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 .wordpress .com or donate to Wildbo's Patreon at patreon .com. 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: Good morning, Brockton Bay, coming at you like a punch to the face, the crew. Hello. Sadly, only part of the crew. We are down one today, but we are still strong here. Welcome back everyone to another episode of the Brockton Bay Book Club.
Speaker: Tonight we are reviewing just the first four chapters of arc five of worm break from our normal arc and episode format. But there is just so much in this arc. We know we were containing this to one episode. So let's get into it. We are looking at those first four chapters again.
Speaker: And you want me to go over the summary? I was going to say, Alan, if you got the summaries for us, let's go. So we open up with the villains coming together for their meeting at a restaurant. And then, of course, after the meeting, Danny and Taylor go shopping in which an incident occurs, which sees them and all the bullies in the principal's office.
Speaker: Excellent. All right. I think we'll just, it's not a lot chapter -wise, but we'll still kind of go chronologically here. So let's sort of start with that first chapter. And as always, let's get our initial reactions from our two first -time readers, Kat and Taylor. Kat, what do you think? Whether it's the
Speaker: concussion or she's just finally getting fed up. Thank God. She finally punched this bitch in the face. And I'm not talking about bitch, talking about Emma. Such a satisfying moment. Oh yeah. I mean, just every, every emotion finally welling up to that. It's so good. Taylor, initial reactions.
Speaker: I have always been under the impression that, because I'm sure that we've all wondered, if I get sent into a fantasy realm, would I be a bard? Would I be a cleric? I've always thought I'd be a blacksmith.
Speaker: I would definitely have my own shop. I want to do something. And for this universe, having a supervillain speakeasy is definitely on the top of my list right now. We immediately jump into politics. And as a nerd that has read most of Tom Clancy's actual novels, oh boy, did I love this part of it. Also, women hitting other women in the face, good on you. But this first couple of chapters is where I had the most fun.
Speaker: Yeah, I really love the way this arc starts with the sort of ominous meeting between all of these villains. Some we've met, some we haven't met. I got some new faces, got some new looks, some new colors. That was kind of a fun scene. And for me, it reminded me so much of the great scene from The Dark Knight.
Speaker: Where all the all the gangs are getting together trying to talk about Batman and Joker makes his entrance Very reminiscent of that scene but also very different because we had we had quite a few different characters here Did any any of them stand out to you?
Speaker: That is open to the, open everybody here. Yeah, I'll start us off. I definitely, and I should have known, but as soon as I heard the names Finga and Minga or Finga and Minja, I immediately was like, okay, this is the dumbest thing ever. But it proceeded to bring me into Danish lore when I freaking looked it up and we had the maid servants of Danish King Frothy. And I was like, okay, this is,
Speaker: Yeah. I love, I love to open deep into this stuff. So I think that those two kind of, um, stood out to me a little bit. I think it would be, yeah, it's a, I think maybe the audio book says, is it, is it Finja and Minja? I'm not sure because I know that the, for the Danish, it's the Danish King Frody, which is F R O D I. Um, but it's actually pronounced fro the, so I actually don't know. I didn't look up their pronunciation.
Speaker: Gotcha, gotcha. Well, thankfully we have somebody for that. Michael, if you want to correct us at any point, feel free if you find that. And if it sounds dumb enough, we'll correct wild though. As we do, right. As we do, because we definitely know better. Anyone else? What else? Who else stood out to you in that scene? Giant gorilla person.
Speaker: The more powers that pop up, the more I'm like, God, it would suck to be you. Nuder? First of all, his name is Nuder. Second of all, all of his
Speaker: secretions are poison. Well, they're not poison. Slow down. I'm just talking about we got a lot of people in there and I'm just telling you who stood out to me and later learning more stood out. That's fair. Also, I'd never thought about that name neuter because you always see it written, you know, Newt, you know, like a lizard. And if I just heard it, I just realized like, yeah, neuter. I'm like,
Speaker: Is he and skitter about to get together and like recast straight lung? Like what's about to happen? Well, you already been castrated. Now he's going to be neutered different parts. There you go. There you go. No, um, the travelers as a whole is a really interesting group. And just kind of the fact, the thing that stood out to me this time reading it was just that, um, immediately what's noticed about them as somebody goes, Oh, you guys are out of town. I didn't actually, we didn't actually expect you to show up. Um,
Speaker: It's kind of an interesting, it just, it leads to some intrigue for their characters. And obviously, you know, I have read the rest of it, so I know more about them, but I didn't realize how early on that intrigue existed in the story. And I really liked that.
Speaker: Yeah, same. I don't think it's much of a spoiler to say, hey, we see some of these characters again, but I forgot to how early on they showed up. And to build off of that too, at rereading this, seeing them as visitors to Brockton Bay and the fact that we knew that long
Speaker: was also sort of a visitor to Brockton Bay, Brockton Bay that stuck around. It does sort of give some fun life to this fictional city, right? It feels like there's something about Brockton Bay that is drawing power in people here, whether that's just, you know, reading into the text or whether there is something more going on. It's kind of fun to see like how everybody is sort of
Speaker: coming together in the same place. Yeah. Yeah. And just the fact that there is such a collection of villains here who all have their own groups that they're contributing to. Like it's a big enough city that you have. I mean, how many gangs was it like four or five who all are claiming their own territory, staking out their own ground, maybe six even. Um, cause I'm thinking it was coil empire 88 Asian bad boys.
Speaker: Fault lines are mercenaries, so they don't really have territory. Skidmark, the travelers, the undersiders, it's a significant number of villain gangs that are in this poor little, poor big town, I guess. And I just think that's interesting for that, yeah. Like the place that they went for them to have a deaf waitress, it's like so
Speaker: great as a villain or bad guy plotting place. Cuz you're not gonna be overheard by the waitress when she's serving you. I felt like - Yeah, and the chef gets killed every week. Skitter was kind of like, she's deaf and was not processing that
Speaker: There's probably a very good reason why whoever owns this place is like, you're gonna be the waitress because obviously like the kind of people that come in there want privacy. So. Also, we've all seen this villain meeting place, right? Because I can think of two restaurants here where I live that are 100 % this restaurant. Oh yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, we know exactly what they're meaning. Yeah, yeah. It certainly wouldn't be like, oh, this is so weird. I think, yeah, if you've been in any kind of like mid to large size city, yeah, you can probably think of one or two locations that just immediately scream super sketchy things happen here.
Speaker: Well, it's again, it's another one of those tropes, right? That we see all the time, right? The underground, you know, bar that the club beneath the club, right? I'll like where all the, all the shenanigans happen. But again, it just the way wild bar rise it, it feels so different. It's familiar, but, but fresh. I will say this though.
Speaker: I think that if this were written today, that kind of place wouldn't work because I'm thinking about some places like that. And the problem is nowadays, they're totally hipster destinations. Like everybody's like, Oh, you want to go to that historical speak easy down in the bad district. It's so cool, man.
Speaker: They've got a deaf waitress, it's great that they care about people with disabilities like that and it just immediately wouldn't work in 2023 probably. Not at all. Yeah, 2023, they're all hanging out at like a little, if they wanted to really hide in public, they would just go and like stand around in a public park or something and just hold up signs so that nobody wants to make eye contact. The library. Yeah, it's the end is nigh. Yeah. The end is nigh. Exactly.
Speaker: But there is a meme that goes around a lot that says, at least on the memes that I typically see, where it's at the end of a movie, a war movie, it says, this film is dedicated to the brave fighters of the mouchadine. And at the end of our series, there's definitely going to be like, this is a, this was dedicated to the brave fighters of Coyle and the paramilitary boys, because oh my God,
Speaker: I cannot imagine just being a completely super powerless gang, but holding your own against all these guys. Yeah, and we'll get into that, of course, in the back half of this arc. But yeah, interesting because Coyle's group is all what appears to be just sort of well -funded, but not exactly that we can see at this point, not exactly powered in any way. I'm curious to what Kat and Taylor think about Coyle in particular because
Speaker: He not only does he come across as maybe not even having powers but being super well funded.
