The 2026 Winter Mailbag

Hello, welcome back to House of R. I'm Joanna Robinson and that is Mallory Rubin. We are no longer in the same room, but our hearts are in the same place. And we're here today very excitedly to answer your questions. It's a very special House of R mailbag episode. We're getting into all of your questions, actually some of your questions, comments That's a concern. A mere fraction of your questions. Just a tip of the iceberg of your questions right after this. All right, Mel and Rubin, the bad babies just flooded the inbox of the questions this week. It was just an incredible showing from them. Really, really incredible stuff. We will not get to every single question. We wish we could. We'll just do it again in a couple months. We love a mailbag. Oh, yeah. Brilliant. Why not? We're saving them all. I just hid some rows in our spreadsheet. I didn't delete a single thing. So, yeah. They're still here waiting for us should we want to return to them. But you guys hit a lot of similar topics, and we'll be getting close to a lot of your questions here today. Before we get into those questions, said questions, Molly Rubin, I don't want to jinx us coming up later in this week by saying what it is. Yeah. I'm feeling very superstitious about it for some reason. So I'm just going to say, we have an episode later this week that I'm very excited about. Yeah. That allegedly has a special guest on it that will allegedly prepare us in one way or another for two of our most anticipated movies this year. Do you think that all of that's accurate? And that will also continue, resume, revive, resuscitate a series. Triangulate those clues as you wish. should have been. Here's the thing. Here's the problem with what we have done. In order to avoid a Paul of Fame situation where we say specifically we're doing something and then we don't, we have definitely implied to the Bad Babies that we're doing the Paul of Fame. That's what everybody's going to think. And that's not what it is. Is that what that sounds like? That's my worry. That's my worry. It's not the Paul of Fame. No, it's not the Paul of Fame. We're going to do the Paul of Fame when Dune Part 3 comes out. Maybe. Allegedly. Probably. It's not a ball of fame. This next podcast, it will be set in space, though. You know? So that also is a clue that could make it sound like it's a ball of fame. Yep. Timothee Chalamet is involved. He is. That actually is a good clue that I think really will allow people to zero in. Yeah. Okay. Great. There we did it. We did it together. What else is on the horizon for us in front of that? we'll figure it out as we go. We've got some ideas. We've got some clues. But Project Hail Mary is coming up around the corner. We've got a lot of prep we want to do for that pod. Can't wait. We've got a lot of questions about that particular story. That's sort of like really crowding the halls of my mind right now is my anticipation for everyone to see Project Hail Mary. Mallory Rubin, how can folks keep track of what may or may not be coming on the feed later this week let alone in the future weeks? Here's what I would recommend. And whether or not you're able to, to say for our clues, our programming clues, is follow the pod. Follow House of R on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You can watch video episodes of House of R in the Spotify app. Incredible stuff. We're here. One of us is here in our beautiful new studio, but we're both here in spirit. We were here together last week. We will be here again together soon. And you can watch our pod. So do that. You can also watch House of R on the Ringerverse YouTube channel, where you can also, of course, see full video episodes of the Midnight Boys. Pew, pew. Pew, pew. While you're at it, follow the Ringerverse on the social media platform if you're choosing. Now more than ever, I'm not here to tell you what that is. But wherever you want to be, we'll be there with you. And obviously, it's a mailbag, so you know this already. But the inbox, it remains open. Hobbitsanddragons at gmail.com. Keep the emails coming. Let us know what you think of Project Hail Mary when you get to watch it. Are you checking out Daredevil Season 2? uh mall shadow lord is coming in april the boys you know are you already just looking ahead to the odyssey perhaps keep those emails coming are we looking ahead to the odyssey we are later this week possibly in a way in a way in his own way okay so listen um y'all sent us a lot of great emails y'all look at you you all wow you all everybody sent us a lot Did I tell you that? I was at a play in LA last week. And there were not... Anyway, there just happened to be a lot of famos there. And Hurley himself from Lost, Jorge Garcia, walked past me. And my friend, we didn't even make eye contact. We didn't even say anything. She's just like, oh, you're in heaven right now. I'm like, I am, man. Hurley's here. So exciting. I was just in his proximity. I didn't talk to him at all. But what a proximity to be in, to just soak up his aura and his essence. Oh, my God. No one has better vibes than he. All right. Should we just start answering some of these questions? Yeah. A quick little seasonal mailbag. We love a zippy bag. Tight little bag. Phrasing. Tight little bag. All right. I want to start with the question that we got the most emails about. And I should say we got emails about this even before the mailbag. prompt we got emails about this related to the finale yes i personally am so unenamored of this theory that i did not bring it up on the finale pod but okay the the people have been champing at the bit for us to talk about it so we should at least talk about it yeah which is many many folks are asking yeah if in the television series and i have the seven kingdoms and the novellas yes If Dunk is unwilling to knight Raymond Foss away because he himself is not a knight, is it possible that Sir Arlen Pantry did not knight Dunk because Sir Arlen himself was never a knight? Yeah. A lot of people are asking this question. Yes. You said that folks in your own right day in life are texting you. My friends are texting. I'm in a group chat that's been popping off the last few days about this. And I was almost going to say like, hey, a couple of my friends sent me up about this. Should we consider it for the mailbag? And then got into the spreadsheet and just said several for the same question. Many, many people are asking. This is a very, currently very popular theory. Tell me your thoughts about it. So I am open to this. I don't feel strongly one way or another. The thing that would incline me to receive this warmly, if it winds up being true that Arlen himself was never properly knighted, is basically what you already said. Thematically, that parallel is interesting to me, that we have seen Dunk reluctant to knight Raymond, to knight somebody else if he does not believe that he would then basically be properly knighting somebody. Like, that there's a, if not morally, if not in terms of his ability to live by honor, and he is, like, this pure knight, right, that there would be, like, a taint in the pipeline there. The line. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? And so if Dunk is reluctant, and maybe, because we talked about this in our Knight of the Seven Kingdoms pods, like, and Dunk asks this, Dunk voicing the question, like, why did you never knight me, gives it a little bit more oomph, I think, as something that is at least, like, an interesting theory corner. Hold him loosely, as Joe always likes to say. But it's at least an interesting, like, prompt, I think, for theorizing. Maybe that's why Arlen was reluctant to actually knight Dunk, like a similar hesitancy because he was not himself properly knighted. I definitely don't need that to be true. I had frankly, like, not considered it as a possibility before all of this theorizing started popping up over the last few days and weeks, as you noted. But I do think thematically that parallel is like a shared tie between Arlen and Dunk would be interesting. And certainly on the thematic front, the idea that Arlen, if he had not been formally properly knighted previously, that it didn't matter, just as it doesn't matter for Dunk, that he chose to live like a true knight, right? A knight who remembered his vows. I think that that parallel is interesting to me. I think you could swing it the other way and say that there's a risk maybe of diluting then some of the potency of where we are with Dunk. Very, that's the very word I was going to use. Tell me. To me, it dilutes Dunk's story to be like, it's just a copy paste of what happened with Sir Arlen. And like, though I really value this idea of like Sir Arlen's hedge knight philosophy passed down to Dunk is the true essence of knighthood. And you don't need an official ceremony to be a true knight. You just need to remember your vows, as you said. And the hedge knight's way is the true way because you're not beholden to various lord. You're beholden to your own moral code. All of that is really potent and interesting to me. I think it just diminishes Dunk's experience to be like, this is just what happened before with Arlen. And it feels to me like one of those theories that feels very exciting to people because they feel like they've caught something out. They've figured something out. And who among us? You know me. I love a I've figured something out theory. I just don't really like it personally. but everyone's allowed to have their theories and there's nothing wrong with it. And it's not one of those theories where I'm like, this is factually implausible. Like it is definitely plausible. It could be true. I just don't happen to like it personally, but, you know, I'll be curious if this makes its way to George and if George has something to say about it or if Iver has something to say about it, you know. But I think I prefer the story if Sarlene was knighted, chose this more vagabond lifestyle for himself and that dunk was never knighted and this is his story and we have some thoughts about which we can't get into in a non-spoiler way and there's no sense in yes ushering a spoiler into a mailbag or anything like that but we have some thoughts about how that story might all play out for dunk in the future um yes and i i like that just being like a really unique i i agree uh sort of story that we're getting i agree that's where i that's I feel about it. Keep the Night of the Seven Kingdoms emails coming. We're not interested in ceasing our discussion of this show. You know, we're a year away from getting season two. We'll talk about it every opportunity we get between now and then. People are despondent that it's over. They're just, like, so bummed. And even though, like, you know, industry had an incredible season finale on Sunday, but I still felt the absence of that, like, Sunday night, you know, Night of the Seven Kingdoms excitement. So, yeah. We got some Thrones news today. We're recording, and this is hot off the presses, so by the time this podcast is published, we could have more information. Probably not worth talking about for more than 30 seconds as a result of that, but there's a movie officially in development, right? Thrones movie. Bo Willimon. Bo. Our guy, Bo. Andor. This is exciting. I mean, or is it? I don't know. Do we want Thrones movies? Do we just want Thrones to remain TV? They have not yet said what this story will be. What it is. That could be announced any time. The big theory going around is that it's an Aegon's Conquest movie because they've talked about that as an idea before. You know, Bo Willimon is worth remembering before he worked on Andor, like more famously was creator of House of Cards or the American version of House of Cards, also a playwright and, you know, et cetera, et cetera. For Bo, Aegon's Conquest is not necessarily what I want from a Bo Willimon movie. I want more palace intrigue. Like, that's what he's very good at. So that's not who I would pick for an Aegon's Conquest movie. But, you know, he's great. And, you know, I'm excited by the prospect of it. But, like, let me know what you think. Yes. Because my first thought also was Aegon's Conquest, since we have most recently heard, you know, that talked about as a film adaptation. we had spent a lot of the Night of the Seven Kingdoms season discussing because it is stitched throughout as a reference point and then of course we glimpse Red Grassfield the first Blackfire Rebellion and talking about okay well when and how will we see that in full now if Night of the Seven Kingdoms is a success which it undeniably is and we have the confidence as a result of that that we will continue on with the story, does it make more sense to give us the context and the backdrop of the first Blackfire Rebellion as a tandem timeline in terms of how we are receiving it? Film, rather than saying, when are we going to ever get the Blackfire show? And then in the TV landscape, we are just constantly weaving in and out of timelines. We started here with Game of Thrones. If you want to know what I mean by here, you got to watch the video podcast because my hand is just in the air. I'm just doing some Joanna Robinson TM, arm map TM work right here. We start with Game of Thrones. Then we go to House of the Dragon, right? Then we have A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. Then we're going to go to Aegon's Conquest. What if we just stayed right here for a minute and did Blackfyre 13 years before A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms? I think that's so smart. And that's a spectacle of film plus palace intrigue, to your point. Once we cast, like, Blood Raven and, you know, and then we could have, like, if we cast someone exciting