The Ringer-Verse - ‘Squid Game’ Season 2, ‘What If…?’ Season 3, and Ringer-Verse Recommends: December 2024

Episode Date: December 30, 2024

Green light! Ben and Daniel Chin discuss the second season of ‘Squid Game,’ focusing on how the streaming phenomenon follows up its first act without the element of surprise, its new spin on the formula from the sensational Season 1, and the future of the franchise. Then, they react to the third and final season of ‘What If…?’, breaking down the highs and lows of the latest set of episodes, how the whole series excelled and disappointed, and its MCU legacy (43:49). Finally, the Ringer-Verse and ‘House of R’ crews give gifts of nerd-culture content in the latest installment of 'Ringer-Verse Recommends,’ their monthly mini-pod about fandom favorites from TV, anime, movies, video games, books, comics, and beyond that were released recently but not yet covered in-depth on a full-length episode (1: 10: 37). Host: Ben Lindbergh Guests: Daniel Chin, Mallory Rubin, Joanna Robinson, Steve Ahlman, Jomi Adeniran, Matt James, Arjuna Ramgopal, Van Lathan, and Zach Kram Producer: Carlos Chiriboga Social: Jomi Adeniran Additional Production: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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is not the same as what it means. But to understand that, you will need to do more than simply watch. You must learn to see. And welcome into the Ringerverse, your nexus feed for all things fandom. I am Ben Lindberg, senior editor of the Ringer, welcoming you to our penultimate podcast of 2024. I may be the frontman today, but I can't keep the VIPs happy without some help. So with me is a VIP, a very important podcaster, a ringer, staff writer who could have voted X to go home, but instead voted Circle to play one more pod. Daniel Chin. Hello, Daniel.

Hey, Ben. Thanks for having me. Happy holidays. Same to you. We are the watchers. We are your guide through these vast new realities. Follow us and ponder the question. What if we binged all of Squid Games season two and what if season three? and hopped on Mike to talk about it. That's what we're doing today. The week between Christmas and New Year's is ripe for veging out and catching up on content. And that is what we are here to help with. Now, normally at the end of the month, that's when we present the latest edition of Ringaverse Recommends, our collection of testimonials from the whole Ring ofverse crew.

And you are still getting that at the end of this episode. So stay tuned to hear the whole crew chime in on what they've been watching or reading or playing or listening to this month. But this time, Ring Averse Recommends is just a bonus because you are also getting essentially a full-length podcast prelude. We have a full itinerary today. We'll be wrapping up with Ring Averse Recommends. But first, we're talking Squid Game Season 2. And then, what if season three, the first seasons of these series premiered about a month apart in the summer of 2021. Both will end after three seasons. So this is the end for what if? the Marvel animated show on Disney Plus.

It is season two of three for the live action Squid Game on Netflix. We won't go out of our way to spoil things, but we will discuss the events of these seasons and do some speculation. So be warned, check the timestamps, listen selectively if you haven't finished everything yet. So let's start with Squid Game, which is on everyone's mind right now. Netflix gave us the NFL and Beyonce, Beyonce for Christmas, and then Squid Game for Boxing Day, quite a flex, and really what could be more festive than watching a bunch of

destitute deeply in debt people fight for their lives, sometimes against the system, sometimes against each other. That this just get you in the holiday spirit, Daniel? Yeah, I mean, the timing of Squid Game, always around the holidays, you know, nothing quite like it. I mean, it's a perfect timing and just the way that they've really rolled out the red carpet for this. I mean, to your point, with the whole Netflix football, NFL, Christmas, and Beyonce leading up to it, and even just, like, hopping on Google today to see what people are talking about with Squid Games season two. They had a whole, like, red light, green light animation where you could, like, play the game right there on your Google screen.

So it's, you know, they've come back in a big way for season two. Yeah. Also, always a little fraught to gamify Squid Game in real life, whether that's via reality show or video game. why don't we turn this deadly struggle, this classist commentary on modern life into a fun game that we can play on our phones and TVs. But we do it anyway. Maybe that's part of the commentary. But like Kate and Jack, we've got to go back. We're going back to the island.

Let's give a green light to our discussion of Squid Game 3 or Squid Game Season 2. And really, like, this season, I think, had much higher expectations. obviously, than season one, which was just a huge surprise for everyone. So that was part of what made this more challenging, I would say. They're following up a global phenomenon here instead of something that took us all by surprise. Plus, the surprise of Squid Game was just the look of it, the bloodiness of it, all of that that just hit us like a ton of bricks back in 2021. And now we're expecting it somewhat.

Plus, you have to come up with a reason for a Guyan to get back into the games that doesn't feel contrived, because you know we're going back to the games, but why? Why would you ever go back? So you have to come up with a reason for him to want to go back. Then you have to make the games interesting. You have to somehow top what they came up with in season one. You have to create a new cast to replace all the characters who were killed the first time around. So this is a challenge. And as you wrote for the ringer.com, what a great website.

This was not planned from the start, right? This was originally envisioned as a single season story. Yeah, exactly. I mean, to your point, too, I mean, I feel like a lot of what really worked the first time around was just how much Squid Game was disarming its audience and just the pure shock of how violent and gruesome it was from that first episode and from that first game of Red Light Greenlight. Yeah.

And to have a reason, like all the lost references, you know, reason. to go back and a reason to get back in there is already just enough of a challenge on its own and just the heightened expectations coming back in and really finding a way to top a show that surprised everybody. And now, like, everybody's eyes are on it. So yeah, I mean, I don't know. What did you think? It could be dangerous because you have an unexpected success that just takes streaming by storm and then becomes this big franchise. And then, of course, there's pressure. We want more of this. And how many times have we seen? that and how many times have these content creators gone astray just trying to turn everything into

a universe when maybe it's not so suited for that. We're getting Dexter spin-offs. We're getting billion spin-offs. Everything is a franchise, right? And we've seen with Marvel, we've seen with Star Wars, sometimes you can take that too far. And especially if you have something that is meant to be a self-contained story, and then you say, this is just too big to stop. So we have to make more. And sometimes it can be very transparent that that's what you're doing. It's just like this formula works so well. Let's run it back. Let's do it again.

People will watch it. We probably would. But there's a challenge to not make it feel like you're just doing this for the money. To some extent, the creator of Skidgame, as you noted in your piece, was kind of doing this to profit, right? To be compensated in a way that he wasn't the first time around. Yeah. I mean, it's such a shame because.

for a show that ended up becoming the most popular show that Netflix has ever done, for him to not have really gotten any compensation for it is pretty wild. And just it's sad that he had to basically sign away his rights over the intellectual property, just because of the way that this system is kind of built to empower the streaming services, the big corporate giants. And just because of some of the archaic copyright laws that there are in South Korea, their inability to get the proper compensation for this. And this is, I feel like, one of the tipping point for what's been this whole big conversation

in the past few years as a result of it. Yeah, you've got to get those residuals if you can, but the streamers don't do that so much anymore. And so you have Huang Dong Yuk is creating a second season, which hopefully he can make bank on and, of course, working on more seasons and spinoffs, and we can talk about the franchise potential here. It's funny, he's been very open about the fact that he's. He kind of just wants to get his here.

It's like, it's my turn to make some money here, like the contestants on Squid Game. And he said he's, like, sick of it temporarily for now. He wants to go live on an island where Netflix can't call him, but they are calling him. They want him to make more. So the question is, does it ever feel like that to you? When you're watching this, if you didn't know that this was a single-season show that they decided to try to turn into a three-season show, would you get that feeling? Did it ever feel to you like this is reheated and rehashed and they're just trying to string us along and keep it going? Or did it feel like this was the plane all along?

Or at least they have found a way to extend it that doesn't feel like a pure profit play. Yeah, I mean, I think it's a good question because just even the way that they ended season one, even though he had this vision of it being a one-season story, they left some opportunity for it with the fact that he didn't get on that airplane after he died his hair, here red, which even in hindsight, I don't know. Was this like a purely Netflix reference? I don't know. How many times did people say, you should have gotten on that plane? That would have been the best thing for you to do.

Finally spend time with your daughter maybe. Yeah. But he left the door open from that very point. And it's just that whole element of like, okay, well, now he has this motivation to get revenge for all the people that die because of these games. So he has this motivation to shut them down. And I think that is a really interesting starting point to continue this story. And I think that season two does a good job of still reinventing itself in a lot of different ways.

Like, as I wrote in my piece to, like, showing more perspectives, including showing the perspective of one of the guards and how she got involved in it and just a little bit more behind the scenes. But I think my biggest frustration is just the way that it's ends, the way it ends where it's like very sudden. it's a cliffhanger that feels like you're ready to just go to the next episode, play next episode, and that's it. And we got to wait a whole other year for it to happen. So that part was the most frustrating part for season two, and I think probably for a lot of viewers as well. Yeah, fortunately not a full year. It's supposedly coming summer or fall, which feels quick because we've waited three years, more than three years, for this thing to return. And we're used to that at this point because we've seen so many extended breaks between season.

