Gay Vampires and Sad Ghosts: Immortality in Sitcoms

I guess it's just a balance, but, you know Honestly, they're pretty upset about this new couple moving in to their mansion. But for me, being able to have a daily private showing of who's afraid of Virginia Wolf is maybe the best possible thing about being a ghost.

yeah, absolutely. Like I would be using my fart magic to like start fights

like, imagine the small scale drama you would get to witness.

oh. And like the convincing stories and like the context and stuff. I, I feel like if I had to pick, I, I would pick that over how to clean a pot. Good. Hello and welcome to because it was on the fancy film podcast, but for people who prefer to talk about that episode of modern family, where Jay and cam accidentally touch butts in a locker room, I'm Zach and I accidentally cracked my boss' priceless VA at a party.

And hi, I'm Jessica. I believe my kid was stupid for years, but turns out they just needed glasses. And I learned a valuable lesson about supportive parenting.

So, Jessica uh, I have meaning to ask you, how is your summer internship at the non-descript historical society?

You know, funny, you should mention it. I was just gonna tell you about this photo. I found in the archive. So I found this photo and this guy looks just like you. And when I did some digging, it turns out he was like this huge cocaine purveyor in late 19th century, Atlanta. I mean really crazy stuff.

Oh uh, wow. Uh, Let me see. Uh, Yeah. Uh, I guess I kind of, I kind of see it.

You wanna know what else? So I did a little digging and it turns out okay, funny enough that this guy was named Zacharias crazy. Right? And you, you wanna know how I know that. So I found this contract uh, written on the back of like this really nice old timey pornography and. You know, I'm no lawyer, but it looks to me to be in agreement, giving Zacharia 10% ownership of Coca-Cola in exchange for all the cocaine in Atlanta, man.

Jessica has something to share with you.

Yes.

Sometime in my earlier youth, I made a deal with the, which she guaranteed me eternal life in exchange for like some really, really premium cocaine. It is as Zacharia I have been looking for that contract for someone hundred and 30 years. Now that you found that I quitting this show, leaving my job, claiming my millions and moving to Bermuda. You will never see me again.

I accept this without question.

Mm-hmm okay. Normally people have, uh, follow up questions about the immortality thing.

Nope. Nope. That checks out to me. Here's the contract buddy. Good luck.

No, like, uh, theological questions about which is being real.

So just check, turns out. We can get you a flight to Atlanta tomorrow for like 150 bucks on Southwest.

Okay, cool. Uh, so, so for lion to you all these years later,

Well, Zach, I'm glad we're back to doing our show, but I'm super sorry. The Coca-Cola contract didn't hold up in court.

yeah. It turns out the legal system is not nearly as willing to believe that I'm in immortal being, who has lived many lives prior to being a stay-at-home uncle in South Carolina, a real bummer that a contract on the back of a very tasteful turn of the century porn magazine, didn't hold up in court. It really is harder to bribe a judge with cocaine than it used to be. Let me tell you,

I'm a real bummer. Indeed. Zacharias

well, if you haven't guessed it by now, the theme of our show today, folks is immortality. The eons passing by and the sands of times, stripping your humanity, bear and showing what lies beneath if anything in sitcoms.

Yeah, Zach and I decided, you know, this week we we've, we've done a lot of hard research for this show. Let's choose something light and easy and somehow landed on immortality.

Yeah. I've been reading up on kike guard.

Basically just whipped out all of my freshman year of college philosophy, texts, just cruise through those.

But no need dear your listener. You don't have to do any of that. Cuz you can just watch what we do in the shadows, the good place and ghosts,

Yeah. You know, and, and with ghosts, you have your pick of the litter between the us and the UK version turns out Zach and I did a little mix 'em up and one of us watched the us version and one of us watched the UK version, but it only benefits you dear your listener, cuz you're gonna get an analysis of both of them.

to be clear, it was not a mix 'em up. We both were gonna we were gonna both do the version and I

Zach opted out

of the pilot done. I was like, I literally can't do this anymore. And I went and I just went right to the BBC.

whereas I, the, the Intrepid soul that I am put my nose to the grindstone and I just swallowed that bitter bitter pill. My friends

yeah, you rough through it. You watched eight episodes,

six, six, yeah. Six is uh, is as much as I was gonna be able to do. Look, it's not a terrible show, but it's also not a great one. And we're gonna talk about it. We're gonna talk a little bit more about it. I'm sure there are folks out there who, who really enjoy it and honestly more power to ya. But yeah, it wasn't, wasn't Zach's cup of tea. So Zach, I do wanna talk about, you know, what, what sort of themes did did you capture from immortality in sitcoms?

So immortality, it's very adaptable as to how you are going to approach it Are you really going to dive into the nitty gritty daily reality of someone who is immortal? And everyone's dying around them or is it gonna be like a Sabrina, the teenage witch thing where an Zelda and aunt Hilda. They were essentially immortal casually. We just talk about hanging out with Cleopatra. But you never really like dive into the

Yeah, they seem super well adjusted. All things considered

Speaking, which while we are talking about I, I am gonna answer your question, Jessica, but out of the two Sabrina, the teenage, which aunts, which one do you think supported? The union and which one do you think supported the south? Because this is lo it's cannon.

Yeah,

It has an answer. I will play the clip for the listeners.

definitely. You know, I fully believe this is cannon. Now I'm gonna ask you a follow up question. We are obviously talking about the Melissa Joan Hart Sabrina. Correct? We are not talking about the chilling adventures of Sabrina.

Melissa.

Okay. So here's what I am going to guess on this one. am going to go with Hilda supporting the union and Zelda supporting the Confederacy.

Uh, Cannon. Unfortunately, it's the opposite

flip flop?

Hilda supported the south

Do they give any kind of reasoning?

no, because it it's one of those classic sitcom things where like they even did it in my favorite Martian where like the immortal character will be like, oh, Shakespeare. He was a very funny fellow. I gave him some tips to help with his little plays, that kind of thing. Just third, do that one liner. It was a one liner.

Okay. So what's, what's your take on why Hilda would've supported the Confederacy.

I believe that Hilda very much has like strong ant energy of like, doesn't really pay attention to politics, but definitely has like

mm

she's following vibes

I see. I see.

like, she, she's she's not reading those like early newspapers. She she's just like, oh, everybody's angry. And the first person she saw explained it from like a Confederate side and she's like, oh, wow, states' rights. and

yeah. So she was just hanging out in new Orleans and was like, well, I guess this is the side I'm on.

yeah, but I,

We're really doing some back bends here to, to clear Caroline. Right? Good name.

