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Borderlands: The Fallen - Part 3
35 Plays1 year ago
We finish Borderlands: The Fallen! What will happen to the family? Will Vance return? Will Trump fire JD Vance? Will Marla become a better written character? Find out in today's episode!
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Book SynopsisHis name’s Roland. Soldier class, a former mercenary, he’s on a full-time mission to scrape a living out of the most dangerous planet in the galaxy.
Is he qualified? He’s well armed, he’s ruthless, and he’s tougher than skag hide. And, oh yeah—he’s strapped with some of the most exotic weaponry this side of the Vault, not to mention possessing fists like chunks of steel.
Zac Finn and his wife and young son had better get on the right side of Roland, because a stopover in orbit has turned into a nightmarish fall to the unforgiving landscape of the Borderlands. Zac hopes to find a strange new alien treasure in the Borderlands to turn his down-spiraling life around. But his wife, Marla, and his son, Cal, just want to survive, and reunite, because catastrophe has left them separated by hundreds of klicks. Their chances aren’t good . . . and Roland is all that stands between them and the planet’s kill-crazed Psychos and murderous bandits—not to mention the grotesque primals, giant wyrm squids, insane tunnel rats, voracious skags, brutal bruisers, and ruthless mercs.
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Transcript
Kevin's Crystal Light Adventure
00:00:00
Speaker
Oh, I'll tell you one thing I have added to my speaking of lemonade, adding to my my desk at work, my cubicle.
00:00:09
Speaker
I recently purchased a 60 pack of crystal light things to, you know, the little powder things.
00:00:17
Speaker
Oh, right, right, right.
00:00:19
Speaker
It's a game changer.
00:00:20
Speaker
It's my little it's a little my little treat.
00:00:23
Speaker
It's a little treat to yourself.
00:00:25
Speaker
You put it in and you shake up the water bottle.
00:00:28
Speaker
Yeah, you got a little sweet treat right there.
00:00:30
Speaker
Got a little got a little sweet treat.
00:00:32
Speaker
And unbeknownst to me, they had four different flavors.
00:00:34
Speaker
And one of them is a wild strawberry, which is the only one I never had.
00:00:38
Speaker
And I come to find out it's caffeinated.
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Speaker
So I'm like, great.
00:00:41
Speaker
Just what I need.
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Speaker
More caffeine at work.
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Speaker
Just get get get all buzzed up at work.
00:00:47
Speaker
I'm just going to tap it out onto the desktop and just do lines of it after a certain.
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Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Speaker
That's the next step.
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Speaker
Crystal light is crystal meth.
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Speaker
crystal meth.
00:00:59
Speaker
It's that a lot of people think marijuana is the gateway drug.
00:01:03
Speaker
It's actually crystal light.
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Speaker
It's crystal light.
00:01:05
Speaker
Raspberry lemonade.
00:01:07
Speaker
Exactly.
00:01:08
Speaker
God damn.
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It's good.
00:01:09
Speaker
You know what else is a gateway drug?
00:01:12
Speaker
What's that?
00:01:12
Speaker
Hey there,
Introduction to Pixelit Podcast
00:01:13
Speaker
everybody.
00:01:13
Speaker
Welcome back to Pixel.
00:01:14
Speaker
My name is Kevin.
00:01:14
Speaker
With me, as always, is Phil.
00:01:16
Speaker
And on today's show, we are talking Borderlands.
00:01:20
Speaker
We're in part three.
00:01:22
Speaker
We're doing lines, crystal light, and we're ready to go.
00:01:27
Speaker
I think so.
00:01:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:29
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I think we're ready to roll.
00:01:30
Speaker
I mean, we were, this is, this has been a good book, but I think it's always when we get to the third episode that we're like, okay, let's shut it down.
00:01:36
Speaker
Let's be done with it.
00:01:37
Speaker
Let's be done with it.
00:01:38
Speaker
And also when we get to the third episode, we know, we know what this book is.
00:01:45
Speaker
Yes.
00:01:46
Speaker
There are no more mysteries to unravel.
00:01:48
Speaker
No more mysteries to unravel.
00:01:51
Speaker
Unless you're sacred and terrible air.
00:01:53
Speaker
And then you just have more mysteries.
00:01:56
Speaker
Yeah.
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than answers when you're done.
00:01:58
Speaker
That was a horse of a different color.
00:02:00
Speaker
That was completely different.
00:02:02
Speaker
Learned a lot about Eastern European fiction writing, I think.
00:02:07
Speaker
I don't know.
00:02:07
Speaker
I don't have a ton of experience, but based on that alone, holy shit.
00:02:12
Speaker
Ugh.
Promoting Patreon and Supporters
00:02:14
Speaker
But before we do that, I just want to tell you about a sweet little number of a website called patreon.com slash pixel at pod.
00:02:23
Speaker
If you go there, you can follow us for free.
00:02:27
Speaker
That's right.
00:02:27
Speaker
Patreon has a free tier now.
00:02:30
Speaker
that you can go and you can follow your favorite creators and you get, you know, access to some of their stuff, including us.
00:02:37
Speaker
We have posts that you get only get access to if you're following us on the free tier on patreon.com slash pixel at pod.
00:02:45
Speaker
But if you feel so inclined, you can give us money as well.
00:02:47
Speaker
We'll take it.
00:02:48
Speaker
We love it.
00:02:49
Speaker
We will.
00:02:49
Speaker
$1 a month gets you access to Phil's blog where he rants and raves about books that he's reading.
00:02:57
Speaker
And $5 a month gets you our ad-free tier where you get the ad-free version of these episodes and also access to the bonus that we record right before the show.
00:03:09
Speaker
Our little bonus nugget of 10 minutes where we talk about all sorts of things.
00:03:14
Speaker
You know?
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Speaker
We throw it on there.
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Speaker
All kinds of stuff.
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Speaker
All kinds of stuff.
00:03:17
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Get to know us a little better.
00:03:18
Speaker
Get to know us a little bit better.
00:03:19
Speaker
Get to know the...
00:03:21
Speaker
Today I was talking about the fact that it's a week and a half of hitting the gym every day.
00:03:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:28
Speaker
Come celebrate with me.
00:03:29
Speaker
Come on.
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Join us.
00:03:31
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$10 a month gets you a shout out in every episode.
00:03:36
Speaker
So to that end, I want to shout out Ruth Smutter, Kyle Seaman, Jesus loves you, and friendly friend.
00:03:41
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Thank you so much for being a friend.
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Speaker
Thank you so much for being a friend.
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Speaker
And that is the end of the shill for patreon.com slash pixel at pod, the best website in the universe.
00:03:55
Speaker
The best website known to man.
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Speaker
Known to man.
00:03:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:00
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I mean, I'm expecting a giant black obelisk to appear on our website any day now to start signaling the coming evolution that is inevitable based on the quality of that website.
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I think we can all agree.
00:04:16
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We can all agree with that, that that's happening.
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Speaker
That's what happens next.
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Yeah.
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What happens next?
Humorous Hypothetical Evolution
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Speaker
Some some Cronenberg style human evolution where everybody kind of melts and turns into a blob.
00:04:33
Speaker
That's the only evolution I want.
00:04:35
Speaker
I don't I don't want this boring, slow change over millions of years.
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Shit.
00:04:39
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I want Cronenberg.
00:04:40
Speaker
I want Cronenberg.
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I want the end of Neon Genesis Evangelion.
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Oh, yes.
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Yes, yes, yes.
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Yeah.
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With less jerking off.
00:04:49
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Well, you know what?
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You know what?
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You know what?
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More.
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Speaker
More.
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Take it all back.
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Take it all back.
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Take it all back.
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That kid is so fucked up.
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Oh, God.
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Oh, God.
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He can't catch a break.
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So what do you say we put the body, this book to rest and the body in the marsh?
00:05:18
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Let's do it.
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Let's make a marsh body.
Zach and Burl's Alien Site Strategy
00:05:21
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Okay, we left off at chapter 16.
00:05:22
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Zack and Burl are making their way to the alien site.
00:05:23
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They've got their plan for Zack basically acting as alien bait.
00:05:25
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Zack is still trying to think of ways to betray Burl.
00:05:28
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And it's...
00:05:48
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It's getting ridiculous now because I'm also starting to pick up the idea that Zach isn't meant to be the bad guy, which I strongly disagree with here.
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Every moment with him and Burl, and yes, Burl tied him up.
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Yes, he took him kind of prisoner.
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It was harsh, but this is the world they live in, and he has done nothing but steal from them.
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This old man who's actually got a pretty nice sense of humor compared to some of the other people we've run into in this book.
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Right.
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So I don't care.
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I know how this book ends and nothing about this book is ever going to change the fact that Zach is not a good guy to me.
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I just can't.
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I can't go with it.
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Yeah.
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He figures he's going to betray Burl when they're at the alien site.
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He kind of fantasizes a little bit about getting rich.
00:06:38
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Burl takes him through what is essentially a hologram on the side of a mountain, like this optical illusion kind of thing that's set up.
00:06:46
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It looks like a solid piece of rock.
00:06:48
Speaker
It is not.
00:06:50
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And they walk right through it.
00:06:51
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And it basically acts as a hiding point for the only way up the mountain.
00:06:56
Speaker
So they're making their way up, switchbacks and all that good stuff.
00:07:00
Speaker
Um, Pearl says that there is a cave up there that they can sleep in because early morning, uh, brings alien treasure hunting.
00:07:08
Speaker
That's, that was the original, uh, idiom of, uh, early bird catches the, uh, ancient alien technology.
00:07:17
Speaker
That was where that came from.
00:07:18
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That's where that came from.
00:07:19
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Came from a fictional universe and then backwards through time into our universe.
00:07:25
Speaker
Or forwards through time.
00:07:27
Speaker
And Borderlands is actually in the Battlestar Galactica universe.
00:07:31
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Yes.
00:07:31
Speaker
Yes.
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Speaker
They see there.
00:07:35
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Hey, spoilers.
00:07:37
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You go forward far enough.
00:07:39
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You'll eventually be coming up from behind.
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That's just how that works.
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Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:44
Speaker
It's the, the, the horseshoe theory of time.
00:07:48
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:07:48
Speaker
That's, that's, that's how that works.
00:07:54
Speaker
We cut to Roland and company.
00:07:56
Speaker
They are also making their way up the volcanic cone for the treasure at the top.
00:08:02
Speaker
They split up to set up camp for the evening.
00:08:06
Speaker
Rans tries to silence Cal, who bites his hand and gets knocked out for his trouble.
Marla's Escape and Broncus Encounter
00:08:14
Speaker
Ranz drags him off, explains that he's a loose end that he has got to get rid of.
00:08:20
Speaker
We cut to Marla.
