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Dissecting Worm - Season 4 Recap; Arcs 20-25
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This story isn’t intended for young or sensitive readers. Readers who are on the lookout for trigger warnings are advised to give Worm a pass.
Complete list of potential triggers: here
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Dissecting Worm: The sister podcast to Brockton Bay Book Club where our hosts Jacob and Allan discuss adapting Worm for television.
Episode Description: In this season 4 review the gang discusses their adaptation choices for Arcs 20-25.
Get in contact with us @brocktonbaybc
A big thank you from all of us here at The Brockton Bay Book Club for all the love and support! We're excited for many more seasons to come!
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Timestamps: (00:00) - Introduction
(01:10) - Dissecting Begins
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Worm
00:00:00
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 dot.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.
Recapping Worm as a TV Series
00:01:08
Speaker
Take that, you worms. We're back with our recap of season three. Sorry, season four. Holy shit. We're going super quick. Season four recap of our hypothetical. What if Worm was a TV series?
00:01:29
Speaker
And ah joining us, as always, for these recaps, we have Brockton Bay co-hosts, Nick and Hannah. Welcome. What's up worms? We've got some fun arcs. This is a season three covers arcs 20 through 24 and change, uh, where, uh,
00:01:52
Speaker
a lot ah a A lot happens, but also very little happens.
Challenges in Adaptation
00:01:59
Speaker
If that makes sense. ah these are These were shorter arcs where like a lot of big moments happen that we wanted to make sure we addressed, but there's like, it's it's this weird thing where everything happens really quickly and it feels like not a lot happens.
00:02:16
Speaker
And this is a problem we ran into as we were trying to adapt these arcs. Because we we have a clear end of Season 3 with Echidna and Coil and all of that happens. And we got a pretty definitive like start of the final season, if you will, with ah stuff to come. ah Saving spoilers for ah anyone who would prefer not to be spoiled.
00:02:38
Speaker
And so now we have this odd chunk in the middle that's definitely enough for a season. But, but, uh, yeah, we had, we had some issues trying to figure out, uh, kind of how to stretch everything out. So this would be a lot of fun and to get into the weeds here. I think this is going to fit very much like, uh, if you've watched our cane, you know, our cane came out in three sets of three at a time and each was its own sort of self contained arc within those three episodes that built on the others though.
00:03:06
Speaker
And I feel like the last season we had, you know, coil was, you know, the first three, four episodes and then a kid in the last four episodes, um, or however many we had.
TV Release Strategies
00:03:20
Speaker
Uh, and I feel like that's an appropriate amount of time. And, and and honestly, if we were doing a release, that would be a clever way to do it. You release four episodes and then wait a week and then the other four. Um,
00:03:33
Speaker
And I think the same for this. Uh, I think, I think this is very much going to feel here's the first half. Here's the second half. Um, is it it has cohesive themes, but narratively, um, those are two different course to borrow the anime term. Hmm. Yeah. Can we put it? Let's uh, let's dive in. Wait, core what core. I believe it's C O U R but Let's say you have a 26 episode anime, ah but the first and half of that season, first 13 episodes might be one core. And you can tell cause they'll throw in a recap episode usually as episode 13 to get you into the second core. And they might even split those between seasons where they have them all done. They just, they're very clearly narratively the first 13 and the next 13.
Focus on Character Drama
00:04:32
Speaker
yeah Yeah, I will say that of, of all the arcs that we've read, these, that these episodes will be based on definitely do feel the most filler ish, not that they're really filler per se in the, in the better narrative of worm. But yeah, it's, it's not, not quite the same as the other ones. I can see what you're saying with that, but I'm interested to hear what you guys do with it. Yeah. Very, very true, Nick. Um, the big thing with this as we go into it,
00:04:59
Speaker
ah is that this is a, while the others have had action, and this one certainly will as well, I think the most powerful moments in this are going to be the non-action sequences. I think it's very much going to be the character drama, like ah the one-on-one character interactions that are going to sell this whole season.
00:05:29
Speaker
This is a drama heavy, and I don't mean that in like a social interaction sense, but in more of like, uh, like a theatrical sense. Like this is two people in a room giving the performance of their life. And I think a lot more like an interpersonal as opposed to like interpersonal. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's really going to show up and show out in this season. Yeah. That makes sense. On top of that.
00:05:56
Speaker
things to note um while we did plan out what we feel is pretty effective plot.
Taylor's Role and Secondary Protagonists
00:06:06
Speaker
um This whole thing definitely ah focuses around Taylor and we did not do a great job of coming up with a and due to protagonist. Use something. Use a different word for Hannah. A secondary protagonist. Got it, got it. Where before we've been using like Detective Weld or Theo or something like that, we did not do a great job with this one of building in our secondary protagonist. There are times where we have definitely tried to make that better off of what's already in there, but for the most part there is nothing
00:06:39
Speaker
knew that strays from Taylor's perspective, unfortunately. And that is just our laziness, honestly. um Because it would be an entire secondary storyline.
00:06:53
Speaker
Yeah, there there this this season would certainly have ah some more through lines continuing ah around Cauldron. You know, probably we've we've given Defiant and Dragon more quote unquote screen time in seasons two and three. That would continue through here, ah but we haven't really touched on that. There's just sort of assumed at this point. yeah Definitely would be stuff we would go back and and fill in a lot of these gaps, especially when we want to break from sort of the main story for a moment.
00:07:23
Speaker
Yeah. Uh, honestly, I feel like clock blocker would make a great, uh, due to protagonist in this case. Um, and like you said, dragon defiant also pretty good for here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I could, I could see, depending on how far this goes, I could see, I could see kind of swapping out who that due to a protagonist is. Um,
00:07:51
Speaker
Yeah, but I think, I think defiant and dragon would make the most sense.
Exploring Themes of Identity
00:07:55
Speaker
Yeah. Um, important themes here that we'll be going through, uh, off the top, I think our identity and, uh, just the concept of doing what it takes. But with that in mind, I'll give a brief recap and then do we want to jump with, uh, Jacob giving episode one? Yeah, let's go.
00:08:18
Speaker
All right. Brief recap, not going over all the ones, but just kind of what we did during the last season. Uh, big differences here is Taylor ends up keeping Dinah to protect her from a Kidna. Kidna's out and loose. She blames the undersiders, but she also remember, you know, has in mind that coil was keeping Dinah around.
00:08:40
Speaker
and Dinah with her predictive abilities and possibly also Lisa could help her fix all of this. So while she is mad, that is her goal is to get Dinah. So Taylor decides to keep Dinah instead of returning her home before the Echidna fight. um Taylor is forced to confront herself becoming like coil, uh, you know, the fact that she kept Dinah, the fact that she will fight evil skitter clones that kind of literally voice this allowed to her. Um, which ultimately, uh, will lead Taylor to make decisions later on. Uh, the travelers have more of an more screen time when it comes to fighting, uh, trickster and a kidney.
00:09:27
Speaker
Uh, they will do a vote much like they did to get rid of Cody. Uh, they're going to really relive that in voting to kill a kid and get rid of trickster. Um, along with that, yeah that being sort of the big moment is them coming together, choosing to do that. And then Sundancer, you know, cooks a kid now tricksters also captured on screen and.
00:09:53
Speaker
Uh, you know, to have Cody say like, nah, you can keep him. We don't want him. And they, you know, leave to earth a laugh. And then finally we do have Taylor make the decision to return with Dinah who, uh, when she leaves hands her the two notes and Taylor looks at them and begins to rethink her life. And that is the end of season three. We do not see what those notes are, by the way.
00:10:20
Speaker
Right. Yeah. Good point. Good point.
Season 4 Beginnings and New Villains
00:10:23
Speaker
So with that being said, as that's kind of the how we leave things off episode one of season four ah kind of opens with Taylor waking up, looking at the pieces of paper that she got from Dinah and starting to kind of go about her day.
00:10:40
Speaker
ah She manages her territory, ah travels with Charlotte to see the kids off to school and sort of get a feel for what's going on at Arcadia. And just to sort of kind of clue in a small change we made here ah to the the pain of our patrons, and I say this with all the love, we have written Greg out of the story.
00:11:04
Speaker
ah dang It was just one of those characters that just did not make sense in an adaptation to shoehorn in. Uh, so we have, we have gotten, uh, Taylor to school in a different way. She's merely going as sort of just to make sure the kids get their little bit of recon, seeing that things are getting back to normal.
00:11:29
Speaker
ah While she's doing that, the Undersiders meet up with ah ah new villain groups that want to set up shop in Brockton Bay. And they're sort of the ah you know de facto leaders of Brockton Bay from a villain's perspective. ah Taylor arrives at the school and is confronted by Emma, but ends up in the principal's office, ah which pings the PRT system. This is all happening pretty much as written.
00:11:53
Speaker
ah Dragon and Defiant talk about working through Defiant's problems and talking to Skitter when a Director Pigott asks them to help with the Undersider problem. They go back and forth, they fight a bit, but the director gives the order and they follow.
00:12:11
Speaker
cut back to the school outside of the principal's office, Taylor is confronted not by Greg, but by Dennis, clock blocker in Dennis form, ah who confronts her, guessing that she might be skitter. And to kind of expand on that, ah we're again doing the same thing with Greg, we're just giving that role to Dennis here.
00:12:31
Speaker
where he is starting to put two and two together. Maybe he we haven't dealt perfectly into this, but maybe he overhears the conversation with Emma, ah just noticing her you know her hair, her attitude, and just sort of starts to put it together and confronts her about it. Taylor almost convinces him otherwise, but then the villain alarm goes off and she wraps his ass in a locker. Taylor gets trapped in the school. She stops him in a locker?
00:12:59
Speaker
Yeah, we that's forgot that we had a few different ideas, although I do like that one. um But yeah, in whatever way gets rid of them. And ah tra Taylor gets trapped in the school, rallies the students, Defiant and Dragon kind of just let them go.
00:13:15
Speaker
and ah
00:13:18
Speaker
That's a typo, I'm trying to read my last note. ah the Oh, thank you. Update. um ah The news tries to interview people about everything that's happening and Danny gets a final goodbye with Taylor. And that's the end of the pilot episode. First episode, not pilot, first episode of season. Yeah. Okay. so Couple of couple of quick questions just to help me remember. You guys have decided not to introduce director tag. Is that correct? Yeah, you said thank correct. Good, good pick up. We are um we are bringing back Pigot and replacing everything in the season that has to do with tag. We're giving to Pigot everything. Oh, everything. Oh, no. No, I don't like that. OK.
00:14:12
Speaker
I think it's just a character we already have a through line with. I understand the reasoning. I don't have to like it. We'll get to that later. We'll be the next couple of episodes. We have some thoughts on that. We'll come back to that. I will say that from a show perspective, having the same work,
00:14:40
Speaker
You know, obviously I guess you had coil in there as the interim. I can't remember if you guys did that or not with coil. Um, okay. Yeah. So you had coil in the interim, but then going back to pick it, I can understand that narratively. Um, I think there's some, some issues that might cause in the future, depending on the way things were taken, but I don't know. We'll see. Um, so I just wanted to check on that. The other thing.
