Transcript
Speaker: Worm is a web serial by J .C. McCray, also known as Wildbo. You can read Worm in its original format by visiting parahumans ah .wordpress dot .com or donate to Wildbo's Patreon at patreon dot .com slash wildbo. This story isn't intended for young or sensitive readers. Readers who are on the lookout for trigger warnings are advised to give Worm a pass. For a complete list, check the description for all of Worm's trigger warnings.
Speaker: Welcome, welcome one and all to the season two recap for Dissecting Worm. That's right. We have finished our second season. And by finished, I mean, we have decided where it begins and ends. And are our we're now we're not ready to kind of look at it, to pick it apart and decide if we did a good job or not. ah My name is Jacob. ah Your co -host is always joined by Alan, as always. Fight me. We have Michael keeping us sounding good, as always, and returning to reprise their roles of our season critiques. We have both Hannah and Nick from the Brockton Bay Book Club. Welcome, both of you.
Speaker: This is going to be a lot of fun. We have a lot to get through, ah slightly ah more to work with in this season than season one. Season one felt like it was a bit more structured based off of the arcs we did, felt like it flowed a bit better. We made some changes that were hotly contested, ah but we fought for anyway. ah This time around, we've got ah quite a bit on the docket. So we're going to dive in because as I was just informed, our season one recap crossed the three hour mark, which scares me. Let's say as you should be. ah No, it's good. I'm excited for Nick and Hannah to hear these changes for the first time. So so be as always, I'm ready.
Speaker: Yeah, a couple changes to our season one recap though. Oh yes. Good. Uh, courtesy of user on Reddit, sleepy stapler, shout out to them. Uh, they had some really good stuff specifically for the warehouse, uh, episode and following. So a couple of things. Um, one is during the warehouse fight instead of. Uh, just, you know, having a straight through fight right there, we break it up with a tattletale fault line, uh, alternate fight going on against. Bakuta. So you get your Bakuta fight, but you also, no, wait, wait, wait.
Speaker: yeah It's not Bakuta. It's bakuta every freaking time. ba
Speaker: about by but Like you sussy bakita. yeah if that's what helps you then she yeah Thank you. Bakuta. Now you've got me messed up. Bakita. There we go. Bakita, bakita, bakita. Thank you. Sussy bakita. Sure. All right. I'm going to cut both for that up. Anyway, uh, Lisa and fault line lead, uh, some other crews against Baketa in a separate fight that gets interspersed with the Taylor, uh, lung fight. Um, you have some good dialogue back and forth there, uh, especially between specifically between those two, uh, because they, you know, they'd nitpick nitpick at each other. Um, another great thing to add following that is when the.
Speaker: PRT break in and take Theo. We have a moment where they're in the safe house. Maybe something happened, like Theo got injured or something. ah But Amy is there to like heal them or whatever. And it gives an opportunity for Amy and Theo to have a couple really good conversations about ah powers, about like you know what would Theo would do if he had them, how Amy doesn't like hers. A good insight into the two of their characters that Um, we just don't get enough of, um, we can talk about Amy, you know, start with like, I don't do brains. Um, and you know, Amy maybe suspects that her power isn't for healing, uh, that she has a weird code that she lives by and that Theo kind of, uh, talks about, you know, not being limited by your genetics that, you know, despite being Kaiser's son, that isn't going to hold him back from doing what's right. Like, um,
Speaker: In contrast to, you know, Amy as a whole. Uh, so I think there's some really good conversations to have there, uh, that will change up in the script. Um, let me see if there's anything else here. Uh, go over, um, sleepy stapler has left some essays. Uh, so it's hard to go through, but there's a couple of the points that I wanted to read off, um, some other things that I would like to change up is throughout the first season, Higgitt has an assistant deputy director by the name of Thomas Calvert that bears a lot of the workload that she does. He's a very bookish man that just kind of, you know, is always there late with her, um helping out where he can.
Speaker: Uh, but just, you know, remember the name. He's always present in the PRT wherever pig. It is. He's just kind of standing right next to her with a clipboard. That kind of deal. Um, and some groundwork. Yeah. Land some groundwork. Um, other things, you know, as we moved on through the end of the thing, we had the big arc eight fight. Uh, and as we get to the end, Taylor is wondering what she is going to do with, uh, now that, now that she's. Um, you know, been outed kind of as she wanted to be a hero and all of that's over and her and Lisa have a conversation about what to do next. And Taylor's like, I don't know. I just, I'll figure it out. She leaves. Lisa picks up the phone, makes a call and says something like she's in and we, we cut to coil on the other end and his evil layer hangs up the phone.
Speaker: steeples his fingers end of season. and and da da and to yeah And remind me, I know that we changed some things or that you guys changed some things. um Is that the first time we're meeting Coyle? That is the first time we're seeing him rather. yeah So we've met him at the big get together. A big thing that we'll play up here is that he is essentially the white collar criminal in Brockton Bay. So yeah ah we don't really know what his powers are.
Speaker: But he like, what is he going to do when it comes to the Leviathan fight and stuff like that? He maybe can be attributed to like, Oh, well, you know, I'm expected to do something here with the lung problem. I'll just buy the, I'll buy fault lines crew to do this. Everybody kind of accepts. Oh yeah. Like that makes sense. Um, but we're never told exactly what goes on with that. Another scene that we'll have is, uh, the travelers abducting a child. Um, for what reason we don't know yet. Um, but maybe it's a pretty big, big reveal. yeah gotcha Um, but yeah, because all of that Dinah pushed off, just let you know, forget what you know.
Speaker: it's it's It's gone from your mind. is just I mean, it's not but. No, no, no, no. You don't even remember. You don't even know the miasma of this podcast. You don't even know what's going on right now. yeah Of course. All right. It's all just a fog. It's a red fog. So that takes us into season two and where we want to start the season. And the big thing we want to do with this season is where season one is a lot of Taylor and it's a lot of focusing on her character as it should be. This is not a critique. This is what it is. it should It's her character and her growth and her sort of accepting her role, whether she realizes it or not, as more villain than hero within the framework of Brockton Bay. Season two presents a really neat opportunity where we can expand on a lot of the goings on in the city and the world at large ah alongside Taylor's continual character growth. So there's a couple
Speaker: mysteries, for example, that get highlighted this season um that we can really sort of expand on. That's Cauldron and Case 53s. That is the Slaughterhouse 9, obviously, who end up kind of taking a front and center approach. Those are two really large mysteries there. um And then ah in addition to that, being able to focus on some of these other groups that are interacting with those as we move through the a season. So that kind of leaves us with a couple A, B, C and D plot lines that are kind of be threaded through the seasons. We want to just kind of review those real quick, and then we'll sort of go into our episode breakdowns.
Speaker: So obviously, A -plot is Skidder and Taylor and her ah rise in... um ah What's the word I'm thinking of? Prominence. notorie Notoriety. What else? Intimate. Intimate. There we go. Yeah. There's sort of a rise to power and control in Brockton Bay. Obviously, Undersiders, all of that sort of tied into her ah her her story. That's the clear A -plot. ah B and C plots, kind of from that, we also really like the idea of getting to see more of the wards, particularly Weld, and getting to give them more agency in the story surrounding the ah the hunt for and the fighting with the Slaughterhouse -9. They've got a lot of opportunity there.
Speaker: We also have an opportunity to grow Fault Lines crew and their work in tracking down Cauldron and sort of figuring that whole element of the story out. um Not as big of an element, but there's definitely a few moments within the season that they get to shine. And then this is sort of a deep plot and we're going to really expand on this further as we talk about the episodes. but ah ah Assault and Battery, their interlude is beautiful and it's really well written, one that we really love. And we think it gives a fun ah way of connecting the episodes through their characters and showing a progression ah that sort of that sort of parallels the progression of the season in seeing a cape go from civilian
Speaker: to Cape, to member of Cauldron, to member of the Protectorate, to dead. and And the kind of yeah just sort of, I think it's a really great representation of the story as a whole. So it's kind of fun to be able to follow that. um There's a couple other small plots here and there. We got Parian and Flechette, who we want to highlight. um A couple other things that we're gonna, yeah, that we'll kind of highlight here and there, Theo as well. So we'll we'll kind of get to him as we move, as we kind of move through the episodes. The biggest challenge writing this season, because there are some scenes that like maybe we'll come back, we need to add in between, was just weaving everything together. Instead of being straight, just following Skitter,
Speaker: you know, and then getting an interlude, this is going to be how many, you know, we are moving scene to scene and those are going to be different people and, you know, keeping all of those plots, uh, you know, not just you know running over each other. Um, but that was the biggest challenge for this right now is just trying to get all of those synthesized. So it's one continual, uh, story. um and not just Taylor's perspective constantly. Turns out, even when a great story is handed to you on a silver platter, screenwriting is hard. think yeah and isn This is this the problem. And I know people you know really love Worm. I really love Worm. I really like reading Worm, but it won't work for television if we just stick with Skitter.
Speaker: lang yeah i I don't even like that because I could just watch Skinner. I don't need the tension broken up, but I know that if most people watch this, it's going to hurt to be like, ah, we're still watching this teenage girl do stuff. I need anything else right now. And having an interlude at the end of a, you know, episode just doesn't cut it. Yeah. we were we And we ran into that problem several times recording prior episodes of Dissecting, where we were we would get on a tangent and be talking about a character, ah usually like Jack Slash or something like that, just casually as like, oh, duh, of course, he's here doing this thing. And then we'd have to stop ourselves and go, okay, wait wait a minute.
Speaker: a new audience to the story is going to have no idea what he's doing here or who this guy is. Like it just doesn't work. And so we, yeah, we have a lot of moments like that and then we probably forgot a few. Oh yeah. We'll see. Uh, I think that about sums up our, uh, Our prelude if you will into jumping into the episodes unless Alan you think I forgot anything ah No, I don't think so. Is there any questions you guys have before we go into episode one of season two? and I'm interested. I'm interested to hear ah what you guys do. I think that my one
Speaker: I don't know, it's kind of tough because while it's obviously not nearly the same kind of story, when you say that a audience might an audience might not like just watching Taylor the whole time, there's a part of me that kind of thinks, I don't know, maybe they would. Because you have shows like Avatar of the Last Airbender, where the focus is on a young protagonist in their adventures. And it does kind of work, even though there's not much else. um Granted, it's kind of the opposite problem to worms, so I'm not saying that that's a fair comparison by any means. Whereas avatars kind of lighthearted with punctuated moments of seriousness, worm is kind of the opposite, opposite where it's very serious with punctuated moments of lightheartedness, yeah if we're lucky.
Speaker: so So I recognize it's a different kind of story um and I am open -minded to what you guys are doing. so No, it's a good, it's a good thought. I had this thought too. Honestly, I think probably the avatar is a really strong example. I think another strong example is Harry Potter. I mean, yeah that story, I don't think there's a scene where Harry Potter isn't present aside from like 30 seconds in a movie, ah you know, which pretty much follows him the entire time. But
Speaker: Harry Potter benefits from a really, really strong supporting cast that interacts with him. There's a lot going on, uh, and a lot of other fun characters, which worm has, but we don't get their perspectives on things. It's always just from Taylor's perspective, which don't get me wrong. I would love to have that. Yeah. Once again, I am okay with that. The problem is I know for a general audience, it does not work. Yeah, I'm i'm part of that part of that group. I i think Taylor's great. um And as the main character for where I'm in book format, like it works. But I ah i mean, like like we said, with a Assault and Battery, their their little interlude is so cool. I like the idea of giving them some more screen time rather than page time. But i i I'm excited about seeing more of these characters that like we know are there, like Flechette and Parian.
Speaker: yeah arian I think yeah, Perrienne. I love Perrienne. I think Perrienne is super cool. And she does make a couple like very key appearances in this you know these arcs. And so I like the idea of giving her more more time so that when she shows up, we know who she is. We know the impact of her power. And when she does come in to save the day, when she does like I like that idea of having more of these side characters that we've seen at the end of this huge end bringer fight. Now we're like we're seeing them more, which I like like with Weld and that. like i'm I'm excited. I'm ready for it. And I think you guys...
Speaker: It's tricky. Great. I'm going to fight you on some things probably, but for the most part, I'm ready. Yeah. i will i I'll kind of end before we go into it. I'll say I think that is one of the... It it it is the the the great challenge in any adaptation is justifying the adaptation. Because if you are doing a just one -to -one retread of the original story, then the adaptation serves no purpose. It's not enhancing the story in any way. um yeah So you want to justify the adaptation while also not spitting on the original story that everybody loves. And that is a fine -lined walk.
Speaker: And most adaptations don't do that well. I think most people can agree on that, especially recently, we've had sort of a slew of pretty poor adaptations. yeah um But the trade -off is that a lot do them well, you just don't realize it because you never read the original story. And there's a lot of really good adaptations out there that do a good job. And I think Worm has a lot of potential for that. We are just but humble amateur fans with no experience in script writing and adaptation adapting works, but we're going to give it a shot anyway because yeah nobody else will. and this is Yeah, that's the thing. like This is the first step into getting potentially more people into the fandom, which I think is like exactly something we talked about really early on. is like The whole point of
Speaker: doing this podcast at all was like one, we all wanted to reread worm. Like that's a simple thing. We just wanted to reread it and we wanted to nerd out about it and talk about it. And like, if we can do a podcast and get more people into reading it or into the story, then like, that's, that's what we want. That's all we want. And if this is just a fun, extra side of that. Yeah. So this is cause gosh, even if at the end of this, you know, it just, you know, worm just gets made for television. And let's just say it ends up being bad. You know, obviously we wouldn't have written it because you know, now and yeah bold of us but you know it gets made. It's bad, but like it's out there. It's on television. And even if it's bad, people go like, there's going to be people. They're like, I liked that bad show. And then they read worm and they're like, holy cow. This is so much better. Yeah. Like getting it out there, like,
Speaker: We're gonna talk about sacrifices. Is it worth it during this whole season? Is it worth it to have a bad worm show if it means a bunch of fans and readers come to start reading worm? Oh, heck yeah, totally worth it. Leave comments below.
