Newcomers: Scorsese, with Nicole Byer and Lauren Lapkus - The Mandalorian (w/ Griffin Newman & David Sims)

Episode Date: May 19, 2020

It's Baby Yoda time! Co-hosts of Blank Check, Griffin Newman (actor/comedian, The Tick) and David Sims (Film critic, writer for The Atlantic) join us to tackle episodes 1-3 of The Mandalorian series on Disney+. They break down how Disney avoided Baby Yoda spoilers, explain the 2-person puppetry behind it, and share their overall LOVE for The Child. They maybe even convinced Nicole and Lauren to keep watching?Plus a bonus POST ROLL: Talking about Amanda Bynes' thirst, Drake's purse collection, and our wikiFeet ratings.Links for this episodeBaby Yoda Moms Tweet (since deleted)Griffin Newman's Watto CostumeAdvertise on Newcomers via Gumball.fmSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a complicated profession. They said you were coming. They said you were the best in the Parsec. Would you agree? Mandalorian, look outside. They are waiting for you. Yeah? Good. Welcome to another episode of Newcomers. I'm Nicole Byer. And I'm Lauren Lapkus.

And we are consuming a new piece of Star Wars media every week and breaking it down. We've basically seen everything there is. I mean, we have seen a lot of stuff at this point. And we've passed many tests. We have aced many quizzes. I'm truly like, we're experts, but whatever. Yeah, we're trying to get in that. New Star Wars movie directed by a man whose name I don't dare say out loud because I don't know how to pronounce it.

Taika Waititi. Is that how you say it? Okay. I got a nod over here. Okay, I'm going to ride with that. Yeah, we want to be in the movie, sir. So please let us in the movie, please. Yeah, please.

Okay, so it's Baby Yoda time, which I couldn't be happier about it, honestly. I've been waiting for this day for a long time. On today's episode, we're diving into Star Wars' first action series the mandalorian and we watched um the first three episodes of season one and we're going to talk about that today so if you're still new to the series there may be some spoilers leading up to that point but um you know not our fault i don't know what to tell you if you like star wars you should have been

watched it i mean we've been spoiling stuff for the last however many episodes, so we spoil everything. But watch the first three. I'm excited. I'm excited about our guests today. One is a writer and comedian who starred on Amazon's The Tick series, and the other is a film critic and writer for The Atlantic. And together they co-host the very funny Blank Check podcast where they review directors' complete filmographies episode to episode. Welcome to the show, Griffin Newman and David Sims. Hello. Hi. Hi. Thank you so much for being here.

As you said, it's Baby Yoda time, and your producer, Mars, kindly sent us a couple options of things you were going to be covering and let us choose. And I think David and I both agreed the thing we would most like to be witness to is the two of you meeting Baby Yoda for the first time. I think Dave and I both agreed the thing we would most like to be witnessed to is, is the two of you meeting baby Yoda for the first time,

your initial baby Yoda wave. That felt like the most exciting. Cause I feel like the journey of this podcast has sort of unknowingly been the two of you getting to the point where you get to meet baby Yoda. Yeah. Cause baby Yoda is so cute. My jaw was on the floor when baby yoda appeared i screamed it it feels like judging by everything listening to your episodes everything

you've liked in star wars and everything you've disliked in star wars baby yoda is right there at the farthest end of the like it's almost like the focus group result retroactively of everything you want. Did you know? Like how much did you know you were in for with Baby Yoda? I assume you knew Baby Yoda existed. I knew Baby Yoda existed. I thought Baby Yoda made appearances. I didn't know Baby Yoda was number two on the call sheet.

He's the thing. Same. Didn't know it. I didn't know. And also like I feel like we've seen it's the same as like our experience with all of star wars i think we're like we saw memes we knew like general culture points about them or whatever like references and baby yoda was the only thing that made it through from the mandalorian to us i think and in our yes in our bubble

and i've been excited about it i've've like wanted merch. We bought some shirts on Instagram that have Baby Yoda in the pocket. Yes. The quality is questionable. Like he's poking out of the pocket? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's kind of, I like that. That's cute.

I like a meta shirt like that that incorporates the pocket. His portability. Yes. His portability is very crucial to his cuteness. It's a key feature. Nicole, we haven't talked about these shirts because

I mean they are from an Instagram ad and the pocket is drawn on the pocket is the pocket is drawn on there are no natural fibers in this shirt it is all if you walk near a stove you will blow off you're just going to go up in flames

I need to walk back my previous statement I hate this there's nothing i dislike more than a liar's pocket it's a lie i've also googled i googled like baby yoda pocket shirt just to try and find it there are 1 million versions of this it is crazy how many kinds there are this company was called like shirts for her yeah or something real and it took like it took a really long time to arrive. Yes, so long. And when it arrived I was like, what is this? And then it was like

this shirt and I was like, hmm. Questionable. And you know when you like order some weird merch and then it arrives and it like smells like vinegar and you're like, wait, what is, where did this come from? Oh my god, my best one was I ordered an Instagram, I was fooled by an Instagram ad over Christmas for this giant seal pillow

that was like huggable, squishy, big thing. And it arrived in the mail and was 13 centimeters big. Oh boy. It was the smallest thing I've ever seen in my life. I was like so pissed

and it was a carnival toy. It was not at all what was advertised to me and I paid $26 for it. It was like a claw machine toy. That's so funny. That's like the toilet paper scams going on now on Amazon. What is happening?

You're paying $90 and it takes two months for miniature toilet paper to arrive. It gets to you and it's so tiny. Wait, a friend of ours, I'll tell you who later, but she ordered it and then she took a picture next to real toilet paper for scale it's very funny that's there are a lot of people who get tricked with that too with like buying furniture they're like i can't believe this chaise lounge only costs 15 oh my god i know

you gotta think and it's like for polly pocket there are two tricks like that the there's that one which is you're actually buying the dollhouse version of what you think you're getting. And the second one which I like even more is you're buying a mouse pad with the image of the product printed on it. This is like, I think Emily Heller had. Yes. She's got a welcome mat that was just

foam with a picture of a mat on it. It was like a picture of grass or whatever. It looked like it would be like you could rub your feet on it. And it was just a drawing. I just think that is psychotic. Can I say it's weird because like the timing is weird. It's not a Christmas season. We're in May.

But I feel like there's like a tickle me Elmo. I truly didn't know what you were talking. I was like, we are? I had no idea what month it was. Right now is currently May. Wow. Okay. I did look out the window and I was like, I don't think it's Christmas.

But maybe it is. Who knows? He's probably right. It took so long for official Baby Yoda merchandise to hit because they were

trying to keep it under wraps and make sure that it didn't leak before the show premiered. So it's taken however many months. And I,

for the last three weeks trying to find things to occupy my brain, have had like four different apps where I have Baby Yoda saved for later with notifications for when it goes back in stock. I do want something.

To get a Baby Yoda doll. I'm getting one this week. I think it's finally supposed to come this week. I think I want a Baby Yoda doll. And Mars, our producer, sent us on Twitter, there's like a mom Facebook group I think I want a baby Yoda doll and Mars, our producer sent us on Twitter women. There's like a mom Facebook group where they dress baby Yoda up as children.