00:15:06
Speaker
Did the undersiders meet with new villain groups be in this arc? They meet immediately following Taylor's outing. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Okay. They have that interlude in the, in the book. That's right. That's right. Yeah. With a cord. So are you guys planning to introduce a cord and his gang here? or Yes. yeah Okay. So part of this is, um,
00:15:34
Speaker
this is part of that having an aside that isn't Taylor all the time. yeah he is Just running the negotiations on this accord is very much on board already. Um, so this is more like you get the vibe that this really is Lisa and accord hashing out the negotiations and saying like, Hey, the rest of you need to fuck off unless you take our deal. Gotcha. Yeah. That makes sense. Um, so almost the exact same thing. Just,
00:16:04
Speaker
Lisa's there instead. And which I mean, she already is. um And she also does a lot of the, a lot of the talking as well. but I will say, I will say as a quick aside for a cord.
00:16:16
Speaker
um For some reason in my mind, I'm imagining this animated, right? And the voice style that I'm imagining is Slade from ah Teen Titans. Oh yeah, absolutely. Which is a Ron Perlman. So that's for some reason, I don't know why, but just that like cool calculating.
00:16:35
Speaker
but clearly very confident voices is kind of how I imagine him. Oh yeah.
Creative Adaptation Ideas
00:16:40
Speaker
It's not the image I had in my head, but that works very well. I like that a lot. I mean, it also helps that Slade wears a mask too, and Accord wears a mask, so it's kind of maybe just that vibe too.
00:16:50
Speaker
Um, okay. So I'm, I'm glad you explained who Dennis was because you said he's confronted by Dennis. And I'm like, the who now? Yeah. bigger So, and so I was thinking then maybe, has the audience been introduced to clock blocker out of costume yet? Cause if I was going to ask the same thing, that could be a miss Yamada. You yada yeah miss Yamada. Okay. Yeah. So they're usually, in costume no yeah, we we haven't really,
00:17:18
Speaker
dove into this a lot but there's an implication ah that in the series is a lot more focus on these other characters awards being one of them. I mean even early on in season one we mentioned those couple scenes where they're like you know ah hanging out in the the headquarters classes things like that um dealing with Sophia.
00:17:41
Speaker
We've got the college classes as well, where they're all not in costume. That being said, and actually Alan and I didn't talk about this, I just had this thought earlier today. That being said, I think it would be kind of, and i we could play around with this, you know, but even if in the very first episode, maybe if we just fully replace Greg with Dennis, and Dennis is just in class as another student, and then it's kind of a fun little reveal when the audience sees him later, you know. and You can make it very Mr. Aggie. So that's like, someone's like, wait, he looks familiar. Like, how do we fucking know him? It's like, well, he paid attention. yeah can susanonically though They are. I mean, if we kept them all in the same high school, but this is Arcadia that they're at, if I'm not mistaken, yeah not, uh, Brockton Bay high. True. over that Right. Different, different school. Yeah. yeah really you You could combine them together if you wanted to.
00:18:33
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Anyways. Um, okay, cool. So I'm glad you explained that I am curious how, like, I guess I'm thinking practically right about clock blockers powers. If he's already suspicious that she's skitter, how in the world does she get him in a locker? Okay. So here's my ideas for that. Very funny, you know, not necessarily physically possible, but it's it's supposed to be hilarious. Two of them, like,
00:19:02
Speaker
you know, have this confrontation where she's like, are you stalking me? And he's like, whoa, like, no, I just, you know, and he thought he had her dead to rights, but she starts yelling at him and he like second guesses like, Oh, maybe this isn't skitter. Maybe I've just made a huge mistake by calling this girl out. Um, you know, in the hallway and like,
00:19:22
Speaker
She's like, ge you're so weird. And then like walks away and he's like, maybe I was wrong. And it's the cut of them like walking towards the camera going either way. And she's like, Oh man, shit. I got away with it. Like I could see that he, or I could feel with my bugs that he had a suit underneath. He was definitely a hero.
00:19:40
Speaker
And then they get to the ends of the hallways where they're almost away and his watch goes off. That's like the villain alarm. And she like perks up and they both turn and look at each other. And then he immediately like gets yanked by all the spider webs into a locker that like slams shut. I fucking love, I love that. Like strung up to the ceiling and like taped up there.
00:20:00
Speaker
Oh, I love that. yeah you know He doesn't notice that there's slugs been like, like slowly getting on his shoes as well. The other idea was that and he goes to do something more cerebral is he goes to do something, but Taylor has like woven. Uh, he goes to shoot his little claw things, but Taylor has woven a net, a spider's web in the spider web also goes back to him. So when he touches it to like try and touch her, he just freezes himself.
00:20:29
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. Uh, I can see that too. Yeah. A lot of little funny things you can do. I mean, yeah, it's it's kind of what it, correct me if I'm wrong, but I do believe she like senses him down, like changing clothes, like, and another guy, another student as well. And it's like, ah, there's the here, like there's the wards. I could see, I could see this is a bit simpler and maybe not as funny, but I could see an instance too, where like he reaches out to use his power.
00:20:57
Speaker
And then she stings him in the neck. So he like impulsively slaps himself and then, and then freezes himself that way. good too and like And you just hear like the inner, the inner thought of him just going, God damn it. it yeah and and and no You cut near the, almost near the end of this.
00:21:15
Speaker
Yeah. We're like, everything's over and he busts out of it and just goes, damn it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. yeah But yeah. Okay. I was just curious because knowing his power set, I was trying to think of how would she, how would she get him in a locker room? All it takes is a touch. So I like, I like the spider web idea. Um, obviously a bit, a bit goofy maybe, but it could be, could be fun. I could see it being done in a clever way. Yeah.
00:21:43
Speaker
And just as a note for the fans that are already typing, yeah, clock blocker cannot bypass the man to an effect he would not be able to freeze himself directly. but he because he freeze himself he freely free his clothes yeah i free last right He freezes his Yeah, That's right. That's why he has a full body suit.
00:22:00
Speaker
Right, right, right. Because I remember he survived the ah the bombing of of mannequin and crawler, right? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. yeah Him and, um. Him and well. The wizard. No. Who's the wizard? Is it Mirden? No, it wasn't Mirden. No, it's, who's the pocket de dimension guy?
00:22:17
Speaker
Oh, cash cash. That's right. Because he sticks everybody in a little cash and pulls everybody into the into a little pocket. Yes. Yes. And Taylor's worried that they're going to end up popping out at the wrong time and clockwise going to unfreeze at the wrong time. A car is going to fall on him. Yeah. um Yeah. Yeah. OK. So I.
00:22:36
Speaker
i I definitely like the switch for for Greg because like, fuck Greg. And also I freaking love clock blocker and I love the idea of having more clock blocker out of costume. So I do i do definitely approve this ah change.
00:22:51
Speaker
um i so I, for a multitude of reasons, I'm not happy with the picket thing. ah Is this, should we discuss picket at the end? Cause there's so much, there's going to be so much picket stuff. um Or do you want me to just like talk about this now?
00:23:09
Speaker
ah let but Let's talk about it after the first. next step I can wait, I can wait. I'll wait a little bit.
Episode 2 Plot Developments
00:23:17
Speaker
ah for After everything with Alexandria. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'll hold the comments about Piget till then. Yeah. Yeah. So episode two, Taylor talks to her mom's grave, looks at her pieces of paper again, and then suits up to have a talk with Piget.
00:23:37
Speaker
Oh wait, I'm sorry. I remember I had a question about episode one. You said she looks at the papers in episode one. Do we see them or is that she just looking at them? Nope, nope. every time we don't ever look at newspapers We do not see what they are. Okay. So I'll continue, please. All right. Uh, talks to her mom's grave, looks at the piece of paper suits up to have a talk with piggett. Uh, the undersiders raid the PRT building and retaliation and Taylor talks face to face with piggett about all the mess that she's caused Taylor.
00:24:04
Speaker
asks how she got reinstated in a quick comment, and Piget says she's been cleared by thinkers. Piget then threatens Dani and Taylor hints that she was the one that removed Thomas Calvert and well has no problem in removing Piget as well. Piget is grateful that Taylor has outed Cauldron and Thomas, but now she thinks she needs to finish the job that Taylor started and drop the hammer on all the capes who think they can own this city. Taylor asks for concessions. Piget is unyielding.
00:24:33
Speaker
Taylor six or bugs on her and leaves. Regent and imp take care of the fallen. In the meantime, when Taylor pulls up and sees the body control maneuver, Taylor points out that they need to kneecap valve for, for what they've done and does the maggot thing. Taylor then hands him over to miss militia and Flechette, uh, and talks about what happened to pig it earlier as because, uh, relaying also that pig is kind of, um,
00:25:01
Speaker
not inconsolable, but, uh, too stubborn to be effective for the city. Taylor then goes and spends time with Brian. Uh, Taylor comes home to find miss militia there. They talk civilly and Taylor gets her to finally agree to the concessions for ah the team. Taylor then goes and has her time with bitch. Uh, Flechette leaves the PRT and goes to join Parian.
00:25:29
Speaker
Taylor then goes and spends time with Lisa who asks her if this was really what she wants to do. And Taylor says yes, but it's the only way and then gives her the pieces of paper that she got from Dinah. Finally, the reveal of the pieces of paper. Taylor then walks into the PRT building and surrenders. The end.
00:25:53
Speaker
Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I mean, this one doesn't change a whole lot other than obviously Taylor, uh, or pig at being there instead of tag. Um, I'm guessing too, with meeting the new villain groups, that's where you introduce the fallen and some of those characters. Um, right. Cause otherwise, yeah otherwise it wouldn't make sense for them to be fighting them or to mention Valifor specifically, if we haven't seen him before.
00:26:18
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Um, cause I'm trying to remember, I'm trying to remember who, who's at that meeting in that. and it's The teeth, the teeth, right. Uh, the fallen. A cord towards a group. And I think feel like there's one more, but that may be it. I think that was it. Yeah. Cause the other groups that they mentioned come in later. yeah So, um, and the fallen are the ones who were like,
00:26:43
Speaker
The fallen and the teeth both kind of say like, we're not putting up with this. Yeah. Why would we put up with those ridiculous demands? And they're like, that's sort of the point. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay. Yeah. So that makes sense then that they're fighting Vala for this episode, I feel like has a potential in the risk of being very scattered.
00:27:01
Speaker
um and being a bit difficult to manage all the little bits of things that are going on, right? Yeah. I feel like this one would be just be following, this would be a, a while the they are all Taylor centric, this is like the camera's always behind Taylor. Taylor's always thinking about something. Like clearly something's always on her mind. Like this is the the the something's happening here and I don't get it. And we're just constantly following Taylor in this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. She's clearly leading towards something, but we don't know what it is yet. Yeah. And it's also one of those things like a lot of the points here, like the like literally a lot of our bullet points are all one scene, essentially, like the raid on the PRT building. So things like that, that'll kind of, you know, that'll take a chunk of time, but there's room for things to breathe.