00:08:21
Speaker
She begins digging slowly in a corner of the cell.
00:08:25
Speaker
She's Shawshank in it.
00:08:26
Speaker
She's Shawshank in it.
00:08:27
Speaker
It's this little blind spot, I guess, that they can't see that she's digging it.
00:08:32
Speaker
She finds another note.
00:08:35
Speaker
from the previous cell inhabitant, which warns about the danger of the volcanic cone.
00:08:40
Speaker
She realizes she's going to need Flemmel, the guard, Flemmel's clothes, and uses her sexy wiles.
00:08:47
Speaker
Who would have thunk it?
00:08:48
Speaker
What a shocking twist.
00:08:50
Speaker
Sexy wiles, again.
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Speaker
Marla, sexy wiles, last name.
00:08:55
Speaker
Finn.
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Speaker
Finn.
00:09:00
Speaker
And she gets him into the cell at the last second before the rat on human banging.
00:09:08
Speaker
They're stopped by Bronchus, the big nasty guy who comes in with a new prisoner, Cal.
00:09:14
Speaker
So we've got our reuniting of mother and son.
00:09:18
Speaker
Yes.
00:09:19
Speaker
Chapter... Yeah, yeah.
00:09:21
Speaker
Which is finally... This is where I start to...
00:09:25
Speaker
No.
00:09:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:27
Speaker
I'm just so happy that they're starting to cut down on the storylines.
00:09:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:31
Speaker
We go off so many different ways.
00:09:33
Speaker
And this whole section of the book, we start consolidating.
00:09:36
Speaker
And I appreciate that.
00:09:37
Speaker
Consolidating.
00:09:38
Speaker
And also, it's the coming together of Marla and son.
00:09:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:44
Speaker
In a very, well, Marla is in a position of doing the thing that she's about to do.
00:09:51
Speaker
Right, right.
00:09:53
Speaker
It doesn't get much better than this.
00:09:56
Speaker
It's going to get really uncomfortable, in fact.
00:09:57
Speaker
There's going to be some uncomfortability.
00:10:01
Speaker
There's going to be a little bit more.
00:10:02
Speaker
It's going to get weird.
00:10:04
Speaker
But then that's it for the rest of the book, pretty much.
00:10:07
Speaker
Pretty much.
00:10:07
Speaker
Pretty much.
00:10:08
Speaker
Thank God.
00:10:10
Speaker
Chapter 17, Zach, Burl, and Busy climb the volcanic cone.
00:10:15
Speaker
And when they get to the top, they can see where an alien spacecraft crashed a long, long time ago.
Artifact Discovery and Creature Attack
00:10:22
Speaker
Burl's alien compass goes crazy near it.
00:10:25
Speaker
It clearly wants to get back to that ship.
00:10:28
Speaker
Um, Zach is accosted by a silvery snake like thing that Burl peels off of him and throws away, calling it a ship growth, uh, which, uh, heavily implied to be the same thing that they found in the back of the psychos with Roland.
00:10:42
Speaker
Um, yeah.
00:10:44
Speaker
Marla and Cal catch up.
00:10:47
Speaker
We get caught up on where everyone is.
00:10:50
Speaker
And then Marla uses her feminine wiles on the guard again.
00:10:56
Speaker
Again.
00:10:57
Speaker
But for the first time in front of her son.
00:10:59
Speaker
In front of her son.
00:11:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:01
Speaker
She, quote, presses her breasts against the jail cell.
00:11:10
Speaker
Yeah, like she kind of, I imagine, I just imagine there were bars.
00:11:14
Speaker
And so she was like a boob through each, like, space between the bars.
00:11:19
Speaker
That would have worked.
00:11:21
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That would have worked, yeah.
00:11:25
Speaker
Oh, Billy.
00:11:27
Speaker
Oh, Billy.
00:11:35
Speaker
She knocks out the guard and poses as him in his clothes with Cal as a prisoner.
00:11:43
Speaker
This works for a little while, but not very long, because on the way out, a tunnel rat gets suspicious.
00:11:48
Speaker
They kill him and make a mad dash for some form of exit while being chased by just a swarm of tunnel rats.
00:11:58
Speaker
They escape through a hatch that's at the base of the volcanic cone where Vance is waiting for them.
00:12:05
Speaker
And Vance being his beautiful, charming self basically tells them that they're going to follow his orders or else.
00:12:11
Speaker
So hooray.
00:12:14
Speaker
Hooray, Vance.
00:12:15
Speaker
This is really world of supportive woke men.
00:12:20
Speaker
Yes.
00:12:23
Speaker
Pandora.
00:12:25
Speaker
Pandora.
00:12:26
Speaker
Land of feminism.
00:12:27
Speaker
Land of feminism and the woke mind virus.
00:12:34
Speaker
Chapter 18.
00:12:36
Speaker
Burl, Busy and Zack.
00:12:38
Speaker
The plan obviously is for Zack to distract the monitor, which is this, which is the alien kind of lookout.
00:12:46
Speaker
Which is funny because it's that's like it makes me think of Halo.
00:12:52
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:12:53
Speaker
There's a lot of similarities here with that.
00:12:56
Speaker
There's no way around it.
00:12:58
Speaker
And Burl explains that this is basically how he found Busy.
00:13:04
Speaker
The necklace that he wears, as Zack has suspected, kind of overrides the alien signal, and it causes Busy to serve Burl instead of the ship, which it had originally.
00:13:17
Speaker
Right.
00:13:19
Speaker
Zach is less than comforted by this story.
00:13:21
Speaker
It's one of the few times he and I are completely in accord.
00:13:26
Speaker
He's like, is it at this point where he's like, Burl is like, well, the range is about a half kilometer.
00:13:35
Speaker
And Zach's like, we're closer than a half kilometer now.
00:13:39
Speaker
I know, it's weird.
00:13:40
Speaker
That's basically what he says.
00:13:43
Speaker
I know, it's crazy, right?
00:13:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:46
Speaker
It's working.
00:13:47
Speaker
I know.
00:13:48
Speaker
It's cool.
00:13:48
Speaker
I'm a prospector.
00:13:50
Speaker
I wouldn't worry about it.
00:13:51
Speaker
We've got rap heart.
00:13:53
Speaker
And he's like, are you talking about rapport?
00:13:54
Speaker
He's like, yeah, we've got that.
00:13:56
Speaker
Me and Busy.
00:13:57
Speaker
We're rapport.
00:13:58
Speaker
And it's like, oh, this is not great.
00:14:00
Speaker
Not great.
00:14:02
Speaker
Not great.
00:14:03
Speaker
Don't worry about that nuclear warhead.
00:14:06
Speaker
It's got a plastic bag over the top of it.
00:14:08
Speaker
It'll keep it contained.
00:14:10
Speaker
You used to have a sandwich in it.
00:14:13
Speaker
Miss that sandwich.
00:14:15
Speaker
Burl points out that the spaceship has been lighting up since they got there and seems to imply that they know it knows that they are there.
00:14:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:27
Speaker
We cut back to Roland and Company making their way to the- Roland and Company.
00:14:30
Speaker
Roland and Company.
00:14:32
Speaker
Adventure for hire.
00:14:33
Speaker
Adventure.
00:14:35
Speaker
Excitement.
00:14:36
Speaker
Science and technology.
00:14:39
Speaker
They're making their way-
00:14:44
Speaker
Probably.
00:14:46
Speaker
Unfortunately, we'll find out.
00:14:47
Speaker
Probably.
00:14:49
Speaker
They're making their way up the volcanic cone.
00:14:52
Speaker
Roland suspects Ranz of having something to do with Cal's disappearance, which I don't know.
00:14:57
Speaker
I don't know if that exactly makes him Sherlock Holmes, but good for him.
00:15:03
Speaker
Uh, he tells the others to go up without him for the time being and backtracks to the tunnel rat tunnels.
00:15:10
Speaker
Um, he finds them and threatens them with his arsenal of weapons, unless they tell him what happened to Cal, uh, and Broncus, the big lovable galoot explains to him everything that went down basically gets him up to speed.
00:15:25
Speaker
Uh, chapter 19.
00:15:28
Speaker
Zach is distracting the alien monitor from Burl, who's digging around through the artifacts.
00:15:34
Speaker
He's doing his job.
00:15:36
Speaker
He finds an artifact of his own.
00:15:37
Speaker
It's this lump.
00:15:38
Speaker
It's like the size of a human head.
00:15:40
Speaker
It's like organic and it's got spines in it that every now and then poke out.
00:15:45
Speaker
And he does the old pick up your dog's poop trick where he takes his bag and like turns it inside out and kind of picks it up.
00:15:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:53
Speaker
Through that.
00:15:55
Speaker
It's lump.
00:15:56
Speaker
It's lump.
00:15:58
Speaker
It's in his head.
00:15:59
Speaker
Actually, unbeknownst to him.
00:16:02
Speaker
For real.
00:16:02
Speaker
It's actually.
00:16:03
Speaker
But seriously, it's in his head.
00:16:06
Speaker
It's in his head.
00:16:08
Speaker
busy gets controlled by the monitor all over again.
00:16:13
Speaker
Oh, no.
00:16:14
Speaker
Possibly.
00:16:16
Speaker
Not not Burl, not Burl.
00:16:19
Speaker
I think everyone but Burl probably suspect everyone but Burl.
00:16:23
Speaker
It's a special kind of prospector to to ignore all the signs that death is imminent.
00:16:29
Speaker
I still Burl still my favorite character.
00:16:32
Speaker
Still my favorite character, too.
00:16:33
Speaker
I think he's he's he's still good, good, still good guy.
00:16:37
Speaker
You know, good guy.
00:16:37
Speaker
Good guy.
00:16:39
Speaker
So busy starts attacking Burl, who is like hiding behind rocks and avoiding neon blue acid spit and crying out for Zach to come and help him.
00:16:49
Speaker
You got to come help me like all that.
00:16:52
Speaker
Right.
00:16:53
Speaker
Zach is kind of like on his way to being like, no, fuck it.
00:16:56
Speaker
I'm leaving.
00:16:58
Speaker
And then finally has a change of heart and comes back.
00:17:01
Speaker
He kind of instinctively uses the spiny artifact thing to basically make Busy rethink its actions for a second.
00:17:12
Speaker
It kind of pops off something in his head for a second.
00:17:15
Speaker
It pauses Busy from just melting Burl.
00:17:19
Speaker
Right, right.
00:17:19
Speaker
Stops him for a second.
00:17:22
Speaker
But before he can do anything more, he is grabbed from behind by the monitor and placed lovingly into the spaceship.
00:17:31
Speaker
Tenderly.
00:17:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:35
Speaker
Like a child or a soft-faced lover.
