The Ringer-Verse - The Best of the Year (So Far)! | House of R

Episode Date: July 14, 2023

Do you want the best? Well, you got it! Mal and Jo are here to give you each their top ten best recommendations in the world of fandom so far (12:26). From movies to shows to everything in between, they share with you all the things you need to have seen by now. They later do a trailer hype check-in with Ahsoka, ’Dune: Part 2,’ and more (96:04), then end with some ‘Secret Invasion’ talk on the latest episode (1:49:52). Hosts: Mallory Rubin and Joanna Robinson Social: Jomi Adeniran Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Additional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Keep going for family. I'm not family. No. Your cargo. Any advice on the best way west? Go east. There's no halfway with this. We finish what we started.

We will never have friends because there are no friends to be had. And welcome into the ringerverse here on the ringer podcast network. I'm Mallory Rubin and it is my absolute pleasure to invite you not only to paris to Paris, but also to join us on the ringers nexus podcast feed for all things fandom. Joining me today, now that she's finished telling Rody, I'll be dead from exhaustion and defeat soon enough. It's my house of our co-host, Joanna Robinson. Hey, Joe. Hey, I, okay, exhaustion is often our mode, but this is quite the summer of rejuvenation.

And I am quite filled with an excitement and hope for the show that we have set up today. Me too. Just like invigorated by what we're going to talk about today. Same. We are going to be sharing our best of the year so far lists, which we will explain in a moment. We are going to be checking in on Secretivation episode four. But before we break out the Pappy, some quick programming reminders. As always, on the ringerverse feed,

which is popping. You can look forward to in the coming days. Another video from Jessica Clemens, break it down the Easter eggs at episode four of Secret Invasion. Next week, the Midnight Boys. Beep, pew, pew. We'll have a double feature draft. They will be drafting in honor of Barbenheimer,

toys and explosions. Tune in. That's all there is to say. The best, what? The best toys and explosions? Yeah, it's a double feature draft in honor of Barbie and Ameth Oppenheimer. Toys and explosions. Love that. A incredible idea.

Love it. We will have a double feature of our own in a way, in a fashion for you next week, because it's time for another Doctor Who check-in. House of Who will be back. And we will also be checking in on Secret Invasion episode 5, the panel. ultimate episode of Secret Invasion. Joe, a quick reminder for everybody of the homework for the next who check-in. Yeah, next to you check-in. So we got an email from someone panicked that they had missed this one. And yeah, it's shifted around a little on our schedule. But like,

will it move again. Who can say? It could. Maybe. Well, very possibly. But as of right now, it's fixed point in time and space is next week on the feed. We will be covering the end of David Tenants Run. That goes from the voyage of the damn Chris's special with the artist behind the hit of the summer, Kylie Minogue herself, is on that

episode of Doctor Who. Then we get the final full season with Donna Noble, Catherine Tate, and then the specials, the concluding specials. So that is what we were covering, just the tail end of David Tenants' run. And then after that,

good news for your beloved Adam Mallory Rubin, it's Matt Smith time. So Adam has been waiting for Matt Smith to show up at Doctor Who. So that's next. But as of next week, it's just the tail end of David Tenet. Actually, we're going to talk about David Tenet today in a certain point on this episode. That's really exciting. Can I tell folks how to keep on top of everything?

Please. Something I should do? Okay. Yeah. That would be great. Well, I just want to say, in addition to talking about David Tenet's, on this feed next week. Mallory and I will be talking about a shared love,

Timothy Oliphant, over on the Prestige TV podcast feed. It's Justified Week over on the Prestige TV podcast feed. So Mal and Chris Ryan and I are doing a Hall of Fame Justified episode, and then Rob Mahoney and I will be breaking down the series slash season premiere of Justified City Primeval. Just very excited for that to talk about one of my favorite shows of all time, one of our shared favorite characters of all time, railing good.

Can't wait. And it's happening over there. Also, just really want to quickly shout out trial by content, another show that I do, that like we've just been having a really good time over there. This last week, we talked about the best stunt in film history in honor of Mission Impossible

Dead Reckoning. If you wanted my Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning takes, that's where you'll find them. Next week, similar but yet different to the Midnight Boys. I love the way that the Midnight Boys have framed this. We're breaking down the best double features, literal double features of all time. So, like, the best weekends were two incredible films were at the box office at the same time.

That is what we were talking about. And then we'll also obviously be talking about Barbenheimer. So how do you keep track of PrestiGovie and The Ringerverse and Childlike content and is Mallory on the rewatchables this week? And like, what is going on? Listen, why don't you just subscribe to literally every Ringer podcast? That might be a good thing to do. But also, follow us on social at the Ringerverse, on Instagram, on Twitter, on TikTok, et cetera. et cetera, at the ringer, if you want the larger sort of keeping up to date with everyone.

Also, email us. If you're like in a panic, did I miss the Donna doctor, Doctor Who catch up? I'm here to tell you, no, you didn't. And that person emailed us at Hobbits and Dragons at gmail.com. We also, in our best of 2023 that we're going to do this week, we also got a bunch of submissions from listeners of things that they were really excited about that. and I didn't catch up on that. I just wanted to make sure I got a shout out. So, you know, stay in touch.

Send us to your Doctor Who thoughts. We love to hear from you all all the time. And I think that is it. Mallory, what are we spoiling today? Spoiler warning today is a little tricky, though it is, as always a friendly neighborhood one. We will, of course, be talking about Beloved, which is the fourth episode of Secret Invasion.

We'll be talking about all of Secret Invasion to date. Marvel, all of the MCU, comics canon, And all of that is on the table, as always. And here's a thing. We're doing best of the year so far, which means that in theory, anything that has aired in 2023 that has been released in 2020

could come up today. We will, of course, announce the thing we are about to talk about. And so if there's a certain title that you are thinking, hey, maybe I'll go catch up and then head back and listen to that three-minute segment later.

You can do that. You can zip around. We will try. try to make this as safe of a space as it can possibly be on the spoiler front, but also we're going to be talking about the things that we thought really landed and why. So we will be talking about things that happened in shows, movies, books, comics, games, etc. that came out this year. Best of so far.

Should we explain how the best of the year so far list is going to work, Joe? I'm dying to know. I'm dying to know, Mallory. Tell me. Here's a thing. It's going to feel very familiar to the House of Our Head. because we're doing a countdown. We're doing a 10-to-1 countdown

where we will each be presenting our lists to each other. I don't know what's on your list. You, in theory, don't know what's on my list, but I feel like you could probably sketch it out 10-to-one, largely in order. Maybe a couple surprises on the order,

but probably only a few. I'm going to do that thing where I'm going to do that thing where I write down your number one. Yeah, I think you'll definitely know my top three. Maybe the order will surprise you, though. I don't think so. Okay. I'll probably be as predictable as ever.

Why are we doing this now, Joe? Well, you know, it's July. So it's the time of the year when people do these things. They look back. They say, what if we enjoyed so far? Right? What can we celebrate? What made us happy?

What made us excited for the future, for more stories to come? Also, a little synergy here at the Ringer. You were just talking about all the wonderful pods we're doing. We've got some great stuff cooking at the ringer.com. What a great website, too. A great website. Yeah. Yeah.

What a great website, including some best of pieces. You can check out Adam Namad's best movies of two. movies of 2003 So Far Peace Miles Surrey has the best TV shows of

2020 so far piece check it all out this will be ringer verse content right

so nerd culture fandom sci fi fantasy genre storytelling doesn't necessarily

mean that everything on this list will be something we have previously talked about

on this pod it just means it's something that we could have talked about on this

pod maybe even wish that we had talked about on this pod. And I think a good rule of thumb broadly is that if it was eligible for the 2023 hype draft when we were looking ahead, it's eligible today. Maybe something will come up that we'll discuss whether it technically is allowed to appear here,

but I don't think so. This is a celebration pot. It'll be great. Any questions? Concerns. I just want to clarify that in trying to predict your number one, it is not me saying I think you are predictable. It is me, it is my love, my eternal love of concepts like the newlywed game where like I like, I like to show you that I know you.

That's all, that's all I'm trying to do. Not that you're so, oh, so predictable. On the one hand, my list surprised me a bit. But on the other hand, I'm like, yeah, Joanna could probably nail this 10 to 1. Without an issue. We'll see. I will reveal to you a little spoiler about my list, which is that it's all television shows and movies. I have a comic that I'll throw out later in my honorable mentions,

but so much of my reading in the first six months of this year has been either revisiting stories on the work front or catching up on stuff like tomorrow and tomorrow, Clare on the Sun that I missed from the last year or so. Yeah, but nothing, we were very strict to themselves in terms of like it had to have come out this year. Right. It's not just new to us this year.

It's did it actually come out this year. Correct. So when we do this, we do this year, this at the end of the year when we look back at our favorite things, our favorite moments, our favorite performances, our favorite releases, et cetera. Maybe I'll have a number of novels that have moved me and touched my life. That's my hope. But I look forward to hearing what's on your list on that front today. I'm excited. I'm excited. I love a reading recco. Should we start? Should we just dive right in? Did you already say the thing about how like if someone has an

installment higher up, we'll talk about it later on the height meter style, moment style. if I have, let's say, for example, quantum mania. Yay! Just going with the title that we knew definitively would not be on either list. And thus it was safe to throw out as a false hypothetical. Love it. I have quantumania at 10. And Joanna has it at number one.

One, my favorite movie of the year. Yeah. Yes. Then we would wait until we got to number one to time. talk about quantum media. Correct. Yeah. Yep.

Fantastic. Joe, let's get started. Let's hear number 10. Kick us off. Number 10 on the list. And this is going to be an ongoing theme, a fairly consistent theme, which is that when it's something that we have covered together, I always wind up loving it more. This is not, yeah, just because, like, you know.

Oh. Yeah. It's really nice. Talking to you about something always makes me love it more. And just like spending that sort of marinating week to week in an ongoing story is always important for me, appreciating it. And then also if you add, let's say, Elijah Wood and musicals to it, then I'm going to have like an even better time. So I'm here to talk to you about yellow jackets unless you have it higher. So I don't.

And this was one of my, is this eligible questions? And then, of course, I know you had it on your hype draft. the top of the air, and we talked about the eligibility then. And of course, the debate of the question of the supernatural is part of the fun of talking about yellow jackets. And so, of course, it's eligible. I don't have it on my list. I had it as my first out, my first out. So similar placement, ultimately. Yeah. And it's like, and I, I, you know, we had our issues with season two. It wasn't as tight as season one for us. But talking about it every week with you over on the prestige feed was, like, really fun for me. We talked a lot about a lot of genre stuff in terms of

like mythology and like, you know, witchcraft and all these other sort of occult things. And then also, yes, there's this ongoing question of like, is there something supernatural going on this show? We don't know. And then also I just need everyone to know that my love for Yellow Jackets was reignited this last week when Family Feud Celebrity Edition had their like premiere episodes. And it was the adults yellow jackets versus the teen yellow jackets. And it was so delightful.

That's on Hulu. I recommend Yellow Jacket fans. Check it out. Watching Christina Ricci, like thrilled to the bone to play Family Feud is not something I knew that I would love as much as I did. So anyway, Yellow Jackets, Season 2, number 10 on the list.

I love it. There were two things for me that were really hard to leave off of my top 10. This was one of them. The other one I'll mention later in honorable mentions. I also had a blast talking about Yellow Jackets with you every week. truly one of the most enjoyable weekly theory fodder shows. Talking about that on the internet, potting about it every week. What a treat.

