Too Scary; Didn't Watch - WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN (Vault Release)

Episode Date: July 1, 2026

This episode was originally released as a bonus episode on our Patreon in June 2024.Find more bonus episodes at www.patreon.com/tsdwpodcastRecap starts @ 11:15See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a headgum podcast. This episode was originally recorded as a bonus episode for our Patreon in June 2024. You can find more bonus episodes on our Patreon at www.w.com slash TSDW podcast. We'll be back with a new episode next week, but for now, just enjoy this one. This is Emily, Henley, and Sammy. and you're listening to Too Scary Didn't Watch. Hi everyone.

Welcome to Too Scary Didn't Watch bonus episode number two for the month of June. That's right. And this was, I think, as a gift to me, Henley let me put some double black diamonds in the patron poll for this bonus recap. And guess who's not here to hear? That recap. Oh, somebody's sick, huh? That's interesting timing. Oh, she really is sick, though.

At the end of our live show, she took her temperature and she had a 102 degree fever. She powered through the whole thing. I mean, she really, what a champion. I had no idea. Yeah, she really did a great job. Pretending like she felt okay. She paid her dues. She put the work in.

She gets to rest now. I do not get to rest. I have to hear about the double black diamond. And I guess you better tell me what it is, Sammy. It's, you know, it's not really a horror movie, but I do think it stands a chance to be one of the most hated. Even before Henley was sick, I had written in my notes like Henley might have to leave at,

like Henley might not be able to handle it. And so it's a tough one. And you guys chose it so you know what it is. We are going to be talking about we need to talk about Kevin. No. Oh, no. Oh, no. Yeah.

Okay, I won't lie. I am curious. But, oh, no. I know nothing about this. movie other than any time it's brought up, the people who do know about it go like, oh, God, oh, no. Like, it like, it causes a visceral reaction on everybody who does know what it is. And I can't believe that's about to be me. Watching this movie is, like, borderline excruciating.

That said, I love it because I love to feel bad. It was directed by Lynn Ramsey, who I, I love. one of my favorite directors, again, because I like to feel bad. Written by Lynn Ramsey and Rory Stewart-Kaneer, based on the novel by Lionel Shriver, starring Tilda Swinton, John C. Riley and Ezra Miller, and it is streaming on Prime. Came out in 2011. I forgot to say that part. Before some of the more troubling things about Ezra Miller?

Yes. We became public. Yes. and yeah, I guess we might as well get that out of the way there. Just to say, we know. We know. We know. Ezra Miller has had some problematic things happen.

I think they are quite troubled. And, yeah, I will say they are really good in this. And I believe that this is a troubling tale. So, yeah. Yeah. So, uh, this movie has a 75% on our on tomatoes, a 68% on Metacritic and a 7.5 on IMDB. So pretty, wow. Even across the board there. Budget was 7 million. It made 10.8 million. Hello. Wow. Incredible. Uh, not a ton of trivia, but this is, I thought, just interesting. It has 22 producers, which seems insane.

It's a lot of producers. Including Tilda Swinton and Steven Soderberg. Okay. And then I just wrote some Lynn Ramsey trivia, because again, I love her. I just watched Ratcatcher for the first time, which is one of her earlier movies that was playing. They had a film festival here in Los Angeles called Bleak Week. You know my interest was peaked. And I caught a few of the Bleak Week features.

I watched Rat Catcher and Firewalk with me. And I think we need to talk about Kevin is bleaker than both of those. But it also did screen at Bleak Week. So they knew that as well. Yeah, they put it in the lineup. I believe they played all of Lynn Ramsey's movies. And she was at Q&A's for all of them. Here's a question.

Hey, Lynn. Why is so sad? What's going on, Lynn? Why are all your movies part of Bleak Week, Lynn? She has a movie that's in post-production called Polaris, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Rooney Mara, and the tagline for it, or like, brief description on IMDB. I think I read this to you already, Emily, but just for our patrons to know, it says set in Alaska during the 1890s, 90s, an ice photographer meets the devil. I'm in.

I mean, that is interesting. That's a tagline I'm interested in. And an 1890s ice photographer. Now, that is also an interesting thing that I didn't know was a thing. Okay. I'm going to be checking that out whenever that is. No release date as of yet. Sure, sure.

And yeah, some of our patrons did, again, point. out that this is not a horror movie. But it is one of the most feel bad movies of all time. Okay. Well, that's great news for me. That's great news for me. I'm going to say I have some trivia about John C. Riley, which is that one time days before the COVID lockdown, Joel and I saw, it was days before we like knew, you know,

knew to be scared of COVID. I'll just say that. We were at Moonlight Roller Way, which is a roller skating rink. outside of Los Angeles. Saw John C. Riley there, just absolutely crushing it on the roller ring. The man can really skate. And he was having the time of his life.

And it was, I think he was alone. It was just a really pleasant thing. He just was going and going and going, doing his moves, having a great time being extremely John C. Riley. And I will just think about that as often as I need to during this next time. It's not far off from his character in this movie. He's having mostly a pretty good time in this movie.

So I think that's apt. And we can hold on to that once it passes the point of that being the vibe. Great. Great. I do think we should watch this trailer because it doesn't really give anything away. Okay. Just gives you some of the vibe. It's a beautifully shot movie cinematography.

gorgeous but just so you can yeah have kind of something to picture while I tell you I don't want to though I don't have anything to picture but okay don't love to see a rated R for disturbing violence and behavior

really don't like to see a rated R for disturbing behavior that is honestly worse to me than violence like I really like it is bad it is bad it is bad Yeah, that's, I don't want, I don't, God damn it. All right, fine. Fine.

