Transcript
Speaker: Worm is a web serial by J .C. McCray, also known as Wildbo. You can read Worm in its original format by visiting parahumans ah .wordpress dot .com or donate to Wildbo's Patreon at patreon dot .com slash wildbo. This story isn't intended for young or sensitive readers. Readers who are on the lookout for trigger warnings are advised to give Worm a pass. For a complete list, check the description for all of Worm's trigger warnings.
Speaker: Welcome to the longest arc in worm. Hey. Arc 16. And we're about to dissect it. And by we, I mean me, but myself, Jacob, and Alan, as always. Myself, of course. Naturally. And Michael. Welcome, you beautiful men. Thank you. Thank you, Jacob. I'm ah here straight to the point. I like it. Well, we got a lot to get to and it's a, it's a bit intimidating. I'm going to be honest. Exactly. I don't think it is. I have very few notes. It's funny because, because looking at it, I, I was thinking, you know what? This episode could be like five minutes long and we could just say, let's put a pin in it and restructure it when we're done with the season. Yeah. But in the interest of content,
Speaker: yeah well get ahead and give it up what yeah we'll give it a We'll give it a little bit of thought. But no, quite a bit happens here. And we've got some conflict. And where we knew this was coming, but we've got some conflict with some of the earlier plot elements that we've begun to restructure. So I think we've got a little bit to resolve here and and move around. so yeah I mean, I'm just going to, I'm just going to dive in. We got, yeah, we got 13 chapters and, and four, three interludes. Yeah. Three interludes 13 chapters. Yeah. Let's just go, let's go chapter by chapter. Yeah. Let's kind of move through it. Uh, this arc begins with a bit of, um, RNR at, Taylor's territory. Yeah. Um, which is always nice. You know, I'd like to take,
Speaker: straight inspiration from ah fast and furious. Um, so apparently this is the fast and furious, you know, episode where they busted and like immediately steal the kid or try to get which one that was ah so to take your pick. You got all like a one in 10 shot at guessing correctly. Yeah. Um, I feel like the big thing here, I think is that ah um as we've discussed before, um potentially bringing Thomas Calvert quickly into assistant deputy position to take over for Piget who,
Speaker: I don't think we discussed this, but I think it would be better to get rid of Piget another way other than killing her um and as we'll see. in a little bit. Um, but in this case, I think Calvert should be the one to discuss like dividing and conquering essentially. So we can fill in some, uh, add some time back at the wards. I think this will be a heavy ward admin episode because obviously we get to pick it. it, pick it, pick it. I think we get napped and then like a whole back and forth between them. So like, why not have some,
Speaker: Hey, uh, instead of them just rolling up on this meeting where the kidnap picket have some stuff going on before that that leads up to this meeting, for instance, you know, we could have weld being like, yo, we had arms master here, like the whole time. And you didn't want to fucking tell anyone, which, you know, riding off the back of the last one. Right. Right.
Speaker: Yeah, I agree. Hey, we've talked about that a little bit before. Um, and we'll kind of get into more of the Thomas Calvert, uh, reveal as, as we build, but yeah, definitely kind of restructuring that already. And, uh, with that restructure will be a, will be a bit of the, the restructuring of, of Piggott's fall from grace or a exit stage left, if you will. Yeah. Cause truthfully coil slash Thomas Calvert. is just Palpatine, but good. Yeah. Basically. And slightly less successful. Successful. Yeah. Yeah. Right. That is true. Um, cause you want him to like, yeah I mean, literally this is the time where he's playing both sides, have him swooping in, like in this case, in our scenario in which he's suggesting this, um, you know, all the,
Speaker: All the dragon bots show up. They tag everybody. This is his suggestion. And also on the other end of things, he's telling them to stand down because like, that's what he wants. Like if they beat them, he wins. If he, you know, beats them, he wins. There's also, um we also have a, there's another idea. I'm going to throw this out at you too. um And we're going to put a pretty big pin in this one. I know I just said we didn't want to do that, but we're going to do it for this one. in terms of In terms of how we want to handle piglet and calvert, especially i know were I know our plan, we've talked sort of off pod about this of of stretching out the coil downfall for the entire season.
Speaker: Yeah. But thinking long -term going beyond that too, and in terms of the ah ah replacing the director, PRT and all that kind of stuff, we could bring Piget back instead of tag you know or something like that. Especially if if we're going to give Piget more of a character leading up to these moments. um Because she doesn't she's not dead. that She just gets replaced and recovers from getting stabbed. That light is true. You know, it would cut down on characters. You could, you could bring her back. Like I said, big pin, something to revisit, but no it's that's a good thought because ah truthfully, I don't like how many PRT directors we go through. Yeah. I guess said this before it's overwhelming Taylor goes through them like tissue paper. Um, I, I'm trying to even remember how many arcs tag makes it if more than one, you know? Yeah. Uh,
Speaker: But I think that's a great idea. I think we come back cause she is a hard nose. She would not, you know, care at all until somebody made her stop and just killed her. Um, which is, you know, great, a great escalation, especially considering like everything that's happened. They've kidnapped her. She basically kidnaps Taylor later on. Like, you know, there's threats and she's like, what are you going to do to me? But I can do plenty of stuff to you. And then she starts, you know, fake killing people. I think, I think that's a great idea.
Speaker: It just sort of helps kind of keep everything yeah again a bit so open easier to follow. I'll jump ahead then as long as we're talking PRT directors. I think ideally we, or sorry. And my original idea was that instead of her getting killed off at this press conference thing, or the debate um The idea would be that she is essentially rendered unusable as a PRT director because they were she was kidnapped by Regent. It doesn't even matter the amount of time. If you are kidnapped by Regent, you can assess essentially be just assumed to be compromised. So like the fact that she was there means that she should be out of a job immediately.
Speaker: um Right. And people could say, well, we do know how long generally how long it takes. It's like, well, but do you like, right. Do you have a good metric for that? Like what if it only takes 20 minutes? Like if you're missing for you half an hour, then, you know, you're considered compromised. Like,
Speaker: Yeah, no, I mean, that's a good point. that's And that's really easy to to throw in and the audience would buy it. Like that makes a lot of sense. I think that would work pretty well. Yeah. um I think the only problem there is it would Nick's bringing her back in later on. Cause like, yeah how could you do that if she's been compromised? Yeah, make you could yeah you could work it um if she's brought back in in secret and nobody knows that she's running things, that kind of thing. um There's there's ways around it. Yeah, cuz obviously Mike can't control somebody doesn't he's not aware is there see I don't know if that's true um Which I mean it could be for our purposes um Yeah, the other thing I was gonna say is she just you know I've been cleared by The dragon tinkered that I was not compromised. They said so I'm good to go
Speaker: i mean i was going to say we have We have some get at it, like tickers are the get out of jail free cards. yeah dragon Dragon put a device on me that'll alert me when my neural functions aren't are yeah you know properly, you know whatever. she We had a mind control tinker wave a magic bar over me and he sensed that I was not able to, like I'm not being mind controlled. No, no powers here. Yeah. And you were asking how often James tag is, uh, around. So his debut is, um, arc 20, right? Um, he appears in arc 21 appears in arc 22. And then after that, he's only mentioned, he's mentioned quite a bit, but he doesn't even like appear up here after that. dang Okay. So, so he's in there for three arcs.
