The Ringer-Verse - 'Jurassic World' Reactions and 'Ironheart' Finale Reveal | The Midnight Boys

Episode Date: July 3, 2025

The Boys are back to give you their reactions to 'Jurassic World: Rebirth', plus their thoughts on the 'Ironheart' season finale. They even sneak in a little bit of fresh Nerd News as well! (0:00) Intro (10:19) Spoilers ahead (11:51) Instant reactions to ‘Jurassic World: Rebirth’ (50:37) 'Jurassic World' Midnight Meter (1:08:15) Instant reactions to 'Ironheart' Finale (2:15:23) ‘Ironheart’ Midnight Meter (2:16:31) Nerd News (2:21:06) Outro (2:22:50) Post credits Hosts: Van Lathan, Charles Holmes, Jomi Adeniran, and Steve Ahlman Producers: Aleya Zenieris and Jade Whaley Additional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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The outsiders. Also, socials. Instit Twitter, Facebook, and TikTok, Jermi. Guys, we're going viral again. Oh? What are we doing? Crazy. For what?

Because he doesn't think his picture Pascal is sexy. Yeah, they weren't happy about that. Fight back, man. They weren't. They weren't fucking with that. It's all emotional. It's all emotional. Jesus Christ.

Even the people who are like, They're like, it's, people have a feeling to Pedro Pascal. And by the way, I asked women. Right. Like, I really asked women. And I asked women that y'all know, and I asked them straight up, do y'all want to fuck Pedro Pascal? And they were like, no. They were like, we love Pedro Pascal.

But I'm like, if I put Pedro Pascal next to like even someone less famous than him, like an Idris Elba, is there a different? And like, come on. And they waved him away. Now, can I ask? Mm-hmm. Did you ask enough, like, women, like, who grew up with Pedro, early 20s, where it was just like, oh, like, is this a generational shit? Could be.

But I had those women ask, like, their friends. Mm-hmm. And I think Pedro Pascal is so beloved that I probably, I didn't think about how much people, like, love him. And part of the love is the daddy thing. When they're calling him daddy, that's like a familial daddy. Yeah. But like, you know, it's like I also just let you guys know, I see things as they are. Right.

Okay. Real truth tell them. And no one else does. No. Oh. Not on this podcast. What? All right.

Okay. All right. Whoa. Whoa. Okay. Okay for a 30-year-old to date a 23-year-old. Why not? The whole world thinks you're crazy.

Not on this podcast. You guys, but this is, and by the way, this is actually a good thing about the podcast. On the podcast, like, you guys have a very, not so much Charles. Charles, you're like an anarchist. If you compile all of Charles's, I'm a realist, Charles is. I want to see the World Bird. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

So this is the way the podcast breaks down, if you ask me. Okay. I'm a realist. Charles is an anarchist. Okay. And you two are idealist. like and so like Batman Robin Commissioner Gordon Joker yeah

Batman like like yep Batman well I don't know Batman is I don't think I'm Batman because I'm not actually Jomey gives me more Dick Grace and Nightwing like Joe Me's Dick Grace and Nightwing Right the best of us yeah This is Commissioner the heart of the

This is Commissioner Gordon you're the Joker I'm beating up Marines and Rogers I don't think we have a Batman Because I'm like getting out of bed at night, you know what I mean? Yeah. Was you in bed? You're in bed.

You got to let Joker die. Yeah, I'm probably, you know, I don't know. Like, do you wake up and do push-ups or do you just- So I'm not, I don't think we have a bad way. I don't know. I've seen some of the gym clips, you know what I'm saying? No, you mean a key box? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But so, so what I'll say is this is so, like, I know, I know for a fact that they're lying. I know, I know, I know, I know, all the comments, Every single person is making it up. They... It's bots. They feel very connected to Pedro Pascal, and they don't like someone saying this about him.

So this is like a parisocial relationship kind of a thing. Even the whole thing when we talked about, like, Pedro Pascal is they call him daddy on the internet. They call him daddy because of... It's a... I don't even want to say it, but it's like... No, go for it. It's a, there's a safety that they feel with Pedro Pascal and with who Pedro Pascal is. His essence.

Yeah, there's a safety that they feel with it. But people that are talking about the fact, if Pedro Pascal was who they say that he was, they would be talking about materialists in a different way. They would be talking about the movie in a different way. He's, the materialist assumes that Pedro Pascal is who the internet says. he is. That's what the movie assumes and it doesn't work. Interesting. I still don't want to see it.

I've been told him as Broke boy propaganda. They put him in that movie because they think and it just kind of does, it doesn't, it doesn't work. It doesn't work because he's not like that. When she's like, oh, you're a unicorn and he is,

but it's almost as if, okay, what if, okay, let me ask you a question. Paul Dameron, what's his name? Oscar Isaac. What if he's in that role? Interesting. It would be worse. I can't co-size it at all.

So Oscar Isaac is not, Oscar Isaacs is not a sexier man than Pedro Pascal. I think in 2025 Pedro Pascal is sexier to more people than Oscar Isaac. I agree. Yeah, I think the popular vote will land in his favor. Like, I, now if,

I, I, I, I, totally disagree. Like, like, Pedro Pascal.

Yeah, you can disagree. But here me and the one is a perfect example. Brad Pitt, when Brad Pitt walks out on the screen, you like, that's Brad Pitt.

Well, he's older. Yeah, but I get, but still, there are points in that movie. I'm like, shit, he's a,

like, that's Brad Pitt. Like, he's still a heartthrop. I get it. I, I, okay, so if we took guys that are in,

so Pedro Pascal's like, what, 50? Yeah. Yeah. So if we... So he's Bradthead, right? No, he's like 60s. Yeah, he's early 60s.

Damn, I know, right? Damn. Looks crazy, right? Oh, be honest, when I was in F1, even Javier Bardem. Dude. Dude, that might be the best he's ever looked. Like, even Javier Bardem, I'm like,

I could see the thing. There's a, there's a quick scene of, like, to your point, where Brad Pitt, like, is... He has his knees on the track, and, looks up to smell the air and pick the gravel up. I was like, yeah, this is a movie star right here.

It just looks different. When you see it, you see it, and I saw it where Brad Pitt is that movie, I'm like, oh, I'm watching. Also, dancing is a star. I was like, all right. Dancing did it. That movie was crazy. That movie was crazy.

That movie was crazy. $0,000 megawatts mile. Oh, my God. How about this? How about this? This is what I'll do. Okay. Because this is what you do when you're older as well.

I submit and relent. the people have spoken. However, I don't believe you. All I will say is that I don't believe, but you guys are wrong. What this conversation has revealed to me is I think maybe we should invite our sister on and do like a midnight sexiest

men, you know, list. Midnight gals. Like, you know? We could, I don't know, though. Like, if we do that, then is everybody going to be, everybody's going to be feel safe and seen and can we do something like that?

All right. All right. Let's get the fucking geranium. 15 people involved. We're going to have to go over for five or six or seven or eight or nine hours. Everybody's going to have to feel safe. We can't just do it. I don't know.

We can't do sexist man alive anymore? I don't know if it's, I don't know if it's okay. People do it every week. No, we have to make sure because you want to give me started. There are other things that we wanted to do on the podcast that we couldn't do it because you guys didn't feel safe or say, yeah, whatever. So, so just like whatever, we'll just, you know, whatever we'll do, we'll workshop it for five and six hours. We'll get Arjuna involved and then we'll come back and then maybe we'll do it. All right.

Program of Remedance! House of R will be continuing their deep dive on squid game and this Friday the Midnight Boys bring you a very special midnight court. On today's show, we have our reactions to the final episodes of Ironies. And our reactions to Jurassic World Rebirth. Now look, we're about to get some real pot in here. I've seen some of you guys that have had thoughts on Jurassic Park rebirth on the old Twithphere. I'm letting you guys know right now, you're not going to get a measured response from me if you diss the movie. A measured response.

Do we ever get a measured response? For me? Yeah. Everything that we just experienced for the last. So is your review of F1 a measured response? That's bubbling frustration. But no, this movie is my Pedro Pascal. Wow.

Okay. Wow. It doesn't matter how beautiful the rest of you think it is. It's my pretty little baby. All right. So park reburst. Okay. Spoiler warning for everything Jurassic Park up to date, Steve.

We're getting ready to talk about. About Jurassic World Rebirth. You're listening to a reaction podcast. The spoilers are coming. Chuck Wagon, Midnight Manifest, dinosaurs, families, Scarjo, go. All right, these are midnight manifest for Jurassic World Rebirth, directed by Gareth Edwards, written by David Kep,

starring Scarlett Johansson, Mahershual Lee, Jonathan Bailey, among others. The world has finally gotten bored of dinosaurs with many of them dying from disease and the rigors of the modern environment. Mercenary Zora and Dr. Henry Loomis are hired by Parker Genics to go to a remote island that was abandoned after mutated dinosaurs ran amok. The pharmaceutical representative Martin wants the duo to collect three blood samples from one land, air and sea dinosaur.

This blood will be used by parkergenics to create a medicine that can save millions of lives. Sora puts a team of mercenaries together led by Duncan Kincaid. Along the way, the soldiers saved the Delgado family from a dinosaur called shipwreck. But when the big crew get to the island, they realized the, the mutated dinosaurs are more than they can handle. It's up to Zora and Company to evade mutant raptors and the six-legged distortous wrecks to get off the island and get the blood samples back to the mainland.

That has been your Midnight Manifest for Jurassic World Rebirth. All right, Van. We've seen some of the static and critique from fans, The Rotten Tomato scores, critics, the like. The Midnight Boys, it feels like, had a different experience when we saw Jurassic World Rebirth. rebirth. So, like, how are you feeling right now? How are you feeling with the discourse, the movie, everything? I'm ready to go to war. I'm ready to go to war, man. No, there's so much

things, so many things, should I say, happening in my mind these days, so many things that I'm looking at. But one thing that I'm certain of is Jurassic Park rebirth. Jurassic World Rebirth. Whatever. Maybe this is the lowered expectations because I wasn't expecting shit. Same. I was expecting Scarjo to fucking phone it in. I was like,

why is Mahershala Ali here? But you know what I got? I got the feeling. I got the closest feeling to the first Jurassic Park movie that I've had. I'll be honest with you. Mainly because it is sort of a retelling of the first Jurassic Park movie.

It's a shadow reboot, as was Force Awakens. But when I look at the movie, I remember there were laughs, there were thrills, there were chills, and there were dinosaurs, and I fucking loved it. I mean, similar to you, I was actually mad that I had to go to the screen, because it was just like, oh, another fucking Jurassic problem. I was with you, man. I'm like, this is not going to. I just, I had no expectations. And when I say I had such a fun time at the movie theaters, is this a dumb movie?

yes, does it make any sense? No. Are they retreading a lot of shit? For sure. But there were just moments. There was this one shot we've all been talking about it. Spoiler alert. Where one of the older, the older daughter of the Delgado family is trying to get that raft.

And it expands. And then the T-Rex is there. Is there? And then it disappears. Where else like, fuck it, you got it. It did the thing that I always want summer blockbusters to do, which is like, if you're not going to reinvents, vent the wheel, just like show me a good time. Make me laugh, make me like cheer, make me just feel something.

And this is not a perfect movie in any stretch of the imaginations. But it is a fun movie, and I had fun. There's a great moment when I was sat next to Charles during this, and I leaned over, and I was like, why do I respect this more than Mission Impossible right now? And it was because I was like, we've seen so many of these most recent Jurassic worlds. they don't really have any of the juice that a Jurassic Park movie deserves and there's a moment in this movie

I think it was probably like in the 20 minute mark not even where like every single scene you don't go a single scene without some kind of dinosaur encounter it's like either a mini set piece or a little bit of dialogue or a little bit of things where you have an encounter with a dinosaur and it's just like a kid taking a piss

and there's a bunch of dinosaurs just eating each other behind him And it's incredible. Or you see an amazing T-Rex sequence. Like every single scene isn't without some sort of Jurassic Park wonder. And that's really all we needed to have a great time. As the only person who was even remotely interested in this movie when it was, when we were going to cover it, I came in kind of like you, Van, it was like, I've seen the last two Jurassic World movies. It could not get any worse.

Like, there's literally no way it could get worse than DeVos. minion. And I'm in the theater and I'm sitting next to my guys. I'm like, man, I'm having a great time. We were laughing. We were laughing. We were cheering. Like the whole thing, like when they put the little, the little Dogado daughter in danger,

sitting there like, oh, no, man, not her. Like, the entire movie has, again, it's not perfect, but it does a thing that Jurassic Park movies do when they're doing something good. And that not only makes you worried about the characters, but also fills you with a sense of wonder and like awe. And I thought that this movie did that in spades. I had a great time. Yeah.

You know, the Jurassic Park movies are pretty formulaic. It's expert, a scientist, and then people caught up in the middle that are kind of there on accident or they didn't go there expecting that they would be in a dinosaur kill box. This one does do things a little different. in that it gives the family an arc the shithead boyfriend automatically

the father can't see automatically when you see the shithead boyfriend you're like I know this guy and this guy is on this boat like you the first scene you get the feeling that they were he was down and said he's fucking the guy's daughter he's getting dressed and the guy's like shit

you know and when he continuously steps up throughout the entire movie, you go, oh, I know what this is. I know this is the guy who is probably overlooked. Like in the scene between the father and him, when you see that he doesn't think very much of himself, then you get,

you understand why he roams throughout the world without putting any effort in. It's because he doesn't think he has anything to give. He was also like probably the funniest character in the movie. He's got the bit where, you know, He's talking, you want some weed like that. That bit was hilarious. But also, when he shows up and he's a dick in a Jurassic Park movie, you're like,

oh, he's going to die. He's going to horribly. I was waiting for you to get him. I was waiting for him. I thought when he was taking the piss, he was out of here. Like immediately, like, oh, man, his death is going to be crazy. They never kill anyone from the family of people. Well, he wasn't, he's the boy.

He's a boy. Sure. And he's also, there's no way that character dies. Like, if that, oh, I don't know. No, they never kill anyone from all the civilians are safe normally. Unless he would have done something. And the moment that he does something like heroic, then Jurassic Park movies, to me, the way I look at it,

and you can tell me, Jomey, as the expert, is if you're bad, you're dead. If you're below the stars, but part of their crew, it's definitely dead. It's basically the same rules for Star Trek. Exactly. Even when they almost killed Mahershala, He's not going to die. There's no way to come on. Yeah, he's not going to die.

