Transcript
Speaker: Worm is a web serial by JC McCray, also known as Wildbo. You can read Worm in its original format by visiting parahumans .wordpress .com or donate to Wildbo's Patreon at patreon .com slash wildbo. This story isn't intended for young or sensitive readers. Readers who are on the lookout for trigger warnings are advised to give Worm a pass. For a complete list, check the description for all of Worm's trigger warnings.
Speaker: Good morning, Brockton Bay. Wanna grab me that nut? Boy, do I, hot Brian. Oh, lovely. Welcome back, everybody. We are here again. Brockton Bay Book Club going through worm with a bunch of bookworms. There's a tagline in there somewhere. We're gonna work on that.
Speaker: We're going to work on that. It's there. I can feel it. And we are at arc six now. Six arcs into this fantastic web serial. And we're just going to kind of jump right in here. The nice thing about this arc is it feels like it really does sort of go
Speaker: chapter by chapter pretty smoothly. So let's go ahead and just dive into this. It's going to take us a minute. There's a lot to dive into here. Hannah, do you have, let's just go with chapter one, kind of break it down for us. What's the little quick summary here? Yeah. So the big thing in chapter one is finalizing putting down the last of the ABB.
Speaker: Yeah, this was a fun way to kick off the arc. I love, it feels very montage -y. I don't know if anybody else sort of got that vibe, but just sort of, it felt like this is the little musical montage number to open up the episode. A little bit of banter, a little bit of action, ass -kicking, that kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, I could absolutely see.
Speaker: This being a moment where they show scenes maybe of other teams, just little clips of it, and then they focus in on the team that Taylor's on. Not to take anything away from the second part of our show, but if this were a TV show or something, yeah, I could see it highlighting other aspects as well that aren't necessarily shown from Taylor's perspective.
Speaker: But it is very fun. It's a fun little glimpse as well with a few of the other powers that we haven't seen yet. Like our boy, Gregor, the snail, love him and just love.
Speaker: Now we know not only is his body super viscous and tough, but he can also create chemicals or hold chemicals in his stomach and then shoot them out of his hand. It's so weird. If you have that power, how do you learn that? Are you going for a high five one day and you just cover somebody in the milkshake you just had for lunch? Ew.
Speaker: I imagine that this is when the transformation fully happens to Tobey Maguire in Spider -Man. This is what's going on inside his body.
Speaker: Well, it makes me think like, okay, so he's shooting this stuff out of his fingers. Like is it, are we, are we giving like web shooter vibes? Are we like out of each of the tips of his fingers? I think it's his palm because it said that he, uh, he has to put his other hand in front of his hand, his palm to like, Oh, that's right. He can like turn it into a spray. Yeah. It's like one of his arms, he's like using his arm as like a hose and his palm is like the nozzle.
Speaker: I love it. It's great. He's a beautiful man. I'd marry him. Wouldn't we all? Anyways. But yeah, fun, fun little arc. And of course I love...
Speaker: I love the casual conversation between Gru and Taylor as they're like, they're beating up bad guys. And he's just like, Hey, uh, could you some help putting some furniture together? You want to come over? And there's like super, super cash. Come over and build a table. Whack. And I have this bookshelf too. I need to stay down. Hey, do you have any more zip ties? Like, absolutely. I don't know what is. What would it be instead of Ikea? It'd be E IKEA.
Speaker: Exactly. Well, no, that's why the furniture is so hard to put together. They just don't have IKEA. After that incident. Got it. IKEA, please sponsor us. Thank you so much. Did Taylor add stuff to her costume?
Speaker: Um, I remember this was the first time she had bugs at the ready, which I've been preaching about this whole time. Like have, you have, have ammo in the gun, please. Yeah. Yeah. Did she, cause there's something about, she has like the mandibles on her mask now. And I was wondering if I had just missed that before, or if that was a new addition. I don't remember.
Speaker: I don't think it specifies, but it would make sense that it's a new edition because she's, she's kind of growing into the character. So it would make sense that she's sort of adding to her costume at this point. Yeah. She finds realizing like, Oh yeah, I'm going to need more armor plating here. I'm going to need more, you know, compartments for my bugs. I like it. Cannon in my mind. Yeah. So he does ask her on the awkward date. This is a little hot Brian, a little awkward flirty moment.
Speaker: I mean, I feel like the awkwardness is coming from Taylor, like Brian is giving, Brian is giving confident, adorable, and Taylor is giving a panic teenager. Valid. As we all would. I mean, face up against Brian, absolutely. But like, what a great, like, how do you, how do you say no in that situation too?
Speaker: Well, you say no, and then he's like, oh, that's cool, cool, cool. And then you see him beating the absolute shit out of some ABB member, like off to the side. That guy's like, dude, I surrendered. And he's like, we'll go on a date with me. Well, help me build a bookshelf. Don't fucking darkest the shit out of you, you racist dang member.
Speaker: On a completely unrelated, fun idea note, we definitely, if there isn't already a quiz to see who you are in their group, are you Alisa? Are you O 'Brien? Yes. We need to take that if that exists. Which on their site or are you? If that exists, we'll report back next time. If it doesn't, somebody please make that. If it doesn't, we'll make it. Yes, exactly. We're doing this.
Speaker: Well, that chapter moves pretty quickly. Yeah, there's not much to it. Just sort of wrap that up and then it's into a hideout setting if I'm not mistaken. Is that correct? Yes. So I've grouped chapters two and three together because we're back at the hideout and we kind of
Speaker: are seeing things getting wrapped up, but then we also move to Brian's place and help him build furniture and Surprise we get to meet his sister Aisha and that's a fun little interaction her her little interaction with Taylor So yeah, that's chapters two and three
Speaker: Yeah. So we get to see, I remember in arc two, we get to see a little bit more of, um, just Taylor's attitude towards life at this point. Um, cause she mentioned how like how freeing living without adult supervision is. Yes. Um, and that is a, that's just an interesting contrast. And obviously for her, um, it doesn't really seem like she's, she's just been watched. She feels like she's been watched her whole life by authority figures.
Speaker: And so it's kind of an interesting change where now she's feeling this bit of freedom. She's 16, right? If I'm remembering her age, right at this point. Yeah, 15 still 15, 15. Okay. Yeah. So she hasn't gotten a license or anything. I don't even know if they would have a car for her to learn how to drive, um, cause of their poverty situation. But yeah, just, I do remember that in high school, not that my parents were bad by any means or that my situation was nearly as bad as hers.
Speaker: Um, in any way, but just that those moments of freedom, when you start to become an older teenager, you're a young adult, it's really interesting just to see her, her perspective on that. But of course, all of it is built on all of these lies to her dad and how she, um, how she's just kind of avoiding life. She's not really dealing with it at this point. Right. Yeah.
Speaker: I think it's these chapters too when he's like checking in on her like, hey, when are you coming home? Like, please tell me you're at least going to school. And she lies to him and she says, oh, well, you know, I went a couple half days and you know, but I'm going now. And of course, and you know, we know it's a lie and she's making excuses for herself by saying, oh, well, they're half they're half truth.
Speaker: I'm at least not lying as badly as I could be lying to him. And that's just, yeah. And it's hard too because you sympathize with Danny and being like, he obviously just cares about Taylor so much. And you just see that from his interlude and from these conversations. But at the same time,
Speaker: If you're Taylor, you're not going back to school. You're not going back to that situation after the failure of the sort of intervention with all the teachers and everything. The bullies are still there. It's really hard. You really can't even take a side there. They're both completely valid with their approaches and concerns. It's a very, very well -written dynamic. It's very hard to see who's right.
Speaker: This is also the first chapter, 6 .2 kicks off with her lying to her dad. Yeah. Kind of really easy, which was something that was like, made a big deal before of like, I really hate lying to him and here I go. And this is just like, ooh, boy, lying. I love lying. Here I go lying again. If you grew up with Christian parents, this is the slow fade that I used to get told all the time. It's that backsliding. It's that lukewarm.
Speaker: I can now that I'm older, I'm like, oh, they were right. I can sing that casting ground song for you.
Speaker: But yeah, we also get, though, to transition to another cool part of this arc before we get to the part in Brian's apartment. We see a little bit of insight into Tattletale as well. And it's an interesting thought, too. She talks about relationships and how every relationship is predicated on lying about yourself until you get comfortable enough to tell the truth.
Speaker: And I'm just curious what you guys think about that theory of relationships. Obviously she's young and she has her powers, which is why she says that. I don't know. I'm just interested to know what you guys think of Cattle Tales, Lisa's perspective on dating and relationships.
Speaker: I'd say from a very like you're meeting the person for the first time, like that type going on a date with someone. I mean, I think it's kind of true. Like you, I've always heard where it's like, dating is you showing the best version of yourself. Like you get all dressed up, you put on your makeup, you get dressed nice, you go to a fancy restaurant, you act all like prim and proper until like you both decide that you like each other and then you start seeing each other for who you really are. I think that's very accurate.
Speaker: Well, that makes me so sad. I'm not gonna lie. I hate that. I'm a very big fan of life is too short to pretend to be somebody else. And I feel like in college, I very much was trying to pretend to be, I guess, present a version of myself that I thought would be appealing to people. And I don't agree with that anymore. It sucks that you have to
Speaker: I don't know. Pretend to be somebody else in order to. What are we? What are we? Venus flytraffs to, you know, look pretty to attract the fly. Like that sounds so. I. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I feel like Taylor is more just like.
Speaker: I don't think Taylor necessarily meant pretending not to be yourself, but more like it just takes time to get comfortable to be yourself fully. I mean, it's just the idea of literally the only really random situation that I'm thinking of is you don't fart in front of somebody for a long time, and then all of a sudden, all the time, you're just farting. That's true. That's true, yeah.
Speaker: Like that's all I'm thinking of. Yeah. Yeah, it's true. But the there is that that whole like who's going to who's going to break that that wall first, the far wall. And then let me tell you, once once the wall gets broken, if you guys are really comfortable with each other, it's like all hell is unleashed out of everybody's buttholes. It's great. Oh, my God. I mean, well, I feel like that that's very much of like a short that is like the comfortability of like, OK, well, now I'm going to, you know,
Speaker: In front of you like sure but if if if and like to like I mean Alan I've been married for six years But like at a certain point I don't care if my legs are shaved anymore because I don't care And like when we were first dating I definitely cared about that. But yeah, I think that with the the like pretending you have your shit together when you don't or like pretending that you
Speaker: are more functional than you are. That's what I mean by like. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and to bring it back to the arc too, especially with the way Lisa presents it is, the better question is, if you had Lisa's power, if you have the ability to essentially perfectly read somebody for all intents and purposes, does that
Speaker: Would that for you be, I mean, obviously it's hypothetical, we have no idea. But would that ruin your ability to get intimately familiar with anybody else? Would you only be capable of surface level relationships just because no, but you're never gonna, you're always gonna know everybody's true self. You're never gonna have that phase of where somebody's holding themselves back from you because you can just read them.
Speaker: Yeah, and kind of what she alludes to is that it's not just nice stuff like, oh wow, I hope that she likes me. I'm really nervous, but I'm just putting on a good face. It's more like, I wonder what her feet look like. I'm really into feet. Man, I just want to see your toes. That's what she's hearing from them as they're on a date. I could imagine that being pretty rough. I mean, Jesus never married.
Speaker: I don't really know what that has to do with this, but go off, King. I'm a little confused. Sorry, that was a joke that flew over people's heads. I was just editing that out, Michael. No, I'm kidding. For me, it would be if you could read someone's mind, if I could read minds, which is, I guess, in a sense,
Speaker: Tattletales, power squared. I don't know if I'd ever be able to be in a relationship just because you constantly know what everyone's thinking. And that's what I was equating to Jesus, just like, oh, well, I mean, if you're perfect, then. Oh, yeah, yeah, I got what you mean now. Got it, got it, got it. Yeah. No, okay, makes sense now. That makes more sense. Sorry, I wasn't trying to Debbie downer you there. I was just like, I literally have no idea what this means.
Speaker: I don't know what that means, but go off, King. That's the support I'm looking for in a friend. And I appreciate it. So Lisa is the stereotype female best friend to our main character. And yet for being such like a stereotype, she's so enjoyable. I really enjoy her. Like we're going to go shopping, girlfriend. And it's fun.
Speaker: And she has great conversations about dating and clothes and boys. And I don't know, normally I find any sort of stereotype trite because it's a stereotype. Like you've seen it a thousand times, just like, oh, here we go again. And sort of as a theme for Worm in general, most of these people are stereotypical characters,
Speaker: That's their goal, they're representing other characters that we've seen in media. But they're just, it just goes to show like, if you do it well, stereotypes don't have to be a bad thing. Yeah, exactly. And stereotypes are often appealing, which is why they get used so often. And this is an example of just like female best friend, like I would love to have Lisa, like, there would probably - You just want Lisa to dress you.
Speaker: I mean, that would also be nice. Lisa needs to take me out shopping. Lisa needs to take us all out shopping. For anyone who's a better artist than me, so anybody who's listening pretty much, if you could please just draw a crossover between Taylor and Lisa and Galinda and Elphaba from Wicked. Oh my gosh, it really is. I need that.
Speaker: Oh man. Unlimited. Together our villainy could be unlimited. I was thinking popular, but I'm going to make you popular. Also wear this crop top sweater because you're going to look great and Brian's going to love it. You've got to replace the word popular though with something else. What is it? Oh no. Going to make you... Is it just villainous?
Speaker: I mean, it works, it works. I'm gonna make you villainous. It's there. We'll workshop it. We'll workshop it. You'll rob some banks. Oh my gosh. Okay. We got some banks. We're gonna have the whole song done. It is your destiny. Part three of this episode is Alan writes, uh, warm the musical. Oh my God. I'm already on it.
Speaker: Okay, so bring it back in. We continue over to Brian's apartment. Brian's apartment. Yes. Who lives in the real nice part of town with his fancy buildings and his potted plants. Like, okay. All right, Brian. Also, he's waiting for a shout out.
Speaker: You're kind of saying what I was saying, but I love the way Brian is set up. If there's anyone who is doing the villain story correctly, it's Brian. He's got the apartment, he's got the fake job with the fake boss for the fake references and the fake pay stubs. He has set up his life so perfectly. That's the villain I aspire to be. I love it. I love his setup so much.
Speaker: Yeah, it's him waiting outside the door and just like, what, basking in the sunlight? Like a cat in a sunbeam. Hot Brian being hot in the sun. Hot Brian is hot in the sun. And Taylor's like, oh, is he napping? He's so quiet. He's so still. He must be napping. No, he's just basking in the sun for a second. He's just enjoying the outside. Like, oh man, what a guy. What a guy.
Speaker: Oh yeah. No, it's great. I love the way he's portrayed just so calm and confident and cool. And even though he is a villain and he does bad things, it's again, it goes back to that whole Wreck -It Ralph thing. It's like, well, he's a bad guy, but that doesn't make him a bad guy. And just the way that he, and you can tell that too, from how much he cares, like, um,
Speaker: Part of it too is his motivation. He's not in the villain business. And we get to see that intimately here. He's not in the villain business just for the money or anything like that. He really just wants to give his sister a better life. And I have no doubt that if he felt like he could do that as a hero and make enough money and do that, that he may have gone that route.
Speaker: Unfortunately, I imagine as a ward, you're basically a high school student who's probably not getting paid a lot because you're basically property of the government. You have a lot of control over you. Your freedom is incredibly limited.