This is our Hoth Goss segment and it is amazing. Yes. These people will take baby Yoda dolls and put them into like real baby clothes and prop them up like they're babies. It's truly scary. And I recently came across a whole YouTube world where women have these really lifelike baby dolls and they will treat them like real babies and change their diaper on camera and they'll walk you through their whole day with the baby. And it's it makes me sick. I think it's honestly really scary. Have you seen Servant on Apple TV? No. What is Servant?

Yes. The M. Night Shyamalan show. It's really creepy. And part of the thing is, I mean, whatever. Spoiler. Skip if you don't care or if you care, whatever. But there's a woman who has lost a child and she is given a real-ish baby doll and she takes care of it as if it's her own baby.

As if it never. No. We can't do this to people. It's not good so when i see these baby yoda dolls i feel this way because i'm sure they feel really like weighted and good but there's something so unsettling about putting a headband on it sure there's also something because because he is not step being taken. Something doesn't feel good to me. Because he is not human, right? Baby Yoda.

And because Baby Yoda is a puppet, like is done practically on the show. Really? Oh, it is? Oh, yeah. That's really fucking cool. That's even better. I didn't realize.

Yeah. When he moves a ton, like anytime there's a really complicated movement, it's CGI. But they try to make the cgi look as much like the puppet as possible and it's like 95 puppet that's really good i love that and it's two people right one is like the ears and the you know and then one is like the eyes and the facial expressions oh my god wait okay wait i want to get into all this i want to back up a

little bit because i want to talk about your podcast i didn't realize this that blank check started as an in-depth discussion of the Star Wars prequels. Yes. Tell us about how that started and what that experience was like for you. David Sia. Griffin, do you want to take this?

Sure. I mean, yeah. We became friends through going to a movie trivia night together. Yeah. When we were both in sort of dark periods of our lives and needed something to consume our time and energy. Right.

So David was post-breakup. I was post-getting fired from a TV show. And we were just like, let's put everything into this trivia night and did it for like over a year and then felt like we need to step away from this. And so we are looking for something to become our new like weekly friend

activity and going back and forth. We were like brainstorming and had this idea of what if we do a podcast where we pretend that the Phantom Menace is the only Star Wars movie that exists because George Lucas is always so adamant. Like you should watch this one first. This is the order it intended. It's the beginning. George Lucas says that you should start at the beginning. Yeah's like i made them out of order but like this is really the best way to see the story is to see it this way you're the

first person to tell us that that is really are yeah because it would have been so helpful maybe if we did it that way well no this is this i don't think so that was the thing i think it'd be way worse like for us it was partly a bit, but we were also like, it's an interesting thought experiment because when people talk about episode one, they talk about it in relation to the original Star Wars. Like, most people saw that film later

after living with Star Wars for so long that they only, like, view it in sort of judgmentally against... What if you strip the baggage out? Right. Like, oh, this is the new star wars thing and i don't like it because i like the old stars because if you look at it as a story right it should be able to stand on its own so we thought we might end up liking it more viewing

it that way and in fact i think both of us feel like we like the film more in relation to the original films uh definitely yeah yeah it makes no sense as a movie that is supposed to be the beginning of a story we were like a this is the beginning of a story b it wasn't successful enough he never made any sequels like that was the bit yeah it was just it was a failed franchise it was tom cruise's the mummy it was like whatever you know so griffin it's so annoying that we did that for a whole year right people can listen to it it's out there you can listen to the first episodes of that for a year of just we did 10 10 episodes on the phantom menace and then we discovered attack of the clones

and we did 10 more so we did the whole prequels right 10 episodes each oh my god so you were like oh my god there's another one. Okay, that's amazing. That's really funny. We would end every 10th episode by going to Google to try to pick a new movie to cover on the show and Google films like The Phantom Menace. And then we would give incredible performances

as people who just discovered a film that had apparently come out 16 years earlier did people think you were serious at all or was everyone in on it i heard were there some people who responded like what the fuck like i i think it was disproportionately i know most people got the bit and at that point not enough people were listening occasionally we would get one or two angry messages where they wouldn't know. Those were good times, Griffin. It was fun times.

But we did, yeah. We essentially spent a year doing Star Wars in these dumb sort of bits. And then at the end of that year, when we wanted to keep the show going, we were like, this kind of became more about George Lucas and trying to figure out what that guy was thinking. And then so that became the show was like, we'll pick a director and go through all of their movies and try to figure out sort of their brain or their career arc in some kind of way. That's great. Speaking of George Lucas, Griffin, you did the George Lucas talk show May 4th movie marathon

live stream. Yeah. And you dressed up as Watto for 30 hours. For 30 hours. The picture is really concerning. Thank you. Wait, who as Watto for 30 hours? For 30 hours. The picture is really concerning. Thank you. Wait, who's Watto? You've met him.

You've met him. You guys have dealt with him. He was like a Jewish stereotype in that one. Oh, he's the one who owns Anakin. The slave owner. Right. So I always really related to Watto in retrospect because he was the character that was

offensive to my people but I think I didn't get that at the time I thought you were like because I own people right because I own people but I a lot of our podcast became about Watto and stemmed out of me tweeting about Watto

and then Distin used to play Sean Distin about Watto and stemmed out of me tweeting about Watto. And then Distin used to play, Sean Distin, the great Sean Distin, used to play Jar Jar Binks on the George Lucas talk show. And then when he moved to LA, I begged Connor to let me start doing it as Watto. So I've been doing Watto at the live show for like three or four years. And then I just did it for 30 straight hours.

And now we're going to keep doing it every Sunday for the foreseeable future, doing a live stream. And to be clear, your Watto costume is like a body stocking. Yeah, yeah. Let's describe it just a little bit. You have on a blue, bright blue body stocking. It's like a morph suit that's supposed to cover your face. And I wear it backwards so that I can unzip it just down to my chin. And you have an elephant nose.

I'm going to link a photo in the episode description so fans can see it because it is a crazy costume. I have an elephant nose spray painted blue. I have child's pixie wings. I have a little vest

that I lace up in a fanny pack and I wear a yarmulke. And you seem to have shoved a pillow in there or something. Yes, yes. I shove a pillow in there or something. Yes, yes. I shove a pillow in there so I have a little gut.

But it's a horrible character and a horrible stereotype and he now exists as sort of like my id. Wait, so what's the live stream every week going to be? Not 30 hours. Great question. No. It is going to be four to five hours every

week. Of course, the only way to naturally follow up live streaming every Star Wars movie. Four to five hours? That's a long time. Just, Nicole, just get ready for this bullshit. I'm already tired. Four to five hours? And what are you watching? Every week, we are watching one entire season of Arliss.

Arliss? Arliss. You're a psycho. I love this. Yeah. So we're doing all seven seasons of Arliss one week at a time. In character is George Lucas and Wado.

I don't even know what Arliss is. That weird show that was on what? HBO? HBO. It was like an early HBO show where people were like, what is this? No one's ever seen this show,

but anyone who loved it, loved it. Nicole, the two S's are dollar signs. No, for what? This is wild. Money. It's a comedy about a sports agent. For what? Money.

