157. (That's the Leftovers)

AlexThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Merlin Mann, Alex Cox, the next second. This week's challenge, watch the leftovers.

Speaker AHey, there's that guy. I made an Apex Tech joke and you weren't here to get it.

Merlinhmm alex who i'm not entirely sure can hear either one of us certainly i was not going to get it i know the song apex predator apex tech apex predator no you don't know apex tech uh yeah sure they

Speaker Aare tools at the end remember they can't call you you have to make the first move you don't remember that one give me two more give me two more bullets and i'll get it maybe it's new york regional uh it was like a like a vocational school and oh the old guy advertising that you know come and we'll train you how to do whatever it was like fix cars or something it's like at the end you get your own set of tools to keep are you talking about the trade and vocational school in long island there you go mr google maybe it was i guess it was regional anyway their their tagline is remember we can't call you you have to make the first move to remind you that just by

Merlinwatching this ad you will not become a certified technician for impact see or maybe they're vampires

Speaker AYeah. Isn't that how that works?

MerlinMm-hmm.

Speaker AVampires can't call you either. You have to make the first move.

MerlinYou know, I was signed up and had the parking sticker and everything to go to a technical college, a technical school. Did you know that?

Speaker AVocational Wheel? I didn't know that.

MerlinNope. United. I think it was called UTI. I think it might be UTI. Mm-hmm. Batman first call. We say infection now, not disease.

Speaker AYeah.

MerlinJones Barbecue and Foot Massage.

Speaker ACranberry juice in the cafeteria every day.

MerlinI love bluegrass I'm going to close that Hi Alex, how are you? Are you sundowning? Why are you being so confusing?

Speaker AShe's very low and she's very far away They should spend more on the studio Get closer to the microphone

AlexDid I do it right? Get right in on that Did I do it right? Did I do it right? Did I do it?

MerlinIt's so loud, it's so distorted That's right. Are you sundowning? Why are you being so confusing tonight?

AlexWhat's happening? I'm actually in the other smaller studio that we have. And I am very, well, it's because it's 8 p.m. Oh, my God.

MerlinOh, my goodness. What is that noise? I enjoy this so much because I love you guys all so much. But it's just so nice to have you just visited upon each other.

AlexOh, no, dear.

MerlinNo, in a good way. so i wasn't supposed to say anything about what and what what about oh my god and i hope and i hope what about the turtles what what is turtles and i you what are you save the turtles and i

Speaker Ahow are you john syracuse i am doing just fine i'm currently wondering exactly how long we have

Alexto wait for max oh i have some surprising and fun news for everybody max is currently speaking at

Maxthe business insiders,

Alexnot business insiders, I don't know, but he is going to be late, but I'm here. Hi. So he's not here.

Speaker AHe's not here. Is that correct?

AlexYeah.

Speaker ALate. Now what does that mean that Max is going to be late? Let's parse that. Does that mean like later than he is normally late? Late within normal parameters.

AlexOh, yeah. This is, well, when I'm given a heads up, I assume, not the worst,

Merlinworst but who's to say so did he did he know we're recording yes he has given us permission to start

Alexthe show if he would like to start the show that doesn't really answer the question though why he

Merlindid the answer is yes that wasn't what i asked that wasn't what i asked alexandra i'm asking i'm

Alexasking why is it why isn't he here i because he is speaking at something i don't know i don't i But business entrepreneurs.

MerlinIf I find out that he is somewhere doing magic tricks, I'm going to be very upset.

AlexThat's the thing. When he says speaking, I'm like, what does that mean?

MerlinRight. That's like the way I say self-care. I'm working from home today. Ah!

Alexlet's go john wait oh my god i love this show so much john's not innocent why did you send us an article about porn five minutes before we started recording was this a test

Merlinto see is that what the article is about tell me what you're talking about what are you talking

Alexabout oh my god what is happening it's in the dock so i'll tell you why merlin posted a thing

Speaker Athat said look here's the person from that show we watched for this week's challenge that person did another thing and i posted look here's a person from the show we watched that person also did another thing see how they put together oh was it a boyfriend yeah which it's i was trying to come up with a name for this you know when you see someone's in a show and then you go back and watch a show that you've already seen and then you spot them for the first time because now they're famous for the other show there's got to be a name for that oh there should totally be a name for that right but anyway but anyway that happened to me that's my whole that's my whole

Merlinevening every evening i don't even really watch tv i just i just look up what somebody what else somebody was in who's that who's that uh who's that fella who's that who's that who's who's that

Speaker Afella what what what do i know that fella from and the thing is she looked vaguely familiar from to me when I was watching the later show that she's in, but I didn't look her up. If I had, I would have said, oh, she was in Leftovers. And you know what I would have said? Huh, I don't remember her in Leftovers at all.

MerlinNo, I would not if I had not just watched this episode twice this week. Max has sent me a message on Skype to say, hey, I'm here. Once again,

Speaker Aparsing is required. I am here. Okay. I'm here too.

AlexSo am I.

Speaker AAnd if I'm here and Max is here, doesn't it make it our time? Oh.

MerlinWhat are you, Jeff Spicoli? There's so many good people. This is not the show yet. We, or it could be, I don't really care.

AlexIt is the show. Why can't it be the show?

Speaker AI was. Have you seen Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Alex?

AlexI have not. No.

MerlinOkay. I'm sorry. Put that on your list. Okay.

AlexThe running list.

MerlinYou're on my time now.

AlexOkay. I'm sorry.

MerlinNo, no. That's what he says. That's what Mr. Hand says.

AlexOh, okay. I'm sorry.

MerlinYeah.

AlexI'll put it on.

MerlinDo I have access to Alex's list? What's that guy's name? What's that fellow's name? What's that fellow's name? Not Ray Milan. Ray Harryhausen. What's his name? I know his name.

Speaker AThe actor?

MerlinOh, he was so much like my 10th grade language arts teacher. What was that guy's name? The guy from The Thing. What's that guy's name?

Speaker AThis is an affliction.

MerlinThis happened last night. So my kid went to take her shower, and she came out. And no, I didn't cram. I watched this episode, S1E1, of The Leftovers. Not a tough sell for me because I really like this show. Spoilers. But I started watching it again last night, and she came out of the shower. And we're up to the scene where Buddy Garrity's going to see the guy from Mitchell and Webb. Right? You with me? You know that guy? What's the guy's name?

AlexNo.

MerlinOkay, suit.

Speaker AI'm with you. I'm following. Would you like me to translate for Alex? There's a point in the episode where a congressman goes to see a healer person. That's what he's talking about.

AlexYes. There we go.

Speaker ABut Gary Garrity is the congressman, and the guy from Mitchell and Webb is the healer person.

AlexYeah.

MerlinYeah.

AlexOkay.

MerlinLala. Lala Garrity. And that took us off down a path where I – God, my kid hates this. Like, so many things. But I was like, you're going to see S1E1 of a very good show called Friday Night Lights. Because I couldn't keep showing her, you know, it's, you know, leftovers is a little bit grown up.

Speaker Ait's got some upsetting it is john a couple upsetting mature themes sophisticated themes

Merlinuh friday night lights goes down easier yeah but you know man it's just it's so unbelievable to me that by the end of that first episode of friday night lights i someone who is um who doesn't care anything about football perhaps the well i know a lot about football i come from a football family but i am perhaps the opposite of a football fan that's all i'm gonna say about that but by the end and the spoilers, but you know, when Saracen

Speaker Agoes in, oh my god. It's a good show.

MerlinIt's such a good show.

Speaker AExcept for the season. Except for that season

Merlinwhen the writers weren't there. Except for the season that doesn't exist. There is a season. That's a shame. Yeah, my lady and I were talking about it tonight and saying like, wow, you know, she can totally watch this. It's safe enough. And I was like, except for, you know, the thing. She's like, what? You know, the thing with the Landry and the body. I was like, oh god. She's like, I blocked it out. I was like, yeah. I wish I could block it out. Is it season two?

Alexwas it yep i think so oh oh now i follow season two of friday nights night lights you just skipped that one well that's also the scab yeah that's what i'm saying it's known as

Speaker Akingdom of the crystal skull yes it's not an episode i think it's a whole season isn't it

Merlinno it's a season no no it is a is a bad season and bobby mockingbird uh doesn't she kill a guy on a bridge or something what's her name you know i'm talking about the girl from john wick

Speaker Ayou know what i'm talking about i think my title he totally disassociated when the

Merlinprostitute was killed and that was it that not the prostitute from the david simon show

Speaker Ayes different prostitute oh what does max say can anyone invite me to the podcast please oh god i mean he's like a vampire too sure oh he needs to be invited in okay all right here we go

Alexuh max temkin sorry sorry max sorry inconvenience you buddy oh hey there he is it oh the answer to question is 14 minutes that is actually pretty good that's really good i wasn't expecting this

Maxwhat a pleasant surprise am i already being mocked hi max how was your talk how was your talk good uh it was okay i was asked uh there's a bunch of fucking um like ceos and executive types and they asked me, what about PC culture? How can you make jokes even though there's PC culture?

Speaker AYou told them it's the principal committee.

MaxI told them, you know what, there's not enough time to get into it on the podcast, but I told them I went into why the whole PC panic is kind of a manufactured right-wing talking point and that I don't think that it's really real. And also I was like, listen, if there's kids and they just want to be called something, like it doesn't materially affect you just call them what they want to be called like there's no well i don't understand why after one has to get like red and nude about it just just use just say the pronouns they want it doesn't did you tell them the cancel culture is out of control yeah

Merlinyeah and uh i have a i have an unpopular opinion i have an unpopular opinion and uh this is this is right in your wheelhouse max temkin which is that uh one problem uh with the whole pc thing is that uh you know your bit about at least you know well you didn't say this you were making fun of this at least trump would be great for comedy it's because a lot of it's not funny it's because a lot of the pc stuff is unnecessarily hurtful and not very amusing it's only it's only amusing

Maxto monsters who think it's funny that's the worst part that i said like and then there was like the whole there's also the whole thing of be funny be funny if you're going to be offensive yeah i was like the whole thing about like is trump good for comedy is kind of also tied into that and like what you know and i was like the problem is like consider i think the issue with conservative comedy and why it's not funny is they start you know a joke has two parts there's a premise and then there's a punchline and a conservative comedy they start to set up their premise and then they get so mad that they can't get to the punchline because they go oh i just hate obama so much

mostly a lot of liberal comedy in the last four years i like my insurance and he said i could keep it i want my red hat a lot of liberal comedy in the last four years the same thing has happened where they start to do a joke about Trump and then they just can't help themselves. They get so mad. They go, but fuck that orange piece of shit. And it's like, guy, get to your punchline, man. Just do a joke.

Speaker AThat's the joke. Orange is the joke. That's the joke.

