The Greatest Generation - The Gordian Sock (S4E4)

Episode Date: October 19, 2016

When the Enterprise crew finds a human survivor aboard a wrecked Talarian ship, the young man wants to be roommates with Captain Picard. Unfortunately, Picard's quarters is filled with glass tables and a knife collection. Why can't Picard recognize when someone goes "full vineyard"? Does "asymmetrical loaf" indicate a breakthrough in alien makeup design? Is a vest of bratwurst this year's hit Halloween party costume? It's part two of The Slickback Trilogy!

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 a Star Trek podcast by two guys who are a little bit embarrassed to have a Star Trek podcast. I am Benjamin R. Harrison, one half of your hosting team for the evening.

I'm the other half, Adam Pranika. I often introduce myself as the other half. Yeah, oh yeah, because you're married. Right. What's that like? It's pretty great, dude. Yeah, I recommend it. Yeah. It's awesome to have like a teammate

who's definitely on your side. When you're as big of a fuck up as I am, it is really nice to have someone in your corner who can forgive that on the regular. I was, you're not really a fuck up. I mean, we both have tricky careers to be in, and I think we're both pretty successful relatively speaking in those careers. But our wives both have like a super serious career. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, they are seriously successful and we are like almost a joke successful. Right, like it's easy to mistake what we do for kids stuff. And they are like grown-ups with grown-up jobs and responsibilities and stuff. I feel like many of my conversations about my career and about this show, not just with my wife, but just with friends and associates, are often just trying to make the case that it's not a joke. No, seriously, sometimes Algo a week or two weeks

without working, and sometimes I will go a week or two weeks without working. And sometimes I will work four weeks in a row. Like, that's what my life is like, and that is not a joke. Yeah, well, and the days when you're not working can sometimes be really like upsetting, you know, weird way, because you're like, God, like, is this it? Are we done? Like, do I need to go get a Joe job? And give up on my dreams. My friend Wayne, who is also a in the freelance film biz, he's a gaffer, invited me to the beach one Tuesday

last summer. And we're out there on the beach and I was like, I feel like I'm not doing the right thing right now. He's like, listen man, on the days when you're not working, like obviously you should be working on your business, but think about all the fucking weekends you've worked. Yeah. And I was like, oh yeah, it's like you earn this,

you earn this buddy. There's a strange amount of when you're a freelancer, like that Stockholm syndrome of, if I'm not working right now, then it's wasting time. Yeah, absolutely. And speaking of Stockholm syndrome, I think we have an episode that is tangentially

associated with that subject, don't we? That is true. It's part two of the slick back trilogy. A trilogy that we have come up with doesn't actually exist at all. You know how TNG comes out with special box sets? Here's all the boring episodes. Here's all the Q episodes. The Slickback Trilogy does not exist.

Who's buying that? Yeah. The Slickback Trilogy, well maybe they'll ask to curate, like if they ever do like a criterion release, curated by Ben and Adam. I would love to see the Criterion Box Art for our podcast. The thing has been I can't just throw away a line like that because someone's gonna make it. Yeah.

We have had some viewers putting in work lately. Yeah, man. For the laughs, and it's been good. Yeah, I think we should probably call out this one that we were both blown away by today. Somebody went and animated Pekasbi, and they came up with a Starfleet themed Cosby sweater and put Cosby in the Cosby house on the view screen

and then just animate it like perfect lip sync animated Cosby to a clip from our show and then like whenever we're laughing at our own stupid joke, they cut in like outtakes from TNG of like, you know, like a door and like, like, busting up because a line is so funny. Oh my god, it's like the funniest thing I've ever seen. Well, you appreciate all of the stuff that our viewers have made, but when people have the temerity to submit a video to us directly, I think I really appreciate that. Absolutely. Pretty awesome.

Well, should we get into the app atom? Yeah, let's do that. Let's go over season four, episode four. It's part two of the slickback trilogy, suddenly human. This is becoming a speech. So the cat comes to very tightly. Hmm. I'm going to type it a ramble on,

I'll have something everyone knows. So you got a talarian craft that has distressed signaled, and if there's any distress signal, the enterprise is Johnny on the spot. They're like picking up feeble life signs from this craft, but they're a little on edge because it was a common tactic of the talarians to abandon their observation craft, rig them to self-destruct. And is your general distress call, yes, Mr. Dator, I know. They have a very perfunctory conversation about the risks involved of beaming over. Yeah.

And then about 10 seconds, they're like, yeah, it's worth it to just go check this out. If there was ever a time to reinstitute the beam the grass over under the feet of the people, why not just beam over a big part of this ship and remove the risk altogether? Or beam, not like one of the four or five main non-pacard characters over to the... Yeah, beam over the B team. Yeah, they beam over and there are a bunch of teens. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ And they've all got, you know, varying amounts of ground beef on their face.

