Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to Sicily, Alaska, a Northern Exposure podcast.
Speaker: I'm Anne Flynn Terrell. I'm a cabaret performer and MC. I'm Caleb Cohart. I'm a documentary and commercial filmmaker. I'm Amy Gerlich. I own and run a improv and sketch comedy theater in Denver, Colorado.
Speaker: This is a podcast where we talk about Northern Exposure and how it's affected our lives. And we have some amazing special guests. Season 6, Episode 12, Horns.
Speaker: Joel is visited by the man who first assigned him to Alaska, saying he's a free man. Again, another random person canoeing to this place. That his last year that they tacked on was illegal.
Speaker: He handed him a check for his extended service. Joel signed the exit contract with a grin. That was it. A French man is talking to his wife in an offshore building, telling her there's something wrong with the water.
Speaker: And he's afraid. like this. Very mysterious. Yeah. Something's going of on It was like an X-Files beginning. Yeah. Especially with the French. That was like, that made it extra like espionage intrigue.
Speaker: all yeah Also, I was like, where is this taking place? Yeah, I know. I literally thought I was like, wait, did Amazon glitch? Am I watching the wrong television show right now? I'm convinced that this season is two towns. is Every episode in this season, we've been introduced to a ah location that we've never experienced before. yeah we get to one of, God, I think it's coming up maybe today that we'll talk about my favorite, where the hell did this come from?
Speaker: Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. I know what you're talking about. who So Hayden sees Dr. Capra because he's having too much sex and his penis is sore. And um in walks another person with the same issue. The women of Sicily are extra horny.
Speaker: We got Barbara Szymanski back. She visits Maurice at the previously mentioned water facility the front where the Frenchman was. So we're in Sicily, just like, you know, a little bit up mountain or something. And she's looking for... um What's his name? the vi Cal, the violinist. Yeah, the violin guy. yeah i was I was happy to see Maurice at one of his actual businesses. I can't recall when we've actually seen him at the business other than the radio station. yeah we know he's got all these ventures, but he's out there. He's in the wilderness. He's doing thing. Sometimes I think about how much I wished there was at least one picture of him at the Chuck E. Cheese opening. i know, with the balloons. Yeah, I know.
Speaker: So Michelle Capra is horny too and wanted afternoon sex with the doctor. He tells her that all the women in Sicily are horny and all the men in town have been emotional.
Speaker: Joel is back in Sicily gathering his stuff and Maggie is flirting with him trying to get him to hang out. Joel goes to the brick. He's going back to New York City. That's it. He's done. And he asked Shelly for his tapes back and that she took from his stuff.
Speaker: She refuses, like aggressively. Yeah, she's gone full on dude bro at this point. um I love that. You know, at this point, too, I feel like if this were modern day, Shelly at this point would be walking around in a fleece vest and talking about day trading on Robin Hood. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's a really fun.
Speaker: i love the the gender reversals in this because the women have taken on kind of the male persona because of the water. And I love how it's interpreted. It's a very fun premise to see how the ladies of Sicily interpret what a man of Sicily is.
Speaker: Yeah, I liked it in Szymanski's case, but not so much in the rest. I wrote, it took me seven minutes and 27 seconds to realize, oh, the women are doing men things and the men are doing women things. And that's what this episode is all going to be. Yeah.
Speaker: I liked it. I've never seen it before. And I watched it and I was like, I was with you and kind of like halfway through, I was like, this now starts to feel problematic. Like, I feel like if they did this in this time period, it would just be about the sex. There wouldn't be like yeah the male.
Speaker: right The premise does not hold up at all. No, it's so deeply rooted in... yeah like You have to know and have to deeply believe in gender stereotypes to even get a rise out of it. It's like an old magazine that you would find in your uncle's bathroom that's like...
Speaker: Jokes to read on the can. Right. That's how this whole episode read. um But I still liked the I like Cal. I love whenever they bring Cal back. Like the B players in this season have been the only saving grace.
Speaker: Yeah. I mean, I liked a lot of it. I just didn't think they needed to have people like the girls playing basketball and like, you know, that was ridiculous. That was like that was an SNL sketch. Yeah. it was So stereotypical bad when the girls are playing basketball. Yeah, it was weird. um So Ed can hear Cal playing his violin and discovers he is on his roof.
Speaker: And then Cal falls. We finally get to see kind of the outside of Ed's other than that one static photo that they show or static video of of outside his house.
Speaker: Barbara stops by the radio station and Maurice is working late. She starts flirting with him and then kisses him and wants have sex in the radio station. And Maurice is in the privacy of the booth with the front windows facing Main Street.
Speaker: Yeah, I loved it. um ed seeks Cal into the doctor's office have Dr. Capra check his arm from the fall. Cal lives in an abandoned Bear cave. Perhaps the bear cave. Maggie fell in love with the bear and perhaps made love with it.
Speaker: Weird. No. think pulled up Barbara and Maurice made love again at his house. Maurice wants to talk after and Barbara doesn't.
Speaker: She just wants a sandwich. Yeah, then one wants to do it again. ah Marilyn asked Dr. Capra how Cal is. He asked her if she has noticed anything strange with the women in town.