00:27:56
Speaker
Yeah. I do. Valifor doesn't even get a full fight. Like this is imp and region are hunting him. He thinks he gets the upper hand. They pull their maneuver. Like Taylor's like, ah, you done clearing up the fallen. Yeah, right. I do think the one, the one big change that I think might matter story wise in the longterm. I'm just trying to remember. I feel like there was something about Taylor not telling the undersiders that she was leaving.
00:28:25
Speaker
Like obviously she knows that Lisa would suspect it, but Lisa has been caught up in, if I remember the arc, right? She's been like overusing her brains and she's kind of out of commission in any way. Well, Lisa tells her give them hell.
00:28:38
Speaker
Yeah. yeah last words Okay. That's true. Like you sure you want to do this? She's always go. Yeah. She's like, okay, give them hell. Like she, I don't think she tells Lisa, but Lisa figures out and to know the whole time. Cause of course she does. Okay. got i gotta to remember that shey not Right. Right. I couldn't remember the rest of that arc super clearly and whether or not it was important that she didn't tell anybody. Um, but ah you know, it works either way. I think it's fine.
00:29:05
Speaker
um And then yeah, ending ending the episode on that cliffhanger of her just walking into the PRT building and surrendering. Pretty cool. Yeah, it should go hard.
00:29:17
Speaker
and And it's also, if if if you think there's too much, that's a good problem we can have because in all honesty, I'd like there to be more episodes per season. And I know a lot of that's going to happen naturally as we kind of, like we said, fill in some of the extra plot lines and sort of space things out. But especially in, yeah, if you're noticing, that's like, man, this feels a little packed. That's that's a good thing. yeah is That we the way we can we can kind of spread this out a bit if we need to.
00:29:44
Speaker
But yeah, I think it's good. I don't really have any. Yeah. season' two yeah floats This one followed the arc, I think pretty closely. Yeah. Yeah. I don't really have too many notes. Cool. Cool. Cool. All right.
Episode 3 Negotiations and Fallout
00:29:58
Speaker
Episode three opens Taylor in her cell quietly while everyone else is freaking out.
00:30:06
Speaker
Piget and Define and Dragon get into a bit of a blame game back and forth. Miss Militia gets involved as well, and Piget accuses them all of being corrupted by Skitter's influence. Miss Militia asks where Flechette is, and the wards get on get on it, and looking for her. Piget confronts Taylor, but her lawyer arrives and they discuss demands. Yeah.
00:30:32
Speaker
away from the PRT. Lisa rallies the troops, including Parian and Flechette, who we see has decided ah to join Parian, but does sit this one out, this little fight out. Piget brings in Danny and talks to him. Clock blocker brings Flechette's goodbye note to Miss Militia, saying that Vista is confirming everything. ah Danny and Piget talk to Taylor and her lawyer.
00:31:02
Speaker
Vista and the other wards visit Perian and Flechette ready for a fight, but not finding one. And Lisa brings in Sierra to a nice conference room with the lawyers and asks her if she's ready. End of the episode. Okay. I have a, I do have a thought now from the previous episode, but it works with this episode, right? So I was, I was looking back at the last episode and thinking,
00:31:26
Speaker
Why did I feel like it was so full? And honestly, it felt like it was all Taylor centric, Taylor centric, which is great. Except the one scene with Flechette leaving the PRT and joining Parian. So my thinking is take that out, right? So you end the confrontation with Miss Militia, Flechette and Taylor. Flechette seeming upset and angry, but you know, not like doing anything decisive, right? Uh, and then.
00:31:54
Speaker
You have this episode three scene where Miss Malicious says, wait, where's Flechette? Um, and somebody goes like, well, we thought she was with you. That's when, you know, they last, we last saw her as an audience. So that would work. Then you have that scene. Cause then, then what I think you can do is you could have the scene where Flechette and Perian talk, and then Lisa come, Lisa and the other undersiders come in and say, Hey, something's gone down. Flechette, you might want to sit this one out but kind of thing. So I feel like.
00:32:23
Speaker
That could be a bit more of a natural place to put that instead of interrupting Taylor's What we learned later is Taylor's goodbye. Goodbye's to the undersiders with flechette leaving the PRT if that makes sense Yeah, you're definitely right. Cause actually as, as you're saying it out loud, I wouldn't, yeah, I wouldn't want to interrupt the goodbyes. I think that's, I think you would want all those together. And yeah, I like your idea of just moving the reveal to the next episode. You can still have, still have a little bit of disagreement with Flechette, but then yeah, leaving that until it. Yeah. I like that a lot. That's good. Another thing that I'll bring up in our own thing is we couldn't figure out cause see we, I like Sierra.
00:33:05
Speaker
but Sierra hasn't been around for a little bit. And in the story, like she leaves for good reason. And I find it surprising that she would come back to work for the undersiders. yeah um So ah ah to be honest, we didn't have a great person.
00:33:24
Speaker
like we we could bring We couldn't bring Charlotte. I would love to bring Charlotte, but Charlotte's in high school. At best, we bring Forrest.
00:33:33
Speaker
like And to do this, um, yeah, like we have a limited amount of people that, that are unpowered and more off, you know, and not directly tied with the undersiders that could take this role. Like it's very limited. So honestly, we could either keep Sierra or if we wanted to,
00:34:02
Speaker
go with somebody that we are more familiar with now in this time than we just use forest. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like forest.
00:34:15
Speaker
Forest doesn't kind of strike me as the businessman though. That's kind of who you want to have there. Yeah. neith Neither was Sierra. I feel like we've called forest like the camp counselor vibes. yeah i mean Sierra shows up with her nice suit and her dreadlocks still her dyed red dreadlocks. That's true. That's true. But she's been gone though. So I feel like you could have that where it would be kind of neat to have her back. I guess the question would be,
00:34:44
Speaker
No, I don't know. It's tough because at, after this, both forest and Sierra kind of disappear from the grand narrative of work. Sierra disappears. Forest is still like, with the yeah well in of like but I'm not saying that he's not existent. I'm just saying like in the bigger narrative, arts we've been reading. I don't think he's ever been mentioned. He's not, so yeah he's not story forward. yeah i mean We've seen him all the way back in season two.
00:35:13
Speaker
we've seen him in season three now we see him in season four. Uh, but, um, Sierra shows up and leaves, I believe both in season two. Yeah, I could see. So I remember why she left in the story and maybe this would be, you know, this is more meta editing, maybe
00:35:38
Speaker
I'm trying to think of like how to, how to do this. Maybe something you could do is like have Sierra leave, but not make it seem as permanent as it is in the story. In the sense of like, she's like, I'm just really uncomfortable with all of this frontline stuff. Put me somewhere where I'm like, I want to help you, but I don't want to know that I'm helping you. Like you don't have to make it that obvious, but make it something worse. I mean, I was just going to have her go back to college otherwise.
00:36:03
Speaker
Sure. Hey, you know, uh, this is cool. I was back, you know, I was just here taking like a gap year or something. Like I've got grad school to go back to. ah Yeah. And it's not in state either. Like that could be the other thing. It's like, I mean, I mean, you could do, you could do a fun thing, right? Where she's like writes her number down on a piece of paper and gives it to Taylor and is like, but you know, we're friends. Call me if you need help. And then when she gives the paper from Dinah to Lisa,
00:36:33
Speaker
You know, she gives that phone number to Lisa as well. That might be a bit too close in timeline, but you know, that's kind of an idea. That's what like one way that you could do it to kind of bring it back to something else. no Yeah. that's like that works lot yeah ah No, actually, I think you could fit that in pretty easily. You could, as as Taylor is essentially trying to just, you know, subtly, not so subtly give Lisa all of her resources, you know, she could easily kind of throw in there. Oh, and you know, by the way, you know, uh, you know, Sierra's there if you need her, that kind of thing. Well, even, even with, because it's Tattletale, if you just hand her the two pieces of paper and the camera briefly shows,
00:37:15
Speaker
The number and then what dinosaur show. I mean, well, if, if the audience has that memory, who knows if they would, yeah yeah but you know, that's just one idea. How you could do it. That's not bad. I like it. There's a few ways to work that. And I mean, the, the shorter answer is that maybe we just kind of rewrite Sierra a bit and just keep her around this time, this whole time, you know, just so that she's there. I'm very okay. Keeping the trio. Yeah. Yeah. I love Sierra. Love forest. Love Charlotte.
00:37:41
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Just keep, keep like Taylor's little squad and kind of always there doing things in the background. Yeah. That way it's, oh you know, that's why it's not so out of the blue. She steps up. and And also, like because like Alan says talks about a lot is the like having those like fun sidekick characters. like Those are the characters that we love to see pop up and over and over and over again. And so like having having the squad step up and you know like seeing her in the business suit with her dreads and everything, like I think that's really cool.
00:38:13
Speaker
And I i mean, i'm I'd prefer that over for it like, I love Forrest, but like Forrest, like I said, he he gives camp counselor vibes and I love I love that image of him. And I love the idea of Sierra like stepping forward and like really becoming the face of things. So like I like that and I would like to keep them around. So if if you guys are OK changing the script to like add more of them, I would say do that.
00:38:36
Speaker
Because like the the characters that I tend to enjoy and care about are like the side characters that have a lot of. I was going to say I have a lot of character, but you know, you know what I mean? Like they have a heart. They have a lot of heart and we love to see them. And when they pop in, we're like, yeah, it's Charlotte. It's like it's like we see them all. I mean, shoot, we can make Sierra Lisa's personal assistant like.
00:39:02
Speaker
I mean, that way she's not directly working like she's like in the nitty gritty, but she's not in the nitty gritty. Yeah. Yeah. No, I like that. Because I don't want to I don't want to lose her as a character. Yeah. A little peek behind the curtains. We have not actually written any s scripts out. Alan has. Well, yeah, but about like we we started a while ago. We started strong and we hit her off. Yeah. yeah Uh, so anything can be changed at this point. All right. Uh, any other thoughts on episode three? All right. So for Sierra steps out and gives a press conference about owning the portal, cuts to piggy watching and distastefully makes a call. Taylor spends time talking with her dad, Lisa.
00:40:01
Speaker
calming the undersiders, telling them to wait. Piggott tells Taylor that she's made her make a very distasteful choice, but that it's worth it.
Episode 4 Tensions and Transformations
00:40:16
Speaker
Taylor and her lawyer start to give their demands again and a cape and civilian clothes touches down outside, strolls into the PRT building. Alexandria steps into the interrogation room and begins threatening the undersiders.
00:40:30
Speaker
Taylor blames Piget, uh, for bringing in a cauldron Cape and Piget says that Taylor made her do this. Alexandria being brings back a body and then another Taylor goes off killing Alexandria and Piget before being knocked out. When Taylor wakes up using an abandoned PRT building with dragon, uh, covered in bugs, unharmed, she talks to her.