But, like, if you're, if you're, if you're, if you're a capitalist, it's so funny that the movies are these anti-capitalist pro-science things when they are essentially these gigantic corporate commercials. This is like, it's like the big time bad capitalists that everybody is steer the ear. You want him to die as you're eating popcorn out of your Jurassic Park. Yeah. It's nuts. There's always this weird thing that I've also had with the Jurassic Park movies pretty much ever since the first one where the first one is like a perfect movie because it's this big insane experiment on like the hubris of humanity in the wonders of science to marvel at these things that were like millions upon millions of years old that we never got to see. And it was amazing. But like nine movies in, they are still in this world.

genetic abominations that should not be here. And there's a weird thing in my mind where I'm like, why hasn't this series gone the way of like aliens where we're just like mowing these things down with machine guns and like making this a thing about survival about this thing that we created? But instead it's this weird like scientific and reverence that these movies have for dinosaurs

that like the Jonathan Bailey character is like, it's a sin to kill a dinosaur. And I'm like, it's a sin for them to be here. And there's this weird thing that the series has kind of carried over with these animals that hasn't exactly changed, where we're going to make these things coexist, but also genetically mutate and alter them and never learn our lesson. So do your, so take your experiment and put it in the real world. So let's say that it all actually happened. Sure. So ask yourself this question.

What would stop us? So what would stop us from taking machine guns and mowing down to dinosaurs? What would stop us from doing that? Like some sort of like, as the movies have described, like some sort of like either capitalistic gain to be used from them, be they medicine, be they economic, be they like anything. If there's any sort of utility that we would have for these things, we would find a way to keep them.

Like capitalism would find a way to do that. And at every turn it seems to keep doing that. So that perversion is still there in this series. would stop us. If you... Peter would be out there with signs. Yeah. If you start fucking...

If you bring these animals back and then start just like fucking killing them and like blowing them away, you're gonna be... They're gonna look at you crazy. Right. But if you're like,

but if you're like marooned on an island with a bunch of mercenary commandos... No. No. No. No. No. No.

No. No. No, no, no, no. No. No. No. The dinosaur culling is not going to go over well with the people on Twitter.

You know, but it's only going to be with the people on Twitter. If I could be real, Steve, we already see how white people act about dogs. Imagine you pull up on Dolores. Yeah. You shouldn't be here.

That's crazy. You were millions of millions of years. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Like, like, Pokemon have more rights than these dinosaurs. Is that a white man telling somebody where they can and can't be? It is the difference.

Wow. Who made the dinosaurs? Wow. Asian. Respect Bini Wong. How my God. Oh my God. It's true.

I got about that. Jesus Christ. I'm sorry, I'm thinking of the professor. I think that I think that kind of sort of gets like a little bit talked about in the movie is that there are people. And you definitely not going to be able to mow them down now that we can study down. We can use them to cure heart disease and stuff. like that. Allegedly. Allegedly.

But there are people who are taking up the cause of the dinosaurs. And there would be. Absolutely. There's going to be people that are going to be like, it's not their fucking fault that they're here. Don't fucking touch the dinosaur. Don't kill the dinosaur.

Don't do any of that stuff. It's not their fault. Do you think there are any chefs in this world that are like cooking the dinosaurs? Oh, I bet some dinosaurs. I bet if you went to like a somewhere like there's got like a secret kitchen in the back and they're making like dinosaurs

with sushi and it probably tastes disgusting. I don't know how it tastes. I would eat dinosaurs. Wait, I would try that. What did you do with? What does alligator taste like? It's overrated to me, but people like it. But does it taste like reptilian? Like does it taste reptilian? Yeah. This is gaming. Um,

no. Like fish? Like, like the white water? You know, it's funny. You said, does it taste reptilian? And then I went, does it taste because I don't understand what reptilian would taste like, but I guess what you're asking is do reptiles have their own taste?

Have I eaten that many reptiles? Like, what's a reptile? Fognecks? Those are amphibians. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, braves or not. But I haven't eaten that. I've eaten it before.

But you know what? If the alligator is a reptile, which I'm not sure that it is, by the way. Is it a reptile? No, alligators are related to dinosaurs, right? Yeah. So, but if it's a reptile, I guess that's the reptile taste that I know.

So the reptiles are classified. are classified as dinosaurs. So if we're going through, like, you just how evolution works, then it probably be closer to chicken? To chicken. Well, that's how, that's, I mean, alligator doesn't taste dissimilar for,

this is why I'm saying. Alligator doesn't have a, to me, alligator doesn't have a distinct enough taste for us to justify killing the alligator and eating him. Sure. Okay. Okay. So I always thought that, like,

you go to a place in Louisiana and you have the alligator, And I'm like, we don't have to kill him because he don't... It's not like beef. Like beef, chicken, like, these tastes distinctly different. Yeah. Versus like alligator, pardon me as I can't even imagine. It's just like meat.

But the dinosaurs are so muscular too. Yeah. I don't know that much about dinosaurs. But I don't know like they're pretty big, right? So, like, how would you... Like, there's a scene with the titanosaurus and the tail is waving and like, they're, like, enormous. Well, how would you go about like, all right, let's kill the dinosaur? Chopin that up.

up and eat it and sell it. But some of the Raptors, like a raptor leg, like a chicken leg fried a shot up? Like, it probably tastes pretty good. I mean, today's what you. Really, Dolores. See, that's what it.

Not the little baby, Tricerat. Does that like a lot of course? Let's talk about Dolores. There is something about cuteness in peril that only the Jurassic Park movies do well.

Really? Cuteness in peril. Because dinosaurs, and this is interesting to me, I was thinking about this. dinosaurs are, kids are obsessed with it. Yeah. Yes.

Kids love dinosaurs. But dinosaurs are fucking dangerous. Yeah. Well, not all of them. A lot of them are. Well, I would argue that all of them are. Oh, what? Yeah.

I mean, they're big and can hurt you with teeth or horns or can just step on you without even thinking about it. Chris, Chris Pratt was walking around like one of them velociraptors was a pit bull. You know what I'm saying? Well, yeah. They can be trained. They can be trained. Blue, right?

But you would have to... That was also, definitely be real. The clicker? You have to... It's insane that the first Jurassic World movie is just like, we're giving Chris Pratt basically just like a Velocer rapper that listens to it. Guys, guys, guys, you think that's dumb. In Fallen Kingdom, they give...

They give the Raptor... They trade the Raptors with lasers. And so you have to point the laser at the person to kill... For the Raptor to kill him, right? And at that point, why not just use a gun? You know? Nah, because that's not swag. That's not swag.

Nah, bro. George, you use a gun? Yeah. I didn't see a dinosaur. It's dumb as hell. But, like, I feel like dinosaurs, you can't, it's literally like if, like, if you were just like Tiger King and you had all types of, like, leopards and tigers, like, sure, you might be able to train it.

But then I get over there and you know, I really listen to me, I'm dead. I'm ripped apart. Okay. So, but what I'm saying about the movie. is the wonder that kids, when they're children in the movie, the wonder that kids have for dinosaurs, right? They really have it for all animals. But it wouldn't be a great movie if you dropped a kid off with their family in the middle of the Serengeti and had tigers and hippos and different animals. And they're like, oh, my God.

But dinosaurs, it's like almost amusement park, fantastical fantasy stuff. So it always works when you put cuteness in peril. like this. And I feel like some of the past movies have kind of gotten away from that. They've gotten away from, to me... They haven't done it. To me, they got away from oh my God, we're here, we're seeing dinosaurs. They're so cool. But now, it's on the run.

And that's a very easy thing to do in a Jurassic Park movie. And it should be done in every Jurassic Park movie. Every Jurassic Park movie should have some small child running away to his parents away from a dinosaur. I think the thing you're talking about is because in the first Jurassic World movie,

it's like they're new like they're finally opening the park for the first time so you're able to view it like versus the the next two movies like oh these are dinosaurs they're everywhere who cares like that and then you don't have that all you don't have that like worry one of the first shots you see of a dinosaur in this movie is one being dragged from the hudson river with graffiti on it it's crazy which is insane because they're sick in the whole thing you need it because it lives too far away from the year but you need the kid you like the best or classic park movies have the child have the kids in peril at every opportunity i think the best scene or not the best it's the top three scene is the raptor scene from the original where the kids

are hiding in the kitchen and like the little rafters are like looking for them and that i think even gareth edwards has talked like he wanted to make these movies like scary again and put these people in there and they did kind of the same thing where they're in the uh little gas station shop Yeah. And they're in the corridor. In running through the aisles. Exactly. It's just like the kitchen seat from the first one.

I did not fuck with those mutated raptors. I'm just like, nah, these motherfuckers are too dope. Like, they're fine. The smart as shit. The mutated dinosaurs was interesting because you have to keep doing something to up the ante or we're doing the same Jurassic Park. It's the Tyrannosaurus Rex all time. But the mutated dinosaurs were interesting in that they're so ugly.

and they were so weird they were such weirdos that they almost did something where they were like let's give you a group of weirdo dinosaurs that you can root against because our relationship with the rest of the dinosaurs this point is kind of complicated we like the raptor

and that's kind of my problem because at the end of the day the designs of these new genetic freak dinosaurs to me are never going to be as cool as dinosaurs that we knew actually were real like that final boss Gigantosaur or whatever

the hell that they were running from at the end. Distormous Rex. The Storis Rex. Dumb name. Dome. Like that's never going to be as cool as an actual T. rex that they had in that encounter.

Like anything in that scene, that river sequence with the T.rex was way better, in my opinion. I think, well, the thing is, and we saw this in the last three Jurassic World movies,

you can't have the T-Rex come and save the day at the end. Like you used to, you know what I suppose. Yeah, because I'm watching. movie, I'm like, when they're finding the D-Rex, I'm like, right, when's the T-Rex showing up to save

the day? That's what happens, right? That's what we're doing. But is a T-Rexing, like, let's have the conversation. Does Jurassic Park have a star problem? You know what I'm saying? I think it does. There's no other dinosaur that's really like, could be a franchise player, can get you a lot of points,

can really just like, promote the brand. The T-Rex is legitimately like the LeBron James of of Jurassic World. Then what are the velociraptors? I want to say Steph. That's probably two.

But they're like the KD. They have their moments, right? You respect them and what they've done for the game. But ultimately, if you start naming, Hey, who, like, he's literally like the logo. You know what I mean? Like, when you think about Jurassic Park, you think about Jurassic Park, you think about Jurassic World.

You think about the T-Rex. Now you have to move forward from that. It's year 23 for the T-Rex. He's coming out of retirement. It's about that time. Who takes over? I agree with you guys. I didn't hate the D-Rex as much of you guys did.

I didn't deserve this purpose in the story, but we can't build a franchise right. But at that point, it may as well just be a Star Wars monster. Like, I said it, like, this looks just like the rancor.

I mean, it was definitely modeled off to my RANCHO. Yeah, but I don't know how you move on from the T-Rex and not, because then you're just making the same movie over and over again. It's like, all right, we got to fight the T-Rex.

I have to do the T-Rex. We need some. The thing that was interesting about the T-Rex scene is that, like, To me, story-wise, they made an interesting decision with him. The T-Rex was asleep. It was being disturbed. That was interesting narratively to me.

The T-Rex is sleeping. The girl, the daughter, is trying to get something that she needs. She disturbs the T-Rex and the T-Rex attacks. That's essentially the whole Jurassic Park story. Like, the T-Rex wasn't doing anything to anyone. It wasn't bothering anybody. It is disturbed by her because she's in a space where she's not supposed to be

and the T-Rex attacks. That's kind of what the T-Rex has been throughout the entire Jurassic Park series. It's been something that's been like, hey, it's like an orphaned hero. I did not ask to be here. I am doing things, and these things are kind of helping you guys,

but the reality is I didn't ask to be brought back. I am this laden. ferocity that is unleashed onto this world. So I accidentally helped. And that scene really worked because it was like, well, you could read him as just being scared. Yeah. Like, what are you? Like, what, like, what are you doing?

Like, what are you guys doing? I'm sleeping. I'm resting here. This is my home. You came in here to get a raft and a very durable raft. You came in here to get a raft. made of vibranial. The T-Rex is running after her as the same way that someone would run after somebody

that had come into their house. So they still absolved, still scary, and also the prettiest dinosaur. What they try to do, in my opinion, is the T-Rex is beautiful. It's a beautiful-looking dinosaur. Small arms, but hey, whatever. It's beautiful. What's wrong with small arms? It's funny.

It's funny. The wingspan is like, what are you know? But small arms, but you would think that the dinosaurs that they make, they want them to be ugly and malformed because it adds to the majesty of the dinosaurs that we already know. Now, once again, the movie itself is how well can we justify running and screaming? Yeah. And something else worked in this film. The fact that these people were lifeless mercenaries, right?

Lifeless mercenaries who find calling throughout the relationship that they have to this family. I think that's a very, they got to give you something. Yeah. Right. They got to give you, they got to give you some reason to care about the people. And to start them off as, like, she's like, I want $10 million. I want this. They're scheming.

they're plotting, they have old boy from what you're calling it in there, he gets killed early. Dariena No Harris from Game of Thrones? Yeah, he gets killed early. Was he not in Deadpool, too, in my church? He wasn't, he was the first Deadpool, yeah. Yeah, so he gets, he was also in the Rebel moon. So, like, giving them even

a little bit of an arc, like a little bit of an arc where it's like, oh my God, they care about something more than money because they have to become protectors. Right. That was interesting. That's at least interesting for children. I thought to get on, to, to, harp on that point a little bit more.

They put everybody together, right? The first, they're all just sailing separately, and then their ship gets attacked by Moses, or the family ship gets attacked by Moses, or they're all in the boat together. I'm like, all right, this is the movie. They're going to sit together because they have to get to some part of the island for safety, and that's going to be it. But they split them up again, which at first I was like, I don't really know how I feel about that.

