John Wick with Vanessa Guerrero

like that. God, I can it's so wild that, um, well, welcome to the Bechdel Cast. But just a second. It's so wild that, like Alfie Allen, is I know a person that exists in the world. I watched Game of threnth and everything, but I confuse him with my crush Bill scars Guards so easily only to look up the future, yes, only to look at future John Wicks, and who is there but Bill scars Guard. I think he's going to be in the next one. Yeah, wait, okay in the fourth one. I was like, I didn't see him in

two or three? They missed the vibe of the bug eyed boy they gotta bring it back, they gotta bring it back. Oh well, well, this is the Bectel Cast. My name is Jamie Laftus. My name is Caitlin Durante, and this is our show where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechtel test simply as a jumping off point. But Jamie, what is it? Well, I can let you know, Caitlin Durante. The Bechtel test is a media metric created whoa Hello created? What if

they did? Ah? This is here's a horrible pitch for our April Fools episode Baby Talk Pass. It is hey media metric created by Ker cartoonist Alice Becktel, sometimes called the Bactel Wallace Test. Lots of different versions of this test, Here's the one we use. The test requires that there'll be two characters of a marginalized gender with names speaking about something other than a man for more than two lines of dialogue should be meaningful. Does it happen in

this movie? I'm brady sure, But that's why a franchise exists. So that is that's why every movie needs at least three movies, so that by the third movie women might talk to each other. Yeah, you need three movies. Yeah, and I'm not even sure if it happens by the end of the third John Wick movie. Oh, I think they all talk, but not to each other. Oh that is always so bizarre and dissonan when they're like, we got two women in a room. They're never gonna know that.

But yes, in honor of the new John Wick, the Bill Scars Guard John Wick, if you will, we're covering John Wick one twenty fourteen. I didn't realize it came out so long ago. It's almost ten years ago. Oh yeah, it's been a while. I'm also referring to four not as The Bill Scars Guard one but the Arena Sawayama one. Yes, yes, that is truly. What's gonna get my ass in the seat is her? It's her acting debut, right, yes it is. It's her acting debut, and it's going to be in

this major franchise. And also one of my all time favorite action stars is in. It's Scott Atkins, so I'm like losing my ship. He's the king of the home movie box office when it comes to action movies. He's constantly punching above his weight, and in this one, I fear he might be in a fat suit, but we'll see. I'm not sure I can tell from the posters. When will they not do that? I am? I am very thrilled about the arena Sawayama element to the four and I just pray that she is a pop girlie who

can hoo can act? I hope we're getting We're getting a Lady Gaga situation. Yeah, time will tell. I can't wait. Um, but wait, who the hell is that talking? Is that perhaps one of our all time guests? It's just it's just our guest who is a host? It is not my best transition into introducing a guest of all time, but wait, what the fuck? No? I thought it was really good. Who is the other arena stand in the chat?

She's host of the podcast Popcorn and Pixels. You've seen her on Shutters, Behind the Monsters, and you remember her from our episodes on Maide in Manhattan, Raw, Atomic Blonde, and Bound. So this is her fifth apparent on the show. It's Vanessa Guerrero. Thank you so much for having me on. I love doing the show. In the mail the five timers jacket that doesn't actually gist, but someday, someday it

will be. It's a picture of the two of y'all doing a thumbs up, and it's embroidered and it's the or exactly and you give it to someone when things are getting serious. Yeah, it's a letter in jacket. Yeah, we're so happy that you're back. And I feel like, over time you sort of become our our go to action movie expert. I love that, especially because one of my favorite things in the universe is constantly showing up men at things that they enjoy and like it's a

beautiful thing. I love being an action movie person and knowing that there are several men that are like, I wish it was me. Oh, that does sound very powerful. It's a delicious feeling. That's I wish. I don't think I can do that. I think that I'm just like I think. I'm like, hey, guy, i'm dating, do you want to know everything about beanie babies? And usually he's like no, and he doesn't wish. Yeah, Well, the thing is he doesn't wish it was him, and maybe he

doesn't even wish that he was in the room. Well screw him. Then, yes, this person I just made up Vassa. What is your relationship with John Wick the franchise, etc. I love the john Wick franchise as an action fan. The john Wick franchise is so indicative of like such a major turning point for the genre because specifically like American action, like Korea, Indonesia, Japan, China, they'd been they'd been putting out action movies that had been like consistently

fantastic for years. American action had taken such a downturn, especially because of the movies like later Jason Bourne movies and Taken, where it's a lot of like frenetic editing and like twenty one cuts to get an old man over offense, like very jumpy, very like that two thousand style of like shaky cam footage, And there wasn't as much like focus when it came to like choreography fee and really like not even just getting like great choreography

and it nailed down, but like how we shoot choreography and really doing it the justice that it deserves. And John Wick when that movie came out was such a renaissance for American action fans where you started seeing people

care about how they shot action again. And I love that the franchise has also become very self aware and knows sort of where it stands and like American action history, which is why the casting announcements are more exciting for me than it feels like what I imagine, like a football draft feels like to someone where I'm just like, yeah,

we got another one. Yeah. I feel about succession casting announcements when exactly when they're like Adrian Brodie, you're like what they're like sona late, like what or like White Lotus where it's just like, oh my god, that lineup. That's how I feel about the john Wick series. Yes, Also, yeah,

it taps into a very petty core of me. At while I've done so much, like work in therapy and improvement to be somebody that can like move on from grudges, john Wick taps into the part of me that which is I can do undo all of that hard work and just be a petty bitch on the trail for revenge. I do love a revenge narrative, so I love it. Jamie whats Beagles. That's my history. Now, my history with

the john Wick franchise is very minimal. As I think I've said on this show time and time again, Action has never really been my go to genre, even though Keanu Reeves. I would say it's one of my go to people that I like to look at and engage with the legacy of. Oh yeah. Something I've been saying on the show for the entire run of the show is that I used to see Keanu Reeves every Wednesday at the bookstore I worked at, and he'd always get a book of Sudoku puzzles and one of the new

hardcover fictions. Always hardcover, not softcover for this guy. He's a Millionaire's gonna want the hardcover exactly, come on his motorcycle and changed my life. He's a good man by all accounts. He's the most attracted that I've ever been to a sismail in my life. It's he's kind of scary. Yeah, I love Keanu Reeves. Action movies are a harder sell.

I did remember as I was preparing for this. I mean how much I loved Atomic Blonde, and there are things about John Wick that I did like, even outside of Keyanu Reeves. I liked. I really liked learning about how this movie came together and how it's like these legacy stuntman who worked with Keyanda Reeves that ended up like directing this incredible. I mean it looks beautiful and like as an action movie. Even as someone that doesn't know a ton about action movies, You're like, yeah, this

is a beautiful action movie. This is like fucking wild. It's all that bisexual lighting. Yeah, this, I feel like this is like kind of the great stand. I can't think of a more bisexually lit movie. This may be the Golden standard or the Blue and Purple standard, whatever we're calling them. Yeah, that entire bathhouse scene could have been like a low five beats yes, yes, exactly. And then I mean, you know, watching it with a Bechtel

cast lens on, I'll admit it was a challenge. But I yeah, I've only seen so I've only seen the first movie. I watched the first movie to prepare for this episode, and I'm definitely going to see the fourth for Rina Sawayama purposes, and I look forward to being sold on watching the two sequels before then. The third

is definitely the better of the two. Okay, my first, the first bitchy little thing I am going to say about John Wick and everyone's could getting upset and scream boo tomato tomato open opening this movie on Deadwife dot MP four. I was struggling yea and ending the movie also on Deadwife dot MP four. I gotta say once again I was struggling. But every time I see Deadwife dot MP four, I could do that. So if anyone's trying to look for a dead wife, I feel like

I can conjure that energy quite easily. Beach breeze in your hair, John, what are you doing? I was confused what you meant at first? You mean, if someone's looking to cast a role in a movie where they need a character's wife who is now deceased, you're available to play that part. Yeah, I understand. I feel like I

act like a dead wife every single day. I think anytime there's like a if a boyfriend has a phone and it's on and it's at me, I'm going to act like a dead wife because you never know what do you do? What are you doing? Stop? I've romanticized white life like a dead wife. Oh Like, I wear a lot of like ponchos around the house and I hold lugs with two hands. You're like kind of like

do a lot of hair work. You're like sort of playfully just like kind of rolling around under the sheets like t he he Yeah, it's morning, and I never I never sweat. I would never sweat in that circumstance. Yeah, if I'm at the beach, you know, my hair is just so and I'm like, stop, what are you doing? Yeah, that's beautiful. Can't then what's your history with the John Like franchise? I had only seen the first one. I don't know why I never got around to the sequels.

