Transcript
Speaker: Worm is a web serial by J .C. McCray, also known as Wildbo. You can read Worm in its original format by visiting parahumans .wordpress .com or donate to Wildbo's Patreon at patreon .com 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: And welcome back to another episode of Dissecting Worm with myself, Jacob, and co -host, Alan. Welcome, Alan. Hello. And I'm realizing as I was listening to that beautiful intro music play that we need a proper
Speaker: intro joke or tag or something book club. We've got a few, right? So when you feel a little empty there at the beginning, I think we were all anticipating a good morning Brockton Bay, but, uh, but that's, that's, that's for book club. Yeah. I know. I know. So you got to come up like, Oh, all right, guys, Chuck, should we just yell, take that you worm?
Speaker: Take that, take that you worm. Take that you worm. Welcome to the podcast. Welcome to the podcast. I like it. That'll be our, that'll be our, uh, yeah, it's good for now. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Michael keep us feed us ideas. I will be thinking about it. Yes. I will. I must say I am a bit nervous for this episode.
Speaker: As you should be. No, this episode is going to be a nice. Let me tell you right now, I wrote down for some of the single interludes more than I've written for some entire. Michael has every reason to be worried. This is the reason. Yes, exactly. It took us two and a half hours to record the
Speaker: first part of this. And let me tell you, it's going to take about two and a half hours to record this one. And, and I know you all know that it took two and a half hours. You, all you listening, because you of course listened to the entire two and a half hour book club portion of this. And you've been waiting and just anticipating another two and a half hours of breaking down. I remember when the Brockton, when, uh, when the slaughterhouse nine came into
Speaker: you know, our fair city. And the first thing they did when they went recruiting is they said, Hey, you got to listen to Brockton Bay book club episode in the arc 11 interlude section for the Brockton Bay book club. And let me tell you right now that cleared out like five of the competitors right there. Couldn't take it. You know, some say they went mad. Yeah. We, we may be mad by the end of this, but let's go on. Well, we'll get through it. We'll get through it. Let's get, let's get started.
Speaker: If the title of the podcast didn't give it away, we're covering the back half of arc 11, which are the interlude chapters. So that's 11 point A through H, the end of the arc there, discussing pretty much the main intro to the members of the Slaughterhouse Nine and each of their attempts at recruiting various individuals. There is a lot to talk about here. I think maybe
Speaker: where we should start is whether or not we would want to treat this as a full episode or if we would be moving these interludes and kind of dropping them into other episodes, either as cold opens or as endings or things like that. I think that might be a good place to start. Yeah.
Speaker: A lot of stuff to work through here. Um, first thing you see first, you know, there's the option of just doing it as a straightforward episode. Um, you know, a vignette by vignette, the second option, as I was thinking was you do it one episode, but all of them are interspersed within each other. Um, I think there are some that are good all the way through to do, but others bounce back and forth. Um, you know, it might be a little bit hard to keep track of that many, but maybe you wrap some up midway.
Speaker: The third option is that you do, uh, you do two episodes, uh, four and four for each with ones that have like similar themes that you can run through, um, and do those interspersed, you know, with each other. Uh, but yeah, I, I hadn't really thought about, I thought slightly about dispersing them amongst other episodes in the season, but I don't.
Speaker: necessarily know where you'd do that. So my thought on that, and this might be one of our many pins that we put into things. My thought on that, and this would entirely depend on how we end up sort of constructing season two as a whole. So that's why we probably would come back to this idea at the end. But I think it'd be really fun to do them
Speaker: all as either cold opens or as post credits, not true post credits, like final scene of the episodes. Because if you have theoretically, let's say a 10 episode season, if you have
Speaker: eight of those episodes start like in each one ends with one of these interludes sort of building the suspense of the slaughterhouse nine. You could really build to a, to a pretty fun finale that way. True. That's true. Here's, here's. Again, it's going to depend. It'll depend a lot on, on how we end up breaking the season down though. Yeah. Cause already, you know, we're just, as we're talking for continuity's sake,
Speaker: You know, season one opens with arc nine, season two, sticking with arc 10. We're not breaking these up as far as I remember into multiple episodes, because they're pretty short.
Speaker: Yeah, not at this point. So wait, didn't we? Wait, can you say that again? Are we finishing our season one? I think Alan meant episode one, episode two, but said season. It was a tad confusing, but we understood doing our season two of our TV show, episode one of season two with arc nine. Yep. So two or 10 falling three.
Speaker: probably arc 11. Next arc is a direct engagement with some Slutterhouse 9 members. It's not all of them, it's just Mannequin. But following that,
Speaker: is when you really everybody, we've got to deal with all of the, uh, all of them are going to be in conversations with all of them. Uh, but they are going to be kind of split up because I'm going to be fighting, uh, different people. It's just, it's, it's, they're going to be all over the place. There's no of really intro. It's more of a, that being said, kind of between 12, 11, 10, and nine, that gives us four episodes to work with.
Speaker: In those four episodes, you could do a cold open as one of them and a, you know, a post credit scene as another.
Speaker: Yeah. So let's, for the sake of, of just tonight for our episode for dissecting worm, let's treat it as like a standalone episode, just so we can kind of talk about how we would want to adapt the individual chapters. Yeah. And then leave room to kind of break that apart. Yeah. Cause we'll run, we'll go episode by episode because for the most part, or not episode by episode.
Speaker: Yeah, chapter by chapter, I think, and just talk about how we would translate those, and then we can come back and talk about how to put them in a bigger picture. Mm -hmm. Sounds good. I do have some thoughts about the vibes of each one and which episodes they would pair well with in terms of theme. So we can circle back around to that. There's a lot to work with here. Yeah, definitely.
Speaker: If we did opt for a single episode, then the one kind of main change I would suggest would be to build on pretty much what we assume is kind of happening anyway, but just sort of strengthen the idea, which is that all of these are happening simultaneously, which the only thing that really changes is kind of we just have to rewrite probably not having Oney Lee and Hatchet Face with
Speaker: with, gosh, what's her name? Thank you. I think you can do it as one whole episode. And this is what took me, honestly, the most brain power was charting out. A lot of these have either one point of like where they, it's just the conversation like with Theo, it's just a conversation with the Jack, that's all that happens. But others of these have like three parts to them.
Speaker: Uh, the biggest example that spans, you know, the chronology of this episode would be Amy. We have Amy finding reading the letter, which kind of happens before everything. Um, the fight, you know, with bone saw happens after a lot of these, but you know, possibly during some others and then ultimately, you know, going out and getting caught up and dealing with Vicki, you know, way after everything. Um, and I feel like.
Speaker: that is, you know, those that could literally be the start of the episode, move into everything else, have, you know, bone. So happen, you know, midway near the end and then end the episode with the conversation with Vicki. Um, and then you just interspersed the others. Like I think Collins would do really well if there was a lot more buildup with talking to dragon, uh, and being hunted by mannequin. Um,
Speaker: So like I think that one actually needs to be spread out more. Yeah, I agree with that. Having it back to back. I don't know how much well that works. It's just one scene kind of. Yeah, I it's interesting the other man. There's so many ways you could do this because I like those ideas too. My thought was.
Speaker: just give it a... There's a word for it and I forget what it's called, where what's happening on screen is happening in real time. Like the Show24 essentially, right? Each hour long episode covers an hour of in show time, that kind of thing.
Speaker: And so starting to give it a bit of urgency, starting with the coil and Dina, which is chapter... What is that? Chapter point F. Is it Dina? Did we determine Dina? I thought it was Dina.
Speaker: Oh, yeah, I think you're right. I think I'm saying it wrong. I think it is Dinah, I think. Don't worry, Wild Bo probably says it, Dinah. That's... You're right, exactly. Wild Bo, do you have any disagreements? Fight me. Yeah, yeah. Welcome anytime. Starting with that chapter to kick off this sense of urgency that all of this is happening now. And you can easily kind of throw it in the dialogue, right? Dinah sees, you know, going through predictions, yada yada.
