This podcast contains spoilers for the season two premiere of Yellow Jackets, Season one of Yellow Jackets, and the entire Scream franchise, including the latest edition in the Scream franchise, Scream six, So be warned.
Sydney.
Hello, my name is Jason Concepcion and I'm Rosie Knight, and welcome to x ray Vision of the Crookeet Media podcast where we dive deep to your favorite shows, movies, comics and pop culture.
In this episode, previously, we're going to briefly talk about the news that came out about Jonathan Major's from over the weekend. In the Airlock, we'll be onto Yellowjackets Season two the premiere, where we will recap that very fun episode and maybe talk a little bit about some the horror that we've loved so far this year. In the Hive Mind, we're gonna have an interview with Scream six
co writer Guy Busick, which I cannot wait for. And in the nerd Out, we've got a passionate plea from Lucas on the Monk and Robot series by Becky Chambers.
We know there have been issues with the time stamps. We're working on that, but you can still check the show notes for those time stamps because they are there for you to reference. Coming up the previously on Okay, First up on the previously on. Some truly troubling news about Jonathan Major's came out over the weekend. Over the end of last week, per People magazine, which actually has
the police report quote. On Monday, People obtained documents from the Manhattan District Attorney's office that show Major's thirty three, was charged with three counts of assault in the third degree, aggravated harassment in the second degree, three crowns of attempted assault in the third degree, and harassment in the second degree after he was arrested for an alleged domestic dispute on Saturday. Some of the fallout for this includes the
Army pulling Majors from its ad campaign. The Army currently embroiled in issues regarding its own problems with assault, cross gender assault in its ranks violence, so kind of very bad association with that. We don't know much more than what is contained in the police support and we're waiting for information to emerge, but truly.
Not good news.
A statement from majors lawyer says the following that Jonathan Majors was quote the victim of an altercation with a woman he knows, and that the woman had recanted the accusation, and that video evidence and witness supported his account. The statement continues, mister Majors is entirely innocent and did not assault her whatsoever. And there was an earlier statement, I think not this one, in which the same rep said something to the effect of mister Major just looks forward
to clearing his name completely, or something to that effect. Obviously, this is not good, not a lot of information to go on, and we're waiting for more information before we say more about it. But obviously troubling up. Next, Yellowjackets, we're stepping out of the airlock for the season two premiere of Yellow Jackets on the beleaguered Showtime network.
Be Lee Good. If you tried to watch it this weekend, you may agree with that statement.
Well, let's talk about that for a brief second before we get into the recap. Originally the show was supposed to come out at a certain date, but then it turned out not to be the date. What happened there?
My understanding is that the show was released on streaming on the Showtime app as they advertise on the twenty fourth, but the premiere date, as promoted multiple times, was Sunday the twenty sixth, which is when it is airing on
the Showtime network, going up against succession on broadcast. It was unclear at best, but I will shout out to the discord once again because so many people went in there and were like, guys, I just want to let you know you can watch it right now, and luckily the internet new and now everyone can watch it, and we have confirmed that that will be the release schedule
going forward. You will always be able to watch it on the Showtime app on streaming on the Friday, and on Sunday, you can watch it on old school cable and we will be talking about it on our Wednesday episodes.
Oh folks, and it's a lot to talk.
WHOA Okay, so it's me Rosie. You can hear my voice, not Jason's voice. Shocking twist, just like this episode is full of. This episode of Yellowjackets has an unbelievable name that you will surely laugh or cry about once you see the final scene of the episode. It is called Friends, Romans, Countrymen, written by Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson. The two of the showrunners and directed by Daisy von Schirlemeier. Welcome back to the Wilderness, Baby. The girls are trying to survive
a harsh winner and it is not going well. It's not going well. Travis and that have taken on the roles of full time hunter gatherers, which we kind of saw teased in the last season. But while that seems sensible, they are also entrenched in Lottie's strange wilderness rituals.
Yeah, you know Lottie, who you may remember nearly led a cannibalistic murder and sexual assault. Very came very very close to happening. Well, the sexual assault thing, I think you could argue did.
Happened ther The murder only was stopped by nat who stopped Shahna from splitting Travis's throat open with a knife.
And Ladie is continuing down their paths of Now, remember she has gone off her medication. She's neurodivergent in some fashion, bipolar or I forget.
Which was unclear. I believe that. I believe Internet sleuths saw that her medication was currently used. It was regularly used for people who have schizophrenia. I will also note that the mysterious nature of the show. We also know that Lottie has had visions that have come true, and there is a chance that potentially she is medicated for reasons unknown, and we kind of see that her parents have a distant relationship with their daughter and her mental health.
But basically, I'm going to tell you she's not doing very well because when Travis and Travis then Nat go out, she makes him drink a tea that has her blood at it.
Right, not to mention the fact that if you, you know, if your schizophrenic and you go off your meds, you definitely shouldn't medicate with mushrooms, which is a thing that happened and could be have very adverse effects.
Also, dropping off dropping off any meds is like a recipe for disaster.
Yeah, and not good.
I will say, to your point about her medication and her parents, I am eager to raise the possibility that there is some kind of deeper conspiracy going on.
But I'll get to I'll raise that.
Get that I love, We'll get to that. So it's the really interesting thing here is Travis kind of embraces it. He drinks the blood tea, he goes for it and you're starting to see where we stand two months later. Now, Nat is not about this shit. She says, it's not like this wicker bullshit is doing us good. But as Lly points out, they keep coming back from the woods alive. So drink that blood and head out on the way.
She's like, is it working? And then you know we're going to get a kind of this is foreshadowing or we were right moment here we see Lottie draw the strange symhol that we now know is the symbol of her modern day cult. But before that very interesting moment here, we skipped to a year we haven't seen before, nineteen ninety eight and he's come home. Yep, it's a press frenzy, like absolute madness at the airport. They are not thinking about these children's mental health in any way, shape or form.
They are absolutely raiding her, and no surprise is Lottie is dealing with it worse than anyone. She is silent, she won't talk. Her parents say she barely eats, and we immediately see them take her to the doctor. They request that they want her to be fixed, and soon she's getting electric shock therapy.
Okay, so in this scene, when you know we're watching the news reports of them coming back to civilization after their rescue. Somewhere in the woods, we hear the reporter say that they were the plane crashed eight hundred miles off of the plight the flight path like that it was. It was in a place where no one was even looking, leading me to ask, what is going on here? There's another plane there, there's like that part of the woods.
There's something weird going on there, and what would lead the plane to be over there in the first case?
So you're asking the important questions. One I will say, as a as a devout hater of Loti's parents from the first season and in the second season, I will say, I think there's a very sad, logical reason which I don't think is going to be the answer, but I'll cover it. First, Loy's dad hired that plane. Loyi's dad hated having a kid with mental health. I think there's a very good chance that that was a way for him to get rid of this kid that he saw
as a burden. But I think the reason you're asking important questions is because the reality is, as we see in this episode, we're really getting into lost territory here, let's talk about it. We're talking about Bermuda Triangle, people getting potentially lost, planes ending up in this strange space. Something is drawing people here, and I don't think Lottie was wrong to say that the forest is trying to keep them there.
Yeah, I think you're right.
And well, in the modern day, we see Lotty at her wellness retreat aka a cult. Yes, it's a cult, And in an interview that I wrote up at IGN, the creators kind of talked about how they were inspired by real wellness leaders and kind of people who had used their platforms to end up creating cults around them. It's called Camp Green Pine. Now I just have to
say something. It looks like the wilderness where they were lost, right, But she literally looks like she's just gone back to where they crashed.
I am saying. I think when Lartie came back, part of the reason why she was talking is because she fucking loved it out there. She was in her element, she was having a great time, and then all of a sudden, she's back in this place she doesn't want to be. And it's I think quite fitting that it appears that she has created a life that allows her to.
Return to that energy.
I completely And you know what, the pink and moive and purple choor jackets are pretty nice, pretty nice. Always beware when when these wellness people start wearing the same shit.
Yes, when it starts that you have a uniform, Yeah, it's gonna go chadly, it's gonna.
Go a matter.
And she's giving like a speech that I think really speaks to your point, which is she's talking about like primal selves and how we all we can only help ourselves, no one else can help us. And then she says something really interesting again I think leads into our lost theory, where she basically says it doesn't matter because it isn't real, and everyone just starts screaming it isn't real, it isn't real,
and you're like, not good, No good sounds bad. And after that very good Nightties credit sequence, which if you want to, you can go through at half speed and find many clips that will occur later in the season, just like they did in season one. I did an
analysis at IGN about it. We come to a shocking revelation, which is that Shawner is being interviewed by the police about Adam's murder and they're asking very questions because guess what, it's not the police, it's Misty' Misty with a voice Transforpreme style voice transformer.
And again you have to say, here, okay, so Missy one of my favorite characters in recent TV history, one of the most for my money, one of the most original characters you know, that I've ever seen on television. She is chaos, she is amoral. She is you know, if you had to put her in a slot, you'd say she's a villain.