I, I think, I don't think about it.

look, I'm happy to hear it because as, as you and our listeners probably well know, I, I very much identify with Zelda of the two witches. And so I'm happy to hear that her name is cleared. She landed on the right side of history. I know you as a, a long time HIL, the stand, this is probably a hard, a hard moment for you.

It really is a hard moment. I don't know why I stake so much of my personality on sitcom. It does nothing, but burn me. Like we almost got Cosby show tattoos, like three years before the allegations came out.

All your heroes, turn out to be the villains. Everything you love will crumble before you. And I feel like, honestly, that's very fitting for today's theme.

Yeah. So the themes that you originally asked for before by digression?

A very good digression. It was it. We, somebody needed to expose Hilda. It was time

yeah. Yeah. Hilda is canceled except for chilling adventures, Hilda.

Yeah, Lucy Davis. You're still, you're still golden in our buck,

You may eat people, but you

but at least, at

you didn't support the Confederacy.

that we're aware of.

The only thing those ants did is like they showed up at the battlefield and they had a little Schorge sport. So.

want that.

So you see themes of immortality as being like very boring. And the sort of like rot that comes with that, you see immortality as being isolating. That's another theme you see immortality as being like under eroding force that breaks down social more, just like alienates you from larger society. And then like immortality as like a curse where you don't have a purpose to fill, like, there's this stagnation that happens, like what's the point of living.

And I think it's interesting just before we jump too deep into those themes when we're talking about immortality, it's kind of a funny word to use for the shows that we've chosen, because when you think about it a little bit more, in fact, all of these shows are about people who are actually dead. So we ghosts clearly they're all dead. What we do in the shadows while it pretty much seems that they're like living, they are, they are in fact BA like per cannon, like dead.

I'm glad that you went in that direction because when you said the thing about immortality is like, is she gonna start like proselytizing? Like like cuz this isn't real or immortality that can only be a chief through Christ

well, I mean, I guess like, if you really wanna go into it with the good place, like you could, you could probably get there if you really wanted to. But no, no, I'm not pulling. I, I once went to Salem speaking of the chilling adventures of Sabrina, I went to Salem, Massachusetts,

I've already written a story in my head and I hope that it's

it's not gonna be nearly as good as you think it is. But I did go on a, a tour of Salem, Massachusetts, and at the end of it, our tour guide, didn't de proselytized to us very hard at the end of the tour. About while there was no real witchcraft here. What we learned about was the horror of man and the evil men are capable of doing and therefore all of us on the tour should should consider Jesus.

That's such a good con. You go to Salem, get your church to subsidize the tour and you make it like the cheapest one on the street. And then, so you get all of the evil doers there that are there to like learn about witches. And then instead they get a little lesson in Christ.

I still tipped him, you know, even though that I think is now gonna go to supplying additional Eucharist at the local Salem church. but I still didn't indeed tip him

As a southerner that like grew up with that kind of shit being pulled constantly with like coffee shops, haunted houses. I respect the con I respect the hustle.

yeah. It's all about the creativity

yep. What are we talking about? okay.

so, no. So we were just talking about how these shows portray immortality and kind of like the rules of immortality and the fact that like all of them are actually dead. And so it's more like in IOR, immoral consciousness, right? You're conscious, but free from the, these strictures that all of us mere mortals must contend with, which is ultimately death, but also sort of disease, pain, hunger, tiredness all of these things that come along with being a mortal human.

Yeah, there are some earlier shows that do have actual immortal characters that are still living there's Samantha and well, all the witch characters and be witched.

Right. Yeah. And Sabrina, the teenage witch, as we mentioned.

a fun fact about be witched and Endora, she is supposedly meant to be the, the witch of indoor in the Bible.

Oh, okay.

So like Endora is fucking ancient so there's, be witch there's of course Sabrina, the teenage witch, there is Martin and my favorite Martian there's a Benjamin button situation going on with mark and Mor and theny where he is very old, but he, he ages backwards.

Yeah. Yep.

not aortal, it's just quite old.

Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think what's, what's different about those versus the one we chose is really how immortality is almost like a a feature of, of the show and of these characters, right? Like it's a central part of who they are and what's happening to them. And the plot in the shows that we chose versus almost like an incidental, like side mention. Right. It's a, it's like in Sabrina, the teenage witch, it is almost exclusively used as like a tool for making sidebar jokes.

Absolutely. I think all, all three of those shows that I mentioned that that's how the immortality tends to function is just like, yeah. I went to high school with queen Victoria, that kind of thing,

Mm-hmm

uh, Where these, like, these are all modern shows or contemporary shows. And they have like that kind of postmodern thing that you get with shows now where it's like about breaking down tropes or like really zoning in, on a trope. And talking about like the actual practical reality that if this were to be the case

Right.

which is why these are, these are good shows to zoom in, even though there are other examples.

Yes. Yeah, exactly. And I think ultimately what these shows are trying to at least surface or question or have us think about, which is what I think the larger theme of our episode is, is really like when you remove the idea of mortality from humanity, like what, what then is a, what then is a human right? What, what is humanity without mortality? And I think that's the, that's the big question again, folks, we thought we were gonna do an easy breezy light episode and turns out we're answering.

I, I, I messaged you earlier in the weekend was like, Hey Jessica, I have a big project coming up, so we need to do a light, a light topic.

easy breezy folks. We're just gonna go ahead and talk about immortality

okay. So the first theme that we put on our list is immortality as being like this boring nothingness of just like time stretching along odd words. You see it a lot and you see, they make a really big point about it in the good. This idea of immortality being boring in the final few episodes, they have Lisa Kuro, who is this ancient Greek philosopher. And one of cheat's great idols.

yeah. Yeah. The never ending consciousness and sort of the DRES of never ending consciousness is very common in the good place. you see it even in the earlier seasons when they they're in the bad place, but think it's the good place, This like never ending everything's the same, every. And like the inherent boredom in that, right. Because as every, as every storyteller and astute observer of sitcoms know, right. Like story thrives on conflict.

you're right. The circumstances of the immortal characters in those two shows is radically different. What do you think about the concept? Uh This, this is the light. This is the light show. What do you think about the concept of like, in order for heaven to be functional and like serve its purpose as an eternal reward, it can't be eternal. Like how does that hold up? Like what would be your rules for the good place? What do you think that

right.

is suggestion that this is how the afterlife would be. Is that the held up.