00:41:01
Speaker
Uh, tells her to disperse the bugs, um, convinces her to stop. Call off the bugs, Taylor, please. Dragon removes her helmet as the swarm leaves the room. She twirls the helmet in her, in between her hands and looks at Taylor with her odd looking AI generated face. Dragon talks for a long time, apologizing, speaking for defiant for the heroes for herself. Taylor complains and lashes out in our use, but dragon is there.
00:41:30
Speaker
Dragon is kind, and Dragon listens. And finally, Dragon gives Taylor the one thing that she has only trusted to one other cape, something that Dragon stole from Taylor and a grand gesture of true sympathy. She tells Taylor the story of her trigger, her father's work, and at the end says, I'm a lot like you, Taylor. I would never have done any of this to you if I had my way. I know you want to be a hero. I want you to be a hero.
00:41:58
Speaker
But you have to live with the constraints and that's just part of being human for you or it's part of being human for you. The constraints for me are part of me, but they're a little bit different. Dragon reaches to remove the skin where her ear meets her jaw, pulls back to show mechanical parts, wires, technology, nothing human, never was human.
00:42:25
Speaker
Dragon does convince Taylor to let Defy and apologize on the roof, tells her that they wanted to join them, but the S-9 has gone into hiding beyond this world. They hash things out and Taylor helps come up with the plan. Ultimately, we stroll out to the press conference where they all announce Alexandria and Piggett's betrayal and the becoming of the hero Weaver.
00:42:50
Speaker
All of this ends with a montage of Charlotte being home with forest and the kiddos, the undersiders, the various villains, et cetera. Just call me Weaver end of episode four. So with that, um, yeah, I really liked the idea of having that montage cause that, that interlude where everybody in different groups are reacting to Taylor announcing herself as a hero is one of my favorite interludes, I think.
00:43:17
Speaker
Um, just cause I can see that in film so easily and it's so easily imagined, right? Cause you've got shadow soccer, the slaughterhouse nine, uh, pair of humans online. I'm trying to remember some of the others, uh, marquee, I think. Right. Um, and so that long marquee and long. And so there's a bunch of fun, like there's a fun recap there for people who've stuck with the story that long of all the people reacting to Taylor. So I do, I do like that ending for that episode.
00:43:48
Speaker
Okay, so let's get into the the ah the pig in the room, if you will. um Yeah. Having pigget die here.
00:44:00
Speaker
hannah Hannah, how do you feel about that? um You seem like you have feelings. Oh, I have so many strong feelings. Okay, so so like one of the reasons that I really like pigget is because she talks about ah specifically with Tattletale about the whole understanding that it that it is a game, the whole cat and mouse. like she is on She understands the balance that exists. And and even if we give her this like extra crunchy Cauldron Vendetta thing, which like sure, yeah, no, that makes sense, but like it it still doesn't feel like... I don't feel good if she dies. I'll say it like that.
00:44:43
Speaker
As the reader, as the viewer, I don't feel good about her death. I know her. I like her. i I sympathize with her and the and this idea that she's trying to make Rockton Bay better. She's trying to make the PRT better. like i I don't agree with all of her methods, specifically previous seasons, but like I like her.
00:45:02
Speaker
Tag can fucking go to hell and burn for a million years. like Because when we meet him, he's so staunchly opposed to this idea, this isn't a game, little girl, this is war. like It makes it really easy to hate him. And so when he dies, we're cheering on Taylor. We're were were on her side. We get it. We're like, yeah, fuck that guy.
00:45:28
Speaker
And maybe we're like, oh, maybe a little, maybe a little too far. But we're on her side for it. If she kills Pigot, it's going to feel like, whoa, Taylor, you overreacted. And I don't know if I am on your team anymore. You know, like it doesn't. It doesn't. but Yeah, that's that's the emotional reason why I don't like it.
00:45:50
Speaker
the the The character of Tag is easy to hate because he's so military. He's so like staunchly opposed to this idea that like everything is kind of a the grace gray space in between black and white.
00:46:03
Speaker
well like Taylor and Piget and Tattletail, they all understand that like, no, the world isn't so simple. It isn't right and wrong, good guys and bad guys. It's like, there's a lot more complicated things going on here. And I think that if you had Piget in this space, she would be like, she knows Taylor. And she she knows that Taylor will just like,
00:46:31
Speaker
do what she has to and tag would see Taylor as a snotty little girl who he can like break by force. And it doesn't like, it am I, am I, am it am I making sense? Oh yeah. Good thoughts. Good thoughts. Yeah. Yeah. I agree with you for the most part, except that I don't, a lot of your points stand, but I don't think Uh, pig. It has been cooperative or helpful or saying that she is helpful or helpful or cooperative. I mean, in the way that like playing the game, she doesn't like, she's always been very militant. She's always been very, well, maybe a little bit concerned on the relations with the PRT and public facing appearance. Um,
00:47:28
Speaker
I don't think her relationship with the heroes, she's always been, no. Like, remember that she is the one who chose to firebomb an area of the city with people still in it. Like, knowingly. Like, yeah she will do what it, once again, she will do what it takes. And at this point in time, like, Taylor's already killed another director. um She's gonna hit her where it hurts. Like, she's brought in the dragon.
00:47:57
Speaker
that you know the dragon bots before she'll do it again and now that she has a leverage on Danny like she I mean there's no reason why she wouldn't do that okay I have a question yeah so the main reason that you guys have for having pick it back is to is to keep this through line of this character is that correct continuity yes yeah I don't think you need it I think every season you add new people to the story that happens. And in this season, we're not adding a ton of new people, like or thus far, excuse me, sorry, thus far. We're not adding new people. we're We're dealing with the people that we know. We have Clock Blocker that's getting revealed. We're getting this this whole thing with with Dragon and Defined. Again, love that. I don't think there's anything wrong with adding a new
00:48:46
Speaker
adding a new director back. like Like the idea that like, yeah, we've gone through directors and he's just another one on the line. Because then when he dies, it's like, fuck yeah, go tailor. Okay, great. There's not like this. Like if you if you bring Pig it back as the director and then you kill her,
00:49:07
Speaker
Even if she doesn't have a role in the rest of the book, as is anyways, it feels like you're ending her character. You're bringing her back just to kill her, right? And I don't think that's necessary. I feel like we already have a character that we can you know, introduce, we can have that, that clash with Tag and Taylor. We can have that moment where they, you know, they retaliate, they attack the PRT and you can have this little back and forth, but have it with Tag and be like, who the fuck are you? It's like, well, I'm, you know, oh, I've heard about you. Like, you're just some little girl. Because I love the line about like, this isn't a game, this is a war. Like, I feel like that is Tag, like he is the, the
00:49:53
Speaker
Rusk military Asshole Kind of guy and I don't think that it's gonna be like I don't think it's gonna feel like too much to add one new major character in is what I'm saying and I think that that the reason of oh Yeah, well we want this character back again to have to get there. I don't think it's a good enough reason I Will say
00:50:26
Speaker
I'm actually maybe more on Alan and Jacob side here. And let me, i' so let me try to justify why. Originally, cause here's the thing, right? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I know we gotta be the critics together, but, um, here's the thing. I was originally more on the side of like, why just bring back, pick it the killer. And plus weirdly I've come to like pick its character, but I'm starting to think about it. And this moment of killing Alexandria and tag.
00:50:54
Speaker
in the, in the story is a very cathartic moment, not in the sense of like, oh, that felt really good, but in the sense of it's the release of a lot of buildup of issues that have been happening. And in a show, because this is going by so fast and with so few episodes, I don't know that you hit that catharsis like you would in the, like you do in the web serial.
00:51:21
Speaker
Because in the web serial, we're introduced to tag. We have time with tag. We get to know tag. He's around for a bit. Like he's there for a couple of, like not very long, but for long enough that we, we get to know him. We grow to really hate him. We grow to really hate him exactly. And for a TV show, I just don't know that we have the time to grow to hate him. So here would be.
00:51:45
Speaker
He would be my only caveat to this is that if you're going to kill Piget here, you need to make her a bit worse in the previous seasons. In the sense of it really feels like Piget and Taylor have been at odds in the same way that like Taylor and Armsmaster are.
00:52:06
Speaker
So that you get that catharsis when Taylor finally steps up to her and says, enough is enough. You're killing my friends. I'm not going to let you guys do this anymore. And goes, you know, berserkro mode. Um, yeah, yeah. So I, in a, in a way, I think for the purposes of a TV show and the limitations that requires, I, I kind of think maybe, yeah. Yeah. Maybe pick it as the right choice here.
00:52:35
Speaker
disappointing because later in the actual serial, she does kind of come on to Taylor's side and helps Taylor. So that's the one issue I see there is that Pickett kind of is a weird advocate for Taylor, if I'm remembering it right.
00:52:49
Speaker
um So well that would be the one thing. Yeah. theres There's a little compromise we could have here too, because Nick, your last point, I've thought about that as well. Um,
00:53:01
Speaker
So ah to to to defend my own actions, I've spoken at lengths about how much I distaste killing in shows, not because of like you gross, but because I just think it's lazy writing for the most part. um I think killing characters is easy, um as opposed to like killing ideas and themes.
00:53:25
Speaker
And I really dislike introducing characters that are wearing the right the red shirt to borrow from that Star Trek lingo. Yeah. Just that are just clearly being set up for some sort of fall or death.
00:53:40
Speaker
because there's no point to the character. um And i think I think in Taylor's case specifically, she has only killed but one person at this point, Coyle. So any life she's taken at four seasons into the show, she has killed one person intentionally.
00:53:57
Speaker
um to then just mindlessly kill in a fit of rage and justified. But then for her next two deaths to be one very prominent death, but one like really meaningless death in her story, it just feels a little off for her, for her character. um However, Nick, to kind of touch on your point, we don't have to kill pig it here. This, we're just matching the beats as they fall in the, in the web serial.
00:54:24
Speaker
just to kind of stay on track. But the death here that matters isn't tag. Remember in the serial, he dies off screen. That is true. It's Alexandria. So as long as Alexandria dies, which I don't think any of us have any desire to change. It's like the one of the greatest moments of the show. yeah yeah As long as that happens, you know, the same way, maybe Pickett just gets a You know be stung for a bit or something like that ah just sort of a maybe maybe it is portrayed as like Taylor lost control was going after Alexandria didn't pay attention to what her swarm was doing and picket almost dies and goes an anaphylactic shock or something like that you could you could do it a lot of with different ways and and keep picket alive and that way
00:55:08
Speaker
Nick, to your point, does still have a bit and maybe that's a bit of Piggott's internal character redemption that she doesn't really get in the serial. So you could do that as well. And then just focus on the death being Alexandria's death being the big moment, which it is. Yeah. Yeah. You'd you'd have to I feel like the only issue with that that I could see people coming up with is being like, because in the arc, obviously this is a point of no return for Taylor. Yeah. And so, so how does Pig it go from, Oh, that girl nearly killed me to, yeah, she, she's cool. You know, like she has our best interest in mind. Yeah. Like I.