Speaker: Hopefully not our show, obviously. Our show a be will win Emmys, but you know. Yeah, Craig Myzen will personally shake my hand. Wow. All right. And on that note, let's dive in to episode one, season opener. All right, so we are going to open with episode one. Alan, do you want to take it away? she are cut him off why don't you damn I was going to let Alan take this anyway. So Alan, please. Episode one, season two, we open with a girl named Jamie going into an abandoned building and waiting. A portal opens up and a mysterious doctor mother welcomes her to Coltrin title. Now 12 meets picket at the helipad. And as they fly, she briefs him on the situation in brockton bay
Speaker: with most of the major players gone like Coyle, who has now gone underground since there's no real place for white collar crime in the city right now. Piget tells him that there is probably a spy in their midst and not just in the PRT, but among the heroes. He looks out the window and sees how bad the Leviathan tack has hit the city. Fault Line's crew arrives back at the mostly intact Palanquin with their newest member Shamrock and Toe. Shamrock mentions that now that she's here, she's sure she'll run into leads while they are in Brockton Bay. Cause that's just her luck. Taylor holds her costume in her hands, but then goes outside and just a hoodie to meet up with Lisa. And they talk about how the group is doing and Taylor's reluctance to join them, uh, again, grew as busy pouting and has his hands full with him. This is all Lisa telling her this.
Speaker: ah gru ah you know Pouting has his hands full with imp now. ah Bitch has been really absent after the death of her dogs. That's really hit her hard. um So she's been gone more and more. And Taylor remarks how she's thinking about doing things on her own. Lisa, however, says that's not how this works. And certainly not for you, Taylor. Meanwhile, Amy is taking care of her paralyzed father at home and receives the cold shoulder from her mother. for not really healing or doing any kind of heroing anymore. Weld arrives at the PRT, meets the remaining wards, which consists of Clock Blocker, Vista, Shadow Stalker, Glory Girl, and Kid Wen. He botches the whole introduction and is roasted by Clock Blocker.
Speaker: Shadowstalker and Flechette go out on patrol while Weld and Clockblocker have a little talk about leadership on their own patrol. Meanwhile, Big V and Little V go out on their own little patrol, uh, cause that's how they roll. Shadowstalker leaves Flechette to go do her own thing. Cause she's a bummer. Uh, Flechette visits Perrian where they talk about how things have been going since they met at the Leviathan fight. Weld and Clockblocker run into a gruesome crime scene where the travelers are present. Well, it calls in for backup. And while they are trying to bring the travelers in for questioning, the travelers refuse, Glory Girl and Vista show up in time for a fight to ensue. But despite their best efforts, the travelers get away. Meanwhile, Jamie and Dr. Mother talk about powers, about how Jamie wants to defeat Madcap. And so, the decision made, she straps into the chair, drinks the vial, and triggers.
Speaker: Afterwards, she gets up, touches the chair, and Dr. Mother remarks that she seems to have gotten a good power set. Back at the PRT, the Wards, sans Shadowstalker, along with Miss Militia, Dragon, Assault, and Battery, have a meeting about the murders. Glory Girl and Weld get to be huge fucking nerds and figure out that the murders have happened in three sets of three. That altogether equals the infamous Slaughterhouse Nine. Salt says that this is the kind of thing that Colin would have also been a big nerd about, and the room goes quiet. Miss Militia says that Arms Master has been transferred to indefinite confinement. Meanwhile, a shadowy figure is being put in said indefinite confinement in the birdcage. The doors open and Lung walks down and sits with Marquis. Marquis says that he'll get him set up
Speaker: if he'll give him some news about the outside world, specifically how his daughter is doing. We immediately then cut to shadow stalker as she spots skitter and trails her to ambush and kill her like a bitch, only to be caught by the undersiders. Shadow stalker says something like you couldn't face me alone and shadow skitter squats over her and says, Never worked for you has it. And then stomps on her face. End of episode one. and Oh my God. Okay.
Speaker: It's funny, even just reading through this again, I was making some notes, and there's there's already stuff. I'm like, okay, we gotta move that around. So that's the next podcast. It's the podcast fixing all of our fuck ups. The podcast within a podcast within a podcast. No, no, no, the podcast outside the podcast about the podcast. is It is one of those writing things where you you write something, you're like, yeah, yeah, this is good. And then you hear it and you're like, oh. Yeah. i mean like yeah Every episode. This wasn't that bad. No, it was good. Every ever episode we're you like, oh, what do you, Hannah? I have so many fucking comments. I will say, this is a lot for one episode. Jesus. That was yeah was my first, we had actually, I forgot to put it in here. um ah
Speaker: ah Full disclosure, Alan and I have been working up to the last minute here trying to get this ready to go. And doing we said immediately when we were done with this, we're like, you know what? Episode one is probably going to be like two episodes. We need to split this into two and then we just never went back and did it. So the this is... No, no, no, no. Here's how you pitch it. Episode one is the is the is the big one. That premiere episode that's like an hour and a half long to get people back into into season two for some reason. Yeah. I thought that was supposed to be the last It's also the last episode.
Speaker: no okay well i definitely want to hear I definitely want to hear both both Hannah and Nick's initial reactions. yeah as It is a lot. there's We put a lot in here in the first episode, but please. I mean, ok okay okay. So my first thought is is is this. um Taylor has what? Two scenes? in this entire episode? If I may interject, if if I may interject, this is one, because because this is one thing I mentioned to Alan, we never came back to it. That's on me. I would actually change this quite a bit. ah Taylor specifically, I mean, change quite a bit. I would put no scenes with Taylor in this first episode until the end. No, let me finish my thought. until
Speaker: Until the very end when we are, when Shadowstalker is chasing her. The trade -off being that this first episode, this would only work if we did ah cut the first episode down quite a bit. It was a shorter episode. We didn't have as much going on in here. And we split it into two episodes. um I think it'd be fun to leave Taylor's reveal until the very end of the of the episode as like a more of like, here's the state of what's going on. ah Here's everybody else. And then, oh, that's right. Where's our main character? And then here she is out of the shadows and working this whole time. um At the same time, the risk of that is that you have sort of this feeling of like a pump fake from the audience. Yeah. Where if you've gotten them invested in Taylor a lot, then having a whole episode without her can feel, I can understand some people feeling a little bit betrayed. Like, where's my favorite person?
Speaker: Right. Um, I understand why though. So I kind of get, kind of get the idea. yeah Um, yeah, I just, I would, I don't know. It's interesting to think about. It's why I wanted to have at least Taylor in there present for one scene, not, not just the end to also give you, you know, cause we're talking about Brockton Bay as a whole, how everybody's doing. I think that having like, Oh, the undersiders are there too. But it also sets expectations that Walt Taylor is the main character and we will get back to her as we, you know, kind of have that pump fake at the end. Like, Oh no, she is here that we, we will be talking about her. ah She will be doing, you know, skitter things ah that this season is going to be different. There's going to be a lot of other moving pieces this season. It's not just going to be tailored. And I want to set that expectation up front that these are the things we're dealing with. We're dealing with cauldron. We're dealing with the wards, we're dealing with,
Speaker: the Slaughterhouse -9. You have to get those things in there. And there's a lot of setup of just where the pieces are that you need to do initially before you can move into, oh yeah, let's get back to our main character. You literally said - And I will say that as a, oops, sorry, go ahead, Anna. I was just going to say, you literally said my catnip word, which is expectation because God, I love making promises to your audience and then fulfilling them. And I love the idea of like, Hey, this season's going to be different. And so you're getting a taste of that now, which upsets me greatly that you use that word because now I'm on board and it's upsetting. and I don't like it, but I will say I actually grew up with Jacob on that one. The idea of keeping skitter until the end.
Speaker: and And the reason i the reason i I go that route is that that's actually a ah ah fairly common trope with television. I like it. It's less character focused and more like moment or theme focused where you delay the expected theme or moment until the end. The tentpole example of this is the season two ah first episode of House of Cards. which is basically drama my aside, hate the man. But that that episode is brilliant. And the way they delay his breaking the fourth wall for anyone who's seen the show until the very last scene of that episode, when everybody's expecting it, it's how he starts the episodes. It's how he talks to the episodes and not doing that until the end. That moment is just
Speaker: So powerful. This is very different, obviously. We're very different here. But it's the same concept. yeah It's building up because everyone knows we're going to see Taylor. Everyone knows we're going to see Skitter. We haven't gotten rid of her. so So you're keeping the audience on their toes about when are they going to see her. and they get a really fun sort of mysterious first, first reveal of Skitter in this season where she is portrayed as a little bit more strategic than she's seen before, kind of reinforcing that. We didn't talk about this, but she's going to have a couple of little additions to her costume at this point. She's going to look a little different and, you know, trapping Shadowstalker, who we now in the audience knows is her bully,
Speaker: is ah is satisfying. So it's still the idea, obviously, that we want, is that it's still a satisfying moment for fans in seeing their their hero for the first time, their protagonist. Dang it. Yeah. No, i and i I'm fine with that. I think my bigger issue with it was I felt like you listed 10 different plot points that the viewer would need to keep track of. That's valid. I almost feel like, and you know take this as you will, I almost feel like some of these, some of those plot points could be pushed almost to like the finale of season one. And the reason why is because when, in my mind, at least when a viewer has been ah invested in a season, um, then they want to know kind of what happens to all the characters they've met and thought about and looked at, you know, um,
Speaker: And so maybe there's kind of this, like, let's wrap up some of those plot lines, like the thing with lung and the thing with other people. Uh, I could see, I could just see that being an example of one where maybe you would use that as, as a way to wrap up some of those plot points you're trying to wrap up. Yeah. what else sorry you're right upset upline I know you're trying to set up a lot of plot points too. And that's where the issue comes in is because as the actual uh, web serial gets more complex. There's a lot more characters plot points to keep in mind and translating that to a TV show. Isn't easy. Yeah. I actually think it's just this season too. Um, it's just this season kind of balloons out very wide in terms of like, just in terms of the writing, you know, we're looking, we, we literally have an entire interlude that's just.
Speaker: Uh, recruitment, we have an entire you know section of interlude that's just the wards, you know, like it's a very wide set of plot points that do sort of condense down to, you know, like three. By the time you get into arc, you know, 15, 16, like it really narrows down again. Um, so I do, while a lot of these will kind of resolve in this thing, the three main ones are going to stay kind of like, it's going to be Cauldron, ah Amy, and and, I mean, the wards, I guess. Like, if you guys haven't noticed, yeah, a lot of, ah in every single episode so far leading up to this review episode, we've been saying,
Speaker: and Once we get to the end of the season, we'll look back and figure out how this all works together. So that's what we're kind of doing. I see that. I see that. This is good. This is exactly what I expected. And hearing you say it confirmed what I think I was telling myself and just not admitting, which was we did we did pack this first episode a bit tight. We, like I said, we probably, we threw around the idea of like, ah, this is probably two episodes worth of stuff. Let's kind of spread it out. Which I like everything that you've had in it, but yeah, yeah, yeah it's it's probably ah probably wise to to put a little ah Split in here somewhere and there there is certainly ah Entire lines that we have kind of added that we could remove 100 % but you know, I think at least right now it's better to have those
Speaker: And then we can take them out, you know, when the show is getting made, obviously. like Yeah, and we got a writer's room and directors. They're like, we need to cut for time. We can workshop it. Exactly, exactly. um ah yeah what So I actually have a question about, if we're talking about that, the scene where they're all sitting around talking about The Slaughterhouse -9 potentially having showed up and and they mentioned Arms Master, we have that in there. What if that scene just was taken out? Like if you took that whole section out altogether and they had this little, you know, oh my God, it's the Slaughterhouse -9 moment, but it's at the crime scene.
Speaker: And that takes out some PRT secondary location when you could have it. Basically my thought is like, there are, I mean, we're talking about all the extra plots and like, okay, yes, we have cauldron, but I would say that cauldron plot is also separate from like a salt and battery plot. And the wards plot is also different from weld plot, almost. And like but yeah the idea is if you can condense things into each other so that it's like... that that conversation basically happening about The Slaughterhouse Nine taking place where it does in the book at the crime scene of them making that recognition. And you're cutting down a secondary scene. I i just i feel i felt like I was getting a little bit of whiplash just from you recounting the episode. I definitely think it would have to be split. but i
Speaker: it Is whiplash the word you were looking for or was it just too much in general? No, I really do think it was whiplash because especially if we're coming off of, yeah're okay, so in my head, okay, we finished season. I just finished watching season one. I've been waiting a whole year. I'm ready for season two of my favorite show to start. I'm so excited. The episode goes. and I'm getting all of these people which again before about not seeing Taylor's like okay all these people okay cool right great where's Taylor where are the undersiders where the people i actually care about villains where are the villains not seeing any villains I guess we're getting fault lines crew but like I don't give a shit about fault lines crew like
Speaker: ah Where are my people? i just It feels like it jumps back and forth and back and forth between all the people I don't necessarily care about yet. and like That's good. We care about them, obviously, but the audience does not care about them yet. And I feel like if we if we pack an episode of the first season in with all of these characters that we've maybe teased like Weld in the Endbringer fight or the wards in season one, like I'm excited to see the wards. So like maybe introducing
Speaker: more people into the conversation because of the wards. Like, okay, well, because I care about Clock Blocker, and because I care about Glory Girl, and because I hate Amy, you know? Like, these other characters are then, like, connected and I care about them because of the connection that they have, as opposed to, ooh, who are these new people? Like, I don't care about who these new people are. Like, give me the people that I want. On the other hand though, i can kind of see the argument for I can kind of see the argument for maybe
Speaker: keeping or focusing rather on one of the new plot lines. Yeah. And I think for the first episode, I know that you want to introduce the Amy thing and the cauldron thing early. I almost feel like for the first episode, focusing on the wards, which would lead up to the skitter reveal at the end. Yeah. Might be more effective. I think so too. Just in the sense of trying to focus in on one plot. Um, rather than trying to introduce everything, uh, all of this in this first episode. Um, and then the second episode, I think you could introduce, you could split it maybe between Amy, Amy and cauldron. I don't know that it's tough because there are so many, yeah there are so many little bits and pieces, you know, that you want to, you want to use. This is good.
Speaker: No, I think my mind's kind of already working here. I think this would definitely be best split into two episodes. And I do like focusing on the wards more for the first episode. I think that makes sense. I think our motto for last season was can like cut and condense, um which we're doing for a lot of stuff. I think for this, it's almost the opposite. It's it's weave. it's It's taking all the things that were laid out kind of you know on their own and cutting them up and then interspersing them all over the place. um In that way, you'll get more of a Game of Thrones type of episode, which I'll be honest, I feel like the first season, like the first episode of every new Game of Thrones seasons is this. It is a lot of locations with a lot of characters and a lot of introductions to new characters. And
Speaker: That's a good point. a Game of Thrones does that really well. I think the one advantage Game of Thrones has over a story like Worm is that Game of Thrones was written intentionally without a protagonist, like a primary protagonist. It's written so that all of those stories could be the protagonist. They could be who sits on the throne, who wins the game. And that's what sort of a is the stories because you're trying to figure out who you're rooting for. Worm doesn't really have that, but I do I do agree that we yeah we're trying we're trying to to expand the world a bit. so We don't want to lose sight of that. but it's there's There's two ways this could have gone. One is we stick strictly with a skitter centric story. It's going to be... I think in this like it works. This will be a much shorter series like like season.