Speaker: Yeah. Which is more credit than I gave him. Also, he's the, well, he, he, deb he debuts at the end of 20. So it really is. Oh, dang. Okay. So, yeah, yeah. So he really only gets two arcs, which once again, more than Thomas Calvert got. Yeah, he died. Yeah. He dies and and and spoilers as everybody. Yeah. Midway through 22. Well, I was going to say, we have made this crystal clear by now. If you are listening, clear this is a spoiler podcast for all of worm. Please be caught up. yeah yeah He dies on and midway through 22. So there you go. So he gets one and a half. I still like to think that he got his name on a plaque in an office, which is yeah more than Thomas Calvert who didn't get to show up for his first day of work. Yeah, correct. All right. Uh, do you want to jump just straight to the, uh, the thoughts? Yeah, I was going to say, let's, let's, we'll move through it. Yep. All right. Uh, I think it needs to be smoothed up.
Speaker: Um, I think this should be sort of a quick, the things happen. They may be like block the windows and then finally it looks like Taylor's about to lose. And then she gets teleported out somehow. Uh, and they realize like what's happened. And then we do a quick oceans, 11, burn our own dome, you know, yeah big upright face brown on firm but yeah and show them like imp coming in, grabbing her. ah pigot and then them teleporting her out. A real heist. All along. Yeah. real I mean, it's a great heist idea if you just swapped him with Piget because like, bam, she's out. Nobody sees the person who's there. They're just like, wasn't there somebody here maybe? Like, right. right yeah ah You know, you could have it because I, you know, if we wanted to expand Em's powers, which,
Speaker: are, we've seen some weird things where they like kind of leave gaps in conversation and stuff already enough so that like, I don't know truly if she zipped out for Pigot that people would just forget that Pigot was there. he because of how weird and abrupt her power is as it jumps in or the pig, it has just disappeared and they don't see the person sitting in her seat. ah Right. So yeah, it's, it's like, I i think it's, it's the way I've always imagined it is very similar to the, the group of beings from doctor who the silence doctor who fans out there where it's like,
Speaker: you remember them while you're looking at them, but the second you look away, everything is forgotten. So it, it comes across as being completely unaware that anything's happening, even if you can see it right in front of you, because the second you can't see it or you turn around around or or turn to say something to somebody, it's gone. It's just gone. So it's like she has, she has no risk of anyone even trying to stop her. And it's actually a little stronger than that because they don't even see her while she's there. uh, as, as evident by her failed attack on the, on the members of the solder house nine, yeah they're all looking around and nobody makes like nobody even spots her. So yeah, it's even, it it's even stronger than that. Yeah, I think so. Do you want to jump to the interlude or just keep kind of keep going chronologically?
Speaker: Yeah. I mean, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll hit the interludes here, I guess while we go through them. Um, yeah. No, I mean, no other notes on those. I think all of that adapts. Fine. There's nothing, uh, nothing really of note there. It's going to flow. I want to go chronologically. I don't have notes for arguing with Piget. I think that's a great character scene. Yeah. No, I actually liked that scene a lot. I think it's one of Piget's like greatest bits. I think it's a great scene. My, uh, want to change that biggest issue with the upcoming stuff is, uh, too many dragon fights. We go through every single dragon robot. Yep. I think, uh, yeah, I completely agree. I think I probably had a similar note here. Um, I think you just, I think you just simplify it and make it the, uh, the Azazel fight.
Speaker: I think you just, you kind of simplify the whole thing down. You get one big dragon mech, the biggest, baddest mech. And you just, if you want to draw out that fight, um you know, we' we're kind of really haven't said it yet. There's enough in this arc, along with other stuff we're going to move around. Like this is like gonna, this is going to stretch three or four episodes ah with all of this stuff going on here. I mean, you've you've got a lot and I think I think a big one big dragon mech fight is is enough. Yeah, I was going to say if you did split it up, you do it where like. Everybody has their dragon and they still kick their asses because of character development. Like in this case, Taylor doesn't.
Speaker: Taylor is not the one to beat the robot. I think because we've given bitch a little bit more of a positive like relationship with Taylor. I think maybe her asking for help or going, how the fuck do I kill this thing? You know, she calls Taylor. So you could have this, you know, the jump from one fight to another is, you know, they're both hunkered behind things hiding. And bitch just goes, how do I fucking kill this thing? And Taylor goes, do you, like, do you have to kill it? Or is like, you know, or, you know, think of that comes up with some way to, you know, destroy it with her dogs. That is a Taylor way of thinking about things or even Taylor suggestion. But the idea that like bitch asked for help. And then like, because of that bitch comes and helps Taylor, maybe um you can have those moments where like,
Speaker: they beat one and you could still show the fight with the other person and then they can join them and then they beat one and maybe they go to the next one. So like, I still think it's a lot of fights, but you could have it split up between every person instead of just going, I'm Taylor and I'm going to beat every single robot, you know, in order while I collect my teammates, which seems like a lot.
Speaker: Yeah. I agree. Yeah. I mean, I mean, there's obviously ways you can do it. Like imp being the one caught in the cage going like this statement is false and it going to be like nice try. Like that's a great, like that's, that's a great imp line to also have. Yeah. Um, you know, not that imp would ever read, but she probably does, but out of spite. Right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I think if it's done well, it'll be like really suspenseful. Like you think there are definitely not going to win because they just, the robots just keep coming back or whatever. Like that's pretty good at the the most important vibe that we need to preserve the, the amount and exact way we win. I guess are the things up for debate. Yeah.
Speaker: Um, I think, yeah, maybe some of the people win by having their teammates help them. They do a whole like, Oh, you take mine. I'll take yours. Others get like, I think Taylor's would be great. You know, uh, if, and this can be an illusion to something in the future, but like, um, because she's got a bunch of civilians around and even they are a little pissed off that they got their barbecue interrupted. Um, you know you could maybe have her use human shields,
Speaker: oh which is something, you like I said, is a tease for the future in the cafeteria. um But these are willing human shields, and that's kind of the point. It's like, hey, Gray, you've got this whole thing where you're here to kill me. It kills off my bugs, but does it kill off my like my human swarm? and right And because she can't like ah necessarily attack civilians, she's like, yeah. like You can't, won't attack them. And I'll just stand in the middle of these people, walk up and like stop you. There's no way, you know, and it could be like the whole M thing where like, yeah, like if you step on one of these people or, you know, use your, you know, any of your more lethal slaughterhouse nine gear, like it's going to kill innocent civilians. So like you fucked up. And I think that'd be a good way for her to beat.
Speaker: Yeah, that's some good yeah good ideas there. Yeah, there's definitely some creative ways we can we can approach that. Yeah. Well, we'll get anything else here. Yeah, not not too much here. Gonna move through the the dragon fights. Yeah, I mean, from that, we pretty much go to a little bit of ah Brian and Taylor interaction and then Taylor going to ah see her dad. And then, you know, from then we go to everything beyond that. um So we do get a little bit ah more more kind of downtime scenes, both with Taylor and Brian and with ah Taylor and Danny and and Danny's friends. Yeah. The abduction in the fight, obviously, is like episode one of this. Like, I think we're done there. Mm hmm.
Speaker: go back, like you said, hanging out, going to see the stuff. um Coyle pulls his whole schno shenanigan maneuver. I think we need to have some backend things of like, Piggett being asked to step down because she's been, or at least maybe temporarily step down because she's a liability. Like she comes back and immediately hands over her badge and gun. Yeah, and this is why I'm not really even thinking about where we would split this episode. There are so many other scenes we'd throw in with all of this stuff going on. There's stuff with the ward, stuff with the picket. Obviously this season we're going to throw in a few cauldron shots and things like that. So I'm not too worried about where things are going to split at the moment because I feel like we're going to come back and structure a lot of this again.
