The Greatest Generation - (A Man With) Very Suspicious Loaf (S6E21)

Episode Date: June 19, 2017

When Commander Riker’s mind is compromised on a dangerous mission, his jailers convince him that the life he knew aboard the Entrepreneur has been a fantasy. But when the firewall he’s erected to preserve his sanity begins to crack, Riker must keep his edge or risk finishing his reality too soon. Is the Entrepreneur a Seattle-chill type place? How deep is too deep to bow? Is that a Cardassian pillow? It’s the episode you can think of in a pinch, to keep you in the game.

Priority 1 message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. Hey friends of Disodo. Before today's episode, we just wanted to take a moment to talk about the historic labor actions being taken by writers and actors in the American Film and Television industry. If you're a fan of the work done by the people who make Star Trek, we hope you'll join us in standing in solidarity with the folks who actually bring these adventures to life. Over the past several years, the AMPTP, the organization that represents the American Film and Television Production Studios, have reduced the profit from movies and TV going to workers. And in so doing,

they've attempted to weaken the labor unions that represent those workers. They wouldn't even engage the unions on many issues in their negotiations. And so a strike was the only course of action to take. Adam, Wendy and I have been having a lot of internal discussions about how best to stand with the unions and we are continuing those conversations in a dynamic situation. We're doing our best to understand where the picket lines are in these digital spaces,

and we would never intentionally cross one. With the information we have, we feel like we can do more good talking about and supporting the strike and continuing our show as planned. We'll keep you informed about what all this means for greatest trek specifically. Today we're making a contribution to the Entertainment Community Fund. This fund exists to help all the people whose livelihoods have been put on hold because the AMPTP refuses to negotiate

in good faith with the unions. It provides financial support for writers, actors, and all the thousands of laborers who make the shows that we talk about here and without whom we wouldn't have Star Trek to cast pot about. Those folks are all out of work because billionaires, company shareholders, and the executives of these companies don't want to compromise on the length of their yachts. We hope you'll join us in supporting entertainment workers in a challenging time, especially after they've already endured several years of challenges brought on by the pandemic

and season two of Star Trek Picard. We've set up a page where you can also contribute. It's at friendsofdecotoforlabor.com. That's friendsofdececoto for Labor.com. That's FriendsOfDecoto for Labor.com. Link in the episode description. Okay, now let's get on with the show. Here's to the finest crew in Starfleet. Engage! Welcome to the greatest generation. The Star Trek Podcast by two guys who are a little bit embarrassed to have a Star Trek Podcast.

I'm Adam Pranica. And I am looking at Adam while doing Ben Harrison. Really popping a lot of cherries today. Ben, first and foremost, you popped my Langer's cherry. Yeah. Oh, I am too full for pod. Yeah, we are here at the World Headquarters of MaximumFun.org, overlooking MacArthur Park. A place chosen for its proximity to Langer's. I learned. Yeah, Langer's of course is a delicatessen that serves in probably large meat sandwiches and by improbably kind wait staff.

Really nice. Yeah, what a big getting called Hun and you know like you got the you got the classic your bill was $48 million and not $48. Oh yeah, I love that bit. So fun that bit it's old as time but it's it's real charming when it's a nice old lady doing it right. Yeah, yeah. If it was just some dingong at a convenience store counter. No. It's not fun at all. No, thank you. But when you're full of pastrami. Yeah.

So we're here in Los Angeles, California. We stayed up late last night and watched the episode. We're here to review today on the on the couches in my wife's family's house. The best place to do something embarrassing is on the couch of your mother-in-law's home, right? Yeah. It's been a long time. I feel like we really made a lot of hay out of the fact that that we did that last time. And this time nobody was around, so it felt a lot more covert. You know, I didn't have to ask to be excused to go watch Star Trek. No. But yeah, it's a...

I still feel very apologetic for the show's involvement in their life at any level, though. Yeah, it is a hard thing to look your mother-in-law in the eye and admit that you're doing. She had so much higher hopes for her only daughter. Yeah. Oh well. Well, the pastrami is settling in our stomachs, dumbing us up. I really feel bad for you Ben, we're in a locked soundproof booth after just having had giant pastrami sandwiches.

Anything could happen. The ventilation system's been shut off the door locks from the outside. Yeah. Are you ready to do some pod? Maybe this room might be the most appropriate possible place to do this episode from because it does feel like a place you get thrown

if you were a danger to yourself and others. Yeah, I expected this is maximum funds HR department in this room, right? This is where you're counseled, sternly. So should we get into it at him? Yeah, let's do that. Real happy episode for you today. Season six episode 21, frame of mind. mind. So this one starch with a long take and you can tell that things are tense right off the bat based on Riker's hair. Typically I am against the experience of watching the crew have hobbies outside of Star Trek, you know, outside of their job of Star Trek. Right.

And this sets the tone right away. So the doctor is probably your least favorite character because she seems to have the most extra crewgiller shit on her plate of anybody. Yeah. Breakfast with the captain. Teaching drama. I thought people in the medical community always had the longest hours. They're the ones sleeping at work. Maybe that's all changed here in the future. A perfect medical future.