What a treat. We got to, remember we got to pot about the finale in person in Sweden? What a time house. Yeah, with Steve in Steve's hotel room. Poor Steve. What a gem. My number 10, this was one of the surprises. I did not anticipate that this would make my top 10.

And I watched this very recently. And here it is, checking in at number 10. I had missed it in real time, caught up. I don't think this is going to be on your list. But maybe it will be. Super Mario Brothers. I was hoping you'd have it on your list. It's not on my list.

I'm glad you had on this. I watched this really recently, and I had a blast. Joe, I had so much fun watching this movie. I found it surprisingly delightful. and just like good, clean, fun at the movies. Bowser as a lovesick loser, tremendous. Peach as a central driving force of the film

as an action star while Luigi is relegated to brother in distress status. Fantastic, genuinely phenomenal modern update that I really appreciated and enjoyed. I thought this was the good kind of nostalgia in a way that I frankly wasn't expecting it to be when I saw the trailer. And I was like, okay, sure, I'll check it out one day. But in an era of relentless, ceaseless IP, right? The question of do we need a Super Mario Brothers movie is a fair one to ask.

And without overstating things, I'll say that it felt like it existed for like a reason. Like it was a way to get Mario in front of new people. and also appeal to the fondness and affection that people who had grown up playing the games would have. Like this ported me back in a major, major, major way. It sent me down a pipe into my own memories. I was just thinking so palpably of like I really could like see myself. You know those memories you have where you're like looking down at yourself from above? I could just see myself sitting like cross-legged on the floor of my basement playing on my NES, playing Super Mario.

when I was a kid for like hours and hours and hours on end. And then the thrill of playing Mario Kart for the first time. And I had like such vivid memories of when I got my N64, playing Super Mario 64, being in that 3D world for the first time and just the like months of my life that I spent loving being in that world. And, you know, this is one of those like truly striking rotten tomato divide movies where you've got, you know, a critic score in the 50s and an audience score in the 90s in the 90s, which I always think is kind of interesting.

And I just don't know what those critics were expecting from the Super Mario movie. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Like, it feeds into something else we might talk about higher up the list. But I think sometimes when these nostalgia properties come up, I think some critics are looking for it to sort of reinvent or re-examine or pull apart in a way that sort of like helps us understand why this was such a phenomenon in the first place, something like that. And some things have so much on that, you know, like, I'm really interested to see what

Greta Gerwig is about to do with Barbie. I haven't seen it yet. But like, she has a lot in her mind when it comes to that. Like, I think that's great. But I think it's also great to just deliver a purely solid, efficient, you know, iteration of an IP that we enjoy. You know what I mean? So, yeah. There it is. Boom. Mario. Love it. What's your nine? Also, fun, fine time of the cinema comes in at number nine for me. It was on my hype list. I think everyone who saw it was like, oh. And some people are like, oh, but like mostly people are like, oh.

And it's Dungeons and Dragons, colon, honor, among thieves. And I just wanted to put it on here in case people did not make it to the cinema to see this. I kind of understand. Like me. Yeah, it might not have risen to that level for you. But now that it's streaming. sort of similar to what you did with Mario, like now that it's streaming,

you might be like, oh, I didn't hear from a single person who didn't have a good time at this movie. You know what I mean? So, like, I had really, really high hopes for it. It did not go as high as my beloved game night from the same filmmakers that I was sort of hoping it would go that high.

So that's why it's not higher on the list. But I just had such a good time, Chris Pine, just delivering one of his, like, iconic rakeish sort of figures. Hugh Grant having a phenomenal time being a bad guy, which is just increasingly like his mode these days, and it's fantastic.

And watching Michelle Rodriguez just, you know, absolutely pummel everything. And so I could watch her punch things all day long, personally. So, yeah, it was fun. It was funny. I think there are like a few too many, like, big CGI moments that I'm just like, I don't think you need these for like the way where the story really works are just like the smaller jokes and the character

moments and stuff like that. So yeah, check it on streaming, Dungeons and Dragons, honor among these. If you haven't. I will. Do. Do that, Mallory. I can't wait. You'll be hearing from me.

Okay. I'll be sending you my thoughts. My number nine, I am anticipating as higher on your list. Okay. We'll see. Black Mirror, season six. No. Oh, twist.

Okay. So not on your list. Interesting. Interesting. Interesting. Okay. We haven't gotten to talk about this yet. If anybody has not heard Joe and Van pot about the most recent season,

you can catch a couple episodes on the prestige TV podcast, including some wonderful thoughts about the series and as a whole favorite episodes, least favorite episodes, etc. It was a real trip down memory lane. Loved it. This was not my favorite black mirror season. This was a real mixed bag. But this was something that you and Van talked about a lot.

Like, as always, I just found myself grateful to be with a new black mirror season and to like have the thought-provoking fodder to really, like, chew on. I had a genuine, like, did Maisie Day break black mirror crisis when I watched that episode? Like, seriously? But, yeah, I am attempting to balance that with my sincere respect for Brooker and Co. wanting to, like, reinvent and experiment and keep the format fresh and not just do, not just examine the same type of story and live in the same space season after season in the anthology. So play around with Red Mirror, that's fine.

I really enjoyed Beyond the Sea. That was my favorite of the episode. I came down in the same spot as you guys that I would have liked it to be just a full-on feature-length film. Yeah. Yeah. That would have been, I think, fantastic and maybe even like a classic.

Absolutely haunting conclusion. So I haven't been able to really stop thinking about it. And, you know, nothing from this season cracked my Pantheon Hall of Fame Black Mirror episode list. But it's just great to have new Black Mirror episodes to noodle on. Always love a new Black Mirror season. So that's my number nine. I just want to flag something really quickly.

We have just mentioned two shows, Black Mirror and Yellow Jackets, that we did not talk about on this feed. We talked about on the Prestige Feed. And sometimes I get people asking what goes on the prestige feed and what goes on the Rearverse Feed? My answer to you is don't worry about it. Just follow on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. Yes. We're right there for you.

All right. My number eight, I'm almost absolutely positive you have higher, which is the Mandeloran. I do have it higher. But only just. Yeah. Only just. We'll hold for... I wasn't sure Amanda was going to make your list. It has a question mark after. Which would be said while I was making this list, I was like, I'm willing to both. you if I have like 10 more in front of you, but it made it. Oh, man. Okay. Where, uh, what's your eight then? My number eight is a show we had the pleasure of discussing last week, Silo, season one of Silo. Great. Hit me with it. Okay. Silo, not on your list. No overlap yet. This is so interesting. This is kind of always what happens. We have like some overlap at the top and then in the bottom.

It's just, it's chaos. Yeah. We just chatted about this at length last week, so I'll keep this quick. I really enjoy. the first season of Silo, the Apple TV Plus series that recently concluded, in general, I remain quite enthusiastic about the Apple's sci-fi universe and Apple's commitment to an investment in sci-fi storytelling, some of it original, some of it adaptive. Part of the reason that this made my top 10 is because I really liked the season of TV

and I'm eager to see future seasons of the show. But I think the real reason that it just nut in ahead of a couple of the things that ended up being honorable mentions and just missing the cut was because it did that thing that I love so much and genuinely like cherish. It made me want to fall deeper into the world, right? So we had talked about in our other pod how, you know, had wool on my bookshelf for like years and years and years and haven't gotten to it and kicking myself down that I hadn't gotten to it yet. But that desire like being rekindled to pick up the book and spend more time with the characters and learn more about the mythology and the fictional

universe. Like, I'm just ready to head further into the down deep. And that's one of the great feelings that you can have as a, as a consumer. So here it is. That's something that I really loved is like, you and I both, I had to press pause on the, we'll read to read some other things that I will talk about because Will did not come out in 2023. So it could not be eligible for this. But, you know, you and I read, we dipped our toe into the beginning of it. And we both really, really responded to Hugh Howie's prose. Yeah. Beautiful. And it made me just really excited to, like, even though I might know some of the main beats of the story that play out in season one already, I really want to hear in this storyteller's words how that all plays out in his mind. So, yeah, I'm really excited to read these books.

Absolutely. Great pick. You reveal your picks first, but I will just tell you that my seven is Mando. So we can talk about that now since that was your eight. This was one of the shocks of my list. I was like, it just feels raw. Somehow it felt like I was betraying something about my very essence to not have Mando in my top five.

But I do think this is an appropriate place on the list, ultimately. Take us through it, Joe. Why was Mandelorian season three your number eight? I mean, we were really, really looking forward to it, to say the least. And, you know, coming off of boba and sort of the somewhat mixed bag that was Obi-Wan, but the highs of Andor, we were just sort of like, you know, what's his, like, you know, fizzing from the highs of Andor and then thinking about, like, being with Grogu again.

We were just sort of like, yes, take us back into this world that we love and Boca Tan. And we did all this like dark saber research and blah, blah. And I just don't feel. And like, we talked about this plenty. I don't need to like continue to kick dirt on the, on the season. But like, we felt the palpable absence of Dave Faloni, who was busy working on. Asoka. And so, like, some of the character, the characters didn't always feel true to themselves.

The character arcs didn't really feel, like, very smooth to us. Some of the decision-making just baffled us a bit. And some of the moments that we were looking forward to of, like, Bo Katan claiming the Sabre, like, all these, like, various things that we were just sort of like, this is going to be such a killer moment. It kind of felt up for us. So, like, you know, always an absolute delight to spend time with every sort of babble and coup from Grogu, obviously. Yeah. Yeah.

But it's not higher because, you know, it didn't fully feel like it was firing on all cylinders. What do you want to say about it? Yeah, I feel similarly, you know, an imperfect at times disappointing season of television that's still delivered, like, just enough of the highs to delight me in those bursts and then keep me hopeful for the future. what you were saying earlier about the way that something sticks with you, it stays in your mind, it stays in your heart, after we have gotten to spend like week after week talking about it together, like that's ultimately the counterweight and the slightly heavier weight than my bafflement of still and forever over like the Dark Sabre

or the struggle to properly balance and deploy the different characters. sets, you know, you think about certain episodes that really worked and felt like dynamic and propulsive and like that right blend of the man, the specific Mando brew with that widening of the mandolore story, you know, something like chapter 18, the second episode of the season, or chapter 23, the penultimate episode of the season, which were like excellent and reminded you of what Mando could feel like at its best. even when the episodes didn't work, being in the Mandalorian world

and talking about it every week with you and being with Grogu is still one of the things that when I'm thinking back on the last six months, like I had the most fun doing and meant the most to me. Like, grogoo, our little burbling, cooing,

gumdrop I just miss him so much. I can't wait to be back with him, Joe. I'm so interested to see, especially, you know, on the heels of the newest Ossoca trailer, which we'll chat about for a few minutes a little bit later, being so Sabine-centric, which is just like an absolute thrill to me. What the overall role of, like, Mandalorian culture is in the live-action Philoniverse moving forward as we work toward this connected story.

the movie and everything that's happening there. And then you think of, like, part of what made the Penal Ultimate episode of season three so fun, like the shadow counsel scene and hearing the Thrawn mentions and the moments where the season more successfully attempted to show us how this stretch of Star Wars canon is going to, like, work to build that bridge to the first order. Those are things that I'm excited about. And then, you know, in some ways, I think, like, the regressive nature of season three, like, not really clicking on all cylinders

when they tried to widen the scope and then going back and shrinking is like disappointing in some ways because widening to properly feature all of these other characters as part of what was exciting about the premise of season three. Yeah.

