The Ringer-Verse - 10 Questions We Have After the ‘Peacemaker’ Premiere | The Midnight Boys

Episode Date: January 17, 2022

The Midnight Boys dive into the first three episodes of ‘Peacemaker’ with some of their biggest lingering questions. Hosts: Van Lathan and Charles Holmes Production Assistant: Jonathan Kermah Social: Jomi Adeniran Additional Production: Steve Ahlman, TD St. Matthew-Daniel, and Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Ringers Charles Holmes and co-host Grace Spellman present the most notorious new podcast in the industry, the Ringer Music Show. Every Tuesday, they'll bring you the latest news, the hottest takes, and the deepest reporting about the wild world of music and the chaotic industry that creates it. Check out the Ringer Music Show exclusively on Spotify. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Trimphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tramphia is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self-inject trumphia, proper training is required. Tramphia is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis.

Serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections, or lower ability to fight them, and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Tramphia today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit Tramphiatoradio.com. Want to support your gut health?

Take Activia's gut health challenge by enjoying two Activia yogurt today for two weeks and see if you feel a difference. With billions of probiotics and 20 years of scientific expertise, piece, Activia is one of the easiest and tastiest ways to start your gut health ritual. Try Activia today. Enjoying Activia twice a day for two weeks as part of a balanced diet and healthy lifestyle may help reduce the frequency of minor digestive discomfort, which includes gas, bloating, rumbling, and abdominal discomfort. Welcome to the Ringgiverse.

This is of course the Ringers Nexus podcast fee for all things fandom, and we are. Jonathan, little spidey Kerma. filling in for Selma Steve today, Jonathan Little Spidey Kerma, okay? We don't have Jomi the Explaner at dinner on. He's actually moonlighting on us. God damn it, Jomey. What the hell is going on?

But we still have Coke Baby Chuck the 24-carat closer and myself, Old Man, Van, he of the receding hairline. And together we are known as The Midnight Boys. Ooh! There you go, Little Spidey. Little Spidey right there.

Johnny on the spot. with the Pew Pew sound effect. We appreciate you. We appreciate your dedication to getting better. Programming reminders before we begin. We're going to be back with our book of Bobafet coverage. Continues Wednesday with the Midnight Boys. Friday, the House of ours are going to be given their deep dive on the Book of Obamette.

Now, look, I am as big a Book of ObofaFet fan as there has been, but I've got to admit, there have been some lukewarm reactions out there to, to there have been some Luke Skywalker warm reactions to the book of Boba Fed now it doesn't seem like it's blowing people away in the same way that the Mandalorian did Chuck no it's uh it is way more divisive than I ever thought it would be but before we get into you know uh the show peacemaker how does it feel selma steve and joamy the explainer abandoning us well I mean to be honest with you I expected it from jump Jomey is a man caught between two worlds.

He's a man in two houses. He is a midnight boy, but he's also a house of R. You guys have to understand the midnight boys in the house of R have a, it's an alliance, right? But it's an alliance much like, you know, different factions of the Knights Watch. Like we protect different parts of the fandom wall is what we do. Oh, I was going to more so say it's like a Johnny Lawrence

Laruso type there. No, it can't be that. They hate each other. What are you talking about? You got something you want to say about Mallory? No, but they join up. They're friends. They're friends. It doesn't really, they joined up, but it only takes one thing for it to go wrong, you know? Yes, stealing Jomey is the thing that went wrong. We needed Jomey, and he picked his side. He picked the side. He picked the side. Okay, well, that's cool. On today's show, we're going to be looking at

to the premiere of the Suicide Squad spinoff. peacemaker by asking ourselves the 10 questions that we have after the peacemaker premiere. Now, as we do on every single instant reaction podcast that we do, where we're going to talk about stuff that we've already seen, we have to promise not to spoil it to you guys. If you guys can't get show mad, run a spoiler warning. We're getting ready to talk about peacemaker. You're listening to a reaction podcast.

The spoilers are coming. And that they are. Okay, before we get into this, Charles, I just want to get your overall take before we get into the questions. The first three episodes of Peacemaker have dropped. There's no Midnight Manifest, but we pretty much know what's going on with Peacemaker right now.

Peacemaker is a spinoff of the Peacemaker character that was introduced in James Guns, The Suicide Squad. This show is executive produced by James Gunn, and he is one of the driving creative forces behind. Of course, it stars John Cena as the DC anti-hero, sometimes villain, sometimes hero, peacemaker. Three episodes in, you've seen them all.

Do you like the show? I think it's fair to say both of us went into the show with, or at least the Midnight Boys in general, went in with a little apathy. That's why we asked all of the viewers, like, hey, do you want us to talk about this show? We just don't know what it's going to be and what it is. And I think I entered the show being like, hmm, James Gunn doing a TV show.

What's going to be like? And I left it being like, all right, cool. James Gunn did a superhero TV show. I don't have any strong feelings either way about it. I think by the third episode, it does start to click in a way where I was just like, all right, I'm here for like the more action, intrigue part of this show. But I didn't hate it. I just thought it's kind of what.

but HBO Max and James Gunn pretty much said it was, which is it's him taking this character and having a little bit more fun with it, taking it out of the toy chest. What did you feel? How did you feel after the first three episodes? I liked it. I liked it.

I was a little apprehensive going in just like you because I don't really care about Peacemaker. And there wasn't nearly done enough if you asked me in the Suicide Squad to make me care about Peacemaker. But after the three episodes, I kind of care about Peacemaker now. I'm not going to lie.

I do. I do. It's a peacemaker. You know what I mean? I kind of care about peacemaker now. There's enough of, there's enough entry going on in the show

as far as what the butterflies are, all of those different situations to, to make me want to come back a little. And the dynamic, these shows like this are all about the dynamics between characters. And they have some really off the wall, offbeat,

crazy, kooky characters with some interesting things going on themselves. So I really enjoyed the first three episodes. And of course, you throw an animal in. Eagley.