And it's not a trend that anyone's particularly happy about. I don't think the fact that we're routinely going two and a half years, three years between seasons of these big shows, especially VFX heavy shows. But it's partly strikes related. It's partly just the production pipeline, everything getting a big backed up there. But it's not just that. I don't think it's also just the time it takes now with the VFX demands, just with all of the roadmap that you're laying all the track for these. franchises. The silver lining, I guess, is that it rarely feels like we don't have enough to watch, because even if it's taking three years for individual series to return, there's always something

coming, even as the streamers are sort of downsizing. But it does require catch-up when you've gone three years, especially with a show like this that just about everyone binged, I think, in maybe a day or two when it first came out. I had to refresh my memory. I went back and I didn't rewatch the entire first season. I rewatched the finale and then read a bunch of synopsies and just had to really get myself catch it caught up. So I don't know about you what your prep was for this season, but that's just an institutional hazard with TV these days where we get shorter and shorter seasons and also longer interludes between them where I'm just not at all in that same headspace and I have to refresh my memory before I dive back in. Yeah, no, exactly. Like for for me,

I actually didn't do much of a refresher when I when I dove into season two. And I, totally regretted that. I ended up having to go back and rewatch all of season one afterwards because I had some time to write my piece as well. And I was like, I'm sure they connected it a lot more than I expected, including down to some of the characters that had a very minor role, like a one season role in season one that had a bigger role to start the season especially, like the loan sharks that he's dealing with early on, like having that part in it.

So it was cool to, I definitely don't recommend. end that route going backwards afterwards. But it was rewarding in the sense that I could see little things that they were building on at least and different things that they were referencing from season one. Yeah. And it does pick up right where season one left off. Yeah, right where there's no time break whatsoever, at least initially. There is a little later.

But basically the framing here is that he's going back for a different reason. This time he has a whole stack of cash. just sitting in his abandoned building, Heisenberg from Breaking Bad Style, and he's not trying to add to his stockpile or his windfall. He is trying to take down the games. And it's not actually his intention to be a competitor again, but he gets outsmarted. And so that's the way that we're upping the ante here is that it's not just about survival. It's about being a revolutionary. It's about trying to take the games down from the inside. So again, that's not the initial plan. The initial plan is to take it down from the outside, and he gets outsmarted at every turn,

which really he significantly underestimates the organizers of the games, I would say. They've been doing this for, what, decades since the 80s, right, in the Squid Game lore, and somehow this has not leaked, despite all the contestants, despite all the guards, the secrecy has been preserved. And he thought he was just going to put a little tooth tracker in his mouth, and that would do it. And then his special ops mercenaries would roll right in there. And that would be that. Not so fast. So they have outthought him.

They anticipated everything. That is part of just the mystique of the games is that they're always at least one step ahead a lot of the time. And so he finds himself back in the same situation as season one, except this time he is armed with the knowledge, the experience that he gained going through the games the first time. And the really compelling thing about this season. And I think the thing that maybe makes it feel even more justified that they kept this going, that there was much more story to tell and not just more money to make, is that this really becomes kind of a commentary on people participating in the games. Whereas the first season is largely about these oppressed, downtrodden people, it's the system, it's society, they're forced into these games, they're forced to fight to the death and scrap and scrape for every cent. in this case, it's almost more about the fact that they don't want to leave, that even having been forewarned, even for Guyan to come in and tell everyone what is about to happen, that is not enough to convince them to leave, which in some ways is kind of a darker commentary on the individual. You know, it's it's not that everyone was a good guy and they were all easy to root for in season one necessarily. But in this case, I found my feeling more and more frustrated at the participants, which I think is part of the point.

Yeah, that's a, no, that's a great point. And I think just it's, it is a really interesting twist on the concept of from the first season. I think, uh, director Huang was like, saying it to, uh, the Hollywood reporter, like the theme that he was really exploring in this season was like, is the majority always right? And that's, that's a very inherently political idea. And they're, they're never shy about just being extremely on the nose in the way that they're exploring these concepts. But I feel like from the very first time they do the whole voting process again, and you see how people are still pushing forward for whatever reason that they're making up or a reason that they're choosing not to believe Gihon and everything he's telling

them about these games and how they should get out then. I think it makes for a really interesting new dynamic for them to explore. Yeah, it's this sort of nightmareish aspect to things, that kind of nightmare where there's something you're trying to escape and you just can't get away from it. And it seems like you should be able to. You can see it coming, but it just catches up to you no matter what. He can't get out here. And you'd think that he'd be able to, that he'd be able to just stand up and make this impassioned speech as he does several times. And it falls on deaf ears or sometimes it actively backfires because people say, oh, this guy's been through the games. He won them before. He can tell us what to do. And they actually decide to stay.

because of his presence, which is the opposite of what he intended. So then it becomes kind of this commentary on human nature. And he's trying to liberate these people who don't want to be liberated and don't want to be enlightened. And do they even deserve to be rescued? Is this all entirely pointless? And in some ways, he is still helping people. Like, I went back and watched in the red light greenlight game the first time in season one,

I think 259 contested. are eliminated. And in season two, they play the same game and only 91 are killed, which I would say is maybe partly a testament to the fact that he's warning everyone, that he's doing his, you know, shouting with his mouth blocked by his elbow. Even though everyone thinks he's some sort of madman, they are listening to him to some extent and he maybe does actually save some lives there. But then people end up being pissed that not more people died because it means that less money for them. Right? So he's kind of, it's like a damned if you do, damned if you don't. Yeah. I think the choice to have that be the one game to return from season one to season two was a really good idea too. Because it, it shows him being able to take this role where he's like, all right, I actually did do all these games. I won this. And he has this, this, you know, powerful position to start from it. But then they flip it from the second round on. And I think that's another way for them to just also. explore new things with this second season and then you know with showing new new games and

having a not just the repeat of the games from the first season i think everybody was probably expecting that because you can't just run back the same games again but yeah having that would be the one because it was so iconic to from season one yes yeah but so much of the success of the show is the imagery is just the costumes and the environment and the creepy doll and all of that And so there's a little less of an impact the second season just because we've seen all of that before. And it really is sort of instantly iconic. We probably overuse that adjective. But I think it applies in this case.

So that packs a little less oomph the second time when it's, okay, we're back in the squid game world. It's not necessarily breaking that much new ground, visually speaking. But I think it did make sense to start there. And then we start to think, as Guillaume does, that, okay, maybe it's just going to be the same. same sequence of games over again. And that would be a bit boring. That would not please the VIPs or the Netflix viewers. And then, of course, we do deviate.

And he's caught unawares. And they trust him even less because he's been telling them that he knows what to expect. Now, we get sort of a slow pace at times to the season. You know, season one did that too and took its time. And a lot of the meat of the show is between the games and getting to know the people and seeing all the interpersonal relationships. Although, given that this is a seven-episode season, down from nine, I didn't know going in that this would be unresolved, that this would just be sort of a setup for season three.

And so I did start to get that sense part way through the season where I'm doing the math and I'm like, wait, how many games have we seen here? And we're not getting close to the end and there are only X episodes left. And so it does become clear at a certain point that we're not a lot. actually going to get this story answered. But we get to meet a whole new cast of characters for the most part, or some characters get dramatically expanded roles. Of the new characters, which did you find most compelling? Or did you gravitate toward the new crew as much as season ones? Hmm. I think for me, one of the most interesting to see was the guards perspective,

the guard 111. Um, I felt like, Like that was one of the instances where I was also most frustrated by it being like an abridged second season because I felt like it started off really strong with with her motivation and this whole relationship that she has with the little kid that she met at the parade and following that kid's father as he gets into the games himself. Because she like kept on looking at him and like following how he was doing throughout the games. But there's never actually any resolution to that. And it's unclear if he even survives at the end of it. So I was like waiting for there to be like a classic like end of season. Like let's show where everybody is before the season ends. Yeah.

To, you know, catch everybody up before the end of it. But there wasn't that. So I'm hoping that there's a payoff with that in season three. In terms of the players, I actually really just enjoyed seeing the frontman being able to become a full-fledged character this time. And have him not be hidden behind a mask as well. and seeing that whole dynamic start to evolve and become a little bit more interesting between him and Giann. Yeah. Yeah, I felt that way, too, that some of the ancillary storylines were a little underserved, just because there was only so much time to go around. So I like that we're getting a look at the guards and trying to get in their heads and figure out why they would want to do this.

And then you also have the searching for the island storyline, June Ho, with his hired crew. and you get the twists there. It's, you know, sort of easy to foresee that the captain who picked him up, you know, was not just a good Samaritan that he's working for the organizers of the games. And he's been stringing him along this entire time and keeping tabs on him and monitoring him. So that's also sort of fruitless. And they're getting outsmarted at every turn. And you kind of get the sense that that's what is what happening.

Presumably that's going to go somewhere. And they will ride into the rescue or they'll play some part. in the larger story, but they're basically just being given the runaround for the entirety of season two, which is a little frustrating, I guess, for them and also for us. But I do like the new cast, you know, definitely sympathetic characters, interesting alliances, betrayals, and also enjoy the frontman, which is, I guess, the big twist of the season what a few episodes in when we find out that the frontman is participating personally here. And I guess it's, sort of, again, running back the twist from season one, in a sense, where we find out that a participant

in the games was the creator of the games. So, you know, again, it's not quite as original as the first time around maybe, but it is a really interesting dynamic between those two characters and just, you know, really excellent acting. It's really, it's cool when, you know, these huge K-drama stars can become, you know, Hollywood stars via Squid Game or via some other internet. national show that gets big and everyone realizes, oh, wow, these guys have been great for a really long time. So what is your read on the frontman's motivations or feelings here? Obviously, there's the big betrayal at the end where he doesn't unmask himself, like as he remasks himself. But why is he participating here? Is it purely for the entertainment of the BIPs? Is it purely to monitor Giyun?

and kind of keep a close eye on him and make sure he doesn't screw up the games, is it personal in some sense for him? Because it does seem like there's an element of fascination that the frontman has with Guillen here, that he sort of wants to understand what makes him tick, and they have the connection of both having been participants in the games before.