But at the end of the day, like we get that final shot of Grogo and Dinn, and we get that promise of Deng Grogh, a Mandalorian apprentice and then taking him out on his journeys,

just as your teacher did for you. And I'm like, I, when we get the first image for season four, when we get the first trailer for season four, I will be right back in this scene, sitting in front of this microphone saying, I've never wanted anything as badly in my life

as I do to see Krogo in season four of the Mandalorian. And that's just the power the show has over me, though this season was far and away the least successful of the three to date. So seven, here we are. I wonder, I wonder if we'll see Peter Pescal again. I don't know. RIP to Pirate King, Gory and,

Shard. Remember that guy? Forever in my heart. Alive forever in my heart. The playoffs are here and you can predict the action all the way to the finals with Fandul predicts. Follow all the playoff dishes, swishes, wishes, wishes, and misses. Predict the spread, the total points, and even the game winner. Sign up for Fandual Predicts and predict it from the couch. Offered by Fandual Prediction Markets LLC, a registered futures commission merchant, 18 plus. Trading derivatives involve significant risk. and may not be suitable for all investors.

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Say it with me, the Active Cash Credit Card from Wells Fargo. Be a 2%er. Learn more at Wells Fargo.com forward slash active cash terms of play. What is your 7? Because that was mine. Number 7. Yeah.

It's a pretty recent thing. Just dropped a couple weeks ago on Netflix based on a comic that I loved with all my heart. It is Nimona. Do you have Nemona on your list. I haven't gotten to watch it yet, though. I have the graphic novel, and I'm so excited to see it. Tell me, tell me what you loved about it. I was really excited for this.

Yeah, the only reason, I mean, so this is a really charming, this is a film adaptation of Andy Stevenson's graphic novel, Namona, which I love. I love that graphic novel so much. This is a Jason Manzukis recommendation. You and Zook liking the same thing. It's the, the seal of approval that every river's listener needs. The, the, this has been in development hell

forever, Namona. It was, it was supposed to be adapted a long time ago. So the fact that it finally exists, thrills me. Chloe Grace Moritz, voices Namona,

who's a shapeshifter. And Riz Ahmed, voices Ballister Boldheart, who is this, like, disgraced knight, who is, you know, considered the arch villain of this town

they made a bunch of changes to the film that sort of soften what is like so delightfully sharp about the graphic novel in a way that I'm like I don't I think we could have tolerated some of these sharper edges in in Andy Stevenson's story any of even by the way if you have not followed their career was responsible for the Netflix Shira show which was phenomenal so but not a writer on this film adaptation of their work because I believe they sold the rights away when, you know, they were sort of more starting out in the industry. I hadn't done shriot, et cetera. So the design was cool.

The shape-shifting was really fun. The relationship between Namona and Ballister is really fun. And Namona as a character as just this, like, mischievous, evil, like wanting to do evil character is really fun. You know, and this is just like a fun, fine time at the Netflix. It's a brisk 99 minutes. You know, there's just some, like, real great comedy. Beck Bennett as Sirbblade, this, like, absolute dunce of a bro of a knight is really fun. And then there's Eugene Lee Yang's performances in Broge's Golden Loin.

So, you know, it's just, it's a fun send-up of a lot of fantasy tropes that we love, a character in Nemona that is just, like, absolutely. just impossible not to root for. And yeah, this is a sneaky recommendation for the graphic novel, really. But I want people to watch the film as well. And as I said, it's a low, low investment, 99 minutes. You got time to do that. So, yeah.

I'm really fascinated to see how they adapted it. I'm excited to watch it. Can't wait. Okay. What's your number six? Roll right in. Oh, you may have this higher. Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3?

I have it higher. Okay. What's your number six? Asteroid City. Nice. I don't have it on my list. Hit me with it. I fucking loved this movie. Tell me why. Tell me. It's just like the vintage quintessential Wes Anderson. Something that a through line, I think, of the ring or verse conversation in, let's say the last year or so is some of this stuff.

And this stuff, I mean more broadly, right? Like, just feel too samey, right? And so, like, when something is in front of us that is so specifically and utterly itself and, like, could only have sprung from one mind, I'm just finding that, like, really energizing right now. The cast is obviously incredible. The visual palette was so inventive.

I loved the structure of this, which I won't spoil, but the way that the story is presented to us, I thought was just like really creative. I guess mileage may vary on that because I think some people might find it a little bit impenetrable or like overly fussy, but I really liked it.

I thought it was really, really clever and smart. And the themes in the heart of the story are ones that I typically respond to and thought were explored really deftly and effectively here through the strength of the writing and the performances, you know, the questions of how you cope with grief

and what it feels like to be an outsider and when isolation that you're feeling already is made so literal because of a certain circumstance. Like, I think that that can be a very poignant sandbox to play in. You know, searching for purpose and belonging and just more broadly,

that idea of discovery. I thought that the young characters, the brainiac kids in the movie, like I would have loved even more time with them. I mean, the adult cast is obviously remarkable, but like what does it feel like to be a young person who's trying to make your way in the world

and you know that you're like capable of something great, but you can't really find other people who accept you and then suddenly you do and what is that unlock for you? I've only seen this one so far, but I think that it'll stick with me and I feel already that it will be a movie

that I really enjoy like revisiting and returning to in the future, which is often how I feel about West Anderson movie. So I really love this. I just thought it was a delight. Excellent. Yeah, I was a little bit more mixed on it, especially like in my larger, like, love of Wes Anderson.

This was like a slight return to form, but I was like so out on French dispatch that I think I was still feeling like a little bit of the, you know, there's like a, there's layers of narrative in this, right? Because it's like there's frame narrative within frame narrative within frame narrative of this. And so I think there was, I don't know that I would say impenetrable was what I would call it, But I would just, what I always want Wes Anderson to do is to try to access.

He's so good at aesthetic and so good at, like, visual humor, like, with using the camera for visual humor or using the aesthetic setup for visual humor. And what I really am always looking for in a Wes Anderson film is also, like, a lot of heart, which I think, for me, comes through in, like, Royal Tenton moms or Grand Boobo. to Pest Hotel and is like a little less for me here. But we talked about this on trial by content in the context of first contact movies in general, like the history of first contact movies. And that was really interesting to me to like because to look at the larger lens of how filmmakers use first contact as a way to explore, as you say, like our space in the universe belonging, like blah, blah, blah.

But the way in which Ms. Anderson was drilling down on like, grief as like a component of that, I thought was really interesting. And then I just need... Like the sense of searching. Searching for something, you know? Yearning. Yeah, yeah. And connection and et cetera.

When you have like human characters communicating like through opposite windowsills or across balconies and stuff like that. I thought the scene with that heart, that like beating heart that I was looking for, there's a scene with Margot Robbie. I thought that just like was absolutely stunning. And then I just need to shout out. I said this already on Child Black Content, but I'll say it here. The absolutely slutty, tight white t-shirt that Adrian Brody wears in this film needs to be remarked upon.

Sensational. Sensational. Astonish. Truly, 10 out of 10, no notes, territory. It's the only thing that has made me reassess are very entrenched ringer-wide fondness for all of the layers you wore in succession. It's like, what if he hadn't been wearing so many layers? Just Marlon Brando's T-shirt. from streetcar name Desire.

Whatever were just that. Incredible. Okay. Delightful. What is... We're heading into the top five here. Yeah. What is your number five?

I think you have my number five higher, dial of destiny. I do. I have it slightly higher. Only slightly. What's your number five? My number five, I don't think, is on your list. It's about one of my favorite superheroes. He's got the iconic, instantly associated to recognize.

suit. He's got the super strength and super speed. Certainly the astonishing healing factor. He's got that signature brevity of a lone vigilante. He operates inside of a mythology that reveals itself to us further. Film after film. It's lurking in the shadows of society, a stinking secret onion of crime and corruption and control. I am speaking, of course, of John Wick. Oh, John Wick. I thought you were talking about Dominic Turend. John Mike has gone either way for a minute there. Yeah. Phenomenal.

I actually, honestly, I should have had John Wick on my list. I thought this would be on your list. Yeah. Yeah. I should have been on there. Yeah. What an awe-inspiring spectacle this movie is. Holy fuck.

Just astonishing, operatic, balletic violence. There's this, like, glow and sheen and mist to every sequence. The fight and stunt. choreography, even inside of a franchise that has elevated that to a really rarefied art form was like flabbergasting in this movie. Everything that happened in Paris was just astonishing. Wouldn't be me if I didn't remark upon our newest pup pal, Mr. Nobody's Dog, just protect at all costs. I guess this is where if Steve had known our picks in advance, he'd have a soundboard entry ready just to say, nuts. I haven't gotten to chat with you yet.

Yeah. About Bill Scarscarat's French accent as Marquis, but I would love to hear your thoughts, should you be inclined to share them? It's very special. It's very special to me. You know my favorite thing about John Wickford for on the Bill Scarsardardt be,

is how many texts you and I have received from Van Lathen about how hot Bill Scarthard is in that movie? How bad is like, this is the pinnacle of masculine attraction to me, which I think has a lot to do with the suits. Yeah, exactly. The fashion is astonishing. It's always great, Joe, to be with Donnie Nguyen, really liked the keen character. I, of course, never, ever as a rule that I hold sacred and dear,

turn down the opportunity to spend time with Ian McShane. Never. That's a great, that's a great life rule. Great mantra. to live by. Yeah. It's one of my truest North stars. And, you know, great work from our guy, Keanu.

Loving husband. I thought Donnie Ann was so delightful in this movie. Oh, he was wonderful. Yeah. So good. Everything that happened, like the stairway sequence up to like, like, a dual, everything that's happening there. Yeah.

Yeah. Really, really, really great addition. And like, it just made me yearn for, like, more Donnie N films, like, which, you know, exist in the world, but I want even more. Okay. My turn? It is. Number four?

Yeah. Guess what? I have one that I know you don't have. Okay. Here we go. It is, and I have a smuggle here too. Coming in number four. Is this our first smuggle of the pod?

What's wrong with us? It's astonishing, really, but I think I have a whole bunch of smuggles at the top, so it's going to be okay. Coming at number four, and it might have been even higher, but it's a lot of, it might have been even higher. It's mid-season, so I cannot rank it higher. It is Star Trek Strange New Worlds. And I'm just going to muck right in underneath it.

Picard season three, which was also fantastic. Star Trek fans are just like absolutely eating this year. Like this is just incredible time for Star Trek content. We don't talk about Star Trek a lot on this feed. If all goes according to plan, again, things come and go. But if all goes according to plan, Ben, and Ben Lemberg and I will be doing a wrap-up of Strange New Worlds at the end of this season. But, like, as much—and I've talked before about, like, how much I enjoyed season one.

As much as I enjoyed season one, season two is just, like, on a whole new level. And, like, I had been excited for this—you know, when CBS was, like, launching CBS All Access, and now we're, like, you know, it's hard to track where the Star Trek properties are living these days. but like when that all happened and there was this like big Star Trek content revival, I was so excited and nothing was really hitting the way that I wanted it to hit, not even like the first couple of seasons of Picard, which I were so excited about. And then Strange New Worlds, which is, you know, a alt timeline prequel-ish series. You've got characters that you recognize like Spock or O'Hura, et cetera, et cetera.

You've got Christopher Pike, who is a known Star Trek character, but like this is the most time we've gotten to spend with him, played by the great Anson Mount, phenomenal Star Trek captain. Like, one of the top tier all-time Star Trek captains is Anson Mount as Christopher Pike. Ethan Peck, Gregory Peck's grandson, his Spock, is also just absolutely incredible on this show. I'm having such a good time with Strachian Worlds. We're five episodes into a 10-up-season season. So, like, it could go off a cliff.

