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Dissecting Worm - Season 5 Recap: Arcs 26 - Epilogue
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This story isn’t intended for young or sensitive readers. Readers who are on the lookout for trigger warnings are advised to give Worm a pass.
Complete list of potential triggers: here
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Dissecting Worm: The sister podcast to Brockton Bay Book Club where our hosts Jacob and Allan discuss adapting Worm for television.
Episode Description: In this season 5 review the gang discusses their adaptation choices for Arcs 26-Epilogue.
Get in contact with us @brocktonbaybc
A big thank you from all of us here at The Brockton Bay Book Club for all the love and support!
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Thank you to the sponsors that fuel our podcast:
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Timestamps: (00:00) - Introduction
(01:10) - Dissecting Begins
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Merchandise Announcement
00:00:00
Speaker
Exciting announcement. We now have Brockton Bay Book Club merch. We've got our Brockton Bay Book Club t-shirt as well as the Brockton Bay's sweatshirt.
00:00:10
Speaker
They look sweet. Hannah designed them and they're amazing. so if you're interested in that, link will be in the description and shout out to Hannah for all the sweet designs.
00:00:21
Speaker
Thanks so much for your guys' support and ah check it out.
Discussion on 'Worm' by Wildbow
00:00:25
Speaker
Worm is a web serial by JC McRae, also known as Wildbow. You can read Worm in its original format by visiting parahumans.wordpress.com or donate to Wildbow's Patreon at patreon.com slash wildbow.
00:00:39
Speaker
This story isn't intended for young or sensitive readers. Readers who are on the lookout for trigger warnings are advised to give Worm a pass. For a complete list, check the description for all of Worm's trigger warnings.
00:01:34
Speaker
Take that,
Series Finale of Dissecting Worm with Special Guests
00:01:35
Speaker
you worms. Welcome, one and all, to ah Dissecting Worm season five see this isn yep series finale, season five.
00:01:48
Speaker
Recap.
00:01:51
Speaker
and Perfect. Welcome, welcome. As always, we have Alan and Michael. Joining me as always.
00:02:01
Speaker
As always. And special guests, as is typical for these recaps, welcome from the Brockton Bay Book Club, Nick and Hannah. earth Hello.
00:02:14
Speaker
Here to judge us once more, are you? ah Always. We're always here to judge. It's true. The three of you. the two of you. It's really just the two of you. Michael's just a moderator. I'm just here. You judge Michael for letting us get away.
00:02:29
Speaker
i got was his podcast Michael, I can't believe you you let them do this. There is a little bit of judgment. It's not really. Yeah, I am a, yeah if nothing else, I am an enabler.
Engagement and Criticism Handling
00:02:44
Speaker
Sure. Let me just start by saying this then. First off, Alan, how dare you? I don't know what you did, but I know you did something. Whatever it is. Wow. Wow.
00:02:56
Speaker
You know what? First off, I'd like to say, if you'd like to also be an enabler, you can join our Patreon and enable us. Do some more horrific shit to the story you love. Enable to enable them. Am I right?
00:03:10
Speaker
That's right. You thought it was just an anonymous user on Reddit, but it was me the whole time, Barry. Oh, no. I'm just kidding. It's enablers all the way down.
00:03:22
Speaker
ah It's okay. I know that Alan at least is fueled by criticism. so Oh, God. Just sits in the corner at night, 2 a.m., m just scrolling through hate comments.
00:03:36
Speaker
Oh, he loves that shit. I can't stand it. It makes me cry. It's the only thing that's hard anymore. I've stopped. I've stopped reading comments because even the good ones, they make me like wonder if people are just being fake nice. like i can't I can't do any comments anymore. No comments.
00:03:56
Speaker
Yeah. but Total zone out. We'll screen them for you. yeah Yeah. Just tell me like what the good people. I read all of our patron comments, but that's, those are our Patreon members. They're, they're peaches.
00:04:07
Speaker
Yeah. They get a pass. hey Well, you can get a free pass as a patron.
Patreon Humor and Tier Suggestions
00:04:13
Speaker
There you go. Free pass to patron. Patron pass. Let's be clear.
00:04:18
Speaker
You can disagree with me one time. as That's good to use your monthly disagreement. Yeah. Any more than that, you'd have to go up a tier.
00:04:29
Speaker
was going to don't we a tier for that? I do have a tier. Yeah, there should be if there isn't. You get one slap. Bring Alan to tears tier. was thinking like that. yeah There should be if there isn't you go. on that tier.
00:04:40
Speaker
to bring all into tears here i was thinking i was thinking like that there you i have no fears for tears on that ti oh I was thinking there could be a high enough tier where we just have a bonus episode of a patron debating Alan on some random worm topic.
00:04:58
Speaker
Oh. I've already
Adapting Slaughterhouse 9000 Members
00:05:00
Speaker
said that segment would just be called And Another Thing. Oh, yeah. And another word. That's got to be a podcast or a show. I'm sure it is. It's got to be in that way.
00:05:14
Speaker
ah Well, I'll put your minds at ease a tad, which is to say that season five, which covers the final five arcs plus epilogue, is pretty set for the most part.
00:05:31
Speaker
for the most part we um we have we have We have some fun with a few bits, but overall, I think this is maybe our least adjusted season.
00:05:43
Speaker
Would you agree with that, Alan? I would definitely agree. Yeah. there's the The data speaks for itself. Your episodes are about half the length as usual yeah for this season. yeah Meaning, there you're like, yeah, actually, it's pretty good.
00:06:00
Speaker
It's good. Wild Bo's cooking. and and It ain't broke. I think part of that is that we, ah yeah this is so far along in the story.
00:06:16
Speaker
And this part of the story is so directed that you cannot change a whole lot without it.
00:06:28
Speaker
Um, just being veered off course. Like you would have to retroactively go back and change so much because this is the linchpin of the story, like coming here.
00:06:39
Speaker
Yeah. Um, that it's just, it's not worth it. Yeah. Um, so, you know, in rewrite two, obviously we'd go back and be like, Oh yeah, because we want this in season five to work out. We have to do that in season two, but as it stands,
00:06:58
Speaker
this is This is where it was all headed anyway, so we kind of have to work with what we were already working in. um so most of it will just be stuff cut, not stuff added. Yeah, we'll touch on a few ah few parts as we get to them here, of course, of of ah things that would likely change in in rewrites, but for the time being, as is.
00:07:28
Speaker
Uh, shall we dive in? Yeah. With a focus to pay attention to in all this. Um, the big thing here, we'll be looking at Gollum's role in all of this,
Simplifying Story Explanations
00:07:44
Speaker
ah is something we would like to beef up.
00:07:47
Speaker
Taylor's frustration is going to be a continual theme at people not cooperating and Glastig's role. In regards to Scion.
00:07:59
Speaker
um On top of all of that. ah The biggest thing in all of this. Is simplifying. A lot of complex explanations. And that.
00:08:12
Speaker
Is just sort of the consistent things. That like they might not be in there. But those are what we would be hammering home over. Like characters would say. Things about that. Over and over and over again.
00:08:25
Speaker
Right. Right. That makes sense. we might not just put that over and over and over again because that would be annoying to read through.
00:08:35
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Good thoughts. Yep. I think, um, i think the Gollum one is a big one. He has such a, such a crucial role to play in the climax of the story here.
00:08:46
Speaker
And we want to make, we want to make that feel earned is, uh, you you want You want to get to that point, and you want and you want that to be satisfying for fans, especially with a villain like Jack, who has been hyped up since season two, essentially.
00:09:06
Speaker
And it's naturally, the story would would be moving towards... Jack being confronted by Taylor makes the most sense.
00:09:18
Speaker
But he's not. He's confronted by Gollum, which makes more sense when you're reading the story. So we want that to... We want the audience to feel that as well. So that most likely means putting some focus on Gollum throughout the story here.
00:09:35
Speaker
That makes sense too, because he he's a great character who You get to know because you read about him, but I imagine that it it might be difficult in a TV show if he hasn't been that big of a focus to suddenly be like, wait, who's this kid and why does he matter so much? So I think i think that goal makes sense then.
00:09:56
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So I like that. I'm a big Gollum fan too, so. Me too. Big fan of his dad too, but. No, come on. on. powers. Yeah, thank you. What kind of powers?
00:10:12
Speaker
The power to do metal powers. Jesus. It's already started. Not even 10 minutes in. Alan, want to kick off? power to do powers metal powers ah jesus it's already started not even ten minutes and oh ah is alan you want to kick us off Starting off, we have Taylor sitting in a darkened dragon craft along with a bunch of dragon's teeth soldiers.
00:10:44
Speaker
She preps them with a little tough guy speech about facing the Slaughterhouse Nine, and then they land and deploy. Killington is a massacre full of numbered bodies.
00:10:56
Speaker
They find a TV with Jack's message on it, and nice guy attempts to kill Taylor while they watch, but Imp steps in and saves her. Taylor asks why she isn't with the Undersiders, and she begins calling the other teams over the comms.