Speaker: And in his mind too, the system has already failed him and his sister. He has no allegiance to the government or the wards or the protectorate or any other sort of institution like that. He's playing their game and he's kissing their ass just for Aisha's sake.
Speaker: In his mind, they're the enemy. Yeah, this is something we can talk about later when we get into chapter nine with Danny. But something that I find really interesting is looking at the way that Brian talks to Aisha and the way that Danny talks to Taylor. And obviously, Brian is the older brother talking to the younger sister and their age gap between them isn't a large age gap.
Speaker: And then Danny is obviously Taylor's dad. But seeing him, seeing Brian specifically talk to his sister about being in school and what friends she hangs out with, and if she's going to the movies or not, and the very stern, authoritative side that comes out, especially when Aisha and the caseworker are there, is such an interesting
Speaker: like mirror, I guess, I can't think of the right word, but an interesting mirror to Danny and Taylor's relationship. And there isn't really anything said in regards to how Taylor responds to Brian's kind of authoritative voice at Ayesha, but it makes me wonder if Taylor is seeing that as like, oh yeah, Brian's being a good big brother and making sure he's taking care of his sister, but then
Speaker: Danny, meanwhile, is in the same position, being worried about his daughter, wanting to make sure she makes good decisions and is doing okay and is being healthy in school and her friends. And yet, Taylor's like, Brian. So I just think that's an interesting kind of bookend to this whole arc where we see very beginning with Brian kind of being that
Speaker: kind of a dad role to Aisha wanting to have her move in and take care of her and whatnot. And then book ending that at the end with Danny and Taylor. Yeah. And I think, and maybe this is just sort of like a reader bias, but it almost feels like in kind of making that comparison,
Speaker: The one criticism we make of Danny kind of repeatedly is that he really doesn't see Taylor. He refuses to acknowledge the, what we would call the really obvious elephant in the room, right? Whereas Brian really feels like he knows and understands his sister.
Speaker: She's very aware of who she is and her needs and there's clearly a respect there, even though Aisha has problems, there's clearly respect that she has for Brian. And I think a lot of that is sort of off camera, if you will, but a very clear sort of sibling camaraderie there that Brian really does see his sister and understands her struggle and like what she needs as opposed to Danny and Taylor.
Speaker: Yeah, or at least he's trying to. I think he's still not completely there, of course. He's still trying to figure out how do I relate to this teenage girl, not just as an older brother, but like as a pseudo parental figure. And that's really difficult. I can imagine that's really difficult for anybody to do. Whereas with Danny, it feels like he's trying
Speaker: I think the difference may be less having to do with Brian and Danny, perhaps having more to do with Taylor, which I want to talk more about when we get to that point in the story, but there's definitely, definitely something there that I feel like is not Danny's fault, but with Brian, at least.
Speaker: Um, there's definitely a wholehearted attempt to try to fix the situation with a sister. Can I say though? Um, and cause maybe I'm alone in this and this may just be me, but was anyone else a little bit uncomfortable with the way that wild bow through Taylor described Aisha? Yes. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So it wasn't, it wasn't just me. I was like, okay. Like I just, it wasn't my favorite description.
Speaker: No, and I think part of it, I'm trying to decide, I'm like, okay, is this a writer who is putting themselves into the mind of Taylor, who seems to be jealous of really pretty girls? Yeah. Or is this just bad writing?
Speaker: Which I hate to say, but it's this moment of like, oh, I've listened to it twice now and both times I'm like, I just feel a little uncomfortable. Yeah. And I think that's something because we obviously are all big fans of Wild Bo and Worm and his works, but that doesn't mean that he is faultless in his writing. And I think that this is definitely one of the places where it feels
Speaker: really weird. To be perfectly honest, I just felt very uncomfortable. The Men Writing Women subreddit, that is how this section felt. At least Taylor's description of Aisha is how it felt. It did not hit for me.
Speaker: And it's worth pointing out here too, of course, that, and Wild Bo himself mentions this several times, that the nature of the serialization of the story means that it is unedited completely. So we're going to have many of these moments. Wild Bo has alluded to many of these moments where
Speaker: there's parts that just don't work and really needed a second, third or fourth pass. And that's fine. And so like, yeah, I think we can be, we can be critical of that. That's, that's totally valid. And that doesn't really detract from him as a writer or an author. And yeah, no, I agree. I think that's a very, not a very well -written. And I wonder if part of it too. Yeah. Yeah. Not a very well -written part necessarily. I wonder if part of it too is that it kind of just hit me too, that how much style has changed.
Speaker: Yeah, 2011 to 2013 and 2011 was still a time where that sort of trashy goth look that he's describing or as he calls it or this like alt look
Speaker: wasn't very popular, but it's become very popular in the past few years. So as, as wild goes describing the way that she looks, there's a part of me that's like, that's just kind of the way that some people dress now. And maybe that's part of it too, is that the style has changed. So what was once seen as, you know, like, Oh, why would you do that is like, Oh, that's really cool now. So maybe that's part of it. But I do also just feel like,
Speaker: I think the best reasoning I can give for it is that if I think of this as Taylor's mindset towards Aisha and not necessarily a literal description of Aisha, then to me it comes across as, okay, this is the unreliable narrator issue. She's a very judgy person and that is something worth noting with her. So if I'm getting this straight,
Speaker: Is the problem you're finding with his writing and describing Aisha a problem of sexism, would you say then? Or is it just the whole thing? I think for me, it's more the, more the age thing. Cause she's supposed to be like 12, I think. Yeah. 12 or 13. I thought she was four. I thought she was 14. I might be mistaken. Is Aisha that close in age to Taylor? I thought there was a bigger gap. Yeah. I could have sworn she's a little bit younger. No. Yeah. That's why I was thinking like 12 or 13. Yeah. Um,
Speaker: Because other than that, if she was the same age, I think it plays a little bit easier and kind of, it plays more into that sort of jealousy that you were talking about, Nick. But yeah, for me, I think it was just more the, more of how much younger, at least when I was reading it, I could be wrong. I thought she was supposed to be a few years younger. She's 13, about to turn 14. 13, okay, okay. It feels very like sexualized in a very uncomfortable way. Yeah, I think that's what it is. And part of it maybe is this whole like,
Speaker: Something about the way it was said of like, she'll be really gorgeous when she grows up, which isn't necessarily a bad thing to say, but that something about the way it was phrased and just the, again, the age thing and the focus on her physical appearance, it just kind of made me uncomfortable. I don't think it was sexist or at least not intentionally so.
Speaker: And again, something that probably could be easily cleaned up with an editor too. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I just think generally that we can move on from it now, but after Kat says what she was going to say, but generally that whole scene just felt uncomfortable. I really like Aisha's character though. I think the way that she talks to Taylor is really funny and entertaining. And that's a great scene. So I don't want to discount from that part of the arc. But just that moment, I just thought it was worth asking.
Speaker: Like, did this make other people uncomfortable or was it just me? And maybe it's just Taylor being super judgy. You know, we can say that at the very least. Yeah. I just, I think that we've seen, there's been a few instances and I don't have specific like situations to recall back to in this moment, but Taylor has kind of shown us a few, like quite a few times that she's kind of judgmental.
Speaker: Yeah, she obviously has a way that she thinks everything is supposed to work. Everything is supposed to be. And you either are meeting that or you're below it. So I don't know, I've just seen there's a few, been a few instances where I'm like, well, that's kind of a problematic thought. Like the way that she was like, her thoughts on, you know, the
Speaker: death, um, waitress and just the way that she talks about, you know, the other people just describing their looks or, you know, how you can kind of tell where she's where people's worth stands with her by the way that she goes into her like mental description of them. Hmm. Interesting. That's a good way to put it. I never thought of it that way, but yeah. Yeah. In my mind, she, um, she still knows everything.
Speaker: If that makes sense. Cause I remember, I remember going off to college at 18 and then like by 19, I was like, Oh my God, there's so much I don't know.
Speaker: But I mean, but in a teenager, I would have literally like had a solid argument on like Israel versus Palestine. Like I would have been like, no, no, no, let me like, and now I'm like, yeah, dude, I have no idea what to even like begin to think about what to do about, you know what I mean? So if I'm reading it from a 15 year old girl's perspective or guy, or they then, but they, you know, it's like, oh wow, like,
Speaker: She thinks that she knows how the world works. Like she's sitting here telling her dad what she's doing. Yeah. That gets on my nerves. Cause I'm like, Danny, if you don't tell that girl to come home, we'll get there. We'll get there at the end here. We interrupt our scheduled program to bring you a word from our sponsor Zencaster, a one -stop shop for all your podcasting needs.
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Speaker: I want you to have the same easy experiences I do for all my podcasting and content needs. It's time to share your story. That's zencaster .com slash pricing and use our code rockton bay BC. And now back to our scheduled programming. It's something that like Kat said very, very early on in this podcast is that, and then what Nick just brought up a couple of minutes ago, that she is an unreliable narrator and like,
Speaker: as uncomfortable as this scene kind of was to read and you know our debate back and forth of where that's coming from. She isn't being a judgy bitch here and she is explaining Aisha in a way that she sees
Speaker: Aisha being trashy. And as she says, because I looked it up, I had to read it again really quick. She compares her to a beautiful Mercedes that has a cheap flame decal pasted all over the wheels. And that is so...
Speaker: It feels so judgy. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think, I think, and that's, that's kind of exactly where that sort of judgmental attitude, I think comes in when we're talking about. Yeah. It's that kind of language where it's, that's, that's very much feels like Taylor, Taylor's character being Taylor, which is
Speaker: Awkward. But I think it does help. Again, she is a very flawed protagonist and we're going to see that as the story continues. And I think it's hard because the worm in general, the entire story is very uncomfortable in a lot of places over a lot of different areas and topics and things like that.
Speaker: which is part of the appeal. It's part of the draw. This is clearly a very flawed world. This isn't the MCU, right? We're not like, oh, we're following Iron Man. And yeah, sometimes he's a little bit of an alcoholic, but we still love him. It's not that kind of story, but it does write a line. And I think it sometimes definitely crosses that line a little bit.
Speaker: Well, let's not let it detract from unless anybody else has some final thoughts, though, because I do really want to get into Aisha's character introduction and her conversations with Taylor, which I absolutely love. I love immediately just coming right out. OK, so you're the bug girl. Yeah, she's so sassy. I love it.
Speaker: It's like, well, obviously you're, you're part of this team. Why else would he hang out with you? She came out swinging and I love that Taylor is so thrown off by her bluntness, by her, you know, it's not an attack, but to Taylor is like, Oh, how do I, how do I lie? How do I lie again? Uh, uh, what he's a villain. Like just the, and just Aisha giving her this look of like,
Speaker: Come on, man, I'm a kid. I might've been born a while ago, but I wasn't born yesterday. Just that look, which I love. She has so much sass. Yeah, it didn't have to be Tattletale there to know that Taylor was lying in that scene. I needed a spin take moment from Taylor where she's like, so you're the bug girl, just. What?
Speaker: Oh, God, all I can visualize is that scene from The Incredibles where Violet spits.
Speaker: Snorts water. Exactly. And I can't remember. I'm trying to remember the exact wording of the dialogue. Does she say that that Brian told her everything or does it just sort of inferred or implied that Aisha figured it out? I can't remember how it. She says she figured it out. Okay. So basically, yeah, no, basically she says he warned me that he had powers, but didn't tell me what they were because
Speaker: He wanted me to know just in case I ended up with powers too. Which, you know, smart move makes sense. But then she's like, but then I started keeping track of when he was gone and what was going on in the superhero world and the cape world. And she's like, I kind of put two and two together. It made the most sense. And boom. Now I can tell you're, you're probably part of his team. Yeah. So she, she is,
Speaker: pretty clever and it's implied that, yeah, that, or she's not implied, she says straight up, I figured it out. Any final thoughts on this scene before we move chapters? I just love Taylor showing up, seeing Hot Brian and just immediately going like, goddamn it, Lisa. Oh, resorting to her caveman talk, which I just love. Every time Taylor loses her cool and starts being like, me, no, do,
Speaker: Me no function. Me no know how to talk to boys. It cracks me up. I want to have two of those moments where her brain just goes to mush. One, of course, is want to grab me that nut. I'm sorry, want to grab me the nut. And of course, you smell nice. Oh my gosh.
Speaker: Yeah, oh, that moment where she's like, she's like, oh, you know, I, uh, I just worry that maybe I smell bad. And he's like leans in close. Oh, wow. I'm surprised she didn't just keel over and die right there. Cause I know teen Hannah would have like, Oh my God. Are you saying she'll have a possible second triggering?
Speaker: Second trigger event is Brian leading up. We'll see this boy. Gosh. Something fun to think about in Brian's apartment. You know, we have the reflection of like characters powers and their mental states and who they are as people. But then the social worker comes in and says something similar to that. But like Brian, your apartment is basically you.
Speaker: and there's no Aisha here. But just thinking about what does his apartment and how it's designed and what it looks like, what does that say about who Brian is as a person? And also a reminder that his powers aren't, the primary thing about his powers isn't that they're cutting out light.
Speaker: darkness per se, but it's shadows coming out that are inherently a dampening effect that also dampen light as well as other things. Like it's because he's like, when you think about like, how does this relate to him? He's not a darkness person. You know, he is a muted person.
Speaker: So when he's stretching all this out, it's not a representation of him being darkness, a shrouded mystery and all this stuff, because he's very much A. I feel like he both keeps his cards close to his vest and also
Speaker: but has them turned around. He's a very guarded individual, but also very open to inviting Taylor onto the team. He wants to keep people safe by protecting them, but also, yeah, can you come help me with my sister? He's guarding, but he's open. Darkness isn't his thing, but being muted is.
Speaker: You kind of see that in the apartment. It's very relaxing, Taylor says. It's very open, very relaxing, very calming. And I think maybe that has something to do with it too, right? That just like, oh, this is, it's calm, like you said, it's a dampening. It's not exaggerated, it's not loud, it's not bold. It's not even a typical bachelor pad, like she says. It just reflects that calming nature of who he is. Yeah, I like that. More reasons to love Brian, really.
Speaker: Add it to the list. Also, Taylor at the end of this, finally, finally comes to terms about lying to herself about the villain thing. At the end of this chapter or the arc? She helps him finish up with whatever they're doing, the furniture. And then she's like, that does it. I've been saying, oh man, next week I'll put it off and I'll turn them in then.
Speaker: And then she's like, nah, if I stay here any longer, I'm gonna wanna be with Brian and I need to get out of here now. I need to pull the eject cord. You're not turning anybody in. We see right through you. All right, let's move on to the next couple of chapters, which I think a couple of these are gonna flow together here. Hannah, if you wanna break down.
Speaker: Yeah, so I've grouped five and seven together and I kind of kept four separate, but it can really be grouped in. So chapter four is they make their way back and the boss wants them to take a big job as like a big fuck you to the protectorate for taking credit for all of their work with the ABB. They have like a little voting moment and then they start planning. And then chapters five through seven
Speaker: is more of the big job. So if we want to talk about chapter four first, I definitely, I mean, we know obviously why Taylor is making her, you know, why she changes her vote from, you know, no to yes. But I think it's interesting because we see some of the other like members, like some of their motivation, like why would you take a job versus turn one down?
