THE UGLY STEPSISTER

This is a Head Gump podcast. Hacks is back for its fifth and final season and so is the Hacks podcast. Join the Hacks creators and showrunners Lucia and Yellow, Paul W Downs and Jen Statsky as they unpack the Emmy-winning comedy series. On each episode, hear stories from the set, what goes on in the writer's room and how these beloved characters close out their final season. Watch Hacks streaming exclusively on HBO Max and listen to the Hacks podcast on HBO Max or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Emily, Henley and Sammy and you're listening to Too Scary Didn't Watch. Hi everyone. Welcome to Too Scary Didn't Watch, the horror movie recap podcast for those too scared to watch for themselves. I'm Emily and I am too scared to watch scary movies. I'm Henley and I'm also too scared to watch scary movies. I'm Sammy and I love watching scary movies and so I watch them so that you don't have to and we got a friggin nasty one today that I'm really excited to tell you guys about. Well, shoot. Not loving the picture. That's behind you. Nice way to start off the year. It's a new year. It's a new year, folks. Before we get into this week's episode, there's time stamps in the show notes if you want to go straight to the recap. But first, we're just going to check in with each other, you guys. First episode of 2026. Did anything scary happen to you yet this year or in the last portion of last year? Yeah, I mean, the scary thing that happened to me is so like, I don't know, sometime in the last like week, I don't remember exactly when I was watching television and a commercial played for, I believe it was trim fire. What's that? I think it's a skin medication. Okay. I'm not sure. In this ad, this woman is living triumphantly and she is going on vacation and wearing a swimsuit and living her best life thanks to Trump fire. And it made me, I was like, I have to take a vacation. Like watching this pharmaceutical ad made me like jealous of the lady in the pharmaceutical ad in a way that was like, it was like a really intense feeling I experienced of like, I need a vacation, not a trip, not a break. I need a vacation in a way that like, honestly spooked me. And so Joel and I have been like, okay, we'll take a vacation. Where do we want to go? And now thinking about a vacation and doing like, like having like 20 tabs open on my computer of possibilities of like, has stressed me out so much that I'm like, I don't know. Like, and I was just guessing I, I found I've been narrowed it down to two options. And I told Joel, okay, I think you should do this or this. And he was like, well, I think we should do this. And I was like, great. It means we'll have to do this. He was like, okay, well, maybe not at this time of year that I was like, well, then we have to do that. And he was like, well, I was like, see, this is the loop. This is, I can't, I can't get out of it. And I can't, and I don't know what to do. And like, I don't know what to do. I know. It's like, I'm just like, like, just pick a place and go because you just need a vacation. But if only it were that simple. Anyway, should I go to Sedona? What do you guys think? Oh, yes. Go to Sedona. What do we think about Sedona in February? Because I'm like, is that actually going to, it's actually kind of, but it's going to be cold. Oh yeah. I went to Sedona in March and it was cold. It was cold. See, and then I was like, well, maybe we do a cold trip and we embrace the cold. We do like Northern, Northern California. We'd have to drive. We need a car. Rose might be still, we don't want to drive in the snow. So maybe actually we don't do that in February. And now we're back to square one and we're back where we started. And I don't know where to go or what to do. I know. I cycle through this probably every year as well. But I need a vacation. You guys, there's going to be somewhere in Mexico. Can't you guys go to Mexico? Maybe we could go to Mexico. Maybe we could go to Hawaii. Maybe we could go, I don't know, but I'm also like, oh, but then, but then I'm like, well, going on a vacation, like, well, that's expensive yet that's expensive. You got to take time off work. You got to deal with getting on a plane. So maybe we go back to just driving, but then we're back in the loop of like, well, this, I just. You know, I know. No, I totally know. Yeah. So that's where I'm at currently. And it's, um, it's stressing me out that I need, I feel like I need a vacation and I don't, I don't know how to, I don't know how to get it without getting more stressed. We need to like win two tickets to absolutely a pre-planned thing that is completely out of your hands. Um, I feel like this is like a problem across the board with life. Life and capitalism and too many choices all the time with everything. And our brains aren't supposed to be making this many choices all the time. And I'm also like, it needs to be worth taking the time off work. Cause then those are days you don't get back and like, so you better make sure it better be fucking good. And it's like, I just need to like go somewhere and not think about that for like just like three days. I'm not asking for much, but I can't seem to do it. Mm hmm. I want that too. The closest thing I'm getting, the closest I'm getting to a vacation right now is today, right before the sales and I were coloring and he requested the marker that was teal and he used the word teal. And I was like, wow, you know, the word teal. And then we started using teal. And I was like, this is reminding me of these beautiful Caribbean waters. Where we could be, we could be swimming in them right now. Silas somewhere in Greece in that beautiful. Coastal region. I just want to be somewhere. I want to be somewhere where the water is like clear and fucking blue as hell. You know, blue as hell. Blue as hell. The hell fires of hell blue. Yeah. That's what I want. Terrifyingly blue. Satanic blue. Yeah, I get it. I'm, I totally get it. And it's like, it's fine. I'm, I love my life. I'm very lucky. I'll be fine without a vacation. What a champagne problem, as they say, but I feel stressed and I don't like to feel stressed, stress is bad. What I'm happy to be here with my friends. Oh yeah, me too. My friends of whom I wonder if had anything scary happened to them. Well, so, okay. So two nights ago, I've been wait, I've been wondering when this was going to happen. Two nights ago, we had our very first night terror. Oh no. Yes. And it was May. So Silas, luckily knock on wood has yet to have a night terror, but May, first of all, I could talk your ears off about how sick everyone's been. Everyone's been sick up the fucking wazoo. We went to San Francisco immediately. Everyone got sick. I haven't been sick, but I feel sick because I've been taking care of anyone, everyone and have not been sleeping. And so I'm just so fucking tired. The one thing I wanted for my birthday was to sleep in. You guys, I haven't been able to sleep in yet. It's January 4th. One day. I know one day. So yeah, two nights ago, because May was up really sick, just really stopped up nose, fever, all of that. I was sleeping in bed, she was in bed with me. Tim was downstairs because he's still sick and has a really bad cough. So kept waking her up when he was coughing. So he had to go sleep on the couch. And May and I are finally, we finally fallen asleep. It's like maybe two 30 in the morning. Um, and she wakes up screaming, screaming as loud as I've ever heard her scream. Screaming. And I just assumed it was something to do with her being sick because she'd been sick and already had been having a terrible time sleeping. And so Tim comes upstairs and I'm like, we have to like call 911. We have to like take her to the emergency room right now. She's screaming. Her whole body's rigid. I try to like pick her up. She won't let me pick her up. She's like fighting me tooth and nail. We bring her downstairs because we're like, maybe she just needs a different location, screaming, screaming, screaming. She's standing downstairs in the living room, full screaming, full body red, full body rigid, like hands out, like going, no, no, no, no, no. Screaming, screaming at this like corner of the room. Like, like, she's still kind of like asleep. She's so fucking out of it. Like I'm also, I'm also so sleep deprived. I can barely tell what's going on. I was literally like, Tim, we need to call 911. Like what the fuck is going on? And then eventually she just kind of like snapped out of it and stopped screaming and just like went into my arms and like relaxed and like fell asleep in my arms. And Tim was like in the other room, like googling what to do. And he was basically like, I think that was just a night terror. I'm pretty sure that was just a night terror. And I was not convinced. I was like, something is seriously fucking wrong. Like we're going to have to go to the hospital. Yeah. She fell back asleep. She was fine. She's totally fine. But oh my God, I do have to tell you, I've been scared about that happening because I thought I would be scared that like there was a ghost in the house or a demon in the house. Yeah. And it didn't cross my mind even once. I didn't even, for once, I didn't even think that she was scared of like a demon. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're just worried about her. Yeah. I didn't, I didn't think that was happening. But that being said, it was, it was, and you know, what they say about what they say about night terrors is you're not supposed to like wake them up. You're not supposed to wake them up. You're not supposed to like move them. You're not supposed to like try to help them. So, so hard. Did Silas wake up? No, Silas, but also Silas was in his room. She was in our room, but also he's, I don't know, he somehow slept through it. But anyway, I'm obviously the first thing I did was move her because like I thought, I don't know. Anyway, so I think I made it worse. But yikes, yikes, yikes. Yeah, that sounds really scary. I hope the first and last person last. I used to babysit a kid who had night terrors and like his parents told me like he'll have night terrors sometimes. And so every now and again, I'd be babysitting and he would just start screaming in his room and I'm like alone in a house and just sit. I would just go like sit next to him and I wouldn't wake him up, but I would just be like and like rub his little back and he would just scream and freak out. And it was really scary. It was really scary for me as a child. I mean, I was like probably 15, 16, which is a child. So scary. So anyway, that child is now a full grown adult. Hope he's doing well. Isn't it weird how we like don't know what's going on there? We're like, just leave him be. Just don't wake him up. Don't wake him up. Let him just keep fucking thinking he's being murdered. Like, I don't know what's going, but like whatever it was, it wasn't good. I thought, why aren't you supposed to wake them up? Like, wouldn't you want to end the the terror? Apparently it makes it worse. I don't know. That