I liked the first one, and I love action movies. I am a big action movie head. But I simply have no excuse, no reason why I had not seen the sequels, but I did watch them to prep for this. We won't go into a lot of detail, but there are a few, like noteworthy things that indicate some kind of like evolutionist the franchise goes that I want to touch on. But um, we'll focus on the first movie, and I will share a quick recap of the two

sequels for anyone who wants to hear those. But yeah, I very much enjoy the franchise, especially now that I've seen the three movies. I'm excited to see the fourth one. I'm a fan and Keanu reeves absolutely National Treasure, untouchable. Yeah, mister sexy. Oh my gosh, the hair, the scruff, the suits, the fact that he moves like a Judo ballerina perfect. I love the like I mean just I feel like most Keanu Reeves movies have just like X Games level

stylistic choices, and I love that. But how like you can just tell John Wick is in bad boy mode when he uses hair gel, but when his hair not gel, he's good boy. He's good boy. It's it's helpful for me yea to know when he's going to be bad and when he's going to be good. When there's volume, he's going to be good. Yeah, when there's when there's volume, he is husband. He's crying, his wife is gone. He's like, oh my gosh, I better feed the dog. When he's

hair Jel, who you don't want to know. It's the equivalent of plas like standing up, ladies, get out of the room. That's what he's doing when he's got the hair Jela. It's the equivalent of the putting your hair up in a ponytail moment in Birds of Prey and ba Yeah, I think it's the hair time. Don't let your hair in the way as you're fighting. You gotta slick it back. You gotta put it in a pony something.

John Wick gets it. I also didn't know that. Um, Willem Dafoe and John, like Wizamo, I wish there was more John. That's maybe that's one of my big things with John Wick. Where bring John? Does he come back in future movies? He's in the second one? Yeah, I don't know if he's in the third one. I forget I was smiling so much. I don't remember him in the third one. But I love seeing him in it, Like Willem Dafoe, John, like zamo Ian McShane, those are

like my good boys, Dean Winters. Like, yes, they put Dennis in it. That was exciting for me. Dennis Duffy, man, I really I love character actors so much, and usually I can, you know. I mean, when you look at William Dafoe, you can maybe you know, you would be like that's the Green Goblin, or yeah, you're like, oh, I understand how actors work. That's Willam to felt. But something about Dennis Duffy, I just like he can't not be he was too good at it. Yeah, I totally agree. Yeah, Um,

should we get into it. Let's get into it. Yeah, let's do it. Okay, but first let's take a quick break and then we will come right back. Jamie ask me if we're back from break, Kaylan are back from break? Um, I don't know. We're just sort of like working through some stuff. I'm not sure if we're back. This is going to pay off later after the next ad break. Just you wait and see. Anyway, I see where you're

going and I'm there, thank you. What if the exchange pretty early in the movie, Oh, it's with John Languizamo where Vigo calls him and he's like, hey, why the fuck did you punch my son in the face. He's like, well, because you stole John Wig's car and killed his dog. And then he just goes oh, Like this movie rocks. Excellent, excellent world building. Like I think that's my favorite thing about the John Wick lore is just characters reacting to him.

Tells you everything you need to know exactly the show don't tell and this is show all the way. Yeah, okay, so here is the recap for John Wick one. We open on a scene where Keanu Reeves recks his car into some concrete. He stumbles out. He's injured and bleeding, from what we will find out is a stab wound. He's kind of dying. And then he takes out his phone and watches a video of his wife, his wife, his wife. He opened the steadwife dot MP four. Yes, John, John,

what are you doing? Are you still filming? John? What are you doing? And he's loving you so damn much, and she's like, stop, you're loving me too much. Yeah, you're loving What if I'm gone one day? That'll never happens, okay? And then oh, but then you see you see the director's cut later of dead Wife dot MP four. I want to direct a whole movie called dead Wife dot MP four. It's just all vibes. But like you see the director's cut later on and she's like, let's go home,

like classic dead wife talk. Let's go home. Anyway, So this this was her job, John, What did she do? Oh my god, we don't need to know anything about her, just kidding. Her house was fantastic, so she had to have done something. Well, I know, it's like, is that like hit man money or was she like a fucking doctor or something? I don't know. Column a column baby. The house built on taking out hits and then trying to save the people that had the hits taken on them. Ooh,

that's a good scam. I would love that movie. Scary. There's a case I read about called I mean, this is actually pretty evil, but like an evil doctor or like a rehab a rehab doctor who bought a hotel and would deal drugs out of the hotel to get people addicted to the drugs, and then they'd be like, oh no, I'm addicted to the drugs. And he's like, funny because I own a rehab center about across town. It's very evil. They called him the candy Man. Wow. Anyways,

these things happen and I would watch a movie about it. Yeah, let's write it. Okay. Anyway, this person we've just met is John Wick. We flash back to John Wick at home shortly after his wife Helen played by Bridget moynihan, has passed away from an illness. He is devastated. He then receives a delivery. It's a puppy that his wife Helen arranged for him to receive after her death so that he still has something someone to love. The puppy is a little beagle named Daisy. It's very, very cute.

She's so damned cute, the fact that it's my childhood dog's name. I wanted blood. I watched this with my mother and she looked at me and she was like, I want everyone involved to suffer, and I was like, Yeah, that's what that's what this movie's for. That's what the movie's about. That. I think the only thing I knew. I think I think it is kind of I mean,

we'll talk about this later in the episode. I think it is kind of interesting where it's like, the only thing I knew about John Wick was that the first movie's thrust was he's trying to get revenge on the people who killed his dog. But then I was like, oh, I mean, not to undercut how horrific it is to lose a pet, especially to a violent act. But I was like, mmm, it's interesting how that his wife never

comes up in any of the popular descriptions of the movie. Yeah, but it's well, it's weird that it's a morning dog, right, It's like he's only so upset about the dog because it's like an extension of his wife. His wife. Here's dog, yes, exactly, his beagle. So John Wick takes his dog out in his Cool Boy nineteen sixty nine Mustang and he stops for some gas where a group of very agro men are also getting gas, and one of them is a guy played by Alfie Allen who is like, hey, cool dog,

cool car. How much would you sell it for? And John Wick is like, the car's not for sale, and then Alfie Allen insults him in Russian, but twist, john Wick speaks Russian. They're shaken to their core when he speaks Russian. Yeah, They're like, what the fuck a person speaking another language? You're like, it's Keanu Reeves. I assume that he speaks every language. He's like a poke dex

exactly exactly. And john Wick leaves after this interaction, and Alfie Allen is like, who does doc I think he is? And then that night, he and the other guys from the gas station break into john Wick's house. They beat the shit out of him, they steal his car, and they kill his dog. John Wick does not like that this happened at all. He's pretty he's pretty miffed. Yeah, he's freaking pissed. He's p oed and so, and we don't even know what he's capable of at this point.

We don't we do not because we have not yet gotten the big reveal. But john Wick sets off. He's still covered in blood. He gets on a bus. He's trying to figure out who these guys are and how to find them, so he goes to John Languizamo, who tells him that Vigo Tarasov's son Joseph, that's Alfie Allen, is the one who stole his car and killed his dog. So john Wick gets a new cool boy car and

he takes off. We also meet this Vigo guy. He's a crime lord of some sort, like a mob, but he's your friendly neighborhood, yes, And he goes to his son Joseph and is like, you fool, you messed with john Wick and John Wick is not someone who you mess with. And this is when we learn that John Wick was a former assassin. He was very good at his job. He has a reputation for being Bobba Yaga or the Boogeyman. And Vigo is like, I saw him kill three men with a pencil one time. I love

that this is eventually shown in the series. Yes, oh is it? Yes, that's very fun. It's referred to another time and then you do see him kill I think it's two guys with a pencil. Yeah, I learned shout out cross promo fellow. I heard slash Kus on media podcast Margaret kill Joy's Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff. We did an episode about Bobby got just as a folk tale and Bobby Agat typically coated as a as being a woman. Um So I thought it was interesting that in this lore Bobby is I mean, Keanu Rus

is more of an idea, you know, like he transcends gender. Yes, but I thought it was interesting that in this movie it translates to Boogieman. But anyways, there's there's a lot of different sort of versions of Bobby Aga. God. Um I had something else to say there, but it's gone. What can you do that, it's Bobby Gone. It's okay,

wish wish oh. I was gonna say when that whole sequence where we're slowly learning that John Wick is the scariest person in the world, it almost felt like the action, like the brooding action movie version of that sequence from Mean Girls where everyone's talking about Regina George, especially the pencils part, like that sounds you can picture a student saying that about Regina. John Wick murdered someone with a pencil. So then I murdered someone with a soul. John Wick

punched me in the face once. It was awesome. That's great. Um okay, So we're learning about John Wick's reputation. But John got out of the business a few years prior because of his wife. Yeah, he's like, I'm marrying an army by guys, like a YouTuber or something. She's an influencer. Yeah, that's why she looks so good on camera. Anyway, Joseph is like, well, no big deal. I'll just kill John Wick and then we won't have to worry about him anymore.