And they all have some pretty intense top of head meat loaf as well. Like, and I guess the ground beef is meant to look like radiation burns, but the meat loaf is there, is there a special alien meat loaf? I think they're getting a little weird with the loaf in this episode and this alien because usually there's a fair amount of symmetry involved with the loaf, but this is definitely asymmetrical loaf on these talarians. Yeah, and it kind of looks like they have like scrotum sacks on the back of their heads. They look a little sissy, don't they?

It's like male pattern baldness that transitions toward the back into scrotum material. Yeah, I might want to comb that over. Yeah, yeah might wanna comb that over. If I can. Yeah, yeah. I know that that's like what everybody looks like on your planet, but that should, like be a little discreet, okay? Do you have to powder that part of your neck?

Yeah, you talc up the back of the dough. Yeah, I did do it. Gotta hit the back of your neck before you go to work. Well, especially in the summer months. Come on. Yeah. You don't want swamp head.

You work in that high engineering section. It's a real problem. Mm-hmm. That's how you get ground beef, dude. Yeah. Talk up. Gross. They're in bad shape, but there's one with a helmet on, and, you know, pressure turns a helmet on and you know,

the pressure turns to raker and is like, this boy, he's human. I've checked the back of his neck and there are no balls there. No nubbins, no balls. Nope. They get the kids over and they beam them all to six bay and most of them are pretty fucked up but the human is in decent shape. And his hair is not as slicked back as I remembered. Yeah, what it is more I think might be just that peak 90s hair that's parted straight down the middle.

Yeah. And we should probably complete the look a little bit like he's got wedge hair, like blonde, ear length wedge hair. He's got leather gloves that he never wants to take off. And he's wearing a vest of bratwurst. Charlie Murphy's looking Johnson's a frug! Johnson's a frug! Yeah, this is like if a Klingon decided to make a garment out of summer sausage. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, like the summer sausage log find it at a shopping mall. Yeah. Look, Halloween's coming up then. That's a very cost effective costume to wear to your Halloween parties. Right, and think about how popular you'll be with your friends' dogs

when you go over to their house. No, I don't need any snacks actually, I brought my own. So yeah, they're all pretty cooked and the human who goes by Jo-no is sitting like stoically and when they try and like interact with him he kicks off this group whimpering. Wanna hear the most annoying sound in the world? Are they whine at the top of their pre-voice-changed lungs? It's as annoying as a car alarm. I fucking hate it.

Yeah, it's just a weird choice because they're like, there's supposed to be this kind of like, martial people, like they're supposed to be sort of like a shittier, cling-on type of race where they're incredibly brutal to their, to their enemies and the, and their brutality is so famous that for a lot of the episode, they're concerned about the possibility that Jonas adoptive parents abused him as a child.

And yet when they are upset, they make the banar the morning. And it sounds like my dog when he's whining that I'm upstairs podcasting and not downstairs petting him. Yeah. I know that's super annoying because people write in and say, hey, it's really annoying when your dog winds on the podcast. That really goes over well when you email a stranger to tell them how much you don't like their dog. That's good.

That's a good intro. Yeah. There's a pretty funny scene when Picard's like, comes into Six Bay to check out these aliens' survivors and... And to try and get them to stop, he starts clapping his hands. Please, may I have your attention? Which is what you would do with a puppy, right?

Stop it! Oh, that's better. We've got to establish right away how awkward Picard is around kids. Like, he is just useless. He will negotiate treaties against aliens who hate each other, but a human child, who boy? Yeah, he claims right up. So yeah, this turns out to be a real space alien Gonzalez story. Most of our references

are like late 90s, early 2000s pop culture, right? Yeah. So Picard's in 6 Bay and he's doing a bunch of clapping, turning off the car alarm. He's like hitting the clicker a bunch of times in the grocery store parking lot. He's a little bit embarrassed about it. And he's like, hey, I couldn't help but notice that you're human. And the rest of these kids you're with have loaf. What's up with that? Where is your loaf, dude? And it's like this kid hasn't ever looked into a mirror because he's like, no man, I'm Tilarion. These are my guys, and we were out there on a mission. Feels like Alpacard has to do is hold up a floor length, and the show is over, like roll

the credits. But unfortunately we have about 35 more minutes of this one, so we got to get into some exposition. Yeah, so it turns out that Jono is from a family, last name, Rosa, that has a very tragic family history. His parents were killed by telarians in some long-over skirmisher war, and other members of the family have also bought the farm under relatively speaking more or less tragic circumstances. His only surviving relative is a blue-haired old admiral who will meet a little bit later. Admiral Wörther's?