Yeah, I think that's a good point. I think there probably is some personal element to that, too. But for me, I think one of the big things that the show is just trying to explore is how these two characters have responded to winning the games because the frontman, I guess it was 2015. He like finds, his brother finds it on a binder in the first season that he was a previous winner. And they haven't really explored that element too much of it.

But his response to it was going and actually running the game and perpetuating this really messed up, like torturing people that are at the end of the ropes. but for for yehun it's like the complete opposite where he still sees the good in humanity and the innate goodness of humanity yeah and him trying to prove that at least so far yeah at least so far so I think that being like a main point of contention just showing the two different sides and that is is a big element of it I'm assuming they're going to show a lot more of like the front man's perspective on that on that side of it because we haven't gone to see like it's what I find interesting about the season two is just how much he's actually himself in this when he's

playing this role or how much of it he's just fabricating to build a persona to gain trust for the people around him because there is that little bit where he his like kidney he needed a kidney and his wife didn't get that kidney because right and we yeah we hear a little bit about that backstory with the brother and the mother outside of the island it did seem like he's playing this for real right I mean yeah He is in this thing, you know, he's shooting guards, right? At the end, he does turn around and betray the contestants. But for a while there, he's actually gunning people down.

I get the sense that if he's eliminated from the games, like, he's going down too, right? Like, this is part of the stakes for him. And there is that little freakout he has when they're doing the six-legged competition with the five different stages. and he's doing the top spin where you have to wind the thread around the top and then cast it and have it spin. And he momentarily just loses it, right? And it seems like that's authentic or genuine. I guess you could say maybe again, he's playing a role.

He's sandbagging here. He's trying to look like he's losing it to put people at ease and make them think that he's just one of them. But it was a convincing acting job, if that's all it was. and then it comes down to the final seconds and they survive. So part of it, I wonder, is just he hasn't felt as alive as he did when he was a contestant, which maybe was the same motivation as the creator jumping in and participating directly in season one. Maybe it's just not the same high for him standing up there behind his mask,

watching everyone through a screen. And maybe there's some part of him that is kind of morbidly attracted to laying his life on the line again. Yeah. I really don't know how it's going to turn out with the dynamic with him and his brother, because they still didn't really explore his brother's perspective too much in the sense that, like, I think on some level, we understand that he wants to understand why the frontman has, why he's become this way, at least for Junho. And like, for him to have some answers for why he's completely up ended his life to do this.

But I think that, again, like, that was one of my, my issues with this season, because there's still so many answers on that front. I guess we'll see how many episodes are also in this last season. But I wondered a lot as I was watching if they should have branded the season differently, like if it should have been part one. Because I feel like Netflix is always switching up the release process too, whether it's like releasing it and like releasing a season in like three different parts or the first half of it here and there.

But I don't know if you had any thoughts on that. Yeah, maybe like a stranger thing style. staggered batch release. Yeah, because he said he initially envisioned it as just one narrative. And then he said he wrote it and it ended up being over 10 episodes. And that was too long for a single season. And I'm thinking to myself, we used to have a world where television seasons could be longer than 10 episodes.

It's okay. That doesn't have to be a hard cutoff. But these days, I guess it does, especially if you have this global streaming phenomenon, you want to milk that for a while. And yeah, you could have said this was season two part one or something. And maybe that would have helped set expectations a little better for people who will be disappointed that there's not a lot of resolution at the end of this season. Ultimately, it doesn't matter that much to me because I'm just going to watch it whenever and however they put it out. So it's more marketing and branding than anything else.

But I'm just glad that it'll be a quick turnaround because they've already shot it, right? they kind of filmed it consecutively. It was all written at the same time, so there won't be as long a wait, which is quite a relief, I would say. And, you know, another thing is that I felt almost a little frustrated with the games and particularly the voting, you know, the pace of some of that at times, because now we have voting after every game, after every round. And I guess part of the point of that is just to reinforce to hammer home the theme of the season, which is that you can keep giving people chances and they will keep screwing things up. It really does drive home just the fact that people refuse to be helped, even if you try to help them at times. But visually speaking, it's a little tiresome, given that we kind of know what's going to happen, right? they're not going to vote to go home because we have more episodes to watch, right?

So you have to watch the entire everyone lining up and the montages of the circles and the X's and counting up time after time after time. And, you know, the sort of faux suspense of well enough people change their votes this time to send us home and we know that they won't. Right. So that I did find a little, again, given that we know we have seven episodes here. there's only so much, I guess, new ground that you can break each time that you do that. And even the games sometimes, you know, the games themselves were entertaining. But there were times that I felt, you know, especially with that multi-event round where we saw so many teams do it that by the time it was over, I felt like I could have done it myself, like put me in and I can do the dice game. Like I'm ready. I've seen this so many times already.

Yeah. So, you know, it's all meant to amp up the suspense. but there were times that I felt a little impatient. Maybe it's me, but I kind of wanted to move on a little bit faster at times. Yeah, I think it's tricky and it goes both ways when you have all seven episodes at your disposal. Because at a certain point, it's like, if you're watching one episode and then not much happens and they drag it out and you got to wait a week, I would go crazy. But at least you know you have that next one you can immediately binge to and that's definitely a part of their rationale. But at the same time, when you have nothing at the end of that seven-episode run, that's where

some of that built-up frustration comes out. And you're like, well, why do we watch some of this? Yeah. Yeah. But the cast is great. All the actors are good. Some of them are infuriating in a way that they're meant to be. And it works.

I am very upset at the sea shaman, whatever we're calling her, very frustrating character. But as intended. Thanos was a lot as well. Thetaos RIP, man, good segue into the second part of this podcast in a minute, I guess. But yeah, wow, what Marvel product placement there. Just I'm disappointed, you know, you ranked the rhymes that we got. And there were only two. So I know.

I was like, do I even rank this? Because there's only two verses. Yeah, I would have like to hear a little bit more of his work personally. But, you know, I like his look, very distinctive. So, you know, they're good at just cramming all kinds of characters from all different walks of life and giving us enough insight into their personality or their background or the quirks of their characters that they don't feel just like archetypes that we actually feel like we get to know them a little bit, which is nice. So we get the twists. We get an Andor-style prison revolt, which doesn't end as well as Andors does, I guess, it's saying something. when your show is bleaker than and or in some respects.

That's you're really sounding the depths here. So I wonder what we're headed for then. We get the betrayal at the end. We get our protagonists dragged away, frustrated, mourning the death of his friend, which he's being blamed for. Every time he tries to free people, it fails and sometimes arguably ends up

putting them in an even worse position than they were previously. So you have to wonder, will there be some sort of heel turn for him? Will there be a join me and together we can make the games even more sadistic moment where the frontman makes the appeal to his comrade in the games here and says, look, look what we have revealed about human nature. Are you still trying to fight for these people? And then I guess the ultimate bleak twist would be if the good guy becomes the baddie and just

gives up and decides to become a frontman or VIP himself. I don't know that I can see that turn happening. That might be too far even for Squid Game, but what are you thinking for the second part of season three, or I guess, season three itself here? Are we going to see questioning of everything and potentially turning back on these ideals, or ultimate, will it be sticking to his guns, if not literally, then figuratively? Yeah, it's a good question. I think the creator inherently probably wants to have a good message come out of this. So I think it would be a little bit too cynical for him to turn heel and become the one that perpetuates this game. But at the same time, knowing that Netflix is going to want to have as much from this franchise as possible, there is definitely a scenario in which it doesn't end. I still think that ultimately it's going to come down to him putting a stop. of the game, there being some sort of payoff with them trying to shut it down from the outside. And I mean, definitely like with the Stinger at the end of the finale as well. We see a glimpse of what appears to be a new game with another creepy, massive doll,

child-like doll. So I think like we've only gotten three of the rounds. I think we'll have a reason for there to be another three rounds somehow for the games to resume and then for for geon to ultimately figure out a way to shut it down in the end. Yeah. What do you make of that little mid-credits stigger where we just get a glimpse of, I guess, level two of red light, green light, where it's not just one doll, but now we have a boy doll, too, is this.

And we do see the backs of a few of the survivors, I think, some of the circle team. So I don't know whether this just means, okay, now you've misbehaved and we're going to make the games even harder. or whether there's some sort of, you know, intra-survivor rivalry even more so than usual, where we get the circle crew against the X crew or what's left of them at this point? Or, yes, there's some sort of, you know,

turning them against each other even more or what do you think this portends, if anything? Yeah, it was interesting to me that there was even a stinger at all. It just felt like very against what the show had been, kind of like the vibe of it, at least. It's such a Disney, like, franchise building, Star Wars, MCU kind of thing at this point, I feel like. But I feel like, if anything, it's showing that there will be more games. And for whatever actually happens with, if they're pinning players against each other,

there's thriving players against each other or not, I think just to show that there is going to be more games, there is going to be some more exciting sets for us to look at. But how it happens, I guess, what we'll find out pretty soon. I don't know if you have any thoughts, any predictions. Well, shout out to Li Biong who's the frontman. I thought he was excellent. And also, R.P. Gong Yu, not Gong Yu, the actor, but the salesman, the character he plays, who I really miss just his unhinged energy.