Well, it's a long taken. It kind of starts, it puts you off balance to begin with because you have a voice coming from off screen, but it's not immediately clear who it is, and Ryker is interacting with this person in a way that quickly reveals itself to be like he doesn't quite have his wits about him. He's kind of contradicting himself and losing track of the reality he is trying to build with the person he is talking to. And Ryker can be hair, esquieu, and wallide occasionally. So it's not entirely out of character for him. Yeah, it might have just been a long night in Holodeck's forfer.

Or Commander Riker in Long Night on Rising. Yeah, I heard... Long Night on Riser 2 makes Long Night on Riza look like long night on Riza 3. He's trying to... Two tapes on that one. Yeah, yeah, there's an intermission for the squeegee crew to come into the theater. Grouse. The the thing here is he's trying to talk his interlocutor out of the idea that he's a crazy criminal person, right?

He's like, I'm looking forward to proving my innocence. Making the argument that he wasn't in his right mind, but he's willing to stand trial, but he didn't do it, but he's sorry, but let me go because I'm much better now. Sure, and the person that he's talking to is like verbally trapping him. I thought you said you accepted what you do. After everything he says, he's really getting boxed in. That's really not what you want in your therapist. Laying little rhetorical traps for you. How many appointments do you go to that go like that before you start auditioning others? Yeah. It's like Ted Cruz, I don't think I want you to be my therapist anymore. This doesn't seem like a healthy, uh,

doctor-patient relationship. Pay him in soup, though. So yeah, I mean, and then the reveal is that he's been, uh, that he's like, I guess he's like trying to remember one of the lines and that the can, the camera cuts and Beverly is there. Why don't we take a break for tonight? The interlocutor is data and they've been practicing for a play and record goes so far as to say he doesn't feel like he's right for the part. He feel like he did great.

Yeah. He went on like a four-page monologue and only slipped up at the very end. Yeah. I might even say that this scene is, is Freak's best scene in the episode. I think that's fair. It's a, it's a weird episode because it really like oscillates between moments of like triumph and achievement and a couple of just like clunky ass things that

happened that are just like, ah. This could have been a mountain if they hadn't stepped on a couple of pieces of poopy. The premise of the app makes me think if the story began from the perspective of wanting to give actors something different to do than they normally get. If that's where you begin with breaking a story like this,

instead of what it probably was, which was like, what if Raker's crazy? What if he thinks he's crazy? What if he's a prisoner of war? Like, I wonder how much story breaking comes from the idea of boredom for a group of actors. Yeah. And if that's where this came from.

Like at the table read, they're all just checking their watches and just like, oh my God, another goddamn space time rift are you Being being reiker sucks Yeah, have we had like a good riker episode yet this season? Yeah, it feels like it's been a while maybe well anyways Crusher kind of calms him down says that it's possible to overbur herce which is a Maybe not the right thing to say to somebody who's still not off-book. If there's anyone you want to act across, you want it to be data, right? Yeah.

I bet he could whisper lines to you the entire time without his lips moving. Yeah, he could throw his voice, like you're the only person in the room that can hear it. Really safe place to act, I think. Yeah. But he gets calmed down and he's like heading home and he's walking in the hallway, like rehearsing his various lines and comes across a man with very suspicious loaf. This guy has women's suffrage bonnet loaf.

Ha-ha-ha-ha. Yeah. It's like that iconic tunnel in Marin where there's two side by side. Yeah. But then his hair also is that shape. It's real split top butterloaf too. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Like just seeing this guy is enough for Riker to Rikerize to theme song.

I don't get the sense that the entrepreneur is a very social place because the thing that makes this guy stand out is that he's looking at Riker as he walks by. Maybe the enterprise is a real Seattle chill type play where you walk by someone and you're not supposed to look or say what's up. Is this a real Seattle chill type play? Where you walk by someone and you're not supposed to look or say what's up. Yeah. What's that guys problem? He's really familiar.

Yeah. Blow it up the spot. He must have forgot. Mind your own business. Something great about Seattle's, that Seattle chill, because most of the time I don't want to interact with anybody, so it's great. But if I ever want want to interact with anybody, so it's great.

But if I ever want to immediately alienate somebody, I can, and it will work. It's within your power. Yeah. Anybody walking down the street, you give a how do you do, and they're like running for the hills. Yeah, we don't like that. That's what makes recording in the same booth is you so uncomfortable for me. Yeah, you're steeped in that culture. Yeah.

We have basically the same thing in New York. Like, you don't really strike up a conversation with somebody. It's like Jay-Z says, concrete bunghole, where dreams are made up, there's nothing you can do. I was visiting some cousins in Vermont and like I was gonna to help my uncle fix up something on his house so he had to go to the hardware store and just didn't know the hardware store guy from from anybody else that they passed the time for like an hour

and a half and I want to do crawl out of my skin. I think what could we possibly have to say to this roob? Looks like you're here to dig a grave! Shuffle's around aisle two. Now the O-Shuffle has a fiberglass handle, so that if you hit a power line it doesn't shock you. Are you trying to disold pet cemetery bee? The mashup no one asked for? Yeah, well let's move on. I don't know, like Riker's got a bee on top of everybody on the ship, right? Like seeing a strange lieutenant with weird loaf.

He should know who that is, right? It seems like there should be sort of a pyramid of rank on the ship and there can't be that many lieutenants on board and if he's in command of the roster he's gonna know everyone. This guy's a little shifty though. The order of business for Rikers that he's getting briefed by Captain Picard on like a covert mission he's gonna have to do on this planet. Do we have a name on this planet? To load his four?