Okay. Every day, it's a getting closer. Going faster than a roller coaster. Love like yours will sleep on my face. You just have to rock in a little bit. Could you say mommy? No. Shouldn't he be talking by now?

I wouldn't worry about it. Bop, bop, bop, ba. Ball? No! He's just a boy. Just a sweet little boy. Just because you're used to something doesn't mean you like it. You're used to me.

Big shot, Kevin. You're natural. First he cries too much, then he's too quiet. And you see it as some kind of personal vendetta? You think I'm exaggerating? Listen, buddy, it's easy to misunderstand when you hear it out of context. Why did I not know the context? It gave me a lot of body chills.

It's just a sweet, beautiful, sweet. Take up the phone. That's what boys do. Yay. It gave me a lot of body chills. It's a good trailer. Yeah. I don't want to talk about Kevin.

Well, Emily, we need to. I don't want to talk about Kevin. Just don't tell me about Kevin Don't you dare tell me That's my movie My movie's called Shut Your Mouth About Kevin Oh boy Yeah

Okay So you know I'm not entirely sure What direction this is gonna go in But I know that Either of the two that It seems like it could go in Are really bad

Yeah It's kind of a Kind of seems like a huge lose-lose, no matter what. Yeah, you know it's not going to any good places. So. So let's go there. Let's go there. Take me there.

Okay, we begin with Tilda Swinton is our protagonist. Her name is Eva. And at first we're seeing her being carried. on like a like crowd surfed essentially on this like big crowd of people everyone's covered in red what looks like paint but according to the trivia this is the la tomatina festival in buneo near valencia in spain and so it's basically just like the streets filled with people covered in i guess tomatoes or maybe red paint maybe maybe both okay but it's very uh visually striking and this image stuck with me so much from the movie that it was the first image on

framed one day and I got it in one. Nice. I guess it's like pretty recognizable, but it's a cool shot. So we jump around in time a lot in this movie. Okay. The festival in Spain is in the past and then we cut to the present, Tilda Swinton, is waking up on the couch in her house and small little house looks like some like empty wine bottles next to her not looking great and she notices that there is red paint splattered

all over the front of her house and all over her car and she walks outside and she looks really annoyed by this, but not particularly surprised by it. Now we flash back to her previous life in a much larger house with a family, and the camera comes up behind this little girl, sweet little girl with long blonde hair singing at the dinner table, and then she turns around and we see she has an eye patch over her eye. and this is Eva's daughter

Celia she's maybe a between 8 and 10 John C. Riley plays her husband Franklin and Ezra Miller plays

her son Kevin Kevin's about 15 at this time I'll also say Ezra Miller uses they them pronouns but in the movie they're playing a male

character so I'm going to refer to Kevin as he now we come back to present, Eva, like waiting for a job interview at a travel agency, I think. And as she's sitting in the lobby of this office building, she's remembering being in her old job at another office building. And there's just these flashes of memory of her hearing something, looking out of the window in her office into the main area where all of her coworkers are and they all turn and stare at her with wide eyes and she has these wide eyes and she just like runs out of her office to the elevator

pounding on the button to go to leave and we don't know what's going on there cut back to present and she in this interview the manager tells her you know I don't care who you are I don't care what you've done as long as you can like do the paperwork you're hired and Eva looks really relieved by this like maybe it has been difficult for you. for her to find someone that would hire her. And she's like, thank you so much. Like, I'm not going to let you down. And there's a lot of attention to detail in the movie.

Like, she's noticing when an edge of a poster is curled up. And she has, like, a little bit of paint on her fingernail or something and is, like, chipping that. So there's all these, like, close-ups that add to this feeling of just, like, tension and, like, Yeah. It's the smallness of the of her world now. Feeling like irked and like uncomfy in that way. Yeah. Yes. And it really is wild how once you focus on something like that, like really focus on it. It does become the actual only thing you can think about. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And so that seems to be how she's kind of living her life now is just. I hate that. focusing on all these things because she seems to be as far as we see completely alone.

Like there's no family now, there's no friends, and so now she's got this job and for the first time she's smiling as she leaves this travel agency and these two women are walking towards her. One of them looks at her with recognition and smiles at her and says,

well, it looks like somebody's having a nice thing. day and Eva says excuse me and the woman punches her in the face so hard and start screaming at her like I hope you rotten hell you fucking bitch. This is like a would be coworker? No, I think it's just a woman on the street. Like it's in like a strip mall type air. So just someone like shopping nearby and they her she walks off and leaves her there and Eva's like holding her face where she hit her

and this man runs up trying to help her says, can I, oh my God, I like saw everything. I'll call 911. And she says, no, please don't, please don't. It was my fault. It was all my fault. Like, you don't have to call. And he's like, what are you talking to?

Like, she just assaulted you. And she's like, please don't call. Like, it was my fault. Don't worry about it. And like gets into her car and drives away. Oh, my God. What the fuck happened? And now we cut back.

to after the Tomatina Festival seems to be around the time that Eva met Franklin. So we see a more carefree, Tilda Swinton and John C. Riley kissing and falling in love and, you know, having a nice time. And then shortly after they start dating, she gets pregnant and she does not. seem happy about it but Franklin is very very excited and a lot of these scenes aren't really necessarily we're not necessarily learning this through dialogue but more just Tilda Swinton's performance of like we can see that she's just looking like she's doing this for Franklin and that's not a way you should have children but now we can cut to present day again and she is driving to a prison. And as she is entering the visitors area of the prison, she's having flashbacks of police sirens.