for, like, Bittersteel or, you know, any of the other players, same in Blackfire, you know, to have the consistency of, like, this is who we see in the flashback. But we've cast someone kind of juicy because we cast them also in the film. So they have a whole film. You know, we're able to, like, cast someone kind of, you know, I'm not saying it's Henry Cavill, but, like, we're able to cast someone, like, quite. Yeah, a movie star. But like Henry, you know, they get a movie and then they'll show up and do the flashbacks for Night of the Seven Kingdom. I love this. I would be very curious to hear. Here's why I would be surprised. I think it's a great idea. And I think Casey and everyone else at Warner Brothers before that whole place lights on fire should listen to you and pick up that idea. I think the reason I'm slightly skeptical of it is like, I think this is the kind of idea they would have once they see how well and I, the seven kingdoms was received as back half. And for the Bo Williman news to reach us, it feels too soon, too close to, you know what I mean? Like they have to have been in conversation with him for a while before it hits the wrap.com today, you know? So that's why I'm skeptical about it. But I think your idea is better and right. And they should just pivot to doing that. So I think. I love it. Great. We've agreed. We've solved it. Great. We fix it. We fix it. All right. Speaking of source text, we got several book questions that I'm going to try to mash into sort of like one book section here. Because the bad babies are constantly looking for reading recommendations, et cetera, et cetera. As we tease, I want to start here. As we teased on the previous podcast when we said we were doing this mailbag episode, you have now read and finished The Will of the Many, James Islington's book. The Strength of the Few is a sequel that is out that you have not, I believe, started yet. But you have your eyes on it. so without maybe and then we got a ton of emails ton of emails from Bad Babies who said they have read The Will of the Many in the last year or both books in the last year because we've been sort of talking around it on the pod our pals at Cram wrote in to the pod about it like all this sort of stuff like that so tell me what you thought of The Will of the Many I know you liked it but tell me your thoughts about it but maybe without spoiling all the details of it for folks who who want to still read it for themselves yes i'm i'm reluctant to say too much because uh one of the things i enjoyed about it the most is that there are quite a few surprises along the way and i found that aspect of the reading experience to be quite energizing there are a number of moments where i was like something has happened that i did not expect and that's exciting um i so you had recommended the book to me cram had recommended it usually if one of you recommends something i know it's going to be good when both of you do i know what's a guaranteed banger, right? So that was exciting. Listen, it's been a minor controversy in my life. I read this as a part of a side book club. You know about my prime book club. Yeah, I know. I know. I know. I know. I think my first question is, why am I not in your other book club? You can be in both of them. Okay. Okay. So I have a now long running since like year one of COVID remote Zoom book club with my my best pals, my college pals, my Syracuse pals. We call it Pulp because it is both an orange pun and paper and also palsy and ladies in literary pleasure. I have to say, yeah, I was wondering why you read The Will of the Many. Usually when you tell me you read a book, it's because either it's for work or it's for your book club because you're very, very busy with a lot going on. And so when you're like, I read The Will of the Many, I was like man well she she finally got so excited by one of my book recs yeah it's not it's not exactly figuring out like how to because the the the pulp book club schedule and then just rereading or reading things for work those are kind of the primary you know that's a lot across the year and then i look for spots where i can just either sometimes one of my pals in the primary book club and pulp will do like a little a little um we call it squad battle after reading fourth wing and that's probably not what it's called. I can't even remember. My brain is like mush. But Fourth Wing, it feels like 800 years ago that I read that, even though it was like two years ago. And so every now and then I look for an opportunity to read something else. And a couple of my good pals, both of whom listen to this podcast, they love books. And we talk about books a lot. And there was an exciting moment where we thought, what if we read a book or two together? and I threw out the will of the many with them, with Steve and Drew, because one of my other friends in the Prime Book Club had already read it and had talked to us about it. And so I considered it ineligible for that book club because Taylor had already read it. I felt it was important to tell the book club that I was going to be doing this. Yeah, cheating on them. And I was mercilessly annihilated by my closest friends in the world because, this will surprise nobody to hear, including you, I had previously, I had some strong feedback for Katie, one of my other dear friends, when she went on a side book club journey. And so, you know. It sounds familiar. Yeah. This just fits all. Anyway. Anyway. Had a great time reading The Will of the Many. I had a great time reading it and discussing it last week at dinner with Steve and Drew. And we will be continuing our side book club. We will be. So I'll have to figure out how to navigate it all. They're huge readers and big fans of genre storytelling in particular. And so it's a very exciting thing. The Everlasting, which you'll talk about more, I think, in a few minutes, I had picked. We alternate in pulp. It's five of us. we take turns picking and then every now and then if there's consensus, we do a group pick. And so whenever last thing was announced, I said, I'm going to pick that as one of my picks in the future. I have not gotten to it because it's not my turn yet, but it's coming up very soon. Anyway, well, the many you and Cram had recommended it. My pal Taylor said it was fantastic. I knew I would like it. I thought it was really, uh, conceptually riveting. Like the, the idea, the world building, the world building, the magic systems. Yeah. These like the kind of like Greco Roman setting. Um, But the magic systems you had my I was trying to remember when you told me about it in the first place. And I don't this might be apocryphal. Not sure if I've mentioned in the last 10 minutes that my brain is mush. But my memories that you told me about it and or when we were talking about systems and oppressive regimes and also like the idea of rebelling against that kind of oppressive power. but also when there's some aspect of, like, complicity in society. That was my memory of how you had first talked to me about it. So I was very intrigued by the concept, and I think I'm really interested to see where it goes moving forward. Pacing-wise, because it's a really long book, and it moves without spoiling the specifics in and out of different settings, like locations, and thus contextual character sets. And so some of those stretches I just enjoyed more than others. And, like, you know, I love a magic school, so that was all very fun. And this is a really interesting main character who is very, very good at everything. And that's like one of my my few notes is that he's a Mary Sue. This is a Mary Sue. So that just that saps a tiny, tiny, tiny bit of dramatic tension for me because I'm always confident he's going to find a way to solve whatever the conundrum of the moment is. that said again i think just the the kind of lay of the land was um really philosophically stimulating and i think is a it's a good time for people to read a book like this i'm really interested to see narratively based on how the first book ends which i won't spoil um like structurally where that takes in the future and also there's a a wolf pal which is just you know extremely my shit i will so i will say for your you when you finish you sort of like floated a guess about like what the structure of the second book would be and i don't i mean it's just the structure of the book so i don't think it's a spoiler to say that guess is pretty accurate and as a result and again i'm trying to be as vague as possible i would say some of the side characters get a shorter shrift in the second book in a way that like um made it less of a success for me and and kram zach cram agreed with me jacobi agreed with me like everyone who's read strength of few is like it's not as good as the will of the many but it's still like quite good and I'm invested and curious to see where it goes next. I believe the reason I got into The Will of the Many in the first place is because when I was a more active participant in Ring of the Verse Recommends, I was trying to do a new book every single month and I was just really tracking what was popping on the fantasy book subreddit, which is an excellent place to track what's new, what people are excited about, etc. So that's how I got into that book in the first place. That was one of my Ring of the Verse Recommends books. and I've been really excited to see how adoration for this book has grown and again, especially hearing from all the bad babies we had a lot of listeners say they picked it up because we had sort of talked around it or about it on the podcast, that's really exciting I will put the full push of my support also behind Alex Harrow's book Everlasting, which Mallory said she's going to be reading in the future in her Pulp Book Club because I just think it's like one of the best we talked about in the Valentine's Day episode but I just think it's one of the best books I've read in a really really long time you know for fans of if you're one of the people who listen to our podcast mostly when we're talking about Game of Thrones like this is so Thrones coded but it's a time travel time you and me really wrap your head in knots kind of time travel story which I love like a puzzle so you're trying to follow the trails and the ripples of the impact of what time travel can do. In that way, it reminded me a bit of To Say Nothing of the Dog, a Connie Willis book that I really love. But this lady knight and this sort of like weedy historian and their sort of adventures through time and dragons and, you know, villainous queens and all these other things together and sort of like what makes a legend, what makes a story, what makes a good story. it's got all this like meat on the bone that I can't wait to hear your thoughts on it when you when you get there I'm really excited I can't remember if it's my pick next or if I'm two away but it'll be something I read this spring for sure I also know that we both read Catabasus which was like a book we had talked about being excited about yes we haven't really got into it in detail but we both read it and loved it anything you want to say specifically about uh, Katavis is. That was my last pick for the pulp book club, in fact. Uh, and I, I thought it was a strong pick for book club. Cause it's a really fun one, not only to read, but to discuss. I thought I had a blast reading this. I mean, the, you know, we were so excited. I remember when we first saw kind of like the blurb, the log line for it. And this idea of, um, this, this mashup of magic school, fantasy, dark academia with like mythology and the let the, we love world mythology nerds. So like we, that incorporation was so interesting. Um, I, again, this is one that I am very reluctant to get into particular songs. I don't want to spoil it for people, but I will say reading it in real time, the layers of exploration and questing, the, the different aspects of hell that we journey into with our characters. I just thought like, I just, I could have read 4,000 pages of that stuff. Like actually when we get some of the deeper layers and we don't get to actually explored as much detail. I was like, no, I just love this shit. I want more of it. I thought that was great. I loved the way that we moved in and out of the present timeline. And when we were presented with some insights into past events, whether or not you have any relationship to pursuing these advanced degrees and the specific aspects of the really like cutthroat realm of that level of academic pursuits. I think there's something, like, very relatable for us and people like us in a character like Alice. And, you know, this idea. I'm in this picture and I don't like it. One of those moments. Yeah, there's a lot of that. But this idea of, like, really, you know, where do you, what do you do and where do you go? where do you allow yourself to go if you were trying to be the best at something was like it was a fascinating portrait of that the thing that like stuck with me and really going to be careful here because i think this is the most likely to inadvertently be a spoiler so i'll speak in kind of vague terms the thing that stuck with me the most it has stuck with me the most in the subsequent months since i read it in a way that i really appreciate because this is something that we talk about a lot and I really enjoy when a story, um, not just asks or invites us, but like requires us to think about this. Not assuming that you know what somebody else is going through. Like that a really big part of this story And I think it explores that in a pretty expert way Yeah exactly Yeah I agree And we so you know we got two two main characters who are traveling through various circles of hell together to sort of rival PhD candidates