Well, I think, I think the broader point is into, to quote another sitcom philosophy. Here you take the good you take the bad you take. 'em both. And there you have the facts of life, meaning you really can't have one without the other. And so goodness, as a, or sort of this blissful utopia as a reward for life only makes sense. So in so far as you can remember your pain and suffering from life and how shitty and hard life was, and remember that this was a reward,

yeah, absolutely. I think one of the flaws that I have with some conceptions of the good place is that, you won't be sad about your loved ones who went to the bad place, because you'll forget about them in the good place. And I was like, so what does that's like, you're getting lobotomized in order to go to the good place. It's not you anymore.

exactly. Yeah. So like at what point does it, it, at what point are you being rewarded? If those things that make you, you have been stripped from you to make some sort of compromise for happiness.

Yeah. So I think that this is a good compromise, like as far as if you are going to stay who you are completely, then you just get to do like your Jason thing, where you eat every imaginable, flavor of hot wings in the universe and you get to play like bumper cars with monkeys, and then you get to play like Madden button in real life until you're like perfect at it. And you do all that for like thousands of Jeremy bees. And then eventually you're like, all right I'm done. It makes sense.

yeah, which I think like is something that like Eleanor probably would also have agreed with until, I guess, until you're there and you're living it. And I think the reason that it's easy for you to say that and say that you want to cheat the system is because in fact, you are living a mortal reality wherein like you have pain and suffering and bills to pay and jobs to work that are in fact shitty. If those things were gone and removed from your life, for eternity.

Well,

you have the good without the bad

this is the scheme that I thought. Cause I gotta let you know, I was a really deep kid. I thought about some fucked up shit

okay. Fair enough.

In Sunday school, one of the things that they get you to do is like think about like what your heaven would be. And like, like I basically, I remember a Sunday school teacher, pink, like it's a place where you get infinite wishes and anything you want will happen. So what would your heaven be like? And so I was like, all right, here's the feeling? Here's what I want. it's like I want to go. I, I want, we're doing Harry Potter. we're going into the Harry Potter universe. We're getting in there.

So, I mean, they

Lord of the rings,

right? Like they kind of do this in the good place. I believe the second season is that they're like plopped back into real life without knowledge of the fact that they're actually dead.

right? Yeah. So they have forgetting technology. So that's just what they need to do.

yeah. I mean, you got a loophole here.

Yeah. Like just ask Janet to make you forget about the billion flavors of chicken wings that you just ate and then you could eat of billion chicken wings again for the first time.

Yeah.

so I would be going for the high score in the good place is the thing

yeah, on like the more shitty side, I guess, like, it does imply that like, like humans without like, without work and a purpose like inherently devolve into sort of like idiocy and like meaninglessness.

I, I think they do explore like in the series finale, different ways of self actualization. So Jason is like just pure hedonism in a way he just does all of the fun stuff. And that's how, but then he gets like tired of it. TA does, she is kind of going for the high score because she has like this comedically long list of things that she wants to master, like topiary sculptures and carpentry and making a car from scratch and all that to like, you know, build herself up

Like she wants to finally feel superior to her sister.

Yeah. Like to be literally perfect at everything is like her heaven. And so that's what she does. She just works hard for all of eternity to master literally everything. And then when she's finally done and you think that they're gonna say, she's going to walk through that that door instead, she just becomes like the girl boss of the bad place.

Yeah, that definitely sounds like the classics sitcom set up for a spin.

It oh God, I would love the Dhani bad place. Spit off.

I think, I think it's coming. I, I, I put money on it right after she gets done with her. She halt contract. She's gonna go straight for it.

They're gonna, like, now that she's famous and she's got that Marvel money they're they're gonna just like come out of the shadows, the CPS executives, and be like, you signed a, you signed a contract eight years ago.

remember when you were nothing. Remember when we made you

You're doing the bad place now.

honestly sounds like a good idea. CBS. Get on it. Sort of continuing with the idea of immortality as boring. I think we also see this, like, I think almost most pronounced in ghosts. I'm not sure if you see it so much in the the UK version as you do in the us version, but in the us version, these ghosts are incredibly bored and like their eternity is boring.

Yeah, it's definitely in the BBC version as well. It's like the defining thing about their depiction of how being a ghost would be. They can't

same in the us version. Yep.

Yeah. They can't touch anything. They can't talk to anybody. That's not also a ghost. They have like daily presentations that

Yeah.

Like where they'll each just like talk about their time period, educate each other, which considering this has happened every day, since the camp counselor died, presumably they see wildly ignorant about each other's lives.

Yeah. Okay. So my husband and I were also trying to figure this out. It seems like they present to each other every single day and yet know nothing about each other.

They're literally they're down to like the minutia of it. like by in the BBC, I, I forget what the exact thing is in the BBC, but they have um, you know, witch that died in the witch trials in the Stewart era. And she's like talking about how to scrub a pot good or something like that. And so like, they're down to, like,

yeah. Yeah. We're getting to like bottom tier in the us version. It's like a, it's like a early 2000 stock broker, bro. So we're talking like Enron era stock boy. And he's, he's basically talking about like who Tara Reed is. Like so

started with that.

but we are definitely like, we are definitely getting down to the nitty gritty here, but yeah, so the, their, their reality is like, it's, it's painfully boring because you can watch, you can be a witness to everything, but you really only have like five other people you can ever talk to. None of you like, presumably like none of them immediately at least in the American ghost. Not all of them spoke English, presumably.

Yeah. Definitely be the worst depiction of immortality is like, yeah, I don't want, I don't want that one.

Yeah. And they, they seem to be aware of it. Right. Because they, they definitely talk about. Becoming a ghost as essentially like a, a curse. And they're not a hundred percent sure why they're chosen to be ghosts. It seems like there's maybe some unfinished business because they do talk about, and to use the, the terminology of the show. I didn't make this up. They do talk about that sometimes when you like finish whatever unfinished business that you have, you get sucked off.