sucks. Is it a thing that like once you have one, it's a thing that you have a lot? Or is it kind of nobody knows? I think that it is. I mean, Siles has never had one. So I think you either have them or you don't. And they like happen for a period of time and then you like grow out of it. What also what I read online very briefly is it can have, it can also be sparked by like being sleep deprived or having an upset sleep schedule or whatever. And we have, we've been so sleep deprived because we were in San Francisco and everyone was sick and then we had a really tough travel day back. That was really hard. Yeah. He's like really overtired. You guys, we almost missed our flight again. We almost missed our flight again. We were running because we took some, sorry, I'm just going to keep talking. We took someone's car. We were borrowing someone's car. Like bless them. Thank you. They let us borrow their car and they were, they were flying back into San Francisco the day we were flying out. So we were like, okay, great. We'll park your car in short term parking. It'll be easy. First of all, we had a hard time getting to the airport because May had another tantrum right before we left and wouldn't put our clothes on. This is like a theme with me. Sorry, May. She's an adult listening to this and mad that I'm talking about her. So we were already running late. Then we get, we finally get to short term parking. They have a like a roof rack on top of this car. They say that car is too tall for short term parking. We have to go to long term parking. So at this point, my brain kind of just like freezes. I'm like long term parking. Fuck. So we have to do a U turn, figure out where long term parking is, put it in Google Maps immediately takes me to like not the airport, long term parking. Like some business is trying to profit off the SEO of having like airport, long term parking as their like search thing. So it takes us to the wrong place. So then we have to turn around, find long term parking in another place, park there. Then we have to take the air tran back to the airport. And we're literally running. You guys sprinting poor silo and Mary sprinting. Then you guys are stroller breaks. Our stroller broke. Our stroller broke. And so we have two car seats. We have two suitcases. We have two children. We have like infinite backpacks. Every backpack. And we're just, I mean, we made it. We made it on the plane, but everyone was like, it was not a relaxing situation for anyone. Poor silo and Mary are being put through. I feel so bad. It's like, you know, they didn't sign up for any of this. Anyway, so my scary thing is just, I really want to go to bed. So bad. I want you to go to bed. I want that too. Yeah, that'll be good. Okay. Apparently a night terror, their body's like in fight or flight. And so it can be dangerous for you and them because they might like attack you. May definitely try to attack me. Yeah. That's not our first rodeo though. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty scary. So she's strong as hell. So don't, yeah, you don't want to follow that advice with May. Do not fuck with me. No, she's stronger than me. And I have bite marks all over my body from her. Yeah. Oh my God. She may be fractured your collarbone that one time. Yeah. She did. Well, she didn't fracture it, but she did. Left a big old bruise. Yeah. Um, yeah, she's powerful. I'm so, I want to be clear that now powerful woman. Now that she's listening to you, now she's a powerful adult. I really, I really want to be clear that I, I love this about her. I'm so proud of her. I, she's incredible. I want her to be like the fiercest fucking woman out there. And she is, she is, she is, she is, she forever will be. As she listens to this and every stage of her life, she'll just become back to this one episode over and over again to know that she, I love you, may isn't back the strongest woman alive. I love you, may we love you, may isn't it crazy that when by the time may is a full grown adult listening to this, we will be much older. Civilization will be over. I know it's crazy. She'll be listening to it on a CD, on a tape. On like a boat in the middle of the ocean. Yeah. Like Waterworld style. I was picturing like an endless desert. Yeah. Well, that's why we got to move to the oceans. Yeah. Cause the land doesn't offer anything anymore. Cause we have one big desert. Sammy, anything? So I'm just going to keep talking about this, which we were just talking about before we started recording, but Duncan made me watch a documentary about aliens called Age of Disclosure. That was one of the worst made documentaries I've ever seen, but had some really compelling stuff to admit you guys. And I feel like I'm a believer in aliens. That's not new. I'd like think most people can be like, yeah, there's probably aliens, right? Like, yeah, we're all kind of on the same page about that. Yeah. But what this documentary is talking about is, is that aliens have been to earth and like certain ships have crashed and there is like alien bodies and technology in the government's possession that they are keeping secrets so that they can reverse engineer alien technology. Alien bodies. Yes. Two different species. Whoa. Wait, when was this documentary made? Uh, 2025. It was last year. Oh, okay. Um, brand new. It's up to date. It's the most recent information. And it's basically interviewing all of the various whistleblowers that used to be in the army or have things to say or Marines or science scientists. Uh, it's, yeah, I, I would, I would love to hear what our listeners have to think because it has a 30% on rotten tomatoes. Let's find out why. Yeah. It's really badly made, but yeah, it just, I thought had some compelling first testimonies and information in it, but it's also like, what am I going to believe in the conspiracy theory now? Like I don't like the potential of being a conspiracy theorist, but also like some conspiracies are real. And this is one where I'm just like caught in the middle. I know. Yeah. I want to believe, but also I don't want to believe. Yeah. And I want someone to just tell me the truth and lay it out simple. I just want. Yeah. Simple and straightforward. Also, as we were saying before we started recording too, I'm sort of like, until there's literally anything I can do about it or anything that it can do to affect my life. I'm sort of like, all right. Yeah. Maybe it's true. Maybe it's not fucking whatever, man. What am I supposed to do? Yeah. That is my, I think still, but I suppose it would be nice to know. Feeling about it is like, yeah, kind of either way. It's, I'm still going to probably live my life mostly the same way that I do now. Yeah. Okay. There's a big review about it on skeptic.com. Seems like a reasonable place. Sounds like a good source. Is it Steven Spielberg making a movie called Disclosure Day? Yes. Well, this movie apparently, this documentary apparently was directed by one of Steven Spielberg's assistants. And Duncan's very excited about the Steven Spielberg movie, which is apparently all going to be based completely based on fact. So, so in this Spielberg movie, the aliens are like walking among us. Is that what the documentary thinks? That aliens are like posing as humans? It didn't really get into that too much, but I've heard people say that. Yeah. I mean, why not at this point, if anything's possible? Yeah. I mean, I think it is a little suspicious that the Pentagon literally can never pass an audit of their budget and they're constantly losing trillions of dollars. And it's like, of course that money could be going anywhere, but. Aliens could be going to aliens and trying to reverse engineer alien technology to develop a power source so powerful that our human brains can't currently comprehend. But the thing that's weird about that is that, like, wouldn't there be interest trying to shut that down because everyone's trying to shut down any power source that's alternative to oil? Do you know what I mean? Like wouldn't like the oil people be lobbying against that? But maybe that's why they're keeping it a secret. It's because they don't want the oil people to know. They don't care about us little plebes. They care about the oil lobbyists. Yeah. Yeah, it's just it's it's interesting. And I feel like I try to stay away from anything even close to a conspiracy theory. And so it feels a little scary even to explore this territory because I'm like, I don't look stupid and be like aliens are real. And yeah. But at the same time, it's like it is interesting. It is kind of interesting. I don't I don't think that it's stupid anymore. I think that we've had a huge evolution in human thought and evidence in the past like decade where it used to be like kind of crazy to believe in aliens. But now there have been so many people who have come forward being like, no, aliens are real. Now it's kind of like, yeah, of course, aliens are real. And to what degree and to what extent and what their motives or intentions or what we're doing with this information, that's TBD. But drop an alien emoji in the comments if you believe that government is hiding aliens from us or if they live among us or with whatever. Two different species. Personally have their living in the oceans. Yeah. I'm I'm interested. I think it's fun to think about, but also, you know, I don't want to put too much stock in it. Yeah, you don't want to get your you want to get your hopes up. I don't want to get invested in it in any meaningful way. I just want to know what's going on. I just want to know what's true, objectively speaking, on all fronts. Is that so much to ask? Just everybody be honest all the time about everything. That would be great. Don't think we're asking for much. I'm 26. Let's start with honesty. Oh, that would be so great. You guys may woke up. I think she heard me talking about her. She's screaming in the other room. No, she's just dormant. She's dormant. She's so mad. Coming in for more bites. She says, how dare you speak of me this way? She's also, and I want to clarify, she's also the sweetest little muffin ever. She just really has two sides to her. Yeah. Oh, it's multitudes. Yeah, as do we all. All right, should we get into this week's episode? No, I guess so. I think you guys will like it. I forgot to mention that part. I loved this movie and I know that doesn't always mean much for you guys. I love when you're excited, though, but I really loved it. And I think it's a very clever movie covering an important topic that we all deal with, which is body image issues. And patriarchy and the expectations on women to look a certain way. So we're going to be getting into some of that. Because this week, we were talking about the ugly step sister came out in 2025, written and directed by Emily Blichfeld, starring Lea Mirren, An Dal Thorpe, Théa Sophie Lochneis and Flo Fagerli. It is a Norwegian film if you could guess. Sorry, is that a bit different? No, you know, I like to do my accents. I can't differentiate between the Scandinavian accents too much. I can't differentiate between most accents. True. Yeah. Can't at all. We did have a Scottish waiter last night. That was fun. And Jenna was like, what is that accent? She was so. And I was immediately like, it's Scottish. Yeah, but it is. It is a crazy one. It's a bit. It's a I love that one. I do, too. Yeah, one of my faves. But then our friend that was with us was then doing a Scottish impression because his mom is Scottish and we were all like, he's going to take a break from one of them. Can't do it. It was not somebody else who also happens to be Scottish. Yeah. I do love the accent. So yeah, I don't think I don't know that I'll do the accent too much, but we'll see. We'll see what happens. Sometimes it just comes out. Sometimes. You never know. The Ugly Steps Sister is streaming on hulu and shudder.com. It has a 96 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, a 70 on Metacritic and a seven on IMDb. So 100 percent on IMDb. 100 percent across the board. People love this movie. The budget was 4.2 million and it made 5.6 million, which is a profit. Hell yeah. In my eyes and in anyone's eyes, they made money. Yeah. Good for them. Do you guys know anything about this movie? Had you heard anything about it? No. Not a thing, not a word. Just the picture you have behind you and the name of the movie is doing a lot. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. I have a feeling, well, there's probably going to be a lot to work with here this morning without knowing what this movie was about, just because this is what it is to be alive and this is where my brain is at. I was doing a little bit of research on sub-mental liposuction, which is a liposuction of the under chin area. Jesus Christ. Went down a real dive where I was like, this seems like very doable. And the thing is, you actually have to do it in your 20s and early 30s because once you hit 35, apparently your skin doesn't have enough elasticity to usually make it a do, you have to go for the full face lift. Right. Right. Have to. As soon as possible. As soon as possible. So I was like, okay, I've got a year to, oh my God, not even. Fuck, I have three months. Oh no, you'll never. Fuck. Time to schedule that. I was like, I could go, I should, and I started, I was like, and I was like, I closed out of all the windows and I'm not going to do it. And no shame on anybody who does. But just to say, these are things I struggle with. I think it's a pretty constant battle for most women body image issues. And yeah, I'll say now, I suppose, if you have issues with body image and eating disorders, this may be a triggering episode for you. So it's kind of all about that. I found it very relatable of just all the ways we're really horrible to ourselves. And then can sometimes be horrible to ourselves about being horrible to ourselves, like being like, you dumb, like, why are you being, you're such a bad feminist, not wanting to change your body. You're more than this. You're more than this. Right. Like just like an endless cycle of shame and self hatred that I think many people can relate to and have experienced and And like, yeah, when you're when you like go on and on and harp on like, here's the things that are bad and ugly about my body that need to be fixed. And I'm like thinking about fixing how many people are hearing that and going like, oh, that must mean I'm disgusting too. And I need to like change that about me because you rewrite that must be a problem. I must. It's like, it's like, oh God. Yeah, it's not good. Overwhelming. And we haven't even started. I'll give us some trivia. This is Emily Blickfeldt's directing debut. It is based on the story, Ashen Putl by the Brothers Grimm, which translates to Little Ash Girl, or what we call Cinderella. Little Ash Girl. Not quite the same ring to it. So yes, this is the ugly step sister from Cinderella. Okay. That's all the trivia I have. And we'll watch the trailer at the end because it's a little spoilery. I mean, the story is Cinderella ish. So you're going to recognize some of it. But yeah, if you want to watch our trailer reaction, that'll be on our Patreon at patreon.com slash TSDW podcast. And I think let's just get into this recap. Okay. You protect your health, your car, even your phone. But what about your home? It's probably your biggest investment. And when things go wrong, the costs can hit hard and fast. That's where HomeServe comes in. If I was a regular homeowner, I would definitely use HomeServe. Regular homeowner's insurance usually doesn't cover a lot of the day to day wear and tear, plumbing failures, HVAC breakdowns, electrical issues. 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Go to Q U I N C E dot com slash two scary for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash two scary. Now I'll give one more trigger warning for self harm. Hmm. Here we go. OK. We begin. We are in. Beautiful farmlands somewhere in 1800s Scandinavia. The place is referred to as Swedelandia, but again, this is a Norwegian film. It's sunny and green. It's all like soft, focussie and dreamy. We're getting some kind of fun, almost like electronic music, but in the style of like a baroque. Cool. Little electronic baroque music. Cool. And we see our protagonist, Elvira. She is reciting some poetry, like love poems about, I don't remember any of the poetry. I didn't write it down, but there's a prince there with her like practicing shooting arrows. And it's like pretty clear straight off the bat that this is a dream sequence of her like imagining herself with this like handsome prince and running off into the sunset together. When she is snapped back to reality, her mom like hits her on her head, says Elvira. Her name is Elvira. Wake up. We see she has fallen asleep with Prince Julian's most beautiful poems open in her in her lap. And she comes to in a carriage with her mother and her sister. Her mother's name is Rebecca. Her sister's name is Alma. And we see Elvira has these like high ponytail ringlets that is just like a really not flattering style. This movie does kind of do a little bit of a she's all that type of thing too, where it's like, look at this. I mean, it's in the title, ugly steps. And, you know, we'll get there, but she's not that ugly. She's not that ugly. I just put some glasses on her ringlets in her hair. Yeah, exactly. Hideous. So she's got some ringlets. She's also got braces. Ew, ugly. And they were in this carriage and we arrive at a castle, a small castle, a modest castle. I don't know what, what do you call just a regular house in the 18th century? But like a regular and pretty nice house in a state, an estate. They arrive at an estate. There we go. And step out and are greeted by a man and his daughter. The man's name is Otto. His daughter's name is Agnes. And Elvira is immediately struck by Agnes' beauty. She has very traditionally attractive features, long, blonde hair. And it's clear that Elvira is immediately like really taken with her. Her eyes go wide. Her mom tells her to cover her braces. So she's smiling really big, but like with her mouth closed and kind of like every once in a while, her little teeth peek out because she's just like so excited to have this like meet this really, really pretty girl. And we find out that Otto and Rebecca are to be wed. We go straight into their, they have a small ceremony with just Otto, Rebecca and Rebecca's two daughters and Otto's daughter. The mood is high. We're excited. Everyone's having a good time. It looks like we're all excited to become a family. Agnes takes Elvira to show her her new room. It's like kind of giddy, like, oh, we're sisters now. And this is so exciting. Elvira looks out the window and sees in the distance on top of the hills, the Prince's castle. She's looking at it longingly and dreamily. Agnes notices this and Elvira turns to Agnes and says, you know, I really want to marry that Prince. Like, I'm in love with the Prince. And Agnes gives her a little look of kind of like, oh, yeah, that sounds nice. And then they go downstairs for a big feast for dinner. And we're all jolly, having a good time. When Otto is cutting the wedding cake, grabs a handful of it and just throws it in Elvira's face. And everybody laughs. Elvira's like really stunned by it, shocked by it and like doesn't react at first. But everyone's just laughing and laughing and laughing as if this is like a just totally normal, harmless joke to make to your new stepdaughter. And you see Elvira like realize everyone's laughing. And so she like forces herself to start laughing and trying to be a good sport about it, even though what he did was wrong and mean. Yeah. And then as they're all laughing, Otto starts choking. Agnes is seated next to him is like reaching for him like, papa, papa, are you OK? And his eyes are wide. He's like struggling for breath. And then he coughs blood in her face and collapses into the cake and dies. Whoa, that was fast. Real quick. Yeah. Real quick death for Otto. We get our main titles again, this little techno, you baroque music. The aesthetic of this movie is it kind of reminds me of like an Emerald Fennell type of thing. There's like hot pink text over the like dreamy 1800s spread. It's very beautifully shot. So then we come back up. We see Agnes is in mourning in bed. She's she's crying. She's, you know, some amount of days has passed and Elvira comes in with food to try to comfort her. But she's not she's not doing a really good job comforting her. She's kind of just saying, you know, my dad died and we all got over it eventually. So like, you will probably too. She I think she does mean well here. She just does not know what to say. Yeah. And it really pisses Agnes off. She like yells at her to get out of her room. And she says she says if it wasn't for the money, my father would never have brought you into our family. And Elvira says, what money? She says your mother's money. And Elvira looks like, oh, shit. And like run screaming to her mom, mom, they don't have any money. And like runs into the other room where some bankers or whatever are there taking away the cattle and some of the land because Otto was apparently in a lot of debt and now they have taken on that debt. So they're having to like give certain things away. But but it does seem like Elvira's mom has a good amount of money. But this is still going to be a financial blow. And she Rebecca collapses. She's in her her black veil and just is like, oh, my God, this is this is a disaster. You know how hard it is to get someone to marry me. I'm a widow with saggy tits and two hopeless daughters. Like people aren't lining up to marry me. And like this was our shot. And Elvira is is saying like, don't worry, mom, like I'll get married. I'll get married to the prince. And Rebecca is like, she says she tells her to look in the mirror and says, he's not going to marry you. Oh, geez. And says and Alma hasn't even started her period. So she's like, not we can't marry her off yet. That's the little sister. She's like looks to be like 14 or 15. I mean, she honestly looks to be like 