I'm with it. Eagleie! Oh wait, can I ask you this? Are these shows getting too smart with us where it's just like, if you throw in a cute character, we've said this about baby Yoda,

we've said this about Eagli, we said this about pizza dog, you throw in an animal. It's just kind of like an extra like point score. You go from an A minus to an A plus just by having something cute in there? It's true. It's definitely true.

But at the same time, it works. I'm saying it does work. Every single time I'm just like, I'm like, my dumb little lizard brain is just like, oh, article. There's an eagle and it's hugged somebody. Of course, like, give me more of the eagle.

I was just wondering, like, we've been doing the show now a lot. And I'm like, every other show has kind of picked up on the fact if you have a Baby Yoda type character, people aren't going to hate it. It's like hating a pop. I love it. All right. Now, first question.

in this peacemaker episode 10 question run. I already feel like we've kind of answered this, but we're going to ask it anyway. Does this show feel like it's earned its place? Or Charles, do you feel like this is somewhat of an unnecessary spitoff? I mean, I think the question, in my opinion, is a little flawed because it's just like what shows out here now or what is earning its place mean? I'm like, Agatha Harkness has a show where, getting an Andor show. I think it's less in like the Disney plus

HBO Max world of like do these shows earn their place and more so of just like people just want more. Like if I'm sitting at home and I've already watched Suicide Squad, I'm like, all right, I'm just going to boot up peacemaker. I don't give fuck. Like whether it's good or bad, it's just kind of like who cares? There's just so much stuff now. I don't think anything ever is necessary. But it's not unnecessary. What about you? Do you think that it had to earn its place or just by the fact that we watch Suicide Squad, you enjoyed it a lot.

You're like, I'm going to watch this no matter what happened. So, yeah, I think the whole question of earning its place is obsolete now. I think we're getting into a point, we're getting to a point, should I say, where they tell us what to watch it, then we watch it. Yeah. Okay.

Now, let me ask you a question about that. Is that a positive development? because when you think about it, Boba Fett, let's take Boba Fett and compare it to Peacemaker. Boba Fett, Peacemaker, is a character that most people had no idea existed. Boba Fett has a character that everyone

that watched Star Wars knew existed, one of the most badass Star Wars characters that's ever lived. It's possible that have done poorly to a lot of people that the Boba Fett show could actually ruin Boba Fett. So in that case, there are stakes. With Peacemaker, there really aren't very many stakes,

except for the careers of the creators involved because no one's going to give a fuck if they don't handle Peacemaker correctly, right? Yeah. So I guess the question is, knowing that some characters have stakes and other characters don't, does it dilute things in terms of what we're watching

when they just give us every single character. Does it throw them all in the same? Do you think it does? I think it dilutes it because I do think that there is this level of, we used to think of Boba Fett as like a movie, as a movie character, as someone bigger than life. And even now with the show, this is nothing against the show. It's just the fact that the more and more we know about it,

the mystique, there's less mystique. With the Mandalorian, we didn't know who the Mandalorian was. He wasn't this larger than life character. so we didn't expect anything. So when we got more, we were surprised. And I think Peacemaker, from everything I'm seeing online, is a similar thing where there's no mystique to Peacemaker. He's not, even though he came from a movie,

we all watched it on HBO Max. There was no mystique to him. It was just kind of like, all right, dude, that's Peacemaker. Yeah. So people watching the show, I think are going to be a little bit more surprised because there's not that emotional investment. The reason a lot of people, not you and me, but a lot of people might have been like,

on Hawkeye or like Falcon and the Winter Soldier is because those were supposed to be movie characters and when you shrink them down on the TV screen, the mystique is a little gone. Tough, it's tough, but this is the era we wanted, guys. We wanted an era of non-stop stuff. This is an era we wanted. We want this era.

All right, now, question number two. How do you feel about John Cena's performance in this show and how it carries the show? Okay. Is Peacemaker himself a character that can push a show by himself, or is he better being a foil and the comic relief to other more serious characters, Chuck?

What do you think? Hmm. I'll answer this by that. Have you seen the peacemaker or John Cena on Jimmy Fallon that clip? He's doing basically, he's telling you the origin story of, of his famous, like, Tony Yeo Han thing. and how he basically stole it from Tony A.L, blew up in the WWE, all that shit. And I was just like, oh, the reason John Sina is so good as Peacemaker is that he's just playing

John Sina. I think you said it when we were reviewing the latest Fast of Furious movie, where he's just like, I don't really fuck with John Sina as an actor. And I think the reason he works as Peacemaker is that he's not really playing a peacemaker as a character. He's almost playing it like a wrestling, like he would, his wrestling persona. he's playing it as himself just notched up 10, 15, 20 degrees. So in that case, I think it works,

especially for a limited run. If you would tell me that there's going to be like six seasons of peacemaker, I'd be like, I don't, I think that's probably too much. But in terms of like, whether I think it's seven or eight episodes we're getting, I do think that he's just magnetic as John Cena, the celebrity playing this character. What about you? Because you were a little bit more lukewarm on him in Fast Furious.

Yeah. He sucked in Fast and Furious. It's terrible. Like, it was ridiculously bad. But this is my thing. Number one, it always bothered me that John Cena obviously took the you can't see me thing from Tony Yeo and then people didn't know. I would talk to people, be like, that's John Cena.

I'd be like, no, that's Tony Yale. Wait, they didn't know what was from Tony Yale? A lot of people didn't because they never fuck with that. J-J-J-J-J-J-U-N like that. And they were out of the loop, so maybe they didn't know. And when these people would say that to me, I would be like, could you open your mouth so I could smack it. Because if you smack somebody with an open mouth,

sometimes their jaw comes loose. Is that one of like the greatest mini comebacks, that song? What? Showing so seductive dancing on me. That's making me on here. Short so seductive dancing on me. What the fuck we were listening to?

Shorty so seductive dancing on me. Think about it. It's like a beats playing and yayos in that bitch. Like, oh my God, man. Where am I a rhyme to this? Like what am I going to say to this? Like, yo, yo, fifth, what you got? Fifth is like, all right, look, think about it.