00:11:10
Speaker
Golem and some of the now grown-up wards that we have come to know and love are in a fight with some of the Slaughterhouse Nine, while the Undersiders fight ah specifically Spawn, I believe Spawner, Spawner, and Company.
00:11:25
Speaker
um Taylor coordinates their fights as well as her own, coming to a victory all around. As they burn Killington to contain spawner, uh, the teams find that the rest of the slaughterhouse nine clones have spiraled out and are traveling in different directions.
00:11:42
Speaker
So they will have to split split up to keep Jack from influencing an level threat and thus raising the chances of the end of the world occurring.
00:11:55
Speaker
Um, if this were to be an episode, the post credit here would be Saint, uh, getting emailed or called by Jack slash saying that maybe dragon is the real S level threat here.
00:12:08
Speaker
And what will happen when she runs into Jack, uh, putting a bug in St's ear. Um, that would sort of be a tentative episode one.
Potential Episodes and Character Arcs
00:12:23
Speaker
Cool. Yeah. Premiere of the season. Yeah. Pretty straightforward. I'm trying to remember. I know last time you guys had said you were not sure what to do about the Slaughterhouse 9000 because you felt like... Correct.
00:12:35
Speaker
There were too many of them. i mean, there are a lot of them. And it's it's hard to... they all All the fights kind of bleed into each other. All of the the former Slaughterhouse 9 members kind of lose their uniqueness.
00:12:49
Speaker
um I was just curious. It sounds like you're including that, but maybe to a more limited scope. So I'm curious what you're Remind me what your plan was if you had one, but I feel like last time I i heard, you guys were still not sure what to do with that.
00:13:03
Speaker
We were discussing just before this ah with a patron of ours, because they can do that if you're a patron. um And Jacob actually had a really excellent answer as to how to handle ah the Slaughterhouse Nine.
00:13:19
Speaker
Oh, thank you.
00:13:23
Speaker
So... Yeah. Yeah. ah Put me on the spot. I mean, i I can also answer it. I just wanted to add the patrons. i have Yeah, appreciate it. Give the credit. It a great conversation. it was kind of It was helpful to sort of talk through it.
00:13:39
Speaker
So the issue we have with the Slaughterhouse-9000... is is kind of layered. But for me, the big issue is is that if you're placing yourself in the position of an audience who is not familiar with the story,
00:13:55
Speaker
introducing the 9,000 as prior Slaughterhouse-9 members who have been killed and are now being cloned and resurrected is a huge ask to get the audience invested.
00:14:08
Speaker
Especially when most of these members are being killed, met, introduced, and killed very quickly, like in a scene. Right. Yeah. So to kind of...
00:14:19
Speaker
respect and honor the concept while simplifying it is just that instead of these being clones of old members, they are just new members that the Nine have recruited over the course of the time jump and kind of working out the details there.
00:14:39
Speaker
So it's just a revamped, upgraded, expanded Slaughterhouse-Nine that everybody is running into here. um with the idea, this was this was something we actually just talked through that I kind of really like, the idea being that we will keep one clone, ah that is the clone of Greyboy, and you can still keep that element of everything here and sort of hype up Greyboy as a bit more serious a threat, which he is, um sort of raise the stakes for the final confrontation there.
00:15:18
Speaker
ah and kind of working that into the backstory of the prior seasons, kind of building up to this point. But in terms of the 9000 themselves, we're sort of, for the purposes of what we're doing here, going to keep everything worded as the 9000, just to kind of keep it simple. Because like Alan said, this would involve kind of rewriting a lot of the prior stuff.
00:15:38
Speaker
So draft two, we'll come back. We'll circle back to this next year. Okay. Yeah. But for yeah for now, think that might be a clever way of ah not not veering too far from the path, but making it a bit simpler and easier to consume.
00:15:54
Speaker
Sure. I think that makes sense. i I actually had an idea. um after our conversation last time, and I i forgot to ever mention it. yeah My idea was was similar so what you just said, but basically just have them do only one clone of all the old members.
00:16:09
Speaker
So rather than it being a mindless horde of old members, it's literally, hey, we're getting the old gang back together, literally making one of each of them, so to speak. That was kind of an idea that I had.
00:16:23
Speaker
But yeah i like this idea, too The new members idea is good, too. That way it still gives that creepiness level to Bonesaw as well again of like, ah, why did they need Blasto? don't remember if Blasto was still included in what you did.
00:16:37
Speaker
um But you know, yeah why did they need Blasto? And all of that kind of thing. so Yeah. and And part of the you know the big thing with the clones is they put them in stasis and grow them for like two years.
00:16:52
Speaker
Yeah. She works on them. And from this, like, They're not gone for that long. um you know we are We are moving through the story at a consistent pace so that by the time we get to this event, like they haven't been gone for that long.
Major Plot Points and Episode Structure
00:17:16
Speaker
At least I would like to think that they haven't been off the radar that ah badly. That makes sense. Cool. Yeah. All right. That's good. First episode. I'm trying to think.
00:17:28
Speaker
ah I think if there any more thoughts, this one honestly was probably the weakest in terms of like filling it out. I think having three different fights and focusing on those slaughterhouse nine characters, like talking about how cool their powers are. Maybe, you know,
00:17:50
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Just to how cool their powers are, introducing them, but to have them in a fight where they are the focus, overcoming them is the focus, and there are three of them, will probably take up a decent amount of time.
00:18:04
Speaker
um
00:18:07
Speaker
But, yeah. Have all that there. and ah But the rest of them, we definitely have chock full of material. Yeah. Yeah. So moving into, yeah, kind of continuing from there.
00:18:22
Speaker
We have really, these are kind of really loose episode breaks at this point too, because again, kind of one of those things that as you write in the dialogue and, and ah you know, sets and action and stuff like that, stuff sort of spreads out a bit.
00:18:37
Speaker
um But just sort of oh a loose next episode. would start with a bit of a cold open of a diving team finding wreckage beneath the ocean of Newfoundland, um labeled the property of Andrew Richter.
00:18:54
Speaker
And then we'd cut to Gollum and the um now the the now grown wards heading to Ellesburg to cover Nilbog. ah Taylor attempts to cut off the Slaughterhouse Nine at the Simurg, and the Undeciders attempt to cover the portal in Brockton Bay.
00:19:13
Speaker
And then Dragon continues her scan for Jack Slash as well. Gollum tries to talk down Nilbog, who is talking with Bonesaw.
00:19:23
Speaker
ah Taylor talks down Eidolon, and Tattletail kind of begins to put together the missing pieces of what's going on here. ah Dragon sits watching ah Dragon and Defiant widening their search.
00:19:40
Speaker
Dragon's grasp is ever-expanding, thinking constantly about Jack Slash's warning.
00:19:48
Speaker
Gollum gives chase, Bonesaw, and fights the Siberians. Taylor connects with the Simurg a little before fending off some of the Slaughterhouse-Nine herself. And Tattletail tells everyone that there has to be a way to track their portal to the toy box now that it's yeah that's open.
00:20:05
Speaker
And then ah this would kind of... On a website, I got a bit more. got to scroll through. Scroll down on your sheets before telling everyone that you're done. Yeah. Dinah broadcasting to all the teams that the beginning of the end is imminent, and another mad rush ensues as a result of that.
00:20:25
Speaker
Cut over to a doorbell ringing and purity answering, only to find Jack and Grayboy. little horror shot there. And then in kidnapping Aster, a dragon is able to track them.
00:20:40
Speaker
Taylor gets to the portal with some of the other siders in order to storm lair. layer Waterhouse Nines Lair. Taylor reminds everyone that they need to do what is necessary and that everyone needs to work together.
00:20:52
Speaker
She finds Greyboy and Jack. She kills Aster while Greyboy is shot by foil. Explained that her bolts not only break physics, but reality as a whole.
00:21:04
Speaker
ah Dragon is tracking Jack, but also about to find Saint. ah So Saint pulls the plug on her, throwing everything into chaos. Jack appears, and Dinah guides Gollum in a chase while Jack yells, seemingly at Gollum, only to have a sniper hit Jack and then cover him in foam.
00:21:24
Speaker
They ask why he was here, only to see Scion standing nearby, staring. Fade black.
00:21:35
Speaker
That sounds like a long episode. Yeah. Yep. but This would probably, this is this one would probably be pretty easy to to break up a bit. Kind of just combined um ah few big points here.
00:21:49
Speaker
but um But yeah, you could you could probably cut this up a little bit. We're just sort of getting to gold morning here is these these few scenes.
Enhancing Gollum's Character Arc
00:22:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:01
Speaker
I mean, it's hard, right? Because I feel like
00:22:07
Speaker
These are such important scenes, and I'm obviously not going to tell you to cut anything. But yeah, there's a lot to pack into one, for sure. Yeah, reading through reading through it, I think this is probably a solid two episodes, honestly, if not more.
00:22:25
Speaker
i think you easily break this into two episodes, looking at it here. Yeah. i'm thinking I'm thinking the split where the most natural split to me would be um Tattletail saying we should be able to track them and then Greyboy and Jack showing up at Purity and Aster's house.
