like white and then he just painted it black. He's a disturbed man. So anyway, that's the conclusion. And then we just have one last

quick conclusion and then this episode have one last quick conclusion then this episode is over it's evan and sophie they get together they they realize evan lets her know i three fire emoji like you yep and sophie is is moved and you know that's just that's nice that's uh that's a three fire emoji like. That's real. That's love. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. And then we get the old Ducks music. Remember all the old Ducks music? And it kind of fades out, and they're driving to the ice rink. Do they pull up? I can't remember. I think they pull up to the ice rink. And they get out, and then that's when it like zooms out and you see the Minnesota igloo sign.

Yeah. And you see, you know. And it's like, it's time. We're here. States, baby. Well, we're here. A quick message from our friends at Broken Forest Collective. Built on a passion for small batch and handcrafted products,

Broken Forest provides high quality casual wear and lifestyle goods that are American-made and built to outlast the fast-fashion trends. They also plant a tree in Boulder, Colorado for every product sold. Visit BrokenForestCo.com and use the code CAKEETERS15 for 15% off your order. So, yeah, that was episode 9. Like I said, I thought it was one of the better episodes, other than the Bombay coaching subplot that took five minutes. Again, it wasn't focused on enough and didn't make any sense.

It would have been an easy cut and paste, get that out of here, bring literally anything else in. Just have them be like, have them do a back and forth where they're just needling at each other and they're poking at each other and they're creating this like really tense rivalry that erupts with something a little bit more substantial. Yeah. Or, or even like throw it the opposite way. And you get like a little like the soft hearted, soft hearted. You get,

you know, you see that like Bombay, you know, he gives, he starts giving him-hearted soft-hearted you get you know you see that like bombay you know he gives he starts giving him coach t some like mentor advice you know like says one way or the other instead of whatever the fuck they did it still doesn't make any sense to me i don't i don't get it it's but here we are brandon we're at states it's the final countdown who would have ever thought that three episodes ago two members of the team couldn't even skate or handle a stick and now i think they're at states bob day says that in the hearing too he's like he's like then these guys came into my life you know they couldn't even skate i think he says one of them couldn't even hold a hockey stick or something like that he's like now now we're in states you know that's

how that's how good of a coach i am that's why you should let me keep coaching the real underdog story i mean we see these cinderella runs in the ncaa tournament but they're still collegiate athletes they're not learning how to play basketball before they upset these higher ranked teams this is just a i don just a, I don't know. I just don't know how believable it is for the don't bothers to suddenly go from having Coop who can't move to having Coop, who is the second coming of Patrick walk. Yeah. Coop point out. He, uh,

Coop point out. We do have to, I mean, you know, it's, he got him here after all the criticism that we gave Kube. He's got him there. I mean, Sophie got them here. Let's be honest. Sophie got them here, but Kube has gotten better since they taught him how to actually skate and play goalie.

Yeah. Kube played an integral role. He finally – he learned – he's a much better goalie I just wish they would have solved that issue earlier and showed you more of him like actually learning

other than him like running off the ice you know and getting scored on 5 hole 4 times a game yeah they don't show you anything else uh of him actually learning so i wish they would have done a little bit more of that but yeah kube sophie evan started playing like an actual hockey player once he realized his dad doesn't care about him yeah um nick yeah a little bit well logan logan's signature shot Things are looking up We have a chance at states

We can't sleep on Maya and Lauren Who have actually done a huge job Of the double helix They're the rocks On the blue line They're your two defensemen They're holding it down

The key to a good hockey team Is solid blue line play, Heath. I didn't know that, but I do know that I'm very proud of Maya and Lauren for the jump that they've taken since the beginning of the show. They've probably had the most believable

improvement arc out of all the players. You saw them put in the time and learn how to do these things. Yeah, yeah. Them... And Logan, players you saw them put in the time and learn how to do these things yeah them and logan when they taught finally taught logan how to skate that was good that was necessary um his signature shot is still real real weird but whatever so for episode 10 is going to be and this is the last episode of the season so it's going to be're gonna get all the states yeah all in one episode so i imagine that's happening i imagine it'll be like last episode where it's like the first half of it's just like boom boom boom montage of games just yeah that's how all of these go

game montage exactly is how it's gonna kick it off. We're in the States. We're in the tournament. It's going to end Ducks against Don't Bothers. That's an easy... This episode 10, there's not a lot to preview, honestly, because we know

what's going to happen. The Ducks and the Don't Bothers, they're going to meet the championship. It's good guys versus bad guys. The underdog versus the, the bastion of success and they're going to meet head on who's going to win the more business like approach or the more fun approach. Exactly. And so like the, the little synopsis for next episode, it says, it all comes down to this Minnesota state championships.