Speaker: Yeah. It's a, it's a great chapter. Uh, and in terms of getting some reads on the team dynamic, I love, I love Regent. I love how he's just a wild card. He goes from no. And then he's like, yeah, actually, you know what? Sure. Why not? Let's do it. That's the energy I need attacking this. I like, I like the way he phrases it too. He's like, well, the money deals with my main concern because attacking them seemed pointless, but
Speaker: $250 ,000 is pretty pointy. It's pretty pointy. Yeah, I love that. So good. He's got some great lines. I couldn't remember if it was at the beginning was bitch on board or not.
Speaker: Which is not on board. Because it's just Lisa, right? That's kind of like pushing for it. Correct. Yeah. Which is interesting. Because pretty much the rest of them are in agreement. That is not a great idea. Nothing about this makes sense until the paycheck.
Speaker: Until the pointy paycheck. Yeah. I mean, Taylor even makes the, the comment that like, Oh yeah, sure. This could be just as dangerous as walking up to the protector and turning ourselves in like that. We might as well just walk up and hold out our wrists and say cuff me because that's what's going to happen. Like we're not going to get away with this. Yeah. Yeah. Taylor's Taylor's swing in this conversation is also pretty wild because she, she does something that I thought was kind of a
Speaker: a dick move where she brings up Lisa's underestimation beforehand. Yes, she does. To initially say we shouldn't do this, which is like, didn't Lisa pull you aside and be like, hey, let's maybe not mention that. Right. Yeah. And that's something that we've talked about before in previous episodes, like looking at that and being like,
Speaker: That's becoming a theme. That's a problem. Is this going to continue to be a problem as Lisa underestimates the big bads that we're going up against?
Speaker: And I think like Taylor obviously does have a good reason to bring it up, but it is kind of shitty, especially after, like you said, Lisa pulled her aside and astronaut too. Seems like a real Emma Barnes move right over there. How's your dead mom, you know?
Speaker: Here's your biggest insecurity. I mean, I think, um, I think though it is, it is at a certain point pretty obvious that, um, tattletale did miss those details even to the rest of the team. So like, I mean, like obviously the big thing she missed was that glory girl in panacea or panacea was there, um, at the bank. But yeah, I think that is a very interesting, the reason why Taylor turns is still related to her motivation.
Speaker: to eventually try to be a good guy. Um, because that's the only reason she turns. She's like, you know, maybe, maybe if we can meet with our boss, that would be pretty cool. I could, I'd be done. Yeah. She'd finally have the information she needs to, to turn them in and walk away. That's the last piece of her puzzle, which is interesting motivation. Yeah. I'm going to back up there a little bit because I just wrote,
Speaker: read what I wrote down, which is Taylor's an interesting dilemma. Taylor doesn't want to betray Lisa like Emma did to her. But the only way to prevent that from happening in her head is to say what Emma did to her. In order to not be a betrayer, she has to pick on Lisa's biggest insecurity, which is the other thing that Emma Barnes did to her.
Speaker: And I do like how kind of quickly she brushes past it because as I feel like we'll continue to do, it's okay if everybody else does it, but if I do it, it's fine. Yeah, exactly. That feels like a tagline for her whole life at this point, which is the, I know best, I can do this. I can get away with it because I'm the main character. Jesus, Taylor, so obnoxious. Like, come on.
Speaker: I think this whole arc definitely gives me that, like, good god, Taylor vibes. The whole arc is our, what the fuck, Taylor? Maybe so, yeah. Yeah, the whole thing. Yeah. Well, they do all agree to it eventually. Yes, they do. And we kick off some pre -planning. Yeah, almost all do. Groove still votes no, but he's out there. Oh, yes. That's true. Yeah, he's out there. Yeah. Once again,
Speaker: because of Taylor, Taylor swings that whole group against Gru. Well, no, I would not say that because Regent changes his mind because of the money and Bitch also changes her mind because of the money. No, Bitch says specifically, basically, if that little girl is going to do it, then I can't let her show me up. Oh, that's right. Yeah, you're right. As we've been kind of seeing, Bitch has been backing up Taylor
Speaker: I'm liking it. I'm liking the vibe that's happening there. I think that goes all the way back to Taylor being the only one to validate Bitch's attack on the dog fighting ring from the last arc where she's like, did you get them all? Or did you hurt them? Good. That's all that was needed. And Bitch did see that she took down Long as well. Yeah, exactly. It's not a big spoiler, but when
Speaker: later when she's like saying, you know, lung underestimated her too. We see, I mean, I think what bitch values of course is strength and power. And she, she looks at Taylor and is like, you might look scrawny, but you are powerful. And I respect the hell out of that. Yeah. And I feel like that's, that's kind of what's going on there too is like,
Speaker: almost this like bitch has in her mind, like almost this rivalry of, well if Taylor's gonna do it, I can't say no. I can't let her show me up. Which is funny because in Taylor's mind, she's just like,
Speaker: What? Why? Why do you care? I love it. Moving into chapters five, six, and seven, we have the job, as it were, where they're crashing this big party, literally crashing right through the party. We get to kind of see containment foam, what that looks like. Things go really well, and then they don't go so well.
Speaker: Taylor makes a final move with her hornets and the undersiders make their break. And they think they're free, but they're not. And Arms Master and Dauntless follow them right into a parking garage. And when all seems fucked, Circus and the Traveler show up. And surprise, surprise, we get to meet the boss. Oh, so much to go through.
Speaker: Let's start at the beginning of that and the party crash, which is a fun scene. Can we just... All right. Okay. I just leaned into my mic here. I'm sorry. We hung off the side of the building on a doge and then jumped from building to building and then crashed into said building.
Speaker: gripped said building with claws until second doggo could come flying in and break the glass. So, like, the image. I just can't. If I was on the back of this die, I wouldn't be screaming the entire time.
Speaker: But this image of the glass just cracking and the paneling and the metal just creaking underneath them as these dogs are gripping the side of the building and hanging off the edge and then whoof, like jumping and this giant, like, oh my God.
Speaker: I think Taylor even says she's like, there wasn't time to scream. You just had to like hang on and hope for the best. Cuz we all know this is possible. I mean, we've all seen Fast and Furious 7, where they do the Dubai building jumps. And I think that is exactly what I imagine these dogs doing with a little bit
Speaker: Well, what's the Johnny Blaze? Ghost Rider, a little bit of Ghost Rider thrown in there. Right, right. Hear me out. Too fast, too furious. Episode title, if we're titling these episodes. Too fast, too furious. There's only one thing stronger than family.
Speaker: No! And it's Brutus. There's only one thing stronger than family, and it's got four paws. Oh gosh. I got a herd. I got a herd. I got my pack. My pack. Anyway, the break -in starts.
Speaker: The disruption, not the heist, what are we calling this? The party crashing? The party crash, yeah. Yeah, and we get some good moments. Yeah, the containment foam, just the... Oh, that was a great start. I love that that was their thing. They were like, okay, we're going to blanket everyone in darkness, and then we're going to cover everyone in expanding foam.
Speaker: But also I do love how it's introduced as like this get out of jail free card. Like every author is going to have that one thing, right? Oh, okay. The story can't get too out of hand.
Speaker: They have containment foam that contains them. Right. But it also gets turned around within its introduction chapter and they are using it against them. So it's, yeah, it makes sense. Yeah, it does. Exactly. It's like, it's, it's well placed within the story. It doesn't feel like this overpowering. Okay. Well, of course they have containment foam. Like it's still just a tool within the story.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly. It's, um, which is fun. I think it's really fun too. Cause it makes sense. Like the more that people would become super powerful and need to be controlled, you know, if you're just a normal police officer, essentially, what are you going to do against the superhero, right? But this is where they start the heroes, particularly, I think they say it's some tinker gear.
Speaker: as well. This is why it's important for them to start to develop ways to handle it. Because it's like, well, yeah, what are we going to do if the heroes can't get there in time? But I do love, too, how it does get turned around. Just a whole plan to jump in, use the darkness, choose their battles very intelligently. Yeah, it's super fun.
Speaker: Yeah, and I think it's interesting because we know that Taylor's done her research in the forums and has gotten to know people's powers and what they do. But I think I forget, I guess my assumption tends to be that, oh yeah, the protectorate is this group of heroes that are too high and mighty to know about the lowly undersiders. But Armsmaster, he knows every single one of them. He knows what their powers do, and he's done his own research.
Speaker: for the possibility of them showing up or having to deal with them, which I love. I think that's really fun.
Speaker: They can't really do anything. They're surrounded by, but like Miss militia, what you gonna do? Just shoot everything. Like she can't do anything. Like they're all sort of, they're all sort of kind of caught here where they have to really sort of rein in what they can do. And it really gives arms master a moment to shine and his, his back and forth, uh, the chase afterwards. Like it's such a great moment. The way he's outsmarting them, getting around tattletale,
Speaker: like everything about the way he approaches. He really feels like that sort of, you know, the nemesis, right? He's there. He's the undersiders, his nemesis, really more than lung is, especially in these early chapters. It's a lot of fun. To your question, to your thought though, Hannah, about, you know, you think maybe the undersiders aren't big enough deal for them to, or for, you know, for the protectorate to notice. I wonder though,
Speaker: how much of this is simply due to Taylor and her conversations with arms master. Like, do we think that arms master really would have cared this much and would have been prepared for this as much as he was if Taylor hadn't said that? Like if he had, if she hadn't said something like, and brought the undersiders onto his radar,
Speaker: you know, like, Oh, this exactly. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. It's like, really? Like, is that how it would have been? Um, yeah, it's, it's interesting to think about for sure. And from the other side too, like would the undersiders have cared at all about this without Taylor's sort of intervention? Like, no, I think we kind of answered that already with the earlier chapters. So it's true. It does feel like a showdown between arms master and Taylor for a lot of different reasons.
Speaker: Which is great, I love it. And not just that, but also Emma, that bitch. And her family, her powerful lawyer dad, like, oh gosh, they're just so gross. Fucking Alan, fuck Alan. You love to hate him. You do. I mean, she says, like Taylor says, that the thing that kind of makes her mad is when her
Speaker: Emma's mom has like the protective arm over Emma and that kind of like flames something up inside of Taylor that like really just
Speaker: hurts, you know? Yeah. And if a few more bugs went to Emma, it wasn't on purpose. And then we get to the confrontation on, they're like on a, on like a rooftop, right? Well, there's like a, there's like a balcony outside of the party. Yeah. So the balcony like steps through some doors.
Speaker: And Taylor pulls, well, not pulls arms master, but kind of lures him out there in a way. They have like their little, their little moment out on the patio. I would say, are we going to move to that already? I was going to go over. If I jumped ahead, let's go back. What do you, what do you got? We got, we got arms master showing up and, you know, start doing his Batman level shit.
Speaker: Like, yeah, yeah. I think too, real quick, it is interesting to see how just how different characters react to the foam. Like even glory girl, who we know is like this sort of like,
Speaker: Superman level superhero is stuck by this film. The ones who have an easier time escaping it though, are the characters like shadow stalker who can turn herself into shadows. And I just think that's really interesting that like shadow stalker in particular, we see just the showcasing of powers and how
Speaker: even the parameters that they've tried to set up to try to stop heroes and villains as needed. It's just not going to work on certain heroes. And shadow soccer almost escapes, but doesn't because of her power. So it's just that, that part was kind of interesting to me. And who is it? Who's the other, there's another Cape that's there that is like, um, gosh, I cannot remember their name. The one that ends up fighting, no, no, not miss militia.
Speaker: Salt, battery, and velocity. Holy macaroni and cheese. Now that is a fun power. And the way they work together, it's like... Yes. Yeah. But they can coordinate their attacks to, you know, like, okay, well, I'm going to work up all this power and then I'm going to shoot you across the room. Like, it's so interesting. And then I guess, is velocity the one that's basically like the flash, except he punches like an eight -year -old?
Speaker: Yeah. So this is really interesting here. Cause this, you know, the worm universe, why it's so cool that you can have the same power essentially, but they operate so differently. So from battery battery has the like charging up the powers and then letting it go and velocity actually like phase shifts kind of like shadow stalker, but you know, moves into what is essentially a speed force realm.
Speaker: where they're moving as fast because they're like on a different plane. So they can minorly affect this plane. But like you said, they punch like an eight year old. Yeah. It's all the, it's all just, it's just the getting from A to B really. That is the part of the power. Yeah. No, I think you hit the nail on the head. Like so many, so many of these powers feel familiar, but are,
Speaker: is so unique in how they're described and utilized. And I think that's definitely one of sort of wild boost strengths throughout the whole story is all of that.
Speaker: Well, I'm always here for a good team up of powers. We don't see enough of it. Like you just, I look at stuff like the Avengers and things like that. And, and they'll get like, they'll do one move every five movies where it's like, you guys have been working together for years and you just figured out you can redirect Iron Man's beams off of your shield. Captain America, like, come on.
Speaker: No, that is true though. I do like, because assault is the one who can control kinetic energy, right? And then battery is the one who charges up. So we have that. We also have triumph. We didn't really talk about him, but he has a sonic shout and apparently has super strength. That was very cool. I think they mentioned that he's got a bit of a complete package with the shout as being his like thing.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So he's got the supersonic shout. Um, but yeah, even then they managed to take down all of those heroes pretty handily. I do like, uh, I do like the phrase, um, you've never really seen someone flip out until you've seen a speedster flip out. I can just imagine somebody like in super
Speaker: hyper -fast motion just absolutely flinging their body around. And it's hilarious. It's hilarious. And it helps sort of get around to get like into the deep nerdy weeds of the superhero fandoms. Everybody knows that speedsters are just like the overpowered superpower, like
Speaker: They're just, they're just too strong. Just breaking that sort of dynamic is just too powerful. So you always have to find a way to trip them up literally. And like, yeah, she trips them up by walking over to him while he's like drinking.
Speaker: And then has like whips out the baton and then wax him in the genitals, which you know what seems to be a low blow going for Taylor. Taylor really likes going for the balls. If it worked once, you know what? If it ain't broke, don't fix it. And I heard a fence for someone with no training. That's what you do.
Speaker: That's true. That's what you do. That's fair. I love that she thinks like, maybe he has a cup. Surely he has a cup. Whack. Guess not. I didn't feel a cup. Didn't feel very cuppy there.
Speaker: Well, I mean, Taylor has thought through a lot of the armor plating on her costume. She's thought through a lot of it partially because she's a girl and partially because she's thought of, well, okay, my power isn't super powerful, so I have to have ways to protect myself, which is why she has the baton and the knife and the pepper spray. But I think in that vein, she kind of assumes that other people have also thought through the same type of armament on their costumes. And in that same way, like, surely he has a cup.
Speaker: like, oop, nope, yes, not. Almost in a way, because this is something I've been thinking about a lot about the heroes. They are very protected in the sense of they have a very unified team, they have a lot of PR, everyone loves them. But how much do they see themselves as being untouchable?
Speaker: when all it takes is a couple of undersiders to crash a party with some containment foam and a baton and some bugs and whop. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I felt bad for... Gosh, Tattletail just got smashed multiple times by that flail extending whippy,
Speaker: thing that that that arms master has because holy shit she went down and then he bopped her again like oh this poor girl is feeling her lunch especially after she just like put him on blast like she started roasting his ass and was like he hates you everyone hates you we all hate you
Speaker: And I mean, kind of like, not to be mean, but maybe kind of got what she deserved in that moment. Like from his perspective, just being like, him just being like, oh, shut the hell up. Just smacked her across the room. Lisa's greatest strength is she's like the strongest weapon is talking. Except when she runs into, you know, glory girl who doesn't think about it and just hits you.
