SERIES REVIEW: Agatha All Along

Hello, this is Patrick Horvath, the creator behind Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees, and you are listening to the Oblivion Bar podcast. Welcome to the Oblivion Bar podcast with your host, Chris Hacker and Aaron Knowles. Welcome to episode 172 of the Oblivion Bar podcast. I'm your warlock in training, looking for the passage down the witch's road, Chris Hacker. And joining me is a tarot card expert and Ralph Boner's brother from another mother, my cohost and BFF, Aaron Knowles.

Down, down, down the road, down the witch's road. Blood and tears and bone, mother made in grove. This pipes weren't ready. Aaron, were they? They were not. We're not. I kind don't know if I want to edit that out if I want to keep that in. I like I'm leaving it old. Leave it in. Fuck it. We'll do it live. We'll do it live. Welcome back, everybody. Episode 172 of the Oblivion Bar podcast.

This week on the show, we are discussing the newest spoopy Marvel Studios Disney Plus series Agatha all along. You like how I change that in the transcript? Yes. Everyone I had spooky originally and Aaron change it to spoopy. He's so mischievous. A lot of people are talking about online. Some people think we're back. Some people think the same old same old MCU that we've been seeing for the last two years. We'll discuss it here in just a moment during our series review.

But this is the first episode. Like, I guess I guess you could say like normal episode that we've done in like five months. This show, I will get into it. But this show, you Agatha Agatha. Yeah. All along. We waited a long time for this. Some people would say too long, right? Like some, people say that we might've missed the boat a little bit with Agatha, right?

Yeah. It's almost like when WandaVision came out, they were so surprised by how popular Agatha was that they're like, shit, we need to, we need to make a series. Hold on. Fuck it. We'll do it. We'll do it live. Fuck it. Well, we'll get into Agatha here in just a bit. Before, before that though, we're going to talk about some, some news that happened over the last couple of weeks. And then of course, Aaron, if folks want to support the Oblivion Bar podcast, how do they do that?

Well, Chris, I'll tell you how. Do they go down down the Witches Road? No, because that is our trials. That will not end well. No, you don't have to go down a witch's road to support the Oblivion Bar podcast. Just just consider an easier path, which is over to Patreon.com forward slash oblivion bar pod. That's the road that you could take or the URL. The road less traveled as they say road. No, I mean, it's fairly true. We have a it's like decently traveled. It's decently travel.

We have a good crew of patrons, you know. So for your support, can get access to bonus episodes each week called The Grid. And if you want, can just, huh? I was just echoing, said bonus. Bonus. That's something I want to do from now on. one of us says bonus, I want you to say bonus. Boner. Ralph Boner. Ralph Boner. So last week or this week, recently, we released episode 140. of the grid, is our unformatted, unfiltered. It's our oblivion bar pod after dark. It's the it is the grid.

is what you get. It is the bonus episode for joining the Patreon. OK, so every 10 episodes, we release an episode on the main feed so you guys can check that out for free and everybody can kind get a little they can dip a toe. Wait, do you say for free? Well, it's on the normal feed so they can dip into the page. I was trying to set you up to like to boast that it's for free right now. Hold on, hold on. Aaron, this newest episode of The Grid, it's free? You said it was free? Yes, it's for free.

also get a behind the scenes look at how we prepare each episode with looking to our episode transcripts, Patreon polls and a bunch of other exclusive goodies. One thing I can say that we love to do here on the Oblivion Bar Pod is we love to send out free shit. We love it. We love we know I love free stuff. That's right, Chris. For free. Anyways, you give it a shot with the seven day free trial at patreon.com forward slash. I'll leave me a bar pod or just check out the link in the show notes.

That's right. If I go check it out in the show notes, let's go ahead and get to our news and notes.

and notes. Aaron, you were chuckling there when we were playing the drop. What was going on? What was happening? What was going on in your brain? I just thinking about the show so far. Sometimes the show like just it to us, it may sound like it like a shit show. Yeah. But it's it's still like it's it's it's so unapologetically us all the time. That's true. I think we're finally meeting in middle for a long time. I was the one wanting to go, Aaron, stick to the script, man. Yeah. Stick. Come on.

We got to go by the bullet points. And you're like, no, let's just have fun. But now I feel like we're like kind of melding into one where we can fuck around for a bit and then find our way back to the to the path. We find our way back to the witch's road. Yeah, we're rubbing each other off. I mean, rubbing off on each other. on. Moving on. Keenan Reeves did extensive research on Shadow for Sonic 3 to create a faithful version of the character. Do think he was like a method actor?

Like, do you he dressed up like a a like a hedgehog for a couple of weeks? tall. I am a black. hedgehog with red hair and a bad attitude. I was, I'm a hedgehog with attitude. All right. When talking about Reeves' performance as Shadow Director, Jeff Fowler said, he would give us so many different versions of line readings. Fowler went on to talk about the actor's dedication to the role saying, he really wanted to create a very faithful or excuse me, very fan faithful version of the character.

He did the research. In our first meeting, he very clearly had gone and done his homework. which was awesome. I cannot say enough wonderful things about Keanu and what he brought to the character and the experience of making this movie. I think people are really, really going to love this version of Shadow. Now, Aaron, I am not as super knowledgeable about Shadow. We are gonna get into a little bit of his backstory here in just a moment.

I'll give that out, but I'm just curious from your perspective, what do you know about Shadow? What do you know about the Sonic universe and how much does Keanu really need to dive into to understand this character? To be fair, when it comes to, be fair, When it comes to Shadow, like I don't know a lot other than he is a, he's like Negasonic. Negus Scott. he's kind of like a like a bad version of Sonic and you know, he's he's just kind of like a badass. Like, you know, he doesn't just run fast.

I don't even know if he can run fast. I know he's got like a he's got like gadgets like a board and like cool shoes and like a motorcycle. So according to the trailer, according to the trailer, we'll see. I'm excited to see what he does. Yeah, it's sort of similar. Honestly, the info that I have on Sonic is all very surface level. It's all stuff that I've seen like from posters and obviously this trailer. So let's let's get into a little info here on Shadow.

So created over 50 years ago by Professor Gerald Robotnik as part of Project Shadow on board the Space Colony Ark, Shadow was conceived to achieve immortality and was infused with the DNA of an alien black arms as the ultimate life form. He possesses several innate talents, including agelessness and formidable combat skills. After his birth, he formed a deep bond with Maria.

Gerald's granddaughter. However, the Guardian Units of Nations, aka GUN, deemed Shadow a threat and raided the Ark, resulting in the capture of Shadow and Gerald and Maria's death. Driven to madness, Gerald brainwashed Shadow to seek world destruction before freezing him in stasis, only to be freed by Gerald's grandson, Ivo Eggman Robotnik. First premiering in Sonic Avengers 2 on the Sega Dreamcast, Shadow is the arch rival of Sonic the Hedgehog, whom he resembles and shares many abilities.

So I'm assuming he is fast based on this. He is also kind of loosely based on Tom McFarlane's spawn character from back in the day. His trademark attack is chaos control, which allows him to warp time space with the chaos emeralds. I'm guessing that's what we're seeing in the trailer is him able to take that chaos emerald and use that to basically instant transmission like Goku in Dragon Ball. So from now on, I'm just going to call them Sponic. Sponic.