Merlinscore you look like a homosexual i'm quoting i'm quoting merlin's canceled i'm canceled tivo

Alexand i walked into a room of boomers what is going on okay boomer

Speaker Aokay i don't think how how close is merlin to the to the boomers very close and then i get asked um

Maxi get asked this every time i speak and i always forget i always want to say at the top please don't ask me what my favorite card in the game is and then someone always asks it do you alex when you do you do people ask you that what's your favorite card in the game

Alexyes what do you say i say i could not i don't remember them like as soon as someone asks you

Maxi spend my entire life writing cards for the game and as soon as someone asks me what my favorite is i'm like i can't remember a single card in the game just say the black one oh wow we don't say

Merlinthat anymore you mean the african-american one african-american one look i don't make the cards

Alexyou you can make that call the card of color john my gosh card of darkness my my pants of brown

MaxCan I have some video game roundtable corner with John Siracusa for just a minute?

AlexOh, boy.

Speaker ASure. Alex and Merlin, you can go talk to yourselves in the corner. Yeah, girls don't play games.

MaxAlex doesn't play real.

Speaker AYou're there to comfort Merlin. Alex is a filthy casual. She plays mobile games.

AlexI know. A filthy casual?

Speaker AShe's not casual when it comes to battery life, am I right? Oh.

MaxJohn what are you playing are you still are you still on your destiny bullshit I sure am and are you gonna play Death Stranding

Speaker Aseems unlikely

Maxoh really like I'm interested

Speaker Ain it but I don't I tend not to like Kojima games I'm very interested in hearing about them and maybe watching other people play parts but I don't doesn't sound like it's for me

Maxwell that's been the video game corner with John Siracusa thank you everyone

MerlinWhat's another one of that, whatever the K word you just used, what are other games that I would know from that person or company?

Speaker AMetal Gear, the Metal Gear series. Have you ever heard of that?

MerlinYeah, like Metal Gear Solid is a game. There you go.

AlexOh, I thought you were going to do a bit. Yeah, that's right.

MerlinI was very good at Pitfall as a youth. It's very similar to Metal Gear. Also, Moon Patrol.

MaxClassic stealth game.

AlexYou know what's fun? I'm hearing the cards the way Merlin hears the cards now, and it's actually very satisfying. I think it's much more annoying.

MerlinNo, it's not. It's horrible. It's really.

AlexNo, I think it's more annoying when it's in the room. It's kind of a pleasant little, I don't know. Okay, I'll do nice. I'll do nice, and that'll be fun.

MaxIf any of our listeners can identify what's happening right now, I'll give them a $10 gift certificate to Applebee's.

MerlinOr are we doing a ruffle shuffle? A riffle skiff

Speaker AApplebee's that's my favorite restaurant

MerlinYou belong at Applebee's Applebapples Neighborhood Bib and Grib Apples to bapples

MaxI like Outback Steakhouse Do you guys know Applebapples Is that like a donkey punch

Speaker AThat's that card game right Apples to bapples

MaxNeighborhood Bib and Grib Do you not know this No Wait you must know it Hang on I'm not a game. I'm not really a gamer.

AlexIs he making a joke about the Apple game? I never want to make a joke about the Apple game. I stay far away from it.

MaxIt's a very funny meme. Okay. And I think the name of the meme is called sububby. I'm looking for it for you. I'm pulling it up. Here it is. Now that's too, that's like small. That's like potato quality.

AlexHere.

MaxI'm putting it in our, in our Slack. Okay. Gaze upon, gaze upon this. I think the name is called Sabubi There's a lot of these I got Sabubi

Speaker AThat's really funny Apple Babbles I went to McNaldos in London

AlexSo did I And I went to a

MaxYou call that a McNaldos with cheese

AlexYou know they're called Mackeys In Australia I think it's called Maccas

MaxAlex, not to mansplain it to you That's the guy from the Beatles

AlexWell, actually, well, who here has been to Australia? Oh, me.

MaxYeah, but who here is correct about what they call McDonald's? Best McDonald's I ever had was in New Zealand. I've been, Alex, I've been lots of places I don't know shit about. What are you eating, Max? What do you have? I don't know, Twix bar, some Halloween candy, baby.

AlexI have a, all right, well, here's a good time to bring up. Tomorrow night, if you're in Chicago, you should buy tickets to the Cards Against Humanity writers, late night writers room live.

MerlinTomorrow Friday or tonight Friday?

AlexTomorrow, wait, fuck, you're right. It's a Saturday. Thank you. It's Friday night. Friday night, which is November, or sorry, it's tonight. Tonight you are going to go and buy tickets to the Museum of Contemporary Arts, Cards Against Humanity, Late Night Writers Room show, so you can see comedy and watch Max give out a lot of candy. Why do you have so much candy?

MaxWell, I live in a very high volume, trick-or-treating neighborhood.

AlexDoesn't look like it.

MaxWell, normally. And a lot of my neighbors give out. It's a very, you know, it's kind of a, I don't know, it's like a hipster neighborhood. I don't know. A lot of the houses in my neighborhood give away unsweetened carob chips and fruit leathers and apples and shit. And so I decided to go to Costco. Co-made hummus. Yeah. And I decided to be.

Speaker AStrong words for someone with a little library in front of their house.

MerlinHas it even tiniere library inside of it?

Speaker AThose crunchy granola people because they're fruit leathers, but he doesn't. He's got a recourse

Merlinin Tiny Library.

MaxOkay, well, I decided to be, you can make, fine. John Syracuse says anti-library. Let's just, we'll file that away. You can reach him on Twitter.

Speaker AHe hates books. I just hate hypocrisy. That's what I hate.

AlexDo we know that he's read the books because the spines aren't broken? I don't know.

Speaker AOh, that's a really good point.

AlexYeah.

Speaker ABooks read in a forest and nobody breaks a spine.

MaxI decided to be the house where I would go to Costco and get full-size candy bars.

Speaker AI've never heard that before, Max.

Maxthat's an amazing idea. Is this John's bit? Am I taking John's bit? Go ahead. Go ahead. Is this your bit?

Speaker ANo. You can just continue with your story. It's fine.

MerlinAlso, last year, didn't you have a bad experience with Halloween, Max? Didn't they hurt your spider webs or something?

Speaker AI thought the teens

Maxmade fun of him last year. Isn't that what happened? I do live in mortal fear of being made fun of by teens.

Speaker AYeah, I thought that happened last year. I remember a story from last year's Halloween.

MaxBut this year it snowed and there were no trick-or-treaters, so I just have, like, an unreasonable quantity of candy.

Speaker AUsually the move I do with that is I bring it to the office and then marvel as the wolves descend upon it and decimate it within, like, ten minutes.

AlexJohn, here's the problem. Our office has, like, in a given week, over a hundred people, like, coming in and out. You know, it's not like there are a hundred people here at one moment, but there's still a literal palette of candy left over. so if you buy tickets to the show tonight uh you see of contemporary art in chicago to see comedy

Speaker Ayou'll get some full-size candy bars guarantee that at least one cards employee has touched

Alexevery piece of candy that you get no they're all wrapped up because it's like a fucking palette i'll try to find a picture it's wild well you have before you go to the thing i assume you're

Maxgonna open them all and touch them oh you're right yeah i'm gonna mix i'm gonna intermingle them with my uh 19 weed gummies oh man that was a good that was a good meme this year i don't

Speaker Aremember seeing that one recently the whole uh people yelling about no one's gonna get out their good weed gummies on halloween so don't worry about it parents yeah yeah well this year was

Alexit was heroin right something about no i'm totally i'm totally serious because the um really uh the turns out show but not the turns out show um uh you're wrong about you're wrong about tweeted like Well, actually, no, children die on Halloween because people hit them with cars.

MerlinYeah, but they die getting hit by cars. Exactly.

AlexIt was very good.

MerlinDriven by their molester uncle.

AlexYeah.

MerlinMolester uncle.

AlexIn my day, it was... Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Yep.

MaxNow that's the way to distinguish yourself is you've got the fucking dentist down the street handing out, you know, sample-sized toothpastes or whatever. You come to your house, you're handing out fentanyl patches. Or coupons. People give out coupons.

MerlinThat's my favorite.

Speaker AOxy is what you have to hand out now.

MerlinThat was a discount for yogurt. Thank you.

AlexYeah.

MerlinThat's great.

AlexThere used to be anthrax in our Smarties, but...

MerlinLa la la.

AlexYep. 2011, baby.

Speaker ABut no one ever ate a Smartie, so it was fine.

AlexOh, no. They're good. Oh, I'd eat a Smartie.

MaxI wouldn't eat a NECA wafer.

AlexAgreed. Yes.

MaxOh, I have a question for the panel. I have a little ethical dilemma. So I buy a lot of decks of cards. Many, many decks of cards. No. And I'm going through more than, on average, more than one per day. Because some days I don't use any, but some days I'm going through three or four decks if I'm practicing. How do you know?

Speaker ASo busy. Question here. How do you know you've gone through it? Like why is it no longer an okay thing?

MerlinYeah, what is a way?

MaxSo some performances, sometimes if I'm doing tricks, I wind up having people sign cards or rip them up. But other times, so when I'm learning new slights, it's really important to learn the slight with a pretty crisp deck. So you have a window of when you open the deck until it gets kind of mushy and soft and dirty.

MerlinThat makes sense.

MaxThat makes sense.

MerlinBecause the deck you're going to have to deal with for the effect is one that's just been opened as part of the thing. Okay, that makes sense. That's right.

MaxSo when I perform for people, I want to use a crisp deck, and that's what I practice with because of that. And the other thing is there are certain, an example is there's a type of shuffle called a pharaoh shuffle. You're sort of weaving the cards together, and over time, the little edges of the cards tend to sort of split and fray, and then they can't be woven together.

AlexBecause they're touched by Woody Allen.

MaxSo cards that experience this wear and tear

Speaker Aand after a day of use, they're no good. What happens to those cards?

MaxSo I have like a box. So I separate them into suits and then I have a box of hearts, clubs, spades, and diamonds in my basement. And I periodically use those for different other tricks or arts and crafts projects. Right now I'm practicing a trick where I rip up a card. And so I went in and I just pulled out. I just have like a huge wad of old cards and I'm using those to practice the tearing up.

Speaker AYou think you can heat your home with those?

MaxI would Aren't they coated?

Speaker AJust shovel them into the furnace

MaxI've been thinking of getting some sort of Titanic type furnace Where when I want it to be warmer I have the stewards shovel more coal into it

MerlinOh yeah Or you could do a What's the movie with Captain America on the train? Oh a Red Skull? Yeah Red Skull

AlexSnowpiercer

MerlinThe one on the apocalypse train with the lady Yeah Snowpiercer You could shovel the cards into where the boy is No spoilers Oh, no. Anyway. I'm curious, though. Is the nature of your dilemma, is it an environmental issue? What's your concern?