We're just seeing like quick images of, of, you know, red and blue lights from police cars and a crowd of people outside of a high school at nighttime. And now she goes into the prison and visits Kevin in present day, and they sit across the table from each other in complete silence as Kevin chews off each one of his fingernails individually, all ten of them, and we just watch all of this happen, as he choose, peels it off, and lays it on the table in front of, in between them, and lines up all ten of his little fingernails in this nasty little train.

Ew. And then they're like, okay, time's up. So that was their visit. It is this, like I said, excruciating. We see back in time Kevin being born. and being brought home from the hospital and just screaming and screaming and screaming and screaming and screaming and screaming as she's trying to bounce him

and like all these different, you know, time is passing and he's just won't stop screaming. We're seeing Eva look more and more exhausted. She's got, you know, circles under her eyes now and it's just like more and more unkempt and just like not doing well. and this is, you know, starting to be where. I mean, I guess it already was where, but I was like Henley's not going to like this.

I mean, yeah, it would just be so hard. That is so hard for so many people. Yeah, I mean, we have had friends that have had babies with colic, and it seems really, really terrible. But somehow Franklin doesn't seem to be, too negatively affected by this, probably because he goes to work for a lot of the time. And so Eva's having to be the caregiver most of the time. And we see a scene of her with Kevin in a stroller.

And she just goes and stands next to this construction site with jackhammers and just like has this look of peace like wash over her face because something's finally louder than her screaming child and all these people are people are walking by looking at her really judgmentally because her child is obviously screaming and crying and it's extremely loud but the construction is extremely loud and she's just like does not give a fuck she's just like give me this peace for one moment back at home Franklin comes home after work picks up Kevin rocks him Kevin stops crying for Franklin almost immediately. And he's like,

what, see, you just have to rock him. Like, like, he's not, it's, he's fine.

He's like, just sweet little boy. And. That would be infuriating. Eva is trying to, you know, tell him, I'm not,

I'm not making this up. Like, do you think I'm exaggerating? Like, why would I make this up? Like, and Franklin just, I don't know if it's not that he doesn't believe it. He's just not experiencing it. And so he's like, oh, well, he's fine now. Like, not helpful at all.

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styled to be like has given up on life and I'm just like she looks I like this look at the vibe and she's turning a corner to another aisle when she sees someone that she recognizes she panics she leaves her cart where it is and she like runs two more aisles over and just like hides and waits for a little while and then goes back and retrieves her cart after the woman is gone and goes to checkout and the cashier opens the eggs that she bought to check them and they're all broken and she's like oh all these eggs are broken you got to get another we'll get you another doesn't, but just at that moment, the same woman walks into the aisle or into the checkout lane next to her and spots her and they have this moment of recognition. And Eva says, it's fine.

I'll take them as is. And she's like, what do you mean? They're like all broken. And it's like, I'll take them as is. Like just puts the money on the counter and takes them. And. This is already so upsetting. We haven't even gotten to the upsetting shit. It's so rough. we now get our first flashes of whatever this bad event was police lights flashing at the high school, we're seeing bodies being like wheeled out of the high school on like stretchers like gurneys. And back to her at home in the present day by herself eating dinner of scrambled eggs, just pulling eggshells out of her mouth with like every bite. It's fucking devastating.

An alone meal like no other. Oh my God. Oh, it's rough. It's rough. And we see her again, like self-medicating. She has pills and alcohol and just she's knocking herself out each night, essentially. we flashback to now Kevin is about two-ish all the all the actors that play Kevin are so good

because he just looks like a truly evil child so this actor is like two and he just looks evil I don't know how else to describe it he just absolutely like death stares Eva constantly and is just I mean that would be really scary And she's clearly freaked out by him, but also, like, she's his mom. And so that would suck. It would suck to be scared of your toddler in like a real way. It looks really bad.

And she's trying to encourage him to, she's saying, you know, can you say mama? Can you say this? And she's trying to roll a ball back and forth between him. And he just stares at her. He does not engage with her at all on anything. and she takes him to the doctor to say, like, shouldn't he be speaking by now? Doctor checks him out, says everything seems fine. Like, I don't think you have anything to worry about.

And now we cut a couple years later. Kevin's probably six. And he's just, this is a new actor, again, incredible. being so evil and like annoying at this point. We just see him at the dinner table going, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, over and over and over and over. And Eva's telling him to stop.

And every time she talks to him, he just, you know, parrots her and nan, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na. And it seems really infuriating. There's a scene of him. It's just like cutting to like little memories. snippets of things so it's not like full things are happening in the scene we're just like getting glimpses of what this child is like there's one scene where they're driving and he's sitting in the backseat shoveling puffy cheetos into his mouth with just like orange cheetaheusts all over his

face that one really uh made me laugh we've all been there uh and now back to present day she's at work and not like making any friends at work. There are other people that are working there, but she doesn't seem to really speak to anybody. And so her days, although she has a job, which is good, her days don't seem to have gotten any more fulfilling in any real way. So she leaves the office, and as she is out in the parking lot from across the parking lot, someone spots her and it's a man in a wheelchair that comes up to her and waves her down and says like,

oh, hey, Mrs. I can't remember her last name, but he's seeming friendly. And she smiles and she's like, oh, hey, how are you doing? And he's like, oh, I'm actually doing really well. The doctor said they think I might be able to walk again. And he seems like genuinely concerned for her. And he's like, how are you doing? And she's like, I'm fine.

I'm good. Thank you. And he's like, okay. Like, great. I'm glad to hear that. Like, you take care of yourself, okay? And it leaves her. And we see a flashback of him being wheeled out of the school on the night of the incident.