It's a post Jerry Maguire HBO half hour sitcom starring Robert Wool. Yes, there we go. Yeah. Robert Wool. He like has a cigar. Sandra Oh. Sandra Oh was on it michael boatman yeah amanda binds alan thick the amount of people who are on one episode of

our list is insane yeah did robert wool did he just like have blackmail material i feel like he could just call everyone in for one episode yeah we should talk about the mandalorian okay so the mandalorian released in november 2019 on disney plus and written by john favreau which i didn't realize marvel man yeah marvel is disney yes but i think of him as a comedian like i think of him as like a comedy guy kind of like actor swingers right swingers right and then his big breakout movie as a director was Elf. Right. Really? Yeah.

Oh, I didn't know that. He wrote Swingers, and then he sort of later would say, I kind of co-directed Swingers. So then he made Maid. That was him and Vince Vaughn again to sort of try to recapture the Swingers thing. And Diddy. Don't forget Diddy.

And Diddy. Diddy's in it too. And he did he that's what i thought and did he wait who's did he p did he no he did he's in the movie mid oh wait really i don't know he was probably puff daddy still at that point i can't remember or maybe sean puffy combs yeah or puff you know i remember when he went from p did he to Diddy because he said the P was getting in between him and his fans do you remember that? he actually said that that's very funny

I wish I was that like not self involved but like cared that much about my name to be like I'm now N Diddy or Nasty Nicky I don't know you could be N Biddy this is what I find interesting Nicky, Nasty Nicky. I don't know. You could be N. Bitty.

This is what I find interesting about Jon Favreau's involvement in Mandalorian. He does the first two Iron Man movies. So he does like the first two Marvel movies out of all of them before Disney even buys Marvel. And he campaigned really hard to direct Avengers and didn't. But he still gets money every

time iron man's in a movie so he's just made ungodly amounts of money so much money that's wild because he made the first one because he created the character well yeah wait that's so wild that what a deal like a perpetual executive producer credit on any iron man thing that's a fucking cool ass right right sure the only other marvel director who i think has that is james gunn with the guardian movies like if group is in a movie he gets a little more money i think they both had good agents and both of those movies looked like not very valuable at the time like they were lesser characters so he's just on this insane marvel drip uh and then he didn't get pushed out,

but people didn't like Iron Man 2, he didn't get to direct Avengers, whatever. When Disney bought Star Wars, he was thirsty on Maine, constantly posting things on Twitter and Instagram. He was in Land of Minds asking Drake to murder her vagina. He was asking Lucasfilm to murder his pussy. Like, he was.

He was. he was constantly posting things just being like loving all the support from my fans hopefully i'll get the lucasfilm meeting soon for a guy who directed blockbuster you know and then bums me the fuck out because like when do you have to stop begging for shit but this is what's cool it's so crazy this says a lot about his character okay they don't hire him to make any of the main films he goes to lucasfilm and is like i would like to help you make a live action tv show he directs none of the episodes he just wrote it he wrote almost all of them and he was like i just kind of want to be the showrunner i want to write this i really just want to do anything within the

star wars universe because he was i believe when they were directing it right he was busy making I just kind of want to be the showrunner. I want to write this. I really just want to do anything within the Star Wars universe. Because he was, I believe when they were directing it, he was busy making The Lion King, right? So he couldn't work on the sets really, but he wrote it all. He's a big dork who likes Star Wars and wanted to write a show with a Baby Yoda. Yeah, he was like,

I'll do anything I can. So Baby Yoda is his idea. Yeah. He's a genius. Yeah. And he has such a wide range. Like he's done things that are just so different from each other. I mean, that's crazy.

Yeah. I'm very interested in this. I love that he invented Baby Yoda. Absolutely. He's a hero. Okay. So the Mandalorian is set after the fall of the Empire and before the emergence of the First Order.

So it's between episode six of The Return of the Jedi and episode seven, The Force Awakens. This is so weird. I didn't understand that. I didn't understand that. Let me just, the series depicts a lone bounty hunter in the outer reaches of the galaxy

far from the authority of the New Republic. Okay, I didn't get that. Me either. That this is like post-Jedi, Emperor's dead. There's still stormtroopers, but they're kind of just like you know they're they're not official anymore right they're kind of you know everything's just sort of falling apart the reason all the stormtroopers look kind of dirty and busted is because like technically the empire has been canceled so they're all just like use

stormtrooper armor that they can't wash anymore right the stormtrooper laundries are closed I guess so this is before Snooki comes exactly okay so this is it's between this is pre-Snooki right it's between Return of the Jedi and Force Awakens but it's much closer

to Return of the Jedi like this is like a couple years after Return of the Jedi the Ewoks have won the bad guys are dead and all their sort of underlings are now just kind of like nazis hanging out in brazil right okay so it's chaotic right when he meets with verner herzog and everyone's like how dare you meet with like someone from the empire and he's like the empire doesn't exist anymore this is a guy who's just still wearing his old uniform but that's what he's supposed to be like the guy who's like look the empire ups and downs but the trains ran on time like he's supposed to be someone who

is nostalgic for the empire okay he's like sean spicer leaving the trump administration and trying to be like look i can like make jokes about it I loved how this looked first of all I just want to say when it started I was like great I mean I even just like how the Star Wars logo looked they had kind of a rainbow effect to it I thought it was very cool looking and I liked how real everything feels I didn't know that that was going to be what this was like so that was kind of a nice surprise especially because I had just accidentally watched the Clone Wars or before this and so I was like this was a gift to my eyes. Or what was it?

Clone Wars. Yeah. Is that what I said? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Did you like the first episode, Lauren? Like is such a strange term to use in this podcast because I have a hard time because I think, yes, like ultimately I was kind of like, this is my favorite.

But I still was like, I can't pay pay attention i don't know who that is like it's it's really hard for me to focus on that yes i was like the first episode's also slow it's too slow also i was like is he a bobo fett is he a bobo is he a bobo jamba no bobo who's the other bobo bobo jingo jingo fat jingo fat yeah is it a jungle no because i reviewed this show when it debuted and they only gave they didn't i think i guess they gave us the first episode like that and that was it and i watched it and yeah you have baby yoda right at the end and you're like oh that's intriguing but everything else i was like man it seems like they're stretching this out yeah like tv length and i don't know there's not a lot here like i it looked really slick but i until baby yoda really took hold and like the point of the show became clearer

i was i was not like convinced it was gonna work yes this was like the the a new hope a half hour of the gig old man and the little trash can in the in the desert for a half hour why this was like okay so i don't know if this is a jango or a boba for like 25 minutes and then we saw baby yoda and i screamed and i said i'm in yeah you know they got us at the end i'm gonna read the synopsis of this first episode just so I can understand what I saw. A Mandalorian bounty hunter tracks a target for a well-paying, mysterious client. He travels to the desert planet Arvala 7 and meets a native named Kuil

who wants to help him so that he can be rid of the criminals and mercenaries who now inhabit the area. The Mandalorian is forced to team up with bounty droid IG-11. They manage to clear the entire facility of guards and discover that the bounty is Baby Yoda or otherwise known as the Child. IG-11 plans to kill it but the Mandalorian blasts the droid to protect the baby and his bounty.