So why? I think it's important to emphasize the boring aspect of it is what it says about humanity that like human beings need change. They need to have like a sort of dynamic aspect to their lives, where things have, if they don't change, they at least have the possibility of changing. And there is something that sort of removes you a degree from reality. If you're in this sort of like unchanging situation

right. Everything about you is unchanging except for the world around you. But you yourself cannot change. And I think in addition to needing some element of dynamic change in your life. You also have to have some agency, right? The ability to affect the change. And so you have to have agency, you have to have control over your own course and your own trajectory. And so ghosts really strips that away for our characters. And literally all you are left with is consciousness.

So I know American horror story, the first season hell house, is that what it was called? Murder

Murder house. Yeah,

To like, maybe explain the, like, why they don't seem to remember the things that their a fellow ghost must have been telling 'em maybe they could be working on like murder house rules where it's

so, but, but continue.

where like, so in murder house it's established that like, it is literally impossible for the ghosts to like change or having any kind of personal growth because they're ghosts. They are stuck in their trauma. They are stuck in their whatever nonsense they were caught up in. And so there's like this very tragic Mora character the made ghost who is never allowed, to like, become a woman. Cuz she's like, I don't know, ghost rules you're not let it grow. So it, it might be that situation.

definitely stagnant and stuck in their shit, but there, there has to be some growth, right. Otherwise they wouldn't get sucked off. They wouldn't have like this resolution of unfinished business and we wouldn't see these character. Like, and again, I only watch the first six episodes, a ghost, so who knows how much they actually do change. But we do see these characters at least attempting to change. And I think the big difference between American horror story.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That, that's a good point.

and our ghosts in ghosts definitely know they're dead and like walk around, like the guy with the arrow, through the neck, like he's walking around, like with the, with the death on him. Right. Like how he died on him literally. And so they're very aware that they're dead.

Yeah, for sure. I, so I just like, that's a stab in the dark of like trying to get some ghost lore in there. why aren't the Ted talks more productive.

Why aren't the Ted talks more productive? Because I don't think that they actually, like, I don't think the writers of this actually thought it through and I think they're used more of a, a device for us to understand more about like the reality, like the live reality and perspective of these characters than it is for the, the group of ghosts. I also think.

right? Yeah. Like in the river of time, you are the only rock.

Right? So like, they

read a lot of Anne rice as a teenager.

so they do these little these little huddle ups, but it's very, it's entirely possible that like, none of them care or are listening,

Yeah.

like they just have their own internal monologues going on in their head, especially like, I guess if you were given a class on how to clean a pot, really good. Like how much are you listening?

I mean, if there are only 20 people in my universe and I've been there for 400 years, I feel like I would already know how to clean a pot. Good. By 20, 22

well, it's like, what's fascinating too, is like, their lives are incredibly boring. And the only thing interesting is basically like watching the world around them, but at least in my version of ghosts that I watched on on CBS, they ha like, they're the, the couple that moves into the mansion is attempting to turn it into a hotel. And like, for some reason, the ghosts are like very against this, even though it would presumably like provide a lot of entertainment.

I think it's physically painful for them to get like walked through. And that was the main concern.

Yeah. That was the big concern. So it seems like there's like, I don't know. That seems avoidable. If you ask me, like, it seems entirely avoidable.

And then you would have like some stuff actually happening. Yeah. It was weird to me too. Like, I would want people there that I could like see and like you know, so I'm not just literally watching seminars on how to clean a pot. Good.

Potentially. Yeah. I guess, I guess maybe you have to make the choice between like the pain of watching. Like other people enjoy a life and like have the things you don't have. You have to balance that with the, the pain of like incredible boringness and drudgery of an eternity of knowing that you're dead and being stuck with like 20 other people. So I guess it's just a balance, but, you know Honestly, they're pretty upset about this new couple moving in to their mansion.

yeah, absolutely. Like I would be using my fart magic to like start fights

like, imagine the small scale drama you would get to witness.

oh. And like the convincing stories and like the context and stuff. I, I feel like if I had to pick, I, I would pick that over how to clean a pot. Good.

Yeah. A hundred percent. If we could just focus on how to fuck up a life. I, I think it would honestly, you know, that could be fun. That could be a fun, little part about being a ghost is like, how do I just make life for the living as annoying as humanly possible.

Yeah. I think this is why P guys happen. It's just like, this is the only fun they have.

Like that's a really good lead in like ghosts in and of itself that I think is a good lead in to the isolation that is immortality. Because part of why immortality for them is boring is because it is isolating. so like their world, as we've already mentioned, right, their world gets so incredibly small. They go from being a human being who every human on any given day out in the world is going to interact with probably dozens of different people.

It is so dark and not only that, of just like everything about. The world you were isolated from? Not only because of like ghost rules, but just like like the changing society, but you're isolated from the other ghosts because you're all from different time periods. And like a lot of like the humor and the plot points of ghosts is like the tension between like a world Wari, military captain as the B, B, C show, like trying to figure out how to deal with like an ed Edwardian count

Yeah, exactly, exactly. Right. It's the frustration of the stockbroker bro, being like, nobody knows who Tara is. Nobody knows what a movie is. This is bullshit, right? Like you're your cultural references are, are, are thrown out the window. Right. And it's like even more exacerbated than saying, going to like going and living in another country. Right.

Yeah. So much of like, Our cultural currency or how we like connect to another person. Especially like the modern era is with pop culture. It is you know, like, I don't know this person, but you know, they probably, they probably know what the office is. That's why everybody puts on the editing profile, the office it's just to like connect

Imagine, imagine, like, imagine, could we ever have been friends if like we didn't have glee

Yeah. was, if there wasn't glee, which is the first show we ever ponded over that no, we would just been strangers in the hallway. Nothing.

Think what we do in the shadows as well, I think those characters for all of the many lives they've lived are also at the end of the day, incredibly isolated,

They are, there are so many, I mean, it's like most, I mean, it's almost like the premise of the show about how high isolated they are from modern day society.

right.

And like them struggling to get by and like get their driver's license renewed. That kind of shit.

And I think, I think, I think there's a couple layers to their isolation too. Right. So there is isolation in the sense that like, as time goes by you become more and more out of touch with society. And I think what we do in the shadows does this, so fucking well, as you and I both know as you get older, your references for like the amount of time that has lapses between an event you remember, and modern day start to get fucking weird and like really wonky.