Speaker: if that's the case. Well, I don't think we should stick with just skitter. I do like the idea of having all these new plot lines. I think that's really good. My my worry, though, is that the first episode of the season two being so packed. Mm -hmm. No, that's fine. That's a good insight. Yeah, if we were going to cut stuff, like and if we cut it here, I'll be honest, I think we got to cut it from the whole season. I think if you don't get a lot of this in in the first episode, I don't think it belongs in the rest of the season. so like what way So you're saying if if we were to cut like the the ah the ah assault and battery line from the first episode that then it wouldn't have a place in the rest of the season? No, I think there are some things like that. I don't know if I would say that one in particular, um but like if we don't have ah the fault line crew, for instance, I think if fault lines crew doesn't show up even in it like as a
Speaker: quick, you know, thing right there. And literally I think this scene is like 30 seconds to a minute. I think this is no time at all. I think, I think that if you're going for a focus on cauldron, but you want to reduce things cutting. I didn't say I wanted to reduce things. Well, we've been suggesting it. Cutting fault lines through though is an easy way to do that. Yes. Yes. I'm not opposed to cutting Fault Lines crew, to be perfectly honest. i so I don't really care about them. I forgot about Shamrock to be perfectly honest. That's fair. And this will come into play, not to cut you off, Anna. I apologize. No, no, no. No, you're good, please. Just because you're you're kind of touching on something that I... Again, Ellen and I have spent the last eight episodes talking about this stuff. And I forget that we haven't been sharing our thoughts with everybody. Yeah, Fault Lines crew.
Speaker: It feels like it's just made for the cutting room floor truly within the scope of worm. um It's a fun crew, but they're kind of like, in all honesty, when you're reading the story, background characters. um They're not that important to the story. What we realized was that if we wanted to expand the Cauldron plot line, and we're going to get into it in the future episodes, there's a couple really fun and key elements there, which I think is worth exploring considering where the story and worm goes. There's some pretty major moments involving Cauldron.
Speaker: that if you're going to expand that plot line and you want to start seeding those moments, that you really need something to focus on when you're cutting to cauldron. And it just sort of naturally made sense that fault lines crew being mostly case 53s made sense as they're sort of on the hunt for answers regarding cauldron. I think though, your focus on cauldron comes from the assault and battery plot line. Well, yes, the problem there is that battery dies at the end of the season. Right. Right. but but what i remind you though so that But what I'm thinking though is you introduce that assault and battery plot line, you have the hook, the mention of Cauldron, even Dr. Mother saying something like, welcome to Cauldron. But then what you can do with fault line screw, because you could have them show up at different times like they do,
Speaker: in the web serial and but have them drop those like those hints in there because that's kind of how Wild Bo does it too. And I think maybe that could fit. So that way you're not trying to introduce a whole new crew of characters, but you meet the crew of characters and they have this brief conversation and cauldron gets mentioned and it pings the audience's mind of saying, wait a second. This has been part of battery story this whole time or assault story. Um, no battery, sorry, battery story this whole time. Um, and And having that using fault lines clue is more of like the ah fault lines crew as the glue droppers. Sorry. That's what I was trying to say. Um, rather than introducing them in the first episode, I think that's an easy cut that you can still.
Speaker: add in as a fun bit later with the merchants and all of that. I agree with that actually. I think that that would actually work well. I don't think they're needed in the first episode. I also think we can reduce their crew. Honestly, Fault Line's crew could just be Fault Line, Nuder, and Gregor. And that could be it with some red shirts thrown in if you want some extra. Isn't
Speaker: labyrinth labyrinths that's the only other one that i labyrinth is and yeah you know we're goingnna get to that lap yeah we cut labin yeah look let's listen it'll make um don't to jump ahead okay ok okay i'll I'll pretend that I didn't just hear that absolute slander. It's really funny. yeah We're going to get to that moment. And it's really funny how the conversation we're having right now about Fault Line is like perfectly paralleling me and Alan's conversation that we had about Labyrinth like two episodes ago. Oh, that's so funny. Yeah. So we get that. No, that's a good insight, Nick. I like that a lot. um I think we probably could trim them down a bit. I could save some time, especially if you wanted to cut them from the first episode. Alan, I'm not letting you speak here. Go ahead and defend yourself because I know you want to keep up. Alan's like, hackles are up.
Speaker: we like in my defense is as we'll continue to see if you are going to have characters you have to have them like woven into the plot and i think that is once again the thesis for this whole season is we have characters They need to be interwoven into the plot to do something. Even if it's not a lot, even if it's like this, they are, they show up with their bags from the airport. They're like, man, Brockton Bay is a shithole now. Like, let's get on, let's get on finding that cauldron shit. That's all we need. 30 seconds tops. Like, and I think just hat for it's, it's not even that
Speaker: We're focusing on them. They are a peppered reminder that this crew is searching for cauldron and we are getting more of cauldron because we we need, I think, I know the audience isn't completely stupid. I think just having a little pepper there every so often just to remind people during what is probably going to be, end up being hour long episodes. Like, oh, if you have a 30 second clip in an hour long episode, once every other episode, I don't feel like that's so much that it's detracting from the rest, but it's enough to just be a reminder.
Speaker: Yeah. And when the executives pick this up and show runners are doing all their stuff, they'll have the option to keep or to cut this in the end. And they'll of course listen to this exact episode and they'll see both sides. That's the right thing. and yeah so but
Speaker: I love that we're at the 50 minute mark and we're just talking about episode one. You got us at Groundwork. Yeah, we knew that the start of the season was going to be the most potential. I'm going to be a killer. I had a coffee and I had a whiskey, so we're good. Here's the thing. We're going to have all of these conversations now because this is all the plot lines. This is all of that. So if you say, I don't like this one now, every time we bring them up in an episode, you don't have to say anything. You just got to go like, Oh, you can just shut the fuck up. Okay. All right. All right. We get it out in the first episode. That way you can be like, all right, I'm going to skip Smeagol every time he shows up from now. I watch the extended cut of the Lord of the Rings.
Speaker: Oh, you're so wrong, but that's okay. and It makes it. It's such a more enjoyable experience. Trust me on this one. going to made alllan It's not, but you're, a yeah I mean, you're wrong. I don't have to look at him. I don't have to hear. Oops. I accidentally muted him. Did we lose Alan? muted Alan. Did you mute Alan? but um No one man should have He can unmute himself when he's ready don't have to listen to Sam and Frodo Sometimes it's needed okay um
Speaker: you know Can I come out of time out now? you
Speaker: There's only a couple things that you know deserve it. Yeah, that was great. That was amazing. right The other thing that you'll want to cut. The only thing you'll want to cut, we're just gonna go quickly do it. When Hannah's done, you know, this is why it ends up going long. She can't fit her shit together. We'd be done by now if Hannah wasn't. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh, that was so funny. Sorry. That was so funny. It's my fault. It's my fault. Thank you for thinking I'm funny. She muted herself.
Speaker: all let's hannah laugh on on care laugh mike lee she's losing she
Speaker: a this is this is quality right here and this is we're go like commercial break
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Speaker: ah All right, we will go ahead and I think that's a good, a good indicator that we're going to move on. I think back to mute yourself again, please. All right. You leave all that in, Michael. So the next thing we would cut is just get rid of the whole lung marquee thing. I do think that probably makes sense to move to a later episode. I agree with that. Um, uh, and actually I was even just, again, as we're talking through this, I think that I kind of know where we'd want to place that. So might put a pin in that, come back to it. Uh, I think I know a better place. We can kind of place some of that, uh, foreshadowing, um, moving on to, uh, we have it as episode two might be episode three when we're all done here. Uh, but, uh, we're going to move on. Uh, Alan, you want to go through this to Jamie now in her new hero costume fights, mad cap.
Speaker: And he makes her look like an idiot before he gets away. Title. Lisa and Taylor are walking towards the undersiders hideout. Lisa is coaching her on what to say. They go inside and they hash out the conversation mostly with grew about rejoining the team. Everybody else is kind of on board, bitch, is somewhat apathetic, kind of always looking out the window. She's very clearly has the dog in mourning, you know, vibe where she's still at the train station waiting for her master to come home, but he never does. um Imp is introduced finally. And Alec is like, well, you know, you're here, Alec, you know, being the sort of jovial, like, doesn't give a crap attitude. He's like, well, I'm okay with it. Gru is the holdout.
Speaker: um And so really this is a conversation between Taylor and grew and everybody else being like, get over yourself, grew. So Brian gets over himself. The weird romantic vibes are finally called out by everyone and Taylor officially joins, rejoins the undersiders. Lisa has a job that has been ah called for ah by the boss. It involves directly confronting the PRT and Taylor and her reveal that they may already have a plan. hard cut to the undersiders, frantically hauling the body of Shadowstalker into a prepared room with wires and strap her down to a chair. They let re let Regent do his thing and they walk out while Shadowstalker is left screaming behind the closed doors. It's very uncomfortable. Back in the birdcage, Dragon is monitoring everything and Lung confronts Baketa in order to earn some cred. He, of course, kills her. Amy,
Speaker: while bopping around the house finds a letter on her mother's nightstand and she is distraught at what she reads and storms out of the house. Back at the undersiders headquarters, the screaming has stopped. Everyone gets suspicious. Taylor sees the door open and Shadowstalker passes through the wall to flicker in the nose and call her a dweeb. While Regent walks out laughing, poppeting her from behind. Shadowstalker is now running, chased by the undersiders. She manages to pick off Lisa, Skitter, and Gru, and Regent before Imp and Bitch escape. With the last one down, she calls in the PRT to come pick them up. Clock blocker and shadow stalker sit inside the PRT van with the undersiders. Shadow stalker kicks at Regent, and they arrive at the headquarters. Weld, of course, sees through the scheme, and the undersiders race inside and lock everyone else out. Like a child.
Speaker: In the PRT, Lisa downloads the data that they are looking for and Dragon, of course, interferes. Meanwhile, Amy is working herself to death at a hospital when someone offers her a bottle of water. Surprise, it's Theo. And they continue to talk about their parents and how Theo is now a bad boy who sneaks away from his, uh, his evil white, you know, supremacy family to come help at the hospital. Cause he's so bad.
Speaker: oh um The undersiders break out only to be cornered by dragon and a mech suit. Skitter whistles and bitch comes crashing through with her dogs to save the day. Dragon's suit overloads and she sacrifices herself to stop it from killing Skitter. Skitter sees that the suit is just a robot and they all escape. Burnscar meanwhile explodes into the paliquin club, disrupting Faultline's crew. They fight her, but Burnscar easily bests them.
Speaker: Is that right? Oh, did we cut? no no yeah you Easily best them leaving only fault line kind of standing upright. Uh, we cut back to the undersiders who have split up, but Lisa asks if Taylor finally wants to meet the boss now that, you know, she's not going to be a hero, uh, to turn in the flash drive herself. but They ride together, change cars into a limousine where The boss is revealed to be bump, bump, bump coil where it didn't see that one coming, did you?
Speaker: at least that's insane but yeah yeah Yeah. Hold for applause. Uh, burn scar. Meanwhile is taunting fault line, picking up a file with the mysterious C logo on it that matches the one on the back of burn scars own hand. And she says, aw, looking for me. then burns it up while yelling after you left me. Burn scar tells her that I'm sorry, fault line tells her that, uh, she didn't abandon her. The burn scar tells her that the S nine took her in, uh, because her family, you know, obviously doesn't care about her fault line says, uh, something in the burn scar disappears. Burn scar breaks down and miss that coming there was a mistake and leaves without, uh, uh, believes the whole place in flames, uh, coil.
Speaker: On the other hand, asks skitter what she wants. He, uh, when skitter says she wants to make the city, you know, nice. Uh, he puts her in charge of a territory. It tells her if she wants to make the city better, she should do it herself and he'll help. She's skeptical. A deal too good to be true, but she accepts back at the undersiders headquarters. Crew asks where bitches and, uh, Um, Alex says something like, ah, she's off in the wild. Like she always is. We're then asked what ever happened to shadow stalker. And Alex says, I let her go like a liar. Shadow stalker walks home and is a bitch to her mom and siblings. She calls up Emma in a panic and confesses that after this near death experience, she's in love with her. And, uh, she's had to get that out. so Of course, Emma is pissed and like hangs up with all that over.
Speaker: Sophia begins talking to herself in the room and it is revealed that it's not Sophia, but still region in control of her. Um, talking through her to her, he makes her tie a noose, gets up on a chair to hang herself, but then steps down and just laughs at her. He threatens to keep having fun with her. If she doesn't make herself scarce, get out of town. and of so Holy shit. That's a lot of memory.
Speaker: Can I just say how ah much I approve of taking out the creepy part where Regent like runs his hands all over Shadowstalker's body? Oh, you're very welcome. you'll You'll notice there's a few, I don't know what to call them, de -sleezifying of some characters that will we'll run into as we go more and more. um I, however, don't This is one of those things where I don't know if we should crank up the fact that Alec is not a good person or tone it down. I don't think think it needs to be cranked up or toned down. like I think that taking out that little bit specifically is probably for the best, but in in all in all, Alec is pretty good at saying things and doing things that are creepy, that are gross.