Speaker: Maggie and Michelle are playing basketball. Acting like dudes, like we talked about. Ed comes home to his apartment rummaged by most likely Cal. Dr. Capra is still trying to figure out what is going on with the women.
Speaker: He tells Maurice he thinks there's something going on with the water. Maurice is mining. He recommends pulling it from the shelves. Maurice says, hell no.
Speaker: ah Dr. Capra tells Cal he's depressed, but Cal refuses to believe it. Joel goes back to Shelly to get his tapes again.
Speaker: He pulls out the finders keepers. Oh, she pulls out finders keepers to Joel. Hayden gets shipped off to the hospital for having too much sex again after being told to stop.
Speaker: Yeah, she his what his girlfriend's name was Marshall. um She literally broke her man. She literally broke him. just like how she was just like, what?
Speaker: All right. The most unassuming average woman, just like this nice woman and apparently a beast in the sheets. Looks are deceiving, Caleb. That's true. Women are multifaceted beings.
Speaker: Dr. Capra has a town meeting and tells everyone the water is making women act like men and men act are acting like women. All the women lash out at them. Our first town meeting in the brick. ah Where's the church? What's going on? Why have we decided to have them in the brick after all this time?
Speaker: Because we're busy building new sats. Because they're all of the rest of the sats. I think they're losing locations at this point. I think they're just yeah they're they're losing locations. mean, the church shows up later, but we also know that they've ah they aired this season way out of order. So who knows what's happening.
Speaker: ah Chris is, of course, into all the women lashing out on Dr. Capra and just the whole scenario in general. ah He hasn't changed. He seems still very much in tune with both people and kind of vague about everything.
Speaker: Maurice is making Barbara stop having sex. He finally realizes it's the water. little late in the game. And wasn't that at the dump? Weren't they, like, just in a car in the dump having sex?
Speaker: It's the most scenic overlook in all of Alaska is there. Yeah. Oh, Cal is still in Sicily ah eating Ed's food. He thinks it may be okay to try Dr. Kapper's depression medication.
Speaker: Ed says, maybe you're lonely. Cal agrees. He probably does want to be around people. Marie says, Dr. Capra, what is going on with my water? He says, the water is trying to balance itself out. This is a this is dinosaur water. And this may be why the dinosaurs died. The water. So yeah this writing choice, the sexy dinosaur water. Right. So he's implying that they fucked each other to death, Right.
Speaker: I feel like we could like I feel like there's a marketing like, uh, what's that one? ah what's the water that everybody loves right now? death Um, with the skull on a death water death? No. yeah like's Liquid death. like Liquid death. Liquid death. I feel like this is a marketing opportunity for them.
Speaker: ah Like sexy dinosaur water is perfect for the like, it's ripe for the taking. There's no IP that's already existing. Like nobody owns dinosaurs as a whole. They could call it sexy dinosaur water and it's theirs. Well, Sicily could be marketed as just a sexy place to go, right? We had the Aurora Borealis where all of the people from Asia came over to to have sex so their kids would be lucky. Was that what it was? um that No, they were just, ah if they had sex under the Northern Lights, I think they were more guaranteed to conceive, I thought. But maybe it also was that they would also be like gifted and talented. Maybe.
Speaker: And then they had the, when the ice shifts, Right? Everyone gets horny again. Mm-hmm. Well, right before. Well, there was just like angst before the ice shirp. Yeah, Sicily is better than Viagra, if being honest. Yeah.
Speaker: I think any small town. I mean, you look at any small town in America, and you're left with fewer options. you just go with what you got. Well, I can tell having grown in one, there's not a lot to do. course, drugs are more rampant as well. So you've got drugs and sex.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, that's my town too. I feel like a lot of people in the town that I grew up in, the the family trees were little more linear than one would like. Oh, boy. Straight with a lot without a many branches. Well, I feel like it was a small, I think it was German and Polish were the two like major communities. And like I feel like I knew a lot of, ah there were a lot of cousins.
Speaker: And then we left and I went back recently and there's not a lot of different names in the cemetery. but We went back to the cemetery and there's like a few major names and that could just be because the cemetery is now full and those are the major like families, founding families, or it could just mean there was a lot of close relationships. Who knows?
Speaker: Or people also like us. I mean, it was a small town. It was a farming community. So people just ah left. Yeah. It's very in right now. Game of Thrones, all of that stuff, you know?
Speaker: So Joel... Oh, and Joel finally gives Shelly the tapes back after Shelly had given it to given it to him. He was like, fine, keep them. I don't care.
Speaker: um Oh, I also wrote, it's funny that Maurice wouldn't want to capitalize on this water because it would drive people to the town. But there's that that facto of like, well, it makes women more manly and we wouldn't want that. It's very in line with his homophobia and all that other stuff.
Speaker: But you feel like with his marketing sensibilities that he could have just spun that. Like, this is a spinnable problem. If you're looking at, like, he has spun everything else. It's very weird that this is the hill.
Speaker: that he'll die on. Well, I was thinking about him in this episode because he basically has to shut down the operation. I have yet to see Maurice six two i have yet to see maurice succeed in any of his ventures. mean, so how did he get so goddamn rich?