Yeah. So there's like science and that isolating you, you not really understanding how any of the technology works and that, that can be isolating. Also just things like your nationality and your cultural identity being things that don't even exist anymore

Yeah. Yeah. Like when Nandor meets his ghost version of himself he can't remember his native language. So like he can't even connect with himself because he can't remember his native language. all he remembers is like good morning. And the name of his horse.

Yeah. I think it's a very optimistic depiction of immortality as being, Cause he, that means that he's like grown and he hasn't used it. And so he's more immersed in his new identity as kind of like this American who, yeah. And so he, he he's left that behind because it was literally millennia ago. And so I think that's a very like.

also never fully human. Right. Because we see him trying to get, or never fully American, I guess, is a better way to put it. Cuz we see him trying to get his citizenship, but he fails.

Right. so he ultimately rejects like applying to be an American citizen because Guillermo gives him this big speech cuz Guillermo's been pissed off at the near suggestion that he should try to be an American and fill out these forms because he spent his entire life envying being a vampire, like wanting to be a vampire. So he gives a speech about how you're a fucking vampire who gives a shit. What you identify is you should identify as being a vampire.

we're still gonna talk about it. You guys aren't getting out of it.

Yeah, this is, so this is a very good, like like the queer text of what we do in the shadows as him. He has, he chooses to identify as a vampire. He is not going to just pick up this American identity and like do the paperwork and that kind of thing. He's just going to embrace his outsiderness.

Right, right. Also a comment I think on Giermo as Mexican American as well.

right. Yeah

In terms of like the conflict of accepting a nationality especially one sort of thrust upon you at, at what costs to your own like sort of personal ethnic identity,

absolutely. It's like a rejection of the melting pot.

right? Yeah, exactly. So I, I definitely think there's that. And, and sort of before we move on With what we do in the shadows. And, and the isolation of it. I do wanna call it two things. One you mentioned right? The optimistic view of immortality and that like you're able to move on and grow and change and like, let go of wounds of the past. But the show does have it both ways. An episode that I watched recently, so it's the episode.

Yeah, absolutely. I think that's great picking up on the fact that Nandor is able to walk away from the thing he did. But she is not able to walk away from the thing being done to her. Check your Ottoman power privilege. Nandor

Nandor

That's such a great O observation about She definitely NAIA is more connected to like her past. And she's it constantly like, has she has these cultural references that the others just don't seem to have about like three spits for a witch for, yeah. She still has like those like superstitions and stuff, the way the other, they, they do have a little bit of it, but I think it's more like in the fabric of do that. She has these kind of old worldy superstitions.

right. Yeah. And I think I haven't thought too much about it before this conversation, but I do think it is like when you compare her to Laslow and to Nandor it is kind of that trope that like, or that joke, that old joke that like white men can chime, travel anywhere in any time in the world. Whereas no one else can do that. So if you are a vampire who has lived through centuries, right? And you are in a oppressed class de facto, you are going to be carrying a lot heavier scars and trauma.

right. Yeah.

live through all that. And not to say, not just a complete victim here, cuz she turns, she turns around and eats people. So

She eats people every day for thousands of years.

so you know, you take the good, you take the bad they do go out of their way to make, like, to make Naja hate Gimo and like show how much he like hates Gamo more than Laslow. And Nandor I think specifically, because what we called out, like, she is much more empathetic to, to mortals than the other two are. And so I think they want to remind us that like, actually, yes, she is more the most human of the three, but she's also still a vampire.

Yeah. And like even like, or doesn't have antipathy towards any human beings either. Like, he's very, like when you see him talk to mortals, he's very like friendly and sweet to them. He just like a sweetheart and until it kills them and it's like, he has no emotional connection to these people. I, yeah. I it's just like a form of a protecting yourself. Right. Why would you get connected to these people? Really? If like in the time it feels like it would take you to brush your teeth.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's, that's what we see with not Joe, when she meets the, the elderly woman who she hung out with as a child, she's like really you're old already. Whoa. Did you have a nice life? Like, was it good?

Yep. My favorite, my favorite, like one off gags. And what we do in the shadows is when they have like their ADHD moments that I I identify with, but because they're on vampire time, it's like 80 years. They've like, yeah. yeah. I left that. It was just a couple years ago that I, I left that I left you with it and it was like, that was a

yeah, like when he left his familiar at the gas station

yeah. Yeah. It's like, yeah, I was,

Nandor when Nandor left his familiar at the gas station. Yeah. No it's so I think we've definitely gone on a little, what we do in the shadow tangent here around isolation, because they are indeed very isolated, but I. Honestly, let's continue with what we do in the shadows. And let's talk about like immortality is like this eroding force breaking down, social Moores, you already hinted at it.

Yeah. I do think that there is like a little bit of like subtext in what we do in the shadows of like everybody is working on SIM's rules with their sexual sexuality.

percent. If you're a vampire it's you're immediately automatically pansexual.

Yeah. It's it's why every queer person secretly believes

It's

There there's no way street people actually exist. and it given a millennia, you would eventually, just become a full, like SIM's personal pan pizza, sexual and But like, so I think that covers a lot of it. Yeah. I agree with your explanation. I would say that To just sort of like echo back to the isolating part of it.

Yeah. Yeah. It's,

character.

it's definitely implied that they've all had sex with each other. I think it actually, like for at least Laslow and maybe were undermining our whole argument. It definitely was occurring before he was a vampire. Right. Because he references like DS at the boys'.

Yeah. I think that's just sort of a crack at like weird,

Historical like Moores. Yeah.

yeah, British, like

Like it was basically considered like very normal and acceptable for a long time for that to happen at like British boys schools.

yeah, I think it was like a Brideshead revisited kind of joke. Just like English boy summer yeah, so there's that. And I also think that just like. If you live at a society where like homosexuality is a sin or adultery is a sin then okay, cool. But I literally kill someone every single night and drink their blood. So maybe I ain't worried about that chief

right? Yeah. And it's like all of your beliefs, like all of society's beliefs, like they will change over time. Right. So to what your point is, is like the rules we can establish here are more powerful than anything else it's like. Yeah. Cuz yours are going to last. Right. And yours will stay around for as long as you stay around, which is like, you will watch, you could watch empires rise and fall. Right. And, but your specific rules will stick around.

Oh, that's exciting. I did know that there was something happening on that front.

It's literally the newest episode

I'm finding it really hard listeners to move beyond season two, which I, there are amazing episodes, the best seasons of television, like in the sitcom genre, as far as I'm concerned to come out like since 30 rock, like it, it's a really good show and I hate once Taka left it, it got rough.