Yeah, like, they're already, like, what's the point? And then I realized, like, oh, the mercenaries kind of just. kind of just like over there handling business it's not really any like real emotion also everybody on the mercenary side their paycheck is like a couple of zeros higher than everybody else so we can't be shooting them too much but they have like this thing

between Scarjo's character and Jonathan Bennis character where he's like we can't kill these dogs with money this and that which is the extent of the emotional growth from those people at least on the island whereas the family we see them like the boyfriend and the dad

Oh, that's a whole. Find each other. We see the dad and the kids find each other. Like, there's a whole emotional arc while they're doing, like, the action stuff, whereas Scarjo and Myershalla and Jonathan Bailey are Pee-Pew, shoot, shoot, oh, no, Dino. Like, I thought, at first I was, I was like, I don't really like this, but as the movie goes on, I'm like, ah, you're giving us the emotional background that a Jurassic Park movie needs while also, you know, servicing, like, the big action stars in the movie. And I thought that worked. So do you, I could see how people could be pissed, though.

When, if you look at this movie, it is very, very meta. It is very much like, we know y'all are tired of Jurassic Park movies. The people in this movie are tired of dinosaurs. And it's like, y'all are bored of regular dinosaurs. We're giving you mutated dinosaurs to show you that you should appreciate the original. And I'm like, I think if you, the part that, when it all worked for me, because I could see somebody being like, this is cynical, this is dumb,

is when I think his name is Martin, the evil guy. Yeah, yeah. We all laughed at the same time, and they're on the ship, and the daughter is about to go over people on the fall. And he just has this look on his face. He shows his teeth like a cobra. It is dumb and comical and funny and hilarious.

And that was when I was like, that thought like the movie being like, don't take this too seriously. We're in on the joke. Well, you know he's the bad guy. from the first time. Right, he was in all white. He was carrying a briefcase.

Yeah. No, no, no, no. I knew he was a bad guy. I more so met like he, that character was demonstrating to me that they're in on the joke. Well, no, that's what I mean. I'm agreeing with you.

I'm saying, when he sneers like that, you're like, okay. Yeah. You know what I mean? He was going to, he's for the die horribly. He's about to be something like, we have to go find my daughter.

And he's going to be like, fuck your daughter. Yeah. This is worth trillions of dollars. Fuck her. But when he sneered, it was funny. Yeah.

And the movie, it doesn't waste any time getting all of the characters in their roles. The guy, Dario, wants to pick up the gun and go, yo, I'm going to fucking kill a dinosaur. You're like, okay, this niggas gonna die. He's going to die. Like, it would almost be a Zach if he would have. found Dolores. It's great that he was the first one to die. He didn't even make it to the island. I was so surprised at that. Oh, he didn't even make it to the island. Even a home girl got to the island. Bailey is just like, hey, yo, get on the coast. She immediately gets God.

By the way, they had a pretty decent body count in terms of a Jurassic Park movie. They whole crew got sacrificed to the gods. That was a good kill, too. I love how it was shot because By the way, I could take a cynical read of the film and be like, yo, if I lose three of my people, I got to come away with some brand, man. I believe me it was so. I'm leaving me. Like, if I lose three of my people,

because essentially, this was one big, unforced error by the Scarjo team. Absolutely. Absolutely. Although, no, because this is what I'll say. If not, I just talk myself out of it in real time. If not for the Scarjo team. team, that family dies.

True. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because they were still on a tiny sailboat. Yeah. Sailing from South Africa to wherever the fuck they were sailing. It didn't make sense, but it's so fucking dumb. I guess people do that. Do people do that? They do do that. Well, people do that.

The guy just went from Oregon to... Dinosaurs in the fucking... If I knew I was in dinosaur-infested waters, probably wouldn't take that trip anymore. Also, can we just be real? What is the little Dalgado homie going to do with a whole fucking dinosaurs. She took Dolores on the ship.

I'm like... Just taking it home with you? I'm like, you can't feed. Delores is dead. She's going to die. Guys, come on, man. No, no, no, no. We already talked about this after the movie. They live in the, they live near the equator where the dinosaurs can live. Oh, good, good for you know. It's going to be good. But how much food does a dinosaur fucking...

I don't figure out. That's tons. Do we even know, like, Dolores look like a triceratops, but maybe she's a dinosaur that's smaller. But let me tell you something. If Dolores, uh, if Dolores, uh, if we come back for a sequel and the kid is going through puberty and Dolores is also like 8,000 pounds that's kind of cool

that's kind of cool you got her having her own dinosaur that she could ride on moon girl and devil dinosaur there you guys this is off topic but would you guys rather live in a zombie infested apocalypse

or in like dinosaur infested shit give me dinosaurs is it the apocalypse in boat basically dinosaurs have run ramp it, like everything is shut down. You either have to run from dinosaurs or zombies. Give me the dinosaurs.

Dinosaurs. Yeah. Because we could study them. Them zombies are too fucking unpredictable. Yeah, man. You never know what they're going to do. Here's the thing you can't kill. The problem is, at least with zombies, you can kill a zombie.

If a T-Rex comes in parks and fucking, like, West Hollywood, what the fuck are we going to do with the diet? Like, he's going to kill everybody. Well, yeah. Well, the society is, I'm sure we can use guns. The problem is, the way I look at it is, we can gang up on the T-Rex. Yeah. All zombies do is make other zombies, Charles.

Oh. Yeah. So you got one zombie. You really got like 50,000 zombies. You get been by a T-Rex. You're saying that like Trump supporters. You don't want to let one in. Jesus.

Don't let one in the door. The next thing you know, your homie's going. So what? You don't want to get to die out the food? That's all they're talking about. Red 13. All they're talking about is getting to die out the food. Why you don't want to that fuck that vaccine?

And you're like, But here's the thing. I'd rather fight 10 zombies than 10. velociraptors. Yeah, but it's not 10. It's going to be 10 at first, then you're going to be a zombie, then he's going to be a zombie.

It's the whole way. It starts as a 10b-10, and then it becomes a 19v1. And then also, dinosaurs got some kind of code, I feel like. What? I mean, it's nature.

Code. What code do dinosaurs have? At least they follow the laws of nature's. Zombies, like dinosaurs wouldn't eat their kids, I don't think. Yes, they do. No, they own.

dinosaurs eat, if they eat their own kids, nigger, then how did they fucking reproduce and take over the world? First of all, I guarantee reptiles eat their own children. I'm sure they do to a degree, but they can't be eating them that much or else there would be no reptiles. So what I'm saying is

a zombie don't give a fuck about a family unit or nothing like that. A zombie, I guess the zombie doesn't eat an other zombie though. Exactly. They got a code too. I guess they do. It was seen in some species.

Well, a zombie can't run into a zombie because they don't get any nourishment from the zombies. Yes. I'm thinking here, maybe I'm changing my mind here about this. No, no, no, no. It's definitely going to be dinosaurs. I'm definitely going to dinosaurs. What do we think about the humans' this movie?

Because I have a take. I don't know, like, if it's, I don't think it's going to be a proper. It's not a bad question, though. I was worried about, like, the humans, obviously. You're still thinking about it. Yeah. You're still thinking about it. Go ahead, gentlemen.

I'm sorry. We got to get rehearsals, Blame. movie made, man. Those were definitely the blade muscles that were promised. He looks good. I was legitimately like, like, I'm here to question, Marisley. I was like to God, Lee. Another guy, 51.

Looks better than Pedro Pascoe. Okay. He looks great, though. He looks great. And I'm watching the movie, and I'm like, this guy looks, this guy's awesome. Again, we know he could act, but he's doing the thing in the action movie. I'm like, all right, guys. What are you doing?

movie. Why, why can't, why don't we have this by now? It was, I was legitimately like, dumbfounded at the end of the movie. Again, they have the big scene at the end, King King King's everything and like, we're all like, charing. Like, hell yeah, I'm like dog, get this, make this man his movie, man, what are we waiting for? I will say to your point, I like Bailey, I like Marhershalla, I like Scarjo. And the reason I can tell that these people are like movie stars, or at least Scarjo and Marhershalla especially are because they don't really get that a moathella. They glid through the movie. Yeah.

Like, but it's like that, Scarjo is a perfect example. I'm like, this is not the best Scarjo performance. But she has the star watchage where she's just like, all right, give me the pages. All right. I know where I need to be and what I need to do to get us. I thought Bailey actually surprised me a lot.

I was just like, oh shit. Like you got some fucking muscles. People have been like, oh, should he be James Bond? I'm like, I don't, I want to go that far. But to me, I would rather watch Scarjo and Myershala and Bailey than Chris Pratt, if I'm going to be. Oh, yeah. Scarjo did this thing in the movie where it's not a defining performance.

There's nothing anchoring it, but it works for the character. Like, she is kind of vacant. Yeah, detached from the whole thing. Exactly. Until she's not. And because she kind of starts off half smiling and wide-eyed about everything, incredibly cynical, when she becomes not that, it's very noticeable.

It's very noticeable in the film when she starts to take things seriously. If you take a character that's like a big adventure character like Indiana Jones, is he takes things so seriously. He finds so much joy in finding a page from a book, no matter where he goes, this is his life.

So when, he gets into a situation, he has to choose people over archaeology, it really matters. It really matters when he has to make a decision. It doesn't matter that I leave here with the Holy Grail. It matters that my family and everybody else and all of this stuff is safe. The relationship with my dad matters more than me finding the treasure. This matters more than the fucking whatever. And that always happens to him.

He very rarely gets the thing, right? He gets something else. So with her, it was like, oh, we care about money. We're running a play. She doesn't let you in. She actually kind of looks like this, but then the family comes around and it changes. Yeah. You start to see that she lost somebody before.

She doesn't want to lose any more people. And she starts using her soldiering not to benefit herself, but to benefit other people. And then she uses her soldiering to benefit the entire world. She has to make a decision to give up like $10 million, right, to say, saved 8 billion or 7, 3 billion people. How many people are going to have heart disease is a killer. It's a silent killer. I would have still told Bailey, I'm like, yeah, fuck the company,

but you still don't have to break me off just a little bit. Like, you know what I'm saying? Just give me a little bit. Bills don't pay themselves, big honey. Bailey's sales is open. I mean, you open source and everybody get to it. I would have been like, we got to find a way for me to get like a little bit. 10 cents, you know what I mean?

People die. I feel like the Delgado family, they should get some reparations. they should get some like a little bread too. I think they're doing all right though. I mean, you got to read the money. They got love and the dinosaur. They need, I just get them a new sailboat. They ain't got no weapons on a sailboat.

Yeah, that's a bad investment. Don't you have to have a harpoon or a sailboat. Again, you... What the fuck was a harpoon going to do? I guess a monster. I'm going to be honest with you. You're better with the harpoon than you are without it. Yeah, but not if it's not going to do nothing.

What's what you're talking about? How's the harpoon going to flip the fucking boat? The dinosaur's going to flip the boat. What's the harpoon going to do? dinosaur flipped the boat, would you, let me ask you a question. Then where's the harpoon? Let me ask you a question. If the dinosaur flips the boat and you're on top of the hull of the boat,

would you rather have a harpoon or not have a harpoon? At this point, you would have the harpoon already. I would rather have the harpoon. But I don't think the harpoon would do much. You got to bring it, though. Guess what? You look like an asshole shooting one harpoon at a thing. It made the dinosaurs.

It made the swimming dinosaurs more mad. That's what the home you got fucking God. Can I ask you a question? what if you hit the dinosaur, right? Okay. And a dinosaur is like, you know what? I don't feel like you. Absolutely not.

He could be that way. He could be like, because you ever, you ever, because, okay, so let me ask you a question. Like a bee or a wasp. Not going to kill you, but if you see one, you're going to cross the street. You can be like, I'm not fucking with this nigger right here. A bee is different. A dinosaur. No, no, no.

The same thing. Even using your analogy, a bee come through. You kind of like, all right, bro. Leave me alone. A wasp, I'm not messed with a was. There you go. In this scenario, you're the bee. I understand that.

You see what I'm saying? Don't you get it that that's the point that I was making? Steve, did you just say that? Don't you get it that that's the entire point? The bee's not going to do anything, though. Can we get to the midnight meter? Can we get to the midnight meter? We got a big reveal.

We got a big reveal. Steve! I was saying if you see a bee, you don't want the inconvenience of the bee, even if the bee's thing, you're going to kill you. Yes, you are the bee when you have the harpoon. The harpoon is your stinger. Oh, my God. bro although I will say

I don't know if the what he called it the Mosasaur would recognize that oh he's got a hard pun let me back up a little bit he did because he fucked up he fucked over the white boy he got his lick back

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All right, midnight, midnight meter. Y'all know what it is, 1 to 12, 1 being the worst, 11 and 12. reserve for game changers. We'll start with the Mimp Boys, Jomey. What are you giving Jurassic World Rebirth? Man, I'm giving this the strongest seven I can hand out. I think this movie, you know, again, you guys weren't all into it. I came in thinking like, man, it's going to be good.

And it was good. It was fun. It's exciting. Again, definitely not the most perfect movie, but definitely a fun one and definitely one that I can't wait to watch again on Peacock someday. So giving it seven. Seven as well. easiest call in my life Jonathan Bailey is distractingly beautiful in this movie.

Is he more beautiful than Pedro Pascal? Yes. It's not even close. Jesus crap. No, he is in this case. We have to stop back when Pedro is a scrub. No, you're talking about Pedro. He's a very huge.

He's a very huge. Now, he got the Pedro line at this point. It's like, he's about the more handsome than Pedro Pascal is the bar now. Does he pass the Pedro? Pedro is the sexiest man in the SEC right now. You know what the crazy thing is, man?

What? Pedro Pascal is like, beautiful man. Yeah, he's gorgeous. It's like, it's funny that we get on these podcasts and we draw these lines and then we? We? You speak in French?

Everybody has. I can name all of your little takes that you guys refuse to you don't even fucking, you doubt you. I'll name you all your, I know all your stubborn takes. All of the takes that you guys... I stand by every single one. Exactly.

No matter how bad. I don't want to fucking do this to Pedro because he's great. And I like him more than these guys. But I'll say one thing about Bailey. Man, I don't like it when these niggas are scientists, bro. Because he's a good at the beginning of the movie.

Because he's too hot to be a scientist, you can't say? I want, remember when Denise Richards was nuclear physicist Christmas Jones? Right. There are hot scientists out here. There are hot scientists and doctors out there. Y'all, they definitely are. Yes. And we know them.

There's like this marine biologist lady that I saw on this one thing. It's black lady. She's a marine biologist. I'm like, God damn. It's just really beautiful. By the way, I say this as a man who's spoken for. I'm not trying to be weird, but she's a beautiful marine biologist lady, black lady. I'm like, yeah, it's great.

It's amazing. Great. But these movies. Right. These scientists. Distractingly beautiful. Yeah. They're longing as they're doing.