00:55:48
Speaker
Oh, yeah I was implying that you could take Piggett out of commission in much the same way. Like she's, she's been stung to the point where she's in intensive care for a couple of weeks. That kind of thing. But then if you did, but then if you did want her to come back, I feel like that would be a difficult comeback um to come back from. that's true Unless now you can frame it where she calls Alexandria to be the big guns.
00:56:14
Speaker
but then becomes very uncomfortable with how Alexandria is doing things. And it's like, wait a second, like like we agreed, we weren't, like maybe she doesn't know that Alexandria isn't really killing the undersiders, right? She does the whole like, wait, wait, wait, we didn't agree to this, like this isn't what we said we were gonna do.
00:56:33
Speaker
Um, makes her really uncomfortable. i like that Then that would make a bit more sense, but you just got to think about like, okay, person almost kills me. How does that character then turn to being like, Oh, I support, you know.
00:56:46
Speaker
right I actually like that a lot because that would also help sell the ploy that Alexandria is attempting a bit to the audience because like yeah nobody's going to think she's killing the undersiders. But if you kind of throw in that bit of you know around the corner, Piggett's like, what the fuck are you doing? yeah You just have her on the earpiece in her office, be like, what the hell?
00:57:10
Speaker
You don't, the audience still isn't going to think that, but it does sort of just plant that idea. Like, are like, what are they, are they really i like, you know, it's just kind of one of those things. So I actually liked that idea. That's good. Yeah. I think that would work pretty well. Yeah. I mean, cause once again, Alexandria is from what I assume the one that comes up with the plan, the one that is doing all of this, you can literally have picket step out of the room and be like, I'm going to step out of the room for a second. And then Alexandria walks in and they're like, whoa,
00:57:39
Speaker
And, you know, yeah, yeah ah she's thinking like whatever, you know, one of those cop, whatever happens, happens in the, you know, in the room, and you know, with the Sicario. Uh, but pig, it means that in a controlled environment and doesn't realize how far Alexandra is going to take it. Like.
00:57:58
Speaker
yeah and aon dos um and And Hannah, to your points about the conversation between Tag and Taylor, because that is probably the one thing that I was bummed to cut, um because I do like some of their back and forth. ah We could still give that to like Alexandria and Taylor, um you know, the whole this is war, that kind of thing. we can We could fit in that dialogue and just kind of draw out their conversation a bit. And I think you could so you could still hit some of those beats.
00:58:24
Speaker
Yeah, I would like that. I agree with what's being said. I can concede the fact that I can i like that a little bit better.
00:58:38
Speaker
also i just I think from just so a very emotional place, I didn't want Piggott to die. So like if she ends up in a coma, she's got some beats, like, okay, I'm okay with that. I just didn't want Piggott to die. Because I really like her as kind of this, not villain, but adversary figure opposing Taylor, especially in like the early seasons. And so having her be back would be nice.
00:59:04
Speaker
I didn't want her to die, so she lives. That's great. I definitely like the idea of the like we didn't agree to this. I think that adds authenticity to Alexandria's ploy. Yeah, no, I'm I'm quite satisfied with this, actually. Yeah, this is why I love storyboarding, because it all comes out. It's great. Yeah, I think a couple of points with Pigot as we like ramp her up in bastardry if we were to do that.
00:59:34
Speaker
is this would be a great point for Pigot to basically go off on Taylor. We're talking about deaths and stuff like ah the big point of, you know, Game of Thrones is like, oh yeah, a person dies if they fuck around and then they find out. Like it's a natural consequences to actions. um And in this case, Taylor has fucked around for quite a while and this is the find out stage. So like this is where all those things like attacking shadow stalker attacking heroes in their homes comes to a head.
01:00:03
Speaker
Um, her beating the slaughterhouse nine where picket didn't entirely kind of goes to show like, Hey, you are holding territory, which is, you know, piggy can go off on the same things. You are fighting the U S government. You have declared territory. Like we legally have to go after you and you have proven to be dangerous. Like.
01:00:30
Speaker
beyond reasonable measure. We have to take you out somehow. And this is where that starts. And I think that's a fairly good assessment that this is the find out stage from Pigot and Pigot doesn't even have to be gone that long. If we think, think about three, like she was just stepping down for a temporary amount of time while Calvert You know, literally as a master thinker protocol, like she doesn't have to be gone for that long. She can increase the bastardry as Taylor also has increased in danger. And then I love the idea of Alexandria being the worst bastard in this case. For sure. For sure. Make her the, make her the extra spicy bad. Yeah. This is bad. Bad cop. Worst cop.
01:01:28
Speaker
So yeah, the dragon reveal is interesting. I guess it makes sense here. Kind of a unique moment. Oh yeah. Let's talk about that. do you we kind kind of point over that Do you like thatni um this like heart to heart reveal all secrets moment? be ah Before you answer, Nick, let me say, because we hadn't been very clear on this. We hadn't been very clear on this, but we have been playing around of at a few different points, just kind of in the episodes of when to place dragons reveal to the audience. Do we keep it all the way back when she kind of reveals it to Colin?
01:02:05
Speaker
Uh, you know, do we kind of keep it there? Do we place it somewhere else? This would be, if we kept it as is, this would be the reveal to the audience that dragon is an AI. So up until this point, she would not, she would not have been revealed that assuming as, as written as, as we have outlined it here, uh, this is a potential reveal. Okay. So now, okay go ahead. Yeah. So,
01:02:34
Speaker
I like the heart to heart because, I mean, Dragon's a great character and I imagine if you've had her as a through line and you have her in the whole school scene, I think that having this um could be really good. and I don't know about revealing everything. I think maybe yeah this feels like a weird, maybe it feels like a weird place to put this only because I mean, is this is like the, the hugest episode ever. Um, then in terms of reveals, right? because will big Because there's so much that happens, right? I feel like. I feel like then we have Alexandria coming, Alexandria dying, picket, nearly dying or dying, not decided yet. Dragon revealing. She's a robot AI. I just, I don't, and then the Weaver revelation, I feel like it's a bit much like it up.
01:03:28
Speaker
We could easily move that the dragon conversation to the beginning of the next episode. Well, I think it's not so much that I think the conversation needs to happen. Cause I think dragon needs to be the one who kind of helps Taylor have the idea to join the PRT or to join the oh shorts right. Yeah. But, but skipping the reveal until sometime later. Yes.
01:03:53
Speaker
Yes. I just don't know when that would be. Right. OK. OK. Thought, thought, thought, hot thought. OK. So we still have the heart to heart moment. We so we have like maybe Dragon says something about like, oh, my dad, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then kind of leaves it a little like short. And so the audience goes, oh, oh, there's more there. But we don't give it to them. Right. We tease it.
01:04:15
Speaker
And then later, because cause later on we deal more with Dragon and being an AI and this idea of like defiant tinkering with the code to try to make her more autonomous and like more an individual. And so we could wait until after the time skip or like near the newer end bringers that show up.
01:04:42
Speaker
to kind of have that reveal with Dragon. Because we have later on in, fuck whatever arc it is, that like she's down and Defiant's like, shit, like ah did she not... like She didn't back up correctly, like the code is fucked up. like it It might be good to have it kind of closer to that section where it's like,
01:05:05
Speaker
Okay. Like why, why is it bad that like some, some codes, fucky wucky, like there's something going on, like defines fucking with some code. We don't know really what it is. We're trying to figure out, we know that like dragon and de define are all, uh, techie people and like, okay, so there's maybe there's some shit, maybe he's like, maybe he's like trying to decode some, you know, like weapon or something. Like, what is it? Like trying to figure it out and then maybe drop, I don't exactly know how, but drop it like then.
01:05:34
Speaker
so that it it feels like we're we're getting like, oh, not only is she like, been having to fight these parameters this whole time, but like, Defiant's trying to fix it so that she can be her own individual.
01:05:50
Speaker
Because I feel, I agree with Nick, it feels like too much to put it right there. right after Alexandria. Even if you push it to the next episode, the beginning of the next episode, that is like heavy hitter through the entire episode. Episode ends, we're like, holy fucking shit, new episode. Also, Dragon's in AI. Like, whoa, okay. That's a lot. That's hitting me with so much at once. Yeah, that's fair. That's good. That's a good point.
01:06:18
Speaker
Because even if you're waiting a week between episodes or you know doing like what Alan said earlier, a couple episodes and then like a couple weeks later, a couple more episodes, whatever it is you're doing, you're still going to have like the people who decide to binge the whole show and like that that gap won't be there. It'll be like episode, cool episodes over. Start next episode? Yes. Yeah.
01:06:39
Speaker
yeah Yeah, you you like you got to plan for the binge watchers. You got to plan the binger is the longevity because that's me. i'm I'm the binger. I just bones, criminal minds constantly playing in the background. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, maybe we do end up placing the reveal earlier in an earlier season or something like that. There just wasn't a lot of clear places where we would do that. But certainly as we kind of edit and rewrite it a bit, there might be another, another spot where that just makes more sense. So, uh, that could, that could shift a bit.
01:07:13
Speaker
Any other, uh, any other final thoughts on episode four? Um, I would say in defense of it being a lot, it is the final episode in that, uh, in that core. So it is a, um, there's an ultimate episode for that string of four. Sure. Um, that, that said though, I wouldn't want the dragon revelation because it comes later to overshadow the death of Alexandria. Yeah.
01:07:43
Speaker
And I feel like, I feel like it ties more neatly. Cause the other big revelation of course, right? Is that her plan was to join the wards all along kind of thing. So I feel like those two have a through line that work well together. The AI revelation feels like it's just another, like, Oh, here's another thing we've been doing this whole time. Kind of added on top. ah Right. yeah Just my vibe. No, that's fair. it's good That's a good good insight. Yeah. Yeah.
01:08:10
Speaker
All right, we'll move along. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. I'm sorry. I had one more thought. ah shit What was it? Hold on. Hold on. Just give me one second and it'll come to me.
01:08:23
Speaker
Oh, what were you guys planning for? Like, OK. So with with everything with Alexandria, as is it written, it's it's off page.
01:08:37
Speaker
So we don't really have. Oh, it doesn't really happen because Taylor pass Taylor gets knocked. the phone Right. She gets knocked out. Yeah. Is is it what is it because it's a hugely climactic moment and for us to miss it because Taylor's passed out doesn't feel.
01:08:55
Speaker
As cinematic. like i don't I don't want to miss it. would be It would be very cut and dry in my mind. And I don't actually think Alan and I have really like hashed out scene by scene what this would look like. But in in in my mind, no, this is very, very cut and dry to the audience. You don't want to ah kind of skirt around this because when you do that, the implication to the audience is that, oh, they're not really dead. They're not really dead. Yeah. So no, this would be, in my mind, it's you know the kind of thing where it's chaotic. ah Alexandria is choking. ah It's just this violent, violent moment. She like takes off through the ceiling, is trying to get altitude, can't clear them from her throat, you know high up in the sky, something like that. There's this look of desperation.