Speaker: But definitely, like yeah there's even that's a great point. like We're obviously going to want some scenes with Piget back with the team. I think it'd be interesting if you just... You don't really change too much here. ah You still let Piget get all stabby -stabbed by circus. and ah But you know have her... Maybe she's a bit more defined here. Maybe she kind of doesn't want to step down. And she says she's fine. Yada, yada. It's taken out of action anyway. and sort of loses the ah her agency there in that decision. Yeah. It could be like a, Hey, Thomas, you're the ah you know deputy director. It's your call. And he's like, you know, looks at her and she's like, you know, angry. And he's got this little sad look. He's like, I'm sorry. I gotta do it. And she's like, you set up a bitch. Yeah, yeah yeah right. Exactly. Um,
Speaker: Yeah, I I've talked about this in the book club. I don't like any of coils plan here. Yeah, we are. We are waiting for this. Yeah, we're at different different sides here because I I'm not going to say of whole I I've said it before, but I'll state it here. My my ah my simple feelings about this. I love the idea of controlling the overcity and the undercity at the same time. Um, like they just played both sides. I like, he set himself up as, you know, the kingpin for both sides. I'm very okay with that. What I'm not okay with is coil. Just goofily killing himself and doing this whole charade only to turn around and then like, you know, meet with the undersiders and
Speaker: you know, pull this whole switcheroo with Taylor. I don't buy any of that. I don't like it in the story. I don't like it here, especially. I think it comes across as goofy. um Like this is, you know, how do I make this needlessly complicated? um I think what we need to look for is potentially a just simple, Hey, now that we've done this, we'll, you know, go ahead and take care of the undersiders ahead of time because like, I know what Taylor, what Taylor wants. Let's just go ahead and get rid of her. I've got the city now. I'm now in control of the heroes. Why don't we like give her the, uh, you know, here's an idea just popping in my head now. We give her Dinah.
Speaker: And then tell the heroes, like, hey, there she is, she has Dinah, she's a child, kidnap or kill on site. Like, you know, put a few more of the aggressive ones like assault. Assault will kill her. No problem. Like, he will not ask questions. um You know, putting a hit out order on her, essentially, you know, as he becomes director. um you know, gives her Dinah, we maybe get a little bit of shine of Dinah's power, but then you have, instead of it just being a straightforward, Oh, the heroes are coming for me. Hey, Dinah, what do we got to do? You know, what do we got to do? I wanted to get you to view parents. Can I just leave you here and run? And Dinah's like, Oh, if you, you know, leave me or something, you know, I get, they'll kill you just because like, that's what they're waiting for. Um,
Speaker: ah Like I said, I literally just came off with this on the spur of my no i love the moment, kind of run my allergy, you know, induced fever dream that I'm having right now. ah But yeah, no, I think that like you just, you quickly do the switch out thing. Um, you maybe do the betrayal. I i even still think the betrayal thing is a little complicated. Um,
Speaker: yeah. What do you think Jacob? So here I'll, I'll play the, I'll play the, uh, the kid, the point counterpoint. Well, devil's advocate implies that I agree with Ellen. So, uh, we'll just go with advocate or devil. Take your pick. Uh, cause I don't, I don't necessarily love this scene, but I think, I think there's a lot to work with here. especially when I'm trying to to think about how to structure a season. So we're in agreement. We like the idea of delaying Coyle's death to the end of the season. That feels like a season finale thing. We know we're going to run into some issues here with how we want to change around Enkidna and the travelers and all that kind of stuff. So we'll come back to that. But we know that we we kind of talked about how it doesn't really make sense that we'd want to
Speaker: to to shoot this as it's written, sort of say, and and have have a coil be like a mid -season death doesn't, i just ah I don't like that idea. Yeah, it feels really off. It feels very rushed. Yeah, I don't like it. However, I think there's an interesting opportunity here utilizing the scene as it plays out. So if you're going to delay coils death to the end of the season, then I think it also makes sense to delay Coyle's reveal that the death was fake to the end of the season.
Speaker: which means that you can use this scene intentionally be as a little perplexing for the audience. Because remember, audiences like to think they're smart and it's a well -written story when when the audience feels clued into the mystery. So if you are using this both in universe as a way of pretending that Coyle is killed and the audience is also going, Man, that just doesn't feel right. That doesn't make sense. And you're playing up the next couple episodes with Thomas Calvert in power, handling things. I still kind of like your idea of maybe him using his power as director to go after the undersiders or something like that. I think you could probably work a lot of but lot of stuff in there.
Speaker: um and then getting to the end where there's this full reveal, it all comes to light and coil meets his end, that's going to be really satisfying. And I think that actually benefits from a rather... ah ah What's the word I'm thinking of? like Silly, if you will, ah fake out halfway through the season. um if Because if if it's too convincing, then the audience suffers whiplash, where if you if you were to have this really convincing fake out death, and then they're like, oh, whoa, you know, oh my gosh, what the heck is that? It can actually backfire if if the audience isn't expecting it too much. It'd be like, you know, I'm thinking of something like Game of Thrones, where like if Ned Stark just comes back in season five, it's like,
Speaker: It wasn't me all along, I survived. You'll be like, what the heck? you know No, that's stupid. But if it's if it's convincing and if it's convincing if it's written in a way to where the audience is is is feels like they're in on the mystery so that when you get to that moment and they go, aha, I knew it, I knew something was tricky here, I was on to you the whole time, then it's more satisfying. And I think you can use the scene sort of as written to to lead to that. Yeah, I'm okay with that. i'm um i That just makes me get to use Detective Weld more. There we go. Who I love.
Speaker: yeah um Especially with, you know once again, his superior being like, hey man, don't look too much into this. you know When his superior is the guy who just faked his own death. Exactly. Yeah, I think that's a great idea. We're kind of sweetballing here because I like your idea of maybe him putting a head order out on skitter, something like that. You can still use that. And what if you know Weld is the one to so go against it? Or like he's not he's not as convinced and that throws him for a loop. you know There's a lot to play with there. um Yeah.
Speaker: yeah you know especially considering down the line. Cause another thing I do try to stay within the hardcore reading, but there's a lot of setup here for future arcs. Cause I have, ah I have some issues reading the story. I think part of the weaker parts for me in the story is when skitter goes to the wards or the Chicago wards, right? There's a lot I really like about that. But it is hard to sort of get to that point for me in character and like when I'm reading it and you could, you could start to lay some foundation here where that makes a lot more sense for her. If for example, weld tips her off or something like that i like that or, or clock blocker tips her off on behalf of weld, you know, something like that. Yeah. Weld was from the Boston awards, correct?
Speaker: Yes, I think that's right. yeah spss Okay. Cause that would be a great groundwork if we sent him to the PRT director, that was his dad, basically, because, you know, very clearly he has a soft spot for weld. Um, and I think the idea of like weld and skitter, you know, getting somewhere, some sympathetic, you know, back and forth to the point where he's able to be like, hey, can like none of the other PRT directors essentially want to work with her. Could you take her in? And that's why she ends up in instead of Chicago, Boston. Yeah. Really easy change to make to the story that doesn't really change anything, just location, but would give a lot more, ah would would help a lot more with that yeah and feeling more natural. No, I like that. I like that a lot. um Yeah. I think,
Speaker: Okay. I don't mind your idea of having the mystery of, you know, coils death. I think, cause here's the thing. I do want to keep coil alive for a a little bit longer. who I would argue we either keep it alive as in like we catch him and stick him in the cage instead of Dinah, but you know, he then releases Noel. So Taylor doesn't give Dinah back. he She actually keeps Dinah around because she needs help taking care of Noel. That's showing like really the only difference between Coyle and Taylor in terms of like morality is that Coyle maybe knows himself a little bit better. e Yeah. um Yeah.
