Episode176. We're starting another ongoing series covering one show to its conclusion, starting this month with season one of the 2014 HBO drama The Leftovers. Three years ago, there was a sudden unexplained event called "the departure" where 2% of the human population disappeared into thin air. Now, the rest of humanity struggles to find answers, closure, and purpose. We follow sheriff Kevin Garvey as he deals with the dissolution of his family and the rise of a cryptic cult in his small town. ...
Sep 29, 2021•1 hr 47 min•Season 4Ep. 176
Episode 175. To conclude our Shametember series, time travel nerd Kyle needed to watch Rian Johnson's 2012 film Looper. Joe works as a "looper," a hitman who only kills bodies sent back to him from criminals thirty years in the future. When his own future self arrives, Old Joe explains that the future has been taken over by a tyrannical genius and he's there to kill the child who will grow up to be this terror. Young Joe has to predict his older self's movements and protect a child who is innoce...
Sep 22, 2021•1 hr 39 min•Season 4Ep. 175
Episode 174. Shametember is back! This is the chance for each of us to clear a movie off the "list of shame" of things we should've seen by now. Melissa named famous sequels she hadn't watched yet after seeing the first movies in those franchises, and this week we watched Aliens! This 1986 follow up to Alien sees Ripley awakening from her Nostromo escape pod a staggering 57 years in the future. She learns that Earth has already started a colony on a planet she knows is dangerous, and the xenomor...
Sep 15, 2021•1 hr 28 min•Season 4Ep. 174
Episode 173. Alan and Ignacio are on the show this week to talk about The Digimon Movie. We watched the dubbed American release from the year 2000, and the three original Japanese mini-movies that were edited together to make this American version. We see the digidestined kids throughout their young lives as they encounter their first Digimon egg, try to stop a Digimon virus from destroying the internet and setting off nuclear bombs, and help an American boy whose own Digimon has turned to the d...
Sep 08, 2021•1 hr 58 min•Season 4Ep. 173
Episode 172. Join us for a Review Show first, as we read the prose novel House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. Photojournalist Will Navidson and his family move into a new house, and soon discover a seemingly unending dark hallway that opens up where there was no door before. Will films every step of his exploration into the house, which is eventually edited into the documentary The Navidson Record. House of Leaves is a book with an interesting structure: academic articles were written about t...
Sep 01, 2021•2 hr 8 min•Season 4Ep. 172
Episode 171. We watched the 2021 Netflix sci-fi drama movie Stowaway. Three astronauts are on a two-year mission to Mars. They've just left Earth hours ago when a stowaway falls out of a compartment in the ship -- a launch engineer who hit his head, fell unconscious, and was accidentally sealed into the ship before takeoff. They can't turn back. A resupply ship can't reach them. It's a race against time for this team to figure out how their limited resources could possibly sustain an extra life....
Aug 25, 2021•1 hr 31 min•Season 4Ep. 171
Episode 170. We listened to both seasons of the audio drama Passenger List, written and directed by John Scott Dryden and Lauren Shippen, and starring Kelly Marie Tran. It's been six months since Atlantic Flight 702 disappeared when traveling from London to New York City. The airlines declared that the missing plane was brought down by a bird strike, but college student Kaitlin Le refuses to accept this explanation. She knows her twin brother Conor is still alive and suspects that the airline an...
Aug 18, 2021•1 hr 40 min•Season 4Ep. 170
Episode 169. Kyle is back on the podcast with Melissa to talk about the romance manga Princess Jellyfish by Akiko Higashimura. Tsukimi is a young woman obsessed with jellyfish who lives in an apartment building only for otaku women, with no men allowed. When a friendly girl helps Tsukimi bring her very own jellyfish home from the pet store, she's intimidated by the stranger's beauty and fashion sense -- until she discovers this is a fashion-fanatic boy who loves wearing dresses. Her new friend K...
Aug 11, 2021•1 hr 42 min•Season 4Ep. 169
Episode 168. Friend of the show and brother of the co-host Jams Wilkinson is here to talk about the webcomic turned graphic novel series Check Please! by Ngozi Ukazu. Eric "Bitty" Bittle is a freshman on his university hockey team, looking to show off his figure skating skills, feed these hockey bros some real home-cooked meals, and gain the confidence to come out as gay. He finds a welcoming team, and a special connection with the captain Jack Zimmerman, who is trying to figure out his love lif...
Aug 05, 2021•1 hr 29 min•Season 4Ep. 168
Episode 167. Friend of the show Jacq is back to talk about Maniac, the 2018 Netflix limited series from Cary Joji Fukunaga and Patrick Somerville. Owen and Annie, two lonely New Yorkers with their own unique traumas, enroll in an experimental psychiatric drug trial. They experience hallucinations where they're living wildly different lives but they're always connected to each other, an impossible mental bond that puzzles the scientists running the trial. Can Owen and Annie learn to support each ...