Like, he's the highlight of this cast to me, maybe. Just his, like, total commitment to the games and just how purely sadistic he is. He's another, somehow he's 45 years old, which looks great, drop the skincare routine, the salesman. But I love seeing that guy just because he's out in the outside world and he's still very much acting like he's on the island. Just love that character and going to miss him. But, you know, he stuck to his guns literally to the end. Him stomping out the bread was definitely the most unhinged moment of the entire season. Yes, very much so.

Flipping up his hair afterwards, he's like sweating. His manic look on his face. He will be missed. And I guess the future of the franchise, since you detailed this in your piece, it's not just that we're getting stingers and teasers and a season three here. But we're also going to get spinoffs. We're maybe going to get prequels. Who knows? It sounds like there is a whole squid game universe coming, which I have mixed feelings about.

But what do you think that's going to look like? Yeah. I mean, at least for one of the only projects that's been reported is David Fincher being involved with one. And I think if it wasn't David Fincher being involved with it, I would be very skeptical. It would not be looking forward to that because I don't love the idea of there just being like an English language version of this. But I think that he's a really interesting fit if he actually is very involved and not just a big name to attach to it. I don't know about there being like an international spin to it. I guess I could see it happening and I think there's a lot of room that you could do it

because in the first season one of the VIP's references that Korea has the best contest, something to that effect. So that seems like a pretty wide open space for them to try to explore whether that's doing a fully American game, which I guess would just be Squid Game the Challenge or wherever I guess that was in the UK. I don't even, I didn't even watch that. But I think it speaks to what they're really looking for as a franchise.

And I don't know how much of that I will be able to stick around for. Because they really seem to be planning a lot. Yeah, everyone's asking for Mind Hunter season three. And David Fincher is like, I'll give you English language squid game, which was, who is asking for that? Are people asking for that? Are people like, I can't watch,

Squid Game because it's not in English natively. Clearly, this show has traveled. There are cases where it makes sense to do an English language version of something, but this doesn't seem like one of them because clearly it's not an obstacle to the popularity of this series. You know, like sometimes there's a ceiling international shows. I mean, people like to watch shows made in their home market, whatever it is, but Squid Game was so massively popular that everyone was like, oh, is there going to be, you know, a phenomenon. Every international show will be the new big hit.

Not necessarily, but Squid Game certainly has cracked that code. And there's really no part of me that wants to see an English language version of it. I feel like I've seen the version of Squid Game. If you want to give me spin-offs or prequels, I'm open to the idea, at least, but a do-over, except in English, it just feels extraneous to me. Yeah. And I think there's something that's very universal about a lot of the themes that they're exploring in this show, too. So I just don't know how much it would be needed. But again, if David Fincher really wants to do this and he's got a good idea around it, I'll definitely be watching.

All right. Well, I think we can recommend Squid Game Season 2 on this Ringiverse recommends themed episode. I enjoyed the season. Again, you know, doesn't hit as hard as season one just because we saw the blow coming. And we prepared ourselves and we braced ourselves for this season. And it's really hard to recapture season one just hitting us all unawares. But I think they absolutely justified the idea of continuing this story for reasons other than pure franchise building. Will it get to that point where it feels manipulative and like they're just trying to string this along?

Maybe. But we are definitely not there yet. And I'm excited to see the conclusion of this story. worry sometime in the summer or fall, hopefully not too long. So I'm glad that the weight won't be as long. Yeah, I agree. And I think, again, it would be different if we had any wait another three years for this. I think that would be way too long.

And I think it wouldn't be worth all of that. But the fact that we know it's right around the corner, I'm definitely looking forward to that in 2025. All right. Some quick programming teases. I mentioned that this is our penultimate pot of the year. Tomorrow, New Year's Eve. Steve, Jomey, and Jess will discuss the things they missed in 2024 on Mint Edition.

Later this week, The Midnight Boys, Poo-Pew, will kick off 2025 with a Lord of the Rings-themed episode that I will not spoil. That's one that, like Season 1 of Squid Game, I think, is better if it just takes everyone by surprise. Next week, I will be back on Buttmash with the most anticipated video games of 2025. The Midnight Boys will catch up on Skelton Crew, and Mint Edition will do a 2025 confidence meter. Over on House of R, you can check out Mal and Joe's top moments of 2024 pod, which should be up when this episode is. And then they will cover Skeleton Crew episodes 5 and 6, maybe with yours truly talking a little lore on that pod. So we are rolling right into 2025, not missing a beat. To watch over everyone, I must become no one.

Then you are ready, as I've always known you would be. I should probably take that oath then. You just did. So rise. I'll watcher. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP and making a mess. You don't need WeatherTech floor liners in the summer,

unless you hit the beach or go camping. Then you'd want a cargo liner. Or a road trip goes sideways, ketchup goes rogue, ice cream drips. Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those WeatherTech seat protectors. So just to be clear as the month, you're inevitably going to step into the summer. You don't need WeatherTech unless you plan on doing summer. Visit weathertech.com today.

This episode is brought to by the active cash credit card from Wells Fargo. That's a mouthful, but that's because it packs a lot in. Earn unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases with it, big or small. So whether it's buying tickets to the game and grabbing a coffee, it earns unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases. Say it with me, the active cash credit card from Well, Wells Fargo. Be a two percenter. Learn more at Wells Fargo.com forward slash active cash terms of play. This episode is brought to by Paramount Plus. Beth and Rip are back in a new series,

Dutton Ranch. Kelly Riley and Cole has a returned and this time they're taking on Texas. As Beth and Rip build a future together, peace will have to wait as they face corruption, danger, and a ruthless rival ranch willing to protect its secrets at all costs. Legacy is a beautiful thing, but only if it survives. Dutton Ranch starring Colehauser Kelly Riley, Annette Benning, and Ed Harris now streaming on Paramount Plus. And on this episode, we are rolling right into our second segment, and we are talking about the third and final season of Marvel's What If on Disney Plus, which is eight episodes down from nine in the first two seasons. And these rolled out essentially one a day from December 22nd on, so much like season two. Again, this has turned into a holiday tradition where we find some new animated Marvel waiting for us under our tree.

And I guess we can maybe talk just briefly about our feelings on this series heading into season three. What's your high-level take on season one and season two of what if? And what do you want from what if? Do you want straight-up silliness and absurdity? or do you want semi-serious considerations of MCU sliding doors moments? What if this thing happened slightly differently from how it did on a show or in a movie and what's actually see how that would play out? Or do you just want it to be wild, big swings that you never would have anticipated?

Yeah, I mean, at least for me, for the first two seasons, there were definitely a bunch of episodes that I enjoyed, but a lot I didn't enjoy. I think that's part of the nature of any anthology series. but at least for me, what I enjoyed the most with this show overall, now that it's over, was I think the balance between like the deeply silly episodes

that just have fun with this format and being able to just experiment with whatever and having no repercussions like you do with the big 10-pult movies where you have to be connecting the dots between all these different films. I think the concept really works. And combining that with some of the bigger swings

where they're actually like taking a concept and really trying to apply it in a mini movie for a lot of these, it feels like. But there's a lot where there's just so many misses where it's a frustrating show to me overall. Yeah. Yes, it feels a little like other shows of that nature, anthology shows, where you never know what you're going to get. And that's part of the appeal, but also sometimes the downside. And you could even compare it. You know, I find myself comparing it to say Star Wars. Wars visions or even like the early seasons of Clone Wars, for instance, where there's a lot of

great stuff, but also some misfires and somewhere you're just like, what am I watching and why? There's a lot of that in What If? And I would say that the ratio of those to the ones where I'm really glued to the screen has not improved over the course of the series. I would say it's progressively gotten a little less compelling with each subsequent season to the point where the fact that it's over now, or at least going on indefinite hiatus, of course they could always just bring it back

if they decided to if they had enough good ideas. But season one, a lot of bangers that season, right? And again, you know, it was new. It was the first MCU animated show and maybe people didn't have high expectations and they hit us with like Tachala Starlord and Marvel Zombies and the birth of Strange Supreme and the Infinity Ultron arc,

which was actually really good, I thought. And then season two, the highs were not as high, and the lows were at least more consistently low. Again, even from the start, you had like, what if Thor just went to parties or whatever, right? But that's okay if it's just, you know, there's one dud or one change of pace, to put it charitably between the good ones.

but then when it becomes more of those and the really good ones are the exception, then it holds my interest a little less. So season two just felt a little more mediocre most of the way through. And season three, you know, they're going for it, I guess, would be one way we could say. They're not leaving anything on the table here. Like they're throwing everything that they have left at the wall

and some of it sticks. and some of it, not so much, I guess. So, you know, we're getting the Howard the Duck and Darcy couple having a kid, and then that kid becomes Birdie, who's played by Natasha Leone. And then that turns into an origin story for her, who comes back later in the season. You know, sometimes there are attempts at continuity in this anthology series, which sometimes works so well. And sometimes it's like we took some of the characters from,

that season one Thor episode and gave them their own sort of spin-off arc. And it's like, of all of the stories in the multiverse that we could tell, this is what we choose. And I don't want to dump on, like, being creative and weird, because you should be doing that in a show like this. But also, sometimes doesn't completely click. Yeah, I think the Howard the Duck and Darcy episode is a very good example of that. Like, I think it's a really funny concept. And for parts of that, I really enjoyed it.

but when it's one joke that's extending for 30 plus minutes or whatever it is, around 30 minutes, it's a long joke. And it's fun to have Josh Brolin come in and voice Thanos for like a second. But it's so deeply unsurious where at a certain point you're like, what are we actually doing here? Yeah, I do appreciate that the production quality is always high. And I think you can make a case that it'd be better if this were different visual styles from episode to episode. if it were more like Star Wars Visions,

where you were giving different studios a crack at these things. And, you know, maybe it's enough to have the narrative variation. And then you kind of need that consistent through line of the look of it to tie it all together. But it would be kind of nice if there were more adventurousness. But I think it looks good. It's always polished and well animated and the fight scenes are flashy and everything. And, you know, it's nice to have mostly the live action actors reprising their roles here.