So, you know, let's just... Doesn't seem likely, doesn't it? Let's just asterisk, like, this here in case things go horribly wrong in the backup. the season, but having such a great time. And then Picard, the Picard smuggle, when Picard launched, they were trying so hard to be like, we're going to do something so different from Next Generation. Patrick Stewart said, like, I don't want to come back if we're just doing NextGen 2.0. I don't want to do that.

And then, like, everyone's like, okay, but that's kind of what we want. And so by season three, they're like, never mind. It's just Next Gen. We just brought all the actors you love from NextGen, and we're just going to do a next generation. sort of revival for you. So season three, you know, as much as I love for like reboots or revivals to explore,

you know, seek out new life, new civilizations to boldly go in new directions. Bringing back all the faves for Picard season three was, was the right move. And it's just, yeah, it's a great time for,

for Cherkees. Fantastic. Yeah. I love it. This is where I have Dial of Destiny at 4. So pretty similar placement. Talk about it. What does you love about Dial of Destiny?

if anyone hasn't heard already. If you want to hear us talk at length about what we loved about Dial of Destiny, we did do a Ringarverse episode about this. And then if you want to hear Mallory talk about it, you have two episodes of Big Pick that you can listen to to to hear Mal and talk about Dial of Destiny. But we just like, we had just like a fun, like speaking about nostalgia, speaking to James Mangold as we did on that episode of the Ringerverse about

dial of destiny, about sort of what was on his mind in wanting to tell this story. I think, again, this is like a, I'm having like a real critical consensus off year, like where people, like, critical consensus is Mario is bad and I'm like, Mario is a fun, find time with movies. Critical consensus is that Dial of Destiny doesn't live up to his potential. I'm like, I think Dial of Destiny is great. Crudal Conclusive consensus is that dead reckoning

is the second coming of Jesus. And I'm like, I'm not there with that. So, like, I have just like, oh, critical consensus this year. but, you know, Dial of Destiny, a lot of the criticism was that it was like an empty nostalgia grab. And I just didn't feel that at all. I felt like it had so much to say about, like, legacy, about growing older, about all of this stuff. Like, there's just so much meat on the bone there. And then in the mix with, like, just a fun romp of an adventure, Phoebe Waller Bridge is an incredible addition to this universe.

You and I got really emotional with the ending. you and I spent like a month watching Harrison Ford films for this other thing that we did. And we just, we just like marinating in like Harrison Ford for a long time of this year. So like, you know, and, you know, a great point that you've been raising all over the shop is like between shrinking and this and other things. Like we are just like living in this area. You and I have like currently a designated chat group that is just Harrison Ford like social media appearances because they're all so delightful. So, you know, that's all in the same. too. Tell me what do you how

would you feel about dialed destiny? I agree. I remain incredibly fond of this film, really delighted by it and frankly baffled by and people are allowed to have different opinions. That's completely fine. I just, like you said, I'm

I'm sincerely confused by the response to this one and that's okay. I feel as we have now chronicled at length genuinely grateful for this recent Harrison Ford experience, which has been a treat and a joy and a wonder to behold, I am grateful that we have now a non-cry crystal skull caper to the Harrison Ford Indiana Jones era and experience, which is one of the most central and elemental experiences of our lives as moviegoers.

This is just a better place to have left his stretch of the franchise. I say it that way because I think we all assume that one day there will be a different stretch of the franchise. Though who knows here. And for many of the reasons that you said, I think that Mangold's examination of growing older, of evolving legacy, of thinking about your relationships and the choices that you've made in your role in a changing world, you know, that juxtaposition that we had a lot of fun talking about of a guy like Indy who is so in so many respects, like deeply linked

to and associated with the past, with history, walking through a moon day parade, right? And these signs and indicators everywhere of progress in the future and him having to confront what that means for him. And then you pair that with these really emotional character beats on the Marion front and the Sala front. like I have not stopped thinking about Salas saying, I miss the desert, I miss the sea, I miss waking up every morning wondering what wonderful adventure

the new day will bring to us because one of the joys of the Indiana Jones franchise is that those movies gave us new adventures, right? And so like we got another one here and that's something to cherish. I'm just really genuinely glad we did. And you already mentioned Wombat. Phoebe fucking crushed it. She was incredible.

She was electric. So this was in a lot of respects. Is it a perfect movie? Of course not. We talked about the reasons why in our pod, but in many respects, this would have been what we would have said we wanted, I think, out of a late stage sendoff from Henry Jones Jr. So I'm thrilled that we got it. And I will happily rewatch this movie for the rest of my life. That's what I feel about it.

What do you have at three? Wait, four, three. No, I've done my four. You've done your four. We're in the top three now. Sorry. Yeah. You might have this higher across the Spiderverse.

I'm floored that this isn't your number one. Okay. Wow. This would have been what I penciled in for your number one. Okay. I have it higher. Yeah. Great.

This is where I have guardians. Three. Let's talk about guardians. You go first. Remind us where you had guardians. You had Guardians at six. Six. Yeah.

The inimitable James Gun quality that is coursing through every frame of this movie, the vibrant, raucous, extremely touching blend that feels like so particular to this franchise that I love. I love all the Guardians movies. I loved this movie. I was really glad in a more macro sense to have a. brief but fair moment on the internet

and in our lives where people were excited to watch a new Marvel thing together and then talk about it. That was really nice. It was very important. That was great. I'm glad that we got to enjoy that together.

And on the Marvel front, we talked about this a lot in our deep dive pod, but I've been thinking about it more and more since. Like that increasingly rare Marvel thing that this movie had, a conclusion. Now, does it have asked? of it that don't conclude, did we get a Starlord tag at the end?

Of course, we're inside of the MCU, but so much of this was about paying off our time with the characters, honoring our time with the characters, and taking their arcs to a place that were, like, I thought really genuinely, like, emotionally fulfilling, whether it's Peter and Gomorrah Nebula, or this bond and duo that we have quickly, relatively speaking, become so invested in on the Drax and Mantis front. And of course, like, everything, I mean, it's very much a rocket movie. Rocket we've been with for quite some time now,

but to get so much time with Fatch 89 in this film in Volume 3 with Lila, Teifs, and Floor, it just shredded me. Like, the secrets where they're choosing their names, that found family for Rocket and the way that it helped us understand what it meant for him to forge a found family a second time. Just like really meaningful. I keep thinking about that. It's good to have Friends line.

It's just heart-wrenching and so sad. When we think back to like Rockets, Volume 1, I didn't ask to get made scene, one that we've talked about a lot, right? and really, like, worked its way into our hearts. Or the famous quill team-up speech, right? To give a shit for once, not run away, also for volume one. Or, like, Drax in volume two, the two types of people in the universe, those who dance and those who don't, like, so many moments from the first two Guardians' films and, you know, the character's appearances elsewhere in the MCU that we can point to

and say that ended up mattering. Like, we felt the closure and the culmination of that in a way that was impactful. and sometimes it made us laugh and sometimes it made us cry and sometimes it made us feel a twinge in our heart that it's almost astonishing to feel when you're looking at just like a picture of people sitting against a wall at the end of the credits. But that's what's fun about giving so much of your time

to characters across a sprawling building, expanded, connected universe, and then feeling like that was as real for you as it was to the characters on the screen. That's part of what I love about doing this and sharing this stuff with you guys. And like, I felt that was Guardians 3 and I was glad that we got to.

So that's my number three. How about you? I thought it was a phenomenal send-off for James Gunn, who had just such a monumental impact on the MCU, like when the first Guardians movie came out and what that did to unlock potential for where the MCU felt like it could go humor-wise or, like, you know, multiverse-wise

or, you know, cosmic-wise and all that sort of stuff. And so I thought I was really glad, there was a space in time where we thought we weren't going to get a final James Gunn, Guardians movie. So I'm really glad that Disney brought James Gunn back in. He got to write this conclusion for the story that he started for these characters, that the actors who wanted to exit the MCU had these like final, you know, similar to what we're saying about Dial Destiny, just like a final, cool, conclusive story for the movie.

characters, a lot of closure, a lot of emotion, a lot of uplift, a lot of fun. Yeah, and it's the only Marvel property on our list this year so far, and that's sort of astounding, you know? Yep. Yeah. But that's where we are right now. So, yeah. Boy.

Okay. So we're heading into our top two. Yeah. My number two is across the Spider-verse, which is you're an number number. number three, so we can talk about that now. Yeah. I have no doubt that my number one is, well, I shouldn't say I have no doubt.

I'm assuming my number one is one of your top two, and that means you have a complete surprise coming somewhere in your top two. So that's exciting. I don't know. I think I don't want of your remaining two, and I don't know the other. Okay. Spider-verse, you're three, my two. Okay.

What a phenomenal movie. It's great. And might have been, might have been my number one were it not for the more I sit with it the more I'm like it's hard for me to have a complete feeling about this given that it's part one of two

and we are in a real epidemic of like part one of two movies wow so Mission Impossible changed the way you felt about Spiderverse has it changed the way you felt about dude? No I mean

that's the thing is like I'm trying not to ding Mission Impossible for that because I'm not digging Dune or across the Spider-verse with that. I have not seen Mission Impossible and thus have not consumed any takes about Mission Impossible. And so I don't know what I'm talking about on the Mission Impossible front and cannot contribute. Carry on. But I mean, we loved this movie. The fact that it's number three is not a ding on it.

Like my top three are very strong. And so it's not like it's a shame to come in third on the list here for me. But I will say that yeah, we just love this movie. We love being back into the Spider-Verse. We love the messaging that, you know, that runs through this franchise of like anyone can wear the mask. We love the exploration of different animation styles.

I've been really enjoying on TikTok watching the cosplayers come up. There's like a great Hobie cosplayer who's just like absolutely crushing it. And one of my favorite things about his costume is he's going to got like the really cool wig and then he's got the like the blue lines in his wig to like, you know, like he's trying to like simulate the animation in his cosplay. It's so cool. Some like, you know, dads with their babies doing like May Day Parker cosplay. So like that. Like that's, you know, that's all part of what we do here is like fandom. And I love seeing these stories then resonate out into the fandom and become part of the texture. And so then when you

see, you know, I think, I think. I think the cosplayers, those cosplayers were probably flexing at like DragonCon or something like that. Like when you see these cosplayers out in the wild and you see people recognize them and I get excited about seeing them, stuff like that. And across the Spider-Verse is so new, but it's already so exciting for people. And given the way in which a Spider-Verse opens up the doors for who can cosplay as a spider-person is thrilling to me as well. And so that's all in the mix in addition to all the stuff that we talked about on our episode about the film itself

in terms of like what's going on with the parental figures in this movie and how like there are several scenes between Miles and his parents that like absolutely that that feeling that you had with Guardians 3 that shredding I felt emotionally shredded

by across the Spider-Verse in many many different moments Gwen and her dad Shea Wiggum, innocent of any of my dead reckoning critiques. And again, that art style of that world, of the Stacey world. So, yeah, we're so lucky to have had this film. Yeah. What do you want to say about it?

I love everything you just said. That, like, Gwenline to Miles. maybe some things are just for us. And there's a beauty in that, like in sharing something that is so intimate and particular to like your bond with another person. And then I like kind of flipping that on its head for all the reasons you just outlined.