MaxOkay, so here's the issue. So I need to buy a lot of cards. And the way that the cards are, the way that bicycle decks are sold is they come in a sleeve, like Oreos, of 12 decks. And you get every other deck, blue and red, blue and red, blue and red. You guys picture that? it's like a tall it's like a tall tube with the decks all stacked on top of each other

Merlinyou got half you got basically half a blackjack shoe

Maxyes and I for other complicated reasons I'm only I only can use the red decks I don't perform with the blue decks and it's writing that down

Merlincomplicated it's a thing

Maxwhich one red or blue

Speaker AI don't want to get into it

Merlinbut I only use the red decks I do I really super do

Speaker Asome kind of like the ritual to try to influence the next election yes okay

Maxfor various reasons you just need to pick one and stick with it and i just picked red for because i thought that it was looked better when you palmed it don't don't say various reasons

Speaker Atell us the reasons it'll take the same amount of time as saying very finish let him finish i've

Maxalready written it down i've got it right here so if you use it because there's if you have like some trick decks and boxes and things i've decided that i have a red deck lifestyle and so when i buy things i don't need to buy the red one and the blue one i only need to buy the red one and then And I know that it always goes with the, I only need red. I only ever need red. It just simplifies my life to only ever need to buy the red one.

MerlinBecause when you go buy Magic Tree. It's like the way Marco only buys black shirts. Sorry, African-American shirts.

Speaker ABut you can't get the sleeve without them interleaved? You can't get an all red sleeve?

MaxAs far as I know, and I have looked into it quite a bit, you cannot just buy the red decks. And so the price of a deck of cards when they're at a good price is about a dollar a deck. Except for me, it's two dollars a deck because I wind up with these fucking blue decks and I give them away to my magician friends or people.

Speaker AYeah, you need a blue deck friend. I don't.

MaxYeah, I was going to say, you need to go have these.

AlexOh, only if Max knew somebody who used blue decks.

MerlinHmm. Would try to get Magician Jordan to go blue. Can you get him to go blue?

MaxJordan is blue, but he lives in LA, and the freight cost of sending the deck. I've looked into that, too. So it's hard. I don't have a-

AlexOh, my God, it's me. Oh, my God.

MaxOkay.

AlexMax, in the sleeve next to my desk, I hand you, you always come over, and I hand you a red deck. and I understand I could not go through three decks of cards a day. However, I do go through one deck of cards a day, and then the cats eat the rest.

MaxSo I will give you unlimited blue decks for the rest of your life at this rate, but it's still too many blue decks. So anyway, so here's the deal. So what I have heard that some magicians do is if they go to Costco, and Costco has these cartons of decks, and they also have the best price to have them.

Speaker AYou're going to return them, aren't you?

MaxNo, no, there's no returning involved. So what you do is you go over to the little book area, which is where the decks are. Oh, it's worse. And you're going to open up all the boxes, and you're going to gingerly take out all the decks. And now you go every other, every other, every other, every other. And you wind up with a big stack of red decks and a big stack of blue decks. And then you gingerly place them back into the tubes, and you seal the tubes back up. And then I go to checkout, and I just buy the tubes full of the red decks.

MerlinIt's the heist that you've been preparing for your entire life.

MaxSo I went and bought six tubes, six sleeves of just the red decks, and I left behind the blue decks. Now, here's my reasoning. I don't think that the most people who go to Costco, they don't give a fuck what color the deck is, and I'm not opening the decks. The decks are, everything is sealed in plastic. It's all fine. I don't think there's no harm, no foul. And I will say, I don't know if I should name names here, but someone that I'm very close with, that I live with, thought that... Is it the cat? The cat, yes.

thought this was like completely unacceptable. And I was like, nobody cares what color deck they're getting. They're going to be delighted that theirs are all blue.

Speaker AYou do. You care. Nobody but you cares what color deck they're getting.

MaxYeah, that's what they were like. You care. You care.

Speaker AIs that the premise?

MerlinSo you care, but nobody else does.

MaxYeah, exactly.

MerlinSo it's not environmental. It's ethical in nature.

MaxWhat do you guys think? Am I allowed to do that? I think it's like bananas. I think you're allowed to take as many bananas off. You split the bananas off.

Speaker ANo, I think you're not allowed to do it. anything that involves opening a package in a store and then not like buying the package that

Merlinyou opened is suspect yeah but like what if you only need a few screws yeah we've gone through

Speaker Athis before who buys batteries i know i get it but have we it's no good yeah you've got to say

Merlinkeep the line open for the big for the whales save the turtles it's it's his home depot strategy all

Maxover again yes but i'm not stealing anything i paid them at full value no there's no stealing

Speaker AYou're ruining a thing and you're not buying it. You're buying one of them.

MaxOr maybe the guy who's coming right after me to Costco is another magician and he just needs the blues.

Speaker AFirst of all, he doesn't want a bunch of cards that you touched. And second of all, he wants the product as sold. I didn't touch them. They're in plastic.

AlexBut he didn't touch the cards.

Speaker AThey're in plastic. So what? Then your fingers hover over the surface and don't make contact?

MaxYeah, I have a hover hand. I'm doing like a soy boy photo with the cards. Mm-hmm. Good old hog cranking hovering.

Speaker AWhat? Ah!

MerlinAh! Oh! Hot hands! Hot hands!

Speaker AOh, God.

AlexNo, it's only been 30 minutes. Oh, my God.

MerlinYou say only been 30 minutes. And also, Alexandra, I noticed that you've blocked us out. You've talked up my calendar for, I believe, three hours tonight. Is it your intention? We're just warming up, baby. Well, that was after you fixed it.

AlexJust case.

MerlinWell, yeah, I guess. You had originally, I think, made this a three-day event.

AlexI really like Syracuse.

Speaker AMerlin, you may have not seen the agenda, but now it's time to read you in.

MaxCould we get a little lizard update? Has your lizard laminated? Is it going to be like asked? Like I don't even get a bathroom break?

Speaker AWhen someone comes to your door, it's not the pho.

MerlinOkay. Oh, no. You're the one who knocks. You do that. Merlin. Lizard's doing great. Lizard is great. He came out of his own sleep.

MaxAre you actually asking?

AlexYes.

MaxI want to know. Yes. I want to know if he's done laminating.

Speaker AOh, I remembered my thing about the name for the sleepy thing that he does. What is it? It's called something with a B? I think it's brumation or brumination. Brumation. Brumination. Brumination. Yeah. I was, isn't that similar to, I was wondering if the, if Trogdor, uh, the person who does that, if, uh, what's his name? Strong Bad or whatever. If he actually has lizards and knows about brumination and that's why he did like Trogdor the Burninator, which sounds like,

MerlinI'm so lost. Are you talking about the Flash cartoon?

Speaker AYeah. Yeah. Trogdor the Burninator.

MerlinDid you know that I played in bands with him? Did you know that we played in bands together?

Speaker ADid you know that? I did not know that.

MerlinYeah. In Tallahassee where there's a, there's a, There's a version of us covering us smothering in hugs by Guided by Voices, and we're very, very drunk. Wait, the brother's chap?

Speaker AIs he doing the strong bad voice?

MerlinYeah, yeah. Yeah, we played in bands together back in Tallahassee. Nice boys. Matt, yeah. Sorry, just wanted to do a little Brady's bits. Brumination, Brumation. They're very nice boys, and I totally missed that phenomenon. My kid got an assignment from school that required flash, and I was so goddamn mad, and she didn't know why. I was so goddamn mad.

Speaker AShe's like, oh, can I just click on it? She'd already clicked to install Flash on Safari.

MerlinAnd I went, ah! I did a whole like Donald Sutherland thing.

Speaker AYeah, no. This is a good time to teach her about civil disobedience.

MerlinOh, my God. I'm like, go do that on your Chromebook. Like on that whore of a computer you use over there.

AlexI was going to say, don't they use like, I thought Chrome was like the bottom bitch for the-

MerlinI didn't know Flash was even still- I'm really actually-

AlexYeah.

Merlin88% being serious. I didn't know people still use Flash. I thought Steve killed it. I thought it was done. Okay, so he did a very short Odin sleep. And one of the things you have to do, I'll make this really quick because it's so boring. I'm sorry. But there's lots of stuff you have to do for your lizard when they're going to brumate. And so they take their giant, giant, giant poop because they needed their bowels to be empty. Otherwise, they could get infections and stuff. And so there's that. They start eating less. He crawled into his little cave.

He got in his little cave. He got real. He didn't want to play as much anymore. So, you know, all the things I described last week. But one of the things you got to do is you got to take him out and you got to put him in a little bath. So we give him a bath a few times a week. And you put him in the bath.

Well, a question here about the bath. What's funny, Alex?

AlexWhat's funny about a bath? No, it's so cute. I can't. It's so cute.

MerlinOh, my God. He is absolutely so cute. At this point, we are all extremely close to kissing him.

Speaker Athat's that's what my question about the bath is you're not supposed to kiss him but as we all know you're also not supposed to rinse poultry you buy from the store so if you have a potential source of salmonella that you're intentionally not kissing but then you bathe it in water haven't you just sort of like made a giant pool of salmonella water you save it for dr save it

Maxfor dr don what if you what if you sold what if you bottled and sold the lizard water

Merlinhey guys or the poop whatever hey guys

Alexhave you considered just putting hand sanitizer on your lips and just giving a little peck

MerlinI thought about a lot of things Alex I'm a man I've run all the options

Speaker ALisa needs braces

MerlinI don't even know the thing about a dental dam I have a rough idea what it is but I don't know if it goes on your woo woo or on your mouth Does it go in your woo-woo or your mouth? Is it like a big piece of saran wrap? Is it breath play? What is it? How does it work? What does it do, Alex?

So do you put it on your woo-woo? You strap it on? Is it like a chastity belt?

AlexUh-huh.

MerlinHow does it work?

AlexYou wad it up.

MerlinYou know what? I'm going to look at it. I'm going to look up dead.

AlexPut it in a little ball, and then you just put it up a twat, and then you don't get herpes.

MerlinIt's like an opposite. it's like a reverse condom yep oh no oh no you should see what i'm seeing right here is that

Speaker Athe tagline on the package you put it up the twat tm oh no you have to see what i'm looking at here

Merlini'm so sorry i'm sending no i'm so sorry i'm so sorry you're gonna need to search for handy dam dental dam h-a-n-d-i-d-a-m lisa needs braces i did that i just god damn it

Speaker AI missed it.

MerlinThere was over talk. Anyway, it's there. You'll get it later. You'll get it later. So please search for H-A-N-D-I. D-A-M.

Speaker AI don't want to pollute my search history. I'll just wait for someone to paste an image into the Slack. Okay.

MerlinAlex, would you take one for the team, please?

AlexH-A-N-D-I-D-A-M. I'm sure. Am I going to images or?

MerlinGoogle image search. Handy damn. Just use your bookmark.

MaxOriginal.

AlexOh, excuse me. I'm married.

Speaker AYou know, I learned in health class that getting married does not protect you against what was then called STDs.

MaxSTIs?

AlexWe call them STIs now. We see STIs now. The UTIs. Okay, really?

MaxTacobaco, tinkle outside the vincle. Put the lime in the coconut. Smiling Asian teenage.

MerlinSmiling Asian teenage boy.

MaxDuncan Dunce. American run-no-dun-dun. Smiling Asian boy. H-A-N-D-I-D-A-M. Wheaties. Old-fashioned Hercus Burgus.

Speaker AOh my goodness. I was not expecting that.

MerlinWhat do you think? Is that something you want to get? I would just keep it on the head. I would just keep it on the head and fuck that. Oh no. Look at him. You know that sound I make? He's making that sound.