The fucking stupid page of notes that we have open doesn't say what the planet is, so we'll never know Adam. Does it really matter? No, but anyways, this planet there's like a breakdown in the social order. There's a federation team that is missing and they don't want to interface with any local authorities because they're all, you know, warlord type situations. And importantly, Picard tells Raker that they have resorted to torture to get what they want.

They're all vying for power and they're they're concerns that these federation Hostages are getting tortured the last time riker had to go behind enemy lines and Dress as if he had to fuck his way out of that hospital remember. That's true Riker's like man. I got to pack a bag in both sets of quarters You remember that from the hit film, Hard Night on Rysa Volume 4? Yeah. Oh man. There's a really fun James Bond-esque scene

in this episode where Warf sort of plays the part of Guy with Inventions. This apparel will help you pass as a common merchant. Showing them to a 007 riker who gets to like sort of try them out at the desk. Yeah. Really fun. He gets the he gets the communicator that's on a gold chain. He gets a watch that sprays hot sauce in case they want him to eat something with mayonnaise in it. Yeah, he's got that car that that throws up the smoke screen to people behind him. Yeah.

Wormf is being kind of a motherhead too. He's like really worried about Riker. I suggest you pay closer attention commander. Your life will be at stake. You know, Riker's not necessarily taking the danger of this as seriously as Worf would like. Well, you forget that Worf and Riker are best friends because they stopped supporting that character development like three seasons ago. Yeah, they wrote it in once and then forgot about it. Yeah.

There was that ex incident that they never recovered from. I feel like Michael Doran didn't forget that Worf and Riker are best friends. Maybe Frank's did. The writing staff definitely did. Yeah. that they never recovered from. I feel like Michael Doran didn't forget that Wharf and Riker are best friends. Maybe Frank's did. The writing staff definitely did. Yeah. But Wharf is like, hey, but the best part about this mission is this knife.

And he's got this crazy, sneaky blade that apparently you need to dance around with in order to close a business deal on this planet. There's like a knife ceremony for every purchase or transaction that you make. And Wurf is demonstrating it a little bit. And it, you know, looks suspiciously like Klingon Yoga. But he doesn't have quite as much control over that as he, He doesn't have quite as much control over that as he Over this as he does that so he he nicks riker on the side of the head that fully sound of knife on face was

Unmusticably cringey. Yeah, I'm sorry commander. He looks at worth appropriately pissed Like what the hell are you doing, man? The fuck is wrong with you? There's no way this alien loaf is gonna stick if my head's bleeding. Is the idea of it is gonna go down belowft? It sure seems that way, that's the only way to blend in. Yeah, the doc patches him back up and it's kind of like,

they're like talking play while she's patching him up right he's like he's still got nerves about this situation. He's like oh I guess I can I can get out of the play portion of my life. This is a great excuse. He's basically trying everything he can try with the doc and eventually consents to continue with the play. When you hire Commander Riker as an actor in your troop, consent also applies to which part to give him. Well, consent can be withdrawn at any time.

It's true. Any reason. Yeah. A ticket is no guarantee of a ride band. He does display and like takes a bow and stands up and the audience has been replaced by a wall. And he is in an actual version of the prison set that he's been acting in. Are there rules about bowing in the theater context? Because he really goes deep on that bow.

It's a sign of deep respect. It's almost like a yoga-esque fold-over bow. And it made me wonder if that was a little too deep. If that was this problem. Yeah, there was that thing in the 80s of like, there was always some Japanese businessmen in something and like the main character has to learn all the like signs of respect and like you know the depth of bow is a thing.

But I kind of feel like Riker is more of a like twirl your hand over your head and bow guy than a like deep sincere you, austere bow like this. I think data could really put him to shame in the bow department. Like totally stick his head up his own butt. I was data super flexible too. Yeah, how could he not be? Raker does some great Isaac thing here,

because he like bows and looks up and the guy with the suspicious loaf is suddenly in the audience and you can see the like the shock and horror wash over him before he goes in for bound number two which lands him in actual jail. He's asking himself the same question we are which is why isn't Lieutenant Jay sitting in that seat? Are she on the Picard on the outs again? I don't know.

Sure seems that way. Yeah. Sad. Well, he, you know, in this jail cell is talking to a different guy with the weird loaf. Yeah. Okay. I found it very hard to tell these different loaf guys apart.

You got damn loaf racist is what you are. Yeah, they all look the same different. I will freely admit that this loaf makes all faces look the same. Maybe they found the key loaf makeup for this episode, the one that makes them all look like universally similar. Because they all have the same hair color and similar face shape, like sun's loaf, they all got the same kind of like jaw shape. They all have sort of vaguely Peter Fonda hair. Yeah That really like lobed back

Receiving hairline. Yeah, but they don't have the Peter Fonda teeth, which is why they're not as charming Yeah Love those Peter Fonda teeth Yeah, the only the only two loaf people that stand out are the one lady and the one guy that's like a foot taller and 150 pounds heavier than everybody else. Yeah. The guy with attitude.

He's basically the only guy who sticks out to me because of that attitude. He's like a little bit of a jerk prison warden. Yeah. Yeah. He's like the muscle in this prison. Yeah, that guy we're talking about is Mavek. Who is married to Mimi Leder?

Mimi Leder is the television director. Whoa. Director of note, especially lately, for her work in my favorite show, The Leftovers. No way. Yeah. Yeah. Cool.