Jul 28, 2021•1 hr 16 min•Season 4Ep. 167
Episode 166. Guest co-captain Audrey Stolze joins Melissa for a discussion on the graphic novel Folklords, from Matt Kindt and Matt Smith. Ansel is a teenage boy living in a medieval fantasy village who sees visions of our modern urban life. He's the only person in town wearing a suit and tie and using a handmade lighter instead of a torch. All kids his age must choose a quest, and Ansel wants to find the mythic Folklords, the forces controlling his world, to learn where his visions come from an...
Jul 21, 2021•1 hr 12 min•Season 4Ep. 166
Episode 165. We conclude our time in Winden with a discussion on the third and final season of Dark! We see an alternate timeline where Mikkel never vanished, Jonas was never born, and Martha grows to become the Adam of her world, pulling the strings and following her own plan to try to set everything right. As we learn more connections between the generations, we also discover the origin point of the time travel knot for both universes, and it'll take tremendous sacrifice to reset the town and ...
Jul 14, 2021•1 hr 46 min•Season 4Ep. 165
Episode 164. We watched a live-action Japanese comedy show on Netflix called Kantaro the Sweet Tooth Salaryman. Kantaro is a sales rep for a publishing company, but his true passion is sweets. He only took this job so that he could sneak away from bookstore sales calls to visit his favorite cafes in the area and blog about the desserts he eats. Can he keep this a secret when his new co-worker reads his anonymous blog and notices the pattern? Only sweet heaven knows! Click here to watch a video o...
Jul 07, 2021•1 hr 30 min•Season 4Ep. 164
Episode 163. We're continuing our coverage of the German time travel drama Dark, talking about season two. Jonas travels forward another cycle to 2052 Winden, decimated by an accident at the nuclear power plant, and back to 1921 Winden, where the Sic Mundus society is beginning to take hold. He teams up with the older version of himself to try and prevent the cycles from repeating, but they struggle to find the true beginning point that they need to derail, and someone close to them is trying to...
Jun 30, 2021•1 hr 48 min•Season 4Ep. 163
Episode 162. We read both volumes of the 2019 Doctor Doom comic from writer Christopher Cantwell and artist Salvador Larroca. Doctor Doom has been framed for the destruction of a moon base designed by Reed Richards, and has no choice but to turn himself in and plead innocence. As he attempts to secure his freedom and keep Latvaria safe from political turmoil and a war at its borders, he's also haunted by visions of a possible future. He sees himself with a healed face, a loving wife and children...
Jun 23, 2021•1 hr 24 min•Season 4Ep. 162
Episode 161. We watched the 2017 Hulu original show Dimension 404, a fun sci-fi anthology of stories about technology and how it can affect our lives for better or for worse. The show covers dating apps, 3D movies, video games, surveillance cameras, and more, with protagonists dealing with loneliness, the desperation to win, or just the need to share your favorite 90s cartoon with your friends, but whenever you look up the show you can't find any proof it existed. And yes, Virginia, there is a C...
Jun 17, 2021•1 hr 45 min•Season 4Ep. 161
Episode 160. Alan Busbee joins us to talk about the Netflix original anime comedy The Way of the Househusband. Tatsu was known as the "Immortal Dragon" of the yakuza, a top-notch gangster who survived every fight. Now he's left crime behind to marry a busy career woman and devote himself to domestic life, bringing his mob boss mentality to grocery shopping, cooking dinner, and doing the laundry, as his old cohorts and rivals try to reconcile the hitman with the homemaker. Click here to watch a v...
Jun 09, 2021•1 hr 19 min•Season 4Ep. 160
Episode 159. We're starting another monthly series covering one show through to its conclusion, talking about season one of Netflix's German sci-fi drama Dark! It's 2019 and a small rural town is struggling after the disappearance of a local boy. Tensions rise as more kids disappear, and we see how this has happened before in 1953 and 1986. There is a time travel portal hidden in a cave in the woods, with mysterious forces trying to use it to change the past or maintain it as it was. Characters'...
Jun 02, 2021•1 hr 42 min•Season 4Ep. 159
Episode 158. We watched the 2020 movie The Kid Detective, a very dark comedy from writer and director Evan Morgan. Abe Applebaum started a detective business out of his treehouse when he was a kid, and successfully solved over 200 cases… but couldn't solve the disappearance of his secretary, fellow middle-schooler Gracie Gulliver. He's never forgotten about that case, even now as a struggling man in his 30s. The town that once loved him has lost all interest in him and he's hired for only the mo...
May 26, 2021•1 hr 21 min•Season 4Ep. 158
Episode 157. We watched the new Netflix original movie The Mitchells vs. The Machines, from some of the creative team that brought you Into the Spider-Verse and Gravity Falls. Katie Mitchell loves her family but has never quite fit in with them, and she's excited to go to film school and be surrounded by people who understand her. The family tries to bond during a road trip across the country bringing Katie to college, but there's one major roadblock: an army of robots programmed by a scorned AI...