Speaker: But he also seems like kind of the spokesperson for the villains in Brockton Bay. Like he's the one kind of rounding everybody up, talking to everybody, making deals with fault line about, you know, making sure she doesn't go to the wrong side. Like he seems like, he seems like the leader of this weird villain group in his own way. So I'm curious what you guys think of that, of this potentially unpowered person holding so much power over the villains.
Speaker: Well, I think, uh, maybe you see it differently. I think he has the biggest power of them all and that's green. He's got that green because literally it's like, Oh, I have superpowers, but I mean, how am I going to eat? You know, Oh, I guess I'll rob a bank, you know? And I think that's, he's definitely the one pulling the strings. I think any other, uh, yeah. Any other thoughts on, on that kind of first chapter there? I mean, this is the first time Lisa's finally called Taylor Skitter.
Speaker: That was nice. Forgot about that. Yeah, I definitely like this is also a fun, fun time for.
Speaker: Go say that again. I definitely, definitely laughed at Skidmark's defense of his drug dealing, where he's just like, we don't just tell the children. And not just the men, the women. Oh my God. Gosh. Let's just talk about each of the gangs in turn, because Empire 88 rolls up and they come in style.
Speaker: In fact, I feel like everybody coming in here had style. Yeah. Yeah. Empire 88, of course, had the most swag because, I mean, these are politicians and police officers and well -to -do people. There's just something about fascists and Hugo Boss, you know? Oh my gosh.
Speaker: Yeah, they looked the part. I mean, he literally comes in in his like suit of armor and crown with two supermodels on his arms. And then behind him is like his bodyguard. Exactly. Yeah. Well, behind him, he's got what, purity and hook wolf behind him, right? Purity, hook wolf and doesn't he have night and fog as well? Oh yeah, night and fog. So yeah, they are the squad rolling in, right? Completely unnecessary, but you know. You'll have to see it too at the same time, right?
Speaker: And then we roll over, we've got Fault Line's crew, which, you know, I'm a sucker for a strong female character. And boy, Fault Line coming in in riot gear in a battle skirt is some hot shit. Oh yeah, I love their look.
Speaker: And then finally, of course, skid marks crew, which I just have marked as, cause I couldn't remember their, their dang name if they even have one. And I just have, and then the DJs from up country. I mean, basically. Yeah. Yeah. They, yeah. They're the, uh,
Speaker: They're the meth heads basically is what it feels like. Like my wife and I, we just ended up watching Breaking Bad for the first time this year all the way through. Very nice. And I'm just, I can see in my head like which of the meth crews Skidmark's crew is like, I can picture it in my head and yeah, not, not pleasant people, not pleasant people for sure. I love that the undersiders have a, have a seat at this table too. It's kind of fun because
Speaker: like we're following them, right? So like, they're sort of our heroes here, but certainly in terms of what we've been presented and what we know about these other groups, we don't, at least from me rereading it, it was like, well, I forgot that the underside is just kind of taken seriously. Like they've had some big fights here. They've put themselves on the map. So it's kind of fun to see them join the ranks of the rest of the groups. Yeah, it's this funny thing where it,
Speaker: It hits you where you realize like we know that they're teenagers, but nobody else does. Like that, that was kind of that realization rereading this again of like.
Speaker: uh, everybody thinks that these are, you know, everybody hears equal. These are just another group of villains. They might be a bit younger, but, um, they still have a lot to say and it's important. Um, but no, yeah, they're just, they're just kids. I mean, they're high schoolers essentially is wild. Like it's wild to think that high schoolers could be sitting at the same table as basically, you know, a Neo then, you know, the modern Neo Nazi leader, the,
Speaker: some paramilitary guy with tons of money and meth dealers. We see Taylor kind of have that, the words escaping me, but that kind of like breaking up the fourth wall for her, like with shadow stalker at the mall where she's just like, this is a teenager yelling at my dad right now. Like my dad's just letting a teenager scold him right now.
Speaker: Yeah, and it's just like, they're literally high schoolers. I think she's just starting to get more, like before she wasn't in it. So everybody that was a Kate was
Speaker: mystical and cool. It was all just so niche and she wanted to be a part of it, but now that she's a part of it, it's just become so normal. She's just like, this is ridiculous. I just thought it was so funny when she was just like, this teenager is yelling at my dad right now. Yeah, absolutely. And it's kind of the same thing here in the bar too, where it's like,
Speaker: Wait a second, these are teenagers hanging out with these grown adults who were crying lords. And they're not the only teenagers there either. That's true, that's true. Newters, I think we established as 16. Yeah, yeah. And the labyrinth is also, I'm pretty sure said before when they walk in there to be like maybe a freshman in high school, like very clearly she's young. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: And you know, fault line herself is what they said, like probably somewhere around 22, 24. That's right. Yeah. She's supposed to. She's leading a crew that is kind of getting the better of Lisa, which I think is fun because.
Speaker: Tattletales power is to be smarter than everybody else in the room a lot of the time. And here comes fault line who is just kind of apparently known for kicking her ass when it comes to smarts and that's wild.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. It does kind of make, make you feel the whole like, okay, what, what, what can fault line do? What is her power? Yeah. Um, cause if, if Taylor is admitting that fault line has some, has some weight behind what she can do and how she can influence people or not Taylor, if, uh, um, that'll tail says that the athletes says that then you know that like, okay, there's something, something pretty serious going on.
Speaker: I also love that we get, this is not gonna be, I don't think it's the first time and it's not gonna be the last time I make some sort of reference to Veep on HBO, just because it lives rent free in my head, but the - As it should. As it should, but Lisa like as, because what a perfect character for exposition, right? Like that's Wild Bo's little cheat sheet is just having Lisa,
Speaker: being able to explain everything as people come in. But I kept thinking of the, if you're familiar with Veep and Tony Hale's character, whenever like the vice president is being introduced to large groups of people, he's just standing over her shoulder, whispering into her ear who everybody is. And like one important fact about them, I was just getting that the whole time with Lisa. Like, oh, a hotline, yada, yada, yada. Oh, here's coil, yada, yada, yada. Just like secretly in the back the whole time. Yeah.
Speaker: And so I haven't thought about until I'm hearing it again now, but coil for all how like his seriousness and his, you know, the kind of the grounded nature of his crew.
Speaker: He has a very ostentatious and kind of silly outfit. It's a very comic bookie when everybody else, while they're, you know, they have costumes, they're kind of more practical or...
Speaker: you know, fit a theme that's, you know, not like, oh, I'm a superhero. It's, you know, his is very clearly though, like I'm a super villain and he wears an all skin tight suit that, you know, is akin to the polka dot man from DC. And all skin tight suit with, with the, the snake coiling around it, right? Yeah. Very cool concept, but like,
Speaker: looking at it, it probably looks a little goofy. I like thinking of the like, because like you said, from what we know of coil right now, he's very, very wealthy. That's about all we can tell. So I like the thought of he's really just trying to play super villain. So he's like, well, I, I've got to be a super villain. I guess I, I guess I need a costume. I can't just,
Speaker: I can't just wear like a nice suit, even though I could afford it. So he's got to put something together. And it feels like everybody else is like his group is well -funded, his paramilitary is like thousands of dollars worth of armor and gear. But he's got to have, he still has to have the supervillain costume to look the part. Yeah. Yeah. And the fact that he's described too, I think part of what's interesting with him is the, the way that he's described, right? Not only is he this possibly unpowered paramilitary person, but
Speaker: He also is described as really thin. He is not a physically imposing person at all. And that's part of what fascinates me about him is that he just, he just is. He's nothing really special. He just is. Like Taylor said, the most powerful thing you can have is green, that cheddar. It's true.
Speaker: All right, any more things about the villain meeting before we move to the aftermath? So Taylor did have a thought that continued to interest me because she seems to still think that she's going to leave them and betray them, the undersiders. And I just don't see her
Speaker: I see her becoming more and more of a villain from here. I just think that she's going to start seeing those in the protectorate as the Emma's of the world. People who are not actually good people, but are treated like they're walking on water, even if they legitimately can walk on water, but you get my metaphor.