OK. And then obviously Sonic the Hedgehog 3 will premiere in theaters and here in just a couple of months on December 20th. Aaron, gauge your excitement with Sonic the Hedgehog 3. Like a 6. A 6 out of 10. Like a warm 6. A cool 7. OK. All right. I'm at like probably like a 6 or 7 myself. Like again, we've covered actually, it's funny. This is like one of the only Trilogies that we've covered every movie thus far. I we covered the first one near the beginning of the show's inception.

And obviously we covered the second one and we'll be covering the third one. I think it's the second to last episode of this year. And as you said before, know, Jim Carrey is like the best part of this movie. But I think even outside of Jim Carrey, these are just like really fun, sort of basic cable, all families are welcome type of fun action films, sort of turn your brain off and have a good time film, right? think it's, you yeah, it's got that nostalgia.

So you can hear like when they grab the rings and it's like, you know, the sound effects. Yeah. It's like you enjoy it. It's fun. It's, That was Mario. We just did. No, there's like the like. Whatever. Sorry, I can't make the casino sound. Whatever. Fucking music. Can I tell you? OK, so one of the most stressful sounds to this day, I'm 33 years old, is the underwater about to drown music from from Sonic.

Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun And then he just like floats up and Yeah. Relatively excited for this movie. Not overly excited, of course, but that's cool. know, Keanu being in this movie now we have. OK, so we have Ben Schwartz as Sonic, right? We have Idris Elba as Knuckles. Who is Tails, by the way? Do we know who? What? What do you laugh? What are you laughing at? Knuckles. Knuckles. Sorry, everyone.

That is something that only Aaron and I find funny is when you say the word knuckles like that knuckles knuckles. Anyway, who plays tails? We know off the top of our heads. I'll look it up if you want to talk about. I am looking it up. You're looking it up. OK. Yeah. But now we have Keanu Reeves, the shadow. I think this franchise, this has like some real staying power like this has like Fast and Furious. Let's just keep building blocks on top of this franchise type of staying power.

They just keep making these forever. Colleen O'Shaughnessy? I don't know who that is. Okay. All right. Well, moving on, we're excited about Shadow being in this universe. But to be honest, and I, they have our money anyway. We would see this regardless. Well, speaking of movies that could be good, could not be good. Aaron, what are you going to our next bit of news? Sure. Knuckles. Knuckles. All right. So we got some news about the live action Gundam movie.

Okay. So Via Deadline, Legendary Pictures and Bandai Namco Filmworks are moving forward with their live action adaptation of Gundam with sweet to show in our Jim Mickle coming on to write and direct Mickle is also currently developing Donny Cates and Jeff Shaw, excuse me 2017 comic series God Country, which I just recently read not too long ago Chris I and I know you read a while ago is pretty badass But it's being developed into a TV series for Netflix The film is looking to

start production in early 2025 Which I'm excited about because I've been waiting for a live-action Gundam for a long time Mobile Suit Gundam is a mecha anime series in case you didn't know and you've been living under a rock for the last 40, 50 years that debuted in 1979. So actually longer than 40 years ago, it's like 50 years ago.

Set in a futuristic era called the Universal Century, the story takes place during a brutal conflict between the Earth Federation and Principality of Zeon, a space colony that seeks independence from Earth's oppressive rule. Now, Chris, if you're not familiar, like there are a lot of different. ways that the story of Gundam has been told.

You know, have the, the, the, was it G Gundam tournament, which was like the, you know, like golden finger, which was like a flaming hand, which I never understood. It must've been a translation thing, but then you have like the multiple, mobile suit Gundam shows and films, which are all really good. but it's basically based on the fact that there's like these young kids that are capable of piling these like much more capable. You know like mecha robots other than normal people.

Yeah, and I mean, I don't know They're super bad like I death sight the one do you know do you know much about Gundam?

I don't honestly Yeah, I'm glad you asked because it's one of those things that of course both of us are kids of the tsunami era but it seemed like I just never really latched on to Gundam for whatever reason like I think I would stick around for Dragon Ball Z and Honestly, like even Sailor Moon would be on sometimes and some Pokemon of course, but like yeah for some reason Gundam was one that As soon as it came on, was maybe it was just a little too dry for me at the time.

But I want to go back. Gundam is is you'll probably enjoy it more now. I'm going tell you, I was kind of the same way when I really first started seeing if it wasn't for the fact that was giant robots fucking each other up. I, I, I, I this in the past. Giant Mecha gave me anything. Giant Mecha, especially Tudami, like Big O was one of my favorite. I don't know if you remember Big O. It's like very steampunk, very retro. That one was awesome. But You're right.

So Gundam has always been very political. It's been very people that they control the space like the different zones of space and the moon and earth and controls pretty much the resources. it's all about, again, who has political control over what area? And it's just, don't know, it's always been a little bit dry for me, but as I get older, it seems to make a little bit more sense. So I was like, it kind of sounds like an allegory too for like modern. you know, nationalism, right?

Like very much so in America, we are sort of told, especially if you're from like a small community, I was born in a small town in Indiana, you know, flyovers town where you just raise a family and that's it. And everyone in your circle tells you join the military. It's a good way to, you know, defend freedom. It's an honorable, selfless thing to do. And you realize that and this is not me or Aaron trying to badmouth the military.

We both obviously served Aaron much longer than I, but It's one of those things where you realize that when you get in, it's the idea of what the military is, is far different from actually being in the military, right? Yeah, it's the, yeah, there's the perception, the ideology of it and kind of, you again, yeah, the, the, the, the patriotism slash nationalism that goes behind it.

And it very much accurate way of putting it because there's a lot, again, this show is very much about as you grow up, figuring out where your loyalty loyalties lie. it to the people that fight to your left and right? Is it to the country? Like, yeah, country to planet to to I mean, at the end of the day, these are humans fighting humans and all they're doing is fighting over territory, which again is such an interesting way to look at it.

Plus you have all these kids who are the like they all pilot these different guns. have heavy arms, which is like this, you know, very heavy cannon, like cannons for arms, like shoots rockets, all this stuff. You have Gundam Scythe, which obviously has a big ass laser scythe. You got Gundam Zero One, which is the one that you see that is pretty much the most popular. there's a ton of them. Player One? Yeah, there's a ton of other ones.

And it's like they have to fight each other at certain times. And it's interesting in that concept. It's such an adult concept that's placed on the shoulders of kids. So let's move on, if you don't mind. quick, one more thing before we move on here. What were your thoughts? Obviously, you're a big fan of Ready Player One, the book, and then when the movie came out, what were your thoughts whenever we saw that sort of, I guess, CGI, but sort of, you know, live action ish version of Gundam?

What were your thoughts when you saw that? Because even as someone who's not really attached to that to that show, still seeing Gundam in that way was so cool. I mean, again, the Ready Player One, the video, the film. was very much fan service for just about everybody and they changed a lot from, because I believe in the book that that was actually a different character.

I think it was Ultraman, I believe, that one of the players who got that ability from a tournament, so to speak, was able to use that. And so I could be wrong, I'll have to go back and look into it. I don't believe that it was the Gundam robot, but it's still really cool to see it in there, to be honest, because I like the book so much. There was a lot of stuff that was in the movie that kind of felt a little betrayal, betrayful.