MaxWhat is this? That's a handy damn. What am I looking at here? That's a handy damn. What does it do? What does it do? It's by a septico.

Speaker AYou're looking at it. What it does is what you're looking at right now.

MerlinThat's what it does.

MaxThat's what it does. Is it for novelty reasons? I don't know.

AlexI don't know. I think it might be for fashion. I genuinely don't know if this thing is a real thing or a big.

MerlinAre you talking about the Handy Dam by Asseptico? That's totally real. It's got a registered trademark, Alex.

Speaker AThe image is watermarked, so you won't steal it.

MerlinHe's doing great. He's doing great. And so we had to get him in the water because here's the thing. they already don't drink a lot like Mormons but like what you do is you dip them in this water and the water like I guess through like osmosis that's the word water gets into their body especially when they're ruminating when they're having Odin sleep and so we had to stir him from his cave to get him wet and then after that he was like he's just walking around again handy damn no the price range is $34

to $225

Alexdollars. Alright, so wait. Oh, I see. For multi-packs. You're starting the cave to get...

MerlinYeah, we started the cave to get him out. We put him in the water. Only up to his knees. Only up to his knees. Okay. And then yeah, and so after that we put him back in. He's like, hmm, hmm. He ate two hornworms. And then he was back on his game.

So thank you for asking. Thank you for the gifts. It's... He's such a sweet, precious boy. I'm going to get one of these dental dams.

Speaker Ajust wear it for a few days see how you feel

Merlinhello joe iron helps us play hello joe

Alexdental plan i just showed her

Merlinwe watched a um we watched a cellulite closet the other night and um the scene where the scene they show the scene from suddenly last summer where uh montgomery clift is eaten in the in the movie you guys ever you guys ever seen suddenly last summer

AlexNo. And I've seen Cellular Closet, too, huh?

MerlinYeah, no, it's the scene where Elizabeth Taylor's telling the story, the flashback with Montgomery Clift, post-accident Montgomery Clift. And then he's basically eaten by natives. And I was like, oh, so the lady, the lady who's telling the story about her brother being eaten, that's the one who says Maggie's first word. She's like, oh, that's cool.

Daddy.

AlexAw.

MerlinHandy Dam Rubber Dental Dam. Handy Dam Rubber Dental Dam. Handy Dam rubber dental dam is the original pre-framed rubber dam favored among key opinion leaders for quality and reliability. Easily isolate a single tooth or groups of teeth for endodontics or other dental treatments. So this might be a medical appliance.

AlexI think it is.

MerlinI don't think it's for cunning linguists.

AlexI don't.

MerlinI'm not sure.

AlexI'm on the actually the Wikipedia page for dental dam because I'm wondering if it's going to reference anything. Oh, yeah. OK, so the the amount that's written about safe sex on dental dams isn't as long as the dental part on dental dams.

MerlinOK, see, it's namespace pollution. That's really confusing. How to use a dental dam from the CDC. Thank you, Atlanta. Okay. Oh, oh, oh, Alex. Oh, no. Oh, gosh. Oh, no. Oh, okay. Okay. You okay? Well, it's got, like, what do you call it? Ideograms? It's got a lady putting, like, a fruit leather on her yam-yam.

AlexOh, yeah, Pessa.

MerlinOh, man.

AlexYeah, yeah, yeah. If you just Google image search dental dam, you get a wide array of.

MerlinOkay, so the idea, it is like saran wrap. You put that over your Yam Yam, and then somebody can really get in there, and it'll be safe.

AlexOr your back stairs.

MerlinHow you doing? How you doing, Max? You all right?

AlexI'm not.

Speaker AYam Yam is what he calls his grandmother, so he's a little upset.

MerlinPeepum's nasty gum. How to use a dental dam. Okay.

AlexOh, this one's.

MerlinOh, it's got a real Boy Scout section here on how to make one from a condom. Ooh, I don't like the picture of cutting the tip off the condom.

AlexNo, that's. See, they shouldn't. Yeah, no, no. That's really bad. You shouldn't do that. No, no, no, no, no. All right. Yeah, don't do that. Well, think about it. No, no, no, no. No, no, no. Don't do that.

Speaker ASome people just want a craft project.

AlexSome people just want to watch the condom burn.

Speaker AA little bit twisted. I feel like this diagram makes that look a lot easier than it would probably be, unless those scissors are very sharp. Twisted. I'm going to hold this over my yam yam.

MerlinIt's like that. What do you call it? You call it a car wash? What do you call those things you like to put in your mouth?

AlexOh, I love a car wash.

MerlinIt's like a car wash. for your yum yum. But you can make out the shape of it. It looks like a pharaoh. It looks like she's got a little Egyptian thing going on down there.

AlexYeah. A little bit. Yeah.

MerlinYou know, condom made of stona? Okay. All right. So thank you very much for everybody's interest in that good band-o-boy. God, I'm sleepy.

MaxIt's a weird time. We're recording at a very weird time. It's weird to be hearing from you guys right now.

MerlinWe're night podcasting. Night podcasting is so different. Yeah.

MaxAre you guys all on a dock together? Is that what's happening? No, I'm trying to use the stupid script.

Speaker AWe're in a dock, we're in a Slack, we're in a chat,

Maxwe're in a call. Is there a chat? We're all together. I want a super secret channel with John.

MerlinI think you're only in one of Max's things at this point,

Speaker AJohn, so be careful what you ask for. I'm in zero of Max's iMessage groups, but there is a chat associated with Skype that we are all in now, right? Can we start

Maxan iMessage? I would love to be able to text John. Text me

Speaker Awhenever you want. Yes!

MaxYes! Okay, good. You know, I have thoughts and opinions on things that sometimes I want to share with you. You, huh?

Speaker AThis will also mean that I can text you whenever I want. You may ask Merlin about how that is.

MaxI welcome it. I enjoy it.

MerlinMake sure you get it in the right window. There's going to be hell to pay.

MaxI welcome your messages. I spend a lot of time listening to John's thoughts. But you do not spend a lot of time reading my messages. Do I?

MerlinYou do good messages. You're my single favorite, most favorite message buddy. Me? No. Oh, my God. You just laughed. Oh, my God. What was that? I'm going to have to rewind that. I thought you could only laugh when the mute was on.

AlexI'll mute next time.

MerlinOh, wow. So you could laugh any time.

Speaker AI need a lady to come over and smash my mute button for me.

MerlinOkay. Get on your stamps is what I'll do. I'm going to ride that donkey donkey. You sound spicy tonight. He's full of beans tonight.

MaxHe got a spicy Syracuse.

Speaker AAs Merlin has noted, I become more powerful as the night gets.

MerlinI'm so tired. And back when I used to have beverages, I'd be so exhausted. I'd just be like, it's 9.30 p.m. Can we? I need to get here to house in dark.

MaxAnd he'd be like, Alex has had a crazy fucking couple of days, right? What's going on with Alex? What's she doing? Is she saving turtles? We can't really say, but we're doing, you know, Cards does these very ambitious Black Friday things. And I oop, and I oop.

MerlinWe don't say black.

MaxAnd we do these promotions for Black Friday. And I think people, I mean, I always want to give the impression to people that it's just fun and funny. And, you know, I think it has this slacker thing of like, oh, we're just.

MerlinBut you can't let them see you working. That's a big problem in Magic and in really so many different things.

AlexOh, you've got to delete that tweet.

MerlinNever let them see you sweat.

AlexWhy is it? When Max says something bad, people text me.

MaxThat wasn't bad, though. Wait, what's wrong with my tweets? What was bad with that? That was a good tweet.

AlexOh, it's easy to tweet that if you're a white guy. Meh, meh, meh, meh, meh. And I'm like, what?

MerlinOh, right. Privilege.

AlexThat's my privilege. And then I'm like, literally one person, I'm like, how did you get this number?

MaxIt was very weird. Tell me offline who it was so I can cut them out of my life. Yeah. Also, we're going to IP ban them. My advice about promoting stuff that I posted is good no matter what race you are.

MerlinFinally, finally, this cancel culture is out of control.

MaxNo, no, listen. The thing with these cards things is we try to make them seem really breezy and easy. It's just like we're just coming up with it and it's all loose. But behind the scenes, we are doing an amount of work that is unreasonable. Like it's an amount of work that's crazy and no one else would do. And Alex and I are right in the middle of that right now. I think it's mostly done.

AlexWait, wait, wait, wait, wait, your whole tweet. Wait, is my brain broken? Wait, John and Merlin. Yes. Are you okay, buddy? Wasn't the conceit of the tweet that you shouldn't talk about how hard you're working on projects.

MerlinThat's right. That's right. That's what he said. That's what he said. No.

MaxSo what's the problem? No, no, no.

MerlinWhat's the problem?

MaxPlease paste the tweet because I have not seen the tweet. No, no, no.

MerlinWell, so Alex is a fake magician girl. They don't understand how an effect works. I'm so confused. A premise of the... A trick is something that a whore does.

AlexMoney or cocaine. So, all right, Max. So when you're turning to tricks...

MaxThe premise of the tweet was... Never let him see a sweat. Yeah, JW from Vlambeer, who's a really successful indie game developer. Yeah, he basically posted something to the effect of don't let him see a sweat. And he said, I wish indies would stop saying in their marketing materials, we worked really hard on this.

MerlinWe worked really hard on this.

MaxAnd I actually agree with that. I really I mean, we often have a draft of a press release from cards where someone says we worked so hard on this. I hope people like it. And I always take that out because it's like you don't tell people how hard you worked on it. You present the work and then they judge they make their own sort of aesthetic judgments on it.

Speaker AThere is an angle for the working hard on it. It's more of like the showing that you care to try to express the idea that this is a product that embodies people who care. like you know what I mean like that's that I feel like is a valid marketing angle well that's when you say we can't wait to see what you do with it's like crafted with care and all those sorts of stuff of you know like anything you're gonna make some wallet and they want to tell you oh we didn't just slap this wallet together it was crafted with care it's slightly different than worked hard

Maxbut it's similar yeah it's it's I mean I don't love crafted with care either to me I'm of I'm firmly in the like show don't tell camp I think it's if it's crafted with care you know what have

Speaker Ait be well crafted have it be so sometimes it's not actually crafted with care that's marketing that you say it is, it's actually not. By saying it is, people... Yeah, exactly. Yeah, because by saying that, people look at it differently. They look at the machine-made thing.