Good God. Now we go back in time again. We see her decorated. her office, like a, like a, um, she has a room in the house that's an office. They have like this pretty big, nice family home. So she's got her little home office room and she's decorating it, putting maps on the walls, kind of, um, wallpaper, like wallpaper, really kind of an intricate decoration, but she looks like she's having fun, like she's excited about this. A little six-year-old Kevin walks in and

says his room looks dumb. Well, nobody asked her. You're six. Throughout the movie she's like really patient with him but also with a tone of like you can tell she like is so annoyed by him all the time. And so she kind of puts her high voice on and is like well,

everybody needs a special place Kevin. Like I could help you decorate your room if you wanted. We could make it however you want your special place to be and he's like why would I want it what would I what do you mean what would I want it like she's like I don't know to reflect your personality and he goes what personality oh my god and he's just a little asshole as she leaves the room he's like standing in the doorway and she folds her body to like pass him in a way that

I don't know, just like stuck out to me of like how much she doesn't want to touch him even. And we see in present day now, one of her coworkers talks to her, a man, and he seems like he's flirting with her a little bit, and she seems very out of practice and flirting, but she's kind of smiling and chatting with him a bit and, you know, cutting it off short, but seems like, okay, maybe this is something to like bring one ounce of enjoyment into your life and we go back in time to see

Eva walking into her home office and Kevin is in there with a huge like squirt gun thing filled with paint and has just like painted all like squirted paint all around the room it looks like a Jackson Pollock paint now. And she loses her temper and she smashes the squirt gun and stomp's on it.

And we cut to like a little bit later and it's clear that Franklin has been having a talk with Kevin in the room and he comes out to tell Eva, he said that you told him you wanted to make your room special and he was trying to help you make your room special. No, that's not what happened. That is not what happened. And so these things keep happening where Franklin just gets a completely different version of Kevin. Like he is seemingly intentionally deceiving, like not showing his true colors to Franklin and saving this behavior for Eva. Man, it'd be one thing to have an evil shitty kid and another thing entirely to be completely alone in it.

Yeah. Well, and or like not alone, but just like, no one is sharing that. There's people there. It's being gaslit. Yeah. And so and the more she calls it out, the more. Right. She's looking crazy. And so she just has to fucking deal with it. And we cut back to present day, her visiting Kevin in prison again. And. And. we see a scar on his forearm, just like a two inch scar. And she says, do you remember how you got that? And he says, of course I do. That was the most honest thing you ever did. And we cut back to the past again. Kevin is six and he's still in a diaper. I don't have kids.

I don't know what is normal. It seems like he has, he shouldn't be in a diaper anymore. He's being very defiant about learning anything. he won't cooperate. She's trying to go through numbers with him. And he's just like 13, 42, 27, like, just being a little brat. And then when she like kind of loses steam and is just sitting there, you see his little face scrunch up as he's like pressing a poop out.

And she looks so mad. And she's like, you didn't. how old are people when they get potty trained? Because maybe this is the right time. I don't really know, but it seems like it would fit Kevin's character to just, like, refuse to be potty trained. Yeah, I mean, I feel like four-ish, three-ish, four-ish, five-ish. Yeah, I mean, I'm sure it's different also, like, kid-to-kid,

but I think it attracts for him to be, like, refusing to do it. Like kindergarten, right? you need to be able to like go into a bathroom by the time you're in kindergarten just because that makes sense the teachers can't like change 30 diapers right yeah and like they have accidents but that's different than like not being potty trained uh-huh i don't know so it seems like kevin is intentionally i think before like true math yeah it it seems as if he is intentionally refusing to be potty trained. And so he squeezes his poop out defiantly.

And Eva looks very annoyed, carries him to his room or whatever. There's like a changing table in one of the rooms. And he does like a dead fish all throughout this. So she has to move like every limb of his. He will not cooperate at all. I hate this child. I hate this child. It's wild.

And so she changes his diaper and then like lifts him up and he's sulking as he walks away. And as he's at the door, walking out the door, he turns back and looks at her, scrunches up his face and poops again. And she gets very mad and she picks him up. And she, like, too aggressively puts him slash throws him on the changing table and he falls off. And we see his arm is bent at, like, a bad angle. And they have to go to the hospital. He gets a cast. The doctors are telling, the doctors are telling Eva, like, oh, your son is so sweet.

You have such a brave boy. Because he's like, he doesn't cry at all. He just stares at her when his arm gets broken. it like seems funny in retelling it but it's not it's not fun to watch yeah i believe it i believe it and they get home from the hospital franklin sees him in a cast says what happened kevin immediately says mommy was changing my diaper and i fell off the table um i was being like clumsy and takes the blame for it immediately in a way that's pretty unexpected and Eva looks really shocked. And Franklin turns to her for confirmation and she just says, it was all my fault.

And he says, no, no, like you can't prevent everything like accidents happen. It's okay. And she seems to let him believe that. Um, she puts Kevin to bed that night and she's clearly feeling guilty. She hugs him and she says, I love you know, I love you, kiddo. And he goes, yeah, yeah, yeah, na, yeah. Yeah. Oh, God.

And we see, there's just like another shot of him eating a peanut butter and jelly. Like, what are you supposed to do? It's actually like, it's. It's, you know, not a horror movie, but this is, like, one of the scariest things to imagine is your kid is just, like, evil and fucking with you, like, out to get you. I don't know. Like, what the fuck would you do? What the fuck would you do? What the fuck would you do?