You're in the club. The girl is dancing on you. How does she, how is she dancing? She dances seductive. Yo, who kid? Run the beat back. Show this so seductive dancing. Oh, and the whole, those things are like, oh, shit.

We got a hit. Anyway, I like him as Peacemaker. You know what? I think he's playing a peacemaker in a, in a different sort of way. I think Peacemaker is, weirdly vulnerable. And by the way, there's something that they do here that always works.

This always works. Take a character you don't like. A guy who's an asshole, right? And at the end of Suicide Squad, let's face it, Peacemaker's the asshole. He killed Rick Flagg, right? Which we still haven't really reconciled in this whole thing. He killed Rick Flagg and we're acting like it's not a big deal.

Oh, and he tried to kill Ratcatcher, one of the best characters. Tried to kill a ride catcher as well. The surefire way to rehabilitate a character is to give them an overbearing father. That will never

not work. No matter what the person does, when you get home and you see their home life, if they weren't loved, that is something that doesn't matter if you had the best parents in the world. you will always identify with someone

who didn't have a loving home. So the one way to rehabilitate peacemaker in this situation is to give him a mean-ass racist. I'm going to be honest, that's James Gunn's secret sauce. He's done that shit like three times in all of his superhero movies. Anytime he watched you to really like fall in love with the character really quick.

We got Peter Quill, once court rat catcher. Now we got peacemaker. He's just like, how do I make the audience love? this superhero, super villain. We're going to give him a fucked up daddy. We're going to fuck up that. So for me, I think the peacemaker portrayal by John Cena,

even though it's obviously like out of this world, it's bombastic, it's silly. There's an odd vulnerability to peacemaker that I think John Cena is playing correctly. I don't can't put my finger on it. I think there's a, it's actually said in the show by Daniel Brooks's character, Or I think in one of the flash forwards,

there's something that's weirdly sad about him. Yeah. And you really get that. Like, I'm serious. Like, you really get that there's something sad about peacemaker. I think he's actually doing a great job with the portrayal of the character. All right. Who is your favorite character?

This is question number three. Who is your favorite character? And why is it eagerly? It has to be eagerly. It's eagle. Arjuna. I think Arjuna. and some of Steve put this together.

Like, why is this question here? It's Eagley. Once Eagley, like, is in the garage and you see it, and then he hugs Peacemaker, I'm like, all right, it's a wrap. It's a wrap. Also, Eagley brought food. Brought the possum, yeah. Eagley dropped a possum.

He dropped a fucking possum for Peacemaker. Think about the friends that we have in real life. Jomi steals food. Jomey is the chicken. is the chicken finger bandit. He don't bring shit. He just... Jomey's the chicken finger bandit.

He steals food. Not Eagley. Eagley brings food. If I would have had Eagley over to my house that night, I might have had some extra chicken fingers or at least some mice or something he'd have come through

and dropped off some shit for us to enjoy. I love Eagley. I will say this, though... Go ahead. I was going to say before we get off the food thing, you know what's wild about cats? I have a cat, my son, sushi. Cats, if they show you, they love you,

they like will kill a rodent and like pop it on like before you like on the bed like here this is like this is my offering to you like you're bad at hunting i love you so much that's how much eagli like loves peacemaker he's just like you're kind of bad at eating here's this thing for you you've gone through a rough night it's like he sees like peacemaker just had a sex with the butterfly chick you know and he had to kill her and eagle he's like i got you man it's been a rough night i don't want to be loved by cats we're not why do you hate cats I'm not I'm not into cats like that cats are fine I'm glad that you and mal

love cats and cats are not about to hate on cat people but bozeman brings me one of his toys he brings me a toy he says hey dad how you feeling let's the toy he doesn't bring me a rodent you know what I'm saying that a living bee brings me a toy plops it down dad how are you feeling man let's play catch you know anyway um

some of the characters I do like I like, there's something hilarious about Clemson Murr. I don't know what it is. He's so serious while everything else is going off the rails. It just kills me that he's got a mission. He's got something that he takes very, very seriously. And there's so many hijinks going on at all time that he just can't keep up with the hijinks. He cannot keep up with the hijinks.

keep up with the hijinks that are going on. Is there anything funnier in TV than like a really old serious black man? No. Like what's not? Like when he goes, what's his face when economist goes to him? He's just like, you've never felt an emotion? He's like, you've never felt chilly. He's like,

chili is an emotion. And he's like, I've never felt chilly. And I just love it. I just love it. He's like, yo, what's going on here? Like, I knew the thing was going to, he kept pressing it. and it wasn't working. I knew it was going to blow up when he got near it. I just knew it.

Because that scene exemplifies the hell that he is in. He isn't a hell where nothing's going right until he gets right near enough to see what's going wrong. It's funny. I enjoy him. But there's a lot of this great cast, Danielle Brooks, playing Waller's daughter. I was surprised. I should have seen that coming. But when it was revealed, I did think.

that was a very, very smart move of giving Amanda Waller, who in comic books and especially in the movies, is one of the most ruthless, co-celess, calculating characters. And you give her out of bio who is just the sweetest, the sweetest character. She's never killed anybody. She has a loving wife. She dresses up her dogs. Like, and I, what I'm interested in is it seems like Waller is very much like you have that killer dog in you, like you have something in you. And I don't know what it is yet that like Waller sees in her daughter that she's like, you wouldn't make a great like secret spy. But she knows. They always know the more kids you've been around, I never forget, I'm hanging out. I'm hanging out at my brother's place. He's got two kids. There's a third kid there,

a cousin. Cousin gets whipped. I'm looking at two brothers. Right. The cousin gets whipped. One of the brothers, these are all kids, maybe like three, two or something like that. One of the cousins, one of the brothers looks at his cousin getting whipped and he cries because the cousin is getting whipped. Damn. The other brother looks at his cousin getting whipped and he laughs. I will never forget that. I've been watching that little niggas since.