Yeah, they to change some things because of like ownership and, you know, copyrights and all those things. Ownership and also kind of, you know, they had to modernize it for people like for kids now who saw it. Because again, a lot of the stuff was for 80s and 90s babies and people who grew up in their prime in those areas and really recognize a lot of those properties. So they had to change it to make sure that kids these days who were watching it were like, that's cool.

Yeah, Harley Quinn is not in the book, everybody. Yes. Harley Quinn, the Joker. Well, next up on the news docket, a new trailer for Star Wars Skeleton Skeleton Crew was released. Chris and I just watched that and very much still continues the same feeling of Goonies, very 80s, very synthy, very, very oblivion bar. Yeah. Really quick before you get into this, can I ask you what did you think? Like just sort of base thoughts when you were watching this trailer, like I have my thoughts.

I'm just curious. What were your thoughts while watching it? My immediate thoughts are I have never been as excited for a Star Wars property. Dude, virtual high five. I am so excited for this. This looks really good. Honestly, like there's two things right now. Star Star Wars that would get three things that would get me excited. That would be Rosario Dawson. Yeah, Mandalorian.

Sure. And Skeleton Crew. So the Skeleton Crew follows the journey of four kids who make a mysterious discovery on their seemingly safe home planet, then get lost in a strange and dangerous galaxy, crossing paths with the likes of Jadna Nawood, the mysterious character played by Jude Law. The series was created by John Watts of the MCU Spider-Man trilogy, and it also stars Ravi Kabot-Kanhers, Kiriyani Krattar, Robert Timothy Smith, Jude Law, and Ryan Kira Armstrong.

Nick Frost also stars in the series as a droid. Episodes will be directed by Bryce Dallas Howard, The Daniels, David Lowery and Lee Isaac Chung.

Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni will executive produce the series and the Skeleton Crew will be released on Disney Plus on December 3rd with a two episode premiere, which I'm really, really excited about because I've been really digging this whole thing and we'll talk about that actually later in this episode when we start getting into Agatha with the two episode premieres and these two episode finales. But yeah, just to echo what we said a second ago, Chris, super excited for this.

Just the vibes alone from the music, from the attitudes, from the kids who are starring in it. It just looks like a fun adventure story. Did you ever see, I want to say it was called Endor, like the Ewoks movie. The straight to DVD or straight to VHS movies back in the day. No, I'm familiar with them, but I never watched them. So there's that. Back when I was a kid, there was one called Flight of the no not flight. Well, not flight of navigator. That's a completely different movie.

It's hold on you keep talking I got a look at this right? Yeah while you're looking it up I will say that this yeah to echo everything you're saying this looks awesome We're definitely gonna cover this on show everybody and it actually I don't know if it's known or not I'm sure it is John Watts again director of all the Spider-Man movies in the MCU he actually released himself or sort of denied the opportunity to to direct the Fantastic Four movie in the MCU to skeleton crew over at Star Wars.

So he clearly has a lot of passion for this and I think it's very evident. Again, trailers can be misleading. Anything can be good and bad. But this honestly, I love the energy. Everything about this just looks like good Star Wars. there's a movie. The movie I was talking about was a movie from 1985 and I need you to check out the trailer later for this and everybody listening. need you to go check it out. The movie is called Explorers. Okay. All right.

And Explorers is about these three kids who for some reason start having the same dream and they're imagining like these circuit boards and they're imagining these parts and basically it leads them. They're not friends to become friends and they build their own spaceship in their homemade lab, like in their garage. And then they actually fly it into space to like, because they're just getting these like dreams that it's just like pulling them towards this adventure.

so like I'm this, that's what it reminds me of. It's a very cool, very fun story. And I highly recommend checking that one out and just going back to Ethan Hawke. Yep. Yeah, exactly. And it's just like, again, it's another one of those ones that that this has the same like Goonies ask going an adventure like feeling to it. And I'm enjoying it. I'm here for it. I'm here for it. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think again, I just really pumped about this.

I did not watch and or I have not watched a Soca. I did not watch the one that everyone was really mad about for like six weeks. What was the one? What was that called? acolyte. Yeah, acolyte. Didn't watch that one guys. And Aaron, I'm like, I'm out right now. I'm out on Star Wars in like a very passive way, not like an aggressive, like incel, I hate women way, but just like an, I can't be bothered by Star Wars right now. Yeah, it's a low priority.

There's just not a lot that draws me to it, but this is one thing that can bring me back to it. Yeah, absolutely. think this could be it. And you know, obviously we have the Mandalorian movie coming out next year as well. So this, along with that, I'm excited to see where we're going to be going with Star Wars. And I think I've heard rumors, cause I think we just had Star Wars celebration last month. we might get an announcement for a new trilogy coming into 2025.

So like it won't come out in 2025, but we'll get the announcement in 2025. So I'd imagine it'll come out in like late 26, early 27. So, all right, everybody. Well, that'll do it for our news and notes. Let's get spoopy over here with Agatha all along. Aaron's going to get his pipes ready for that one. He's going be doing a lot of singing. So let's go ahead get into that. Let's go and get into our series review of Agatha all along.

All right, everybody, we are here to talk about Agatha all along again. Spoilers ahead. If you have not watched all is it eight episodes or nine episodes of Agatha along eight episodes? Do not know it's nine. It's nine. It is nine. We realize it's the same time. Nine nine. Nine episodes. If you have not seen all nine episodes, please stop this. Nine. Sorry. We're really close to the election right now. Don't do that.

Someone's going to hear you and they're going to think that you support the wrong guy. Anyway, everybody, spoilers ahead. So, Aaron, initial thoughts on Agatha all along. Again, this is the 11th, yeah, 11th television series in the MCU. So they should have figured out by now. What are your thoughts? All right. So just kind of meh. Yeah, I'm yeah, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm OK. It's like, you know, I watched it. Yeah. Was it more good than bad or was it just kind of unoffensively nothing?

It was unoffensively like, okay. Sure. It was, it was, it was, I don't know. I don't really know how to like, okay. So I'm just gonna say it was unoffensively. Okay. It was unabashedly mediocre. It was fine. Okay. How did you watch it? Did you watch it weekly? Did you watch it? Just sort of binge it all or I watched it weekly. This was not one that I wanted to binge because I actually enjoyed watching it episodically.

I was excited, I was actually, I'll be honest, there was a level of excitement for the day of when they were releasing, was just pretty much two days ago when they released the last two episodes. I was like sitting there, I'm like, what time is it coming out? I will say that I did look up the time that they did upload them and I was ready for it and I was ready to hit play, but that was mostly because I am a completionist and I need resolution and that's what I needed to do.

I think that's about it. That's like the most really of the excitement that I got. That was actually going to be my next question was you mentioned and we talked about it actually. I think it was on the grid. We mentioned that it was coming out with the two episode finale. Again, you said earlier two episode premiere and then two episode finale. Love that format.

You sort of get best of both worlds with sort of the binge aspect and also the weekly sort of excitement level, the water cooler aspect of it all. But I'm curious, do you think that your meh sort of reaction of the series is because the finale, the final two episodes didn't sort of bring it home for you. I was it was an overall feeling because I can't say that like every time I mean, yeah, I just can't say that every time I watched an episode, which was again, like really what?