I really don't know what you would do. I mean, does this happen? Maybe, maybe just isn't, maybe this could never happen. Has this never happened to you? I hope this could never happen. This is. yeah truly like the scariest thing i can imagine yeah uh we see him eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich he opens it up so that uh it's open-faced spits in each half and puts them face down

on the coffee table in front of eva and then franklin gets home from work right then and he puts a big smile on his face it's like daddy how is work today oh my god oh my god and she just has this like very vacant look in her. I should just run away in the night. Yeah. I think you just run away from your whole life. I'm really trying to think of like, what would I do? Because there can't be any more real love or intimacy between you and your partner because

he'll never believe, like you don't live in the same reality anymore and there's no fixing that. So like that ship has sailed. I do think like therapy should be explored. It doesn't seem like. Maybe therapy before you. I don't think anyone at this point has tried therapy, which seems like a good starting point. I'm sure Kevin would be able to be manipulative in those therapy sessions and figure out a way to make it seem like Eva's a bad mom instead of he's a bad child.

But it's worth the shot. Maybe you install cameras. well Kevin's asleep and you just put cameras everywhere and you record everything but then also even so once you have the proof then what do you do then what

even if other people believe you what are like the next steps there therapy for your kid without you with a therapist who's trained in sociopathic children. Yeah, yeah. That sounds pretty good. And then could benefit from that for sure.

Then you run away from your life. You leave him at the therapist. Obviously, you change your name. You go to a foreign country with no extradition agreements. And you just live out the rest of your days. That kid's somebody else's problem. Perfect plan. I love it.

It's, yeah, she's in a, she's in a tough situation. She's in a really tough spot. Hi, I'm Beck Bennett. I thought I was Beck Bennett. No, no, no, no. I'm Kyle Mooney. Sorry about that. Exactly. No, all good.

All good. Thanks, buddy. Yeah, and we host the show, what's our podcast here on HeadGum. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all-n-n-one website platform designed to help you stand out and make you look like a kick-ass person online. Like your skateboarding through the internet. Or you like your skateboard. surfing through the web. SquareSpace gives you everything you need to claim your domain,

showcase your offerings with a professional website, grow your brand, and get paid all in one place. I like that it's all in one place. I know. I like that I don't have to go around, you know, like different stores or something. It's just all in my website. Well, it's like, oh, do I need to go to like, do I need another type of website to like find the right pictures or like another type of website to upload the, you know, it's all in one place. The video or audio or like, no, it makes it easy, make it easy on me, please. Yes. And you can do all those things, photos, videos, changing fonts. You know what I mean, the designs are amazing.

They're catering to all your different needs. There are SEO tools, which I know what those are, and they're custom domains. Oh, what's come up with a domain right now? Let's see. I wonder if it exists. www. Friends. Meeting.

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So now we see that she gets pregnant again. I wouldn't be happy about that if I were her. She seems like, yeah, just kind of nervous about it. But Kevin seems unhappy about it saying I don't want a sister. I don't want that. And she tells him you'll get used to it. You'll get used to being a big brother. And he says, just because you're used to something doesn't mean you like it.

You're used to me. Oh, my God. We see his baby sister being born. This is Celia. And in the hospital as Eva's holding her, and they bring in Kevin to meet her for the first time. Kevin come say hello to your baby sister. Kevin leans in close to his mom reaches his hand in a cup of water

and just like starts flicking water in the baby's face until she starts crying. She's like, oh, just perfectly, just perfectly something he could get away with. Like it's, he knows where to draw the line. Yeah, he's too smart is also the problem. He's really smart, yeah. So now we bring Celia home and Kevin for a brief moment is on his best behavior for some reason. And he's now, I guess, feeling competitive with Celia. And so he's going like, Mommy, can you read to me, mommy?

And kind of like sucking up to her in a way that she seems pretty happy about it first and like thinks maybe it's genuine and her. and Franklin even share this look because obviously this has been something or like this hasn't happened before and they smile at each other like, oh, this is a nice pleasant development. And next morning he wakes up and she comes in and is like, can I help you get dressed? Like trying to pick up where we left off of like being nice to each other. And he's just like, I can dress myself. Get out. And just right back to his usual self.

we see, I think, for his birthday or maybe Christmas, Franklin gets him a little toy archery set with, like, suction cups. And he's so, loves it, and he's playing with the archery. And then we do a, like, flash forward to 15-year-old Kevin, now Ezra Miller, with now a real archery set. Still practicing. He's been practicing his archery this whole time. They've got, like, a target set up outside.

He's getting bullseyes. He's very good. So archery is his one hobby that Franklin seems to really be encouraging and it's just like, great job, buddy. Oh, you're getting so good. John C. Riley is really perfectly cast in this because he's just kind of like a sweet little dummy. That's just like so nice to everybody.

Yeah, I would believe the best in everything. Yes, yes. Oh. Yeah, you can really just picture him rolling around a rink in his own world having a nice time. You really can. I mean, I really can because I saw it. Kevin is, I think, still wearing the shirts that, some of the same shirts that we saw him wear as like a six or eight year old. Or if they're new shirts, they're like teeny, tiny little shirts.