00:17:37
Speaker
Soft-faced.
00:17:42
Speaker
Pillow faced lover.
00:17:44
Speaker
Pillowy faces everywhere.
00:17:45
Speaker
Pillowy faces.
00:17:47
Speaker
So like a pillow face lover or a cushion face lover as JD Vance prefers.
00:17:51
Speaker
JD Vance loves a cushion face lover.
00:17:55
Speaker
He loves a cushion face.
00:17:56
Speaker
I got there.
00:17:58
Speaker
You didn't, it didn't take too many steps.
00:18:00
Speaker
You didn't take too many steps.
00:18:01
Speaker
That was not forced at all.
00:18:04
Speaker
You were on it.
00:18:05
Speaker
I earned that one.
Vance's Control Issues Explored
00:18:08
Speaker
Yes, you did.
00:18:09
Speaker
I think we're all proud of you.
00:18:11
Speaker
That was good.
00:18:12
Speaker
He fucks couches.
00:18:14
Speaker
Tell your friends.
00:18:15
Speaker
Tell your friends J.D.
00:18:17
Speaker
Vance has.
00:18:18
Speaker
I think we need to worry about that, though, because I'll tell you what, we don't we haven't considered the very real possibility that that is just going to make him popular with a quietly enormous power.
00:18:36
Speaker
of couch fuckers.
00:18:38
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if there's a whole, if there's a whole, like, contingent of people out there who really feel unseen.
00:18:49
Speaker
Yeah, that's the real silent majority.
00:18:52
Speaker
Fetish towards furniture, furniture fetishes.
00:18:56
Speaker
Yeah, I don't, I don't, I think, I think.
00:18:58
Speaker
Not to kink shame, but.
00:19:00
Speaker
No, no, but.
00:19:03
Speaker
You're going to see Joe Biden coming in and humping a cabinet just to get some relevance back.
00:19:09
Speaker
All right.
00:19:14
Speaker
Vance, Marla and Cal are at the base of this volcanic mountain.
00:19:19
Speaker
Vance thinking this will be a hilarious joke.
00:19:23
Speaker
It'll be.
00:19:23
Speaker
It's a hoot.
00:19:24
Speaker
It'll be a hoot and a holler.
00:19:27
Speaker
Basically says to Marla, hey, Marla, watch this.
00:19:30
Speaker
Grabs Cal by the scruff of his neck and the base of his pants and throws him towards what we know is an illusory wall because we've seen it work.
00:19:40
Speaker
And Marla has no idea, thinking that he's just literally launched her son face first at a rock face.
00:19:47
Speaker
And he just goes through and kind of peeks his head back out again.
00:19:53
Speaker
Marla has, is now, she is, whatever wet was there is all dried up.
00:20:01
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:20:02
Speaker
Gone.
00:20:04
Speaker
Gone.
00:20:06
Speaker
And I think we've all been there.
00:20:09
Speaker
I think women especially, but I think we've all been there where it's just like the charm fades in a shockingly fast amount of time, like a literal amount of days, sometimes hours.
00:20:20
Speaker
And you're like, what the hell was I enjoying about this before?
00:20:25
Speaker
In Marla's case, it was, oh yeah, the big dick.
00:20:27
Speaker
Ha!
00:20:31
Speaker
Fair.
00:20:32
Speaker
Fair.
00:20:35
Speaker
Valid.
00:20:35
Speaker
So she's, she's dealing with the, the, you know, it's her own little walk of shame, basically.
00:20:42
Speaker
Right.
00:20:44
Speaker
Vance is trying to convince slash threaten them into going up the trail with them, with him to go up to, to get some alien loot.
00:20:53
Speaker
And Marla has kind of this moment of recognition into what kind of a dude Vance is in that he
00:21:01
Speaker
needs.
00:21:01
Speaker
Oh, this guy sucks.
00:21:04
Speaker
He sucks, but it's like, it's like, he sucks because it's one of these guys that like, he's got to threaten you, but he also wants you to like him.
00:21:10
Speaker
He has to have it both ways.
00:21:12
Speaker
Toxic.
00:21:12
Speaker
She calls him toxic.
00:21:14
Speaker
She calls him toxic.
00:21:15
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:21:16
Speaker
She does.
00:21:16
Speaker
And, uh, and it's, and it's true.
00:21:18
Speaker
It's true.
00:21:19
Speaker
He's, he, he wants to have full control over everything, but he also needs you to like him.
00:21:24
Speaker
Uh, uh, it's a very Elon Musk vibe, uh, you get.
00:21:29
Speaker
So it's a very interesting moment.
00:21:32
Speaker
She gets kind of a come to Jesus moment of her own creation.
00:21:35
Speaker
Sure.
00:21:37
Speaker
So finally, he's kind of threatening them.
00:21:39
Speaker
So they're like, OK, fine.
00:21:41
Speaker
And in that moment, as they start to go up the trail, they are attacked by these invisible bug things.
00:21:46
Speaker
He calls them stalkers.
00:21:49
Speaker
At one point, they're described as having like
00:21:51
Speaker
grasshopper faces or something like that.
00:21:53
Speaker
And so they've got a we've got a fight that goes breaks out with those Marla and Cal try to take that opportunity to escape and they run through the illusory rock face.
00:22:05
Speaker
But Vance catches up with him just in time, blows up the last stalker just as two outriders roll in carrying.
00:22:13
Speaker
You thought they were gone, but they're back.
00:22:16
Speaker
Mash and grunge.
00:22:17
Speaker
Grunge.
00:22:18
Speaker
Everybody's favorite.
00:22:21
Speaker
Such a good character.
00:22:23
Speaker
That's a good character.
00:22:24
Speaker
Good character.
00:22:25
Speaker
Grunge is the guy who says Missy Ho a lot.
00:22:28
Speaker
Yeah, Missy Ho.
00:22:29
Speaker
Missy Ho likes him short, as it turns out.
00:22:34
Speaker
And they are ready for vengeance.
00:22:37
Speaker
So that's chapter 19.
00:22:39
Speaker
Chapter 20.
00:22:41
Speaker
Zach finds that he is trapped inside some kind of weird organic pocket thing in the ship.
Zach's Realization Inside Alien Ship
00:22:50
Speaker
It's like a kangaroos pouch.
00:22:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:53
Speaker
He tries to like slide out of it, but it squeezes him real tight.
00:22:58
Speaker
He coughs up some kind of a plug, which is like okie dokie.
00:23:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:06
Speaker
He coughs up some technology and he's hearing like whispering and far off voices in his head.
00:23:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:13
Speaker
He's trying to escape, but the pocket's just holding him too tight.
00:23:16
Speaker
And he starts hearing these high-pitched screams and noises and suddenly has this realization that the alien ship has tapped into his brain, that it's in there with him now.
00:23:30
Speaker
Uh, let's see.
00:23:32
Speaker
We cut to Vance, Cal and Marla.
00:23:35
Speaker
They have a face off, uh, with grunge and mash and two others, which whatever, uh, one of them gets named patch.
00:23:42
Speaker
As I recall, uh, uh, they're not important.
00:23:46
Speaker
Oh, well, and there's also dimmel, which was like, I think mash is like right hand man or something.
00:23:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:51
Speaker
So anyway, unimportant, unimportant purchase.
00:23:54
Speaker
It doesn't matter.
00:23:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:55
Speaker
Henchman number one and henchman number two.
00:23:56
Speaker
It doesn't matter.
00:23:57
Speaker
We get we get classic Mexican standoff style.
00:24:00
Speaker
Everyone's pointing guns at everybody else.
00:24:04
Speaker
Threaten everybody else.
00:24:06
Speaker
Cal sees a stalker in the distance and says, hey, look, a stalker, basically.
00:24:13
Speaker
And I think it's Mash, like, basically laughs behind you, a three headed monkey.
00:24:18
Speaker
Right.
00:24:18
Speaker
Right.
00:24:19
Speaker
Exactly.
00:24:19
Speaker
And that's just like, no, who who falls for that?
00:24:22
Speaker
What are we talking about?
00:24:23
Speaker
But Cal is telling the truth and and no one listens.
00:24:29
Speaker
So the stalker kills one of the henchmen.
00:24:31
Speaker
Just they launch spikes out of their tails.
00:24:34
Speaker
Very manticore.
00:24:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:37
Speaker
Manticore!
00:24:38
Speaker
The Manticore!
00:24:42
Speaker
They kill the stalker and then it just... Daconia!
00:24:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:47
Speaker
It's a reference for like five people, but I'm making it.
00:24:51
Speaker
We wrote a TV show.
00:24:52
Speaker
We wrote a TV show about a fictional country that existed on the border between Canada and the United States.
00:25:04
Speaker
It was north of North Dakota.
00:25:07
Speaker
It was called Dakota.
00:25:09
Speaker
And it's like the size of a small town.
00:25:11
Speaker
It was the size of a small town and its flag was had a no, no, the manticore wasn't on the flag.
00:25:20
Speaker
I actually have the flag somewhere because a friend of ours made one.
00:25:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:27
Speaker
But yeah, the manticore was important to the founding of the town.
00:25:31
Speaker
It was like the founding father.
00:25:33
Speaker
I think there was like a painting of the founding father holding up the head of the manticore.
00:25:39
Speaker
A manticore head, which is just a human head.
00:25:41
Speaker
Which was just a guy's head.
00:25:43
Speaker
And some people go to grad school to get, you know, to go to law school or something like that.
00:25:50
Speaker
And then...
00:25:51
Speaker
And then others, some of us just fuck around for three years and get a film degree.
00:25:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:02
Speaker
Better.
00:26:03
Speaker
Honestly.
00:26:05
Speaker
Better.
00:26:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:08
Speaker
So the Manticore stalker kills Patch, and he had so much to live for.
00:26:15
Speaker
So much to live for.
00:26:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:18
Speaker
They kill the stalker, and it just descends into a gunfight.
00:26:22
Speaker
Everyone's just shooting at everybody else.
00:26:25
Speaker
Vance manages to kill Grunge, despite the fact that Grunge has some serious shields on him.
00:26:30
Speaker
He just kind of just...
00:26:32
Speaker
forces the gun right up to him and shoots him point blank and just blows him away.
00:26:37
Speaker
Um, mash kills Vance, uh, just, just, just blows him up.
00:26:43
Speaker
Vance gets shot.
00:26:46
Speaker
Vance gets shredded.
00:26:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:49
Speaker
Murdered the shit out of.
00:26:51
Speaker
Oh, truly.
00:26:52
Speaker
Dusting off an old classic.
00:26:55
Speaker
Yeah, murders the shit out of him.
00:26:57
Speaker
Murders the shit out of him.
00:26:58
Speaker
Vance, it's like, oh, Vance has this really brief hero moment.