Speaker: Well, I'll just say they're wrong. like He's a bad person. yes we and And I don't know if we should just make it worse to make it pretty explicit that he is a bad person and not to be liked. like i mean okay but there's some but I was just gonna say isn't the whole point well not the whole point but isn't one of the big themes for worm as a whole is this idea of black and white and good and bad and by painting like if we were to paint Alec to be more so of an asshole like
Speaker: in a way we're not doing that justice of like the weird morally gray in between space. Because yeah like as a reader too, it's the same thing as like, you can't help but like Alex, like sarcas sarcasm and like the way that he's like quippy and interacts with the group, he's very teenager, sulky. like And so you like him for that, he's the stupid annoying teenage brother. But like when and when he does those things, you're reminded of like, oh shit, like and like Almost in the sense of like we don't need to be told he's a bad guy, we just need to be reminded by the things that he does. And like this moment here with Shadow Stalker definitely does that. I mean, the news is fine. like yeah you know like that' You don't have to have him touching or himself herself. Yeah. And then with his own call too. <unk> inside know yeah Exactly. pretty I feel like this season specifically,
Speaker: ah if we were going to, would be essentially showing that Alec is not a good person, like, continually, like, he's there, but he is not, like... Yeah, I mean, yeah, the story already kind of does that, I think. Yeah, yeah. With everything that comes out with Cherish. I'm sorry, Michael. Yeah. No, I was gonna just say that I like what you said, Hannah, because that's what I liked about his character, is that you really like him, and then you're like, wait a second, I forgot how much I'm supposed to know. Because season one, like, barely touches on that.
Speaker: And you're like, Oh, like that was in the past and kind of for the small stuff that you have there. And then you get to this season and I think it should be like, Ew, gross. And I think it does. um It's also worth noting that in in the web serial itself, we get a lot more insight into Alex's character. We get internal monologue. We get background with his abusive childhood. There's a lot more written into his character that gives you sympathy for him. So it's a bit easier to overlook. the grocery stuff he's done when you feel sorry for him. And when you can't portray that on screen as clearly, you got to tone down the gross a bit or else there's we have no, there's no counterweight. Yeah. The balance is off. yeah That's fair. That's fair. Yeah. Nick, what do you think? I'm trying to remember everything. I know. Sorry, I've been softer for a bit. um I think I definitely like the
Speaker: The overall portrayal of everything. Um, yeah, I think Alex is Alec. ah Alec is portrayed villainously enough while still being a likable person. I think you got to make sure with that too, you include in some way, cause Alex does this in in the arc out loud as well. Um, or in the interlude where he is still in shadow stalker, he does say, I know that you're the one who's been harassing like or something to the effect of you've been harassing people at school. Like you're a bully. I think yeah definitely adding in the implication that Alec knows about that, I think is really important and recognizes that this is the person who's been bullying Taylor. Taylor's talked about it. We know about it. Yeah. Good reminder. yeah I just think, yeah, we I think having that reminder that although he's doing a bad thing,
Speaker: he's doing it for a, what I would say is a genuine reason, at least in some sense of like, you know, you've messed with my friend. It's still bad, but yeah. It's bad, but it's got the reason to it. Yeah. That's, you know what, you make a very good point. What's the biggest thing that you guys changed from this? So one one big change you probably caught, because we mentioned it already, is we cut Leviathan. No, way we cut Leviathan completely. He's not in season two at all. No Leviathan in season one. No, we cut labyrinth and extend it and instead put twisted ah put fault line and burn scar having a bit of a backstory um alluding to maybe they work together or even before then were friends before cauldron or through cauldron, et cetera, giving that ah giving that whole element to burn scars story to fault line rather than labyrinth.
Speaker: to again, and this is where I was laughing because we' we're kind of paralleling each other, to eliminate a relatively needless character in the story and the term in in terms of fault line, or God, I can't get my name straight, in terms of a labyrinth. Thank you. And giving more agency to the couple of characters we do want to keep around for the story. yeah um Don't feel like that changes much of what's going on there. yeah um You'll also notice that we are spacing out the the Slaughterhouse 9 interludes where they recruit people. ah We're kind of interjecting them slowly over time and you'll see that continue here. But that's just something else you'll kind of you'll realize we're sort of dotting in as we build up to their reveal.
Speaker: and go Yeah, I do think that maybe if you change it um in the first episode where fault lines crew isn't so significant, then keeping labyrinth isn't as big of a deal. But I understand what the changes you've made, you know, why you've, why you've made them. I don't have to like it, but it does make sense. The other sort of big change, yeah. And we'll kind of move on to the next episode. Yeah. That was good. um We didn't really, truthfully, we didn't change too much here in terms of the story structure. The other big change we've kind of already mentioned from our Season 1 recap, is we did change a little bit of the dynamic between Skitter and Bitch and their relationship. I did notice that.
Speaker: Yeah, so we're we're having them be a bit friendlier overall. um We feel it just kind of aids better to their character development, especially because there's still a lot of tension through this season. Right. um I think the tension for season one was between Taylor and Bitch. Yeah. And is resolved in the Leviathan fight. or season two, I want the tension between Taylor and to grew. Yeah, that makes sense. yeah Yeah. And, and bitches motivation for getting like, uh, feeling ostracized from the group is not a matter of anger. Uh, it's a matter of grief. Um, so we're talking about, you know, we talked about that, like, Oh, you know, it's mentioned in the book, she doesn't grieve dogs like she does people.
Speaker: I think we should actually lean the opposite. I think we should actually go while she does care about people. Um, she like dogs are people to her and she just lost, you know, she just lost some important people. Yeah. And so she is, she is, like I said, it's literal, the, the, the sad dog where like, she's just always just kind of standing there and like, Hey, Hey, Rachel, what's going on? She's like, Oh, I'm just going to go hang out with my dogs. And that's where she gets a new dog. All this stuff that happens to her.
Speaker: It's not a matter of anger. It's a matter of grief. And you guys changed how fast she, um, forgives Taylor, um, in the end of season one, back in season one, she got dog brain, you know, she's like, well, they didn't betray me. So like, it's kind of a moot point. Like you could have bit me, but you didn't. So it doesn't count. No, I think, um, I think that does tie in well, I guess that means then, The moment of betrayal between Taylor and Bitch is taken out of the whole words thing. I don't think you mentioned that, right? Was that Dragon Fight? We did take that out instead having Bitch come to Skitter's Rescue in that moment, which can play in a bit of like a deus ex machina because she's running away at the beginning of the fight. Makes sense if she came back at the end to save them. It's just kind of a little bit of a payoff there. Kind of like that.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm not upset about that change at all. i i I like Bitch and Taylor's relationship and the fact that it is so disjointed in the Slaughterhouse Nine arc in the book is kind of sad for me because I i like the the relationship that they've built in in you know season one. So i like I like the idea of kind of hanging on to that for Bitch's sake with the with you know leaning into the grief. I'm i'm a fan. i'm yeah I thought I was gonna be upset about it. I'm not. I'm really not. I'm glad. there's There's a bunch of things that I will list at the at the end of this that I wish I had put more of. And, you know, it's just more scenes, though small, that I wish that happened. One of them is I wish that Taylor, because she spends so many small moments trying to win bitch over in season one,
Speaker: I really don't want her to give up on bitch in season two, but there's just so much going on. there um I didn't get a chance to kind of write it in, but I want, I really, would really like her to try and like work with bitch in dealing with grief. And at that point in time, we could even bring up the death of Taylor's mother, like an explaining that like, great I think this is a great time to just have a little moments talking about grief and how people handle it. Yeah, I, nope, go ahead. I was going to say, especially on the bet, you've got that. And I think also touching on, uh, like Gallant, Gallant's death. Um, and I took, it I took a little, you know, it's talked about, but you know, it's not like a whole separate scene thing, but I think that, uh, dealing, dealing with grief is something that I wish had been, that I could pepper in more.
Speaker: especially in light of um you know the Leviathan having happened. ah Grief should be a bigger deal. And I just it honestly just didn't get the time to come up with a good way to put it in here. And I think otherwise that would be a major theme of at least the first half of this season. like yeah It's not the whole thing. I think grief fits really well with Amy's arc as well with panacea as character development. So I like that idea. yeah solo za so Assault and battery as well. yeah yeah I will say as well, I love a good smash cut and the smash cut that you included where they're like, Oh, we got a plan to take care of shadow soccer. Smash cut too. I want that so bad. yeah yeah I do love that because because I love how
Speaker: You know, as a reader, we know what's going on. We kind of know what the plan is, but I love the idea of the audience being a little bit unawares and it kind of brings up this feeling of, Oh man, these guys are just goofy kids still. Like they don't know what they're doing. I don't know. They're just something about it. I was like, yeah, this is good. I like it. I like it. know We did play around with me mixing up this entire thing to basically go, uh, confuse the audience on which timeline is which. um where on one hand they are interrogating shadow stalker slash capturing her and whatnot. And on the other shadow stalker you know is in the van like spits on Regent you know after he's been caught just after like we saw the scene where he you know they got left alone in the room with her. The idea being that, oh, she got out, she caught them, she's pissed. And then the the reveal of,
Speaker: you know Uh, he, you know, Alex steps out of the room laughing, you dweeb and then cuts back to weld going, you're not shadow stalker. Like, you know, yeah. This is the first time that we find out that Alec can do this, right? That he can do the whole body thing, yeah yeah which is like, it should feel like a huge reveal, which is like, yeah I like that. I like that moment of us being like, like, holy shit. Like, oh my God. Yeah. Cause up until this point, like I like Alec's power as it was displayed in, you know, I guess what would be season one or the first book of worm, so to speak.
Speaker: um i like I like it because it is so simple and yet he's so creative with it. So the reveal that he can do more with it than we've known is is a big deal. And I like that like the way that was portrayed. And it's cool because you're like, oh, I yeah i really like Alec. He's just this sassy guy. And he's got more powers that I'm going to love him so much. And then you're like, wait a second. He's horrible. This is heartbreaking. Like, I remember that. Yeah. When you first read it, there's a great moment. We have a great opportunity as well. When weld is being given the dossiers for the undersiders and they can be because he says in this, in the story before this happens, this is, we just play this out as written by wild bow. He mentions that, oh, they have a, they have a master. I think he's a six or something like that. Pretty high rating.
Speaker: whichs like a seven Yeah, he's like a master six or seven. And he just casually can say that. And anyone sort of following along with the threat levels can be like, wait a minute, who the hell is a master seven? It's a bitch. yeah yeah yeah Anyway, all that to say, we'll move on next episode. Great thoughts. I did just want to touch on real quickly, one little side benefit of us simplifying ah and and highlighting skitters, moments of of contention and resolution with different characters does a nice job of subtly foreshadowing
Speaker: the long, long game of the whole story of Worm that highlights how selfish Skidder is and how she uses and manipulates people's approval and trust for her own gain by the end of the story. um So developing that early, I think, is a nice way of sort of subtly laying that framework that we're going to build off of. um Anyway, all that to say, on to the next episode. Alan, do you mind if I take this one? ah Go for it. All right. ah Next episode, we have episode three, possibly Ford, but I don't know how we break this all up. Continuing with our cold opens on Battery. ah We have Jamie now as Battery catching Madcap with Legend's help title. Danny Herbert wakes up in a cold, empty house. He goes through his morning routine alone. He goes to work leading the cleanup.
Speaker: I imagine during this whole time, he's probably listening. I think Danny's like a Barbra Streisand fan. I think he's listening. Singing along. I don't know where that came from, but go off. It's just in my head, Canon. It feels right. Yeah. I don't know. and I stand by that. I stand by that. So he goes to work helping to clean up Post Leviathan in the city. That's just another, he's got a little vest on when he spots Taylor. He calls out to her and they spend a brief moment chatting. We then follow Taylor as she finishes her run back into her base, where she has the most evil lair and shows off her magic lightning bug trick. She swivels in her evil chair and the whole place feels empty. Cut to Cherish, making a man drop her off at Regents HQ in his territory.
Speaker: There's the reveal that they are siblings. They have a little control standoff, nice little tension there as Cherish drops just some fuck you to her brother that he's going to get what's coming to him. Cut over to the wards attending college lectures on parahumans. Clock blocker, Glory Girl and Vista have a good conversation as they step outside, not able to focus. Weld interrupts and while the V's leave, the boys have a convo about how weld is such a suck up for the PRT. Weld says he was basically raised by a PRT director. He has doubts too. Block blocker challenges him to start using his access as leader to find out what's going on in the penthouse floor of the PRT building, which we haven't really put this in, but we would sort of be alluding to some roped off zones in the PRT earlier on.
Speaker: um Cut back to Cherish, threatening to blow up the building and leave. Oh, that's right. Put that here. Saying that Saunter House 9 will tear Alec apart. She'll enjoy watching. um Cut to Skidder announcing her territory with her bugs, quickly running the merchants out of town. a Sierra asking for help, getting her brother back ah from the merchants, and Skidder agrees. cut over to Flechette and Perrian visiting Perrian's territory again, and talking about getting her aid and supplies to which Perrian accepts. Fun, cute little scene there.
Speaker: a Cut over to Amy taking care of her dad again when Victoria gets back from hanging out with Vista. Amy comments on how Vista was the sister she always wants, a real hero, and Victoria denies it. They get into a they get into it a little bit on how Amy won't fix Mark because she won't touch brains, kind of laying the foundation further for that. Great scene coming up in a later episode. We get over to Taylor and Lisa deciding to infiltrate the merchant gathering. They save Sierra's brother as well as Charlotte. Gidmark begins a little fight club for powers and Faultline's crew shows up to crash the party. Scrub triggers and we get another glimpse of the entities. ah We have a little note there that we do need to work on how we want to get Faultline there ah just to make that work a little bit better, but that's the idea.
Speaker: And then the see the episode ends with a little cool down at Taylor's territory. Charlotte's officially recruited to join Taylor's crew and Gru pays a visit to Skitter and they have a conversation. A little tense conversation. I have a feeling we'll probably move a little quicker through these middle episodes because there's not really too much we're changing here. We're just sort of organizing things and putting them in place. Pretty well defined already. Yeah. um Something I have a question about because we've talked a little bit about pulling in certain people to stick with us throughout the story and like trading them out. So like Alan's talked specifically about um one of the soldiers, one of Coyle's soldiers. I can't remember his name. And like our have have our like little moment with. Yeah. You got Jaa. Jaa and what's the other one? oh who was ah Who is our hot boy? Who is our hot boy? The medic?
Speaker: Yeah. yeah what you're right Oh my gosh. How do I know? Because we even have... Because this is basically my question. You have them winking at one point with Tattletail and I'm like, go on. Okay. but is My question though, my question though, before we get to sidetrack, is is this them going to t to the merchants? Yes. They're going with those boys, yes? Yes. Of course they're going with those boys. With the soldier boys. Of course they are. I just wanted to to make sure because i I love that tying them back in because we've had them before, we've worked with them before with Bakura and ah kind of everything that's gone on there with all the sniper stuff and, you know, coils guys. And now that we're working for coil, we get to see them a lot more. And that's very exciting.