And Vigo is like, yeah, right, except John Wick is going to come and kill you first, and you can count on that. Gives him a little kissy on the forehead to seal it. So john Wick gets his guns and prepares for a killing spree. Vigo sends like a dozen guys to kill john at his house, but john Wick murder them effortlessly. Then Vigo puts a bounty on John Wick and he goes to this guy Marcus played by Willem Dafoe, to be like, hey, will you kill

John Wick for me? And Willem Dafoe is like, yeah, I'll do it even though we've learned the John Wick and Willem Dafoe are friends. There ain't my honor among thieves exaxactly. Meanwhile, John Wick checks into this hotel for assassins, The Continental, run by Lance Reddick, which is so iconic. I wish that's another I was like, I wanted more John like Wizama. I wanted more lance red Although Lance Reddick,

he's gonna make a meal of whatever it is he's doing. Oh, Lance Reddick and Ian McShane in The Continental or two of my absolute favorite characters because they build so much lower in such a short amount of time of like this entire universe. It gives this illusion of like this entire universe that's happening underneath your nose, with its own set of like rules and practices, and like the Continental,

I'm gonna get on a soapbox for a second. The Continental specifically, is this point in the movie, similar to like Vigo, that establishes an old guard, like somebody a generation that has like learned how to do something before and had to establish a set of rules and guidelines that you have to live in to keep things from becoming total bedlam and total anarchy and it serves as this really cool foil to like Miss Perkins and the Continental is at Alfie Allen to Vigo in terms of

like you have this new, younger thing that has like benefited from this older system that doesn't give a shit about why the rules are in place, and suffer because of that because they think the rules are there just to be restrictive, and it's like, no, they're here because you can't exist in this world without them. If you don't respect your elders, you're cooked, babe, You're cooked. Your membership to the Continental is revoked by thine own hand. Yeah. Yeah,

that's a that's an excellent way to put it. I don't know. I mean, I've never seen a concept like the Continental in a movie, and it's so like it's such a simple concept where you're like, this is where there are rules. If you break the rules, something bad

will happen to you. And it's so good. And the scenes with the scene, particularly with Lance Reddick and Ian McShane towards the end, where I feel like in their scenes together they're not even ever looking at each other, but so good, Like it's just yeah, so Lance Reddick is the like concierge of the hotel for Assassins, and Winston played by Ian McShane is the like owner slash manager. He's reading at the bar. You're like, awesome, Yeah, he's cool.

There's also this like special Assassin currency, these like gold coins that they're market are yes, And that's when you realize that one of the things about this franchise is that Assassins belong to this almost like secret society that has all these rules, that has all these members. And as the franchise goes, you learn that like so many people are part of this secret society and you're just like, wow,

why wasn't I invited? Anyway? I know what if someone drops one of the Mario coins and then you're just like, what is this That looks fake and it's like, no, that's Assassin money, that's Assassin coins. I loved. I'm sure someone's done some sort of deep dive on like what is the coin to USD when there's a recession, does

it hit the Assassin coins? So many questions, Well it seems I, yeah, I can't figure out the high value because they're like, oh, get rid of thirteen bodies, that's going to be that's like thirteen thirteen coins, but also staying several nights at the Continental only costs one coin, so which is what it costs one body, So it's like a half a body at night. Yeah, I guess I wonder if it's because there's just like solid gold

and they just go by the weight of gold. Oh yeah, that would I mean, that would fit in with the old school rules that sort of seemed to run this underground world. That Actually, Vanessa, I think you cracked it. It's maybe not a per body system like I had been trying to figure out. You never know, Okay, anyway, So john Wick goes to Winston and finds out that Joseph is going to be at this nightclub called the

Red Circle. So john Wick goes there. There's a huge action sequence where he chases after Joseph through the club. He's killing a bunch of Vigo's goons along the way, but Joseph manages to escape, so john Wick just calls it night and goes back to the hotel for assassins and goes to bed. But then this lady assassin, Perkins played by Adrian Paliki, comes in and tries to kill john Wick on the grounds of the Continental right, which

is against the rules. The whole thing with the Continental is that no business can be conducted on the grounds of the hotel for assassins, meaning you cannot kill anyone there. But she tries to kill him there, he stops her, he gets the upper hand, and then he spares her because she gives him information about a front that Vigo is running out of a church. So John Wick goes to this church and destroys all the money and all the stuff in Vigo's vault. I recently saw Highlander for

the first time. Brag wow that church scene. I was like, oh, like Highlander. Wow, It's like when mister Crabs shows up to church and Highlander, you know, I ter Crabs Clancy Brown. Ah. I was like, I've never seen Highlanders, So it took me a second to figure out what was happening. And then I was like, oh, no, Clancy Brown gotta gotta get it. You know who else? You know who else is in John Wick four? Mister Crabs is Oh, that's right, Clancy Browns and mister Crabs is gonna are his way

into John Wicks. Who's gonna and you know who loves gold coins? Mister Crabs it makes sense, Okay. So Vigo is upset that John Wick torched all of his stuff in the vault, so he captures john and he's like, good over it. It was just a car and a dog, and John is like, that dog was given to me by my wife, and your son took that from me.

Then there's another fight where john Wick kills more of Vigo's goons with the help of Willem Dafoe, who turns out has no intention of killing John Wick because again they're friends. It's kind of the most beautiful part of the story. It is how Willem Dafoe is always like gazing from a window helping his buddy out. Yes, it's nice. Nice male friendship can be nice. Yeah, like when you snipe someone from a window top your boys sacked. I really did, Like, I mean, I thought that that was

kind of like my favorite relationship in the movie. Then Vigo gives up his son Joseph's location, which is a safe house in Brooklyn. So john Wick goes there, finds Joseph and shoots him, and Vigo does not like that this happened, so first he kills Willem Dafoe for betraying him, and then there's a shootout between Vigo and his goons and John Wick. John Wick kills most of them, so now it's just John and Vigo in hand to hand combat. They both get stabbed, Vigo dies, John Wick gets away.

Cut to the opening scene of the movie where he's bleeding out and watching Dead Wife dot MP four on his phone. But then he finds the strength to get up because she's like, come on, John, let's go home and the power of Dead Wife. Yeah, let's get ahead. And then he goes into an animal hospital that's right there. He staples his wound shut, and then there are some dogs and kennels and he takes one. This racks He's like, this dog is now the second I was hearing the

yips of the dog. I'm like, God, damn it, they stuck the landing. Yeah, that's so good. So he takes a dog I think it's a pit bull and he's like, let's go home. The end yip yip. So that's John Wick one. I'll do really quick recaps of John Wick two and three just to kind of give you an idea of how the franchise progresses. Does the second dog live? Yes? The second dog Good Dogs keeps living Yes, yes, oh yeah, thank you. Okay, Well I couldn't. I couldn't go through

that again. I couldn't let them do that to me again. Truly, not they. I mean, I know it's important to the movie that we lose Daisy. I just wasn't prepared to los hers so quickly. Yeah, you just got Oh, she's so cute and clear and that that little dog clearly just loves Keanu Reeves as a person, because if you're a puppy, of course you would love Keanu Reeves. He's so lovable, he's got a good spirit. Okay, So wait, what happens in the in the sequels? Okay? John Wick

two from twenty seventeen. So, after the events of the first movie, John Wick wants to go back into retirement and hang out with the dog he stole at the

end of the first movie. Nice, but another crime boss, Santino D'Antonio, approaches John Wick with a marker basically a blood oath kind of thing where Santino had done something to help John Wick in the past, and now he's returning to collect on the debt that John owes him, and Santino one John to kill his sister Gianna D'Antonio because Stantino wants her spot at the High Table, which is this like high court of assassins and crime lords. Does this have to do with the Continental also or

is this a separate thing. So the High Table is like basically the government of the secrets of the assassin nation. Yeah, okay, got it. And then the Continental is just like a safe haven that operates within you know, this underworld. It's the Deadwood Zoe to speak. Okay, got it, So now you're speaking my language. So John Wick, knowing that he can't retire and be at peace while this marker is

still active, he goes to Rome. He checks into the Hotel for Assassins Italy edition, He makes a bunch of preparations, and then he goes to Gianna to kill her. She takes her own life before he can do that. Point is she dies, and now Santino is like, well, I have to avenge my sister's death, so now I have

to kill you John Wick. Even though it was Santino who wanted John to kill his sister, I don't really double cross understan Yeah, So Santino puts a price on John Wick's head and then with the help of the Bowery King played by Laurence Fishburne. But yeah, wow, you thought you thought we were done with movies starring Keanu Reeves and Laurence fishburn after the Matrix. Glad we weren't. We're not done. Okay, he's back, Okay, okay. So john Wick,

with the Bowery King's help, goes after Santino. He kills a bunch of his goons. He finally kills Santino, but he does it at the hotel for Assassins. He does it at the Continental, which is again, I can't do the assassins code Ian makes Shane and said no, He said, no, don't do that. So Winston has no choice but to excommunicate john Wick from the Assassin's Secret Society, and now everyone is going to try to kill john Wick and he's going to have to deal with that in the

next movie. I did watch the first five minutes of john Wick three, and I like that there is like that group of that group of women that are all wearing hot topic clothes and they just talk about who is the most wanted in the world. At the beginning of the movie where they're all wearing like those Bizarro outfits. They're like John Wick fourteen million dollars, Ye, get his ass, and then they're like, okay, let's change our manual board.