01:09:44
Speaker
takes her last breath, her eyes roll back, and she plummets. And then Taylor gets knocked out. like you It's just very, very clear at that point. um Because like obviously astute book readers know that Technically, Alexandria is only brain dead here, which is why Pretender can use her body, yada, yada. That's where you got to you gotta to just move past that for a show. Like, that's just too too deep and too deep into the lore. No, Alexandria is dead. That's gonna be very, very clear. yeah Yeah, I still like the image in my head of her flying to the sky, and it's like, she's clearly choking to death, and Taylor gets knocked out, and we wake up, it's like,
01:10:31
Speaker
you know The question, did she make it or not? And you know the answer we find out then is, and oh, you murdered her. um I like the suspension that we have there of like, oh, she's killing Alexandria.
01:10:49
Speaker
And then you wake up and it's like, ah nope, she killed her, like confirmed. like Yeah. Well, I mean, you married those two together. Like you have that moment of like, Alexandra up in the sky. We follow her up. We see the whole eyes roll back thing. She plummets. And then of course she gets knocked out. ah Taylor gets knocked out. She wakes up like, well, what the fuck happened? Because even if we as the audience followed Alexandra into the sky,
01:11:13
Speaker
Taylor didn't. So Taylor doesn't know yet right the outcome of of her attack on Alexandria. And so us kind of having a little bit of knowledge ahead of the main character kind of feels like we're in on what's going on. We're we're feeling the gravity of it. We're watching Taylor's expression as she realized it. Like, no, you you fucking kill... Because even with her eyes rolling back, her falling to the earth, you're like,
01:11:35
Speaker
Wait, is she knocked out? Is she dead? Like, what the fuck just happened? Like, oh my God, she she fucking hurt Alexandria. like And then she know she wakes up, what the fuck happens? Like, you you fucking killed her. She is dead. And I used to be like, holy shit. Like, we knew it was coming, but here it is. Like, the final finality of it. And yeah,
01:11:56
Speaker
yeah it's good shit. It's good shit right there. Cool beans. Good thoughts. Good thoughts.
01:12:05
Speaker
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Speaker
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01:12:57
Speaker
move on to um tip episode five. For the record, I do think that'll be the bulk of where our conversation is and a little bit at the end here too. But I have a feeling these next few episodes will be fairly smooth minus of maybe one or two things, but we'll see. We'll see what happens.
Episode 5 Transitions and Moral Dilemmas
01:13:16
Speaker
ah Episode five opens up with Taylor in prison and getting checked out by Define and Dragon. They,
01:13:25
Speaker
talk about everything that happened, and they touched down to meet with the PRT leaders. The important people here are ah Weld's sub dot adoptive father, who is ah the leader of the Boston PRT, a couple of other... Armstrong.
01:13:42
Speaker
Armstrong, I just remembered his name. Armstrong, Armstrong. Yeah, yeah, you're right. Right. um Thank you. I had asked about that. Armstrong. A couple other ah rando PRT leaders, ah Chevalier, ah Miss Militia, Ock Blocker, Tecton, kind of the names, right? um People give good testimony for her and what she's done. ah The PRT leaders roast her until Armstrong speaks up and says that ah he would take her on his team.
01:14:11
Speaker
ah The wards give her an initiation prank and welcome her to the team. We're kind of skipping a little bit here, but we're kind of moving bullet points. um So she joins the wards. ah Theo and her talk about how the PRT is doing as a whole, ah that morale is down and is plummeting. ah He confides in her that Dinah gave him specifically a call to tell him that if they have any chance of stopping the end of the world, he needs to be there and to be ready to kill. And Taylor says that she'll get him ready.
01:14:42
Speaker
a Weaver now and the wards go out and guard a villain named Pretender who is on trial and going to the birdcage. He mentions Taylor taking out Alexandria as a net negative that he couldn't achieve, and that he still plans on serving the greater good. Weaver is suspicious and believes that he plans on escaping.
01:15:04
Speaker
Meanwhile, the number man and Contessa waltz into the courthouse. End of the episode. Yeah, I think this is pretty straightforward. I do think that the way this is written, it sounds like it's taking a bit of agency away from Taylor in how she kind of strong arms the PRT. Maybe that's purposeful or maybe that was just an oversight, but Um, but in importantly to clock blocker and Tekton, I don't know if they'd be there because they're not PRT leaders at this point. Right. Just logically. I'm thinking maybe they're there because they're like representative of the wards. Right. Yeah. Character witnesses. Okay. Sure. So this has been worked with her in the past, you know,
01:15:57
Speaker
Um, as an outsider from Brockton Bay, clock blocker has literally fought against her in Brockton Bay. Miss militia has been over the entire time to see what's going on in Brockton Bay for her. So, yeah. Okay. I think the idea to being that, that, that, that they are also like the leaders of their respective ward teams. So a little bit more responsibility. Um, yeah, so yeah like but good, but good thought. Yeah.
01:16:24
Speaker
Um, no, I think this makes sense. I could see this being obviously you're trying to ramp up to the next core. As you said, um, this would be definitely a slower episode. Um, yeah but it's interesting that you're putting pretender on trial as a villain rather than a former PRT member as well. Uh, you got that. Yeah. One of our, one of our small changes. Yeah. Yeah.
01:16:49
Speaker
Okay. Just kind of simplified things a bit for a new character. Um, it also made it a bit more, uh, so we kind of, if you notice, we, we cut out a kind of in between fight here against, uh, the group that I forget already because they were so forgettable. Um, are we talking about the ad apps? Uh, yeah. What were they called her fly? Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The Taylor's trial into the PRT.
01:17:16
Speaker
We sort of cut that for pacing reasons, and it was just sort of trying to cram a lot in. And we just sort of adjusted Pretender's role to be that of a villain, so that this is still sort of like, quote, her first mission as a ward. And it's supposed to be kind of fairly simple. Just, hey, you're yeah defending and escorting this villain on his way to the birdcage kind of thing. yeah I do still think, though, I kind of like the idea of Pretender being a former member of the PRT still.
01:17:43
Speaker
ah we could still don okay with that that's yes yeah fix say let me know i Only need one whole thing right yeah because I think the whole thing is, if you have Theo and Taylor talking about how things in the PRT aren't good, you can even have that a bit.
01:17:57
Speaker
Like people when they're talking with Taylor, like, look, this is like, the PRT feels like it's on the brink of collapse. We've got heroes walking away. And then you have this whole scene of pretenders on trial. Cause he was with the PRT, went rogue, maybe killed a few people, like whatever you want to say, he's done it. Yeah, did a favor for Cauldron. Yeah, did a favor. And you know, we don't necessarily need to know that it was a favor in this moment, but right. Just having that, I think feels like a better connection than, because a random villain you're guarding. Yeah.
01:18:27
Speaker
that cauldron happens to want, right? That's good. That's a good thought. I like that. Okay. And it'll, it'll feel worse and better that he was a former member of the PRT, I think when he comes back later. Yeah. Yeah. Cause he like knows the systems. He knows the, he knows the the intricate workings.
01:18:50
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. Good points. Good points. And that also makes a bit more sense with him being like, look, this is all part of the greater good thing, right? Cause that's Coltrin's whole thing too is like the greater good at any cost. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. Really. Justifying the means baby. Literally it's like, would you kill a million people to save a million in one? And they're like, well, yeah, obviously. like well denno yeah yeah If you've ever watched, um, the math checks out fate zero.
01:19:20
Speaker
um yeah That is the ultimate spoilers. The ultimate decision at the end of that is essentially the trolley problem. But each time they, the number becomes closer and closer. So it starts off like, ah, 10 million, you know, 10 people are a million people. And it's like, obviously the million. It's like, cool. It gets down to like, all right, one person or this other person. I'm like, oh shoot. yeah Do I know the person? Yeah. All right. yeah Moving along.
01:19:51
Speaker
Episode six. All right. So the wards are ambushed by the number man and Contessa who ended up freeing pretender leave saying that they're doing this for mankind in order to fight the end bringers. Not quite unlike what Taylor did on returning. Taylor gets chewed out for how she handled the fight and Taylor gets into it with the PRT about their lack of transparency, the lack of urgency about the end of the world um and their general practice.
01:20:21
Speaker
ah Leaving the meeting, Taylor talks to her team about the end of the world and the need to prepare for it. Theo, of course, is the first to join in, and the two of them talk about how, you know, Jack ending the world and all of that. Taylor sits down for therapy with Miss Yamada, discussing Taylor's image, um like how she sees herself, how others see herself, and the idea of recording herself the next time she goes out.
01:20:45
Speaker
She also events all of her frustrations about how no one else seems to be taking this seriously. And Taylor has second doubts about our second thoughts about, you know, having given up everything to work with the PRT on this dragon later reaches out to Taylor and reassures her that her and defiant are working on the end of the world problem. It's not just her. And as soon as they have something and Taylor graduates the wards, which will be pretty soon, they'll all take it on together.
01:21:14
Speaker
Weaver and the wards hang out with the high schoolers. Uh, and Taylor does her little role playing there, uh, finishing on just how bad the end bringer fights are and what it takes to survive. Heroes all get that fateful call. The behemoth is attacking in India. So they all hop onto the dragon vessel with dragon to find inside picks them up. The kids watch Weaver and the other heroes as the ramp closes and they take off.
01:21:44
Speaker
Cool. I mean, pretty straightforward. Um, yeah, i I like the idea of the wards, including Taylor, just getting absolutely wrecked by Contessa and the number man. Um, just to, you know, emphasize how strong they are. I do think a good point to bring up there maybe could be something like, because Taylor wants to impress the PRT wants to get on their good side. Maybe she's the one who kind of makes the call to back down from fighting them more.
01:22:14
Speaker
Um, get, you know, kind of like not that Contessa has to do this here. Cause she might do it in India as well. If they meet again, but that whole, like, I don't really want to kill you, but if you keep fighting me and stopping me, I will have to take measures. Yeah. so Something to that effect where Taylor just realizes, look guys, we're way out of our depth here. Yep. You know, pulls everybody back, you know? Um, it is sort of what I was imagining is that like yeah Taylor realizes this is a fight that she cannot win. Yeah.
01:22:44
Speaker
Um, and it might emphasize even a little bit the fact that she may have some thinker powers as well, which we've talked about in the main podcast. Um, yeah. So again, getting chewed out for actually handled that makes sense then. Um, wasn't it middle schoolers instead of high schoolers? I feel like younger believe it is more high schoolers. Was it high schoolers in the book? I thought it was. No.