Speaker: Or Arms Master, who does think about it and decides it's worth hitting you. Oh, gosh. Oh, man. No, I do want to say Arms Master being, I mean, we don't know much about him at this point, but I do love that he is, he's a tinker.
Speaker: But he fights here like a super soldier. And I love that. Like he is so that tanker. Yeah, he's the combat tanker, right? He's just this.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly. He's the buff nerd. I'm going to reach out to him to play arms master. I'm going to work on that now. That is actually pretty fantastic. It's a great cast choice. Do you think every time he does a push up, he thinks this is leveling up my strength? Oh, for sure.
Speaker: I do imagine ours master is like he's we got the scene of walking through the halls of the protectorate Taking off his armor hanging it up goes into his dungeon and it's just like painting Warhammer miniatures, you know He has his miniatures but they're just all the heroes and villains in the city and he's like a Tiny little city that he's built like to scale
Speaker: the whole space balls where dark helmets play in with the action figures of all the characters. That's arms master.
Speaker: Except he's a tinker, so he actually has all the stats on everybody and he knows all the fun facts. It's like he sticks it down and there's like a hologram that comes up with all their information. Yeah, exactly. Okay, so speaking of arms master shit that is just tinker, crazy, awesome, insane. He has a lie detector built into his helmet. I know we talked about this before when he and Taylor met up by the docks, but I had forgotten that.
Speaker: And seeing that play with Tattletale and kind of how Tattletale has put out this idea that she can read minds and him just being able to look at her and be like, you're lying. Like, oh, what a fucking power move. I was so good. I was so here for that. Their exchange was just phenomenal. Just phenomenal. Yeah. One interesting thing about this fight, if you will, whereas
Speaker: From a combat perspective, I think I preferred the bank heist just reading it. I think that was more fun to read in terms of the fight choreography. But that was really a moment for the undersiders to shine. We really got to see them play out and use their abilities and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker: And unfortunately, the words were just the punching bags. But now we sort of got the reverse of that. We know how the Undersiders work and it was still cool to see them work, but we really got to see these other characters shine. And it was sort of fun to see them fight back successfully in a lot of unique ways. The Regent punch slash trigger the gag reflex at the same time, or the kick plus trigger the gag reflex at the same time.
Speaker: to just like launch everything out of Miss Militia. Holy cow. That was rough. What a brutal maneuver. Yeah. Yeah, that was tough. That was tough. And yet they still almost got beaten by the protectorate solely because of Arms Master being Arms Master. Right.
Speaker: Like what a master being Batman. Yeah. Yeah. And I love it. Okay. Speaking of speaking of Batman energy, when grew shadows them, right? And then Taylor runs out to the balcony and arms master strides out after her. Just the no look smack with his hall bird to hit, to hit Brutus back into the darkness. It's just like, Oh my God.
Speaker: That's a scene that I can see in my mind where like Taylor's running. She's breathing heavy. She hits the pole or hits the, you know, the edge of the balcony spins around arms mastery merges the darkness like a little bit, you know, clinging to him and then just no turn smack into. Oh, it's so good.
Speaker: This was definitely, this was definitely, because going through this again, rereading it again, I was trying to remind myself like, Armismaster is just one of my favorite characters of the story. And I was trying to remember like, where, where was it that I was like, yeah, Armismaster, he's cool. And it was like, oh, it was this arc. It was, it was right now. This was the moment. I remember reading this and
Speaker: I don't know what I was thinking at the time that Arms Master was a cool guy up until this moment, but this was the moment that I realized Arms Master's kind of an asshole. Oh, this is when I really started to like him. This time around, he's an absolute badass, but I remember the first time being to be like, you know what, this Arms Master, I don't think he's a great guy. I'm not too sure about this Arms Master, fella.
Speaker: Yeah, he's probably very jaded if you think about it. Because think about the villains, unless you're a great villain, you're constantly just getting busted. You know what I mean? So whereas the heroes get more and more experience and level up, as we said earlier, I feel like he is just constantly fighting villains that think they're the shit but aren't. So literally he's looking at Tattletale, this is a teenage girl. And then she says something and he's like, I'm gonna punch a teenage girl. You know what I mean?
Speaker: Oh my God. It's a really great contrast. And this is, we're kind of going to bridge episodes here as we sort of.
Speaker: I'm going to mention something that's probably more relevant for our part two here, but a really great contrast to shows like The Boys, which is sort of like right now the dark, gritty, realistic superhero portrayal, right? But in The Boys, it's the complete opposite, right? The heroes have no idea how to fight. They're not actually heroes. It's all just for show. Where in this case, it's the opposite of that.
Speaker: You can clearly tell, like you're saying, Taylor, that, like, Arms Master's been through this before. He's been out on the streets for, like, a decade or so at this point. Like, what if this is just another stupid wannabe villain that he's got to shut up and, like, oh, my gosh, are we really having to do this? Yeah, exactly, exactly. It's sort of that veteran, that grizzled sort of veteran feel for him.
Speaker: And Miss militia as well, like all of them kind of have that. And yet from Taylor's perspective, all she can see is this douche who wouldn't do what she wanted him to do. And I love that teenager perspective in a way where it's just like,
Speaker: Listen, listen, Taylor, you got to understand he's been around a minute. Yes. Yeah, exactly. And kind of going back to what we were talking about with their first kind of big confrontation or well, second rather big confrontation where we sort of get that Taylor
Speaker: thinking that she's in control of the situation when she's really not and sort of the evolution of that here where again, like who are you? That's what they're thinking. Take a seat, young Skywalker. Yes. Exactly. Oh, big master window energy coming out of arm's master. I just, you know, it's, it's,
Speaker: We had another moment in here where like they're fighting and I want to just harken back to at one point in time Arms master I think is talking shit to to skitter and bitch says something about it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We mentioned that earlier. She says What did she say? She says the the whole oh Crap, I can't who said it Nick. You said it earlier. What is the line? Oh long underestimated her too, you know, something like that Good
Speaker: I love that. That little backup moment from bitch. Like that was such a fun, like, Oh, thanks bitch. Yeah. What did we call? What's the, what's the ship name for them? Oh gosh. What about Scritch? That's good. That's not bad. It's not bad. And then finally ending, like, you know, arms master.
Speaker: For all his stuff, he's thinking five steps ahead, but what he wasn't thinking is five steps at the same time. And Taylor outplays him. This was over from the moment we stepped into the room. What a great one -liner too. It's twice as good when she hits him with it.
Speaker: Yeah, it's so much better. She got played, son. Also, just to end that, this bitch still thinks she's leaving. After all this, after telling Arms Master, fuck you to his face. Well, she chucks his halberd over the side. And in her mind, she's like, ha, got you. I threw away your stick. And they're like, ha ha, we run away now.
Speaker: I'm going to write Miss Militia a letter. I hope she's not too upset that Regent kicked the bile out of me.
Speaker: They go gallivanting off, and poor, poor, poor Tattletail, poor Lisa is passed out on the back of this dog. And Rachel's like, help, help, someone, someone help, help, help, as like she's sliding off the dog in an alley somewhere. And they're all like, oh, yeah, we were so cool. Lisa comes awake and goes, wait.
Speaker: Why did we stop? Why did we stop, you guys? No, he's right there. It's so good. It's so good. I gotta get the garage, you idiot. Because Taylor looks at him and she has this like, but I threw your halbert moment. And he just kind of, he looks at her like, you stupid child, shucks the halbert. You didn't think I would think of that? I thought of everything.
Speaker: It's almost like he does this professionally It's almost like this isn't a side gig for him And then we meet who is it Dauntless We meet Dauntless as well who has an interesting we don't really see much of what he can do but I think that the concept of his power is really interesting this idea of like
Speaker: You are able, how is it described? You're able, he like puts a little bit of energy into an object every day. And that's just, that was kind of an interesting power. Yeah. Can someone just give me a little recap on his power? Cause I'm not going to lie. I read it and I was like, I, other than the weird like bubble that he can make, I don't actually know what he's doing.
Speaker: He has a, what's his other weapon? He has a shield and I forget. He has the bubble, a shield, and he has a spear, which apparently he can make like a lightning spear, which apparently he can make the beam as long as he needs it to. So that's kinda cool. And he has, every day he can put a little power into it, like an artificer in D &D, but every day he puts that power into it, it's a permanent upgrade.
Speaker: So the longer he continues to be a hero, the more powerful his items that he has, the spear and shield being the main two, the more he can just keep making them better and with more energy permanently. Right, right, right. He's got a plus three spear. Yeah, and just every day he can put a plus, another plus to it. Yeah, that's impressive.
Speaker: That makes me think of the whole lung thing of, like, the more you fight him, the stronger he gets. Like, the longer that he's a cape, the more powerful Donbass's weapons become. Exactly. Yeah. Also, I just have a bunch of things that just say, fuck you, Arm Master in here. Starting with earbuds, fuck you, Arm Master. Oh, yeah. That was smart. But to be fair, also genius. Yeah, so good. I mean, it's smart, but also fuck you.
Speaker: And then, of course, you're going into the fucking garage just to see Arms Master disappear. Wow. I do love that. That moment of like, wait, what's happening? And then he's just gone. Okay, wrecked. Literally train wrecked even, you might say. Yeah, absolutely. Train wrecked.
Speaker: So we move out of the party crash to the confrontation and the arrival of their saviors in the form of the travelers. We get a few more travelers appearances and a little showmanship there along with circus as well. Did that feel a little deus ex machina or did that feel planned? I mean, it felt deus ex machina
Speaker: I don't know, like theatrically? I mean, I was here for it. Especially with Tattletale having known that they were there, like, hey, we need to get to the parking garage, that's where we need to be.
Speaker: My thoughts on why it feels like a Deus Ex Machina is the fact that nobody else in the Undersiders knew that they were their backup or their potential backup. I think if they had known, which obviously the story wouldn't be quite as exciting if they knew, but we as the reader don't necessarily need to know the plan. Well, as long as they know it, because we enjoyed the party crash, seeing not knowing what their plans were.
Speaker: And so I think if they had known about it, it would have felt a little bit more, oh yeah, no, totally planned out every way of escape. And the fact that the boss was also here was like a fun little bonus. But I'm not upset, like sure it feels a little overpowered, whatever, but I'm not upset by it just because it was such a fun
Speaker: little way to have them there and be like, oh yeah, this is fun. We just get to sit back and watch Arms Master get thrown about. That's fun. I'm here for that. And it was a great way to introduce our boss for The Undersiders, which I thought was a lot of fun to finally see that. So speaking of which, I want to go to our first time readers.
Speaker: Did you see that coming? Was that who you had pegged? I think, if I remember correctly, Taylor, you had said that in the last arc when they were all kind of sitting around the table in the villain sort of hangout. I think you called it, if I remember right. I think so. I definitely said something about Coil and I was like,
Speaker: Yeah, because I just the way especially once we got to the battle and I missed this episode I was out but um the way his soldiers fought and everything I was like, oh, yeah, these guys are next level I was like, okay coil is Coil is definitely the one like back here doing things. So I'm excited that we that we met him so soon. I
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. They definitely, definitely doesn't, um, doesn't let it sit for too long. Like we get a few arcs there where it's a mystery, but it's not like, it's not dragged out, which I think was wise because like, I mean, Taylor, you kind of figured it out. I think a lot of us to some degree had suspicions the first time we read it. Um, you know, at least I had no idea. Okay. So it was a total shock.
Speaker: Just, I was going on straight bods. I was imagining like kingpin type of person or a complete 180 and it actually being arms master or something like that. Although I do like it being coil. I had absolutely, I literally not even have inkling. That it was pretty easy. Oh, that's fun. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he doesn't give off like big sinister vibes. He just kind of like - No, he really doesn't.
Speaker: He's like, y 'all want to make some money? Which is exactly what he is. He tries to keep it low key. I think that was the only thing that tipped me off the first time was the fact that like, oh, he's just, whoever the boss is, is obviously loaded. And then when you're meeting all of the villains, Coyle, Coyle is the only one clearly loaded. Yeah, exactly. It's like, ah, I bet you there's a connection. Cause it's not about to be Kaiser. I mean, he's loaded, but you know,
Speaker: But his, yeah, the racism would get in the way of ever being smart. And the homophobia and everything, a lot of things. I do like though, how he, the undersiders aren't his only team, how immediately he feels very prepared, right? You get the sense that he's very much in control. He's got lots of pieces on the chessboard, if you will.
Speaker: And he very much feels like that sort of grand master studying the board and moving pieces around. Yeah. Well, is this a good time to jump into chapter eight where Coyle gets in the car with everybody?
Speaker: Oh, I think it would be. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Speaker: I would take it. Just saying. Yeah. I love the like, here's everything that everybody's asked for. Yeah. And, and Taylor's like, I can, you know, it's the, I can ask for anything of the genie. And he's like, ask me anything. And she's like, cool. Like systemically fix everything. And he's like,
Speaker: What color do you want that dragon to be? Yeah, yeah. Well, I really love, I think this is like before with how Armsmaster is so prepared with all the research he's done on the Undersiders. In the same way, I love that Coyle knows each and every one of them. And that Taylor is kind of the wild card because she's the new group member. And kind of this thing of like, well, I know what
Speaker: I know what Tattletale wants and because you know we have this agreement and I know what Gru wants because we've already been working on it and I know what Regent wants because a fun fact about his you know little name drop there or not I guess not no name drop but like a fun little pass drop and then and then and we know a bitch wants she just wants her dogs you know so like you Taylor you're the only wild card what
Speaker: What do you want? And I love that kind of putting her on the spot to kind of, you know, because everyone's staring at her, you know, this this little limousine and everyone's looking right at her and she's like, shit, I can't trip tattletales, you know, lie detector, as it were, practically. So I have to be as honest as I possibly can. And like, it is a very honest answer. Like, I just want the city to be good. Like, I want the docks to be better. And I want, you know, I want the
Speaker: drugs to be off the streets and I want the city to be good and the ferry running, it's a very unselfish answer. But he's very clearly like, I'm already doing, I'm already planning on working on that. So come up with almost like bad answer, try again, come up with something better.
Speaker: Yeah, and I like the way he frames it too. He says, I'm not gonna claim to be a good person, but I am a proud person. And if anything that looked like I wasn't the best I could be would be a wound to my ego. And I just like the way he frames that because it does feel like it feels like, well, in a way, it feels like an honest thing that I think more people believe maybe than they realize.
Speaker: It's like the reason you want to do a good job is not because you really care, but because it's your egoistic. Um, but I think too, as a villain, I like that too, because it shows, yeah, this guy is thinking about what he's doing, but he's, he's very calculated because he's so proud because he wants to prove that he's the best.
Speaker: And I just think that's kind of interesting, that perspective of a villain. Gorgeous character motivation there. Yeah. Yeah. There's a really, I mean, there's a lot of, it can make a lot of comparisons with other, with other villains in, in superhero stories. But I think the easy one is it's, it's very similar to like a Lex Luthor where his, he's, he's very evil. He's got his evil things.
Speaker: in the comics, Lex becomes president at one point and does well, like is very successful and well liked because of that ego, because he has that exact same sort of motivation. And it's kind of that, it's that funny moment where like,
Speaker: Yeah, Superman, you got to go beat Lex Luthor, but also his unemployment is down and poverty is down and like maybe we should just let him do his thing for a little bit and see what happens. Isn't that the classic joke is like.