They like essentially look like crop tops. Just seems important for you to know that because it's a fun styling choice for him. Celia's now 10 or so and Celia loves Kevin and like any time he comes in she like runs and is like Kevin hugs him and he's so mean to her just like pushes her away and like calls her stupid and he's like go get me a go get me a soda and just like bosses her around and calls her names

really going to fuck with her relationships to people as she gets older. Yeah and she like asks him to play and he's like yeah let's play this game and he pulls out the like tube part of the vacuum cleaner and starts vacuuming her hair Eva has to cut in as she's like crying because it's like pulling her hair out. Oh my God. Just no relaxing in this household. There's just constant stress. There's a moment where Eva walks in on Kevin.

jerking off. And rather than stop in embarrassment, Kevin just holds eye contact and like jerks off even harder. It's really, really unpleasant. But I'll also say that even like looks at him for way too long. I think she's in shock, obviously, but they just like stare at each other for, I feel like 10 seconds. It's too long. Like close the door immediately. Absolutely too long. Yeah. Back to the present, we see Eva at Christmas party at work. And she's almost looks like she's having fun. There's, you know, little drinks and snack table. And whenever there's snack table, it's going to be a good time.

The guy that seems to have a crush on her, that they've been kind of flirting, asks her to dance at the party. And she says, oh, no, like, I don't dance. Sorry. But she doesn't say it like mean. She's just like, I don't feel like dancing. And he just turns, he like leans into her and whispers in her ear, why be such a stuck up bitch?

I know who you are. And I know nobody else wants you. and she is holy fucking shit very upset by this and gathers her things and leaves the party back to the past we see

Eva asking Kevin to hang out with her that Friday night do you have plans on Friday we should do something it is like she does seem like she's constantly trying to make an effort but how exhausting would that be He's 15 now.

So for 15 years, you're just like, hey, Kevin. Do you want to do something fun? Should we try this? And he's just like makes everything miserable. But he agrees. And he's like, okay, sure, let's do something Friday night. And they decide they're going to go to mini golf and then go to dinner. They play minigolf and it starts raining

So they need to go home and change before dinner And he goes inside And while she's changing She comes out to the kitchen when she's ready And he is eating a entire roast chicken with his hands He has just shoveled the basically whole thing into his mouth It's like he's a little caveman That's pretty funny

That's a funny Funny joke And she says, See you downstairs and five for dinner And then you're eating an entire roast And she says, Kevin, what are you doing? We're going to dinner right now And he says, I was hungry.

I'm a growing boy. And so they go to dinner. He doesn't order anything because he's full now He just ate a whole chicken. He orders just like the, or he just has the bread basket type of thing and he's pulling out parts of the soft part of the bread and just like rolling them between his palms

and making like little bread balls and just stacking them on the table. It's so disgusting and horrible. And she's watching this while she eats like her whole meal, him just like rolling little pieces of bread between his fingers. Emily's looking really. So awful. It's so awful.

Oh, God. after that she like when he's at school one day is snooping around his room oh at that dinner she's like making an effort to be like so how school how is everything and he's like oh what you want to know how school is you see if I have a girlfriend so that you can tell me to be like be safe and if I'm experimenting you got to like not make me seem like something's wrong with me so you'll have tell me how you experimented too and basically just like I don't know makes the whole conversation

very awkward and so she's just like drinking wine and so the next day she goes to like look through his room to see if she can find anything and she finds a CD that just says I love you on it and she takes it and she's like I'll see what this is puts it in her computer

it's a virus there's porn all over her computer and it starts flashing and saying like you lost you lost you lost ruins the computer. Oh my fucking God. She asks him why he has something like that and he says,

I just collect them. Like, I don't like collecting stamps or anything. I collect those. And she says, but what's the point? And he says, there is no point. That's the point. Oh, just really cool stuff. In present day,

It's, you know, it's Christmas time. And we see her on a call with her mom. And her mom says, or we're just hearing Eva's side of the conversation. She says, no, mom, it's fine. I do have some friends coming over. Like, we are having a dinner. It's going to be, don't worry. You don't have to worry about me.

And then she, like, bangs on the wall. And she goes, oh, here they are now. Like, I'll talk to you later. Bye, mom. Just, like, so depressing and sad. and flashback to Christmas with Kevin and Celia and Franklin and we see Kevin gets like a really professional looking bow and arrow archery set and Celia gets a guinea pig we don't love that combination

I say don't give this fucking kid weapons and teach him how to use them. Yeah, no pets in the house. No pets. Immediately Pickles goes missing. Sorry, Pickles is the guinea pig. Mm-hmm. And Eva's helping Celia look for him, and Celia hangs her head is defeated. And she says, Kevin says, I'm stupid, and he's right because I didn't close the cage.

And she's like, I really thought I closed it. I really did. She's saying, you're not stupid, Celia, you're not stupid. I'm sure he'll come back. I wouldn't be so sure of that. Next morning, they're at it, like, in the kitchen having breakfast and Celia doesn't finish her cereal. And so Eva pours it down the sink and turns on the garbage disposal. And there, we don't see what happens, but it's very loud for what she,

should be cereal going down the garbage disposal. Something else is in there. And we just see Eva's face as we know what's happening, obviously. And she's trying to act really cool about it because Celia is right there. She can't be like, oh, God, your guinea pig is here. I found pickles. But we know that that is what happened. We see Eva pouring drain cleaner down the same.

and cleaning it later. And then we just cut to the hospital. And we don't know what happened. But we find out, we first just see Eva and Franklin sitting in like the waiting area. And Franklin says, like, how could you leave the drain cleaner out? Oh, God. And she says, I didn't. Like, it was Kevin.

And Franklin says, I think. You need to talk to somebody like, I can't do this anymore. We find out that or Celia comes out and has an eye patch on. So she's gotten drain cleaner in her eye. It doesn't fully explain what happened, but they weren't there when it happened. Kevin was the one who was watching her at the time. So we're pretty curious about what happened there. they are at the dinner table with just Franklin, Eva, and Kevin, and things are getting tense between Franklin and Eva.