00:27:03
Speaker
And then it's like, and then all three of them unload their rifles on Vance.
00:27:11
Speaker
And it's like...
00:27:13
Speaker
Vance is described as having had his arm shot off, his chest perforated with bullets and a geyser of blood erupting from his neck.
00:27:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:26
Speaker
It made me think of the scene in Walk Hard with the machete fight where the boy gets cut in half by machete and he looks at his brother and goes, listen, I don't think I'm going to make it out of this alive.
00:27:39
Speaker
It's the same thing.
00:27:41
Speaker
And so he's just dying.
00:27:44
Speaker
He should just be dead.
00:27:45
Speaker
Yeah, there shouldn't have even been final words.
00:27:49
Speaker
No, none.
00:27:50
Speaker
The DM was kind and let him have final words.
00:27:54
Speaker
Very kind.
00:27:55
Speaker
And Vance kind of, he whispers the location of the money stash that he hid away after they betrayed MASH and Grunge and all them to Marla before he dies.
00:28:07
Speaker
And Marla is very grief stricken.
00:28:10
Speaker
And it's, it, you can't, you just can't help but imagine Cal being like, uh, mom.
00:28:17
Speaker
Why are you so upset about this guy?
00:28:22
Speaker
What's this?
00:28:23
Speaker
Like it's, it is, it is awfully suspicious.
00:28:26
Speaker
It really is.
00:28:28
Speaker
So Roland, uh, before the, before, uh, grunge and mash could make short work of them because they, they,
00:28:36
Speaker
Correctly assume that Vance's last words were spent telling about his hidden away stash of money.
00:28:41
Speaker
Right.
00:28:42
Speaker
But before they can do anything about it, Roland has snuck up on them and just kills the shit out of Mash and Dimmel.
00:28:50
Speaker
Yep.
00:28:51
Speaker
Taking care of the rest of them.
00:28:52
Speaker
Introductions are made.
00:28:55
Speaker
timelines are, are, are solidified.
00:28:57
Speaker
Merged.
00:28:58
Speaker
We got merged.
00:28:59
Speaker
We're, we're getting rid of, we, we, we're characters are, are, have been pruned from the tree.
00:29:05
Speaker
Yes, exactly.
00:29:06
Speaker
We're, we're there on their way to being a real boy.
00:29:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:10
Speaker
That means, um,
00:29:12
Speaker
Roland agrees that they will bury Vance at Marla's request.
00:29:16
Speaker
Once again, very, if I were the kid, I'd be like, mom?
00:29:21
Speaker
You're like, just leave the other ones out, but this guy.
00:29:23
Speaker
Do you think the guy who was threatening us, mom?
00:29:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:27
Speaker
Because that's Cal's only frame of reference for this guy.
00:29:30
Speaker
It's the guy who threatened him and also threw him at a rock wall that he didn't know he could walk.
00:29:38
Speaker
It was like, and it's just like,
00:29:42
Speaker
And he sees his mom just like, oh, Vance, you were such a complicated person.
00:29:48
Speaker
Right.
00:29:48
Speaker
And he's just like, you mean the guy who thought it was funny to make it look like he murdered me?
00:29:53
Speaker
Like that guy?
00:29:54
Speaker
That guy?
00:29:56
Speaker
He knows something's up.
00:29:57
Speaker
He has to.
00:29:58
Speaker
Yeah, he's got to be putting two and two together.
00:30:01
Speaker
I would hope so.
00:30:02
Speaker
Or be putting six and nine together.
00:30:05
Speaker
Ah!
00:30:06
Speaker
I bet they did.
00:30:08
Speaker
I bet it was gross.
00:30:10
Speaker
I don't care how good in bed he is.
00:30:11
Speaker
He smells.
00:30:12
Speaker
He has to.
00:30:14
Speaker
He does not smell good.
00:30:16
Speaker
No, come on.
00:30:17
Speaker
No.
00:30:18
Speaker
Come on, guys.
00:30:20
Speaker
Yeah, the smell.
00:30:22
Speaker
It's got to sting the nostrils.
00:30:25
Speaker
Oh, bad.
00:30:26
Speaker
Real bad.
00:30:28
Speaker
So they agreed to very much.
00:30:30
Speaker
They haven't mentioned a toilet.
00:30:32
Speaker
No, no, let alone toilet paper.
00:30:36
Speaker
Roland says that Cal is going to grow up to be quite a man, which, you know, Cal is Cal is doing very well for himself.
00:30:46
Speaker
I will say he's he's he's the most improved.
00:30:49
Speaker
He that's what he wins.
00:30:50
Speaker
Most improved player.
00:30:51
Speaker
Most improved player.
00:30:54
Speaker
I think he's he's he's growing possibly not in the not not in the best ways, because, again, this guy's going to have PTSD for the rest of his fucking life.
00:31:01
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:31:02
Speaker
He's he's going to be having some issues.
00:31:04
Speaker
Oh, it's going to be bad.
00:31:09
Speaker
We cut to chapter 21.
00:31:12
Speaker
Ripley, if you're going to be here, you can't shake and toss yourself around.
00:31:17
Speaker
It's a very delicate operation.
00:31:18
Speaker
I will toss myself around as I see fit.
00:31:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:23
Speaker
This is a delicate operation and you're very fat.
00:31:25
Speaker
It's... She shakes everything.
00:31:30
Speaker
Uh, chapter 22.
00:31:32
Speaker
I just see her ears going back and forth.
00:31:36
Speaker
She's so happy to be here.
00:31:38
Speaker
Um, Zach is inside the alien ship.
00:31:41
Speaker
Well, inside the alien, as we have found out the ship and the alien are one.
00:31:47
Speaker
It is a being from space that resembles a spaceship, but it's, it's, it's all organic.
00:31:55
Speaker
Uh, so he is inside the alien deep inside the alien, uh,
00:31:59
Speaker
Um, did I skip?
00:32:01
Speaker
Way down.
00:32:02
Speaker
No, no, I didn't skip anything.
00:32:05
Speaker
Wait, I did.
00:32:05
Speaker
How do I keep doing this?
00:32:07
Speaker
Okay.
00:32:08
Speaker
All right.
00:32:08
Speaker
Hold on.
00:32:08
Speaker
Let's back it up.
00:32:09
Speaker
Chapter 21.
00:32:10
Speaker
Uh, he wakes up out of the pocket wall.
00:32:15
Speaker
This is, this is beforehand.
00:32:17
Speaker
Uh, and he hears a disembodied voice.
00:32:19
Speaker
Uh, and I'm going to give you a quote because I quite enjoyed this.
00:32:23
Speaker
Um,
00:32:25
Speaker
It's the alien ship basically introducing itself.
00:32:27
Speaker
I have additionally been observing your race on the planet from time to time as I regenerate it.
00:32:32
Speaker
Your species is made up of bumbling dumbasses on the whole.
00:32:36
Speaker
Kind of makes me ill to contemplate all the resources you have access to and the poor choices you make with them.
00:32:41
Speaker
What a bunch of knuckleheaded apes for crying out loud.
00:32:44
Speaker
Ha ha ha!
00:32:47
Speaker
And the alien, and Zach kind of goes, what the fuck, man?
00:32:51
Speaker
Like, could you be a little less condescending?
00:32:53
Speaker
And the alien's like, I'm sorry, I'm reading your thoughts and I'm using words in your head so that you would understand.
00:33:02
Speaker
I'm using words from your vocabulary that would impart the most understanding to you.
00:33:08
Speaker
Yes, exactly.
00:33:12
Speaker
It's pretty great.
00:33:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:15
Speaker
The alien's been there for a while, has crash landed and has decided while it regenerates and feels better, it's going to study this planet and its inhabitants.
00:33:27
Speaker
It basically, it says it's looking for the quote unquote hidden thing of interest in humans, which is never fully explained.
00:33:35
Speaker
It's kind of heavily implied.
00:33:36
Speaker
It's like a soul basically.
00:33:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:40
Speaker
Trying to get right.
00:33:42
Speaker
Trying to get like the alien basically is saying je ne sais quoi.
00:33:48
Speaker
Right.
00:33:48
Speaker
Pretty much.
00:33:49
Speaker
Pretty much.
Alien Perspective on Humanity
00:33:50
Speaker
A certain human genesis.
00:33:51
Speaker
Like that's that's pretty much it.
00:33:54
Speaker
It's considering Zach both.
00:33:57
Speaker
It says Zach might have that certain something that it factor, if you will.
00:34:03
Speaker
But if not, it's also considering keeping Zach in its collection, basically suggesting it's going to throw him in a bottle to put on.
00:34:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:12
Speaker
Put up on a on a shelf to observe later.
00:34:15
Speaker
And this is this is where it explains that this is that it is not a ship, but a living organism that Zack is a part of now.
00:34:23
Speaker
It is.
00:34:24
Speaker
Yeah, it is a space thing.
00:34:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:29
Speaker
Roland, Marla and Cal now armed to the teeth because they have just taken all the guns off of the four dead guys that they killed.
00:34:38
Speaker
They are climbing the cone.
00:34:41
Speaker
They meet Burl.
00:34:42
Speaker
They're climbing the aggro crab.
00:34:44
Speaker
Pretty much.
00:34:49
Speaker
Do you know you can like find those agri-crag pieces online?
00:34:52
Speaker
People sell theirs.
00:34:54
Speaker
Really?
00:34:55
Speaker
For like sometimes shockingly low amounts, like for a piece of classic Nickelodeon merchandise.
00:35:02
Speaker
Sometimes they are lower than you'd expect.
00:35:04
Speaker
I also know on Etsy they have in the past just made them, which I might take just for fun.
00:35:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:11
Speaker
How much is a working piece of aggro crag worth?
00:35:15
Speaker
You continue.
00:35:16
Speaker
I'm going to be.
00:35:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:17
Speaker
Look it up.
00:35:18
Speaker
Look it up.
00:35:18
Speaker
I'm going to be.
00:35:19
Speaker
Look.
00:35:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:20
Speaker
This is important information.
00:35:22
Speaker
So they're arms to the teeth.
00:35:23
Speaker
They meet Burl, who basically gets them up to speed on Zack, tells them because he's bore witness to everything.
00:35:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:33
Speaker
They make camp, but they're woken up by an Atlas ship, another one of the pyramid ships touching down.
00:35:39
Speaker
And out pops Cranigan, Roscoe, and Rans Veritas, along with a suit.
00:35:46
Speaker
Okay, chapter 22.
00:35:46
Speaker
This is where I was.
00:35:48
Speaker
Uh, Zach is inside the alien.
00:35:51
Speaker
Uh, there's no other way to put it.
