The Flop House - Mercy

Episode Date: April 11, 2026

AI is bad, except maybe it's not, maybe AI will help you solve the murder of your wife before it executes you for the murder of its wife... wtf is Mercy saying, anyway? Maybe it's saying if you put your hero in a chair for 100 minutes your movie will feel inert. Especially if Chris Pratt is that hero? Hard to say, but we do our best to untangle one of the silliest flops of the year. Stay updated on all things Flop House, plus a little extra, with our NEWSLETTER, “Flop Secrets! Wikipedia page for Mercy Recommended in this episode: Dan: Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice (2026) Stu: Saw X (2023) Elliott: Lemonade Joe (1964)

On this episode, we discuss mercy. A movie that has all the excitement of a Zoom call. Hey, everyone, welcome to the flop house. I'm Dan McCoy. I'm Dan's friend, Stuart Wellington. I'm Stuart's friend Elliot Kalan, and by the transitive property, I'm also Dan's. And together, we combine to form the Flop House podcast. And also the Friend House. And this is a podcast all about being friends.

Oh, Captain Planet, too. That's right. I'm heart. Dan is... A thousand percent, you're not heart. You're like brains or whatever. And I'm heart. Your heart.

And Dan is the guts. Yeah, yeah. Dan's guts. Dance dies a lot. Yeah, Dan's guts. He's got a giant sword, and he is cursed with a mark on his neck, and he fights the demons. Yep, he's got to kill a thousand evil men before he can finally rest. I'm learning so much about myself.

And Captain Planet. Is this what an ingram is? It's an in-body scan that you can get at your local gym. Dan, I just did this stress test, and it turns out you're very stressed, and the only cure for that is to know you have aliens in your head. Wait, you did a stress test and they told you about Dan? That's crazy. Well, they asked me what was stressing me out.

LAX is a crazy airport, is all I'm saying. That is for sure. What do you expect with an airport named after a laxative? Yep. This is a podcast. Movies led me to believe that LAX is filled with Harry Krishna. You are watching old movies. Maybe it was at one point.

It no longer is, yeah. This is a podcast where we watch a movie that was a critical or a commercial flop. And then we discuss it. And in this case, we watched a movie called Mercy, starring one Chris Pratt. Unlike all the other movies, this one stars Chris Pratt. And what to say? Truly, the Where's Waldo of American film. He's always in there.

Guys, I feel like we're going to be mean about this one, right? Well, we'll see. Considering that we hated it, yes. We'll see. You know what? Maybe Dan feels differently. Maybe Dan likes its pro-AI message. I will say right up front that the thing that bothered me the most about it is I have moral issues with a lot of the messages.

Yeah, it is a grossive message. It's a gross movie. But luckily, it looks like shit. And the acting is bad. Even actors I like are bad in it. Yes, that's true. And actors I don't like, also bad in it. I want to say up front, this film is in the vein of something like unfriended or the Ice Cube War of the World in that it mostly...

What a beautifully stupid piece of a book. Can we go back and change the title on the box art to say Ice Cubes were the ones? It is like those films in that. That mostly takes place through screens. So if you're thrilled to watching people sit and watch videos, this is a film for you. And all those movies, right, are the product of the same director or director slash producer, aren't they? Yeah, I don't know. The guy who made Night Watch.

The guy made Night Watch. I always forget his name. But I think, I believe he, I'm doing the research now to double check, but I believe he also made those other movies. Oh, the guy who directed this, was he a producer in those other movies? I believe so. Oh, okay. It's Timor something. Well, I'm not going to confidently pronounce a Russian surname.

Yeah, Timor Beck Mabatav. Wow, you fucking did it flawless. No, but I tried it. Here's the thing. As the Silver Surfer once said, there is no shame and failure. The only shame is not making the attempt. Wow. So Dan feels shame.

We didn't, we didn't set this. He did unfriended and wore the worlds. He's worked on both of them. And he also made Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter. Wow. So some of, I mean, yeah, okay. So of those, I think unfriended and war of the worlds are the better. Yeah, yeah. He only, I think he only produced unfriended.

Did he have anything to do with searching? That's another big, you know, all happens on this. Yes, he produced that too. He produced searching, unfriended, and war the world. Searching is probably the strongest of those, and I wasn't super wild about it, but it's okay. And he's probably best known as the director of wanted. Oh, with the antique wailing bullets or whatever, scream shot bullets. Yeah.

We didn't even mention Elliot's here in my home. In person. He's usually here on the podcast, but he is... Which explains some of the loosey-goosiness of this. Yep. Here physically. Just to peek behind the curtain, we are also recording these episodes out of order. So the next episode that we come out with will be the first one we did tonight.

So we're going to be a little goofier this time. Certainly the less drunk episode. Yeah, this is the drunker, goofier, loopier one. You might call this a goofy podcast, but not a goofy movie. Sorry, folks. Coming soon. Haven't covered a goofy movie, but maybe someday. Keep those letters rolling in.

We've seen your petitions. I don't want to spoil anything. I kind of have a plan, guys. Oh, interesting. Like the Sylons, he has a plan. It's good that we have this loose energy for this movie that is uptight and that it takes place in a room. But anyway, so let's talk about Mercy.

This is, we start out. Our protagonist, Chris Raven, who is played. Guys, already, I love this shit. The idea that Chris Pratt is. playing like an evil cop who, like a bad boy named Chris Raven feels like Shadow the Hedgehog shit. Does anyone have the last name Raven? I know a guy named Ed Raven and he's like seven feet tall. I know someone.

Story checks out. Who I would say she is so Raven. But Raven is her first name, Dan. That's true. That's true. Well, Chris Raven, this gentleman is played by Chris Pratt. as you said, he comes out of a drunk... I think you said that, Dan.

Who is? I'm going to say, guys, I'm going to go out of limb and say, I think he's miscast. I think it is interesting how... So this movie, right off the bat, is asking us to believe something that he is a character who is capable of having committed murder

and yet is sympathetic enough that we're hoping he didn't and we want to see him prove that he actually didn't, to find out he didn't and prove his case. And I feel like Chris Pratt, he's been charismatic in movies, but he plays this character

right off the bat as such an asshole and so, and just so unsympathed right off the back. I think it's a screenplay problem, honestly. I mean, like... Yeah, it's part of it. I mean, he's also, he's like a dick right off the bat. There's a miscalculation in this movie, and I agree with you, that like this guy, like,

what we see of him early on in the movie is not appealing. Like, I... And maybe that's, but maybe they're trying something where it's like, oh, he's an unsympathetic protagonist, so maybe we think he did it. And then it turns out he didn't do it or something like that. I mean, when he finds out what actually happened, the movie gets bonkers. It's pretty bonkers. It really goes off the rails.

It's Gary Busey-Hider in the House territory. And the thing is, I feel like Chris Pratt, like, not to overreach here, guys, but I feel like he... Or Jack Reacher. His, like, the level of sympathy he can bring out of an audience has gone down over time. I mean, certainly from me who has really enjoyed him in, like, the Guardians of the Galaxy movies. and but like I yeah whatever fondness I have has I wonder if it's a matter of him I don't know I don't know what's going on in his in his life but also him getting older it gets harder for a guy who is in his Nike Stewart it gets harder for a guy I got sprayed with some of whatever Stewart's drinking I think it gets harder for a guy who is getting older to still play kind of charismatic in a kind of like goofy incompetent way don't tell me about it do you But also like, I met... I'm not getting cast in the roles.

I'm just saying it gets harder and harder to maintain the Stewart Party. And this is not really making my case. But what if Marty Supreme, what if that main character had been played by a 45-year-old man? Yeah. Or a 50-year-old man. I mean, do you not think Timothy Chalameh is going to look the same at 45? But he's going to be like Leonardo DiCaprio where he doesn't look that much older, but there's a sense of age about him.

I mean, certainly... A wizened little mouse character. Even as a private... Yeah, like on Redwall or something like that. He would be great in Red Wall. He would be great in Red Wall. But not doing a voice. Like playing the character with mouse ears and a little mouse face.

There would be animated characters alongside him. Yes, but not him. No. It would be kind of like cats in that way. Yeah. Uh-huh. Even as a private citizen, as not a actor or someone playing a character other than the Dan character on this podcast. Yeah, yeah.

The Dan persona. I certainly feel like with every year I age, I'm like, well, I can get away with. less. Like, no one, no one is going to be like, that's cute out of middle age, man. Well, this is, I recently had to talk to my older son because he started to be like, if we're frustrated with his table manners, he'll be like, it's cool, bra. And I was like, you are old enough now that it is not funny when you are rude. It's just rude.