Yeah. You know, don't want to cost any voice actors work. But also, sometimes it can be jarring if you're playing like a Marvel video game

and it's like not even the likenesses or the voices of the characters you know so well. And so to have that consistency here is nice. Though it really did feel like in this season especially, it's like, let's cram in as many phase four and five characters as we possibly can,

which given the relative success of those phases, it's like, you know, a little bit of a letdown at times. Like, we're digging deep on the bench here. Yeah. I feel like exactly for that reason, this season, the most to me,

felt like very much a reflection and kind of a microcosm of a lot of what's been going wrong in the multiverse saga. And them trying to, not necessarily force, but really put a big spotlight on a lot of the characters that are not working that much on the big screener,

or at least, didn't get the kind of reception that Marvel Studio is expected. Like, I really loved Shang-chi when it came out, I guess in 2021 at this point. But I was, there was a part of me that was literally disappointed. It was like, we've been waiting a while for a sequel and this was the sequel that we got. Yeah, we got a Western where he teams up with Kate Bishop, which was kind of fun, but it was like, you know, what if 1872? Like, we already had the what if 1602 episode in season two.

So already it feels like we're repeating certain formats or templates for episodes. Yeah, like granted, like that was probably one of my favorite episodes of the season. and I really liked how they kind of like introduced the young iron fists in there as well. Yeah. But at the same time, it was just like, let's just get Shang Chi too, you know? Yeah. Right. And it's tough because it's, I mean, there was that one episode where it's like Agatha and Kingo from Eternals.

Yeah. And are they ever going to make another Eternals movie even? So it's just confusing for some of the purpose of some of this stuff. And that could be the season saving grace. like, let's tie up some loose ends. Hey, we're never going to get another Eternal's movie. Okay, maybe we can resolve some stuff in what if, but that's not

really what we get here either, right? It's not really. I mean, I kind of like the idea of, okay, what if Marvel were a Western? What if Marvel were Gundam, Mex versus Kaiju? What if Marvel were a Busby Berkeley Bollywood musical? Like,

for half an hour, I'm willing to watch any of this stuff, which I guess, you know, even when it doesn't really land for me, I'm not mad about it, you know, the way that watching like secret invasion or something where I'm like actively frustrated by the storytelling or what are we doing here, as Charles would say. Here, I feel like what we're doing is just, you know, kind of casually watching a half hour animated show in the dead week between Christmas and New Year's. Like my expectations are not that high and the bar is not that high. So if it's just kind of a fun, forgettable diversion, that's enough for me. I guess I'd prefer that it would be more than that because it sometimes has.

And I think the hit rate could be higher. Yeah. No, I definitely agree. And I think for me, like two of the big standout episodes for this season was like the Western one. And then the one after with like Riri Williams taking on Quentin Beck. I think just whenever, yeah. Yeah. The emergence.

Like when they really go for a concept that's kind of like a little bit more out there. there and that just can be taking little elements, little pieces from what we've seen in the MC movies and then really going a long way with them. But then the opposite side of that spectrum, like, one of the episodes I really didn't like from this season was the one where it's basically just like a long Red Guardian and Bucky, like, buddy copses. And I mean, I don't even know what they were really fully going for. Yeah. I kind of like that just because, you know, I'm enjoying David Harbour's work these days, like, between what if and future commandos. Yeah, we're getting a lot of David Harbor, and he seems to be understanding the assignment.

So that's good. And yeah, a little, like, you know, buddy cop, road trip, comedy, comic relief. Right. You know, some of these, like, tonally, they feel a little off or, you know, like, I kind of like, I guess the comic pairing of, like, Winter Soldier and, you know, Bucky and Red Guardian kind of worked for me. But, you know, ultimately feels like fluff or sometimes, like, feels like it should be bigger. It's like, wait, if this Red Guardian is in the Avengers now, like this seems like it would be a big deal. But also, it's just one of many multiverses.

So it's not actually that big a deal. I guess part of maybe what this show has suffered from, you know, feels like a cliche to say, but like multiverse fatigue, which probably even the three years that the show has been running has come more to the four where we've just seen so many multiversal stories that the three. Real of that has worn off a little bit. It'd be one thing if we weren't getting that in every live action project. And if it were like, okay, this is the fun little sandbox where we can be creative and explore all the nukes and crannies of the MCU. But that's what we're doing in basically every MCU project at this point or every superhero project. So what if doesn't stand out as much in that respect? Yeah, I think that's a great point.

And I think that's why, at least for me, like their formula just didn't really work towards the end. where, like, each of the seasons, they had a bunch of separate episodes that weren't really connected at all, and they would kind of tie a little bit together, but they would all ultimately lead to a story around the watcher, around Oatu, and having bigger stakes within what-if, like, around the characters, like Captain Carter. And especially this time, that just didn't really work for me towards the end of it, because it did this exact same thing with the first two seasons. And I think the last episode was actually just called, like, what-if? What-if? Yeah. And at that point, I'm like,

This is where we jump the shark. Like, we've done a what-if scenario on our own what-f show. So it's, right. I enjoyed a lot of this series, but I think this came to the right end. Like, this was the right time for it to conclude. Yeah, yeah. I guess if you're going to jump the shark, the last episode of your series is a good time to do it, maybe. But yes, it did feel like it ran out of steam or like they used up some of their best ideas,

which you'd think it'd be almost unlimited material. But I guess, you know, as with the comic, like eventually you just kind of use up your A ideas and you're down to the B and C and D ideas. And you're right. Like it can get frustrating when it's too low stakes and small stakes, although that can be a nice change of pace, as I said, because so often it's about saving the world or saving the universe or saving the multiverse. But they have gone back to that well a number of times in what if alone with all these different existential threats. And yeah, you do that for the third season in a row. And we've already seen Infinity Ultron and we've already seen these other arcs. And, okay, now it's kind of a watered down version of that.

And, you know, much like with Squid Game, it's just there's diminishing returns. Like, even if it's good, it's just not going to pack the same punch the second or third time you've seen it. But I did, I think episode five was maybe also my highlight, the emergence, the vision, Ironheart. And maybe that's partly because, you know, in some of these episodes we get almost a sneak peek of a character who hasn't really had their full-fledged MCU debut yet, which I guess could seem like, okay, is this just sort of a teaser for Ironheart more so than it's a standalone product? But also, at least it's not giving us someone that we've seen many times before. And it's, you know, made me anticipate that series a little more, not that it's going to be exactly the same premise, but still. Yeah, I feel like to some extent, this is also just one big test study for Marvel Studios as well. Like even with something like exploring Bucky and Red Guardian, like we are going to see that to,

and like Thunderbolts when that finally happens. And I guess seeing how fans react to Ruby Williams now and I was really interested in the point of them also finally bringing in the X-Men. And that was also like definitely a highlight for the season for me as well, like having. The Storm like Thor crossover and having Allison Seeley Smith also come back to voice storm was just like a fantastic choice still doing a very dramatic line readings of her announcing her using nature's forces and all that. So there were a lot of little things that they did like that that were a lot of fun, even if I know that there are definitely some possible ulterior motives here with seeing how things work out and how much they want to build on that moving forward. Yeah, and I guess the legacy of this series, it's not super popular as Marvel series go. That's just, you know, animation often has a ceiling. And, you know, we love animation here at the Ring orverse, but there are certain holdouts who just aren't going to get as invested in an animated show.

And then also, this is sort of, it's almost the opposite of the Marvel Spotlight branded shows where they're trying to send the signal, you don't have to have watched anything else to watch this. which often isn't actually true even when they label a show that way. But this would basically be the opposite of that, where if you haven't watched anything, on the one hand, I guess it's sort of self-contained stories, but also you will have no idea who these people are or why they're doing anything they're doing if you haven't watched a lot of other Marvel projects.

So I think given those barriers to entry, that was always going to limit its appeal somewhat, regardless of the quality. But I think there is still the leg, of just experimentation and showing that anything goes, which has, you know, kind of been ported over into the MCU, breaking the seal when it comes to animation in the MCU, also establishing, say, Marvel Zombies, which is getting its own spin-off series in 2025, and establishing some characters. You know, for better or worse, I guess, this became kind of the watchers show at the end. And I wonder whether that means we're going to get more watcher in live action, which I'd support. I always enjoy the watcher, always enjoy Jeffrey Wright.