Yeah, yeah. When she facetimes up, there's definitely in soft focus in the foreground, a bowl of hard candies that have all stuck to each other. But yeah, they're like, oh fuck, like this kid had, you know, he's like some Federation royalty. It turns out like like one of the, one of the big wigs back in San Francisco has a claim to this guy. So we can't just give him back to the Tolarians and it's a little bit saving private Ryan. He isn't it? In what way? In that he's like the last surviving member of his family that hasn't been killed out

in the field. Oh I thought you were going to say that Picard looks a little bit like Vin Diesel, okay. No that wasn't where I was going with that. I had to, man, that pause was really to figure out if you weren't bullshitting me about Vin Diesel being in that movie and then I was like, holy shit, he totally was. He totally was, that's how he got his start. Yeah. That was, I think that's how he like broke out.

Yeah. It wasn't his break dancing video. Unfortunately not. You know about his break dancing video, right? Well, it's the video that got me to stop making my own break dancing video and over the gum famous myself Okay, and instead pivot into trying to get cast into Steven Spielberg movies, right? Yeah, yeah, that's the way and steal the rich movies. Right, yeah, yeah, that's the way. Well, they have some time to kill before the talarians show up

and collect their wounded survivors. But this kid is like, you know, they're like, what are we gonna do with them? And he's demonstrated himself to be like, stridently sexist. So none of the times that women have attempted to like talk to him or ask him to do something have gone over well at all.

And like the only person he's demonstrated even a modicum of respect for is Captain Picard because people say Captain around him. And like he won't take off his gloves because he doesn't want to touch aliens and they're like, dude, we're not aliens. Those are the aliens. You see the ball sacks on the back of their heads?

Trust me, those are the aliens. Do you think Jono's sexism is an example of the show gap-girling the sexism a little bit? Like, look at how sexist Jono is. Like, there's no way the show itself is sexist because it's depiction of Councillor Troy at all, right? Yeah, definitely not. I think that that's a good theory

and maybe is fully proven by the scene that Jono has with Wharf because Jono has like a grudging respect for Wharf because he's from another warrior race, but he initially is like, how did the humans capture you? And then Wharf has to break it down to him like, You are human. And among humans, females can achieve anything the males can. Even the terminology in that scene

like exposes the problems at the way this show treats women. Because like, it's worth is like, in among humans, women are allowed to do as much as men are allowed to, or something like that. It's like, men have permitted women to be equals. Yeah. Not like women just are equals. Yeah.

Like, they entertain women's silly fantasies that they are part of society. I don't personally cotton to these notions, but here we are. Look around the bridge, I surround myself with these women as long as they wear the low cut dresses, everything's fine. Nobody has more respect for women than I do. Nobody, believe me. That was sort of like, Worf Trump. It's a little bit, uh, twarf? Can somebody Photoshop Trump hair under Worf?

So it becomes clear to everyone except for Picard that, uh, Jonah really looks up to him a lot and is really the only one who's able to have any sort of communication with him whatsoever because whenever anyone else talks to Jonah it goes like it goes with Warf which just leaves him doing the car alarm on his bed. Yeah, so they have a little McLaughlin group issue one about this whole shit and it is decided that Picard is going to be daddy for Jono during the next few days as they wait for the Tolerians to show up and you know Picard is fucking flipping out about this

like not not enthusiastic at all oh nora, I don't think so. Not enthusiastic is like the boy incident of descriptions for how he feels about this. Yeah. He almost breaks character in someone comfortable. Yeah. At first, as he deals with Jo no, it's, it's so stiff. It's like, it's very funny. You know, he'll walk in and Jono will be like doing his crazy puppy whimper. And Picard will have to ask him, as captain of the Starship Enterprise, I ask you not to do that sound. Stop this!

The movie preview for this episode is Captain Picard gets a college roommate that's crazy. Yeah. What happens when we stick Captain Picard with a kid who really likes jam bands, plays really loud music, and hangs out in a hammock. Yeah, they like, tape down the center of Picard's quarters so that this is my side and that's your side. I'm not responding. Please, dude.

Don't touch my knives, all right? I had a college roommate like that. He touched your knives. Yeah, I was not cool with it. He was in a jam band. I had a college roommate who was like, he was like literally, and I, and I shit you not. Doing everything he could to model his life on Kevin Smith and the characters in Kevin Smith movies. Like, he dressed like a hockey jersey. He dressed like Kevin Smith. Like, he only watched like mall rats and clerks in the like, you know, the Jersey series and obsessively

replayed PlayStation games and red comic books and like, he had a girlfriend who would come over and he would play like old time beige Game Boy and she would just sit and like rest her chin on his shoulder and watch him play Game Boy. Oh no. It was very creepy. That was their foreplay. It was like not foreplay though, because it was like, it was a very like chased relationship. It was very strange. I had the opposite roommate, my first year in college, Ben.