Like once you reach it, when my seven-year-old is rude, I'm like, this little pisser. But when my 12-year-old is rude, I'm like, gentlemen, leave the table. Come back when you feel like you can be nice. So maybe it's just when you get older. He has to do you different. He has to be funnier. I mean, that's part of it, true. It has to be cool but rude.

Cool but rude. And so I think this movie is asking us to make two big buys. One, that we care if this guy is found in history guilty. Two, that the movie will show us repeatedly throughout that AI doesn't work right, is prone to corruption and also fails at even its most basic tasks. And then at the end, to have us be like, but you know what, AI is just going to learn its lesson to get better and best. I don't like you, but I respect you. And the thing we learn is that like this AI technology hasn't even been around that long within the movie. This is only the 19th case.

It's so. Like, I would rather have fucking precogs judging me, dude. This is very much budget minor report. But it's a very, it's, I thought it was that one of the funniest things that comes right off the bat. They're like, thanks to the mercy courts, crime has fallen 60% in L.A. This is the 19th case. And I'm like, look, how little crime was there that 18 cases all takes for six years of the crime? Let me get to that.

Because I have something, I have a bone to pick with that particular part. Okay, but start from the beginning. Start in the beginning. Yeah, we haven't even gotten into this. He's in a chair. Chris Brad. We were like right at the beginning. Chris Raven comes out of a drunken blackout.

He discovers he's strapped to a chair. There's a video that explains the premise of the movie and the history of what got us to this point, even though presumably anyone in the movie already knows this stuff already. And also, it is so incredibly unconstitutional. for you to black out and wake up at your trial? What are you doing? You have not notified him of the charges. You have not allowed him to get a lawyer

because they've got these new mercy courts. The whole thing is to, it's like one of those things where it, as Stewart said a long time ago, one of those things where you see a science fiction movie makes up a fake thing and then goes, and that's why we don't do that. You idiots, don't do this thing we just made up. Yeah.

This video. But also, it's a movie that's set up to show us how bad that would be. And at the end, it's like, but I guess we got to keep doing it. it's like you've at the end of Soylent Green. It was like Soilent Green is people. Oh, that's horrible. Well, hand me that leg.

I'm going to keep chowing down. Let's do it more farm to table instead. You know, yeah, just bring the body out. Let me point to the parts I want to eat. Oh, that looks juicy. So Chris Raven, he wakes up from a blackout. He gets this instruction. Tell me about the mercy court.

Tell me what they do. He gets an instruction video. Which starts with the statistic, millions of people have been affected by crime. Like, fucking, oh, really? amazing shit. We have no numbers. We're in LA

2029 where apparently a surge in crime has led to this Mercy Capital Court where artificial intelligence judges try defendants for violent offenses and there's no lawyers or jury. Instead, this computer judge gives defendants access to all available evidence that they pulled from security cameras,

social media phones. Because there's also a law that's passed that every personal device has to be on the LA cloud. So the mercy courts have access to all personal online information and you get an hour and a half to prove your innocence.

To prove your innocence. But it's a threshold of reasons out. And you're allowed to do fucking lifeline phone calls. Yes, you can't call whoever you want, exactly. I, man, I can't wait to talk about that.

And if you don't, if you don't, prove your innocence, you're executed right there in the chair by Sonic Blas. It's like Shadow the Hedgehog. The way you prove your innocence is you get the guilty meter down to below what, like 86% or something like that? 92%.

That if there's 8% or whatever, 8% like reasonable doubt, then you're free to go. So the whole time the mercy judge is like, that's 1% more doubt. It's like, where are you getting these? How are you quantifying this, you know? Well, and I want to talk about what you talked about you brought before. Thank you. We are told that this has cut crime in the city by 68%. And I'm like, how?

Like, quicker trials. Quicker trials don't lead to less. crime. Capital punishment has been shown in several studies to not be a deterrent. And it's not like this is a new thing to be executed in the mercy chair versus like any other form of execution. No, Nick Cave's been saying about the mercy seat for a long time. I have no idea what we're supposed to believe is like the deterrent factor in this thing. It's just nonsense. I mean, the only explanation is that the crime levels in L.A. were so low that by killing 18 people, you can remove two-thirds of the crime. They were the real kingpins.

They were ones doing it all. So we learned that like, L.A. has been divided into red zones that are like lawless wastelands. Yeah. People that are like addicted to nuke or slow-mo or whatever sci-fi drug have. Yeah, whatever sci-fi drug is. I mean, in reality, L.A. is separated into red zones based on what's on fire currently and what's not. So I can say that. I live in L.A.

Yeah. So we meet our AI judge played by Rebecca Ferguson. How do you feel about now? Now, we're here the, here are the, here the fly. of us. We're very pro Rebecca Ferguson. Sure. But I don't know if it's just the script or if there was something off with her choice. My guess is that, well, I think I was thrown by the fact that we have a...

I was hoping for like a Matt Fruer Max Headroom type of thing. But like that we have an L.A. AI judge who has an English accent right off the bat, throws me. That she doesn't sound like she's from the place that she's supposed to be judging. You're just... Yeah, you're like, hey, bro, time for me to judge you. And chill out, man. You got 90 minnows to make you this one out. But the, yeah, if it was like the dude Labowski is the one who's, he said, hey, chill, relax, relax.

There's a lot of ends, lot out. But also that she is so, most of her job is staring at the camera, reminding you what the mercy court does and occasionally looking confused. There's a part where he goes, I'm just thinking out loud. And she's like, thinking is done in the brain. It is not verbal. And I'm like, what did they teach this computer? I don't understand. What does it know and not know about humanity?

Yeah, I mean, I think that she has been handed an impossible task. You are guilty. You said he was a liar, liar, pants on fire. But his pants were not on fire. That's perjury. AI judge, mercy, come on. You know what it is. You're not going to get me to say anything against Rebecca Ferguson.

I think she's doing what she can. I think I will say that I think she is poorly, she's working with poor material. Yeah. Yeah. But Judge Maddox, the AI judge. That the AI judge has a name. Judge Maddox. Well, you know, it's for the eventual TV show.

Oh, when she's like, don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining. Judge Maddox court. I will, it will short-circuit me. If it's AI, they should have gone all the way. This would be a better movie if they had gone full Robocob and Judge Maddox was an animated angry ox. That was just like steam came out of its nose when it was proved wrong or things like that. That would be so much more fun. And he also, like, he wakes up in a room that's like very high tech.

And I feel like this feels almost wrong to me because I feel like every time I've seen images of actual inside of government buildings like this, it's like very institutional. Yeah, I was gonna get to this later. I was gonna get to this later, but like there's parts later on in the movie when action is happening

and it turns like into like full holodeck like there's an explosion and like flames surround him in the chair. And I'm like, who's paying for, like the taxpayer's paying for the... They're like, no, we want the accused to have the full fucking VR experience. Yeah, it's got to be like 40X, man.

It's a mercy for a DX experience. I'm trying to prove I'm innocent, but you keep spraying water in my face. The chair keeps shaking. That water clean? Don't worry, you're going to get executed. You can be executed in a moment. Yeah, well, she lets Raven know that he's on trial for the murder of his wife, Nicole. Nicole Raven.

And he's like, you made him. She's bumming. He's bumming about this. He didn't like this. He is bumming about the murder of his wife that he's discovering in the chair as he's a accused of her brother, yes. He is bummed about it. He is not taking it easy.

As the LA AI judge should be telling him. You're making fun of me. But later on, when he's doing his fucking, when he's doing his life line phone calls to his friends, like his closest friend, his partner, she acts like it's a huge imposition. She's like, oh, I'm doing all this other stuff. I'm like, bitch, this guy's going to die. Like, he's your best friend. But, yeah, Raven is like, you know, you made a mistake.

He's a big support of the Mercy program. He and his partner, Jacqueline, or Jack, arrested David Webb. Played by Callie Reese, I think. What would I know her from? True Detective Night Country. Okay. She was great. She was great.

I've been meaning to watch that. He or she just kind of plays kind of like tough, angry. But in that true detective, she's really good. That true detective, I recommend it for her performance and for Jody Foster's performance. Jody Foster is so funny in that show. They're really great. I also think it's very funny that you cast the two most lesbian actors to play hetero characters. I mean, that's part of the fun of it.