Oh, I liked that part where that droid came in and he was about to shoot Yoda and then the guy was like, blah. Do you guys know who the voice of IG-11 is? No. Taika Wait know who the voice of IG-11 is? No. Taika Waititi, who we just mentioned. Okay, our future employer. Yes, our future boss.

And he directs the finale of this season, which is kind of why they hire him to do the next Star Wars movie. I know it's weird to talk about this as if it's like a different time and place, but eight months ago was very different. Yeah. No, it was the same. I was staying inside and I was scared.

But to the point of what David was saying, like they were so under wraps about this show that no one really knew what it was. And this was the show that launched Disney Plus. Right. First episode went up the night that disney plus launched so people were staying up until like 3 a.m to try to watch this first episode and no one like people didn't know like is it an hour long is it half an hour long yeah right right we knew nothing we just knew it was about a mandalorian right there was like one trailer with almost no dialogue baby yoda was totally secret. And so the one thing that was a twist, they kept saying there was a twist. Right. And David and I are very much on the same page, which is like all the deep lore of Star Wars is window dressing for us.

That's the sort of stuff that, like, you can dip into that if you want to. Clone Wars, for me, I've always had a hard time getting into because it feels so deep into the lore. And I always like, like, the emotional stories that happen in front of all the sort of, like, mythic stuff. And when they kept on saying there was a twist, we were like, fuck, is it going to turn out the Mandalorian is, like, zombie Boba Fett? Is it going to turn out it's, like, young Rey? Is it going to turn out it Mandalorian is like zombie Boba Fett? Is it going to turn out? It's like young Ray. Is it going to turn out? It's like, you know,

any of the things that for us, it's like expanded star Wars stuff should be new stories and new characters. Not trying to tie it into the old. Yeah, exactly. I don't really care about it. I disagree. I disagree too.

We like when it connects to the old stuff. Because it's familiar. And then when you don't understand what's happening truly for the first 15 minutes of the back three movies I kept being like who's him who's her who are these people and then with the Mandalorian I was like who's a Mandalorian what is it I still don't really know who's a Mandalorian who is Amanda who's Amanda who's a Mandalien? What's she doing? To some degree, he is a mystery and that is a conflict

that will run throughout the rest of the season. I will say, I liked this episode a lot more re-watching it now after the whole season has aired.

I was similarly kind of confused and underwhelmed by it when it first dropped. Yeah. Well, do you feel like it was an oversight that they, or just a mistake that they had

the Baby Yoda stuff not released until April? Like, we were looking for Baby Yoda merch like months ago, and it wasn't coming out until April. And I'm like, that seems crazy. I feel like you could have dropped this before the show and it would have been a hit. Yeah. They wanted Baby Yoda to be a surprise within the show, which I think ultimately worked for them because it made the Internet explode because everyone got to feel like they were discovering Baby Yoda. Okay.

And the problem is if you make the merchandise in advance, I know too much about merchandise, but if you have the merchandise ready before the show drops. That shit will leak. The Internet will always get images of it six months in advance. Like someone takes a photo at the factory in China. Right. Before it even gets sent to stores and then people know the plot. But I would have been,

I knew about Baby Yoda, so much about Baby Yoda, but I didn't know anything about the Mandalorian and I still truly screamed really loudly when I saw Baby Yoda. I was truly like aghast. I was thrilled. I was like, what? It's's so cute and it's cuter than

you even think and like cute but didn't they not didn't they try to get all the gifts taken off the internet at one point they were trying to control that yeah and then i think they eventually relented on that because obviously you know it only helps i think i think so it only helps he became a cultural figure he's a little puppet of a yoda right and and he actually became like a cultural icon of the year well and i mean this is one of the things that the big complaints about quibi is that you can't screenshot and share it online so like right being able to share baby yoda is half of what made me want to watch this i wouldn't have cared you know they backed backed off of it and sort of learned their lesson pretty quickly.

But I think there is, it's like this, the Mandalorian, the first episode is kind of like edging you for as long as possible. And sort of like purposefully confusing. I think I liked it more re-watching it now because a lot of the things

set up here do come back into play later in like a fun way. When I was initially watching, I'm like, where is this going? But this is a pretty structured show. And everyone you're meeting is going to matter. And it's all going to tie in nicely. It's a nicely structured little show. This is the thing I like the most about Mandalorian without preloading your expectations.

But I think you've probably seen this having watched three episodes now. The episodes are kind of standalone like the biggest through line is just he won't stop taking care of this kid you know which is so sweet it's like three men and a baby right like it's just like what how we have this baby now we gotta figure it out it's one mask and a baby and like every episode he sort of goes on like a new job, meets some new people, goes to a new planet. And the through line is just his relationship with this kid. And so a lot of the stuff in the first episode, you're like, am I supposed to understand this? Does this matter?

Like, am I supposed to be excited by this? And it's not until the final scene where you're like, oh, this is the actual show. This is the only thing I really need to track. But a lot of those characters in the pilot later come back and become characters you care about who are funny yeah wait i have a question yeah go ahead why doesn't the mandalorian take off his helmet like does he not shower also the baby yoda really reminded me of the baby in Men in Black. Do you know what scene we're talking about? Yes, the squid baby. Yes. I've never seen Men in Black.

Oh! Lauren, it's a great show. Great show, great movie. I love Men in Black. Men in Black 2, I don't really count it as part of canon. I'll watch it. Men in Black 3, I sobbed in the movie theater. Wow.

Men in Black 3, we have to do Men in Black on our podcast. It holds up. It's a great film. Ooh, should have won Oscars. We've talked about this too often in too many different places, but the moment that really solidified our friendship, David and I, was one night we got drunk, and at the bar we were at,

Men in Black 2 was playing on the TV, and we were talking about how much we were at men in black 2 was playing on the tv and we were talking about how much we still like resent men in black 2 and we were like here's the challenge before we leave this bar we need to see if we can fix men in black 2 right we're gonna we're gonna write men in black 2 what that sequel should have been wow i think we nailed it i think we nailed it i i can't pitch it because lauren hasn't seen Men in Black 1 yet. Okay, we're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back with more about The Mandalorian. If you're wondering what a NordVPN is, I'll tell you. VPN stands for Virtual Private Network, a service that protects your internet connection and online

privacy. A VPN creates an encrypted tunnel for your data, protect your online identity by hiding your IP address, and allow you to use public Wi-Fi hotspots safely. I'm using a Nord VPN myself. And honestly, it's very easy to use. You connect with one click to enable auto-connect for zero-click protection. It has amazing speed. NordVPN is one of the fastest VPNs out there, and it supports every major platform, Windows, Android, iOS, Linux, even Android TV. You can switch your virtual location to access apps and websites in other countries. Get an exclusive NordVPN deal here at nordvpn.com slash newcomers.

N-O-R-D-V-P-N dot com slash newcomers. It's risk-free with Nord's 30-day money-back guarantee. Link is in the episode description. Okay, we're back. And we should talk about chapter two, The Child. Okay. Do you want to read this? Sure.