25, but. I assume she's supposed to be about 14 or 15. So now all the hopes of this family's financial rescue lay on Elvira's shoulders. And she's looking like she really wants to help. She doesn't know what to do. Oh, there's like a scene of her going and looking in the mirror and staring in the mirror and like pinching her face in all different directions and like looking at her braces and looking at her face from all different angles and like holding her skin up so that like a little chin fat is not visible and. Is that mental liposuction? No. No. Yeah, it's it's we've all done this. I feel like it's a heartbreaking moment. And then she hears in the street below someone calling out, writing up on horseback and there's a messenger from the Prince's castle announcing a ball. He's throwing a ball and is inviting all eligible virgins to the ball so that he can choose his bride and Elvira and Agnes run out and are given invitations to the ball. Elvira is frigging through the roof over the moon over the moon. Over the moon through the roof through the moon. She's absolutely through the moon. She's absolutely blasting through the moon. How old is she? Do you think it's supposed to be? I think she's probably supposed to be like 17. And is she supposed to, are she and Agnes like the same age? Yes. Got it. Yeah. Okay. And she's, she's running to give the good news to her mom when she's also like flashing more of those dreamy visions we saw in the beginning of the Prince lifting her into his arms and like running off into the distance just like so happy, happily ever after. And she tells her mom and her mom is like, okay, we got to call the doctor. Oh, God. And the doctor comes over, Dr. Esthetic. Oh, nice. And he's got like a little tape measure. He's like measuring the angles of her face. And he's like, oh, no, no, no, what are we going to do? He's like, the braces are easy. Braces we can take off no problem. But this nose, this monstrosity of a nose, we're going to have to like do something about that. Oh, no. Her nose is again, as you imagine, totally normal nose. Yeah. Yeah. But they decide, okay, we're going to need this nose job. We're going to do it right here right now. They answer drawing of like seven different nose shapes to choose which one she wants. And then they set up a little chair. Elvira gets in the chair. First, they take off the braces, which he has these like massive pliers. It all looks like absolutely barbaric and scary, like medieval torture devices. And he like rips the braces off of her teeth, which looks like a hurts, but like not terribly. She's like very excited to have them off. So at this point, she's like gets a little hand mirror and she's looking at herself and her teeth and she's smiling. She's like, oh my God, yeah, this is so exciting. And then it's time for the nose job. And she lays back in the chair and now she's looking a little, little nervous. She's like, so how does this work? He just pulls out a hammer and chisel. Holy shit. Holy shit. And Rebecca and Alma are also in the room. And Alma, Alma, I think is my favorite character in this movie. She's just like a quiet observer of all this as like, you know, what's supposed to be a 14 year old girl. Like seeing her future essentially of like, oh, is this what life is? And she sees that in like a side room where the doctor has come from, they're like mopping up a puddle of blood. Like, she's just like terrified sitting there in silence. We see Dr. Estetique put that chisel up right, right on the nose, right on the bone in the middle of nose and raise the hammer and go like one, two, three and wax it down. And Elvira just starts screaming. This actress's performance is so good in this movie. This is Leah Mirren and she's just like screams so intensely. Because no pain management. No pain management. No. And then, and then he's like, okay, second one and like lines it up. One, two, three, smashes it again, breaks her nose into places. Oh my God. It's horrifying. Cut to Elvira at a finishing school. A few days later, we see she is now in this nose brace that's like a, it's like a metal little cast, I guess, on her nose holding it in place, strapped on with these ribbons. But it looks very, I mean, she looks like Bane. It's like, it's like not. That's the picture you have behind you, the screen you have behind you. And I thought that she had, I thought she had syphilis because it looks like what, when people had syphilis and they would start losing body parts, they would like a fake nose on or a fake like, that's what it looks like. It's horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible. I, okay. So we're in finishing school now. They're getting lessons on how to, you know, attract a gentleman partner. This is how you must wave your fan and like lean forward slightly to show your cleavage. Dancing lessons. And there's two like headmistresses of this finishing school and one of them is teaching a dance. There's, they're saying they're going to perform a dance for the prince. And this is going to be the most important day of all of your lives because all the important men in the town will be there looking for their brides. Looking for scraps. Yeah. Yeah. So we're learning how to dance and three dancers will, will ultimately be chosen. But right now everyone's kind of learning the dance. We're going to whittle it down as we go. And Elvira is at the front. They do the, you know, first few moves of the choreography. It's very beletic. And the instructor is watching Elvira and tells her to move back. She's in the front row and she says, move back and Agnes move forward. Agnes is in the second row. So Agnes comes forward and Elvira moves to the second row. And they're kind of continuing to dance when the instructor's like, no, move back. And she goes back to the third row and then she's like, what aren't you understanding? Move all the way to the back and makes her go like to the very back of class. It's like humiliating, degrading. It's awful. And she looks obviously very hip set. Then they are having dinner at home that night. Elvira is having, looks like water soup. It's like a bowl of hot water with lemons in it. And she's looking around at everybody else's meals, which are actual food. Looking very hungry. Agnes asks about the funeral and says, when are we going to have my dad's funeral? And they say something like it, you know, that costs a lot of money. Agnes is getting angry because she's like, well, you're spending a lot of money. Like Dr. Estetique is not cheap. And my dad is rotting. We need to bury him. And this is where we're seeing kind of like wicked stepmother vibes. Or she's like, she's like, we're not buried him right now. Like, I'm not going to deal with that right now. Like get that out of your head. And so we follow Agnes after dinner. She brings some flowers down to the room that they're keeping her father's dead body in. She comes to his side and we get a look at him. And yes, he is very much rotting. There are like maggots. He is like swollen and like, very upsetting. Oh, next day we're back at finishing school. Elvira volunteers to do a solo. And the instructor kind of laughs at her and thinks she's going to humiliate herself. So she's like indulging her. She's like, yeah, let's see you do it. And then Elvira is actually pretty good at it. And so the teacher looks a little humbled, but she's like, yeah, you have some talent, but wasted talent. Because I'm like never going to pick you. And the only reason you're here is because your mom is like paying me to keep you here. What a bitch for no reason. Really mean. Again, in front of everybody, she's Elvira is on the verge of tears and like just again, like completely humiliated. And then she goes home and she's trying on her dress for the ball and it doesn't fit. She needs to lose some weight to be able to fit into it. We see her looking at her naked body in the mirror later that night in her room. Again, just like such a devastating scene where she's just like pinching the areas where there's like fat on her body and like kind of looking at herself with a disappointed look on her face and just like looks like sad. It's really sad. And we see that she has like hid some pastries in her dresser because she's not being fed food meals. So she's like sneaking food. And then we see another day she's meeting with the other school headmistress, finishing school mistress that is like, I think she is the headmistress and other ones like the dance instructor. And we don't catch this lady's name, but at first just because I know it's like a Cinderella story, I'm like, is this a fairy godmother? Like who's coming to help? Someone help. And this woman brings her into her office for a meeting and she's really kind to her. And she says she can see that Elvira is really feeling really deflated and sad and it's kind of like giving up hope. And she says, like, you remind me a lot of myself and I don't want you to give up. And Elvira looks at her and is like, what are you talking about? You're beautiful and I'm ugly and fat and like no one's ever going to want to marry me. And she says, I can tell that you are beautiful on the inside and like good for you trying to make the outside match the inside, which not, not quite. Not great. Not great. Not quite the what we want to be harping on. She hands her a little locket, like a little lock box thing and presses it into her palm and says, this is a gift from me to you. And remember that it's what's inside that counts. And we're thinking like, that's nice. OK, that's a nice thing to say. Cut to Elvira and Alma in the woods. She opens the little box. It's a tapeworm egg. Oh, no. Yeah, no. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. She shows Alma again. Alma's just like watching like horrified. Like, what are you talking about? She's like, it's so exciting. Like, all I have to do is swallow this tapeworm egg and then I can eat whatever I want. And the tapeworm just eats it and I'll still lose weight. And like, it's that's isn't that so great. And Alma gets really upset and like that's crazy. Like, you know that that's insane. And Elvira is like really shocked by this. She's like, what do you mean? Like, this is like the best thing that's ever happened to me. And Alma's really upset and like storms off and they rode to this little picnic spot on horseback and Alma takes both horses and storms off. And so Elvira is left alone in the woods. It's daytime. It doesn't seem like scary or anything, but she's going to have to walk back home. And we see her like a little hurt by this interaction, but not at all deterred to take the tapeworm egg. And she pops it in her mouth. No, don't do it. No, not in the woods, not in the woods, not in the woods. And she smiles. She's excited about it. She's feeling really good. This is going to be great. Okay, it's going to be great. This is going to be great. Everyone grab your Vixfapal rub now. So we get a quick little scene back at the estate where we see Agnes seems to have a romantic connection with the stable boy, the guy that tends to the horses. They are like secretly sneaking off and hooking up. Seems like something that's been going on for a while. So we're just we're bookmarking that. Elvira now is walking home through the woods and she comes across the prince and two of his friends, she like hides behind a rock. They don't they don't notice her. And she's eavesdropping for a little bit. She's like starstruck and so excited, like, oh my God, the prince, the prince, the prince. We overhear what they're saying. And they're of course being like very misogynistic and gross and like, oh, the ball is going to be great. But there's going to be so many like sexy ladies there. I don't remember what they say, but the vibe is like, we're going to fuck all these women and like, it's going to be awesome. And Elvira is a little bummed to hear this. But again, like not quite going to let anything burst her bubble just yet. She's like, you know, whatever, boys will be boys. I can I can fix it. And just then she stumbles and falls into their like eyesight and. Does she still have her nose brace? Yes. And she just took the tapeworm. I hate this so much. And the two friends of the prince say like, oh, look now there's there's your bride. There's your new bride. And the prince looks at her this like scathing look like he's disgusted by her. He's like that thing. Like I'm not marrying that. Oh, she runs, she runs home. She's crying and she's passing the stable when she hears something going on in the stables. Stops to take a little look, see. And just a full frame. Close up of Agnes's asshole. She's just like standing or kneeling ass up ready to be fucked by this stable boy. But it's just it's a very funny shot because it's it's so. You don't see a lot of assholes. You don't see a lot of assholes and it's like playing against Elvira's face. Like Elvira's not seen a lot of assholes either. So she's just like. What am I looking at? It's almost like a vertigo zoom on the asshole and that on her face. So she's just like, what's up? She's maybe not seen a single asshole. Oh yeah, that's possible. Yeah. Yeah. They haven't noticed her there yet. And so then she sees the like very erect penis coming and it has the like horse grunting in the background and it feels like this very like animalistic moment. And she's like terrified by it, but also can't look away when he starts fucking her. And it's all like shot and edited in a very funny way where it just Elvira's like, oh, what? What the fuck is happening? And she's watching this go on for a little bit when, I don't know, little twig breaks or something. Agnes turns around, locks eye, like eye contact with her as everybody comes. Oh, wow. Okay, great. And Elvira like lingers a little, another little moment, but then runs back to the house. And she's like, mom, mom, Agnes isn't a virgin. She can't marry the prince. And stepmother comes down. She's wicked, evil stepmother. Now she like grabs the stable boy and throws him out naked and is like throwing rocks at him. And is like, I never want to see your filthy face again. You disgust me. And then she's throwing Agnes on the ground, calling her dirty whore, saying you're not going to the ball. You're going to be our servant now. And like you're bringing shame to this family. And then they start calling her Cinderella. Little ash girl. The part of the story we didn't see. She's actually a huge slut. They left that part out. This is the prologue to the Disney film. Did we ever stop to consider maybe Cinderella absolutely fucking deserved at that whore? So when the messenger had come earlier, he said the ball was going to be in four full moons. Oh, that's a long ass time. Yeah. They had some time to prepare this. Why? She got the nose job. She's like, early that time for that to heal. Oh, we better do it right now. Oh, we got to do it right away. So now we get a title card that says three full moons later. And we come up on Elvira taking off that nose brace. Her nose is healed and she's looking in the mirror admiring her reflection, which looks, I think, pretty much the same as before. Again, this is where she's all that. It's like, okay, I guess. Then she's at the doctor's at Dr. Estetique says he's he's taking this off. He's admiring his own handiwork. Like, oh my God, I did so good. This is incredible. And then he convinces her and Rebecca that I think Elvira would really look good with some eyelash extensions. We're like, okay, great. Yeah, let's do that. How bad can it be? How bad can it be? Are they mad at like spider legs? Ew, ew, heads! It's going to be like the grossest thing you've ever heard of. What happens? So he has the eyelash extensions on like a little string. And we see he has a nurse helping him who has the eyelash extensions. Oh my God, she's gorgeous. You see her eyes. She looks stunning with these eyelashes. And so we're getting excited. We're like, okay, great. And he's like, oh, and now you know what? We have this new pain medication so we can use that. And he starts like sprinkling white powder on her eyes. And he's like, it's from the cacao plant. Cocaine strain to the eyeballs. It's just cocaine right in the eyes. And then he's like snorting a little bit on the side too. And he's like, oh yeah, it works great. This stuff's great. And then he lines up the eyelashes. This little string with the bottom lid and pulls out a big needle. No, we're sewing them. No. They're being sewn on. No. No. And then another nurse comes in and we see she has one beautiful eye and one just like white eye that clearly has had some. Massive reaction. Like maybe someone did a big line of cocaine right before trying to sew some shit in your eye. Yeah. So now Elvira's looking pretty scared and then the needle goes in and I would love to know how they filmed this because it really just looks like someone getting eyelashes sewn onto their own eyes and it's a real close up. Nope. And it goes on for a really long time. I'm always doing a full dance in her chair right now. A full dance, interpretive dance. You can't get me if I just stay in motion. Yeah, you can't get her. She's still moving. She's moving. You can't get her. So now we're back at home post operation. Her head is completely bandaged and bloodied. Just like little eye patches of blood in this bandage. And her stomach is gurgling, making these horrible gurgling noises. And we see she's like lifts her dress up and we see a little movement happening under the skin. Sick, sick. So it was an egg this whole time, meaning it didn't. It hatched now. It's now attached. Yes. Ew. She gets up and blindly is feeling her way around the room. The stomach gurgling is getting so loud. So we're like, okay, she's seeming hungry. She's trying to go get food, but she can't move around the space super easily. And we cut to the other room and we see Alma has started her period. She wakes up hearing that Elvira is fumbling around and sees period blood in the bed. And she just looks like absolutely terrified and covers it up. She goes out to clean it and passes Elvira, but Elvira has bandages over her eyes, so can't see her. And she doesn't say anything. She's like, oh, I'm just going to get some water. And they pass each other. Did you get the impression that she's maybe had her period for a little while and is hiding it? I didn't, but maybe. He would just be like, nope, still haven't gotten it. Nothing to see here. So Elvira makes her way down to the kitchen and is feeling around for food. And she can't find anything. And she's crying and whimpering. And she pulls up the bandages and we see her swollen, stitchy eyes that are all black and blue. Not worth it. And Agnes comes in. I don't know whether to call her Agnes or Cinderella. I guess I'll call her Agnes because that's her name. But I might slip a little Cinderella in here and there. But I don't want to mean it as like a mean name. She sees her and kind of takes pity on her and like hands her some food. She, there's some like cake. She gives it to her. And Elvira just like scarfs it down. Looks like so hungry. And Agnes is, yeah, just looks like she feels really bad for her at this point. And she's like, this is, this is sad. This is bleak. Next day at the finishing school, Agnes has been pulled out of the finishing school. She's just, she's Cinderella now. She's a servant. She doesn't go to finishing school. She's not going to the ball. Well, we see a couple of the other girls in the class seem to have bruises around their eyes as well. It looks somewhat healed. Elvira does. So this must be a little while later. And because Agnes is gone, the dance instructor has to find a new lead. I don't think they had chosen the final three. Maybe they had, but they're about to. And that was someone that she had in mind, I suppose, for the three dancers that were going to perform for the prince. But now that Agnes is gone, she has to choose another person. And the headmistress that we saw earlier kind of encourages her to choose Elvira, who now has, you know, long, beautiful lashes, healed nose. Great little nose. No braids. No braces. She's lost some weight. And so a little begrudgingly, this dance instructor chooses Elvira. So now she's practicing the dance. She's very excited. Okay, this is so great. Things are going so well. Everything's going to be perfect forever. And I'm going to marry the prince. She goes home and takes a bath and is making Cinderella. Feed her spaghetti while she's in the bath. Honestly, what a dream. It's very funny as she's like reading the prince's poems and she's just singing like, oh, this is going to be my husband soon. And like little pieces of spaghetti are falling into the bath and she's like picking them up and eating them. And Agnes's swatch is so like so gross to fire her at this point. And I think she asks her to brush her hair and when Agnes comes with the hair brush, Elvira's hair just starts like falling out in big clumps. Apparently this is side-effect of tapeworm. Yeah, I mean, you're incredibly malnourished. Yeah, her hair is just starting to really fall out. It's a side-effect of, yeah, eating disorders. Yeah. Right, right. Right. So we cut to her sleeping in bed and her mom waking her up, pulling her out of bed, pulling her sleeping gown over her head so she's naked, turns her around and we see there's like three men in the room with them just staring at her. Elvira's like, what the fuck is going on? And the like lead man, man in charge, steps forward. And she's like, oh, I'm going to be in the room. Like lead man, man in charge, steps forward and says, I'm your fairy godmother. And he has this big chest with him. He opens it up and it has a gorgeous ball gown inside. And she is so excited and she like gets into it, I guess. Obviously weirded out at first because these people have just seen her naked. It's like a very weird way to interact with somebody. I, her mom is, her mom's also incredibly good in this, just have to say. Anyways, she is like getting into the gown when Agnes comes in and this fairy godmother guy like sees how gorgeous Agnes