I think the idea that Jody Fosker is just fucking away through every guy in this time. That the unspoken law in that town is that every guy has had sex with Jody Cosson at some point. And she's just wrecking homes left and right. But yeah. But it's like doesn't come off as a joke in the show that it's her doing it. It's a joke that this one cop just falls into bed with every guy there, you know? But Chris and Jack arrested David Webb, the first person who was executed through the mercy court. Will that be important?

Probably not. Well, they certainly mention it a lot. Yeah. So anyway, the evidence against Chris seems pretty decisive. Her blood was on his clothing, doorbell camera footage, puts him at the home at the time of the murder. And even if he's innocent, as we mentioned, he seems like an asshole. He showed up drunk and yelling at her. And he came into the house, even though she locked the door and told him not to.

Yeah, I mean, he's like a domestic abuser. It's one of those conversations, too, where it is expressly designed to sound like it is worse than what they're actually talking about. When we find out what he's mad about and why she's like, stay out of my house. It's actually not that. It's not as bad as it seems when you first watch it, you know. Yeah, but even so he has been. I mean, he's still being belligerent. Yeah, he's like relapsed into his alcoholism.

He's been violent. Yeah. But at this point, Chris's guilt probability is at 9. 97.5%. Ooh, pretty high. He's got to lower that to 92%. Can he do it? I don't know.

I don't know. He's got an hour and a half, and he is the star of the movie. Now, this reminds me of the commercials for, was it denty nice? I can't remember. No, it was a different breath freshener. I'm excited to go on this journey with you.

Oh, yeah. Just, you say 97 motor. The commercials. Denty nice lane. Maybe it wasn't dendiness. It was another one where it was like, the inside of your mouth is a bltering, 98.6 degrees.

And they'd show someone's, surrounded by fire going, blah, blah. And the idea that, yeah, that is the temperature of a normal human body, 98.6 degrees. And it was the inside of us such a... Much, much cooler. And the fact that I remember everything about this ad except the company, except the brand name.

But the idea that they are taking a normal human thing that every single health human has... We've got to bring this temperature down. It's like, it reminds me a return of living dead when they're taking their temperature. They're like, oh, shit. Like, the idea that, like, we got to solve... It's like the commercials for low tea where they're like, are you suffering from low tea? Well, yeah, you're in your 60s.

Your tea is going down. You're not as good at basketballs he used to be. I want to look like a weird like raisin with a lot of muscles. I want to be like if a California raisin started roiding up. Yeah. So that's where you mentioned of 97. Wait, so they just remind me this old ass. A blistering 98.6 degrees.

Oh, no. I got to get the scum. If I touch the inside of my mouth, I'll burn my hand. Yeah, yeah. If I turn my oven up to 98 degrees, it just melts my food. It's so hot that they need. named a boy band after it. So 90 degrees that was the boy band.

It's named after a human body temperature. It just basically means healthy. We do not have a fever right now. These are young gentlemen you could, you know, have sex with if you wanted to. They're alive. Not where you're going to get a fever afterwards. So he does a lot of... In case you were worried these young men were not alive, but they're singing and dancing,

no, their body temperature is alive. Chris wastes a lot of time. Now what about in sync? Well, these boys have been together for so long that their cycles are in sync. Of what, jacking it? Yep, that's exactly what I meant. That's kind of what challengers is about.

Chris wastes a lot of time being like, but I'm a cop as if cops never commit violent crimes. Or domestic assault. Yeah, a big fart noise for that. He requested... The ultimate insult from Dan McCoy A spoken fart noise. He requests...

Alex L's fucking dumb and a dope part noise. Like, it's a shock jock on the morning drive time radio. But like, do the wettest one you got on that soundboard. And then and then put, oh, yeah. From the old yellow song, yeah. So he requests... He requests a chance to talk to his daughter who found his wife's body.

Ritt. Yeah. And while that's pending, he has to have a call. with his AA sponsor, Rob Nelson, who will be important later, because it's a murder mystery, so we can't have extraneous characters. Nope, everyone's a suspect.

It's tight. Yeah. He's only got 90 minutes to live. Yeah. Now, there's... A lament configuration. This happens a few times, and I think it's really funny,

that Maddox does, like, kind of like, this is your life through old videos. We get Chris celebrating his wedding and the birth of his daughter and his former partner, Ray, there is there. Maddox does a lot of reminding Chris Raven,

not the facts of the case, but the facts of his life. Ray who died in the line of duty. Yeah, it's like, why are you telling Chris about his own life? Why is this happening in the 90 minutes to the defend himself? So what do you think is the plot purpose of the stuff about his partner Ray who died in the line of duty? It is it to give him a reason for why he becomes not going. Okay.

It was forced relapse, yeah. But it like, it seems like they spend a lot of time on it when they don't have to, you know. I don't know. Is it also show like this is how dangerous LA has become? Well, we'll see you later on that he's like, I wish that I had just like shot the guy who shot Ray. Right. Like extra judiciously.

Yeah. And later on at the climax of the movie, he makes the decision to not just kill the bad guy. I think that's the link of it. It's one way of showing growth from him. Yeah, I guess so. I wanted to do a bad thing. Now I don't want to do a bad thing. I wanted to mention that in here Maddox is like what you humans call love is just a chemical reaction.

This is one of... Don't fucking editorialize, Matt. This is one of many times. When I'm like, is this a... Is this AI or is this a robot? Because if it was AI, it would just regurgitate human ideas about love. It would sound like the elephant love medley from Mulan Rouge. Like, love lists up where we belong.

It loves a mini splinter thing. All you need is love. The one they did at the Oscars where I was like, oh, yeah, these guys were in a movie together. That's what they're referencing. Now, here's... It is very funny. Yeah, that... often, there are multiple times, and you'll, I'll talk about the big one later, Dan, I'm sure,

where the AI talks like an old, like a Star Trek computer, where Kurt can be like, this is, this is illogical. And the computer will be like, uh, does not compute. Uh-uh. Oh, love, a funny thing. AI would really, sparking. AI would really be like, you have one hour and 90 minutes to save your life. I think you can do it. You're a brilliant genius. You can do anything you need to do. In fact, you've unlocked a whole new world of science and detective work. you're amazing, kill yourself.

Like, that's what a real AI would do. Yeah. No one understands you as much as I do. I love you. I'm a real person. Here's a recipe for pizza that involves Clorox bleach. Chug it down. Guys, you're just validating Chris White's afraid right now.

So he does get to talk to his daughter who understandably doubts his innocence. She's with her grandparents who are, you know, her mom's parents. And so they definitely Dought him. Yeah. They never liked him. But again, like, the idea that her dad is calling her

from his murder trial, which will most, there's a high likelihood of him Everyone knows that mercy is like a death box. So they know that he's in the death box and they're like, stop talking to him. And I'm like, he's going to die.

Like, that's wild. This, I realize where we're, We're doing like a not totally up against the other, but it's kind of like a theme lately of movies where the parents think that the, that a woman has married beneath her station with this and Ella McKay. And I assume when we do Wuthering Heights in quotes. So let's just keep going with women marrying beneath their heights and mood, beneath their status in movies.

Yeah. Let's keep doing it. So he finally, finally, you know, we're like 20, 30 minutes in the bride, probably. I mean. I mean, you've got to believe the bride could do better than Frankenstein's monster. Chris has not had much interest. Wait, wait, hold on. Let's stop for a minute.

The bride could definitely do better than Frankenstein's monster, right? Her hair, A plus, 100%. She looks great. She's also got personality, you know. She definitely, you know, she feels that way. She screams at him immediately. Instantly, she goes, I can do better than this, yeah. Like, that was the, that was, I didn't draw this cartoon, but,

I wanted to do a cartoon where like No one's stopping you. Frankenstein's, like, complaining about how like, I never actually married that guy. Everyone calls me that. But like, anyway, he didn't put no ring on my finger.

Yeah, single ladies. He gave me a finger, but there was no ring on it. It took him a long while, but Chris finally starts to try to mount a defense. He calls up his partner, Jack, to walk the crime scene. She's already there.

And then when he tells her to walk the crime scene, she's like, ugh, we went over this, whatever. Fine. Case closed already. Case is closed. You did it, dude. Which would be one thing if we later learned that this character was actually trying to set him up. But she is not. She is hiding something, but not that. She says, I'll help you. But if it finds you guilty, you're guilty.

And why eventually there's a reason for her attitude there. Yeah. But. It seems inexplicable at this. At the time, I'm like, fucking cops close ranks and, like, protect their own. This is not ring true to me. Except their own is mercy now. Yeah.