It's like this movie is for everyone. Like it's such a beautiful thing that we can all celebrate and share. It is this visual feast of multiversal splendor, really awe-inspiring, these indelible visuals and characters, this inventive, imaginative, fresh approach. The Miles Gwen Bond, wonderful.

I'm just so deeply invested in their relationship. And it was such a beautiful movie for them and their individual arcs, their relationships with their parents, as you noted, but also the way that they're growing together and then the fact that it's never easy, like how they push and pull each other, when there's tension, when there's a challenge,

how they work through that. I thought that everything was spot and the like we create our endemates idea was quintessential and fun. And then to have like Miguel and the Spider Society positioned as this uncomfortable emergence of opposition, like that we're supposed to be the good guys. We are. We are idea. And having to confront what it really looks like and means when you try to maintain or control some semblance

of inevitability or order and how that like thwarts and inhibits the choice that is so central to the themes of the story that anybody like you said can wear the mask and becoming who you are and who you're meant to be and finding people who like help you do that. There's so many like wonderful figures across the film. Like I, one of the things we talked about in our deep dive

was how we both wish that we had gotten even more time with Peter B and I still feel that way strongly, but like I was really glad we'd, got to spend time with Hobie and that we got to spend time with Pov and like meet all these new figures. So that was just really fun. And, um, I loved it. And I, I'm, I'm, I'm very eager for, uh, the next installment. Truly can't wait. What a movie. What a movie. What's your number two. Is this the surprise or is this my number one? This is the surprise. We have the same number one as I thought we would. Um, wonderful. Okay. I thought you might, yeah, great. Go. Um, my number two,

this is a shameless smuggle of a mini segment that I'm calling Book Corner with Jonah Robinson. All right. House of Reeds. House of Reeds in a little smuggle section. Knowing that we were going to do this and then I looked around, I was like, oh, my God, I haven't read any sci-fi fantasy in 2020. That came out in 2023. So I spent the last week devouring, you know, like recommendations that I had had from other people

looking around to see what people were saying like were some of their top reads of the year and I have three titles that I want to talk to you about. One is called Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Ferrys by Heather Fawcett. This was recommended to me actually when I took my Norway trip.

It is set in 1909, 1910. It's an epistolary like a, you know, told in letters and journal entries and stuff like that novel about an intrepid lady professor from Cambridge who travels to an island off of Norway to observe their fairy folk. So she's like a scientist out trying to track down and observe the like they're called the hidden the hidden very folk of this island.

It's a very, it's like a very cozy kind of story. There's like a mystery. There's a there's like a little bit of a light romance, etc., etc. But the, I just want to talk about the elevated prose of this book because it is very, Jane Austen did not. not right in 19-0-09, 1910, but you and I have a shared love of Jane Austen. That, like, that dry observational, that thing that Austin does so well, she will just say something about the way that someone did something. And she doesn't have to make the joke. We get to rush in and make the joke ourselves about it. Do you know what I mean?

And so it's just sort of like that kind of humor and wit is in this book. In addition to just, like, again, elevate, like she's, Heather Foster is really. writing in the language of the time, which I think there's like a, and I'm going to talk about another book in a second, there's a rash of historical fantasy or whatever, or just like other world fantasy where people are deploying modern language and there's nothing wrong with that. But I, you and I love something like a song in vice and fire or whatever where we can just sort of like dissolve into elevated language, you know what I mean, and just marinate it. And that's what I felt this delightful little bookhead to offer.

Okay. Okay. Amazing. Next, none of the, I'm saving my best for a list. Next is the book that a ton of our listeners wrote in about. And I want to shout at particular emails from Brendan, Ryan, and Ivy, particularly juicy recommendations from them. This is a hugely popular book on like book talk and stuff like that. It's called Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yaros.

People wrote in really thinking Mallory that you would like it because it is an incredibly horny book, which it is. There's a trend. There's a trend in fantasy. There's a trend of fantasy right now for like romance bordering on and like erotica in this era. Like the Sarah J. Mass, a quarter of thorn and roses, like all those books are like incredibly popular. Where there's a lot of like spice and lust, it mixed in with your genre storytelling. So this is like fourth wing, which is the first installment in what Yarros is calling the Imperian series. And the second book is coming out in November.

So like two, the first two installments of the series are coming out the same year. And this is a new trend in publishing as well of like we're going to drop the first. It's like dropping the first two episodes, you know, together. We're going to drop the first two books a couple months apart. So like you are like hooked into this series. And here's what I'm. say about this. Did I devour this quite long book very quickly? Yes. Was it exciting once I got past the first six chapters of like oppressive exposition and world building? Yes. Will it surprise you in any way?

No, you know every single trope that's in this book and this book borrows heavily from Potter, the magician, Shadow and Bone, Game of Thrones, Hunger Games, Divergent, like all these stories that you know very Well, you could just sort of like, yes, that's, that's going on. This takes place at an academy, a militarized academy. I think it's called like war universe. There's a militaryized academy of young people wanting to become dragon writers. And it is a cutthroat. Oh, Maze Runner is also in there.

It's cutthroat curriculum, this three-year program, it's cutthroat because there's only so many dragons. And the dragons will choose the dragon rider. They will bond with you. but there are more cadets than there are dragons. So the cadets are just killing each other in order to like... Who can know the mind of such a beast? Exactly. This is...

To go back to that whole like modern language thing, this is one of those books where like a female lead character will call a guy toxic or, you know, they're just using like modern swear words or whatever. And I'm like, no, it's not the end of the world, but that's just that is what is going on. So yeah, it's very addictive. Sort of like, you know, book candy sort of thing. Amazing. And a lot of people fuck.

I would say a lot of people fuck, but I will say the fucking is like, oh my. Damn me, you know. I mean, it's something, if you read, right. Thanks, thanks, Bees. Bees is intrigued. If you read, if you read any sort of like explicit rated fan fiction is nothing, it's nothing outside the norm of that. But, you know, for like, if you're like, oh, I'm just going to read this dragon book,

you're like, oh, my God. Anyway, all right. Okay. It's not leading. Yeah. Bar and away, my highest recommendation of these three. I, a little while ago, you and I admitted on the magical weapons episode that we had not read any Brandon Sanderson. I saw your tweet about this, so I figured that's what this was.

Yeah. I read my first Brando Sando book. And, like, I think part of the thing with Brandon Sanderson that you and I sort of talked about on that episode was, like, he's so prolific. And a lot of his books are, like, his books are physically long, and then they're part of long-longish series. So it's like, where do you start? It feels a little overwhelming.

But I follow Brandon Sanderson on TikTok, and Brandon Sanderson himself is like, you know where you want to start? And I don't know if he just said this to sell his most recent book. He's like, let's start with my newest book, Tress of the Emerald Sea, which came out January 2023. And this is part of, it is a standalone book. It is in the Cosmere, which is his larger sort of universe that he's, writes in. But it is its own thing. It is a lighter. So my understanding, having no other

Brandon Sanderson to compare it to, is that it is a much lighter story than he usually tells. The inspiration for this book came from watching the Princess Bride with his wife and her being like, wouldn't it be cooler if like Buttercup actually like did something or like had something to do or something to stay? And so he's like, I'm going to write a Princess Bride-esque like pulling from the kind of tone that a tone that William Goldman does in the Princess Bride, I'm going to write a Princess Bride esk adventure with

our female lead, Truss of the Emerald Sea, who is an completely ordinary girl and she's off on an adventure to rescue her beloved, who is the Duke's son or whatever who's been kidnapped, and she falls in with pirates and it's this whole thing. So like, if you're looking for like,

Princess Bride meets like our flag means death, meets like some of that like Terry Pratchett sort of whimsy, which I really like. So my understanding is that like it's not necessarily a great example of the Brando Sando tone because he's like kind of trying something new and it doesn't like flow as easily as the Terry Pratchett like Witt does. But in terms of world building and magical systems, I was really captivated because, Sorry, I'm almost done here. But like the, it's called Trust of the Emerald Sea.

This is a world in which there are 12 seas and 12 moons. And each sea is a different color. And the sea is made up of spores that fall down from the moon. And the spores, you're going to be thinking about our number one pick here. The spores that they come in contact with like a mucus membrane or whatever will like sprout and kill you. The spores all do. They all do. They do, actually.

They all do like they all have different things that they, do. And in terms of like, I was just captivated by this concept of, you know, so you're like, you're sailing the Emerald Sea and then you cross the border into the Crimson Sea or you cross over into like the Black Sea, which is like the, you know, the most harrowing and stuff like that. And like watching this protagonist who I love who is stubbornly ordinary, not a magical chosen, you know, girl. Very ordinary girl. Grow and develop on this adventure in this really cool concept of a world.

Also, if you buy the physical copy of Trusted the Emerald See, it is a gorgeous, just a physically gorgeous book. It's got beautiful illustrations. It's got a gorgeous cover with, like, it reminds me of the buried giant that Ishigoro book that just has like an absolutely gorgeous green cover. That is a fantastic. Book Corner with House of Brades. It's incredible.

Trust of the Emerald C. Brando Sando. I really, really, really recommend it. I read a passage of it out to a friend of mine over the phone the other day, which is like not something I usually do when I'm writing a book. But I was just like so taken by... Read it to me right now. So that idea of like a character being extraordinary, which is something we like, we like, we like when a young person is harboring some like extraordinary talents.

But what I like here is like Sanderson is obviously engaging with that concept. So Tress lives on a rock of an island that she's never left. But unlike Moana, she has no interest in leaving. So the chapter one ends with her saying like she's never left and she doesn't really much mind that. Right. Okay. So chapter two opens thusly. Me, when someone says, when are you coming into the office again?

You've been home for a while. Yeah. Chapter two opens like this. Perhaps you were surprised to hear those last words. Tress wanted to stay on the rock. She liked it there. Where was her sense of adventure? Her yearning for new lands.

Her wander lust. Well, this isn't part of the story where you ask questions so kindly keep them to yourself. That said, you must understand that this is a tale about people who are both what they seem and not what they seem simultaneously.

A story of contradictions. In other words, it is a story about human beings. In this case, Tress wasn't your ordinary heroine, in that she was in fact decidedly ordinary. Indeed, Tress considered herself categorically boring. She liked her tea lukewarm. She went to bed on time.

She loved her parents, occasionally squalved with her little brother and didn't litter. She was fair at Needlepoint and had a talent for baking, but had no other noteworthy skills. She didn't train it fencing in secret. She couldn't talk to animals. She had no hidden royalty or deities in her lineage, though her great-grandmother, Glorff had reportedly once waived at the king. That had been from a stop atop the rock while he was sailing past many miles away, so Tress didn't think it counted. In short, Tress was a normal teenage girl. She knew this because the other girls often mentioned how they weren't like everyone else.

And after a while, Tress figured that the group, everyone else, must include only her. The other girls were obviously right, as they all knew how to be unique. They were so good at it. In fact, they did it together. Tress was generally more thoughtful than most people, and she didn't. like to impose by asking for what she wanted. She'd remain quiet when other girls were laughing or telling jokes about her. After all, they were having so much fun.

It would be impolite to spoil that and presumptuous of her to request that they stop. Incredible. I love this. Oh, man. Okay. Trust in the Emerald Sea. Fantastic. And yes, I will be reading more Brando Sando after this.

I think I'm supposed to hop over to Miss Bourne at this. I think most people tell you to start with Miss Bourne. So I will. but I wanted to like sort of ease myself in with something that is considered sort of a low level investment kind of thing. So there you go. Beautiful. Incredible. House of Reeds.