Or we're going to get more Captain Carter because Captain Carter is kind of the star, the breakout star of what if in general, especially prior to this season. And we got very briefly Captain Carter in Multiverse of Madness. Very rude introduction. Did not serve that character particularly well, as Haley at well subsequently said. And she's coming back for Avengers Doomsday. And we don't know exactly in what context, but is that going to be Agent Carter or is that going to be Captain Carter? Maybe this will all have turned out to be a backdoor pilot of sorts for Captain Carter really getting a full-fledged entry to the live-action MCU.

Yeah, I think one of the points he made in there, too, with how this broke the seal for Marvel Studios animation, too, I think is a really big part of this as well. because I feel like for years they've kind of been lacking on that front while like DC studios, even as they've been floundering with their live action movies. They've been consistently good with their animation. And I think with this, like becoming its first like multi-season series as well, this being before X-Men 97 kind of brought this whole interest back as well. And again, with them like having Marvel zombies coming up to and I know there's going to be a Spider-Man animated series next year as well.

Hopefully it's just the side of more things to come. and more interest, at least, in the animation world for Marvel Studios. Yeah, and there are callbacks to season one, even with Peggy and fights that she's having here. So she's sort of the throughline. And again, maybe you need some sort of narrative backbone to tie all of this together. But it did feel at a certain point just like, let Peggy go home already. If you can't let her find love, at least let her go home and be alone instead of just bringing her to different. universes over and over to fight these cosmic forces. And then at the end, I guess everyone

becomes a watcher, just as we do as we're watching the watcher. Who watches the watchers? It's so meta at this point. Yeah. We did get a Madison shout out in episode eight. That was definitely not on my bingo card coming into this season. Me neither. Would have liked a more prominent role. But yeah. Yeah. There was a line in episode think less what if and more what the hell. And that was kind of the theme of this season, which was sort of self-aware, you know, for better or worse, like big swings and lower contact rate, which is often the trade-off when you take big swings. Sometimes you hit a home run. But, you know, even the home runs were fewer and far between, I guess, in season two and especially in season three.

But they went for it. They tried. You can't say that they restrain themselves too much. And it's just inherently, it's a tough format because you're looking at half an hour-ish. And even if you're not starting from scratch, you're starting with established characters, it's still always going to be tough to tell a self-contained story. And we did get it to be continued and some two-parters. But still, like, to have to establish a new universe and a new setting and a new premise and then wrap it all up in half an hour or less,

there's a lot of potential in that, but it's just a difficult thing to do well. And, you know, I think it was always going to be fairly hit or miss. And it was more miss as the series went on, but I'll still think back on it fairly fondly as a worthwhile experiment that, you know, if it makes sense to resurrect at some point down the road, once there's just more material to work with, once we've skipped ahead a phase or two and we've got more characters and storylines and what if scenario, then by all means bring it back for a fourth season. Yeah. Maybe one day we'll get that Frog Thor episode as well. Yeah. And it's also nice to have something that comes out annually, even if it's only eight or nine episodes.

Like, that's something that I think Star Wars and the MCU need because you can't just keep cranking out the live action shows without any interruption. So you do need a bad batch or a visions or Tales of the Jedi or. Tales of the Jedi or, you know, something like this, like what if to sort of wet our appetites in between, you know, not that it would be the worst thing for some of these franchises to take a break at some point and leave us wanting more and let us recharge our interest. But then again, we would have fewer things to talk about at the Ringaverse. So I'm arguing against our own interest here. Also, I think it's funny that even in animation, and this was also sort of self-aware, They kind of nodded it, but some of the endings of these episodes do turn into your early phase

MCU movie, just like special effects fest, which sometimes works better in animation, but still, like the Gundam episode, the Kaiju versus Mex, cool premise, but then it does turn very much into like, let's destroy New York City again, which, you know, we're recording in New York City right now. Leave our city alone for once, please. But they're like, you can't drop a nuke over the city. And then they do anyway. And there's just like a smoking hole. And, you know, we don't like see anyone who lives in that city. So we're not connected to there's no stakes, like emotionally speaking, really. There's, you know, Bruce, I guess. And Sam is his best friend now, I guess. And like a lot of their backstory is just narrated by the watcher, which, again, like,

it's just hard to do that in half an hour. Or in the finale, you just kind of have watchers beating each other up for a while. And it's not really clear, like, can they get hurt? Like, did this beam of energy hurt them more than that beam of energy did? Like, what is the power scaling here? I can't really tell. So they just got to punch each other for a while until we decide that they've had enough. Yeah, it's tough because, like, to your point, like, it's just tough to really pack all that into a 30-minute episode. And some of these concepts were just extremely ambitious. And, like, that episode one, I mean, it's just ending up with it. being like Hulkzilla there.

Yeah. I just had, that was the one I think I had the most questions about where even just the beginning, I was like, why is Thor in a mech suit? How is this going to benefit Thor? Right. Yeah. And like, Moon Knight was in a mech? Yeah.

I'm like, all right. Moon Knight's back. Sure. Why not? We haven't seen Moon Night at a while. We didn't get Moonnight season two. So let's just stick him in here. Not like Oscar Isaac can get work otherwise, I guess.

So anyway, they've had a nice. I guess we've had enough. They've come to the end of what if and we've come to the end of our what if discussion. Was there, is there anything like left on the table here that I'm just putting you on the spot here? But like, was there something that you always wanted to see that you were like, oh, well, we got Howard the Duck and Darcy instead of this thing, this hypothetical that I always had in my mind or some character I would want to see again that this afforded the opportunity for a comeback potentially. That's a good question.

I did kind of like the focus on Howard the Duck, honestly, even though it was a lot. I like that choice just because it's so random. Yeah. I would have liked to see maybe this is just me being greedy after X-Men 97 as well, but more X-Men characters. Like if they really are going to go this full direction of trying to promote what we have coming and new characters,

why not even throw in the Fantastic Four a little bit? Yeah. And they could have just redone some of the, the older Marvel, like, what if comics. I think, like, one of the first one was, like, as simple as, like, what if Spider-Man was in the Fantastic Four. Like, I think it's tough to do something like that before the Fantastic Four movie even comes. And I think there's all these intentions of trying to save some of that stuff for, whether

it's X-Men 97 or for the X-Men movies or for the Fantastic Four movie. So, again, that's just part of my own, my own creed. But I think, again, that's part of the issue that I had with this season, at least, where it's kind of some of the characters that I don't really want to see as much. I loved Agatha all along. We got a whole season of that. I don't know if I need a full other episode

to start the season with Agatha too. So it's tough when you have this many characters. Like to do somebody like, I don't know, I guess I've been playing some Marvel rivals. So somebody like Magic or one of these other characters that we haven't seen. Well, I guess Magic was briefly in X-Men 97, but a character like that that we haven't seen

on this kind of stage. Was anything you were hoping for? I don't know. Howard was definitely not on my wish list, but it does kind of feel like, you know, Howard, Howard could be like a guardian of the galaxy. Like, why not? If, you know, we have a raccoon and we have Groot, like, why not Howard? Maybe this is a springboard to a more prominent role.

But, yeah, I think some of those things like, okay, maybe we need to wet the audience's appetite for Ironheart, but I don't think people could be more hyped than they already are for X-Men or Fantastic Four. So it's kind of like, let's keep our powder dry. for the big unveiling. Like, let's not steal our own thunder when it comes to that. We can have Storm come in and she'll bring the thunder, I guess. But beyond that, we'll wait for the big rollout here.

So, all right. Well, we have covered it all. We are watchers as well. And we enjoyed watching these. I guess we could give a more qualified recommendation, if that, to what if season three. Not wholehearted, not full-throated, but more of a, hey, you got a little free time here. You want to low-stakes stream something that you may not have to pay 100% attention to,

then that's there for you. And sometimes it's nice to have that too. Yeah, I agree. And we'll see when it comes back with Marvel Zombies with a completely different format, one that's, I'm assuming, not going to be an anthology-style series. So for the big what-if fans, if they're out there, they'll definitely be something else to look forward to at least. All right, and you also have something else to look forward to on this episode, listener. We will be back in just a moment with our Ringiverse Recommends Picks for December.

Daniel, thank you very much. Thanks for having me, Ben. Oatu, do you know if there truly is a road after this one, beyond all we have seen? With some mysteries, sometimes the only answer is another question. All right, it's Ben back again. a new location with a wardrobe change and a doxen to deliver your regularly scheduled edition of Ringerverse Recommends. We considered skipping this month what was holidays and vacations, but I'm glad we went ahead

because we've got some great picks for you. If you came for Squid Game or What If and haven't heard a previous installment of Ringervverse Recommends, this is the monthly minipod where Ringaverse and House of Our hosts and friends join forces at the end of each month to give a little love to the lower profile fandoms and shout out the recent releases that we've liked, but haven't had a chance to devote a full podcast too. They can be books, comics, movies, video games, TV shows, podcasts, audio dramas, anything goes, and we've got a great range of recommendations ready to unwrap right now. Despite the difficulties of December scheduling, almost all of our hosts are here for some holiday

cheer and a happy new year. I'll be back with my selection midway through and again at the end to recap the picks. And remember, you can submit your own recommendations. or respond to ours via email at ringerverse recommends at gmail.com. Let's lead off with a man who loves himself some Superman, SuperBan. Lathan. Another person. I have to keep them safe. The boys do not live in a bubble anymore.