We need to do all. whole category of you ain't no scientist but to be fair I never see no mercenary that looks like Scarlet Johansson yeah all of it that's what the whole thing is about

I mean it's like you look at some of these because I follow I don't know if I've told you guys this I follow special forces like YouTube's why oh boy for fun love it again You know, you're circling the drain of the

Manosphere right there. That's the, that's tough. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not circling the drain. He's in there. He's in there. Oh, you're in it. These guys are the most toxic motherfuckers ever.

Yeah. They hate everything I love, except for the fact that they'll go, listen, being an operator on the ground in Afghanistan, 20, 9, I got to tell you the way special forces really works. And I'm like, oh, fuck, I'm looking at this shit. I'm sorry. But those guys, do have a thing with them.

You know, they have a, they're not, they're not beautiful, but there's a thing. You can see it. Sure. You can see, you can see, like, one of those guys being in the bar, some ladies getting hassled, and they go, hey, leave her alone. One in you once. And you're like,

oh, shit. Really? Yeah, that nigga, that nigga is a man. But you never, ever, ever, some of these movies, these people are too good looking, bro. The material is supposed to have good, materialist. Materialist supposed to have good-looking people. They got the sexiest

fucking dinosaur hunters and mercenaries available. They got the sexiest doctor. The fucking guy from the pharmaceutical company, that guy is ugly. I don't give a fuck what you guys said. Is it because he's ugly in spirit? No.

He's not an ugly man. That's not an ugly man. He's not an ugly man. He's not a ugly man. But what I'm saying is, in actuality, that person doesn't look good. Oh, okay, yeah. That guy doesn't look like that.

These people, I don't know why as I get older, these people look too good in these movies. I will say, if we're being realistic, people who work for pharmaceuticals, especially in sales, tend to be hot. So he should be super. Let me say. I'm looking at all the CEOs of pharmaceutical companies. None of them look like this. Because I can name names. No, no, no.

I'm not talking about the CEOs. We're talking about sales people at pharmaceutical companies. They hire hot people. Wait, they hire hot people to sell pharmaceuticals. Yes. That's not what he was doing. True. He was a high up. I can start naming people that come on these Sunday shows. I don't want to start name and name. Let's please don't. They're, they're passable looking, but the only thing, that's my biggest.

Passable looking is insane. Yeah. I'm passable looking. Oh, you're a beautiful black man. Hey, look, I'm, you're not passable looking. I'm passable looking. This is negative self-talk now? It's not negative self-talk. Is this because you did? Is this because you did the side by side? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I can show you. You respect the journey. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. There's a picture. There's a picture. There's a picture. There's a picture. There's a picture. There's a picture. There's a of me with two white women where I look ridiculously hot. Hold on, I can show you this picture. Hold on, hold on, hold on.

Are you going to throw this? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a picture of me with two white women. But I'm the moat merchant, crazy. So this was at a TMZ party. Oh, boy. And there's a picture of me with two white women where I look.

Who are these white women? These are, look, look at that. Let's pass it around. That's my best picture. That's my best picture. That's my best picture. That's a meme right there. It's like, you were like Tyree Zahman.

That's a movie. That's a picture of me with two white women. Hey, send this to Lalea. Hey, see this to LLAA. That's so nice. That's what, wow. That's at a TMZ party. Send this to a Laleigh.

Wow. You talk. Look on you. No, yeah. He knows. He looks like he does. He looks like he does. He knows.

Jay on this. I'm like, I said, if it ain't snowing, I ain't going. This needs to be on the screen, but show the fans. That's insane. Oh, wow. Look at that picture. They're like, I look good in that picture. Do I not?

In the studio. Right. It's a good picture. He's just over in. That's crazy. Why does this look like it's from the show Lucifer? But look at it. You look at me.

You look at AI. This is AI. Wow. So I'll explain the picture. Okay. Mr. 2% over here. So that's a TMZ party. Those two ladies worked at TMZ.

They wanted to take up. We're coworkers. The girl to the right works for Tucker crossing now. The one that's looking at you like. that? Yeah, Lesley. Yeah, that sounds about right. Yeah, but these are cool people. They were co-workers. They worked at TMZ with me. They're cool people, like, nice people. And we're taking pictures at the party, and then that's the picture. The picture is of me. Hey, it's me.

I never want to hear anybody making a meme of that. They worked with me. It's the craziest photo. It is the same. So are you telling me right now that if I was in a picture with Mallory and Joanna, you would be like, oh my God, milk merchant. They They're co-workers. We're taking a picture. You have been a picture. You know what that, okay. I can tell you, just throw, the authors you decide.

That photo was crazy. That photo is crazy. That's what I was talking about. It's a New York party. You know, by the way, I get it. But you guys are. You know what that looks like. Come on.

See, this is the problem is the league gets buried. It's not about, Elena, Jay, okay. It's not about how crazy I look. Look, hands between the milk. It's not about that. Because those are nice ladies who are my co-workers. And I will take a picture with me, Amanda Dobbins, Mallory, me, Joe, Mal.

You know, that happens. But do I not look good in that picture? Ladies, be honest. I have determined that it's all neck. It's something about the neck in that one. What do you mean? Look at just your neck. That's how you think it's hot.

It's not, but it's look. But look at my smile. Hey, yo. Don, I'm laying a go, man. Oh, you know what? I would say that's my skin. All neck is crazy. My skin wasn't the best.

All neck. Y'all trying to be sexual. See, this is the problem. See, this is the deal. I put myself out there for the podcast. Yes, you do. I'll give you guys another picture. Oh, no.

It's another one. No white women in this one. It's for a lady. And Jade, I've been holding on this for so long. I need the validation. Is there a less neck in this one? There's no neck because I'm wearing a turtleneck. And I make a turtleneck picture just so I could show them is.

Like, what are you, Alleyer, what about that one? Oh, my God. See? Wait, I didn't see it. We need to see it. Oh, I said this one on Google. This is, this is a good one. This is a good one.

Yeah, yeah. This is a very good one. It's a very good suit. It's a great fit. You know what? That's very good. But I will say you got very, like, youth, Mr. vibes.

You need the change. No, you needed a chain. I'm not going to go off. I didn't, I didn't, at that point, I wasn't doing the chain thing. But you guys, that was such a moment in my life. I made the Route 100. Right. And so I went to Hugo Boss, got a whole Hugo Boss fit.

It's good. It's good. That's good. That's the one. Two times. Yeah. The pencil thing mustache is really pencil. What I'm saying is passable looking doesn't mean not good looking.

It just means I'm not overwhelmingly handsome to the point to where you're going to be like, why is this nigga on the fucking? podcast. I look like I should be on a podcast. When you look at some of these other people, they're not no doctors. Jonathan Bailey, you don't need to be looking at dinosaurs. He did, I mean, I'm

sure that might be, you know what? This is true because when they put podcasters in movies you can tell what that looked like they are. Yeah, you're going to be like, all right, I see what you're doing. Like, you know what I'm not in the real world, I might be, but like in the movie star world, let's face it, a niggas ugly. Okay, so let's

so let's do this. Let's do this. I would like to, I would like for us to find the best looking paleontologists alive. Real world? Real world. Okay. Real world. If you guys out there know of sexy paleontologists, which by the way, if they're going to be sexy doctors, then the paleontologists are probably going to be the sexiest right.

If y'all can find us a thick paleontologists. Find us. We will shout you out on the podcast. I want the midnight fans, Riders, find us. Find us the best fucking sexy paleontologist you can.

Go find. Male or female. Male or female. Pedro Pascal of Pagintology. Oh, yeah. Jonathan Bailey. What's his name, Jonathan Bailey? Just like overall sexy people

in professions you would never expect them to be. Was Bryce Dallas Howard a paleontologist? Oh, no. She was a business. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Big redhead. I have a whole theory. We already know about your redhead.

TikTok beat you to it. It's there. You can't even name five thick, famous redheads. Well, I could. He absolutely could. He absolutely could. But like some of them are going to be suicide girls and you guys are just going to judge me. Everything gets judged.

It can't be. I don't judge. What are you talking about? So what I'm saying is I try to show you guys a nice picture and what is it? That's not what you showed us. between two white women. Even Alea and Jay, who are expected to be on my side.

Sold you out. I won't say. Sold you out. We just have to say, you know, Alea usually is the conscience. That was not very positive. Not at all.

Not. Not. Was not? Did we miss when I said he's a very handsome man? I did compliment. The first two words out of your mouth. You land were all neck.

All neck is crazy. By that. My head was really confident in that. Yes, girl. Yes, girl. Yes, girl. Sevens across the book Sevens across the book

Seven, I give the movie a seven on the midnight meter But we have to find Because I don't think they're out there, bro No, they're out there. I think they're out there Palatologists?

I'm sure they're beautiful, gorgeous I think we Our fans can find us Some very hot feelings. Well, I'm saying very hot But just before we move off this, do you guys have any idea

like how good looking these movie stars are? What I mean is, like, they are good-looking, man. Yeah. Like, you go to the, if we're all at a party, like, we're all, everybody on the, we're all, you know, you go to a party. You go to a party, you're like, yeah, I think that guy is the, they're too good-looking. Right. And that's the one thing that kind of, the older I get, I want to see that, that paleontologist role, the Jonathan Bailey role, that's a Steve Buscemi role, bro.

I'm sorry, bro. That's a Steve Buschemy. That's Charlie Day. Shay Wiggum. Charlie Day. Shea Wiggin would crush it as that palely. Shea Wiggin would actually, is the right answer. Y'all, I have so many thoughts about Shay Wiggum, bro.

We got time. He's awesome. I got so many thoughts about him. Good thoughts. They're kind of interesting. I don't know if they're good. Oh, no. Don't do this is my guy, bro.

I like them. Yeah. We're not about to dish Shay Wiggum. Do you know what a remora fish is? What is a remora fish? Look it up. Okay, so how do we spell that? Rora fish

Are they the ones that like suck on the Do not compare Shea Wiggum to a remora fish How fucking dare you? That is not, what are you talking about? You so. All right, man. All right, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah.

So, shit will not. This is absolutely foul. Respect my God. A fish that looks like, uh, like that, what? That's not, I'm not talking about looks. I'm talking about function. Huh? Let's get to Ironheart.

This is getting very, This is great. I don't like the tenor of this conversation. I don't like the tenor of this conversation. Don Cruz, Shea Wiggum. Ben Diesel, Shea Wiggum.

Brad Pitt, Shea Wiggum. Big, beautiful ocean dwelling fish, full of wonder, remor fish next to them. He's a character actor. He's a character actor that's in a lot of movies. Character actor that's in a lot of movies.

But when you see big, beautiful, Number one on the call sheet, Hollywood star. Here comes Shay Wiggle. This is a most disingenuous. This is the worst thing you've ever had. This is the worst thing you've ever had. I knew F1 was going to be that gas when Shea Wiggin was in there, bro.

Yeah. I knew what I was waiting for him to come back. Me? Dude. Let's stop spoiling. Wait, wait, really, really quick. Really, really quick. Then I promise we'll get to Ironheart.

Just off the top of the head. Midnight meter F1. Oh, brother. Oh, man. That's a, I could almost, I can, I can make a serious. argument for a 10. I'm saying a 10. I don't think it's a 10. I think it's a 10. I was going to go because I think I'm going to go like a strong because I think top of the magic is like an 11. Yes. I can make a serious argument. A serious argument for 10. I could. I will say here's a thing. I can make

that argument if you forget about like the script. I think the driving sequences. Oh yeah. The stunts. Everything that is filmed on that track, that's damn near a 12 to be. Game change. I'm going to go nine. but I could make a serious argument for it to. I had so much fun. It's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it in IMAX. Oh, dude. I was fucking insane. I saw it in IMAX 70, City Walk Auto.

Nice. Then I went to have, uh, crab nachos. Ooh. Talk about that. This is the second time you brought up crab nachos this week. Is that true? Yes. Yes, it is.

We were, when we were over at the other building. Yeah. What did I say about them? You were like, guys. Me, Kalika, someone else. We got crab nachos. What's the, what's the, what's the, What's the nacho to crab ratio?

Is it a good ratio? Real crab or imitation? It's got a real crab. I'm not sure. It was this was at the rooftop of the addition hotel. I'd imagine that's real crab. We should go there. We should go there.

Let's get crab. Let's go get crab. Do you mind me asking the price point of said crab nacho? What is worse? No, no, I'm just, because they don't probably determine whether or not it's real. Oh, my God. I can't remember. Okay.

But I spent like, I paid. Asking our man, Vanis. I'm not pocket watching on the thing. I just want to know if it was real crap or not. You are kind of pocketwatch. All right. Ironheart. Okay.

Ironheart. Yeah, go for it, Steve. Oh, wait, are you? You got to set me up. We got to do a midnight man offense. We got spoilers. Yeah. We have to do all of that.

We don't have to. Okay, so this was, so, spoilers. We don't have to do this the right way. We don't have to do. By the way, this has nothing to do with how I felt about Ironheart because you guys are about to be surprised about something. Okay. I don't think so.

So, spoilers for all the MCU stuff. We're getting ready to talk about You're listening to a reaction podcast. The spoilers are coming. Charles goes into the Midnight Maniface. All right, this is your midnight manifest for the final three episodes of Iron Heart. They're all directed by Angela Barnes and written by Amir Solomon, Chris Shane Martinez, and Shinaka Hage.

Rehese life comes undone after the events of episode three. Ezekiel Stain is added to the world. world and arrested after the authorities find his mesh at the crime scene of the hood's last heist. Suspicious of Riri's involvement in John's death, the hood breaks Ezekiel out of jail and helps implant him with technology that can kill Riri. Desperate for help, Riri finally turns to her mom and the two travel to a mutual friend and her daughter Zama who inform Riri that the hood is demonic and magical in origin, but give no guidance on how to destroy it. The hood's henchman and Ezekiel fight Riri at White Castle, both Ironheart's old friend

can't bear to kill her and instead destroys her iron suit. Alongside her mom and friends, Riri rebuilds a new suit that's powered by magic, but since magic comes with the cost, the Natalie AI is destroyed. The young hero then takes down Ezekiel in the hood with her new armor, but before she can go home, she's met by the hood's real owner, Mephisto.