00:22:45
Speaker
I think that would be a good episode to end because Cliffhanger. And then the next episode is interesting because it feels climactic even though it's only the third episode of the season and you realize there's more going on ah when you see Scion at the end of that. And I feel like that's a good yeah two episode split. Otherwise, I just feel like It would have to be really fast, and I think you would lose a lot of the good the good details you would get other otherwise. Yeah, I agree.
00:23:15
Speaker
Also, for what Jack is yelling out, because I had in my head something that works for you know both of them. Oh, you're so... you know Go through his... so You're so uncreative. You're such a bore. like You just do what everybody tells you. like yada, yada. yada And it's stuff that all very much applies to Golem.
00:23:33
Speaker
um and but But in the end, between that, you find out, you know, you realize he's yelling that. Right. Not for Gollum's sake, but for... For Sion.
00:23:45
Speaker
For Sion. there's a couple things we we did adjust here just a little bit with that final fight. Yeah. mostly with Greyboy's involvement and then the final confrontation.
00:24:02
Speaker
um it's it's It's one of the, is as it's tricky because, so, this is actually a general worm question that I had, and I don't remember if I brought this up during the book club portion and helped my deja vu, or deja vu, that's wrong.
00:24:20
Speaker
What's amnesia? Wormnesia. Thank you, Wormnesia. Wormsheimers. We did talk about this already. But like,
00:24:28
Speaker
Jack's shard prevents other capes from harming him. That's the whole thing. It's why they need a PRT sniper at the end to trip him up.
00:24:39
Speaker
Why does Greyboy trap him in the story? How is that allowed? How does Jack's shard let that happen? He doesn't get him. He tries to. great Well, Greyboy gets Jack.
00:24:54
Speaker
I don't... Does he? I don't believe so. all Somebody check it. I don't believe so. Gray Boy attempts to get Jack because Jack starts to run away from something and Gray Boy thinks he's a pussy.
00:25:06
Speaker
So he goes to do that. But ah foil is able to. are so Yeah. Foil is able to then shoot him with. ah Right. know.
00:25:18
Speaker
Sting. Thus breaking his power and killing him. Yeah. And Jack is still running. Because he's talking, like they've foamed him up and he's still inside like whisper talking to Sion. But he's whispering inside the bubble. Unless, I mean, I might have.
00:25:36
Speaker
Yeah, he's whispering inside the bubble. I don't think he ever gets inside of gray bubbles. I don't. and Inside of green gray bubbles. Yeah, gray bubbles. Yeah. I don't feel like he does. I feel like it was... i got He misses... Isn't there this weird thing where it looks like he's in the bubble, but he isn't? He's literally just like standing on the other side. That's how they trick. That's how they trick. Oh, that's right. That's right, JK. Nope, I got it. Aha. o Jacob wins.
00:26:10
Speaker
Yes, Jacob with your deep Jacob knowledge. Tell us. Get it I'm just going to read it. I'll just read it straight. ah su The DT officer had turned the containment foam onto Greyboy, except Greyboy reappeared out of the way of the stream.
00:26:22
Speaker
The containment foam froze midair. No. The Siberian leaped out of the fissure, then paced towards Jack. Her hand stopped an inch away from him. She lowered it. Jack had turned gray.
00:26:34
Speaker
Trapped. Looped. Pathetic, Grayboy said. Stupid. Useless. I thought you'd do something interesting, but you made yourself prey instead of the predator. If you're going to be prey, I want you to be my prey.
00:26:47
Speaker
It dawned on Gollum. Grayboy froze him. Dang. That's Jacob's power, the innate knowledge of all other Jacobs. ah true I love it when Jacob's right. I'm not going to lie. I don't like it when anybody's right in this podcast. It's very upsetting, but I like it when Jacob's right. so it I guess the question would be then, Greyboy's powers don't stop once he's dead, though, right? That's something that's established. Correct. yeah right Everyone's just kind of stuck.
00:27:16
Speaker
I think Jack's power isn't that it nullifies Kate's powers. It's that he has precognition and cognition powers.
Jack's Shard Mechanics Discussion
00:27:26
Speaker
that allow him to understand capes and their powers innately.
00:27:31
Speaker
And basically, he figures out like how to push all their buttons. He knows, kind of can figure out how to push people to do plans that he's chosen. um You know, he's all about, he talks way early on about the carrot and the stick thing, right? Like, you got to have the the carrot and the stick, and that's kind of his whole shtick, for lack of a better term.
00:27:53
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. So I don't think that it's like, he just didn't see, he probably knew that at some point, like he even talks about it, I think he knows that Gray Boy is going to betray him probably at some point.
00:28:05
Speaker
Because that's just the nature of the Gray Boy. But um he sees it as kind of a like necessary evil, like maybe this one I can control, even if I couldn't control the original one.
00:28:17
Speaker
Yeah, it's interesting because I i ah interpreted his power partly the the the unknown parts of it, the subconscious part of his power, that his shard prevents the other shards from disrupting him because he's necessary. Yes.
00:28:35
Speaker
Which is what Gollum figures out, which is why Gollum calls for a PRT officer to get involved, knowing that the shard can't interrupt that action.
00:28:47
Speaker
um as we're getting into the minutiae of the shards here. no no it's None of this will be explained in the show. It's just going to happen. because they like we We can write a better script because we know all the details.
00:29:02
Speaker
like yeah what's So what's going to happen is at this point the screen will pause and then text is going to scroll just explaining exactly what's happening. So you'll It's what every true fan would want, you know? Yeah. yeah Actually. Actually, probably. Yes.
00:29:23
Speaker
So honestly, in kind of talking through that, I i really like the idea of Greyboy trapping Jack because it's such a it's such a torturous end to him as a character. Yeah.
00:29:37
Speaker
just looping for eternity, you know, essentially. Yeah. And ah I really dig that. But just it felt like it conflicted with what we know of Jack's shard.
00:29:49
Speaker
But if we tone that down, if we sort of if we sort of don't play into that as strongly... or if Greyboy's a clone and not totally connected, yada, yada, you can kind of work around it, I guess. ah It probably still works. Yeah.
00:30:02
Speaker
I mean, you get I was just going to say, you can also make it Jax more on the precog side rather than on the literally disrupts power side. and True. that Yeah.
00:30:12
Speaker
Yeah, that's true. Yeah. was going to say, reading through this, and I love the analogy going on here, essentially, Wildbow equates the power to, like,
00:30:24
Speaker
a CEO of a company where like, Oh, let's say you have somebody else in the company that's being monitored at all times. Try to like, you know, order a truck full of bears to kill the CEO at the company. It's like, well, they ordered on the thing. They were monitored by the, you know, by the thing.
00:30:44
Speaker
And then the person dropping off the bears, honks their horn to tell the CEO, hey, there's bears here that he's also gotten multiple emails about. That is what his power is like. And the bears were ordered with the company credit card and statement was then sent the CEO.
00:31:06
Speaker
Unless he's just not paying that you know any attention at all, he knows you know on a subconscious level, or rather his shard is doing all of that like, oh, this guy's about to shoot you. We're not going to let that happen, obviously. So take a step that way, you know.
00:31:25
Speaker
And that's that's how his power works because his power is, you know, an administrator in some sense for all the other shards. Interesting. Yeah, I just read his vulnerability section on the wiki.
00:31:40
Speaker
And to summarize, basically, how he was defeated, which you guys already said, but... The reason he was able to be somewhat contained um was because it was by someone who was unpowered using Tinkertek, that distracting jack um with the containment foam and everything enough that he was able to be punched by Tekton.
00:32:07
Speaker
And then a gray boy, like you said, was disgusted by his weakness and turned on Jack and looped him. So he must've been extremely, ah distracted basically before it to would work.
00:32:20
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Makes sense.
00:32:24
Speaker
Um, nice. Anyway, moving on from that. I think the theme of that, this whole section here that we want to drive home is that the heroes don't know what the catalyst is. They just know Jack's involved, which is why you get...
00:32:43
Speaker
this sort of chaotic series of events where is a Dragon? Dragon's offline. Is it Aster? Is it Bonesaw? Greyboy?
00:32:55
Speaker
it's It's trying to figure it out. They think they get him. They don't. It's Scion. And there's like this false sense of victory where the audience can be watching They can be like, oh, they got Jack.
00:33:09
Speaker
They
Handling Controversial Elements
00:33:10
Speaker
got him. They did it. The world saved. Why are we on episode three out of ten? You know, it's like yeah that kind of feeling of of dread. You know, but that's what we're going for.
00:33:21
Speaker
Yeah. I like it. I think that that fits. um You kept in the baby killing. Controversial. Controversial, but necessary. All babies need to die. Oh, okay. See, this is why i worry a little bit about us doing live anything.
00:33:39
Speaker
Oh, okay. oh
00:33:45
Speaker
Only... Stemulatization left and right. The bad babies. That's true. You weigh them. ah You weigh them against the feather. Okay, look.
00:33:57
Speaker
The bad one. We actually did. Speaking of Esther, we actually talked quite a while on that, trying to figure out... Yeah, we did. If that would work or not. um We're leaving it in for now, but honestly, it's something that would...
