Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to Sicily, Alaska, a Northern Exposure podcast.
Speaker: I'm Anne Flynn Terrell. I'm a cabaret performer and MC. I'm Caleb Cohart. I'm a documentary and commercial filmmaker. I'm Amy Gerlich. I own and run a improv and sketch comedy theater in Denver, Colorado.
Speaker: This is a podcast where we talk about Northern Exposure and how it's affected our lives. And we have some amazing special guests. I really liked this episode.
Speaker: um Season six, episode 10, The Great Mushroom. And I wrote, hmm, it looks like this episode was shot a while before where we are in this timeline.
Speaker: So Joel's in quicksand, mud. After trying to shoot a bird, he goes under and drowns. Oh, it's a dream. This is This is such an 80s and 90s thing where like everybody was so afraid they were going to die of quicksand. loved it.
Speaker: And then like you even see like videos now of people testing this myth, like Mythbusters did this or something, and they realize like yeah that's not even how quicksand works. I thought it was so great. And I love that Maggie wakes up from a dream because, once again, all of her hallucinations are dreams. All dreams.
Speaker: So it's winter, and it's snowy in Sicily. Maggie is thinking about going to see Joel. It's his birthday. She thinks he may...
Speaker: ah He may be miserable because she broke up with him because it's always all about Maggie. The Capras are having a dinner party. He's making some Asian cuisine and they are excited to have company. Have I told you how much I don't like this Phil Capra guy? Yeah, you've mentioned it. way he was chopping his onions, I got so annoyed.
Speaker: Just the way he was chopping onions. i I literally had to stop watching and walk away for like five minutes. Wow, maybe? There's something about Phil Capra that is it's fingernails on a chalkboard for me. Wow. Amy, you said this a while ago that he, well, this sounds so mean, but he was like a pilot killer, yeah this Yeah.
Speaker: And I'm wondering now, after what you said, Caleb, in our last episode was that like he doesn't know how to golf. He can't chop onions. Is he just a terrible like hand actor?
Speaker: Does he not know how to do business? a lot of people don't. It's a lot harder than you think. It's a lot harder than you think. tough. It also felt like in this scene, he was doing a Joel impersonation. Like, yes full-on impersonation to me. Like, it just felt like he was trying to be Joel. Yeah. I mean, they they hired him on purpose, right? Maybe he was. Because maybe he never maybe he's not like an actual like trained actor or something, you know? Some of us just happened into it and never actually took any training. So...
Speaker: our shortcomings become very apparent when we have our first big roles. So Maggie pulls up to where Joel is staying as he's whittling a wooden pole and he's happy to see her.
Speaker: And she's just like, can't can't, she's can't believe it. Can't believe how comfortable he looks. Isn't this village killer though? This village is awesome. This is pretty epic. yeah This is pure Alaska. Always doing like some craft or doing something for the village. They are hunting, they are fishing. I believe he was carving a totem. Yeah. and there was like It was a big totem. But there was no snow. And there's snow in Sicily. So wherever this little village is, is in a little nook.
Speaker: And it's got its own little like... Microclimate. Like Glenwood Springs kind of ah situation. and they've talked about how hard it is to get there, especially in the winter when the ice comes in. So a lot of inconsistencies. It's a little... He's living in Narnia.
Speaker: Well, the ice is on the outside and it keeps people out inside. It's like the Bahamas. It's delightful. Well, that makes sense. yeah Yeah. So Dr. Capra's patient is healed. He confesses to him that he went to Ed for treatment.
Speaker: And Dr. Capra seems more curious than upset. So a little bit of a turn from how Joel would have responded. Of course, three times the amount of people come to the Capra's dinner party in true Sicily fashion. which These two are wound tight. Yeah. they they're wound tight.
Speaker: sicily goes hard at this party i was like this is impressive sicily does not seem to party this hard in a lot of other episodes yeah and it but this this episode in particular made me see the consistency of the town because they behaved the same exact way with joel it is like they do these things almost intentionally to newcomers to kind of like shake shake them into the sicily vibe That's a cool observation. Yeah. they're They're like, are you a part of us? Are you our people? Yeah.
Speaker: Maggie seems like she is devastated by the state that Joel is living in. He sees, ah he says he's comfortable now. Very happy. Grateful to Maggie about where he's at now.
Speaker: Of course, this is just crushing Maggie's dream that he is devastated because of their breakup. it's too It's tough. yeah When you see your ex doing well.
Speaker: <unk>s yeah I will say I've remained pretty good friends with all of my exes. So it's like, oh, that's great for them. But there's still always the feeling of like, I will say the the closest I felt to this was when I sold my my first car to somebody who did not treat her as well as always took care of her. And like she showed up really sun beaten, bumper stickers everywhere. it really hurt.
Speaker: It really hurt and I didn't like it. Yeah. But she was not doing well. It was the bad thing. Yeah. It was not them doing well. And it's now 2 a.m. and people are still partying at the Capra's. Marilyn's friends want to stay at the Capra's overnight because the road to their house is snowed over.