Speaker: um That was my question. And I, that's all. Sorry, sorry. I don't have my brain. I think my brain stopped halfway through that. Something happened. I think something happened. No, no, that's, uh, no, my, yes. Senegal, Senegal, Senegal, and Brooks, and Brooks, Brooks. Yeah, but basically are they here? Yes, they are. I'm so, I'm so glad that's, that's And I think any time that we are with Lisa or maybe with Coyle, they're there. They're walking around in the background. They're handing stuff to Coyle. They are present, even if they're not getting a proper scene. I love it. I'm here for it. I love them too much. I got way too excited about remembering that name. Such a good job, Michael. Senegal is a cool name. But you didn't look it up. You just remembered it?
Speaker: Yeah. i like as is s biggergger very and i couldn't think about anything else How could you forget Michael? It's your middle name. ah Yeah. I wish it is now. It is now. Oh my God. ah wait to do yeah like that Yeah. No. Uh, okay. Cool. Cool beans. Uh, how many, how many episodes do we have? Uh, four, I think. for Okay. Okay. Okay. i You're going to be like, yes, we have 12 more. Yeah. This will be, end up being like a seven or eight episode season. I think we'll probably go eight or nine, especially if you split up the first episode a bit, but ah yeah. so So the episodes are longer as they should be, but yeah ah it'll end up being less episodes potentially than the first season. Um, before we move, I do have actually one question before we move on. Um,
Speaker: um Did I miss it? I might've missed it. Do we have a, a, uh, slaughterhouse nine bit in this episode? Cherish. Cherish. we chair all Thank you. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Cherish. Okay. Good. I just, I, I, yeah, I forgot that's what that works. Good. ah it's get We moved to episode four. Into episode four. I'm gonna just keep playing this game with you, Alan. Oh my gosh, it's so great. So much fun. Figure out who gets to go. No, it's my favorite. No, go ahead. Please take it away. Oh, no, no, no, no. I got to do two episodes. You do two episodes. Oh, thank you. You're so kind. Okay. You're welcome. This is the episode we kill, Hannah. Once I start laughing, I cannot stop. There's no end to it.
Speaker: So moving on with episode four, another cold open on Battery and Legend, sitting down with a detained madcap as he makes a plea deal to be a hero. and It's just worth putting a little caveat here. Obviously the idea that where we choose to cut that interlude up will depend on how many episodes we have and where we want it to break. But that's the idea here is that we're going with little cold opens of assault and battery storyline. ah Title sequence. Open on Hookwolf and the Chosen versus Shatterbird. Open right on an action scene. Hookwolf calls for a meeting to discuss the Nine's presence in the city following the fight and Shatterbird handling most of his crew. ah Cut to bitch at her territory. Gets a call from Lisa to return to Undersiders HQ to prep for a meeting. On her way there, she runs into Siberian and is gifted bastard. A half wolf pup.
Speaker: Cut to Glory Girl and Brandish leaving Amy and Mark home when Bonesaw shows up with Hackjob. Cut to the hero and villain meeting to discuss the nine targeting their groups. ah The travelers and undersiders are kicked from the meeting. The heroes and villains meet at the old diner for their meeting and Lisa gets outed for using very specific end of world numbers. Weld deduces that the travelers and undersiders worked together to kidnap Dinah, a girl with predictive powers. Taylor glares at Coyle, who says nothing. Lisa and Trickster take the blame, and they leave. Cut to Bonesaw testing Amy, who kills three of her monstrosities, before Bonesaw makes her use her powers on Mark to heal his brain injury. Back at his base, Coyle is walking with the travelers in Dinah when she tells them that the death percentage is imminent. Coyle forces her to answer questions, and they decide the safest thing is to hide with Noelle.
Speaker: who up to this point I don't think has been named. That's definitely why. The undersiders show back up to base and Jack and some of the nine show up. There's a tense confrontation and Tattletail puts together the pieces that they are about to attack the city. Jack slashes Tattletail's face and says now they have to move their timeline forward and gives Shatterbird the go ahead to sing. The travelers hide in the vault with Noelle as they tensely hear crawler outside while hearing Dinah's numbers. Skidder rushes home doing what she can to alert the people of immediate danger. She makes it home just as Shatterbird's blast reaches them. Cut to the wars and protectorate cleaning up around the HQ. Weld follows up on a hunch and sneaks upstairs in the chaos.
Speaker: While everyone is preoccupied, getting systems back online, Weld gets the chance to sneak into the penthouse floor only to find it empty, but with signs of a separate struggle and signs of arms master. Ooh, I want to interject right here real quick. Taylor at this point in time goes into the house ah to find that her dad is, uh, of generally unhurt, but you know, uh, a little bit injured, you know, calls for help, all of a sudden paramedics are there helping her. You know, one of them hands her her mask or something like that and goes like, you need to be more careful. Surprise, it's Brooks in disguise. And they safely get, cause Lisa sent sent them ahead. I love it. Yeah, that's true. Yep. You have to help.
Speaker: and yeah Everyone's favorite soldier boy. There you go. exact Exactly. and We didn't have that written down, but I remember that. Much like Taylor running home to save her dad, I was running ahead in the thing and couldn't get there in time to type it. So I had to take off my mask and interject. Anyway. Beautifully said. Back to Jacob. Back to Weld, ah he is putting together the pieces, spots an open vent, and we get a flashback of Colin working with Dragon as he's under house arrest, keeps hearing noises. He identifies that it's coming from the vent and Mannequin unfolds it and attacks him. Armistmaster fights Mannequin who taunts him and holds up a piece of glass to compare the two of them. Armistmaster pulls out his nano knife and is seemingly killed.
Speaker: well confused on why the nine would target a disgraced prisoner, sees the keyboard tile spelling out, quote, like me. We get a quick shot of the travelers opening the vault to see all the destruction and shattered glass. But of course they were safe inside the vault. And we have a short post credits scene for this episode of Jack slash gathering the nine together outside of the merchant base to have a chat and then sending them off all out to murder all of the merchants. Okay. And episodes. I don't know if that needs to be a post credit scene. I think we could just end it with, yeah, we could probably just end with that scene. Yeah, that's fair. Yeah. I mean, we haven't had, have we had post credit scenes? No, we're not, we're not really doing post credit scenes. So, uh, yeah, just the last scene, final scene. We needed to, we could probably go ahead and like look for some interludes to like grab an interspersed if we wanted to, but I don't think we need them.
Speaker: So I will ask a question to our i yes please comrades here. um So we have run into a bit of an issue where we are trying to slowly build up to the slaughterhouses nine the Slaughterhouse 9s announcing their arrival via Shatterbird, right? And we want to build that up with the interjections of the interludes where they are recruiting ah different members. We feel like that's a nice way of just slowly building up to them. But we, as you could tell, get to a point in this episode where we're like, oof, we got a few more of those interludes to throw in. So here they go. And so we've kind of thrown in, as best we can, the remaining interludes
Speaker: to get the point across that all the nine make an appearance before Shadowbird sings. But does it feel a little rushed?
Speaker: yeah Or do you and do you think it works? I think it works. um Because in the previous two episodes, you had Cherish, and then you had Burnscar. In one episode before that, they were separate. ah This one has three ah instances of it before Shatterbird sings. So I think my one, if you did change anything, I think separating Arms Masters from the rest would probably be the best one to choose. Yes, i that was my note. It's the best one, so. Well, it's the best one, but I think that's why it could stand better on its own as well. No, that's what I'm saying. Yeah, right yeah exactly. So I think
Speaker: I think that might be the best option if you wanted to, but it's okay. Okay. That's good. I think generally though, i I think it works really well. Just hearing it didn't seem like it was too busy, just conceptually, but seeing it, I guess is different. So I don't know. I didn't realize until, uh, this scene and I'll think, I think I'll look back through the book again, but I'm trying to remember how often we see the slaughterhouse nine all together. Like I know there's a few times they're on the street. I think maybe they're all together for when they attack them, like with the travelers, but I, I'm trying to think if all, you know, eight of them were even there or if like one of them was missing at the time. Yeah, it's not often.
Speaker: No, they're not often. I don't even, I think the only scene that we see them together in worm is when they get attacked on the street by yeah either that or when they're at the merchant base and mannequin finally shows back up. Yeah. like Yeah. Oh yeah. When they, when they attack the merchants, that's everybody. yeah Yeah, they're all there. Really wanted to have that scene because at least in this, like, like, like I said, I wasn't sure if they even ever had a sequence where they were all together. We need this moment where like this, we've built to it. Here are all nine of them. They're all in one shot that you can look at them together. And then he's like, go cause chaos. I think that would be a great episode opener. Yeah. As opposed to an Ender. As opposed to an Ender, yeah.
Speaker: Like maybe, uh, maybe ending this episode with Shatterbird and with all of that, right? ah But you still haven't seen them all together. And then having an episode open with, uh, Skidmark getting in the merchants, just getting obliterated by them as a way to remind them like, Oh, not only can, you know, Shatterbird individually do this, this is the whole group and how dangerous they are. right That could be one way you could do it. Yeah. Okay. I mean, i'm making um up till now, we've we've talked quite a bit about like the slaughterhouse nine and the potential danger and like how bad they could be, but we don't really know until we know and like.
Speaker: I mean, obviously becomes very clear once the tests start, once any of the fighting actually starts, once Shatterbird sings. But I like the idea of, um I think specifically Mannequin and Arms Master's conversation. It almost feels like we're doing it a disservice by having it at ah as a flashback. um ah We've talked about flashbacks before and how they can feel kind of ah corny yeah to the story. I i'm i don't know, I'm 50 -50 on flashbacks in general, but for this, I feel like it's too important of a thing for it to be a flashback. But I do like the idea of weld, you know, going past the ropes or whatever and going upstairs and realizing that like arms master is gone. So we could potentially you could still potentially have that interaction, but instead of ending it with like,
Speaker: Ah, yes, arms master you know is in the hospital after interacting with mannequin. You just kind of like leave it and we don't know what happens. And then later, when Weld comes up after Shadowbird, we realize like, oh, shit, like he's gone. Like maybe he's been gone and we don't know how long kind of a an idea. But leaving that as like a separate that that that conversation being separate from you know Weld coming in and then the flashback happening. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I just imagine a slow pan as like weld is looking around. He sees the, the, the vent that's, you know, kind of off it's, you know, hanging there and it's a slow zoom into that. And then.
Speaker: you hit that moment where it switches to like nighttime the night before, and then it becomes a slow zoom out staring at like exactly the same framing. Yeah. It's the same shot out. But it's not all messed up. It's all like yeah clean. Cause it's all dark. Yeah. I mean, like comes with the horror movie scene where he's just, you know, working away. And ah it be I think in that way it would feel like less of a flashback and more like, like I know Yeah. It is a flashback, but it would feel less like a flashback and more like a separate scene. There's no flash, so. Yeah. Just a back. Just a back. It's a scene chronologically before this time. I don't know what you would call that, but... A before -for time. You want it to be quick, so it's kind of like a... Just a little bit, maybe. A burst. Like a splash. Yeah, like a splash. A rapid recap.
Speaker: Oh, yes. there you go A back shot, if you will. Oh, no. Oh, Yes. That's it, Michael. We got to do a back shot with Arms Master. Oh, no. Okay. Well, no that's ah that's as that some good insight. I talked i hate flashbacks so much. There are times when it can be tastefully done. I did so i did wrestle with how well how best to put an Arms Master scene, but we might still play around with that a bit, I think. Maybe we can move that around a little bit. We'll see. Yeah, I mean, you can have it in there. You could you can always have like a tasteful flashback. And I and i see the cinematic ah framing that Alan's talking about. like That makes sense. I just don't like it. And that's my emotional reason, Alan. I just don't like it. And since so much of media is feeling the vibes. Okay.
Speaker: and and I'm just picking on you now. I'm just picking on you now. No, but I feel like there's so much chaos happening that having that happen earlier just feels better paced, to be honest.
Speaker: We could almost look at it like the like the scene in The Two Towers, ah where Aragorn is retracing Mary and Pippin's steps when they think they're dead, but then he's realizing that they're alive, he's following their their their steps, because Mary and Pippin, to the audience, the last we see of them is getting caught in that crossfire, and the assumption is that they're, we know they're not dead, but the assumption is that they're dead. to the characters. So you could do something like that, where maybe we have a bit with Armsmaster beforehand, talking with Dragon, and then Mannequin enters, and the scene is abruptly cut, maybe with a scene that makes it makes it look like Mannequin stabs him or something like that, you know, playing off of that. And then once we get weld into the room, he's sort of retracing the steps, putting the pieces together, and then we can tastefully flashback to the rest of the scene and how it plays out.
Speaker: There are two other sequences that I would love to parrot with. I would love to parrot with Bonesaw and Amy. I think those thematically go well together because they're just you know very horrifying and they're these struggles where they're in their home territory. This home invader has come in and it's a very you know horror movie. I'm running away from the villain, but I'm also trying to face them kind of thing. ah Or you do it with the crawler sequence. Cause that's also a very horrifying monster sequence. So I think it'd pair well with those. Like, so we could just do it earlier. Yeah. Yeah. close others Yeah. That could work. yeah I like it. I'm going to put some notes down. Good stuff.
Speaker: You know, well, this so comes up at the end and it's like, uh, well, what happened here? Yeah, I definitely like weld kind of coming up and that being revealed of like, Oh shit. Like arms masters gone. I like that a lot. Yeah. Like for number one, he goes up there. He's got to figure out if, you know, he realizes, Oh, they were hiding arms master up here. yeah That's, you know, what was on the penthouse room. That's where arms master was like, we we you know Because we don't know what happened to him. It's implied from the lung sequence they talk about. Oh, arms masters in indefinite confinement. yeah And then we immediately cut to lung. Yeah, it's a plane heading somewhere in prison. Yeah, yeah something a birdcage. Because that is something that's skitter actually. Doesn't skitter say something about that? like
Speaker: Mention that like, well, they can't put them in the birdcage. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. She's done something kind of. There's a lot of stuff. I mean, we talk about this. This is a lot of cuts that I have put from scene to scene is we're doing this. Uh, the example would be, uh, when Marquis asks about his daughter, we immediately cut to shadow stalker. Right. Right. Yeah. Um, because shadow stalker is bad. Marquis is a bad guy. Like, you know, yeah We could misdirect that direction by not saying it. We're just moving from scene to scene, but it yeah i I am intentionally implying to the audience that, oh, Shadow Stalker might be Marquis' daughter. Like yeah the same way we had the whole ah conversation about like, we go, gee, who are the murderers? I mean, probably bitch. And who else could it be? Alec immediately goes, hey guys, what are you doing?