Speaker: Uh, so I like the idea of keeping him around, whether it's by a, by a fake death or, um, capture, uh, at least until the travelers arc is over. Cause the travelers arc is a big incident and I don't. Yeah. It's, it's weird. Cause you've got, you've got to deal with the, travelers interludes, which, you know, we could go ahead and do that as our cold opens. I know. Yeah. Jumping ahead there. Um, I actually, I actually like, and and we'll, we'll save this for our 17 next episode, but I really liked the idea of having that travelers arc, uh, or arc 17 rather as like a,
Speaker: ah bottle episodes the wrong term, but like a solo episode in the season, that's just the travelers. You see shows do that on occasion. um And I'll be honest, ah maybe this is a hot take. I don't think it's a hot take. Those are always in every show that does them. My absolute favorite episodes of the shows. My immediate thought was ah see episode three of The Last of Us. A great, great example for a recent shows. Yeah. Fantastic example. Great episode. um My favorite episode of Lost is, I forget the episode name, but it just follows two minor characters on the beach that I don't literally think are named before that episode. It's like season three. been on the They've been on this island for like three seasons and it just follows these two characters and spoilers, follows them to their death. But it is
Speaker: It's so good. and it's it's it just encapsulated it's It's fantastic. And I love shows that do that. And I think there's enough in Arc 17 to where you could do that. But I don't hate the cold open ID either. It could be kind of carrying that theme and that always works. But either way, anyway, we'll save that for Arc 17. But yeah, there's a lot. There's lot there's a lot there.
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Speaker: is if we did have these other minor characters, if we did decide to keep Uber and leaped around or a circus and the, you know, you do get to see them again, which is kind of fun. It's a little callback. Um, yeah again, though, if we don't, if we do decide to cut, I'm still liking the idea of like, what if, what if the undersiders, are somehow tricked into killing Coyle, like faking this death, like they're an unwilling part of it. I feel like the only issue with any of these conspiracies is that Lisa has to go. Well, i'm like even reading it, they know immediately because of Lisa. Which is why she gets separated from the rest of them as well. Exactly.
Speaker: I mean, the next chapter is like, okay, so he's still alive. That was a fake out. And it's like, oh, okay, got it. yeah you just But if there was some incident that happened, I feel like it should take, like it should, Lisa's death should also be fake. Yeah. I mean, you don't even have to go that you could even just like the blast knocks her out and she's unconscious for a day or two. Like, I mean, you know, you could go that. I think he would. Here's what I'm saying is I think he would plan for that. Like, I think. Oh, I see. I see. I see what you're saying. okay So this is this is actually a change. This brings up something that I wanted to do before a major change to minor change, depending or tattletale. I've talked about it before. I love the idea of tattletale feeling
Speaker: very much like a double agent potentially. Where because she knows, but she doesn't tell. She's known this whole time about Coyle, but she doesn't tell. Like there's a lot of things that she doesn't let off on unless Taylor guesses. Like they're clearly friends, but also like given, you know, the one scene where she's like, Oh, she's in that we've put in. We're like, she is working for coil. I think that that should be definitely punched up that like her boss is coil. Like she was okay with taking the hit for outing this, you know, the empire 88 because she was doing that for coil. Like, yeah, like all of this comes back to tattletale. And that's what the PRT thinks.
Speaker: PRT is like, yeah, Tattletale's the boss here, but you know secretly we know it's coil. Well, we don't know it's coil. We find out it's coil eventually. That's who Tattletale's boss is. um And you know there could be even the feeling of like, is there really a boss, Lisa? And she'd be like, ah, you got me. like There is no boss. I've been making it up this whole time. And nobody believes that, but like maybe. you know She's saying it sarcastically. but um I mean, there's a lot to play with there. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, finish your thought. All that to get to. Coyle has a thing for fate manipulation and his power works really well in tandem with Dinah's and his power not only works really well with Lisa's, you know, in conjunction with but both of their, well, all three of the powers, you know, together. But Lisa's also the only one that can really
Speaker: not foil his plans, but she can suss out anything he you know he's gonna pull off. you know He does figure a way to fluster her power, but you know if he pretends to be Thomas Culvert, she's just gonna go, oh, that's clearly coil. So I think that on the small side end, when he fakes his death or whatever he does, Lisa is put in a cage just like Dinah. um
Speaker: Or, you know, it is implied with that explosion, like, you know, Taylor's like, Oh no, Lisa and Cruz, like, like, okay, we all liked Lisa, but she was working for him. Like maybe something happens that's like very incontrovertible, you know, incontrovertible evidence that is like, no, Lisa was in on the faking the death thing.
Speaker: you know So they're left in this interim where like they don't know where she is. They don't know where Coyle is. They can't suss out that Thomas Calvert is Coyle. All they know is like they faked their deaths and they were working together. um And that could end up being like, oh, well, of course she's a double agent. ah Taylor and her, you know maybe she does a little bit of writing to Taylor through the old web board that we found her on all the way back in like episode two, you know, season one. um We'll throw it back. Yeah. All the way back to bug. ah So maybe they, they do get in contact with each other and that's how they plan out um ultimately taking down coil or ah a big, big change. What if coil and his, you know,
Speaker: Is creepy keeping Dina as a pet kind of thing? You know, obviously, like we've talked about tone down the pedophilia a little bit, but like, what if that was like a thing that he's, you know, he's doing to Dina where he's got her on drugs. It kind of keeps her loyal or whatever, you know, a bit of brainwashing if you want to do that. What if Dina's not the first KP's done this too? What if that's who Lisa is?
Speaker: I think you would run into an issue of, of trying to explain how Lisa was able to break free of that. If you go that route. Yeah. Um, I think the only issue there. Yeah. Um, part of it would be like Lisa, if you know, obviously this is major change. So everybody's about to get angry about this. What if Lisa as her character arc, Cause I don't feel like she really has one, um you know, and, and I love her. So as is, so, you know, she doesn't really need that character arc. What if her character arc is she's okay with Dinah being captive, you know, Oh, she'll get it. You know, she'll end up working for coil. Like it'll all be for the better. There's big plans here. But then she meets Taylor and is like, Oh, well, yeah, like,
Speaker: This is my friend. It's not a matter of fucked upness, like in terms of morality that she's so upset with, with Diana being captured so much as like, I like Taylor and Taylor's really upset about this. And you know what? Screw coil. Like he is kind of like a shitty dad. Big change, I know. But just something I was i was pondering away there's look listen in there's a rule and in like writing any like any sort of like group writing thing where you're and you're in that ah first day, all the writers around the table, they get the big old whiteboard out and they're throwing ideas up. There's no bad ideas. There's there's no bad ideas. You have to list everything out before stuff starts to fall into place.
Speaker: And that's a note to all of our listeners as well. Okay, listen, listen. We know a lot of these ideas in hindsight, listening back aren't great. we This is the spitball phase, right? When we talk through things and from those ah from those talks, we get some good ideas. I know Alan and I, ah as we have ah put pen to paper, literally, in kind of talking about how these episodes be structured, have gone back and made changes of stuff we've said in the episodes. So it it happens as part of the process. I don't know, go off. That's all I'm saying there. Yeah. I was listening back to whatever the arc 11 dissecting worm, I think came out recently. Yeah. And I was, you know, listening to it and there were moments where I am like, well, if we wanted to fix that problem, why don't we do this? And then of course, like I say it on the, like, I'm like, oh, genius. I am. And then there are other times where the, you know, the problem is presented. I'm like,
Speaker: Well, obviously we should go this route and I say something completely different. And I'm like, well, I know for a damn fact, we fixed that in the next episode. Like we did not stick with that. Exactly. Cause you know, you thought about it for a little bit longer. Just another plug to keep leaving those comments because we love to read those and you guys got a lot of really good suggestions that we overlook as well, ways to help fix things. So that's what we're doing here. So don't. here's Here's what I want from the comments for this one. I want, because this is a whole arc problem. This isn't just, I want you to help me fix ah the the coil dying mid -season problem. yeah That's our new problem, okay? That is the problem. We would take what we've done into account so far with our little summaries. You can change it. You can change them up. Just kind of help us stay in the general canon of this right now. How do we fix the coil problem, okay?
