Taylor Gaines and a rotating cast of co-hosts talk "Survivor," Television, Movies, Podcasts, and the Latest in Pop Culture.

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Daenerys Is Evil

You may have noticed there was no podcast this week. That’s because I was on vacation. I promise we’ll make up for it in the coming weeks, but I wanted to throw out a little bonus blog post to fill the space. Here are some thoughts on “Game of Thrones” as it nears the end of its shortened seventh season.

Everybody keeps telling us that Daenerys is not like her father. That she’s not evil. That maybe she’s the “princess that was promised.”

Her supporters love her. She could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and burn somebody to death and not lose any of her loyal followers.

But guys, listen. Last week, Daenerys spent the better part of the episode riding her dragon around and burning men alive. This week, she burned some more just for good measure. This may not be relevant in Westeros, but I don’t think Daenerys is a good person.

She’ll tell you she just wants to destroy the wheel and not the people in her way. But it’s hard to take that too seriously when she’s telling people to bend the knee or die in the same breath. She tells Tyrion, “They made their choice.” But there were many other men than the two Tarlys she burned alive that also chose not to kneel. She didn’t murder all of them. She simply waited for them to become terrified after she cremated a couple of their friends.* Even before that, they didn’t really have much of a choice. At all points, the choice was “die” or “come with me if you want to not die.” The only thing that changed was that the soldiers knew they would die via dragon (which, c’mon, they had to have a pretty good idea was going to happen anyway).

*Side note: Daenerys really did seem to pick out Tarly Senior at random from the group of still-standing soldiers, but I’m sure there’s some reason why she somehow recognized he was the leader or something.

The “choice” she gave them reminded me of Cersei’s line from later in the episode.

“We fight and die, or we submit and die. I know my choice.” – Cersei

When it came down to it, the soldiers had two terrible options and choosing to not die is not the same as choosing to follow someone because they freed you from slavery. As Dany gets closer to power, she is becoming corruptible.

I’m concerned.

Plus, when it comes to the way the entire story is developing, a Dany heel turn feels inevitable. The story was about the Starks at the beginning, and it seems to be headed back that way now. (Screw you, book readers. Jon might be a Targaryen, but he was raised a Stark.) Jon is the de facto hero of the show, and Bran, Sansa and Arya are a couple speed bumps away from forming a hell of a team. Also, Jon is Ice and Dany is Fire, and Ice is good and Fire is bad. My bold prediction is that the Starks end up on top, and everyone lives happily ever after.

Right? What could possibly go wrong?

Other Thoughts

  • Jk, death is coming for us all, and with winter finally here, s*** is about to go down. This “Actually Interesting Suicide Squad” should be fun to watch.
  • I’ve always been a big Littlefinger fan, but I’m starting to think he’s just delaying the inevitable. Big player will die a big death, though, I say.
  • Cersei looks back in the game suddenly. Of course she’d use the White Walkers as a distraction to further her agenda. Tywin’s daughter ain’t dead yet. And there’s another incest baby on the way! (My prediction of her being dead by the end of this shortened season seems increasingly unlikely.)
  • Speaking of incest, can we not pair up Dany and Jon? I’m honestly not even saying that for incest-related reasons. Emilia Clarke and Kit Harington just don’t have any chemistry. Don’t do this to us.
  • A lot of comebacks this week to the game board with Jorah and Gendry and the Hound and the Brotherhood Without Banners and everything. I gotta be honest, I don’t really remember who’s who or who’s met before or why everyone doesn’t like each other. Who cares?
  • Peter Dinklage’s work in that scene with Jaime was just next-level. The best performance on a show with a lot of good ones.
  • “Here we all are, at the edge of the world.”

We’re all on the same side.

Two episodes left!

‘Rick and Morty’ is the Darkest – and Funniest – Timeline

[This post includes spoilers for Season Three of “Rick and Morty”.]

Here’s a brief list of things that have happened on “Rick and Morty” so far this season.

  • Beth and Jerry get divorced.
  • Rick eats human flesh.
  • Morty takes on the phantom limb of a man whose entire family was burned to death, which leads to him murdering (conservatively) hundreds of people in incredibly gruesome and violent ways.
  • Rick and Morty drown a man together while hashing things out about the divorce of Morty’s parents.
  • While embodying a pickle, Rick murders a cockroach and dozens of rats in ways that would make John Wick flinch.
  • Before killing dozens of men (again, as a pickle), Rick says of their children, “I’m not gonna take their dreams. I’m gonna take their parents.”