Speaker: the slaughterhouse line, the recruiting now, just kind of start the tension. And the one big thing I think I'd want to change there is ending with Jack Slash's chapter, being the leader, being the... I mean, because you could do that so easily. You could start with Coyle and Dinah.
Speaker: Because we know about the prediction with Jack Slash at this point. We know that there's a prophecy. So introduce that, the nine are hitting, you go through the other chapters, do them, kind of do them however you want to do, and then come back to Coyle and Dinah. They kind of have their little, they take their breath, right? They're fine, they're alive, they survived, and just have kind of a line.
Speaker: about, you know, the prophecy again, alluding to Jack. And then we end on Jack's chapter with Theo and just sort of ending with him establishing him as the main antagonist. I feel would work pretty well if again, assuming we do choose to just sort of put this all in one episode. It also does something that the Jack slash portion does the thing that, you know, makes this a longer running series.
Speaker: Um, that we kind of wished had happened in episode or in season one, but you know, can't really have it, uh, just because of reasons, but it's, it sets the, it sets the timeframe. Um, Hey, he's in, you know, in the future, some point this guy is gonna, this guy is gonna end the world. He's going to be ending the world. And, um,
Speaker: Now we have kind of this weird number of like, you've got two years to train up, to kill me, which is not a direct, hey, you have two years or I end the world, but it does kind of feel like that if you're an outside watcher. I can see that. And again, the nice thing about something as simple as that is,
Speaker: depending on how we want to work the time skip in when we get there, and if we choose to rewrite that or kind of reconstruct it a bit, you can very easily just change that line to like, oh, we're going to shorten it to six months because it works better.
Speaker: Well, then you just change that line to, Theo, I'm giving you six months to prepare to fight me. Sure. Right. I mean, you could even do it, like, I give you a week, right? It doesn't really matter. So, you know, seven days. Exactly. So we can, we can easily kind of repurpose that as, as we need to.
Speaker: Yeah. Uh, do you want to go start? All right. Just, it just, it's not important at all. But since Jacob brought it up and this is kind of interesting, um, when, uh, what it's called, when something is shot in real time, is it's called real time.
Speaker: You know what? Interesting. I never would have guessed. Jake was like, I don't know what it's called. And I'm like, well, thank you for the fact check. I appreciate it. Now we have the technical, the technical wording. Yes. Uh, real time. There you go. All right. Uh, do we want to just kick off interlude by interlude? Yeah, I think we can. I think each chapter is pretty self contained. So it's pretty easy to just kind of go chapter at a time. So yeah, let's start with bitch. Yeah. Bitch in Siberian.
Speaker: Man, she's running free through the fields. I'm feeling its spirit, but for dogs. Yeah. Bitch. Stallion of the Cimarron. Boys by Matt Damon. Oh, yeah, obviously. I think you can, I think we could move through her trigger event and her flashback pretty quickly. And I think honestly, oh man, I was thinking about this too.
Speaker: I almost think we should wait until after her run -in with Siberian to show it. When she's talking about, are you a wolf? Yada yada. You can sprinkle in flashback there, sprinkle in the trigger event. You can also shorten her flashback too, right? We don't really need to see the full thing, her bumping around. You really just need to show
Speaker: the dog drowning and the evil stepmother shutting the gate and the trigger. I also think we just need to move, as we do with a lot with Taylor, just have her say out loud, have her talk to her dogs, essentially, about Gru and Taylor, and then be like, why the fuck are they happier than me? That's just a banger line. I do like that line, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. I mean, that's kind of a, I think that's kind of a rule for, for film in general is yes, there is a show, show, don't tell mentality that you gotta, you gotta adhere to, but you also need to do more talking because it's a film or a show. Like people want to hear dialogue, like they want to hear people talking. So yeah, I agree. Put that in. Um, I will say Siberian is another character.
Speaker: where I would just love to see a fantastic actress portray that character in live action, would just be a really, really fun and intimidating character. Because she's nude? Yeah, exactly. Exactly, Michael. Yes, of course. 100%. Obviously. Yeah. Two people immediately that I think of, because I'm thinking taller women,
Speaker: Well, just one, I guess, because she's tall, but she's kind of lanky is the vibe I get. I go Charlize Theron. Right. Yeah. Someone along those lines. They'll probably be fairly CGI'd.
Speaker: Like Michael, Michael, no, you're going to sit in that body paint all day. It is, it is very much, I mean, minimal CG. You can do a lot of that with a skin suit and surface paint pretty much, you know, get away with it. Good makeup artists can, can get it done. True. True. I think we need to shore up some exposition on the nine here. There's, there's a little bit too much talking about them. Yeah, I agree.
Speaker: Yeah, again, a lot of this can be... Audiences aren't stupid. They're going to pick up on what's going on. The banter between Siberian and Bitch is very clear what she's doing. It's very clearly a recruitment pitch. Leaving her the wolf puppy, all that kind of stuff. It's self -explanatory. Makes sense. Have her try and read the tag and then just cut over her shoulder.
Speaker: I think there's a little detail. It's very small. But I think that she, when she pulls out her cell phone after this happens, she should pull it out. She should pull up Taylor's phone number and like the contact info. And right before she calls her or texts her or whatever, she thinks about it and then puts it away. I like it.
Speaker: You know, I think that'd be a small, just a small little thing. Yep. Uh, as a whole, a lot of this can just be condensed to like running around has the fight, uh, you know, the bites, the people, um, as the fight with, uh, two capes. I don't even know if we need the two capes so much as the Siberian shows up and.
Speaker: the capes show up also, you know, this doesn't have the capes, but I think you can, I was going to say, I think you can just sort of, you can almost start with that, right? Like you could start the, her, the scene with like a showdown between brandish glory girl and bitch and her dogs kind of like, yeah, you're right. And then have some blow back and forth, yada, yada. Siberian shows up and you go from there.
Speaker: Yeah. Okay. So here's, here's the, the motif that we need to focus on in these, uh, as we move forward with Rachel as a character. So we have this, this question, are you a dog or are you a wolf? And I think that both as a visual motif with bastard, um, and a, you know, this vibe of, are you domesticated? Are you not?
Speaker: you know, with Rachel, we need to kind of focus on that moving forward. There's a lot of characters that are essentially are going to have the will they, won't they, you know, going bad or not. Yeah. And that'll be the focus of this season, kind of like where's the breaking point? Let me put that down. I like that for season two. Very nice. I forget what our season one was, but our season one was kind of like,
Speaker: facing bullies like, oh, season one was superhero or super villain, kind of. Yeah, pretty much. But season two, while it is that question, it's that question for more than just Taylor. It's that question for kind of everybody. Like, do you want to be a superhero or a super villain? Or in this case, do you want to be a super villain or a super nightmare?
Speaker: Yeah, so. I like it. I agree. That's good stuff. Anything else for this first chapter? No, I think that's it. Nice. Yeah, let's move on. God, I almost want to just skip B and come back to it, but we'll just tackle it while we're here. Tackle it while we're here. I think this is my favorite, my favorite chapter. Jack just being
Speaker: One of my favorite antagonists of all time. I'm glad you think that because I'll say it now just so I can get it out because I didn't in the other podcast. I don't like Jack slash. He's so boring. Oh man. That's the end of the podcast everybody. Thanks for listening. We had a good run. Oh man. So.