My first college roommate had all the six. Really? Just a ton of it just like my Door knob was covered in socks There's a I didn't know you could pile socks on a door The door knob was covered with so many socks. You'd have to cut the socks to fit more socks over the socks that are already there Gordon sock Yeah, that was my first year.

Yeah. I did not do much sex in college, personally speaking. Nobody was interested. Yeah, I thought I would really bloom in college. Nope. Turned out it was post college. Yeah. Oh, man.

Well, this has been good there. Yeah yeah a little bit cathartic a little bit embarrassing. Kind of like if anyone would like to support the show they can go to maximum for a dollar or slash donate. We turned out okay. I'm a top-ready bass. Are you not finding within yourself? Stand up, tell the truth. You don't deserve the wealth that the universe holds. So Picard has this hang with Jono in the kind of spare quarters that Jono has been issued. And he's like, well, I guess we've only got each other for this time being.

How do you like the room, everything comfortable, we can like bring you something, and it's a really interesting character moment because he's like Picard is so uncomfortable that he's kind of being uncharacteristically different to a much lower status person, which I think is a great bit of writing. Yeah.

And very well performed by Patrick Stewart. And he has to really talk through this with Troy a couple of times before he's comfortable. But he winds up going like, okay, Jonah, what are you used to? And Jonah is like, I live with my captain. I've always, that's who I've always lived with. And Picard is like, all right, well well you can come to my quarters, I guess. You can tell there's some trepidation there because he doesn't want Jono to know about the Gimp.

He doesn't have any way of warning the Gimp or explaining the series of punishments that will be in place if the Gimp, you know, blows his cover or whatever. But they go into the cards, quarters, and Jonah starts just kind of like picking everything up, all of his priceless antiques. Kind of reminded me of like when I was a kid and like we'd go over to the house of friends of my parents who were like a gay couple that didn't have kids or whatever and so they had like breakable things on low tables. And as a kid you're like holy shit, I cannot believe there's a breakable thing within my reach. This bottle collection is amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, you have a white carpet?

How interesting. Let me find a way to spill a plastic cup full of orange juice on that. The card is not child-proofed. His apartment in any way. No. And there's a little bit of a head fake foreshadowing here because his entire condo is made of glass tables.

Yeah. I'm expecting some shit to go down. Mm-hmm. Yeah. There's some buildup without payoff in the glass table department. I hope that's not a spoiler for anyone. Yeah.

Well, there's a payoff in the knife department. They definitely followed the check-out rule of if there's a Klingon ceremonial knife on the desk in Act 1, etc. But, yeah. life on the desk in Act One, et cetera, et cetera. But yeah, the Gimp doesn't bang against the side of the box, cover successfully maintained. And yeah, and so that's how they're gonna hang for the rest of it. And these scenes get kind of emotional.

Like Picard will show Jono an iPad with a bunch of photos of his parents, and him as a baby. And it becomes clear that he's not actually over the violent deaths that his parents suffered. And in fact, this fairly crippled by post-traumatic stress syndrome. I don't know, Ben. Maybe you know someone who has this, which will make my comment sound totally idiotic. But do survivors of post-traumatic stress have a difficult time recognizing that and other people? Because Jono is giving off all the signs, and Picard is just not...

He's not understanding that this kid is really going through some of that shit. Yeah. Instead, he sort of takes the tack towards humanizing him. There's like there's a little bit of manipulation involved. He shows them the pictures. They do some bonding by playing some space, racquetball. They have that communication from Admiral Werther. Yeah. And then they have like banana splits and 10 forward with Wesley.

But boy. Yeah. Wesley's big buccacchi scene. Yeah, and all of this is about manipulating him into remembering that he's human. At no point is a mirror produced, by the way. Yeah. Like, they try to get him to cop to his humanity

so that when they meet up with the Tolarians He's gonna choose team human instead of team Tolarian Yeah, and and it's very it's a very weird choice that they make because so so so it's partly motivated by the fact that Dr. Crusher's examination of him has turned up the evidence of lots of fairly substantial injuries in his past. And, you know, to the pampered Federation citizens, these like all they can think is this is abuse. So they're like, well, we got to get him out of

this horrible environment, you know, he's just a kid like what is he like probably 16 or something? Yeah, they're about but on the other hand, they're like well, he's also like a born federation citizen and if the Tolarians had followed like appropriate interspecies communication protocols, they would have been like, hey, we found this kid, you want him back, and the Federation would come and collected him, but they didn't. And so they feel like there's been an

injustice here. And so their whole goal is to kind of, is to kind of softplay this, this sales pitch that they're gonna lay on Jonah, which is like drop this talarian shit you're coming with us essentially. Right. As wrong yet as it winds up being, I found that believable. I bought there that these kinds of people

would come to these conclusions under these circumstances. Did you? I mean, where I'm a little bit squishy on whether or not it worked for me, your case is more convincing than maybe the show is. Like I don't want to skip too far ahead, but like the Federation and Picard himself really moralizes this decision. Like the kids clearly abused, we've got to save him. He's basically been kidnapped by these talarians.