I will never forget that. ever. I see him sometimes and be like, yo, how are you feeling? You good? Straight? Yeah. Yeah, what you mean? I'm like, yeah. I know y'all got pets and over. How do the pets feeling? Oh, now don't do that too. I'm asking them. I'm like, yo, how to the pets? He's killing the little pets in his off time?

The pet's good? The dog ain't got no limp, do he? Yeah. You know what I'm saying? So what I'm saying is Waller can see that in her daughter. She knows what's there. Parents know at the early age. His parents listen to this. They go, yeah, I know. I know which ones I got to make sure to keep my eye on, keep them on the straight and narrow.

You know what I'm saying? I told my brother that I was like, yo, man, say, bro. Watch them, watch them, watch them, watch them. Brother to brother. Yeah. What's going on in black nepotism? Black nepotism ain't like white nepotism. White nepotism is great.

Like, you got a son. You're like, all right, you got the side office. You ain't got to do shit. here's a bunch of interns. They're going to do whatever you say. Just don't fuck up anything. And you're going to get a nice paycheck. Black nevitus, Amanda Waller's like, all right, I'm putting you with the worst fucking team on the planet. You're my mole. You're not well prepared. Good luck. You're with a room full of psychos. Amanda Waller, why can't she just give her a cushy job, you know? Like, come on.

This is an argument I have with the community all the time. The rest of the community doesn't respect that. they don't respect you just giving your kids and I'm not I'm not meaning to speak for all black people but where I'm from I was like I can't wait till my kids get because I would be like walking I would be like looking around at the kids at my high school and the white kids and they would come through stunting I mean they will come through stunts

I remember one time this girl named Katie she turned 16 and she got a brand new Jeep Wrangler and she cried we were at her house and she cried because she got a brand new Jeep Wrangler I was like what the fuck That car might as well have been a spaceship to me. It was new. This wasn't rented or nothing.

No. It was a brand new Jeep Wrangler. Or maybe it was a, no, it was a Jeep Cherokee. It wasn't a Wrangler. Rangler is the one with all the, you can sit outside of it. It was a brand new Jeep Cherokee. It was new. But her friends had the little Benzos and used to pop out with the 300 coups and all of that,

shit like that. And she didn't want to be the Jeep. Grand Cherokee girl. And I was thinking to myself, you know what? When I get to that, when my kids get to that age, I'm going to hit them with the heat. I'll be hit them with that straight-up. You know what I'm saying?

That alarm system car type shit. Wait, but what are you going to do when their friends are like, man, you ain't from the mud, you don't understand the struggle. You don't understand. They're going to say, yeah, I'm not. They're going to say I'm not from the mud. I'm very passionate about this. They're going to say, yeah, you're right.

I'm not from the mud. I don't understand. it. Like, we can ride it. No, I'm not from the mud. Cool. And everybody's like, man, you don't want your kids to understand any struggle? Not really. I want them to understand the value of work, but that don't mean they have to struggle. I'm with you in. You know what I'm saying? I want them to understand the value of hard work and diligence, but that don't mean they have to, man, you know, you better off. Like, I'm doing pretty well, right? Like, I'm going to come in there and have the light company, people come cut the lights off

just as an exercise. What the fuck are you doing? Just as, hey, just tonight, you guys. Oh, for Christmas, you ain't getting them a vendor machine that they can hustle. Show them the true. Show them the true ropes, yeah. Just for the night. You know what I'm going to do?

Tonight, just for fun. We're going to dress up in all of our winter coats and brave to cold together to teach you guys up. Fuck that. Stupid. Get that dumb ass shit out of my face. I hate that shit. Anyway, we digress a little bit. This episode is brought to you by Paramount Plus.

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store-wide and everyday low prices on 365 brand items. Enjoy the fresh flavors of spring, save at Whole Foods Market. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Tramphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tramphia is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self-inject Tramphia, proper training is required. Tramphia is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease

and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis. Serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them, and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Tramfaya today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit Tramphiatoradio.com. So that was a little Midnight Boy's signature comedy, how we go off the rails every now and again.

Does James Gunn's question number four, does James Gunn's signature meandering argument type of comedy work in this? I'm going to ask for first here. At times it doesn't. Hmm. I'm surprised because I thought I was going to have to be the negative Nancy being like it has like a 60-40 rate like 64 60 it doesn't and then 40 it does and I want to know from you first why why do you think it does? at times it keeps you grounded in a scene for a little too long and it's not the same way. Let's take a, let's take an example of a scene where it works, the quintessential scene where it works to me.

The quintessential scene where it works, for me, is in the original Guardians when Drax has Gomorra and he has his knife to her throat. And Quill is going, Quill does the next slit motion. Yeah, yeah. And when Quill does the next slit motion, he's going back and forth to Dax. Dax doesn't know what it is. Quill looks at the other guy. He goes, you know this, right?

You, you, like, you know, you know this. That little bit works because it's the underlay to a much more serious driving action scene that has real weight to it, right? So it works because it's disarming us from the fact. It sets a comedic tone that's disarming us from the fact that Dax is about to kill Gawora. Yeah. Right? That this is a signature moment. There's not going to be a Guardians of the Galaxy if Dax kills Gammar.

So the humor there is a tool that is being used to distract us from the fact that something really, really dramatic is happening. And therefore, it sets a tone in guardians. that you're going to have really serious stuff happening, okay? But at the same time, the characters, like Iron Man said, are going to be super plucky about it. Really serious stuff is going to be happening, but there's still going to be this, uh,

fun-filled rhythm that exists. Okay. In this show, a lot of times it goes on without anything that's grounding it. Yeah. they're just staying in conversations for the sake of drawing them out to make jokes. Sometimes it works, and sometimes you're like, can I get the next scene now? Like, the joke's been played. And there's nothing to hold you.