Speaker: Every single one of his ventures over the course of the last six years has ended in disaster. I have a theory that maybe he just turns a quick profit. Like he'll start something, sell it immediately before it fails. I don't know. This is this is the only way I can think he made his money. Could be an astronaut's pension.
Speaker: NASA probably got a pension. Yep. And then investments. He's always talking about in the investments. Because I don't think astronauts make that much money. You'd be surprised. Well, let me Google. I'm on a computer just like you. How much did astronauts? Well, and not only that. Specifically Apollo astronauts because that's when he, well, he was Apollo in early shuttle. In the 80s, right?
Speaker: No, the 60s. Oh, 60s. 60s into 70s. He said, i don't know that he ever went up in the shuttle, but he was definitely in the Apollo program. Yeah, but he also probably got a lot of money when he first got out with like appearances and talks.
Speaker: But then i think you're right, Caleb, in a sense that he, a lot of turnaround stuff. Like, right? He has a lot of money, so he buys something, and then he sells it for a little more a little bit of profit. Yeah, flips he flips everything as quick as he can, yeah. So they made, the Apollo missions generally made between $15,000 and $30,000 annually.
Speaker: Which probably wasn't bad. Honestly, $30,000 in the 60s. Yeah, but like adjusted, that's only like six figures. That's not, you'd think for something so risky and deadly. You invest that well.
Speaker: And he was like a test pilot, wasn't he? So he was in the military for a while. Probably worked his way up. Has a great pension. Free health care. He's a dreamer and a schemer.
Speaker: Yeah, it's true. ah All right, so Joel's burning all his belongings, his med school diploma, and he reveals he's not going to back to New York now. I'm going back to the village. And Joel canoes back upriver.
Speaker: I've said it before and I'll say it again. i like the new Joel. I like the direction this season, the inner discovery. He's becoming the person he was always meant to be. do i think so. He seems at peace. Yeah, he seems calm. He seems cool and collected, you know?
Speaker: Do you think that he realized that he was, or do you think that he was like just one of the many people that took it down? Like we know about all of the contract disputes and the writers and everything, but I mean, he's getting out into what he thinks is the next beautiful part of his career. yeah,
Speaker: everybody else is seemingly and acting wise, very angry. Like this whole season just reads that everybody is so unhappy. Yeah. It's almost they were feeling pressure of that new producer coming in. Cause it was pretty clear that the new producer coming in was trying to tank this thing.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. And they were emotional. They were so emotional in some episodes where I was like, this feels like they're talking about the actor, not Joel. Yeah. Yes, there was a lot of like not acting yeah in this season.
Speaker: Yeah, he definitely was not around a lot of the other characters this season. Even like his farewell episode, he's just not around anybody. Weird. All right, so Barbara apologizes to Maurice and leaves to go to the ah Chokehold Conference.
Speaker: I like that there was a Chokehold Conference. Entire conference for chokeholds. Oh So we wrap up with Cal coming out of hiding to give a show for Sicily. Szymanski goes to check it out, but everyone had cleared out.
Speaker: I love this. The Ed is basically hosting a speakeasy for performances now. I think this, this little moment is evidence that Ed is becoming a shaman in his own right with his own style. He's gone away from Leonard.
Speaker: He's discovered his voice. Um, This is a better episode for him too because so many of the episodes leading up to this one, Ed is just so unintelligent. And like, who is this character? And in this one, felt like we were back to full glory Ed. I loved this ending.
Speaker: yeah i I also liked this one. And i I would love to explore like Caleb. I specifically had, i was like, I wonder what Caleb thinks about this. Like everybody is flipping their understood gender roles. And what does Ed do?
Speaker: Because i will say that he had the most typically effeminate I would say mannerisms maybe throughout the seasons, if you were to like compare him, like he's, but also like he's basically Maurice's housekeeper.
Speaker: Yeah. Throughout a lot of the seasons, but he doesn't take on a typical feminine or a typical masculine role in this episode or really in any episode, he's kind of that neutral character. He does fall in love with women, But in this one, I just found it like I wanted to explore, is he the one who does not get affected in different ways? Or how is he affected other than for the love of the performance? But that also feels like deeply Ed anyway.
Speaker: Don't you feel like it's also Marilyn thing? I feel like they're trying to say like the people who were born here aren't affected in the same way y'all are. they They're plugged in in a different way the rest of the world isn't.
Speaker: like they're They're in tune with everything around them. Yeah. i native wanted yeah i just wanted some thing more.
Speaker: But welcome to this season. ha Season six leaves you wanting more. Yeah. All right. Anything else with this one?
Speaker: um I really liked the French guy's hat. I wish we made hats like that still. Um, I had something else about Cal.
Speaker: You had something about, didn't you have something about Ed with movies? Well, yeah, that was kind of the, like, was that his role reversal? But oh it it doesn't quite, yeah, it doesn't quite pan out.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: No, just sexy dinosaur water. think that was it. it Sexy dinosaur water. Oh, rest in peace, Sam Neill. What a day to be talking about sexy dinosaur water. i know.