Speaker: Right. It's that. I'm not telling you, but I'm literally grabbing your face and pointing you at the election. Isn't that interesting? Yeah. yes Well, let's go ahead and keep moving. We've got a few more episodes to go. I feel like the next couple might be kind of similar, a couple changes, but nothing too drastic. And then we can spend some time on our finale, which will be a bit of work. Not a bit of work is just a longer episode. We'll see how it goes.
Speaker: episode five five yeah alan take take this one not take the next two and then she guys say so I think I actually should introduce this one. um Yeah. Nick and I'll do it. Read off the recap. Yeah. That we've shared. So we open on a sex scene between arms master and mannequin. me I'm glad you, you already, you're already done. Can I can i guess on we open with an assault and battery scene? ah Dang it. You're so right. yeah've We've opened with a assault and battery scene every single... Technically, what Arms Master and Mannequin are doing to each other could be considered assault and battery. Oh no. He brought the assault and then he brought the battery. Oh my God. He had the reach. Mannequin had the flexibility.
Speaker: oh no Okay. Okay. Jack slash has the reach oh that's oh him with his long knife. I was going to go with, uh, with, with arms masters telescoping pole arm. That's true. That's true. That's true. I mean, mannequin is literally made of whips and chains. So oh yeah. And and Arms Master's ability is literally he's like a grower, you know, because he can pack so much in. So warm in here. It's so warm it suddenly got so warm in here. Yeah. There has to be like the yeah welds wellls over here like and doing the numbers. He's like there was an attack. There will be battle was epic. Meanwhile, it's just cuts to a.
Speaker: hardcore sex. This must have been one hell of a fight. like Yeah. Fuck blockers. Like, yeah, well, that's definitely what the evidence leads to. Yeah. Well, it's just a really bad. He's really bad everywhere. Okay. All right. This must be what mannequin uses to keep his part to greased. Exactly. ah That's airtight itself every time. All right. Got to get to work on that fan. Oh, yeah. Well, I'm going to apologize and advance if I ever actually do that. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. So I mean, I'll read it, but I won't be happy about it. Episode five.
Speaker: um one One quick. thing I want to change on this that I looked before, uh, up until this point, I would like to have Jamie has never been called by name. And the outfit that she has even as a hero is outdated. Um, so we do not recognize this character either Jamie or madcap until we get to episode five where. Uh, I believe during episode, what was episode four is one where they did the plea deal. next Yeah, we're at the next point in the story. And so it'll be obviously whatever the next scene is. Battery goes on patrol with the newly minted assault mad caps hero persona. She makes a deal that she'll go on a date with him if he does the children's event. And as it turns out, he's great with kids title.
Speaker: Weld arrives at the Dalin House crime scene to see the outlines and bodies on the floor. He asks a Mark who is doing surprisingly well now if he knows why Bonesaw was there. And Mark says he doesn't know like a liar, but Victoria is out looking for her sister right now. Weld points out that that is a dead hack job on the floor and Hatchetface was the ninth member of the Slaughterhouse -9. But judging from him now, he looks like he was dead before he ever got here. So where the hell is their current ninth member? Skitter, meanwhile, is organizing the wounded in her territory, trying to help everyone she can, but she doesn't have the full respect of the people. Mannequin shows up and they fight. Taylor's victory helps cement her hold on the territory. um Cut in to the imp scene, maybe even in the middle of the fight.
Speaker: Sneaking in and attempting to kill the slaughterhouse nine, uh, but getting caught fault line reluctantly calls Lisa for more information on the nine and the hand tattoo. Lisa susses out that burn scar. Uh, and we can edit this later may be fault line sister. What?
Speaker: Yeah, the whole family and abandoning thing didn't tip you off before. wow Keep going. Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, we could fix that. Um, mannequin pulls, yeah, mannequin pulls out arms masters, nano knife mid fight, but skitter disarms him and begins to cut him with it. Uh, this causes her, you know, her to basically win the fight with mannequin. He runs away like a little bitch. And as he's, as soon as he's gone, Taylor collapses. Um, and we get what I would like to think is a small spider man to seen here, but maybe it's just forest coming over and helping her.
Speaker: Uh, Brian arrives at skitters territory to find her injured and get maybe getting patched up by Sierra and Charlotte. Um, and they discuss possible other recruits to help out with fighting the nine. The undersiders have a meeting where they decide they need to be more aggressive against the nine and seek out the protect or for assistance. Uh, who of course has legend there now, and he declines to help. The undersiders and travelers ambushed the nine, capturing Cherish and Shatterbird, but Gru is captured in return. Lisa tells the palanquin team that the slaughterhouse and nine are now heading to ah their like secret location, which is somewhere in Perian's territory. Uh, fault lines crew immediately rolls up in a van and storm it only to not leave the building. ah Victoria.
Speaker: finds Amy, Amy tries to get her to leave her alone and she overdoes it, making Victoria irrationally hate her. Victoria feeding off of that hatred is super upset that Amy messed with her head after all this. And ah even when she refused to before um and like broke that rule and fixed Mark as well. And that is where we end episode five. Okay. Lots of thoughts. Yeah. Um, again, I've definitely a very packed episode, but if these are hour long episodes, I think that it will, it'll go by quickly. So it'll feel more appropriate, um, to have that much content in a single episode, but I like it.
Speaker: and Like I don't really have any particular notes. Yeah. We are sort of like reading scene cards essentially right now. Yeah. Where there's really only like one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, like maybe 12 scenes in the episode, which isn't a lot when you think about it. Yeah. Um, but yeah, it kind of went as you read them back to back. It's, they sound a little, uh, a little busy. Um, it's good. No, please go ahead. No, no, I have, I have no thoughts. No thoughts. No thoughts that empty. um i just to Just to make sure I heard you correctly, when you said that that Amy messes with Victoria's head and makes her angry, are g are yeah are we keeping what's happening? Or are you do you mean, did did you like gloss over that?
Speaker: casually because you know, we know, or were you, are we changing that? That's my question. So we are changing that. Uh, yeah, I can, I can, uh, I don't mind taking this one. but Absolutely. You are a little bit stronger. A little bit more strongly on this in particular. So, um, this is a long story short, not, we don't really need to dwell on it too long. I think this is a bit of a problematic character moment for Amy. ah personally. ah This is a little reinforced by even things that Wild Bo has said in the past where he's not too happy with the way audiences have interpreted Amy and ah Victoria's relationship and the problems there.
Speaker: At the end of the day, it ends up being a bit of negative representation for a community that already struggles to be appropriately represented. Right. Now, the trade -off is that Worm does have good representation, Parian and Flechette. It's implied that Legend's husband is at least a good dude and they've got a good relationship. But ah beyond that, it's... I'm not a member of that community. It's not in my place to speak for it, but i so I have a lot of close friends in that community. And it's very, very, very hard to walk that line well and not to come across as ah
Speaker: belittling or insulting or degrading to an already attacked community. and So with that, I do i do think I feel ah kind of strongly on that. I think it's worth reworking, but not changing the impact of what's happening. And what's happening is that Victoria ah is initially trying to comfort Amy because her sister was just attacked by a psychopath. realizing that Amy did break her ah did break her rule to save Mark's life because she was pushed to her limit, but she could have at any point. And the fact that she didn't makes Victoria angry.
Speaker: because he's like, why did you not fix my dad? You had the power, you were able to do that. That bit of tension calls amy causes Amy to reach out, touch her sister, try to calm her down, but backfires and pisses it it paces Victoria off even more. I think that conveys the same issues there. it still makes There's a lot of tension between them ah without without going down the road of, ah you know, confuse lesbian, for lack of a better word. yeah um Which I don't think - We even talked about doing, ah just, you know, she's trying to get, ah she she wants to stay in her little you know whirlpool of negative emotion. So she needs to leave me alone. But as she's like going like, leave me alone, Victoria, I want to sulk, you know, and she wants her sister to go away to stop, you know, trying to comfort her.
Speaker: yeah She lashes out with her power and causes her to want to go away from her sister. yeah And basically she wants her to hate her um the same way that Amy hates herself. and um you know and And then that just feeds into all the other things. It is a it is still a a violation of bodily autonomy. It still you know presents most of the other problems you have. You'll still get all the other issues. And if we want to revisit this as a problem in the future that is built upon, like, you know, when we've essentially got better representation built up in this, that we can go like, ah, the one main, you know, queer character here.
Speaker: isn't the only one, then we can like make her more problematic. But for right now, having it just be this feels more comfortable. and Yeah. And I and think there are occasionally some things that wild bow does kind of just for shock factor, for lack of a better word or phrase. And the situation with Amy is definitely one that can feel that way. where it kind of feels more like, okay, was this really necessary? to I mean, obviously it's a it's an interesting point and i do um I do agree that it's worth thinking about how to represent this part of Amy's story um in a healthy way, but i I completely understand losing it for the reasons you've mentioned.
Speaker: And that's a great way of putting it, Nick, because ah both in the story as written in Worm, and if it was to be translated one for one for television, this would come out of left field completely. It does come out of left field. yeah it's ah It's a shocking moment in the story. And that's really hard to do well if you don't want to foreshadow it or build up to it. And just to just to shock the audience with, oh, she's secretly in love with her sister the whole time. like it's yeah yeah It's hard to sell. It's hard to sell. It's tricky. I'm not a good enough writer but to to try to make that one. No, no. i I think that it's... i think i think I think you have a good point. Well, thank you.
Speaker: yeah Yeah, no, um no, no real complaints with changing that. I think we even talked about that in our um main podcast, talking about the discomfort that that scene creates in the story. And while, while you do want to have some shock factors in there, I think. Yeah, I don't know, because on on one hand, though, I'm going to I'm going to play devil's advocate for a second. um We want to understand why the nine has picked who they have right in their recruitment efforts. And up until this point, we don't necessarily understand why they've picked Amy. Uh, and I think that this moment is obviously meant to be a moment where it realizes, Oh,
Speaker: where we realize as a reader or as an audience, oh, that's why she's capable of doing stuff like that. And I don't know if having her just become angry hits the same as having her do what she does. I'm not saying that we necessarily need to make Victoria fall in love with Amy, you know, as the way that the story originally was. I don't know. There's just a part of me that wonders, is there a way that we can have a similar emotion without... I don't know. It's a good point though. It's a good point though. um Because we do want to see the so sort of evil side of of Amy here. Yeah. No, that's a good point. Actually, I'm gonna make a note about that. Maybe can play around with with that scene a bit.
Speaker: Yeah. yeah because Like I said, I think we could evolve on this where like she's going to have more opportunities. And I think, you know, as she slips further and further, yeah we can have her even maybe have a conversation with Taylor or somebody where she has a moment and she's like, you know, I, you know, I love my sister and they're like, ah yeah, like obviously she's your sister. And she's like, no, you don't understand. Like, It's really complicated. You guys wouldn't get it. And you're like, you're right. We don't get it.
Speaker: Yeah. so good pay I definitely, I definitely see what you're saying. in regards to this whole thing. And I also agree with Nick that the the it it doesn't feel like it's enough, like there needs to be more happening there. And I i agree with you that I think, you know, if we have our, are are for lack of a better term, one of our main characters here,
Speaker: And her, you know, her interaction with the audience as a lesbian is the crazy sister loving mind fucking like it's very creepy and it's not good representation at all. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's very it's. yeah But. Reverting it into just like the hatred doesn't feel strong enough. Unless we played it up. Even more so for the like, you've betrayed, you know, Victoria being like, you've betrayed not just me as your sister, but like this family by not like taking so long to help him. And like maybe even playing up more on the idea of like, okay, well, you took forever and you needed all of this at convincing and you had to be pushed to your limit to like help dad. But then just now,
Speaker: because you were slightly uncomfortable because I was questioning you, like you broke your rules again. like yeah I think maybe maybe if we leaned more on the idea of like where you know where do your loyalties lie? like playing I don't know, playing into something that would push Amy further. Because Amy, by the time we see her again, after she's been chased by Siberian, she is like she she hates herself. you know yeah yeah and it's not it's not I don't feel like it's an enough for it to be just like, oh, you know you cranked up a little bit of anger, emotion in Victoria's head. like
Speaker: yeah i I don't know exactly what it would be, but I think that I am and i am not opposed to changing the the romantic vibe between them, but it would just need we need to put something else there that's more than just, she messed with her emotional dials. That's good, that's a good point. I think that failure rejection is a good idea. Yeah, yeah like playing with it, especially... I'm sorry. No, I was just going to say, I could even see, um, if you wanted to emphasize that Amy was the one who did something, one of the things that you could do would be to have Victoria chasing after Amy. Like we see like Victoria trying to be understanding like, look, I'm upset, but I get it. Like bones all just came at you. You're under duress. And then Amy touches her. And I think maybe that shift would be enough. Um, I would even say like, I don't know, just maybe have Victoria just outright puncher or something.
Speaker: Just like have a switch from her like going for a hug or like trying to like embrace her to just an all -out punch. And then even Victoria's name, what? Maybe not an all -out punch. Not like an all -out punch, obviously. Amy's face would be polarized. But like a hit, right? You know, something to say, oh, that's more than just. Like a massive shot that like throws her back 10 feet, you know. And then even having Victoria say, I don't understand why I did that. Yeah. Could be interesting. Good stuff. No, those are great. That's some great, great notes there. Definitely work on that scene a bit. Make sure that comes across. Thank you. I did have another thought about this episode, but we spent so much on Amy. I don't remember what it was. In other words, we didn't change too much. It was probably the burn scar being a fault line sister. We weren't playing around with that. Well, we're not settled on everything yet. I'll be honest, most of those is how do we get
Speaker: them and more integrated into, uh, into this, into this and the world, because as we continue to have the case 53s and, uh, and cauldron be an evolving thing, like they, they do need to sort of begin taking a more, uh, important approach. Um, and like like they need to be more front forward. And I think having them start off as sort of a D plot and then, you know, make work them into almost a B plot, you know, by the time we get to two seasons from now ah will be very important.
Speaker: i I agree with the whole peppering them in and moving them up that list, but I still feel like they could still be taking a CD plot in this arc and then move up a little bit more in the next season and then more in the next season. It just feels, I i still feel like it it feels like a pretty big jump. A big difficulty here is also like, so we're familiar with Arms Master, even if he's gone, So the showing him like once when, you know, mannequin comes to get him, isn't out of the question. We've also been talking about him, having burn scar come out of kind of nowhere to we like talk to this group feels odd. And so we were trying to incorporate that with like, Oh, she essentially lets on that she is a case 53 maybe and
Speaker: that is one of the reasons her sister, you know, has this hard on for case 53s. Like that's why she takes in neuter and Gregor and is like helping them find cauldron is because she knows her sister was abducted. And then, you know, this is her realizing like, Oh my gosh, like, found out that she's, you know, a member of the slaughterhouse nine.