and in pursuit of their advisor who has you know passed over and they need their letters of recommendation. That's like the premise. Their relationships, the various layers of mythology, all the things that you talked about is there. When we get into peeling back the onion, the layer of the onion, I would say on Alice more specifically, but on both of them, that's sort of like you never know what someone's going through. We're in Alice's POV for most of it and then we get some more information. But even though we're inside of her POV, Rebecca, the author has done, I think, a really good job of hiding the ball on certain things for like, you know, pacing what it's hard to do that when you're inside someone's head to then hide from the reader sort of aspects of that person because they already know everything. And so it's about going through hell and having to confront and peel back the layers of your own onion as you go through this like sort of journey. But like, I will never forget, I was cleaning my kitchen. I think I was like literally on the floor cleaning like the floor of my kitchen when I was listening to the chapters of this book that take it from like good to masterpiece level in my opinion. And I just was like, I was just stunned. So like, I think if you pick up this book and you're like, this is a pretty good like adventure through hell, you know, I've read his dark materials. I know, you know, like I get it. And then I would say I think there's a much greater depth in the story coming that for me will stick with me forever because it's a very complicated portrait of very complicated power dynamics and a very complicated portrait of a young woman inside of a punishing environment. And it doesn't make excuses. And it just presents just like, I think, an extremely complicated portrait of someone. And the way in which Rebecca has talked about this book and the way in which, like, she's a bit of a self-insert character for Alice. And so, like, what is she examining about her? I don't want to make presumptions about her own life, but, like, how personal is this is intriguing to me. The qualities in Peter that are parallel to her husband and all this sort of stuff like that. I just, like, I think she did an incredible job with this. So I loved the fantasy. I could have, I'm with you. I could have taken like even more mythological sort of like fantasy moments inside of the, we kind of abandoned that a bit at the end. But in terms of like where it decided, the depth it decides to plumb, I thought it was really extraordinary. So that would be my review of that book. And then just sort of like, are there any books coming out in 2026 that you're, whether you plan to book club them or not that you're excited about? I want to hear your 2026. because I am excited as I always am not to, this is not necessarily a house of our affair, but you know, there's a new George Saunders. So that's always an event. Again, shout out Syracuse now and always. I, this, this came out at the end of last year. This came out, actually, I don't know when in 2020, this is a 2025 book and it's not a genre book. So it's not a house of our book, but I literally finished this at 1am last night and have to mention it because I, it's just mere hours ago since I finished reading. I tore through this book in just a couple days. I couldn't put it down. This is my friend Suzanne picked this for book club. The Correspondent, Virginia Evans, which was on like a lot of the best of the year last year. I thought this was really wonderful and like very affecting. First of all, it's like formally quite interesting. It's as the title, the Correspondent might indicate it is written through a series of letters. And I really like when a novel plays with form like that. It also just makes it so propulsive because each, like, chapter is a couple pages, and then you're like, well, oh, I just have this one, and that next one will take me three minutes, and then before you know it, it's 3 a.m., and you've been reading for hours. the protagonist Sybil is like a just instantly indelible character to me and I thought without getting into any of the particulars that this was a really profound and poignant and I think I was shocked to learn after finishing it that this was Virginia Evans' first book that this is her debut novel because it has a wisdom to me of like a fully lived life and uh i thought that it was incredibly incredibly got wrenching and like full of sorrow but also just drenched in hope and possibility i really thought it was lovely it's quite short uh i would recommend it again not a not a sci-fi or fantasy tale um but really thought it was wonderful and i think i'll be i'll be thinking i was texting my friends i'm like i already finished this can we We have book club up like two weeks. They're like, none of us have started. Chill. But that was excellent. That was great. And I can't remember if I mentioned this on the last mailbag we did when we were talking about some some books. I honestly can't recall if if I mentioned this when we when we lasted some. But I read Orbital pretty recently and the Samantha Harvey 2024 Booker winner. I was dynamite. Gorgeous. The prose in that book, maybe not for everybody in terms of the, again, kind of structurally interesting playing with form a bit in terms of your ability to, like, immerse in the character. This was one of the most beautifully written sci-fi books that I have read in some time. The language is just stunning. Joe, is there a new Court of Thorns and Roses book coming out? I saw stuff on Instagram like, oh, there was a photo of a notebook with a clue. And it's like, are we getting book six? Maybe six and seven. Is that a thing? Is that like actually happening this year? Is it more of a whisper for a future time? So I think the like, you know, is a new Taylor Swift album dropping sort of obsesses or in the mix here. But there has been a clue. So Alice Cooper teased that she's going to have Sarah J Maas on the Color Daddy podcast. she teased that like yesterday I think and so they think it's going to be announced on that podcast perhaps the release date but it's probably going to be this year I think the manuscript has allegedly been done since like the beginning of last year so they've been like in edits they haven't announced a release date the last ACOTAR book came out in 2021 so this would be like a huge deal if we got number six here this year because she has other series you know, Creston City and like other things that she works on but But, yeah, so we might know as soon as, like, next time we record, we might know when a new ACOTAR book is coming out. But, number six. Sounds like it's about to be time to break the whiteboards back out. That's what I'm hearing. Exciting. I mean, we're getting another important book at any point, so. In terms of what I'm, like, what I know is coming and I'm very excited about. Yes. My number one, without question, I like squealed when I saw the book trailer on Instagram, is Leigh Bardugo's third Alex Stern book, Deadbeat. So that's Ninth House and Hellbent were the first two. And Hellbent, by the way, if you're like, oh, academics go to hell to rescue someone. Hellbent did it before Cataposus. That's okay. Ninth House is one of my, I love Ninth House and Hellbent so much. And Alex Stern, the main character of this series, plays a young woman who can see dead people, who is very, like, magically inclined, has had a kind of quite traumatic life due to that, of course. But is, like, sort of drafted into this, like, secret cabal of magic at Yale. It reminds me a lot. I think we talked about it maybe. It reminds me a lot of the Demon Lizard Patriarchy episode of Buffy. This sort of like how the how the rich, the skull and crossbones is what it's called, skull and bones. Secret society at Yale. It's like, what if that were like magic and we were like sacrificing people in order to like beat the stock market or whatever. So this like really cool system of like magic and secret societies in Yale. And then Alex Stern is this sort of like not to the manner born interloper inside of this world. But she's drafted in because her her magical skills are so potent. And then Darlington is the name of like her sort of like advisor kind of character. And he's like, it's just very exciting. Like the fact that we're getting a third book, I am like so excited about. But I really recommend Ninth House and Hellbent. Absolutely incredible books. And I'm really excited for Deadbeat. That's coming out later this year. Another series that's getting a third this year is the Robert Jackson Bennett series. Tainted Cup was the first one, which I talked about a lot. When it came out, Drop of Corruption came out this last year. And then A Trade of Blood is the third one. And these are like a very sort of like very magical Holmes and Watson-esque mystery novels, but set in this fantastical world. And I just I love these books. I think the world building is incredible. I think the characters are so fun. And I'm just I'm really, really, really excited that like two of my favorite series are getting thirds and saltments this year is like very, very exciting for me. Emily St. John Mandel, who we love, Station Eleven, has a book exit party coming out this year. And I just want to read the description to you. Set in 2031, where America is at war with itself. Who knew? But the Republic of California has been signed into existence. And in Los Angeles, the curfew has been lifted. And, quote, tonight, everyone is going to party. The synopsis continues. Ari, recently out of prison, and her friend Gloria find themselves amid these celebrations as a new age dawns. But there are people at this particular party who shouldn't be here. Something is very wrong. So, like, Emily St. John Mandel's established track record of being able to write about, you know, dystopian futures and how human psychology plays into that. This idea of, like, the danger inside of a celebration. I don't know. All of that is just, like, really, really pinging something to me. I'm excited for that one. Yeah. Also, I know that, I think Cram has been trying to get us to read the Fondali books. Yeah. And I have not yet done that. But The Last Contract of Isako, which is Fondali's new book that's coming out this year, people are really, really excited about that one. So that's on my list to get into Fondali. And then in terms of, like, adaptations that are coming, you know, Dune Messiah and The Magician's Nephew and, you know, The Book of Magic, Practical Magic 2, we all talked about on our hype draft. So, like, you know, book adaptations, we're very excited about Project Hail Mary, obviously. Sunrise on the Reaping, I'm actually kind of excited about that. I was, like, mixed pods on Songbirds and Snakes. but Sunrise on the Reaping Everyone, which is like the Haymitch prequel, people have been responding really positively. People in my life have been responding really positively to that book and are very excited about this movie. So I'm interested. Maybe just when I get back into Hunger Games. It's been a minute. One of my favorite memories 100 years ago, back when we lived in New York, before we even moved to LA. I read the Hunger Games. I really liked all of the books. I recommended them to Adam. He was a pain in the ass about it, as always. And then, so every now and then, he'll, like, surprise me by revealing in some way that he has read something that I had been asking him to read. I was, like, at, like, a midnight release for a movie. I got home really late for something. It was, like, 3 a.m. And this, again, this was when we lived in New York, so I was young. I had energy. I would say I was a woman about town, but that's not true. I probably went out, like, 12 total times in the five and a half years I lived there, but this was one of them. your joints didn't make that disturbing cracking noise that they make now? They've always done that. They've always done that. And I was, I can't remember what I asked him, but I was like, you know, hi, or I'm home, or something. And I asked him some question, and whatever I said allowed his response to be, there is no District 12. And I can't. And that's how he revealed that he had. Yeah, and he was like, oh, yeah. Because I really, in particular, liked catching fire, so that was very exciting. Oh, that's so fun. Okay, maybe this is, maybe you guys... Catching Fire is so good. That was great. I mean, I gotta say, like, Battle of the Longbirds and Snakes, as much as I made fun of, like, the title of that movie, like, I didn't hate that movie. I actually, like, kind of liked it. I haven't seen it. I'm gonna catch up. I'm gonna catch up. I'm ready. And the cast, the cast for, you know, your beloved Ray Fiennes is here. Like, the cast for Sunrise on the Reaping is incredibly good, so I'm excited. He's never made one misstep in, and let me tell you, I finally watched Bone Temple over the weekend. Oh. Historic stuff from our guy, Ralph Fiennes. Historic. Excellent. For a musical enthusiast such as yourself and a dance enthusiast such as yourself, it is art of the highest order, genuinely. Excellent. He's the best. On the adaptation front, I have obviously no ability to comment on this, but on the Brando Sander front, What did you make of the Apple TV news that, like, is that exciting to you as a whole? I essentially didn't include any questions about that from our listeners. We did get a lot of questions about that because, like, I'm embarrassed to say I have not read the Cosmere. I, like, started and not finished the first book in one of his many, many series. Yeah, because you had begun your Brando Sando journey recently, and I have still, I have not. Well, I read Trust of the NLC, and I really