Seven, seven every Wednesday. Yeah. I can't say that like I. When it was ready to be watched, it was ready to be watched. I wasn't in a hurry to necessarily watch it. Again, the only reason I was excited to watch the finale was because I wanted it to be resolved. One thing that you and I talked about, and I believe we talked about it on the grid as well, is that there's just nothing about any of these characters that I am needing to know more about, that I'm wanting.

The only real association and connection that I have to these characters is I love Catherine Han. You know, and she's The series is great. And I think and honestly, I think the only other person that I was really forming like like a hope for a connection for was a sears, the modest character, Jennifer Jen, Cale, just because I felt like there was so much more like I don't think that these shows are are and I know we can get into this later. I'm sorry for jumping ahead.

I just don't think these shows are really focusing and highlighting the characters that they should be focusing on. Would you have felt any different about this series had Wanda showed up at some point in the series? No, no, I don't give a crap about Elizabeth Olsen. OK, all right. Fair enough. You know, I honestly I again, we talked about it the other day. I'll sort of repeat it because I feel like even after the finale and it was a decent finale. Yeah, like I enjoyed it.

I think we got the same old same old purple light versus the blue light versus the red light as we have to do with these Marvel films and TV series. It's often just big lights shooting at each other while they make faces at each other. But I guess the reason why I feel so indifferent about this series is because it's so far removed from the rest of the MCU. We don't get any mention of any characters outside of Wanda, Vision, and Mephisto.

Everybody else is just a witch that they're all extremely like, we're not even talking C-list characters, we're talking like D. D minus characters in the Marvel universe, like in the comic. mean, it mentioned of sword, but that's about like, it's like one time. Right. But it's it's a lot of folks that you just you get sort of in passing. And I think that really was a big bummer for me. Part of the fun of the MCU, I think, is sort of the connectability.

You know, the old saying back after after phase one, after the original Avengers movie was it's all connected. Right. Like that was the cool thing about the Marvel universe. It's all connected, man. All connected. And I feel like Part of the reason why the MCU is sort of losing its allure is not only the somewhat quality dip in certain installments, but also it's the stretching of all of these characters. Like we could sort of form bonds with 20 to 30 characters.

Now we're meeting eight to 10 characters in every installment of every MCU movie and television series. And it's just becoming so much to where we don't get enough time with these characters to enjoy them, right? Like they're already talking about how They're going to introduce this. Sorry, we're getting this weird tangent here, but they're already talking about introducing Robert Downey Jr's Dr. Doom in the Fantastic Four movie in the post credit scene, not in the movie.

And then he's going to be the bad guy in the next Avengers movie, which is the next movie after Fantastic Four. Like, how are we supposed to care about Robert Downey Jr's Dr. Doom? Like, of course we care about RDJ the actor because he's Tony Stark, but like, this is not the same character. Why the fuck do we care about this Dr. Doom? And this is the problem with the MCU. I'm going to write down a question. And at the end of this discussion, I'm going to, I'm going to ask this question.

I don't want you to look ahead, but I'm going to write this down. right. Well, while you write that down, I'm going to go ahead and give us synopsis here of the series. Okay. So when a new series of tragedies strike the city of West view, the infamous act of the heartness finds herself down and out of power. When a suspicious goth teen helps break her free. It's not a phase mom. It's not a phase. You're right. You're right. hate my father.

Her interest is peaked when he, when he begs to take him on the legendary witches road, a magical gauntlet of trials that if survived rewards a witch with what they are missing together. Agatha and this mysterious teen pulled together a desperate coven set off down down the witches road.

So this is again, as he mentioned the 11th series in the MCU guys, the 11th television series in the MCU on Disney plus Aaron off the top of your head and without looking at the link that I posted in the transcript. How many of those 11 TV shows have you wholeheartedly, unabashedly adjoined on a level that you often enjoy MCU things? Think back to the good times, Aaron, to the Falcon and Winter soldiers of the world, the Guardians of the Galaxies, the Avengers movies.

Which TV series do you enjoy on like a more than meh level? None of them. I honestly can't think of a single one of them. Loki season two. Yeah. Yep. You know, I'm to say there's one. I'm looking up. I'm looking up. So I'm not going to look it up. And I will say that's probably like four, probably four TV series that I've like wholeheartedly without much, if any complaints I've like truly loved. I mean, I've watched. one. So I've watched Wandavision Falcon Winter Soldier.

Let's play a game real quick. Let's play a game. I'm to go down the line and you give me a what's our old rating system or bomb or or bomber fart. We'll say that bomber fart. All right. Those are both bad. No, no. Bomb. We'll say like bomb. Like it's a, it's a good, like a good bomb. How about being binger bomb binger bong? Okay. Binger bong. Okay. So one division. Bing Falcon and Winter Soldier. Bing. Low key season one. So you're already at three, What if season one Hawkeye Moon night.

Miss Marvel. She hulk. As much as I love her. Okay. Secret invasion. Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon See, I don't even remember when What If Season 2 was released. Yeah, I still haven't seen it. I don't even remember. Echo, said Bong. Bong. Okay. And then Agatha LeLong. Bong. Alright. And I think mine would be...

I'm just gonna go down the line without saying all Alright, here we go. Wandavision. Bing. Falcon Warrior Soldier. Bong. Loki. Bing. What If. Bong. Hockey. Bing. Moon Knight. Bong. Midsommarro. Bong. She-Hulk Torx. Bong. Secret Evasion. Super Bong. Loki. Bing. What if season two? Bong. haven't seen it. Echo. Bong. Agatha O'Lan. Man. Again, I'm kind of with you. It's kind of just, it's, I'm so in the middle. Yeah. It's, it's again, that's the thing. It's so in the middle.

Yeah. Which is bad by the way, everybody, just everyone at home. The fact that this universe has gotten to the point now where average is the, is the common denominator is bad. Right? Like, I would rather something be terrible so we can destroy it on the show or something be really good so we can like highlight it and celebrate it. It's so unoffensively nothing that it makes it boring to talk about. So we have to go we have to go bing bong the whole time.

We're just going be bing bonging this whole time. You know, it's like, it's like eating just like the most unseasoned like piece of chicken. Yes. Because it's unseasoned. Like, you know, normally you love chicken. Normally you fucking love chicken. But it's like, this is like, so just like nothing. It's like I'm chewing cardboard. It's like this is like you put time into this. I will say that like this TV series was made with love.

You tell like they put more into this than I think most of the other TV shows. Yeah. Yeah. And that's another thing that's disappointing about it is because the amount of details, the amount of care, the amount of like, I'm just going to say this. Let me ask you. Let me ask you how you feel about this. OK. If this was not Agatha or let's say Agatha had not been in multiverse of madness. wasn't, she was in one. mean, I'm sorry, WandaVision. It had not been in WandaVision.

Okay. Would you care about this show? Like if it had been its own thing? No. Because I don't care about it. And I already know Agatha and I like Agatha. Like you said, I love Catherine Hawn as the character, but she didn't, I guess we got a little context with sort of why she is the way she is, which I do appreciate. But like, I don't think that could have been a two episode arc in the next whatever.