So there's no, nobody has a knife to their neck. There's nothing to hold you there. There's nothing to, to make you go, oh, my God, I can't, it's just that little rhythm. It's just that little style of humor. And it's sometimes, sometimes. Sometimes this show is very funny, but sometimes it doesn't work. Yeah, I think at his best,

James Gunn's comedy tells you something about the character. It tells you something emotionally. Even if it's small, the reason Drax is so funny is because you learn very early on in Guardians. He's a super literal character. He's like, nothing goes over my head. Like, you laugh because you're like,

oh, in the course of one joke, you understand who Drax is immediately and who he is on this team. team and what makes him tick. There's a couple scenes in the first three episodes where I'm just like, I think in the first episode, you might disagree with me, but the janitor scene went on too long. It did. It got to a point where it was funny, but it went on too long.

You're right. And it was like once you got to like Aquaman fucking fish and all this stuff, I'm like, all right, we got to like, he's like the Dave Chappelle thing, like wrap it up. Let's get to the next scene. And I do think that like what James Gunn does. have on this that he has in the MCU is that he has guardrails. I think he has people who are a little bit like,

all right, man, you can only get so vulgar, so it forces him to be a little bit quicker, a little bit like more direct. But yeah, I think 60-40, 60% of it doesn't work. 60% of it works. I have it the other way. It works 60% of the time.

40% of the time, it doesn't work. When it doesn't work, it kind of takes you out of that scene. You have to refocus a little bit on the next scene. Okay, number five. Do you find vigilante and peacemaker sad? Hmm. I mean, I go back and forth. Because yes, like, yes, as a human, as ever that a cubit. But the minute peacemaker's dad started dropping all them slurs,

I'm just like, dog, would I feel bad for a cop with a racist daddy? I don't know. Like, I don't know. I was going back and forth. What about you? Like, it was rough. It was rough. Yeah, they're both sad to me.

They're sad because low-rent superheroes are always sad to me. They shouldn't be. So, look, so it says, and the next question is this is a great question. I want to know who wrote this one. Is Batman not a sad a character because he's rich? The answer is, yeah. Oh, I disagree fully. I disagree so fully.

All right, let's talk about it. Give it to me. Chuck, Chuck, Chuck, Chuck, Chuck, Chuck, Chuck. All right. So this just might be capitalism talking. and Carl Marx would be furious with me. But I think rich people... Let's not get into Marxism on the podcast.

People... We've got enough division out there already. Can we leave Marx? Well, I was going to say, I don't know about you. I find rich people super sad. Like, like, Drake, the reason Drake's sad is because, like, he got all the success in the world. He's dated Riyadh.

He got all the money he wants and shit. And it's just not enough. And I'm just like, dog. Like, damn, can you imagine that just not being enough? Like, same thing with Bruce Wayne. Bruce Wayne got everything. Like, he's dating Catwoman, Tommy Aguul.

Like, he got, he got the money, he got the whips and everything. And that motherfucker is still miserable as fuck. Still miserable. Can you imagine that? Like, that to me is so,

like, you got money, so it's different, you know, are you, you're sad. I know you're sad, man.

Well, well, see, this is the thing. That's not sad. That's scary to me. Okay. Like,

sometimes, you know, because I used to have these moments I don't have like crazy money. Sometimes we'll be on vacation. Like we'll be in Anguillo, we'll be in the islands or something like that. And it'll be like a really nice situation.

Like this last time we went to Turks, we drove jet skis. Like there's this part in Turks where you just, there's this place in Turks called the Shore Club. And the water out there in Turks is shallow. So like comes up to maybe like your waist. Right. So it's deep enough to jet ski.

But it's also. shallow enough that you can stand in it and it's warm and it's just gorgeous. Like, it's so beautiful. So we took jet skis and you jet ski out to this bar that's actually out like in the middle of the ocean. It's like a bar in the middle of the ocean. You can only get there by jet ski.

So we took the jet skis out there. So you're out there, you're at this bar, you're in the middle of the ocean, you got to run punch, and you look out and you go, doesn't get any better than this, right? and then something scary happens to me to where I go, well, what if it doesn't?

What if this is as good as it gets? That means it's fucking all downhill from here. You know what I mean? And so the thing that I get when I see these rich people is, and they're not satisfied, I get scared. I'm like, well, God damn. Drake could wake up right now, right now, and be like, you know what,

I don't want to spend a day in the Maldives. And he could fly out there. It's going to take him a day to get there. He can fly out there that do whatever he wants with whatever model he wants or whatever

if that's not enough question becomes like what's enough? But it's not sad to you that if you're Drake you got to keep a pack of hot sauce handy at all times

that's sad in the condo but that's sad but let me tell you why but let me tell you why I'm not like Batman doesn't make me sad because

the cool distracts from the sad Batman is a very sad character right Batman's very sad character. Batman got all of this bread. Batman got all of this different shit. And Batman's whole thing is he wakes up in the morning.

Hey, Bruce, you want to go out? I must do this for my father. And it's very sad. That's very sad. But the fact of the matter is he's like in the coolest car. He's got the coolest fucking plane. He's got the coolest bat cave. He's got the coolest gadgets.

The cool distracts from the fact that this. guy is actually tortured. And when these characters like Peacemaker and Vigilani, you don't get any of the cool. You just get the tortured. They're almost like exposed little badmands because there's nothing to distract you from the fact that they're like obsessed with this one thing. You know what it's like when I became a music writer and I realized I was just like there's nothing sadder than like a rapper that's not doing well.

Like a rapper who you like, oh shit, like you got the same like type of apartment I got. Like, it's just like, like, when you're a rapper and you got a mansion, you're like, all right, cool. Well, you see a rapper and they just got a regular apartment. And I'm like, damn, you're making your advance is what I'm making a year. Like, dog, this shit's sad as fuck, bro. Like, peacemaker is like the, like the fucking low level rapper of the DZU. You're like, man, shit. That's tough.

You're still leasing your whip. You still leasing your whip. Helmets cool. Number six, does the lack of explanation of butterflies or ignore you or, or, is the mystery intriguing. Chuck Wagon. I think James Gunn is a smart man and the fact that I don't give a fuck

about the butterflies or like, like I just, I care about like Jutor Master doing some cool shit. I care about like those small moments when peacemaker you learn something

about his character. Butterflies are just like, yeah, it's just something to do. It's like any cop. Like my question to you is like when you watch a law and order, do you care about what the crime is every week?