liked it, and I read the Nightmare Pain. I read a couple of the sort of more standalones, and then I really tried to get into one of the big series, and I flamed out a little bit, and I feel embarrassed by it. So I'm not allowed to have any opinions about Cosmere. But I'm excited for people that it's happening, and I hope it turns out to be more impactful than – and I'm not shitting on Wheel of Time. I just know that it – I don't think it landed exactly the way that – I think a lot of people really loved it. I think a lot of people were really excited by it, but I don't think it became like, you know, the Thrones level or even I would say Rings of Power level sort of adaptation project that people who are fans of the Robert Jordan books were hoping it would be. So I hope that whatever happens with this Cosmere adaptation, it is everything the Brando Sandov fans wanted to be. Okay. this next question comes from jordan that was like a mashup of like nine different book questions so you know thank you to everyone who sent their book questions this next question comes from jordan who says i'm about to re-watch two of my all-time favorites the expanse and black sales these are some of my all-time favorite moments in media especially toby steven's speeches and black sales what is an underrated show or performance that does not get talked about enough where you just think to yourself, okay, that is good. That is what I'm talking about. So, yeah, Mallory, this is a chance. I mean, I struggle with this question a little bit because what stone have we left unturned in terms of us trying to highlight? I almost texted you this morning and said, like, should we not do this? Because I don't know how to answer this in a way we haven't already. But then I was – I found myself glad we had it. I have a few faves that I don't think I've talked about a lot. I'm leaning into the I have been paralyzed by debilitating regret about not having mentioned a couple things as much as I wanted to or at all in the Best of the Century So Far series. And I was going to use that as an opportunity to rectify that. But hit us with what you have. Tell us. Did you stick with TV shows? I will echo that in terms of The Expanse, which is a show that I flamed out on, though a lot of people love. But I love the first season I love. and then a bit into the second season. But when it was like space noir, like that's what I really loved. And then it sort of moved out of that into more just sort of like space politics, which is like still very interesting to a lot of people, but it like moved away from what I loved. And so I kind of bailed out on it. But I do think that like season one of The Expanse and into season two is like really top tier space stuff. Ashes to Ashes is a show I don't talk about a lot, but it's from the early aughts. It's a UK show. It was a sequel to Life on Mars, which was a UK show that was made into a terrible American show. But Ashes to Ashes, basically both, the premise of both Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes, both named after David Bowie songs, is that like a cop in modern day gets shot, injured somehow, put into a coma that may or may not also be time travel. And so they're sent back in time. And so in Life on Mars, Johnson's characters sent back in time to the 70s and Ashes to Ashes, Keighley Haw's characters sent back in time to the 80s. And but you have the same characters that were in the 70s world are now in the 80s world. And I just loved Ashes to Ashes. Both of those shows, you know, Ashes to Ashes more like fall apart a little bit as you as you go forward. It gets a little like as they're trying to land their premise gets a little like whatever. But it counts because it's time travel question mark or is it not? We're not sure. But sort of this like fish out of water, especially like this like 2000s lady cop inside of the world of like 80s, you know, sexism and stuff like that. um philip glenister who plays the gov the head of the of the department in both uh series is just like one of my all-time favorite uh performances of anything ever so ashes ashes i never talk about um the magicians we have talked about legion we have talked about but like those are both worth worth another mention always though both of those just like aren't as seen as they're as they deserve to be yeah uh first couple seasons of penny dreadful i would also sort of put on the list. Yeah, absolutely. That's really lost the time, but that show was quite assured in its sense of self in a way I really admire. And some just great performances, including from our shared wife, David Green, just one of the most beautiful people who's ever. David Green, incredible. Yeah, really, really good shit. The Green Knight, Dev Patel. Dev Patel has been getting a lot of, you know, you and I love Dev Patel. We spent an entire South by getting really excited for a movie that wasn't very good, but we were excited to be in the presence of Dev. But Dev has been getting a lot of play on my Instagram reels lately because a lot of people really wanted him as Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights. And I gotta say, thinking about Wuthering Heights with Dev Patel in it is just like, what a what if. But anyway, The Green Knight, I thought, deserved way more love than it got. David Lowery's incredible, visually incredible like sort of psychedelic exploration of a great authorian tale, which I really love. I want to, I want to say this is not going to be impressive to you, but I was so proud. So Ralph Edison, who plays the green knight in, in that and shows up in a ton of fantasy things. I was talking to Rob and Kai after we like went to go see a screening or something. And we were just like out on the street, having like a curbside conversation. And we were talking about Ralph Edison. and one of them was like, oh, wasn't he in Game of Thrones? And I was like, oh yeah, Dagmar Clefjah. And they just looked at me and they were like, I'm sorry, who? And I was like, Dagmar Clefjah, obviously. And I just felt so like, I'm in the wrong conversation. I feel like if I were talking to you, you'd be like, yeah, of course. Some wonderful, really wonderful armor design on the Iron Islanders in that stretch of Game of Thrones in season two. Very memorable. Very memorable. Last, let me wrap up. I talk about The Fall a lot, the Lee Pace film. I love that. But just, again, one of the most visually exquisite things. A 4K disc that I own that I love, but occasionally gets released out into theaters. So if you can go see it on the big screen. I saw it at the Alamo in San Francisco a couple years ago. It was just like such a lush, incredible experience. Steve Allman's favorite, right? He loves that movie. He does love The Fall. Dead Like Me, we talked about Pushing Daisies, but Dead Like Me was an incredible Brian Fuller show before Pushing Daisies that I really love. Mandy Patinkin's so good. There's some incredible scenes with Mandy and the Waffle House that they would meet up in and Cal and Blue. I really love that show. And then last but not least, I think on my list, this is Diana. My best friend Diana suggested a Star Trek Voyager, which is like not when we talk about a lot, but she said specifically the doctor in Seven of Nine. Seven of Nine is Jerry Ryan's character who's a who's a Borg. And basically, Diana's point, and it's a really good one, is that Jerry Ryan was hired to be like the tits and ass on that show. Like, you know, they're like an extremely hot woman that they put in like, you know, a skin tight bodysuit. And they're just like, is she not hot? And you're like, yeah, but but she's so good that they then gave her like the best storyline because it's this exploration of the Borg and humanity and individualism and the bliss of the collective and all this sort of just like really complicated Star Trek stuff that you can get into. But just like, I love that Jerry Ryan showed up, knew she was eye candy, was so good at her job that they're like, oh, you could do so much more. It's like we talked about this a lot with Battlestar Galactica. Yes. When the character of Capgris 6 was supposed to be just sort of like eye candy, but then like that performance was so good by Tricia Helfer that they turned that into like something quite extraordinary. So, yeah, that would be my list of, like, things that I don't talk a lot about, but still have a cozy corner in my heart. We definitely had some overlap, Dead Like Me, Legion, Penny Dreadful, The Fall. I mostly just wanted to use this as an opportunity to, like, formally apologize to myself and everyone I've let down. And for, I really can't believe I haven't had a Fringe entry on Best of the Century so far yet, because it is a show that I love. And I think it fits both aspects of the prompt here with, like, the property itself, but then also the performances inside of it. Because I think Anna Torv in Fringe as Olivia is just, it's such an- Anfa Olivia? Quite, quite right. Right. And it's just such a especially like, you know, you're sharing all of these scenes and some just an amazing as it always is. John Noble performance as Dr. Bishop. And of course, Joshua Jackson is here as his son, Peter Bishop. The blend of like energies and degrees that the three of them are bringing in all of their scenes. You know, Lance Reddick is wonderful in this show. Leonard Nimoy was in Fringe, which was a really fun thing to share with Adam because he's like his. Adam is a Trekkie like you and like literally has just, you know, all time favorite. And so that was just super fun. There's like great Blair Brown performance. But I feel like Fringe, while really entrenched as a beloved cult classic, is a little lost to the sands of time. and, like, you know, existed in this interesting way as very much, and, you know, this is a bad robot, J.J. Abrams, part of this, like, real era of J.J. Abrams. It is a J.J. Abrams show, but also part of this moment in time where we had a lot of J.J. Abrams pop culture. It, like, lost and aliased and, like, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly, and so, like, those aspects are present, certainly, but there's like such a um a clear debt that fringe owes to uh you know Twilight Zone, X-Files, etc. Right and it has uh a real like procedural so it was on Fox it aired from uh 08 to 13 it's like 100 episodes it's not like the easiest thing to just say I'm gonna go back and watch Fringe like there's a there's a lot of Fringe um five seasons but the procedural aspects of it for like a network show of that era really fun as the mythology started to deepen and it became this like really entrenched characters on an arc serialized story it moved into a different tier and i think probably a lot of people didn't make it to that point in the show and i think it's really worth um you know like if you're into a lot of the stuff that we cover here you know the kind of like um uh paranormal sci-fi fantasy like alternate worlds aspects um alternate timelines alternate versions of yourself etc that's all there it's very weird like unapologetically weird and i think it is quite funny but also very intense and it's really driven by like inward character motivations that reveal themselves over time and like there's a great slow burn romance in that is still, again, a shock to me that it didn't make our recent Valentine's Day episode. There's a great father-son relationship. It's just really, it's a show I love and I miss, and I'm long, long, long overdue for a rewatch, so it felt like an opportunity here to rectify my recent wrong of not toasting it on Best of the Century so far and toasting it here. And then this one is completely predictable, but if I didn't mention Dark while we got this question, it would be just absurd. It would be a farce. I told myself I wasn't allowed to mention Dark, but, you know. This question of exists to talk about dark and celebrate dark i mentioned it every chance i get on the pod but like if you've not yet watched dark it's only three seasons german language netflix um time travel mystery show that is one of the most uh fully realized google yeah google anything about it don't honestly don't even look at the cast list because you'll get spoilers there like look at nothing look at nothing other than the thumbnail on your television screen as you click in and then try not to look at like pictures just look at the first episode and then just let it kind of the next episode you know autoplay yeah it does that for you um just a sensational one of the most brilliant this is like the ultimate corkboard you know strings on my my theory tracker show but you don't have to watch it that way you can though and that's very fun uh so check that out if you haven't it's it's the best it's the best and i will co-sign uh you know this this message from jordan i will say um black sails is a phenomenal show that does not get enough love and and the the writing in it is so beautiful um and and toby stevens is incredible this is a uh treasure island sort of like prequel kind of thing and it just like uh yeah i mean it the same creators who did Percy Jackson so there a lot of like DNA crossover there but like it uh it quite underrated and just like yeah some of the most beautiful writing and and speechifying you ever did see um I'm just gonna go to this question you got from Ben about Survivor 50 uh the question I think i believe was i have it hold on uh it is survivor 50 50 winner picks and predictions for who from the season 50 cast gets the white lotus oh yeah cameo this is easy this is easy i have a very quick answer for the white lotus cameo as well but it's sari oh like is it not okay so mike white is on calo calo i don't know so heal so this is survivor 50 just in case