There is no way that we are wrong about this one. Like, we're gonna convince the talarians to give him up. He's gonna stay with us, and that's gonna be a successful mission. Right, but I think that- What they fail to recognize is that they might be wrong about the circumstances of his injuries. They might be wrong about where his allegiance is lie.

It might be a totally benign situation that has placed Jono in his adoptive father's care. Right, but I think that that's like, that's assumed so much. That's what the episode is about is like they're hubris around this, around this set of choices is they are sitting in this fucking fancy star That's what the episode is about is like they're hubris around this set of choices. They are sitting in this fucking fancy starship that is like three tele-Aryan warships are no match for their luxury cruise liner. And they're sitting up in their ivory tower making these kind of these decisions, they

don't talk to Jonah about it, they don't, and Picard's monologue at the end is kind of about that is about how they like completely missed the facts on this one. And completely we're trying to serve interests that don't actually exist. Yeah. I think it's great that they're moralizing is proven wrong. Like this is, this is a concept that seems totally impossible in season one, where their moralizing was drenched,

thick and rich, all over every script. Like, this shows how sophisticated they've become. As writers. And it's like, yeah, our friend Scott McNulty of the Random Trek podcast often cites a original series Kirk as like show up at a planet, tell him what's wrong with their society and leave. I come swinging the olive branch of peace. And I think that that is very true of the original series, at least the episodes of

it that I have suffered through. And this is a different thing. Like, and I think it's pretty sophisticated by comparison. Like this felt more like a play in a way than some previous episodes. Like, it felt kind of literary in a weird way. Well, it's definitely deep in the bottle. Like, it's a very thick glass bottle.

Sure. Yeah. A bottle with a pristineum. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so they finally, like, endar, the captain of the Tolarian worship shows up and is, there's a bunch of scenes where Endar

and Picard sort of debate what Jono's fate is going to be. And they let Jono visit with Endar. And a lot of stuff goes down that is essentially serving the function of exposing Jonah to this side of him that he has never been in touch with which is the human starfleet person that he potentially could have been had history been different and it like is deeply incompatible with the warrior mindset that he's been raised in like it is fucking his whole shit up. And he like has like breakdown after breakdown. Like when they play racquetball,

he like completely loses it. And it's like putting him back in the telary and attack on whatever federation settlement. He was originally kidnapped from... Yeah, Jono goes like full vineyard on the racquetball court and Picard's like, well, that's weird. Yeah. And so like Picard is having a snooze one night in his glittering blanket.

He's getting pillow advice from Jordy, I noticed. Captain, you gotta try out this pillow. It is wildly uncomfortable. Oh really, Jordy? Here's the thing, you don't wanna get in too deep of a sleep. Otherwise, you can't ward off the raiders who are trying to stab you in the middle of the night. Just so.

I've taken a blade in my chest before, Jordy, and I appreciate that. Yeah. This is clearly not a Casper pillow. No. And it's not the one with that guy with the like Jesus piece that advertises him on late night television. I just want to turn toward the camera for a moment and say Casper, we're here and we're ready. I wanna turn to the various mail order underpants sock companies that advertise on lots of podcasts and say that, you know, I've been thinking, it's about time for me to stock up on some new undergarments

and I am ready. So while Adam needs a thing that costs $1,000, I only need a thing that costs $5 or $10. Consider it. This all comes to a head when Joono comes into Captain Picard, having his napperoo and he's got the Klingon ceremonial knife, which I guess is probably from when And he's got the Klingon ceremonial knife, which I guess is probably from when Picard was chatted each to Worf. Yeah. That's my guess is what that's from. And there's a pretty little...

That was his walking around knife when he was in the hood. Yeah. And when he was walking through the barrio on... On Cronos. Yeah. Um... yeah, and uh... and... Jono, uh... like raises the knife over his head and attempts to plunge it into Picard's chest. RAAAAAAA! And so, he wakes up in 6-bay.