It's awesome. Well, the thing about the Bowery movie take place in I think it's modern day, but there's a lot because, like as the Bowery King says in I think the third movie, computers and phones and all that stuff you can hack. But you know what, you can't hack carrier pigeons because the Bowery King's whole thing is that he has this group of like carrier pigeons and that's how he sends messages around. You wouldn't download a pigeon, Okay, that's that's merch and I so you've got to get

on that y um. Okay. So the third movie picks up immediately where chapter two leaves off. John Wick is on the run because now every assassin in the world is trying to kill him. Meanwhile, there's an adjudicator. Guess who had to look up what adjudicate meant me? I did too. I was like, I don't know what this is?

What is this word? What is it? Basically, someone who casts judgment on someone else or someone who kind of like evaluates things in a judge way, like a like a judge, like a basically a judge judge for higher Well they should just say that, yeah, but a judicator has more syllables and therefore it's fancier. Hell yeah. Anyway, So this adjudicator from the High Table played by Asia Kate Dillon is going around to all the people who helped John Wick kill Santino and then help John Wick escape.

So they're going to Winston and the Bowery King, and the adjudicator is like, shame on you. John Wick meanwhile goes to Casablanca to see Sophia played by Holly Berry. He wants her to help him get to someone called the Elder, because the Elder can reverse John Wick's excommunicato status and give him another shot at life. So John Wick goes to the desert to find the Elder, who

wants John to kill Winston. But then when John goes to do this, Winston reminds him that he will be a servant of the High Table and that his life will suck, and John is like, wow, you're right, never mind, I'm not going to kill you. And then because of that, the hotel for assassins is declared deconsecrated, meaning business can now be conducted there, meaning people can come to kill

John and Winston, which is what everybody does. But John Wick is like, as if you could kill me, so he kills everyone who shows up, and then there's this final showdown between him and a guy named Zero, who has been after him the whole movie. Play by Mark de Cascos. I love him so much. He's very good. There's this great scene where he's like, John, I'm a huge fan of yours and we are going to try to kill each other later, but for now, big fan.

I love the fanboy aspect of it, and I can't think of a better dude to play it than Mark de Cascos, who's like most dangerous looking man he knows like he like. His martial arts repertoire is absolutely insane, like if you look up his the amount of movies that he's done and the different kinds of martial arts

that he's done for each movie, absolutely crazy. But he's played like Mark Dicasco's The guy is a very like I'm just really cool and high perpositive all the time, so like seeing him play him but still be like a dangerous Assassin was just such a funny character choice. I love zero. Yeah, zero is great. That's so cool. So after john Wick has killed everybody, the adjudicator is like, okay, fine, Winston, you can have your hotel for Assassin's back, but what

are you going to do about john Wick? So Winston shoots and kills john Wick. But just kidding, john Wick is not dead. He and his dog go to the Bowery King and they're like, all right, let's get ready to kick some ass. And the next movie. Yes, so that's the franchise as a whole. Let's take another quick break and then we will come right back. Hey, Caitlin, Yeah, are we back from break? Well? People keep asking if we're back, and we haven't really had an answer, but

now yeah, I'm thinking we're back. Yeah. It's such a good Keyanu delivery. I love how Keanu says words. Sometimes it doesn't always make sense to me, but that's a part of why I love it. It's great. There's an early that I mean that there's a couple of monologues in this movie that just fucking rip. But I think my favorite line read from him in this particular movie.

I don't know why. And maybe it is nonsensical that I feel this way, but I love when he first gets Daisy how he's like, I'll get you some kibble later. For some reason, that line of dialogue really I was like, I don't know if I'm gonna like this movie. But then when he said I'll get you some kibble later, I'm like, you know what, I'm gonna make this movie

work because listen to him say that. I think it's because he sounds like legitimately apologetic, the way you would be to like a little guy do a dog like that. He's very much like, I hope this holds you over and it's fine in a way that implies that he wants the dog to understand his apology. Oh can't you some kile. The only way that that scene could have been better for me is if we saw him do what I always do before I feed an animal something,

which is google can I feed dog cereal? But John Wick is an all knowing creature, so I assume that he's had to learn this before. Exactly, All right, where should we start, Vanessa? Does anything jump out to you where you'd like to start? I mean, I definitely got to have a little little soapbox about like Old Guard

versus New Guard. But it's one of my favorite like through lines in this movie because like on the first watch, you only see it with like specifically Alfie Allen's character, but like there is that foil to it with Miss Perkins as well in terms of like is there honor among thieves? Should there be? Can there be? And that

kind of becomes like the question of the franchise. But I think where I want to start is something that Caitlin and I were talking about before we started recording, which was the soundtrack is really unique for this when it comes to like an action movie. I feel like it's a lot more like muted, soft female voices, a little bit less like bombastic than you remember like an action movie with like click clickpoom playing over it. And

it's like it's a more thoughtful soundtrack. Yeah. The scene that it really stuck out to me was the Red Circle night Club bath house action set piece where Keanu Reeves is just like going through and absolutely like demolishing everyone in extremely violent ways. But it's like this angelic woman singing this like it's almost any Yeah, it's like a very calm, soft like you could play this when

you're like doing yoga or something. And the lighting also in that scene is like very like purple, like the bisexual lighting. It's like purples and pigs and blues, and it's just like, it feels more like feminine in a weird way than so much action movie esthetics. I guess it's definitely sleeker, and it's the most in action movie cares about being at least American. It's the most an American action movie cares about being a pretty movie. It's

very pretty. Well, that's something I want to touch on, just kind of in general, is action movie tropes and trends and how the John Wick franchise participates in those or doesn't, which we can kind of look at via John Wicks allies and adversaries and ask are any of them women? Well, let's take a look. So if women are in action movies, there are some common tropes that you'll see, and they're usually quite reductive. So I'm just speaking generally here, but I have a list of tropes.

Bear with me. One trope is that women are not allowed to engage in the action or the fighting. They are damseled, their character isn't a trained fighter, they're left behind for some reason, or they're ejected out of the action for whatever reason. The implication of this often being women are too delicate to fight. Combat is a man's game, or another big hope, which is that women are the prize to be won by the male hero. So a woman in an action movie is often just there to

be the love interest of the action hero. He will defeat the villain and save the day, and then the woman is his prize. She is usually given very little characterization and personality. She is just a hot lady by western beauty standards and is basically a trophy. And that is one of the more I think interesting subversions of John Wick is that, like he is not a hypersexual character, right, even though people grow hypersexual thinking about him. Everyone's because

really hot, Yeah, he's really hot in this movie. It's like it's impossible for anyone to witness him and not be like Ouga. But let's fucking go, Yes, the James Cameron Ouga starts going off. But yeah, I did think it was I mean, because I mean, and I was like reading up like a bunch of you know, kind of comparative studies of like how John Wick kind of squares with other action heroes. And I know that you and Vanessa no far more about this than I do.