you guys don't watch Survivor. This is the 50th season of Survivor. They brought back a lot of faves, some conspicuous absences. There are various reasons for that. A lot of new era players are here, a surprising amount. You can hear Riley McAtee, Mallory Rubin, and Tyson himself from Survivor talk about this on the Pod of Spoken. There's been a lot of great ringer coverage on this. I am by no means a Survivor expert. I am a new recruited by Mallory into the level of Survivor. I did win my Survivor betting pool. A new recruit who won a pool last season. I did win. Season 49 winner. I did win my pool. Season 49. Anyway, I have watched almost every season that these people are represented from. Not every single one, though. There's some new era seasons that I haven't watched. There are some players that are a little bit of a black box to me. I just think that Sari, who is this absolute Survivor legend. A lot of people call her the greatest player to never have won, etc. etc. A member of the Black Widow Brigade which is like, I think, the best fucking thing that's ever happened on Survivor, etc. Like, Saria's here and a lot of people are rooting for her to like, this is her time she's finally going to win sort of thing. I have some like, I believe that Survivor, the producers of Survivor, put their thumb on the scale for various players. They can't control everything inside of a game but in terms of like advantages and other things and like um you know tribe swaps and all these like various things that they can control i do think they put their thumb on the scale for like narratives that they think would you know um would work out and stuff like that and i think they are emotionally invested in sari going as far as she can go on i thought sari was your white lotus camp no she's no she's my white lotus camp i don't know that she's going to win. Okay. But I, but I, but she's my White Lotus cameo. So, so you were, okay. So to go back to you, they have put us, they, there are three different tribes to start with. Yes. More players than usual. Three different tribes. Mike White is on a certain tribe. Yes. He's on the field tribe. What is your answer? So, okay. I was looking back. We'll do our winner picks after White. Mike White and his surprising abs. Yes. Oh my God. He's shredded. That was great. So previously, the White Lotus cameos, Alec obviously is like an actual character. Alec plays Hutch in season one of White Lotus. and Alec played with Mike White on my favorite season, David versus Goliath. Season two, Angelina and Kara. Angelina back now, of course, for season 50, but has already been on White Lotus and the beach scene with Daphne. And then season three, we got Natalie and Carl, and then very quickly a flash of Christian. Christian, my favorite. We'll talk about that when we get to our winner predictions in a minute. I'm sure. So all of the people who have appeared on White Lotus so far, and this of course makes sense we're on David versus Goliath now it's possible I'm missing somebody else who had a cameo from a different season but basically this makes sense they're they played with Mike White that's why they're there uh and there were a lot of Goliaths because that was Mike White's tribe before we got to a David um so I basically I was just like who's on Mike White's tribe to start the season here because I'm not sure he's making it to a or even a tribe swap but I would love to be wrong because I think it's um not only seeing him I think he was just incredibly entertaining as expected in the premiere the three-hour premiere nothing could have shocked me more I well I had a meeting with Riley the next day that just happened to be on the books and I was like was this a known thing apparently it was I had no idea it definitely was but you and I both were like two hours in and we were like how long is this I mean I was thrilled I would watch three hours every week but that was stunning to me a lot um so okay mike white is on uh calo calo the teal tribe with charlie tiff chrissy camilla d coach and jonathan my early pick then would be d because they had the chompers chat you know mike white complimenting the d are those years no great stuff but my dream my dream i just beg the universe to give us this gift is for mike white to make it at least to a tribe swap and to be on a tribe with Q so that Q can be on White Lotus, which I think, frankly, we all deserve. I have to say, like, I don't think we need to be as hemmed in by did Mike White play with them. Maybe not. Because there's all the, like, promo tour and then the, like, parties and stuff like that. So there's plenty of opportunity for him to, like, mix and mingle with players that he didn't, like, actively play with. But I think you're right to narrow it down to that. I just think there's, I just think Ceri, you know, belongs on that. And I think my suspicion is, so like you mentioned Christian, Rick Devins. Yeah. Like this is, this is an incredible alliance that they've already given plenty of screen time to. And in, in this first episode to like, so it would be incredible for them to go the distance together. Like that would be, they're so, I love Christian. they're so charismatic together they're so delightful i am suspicious that yeah and this is based on me watching the like i forget which season it was but when they like brought ozzy and coach back as like the real two heads of dueling tries but like i felt like i could feel their thumb on the scale of that season of trying to keep both ozzy and coach in as long as they could in that season because that was sort of like the whole core storyline of that season so i feel like people like sari and coach and ozzy like they're gonna try to keep those people in as as far as they can in in the game is a suspicion i have i don't think we're gonna be like left with a bunch of like brand new era players yeah towards the end of this game interesting there's a con i i think that's right there's a conflict between maybe what the producers want and how the players will be inclined because... Right, no, but like, as much as the producers can set up challenges where someone, you know, Serene might not flame out so hard on, like, a future challenge or, you know, put an advantage, you know, like, they're on Exile Island or whatever, and there's, like, an advantage waiting. You know what I mean? Like, there are things that they can do to help. They can't completely fix the game, but they can help to keep certain players in the game. So my dearest hope to put a pin in the White Lotus. I think you're right that it could be anyone who's just intermingling as a part of it. Because Mike White even is like, I just didn't want to, I'm here because I didn't want to miss out. I have FOMO and this is like a great party. So while in the past he might have been dictated, his decisions might have been like, did I fuck you and I'm making it up to you by letting you come to like Sicily or where we pals? Maybe now it's just, we were a part of this magical experience together. So for Winter, my dearest hope is that it is Christian because as we've talked about before, I think he is like one of the all time clearly played the best game his season and should have won and didn't injustices in the history of Survivor and I would like to see that rectified I was thrilled as a result of that to see him so centered in the premiere both in terms of this wonderful alliance with Devins and Emily which is like the brain alliance is very exciting to me the genius of figuring out despite their restrictions on the kinds of lenses that you can have to avoid exactly this possibility starting the fire with glasses i'm just like this guy is just riveting to me to watch for that same reason secret kid we got the tugging on the heartstrings for that same reason i obviously am very concerned as you noted rightly i think last week that everybody recognizes what a genius he is and what a a brilliant tactician and strategic mastermind he is and so will he be allowed to linger for long i i don't know um i i riley on the first if you're not listening to the pod has spoken you're not watching the pod spoken get with it right now they're doing double episodes every week uh a traditional breakdown wednesday night waiting for you in your feed and then exit interviews with eliminated players um riley they do predictions every episode for like where they are in the given season who they think he's going to win. Riley kind of compelled me with his Genevieve case, which I think would have been a strong pick regardless. And Genevieve is the kind of new era player who I think has the chance to really, really go far. I think that the Genevieve-Aubrey scene was so conspicuous and strange that it almost makes me think one of them wins. It just was such a bizarre scene. Or there's like a very significant, like the two of them battling it out. But that could be one of the relationships that drives the season. Yeah. The edit is so important to watch. It's harder in a three-hour episode because they have so much more space to sort of like shove various storylines in there. And they were trying to set up like a three-way who will be eliminated tension that was largely manufactured, but that's fine. Yeah. I'm excited. I'm sad. I haven't done my picks yet for my pool. I guess I have until today, I think, to put them in. I have no idea who will win. And I'm usually pretty bad at predicting that this early in the season. And I think I, like many people have a much better feel for it deeper into the game. I don't want to, if anyone is like, I didn't expect you guys to talk about Survivor on this pod. I don't want to hear spoilers. I haven't watched. I won't say what happened in the first episode yet. This is a safe space. However, I will say in a coded way. And if you don't even want to hear this kind of coded thing, just hit fast forward two times. I think Camilla, I was devastated by what happened at the end of the premiere. I won't say what it was to preserve people on the smartphone, but I was devastating. I just love that player. I think Camilla is well positioned as a result of that to go far. I'll just say that. Interesting. Yeah. Well, and meanwhile, I think that hurts Genevieve's game. It does. It does. And I think if Genevieve can recover, that's part of why Riley really compelled me, because I'm like, that alliance immediately fell to tatters. But that's the kind of thing where if you can make it through that, you become a number, You can move with freedom and you have such a strong story at the end. But I mean, who knows? There are so many. 24 players is batshit. I know. It's a lot. I don't even know what to do with that math. Anyway, Survivor 50. We might talk about it more on this podcast. Maybe not. We'll see. Okay. Let's zag and go to Jane Austenland. Okay. So our listener, Jazz, wrote in about the upcoming Pride and Prejudice. Yes. hitting Netflix this year. Asking, do y'all have feelings about Jack Loudon playing Mr. Darcy? Any takes there? Any thoughts of the general dislike of a blonde Mr. Darcy I've been seeing on Twitter, which is sad. Leave my boy alone. Emma Corden is Lizzie ain't my fave, but I ain't mad neither. So, upcoming Pride and Prejudice adaptation. What are your thoughts and feelings on it? I can't wait. I am a Jane Austin obsessive. I took a Jane Austin course in college. Like, I love Jane Austen. I would say I'm pretty rusty. It's been, you know, quite a while since I've revisited the source text, though I did just receive a beautiful new box set from my lovely husband, so I'll dive back in and refresh myself. But I'm like, I'm one of these Jane Austen fans where you could give me 500 Pride and Prejudice adaptations, and you, the world, have, right? Actual adaptations, also things like Bridget Jones's Diary, which is, of course, a modern adaptation. Your favorite, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, exactly. And I'll never tire of it. I'll never tire of getting Pride and Prejudice adaptations or Austin adaptations of any sort. So I'm interested to see this Netflix version of it. In terms of the, I mean, the cast is just in general, I think, great. Like, Olivia Colman is here. What is to complain about? Daryl McCormick as Bingley is quite fun. I like him a lot. I just, as a matter of kind of principle, I don't really understand uh uh dunking on and shredding a casting because of somebody's hair color that seems like not reasonable to me however i will take it beyond that and say just watch a second of anything jack loudon has ever done and you'll feel better it river cartwright on slow horses a show we both love is one of my favorite tv characters and performances in recent memory and i think that he um jack loudon as river has exactly what darcy needs there's that kind of like skeptical, detached, haughty quality, but then such warmth when a relationship develops or you gain access to it. So I think it'll be great. I'm excited. Can't wait. I'm really into Jack Loudon as Mr. Darcy. Emma Corrin has never done something uninteresting, ever. Emma Corrin, the closest comp I can come up with for this is her Lady Charlie's Lover that she did, which was actually she was very good in. So, like, I I'm intrigued by this. I, however, am not a I'm not a huge Joe Wright, Keira Knightley, Matthew McFadden, Pride and Prejudice fan. I prefer the miniseries just because there's way more room for... It's not just like the Colin Firth of it all. It's just like, there's just so much more room for the eccentric side characters, which I think is what makes Jane Austen so special. And so when you get to a film adaptation, There are exceptions like I think the Karen Hines persuasion or the Ang Lee sensibility. There are movie versions that