And it turns out, like, this is a fairly minor injury like Jono from his warrior race completely blew it on this on this murder stabbing Yeah, he's kind of a shitty warrior, isn't he? Yeah, like I guess maybe the possibility is that he didn't he like intentionally didn't kill Picard because his plan here was Attacking a senior officer is a is punishable by death in his culture. And there's been a bunch of moments in the episode where he like assumed that something that was a rule in his culture would be a rule no matter what. And the women thing is an example of that, but this is another. Picard is in a bio bed with an arch, which, you know, that

means it's fairly serious, but it's not like a full body arch, so it's not all that bad. And, and, and, and, uh, pressure is like, is stitching him up. And, and so when, when the tailarians get back on FaceTime, Picard is not on the bridge and Riker is, and he has to be like, well, listen, Picard's not gonna talk to you about this because your son decided to poke him with a knife and the captain is pretty particular that only Nosecans are allowed to poke him with a knife. And end our, the Tolarian captain is like,

this is fucking tragic so I'm pissed enough that I'm gonna start shooting it you guys. And the Tolarian ships are like getting into battle formation very slowly, slowly enough for Picard to like get back into uniform and get up to the bridge and talk him down off the ledge. And yeah, he has this big monologue where he's like, like, yeah, we didn't consider what Jonah wanted or what was right for him, like, cosmically. And like, perhaps you didn't either, but, you know, I don't know how we can hold our morality against you when we've been, we've acted out of such hubris around this whole issue.

Yeah, and this is how they avert what would turn into war. I mean, and R has made it pretty clear that unless they return Jono to him, he's ready to throw down. Yeah. And he's calling all cars to the situation. And they they're like look our our weapons are no match for yours we've got like hood style weaponry over here and even though we know where overmatched like we're ready to go to war for this guy at a principal and By the end of the episode when they returned Jonah they have not only felt the

Also, when they returned Jonah, they have not only felt the satisfaction of doing the right thing by him, but they've also averted what would be a fucking bloodbath for the tailarians. Right. Which is an interesting, that's such a, that's such a star trek problem. Like, it's not an existential threat to the enterprise, it's a moral threat to the enterprise. Right. Like, they've met people before who have wiped out

entire races fairly easily, Ben. Who's like who, for example? That's incredibly tough to live with. Oh yeah, you're not dealing with it well, are you Kevin? There's only one way to cope with the sort of genocide that the Shepah showed came to a close to. What if, if, you know, somebody's listening and they've done something, I'm sure they would want to know

how you have found a way to cope. The only thing that cures Wideo Shmi is the comfort of a final woman. Oh, oh, you're talking about a real doll. I don't like how you've started interviewing Kevin. I like that when you did Kevin with me. What happened to you, man? I don't like how you've started interviewing Kevin. I like that when you did Kevin with me. What happened to you, man? I don't know. I kind of like talking to him. It puts too much pressure on me and my very

okay-best Kevin O'Exp. impression. It's better than mine. Somebody said mine sounded like Homer Simpson. God. I think mine started out like Richard Nixon, like in this episode. Ben, did you like this episode? I really did. I think that, you know, we've given it a good ribbon and there's definitely some things about it that are not perfect, but I felt like the moral quandary that Picard thinks he is in being not the one he is in fact in is such an interesting idea. And I thought they did a great job of, of, you know, playing with the idea that Picard thinks he is this like, you know, rational moral actor and in fact, like, does have some blind spots,

and his worldview didn't like serve him particularly well in this episode. Like, at the end of the day, he does the right thing, and it just takes him a really long time to get there, and it's not through anything evil. It's just that he kind of misses the mark. Picard is so capable in basically every area that his discomfort would make him incapable of dealing with the situation. Like there are plenty of circumstances as a Starfleet captain that you're putting uncomfortable situations. But when he's around children, he just falls apart. Yeah, I feel like we all have the things like that, you know? Yeah, it's his bugaboo. Absolutely. How about yourself? Did you, uh, did you enjoy this? I did. You know, when, when, when, Jono first comes on screen, I'm like, Jesus Christ. Like,

we've got this, we've got this, we couldn't get Jake, so we've got this other guy, Jake adjacent. And I'm thinking like this is gonna be cartoonishly bad and he starts doing the car alarm. I'm like, this is not going to be good. I don't know if I can do another half an hour of this. But it pretty quickly gets into some pretty heavy shit. And I dug it. There was a lot to laugh at and poke fun at, but the vein of honestly trying to deal

with, how do you deal with a problem like Jono? I thought was pretty sophisticated for a show that has been pretty sloppy about stuff like this in the past. Yeah. Hey Adam, I'm perceiving through my telepathic abilities that there's a priority one message that we need to ingest. What do you say we check that out? Yeah, let's ingest that, I guess. This is all ex-temperatious folks. No scripts. Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. radius folks no scripts. First and only priority one message is of a personal nature.