Pretty awesome. Married up. No kidding. I don't think it's insulting to say I think he might say that. As a man who married up, I can't. As someone who played the hit character Mavic in season six of Star Trek the next generation. People are still talking about his work as Mavic. Really can't wait to pull a natural Mavik out of the cards. On my flight from JFK to LAX, you always see one or two famous and I saw this guy signing some headshots when we were at the baggage claim and the guy was like, can you sign it Mavik? the baggage claim and the guy was like, can you sign it, Maevek? Oh. I think, you know, I don't like to spend a lot of time

in touristy places, but you walk down Hollywood Boulevard, get your picture taken with your Spider-Man, your Batman, your Maevek. Yeah. Very friendly. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, it's always funny to see the kind of broad range of Maevek's, like there's the one that definitely got his

Mavic love at the Halloween store. But then there's the guy that like really takes it seriously and might have ordered the like $100 Mavic costume off Amazon. I also really appreciate the female Mavic because like this whole Mavic gender binary thing isn't cool. Yeah, fuck that.

Anyone can be a Mavic inside. Yeah. Be the Mavic you want to see in the world. That's what I say. It is a crazy, crazy, one with dog, baby face. Are you not finding it within yourself? Just stand up, tell the truth. You don't deserve the wealth that you never want.

There's like this doctor there in this cell. And it's explained to Raker that the enterprise is a delusion. Like the real life here enterprise is a delusion. Like the real life he remembers is the fantasy life. And the reality is that he is like a violent and insane criminal who is in this facility for his own good. This to me was the best part of this episode because the doctor and everyone around Riker makes a fairly credible case for this.

Yeah, I mean, like they have a lot of corroborating evidence. It was scary the first time I saw this episode and it was scary when I saw it again, just the how tenuous the grasp on reality is for anyone at any time. Yeah, I mean, it's the same premises, 12 monkeys, which plays with this in the same fun way, where like, you know, when you don't have any like way to verify the thing you believe is true, like, what do you do? It's also terminator too, like, has the same idea,

and it like, she, you know, is institutionalized because she believes that there's a robot from the future. And like, nobody has any reason to believe that she's right, but she fucking is. In St.US Island is a scary place in the past, in the present, and in the science fiction future. It's universally terrifying. They do that thing where they sort of purplock riker to the lunchroom, and it's nothing but like a hallway of screams

and people twitching and stuff. It's really bad. Yeah. That's all sound design too. Like the lunchroom is pretty chill, but the like long hallway to it is. They pan stuff around too in a really effective way. Yeah, the hallway to the lunchroom

is job of the huts dungeon level scary-ness. Yeah. And he gets there and like the first person he meets is this lady who is like, yo, I'm commander blue and from the Yorktown. And she slides a spoon out of her sleeve and like radios up to Starfleet command to Ressie Riker, which is like, man, like that is like the most fun piece of writing, because she is clearly off her chain. And not until that moment, though, it's a tease and reveal, like because because riker totally has hope in that moment. Right. The way it is revealed

that she is nuts when she pulls that spoon out is like so devastating to him and so it so underpins the story that the creepy look love doctor has been telling him. Yeah. They call Reikers fantasy world his starship fantasy. Which I really like. Tances are Reikers life on the Enterprise is kind of a fantasy. That's also what I call this show when I tell my wife I'm gonna go record it. I'm gonna go do my Starship fantasy with my friend Ben. Yeah Have fun Be home for dinner. Yeah, I embarrassingly forgot a key piece of equipment that we needed to record while we were out here in LA a key piece of equipment that we needed to record while we were out here in LA when I was packing.

So we had to come over here to the Max-Lyn HQ and ask if we could have our starship fantasy in their recording booth, awkward conversation. Yee. Yeah. There's doctors in this facility, and Raker is presented with the option of reflection therapy or lobotomy. And what we find with reflection

therapy is a really cool scene where he sat down in a chair and he's presented with figures that he's told are from his imagination. Yeah, there's this device, like on the coffee table in front of him that kind of looks like it was like straight out of dune. Like. It really has the Dune aesthetic to it, but it scans his head and then like, Picard and Troy and Wharf show up. And they're like, I felt threatened.

I was being watched. Someone must have followed me. They take on the different aspects of Riker's personality. Troy pops up first and she speaks very emotionally They take on the different aspects of Riker's personality. Yeah. Troy pops up first and she speaks very emotionally about Riker's thoughts the night of, you know, the night of whatever crime he's accused of committing. Right. And Warf talks about the aggressive feelings that he felt at that moment and Picard is sort

of the logic center of Riker's brain. Yeah, I mean, like the reason he is ostensibly in this jail is that he like killed somebody in incredibly grizzly way. Like, Maevek is like telling him about how it took hours to clean all the blood off of him. He came in because he'd like mutilated this person's body. Just getting the blood off your hands took over an hour. Hahaha.

Mayvette kind of laughed about it too. Like, it is Mayvette's steel. Mayvette is like cranking it in the corner to see if his body being cut apart. Jesus, Mayvette, what? Hahaha. Is Mayvette a guard or an occupant of this place? Hahaha.

But like, when the doctor tells him about the crime, like that is like the worst, both the worst writing and the worst acting in this episode because, because Breaker is going like, leave me alone! No! It's such an unmotivated reaction, you know?