00:34:11
Speaker
Need some close Overwatch in review. We basically said it has to happen for the plot, but ah it's not our job to figure out how the director is going to do it, so that we'll just let them figure it out. Yeah.
00:34:25
Speaker
Director figure it out. You could kind of pull a reverse Spider-Man trope in the sense that... um So you know how you know Spider-Man tries to save Gwen, ends up killing her by accident?
00:34:42
Speaker
um Kind of reverse it where Taylor has the chance to save Aster, but then maybe something happens or she thinks to herself, should i And in that moment of hesitation, just lets her die.
00:34:56
Speaker
Hmm. yeah That way it's not he's not the one's not so direct as you know and as it is at work with Taylor. She doesn't actively play a role in Aster's death. She plays a passive role. She plays a passive role in it. And it still is like this idea of her making a hard choice for the greater good, which is a lot of what this last season would be about, like you said.
00:35:18
Speaker
um But not it being as direct as... Hey, Gollum, I killed your sister. Also, I feel like if you want him to be a character, that's a yeah that that might be a bit too difficult of a ah wall to overcome.
00:35:35
Speaker
Right? i don't know. Just a thought. No, it's it's fair. i was I struggle to think of a movie or show in which ah an infant or a toddler is killed on screen.
00:35:51
Speaker
like Yeah. It's just not something you... do or see. There might even be rules against it, actually. I'm not... yeah no not i mean You can... Darren Arnavsky's mother is disgusting and has terrible reviews because of it.
00:36:10
Speaker
But you can get away with it. It's just... But should you is more of a question. It's just to the detriment of the of the film. yeah it's not It's not really taken well, usually.
00:36:21
Speaker
Yeah. yeah It's the It's the kicking the puppy moment. yeah Right. yeah Exactly. yeah and the And the times where it is done or close to done, it's done by the very, very, very bad man who gets his comeuppance eventually. you know oh Not by the hero of your story. Not by the hero of your story.
00:36:41
Speaker
Exactly. Hero and heavy quotation marks. Yeah, heavy quotation marks and hero. but yeah yeah So maybe maybe, I don't know, maybe the passive role would be better for her.
00:36:54
Speaker
i I'm not going to kill you, but I don't have to save you. Yeah. When you put it like that, I'd rather her shoot the baby. Well, I was going to say, actually, on top of that, too, if we want to add into the whole lies or doing bad things for the necessary evil, she could even lie to Gollum about what happened.
00:37:15
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. He's like, hey, i'm you know thanks for trying to save Aster. I know you did all all you could. And she's like, yeah, of course yeah I did. You know? Yep. mean, isn't that kind of what happens where she's like, mm-hmm? He's like, was it necessary? She's like, mm-hmm.
00:37:32
Speaker
Yeah, but I think he knows in that instance. Oh, he knows, but also like, yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Just different different ways of handling it so it's not quite so direct. Right. Because it is definitely. Yeah, we'll be revisiting that a few times. the thing.
00:37:49
Speaker
It is a thing that happened in the worm story. Yeah. Definitely not what you start with when you're trying to get people to read. No, I was actually today. I was on the phone with friend and I was trying to explain worm. And she was like, oh, maybe I'll read it. And I was like, just a reminder, our podcast has been reading it for like over a year now.
00:38:09
Speaker
And we meet pretty regularly. she's like, oh, okay, so it's really long. it's nice Yeah. And there's some dubious things that happen. and Dubious things. There's some dubious questionable shit that happens. She's like, oh, like what? And I was like, oh, ah.
00:38:25
Speaker
None
Cultural References and Pokémon Trivia
00:38:26
Speaker
of the examples that come to mind are good examples that will get you to want to read it. So maybe maybe just try it and tell me what you think.
00:38:36
Speaker
Let's just say the tamest thing is one of the early villains losing his penis. No, that's right. I like thinking trying to pitch it to a studio executive board. right All right, so we we got Taylor. Now, she's a bit morally gray. She's doing the wrong things for the right reasons, like yeah eroding people's junk and shooting infants. Shooting infants.
00:39:01
Speaker
but um But she's got a good heart, you know? We open on a teenage girl rotting a giant dead dragon man's dick off. yes We pan over. There she is melling balling his eyes out. no And it's downhill from here. And it's, you know, it really is. It's like early on. disguised the limit on what she can do to gruesomely maim people. yeah Are you comfortable with maggots and eyes? No.
00:39:28
Speaker
but The visual medium for this might not be the best idea, to be perfectly honest. i don't know if I need it in a visual medium. and i love I love the idea of a studio exec doing all of that and then drawing the line at just the character skid mark existing.
00:39:45
Speaker
We can't. We're going to have to remove him entirely. ah i think the fan base in general would probably be okay with that, though, to be perfectly honest.
00:39:56
Speaker
I don't know. While we were just sitting here, I definitely saw some ah some comments in our Patreon Discord about Skidmark. Oh, no. Here's the thing, right? like Everybody has their person. like every You know what? Actually, i'm going to say that's not true because there recently was a survey done with a bunch of Pokemon fans and everybody picked their favorite Pokemon.
00:40:22
Speaker
And all but three Pokemon got picked. so Really? Wow. Everybody is not somebody's favorite. Yeah. So maybe there's hope that people don't... I'm also so curious. wanted I actually don't know who the three were. I have to look it up. Could you for science, please? They're that forgettable.
00:40:40
Speaker
I... want to Yeah, he forgot immediately. You've got be like Generation 8 Pokemon or whatever. That's funny. I have to figure out to Google this. The point stands, though.
00:40:54
Speaker
The point. Yeah. yeah
00:40:58
Speaker
Shall we well continue on? Yes. Might as well. and I found it. oh What are they? i get what Four Pokemon. I'm going to Google them while you it. It was four, actually.
00:41:13
Speaker
So ah the Reddit community on r slash Pokemon hosted a popularity poll in which over 52,000 participants picked out their favorite Pokemon. That's almost as many Pokemon. Yeah, I know. yeah While the winners of the poll contained a few surprises, Charizard won with Gengar, Arcanine, Bulbasaur rounding out the top five.
00:41:34
Speaker
It has Arcanine twice in there for some reason. and um There were four Pokemon that didn't receive a single poll, single vote. Any guesses as to any of them if you want to no and throw that out there? any hey I'll be honest. I'm trying to think of a single Pokemon that someone wouldn't fuck.
00:41:53
Speaker
God damn it. That wasn't the question, Alan. That wasn't the question. I know that wasn't the question. i want say that I like where both your heads are at, let me tell you. you Thank you. um I'm just thinking about that brave soul that was doing the Pokemon challenge all those years ago.
00:42:08
Speaker
um What? Anyway. Nick, please read the name. One did not receive a vote. Silcoon. Really? Really?
00:42:20
Speaker
Please continue you I'm going to look up all of these yeah Silicon Gothita What? Which is actually kind of surprising to again Okay Electric Interesting do electric? Electric E-E-L E-E-E-L E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E And ah Young Goose is the last one.
00:42:54
Speaker
Young Goose Y-U-N-G-O-O-S. Okay. I i am shocked that those are the four. Okay, I am shocked at the Young Goose one because he's kind of cute.
00:43:08
Speaker
ah Electric, that's that's a tapeworm. ah Gothita, she's kind of cute. ah Silcoon, i I don't know what I'm looking at. It just looks like a spider. It's a cocoon Pokemon. Yeah, it's a cocoon Kaskoon is the other version that's cooler because it's got spikes on it. So I understand why somebody would pick that over Silcoon.
00:43:35
Speaker
If you're going to pick one. It's spelled C-A-S-T-O-N. No, they're the exact same. I'm looking at them. The only difference is that a cascoon is pink and a silcoon is white. No, no, cascoon is pink. They spikes. No, they don't. Silcoon just spikes. I'm looking at pictures right now. they definite Google is telling me that they both have spikes. ah Okay, well, you know what it is then? It's because cascoon's got the the fun, angry face and silcoon's got the sad looking eyeball.
00:44:02
Speaker
Cascoon's... Maybe. Yeah, Cascoon has... so No, they both have two eyes, don't they? Yeah, they do. no No, they both have one eye. They only have one eye? I don't know. It doesn't. Anyway, we're so far the thread. This is very important.
00:44:15
Speaker
This is what people pay for. Actually, no. On the Pokemon card, Socoon does have two eyeballs. Yeah, as I say, I'm looking at it. They've got two eyes. It says they have two eyeballs. What? you know I'm with you, Alan. I thought they both had one eye for the longest time.
00:44:28
Speaker
Excuse me a second.
00:44:31
Speaker
Hold on you like on. The way I'm looking at them, are we just seeing side views? Yes. yeah yeah yes Oh my. I see the way you were looking at it. I expanded it to look all the You're looking at it like a beholder.
00:44:47
Speaker
yeah yeah Yeah, that's funny. yeah
00:44:53
Speaker
Yeah, Gothita is funny to me because it is kind of cute, but um its evolutions are much more interesting, so I understand. Like, if you're going to pick something from the line, you're going to pick the second or the third one, right? You're not going to pick the first one.