Speaker: Yeah, like I said, i'm not I am not at all stuck on that. That is by far the weakest thing we have in here. I actually, I'm not upset about making that like a so that that a sister connection. I'm i'm not upset at at making that leap. I just still don't feel like the travelers haven't, not the travelers, I'm sorry. the um Fault Lines crew has enough of a purpose in this season other than we need to you know pull them forward a little bit more for the seasons to come. like i I feel like there have been plenty of shows or movies that... Well, I guess not movies. There have been plenty of shows that have had to pull in characters that are important to the the overall plot later on that take a backseat for a while. So like I don't think that there's necessarily anything wrong. And I don't mean get rid of them entirely because you you really can't with all the different
Speaker: ah you know nominations for the Slaughterhouse Nine, but I still think having ah them take a back seat for now, like there's nothing wrong with that because we do the same thing with, like well, like we kind of do the same thing with Hookwolf. Hookwolf kind of gets pushed to the back, even though in the end, he becomes one of the members. But like we kind of don't care about Hook Wolf. In the book, we have his interlude, but other than that, like and then he's there at the meeting. but like And so my thought is is just because they're important later on doesn't necessarily mean they have to have a big play in this season.
Speaker: that's a good That's some good insight. ah Especially if we could potentially play up that family dynamic with like Amy and Victoria more. I would almost argue on the side of like amping up some of these other relationships. and let fault lines sit in the background so that when we do get more and more into Cauldron, we're still familiar with them because obviously we know them and, you know, oh yeah, theyve they got nominated and they've been here and we know them from season one from Fighting Bakutah. But they they don't take a forefront because they don't need to. And like we use season two to focus on Amy. Focus a lot on Amy. ah Focus a lot on Weld. Focus a lot on the dynamic between Taylor and Brian. And then use the next season, you know season three or season four, because honestly, I don't remember what comes next after this. ah But use that season of like, okay, now we're going to bring
Speaker: fault line up further, fault lines crew up closer and closer to the lens. Yeah, that's good that's a good point. That's simply something I want to look at and take a step back and and kind of review all of that. ah Nick brought up Avatar Last Airbender earlier, which made me think because you were talking about this. That's a three season show. We don't see Toph, like everybody's favorite character, or Fire Lord Ozai until the second season. They are not in the first season, which is hilarious to me when I think about that. ah didn yeah to Which is why I almost always skip the first season.
Speaker: But no, just to reiterate your point, Hannah, that's true that you don't you don't have to have every character and always relevant. I think jacob Jacob was making the opposite point of that, Alan. He was like, yeah, that's why we can do it. And you're like, yeah, that's why I hate it. I mean, it's not I didn't say it's why I hate it. yeah i just okay i just And to skip. almost everything except for like I skip straight to the uh to the to the big you know koi pond water fight and that's how I kick off my watch of Avatar. Literally one of my favorite conversations with Alan is always like we start a show and I'm like okay so you don't like this am I good to watch this without you like because he's like I can't I can't watch this like okay cool I'll watch it without you then.
Speaker: All right, moving along. Alan, do you want to take us through episode six? Keep us moving here. Oh, keep us moving. Episode six. Ahem. A now married assault and battery are preparing for work at their place. Battery receives orders from Cauldron to let Manton Escape. Okay. I do have to pause here, Ellen. I apologize. Uh, I apologize because you said that and it reminded me and we have not mentioned this at all. And this plays so heavily into why we wanted to feature fault line a bit more this season. And I hate myself because we're just talking about this. Yep. You can tell I realized it as I was reading as you're saying i knew it.
Speaker: So there's a reveal at the end. We talked about this and in the Brockton Bay Book Club just recently, because we finished up ARC 14. There's a reveal at the end that the protectorate via Cauldron has been lying to members of the protectorate that the ah Case 53s have been a rogue sort of spy, putting putting vials out into the world. And they drop in there that the they've been telling everybody that it's the estranged Dr. Manton, who was a former member of the PRT, who was doing this on his own. That is a fascinating plot point that is just dropped into the story in Legends Interlude. um What a fun thing that we could be building on because, because and Alan, I've just jumped all over you. I'm so sorry. No, no, no, you go off. Go off. because Because we get this huge reveal that Siberian is Manton's projection. That reveal means nothing if the audience doesn't give a crap about who Manton is. He's just another dude. So like you have to build up Manton as this character before that reveal and dropping hints that he is this this mysterious Dr. Manton has been stealing cauldron vials and shipping them out into the world.
Speaker: That's how the merchants get them, uh, in that, in the fight. where scrub sign Yeah. Yeah. And the mall. all the honest Right. So we need to be like dropping that periodically. That's what triggered our initial thought of like, Oh, maybe we could get fault lines crew in this a bit more often. They're kind of keep that plot line moving. Um, so anyway, that to throw a wrench in everything we just discussed. No, no, I think that's good. yeah know i yeah good agree It strengthens a weak storyline. I think like that, that is something we, you know, That you're right. It's, it's something that I genuinely think should have been talked about more in worm. Yeah. That, you know, needs to be explored in this where like fault line and our crew are traveling around sometimes, which means they're gone. You know, they're here. They're trying to track down this Dr. Manton because they know that like, that's where the case 53 is from. They are certain that if they can find him, maybe he can undo it. Maybe he, they can get answers about who they were. Yada yada.
Speaker: And then we, you know, we get the reveal that like, Oh, you know, Manton is Siberian. And then very quickly we can, you know, we could even have fault line put together. Uh, that doesn't add up. Right. Because it's a double reveal that Manton is Siberian and that Manton isn't a rogue agent distributing the vials. Cauldron's doing it intentionally. And that all gets that's all a big... We're going to get to it in a couple of episodes here. But that's like a big season ah you tag at the end that leaves a lot of the mystery growing for the audience. um So we want and we want to make sure that that hits at the end of the season.
Speaker: my My comment with that would be though, is that like as the reader, because like you said, Ellen, it's not really talked about much in the book either. The only reference that we have as a reader, going into it for the first time, with Manton is the phrase Manton effect being used over and over and over and over and over again. So when when we do finally get to this idea of like, oh, Siberian is actually Manton. We don't have that frame that like that frame of reference. It's not as big to us other than the fact that the phrase Manton effect gets used all the time. So like in a way, we could potentially do that with this and basically like, well, the audience already has heard the phrase Manton effect used so many times and we could amp it up in season two and you know play into that. But I also feel like
Speaker: if If we're going to talk about Cauldron and about him, you know always he a rogue agent, then like that could be something that we mentioned early on and it could be mentioned in the mall scene with the merchants and having the vowels like, okay, where'd you get those? Blah, blah, blah. And kind of like, maybe Taylor hears it, or maybe Skidmark says something into the microphone in regards to it like, oh, we can you know thank Dr. Manton for this, or something something that feels very like,
Speaker: vague -ish, but enough so that like well we've heard this enough times that we know what that means, so that when it all comes out in the end, when Cauldron denies you know being connected and Siberian is Manton and all the stuff, that we've gotten the breadcrumbs, but we haven't been like spoon -fed it too much. And that way it can stay within the protectorate conversation that happens, that like as legend is putting these pieces together. I don't even know if you guys keep legend in that scene or not or whatever, but like the idea that whoever it is that makes this connection, that like Cauldron is lying, that it stays with that person, that that isn't connected with the larger body of heroes or villains that know that it's kept pretty
Speaker: tighten it within that like hero circle that they all know. And now Legend knows because of the the like truth teller thing in the helmet from Arms Master, but like it still stays very small circle as opposed to if Fault Mine's crew made the connection and you know put the pieces together and they're like, oh yeah, that doesn't make sense because of he's a rogue agent, blah, blah, blah. It's like, it it feels too messy. It feels like it's too... I don't know. let's It feels like there's more there's more capability of it not necessarily being a secret. It's more of like, ah anybody could have figured it out. And the, the you know, Faultlands crew just happened to be the ones that made the connection or whatever.
Speaker: No, that makes a lot of sense. I like that a lot of fault lines crew doesn't have to be as clued in to the mystery as it's revealed. um I mean, I think them running up on skid mark and being like, where'd you get the vials and be like, I don't know, man, we're just pulling it off a dead body we found. Then being like, damn it. you know yeah yeah Another dead end. Yeah, because they're there. I mean, I don't, to be perfectly 100 % honest, I do not remember anything about fault line, hunting down cauldron stuff at all. But I assume that happens later. And that is like a whole arc that happens, you know, later on in the story. It's in the section we're talking about because that's the whole reason why.
Speaker: They're at Skidmark's event in the first place as they're trying to collect. Yeah, but is it is it like talked about in the book? There's a couple arcs where that builds to ah a pretty big moment. um I only remember it because of a couple scenes, I admit. It's easy to kind of skip over, but there is some pretty there's pretty some pretty significant moments coming up where Fault Lines crew and Cauldron come to clash. So even if we tone it down here a bit more, like you're saying, we would eventually build it up a little bit. for those for those scenes. Yeah. We've had like, I want to say this is like them showing up at Skidmark's place is the second mention in which fault lines crew is hunting down Cauldron. Isn't it because um poison monkey boy, I can't remember. Is it a neuter? Neuter, thank you. Monkey?
Speaker: He doesn't have a tail. He's a lizard. Is he really? I don't know. not my lizard He's a monkey. He has like a tail. Anyways, I'm sorry. He's not a lizard for all of you. Anyways, uh, neuter. I remember like there's a whole thing with like the papers. like He knocks the paper and the papers flutter all over the place and they're trying to like collect it so they can get information and Tattletail can like connect the dots. I remember that, but it felt so vague to me. It and didn't feel like it was an outright, ah yes, fault lines crew. Their whole thing is they're hunting down Cauldron. like i
Speaker: I mean, she really outright says that in the interlude. She goes, Hey, you know how you give me money? And I use that to find the, you know, the company that stamped you and that it, well, we've got a lead in Las Vegas. This chick, she's got a rock. Yeah. And then they come back and they have Shamrock. And then they're there for the vials is the case, which has the symbol that they were looking for. i I'm not gonna lie. i If it's still, maybe maybe that's just me. Maybe that was me reading it. I just, it didn't it didn't stick. Wasn't memorable enough to stick to me. That's half of what we wanna do here is make some of those other scenes more memorable. Exactly. In good scenes. Okay, in the interest of time. If only they had peppered it in more. I will push us a longer week and try to stay within three hours. Continually, as Alan was. Anyway, episode six, part two.
Speaker: Uh, take two, um, married assault and battery preparing for work at their place. Battery receives orders from Cauldron to let, I'm going to change it. Siberian escape. Uh, cause we don't know that yet. However, immediately following the title, uh, they are, uh, undersiders travelers and coil are interrogating cherish. She warns them it'll be a futile attack on the nine and coil reminds them. that Dinah has said that if they don't kill Jack, he ends the world in about two years time. Or we have Dinah say that right there either way. The undersiders and travelers decide to go in guns blazing. Right around here, Weld confronts Piggott with Thomas Calvert also in the room about keeping Arms Master hidden and doesn't need to worry about anything else she's keeping from him. And Piggott tells him to suck it up and do his job.
Speaker: Sometimes they need to make tough choices and saving a disgraced hero now could ah keep thousands alive in the long run if they use him. ah Weld calls her on the fact that she doesn't disapprove of what Colin did during the Leviathan fight, just that it didn't work. The rescue attempt on crew happens along with the whole thing with Parian's people as hostages. ah The rescue attempt fails and the gang also gets captured to look over and see that Fault Line's crew is also there. Bonesaw talks with Skidder. Gru has a second trigger. We could even maybe have an extra mention about Case 53s and Cauldron, ah because Bonesaw's here talking about powers, like why not talk about them as well. ah Gru has his second trigger, and the group escapes, but not before Gru kills Burnscar in front of a frozen fault line. Piget discusses strategy with Legend.
Speaker: reveals Bakut as bomb stash and plans the attack. Um, this is maybe also where Thomas Calvert offers the initial idea that like, well, we've got a bunch of bombs hanging around, you know? Uh, finally back at the base, Taylor and Brian talk about his trigger event of a really tough conversation. Uh, and the undersiders regroup, uh, at the secret cherish location where she reveals Siberian is a projection. Of course, the projection is foreshadowed by the fact that when grew take Siberian's power or Manton's power Siberian flickers out of existence and the audience goes, what? That's what I, that's my interpretation of what the audience will do. They go, what? What? Yeah, not much change here. I don't know if we should have this here or in the next section,
Speaker: i'm I'm okay with the reveal of the projection at the end of this, but also in the next section, I like it when they like realize like, Oh, like Lisa says the whole thing where she's like, Hey, you got to get to your buddies. They're under attack. And then Siberian just disappears. I do like that. That's good too. it' Pretty good. Pretty good. beat Yeah, that's true. Yeah, not much. We've really changed here, but thoughts anyway. So grew kills burn scar in front of fault line here, but this is, way before Grue, this is before Grue gets captured, right? No, no, no, this would be the, he you know, he's gotten captured. Oh, he's got, okay. Yeah, but this is post second trigger. Yep. Just like in the book, same thing. The only difference is instead of Rune and all of them over in one corner, like doing in there, you know, being the pile of bodies in the corner to witness this, it's just fault lines, Grue.
Speaker: And this would of course be more impactful if we do choose to play up fault line and burn scar having a history. It's so frustrating because i i think it's I think that's a great idea. I think it's a great moment. And I i hate that it that I like it because it makes me be want to be like, yeah, actually, you know what? I think keeping Fault Lines crew in this whole time was worth it just for that moment. But I so still have to stand by that. I still think my thoughts that I've been saying this entire fucking episode about Fault Lines crew. No, stand by.
Speaker: but i love But I love that idea of like, she can't move, she can't do anything, and it happens. Because when Burnscar dies, like, no one gives a flying fuck. Like, of all of the nine members, Burnscar is the one we care about the least. And so when she dies, it's like, okay, well, one down, you know, we got a ton of others to go, but like, okay, one down. So the emotional impact that that has with, if we've made that connection already, I think would be really cool, but... I just, I... I'm sorry. I just don't think... No, stick with your gut. i I have to stick with my gut with this for for the whole fault line thing, they' like pushing them up to the foreground.