Speaker: You know what? I just took a sip of Baja Blast. Let's do it. Why do you not like Jack Slash as an antagonist? All right. So as an antagonist, I think the main thing is boring. It's just boring. He's got, he's got an interesting ability that isn't that fantastic. And of course, you know, he's got his little subtle side ability that everybody, uh, alludes to that. He maybe has danger sense. Um,
Speaker: And maybe even some like master powers in terms of manipulating your people, or maybe he's just good at that as a, you know, natural thing. Um, but overall he's just kind of uninteresting when it comes to powers. Like we've got all these other characters that are, you know, really cool in their own regard. And, you know, it does make you wonder, dang, what a Jack slash do to, to also, you know, to earn their respect kind of, um,
Speaker: And the real answer is he just kind of plays them off each other. Like he's a good talker. Um, I don't think he has that top villain quality when he's over here with his white shirt, you know, unbuttoned and open. Um, I just, I don't like the Johnny Depp.
Speaker: Aesthetic. I don't like the, the, um, this weird cocky attitude. Like it just doesn't fit as a good super villain. Like this is a guy who should be a solo act for villains. Like he's very dangerous. He's a little unhinged. Um, you handle him with caution, but he's not somebody that should have
Speaker: any sort of interesting following. He's essentially heartbreaker minus the power. Good thoughts. He's just kind of disappointing to me. He's always been disappointing to me. Good thoughts. I mean, I've thought the same thing about Kingpin from his universe.
Speaker: I feel like Marvel's Kingpin. I mean, I would also agree there are, except for his backstory, I kind of don't like Kingpin. Kingpin became popular because of Vincent D 'Onofrio's performance in the Daredevil show. I can't tell if it's a really good performance or a really bad performance half the time.
Speaker: That's an opinion. I forgot how much we disagree on things. Yeah. That's an opinion. It's an opinion. It's certainly an opinion. It's incorrect, but it's not fair. Yeah, but I mean, I do know what you're saying, though. I can kind of relate. I feel like he isn't as powerful as the people he's controlling. So in that way, it's kind of interesting. But he's got this, I don't know. He's got like this swag. He does have the swagger.
Speaker: I just, I don't know. It doesn't, there's something about him. Please make a case for him. So what makes worm fun for me as a reader is that it presents a very, uh,
Speaker: It feels like a very realistic world for such an unrealistic setting. And what I like about that is a lot of the characters that we meet
Speaker: convey a lot of realism in the way they talk to each other. We've talked extensively about how good the dialogue feels, how real the conversations feel, et cetera. And Jack Slash feels like a very real character. Like if you gave a serial killer the superpower of unlimited knife length, essentially is what he has, he'd do some serious damage. And I like that about him. But beyond that,
Speaker: I really, really like what Jack Slash represents within the story. And I'm going to go... We've said it before, but we're going to put it out here again just to sort of establish this dissecting worm. Unlike the Brockton Bay Book Club, we have decided to go into full spoiler territory for this portion. It's just too hard to talk about events as they interact with each other and upcoming events. So once again, full spoilers for worm here. And I say that.
Speaker: because I'm about to give some spoilers to anybody listening. Um, Jack slash represents an inevitability within the story because of the way his broadcaster shard works needs it. It's building towards this inevitable conclusion that the entities want, which is this sort of ultimate chaos and
Speaker: that it is so similar to, for example, what the White Walkers represent in Game of Thrones, what the Reapers represent in Mass Effect, which is
Speaker: You are so occupied with all of these squabbling, all of these rifts, these gang fights, these protectorate versus, you know, other gangs, undersiders, travelers. You're so wrapped up into these stories that you ignore
Speaker: the simple thing in plain daylight that is slowly marching you towards doom. And we get glimpses of this, we get the prophecy, we get Dinah, we get little bits here and there, we're starting to build to it, but nobody's really paying it any attention. It's sort of this wolf in sheep's clothing dynamic. So it's not so much the character of Jack Slash himself, although I do think he's kind of fun. It's more Jack Slash's
Speaker: effect on the overall story that I think really helps excel worm into this sort of upper echelon of stories that I think about when I think about stories that really stick with me over time. It's this others kind of think of the
Speaker: the way the one creator worded it, I think he called it like a ticking clock where Jack Slash is the ticking time bomb. Exactly. And Jack Slash is that ticking time bomb. And he is not, for example, as sort of mysterious as Sion or other big names we hear about like the end bringers or sleeper.
Speaker: I think is what his name is. The weird guy kind of out in the middle of the desert. He's just this guy. He doesn't seem that threatening, which is why everybody's sort of ignoring him. Anyway, all that to say, I really like what Jack Slash does for the story in terms of
Speaker: building towards this inevitable conclusion that everybody's feeling to feeling is coming, but isn't really doing anything about, which is a fun dynamic in the world. But I, uh, I respect your opinion. I like it. Yeah. I was gonna say, and, uh, I don't feel as if like his,
Speaker: It really is an aesthetic thing. It's not a, his, his role in the story. I completely agree with you need him. There's this ticking time bomb. In fact, I think as you were talking about it, I was thinking, okay, okay. If that's his kind of his goal, what if we leaned into the fact that, um, you know, a little more that his power kind of works like the Simmerg, um,
Speaker: that what makes him really dangerous while he does have the slashing ability is the fact that he's drawn the slaughterhouse nine around him. And that wherever he goes, he is somebody that like you don't let people talk to him because he will do something to them. You will unsettle them in such a way that they are now kind of a liability.
Speaker: Very much, you don't let tattletale talk. Get in a room, tattletale, slap a gag on her. And I think having somebody like that, but for Jack Slash, where he is your serial killer, this crazy person, but if he can talk to you, that's dangerous.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly. And that can be sort of a question that the audience is asking like, why is this guy in charge of the nine? Why does crawler and mannequin and Siberian respect him and not kill him?
Speaker: you know, why, why can't anyone go kill it? Like, why can't legend or Alexandria or just fly over and, and take care of this really dangerous guy? Like, what is it? And that should be a kind of frustrating thing for the audience, I think, is that they're, they're kind of wondering why that is. And, you know, it's a really satisfying conclusion. So, um, very nice and a build to it.
Speaker: Also, uh, if you're going to get somebody to play Jack slash. Oh yeah. Yeah. I know who I know. I know exactly who I'm going to get to play him. All right. I got my answer too. Okay. You got your answer. Got my answer. Okay. In Westworld season one, there is not our main boy, uh, played by, uh, Jimmy Simpson, but his brother in law.
Speaker: Oh yeah. Played by Ben Barnes. At the time he had a little bit longer dark hair. He's got that kind of scruffy look to him with a killer smile. And he's kind of got that dirty, bad boy, but really good looking and cocky attitude. Ben Barnes is my choice for Jack Slash. Yeah, no, that's the right answer pretty much. He's got the perfect, perfect look.
Speaker: I do love fan casts. I've had a lot of fun sort of thinking about it. What always ends up happening is like, oh, this guy would be perfect for this role. Oh, but he would be more perfect for this role. And that happens all the time. So like, I really want, I got him to look him up because I forget his name.
Speaker: Oh my gosh. It's the avant. No, it is. Looking it up. You can't stop me. Ed's screen. Gosh, so easy to remember.
Speaker: He's been in a lot of things. People probably most remember him as Ajax from the first Deadpool movie. And also the guy, the really hot fighter in Game of Thrones who replaced the other dude.
Speaker: Really tan. Really great actor. He's done a lot. Does the evil characters very, very well. And I was like, oh man, he'd make a great Jack slash. Oh, but actually he would make a great anybody. He would make a great state. He would make a great hook wolf. I was like, I would make a really good Kaiser. Yeah. There you go. A really good guy. He's got, he's got a punchable face. He does. And you need that. So.
Speaker: No, I think Ben Barnes is the right answer. I've thought about him too, would make a really good Jack slash. He could pull that off very well. Audience, what do you think? Yeah, let us know. We love fan casts, they're always fun, especially because they never happen. So, you know, we can have fun with it. Who would you cast? We'll see. And then we'll see who was right. Exactly. Exactly. That'll be the best part. Yes. Danny DeVito as the Siberian, obviously. Of course. It's the only right answer.