00:45:08
Speaker
But still, like... I mean, if you can only pick one favorite, though... Yeah, that's true. That's true, but, you know, still, I like... like I'd like to say that Klefki should be a bottom. you know like But of course, somebody even somebody's got to pick Klefki. People love Klefki, man.
00:45:26
Speaker
I know. That's what I'm saying. so like It just boggles me. There are some really bad Pokemon designs out there. And these are the ones that they chose to not pick.
00:45:37
Speaker
ah
Visual and Thematic Adaptation Elements
00:45:38
Speaker
Wait, Klefki is just a ah ring of keys? Yes. That was in the Pokemon Smasher Pass song. But he's like a cute ring of keys. he's cute keys. Let's be honest. Really The keys? Yeah. It's just a bunch of keys.
00:45:55
Speaker
yeah I love there's that clearly a car key on here like a Hyundai. Yeah. Absolutely. Like there's one that I'm going end of this Pokemon venture. Yeah. Sorry. Anyways.
00:46:09
Speaker
Let's get back to gold morning. We're going to do episode three. What Pokemon each character is here in Brockton Bay. Yeah. We'll get to that. Patreon content.
00:46:22
Speaker
ah Cold open. um Jacob and I both have discussed which one. so there are two alternates here. One is that we do the entity's origin and plan um with its partner.
00:46:41
Speaker
Narrated with the creatures either in subtitle or just saying like movement agreed, you know, infestation agree, you know, division, you know, agree that whole bit, um, while they're doing all the stuff, the alternate opening for this, where we, uh, show them, ah and going to the alternate reality, um, of Eden's like optimal future, um, at the end of this, but in this showing kind of how reliant,
00:47:16
Speaker
Sion is on his partner. Yeah. um In terms of like making these ideas and just kind of like agreeing with all of them. Finally, after all of that, we cut to Sion's point of view as he's watching Jack yelling and the mutterings he hears.
00:47:35
Speaker
ah Sion then floats up into the air and fires a gold beam onto the horizon. And then, you know,
00:47:47
Speaker
Taylor finds Brockton Bay in ruins. The PRT and Undersiders usher people through the portal. Taylor goes to the big cauldron meeting and they start discussing options. Any options are valid options. They offer to open the birdcage and Taylor goes to visit Shadowstalker, not in the birdcage, just regular jail, um ah in order to you know get her to come out.
00:48:13
Speaker
And they have their little conversation. Later, Taylor is approached by Glassed Iguenye, newly out of the birdcage, who discusses shards with her and their roles. Everyone begins to prep. They start fighting in shifts, hiding on other worlds to prevent Scion from getting to them.
00:48:31
Speaker
And they hit him with the G-driver. is it the G-driver or the F-driver? F-driver. G-Driver. Yes, G-Driver. And then only to have him appear directly above them on this other world and blow up the oil rig.
00:48:47
Speaker
Clockblocker dies, shielding Taylor. Gru is absolutely blown away. Taylor, however, survives. And Glastig and Eidolon draw Scion away from everyone, only to have Scion ultimately destroy Eidolon, while Glastig stands there and does nothing to stop it.
00:49:07
Speaker
yeah
00:49:11
Speaker
Okay.
00:49:14
Speaker
So, in terms of cold opens, I think I like the entity one better. Yeah, same. Because I think it's it's more necessary than the optimal future one. Yeah.
00:49:30
Speaker
If that makes sense. unless you Unless you were thinking doing both, then both could be interesting. But the In terms of what's most necessary for the story, I think understanding the entities would be best.
00:49:43
Speaker
um That's just my feeling, though, in terms of if you're picking between the two. I also think that the the ideal future one, because we're about to deal with a lot more alternate universes...
00:49:59
Speaker
yeah I feel like having that here is going to leave like this little seed in the the viewer's mind that like, oh that, you know, we have this whole other world with like, we might be able to tap into that and like, we could they could save it. Like, this is not a, like, it would have to be very clear that like, this is not.
00:50:17
Speaker
Yeah. a real, like, this doesn't exist. Like, this was a possibility. This was the ideal. And it didn't happen because everything got blown up and nothing is good anymore and everything is sad.
00:50:28
Speaker
Like, you you'd have to make it very clear. ah because Because, like, when I was reading it, I was i was lost. But, of course, it's me. But, like, I like the idea of the of it being the entities. Like, we get this kind of, like, you know, the Skywales...
00:50:47
Speaker
thought it was skywills. Yeah, but they're like whales too. They're like wormy whales. Worms are small. Whales are big. Yeah. Whales are just big worms.
00:50:58
Speaker
In terms of like visually, i imagine them like wormy whales, but with the shape of like a nebulous star cloud or like a constellation cloud.
00:51:10
Speaker
So pretty. Yeah, something kind of along those lines. Also, you guys... Oh, I'm sorry. Continue next. No, go ahead. oh no it's all I was just going to say, um in terms of how they would talk, I can't imagine them just speaking normally.
00:51:25
Speaker
i would want them... I feel like they should talk in like deep rumbles or like kind of like how whales talk, right? But with like the singing and stuff like that. Yeah.
00:51:35
Speaker
And imagining it... Actually, that kind of works, kind of ripping something out of Silmarillion, having them like harmonize with each other to show that they're in agreement, right? So you have the word agreement show up and that's like the harmony comes in.
00:51:49
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Also kind of the idea of like whenever you have ah an I am legion kind of character with like all bunch of voices all at once, it's like where a bunch of tones are overlapping and then like they slide into the harmony of ah like the two of them in agreement. That would be really cool.
00:52:09
Speaker
Ah, the burning bush in Prince of Egypt. Yeah, exactly.
00:52:16
Speaker
What? You know, I'm right. I don't remember that being their thing. there Yeah, it isn't. i'm I'm a little confused there. What? in So where are we talking about?
00:52:27
Speaker
yeah Which one are we talking about? We're talking about DreamWorks animated? Yeah, animated. What are you talking about? No, no. I know what he's talking about, but he's wrong. Jacob, no.
00:52:39
Speaker
What? but he It's one voice for God. God doesn't get a Legion voice. Yes, he does. He explicitly gets a Legion voice. Val Kilmer's voice as Moses is takes priority with God's voice, but it's a collection of about nine different voices, including Miriam's. I mean, in the in the plague song, God's voice is represented by a choir as well. Yeah.
00:53:01
Speaker
think it's better to be right twice in one episode. Okay, I'm watching it right now.
00:53:08
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely not. It is one voice. Yeah. I'm listening myself. I'm not listening because I'm not invested in this anymore. Me neither. I'll just trust whatever you guys say. yeah say
00:53:24
Speaker
Yeah, same. Me 90% of the time. Wait, everybody shut up. There's like these little echoes of like him remembering that our other voices...
00:53:35
Speaker
This is multiple voices. What are you talking about? No, I am. had as are You are outside of your mind. listening. It's literally one voice. A milk and honey. It is one person. It is one voice.
00:53:47
Speaker
Post production. Michael here. Eventually I had to step and do some fact checking so that we could resolve this. And here's the result. Also to follow up on ah Michael posting. Jacob is right.
00:54:00
Speaker
Again. I refuse to believe it other than that is like... Yeah, Jacob's always weird. I get that they can be whispering it. That is like an after effect that is not relevant to the person talking at all as opposed to any other Legion-type character talking. Yeah.
00:54:20
Speaker
No, it's not. It's not, but but technically he's right. Interesting. Technically he can be right and somehow still be wrong at the same time. i I'm going to stand on what I said earlier, which is i I do like when Jacob's right.
00:54:36
Speaker
i I don't like that I was wrong in this scenario, but you know, it is. I mean,
Adjusting Narrative Pacing and Focus
00:54:42
Speaker
that's, that's, you know, his middle name, Jacob, technically right.
00:54:51
Speaker
This episode of the Brockton Bay Book Club is sponsored by Made Marion. Made Marion creates custom cottagecore and Ren Faire clothing designed for everybody.
00:55:02
Speaker
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00:55:18
Speaker
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00:55:34
Speaker
But, but, okay, just like basically any, any... Any show or movie that has like ah a demon-y character that's like when they speak, it's a bunch of different voices talking at once.
00:55:47
Speaker
That idea, but with like music tones to do to kind of like go with the whole like whale worm sky worm thing. Hums to the rhythm of agreement.
00:55:59
Speaker
yeah know and
00:56:03
Speaker
but Exactly. But no, that that's actually kind of maybe I am in the middle of those books. So that might be part of what inspired this. But that idea of you have creatures that they speak in music and they harmonize with each other. That's their whole deal.
00:56:20
Speaker
don't know. I think that would be cooler than just having you know ah deep rumbly voice go, agreement. Yeah. got enlighten I mean, i've I've been watching some, you know, some secret level, some love, death and robots type stuff. So I've got, you know, I've got those voices in my head more than usual. Fair enough.