She's a murderer. We've seen her kill people.
She's a murderer.
She is probably the reason they were not rescued from the woods a lot, because she destroyed the the transmitter. She made them all trip on mushrooms, on and on and on and on. But she's also right about everything.
Yes, I'm so glad you brought this up because one Samantha Hanray Christina Ricci unbelievable. I have to say both. All of the casting in this show is like unreal how much they managed to get two different actors to portray the same character and make it believable. But I told I'm so glad you brought this up because this episode especially proves they would be fucked without mystique, they were fucked. She looked, Okay, did she break the black box there? Yes, I have, I will. I will admit that.
But they probably wouldn't have survived even the two weeks it took for them to rescue them, if they if she hadn't. Without her, she was the one who knew the weird survivalist ship. She knew how to court her as a wound. She is indispensable in the narrative world that they have created. And I love that that continues now because they had to call her to dispose of Adam's body. Now she's training, she's training, sure, not on how to stop, not not tell the police everything because Sean's gonna.
She's gonna Sean is gonna need that tree. And it goes Natalie would have relapsed addiction if not.
And we will get to that too, because Natalie would also have just disappeared off the face of the earth, and no one would have cared. And if you're questioning whether Misty's only doing this because she loves, you know, murder and terrible things. No, she even made Sanna a giant. Yeah, she made Shanna a giant cookie that said, let me speak to my lawyer. She was like, she is a true friend and in the world of yellow Jackets, she
is indispensable, even as like a crazy serial killer. You're lucky to have her on side, absolutely, and they do not respect that. Seanna's kind of like boy and her off and she wants to go back home, and she's like, we're fine, nothing's gonna happen. Tysa is struggling because her wife found her bloodshot shrine at the end of last year, which we'll talk about more, because I think they're playing a very interesting game with the way we perceive whether
Tye really knows what's going on. But that comes to a head outside of her son's school, where she tries to drop off a new dog, Steve, and love Steve. He's so cute, it was I was a big fan of this. Steve is actually also the best name, the name of the best character in the Missile movie.
I hope Steve makes it for the entire s me too.
I love Steve, and I'm sure this is going to come into play. But her wife basically says like, if you don't drop out of office and get some help, Like I'm going to the press, and another way biggest.
As she should as should as.
Shrine blood shrine, and I'd be could you imagine if you saw your potentially like psychotic ex who decapitated your pet and created a weird like blood religious shrine in your basement all of a sudden that you're divorcing yees of a sudden like trying to pick up your child.
I think the most unsettling thing about that is not the fact that she made it, though that is obviously horrific, but also you'd have to deal with the existential horror of the fact that it seemed to have worked because Tis was gonna lose the election, and then she did that and now she's a senator. Nat is nowhere to be seen in the modern day. Of course, we know she got kidnapped by Lottie's cult, and sure not is just like unbelievably chill about the fact she killed a
man and is now covering it out very badly. In a very cool moment, Misty basically like seeks out the truth on her true crime boards to see if any citizen detectives are going to uncover what happened in Adam's death, and it does look like a faceless yet recognizable voice of Elijah Woods may be coming closer to the truth than Misty would like. So we're gonna get that Ice Storm reunion sooner.
And I will say, as a person who spends a lot of time on the unsolved mysteries read it. The voicing of this, like the post itself in the styling, felt very very much what you would say.
One I was like, this is and I loved how in sync they are. There's this kind of that It's written as a telegram something stop stop and Misty's like, oh my god, this is getting tired. And at the same time he writes this is getting tired, like I'm tired of this. They're they're in sync already. And I wouldn't be surprised if we saw Misty finally find a romantic I was going to.
Say attraction absolutely feel the same way that it feels like that's.
She's going to have to like team up with him to pretend that they're solving the murder, but really she's going to be stopping him. I mean it sounds delightful. Sadly things are not delightful. In nineteen ninety six, where the Rations are running low, which seems like it's going to play into the further cannibal story arc that we will inevitably be getting to. If you remember the first episode of the first season where we saw the girls
eating some kind of meat in these strange cult costumes. Now, good news turns out Jackie did survive her night in the forest because Shawna is playing mash with her and they're kind of talking about how she's gonna be married to Jeff, and it seems great, Oh no, that's not the case, dun center, Jackie is dead.
She's targeting to a flat out frozen gray corpse that is like horrific to look at.
And for some reason, I would say trauma, grief, and immense amounts of guilt. Shanna, now, as Marie mentions, just chills in the meat shed with Jackie's dead body and then comes out with like like rations and says, oh, I was getting these, but everyone knows. She's just kind of SnO, yeah, and they really dissect they play games together. We see it's this very fun Norman Bates esque situation where Shawna is talking about all the things she's guilty
about how her and Jeff got together. You know, the future that she wants to have it. It's really sad and Sophie Nellie's is so good, Like again, great costing. You really feel like that's young Melanie Lynsky.
There's with Jackie and Shawna and then Shawna as an adult, and there's something really interesting here about like sexuality and the sense of like attraction, the things that turn a person on but also shame. Yeah, certainly in the in adult Shauna's life. We see this later in the episode. Yeah, her and Jeff. You know, she she kind of allows herself to be vulnerable about the things that.
Turn her on.
And it's very interesting because, you know, Jackie and Jeff. The issue there was that Jackie was not ready to have sex with Jeff and and Shaana you could say, kind of use that as a way to kind of pull Jeff into her web. And the way that represents in in Shawna's psyche is really fascinating.
Really, Yeah, I think that's such a great point. I loved that moment where she's taught that her and Jackie are arguing about it. Jackie says it was because the reason we argued was because I wouldn't sleep with him you know, And Shawna says, oh, I'm so sorry I didn't know, because it's just her psyche. Jackie goes, yeah, you did. And it's this great kind of personal argument about the way you can repress things that you're ashamed
of and things that you did. And also I feel like, for the first time in this episode, we get it with a little bit with Van and Tye in the wilderness, and we get it here the kind of reminder of how different things were in the nineties about sex, especially for young women, about being queer or about being sexually active. But anyway, you know what, that doesn't matter because what ultimately ends up happening is that Shawna does not learn
something from this. Shawna gets angry at her own psyche and her own dead best friend and knocks her over, knocking off Jackie's ear, which will set on a domino effect to the final moments of this episode that you will not believe. So, you know what, instead of just leaving it there in the meat shed, she puts it in her pocket.
And I question, I questioned the decision making, but I get it.
I get it.
You know what.
Is chaos in Shana is this is what I love about this episode, and I love how the beginning of this season I feel like it was close to it at the end because Shorna killed Adam, but they kind of made narrative allowances. By the end of this episode, I'm like, sure that is the chaos cyclone that everything else happens around.
I agree, thing bad. She is like a high functioning freak, you know, she puts she has this facade of the regular wife and mother, you know, living this kind of upper middle class suburban life, like after the terrible things had happened, yeah, because of the crash and when she was teenager, But in reality, inside she is just a mess.
Yeah, And that's I think that's why the show speaks to so many people, because there's so many great moments about like the perception Shana is the unsatisfied suburban housewife but she wouldn't hurt anyone. But in that first season, you ever just kill that rabbit who's in her garden. She has this violence and this fury in her that she may hide better than someone like Misty, but it's still there and it makes these characters just ultimately compelling.
And Misty knows who she is, like her lies come from the fact that she knows who she's and she needs to hide it right, and she understands that, she understands how the world would reject her. Shauna is Shauna hates her life, hates everything about her life, how normal it is.
She has always kind of we see her she's.
Scared of becoming her mom and marrying Jeff, living that suburban life when she's a teen, but that's exactly what happens to her.
And so she's always kind of craved a more kind of dangerous existence, but at the same time been afraid to like go after it, and so she is drawn to these situations that could just blow up her life, Like that is the thing she can that's such a good way. Often is like anything that could absolutely melt her entire life down, destroy everything, turned her daughter against her, turn her husband against her, in prison, put her in prison, that is the stuff that attracts her.
Yeah, And we actually we get a great glimpse of that too, because we start to see that Shanna isn't actually that bothered about covering up Adam's murder at all, and she is out of all the girls in the nineties, she is dealing with the crash the worst. At this point, Misty she's doing okay. She's a little bit upset that she's been cut off from cooking Jewy, seeing as she poisoned everyone with mushrooms, and not only that, but purposefully
poisoned assistant coach Ben. This is also interesting here because we basically get a look at the JV squad, who were barely in the last season. You might have seen a couple of them ends, but now they take sent a stage, including a new cast member who plays this kind of theater love of Crystal, who's humming a lot and annoying everyone and breaking into song. Very good, weird,
sketchy character. I love her. And the best thing is that we get this moment here that kind of shows that her and Misty might become friends as long as Misty doesn't mind like harmonizing with her. Yes, And it's like the offers too good for Misty to turn down as someone who's always seeking out friendship and who has yet to find any kind of friend in this kind
of terrified extremely hard. Yeah, And I think that's one of the things Richie does so well here is she she puts across this desperation this like trying too hard. That makes you understand why it might push people away, But it's incredibly empathetic and feels just really sad. It's such a great nuanced performance that manages to be scary and hilarious and sad and compassionate and creepy. It's so good. And in the last two that we kind of catch up with in the past of Van and Tye, who
this is very interesting to me. I guess I hadn't really realized until this episode that their romance was entirely secret from the other girls. This is something that they are keeping. We hear girls reference Oh why are they always hanging out? Exactly? Are they talking about their boyfriends?