00:35:52
Speaker
Uh, he's still waiting to hear his fate.
00:35:54
Speaker
It's driving him crazy.
00:35:56
Speaker
Uh, because the alien's like, well, hold on.
00:35:57
Speaker
I want to decide.
00:35:58
Speaker
I don't know if I'm going to kill you or not.
00:36:00
Speaker
Uh, and is admittedly very blase about the whole thing.
00:36:03
Speaker
And he's, it's driving him nuts.
00:36:05
Speaker
Um,
00:36:06
Speaker
The alien gets kind of snippy with him talking about and talking about humans like as being these primitive ape things.
00:36:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:15
Speaker
And Zach calls him on it saying, like, didn't you guys have to evolve from like lower life form?
00:36:20
Speaker
So we're just evolving where that's that's what it's like.
00:36:23
Speaker
What's your what's your deal, alien?
00:36:25
Speaker
And like, I don't concern myself with the ants.
00:36:27
Speaker
Why the fuck are you bothering me so much?
00:36:31
Speaker
And to the alien's credit, it's like, that's a really good point.
00:36:34
Speaker
I apologize.
00:36:35
Speaker
That's a good point.
00:36:39
Speaker
Sorry.
00:36:43
Speaker
The alien basically...
00:36:46
Speaker
He tells him that he's invited an Atlas ship there early on.
00:36:50
Speaker
If you guys remember when we first saw an Atlas ship, they were saying that they couldn't fly straight to the thing because the, the, the defenses would stop them.
00:37:00
Speaker
And they weren't lying.
00:37:02
Speaker
It's just that now the alien has invited the ship directly and, and, and,
00:37:08
Speaker
you know, has lowered its defenses just because it's curious and wants to get on with it.
00:37:13
Speaker
Yeah, it wants more humans.
00:37:15
Speaker
Exactly.
00:37:16
Speaker
Because it knows it's about at the point where it's ready to leave.
00:37:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:21
Speaker
It's ready to go and would like to see a few more humans before it leaves.
00:37:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:25
Speaker
It also mentions kind of offhandedly that there's a woman and child up there with them, which Zach catches his attention.
00:37:36
Speaker
Yeah, of course.
00:37:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:38
Speaker
So we cut to Roland, who approaches Cranigan, Roscoe, Ranz and Gorman, the Atlas suit.
00:37:47
Speaker
Yes.
00:37:49
Speaker
Played by Paul Reiser.
00:37:51
Speaker
I think so.
00:37:52
Speaker
Like, come on.
00:37:53
Speaker
Like, he did it so well before.
00:37:57
Speaker
Why not just let him keep it up?
00:37:59
Speaker
He's good with that.
00:38:01
Speaker
This is this is the it is a 19 is a 1987 edition.
00:38:05
Speaker
Paul Reiser suit.
00:38:07
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:38:09
Speaker
Double breasted, triple breasted.
00:38:11
Speaker
I'll have you know he is.
00:38:13
Speaker
And he is going to put all throw all the safety precautions out the window.
00:38:17
Speaker
Out the window to to get that alien sample.
00:38:21
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:38:23
Speaker
So.
00:38:25
Speaker
Either we play the game of we thought you were dead.
00:38:28
Speaker
I thought I was dead, too.
00:38:30
Speaker
I just know blah, blah, blah.
00:38:32
Speaker
He suggests that they let him kill Rams.
00:38:36
Speaker
He's got a personal beef with him over what he did to Cal says that he's hidden Cal away in a place you'll never find him, which is going to be really funny, really funny in about five minutes.
00:38:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:49
Speaker
He speaks a dozen languages.
00:38:51
Speaker
He can blend in and disappear.
00:38:53
Speaker
With any luck, he has the grail already.
00:38:58
Speaker
That's basically it.
00:39:02
Speaker
So he suggests that they let him just, you know, you should just give me Rand to let me kill him.
Roland's Confrontation with Atlas Team
00:39:08
Speaker
And they kind of consider it for a second.
00:39:10
Speaker
And then they're like, no, he might still have some value.
00:39:14
Speaker
So they leave him be.
00:39:15
Speaker
And then he gets really pissed.
00:39:17
Speaker
And the same reason that Zack got pissed, basically, because they're being very blasé about whether he lives or dies.
00:39:23
Speaker
And he gets up in Gorman's face, who gives.
00:39:27
Speaker
I loved this part.
00:39:28
Speaker
It was so it was such a funny little detail.
00:39:31
Speaker
Gorman, who has a red armored bodyguard who at first they're like, is that a robot?
00:39:37
Speaker
Like he's that big and just metal covered.
00:39:40
Speaker
But it's a soldier in like power armor, basically.
00:39:43
Speaker
uh and he gives his guard a signal which is they call it a just a little bit signal which i have to assume is this just a little bit just a little bit just a little bit just a little bit yeah and uh at the end the guard says all right fine and just knocks rand's block off uh doesn't doesn't kill him just a quick backhand with the power armor
00:40:06
Speaker
Yeah, just backhands him into oblivion.
00:40:09
Speaker
And Gorman takes a moment to go, if I wanted you dead, you'd be dead.
00:40:14
Speaker
Just so you know.
00:40:14
Speaker
Just so you know.
00:40:15
Speaker
So let's all be cool now.
00:40:17
Speaker
Be cool, honey bunny.
00:40:19
Speaker
Be cool, honey bunny.
00:40:20
Speaker
Exactly.
00:40:22
Speaker
So the Alliance seems to be back on rolling his back with the crew and he's kind of quietly hoping to himself that Marlon Cal are, are, are being cool, honey bunny and keeping their heads down.
00:40:32
Speaker
Uh, we cut back to Marla Cal and Burl, uh, who are approached by more Atlas soldiers in more power armor who are on like a scouting platform vehicle, uh, like a skiff or something like that.
00:40:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:47
Speaker
It's like Jabba's barge.
00:40:50
Speaker
I was just going to say, it's like a little version of Jabba's barge.
00:40:53
Speaker
That's exactly.
00:40:54
Speaker
I guess I could see us having drinks.
00:40:58
Speaker
It's that.
00:40:59
Speaker
Think of that.
00:41:01
Speaker
And they're like, what the fuck are you people doing here?
00:41:05
Speaker
They had been given...
00:41:07
Speaker
information on Cal, but not Marla.
00:41:09
Speaker
So they're like, well, we don't know what to do.
00:41:11
Speaker
And they're basically going, you know, fuck you guys.
00:41:12
Speaker
We're, we're get on the, get on the, get on the, the barge.
00:41:16
Speaker
Uh, we're taking you back.
00:41:17
Speaker
So they're, they are, they are, they are found, uh, by Atlas.
00:41:21
Speaker
Uh, but fortunately, uh, uh, maybe, uh, uh, Burl has not been found.
00:41:26
Speaker
Burl was in a hiding spot and, uh, they didn't seem to notice.
00:41:29
Speaker
He's a wild prospect that you can't see Burl.
00:41:33
Speaker
I wonder if he's going to help in the future.
00:41:35
Speaker
He doesn't.
00:41:36
Speaker
Doesn't.
00:41:39
Speaker
Just goes off and hides.
00:41:41
Speaker
He just hides.
00:41:44
Speaker
You know what?
00:41:44
Speaker
I don't mind telling you guys that right here off the bat.
00:41:46
Speaker
Burl does not come in at the eighth hour to like eighth hour.
00:41:51
Speaker
Is that the expression?
00:41:52
Speaker
I don't know.
00:41:52
Speaker
The 11th hour.
00:41:53
Speaker
11th hour.
00:41:54
Speaker
Thank you.
00:41:56
Speaker
The 11th hour to like save the day and do like some sort of sniper shot that saves.
00:42:01
Speaker
No, he just pops up after everything is said and done.
00:42:04
Speaker
He clearly had just gone and hidden away.
00:42:07
Speaker
Like, that's all.
00:42:08
Speaker
So this is not.
00:42:09
Speaker
Burl's back.
00:42:11
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:42:12
Speaker
This is not them setting him up to be like a hero driving a crop duster into the alien ship.
00:42:19
Speaker
Like, this is not anything like that.
00:42:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:22
Speaker
He's just gone, which to be fair, if I were Burl, it's exactly what I would do.
00:42:27
Speaker
So once again, favorite character ever.
00:42:30
Speaker
Hey, boys, I'm back.
00:42:34
Speaker
Like, that's not happening.
00:42:35
Speaker
Not happening.
00:42:38
Speaker
Chapter 23, the alien shows Zack.
00:42:41
Speaker
He basically...
00:42:43
Speaker
gives them a bitmap basically of everything that's going on outside the Atlas group.
00:42:49
Speaker
And he sees that Marla and Cal have joined them and he confirms that that's, that those are his kids.
00:42:54
Speaker
That's his kid and his wife rather.
00:42:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:57
Speaker
Cut to the Atlas team trying to decide how they want to infiltrate the ship.
00:43:02
Speaker
If they want to like go in guns a blazing or if they want to like be some level of sneaky about it.
00:43:08
Speaker
And while they're talking about this, the soldiers bring Marla and Cal to,
00:43:12
Speaker
Uh, and Gorman wants them interrogated on their Atlas ship.
00:43:17
Speaker
Um, Roland puts his foot down and says, absolutely not.
00:43:20
Speaker
They're under my protection.
00:43:21
Speaker
Uh, you leave them alone.
00:43:22
Speaker
Uh, and, uh, and so he and Cranigan are arguing about it.
00:43:26
Speaker
He and Gorman are arguing about it.
00:43:28
Speaker
And finally, Roland kind of inexplicably says, Hey, uh, why don't you let me and Gorman fight to the death of
00:43:35
Speaker
And then you'll just have one of us to deal with.
00:43:37
Speaker
And Gorman says, that does sound pretty good because I kind of hate both of you at this point.
00:43:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:41
Speaker
But knives, no guns, knives.
00:43:44
Speaker
So it's so I don't get hit with a stray bullet, which is actually.
00:43:48
Speaker
Gentlemen, you know the rules.
00:43:51
Speaker
Avoid the face.
00:43:52
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:43:53
Speaker
Exactly.
00:43:53
Speaker
The moneymaker.
00:43:55
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:43:58
Speaker
So the, you know, fine, fine.
00:43:59
Speaker
Knives only.
00:44:01
Speaker
And they get started with the knife fight.
00:44:05
Speaker
Cue the beat it music.
00:44:07
Speaker
And we got another quote that I really like.
00:44:08
Speaker
They have a face off.
00:44:09
Speaker
They really do.
00:44:11
Speaker
They do everything but tie their wrists together.
00:44:12
Speaker
One of them picks odd job and it pisses everybody off.
00:44:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:17
Speaker
Slappers only.