Speaker: yeah This is my nightmare. um It would be my nightmare if somebody wanted to stay at our house. I would let them. And I've let friends stay before. But you know what would interestingly be a worse nightmare for me? Would be staying at somebody's house who I barely knew. Yeah.
Speaker: i would I would not want to be these people. I hate Airbnbs. I hate them because I don't feel... I would rather stay at a hotel. love the anonymity. um i i don't want to stay in somebody's place.
Speaker: Maggie and Joel go foraging, and or rather looking at mushrooms. He walks um talks about how all the mushrooms are connected, just kind of like the trees episode that we had. Maggie and man imagines a giant boulder rolling down a hill and crushing Joel.
Speaker: But alas, it's not real. But I was like, yes, yes, the fantasy is coming again. And now Maggie's not dreaming. She's having these... Very fluid. Nice turn. Yeah. yeah um So Mrs. Capra is talking to the old couple about her newest article. They give her advice and she leaves them to their puzzle and then goes to work on her article, but ends up coming back and helping them with their puzzle.
Speaker: doctor I understand this. having like Working by myself all day long, like I have a studio, but honestly, I don't ever go to it because it's just easier to work from home. ah Yeah, you like crave human attention. I've like started joining golf leagues. I just joined like this entrepreneur's dinner club where every other week I go to dinner with five other random entrepreneurs who are complete strangers. That's fun. Just because, yeah, it's great. And it's like this, they they kind of curate who you go with and they send you the dinner reservation. You just show up and meet five new people. So like I've realized that the key to staying sane when you literally work all by yourself all day long
Speaker: is going out in the world and doing things. And it's been huge. So I totally get where Michelle, Mrs. Capra is coming from this scene. It's also one of the biggest signs of longevity is relationships. Not just a partner, if we've got a partner, but it's community. It's the people around us. It's the reason, well, I mean, churches, it's it's that. So I'm glad that you're finding that. It sounds really cool. The dinner group that just like sets you up and maybe you get some good food too. Yeah. Yeah. You do. Yeah. The first one was a really cool restaurant. Like, so I don't know, some Mexican restaurant down in Cherry Creek. um Yeah, it's great. do You just show up and it's just five people who all are entrepreneurs of some sort and they curate it. you
Speaker: yeah There were three tables of us that night. So there's at least 15 or 20 people in Denver that are a part of this. I like that. And they just text you and you go and like, cool. I almost feel like I want to start one that's like a female small business one where it's like a meetup so you can all just kind of shoot the shit with each other about problems you have.
Speaker: Dude, it's fantastic. Yeah, it's fantastic. Yeah, we were all commiserating over like a lot of the issues of working from home or like running starting up your own business or employees. And then a lot of it literally just became talking about like our dogs and the area of town we live in and...
Speaker: I love that. That's cool. It's a blast. Okay. Dr. Capra sets up a computer for Ed in his apartment, but Ed starts having a panic attack and tells him to turn it off. He says it see it scares him. Like there's someone else in the room with him.
Speaker: Capra has zero EQ. He has zero emotional intelligence.
Speaker: Michelle Capra is very taken by how calm the older couple is. Dr. Capra says they have to go. Joel asks Maggie if she's anxious again. She imagined he catches on fire in his cabin. She tells him if he stays there, he's going to die.
Speaker: He says he's never felt safer in his life. Oh, Ed and Dr. Capra go out foraging themselves for plants, for his medical ingredients. Ed says...
Speaker: ah he's Ed says he's his own computer. He picked the plant that looked like shingles to use on the patient to cure his shingles, but Ed can't find it.
Speaker: i was i was disturbed by the portrayal of Ed in this one. It makes me think, though, that your theory about how they were trying to kill this and like turning our our beloved characters against us, it makes me think this one here. Because in this episode, they wrote Ed to just be a moron. Yeah. has zero intellect.
Speaker: He's a bumbling idiot. And Ed isn't. He's he's very insightful. and He's very intelligent in his own magical way. and i didn't like this at all around Ed. Like I could get where he's scared of computers. He'd freak out if he was around today with AI. But...
Speaker: Yeah, I didn't like this. And I also didn't like how in these last couple of episodes, we're not seeing a lot of the series regulars. Like, where's Maurice? Where's Chris? Where's Holling and Shelly? We haven't had an episode with them in a long time. i wondered Where is their child?
Speaker: Where is their child? Yeah. Where is their baby girl? yeah It's like when they introduced the Capras, were they just trying to lean into them really hard to like get them in here at the cost of seeing Ruthann and all of our our series favorites? Or were they just like, let's kill this mother effer?
Speaker: I mean, yeah, also, it just didn't, it didn't click with me with Ed's game, just like you, Kayla, because I was like, he does tons of inventory for Ruthann. And then he also has a huge to-do list that he gets to get through with Maurice all the time. So him not categorizing things for his own benefit for his work did not make sense to me.