Like he has been presented with a lot of plausible evidence that these people are telling him the truth and that he is in fact not in his right mind. So why does he believe so firmly that he didn't do that? Wouldn't a more affecting reaction of that be like the dawning realization that a good person has done a very bad thing and that person is him. Yeah. What they didn't do was slide the Manila envelope full of those awful crime scene pictures across the table. That's a scene you get every time that you don't get here.

Yeah, that'd be nice. That'd be easy to Photoshop, right? If you're in prison for a murder, you aren't sure you committed. Don't you have to ask to see those pictures just to be sure? Yeah, what's your evidence, jerks? Where's those pics? There's those tasty, tasty stabbing pics.

That is either pics, Mayvick is like, some of them are stuck together. Oh. Bad Mayvick. Mayvick is the worst. Don't let your kids take a picture with him in front of Roman's Chinese theater. Yeah. Yeah. because they're worse. Don't let your kids take a picture with him in front. Roman's Chinese theater.

Yeah, yeah. I just don't want them anywhere near him. Keep it to Groot. Okay. Baby Groot, if possible. This bed inside Rikers prison is maybe the only bed more uncomfortable than Jordy's bed in his quarters.

It is like a steel table. Have we seen that triangle pillow somewhere before? I think we have. That triangle pillow. That's a recycled prop. Yeah. Is that like a cardassian pillow? Did they give Picard a triangle when he was in that torture chamber?

Is that a cardassian pillow? pillow is maybe the most quintessentially greatest gen line we've had in a long time. Yeah, so look for the Cardassian pillow in the Max Fun store. This episode kind of oscillates because like he keeps kind of coming back to in Ship reality like he's he's like kind of on on the D and in the jail and like you know every time he turns around He's in a different place which is super confusing for him and and so he comes back and they're like yeah Like you have to do the play tonight and he's like what I already did the play no Playland to me exactly where I didn't want to be.

And uh, and sure enough, like he goes and does it. And in the middle of a scene, like, you know, like spooky loaf boy is in the audience one more time. And Riker, like, turns around. And you know, the fourth wall has been replaced by an actual wall. There are some real Conan Berg vibes here. They do like shot reverse shot of the same person. Yeah. It's fun like it's got some editing tricks that are pretty cheap to do but very effective and I think that the reason they work is that they do so many other, so

many other parts of the episode are really long takes. Like they kind of do what Birdman does, which is treat a theater situation as an opportunity for a long take. So Riker's doing like minutes of monologue at a time where the camera is like, is, you know, steady camming around and moving, but it never cuts. And then when it does, it's like, whoa, reality changed completely. Yeah. It's really cool. They give him a ton to do. I don't know if there's another person besides Stu, you could load up like this on the show. Yeah, it made me think like, I mean, we kind of have got this episode in the chain of command, Arc, but I could not help but think what,

what JL pipes would do with the part that Frakes gets in this episode. Yeah. It's funny. He's like, at one point, Riker is telling Picard, like, I don't know if I want to do this play. And Picard is like, well, if you don't do it, Beverly is going to come make me do it.

So you fucking better do it. Everyone's so fucking afraid of that doctor. Yeah. Chicken. She has a lot of power on the ship. Yeah. Oh, you're not going to be in the play. Well, I don't know if you're medically fit to be captain. From a medical standpoint. I've got a hypospraful of what may

or may not be baby laxative. For as good as the editing tricks are, the effects in this episode are not great. No. Like the whole video toaster, shatter, affect the lady spinning across screen, the star wipe. There are a lot of ways that they break the reality for Riker that I personally wouldn't have chosen. The series of bubbles that come up from the bottom of the screen Oh, is he supposed to be in a fish tank in this part the ball bouncing off the frame of the TV painting the scene below

Page peel. Yeah, always good. Yeah, always a classic the ripple where is good. Yeah, always a classic. The ripple where the computers and smart enough to replace the pixels on the edge. So you see a little like black on the edges where where it's rippling. One of them is just a blue screen. But in describing all of those things, I think Rikers faltering sanity is legitimately scary. And those moments, I feel like, are ruined by the shatter effect, for example. Yeah.

During the reflection therapy scene, and when the characters start like invading against the doctors and the facility, when Picard and Warf and Troy are begging Riker to shut it down and stop believing them and come back to himself. You know, he does that thing where he tells them to take a long walk and is looking back up at the doctor for looks of approval.

You've taken a big step today. Once that goes down, it seems like the episode kind of speeds up because the next thing that happens is data and wharf come like extraction squad style in the middle of the night and are doing the bust him out of prison. But he is so so, he is so like deep into the reality of I believe myself to be a murdering insane man who is who has imagined all these starfleet people that he like he like rats him out.

You know how some athletes have like lucky socks or a lucky sweat band or whatever. Warf has worn this black leotard on three totally failed missions. He's gotta change that leotard, man. Yeah, I was just thinking about like how unstoppable data and warf would be as an extraction squad. Like one of them can open doors, the other one can't.