have figured this out. But I think the Joe Wright Pride and Prejudice has a lot going for it. But ultimately focuses it too much on Lizzie and Darcy when I think the whole family dynamic. and I think I do think that like Mrs. Bennett is one of like the all-time great Jane Austen creations so Olivia Colman as Mrs. Bennett like it's extremely exciting so I'm open to see what happens here but I do think in general you're really hard-pressed to capture the magic of a Jane Austen novel inside of a feature-length presentation so we'll see what happens there 2026 Netflix adaptation be able to topple the iconic BBC 95 miniseries featuring Colin Firth in a sodden white shirt. I doubt it, but that's okay. Maybe it'll be great. Maybe it'll be great. You know, maybe there will be like, you know, because like Ronald and Pike is so good as Jane in the Joe Wright version. That's one of my favorite, Bingley's, like that Bingley is so good. Simon Wood I think is that actor's name so you know like there's always going to be you know and Tom Hollander is Mr. Collins like you know incredible stuff so like there's always going to be some things that like really really land in an adaptation to enjoy so unless it's the Dakota Johnson persuasion which was one of the like worst crimes against Jane Austen fandom that I've ever seen my favorite Jane Austen book I think just absolutely shit the bed on that. So anyway, okay. Let's, oh, on the Jennifer Ely front, I will just take us over to, we got a lot of emails about the Vampire List at the upcoming Interview with the Vampire television show. We don't need to linger too long here because I just want to announce officially, I think we've said it a couple times, but not everyone listens to every podcast, so in case you're listening to this podcast, we will be covering the Vampire List at every episode. Is it airing at the same time as House of the Dragon. Yep. Is that going to stop me from doing super long episodes about the Vampire Listat? Nope. That just means it's peak peak House of R's and peak Joe's season. We get kind of like, I get kind of buoyed. Like when we did Rings of Power and House of the Dragon at the same time, you're just sort of like running on adrenaline and it's like very, very good. I will say, so in terms of like the promo that's come out for the Vampire Listat, season three of Interview with the Vampire, essentially, they've released a couple teaser trailers IGN Fan Fest had like a whole scene which was fucking incredible about Lisette finding out about the book and going to a Montreal bookstore and like losing his shit as he's listening to these booksellers A. mangle French in their Quebecois accent and B. talk about how much they love Armand is just like one of the best things I've ever seen. Everything has been so exciting but as I texted you, and I think I've already mentioned on the pod, as part of the promo, they released Long Face, a Vampire Lissat single on Spotify under the artist name, like, the Vampire Lissat. So they've, like, given him, like, his own artist page. That track has 483,000 plays. I believe 480,000 of them are me. So we're just, we're out here living. We're out here living. I was going to ask you, like, if you just knew on the date of March 3rd, 2026, what was going to top your Spotify rap? Like, is it done? That's literally what you texted me. You were like, how comforting to already have your Spotify rap number one track out there. I guess the variable here, the complicating aspect of that is they have indicated they will be releasing they're just going to, it's a slow drip of tracks until the show comes out. So who knows? I mean, that just guarantees I think that your entire top five will probably all be songs from the Vampire Lestat will be your artist of the year, the Vampire Lestat. That's going to be pretty good. I can't wait for my wrapped video that I'm going to get from Sam Reid at the end of the year. I'm piano and your forte, your allegro, I'm on Dante. Like, the lyrics for the song are so exciting. And then sort of like the, I mean, it's based on the book, the Vampire Lestat, but what seems to be clear about how they're going to do like flashbacks and and all of this uh jennifer ely who is lizzie bennett in that 95 pride and prejudice plays gabriella uh in this i'm very excited about that um marius is here um magnus is here nikki is here like all these characters are here but we're seeing in the trailers you see them sort of like pop up in the modern you see louis from season one of uh Interview with a Vampire. So popping up in the modern day audience inside of these concerts, the Vampire Lestat is going on tour. So this is like a trauma, drug-induced, fueled, inspired by Daniel Molloy interviews, perhaps like journey for Lestat to go through his origin story. So this idea of like people from the past cropping up in the future as like in the present as like a hallucination is just like incredibly exciting it's very much like uh the best parts of damon and harren hall when i told you like i like it when a story is like oozing in and out of like reality and memory and dream and stuff like that and you don't really and like the camera tricks you can play in order to make that happen like i'm really excited for what we get from that so that inside of a velvet goldmine-esque like rock musical every single photo they've released of Sam Reid, like, writhing around on the ground in, like, leather pants, shirtless. It's just, like, a gift for everyone. All of the Daniel Hart quotes about Bowie as an influence, just magical stuff. What a time to be you. And us. I can't wait to, I'm so excited. We recently had the privilege on our gift swap, where you treated me to season two of Interview with a Vampire, and I took you into an active volcano for Vampire and Ash. I just thought that that was an incredible season of television. So I'm really looking forward to this. Can't wait. Yeah. I mean, there's this quote that Raleigh Jones, the showrunner, gave to, I think, Nerdist. He said, Armand will show up in, quote, full Gremlin fashion. So we're going to get Armand. We're going to get – we haven't seen it, Kasha, yet. They've cast her. Sheila, as him is playing her. But we haven't gotten the Queen of the Damned in the trailers yet. So there's just, like, a lot to come. Summer's going to be extraordinary for us. I'm extremely excited. So here we go. Okay, this next question comes from Emily. It's about Project Hail Mary. The premise of the question, spoilers for anyone who hasn't seen the trailers. They're sort of like putting the premise of the book out there in all of the trailers. So if you've seen any promo material, you know what the premise of the story is, which is not necessarily the case if you just read the book cold. So that's sort of at the core of this question. So if you don't want to know, maybe skip ahead. But Emily wrote here, in both Doctor Who and Project Hail Mary, we're on a very enclosed spaceship for a very long time with another person. Would you rather be roommates with the doctor or Rocky? Both have their pros, smart, funny, problem solvers. Both have their cons. The doctor can't drive most of the time and Rocky can't breathe the same air. So I'm curious what you guys would go for. Personally, give me Rocky any day of the week. Seems like a great hang once we get past the language barrier. So people don't know Rocky is this rock-based life form that, you know, our guy Ryan Gosling, Rylan Grace meets in space. So would you rather hang out with Rocky or – and I say you get to pick which doctor of your choosing. I think it's really funny that we got this question based on something we have already taped for Project Hail Mary that has not seen the light of day yet. But what would you pick, Mallory? Okay, so if I got to pick my doctor, but then do I get to control how long I'm with that doctor? Because I have regeneration at any point, and then who knows? Don't worry. He'll tire of you or kill you before he has a chance to regenerate. I get a few velvet blazer days with 12, and then I'm fucked. To me, with love and respect to the doctor, this is the easiest question that we've ever gotten to answer. I again we've encouraged you to skip to the next chapter title if you don't in the chapter list if you don't want to hear this at all but I'll try to keep it non-spoilery Rocky is one of my favorite characters in fiction and I think Rocky is an icon and I think that sharing space and a space but also space like a space with Rocky and sharing a life with Rocky would be the honor and privilege of my existence. Rocky, very cat-coated to me. So I think it would just be wonderful, you know, the idea of being able to like, to Emily's point in the question, the problem-solving nature, the like, I can fix this. I can build something. I can figure it out. Very goal-oriented, mission-oriented. But the charm, the humor, the charm, the genuine desire to forge a connection, it's all I want out of life. So if, you know, we can't breathe the same air, that's fine. I think we're breathing something more important and that's a shared experience. It's Rocky for me. How about you? I would shove Rocky out the airlock if it meant that I could adventure with the 10th Doctor. How dare you? How dare you? I love Rocky, but you couldn't just send him down his tunnel? No, out the airlock. Just so the car will be all of his little legs. oh man just roll his bubble down the tunnel fuck no out the air luck okay um we got a lot of people emailing about traders i know this isn't a show that you've watched so i don't want to spend too much time on it but like tell me tell me why tell me what i'm missing because i mean i'm consuming this exclusively through instagram rob rob yeah quinn ads yes i've been I have been consuming those. Rob made it into my algorithm. I think in part because I follow some other people who are on traders. And so then some of the traders content made its way into my algorithm. And then I served more traders content, but like familiar with Rob, you're a big Michael Rappaport guy. I know. I do follow Colton just as like a kind of a legacy follow from a thousand years ago from when Colton was the bachelor, a very memorable season of the bachelor. I can't remember who else was the season of traders that I follow, but I don't, I don't watch a lot of violence. So I didn't know Rob before this, But I have not seen, as I've told you, other than on Instagram or else, a second of Traitors. I've never watched this show. And I watch reality TV. I watch, you know, some game competition thing. Some. Not as much as I used to. But I do feel that I would like this. I have not consumed a second of it. Tell me what I'm missing. And also. You would love Rob. Because, like, the deal is. So, spoiler to the Traitors. Yeah. Rob Rauch, who is, like, a guy who likes snakes. Yeah. But was also in Love Island. And wears overall. Alabama boy, right? I love overalls. Yeah. He won pretty handily. And I will say you would love this because you would love how smart and good and ruthless Rob was in this game. I think it would really appeal to something inside of you in terms of, like, the best man should win. And, like, he, I mean, without question, he outsmarted everyone. Like, he's shown playing chess several times this season. Like, he's a big chess guy. And so it's just so clear that he played this season like a game of chess, and he just positioned all the pieces where he wanted them to be. He used his pretty privilege. He screwed over his fellow traders. He did all this stuff, and he won. The way he won at the end of the day is there is this woman named Maura, who is also a Love Island alum and a very beautiful Irish woman who came into the game knowing nothing about it. signed up for the game without knowing what the rules were and basically sort of attached herself to Rob or he said, come stand by me. And then she was just his faithful lieutenant without knowing that he was lying to her the whole time. So she wasn't a traitor, she was a faithful? She was a faithful. He made her basically his shield. He made a bunch of people. Colton was one of his shields. He made a bunch of people his sort of covers as he went through this game. Natalie from Survivor, a bunch of people. It was only at the very end that people started cottoning on to him but it was like too late he had set too many pieces in place like the last two episodes people kind of knew he was a traitor could not convince mora otherwise despite compelling evidence and so she the finale was really quite boring because she just voted with rob three votes and it was like it's like the most predictable vote three votes in a row it all hinged on wilmore a flip she's never going to flip on him okay and then the last thing was like him revealing to her that he was a traitor was it incredible television yes what is the one the most painful thing as i've ever watched yes because she's just sort of like we won and he was like i'm a traitor and she's like and that he gets he gets to keep it he gets all the money she gets nothing yeah okay um geez it hard because mora like mora turned on every like woman in the game turned on every like gay person in the game to just like stick by this alabama boy who was screwing her over the whole time it was really hard for to watch she was not being a girl's girl but i tried really hard to be a girl's girl so i'm trying to be on maura's side even though maura was not on the side of i feel really bad for her she called herself stupid so many times and i felt like so crushed for her she's she's like you've embarrassed me you made a fool of me like all this other stuff like that he's like i'm sorry it's the game and he's right i mean like he's right he played a really he