This is a Bramble Jam podcast.

Welcome to Girls Gone Hallmark, a Hallmark review podcast.

I'm Megan and I'm a longtime Hallmark fan.

I'm Wendy.

I'm a former Hallmark hater.

On today's episode, we are discussing Providence Falls Episode three, Movie three, Part three, Thief of Fate, the third in a trilogy of Providence Falls movies.

This one originally aired on Hallmark Channel on Saturday, August sixteenth, and is now available to stream on the Hallmark Plus streaming platform.

You can find us elsewhere when you're not listening to the podcast.

The first place to look would be for us on Instagram, where we are Girls Gone Hallmark.

We also have a Facebook group if you are looking for people to chat with about Hallmark movies.

There's been lots of chatter about this particular movie in our Girls Gone Hallmark Facebook group.

Have you been over there this morning?

I haven't been over there this morning, but as I was compiling our listener mailbag episode which will come out tomorrow, I believe as of the airing of this episode, lots of Providence Falls talk and I have to say that I'm taking some of the opinions quite personally, so that should be an interesting conversation.

But I don't think this is not one of those movies where it's a universal experience.

People feel really strong in one way or the other.

And I've I've found it very interesting.

That I can't wait to get into the mail bag.

I definitely can't That's gonna be fun, that's gonna be a big, long discussion.

I think I'm excited for it.

Yeah, speaking of mail bag mentioned, we do have a new episode coming out tomorrow, but that means we are in need of brand new listener mailbag submissions for our next episode, so keep them coming.

A lot of people say, like, I always think of something I want to say while I'm listening and then I just forget, And I totally get it.

If anybody gets that, it's me.

But here is your reminder.

If you have something you want to say, drop us an email or a voice message.

Yeah, even if you're just on Instagram, you can send a DM to the email's probably better because that's where we like compile in the dms.

It can get lost a.

Little bit with the number of dms we get.

But yeah, I mean, if something comes to mind right away, please like, let us know, however, send a carryer pigeon.

We don't care.

All right, let's hear a synopsis for Providence Falls, Thief of Fate.

Detectives Cora and Liam close in on solving their murder case and rebel against the Angels, choosing to take fate into their own hands.

Uh spoiler alert.

The whole thing just tells you what happens and the synopsis star does it not?

It really does?

Oh my gosh, it really does.

We have Lucy Guests returning as director.

She did direct the first movie as well.

I have some thoughts on Lucy's directing all positive, don't freak out, but thrilled to have her back, and just saw an announcement of a Christmas movie she's directing.

She's quickly becoming one of my faves, very much looking forward to more from her.

The teleplay for this movie was written by Teresa Kale.

She has nine writing credits, having written multiple episodes of the series Girl Meets World as well as Trolls Topi and The one new casting edition we have for this episode is one Brendan Penny, who appears as the Angel Gabriel.

He's not even credited on IMDb.

For this movie.

His last IMDb credit is Private Princess Christmas from Countdown to Christmas twenty twenty four.

He also was in a novel on the Wall in twenty twenty four, Love on the Danube twenty twenty four, and Family Practice Mysteries in twenty twenty four, Big twenty twenty four, Real Light twenty twenty five.

So I hope we're gonna see Brendan in an upcoming Countdown to Christmas movie.

Man, I'll never forget Brendan Penny on the Hallmark Christmas Cruise playing Family Feud.

He was so funny, so so into it.

I loved.

Yeah, I was very entertaining, very entertaining.

Let's take aquick break and come right back with our first impressions.

Hey, Wendy, what was your first impression of Providence Falls Thief of Fate?

Well, Finn moved on so fast even Hallmark was like, whoa slow down, buddy.

My first impression is I'm gonna need Nil Materer to be the villain in all of his movies going forward, please and thank you.

It's in my likes.

He's so good as a villain, the best lakes, so likable, but like also you're a bad guy, and I love it so very much.

So if we can talk about my first like, it's the Bail and Susette backstory here, and finally we get some you know, we get some information about Susette and how she's plucked out of purgatory in exchange for like manipulating Cora and Finn, and I feel like that's all juicy and yummy, and I loved all that stuff.

But it's the scene that Niall as Bail does with Agon in the bar that I really really loved.

He's so nasty and I just loved it.

Yeah, he really does play the person from the bad place really well.

God, I love it.

He's just like mean, mean, but like not I was like mean but not scary, but kind of also really scary when like someone like very calculated like that, right, Well, Samiel was like, we're gonna find whoever was working for you and take them out of the equation, and Bill's like you can try.

Like, yeah, okay, m to your point.

My one of my likes of this movie was excellent use of guest stars.

Nile mat truly knocked it out of the park, like he is was such a great surprise.

A lot of people knew who was coming.

I don't watch the preview, so I didn't, and I guess maybe I should have because other people knew that Brendan Penny was in this and I have no idea idea.

Like when the Brendan shows up on screen, I'm like, literally out loud.

I was like, look who it is.

Brendan Penny was a nice surprise.