Speaker: So I don't know. I just think it's interesting because we see her get more and more comfortable, more and more close. I mean, she spent how much time just hanging out with them after her concussion. And then she is saying, I knew it would be hard to turn on them to pull off that grand betrayal and turn their information over to the protectorate. But she was saying, like, I knew I could still do it. I don't think you can. I don't think you're going to do that. But whatever you say, I guess, we'll see.
Speaker: And whatever keeps you going. Yeah. Definitely. Definitely comes across as her trying to convince herself more than anything, you know? Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. I'm totally going to turn these guys in. Yeah. They're villains. Obviously. If anyone asks me, I'm going to do the right thing. Yeah, absolutely. Yes. The right thing. I'm not a villain. Even if I'm doing the exact same things that all the villains do. Exactly. Exactly. Moving outside the, uh,
Speaker: outside of the meeting afterwards. We have the blow up where Hook Wolf and Bitch have their little disagreement because he runs the dog fighting rings and she's breaking that up in the interlude. Afterwards, Brian has to have another one of his talks with Bitch.
Speaker: And I totally get the reason, but every time he does it, he says the same thing, which is like, I hate it when you make me do this. And it's just such abuse language. Oh yeah, absolutely. Especially since he's the one that saved his sister from that. Unfortunately, it does show the cycle of abuse that kind of goes from it. I actually have the same thing written down.
Speaker: His dad is also a really intense person, right? He's mentioned his dad was in the military. His dad's the reason why he knows how to fight. Yeah. Cause his dad's the one he was saying his dad is the one who like, I may have been like an eight year old kid, but that doesn't mean that a grown man was going to go easy on me. Uh, even though he was, you know, twice my, you know, three times my size and weight. And so I can hear,
Speaker: Yeah. And his dad too. I mean, there's also.
Speaker: Um, I, yeah, you can kind of hear the echoes of that, that bad dad voice. That's like, I hate that you're making me do this to you. Um, and that, that kind of unhealthy family pattern that you can see there. Absolutely. I hadn't picked up on that, but that's a great observation. Yeah. Which is so wild, you know, cause it's Brian and Brian is like the steady least villainy person we've kind of met in the group. Mm -hmm.
Speaker: Yeah, but I also think it's kind of an interesting scene too because you sort of get a little bit of insight into Brian and Rachel's dynamic because they go back further than anybody else in the group. They were sort of partnered up before they joined the Undersiders and we know what we know a bitch, she
Speaker: sort of responds in theme to her whole power where she sort of, in terms of the story at least, there is that alpha wolf dynamic, right?
Speaker: And so seeing Brian sort of take that role, I mean, we even see that in Bitch's interlude, right? From Brutus' perspective, where he says, you know, Rachel is the alpha of their pack, but she's not the alpha of her pack. And kind of recognizes Brian in that role. And sort of taking on that angle of the relationship is kind of interesting. Abusive, yes, but also sort of
Speaker: what Rachel needs. It feels so dirty and wrong coming out of my mouth to say that, but we're talking about these characters in the story. Nobody needs or deserves abuse. Let's just be very upfront about that. But in terms of this character and the way that she responds and how animalistic she reacts to things, it's sort of fitting.
Speaker: Yeah, we get that, the talking, you know, finally we get an opportunity to kind of like have Taylor's talk with bitch where she looks at her and is like, clearly bitch isn't getting it. And Taylor kind of has this moment of like trying to emotionally relate and begin to figure out what the hell's up with Rachel.
Speaker: and so she reaches out and, you know, has this moment of sympathy with bitch where they kind of trade like, hey, you know, Emma really fucked me up and I kind of understand like bitches anger, you know, and my anger and how they kind of intertwine and mirror each other and have this good moment as they're like walking and talking and she's thinking, you know, still thinking about betraying them,
Speaker: Yeah, this is, is this interesting dynamic that bitch and Taylor have there. And I think a lot of it is because you have that kind of mutual understanding where Taylor gets what it's like to be put down and to be hurt. And she's trying to put herself into bitches shoes. And I think that's really admirable. Um,
Speaker: Yeah, it's just a tough place where she's like, I'm trying to understand you, but I don't really get you either. But yeah, we get that insight into bitch and I like that where it's like, like Brian says in the bar, he's like, listen, if you are in this area and you attack or you are doing bad things to dogs, you just kind of know
Speaker: I like the analogy he uses. He's like, you wouldn't tell your people to stop harassing gay people, would you? And, uh, Kaiser's like, of course not. Why would anyone do that? Obviously, obviously. Yeah. Um, which I, I kind of do love that in a twisted way and grew just like, well, okay, then it's, you know, the same thing. If you're doing bad stuff to, you're doing bad stuff to dogs, you should just know like that's.
Speaker: You're gonna get it from Rachel, just the way it is, man. Don't blame us when she comes beating down your door. All right, everyone's got their, said their piece on this chapter. Let's go ahead and move on. We've got so much to talk about still, and we're through chapter one. There's so much meat in this arc. I love it. That was chapter two as well. Oh, that's true, okay. We're halfway there. Okay, you're right, you're right.
Speaker: That's right, I misread my notes here. All right, so chapter three, the mall, post -terrorist attack at a mall, which is unfortunately relevant in terms of the atmosphere and the mood that we sort of get in that scene. How did that come across for everybody?
Speaker: Just the capitalistic, oh, well, in order to keep people coming into these big crowded places, we're holding a bunch of sales. And Taylor even comments like, yeah, it's probably not the smartest thing. And I was like, no, yeah, this is real life. This is exactly what would happen. I mean, it did. The post -9 -11 blowout. The post -COVID.
Speaker: I mean, we saw that with, you know, and a lot of things were shut down and they were still trying to find ways to incentivize people to shop. Now, online shopping kept a lot of places in business, but also like when people weren't patronizing this
Speaker: stores, they get shut down. So I kind of get it because the businesses, people still need to make money. But it is kind of interesting that the way they have the police there, but then they have a random teenager and her superhero chaperone
Speaker: you know, just causing a scene, not really doing much, but to help the situation because I feel like they're just, you know, causing more issues than they were helping. Yeah. It's kind of that, um, kind of that mixture of you want people to feel like they're safe. And in this world, the way that people would probably feel safe is if they're superheroes around.
Speaker: The downside, like you said, that that creates is that that also draws a lot of attention and it may even draw more people there, which makes that technically an even more unsafe environment, especially when you're thinking of, you know, you're thinking like a terrorist. You want to hit things that will cause a lot of emotional damage, not just physical damage. A big mall is a good place to hit. If there's heroes there even better, because you might knock out a couple of big heroes that you want to get rid of late.
Speaker: It's a weird dynamic between, I imagine, the protectorate and the wards wanting to keep people safe and trying to keep businesses open versus balancing that with, if we make it too attractive of a target, it's a bad thing.
Speaker: I think she says, people want to go back to normal. They want to be there shopping and enjoying everything, right? So people are trying to experience a bit of normalcy and sort of try to forget everything that's been happening. But it's hard to do that too, when you have capes present and checkpoints and bag checks and all this kind of stuff. You can't really return to that normal, but people are gonna try anyway.
Speaker: Just more flashbacks to the heat of COVID. Yeah, because they even have the same curfews going on in their universe that we did. And at least their curfews make sense. Yeah, yeah. Right. At least their curfews happened. I mean, I still have become so confused. I'm like, COVID gets you after 7pm, but not before.
Speaker: Right. Interesting. You're safe before seventh. I remember my dad getting off work at the hospital where he works, going to the Waffle House and the police were there forcing the Waffle House to shut down and then telling him, no, you got to go home. It's curfew. And I'm like, for those non -southern people, Waffle House does not close. Never. And so literally that was just hilarious when it's like, look, dude, I was just in a hospital. I would have gotten it there.
Speaker: So like, why are you shutting down the Waffle House? I'm bringing it actually. Yeah. And to be fair, there are a thousand other diseases you're going to catch at Waffle House besides that. Absolutely. Yeah. You're going to catch a right hook. And Waffle House is totally the meeting point, right? From where the, where the villains were. They were all around here. Exactly.