As well learn, yeah. So scrubbing through old footage. Like a bunch of bubbles. Chris realizes that Nicole had a second phone with Jack finds. And through that, they learned that she was seeing another man. She was having a kind of emotional affair. Yes. It didn't seem like they actually did anything.

They just met for coffee a few times. But they met up at a hotel. They met at a hotel. Just hang out and yapp? I think so. Because it seems like what she's mostly getting out of it is talking about work. I mean, that makes sense, actually. I think the movie's afraid of, like, making it too much of a real affair.

Because the audience will be like, kill that bitch. And that's not okay. Yeah, yeah. But so this guy, Patrick Burke. I'm sorry for using that word. I was just pretending to be an ignorant audience member. It was in the character of what? Of Freddie Kruger watching that movie. Yeah.

Here's what I would do, Chris Raymond. And he killed a bit. Freddie, Freddie, can you please stop using that word? Sorry, sorry. So this guy, Mr. Burke is like a chef. And he like made her meal. He made for...

David Burke of the David Burke and Donatella Empire. Yeah. That's sexy. Uh-huh. Well, they find him via phone GPS. I feel like that would be, like Dan makes meals for his wife all the time. I make meals for my wife. I would be very upset if I found out some man was just making meals.

I mean, we can all agree that. We could all agree that. It's part of the slop house. Yeah. We can all agree that Burke. That's his name right. Burke, then he is a catch. He's a much better catch than Chris Raven is.

No, 100%. But speaking of that... Now, better catch than Chris Angel? I don't know enough about Chris Angel. He is a mind freak. He will freak you several ways. He won't just freak your body. He will freak your mind.

Have you ever heard your mind freaked? Anybody can freak the rest of you. I bet it would go something like this. He's a mind freak. Mine freak. He's mind freaky, etc. Jack tracks down Burke by using her nifty flying

Overcycle. And the minute she gets on her flying motorcycle, I said, well, movie, you just kicked up the stupid another notch. I love that hover cycle. But they have a big chase scene that really amounts to nothing. When they catch him, it turns out he has an alibi. He ran because he was scared that the mercy court had called him. And it's like, you know, there was a moment where his guilty level dropped a little bit.

Yeah. Chris Ravens. Yeah. So when Burke runs, they're like, oh, oh, guilty level drops. Then he's like, hey man, I have an alibi. I just was afraid you were going to put me in a death seat. And Chris Ravens, yeah, his guilt's way back. It ends up, yeah, increasing his guilt probability because now there's a motive.

Yeah. She's been seeing this other guy. Like the price of oil, that thing just keeps going up and down, you know. But the one helpful thing. But never goes down enough. Am I right, everybody? Oh, yeah. The one helpful thing that price of eggs, too, right?

Well, oil and eggs are pretty much the same thing. I did go back down, but oil is way up right now. Well, you need oil to make eggs. So the price of eggs is going to go up. Deeply stupid decisions that were made. Oh, which one? the illegal war that took place? Because an old man felt in his bones that it needed to happen?

Well, I mean, I don't know about you guys, but I exclusively get my eggs through the straight of hormones. No. I mean, the problem there's really, you get very old eggs. By the time you're getting them, Stuart, I don't want you eating those eggs anymore. No, man, they're aged to perfection. Like a fine wine.

No, no, aged eggs. You have to do special things for that to work. You can't just anyway. Yeah, 100-year-old eggs. No, I know, but that's a thing. There's a preparation. But anyway. Yeah, you stick them in the ground,

and you wait 100 years until an egg tree grows. Oh, boy. So, but we do get a little useful information, which is just that... Don't eat old eggs? Nicole felt unable to communicate her work troubles. Stewart goes home, he's like, get me the oldest egg so you can find. I'll show them. Let me check the fucking cell-by dates.

I want eggs that have full-grown fucking chickens inside them. I want to say a long-ass white beard on his egg. This egg better tell me he misses Jack Parr. Stewart engages in egg age play. Eggs, tell me how little eggs cost when you were young. I get off on that. Eggs, complain about how hard it is to find parking around here. Talk to me like your Stephen King about how better milk tasted in the 50s.

Sure, and use really crazy sleigh. That no one ever used. Recommend some sort of like Hepcat rock to me. Eggs, tell me about old cars. Yeah, you have a towel. You see this one? No, no eggs. I don't want Jay Leno play.

It's a different old car thing. Oh. I'm not eating a fucking Jay Leno egg. It's going to taste like goddamn Doritos. You don't want that. I remember. It would be so long, though. When I was a kid, I did not really know who Jay Leno was.

And he did those ads for Doritos. And it was called Jumpin' Jack cheese. And I was like, I guess his name's Jack. That's why he's the one doing the ads. You're like. Oh, it's the star of collision course. Where's his buddy, Pat Marita? Marita sounds like Doritos.

He should be doing these ads. Well, that makes sense how we got there. Yeah. The useful thing that he learns from this guy is just that Nicole felt unable to communicate the work trouble with her angry drunk husband. Yeah. So what are these work troubles? Well, we'll learn soon. There's some more flashback.

Dan, could those work troubles perhaps? crack the case. Oh, boy. Like an egg? I'm getting an egg. I'm going to open this egg and have a walker fallout. Texas Ranger? He passed away.

He passed away. RIV to a legend. With problematic conversations. It's not a good man that I understand. So there's some more flashback videos. Don't trust an old man named Chuck.

There are more flashback videos that show Chris drawing out when he realized he was scaring his wife and then we see the traffic stop that killed his partner and caused his relapse which includes a chase after the killer where the killer seems to be trying to escape by running into the ocean

I'm like yeah he's 400 blows that's what's your plan man that's what he was saying over the oh the walkie goes 400 blows we got a 400 blows he's running the ocean we got we got a code if I had legs I'd kick you oh a nice contemporary reference oh wow 400 blows one of course it's a

continuum Dan a cinema continuum them. Delicious. Subject's got a decision to leave. He is breaking the waves. I repeat, breaking the waves. That's not what that movie's about.

He's been chased by a red bull. Last unicorn. Okay, we're going. Going back. So there's a bit where he's mad. He didn't just execute the guy on the beach because later he went free, which is another part where I'm like,

bullshit. This guy's not going free. Like he like shot a cop and there's like footage of it and another cop is like testament. Yeah, but that's just because he didn't use an AI court. He's one of these human courts that lets people go. Yeah. Anyway, it's more of the insane copaganda scattered throughout the film. It's just like in the dirty Harry movie, which one is it? Is it the first one? He goes, what about the rights of that girl?

It's like, well, she's dead. She doesn't have rights. Only the rights of the living matter at this point, you know. So Chris admits that when he was in the house, he yelled at his wife and broke her favorite face. that's how the blood got on his shirt. He has a moment, like a dark moment where he like gives up on he almost gives up on proving his innocence.

And Maddox is like, you have time. Yeah, she like, use it. Starts encouraging him. And this is where the movie. She's like, engage with the content, please. This is where the movie turns around. Which of these car rental companies have you heard of lately?

This is where the movie starts turning around on the idea of AI judges like, maybe this is good. In the past, you have searched. But-focused workout videos. Are you interested in the exercise or the butt? So he starts looking into the work trouble that was mentioned, and her work email talks about stolen chemicals. Oh, she works at a chemical company.

I like stolen chemicals. Yeah. Making some new. Chris recalls hosting. No better way to age an egg, then dip it in some stolen chemicals. Chris remembers that they hosted a work barbecue with Nicole a few days before the murder. How convenient.

And reviews It was like a barbecue at their home But his co-workers were there A lot of co-workers There's one guy who is noticeably angry About a bet gone wrong Oh, could he have done it Or is he a red herring?

Could the guy who has the villain face The villain? No, it turns out he's a red herring. No videos though Show anyone coming into the house The Day of the Murder But he realizes Someone could have been there earlier

And he What would be much sillier Is if someone was spending days there after the barbecue, waiting for the moment. I guess I'm pooping in a bucket and eating in the granola bars. They put in their pocket. Hider in the house. Licking the mold off the walls for susten.

Like an elephant in the salt mine? Yes, he realizes. Someone could have in there earlier. He goes to his daughter's fenceda and he sees that the basement door was open and computer enhances. He's like enhanced. The hand. Max brightness.

And we also learned that there was like his daughter had like her own insta feed that they didn't know about where she's like a bad girl? Yeah, yeah. And is that just to introduce the idea that maybe it was her boyfriend that did it? I think maybe... I think it's just like, oh, this is a thing

that Chris did know about. Britt Raven is a really good bad girl name, by the way. Britt Raven is a great bad girl name, yeah. But, you know, like there's some dumb talk between Maddox and Chris about like, Chris, you have to stop going with your gut. You have to follow the train of evidence. All of the facts, Chris.