The devil offers Riri a bargain that she takes him up on, and the real Natalie is brought back from the dead. That has been your midnight manifest for Ironheart. Take it away, Ben. All right. So, obviously, our opinions on Ironheart,

people felt like we're a little harsh it was very controversial people are worse controversy controversy now that changed nothing in the way I went into the last three episodes of Iron Heart

but let me tell you what I wanted what I wanted was the show to feel important or not important when I'm watching the show I don't want to feel like I'm watching stuff on screen.

Like, I don't want to feel like it's a theme park ride. Because you go to a theme park ride, all of the trepidation comes from you. The ride is supposed to work. Right? If anything has, if there's any drama on the ride, then the ride is malfunctioning. All of the nervousness, all of the tension,

all of that comes from you that comes from your reaction to stuff that's supposed to work on the ride i don't like to watch tv shows like that yeah i don't want to watch a television show where all of the uh work is being done by me like i'm connected with these characters because they're familiar to me i'm connected with these situations because they're familiar to me i'm connected with all of these things because they're familiar to me. I like it when all the things are familiar to me, and it's necessary that all of the things be familiar to me to have representation and to tell stories that, but I want the tension, the twists, and the turns, and all of that stuff to come from the show, not come from me recalling what I've been through in my past and all of that stuff. That sits me down.

It doesn't get me to the end of the ride. I felt like Ironheart didn't really have a lot of stuff in the first three episodes. The last three episodes, there were things that did not work, but what did work, to me, what did work is the character of Rie Rew Williams. It worked because she started to live. Her world opened up. She discovered this magic.

She discovered the stakes of what it is that she was doing, and she became morally ambiguous in a more direct way, really in a compelling and daring way, in a more compelling in Daring way than I've seen a lot of Marvel protagonists, a lot of Marvel protagonists in a while. She made some choices that did not think she would make, obviously, when we talk about the end of the show.

She kind of lives in this in-between that made the character a little bit more compelling. Now, once again, there are things that didn't work. The Obadiah Stain, the Zeke-Sane stuff. kind of didn't work for me, right? That whole character kind of doesn't work. Almost made me feel bad. Alden Anreich, whatever the guy's name is.

I'm like, Jesus Christ. I know he's been in some other things that have kind of worked, but I'm like, God damn, when people see this nigga, sometimes he always seems miscast or the character is off kilter. Alden, Aldenreich is his name? Aaron Reich. An Reich. Right.

So, whatever. But I watched the last three episodes, all of that to say that, and I was, into it. It was like working. The Mephisto reveal worked for me. I think he has a handle

on that character. Like already Sasha Baron Cohen. For some reason I it's to the point to where I almost wanted two or three more episodes just to see what kind of trouble she's gotten herself into. Can I say

I agree. I think that the things that really worked for me are everything that kind of came in the back half of this season, so much so that like I really would have wanted pretty much everything that happens in the finale, I wish this is where we started. I wish that this is kind of the jumping off point for really throwing Riri into something that actually could test her character and her environment around her in a way that is infinitely more compelling than the back half of this season. Everything that kind of follows from a later reveal about the hood,

the fact that it's demonic, everything with the magic suit, everything plot-wise that happens, I'd say in the last two episodes, I really liked as something, like a stepping off point for a compelling arc for a character, only to kind of end at its most interesting point for the show, I think it's just a little bit more disappointing.

I think the ending makes sense, honestly. Yeah. But to, like, combine both of your points, I think the show in these back three episodes works way better than it did in the first three. I think in the first three they're trying to connect us to this big world and hear all of Rui-Rease people and here's what she's doing, hear how she's trying to become a different person after leaving MIT. And it's kind of like, it falls way flat, at least to me. And I think in these first episodes, it's carried by, oh, my God, the hood is this crazy magical thing.

I have to figure out what it is. he might come up for my family have to stop that that is way more interesting infinitely more interesting than are having to steal making a hei heist crew yeah like like none of that works and so for me if the if the show had started episode four comes she comes shows up to chicago there's just deal with this weird uh-hut thing i need to figure out how that is and see if i can either channel that or or i need to stop it that may that would have made the show way more interesting over the first few episodes but the way it ended, the last, people were gassing last episode. I didn't see it like that, but I thought to your point,

Sasha Baron Cohen as Mephisto, it's crazy to say it, but he's actually here and it worked. It worked. And so we'll see where it goes going forward, that character and for Rui in particular. But I think the show found itself in these last two episodes to a point where I'm not like, when we were talking about it with the midnight meter, but it kind of found itself there in a way that I think kind of works, honestly. I think these last three episodes were definitely better than the first three. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the Mephisto of it all, because I agree with you guys.

That final scene between Riri and Mephisto, I think is the thing that works about this show. Like, it was shot way better, the chemistry between them. I think the narrative, I agree with you, Steve, where I'm just like, kind of wish the show was just about that. I thought Mephisto was way more interesting than the hood. I thought Sasha Barra Cohen's acting and his, he's, like, the way he's playing that role, I'm like, oh, this is really fascinating. I think the moment still felt a little like the MCU jumping the shark to me

because the Mephisto reveal felt so, like, rushed and almost tacked on and like it came too late a little bit. And I'm still trying to wrap my head around. I'm just like, is this just a problem with, late stage MCU stuff where it's like kind of like

the most interesting ideas, whether it's like the Thunderbolts becoming the new Avengers or Blade show hearing blades voice

and in turtles or all this other stuff. It's like the most sometimes the most interesting stuff that they have

comes in like the last five minutes and I'm just like no, just do that because now I left this wondering. I'm like,

I don't know if we're ever going to see Mepisto again. Oh, you definitely will. Would we? I think,

yeah. You know, here. that's it. That's their problem to figure out. I mean, I definitely see him again. I don't know,

I don't think Ironheart is performing like gangbusters. So I actually don't know by the end. This is like, wait, are we getting a second season of Ironheart under this new kind of Marvel regime where we're making less Disney Plus shows? Because I'm like, if,

if we're not, I was like, that's a really weird beat. Like, really, like, basically like, siding her solo to the doubt. I'm like, that's a really weird beat

to end a character that we might not see again on. I mean, probably not. But at the same time, I don't think, at least for her character in particular, you know, you have the hot guy, you have Ms. Marvel. Eventually, they're supposed to do the champions, Young Avengers. And so I think that's obviously where it was going to. Now when you have the, she's also got the devil in her ear, that's so interesting. Like, where does he fit into that is the bigger question, I think?

But ultimately, I think for all these, like, legacy characters, that was always the goal to get to that, like, little young champion team up type beat. So. I think there are a couple of other things outside of my feelings. so that deepened Riri's character a little bit in the last three episodes. Number one, the fight that she had within her entire crew, where you saw how resourceful she was, and when you saw her wherewithal, to me, that type of stuff on screen is the type of stuff that builds a character.

Like, it builds a character when you kind of see what the character is willing to go through in order to achieve a goal, or when you see how the character can achieve a goal. I'm like, oh, this is the capability of Ruiri. throughout the first three episodes, they didn't do a great job to me establishing how formidable she was, like why it was that she mattered.

When Stark builds the Mach 1, you go, okay, you put this guy in the cave with a bunch of scraps and he'll come out with a weapon. And that weapon will allow him to defeat this entire, essentially the 10 rings to defeat this entire group of terrorists and then fly away and then he flies away to the machine

like comes apart however it got him out of the situation that he was in for her I think this is a problem that some of these characters might be having she had the Wakanda's with her she obviously had built something that was amazing right but she had the Wakandas with her

they helped it's almost like a little spidey Tom Holland situation then she comes back here and she's just looking for so much help. She's looking for so much investment from other people. I don't have the money, so I have to do this. I have to do this. I have to do this.

I'm like, well, when do we learn what kind of badass Riri is? They're telling us. They're telling us. They're telling us. But I think when she had to go up against the people that she knew the most, that was a really awesome scene to me. That was really awesome because she was able to beat all of them kind of, except for staying.

and then like get away and she was in real actual peril and I felt wanting to her to get out of it right the Mephisto stuff really worked for me and the reason why I did is because it just deepened the world it just everything on the show felt surface level until that it just deepened to the world I thought the Mephisto stuff and the Carmaricche stuff

and the magic stuff it just deepened the world that takes because it takes it to another level where I think the difference between like a show like this and Miss Marvel is, Miss Marvel deepens the world because you, like, this show tries to do the same thing Miss Marvel does. Like, look, here's reread and all her people,

but you don't really care about them that much. Whereas Miss Marvel, you're like, her dad, her mom, her brother, her friends. You're like, I love these people. God forbid anything happened to them. Outside of that, you're kind of like, yeah. Whereas this show, when they introduce Reelie's people,

you're kind of like, okay, cool. But then as soon as you start getting into the, you got the friend who's out there practicing magic and they're doing witch stuff and sorcery stuff. You're like, oh, this is, I recognize this, I understand. And maybe that's what it is. It's just like, you know this. You're interested in this.

But it just felt like, oh, I understand this world way more than I ever did in the first three episodes. And it feels like that fundamental, like, screen play type of arc where we're like, okay, now we rebuild the team around these new sets of rules that the world now deepened gives us. because we have magic. We have that cool seance

where we like magicify the suit. And it costs us the AI friend. And now we have to deal with that. All of those stakes feel a lot more reinforced, not because of those prior three episodes because we didn't really have that much to glom onto, but we saw that those characters interact in meaningful ways in these latter three that actually felt a bit more endearing.

Obviously, it still didn't probably make a home run for us, at least in my case. But it seemed to really, kind of come into its own in these final three. I mean, you were talking, Van, you were talking about, like, Riri, and I think what I struggle with two was, I felt like the back three episodes introduced this idea that Riri is not as heroic as she thinks or we think, and even the hood says at one point. She's not at all.

Not at all. But there were moments where I'm like, Riri is doing kind of like abhorrent shit. where it's like when Ezekiel, when Ezekiel gets arrested, like he's outed to the public. Your normal hero goes, I'll turn myself in right away. And she doesn't do that. Doesn't do that. Which I was just like, is interesting.

But then you add on top of that, like, of course the man was trying to kill her, but like a man was suffocating and she decided to get the fuck out of there. And because of that, he died. Same thing kind of like with the Natalie AI stuff, where her love interest, Natalie's brother, is just like, yo, this is fundamentally fucked up. You made an AI of my sister and you didn't tell me. And I was just like, okay, this is all interesting in terms of just like the show kind of

locating that there actually isn't that much that differentiates the hood or Parker Robbins from Riri. But the reason the final Natalie revealed didn't work to me is I'm just like, okay, how do I root for a character who like at this point actually has not taken any again? accountability for any of this. You, like, you already had your love interest say, I am not, I don't feel okay with you resurrecting my dead sister. And then to redo it again, I'm just like, oh, she's a little sociopath in an iron suit.

And that's cool if that is like 100% the dark way that read that the, the TV show wants me to take it in. But it seems like they kind of still want me to think that Riri is a little heroic. And I'm like, no, she, I'm like, this is. Well, first of all, I don't, number one, I don't know that you're supposed to be rooting for her. I think she's the protagonist of the show. So you certainly wanted, interesting. You certainly wanted her to, by the end of it, I don't know that I cared whether or not she won or not.

Two reasons. One, I like the hood as a character, but not as a villain. I thought Anthony Ramos did a good job portraying the hood. I thought the hood was interesting. It made a lot of sense of choices when he was doing the scenes with Sasha Baron. Yeah, I was like that. Oh, now we get why he's acting the way. He's acting the way.

I thought the hood was interesting. I enjoyed the hood. As a villain, I don't know that I had to see the hood lose. And I think sometimes this is a larger problem with some of the shows to where the hero is so flawed that you don't really wholly invest. and the villain is so sympathetic that you don't wholly hate them. You watch the hook, like, lose a friend. You saw the dad treated them like shit, so you're like, I can see why this person is kind of doing this shit, right?

Like, I can see why this is happening. With Riri, though, I think what happened with me was at the end, I was like, huh, I don't really like her. How interesting. And they, and at the, she has an opportunity. opportunity in every different case to like stand up and be, I'm Peter Parker. I have to do what's right. And she just doesn't really take it.

And I mean, is that okay? Because the thing that I was like, it's a choice. I liked it. I liked it just because I was like, oh. So at the end, she's, I thought the scene between Hermophysso at the end was fantastic because it's taking us, it's fantastic to me from a narrative standpoint, because it's taking us back from what's happening. And I'm thinking

a possible future. And I'm like, well, shit, if you're given that choice, how do you say no? Like, what's the downside? She asked, what do I have to give up? And he won't answer the question. He goes, ah, nothing that you'll miss. He said the same thing to a guy.

That, to me, was a little bit like, if the narrative of the entire show was, she originally took the devil's bargain from the hood. And it is like, in a normal story, it would be like, okay, we need to get you to a point where you realize taking a deal from the devil is not what you're supposed to do. You should look in and interrogate this more. Yeah. What it's like now is like, oh, no, there was a bigger devil and I took the deal again. And like, I resurrected my dead friend again.

And I'm just like, oh, like, narratively, I do. I agree with you. I'm like, that's interesting. But it did leave me with the like, oh, this is like a dog like chasing its fucking tail where it's like. She didn't really learn anything over the six episodes. She's just redoing the same shit. Whoa. No, no, no.

Hold on. I want to get you guys in. She learned stuff. It's just the stuff that she learned didn't change her. When you say, and oftentimes, you know, I like that a little bit. Yeah. Because I can make an argument that after a lifetime of doing nothing but making weapons, Tony Stark finally goes, I don't want to make weapons anymore.

That just doesn't happen like that. But I mean, would you say that he didn't learn until he stopped? Until his behavior changed? Until he got captured and was putting the case. And his behavior changed. That's fine, though. But here's the thing. There are consequences.

Yeah. No, I understand. But they definitely were consequences for him, right? And there were consequences that he cared about. I always like it when that happens to characters. I always like what characters with some big event changes. But I do sometimes go, like, I live in the real world and it doesn't work that way. Yeah.

I don't really see. see people learn particularly until there's no way out of it, especially if they don't suffer, like you guys said, huge consequences for it. If I'm looking at it, when I'm watching that last scene, if she just goes, you know what, no, Natalie, I would be like, would you really do that? That's how I would have had. And that's why I so really wanted this to be like a starting point or even a midpoint for what we see from Riri, because.

bringing herself this low to do this again and make this kind of choice really needs to come to a head as to what she actually gave up and how this can really negatively affect her life. And we don't get to see that, and we may or may not get to for a while, at least. And it's a very interesting way to suspend a character where she is now

and to see not only the repercussions of her choices, but to her ultimately, hopefully, walking those things back and changing for the better. I mean, but I also think it's like some of the shit that happened in this. I was like, the framing of this is a little dangerous. And I feel like the writers should have been a little bit more careful. And like the AI plot point, I think that was like terrible. Like I think like obviously this was written before I think AI has got it to the point where it's like on an existential threat on a lot of levels.