Look, season four is, is, is genuinely better than season three. Don't even bother watching the rest of season three. Like you don't even need to just skip right into season four and you get like a big moment from Giermo coming out and it's nice.

yeah, I think that might be what I need to do cause there for the episodes that I watch for season three, first of all Laslow was very planarized. I feel

and he doesn't do, he he's part is so small in season three, like he's so minimized.

I think Matt Barry working on another project.

had to have been, it felt like he wasn't into it in season three.

Yeah.

He's much more pronounced in season four. Again,

I think they were shooting toast in America.

I think yeah. Toast to LA or I think it's called like toast. Does Holly Holly weird or something like that? But yes, I agree with you. He's a little bit of a more pronounced part in season four. And it just feels like, so the first episode of season four is basically like season three, kind of never happened. Do we all agree? Okay. Let's move.

Oh, perfect. Okay. You sold me if they're announcing it, then that's cool.

It really does work.

okay. Yeah. Yeah. You've sold me

Try it, just try it.

to like summarize by objections about season three, it was like the, I don't know, it didn't have like a very queer sensibility to me at all. Especially that like

I get it.

Episode, like, I feel like part of the charm of what we do in the shadows is they, they really do

Oh, season four is so much more gay. Come on. You gotta watch it.

Yeah. But like the. Part of the charm of what we do in the shadows is everybody is humanized so much, like the, like one off mortal characters. Like if you think about the Jackie doona episode, like how that humor works is the show refuses to dehumanize anyone like, so like the waitress, it like has this like comedically, rich life. That's implied. She's like singing. And that's like how, what we do in the shadows is, and I just didn't like how they have this like, woman, that's just being like

Yeah, no, that it goes away. That goes, that goes away a lot. In season four, like it's so much queer, like there's a whole plot line about, Nandor like wanting to find his like true love. And like he brings back to life, all of his former wives and he's like, I had boy wives and I had girl wives. Right. And, and then Gamo was like, you had boy wives. And he is like, boy, wive, girl wife. It's not really that different. So

I'll check it out and I do absolutely love the first two seasons. They're

was the hard angle. This is the whole reason we did this episode. So I could convince you to watch season four. Okay, so then the next thing I wanted to talk about, if you feel like we've talked about how time breaks down all social social structures. I do wanna talk about the idea of like immortality and like eternal consciousness basically as it's essentially a curse. Right.

Of like the joke of them or like the comedic premise is that they lead fundamentally pointless lives. And it's funny to watch,

yes. I, I think they lead fundamentally pointless lives. Yes. Which I think is the opposite of ghosts and the good place.

right. I think what we do in the shadows has this really good line that I think sums up the entire show. It's in the episode where Nick Kroll first shows up they're in the club and they meet an old friend and They who I think we never see again, but they're like catching up like the, oh my God, how are you? Yada, yada, yada. And then like that character says, I'm so glad to see you here because you get all of these vampires that just like slink off to a house.

Right,

is they just wild away their life on pointless things. So I think they embrace the curse aspect of it and the pointlessness of it. The others chose not so much.

Yeah. No, the, the other shows definitely treat immorality as like, you're something, it's either a punishment for how you lived in life. As we see, I think in ghosts and a little bit in the good place, or it's meant to be as like a, a tool, right. For growth and fulfillment of something, right. Like a, an UN unfinished business yet to be completed.

Mm-hmm

And I think this is, I mean, it's obvious in the good place, the good place is literally like, it's it's, this is what happens after death. And you either go to the good place or the bad place. You go to the bad place for punishment and you go to the good place for reward and you are meant basically to kind of either suffer or live an endless list.

Yeah. So in the good place I think that the dichotomy that they set up in it's a good place for what the ideal immortality is in the good place, or at least the quasi immortality, cuz you can eventually choose to die. Is like Jason, like his immortality was just hedonism. But then like how they oppose that is like the self-actualization immortality of like like what is the purpose of your life when you are immortal, you get to perfect yourself and you see this with Tahani.

It's, it's crazy. How, how much an NBC television show starring Ted Danson really makes gonna gonna make you wanna think about philosophical questions, because it's just like considering that, souls can be rehabilitated. Like what, good does that actually tangibly do and is, is like the, the goodness of your soul after you've already died? does that even matter

I mean, if you take what you see in the good place, that face value, really, what is the difference between being alive and being that it's just like, it's like

fair?

an, an event within the larger context of your existence. You know what I mean? Once you are at the point where you're about to walk through the door and you're looking back, what's the distinction between you being alive and being dead. You've been alive for a billion trillion Jeremy bar, and you're only alive in life for 70 years.

So, well, the thing the D the major difference that I see is again, why I asked, like, fundamentally, is there a difference, right? So if you think about the mortal realm, right? The lives we're living here, pre-death. Humans are in control of their destiny and what happens to other humans. What I do has an impact on you, I make decisions which can fundamentally hurt you. And in the good place, humans are no longer in control. I can't hurt you.

right. I think that's,

So what does it matter if you're good or bad? What does it matter after, after that? Right? What does it matter if your soul is fundamentally changed and you are now a good soul and you've been rehabilitated and you go into the good place where it really doesn't matter, cuz you're no longer in control anyway.

I, it really that, like, what is the point of having this bureaucracy? That hands out points after death, when your choices no longer have consequences on other people, because you can ask Janet to take you to another place. If you don't like a person.

Exactly. So it doesn't matter anymore. Right. And so that's what I'm saying. Like it matters in the context of the show, cuz we care about Eleanor and we want her as a character to like grow and do something different.

Right, but why would this be the system you set up?

exactly, like if we were to take this as like, these are the rules. Of what happens after death? Why does it fucking matter if your soul gets better?

yeah. It's not like anybody ever told anybody what these rules are. So you just have to guess that like the re the rulers of the universe have sort of like an upper middle class American sense about sensibility on morality. Cause if you, like, they're obviously like written as jokes, but if like you look at like the rules of the universe, like the points that they take away and give it's like, it has a very like classist taste to it.