played a perfect game like but it's just like really hard to watch and it was just like i was watching some uh creator that i follow on instagram who does a great job of like watching shows and commenting while she watches them and she was like she's like i want to root for the girls and the gays but the straight guy is playing such a better game and it's like so true like So, Maura, you betrayed all the people that I wanted you to align with, but you pay the price and I feel really bad for you that that happened to you. Everyone on the internet is calling her dumb and I feel really bad about that, too. And I just like, it's just it's just really tough. And then they had a reunion afterwards and that was like really hard for me to watch. So Rob won. He deserved to win. I feel bad about it that he won. but like you have to admire that the game that he played does that make sense yeah sounds great i mean how i've laid that out this sounds wonderful this sounds great i'm intrigued it's really good it's really good traders is really good i only watch survivor and traders essentially are like the only reality that i watch and like i will say especially when i was in la the last couple months everywhere i went i could talk to people about the traders like everyone was watching it everyone was talking about it and like it reminded me of like watching you go through the world being able to talk about sports where I could just talk to anyone about the traders. Yeah. And I just felt like I had an easy way into small talk with anyone. I will value it forever for that. But like Alan Cumming. Yeah. It's just incredible. It's edited preposterously and the most sort of like eye rolling over the top. They're creating like dunk, dunk, dunk cliffhangers when there isn't really a cliffhanger. Like all of that is true. But like the drama of the present, the premise. and then we got a bunch of people asking if I'd see the UK traders I did watch this most recent season which was like a celebrity UK traders which was very good the original one are they similar no it's like the same game it's just with better accents usually UK traders is normal people and I think they are going to do a normal people American that is more interesting to me I think without like bringing the associations that we have with these other either famous people or other reality stars, though I was interested to learn a thing I did not know that. So Kristen from Top Chef was on this season of Traitors. How did she do? She's one of the great, my great Top Chef loves. Everyone was constantly talking about, I mean, she looked amazing the whole time. Everyone was talking, beautiful, constantly talking about how smart she was. But she was so often wrong. Oh, interesting. And like when she, which a lot of them are, but there was this one moment where one of the traders got, Rob got one of his, both of his fellow traders out, but he got one of his fellow traders out. And in, on her way out, that trader, you can't out another trader, but you can sort of like vote for them if you want to and sort of try to lead people to vote for them and to get them out. But he got, he got this housewife Candace out and Candace on her way out, tried to like blow up his game. Yeah. So in the last two roundtables where they vote to vote someone out, she voted for Rob twice. And Maura, in her Irish accent, kept calling it a troll way vote. It's a troll way vote. Why does she do it? It's a troll way vote. But like she was trying to like signal like he's the other traitor. Like she couldn't say it outright, but that was her attempt. And Kristen, after the second time, Kristen's like, Candace trying to pin this on Rob, that sweet, sweet man. How ridiculous. and all of my respect for Kristen just like went out the window. She was just like rolling her eyes at Candace and I was like Candace was trying to tell you guys something on her way out the door but okay. So anyway, it's easy to sit at home obviously and like judge that people are dumb and wrong and they're all like paranoid and like also quite, you know, there's like a ton of housewives in there. I don't know any housewives. I don't know anyone except the Survivor players and then like the RuPaul Drag Race players and that's like the only people I know. People from the Chow are in there sometimes. Right, I would know Salon. Yeah, but you would know the Challenge people, but like, and Michael Rapaport was randomly there, but like, yeah. I don't know any of the Housewives or Big Brother people. I would not know Big Brother Housewives either. Kristen's Top Chef win back in the day, spoiler, for a thousand years ago, was one of the great Top Chef performances of all time. Just her food, unbelievable. Now she's, of course, the host, right? Yeah. Yeah, she's absolutely beautiful to look at, but her whole reputation of being smart, I was like, are we sure? Or she just got a really bad edit. I don't know. This is one of the things about Survivor and the new era to that last point that I do find fascinating. I actually think, I've said this before, the players are too self-aware now of, like, just what it means to be on Survivor. They all think they're scholars because they've watched their entire lives. They're thinking about how they're going to be edited. Many of them are, like, professional podcasters. They're very consciously aware of their image, et cetera. um but and so i'm kind of my dream is like after 50 a reset where it's like cast survivor like a jury like people who have never seen it before like let's really start with a clean slate i think that would be really interesting however one thing i do find genuinely compelling about the hyper aware um i'm a lifelong survivor super fan era of survivor is this how they talk about the debilitating terror of looking like an idiot on tv in real time as they're feeling that anxiety am I being doped? Am I being played? There's also this thing that happens on traders that is different from what happens on Survivor because there is this sort of safety in numbers voting that happens as a survivor of sort of like, well, if everyone's going for this person, I'll just stick with the group at certain points in the game, right? That's what every roundtable elimination is like on the traders, where it becomes this mob mentality thing that is like people just vote where the mob is going and who is running where the mob is going and that's like hard to track at any given time but there's something like quite medieval about it that is just like very interesting to watch i was watching a stand-up comedian talk about uk traders and how he was like at one point someone revealed that they were a doctor and then everyone voted them out as if to be like the the magic man knows too much get him out you know what i mean like this just idea of like and and to your point like the they call them the gamers so anyone who's like on survivor the challenge or big brother like those are the gamers and it's like they have big targets on their back. The Housewives vote in a pack together. You know, like all of these like preconceived notions that people bring to the table. But like the gamers are like, you know, but like Sari, Parvati, Sandra, Tony, Boston Rob, like all these survivor legends have all played on the traders. So I do think that you would enjoy it. As intrigued as I am by Rob, if I were to start, maybe I would just start at the beginning because I can't help myself. But if I were to go back and watch one season, I would watch Boston Rob's season because he's, as you know, an all-timer for me. And that's where Gabby, Gabby Wendy on last season, incredible. Zac Efron's brother, Dylan Efron, emerged as a tremendous star on that season. And then, yeah, like Boston Rob, Bob the Drag Queen, and Boston Rob and Bob the Drag Queen are now hosting the Traders podcast. So to your point, how can I spin this into, you know, Dylan Efron, like Rob Roush, definitely. like he was already doing like door dash ads during the season but like he's definitely going to try to spin this into as much as he can which is like no wonder he's a little thing you do yeah did i talk about traders longer than we're about to talk about wonder man perhaps but here we are okay so dan wrote it we had a couple people writing and asking for our thoughts on wonder man a show that we both loved adored was dropped in a binge drop yes at a time when uh some personal stuff was going on with us i was like in la and like stuff was going on with mallory and then also uh nine of the seven kingdoms was like in full swing so like all these factors combined uh and we had some like makeup episodes that we had to do in a timely fashion all of this combined to us not covering wonder man uh which was like a real tragedy because we loved this show and if it hadn't been dropped in a binge like i assure you we would have caught up with it. And it breaks my heart to think of like, there are so many shows that we've like covered week to week that felt like a real slog and this is a show we loved and didn't cover. So I feel really like bummed by the scheduling gods that that's how it happened. But this is extraordinarily delightful. One of my, like, I love Agatha because I love Agatha but like because of all of its wish stuff go-ness But I think in an objective sense, this was the best thing Marvel has done in, like, years. Just in terms of, like, how light on its feet it was, how funny but emotionally resonant it was, the performance. Yaya in the lead was, like, incredible. Ben Kingsley was, like, phenomenal. And then you've got, like, Joe Pantoliano showing up. It's like a great skewering of Hollywood inside of this superhero storytelling. and I just had just such a good time with it and I'm so sorry that it feels like it got not just lost to us but kind of lost in general in this era of dampened enthusiasm for Marvel. What do you want to say about Wonder Man? I'd co-sign all of that. I mean, I thought this was an absolute gem of a show. I watched this in one sitting all in a row. Every episode in a row. Which, you know, I love a binge. I love to sit there and watch multiple episodes of TV in a row but I was just very compelled by it. I mean, it's zippy, it's quick moving. Most of the episodes end with like a compelling propulsion point into the next and also just a sensational needle drop, the music on this season, the fucking dynamite. Yeah. But yeah, I just thought this was such a, you know, to your point about where we are more broadly in the MCU and some of the, not some of the, for many, unrelenting fatigue. And I think for, you know, other fans, there have been some, you know, exciting moments or encouraging moments more recently. But this was just such a breath of fresh air and just so vibrant and charming. And I always love Yaya. I think he's just like an incredibly charismatic and compelling performer. And so I'm not surprised that his Simon was a delight to spend time with. But I thought he was just sensational. the ability um if anyone hasn't listened to uh maybe two episodes ago on the watch um andy interviewed andrew guest uh one of the one of the um creative minds behind wonder man and very amusing bit uh through line throughout their entire interview of insisting on referring to him as sir ben kingsley the entire time which i got such a kick out of but also is appropriate and they talk that's that's great because when i when i did the sneakers rewatchables uh bill implied that we should remove ben kingsley's knighthood from him so um an outrage and a scandal an outrage and a scandal astonishing but you know but we have as many marvel fans have spent many hours of our lives talking about iron man 3 and the original uh introduction of trevor big trev into our lives, I think to bring him back in Shang-Chi in what I thought was such a delightful and shocking way that I, like, have no reason to anticipate or expect in that way, and now continue to find a way to, like, incorporate Sir Ben Kingsley into the MCU in a way that makes complete sense and is completely plausible. Like, that Trevor, this was such a smart use of Trevor. And I thought... Go ahead, yeah. sorry one scene with the casting directors where they're like familiar she's like she was a terrorist like it was just like it's really good that was all great and i just thought like there are a lot of relationships with the mc that we come to care deeply about over time but very quickly i found myself very invested in trevor and simon as a duo very genuinely invested and i think to be like meta aspects of to your skewering of of hollywood point like that's super interesting and I thought was well executed. You know, it is a, it's a choice. It's a decision at a moment when people are down on the MCU and people are down on the glut of, and dominance in terms of just its sheer presence, but, you know, kind of like diminished quality of superhero comic book storytelling. It's a choice to say, we're going to make this like a meta story when we, the MCU, a Metastory inside of the MCU and we, the MCU, are the cause of much of that, right? You got to nail it if you do that. It's just kind of a disaster if you try to do that and you misfire. So I tend to really enjoy the meta pursuits. Something like the studio is obviously very fun. I thought something like the franchise really missed the mark. It was a letdown. But this really worked in that respect. And I think also the way that it feels very, very contained and accessible. And, you know, Simon Williams is an interesting comic book character with a ton of lore. You don't need any of that to come into this. You don't really need, despite what we were just saying about, you know, Iron Man 3 and Shang-Chi. You don't need MCU priors, really. Like, you