Speaking of spores. Yeah. Mallory, why do you hit us with our with our number one? And I will I'll just say this. Here's the inherent philosophy of this podcast. Paying attention to things is how we show love, right? That's what I wrote down. Paying attention to things.

that we show love. Oh, Joe, it's a show we cover every week together and cherish doing. We covered it on the Prestige TV podcast. So if you haven't heard us talk about The Last of Us, you can hear us do that for every single episode on our sister feed, Prestige TV. More movies on my top 10 than I was anticipating. I usually like find myself more inclined toward TV in part because it's so fulfilling to like spend all of that. time and the story and keep the conversation going week after week. But when I think back to the first six months of 2023, this is in our universe, right? Like non-succession or the bear department, easily the thing that has the most mind share

and heart share for me. I just absolutely loved this and I loved talking about it with you. the show itself was just so excellent and well crafted and deftly constructed and made. It also did the thing we were talking about earlier. Like, I play games occasionally, but it's not like a daily pursuit of mine, but like getting to have that impetus to play the game, which was like a really fun thing for me. I had so much more fun doing it than I, I mean, obviously people have said that the last was like an all-time game, so it's not like I was surprised that it was good.

but I really loved spending time in that part of the universe as well. And then, like, one of the things that we really enjoyed doing was parsing the way that Craig Mason and Neil Druckman talked about adapting. Like, we have, we so often talk about adaptations, right? We love, as you just did a wonderful job of exploring, reading the text. Either we have, like, a fondness for a certain source text, and then we get to see how it is brought to the screen, or we fall in love with a movie and show and have that impulse to then go see where that all came from, right? And it's really rare to have, like, that weekly insight

into that creative process. And, like, the way that they forged this thing together and, like, obviously, Mazin loved the game and has that genuine, like, affection for it and reverence for it even. But the pairing of, like, you know, we're big Chernobyl heads. Yeah, right. Love Chernobyl.

Is that the first time anyone has ever said to raise Trinobo and Noble head here and the House of Mar? His, Mazins, I think, like just genuine brilliance as a writer and a scriptor of television stories. And then Druckman's grasp of the mythology and the way that they like paired those together. And obviously, like, Druckman for crafted some of the episodes, almost the driver of some of the episodes. And Mason has a lot of, like, knowledge of and love for the mythology. It's like they were both doing all of those things. But that was just like a really, a really rare thing to have access to the way that we got it

with them on a weekly basis because of the inside the episodes and the official pod that they were doing and everything. So that, like, enriched the experience as well. The cast, I mean, we have our primary duo, of course, who will talk. about in a second. The guest spots of stars in this season of TV, like, unparalleled. I mean, there, we can't, we, again, we did the pot every week, so we don't have time to go through it all here, but like, thinking back to these really fleeting brief, but like utterly captivating moments and time that we got to spend with Anna Tor of the Murray Bartlett and

Nick Offerman and Lamar Johnson and Melanie Linsky and Stormree and Scott Shepard and on the list goes, like, I'm still thinking months later about Bill and Frank strawberries or Sam's Magic Slate or Riley and Ellie dancing with the masks on at the abandoned mall. And then, like, Pedro and Bella, Joel and Ellie just like instantly a duo, a pair who I feel a level of an investment in that's like my favorite thing when I read a story or watch a show or watch a movie. And I'm like, it's like can sound weird to say, right? But I'm like, I care about these people like they're real people in my life. Like, I care what happens to them.

I want to spend time with them. I want to know what they're thinking. When they're sad, I feel sad. When long, long time kicks in at the end of episode three again and they're pulling away in the pickup truck and we see that little smile past between them, that's just magic. Absolute magic. And then the other, the swing of it, the gut wrench that you feel with that, I swear at the end. And like the choice that Joel makes. I mean, it's devastating and it looks at and examines with a level of rigor and like kind of unflinching focus what people are capable of doing and the things that they justify to themselves.

And it does that with enough space too for a little bit of hope, a little bit of possibility and like that recognition that you need to be able to build something with somebody else to head out into the world and try to not just save it, but like live in it. at all, you know? And I just thought that the show was incredible, and I can't wait for the next season. I loved it. I think in addition to every eloquent, beautiful thing that you just said, there's two things I want to say. Number one, like when we were talking about this last night, I believe it was, about whether or not this would be like a top 10 thing or top 10 moments episode.

Moments is what we did at the end of 2022. We'll probably do it at the end of this year. This is like more thing. but like so I was trying to figure out like how I was thinking about what my entries would be but like if you want to talk about a thing long long time as an episode of television um will go down his history as one of the greatest episodes of television ever that I don't think that's hyperbole I think that's just a fact um similar to like you know episode six of the bear or if you're have elite taste episode seven of the bear this season and I think that like

It is such an important moment in pop culture history this year that radiated outside of the genre corners into the mainstream in a way that we really love where we love the things that are just for us. But we also love sharing the things and getting people who never thought they would watch a zombie show or a video game adaptation. hooking them into watching this show with us. Something that I love about what we do on this show has to do with, like, Hobbes and Dragons and Gmail.com, and it is the, like, community of our listeners. And being in dialogue with them, I love being in dialogue with you, but I love being in dialogue with them as well. So, like, the number of mushroom recipes I received around that show, there was just, like,

such a beautiful, like, community around House of the Dragon, Rings of Power, like, last of it. It was, like, such an incredible run. And then, and then the content got, like, a little bit more divisive after that. But the last of us to think, you know, on the TV front was the last time, you know, and we'll feel it again, hopefully with, like, So get Loki or something like that. But, like, that we were all just, like, watching and relishing something week to week. So for that experience alone, that's something that television, especially week-to-week television versus binge television has that put the edge for The Last of Us over across the Spider-Verse for me.

Where like across the Spider-Verse, I loved. And as I mentioned, I love watching it sort of simmer in the culture and watching cosplays, stuff like that. But it's like, we're not talking about it week after week after week. And I'm not like sort of sitting in it with where is the last of us. It was just like this long, long time that we got to have this conversation about this story, about the things that they carried about survival is insufficient, the like yearning tendrils, like all that sort of stuff.

It's just like, what a incredible story for us to get to dig into. And in addition, we had the joy you mentioned playing the video game for the first time. I was watching those playthrus. We had the joy of joining a conversation already in progress for years and years of people who have been fans of this story. for so long. And us getting to hop into that world was really fun for us. So yeah, I think it's no question, number one, the last of us. Yeah. Amazing. Okay. We did it. Run me through a recap of your top 10. Let's rip off our list for everyone. My top 10, starting at the bottom,

yellow jackets, number nine, Dungeons and Dragons, colon honor among thieves. Number eight, Mandalorian season three, number seven, Nemona, number six, Guardians of the Galaxy, volume three, Number five, Indiana Jones in the Dial of Destiny. Number four, Star Trek, Strange New Worlds with the Smuggle of Picard season three. Number three, across the spiderverse. Number two, House of Reed's Smuggle Book Corner with Emily Wild's Encyclopedia of Ferrys by Heather Fossett, fourth wing by Rebecca Yarrow's and Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson, and number one, the last of us.

Mallory, what's yours? Beautiful. My top 10, best of the year so far, 10. Mario. Nine. Black Mirror. Eight. Silo. Seven. Mando. Six. Asteroid City. Five. Johnwick chapter four. Four. Indy. Have you out of it? Alums. Three. Guardians volume three. Two across the Spiderverse. And one. Last of us. Honorable mentions. Yeah. I have one that I want to mention. Then we got a bunch of listeners submissions that I want to run through really quickly. But honorable mention for, for me, and this is actually inspired by a listener email that we got, which is someone said, someone put on their, like, long list, Shadow and Bone, and they were like, season two,

and they were like, it was a mixed bag. So I will shout out the scenes in Shadow and Bone season two that just had the characters from Six of Crows in them. Those scenes, I love the Crows on that show and in that book series. But overall, it's sort of a mixed proposition. What about you, honorable mention? So I noted earlier Yellow Jackets, one of my honorable mentions. And then I wanted to quickly shout out Bad Batch Season 2 and Star Wars Visions,

which I guess I could have smuggled inside of my Mando entry. But I thought that this Bad Batch season was pretty mixed and uneven, but the ending rocked. The final couple of episodes were dynamite and made me really excited for the next season of that show. And then, you know, I'll say that we are not the passionate daily gamers that some of our wonderful ringerverse colleagues are. And so I have not played Zelda yet. But just since we're talking about best of the year, we should, we should just note that if other people like Ben and Jessica or our guy Steve right here with us had his

mic on, like, I'm sure that Zelda would have made their list. So there we go. Um, I also wanted to say this is like separate from honorable mentions, but related, I guess, that there was a pretty long stretch of the week where I was going to devote two spots on my top 10 to trailers. And I talked myself out of it. It didn't feel like quite honoring the spirit of the exercise. I was all for it. I thought that was the... No, I do think, yeah, trailers are an art form in their own right.

But let's just talk about them now, right, for a minute here? Can I do our listener submissions really quickly for honorable mentions and then we'll roll into those trailers? Okay. Yeah. I'm just going to run through these quickly. Andre wrote in about the Harley Quinn Valentine's Day special, which was phenomenal. Fantastic. And also on the DC animation front, my Adventures of Superman is just starting and it is really fun.

The Midnight Boys love it. I love it. It's a great little show. Okay. Betty, who is the owner of Betty Books in Missouri, wrote in a couple comics. Poison Ivy, colon virtuous cycle written by G. Willow Wilson, art by Marcio Takara. Poison Ivy is on a mission, and that mission is to kill humanity with a fungal virus. But, for once, G. Willow Wilson, co-creator Miss Marvel, among other things, has Pam do more than that.

She also goes on a feminist cross-country road trip of self-discovery. This book gives Poison Ivy a rare solo story. and Marcia Takara's art is great at depicting both body horror and ecological horror, which feels increasingly real these days. And then Betty also recommends Love Everlasting by Tom King, a comics creator that we love, and art by Elsa Charetteier. I'm making that very French, and it might not be. Anyway, Betty writes, do you like science fiction, mystery, or romance, perhaps time travel?

Check out this newish image series, Love Everlasting, in this comic that started as a a substack during pandemic lockdown, Tom King tells the story of Joan Peterson, who's trapped in an endless cycle of pulpy romances. Every time she falls in love, she wakes up at a different time with a different romance afoot. If she tries to avoid love, then she's shot by a mysterious cowboy. If you're skeptical of romance, you'll enjoy the subversion and critique of the genre. Well, if you like romance, you'll enjoy the celebration of the melodrama. Somehow, love everlasting threads the needle between the two. The art by Elsa Chirotier. I'm going to just, just say is perfectly vintage pulp complete with some bright red gore now and then. It's fun with

the capital F, but also purposeful, advancing the uneasy and mysterious mood that builds through each love story. Also, I enjoyed the attention to fashion throughout the era's Western, mod, flapper, Victorian. Finally, the colors by Matt Hollingsworth are delicious. My eyes were gobbling them up on every page. The palette shifts from issue to issue to reflect the changing time period and pay homage to Polk comics of the past throughout, but still, the feels fresh and funky besides the genre fans I already mentioned. I would recommend this series, especially for fans of Paper Girls. There's some of the same mystery slash sci-fi aspects and the delightful visual flare as well.