Speaker: Yeah, trust me, if COVID wanted to move around in a Waffle House, it's gonna have to fight everything else in there. COVID's been in the Waffle House and it lost. You're not wrong. Waffle House is the Chuck Norris of restaurants. COVID's gonna get into a nice fight in the back behind Waffle House with Ebola and E. coli. Having a villain hide out in the Waffle House since it's all glass is not a good idea, because now I'm picturing looking in there and just seeing all the students. And you're just like, oh, I wonder what's going on in there.
Speaker: But would you actually care because like it's a waffle house. I mean, you could look at a waffle house any day of the week and see any number points and counterpoints, points and counterpoints. Yeah. Anyway, uh, Michael have fun clipping out the waffle house rant. No, the waffle house stays. What else stays is, uh, the whole rant about us telling to keep the rants in. Don't you dare cut those out, Michael.
Speaker: Well, while I have you, it is Fenya and Menya. That's what we're going with. Most consistent thing. That sounds about right. That's kind of what I'd expect. Carry on. I'd like to move on to the segment. Taylor, what the fuck? In this case, brain damage causing her to freak out and punch Emma just right in the kisser.
Speaker: What the fuck Taylor? Yeah. Yeah. But also like, but it's also also like a fuck. Yeah. Taylor. Yeah. They interweave sometimes sometimes. Cause definitely I, I hate it because I've seen this before and it just makes me so sad, especially with what we'll talk about in the next chapter. But like people, people will do things over and over and over again. And then like,
Speaker: that the whole fuck around find out. It's like people will fuck around forever, and then someone will cause them to find out, and then they get mad about it. And oh my gosh, it just... I was literally reading this mad, which is not good because I was on break at work, but... That's fair. There's a lot to be mad about. I like how she just dissociated completely. It was like, oh, I hit her. She was just...
Speaker: Right, like her subconscious was like, this is going down. This bitch is getting her face whopped. Just inside, it's a tiny Palpatine. Do it. Streck it down. Exactly. I don't think that Shadow Stalker made that scene any better. Like, she did not help the situation. I honestly think she escalated it by making... She was like, yeah, it was already a scene, but when this superhero walks over, and you know she was talking to her loud superhero voice,
Speaker: and is like putting her in like a zip tie, handcuff. I'm like, come on. I mean, not to get political, but when have loud cops ever made situations better? For real. Yeah, to make the joke in this situation. Oh, they had a problem. Call over a cape. Now they got two problems. Just the thought process of like, it's a child soldier.
Speaker: Like literally a child soldier just walked over and like puts a child that is her peer in handcuffs and then yelled at a grown ass man. Also from what we know of shadow stalker, just from some of the interludes, shadow stalkers kind of like shadow stalkers only award because she was a vigilante and she like did too many bad things and got shoved onto this. Exactly.
Speaker: They were like, you better get your act together because it's juvie or the warts. Right. Like cop shifting departments. Exactly. Not really the person you want in this scenario either. Like not probably not a great de -escalator. Not at all. And also, and this is maybe forgetting, but where was the other Cape? Who was the, who was chauffeuring? What's her name? Battery, who also has a bad history apparently. Yeah.
Speaker: So not even like a better person necessarily. Not a great combo. Yeah. So just a bad combination all around of people. Yeah. But fuck, man. I love Danny in this chapter. He's literally a perfect being. Because like... And that's just it. I don't remember loving him this much. He is my favorite character because he can do no wrong in my eyes.
Speaker: Just can't, because has he done wrong? No. Only in his own mind, which is when he freaked out about Taylor getting sent to the hospital and got really angry, apparently. But even that, I feel like that level of dad rage is probably justified. Your daughter gets shoved in a locker full of used menstrual products. You're telling me you, and then it sends her to the psych ward. Are you telling me you wouldn't flip shit on everybody in that school?
Speaker: I would, so 100 % justified. And the best dad advocate, okay? Because if you saw your daughter just punch her ex best friend in the face while you're just having a conversation with her dad, most people aren't just gonna be like, so what's wrong?
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. And he immediately defends her too. He's like, it's the concussion. I'm so sorry. Like he even just immediately jumps in and is like, please don't hold this against her. Like she's not in her right mind. And then later is like, Hey, you're not okay. What's up. Talk to me. And I, yeah, that, that too is just really nice. That immediate rather than being like, you know, Taylor, what the heck, why would you do that? And jumping on her in addition to the other two, she's, he's kind of like immediately defending her, which I think is great too.
Speaker: And Taylor tells him. She finally tells him. Yeah, that was so satisfying. More than the punch, honestly. Yeah. Yeah, him just got quiet. Oh, oh, like. Yeah. Yep. Oh, it hurts. And fuck Emma's dad. What's his name, Alan? Fuck Alan.
Speaker: Alan, Alan, God, I have a note in here. It's for later, but it just says fuck you Alan. It says fuck I love Danny and then fuck you Alan. I literally actually right above fuck you Alan. It says let's go Danny too. I literally wrote Emma has a lawyer dad. Now it all makes sense because yeah. Yeah. I was like, okay, now everything's tracking. So that does sort of, I was going to say that transitions well.
Speaker: next chapter into the confrontation at the school or the little sit down with the principal and all the teachers, all the bullies. This is quite the moment.
Speaker: I had so much anxiety reading this and I didn't realize to like halfway through the chapter that like, I just needed to get up and walk around or do something. Cause I just had so much going on. I fucking love this scene and I felt uncomfortable reading it the whole time. Oh yeah. And I felt terrible because literally
Speaker: I knew what was going to happen before just because of how realistic he wrote it. Literally, she brings out the different things and as soon as we find out it's like school accounts, I was like, oh, they're going to discredit that. As soon as she's bringing up all the instances, I'm like, okay, well, they can easily just say that there's no proof. Oh my gosh, the whole thing was just a pot boiling over and over again.
Speaker: This is up until this point in the story. I think this chapter is Wild Bo's strongest writing. It feels so real as you're saying, Taylor. The fact that Taylor character, just saying that right after your name, had like log books of all of this going day by day.
Speaker: was such like, oh yes, fuck yes, she kept it all. But then right into the rebuttals from the parents, nobody really believing her, the anger, the frustration, it's just too real almost. We read fantasy to escape from real life, not to read transcripts of what happened yesterday afternoon.
Speaker: And I was taking notes because whenever she talked about, you know, Danny and I discussed what we wanted to get out of this meeting beforehand because he said that you always need to go into these meetings with goals. And I was like, okay, I'm writing that down. Yeah. And her goal was so simple, right? All she wanted to do was be transferred, which feels like such an easy solution. Yeah. The way that she was like, I just don't want to be in this school anymore.
Speaker: They're like, well, a two week suspension, anything more than a two week suspension for them seems terrible. She's like, I'm literally not asking for that. They were just not listening to her at all. And then they weren't even going to try to transfer. I am so pissed, one at the principle, obviously, at the bitches. And the thing is, people who are bullies usually have parents who are bullies, right? So I'm not surprised at the way that their guardians reacted to all of that stuff.
Speaker: But the principal, Mr. Gladly. And then I feel like Mrs. Knott was trying a little bit, but just didn't wanna go against Mr. Gladly and the principal. She just obviously wanted to stay on the side of the principal.
Speaker: or stay very neutral. And I just hated that for her because she was so right when she said it feels like me and my dad against the rest of you. It was so clearly. And the fact that she's like, transfer me, get me out of the school. You guys don't want me here. I don't wanna be here. Let me leave.
Speaker: And then they just talk past her like, ah, but if only there was a solution to this, I guess suspension, she's like, might as well beat, you know, beat against a soundproof glass wall. Like, can y 'all even hear me? Like what the fuck? She's like, y 'all have positioned us over here. You know, a suspension is you're just giving them a little vacation and everything. She's like, I don't want any of that. I just want to be transferred.
Speaker: And it's just, I mean, I could see it the whole time where I'm like, this principal sat the teachers down and was like, Hey, we're about to have a meeting. Um, and one of the partners at the law firm, his daughter is getting accused of something. So we need to go ahead and make this go away.