Speaker: supervillains nowadays would have such an easy time recruiting millennials. They'd be like, listen, I'll pay off your student debt and give you good health insurance. Exactly. Exactly. But you get that moment with, with the call, you're like, wait, hold on, hold on. Let him, let him cook. Yeah. Let's see. Let's see what he's listening to. We're about to rob a bank. Say no more. Exactly. Great moment.
Speaker: Also, I like the idea that Taylor has been, you know, of course, lying slash omitting the truth to the undersiders, but specifically to Lisa, who she's closest with. And she's been so paranoid about this. And in the end, it looks like Lisa's been lying to Taylor as well. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Which we haven't said that, like, Lisa knows that Taylor's lying, but like,
Speaker: She's got a suspect, right? She's got to know something. Yeah. And I think that Lisa probably feels less bad about Taylor lying to her because she knows she's lying to her as well. Yeah, definitely. Absolutely. I mean, we just joked about how Ayesha read Taylor like a book within 30 seconds. Oh my gosh, yeah. I think it's safe to say Lisa's got a bit of a read.
Speaker: And I think she also, I think Lisa probably already also knows that Taylor's been lying off. Like she had a realization that, I mean, in the next chapter, but I mean, she just has a realization that like, oh wait, I actually do like these people. Yes, I actually, like what is she going to do? Was she going to write that letter to Miss militia and be like, there, there coils the freaking bad guy and he's wanting to do this awful thing. Like,
Speaker: get rid of the other bad guys and make marijuana legal and like good. It's awful. Like what? It makes me so mad that we live in the worst timeline because if you look at like our billionaires that are like, Oh, I'll run for, I'm not going to say names, but they're like, I'm going to run for president and drain the swamp. And then they get there and you're just like, what the fuck are you doing?
Speaker: And it's like, why couldn't we have a coil? Why couldn't we have a coil that's just like, let's just get rid of like anyone that's 70 years or older and in the Senate, let's just go ahead and get rid of them. You know, we'll just walk into the Senate chambers and go boo. And then just that'll be that. Yeah, exactly. It just makes me so mad because I'm like, where's our Batman? Where's our Batman? Yeah.
Speaker: but also where's our actual Wexler course? Yeah, right. But that is, I mean, not to get too meta with the genre, but that is sort of the power of the fantasy and superhero genres. You kind of do get to play with and parallel a lot of real world issues in really fun and exotic ways that don't make sense literally, but make sense thematically. And yeah, no, I think you're kind of spot on there, which is a lot of fun to play with.
Speaker: And it is interesting too. Coyle does have powers. He's not just a super rich guy who's really intelligent. He has some kind of fate manipulation power, which is just wild. And I love it. Yeah, I'm saving a prediction. It's just the classic bid. Like,
Speaker: The evil genius, his power is not a direct thing. He has plans for the whole city, reasonable plans. He's not about taking over the world because that would be too much. But I love that he's the classic mastermind. We had classic female friend Lisa, and this is classic Bond villain evil mastermind.
Speaker: Except a million times better. I would say he doesn't fit into that classic thing at all. No, no. What do you want to do? You're the evil super villain. What do you want to do? I want to take over Metropolis and do what? Oh, I just want to run it. I'll run it way better. I just want to be the person running it. Oh.
Speaker: Oh, well, and that kind of, so I'll let Taylor and Kat think about this for a moment, because we'll come back to it here when we're done with these last couple chapters. But that was, that's kind of my, one of my prediction questions is how do you think, two parts, like how do you think Coyle's power works and how is he using it? It's sort of my prediction there. So think about that, because we'll come back to it here. But yeah, a lot of fun, a lot of fun to sort of speculate about Coyle.
Speaker: But with that being said, let's go ahead. We got a couple more chapters to wrap up here. We got chapter nine, which is the sad chapter. And then we have the interlude. So chapter nine, Taylor goes home on the way home, working this mental letter to Miss militia, gets home and is confronted by Danny. And they have a very, on Taylor's part, very charged and explosive interaction.
Speaker: ending not great as she leaves. Way to bring it all down, Taylor. Yeah, got it. It's intervention time, baby. Yeah, for real. Lock the doors and pull out the chairs. Yeah, can I just take a poll real quick? So how many of us feel like Danny, like locking the doors and kind of like forcing Taylor to talk was the right move?
Speaker: I don't know if it's the perfect move, but I feel like it wasn't the wrong one. Like I completely understand it. Yeah. Yeah. I sympathize with it. Yeah, exactly. Like looking kind of from our perspective and obviously getting to see Taylor's side of everything, it's easy to be like, well, Danny,
Speaker: You fucked up. But at the same time, you're also like, what else could he have done at that point? I don't know what he should have done. Because she's not shown like she would not come home. Like he's lucky to get her coming home because she's been away. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. It's hard. It's hard. I feel like for what he, you know,
Speaker: the position that he was in, basically what Taylor has given him to work with, which is nothing because she hasn't been communicative, she hasn't been trustworthy, she hasn't been telling him the truth in regards to school. He is at the end of his rope here and it's because of Taylor, because she's blocked him out. And I think that
Speaker: looking from the outside, looking in and seeing both of them in this scenario. Was it the best decision? No. But was it the best he could do at the time? Yeah. Yeah. He is a panicked single parent who doesn't know what to do about his daughter. He loves her so much and he has no idea
Speaker: how to get her to talk to him. And so he resorts to kind of this, I'm locking all the doors, I'm barring the escape routes. And she's like, oh, I need to go to the bathroom. He's like, well, I'll escort you because I don't trust you not to just run away from this conversation because you've done it over and over and over again. And I'm desperate to talk to you.
Speaker: There's definitely that fear in Danny where he's already lost his wife and he clearly sees that he's losing his daughter too. And like, I just hurt for him so much without being able to relate to him in any way, shape or form, but just that kind of pain has got to just be overwhelming. And like, oh man, it's brutal. How do you?
Speaker: And it's so hard to look at also because Kat and I have been watching a show called The Bear, which I'll go ahead and plug. It's awesome. But without spoiling anything, there's a dynamic between two characters where one character does something and the other character confronts him as an equal. Like, hey, what are we doing here? I need to be consulted. What are we doing? What is happening? When in reality,
Speaker: one character is the parent and one character is the 15 year old daughter. You are not equals in that situation. And I know that people attack me and be like, so you're saying that, no, no, I'm not saying that parents are like these totalitarian dictators, but also like your job as a parent is to get your child ready to survive in the real world. And he is literally watching her go down a path and he's like, okay, we need to stop this.
Speaker: And so a little bit of what I saw in Taylor is like, how could he do this to me? How could he, how could he do that? Because it was just things that I had seen in myself as a teenager that I look back on it now and I'm like, oh yeah, I totally wish I would have listened to what my parents were telling me because they were coming from a place of we've done this before. You know what I mean? Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah. Interesting. The first time I read this, like Danny was just like, ah, he's a character. Like he's there literally no relatability. Like,
Speaker: You're just like, oh, this will be interesting to see whatever turns out. And now every time Danny shows up, I like - Bless him. Just bless him. Bless him. It hurts half the time. It hurts 90 % of the time he's there because something bad always happens and it's not his fault and he's just dealing with it. He is a single dad doing his best with a really, really shitty situation and a daughter that won't open up to him. Yeah.
Speaker: And I feel like other than the one time he got angry on her behalf, the relationship that's described otherwise doesn't really show why she hasn't opened up to him. I feel like they've had the bonding experiences. They're clearly so close and yet,
Speaker: He feels like, what the hell happened? Like why I don't understand. And he thought leaving it alone would be the better option. And it's only led to her living somewhere else, basically. So he's gone the other way where he's like, I guess I have to lock the doors because I've been too nice. How long has she been gone?
Speaker: I think it's implied that it's been like a couple of weeks. It's not that long, but it's definitely like several, several days. I was about to say, I think it's, has it been only like a, I thought it was only about a week. Maybe it's just a week. Yeah. Maybe that, maybe that's it. I mean, however long it's been. It's not a terribly long time. I mean, to not be at home though, as a single dad, you have a 15 year old daughter. You don't really know the people that she's hanging out with. Oh yeah. I don't know. I get the, I get,
Speaker: like his extreme concern. You know what? And, and Alan, you were, you were kind of alluding to it, but we're basically kind of right at that point too, where, uh, where she could have just told him everything. And as the reader were like, that's what we wanted to do. Cause we feel like Danny probably would have just listened. It would have been a hard conversation, but, uh, but they would have listened to it. So they were, they were so close.
Speaker: Does anyone have any sort of final thoughts on that chapter before we move on to the interlude? I do, but I also don't want to drive about so long. Yeah, we could talk for a while on it for sure.
Speaker: It's a very well -written chapter and a really good close to the arc as a whole. It's really upbeat, it shifts the tone, brings it back down. Very sad and depressing, but definitely a good end. And I think it works as a capstone to the arc as well because it really does feel like
Speaker: Taylor's turn towards villainy is nearing completion, if not there already. And the end, the way the chapter ends is like Danny is that last, that last Heather towards redemption.
Speaker: And go ahead and drop some comments in the chat and just let us know if you want us to revisit that and all come up with a solution that what we would have done. Let us know. We'll see what we'll do. We'll come back and revisit it. Exactly. Exactly. I will say, I think it's the first time I've actively disliked Taylor. Yeah. Yeah, it definitely gets a little bit of that. Well, I mean, we go back. Not the last time. Well, this is like we go back to like
Speaker: Powers, trigger vents, states, she's trapped in the locker again. Except the locker is her own house, and her dad is the bully. Oh, that hurts me. Too sad. All right, happy things. Let's talk about happy things. How do you feel about penitentiary systems?
Speaker: Yeah, so we have the interlude here where we meet Canary and her powers as she's getting sent to the birdcage. We run back into Lung and Bakkura and we get a good look inside the birdcage. And we meet Dragon and we kind of get a little bit of a description of the birdcage and whatnot. And then we end with Lung just ganking, ganking Bakkura.
Speaker: You've got to make a name for yourself in prison. You've got to make a statement in prison. What can we say? Yeah, not a long chapter. Not a lot to really go through, but definitely some important moments here.
Speaker: I like what the judge says when Canary is getting her sentence, basically talking about we do live in a society where powers are a problem and we have to be able to deal with them severely to set a precedent. And I think one of the things even the judge even said was that we're dealing with new powers every week. There are new powers popping up and we're needing to learn and alter our system to take care of our society and our people.
Speaker: from people with powers, capes that are, whether in Canary's case, not intentional harm, but harm nonetheless. And we have to set a precedent for that and we have to have a system that works. Otherwise, what's the point of the judicial system in this world at all?
Speaker: Yeah, this chapter felt very like Senate hearings in the Phantom Menace, like discussing trade blocs, blockades and things, but well -written, is the caveat there. We're like, you sort of get into the weeds.
Speaker: Get a little into the weeds of, like you're saying, the judicial system in a super powered society, which we don't really want to see that. I mean, in this story, don't get me wrong, a court drama with just superheroes would be...
Speaker: Still waiting on it, Marvel. Still waiting on it. One of these days we'll get it. Yeah, but it's sort of touching on a lot of that stuff that we don't really, again, Wild Bo does this a lot, right? We don't need to see this, but the fact that we do just grows the world. Yeah, exactly. It just elevates the world building, which is a lot of fun.
Speaker: And then of course we get the birdcage, the unescapable prison. We finally get the real reason that Wild Bo won't use the word dragon for long because it locks up the word search. Not wrong. Yeah. We get dragon introduction, a dragon, great character, great prison. Yeah. A lot of fun.
Speaker: I love that they, uh, that it looks like the breakout is going to work. Like Bakura is outsmarting all the systems and the collars and everything looks good. Like it's kind of brutal and she's breaking through everything and gets canary to use her powers and lung to use his powers. And you think they're going to break out and they're just right in the prison. No people around. It's all mechanics. You stupid bitch. You thought you could have an escape.
Speaker: This is the fucking birdcage, man. No one escapes the birdcage. Can we also talk about how Porcanary ended up in there in the first place? No problem when saying go fuck yourself and they die. If your power is to basically be able to tell people what to do.
Speaker: Oh, I do love that Dragon said something that she was like, basically, I don't think you belong here. I did write a letter to the judge on your behalf. Dragon did not have to do that, but he did anyways. That says a lot.
Speaker: Yeah. Which is a great introduction to the character and kind of something we'll see more of, which is a lot of fun. But that's, that's about it. Unless anyone had some final thoughts in the interlude, but it's not, it's not a too, it's a world building interlude. It's sort of just kind of improving the story. Keeping up with what's going on in the bigger world and getting to meet a few more characters.
Speaker: We don't necessarily need it all in the normal chapters, but having some extra world building in the interludes is kind of a nice refreshing break from Taylor being a fucking judgy bitch. Especially right after the last chapter. The interlude was like a little glass of cool water.
Speaker: and just sort of refreshing. Yeah, exactly. Well, that about does it for arc six. Uh, we do have some, some reoccurring segments to touch on. Uh, let's go with, uh, favorite new, new superpower. We got it. We got a handful here to choose from a lot of new powers have popped up. Any, anything, any new power sort of, uh, sort of shine for anybody. I got a quick one.
Speaker: It just stood out to me, Circus. Circus is a character that's grown on me every time that I've read this series. And this time, Circus's disappearing sledgehammer attacks are just fucking brutal. Holy cow. Well, I would say we don't know, but they're essentially the Harley Quinn package of giant sledgehammer, explosives, fire, acrobatics.
Speaker: Like, except just the, you know, pulls the sledgehammer out of midair, hits the knee, swings around because it disappears. So they just keep spinning and then brings it out to get the momentum coming back. Like, oh my gosh, that whirlwind attack. And all that's just the whirlwind attack, but the up and down movement too, where like in order to bring, like she hits,
Speaker: brings the hand up and then they hit again because they don't have the hammer in the hand. So they can just, you know, make the fist and bring it down and summon the hammer mid swing on the downstroke. Holy cow. They could hit like a drummer. Like that's just yeah. Yeah. Really fun. I do like the idea of having her own little, uh,
Speaker: Like she has her own basically pocket dimension is the way it sounds like where she's like, yeah, she can just store things in places. You know, as weird as that sounds like clown space. It's clown space. Yeah. Exactly. It's clown space. Exactly. Where all the clowns go when they jump in the car. My favorite power though, just because I think it's hilarious too, is a trickster.
Speaker: The ability to teleport either yourself and another object or just random, two random objects that you can see with the really weird restriction that he has. I think that's cool. It's a unique take on the teleporter power and the fact that he has to be really smart with it. He can't just, you know, and I love to what the arms master gets replaced by.
Speaker: like a concrete entryway beam, is that right, basically? Yeah, something like that. Yeah. So that's cool. Yeah. Well, and I think it's, I think it's also a little telling. It's funny you mentioned that because I was thinking about that because I think it's tattletale who says, it sort of describes that he has to swap things of relatively equal mass.
Speaker: So you think about the weight of one of those concrete like dividers, those things are heavy, sort of implies just how much Arms Master has on him and is able to store on him. We mentioned a little bit that Arms Master is like, cause he's a tinker, that potentially he fits more into his halibard than should be there. And that, you know, his ability might be something about like,
Speaker: compacting or condensing technology or devices. Hence why he's a pile of bricks and then some. Exactly.
Speaker: And speaking of that, I'll just quickly say it's sort of a cop out, but we do see more powers. So for me, my answer is arms master, just cause we see more of what he can do. I mean, yeah, we didn't see what he can do before. No, arms master will be my answer for all of these questions moving forward. Well, but it has to be new Jacob.