Speaker: Yeah. If nothing else in all seriousness, he plays no bog, right? Oh, wait, that's not even a joke. That's just, that's just perfect. That's just the actual answer. We'll have to get to that. Yeah. We're going to revisit that. Oh my gosh. Um, but yeah, but coming into back to the Jack slash chapter, I think, I think just let's take as is got Jack there. Uh, I don't like Jack just holding the baby and you know,
Speaker: Theo just staring at the TV. I would almost enjoy this as, as its own self -contained thing. If, uh, if we started like, let's say we're breaking it up, we have him following Onili sees that Onili is maybe going to attack Theo and Aster, you know, some sort of revenge for Kaiser and he kills him.
Speaker: He's like, oh, what were you going to do? You know, he kills them and then, you know, throws him in the bathtub, like barges in his, like throws him in the bathtub. You mean, uh, yeah, Jack slash kills only Lee, but like, you know, what is only a dude. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty sure. All right. We're cutting that. We're cutting that. No, no, no, no. That's that's going.
Speaker: That is some context. I don't know why I didn't know that. Yeah. No, no, no. The oni part just means, what is it? Demon in Japanese. Yeah. So it's sort of like how Jack slash is or like dirty Jack you would say Lee's just a stereotypical name. So it's just like demon, you know, demon Jack is basically what I'm less scared by them now that I know what to do. I don't know why. Cause you're sexist.
Speaker: Yeah. In my head, it's a scary lady. Anyways. All right. Carry on. Yeah. So, uh, like, I think it just be interesting, more interesting to have. I just don't like.
Speaker: idea of him just staring at the TV, Jack just holding the baby. I think there's a better opening to this somehow. I like the opening of Jack holding the baby. I agree. I think Theo looking at the TV doesn't help anything, but I like the idea of the tension there with Jack holding Aster and Theo looking calm, but
Speaker: like holding back that, that anxiety, that fear there. I think you have Theo and him basically having a stare down where he's watching Theo watch the baby as he's like holding it. What if Theo's not staring at the TV, but staring at Oney Lee's corpse in the bathtub? Yeah. I think either the, like I said, either the corpse or you have him staring at Astor being like, you know, very clearly he is concerned. Yeah. Um,
Speaker: I think that's a better opening. I love the conversation about the like versus love. I think that sticks in. I think Jack essentially reading Theo and all the inner monologue we're kind of getting from Theo. I think having Jack sort of say that out loud to prompt Theo to talk a little bit more would be good.
Speaker: Yeah, this would be a really fun scene to sit down with a DP and a director and sort of talk about how to properly convey the tension. Because we can write it, which is all we're doing. We're just putting the words on the page there. You can do that. But really trying to sell this scene
Speaker: is gonna be a fun challenge. And there's a lot of ways you could do it. I would love to hear an actual seasoned director sit down with these chapters and sort of hear how they would frame everything. It would be really fun. But another thing we get to here is kind of a back to back. So we get to Theo talking to Jack and he gives him like, hey, what would you do to people like me?
Speaker: And yeah, the idea was that like, I, you, I would kill. I think we need to punch up the fact that like, Hey, I want to do that. But even if given a knife and you like stuck your throat out and didn't stop me, I don't think I could kill you even now, just because I just don't have it in me, but I want to have it. And, you know, he gives them the timeline, which is great setup. I think.
Speaker: having that conversation and adding the like, you know, even given, even if you gave me one of your knives and like all the, you know, all, let me, let me try and cut you. I would, I couldn't do it. And then from there on, we kind of, when we cut back to Theo, I think having purity and the other members of, I guess it's just the pure at that time, training him and like getting him to kill status, essentially.
Speaker: Like them doing what it takes. Cause they realize like he's going to kill every, he's going to kill it. You know, purity is like, you got to kill people. Cause like, otherwise he's going to come back and he's going to kill me and he's going to kill Aster. And I can't let that happen. So when we start cutting back to Theo, I think there needs to be more urgency and more like getting whipping him into shape essentially. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, it's going to be fun. Theo is one of those characters that I'm excited to sort of explore to a greater extent with this show. I think it starts here pretty much, which is fun. That's all I got on that chapter. Yeah, I'm good with that.
Speaker: Moving on, we'll get over to, oh, Labyrinth and Burnscar. I don't have too much to say here. I got like two notes. Yeah, kind of do it as is, have some fun with Labyrinth's effects and just kind of playing up the bait and switch maybe with Burnscar being there for Labyrinth. Love the bait and switch.
Speaker: I think there needs to be a lot of rework of the conversation between the two. I don't like the conversation. I don't like the conversation. I don't like the way it's written. I think that needs to get reworked. But other than that, other than that. I have other chapters I'd rather occupy our time with. Yeah. We talked about, you know, I don't like Jack slash, but in terms of chapter quality, I did the Spitfire burn, like,
Speaker: This Spitfire Burned Scar, Labyrinth 1, just not. And again, it's because at this point in the story, right? Fault Line's crew, they're fun, but we don't really spend a lot of time with them. So there's just not a lot of emotional investment in this chapter. And Burned Scar is cool. She's got some cool powers, but that's about it.
Speaker: Um, yeah, we really don't get a lot out of burn scar. Yeah. But like, you know, if we did choose to devote more time to fault lines crew, for example, then, you know, maybe want it. We want to give this confrontation a bit more effort, but yeah, I mean, I think about in general, and this is just, maybe this is just me, but at the end of the day, when you think about the slaughterhouse nine, there are.
Speaker: four people of the, you know, half of them that you remember and the other half that are expendable. Sadly, um, doesn't mean they're not cool. They just like, they aren't that weird, memorable. Um, and it's, you know, it's Siberian Jack slash mannequin and bone saw. Those are who stick with you. Um, and it's also not just because those are the ones who survive a lot of this.
Speaker: And then the other ones, you have Burned Scar, Shatterbird, Cherish, and Crawler. Crawler's really cool. You don't remember Crawler like you remember Mannequin. Yeah. Because you don't interact with him as much. And it's just... Crawler's not even a character. He's like a force of nature. Exactly.
Speaker: He's just fine for fights. I'll be honest. I forgot Shatterbird talked, you know, uh, I was getting her confused with Canary a little bit. I will admit that I was like, I know one of them sings and, and the extent to which I remember Shatterbird is like literally Shatterbird show shows up does the big shout and that's it. That's all I remember in my mind. Shatterbird might as well got killed off screen. Um,
Speaker: You know, cool power. Yeah. Still unmemorable. Still unmemorable. Yeah. Yeah. We'll, uh, we'll get through them here. Okay. All right. Now to an intro. Someone's out of your favorite one. Yeah. Here we go. Into arms master and mannequin and dragon. A real, real fun chapter. Scary chapter. Again, would love to see an actor portray mannequin would be amazing.
Speaker: That was a joke. Get one of the scars cards. Whoever played it. Wait, actually, actually though. No idea. Who are the hardcore method actors right now? Bring Daniel Day Lewis out of retirement. There's a guy who that's like his whole career as he plays like the characters that don't talk and are scary and like weirdly proportional because he's just a really tall, skinny dude.
Speaker: Oh yes. I know what you're thinking of. You're thinking of, um, I want to say Doug Jones. Is that it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think so. Let me look it up. He plays like he played, he played the fish creature in, uh, in. Yeah. He plays all the creatures. That's him. Right on it. So that's your, that's your mo that's your mocap stand in for mannequin for sure. And he actually, he probably wouldn't nail that. You mentioned it.
Speaker: He's a fantastic actor. This is a shot like a horror movie, straight up. I called it back in the other podcast. This is Tombs from The X -Files coming through the great. I think Dragon needs to have a longer talking session with Colin.