Speaker: You know what I'm saying? Like it wasn't sitting there like, we've had a student that's been bullied and we kind of need, no, it was definitely like, Hey, we need to make sure that this family doesn't cause trouble with all of our like more fluent students. No, it definitely felt, felt like that where it was like, okay, yeah, you guys are just immediately jumping on this person's side or at least trying to do that without making it seem like you're doing that.
Speaker: And that's just so frustrating and I get it. Like I get a small bit of it because you can't, you can't just throw the book at a student because another student accuses them of something. But the difference is that it's very clear that stuff has happened to Taylor and they even admit that they're like, yeah, some of this probably happened, which is just a stupid thing to say. Um,
Speaker: But it's just so frustrating because she's not making this up. Like you can tell, and we, of course we know because we're looking at it from Taylor's perspective, but if you would just listen to her and you would hear what she's saying, you'd hear the descriptions.
Speaker: And my goodness, even just to say, you know what, let's try to get some other students. Let's get some anonymous people. Maybe we'll try to confirm your story for you. See if we can get any other reports of stuff like this. They don't even try. It's, it's so frustrating that they don't even try to, you know, they're saying, do you have any evidence Taylor? They're putting all the burden on the poor bullied kid, which is so wrong. Like that's just the exact opposite of what you should do as an administrator in the situation.
Speaker: that they brought her in and the first meeting with the faculty isn't, hey, we're gonna sit down with the principal and the guidance counselor. It's we're gonna sit down with the principal, the guidance counselor gladly and all the other people. Isn't that usually like abuser tactics like 101 what not to do is get them in the room with the abusers? There should have been. Well, I don't think it was like a guidance counseling session.
Speaker: Yeah, of course. But that should have been like a, hey, we've got a problem, teacher. There's been all this bullying and it's like, oh, cool. Let us bring in all the bullies too. Well, the problem actually is that Alan called the meeting. Oh, you're right. Oh, that's true. You're right. They had the ace up the sleeve, which is they finally pushed Taylor to the limit of her assaulting his daughter.
Speaker: Which it was assault, unfortunately. What prosecutor, cuz her dad's not a prosecutor, okay? So he's not just gonna suddenly be able to press charges and do this case. He could be her defending lawyer, sure, but he's not a prosecutor. So what prosecutor is going to do a case where it's like a 15, 16 year old girl punched another 15, 16 year old girl?
Speaker: If they fucking press charges every time a kid got punched by another kid. Yeah, no, I definitely hear you. I definitely hear you there, but it's definitely a viable threat. Yeah, I think it's more of a offensive, like it just being the threat of like, hey, if you try to make this, you know, if you try to attack my daughter, Emma, in this case, like just know that you will not win that fight. And, you know, he goes on the offensive first.
Speaker: And this entire time is like, yeah, we, you know, he called it so quickly that hopefully they wouldn't have time to get their shit together. But as we all know, Taylor brought the receipts. And also they even mentioned like, Oh, you will go bankrupt paying all the legal fees. So it's like, I have the means to drag this out in court. You don't have the means to fight it, which is just, which is sad because, because it's part of,
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, because the reality is, if it did go to court, if it actually got in front of a judge and jury, Taylor probably wins that. There's enough circumstantial evidence to win a civil case. Civil cases are different than criminal in that sense.
Speaker: I think that's part of it is Alan being the attorney knows that like, okay, my only chance of actually winning this is to either prevent the lawsuit from ever coming to court or just doing tactical stuff to drag it out so that they can't afford it.
Speaker: because the reality is like Taylor probably wins that. And he doesn't want to be in that position where now his daughter is, you know, got a criminal record or anything like that, which is kind of just so sleazy, like just brutal tactics, which are pointed out as well. As you guys have been saying, I hate it. Yeah. It's also interesting that Taylor, as we're in her mindset and, you know, her state of thinking, you know, she is having to hold back all of her impulses now.
Speaker: And we kind of got a vibe from this from the very first scene of her in the bathroom. But if she isn't holding back, her power is going. And if she isn't holding back, she's throwing punches. Her natural state, at least at this point, and potentially since she got powers,
Speaker: is militant. And did you notice when Danny had said there's probably a reason for that? I think this goes back to me thinking back in the very beginning when we got his interlude where I'm like, I feel like he has maybe some extreme emotion or something. Maybe he doesn't have a power that's a power, but maybe it's just intense emotions.
Speaker: And I think that maybe he's thinking that like maybe Taylor also is getting those same kind of like emotional outburst and like the extremeness of it. I don't know. Maybe he's a manic bipolar manic depressive. Yeah, but this is a.
Speaker: fantasy. So that's, that's not, I mean, given the, everything else talked about feel like it's not that fantastical to have some mental health problems too. Well, I mean, let's also, before we jump to that, he lost his wife in a horrific accident, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So you're dealing with that as well, emotionally. And then you have to raise a daughter on your own, which if he, if he was like a regular dad, he wasn't even doing like 50 % of the raising. I mean, I, you know what I mean?
Speaker: He's having to learn how to cook waffles and, uh, you know, casseroles and anything to feed them. Cause he's just like, Oh man, if I don't know how to heat it up, Taylor does kind of say that how she's like, you got to learn how to cook for yourself. You know, when your dad's a widower and he doesn't know how to, and he's just busy too. Like he's the only one. Yeah. He's the only one providing for the family. He's.
Speaker: busy working, um, late hours. And clearly too, he's one of those, he's like just a slight step above a lower class blue color worker, clearly. Um, because he's just immediately like, you know, I, I'm doing the best I can. Um, but when Alan mentioned, you know, we could drag this out for a long time in court, you can feel his heart drop where he's like,
Speaker: You would do that. Like, you know that we don't have a lot of money and you would do that to us. Which is why my favorite part of the chapter is every time Danny said, shut up, Alan. And it's just so annoying because this isn't even the first offense. Like this is okay. We had a student that was shoved in a locker full of used tampons, had a mental lapse. And like Danny's like, you told me you would look into this.
Speaker: Like y 'all told me that y 'all would look into this. Why does my daughter have notebooks full of incidences? Like what is happening here? I think that's part of it too with the administrators and the teachers is they feel guilty because they're like, they're trying to make all these excuses of like, Oh, you know, we just, we have so many other things going on. It's just so hard for us to,
Speaker: to do all of this and to keep in mind all the things you want us to do. But that's just such a lame excuse and you can feel it too. It's like they're just really trying to back up and cover their asses as much as they can and it feels so bad.
Speaker: Yeah, this is the example of like, you can use supervillains as like, oh yeah, why didn't I make it? Oh, there were supervillains bombing the place. Like, this is one of those times where the excuse just doesn't land of like, oh, well, you know, why can't you take care of her? It's like, oh, cause supervillain gangs are in the school. Like, sure, whatever. Yeah, they're like, we have to be selling drugs. And I'm like, really, Mr. Gladly, you're stopping kids from, you're probably selling drugs.
Speaker: Yeah, if anybody's selling drugs, it's definitely Mr. Gladly. That's what I'm saying. Oh, 100%. Also, finally, we get the moment where Taylor goes full school shooter and is like, how about I just bring a knife to school? How about I just start stabbing people? Would you listen to me then? I go like, all right, calm down, Taylor. I kind of get it, though. That's the - I just want to know why - Nick. Maybe it's for dramatic effect, but - Get it.
Speaker: Why the option of doing what Brian did, which is like online school or getting her GED wasn't an option. Like that's not been crossed her mind once this whole time. And I just feel like. Not yet. I imagine this might be the straw that breaks the Campbell's back though.
Speaker: where she's like, you know what, you're right, fuck it. I think this goes into one of the things, she's repeated a few times, which is she's not about to not show up to something, because that's letting them win. But by going to Arcadia, she still gets a W under her belt, because she's not calling it quits. And at the same time, she's not giving in, but
Speaker: it would relieve all of her problems and still allow her to go to school, to live a, you know, best revenge is a well -lived life, that whole thing. There's a point when you need to not make it about winning as in getting a one up, but winning as in the win is getting yourself out of a situation like that.