All this kind of stuff. I found that to be very interesting because I think that's setting up a potential future conflict, and also it separates them off from the rest of the group, which bodes badly because ty has been having these violent nighttime outbursts. She's been hurting Van, she's been climbing up trees, she's been eating dirt, and it's gotten to the point where Van and Tye now sleep in the attic with their arms tied together by rope.
So it's a desperate situation, but they love each other. They will only continue. They will only continue, continue to get more done. And let's be real, we know Van is a said immortal. She survived that plane crash. Apparently she survived getting more by a wolf. She is our immortal gay and I love her.
X Ray Vision will be back.
And we're back in the present. In one of my funniest moment. I've watched this episode so many times at this point because of writing different stuff about it and watching it for the pod and everything. So Jeff's failing business that he had to go to a loan shark for yeah, is now doing exceptionally well since his life murdered. Like he answers the phone he's talking about this is McDonald's,
because I'm selling six pieces like crazy. This man is loving life and the business is doing great since Shawna murdered Adam, which I'm saying is a blood sacrifice that went right.
I can't say yeah, I can't say. I am holding to the idea that most of this stuff is just kind of like in the eye of the beholder exactly. It is really interesting, right, all of a sudden, his business has just gone through the roofs. There's so many people that the guts.
It's it's really fun because that's what I think I'm loving the most about returning to this world is they're giving us so much power in our subjectivity. Is it supernatural? Is it not?
Is?
But after like the fourth time I watched the episode, I was like, shit, why is just business going well? I was like, this seems like it wasn't intentional. But apparently in this world, if you just murder someone, like something good's gonna happen to you. Speaking of weird culture in the past, we kind of learned that Travis is just completely consumed by the quest to find his brother Harvey.
That we last saw him on the Doom's Coming night where he missed where he ran away after they were trying to orgy murder his brother, and I mean troubling thing.
And I understand it.
Yeah, yeah, we get his feeling. I mean this is ironically I kind of love that they wrote this into the plot. It makes sense because it's his brother, but it's also the thing that every viewer wants to know, where is Harvey? Where is Harvey? Harvey wasn't Adam. They did say they'd considered in the creators said that in season one they'd considered Harvey being Adam and Adam being Harvey, but they decided not to do it. So where is he? Is he still alive? Did he die in the wilderness?
Travis is like seeing dead foxes and thinking it's his brother. It's it's Nats like supporting him. She's going out and searching for Harvey every day, even though it's winter and it seems unlikely that he would be in any way alive. But this is a show where people can survive a wolf attack.
And everybody, everybody, I think he's alive simply because everyone is like, there's no way, yeah, exactly. Like the amount of people telling him that there's no way he's alive tells me that he's got to be exactly.
And in a very weird moment, Lotty gives him like a saucy boner inducing fireside vision when he's having a panic attack. She like puts her hand on his chest and shows him this tree stump that is kind of pulsing with life, and she says, Harvey's okay, And obviously NAT's like, fuck you, like say less, you can't say that shit that. She's like say a lot fucking less actually like, yeah, this is bad. You can't say that
to him, but that again to me, I am. I believe that we could see at at Harvey this season, and I believe he may well be with Lotty.
Yeah she could have.
She's she seems to have some kind of uh, survival instincts within this forest. Like you said, it's somewhere that she feels like she's thriving. Maybe there's somewhere that she's hidden him away, or she's kind of keeping him secluded
and you know, inverted commas safe. We also learn something interesting here again which I think really leads into the lost of it All, which is like Nat while she is helping Travis for his brother, is actually like making a map and marking out the territory where they are. It's good, and she's you know, she's using topological like sketches to show mountains and she's doing this in secret
with Coach Ben. But there are like weird things about it, like they're not finding any game, the animals are just gone, and it kind of it's a very big map. So I think we're gonna start to see some hints that maybe everything is not what it seems but like you said, it's all about perception.
I wonder if this is gonna end up being some like top secret former military installation like X Men two, you know what I mean, or like like Strikers, like Strikers, like facility that created mutants, like for in Canada, something like that.
That's like the belagued showtime. They're like, you know what we need, we need roverin. We're just putting him in. This is this is old man, Jonathan, he's been living it now. I think you're right though, like essentially some kind of X Men to Stranger Things kind of situation where it's like, this is a weird military base. There's a reason your plane would end up there. There's a reason there was another plane there. There's a reason there's a cabin there, you know, and there's a reason why
you're eight hundred miles away. I think that could be a very interesting and quite likely twist, you know what, even if that was the truth. Then some of the girls got out, and somehow one of them was Shauna, who is a true fool, Like I am everyday mad at Shanna. She kept Adam's belongings. She said to Misty, she destroyed everything. But actually she's like looking emotionally at
his ID card. She's dreaming of going to prison, like and she's like calling up Jeff at his very successful furniture business and she's like, hey, we got to destroy Adam's things, including his art studio where I definitely never went and definitely didn't have sex with him or kill him. And I heard it some wear close, So let's.
Go what now. I think that Shawna is so repressed.
Because this is such a bad idea, like so bad, Like this is like such a bad idea annals.
Of bad ideas that have been and bad plans in television. This is up there in like top five, like don't.
Do it up there.
It's way way up there. And the only way it makes sense is that Seanna is so repressed that what happens there is the thing she wanted to happen all along.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's a reason that she went there and that's the only way she could get and the thing that is most interesting. So this also, I will just say this is one of my tinfoil hat theories. After out there they get there stinks a weed. There's somebody next door who was Adam's studio mate, who's blaring music. What if that's Harvey and that's how Adam knew so much about Shanna. That's my theory is Harvey was Adam's friend and they were like scheming on her together. But anyway,
they get in there and shot Cora. The art studio is actually filled with pictures of Shanna in a varying
states of undressed. They're very beautiful. Now, I will say that if I were, if Misty was there, I think Misty would have probably been like, Hey, don't do this, but be leave these up, because then you can say, this guy was stalking you and you killed him in self defense if they catch you just saying, but Jeff and Shwana are extremely fucked up, and I'm starting to believe also have probably killed at least one person before.
Yeah, they're just like they're so chilling, ready to do it. Yeah, they're ready to do this.
They decide to get down to business. But hint, I'm not talking about destroying the paintings they Shanna like. She starts telling Jeff about how much it turned her on to think of him cheating, and how she's no longer ashamed of who she is and they sort of, you know, seems like they're gonna get it on. It's unclear. I feel like at the end whether that was something that happened. I think like they tried. I couldn't tell whether Jeff was ashamed it happened or he kind of got uncomfortable
in the middle, which understandable. Seeing as you're fucking your wife in the studio of the man that she murdered, I could understand.
Why then you're helping to cover it up and actively helping her to destroy evidence of the.
Crowd exactly, Like there's a lot going on there to just focus on sex. Also, I would say again terrible ideas that have been had in history and covering up murders just like turpentining out the faces on these paintings is like so sus and I know that they definitely missed one. So this was just a terrible idea all around.
Either either burn the entire here's what I thought down, burn the building down, murder of the next side or whatever it is. Or take all the paintings and burn them, but don't one fuck in the place, leaving DNA and heroin well, who knows my evidence so.
Much like you do not want to go in there with a bla you are gonna get caught. This is a terrible idea.
Then like destroy the paintings in a way that anybody walking in and be like, what.
The fuck happened to these?
Right?
Yeah, Like I better find out who these are off because they were obviously the person who did the turpentiny. What's happened? Just like such bad choices and plans. And if she'd have just called Misty then it would have
been fine. And I want to say I did not include this in the full recap because it's not necessarily story relevant, But I do have to say one of the best scenes of this episode happens after this, which is when Jeff goes and sits into his car and listens to Papa Roach this is my last resort.
He's into it.