Speaker: that way we can draw out the tapping. I think that the tapping sound needs to be just longer. I remember it being longer. I remember it being this, kind of like trying to find which fire alarm doesn't have the battery in it and is making that beeping sound. You're trying to talk with somebody and you're like, okay, I got to deal with this.
Speaker: And then, you know, it's, it stops, right? You know, it gets, it's getting closer and you realize it's the event or whatever. Um, and then, you know, him running around the penthouse, getting chased, trying to fight him, however he can, but you know, mannequins, mannequins. So, I just, I think having dragon and him having a longer talk here, um, and we'll come up with something for them to talk about. Cause Lord knows those two are,
Speaker: You know, very, very easy place to put in, put in dialogue, even, even, you know, throw in a little exposition here and there. Um, yeah, no, you can absolutely draw that out. And I like the idea of doing, doing so in order to, uh, to build up the tapping. I think that's, that's very clever terms. Yeah. Keep, keep going. Keep going. You're on a roll. I think.
Speaker: Yeah, obviously the Mulan scene with the piece of glass needs to happen. I don't like the keyboard thing. I think it's kind of hokey. I think him holding up the glass is enough. Like having him not talk, having him hold up the glass, having him stab and then get body parts replaced. I think that that's it. Like you said, the audience isn't dumb. You don't need to overdo this.
Speaker: I'll be honest, going back off of that, I don't know that Siberian needs to talk. I thought the same thing, but I do love the fact that nobody thinks in universe, nobody thinks Siberian can talk when the reality is that nobody ever lives through it is a really fun dynamic. So I think it is kind of fun to keep Siberian talking just for that. That's true. And she has some good stuff to convince her over.
Speaker: But yeah, in this case, mannequin can't talk. I don't think mannequin could, should talk. I think you just hold up the glass reflection. I think that's it. Yeah, that's all you do. I mean, if you, if you've really wanted to, you just give arms master a line where he looks at the glass, he makes a connection and goes, you know, I'm nothing like you. There you go. You know, and then you've, you've, you've explained the whole thing. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, I do think so. My big question here, Jacob is,
Speaker: Uh, you know, dragon and, uh, dragon and Colin have this conversation afterwards where they, you know, she comes through and she's like, Hey, uh, we need to talk about something. He's like, Oh, what? You know, and it fades out. Do we, cause we've already bumped this before the dragon, she's an AI. All right. Do we bump that again in this moment? Or do we take the time to, for her to explain it? Yeah, that's a good question.
Speaker: I think we explain it sooner rather than later at this point, because I'm trying to think, and I'm happy to revisit this in the future, but I'm not sure when a better time would be moving forward. I'm trying to think of when dragons, like when does that get revealed?
Speaker: Yeah, again, I'm struggling to remember some of the details of the later arcs. I'm sure we'll revisit it when we come back in contact with all of that. But I mean, there's the whole fight with Saint and the dragon, what's his group called? Dragon Slayers. Dragon Slayers, thank you. And it's pretty obvious, obviously, at that point, I think.
Speaker: Uh, but I might be misremembering that either way. I think to get, yeah, to circle back. I think, I think now is a good time as any to, to reveal dragon's identity. Yeah. This, this is going to bother me for a while. Cause I cannot, uh, okay. So it's when they're interrogating saint. Okay. Which.
Speaker: goodness gracious, that happens what? Like in the twenties? Yeah, I was going to say that's like, that's a way towards the end of the story. Uh, so yeah, I would definitely want to reveal dragon before then. I think her character just works better when you know what she is. Yeah. I, I, that is true. I do. There is something that I'd like to point out. Uh,
Speaker: moving forward that I'd like to, you know, to bump up if you will. And it's that Taylor and arms master, you know, eventually have a coming, you know, a come to Jesus moment. Cause you know, they go through a lot separately, but they kind of real recognizes real and dragon is in there facilitating a lot of this. And in fact, dragon knows about Taylor.
Speaker: Like, but she doesn't say anything. And we've talked about like showing that. What I'd like to follow up on is maybe like, dragon has a soft spot for Taylor. And I think that exploring them, not just being like, either, either there is a soft spot that dragon genuinely has for her and that, you know,
Speaker: Uh, that the Colin feels kind of guilty about, um, but I'd like that dynamic to move. Uh, and in order to do that, I think, I think that having dragon maybe reveal herself to Taylor later on would kind of bolster that.
Speaker: There's a lot of incidents that dragon you know dragons gonna be very present in the future Yeah, they work together and they'll really get work together when you know, the recruiting bird Taylor happens later on, right? You know, that's like our 19 Yeah around there, you know it is a little bit of ways and maybe you could even do it before then but I
Speaker: I feel like maybe having, there's a lot of moments that Miss Militia will eventually reach out to Taylor. And I think it would maybe behoove us to switch Miss Militia with Dragon.
Speaker: Oh, interesting. Yeah. I would, I, I would, I think that makes a lot of sense talking about condensing characters as much as a fun character. Um, but certainly it doesn't have nearly as much to contribute to the story as dragon. So when you are trying to condense scenes and, and condense characters, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Um, yeah, just as something I was kind of like reading and thinking about this,
Speaker: Uh, today, actually. Um, yeah, I think that would be a good, a good way to continue playing up a relationship between the two of them, especially since ultimately dragon kind of becomes the recruiter for Taylor. Yep. Yeah, I agree. And I think, I think having that there is, it would be important maybe to reveal it later on. Yeah. I like that. I'm here for it.
Speaker: Anything else in that section? I mean, I realized I talked a lot in that and this is... No, it was good. Yeah, no, I agree pretty much all of that. I love Armsmaster as a character. We'll talk about him moving forward for sure. It reminds me a lot of Prince Zuko from The Last Airbender. Just has that as a fun arc that centers around his inability to be who he thought he could be.
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Speaker: The only really important thing here is it gives us a place to plant or to show one of coils plants. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and also, you know, it's slowly, as we've had this kind of with a couple other organizations, um, we've talked about adding one into the PRT. We've talked about, you know, there are ones that work for all these different places and that tattletales, you know, alluded to.
Speaker: Um, but this would be kind of the first direct connection we have other than tattletale directly working for oil. That like, ah, yes, there's this other character that was undercover in an organization and is, um, you know, is, is dirty. Uh -huh. Uh, cause we, I think we, we talked about, it's cool to have that with the one hero Chariot, I think it's Chariot, but it's just kind of a, such a mad character and out of the way storyline. It's not really worth it.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, not much here that I would wanna really focus on. Just sort of get through it. Trim the training down. Maybe just straight to - Yeah, trim the training down. Just go right to it. Honestly, a couple of these you could kind of throw together pretty quickly in between the longer ones. And again, kind of depends on how we would want to
Speaker: you know, how we end up deciding to treat this as an episode or not. But yeah, just kind of move through this one. I think cricket, like maybe have a quick moment with cricket or like, ah, like it's disrupting your thing and she just shoots.
Speaker: Cricket, I think that's such a great scene. I do like that. I do like that. And I can't remember in the story because I know he's like bringing a healer, but I can't remember if Cricket actually dies there or not in Worm, but regardless, she should absolutely die there in the show. Also, Cricket is a character. I know we kind of erased Cricket from before. This is the first read through I've had where Cricket existed in my head. I did not remember Cricket.
Speaker: Nope. Not at all. I was like, did he sneak a retcon a new character in the, like the last year? Like, yup. No memory. Absolutely no memory. Um, sorry, cricket. Sorry to all the cricket fans. Uh, other part in here is I think, um, maybe having Shatterbird throw out to hook Wolf, but he is not the only Wolf in this competition. Um,
Speaker: Cause he's pretty set on, I'm not going to join y 'all. And I think I'm making it a competent, like making it a competition rather than, you know, proving you're strong with, you know, egg him a bit. Yeah. Plus it helps the little rivalry between hook Wolf and bitch that they had going on because of the dog fighting and all of that. So it helps place into that too. Yeah, that's good.