But even like just thinking of like your classic action hero, like your your James Bonds, You're like on Claude van Dam's cruise, it's not even out of the question to have a dead wife situation, which I think is one of the trips that this movie doesn't really do very much with. But like it's not even that that is unique, it's more just that like it's almost I don't know, it's so assumed that an action hero is horny, horny, horny horny, and that's just not on his mind. He's

going through a lot right now, you guys. He's still grieving. He's not looking to date right now exactly. He's oh my god, the Riyah messages John Wick would be sending. He'd be like, I'm just looking for something and casual, Okay, I'm only here for friends all it's on bumble BF. Yeah. I think John Wick is more likely to be on bumble BFF than Riyah. Like I think he's looking for like play dates for the dog more than he's like

looking for an actual date himself. Definitely, Oh yeah, yes, he's showing up to Bumble BF dates being like, there's one rule, don't fall in love with me, and it's impossible. And if anyone knows about rules, it's everyone in the Assassin society, the Mario coins. It's all a thing. But miss Perkins doesn't give a shit because what does her

main personality trait? Money? It's the first thing out of his mouth where he's like, I thought she didn't get out of bed for anything less than like whatever the amount that he said it was. Perkins has one thing on her mind, and it's money, and it's making the absolute most of it possible. He's a capitalist. I love that there's no like hidden sexual tension between the two of them is she wants to get paid, and she's

gonna get paid by gilling John Wick, right. So this, Yeah, So that'll play into some of these other tropes I'm gonna unpack here. One is if women are allowed to fight, they are only allowed to fight other women, where women on the good guy's side fight the women on the bad guy's side, but men and women don't fight each other. That's not something that takes place in this franchise. Another trope will be that women are allowed to fight, but

the fight choreography will be heavily sexualized. We've talked about the pussy slam a million times on the podcast, where a woman wraps her legs around a guy's face or the crotches. Right, there are the alternative of like saying one Quippi line and getting one kick in during the fight, right, everyone goes, whoa broking kick? So there's that trope. There's the just women are used as sexy set dressing trope where because the target audience this movie is not impervious too,

it's not but it's not egregious. I would say, no, no, I don't think it's a particularly bad offender, but there are I mean, there's this movie's definitely got some tropes going on. Oh yes, for sure. Yeah. And then another trope that we see in action movies is that women will get tangled up in the action and then are brutalized as a result. And often that brutalization is something that the movie really like revels in and exploits, and

it treats it like it's part of this spectacle. I would say that the John Wick franchise generally avoids most of these tropes. Not entirely. But again, like as far as action movie franchises go, John Wick is doing a lot better in these regards because some of the assassins are women and they do fight John or fight alongside him, like we see Halle Berry do in the third movie. She has too two dogs and she has two dogs. Yeah, okay, yes, okay,

they both live. Okay, I'm so I'm sold on three. Um. In the john Wick franchise, women are not brutalized in a way that feels exploitative. If a woman dies, it just feels like an assassin dying. Yeah, it's it's an even play playing ground for who gets marked. Right. Women are not framed as the prize to be one because John Wick never has a love of interest. As we say, he only loves his dead wife. Um, which is something will unpack further later. Yeah, it's like the guys. The

movie starts with a double fridging. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, um, it's true justice for Daisy, Justice for Daisy. And the women as set dressing. There is some of that, especially in the first movie. There is some cinematography that lingers on like a woman's butt, but this doesn't really happen in which is the later installments I noticed. I mean, it's like I'm not even like, you know, opposed to like they're being hot ladies in a movie. I think it's just more I don't know, I mean, and I

can only speak to the first one, right, I don't know. Yeah, I'm really excited to hear what you both think about it, because starting with the Double Fridging, I was just like, okay, But I'm excited to talk about miss Perkins in particular because Vanessa, I think you've already said so many like really smart things about what she represents and the tropes that she avoids, and then I feel like there's other elements that are kind of unavoidable because she's the only

woman who is an assassin, and so I feel like there's stuff that automatically ends up sort of projected onto her, and like she dies in such a brutal way and she's like so dishonorable, and I like that as a character. And I also because she's the only woman, it just I don't know, like I don't even think that the movie is like trying to say anything broad but because she's the only person who's not a sis man who like in this profession, it feels that way at times.

Does that make any sense? Now, I get what you mean. I enjoy that she just gets to be a straight up villain, yeah, because I feel like any other movie would have taken a character like her and made her a very like sexualized villain, Like it's very easy to do, especially because she's just like a very attractive actress, but also given her like some kind of like mysterious connection to John And I like that in this universe she gets to just exist as somebody's that's completely looking out

for herself, which is literally what every assassin is there for. And I do feel like her dispatching is brutal, but I think it's justified because of the way, because of the way specifically, like the rules of the Continental have been teased to like something like there is something that will happen to you if you break these rules. I feel like the movie does a good enough job of like building up and seating like there's a really really

good reason you don't break this rule. And her death could have easily been very unceremonious, and the fact that there was like some ceremony to it very much was like, Yeah, Perkins was a formidable opponent. She's not going to be felled easily by one guy. She's not going to be felled easily like one guy. She stabbed him in through

the face of the pillow. You're gonna need a team of people to take down Miss Perkins, right, And I think that's something that you don't really get in action movies, where a female character is someone that is so formidable that you need to call in an entire ass crew to take out. Right. I mean that I totally agree with you. I think it's just more of my thing is like I wish that there were like the two women that we get to know in the first movie. Well, the one woman we get to know in the first

movie is Miss Perkins. Yeah. And then again it's we've had like this commversation and almost every genre we've ever covered where it's like, well, if there were more women around, it would feel less. Yeah, whatever, when you don't have to be a monolith, when there's more than one, one person doesn't have to be the goddamn monolith, and like the end all be all for like what it means for that marginalized community, even when we're not trying to

make a monolith when you only put one in. Congratulations you made a monolith, right right, You're like, okay, you can be evil villain or dead wife dot MP four. And those are like the two flavors of women that we meet in this movie. I think that's why I like the third one so much, is you start to see the different flavors of complicated women that exists in this universe. And I feel like with every movie they were like, all right, we're adding more. You win, you win,

We're adding more. It's true. And because so the first movie, yes, basically just has one living female character. So even though this franchise generally avoids a lot of these like reductive tropes as far as action movie tropes go, it's still a very male dominated franchise. And even just looking at like John wicks allies, they are mostly men. And it's not until the third movie that he has like multiple

allies who are women. Up until that point, it's just like Willem Dafoe, John Logizamo, the Concierge, Winston the Doctor, the King of the Bowery, and the bartender is a woman. Oh she is in a scene that lasts for like two minutes. Maybe she gets a name, right, he does get a name, yes, and it does have like John Wick, you are awesome. She does say something that's worth touching on in this movie, which is that he is vulnerable, and I want to unpack that further later. But sure,

but she is. I wouldn't say she's like a character though, No, she's more like an NPC in a video game. Yeah exactly. You're like, oh, okay, we need plot information. But does she ever come back? No? Yeah, okay, oops by sea. So yeah, make no mistake, this is a very male dominated franchise and this is something just worth mentioning that. And we've had this discussion here and there when talking

about different action movies. But there's always this question, at least that I'm thinking of of, like what does a feminist fight scene in an action movie look like? Does such a thing exist? Or like what does gender parody in a fight scene look like? Especially because there is a long history in the real world of men inflicting violence against women and men exerting physical power over women because the patriarchy conditions men to be aggressive and to

value physical strength and to resolve conflict through violence. So like, with that context, when you examine action movie violence and women's participation in that or lack of participation in that, Like how that float? Do you? It's yeah, I have that fight scene. As soon as you said it, I was like, I know exactly what it is. It's from a movie called Writing Wrongs, which is directed by Unbo, who's like one of like the end alb all for like Kung fu movies. Now. The actress is Cynthia Rothrock.

Cynthia Rothrock is maybe one of the greatest female action stars that has ever lived. She performed mostly in Hong Kong because the US was not ready for her, and the US did not make roles in action movies for women like Cynthia Rothrock, so Hong Kong was one of the few places that could like appreciate a woman of

her caliber and skill. She's in a scene with another stage fighting actress named Karen Shepherd and if you want, oh, actually I have two scenes for this if you want like feminists, this is what women look like when they're fighting women and there's nothing like sexualized about it, and it very much treats them as formidable. You have Karen Shepherd and Cythia Rothrock fighting each other in writing wrongs. Please look it up. One of them uses their belt

like a goddamn lasso. It's fucking crazy. It is one of the most It is one of the most incredible

on screen fights grace to screen. And then the other one is a scene between three women and it's one of the longest fight scenes in the movie in a movie directed by Timo Tjanto called The Night Comes for Us and Julia Estella is a former ballerina that learned how to on screen fight for this movie and she is outstanding and fighting to lesbian lover villains great and it is this extended, gory, wild fight scene that is

so good. So those are if you're looking for fight scenes between women that actually have like a lens that isn't like sexualizing them and treats them as formidable. Look up those two scenes. They are outstanding. Okay, Oh I'm so well, we'll link that in the description slash. I'm going to watch it the second we finished recording, because that's very exciting to me. Not Rocks. I always go to the Charlie Starren Tom Hardy the first sight fight scene that they engage in in Mad Max Fury Road.

Oh yeah, it feels like I don't know, it feels like gender parodies as far as like action fight scene with a man fighting a woman. It's definitely tricky, yeah, because it's like I mean, I almost feel like for me again, this is like not my genre, but it feels like a you know it when you see it kind of situation, right, because it is like, especially when it's like a sis man fighting any marginalized group like that is not another sis man. Like I understand why.