We haven't seen data throw someone across a shuttle bay Yeah. Like, one of them can open doors, the other one can't. We haven't seen data throw someone across a shuttle bay in a long time. Yeah. And then this scene, we get a little bit of a tease for that. Like, he grabs a guy and throws him against the wall. Data doing some violence is really fun. Yeah. Yeah, but Riker, like, you know, makes a commotion

and gets the bad guy's attention. And they like Maevek and his little lackey, his little Roman Polanski buddy come out and like, yeah, they fight Warfin Data, they get tossed. And they eventually get Riker to the like beam out point, right? And they've got the jumbo crayolas set up to get them out. And he wakes up in six bay getting scanned. And it's like, it's again unreality because they keep like fixing a cut on the side of his head. That's where the knife was. It's bleeding again. Why you just healed it. He is so angsty at all times in this scene. Like he is so frustrated by this wound healing process. I thought Patrick Stewart's performance

throughout this episode was really interesting because he's so a tertiary character in the story. Like he really doesn't drive the story that much, but he's there to sort of as a symbol of like the, the like rock that is Riker's reality. And when he's there and that's ineffective, it's so upsetting. Yeah. Like when Frakes repudiates him during the reflection therapy scene,

it's like, fuck, like this is bad news bearers, man. Yeah. And you get a little of that in this six-base scene and it winds up with Riker like throwing haymakers and like punching wharf. Not a good look in the workplace. No. Yeah, he gets a despester.

What are you doing, Will? And he's like, what I'm gonna do? Is that I'm gonna point it at me? And they're like, dude, don't despester yourself. We'll just give you a lint roller, man. It'll be fine. You don't have to do that. Yeah, Wurf is like, I'll adopt your cat if that's what it takes, but don't.

I've got this duct tape I can wrap around my hand backwards, and then just sort of get the lint off of you that way. But I'm going to find out what's real and what's not. We'll don't do it. He blasts himself and he's back in the prison and the doctor and Mavik and the other guy, sulac, what's up the guy's name? Sure. The administrator who is the...

You can't tell these people apart, Ben. Why do you even try? Indistinguishable from the guy who is the doctor, in my opinion. They're all there. The handmaidens loaf people. Yeah, and he starts like phasering everybody and everything. And like the more phasering he does,

the more shattering and the more like the wall disappears and the audience is there giving him a standing ovation for all the great phasering. Eventually he wakes up and he's in like a different place. He's not in the ship and he's not in the prison. He's in this like creepy science lab. The kind of, it's kind of the schism's science lab. Like record gut schism again.

You just got schism too, lab like record got schism again. You just got schism to secret of the use. And he's got schism juice going into his head. Yeah. There's like an IV going into the part of the temple that he keeps getting cut. The fatal flaw that all schismers do is they never strap down their patient. Yeah. You're just gonna get yourself out of that schism if you're not strapped down.

Yeah, and they're always facing away from the patient too. Like the computers and shit are all like facing the other directions of their, they're kind of caught off guard. Like by the time, by the time they realize he's becoming on schizms, it's like up and ready to kick their butts. I love that Riker sees a giant knife on the table across the room. Like a knife that has no

business in an operating or medical environment. You got to put that in an evidence locker. Riker's like, well, I see no means for escape, except for that giant machete. So he gets that giant machete, but he also gets the pendant that is a radio that should be the way all other communicators are a way of finding him. Radio's up to the entrepreneur and says, get me out of here. And he beams up. And the button of the episode is like a scene with him and Troy had Picard in the ready room.

And they're kind of like, you know, wrapping everything up. You know, it turned out he did go on his covert mission, but went missing two days into it. It turns out he did Get tortured and the like it was like a deep psychological torture and the kind of bouncing back and forth between the ship and the reality of the play that he was in was His mind building a defense mechanism against insanity Maybe Frank's weirdest performance in the episode is like him basically going like, and it is fucking awesome that I didn't go crazy. Rikers like in a pinch I've gotten my mind to do all sorts of things to keep me in the game. We don't even have baseball here in the future. I know a lot about baseball.

Believe me. My mind conjured baseball on its own. And I invented something called baseball, and then I win in Wikipedia. It turns out it actually existed a long time ago. I don't know who Margaret Thatcher is, but thinking of her naked on a cold day, really keeps me in the game. And then he goes down to the set of the play and the doctor is like, hey, you know, like we were going to do this, me and the stage crew, we're going to do this tomorrow morning. And he's like, I just got to see this through, Doc. And so he, uh, he ends the episode, like, starting to rip the, the scenic, uh, design of the, of the set apart. I think that Ryker needs

more time to recover from this. This whole situation really fucked him up. Now, if you lost your grip on reality, you're going gonna want to destroy the one symbol on the ship. That can bring you back to the horror that you've been living through. Now when you grab a piece of metal sheeting, you're gonna want to use some O-Ship-rood leather gloves. This pair of gloves has been impregnated with a nice thick latex rubber that can protect your hands from any cuts or gashes. I love how little they show you of this. Like he grabs a corner of sheeding and then you get like a half a second of pole.

Yeah. Yeah. And then it's like fade out. Fade out credits. I am a cute little ball. Thereade out credits. I am a beautiful, There are more lights. Did you like this episode? It did.

It is not a mountain for me, because of the couple of times where it just kind of loses its grip. And um... Oh, I see what you did there. It's grip on reality. It's grip on what it's trying to do. Uh-huh. Um... Maybe I'm biased. It's grip on reality. It's grip on what it's trying to do.