Speaker: Otherwise I don't really have a whole lot of my bet. My only note, and this is for a lot of them, it's just make a lot of the more show it like them showing up, be more ominous. If you wanted to, if we wanted to do these really like really, really small scale make them really short as like intros or outros or something like that. I think.
Speaker: doing, I don't know what to call it, but I'm going to, I'm just going to call it the, the suresy of like the suresy shot, which is, you know, either it's usually close up and it keeps the camera keeps panning backwards through everything.
Speaker: So that as you're watching, like you might initially start on a character in the back and they're watching stuff take place, but you don't notice that until you start moving out. And as you keep moving out, the stuff that's fighting is kind of like around where the camera's backing through. If you've ever seen any of the trailers for Shorsey, it's in there. And I think there's something about that that just feels like, you know, it feels like a masterpiece of art.
Speaker: you know, some, one of those accidental Renaissance paintings. And I can imagine that for the hook wolf, shatter bird scene specifically of like, there's not a whole lot moving. There's, you know, lightning in the background or whatever. There's glass shattered everywhere. There's just hook wolf on the ground, angry and shatter bird up and people crawling and groaning. And, you know, uh, she's got the gun in her hand and
Speaker: crickets on the ground, grabbing her knee, and that's it. It's panning on that scene for like 30 seconds as you're just pulling out and seeing the rest of the scene as you see all the chaos that she created. And I think you could do that for a lot of the less talky ones or the ones you don't care that much about. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: That's good. I think that makes a lot of sense. I like that. Any other any other thoughts there? No, not really. Yeah. All right. Moving on. Moving on. Dinah and Boyle. I really like this one. Yeah. So this is where, again, if you if you wanted to work with the real time idea, you can you could start this whole episode with Dinah
Speaker: walking over the coil and just going, you know, 64 % chance we die in the next hour. Boom, title form, you know, it's just. I like that. I think the other thing you could do is, did you ever watch Mob Psycho 100? I did not. Okay, so it does a thing in there where he's, you know, he's a psychic and he's got this number in his head that essentially like keeps racking up.
Speaker: you know, his stress level, essentially, it's a hundred. He blows it. Uh, but what that is, it just says a quick black screen that it flashes to. And then the number, you know, and I think having that, you know, opens the, you know, it, and it's a calculating number. It like, you know, moves from zero. It does the, and then lands on the number, you know, so calculate, you know, the numbers run, it runs to 46 point, whatever percent.
Speaker: immediate, you know, it's just all quick snippet, all black with white letters or white numbers. And then we're in the, you know, with Dinah where she walks over and you know that there's a 46 % of something. It's very clear that like when that number hit, she sat up and she's like, well, walks over and goes,
Speaker: there's a 46 % chance that we die in the next whatever. And every time he asks her from then on, she does the thing where like maybe she closes her eyes for a second, and then that quick, the number calculates, and then she opens her eyes and goes, this number, you know, what about this, bam, this number? I think having that as maybe a way to show her power rather than like the pinging numbers. Like I know that's how her power works,
Speaker: I don't know if that works necessarily for television. Like the bouncing off of different universes. I mean, it's very hard to show that. I think honestly, you just give her a little like, I actually really like the, in Infinity War, Marvel, when Dr. Strange is doing his whole look into the future, the little weird like jittery head movements that just seem to imply that his mind is moving.
Speaker: faster than reality. You could just do a little thing like that, not even that strong, but just like little twitches where her head is shaking and her mind is moving and she's coming up with a number. There's a lot of little visual ways you can just show that she's calculating something without having to dive into the lore behind it.
Speaker: Yeah. Um, then also do a pretty good impression of showing like why her head hurts all the time. Right. Headaches. Yeah. Um, but yeah, if we're going to do a visual representation and if we, if we really had to do the visual representation of, uh, you know, all the branching universes, I think you switch from just that single number to literally like a tree of numbers and her having to like search through all of them as they like hit different percentages.
Speaker: Yeah. There's also, did you ever watch Next with Nicolas Cage? I never did. So not a great movie to be honest, but you could have just said Nicolas Cage movie and I would have, I would have known. Yeah. Well, I mean, that's okay. Hold on. There's national treasure.
Speaker: Anyway, I'm about to go on a rant. So his power in next is that he lives like two or three minutes, something like that in the future. And so he exists permanently in the future and is able to then obviously move in the present with knowing everything that's about to happen.
Speaker: And towards the end of the film, they portray that as him splitting into multiple versions of himself to essentially... It's actually more like Coyle's power than anything, where he splits into multiple versions of himself and then runs around a room and finds what he's looking for. And then they kind of come back to the present and he goes right there, that kind of thing.
Speaker: I don't think you could actually show it like that, but just that there's a lot of different ways where you can show multiple possibilities. You could do really weird sort of flash images of
Speaker: the travelers all bloodied and corpse across the wall, scratches everywhere, flash, flash, flash, flash. She's going and going through realities and then throwing out a number at the end. There's a lot of clever ways you can sort of show, give the idea that she is looking at all these different possible realities and then picking the best one.
Speaker: Yeah. I think I do like the idea of her just coming in and he's like, you know, what is it, Pat? And she just goes, ah, 46 % chance we die in the next 10 minutes. I think that's a, that's a banger opener. Power loud. That works. We skipped right over that, but yes, that was amazing Jacob.
Speaker: And I like the idea of coming back to this one. Like if you are going to sort of break things up. So, hey, 46 % chance we're dead within the next hour. Boom. Then cut to a different scene, right? Bitch or anyone else. And then you do a couple of those and then you come back. And now they're boarding up the walls. They're going through things and more numbers, yada, yada, still stressful. And then cut away and then cut back. We got to stay with Noel.
Speaker: stressful, stressful, we got away, come back. And then you finally get towards the end of the episode, get that 45 minute mark, audiences are calming down, they're fine. Who was that? Yeah, I don't know. Coyle gets notification that his plant died with the hook wolf. And then you can still end with jack slashes, give a little prediction.
Speaker: This actually brings up something, it brings up another part of the Dinah problem. It's always bothered me sort of in season one, just I mean, even in the writings of arc one through eight, just that Dinah is such a nothing character that all of a sudden Taylor's like, don't you guys realize like she was the little girl that got kidnapped that one time when we were bank heisting.
Speaker: Like we were the distraction, feel super responsible for that. I just never felt like that was like, I was just like out of nowhere, kind of like there's one mention that like, oh yeah, she's in the newspaper, but you don't really think about it and you kind of gloss over it. So in retrospect, if we're trying to punch up the fact that the travelers work for coil kind of directly,
Speaker: And that I would like to amend that fact that Diana's just kind of glossed over as existing. I think that we have a post -credit scene showing the travelers specifically trickster kidnapped Diana from her house. I think the way we do it is pretty simple. We just have like a doll
Speaker: you know, that is roughly the size of her, uh, just zooped through the window. Right. And, you know, to replace her when, you know, somebody steps out of the room and then trickster just like there, you know, to grab her and be like,
Speaker: Um, and you know, say something trick story. I like it. Catch phrase. Yeah. Yeah. We're taking you to your new home. Yeah. Yeah. You're never going to fucking leave. No, I mean, I think that makes sense. I think you can, you can play that up a bit. Um, yeah, I mean, you can even play that up back at, back at the reveal. If you wanted to go that route when Taylor puts two and two together.
Speaker: Well, I think that's the thing is like, you know, since we kind of talked about not revealing that part, but you know, this is another child kidnapping that, uh, that what's his face kind of has a hand in. And I think when we do ultimately reveal Dinah, I think at the, I think at the end of this would be a good Dinah reveal. Uh, um, especially since I think during a lot of this, we're going to get, um, you know, we get a lot of numbers that,
Speaker: I think should be texted to Tattletale through Coyle. Tattletale's getting updates on her phone all the time. We have this that kind of existed before that we have a really good chance of doing this, which kind of makes you think like, oh, what's Coyle's power? How does he know this? Oh, we have a, the bank heist could even be one. Given all of this, our boss says we have an 89 % chance of pulling this off.