01:23:08
Speaker
I actually the shit thought they were younger than that. I thought they were like, they are. I thought they were. I thought they elementary three yeah i thought are not elementary so kids. But I might've misread that. Michael, could you double check that for us? Maybe they are middle schoolers. Only because, only because the water. Right. You're right. there butterflies yeah yeah There's Yeah. They're like yeah maybe elementary. And I imagine that the kids that she ends up like talking to or the ones that are like, they're a little bit older. They're like fifth graders. Yeah. They're the fifth graders. They're just old enough to be assholes at that age. That's true. That's right. If anybody knows it is the teacher.
01:23:48
Speaker
of the group. ah yeah but yeah no I imagine them as like a lot younger. I did not imagine them because the whole thing is like, she's trying to point out the like, Hey, keep an eye on these kids, because if anyone's going to trigger, it's going to be them. And that's supposed to be like what early adolescents, adolescents. Um, Weaver Dice is getting skipped. I did notice that.
01:24:14
Speaker
I noticed that as well. We're not going to skip it. Just kind of reframe it so that it's less like, here's a break to play some TTRPGs. more like I'm actually okay if you skip it. yeah I don't think it's that big of a deal. you know what i You know what I think you could do and Jacob, I know you'll appreciate it. You remember that video you sent of that interview of the girl, like the woman doing like a quote unquote D and&D session. I can't remember her name.
01:24:41
Speaker
oh deoran wall Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I imagine it being something more like that, right? Where she's like, okay, work with me here. You want to be yeah like, what, what's the power that you think of? And the kid's like, I don't know, flight. Cool. You fly, but I'm going to give you a downside. And then you do she's like, he's like, what? That's BS. He's like, that's the way it is. And you want to be a hero of villain. And she just kind of talks him through it rather than being the.
01:25:05
Speaker
leaving it up to random chance. Let's roll some dice so that it's totally fair. just kind of Just kind of gives them the, you know. Life isn't fair, kid. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The tough toenails talk, you know? Yeah. I'm sorry, the what? they What did you just call it? The tough luck. The tough luck talk. That's all you just said. What did you say? It's the same.
01:25:27
Speaker
It's like the censored version of tough. to yeah um never heard tough its wait you said Did you say tough toenails? Yes, I did. it's It's something I've gotten into the habit of doing with my own kids where instead of saying tough luck, I say tough toenails. These are the important things you have to instill in your children, ladies and gentlemen.
01:25:53
Speaker
These are the things that matter. It's it's great, too, and you can get them to repeat it and I'll be like, you know, Mike, and what do you think I'm going to say to you, son? And he's like, tough toenails. That's exactly right. That's right. cause there they Say my name. six Who am I? I am daddy. but I am your father.
01:26:15
Speaker
ah ah Yeah, Nick, to to your point, that is exactly what I imagined that this is just like us. I put in my notes. It's role playing rather than literally rolling a dice. Um, you know, if there is, it's a single dice Taylor's not breaking them up. She just has them, you know, in front of people and, uh, to correct myself, it is middle schoolers that it's okay. it doesn' Very cool. Anything else on that?
01:26:45
Speaker
I think, could we get, at the end of this episode, could we get a flash of behemoth in India? Just like for the cliffhanger. yeah Give ki have it to me. It doesn't need to be anything more than like ah like a five second Godzilla style shot, right? I don't know if it's not that big. I think silhouette and fire would be great. yeah Yeah, just something to be like behemoths in India and, you know, Weaver, you know, maybe waves to the kids and a couple of them wave back.
01:27:14
Speaker
And as it closes, it just kind of pans up and you see the fire, the lightning, whatever, you know, just something, and something to tantalize my sentence. Yeah. tick Tickle my teeth. Let's go. right Exactly, Hannah. Yeah, you're right. We do need just a little buzz. Yeah. A little zoop, zoop. You know, like, ah like, you you know, it's a it's a pretty gaming little shot, you know, it's a little pretty. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A little pretty, a little pretty.
01:27:44
Speaker
I hate this already. Sometimes I forget that we're ah we're recording and we're not just like our friend group just hanging out. And then I remember that this will be on the internet forever. Yeah, that's right. You can't come ah in here and just, I'm about to preach. No. You know yeah just throw that in there. I wonder what the Venn diagram of worm fans and game fans is. yeah Hey, Dragon, Dragon, get in here. That was pretty funny. The ah Brockton Bay Book Club. Pretty, pretty funny guys. I'm going to freak. Episode seven, we're going to move on.
01:28:28
Speaker
ah So episode seven starts off. Taylor and dragon talk on board their little ship about what they're walking into and mentioning that the undersiders will be there as well.
01:28:40
Speaker
ah Defiant gives Taylor her backpack, her jetpack, and they chat as well, kind of ah ah make up a little bit over the course of this whole adventure they've had. ah Weaver with a new kit is told by Tekton that she is taking over. This is her team, her show.
01:29:00
Speaker
Weaver rallies the troops, and when they hit the ground, realizes that they can start by building lightning rods to redirect the ambient lightning field around Behemoth. They succeed in building the rods and begin rescuing people who are injured. They run into the undersiders, minus Tattletail, who is with high command. And after a reunion, they all continue to rescue people. Alexandria shows up, much to people's confusion.
01:29:30
Speaker
Taylor wonders what Behemoth is much confusion taylor wonders ah what behemoth is doing, and Tattletail and her suss out where he's headed. With the help of two local capes, Weaver and Grace separate from the team to investigate the power source Behemoth is chasing. They find fear say, and Weaver stops the local capes from killing him, getting them killed in the process. Back at the triage station, portals open, and the Cauldron begins taking people.
01:30:00
Speaker
The remaining wards and undersiders try to fight Contessa, who easily defeats them, and they give up. Fiercea has his large laser that he will fire in a line as Behemoth chases him, leaving no exit. But Weaver asks for more time to trap Behemoth so that he can shoot a portal from below instead. She says, have faith and give, and to give her 15 minutes. End of episode.
01:30:29
Speaker
I'm sorry, I need you to repeat a word for me, Jacob. Yeah, I think I know which one. Go ahead and say it. Hold on. I don't know. Wait, there was a couple. Which one do you want me to say? Why don't you say it first?
01:30:40
Speaker
No, no. I think it was the delicious flavor of the triaged Parmesan try right triage triage yeah it's triage I got to throw my buddy Dylan under the bus every time this conversation comes up. And he's not going to listen to this because he hates me. Um, but, uh, until I corrected him at the age of like 26, he pronounced the word genre as Jenner. Oh, and or if you're Alan Genry, Alan, Alan. Also, it's even better for me because I thought genre and January were two separate things as well.
01:31:30
Speaker
Oh, even better. I didn't think those were the same word. Even better. If it's, if it's any, uh, if it's any, if we're confessing our foibles and pronunciation, um, in Harry Potter, Flora Delacour is nicknamed phlegm. Um, but I'd never, I'd never heard the word before. I'd only seen it. So I thought it was pronounced phlegm. Like it's spelled phlegm. Which I think is funnier than phlegm, but you know I like it. That that one's good.
01:31:55
Speaker
I, uh, I always pronounced Persephone as persophone and I thought it was the stupidest name ever. And I remember someone was talking about like, Oh, it's such a pretty name. And I was like, what are you talking about? It's the worst. And then someone once said said Persephone and I was like, Oh, that's so pretty. It's so much better than what I thought it was. To be fair, the Greeks word. Yeah. it's a bad one yeah it That does bring up the whole, this is a whole side tangent. So we might need to edit this out, but the whole,
01:32:25
Speaker
Pronouncing English words as though they're Greek heroes like testicles. yeah yeah yeah So, you know, anyways, um, yeah, episode seven, um, ah trying to think of if there's anything in particular, most of it is fine. Um, I do think.
01:32:51
Speaker
I like the idea of having Weaver and Grace separate from the team. um I guess my question here is with the end of this episode with Fearsay, I really liked Fearsay having this plan because I think we talked about, didn't you say, what are the themes you have kind of for the season? Was one of them like, you know, whatever doing what it takes? Okay, doing what it takes.
01:33:15
Speaker
I think that not having fear, say, say all of the things that he wants to, because the way it's written here, at least in the way that you've talked about it in the notes is that it seems like fear, say knows behemoth is after him. And this is the his desperate attempt to escape instead of know not escape. It's, it's him lining him up. He knows that he's coming after him. And what he's doing is he's getting him in line and then he's going to fire it when he's right on top of them.
01:33:43
Speaker
And Taylor saying,
Battle Against Behemoth
01:33:44
Speaker
Hey, instead of blasting half of India apart, we'll trap them in one place and you just fire up from there. That way you don't kill everyone. I don't know. I i like the stakes just being what it was in the story of.
01:34:01
Speaker
her saying he's an energy, like he's a kinetic user. This is incredibly risky. I don't know. I, I feel like this is almost an unnecessary complication because it feels like if you're say is going to be presented as a smart Cape, then shooting a beam of energy into half of India seems like a dumb thing to do. If that makes sense.
01:34:26
Speaker
I don't know. It's just a small thing. And it's, you know, it's a maybe, and obviously this is just ideas, outlines. So I'm not saying that you're not thinking of that already. It's just something that came to mind. Yeah. Yeah. Part of what makes me think this is an alternative is that, uh, like I completely agree. And I feel like Taylor should agree with fear say in this, like,
01:34:50
Speaker
It's a risk and it might not work out, but like it's a good risk. And then Taylor's like, I feel like a little too opposed to it. Like she makes a good point, but at the end of it's like, look, we're either all going to die here or you shoot it and it charges him up and we're all die. Like and it's not a great option. And he's like, look, I'm charging this up. I'm going to shoot it either way. You know, she calls him a mad man. He doesn't feel mad to me at all. But if we had him say like, Hey, look,
01:35:19
Speaker
we could either lose, you know, a hundred million people to behemoth now, or I could blast a hole in here and just, you know, whoever remnants, whatever heroes are in the way, you know, get hit like, Oh, well, you know, it makes them feel a little bit more mad. If that's what we're going for. If we just want the debate, whether this will work or not, then like, I, you know, that's also fine. We just don't call him a mad man.
01:35:46
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I think that I did really like fear say as a, in the story as a foil to Taylor because of the whole, like, right. Cause they have the whole conversation about, you know, you've clearly lost someone. He's like, yeah, I lost my wife and kid. And I could have gone back in time with my power with the time loop power. However, uh, if I did, then a greater threat would have survived. So, you know, and not that you have to include that specifically, but I really did like.
01:36:14
Speaker
Fierce A being the foil to Weaver of, you know, again, and again, emphasizing with cauldron, again, the whole idea of the greater good at any cost. Um, I dunno, it's just a thought, but it could work too. Again, obviously a lot of that would be worked out in scripting. So if it was scripted, right, then it would be fine. Yeah, that's a good point though. Cause I'm going to keep kind of keep in mind for that.