Speaker: i i i Yeah, I do think it's a really cool emotional moment though and it makes burn scar. is death that much more of a punch as it should you know as it should be, but then doesn't necessarily feel like in the book. So I i like it, but I can't agree to it. If I were to do a like a major like overhauling for them to be very frontline characters. I would have a whole thing about the rivalry between her and Lisa. I would have a moment where essentially they come to sort of a piece because they're like, hey, reluctantly, I need help. Like I said before, like they come to this almost like, hey, I think we could work together maybe, but then this happens.
Speaker: And fault line is like, you know, immediately all the progress that has been fixed between them, you know, of being, you know, sort of just having animosity, all of that that's been repaired is reversed. It's worse than it's ever been between these two groups because grew just killed her sister. Yeah. Yeah. That's a, that's a good moment. We'll play around with it though, as we rework things as we will. And i I guarantee that we're gonna have a lot of thoughts from people listening in, so. I hope so. These sweet comments are gonna be crazy. Tell me why burn scars even worth keeping around.
Speaker: Uh, we didn't change too much there. So if there's no other thoughts, I will move on just for the sake of time. Uh, but I don't want to skip on it. If you, uh, you want to take these last two. Yeah, I'll take the, I'll take the last two episodes here. The last two episodes are really just arc 14 that we've sort of split in half because our 14 is pretty long. Um, and the truth is we don't really change too much. So I'm going to save you the bore of going kind of scene by scene here. We really are just following the final confrontation with the slaughterhouse nine. The big moments is that we do split this into two episodes, uh, right with the ending of the first episode here being after all of the bombings, uh, after bakutas bombs get dropped, all of that. And, uh, Jack and bone saw,
Speaker: say, well, ah you broke our rules. So, Bonesaw, go to town and Bonesaw's plague is released, climactic ending to the penultimate episode. Also, something we haven't talked about is so we really haven't talked about the rules a whole lot. We haven't. Yeah, I was wondering about that. I think Alan and I have talked a bit, we've kind of gone a little bit back and forth here, but I think the idea idea is that Jack's rules are incredibly convoluted. ah They don't make a lot of sense. They're hard to follow even reading the story and trying to incorporate them ah to the same degree that he has them written in the story would be very, very hard to get an audience interested in.
Speaker: um So we if if we even choose to say that they have rule that they give their rules to the the protectorate and don't interfere and all that kind of stuff, it would be a very simple, we're in town, do not get in our way or everybody dies. I mean, you can have that you could have that conversation happen in the conversation where Lisa gets slashed. yeah Yeah, exactly. Where they're you know they're like, well well, we're here and now that you've ruined the surprise, I guess, i guess ah you know, Shatterbird, you go do your thing and since you're here, I guess we'll tell you and you can pass it on to your you know stupid little hero friends, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then can be like, everyone has three days to do the test and no external help. And if you do try, then you'll regret it.
Speaker: Or you won't live to regret it. You are something, something. starrky yeah yeah I actually talked about this. I don't like that whole scene. Um, except for Lisa getting slashed. yeah I really don't like that. They just randomly show up there. um kind of real Um, yeah, I would get rid of that somehow, you know, get rid of that and somehow still have Lisa figure out that there's, you know, a countdown Taylor does her run thing. All of that stays the same. But one of the mysteries that we've been working up is, okay, slaughterhouse nine are here. Uh, why are they here and weld has been piecing together, you know, and it has that moment that he, you know, doesn't say outright, but maybe. Maybe Lisa figures out when they're, uh, when they're attacking them one time of like, Oh, there's eight of them. And that's sort of been a thing that you like, when you see the slaughterhouse nine altogether at the merchant's camp, you realize, Oh, there's a slaughterhouse nine, but there's one, two, three, eight of them.
Speaker: And ah that should just be you know the hint then when Weld looks down and goes, okay, that was their ninth member and he's dead on the ground. And he was dead before you know he came to this town. What are they doing here? And then you know finally somebody says, oh my God, they're recruiting. like yeah um I like the idea of just not giving the rules. They're here, they pick some people, they have tests in mind in their heads. and you know maybe maybe every member goes out and does something and comes back with their tested subject and then,
Speaker: ah Jack goes yay or nay, basically like, ah, they're good, but you know, they could use another round of testing. Let me give them a run through or something. Right. And you could potentially have like the after the bombs have, have the comment of like, well, you're you're not playing fair. So we're raising mistakes. Like, yeah. Yeah. Just like something little like that. You don't necessarily have like, ah, you've broken the weird rules that we have set that no one really knows what they are. Yeah, no, all you got to do is like, okay, you want to play, you know, you want to play with. it r Yeah. Yeah. Well, we can play rough bone saw, you know, and then releases the might Miasma like exactly. Yeah. Easy way. yeah And I think, not I think you can kind of even emphasize Jack's sort of view that this is all just a game. Just be like, Oh, Oh yeah. Yeah. Like,
Speaker: It was fun, but it's not fun anymore. So that's just it. Yeah, that's good. Did you just hit yourself on the head with like a water bottle? I but it was with my mic. Okay. All right. I just leaned forward and bopped myself. And the sound of Hannah hitting herself on the head with her mic is means we're running out of time. so Yeah. I was going to say, we've got only a few more minutes before we beat three hours. Let's go. Well, the rest of ah the final episode finishes off, includes arc 14, post miasma. All of that's going to follow pretty much seen by seen as it does in the web serial. Not much changing there.
Speaker: The only thing that we really change is how we are going to kind of wrap up the the season as a whole, as this is the final episode. Obviously, it's a big climactic moment. The the fear gas, all of that is terrifying. That's the majority of the episode. I was going to say, one of the things is that we start off our assault and battery interlude is moved to ah assault and battery gets separated in the Miasma. yeah That's what happens and then instead of just randomly having Battery ah be there and getting attacked by the spiders and Bonesaw trying to convince Skitter to murder her, we actually kind of get that from Battery's perspective. um Just to kind of point out. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, just to kind of just to kind of play it up. It's a really sad scene. I'm not going to go into too much detail just because that it's it would be and would it would just be sad. um Moving on from there. ah Yeah, all that's going to stay the same. um bone saw or a Panacea, rather, gets secure. All of that gets secured. It might as well goes away. And the nine escape. ah we are going The couple changes we're going to make is that we're going to kind of shift up ah the Legend interlude because it's a really strong season finale sort of moment. There's a lot of ah questions answered and a lot of questions
Speaker: Question. a given um and Tying that in with Legend listening to the confessions of Battery dying at the hospital, ah where she gives some insight into because she's the mole. I mean, that's the whole yeah buildup to this whole thing, right? So she's the mole that we've been following along, trying to find. It's not really a mystery at a certain point about halfway through the season, but that's just the idea. um So confessing all of that to legend, legend taking it to heart, kind of forgiving her, and then all of the lies going off at the end as he's watching the tape back and just oh fly lie, lie, lie.
Speaker: why But that's not the last scene of the season that we've ended on. Well, okay, it might be. we like being light last robs you read Read as is, I feel like we've got a great one, two punch at the end. As I just said it, I was like, oh, that's actually pretty good as a finale. But it's the scene either right before or the final scene will be, we are we did decide we wanted to give Jack in particular, a bit more of a triumphant exit from the city because as written, they kind of just disappear. They give a little letter like, that was fun, Brockton Bay, ah but we're out. ah We'll see you again. do um yeah We wanted to give Jack a little bit more of a triumphant ah exit. And if you are a an astute listener, not just the two of you, but anyone listening might have noticed that We did not include a certain ah Slaughterhouse Nine interlude yet. That's because we want to put Jack's interlude in his conversation with Theo at the end of the season. Oh, yes. Okay, I'm here for that. That sounds fantastic. Because it's such a good conversation.
Speaker: Theo doesn't have much to do in the season. We're not giving him more to do. And if we put that scene earlier, it sort of makes Theo stand out unnecessarily and you're going to be waiting for like him to do something yeah and he's not going to. So putting it at the end gives gives Jack his glory like his glory moment and also lets us play up the prophecy that he's going to end the world. Because now that he's been made aware of it, ah he can sort of use that in his conversation with Theo, where he's like, tell you what, kid.
Speaker: I'll give you two years and I'll be back. And just kind of end on that note ah with him triumphantly walking out and Theo working on. Wait, is that... and i Oh, am I stupid? Is Hannah stupid? Why would you say that? Have just missed this entire time that Jack is supposed to end the world in two years and also he's supposed to face up against Theo in two years? Did I miss that? Am I dumb?
Speaker: That is as written by Wild Bo. We did not change that. so that is ah The only thing we did is made Jack more aware of that. But no, that is that is how it is written. in Okay. When I talk about like not remembering anything yeah in the future of this book, I'm dead serious. I don't remember anything. I remember one thing with Noel and that's it. It's a lot to remember. We don't have new readers, but we do have new readers. We do have Hannah, who has the brain and the memory of a goldfish. That's great. at adams of the best There's a lot of details there. That does play into the rest of the story. That's not something that Alan and I added that is as written in Worm. Yep, that's intentional. I think that's great. I i very much like that as your your final. No, that's good. That's very good. It's a good change.
Speaker: I like that too because it does it does make more sense to have Theo's arc be sort of a lead up to the next season, at least for a TV show, I like that. Yeah, it gives a little something for for him to do, for people to think about for an off season. Well, that that brings us to the end of our season two recap. Wow. Geez. Michael, I'm sorry. You did it. good No, good job, guys. That was really fun. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. For the really dedicated fans, I dare you to listen to season one recap and then season two recap back to back. See how the show is shaping up. um Granted, what we discussed in these episodes isn't like... is getting changed as we discuss it. so you know In real time, sometimes. Yeah, exactly. That's a nice permanent. Everything is temporary. Enjoy it while you can. Things that I had wished I'd put more of in here, and maybe that you know they would be there, but they'd just be small scenes. I really, really like the Sierra Charlotte Taylor dynamic. um um That is... They're so cool.
Speaker: I know. That is our magic vampire diaries trio right there. Oh my gosh. We talk about vampire diaries so much. I know. It's the template for the show apparently. So it's the template by which all art is made. It lives rent free in Alan's head at all times. Yes. Thank you, Jenny Nichols for that. It's just it's literally just Jenny Nichols. Shout out on a shout out. Nicholson? Absolutely. Nicholson. How can I not remember? So many shout outs. Yeah. Shout out to her. um But I wish I had more of those. The problem with this season is that there's no downtime and heroes having downtime is my favorite thing in the world. I would watch a Hallmark movie if just everybody was a superhero, but like no superheroing happened.
Speaker: It's kind of the reason Sky High is as great as it is. I was about to bring up Sky High. Oh my God. It's true. ah So so like I wish I had more of that and maybe finding scenes. I have a scene at the end where like i would I want Uh, when Taylor's like, are you cry or Sierra's like, are you crying? Are you okay? And she's like, no, I'm fine. I'm just tired. I'm okay with that. I'm also very okay. If she just like sits on the ground and starts crying and Sierra like awkwardly holds her where she's like, Oh my gosh. Like.
Speaker: This is really weird. This is my boss. This is a villain. But also, like we do have this weird friendly rapport. This camaraderie, like they're trying to take care of people and they're charged. like This really weird dynamic that continues to grow and it has weird conclusions that I've really, really liked. I wish there was more of that, that I've written more into the here. but you know I just didn't get around to it. um There's so much that happens. Honestly, either fault line needs to get stronger or the fault line plot nine needs to get weaker. I wish I'd written more perian and flechette, just little, little things, little conversations here or there just to pepper it in. um I wish that had more of that. And finally, ah you know if we don't just get rid of it outright, I think having lung and marquee
Speaker: having their little tee time talks that they do yeah in this, talking about children. And this would be the philosophy part of the podcast or not the podcast of the of the season yeah where you have, you know, some ah You just take Mark. He just needs to be a big name actor because he's not going to do any action scenes. Just we're talking to Chris or Anthony Hopkins level. He just sits there and monologues kind of um while they're playing a game of chess or, you know, drinking their tea as they do. And as long as on one side being the
Speaker: That kind of dumb brute being like, no, fear is all you need. And Marquis being like, but fear can only get yourself um you And just waxing eloquent. And then as he's talking, like, you know, we start to transition to scenes of Brockton Bay where like, whatever the hell he's philosophizing about is happening, but in a tangible level. like you know yeah So many things I could add. There's a lot that you can do with that. A lot we can get around to. but yeah There's always going to be something.
Speaker: Yes, let us know you the fans. Thank you for sticking around this far. Let us know at ah Brockton Bay, BC on all social medias. Link in the description, of course, um what you think about all of this. And you can also call us and leave us a voicemail at 980 -999 -0438. um And yeah, we might even play your little voicemail on the show. Please call us. um We want to hear your lovely voices or your digitally altered voices. We don't care. We just want to hear them. Call in and do your best arms master impression.
Speaker: Yeah, why not? oh Yeah, thank you ah to Jacob and Alan for all this hard work you've been doing. It's been pretty crazy. It's been a pleasure. yeah um Yeah, can't wait for doing many more seasons. Yeah, I can't believe we're done with season two already. like That's it's crazy. Holy macaroni. We are flying by. and Thank you, Michael, for making us sound good, keeping us on track. Heck yeah. And for editing this monster of an episode. I'm so sorry. So appreciative. I'm so, so, so sorry.
Speaker: No problem. Hey, hey, not three hours though. That's fair. That's fair. We did. We'll wait to see you until it's out. We haven't stopped it yet, but yes, that's true. Very optimistic. All right. Yeah. Take us out, Jacob. On that note. Yeah. Thanks again to everybody. Thanks again to everybody who's listening. We love reading your comments. Please continue to leave them on all of our social media platforms, Reddit, YouTube, Instagram, et cetera, wherever social media platforms are sold. ah Thanks again to Nick and Hannah. I really appreciate your comments as always. We'll see you guys back on the Brockton Bay Book Club for Ark 15. And until next time, as always, take that, you worms. You sexy worms.
Speaker: Thank you so much for listening. Read along with us at parahumans .wordpress .com. We'd love to hear your thoughts. What did you love? What did you hate? Anything you think we missed, etc. as long as it's kind. If you'd like to get in touch, you can find us on Twitter, threads, Instagram, TikTok, and Reddit at Brockton Bay, B .C. or click the link in the description.