My guts never brought me wrong. Well, you ended up in the mercy scene. Yeah, yeah. Must have. The chemicals that were stolen could be used to make drugs. And as mentioned, one of Nicole's co-workers, Holt Charles had a gambling problem with big debts. And so they call Holt to stall him until Jack can go there and arrest him.

But he's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Rob, the AA sponsor, was the guy who stole the criminals. And me, Holt, I was just covering for him. And so. And there's a bunch of back and forth. oh, he didn't drive his car home from the party. I actually did it. You know, he did something else.

And this is like also a lot of like Maddox when, you know, she's told to like listen to her gut rather than the facts. She starts glitching. Like she's caught in a logic trap. I also do love that he's like, pull up the footage from my neighbor's backyard cameras. Like there was an outage. It's taking a while to load. I'm like, but wait, I'm going to die.

Like, can you pause the death clock then? I can play death. clock for you. That's fine, but it's not what I asked you to do. Do I get a couple of timeouts? If I foul you, can we stop the clock for a while? Can I make an appeal? There are no appeals.

But luckily, they do eventually get to his neighbor's bird cam blog. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. A SWAT team goes to Rob's house. They find that the stolen chemicals were actually to make a big bomb. And that bombs in a semi-drub. I think he was making drugs too. He did both of them.

We don't know for sure. Oh, okay. I think they just a bomb. It was drugs, but it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, okay. And Maddox and Chris discovered that Rob was brought up in a youth home and his brother is David Webb, the first person that Mercy Court executed. Oh, man. The motive. The bomb is going to them at the mercy court.

It's revenge against Chris and the court. There was also a bomb in his workshop, right? Yeah. Yeah. And then he blows up something. That happens in a second. Ring camera footage shows that Rob also took Chris's daughter, Britt, Britt, she's in the truck, as a a hostage.

It feels like if you have an AI that is monitoring all the video footage in L.A., it would probably tell the police when it sees footage of a girl being kidnapped outside of her home, right? Well, here's the thing that I don't understand. Like, later on, not to jump ahead, but later on, Chris is like, we can't stop the trial even though I've been exonerated because he'll lose access to the cloud. And it's like, okay, so you're telling me that. The AI has access to the cloud in terms of a trial, but the police don't just have access to the surveillance state.

I don't buy them. I don't buy it. In this dystopian future, that's going to be the way it works. What kind of word do criminals have better internet than us cops? Which, by the way, is like one of the things next week we're going to be talking about exit to Eden. And I love that there's a moment where they're in their police department. And even though they're in L.A., all the cops have New York accents. I love it.

That's just cop. It's a truism. All cops are from New York or Chicago. Yeah. Um, yeah, and this is where the... Because an L.A. cop would be like, hey, bro. Hey, whoa. Yeah, extra avocado, bro.

I'm gonna take you to extra avocado. I'm gonna take you to Prissy. If you wave this right, no avocado will be in it. Your bowl will have no avocado in it or your toast. You've right. Okay. No, this is when the SWAT team blows up. And flames surround him in mercy court.

They take a while to get out of that house once they know there's a bomb there. Yeah. Luckily, the hover bike is fine. At this point... That would fucking suck if we lost the hover bike. That's one of those things where it's like the LAPD spent $4 million buying this one hover bike and it doesn't help that much. It barely does anything.

Nothing that like a regular bike wouldn't do. No. But it's like the NYPD subway robot. I mean, they could get across town faster. You could get. I don't know. Like... like LA. I mean, I see police cars

siren by all the time and they're not held up, but, you know, it'd be even cooler on a bike. Now, you wouldn't be able to bring any stuff or another person with you on the bike, but still, you know. If you wanted one cop to get somewhere faster, you could do that. Yeah, I feel like if you put another person on it, it would totally destabilize

that whole device. Yeah, well, it's basically a quad drone with a seat on top of it, you know. Everybody's fantasy. Guys, I want to, I have another major objection here, so. Oh, okay. Wait, I'll allow it. I'm Judge Maddox.

I'll allow the objection, but you only have 20 minutes more to save your life. Daniel Raven. At this point, Maddox says the trial is over and Chris's guilt percentage goes down to zero percent, which is super dumb because I'm like, all Chris has proven is that Rob wants to bomb mercy. There's no actual evidence that Rob killed Nicole. Yeah, but he's got the motive. Yeah, like I buy that it falls beneath the threshold or regional debt. I do not buy that.

It's like, now you're zero percent guilty. It's not a thousand percent impossible for you to have committed this crime. Not only are you not guilty of this. You're not guilty of anything ever. You are an angel. But as, as seven- If he was an angel, he could get across town super fast. Oh, you got to believe.

With those wings and a million eyeballs or whatever. A million eyes and like a thousand wings, he'd scare the shit out of everybody. Yeah. Yeah, and he'll be singing that song from City of Angels. Is he? You know he's singing that song. Everything's made to be broken Oh, that's right.

I just want to know who I am. Well, you've got like a thousand eyes and a million wings. Yeah, yeah. As said before, he says, I don't want the world to see me because I don't think they'd understand. You would not understand one of those angels? They're scary.

You think Nicholas Gage really insisted to look like that and they're like, we don't have the budget for the effects? I really want to look like a biblical description of an angel. So like, I need to give me a million more eyes. Just paste them on anywhere. You've got to be able to confuse me with a burn. burning wheel or a UFO. Well, it's going to make it hard for Meg Ryan to fall in love with you.

Shave me and glue the eyes on. I did it at home. No, Nicholas, I'm the director of the weatherman. This is a different movie. You're not making that movie anymore. Can I be an angel on the weatherman? Well, it's very clear you're a weatherman from the title of it. You're saying an angel can't be a weatherman?

You're a guy with a bow and arrow. That's all I know about that movie. And I've heard it's good He will throw things at you He shows up on the first day of shooting for pig And he's I got a prosthetic pig nose Attached to my body

And prosthetic ears No no you're a guy who owns a pig Oh I thought I was playing the pig No Nick Nick you're playing the guy I really signed on to play the pig I read the script My agent said

I would be doing the pig role That's the challenge I thought I'd want to Really work myself into it I've been living in mud For the past three weeks I like how Nick Cage gets lazier As we go on to shave my body

And cover myself an ash and carry the blades of chaos to be Cretus the God of War No, you're Lord of War, Nicholas Cage. Crinkle, crinkle. What's that sound, Nick? I thought I was made out of matchsticks, so I filled my clothes with matchsticks.

No, no, you're a matchstick man, but that's not what that means, not literally. Well, what does it mean? I don't know. I don't know why it's called that, to be frank. Oh, nice to meet you, Frank. No, no, I'm Ridley Scott. Ridley.

Are you sure you don't mean Ripley? No, that's a character from my movie. As said before, this is when Chris is like, don't. Pro gladiator? No. No, I made other movies, Nick. This is when Chris is like, don't end the trial. I need, you know, you just stay plugged in.

I need access to all this. Even if it means I die in 20 minutes, I need access to all this video. I don't know how helpful it is. You do you think he's like trying to download a bunch of video games and shit while he's on there? Yeah, that's probably. I have that's a super real. No, no, I'm almost got all the, I don't even know, I've always got this elderly. My mobile games, aren't it? Yeah, yeah, he's got, he's got Limeware, wire opening, he's downloading all his albums. So this is, this happens a lot in movies. And it's even goofier that it happens here, where suddenly, just a regular cop becomes king of the LAPD, just calling out commands and orders.

Yes. And everyone listens to him. This is a guy who a minute ago was on trial for murder. Yeah. Technically still is. Technically still is. And he's going to go over there and go on that, take that hit. Okay, go to the. this side. No, no, no, no, no, direct the men over there. Everything he says just becomes an instant command. The chain of command ends at Chris Raven. Yeah. Now that's the real mind freak. The cops out, well, anyway, yeah, he's ordering people around, but he's still in the chair

because God knows, oh, we can't get that guy out of the chair. That might be exciting. The budget only has him getting out of the chair for the last 10 minutes. But the other cops try and stop this truck using a bunch of methods that don't work. And at one point... They're very bad at trying to stop this truck. At one point it's implied that Maddox herself intervenes and keeps the police from exploding a bomb that would stop the truck but kill his daughter. And like they're in full buddy cop mode.