Speaker: I want, we want coil to be a satisfying ending, you know, which he, we have a great ending, you know, getting plugged like he does satisfying the lead up to that not. So how do we like bring that to a point? Yeah. And have it come at, you know, a good time, like the season finale or something. So let me, yeah, yeah let us know in those comments. Put them all, put all your thoughts down there. We know you will anyway. We love it. That's why we're here. Um, so let's, let me talk through some, some of those, cause I, I like some directions where you're going there. So I kind of want to just, uh, roll with that for a minute. Cause there's, there's a couple elements to this arc in terms of pacing, uh, regardless of even, even wanting to push the, the coil death to the end of the season, there's some pacing issues with this arc that we want to, we want to overcome. And I think,
Speaker: I think some of it boils down to the last few chapters where Taylor ah gets shot gets kind of has to fight on the whole thing with with coils double for her. I'll be honest, it works. I think that whole bit works much better written than it would ah in live action or animation, you know, and visual visually. Yeah. um I think I think I think the whole being and inside Taylor's mind for those arcs is just much easier to do in writing. I think that's a pretty ah pretty big pacing issue. And then I think at the very end, I do think Lisa's Deus Ex Machina, if you will, of just having bought out everybody, again, works fine when you're reading a story like this. yeah I think it's a bit rushed, but I think it works better when it's read than it would
Speaker: you know in a television show. I think that comes very, very quickly. um So in thinking about how to resolve all of those problems and try to push out Coyle's death, I think you do have a couple cool things that we might be able to do here. So first thought you want to resolve, you want to get tattletale out of the equation. Uh, let's say for the sake of argument, we're keeping the, uh, the debate bomb explosion, make out of Coyle's death. Okay. Okay. Um,
Speaker: you want to get tattletale out of that equation quickly, ah both to help the narrative flow and to keep the audience in the dark. So what if you just have, and I'm going to kind of combine some elements here. What if you have a bit of a, of a betrayal moment, an, an, an apparent betrayal moment where as As all this is going down, there's a lot of chaos. Everything is is crazy. ah You have ah very visually in front of skitter, front of Taylor, tattletale, be the one to either detonate the bomb or more abruptly, let's just even say shoot Taylor. And it catches her it catches her her body armor, so she's fine.
Speaker: And it's it's a very visual betrayal where it looks like immediately that tattletale is on Coyle's side, at least to the audience and Taylor's perspective. And then she's gone and she dips and she's gone for a minute. um That sort of sells the element because I liked what you were talking about with ah with with Lisa being kind of sided with Coyle a bit or appears that way. Um, cause there you can remove her from the following couple of chapters where she's not really in any way except to say that, Hey guys, coil still alive. So if you want to remove all of that anyway, there's an easy way to just get her out of those scenes. Um, and then too, as you approach this ending, I like the idea of maybe they're initially okay with the idea of let's capture coil and send it to the bird cage. That's where he belongs. Um,
Speaker: And it's not until he releases Noelle and after Noelle's destruction that Skitter puts everything together and is like, he needs to die. This guy's just got to die. and she And she goes judge dread and takes matters into her own hands, uh, which helps kind of drag that out a bit. That also lets you do a slower burn on tattletales reveal. Um,
Speaker: on Tattletales reveal that that she's been kind of secretly doing everything all along because it gives you more opportunities. You can ah cut to conversations with her and coil, you know, you can have a scene here or there or something like that. um Again, we're trying to work within ah within a timeframe of a season. So a lot of this is we're going to get it restructured. um But I'm just thinking of ways in which we can ah satisfyingly delay Coyle's death and I think it would probably rev revolve around postponing it until after ah the Echidna fight. Yeah, so I agree. I always thought the Echidna fight would be very much a ah Silence of the Lambs thing where like
Speaker: He's captured, he's and they're having these little conversations, these little piece of advice and stuff given, but like he's working on his way to getting out. um But they're dealing with the Noel situation. Finally, they finish the Noel situation. Taylor walks back into the room, opens the door and just shoots him. And that's how we deal with him. like He's like, ah, come back to, you know and she just plucks him. like You let that monster out. like
Speaker: you're You're too dangerous to let live. Also, like they they would never let him go to the birdcage because he knows all their secret identities. All he would do is blab there. Yeah. No, I like that a lot. I do also, I like the thought, and I'm curious what our listeners would think about this. I like the thought of both her and Lisa shooting them together. And I think you actually even mentioned this at one point. Yeah. we're talking about um and talk about it in the in the book club. I like the idea of them pulling the trigger together, as especially if we're going to strengthen yeah Lisa and Coyle's relationship in any way. I think it's a lot more personal, and she's got a lot more to say in that front. Because I agree. I don't think Lisa has much of an arc in the story overall. She really doesn't.
Speaker: In fact, most characters in War don't have an arc aside from Taylor. and Their arc is they got killed? Their arc is they got killed. I like i think it's the characters of the arcs are Taylor. ah Defiant. ah Defiant a dev divineant slash dragon kind of. I don't know if dragon really has a character arc so much. more like yeah It's more like an evolution. Holland does, yeah. Um, and, uh, and, uh, and what's his name? Freaking, uh, Gollum. Come on. Um, yeah. the is boy theo Thank you. Like those are your arcs. That's it. Uh, every other character kind of an arc. Yeah, actually that's true. ru Gru does get an arc. Uh, imp, imp has an arc. I mean, okay. All the characters have arcs. They're just very small or, or shallow. There's not a lot of depth. I would actually, I would actually, are you of the entire undersiders?
Speaker: Tattletale has no arc and everybody else at least gets a little like, well, they get some development, but I think when you're thinking in terms of character arcs, in terms of like, like narrative beginnings and ends, you know what? That's fair. Yeah. It's development is is different than an arc. You're right. You're right. In that way. Yeah, development as in just like forward progress and arc as in, like you said, narratively, there's a beginning and ending to this forward progress. Right. And the truth is, is like the way Worm is written, a lot of characters kind of intentionally don't have arcs because they're just killed off all unceremoniously. I mean, spoilers, but that's what happens to Gru. Like he's just, he just gets unceremoniously killed in arc 25 or whatever it is. And he's gone. Same with a lot of these characters. So like,
Speaker: it's Those are the kinds of things that I think a television show really, really excels at restructuring. Not to jump 10 arcs ahead, but I think we're completely redoing. I do like the idea of group dying. I think you should die. I don't want to take that away, but make that more impactful. And there's a million ways you could do that. right So like television shows, people are just are just clued in to following story progressions in that way. And I think We have a lot of ah opportunity to really strengthen a lot of these characters. Lisa being, I think, one of the easiest and probably most deserving.
Speaker: um yeah She's such a great character and she lives through the whole story. so like You know, I had this really funny thought ah to jump all the way. Final scene of the entire series here. I think you can eat. It'd been really fun to do it. This is so dumb. This is not a serious thought, but I do love it. Um, you do like a monster zinc, you know, at the very end of monsters, zinc, uh, uh, uh, uh, Mike fixes the door and Sully opens it and, and sees boo. And, but he you don't see boo. You just see Sully's reaction.