That was a long recommend, but I thought Betty did just such a good job with that, and I love a bookseller on a tear. So thank you, Betty, for that recommendation. Jeff recommends Lockwood & Company the erstwhile canceled Netflix installment by the great Joe Cornish, did attack the block, et cetera. James recommends a black cloak by Kelly Thompson and Meredith McLaren. Kelly Thompson is a comics creator that I love. And James writes, speaking of detective stories set inside another genre of story, this is an absolutely terrific detective story set in a fantasy world where the law enforcement is

investigating a series of murders in the last city in the world where elves, humans, mermaids, and other species coexist. And then he ended with an apple take, which I wanted to include a lot of people. did. But I really liked this one from James because James wrote, Red Delicious or Trash, as is any food that has to tell you is delicious. And it reminded me of the Taiwan land. Yeah, of course. Classic. A man I have to say he's king. Okay. That reminds me. I forgot one of my honorable mentions. I had a comic on there.

So the comic talk here, I'll just note that. Saga? We talked about this. Yeah, Saga. We talked about last year when Saga was returning, had that on a hype meter. And it's back. I mean, we're on another brief hiatus, but I believe issue 66 will come out in August. And there have been five new issues this year. 61 through 65 have come out this year. It's just great to have saga back and to get new issues and new arcs. And this has been a wonderful stretch.

So people who are enthusiastic about saga, if you have not taken the plunge, no time like the present. You will rip through it. It is, you will consume it ferociously. And if you read it and then spent a long time in a state of despondence and despair, waiting, mourning, grieving, it's back. It's back. Live back in. It's great. On the saga beat, I don't know why I keep saying sagas. I just like saying that saga. I know it's called saga. Anyway, on the saga beat. Our last email comes from Alex, who yes, and's, the black cloak recommendation that James gave, the love everlasting. recommendation that Betty gave and your saga recommendation and adds a few more titles that I'll zoom through.

Eight billion genies from Image Comic completed eight issues. Charles Sol and Ryan Brown, the final two issues of this miniseries came out in 2023, wrapping up a wonderful story at the exact same moment. Every single person on Earth gets a personal genie and one wish. Things then go awry. It's absurd, hilarious, and full of heart. Alex also recommends Night Fever by Ed Brubaker. Creator We Love and Sean Phillips

and writes that Breu Baker and Phillips are the masters of neo-noir and this story about an American overseas in Europe who gets roped into the city, nightlife underbelly of the city eyes wide shut style. Alex also recommends Nightwing

and Star Wars Darth Vader as like two, you know, big properties, DC Comics and Marvel ongoing, but like the Vader comic, like, points out why those two particular sort of big blockbuster titles are so good. And then last but not least from Boom Studios, Once Upon a Time at the End of the World, from Jason Aaron, Alexander Tefengi, Leila Del Dukka, and Nick Dragoda,

love story set after the apocalypse with the story told in three different parts at three different stages in the character's life, drawn by three different artists. So a lot of comics recommendations from our pals. I feel like I'm behind, woefully behind, and there's a lot of titles on here that I'm really excited about Love Everlasting. Sounds really good to me. Black Cloak sounds really good to me. So I'm excited to check this out.

Thank you for the Rex. Amazing. From our listeners. Eight billion genies. That concept sounds fascinating. Right. Yeah. Amazing.

The Vader comics are any Star Wars fans should check them out. Absolutely wonderful. Okay. So that's just a bounty of future reading material. What a thrill. House of Reeds. The door is always open. We haven't formally set up shop at a brick and mortar premise yet.

But sometimes I send you photos of interior. of bookshops to just give us designs and like bookshop cats and stuff like that. Absolutely love a bookshop cat. And love talking about the things that we loved together. This has been an absolute joy. Five minutes. Quick, quick, quick trailer check-in because we've gotten a couple absolute doozies recently. The Dune trailer, the most recent Dune trailer for Doom Part 2 and the most recent

Asoka trailer for the impending Star Wars live action series, Asoka. These two trailers were sensational. I genuinely think that the most recent Dune trailer is like a Hall of Fame trailer, one of the best trailers I can remember, just sublime. We were already so excited. I'm like vigorously nodding. I was nodding enthusiastically. Yeah.

This is like the opposite of the, that's not hope. Like this is hope seeing this trailer. It's just we knew this movie was going to be amazing. It's one of our most anticipated releases of the year. And the trailer was like an art form in and of its. just fucking incredible. We, um, I'm just so excited to say phrases like, Shai Holud again is something like that. Fian RELA.

Um, something I would love just on a, on a personal note is that, um, Fred of the Pod and my child by contact co-host, Dave Gonzalez has been only on a real anti-denyville new deter. Uh, misguided. Um, misguided take from Dave. And absolutely dismaying. He, he dropped his like, anti-envillivated. Danievel nov take on the podcast and the same day the Dune 2 trailer dropped and he was like,

I've made a hugeest day. Yeah. Even Dave, like no de Neville no hater was like, uh-oh, this looks amazing. So yeah, Dune 2. Tune. So excited. Maybe my favorite director currently. Wow.

I think about that. Yeah. Certainly in the top five. Up there. And certainly for like genre content. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah. Like an absolute sci-fi master. Yeah. Asoka. Is this something that you're looking forward to, Mallory? I can't tell you. I said to you recently on the pod, both on the heels of the first trailer,

which came out at Star Wars Celebration, and then when we did our spring and summer height meter, I had Soka right at the top, that I thought this would be the achievement of a lifetime. for Dave Filoni. And you as a person who are looking forward to Asoka, but also you know, you care about me. And you were like, protect your heart a little bit, right?

And then I saw this trailer. And I'm here to tell you that I can't protect my heart. Okay. I was thinking about this after watching the trailer, which gave me chills. It was just electric. It's like everything I want this show to be is there in these two trailers. I am maintaining just a little bead of like, okay, be prepared, be balanced, be measured, be measured,

expect anything. Sometimes these things go wrong. I'll just say that I think that if this show is disappointing, it will be the biggest disappointment for me as a fan since the end of Game of Thrones. Like, that's how much I'm looking forward to this. Now, the whole of the Game of Thrones had over my life and career was a different thing entirely. So that was a different thing entirely. But your history with Asoka is long and story.

I'm very invested in Asoka as a character and Thrawn as a character in Rebels as an enterprise, in Rebel, live action rebels, Rebels 2.0, all of it. Sabine, Chopper, everything that this trailer has, that they're showing us, everything that I think Faloni is going to do here, I need it, I want it. I believe it will be good. So I'm not going to, here's what I've decided. rationally, am I occasionally like, I will be despondent if this is bad, sure. I'm not even going to think that way. I'm just going to say, I'm looking forward to it.

I can't wait. I'm excited. It's like a great fun thing to revisit. And I'm looking for spending the next few weeks revisiting some of the prior Asoka and Rebels canon to get ready. I cannot wait to talk about the show with you every week. It is one of the things I am most looking forward to potting about together. What did you think in the trailer? I'm not here to yakuyaama rain on your parade, even a little smidgen.

I'm like, I desperately want this, desperately want this to be phenomenal for you. And we did get an email from someone asking, like, if we would do any sort of like Asoka prep. And certainly, of course. Certainly we will. Like, we will give you some prep. In addition to the prep we already did for Mandalorian season three. But I just want to say in two things. I'm not, again, I'm not rating on yours or anyone else's parade, but something that I have.

Do it. No, no, no, no. I'm not. But something that I have heard from people who haven't watched the animated shows is that they're a little worried that they're going to be lost. And of course that, like, this is why we're here to like hold your hand and help you through and give you context. That's something that we, that's literally what we do. Right. But I kind of understand, like, in the way that this trailer was cut,

like, it was sort of like you're supposed to have a like, holy shit Sabine moment. And like you and I do. But like maybe someone who's never seen Sabine is like, I don't understand like the context of what I'm watching here. So that is something that I hope that, you know, and I believe in Dave Fallonian that I hope the show has space to sort of gently hold the hand of people who are less familiar with these characters in this world. You know what I mean? Definitely. The other side of that that I want to say is that, too, something we were talking about earlier about, like, you know, why does Dave Faluny want to revisit these characters that he did an animation? Like, he loves these characters.

Like, they're the work of his lifetime. Like, you know, Asoka is his masterpiece of a creation. So, like, you know, this is something that he cares deeply about. But the question is also, like, does he have, is there something else on his mind other than, like, I create these characters? I want to, like, give them maybe even more popularity by putting them in live action. And I think based on this trailer, there's all this delightful, mythological, force mythological, and then also even more crucially or even more piquing my interest is, which is something that Asoka has done for a while in her stories,

is the gray area between the light side and the dark. There is so, you know, both from our antagonists and from Asoka, these are characters who are not darksiders and light siders. And to examine the force through the middle is something I am really excited for, more excited than I am to see Lars Mikkelson slap a bunch of blue plate on, which is also thrilling to me. So, you know. Yeah, also thrilling.

Getting that glimpse of Thrawn face here was a true delight. Yeah, I mean, that's like top of the list for me as well. And one of the things that we hold so sacred about Asoka as a figure in Star Wars, you know, we'll talk about this a lot in our preview pods and then I think probably on a weekly basis as we cover the show. But the way that this trailer really leaned into that, some of that is with Baylon.

And, you know, we talked to, like, theorized in our first trailer breakdown about the orange lightsabers and what might it mean. And, like, you know, this opening note of, like, one must destroy in order to create. I like thinking about that in the macro meta sense for Star Wars and, like, really trying to do something that's fresh and distinct.

And you can do that in harmony with appealing to the history that we have with the people and the things that we already love. And that was also present in the trailer in a way that gave me hope. Like, for example, we hear Baylon mention Anakin. We hear Asoka mention Anakin. I don't think the whole show will be about Anakin and Asoka, but the past that they share, what his story is. fall has meant for her life, what her break from the Jedi order before his fall meant for his life is going to be like inextricable from this text. Then you get these very intriguing Asoka Sabine relationship frameworks in the trailer. Master. We see Sabine holding a green saber. Like I don't think we

will learn that Sabine has been force sensitive this whole time. I think that they're playing with our expectations. I also hope we don't. I'll be open-minded if that is where it goes, but I also hope we don't. And I think that, like, then that's another good example of the point you were raising earlier. Like, how much do you need to know about Sabine? Do you need to have seen every second of Sabine's Dark Sabre training with Canaan, for example, or her training with Ezra, for example, to be able to appreciate what we might come to learn, like new information about the bond, the tutelage, the past between Asoka and Sabine? I think that will be enriching if it's there.

I hope it's there too. But my other hope is that if it isn't there, that what they give us will feel like its own thing entirely because that will all be new to us. And I think the balance question of how not only what you need to know for this to like feel welcoming, right, and not alienating, but also for it all to track. It's like that balance question is fascinating because I think one of the things that didn't work about Mando season three was actually how little they brought in from of that history and backstory. It was like, okay, we're going to kind of like not really talk about the fact that Bocatan was a terrorist. We'll have like two lines in the entire season that like that in any way confront that history. But then if every beat of it is there, it's like we've done this already. So that question of balance is like it's going to be a crucial one.

Again, I said I wasn't here to kick dirt on Mando season three. But I think Mando season three failed on both sides of that. Because I still think there was some Mandoor lore that felt impenetrable to people. some dark saber lore that felt a better tool of people. And then at the same time, for those of us who knew more, we were like, why aren't we talking about XYZ? So, yeah, it, again, and we really trust Dave Filoni. We have a lot of confidence in him.