Maybe I'm biased. I have taken an acting class or two at them. When I was in college, I took an acting class in which I had to prepare a series of monologues over the course of the semester. One of the ones I did was the bread pit monologue from 12 monkeys. And when I finished my scene before I could get feedback from the class or anything, my professor who is this sophisticated, skinny little Manhattan lady just said to me, well, I didn't like that very much but I didn't think Brad Pitt

was very good in that part either. And it's like one of the most withering like she just fucking destroyed me in that moment. Like I was like I'll never act again. That was when you changed your major. Yeah, I strongly considered a career and I was like, maybe I should become an electrician or something. She could have stopped your podcast career before it started. Yeah.

Blue up on the launch pad. She seems nice. Yeah, she did not have a lot of respect for me, which maybe I didn't deserve. I had not done nothing to earn her respect. I understand. Yeah. But yeah, I guess maybe that made me especially sensitive to this being, you know, like, if you're going to do shot corridor corridor in space like you want a fucking

Destroyify it like you really want to nail the And they do so much of the time like there's so much of the time where you're like wow What if this is an episode where we find out that Riker has been imagining all of this shit all along like what is that reality? Look like after that like is there a federation or did he imagine that whole thing? Like, what's the deal? It would have been a really interesting way to kill off a character. And by that, I mean, not actually kill them, but like, you know, Frakes isn't on the show anymore. Right. Style. Yeah.

Um, you know, not that I want to see Frakes off the show, but like the, yeah, the, when it's working, this episode is and like a couple of times it feels like really take the air out of it for me mental illness is the most scary thing to me and so the underpending of that story I found like totally affecting and Freak's performance as someone who is losing his grasp on that. I thought it was really strong. Yeah, the effects did not help because There didn't need to be any like Frakes was the effect. Yeah, and that's all that you needed I Much like much like Picard's terrible experience

I much like Picard's terrible experience, murdering millions of federation people. I wish there was a greater consequence for him in the episodes ahead. Like, I know next week he's gonna go right back to work, but there's no way that he should be able to do that. Right, that he should be stable enough. I mean, it's the same thing with Picard getting tortured too. Yeah.

It's, or, or Jordi being, uh, being turned into a manchurian candidate by the Romulans. Hey, hey Ben, let's play a little game called, Who Was Worse Tortured? Ha ha ha ha ha! It's everyone's favorite game. Uh, was it Picard by the Cardassians? Or was it Riker by,iker by by these loaf people?

What about Jordy? Jordy got tortured too. You're not counting him. I'm not. I feel like I feel like his torture was in a solid third place. Third place torture Jordy. Wow. I think what I'm trying to say is I think Riker had it worse than Picard. Yes. Because mental torture, to me, as a torture connoisseur, got to go with mental on top. Yeah. You're like, Mavoc, beating off the gourd and violence is so pedestrian. I need to have to taught psychological torture. Yeah. I mean, there was a psychological aspect of a card's torture.

But he didn't completely get unhinged. The psychological torture that Picard went through was fear factor when he had to eat the live egg. Yeah. What about, I mean, like the fact that the torture that Joe Rogan could dispense is not the deepest form of torture I would say. I don't know. Have you heard his podcast?

Oh! I actually haven't heard his podcast. I do. I'm sure it's great. I'm sure it's a great way to learn about space aliens being real and taking baths in sensory deprivation chambers. Hey, don't knock sensory deprivation baths until you try it. Bob.

All right, well I'm looking for my opportunity. One has not presented itself. Adam, do you want to move on to a bit of business? Priority one message business. P1 message business. All right. Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. Need a supplement on. supplement on.

supplement. supplement. Yes, extra. The interest alone could be enough to buy this ship. Hey Ben, our first priority one message is of a commercial nature. Oh, I love commercials. Feels like we've been getting more and more of these commercial messages, Ben. Isn't that great?

People are getting on the old commercial message, Ben. Plenty of room on team commercial message. Message goes like this. Introducing Plaveme. Oh, no. What? A new topical ointment for your nastiest skin afflictions. Ever wake up with a weird rash?

After a night in a terrible Fort Lauderdale strip club? Oh, no. Don't bother with conventional drugstore creams. They are gonna touch that. Don't cream it. Plaveme. Plaveme contains a lot of deat so you'd be protected from mosquitoes that spread zika plevim also contains 10% no you

fuck yourself plevim has no medically or socially redeeming qualities whatsoever What's so ever? That message of course from Plavim a holy own subsidiary of Raz Wow, Raz is not I think that's the first fire back that Raz has done. That was a strong fire That was that was pretty devastating. Yeah I don't know what's happening to our show, but I love it Warping a commercial message for their private use Our next message here is of a personal nature It's from Lauren and it is to the other senders of p1s It goes like this high five. Thanks for supporting the. The best podcast. I love you all so much. I love Ben and Adam so much too. I

Maybe drunk on Geinen's good green stuff. Lauren sounds fun. I Want to drink green stuff with Lauren. Yeah Lauren's real. Yeah Geinen is a television character. I Also like that Lauren is just like a earnest supporter and not a resin plovium type who is really just out here to turn the show into something about themselves. Yeah. Lauren's a giver. What?

Yeah. You know what, resin plovium give? A lot of guff to each other. each other on our hair. Yeah, I mean It's helping support the show so I can't I can't fully condemn it, but I look like Lord I fully encourage it if any of our viewers would like to send either a commercial or Personal priority one message that can go to maximumfund.org slash jumbo Tron where personal messages are $100 and commercial messages are for $200 and they help us with the ongoing production of our show. Thanks guys. Thank you. Hey Ben. What's that Adam? Real or imagines did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda? Drunk Shimoda!