The don't bothers are playing the best hockey of their lives. Not a high bar to clear. But the Mighty Ducks aren't skipping a beat either. Both teams move on opposite sides of the bracket. How convenient. They seem to be on a collision course with each other. Ooh, but when a key player

goes down with injury, I am assuming it's going to be Sophie's knee, right? That's the only injury that has been getting beat to death. Well, not actually that we got beat to death. It's been subtle mentions of it. It hasn't been subtle. They beat it to death in like the first three episodes and then they haven't talked about it since.

Yeah, that's right. Because she kept grabbing the knee and then even on the some of like the pond skate i think that there was just a little bit of soreness right so like it's just it's it's been there so that's geez that description pretty much well it says what i don't even know what to say like that description so well they're each on other side of the bracket. They're going to meet each other. It sounds like Sophie's going to get hurt. Goes down with an entry, and the Don't Bothers are forced to choose what matters more, winning on the ice or off of it.

Wow. Bum, bum, bum. They have to decide. Do they learn the lesson, or do they win? That's a lot of pressure to put on Sophie, I feel. Yeah, that's a lot of pressure for any kid. This poor girl is holding this team put on Sophie, I feel. Yeah, that's a lot of pressure for any kid. This poor girl is holding this team up on her

tiny little shoulders. Yeah, someone get her a bag. I mean, she has parent coffees. She has homework that requires straight A's constantly. Yeah, she's trying to get into Harvard. She's trying to get, she is the backbone of the team.

And you see they finally get some success because all of the clowns around her can finally give her the puck so that she can snipe out there. We'll snipe Selly. That's Sophie all day. Everyone else has just finally gotten good enough to give her the puck. Yeah. She needs one more, you know.

Breakout game? Like a big game? No. She needs one more, like, good hockey player. You know? Because I don't think Evan's good at, you know. Other than the moment. Not the moment.

The game. When his dad showed up. Annoying. He hasn't shown me anything. So she needs like a, you know, I don't know. I don't know where I'm going with this, but I would like for somebody else to be not terrible at hockey. Yeah.

She needs a big two or a big three, like with Evan kind of maybe being the big three, but they need someone else. Everyone else is just role players. Evan's a solid Chris Bosh. Sophie's LeBron. We need a Dwayne Wade. We need a Dwayne Wade.

There's no Dwayne Wade anywhere. And I feel like Maya and Lauren are like Udonis Haslam and Birdman. Chris Anderson. I love Birdman. Yeah. Who do you think is Ray Allen? It's got to be Coob, right? I think Coob's a solid Ray.

Yeah, that makes it. Sam. No, Sam's too much of a wild card. I guess Sam would probably be Birdman. Yeah, Sam is definitely Birdman. He's just missing the mohawk and the tattoos. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, and then Udonis Haslam is Nick.

I think that's got to be Nick. I think so. Yeah, because he's the heart and soul of the team. Exactly. Well, anyways, episode nine was fun. It was solid. A little bit of an interesting Coach t bombay but we loved what we got with the the middle school drama as much nick the stick as we got it just i think that's what

provided so much sunshine in this episode as we got all the nick we could handle yes yeah i think uh again i love that it was more focused on the kids and the team. Again, you just, you remove that weird little like Bombay subplot and this is by far the best episode. It's, you know. It was a fun episode. Like everything that happened was kind – you take the five to ten minutes, whatever they focus on Bombay's fucking little thing, take that out and put the first round game at the end of this. And then it's best episode for sure.

Yeah. You actually start the state. You get the kickoff. Yeah. And then maybe in the first gonna maybe in the first you have you play the first game at the end of the first game maybe you like so if we tweaks the knee a little bit so then now she starts limping um and then that's your cliffhanger you know yeah see let us write the fucking show disney come on sitting here making it look so easy they can can take some notes. I feel like this is going to,

me talking about how much better I could write this show is going to severely hamper our ability to ever interview any of the writers. Oh, the writers of the show are going to want nothing to do with you. I will say to myself, I have been slightly critical, but I've been nice, nice critical.

Yeah, I mean, I still love it. I still, you know. We've've been nice, nice critical. Yeah. I mean, I still love it. I still, you know. We've invested a lot of time in this show. It's great. We love the actors, but there's some plot lines that could have used a little bit more love, a little more TLC. Yeah. Or like just bring us into workshop the script, you know.

We'll throw us a little writing credit. We'll workshop the script you know we'll uh throw us a little a little writing credit we'll workshop the script we'll tighten it up it'll be by far the best series disney has ever put out guaranteed absolutely Thanks for listening, everyone. Please remember to follow and like us on Instagram at TheC Eaters Pod, on Twitter at The Cake Eaters. Also reach out to us via email, thecakeeaterspod at gmail.com or visit our website, thecakeeaterspod.com.