is and is immediately like, what's this girl's deal? Like, can I fuck this girl? He doesn't say that exactly, but that's his vibe is like, he goes up and he's at first like trying to flirt with her. She's obviously not interested. So then he assaults her and just starts like making out with her. She pushes him off of her and spits at him and then spits again on the floor in front of him. And then Rebecca is like, clean that up right now. Like, and it's just like awful scene. And then they like kick her out of the room and Elvira is like in the dress now. And they're like, okay, yeah, she's gone now. Okay, great. Let's see you in this dress. They walk up towards the mirror and this man reaches his hand into the boob and like pulls her boobs up, you know, to make like cleavage, but just like puts like both of his hands down her dress to like pull her boobs up in a way that, oh, it's awful. And the dress is really gorgeous. She looks great. They're saying tomorrow you're going to make us all rich. Everyone's a little invested now and like obviously whoever marries the prince is going to make a lot of money. But then we see the clumps of hair falling out. They notice that she's she's balding and they're like, oh, oh, no. And Rebecca has this like moment of like, oh my God, fuck, fuck, fuck, what are we going to do when this guy is he's got wigs, he's got plenty of wigs. He pulls one out a blonde wig and like no problem at all. Don't worry that we've got this. Downstairs we see Agnes crying and running. She has a chest with one of her mother's old gowns. It's blue and beautiful, a baby blue. You've seen her before. And she's kind of praying to her mom or like talking to her mom's, hey, mom, like, please don't let this be my life. Like I don't want this to be my life. Elvira comes in at that moment and sees her and sees the dress and looks pissed. And Agnes turns and looks at her and is like, I'm going to the ball and you can't stop me. Elvira starts screaming. She rips up the dress. She's not having it. In this context, it makes more sense than in the Cinderella story. Right. Elvira has been through the ringer here. Yeah, this woman is not doing well and she has, yeah, we can forgive for this. And what hope does she have if she does not nab this misogynistic asshole of a man? She needs to. She literally needs to. She has to. Oh, there's even a moment when Agnes is with the stable boy that I forgot about where they're like clearly in love and they're like kissing and she's crying and she's like, but I have to marry the prince. It's just like this is a time where women just like had to get married for financial reasons like there was just no other. Literally, we had to until like the 70s, 1970s. Right. And so it's like she can't get married for love because they have zero money. Be ruined, yeah. So Agnes is now crying, holding her shredded gown and she runs down to the room where her father's corpse is still being held. Oh my God, they still haven't buried him? Still haven't buried him. And she kind of collapses on top of him really, really gross honestly, but she's just really upset and sobbing over the dress and over him. And we're like seeing what look like maggots crawling towards her and the dress, but then they get on the dress and you get a little closer look at them. They're silkworms. And they start kind of going to work on this dress. Little stitch stitching away, little helpful silkworms and then a glow comes over the room. Agnes lifts her head and sees her mother there in the room and her mother smiles at her and says your shoes are in your pocket and she reaches into her pocket and pulls out beautiful slippers, not glass slippers, but nice, very, very beautiful slippers. And she's smiling at her and she says like be careful though because your carriage will turn into a pumpkin at midnight. Okay, so magic is real. So that one is real. Got it. We see now it's the day of the ball, night of the ball. Everyone arriving, Elvira is looking amazing in her very expensive, fancy dress and gorgeous wig. And we're in this big ballroom where people are standing around the perimeter while each eligible virgin is introduced by their mothers. It'll be like Agnes, whatever, present, not Agnes though, she's not there. Being presented by the mother, we're seeing all the men around licking their lips and eating the little appetizers or derbs, just like shoving food in their mouths. It reminded me of in the substance when What's His Face is eating the shrimp and it's so gross. So we're introducing them one by one and some of them, they say they're ages and some of them are like 16 and just throwing that out there, just a reminder. And then it's Elvira's turn. Everyone gasps. Oh my God, she's gorgeous and she's absolutely stealing the show. People are lining up to want to dance with her. The prince only has eyes for her. He asks her to dance. Everything's going perfectly according to plan. Elvira is looking absolutely thrilled. When in comes a mysterious stranger in a baby blue gown and a little mask over her face. Like she's at a masquerade ball? No, it's just like a piece of fabric, really. Oh, okay. Little piece of fabric tied around her face with string, like a veil, but a small little square. Okay. A small little square veil. So like you can definitely still tell it's Agnes? Absolutely, but nobody can in this world. Right, right. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Love it when they do that. Yeah. She, it's the same dress. She's got her long blonde hair, same body, same. Same body, same vibe. Yeah. The prince is obviously immediately drawn to this new potential bride. He drops Elvira, walks straight over to the stranger in blue, asks her for a dance. He's fallen in love. He's immediately, he's seen all he needs to see. He's made his choice. Elvira is devastated, furious, but then her stomach's gurgling and she runs to the other room, out of the main room to the little side room and just starts vomiting. Oh no. Like a black liquid with some stuff in it and then we get a look at it and it's a bunch of tapeworm eggs. No. No. No. No. No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And her mom runs in after her and is like, what the fuck are you doing? You need to get back out there and Elvira's. I can't believe I didn't see this coming. Oh my god. Elvira is crying and she says, mom, I think I'm dying. And Rebecca tells her to like get her shit together because this is it. This is the night she needs to go find a husband. There's other men out there. You don't have to marry the prince. Like I need you to step up right now and go find a fucking husband. Well, do you want her throwing up in front of all these men? Do you want her throwing up tapeworms in front of all these men? Any fucking idiot? She does not care. She pushes her out there, slaps her, says like, you know, fucking get over it, get out there. Elvira goes out. Obviously, like, feels like absolute shit. She's like disoriented. She's out of it and is just like this montage of her dancing with all these men and like kind of flopping around and just like trying to stay conscious. It looks like she like wants to like pass out. And then. Well, how many fucking tapeworms are inside of her eating all her food? Yeah, exactly. Everything. And she needs a real doctor, not Dr. Asvetik. And this one guy like pulls her aside and is like, or I think Rebecca introduces her to she's like this man owns like a fish company and he talked to him and dance with him and he comes up and says, do you like oysters? She's like, oysters? No, no. And I'm like, like she's so out of it and he's like, do you like fish? She's like, no, no, no fish. And he says, do you like shrimps? She's like, yeah, I like shrimps. I like shrimps. And he's like, great, let's dance. And he's like, again, tossing her around. She's like limp and just like trying her best to go along with dance. Very upsetting scene as well, but like very well done. And so she's doing this dance and one of the dances ends with like the guy tipping the girl backwards so that her head is down and that this happens right next to the prince and Agnes. And so as she tips down, her tiny little veil flips up and Elvira and Agnes make eye contact and Elvira is like, as if it wasn't totally obvious that it was her the whole time. But in this moment, Agnes runs. She's been caught and so she gets the fuck out of there and wouldn't you know it? She leaves behind one of her slippers. The prince picks it up and says to the crowd, we must find the woman who fits this slipper. She will be a man who knows absolutely nothing about women's feet and shoes. It's made me laugh because it's like, it's probably like one third of all of the women. If only one woman can wear those shoes, her feet are absolutely fucked up in some way. Like they're either like horrifyingly small or misshapen or like to have the world's most unique foot is actually like not ideal. No. So we see Elvira running home now or taking the carriage home and we do see a little pumpkin at the doorstep, which is funny. We see inside Agnes is back into her servant clothes, her Cinderella rags and she's feeding a little rat some cheese, which I really liked. Mm-hmm. Elvira comes in with a butcher knife and attacks her. Oh my God. It's like, give me your slipper, give me that slipper. And eventually is able to like wrestle the slipper away from her. Agnes is at first trying to be like, I don't know what you're talking about, but then eventually she's like, okay, fine, don't kill me with the butcher knife. Here's the fucking slipper. Elvira runs upstairs with the slipper. We see her mom in her bedroom hooking up with the shrimp sky. Oh, yikes. And she's trying to say to her mom, she's like, Mom, Agnes is the is the mysterious stranger. And she's like, not now, Elvira, you had your chance and you blew it. Now I have to like pick up the slack, like get out of here. So Elvira runs to her room. She puts down the butcher knife. She grabs the shoe and tries to put it on and it's way too small. Oh God. Okay. Yeah, we knew this was coming. We knew this was coming. I did it. I really did it. Yikes. But yes it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We see her look defeated. Oh my God, what is she going to do? How is she going to fit into the shoe? And when she looks at the butcher knife, looks at the shoe, looks at the butcher knife, looks at the shoe, she lines up the shoe with her foot and takes the butcher knife and gently presses it where she needs to cut to be able to fit into the shoe. So she draws like a little reference line. No, no, no, no. Okay. Emily's trying to get away. So there's no refer to go. There's no refer to go. She's trying to get away. She can't. And she's looking absolutely crazed in this moment to her eyes. She's like, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, it's bad. And she grabs a little stool and puts her foot on it. She grabs a little log from the fireplace and lines up the butcher knife with the little reference line on her toes and raises