No, you care about like hanging out with the characters. So no, I don't. like the butterflies or whatever. They're like window dressing. They're just something to get the characters from here to there.

I care about like all the emotional moments and the action moments and the humor. I couldn't disagree more. Really? I'm obsessed with what the butterflies are. Especially now more after number three. Obviously we're kind of getting the idea that the butterflies seem to be some sort of invasion. Let me tell you why I'm obsessed with who the butterflies are. I'm obsessed with what they are just because obviously they make people super strong and crazy and all of that stuff and they're taking over them.

Number two, I'm obsessed with why this is a mission for peacemaker. Hmm. You know, there are other people that seemingly you'd call to handle this, right? Batman exists. We hear them talking about Arkham Asylum. I'm assuming this is the DCEU, so Superman exists. I'm assuming that there are other characters A litany of characters

I mean, why not death stroke? You know what I mean? Like, you know, I'm assuming that there's a litany of characters. I'm, the butterflies to me hold entry because there's got to be something about them that makes this a job, not even for Task Force X, because the whole suicide squad isn't on this, right?

This is just peacemaker. And it's something that they kept them around. for even after he put one in Rick Flag. So I think that there's something about the butterflies that makes this specifically a job for peacemaker. I'm not just concerned with who they are. I'm concerned about why peacemaker is the man for this job because it doesn't seem like he would be the guy that they would put this type of situation in the hands of.

So I want to know what that's about. So really quick, this is a 6A question that I have for. you, would you, after seeing how discussing the butterflies are and drinking the goop, would you have sex with a butterfly, like Peacemaker? Chuck Wagon. I want to know. This is what the people want to know. Kerm's shaking his head.

Kerm definitely wouldn't. Kerm definitely. Like, stop. Come on. If I knew it was a butterfly before, definitely not. Like, that's just, that's weird. I'm going to be honest with you. I don't think that a, that a butterfly because the butterflies are inside these people. brains, I wouldn't do it because I don't think that you can consent if something's taken over your brain. Good point.

Look at, okay, Charles, just remember the rules out here. Don't get yourself in trouble. I didn't. That's a good observation. You're making me think that. All right. Number seven, what do we think is in store for the mega racist white dragon played by? Robert Patrick, you guys might know as the T-1,000.

Terminator 2. He also came back for a little X-Files. When that show fell off of the cliff, Robert Patrick's been around for a very long, long time. I was never more fearful of any white man ever than I was

at the T-1000. It was... Really? The T-1-000 was scary to you? Oh, I mean, wait, can you play... Hell yeah. What? You know I know it was scary for you because, like, you came out. Like, that was like the height of... Yeah, it was 11 years old.

Kerm, do you have the new drop we have for Van's age? Van is old. Really quickly, like, did you see that shit? Did you see the CGI? You like, it's never going to get better than this, guys. G. Willickers. It wasn't G. Willickers. I love how I talk in the olden languages and stuff.

It's not that I saw the CGI and thought that it was never going to get better than that. Everyone saw that the CGI I thought it wasn't going to get better than that. So shut your mouth. All right, what do we think is in store for the mega race was why? Dragon. Oh, I don't, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I'm interested in, do I think James Gunnell will touch it? Probably not. What I'm more fascinated than the white dragon is the fact that the world seems to know possibly about peacemaker's connection to his father. Everybody's kind of like, peacemaker, you're racist. Like the janitor is like, you don't kill as many

white people as you do people of color. And a lot of people keep bringing this up. So I'm just more interested in understanding how much did White Dragon train him? Was Peacemaker at once racist, not racist anymore? Why does the world feel as if he's not to be trusted? We don't really have that

information. What about you, Van? I'm interested in the White Dragon character because he's Peacemaker's dad and it's going to have to be some sort of reckoning between him and Peacemaker. Peacemaker doesn't seem to be as overtly racist as his father is. I want to know why.

I want to know maybe what Peacemaker's mother was and maybe her influence on him and why he doesn't follow in the same vein of his father, yet he still wants to please his father. And perhaps the fact that Peacemaker is not a racist is the reason why his father is so disappointed in him. Wait, do we know that he's not a racist? Because Atabio does say in the first episode

when she goes back to talk to her mom, He's like, pretty sure that guy is racist. And then her mom goes, you know who his dad is. Right. So I don't think he's as overtly racist as his father is. I don't really see that in peacemaker. I'm sure there's some things, come on, man. There's some stuff that's in there.

It always gets in there, right? But I don't think he hates the blacks as his dad does. And also, think about this. When we see his dad in jail, right? Stunts on the brother. not the toughest looking brother they could have cast right there, by the way.

What type of, you know, what type of black men did you want in that role? I don't know, man, I don't know. Have 21 Savage sitting there or something like that.

If you're going to try to make this out, like he's stunting on a, like he's stunted on a real G. Have somebody there that, you know, have somebody there that look like he'd been through something. That dude looked like the kid

from Cobur Kahn. But, um, who's mean, by the way. That kid from Kobe Kai is mean. They bullied him into being who he is his, and they got to, trouble on their hands. Shout out to him.

But look at the way they react. The rest of his group, his clan, if you will, react when they see him. Look at the adulation that he gave him. Drop to one knee. Give actually a Heil Hitler right there. It's pretty aggressive to watch on TV right now.

Oh, I mean, did you, I was listening to a Hollywood Reporter podcast. Let me get the name of the podcast. James Gunn was on it, TV's top five. And he was basically like talking about the things that he could get away with and the things that like the HBO Max, people were like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. And he had to, I think he had to really, really fight for some of the, the dad being racist and some of the other stuff.

Can you guess what was the point, what was the line in this that the HBO Max were like too far? You can't, you can't do that. You can't do that. In word. It was not that. He said it was calling Batman a pussy. They're just like, whoa.