But there was a moment where I was like, okay, this is weird where we finally get the scene. where the brother is just like, how dare you do this to my sister? And then it's very, very quickly, like, swept under the rug. And everybody's like, oh, we guess, like, AI and replicating, like, dead corpses is okay, as long as they're friendly enough. And I'm like...

The Jarvis is that? Jarvis is exactly that. I think there's a... Like, it's not emulated from a real person, but it's... Yes, it is. No, no, no, no. So in the in the in the MCU like he did name Jarvis after Edwin Jarvis No it's not his no no he's not actually it's not actually him like he's not pretending that it's him he named it after him no it's his voice it's Jarvis like Jarvis the program it's the same thing jarvis it's definitely not the same thing it doesn't have a form but but the

But even put it away inside. Hold on real quick. We got to get through this. So in end game, so. It's named after for familiarity. Yeah. Right? It's just like,

I was like, oh, this is the guy who's taking care of me, Jarvis. It's the same thing. It's like not like actual like, hey, interesting. What's going on?

I'm just like, the man into an AI. Right. I'm not trying to be like a party, but it was just a moment where I'm just like, oh, this is such a fraught subject. And for it to kind of just be like, like, oh, we're resurrecting this black girl twice.

And it's to kind of be kind of like thrown off like, that's just kind of what happened. I was like, that same thing. I already kind of brought up, the Ezekiel Stain shit when she's fighting like Ezekiel Stain. And she's like, are you still mad at me? I'm like, what do you think? Really?

Of course he's still mad at you. And I get part of it's like character shit where she just really does not give a fuck. But there was a moment where I'm just like, wait, am I supposed to like not feel like it's fucked up that she literally ruined this. Like, she's ruining multiple people's lives. And at no point is she ever kind of like,

oh, wait, oh, because, and I think that is the narrative of the story where she's like, what does she keep saying? Like, well, they're like, why do you keep building this iron suit? Because I can. Well, at some point, I do want to like some type of, yeah, but just because you can build something and do something doesn't mean you should. But right.

And this is why I'm so interested in the deal with Mephisto that she has now, because a person with that level of mentality, of course, would take a deal like this, not even thinking about those consequences. But it just ends so abruptly, you're a little bit like, you're like, oh, wow, so she's just here now. I guess, yeah. I mean, I guess for me,

and I kind of, for me, this is kind of where I like, I fall on it. All of these characters, to me, these characters don't get interesting until they get morally complicated. Agreed. They never do. So, Captain America has his friend who's like a mass murderer, right? He's going to protect his pal.

Over his buddy that he went to war with, caught between two friends, Captain America will do whatever he can to protect Bucky. He doesn't make the pragmatic decision on behalf of the entire world. Like, Batman won't kill the Joker. Like, it's all of these characters sometimes. make decisions based upon their own morality and the way that they look at things. To me, the interesting part of that is how those decisions affect the world

that they're around because these heroes are still growing and involving. But they only get interesting when they do something that surprises me. To where I go, oh, I didn't see that coming. Like, for a long time, we dealt with Stark and his PTSD and he just started, he was just doing stupid shit.

He was creating murder robots. He was just doing stuff. And that, to me, the schism between Cap's view and Tony's view, it solidified the midpoint of the MCU to me. Because you had two people that were being incredibly selfish. And it was about the way that they looked at the world. And it wasn't so much those characters that were dueling. It was those worldviews that were dueling.

And if I'm looking at a little girl from Chicago who is still finding herself or a young woman from Chicago who's still finding herself and is dealt with that type of trauma, like I could see her making a deal with the debt. No, no. So that's not where I'm arguing with. I agree with that. I think that that is the most interesting thing about the show. But if we take Iron Man as a comp, there is a price paid at the end of age of Ultron for trying to put a suit of armor around the world. and building Ultron, it comes at the cost of the Avengers. There's a cost at the end of Civil War for Iron Man and Caps fight.

You know what I mean? And by the end of these six episodes, it was just like, oh, there wasn't really, like... Well, the war is not finished. No, no, I understand that. But there has to be something where it's like, oh, well, her family loves her again. And they're just like, hey, you killed some people. You stole a bunch of shit from a bunch of CEOs and everything. But who cares?

It's fine. Swept under the right. Hey, we know that, like, Ezekiel Stan, you ruined his life, and he's just like, I'll be back. And you're just, there are levels where I'm just like, so there really weren't any major repercussions in your life for you running around like a maniac for a entire month. It's almost just kind of like, oh, well, we're all friends again. And I'm like, I think the more interesting version of the story is, wait, what happens if our love interest is just like, oh, actually, we're not good. You know what I mean? What happens if her mom is just like, wait, you got someone killed?

I'm not going to reward you with the car. This is like something where it's just like, oh, now you're killing people just like your father figure and my husband was taken away. Like, there's not that cause and effect. It's more so like we just need to get this episode along. And I feel like I wanted to, I think that would deepen Ree Revere's world a lot. The brother thing is the thing that like really is my sticking point because again, When she first sees Natalie, she's like, yo, this is crazy. I'm not really messing with this, the whole thing.

What would it be like for your brother to see you? And I know she's having like panic attack in the moment. But when Natalie shows up to her brother, she's like, it's kind of cool, right? We got my sister back. And I was like, you know that he doesn't like this. Like, you know this. You're like reaching for something that I don't, that you know is not there. Like, huh?

And it's, I feel like that it's kind of the show's like responsibility, or at least the story's responsibility to really interrogate how much debt that she's putting herself into with all of these choices that she's making. The bill has yet to come do in whatever form the story takes. Obviously the story's not finished, but to rely on

okay, a potential season two or something showing up in a movie or kicking the can that far down the road for something that's really suspending this character and a lot of something that the chickens are coming home to roost for her in some way. It feels a little

what it leaves me wanting. I agree. First of all, I'm completely acquiescence to the point that most people are going to agree with you guys. I feel like that's probably going to be.

Maybe not. Oh, I think most people are actually getting a different. No, no, no, no. No, no. What I mean is I can see it. But what if, for me, it's kind of like, this is a bigger question. It's always interesting to me

to talk about what we wanted from a story. Mm-hmm. right? It's like, well, I want to see her like suffer some consequences and we're not there yet. Like we're not, like we're not, we're not there yet. Like that's not where we are. Like where we could go, this whole story could be about Riri

sort of negotiating who she is with who she wants to be. And like how she get this. And maybe how she gets there. You know, like, has there ever been a story for you to where somebody deepened their anti-social or they deepened their villainous arc? And it ends like that to where you were like they did that well. Yes.

But what I will say is those stories need to be more artistically told. And this was not artistically told. This was rushed where it's like, I think you, like, I think there's a lot of TV shows where Breaking Bad is a perfect example of a character who's not learning anything. Same thing with Mad Men. Same thing with a lot of these shows we love, where it's like the part of them being an anti-hero is not only do they become more evil over time, they really never learn their lesson.

That's not my issue. My issue with Ironheart was that I think what happens with Mephisto and Rie rea is so interesting. But where it fails is, is you're saying, well, what I said earlier, She meets the devil, and essentially this is the second devil she's met in a month or two, where there's no larger thought process. There's no, like, who are you? What is this cost? What is it going to cost everybody around me?

She takes this man at his word. And I'm like, you just took Parker Robbins at his word, and you realize how much the toll. Not only that. Yeah, exactly. You saw what happened to him when he took the similar deal from the guy you're sitting a crossroad, and you're like, sign me up. And she hasn't. And I think one of the feelings where I was just like, to me, the Mephisto and Ree, re-reseem didn't feel. earn because I'm like, all right, this is a woman who like at the beginning of the series is

like doesn't know much about magic is very much like magic is not even fucking real. What are you talking about? And by the time she sits down with Mephisto, she's not really interrogating like, wait, how did you make my suit disappear? Like, who are you? What, like, what is any of this entail? We're in a new dimension. It's like she takes everything at face value.

And for me, it works for Parker Robbins because the story is telling us, he's, He is someone who is deeply upset and angry and greedy and he can't see in front of his face. And so is Riri that character? But by the end of everything she's put her family through and all the panic attacks and how afraid she is, I just needed a little bit more of being like, wait. So like who like what like what is this actual deal? Does Riri have to you guys a moral compass at all? It's a bad one if she does. So all of our heroes normally have a moral.

compass. And part of the evolution of our heroes, of our relationship with these heroes is either watching them develop it or watching them contend with it. Right. We get the feeling that Captain America was just born good. He's a good guy. Small guy. Solid dude. Fights. Good dude. He's good. Well, doesn't necessarily know why he's good. Like, we don't learn very much about, I mean, at least in these movies, we don't learn very much about his upbringing or all of that stuff or what makes him, but he's just a good guy. Intrinsically, we are told there's something about him that makes him better. That's his superpower. But then what we watch over time is that tested.

Yes. To, like, a great consequence for him. Other people, it's different. Tony, not so good. Decent guy. Like, at his court. Decent guy at his core. I don't think Tony Stark was.

whatever. I think he's selfish. But there's something in there, right? Spider-Man, Uncle Ben, tragedy, like all of that stuff, right? But then there are other characters to me. And there are other characters that

spend so much of their time chasing one thing. And the good thing about Riri is not necessarily her moral compass. The thing that'll make her a good hero in the future is her determination, is the tunnel vision. And there's a part of that that's very dangerous because if you find somebody that is so focused in on one thing for whatever reason that is, that person can always be corrupted and you can use that person to a nefarious end. So she never changes throughout this whole thing.

she only gets worse. That makes me intrigued about what's going to change her. That makes me think, okay, who is going to come into Rui's life? We've seen her with the Wakandas, but that was kind of transactional, right? She needed to help them. Couldn't feel like she didn't call Shuri about it either. Right. She couldn't feel like she could call Shuri.

All of the influences in her life right now that she cares about are people who, are morally questionable themselves. Like it's Parker or it's Obadiah's kid, what's his name, Zach Stain? Zeke Stain, Zeke Stain, Zeke Stang, it's him, and now it's Mephisto. There's no one really right now around her

telling her, you shouldn't do this. As a matter of fact, her mother is so hurt by everything that has gone on in her life that she actually asked Riri to make an AI of Gary. She didn't say don't make the AI.

Can you? She goes, can you make one of Gary? These people are hurting. And they're, she's making, Riri is trying to actually, and this is what the last three episodes told me, she's trying to science her way

out of her reality. And then when she can't science her way out of it, she tries to magic her way out of it. And that's kind of what to deal with Mephisto kind of illustrated to me there's got to be something

that happens to this character at some point to where she goes hey you're a fucking brilliant person and you have to use

that for good or else you're no better than anybody else who caused a lot of the trauma or caused a lot of the

situations that you're going through that conversation hasn't happened yet different people have wound her up and put her in play for their own reasons.

And I'm not taking away her agency from these decisions. I'm just saying, I think it was kind of daring for them to go with that. Like their hero made a deal with the devil at the end of their show. And these Marvel characters typically don't do that. So can I, would this conversation be a little bit different if any of us were more sure that there would be more Ironheart stories where it's like Disney Plus isn't. I can feel you on that.

That's not the world that we're. We live in now where we're assured that there's going to be more Ironheart. Like Daredevil. I could throw Daredevil some bail on that season because I'm like, all right, we're getting to season two. Like, they're going to be able to kind of like fix a lot of the shit where it's like with this I was watching and I was just like, oh, this is ending on a really interesting note. But I was just like, part of me was like, I don't even know if we're going to get more

when. And I guess that leads to my second question, how pivotal do you think this introduction of Mephisto is the MCU because that was also what I was trying to to be like, is this Kang level? Is this guy? So it's the weird thing

and we talked about last week where like you have Wanda Vision, you have Agatha all along, you have Dr. Strange multivorce of madness. Spider-Man no way home. You had like multiple times to ramp this dude to the MCU and this is what you chose. All right, bet.

Let's, how do we integrate them. And same thing Bertan Bobbara's Re-Reary. When am we going to see this guy again? We have no idea. We have no idea how this particular storyline is going to thread its way to the rest of the MCU. A lot of game left. Obviously, there's other projects. Again, if he's showing up in Iron Art, who knows where the next time we'll see

Mephisto in, really. But it's just weird that this is the choice that they made when you had like, just billions of opportunities. Yeah. That made way more sense. It feels like this thing that we like memed into existence and then once we have it, we're like, this is how we did it.

Yeah. This is how we, this is where we're using it. Here's the thing. If this shit happened when Wanda Vision dropped, everybody, we, oh my God. Losing their bites. And now it's very funny to be like, oh, Mephisto finally showed up in the MCU.

And it does feel a little bit like, what, Wamp? Like, all right, cool. No, it's funny. It's, everything you guys are saying is true. This is how the devil shows up, though. When you least expect him? No.

One, and also, he doesn't show up for the whole thing. He shows up for you. Like, when the devil, it's funny that everything that you guys are saying is true. That's all true. But this is a more authentic way to do it. The more authentic way for Mephisto to show up was for someone to walk into a bar one time, for the devil to be sitting there and for them to just have failed. And for the devil to go, for Mephisto would go,

I can make it so you succeed. And it doesn't matter who it is. It could be, it could have been, it could have been, it could have been, it doesn't matter who it is. It's like, the more authentic way for the devil to show up is for somebody to be like, because he doesn't do the whole thing. The mythology is it's soul by soul. And it's important souls.

So if, now, it would have been cool if, you know, I don't know, the Captain America would have failed or got banished or something. It's like, listen, I can make these people see it your way. Come over here, Steve. And then Steve is in that situation. Crazy. He would never do it. But, I mean, honestly, but for these TV shows, I think it would be cool if I'm like, maybe we didn't see him in Wanda Vision or Agatha or all these shows. But, like, if you would have we would have we've been a little bit more and then we would have got him, I would have been like,

like, oh, this is an important character versus, like, I still don't know. I'm like, is this like an Ironheart character that is just going to be an Ironheart? To think that Mephisto could have been like a very subtle and quiet like Thanos of the MCU TV shows. Well, guys, guess what? Actually is kind of incredible. That's why you have, you know, Redcons and reshoots, man. Of course. You know what I'm saying?