that log similar to the hammer and chisel from the beginning and does a little one, two, three and swings it down again, screaming bloody murder. Oh my God. I want to scream bloody murder just hearing about this. Same. Same except I'm somewhere else. Oh, she's gone. She left. Oh, she got, she made it. She made it out. She made it out actually. And drops the knife, drops the log and we see that it didn't cut through all the way. So her toes are all just dangling off her foot. Oh, sick, sick, sick, sick, sick. It's like basically just the last piece of skin holding them on. Sick, sick, sick, sick, sick, sick. And we get a real close up shot. You would not be able to walk without toes. Yeah, you can't walk. No, she just, no. She's not thinking clearly. No, she's not thinking clearly. Alma runs in hearing the screaming, sees this is again just like completely horrified. Oh my God, poor Alma. Oh my God. Wraps a belt or something to use that as a tourniquet, just like immediately ties her leg to try to stop the bleeding. Then her mom and shrimp's guy run in. Shrimp's guy sees it, immediately passes out. Yeah. Rebecca is like, comes in and looks really shocked as well, but like you see little like wheels turning in her mind. She's like, what, what, what, what should I do? What should I do? And she has this like liquid something that she has used to sleep earlier. And so she uses, she's like, it's okay. It's okay. Like I'm going to give you something to knock you out to take away the pain. It's okay. She gives that to her and. Finish this job. As she's kind of like drifting away, Elvira is like drifting off to sleep. She's like, I still don't know where did you mom? And Rebecca says, sweetie, you did the wrong foot. The prince has the left shoe. Like you have the right shoe. The prince is going to try the left. And then Elvira passes out. Alma is like, what are you talking about? And Rebecca picks up the butcher knife, tells Alma to get out. You know, I'm going to throw up. Throw up. She hacks off the little dangly toes. No. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then goes over to the other foot. And chops off all of those toes as well. Yeah. Yeah. But kind of like a hack job. She's doing a really not one clean cut. She's really, she's really fucking it up and having to do a lot of. That's Rebecca's style. That's Rebecca's style. Yeah. That's Rebecca's style. Then cut to black. We see again, one more vision, dream of Elvira with the prince running off into the sunset when Elvira wakes up in her bed the next day. Her two bandaged feet, just bloodied little stumps. She looks down. She's like again screaming in pain. And she hears the prince's messenger, whatever, the prince's brigade coming and ringing a bell and being like, all women who are at the ball, please come down to try to try on the slipper. And she tries to get out of bed but can't swing her legs around and stand on them, obviously. So she ends up falling off the bed, landing on her face, breaking her nose back and knocking out her two front teeth. Okay. Well, that wasn't necessary. We didn't need that too. She's just in like a puddle of blood like spitting and she can't walk and she's like trying to rush downstairs to be able to try on the slipper. And this scene is devastating but also so over the top and funny because she's doing this army crawl and it's just so pathetic. You're also probably so weak. So weak and it looks like she's in so much pain. So malnourished. Her teeth are probably just waiting to fall. Yeah, just hanging on by thread. And her hair is all falling out now. She's like more bald than not and she gets the staircase and like falls down the stairs and is like hitting everything as she tumbles down. It's horrible. And as she makes it to the bottom of the stairs, she like is laying on her back and her head's tipped back and she's looking out the door towards where the carriage is. And Agnes comes up just at that moment and sees Elvira and they have this moment of just looking at each other and Agnes looks like really shocked, obviously. Yeah. And she's just like there's a moment of just like oh my god, this is so sad. But then Agnes runs outside, we hear it fits and cheering and oh my god, the prince has found his bride. You see Elvira just like hearing this on the floor, bloody, balding, no teeth, her nose worse than it was before. And then Alma comes in and finds her and says like okay enough of this now, like we need to, oh I forgot that there was when the headmistress gave her the tapeworm, she says like when you want to end it, you just have to like drink this antidote or like poison that'll kill them or something. But it only kills the tapeworms, don't worry. Yeah. But Alma knew about this and so Alma's like this is ridiculous, like you need to take that, like stop now and she like pulls her into the kitchen and like sets up a little station for her to be able to throw up the tapeworm. It's like okay, let's drink this antidote, she does it and then she's just like gagging and gagging and dry heaping and oh my god, I always think about when actors have to do this, like how many takes of just like non-stop gagging, like that seems like really hard to do. Yeah. Hopefully they didn't have to do too many takes. This is the grossest thing, one of the grossest things I've ever seen. No, no, no. Just like as she's gagging, we see just a little like white worm poking out No. Alma's like, I see it, it's coming out, it's coming out. She's like vomiting and gagging and gagging and it comes out enough that Alma can grab it. Oh my god, Alma. And Alma starts pulling it out like a string and it just keeps coming and coming and coming and coming and coming. It's like 10 feet long, it's crazy. It's absolutely disgusting. I thought it and she gets it out, they get it out. I thought it was going to like be attached to her intestines and just pull out her intestines and kill her, but it doesn't. A silver lining. And then Alma, after they kind of gather themselves and... How does one gather when someone's... I would not be gathered till the end of my days. No, no, no, no. I would never be gathered. Alma tells Elvira, we're leaving, we're going, we're getting out of here. You and me. And she goes, sneaks upstairs to steal a piece of her mother's jewelry to sell and sees, like looks over, hears a noise, looks over, sees her mom giving Shrimp's guy a blow job. Rebecca turns and sees Alma and they just like stare at each other for a minute. And then Rebecca goes back to the blow job. Alma leaves, helps Elvira get up and she's like, okay, we got to go down these stairs to get to the horses. And so they do like a wheelbarrow because she's got two bloodied stump feet. And so she's like carrying... Elvira has like walk on her hands. And then they both just like start giggling. And it's so cute. It's like a really sweet moment of just like... Alma, you can tell just like really loves Elvira. It's just like the one pure relationship in the movie where it's just like, Alma actually cares about her and is like, I want to protect you from this and I'm going to take you away. And then they just have this cute little giggle and do kind of a like, oh yeah, we're doing a little wheelbarrow. Haha, this is cute. And then she gets her on the horse and they ride off into the sunset. And we see the group of crows, a murder of crows, excuse me, eating the chopped up remnants of the tapeworm. And that's the end of the movie. Holy, holy shit. Holy shit. That was a lot. That was a lot. It's a lot. Yeah. Yeah. That was a lot. It's a tough hang. That's a tough hang, that one. I don't even know where to start. I mean, it's crazy because truly the nose job thing was one of the craziest things that I had. Like I was like, oh my god. And then it just like kept really getting crazier. And I really love it when a movie is able to do that. It's impressive. And like I said, the effects of sewing those eyelashes on everything just looks real. And it's horrifying. But I mean, the way for it to end with her chopping off her own foot shows in a stark way how trapped you women have felt by this situation. That we've been put in for centuries. I mean, we do not just women, all people, also women, do pay people to cut us apart. Add things in, take things out, reshape, chisel. Yeah. And I'm not even, I've always been pro anybody doing what they need to do to feel whole. It's very complicated. I hold no judgment towards anybody who engages in anything. I have considered certain things myself and probably still will. But it is when you take just like one step back, it makes me want to be dead. When I just, when I just sort of get off the ride for a second and watch it, I am like, what the actual fuck? Right. Because it's, because it's to what end? It's one thing if it's for truly for yourself, but if it's actually for like the male gaze. But also like for ourselves, why? Why must we look a certain way to love ourselves? It like can't be, I'm like not sure that it can be for yourself. Because it's, we don't, we don't need our bodies to look any certain way to like exist happily. Like the only reason we would be dissatisfied with a thing about us is because of societal messaging. Telling us that it's wrong. Telling us that it's wrong. And so it's, I agree though. I mean, I'm also like not against anybody doing procedures or things that they feel will make them feel better, but it's all just like so murky and fucking sad. And it's, yeah, it's awful. The thing that stood out to me more than like the plastic surgery aspect of this film, which is obviously very present. The thing that stood out to me more though is just this like, it's really just this fucked up dynamic of like putting women in this tiny little box, this tiny little box where our only hope to be happy, our only hope for a comfortable loving life is to be chosen by a man. And it is so, it's a message that is forced on our throats from the second we're born until like for our entire lives. I mean, it happens now in terms of like stories about like women, you know, it's just over and over and over again in our culture. And truly, I feel like I was indoctrinated into that idea, even though the economics of it have changed drastically in the past 50 years. Now women have a lot more economic freedom than they used to. They used to not have any economic freedom. They literally had to be chosen by a man in order to be happy or have a successful life. Now, technically those shackles have been taken off us a little bit. However, I would say the messaging is still that in order to be happy, you need to be chosen. And like, I fucking hate that. It's still also like somewhat financially, it's really hard to be single. Right. Yeah. In this economy. Well, and even taking, I mean, yes, that is true. And it is, it's just as women get older, we are like told and the data follows that our value decreases. But even aside from getting a partner, we are made to believe, and again, the data follows, that the more aesthetically pleasing we are to anyone and everyone, the