00:44:18
Speaker
Uncool.
00:44:19
Speaker
Uncool.
00:44:20
Speaker
Uncool.
00:44:23
Speaker
So they're swinging knives at each other and Marla, ever in the voice of reason, says, what is this barbaric idiocy?
00:44:29
Speaker
Marla demanded, washing with disbelief as the two men circled one another.
00:44:33
Speaker
You've already explained it, Gorman said, amused.
00:44:35
Speaker
Barbaric idiocy.
00:44:38
Speaker
but it is entertaining uh so she she says something uh smart for once uh instead of uh look at these big pink things yeah uh so uh roland uh ultimately kills crannigan gives us the that was for mcnee moment that we've been waiting for since the very beginning of this book um and uh
00:45:01
Speaker
basically just immediately goes and takes Gorman hostage, holds the knife to his throat and orders Marlon Cal onto the platform with him.
00:45:10
Speaker
He gets on one of the scouting platforms.
00:45:13
Speaker
Ranz gets a gun and points it at Roland Gorman, accidentally kills Roscoe because Roscoe runs up and says, you're going to hit the boss and just, just fucking atomizes Roscoe.
00:45:25
Speaker
It's like Roscoe.
00:45:27
Speaker
It's yeah.
00:45:27
Speaker
Roscoe just never existed.
00:45:31
Speaker
It was very it was very a war of the worlds, just a puff of smoke and gone.
00:45:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:37
Speaker
And then and then is immediately killed by the remaining guards.
00:45:42
Speaker
A stray shot hits the fuel reserves on the platform and it explodes.
00:45:48
Speaker
Now, Zack in the alien.
00:45:51
Speaker
Inside the alien has seen all of this and freaks out, of course, because he's assuming that that his whole family's dead.
00:45:59
Speaker
Right.
00:45:59
Speaker
The alien see says that it sees that, quote unquote, hidden thing of interest in Roland, Cal, and even a little bit in Zach.
00:46:08
Speaker
None for Marla, I'll point out.
00:46:09
Speaker
None for Marla.
00:46:10
Speaker
This is a very, very sexist alien.
00:46:15
Speaker
So I get the impression she's just been fucking her way through Pandora.
00:46:20
Speaker
Which she's fair enough.
00:46:25
Speaker
So he says, you know what?
00:46:26
Speaker
You've proven yourself.
00:46:28
Speaker
I'm getting out of here.
00:46:30
Speaker
Uh, here's something that will help
Zach's Sacrifice with Alien Artifact
00:46:32
Speaker
take care of this.
00:46:32
Speaker
It gives him like this football shaped artifact.
00:46:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:35
Speaker
Uh, it's some sort of grenade and he says like, just, just throw it down into the earth and it's going to take out the soldiers, uh, uh, that, uh, that, that are now your main obstacle.
00:46:47
Speaker
Right.
00:46:47
Speaker
And says, it says it's going to be leaving soon and it transports him out of the ship.
00:46:52
Speaker
Yep.
00:46:53
Speaker
So cut to the explosion.
00:46:56
Speaker
Marla and Cal are okay, but Roland is hurting.
00:47:01
Speaker
Roland is bleeding.
00:47:02
Speaker
And we've got a La Pieda kind of move with his head in Marla's lap.
00:47:08
Speaker
Marla gets real weird about Roland in kind of the same way she did with Vance.
00:47:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:15
Speaker
The quote is something like, what a magnificent man or something.
00:47:18
Speaker
And it's like.
00:47:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:19
Speaker
girl, like the thirst, the thirst is unreal with her.
00:47:23
Speaker
It's real for Martha.
00:47:25
Speaker
I was, I was just getting over the whole, like being with Vance to survive kind of plot.
00:47:31
Speaker
I was just getting over that.
00:47:33
Speaker
Now you're like, I don't know, but this one's good too.
00:47:36
Speaker
Right.
00:47:36
Speaker
And he's black.
00:47:37
Speaker
So let's do that.
00:47:40
Speaker
It's really uncomfortable.
00:47:42
Speaker
And it's right in front of her kid.
00:47:44
Speaker
Yeah, it's yeah.
00:47:45
Speaker
So she's, she's yeah, definitely.
00:47:48
Speaker
She's doing the, the La Pieda.
00:47:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:52
Speaker
She's got them and she's, she's like sitting and kneeling and yeah.
00:47:58
Speaker
Mournful and shit.
00:47:59
Speaker
It's like, I lost another potential husband.
00:48:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:04
Speaker
So the monitor comes back, bringing Zack with it in its tentacles and drops him down.
00:48:11
Speaker
He he quickly apologizes to Cal and Marla for everything that he's done to get them there and tells them to get the hell down.
00:48:20
Speaker
They do.
00:48:22
Speaker
And he throws the artifact down, basically releasing what is described as a miniature sun that consumes him and all of the guards.
00:48:33
Speaker
The blast melts Gorman's eyes.
00:48:36
Speaker
Yep.
00:48:37
Speaker
He's screaming and everything like that.
00:48:39
Speaker
But Zach liquefies the guy's eyes.
00:48:42
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:48:43
Speaker
Liquefies his eyes in the skull.
00:48:44
Speaker
He's out there screaming.
00:48:46
Speaker
But Zach, that's a wrap on Zach.
00:48:48
Speaker
Zach is gone.
00:48:48
Speaker
That is a wrap on Zach.
00:48:49
Speaker
Here's the thing.
00:48:50
Speaker
I don't know if Zach actually knew that this thing was going to kill him or not.
00:48:54
Speaker
It doesn't seem like he was informed of what was going to happen.
00:48:57
Speaker
The alien did not mention that.
00:48:58
Speaker
Did not even imply it.
00:48:59
Speaker
Did not specify.
00:49:00
Speaker
And here's the thing.
00:49:01
Speaker
The other thing.
00:49:02
Speaker
The other thing.
00:49:02
Speaker
Zach doesn't even, like, have a, he doesn't have a, like, Vance got more of a final line than Zach did.
00:49:12
Speaker
Yes!
00:49:12
Speaker
Zach gets blinked out of existence by the sun thing.
00:49:16
Speaker
Zach basically gets the same ending Roscoe got.
00:49:18
Speaker
No, Roscoe at least had more last words.
00:49:22
Speaker
He just disappears.
00:49:24
Speaker
Zach is evaporated by this tiny something.
00:49:29
Speaker
The guards, it doesn't evaporate the guards, but it melts their armor.
00:49:35
Speaker
and a really terrifying thing and cooks them inside the armor.
00:49:39
Speaker
And you can see like some of the armor like melts out from their head.
00:49:43
Speaker
And it's just like these skulls on the top of the armor, like frozen in place.
00:49:49
Speaker
Shirley writes some gore-tastic stuff.
00:49:52
Speaker
I mean, he proved that in Bioshock.
00:49:55
Speaker
We get, we get some moments here that are very, very good.
00:49:58
Speaker
Zach is like, I'm going to save the day, but he's not going to even didn't even get to really say anything to his family.
00:50:04
Speaker
I'm surprised.
00:50:05
Speaker
Do you think he was like, like, Oh shit, I'm going to like, that's it.
00:50:09
Speaker
Uh, we get this really funny and this is when Burl appears.
00:50:13
Speaker
Uh, they're all kind of like, it's kind of like mini eulogies for Zach at this point.
00:50:17
Speaker
Everyone's like, he was a good man.
00:50:19
Speaker
And, uh, and Burl appears out of nowhere and he goes, well, we, we didn't, uh,
00:50:24
Speaker
CII on everything, but he was a good boy and all that.
00:50:27
Speaker
They're all doing this.
00:50:28
Speaker
And in the meantime, you have to understand that in the background, Gorman is still clutching at his face, screaming.
00:50:39
Speaker
So just imagine this man off in the corner going, Oh God, I was screaming his bloody lungs out.
00:50:45
Speaker
And they're going, Oh,
00:50:46
Speaker
Zach was a good father.
00:50:47
Speaker
He was a good man.
00:50:48
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:50:50
Speaker
Well, he stole some stuff from me, and I tried to kill him a few times.
00:50:54
Speaker
But I got to tell you, he was a good man.
00:50:57
Speaker
He was a good egg.
00:50:58
Speaker
He was a good egg.
00:50:59
Speaker
Burl, where the fuck were you?
00:51:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:02
Speaker
Burl.
00:51:03
Speaker
Baby.
00:51:05
Speaker
Bubla.
00:51:06
Speaker
Like.
00:51:08
Speaker
Nothing.
00:51:09
Speaker
It's just weird.
00:51:10
Speaker
It's so weird.
00:51:14
Speaker
And then the spaceship flies out of the volcanic cone and Marla finally
00:51:22
Speaker
Finally uses her xenobiology background to identify the fact that the ship is not a ship, but a living alien organism.
Alien's Departure and Advice for Humans
00:51:32
Speaker
To which Roland doesn't even go, by God, you're right.
00:51:34
Speaker
He goes, yeah, you might be right.
00:51:36
Speaker
Like, it's not even enough that like they believe her right off the bat.
00:51:39
Speaker
They're just like, yeah, maybe that's an interesting theory.
00:51:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:42
Speaker
This is the only use.
00:51:44
Speaker
They are on a planet forever.
00:51:45
Speaker
Filled with alien monsters.
00:51:47
Speaker
And this is the only time she gets to use her.
00:51:50
Speaker
And Roland's like, yeah, maybe I got a concussion.
00:51:55
Speaker
Which is fair.
00:51:56
Speaker
Which is fair.
00:51:58
Speaker
The ship sends a voice into their heads that says, try not to be such dumbasses.
00:52:04
Speaker
Have the courage to find your light, which is pretty good.
00:52:07
Speaker
So long.
00:52:08
Speaker
And thanks for all the fish.
00:52:09
Speaker
I mean, yeah, yeah, pretty much.
00:52:13
Speaker
We cut to the epilogue.
00:52:15
Speaker
We're going to wrap it up real tidy.
00:52:18
Speaker
Roland has made a deal with Atlas.
00:52:22
Speaker
They're going to give Atlas Gorman back and an artifact that they already had anyway.
00:52:28
Speaker
And in exchange, Atlas will fly Cal and Marla to Xanthus, where they were headed in the first place.
00:52:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:37
Speaker
They theorized basically that the sabotage, because she's like, well, Atlas sabotaged our ship.
00:52:43
Speaker
And they said, no, it was actually probably the alien ship sabotaging anything that was trying to come into the planet because it was so close to leaving.
00:52:53
Speaker
And it didn't want anyone else to fuck that up, which I don't know what they based on.
00:52:57
Speaker
I mean, obviously, that's what Shirley wanted to be the answer.