Speaker: yeah You just have this scene with like Lisa and, uh, in door maker and just like maybe, yeah you know, just like a little, a nice little thing. And then just, here's a little, here's a little glimpse. You don't see Taylor, but Lisa just kind of smiles. And I was like, oh, you just be like, no, no, no, no. Hear me out. Hear me out. So it's, it's, she's at a little cafe in Paris on earth and she looks over And she's like way master Herbert every day. When you was a little villain, I used to tell myself, yeah I used to tell myself, I hope, I hope I never, she doesn't come back. yeah She goes out one day to villain and she never comes back. And that failed. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. the whole Dark Knight Rises. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: But anyway, all that to say, if you were to do something a little cheesy like that, Lisa's the character that you would do it with. Um, I feel like more than any other character it be Lisa. So I think, I think she's very deserving of, of more, more work, more effort, some more development. And maybe this means we kind of even go back a little bit and sort of think about how we do some of her scenes and earlier episodes and seasons. Um, but I'm all for more, more development here. I don't know if I'd go as far as to, as to put her in the same Dynacamp. I think that'd be kind of hard to pull off. I don't hate the idea, but I think it'd be tricky with the limited time we have, but I do like the idea of strengthening her dynamic and partnership with coil and making that a bit more impactful this season. Yeah. I mean, I, yeah, I think as it would be interesting to play around with a character who has
Speaker: you know, grown up potentially having been, you know, raised. I say raised. She, you know, she would have run away at a later age. So this is not a one for one dynamic, but coil essentially keeps her on an invisible leash of some kind. You know, he's telling her what to do. She works for him. She's been working for him ever since she was a preteen. Um, so she feels like this weird indebtedness to him. ah She's always been close by. And then we get to Dinah. And in Dinah, she sees herself, but she doesn't see that as a bad thing. She sees it as a, oh, she'll grow up and just be, you know, you know just like me. um And it's Taylor who's like, no, like, o that's that's bad. And you know, it's fun. it's this is really This is really fun. This is why I love what we're doing here. Cause it's so much fun to think about the story in this way.
Speaker: We've talked a lot about about toning down ah Taylor's obsession with Dinah ah because it doesn't really make sense in the grand scheme of the of the story here. And pacing is all over the place in terms of how much effort you want to focus on. all that kind of stuff I stand by all of that. But if you did want to put a little bit of emphasis on that, if Taylor is even just slightly sympathetic, as I think she should be in general, like, hey, let's you know let's also save this poor girl. You can you can frame that to ah Lisa seeing how much Taylor cares about, quote, her in the same way. Like if she's seeing, if she's if if Lisa's internalizing her position where like, oh, I'm just like Dinah, am I in the same place? like there's a lot you can do there with her relationship with Taylor, where Taylor's unknowingly speaking to Lisa with all of that. like Her saying, hey, we need to save Dinah. Look at this relationship. It's it's it's awful. yeah He's using her. Coyle's just using her for her own for her own or for his own gain. ah He has no use for her outside of that. And Lisa's hearing that
Speaker: As it relates to her relationship with coil, like there's a lot you can do there. Yeah. Ooh, ooh, I'll play off of this. And this would be the like, well, how, how in the hell has Lisa never been able to tell? We know that he can foil her powers. Yeah. So do we just have, he's always done that. Like, like she's just like, yeah, he's the one person I can't read. Cause he does the dual world thing and her brain, you know, her brain fritzes out basically where she's like, yeah, I just I can't read what's going on with him. I get so many false flags and stuff that it's not even worth doing um because she's trapped trying to track two worlds at once and synthesize them. And it just doesn't work out like it would for somebody else. So she's not able to, you know, see his ill intentions, which she takes as a nice thing. Cause she's like, yeah, you know how it's shitty that like you can't read people and like,
Speaker: it really, you know, it really bothers her that she can read people. And that's why she like, isn't in a, like, she talks about, you know, I could never be in a relationship basically because, you know, what do you, it's, what's it like knowing what the other person's thinking all the time, how the match they're lying to you. But with Coyle, she doesn't have him lying because she like, and it's, you know, mostly ignorance on her part and like, yeah, like I can't read him. Therefore, like it's actually kind of enjoyable that I can't tell what he's, you know, thinking. yeah
Speaker: yeah um Yeah, exactly. I mean, there's a lot of fun things you could do there. um I also like the idea of like, you know, my problem with this is that honestly, the Taylor issue I have with Dinah is not a not so much that Taylor is obsessed with this. um So much is because the slaughterhouse nine show up immediately. um Yeah, it's a pacing. If the pacing of it gets such a back seat that you forget it yeah that you forget it and it feels trivial in comparison to what's going on, which, you know, even like I get that, you know, it should, because one girl's kidnapping where she is relatively safe, ah you know, does not account for
Speaker: ah or compared to this group of mass murderers running around, like priorities, obviously. But in terms of pacing, how you would do this episode to episode, you know the vibe there, presenting a problem like Dinah that has some urgency to its resolution and then delaying it for two seasons, like an entire season of I was just mentioning it here and there, all the way to, okay, now this is actually a thing and it's gonna get resolved halfway through a season. like but That's just really unsatisfying. It doesn't work for TV. you either You either fix that, we're like, oh, this is a problem. And while we're dealing with the Slutterhouse -9, we also solve that problem
Speaker: or get closer to it in much bigger bounds. right So that it's a setup for like, all right, season three, we're going to be taking down coil. That is expressly set at the end of season three or season two. you know we've We've been laying groundwork for that. um But it just, it like I said, I don't, I really don't like it in the books or in the serial yeah here. um it needs it needs a better resolution. And I think you know we've been pushing back, that I think that's a great idea of us pushing it back on Coils Reveal, Coils Power, Dinah's Reveal, I think is great when ah we put it together with weld, that becomes an issue where it's like, oh, this thing was said, um you know referencing back season one, and you know we're not gonna think about that too much, because we're
Speaker: literally in the middle of dealing with stuff. But then you end season three or season two or start season three with, Hey, tell me about, no, you end season two with this. Cause you know, you're teasing the next season where, you know, they're going to do their thing. And Taylor just pulls Lisa to the side and said, all right, Lisa level with me. Like we're going to have a sit down conversation. Tell me about Dinah. who And that's, you know, leads into season three where, yeah, now that we know about the situation and Lisa has told her, oh yeah, we kidnapped this child and we drug her. Like, yeah, yeah, I would be very upset and want to do something about it immediately, which would then lead Coyle to immediately, you know,
Speaker: off you. And maybe that's something that Lisa tells her like, Hey, if I tell you about Dinah, like if you get any information about this, if you look this up, he will know. And like somehow he will figure it out and he will off you because you're like, I know you. And if I tell you, this is going to become an issue that unravels everything. And she's like, are you prepared to deal with that? And Taylor's like, if it's that bad, I've got to know. She goes, all right, he's kidnapping, dragging a little girl. And Taylor goes, well, you're right. Cause I'm not about that. And she goes, I know. ah So now that I've told you, we have to take down coil um because as soon as I told you, like, it's just, it's going to come out. yeah Like, I like it. Yeah. I mean, that works a lot better already.
Speaker: Let us know at 9 8 0 9 9 9 0 4 3 8. Leave your voicemail. You might be featured on our show with your thoughts on all these very interesting problems. We'd love to hear from you. Rockton Bay, BC is our handle on all socials. You know what? I'll even lend a peace offering. You don't even have to fight me. um um You know, I've said that a lot in the past and and I look forward to a good throw down, but, um you know, if you just have a solid idea. You could even help him. ah Yeah, if you could help me. It's true. ah Agree with it. It'd be nice. Yeah. But, you know, go ahead and leave that. Leave a nice message. I i think ah to move on, I think we are,
Speaker: ah and We've got a lot of good discussion. Honestly, we could talk about, <unk> we're talking about the whole season here we get and we're going to keep this conversation going for the next couple of arcs as well. um ah We have skipped over the interludes if we do want to go back and just sort of address those in order. Let's go ah least important to most important.
Speaker: ah Birdcage? Birdcage is the least least important.