May 19, 2021•1 hr 24 min•Season 4Ep. 157
Episode 156. We watch the 2018 anime film I Want To Eat Your Pancreas. It is an emotional tale about a boy who befriends a girl is his class who is dying. The story focuses on the relationship that blossoms between them and the lasting effect it has. This one will make you cry. Click here to watch a video of this episode. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★...
May 12, 2021•1 hr 9 min•Season 4Ep. 156
Episode 155. We read the first two volumes of the the comic book The Unwritten by Mike Carey and Peter Gross.The world is obsessed with a book series about boy wizard Tommy Taylor, and this has made a minor celebrity out of Tom Taylor, the author's son and supposed inspiration for the literary hero. He becomes the center of a media storm when he's both accused of being a fraud and announced as the real magical Tommy destined to save everyone. As he looks into his past, he finds clues to the real...
May 06, 2021•1 hr 34 min•Season 4Ep. 155
Episode 154. We're concluding our monthly series on Halt and Catch Fire with its fourth and final season! It is now 1993 and teenage Haley has inspired Gordon and Joe to create a search engine website that users can make into their home on the internet -- but Donna's investment firm is working on the same idea. Cameron's video game career is faltering and she is trying to find new professional and personal paths as she reconsiders her romance with Joe. When tragedy hits, the group's personal rel...
Apr 28, 2021•1 hr 52 min•Season 4Ep. 154
Episode 153. We watched Guillermo Del Toro's 2013 movie Pacific Rim. Huge monsters are suddenly rising out of the Pacific ocean and wreaking havoc on coastal cities. Humanity bands together and creates equally huge robots known as jaegers to fight against the kaiju, piloted by cybernetically linked partners. A veteran whose brother died while linked to him and the adopted daughter of the jager program's commander, inexperienced but determined to fight, team up and form a bond strong enough to pi...
Apr 21, 2021•1 hr 39 min•Season 4Ep. 153
Episode 152. This week we listened to the audio drama horror story In Another Room, presented by The Violet Hour and adapted from E3W's immersive theater experience. Paranormal investigator Wendy Morrow stays the night in an infamous haunted mansion and becomes trapped there, seeing over 130 years of ghost stories play out in front of her -- and the ghosts can see her too. Each episode focuses on a historical haunting in a different room of the house as Wendy attempts to find the origin of this ...
Apr 14, 2021•1 hr 31 min•Season 4Ep. 152
Episode 151. In honor of our 151st episode, we're revisiting our childhoods this week watching Pokemon: The First Movie, Mewtwo Strikes Back! Mewtwo is a new Pokemon engineered by Team Rocket scientists, cloned from a fossil of the ancient Mew. He awakens to incredible psychic power and an existential crisis -- why was he made? what is his purpose? how does he fit into the world as a clone? He invites several trainers to his fortress, including Ash and friends, and attempts to clone their Pokemo...
Apr 07, 2021•1 hr 36 min•Season 4Ep. 151
Episode 150. We're back for more relationship drama and crooked business dealings in Halt and Catch Fire season three! Mutiny is growing in San Francisco and Cameron and Donna see conflicting paths for the company, which could derail further progress if they don't find a way to compromise. Joe's new company is launching its own anti-virus software, built on programming that should be credited to Gordon, and he experiences unforeseen challenges in trying to make it free to the public. A young pro...
Mar 31, 2021•1 hr 39 min•Season 4Ep. 150
Episode 149. We watched the Netflix original movie The Devil All the Time, a Southern Gothic tale set across the 1940s to 1960s following several interconnected families. Following the tragic deaths of his parents, young Arvin is sent to live with his grandmother, who has also adopted the orphaned daughter of family friends who died under mysterious circumstances. Arvin grows up protective of his new family, but when he takes violent actions to defend his sister, he opens them up to unforeseen t...
Mar 24, 2021•1 hr 27 min•Season 4Ep. 149
Episode 148. Alan Busbee from Crossplay joins us to discuss season one of the superhero anime My Hero Academia. In a world where 80% of people are born with a "quirk," Izuku Midoriya wasn't. He's dreamed his whole life of being a hero like his idol All Might, and is determined to make it into the hero academy even if he doesn't have any superpowers. When he gets the chance to meet All Might in person, the hero reveals that his mysterious power is one that can be shared, and he wants to grant it ...
Mar 17, 2021•1 hr 39 min•Season 4Ep. 148
Episode 147. To coincide with Wandavision, we read the 12-issue comic series The Vision from writer Tom King and artist Gabriel Hernandez Walta. The Vision has created a synthezoid family of wife Virginia and twin teenagers Vin and Viv, and they're attempting to settle down in the suburbs of Washington, DC and lead a normal life like the humans around them. But when a foe comes calling and one of the family members goes too far attempting to keep the rest safe, this begins a spiral of destructio...
Mar 10, 2021•1 hr 37 min•Season 4Ep. 147