I think in addition to that forced mythology or dark side, light side was in between sort of question, the other thing that I, I mean, it looks phenomenal. The music, so the music that they're using for the music. the series. They've, they've got Kevin Kiner who did the music for Rebel, Star Wars Rebels composer, Kevin Kiner is doing the music for the series. But this track that's on here, just by the way, is called I Am the Door. It's by John Samuel Hanson, who's a composer, who just does music for like trailers. And I will just listen to this track. I think it is so good. But on the, on the aesthetics front, what I think is interesting in this trailer,

and I'll be so interested to track it, is, you know, we've been looking. We've seen images of the mural that is from rebels in from the moment we got art for Asoka, right? And we've talked in the past about the character of Thron and how he uses, like, art as a way in which to understand cultures in a way in which to then conquer cultures. But I love that we get not only that mural, but we also get this, like, you know, in vast relationships. leaf sort of mural engraving moment. And these crumbling old, you know, spots that might have been a holy site or a temple or something like that. There's just like a lot of like art and beauty of this world that is like, you know, we love

Star Wars because it is like shiny and chrome, but it's also there's this like, you know, especially in the way that I think Faloni thinks about it, this sort of like a mythological artistic, exploring the distinct flavors of cultures, of the thall of all these different places, that I am really excited to see this show take on. Me too. I think that etching that you called out

is a great example, too, of like, I'm assuming that that's the daughter from Mortis, this really key figure in, not only the lore and mythology of the force, but Asoca, specifically Asoca's connection to the force and history and the canon. and like, would I recommend the Mortis Arc of Clone Wars to people? The answer is not only yes, it's like I would do it as fervently as anything in Star Wars.

But I also feel that this should be a welcoming experience for people who have never spent a second watching the Mortis Arc or any other episode of Clone Wars and hopefully it will be. So I, yeah, there was enough there like that glimpse of what appeared to be like the front of a pergill. Like there's just so much here that has me. I feel like I'm levitating at the anticipation. I just, I really, I really can't wait. I hope it's wonderful. Do you see the ghost Lego set? Dynamite.

It's all happening. Did you hear the dulcet tones of David Tennant? Yes. So, so, you know, in the shot where we see him in the ship, like, I feel like he's going to be in it a little bit more than maybe we were anticipating. I know. I thought it was just going to be like a cameo, but it feels like maybe he's on the adventure. So, yeah.

Delightful. Okay. August. Two-part premiere, Joe. Can't wait. Every week, you and me. And it's going to be the best thing that was ever made. That's right. I'm putting that energy into the universe for you. I love it. Did you get what you wanted from this life?

Even so? I did. And what did you want? To call myself, beloved. To feel myself beloved. on the earth. Okay, Joe, we have run along talking about some of the best stuff that we've seen this year. We had a blast.

We will resume our longer secret invasion discussions next week when we get to episode five, the penultimate episode of the season. Just a quick couple minutes here on the fourth episode of the season, Beloved. What are you most interested in highlighting here? Rodeas' scroll, confirmed, Gaia, as we speculated and theorized, in fact, alive had dosed up with that super scroll extremist power, was ready to go. We found out about it in an opening episode flashback. Very strange.

The episode concluded with Gravick Killing, one of Nick Fury's close friends and nor confidants for the third time at four weeks. Is Talos actually dead? Could this possibly be another fakeout? Do you think we've done the fakeout thing? And that's a wrap on the Ben Mendelso's experience. Would you like to recite some Raymond Carver late fragment to me as Fury and Priscilla did? Where would you like to take this?

Oh, my top impressions. I mean, if we were doing a lot, maybe next week, we'll do some dramatic Raymond Carver. We only have a little bit of time to talk about this year. But I will say I do think that the Taylorus is definitely dead. And this is something that we sort of talked about in the very first episode based on some of Samuel Jackson's quotes about Dick Ferry becoming a sort of lone gunman, gunslinger sort of thing. So like, you know, strip away his wife, who we just met, but now is stripped away from him. Strip away Taylor, all this sort of thing. And guess what's left in the words of Buffy?

Me. So we'll find out like how he does. But I just want to quickly read some quotes from Feigey on Rody and just like we can think about this when we come back to cover this next week. But speaking to Marvel.com, Feigey on the Rody reveal something again we called in our first episode of this podcast, as did everyone else on the internet. We're not special.

But he said, we need to have a character that one would not expect to be a scroll. Okay. Don was on board for this reveal of playing and revealing another side. Rody and revealing that, yeah, Rody has been a scroll. When we have amazing actors like Don Cheadle that have been with us for so many years, we very much treat them as partners in the creative collaboration. It was very early days when we pitched this concept of Don,

and he very much was into it, into being able to play with different sides of Rody that we haven't seen before. Last but not least, Figey says, in terms of how long Rody has been a scroll, the Marvel.com article raised that revelation will have to wait as viewers come to, quote, understand exactly how long he's been a scroll. Fagie adds, quote, we like the idea of fans going back and watching some of the other appearances of Rody and realizing that that wasn't him, end quote. This is the conversation you and I have been having from the start.

How long was Rody's a skull? You were like, we're going to have to have some words if Rody was a scroll in end game. So when Fagie says, go back and watching some of the other appearances of Rody and realizing that wasn't him. I am concerned. We have some questions, comments, and concerns. I am concerned.

And my hope is that this, despite what that quote might indicate, proves to be a more recent thing. And what's wild to me is that, like, the Rody that we met, we've met in this show. Like, I do think Don is having a really fun time playing Skroll Rode.

But scroll Rodey is so different from Rodey. That I'm like, if he's trying to, like, fool us that he's Rody, like, he's doing a bad job. Don Chudel's out doing a great job as an actor. As a before, of course. Different flavor of a Rody that we've not seen before. Right. So, like, sarcastic. Well, I mean, Rode is always sarcastic.

But just sort of like that swagger, the, like, you know, the drinking too much so much so that the president notices it. Like, sloppy. Seems sloppy. Sleeps all this sort of. So, like, how long could this. Lady Scroll have been undercover because it doesn't seem to be doing a great job, honestly. So this character who,

the scroll who is impersonating Rody is named Rava. This is not a character. Kendall Roy's X-Way. Kendall's X-Rama. This is inside of the MCU on the scroll front, not a character we know, so we don't know anything about this, like, really central figure in the story.

To your point, which I have been thinking about too and really agree with, like, I guess the only thing they could try to say is, well,

the fact that the graphic mission is unfolding in full and we have reached this stage of the attempted takeover might mean that Rava as Rode is like acting differently.

I just don't think you can go back to prior. Like, my, my, my, my, my,

my, my, or on the record. And, like, I feel strongly bad. And I think a lot of other Marvel fans do, too. And, like, you can't fuck with the moment between Nat and Rodi during the blip. You can't fuck with Rodi's goodbye to Tony at the very end. You just, like, there are a couple things.

We have to sort of be open to the fact that comics can and can change. That's, like, an inherent part of the experience. There are a few things in the Infinity saga that are, like, sacred. Tony's death. I just feel, I, you made a great point about it. Every now and then you hear me say something, and then I'm like, I'll try to remain open-minded. this is not a thing out of me. No, no, no.

I was, like, I was, I was feeling much more loose about this until you made an excellent case for it in our first episode. And then I was like, yeah, it's a portrayal to us as, as, like, fans, if that's not Rody. I will accept the Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Falcon. That is where I'm willing to say. But it's the plural of appearances that has me very concerned.

It's worrying, Kevin. It's worrying. I'm a little concerned. But yeah, like the open the door and like, you know, get me a mint and like the not even just in the interactions with Fury because Fury is of course showing up to the hotel to be like I, I. But with the president, you know. I know too, but the interactions with the president. Yeah, like all of it. It's just not even, Rava is not even pretending to be Colonel James Rhodes. Maybe Rava is like a new hire. Maybe someone else was doing Rode and like Rava to like swap in. Rava's not as good. I am curious to see when we learn where real roadie and like real Ross and all of these figures who have been swapped out like are and to the point of the email we got a couple weeks ago like hopefully they're not just baking inside of a nuclear power plant. Like hopefully real roadie is and will be okay once it's removed from the fracking pot at some point. anything else Joe

well again maybe we'll cover a little bit more from episode four when we get to episode five next week anything else that you uh tough end for talos if he is dead that the last interaction he had with with Gaia was like I just need to know your plan and then he was like here's my plan

it's to convince the president that we have good hearts and then maybe he'll let a million shapeshifters just like carve out some some land and she got up and was like, you're delusional and then walked away. And then he was murdered by Gravick as

Fury then decided to leave his body on the street and drove away with Ritson. That was the end for Taylor. I don't know. I'm going to reserve judgment. We'll talk about it more next week. I will say... I'll miss Ben Mendelsohn.

A crime and a shame. Yeah. Miss Ben, a crime and a shame to not have Olivia Coleman in this episode. Yeah. We didn't get our one precious sonya scene. Our no sonya scene. I had to survive on the crumbs that was, Vogue did like a video series with Amelia Clark and Olivia Coleman,

like two of the most delightfully charismatic people in the planet. I think they were trying to recapture the HBO Max Negroni-Sveliato viral moment by putting Amelia Clark and Olivia Coleman in room together. And what I will say this is that Amelia Clark asked the question of like, what's the one thing you can't leave your home without? And at first, Olivia Coleman gave a boring answer her phone. And then she said knickers. And I'm like, that's great.

So, you know. Like, if you didn't have a great time with Secret Invisions Week, maybe watch Amelia Clark and Olivia Coleman interview each other is pretty delightful and British. Fantastic. What's your answer? Is it Papi? Papi Reserve with some nanotech trackers inside? Listen, Poppy Van Winkle is such like a thing that I know from Justified that I was like,

my jaw was on the floor. Was that your Easter egg of the week? Of course. Because, like, I know that, like, our pal Jess Clemens and most people who are in the Marvel world are like, oh, this is a Shehulk reference. And it probably is. But Poppy is like, Poppy is such a thing and justified that I thought it was like a made up alcohol that just existed in the television. So justified. This is how I know you're a tequila, a tequila enthusiast and not a bourbon enthusiast. I hate bourbon. I love it. I like Nick Fury love bourbon. I like this. I do really like the season long through line about Nick Fury's. enthusiasm for a good glass of bourbon. I love it. Anything else, Joe?

No. Anything else that you don't want to say, though? I want to leave space for you in case you want to talk to her about. It's a good invasion. No. I'm looking forward to resuming our potting next week. I guess if I had a subtitle nominee for our recurring award this week, it would be in honor of Sonia in her absence, you know?

Bottom shelf piss, Dostoevsky, and rather dashing little eye patch, unremarked upon. for a full week. Sad. Did you have a wig watch or a hat watch that you wanted to do quickly to take us out here? We did get a submission from our listener, Pat, who says, does Samuel Jackson's big fluffy chinmerkin count for wigwatch? And I say yes.

Yes, indeed it does. Oh, my lord. Boy, big fluffy chinmerkin is a lot to process there. Okay. What a joy. What a joy. Let that take you into the weekend. Yeah.

Well, friends, we're known for our brevity. Some of our podcasts are just three or four lines. That's a wrap. On today's episode, thank you to our poetry, enthusiasts, Steve Holman, for producing this episode. Arjuna Ram Gapal, first additional production work on this episode. And Joomi Adenoran, first work on the social for this episode. Please head back into the ring ofverse for Jessica's Easter Eggs Breakdown of Secret Invasion episode four over the weekend.

Pop back next week for the Midnight Boys double feature draft, toys and explosions. Love it. Love it. And some House of Our deep dive in. Rewatching. All of it. It's House of Who time. The third episode of House of Who, we will be back to talk about Secret Invasion episode

five. Until then, make sure the kernel here has a large coffee for the road.