They've actually seemed to have as good of a relationship as they can while living in two different worlds up until now. But Franklin kind of for the first time seems to be like not roller skating, John C. Riley. and he says to Kevin your mom has something to tell you or something which she wants to say to you Eva says it's like clearly a situation where Franklin has told Eva she needs to say this to him

it feels like a teacher making a kid like apologize to another kid type of thing and so she says we wanted to say thank you for calling the ambulance. He's like eating. He's not stressed at all. And he's like, yeah, it's fine. Like, no worries, basically. Oh, my God. She says, and we also wanted to make sure that you don't blame yourself. And he's like, why would I blame myself?

Like, I didn't do anything. And she says, because you were supposed to be watching her. And Franklin's like, Eva, stop it. And yeah, he's basically like, I didn't do anything. So, no, I don't feel bad at all because why would I? Oh, my God. We see Eva cleaning Celia's eye. There's like those big Q-tips, you know, the like extra fat ones that she's having to like rub. And they just have all this like yellow goo on them.

And Celia's being like so good. And she's kind of like going, but being so good. about it and then she's like, thank you, mommy. And we see her with her eye patch on. It's so sad. And now Eva and Franklin are sitting on the couch and

they're talking about getting divorced. We kind of have skipped some time. They're talking about the logistics of their divorce and saying like, you know, we'll do Mondays and Wednesdays on this or whatever. They're, you know, just... No, you can get full custody. You can take them. and we see Kevin overhearing this from another part of the house

and Franklin is immediately like, oh, you heard things out of context. Like maybe he didn't know yet. They were like planning it without telling the kids first, like figuring out how they were going to go about the divorce. And so this is Kevin finding out that they're getting divorced. And he's like, why would I not know the context? I am the context. And now we. get another quick flash of Eva walking out of a courthouse with a lot of photographers and journalists, like yelling in her face, like, like, Eva, Eva, like, can we get a statement?

And people yelling like, you bitch, like you murderer. And just get that little flash. Back to Kevin, 15-year-old Kevin, he's getting a delivery, a big heavy box of stuff. Eva opens it and it's a bunch of U-locks, you know, the bike locks, those like heavy U-locks. And she's like, why do you need so many of these? And he says, I'm reselling them. It's like kids at school will buy them for more than the base cost if I buy them in bulk. And so he's like being a little entrepreneur.

And she's kind of like, okay, good for you. And she says it's three days till your 16th birthday, we should do something. And there's this very menacing close-up of him, as he says, I don't know. I might be tied up. And now we see the scene of her at work that we had seen in the beginning where everyone turns to look at her. Something has happened. And one of her coworkers runs into her office and says, Eva, doesn't Kevin go to Gladstone High? Something's obviously happening at this high school.

Oh, fuck. Eva runs to the elevator, gets in her car, is driving to the high school. We're starting to see the flashes that we had been seeing flashes of before. Police arriving, lots of other parents arriving, just like a big crowd of people panicking and like trying to figure out what's going on. It looks like chaos. And this is cutting like back and forth in time, but like within the same hour-ish, we're seeing Kevin at school putting U-Lawks.

on all the doors of the gymnasium, Eva gets to the school and is at the front of the school sees firemen like cutting through a U-lock of the front door of the school. And as they open it, Kevin is there with just his hands up in the air. And we see on stretchers like bodies being rolled out with arrows in them.

God. You don't like, thankfully, actually see anything ever happened, but you don't need to. Certainly horrifying enough as it is. And the police grab him, handcuff him, and Eva is just watching this like unblinking and complete shock. And he just smiles at her as they put him in the back of the police. car. And we see shots, like close-up shots of him, like, firing arrows and hearing screaming. So there's the implication of him shooting arrows at people in this gymnasium at, like, an assembly or something. Eva goes home after this, because his, her son is being taken to prison. She's kind of, like, zombie-ish, I'm sure not, like, doesn't know what to do. she goes home and she's calling out for Franklin.

Nobody's answering. Oh, God. Oh, fucking Christ. The sliding glass door is open and you hear these like sprinklers going off. And this is just like a very drawn out slow realization as she's like walking towards the sliding door. And walks outside and we see Franklin and Celia both dead shot with arrows. Oh my God. We cut back to present day and we see present day Eva laundering all of Kevin's shirts. Like I mentioned, the shirts are memorable, so we recognize them.

And she's folding them in a way of like, like they're important to her to like keep them in good condition. and she drives to the prison to visit Kevin again. She says it's the two-year anniversary of the shooting bow and arrow incident. And that was three days before he turned 16. And so now this is three days before he's turning 18. So he's about to be moved into an adult prison. and he looks genuinely scared. Like he doesn't look good.

He always has this like very sinister smirk on his face. And this is the first time that he's actually like looked like a child. And he looks really scared. She says, you know, it's been two years. So you've had plenty of time to think about it. And I just want to know why. Like, why did you do it? And he says, you know,

I used to think that I knew. Like, I used to know. And now I'm not so sure. They sit there in silence for a while. Guard says, okay, time's up. He gets up and she hugs him, like really hugs him, and he, like, looks like a little boy being hugged by his mom. And she leaves, walks out the prison.

as he's taken away again by the guards. And that's the end of the movie. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Is it better or worse than you imagined? Honestly, better? What was the biggest fear? I think this is one that...

would it be much, much worse to see. It's really, again, excruciating is just like the perfect word for it because especially re-watching it. I remember my first experience watching it not knowing where it was going. And in re-watching it, obviously, I knew. And there is a lot more of that, like, hints about it earlier on, like, or just like clips of, I don't know, it's just like, there's no fun in games portion of this movie.