It's like a historically loaded thing to be and I think for a long time in movies they would just instead choose to not depict it because you just didn't at least in American movies, it just seemed like, well, we don't really know how to handle this, so we're just not going to do it and act like this never and like sort of in an unintentional way, I act like this never happens in the world, right, And I like that there is franchises like john Wick and

others in the past, maybe like twenty years where it's like you do see you you see movies not shying away because it is like even if you're like, oh, I don't want to depict you know, a man beating the shit out of a woman. That happens a lot in the real world. And like, but but then in doing that, you are like sidelining huge groups of people who deserve to be seen in action movies as well.

It just shouldn't be separated from fighting. Keanu reeves like, everyone should get a chance to fight this man, and I generally, I mean in this way it again, you really do have miss Perkins. Yeah, but I like that she gets a really solid fucking fight scene where you see what she can do. And I don't know if, like in my brain, I was like, well, you know when you see it, and that felt like a fight that felt like it was treated like a fight between

two formidable assassins in a way that wasn't super gendered. Yeah, and that's why I wanted to watch the other two films of the franchise to see if more women were included or you know, like what if any evolution there was there. And it feels a little slow. But by the third movie there like you do have halle Berry in a very extended fight scene where she is fighting alongside John Wick. Because she's an ally, she holds her

own she survives. Yeah, she's not killed Ruby Rose, because in the second movie, john Wick fights Ruby Rose's character toward the end. Again, it's like a drawn out scene, like there's it's because a lot of him fighting someone is just him shooting them in the head and then they're dead. So I appreciate that the scenes that are some of the more extended, like choreographed fight scenes where he's fighting the same person for a while, tend to

be with the one woman in the movie. It is cool that, like even just based on hearing how subsequent john Wick adaptations have gone in terms of including women, and how it seems like based on the trailer for the fourth movie, that that is going to be even more so in the next installment. It seems like it's a general upward trajectory and this is all happening in the last ten years. Like that is pretty fucking cool.

It makes me very excited for the action genre because like, honestly, in the last ten years, it feels like it's why A Mortal Kombat pissed me off so much, because I was like, you picked so many nonfighting actresses and we actually have like the most on screen like female fighters in the last ten years, and we've had a really long time, like again not counting Hong Kong because again so many, but like it's frustrating whenever I see, like, I mean, I'm all for like an actress getting a role,

but whenever I see like an actress that can't fight being selected for something now, and I'm like, do you

know how many women are trained to do this? Like it was something that I would see happen a lot, specifically with Zoe Bell in the late nineties and early two thousands, where she was like always the stunt double but never the on screen fighter, like she was Uma Thurman's stunt double and kill Bill, and she actually like finally got to be on screen as herself in the Grindhouse double feature and then most recently in Malignant in

one of the prison scenes. And I'm also very much for like bringing the women that have only exist as like doubles in the background to the foreground and we're finally seeing like more of that happening now, which is incredible.

Actually highly recommend a movie called Fury Start. It's Vietnamese starring an actress named Veronica No It's if taken actually was like good at fighting her her daughter gets taken so she's like on a mission to get her daughter back, and it's just her like crushing dudes and trying to find her daughter on a motorcycle. It's oh, it's so good. Hell yeah, that's amazing. I would love to see good

taken with women. Yeah, instead of like a million cuts to get an old man over a fence and to convince me that he can actually fight, it's Veronica know who like can fight and is just demolishing nice. Oh, I just wanted to go back to um to Miss Perkins a little more because she's she's not in a ton Oh so I just I wrote down very twenty fourteen hairstyle. Oh yeah, where you're like it's just a little too black hair on a clearly blond woman. But

that was twenty fourteen, that was happening. We were there, We did it, but we did it greatly. But I do like that, Yeah, she was put in again. It feels kind of weird to be like, wow, this movie could have really sexualized this character at so many points

and doesn't. Yay movie, But I do think it is like relevant where we get a pretty solid fight scene between her and John Wick and then she sort of left in the custody of this guy Harry, which is a classic Keanu Reeves moment where he's caught doing something horrible and he's like, oh, hey, Harry, and like everyone loves John Wicks so much, and he's like, oh, it's oh hey, John Wick. What can I do to help? Got a Mario coin for me? And John Wicks? Like,

I sure do. And again, I feel like in a lesser movie, or even a movie that maybe came out ten years before this, the scene between Harry and Miss Perkins would have had a different dynamic in terms of like sexualizing her or like making it seem like because the way that again, I think it's like the dynamic between Harry and Miss Perkins is more what you were

describing earlier than us about like Old Guard. Yeah, New Guard is very much what's in place where Harry's like, you know, you're fucking around with the rules of the Continental. I can't be having that, and I want my Mario coin and she's like, well, jokes on you, I just

want Mario coins. I think that that's the actual dialogue in the scene that was verbad, the exact dial Yeah, and then what happens is that she escapes because again, she's skilled, she's a formidable opponent, she escapes from her handcuffs, she does murder Harry. I like Harry. I like Harry a lot. It made me sad. I was sad to

see him go. I wish that we I wish I knew a little more about I mean, I know that part of John Wicks thing is his mystique, but I'm like, woh, what what did you What did you and Harry get into back in the day. Yeah, just give me it, Just give me a little something, give me a little taste of what you guys did once. I feel like we need a spin off series. But um would watch it's coming. Oh yeah, it isn't Ballerina, right, it's called

The Continental, I think. So it's going to be specifically about the Continental, and it's going to be a prequel. And I can't hear that title without remembering that SNL series of sketches with Christopher Walkin. Do you know what

I'm talking about? No? No, he would be the Christopher Walkin played this like ladies man, or he would like try to be a ladies man, but then he would just like end up insulting the person he was trying to seduce, but you never saw You didn't see her ever because the camera was like her point of view, and then he would just like see him like being a buffoon and then like drinks being thrown in his

face and stuff. But it was called The Continental and it had this like weird intonation where it was just like the Continental. No. I was like, okay, well link to that too, there's all they're okay. I was like, have I lost it? Um? Ballerina is a movie that's coming out in the John Wick universe. It's filming right now. It takes place between John Wick three and John Wick four, whoa ballerina assassin Rooney the murderers of her family. Oh you john Wick three heads, we'll know what that means.

But I guess that the character was played by an actor named Unity Phelan, so an actual ballet dancer. I guess yeah, because John Wick's backstory is that he was a ballerina. Hold on what yeah? Oh right, okay, So something I left out of the John Wick three recapa. See that's how you get me to care about John Wynn. It was black swan, Are you joking? I was? I think misunderstood what was happening, So he seeks refuge in

this theater, like this ballet theater where Angelica Houston. Yeah, I should not have left her out, Sorry about it. She's in. She's in Ballerina as well. Yeah, it's so, but they did. The only difference is they recast the ballerina as on a da armis, which I'm like, does let the ballerina be the bo whatever. So he had his training at this theater and she's his kind of like mother figure almost. I don't know enough about his backstory, but I thought that, like she was running a ballet

school and an assassin school. Like I just assumed that he learned how to be an assassin at this ballet school. I don't know what I was thinking. Yeah, he became a ballet assassin like Vanessa with he a ballerina. Yeah he danced. Oh he was a ballet assassin. This isn't john Wick three. Yeah, I honestly am prepared to skip john Wick two and go straight to three and then

it's fine. Three is my favorite of the franchise, honestly, Okay, because I was like, halle Berry has two dogs and Keanu Reeves is a ballerina like that's something that I would watch no matter the tone, no matter the year, no matter like that's a timeless concept. I'll give you my favorite fun piece of trivia about the third movie. All of the scenes with the dogs in Morocco took a goddamn eternity because there were so many feral cats in the area that the dogs were constantly like losing

their shit. So filming with the dogs took a really long time because of just like there were people assigned to just shoot away feral cats from the scene because like the dogs just kept getting distracted by like cats swarming them. That does sound like the sort of anecdote that ends with like and then Keanu Reeves adopted all was he is. So this has nothing to really do with Bechtel cast discussion, but I thought that this was like just I was reading about how this movie kind

of came to be. This movie was like written by a writer named Derek Colestad who had been at it forever, had not had like written a million screenplays no one had really bitten, and then eventually sold this movie. But apparently he has an aunt who is like a popular historical fiction author named Lorie Wick. And that's why John Wick. It's John Wick. It's a little nod to his more successful aunt. I love that. So that's fun. Wow, a good piece of trivia. Thank you so much. Should we

unpack the dead his wife? Oh, the dead wife of it all? The dead wife of it all? I didn't. I mean, it's I don't really know how much I have to say about it outside. I'm surprised that they went in so hard on it. I mean, like it is kind of like, even in twenty fourteen, I feel like that's such a known trope that people would like even talk about then, like the term fridging existed by that point. But I don't know. I mean, yeah, I was.