Speaker: And I get it, I mean, she's a teenager, she thinks it's a battle that needs to be won. And sometimes winning the battle is just leaving it. And I think that would probably be the best course of action. Because if she can't get to Arcadia High School, then
Speaker: You should not, no matter what, the option is not to stay in that school. The teachers are shit, the principals shit. Obviously, it's a shitty school, just in general. Full offense to the principal. But yeah, and then just maybe have a bumblebee that's constantly buzzing in their ear, around their face. Just something like that. I don't know.
Speaker: And I think that just comes with the immaturity, because I'm speaking from the perspective of someone who's not a teenager for a while. So I just feel like it's like, just remove yourself. Just get out of there. You don't have to take it as a loss if you just don't have to.
Speaker: I think something that probably also prevented her before is that she just dropped out. Her dad's gonna find out that part and she doesn't want to disappoint him, but she also didn't want to tell him about the bullying ever until then. But now that she's told him, perhaps that becomes an option. She's like, hey, dad, I don't want to ever go back to that place again. And he's like, why would I ever make you go back there? He's like, actually, I really like your super villain friends. They're way nicer.
Speaker: I mean, that is basically what it is, though, sadly, is that her best friends are bad people, technically. But they're the only people that are being good to her outside of her dad. Yeah. Exactly, exactly. They're the only people who've been nice to her. That is the record, Ralph. We're bad guys, but that doesn't mean we have to be bad guys. Exactly. Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Speaker: but Taylor walks out of the school, has to take a little venting moment, she gets the call, and Lisa's like, hey, we're about to have a throw down. You in? And Taylor hits us with the line, I wanna hit someone. And I'm ready to fucking go. Gloves are off. Yep, yep, absolutely. All right, any final thoughts before we get into wrapping this up with some predictions
Speaker: and closing us out. Any last thoughts on the first four chapters as a whole? No. All right. We've said all that needs to be said. I love it. I'll just add this. I don't know if this is the moment, and I actually haven't read the rest of Arc Five, so I can't remember what happens next, but I remember we talked a lot about in previous arcs, especially Taylor, you were predicting that there was going to be a heel turn, and this kind of feels like that pivotal moment where it's like, okay. Yeah, we're getting closer. This is the moment. We're getting closer. Yeah.
Speaker: All right, well, with that, then we will save the juicy predictions for the for the rest of the arc. So for next episode, we'll go ahead and we'll look at the remainder of arc five plus the interlude and see exactly what Taylor decides to hit. And until next time, thank you for everyone who's listening in. It's been a lot of fun as always. We're going to be here through the rest of the whole whole series. So stick around. We've got a long way to go. Michael.
Speaker: want to play a sound.
Speaker: All right. Welcome back to another episode of Dissecting Worm. I think that's what we're going to go with. I think we've been playing around with some names, but I think I like Dissecting Worm. It's a pretty good name. Yeah. Yeah, I think it works. All of our worm ideas, I'm very surprised that that's the one like we skipped over somehow. Yeah. I know. It gets kind of, we just kind of slotted it in there.
Speaker: Anyway, we are back myself, Jacob with Alan, no other, no other guests this episode. And we are looking at arc five of worm, um, probably just the first four or so chapters. And then I think we're gonna, we're gonna push the rest of the arc to the next episode, just for time purposes, because boy, oh boy, do we have a lot to work through.
Speaker: in this arc. So I was trying to think about where we wanted to start thinking about this arc in terms of how we wanted to break it up. Cause it's funny. There is a lot of meat here, but there's not necessarily like that, that much time to work with compared to the other, other arcs. Like you could fit this into one episode. There's not,
Speaker: There's not a ton of extra stuff to deal with, but there is enough for a full episode here. Yeah. I think there's enough conversations between the, what I would consider the first part and the second part, uh, five point, you know, one through four and then 5 .5 through 10. And then the interlude, uh, to warrant, you know, there's just all these conversations between people, um, that take place that I think warrant two whole episodes.
Speaker: And even there's some other pacing issues with this, which get into more so the end. But what I do like about cutting this into two episodes is that allows us to put more interludes in as post credit scenes. Yes, exactly my thought as well.
Speaker: All right, so let's dive in these first four chapters deal primarily with Taylor's outing with her dad, her confrontation with Emma.
Speaker: the confrontation at the school with the bullies and the principal and all the teachers there, that whole thing. Well, you forgot the first part. The first part. I skipped over. Yeah, you're right. I did. The villain meeting. Yes, yes. And then we get to the civilian stuff. Part of me wants to play around with the script a lot, but part of me is also like, Wild Bo made it easy. I mean, I feel like that's a great intro to the episode.
Speaker: This is the villain meeting. No complaints. I feel like it ties in well, especially we're keeping all the bombs going off in the last episode. Carry that right in. Not much needs to change. I think we talked about last time moving.
Speaker: moving the Brutus interlude over potentially. And I think that's a really good decision because it ties the two episodes together. If you end the last episode with purity, going and joining and having the conversation with Max, it's perfect because she walks in with Max in this episode.
Speaker: But if you have, and then this episode starts with, you know, Bitch and Brutus, which is a perfect tieback, you know, especially if we end it with a bomb going off and her looking and being like, what the hell's going on? You know, tying to timeline wise, what, you know, what we remember, you don't have to do how, have any sort of like previously on,
Speaker: It's just bitches doing her thing because she was off doing her thing. And then a bomb goes off and you're like, Oh, that's right. Bombs. And you're back in. No need for the last time. Exactly. Exactly. And then it ties perfectly into dealing with hook Wolf.
Speaker: Exactly. Actually, you're kind of right on the money. Yeah. A lot of this is going to flow really nicely, which is perfect. Makes for easy writing. So what doesn't make it for easy writing in this point is we got to fix the timeline. Yeah. Okay. Go ahead.
Speaker: So to fix the timeline, cause we've got, you know, we've got this thing where like Taylor goes ahead and you know, there's like at the very beginning of all of these arcs.
Speaker: Taylor has this issue where she, you know, she does her thing and she decides she's going to go superheroing on Thursday and she doesn't do it until what's Sunday night. Right. And then she, you know, comes in and it's this weird like time jump, uh, that I didn't feel. Uh, I feel like if we do a show, it's gotta be like, she's doing this on a Friday. She's like, you know what? Screw it. I'm going. Um, and then like everything kind of immediately day after day after day happens.
Speaker: And then you get to this and you know, she's got brain damage. She's out for a week. Yeah. And that's, you know, that's a long time. It is, especially with, as you said, the way the episodes have been pacing so far. Yeah. I mean, the nice thing is, is there's
Speaker: a lot of easy ways to sort of go around that. Right. So either we just shorten the time she's out, you know, just to a day or so and just kind of keep things moving, which in my opinion makes a bit more sense because of everything with the bombs going off and the sort of the whole, all the villains getting together to discuss it. That feels like it'd be a pretty urgent thing. They're not going to drag that out a bit.
Speaker: So, you know, maybe we just shorten that timeline a bit. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so part of this, I think is for this episode. Um, and this would come to the interlude that we will, or not the interlude, but, uh, an extra scene that we'd come up with that we wanted to add. I think this is a perfect part at the end of this episode as we split it into half. Um,
Speaker: So, you know, it's been a week. There are bombs going off everywhere. What does Bakuta want? And people kind of talking, you know, mentioning things about like, it's just running rampant. We just need to end this. And I think it's perfect to end this episode on her breaking along out. Okay. This is the episode where the post credit or the end of, you know,
Speaker: See, I was thinking, okay, well, I mean, it could work either way, I guess. I think in my mind, I was gonna put that in the last episode to coordinate, or to parallel rather, the explosions, right? So you show the bombs going off, you show the reactions to it, and we see in that same scene, the breakout, just to sort of illustrate the whole point of the bombings in the first place.
Speaker: But you could cut back to it, of course, if you wanna put it in this episode and cut back to that moment and then leave the bomb as a mystery in the previous episode and then answer that question here, I think that does work too. So you could easily put it here. Yeah, and I think my logic would be for Bakuta, like they talk about her during the meeting, like she's a dog without a leash maybe, like now that lung's gone, yada, yada, she thinks she's in control, she's a maniac.