Yeah, well, we're we're we got you on our list now. Good place. We got your number. We're coming for you. Wait till, wait for that good place. In class episode, we've got cooking now.

yeah. So the thing that I guess I will say about like the good place trying to like the idea that self-actualization self perfection is the point of existence and that you are supposed to take away as somebody and the real world watching this. That is the point of life to self actualize with the perfect then I don't, it's the assumptions of it are interesting. I think it's very, it's a very like modern, late capitalist way of thinking about life.

cuz it makes you personally better.

right. That is because it, it's your goodness, your personal goodness that you're trying to act out. Which is not something that I think is necessarily how I would frame my own values. But it's definitely the values of this show they get again and again, emphasize how like morality is, like the point of morality is fundamentally like about you being a good person and you not being this like low class coded person.

right, right. so we have this idea with the good place of essentially like rehabilitating a soul as the purpose of the afterlife. Whereas I don't think in ghosts, the point is rehabilitation as much as it is fulfillment, right. Of something missed in life or undone in life. We have this whole arc for our Viking character in the us episode where they find his bones. And like, he's certain that his purpose is to have a full on Viking funeral.

Yeah. Like, why did you write the rules this way? why are these the rules?

yeah. Like, is this supposed to help me that I have to, I have to like fumble in the dark to figure out what my purpose is the last thing I wanted to talk about with like immortality, and we've already touched on it like a million times, but just like how emotionally fucking devastating immortality has to be. We've talked about it as isolating, but just like framing it more specifically. Like we see an episode of ghosts where it's his death day.

Have some powerful moments and

like fully sobbed at this man seeing his grandson. I've, I've talked on the show that my mom passed less than a year ago. And obviously it made me think about that. I really hope she didn't have to haunt Riverside hospital that would really fucking suck. That's where she passed. That would suck if she that's, where she died and had to haunt which actually does happen to some characters in ghosts. They died at like what was in a hospital and they're still haunting it, which fucking blows.

Yeah. it's just the worst one, like of it, it is truly a curse to just have to like be a witness and not be able to do anything. And also it, it, it is like, it is a condition of you are in like a sitcom situation because you are, you are stuck in your own bullshit

right. Forever and ever and ever.

Yeah. You, you can never like the one thing that happened to you that killed you is suddenly the, the thing

Yeah. And it's so much worse because you're, you are, you are stuck in your bullshit, but other people are stuck in their bullshit and your bullshit doesn't overlap. And so you're all just stuck in your own bullshit, bubbles, like next to each other. so it's, it's just horrible in that way, one of the thoughts that crossed my mind when watching this is like, if there are afterlife rules, I really hope it's not ghosts. I hope it's not these rules. Cuz that fucking sucks.

yeah. Yeah. At least they have a rehabilitation program now. I dunno. There's just something. So I don't know, like I'm, I'm gonna like show my cards a little bit. There's something just so there is like a touch of like a dystopian reality to like, if the afterlife is. An American liberals idea of how the prison system should be.

yeah,

like, that's what it needs to be. Like. You spend 600 years being tortured in order to be good. And then you get to go to heaven and that's, that's our ideal. It should, it's dark in its own, like late capitalist sort of way.

But it's, it's, it's interesting too, with ghosts, like the, like their version or like the emotional devastation of being a ghost is like the exact inverse of the emotional devastation of being a vampire. Because with being a vampire, you can interact with world. Right. And so like, let's say you do indeed, like father children or whatever. Right.

Yeah. And it, what we do in the shadows, cuz it's a combin show. It is again, a very optimistic depiction of immortality of that. You just kind of get used to it. like NAIA. She had that neighbor or girl who she, she cared for and would like play with all the time. She, she turns around, does something else for a little bit and then comes over to the house one day and it's

And she's old.

and

like, sorry. You're demented.

oh, so yeah. So are you old and female now? you're old and girls now and, but she's just kind of like, oh, that's a shame,

Right. Especially because like all of them have the power to make these people not experience that

Yeah. Although then you'd have

not to.

world

Yeah. True. True. I'm not saying that's the solution to the vampire problem here, but like there, I mean, living with that fact, right. That you, you have the power to make any of them, like you have the power to ease any person's immediate physical suffering and like you have to choose not to at every moment of the day.

yeah. And like, and people are sometimes like begging for it. That that's dark. I think that it's interesting the way that what we do in the shadows deals with it, cuz it is like, this is how like they, they are extremely human vampires. I think like the comedy of the show is like how human these vampires are. But this one, this is one aspect where like in order to be immortal and happy, you need to remove this aspect of your humanity.

Yeah,

in the same way that like people in large cities who see homeless people every day, they just like grow numb to it.

yeah. Become part of the fabric.

yeah. And so you just sort of adjust your heart and people are dying all around and you're not gonna do anything

Yeah. Yeah. Fair enough.

so it's optimistic, but I think it's also realistic that you would be able to adapt in this way.

I agree. I do agree with that.

This is such a this show is wild. like this episode that we're doing right now,

yeah. I don't even know, like, we've gone through all the ways immortality is depicted and I don't know how do we, how do we bring this baby home?

what do you think that each of these shows like to sum up, like what they are trying to say? Because like the point of fantasy is that at the end of the day, it's supposed to show you something about your own life

Right, right, right, right.

but that is one way that you can look at fantasy

Yeah.

is how, what does it say about

What does it say about you or? Yeah, the human condition, I think is the more fair thing. And so I think we already talked about the good place, right. In terms of like, it is trying to tell us that self actualization is the goal.

Yeah. I also think that it, it does have this like endorsement of, I don't know, like they're being, ultimately it embraces the idea that there should be this like bureaucracy in charge that is like judging people based off of its own social

Mm-hmm

Just as long as they have the right kind of system in place. This's not really directly answering the question, but I just wanted to throw additional shade on the good place.

that's right. We got your number, good place. We're coming for you.

We're coming. But for like the human condition, I think that's it, it's like self actualization is the point of life. They do this, of course sentimental sendoff of Michael Michael's whole thing. He sort of does my plan of immortality, where he is sent into the world. As a human, he gets to be a human for the first time, which we see him pining to be a human,

Yeah.

throughout the show. And so this is like his big send up. I believe he, I don't think it's directly addressed, but I assume they would've mentioned it if they wiped his memory. So he does know that he is immortal. I mean that he's, you know, he's still Michael.

He's a demon

Yeah. But, and he gets to live and be human and learn to play guitar. They show that. So there's that self-actualization but also just like the other thing is like ponds with other people. The catchphrase that you hear again and again, and it's from the book of the philosopher who advised the show what do we owe to other people? And so that's the other thing of like self-actualization and perfecting one's self, but also fulfilling your obligations to other people.