00:53:00
Speaker
But it is kind of just like this really wacky theory right out.
00:53:03
Speaker
It's like, no, I think it's like.
00:53:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:07
Speaker
I feel like it's just as much conjecture as Atlas sabotaging.
00:53:10
Speaker
That was like, it could have been either really.
00:53:14
Speaker
It's treated as no, I'm pretty sure this it's treated as like, this is what happened.
00:53:18
Speaker
Uh, but it's, it's based on what they know.
00:53:22
Speaker
Right.
00:53:23
Speaker
It's, it's, it's really out there.
00:53:26
Speaker
Um,
00:53:27
Speaker
So Cal asks Roland to come with them.
00:53:31
Speaker
Marla backs him up, but Roland's not going to do it because he's a loner gunslinger, you know, all mysterious and shit.
00:53:40
Speaker
I got, I live free here.
00:53:42
Speaker
I live free and I'll never be bored on Pandora.
00:53:46
Speaker
Exactly.
00:53:46
Speaker
He gets his libertarian on.
00:53:51
Speaker
That's why he never hit on Marla too old for his taste.
00:53:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:56
Speaker
And then Marla and very, you know what?
00:53:58
Speaker
He's very, he's very like he would be on the firefly.
00:54:03
Speaker
Yes.
00:54:05
Speaker
Great, great, great guy for, for the, yeah, absolutely.
00:54:07
Speaker
Perfect.
00:54:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:09
Speaker
Marlon Cal get in the ship.
00:54:11
Speaker
It takes them far away from Pandora.
00:54:15
Speaker
The end.
00:54:16
Speaker
The end.
00:54:17
Speaker
By the way, at the end, Cal says, bye, dad.
00:54:21
Speaker
And for a second, I thought he was saying that to Roland.
00:54:24
Speaker
I'm like, oh, no, he's saying that because his dad died here.
00:54:28
Speaker
Yeah, because he's actually his dad died.
00:54:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:30
Speaker
Yeah, that kid's fucked
Cal's Unresolved Trauma
00:54:32
Speaker
up.
00:54:32
Speaker
He's got PTSD from all the lines.
00:54:34
Speaker
And then he sees his dad briefly and then watches these vaporites.
00:54:37
Speaker
He gets no closure.
00:54:38
Speaker
No closure on this.
00:54:40
Speaker
This kid is I don't I think it would have been a kinder gesture to let him stay on Pandora.
00:54:45
Speaker
At least he would have had Roland there to like guide him along.
00:54:48
Speaker
Like, yeah, like it just he's not
00:54:50
Speaker
You're going to go to Xanthus and have Marla at some point is like, we owe it to your dead father to have a beautiful life in Xanthus.
00:55:00
Speaker
What the fuck is this kid going to do in Xanthus?
00:55:02
Speaker
He's going to shoot up his school.
00:55:04
Speaker
Like this kid is fucked.
00:55:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:10
Speaker
It's like Xanthus is like Burl's like a lot of water on Xanthus.
00:55:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:17
Speaker
the extent of it really yeah it's just it's just yeah so and that's and then they leave that's the end yeah and we don't even we don't yeah that's that's it oh yeah and we get like burl and roland are like maybe we're gonna work together i got busy back yeah busy comes back that's right sorry busy came back uh uh they don't explain if it's just yeah i think well he does actually say it's
00:55:42
Speaker
It's kind of hilarious.
00:55:43
Speaker
The alien's gone.
00:55:44
Speaker
The alien's gone.
00:55:45
Speaker
And so there's nothing to interfere with my, my mind control device.
00:55:52
Speaker
It's like, yeah, this is not your friend, Burl.
00:55:57
Speaker
This is, this is, this animal's a slave to you.
00:56:00
Speaker
That's what this is.
00:56:02
Speaker
Thank goodness.
00:56:03
Speaker
Thank goodness.
00:56:04
Speaker
My slaves back.
00:56:07
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:56:08
Speaker
So Kevin, what, what'd you think?
00:56:09
Speaker
What'd you think of Borderlands, the fallen?
00:56:12
Speaker
Here's what I'll say.
00:56:13
Speaker
It's like, it's a very energetic, easy read of a book.
00:56:18
Speaker
It has a lot of fun moments in it.
00:56:21
Speaker
A lot of fun characters.
00:56:25
Speaker
But Marla is all over the map.
00:56:29
Speaker
Just like basically the, she is the, um,
00:56:35
Speaker
She is the perfect example of male author writing female character breasting boobily down the stairs, you know, because part of my issue is that, yeah, she's painted in the beginning as, you know, she's.
00:56:51
Speaker
She's got, she's a xenobiologist.
00:56:54
Speaker
She hasn't really done it in a long time, you know, because of fam, you know, keeping the family together and all that stuff.
00:57:01
Speaker
And she's got this husband, Zach, who's always off pulling shenanigans and whatnot.
00:57:06
Speaker
And she gets down to the planet and we explore the,
00:57:09
Speaker
her using her femininity and sexuality to kind of survive, but then simultaneously forgetting the fact that she's a xenobiologist until it's convenient at the very end.
00:57:22
Speaker
And it doesn't even, it doesn't even add anything to the story of her just saying that might be a creature.
00:57:28
Speaker
And Rowan's like, I'm dying.
00:57:30
Speaker
Can you please take me somewhere?
00:57:32
Speaker
Bleeding out.
00:57:33
Speaker
Bleeding out.
00:57:36
Speaker
So, yeah, there's that.
00:57:37
Speaker
It's like there's a lot of good in here, but I think the contrast, it's a very sharp contrast of a lot of fun stuff mixed with a lot of just terrible characterizations of Marla.
00:57:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:57:57
Speaker
And I think we focus a lot on
00:58:01
Speaker
I think Zack needed to be a lot more likable than he was because to me, that kind of made it, it made his sacrifice less interesting because the only time we spend with Zack is him.
00:58:19
Speaker
He leaves the ship,
00:58:22
Speaker
Because he's a fucking idiot and he goes down to the, he gets shot down and he gets his, the main ship shot down, nearly gets his family killed near tries to steal things from the only guy who will help him.
00:58:38
Speaker
Oh my God.
00:58:39
Speaker
Over and over and over and over again.
00:58:44
Speaker
And then he has one moment of clarity and he helps Burl.
00:58:53
Speaker
And he's like, well, Burl was going to kill me.
00:58:55
Speaker
And he's like, yeah, motherfucker, Burl was going to kill you because you kept fucking stealing from him.
00:58:59
Speaker
Right, right.
00:59:00
Speaker
He owed you.
00:59:01
Speaker
He owed you.
00:59:02
Speaker
He owed you a bullet in the head.
00:59:03
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:59:05
Speaker
So anyway, Zack was not a good enough character.
00:59:10
Speaker
I feel like it almost like...
00:59:13
Speaker
I feel like there was a better story in there where it's just Cal and Roland the entire time.
00:59:21
Speaker
I couldn't agree more.
00:59:23
Speaker
Based on what we were given, if we just had a story about Cal and Roland and Cal basically training a replacement slash partner, we go in that direction because I loved their characterizations.
00:59:37
Speaker
I loved their shenanigans.
00:59:39
Speaker
I loved all this.
00:59:39
Speaker
I thought that was great.
00:59:41
Speaker
I agree.
00:59:42
Speaker
I think Zach was.
00:59:43
Speaker
was a little one note and, um, ultimately just annoying, not very interesting and also definitely not likable enough.
00:59:51
Speaker
And Marla, but, but I think the thing, yeah, Marla, it just kept screaming back to me.
00:59:57
Speaker
If she was a more minor character, I wouldn't noticed as much, but she is one of the main characters of this book.
01:00:03
Speaker
And we go from, um,
01:00:07
Speaker
You know, Zack having this big adventure like where he nearly dies and has to do this and has to do that.
01:00:14
Speaker
And then Cal learning to be a man and taking his first life and it's fucking him up and all that stuff to Marla having very little value beyond just being an undeformed woman.
01:00:29
Speaker
Yes.
01:00:30
Speaker
Um, it's like nothing interesting is done with it.
01:00:34
Speaker
You know, there's so many things.
01:00:35
Speaker
If you want her to, if you want her to use her feminine wiles, you could go a lot of directions with that.
01:00:39
Speaker
You can have me like, she's kind of a homely woman and like, she's never done this before.
01:00:43
Speaker
So it's really awkward.
01:00:44
Speaker
And she has a lot of introspection about how does this work and how do I do this properly?
01:00:48
Speaker
And, and they don't even really like me, not me.
01:00:50
Speaker
You know, it's like, you could, you can do that and make it interesting and make her a third dimension, three dimensional character.
01:00:57
Speaker
Uh,
01:00:57
Speaker
But she's just very, it's, it's, Zach is flat and Marla's insulting.
01:01:03
Speaker
Yes.
01:01:04
Speaker
That's really what it comes down to.
01:01:07
Speaker
So, so in, in the end, like still all packaged together, it's like.
Book Reflection on Character Development
01:01:15
Speaker
Yeah, it's fine.
01:01:16
Speaker
I enjoyed kind of where you still kind of get pulled along by John Shirley's writing.
01:01:24
Speaker
Shirley's a great writer.
01:01:25
Speaker
He is a great writer.
01:01:26
Speaker
Entertaining writer.
01:01:28
Speaker
Just the characters on this were a bit of a miss, I would say.
01:01:35
Speaker
Yeah.
01:01:35
Speaker
Yeah.
01:01:36
Speaker
So it's definitely not.
01:01:40
Speaker
Here's the thing is ultimately this book, we have our best of the best and we have our worst of the worst.
01:01:48
Speaker
And then there's a big pile of books that end up somewhere in the middle.
01:01:53
Speaker
And they go, I said this to somebody the other day, those books go to where Bing Bong goes in the brain.
01:02:00
Speaker
Right.
01:02:01
Speaker
They just, it's like in a month, I'm not going to remember a lot about this book.
01:02:08
Speaker
I'll look at it and go, oh, I remember that being a fun book.
01:02:13
Speaker
And that's probably the extent of it.
01:02:15
Speaker
Yeah, that's probably how much I'm going to, it didn't move me.
01:02:19
Speaker
It didn't shake me to my core.
01:02:22
Speaker
And it didn't make me scream and rage.
01:02:27
Speaker
True.
01:02:27
Speaker
Yeah.
01:02:28
Speaker
So, yeah.
01:02:29
Speaker
Yeah.
01:02:31
Speaker
Well, now that that's done, Kevin, I have a single solitary question to ask you.
01:02:37
Speaker
Yeah.
01:02:38
Speaker
What are you playing?
01:02:40
Speaker
Oh, God.
01:02:41
Speaker
I feel bad because I haven't had anything new.