Speaker: end of this episode, you realize like the whole reason that she's running around causing all this chaos is to kind of draw all the heroes and people's attentions away from right. And, and that's when she strikes, you know, it takes a week to maybe draw people away, draw attention away, or maybe put pressure enough that they have to move him. And that's, oh yeah. Okay. So maybe it has taken a week.
Speaker: Okay. Yeah. That works too. Which works, I think, well for the second half because they go like, Oh my God. And lungs here. True. So make that. Oh, see that. That would be interesting because you could actually, that's true. We could actually reword that. I'm just kind of thinking about this or what if the, what if the breakout
Speaker: What if nobody realizes Lung's at the fight at the end until we see him or until the characters see him? Like the audience can be in on the secret, but like the characters, what if they don't realize Lung is there? They think they're going to take down Bakuta and there he is. That's interesting. Okay. We could play around with that. Interesting. Okay. But that's getting ahead of ourselves. That's going to be in the future here. Let's go to the bad guy meeting. Bad guy meeting.
Speaker: I do love, I think visually, I mean, obviously, how can you not make the comparison to Joker's entrance in The Dark Knight, right? Like, it's the same scene, essentially, just with a slightly different, you know. Are you talking about the gang leaders? Yeah, thanks. Yeah, thank you, Michael. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. The magic trick, make this pencil disappear, that whole thing, right?
Speaker: Like.
Speaker: They're meeting there because they're all afraid of Batman and Joker's calling them out on it. And it's kind of similar because in Worm, they're all meeting because of Bakuta. That's one of my favorite scenes of anything ever. Oh, it's so good. It's so well done. So we can obviously give a little love to that scene with also trying to want to make it your own. But I just love the idea. It's jam packed with style is what I wrote down here.
Speaker: style. I like that. Because we have all the different crews doing this visually. They need to be so distinct. And each one of them, Wildboat goes into descriptions about costumes, because those are important. But also, they have style as well as just distinctive style. It's
Speaker: Oh, good. Like Empire 88 for, you know, being the massive pieces of shit they are, are so cool when they swagger in. Holy shit. Yeah. And then Fault Line comes in with her crew. And, you know, what a fucking weird group, but like Fault Line herself has this tactical skirt and body armor, like,
Speaker: Yeah. Oh yeah. Just some great moments. And I love because we get to this point where throughout the, you know, season so far, we've gotten introduced over time to bits and characters here and there. We've gotten the undersiders and sort of their haphazard costumes. We get glimpses of like the protectorate, right? With arms master, we see the wards and their costumes were slowly kind of building towards, and then we get,
Speaker: We get this great scene with all of these villains coming in decked out, ready to go. Just like a very, very mega mind, right? It's like, you'll never be a, you'll never be a super villain. Oh yeah. What makes a super villain? Presentation.
Speaker: Exactly. Exactly. So no, I totally agree. You can have a lot of fun. What is it? The skids. What do they call them? I said skids because I'm thinking the letter Kenny and the one guy's name is Mark, but I just put down the DJs from upcountry.
Speaker: I forgot what their names are. I can't think of it either. They come in and while they certainly have, we'll call it a distinctive look, they don't really have a thing going. They just look like meth heads with bandanas, at least that's kind of a look, the vibe I got.
Speaker: Right. You know, that works a little bit different than everybody else.
Speaker: Well, and I like that too. I like that there's a lot of contrast there. It's a lot of fun. Like you said, you've got sort of the more, the 1 %er look that I think Empire 88 brings, right? Yeah. Like you've got fault lines, island of misfit toys. You've got like just so, like you said, style. I mean, we're saying the same thing over and over again, but you're right. I mean, there's just a lot here to visually work with, which,
Speaker: Unfortunately, we don't really play around too much in the script itself, but certainly in terms of thinking about how the scene is structured, a lot to work with, a great moment, a great way to start the episode.
Speaker: Which leads me to ask, like, do we have Lisa sit there and exposit every person that comes in? Do we leave it to just, you know what, you'll find out when you find out, which I'm also inclined to, or do you have, you know,
Speaker: dare I say it, suicide squad introductions. Hell no. Nope. Absolutely not. Put my foot down there. We're just going to scratch that. I'm glad you said it, you know, it hurt coming out. There's no bad ideas, right? Yeah. Which is why we don't say them anymore. Exactly. Michael, strike that from the record.
Speaker: Not a third one. Exactly. No, I mean, I like that you mentioned that because I think God, the Suicide Squad style, it works in very specific
Speaker: What's the word I'm thinking of? Tones and styles, I guess, you know, right? Like a Guardians of the Galaxy -esque type tone. Worm just doesn't have that. And if you try to do that, I think you lose a lot of the impact of the brutality, of the realism, of sort of that darker nature.
Speaker: I'm inclined to less is more. So yeah, I'd rather not say a damn thing. And then the audience would be completely lost than overexplain stuff. I'm certainly in that camp as well. I think if you wanted to make a couple of exceptions, it would depend on how we want to fully flesh out purity and Max's conversation in the previous episode. Cause I think we should establish like,
Speaker: that they're empire 88 and who, what that means. I mean, at least for empire 88, like there's a couple of people that, you know, that, that we don't see their powers, but for the most part, like we're about to see Kaiser in his full going off and we're about to see Fenya and Benya and we've seen purity like, and we're going to see neuter and we're going to see Gregor and, you know, we kind of get a vibe for fault line. Yeah. I was going to say fault line is clear.
Speaker: I can speak, I promise. I think they work best or better in a bit of mystery and shadow anyway, so less is more absolutely with them. We get introduced to the travelers, which I forgot while we were reading this that we see them so soon, but we get the travelers here.
Speaker: Again, better to be shrouded in mystery with them. So really you're talking about like Empire 88 and that's it, which you can be pretty brief on that. So like, because again, we have even the little grunt that Glory Girl and Panacea beat up was Empire 88. So you can put some of the exposition there, right?
Speaker: You don't have to just sit down and be like, and these guys are the white supremacists and these guys are the monster people. And I don't know who they, you don't, you don't have to do that. Yeah. And I mean, their style kind of gives off enough. And we've talked about, like you said, we've talked about fault line screw before, um, or at least fault line. We've talked about fault line. Um,
Speaker: Yeah. So I think, yeah, I think most of them, like I said before, I think their style tells a lot about them. So when they come in, you've got the methods, you know, who are they? Methods who got powers. It's pretty simple. You know, who are these guys? Well, we know they're white supremacists. So, you know, no explanation there. Now fault lines crew with the monsters. That's got a little bit of a mystery to it now, which evolves throughout this chapter, but.
Speaker: Okay. I guess moving on. Trickster has a pretty good, he's a great way to shift the expositive, I guess the expositive character, you know, you have the rookie character that you're always telling all the rules to. And in this case, it's been Taylor, of course.
Speaker: But Trickster is great because he's from out of town. And so it's a good shift, you know, to break the monotony of constantly having to explain to Taylor and by the audience have this new vehicle Trickster to explain to the audience, Hey, this is how things work here. Yeah. No, I agree. Yeah. He fits in there pretty well, which is great.
Speaker: But no, but absolutely you can structure the dialogue of that scene around a conversation with Trickster and you can do any sort of little exposition you want directed towards him. Exactly. And that's how you creatively fit in exposition is you can throw it in a dialogue, et cetera. So we can certainly kind of structure that dialogue around a bit and make sure it flows nice and smoothly.
Speaker: Yeah. Another good part we're talking about this is you got to figure out because we, you know, we cut the bucket of fight. So right. Element from that. She has everybody's bombs hooked up to her heart. Right. Right. I think given that everybody's kind of sharing information.
Speaker: Um, and that the focus they talk about like, Oh yeah, that's kind of why it's so important that the undersiders be here. I think we scrap. I think the undersiders are there because they've tangled with lung before they've kicked his ass and that's kind of gotten them some respect. They say, um, but tattletale has information that she's dug up, uh, you know, and coil also can, you know, spill some stuff about.
Speaker: Yeah. Somebody says like something like, uh, yeah, she has her heart hooked up. So if we kill her, we can't kill her. Cause if we do, everybody blows up and that's a lot of people, even for villains, like that's a lot of people for us to kill.