Speaker: And they're like, what the hell does that mean? And then especially in this season, we'll have a lot more of those like, hey, numbers are up. Like we've, you know, we got a pretty good chance of doing this. And then ultimately finding out that like, oh no, no, these numbers are coming from someone. It's from that kidnapped girl that we saw a long time ago. Yeah. Yep. Sounds good. I do like that. All right.
Speaker: That's about all I've really got playing up. The absolute terrifying unknown that is no well will be fun. It's great because crawler is terrifying. No well is terrifying. The numbers are terrifying. Yeah.
Speaker: between a rock and a hard place there. So yeah, nothing I would really change, but just that's going to be, that's going to be fun to get to. I think spreading them out is a pretty good idea. So we're getting to that at the end. All right. Moving on to Cherish. Oh, Cherish and Alec. Uh, I like the fight. I really like the fight. Um,
Speaker: I think did you did you watch? Oh, gosh, the Sandman on Netflix. I tried to. I couldn't really get the same. It wasn't really my thing. I appreciate it for what it was, but. Wasn't my my thing. I found the fight. They they did a fight scene between between Dream and and the devil.
Speaker: Oh yeah, the poem off. Yeah, exactly. That's kind of how I imagine this with just less like, you know, poetic dialogue and more just brother sister feud. It's just sort of staring at each other while the fight is happening really in their minds, essentially. Yeah. Kind of has that same vibe.
Speaker: Yeah, I like the idea of having, you know, they're standing on other sides of the room, but there's, we'll say three or four, you know, people in the room and they're, you know, like magnets pushing against them either way. And that, you know, they're all trying to keep control of them. So it's sort of, it literally is as close to a chessboard as you can watch for these two mastermind. What's the, is it master? I think is masters the classification. Yeah, they're masters.
Speaker: And, you know, when every time they get a jab in, they're able to move one of the people forward, except then the people aren't fighting against anything. They're just, you know, trying to go one direction or the other. Right. Right. Yeah. No, exactly. Yeah. Getting in a jab and then showing that like, Oh, that actually like loosened their hold on this one person. So that person took a step backwards. Uh,
Speaker: I like really liked the idea of a fight, maybe like loosening your grip on one so that you can get the other to run at the person. Right. Yeah. Oh, you could have a lot of fun with some choreography here for sure. Uh, and then the other thing I would move is I don't like the bomb set up. Uh, cause given that Alec doesn't really care about these, the people here in this building all that much, what's stopping him from essentially
Speaker: taking control of her, but then just walking out of the building and you know, pulling the trigger, you know? Right. Like the bomb's not that big. He would just leave. So I think there's gotta be a better set up for that. Um, I agree. Yeah. I don't know what it would be, but you know, you don't even really need the bomb. I mean,
Speaker: I mean, I don't think you really need it. You can just sell that that region isn't going to do anything because even though he doesn't really, I mean, he hates his family. It's still kind of, it's his sister. So like he's not going to kill her. And he's grown as a person as we will show in this conversation. Exactly. So I think this is also a good time in that Alec character arc moment. We play up,
Speaker: that his team is the team that forgives. Um, and because of that, because, you know, essentially the, the forgiving of Taylor, he also forgives his sister, you know, or rather he's capable of forgiveness. And he's like, Hey, look, I literally, I'm sorry if things sucked. I don't, you know, we had to screw each other over a lot as kids. I don't hold any resentment towards you. I'm really sorry that, you know, what we did do, you know, what I did to you and,
Speaker: You know, she does not get that of course.
Speaker: I love, I love the parallels that we can, that we can use with this show because we're getting a season one flashbacks to Vista and shadow stalker, right? It's the exact same thing. I feel sorry for you. Yeah, really exactly. It's kind of what it is. So yeah, we get, we get another parallel of that kind of moment, which is fun. I mean, we kind of get that moment a little bit with bitch, you know, why, why do, why are they so fucking happy?
Speaker: Um, you know, even, even without the betrayal as much, it's still just as very confusing as to like, you know, there's, there's, you know, she doesn't get it. Uh, um, also, uh, I think having her, essentially she, you know, she talks about her plan to take over the slaughterhouse nine with her powers. And I think her,
Speaker: you know, poking and prodding going, ah, you're like, you're, you know, you, you would, you're doing the same thing to this group. Don't pretend for him to finally just go, no, I just, I just like hanging out with them. Like there really isn't an ulterior motive here. They're just a bunch of cool people. And, you know, with the exception of bitch, because yeah, bitch is always the exception. Uh, it's like hanging out with the undersiders. Nothing else going on here. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, no, exactly. Uh, last one, big one, bone saw big one, bone size here. Yeah. I think this is, there's, there's sort of three big chapters in my mind. There's Jack slash and Theo. Uh, there's Dina.
Speaker: a coil and crawler, and then there's, um, Amy and bone saw. I feel like those in my mind, those are like the big three. Yeah. I was going to say, I actually would trade out while I like Jack slash and I realized, you know, conversationally, there's a lot that happens here. I think the mannequin one might be the one I switch out for being like the big player there. Yeah, I can see that too.
Speaker: Like just in terms of time spent, I think the Theo Jack one can be a really quick five minute conversation, but I think the mannequin, the mannequin, you know, the tapping, the conversation before the fight afterwards, I think that's like a 15 minute sequence. Yeah, yeah, true. That's a good point. This one definitely takes the most time. To this one, man, is there a lot? Yeah. A lot to get through here.
Speaker: And there's not much that I really want to shorten or change. So it's more just pacing it out really. Yeah. Uh, at the beginning I have a interesting thought. Um, so Amy finds out from reading this letter, uh, we start with her rereading it essentially sitting in her room, rereading and find out that, you know, her dad is this super villain. Um,
Speaker: I wonder if we should show her finding that, that that should be something that she wrestles with immediately. Or if that's something we maybe set up beforehand, like we maybe have a scene in an earlier episode of her checking out and finding this letter. Yeah, this is a great time to sort of talk about
Speaker: how much time and energy we wanna give to Panacea as a character in the story. So I think that'll really dictate some of these answers. I think for this season, she deserves.
Speaker: A decent amount. I agree. I honestly think we should probably, again, we're gonna have a few episodes once we hit arc 30 and beyond and we're done. We'll have a couple episodes kind of going back and cleaning up season, season, season at a time. And I foresee us working Amy into the story a bit more frequently.
Speaker: I think she's a really fun character. I've talked before about her. I think she parallels, or contrasts rather really well with Taylor as a character. I think showing growth her own arc throughout. She's one of the few characters aside from Taylor and Armistmaster really that I feel has a really nice long arc over the course of the entire story.
Speaker: And of course, she is instrumental at the end of the story. So we really want the audience to be invested in her at the end. So I definitely think it's worth probably trying to bolster her character a bit, which in turn, I would leave this reveal in at that point if we do that, because I think it's a big moment for her as a character, really figuring out who her parents are. But I agree, you have to earn that moment. So we would definitely want to
Speaker: give her more development earlier. Yeah. Um, things to add onto that. Number one is like, maybe we don't know who Marquis is. I forget if we even talked about showing him in one of the interludes with long, um, I think it's too revealing right away that he's like, ah, yes, my daughter, Amelia. And it's like, eh, you know, even daughter, it's like, Hey, I've got some question. There's someone out in the outside that I'm curious about, you know, and like,
Speaker: Oh, like a, a, a rival. I was like, well, you know, no, like a child. Um, and, you know, and then not say anything more, you know, we cut it there. So we at least get introduced to who marquee is, uh, maybe through lung and then the bird cage. Um, and then I think also if we want to have more little, just, you know, once an episode, we cut back.