They live in the real world. They're not ready. They have each other and they have you and that's going to have to be enough. Please don't leave me. I promise I won't. It is time you finally accept you can't do this on your own anymore. He doesn't have to. We have an idea.

I will kill you right here. Then do it. Time to die, Lois. What's up, guys? It's Van. Give you my Ringerverse Reckomens for December. It's easy. Very easy because it's the final season of Superman and Lois. Fantastic show.

Gone Too Soon. RIP to one of the best Superman adaptions ever. This season was truncated. It's only 10 episodes. Normally it's longer than that. So you got everything that you needed to get out of the final season. A lot of people know about the stories behind the scenes. They took some of the characters down.

They shrunk the story a little bit. But it ends in a ridiculously, emotionally fulfilling way. We see the resolution of Superman's story, of Lois's story, of Lex Luthor's story, of all the sporting characters and everything that made this particular iteration of Superman in Smallville. So amazing. I'm telling you right now, there's a Superman movie

that is coming out next year. Next year it's coming out. James Gunn. I'm looking directly at James Gunn right now. It better be good. Better be fantastic. Because we know that James Gunn didn't want this show

to continue because he only wants one Superman. And that's fine. This is prerogative. It's the head guy over there. But if this movie sucks and I had to give up my friends in Smallville for it, I'll make you pay James Gunn. I'll make you pay big time, baby. Ringverse recommends Superman and Lewis the final season.

If you haven't watched the whole show, start it. If you haven't finished the final season, finish it. Goodbye, Smallville. In the end, all will kneel before doom. What's up, everyone? Steve Allman here for Ring and Versa Recommends for the month of December, and I'm talking about the hottest video game

that's out this month. Marvel Rivals! That's right. Do you like Overwatch? Good, you don't. That's right, because you're playing Marvel Rivals. It's really fun. It's a 6V6 team shooter

that is, you know, invocative of those classic games that you love. Overwatch, Team Fortress, everything like that. You get to play as a roster of like 33 characters. It's one of the most comprehensive rosters that I've seen in a free-to-play game

in a very long time. My current main is Jeff the Shark. Hey, wait, hey, come in right now. Come in here. Are you dead ass or Jeff the Shark, Mark? Yes. Hey, I hate your guts. No, not as bad as Iron Fist. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Because I started playing Quick Play, right? And what y'all like to do, I'm a Moon Night Man. Follow you up. Swallow me up. Throw you off the map. And throw me, relax. And throw me off the map. Okay.

That's what, that's cheesing. I do hate Iron Fist Mains, though. Y'all are the real ops, for real. But Jeff the Sark mains also suck, too. I love Jeff the Shark. And I love Marvel rivals. It's honestly a really good, easy to get into game. And it's not as toxic as you think it is.

The sweats haven't taken over. I promise you you're going to have a good time. And guess what? It's free. So you can mess around with it and it doesn't cost you anything. Marvel Rivals, December. Great. Hey, everyone, it's Mal.

I am here for Ringervor's Recommends for December, and I would love to tell you about Flow, from Latvian animator and filmmaker, Gince Zilbelotas. Flo is checking in about 85 minutes, and every single one of those minutes is magical and memorable, and you will be thinking about it as I have been nonstop after you see it. isn't on streaming yet, but it will be pretty shortly after you get to see Ring Reverse Recommendants.

And if you have a chance to see it at the movie theater, it is out on limited screens. Don't miss the opportunity. I got to watch this in a sold-out theater in L.A., surrounded by other adults who all were moved to tears. This is an absolutely beautiful story starring cap. There are no people in this movie. There is not a word uttered. And yet, I would say there are words uttered nonstop, because every. Every meow or bark or squawk tells us something sincere about the experience that the characters are having.

The animation style is fascinating and beautiful, the stunning backdrops and landscapes and waterwork. And then the actual animal effects, which are very distinct in the foreground, the sound design. Real animals were recorded in order to give us cats meows. etc. The scrabbling of the claws on the deck of the boat. Everything about this, all of the little details and touches just make it so immersive and memorable. I don't want to say much about the story. If you watch the trailer, you know that flow is the journey that Cat and his fellows go on as a flood affects their home. What has happened to all of the people? How long have they been gone, these are not answers that we ultimately get. This is a story about cat and about life and about

embracing change and conquering your fear and making new surprising connections and forging and fostering community. I found it quite stressful to watch because as an animal lover, I was very concerned about cat and our other beautiful critters the entire time, but I thought it was so moving and inspiring, downright spiritual and mystical in spots. I try. I truly cannot recommend this highly enough. It is one of the favorites for best animated feature heading into Oscar season. You will not regret watching Flow. It is sensational.

I hope you enjoy. Toml had taken the long way back from scouting. Against his better judgment, he let down his wolfskin hood and welcomed the wind's needles as he pressed through the howling dark. Toml's gods were in this cold, as they were in the snow and the croakest and promise of color fast, to sleep beneath the freeze. If this was the last time they ever wrapped their arms around him, he wanted to feel it.

Oh, hi, it's me, Joanna Robinson. I'm here with one last sort of book-centric ringer-verse recommend for you here at the end of the year. I have been having so much fun this year, bringing you a new title that came out that month. For the most part, I stuck to that. I'm breaking the rules slightly here at the end of the year. Who is going to stop me? Nobody.

I want to recommend a book that came out in traditional published format in October. It actually first came out a couple years ago, but this is the first time you can have it in, like, a beautiful bound. I just want to show you how gorgeous this it is. It looks like this. It is Blood Over Bright Haven by ML Wang. It's got this beautiful red edges and then, like, you know, a map at the end and all that sort of all the fantasy goodies you could possibly want. And this is a story about two. sort of underdog

ostracized beings in a mystical land who come together to sort of tackle some of the more restrictive structures of the society that they live in. If that sounds very dry, it's not. It's a really inventive, magical world.

And it might start a little familiar to you. It might start with a bloody, wintry attack and they might say the word dire wolf on the first page. But after that, we're really not feeling very thronesy at all. If anything, it's just a perfect little magical world to immerse yourself in and a bunch of characters that really sneak up on you in terms of how much

you wind up caring for them. Emma Wang is a fairly popular author in the in the sci-fi fantasy genre. The sort of Kagan was like a really very, very popular book that she wrote. And this one is I had a great time with it. And then I want to, again, because it's the end of the year, I'm going to break the rules. Who's going to stop me? I want to go back to, I wanted to tell you which of all the books I read this year and recommended it. I want to tell you which one was my favorite and give it one more push here at the end of the year. It's the holidays.

Maybe you have some extra time. I want to recommend the Tainted Cup. This was my favorite book, the new book that I read this year, Robert Jackson Bennett. And this is, if you don't remember me talking about it before, it's a mystery novel sort of like Holmes and Watson esque mystery novel set

in a magical world where there's sort of mysterious threats from without and deeply dangerous threats from within and I love these characters so much

and I love this this is like my new favorite magical world and there's going to be sequels I think that Robert Jackson Bennett is really talented everything he writes

is wonderful but this is like a real step up and this world I cannot wait for the next installment in it. So get in at the beginning, the tainted cup, and then also, if you have not yet, blood over Bright Haven, enjoy your holidays, enjoy catching up on some books you haven't read, and, you know, find me on the various social media or, you know, email us Hobbitson Dragons at

gmail.com if there are books that I missed that you think I really would have liked that came out this year, and we'll see you in the new year. Bye. Everyone's dead, hon There's no one left Did you sleep through the man naked Whoever might He left He's out of time

What do you want I haven't seen anyone in the longest time Disappear But me Now you Hey it's Ben And I'm bringing you a recommendation For an MGM Plus original

Wait, don't fast forward Hear me out I will admit this show is not well known and I would not have known it existed if I hadn't seen a single well-placed sign in the subway. You might not see a sign, which is why I want to highlight it here. The sign said Earth Abides, and I did a double-take when I spotted it

because I did not know that one of my favorite books had been adapted for TV. Earth Abides The Show is based on the 1949 novel of the same name, a post-apocalyptic classic by George R. Stewart that inspired Stephen King's The Stand, another of my favorites. One of the great things about Earth Abides, both the book and the show is that it doesn't rely on a lot of the heightened tropes of the genre. Almost all of humanity is killed by a pandemic, but there are no zombies or mutants or roving gangs of lawless marauders.

There's just the challenge and the satisfaction of surviving and thriving in a world without people. That makes the book tough to adapt because the protagonist, Ish, is initially alone. There isn't a ton of action, and a lot of the intrigue comes from Ish's observations and ruminations. It may remind you of The Martian, in that it's sci-fi about nature and knowledge and solitude and scienceing the shit out of things. It's also kind of a cozy post-apocalyptic story, which is not something I say often. Ish is played by Alexander Ludwig, who most recently appeared on TV as the wrestler Ace Spade in one of my favorite shows of the past few years, Heels. He's playing a very different character here, an improbably jacked geologist and family man who's trying to rebuild civilization. Took me some time to get used to seeing Ludwig in a role like this, but if I can't have Heel Season 3, then I'm glad I got Earth Abides.