Speaker: Yeah. Somebody goes, you know, well, how do you know that? And then, you know, Alec, maybe out of turns like, dude, she like broadcast at live and told everybody. Yeah. She's, she's a, she's a maniac. She told us all try and kill me. Like, and then he like, you know, holds up his phone and it's her like, just try and kill me. You do that. You'll be killing every one of them. They're all hooked up to my heart. Yeah.
Speaker: Oh man, I forgot. I'm trying to keep my notes here. I got thoughts for the next episode, but no, yeah, I liked that. The other thing I was reminded of that we want to make sure we get in here or move around is
Speaker: is the confrontation between grew and bitch right after this meeting, right? Where he's kind of reprimanding her for the dog fighting ring. So we just need to make sure that like, cause I really liked that little moment. It's a really good moment. Yeah. And one that I think we absolutely need to keep, but it's, we got to make sure that it, it hits at the right time. Um, so might have to play around with when
Speaker: Because I think are we, did we decide? I think we're going to put the Brutus interludes slash dog fighting ring at the end of the last episode. Or did you want to move that to this episode? I think the beginning of this. Beginning of this. Okay. Yeah. And that works. That actually, that would actually probably work pretty well. You could hit the, you know, you do that, but you're, you're open intro sequence and then you kick this off with one week later. Yeah. Okay.
Speaker: Yeah, that actually works. I like that. I do like that. All right. Well, let's keep going. Yeah. So moving past, you know, we got a bitch a few times all the way. So now we get to the mall. We get back to the civilian issues, which man, I don't actually have a whole lot of writing notes for this because it, you know, it, it, it goes just the way
Speaker: I got, I got nothing for this. Do you have any notes on this? Not really notes. Just so much as that. Um, I do, I do think that there's a lot to play around with visually here because there's a lot of tension at the mall. Um, that I think is just going to be so great to work with if, uh, you know, the lucky directors about this.
Speaker: Yeah. That I think visually, you know, this is the time culturally in America, at least mall shootings, kind of a thing going around. Yeah. Yeah. So like to understand, Oh yeah, there's a checkpoint at the mall with all this. It's going to be a lot of this.
Speaker: You know, between that Taylor, I've said before Taylor gives off school shooter energy, which wasn't something I'd gotten on previous reads. And in this one, she literally says like, Hey, how about I come in here and start stabbing people, huh?
Speaker: Like, oh, yeah, no, no, she's a school shooter for sure. Yeah, right. Yeah, I heard it best. I was actually reading something completely unrelated to worm, but about science fiction and fantasy. And I never heard it put so simply, but it's so true. And that's that science fiction, but you can rope kind of fantasy in here as well is not a, it's not like a,
Speaker: a prophecy of what's to come, dystopian futures and all of that kind of stuff.
Speaker: it is a criticism of what is. And I love that so much because we can do exactly what you're just saying. Everybody understands the fear and that unsettling tension in the air whenever there's a shooting at a big public place.
Speaker: Fortunately, I have never been around one in close proximity, but I've had friends that were pretty close and it's not a fun feeling. And so like, there's, there's ways that you can really sort of, I'm thinking of like music and just background conversations. I mean, when Taylor hits Emma, like there's
Speaker: people freak out because there's this fear that something's about to start. It's such a great scene. And I know we're going to probably get into this spoiler as we're recording this before the book club portion. So maybe we might be doubling up on some conversations here.
Speaker: with how quickly the words step in, everything that follows. This is such a great scene for a television series. Again, don't really have any notes here. I don't think there's really anything we change. The dialogue flows, everything flows there.
Speaker: everything sort of works, but it's such an important scene. And I think we keep it in pretty much as intact as we can. Yeah, same for, I think same for the whole confrontation at the school.
Speaker: Yeah. Like it's, it's so tense. Yep. So tense. Yeah. And I just, it's, you know, it's perfect. I got no notes other than like maybe some very quick editing back and forth, you know, in this room between people, but.
Speaker: Oh, yeah. I mean, you're doing this whole scene is like the climax of Good, Bad and the Ugly, right? All the darting back and forth looking here. Who's there? Mexican standoff the entire time. Yeah, very much so. There's a lot of that. And, you know, he he hits it. I've got the perfect spot for the end of the end of the episode. Taylor gets out of that intense scene. Her dad's like trying to, hey, you know, OK, she's like, I'm fine. She calls up Lisa.
Speaker: Like we're getting a band back together. She goes, I want to hit someone. And I'm like, let's fucking go. That's it. I want to hit you in, you know, like I want to hit someone. I'll take that as a yes. Yep. Yep. Oh man. And you know, if we, if we do the, the bitch interlude,
Speaker: If we put in the, um, bakuta breaking lung out here. Yeah. I think that happens. I want to hit someone credits roll. Bakuta breaks lung out. Yeah. I think that, I mean, that really stretches the episode. You can cause he, he ends, you know, we talked about how we imagine that, you know, and that being he gets out and she's like, you know, Hey, and he's like, I've got a bone to pick with one person in particular.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. Which is perfect. Both of them are ready to rear in for a fight and we're about to get it. Yup. Uh, I was, I was watching, talking about end credits and things. Um, I really love the way, have you ever seen, have you ever watched Veep, the show Veep on HBO? You know, I have. Okay. I figured, well, you know, I had to ask the way they do their credits. Of course it's a comedy. It's a, it's a very different style, but I love, I love the way they do it because it's not,
Speaker: The episode has ended, right? We've gotten everything we needed to get done, but there's still jokes left to play. And they play those jokes, they give us the punchlines while the credits are rolling. And it just sort of, it caps off the episode so beautifully. And I love how they do that. And I was thinking, I mean, you could easily do the same thing here.
Speaker: and just start off have those credits going, right? Have Bakuta and Onili and some other goons riding in the cars or however you want to stage the scene, right? And then just cut right at the end to the breakout as the final credits roll. And you've just left with that tension. Plus, I mean, I'm a credits purist. I think everyone should get their moment for their name to be seen if they worked on a project.
Speaker: And I am all in favor of doing whatever you can to get as many names in people's faces at the end there. So if you got to get creative with it, I love that. I think it sort of bolsters the credits because nobody stays with the credits anymore. Everybody skips over that. It's kind of unfortunate. I think this is one of those things that having an end credit scene and getting people to at least at the very least stick around and talk during that.
Speaker: while they wait for the end credit scene to see that. I think another fun thing to do during the end credit sequence is to have not just a blank slate there, but maybe the top third of the screen be the city line of Brockton Bay. And change it, wouldn't have to be a whole lot of changes, because you're just doing the city line.
Speaker: Change it according to whatever's happening in the world at the time. Bombs are going off, the city line at night, fires are raging.
Speaker: credits are rolling in front of that into the black, you know, the blacker area so that they can be more seen. But you've got like kind of a, an ambiance of like what's still going on in the world wall. The world is still active even as credits roll and wall you're waiting, you know, week to week or whatever. Right. That world still exists. And Proctin Bay is,
Speaker: is a character. Oh yeah. Very much so. And that's just like a small thing, you know, to add to that. Yeah. No, I do like that. And I like, I like your Brockton Bay as a character very much so. And I think, uh, anything we can do to sort of enhance that, right? Give, give the cities, give the city some character. I think that's always going to be a good idea.
Speaker: Well, do we have any other notes for this first, uh, half of the arc?
Speaker: You know, like always, I'm sure we'll come back and sort of adjust some things, move some things around. I know we haven't talked formally about this, but I think I think it'd be really fun to do sort of once we kind of hit where we think season one ends to sort of have an episode where we come back and just sort of clean up and polish and review season one. Right. So I think I think we'll probably touch on this again. But I think for the for now, I've said everything I want to say.
Speaker: All right, well, thanks for listening. We are going to be picking up with the second half of arc five in the next episode, kind of splitting it up just for time purposes. Hopefully help keep everything a bit organized, ourselves organized primarily is what we're talking about here. So we hope you enjoyed listening and we'll catch you in the next episode.
Speaker: Read along with us at parahumans .wordpress .com. We'd love to hear your thoughts. What did you love? What did you hate? Anything you think we missed, etc., as long as it's kind. 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.