WandaVision season two or the Vision series or the Scarlet Witch movie that they're secretly planning. this all could have been elsewhere. We did not need nine episodes of this to detail all this. All right, let's get into it. Let's see. Let's talk about it, Aaron, and see if we sort of change our mind. So this takes place in phase five of the MCU. Agatha all along is set in 2026. So this is three years after the events of WandaVision.

Again, doesn't make sense because everything else we've been watching is current. Right. make any fucking sense. Well, you know, even in 2020, remember this came out when 2020 happened, all the movies were shifted forward because of the events of Endgame, because we went into the future in Endgame. So the blip caused everything to go forward. So we're still like, we're almost caught up. We're like almost to present day. I'm just wondering when that's going to happen.

And as part of a clever marketing tactic, Marvel announced several titles for the series. and then would quickly delete them. So they would post something on social media and then they would delete it within a second and everyone would be like, ha ha Marvel, we caught you.

know, some people have like their notifications on from when Marvel posts things and whatnot, but it was all part of this like honestly really clever marketing tactic, which, so the titles included, these are fake titles that was called House of Harkness, Coven of Chaos, Darkhold Diaries and The Lying Witch with a Great Wardrobe. and eventually of course it became Agatha all along. And this is speaking of sort of timeline stuff.

This is the first Marvel Studios project since Echo to be set in on earth 616, which is still confusing. I agree with Iman Velani who's Ms. Marvel. It's so stupid that we call the MCU 616 because the Marvel comics universe is 616. Why can't we just make the MCU something else? Call it 617. I don't give a fuck. 616 should be its own thing. It should be the Marvel universe, the comics, right? Anyway. This is the again, this is the second one.

So the two other projects that have been released have been X-Men 97 and Deadpool Wolverine. They were both and those were in Earth 92131 and Earth 1005. right. So show runners for Agatha Long, Jack Schaeffer co-wrote Captain Marvel, co-wrote Black Widow, created and wrote Wandavision. There's a common denominator there, Aaron. I'm not going to say it. I'm not going to say it everybody, moving on to the next. Yeah. Let's get to the important part of the cast.

I guess I'll say, let me say one thing. Okay. I think Jack Schaeffer has a pretty good voice for like this corner of the Marvel universe. I liked WandaVision. I liked it more than this for sure. But I think all the best parts of this show come from like some things that they, that she built in WandaVision. So moving on to the cast. Moving on. cast Catherine Hahn as Agatha Harkness, Joe Locke as William Kaplan or Billy Maximoff slash Wiccan.

Aubrey Plaza as Death or Rio Vidal, which is obviously Life River. Deborah Jo Rupp as Sharon Davis. Sashir Zamata as Jennifer Jenkayle. Ali An as Alice Wu Gulliver. Patty Lapone as Lilia Calderu and Evan Peters as Ralph Boner. He's back everybody. The boner, the boner's back. You mentioned before we started recording it, I just want to sort of get it here live on the show. You mentioned that you went and saw some Broadway here recently and Patti LaPau was actually starring in one of those plays.

Yes. So the movie is actually, excuse me, the Broadway show is called The Roommate. you know, without saying too much, not my favorite, didn't really have, you know, the best is somewhat of a theater snot. he's our theater subject matter expert. I like the Broadway. I like it when the people dance. I like when they dance for me. Dance monkey. It was awesome to see her like in person, especially seeing, you know, her in this show.

And then like the day after I, you know, watch the finale, I see her on Broadway. So it was pretty cool to see that. I wanted to ask you, Chris, I'm not going to go into that too much. Do you have, do you have like a favorite? Like anybody that really stood out to you during the show? Well, I think the obvious is Catherine Hawn, of course. She's incredible as other than Catherine Hawn. Yeah. We'll just say broadly Agatha hardness. Great character.

Catherine Hawn. No one can play that character, but Catherine Hawn. And she's great as that character. It was cool to see Aubrey Plaza, but they didn't use her very often in the show. And it was just very sparingly. Aaron, think you'll probably talk about that here in a bit. You know, to be honest, I didn't really attach myself to anyone else in the coven and they all kind of got their time to shine. But I think that sort of plays into the idea that I didn't care.

I didn't care about any of these other side characters. I think the effort was there to give them a little backstory and to sort of build some depth. But then they all end up dead outside of the one Jen, think is the one that survives. So I think really the only person that I can attach to and I think they did a pretty decent job with his character arc is Wiccan or Billy or William or whoever he is in this time. So I liked his inclusion. I said this on the grid. I'll say it again here.

I really loved at the end of episode five. Great! He's wicked everybody. my god, who would have thought who knew that he was gonna end up being Billy Maximoff Wow, the sigil literally looked like a W Exactly, but I will say I'm being facetious I do love that ending of episode 5 where it again it has that I think it's Billy Eilish and he like has the he has the the tear the What do you call that like a the tiara? Yeah, it looks like one does crown.

Yeah. Yeah Now, like spoiler alert, there's this scene, I wanna say it's at the end of seven or end of eight. Anyways, there's this scene where we see like the re-emergence of Billy Maximoff as like a full-fledged Wiccan. And I thought that that was just like a great scene. Like he had such a good entrance and such a good outfit. So that was really a cool scene to watch. Honestly, I think...

Again, other than, you know, the Katherine Hahn as being the standout showrunner, she's just a phenomenal actor. Sashir Zamata, as I said earlier, Jen Kale just stood out to me like so well as just so genuine in her role. And there's moments where she's afraid, there's moments where she's sarcastic. And I think that she just has great acting range. And I really enjoyed seeing her on the screen.

And honestly, like, oddly enough, I felt more of an excitement for her to get her powers back because I just expected so much of that and I was, you I don't know. just that her character in me like stood out more than several of the others and it's not because she was the only survivor. I just think because it just felt like she had so much more to give to the show than everybody else. I'm sure we'll see her again at some point down the down the witches road. Good. It's a good one.

So the character of Agatha Harkness was created by Stan Lee Jack Kirby for the Fantastic Four. making her debut in issue 94, released in October 1969. Agatha is an ally of Marvel's first family and was the nanny to Franklin Richards. Chris, you're going to tell us a little bit more in a second about Franklin Richards, right? No, mean, Franklin Richards is a character that is considered by many to be one of the strongest characters in the Marvel universe.

And it's just interesting that Agatha was sort of with him at a young age, right? So does she does Agatha have something to do with the fact that Franklin is maybe one of the strongest beings in the 616 universe? I don't know. But continuing on there, Aaron, it's interesting that traditionally in Marvel history, Harkness is presented as sort of like a morally ambiguous figure, which I guess we sort of see in the TV series a little bit.

I think even in Wandavision, you can tell that she has a little good in her. She wants to do some things that are good, but she sort of is fighting against her human nature and her witchiness. And then we sort of see the other side of that during this series. Yeah, I again I mentioned that had a question earlier I'm gonna keep putting that off because it's gonna bury the lead It's attain.

You know, it has a trend it directly leads to that as well Sure, because I don't think that she was necessarily presented as best as she should have been during this show Agatha you're talking Agatha. I mean, yes, so This is the second television series based on a Marvel comic in which Aubrey Plaza has played someone who did not originate from the comic books. Previously, she was Lenny Busker in Legion, which I didn't watch. I did not watch Legion. I wanted to. I never got around to it.