00:56:43
Speaker
And I can, I can hear it just, you know, honestly, you could, yeah, a deep voice. You could, you could tone it, you can mess with a little bit, but you know, I like the idea of just them very simply this agreement, you know?
00:57:00
Speaker
And, but yeah, you could show shit up. I think just emphasizing the inhumanity of them yes is just important. And I feel like that could be a that could be one, one way to do it. Theoretically doesn't have to be that of course, but you know, in Dune when they have like the, the, like the low humming and it kind of sounds like a didgeridoo.
00:57:20
Speaker
Yeah. Like that. be areing mean Yeah, but like a little bit more lyrical and like a lot of different things at once all at the same time.
00:57:31
Speaker
I'm sorry, let me try again. Episode four, Jacob? Episode four. Cold open again. a little girl wakes up in the night to something falling from the sky causing ah golden light.
00:57:50
Speaker
Cut to Tattletail interrogates a captured saint, who reveals the last message Andrew Richter sent. Tattletail tells him that he sure did a good job saving the world so that Scion could blow it up.
00:58:04
Speaker
Taylor and the Undeciders, with Lung and Shadowstalker, along with Golem and the Wards, all discuss finding out what Cauldron is keeping from them and what Scion is after. When they realize that the portals aren't working, they track down the last one, only to discover the turncoat Las Vegas capes pretending to be heroes.
00:58:24
Speaker
Defeating two of them, they enter into the portal and the cauldron compound. A little girl, cutting back over to their cold open scene, little girl hears things in her head and sees the path.
00:58:35
Speaker
She follows it into the woods and meets Dr. Mother. Present day, splitting up, Taylor goes after Sater and the Las Vegas Capes, while Golem takes on the Irregulars, who quickly turn on Weld and Dr. Mother.
00:58:48
Speaker
Dr. Mother hides them in the Vile Room, where they discuss how coordinates play in two vials. ah Scion is revealed to be Cauldron now, and a Taylor defeats the Las Vegas Capes and rescues Contessa, who opens the door to a warehouse-sized area.
00:59:05
Speaker
Cutting back, young Dr. Mother and little girl ah kill the human thing appearing out of the Garden of Flesh, and then we cut back to that same object as Taylor stares at it, bridging at that connection.
00:59:20
Speaker
Dr. Mother and the wards watch Scion break through the irregulars and spot the vials, only to go into a rage while they make a break for it. Taylor explores Eden when Scion makes his way in, and Taylor, seeing the reaction he has to the body,
00:59:36
Speaker
So she lights it on fire and bullies Sion to make her escape. As you do. As one does. Bully God. Episode ends with them all meeting back up at the camp and sharing their findings about shards.
00:59:50
Speaker
Golem makes a case for humanity, having to cooperate willingly. And Taylor sneaks off and talks with Glashtig about what she what side she's on. Glashtig said that she'll be all under her control eventually.
01:00:03
Speaker
Taylor goes to Panacea and Bonesaw and convinces them to help her as she looks down at the two pieces of paper Dinah gave her. Contessa, mid-conversation with everyone, spins around, and they all rush to the tent with Taylor.
01:00:16
Speaker
But it's too late.
01:00:19
Speaker
Hmm. God, that's a lot in one episode. I was going to say once again, this feels like a big episode. That felt like three episodes. oh Are these like single arcs? Is that why there's so much in here? Are these like one arc you're trying? like one arc break again these aren't These aren't actual episode breaks. These are we're containing.
01:00:39
Speaker
These are like chunks of the season. essentially chunks of the season. Okay. That's better way always surprised. Cause there are some of these are like, I agree. The, uh, episode two is long. Some of these would be maybe two thirds of a game of Thrones hour long episode in terms of content.
01:00:57
Speaker
ah Maybe, be i mean, it depends on what you would want to flesh out, like what you would want to say and like conversations and yeah. ah Like how much do you want to explain about why the irregulars are there? How, you know,
01:01:11
Speaker
A lot of it comes down to actually putting in the dialogue and seeing how long things are. And then you go back and you train and reshape Always than you think. Yeah, and you go back and you and you kind of reshape things as you as you put it all together.
01:01:24
Speaker
Yeah. oh Oof. We only have five quote-unquote episodes outlined here. Yeah. Cool. So it's we obviously.
01:01:36
Speaker
Oh, six. Yeah. Six, including the epilogues. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So yeah, the stuff will get stretched. Right. Okay. um She's in a tent instead of the cave.
01:01:51
Speaker
Oh, is that how we worded it? You said in the tent. She's not in a cave when she gets her brain zip zapped. Isn't she? is that a medical I thought she was in a cave. Yeah, pretty sure she was in a cave. Because i because then when they portal out and bone daddy... I'm sorry, Marquis!
01:02:12
Speaker
Yes, Hannah. yeah Correct, Marquis! don't know what happened. I think I just hallucinated. We know what happened. Hannah's going to get in the preview of our fan fiction.
01:02:24
Speaker
Marquis! I lost all track of what was seeing. Marquis pins her to the wall of the cave. Thank you. Yes. When Marquis like stops her and they all poured her out, it is in a cave. Because she's like, the idea is that were so you know she's stuck here.
01:02:43
Speaker
Yeah. ah Like, I don't know why in my head it's... it's Maybe it's just because all the other people in there. There's lot medical tents later and during and before the story. I just assume she's in one of them.
01:02:57
Speaker
You know. Because they're patching up. No, because the portal into Cauldron is like in this cave that's kind of like hidden away. like supposed to be secret entrance. Which I didn't realize that's the same cave that they do this in.
01:03:09
Speaker
Yeah. I think so. I mean, that's what I assumed reading it.
01:03:17
Speaker
I've been known to be wrong before, but that's what I always assumed. Because the idea is is that like they're going to get her stuck here. If she's in a tent, like they're not trapping her in the tent. they're like The idea is to trap her somewhere remote
01:03:37
Speaker
to be able to get away from her. Yeah. After everything happens. How did she get away from all of them? i mean, unless it's a big She gets through the portal. She goes, well no, no, no. How did she get her brain snip snapped the first time?
01:03:53
Speaker
therere assume they were all standing around together in in the cave and they're talking. They're trying to figure out what to do and discussing options, discussing Scion. And she's like, excuse me, would you mind giving me a lobotomy?
01:04:11
Speaker
that's good, man. one i bought I assume someone's looking it up. If not, that's fine. I'll look it up in the meantime. Yeah, I mean, it's not a big deal. i just i just... That was like something that's... say Also, yeah it feels like the the fight, the Scion situation...
01:04:30
Speaker
Either you're shortening it or you're not showing the like depth of cauldron facilities or something like with the whole tunneling and the ah elevator shaft that drops down into the earth.
01:04:46
Speaker
Yeah, we're not going to. That's we're not going to do all that. Yeah, I will say i think I think the risk of this episode is much like the arc. You have
Climax and Resolution Alignment
01:04:56
Speaker
to balance the fight scenes with.
01:05:00
Speaker
ah with non-fight scenes. Because right now, you've got, in that section, you know if it's one or if it's two episodes, it's probably fine. But in that section, you've got fights with the Irregulars, fights with the Vegas Wards, and fights with Scion.
01:05:14
Speaker
It feels like there's a lot of action where a lot could be lost to the audience if it's just a lot of action scenes. Back back to back. fight with Scion at the end is... That's not so much of a fight. So that one's... Yeah, I was going to say, it's not so much of fight, yeah.
01:05:29
Speaker
yeah I mean, I noticed you do have Contessa and Taylor kind of leaving the group to going to find Eve, whatever the fuck her name is. put Taylor's group there. ok Okay, okay.
01:05:42
Speaker
um Taylor's team and Contessa as opposed to Gollum and the Wards. Right. Also, did we finish the previous episode? Because I don't think you guys ever said anything about if Shadowstalker was going to join or not. We talked about...
01:05:58
Speaker
Taylor going to the prison, but then all of a sudden in the next episode, she's with them. So like the assumption is that obviously she joined them, but that wasn't made clear. Yeah, yeah. We're just ah doing broad strokes of her stuff that you already know happened.
01:06:10
Speaker
So I kind of fell in the deepness for a lot of that. but But yes, to answer your question. No, no. i'm I'm pretending to be the average viewer who cannot do basic media literacy. For real, though. All Our patrons did have a good... ah good ah a suggestion for that scene, actually, which was paralleling it with ah Panacea and Victoria in some fashion, which I think could be could work pretty well.
01:06:38
Speaker
It'd kind of fun to parallel those prison conversations and have some fun with that. Yeah. Any other questions about our super cauldron scene?
01:06:54
Speaker
Any other questions? good to me. All right. ah Taylor is quickly hemorrhaging lucidity and begins picking up capes near her. She controls them until she gets Doormaker, and then it's just ramping up with heroes and villains trying to get in her way, and her defeating and or absorbing them into the swarm.
01:07:13
Speaker
Her penultimate struggle is her and Glastig, since Glastig seems to have maybe sided with Scion on this, um or is just opposing Taylor, who knows. so Tattletail gets what is going on and tells people to let her cook.