It is to Sagan from his father Kurt. It goes like this. To my newborn son, you are only a week and a half old, and I already know that you will boldly go where few have gone before. Good. Much like your name, Sagan, I hope you will grow up to love big ideas, science fiction, and whatever.

The 2030 equivalent is of a Star Trek podcast. Lots of love, Dad. Ah! Sagan is pretty much the coolest name ever, right? Oh my god, I'm jealous forever. Yeah. Why did my stupid parents name me Sagan? We have terrible names compared to this. Yeah.

Well, it's gonna be 18 years before it's legally and morally acceptable for you to share this podcast with your son But we hope he hears it one day and welcome to the world, Sagan Yeah, I think I think you're gonna turn out okay. Yeah, your dad seems pretty pretty cool Yeah, good one, Kurt. If you would like to leave a priority one message, you can go to maximumfund.org slash jumbo-tron. So a hundred bucks for a personal message, and it is 200 bucks for a commercial message.

And that's all you need to know about that. Ben? Adam. Did you find yourself a bratwurst wrapped drunk Shimoto in this episode? How prescient of you to predict that my drunk Shimoto would be wrapped in brats. For indeed he was. My Shimemota is Captain Endar. Captain Johnsonville? Yeah. Oh, before I say why he's my Shemota,

I do wanna talk about the fact that he got to come aboard with two guys who were towing assault rifles. I was like, why did they let those guys onboard? Shouldn't they have to leave their fucking energy weapons on their ship? Yeah, what was O'Brien doing in that scene? He's really mailed that one in. Yeah, bad call, O'Brien. But Endar was my Shemota because there's a scene where he comes on board and gets to spend a quick moment with Jono and And like Picard and Troy just like turn and face the corner. Well, while they talk.

And in this scene, Ender turns his head away from camera a little bit and expose the fact that he had a super long rat tail. Oh! Oh man. Yeah, he has like a full 12 inches of rat tail hanging off the back of his already scrotummed up head.

I don't remember seeing this. Did he have the little like braces rubber bands wrapped around it or was it like friendship bracelet woven in what configuration was the rat tail? It's hard to tell from my screen here. I think it's like a tight braid maybe with some, maybe with some orthodontic rubber bands at the end. Nice. Yeah. And Ender, Ender, you know, you thought Jono had peak 90s hair. Nope, it was Ender the whole time. Yeah, yeah. Is it Rattail waiting in the weeds? How much yourself? Did you have a drunk Shemota? Just to be clear, is your Shemota the rat tail or is it Endar?

It's Endar. Sporting one. Endar made a choice. Okay. Endar was looking in the floor length mirror. And he's like, looking good, Endar. You know what? You know what would be kind of cool right about now. You know what the kids are really into. Who's your Shemota? My Shemota is a scene based Shemota and it's from this scene. Then I think it's really weird that Picard and Troy walk Jono into the conference room to meet up with his dad.

And then 10 feet away, just kind of turn around for privacy. They like stand up parade rest with their backs turned. That doesn't afford any privacy, guys. No. I don't understand why they thought to do that. And what's weird is that they are blocked in the scene. Like they are in between the two shot of Jonah and his dad.

Yeah, they don't want you to ignore the fact that Picard and Troy are there. It would have taken a one foot dolly move to sort of crop them out of the scene. Like as soon as Jono sits down, I don't know why they didn't do that. Hey, they were running out of time. They didn't want to have to like set the whole, the whole rail setup, you know? It's sort of like a prison warden scene, like when they bring a prisoner out to talk to someone through the glass, it's that amount of privacy, which is to say not at all. 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 Sherry Reembarishment 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 Camille Non-Giani. 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. Oh, rats, hey, hey, oh, I'm about to count you in line. 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 neck. But I'm hearing we need to get on this off.

We've got to get on the art. It is about terrain, about a spout 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 Kerry?

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 two by two. What do you think? Ono Ross and Kerry, available on MaximumFun.org.

["Ono Ross and Kerry"] Tom O'Kringish and July. And the dog that is definitely. What do we have coming up on the next episode, Ben? The next episode is episode 5. Remember me. Wesley's experiment with warp fields results in the mysterious disappearance of the crew. Do you remember this episode, Adam? I remember really liking this episode.

This is one of those episodes that if I get a chance and I'm just flipping through the EPS, I will occasionally watch this one for fun. You're fucking kidding me. Yeah, yeah. Why? I like real weird Twilight Zony episodes and this is one of them for me. Well, I don't, so I'm in a veto. Well, fuck you, because we're watching it.