Speaker: Yeah, no, I would say birdcage. Birdcage is least important and most far removed, except for maybe the Simmerg. like Yeah, I think there's a couple elements to that that yeah one that are that are important. I was going to say at least... well we'll we'll We'll stick with that one. i well We'll go. um I like the birdcage. I love all the moments in the birdcage. And there is some later resolution with the story in terms of cauldron and things like that. yeah um So i think I think having a a scene
Speaker: A scene or two a season is ah is fine. I mean, honestly, I think i think this whole that whole interlude just as plays out like a scene in an episode. It really doesn't matter which episode we throw it in. It's not really connected to anything, like you said, and with the exception. Just something to remind us that Amy's in the birdcage. Amy's in the birdcage. Marquis is in the birdcage. Yeah, there's their scheming and the simmer fizz of flying, you know? Yeah. It would, it would be cool. This would be, this is the first time I think, um, both in, in worm the story and would be the first time in any show where the summer is seen, which is kind of interesting. So there's um a lot you can do there. A great lead up to other stuff. You know, this might be the ending of an episode where she goes and does her little prayer in the corner and then it gets intercepted. Yeah. Um, yeah, exactly. which is Yeah.
Speaker: ah You would show that would be interesting, but all right. You just fritz on the screen as it like opens its eyes and moves or something. Well, in all honesty, I think if you're doing this scene, eight I can't stand the little like following a ah ah beam of information through the wires. I think it just looks cheesy. I think honestly, this one's a lot simpler if you just have a simmer, either destroy the satellite or, uh, or just make it way more obvious that like, you know, you just see her move a hand and text on a screen shifts. oh I was going to go, uh, like she's up there. We get a cut of her like sleeping, like as it's zooming close and then, you know,
Speaker: It's doing a transcript of Amy's, like what she's saying. And maybe even we we get to see some of what she's saying. Simmerg opens its eyes and all of a sudden we cut back and the screen you know does a little static glitch for a second. yeah And all of that disappears. Perfect, perfect. exactly yeah And then it turns and begins moving somewhere. Right, move somewhere else. yeah yeah no love We need green text going through really badly animated two wires. Okay. I was not going to, I was, I was going to like leave this in my head. it It is an old school, like cassette green screen. Like oh yeah it it's like it boots up.
Speaker: you know, and does the whole like cassettes rotating as it's like taking down the information and it's clicky clacking, you know, yes receptionist. I know that's not what it should be, but that's just in my head, you know, I love it. Sixties, seventies computer technology. Yeah. Um, who is, is that the fire truck? Yeah. Is that coming through the old, the old mic there? yeah Brockton Bay having emergency troubles again. So on my street, my one -way street, people love to just park in the middle of the road and get out and talk to their friends or whatever. um And so when you get like a dump truck or a fire truck the coming through, where they can't get through. They just lay on the horn until the people move, but the people never move because they're entitled. ah Heck.
Speaker: But, uh, wow, that's funny. So that's what that is. Uh, Lisa's on a fire truck. I've had a fire truck sit out there for like 15 minutes. Just sirens going. That's so rough. I love it. Oh, life in the big city. Am I right? Okay. Uh, next I would say the, I thought, I thought you were going to go least important interlude was the, uh, no bog interlude because oh well god is that's the most important one while no bog is one of my absolute favorite characters. And this interlude is one of my absolute favorites. I am going to make a strong argument that it is, uh, has no place in the narrative series that we are, that we are constructing. I will make an argument that specifically for the Piget,
Speaker: and Thomas Calvert relationship, it absolutely has a place. So my problem with that is, is if we're changing Thomas Calvert's origin to being more of a deputy director, yes um what is the necessity of have like, why does their friendship matter at all in the story we're telling? Okay, so ah that's a good point. Um, hear me out and then, and then, uh, we'll get to that. I don't think we need to do the whole nil bog sequence. Um, I think maybe just showing the end of it. Honestly. Um, if we did essentially a younger, younger, younger, younger Thomas Calvert are the last two of their squads running towards the helicopter. There's a third man in tow.
Speaker: Uh, he helps her up, but then like they're taking off and there's another guy left and he like shoots him or something like something in which we show like he maybe inadvertently saves pickets life. But also, uh, in order to preserve his own life, like kills some one other teammate, he they get back. They're both, you know, injured reserve. She's like, uh, you saved my life back there, you know, won't forget it. And he's like, God, don't worry. They're going to put me away for a few years. Cause you know, I killed that one guy and she's like, you know, hard as nails, like, uh, you gotta do what you gotta do. Like sometimes like he was probably already too far gone. And Thomas is like, that's what I was totally thinking. Um, and just to show, you know, the origins of them meeting and,
Speaker: in that moment, you know, she's, yeah I think it'd be good to show that like, she has this betrayal, you know, by capes situation. um And he is a scoundrel. um And, you know, that sort of reframes Thomas Calvert if we wanted it to. um Otherwise we could just have him save her, like, It's a calculated decision on his part, but he's like, yeah, I'll save her um for some reason. ah But that's, you know, that's just an origin story of how did they meet? Oh, they were on the nil bog mission and they, he grabbed her hands so that she could make it on the helicopter. Like yeah doesn't need to be, i that's an, you know, it doesn't need to be longer than and yeah you can do five minutes tops. You could do literally
Speaker: 30 seconds of them running to the helicopter, like the end of it. me Let me cook for a minute. Yeah, yeah, I'm listening. My chef's cap is off to you. This is ah later on in the season is when we'll - My Remy is laid bare. So you do the nil box scene.
Speaker: um make it really mysterious, make it a bunch of PRT officers running from these creatures, just getting just full on, like, you know, horror vibes, which is what no bug is, it's horrifying. um You have a young Calvert, you have a young Pigot, but they're not named and they would be different actors or actresses. so um So it's not clear to the audience who these characters are. ah you get to the end of the scene and there's, I would change this around a bit, kind of spit balling here. You have a bit of a kerfuffle, whatever the case may be. And you have Calvert again, not named at this point, Kill Pigot. let Hear me out. Let me finish. I'm cooking. No, no, no. I see where this is going. Yeah. ah And then because of that,
Speaker: either gets killed or gets outed, yada, yada. And then we see a fade to grayscale as the scene is reversed. And we see him not kill picket, but save picket. And then the connection is made that he chooses that timeline, that reality, because of how it benefits him in escaping no bog or how we want to do it. And you get this, you get both his origin, you get Calvert and Piget named and their relationship. And if you delay this to the point at the end of the season, you then also get the audience clued in again, without having to spell it out for them, you get the audience clued in that Calvert is coil. That's Cause we also haven't technically said up till now what his power is. Exactly.
Speaker: had Lisa say it's sort of fate manipulation, and that's it. We don't know what it looks like. We don't know how it operates. That's a brilliant move. I like it a lot. I just hilariously was thinking that she gets turned into a nilbog puppet, and she's just a puppet the rest of it. Hold on. It's always been nilbog. Nilbog, she dies. I'm like, wait a second. It's like, you ever see that, um, you see that old meme of like in Pokemon, how all the Diglets are just one giant Diglet with like his fingers up in the earth. Yeah. No bug. Everybody's no bug story and, and the worm fade out. It's just no bug the whole time. Yeah. Yeah. It's always been no bug. Um, no, I like that. I think,
Speaker: that would actually be in a great interspersed episode into, um because this is, is this technically, this is season, this would be season three, episode two, correct? Right. I mean, obviously I think these episodes are going to get shifted around a bit, but yeah, technically we're arc 16. If, if all of arc 15 is one episode, this would be episode, episode two. Yeah. Yeah. um In this case, yeah, in that case, I think it would be really cool for this episode when we have um the fight and we're, you know, kidnapping Piget and have her like, and, you know, Thomas Calvert talking about dividing and conquering and sending in the robots, which will maybe fight next episode. um Like you could, so you could intersperse that interlude throughout.