I guess in the movie's defense, I don't know if you could classify that as fridging because she dies of an illness and not a brutal like murder. I guess. I guess I think of fridging for I have, like I use a more loose version of it, where it's like, if a woman needs to die for the plot to begin, that's a fridge to me. I mean, I guess it's like, she doesn't die in a violent way, but the movie

doesn't start until she's dead. Yeah right, I mean, and yes, there is the classic action movie trope of a woman existing in the world of this story, usually a wife, girlfriend, or daughter. Sometimes she's alive, sometimes she's dead. But the function of that character is to be motivation for the male hero. We've talked about it at a million times, yeah, and sometimes motivation for the villain. But in this case it's it's John Wick's wife who died of an illness.

My wife, my dadda, my wife, my daughter. It's like time what I think is more interesting about this? And again there's still very much this trope at play, but it makes it so that the John Wick character is compared to other action movie heroes, who in most franchises are sis head men who are extremely agro and this whole like, oh, here's the ideal quote unquote version of what a man should be, and this is how to be cool, and you're supposed to suppress your emotions and

you're supposed to disrespect women and all this stuff. John Wick doesn't. It's cements him as a wife guy, right right, yeah, So he's which is like I don't know, he's just he's more vulnerable than his like, you know, male hero action counterparts. Is he dealing with his emotions in the healthiest way. I would say no, because he's murdering a

lot of people. But John, Yeah, you're right, but like his grief is and he's like actively trying to grieve, and he he's so attached to the dog because that was a way for him to experience grief and his support animal, right exactly, they killed the support animal. I'm like, they two, that's yeah. So I don't know that there's just like something soft about old John. He's a ballerina wife guy and the fact that he was a ballerina

the whole time twist of the century. Like I I wonder if Helen knew that side of him, his ballet side. Um also did she know? I mean, I just have Maybe these are answered in subsequent installments, but like speaking to your point, I do think that like that is like a cool subversion on the action hero that this movie does, is like that they don't shy away from

the grief. And it's like, well, if you're going to kill off the wife for the action to begin, don't just forget about her immediately or just you know, invoke her name or her memory when it's like plot convenient basically like it does you do feel her presence in every decision that he makes, and like in his behavior towards other people, Like he's I think almost like like as actively grieving as I've ever seen like a character

where this trope is at play, Yeah, grieving. Even other characters are like aware of that, right, everyone knows that he lost his wife, and I think that, I mean, that is interesting. And again it's like the element of mystery is so important to this character because the more mysteries about John Wick, the more John Wick movies you get, it's all it's all connected and all that stuff for me.

But I was I was just like, oh, I wish that like you got a little like even just to like push the subversion of those decisions a little more, just like some sort of indication of like did Helen know that he was an assassin? Did Helen know that he was a ballerina? Was their relationship built on a bed of lies? What is one thing about her that isn't that she was sick and then died, Yeah, and

loved John Wick so much? Like there, I feel like you can retain the like mysterious elements of the character and still like, give her some characterization, Yeah, give her something.

Knowing more about Helen doesn't make us have to know more about John Wick exactly exactly what was their relationship, like even if it was fucking boring, Like, yeah, us knowing what Helen's job was, or like how they met, or just or something about her, you know, God forbid outside of that relationship would have I mean, I think

it just would. It would have helped every I mean, like we always say in these conversations, it would have helped everything because it if you know why he loved her so much, that makes you feel for John wickmore. It makes you understand why he like quit his entire lifestyle for her, right right? Like what was what was so fucking I mean, I believe that this woman who doesn't exist was awesome, but like, what was so awesome about her that you bailed on your whole life to

hang out with her? Good questions? But the movie doesn't care enough about her? Do you find out more about her in subsequent installments? No, no, come on tragically, which I wish were. I wonder if we're going to get more on the in four, But I guess I'm just gonna have to wait until I have that two hours in fifteen forty nine minutes to spare. That's a lot

of time. I also thought it was funny that they like Bridgie A. Moynihand's like a very like a pretty successful actor to put in the part of deadwife dot MP four. I was kind of like, what, you think that she's gonna be doing more? You would think, but I see that she's credited in all a Hole. That's so wait, that's actually so funny. Okay, she's credited in john Wick, in john Wick chapter two, In john Wick three and four, she's credited as Helen Wick parentheses photo.

So they probably tend to venmo her seven hundred dollars. Oh, because you don't even get flashbacks. Probably it's right, you don't even get dot she is now dot jpeg. She's been somehow cast into an even smaller role dead wife dot jpeg, an even smaller file. Yeah, brutally compressed justice for come on, that sucks truly. Yeah. Something I want to touch on is gun violence. Yes, in American action movies.

This is something that I don't think we've talked a lot about on the show, but gun violence in American action movies is very pervasive, and it's rare to have an action movie from the US that does not have a lot of gun violence in it. We are not experts on this topic of like, oh, is it that guns are so readily available in the US and that's why they're so prevalent in our media and in action movies in particular, just because it's like tragically a part

of American culture. Is it that the pervasiveness of gun violence in American media? Does that contribute to actual gun violence in our culture because people are famously influenced by the media they consume. Is it both? Like what's the causation slash correlation happening here? Again, we're not experts. It's a much larger conversation that we can't really cover in the span of a single little episode. But I just I wanted to touch on it because again, we haven't

talked about it really before. And I noticed that as a long time consumer of American action movies, excessive gun violence in these movies has just been so normalized that I have gotten to the point where I don't even notice this alarming trend of how pervasive it is. I'm just like, yeah, that's how action movies are well, I guess finish. That's a question that I have for you because you do watch so many international action movies, like

is this a uniquely American thing? How do you feel about how violence is sort of portrayed across the genre. I wouldn't say it's uniquely American because it is something that I see across like the international borders of action.

I'd say, at least for John Wicks specifically, a lot of its influence is specifically taken from John Wu because the gun violence in John Wicks specifically isn't like typically American action movies when it handles gun violence, it's just very much like a very like bullet spray, a hold gun,

infinite bullet kind of thing. The John Wick taking from John wu influence of gun violence is it treats it almost like an extension of the arm if you if you notice in John movies versus other American action movies, it's treated almost like it's an extension of like a punch in it of itself to where it's it's part of the choreography, and usually American like gun violence doesn't include guns as part of the choreography unless it was, like John Wu with his very like hyperstylized version of it.

But it is something that I see that isn't so much just like if you watch like The Raid or The Raid too, it's very much pervasive through it, even though there's like a lot of like hand to hand combat in it. So I wouldn't say it's intrinsic to Americans, but I will say, especially in the eighties and nineties, we did it more okay, because that is I mean, like I again, I because that's like it's not my

genre and I just come to expect it. But there were I mean some I think maybe it is like a uniquely American conversation because there is such an issue with gun violence in America where I feel like there is like this genre is especially right now and in the last ten years, going to affect people a little differently.

I know that there's a huge, huge, huge debate on yeah, the causation and all this stuff, and that I've certainly read a lot saying like, you know, that is like to say that the presence of guns in media will turn you into like a murderous like you know, like I feel like it's a way overblown, far more nuanced conversation than I've generally seen had about it. But I

don't know. I mean, it's interesting like bringing your own and hearing other people bringing their own sort of experiences of gun violence to the table, and like how you're able to consume these movies, like because if there's like no wrong way to kind of come at it, but there are, I mean, and I think for me is particularly in the like club scene where people are just you know, they're killing each other and it's all very targeted, like they're not taking out random people like you do

see sometimes in action movies. But I think that was as close to for this scene, just because of my own personal experience of I don't know, like active shooter threats in a crowded space. Like you're like, oh, that can be a really like sudden and kind of triggering thing to see. But yeah, you're right, for sure, it's a little more willful. Yeah, Like it's a little more thoughtful.

It makes it makes an assassination feel more calculated, and it doesn't have that like that sense of just like bullet spray catching strays that you might see in like a crank movie, right right, Yeah, I never know, I don't know it's like never like my favorite thing to see. But that's also just because it's like it's just that's

just a personal preference. I don't know, right, I don't think it's ruining the world necessarily, Yeah, right, because for me, Like again, I love action movies and I love to see a good gun fight in an action movie. But in the real world, like I think guns should be banned outright. I think we should throw every gun into a volcano, like no one should have access to a gun. But in movies, I'm like, more fun, fun, I'm having a fun time. So it's a paradox, but I just

wanted to bring it up. I want guns to be like dragons. They only exist typical movie fantasy. Yeah, yes, exactly. I want Andy Serkis to play a gun. I think he gets really method about it. He'd be good at it. I think he'd have a really fun press junket for that one. But I want him to do the gallum voice while he's doing it. Oh, the gun has a whole lore that you don't see. It's like Babu Frick, Like there's like the actor doing Babu Frick had a hole.