He's like hitting the wheel and he's feeling so angry about Seana, and it's just such a good weird character moment. Loved it. Speaking of good weird character moments, there is like this great sequence of events where Misty goes to show have a showdown with the motel manager or of the place where Nat was staying. She wants to know what happened. He won't tell her anything. Larry the motel manager, is like probably the first person who's ever said no
to Misty when she tries to blackmail him. It's so funny, it's so good. And eventually she kind of just like annoys him and gives him creepy chesha cat grins until he says, well, she left, she paid in the middle of the night, and Misty's like absolutely heartbroken because she kind of believed their odd couple Yeah, and she thought that odd couple friendship that they'd built while looking for
the truth of what happened was something real. And then she realizes, once again, Misty coming through with the win, the only observant person, the only clever person, the only person paranoid enough to know what's going on. She notices that the door jam of where of NAT's old room is splintered, and she realizes that Nat was kidnapped. The true hero of Yellow Jacket strikes once again, and yeah, like, what the heck that is still alive? Good love. Juliet
lewis smashing it in this performance. Uh, and she is pissed. She's tied to a bed as one would be who she is absolutely furious. And so then we get a new character here, we get Nicole Mayins, who's so brilliant, and she comes in and and she looks a lot like Loti. That was my read. I felt like, is this Lotty's door like? And she I.
Thought the same thing.
Yeah, Because I will tell you what I think, and that is there's a lot of weird sex shit happening in this cult.
Absolutely, I don't know it for I don't know it for a fact yet, but what I've seen thus far of Lottie's life and career as a wicked priestess lead me to believe that there's a lot of.
Weird sex shit happening in this cult.
Completely this and also it just feels y. Yeah, it's giving off the weird sex cop vibes. We know that they were taking from real life inspiration. That is something that's been very relevant recently. It feels weird. But this young girl is like she's green in the captivity game. Yes, they should not have sent her to be in charge of NAT. Nat is a true survivor, like she will do anything to survive and she does essentially like playing
this kind of cat and mouse game. Nicen Up the girl and eventually getting a fork and stab in her with it so she can escape.
Ruthless.
That shit was bad ass. I mean, she went for the eye like she would have killed her, but luckily the captor kind of she she you know, she she blocked it with the hand and now she has a fork in her hand, which she probably doesn't feel too lucky about actually, and Nat is out of there, like boom, not, this is not happening to me. You are incorrect. She is also At first I was like, oh, she's running away, but no, she is going to find Lotty like like
she fucking knows. And this is great because before this moment, they're really playing with our expectations. We see Lotty. Lotty is arguably like the only one in the group who's kind of doing any kind of processing of what happened. She seems to be wealthy, she seems to be successful. So this is like a great moment because until now, what we've really seen of Lotty's cult is like it's a wellness place. People there look healthy, they look healthy,
they're in the beautiful nature. They're wearing creepy robes. But maybe that's just our own perceptions of what our cult is no, because when Natalie gets into those woods, she sees people with terrifying like animal masks and they're burying a man alive.
Yes, and yes, it seems like he's into it. I would hope, so I certainly listen. I think, you know, as a person who spent a lot of time around hippies earlier in my life, younger in my life and seen the hippies kind of grow up, I know a lot of people who have become ensconced in different levels of the wellness lifestyle, and a lot of it is like, hey, drink this tea and you'll never get sick.
That kind of thing.
Yeah, And it goes.
Beyond just the kind of like eat organic that kind of like every day.
Oh yeah, it's a totally to.
The economy that you can that you can do.
It's it's I think for people who have been around it, we've been in the in the kind of orbit of it. This felt very much like a thing that I could see people I know getting involved in.
Yeah, yeah, yeah that I think again, it's all about, like you're saying, it's all about the eye of the beholder. Is this just this way of lotty kind of recreating in a safe inverted comma space, the feral nature of being in the forest as it something that people want to connect with and pay a lot of money for.
Or is she really doing some weird like blood ritual that's still very up in the air here, but not is like legit about the like cavew He's head in with a branch Like she's like, why the fuck shouldn't I?
And Lotty is extremely chill like to a point of being patronizing, and she absolutely knocks Nat for six by telling her like, you don't want to do that because I've got a message and it's from Travis and obviously you're like, wait a minute, well that actually if I was that, I'd be like, well fuck you, because didn't you wipe his bank account before him? So like what kind of message? But Natt is in a very unstable place.
Juliette Lewis does this bit of face acting, specifically with the way she kind of grinds her teeth over her lips in this scene that is just fucking heartbreaking. Like she knows there is probably nothing honest and real about what Lotty is about to tell her, but she wants to hear that more than anything in.
The show is off the charts, fool. I think it's very it's great.
Yeah, and we kind of get this very interesting moment in the present here that I think is very well handled and kind of twenty cypress again give her all the props. She creeps into the underpass underneath her house, finds her blood shrine and is like.
Half shocked but also not shocked, and they're not shocked enough enough, Like it's almost like when she.
Sees it, she kind of realizes. And then, in case you weren't sure that she was the one who was culpable for this blood shrine.
I was not sure right last season, and I wasn't either because and even earlier on like when her wife was yelling at her and she was like, I don't know, but then when she was like, oh, fucking hit in the But in this moment, she turns.
To Steve, good old Steve will be rooting for you, Steve, and she says Steve and she says, oh, no, don't worry, like that was a mistake about a dead dog. I was like, what do you mean, Like you weren't supposed to kill him?
I mean, I hope, So.
I'm like, what like this was an accident. I'm guessing so from what we've seen especially, we get this, we get some great moments here with her and Van. It seems like this sleep disorder that she has where she sort of is violent in her sleep, she's the woman in the tree.
She climbs up.
Yeah, some kind of disassociation that implies here. I think that she was in that state when she did it. But I was cracking jokes and she was like, sorry, Steve, I'll do better, And I was like, ty, I guess about.
Creating a whole shrine, decapitating your dog, setting up little trinketstile.
That's a lot of work when you're asleep.
Yeah, did she get down there? Like when did she murder the dog? The dog went missing before he ended up in the shrine, Like this seems at least a slight plan. Maybe I guess a tinfoil hat throw out there is she was still in contact with Loti or someone who was involved in this blood cult kind of situation and she delivered the dog but didn't know what they would do with it. Nah, I think she did it. But I'm just saying.
I think that Lottie somehow has been able to place like a post hypnotic suggestion ents and I.
Think I could definitely see that.
And I think because she wants to promote whatever it is that she's doing, and you get a powerful state senator elected and things get easier for you and whatever, you know whatever, except right, maybe you get taxes at status or your cult whatever like whatever it is, right. But I think that she did that to Tyson, and I think she's trying to do that with everyone, put somehow break their minds and put something in there. I like that that she can trigger, and I think she's triggering these.
We know setting cults. They use hallucinogens to break people's will and stuff, so we could see that multi It's almost like, you know, has Loti been setting up her own like Black Widow Network or Scroll Network. She just like triggers people by saying like a And think about imagine if Tyan Lotty had stayed in touch and she was like, I'll send you these wellness drinks, they'll help with your sleeping. But really she's drugging her and kind
of giving her strange hypnosis. I love this, and I love like you said, I think there's a great version of this which will we're getting close to the end, and I think near the end you could say subverts this a little bit. I like this idea that Lotty could be the nightmarish cult leader who's planning all of this, or she absolutely could not be. And it's just like a wellness scammer, and she's exciting, yeah, and.
All little kidnapping like we know, we know, we know it the very she's criminal.
Shit, we know she's doing some criminals. She's at least kidnapping people, you know. I would say in the theory you could argue that there's a version where it's like she kidnapped nap because she was relapsing. Cults do stuff like that.
You know, I wanted to help you exactly addictions.
Yeah, but yeah, it's really interesting stuff. And then we get it's really funny because we there's this brutality of the the scary sheep masks and and nat and this, and then you go to this kind of suburban ideal of Jeff and Shawna who are just so much scarier than not he could ever be, and and they decide that they're going to get rid of Adams belongings by burning them on a barbecue but then immediately cooking food on the plastic fire stuff.
Throw this stuff away in different places, throw it down. So they were in the but like especially when, as we have seen, Jeff and Shawna's daughter.
Calli, is all up in.
Particular business kind of being the worst, as teenagers often are, but like, oh, she's the worst.
She's the fucking worst. But you know, and the funniest thing is this is how good again? Literally, like Callie, you had a fucking worst, Like why do you want trying to switch on your mom? Like your mom is crazy? But going through a ship, you guys are alive ship having affairs of murdering people. You weren't on that plane. You dressed up for Halloween in your thumbs cheerleading costume, like you are the worst. And I was just it blew my mind that Jeff was like, yeah, we'll just
grill up some franks on here. I was like, are you trying to kill yourself? Like this is on the tree they they eat these nasty plastic franks And basically like Calli, as you pointed out, is like fuck you, I don't want to eat this ship. And you guys have got some sush shit going on. And as the episode comes to a close, we see Callie discover Adam's ID card bomb bomb.
But you gotta make sure that ship is burn literally his face like you could have just swallowed it, just scissors.