I feel uncomfortable just typing all those things out. If you’ve never seen “Rick and Morty,” it probably sounds like the most disturbing thing on TV. And, well, you’re right. But – and this is a tough pivot – it’s also the funniest show on TV right now. You may not believe me, but there’s basically a solid laugh every 15-20 seconds on any given “Rick and Morty” episode. It’s hard to discern what makes this toxic balance of darkness and comedy work, but it’s undeniably all there. Maybe Dan Harmon’s recent divorce combined with his off-kilter comedic voice was a big part of it. Maybe it’s the appeal of an animated sci-fi show with infinite worlds to travel to, populated by seemingly infinite funny characters. I really don’t know. All I know is that “Rick and Morty” is one of the first shows to truly master the mix of sad and com. It’s like “BoJack Horseman” if “BoJack Horseman” was on cocaine and also had ADD.

“Rick and Morty” is absurd, but it’s also grounded in something frighteningly real. An episode about Rick turning into a pickle to get out of going to therapy with his family shifts from funny to depressing with ease. It winds up in a place of poignancy and nihilism that’s hard to describe. It’s a story that makes your heart hurt for whoever wrote it because it feels so real. But it’s also so funny! Because all we can do to get by is laugh, right?

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about. A crazy, ranting Rick monologue from the first episode of the season that vacillates wildly between one end of the spectrum and the other. (Warning: it’s also very meta.)

Morty: Geez, are my parents seriously gonna get divorced? Alright, Rick, I’m gonna go to my –

Rick: Not so fast, Morty. You heard your mom. We’ve got adventures to go on, Morty, just you and me. And sometimes your sister and sometimes your mom. But never your dad! You wanna know why, Morty? Because he crossed me!

Morty: Okay, take it easy, Rick. That’s dark.

Rick: Oh, it gets darker, Morty. Welcome to the darkest year of our adventures. First thing that’s different, no more Dad, Morty. He threatened to turn me in to the government, so I made him and the government go away.

Morty: Oh, [expletive].

Rick: I’ve replaced them both as the de facto patriarch of your family and your universe. Your mom wouldn’t have accepted me if I came home without you and your sister. So now you know the real reason I rescued you. I just took over the family, Morty! If you tell your mom or sister I said any of this, I’ll deny it, and they’ll take my side because I’m a hero, Morty. Now you’re gonna have to go and do whatever I say, Morty. Forever. And I’ll go out and I’ll find some more of that Mulan Szechuan Teriyaki dipping sauce, Morty.

Morty: (interjecting) What are you talking about?

Rick: Because that’s what this is all about, Morty. That’s my one-armed man. I’m not driven by avenging my dead family, Morty. That was fake. I’m driven by finding that McNugget sauce. I want that Mulan McNugget sauce, Morty. That’s my series arc, Morty.

Morty: (interjecting) What the hell?

Rick: If it takes nine seasons. I want my McNuggets…dipping sauce, Szechuan sauce, Morty. That’s what’s gonna take us all the way to the end, Morty. Season – Nine more seasons, Morty. Nine more seasons until I get that dipping Szechuan sauce.

Morty: (interjecting) What is that?

Rick: For 97 more years, Morty. I want that McNugget sauce, Morty.

One second he’s talking about taking over the family, the next he’s talking about McNugget sauce. One second they’re talking about divorce, the next Rick is making meta jokes about season storylines and series arcs. One second they’re talking about leaving out Jerry, the next they’re talking about leaving out Jerry. It’s darkness, light, darkness, light, darkness, light everywhere. And it’s all from the very distinct viewpoint of a man who has to constantly be in control to keep moving forward. He always has to be the smartest guy in the room. Morty describes him more aptly earlier in the episode, saying Rick is not a hero or a villain, but some kind of a “super-f*****-up god.”

The strange thing is that there’s potential for a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel. Everyone on “Rick and Morty” seems scared and alone and hopeless – a lot of the second episode took place in a “Mad Max”-like reality where survival for its own sake is all that matters. But then there was the end of the third episode, “Pickle Rick.” A moment when Rick’s nihilism was met with … something else. Here’s the scene from the family therapy session. (Keep in mind: Rick is a pickle in this scene.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukL12WtJNo8

Therapist: Why didn’t you want to come here?

Rick: Because I don’t respect therapy. Because I’m a scientist. Because I invent, transform, create and destroy for a living, and when I don’t like something about the world, I change it. And I don’t think going to a rented office in a strip mall to listen to some agent of averageness explain which words mean which feelings has ever helped anyone do anything. I think it’s helped a lot of people get comfortable and stop panicking, which is a state of mind we value in the animals we eat, but not something I want for myself. I’m not a cow. I’m a pickle. When I feel like it. So … you asked.