And we can't keep doing this. We can't keep burning vetoes. You insist? Do you insist? Fine, fuck you. You burned your veto. You did it again. Why are you saying I'm burning my veto? You're the one that burned your veto first. This is episode is a turkey. No, it's not. It is not. It's a total turkey atom. There's some caviar on this bird then and I want to watch it.

It's probably the second worst Dr. Crusher episode. That's saying a lot. There are some real bad crusher episodes. Is this on your Mount Armas? You might be. Is it's depiction on Mount Armas? Something that should be there, but isn't? Like it's just an empty spot. Wow.

I can't believe we're going to go for a season 4 with no fucking beat. It's getting to be a joke that we don't even wanna do them. People think that we pre-plan this shit, but we don't. No. That was a real shocker, Ben.

Well, I'm glad to keep it exciting, I guess. Yeah, you know what else is exciting? What's that? Remember me, the episode. You know one thing that isn't disappearing without a trace band is our continued support that flows in from our viewers. We have almost 300 people contributing to our maximumfund.org slash donate account,

which they're telling us is really terrific for a show that has not been through one of the pledge drives yet. So thank you so much to everybody that is helping us make the show. The vibe of the emails that we get from Max Fun most of the time is we're really surprised about your success. Yeah. Yeah. surprised about your success. Yeah, yeah, there's definitely like, Bermused Perplexity at the at the number of people that listen to the show.

Yeah, it's it's fun to talk to Jesse and have him take you seriously. Yeah. As a real program. Mm-hmm. Well, yeah, so go to go to that if you've got the means we really appreciate it and it helps us out in a big way. I don't want to guilt trip anybody, but I did recently get laid off from my job. And even the small amount that it winds up being is very much appreciated at the end of the month. So I just want to extend a warm, warm thank you to to donors and I also want to thank the folks that have

Left iTunes reviews and left reviews elsewhere and written about how much they like our podcast on blogs and and Reddit and Facebook and stuff like any time I see somebody talking about how much they like the show in a public place It just like it really warms my heart it's it is such an honor to do this for you guys when when you're out there singing its praises the way you do so thanks all and if you'd like to get involved please consider leaving a review or begging us up on your socials medias Or buying a t-shirt. Yeah, you got a max fun store.com

You can get cop that that T So I'm like, all right, we're already working on t-shirt to the sequel to the original. Yeah It should be a read ready around the holidays. It's looking like so get ready for that folks yeah I think people are gonna like this one and we should thank dark materia and Adam Ragusia dark materia makes the theme music of the program Adam Ragusia makes the music you hear when we are reading priority one messages and we hugely appreciate the music that both of them made for our show. Dark Materia didn't even realize it was for our show, probably.

He was making it, right? Yeah, yeah, surprise. And with that, we will be back at you next time with another great episode of the next generation and episode of the greatest generation that probably shouldn't have ever existed in the first place. An episode that our viewers will always remember. Can I tell you a quick underpants story? OK. So as you and our viewers know, I was in Victorville for almost three weeks. Yes.

And the thing is, when you've been hired as a one-man band production crew, you get to keep your packing real light. I basically went down with a bazooka tube, tripod, case, a Pelican 1510 camera case, and an over the shoulder duffel bag. Not a roundee that Picard would have, like an actual duffel.

Yeah. And knowing that it would be impossible to pack clothes for three weeks, I packed no clothes for three weeks. Wow. Instead, I clothes for three weeks. Wow. Instead I bought underwear at Costco. Three weeks worth of underwear at Costco. Wow. Let me tell you I have no problems with the Kirkland brand of products, your fine product, and make a fine pair of underwear. But I'm telling you, I would throw them all away

for some underwear that had woven silver in them. The maids at your hotel must have been so upset. Every day there's a new pair of tiny whiteies in the trash can. It was terribly wasteful. And yet there was nothing I could do. Like there's no packing that amount of clothing for a trip like this You're not gonna you're not gonna go down to the FedEx and stuff underpants and a box and ship them back to yourself

That was actually a bit of tour advice friend of the show John Roderick has told me about that Oh no! You go out on on tours with bands Mm-hmm. You don't want to you don't want to spend a half a day in a laundromat. Just buy some underwear. Then you're rolling around with new underwear all the time. It's great. That's pretty good.

You just build that into the budget. There's an underpants line item. You do not want to invoice too specifically when you're buying underwear in quantities of 21. Yeah, they call it because of producers wanting to cut things from line items, close pins, which are very useful things to have on film sets are usually called C-47s on a budget. And it's like the idea is it sounds important.

So a tenacious cost-cutting producer won't cut it out, because they won't know what it is and they won't want to risk it. Underpants. Maybe that's a C48. Yeah. Those BVD77s, forget it. Gotta keep them. Maximumfund.org.

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