Upon returning to his ship, the Mandalorian finds a team of Jawas scavenging for parts. With the assistance of Kuali, he bargains with the Jawas to return the ship's part and return for retrieving the egg. After fighting with a mudhorn to collect its egg, Mandalorian and Kuali, I don't say that right,

repair the ship, allowing him to leave it's k-u-i-i-l which is not how you spell things i thought the egg was gonna be baby yoda because he was kind of in an egg would they was that what I was supposed to think? Maybe, maybe. I mean, once again, this is one of those shows where like sometimes they're really playing off of giving you false expectations. And sometimes you're just,

of course, reading into everything too much because it's Star Wars. Yeah. And you're trying to figure out if something is important or not. Yeah. Well, I spent a lot of the episode

arguing with my roommate john millhiser john millhiser my roommate saying that aren't these the sand people that anakin killed and he was like no jawas are different than sand people and then i was like but i don't think they are wait he was like we we know jawas jawas sold c3po and r2dD2 to Luke Skywalker. That's what John said and I said. Tatooine. The Jawas, they're about three feet high. They're like a few apples high and they're little merchant-y people

and they like to trade. And then sand people, they're like seven feet tall. But they're still hooded and dark, right? They are also hooded and dark. They do not have red eyes. They have robot eyes, but they have like still hooded and dark right they are also hooded and dark they do not have red eyes they have like robot eyes but they have like mummy bandages and they go like and they like hit you with a stick we saw i was really confused and we're familiar with them so we know what those are

i was confused they're both in a new hope okay but these jawas have i feel like the jawas in mandalorian their robes are black like they look a little different yes yes yeah no we know we were In A New Hope. Oh, okay. But these Jawas have, I feel like the Jawas in Mandalorian, their robes are black. Like, they look a little different. Oh, yes. Yes. Yeah, no, we were scared of Jawas. They were in A New Hope, weren't they?

They were creepy. And they're the ones that Anakin kills when he kills the women and the children and has his breakdown. I killed them all. The women, the children. He didn't care at all. Jawas are like,

they're like the used car salesman species. They were so creepy in this. And I liked how they, all of the special effects in this are amazing. Like the costumes, Jawas are amazing. Their eyes are so creepy. And they're just scary. And then when they got the egg, I was really happy that it was just a big gooey yolk. I thought that was fun.

I was so angry. I was like, this Mandalorian risked his life for these guys to have a snack, to have a gook snack, to have like a go-gurt in an egg. That to me felt like very like Ewok throwback-y kind of like, what do they want? Like, it was just weird that they wanted to eat the egg. I was like, that's fun. I also, I feel like Star Wars lives and dies based on how much mystery there is in it. Like not the show being a mystery, but the amount of things that go kind of unexplained. Like that's when Star Wars is working where you're like, weird, what's in that egg?

And they don't take that much time explaining it. All you need to know is like the egg is the thing they're trying to get. When Star Wars is bad, it's monologues of people explaining everything. right right the egg is part of the sacred right you know collection of orbs that's gonna the man you know yeah you're right and instead it's just like look they're hungry the egg is tasty get them an egg they'll get you your thing so i like that like the first episode of mandalorian has a little too much explaining because it's all the like what's the new mission what's the puck who? What's the puck? Who's the suspect?

You know, all that sort of stuff. From here on out, like I feel like the second episode is them trying to show you how much that's not going to be the formula. Because here's an episode with like very little dialogue and no human faces in it. It's like Jawas, animatronic Nick Nolte mandalorian wearing a helmet and baby yoda yep i liked that there was no talking i was like i love it yeah my favorite part is when baby yoda was using the force to like save him from the the big thing that was so cute and then it was so cute and then he got so tuckered out he fell right asleep he gets real tuckered out i screamed that was really cute but that's also such a good moment of just like he's a guy who's trying his hardest not to fall for baby yoda which is tough right

how do you turn down that punim right yeah right but baby yoda to him it's like an item he's retrieved he needs to think of it yes in a mercenary way i was trained to just get the mission done but once baby yoda saves his life it's gonna be a little hard is there a movie that's because this is like feeling like a very similar i like just story concept to me like that like you have this tough guy and this cute thing and he has to protect it i mean there's a but i mean i think that fevro has been up front that he was inspired by lone wolf and cub which is like a classic japanese manga can we dork out on you for like a minute here yeah which is like an old you know a samurai

who's like you know tough and scary and a little baby that he walks around with in a little baby carriage it's sort of like one of the great like kind of mythic stories in japanese culture that's been like a long-running comic book series and they've made like 30 movies about it's been adapted a bunch of times I feel like you know you have like The Road like remember that you know like there's a lot of sort of like you know father and son or Dick Tracy

Dick Tracy the professional I just watched it Nicole how good is Dick Tracy what a wild movie it's a lot of primary colors it sure is I saw it in theaters when i was a kid and i i don't remember anything except for just like a flash of dick tracy but i don't think i understood what was going on at all in that movie that is another movie uh you need to rewatch lauren okay i'm putting the list is getting long fucking wild um dick dick tracy the movie feels like a 3am DCM

bitch show it sure does everyone is trying to one up the person who came out on stage before them my thing is my head is the size of a wall and then Dustin Hoffman an award winning actor plays a man who mumbles

I believe he shot that scene the morning after he won his Oscar. That's hilarious. Oh my God. It's just Warren Beatty calling in all his favors and all these super respected actors

are putting on dumb makeup and being like, well, I can't let Al Pacino outstage me. So they're coming out and being like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna. Okay, I'm watching that. Yeah, that's the whole movie. It's so good.

It's so wild. That's hilarious. And then Madonna slithers around. I know. She's slithering. Singing Stephen Sondheim songs. That movie's

It's wild. fucking wild. Also, that movie is made while Warren Beatty and Madonna are fucking. What?

Whoa. I didn't know they was fucking. They were fucking hard. Oh. I don't know if it was hard, Griffin. I know it was hard. We know they was fucking they were fucking hard um this is why it was hard griffin i know it was hard thank you but if that dick tracy is like everything we're gonna throw everything at you we're the mandalorians the opposite he's like let's strip as much away as we can make it really simple um it like little dialogue very little plot right like let's just try and have it be

very primary well and this is my heady nerd corner i'd like to do for like 20 seconds the thing i like about this being so inspired by lone wolf and cub is star wars is so much george lucas taking like oh yeah let me look at like king arthur right you know like medieval sort of like myths and let me look at samurai stories and let me look at westerns and he's sort of combining like cowboys and samurais and knights into one stew and I feel like Mandalorian is getting back to that like so much of the later Star Wars stuff is about Star Wars you know like the later films are people trying to make things about what Star Wars used to be.

Yeah. And the prequels are George Lucas trying to explain Star Wars too much. And this is like going back to the formula of like the Mandalorian is essentially a cowboy. You know, the premise of the show is essentially the samurai story of having to take care of a baby. I like I like that it gets down to the fundamentals I agree Okay, chapter three, The Sin The Mandalorian accepts a new job from Greef Karga, feeling guilty for abandoning Baby Yoda to the Empire

He turns back to attack the client's base and rescue the baby This one was pretty intense Him admitting, like, look, I can't get over Baby Yoda Like, you know This is his save the cat moment Right I've broken my own look, I can't get over Baby Yoda. Like, you know. This is his save the cat moment. This is his.