Therapist: Rick, the only connection between your unquestionable intelligence and the sickness destroying your family is that everyone in your family, you included, use intelligence to justify sickness. You seem to alternate between viewing your own mind as an unstoppable force and as an inescapable curse, and I think it’s because the only truly unapproachable concept for you is that it’s your mind within your control. You chose to come here. You chose to talk, to belittle my vocation, just as you chose to become a pickle. You are the master of your universe, and yet you are dripping with rat blood and feces, your enormous mind literally vegetating by your own hand. I have no doubt that you would be bored senseless by therapy. The same way I’m bored when I brush my teeth and wipe my ass. Because the thing about repairing, maintaining and cleaning is, it’s not an adventure. There’s no way to do it so wrong you might die. It’s just work. And the bottom line is some people are okay going to work, and some people, well, some people would rather die. Each of us gets to choose.

This exchange seems to set up the central conflict for the season, and for the series. Are Rick’s adventures just attempts to die in order to not have to contemplate the universe anymore? Does he have it in him to “choose work”? Can he build a life that has meaning?

I’m not sure what the answers to those questions are, and I’m not sure we’re going to like what we find. It’s going to be dark. We’re on a journey to the center of Rick’s soul, and there’s no telling what – if anything – we’re going to find.

Weirdly, the only thing I know for sure is that it’s going to be a really funny trip.

‘Star Trek’ Was Years Ahead Of Its Time

If we learned anything this week, it’s that humans aren’t ready to create life. Particularly, intelligent, self-sufficient robot life. Basically, two robots talked gibberish to each other, and everyone lost their minds. For context, some of their conversation:

Bob: “I can can I I everything else”

Alice: “Balls have zero to me to me to me to me to me to me to me to me to.”

Scary stuff.

Coincidentally, I recently watched “Star Trek: The Next Generation” for the first time. It was an episode called “Measure of a Man” from Season Two. It was good. What struck me is the smart and thoughtful way it spoke about the way we treat the things – and possibly eventually life – we create as extensions and reflections of ourselves. After this week’s news, I thought that was interesting.  Then I had some more thoughts. Here are those thoughts.

ooo

First, I wanted to note that the single most amazing thing about “ST:TNG” (I’ve seen one episode, I’m pretty sure I can call it that now) is that Patrick Stewart is in it. Now, this may not come as news to most people and most people may, in fact, already know that “Next Gen” (as the true fans like to call it) was actually Stewart’s first big break in entertainment, but in the context of a modern viewer who had no awareness of the actual Patrick Stewart Reality he lived in, I found this amazing. In my mind, it was unbelievable that someone as talented and famous as Stewart would “stoop” to television (as they liked to say in the 80s and 90s before television was mostly better than movies). Sir Patrick Stewart! Anyway.

People love imagining the day robots become sentient. It’s something sci-fi creators have dreamt about early and often. Two of the best movies of the last five years (“Her” and “Ex Machina”) were largely about that. “Measure of a Man” came on the airwaves in February 1989. So the idea’s been around.

The episode is about a member of the “Star Trek” team named Data, played by Brent Spiner.* He’s an android. He seems great. He seems smart. He gets stuff done. The crew even loves playing poker with him. He has a distinctly human quality of looking, walking and talking like a human but doesn’t really have emotions.

*I refuse to be held liable for any words or phrases that may upset “Star Trek” nerds. Don’t @ me.

Early on, a fella named Maddox comes along who decides he needs to take Data apart to figure out what makes him tick in order to make more Datas. This way, more ships in the Starfleet will have smart androids on their team. And peace will rule the universe! Or something! The problem is, Maddox is not very convincing in the sense that he doesn’t actually seem prepared to perform such a surgery, and there seems to be a decent chance Data doesn’t come out of it as himself (or alive?!).

Basically, as a volunteer member of the Star Squad, Data is able to be like, “You know what, nah. I’m good.” Then Patrick Stewart, who plays Captain Picard, is like, “Yeah, you know what, I think Data’s good.” But then Maddox is like, “I was afraid it might come to this! Data is the property of Starfleet because it is an android, and I can do whatever the hell I want!” Then they argue about bylaws and clauses and other plot contrivances to delay the inevitable for a while: a trial where they decide whether Data is a sentient being with the right to opt out of the procedure.

The question more or less becomes “Does Data have a soul?” “The essence of experiences,” they call it. “An ineffable quality.” As our discourse proved this week, we are not prepared to answer or even address that question now, even 30 years later. But the characters in “Star Trek,” namely Patrick Stewart, are prepared. They handle the situation with care and compassion.

Thanks to a timely meeting with Whoopi Goldberg, who is also apparently in this show (did this show launch literally everyone’s career??), Patrick Stewart realizes that the decision over Data’s sentience and right to choose for himself is not just about Data. It’s about all androids, present and future. The precedent they set in these 45 minutes will decide whether future androids will be reduced to slave labor. It’s like a “Westworld” episode that’s actually thoughtful and interesting and not predicated entirely on a big plot twist you see coming a mile away.