For ghosts, in terms of what ghost says about the human condition, to be honest, like, I, I, well, this one's tougher for me in terms of what it's telling us about the human condition, but I think fundamentally it's, it's saying that like some of the stuff we've talked about in terms of like the need for connection is incredibly like it's incredibly important, but I also think it's telling us that like humans will find community and can find community by connecting on those qualities that like

I, yeah. I think that the, the way that they do sort of become a found family in a, in a way I don't think they ever really they don't provide much support to each other. They are weirdly strangers even after all this time. But they do occasionally provide these moments of tenderness to each other. I do think that like the rules that are in place for ghosts, as far as like this unfinished business idea obviously it is just a play on aro as old as wherever.

Yeah. I get, I think I get where you're going with this.

yeah. It's just like you, I, I don't know.

do all the things you want to do in life. Like you will a life, no matter what is always interrupted. You will never get to do all the things. You will never get to say all the things that you want to. I can sit here and I could talk into this microphone for hours about all the things my mom will never have got to do.

mm-hmm

And there are plenty of people out there that I think could do the same thing. I think the point being the idea of unfinished business, I think is comforting to the living,

mm-hmm

you will have the opportunity to correct wrongs. You will have the opportunity to fulfill unfulfilled desires in death.

You want your life to be this like tidy little story with like a beginning and middle and satisfying end, but that's not actually how life works.

Yeah. Yeah. Cuz it's we don't get that right. There is no, there is no narrative force. Which is, I think a comfort, the good place offers us is that there is actually somebody else ultimately in control.

Yeah, there, there is this loving bureaucracy that has been rationally put up with committees, subcommittees and revision judges.

Exactly.

make sure there's a good outcome.

Yeah. And then for what we do in the shadows I

For a lot of Taika Wattis works, I think like the theme that strings throughout a lot of it is like the immutability of humanity of like, I feel like he, he, as an author and as a creator refuses to have an inhuman character. And that's part of like the charm. So if he's doing pirates, every single pirate is going to like in their own way, be this light.

Yeah, yeah. And I think, I think it also, like what it's saying about the human condition is I think one thing you already pointed out earlier is that like the ability to.

mm-hmm

And like, get, we can get used to pretty much anything. And even if you are a nausea, right, and you are carrying around some of the trauma of a life that where you've lived through pretty devastating traumas, you can still get used to anything you can get used to the reality of killing people. You can get used to the reality of like everyone around you that you love dying. And maybe that's not like a good thing, right?

I think what we do in the shadows, I think that one of its big messages is that kind of things like humanity is like eternal and universal and it can, that can run through it's like humanity is consistent across cultures across times. And these like social mores these like institutions, those things will crumble, but the fundamental human need for connection,

yeah. Is eternal.

validation. That is stuff that is eternal.

I agree. I agree. Completely. Yeah.

a it's, it's a very wholesome show for like casually murdering people.

very true. Yes. Yeah. And I think the other thing that it says about the human condition that personally gives me comfort, is that like, it's okay to feel like 2012 was like two years. And that's normal

Yeah. I'm more and more sympathetic with the vampires on that, that scale.

it's okay to not know what the cool jeans are. That's fine. That's fine. Nadja doesn't know what the cool jeans are. That's fine.

Yeah. The other thing that I think that what we do in the shadows. Says about humanity when they're showing immortality in this ways is that the human condition is fundamentally undignified.

Yes, yes. Yes.

the I don't know, like the currency of this show, it has a lot to do with like, poking, like having this relationship with other vampire texts. And in other vampire texts you have like these characters that are immortals and they're so dignified and perfect and like,

yeah. And they're divorced from the logistics of like life.

yeah, and I think that by what we do in the shadows, just zeroing in on the logistics of being a vampire is it's a hilarious way of looking at it. Cuz it subverts all of these other things, like who exactly coordinates the creepy dances in like queen of the dam. Like do they meet on Wednesdays to rehearse? Like,

right, right. Right. Who is, who is making sure that their clothes get laundered,

yeah, right,

that their house stays clean?

I think that's just a really funny way that they zoom in on how undignified that these characters have to live.

yes. Yeah. Immortal though. They may be, they're still like, like at the whims of like the, the Staten island city council, You're still not above bureaucracy.

yeah, yeah. Yeah. I, I think that, that, God, I fucking love this show. I'm gonna rewatch it.

Yeah. And you know what, there is a really good episode too. We didn't even talk about it, but like, we probably should have, there's a really good episode in season three where like, Nandor really wants to be human. And he like goes into this cult of vampires who like reject their vampire nest and like try to live as humans.

oh God. Yeah.

We should talked about that a lot in this episode, but I just thought about it right now. So that's where we're at.

Where are we on the recording time?

three hours and 16.

oh, man. I really wanted to be like, okay, we're gonna do a bonus segment. Cause I wanna talk about the S Well, we, we can't do that.

Unfortunately. It's a no Have that's Patreon content.

yeah Patreon for our non-existent Patreon donate to it and we'll

we'll talk about the GOs.

the V what we do with the shadows.

yeah. Yeah. We'll do that. If you guys donate to the non-existent Patreon.

you have to find it that's the trick. And then we'll, we'll do it.

All right. I mean, is there anything else lingering for you? I, I, I think I've, I've had enough philosophy for one night, but I'm, I'm, I'm open to hear more.

I wanna say, I know that you are like, you vehemently hate philosophy.

Mm mm-hmm mm-hmm

It was not your favorite class, not your favorite thing to hear about men, man, explain to you on first date. and so you are a real trooper and

I hung in there. I hung in there.

yeah. And thank you for listening to our heaviest episode that we did specifically, because I told I told Jessica I can't handle anything heavy.

so here we are talking about the literal human condition, life and death. Like my own personal loss, like what a, what a story we've got for you guys this week. So thanks for hanging in. I hope it was fun. I guess, you know watch, watch what we do in the shadow season four. You can skip season three. If you're gonna check out ghosts, hit the UK one, as opposed to the American one. And the good place is always a good show. But we've got their number we're coming for.

we gotta bring them down a peg

So look out for that and do all the things, you know, you gotta do like share, subscribe, all the good stuff and you know, we will always see you next time. Goodbye.

Taha.