01:07:28
Speaker
it's a huge battle across the world as Taylor throws everything she has at Sion. Uh, she then sets tinkers to working on another gun and realizes, ah that foil could hurt Sion, um, from previous encounters with like breaking powers like Greyboy, but also the fact that he dodges her shot rather than, ah you know, just taking the hit.
01:07:54
Speaker
She then gathers all of the capes that can make illusions and stuff. ah to change up what she's doing and then bully the crap out Scyon until she breaks down. and At about the same time, she also runs out of energy.
01:08:08
Speaker
um With the Tinkers loose and Taylor's powers failing, Gollum and Defiant stoke the Tinkers and Foil back into action, but this time for themselves.
01:08:19
Speaker
And right before Taylor ayla runs out of portals, Defiant and Foil put themselves into her range, letting her pin a depressed scion in reality and then blasting his ass inside out um taylor then lands amongst all the heroes all portaled out she's completely detached at this point imp rachel maybe tattletail run over to cover for her while she escapes only for her to go through the portal and run into contessa monologues and then shoots taylor in the back of the head while she stares up at the stars
01:08:54
Speaker
I mean, yeah, as you guys said, you didn't change much because it is just such a good yeah ending. and Pretty good. I just. I don't It's hard to imagine doing much else with it. So.
01:09:08
Speaker
like guess I guess my only question would again be, does it want to be one episode or could we do. Could we somehow do two? But this one, because this one is a big climax, I think it's got to all be in one, right? like that Yeah, I feel like doing one is is okay, too. Like, it is a lot, but it's like, I think it could work. It's the climax, right? Yeah, it could work as just the one. ah my only My only comment, and this is literally just like a reflexive thought of the the letter cook.
01:09:38
Speaker
ah i I don't know. Again, this this is this is detailing, of course. It doesn't really matter all that much. So just shoot me down if I'm wrong.
01:09:49
Speaker
But the idea of like Lisa basically telling everybody like, no, no, no, like let her, like she's got something, like whatever she's got is working. Like I don't like that very much.
01:10:01
Speaker
Because like we're not in Taylor's head. We can't feel all these people resisting her. like The best we've got is them going slack as soon as they get close enough to her. And so like I just i don't want the weight of this to be lost because Tattletail's like, no guys, you know she's on to something. She's on to something. And everyone's like, oh really?
01:10:28
Speaker
like she she's she's body controlling a lot of people and it's not okay. And like, there's, there's a reason why, you know, yeah. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but Tattletail literally does defend Taylor's actions while this is happening.
01:10:47
Speaker
Yeah. But like the difference though, is that in the book, we're, we're getting the reactions of all of these people because Taylor can feel them like trying to pull back and like trying to get away. And literally what's her face has a heart attack at one point. Like,
01:11:02
Speaker
if we're not seeing the like internal side of all of these people, then, and we're only getting the external, then like tattletale statement feels like, like it is an approval, but it feels like too much of an approval.
01:11:19
Speaker
I don't know if that makes sense at all. I mean, the way tattletale are used most of the time is like, basically, do you have a better option? And in this case, you don't have to show the internal struggle at all.
01:11:31
Speaker
Taylor just wantonly uses up bodies. That's pretty bad. And when she sometimes lets go of people, they get, you know, a second or two to breathe in their own consciousness before she picks them back up again. Cause she's like out of range or something. So like, I don't think we need the internal at all. I think we can pretty easily show, um, what's going on and tattletale,
01:11:59
Speaker
you know, this is this is broad brushstrokes, but Tattletail already defends it, so just have her defend it again. There's no change. I mean, as long as we're showcasing the levity of the situation.
01:12:12
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, i I believe it would be understood that Taylor, you know, using people to literally just block fire then get roasted and have her just drop them in the ocean because they're no longer necessary as she, like, whips out the next batch of heroes to try something, like,
01:12:28
Speaker
would be indicative of this is just using everybody to win. That is the only point, which is what they were doing before, but now it's not willingly.
01:12:43
Speaker
And these are, these are good places to emphasize that theme of cooperation. Like you mentioned of saying, no, we need to make this work together. If you guys don't like work together,
01:12:55
Speaker
kind of showing everything falling apart before Taylor does this, I think is really important too, in some way, right? Like showing, like, ah it really is a last ditch effort. Like we are like, maybe, know, and maybe you said this, so forgive me if I'm, I'm not misremembering, but before she gets her brain fixed, so to speak, um, idea being you, you have them return to the battlefield and have her see everything just falling apart. Right.
01:13:26
Speaker
And like, you can even have her notice. We write that, but yeah, that would be the idea. Yeah. So, but yeah, yeah. i it's It's a lot, but it's it's a necessary thing, I imagine, for ah
01:13:43
Speaker
for a conclusion, right? It's got to be big, and that's yeah it's a big one. Yeah. I mean, that is that is the the the thing to get right. like So I feel like a lot of big shows, especially epic scale type shows, really sort of fumble it at the end because it just doesn't feel satisfying for all the effort that you put in watching five, six seasons of television. you know ah It's one of those things where like somebody's probably going to be disappointed. Yeah.
01:14:15
Speaker
and you just want to do right by as many people as possible. Yeah. yeah is Which is hard.
01:14:24
Speaker
And I feel like in general, the actual written conclusion of Wyrm does a pretty good job of that. Yeah. So... i agree. Yeah. So I think that kind of just... Yeah, that's the thing, right? is like With this, like you guys said, there's not much to change because Wildboe...
01:14:41
Speaker
There's a lot of parts of Worm that I think can be duly criticized for their storytelling, but the conclusion really is... Epilogue aside, conclusion really is incredible. like It's pretty good. A great payoff for everything you've been reading.
01:14:54
Speaker
Yeah. this This is right up there with... there's There's a few book series I've read where there's a Pyrrhic sacrifice by your main character,
01:15:07
Speaker
and you knew it was coming kind of midway through your last book. And they always feel like, man, like I wish that character had done so much more.
01:15:18
Speaker
And for Taylor, i don't feel that, um, nearly as hard. This feels so conclusive to her arc that like, it just, yeah, it just feels right.
01:15:36
Speaker
Yep. I agree. I can imagine some, like, visually, I can imagine some great scenes, too, like, punching the hole through Scion. And I would like the idea of sort of, like, seeing his entity through the hole in him briefly, just so you can see yeah see where it is.
01:15:53
Speaker
You know, like, that could be kind of a cool thing. It can even just be, like, out in space, right? Like, I know in in the story, he says it's on another planet, but it's just out in space somewhere. It's fine. Like, you know,
Epilogues and Character Closure
01:16:03
Speaker
I don't know. It can be where wherever you guys decide visually. Like, image-wise, I'm imagining sort of... Like, any time like a spaceship or they send like a probe into like this dark hole, and when the light finally like starts to hit stuff, you can see all the amorphous movement going on around where the light isn't touching.
01:16:25
Speaker
Yeah. You know, and so you have a essentially a man sized hole where the laser beam from the giant gun is like going in, but we've cut to the inside and it's just this massive cavern where like it looks like it goes on forever. It looks like all the stars in the sky and more and everything's kind of moving and pulsating and you you catch the glimpses of what looked like Eden.
01:16:51
Speaker
Kind of. And, you know, the laser's just going in, and then we cut to the outside, and, like, you know, the explosion, and the you know the figure being blown apart, and the portal that is essentially Scion being ripped apart.
01:17:12
Speaker
I like it. I like a lot. We do have one last episode. We kind of debated, went back and forth with this.
01:17:23
Speaker
I think for now, again, pending pre-writes, revisions, and draft two, ah we would probably do a ah whole final episode with the epilogues.
01:17:35
Speaker
And the epilogues pretty much leaving as is with some minor tweaks. ah One, get out of here, teacher. um Just don't need you. ah But kind of just kind of bullet points here.
01:17:47
Speaker
we would sort of probably open the episode with a girl in a hoodie covering her face, gets on a train, standing near a woman reading a book. Girl asks what she's reading, and they talk about what happened on the other Earths.
01:18:01
Speaker
Kind of cutting around here. These are all just bullet points. A warlord terrorizes people, only to have his office broken into. Jessica Yamada talks with Clashtig about being human over Shard.
01:18:14
Speaker
ah Defiant talks with an alive dragon about her corruption due to saints fuckery. Rachel wanders into town hunting down a man. After catching him, Rachel sees trouble and goes to help.
01:18:28
Speaker
Back over to our girl on the train talking about sacrifices, doing the right thing. you got Imp and the Heartbreakers torturing the warlord before leaving.
01:18:40
Speaker
Chevalier sits outside Yamada's office and she sees him through the window, comes out to chastise him, kind of bouncing around here you between a few different scenes. Rachel finds Broken Trigger being dealt with by Miss Militia and her capes and helps them deal with it.
01:18:57
Speaker
Defiant asks Dragon, asks what Dragon would sacrifice for her freedom and what makes her her. He tells her he'd be inside shortly before locking the door, hitting yes to the Pandora programs and hearing Dragon bang on the door screaming.