Right. Right. I've broken my own code, my personal code and the code of my clan. Mm hmm. Because love conquers all at the end of the day. Yeah. OK, but I have questions. So wait, why do the Mandalorians, why are they a secret underground society?

Why are they always searching for metal, for more armor? How are they eating? Who is is the girl who's this woman just melting down metals who is she some of this is explained i can give you really basic feed round answers okay are we gonna watch more or no yeah mars are we gonna watch more no plans to oh we okay so to. So then I'll give you these answers in the hopes that maybe encourage you to keep on watching because I think this series is good. These aren't spoilers. I'm giving you the most basic world building stuff.

What is it? Eight episodes total, Griffin? It's pretty short. I might finish it, which is shocking. If we finish it, we better talk about it. That's true. So the idea is that they're not like a species. They're like a clan. They're like a creed.

They're all sort of bonded in the same sort of principles and kind of like warrior's code. And their big thing is wearing helmets and not taking them off. That's like the number one rule of Fight Club for them. It's almost like a monastery. They're like warrior monks and rather than taking a vow of silence it's like you can never show your face to anybody and as the show goes on there's more people who are like come on take off the helmet please come on dude

not gonna do it show me your fucking face but but the idea is that the empire while they were still strong led like a slaughter of the Mandalorians. So now they're all living underground and only one of them will go up at a time. Oh. You're seeing what little remains of their previous, like, strong clan. Only one of them will go up at a time

and they're mostly, like, hiding in the shadows, like Mando, sort of, like, on the run. So, like, Mando might go out, go grocery shopping. it's a little like being in quarantine and then come back down relate everyone else socially distanced i suppose and so they all still have their basic roles in their sort of their their vestiges of their society so the the lady is the one who makes the armor and the armor is sort of their like scientology rising up the ranks going clear the more armor you have the better armor it gets it's

a signifier of what you've accomplished and that metal he gets paid in is so valuable to them because it's essentially like nazi gold like they stole the metal that was their natural resource and then stamped it with their symbol, their swastikas. So they're like, how dare you work for these people? And he was like, I felt like I had to get our stuff back. We're already barely making it. Okay. I truly did not understand that fight.

I was like, well, he seems real mad. It's a little dense. It's a little dense and I honestly didn't really get it. Yeah. I did not get it until rewatchinging exactly and i was like okay i sort of i think the first time you're watching too it's such a slick show it looks so fancy that you're just really drawn in by how it looks like the first time you're watching you're like wow this is really expensive and anytime baby you're you're also just sort of like where whenever he's not on screen you're like where is baby yoda right now what's he thinking about i want to i want

to check in with him like you know he is the he's the guy yeah and i feel like episode three is the breaking point in that way because even though it's the episode that he's in the least it's the episode that most solidifies like this show is gonna be about baby yoda like everything changes at this point he's going to save him like the die is cast every episode is just they are an unbreakable unit and his priority in life is keeping baby yoda safe another question how did the other mandalorians know that this mandalorian was in trouble to come fly in with jetpacks like the Rocketeer to save him? Okay, fair question.

Great thing to throw out. Don't really know. Right, Griffin? I don't think there's like... I think it's maybe like... He hasn't come home. He's not texting back. Yeah, right. And they also know that this mandalorian is kind of like he's he's a little bit of a cowboy he like runs off his own spirit he makes risky decisions

so i think they're just a little concerned they sense that like sort of edge in him and the fact that he's already showing a little too much affection for baby yoda he's supposed to be impersonal. And he's already letting Baby Yoda get to him a little bit. That's sweet. What did you guys think of Werner Herzog? Remember that? That was fun. That was a fun cameo. And he keeps coming back.

Oh, nice. We're going to tell you guys a little trivia you probably already know, but for the listener at home. OK, so we kind of said the show is set five to seven years after the events of Return of the Jedi. Yeah. And season one, episode two, when the Jawa drops the item on Mando's. Wait, his name is Mando.

Did I not catch that? That's his nickname. That's his nickname. He's a Mandalorian named Mando. That was the first draft. It's like when people call me Whitey. A distinctive bell clanging sound is heard. This is a straight lift from the classic Looney Tunes style of comedy.

When a dropped anvil hits someone's head. That's pretty funny. That's silly. During the first episode, when the bounty is looking through the carbonite bounties, one of them is Star Wars creator George Lucas. I did not clock that. I didn't clock that at all. I didn't either.

According to Dave Filoni, there was one scene that required a large number of stormtroopers, but they didn't have enough costumes. He ended up drafting members of the 501... What? Oh, 500 First. Oh, my God.

501st. I was like, i've never seen it written like that well me neither 500 and 500 and comment to be the 501st something this is the podcast where people are like nicole byer can't read the word you have to read are not real let's be very clear. It's so hard. Oh my God. So essentially, they didn't have enough Stormtrooper costumes, so there's a whole fan club who specialize in making their own Storm slash Clone Trooper cosplay costumes. Wow.

I wonder if those people got a rental fee. Probably not. I hope so. They should have. I'll say this too. The thing that's cool about those people, the 501, is they do it for charity. the thing that's cool about those people the the 501 is they do

it they do it for charity oh okay all right all right because i was also skeptical no no no it's a surprising turn like they have like different like clubs in different cities and states and whatever but they'll go to conventions and they all have their like really detailed homemade suits. But why is it called 501st? That's really fucked up for people to read. Yeah, it's, I mean, the idea is they're riffing on like Civil War reenactors. Oh. They're like the Star Wars version of Civil War reenactors. So they're trying to make it sound like it's a militia.

Honestly, of all the wars, I wouldn't do Civil War.enactors. So they're trying to make it sound like it's a militia. Honestly, of all the wars, I wouldn't do Civil War. No. Anywho. A little frog, that one. Okay, Bryce Dallas Howard directed the episode Chapter 4, Sanctuary, and her dad, Ron Howard, directed Solo, a Star Wars story in 2018.

Keeping it in the family. Yeah. That's nice. That one's maybe my favorite episode. Oh, that's your favorite, Griff? I think that one and the finale are the two best ones. Yeah, the finale is probably the best episode, but that one is fun.

Yeah, you guys, if you stick with it, there's some guests that drop in, some fun guests. We might. Because now the format of the show is Mando takes a job and brings his kid to work with him. Right, right. And the kid's going to get in some hijinks and maybe Amy Sedaris is in an episode.

You don't know. Really? Eugene Cordero is in the Bryce Dallas Howard episode. Okay, you've piqued my interest. Adam Pally's in an episode. Bill Burr. A lot of comedy people. Oh, I forgot to mention. I loved that at the beginning of episode one

of this series when Horatio Sands and Brian Postain were in there. I was like, this is like fun. There's a lot of comedy people in it. Horatio was that blue fish gill head guy. No, he wasn't. That's why I knew his voice. And Brian was in the like speedy car thing they were in to get away from it.