MerlinI don't 100% agree, but I do have an example, which is I never want a waiter who seems really, really sweaty and exhausted. I really hope you like this. I'm so fucking tired. I'm so fucking tired. Really? Are you okay? It's just like a big crunch mode. Fucking... Anyway, I really hope you like this. no the whole idea like in that case of being a waiter is like god please yes make it look easy and never make me realize that you're even a human being paying for that emotional labor you

Maxwant to see it yeah you love to see that anyway i know that i know that everyone's making fun of me because now i'm on the podcast talking i'm not making fun of you whatever i know we're on the

Merlinoh you mean the internet oh the internet okay sure yes now i'm on the podcast talking about how hard

Maxit is but i think it's fine to talk about your process but but that's not we're not going to market this thing by saying how hard we worked on it there's a difference of when we put the thing out and when we're talking about how tired we are tonight because we're working on this thing

Speaker Ayeah that's a different different branding choice and it's obviously the cards brand is not to talk about how hard you work but i'm always saying is that some brands do that is the brand image the brand images let me tell you about what is that it's like the jay peterman catalog or you know

Maxfrom seinfeld or whatever if you don't want my opinions about branding don't follow me on twitter just text alex and say how sexist i am yeah

Merlinthat's easy to say when you're a small jew who comes from a not very rich family anyway all

Speaker Athey're saying is that alex has been hard at work all day putting the puppies into their tiny boxes

Alexand the puppies should be getting i put i put the puppies in the boxes there are holes in the boxes

Speaker Apeople don't be don't worry about it we'll add the holes later that's not my job we'll get their

Maxadorable puffy is it is it fair to say that we've done an amount of work in the last two days that nobody would, this is just an unreasonable amount of work.

AlexI, yeah. I mean, what's happening? That's the thing though. It's, it's been four. Well, it's going to be four days. And I don't know how tomorrow's show going to be. We're all going to be real slap happy.

MaxOh yeah. Jesus. We have our show tomorrow. Insane.

MerlinToday.

MaxWe're closing for the game cafe. We're closing Milwaukee Avenue from midnight to 5am to put the, for a crane to put the HVAC units on the roof. So as soon as we're done with the podcast, I'm going to load up all my gear and go out to the to the cafe to stand on the street and do time lapse videos.

AlexOh, are you going to bring the drone?

MaxOh, I am now. That's a good idea.

AlexYeah. Don't don't crash it, please. We want the cafe to open.

MerlinI'm going to go and watch TV and go to sleep.

AlexOh, yeah. I'm going to. Hey, what's up?

MaxI have a topic. Dig dug. I'm watching the new season of Survivor, which is excellent. But what else? It is not.

MerlinIt is actually extremely bad.

MaxWell, beg to differ.

MerlinWell, no, here's the thing. I mentioned that, Max. Ordinarily, I wouldn't say, except we can totally go two on two for this one. Oh, you don't like it, John?

Speaker AYeah, I'm not a fan so far. I'm not caught up, to be fair, but I'm not liking this season. I don't hate it, but it's...

MaxI thought the political play in the last couple of episodes has been very, very lively, and I really enjoy it. I like the people. I think it's well cast. I feel like...

MerlinYou know what it is? I feel like Dingling Island, just everything grinds to a stop.

MaxThat's the only thing. See, I love it. There have been other... I'm so... You do? I do. When they go to the Island of the Idols, I'm like, get the chills. Like every time they come walking out. What? Yes, I love it.

MerlinI think it is arguably one of the flimsiest of all the mini flimsy things on this show. And they're like, I went down, I got off the boat, and I knocked over, and I saw this thing made of stone.

AlexAnd I was like, oh.

MerlinIt looked like a handsome face. It's like, come on.

Speaker AIs it so badly done you can't recognize?

MerlinIt was shaped like a head. It was shaped like a head. And then I thought, oh my God, that's definitely a human head. I love it. Big and stone. and then I thought I ended up like Rob. I'm fucking drinking the Kool-Aid. I love it. It's so extremely bad. And so far, boy, they get a lot of ding-lings on there. I guess that's part of the fun.

AlexOh, no. I think. No. No, Merlin, this season has a bad conceit with an amazing cast. And that's why it is very mediocre and very frustrating. Because I think.

Speaker AI don't think so.

AlexThe cast is okay.

Speaker AI think the most interesting thing about the cast this season is the Olympic swimmer. Because when I saw that, I'm like, they finally did it. Like, that's so unfair. How can you have the Olympic swimmer?

MerlinIs that the black lady? The black lady who's really like one lady?

Speaker ANo, there's a woman who was in the Olympics.

AlexShe's literally, yeah.

MerlinRight, that's why Matt, help me identify who that is with mouth noises about how she, it's the black lady, right?

Speaker AShe's a blonde, curly haired lady. She's really, she's not a blonde lady. No.

Merlinwasn't there a black lady who's an athlete on there too well yeah but i think an olympic slipper

Maxwell there is the there is the athletic there's the athletic black woman who i drafted on my team and she's crushing it for me she's the best pick i made okay right but but i'm saying like it's it

Speaker Aseems because they have hockey players and basketball players who cares but there's so

Merlinmuch swimming and survivor it seems out of bounds well they get a lot of old guys that played a sport

Speaker A25 years ago they don't get that many recently she was she was an olympic swimmer it's wrong

Maxexactly yeah it's wrong yeah john isn't that part of the fun of the show though is that like what if you imbalance it so much like what if there is this powerful person yeah i suppose i just i just

Speaker Afeel like that's like i feel like they consciously avoided that for a long long time and now they're just like you know what put the olympic swimmer in and so far it hasn't really helped the team that she's been on which i guess is part of the point it's like you think it's going to really help but if she no spoilers please but if she makes it through to the individual things if there's any swimming events that's a problem i was amazed by the lifeguard lady the older lady who was a lifeguard she had a thing where she was swimming against the olympic swimmer and she i mean she lost obviously by like half of the length of the thing but she held her own against

Maxthe an olympic swimmer you know once they get to the moment once they get to the big puzzle at the

Speaker Aend it doesn't matter who was swimming faster yeah i know i know that's how they're like they're like carnival games where you think you know you're trying to get the cutie doll or whatever really

Maxit's all in the puzzle and doesn't really matter uh what's it okay i so anyway i brought up survivor just to say that's like the it's like the only contemporaneous like show that i'm watching now and i'm kind of cast i'm kind of casting about looking for something good to watch and i think you and are you kidding me john have a really good taste in in television i'm curious what you're

Speaker Awhat you're watching right now i'm watching so much stuff but what is good that max will like well max i would recommend a show called the leftovers that i think you know well we should

Maxi'm i'm very excited to get into it but i actually think i might get i might this might i might get into this. I fucking liked it. It was good. Okay, save it for the show.

Speaker ASuccession we already talked about, and you said you were watching that. I think you should...

MaxI will tell you, it's not a bit. I really believe that it's good, because you and Merlin both like it, and I just... I need to sort of strap myself down and watch a few episodes and get into the groove. Okay, okay.

MerlinSo here's just something that I'm sorry to pop the stack. This is a meta thing, but something we... I think it was on this show. Weren't we talking about shows that... God damn it. Shows that benefit from binge watching versus shows that benefit from being um not binge yes like breaking bad just somebody tell me well okay listen first of all meta meta that was us yes so we talked i think i mentioned for example i on some show i was on in the last few weeks i said that for example i think watchman is a i'm not recommending this just let me live at this layer

of the stack for a minute a show like watchman is very good at being you get a week in between Right. Whereas I think the example I used was The Good Place, which is a show that like super especially benefits from watching as many as you can in a row because it's got a propulsiveness. And, you know, it's not that it's candy exactly. The reason I bring this up is I think it would be useful to look at it from that point of view. Are you looking for the kind of show that you could non binge or slow binge or are you looking for something you could throw yourself totally into? And like, oh, you have an open night tonight and you watch six, which which kind of experience?

MaxThat's a very useful distinction.

MerlinThank you for letting me say it then. I thought it was useful.

MaxIt felt useful. I think I need shows right now.

MerlinNow let John have his response. What is it, John?

MaxI was just wondering,

Speaker Asay Max says I want a show that I can see one episode a week. That's what he's looking for, that experience.

MerlinYeah.

Speaker AMy next question is, if there's a show where all the episodes are already out, will you actually physically be able to only watch one a week when you know all the episodes are sitting there?

MerlinCounterpoint. It's okay if you occasionally dip into two or three, but...

Speaker ANot okay if you binge the whole thing.

MerlinWell, here's the problem. The problem is if we give you something that's going to be like candy, and you like something like Letterkenny, you could choke on Letterkenny because it's a lot. I mean, it is like eating way too much candy. And as I've mentioned to all of you, I've gone through most of a season in a night, some nights of Letterkenny. The thing is, you could say, in the case of leftovers, let's go back to the original, the OG. my wife and I went all the way around the horn.

This story has grown with time. So let's just say, for the sake of argument, having already seen all the extant seasons of The Wire, when my wife was pregnant, and we could no longer stand to watch Special Victims Unit, we went back to The Wire, and we went all the way around twice while she was pregnant. And in that case, you know how you get into a weird, well, not everybody would know this, but you get into a weird headspace, because you can't go out, you can't go places, you're sick. But we would just be like, should we watch a third episode of The Wire tonight? And you're like, yes, fucking A, yes. The thing is you don't have to watch them to benefit like that.

If you want to dip in and go, yeah, I'm going to do two tonight, I'm going to do three tonight, I think that's okay. It's just that if you, I'm trying to just address, like what is your viewing pattern and preference? Do you want a weird puzzle box show? Do you want like something that's just like straight up easy to laugh at? But yeah, take your point, John.

MaxWell, I'm looking for, I don't have time right now to watch six episodes of a show. So I am looking for something where I can take my bath at night and watch like one really good episode of a show. And I will add another caveat, which is I'm usually watching TV at the end of the night when I'm trying to sort of turn my, gently make my brain submit to unconsciousness. So I'm not trying to watch like Breaking Bad where I'm working myself into a panic attack right before I go to sleep.

Merlinbecause you know there is a movie on there is a tv show on hbo that would be perfect for this except for that yeah that would be the leftovers the leftovers would be if you just want the most well and honestly like watch it's not gonna help you sleep it's not gonna help you sleep no no no but like that's what with watchmen i like i say the first episode i saw i woke up in the middle of the night and i got half an hour into it i was like okay i could watch this but i really need to put this away and go to bed. And then I sat down and now I watch them with all distractions off.

MaxPolitics of the show, the politics of the show aside, which have not aged well, like a thing that I really enjoyed about The West Wing was that it was a serious show that you could, it wasn't just a slight 30 minute comedy. It was like an hour long drama, but it was very pleasant to watch. Star Trek too, right? Like it is pleasant. It's dramatic. Okay.

MerlinI think I might have one. I'm going to do, I'm going to do a really wild one. that you almost certainly won't like. Have you watched The Detectorists? The Detectorists?

AlexWhat?

Speaker AI should put this in a document, by the way, Merlin. I'm adding a list for Macs. I added a homework section for everybody.

MerlinFor everybody except for you. I have a new Markdown editor I'm using.

AlexI know it is.

MerlinI have a new Markdown editor I'm very excited about. Very good new Markdown editor. What is it? It's called MarkText. Is it for the Apple Macintosh? Yeah, we're going to talk about it on Tuesday. I'm back to work. But check out MarkText. It's free. It's on GitHub. And it's really good.

The Detectorist, how does one say? Free as in coffee? Free as in monkeys. And so Detectorist is a show about, it's Mackenzie Crook, who you know from the British Office and the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. And the Truman Capote guy from the Captain America movies. What's his name? Toby. Toby Captain America. You know who I mean. The guy. The guy who plays Truman Capote. What's his name? Ugh! God damn it.