That was an FX show, I believe. Yep. Are you familiar with the character of Legion? Slightly. think Legion is somebody who has like disassociative personality disorder and all the different personalities have like different powers, I think. Yeah. So he's one of the sons of Charles Xavier and every time that he goes into a new personality, he has a different power and he can't control it. So every time that he switches, one could be, he could, you know, change grass to sand.

And the next one could be like blows up the universe with the blink of the eye. Like it just, you never know with him. So it's, it's pretty interesting character. I do want to go back at some point and watch that cause I heard good things. Joe Locke worked with the movement coach Elizabeth Olson trained with for her previous MCU appearances as Wanda Maximoff to get better associated with the movements of the character. a lot of these things. Yeah, a lot of hand motions.

You guys can't see it, and are doing a little hand motions in the camera. We're doing it. We're We're We're We're We're doing doing it. it. it. We're it. We're it. We're it. He steals that bell, little bastard. No wonder he died. I'm glad he's dead. Glad he's dead with a voice like that. Created by Len Wine and George Perez and Fantastic Four number one eighty five in August of seventy seven scratches a warlock and the father of Salem, Salem seven with several mothers.

So all of the Salem seven are his daughters that he had that he's sort of built this team to take on Agatha. That's gross. He turned Salem's residence against Agatha, but is defeated and banished the dark realm after the Fantastic Four confront him. Scratch generally works for Dormammu. I've come to bargain. I've come to bargain in the comics. Aaron, you you've been sort of bearing the lead here with these questions with this question. I have a question for you and it is, are we back?

No. I'm going to ask this every MCU property going forward. Are we back? No. Were we back? So we weren't recording during this, but where are we back with Deadpool Wolverine? Yes, we were so back, right? We were totally back, but we're no longer back. No, we're gone. We're not back. Yeah. Well, to be honest, the masses don't agree with us.

We're sort of against the grain here because not that we really give a fuck about what Rotten Tomato says, but according to Rotten Tomatoes, the series holds an 83 % approval rating in the review aggregator on Rotten Tomatoes based on 177 critical or 177 critic reviews with an average rating of 7.15 out of 10. The website's critics consensus reads, the marvelous Catherine Han is backed up by a coven of memorable performances in the MCU spinoff that refreshingly concocts its own distinct brew.

I agree with that actually. 177 critic reviews, 83 % approval rating, 7.15 out of 10. Yep. I don't know about you, Chris. That math ain't mathin'. That math ain't fucking math for me, bro. And I'll agree also. I'll agree also. know, Catherine Hahn, again, fantastic. Just a powerhouse on the screen, a powerhouse as Agatha from Naked Buckcheeks all the way till season finale. First female butt cheeks. think she got an award for that. She got presented a plaque for that, by the way.

I will say like there were memorable performers, but again, everything is... Major 95 % of this show is forgetful, forgettable. Yeah. This will be sort of lost in the weeds of all the things. Aaron, can you talk a little bit about, so we keep getting this tease right throughout the series of, course, without Tommy, there's no Billy, right? And without any Billy, there's no Tommy. We saw both of them in WandaVision and we are now for some reason we're, we're Tommy-less right now.

So where is Tommy and actually, you know, talk a little bit about how they teased him in the show. My Tommy hearts. Tommy, Tommy, what's time during their final trial, Billy sees visions of an anonymous young boy who's drowning after a prank gone wrong. I'll say this, this scene in the final trial, the final trial was honestly the best point moment of the whole show. I think everybody had to really like again, the three in the room were the ones who really had an impact on the show.

was Jennifer Cale. It was Agatha Harkness and it was Billy Maximoff. Again, like those three really were the most impactful. anyways, so Billy sees visions of an anonymous young boy who's drowning after prank goes wrong. Presumably this is a dying boy who Tommy's lost soul can inhabit after reincarnation as Billy Maximoff did with William Kaplan. The thought terrifies Billy. He thinks he may be responsible for this boy's death. Boys die though, as Agatha somberly admits.

In Wandavision, the boy wears blue and white shoes like Tommy's Halloween costume from Wandavision, emulating his uncle Pietro Quicksilver. The shoe also has the letter S etched into the side, possibly representing his last name, Shepherd or Speed. Tommy Maximoff's alter ego. This boy could be Billy's brother Tommy. Could be reaching. I don't know. Maybe it wouldn't surprise me.

Honestly, if they weren't planning that, they easily could make it into that now that fans are already talking about it. So, you know, that happens quite often. I'm thinking in Iron Man 2 when that little boy wearing the Iron Man mask puts his hand up and then Iron Man comes up behind him and shoots one of the droids that was said for a long time that was supposed to be Peter Parker. And then one day Tom Holland was like, yeah, that's that's Spider-Man when he's a kid, whatever.

You know, so I want to talk a little bit about off sort of basing off what you just talked about there. with a storyline called The Children's Crusade. Now this was a young Avengers and Avengers event from back in 2010. In the comics, Billy and Tommy find each other before setting off to find Wanda Scarlet Witch. In 2010's Avengers, The Children's Crusade, created by Alan Heinberg and Jim Chung. In that story, Wanda goes missing, along with the young Avengers and the mainline Avengers team.

Billy and Tommy team up to find their mother. The person behind it all, Aaron, spoilers. Dr. Doom. Again, if Billy and Agatha are off to find Tommy, then yes, this could mean that we're inching closer to Maximoff Family Reunion and possibly this could happen during the Scarlet Witch solo movie. I just feel like Dr. Doom's like the Bowser of like the Marvel Universe. He's just like randomly kidnapping and trying to marry people.

All right, Aaron, you had a question before we close out this review. What was your question that you had for us here? I'm going to preface this with a little bit of the story that we saw during the season. Okay. During the last couple episodes, we see the fact that the Witch's Road is not actually real. Correct. Were you shocked? No, I wasn't shocked. I was a little bummed. I'll be honest. I kind of wish it was real, but the fact that Agatha was just making it up made too much sense. Exactly.

Second, we see that the reason behind her creating the Witch's Road was in order to trick other witches to create a quick coven so that she could steal their powers. Which is Agatha all along. Everybody was Agatha all along. Who would thought? So my question is, we see her doing this time and time and time again. decades. Multiple generations. Like just constantly. fucking witches up for years and years. Real quick. Why did Agatha need all that power? Yeah. She never fucking used it.

She didn't need it to stay alive because other witches who weren't doing it had been alive for hundreds of years as well. That was going to be my answer. I thought it was big to stay young ish. That's why I'm calling it out right now, because the other witches didn't do that. You know, Patty Lapone's character didn't do it. She'd been around. We saw her character all the way back in like like early Spain. Yeah. You know, Jennifer Kale, her character had been around for hundreds of years as well.

So like she didn't need it. And also to in spite of the fact that she had absorbed all this power that she didn't really use. She, which she just kept getting knocked on her ass time and time again. So why did she need all the power and why, why, why was she just killable? We, we do see Agatha, she's often sort of revered as this like maniacal ultra powerful being, but we don't see that ever. Right. No. Like even in Wanda vision, the veil is lifted pretty quickly by Wanda, right?

Like it's mostly Wanda creating the illusion for herself. It's not, it really has little to nothing to do with Agatha and what she's, it's almost like she's just sort of playing in the sandbox that Wanda created. And even in this, again, it was all accidentally created by Billy. So I agree. I don't really know what they're doing with, with all of that. And we'll never know at this point because now Agatha is a ghost. So, which is another stupid fucking thing in my, sorry.