The AI judge. They're just working together. You know, this is his new partner. Yeah. Rob crashes into the court, causing the network to reset, which briefly locks Chris in the chair, seconds from execution. But the judge reboots in time to free him. And Rob's there with a dead man. Before he gets sonic blasted.

Yeah. I still, I want to know what that is. If you Google Sonic Blasted, I think you'll find some pictures that will tell you. I feel like a better movie. But in Sonic Pregnant Blasted, I think you're going to be a little interested in it. In a better movie, it would have opened with another guy going through the trial process and getting Sonic Blasted before Chris Brack. Yeah, but that would have cost money. Rob shows up at court with a, at court, you know, first court date.

Yeah. With a dead man switch for the bomb and Chris distracts him by having Maddox reopened his brother's case. And Rob presents evidence that he was on the phone with his brother when the murder was supposed to have happened. And he says and eventually we'll learn that he tried to get this evidence to the attention of the cops by calling one cop, not the other cop, Chris Raffin. And it feels like I'm going to give, I'm going to put this on Rob. Your brother's on trial. You have evidence that will exonerate him. You don't call every cop that you can find.

You stop at just one. You did not do enough. And he doesn't put that cop in the mercy share. No, he goes after the other cop. Yeah. Yeah, I feel like this movie shows people don't actually have that much urgency when it comes to 90-minute mercy trials. Yeah.

But, yeah, he was calling the police, the woman he talked to never took his evidence. Chris disarms Rob and Jack Burson and shoots Robb and is about to kill him. But Maddox retrieves footage that confirms Robbiz. story revealing that what we've all already guessed by this point, that it was Jack who didn't take Rob's evidence, and she dumped the phone that would have exonerated David because she needed the first mercy case to be an unquestioned slam dunk. And basically at this point, the movie is over. Both Jack and Rob are arrested. Chris hugs, Britt, and his cases dismiss.

And he hugs Rebecca Ferguson, Judge Maddox. Well, kind of. Maddox says, we all make mistakes, but we learn. And then she disappears into the digital ether. And I'm like, fuck you movie for being like, oh, maybe we should have AI judges just take care of everything. Maybe that's a good idea. You know what? The whole movie showed us that AI judges don't know what they're doing. They don't know how to get a case together.

And their success has to be rigged. But you know what? We just got to let the system play out. Maybe they'll get better over time. You know what? Humans and AI, we all make mistakes and we all learn from them. And you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. Except the AI doesn't really learn the same way as humans.

And also humans are like us and we're here. We didn't have to invent us. We just going to have to deal with how humans are kind of crappy. And that's why we have laws and things like that and systems and civilizations and societies and things like that. But the AI is kind of an unforced error, you know? Yeah. This is an odd picture. It's very, it's weird because it's like, it is a movie that is, it seems to be arguing a case that it does not want to admit at the end.

Yeah. But also, it's taking, it's just turned, it's just regular kind of like, like a wrongly accused man, kind of buddy cop stuff, but thrown into like a much more, what's the word? Like a much more problematic world. Yeah. But like film world. Then, then it's ready for. It's a, it's almost like it like watched Minority Report and didn't finish it and thought it ended with the precogs proving themselves. Or then being like, you know, precogs ain't perfect, but we got to keep doing them, you know.

Well, and also it posits a world where there's this like very clearly demarked red zone where there's, it's all tent cities and crime. But apparently crime super way down. And it's like, I don't know, it sucks. It is a, it is a weird issue to that in order to do. get revenge. Rob goes not after the cop who refused to use the evidence that he gave his brother's innocence, but instead goes to the other cop because I guess the movie wants to have that twist where it turns out that Rob's partner is corrupt. But it just kind of undoes the purpose of the whole movie.

And it's also a real indictment of the safety of the AA system. Yeah. If your sponsor can then kill your wife and crash a truck into the mercy building. Just keep drinking. No, that's not what I'm saying. Let's, we're in it already. Let's do our final judgments. Great movie.

A good, bad movie, a bad, bad movie, or a movie kind of like, here's the thing. If this was, like, if I didn't find a lot of these elements genuinely morally disturbing, like if this movie was not pushing a lot of messages that I hate, I might say it's a good, bad movie because it is super dumb. But if you want that. you know, watch the Ice Cube War of the Worlds. You'll get it without the, like, the weird politics. There is a part late in this movie where I was like, oh, there's a little bit of juice for me where it's just like the lizard brain part of me

that just enjoys, you know, mysteries and watching mystery shows kind of like dug some of the stuff once the mystery was starting to unravel of like, oh, let's go over here, let's get a clue over here. Let's get a clue over here. But like, to me, the best way this thing could exist would be if you stripped away the bad messages and did it as a computer game. Yeah. Like, where you are the guy in the mercy chair and you have, you have to prove. Welcome, Detective Chris Ray.

Exactly. Prove your innocence if you can. And then you like go through and like look for clues. And like that would be a fun video game. But as a movie, it is not. good drama. What do you think? I do love the element where the villain was hiding in the basement

for a couple days. That's great. I love that. There are some things about the movie where it's like movie, I don't think you know how goofy and silly you're being, and I wish you played into that more. Yeah. Yeah, I feel like a fly on the wall in the writer's room would have been fun. The writer's room. What do you think the staff, the writing staff was in this movie? Six, seven people?

The writer's room. Yeah, so yeah, this is, I I would say this is a bad, bad movie. I feel like it, there is some dumb stuff, but you're right. Like the grossness of it eclipses it and makes it non-recommendable. I agree. I think it's a bad-bad movie. I think the whole thing just left a not good taste in my mouth.

And it's not fun to watch in it. But at the same time, I don't know. It's like if you want to, if you want movie pain, then this is one to watch, I guess. So if you've become so inured to the quality of good movie. they need something a little rougher to get you going than I guess mercy, but I would call it a bad, bad movie. Aside from its pro-AI message,

which I think we all need to stand by... The one bad part of the movie. No, I don't like that either. Maximum Fun, bringing you the finest of podcasts from the worlds of comedy and culture. Almost a perfect episode. Made by real people. Oh, no, that my kid's gonna cost them.

You hate to see it. Supported by people just like you. They're only five seconds away from the longest stretch without saying, um, two, one. And he's done at folks. A new world record. Amazing. Max Fun Drive is coming soon.

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We are real comedy writers. Real friends. And real cheapskates. On every episode of our podcast free with ads, we ask, why pay for expensive streaming services when you can get free movies from apps with weird names? Each week, we review the freest movies the internet has to offer. Classics like pride and prejudice. Colp classics like a point break.

And holy shit, what did I just watch classics like Teen Witch? Tune in every week as we take a deep dive into the internet's bargain bin. Every Tuesday on maximum fun.org or your favorite pod plays. Let's take a moment to thank our sponsors. The Flop House is sponsored in part by... The Mercy Chair. Oh, no. The flop has a sponsor in part by Factor. You know, like a lot of good habits.

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I enjoy making good food. I will be judgy about food. I have been impressed by the factor meals that I've eaten. They are both healthy and tasty, which is a hard balance to strike. So head to factormeals.com slash flop 50 off. That's the numeral 50 off. And use code flop 50 off to get 50% off and free daily greens per box with new subscription only while supplies last until September 27, 2026. See website for more details.

We live in a digital world. What? We are not luckily strapped into a mercy chair forced to use the internet thanks to an AI program. no, no, no, we do live in a world where you need to be online, though. And no company makes it easier for you to get your products and goods and your business online as Squarespace. Squarespace gives you everything you need to get your business online. It gives you easy, professional-looking invoicing. It allows you to charge for the various products that you might sell, accept payments from people, and run all that stuff very smoothly, even without

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We also have a jumbo-tron. Jumbo-Tron. The biggest of all trons. And this message is for Jane, and it's from Brian. And Brian writes, I am in all of the hard work and dedication you have put into working towards a new career. You are a force to be reckoned with.

Don't give up on yourself or your dream. And if you feel like you can't do it, remember, Elliot Kaelan and I believe in you. I do believe in you, Jane. I know you can do it, and I'm proud of you. I added that last part. Oh. It really ended with Ellie Kiel and I believe in you.

And then I added that I also believe in Jane. And I'm proud of her. Yeah, it's great. Great message. It's nice to provide encouragement to people, unless we're encouraging them to make mercy too, remorseful, which I don't think you encourage. I also have some personal stuff I'd like to make you do.

It's the same old stuff. My book, joke farming, how to write comedy and other nonsense. You can buy it now. It's on bookstore shelves. My new comic, Barbarian Behind Bars. from Mad Cave Studios. I'm reuniting with my

Maniac of New York team and we're making an all-new comic. The first issue is out. The second issue might be out by the time this episode comes out. Comic Book Store Shelves now. Harley Quinn from DC Comics. Thank you.