01:36:38
Speaker
Yeah. Did Fierce A survive? I don't think he did. Right. I don't love the machine did know. does he I think he gets good. Does as you get got, I'm going to, I'm going to think he got, I'm not sure. I think the vibe I get is he probably, I'll bet you as soon as he left, uh, cauldron just comes in and you like some zips out, zips up. He just like, you know, he, he just trips and hits his head or so. yeah or say Or he portals out, you know? yeah yes yeah He's part of the Thonda. He might still be alive. Cause he's part of the Thonda.
01:37:13
Speaker
Yeah. Thonda. Feel the Thonda. Lightening in the Thonda. One episode left. Oh no. Later it was reported he was killed near the end of the battle. Nevermind. Okay. Here's something we'll talk about. We'll go back to this. Um, there's a lot of people that die in this battle that are kind of significant that we barely find out about. Dragon is one of those.
01:37:44
Speaker
Like yeah, dragon gets taken out and it's like, honestly, it is not explicitly said it's implied as are many other deaths. So I'm just like, what the hell? I don't even remember dragon the first couple of times I was reading getting blown up. Like anyway, you know, fear say is on that list of people of like, really? We should probably have that be more known.
01:38:14
Speaker
Yeah, definitely some room to sort of show some of those moments in these episodes, and especially since the last two episodes are essentially the behemoth fight. Plenty of time to ah spread out some of the action and story beats.
01:38:28
Speaker
Yeah. All right. Alan. My only comment on the last of that is we also, I thought I'd taken it out there, but I guess sir we don't have to have Alexandria come back.
01:38:42
Speaker
Yeah, ah we talked about that a little bit. It it kind of it feels a little weird to how quickly she returns. Um, but I think if we made it more apparent, like obviously we do like the purple eyes with pretender or something like that and maybe make it, uh, what is going on there or show that off later. Maybe, um, I don't know. It it just feels odd in the cereal.
01:39:11
Speaker
to have an idea so sudden. Yeah, that's true. It does come back pretty quick. One idea would be rather than having it just happen in the middle of this episode, which is more accurate to the serial, have Taylor take off running, telling everyone they got to hold down behemoth, you know, whatever it takes. I'm reading ahead a bit, sorry. But the idea is in the next episode, then somebody says, don't worry, we've got someone coming who can hold them down. And then she appears. And then it's kind of this like,
01:39:42
Speaker
What is happening? Like, is she alive? You have the purple eyes thing still just a, just maybe one way rather than a random insert. My concern would be thinking ahead to what's happening is would her return via pretender be lost in the noise of sort of the time skipping nature of the next few arcs, if that makes sense. Right. I agree with you there. I think.
01:40:10
Speaker
Yeah. I think because it we only see it once and like you said, the time skipping nature of the next bit, I think maybe we cut it. Um, and I think this is something that we, we cut for now, but if we feel like it narratively works out in the final season, then we come back and re add it. Yeah. Yeah. That is pretty easy to put back in. Yeah.
01:40:41
Speaker
That's true. All right. Uh, last episode, episode eight, Taylor takes off running. It tells everyone that they have to hold behemoth at a certain location, do whatever it takes. This is the last stand. They meet with the undersiders again and regent. Relically dies protecting imp. The heroes all hold behemoth down.
01:41:08
Speaker
and fear, say fires off the laser, burning behemoth to not, but a skeleton right before they're about to celebrate their unbelievable ballad hole. The skeleton gets up and keeps going, but Sion zooms in and kills the end bringer, but the fight over the heroes retreat and, uh, on the flight home, begin calling their loved ones.
01:41:37
Speaker
Taylor is called in for a tribunal over her actions based on the footage that the PRT stole from her. She, in retaliation, broadcasts the meeting to the entire building and the heroes in it, telling them she will force them to be transparent if that's what it takes to not show people that the end is coming, but in fact that they can win as long as they are willing to do what it takes. She leaves.
01:42:06
Speaker
And that night she is rewatching her footage ah from her body cam. I already gave up everything, my identity, my family, my time, my energy, my life, to do what it takes. If they need my privacy as well, if that's what it takes for them to see that the to get the world to see what's really happening, to get to the world to see that there is an end coming and we need to be willing to do what we need to in order to win.
01:42:36
Speaker
then I'll gladly give it. She hits send and posts the video end of season eight or episode eight. Yeah. Um, I think it's a good ending. I think this works well. Um, I think, yeah, I think, um, removing Glenn from the storyline, again, kind of an extra character. That's fun for the story. But because, because this is television is a lot faster, I think it makes sense to remove him from the equation.
01:43:05
Speaker
Um, and then it gave sailor a bit more agency in her own narrative, which I liked as well. Yeah, I was thinking the same thing and like not to you know spoil and jump ahead, but like the idea that she, this was like the final, the the video, the footage getting posted online, uh, being kind of this final break between her and grew like that, like.
01:43:29
Speaker
he he was really hurt by the fact that like their private moment is online. And I like the idea that she is choosing to do that, not like Glenn is posting that and she's like, well, I had no choice in the matter and like I didn't get to choose whatever, but like that that she is she is not only giving up her own ah privacy, but she's giving up the privacy of like that moment with Gru.
01:43:52
Speaker
and like the moment with the undersiders and like with Regent dying like she's broadcasting all of that so it's not just her but of course classic Taylor she's literally kind of not seeing that's that side of things like oh this could actually hurt a lot of people's feelings and this could actually cause a lot of riffs in my relationships with people And she's just like, I have to do what's right. I'm going to, I'm going to do what, what I should, what I'm supposed to do. I'm going to do what I'm going to sacrifice everything. Like, yeah, no classic Taylor. I like that a lot. I think for a buildup, we talk about identity being a theme here. We start all the way back at the beginning where Taylor is a person. And then she develops this super villain persona and she struggles between the two.
01:44:37
Speaker
And she's still, even when she's more villain than Taylor and she's more skitter than Taylor, she still has that part of her. And ultimately at the beginning of the season, she is almost entirely Taylor gone and she, she loses it. She loses her ability to be Taylor. She is just skitter, um, or her cape side. And when she does this, she posts her video, she is giving up like,
01:45:05
Speaker
her last bit of individuality in that. She's no longer an individual hero. She is kind of giving herself up to be a force of good, if you will. Um, she's giving up her personal identity.
01:45:23
Speaker
like as an individual. And we'll get to that even more in the final season, and which is something that I've always felt in the writing is Taylor, when she talks with Theo, the way she interacts with people, what she's doing, she doesn't feel like a person anymore. She feels like a robot going through the motions and which is perfect. Cause that just leads right into the end where it just fits.
01:45:53
Speaker
like And I think this is it. She gives up her personhood. She becomes that robot. That's just chugging along, you know, ramping up, preparing to do what it takes, yada, yada, yada. And then the, the payoff. I like it.
01:46:13
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's a good ending. I think it works. It's fun. Yeah. Another reason, I mean, you'll probably already thought of this, but people haven't seen, they talk about this with the Echidna fight and other stuff around there. Um, a big part of the video releasing is people haven't seen heroes go all out. They haven't seen end bringer fights up close. They just kind of get evacuated and see the after effects. yeah yeah And this is the first time we are seeing what happens there, what we're facing.
01:46:42
Speaker
We assume it's the end bringers, of course, that that is what's, and this is really Taylor's push to be like, hey, this is how bad it is. This is what we can do if we team up. And like you pe like everybody, not just heroes, like the world needs to get its shit together and treat this like, ah you know the idea that the world's coming to an end, obviously would send everybody into mass panic.
01:47:11
Speaker
so like You know, they don't want to say that, but you know, this is one of those things where like you need to, the world needs to take this seriously. Like don't say that the world's ending, but say that like, Hey, there's a major threat coming and we kind of need to get all the nations on, ah get all the nations on board with that, get all the teams on board. Like we need to stop that right. We're on its tracks. Yeah. Good stuff. Any, uh, yeah. Any final thoughts? No, I think, uh,
01:47:40
Speaker
I think it it seems like a good season overall. I liked the direction you guys took a lot with it and obviously voiced the critiques and potential changes were needed, but i I think overall you've done a good job of capturing the vibe of what the season is about, um, of what the section of worm is about. So yeah, yeah, very, very pleased.
01:48:01
Speaker
and Thank you. Yeah, this season is, ah it started pretty like personally, it's pretty skeptical at how well this was going to adapt. I had a feeling this would be one of the weaker seasons in the whole show. And while that still might be the case, because just personally, some of my favorite moments happen elsewhere. I do i do think this could work really well as a nice sort of a bridge season between the rest of the show and kind of the finale. I think there's a lot of a lot of really good moments here. That'd be a lot of fun to see play out on screen. Yeah, yeah it it seems good. I feel like watching this would probably be a phenomenal season.
01:48:46
Speaker
That's the hope. Well, thank you both for joining us as always on these recaps. Super great to hear your feedback, a lot of great ideas, a lot of good call outs, questioning things that we've changed, making sure that we are doing it for the right reasons. And we need all of you listening to do the same because that's what's so fun about all of this. so If you have any thoughts about the changes that we've made here, ah please let us know. Leave us comments on YouTube, Reddit, Instagram, ah wherever you're wherever're listening to this. If you are one of our patrons, you can leave us comments directly on our exclusive Discord, which is a lot of fun. And if that sounds like fun to you,
01:49:33
Speaker
Think about joining the Patreon. there's There's a lot of good memes in there too. A lot of good memes, a lot of good times. ah We jump in, have chats every now and then discussing ideas and ah and ah themes and and whatnot. A special shout out to one of our patrons who did ah recommend the swap between ah Dennis and Greg in the first part of this season. So ah yeah, you might use your ideas. You never know. There's some good ideas out there.
01:50:04
Speaker
Yeah. yeah and ah And all of your little funds help fund our pizza parties and help us pay Michael yeah who puts so much work into all of this, making us sound good, adding this all together. So thank you, Michael, for all the hard work you do.
01:50:23
Speaker
And ah even if not, we do really appreciate you guys listening. um It means the world to us. We have so much fun ah reading Worm and discussing it and having these super nerdy conversations about TV shows that will never happen.
01:50:38
Speaker
but well We hope that you enjoy it. You'll join in with us and stick around for future episodes of Dissecting Worm, diving into the final season, if you can believe it. Holy macaroni. I can't believe we're finally here. It doesn't feel like it. It's crazy. It doesn't feel like it. We're here. It's crazy. Yeah.
01:51:01
Speaker
And then as always the Brockton Bay Book Club, we're going to continue on. We got a few more rocks to go. So stick around. A lot of fun stuff to post. ah Thanks again for listening, Michael. Oh, I was going to say Michael play us out, but that's not how we end dissecting worm episodes.
01:51:16
Speaker
No, sorry. Just cause Nick and I are here. Don't let that confuse you, Jacob. Do we, do we all want to say it or? Yeah. Give a, give a, give a count. I'll give three, two, one. Give me a count. yeah Okay. Three, two. oh Oh my God. Super solid. super no One, two, two.
01:51:40
Speaker
Take that. Oh, my God.