I, again, like I would say like the ending overall, if there was a semblance of what I enjoyed from the show, the ending kind of took a shit on. Sure. that's you talk about. Go ahead. I was gonna say. that's just because like the whole ghost aspect, the fact that she absorbed it all. And I understand, you know, people are going to be like, well, she lost all of her power to Wanda Maximoff when she took it. Understandable.

But still, she got knocked on her ass by a fucking brand new witch who didn't know how to use her powers. And then also she took a bunch of powers from several other witches during the trial. And at the end of the day, she's still like, I don't know. It just didn't work out for me.

And then and then You know, we've already kind of talked about it slightly, the, the, you know, Aubrey Plaza as death slash Rio death is, is, I don't know, it's an ancient cosmic power or should be something like that. It be like an entity should be something like, what was it? Eternity? Like death should be right up there with eternity.

But instead we get this Aubrey Plaza, like five foot seven bad joke making like sarcastic, not even great outfits, like which, and I'm just like, what is happening? Yeah, I agree with you. think one of the biggest bummers of this series is sort of Aubrey Plaza's inclusion and she's great in it when she's in it. But I just don't, I didn't love what they had, what Jack Schaeffer and crew had for her in the series. Cause I agree with you.

She should be like living tribunal, maybe, maybe bigger than that level of like power cosmic power. We didn't even get to see that in the final thing. And again, I guess the, if I wanted to play devil's advocate and I really wanted to reach Part the reason why Agatha was defeated at the end is because and she even says it in the series earlier. She's like, if I was to absorb all of death's power, I would be killed instantly. And she tries to do that and she dies.

So it were I mean, it sort of did what she said she was going to do. But there were rumors at one point that Thanos was going to show up at one point to like converse with death for a bit. I kind of wish that would have happened. I know that's wishful thinking and total fanboy isms. But God, that would have been cool.

It was just in that connection, you know, or even like Deadpool, like an incredible just just a walk by like just like a like a, you know, walking down the street or seeing something like, you know, like not now like you're like a call on a cell phone or something. Yeah. Like she's like doing like some kind of like terrestrial meeting with someone bigger. And then they go, sorry, I have to do this real quick. Bye. See you later. whatever. to you later. Yeah. See you later.

T.T. The Matt. That's my mad titan over there. All right. We've sort of talked ourselves in circles in this thing. Final thoughts on Agatha all along. I am just, I am disappointed. Okay. None of that conversation really. I'm not mad at you. I'm just disappointed. Just disappointed. Okay. This conversation didn't help at all? Not really. Okay. Did it make it worse? Maybe a little. I do like one of those possibly. Yeah, I agree. It's yeah.

I mean, it's it's just one of those like I'm not going to think about this show in two weeks. Like, yes, this is going to leave the zeitgeist of culture and I'm going to not think about it until they announce like either a Scarlet Witch movie or Wiccan or someone else shows up in the MCU at some point, you know. And again, I think we've said it plenty. I'll say it one last time. Love Catherine Hawn is this character and I want to see her continue on in the MCU.

But I do not think that she needed this TV series. I think They saw the quick popularity surge with Agatha all along and that was a banger in Wandavision. But this should have been made in 2021. Like if they thought that this character deserved her own series, it should have been a direct sequel to Wandavision. Like it should have went Wandavision, Falcon and Winter Soldier, then Agatha all along. But we didn't get that. Agree. Agree. All right.

Well, let's go and rate this thing out of five David A. Weiner's errand. Of course, David Weiner, we just had him on the show last week. He was on talking about. his latest in search of darkness, 93, 94, you had a great conversation with him. What are you going to give the 11th spoopy MCU Disney plus series Agatha all along? I'm going harsh on this one. I'm sorry. feeling it. I'm going to two, two. man. Okay. All right.

Yeah. I mean, I think we just, we've sort of talked about it like at nauseam at this point about how this is so in the middle, like this This series is so not bad and not good at the same time. Yeah, I'm to give it a 2.5. I think it's just right there. Like it's split down the middle, which as we've talked about previously, 2.5 is like, I think the sort of the end point with my recommendation.

I think three is where I recommend things to provide is like, Hey, do your thing, whatever you want to do. You know, watch it if you want, but I'm, it's not, no, it's not, it's not something they need to make time for. Yeah. 2.5 feels good on the whole, but Does feel like on the whole yes to feels good for me. I would love some chocolate ass cream Finally have a working tractor beam, which we shall call preparation age What? Why don't you just call it operation ass cream ass. I'm sorry.

Did you want some ice cream? Yes. I'd love some chocolate ass cream. Perhaps later. All right, everybody. Let's get working out of this conversation about Agatha along. Let's get into a segment that I've been missing for quite a while. I haven't heard anything from this corner in about six to seven months now. And it is it's right next to the witches road. It's called Aaron's arcade.

It's time for Aaron's Arcade. Welcome to Aaron's Arcade, which is the seventh trial on the Witches Road. You never make it there because you probably ran out of it. It's just a level of Frogger. Error Cades where I talk about video games, what I'm playing, what I'm reading, what I'm watching for a couple of minutes. And then I don't care if you agree. I don't care if you like it. don't care if like it. This is not arcade. Yeah. Yeah. Get out.

This week, a new game just released, I want to say two days ago, roughly. It's called Pokemon Trading Card Game Pocket. So Pokemon TCGP basically. TCGP. TCGP. trading card pocket trading card. wanna hop on that TCGP? Yeah, get on that P. So this game is actually, I think that this is the best decision that Pokemon has made in a long time for a mobile game. Now, Sleep was okay, it was fun. There's some other games that have come out.

know, obviously Pokemon Go itself was a really fun game that a lot of people are still playing, which is awesome. But if you are an age old, know, an ageless fan of the Pokemon trading card game, this game is a ton of fun. It's on iOS, it's on Android devices, and it's just, if you've ever played the trading card game, whether it was on the Game Boy in real life or on your computer, you will understand how this game plays and how much fun it is. It has a very nostalgic vibe to it.

And one of the things that's really fun about it is the fact that it's not really connected to any of your other Pokemon card game accounts. So you don't just automatically get all those overpowered cards that you get. This game is very much, if I can make a comparison, there is, when you play Pokemon in the trading card game, they have what's called a pre-release. So before a set comes out in physical cards, they bring people in, you can pay like 30 bucks, 25, 30 bucks.

You get like a little pack that has like four packs, some energies and some trainers. And you basically build like a 20 card deck. roughly 20 to 30 cards, usually in a pre-release format. These are, in this game, in Pokemon Trading Card Game Pocket, you're building 20 card decks of a, energies, of just like cards that you've collected by opening packs. And you get to open two packs a day for free, which is really fun.

It's very much, again, has that same feel of opening a real card pack, because you can flip them around, you can do the, you can open them from the back and look at them like upside down, or it's just like you have your choice. And then when you open them, they go into your collection and you can get the alternative art cards. You can get the full art cards. You can get shinies. There's just, there's a lot to do in this game.