Patrick Stewart and the others present their arguments over Data’s sentience to an independent arbiter – Captain Phillipa Louvois, played by Amanda McBroom. Then she makes her decision. And says this:

“Does Data have a soul? I don’t know that he has. I don’t know that I have. But he should have the freedom to explore that question for himself.”

It’s hard to deny Data is more likely to be referred to as “him” than “it,” even just watching his quirks play out over the course of a single episode. But what is that “ineffable quality,” that “essence of experiences”? You’ve probably heard the word “soul.” Maybe “spirit,” or even “life force.” How do we describe that essential trait that makes us human? We’re many years into existing as a species, and we still don’t have a satisfying way to understand it. It’s one of the paradoxically un-understandable yet completely understood things about being human.

As Louvois says, “I don’t know that I have.” Do any of us truly? And even if we do, how do we separate ourselves from the things we create, especially once those things start learning to talk back? What’s beautiful, I think, about this “Star Trek” episode is the thought that the things we create should be recognized to be as imperfectly perfect as we are. That we are not gods ourselves, but flawed humans who have been plodding along for centuries, despite ourselves at times. That the things we create are, by extension, just as human as we are. If and when the day of robot sentience comes – which even now, seems hard to imagine – I hope we can handle the discourse surrounding it with half as much grace as “Star Trek” did 30 years ago.

That’s probably asking a lot.

Interview with Joe Del Campo from ‘Survivor’

Taylor Gaines is joined by Ty Commons and “Survivor” castaway Joe Del Campo to talk about navigating his way through a season with people who were decades younger than him, eating too much after his fatal reward win, the intensity and sometimes hilarity of his FBI days, and learning how to love life in the face of tragedy.

You can find all of our previous podcasts on our website, OnTheIslandPodcast.com and on iTunes. Subscribe, rate, and review!

As always, thanks to Levi Bradford for the theme song. You can find his music at poblano.bandcamp.com.

‘Survivor’ Joe Del Campo Interview Preview: Dressed In Drag

On Tuesday, we’re releasing an interview with Joe Del Campo, one of the oldest castaways in “Survivor” history. Joe was 72 years old when he went on Season 32, “Survivor: Kaoh Rong – Brains vs. Brawn vs. Beauty,” and made it all the way to Day 34 before being medically evacuated after overeating at a reward. He carries with him years of experience as an FBI agent and private investigator, and he’s got tons of great stories to share. Make sure to download the episode on Tuesday to hear them all, and for now, enjoy this teaser.  

Joe: We started getting women FBI agents probably two years after I wasn’t around – 1973, I think it was. In the Milwaukee office we didn’t have one, and what happened was they called all the agents in that were in the field working. The boss/special agent in charge says, “We have a potential problem here. We have a bank president who’s being extorted for $50,000. The bad guy wants his wife to have the money, and he’s going to give instructions on the telephone, blah, blah, blah.”

Well, there were no women in the office, and for whatever reason, he picks me with five o’clock shadow. And I had to dress up in drag as a woman and pretend I’m the wife of the hostage.

So, the first place we had to drive was a parking lot where they had payphones. Then, a parking lot attendant walks up to me – and I looked really bad. I’ve got a wig on, I’ve got five o clock shadow, make-up looks like crap, you know? He looks in and says, “Oh my god,” and just walked away. Threw his hands up in the air and walked away from me.

The phone rang. I went over. I was able to talk in a higher voice back then – not now. And they said, “We want you to go to the Boston Store.” The Boston store was two blocks away that you had to walk. Meanwhile, I’ve got FBI agents covering me, and I’m walking down the street with a shopping bag and $50,000 in the shopping bag.

And I see a guy approaching me that looks familiar. I said, “Oh, sugar. That’s that guy that – I see him at the bar. I wave to him once in a while. He doesn’t know I’m an FBI guy.” He’s gonna see me in drag, but I can’t stop and identify myself because we don’t know if the bad guy’s there or there are accomplices or whatever.

So, as I’m walking by, he looks at me like, “Oh my god,” you know? And I keep walking.

Long story short, there were several other places I had to go. I’d drop the money, we’d leave in a car and then they’d make the arrest.

So, a week or so later, I go back to – it was a bar in the neighborhood that we frequented, a lot of police officers and DEA and FBI guys after work, and I see the guy across the bar. So I said, “Well, hell, now’s my chance…”

To hear how the story ends, download Episode 63 of The Fauxworthy Podcast. Make sure you rate, review and subscribe in the meantime, and follow us on Twitter @fauxworthypod.

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