Like, it's just like from the start, it like starts with her in like the depths of despair and just like shows us how she got there with like a path of despair. Like there's just never any lightness in it. And it's a very well made and gorgeous movie, but there is quite simply nothing pleasant about watching it. There's nothing pleasant at all. The roast chicken part was funny, but other than that, there was nothing pleasant at all. I think, like, I have never, I have never been more uncomfortable in a movie experience, both hearing and watching than I was with Killing of a Sacred Deer.

And so I think that's my bar. And because if I had seen this one, this would be the new bar, but I didn't, I didn't have to see it. So I'm okay. Yeah. I do feel like Killing of Sacred Deer is probably the closest type of movie we've done to this movie. It is a good comparison because it's just like wall to wall unpleasant. The Killing of Sacred Deer, I mean, I think is probably a lot.

You know, I think it's fun and funny sometimes. I know, I know. And this I was laughing and retelling it, but yeah, like, I said, it's not fun to watch. No, not fun at all. The roast chicken party, I suppose. Even that, I bet, isn't fun to watch. No.

How do you think Henley would have fared? Not great. It's just thinking of her having a son and a daughter, an older son and a younger daughter. Yeah, really bad. Really. I would just hate to even think of the possibility. This is so bad. this is so bad yeah but it's a really fascinating movie and like i think one of the things

well first of it feels to me just like the horror a horror movie of yeah having a child that is a sociopath that like some is smart enough to like save it only for you and obviously the horrors of being the parent of someone who commits a like horrible heinous act and feeling like carrying that guilt with you forever like obviously there's the moments of like people literally punching her in the face on the street and she's like I deserve it I deserve it even though it's like unclear what she could have done there's like an interesting nature versus nurture element of it because he seems like he comes out bad but she's also like pretty withholding and distant from him

for his whole life because of that. And so there's kind of this like chicken or the egg. Like, did you encourage this by like secretly hating him his whole life? And he like clearly knew it. Yeah. And the grief of you lost your other child. Yeah. And just that like

oh 18 years like it's been it's been brutal since the moment he was born so it's just been brutal for so long and then it then it just gets worse and then it's forever yep

yeah I mean what do we make of the final moment of them hugging like is there any hope for their future I feel like probably not but it it's it's I guess it's it feels like it reaches a place where they're honest with each other yeah it feels like she has not been honest with him ever in his life um and she is in that moment she does say

something in that final scene of like she kind of is mean to him because he's about to go to the the adult prison and she's like oh like going to the big big big kid's school making you feel nervous and I feel like she just like shows her own resentment toward him a bit and somehow I feel like that opens the door for them to maybe have some sort of honest relationship obviously their relationship is never going to be good but he is her son for the rest of both of their lives and seems like all each of them like either of them have is each other. And so it's not good, but it's also like, I don't know, man, it's just...

Oh my God, really, really tough. So deeply glad that's not what we're living. Me too. I'm going to wrap up with this. I'm going to take a cool shower. I'm going to have some leftovers for dinner. and I'm going to watch Presumed Innocent and we started it. It's really good. It's really good. It's really good. Oh my God. There's a new episode today. Thank God.

Yeah, we're watching Presumed Innocent and I'm reading a Ruth Ware book. Excuse me, am I Sammy? Are you reading which one? I'm reading The It Girl because the new one is not yet available. I had to put a hold on it on my Libby app. So I just got the only one that was available. I liked that girl. Well, that's great news because I just started reading it. Listeners, we hope you have something to decompress with and... Oh, good God. Lynn, what's up?

I suppose it's a fascinating thing to explore, but it's not a fun thing to explore. I want to watch all of her movies I've seen most of them She hasn't directed a ton of features But I've seen You Never Really Here was her with Joaquin Phoenix Oh So she likes working with him

Yeah and Well because they're both little freaks They're both little freaks And I need to watch Morvern Caller is Her other one and I'm guessing it's bleak. Probably bleak. I'm going to check it out.

And yeah, listeners, thank you for picking this. Happy birthday to me. Oh, boy, oh boy. And honestly, I'm really happy for Henley that she missed in. Because in watching it, I was like, oh, no. Yeah, honestly, better to be physically ill than have to listen to this probably for her. So, yeah. And I'm happier to have had to listen to it than to be physically ill.

So everybody's getting what they need. And I liked watching it. Great. It's a win for everybody. Thank you, Sammy. Well done. Honestly, I just am happy to do it, truly. Yeah.

It's great. So love you, love you, Emily, and love you listeners. Love you, Sammy. Love you listeners. We love you. Bye. We didn't. We made it.

Thank you all for listening to another episode of Too Scary Didn't Watch. If you enjoy the show, please remember to subscribe and rate us on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Five stars only, or we will haunt you. And if you simply can't get enough of us, we have good news for you. We have lots of bonus content available on our Patreon at patreon.com slash TSDW podcast. You'll get access to video trailer reactions to bonus episodes a month, the power to vote for upcoming episodes and more. And last but not least, you can follow us on social media at TSDW podcast.

We'll be back next week with a new episode. We love you. That was a HeadGum podcast. Hi, I am Mandy Moore. Sterling K. Brown. And I'm Chris Sullivan. And we host the podcast, That Was Us, now on HeadGum. Each episode, we're going to go into a deep dive from our show, This Is Us.

That's right. We're going to go episode by episode. We're also going to pepper in episodes with different guest stars and writers and casting directors. Are we going to cry? Yes. A little bit. Are we going to laugh? A lot.

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