Subway, like you the terrible come on, Scissors, You just can't have his face. His face is there, Peter god Gadoire's beautiful face, and he's looking at a Cali And Kelly is like, I'm gonna fucking take this bitch down. Like Kelly's ready, her teenage resentment of her mom is gonna take down her whole family if she's not kept. I'm gonna tell you, I believe Shawna would kill her own door. She would do it now, I believe it. So Kelly should watch her back because it's gonna end
badly for her. We get like a rare bit of sweet wilderness news as ty and Vang kind of tell each other that they love each other. Yeah, very cute, but it only happened after Tye almost ripped Van's lip off in a kind of nighttime violent trance. But I think they're setting something up here. We don't get to see Lauren Ambrose, who plays adult Van. We know she got cast earlier this year. We don't get to see her here, but I think they're basically establishing like Van
isn't scared of Tyser. Van accepts Tyser for who she is Van, even with Tyson's nighttime trances all this stuff, and I would assume that we will see Tie return to Van as that kind of place of safety. That's my guess. It could be something else. I think the clip of Van that we see and the credits kind of sees her being distracted by somebody knocking on her door or something, which feels very similar to NAT's kidnapping. So maybe it won't be that sweet, but that's kind
of where my gut is going with it. Travis and Nat, on their little excursion, discover what looks to be the magical tree from Travis's sexy vision and it's still blooming in the middle of winter. So that's strange.
Yeah, fake tree.
Maybe if we're talking about like a military base something like that.
You I don't chemicals like the old like it's the old beach like something like this is like a poisoned area with chemicals that are doing weird shit.
Oh that's a good idea. I like that. The idea that something seeping into the ground and even the meat they're eating is actually infected by it.
Like they're always what if they're always eating a low level of whatever, the yes, whatever has suffused the landscaper.
You know. Also, I will say I was rewatching the first season when I was doing the recap for the show and writing about Misty, found a lot of magic mushrooms, very very quickly. Founder they are just there. So I think you could be onto something that there's kind of some kind of infusion that's making them have this kind of group hysteria. And really Nat is so far the only one who doesn't seem to have brought into it
at all. But all of that great episode, Love this episode, but it's all basically irrelevant because the big news of this episode is that the cannibalism has finally begun. And I will say, yeah, it's what we've all been waiting for. The crowd goes mad, cannibalism, curnibalism. I was shocked to see who the first cannibal me Too, turned out to be. They did a great job, as we said in this episode, they set up, and they set up, and they set up this kind of chaotic black hole in the middle
of the show and it is Shorna. So by the time this happened, I yelled, but I was like, oh, so the final moment of the show, which is just so good and so gross, Shawna's just chilling walking around the cabin and she just pulls Jackie's ear out of her pocket and she holds it close and she just swallows it. And there is and her friend has been dead for two months, and there is the title of your episode's friends Romance Countrymen, Let me in it. That's
so good. Okay, okay, questions I have for you after this episode? So I want to know is Shauna the antlerquin. We all feel like it's Lotty because of the colt and like the kind of the regality, and we saw Lotty wearing a headdress. But I'm like, if Shanna is the first cannibal, is she the one who spreads it within the group?
Gosh, I don't know.
I would not be surprised, but I also would not be surprised if it's this. It's the junior Varsity become the people closest around Oh my god, I love that around Lottie, that become the people that she you know the younger, more impressionable, they don't know her as well, and she's able to kind of create her identity with them. I do wonder if it's going to be them who are the closest to her.
Yeah, her, I think that makes a lot of sense, especially because the one person we know is in that circle is Misty, and if Misty makes that connection with Crystal, she would likely tag along with whatever kept her in the friendship group the popular group. Also, that makes a lot of sense because then you can assume that the older girls may actually become the prey, because we still have that big mystery from the first episode, who was the girl running through the forest? You know, who was
the girl that they slit her throat? And they potentially ate her though, and we can't confirm or deny that.
Ask that how much do you think Shanna and the rest are aware of what Lottie is up to these days?
That I think is the biggest question of this season. I think the fact that nat Like breathed there and just immediately knew that she was looking for Lotty and was screaming for Lotti makes me think that Lotti might not necessarily be that secretive, but I will also say we know she's not like a celebrity wellness person because the final line of the last episode was NAT's ex AA sponsor basically saying to her, who the fuck is Lotti Matthews? So it's not it's not someone who is.
Actually she's not like famous. But I think, like to me, I actually think the biggest bet I have now is that Shauna knows. I just think Seanna knows Sean. I think Seanna probably kept tabs on Lotty because then she could be another one of those intrusive thoughts and secrets that constantly promises to burn down her life. Yeah, like,
oh what if somebody found out that I knew? And then that leads to the next question, which is, you know we were saying, like, is the captor who was fighting with Nat who got the fork to the hand that Lotti's dor. I think that's like a good bet.
I think it's a good bet as well.
But my name is Dan, one of our discord users. He brought something up that people in our discord were very into, which is is that character that Nicole Mayan's plays actually shorn as Wilderness Baby whoa don't don't darn because you know what my timelines.
I need to find out what happened to the Wilderness.
We need to find out up to baby. We're back to the baby conversation again. We need to know babies because I like that one too. Me too, because also the thing is right, so I hilariously, I just like, didn't my I'm not gonna maths first of all, and second of all, the narrative of the show was so engaging that I kind of just hadn't really put together that it was twenty five years since, even though they say it many times, but like to me, I was just like, well, maybe Cally was the baby, Like how
old could you? And then it was this episode where I was like, oh no, that's like Kelly's like a teenager. This is that's not the Wilderness baby. That's like a different baby. So who where is the Wilderness baby? I will say, super produce a soul. I'm gonna put this one out there. It's a very bleak tim for hat theory. So a cover year is if you don't want to hear it, oh no, he suggests maybe they ate the baby? Did they could?
It could be the case. I will say that if Lottie has.
Been raising the Wilderness baby. How would she get the baby? Here's what I here's how I think it could help Shauna. We've seen that she has shame issues, guilty issues, particularly around her her expressions of her own sexuality.
Which the baby is living proof baby is.
Maybe they get rescued and Lottie says, you know what, I'll say, it's mine.
I'll say, I think that could definitely happen.
Pregnant in the forest and I'll say it's mine. Mm hmm.
And maybe maybe this whole thing with this mysterious guy all of a sudden coming out of nowhere to like proposition her sexually, and this whole affair that happened that resulted in murder, I would not be surprised if Lottie's pulling.
Okay, I love that theory because I do think that Adam, being a follower of Lotty's, his job was basically just to unsettle and kind of upset Shana and play on those weaknesses that Lotty knew she had. I think that's very legit and very likely. I think nat probably knew what lott he was up to, but didn't care. The one the funniest shit is Misty seems like the one who's probably like least bothered because she was probably like, no, Lott, he was never my friend. These girls were my friends.
Like, I feel like I could tell Misty anything, Yeah, you know, whatever has bothered me, whatever I've done that I'm a shade of I feel like I could tell Misty and Missy be like, it's fine, we fix it.
The final question, speaking of our but love and Misty, is like, so she killed the Jannet the pi that Tyson hied Jessica at the end of the last season. Is that to come back and bite her or is she just likes to Yeah, it feels like it has to. I feel like that and Adam's death are going to be these kind of jeweling things that threatened to take
them down. But I also like the idea that she's like a killing Eve, like early season killing Eve style killer who just kills people and just gets away with it.
I'll make it.
I'll make a tinfoil head prediction. I think it's going to be her parrot that undos her. It puts her at risk of suspicion for that murder.
That is such a good call.
I absolutely like going to start saying murder shit because I absolutely true.
Also, the parrot has a prominent place in the first season. It really does credits so like and I think you're right because guess who was down there listening when her and Shauna were practicing for the police. It was the parrot. Jason, You've blown my mind that that was the one. Now, I can't wait to cover the rest of the season and see how the parrot plays.
Into We'll be following Yellow Jackets all season here on x Ray Vision. Up next, Hive Mind with Scream six co writer Guide Music.
Welcome to the Hive Mind, where we explore a topic in more detail with the help of expert guests. This week, we're thrilled to have Guy Busic, co writer of Scream six and twenty twenty two Scream. Hey, Guy, thanks so much for being here.
Thanks for having me.
Yeah. I love Scream so much. I have a Scream tattoo and I'm like a huge little ghost face up there.
I love it.
Yeah, So this is just like a dream I loved and I loved the New Scream movie, and I loved Scream you know five in the ed commas. I love the core for so we're just We're so stoked to have you here. But seeing as this is Xtra Vision, which is our kind of mine and Jason's hub for all the things we love, I'll start with a little bit of a less horror focused question and say, what's your book origin. What was the thing that got you into comics and made you love comic books.
I think it was Batman eighty nine. It was the summer that that came out, and I was walking around the mall.
I was in a.
Bookstore and I saw the cover for Death in the Family and I was like, what the hell is that they killed Robin? So I picked that up and then found out that like people voted for that for the second Robbin Jason Todd to die. And then I just started buying more Batman comics and graphic novels and compilations like trade paperbacks in anticipation of the movie. So by the time the movie had come out, which I saw I think seven times in the theater, I was probably thirteen.