more success follows us, the easier things become. You know, like I have a wonderful husband who I adore and who adores me. I've been chosen. I have chosen him. We're good. And I saw a one before and after photo of Dakota Johnson on my Instagram this morning and spent 15 minutes researching submental liposuction. As if like getting a one surgical procedure was the key to happiness. Yeah. And like in is not just that like, oh my God, so worth it. Like what a great thing that I can just go do. Like I, what? I know. Yeah. It's like the, our, us being dissatisfied with ourselves in as many ways as possible is the most like lucrative thing for our economy. Also guess what? If you're focusing on that shit, you're not focusing on anything else. It's like good for the economy and it's good to keep you submissive. If you're like spending all your time and energy hating yourself and trying to fix it. Yeah. Exactly. Once you realize that all of that is in order to keep you submissive. Submissive is the perfect word to use because it's like you, if you're hungry, you're more submissive. If you're obsessed with just how you look, you're more submissive. If like you're putting all of your weight, your value of yourself on how you look, you're going to be more submissive. It's all about keeping women in that position and it fucking pisses me off. It pisses me off. You guys. So. Fucking much. I don't know. I don't feel like I really needed this movie to like remind me of any of that. I feel like I'm like super aware of it. Yeah. For me, the timing was apt. Yeah. Because also how we consume, how we live our lives is through screens. Everything is image based. Everything is image based. Even this podcast. No one was supposed to see what we look like. Now we're supposed to be on video. Podcast. You want to see my face? Visual too. Here's what my face looks like. Is nothing sacred. I just really liked the approach of the movie overall as like Cinderella from the point of view of the ugly stepsister and like Wicked Stepmother and just seeing how we're like all victims of the same like. Yeah. Patriarchy. This is one of the most, not I've seen it, versus other movies on this theme that we've covered or I've heard about. This is like feels like the most successful and the most nuance. Like I really love the portrayal of having the sister there, watching this happen because so much of this, it's so much easier for me to be kind to myself when I think about like literally any young girl in the whole world. When I think about like May or hi May, you as a full grown adult listening now. I know that you have absolutely no body dysmorphine you never have. May, I really hope you didn't listen to that movie. I really hope you did. But like truly I'm like when I think of it through the lens of like literally anybody else, I'm like, well, no, no, you shouldn't think like, no, this is stupid and your body's perfect because it's a body that works and like who cares. But if it's just me alone in my room with my thoughts and my mirror and my iPhone camera, I'm like you nasty, nasty little bitch. I agree. And that's the tragedy of it is that it narrows our point of view. To such a small, small, small, small, small, myopic point of view that makes life look tiny, so tiny that you have to chop your fucking feet off in order to live in it. And it pisses me off because life is so much bigger than that. And we get to be conscious and we get to enjoy being alive and we get to live in nature. And we get to have relationships where we get to laugh and have sisters that make us laugh. And like that is one, I really appreciated that in the end of the movie, them doing the wheelbarrow and laughing because it's like, yeah, like there's so much more out there and it's so easy to forget that when we're constantly being told one thing. And she loved Agnes until she was made to view her as someone who's taking something from her. Like, you know, and we don't, oh, I just, it's so, it's so devastating. I know. I think that what you just said, Henley, like reminds me of, I feel like so much of our society in general is like very goal focused and like always moving towards something. And in this, it's moving towards, I must get this prince. But like, that's true in like all facets of life of just being like career focused or like moving towards this thing, which I think, I guess ties in with the dissatisfaction that I mentioned earlier is like, I think we're just really conditioned to feel like we don't have what we need yet and we need to keep moving towards something that we don't have. And yeah, I think the moments of joy, like laughing with your sister about a silly, walking, funny, walking, funny, like those moments do matter. And those moments are accessible all the time and are kind of like the antidote to feeling overwhelmed by needing control over the whole rest of your life and like trying to figure out your whole life and maybe even like the whole world's problems and all like just like our scope of what we focus on is what is, yeah, way too big. But maybe now I'm saying the opposite of what you're saying, but I think it is. They work together. And also because when you've been like focused on just one thing, this one thing, this one thing, this one thing, then you get the one thing and then you're married to a misogynistic asshole that you have to have sex with all the time. I love that like the thing here too is like Cinderella is going to a prison. Like she's like, she sold herself off because she had to. It's not a prize. The narrative we've got is like, oh my God, I love it for sight. She found the slipper in there. She is. She like made a business decision for herself and followed it through to the end. I forgot to say that there's like one quick little post credits clip of her father's corpse just like rotting in the basement still, which I was like, yeah, I think speaks to that of like how she's taken away from the person that actually mattered to her and it was unable to ever like do the one thing she wanted to do, which was bury her father. Oh, so sad. It's so sad. Yeah. And how it just makes us betray each other. Yeah. We're all turning on each other. Yeah. For what? Yeah. And like similarly how when you're just focusing on like, what's wrong with me, what I need to fix, who do I need to give my money to to make me like more correct for society. You can't focus on anything else and you can't like help other people or contribute to the world in any meaningful way. Also, the second you're like out with people, if I'm out with people who I love, I am not thinking about if I look disgusting or if you know, like it's like that's also the second you move outside that perspective. It's gone. Like it's like it is, it traps you, but it's also like it only works if you feed it. Mm hmm. It's ephemeral. It's ephemeral. Yeah. I do notice that. I feel like I've noticed that, that there's a connection between when I'm feeling more depressed, I'm more self-critical of how I look. Yeah. 100%. And it's like anytime I'm starting to be super self-critical of how I look, I'm like, oh. Something's going on. I'm getting depressed again. Yeah. Yeah. Because when I'm focused on something else, then I'm not thinking about what I look like. You know? Oh, geez. You guys, you're fucking, you guys are so beautiful. Well, you're so beautiful. And everyone is. And also like every, everyone is so beautiful is the thing too. Last night we were, you know, talking about who do you think is the most beautiful person. But what I want to say to that point is like, I couldn't, I was like, well, this person, well, but this person, oh my God, this person is so beautiful. I've seen this person because like there is no such thing. Yeah. And also your personality changes how you look. And that's, that's another thing that's forgotten. And the people that you love are gorgeous to you. Well, yes. And like there's been this deep flattening of aesthetic appearance where it's been flattened to mean this one thing that then isn't actually, like when you're in a dynamic, organic life, when you're life, it doesn't matter. It changes so much depending on how someone is in the world, you know. And we just disregard that in favor of like, I don't know, pictures. It's so stupid. Yeah. Yeah. And oh, I just want more for Mayan Silas than to be trapped by it. Yeah. I think having rich relationships with people who love them is the greatest gift that you can give them and you are doing that. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not going to be giving a blow job to the shrimp sky in the corner. No, that was a real tough, that's a real tough one. It's a real tough one. Yeah. This was, this was, this was up there. This was up there. Yeah. And in terms of true and very little reprieve from any of the really, really, really difficult stuff to hear about. Yeah. Really wasn't ever a moment that was okay. Ever, I don't think the whole time. Yeah. I didn't feel good. I didn't feel good at all. No, me either. Yeah, it's a tough one, but I did love it and I think everyone is so good in it. So if you are brave, do give this a watch. My lordy, lordy. I'm excited to see what this filmmaker does next. I thought this was, I thought it was excellent. So, and yeah, it made me feel a lot of feelings. I'm feeling a lot of things. Do a lot of reflecting and I think that that's the point. So mission accomplished. Good job. Good job, Emily Black Belt. She did it. She did it. She succeeded. Um, she reached her goal. And we reward her for that with a seven on IMDb. Her movie made money and that's the goal. Okay, let me do a Norwegian accent again. Oh, yeah. Te so fjellochnes en flof lageri. From all of us here at Two Scary, did it watch? Oh, that is beautiful. Good bye. Good bye. A little bit Irish. Good bye. We did it. We made it. Thank you all for listening to another episode of Two Scary, didn't watch. If you enjoy the show, please remember to subscribe and rate us on Spotify and Apple podcasts. Five stars only or we will haunt you. And if you simply can't get enough of us, we have good news for you. We have lots of bonus content available on our Patreon at patreon.com slash tstw podcast. You'll get access to video trailer reactions, two bonus episodes a month, the power to vote for upcoming episodes and more. And last but not least, you can follow us on social media at tstw podcast. We'll be back next week with a new episode. We love you. That was a headgum podcast. Hi, I am Mandy Moore. Sterling K. Brown. And I'm Chris Sullivan and we host the podcast That Was Us Now on Headgum. Each episode, we're going to go into a deep dive. Yeah. From our show This Is Us. We're going to go episode by episode. We're also going to pepper in episodes with different guest stars and writers and casting directors. Are we going to cry? Yes. A little bit. Are we going to laugh? A lot. A whole lot. That's what I'm hoping, man. Listen to That Was Us on your favorite podcast app or watch full video episodes on YouTube or Spotify. New episodes every Tuesday.