Speaker: like start with the whole Nighthawk mission. They're, you know, they're going in in the helicopters because it's a really cool sequence. We finally get to see the PRT do some shit, you know, yeah like they're finally looking effective for once. So like they're rolling in special ops style. Yeah, yeah. Touching down, um you know, into this town. You know, they get a quick briefing on what's going on. They touch down. They're seeing, you know, all the creepy stuff. And you just interspersed that throughout the episode. You have the climax four ah for, for Pig it be, you know, the midway point where like she's under the dead bodies of her teammates. She you grabs a grenade launch, does something heroic, but like super, you know, this is going to hurt all of us, but you know, I'll do it out of spite, kind of, you know, something that just shows her character off.
Speaker: who um in the past while she's talking to, uh, the undersiders, you know, you know why I'm such a fucking bad -ass. It's like, cause all ah I don't give a fuck. And then, you know, cut to the past of her, like in this impossible situation and getting out of it. Um, you know, you think you guys are bad. I've seen horrors like you wouldn't believe, right? Right. you know you get you You're a bunch of children in costume. I've seen monsters. You ain't nothing.
Speaker: yeah yeah yeah Well, and this works too, especially if you wanted to even play up, if you wanted to use this scene to reveal Coyle and Calvert being the same person, you can have this follow the, uh, the bomb at, um, at the debate. Have this be the closing scene of that episode so that the audience isn't in the dark at all. You just, you just forego that whole keep, keep the characters in the dark before go keep clue the audience in immediately that this was a fake out.
Speaker: Um, and have them have them like, Oh, you know, Oh, it's Calvert. He's that's coil. He's, ah he's in charge now. You know, you could, you could, you could go that route too, even. Yeah. I i also, yeah. Yeah. I think that's good. I like it. Moving on to, uh, Defiant and dragon. I don't think there's nothing I really like to change here. I think it's a nice scene. I think you just put the scene in where appropriate. I like it a lot. and Just keep it as is. Honestly, if anything, I think you'd make it longer. Maybe, maybe give him another scene at and in another episode, you know, we'll go back to him. Yeah. Uh, let me see what I have on this real quick. Um, yeah, I just, uh, you know, the fact that dragon knows about, um, knows about cauldron interesting one. Um, and I think, yeah, maybe, maybe have them, we'll have a little bit more philosophical argument to talk about.
Speaker: Taylor and, um, preparing for the end of the world and, you know, doing whatever it takes, but also what does that mean? And what the concept of morality being, uh, you know, a thing that they're trying to hold to. Oh yeah. I think, I mean, uh, I think the going into the fact that she has technically triggered, uh, she's an and AI that, that, that is a parahuman. Um, yeah I think it's fascinating. So, Yeah, a lot of a lot of fun conversations. I think i think they have a ah great opportunity this season to be that sort of breakaway um into kind of what Detective Weld was last season. You have them following up on the nine, chasing them down. It doesn't have to be a lot of action with them, but they can be sort of the breakaway
Speaker: uh, you know, breath of fresh air between scenes where, yeah you know, Hey, we need a break this season or this episode rather. What are, uh, what did I find a dragon up to? Yeah. And and they're, they're sitting on a fire. Somebody campfire discussing the philosophies of, of being, being powered. Yeah. I think that, I think this would also be a great time to, we ended on, uh, we kind of ended with dragon and defiant. Um, Or I should say dragon and Colin all the way back where she's in the hospital with him and he's been replaced with a bunch of robot parts. And she's like, Hey, Colin, there's something I need to tell you. And we know what the, the thing that she's telling him is, which is, Hey, I'm a robot. But i you know, ah we said, we you know, we cut away from that. We don't, we don't have that.
Speaker: Um, and then, you know, they show back up there to people in suits, yada, yada. We still have the impression that she is a tinker that just has ago agoraphobia. I think these played out episodes where we have just little vignettes of them back and forth is a great point to show that she is a robot. Like you maybe have, this could be a bit cheesy, but you have a tender moment. You know, they've been hanging out. They've been talking. They've been talking about stuff where. he like takes, ah you know, she like takes off her helmet and he starts talking about like her trigger event. And he's like, and you know, if we did a flashback of her trigger event, I had this the other day, what you do is you have, um, Alan Richter, I think it's the same Rick. Is it Alan Richter? and Sounds right. I think you're right. yeah Um, you have Richter.
Speaker: uh, working on, you know, his computer and whatnot. And, you know, the floods are coming in and he goes and like, you know, he goes to save his wife and daughter or something like that. And they're all like sinking in the water, like, and drowning. But, uh, the, the illusion is like, Oh, you know, she was the daughter and she triggered you know, underwater or trapped in the house or something like that. But then when you cut back to the final reveal, it's the computer in the background. Like as the house is filling with water or something like that, it's like booting up and it's like dragon AI complete, you know, like, and maybe it's typing out like Richter, Richter, like dad, I'm scared. Like, you know, uh,
Speaker: You know, the reveal isn't that the daughter turned out to be dragon. It's that his, his, his Mac book turned out to be dragon, right? Um, you know, and we could even have her talk about, yeah, like my dad was the greatest, you know, one of the great, the greatest tinker ever known, like, you know, master of, you know, uh, computer languages and all sorts of things, you know, yeah All these illusions, but not directly saying like, oh yeah, he was great at AI. Oh, it's like and it's Andrew Richter. Andrew Richter. was they name Too many Allens. I know, we got caught up with the Allens. We reserve Allens for people we hate, apparently. Yeah, exactly. JC. Something happened to him. Yeah.
Speaker: and mcraye um
Speaker: um no yeah I like that slow reveal that like Colin knows and he's like, Hey, you did trigger, which is wild. Cause you're not human. And you know, that's where she like turns her head to look at the camera. And you noticed that like the side of her head where the helmet covers is just computer parts. Yeah. Circuit boards and wires. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's good. That's good. No notes. I like it.
Speaker: I think that, uh, that about wraps up all of, all of our main points here. Was there any other, any other notes we didn't that we missed that you wanted to review? No, no, I really didn't have that many notes for this, you know, just big overarching things. Yeah. And I think that's going to kind of continue these next couple arcs as well, to be honest, as we, uh, We get into the travelers and the well and all of that. um Again, kind of continuing our theme from from last season. A lot of these arcs are going to start sort of overlapping and blending together, ah especially as we get deeper into the story.
Speaker: ah We're going to have a lot of those overarching, overarching, um, ideas sort of come together there. Yep. Well, uh, with that being said, uh, as we, as we mentioned previously, tell us, uh, what you agree and disagree with. We we really do love reading in the comments, love a lot of passionate worm fans. And, uh, we all love discussing fun ways in which we think, uh, the show could be brought to life. How would look and what would, what would say, what wouldn't stay? As Michael said, give us a call, 980 -999 -0438. We'd love to hear from you. Mine us or help us either way. Yeah, exactly. Fight us or agree. yeah Either way. Choose your side. yeah Or feel free to reach out to us at any of our social media platforms at Brockton Bay, BC. Again, we'd love to hear from you. Alan, thanks for joining me as always. Thanks for having me. Michael, you you have no choice. You have to be here because without you, we
Speaker: we wouldn't know what to do. So you're welcome for guiding us and keeping us on track, making us sound good. Good job. Appreciate it. Yeah. Uh, next, uh, next episode will be arc 17 all about the travelers. Be a fun one. How we, uh, how we think about that. So stick around for that. And until next time, as always take that you worms.
Speaker: Thank you so much for listening. Read along with us at parahumans .wordpress dot .com. We'd love to hear your thoughts. What did you love? What did you hate? Anything you think we missed, etc. as long as it's kind. If you'd like to get in touch, you can find us on Twitter, threads, Instagram, TikTok, and Reddit at Brockton Bay, B .C. or click the link in the description.