I think that summer I was kind of caught up on a lot of the so called classics of the era, and then so Batman just got me into like so Robin's and the teen Titans SAI. Then I'd get into the Teen Titans, who became the New Titans, and so I catch up on the New Titans, and then Batman was in the Justice League, so I'd start reading Justice
League and it was in that wonderful Justice League International era. Yeah, and so and from there it was like then I went back and read Crisis on Infinite Earths, and I was just a DC head. From then on, I just got into everything Green Lantern and Hawkman Flash, all of it, and some Marvel. But I didn't become like a died in Woe Marvel fan until the movies, until the NCU, there were just only a few characters that I was
really invested in. For whatever reason. I love them all in comic book format and TV and movie form, but for whatever reason, I was really drawn to the DC universe, and I still am. I still love those comics and those characters.
It makes sense thinking about, you know, Batman and Pity nine, Batman of that era being your your entry point, What about your actually point into horror? What was the thing you've You've worked so much in the horror genre, what was the thing that really got you into horror?
You know, I wasn't a horror kid growing up, and I think part of it was that, like my parents were a bit protective of likes and stuff like that. So that very same summer that Batman came out, well, I guess it was the fall because I met Ryan Murphy, my co writer Ridy or not not the Ryan Murphy of American horror story, I always have to clarify. And he was also into Batman and movies and comics and
all that great stuff. I remember we talked about Got Them by Gaslight, this book that had come out that summer, and that's was one of our first bonding points, is we're kind of feeling each other out, like are we going to be friends?
Is this?
Are we cool? Are we vibing here? And we became really really close friends. And he was the horror kid, and so he would, you know, like I could watch all this stuff at his house that I could watch on my own, and most of it turned me off. I was like, I just I don't get it. It's not for me. I don't really like these characters, blah blah blah. And now I look back on a lot of that stuff and I'm like, I was so wrong.
This is build, but as a kid, it just kind of maybe I was just a little too protected for it at the time. So it was Scream, you know, ironically it was Wow. I saw it opening day in nineteen ninety six, and it was the one that blew my mind with Kevin's just amazing script and Wes's direction and that cast, that classic amazing cast, and for the first time, I was like, oh, horror can be fun. It can be funny, it can be meta, you can
have a conversation with your audience. For the first time, I'm seeing myself in a horror movie, as you know, Randy the movie nerd. And it's just that I care about these characters and when they die it hurts. It's not so much about the killer, it's about the victims. You're really on their side for once, and it was a murder mystery. It was just like, how can it be all of these things, you know, a horror movie. And so that's when I think my true love started.
And then I went back and rewatched a lot of others from the earlier periods and it was like, Okay, yes, now I kind of get it. But it was like Scream kind of broke the damn for me. And then the fact that they were able to follow that up in twelve months with another great Scream, like we really were.
Actually incredible that that happened, Like yeah.
Probguably one of the best horror sequels of all time. And they did it with any.
Yeah, within a year, And I was like, well they I mean, they must have rushed it. How could it possibly be high quality if it's twelve months later and they did it again, And I was just like, I
just I am in awe. And so the fact that I'm now, you know, getting to talk to Kevin, work with Kevin on screen movies is just blowing my twenty one year old mind in the past somehow, you know, if I could just go back and say, you're not going to believe this, but this movie that changed your life in terms of loving the genre, like you're going to get to work on that someday. I just I still can't believe it. It's so surreal and I'm pinching myself.
And anytime I'm writing a legacy character, you know, created by an earlier writer, you know Kevin in particular, like writing Dialogue for Gaile and just writing the name Gail I just like, how did I end up here? This is just a dream I love so Yeah.
I love that so much, And I guess kind of you could you talk a little bit about like how you did get there? Obviously, like Ready or Not you have like h standing as evil, But Ready or Not was just such a huge smash people just in a way. It had its own screen impact. It made people excited for horror. It made people feel like there was something different that you could play with in this world. What
was that like for you? Kind of getting to make this independent, unique take on horror and then having it so well received.
Well, that's just really levey to hear you so happy to think that people might have had that experience.
I know so many people who'd want big horror heads who just absolutely adored it.
Yeah, it was. It was a confluence of I mean, all the planets aligned basically. You know, Ryan and I we met, you know, when we were thirteen. We moved out here right after high school, went to college, different colleges, but we were always, you know, still very close. And then we would write together or write separately for many years,
and we were working in different genres. We were selling pitches for big action sci fi things, they just weren't getting made, and so we just made a conscious decision, let's just do something smaller, low budget genre so you don't need a star, you know, and horror is just it never goes away. It's always going to be popular,
and so we settled on that. We came up with the idea I think in like twenty thirteen, Wow, and we wrote this spec and it didn't set the world on fire, and so at that point it's like twenty fourteen, it hasn't It hasn't sold. We slipped it to a few producers, no one bit. So I'm thinking I'm going to quit the business at this point. And my good friend James Vanderbilt Jamie who's my co writer on Scream twenty twenty two and Scream six. He's a very close
friend too. I met him because he went to college with Ryan. So it's just all a very, you know, small world kind of a situation. But Jamie was a
big fan of that script. It was called family Ritual at the time, not Ready or Not, and the wedding element wasn't part of it, to believe it or Not, which is which is pretty much its whole identity which I know, right the bride with the with the cigarette and all covered in blood, and but it was basically like the Alex character bringing Grace home to see if you can get permission to marry her. And it was
like over the Easter weekend or something. And then get Out happened and it was like, well, that's already the horror version. I meet the parents and so we had to pivot. And then we came up with the wedding thing and it was on track. But yeah, I mean it was a slow process. It took about six years from you know, coming up with the idea to it coming out.
Wow.
But we found Radio Silence. They pitched on it, and we immediately when we met them, we knew this is going to be a long and fruitful partnership. Matt, Tyler and Chad are just we all share a very very similar sensibility. We kind of all have like a high mind speaking of my mind, and uh, I love those guys. And I knew that there were the right people for it. And then Searchlight came on board and like our execs there completely got it. The marketing was great and it
was just really cool. I mean, I'm so that one is always going to hold a special place in my heart, not just because it was my first produced movie. I don't count the other one, but because it was original, and it was so different and so odd, and it was a little bit hard to put in a box
because it was again, it wasn't just one thing. And I always say, you know, you can draw a straight line from screen to ready or not in terms of like, hopefully it's a fun ride first and foremost, and hopefully it gives you characters or at least one character that you really like and root for and want to see make it through. And you know, again you mentioned some ri It's like that was lightning in a bottle. It couldn't have been better casting across the board. But wow,
her performance is just just next level. And so to get to bring her back first Dream six was a treat for everybody. You know, I was, I was. I did not get to be on set when she was doing her scenes. I had already come back from from Montreal.
But watching those dailies, my my wife and I were in stitches because her outtakes her you know, like, there are different takes of that scene are just she's so funny and likable and goofy, and it's just like she said that that's the character that she's played that's closest to her and I find that just lovely and love that.
So how did you get there? From ready or Not to the screen franchise? What was you know? How did that kind of evolve?
That was a very strange story and one of those things that never happens in this business and I consider myself one of the luckiest people on earth because of it. It's my good friend Jamie who I mentioned I met
when we were eighteen and freshmen at different colleges. He has a company called Project X Entertainment that has produced these screen movies and they had a deal with Spyglass Media Group where I think it was just for TV, but they kind of had a general meeting with Gary Barber who owns and runs it, and they had acquired some of the old Weinstein Company assets, Scream being the kind of the main one, like the big one that
he really wanted to do something with. And Jamie's been a longtime screen fan too, and he had met Kevin Williamson early in his career and Kevin was very very kind and supportive of him. When he was sort of a baby writer, and so Jamie was like, well, I would really like to try something with that, and Gary
was like, well, would you write it? And he said yeah, And so they walked out of that meeting and they had scream and he knew he didn't want to He knew it was he wanted radio silence, and he knew he didn't want to do it by himself. And he picked me because I, you know, he knows how much reverence I have for the franchise and how much love I have for Kevin and Wes and those first poor movies. And I think he was all so a little busy
at the time. So it was like, if I could split the work, I'd be great.
Yeah.
And so he called me and I was in New York, which is kind of funny because we had ended up doing six in New York, but I was on my wedding anniversary with my wife. It was our ten year anniversary. We had just come out of play. I saw that he had called. I was worried that one of our many projects together had fallen apart. We didn't want to call him back. I was like putting it up. And I called him and he just said, hey, so all the projects are fine because he knows me, he knows
that's whatever. And he goes, he goes, do you want to write Scream five with me? And I just my job rop And you know, I was just in shock for like the next hour. And so I came back and we watched the four movies in person together, came up with our wish list of like what do we as fans want to see in a screen movie? Like if this is the last one we ever get, what is it? How do we as fans create something that we would love? And we were just completely in sync
and it was so easy to work together. And I'm not saying that the scripts were always easy, but I think a lot of the ideas just kind of came to both of us independently, and we were sort of surprised to be like, oh you thought of that too, Oh my god, Okay, we're really of one mind on this thing and writing that that, you know, first draft of five it didn't take long at all. It was just like we kind of whipped through it in just a few weeks. And that's that was That was how I
was just invited. It doesn't happen like that. It just it. It's the dream, you know, it was just here it is, and you know, I'm grateful that he had to put the trust and faith in me that I could do it. And you know, now we've done two together and seems to be working out. So I know, I'm very very grateful and very proud.