Are we going to be CGIing him as a Loki now? Yeah, kind of like how you, like in, I don't know if I saw Rest of Development season four, but they just be CGI in people. Oh, right. scenes. That's what they're going to do. They just have them like whisper into wanting to max him off one time and then talking to Dr. Strange or something.

Like they could do that. I mean, now you've got to ask why some people made some decisions that they made. Right. You know, now you got to ask. But when you listen to what he said, he said, I have the top 100,

Fortune 500 guys or whatever. It's like, I have 100 of them. I got them all. Some of those guys are guys we know that we've seen that have been around the MCU. Sure. So the reason why I liked the intimate, like they didn't even, when even when he said his name, there was no big, like, whatever, it was just like, Mephisto. This is here.

It's all about a personal relationship. They're still building that character. Now, I did, I will say this, I did go check immediately Twitter to see if anybody cared. Because if I had gone to Twitter and Ironheart would not have been trending or Mephisto would. not have been trending, I'd have been like shit. So it's done. It's done. It was, but I am not sitting here saying that if they would have done it in a Wanda

vision or even Agatha or even, I don't know, any place else. I mean, Spotify is in that story of Parker. Yeah. The world forgetting who Parker is. Or in like the Mary Jane of it all. I'm not saying, I don't think. I'm not saying no way home would have been better with Mephisto. That is not what I'm saying.

But Mephisto could be back in brand new day. would make sense if Mephisto would be back in brand new day. Not that the character is there, you would it, you could see Mephisto coming back in the brand of day. Did you guys see? Because it's from that dude who never gets any of the fucking rumors, right? I don't want to say his name. I'm not giving him no.

But on Twitter, he was basically like, oh, the plot of the new Spider-Man is Spider-Man and Punisher versus the Savage Hulk. I guess Mr. Negative probably makes Hulk bad, which I could see. But I was like, when I saw that I'm just like, what the fuck are Spider-Man and the Punisher doing against fucking Savage-Haw? I have no clue.

Where's Daredevil at? He can make the cut, right? What's Daredevil doing against the fucking? If Punisher's there, then Daredevil's going to. Yeah, if you're going to do the whole, like, Marvel Street Heroes thing, like, cool, like Savage Hulk, that's a little tough. That might be a little bit. He's not going to go to the end, Graham. You got to make some calls.

Yeah, you got to make some calls. Like, I don't. Like, damn. Well, nobody knows who he is. So it's going to be a little tough for an individual. be like, yo, like, hit up the phone, like, yo, all right, Tony's dead. Steve is somewhere. To be clear, they don't know that Spider-Man is Peter Parker, but Peter Parker still

helped the Avengers, so you never know. Oh, Spider-Man. Like, they still know, wait, am I wrong? They should still know that Spider-Man. They know who Spider-Man is. They know who's Peter Parker. Right. But then, like, I guess, but like, hey, yo, what's up?

What's up, Falcon? Oh, my fault. Captain America, yeah, yeah. Oh, we need some help over here. Who are you? Who am I? I'm Spider-Man. You know me, Spider-Man, right? I'm in the phone. I'm in your phone. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I'm calling you right now.

What we call her ID say? Excuse me? And then I can't imagine them trying to talk to Bucky. That's going straight to voice now. I mean, fucking, I was going to re-resend that shit about Shirri when she did that whole thing where I'm just like, I know. I'm like, you're supposed to be sisters, man. I'm like, you being proud. Fucking call Shurie. Like, you got a direct line to the Black Pan. I mean, I think what happened was like they tried to call Shuri. And you know, I'll see, this is real African stuff right here. You used to have, before WhatsApp, you used to have to go get, like, cards to call people in Africa. Oh, calling cards? Yeah, you have to go get calling cards to call people in Africa.

And so what happens is, uh, Latisha Wright, her calling card is a couple milly. So you can't really afford to go, yeah, yeah, yeah, you can't really afford to call. So you tell me that the Wakandans don't have an affordable communication? I'm saying they do, Marvel doesn't. Yeah. And so when they're like, you know, we got to call, sure, it's like,

sure he's not going to pick up the phone because you can't afford to pay her to pick up the phone. So let me get this straight. The Wakandans are going to travel to give fucking Bucky some new shit and fucking Falcons some new shit. But they can't help a black sister from Chicago with her suit. She could have called the devil. She definitely should have called him. She could have called them because the reality is that, look, nigger, you came over here and got me when you needed me to come help you. Exactly.

She could have called him. She couldn't want to call them. Run it back. She didn't want to call them or the story. She just got a condo wizard to be like, hey, no, actually. Oh, God and Wizard. Like, let me, you know what I'm saying? It'd be great.

Brother voodoo or some shit. Brotherhood is crazy. I mean, by the way, we didn't need sure we couldn't get, you know, A-O. Right. Like, you know, we... From the Bay. Sid? No.

No. The door Milash. They were the door-the-door. Wait a minute. That's a bear crossover. From the bear. Yeah. There's a bear in Chicago.

In Ironhards. Oh, my God. That's season two. They're going to go to the bear. They're going to the bear. That's cinema. You could be the same universe. It's FX, it's Fox, it's Disney.

Yeah. That would be crazy if Shuri sat down and all you heard was cousin. Cousin's talking to Mephisto and he's like chopping his ear off about Bill Murray or whatever the fuck. Carmen needs to go to Misfisto. All right. So my last thing for y'all, do you guys think at like this point Marvel has lost a little bit of the juice with some of the stunts where it's like when they did the new Avengers shit, I feel like people like. damn, people are going to care. And it was kind of like,

same thing with Mephisto. It's like the more... I think people cared about Mephisto. Well, the problem is the payoff. You're not guaranteed payoff. When they used to show something back then, you're like, all right, and the next movie was like, down the line,

I know that this person is going to show up and they're going to matter. They're being important. When you see Pietro and Scarlet Witch, when you see Nick Fury walk through the door, you're like, this is going to pay off. This is going to mean something. Brother, we saw Ben Goldstein be

Hercules in 2022. Never heard from again, man. It feels like they just like troll, read it what we were yelling about for like three years ago and then put it in the most recent. Claire showed up in fucking Dr. Strange, never heard from again. Like if we knew

that these things were coming together, like, all right, we're going to see these guys in two to three years. Then we'd be excited. But now we're just like, all right, cool. Maybe. Probably not. Who cares? Well, Harry Thiles was in Eternal. And then you ask Harry Sousin and they're like, they haven't called me about anything.

I don't know what that was. We never see a fucking black night fucking again. Again, Marshala was like, what's all this is like now they're trying to test stuff out to see if it works. Why?

Just do it. Just do it. Just do it. Hercules. They're like crazy. Hit the troll. Shout up. Hit the troll.

Shout up at the troll. They're just testing stuff out or throwing stuff and they kind of see if it works. It's nuts. The only thing I would say about this one that was a little different is Mephisto seemed to have some type of story purpose.

And some of these other ones, they just don't. They don't have any story purpose at all, like zero story purpose. But I don't know. I don't know. My last question for you guys is, we know that Ironheart is

sort of a relic of a past Marvel approach to television and filmmaking. How much of the baby gets thrown out with the bathwater? If I'm going to be 100% honest, I don't think there is any world where the brass is like we want to spend. Because like with the amount of CGI that was in this, they're like, we want to spend another $150, $200 million on Iron Heart unless it is doing dare double numbers. And I, maybe I'm wrong.

I don't think anything's been released. I don't know if it's doing daredevil numbers. But there is a level like maybe we see Young Avengers are a champion thing. But I do think that this is them saying like, Hey, yo, we tried. We put Mephisto in this. We put Alden in this. We had Eric Andre.

We had fucking stuff. We got Sasha Merrick Cohen. And y'all motherfuckers were quiet. It's a laugh. You know, like, I don't see any world where they're just like, yep, we want to put 200 more mill into Iron Harsons and two. I think to your point, they're fundamentally changing how they make TV going forward. And so I can't imagine.

All right, guys, another six episodes of Rie Rewee doing our stuff in Chicago, man. Let's get it. I don't think that's going to go the same way anymore. And so really, I mean, outside of Daredevil's season two, we're not really, what do we, what kind of team is like important? Has anything been therein besides Daredevil season two? Wonder Man, but I think that's part of. That was part of the last regime. Yeah.

Yeah. We haven't gotten any new Disney Plus show, like even rumors since. Anything that's going to come out post Doomsday, I feel like we have to wait until after Doomsday happens. And then they'll, they'll read the tea leaves and see what they can actually. The only thing we know. The only thing we know we're getting is animated stuff. Sure. Like Iswell Khan has come out later this year.

X-Men 97, season two. Spot-Friendly Neighbor of Spider-Man season two and three. Marvel Zombies. Marvel Zombies. That's it. Yeah. That's it for TV. And Wonder Man.

After that, after live action, it's just Wonder Man. After that comes out, December, 26, it's just Daredeville Born Again, and that's it. I think if Fantastic Four are successful, or even if it's not, I think after Avengers Secret War, they're doing a hard. reset where it's like a bunch of this shit we are never seeing again. I think they're starting. I wouldn't be surprised if they're like we are recasting Captain America.

We're recasting Iron Man. We are just fucking. I think that's the point of the Civil War. Yeah. I think that's kind of the big testing point of the entire endeavor where we're like, all right, if Secret Wars and Doomsday really hit like we want it to, then we put more gas in the tank for the next few years.

There's going to be a full X-Men pivot at that point. Yeah. To where they're in the center of the MCU to me. So. So then why would then my question would be like, would you be like, yeah, we still want to do a second Anthony Mackey movie or we want to do another Marvel's movie or are you just like, we're going to have a Captain America, we'll have an Iron Man, we might have a Captain Marvel, but it's not going to be tied to that continuity in all of those stories. I think they're kind of just like, we need to kind of, the only thing I could see them

probably bringing over is like the shit that's working, which is probably fantastic for. Well, I'll say this. They do have to be dedicated to their story, right? So at a certain point, they're going to have to tell the stories that they want to tell, regardless of how things shake out from a box office or fan perspective standpoint. And they've always done that, right? They didn't go, okay, Thor to Dark World sucks, so no more Thor. They didn't go, all right, so lukewarm response to the first Captain America,

so we're not doing it anymore. at some point they're going to have to have faith in the characters and the stories that they want to tell it's different now because we criticize things in a different way

and we have a different relationship with some of the stuff right? And so our expectations are changed but at some point they have to go this is our plan for this character this is our plan for this world

this is our plan for this and they have to go do it. And they have to make creative choices that work. And they can't just punt whatever the fans say they don't like something. But I do think the audience is saying

we don't really like this interconnected stuff as much as we did. It's getting too confusing. And I think they're probably like, damn, does it... Because like, if Superman hits, if the Batman 2 hits, if all this stuff starts hitting from D.C., I could see Marvel being like,

Oh, the fans are saying, we want new beginnings. We don't want to have to watch 30 plus movies, 20 TV shows. We want one fantastic movie. Like, we want to watch a Fantastic War movie, an X-Men movie, an Avengers movie. We don't want all of that. Well, Superman's kicking off a universe, though. So if Superman works, then the fans are signing up for it again. No, but I think the MCU version of that is, okay, people want a new universe.

We're starting a new universe. I don't know if they're starting a new universe, but I think to your point, once we get past Doomsday, Saker Wars, it's like, man, X-Man. It's what you guys want, right? You guys want new Wolverine, new beast, the whole thing, boom. But let's do that for a couple years. Motherfocus is probably going to be like, hey, yo, Black Panther 3, we give me. Oh, you're going to give Black Panther. I mean, I mean, you're going to get Black Panther three.

No, no, no, but I'm saying, do we get Black Panther 3 continuing a story from Wakanda forever? Or they use the, like, we put the Black Panther. Yeah, I think we're getting the Black Panther. What they have to do is not care about that. What they have to do is care about making good stuff that people want to watch. What they, if making good stuff that people want to watch means giving them less homework, and they've got to give them less homework. But if making good stuff that people want to watch is building on what people have already put into it,

they got to do that. But that's their decision. I would certainly hope that there's no group. And obviously, this hope might not be possible being that they cast Robert Donnie Jr. as Dr. Doom. I mean, it doesn't seem like they're doing this. But I would hope that they wouldn't say, hey, you know what? We had great plans for this character.

We had great plans, great stories to tell. But we're just not going to do it because of whatever. Now, look, there's a realization. that comes along with that. If you make a television show and season one don't hit, you don't get season two. If season two don't hit, you don't get season three.

That's the way it works. I get it that that's a part of it. But we'll say with some of this stuff though, this is a little different because you're not just deleting shows, you're deleting mythology. And there's a difference. If you decide right now that the bear

doesn't get season five or whatever show doesn't get season two, there's not a hole in your storytelling to where people are going, okay, well, what happened to that? Like, Marvel can't actually introduce characters now without people asking, where have these people been?

Yeah. Right? Like, so it's even more difficult. It's like, okay, let's talk about the Eternals. All right, well, we could have used the Eternals. Like, Fantastic Four, or we could have used the Fantastic Four, for like where have these people been right and so now to just delete a character and just

be like this never happened people are going to kind of be like well okay this shit's happened in chicago what is rie williams up to doesn't she exist so you either got to kill these people because remember we're like we're watching comic books yeah watching comic books you either got to kill these people or you got a recon amnesia this shit out of this way so and comics have done that too like they've always constantly like redone and retread by the way they can't books. Yeah. Right. So, but my thing is, like, I don't

know, I would hope, and obviously they have to listen to us, like we're the fans. I would hope, though, hope that they have plans for reread, they have plans for Re-Reat, they have plans. I'm not confident that they do. That's not the thing. That's the thing. I'm not confident

that they do. If they did have plans, I think they would have released this a lot sooner. A lot sooner and a lot differently. I think if they were invested in this, they would be like, hey, yo, we think we got one. And I think they buried this in June, July for... Which is the difference between Thor or Captain America, characters that you know have to exist.

You have to figure them out. Maybe you guys are saying that Riri Williams is a character that you don't have to figure out, although I would argue that Mephisto is. Yeah. That Mephisto is a character. that Marvel needs. Do they? Yeah.