This is a six-episode miniseries, and I wish it were longer. I've written and talked about the problems that arise when creators try to tell stories in six episodes that are probably better suited for either a movie or a longer season. And as you might imagine, compressing an almost 400-page novel that takes place over decades into this amount of screen time requires some compromises. There's more than a little lost in translation. The quality of the writing is variable. The time jumps are jarring. And one part falls prey to one of my post-apocalypse pet peeves, which is when characters act like resources are scarce,

even though they could probably camp out in a Costco and have supplies for life. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the show, and I think you might too. The whole thing aired in December. The finale was on Sunday, so you can watch it start to finish right now. And yeah, you might not be familiar with MGM Plus unless you watch from. which a listener nominated on the October edition of Ringaverse recommends, but Earth Abides is worth watching, even if it means subscribing to an unfamiliar streaming service.

And if you don't want to watch it, that's fine, as long as you read the book instead. 250 years after the event, the Martian Revolution remains one of the most formative events in human history. This is not a novel observation. Contemporaries quickly realized the momentousness of it all as it was happening. Historians have only amplified. the conclusion that the Martian Revolution was a big deal, a really big deal.

Every political, social, and economic trend in interplanetary history runs through that chaotic decade. Its results and outcomes and legacies form the basis of modern human civilization. Everywhere you look throughout the solar system, the legacy of the Martian Revolution lives on. Hello, Ringiverse. This is at Kram. Now, normally, when I record these monthly missives, it's for a book recommendation. And there's a big old fantasy book out this month. But if you're caught up on the Cosmere, you probably already know about Wind and Truth,

the fifth book of Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive. And if you're not cut up on the Cosmere, you have many thousands of pages to get through before you're ready for the new book. So that's not the recommendation I'll choose for December. Instead, I come to you with a fictional podcast that requires no prior homework. It's on the Revolution's podcast feed,

where the latest season details the Martian Revolution. It's a story about, well, a revolution on Mars after its colonization by humans. It's influenced by classic sci-fi, like Heinlein and Kin Stanley Robinson. And I also find elements that remind me of modern epics, like Red Rising and The Expans. But the real trick that makes the Martian Revolution work is its framing. The revolution itself takes place around the year 2250, but it's told from the perspective of a historian around the year 25, which gives him as much distance from the Martian Revolution as our real-world modern-day historians have from the American Revolution. And who better to act as an in-universe fictional historian than Mike Duncan, the history podcaster,

who draws on his previous work narrating the revolutions in France and Haiti and Russia and more. In the Martian Revolution, this framing means that Duncan's narrator speaks about key characters, the same way a real historian would speak about Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Hamilton, because the audience quote-unquote knows who they already are. He invents fake primary and secondary sources that he can reference and critique. And through these storytelling tricks and more, he weaves a compelling narrative that manages to both entertain and inform the listener about how revolutions actually happen. The Martian season of the Revolutions podcast is planned to run 25 to 30 episodes,

and we're only a third of the way in as I record in late December. So start listening to this unique podcast story, and be transported to a potential future for humankind. And remember, when you hear the whispers, call for help. Do not attack. When you hear the whispers, what do you think he was on about? It's Dorman, right? Yeah.

Then Dorman. Shut your damn mouth. Why do I always get stuck with these rookies? Hey, the kids got to. mean cleave. Give him a chance. Quiet. Happy Holidays Ringerverse. It's Matt James, the deputy art lead

here at the Ringer and also frequent button mash guest. I'm here today with another video game recommendation for you. I recommend that you do not play Path of Exile 2 available now in early access on PC, Xbox, and PS5. Don't do it. The game is

too good. If you have people in your life who depend on you, if you have responsibilities you need to check in on, occasionally, don't play Path of Exile 2. If you've ever enjoyed a game in the Diablo series, the series that heavily inspired the Path of Exile series, don't play Path of Exile 2. You won't enjoy Diablo games anymore. They feel like mobile games now to me. I haven't felt such a pull towards a video game since Eldon Ring came out. And much like Eldon Ring, this game is actually pretty challenging. Unlike Eldon Ring, though, there's no penalty for dying and there's

checkpoints everywhere, so it feels a lot more fair and less cruel. The real star of the show here, though, is the combat Path of Exile, too. It's fast, it's responsive, and most importantly, it is deeply, deeply customizable. Every skill or spell that you carry has slots in it for support gems, and those support gems that you plug into it change the way that these things behave and interact with each other. So what ends up happening is the way that you can create your character and design your build out, the freedom there is just unprecedented. And if there's anything you don't understand in the game, a term, effect or whatever, you can just click on it and it'll give you a concise explanation of what frenzy is or whatever. I should probably look up what frenzy is.

Now, it is an early access, so it's not quite finished and polished yet, but I have no doubt that if this game comes out in 25, 25 as it's supposed to, it will be a game of the year contender, for sure. But remember, do not play Path of Exile 2. And hey, happy New Year. Hello, sucker enthusiasts. It's time for another unforgettable season of BSL play. What's up, Ring ofverse?

It's Jomey back again. another recommends end of the year. I'm recommending the video game that changed my life, completely and utterly. That's right. Backyard soccer is back, baby. You can get it on Steam right now. Like, I, you know, shout at the Galaxy.

One, their sixth MLS Cup this year. That's right. And so I'm all the way back in the soccer. I mean, I've always been in the soccer, but I'm so deep in it now. And backyard soccer, forget FIFA, E.AFC, whatever the hell they're calling it nowadays. Everybody's playing backyard soccer.

I love this game. I mean, y'all talk about Pablo. You'll talk about Amir. They'll talk about Pete. But my goat, my guy, play his music. That's right. Kenny Kawaguchi is back in backyard soccer. If you're not locked in with me,

then I need you to get all the way out of here. backyard soccer is legitimately one of the funnest games I've ever played I've been begging humongous entertainment to bring it back and lo and behold as God is my witness they did I cannot wait to get I'm look we are talking right now I need to go back to my Steam account start playing this game baby lock in on backyard soccer this winter you will not regret it is this Christmas yes we're doing a special Christmas everywhere all at once

Oh, God. Ham and cheese, toastie on a pumpkin latte. Who are you? Wrong room. We are on a top secret mission. What? Who are you then? Joy.

Tom and I enjoy. Thank you. It wouldn't be the holidays without a Doctor Who Christmas special. Arjuni here for Ring of Verse recommends for the month of December. My recommendation is the Doctor Who special twice upon a time. the, you know, Doctor Who annual Christmas special is something that has been going on for years and years. And, you know, there's been a ton of these, right? There's been some that are just kind of weird one-off adventures that aren't very good.

There are some that are super important to the Doctor Who lore and history. But this one in particular is just like a really nice kind of throwback. That is such a bottle episode. And one, I think that many can enjoy, you know, fans of the longtime show can enjoy. And even those who are like mildly interested in Doctor Who, but not having necessarily kept up or, you know, whomever. It's just a nice episode to kind of, you know, watch with the family, see some stars you recognize that are in the episode. It's an episode that's penned by former showrunner Steve Moffat. And it's, you know, not the worst of the Christmas specials.

I won't say it's the best. But, you know, I was entertained. I enjoyed it. I liked it. And, you know, I think there are worse ways to spend. 44 minutes or an hour of your time, depending if you have ads or not, then watching Doctor Who. So give it a watch.

Watch it with yourself, watch it with your family, your friends, whomever. But that's my recommendation for the month of December. Just want to say a quick shout out to all the Ring ofverse fans for a great 2024. We're excited to see you in 2025. Got so much cooking up. Back to you, Ben. Well, thank you, Arjuna. Ben here with you one more time to put this pod to bed. While I'm here, I'll mention two December shows on Netflix that I haven't had a chance to check out yet but hope to sometime soon, 100 years of solitude, and Gentry Chow versus the underworld.

I'll also give a Vulcan salute to the dearly departed Star Trek Lower Decks, which went out with a wonderful last two episodes and will be sorely missed around the ring of verse, at least by me and Jomey. We don't have a full listener nomination this month, but thank you to Ben, who wrote in with a shout-out to the the animated show Invincible Fight Girl on Adult Swim and Max, and to Serafina, who recommended the mobile game Monument Valley 3 on iOS and Android via Netflix games. We welcome nominations for next month. Just send 2 to 300 words on an unsung January nerd culture release to Ringiverse Recommends at gmail.com. Okay, it's time for the traditional recapping of picks from Van Lathen, the finale of Superman and Lois on the CW, from Steve Alman, with an interjection by Joan,

me Marvel Rivals on Windows, PlayStation, and Xbox. From Mallory Rubin, the animated movie Flow. From Joanna Robinson, the novel Blood Over Bright Haven by ML Wang. From me, Earth Abides, the MGM Plus miniseries. From Zach Cram, the Martian Revolution season of Mike Duncan's Revolution's podcast. From Matt James, Path of Exile 2 on Windows, PlayStation and Xbox. From Jomea Denneron, the Backyard Soccer remaster on Steam,

Backyard Soccer 98. and from our Juno Ramigopal, the Doctor Who Christmas special on Disney Plus. Thanks to Carlos Chiroboga for producing this episode and to our Juno Ramqa pal for giving it the green light. Stay tuned for the junior mince on the things they missed in 2024, continuing coverage of skeleton crew, and a bunch of pods about what we're hyped for in 2025, including next week's button mash on our most anticipated video games and game adaptations. We appreciate your support this year.

We look forward to spending next year with you too. And until next time, we hope that you'll recommend the Ringerverse.