Anyway, watch The Detectors. It's about two guys who in England. Who plays Truman Capote. Toby. Not Toby Huss.

Speaker AHis name is not Toby.

MerlinHis name is Toby. That was almost your daughter's name.

Speaker AHe was in Magnolia taking care of the sick guy.

MerlinHmm? Hmm?

Speaker APlays Truman Capote.

MerlinThe guy's name is Toby Jones. Toby Jones and Mackenzie Crook.

Speaker AYeah, I was thinking of Philip Seymour Hoffman. There you go. Never mind.

AlexOh, we would never forget. No. Hashtag never forget.

MaxOh, he was in Frost Nixon and the Hunger Games. He's also in Captain America.

AlexOh, yep, yep, yep.

MaxOh, he's the little scientist in Captain America.

MerlinHe's a little guy. He's a little guy. Yeah. A little dancing man. So check out The Detectorist. You guys don't know that reference, do you? You laugh, but you guys don't actually know that.

AlexNo, I just, no, I laugh because it's funny.

MerlinHas anybody here seen the episode of Tim and Eric?

AlexThe image of a tiny little dancing man. It's funny, Jimmy.

MerlinWith the Terry Green machine? Have you not seen the episode with Terry Green machine?

AlexI haven't, but now I'm picturing you just doing a little dance.

MerlinWell, it's got levels to it. Please go watch Little Dancing Man. Detectorists about two guys in ink.

AlexI'm sorry.

MerlinTry the detectorists. Try the detectorists. Is it 1080i? Give me a fucking break. My God, I can't finish.

Speaker A1080i, you can't finish. You didn't write that in the doc. I'd write it in the doc for you, but I don't know how to spell Detectorist.

MerlinOh, that doc. Oh, okay. Well, there's a doc? I was in my bespoke markdown document. Detectorist is a very gentle but amusing English show about two guys who go out with metal detectors to try and find things that are valuable. And it's about their lives. And it's Gareth from The Office and that other guy, the little guy, Toby Young.

AlexThe Tiny Dancing Man

MerlinTiny Dancing Man I'm not going to explain the joke You've got to just watch the show Tiny Dancing I just think it's funny

MaxAre you guys John do you watch Do you watch Rick and Morty

MerlinI do not

MaxNeither you or Merlin watch Rick and Morty It's kind of mind blowing I mean I don't want to like I don't want to like stand this show Because the fans are so annoying But it's really fucking funny Alex Did they ever get that Szechuan sauce that they wanted Alex Beck, can you back me up here?

AlexNo, because I don't watch Rick and Morty just like I don't listen to Comptown, but I would imagine that it's very, very funny and people should stop saying Pickle Rick because it's not as good. It's Tiny Team, that's me.

MaxI mean, I'm sorry the fan base is awful, but the show is fucking funny, man.

MerlinWell, it's a lot like Reddit.

MaxIt's a good comedy show.

MerlinYou just got to find really super good ones and then the people are making feet.

MaxYou're only hurting yourself.

Merlin16 Chan.

Speaker AI'm not consciously avoiding it. I just haven't watched it.

MerlinIt's a really good comedy. No, I watched the first one. I watched the first one. It seems very ambitious. So there's the guy from Back to the Future, and he's drunk and yelling at Marty.

MaxYeah, that's it.

MerlinYeah, okay. Yeah, yeah, it seems very amusing. No, I wouldn't watch that.

MaxIt's like such good comedy writing, and it has really good sci-fi.

MerlinBut you're looking for something that won't wind you up, right? You want something that doesn't have to be bucolic and stupid.

Speaker AHere's what I put on your list, Max, in the notes document that you never looked at. I put The Leftovers.

MaxThis is everyone's greatest fantasy is to have bespoke television recommendations from John and Merlin. Yeah, so we already put

Speaker AThe Leftovers in succession, but we already established that's not what you're looking for for your bad time, but I do think they're good shows and you should watch them. Fleabag, if you haven't already seen it, I feel like fulfills your

Maxcriteria. I fucking loved Fleabag. I watched the entire second season on a long flight and I was very

Merlinmoved. She's so amazing. She's so amazing.

MaxIt was very, very, it was really good.

Speaker AAnd I put in The Boys on Amazon.

MaxI heard that's good. I promise I'm not going to spoil Fleabag at all, except just to say that they were setting it up to be one kind of show, and the way they ended it, I was both shocked and satisfied.

MerlinThat's what I said. In trying to, like, so you guys would both appreciate this. The bending over backwards, I try increasingly. It was something I love very deeply, and there's like a bend to it. I don't want to say even a twist. Like, I go so far out of my way to just say, just please watch the show now, trust me. And with that show, the only way I said it, I said it on Twitter. I think I said something like, this show is at once exactly the show you think it is and about 300% absolutely not the show you think it is. When you get into what's happening with her, you know, her business.

AlexWell, my only question is. It's so, like, it's brutal. Well, I plan on watching it, but is this a one-at-a-time show or is it a binge show?

MerlinOh, God, you're going to jam all these into your fucking face as fast as you can.

Speaker ABut I think it works either way. It does. It does. They do work as you can just grab one when you need to grab one and it's not a big thing. And you will still get the experience of like when you see them all fit together, the sum is so much bigger than the individual parts. Like it's quite a construction.

MerlinBut also, I keep anticipating encountering someone who's like, well, you know, I'm not into Phoebe Waller-Bridge and her characters for reasons like 9 to 16. And I'm anticipating that. And I keep thinking, like, there are so many reasons why I could see somebody saying, like, oh, you know, she's this fancy English lady who's extremely beautiful and da-da-da-da. But you know what? It's like I have not met – I don't think I've met – and please don't email me or I will literally ban you. but I have not encountered that many people who are like

well she's a beautiful English later because she is absolutely to say like her looking at the camera in a Michael Scott or in a Jim what's his name Jim Kaczynski what's his name? Jim on The Office Jim Kaczynski he's the duo bomber but the way just to try and say the one scene when she's talking to the first episode when she's talking to the guy with the beaver teeth and he's like you know you're such a nasty little bitch

and she's like the way that she looks at the camera and then he's like oh of course I'm just kidding and she's like hmm those four shots are exquisite it so captures her character

Maxit's a very specific show it's not a I don't think it's a broad show that's like I don't think it was designed to be like oh everyone's gonna love this and how rare is it that you have something that is it is really specific like it is really her sort of like singular vision and execution and everyone fucking loves it like i'm happy it's cool like there's not a lot of stuff like that it's good she's really smart and she's really funny yeah she is funny but she also is really cute did you watch killing and funny could could not get into it but i will give it another try someday oh it's okay it's okay

Merlinwe'll give it another try someday uh hey as long as we're here to talk about tv

AlexTikTok challenge.

MerlinThe challenge this week is from somebody. Oh, it was me. I think it was me. It's somebody's. But the point is this week. So how did this happen? We were talking about the TV show Watchmen, which is a show run by Damon Lindelof. And I think what happened was last week, I said, hey, have you guys seen The Leftovers, which is an HBO show starring the guy that was on Parks and Rec for a while? And I was like, hey, you guys have not seen Leftovers. Alex, what'd you watch? 1442? What was it? 1440?

MaxWhat was the show you watched? The 100... Wait, who was on... Wait, Parks and Rec has someone from... Wait, what?

MerlinWho was on Parks and Rec? Yep. Hang on. Wait, don't tell him. Don't tell him. Let him figure it out. What? Do you recognize him

Alexfrom Parks and Rec? He's not the first guy, is he?

MerlinHe's not Brandanowicz, no.

AlexNo. Hmm.

MerlinDo you remember, for example, the party at Leslie's house where all the people who want to be featured come and like ply their wares.

MaxLike community ed.

MerlinLike Sue Salad and all that shit. Like everybody comes over and it's like I can teach you. And the accounting guy with the PowerPoint deck. Yeah. Guy with short dark hair. Yeah. The boyfriend of Leslie Knope. Oh!

And he's also the DJ in Zoolander. He's also the DJ in Zoolander.

MaxAnd who is he in Leftovers? Kevin. Kevin.

AlexThe main character.

MerlinThe lead character. The cop?

AlexYes. The cop. Oh, my God.

Speaker AIs he a secret Brit? I forget.

MerlinHe's not a cop. He's the chief. Call him the chief. He has a name.

Speaker AIs he a secret Brit?

MerlinNo, he's totally American.

Speaker AYou sure?

MaxHow do you guys want to go? I feel like I'm going to talk about the show in the wrong way. How do you want to talk about it?

AlexHe made Jennifer Aniston and left her? Oh, God.

MerlinHas she not had enough heartbreak?

AlexOkay, real. What else are we going to do to that woman? I don't want to get into it. I know why the morning show is bad, but why is the morning show really bad?

MaxThe dialogue. The number one complaint, the dialogue. It sounds like it was written by a machine learning algorithm. Everything is a Markov chain.

MerlinWell, or maybe it's a show that thinks it's your favorite episode, Max. It thinks it's the cathedral, and really it's more like the one where Rachel's on a news show. It's smart dumb. it's classic smart dumb can you guys all appreciate what I just did there it thinks it's Sorkin but it's actually no Sorkin because even Sorkin is no Sorkin it is very Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip

Alexno I was going to say it's very newsroom and not because it's newsroom

Merlinwhoa whoa whoa

AlexI okay I like the newsroom but it is like reading a James Brown novel or Dan Brown novel or something

MerlinI would totally read a James Brown novel.

Speaker AYou get halfway through, someone comes out with a blanket, puts it on your shoulders.

AlexOh, boy.

MaxWhat's the Kevin Spacey show where he's the evil president? Get on up. House of Cards. House of Cards, man. It's House of Cards. It's like House of Cards does newsroom. Oof. God, I can't.

MerlinNow I'm not going to finish for a month.

Speaker AI still have not seen an episode of that show, so I cannot opine.

MaxYou're good. Don't worry. John, it's awful. It's horrible. At some point, it disconnected. The app stopped working, and it was like, we can't stream this episode anymore. And I was like, thank Christ. That was awful. I was like, honestly, staring at this loading screen is better than watching the show.

Speaker AI've heard a lot of people who like it pretty okay.

AlexThat's the best description. I like it pretty okay.

MerlinYou have, but here's the problem. If you had Pepsi challenged any of our friends who enjoy a certain company, if you had shown them this goddamn episode as an Amazon Prime show, they would have been like, you've got to be kissed. Yes. They would not have given this fucking 10 minutes. It's because it's an Apple show and they know how much it costs and they feel the need to be able to say, you know, it's actually pretty good.

AlexHonestly.

MerlinThere's no way you would watch this horse shit on any other network.

Speaker Anow I'm even more intrigued to see it to see which group is right here

MaxJohn it's horrible it's all as you know

Merlinit's very assured of its importance

Speaker AI mean there's a reason I haven't watched it it's like the one that I'm least interested in

Maxit's got as you know Bob out the ass there was an as you know Bob

Merlinin this episode of The Leftovers what's the challenge? watch S1E1 of The Leftovers on HBO

Maxlisten I feel like we're going to talk about this You guys obviously are very passionate about the show. I don't want to talk about it in the wrong way. How do you want to structure this?