can come in cold if you want. They explain it, like, really quickly, sort of, like, what the history is or the character. And, like, Trevor's basically the only character that you need any kind of, like, information on. And, like, I think we talked about this a lot with, like, I don't know, Ahsoka or something like that. Like, the threading the line between, like, rewarding someone who's done all the homework and making it inviting for someone who hasn't done the homework. And, like, Marvel's been really struggling under that for, like, the last several years. And I just thought they really nailed it with this one where it's just sort of, like, it's quite welcoming for people who haven't watched Iron Man 3 or Shang-Chi. Yes. but also there's stuff there for people who have to enjoy. Yeah. If you're like a huge department of damage control head and you've been tracking the deployment of this agency across properties or something like, you know, that's fun, but you don't need any of that. So yeah, it was just, it was wonderful. You could just be a Succession fan and enjoy that A.M.O.Y.A. is here. And that's all you need, you know. Always, always welcome. Yeah. You call that Joey Pants, but that was one of the great pleasures of my recent television viewing life. That was amazing. That whole sequence is so good. So funny. Simon talking with his agent about code switching inside of that experience. Them talking about prosciutto and all of that. It was very the studio. It was really, really good. I will say the one thing that they did, so episode four, halfway through the season, you get this episode, Doorman, which is just... It felt a little bit like they were chasing Watchmen and like that episode of Watchmen where you're sort of like taken back in time in a way that I'm just sort of like, I don't think you needed to do this or needed to do it right then. And it felt like a slight derailment of, and especially it comes after episode three, Pacoima, which is like very doing a lot of work in that like Trevor Simon Bond that you talked about. The way that that episode ends is just like you're deep in your feelings about their connection and the position that Trevor finds himself in. So that sort of slight, you know, to watch it all in a binge is like, I think maybe it doesn't stick out as much as if like you're watching it like a little bit more spread out. But I would say that would be like my one critique of just sort of the rhythm of the season would be that episode, which I liked. But like, you know what I mean? Though, of course, we'll never complain about an opportunity to spend time with Josh Gad. I never once in my life would do that. Not now, not ever. The thing that that stretch of the season does, of course, effectively reinforce for us and cement for us is this like context of why Simon's power set. And of course, there's personal history for him in this respect, but in terms of his desire to be an actor and to work in Hollywood in the industry. So that was all kind of interesting. But yeah, I agree. There was something about the slowing of the momentum of the primary narrative at that point in the season that I think was not the high point. But overall, in terms of what it reinforced about the fear of people discovering this thing about him, that was useful. It's just a great season of TV overall, and I really hope that we get to be back with these characters soon. I'm worried, but it would be great. I mean, like, there are certain Marvel misfires where I'm like, we can just pretend that never happened. And I just hope that that doesn't happen here. But we'll see. All right. Last but not least in this mailbag, we get a... Oh, actually, two things really quickly. I forgot to mention on the Maura on Trader's Beat, I will just say for some reason, I think she has thinner hair than she wants to have. I don't know what the full answer is there. But she wore wigs in almost every single scene and I got a lot of emails about that from the wig watchers out there. The junior wig watchers out there were just sort of like what's going on with Maura's hair. And I agree because there's certain, she's wearing like a long thick wig with like her real hair. We're sort of like poking at the back. I mean like she's so beautiful. Some of the wig deployments were like quite confusing but anyway that's that and then also on the book front we got a lot of questions from people asking if we're going to do like a formal house of our book club or anything like that and i will just say we've got some plans and it works for some like social media stuff where you might see more book-centric um content from us so like we are planning to sort of feed this like people are like hey tell me what to read next like i am i am planning to do some more of that stuff uh this year coming up soon but no formal plans but i just want to like i just want to tease it okay last question from lauren which is a personal question for us uh joanna's moving to la i'm back in the bay right now but i will be moving to la currently looking for housing not as easy as one would hope joanna's moving to la what makes you most excited about living in the same city any fun things you're looking forward to sharing in each other's presence that might feel easier now, Molly Rubin. Oh my God. Why are you most excited that I'm moving to LA? Jesus, where do you even begin? I mean, obviously the most basic thing is just being able to make the podcast together in person, record together in person. It's always so wonderful when we get to look and gaze into each other's eyes with no screen between us, you know, just the sometimes too warm temperature and very intense lights between us, but no screen. I need to reach out and hold your hand. The ability to hold a hand if I drop my chapstick on a bathroom floor, you're like, I got you. No worries. You just eat some social media plans. That's like a two years ago reference. Very nice. Just always top of mind for me as a really traumatic experience that you pulled me out of. Yeah, just getting to gaze into each other's eyes as we make a pod and embark on our social media pursuits together in person. What a treat. Obviously, we got to do this last week, week and a half ago. What is time? Can't remember. We're going to get to go to screenings together. We're going to actually get to see more of the things that we're going to talk about together in person. We're going to get to hang out with the Midnight Boys, Big Pick, and see these movies together. That's fucking fun. Love that. We're going to get to go to bookstores together just because we want to. I mean, I can't wait. Can't wait to just, like, pop into Skylight together or Chevalier together. We're near that because our new studio is near Larchmont, so then maybe we'll go over there. Are you a last bookstore head? You know, they obviously fabled downtown location. They've opened an additional location in Studio City that is fascinating. It's just this gorgeous space, and it's beautiful. We'll go there. We'll go to all sorts. We'll explore every L.A. bookstore together, I think. And then we're going to hang out with our friends and each other, and we're going to drink alcohol together. I did go to Chevalier a couple times looking for specific books that they did not have but but A, they did the great thing that a bookstore should do which is like they offered a special order for me, thank you so much and then B, it was just like such a lovely store, a lovely lovely shop, it's just like a very sort of small space but it's like very very cute, I love Skylight and I haven't been to the studio city location of uh last bookshop so that's very exciting um yes martini mondays is something that you and i had talked about i i have started my like i'm my project that i started uh this year is the quest to find the perfect dirty martini um in los angeles and i like put this on social media and i got a lot of suggestions for people and i started i went to like black cat with our pal Kim Renfro. I went to the Benjamin with a friend of the pod, Kristen Noir. And so like I I'm searching around. I sent you a photo from the Benjamin of the martinis that we got there. It was like triple olives with a side jar and stuff like that. So if folks have suggestions for a dirty martini, but Mallory loves a dirty martini. I love a dirty martini. Or you never had one. Never had it. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, I have a deep and abiding love for olives. and savory beverages and have never in my life, for reasons that kind of elude me, had a martini, except it took one sip of yours as we watched a... Yeah. What's it called? Ferris wheel? Ferris wheel. Is that what it's called? Rapidly disassembled in front of our eyes at Comic-Con. And so I'm excited to... We were in a restaurant, we should say. It wasn't just like drinking a dirty martini on the street watching a Ferris wheel get dismantled. We were in like a steakhouse. Yeah. Mother Wolf, also incredible dirty martini. Also, I saw a bad baby there. He was like, said hi to me on my way out. So shout out to him if he's listening. Great pasta there. Delicious. Yeah. Incredible pasta, but like one of the surprise best dirty martinis I've ever had. So yeah. So I have a whole list, a whole like spreadsheet that I'm working on. But if anyone has any suggestions of where I should go for a stealth, excellent dirty martini, let me know. And I've been to Mousseau and Frank. I went there years ago, so I've got that one checked off the list. What are you most looking forward to about being in Los Angeles? Tell us. I think seeing movies together, like getting to go to screenings with you is always really fun. seeing the like absolute astonishing orders that you put in at the concession stand and just sort of like marveling at your whole vibe at the movie theater. And not just the opportunity to see new movies together, but like, you know, I got the opportunity to, you know, a couple months that I was there this year to like go to a bunch of refs greetings. And that was really, really fun stuff for me. And I think I mentioned this to you. I might have mentioned it on the pod. I can't remember. But going to randomly of an afternoon to see Send Help or Pillian or whatever else it was that I went to go see or No Other Choice, and the theaters were all just full. You've mentioned this to me before when we talked about getting tickets for a movie, and you're like, you can't get a ticket. And I'm like, that's because you live in L.A., baby. That's not true around the country. And so oftentimes here, even in the Bay Area, which is like quite a movie friendly place, like when I go to a movie in a random time or whatever, like the theaters are often empty, which is quite dispiriting. But I love seeing a movie in a full theater. And so in L.A., my experience was no matter when I went or where I went, whether it was like a Burbank AMC, not that one, but the one across the street or at the Grove or wherever the case may be, like the theaters are full and thriving. So that's just like, that's really exciting. I remember telling you this at the time, but one of my favorite recent examples of that in L.A. was going to see Flo and not a seat. Yeah. It was empty. Full fucking house. For Flo. For Flo. You know, for Flo. So. Great movie. I'm really excited about that. That's like, there's a lot that I will miss about the Bay Area where I've lived my entire life. On and off, but mostly my entire life. but there's a lot to love about Los Angeles and I love you and I love our new studio and I'm really excited to be there to make great content with you. I think that's what Bill said to me after I come down and make great content. An episode. Sounds right. I filled an episode with him at the beginning of the year and he was just like, so how long are you here? I was like, oh, for a month. He's like, let's make some great content together. I was like, okay, Bill, so let's all make some great content together here at The Ringer. What a great, what a great company we work for. that's it that's all I have to say anything else you want to mention? I don't think so I love you a lot I love you a lot so excited to have you down here and we'll wear some murder cloaks together we'll take some pictures for Instagram it's going to be fantastic you're working on sword content for Instagram I'm working on book content for Instagram I'll also do some book content will you do some sword content that's really the question great question will you because you're there in the studio and buy a balls on them tell me who we should thank today for their work on this podcast yes as always Carlos Chiraboga and Arjuna Ramgapal who are here with us and are killing it once again CT is here to help us I mean oh yeah we had just an incredible time with CT last week doing like 19 hours of podcasts and for a day and a half he's here with us for every second he's here again who else did I see out there Ratliff's here Jack's here Kevin's here the whole crew is here and as always of course for social. Thank you to Jomie. What a team effort it has been to get our new studio up and running. I saw Bill walk by. I don't know if he helps with this podcast, but he's here. In his way, he did. Thank you to everyone. We'll be back with a not so mysterious, but potentially mysterious episode later this week and a lot more fun to come. This is so our year. Project Hail Mary. We're thriving. We're so excited for Vampireless stat. House of the Dragon season 3. What season are we on? Rings of Power allegedly is coming at the end of the year. There's just a lot. Dune. A Hall of Fame episode. The Odyssey. Dune Day. Spider-Man. Wonderful. What more could you ask for? Alright. We'll see you soon. Bye! You