Oh, wow. Interesting. You can say Aquaman's fucking fish. You can say Superman might got a shit fetish. You cannot. You cannot say Batman's a push. Not our boy. Right.

That's interesting because I saw in the scene, shout out to all my Jewish brothers and sisters. I saw him call Jewish people the K word. And then in the sentence before that, referred to like use the term blacks to describe black people. And you would think that if he was as hardcore as he is, that he would have said blacks, that he would have said the N-word. and it seems to me that they wanted to stay away from that. Oh, they edited that out.

I have to believe because when he was starting listening shit, I'm like, oh, he's going full slur. And I've rewatched the first episode. I'm like, they made sure to say, yeah, they made sure to say blacks because like, you know, but. Doree would have been on his ass. He would have been like, nah, we ain't.

But I'm not sure what's in store for the character. They've put the character in such a bind, and obviously that's a comic accurate character right there. of the white dragon, lead of a head of a racist kind of syndicate there, racist, super villain, very scary thought. But we've dealt with that, haven't we? That, I'm not sure how you come back from that character being that. Because we've seen the racism, you know, we saw him call the Asian detective lady

chopstick. She was, she came back with Fork, which I thought was kind of, I thought that was actually kind of cool. You know, I thought that was kind of cool. used spoon, but I thought the fork worked. Get out of your fork. Like your fork ain't better at my chopstick, punk-ass motherfucker. All right. Number eight, how do we feel about the balance

between comedy and intrigue here? I feel like we've touched on it a little bit, but we can go like a little bit. I think it gets, by the time, episode three happens, I think the balance is right. Episode three was my favorite episode. Judo Master is hilarious.

Judo Master is hilarious. When he's flicking the hot Cheetos at at Peacemaker, I just could not stop laughing. I'm like, this character is fucking so funny. I think it gets better. I think now that we're getting to the point where Peacemaker, we're seeing

the mystery, he sees the butterfly, but also you realize what his line is, because we thought that there was no line for him in Suicide Squad, and we realized the line for him is the kids. He doesn't, he won't kill kids. But he's just like, I'm not going to do that. And now I'm kind of interested, like, why is that his line in the sand?

And how did he get there? And the mystery of like, because we saw in Suicide Squad, we get, we get Amanda Wally being like his dad trained him since she was young, how to be a massaciller and all these different weapons. So I'm really, the intrigue of like, how did peacemaker get here? What's his connection to the butterflies? And why are kids the line in the sand I find fascinating? What about you?

I do. You think that killing kids would be a natural line in the sand, but for peacemaker, it doesn't really seem to be. You know, it seems to be he'd go and bond with his team to turn around and put a bullet in anyone. So that was a very, very interesting. It was also interesting that vigilante had no problem with it. Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop.

Ready to go. But I love judo master. I like somebody. I don't mind getting into the lore of the lower-ranked superheroes. And, I may ask me, me and a colleague who are watching this, I was telling her, I was like, all of these people are from the comics, but you're not really going to get,

you're not really going to get very many characters that you really know and love because you know they're going in a different way here it's like a different deal that they're doing it's a different world that they're exploring I think it's important to explore that world so yeah I'm into it I always want an appearance from like a blue blood

that's kind of how I am you know what I mean but I think the comedy and the intrigue come from the fact that they can do a lot with these characters that we don't know that much about. So I think that is very key. So the fact that we're dealing with people that are, for a lot of the audience,

unknown entities or unknown quantities, should I say, that brings itself, in and of itself a little intrigue. Like, Vigilani is an intriguing character. He's an intriguing character because you don't know that much about him. You don't know what to expect from him. So I'm a digging out. Okay, number nine.

Well, Amanda Waller show up in this show beyond checking in on Leota. What do you think? I don't know. I don't know. Like, they budget. Like, I think Viola's like, yo, I got y'all on Zoom. But this TV show don't got enough money from me. Nah, come on. So I truly,

isn't she getting shot of rhymes money? She was. Yeah, she got shot out of rhymes, but she's like, no, no, no, no, no, now. Y'all don't understand the type of money I'm getting in this TV space. So I think we just get in Zoom so far. I don't think she's going to pop up. What about you?

I personally believe that Viola Davis loves playing Amanda Waller. Oh, she definitely does. She definitely does. Amanda Waller gives her the ability to be the through line, right? Because Amanda Waller's appear in more of these DC movies than anyone. She's really the connective tissue in between... She's a McPhery at this point. Basically, of these worlds, right?

You know, she's the one that's showing up with different people. So yeah, I think that she enjoys playing this role more than anyone. So I could see her being in more just because of her dedication to the character. But I can also see them wanting to keep her kind of at an arm's length. And maybe that'll kind of have Leota's character maybe develop a little bit more as the strain from being away from her mom and learning who her mother is. I'm sure she knows who her mother is. but my question is, does she know who our mother really is? Maybe she does, maybe she doesn't.

And in order for her to kind of find out some more things about her and, you know, put her mom in context, you wouldn't want to have Walter too, too close. You know what I mean? All right. Last question. Maybe the most important question. Who is the best dancer in the opening theme song,

Chuck Wagon? I think, I don't know if they're best, but I think John Sina, for him to be a hulking white boy, you know, and to be so light on his feet, he got to be in the center of the frame, you know what I'm saying? Get his Janet Jackson on. I got to, I got to give props to that. You know what I'm saying? I'm not saying he's like any number of dancers, but, you know, he got some moves. He got some, he got some moves. I got to give it to the old neighbor dude, man.

I wasn't expecting old school to come like that. Don't hurt him like that old school. Old school came through and dropped his nuts. Don't hurt him like that old school. I bother Kalika because I watched the opening in its entirety every single time. I never skip it, which she hates. She's like, you're really going to watch this whole thing? I'm like, yeah.

James Gunn said it's for that purpose. You don't like people skip it. I'm with Kaliga. I saw it once it twice. I'm like, all right, I'm good. We can skip this. We go. I watch it every time.