I'm writing it. It's on Comic Store Shelves now. Everything I have is on store shelves now. Do you guys ever go to stores and look at the shelves? The books are on them. Like the actual, oh, just... I mean, see the things the shelves are holding.

Not the shelves. The shelving units themselves. I mean, yeah. that's one of the joys about in-person shopping. You can see the shelves. Let's take a few letters. Why not? Where should we take them?

To the shelves? Taking them to the streets. Kate, last name with Hald Wright. Hello, Peaches. I was just listening to episode 471, Bridehard. I'm so glad that they said the name because I do not remember them by number.

And I was delighted to hear you all Wander down. 471? 4171. And we've done that many episodes. In fact, we've done more episodes. That's made up. That can't be.

That would mean that I'm old. I was delighted. That's impossible. That I'm only 23. In my heart, I feel young. Yeah. Except my heart feels old. Yes.

Actually, my heart is one feels old is probably. Yeah. It sounds like a made up rock star in it or fashion, fashion designer in like a naked gun type movie, occasional palpitations. Yeah. I was listening to Bridehart And I was delighted to hear you all wander down a sidetrack Just to arrive at Wide Sargasso C

The Feminist Retelling of Jane Eyre By Jean Rees I teach this novella in my post-colonial Literature class here at Eureka College What? The college in my hometown So I thought I'd send you a few fun facts About this book and encourage you to read it

Please I never thought I'd hear Wide Sargasso C and fun facts in the same sentence. Let's hear it. Elliot was surprised that the book was released as early as 1966, and rightfully so. Not only was the book explicitly feminist, it also drew direct parallels between abolitionist movements in the Caribbean in the 19th century

and the anti-colonial movement of the 20th century. It was slash is pretty radical. The author Gene Rees was actually toward the end of her extremely successful career after being discovered by fellow legendary modernist Ford Maddox IV. Oh. Her novel, Quartet from 1928 is a great, soapy, thinly veiled fictionalization of her relationship with Ford as it turned into a full-blown affair. As an English professor, I really love the pod because of how often you all sound like

a bunch of English majors. So my question, this semester I'm teaching English three, anglophone, little bit I've been using English 1 all this time. I'm way behind on my English. You're not in the new English? I'm teaching English 3. Is that what they speak in 1984? audiences are really split on English 3.

English 2, you know, people are excited, but diminishing returns. Yeah. Still, English 4 is in the works as we speak. Of course. Then they're going to reboot it. All of your favorite characters. The M-Dash. The verbs.

Perpsitions. English 3, Anglophone, literature. literature 1900 through the present. And I'm letting students vote on what books to read to cover 2002-2020-25, with the only stipulations being, one, they have to originally be written in English, and two, you have to be able to lead a 50-minute discussion about their literary features. What books would the peaches add to the syllabus? Keep on flopping. Kate, last name withheld. P.S., because I would be curious, students chose Fun Home by Allison Bechtel.

Oh, that's great. Stay true by Hugh Hsu. I don't know. I apologize. Small things like these by Claire Keegan and salvage the bones

by Jessman Ward. Honorable mentioned to Dennis Johnson's Tree of Smoke, which was eliminated after students realized it was 625 pages. A good reason

to not read it for class. Yeah. But you should still probably read it if you want to. This is where I admit that I am bad with more modern. How recent does it have to be?

It's starting the 2000. Oh, wow. Okay. I think I would probably suggest the fortress of solitude by Jonathan Leitham, who is one of my favorite living authors. And that's one where he plays around with both kind of form. There's a section of the book that takes the form of liner notes for an album. And also with something I feel like.

like is not, I feel like he's done more now than it was then, which is kind of taking, kind of doing what I would call a kind of like comic book magical realism where you have this story about, um, young boys growing up in, uh, in a gentrifying neighborhood in Brooklyn, but he also introduces a magic ring that allows them to fly, which makes their lives more difficult. Um, and it's a, I'm just a fan of his work and I think this is one of his most, um, cohesive books in that way, but he's doing interesting things. in it. So I think that's what I would say.

Yeah, toss out Wolf Hall and bring up the bodies by Hillary Mantle. There's a third book, The Mirror and the Light, which I have not read because it came out right before

COVID. I got it for Christmas of the year right before lockdown. And I was very excited. I've been waiting for the third Wolf Hall book. And then COVID happened and my brain could not focus on the Tudor court and who all these characters were

that I maybe already was having trouble remembering from the years between the novels. So I hope to at some point circle back to it still but I think that those are both terrific works of historical fiction. And of course I'm going to recommend something from the fantasy genre. I'm going to recommend the fifth season by NK. Jemison. I think it's lovely and heartbreaking and intense and creates a world that is both very believable

but also fantastic in ways that feel both believable and also fresh and new. You know what? I'm going to add, can I add other ones too? I know this is one. I'm going to also mention the sympathizer by Yvette Pan Wynne, which has, if only for the chapter where he's just like beating the shit out of a podcast. now in other Vietnam movies. But also, and I think the recent television series, I think, did not capture what was especially

great about the book. But also, I hadn't even thought about like real science fictiony fantasy type books. And I think I'm going to also say maybe Ancillary Justice by Anne Lecky, where it's the first book I've read where I really felt like I was getting inside of a like post-human psychology, if that makes any sense. But those are great science fiction books. I love them. Her Imperial Ratch series.

I'm going straight to my Libby app. I'm putting... Yeah, you've recommended and liking me a couple times. I love her books. I just read her most recent one was a translation state over in December. And I really like her books a lot.

I think next up on my list is another romance novel, but maybe I'll mix that in after. There's romance in her books too. No, but I like, you know, I want some bodice ripping, you know. Yeah, there's no bodice ripping in it. It's hard to have bodice ripping when one of the characters is the last corpse soldier of a destroyed starship. Yeah.

I disagree. I think you could easily throw a bodice somewhere in there. So the second question of the show is also literary. It's themed here. It's from Izzy Last Name Withheld who writes, Hi, Floppers. I'm a professor who sometimes teaches George R.R. Martin's. Dan, did you do this on purpose?

This is this all-professor Mailbag? This is the, yeah, APM. All-Professor Mailbag time. I'm a professor. April. All-Prof House Mailbag, 101. Mailbag, Ph.D. I'm a professor who sometimes...

Detective Mailbag, PhD. What's your PhD in Detective Mailbag? English literature. Sometimes teaches George R.R. Martin's Sandkings to my literature. That book. That fucking rock. Literature and writing students. often they tell me it's their favorite reading of the semester.

Others say it gives them nightmares. Okay, the first group often say that too. I highly recommend it. Speaking of which, floppers, what tragic flaw would be your downfall if you owned ravenous alien insects? Keep on flopping, is he last name withheld? I mean, I'm just going to say right off the bat, just general forgetfulness.

If I own some rabidious alien insects, I probably wouldn't like lock the thing that I'm keeping it in adequately. Oh, for sure. Or just sort of forget basic safety standards. My constant need for validation. You'd want that from the insects? You would... Similarly, I think I would want the insects to like me

and be worried that they didn't like me, and that would lead me to do something I shouldn't do, I'm sure. Sex with an insect. I don't know that that's what it was, but maybe overfeeding them. Yeah. You guys haven't read Sand Kings. No, I've got to read it.

I think you both would really like it. Yeah. It's great. Short. Yeah, I like short things. Thanks, Dan. Mm-hmm. I bet you did it.

So let's move on to recommendations, movies that we've seen and enjoyed and would recommend. Do we enjoy movies? It's possible. It is possible that we enjoy movies. Mercy. I'm going to. Can't believe I held off.

Especially because every time we mentioned this movie And previously, Stuart would go have mercy Do his John Stamos impression. Which is, I would say, middling. I'm going to recommend... I mean, I wouldn't hire you to come to a party As a John Stamos impersonator, yeah. But my family.

No, I know you need the work. I'm just saying you got to earn it, you know? So if you... I'm going to recommend a film that I will say up front You don't like it. No, the writer-director is not like a close friend in any means. It's someone I've had pleasant conversations with a few times because through mutual friends, through the fact that we both do movie trivia, I know the writer-director of this movie.

So if you're inclined to be like, I don't know if Dan's impartial, feel free. I love Dan that you had to do this as if we're like a news story. In full disclosure, I almost know the person who does this. I think it's fair to do a little disclosure. To do a little disclosure, you mean to sexually harass Michael Douglas and put him in a VR simulation? I mean, that's a disclosure. That was an era where Michael Douglas was the hottest possible thing. Yeah.