01:19:14
Speaker
Imp spies Shadowstalker and they talk about Taylor. Miss Malicious is down to talk with Rachel and after a good conversation she leaves. The glass dig is now introduced as Valkyrie.
01:19:25
Speaker
Colin gets up after the banging and the fighting has stopped, opens the door to see Dragon, kind of just looks at him weird, and they hug it out.
01:19:37
Speaker
Imp and Rachel arrive along with the others to pour one out for Taylor before Tattletail meets back up with Contessa. And finally, the girl on the train goes to leave, and the woman grabs her wrist, which is a poor prosthetic.
01:19:51
Speaker
The girl says goodbye and hustles off the train. She meets a man that asks, was that her? To which the girl replies, no. And they walk off together. A lot kind of going on here.
01:20:02
Speaker
Sort of bullet pointing. Wrapping up some character arcs. Putting a little bow on the story. Yeah. um the story yeah yeah Yeah, I like it.
01:20:13
Speaker
The big thing here with the epilogues, sorry to cut you off, um good is wanting to give the other the rest of the characters a bit of a conclusion ah post the climax.
01:20:28
Speaker
um Yeah. you We spend a lot of time with these characters, and I think yeah reading the epilogues feel very satisfying for that reason, right? Like it really does feel like you sort of get to say goodbye to the characters one last time when you're reading it.
01:20:41
Speaker
And I think the audience deserves that too. They deserve a satisfying conclusion with the people that we've come to love. Yeah. Yeah.
Debating Taylor's Fate
01:20:50
Speaker
Yeah. I think so too.
01:20:52
Speaker
um It's interesting. I know we talked a lot on the podcast about not liking that Taylor is alive at the end, but it sounds like you guys are keeping that right. trust i misunderstood we we are trying to make it more ambiguous and honestly we're still kind of tweaking that we tweaking that during that episode ah last time as well it could be gone like yeah we could cut it I'm honestly fine keeping it even just making it more ambiguous um maybe just a conversation that Tattletail has with Contessa or something like that but
01:21:30
Speaker
who know even Even the conversation she has she has with Rachel and Imp, which would be a good place to kind of leave that implication.
01:21:40
Speaker
um i Actually, as an idea, just as an idea, um cut down the Taylor epilogue to literally two scenes. And they would be the opening and the closing, is my visual idea.
01:21:55
Speaker
Opening, you have a kid in a hoodie standing on a train sitting next to the old lady. It's not an old lady. In this case, it would be yeah Annette Herbert.
01:22:07
Speaker
Yeah, Annette Herbert. Yeah, Hebert. Hebert. Hebert. um yeah But now next to her mom. And I think that just having them sit there and then...
01:22:24
Speaker
um That's the beginning, right? She sits down next to her mom. And then while... Sorry, I'm trying to think of how to phrase it. While Tattletail is implying that, hey, we don't really know what happened. Contessa's never said, but, you know, it's always possible.
01:22:43
Speaker
All you show is her walking off of the train away from her mom. Like, you don't see any of the conversation. You don't get any of that epilogue scene. It's literally just what appears to be a random scene of a person in a hoodie sitting next to somebody who vaguely looks familiar.
01:23:00
Speaker
Right? I don't know. just It's kind of like maybe too visual and then people might get the wrong idea that Annette is Taylor. But this idea of just you can see them talking But then she walks off. You don't see who she's talking to. Somebody asks her, was that her?
01:23:19
Speaker
And the girl whose voice you recognize says, no, it wasn't her. And then that's how it ends, right? Just leaving it even more vague and more implied rather than even showing Taylor on screen talking to her mom.
01:23:31
Speaker
So it's the, you open with this random scene. It doesn't get addressed throughout any of the other parts of the episode. And then it's resolved at the end with Tattletail saying, who knows, maybe she is. I don't know. That's an idea. I like it. I like as well. I'm very okay with that. I wouldn't even have Tattletail allude to anything else.
01:23:51
Speaker
I would not have her say, oh, maybe she is. Just to ignore that from Tattletail's end of things. Yeah. um But if I did use the girl, i the idea would be that different actress.
01:24:03
Speaker
Okay. It's a different actress entirely. Different actress. Just looks a lot like our main act, like our Taylor actress. Yeah. Okay. Idea as well. Tattletail's whole thing has been knowing everything, right?
01:24:16
Speaker
I think a great last line for her would be a, and like, Rachel and Emperor kind of looking at her like, you know stuff, like, is she alive? and just the last line of Tattletail genuinely just looking at them and saying, you know, I don't know.
01:24:31
Speaker
And it's just, it's very genuine, like, it's, yeah just the way it's played, it's not like her, you know, she doesn't have her, like not being brand like, I do know she's not being coy. It's just a really genuine I don't know.
01:24:44
Speaker
Which could tie into the way that I would secretly like to end it, which is leave it as we have it here at the very end with Taylor being like, no, it's not her and walking off with her dad.
01:24:57
Speaker
The camera pans out, pans out, pans back through bit of a shadowy wisp where it's revealed that Lashdig Yuenye been watching her this whole time.
01:25:12
Speaker
And the ambiguity is, is this Taylor or is this the shadow of Taylor?
01:25:20
Speaker
Trapped in Valkyrie's bubble. Just a kind of alive, kind of not. Nice.
01:25:33
Speaker
Schrodinger's cat. Schrodinger's Taylor. Schrodinger's Taylor. Schrodinger's Taylor. yeah Yep, yep, fair enough. Oh, cool.
Wrapping Up Season Five and Series Reflection
01:25:43
Speaker
Good ideas, though.
01:25:44
Speaker
i do like yeah ah do like the epilogue. It's simple. like kind of mixing things up and giving these good ah just good conclusions for everybody.
01:25:56
Speaker
It's good. I like it. That's the idea.
01:26:01
Speaker
a ah does it for season five series finale. We've wrapped it up. Alan, any parting thoughts? Nope. ah In the end of this, i want to rewrite the whole thing again. Yep.
01:26:17
Speaker
I think that's fair. Classic Alan. but We are going to do a ah definitely a full recap of the entire series here, highlighting our major changes that we've done, along with um ah ah sort of things that we either changed or didn't change that definitely need to be revisited as we as we try to put it together.
01:26:43
Speaker
So we had a lot of fun with it, but there was quite a lot as we were doing it. Even stuff that we liked at the time, that like episodes later, seasons later, we're like, well, that doesn't work. yeah We gotta change that whole thing.
01:26:58
Speaker
So there's a lot of that. So we'll kind of review and and and talk about all of that in a final wrap-up.
01:27:07
Speaker
Yep, stay tuned for that. And then also stay tuned for... our final episode where we do a little worm and review with the book club.
Closing Remarks and Gratitude
01:27:18
Speaker
oh oh yeah.
01:27:19
Speaker
Wrapping it up. Hard to say goodbye to this story, but we will. Crazy that we're done. I know. Unbelievable. Well, I guess we'll go we'll go ahead and and call it there.
01:27:33
Speaker
Nick, Hannah, thank you as always. yeah Absolutely. Thank you. Contributing and judging. and Always. Can always count on us. And Michael, thanks for joining us and making us sound good, keeping us on track, and telling them when I'm right. i appreciate it.
01:27:52
Speaker
You're welcome. You're welcome. It did take some digging, to be fair. It was not just out there, but you were right. It's not like you could watch the video and hear it at all. It's true. No. it ah To be fair, I wouldn't have picked it up.
01:28:06
Speaker
I don't know how you knew this, but you did. The depths of my random film facts is... It's like a... and basically and I'm basically an entity.
01:28:18
Speaker
of that you know shards you know that back yard of yeah Shards of of knowledge. Different films. yeah The director was Alex Garland.
01:28:31
Speaker
Agreement. Hannah has some kind of power as well to make you right by agreeing, like being happy that you're right. Somehow predetermined that you would be right one more time the podcast. I really would think Hannah. I think.
01:28:48
Speaker
I love that. Yeah. is that the ah Who's the retcon hero in Rick and Morty? Oh, yeah. then oh What is his name? Probably just Mr. Retcon, right? What's name? You mean Jesus?
01:29:01
Speaker
No, no. ah Are we talking about the train guy? No, not not the train guy. yeah so right His name is Retcon. His name is Brettcon.
01:29:13
Speaker
And then he renames himself Retcon. yeah um And his whole thing is he just says, you have always and then whatever he says is true. So he's like, yeah you were you have always been born without bones.
01:29:26
Speaker
Yeah.
01:29:31
Speaker
We're always deadly allergic to coffee. It's just silly stuff. He's retconning people's past. Alright, guys. The party's not over. Stay tuned.
01:29:42
Speaker
Jacob, hit us with the line. Oh, yeah. was like, what are you queuing me up for?
01:29:50
Speaker
ah Until next time, as always, take that to words.
01:29:59
Speaker
Thank you so much for listening. Read along with us at parahumans.wordpress.com. We'd love to hear your thoughts. What did you love? What did you hate? Anything you think we missed, etc. As long as it's kind.