Yeah, Like what was so what was it like then to not only get to play in this soundbox, then you're getting the legacy characters back. Then the movie comes out and people just love it and it makes a ton of money, which is kind of your dream in this really hard time for cinema and kind of cinema and distribution. Scream is a hit. It's a hit on a small budget. What was that? Ex variants?
Like a relief?
It just.
We we just thought, if anyone's gonna ruin the franchise, at least, let it be a couple of guys who absolutely love it and want to protect it. And yet we didn't want to ruin it. And so when it came out and it did connect with with you know, longtime fans and new fans and did well financially, it was just it was a huge relief. We didn't break the thing that we would you know, we actually were able to contribute and keep this thing alive and not
just put it back on life support. But it was well received and people wanted more and people did like you know, the new characters, and so it was just gratifying. It just I felt very again, just relieved that we didn't ruin it and like create the work the one
that you just killed it forever. And yeah, I was I was proud that we'd pulled it off because it had been eleven years, you know, since four and people really had kind of moved on from it, and Kevin had moved on from it, by the ways, like a lot of people involved and moved on for We had no guarantee that we were going to get those legacy actors back. We just kind of were like we blind faith we write it. We try to write the characters as being in different places than we've seen them before,
so give them something new to play. We know they love each other and we know they love you know, Wes and Kevin, but it was a leap to think that they would want to do a screen movie without Wes. Yeah, and so we just we had to take a shot, and you know, we got them, and we were thrilled we did. We weren't sure we were going to and
we got them and they came back. And that was, like I said before, like writing dialogue for Sidney Prescott or Gail Webbers or Dewey Riley was you know, it was just a trip.
I would imagine there are certain challenges to bringing back this franchise that are unique. You know, you've got to have that killer cold open. You've got to be able to play with the tropes of the form in a way that is entertaining. You've got to have a great murder mystery. What What were some of the things that, as you're watching these four movies in a row, you thought, Okay, we gotta do this, gotta do that.
I think it's just the formula has always been the same, but with different it's like certain elements of it are dialed up or dialed down. I think one of the things that we really looked at was let's make it really legitimately scary again, because some of the meta got turned up a little higher in three and four. So and not to say there weren't wonderful scares in three and four, but I didn't feel some of the I don't even know how to put it, but just that gut level, like.
You want to feel the terror, you want to feel the kills likes five I think about a lot you feel. It's horrible.
Yeah, no, it truly is. That was that was a rough one to think of, and right and shoot, and Dylan really was so good in it. It was like, oh god, that's really hard to watch. But another thing we went back to was really making sure the audience knew that these there are stakes again and we went back to two and we're like, we didn't. Nobody wanted
Randy to die. That was terrible. And at midpoint in the movie, you know, Randy are our sort of audience identification character in many ways as being the movie Nerd is taken from us. And then three and four, you know, the core three, the Big three make it through and we were like, I think we're going to have to kill one. And it was a really rough conversation because we love those characters and Dewey has always been my personal favorite, and so that was a brutal realization to go.
I think that's correct for this story because it's solved a lot of story problems for him to die, because why else would Sidney come back to Woodsboro?
Ever, like Eva.
There would be no reason, nothing could get it there except for you know, avenging her friend, you know, and so that it made sense, and it would also you know, Gail obviously would then have a real and the audience would be really, really pissed off. And but yeah, it's like it's coming up with the murderers, it's coming. I think the hardest things are always who is it and why?
What's the motive? And because the motive is always of the time, and it's they're always very you know, very good, very smart, and I love like Joe Robertson in four, you know, it's like I don't want.
Yeah, I love Jill Emma just absolutely killed it.
Yeah yeah she did, and I completely agree. And so that was another one where was like, that's very of the time of you know, social media becoming is just blowing up and you know tw twenty eleven into what it's become now, and so for us it was like, Okay, how do we These movies always have a conversation with their audience, and they always comment on not just horror tropes of the time, but also just pop culture, horror as a genre, movies in general, you know, and so
it was like once we kind of found that toxic fandom angle so good. It was something that we've been witnessing in the last few years. It was just we're like, Okay, that's it, that's what we have to say right now, and it works perfectly in a screen movie, which is a movie about movies and fans, and so it really clicked.
And then in terms of you know, the Killers, it was like, we so much of five is an homage to one, and we just thought it would be really fun to go back to the boyfriend and have it be you know, we wrote that part.
Looks he looks as soon as you cost Jackquad, You're like, he's going to be the killer, right, and then you're like, well, well no, that would be too obvious.
And I love this.
No, he's the killer, literally him.
And we copied that from one because Skating Matthew are telling you over and over and yet they pull it off and it's still a shock when when they're the killers. And that's just Kevin's brilliant writing. Yeah, Wes is directing, and and those performances by those two iconic actors but yeah, it was like, let's let's do that. Let's try to do that same magic trick where it's like, oh, it's got to be him. Oh no, now it definitely can't be him. Oh god, it was.
Right the first time.
Okay. Also, I know we haven't even gotten to Sick yet, but like, I just need to ask because you talked about Skee I screamed the first time in five when you revealed like the daughter of Billy Loomis and kind of bringing back Skee as this other legacy character. Could you talk a little bit about that choice, Like did you get any pushback on that? Because it's real late stage horror movie sequel stuff, which is why I loved it. But was that something that people were like, it's not
gonna work. It's too out there, like we need our final gal to be pure and kind of follow those older rules.
Absolutely, I think not so much. On the Billy Loomis's legitimate daughter, we didn't get a lot of pushback on that. We got a lot of pushback on the idea that we would actually see Billy. Yeah, and they were nervous and we understood why. But there were conversations and they said, if you you know, if he agrees to do it, do it. We may not end up using anyo and you know, it may be a voiceover, it may not
be any kind of dialogue with Billy at all. And then once they saw it, nobody ever brought it up again. And I will say one thing about the pushback was that gave us confidence that we were doing the right thing by trying it. At least was we pitched the whole thing to Kevin and he maybe even read the draft at that point, and he said, the one thing that doesn't feel like a screen movie is this seeing the sort of phantom Billy that's in her head. And he's like, that's why I think you have to do it.
And that was like, oh, thank you. You just gave us the best kind of permission to go and try something. It's a big swing, you know, as you said, it could have gone horribly wrong. If it had, it wouldn't have made it in there. But yeah, I mean, Billy and Stu are you know, as much a reason for the success of that movie and for kind of the love of the franchise as any of the other cast members.
You know, they skate and Matthew just I mean I was quoting them on the way to the car after my first screaming it bit, you know, because they were so I mean, those performances are just the stuff of legends.
So we were me and I got really excited at the idea that this is Billy's legacy and Billy's going to be in it, and Sydney's going to have to come face to face with Billy's daughter who you know, he got Sam's mother pregnant while he was with Sydney, most likely because she refused to sleep with him, and so he went outside of that relationship and yeah, here we go. And to have those two women fighting side by side was just kind of a we thought that was It just gave us the giggles.
We thought, Yeah, how early in the process did the idea of having a family of killers come to be?
That was pretty early, and I will say, you know, full transparency, we didn't always know it was Richie's family. Oh, but we did love the idea of three ghost faces. And it's kind of a hard overcome to imagine three people being like minded enough that they'd want to go on killing screens together and have the same motive. And so we came up with family, I think out of
the desire to want to do three for the first time. Yeah, and then it really finally clicked when we were like, there's there's something that's not because we also wanted the motive in six to be primal and not sort of intellectual, because the motive in five was about an idea about movies, about wanting my favorite franchise to get back on track, so I'm going to help out, and it's not really primal,
it's just more of an intellectual exercise. So with this one, we're like, it's got to be something really really someone has to hate Sam and then it, you know, not a huge leap to get from there. This is this is a family full of psychos and this father is just so twisted. All of his kids ended up this way. Yeah, and you notice that Jack Champion, you know, please, Ethan looks a lot like Jack Quaid.
It does look like him, Like I thought that was why I recognized him. Then I realized it was Avatar.
But yeah, Avatar. Yeah, yeah, he really doesn't make like he really you know, sprouted up since Avatar. I mean, he's just like this really tall, good looking guy and that not you know, obviously he's great an Avatar, but he's kind of a kid and he really spread out. This was the first thing he did after Avatar, and it was like his second set after years and years on these the James Cameron movies. But like they look
so much alike. One of the character was Jamie or William or one of radio silences said, don't stand together on the red carpet. People will figured it out.