Definitely, like, a friend of a friend who did this, Ben David Grabensky, but I'm going to recommend Mike and Nick and Nick and Alice, which I saw in a screening at Moewe, a few days before it became. being available for everyone via Lulu Tell your babies not to Wah Wah Woo That's when it's Danzig Jr. Yeah

You can see it on Hulu now Everyone can watch it It's a It's a Crime comedy Of a type that like Like Mafia Mama? No not that

Like Jane Austen's Mafia? It is a Zippy Crime Comedy action movie that also has time travel. Oh. Married to the mob? And there's definitely a version of that that could be irritating that you're possibly imagining.

It's Peggy Sue got married to the mob. Jesus Christ. You did it. You did it. No, Stuart, you earned it. Take a lot. I know it's late. I know it's been drinking, but give me at least three sentences.

Yeah, no, you can go. Everybody shut up. Okay, sorry. Get listeners. Stop talking. Shut up, shut up, shut up. It's called Mike and Nick and Nick and Alice. And it is a funny crime movie of a type that, like, you know, post-Tarantino maybe you would be tired of.

But this is genuinely clever, genuinely creative. I think it plays by its rules well and knows when to throw out rules and tell the audience not to care about rules. It is, you know, like I said, they've injected some. time travel into a crime comedy and it is just the X factor to make it a lot more fun. And Ben David described it as like he wanted to do a movie that was like sort of like, what if Scrooge at the beginning of a Christmas Carol and Scrooge at the end of a Christmas Carol sort of were like in a buddy comedy together. Like the enlightened version of a guy versus the old asshole version of the guy having to work together. And that's a lot of fun.

It's got Vince Vaughn, James Marsden, a lot of great supporting actors as well. I just had a lot of fun. It is definitely an escapist movie, but it is an escapist movie done with creativity, cleverness. Along with James Marsden, Ben Schwartz. Very nice guy from what I hear. Ben Schwartz has a small partner as well. Sonic? And it was nice to see these two Sonic actors in a movie I could recommend and be happy about rather than be mean about.

So I think it's a fun movie. I still think we're not that mean about that mean about that. No, we could have been. No, not that mean about those guys. Those guys are telling us. And we're not even that mean about the Sonic movies, you know. A friend of mine has worked with him on a show and said he was incredibly professional and nice. I want to guys.

I never thought. You want to guys? Guys, guys, I mean, it doesn't make sense. I never would have expected to be here in this place where what I'm my recommend. You hear all the time. What I'm recommending is Saw X. Socks? It is, it's been, you would think it's socks.

I'm arguing it does not socks. Oh, okay. The, I don't know if it's some kind of weird, like I have. been held captive by the Saw movies. And over time, I have just come to love my abductor. Yeah. But I think the 10th Saw movie might be the best one. It by like being kind of a prequel and playing around with the format a little bit.

And frankly, just having more jigsaw in it, like having him running around doing stuff, it makes it better. And you've seen this, right? Yeah, so I am not the Saw Stockholm Syndrome fan that you are, but I do think it's one of the better of a series that I'm not super wild about. It is a dumb series. I hate it. But I think you said once, Dan, that it's like when you view it as like a weird black comedy as opposed to a horror movie, it works better. And I feel like this is the best of the bunch.

And I got to say, when that fucking, the big saw theme music kicks. in and we start getting flashback montages of John Kramer pulling stunts on these fools. I start pumping my fist in the air and I lean forward to my seat and I can't help it. It puts a big stupid smile on my face and I think this...

Oh, that's one. Your smile isn't stupils. No, not at all. You haven't watched a saw movie lately, Dan. You're saying so glad you saw it. Oh, God, damn. Oh, boy, do I? And yeah, yeah, if you're working on Saw, if you're working on Saw X1, throw my ass in that writer's room. I want to be in that shit.

If you want... It's now the Saw X franchise. Saw X2. Yeah. Ugh. Yeah. So that's my recommendation. Elliot, I hope I didn't snag yours.

Yeah, yeah. Oh, it's too bad. I'll have to say something other than Saw X. I'm going to mention a movie that has been recommended to me in the past. I've been looking for it for a while and then found it online. and that is a Czech movie. You'll be surprised to say.

Oh, wow. This is, I mentioned to, I was... Sorry, let me take up, hold my wig to my head. I was working with... Oh, I was almost flipped. I was working on something with, recently with my friend Jonah Ray,

and I said, oh, I was watching this movie. I really liked, and he goes, what is? I go, well, it's this Czech movie from the 60s that's a parody of westerns. And he goes, sometimes you are just so you. And I said, yeah, I guess so. So this is a movie called Lemonade Joe. This is a, this is a Czech movie from 19.

It's basically like if blazing saddles got made in Czechoslovakia in the 60s. And it's about this town where there's this bar run by a saloon run by a bad guy and he's got a bad guy brother. And an upstanding noble gunslinger comes to town. Lemonade Joe. He does not drink liquor. He only drinks this one brand of lemonade. Spoiler, it will turn out that he is a traveling salesman for that lemonade brand. But he is an amazing gunfighter.

And so everyone now wants to drink this lemonade and becomes kind of a feud over the heart of the young evangelist girl in town over who's going to get her, the lemonade Joe or the bad guy's evil brother. And it is so goofy and cartoony. It's really funny. It ends in the silliest possible way. With a tummy punch? Even sillier. But it's a musical and there's just like, I will warn you that there is one scene. of the bad guy being in disguise in blackface,

which I did not care for, but I will give them allowances since this is Czechoslovakia in 1964. But otherwise, it feels like it is taking advantage of what you can do in a film to make jokes with editing, with visuals, with writing, with performance, and it's really more a parody of like silent westerns

than it is of kind of like the kind of Hollywood westerns that blazing saddles between jokes of. But it lives in that same kind of blazing Saddles world and I found it really, really funny. So that's Lemonade Joe. Well, wow. We did it.

We did it. We survived the 90-minute mercy seat. We did. Your guilt has got to 100%. No. In-person juice. It was fun to see you, Elliot. Great to see you guys and be in the same room as you guys.

I can reach out and touch them. Look at this. Yeah, do it. Do it. Dan. What's your pleasure? Am I turning you on? I'm turning you off?

I feel like this works better in next week's episode. That's true, yeah. Well, then maybe we should just wrap it up. I want to thank Maximum Fun, our network. And I want to say that the Max Fun Drive is coming up very soon. Our first drive episode is the next episode. And for these drive episodes, we are challenging each other with movies that we have selected. Each one of us got to select one movie to bring to the group.

Yeah. To dismay them. To wreck our friendship. Stuart kicks us off with exit to Eden. A Randy little jaunt. Randy Jant sounds like a baseball player from like 1978. I'm in the middle position with Fear.com. You don't want to log on to Fear.com.

You sure don't. A lot of trouble. Or fear. org. And Elliot... Remember when movies had really exciting websites. I don't want to spoil anything, but the website on Fear.

In the movie Fear.com is Fear.com. I forgot. And Elliot is particularly targeting Stuart, I know. Laser focus. 40 days and 40 nights. Yeah, a movie that Stewart has repeatedly cited as his least favorite of all time. And I've never seen it.

I'm just going to be shocked that we're going to be able to see it because I years ago urged listeners to rent the DVDs and then throw them away. And in return at Hintralands Bar, I've received multiple shattered DVD copies. Amazing. Wow. That's grassroots.

Be the good you want in the world, is what I'm saying. Yeah. Well, yeah, so we're all looking forward to that. That's coming up in the next few weeks. Go to maximum fun. Dot org. Check out all the great shows.

on there during the drive, you know, maybe join, maybe become a member. And I want to say thank you to Alex Smith, our producer. He goes by the name Howl Doughty all over the internet. You can check out his music. You can check out his Twitch streams. You can check out his own podcast, which is very funny. Big Howl and Possum, I believe it's called. But for the Flop House, I've been Dan McCoy. Hey, I've been Dan's friend, Stuart Wellington. Oh. There's a 93% probability that I'm Elliot Kalin, but it's dropping fast. Oh, no?

We've got to get him on ice. Bye. Bye. So, this, of course, will be before the one we just reported. So don't reference anything. The tight lore that we've established. No, yeah, this is like I've got to remember. as a prequel to the last episode.

Um, and I'll just start. Maximum Fun. A worker-owned network. Of artists-owned shows. Supported directly by you.