And it's really fun because it's a very, very fun collected, like collect ability feeling in this game. But also again, going back to those 20 card decks, you're playing a 20 card deck game with three prizes. And it's just, again, like 60 second, two minute card games. You know, I think the longest I've played is maybe three or four minutes for a card game. Maybe 19, G light kind of. Yeah. Yeah. It's like a TCG light. It's just a really fun format of this card game.

And for younger players, for newer players, be careful. There are micro transactions, but you you don't need to do them because you get cards for free. And when you win, you get stuff as well for free. Highly recommend this game. It's really fun. Again, like I said, if you like the trading card game, if you want just quick format, fun pocket sized TCG games, Pokemon trading card game pocket is for you.

Yeah. Aaron, I've been playing it back and forth the last couple of days and it's been a lot of fun. I will say my only like a very minor complaint is that I wish they would just keep track of your online record and things like that. Like I wish it had just a little bit more features, but it is totally like trading card light. Like if you are just if you just want to get that quick Pokemon trading card game fix, this game is for you.

Yeah, you can sit down while your car is getting an oil change like I did today and play a couple of matches there. They are again. It's the first version that's been released. They're going to be doing updates. They're going to be doing additions. They're going to be doing, you know, like events within the card game. Like there's an event going around right now with Chansey and Meowth cards, which is really fun. And again, they're going to release more stuff. can also do a Chris.

Interesting enough, you can actually go into that menu. You can do a survey and add in and tell them the things that you want to see. So if you want to see that, that's the fun thing about playing a brand new game is you can actually put in things like that and have them. Now I've had my ass stopped a few times that people who have obviously spent a lot of money on this game already.

So it's really interesting to see those people coming through and playing a beginner match with like a full blown, like, again, remember, remember when we would play the car game and people have like the max rarity cards. yeah. Like decks. got stopped by somebody who had like a max rarity Mewtwo. I didn't even know there was like solid gold, like Mewtwo cards. Guy stopped my ass. Probably was eight years old anyways. Great fun game. Again, you can get it on iOS, Android.

They are not a sponsor, but this is something that Chris and I constantly enjoy when it comes to Pokemon is this trading card game. And also anytime that it's free and we can share cards and like, you know, send them back and forth over text, it's a fun time. free. Anyways, saying that, let's go into my favorite and most missed segment of this show. And that's Chris's Corner. It's time for Chris's Corner. Aaron sort of sounded like Christopher Walk in there.

This is my favorite segment of the show. I'd like to see the Mwah deep. I couldn't think of the word segment. The spice flows. All right, everybody, we're going to talk about Spectrum this week for Christmas Corner Spectrum. Number one written by Rick Quinn, illustrated by Dave Chisholm. Now, Aaron, we got an advanced reader copy from Mad Cave. Shout out to Mad Cave for sending us over an early copy of issue one. First issue comes out November 20th.

So as you're listening this obviously if it's Chris's corner, that means I liked it So this has the Chris approval if you see this on your you know The shelf of your local comic book shop pick it up But the reason why I wanted to highlight this was for two reasons number one Shout out to Brad Gullickson of the comic book couples counseling for putting this on my radar He randomly texted me one night and said have you checked out spectrum number one from from Dave Chisholm?

They've had him on the show Dave Chisholm wrote and drew the most recent Miles Davis sort of bio comic. And I was like, no, I hadn't heard of it. And he's just go check it out. Ask Mad Cave for a copy. They'll send you one. And it is awesome. Everybody. I cannot boast enough about this single issue. This has best comic of 2024 written all over it. I think at the end of the year, this will be in strong contention during our last call awards.

So let me read you a synopsis really quick, Aaron, and for everybody listening here, Melody Parker is losing her mind. She's living on the streets of Seattle during a WTO protests in 1999, she is seeing things, androids, aliens, pigs in high fashion, a creature named Echo, one of the sustained elemental beings with the power to alter reality through music. She invites Melody to join her as she brings about the end of the world.

As Melody tries to escape this strange woman, suppressed memories from across vast spans of space flood into her awareness, bringing her very identity into question.

You don't want to miss this stunning new release from writer Rick Quinn and music comic specialist Dave Chisholm again He wrote and drew the Miles Davis and the search for sound book over at Z to comics So cannot recommend this book enough again only issue one I've only read issue one, but if it's anything like the first issue the rest of series I'm going to enjoy this book a lot.

There's a lot to chew on It's one of those books that I think you have to read more than once to fully appreciate it and it has my highest recommendation everybody It sounds amazing. I need to actually jump on that one as well. Yeah All right, everybody, that'll do it for Christmas Corner. And that will do it for episode 172 of the Oblivion Bargain podcast. Aaron, we have reached the end of the Witch's Road. The final trial trial has been completed.

And I just want to say that now I'm trying to think of a quote from Agatha. I'm trying to think of something mean to say to you now here at the end. That's about as that's the best way to kind of sum up the show. It's just there's nothing really memorable about it. Cannot think of one thing to say about it. Cannot think of a single, you know, you know, a movie is good when when you can quote it, right? You know, a show is good when you can quote it. I mean, what deep the spice flows.

Arrakis Arrakis is mine. You're not going to steal. Does your mother so my dad? So that get it. So that. No, the tones are wrong. Yeah, Batman is Bruce White. We just went dune to Joe Dirt to Batman forever. Just back to back to back. But that's the thing, again, that's how something is good, because you can remember those quotes. There is not a fucking thing that I can honestly. This Batman Returns. Sorry.

Anyway, cannot think of a single line other than down the Witches Road from Agatha give me a quote a quote any part of the show right now. Give me one quote Aaron I don't know. That's why I couldn't I couldn't think of anything. Okay proof. That's proof proof proof to two whiners. All right Anyways, subscribe to our podcast album podcast Spotify YouTube audible. heart radio wherever you listen your favorite podcast That's where we are. Thank you to our patrons Alex.

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Follow us on social media, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Blue Sky, and threads at Oblivion Bar Pod. Brand new official merch for the show is on our website, oblivionbarpodcast.com. I guess I could say at Oblivion Bar Podcast. Anyways, if you get some of our gear, do you not be afraid to send us a picture? We would love to see you in some swag, in some fashion, some high podcast fashion. All right, thank you KXD Studios for all of our oblivion bar art. He's at KXD Graphics on Instagram.

Tell him that the oblivion bar boys sent you and nothing will happen. Thank you, Dream Kid, for all of our musical themes. Thank you, DJ Skyback, for our grid theme. And last but not least, do not forget to tip your bartenders 20 % or more. I went to a restaurant today and had some amazing ramen. I tipped them way more than 20 % because you know what? The experience was amazing. You did the right thing, They deserved it. They deserved it. More than 20%.

Everybody, next week, we're going talk about a good TV show. Next week, we're talking about The Penguin. The final episode airs this Sunday. Aaron, I'm so excited to talk about it with you. I know you haven't seen any of it or much of it. Is it any, have you seen any of it yet? None. None. Okay. So you're going to binge it. You're going to love it.

I, I'm going to bet right now, everybody, if you're, if you stay, if you stuck around this long and episode one 72, mark my words, Aaron will give the penguin higher, higher than a 3.5. That's my, that's my bold prediction for next week. So thank you all so much for listening to episode one 72 of the oblivion bar podcast. We will see you down the witch's road. But until next time, bye bye.