Speaker: Yeah, come on. I mean, just judging from how he dealt with the undersiders, it seems like he does come up with new stuff every time. He's like, yeah, you think you can deal with this? I got a solution to your bug thing. Well, bam. Yeah. I mean, well, he is a tinker, so he's constantly coming up with new things, which I will say on the tinker note as well. I appreciate that a power that
Speaker: could be kind of boring as a generic idea of like, what do you do? Oh, I can make stuff. I do appreciate that wild boat does a good job of keeping it interesting. I feel like the powers are very interesting. Yeah. It also makes you think like, as we examine other worlds, like Tony Stark and Batman are potentially both tankers. Batman is a combat tanker and Tony Stark probably isn't a combat tanker, but he's like,
Speaker: Um, you know, I don't know what is like an energy tinker. Yeah. Like an energy tinker, but they both, you know, they both have their like super suits of different kinds and they're both, they are both tinkers. Like, and not something I would ever thought I would classify Batman as, but
Speaker: I would, I would almost put Batman as a thinker with, with a, like a, with a light power. Yeah. Yeah. Or vice versa. Yeah. That's another fun God. Okay. We got to stop before we go down that rabbit hole. The other fun thing that a lot of worm fans will do is just categorize every other superhero with the, uh, with the worm classification. You just gotta, Paul, you just gotta,
Speaker: Well, I'll say my favorite power for this arc. I really like Canary. I think Canary is very fun. I love that she classified as Rogue. She doesn't want to be a hero or a villain. She just wants to sing. She wants to be a pop star. That was her goal. And she just got... She saw the bad side of it.
Speaker: be responsible with your powers kind of thing. But I love her. I think she's so cool with her canary yellow hair and the feathers that are kind of coming through in her hair on her scalp. I think she's such a fun... Visually, I think she's a very fun character. And then her powers. She's singing wordlessly, not necessarily having words in them, but can still impact people. I think that's really fun. I like that a lot.
Speaker: Yeah, definitely a fun visual, very much like that classic mythological siren. Yes. Yeah, I love it. Any other powers before we move on to our final question of the evening? All right, let's just get into it. We'll wrap this up as always with our predictions. Well, hang on. Let me go ahead and do the wrap up. Michael Scott and I have been planning. This is going to be the wrap up that we're going to do on every episode. We just have to come up with something different.
Speaker: Okay. Well, I am at the second story of this house and Michael Scott is hanging out the window, motioning me for me to wrap this up. So let us go ahead.
Speaker: and get some of these predictions in. Jacob did add a caveat. He added a caveat to this one. I'm going to say that as far as how Coyle's power works, I'm going to say it's like that's a Raven where he will kind of get a flash or a sense of what he thinks is coming. He just doesn't know how to get there. So whether or not it happens the way he plans for it to happen or not, that's what my guess is going to be.
Speaker: Um, but I'm still, I don't know about my power thing, but are you saying that it's Raven Simone? Yes, absolutely. But, um, but I don't know. I still, I'm still shipping Taylor is just joining the bad guy side or whatever this new faction is going to be this black water faction. But, um, definitely, definitely. I want to say that nine 11 already happened, but this could also be leading up to nine 11. I just don't know. So we'll see.
Speaker: As always, that's going to be our reoccurring segment for you, Taylor. We'll just always bring that back. Yeah, Michael was like, I need you to come up with the most creative things that you can. And I'm like, I can do that. It's like, well, Michael Scott just finished blowing me under this desk and we're going to go ahead. Wait, what? I know I was trying to get a raise out of you. You're on your toes, Michael.
Speaker: That one's too. That's not creative. That's obvious. What? What? I expect that in the Discord by tomorrow. Well, I've been trying to get hard for the past two hours, but it's not working, so Michael's giving me the sign. Oh my God. Okay, can we please cat give me your predictions?
Speaker: I kind of thought it was his power worked more like things just go his way. Like he wants something to go a certain way and it does, but not in like everything goes perfectly sort of way, just like it gets there. It may not get there with smoothly, but like they're always going to get out or whatever. So that's how I imagined that when he was explaining his
Speaker: Domino from the Deadpool 2. Yeah. Sort of similar in vibe. Okay. I like it. I like it. Yeah. And then predictions. I mean, I've been saying this from the beginning. She's obviously staying with the Undersiders. She's leaning into that villain. I think this is like now that she's come to a realization, right? Oh, wait a minute. I actually like these people being my friends. I don't actually want to
Speaker: to portray them. I think she's going to lean into it really hard, really lean into making these relationships. And we're just going to start seeing her soar into her, I want to say anti -hero because I don't think she's a full villain. Like, you know, she does things that society doesn't think is good, but she's doing them for reasons that she thinks are morally good.
Speaker: So I think she's actually going to get pretty close with Coyle though, because it seems like he may have some similar opinions in that regard. Although he's very clear on like, I am not a good person. I just want things to be this way because if I'm in charge, I don't want a shitty city. I want a good city. But hers, she's still not realizing what her motivations are. So we'll see. Yeah. All right. That's good. I love it. We'll keep an eye on those.
Speaker: And with that, we'll go ahead and wrap up this episode of the Brockton Bay Book Club. Be sure to stick around for part two, Dissecting Worm, where we'll dive into the arc again, this time from the adaptation perspective, as we look at how we would adapt this specific arc for our ongoing television script. It's gonna be a lot of fun.
Speaker: And as always, please let us know what we missed. Did we skip somebody? Did we totally forget a cool power? Let us know what your favorite powers were and anything else that we almost certainly didn't address. And for next week, I think we're going to stick with Arc 7. I think we're going to try to go for all of Arc 7 for the next episode, plus the interlude. So read along with us.
Speaker: We have a very exciting announcement. We now have a voicemail, 980 -999 -0438. That's right, a voicemail. So you can call us and your voicemail might be featured on one of our episodes. If you'd like to fight me on the podcast, go ahead and leave a voicemail at 980 -999 -0438.
Speaker: call in with your comment, leave your Cape name and which one of us you're going to call out on this podcast. We'd love to hear from you and love to engage with you on the podcast.
Speaker: All right, and welcome back to part two, dissecting worm with myself, Jacob and Alan back as always. And I think we're just going to jump right into the arc here, breaking it down, adapting for television. This is a pretty meaty arc. There's quite a lot here to work with. There's certainly enough to fill out an episode, but we're also sort of
Speaker: coming off of a few revisions we've been doing. And I see some more in our future. So definitely some stuff to sort of, uh, sort through here. If you agree. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I think we say that this one, you know, we want to jump right into it. That's how this starts off kicking off with just right into the action of like hunting down the last of the ABB and dealing with them. Um,
Speaker: I think, you know, we talked about before the sort of one of the major revisions that we'd be going over is changing up how the lung and bakuta show, like how they show up. Honestly, all the powered here is from the ABB. Um, cause I have some thoughts on Oney Lee later, but I think we talked about, you know, maybe not nixing the bakuta fight altogether, but instead moving
Speaker: Okuda to here, I think maybe having a lot of those incidents, but with a win under their belt, or at least a draw, and then following up with like, ah, yeah, she ran back to her hideout and then the heroes caught her and stopped the bombs and took all the credit. Like, well, yeah, she ran back with her tail between her legs, kinda. Right, right.
Speaker: Yeah, and I mean, we definitely want to get Bakita in there in some capacity just because she's relevant later to some degree. So we want to make sure that the audience is familiar with her and familiar with specifically just how crazy, for lack of a better word, her bombs are. Yeah. So definitely, I think that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker: It's not exactly a cold open, but it would certainly work as the opening, right? Is to give a whole scene to kind of reframing the end of the ABB and just putting Bakuta there. So yeah, I agree. I think that's a good place to put it. Kind of work around a little bit, use a lot of the same dialogue and things like that from the original fight that we're sort of relocating here.
Speaker: And then obviously just, just tweaking it a bit. So it's a bit more definitive of a, of a win. Yeah. I mean, I like the idea of like, you know, they definitely want them to have that win, but also I love the idea of like, you know, the heroes take credit for a lot of stuff and them going and, you know, Catching along, you know, when he's been absolutely brutalized by skitter, right?
Speaker: catching Bakutou when she's been weakened by all these people, you know, the villains working together. Right. I think, you know, this kind of shows that like, yeah, like the heroes are only doing so much, like even on a day to day. A lot of times the heroes are just getting lucky.
Speaker: Right, yeah, I agree. And of course, we'll come back to this, not to jump ahead, but this will have some implications with the interlude for this arc as well, that we may end up sort of relocating or repurposing. But yeah, definitely, definitely. But yeah, that definitely works. So here's something beginning. Oh, yeah, go ahead. Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, so here's something I was thinking about, and I mentioned it in the other half of the podcast.
Speaker: There was a moment where it talked about, like, the mandibles on Taylor's mask. And it made me consider, since Taylor's a new hero, what are some things that, like, would you want to show progression in terms of the costumes? Or, you know, specifically Skitter's costume? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: I don't remember if these mandibles are there to start, but for some reason, they just kind of stuck out in my mind, like, did she add those? Right. Now that she kind of has like, you know, she has a name for herself. She's, you know, solidified her place with the undersiders. Has she added to the costume?
Speaker: And you know, it's kind of funny because that's sort of already a built -in stereotype for a lot of cinematic superhero stories is especially like film to film. You don't really have too many shows that do it, but definitely in the movies is sort of like the evolution of the costume, right? So Spider -Man's costume changes, Iron Man gets a new suit, Captain America gets a new suit, et cetera. So it definitely, I think that
Speaker: works really well i think to a degree people are expecting it they want to see newer costumes and things like that and i think it works thematically with taylor like you're saying so well because she is a new hero and she's improving and as she's improving
Speaker: her outfit can also sort of mirror her in a sort of a meta commentary in terms of her allegiance, right? So I think it can get a little scarier. I can start off a bit more approachable and things like that.
Speaker: And yeah, so maybe that's something we'd want to do season to season. I do like the change within the season too, just showing a little bit of that evolution. But I think certainly season to season, you'd want to see, yeah, adding the mandibles, adding some other things, different colors, patterns, you know, whatever you want to do it. Yeah. She's got that little carapace thing on her back, like adding more body armor pieces as time goes on. Yeah. Yeah. I do like the addition.
Speaker: of the tools that she tends to use. We'll get into some later, but you know, for now she's upgraded from having a can of pepper spray, right? You know, that's in her backpack to now she kind of keeps, uh, what is it? Like a taser and no, no, no. Is it a knife and a stop in a baton? Yeah, I think so. That's her like two things that she like whips out. Yeah. Um,
Speaker: You know, that's those are an addition to the costume, I feel like. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And definitely an aggressive addition. And we'll see some more later. But I thought that was interesting for now. Yeah, definitely. And I feel like a lot of other people, while Taylor's still trying to figure out her place, a lot of other people don't have
Speaker: a need necessarily to change up the costume. Tattletail is whatever you're comfortable in and a mask, technically. She's not trying to put herself in harm's way. Regent maybe could change up bitches, not even wearing a costume really. Yeah.
Speaker: And why should she? Everybody knows who she is. So like, that doesn't need to change. You know, Gru might change up a costume, but I feel like he's got a pretty good thing going, you know? Yeah. The Undersiders kind of feel, I think, intentionally underfunded and new to the scene. So I think that makes sense. It kind of fits them. But again, over time, we can do a little, show some evolution there.
Speaker: You know, Taylor hints at, oh, maybe I can, you know, give you guys some armor plating, things like that. So there's definitely ways to show that as the story progresses. We love the glow up moment where they're like, all right, new costumes. Let's go. Exactly. Yeah.
Speaker: We need our little... Something to look forward to in later seasons. Yeah, yeah. Little Power Rangers suit up. I love it. So moving past the intro, cold open. Not cold open, warm open. Into the rest of the arc. Kind of just, I'm just going to move sort of...
Speaker: clump of chapters at a time here, but we get a little bit of stuff in the loft and we get eventually Brian and Taylor hanging out at Brian's apartment. A lot of that I personally feel works pretty well already. I mean, maybe just cleaning up some pacing, but for the most part, not much to change. There's some exposition there. There's talk about the date that
Speaker: She's going over to Brian's and they're going to work on the furniture and whatnot. I think Taylor having a conversation with Lisa about that more would fit perfectly with the two of their characters and also a good way to get us out of Taylor's head and something that the audience can listen to. Yeah, yeah. No, that's a good point. Another another one that I wrote down was something specifically for the set. Taylor
Speaker: doesn't go through the front door of her house. In fact, nobody does. Unless you're a guest there because there's the broken steps and everything. She always goes through the back kitchen door. Interesting. We even think about it when she's having breakfast with her dad and the second arc. She's throwing on the tennis shoes.
Speaker: you know, in the morning after breakfast and going out for her run out the kitchen door, which is the back of the house. You know, not something that we really need to care about for the sake of script writing. It's just something I noted down a like. Yeah. No, I mean, that's good. That's good to have down there. Just sort of, it helps keep, it helps keep things framed consistently. Speaking of framed consistently, when we get to the actual date, a lot of framing of hot Brian,
Speaker: Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. You gotta look good. A lot of that. Yep. And decorating his apartment, I go with, you know, I talk about the reflection of him and his powers. Mm -hmm. Decorating his apartment's gotta be on point. Yep. And then we have to discuss how we do the furniture building. It's like, it feels like montage time, right? Yeah, a little bit. There's definitely some time that passes while they're working on it.
Speaker: before Ayesha and the case worker arrive. Yeah, so do you do, okay, in my head, it would actually be really funny to get a top -down vantage and then do a time lapse of them trying to figure out how to put this thing together. Right. Just them wandering around, like running around, just staring, like holding the instructions, flipping it upside down, all in super fast motion. Yep, exactly. Oh no, there's a lot of fun ways you could do that.
Speaker: That are just like, let's get to work. And then you cut it to, you know, it panning to the side and right there, they're, you know, trying to figure it out. Oh, somebody's knocking on the door. Who could this be? And I also think because it's definitely an interruption into that moment. And I mean, Taylor obviously was expecting and wanted
Speaker: just her and Brian hanging out. So it's a bit of an interruption for her. So it should be a little unexpected and it should sort of break up the monotony or break up the scene. So yeah, if you're doing a montage or however you want to do it, whatever you end up doing, it shouldn't complete, right? It should be going on and then gets interrupted and it's a bit jarring intentionally so.
Speaker: So we get these other characters in there, but no, I agree. I think there's some fun ways you could, you could, you could do the, uh, the furniture building. Yeah. Um, anything else in the, uh, in the apartment or.
Speaker: Yeah, not much. The rest sort of plays out. I actually really like a lot of the dialogue there, especially between Aisha and Taylor, Brian and the caseworker. Not much to really change there, I think. I think it flows pretty well. I think it's a lovely introduction to Aisha as a character who we'll meet again, but nice to sort of get a moment for her in there. But yeah, I think most of the rest of that scene can pretty much play out as written.
Speaker: Um, so the next thing we find about is, you know, hearing about the heroes have captured Bakuta and Long. Uh, I'm going to go all the way back to the Bakuta fight scene again. Um, I think we need to shorten it up. Okay. I think the big things to have here is Regent straining himself. Oh, yep. Yeah, that's good. Yep. Showing that you can over strain powers and that they have effects on people. Um, and, you know, cutting off the toes. Right. Right.