Speaker AWell, I don't want to. Even though Merlin and I have both talked about the show, including spoilers on our other podcast a lot. I skipped it. And you two probably listened to those. Alex, you skipped it.

MaxMax listened to it. I didn't listen to it because I didn't at that time care about the leftovers.

Speaker AAll right. In that case, I don't want to spoil the show for you two because I think at least 1.5 of you will enjoy it.

MaxCan we get into spoilers for the pilot episode?

Speaker AYes, yes, I think that's fine. I think we can totally spoil the pilot episode. I just don't want to.

MerlinOh, yeah, I don't want to spoil the series.

Speaker AYeah, exactly. I do want you to watch the series, and I don't want to spoil things that happen in it. But we can talk about the first episode.

MerlinOkay, so Jim, please drop in at this point. Please drop in our spoiler horn for.

Speaker APretty sure the editor of the show is not named Jim.

Alexjust just jim norton uh um just for context i did watch the entire first season and the first

Speaker Aepisode of the second context for i don't know for the i'm very proud of you alex because you watched one of you have watched through one of my favorite uh things in the entire series i'm not going to tell you where it is because i don't want to spoil it for max oh my god there's spoilers

Alexinside the spoilers yeah i yeah oh there there are there are so i just well i'll just say it i've

Speaker Asaid this before the first episode of season two is one of the best openers of a season two of any

Alexshow i've ever seen i in my opinion agree and that is why matty has banned me from watching the rest of this show until after black friday because he knows that i will not sleep and that'll just be

Maxyou know i had a very similar experience watching it of i came home and i was like it was this week and i was like to veronica i was like you know i've got to watch the let's watch the leftovers I've got to watch it for the challenge. And I was like, Alex, I was lying on the floor. I was like, I can't. I was like, you're going to have to move me to the couch. Like, I'm like, I don't have like one more.

MerlinI've watched this first episode, I believe at least, I'm going to say at least three and probably four or five times, including twice now in the last week, as recently as this afternoon. And it still has the power to confuse and eviscerate me. And I was laying on the couch here at my office. And when they get to the They're Not Our Dogs, I cried. This show is relentless.

It is relentless, but it is not careless. It is not careless with our emotions, but it is a relentless fucking show.

MaxI didn't know that going in. So I'm at home and I'm lying on the floor and I'm like, I have to do. Let's watch the TV. I have to do my little show. Yeah, it'll be like Lost. It'll be like a little Rubik's Cube of fun. My last two brain cells, I was like, give me the Apple TV remote. We're going to watch this show. And Veronica was like, what's it about? And I was like, I don't know. And she's like, it's a cooking show, right? It's about beans. It's about microwaving beans. Pretty close.

MerlinGuy Fieri's losers, lovers, and leftovers.

MaxAnd we watched it. And then I think in one of the opening scenes, there's a 10 out of 10 rare pupper. and the guy comes by and just fucking blows him away.

Speaker AIn the first less than five minutes into the show, a baby disappears and a dog is shot. The show does not, you do not have to get far into the show before you know what the show's deal is. And the show's deal is babies disappear and dogs get shot.

MaxYeah, that's right. The baby disappeared and the shopping cart crashes into the car and the woman's going, my baby, my baby. And Veronica looks back at me and she goes, I don't think it's about food. I don't think it's a cooking show. we might eat the dogs later later there was a moment where they were having that a family dinner with the girl and the friend you know the girl and the friend were at the chief's house and veronica and i and i turned to veronica and i and i turned to her to go that's the leftovers and as i turned to do it she was turning towards me to do the same joke so we turned to each other

Speaker Athe show is gonna punish you for that joke though by the way she's left you made that joke and it's

Maxlike it's like oh really oh really do you want me to give my uh my my some like my broad impressions or or do you want to go like scene by scene or how do you want to do it yeah no i i'm interested

Speaker Ain hearing from people who have just seen the first episode but the first time alex probably has more because she knows more what the deal is so i think max who's only i'm assuming only seen the first episode i'd love to hear what the hell you make of this thing from one episode yeah so i

MaxOkay, so I love in entertainment and media, I love what I would describe as mood, which is a hard thing to talk about, right, when something has a mood. John, did you play Diablo 2?

Speaker AI did.

MaxI played the shit out of Diablo 2. It was very formative for me. And I think it's my favorite video game of all time. And if someone said, what do you like about Diablo 2? It's hard to say because it's not like the item management or the weapons or whatever. It's the mood of the game. It has a feeling and it's really, I don't know. There's something about it, man. and the leftovers had a really good mood it was really eerie and um i and i'm and i'm curious and i want to know more and i like that it was very dark i thought that it was uh cheesy and schlocky in a way that that rang false to me in some places so like i thought the whole conceit of

the high school party was like and they were all like 40 it all looked like they were 40 years old to me but they're at this like high school party wait wait wait do you go back to friday night lights oh wow yeah god there's a lot of 40 year old people on there but uh they all look 40 to me

Speaker Aand um thankfully the show does not hinge on the high school and who doesn't who does that with

Merlintheir phone you know what that's going to do to the lens on your right oh my god yes i know i'm

Alexlike wait and they put it on a tray because they clearly want to protect it a little bit but oh

Merlinbut that's another one of those moments where like like after you've seen so on the one hand you've seen lost and then on another hand later on maybe you've seen watchmen and then you go back to this and wait wait let me understand this you've got to spin the bottle game for iphone where the options include fuck and choke and burn yourself with a fork who's who's that fun for burn yourself with a fork this is what you're in for this is the ride this is what you signed up

Maxfor yeah that's a bad i as a game designer i have some issues with that one that's a bad mechanic but no i thought you know i thought i thought there's no way kids don't party like this it's just it's it seems like something that's only a construct for television it's only for tv

Speaker Ait's it's false obviously there's the premise of the show is not a real thing so in in the way like the alt history shows are popular now like for all mankind or whatever the kind of the conceit of an alt history is this would never happen in today's world but if catastrophic event happens then it's conceivable that what follows from that would be very different and that's kind of what well i i get it but anyway that's not a key trust me when i tell you that that those high schoolers in that game are not a key part of the series and you shouldn't get high up on them.

MerlinSo, John, your connection is super shredded. So maybe we should reconnect?

Speaker AHang on, let me see. I might be able to do something on my end to help with that because I think my wife's computer might be doing a thing. One moment, please.

MaxOkay. John's pirating the French version of Titanic.

MerlinBlack Blaze. Let me see. Paint me like you're American girls. That's funny.

AlexBlack Blaze. Let's see.

MerlinDo you understand the humor of that, Alex?

Alexwhy that would be funny? Yes, because... Because she says,

Merlinpaint me like your French girls. It would be funny if in the French version...

Speaker AAll right, am I much better now?

AlexIt's not as funny as a tiny dancing man.

MerlinTiny dancing man.

Speaker AHold me close to a tiny dancing man.

MerlinLay me down. Let me down on sheets of linen.

MaxYou know that's Trump's walk-on song. That's his big fire everyone up song. They play...

MerlinIt used to be. It used to be.

MaxOh, it's not anymore? No, now it's... Well, of course, now it's...

MerlinGod bless the USA.

Speaker AOf course.

MaxWhat was it before?

MerlinTiny Dancer? Tiny Dancer, yeah.

Speaker ANo, it wasn't Tiny Dancer.

MerlinOh, yes. Oh, yes, it was. Oh, yeah. No, no, no. People who cover him are like, it is, you will lose your goddamn mind with his repeating set list. So it'll be like, it's his walk-off song is, Max? Oh, fuck. It was

Maxreally funny, but I can't remember what it is. Stones.

MerlinStones. Oh, you can't always get what you want. You can't always get, you can't always, nope.

MaxGod damn it. What world are we living in? Oh, my God. Okay. No, but he'll be playing, but... Okay, can I talk, let me talk about this. I had another big world building. So that was just the one thing. It was such a prominent part of the episode was this crazy fucking high school party. And I get that they're all traumatized and that's why they're partying like this. But even then it was dialed up to, it just, it just, it was, it felt a little, it was an episode. So what I liked, one thing I liked about the episode, about the leftovers was a kind of, of hyper realism of like the, I don't,

how do I put it? Like things moved and it just seemed very realistic.

MerlinWell, an almost brutal realism. Yes, yes. So just, well, first of all, to your point, I'm not trying to talk you out of your feeling, but the thing that I, a show like this really washes over me. I mean, really, almost like a tsunami, where it's like, ah, this is so much to take in. But now watching this for the nth time, it really sinks in that, like, imagine if part of your family went away and, like, how much that would suck, Whether that's a parent or whether that's a kid or your brother or whatever.

God, that sucks so hard. I mean, there could have been a two-hour first episode just about that, but they didn't. Lindelof, very famously, as we've heard in his podcast interviews, takes the viewer very seriously and assumes that you can handle a lot. Here's the thing. It's that they're missing and we don't know what happened. How can we move on with whatever the fuck we're dealing with? How can we do our lives when not only have we lost our families, but we don't know why?

We don't know what happened. And like, it's taken me, honestly, I feel like an idiot to say this. It's taken me so many multiple viewings of this episode for it to really sink in that, yes, the worst part of that is losing people you love and even strangers that you don't know about and not knowing why. And you hear, like, it's a thread throughout this of like, oh, well, how did he get to go? Gary fucking Busey. Like there's all these things where you're like, oh, why is why did that person go? There's no logic to it. And you're going to tear your goddamn soul apart trying to figure out why this baby disappeared and this horrible man.

MaxI think we could get into the thematic layer of it because I really connected with that. And I and I already am really intrigued by all the stuff the show seems to be about. But that was the only thing was that fucking high school party. It just it was very funny to me. It was very TV to me in a way that the rest of it wasn't very. I like when something doesn't feel like a big old TV show. And teens are calling it a rainbow. Anyway, that's all with that.

Speaker AThat's my only beef with that. Part of the reason when I was half recommending this to Merlin cautiously is part of it is because after I watched the first season of Leftovers, I still wasn't really sure. Like I knew there was a thing in the show that I liked, but I was kind of in the same spot Max's where it's like, yeah, but there are some things the show does that just seem like, like not, they seem off. And even after an entire first season, which, you know, it goes somewhere eventually, like, but I was like, okay, but do they have a show here?

Like, and that's why I feel like the first episode of season two was such an important turning point in the series for me. because once they did that, it became clear to me, because they could have gone in a bunch of different directions. It's the first season, you're like, okay, I see what you're doing. Some of it's uneven. Like all pilots, you know how the pilot is always...

MerlinHelp me remember, just in very rough wide, is that when Regina King...

AlexDon't say anything about the thing.