How many episodes of Peacemaker are they going to be? I think there's going to be seven or eight. Eight episodes of Peacemaker? I'm watching that bitch eight times. I fucks with it, little guy. Okay. Overall, I am enjoying the Peacemaker series. That's all of our questions.

I'm enjoying the Peacemaker series. I understand the cries of people that's a little bit too much for, but I'm enjoying it. I know that initially you have feelings about it. Charles, you feel like it's after the third. episode, it's trending upward for you?

It's definitely trending upwards after the third episode. I think HBO Max is definitely doing the strategy right, where it's like, all right, give me three episodes to see if, like, I want to finish it. And by the third episode, I'm like, all right, cool. Like, I get it. I'm in this world. I've watched almost a movie's length of it.

Like, cool. Like, I'm excited to at least finish the story and see, and see what happens. So it's definitely trending upwards for me. Definitely trending upwards. I'm enjoying peacemaker. Peacemaker is funny. It's zany.

It's irreverent. It is not perfect. but it is very entertaining. I'm in a good spot. I'm in a good spot. I'm loving peacemaker. I'm loving book of Boba Fett. You know what I mean?

And let's be clear. The people got to, you guys don't understand how powerful you are. We're going to keep recapping Boba Fett. But you guys got to run the numbers up if you really want the peacemaker, us to keep going.

We're definitely going to do something for the finale. But if you want even more content, you got to run the shit up on socials. You got to listen to the pod. Just let us know. Well, we are, going to reward you. We're going to give you what you want. That's what we do here on

the midnight boys. We give you guys what you want. If you want more peacemaker, you got more peacemaker. But there's a lot of shows out there to watch, baby. There's a lot of stuff. We floated the idea of the midnight mulligan and guess what you guys did. Kick it in. It's fucking nuts. And we listen. And we listen. You guys are, hey, I'm was like, hey, let's revisit the Matrix. They were like, yeah, maybe like three years. We'll go back to it, man. But that shows the power of y'all.

If y'all are like, no, we need peacemaker, peacemaker, run the numbers up. We'll be like, all right, we'll give you more peacemakers. Right. And by the way, form clans. And I'll tell you what I mean. Because you guys give us so many ideas for shows that you want us to cover that you guys split the vote.

All the time. All the time. You have the foundation people over here. You have the expanse people over here. You have the arcane people over here. You have the Cobra-Cod people over here. You have all these, yeah, everybody's over everywhere. I love the show Raised by Wolves.

Love it. Love raised by wolves. The rest of Midnight boys don't watch that shit. They don't, and that's a tough watch. You guys have to make political parties. Make political parties. And really lobby for what you want. Because I'm with you, Van, every time they're just like,

we want this show and that show. I'm like, dog, there's like 10 shows here. I don't know which one is trending up worse. Yeah, yeah. You're like there's people that still wants to do neon genius evangelian. Neon Genesis Evangelion, damn, whatever. Like they, people that were my hero, macadamian nut. Like all of those like all like all of those things people want us to do.

But get us together. We're listening to you guys. Midnight Mulligan is out. Okay. All right. That's a wrap for us today. Wednesday the Midnight Boys return with our reactions to Book of Boba Fett. They'll be followed by the House of R.

that would be that Friday with an intense deep dive into the show. We'll be checking in on Peacemaker later in the season and give us some thoughts on the finale. We are not going to leave Peacemaker along. We're going to keep asking questions about Peacemaker. We're going to keep answering questions about Peacemaker. We're into Peacemaker. At Ring ofverse is on Facebook, IG, Twitter.

And now on Reddit at R slash Ringiverse. Join. It's in questions, ideas, and thoughts. Our producer is Jonathan. spidey Kerma. Jomi, a dinner on free Jomi, hashtag Free Jomi on socials. And additional production today

from Steve Alman, Arjuna-Ronga Paul, and of course, producer TD. Charles, take us out. Peacemaker is here. Aquaman is prancing on the sea. Shout out to my man, yeah, yo. Shoshone is so seductive dancing on me.

Show this is so seductive dancing on me. I also. I am obsessed with bald eagles. Really? Is this from childhood? Yeah, the whole bald eagle thread that I had on Twitter not too long ago when I asked people if they've ever actually had an encounter with the bald eagle. I've never seen one before. And people talk about how big the bald eagle.

Is that like something you've never, you've seen the ball eagle in the wild before? Not in the wild. I don't think many people have seen a bald eagle in the wild. But I've seen a bald eagle like at the zoo, like on class field trips to different places. Kerm, you've seen a bald eagle before, right? Definitely at a zoo, I think, like, as a kid, but definitely not in the past 10 years. But, Van, what type of life were you living as a child? Did you never go to the zoo?

I feel like, and maybe I'm wrong about this, and we should get into the show here pretty soon, but I feel like the more naturey of a place that you grow up in, the less you give a fuck about the zoo. Like, I'm from Louisiana. It's like animals were everywhere. I hunted and went out and did the land with my father. Was out on the land, rest of peace, Van Lathan Sr. I was out there with the land with my father. And like, after being out there, you see a moccasin, you see a nuterat in a pond, you see a big ass hawk, you see a gator.

You see all these animals basically on one fishing trip. All of these animals, all different types of animals. Look at these animals. White-tailed deer, armadillo. You see all of these animals. Like, I'm not going to go and look at more animals. This is for city slickers like me. I had no idea you could hunt, man.

I had no idea you could hunt. Like, for real, like, you shot a deer and shit. Yeah. And, like, skinned it? Like, did the whole thing. Phil dressed him, the whole nine, yeah, for sure. Dog, you were such a country boy. My father's from Maringuine, Louisiana.

Population, what, 1800 or something like that? Maybe. So like, or the Chaffalai Basin, Raymond, down and cutoff, Louisiana, Apollusus, Zachary, all of these places we go out, we'd hunt, we'd hunt, we'd hunt, we'd hunt, we'd do our thing. We're latin men, we're men of the country. Anyway.

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