Speaker: Taylor maybe even being able to like see, I don't think we should have them get as fucked up as they do in the original, but I think Taylor, you know, chopping off the toes, which is what makes Bakuta run in the first place, showing off like her army of like villains. You want it to be, you know, since we're kicking it off with this fight, want it to be tough, but not, this isn't a climactic event.
Speaker: Well, and you can still do, like you can start the fight pretty simply. They're beating up a bunch of thugs, a bunch of the gang members, and then all the time throwing a line or something over a radio or something like that about...
Speaker: you know, we've got, you know, Bakutas position, whatever you want to say, and they break in and she could still be holding hostages, right? You can still do that really intense moment with the hostages, shorten that up a bit, but still sort of allude to her, uh, you know, just deranged perspective. Um, yeah, this would also be a good time. We talk about,
Speaker: crew being able to hide like radio signals and stuff in his. Yeah, exactly. Darkness. Yeah. Yeah. Good time to whip that out. Yeah. But I do agree. I think you need to keep the toe cutting in if for no other reason, just because it, it, uh,
Speaker: It adds to this growing list of ways in which Taylor outsmarts rather than just overpowers her opponents, which I think is pretty consistent with her. And I do really like the way she takes down Bakuta. So I think keeping that in is a good idea. I think having her do something like laying down, keeping her eyes closed, keeping bugs on her so she doesn't even see her, essentially playing dead, because you got to have Bakuta essentially
Speaker: kill herself off in a sense. Right. Like Bakutah is Bakutah's biggest enemy. And I think having Bakutah monologue and then Taylor roll over and stab her in the foot, I think is the way to go. I mean, that works. That's not bad. That works pretty well.
Speaker: But yeah, but but I forget why we went back to what that's just when they find out about the television, the heroes, you know, solved everything. And they're just like, ah, all right. And then they get the job offer. So now we're talking about
Speaker: the job, unless there's something you'd change about them voting. I feel like all that's pretty straightforward. Pretty straightforward. I'd probably make it a little quicker. But I think that the group tension is important and that they need to move from a place of...
Speaker: collectively deciding not to going ahead with it and have it be due to Taylor swinging the vote. But I think you can probably speed it up a little bit. I think that's something we really need to be hammering in is this dynamic between specifically Taylor and Brian, because that comes into play later. But just that Taylor is able to influence and swing this vote.
Speaker: even though she's the newest member. Right, yep. But no, I think we can kind of move past that to the actual party crash. All right. I think as a whole, this would be a long episode, mind you. But I think as long as we didn't spend too much time on the Baketa thing, is if you spent a decent amount of time on the Baketa thing, followed with Brian's apartment,
Speaker: and the conversation, that's an episode right there. If we're talking like 30 minute episode. Yeah, I think for the sake of this, we should think in terms of like 45 to an hour for these episodes. Just one, that way it doesn't constrict us too much.
Speaker: And too, a lot of shows these days, they're not all the exact same to the minute runtimes. You'll have some that are longer, some that are shorter. Which I appreciate. Yeah. And just tell the story, right? Tell the episode story and however long it is. I mean, it should be relatively... You should have like 15 minutes and then an hour 20. But there can be some variants there. So if this one's a little bit longer, because I don't think... I did think about breaking it up, but I don't...
Speaker: Like there's not really a good place to break it. Like if you break it before the party crash, that's a really slow episode. I think you're starting strong with that, you have Rebecca, and then you go to them arguing with the job. Are we gonna take this job? You build the tension with them arguing. And then finally, we're taking this job and we're ready to go.
Speaker: And then you kick off, you either kick off the next scene or you kick off the next episode with the like staring over the edge of the building and then very much rollercoaster style tilting and just going down with the dogs. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it definitely could work.
Speaker: I, it is an otter pacing. Yeah. The only thing is definitely not undoable. I do think consistency throughout the season needs to be important. And the times when shows don't do that well is really noticeable when there's like, like I'll just, I'm going to call out some of the recent Disney plus shows, both Marvel and Star Wars and things like that.
Speaker: I do appreciate that they will keep episodes condensed just to tell the story rather than drawing things out. But there are just multiple times when it just does not work. And the pacing really suffers. And there's entire episodes that I will either completely forget or wish I did because they just don't do anything for the story.
Speaker: And so I think it's important within each episode that there are these mini arcs that you're telling, right? So these mini story, every episode should begin and end telling something, some kind of story. Old television, I think, did this really well. And I say old because
Speaker: old for me. So early 2000s, you got Lost and 24 and those old prime time TV shows. Every single one of those episodes, those were like, I mean, 24, it's in the name, right? 24 episodes per season, Lost was something similar. And yet,
Speaker: You remember so much of those shows because the episodes that were released on a weekly basis did such a good job of maintaining interest by telling stories consistently per episode. So Lost did this really well where they would devote entire episodes to other characters, side characters, right? You'd have an entire episode for what this character is doing. Then next week it'd be an entire episode about what this character is doing, yada, yada, yada.
Speaker: Obviously, we're not planning 24 hour long episode seasons here. I don't think you should. But I do think it's important that if you're going to shorten the story or shorten a moment or make it longer either way, that you are
Speaker: you're doing it for the right reasons, not just for like, Oh, this is a good cliffhanger here, or, or, you know, Oh, this would, let's just end this here so we can put everything into the next episode. Well, then what's the point of the episode? You're cutting short, you know, things like that. Um, yeah. I mean, I have a good theme for this episode. If you wanted the theme, which, um, give it to me. Uh, the theme is basically Taylor will do whatever it takes.
Speaker: potentially at the expense of her friends. And I think maybe you start off by showing this in the Bakura fight. Like, you know, there's something that happens where like she, in order to get the, you know, get within range of toe stabbing or something potentially exploits one of her teammates. Um,
Speaker: And in her mind, she's of course, justifying it like, ah, yes, I used them as bait so that she could get closer. She was never in any danger, but she did do it. And I think having that, you know, you're having the conversation with Lisa, having a conversation with Brian and the learning about Lisa and Brian, especially, you know, the last episode and this episode. And then when we get to the debate,
Speaker: I think maybe saying it a little more explicitly that like Taylor brings up Lisa's shortcomings and uses that as a swing. And I think maybe she should also bring up Brian's and like - I see, yeah. Like it's what swings the vote to do this, but also she is,
Speaker: absolutely using that to like get this done. Yeah. I mean, I would, I would, I would agree. I would, I would put that in regardless of what we end up doing for the episodes. I think that's just good to have in there. Were you like, yeah, regardless. I think you absolutely put, put that in because I think that is a pretty consistent theme for her character. Yeah.
Speaker: You're just going a little harder there. I think you are right. I think this thing can go either one or two episodes. Well, I think the other thing to remember too, because we haven't talked about the fight yet, but reading fights takes a lot longer than watching them. And I think a lot of times, in all honesty, I think they drag too much. Like I'm trying to think right now, I haven't thought about this before, but I'm trying to think about
Speaker: big fight scenes in television and how long they took in relation to the episode. And the only fight scene immediately that's coming to my mind that was
Speaker: really the full episode was in Game of Thrones, right? You have like the Battle of the Bastards or something like that, that stretched the entire episode, but that fight was built for like three seasons they built to it. But really, I don't see, I can't think off the top of my head here. I can't think of too many long fight scenes in television.
Speaker: struggling to think of anything right now. So we'll come back to it. I think, I think, however, in terms of pacing, most of these episodes are essentially go like this fighting episode, non -fighting episode, fighting episode, non -fighting episode. I mean, just almost every one of these, with the exception of this one here, which kicks off with them cleaning up the ABB, which potentially
Speaker: It really is a nothing. At this point, it's kind of just exposition for Taylor and Brian to go on a date because of how low the stakes are in that case. But I think having the calm before the storm, and then the problem is you've got to have room on the back end of this fight
Speaker: for a lot of stuff. And if it's an hour, then yeah, we've got plenty of room, I guess. It's just, it is gonna be some odd pacing where the fight is kind of the dead middle of this. Right. Yeah, well, and I mean, and that's, and yeah, we can kind of just skip, let's actually skip past the fight for a moment and we can kind of come back and...
Speaker: Yeah, because you're right, because at the end, the end of this arc, there's quite a lot that you have to fit in, you have to fit in meeting coil, have that whole breakdown. And then of course, the final
Speaker: conversation between - Intervention. Yeah, exactly, with Danny and Taylor. And that is not, those are both scenes that we really don't want to take away from, because I think they're pretty important. Yeah. So if you did break up, if you did split it and did the Gala fight and everything after as an episode,
Speaker: then maybe we put something else into the first, this part one of the episode, I guess, the first part with everything. I mean, you could make the bakuta thing bigger. Yeah, you could draw it out a little bit. I think even with that though, I think, I feel like it's just a little too light, but maybe not. Maybe it's gonna work. I think the conversation between, you're gonna have a decent amount of conversations. You're gonna have them fighting. You've got Taylor and Lisa talking.
Speaker: You've got Taylor going back to her house, Taylor going to hang out with Brian, Taylor and Aisha, them sitting around and talking to the caseworker. And you know what? Sorry, well, yeah, finish the pacing here. And then having the job talk, which I feel like will actually be not a decent amount of time, but that's a solid conversation right there between a lot of characters.
Speaker: And actually, this would be a pretty good episode to put any sort of extra scenes in that we want to. We want to flesh out some other characters because everything here is from Taylor's perspective, which I think will get a little repetitive and stale if we don't break it up.
Speaker: This might be a good time to throw in a scene with the wards or with a glory girl in panacea or with, um, you know, uh, Kaiser and, or, you know, something like that. So we could also Kaiser and Theo would be a great conversation. Exactly. So, so that's true actually, especially if we, if we flush it out and sort of just break up a little bit of the monotony of the, um,
Speaker: of just everything being from Taylor's perspective, then yeah, I think you could flush that out into a pretty good media episode.
Speaker: Okay. Well, let's, let's operate with that then for the time being. Okay. So yeah. So then cliffhanger being then deciding or interludes to, to throw around. I was going to say, this is going to be a little bit easier the more you read too. Cause as we read some of these other interludes, it's going to be making it a little bit easier to move stuff around. Um, cause my memory of, of everything to come is not complete. Yeah. I think, I think the, her storming out at the end on Danny,
Speaker: Like I think that's a winner. I think that's really good. And then if you wanted an opener for this, the birdcage interlude is going to be hard to place.
Speaker: Yeah, in my mind, especially cause we've talked a little bit off podcast about some upcoming events, I think you could rework the birdcage towards the end of our season one pretty easily. And I don't want to get too into that just because I don't want to spoil some coming events here, but I do agree. I think we're moving it somewhere else regardless. And there's a few ways you can do it.
Speaker: potentially we don't have anybody else other than Canary kind of star in this interlude. I think just having a montage of like her in the jail, in the trial, in the van, maybe talking to another villain or not because I'm pretty sure she had like a mouth thing on.
Speaker: And then ultimately drag and talk into her and then you're like, yo, welcome to the bird cage. And then that's your ender opener for an episode. Yeah, I agree with that. A good opener. She says, welcome to the bird cage. And then you have worms slapped right on it as she's like descending the tubes.
Speaker: Yep. I agree with that. Um, and there's some other ways I'd want to work in, uh, lung and Bakuta and their bid in the bird cage. But I think, I think there's some ways to play around with that towards the end of the season. Um, but no, I agree. We'll move that around. And then in terms of, let me see my notes here in terms of the, uh, the Gala fight itself.
Speaker: Again, not much I'd really want to change. I like a lot of the interactions. I like a lot of the actual fight choreography there. I think if anything, we just enhance the tension between Armsmaster and Taylor, which I don't think is going to be that hard because it's already pretty thick. But yeah, I think that's the only thing I really like.
Speaker: I'm a sucker for really simple imagery, right? So like, Star Wars is black and white, literally. It's, are you the good guy? You and white, and he's the bad guy, you and black. Like sometimes it's simple stuff just kind of works. I really like in worm, it's not simple. There's a lot of gray, but in terms of like visual
Speaker: What's the word I'm thinking of? Visual opposition. I like it being very clear who's against who. And I like the idea, especially early on here with Arms Master and Taylor, really sort of being each other's arch nemesis, essentially.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. And so, and a lot of that builds to this moment here. So I think there's, there's a lot of room to sort of visually and you know, that's, that's more for the director and the, uh, the DP and that designers and all that kind of stuff to have a lot of fun with costume design. Exactly. Have a lot of fun with, with fleshing that out. Um, yeah, there's some great moments there for a dynamic between those two. Yeah. I think, uh, my biggest note here consistently was just like,
Speaker: like showing off powers, which will be continually the like, I think the big creative undertaking for, you know, whoever directs this or whatnot is like, how do you show off these powers? And for now they're relatively simple powers, but like,
Speaker: we have assault and battery. And I think like having a slowdown moment to show that like one of them is charging up and then can transfer the power into the other one, thus making him, you know, the sort of combo team. And then also, you know, having both of battery and velocity are speedsters. And I think showing the difference in some visual way, maybe the other one kind of becomes transparent when they move, you know,
Speaker: They become ghostly, and that's what shows that they're sort of in this other state, whereas battery is wholeheartedly there and maybe has the, I don't know, the electricity going around them. Right, yeah, something like that, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, again, a lot of room to creatively work for a whole team of talented directors. I would love to see what people come up with. Yeah. I'm so excited to watch the Velocity freak out scene.
Speaker: That's going to be gold. Even little things like how you depict the containment foam. I think everyone who reads worm probably has a slightly different visual image of what that looks like. So it's going to be a lot of fun to sort of portray that.
Speaker: I mean, in my mind, it's just great stuff on steroids. Yeah. Well, I mean, and that's the thing is like, it's got to be convincing and not look silly, but at the same time, it is, it is kind of silly. It's just the very nature of it. It's, it's goop. Yeah. You're getting, you're getting slimed and then it hardens. Yeah. If I may, I mean the Incredibles scene where he gets shot by all those black
Speaker: Oh, yeah. Things that expand. Yes. No, that's pretty good. I like that. I do like that. We always have to bring in Credibles into each of us. I mean, it's the goat. That's true. Yeah. I mean, we already talked about suiting up and getting the new suits. I'm so excited because, you know, we got to get that at least once during a long season like this. You don't just suit up once over a long.
Speaker: long thing like this. You got to suit up a couple times. We joked, we joked in the last part about how, uh, it's sort of the nerdy thing amongst worm fans to classify other, other heroes and other properties with the worm classification, but a syndrome like probably a tinker, tinker seven or eight, I would say. Oh yeah. You know, pretty solid tinker there. So.
Speaker: Yeah. Was his traumatic moment when he got told to go home, buddy. That was his trigger event happened. Yeah, exactly. He was a pretty good inventor up to that point, obviously, but then, yeah, then he definitely triggered and, uh, got a whole host of new powers. Oh, that's funny. Oh man. Yeah. We'll come back to the incredibles a bit. I'm sure. Yeah. And then, uh, so you have this moment of them, you know, given the, this was, you were right. This is the moment we, you know, this was over from the moment we stepped in this room.
Speaker: and then they dip. And I feel like this is where I go again, like the pacing for having a two episode arc. As I'm looking through my notes here, probably also, I will argue again fits better because you're gonna have this moment where they get away, they're high five and then the second fight begins.