They're like, oh, there was a love thing that didn't work out for Babu Frick, and you can see that in the puppet work. And I'm like, all right, sure, thanks Shirley. Hey, bab like bless her heart. I'm the only person in the world who remembers the character of Babu Frick from Star Wars five hundred. But I'm right there with you. I love Babu Frick with all my heart. Hey,

hey to all my Babu Fri kids out there. I also want to just mention the tendency in American action movies to make the villains be people from a nationality that is not American, Yeah, which this franchise definitely does. And again I just speaking to the first one making the making the Villain's Rush and felt like action movie one oh one writing where you're just like, this movie could have come out any time in the last fifty years. I guess yeah, in a way that like is definitely

tropy writing oh deeply. So yeah, does anyone have anything else to talk about? No? I think I I think I completely emptied the cartridge. Wow, Oh I like that you see John Wick change the cartridge too or like run out of bullets sometimes, Yeah, it's not infinite forever bullets.

He's no, Like I like that this movie, Like, I don't know, I guess that like of the action movies that I've seen, this is like john Wick is not my favorite, but I feel like it has a really really cool balance of fantastical world elements versus occasional, like striking real world elements, like he runs out of bullets. Someone doesn't end the scene on a quip and they just say, oh, like just like kind of grounding moments that you aren't sort of trained to expect in such

a stylized action movie. Like I really really love those choices. They're they're so fundam not having kibble at your house because you got a dog yesterday. I'm also like, Helen, you didn't send a bag of kibble? Yea, Like think it through, babe. You're giving him errands. Yeah, you want to give a grieving man arrand think about it. And

that's how this whole thing started. If he had not gone out to go get kibble, he would have never met up with You, would have never met Joseph, and then his dog was still It's look, we can't Helen, Helen tell it to the photo and John went before. I can't believe she's parentheses photo. That's so dirty that I guess she's over it because she's been downgraded to a photo. I do want to shout out non binary actor Asia Kate Dylan, who plays the adjudicator in John

Wick three. Nice. The character is never identified as non binary, but the actor is. And I think it's just cool for an action, a huge action franchise to cast a non binary actor in that role and then just like have that character just be their existence being normalized within the world of the story. Yeah, yeah, which is something that very like hetero rigid gender binary action movies generally don't do. No, they're too scared of it. Yeah, so I appreciate that, But yeah, I think that's all. My

cartridge is now also empty. My cartridge is empty as well. I guess the last thing I have to say is that I, you know, even though we're technically covering the first movie in this episode, even in the space of this conversation, I've been very heartened and feel good that it seems like as this franchise becomes more and more successful, it also becomes more and more inclusive, which is amazing.

And I hope that that like remains sort of a precedent in this especially in this like kind of typically agro sis male genre in general. Like, it's really fucking cool and it continues to set the bar it does, which is amazing. And so look, I'm going to see John Wick four. It's also na writting a song for it, do we know? I hope So I hope we get like a Specter style song just for it, and then she could win an Oscar I just the arena Sawayama to Oscar pipeline. It just feels right to eat out.

I want to see her live so bad. It's also this franchise, I would say, is also pretty inclusive from a racial diversity point of view, where totally where it doesn't cent her whiteness the way that a lot of action movies and action franchises do, which is insane to me because they pull from so many, like specifically Asian genres, but are scared of casting Asian people. Right. Yeah, have we have? We arrived at the Bechtel test portions of No way, this damn movie passes. I'm sorry, I know

it doesn't. It does not pass, but future installments pass maybe too, Maybe I think three does it does? Okay? I think three passes. I would have to rewatch and pay more attention. I was not paying attention. I want to believe. I want to believe. Um, but one certainly not um. I. You're hard pressed to get two women in a room that aren't set dressing correct or or terrified victims number three and four or exactly is being forced to lead a vault when Keanu Ree's got that boy, Yeah,

I forgot about them. So yeah, there's a lot of I mean, featured extras being like. But here's the thing is that our nipple scale will really say something about the movie, which is our scale of zero to five nipples based on looking at the movie through an intersectional feminist lens. I'm going to give this two and a half nipples a split down the middle because even though it subverts a lot of very reductive, harmful tropes when it comes to women in action movies, it's just a

very male franchise. Still, there's no reason why more of John Wicks allies and adversaries couldn't be womens non binary characters. Since the franchise now has set a precedent for including non binary actors, although again with the subsequent sequels it is getting more inclusive when it comes to gender. But this first movie especially is just one dead wife and then one lady assassin and four seconds of a bartender right right, and a pretty good you know, I like

not to undercut miss Perkins. I think that she's like a well written character and that you get the same amount of background for her as you would get for any other assassin in the movie. And I agree with you, like what Vanessa is saying earlier, of like she is formidable enough to like warrant a ceremonial takeout, like it takes whatever a circle full of respected assassins to take her out. She is certainly one of them, but yeah, she's just kind of the only the only one of them, right.

And then again, like when you compare John Wick and his like vulnerability and his emotional forthcomingness that is present in his character far more than your typical hyper masculine, hyper agro male action movie hero, it's just an easier franchise for me to get behind. Yeah, because of these various subversions. So I'll give it two and a half,

maybe even a three. I'm biased because again, I love the genre and I like movies enfranchises that do subvert a lot of the harmful things that make this genre not so easy to enjoy these days. But John Wick rules. I love Keanu Reeves. I love all of the dogs the dogs, so that's who I will award my three nipples to the dogs and Keanu Reeves. I think I'm also three nipple. I think the franchise overall is a

four nipple for me. The first movie is three nipples and miss Perkins is doing most of the heavy lifting taking it to the third nipple. I think it would have been two two and a half if not for miss Perkins, so she brings it to a three for me. Cool. Oh yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna be a total kill joy and go a two on this one, only because I really like the I think Dead Wife dot MP four really really got me, and it happens at the beginning and end, and I was just like, ah, even

in twenty fourteen, this is not awesome. I do. I do like miss Perkins. Um, I totally agree with what both of you are saying. And also I'm a little bit biased against this Sean ref for whatever reason, because it scares me and it's loud and it's hard for me to pay attention. So yeah, but I love I love Beagles, and I do love them. I think mainly my two nipples are going for the strength of Miss Perkins character and how she is like such a you know, she's just an equal, which is not asking for much

and this movie does do that. And the subversions of the john Wick character of like he's not yeah, he's not the my wife died, but I'm ready to find love today like kind of you know, brain breaking action hero we're used to. So uh yeah, I'm gonna go too, and I'm giving them both the daisy God, damn it, you're back. Her ghost should visit him in john Wick four. Oh, I agree. She should have like a really beautiful, like Smoker's voice. I imagined her. I have a very buttery,

raspy voice. Oh. I'm trying to think of who would voice her. Miley Cyrus. Oh, I was gonna say, Andy serkis, oh my andys Miley Cyrus, Andy serkis you know same Cadence. We'll figure it out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but yeah, that's our that's our john Wick episode. There it is. Vanessa, Thank you so much for coming back. Thank you for having me. I had a wonderful time. The five timer jacket is in the mail. Heil yes, and come back

for a sixth time whenever you want. I am more than happy to Where can people check out your stuff? Follow you online? Plug away, I'm a Ness Guerrero on Twitter and S and S Guerrow on Instagram. And then I produced a show called ten Minute Power Hour for the game Grumps that comes out every other Monday on

the Grums channel on YouTube. And then every other Friday, I host a show called Popcorn and Pixels in which we talk about storytelling across video games and movies and how a ludo narrative storytelling device might be different from milleniear narrative storytelling device, but how they tell similar stories together. And I hope that with my co host Emily Jacobson, and definitely check it out if you like video games and movies cool hell yeah? And you can follow us

on social media at Bechtel Cast. You can go to our Patreon aka Matreon on patreon dot com slash backtel Cast. You get two bonus episodes every month, plus access to the back catalog of well over one hundred bonus episodes and that's all for five dollars sorry, five Assassin coins per month, Mario coins, five bodies, way the gold, who knows, and you can go. If you want merch, go to tepublic dot com, slash v backdel cast and with that, Oh wait, I have a good I have a really

good dismount. Okay, fine, so you do your Sorry. I did not mean to interrupt. No, it's fine. Mine would have sucked anyway. I was gonna say, hey, Vanessa, Hey, Jamie, be seeing you, be seeing you, John, be seeing you. Five five