I didn't realize. But this is the other thing I like about Mandalorian is I think by the nature of it being a TV show and not a movie and how much like pressure they were putting on the movies. This feels like Star Wars like loosening its tie a little bit. Yeah. Yes. And not

a little fun here. Not having everything so seriously. Yeah. Like have to feed into the whole Skywalker myth or whatever like right yeah i appreciated i feel like i felt like that was like john fevro's like taste coming through with the like funny cool people and all that stuff it was cool also every time baby yoda got out of his little bassinet i like would just grab my face and be like oh no he shall kill you go for death i love him so much nicole at a certain point in the show he gets a little ball that he plays with i mean no that

happens right we've gotten that the ball is that yeah yeah it gets introduced there's more ball stuff oh i love he gets a little a little soup. He gets a soup bowl? Yes, he drinks a little sort of... Oh, yeah. I've seen that meme where it's like the tea kind of... It looks like a teacup, yeah. Yeah. Oh, boy. That's really cute.

Can I tell you folks a really sweet story? Yeah. So they did it all like practically with a puppet, say for the stuff where he has to move like more and digitally removing the puppeteer and stuff like that but their thought was oh the puppet is just so the actors have something to work with and then we'll replace it with cgi they weren't planning on keeping the puppet on camera and verner herzog did a scene with the puppet and he went to john favreau and he was like you must keep puppet. It would be a crime against humanity.

You are cowards if you do this. You must have the puppet. I think he called them cowards. Oh my God. He's amazing. He was like, this puppet is heartbreaking. It has a tragic humanity to it. Yes.

You dare not erase it. It's very accurate. Yeah, he nailed it. Well, The Mandalorian currently holds a 93% critic and audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, being praised for its action scenes, production value and world building. Nicole, what's your score? What do you give it? I think, OK, I really hated the first episode except for the last two minutes of it.

But I'm going to give it like in the Star Wars universe an 8 that's good 8 out of 10 yes how about you guys I mean how do you rate it compared to your other stuff that you've seen 8 is right where I'm at I would say right are you there Griffin yeah I'm an 8 bordering on an

8.5 as someone who likes most of Star Wars like I even still think this is higher tier star wars i agree yeah like i i feel like whether i care or not about it i give it an a you know what i mean like it's like yeah this is as well done as it gets like this is cool and it looks great and also just on principle i'm like this is what i want to see people doing with star wars i want them to be telling little character stories yeah i. I want to just to have that sort of sense of mystery and travel and all that sort of stuff. I also just kind of like it's kind of what I want out of TV shows in general. Like I like that the episodes

are a little bit self-contained. Yeah. I like that each episode is kind of its own movie. Yeah. And like by nature of that the first episode's kind of a bummer because it has to do all the table setting. But after that, each episode sort of becomes a little self-contained and it's just like, here's another trip.

Yeah. Here's another weekend for old Mando and his baby. And here's another fun person. Yeah. Well, we're coming to the end of our show. Yeah.

But thank you guys so much. Well, is there anything you would like to plug besides obviously your podcast Blank Check, which is hilarious and great and very popular? We try.

We try. Thank you. So I feel like people know. But is there anything else you would like to plug at this time? Griffin, you're doing a million things.

I mean, you can read my writing on The Atlantic always. I'm doing too much stuff online because I live alone and I'm going crazy. That's good. That's good. So you can follow me on Twitter and Instagram.

I'm Griff Lightning on both and I'll post about all the stuff I'm doing, but I'm doing a lot of live streams and stuff. Yeah, the Arliss live stream. The Arliss live stream every Sunday. The tick is very canceled, but I still plug it because I'm very proud of it. It's good. Yeah. And it's right there for you to watch.

Yeah. And I'll say, Nicole's going to be on Blank Check pretty soon we have an episode on the books and Lauren I will be pestering you about coming on the show as well I'm chilling in my house so Nicole anything you want to plug? Yes I have a book coming out June 2nd

the link's in my bio on Twitter and Instagram at Nicole Byer you can pre-order it. Please use indie bookstore links because that helps me more than like another big company that you could get something from. I won't say which one. You can guess. But it's called Hashtag Very Fat, Hashtag Very Brave.

The Fat Girl's Guide to Being Brave and Not a Melancholy Down in a Dump Swe Sweeping Fat Girl in a Bikini, and it's a coffee table self-help book. I was just seeing something online about ordering books online and how during this time, especially people should order from a specific bookstore that you know in your, it's not like a big chain, like a local indie bookstore is the best place, especially directly from them and not a website that gets books from indie bookstores because then they get a cut if you go to directly to the store that they get all the money and i think it's you benefit as well book pal i believe is a website hold on let me look at it book pal i think is where you tell you you tell it where you are and it like sources around and then tells you a local bookstore that's near you to order from i believe that's what it's called i'm sure if i'm wrong some nice aggressive person on twitter will

let me know uh yes there's so look for that and i would like to plug my movie the wrong missy on netflix um i would like to um sort of brag a little bit that it's the number one movie on netflix right now in most countries and it's really exciting so i didn't expect for that many people to watch it so i'm very excited for everyone to watch it and um i hope you enjoy it i hope it makes you laugh and um yeah so that's all I want to plug right now. And let's move into our five-star wars segment here. We have a nice review from ChrisBT74. It's called Killing Time. Space is vast and cold.

Wow, this is going to be really deep. On a long trip to the outer rim, poet Finn kicked back in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon with not much to do. I'm bored, Finn proclaimed. We did ask for fan fiction. Pulling out his iPhone,

Poe said, me too, bud. Let's try a podcast. He scrolled through and came across one called Newcomers. Hey, this one is about Star Wars, a fan fiction episode

that sounds cool, right? Finn said, all right, all right, okay, let's check it out. They both loved it, laughing, and Poe said, this is making me horny oh yeah Finn agreed wow where did your pants go dude what can I say Poe shrugged are you going to take off are you going to take control of his joystick or what oh yeah yeah yes Finn took it on Poe leaned back relaxing not a bad way to kill some time he said smiling five stars i liked that one i loved that review it was like filthy but like class filth can i say that was really it was sweetly filthy yeah

if anything threatened to uh kill blank check at any stage it I think, our seventh episode ever when we were still doing Phantom Menace. I forced David to do it. And we were out of ideas, to be clear. We were out of ideas. We had run out of things to talk about with that one. And by the way, our original pitch was

we will only talk about Phantom Menace indefinitely. We'll do it. We could go on for years and our producer was like 10 episodes. And by episode seven, I was already like, it's the fan fiction episode. And I made David listen to the dirtiest fan fiction I could find.