Speaker: It kicks off and they got out, you know, it's, it's short, but you know, there is a little exposition of like, Oh, you thought, and, you know, earbuds and all that, and they get in the fight. Well, then they have to run for it, which ensues a third fight, which goes pretty damn quickly. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: And just to jump into here, this is again, I think probably a place where we have to make some decisions about what we choose to show and not show. I think personally, although I really like the team up between Armsmaster and Dauntless, Dauntless, right?
Speaker: Yeah, I think that it's pretty cool to read that. I think it makes way more sense when you're telling the story visually for just to replace Dauntless with Armsmaster here and just have him... Just Armsmaster and a second Armsmaster? I like where you're going. Yeah, he's got both Armsmaster.
Speaker: but just have Armismaster just be that character. Have him catch up to him, have him have his contingencies built in, have it look a little dire, he's pretty angry, and then bamf travelers still have the same way they get rid of him, same way they get rid of Dauntless, just make it Armismaster. I'll also add there, I think we nix, circus and, is it train wreck? Yes, I say. I think we just have,
Speaker: our travelers. I agree. Yeah, I agree. I think that makes a lot of sense. I think the only ones that show up are what ballistic and trickster, which is enough, I feel like. Oh, absolutely. I mean, you really just need trickster at the end of the day to battlefield removal here. Yeah, I mean, you could start with one combo. Yeah, we'll go ahead.
Speaker: I would say a fun combo to get rid of him and show off the powers at the same time would be a ballistic launches a car just away and then trickster swaps arms master in the car. Oh, yeah. The car just shoots him away and then the car just shows back up like slams into the ground.
Speaker: Right. I think it's like where, where's he going? He's like, wherever the car was. I like that. That's good. Actually, I like that a lot. Oh yeah, exactly. Perfect. Perfect. Um, yeah, definitely a lot of ways you could do that. I think, I think for that scene too, it's helpful to have less characters because we of course get the big reveal with coil stepping out of the shadows and we want a lot of the attention on him.
Speaker: And we've already, we've gotten a little bit of introduction to the travelers already. So they're not totally out of the blue, right? So I think that helped that works as well. So it's not the audience gets a little flare like, Oh, that's pretty cool. Yada, Yada. And then the rest of the episodes can play out with coil sort of taking up the majority of the attention as he should. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Um, cause he monologues for a bit and I think it's pretty good though.
Speaker: Cause, you know, arms master to this point has in the background kind of been our nemesis and still is, but, you know, we're constantly trying to figure out who the big bad is. You know, it was long arms masters, this consistent threat. And now we have the answer to the, who was our boss? It's coil and coil is our stereotype.
Speaker: evil mastermind, but that brings in the question like, Hey, you have two choices. You have arms master who is allegedly our good organizer of good things in the city. Or you have coil who's the bad guy, you know, organizing bad things. Who's better for the city? I think having them back to back is pretty good, especially when coils, you know,
Speaker: wipes the floor with them essentially. And is like, hey, do you really want to join the losing side? Right. Yeah. Yeah. No, I agree. Also, I like the idea of having the travelers kind of be exclusive there because it almost builds up this idea that the travelers are kind of like his bodyguards a little bit. Yeah, definitely. Like they're obviously closer.
Speaker: and more in tune with what coils got going on, which automatically brings in that, uh, not, not anxiety, but like the tension that like, Hey, one day this is going to be a team V team throwdown. And more so than we felt like, I don't think we felt like that with fallout, even though fall fall out is not fall out. Yeah. The fault lines openly in tech. Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, even though fault lines openly antagonistic towards tattletale, I don't think we ever felt like that was going to be a team V team battle. Right. You kind of maybe feel like that with the, with, uh, the, the empire 88, but it almost feels incidental. Like, like maybe you're not going to have a full team V team. Like you'll go one V one or maybe like a team V one, but this feels like, Hey, you know,
Speaker: Here's a group of people that we might have to tangle with. Even though they haven't shown any sort of hostility, they give a weird vibe. And having them with coil, I think plays into that. If we run a rye of this, we're gonna have to fight them.
Speaker: And it works too, because the travelers do feel like they sort of parallel the undersiders in many ways. And even reading, and obviously they're relevant throughout the story a bit, so we're not going to spoil anything, but they feel like they could have been roped into that group of characters that Wild Bo has alluded at, where he was like,
Speaker: I didn't know for a while who my protagonist was going to be. It wasn't always Taylor from the beginning. He had been working with a few different characters and what stories he wanted to tell. And it definitely feels like The Travelers was probably in that conversation from the little we know, which is great because I think that really helps, gives them a lot of character. And I think it's fun to see
Speaker: It's almost like the travelers are a few weeks further in the story than the undersiders are. Like they've already met coil, right? They're already on board and our undersiders are kind of getting there. So it's like giving us an idea of what to expect from our main characters, which is kind of fun.
Speaker: But then yeah, of course, like you said, sort of building towards what feels like a confrontation of some kind as well. Yeah, I think simplifying that scene a bit just in terms of who's there is gonna help a lot with the pacing because again, I think this is one of those cases where we want our
Speaker: character to monologue where this is the type of place where you're going to put in some exposition just right into the dialogue and that's okay because that's where it needs to be. Like you got to fit it in some places and this is the type of scene where you're going to put some exposition in, but it makes sense. It's going to be needed. So I think that works. A second thought that I've
Speaker: I think I've discussed with you is potentially moving the mystery of coil back to the end of this season. Cause we've had them deal with it, like had this sort of mystery. I don't think we've played it up strong enough. So that's something I need to fix while we're writing. It's like having this mystery of like, who the hell is this person like?
Speaker: you know, playing that up with the tension of like, hey, arms master, I've almost figured out who this person is. I just need you to give me more time. Right. Just sort of stressing that. Yeah. And then I don't know if now is the time to have that reveal. Yeah. Or maybe even next arc. Yeah. Next arc almost feels like it's the right time because then it, then it really brings in the crux of like, Hey,
Speaker: we're about to like, I know who it is and I've got to make this decision. And I think because we don't have the internal monologue, we could still have Taylor be conflicted until the end of the season. Where she has in the second to last episode or whatnot, finds out who, you know, the coil is the boss, but at the same time,
Speaker: is still on the fence about it until events happen later. And then it's like, you know what? No. Yeah. No, I'm fine. I'm fine kind of playing around with that just because I can't remember the exact details of the next couple of arcs. Let's definitely put a pin in that and come back to it. And I think it would work really well to kind of end the season with that. And it doesn't change too much of this moment too, because instead of just doing a coil reveal,
Speaker: You just have the travelers save them, say they're working for the same boss, right? Kind of make that up. Exactly. Something like that. Hey, you know, yeah, we're on the same side. I think that adds to it. It's like, okay, if the travelers are working for our, our same boss, then how many other people are also right?
Speaker: you know, on the payroll. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, you could definitely keep, keep the scene relatively unchanged and still play around with it. But yeah, let's definitely put a pin in that. Cause I think it would work later on. I just want to make sure we're not overloading a season finale, you know? But I definitely like the idea of delaying it. Well, I think if we take out, if we take out the coil thing, I think that helps.
Speaker: abridge the episode to make it fit better as one whole episode. Oh true, true. That's true as well. Taking out that and finishing on going home and dealing with Danny. And dealing with Danny. Yeah, that's a good point too actually. Okay. Which honestly, as I think about the pacing of like tension in this, it is a lot of up and down waves for this episode.
Speaker: you have the, you know, starting off with the fight that maybe starts out easy, but then you have to deal with Bakita so it rises up, but then we finish and we win. So the tension's relieved. And then immediately you have the like going over and dealing with Brian, but then like the caseworker and Aisha show up and you know, she's trying not to reveal that. Oh, like look at all this going on. Aisha knows now that. So it goes up a little and then you go back and it's the job and the whole tense conversation of the job again.
Speaker: of voting. Tension goes up again as Taylor swings the vote back down, shows up at the gala. They kick ass at the beginning. Everything's going easy, but tension spikes up when things happen, region gets caught. It goes back down, it goes back up. Then they get away, allegedly, so you're going down. No, you're not. They get ambushed, goes up. They get away another time,
Speaker: You know, they're safe. We've got it back to where our escape plan is. No, you're not. It's back up. Then the travelers show up to his ass. You know, the tension goes back down. You think you're finally at a resting point and then she goes home. Yeah. And you're like, as soon as you walk in the door, you, you like, you know, fuck, this isn't over. Yeah.
Speaker: And it's not that Arms Master's at the house, it's your dad's there. And that's so much worse. Yeah, no, that's a good point. Like it would be better if just Arms Master showed up. Yeah, that's a good point. And again, the confrontation with Danny, again, we'll move a bit quicker on screen than it is when you read it too. So the tension is gonna be,
Speaker: pretty immediate. But I agree. That's a good observation. This is not a negative remark, but it's going to be a very exhausting episode where it takes effort to watch, right? Where it's a lot of up and down. Like you said, a lot of uneasiness throughout, which I think is sort of a theme we've been putting into this is just that
Speaker: general sense of tension and uneasiness that spreads throughout the show, I think, works really well. I think it just combines with Taylor's power. I mean, just in a broader sense, in my mind, a lot of the underlying soundtrack of the show is gonna have a lot of hums and buzzes, like insects kind of thing, right? To sort of enhance and elevate those moments.
Speaker: But yeah, no, I agree. I think that works pretty well. And I mean, obviously ending whatever episode we choose to split it or not, ending an episode on that moment with Danny is just gonna be a beautiful gut punch for anyone watching. Yeah, I think with that being the ending, I think we gotta move the canary, not even to the beginning or end of this, and not even the beginning of the next one.
Speaker: or ending it next, I think it might have to get moved like completely to some other place because of the fact that like we're trying to keep lung out of the cage for right now. And maybe you have, I thought about replacing the roles with like having Oni Lee caught with Bakuta and, you know, Bakuta killing him in order to get out, but then realizing like there's no escape.
Speaker: That way, Bakut is still in there and still alive for use later on, because she's an interesting character. And Oney Lee's interesting, has an interesting power, but Oney Lee does not have a personality. Yeah, very much so. Right. And so, no need to show that off, really. We could keep Bakut around, keep long out of jail and have Canary in there. I think that's a great start to some
Speaker: other area, maybe even at season two. Yeah, there's a few ways. I just can't see it fitting well. Yeah, I think... Maybe we just hold that. And again, we'll put a pin in it too. We're kind of approaching sort of our agreed upon end to season one. So I think when we get there, there's going to be some things maybe when we kind of come back and look at everything where we're like,
Speaker: Oh, this works better if we just take it out of the season. Or, oh no, we really do need this in season one so that it makes sense later on. You know, some things like that I think we'll play around with. I think there are some ways we can make the birdcage work. I'd love to include it if we have the space for it, but I agree it should be on the chopping block if we have to get to that point. But I like slowly alluding to it periodically in earlier episodes.
Speaker: I think alluding to it and also showing, specifically when Taylor starts to run afoul of the law, maybe. This isn't going to happen. I was going to say, I think it is important to show the consequence of their actions.
Speaker: because they talk about that a lot. They're like, oh, we're going to get sent to the Birkage, yada, yada. And even though the undersiders are criminals very clearly, they're also very clearly not nearly at the level of lung and these other criminals that we know of, right?
Speaker: But the birdcage doesn't really worry about that. You are a criminal villain, there you go. Like that's just what it is. There's black and white, there's no degrees of punishment. You either go to the birdcage or you're a good guy. So I think it's important to have that established, just that, hey, there's a way of dealing with villains. And so,
Speaker: We'll see. I think it could work to just push it off to another season. But I also think with Long's character, I think it makes sense to end the season for him in the birdcage. So there's ways we can play around with it. I think we'll... I'm making a note here on my sheet, but I definitely want to revisit that in terms of whether or not we think we have the time and space to put it in the first season or not. Yeah.
Speaker: All right, well, I'm out of stuff. I don't have anything else with this arc. I did have one question for you, and I actually mentioned this to you earlier, not on the podcast here. Oh boy. No, this is just, I'm making a tally, especially as we approach the end of
Speaker: our season one, and looking at themes and things we want to remain consistent across the season. I asked you, I know, I said, what's a theme that you have so far? And you gave a pretty good answer. Do you remember what you gave? Oh, shoot.
Speaker: I don't remember. So you had said the first one that came to mind is the perception of threat.
Speaker: And I really liked that. And I kind of, I tweaked, because it kind of went along with one of the themes that I had, which I think kind of goes hand in hand. Yeah. Is the illusion of power. And I think those kind of go hand in hand. And I think there's a lot of moments already that we can sort of enhance those. And I think it works really well in this arc.
Speaker: both with Arms Master and Taylor and everything that goes on with that fight and also with Coyle. Obviously, if we change the reveal, it's going to change a little bit. But I guess the only question I had was, is there anything else you can think of in relation to that? Any ways we want to address those or enhance those types of themes at this point? Or is this something we want to try to
Speaker: Finish up season one and then as we kind of come back and review everything sort of take a big picture look and see what we can tweak. I think it's a big picture look because I think on one hand the most basic perception of threat you can look at for me is like everything with bitch. It's the most obvious. Yeah. And then on a big scale,
Speaker: we'd be looking at Taylor and the way she acts under perceived threats. But that's not something that I feel like is really apparent in your kind of individual, and really not individual actions, but your episodes as a whole, like that isn't really apparent to Taylor. Like she doesn't show that as much. And for other characters, I don't think it's,
Speaker: Like it's there, but because of the fact that it's hidden, it isn't revealed until the end of this season as it were. Right. Right. Yeah. Okay. Good point. Good point. All right. We'll put a pin on that too. We'll come back.
Speaker: We'll come back to that. But that's something I definitely want to keep in mind, especially as we sort of clean up and edit these episodes, is just thinking in terms of season long themes that we want to influence the arcs, the story arcs. I think that's a really good theme for this season in particular.
Speaker: And while it still applies to all the other seasons, I think the later seasons will definitely have their own distinct themes that are there that are not as
Speaker: I have to look at them, but I think they'll be different. As they should. And I think that's a really important way that good television shows maintain engagement across seasons is keeping the seasons, you're still telling the story, right? You're still telling the same story. You're continuing the story, but the seasons need to feel different. They need to feel unique, right? In a lot of ways, I think the best shows that do that well do have those unique
Speaker: themes per season. Stranger Things I think does that phenomenally, maybe the perfect example that I can think of. But yeah, so I think we'll come back to that. We'll keep that in mind, making sure that we have sort of consistent themes across the seasons here.
Speaker: But other than that, I think that just about does it for Arc6. As always, anyone who's been listening, we greatly appreciate it. This is a lot of fun. We're going to continue with Arc7 in the next episode. And let us know what we missed. Do you agree with the things we've chosen to cut?
Speaker: Any characters you think we missed or should also be removed? And any ideas for themes? We'd love to hear what you guys think, especially those of you who have read Red Warm a bit and can think sort of big picture like that. What are some themes and concepts that definitely need to be addressed within this first hypothetical season of television that we're putting on?
Speaker: But thanks again for listening. And Alan, it was a pleasure as always. We'll see you next time. Always a pleasure, Jacob. And Michael, you can play us out.
Speaker: reading, read along with us at parahumans .wordpress .com. We'd love to hear your thoughts. What did you love? What did you hate? Anything you think we missed, et cetera, as long as it's kind. If you'd like to get in touch, you can find us on Twitter, threads, Instagram, TikTok, and Reddit at Brockton Bay, BC, or click the link in the description.