That's so good and I think it's funny.
Yeah, I love as well. Like there's so many parallels here with Scream two, not even like from the quickness that you guys made the sequel to then having them in this different location, to then having you know, the end be in.
To this.
So that family connection makes a lot of sense because of Billy's mum being the killer in two were one of the killers. So could you talk a little bit how early did you realize this was also going to be not just a scream movie, but like a scream to kind of reaction and response in homage.
We have actually tried to dial that back, you know. Oddly, I think it was we just didn't want to be seen as sort because you know, obviously one was very very five was very similar to one, so we wanted now that we've kind of hopefully done what we set out to do, which is like remind people what scream is, why it's different, why it's cool, and here are the
new characters we wanted to. I mean, it's very goofy, but our sort of internal log line was if we were playing the hits in five, then six is the punk rock B side, and we wanted to do our own thing and take really big swings, and so we didn't other than the college setting, we didn't really consciously think about all that stuff. And it's funny because in talking to fans now our friends or doing interviews, there's a lot of nods to two that we weren't even
aware of. We knew that the Missus Loomis and Wayne Bailey connection was there, and it's like he's only the second like grown up ghost Face the other franchise. He's so great and he's the funniest guy in person. So
we knew that was there. And then the theater thing actually gave us pause because originally that that shrine museum was just in a warehouse somewhere and they couldn't find a location in Montreal that that really worked, like nothing just felt right, and so the location scout showed radio silence that and they were like, we think this is it, and Jamie and I were like, I don't know that.
We don't want to look like we're just copy pasting from dow and so we went out to Montreal to look at it and we went, Okay, it's going to feel different enough and it has this creepy different kind of vibe. But yeah, it's funny how much of two made it in there without even conscious knowledge video it was something you know. So I'm happy about that because it is kind of a neat echo. But we almost tried to go the other way, where it's like, let's make sure we're not just doing too right.
Yeah, I think the opening does a great The cold open does a great job of switching it out by having that review and kind of doing something very different and having that who the fuck cares about the movies? So after that you're very intellectually far away from two. But it's just after seeing it a couple of times, I was like, oh, they are awesome. This is a movie that loves too as well. It really is.
Yeah, other people have pointed that out as well, But yeah, that was the thing that got us really excited was that opening. And the very bizarre thing about the opening is that Jamie and I came up with that independently of each other, and we came to our first meeting to talk about what Scream six should be, and we
had both written down that we started. We knew it was going to be New York, we'd already decided that, but we were like, okay, I think I pitched him first on our first zoom and I was like, Okay, this is going to sound weird, but let's do like imagine a traditional Scream opening phone call, you know, but it's New York, so it's already feels a little different,
but you know, more or less traditional. And then he's got the last line and does the slash, and you think we're going to go to the title card like always, and then we just hold on him for an uncomfortably long time, and then he takes the mask off, and then we follow the killer to the point where you might think, for a second, if you knew nothing about
the movie, is this from Ghostface's point of view? And then that guy who's kind of doing it for traditional reasons like carrying on the previous killer's work or whatever, like I want to finish Richie's movie. Like that guy gets killed by a really scary ghost face who doesn't care about and he got this kind of look on his face and I was like, oh, he hates it, that's stupid. Nevermind, and he holds up his notepad and he's got it written down like traditional killed. Ghost Face
takes off mask. We follow ghost face ghost face killed, and we're like, whoa, Okay, we're really sharing a brain on this one.
That is so cool.
Finally, you know the horror genre we talk about scream queens. The queen of Scream is Sidney herself.
Nev Campbell.
Recently Schedule Lurric was quoted as saying that he had a conversation with her and she really liked the latest edition in the.
Yeah, that must feel good.
Eddie.
Would you ever no no strings attached? Did you ever think about Briddy bringing Sydney back?
Unfortunately, it's always out of our hands. I mean these things, just like as much as people were mad at Radio Silence or us for fortune, right, it's not It's not up to us. And so even at the script stage, people are like, well, at least write her in, and it's like no, we're told who is going to you know, be available? Who can they can?
You know what?
So it's really out of our hands. I mean, all I can say to that is I love the character Sidney Prescott. I love MeV Campbell as an actor, I think she is synonymous with the screen franchise. As a fan, I would really love to see Sydney go back exactly. So as a person involved in screen movies, I can't say, but as a fan outside of it is like, even if it's not me, even if it's years from now, I want to see that. So I hope that you know that can happen at some point in time, because
it's sim me. You know, guy, you sick?
Thank you, thank you so much, so much fun relations on your success.
Yeah, thank you so much. Thanks for having me.
Us to the next one.
Yeah up next nerd Out.
In today's nerd Out, will you tell us what you love them?
Why?
Or a theory you're excited to share? Lucas Pictures, us on Becky Chambers, Monk and Robot series.
Jason Rosie, everybody at X ray Vision. My name's Lucas Adams. I wanted to first off say thank you so much for the podcast. I really really love it. I think I've learned an incredible amount about sci fi, fantasy, comic books and everything. I love nerd Out. I wanted to share my nerd out, which is a series of books, thus farts too. I think there will be more. Called the Monk and Robots series by Becky Chambers. The first
book is a Psalm for the Wild Built. The second book, which just came out a few weeks ago, is called a Prayer for the Crown Shy, and the first book asalng for the Wild Built. Basically, we have used robots to build up our world, almost destroy our world, and they have gained sentience and they leave. They simply, as a group, decide to head out into the world, into the wilds and be by themselves, forcing us to face
our own existence without them. Luckily, we make a lot of really good choices that help save ourselves, but it doesn't come without some struggle. This book, however, is about a t monk as they're known in this world name Sibling Decks, and they decide to explore the world in a different way and go out into the wild, where they come across a robot named Mosscap and the robot has been sent by other robots to see how humanity is doing and basically to ask the question what do
humans need? And so they build a relationship with one another. They explore their relationships with themselves and the world, both the natural and built world as it was and as it is now. And then in the second book they continue this journey. And I don't want to give away too much. I'm just it is two short, wonderful meditations on technology and our living, breathing earth and our relationship to it and ourselves and the other people around us and in this case robots. I highly recommend it. I
highly recommend Becky Chambers. She also wrote the Wayfarer series, which is a really fun space travel action series that also asks some really great relationship questions about relationships with ourselves and other species and our place in the world and how we treat those around us, and how we experience things and people and other things that are different from us. I think everybody would really like it, and I am so happy to share it again. Thank you
all so much for everything you do. I love your podcast.
Have a great day, Thanks Lucas. If you have theories or passions that you want to share, hit us up x ray at crooked dot com. Instructions in the show notes. As always, that's it for us.
A big thank you to Guy Music, Rosie any plugs, blug blug, bluck bluck bluck black bluck blood.
You can find me at Rosie Marx, on Instagram and letter box, the usual places. I have a newsletter. The thing will be in the show notes and you can find me here. If you want to read about yellow jackets and all my wild theories and citizen detecting, you can find that at IGN And I've got a lot of stuff at DC dot com at the moment, so go there too.
Primo May nineteen on Amazon freeb you can watch it for free. It's right there at a name freebee with ads just like the just like the old times. But of course if you're an Amazon Prime subscriber you can get it without.
Actually I don't know, I don't know about that.
It's I don't.
Actually free May nineteenth.
Just put that in your brain and you better watch it.
I've got to screeners so I can say it's good.
And of course subscribe on YouTube where you can watch full episodes of our show x ray Vision and don't forget to follow at xerv pod on Twitter and check out the discord to meet and hang out with lots of amazing folks, fans, listeners, and Rosie.
And I us with that five star ratings. Five star we love them. You gotta give them to us.
Here's one from JAM zero sixty four, my favorite podcast at the moment. It's funny and informative in many ways. I could listen to Jason and Rosie talk about anything.
Five star pod.
Thanks, bye, bye bye Zar.
X ray Vision is a Crooked Media production. The show is produced by Chris Lord and Salt Rubin. The show is executive produced by myself and Sandy Rhard Are editing and sound designers by Vascillis Fatopoulos, Dylon Villanueva and Matt de Group provide video production support. Alex Rella for handle social media. Thank you, Brian Vasquez for theme music.
We'll see you next time.
Bye.
Hey Mike, this is HISTB for Marid. Yeah, I'm just calling on behalf of your state, Senator Tysa Turner on phone back and listen. I understand we just had an election Mike, but it's not too early to start thinking about the next cycle. Now you might be hearing some spurious rumors about pet decapitation. Those are all being put out there by the senator's disgruntled partner. There's nothing to that. There's no cult stuff, no eating of dirt, no climbing
of trees, no strange behaviors, no talking to herself. That's all I have to say, Mike, vote Tyson Turner in the next election. We're happy to have your support. Take my hands off the earth.
Thank you.