And I found a story about Obi-Wan sucking off Qui-Gon Jinn at a galactic glory hole. Oh, no. That sounds good. I like it. It's good. It's very convoluted. It's kind of like a high society thing like they have to do the glory hole because like that's the procedure on that it's the customs

of the people they don't want to be disrespectful they just kind of like oh no i guess we're gonna have to do this like it's it's that's hilarious and neither one knows the other one is participating on the other side of the wall and Then they start figuring it out, Griffin. But the beauty is, because a lot of fan fiction like that, you know, it slides you in very subtly and carefully. It starts out kind of banal before things start to steam up. The opening line of this

story was, Qui-Gon Jinn stuck his penis through the hole. That sounds like something we would write, honestly. Those are very bold and disgusting and disturbing and it was very fun but and also way too easy for both of us I think to write

oh absolutely it was a joy have you guys ever tried I have not me neither yeah I think you should you should do fan fiction for whatever like thing you're talking about it'd be a fun little every episode yeah well like you know like to do like if you did nora affron and then do a nora affron fan fiction of tom hanks and that would be perfect

right yeah what if tom hanks and meg ryan ended up together we can write that speculative fan fiction a scenario that has never played out oh my my God. Well, thanks so much, you guys. That was so fun. Yes. Thank you. Thanks for doing it. Oh,

the treat was ours. It was so great to be here. It was a delight to be invited on. It was great. And I will say, a joy to rewatch these episodes. If that's any encouragement for the two of you to finish, because I remember struggling through the first couple a little bit.

Mm-hmm. And it was a surprise. I think we might keep going. We'll see. Yeah. We'll see. Yeah. We'll see. In my mind, I was like, I love this whole series because it ends so goddamn strong. The ending is pretty great.

We both live with people who might be more inclined to want to keep watching. Yes. So I feel like that's part of it. Sure. So maybe we will. Yes. We have plans for the next season. It won't be Star Wars.

No. We're talking. We're in talks talking about what it might be. It's going to be another insufferable franchise. We're looking forward to the future, of course. And we'll see you then. Bye. Bye.

Do you guys follow Amanda Bynes on on instagram it's an interesting time it makes me sad she's now pregnant and has a face tattoo and i her boyfriend's a little shady she has a face tattoo yeah she got a heart tattoo here and Okay. Well, I think I have brought her out before. I'm sorry. I don't know if you have, but she keeps trying to be like, I'm okay and I'm going to come back. And then she's like, now I'm pregnant and I have face tattoos. I know. Wasn't she like thirsting after some celebrity on Maine and then in the middle of the thirst

mentioned that she was pregnant? Oh, I didn't see that. I didn't see that either. She used to tweet about obama thirstily all the time i'm not making that up and she was always trying to get some on on main yes i know that drake could murder her pussy and then she did an interview where the interviewer said what did you mean by that she was like oh that he could murder my pussy it was how to find the words her commitment to the bit is is really impressive this is unrelated to anything but how do you feel about drake having purses for his

future wife i think that's so weird don't like it i would be so upset if i was fine i was like oh my god drake loves me we like wooed each other oh my god what's in this big ass closet a thousand purses yeah and you don't get to pick any of them out so do you think maybe they're not for his future wife and drake just likes to prance around with purses at night and i'm not saying that's bad i love that no that would actually be way more interesting i think but if he was just like i wish men had nice purses it would make sense it feels like because i thought that collection looked like an investment like yes buying these like expensive bags maybe someone was like these always sell for like thousands more in the future and

whatever it makes sense most of them are hermes bags yeah they're really expensive and chanel bags are the only purses that uh increase in value oh yes that's a good tip yeah the only thing i know is that his he has a duplex closet, right? Like his closet has stairs. It's like a two floor closet. Oh. What the fuck? I don't have enough clothes. I'm so upset. Oh, I do. But like

I wouldn't want to be like, where's this sequined ugly thing I bought? Ugh, upstairs? Yeah, too much work. Can I throw out my theory? Please. I think he respects the artistry of purses.

Like, he's a fashion guy, you know? That's a lot of purses. And I think as a guy who understands style and, you know, collects sneakers and different clothing items,

is like, man, purses, I'm recognizing, like, the quality here. I want to buy them. I can't justify to the public why I own this many purses. I have to say they're for my future wife. Or he wants to dress up his future wife and control the way she looks. That's what I'm afraid of.

The patriarchy. That is what is unromantic about it. If I started dating someone and then they were like, hey, here's my closet of t-shirts I bought for my future husband I'd be like you're not waiting to meet your future husband and find out what they like yeah it's super weird but a woman would never do that because the patriot although if someone had a closet full of t-shirts they wanted to give me I'd be happy that would be a great one I think I'd be more excited about that than purses. Yes. I think I would take shoes.

I love shoes. But what if they had like all the wrong size? I don't know. It seems so complicated. Well, I wear an 11. I got big old dogs. I wear a 10. We're right there.

You do? Yeah. Yeah. How often do you get propositions for feet pics? It happens a lot to me not often enough once okay one time in my like instagram comments it was like on a pole dancing video or something and some man was like how about you do one of just them toes and i was so excited well here's my question about it with and i wonder what you guys think about foot fetishes but it's kind of

it's uncomfortable to have someone um just ask to see your feet, but at the same time, I don't see feet as sexual, so I sort of want to give into it. It's no skin off my nose. Fine. Here they are. I can get a lot of money that way. I found out recently in my weekly self-Googling that I am on WikiFeet Men. You are. Oh, good.

You are on Wikifeet. Not from any of my work because I was like, I don't think I've ever taken my shoes off on camera. It is in fact a tweet I posted like eight years ago. They will find anything. Yes. Yeah. Wait, Lauren, are you on Wikifeet?

I have a five-star rating. Oh, I'm so jealous. When I finally found out I was on WikFeet? Mm-hmm. I have a five-star rating. Oh, I'm so jealous. Wow. Lauren. When I finally found out I was on WikiFeet, my rating was bad feet. No way. What's your rating? Well, now I don't know, but I tweeted.

I was like, I have bad feet. Can people upvote my feet? They need to. Yeah. Everyone needs to go give us five stars on our feet. Don't worry about reviewing the podcast. It is one of those things too where it's like, I agree with you where I'm like,

take as many pictures of my feet as you want. Do whatever you want with them. I don't care. It doesn't feel like personal or vulnerable to me. But also I just can't, like with no judgment, there are few parts of the human body I find less erotic than the foot i agree it seems like if you're gonna have a very very specific thing that you

need to deal with i guess there it's an easier like feet it's okay you can get pictures of feet i guess it just doesn't strike me as i don't know it's weird how it becomes such an outsized thing for feet people yes right again without judgment it's just no i have a friend who sent um some used keds to a guy for uh for a few hundred bucks those and those shoes only cost like 20 bucks so it was like yeah wow oh great i often think about doing things like that because now i have a ton of time me too i'm like i mean if you like brown feet that aren't that cute i'll send you pictures of my feet i'll send you i think there's a market for your exact feet i think a lot of people think they're very attractive i'm sure of it thank you four stars on wiki feet just look at that great wow thank you that's a great rating better than griffin newman no offense i'm 3.5 i'm not ranking

i gotta try to bump it up i need to maybe post some more i need to submit photos directly to them well this is the thing i i've done it as a test a couple times if you post a picture of your feet in your instagram story they'll be up there really soon anybody i believe this this they will get up there someone will put them up yeah if you post a picture of your feet in your stores, they'll be up there. That's really funny. I love it. I love that you've done that.

That was a Hate Gum podcast.