To me, I think Mephisto, I'll tell you why. I'll make the case about why Marvel needs Mephisto. Number one, they need more villains than just one big villain. They need a bunch of villains that they can kind of structure their storytelling around. I think Marvel is in a situation

where they could have a street-level villain and that could be Kingpin. They could have a mystical villain that could be Mephisto. They could have an overall big-time heavy that could be dope. They could then have a cosmic villain, and we're kind of still figuring out who that could be, but maybe it's Galactus, maybe it's somebody else, right? Yeah. So you have, it actually helps your storytelling, if not everything, just like the comics, if not everything has to be relying on everything else.

If you're not wondering, okay, what does this have to do with the Mephisto art that's going on or whatever art, that's going on. Or if you have, for the Thunderbolts, Captain America portion of this, the villain be Valerie, right, be Defontaine, right? If you have these different things going, it actually makes these stories easier to tell because they don't have to be everything to everyone, right? The cosmic story doesn't have to be this. I think they were getting there.

I think they were getting to a point, even though in the last phase, they were all kind of the same. Thanos was the Kazakh villain. He was also kind of the captain. Americaville, he was also all of this stuff. Now, if we have more eyes and more stuff, we can do it that way. And Mephisto is an important part of that because if you have the witchy, sort of demon-y, sort of angel, like a monstery stuff,

he could be that guy. And so they do need to find a place for that. And it actually makes these stories less interconnected. You could follow one specific narrative until it's time to weave them all. or the narrative is simpler and you can jump in and jump out just basically like the comics But is there an audience for that?

Because I think that what they are telling us is that there's not. Like in terms of just like that level of storytelling and how much money it takes to make these TV shows, I think they're like, yeah, y'all not showing up like that. So we give you you two movies and we give me you two shows. Well, we'll see. what if

if we're living in the future now to where people only show up for Avengers movies then the whole thing's going to fail it yeah yeah no I think but I think people have proved and I think this is a DC thing too

people show up for Superman Batman sometimes the Joker people show up for Avengers people show up for Spider-Man X-Men I think it's the lower level that it's just like it's becoming it's like the NBA

the people who are at the top and get it pay are getting paid. I think we're having a middle-class superhero where that's becoming, like, it's becoming smaller and smaller. I think because it's gotten bigger and bigger, right? Yeah.

You make your money with Iron Man and Thor, Captain America, everybody's like, oh, we can just throw anybody out there, man. People go watch it. And it's like, all right, there's a lot of these people we don't really care about as much. We care about those guys. And so when you start making Avengers movie,

you start making, like, more Batman. Would you have said that Dr. Strange was one of those guys? Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness made $900, $900 million. Yeah, but I, think that made that amount of money. A lot of that, I think, had to do with where it fell. In terms of, like, multiverse and madness,

I think that they were kind of pitching this as, oh, this is like the future of that. There's a lot of momentum behind that. And we were approaching Marvel movies with, oh, man, this one is going to be the next big thing where all of this. Spider-Man, Midway home, Multiverse of Madness is the new shit. We were like, man, this is going to change how we see the entire universe. And we did that for six movies. Well, all I'm saying is this, though. and you guys are right.

All I'm saying is the point that I'm making is it's not the character that denotes how excited we are about something. It's the story momentum. That's all I'm saying. I'm saying it's not necessarily the character that makes us go.

It's the story momentum. But I still think it does have to do a lot with the characters because here's the thing. Thunderbolts, we all love that movie. it does push the MCU forward. It is important to their future. People were still like, you could call them the New Avengers,

you can call them whatever. We're not interested. Yeah. We're missing each other. Thunderbolts had absolutely zero story momentum because it's not picking up for anything other than the Black Widow movie. So you had seen those characters before,

but what I'm saying is, like, Thunderbolts was kind of the beginning of something. They didn't have any characters that we hadn't seen before. I'm not saying that we didn't. I'm saying that if Thunderbolts would have released in 2018 or 2019 it probably would have been

differently received. Yeah, I agree with that. Or even like 20 or 21 or like whatever, it probably wouldn't receive differently. I'm not saying that we can get back to a point to where Marvel has a propulsion that it has before. We do this every single time. I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that. But what I'm saying is the characters matter. The story of the characters matter, but they matter insofar as

people are invested into what happens next. And I'm saying the reason why a Mephisto or some of these other characters could actually help that is because you need, in my opinion,

a North Star. You need a guiding light. You need villains that people can orient around. You need like and it can't be all the same because that gets to be too much for people. Like that, in my opinion. By the way, we do this every time.

Yeah. And, you know, we're talking around it. It just might fucking be over. It could be over. A lot of it. Like, whoa, we got fantastic. Way, we don't know what it's over. I mean, over in terms of the way that it used to be.

Show, yeah. It could be over. Because I'm talking to you right now, if they cast a Negro male to play Magneto, people not going to see it. There's going to be a lot of people who do go to see it. But if they cast that, these fucking racists online, they're serious. They mean it. They're not fucking around.

We're fucking around. They're not fucking around. They have a rule. No niggers. They say it just like that actually. And they fucking mean it. They want white, straight. Heroes. Man, they fucking lying because I saw, I saw them awkward, like the Aquaman fucking numbers.

I see them fucking, what you would call all that fucking suicide squad shit. My fuckers wouldn't show on a fair shit. What you mean? We're always just like, oh, these racists, they just want this type of superhero da-da-da-da-da. And I'm just like, hey, yo, we've had a lot of them in recent memory. That first time made a billion dollars. And they're not fucking watching that shit. That first Aquaman did good.

them niggas racist i don't like them folks i want to kick them bold stance we don't like racism they didn't show up for that third venom movie they didn't show up for that third venom movie they didn't how much did that make Venom three I could have sworn that that made decent money I think it okay according to Wikipedia

Venom 3 made almost half a billy 47 yeah 478 budget of 120 but the first one made like a billion dollars though didn't it yeah but it like the I think the cut out of the drop off goes that crazy.

All the thing I'm saying about that is that the difference is that Xavier is like a beloved character and so is Magneto. Magneto, and I will say about Magneto, I will say this. You know, Xavier is one thing, but changing Magneto's origin story,

it's saying something. He has a very distinct origin story. Okay? All right? I'm just being honest with you. It's saying something. If there was a black hero and his origin story,

story was that he escaped the slave plantation and all of a sudden they came back and they had Joe Jonas playing that and they completely changed his singing lady and I'm I do get the MCU being like damn story wise we're going to have to do a lot of work

to be like hey yo Magneto was a live during World War II we do realize it's like this movie's coming out like 23rd because the comics have this like I can't get into it the sliding scale right and so like people move up like for Iron Man, it was first Vietnam,

and then it's like Afghanistan, like they keep these things moving so that, like, when Captain America first got out the ice, it was like 25, 30 years. Now it's 70, right? Just because of how it works. Yeah. Yeah, but they have to do a lot in the comments

from Madneed would be like, wow, how's he still alive? Not to say that, like, they shouldn't do that, but it's just, it's different. It's all, it's different. Yeah, see, this is the third rail right here. We can't. It's different.

It's different. Don't touch it. Midnight meter. for Ironheart. Different. I think they'll do it. Gotta be honest. At first, I was like, I was ready to be at Charles about it and just be like,

yo, this is a three. You know what I'm saying? But the last episode, I think, did a number on me. Like, again, it wasn't like, you know, anything crazy. But I think if they had just done this for six episodes, we'd be talking, like, way different about it. So for me, I got to give it five. Got to give it five.

I'm also there. I'm at a five. And this is with like a lot of respect that I want to give to these final three episodes because it really brought me back from a break. Like I'm just a back pedal. Like these last three are a genuine improvement on the first. I'm on those six. I say I think you guys are going to be.

I'm with y'all. I'm going to give it a five, like straight five. Like it's I say this a lot. I think for a lot of these shows, it's like. that five sometimes to note, all right, the first half of this was not great. And this five is fully that you guys found some type of footing.

Yeah. Yes. Before we get out of it, we've been potting all day. We've been doing our thing. We have to give you out of potty pods. Breaking news from deadline. Last of Us co-creator Neil Druckman

to step back creatively from HBO series ahead of season three. Wait, he's not involved in season three? Not involved in season three. Was he booted out? Or, I mean, is it? He has said that he has chosen to step away and focus on future naughty dog games. Right.

I could see with the reception of how season two went. I think that it wouldn't be crazy to think that they thought at best that his involvement was less. So he was credited as writer or co-writer in five episodes and directed to, including the Penelpset episode of season two. The last of us is over, guys. It's over. Really? You think so? Yeah, it's finished, man, it's over.

Even with him being like, hey, man, Craig, you got it, big dog. I will completely support the last of us season three, for sure. You're team Abby now. Yeah. Because I want to see Ellie get hers. You know what I'm saying? We talked about all of this stuff about Ironheart, look at Ellie. Ellie, like, Ellie, if, you know what?

We tour Ellie and, like, every week we were like, fuck Ellie. How dare you die? But guess what? They had the nuts to do it. So Ellie, Ellie, they stood 10 toes down for it. They stood 10 toes down for it. You know what? Ironheart 10 on a midnight meter.

Why? Because if no one can be, if we're doing it on the Ellie scale. Sure. Oh, my God. Oh, man. Please. If we're doing it on the Ellie scale, Riri is fucking Steve Rogers. Compared to Ellie.

Ellie is leading everyone to their death. In fairness. Ellie has gotten everyone that she loves killed. It is the apocalypse. Okay. Rery is doing all this shit in a time of abundance. You know what I mean? I don't know if you can say that.

Southside Chicago, not exactly abundance, but. All right, first of. Jesus Christ. All right, man. Can you say that? Have you helped? That's your city, bro. That's not.

All right, Southside of Chicago got a lot of culture, got a lot of people. That's crazy. This is crazy. That's what I'm saying. But Steve is right to a degree. I'm joking with Steve, but Steve is right to a degree. It's not like, you know, really. Yeah, but he ain't less.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, what does this mean for the show, though? What does this mean for last of us? I think that this is a bit more of an assessment on what they thought both critically and numbers-wise for. Yeah. I think, I legitimately think if season two was hitting,

then it wouldn't be. like this. I can see what you guys are saying. But the fact of the matter is it did not move people to a move people. Can I ask my last question on the last of us? Do you think that there's any, do you think that they're kind of like, yeah, the plan was to give Abby your whole season and then to do

another one after this? Do you think they're a little bit like you might want to wrap this one up. I got to see Abby. I got to see Abby win. Yeah, I think here's the thing. I think the momentum around season three pivoting, creatively even away from the games because there was a lot of pivots away from the games in season two

if there's a like either a correction towards more game accuracy or a pivot in another direction that we actually haven't seen before that actually captivates a lot of people I think they can invest in it more because it's not like it's not an unpopular show

like they will do this again they're going to come back they're going to give you the show you're going to get these fucking you don't get these these zombies shows what if they did it like the Evangelian movies or the first is basically like the first seven episodes. And then it's entirely depressing. And then the third movie is completely.

Yeah, different. Then it's true. I don't want to talk about Evangeline Lilly right here. I mean, no one wants to talk about Evangeline Lilly. Remember that time with Charles? Evangeline Lily. She on the same side. Easy.

Was hiring hollering at chicks based off Evangeline Lily at 4100? Yeah. Oh, no. Literally what happened was I walk in. Y'all are already fucking wasted. And you yell across. like the whole fucking outside. Hey, yo, Charles, we got some wheeves here for you.

Come talk to the weeks. They were, they were webid. Yeah, yeah, we were arguing. We got to go. We just, you know what, shut up, everyone. No, we love you guys. That's you talking to us. No.

Okay, that's a wrap. This week on the ring of race feed. Tomorrow, House of Rowe will be continuing a deep dive on a squid game. And this Friday the Midnight Boys bring you a very special midnight court. Oh, my God. I want to say something real quick. When I show y'all pictures, y'all got to be nice.

That's not right what happened earlier. All next, not nice? Alea can say whatever she wants. Okay. She had a lot to say about Sidney and different people like that. Sabrina Carpenter. Sabrina Carpenter.

But I try to show nice pictures. And I get looked at like a bronnosaurus. That's your new nickname, Van All-N-N-N-A-Rour-N. neck. All neck laces. All neck. All neck. A little man, man.

Out for at least one month. All neck. I'm not. He is the receding recital. Nickline. All neck. He in the receded neckline. She's like it's all neck.

It's all neck. What's a respectable word for pause? Cease. Cease. I'm producing a soft factory or Alea. Jade Whaley, who I thought was going to have my back.

Join me a dinner on. on socials, hashtag Vibrarian call card, calling card, what? Hashtag of a vibranium call card and additional production from Arjuna Ramka Pau. Chuck, take us out.

White women love Van. Oh, my God. Mephisto deserves respect. Shout out to old photos that show nothing but next. Boo! Hey, man, so real quick,

the fever... It's not going to be, but go ahead. The fever won, like, the Commissioner's Cup. Oh, dog. Yeah. And what's her name? Bro, that is funny.

They were on IG live. They were on IG live. And Kayla Clark is like bending down in front of the camera to like, you know, celebrate the people. And Sid Colson comes behind her and like, you know, try to help her. That is. And that is. And he was. That almost made me change my.

Taylor Clark opinion. It was such a human moment. Wait, what did you do? I don't like Caitlin Clark. Clark. But. Fuck it. I don't give a fuck how y'all feel about it.

But that, but Kaelin Clark looked like, I could, it was such a relatable moment that I was, it was, it was just like, hey, bro, hey, bro, chill. Hey, bro, chill. Hey, hey, hey, hey, she just got caught slipping. Like, she just got caught slipping. Bro, you got, they're so funny, she just got like, Kaylin's business.

Oh, yeah, oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Kelin was smiling all looking into the camera talking to the people. and then she bends over in front of a royal person and it happens. I was like, it was a very relatable moment. It was a little bit of a moment, Caitlin. And it also showed Candlea Clark is just like one of the gals.

It's funny. It's very funny. Whoa, whoa, whoa, chill up. Oh, yo, that's, wow. She said, no, thank you. No, thank you. Why does she cover her booty? No, thank you.

No, thank you. She's so polite. That's just, that's just very, very funny to me. Ah, man. Oh, my God. I don't want to not like people. I guess I'm okay with Caleb. Shout out Kayla Clark.

Hayton. All neck, Hayden. I'm fucking with it. Shooting, what, 38% from the field right now? All right. Um, stop. Feels like every product claims real protein these days. But real doesn't start on a label.

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