Speaker: to the Dow and household. For just a small moment, I think having the argument about the fact that Amy doesn't touch brains and she can, but she won't fix her dad. I think we could show that argument. I think we'd show her finding the letter.
Speaker: you know, having Victoria and her talk and have a sisterly moment, maybe here or there like, Hey, you're acting weird. Like what's going on? She's like, I, it's just, it's so much. She's like, I know it's rough. Like, I know you have this like, you know, just showing the household. Yeah. I think leading up to that would be really, really good. You know, just, just literally little two minute segment, every episode for them. Yeah. Yeah. Nope. I like that. I agree. It's good stuff.
Speaker: Yeah. Anything you'd change with bone saws, entrance and exit? No hack jobs. Terrifying. Yeah. Just, you know, let's get John Carpenter to shoot this one. Yeah, really. My God, it's going to be a lot of, a lot of me terrified. We don't get that. We don't get him. We get Raka Raka.
Speaker: Yes. After the success of their little horror movie and the fact that I know they can do some good, uh, some, some good, you know, work like that. We get rack a rack of to do this. That is not a bad get, I'll be honest. That is good. I do like that. Yeah. Uh, I think showing the internals maybe with, uh, Amy, cause we're doing this from maybe perspective, maybe putting her hands
Speaker: on the monsters and showing, you know, some, just tracing nerves or something like that. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. A little bit of fun CG work there, just, you know, bopping around with the internals. Oh yeah, easily. You could do a quick zoom into the heart and, and see the spike, the cage and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. See the, yeah. Nothing mortal, the mortal combat video game team hasn't already done. Exactly. Exactly. You know, yeah, a lot of easy, a lot of fun, easy ways to do that. Um,
Speaker: robot spiders will be creepy. Uh, everything will be creepy. Kinda wonder. So we got hack job. You got mouse protection. You got pagoda. Um, those are all fun. Uh, yeah, I was, I was almost wondering about like not having as many, but you know, I guess it works out. So I'm not going to change too much there. Yeah.
Speaker: I agree. And I honest to God, maybe other than retooling the conversation between her and Victoria later on, which also I would space out from this initial fight. I think, yeah, I think it's fine. Yeah, I agree.
Speaker: Well, that brings us to the end. Now. Yes. The end that will last another half hour, folks. Don't even worry. You're not wrong, Michael. Any kind of final thoughts we want to look over, looking at these chapters? Not individually, no. But looking at big pictures is going to be the problem. You guys did great.
Speaker: So I do think, I do think we'll probably revisit this a bit in terms of how we want to frame it. I'm getting more, as we've been talking through it, I'm kind of more and more sold on the idea of doing this, all of these as an episode. Just one, one episode to sort of introduce a lot of back and forth.
Speaker: Yeah. Uh, not, not too much actually. I think you, I don't think you wouldn't have to jump too much back and forth. Like there's no, you don't need to split up burn scar. You don't need to split up that. Yeah. That scene, Chatterbird, uh, cherish those scenes can all pretty much happen and just play them out pretty quickly. Yeah. Um, if we wanted to do two episodes, I have, I have, here's my, here's my list, if you will.
Speaker: Um, of, of ones that are alike in a way. So I think bitch and Amy, um, parallel each other. I think Ellen Theo in terms of they kind of have this, a similar personality. It's very subdued. Uh, they kind of are trying to make, uh, what's the word like concessions a little bit with their.
Speaker: like even in attacking Jack Slash with his words, like Theo is feeding into what Jack Slash wanted. So, but I think Elle and Theo are very similar in their arcs or in their chapters to each other. I think Colin and the Noel chapters for how they feel, you know, very much this trapped vibe. And then Regent Hookwolf in the fact that they are like straight up
Speaker: kind of in the daylight battles, they feel like, like they're just contests of strength between the two people. Maybe why I had Bitch and Amy was because they were like struggling and they kind of had their houses destroyed in either sense. Okay, yeah, yeah. I like it. Do we want a pair like though, or do we not?
Speaker: I still don't see the need to split them into two episodes. I don't think that - These are just ones I have that I feel like thematically vibe well together. And so putting them, I think just having them next to each other in some manner helps a little bit. Honestly, hammering out
Speaker: the, the order of these and I have them, I have them all split into sections. So for like bitch, you have like origin present. And then back at base, Theo is talking with Jack, maybe Jack tracking only lead to start. Um, L has the fight outside and the conversation inside. Colin has talking to dragon and then hunted by mannequin and then technically waking up in the hospital as well.
Speaker: Hookwolf has training and then talking to Shatterbird. Noelle has Dinah waking up, being in the cage, and then going to bed. Regent has Cherish abducting the dude and then fighting Regent. And finally, Amy has finding the letters, finding the letters, the people leaving, fighting Bonesaw, and then dealing with Vicky.
Speaker: So yeah, like where you put each of those, I think, I think you can break up each one of them into at least two sections with, you know, exception of maybe Theo's talk with Jack. Uh, I mean, you could split that down the middle if you wanted to, to have them jump around a little bit more. But, um, you know, if you wanted to split this into two episodes, there's a lot of material to work with.
Speaker: But if you wanted to keep it one, but I think. I think it fits. Yeah, I think it fits in the one. I think a lot of this would end up being condensed a bit just by nature of of how things are shot. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, I mean, obviously, again, that's that's for producers and directors to to to work out there. We just we just put the words on the page. But yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, I don't have too much more there. This is going to be a fun one to kind of write out and explore again, most likely going to come back to it a bit in terms of where we want to place this, how it fits into the arcs moving forward, because we do pretty much jump into dealing with them at this point. So, you know, maybe we even moved this episode earlier in the timeline, right? So yeah, it'll be kind of fun to play around with as we sort of shape season two here. Yeah.
Speaker: I have a feeling that when you get to the end of season two, this might be one that you come back to. Yeah. I think that, I think that's quite likely. Uh, well, not, not the, uh, not the two and a half hours. We promised you all, but I hope you enjoyed it. Alan, any parting thoughts before, uh, we wrap us up here. Uh, I'm, I'm constantly kind of curious if we did make it to two hours. Feel like we are about to be at
Speaker: Let's see. Quick math is not my strong suit, but we are, let's say an hour and 45 ish. Okay. You know what? Beautiful. I'll take it actually a little less. I'll take it less, less. I gotta go. We got some more time to burn. All righty. I've got some more thoughts about Nicholas cage as arms. I was going to say, we, we have, we have talked a lot here tonight. A lot of really,
Speaker: fun discussions and different ways we can take these chapters and these characters. A lot of room to play around with. Definitely one where we would really love to hear all of your thoughts. Everyone who's listening here. Thank you for listening as always. Let us know. Talk with us here. What do you think? Is this one episode? Is this a full episode's worth of content?
Speaker: Do we need to break it up? Do we need to move these interludes around elsewhere? Thoughts on fan cast? Who you got? Who does Nick Cage play? Etc. Let us know.
Speaker: Yeah, again, as always, thanks for listening. Please reach out to us on any of our social media platforms at Brockton Bay, BC. We will be picking this up in the next episode with Arc 12, both with the book club and Dissecting Worm. So stick around for that. We only get more intense. And I feel like we're going to say that every single episode from here on out. It only gets worse. Thanks for listening. And Michael.
Speaker: Wanna play us out. 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, et cetera, as long as it's kind. If you'd like to get in touch, you can find us on Twitter, threads, Instagram, TikTok, and Reddit, at Brockton Bay, BC, or click the link in the description.
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Speaker: Do you still have bitter feelings about your ex and no way to get it out? Well, perhaps you could consider hiding it inside a worm -related rant. Tell us all about how legend broke your heart or just how skitter won't call you back. We'll listen and air your grievances.
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