Speaker AI'll explain what I liked about the season turn. But in the first season, and especially pilots, you watch a pilot on a lot of shows, and it's like it's before the show really got its footing. Some things are a little weird. they didn't really understand which characters they're going to concentrate on and which they aren't the actors haven't gotten into the it's a pilot right um so you have to give it a little bit of leeway there but i said the whole first season it's like okay i kind of see what you're doing show but i can't really imagine another season of this and season two was not another season of season one and season three was not another season of season two it's a type of show

Merlinit's the first show that i saw that really okay i totally forgot about this yes john is right right

Speaker ASo all I'm saying is that if you're watching season one, you're like, okay, like some of it appeals to me, but it's like, oh, I can't imagine another season. Watch the beginning of season two and allow it to keep it. It's one of those one of the first shows that I remember being really daring about the idea of like, you know what? Season two doesn't have to be continuation of season one. And the story we're telling isn't like just episode after episode. It's just like the first season only like better.

MerlinI'm going to say I'm going to say this and I'm not going to spoil it. Max, when we first hear the Mamas and Papas song on the turntable, and we see the man on the treadmill, and we realize that there's a man...

MaxYes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

MerlinWas that dumb or thrilling?

MaxThat's one of the greatest moments of my life.

MerlinIt's one of the greatest moments.

MaxExactly.

MerlinYou got my back on this here, Kisa?

Speaker AYeah, I mean, it's really not that type of show, but it's the type of thing where season two starts and it's like...

MerlinBut like where you're like, oh, there's another thing that's going to happen here. This is going to be very different.

Speaker AAnd you realize the show is not, the show is not going to let you get comfortable. Like after the first season, you think, okay, well, let's maybe season two will be okay. Let me watch it. And the show is like, no, you don't understand what I have in store for you. Right. You would. Anyway, that's, that's what I love about it. And there's only three seasons.

MerlinOr like, but like, but the things they've already, it's already in place. Were you in my house last night?

Speaker AHe asks a deer. Yeah. This is also one of those series where if you've seen the whole thing and you go back and watch the first episode, once again, you realize how much crap is in episode one.

MerlinOh, and you go, he's funny. He's a funny drunk man. Why would he ask a deer if the deer was in his house last night? That's silly.

MaxI loved. So I just take some of what was in that first episode. I mean, what I make of it now, having just seen it, is that I just like that sometimes stuff just happens. That's how life is, right? Sometimes there's not everything is like part of a television plot. sometimes there's just texture and milieu to the world and it seems like this maybe i i listen i

Merlinactually would not the clown the clown sitting on the curb oh my god i forgot about the clown on the

Maxcurb the kids love her she's here every year i actually wouldn't like it if later they have a big explanation for the deer i actually like it that it's just a thing that happened you're going through and you're like oh my god who broke into his house who broke into his house and then it's just oh a fucking deer got into his house like i don't know it's weird but okay i do have a one big world building complaint. And this is actually something that I've been thinking about a lot with, I just rewatched the Vengees when it, let's say, came out on Blu-ray. And... And... And...

And... And... So I rewatched the Vengees and... Blu-ray! And... And, you know, They do it. Part of the big setup of the movie, right, is Thanos snaps his finger and everyone goes away. Half the people disappear and they show the world very desolate. Right. There's like, oh, there's not enough people to play baseball. I miss the Mets. Right. It's like the big thing. And like the whales are coming back because there's no people and everything is very empty and the streets are all empty.

And, you know, the thing about that is like if you did eliminate half the world's population, I think you would go back to the 19th, the population level of 1970. like they fucking had baseball in 1970 right like everything was fine like yeah but the

Speaker Ainfrastructure is built up to support a larger amount of things like the stadiums are bigger and you need all the employees to run the stadiums like half i feel like is the snap makes sense maybe it wouldn't be that desolate but half is a lot of people not because it's like oh 1970s about like the world was empty it's because in 1970s the world wasn't built up as the way it was we didn't have as many houses and buildings and you know parking spots and well my your your rent prices

Maxwould go down that's for sure but uh yes definitely but that's bad for home values yeah alex would be allowed to use her walls but uh uh anyway i'm just saying it stood out as a funny like oh there's no people here and i feel like the leftovers is playing that game a little bit

Speaker Aof like it is a very small because it's just like two percent or three percent well it's yeah it's

Merlinno i i know what you mean max but it's it's it's not like it's excuse me they're shooting it it's a

Maxit's a sparse world. Like you are meant to feel, I think from a cinematography point of view, you are meant to feel the, the emptiness of the town.

MerlinI almost feel like not exactly the opposite of that. I feel almost the, almost the opposite of that, which is like, we won't, we, there's this is, and again, you've, you've lost these people and they're gone, but everything went on. So what have we done? You painted a mural and you're like, ah, are they heroes? You know, no, no, no, no, no. The one I'm trying to say is like, it's, it's, if it was, if it was, you know, 33% if it was some kind of like an interestingly biblical percentage it would be different but it's like whatever 1.2% or whatever they got Gary fucking Busey and they got the Pope but like it's

it's it's enough that it hurts so much but it's not enough that it makes any sense yeah like

Alexbusinesses aren't closing down the stadiums aren't closed yes that is what I I went into this thinking it was going to be a snap type situation and once I found out like you find out right away that it's like only one in 20 or something and like or even less than that like it's no it's one in 50 yeah yeah and i'm like holy shit like that that that's why i'm like it is this really strange world where it's like it's just a tiny tiny bit different and that's what's so alarming

Maxalex it would be like if one person in our office disappeared and we never saw them again And that's not even that weird Is that the Black Friday surprise?

Speaker AOne person in your office is going to disappear

MaxBut that happens all the time

AlexI don't know where most of the people In our office are

Speaker AI don't know where you are Max doesn't have object permanence yet

MerlinDaddy Daddy

Speaker AWhen you're out of my line of sight do you go away?

MaxYeah that's why I can't ever blink

Speaker AYou kill people every time you blink And then they come back to life

Maxfinally finally i also really enjoyed the cult i i am just i just that is what is going to make me that is why i am i am when we are done when we're done with this episode i are recording i want to go watch another leftovers and it's because i want to know more about that cult i mean what is their

Speaker Adeal and and what's her name the the lady that we all know from handmaid's tale now this is where i know her from is from this show and it's kind of it's it feels kind of typecasting to put because her role in handmade is similar enough to this role it's like oh well but she's really good at

MaxMy guess, do you want to know what I think the cult is? And I swear I haven't looked it up. Go for it. I think that they are all people who lost someone very important to them, like, for example, a spouse. And they're like the oath keepers. They're like keeping their vows to these people. And they're the real, they would view themselves as like the real rememberers. And that's why they were haunting that woman who was going to remarry. Did you ever see Children of Men? Yeah. So like, you know how there's the cult? This might be my favorite movie.

Don't explain the cult to him, please. Merlin.

MerlinWell, all I'm going to say is, and this is something, I mean, if you look at the signs in the background and stuff. So I put this in our doc. We don't smoke for enjoyment. We smoke to proclaim our faith. Another one of their signs is something like, you know, we watch. What is it? Something like, what is it, John? It's something like we watch so that they'll remember or something like that.

Speaker AIt's the one that's where the mirror should be in the bathroom.

MerlinYeah, but there's one of their signs, and I don't have it in front of me right now, But one of the signs is, and it's not a spoiler, is that they are there coming to your fucking Heroes Day thing. I think they read a little bit as one of the cults in Children of Men, where something inexplicable has happened. We can't have babies now. What is going on? God, I love that movie so much.

But in that, there's all these cults that have sprung up, right, who are like, we must have done something horribly wrong, and now we must atone for it. And in this one, like whatever it is that this ends up being about with the guilty remnant, what we do understand is that there is something that they are keeping alive and that they are what is what reads as harassment is almost like a sacrament to them of like you are not allowed to move on. I feel like that that's not a spoiler, right?

Speaker AI was going to ask Max, you already told him if he knew what the name of the cult was, because the show doesn't spoon feed you this.

MaxI don't think they said it. They refer to it by its shorthand handle in the first episode.

Speaker AThe GR is going to show up. Going to remember. That's not what it is.

MerlinMerlin just said it. But anyway.

AlexI mean, that's pretty good.

MaxMerlin, that was funny. I heard that.

MerlinThanks. You get a lot of these later, which is fine.

MaxAnyhow, I really enjoyed it. It's a fucking good show. I get why everyone liked it. I'm bummed that I'm going to have to do. It's one of those things where I feel like I've been very careful of not Googling anything. That's why I don't know who any of the actors are. Because at some point I would see someone and be like, who's that guy? And then I was like, you know, if I put this into my phone, what's that?

Speaker AYeah, don't do that because they're going to have spoilers for like seasons two and three.

MerlinI know, but you know. It's like Survivor. It's like Survivor. All I want to know is I want to know something incredibly trivial about this season of Survivor. We've talked about this. It's literally impossible to Google anything about Survivor because the thing above all that you will learn about Survivor is who won. And it's like, oh, fuck.

MaxAnd you know what?

MerlinI apologize. I apologize because I feel like I'm trying to sell you on this, and I really don't mean to be trying to sell you on this. It's just that this is one of those shows that – what did I call this, Syracuse? This is a gimme. This show's a gimme. We're like, okay, it's like The Smiths. Like, I know you don't like the Smiths, but I like the Smiths, and I'm not in a position to defend why I like the Smiths. Well, especially today, because he's the worst. But, like, for years, my feeling on the Smiths and for a long time Macintosh was, look, I know you don't like this, but I do. You're just going to have to give me this one.

And this is very much one of those shows. And that's the Damon Lindelof thing. Why did it come up last week? He asked no one in particular. It came up because in the – well, yeah, it came up because of Watchmen. and like Watchmen is a very similar experience like he's fucking learning so much with every project and he's getting better and better at it and it's so rare so I feel this what do I feel this about I feel this about Damon Lindelof I feel this about um I feel this about Edgar Wright

mostly Baby Driver slightly accepted um I feel this about like certain bands where it's like they are capable of giving me such a gift that like it's you know you ever have a piece of media you love so much like like like let's say like me and rem's reckoning or i'm like i wish i could go back and hear the drum fill that opens harbor coat on reckoning again for the first time like i did when i was 17 i'm chasing that dragon i will never hear the snare fill at the beginning of harbor

coat for the first time ever again i and with this this is this is i'm sorry i'm being dramatic but Like there's not that much actually legitimately extremely disruptively good shit out there. And this show is it's for me, this is up there. It's so weird and so good. And like, that's why if I'm sounding like I'm being like, you're not allowed to not like this. Like, I'm not like that about, you know me. I'm not like that about hardly anything, really. It's just for this one. I don't know why. And John introduced it to me perfectly.

You introduced it to me as you're probably not going to like this. It's really weird. that's a good song yeah oh my god did you even have headphones on did you hear it the best way to hear it is over a

Maxskype connection yeah no i have my i have my headphones i have my headphones on right now and i'm playing it out of my monitor every day someone's born who hasn't heard reckoning yet i'm

Merlinplaying it out of my computer monitor no it's like somebody told you about women and then you You found a picture of Edith Bunker in half K. And now that's your whole idea now.

MaxI liked it. Archie!

MerlinI'm glad you liked it. It's the Hat album, right?

MaxR.E.M. Oh my God!

157. (That's the Leftovers)

Show notes

Transcript

157. (That's the Leftovers)

Show notes

Transcript

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