What's the guy's name, the bad guy? Sulak? Yeah. No! Something like that. Be nice if we had any research on this episode. The guy who does the Shimoda graphs will have to do the research. Yeah, Colin, that guy is my Shimoda, I think, because that, that last scene where

Riker wakes up, he's like, he's doing some evil shit and he just gets caught with his pants down. Like it is such a, it's such a bonehead move that he's been inserting himself into Riker's reality, like via self into Riker's reality, like via an IV drip into the brain. And Riker has been like awake and like squirming around on this table for like a solid minute before he goes like, oh, he's conscious. What? And then like, like Riker is seriously incapacitated. This guy, yeah, like he did a lot of terrible planning

with not strapping riker down, not preventing a large knife from being present in the room with prisoner guy, not keeping the communicator out of the room also. Like, wouldn't you want to separate the communicator from the prisoner? Like, first thing? The card paints the picture of these guys early on in the episode is being extremely dangerous and skilled in torture. Here's the thing, not good at torture. Not good at setting up a surgical ward. Yeah. How about yourself? Did you have a Shimoda? We teased my Shimoda early on. The scene where Troy tells Riker in the Denny Mew that, yeah, you know, the only thing

that kept you sane was that sweet, sweet mind, keeping you grounded, conjuring imagery that kept you in the game. And like seeing Riker in profile kind of lean back in the couch squint his eyes and be like oh It me Was like that's that's the self-satisfied Riker that we know and love that's how we know he's gonna be okay Yeah, like the the consequences are not gonna be permanent for him He's not gonna go crying a vineyard He's gonna get right back on the Riker. Those bullets bounce right off Riker's chest.

Yeah, yeah. Dommok and Jalat and Tanaka. A greatest gen live show is something you don't want to miss. Why? Well, it's a great opportunity to see me and Ben in person, but that's not all. FODs from all over gather at these shows to cosplay, to do pre and post show hangs, to make friends, and share their embarrassment. Hey, let's make a pretty great name for a tour.

Let's do it! The Sherry Reembarishment Tour is coming in August 2023, and we've got a bunch of dates in a lot of great places. Go to GreatestGenTour.com to get more info. That's greatestgentour.com for dates and ticketing information for the Share Your Embarrassment Tour. I'm Jordan Morris. And I'm Jesse Thorne.

On Jordan Jesse Go, we make pure, delightful nonsense. We were open awesome guests and bring them down to our level. We get stupid with Judy Greer. My friend Molly and I call it having the spaceweards. Pat Noswald. Could I get a Balrog burger and some air-gorn fries? Thank you. And Kumail Nanjiani. I've come back with cat toothbrushes which is impossible to use. Come get stupider with us at MaximumFun.org. Look, your podcast apps are already open. Just pull it out. Give Jordan Jesse Goatry. Being smart is hard.

Be dumb instead. Whoa, rats. Hey, hey, hey, hey, oh, I'm about to count you in mine. These clouds are really freaking me out. I hate having to stand in line. And boy, what do I? These giraffes do not smell good. No, they do not, and they've such short nacks.

But I'm hearing we need to get on this. We've got to get on the art. It is about terrain, thought is about to destroy humanity. Hey, oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. Are you Noah? Yeah, I know we look like humans. We're actually, we're podcasters.

We are podcasters, so it's different. Have you heard of Ono Ross and Carrie? We investigate spirituality, claims of the paranormal, stuff like that. And you have a boat and say the world's gonna end, so seem like something for us to check out. We would love to be on the boats. We came to by two. What do you think? Only Ross and Kerry available on MaximumFund.org

What do we have coming up on the next episode Ben? It's a good question Adam. I'm gonna find out I believe we're gonna talk about season six episode 22 It's a good question, Adam. And I'm gonna find out. I believe we're gonna talk about season 6, episode 22. Shishbishange. A pioneering for anky scientist is found dead and Beverly risks her career to prove. He was murdered. Do you remember this episode, Adam?

I remember it in that way that we have been told constantly that there are Beverly Crusher Road Mine episodes from here on out. As we drive down this road of next generation, there's a triangular orange sign that's like Beverly ahead, like slow. And it just just has Beverly's face tumbling down from the side of a clip. Watch for Beverly. Yeah and so I feel like it's gonna be one of those but I don't remember this episode specifically. No. I remember it being one of those

ones that is like like hey what about like you know the Frankies and the and the Klingons have technology so they must have scientists. Was that look like and it just being like He didn't really sell me on this is what that looks like Now we all know that the frangier terrible with with technology but with this episode presupposes is Maybe they're not episode presupposes is maybe they're not? Well that's what we'll be watching next time because we have no vetoes. It's a deal. And you know what else is a deal is the low low price that you can pay to support the greatest generation on an ongoing basis but going to maximumfund.org slash donate It's true, Ben. The support of our viewers for this show is the thing that keeps this

wobbly contraption on the road towards Beverlyville The hills of Beverly It's a real jalapi. I'm trying to think of any lyrics from the song, the Beverly Hill Billy song, but I can't. So we'll just move on. Bubbling Crude. Speaking of songs, we sang dark material for our theme music and Adam Rekusia for all of our other music. And we should encourage people to go online.

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