Speaker: Zero sense. No. I mean, the man writes full movie scripts and has an encyclopedic knowledge of classic film, but he's an idiot and can't remember what plant he picked. It's weird.
Speaker: was just a plot device. It was... I could overlook this one because I kind of enjoyed this episode. I did too. I felt like it was a little, it was just very plotty. They needed to move things along and they needed to, because I liked, i like all of the other bits about the computer. I like all of the other, i love the couple who is stuck at the house because I too cannot imagine, i don't know what's more uncomfortable.
Speaker: if somebody were forced to stay at our house for an indeterminate amount of time or if i were forced to stay at somebody else's house for an indeterminate amount of time yeah let's find out the next time you and um the next time you and austin have a party margie and i are just going to show up and say like we have to stay here forever you already said no to my fourth of july party to austin and i's fourth of july party so be on oftown oh you can't either Oh man, we can't either. It's last year of going on a family vacation. We've been doing it for 37 years and this is our very last year. i can't miss it.
Speaker: All right let's get back into it. Dr. Capra decides they should sabotage their heater. So the old couple will leave, but they decide just to tell them to leave.
Speaker: But then they chicken out. Maggie makes Joel fall into the river and he hurts his wrist. And then we see the crack. We see the very small crack for the first time in Joel where I'm like, there he is. So he's starting to get annoyed by her. His peaceful demeanor is starting to crack ever so slightly.
Speaker: Shell Capper admits she likes having the older couple at their place. She's sick of moving around seven times in six years. That's why they haven't unpacked. ah She wonders what they are looking for and why they've not found it.
Speaker: I'm hoping this gets explored more throughout the rest of the season because I'm curious because ah I definitely haven't seen this episode at all. ah They wake up the next morning and the old couple has left.
Speaker: They left them slippers as a gift, a going away gift. Ed goes to Walt and Walt is on his computer checking the stock market. He shows Ed a database that he made on his own.
Speaker: Frickin' love Walt. Yeah, right? Ed equates binary code to how the universe works, zeros and ones, nothing and reality.
Speaker: And he says, that's how Leonard says great teachers explain the universe. i My brain melted when I heard this. this was cool this tied it all together for me as well like the fact that all the mushrooms are interconnected we're all part of the same universe it's all ones and zeros this was a huge payoff i love that as well yeah nothing in reality i love it so dr capra goes into the office and tells maryland the older couple left and asked if they may have uh offended them in some way maryland says not to worry about it ask him if he misses them
Speaker: Joel is out grabbing mushrooms and Maggie tells him she should leave because she almost killed him. He says, it's fine. Stay for dinner, have cake. He's fine. He's at peace. He says, it makes sense. She wanted him dead, but he just hurt his wrist and got off easy. So chill. Let's, let's have some chill here.
Speaker: She then imagines a plane shooting him and dropping a bomb on him. it' this is being said Ed finally decides to open his computer and be at peace with it.
Speaker: Maggie and Joel eat his birthday cake and finally are at peace with each other. The cappers end their night together doing a puzzle just like the old couple. That's all I had.
Speaker: It's a refreshing episode though. Yeah, it wasn't bad. It would have been great without the without Phil Capra. But beyond that, that's just personal bias.
Speaker: I think every time they know that they're pushing us close to the edge, they're like, just put Walt in. Yeah. Walt will keep him for a little bit longer. god, that And does. And he does keep us a little bit longer. Yeah. i The only like questionable note, because I was kind of enjoying watching this episode, i was like, do mushrooms grow in the winter?
Speaker: Yes, they do. I looked that up. They're resilient little fuckers. This is a little amazing little far out there trivia, but we will never the the earth will never develop oil ever again because mushrooms exist now.
Speaker: um All oil was born before mushrooms because um there was no way for the earth to get rid of like carbon-based life forms, oh like trees and plants, which is what oil and coal are. And after like eons, the world developed mushrooms and fungi eat carbon-based decays. So the world technically can never develop new oil. Whoa.
Speaker: When did mushrooms first appear? ah ah hundreds of thousands of years ago. All right. No, seriously. No, I'm serious. And it's also why like, uh, we'll never get more petrified trees because mushrooms now eat trees.
Speaker: Cause for for ah the longest time, like mushroom fungi didn't exist on the planet. It's like it predates. So like all occurring oil, natural oil predates the evolution of mushroom fungi on the planet earth.
Speaker: All right. i think I think this is not true. I'm going to buy into it. No. Just to move on i learned it I learned it from Neil deGrasse Tyson. From Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay. From his series, The Cosmos, when he re-brought Cosmos. I'm going to him text real quick.
Speaker: yeah Check it out, but i'm um I'm pretty confident that the earth can never develop new oil. All right. i'm I'm fascinated by this, but we'll we'll save it for later. Okay, so... That'll be our follow-up podcast to Northern Exposure. The earth, according to us. it is oil ever going to come back?