01:02:45
Speaker
Oh, thank God.
01:02:47
Speaker
It has not been a good week for gaming for me.
01:02:49
Speaker
to actually talk about because I am still playing Shadow of the Erd Tree, the DLC for Elden Ring.
01:02:57
Speaker
Now, between last week and this week, I've made huge amounts of progress in the DLC.
01:03:05
Speaker
I think I'm getting close to the end of it.
01:03:07
Speaker
I really dig it, man.
01:03:10
Speaker
It's awesome.
01:03:12
Speaker
The DLC will probably be...
01:03:16
Speaker
It's going to be on my game of the year list.
01:03:17
Speaker
It's going to be pretty high.
01:03:18
Speaker
I was about to ask that if that was if it holds up to the point that you'd put it on the game of the year list.
01:03:23
Speaker
Yeah, I would I would I would carve it out as like, you know, it's a it's a hefty enough expansion to the game.
01:03:32
Speaker
Back in my day, we would call it an expansion expansion.
01:03:35
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
01:03:38
Speaker
It is a big expansion to the game where it adds a basically another continent to the to the lands between.
01:03:50
Speaker
So the concept is and I don't think I've actually explained it is that you're you're sent to a shadow realm and somebody pointed out on one of the the reddits that the area that you're in the if you take the map
01:04:06
Speaker
of the Shadow Realm and you lay it over top of a certain area of the original game's map, you could see that it looks like it belongs to it belongs on the original continent.
01:04:20
Speaker
So at some point, this whole landmass got just ripped away and put in kind of thing.
01:04:26
Speaker
Yeah.
01:04:26
Speaker
And put into this like alternate dimension.
01:04:31
Speaker
And
01:04:32
Speaker
uh you know all those all those miyazaki games the the dark souls is and the uh demon souls and and elden ring they all kind of play with this idea of multiple timelines and dimensions and universes kind of sitting on top of each other so in uh in elden ring
01:04:57
Speaker
It's set in the Lands Between and you have references to other places, but it's not truly explained what the Lands Between are.
01:05:08
Speaker
And some people believe that the Lands Between is like, it's like Valhalla or it's like Mount Olympus.
01:05:14
Speaker
This is the land of the gods and there's, you can only get to it
01:05:20
Speaker
through certain means.
01:05:22
Speaker
So there's the lands between and then even deeper into the lands between there's the shadow realm where this one of the gods, Mikla, has kind of
01:05:36
Speaker
gone, like he's gone to, he is, he has decided that this is where he is headed.
01:05:43
Speaker
So, uh, yeah, I'm really enjoying the DLC.
01:05:46
Speaker
It's got a lot of really neat characters and twists and turns in it.
01:05:51
Speaker
You find some, you find some things out about things that are in the base game.
01:05:56
Speaker
Like there's these dudes that are just, that are called, uh, living jars, uh,
01:06:01
Speaker
So they, Oh, I've seen, I've seen, I've seen the living jars.
01:06:04
Speaker
Yeah.
01:06:05
Speaker
Yeah.
01:06:05
Speaker
Yeah.
01:06:06
Speaker
People are selling pots based on them.
01:06:08
Speaker
So yeah.
01:06:09
Speaker
They're adorable, right?
01:06:10
Speaker
The living jars.
01:06:11
Speaker
They're really cute.
01:06:12
Speaker
The DLC shows you how they're made.
01:06:15
Speaker
Oh God.
01:06:16
Speaker
I'm sure it's totally natural and adorable.
01:06:20
Speaker
I'm sure.
01:06:21
Speaker
It's great.
01:06:22
Speaker
It's adorable.
01:06:24
Speaker
It's fine.
01:06:25
Speaker
You get to see what they look like without the jar.
01:06:28
Speaker
Oh, good.
01:06:29
Speaker
Good.
01:06:29
Speaker
That's that's that's that was immediately where my head went when I first saw.
01:06:33
Speaker
So yeah, you learn how the how the living jars are made in the DLC.
01:06:40
Speaker
And let me tell you, not great.
01:06:46
Speaker
I can imagine.
01:06:51
Speaker
So, yeah, but loving it so far.
01:06:54
Speaker
I've just beaten a really annoying bot.
01:06:59
Speaker
A couple of really annoying bosses.
01:07:03
Speaker
One, this guy named Commander Gaius, who rides on the back of a wild, massive wild, armored wild boar type thing.
01:07:15
Speaker
And he just fucks you up.
01:07:16
Speaker
He...
01:07:17
Speaker
It's actually hilarious when you first get into the boss arena, you don't even realize it's a boss arena because it's so big.
01:07:24
Speaker
And you walk through the door and like way, way off in the distance, you see this dude like...
01:07:33
Speaker
on, on, on, you think maybe it's horseback or whatever, just like crossing across the field.
01:07:40
Speaker
And then he's, then it's way off in the distance, stops and turns towards you and then charges all the way across the field at like the super high speed.
01:07:52
Speaker
It's like Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
01:07:54
Speaker
Exactly.
01:07:59
Speaker
Oh, God.
01:08:00
Speaker
But yeah, so Elden Ring, Shadow of the Erd Tree, probably finishing it in the next couple days and should be all wrapped up there.
01:08:10
Speaker
Nice.
01:08:11
Speaker
So, Phil, what are you playing, if anything?
01:08:17
Speaker
I'm still playing Jurassic Park Evolution 2.
01:08:23
Speaker
I'm really enjoying it.
01:08:24
Speaker
I finished all the campaign modes, so now it's all just challenges and shit.
01:08:28
Speaker
Or it's Jurassic World Evolution 2.
01:08:30
Speaker
They do...
01:08:32
Speaker
You do some really interesting stuff with a campaign.
01:08:34
Speaker
I was saying before that last week that I was playing the bios in campaign, which is basically it's the prequel to the Jurassic World movies and, you know, the rivals coming in and trying to do the same thing.
01:08:51
Speaker
And so you build up and you have all of these.
01:08:54
Speaker
goals and achievements you have to achieve to get to the end.
01:08:59
Speaker
And then it cuts forward in time to after Jurassic World has ended and it's just a fucking shit show and everything is like burnt to the ground.
01:09:10
Speaker
And you pick up from there.
01:09:14
Speaker
You're hired to rebuild the park.
01:09:17
Speaker
Well, yeah, you pick up from there as Ellie and Dr. Grant and all them basically trying to corral the living dinosaurs and like at least give them some kind of good life while we wait for them to die.
01:09:36
Speaker
That's the impression you get.
01:09:37
Speaker
They're like, they're not necessarily trying to make it a...
01:09:40
Speaker
a tourist attraction, but they're like, we need to keep these dinosaurs here and just give them some semblance of a normal life and let them go extinct again.
01:09:53
Speaker
It's fun.
01:09:53
Speaker
It was really fun doing it from both sides like that because it's very creative for this kind of strategy.
01:10:02
Speaker
games campaign.
01:10:03
Speaker
Yeah.
01:10:04
Speaker
It goes beyond just the usual make sure that you get this level of park, which which was basically what they were doing in the campaign with the first one.
01:10:14
Speaker
It was just it's just a smoother, more interesting campaign.
01:10:16
Speaker
Yeah.
01:10:17
Speaker
Now there are a bunch of challenges and I'm planning on getting into those at my leisure.
01:10:23
Speaker
I did start playing a game called Stone Story.
01:10:28
Speaker
uh i played this i got this on my phone i i don't remember what what recommended it but it's this it's this very basic role-playing game it's got that ascii uh kind of uh uh quality to it but it's very cute and it's got a lot of the same vibes as a lot of online not online games phone games where you are you know
01:10:51
Speaker
Traveling through the different levels, it's kind of auto-played and you have to equip yourself with the right things to do to get the best benefits.
01:10:59
Speaker
Right.
01:10:59
Speaker
But it is interesting because there are different levels of the same level.
01:11:03
Speaker
So, you know, with most of these kinds of games, you go through the one star version of the level, then you go to the second star and it's the same level.
01:11:11
Speaker
It's just a little harder.
01:11:13
Speaker
No, it's an entirely different level now.
01:11:16
Speaker
And so and there are little mysteries and little puzzles and stuff like that.
01:11:20
Speaker
It's not.
01:11:21
Speaker
like a particularly great game, but I did start playing it at work during my lunch break and I was just like, this is oddly relaxing.
01:11:31
Speaker
There she is.
01:11:32
Speaker
So, hey, I was wondering where she was.
01:11:35
Speaker
She knew she had to get here.
01:11:37
Speaker
It's good timing.
01:11:39
Speaker
But I. Marama's done.
01:11:46
Speaker
It's a good timing.
01:11:47
Speaker
Good timing.
01:11:53
Speaker
It's a free game, but they have like a weird premium aspect to it.
01:11:57
Speaker
That's like $9.99 a month.
01:11:59
Speaker
And I'm like, who does that?
01:12:03
Speaker
I don't understand where they're going with it.
01:12:05
Speaker
I don't think it's trying to do anything clever.
01:12:07
Speaker
I don't think there's a game hidden under the game or anything.
01:12:09
Speaker
I think this is just what it is.
01:12:13
Speaker
But for a little...
01:12:14
Speaker
you know, sword and sorcery game where, you know, I don't have to control the character all the way through and just consider on my desk and get some work done and play a game at the same time.
01:12:27
Speaker
Not bad.
01:12:28
Speaker
Not bad.
01:12:29
Speaker
Not right.
01:12:30
Speaker
But that's right.
01:12:31
Speaker
All
Concluding Social Media Shoutouts
01:12:32
Speaker
right.
01:12:32
Speaker
Well, that'll do it for tonight's episode.
01:12:34
Speaker
Thank you so much for listening.
01:12:37
Speaker
If you want to find more of our stuff, then you can go ahead and follow us on Twitter.
01:12:45
Speaker
The hell site owned by the worst human being in the world, Elon Musk.
01:12:51
Speaker
He is the worst.
01:12:53
Speaker
And whoever is the worst, that could change from moment to moment.
01:12:59
Speaker
But Elon is always, he's always like hovering right there.
01:13:02
Speaker
He's always right in there.
01:13:04
Speaker
There's other people who are worst of the moment, but Elon is just always right fucking there.
01:13:09
Speaker
So you can follow us on Twitter.
01:13:11
Speaker
You can follow us on Instagram where you can see pictures, Phil posts of the episode and all that fun stuff.
01:13:20
Speaker
You can follow us on Blue Sky.
01:13:21
Speaker
And once again, you can follow us on Patreon.
01:13:24
Speaker
That is patreon.com slash pixelitpod.
01:13:27
Speaker
Thank you so much for listening and have a good night, everybody.
01:13:31
Speaker
Goodbye.