His role as Gabriel wasn't as strong as the Bail role in my opinion.

But I like when they use big names for these little roles.

It's just nice for this regular Hallmark viewer.

Nice little There are no little roles, Megan, Well, correct, there's no small parts.

Yes, that's it.

I don't know.

I'm not in the industry.

I don't know, but I knew it was something along those lines.

Oh.

I like when they use big names for these brief on screen appearances.

There you go, there you go.

Yeah, that's like a fun I wondered if they were, like if they were cast that way, or were they just working nearby or they just have like a friendly connection with like whomever and they're like, oh hey, let me call my friend a nile mater and see if he wants to do this.

Or you know.

Yeah.

To me, it seems like for a role like that, it has got to be that they were they either live in the area or they were working in the area, because it's a lot to fly them in and house them and all of that just for a day, so they're knowing nothing about anything.

As referenced many times, it does seem more likely that they're using local actors for short on screen appearance roles.

Yeah.

Yeah, it reminds me of that movie.

I think it's Heidelberg Holiday.

Is that the one about like Jonathan Bennett is like in the background because he just so.

Has he was there.

Yeah, yeah, that was great funny.

I have another like, well, I've got lots of yes, But I really liked the full circle moment we get.

It starts with Cora and her dad talking as he's bringing her home from the hospital about how he remembered when she was little he would take her to work with him and she just loved it, and she's like, I didn't, I just wanted to be near you.

And then it comes around at the end of the movie where she leaves her role as a detective and she's like I did this to stay close to you, Like this was a way that you and I could be in each other's lives.

It wasn't my dream, and he's there for it.

And it's nice that she's not letting go.

Like we're led to believe like this was her big dream to become a detective, and we realized that was never her motivation.

Yeah, but the problem, the problem for me with all of that is, you know, she was so for a lack of better words, pissed off that her boss, the she for whatever was questioning her instincts and whatever.

And that led me to believe like she was a really good detective and she I guess both can exist.

She was a really good detective, but it wasn't her life's passion.

So it just.

Bothered me that she's like, yeah, I don't want to do this.

Yeah, I hear you, Like it felt like it was too easy for her to let it go.

Yeah to me, hearing like talking about how she was bothered by her Boston Take her seriously.

I think you're right, Like, two things can be true.

This isn't my only goal in life, But do I feel strongly enough about my ability to make second chances of success that I'm really ready to walk away from it.

And also maybe it's not my dream, but I'm a badass woman and I want to do whatever I do well and be taken seriously.

Yeah that's fair because like how many people are there, Like a lot of the dudes are just there to collect the paycheck and they're being taken seriously.

Mm hmmmmmmm.

What else did you like?

Speaking of Chief Boyd, Look, he's my MVP.

I love that Mattie Finocchio.

We've been saying for a long time, give this guy a bigger role.

This is a pretty big role.

I think I sort of love that he was the bad guy.

And did I not call it?

I knew, mister red flag totally that you called it.

Yep, I was wrong about her dad and Leo, but.

Yeah, there's got to be a red herring.

Yeah, but I knew who was the bad guy.

It was so obvious.

However, with that said, I love that Matty Pinocchio got this big role, and I think I'm ready to see him in something equally as big, but where he's the good guy or the love interest or the whatever.

You know.

I love him.

I think he's awesome.

Yeah, give him a starring role and counted a Christmas come on totally think speaking of things that were obvious but that I did not notice.

That is the u of second chances as having double meaning both for the community that they serve as well as second chances for these lost souls.

Liam gets his second chance to prove himself.

I liked that they did a nice job tight and tying it in all together.

I was as we were getting to the conclusion of the movie, I was like, oh, I could see how this book was.

The books were probably very satisfying if they if the story followed because I didn't read the books, but if the story followed the books in a similar fashion, I could see how it all tied together nicely.

What else did you like?

I like that sexy spaghetti dinner scene.

Literally my notes that spaghetti dinner exclamation point damn Lucy guest.

Honestly, the whole part where she's like moving the wine glass further and further and further away from him.

I was like, that's so subtle, but also so like quite interesting.

I wondered, like if that was a Lucy guest, like, you know, we're at him closer.

Yeah, was that direction from our director.

How did that whole like I want to be a fly in the room When they were talking that cia, I just thought it was real sexy.

And if you look at all three movies together, there were a lot of i'm gonna say, like upgraded sexy scenes compared to like regular Hamewark movies didn't.

Don't you think so yet?

I think it's a it's a special gift to be able to work within the parameters of what Hallmark wants on their screens and still send the steamy message.

Like that chair pole, Oh my god, is so hot and so innocuous, Like everyone's clothes are on.

There's really no physical contact, nothing happened, but the pole of the chair is just enough.

It's like the zipper scene.

Like the zipper is I think maybe a little more obvious, because like the idea of unzipping something is really sex but like a chair, there's nothing inherently sexy about a chair, and yet it was great.

Yeah, I agree, I absolutely agree.

Especially because the whole time he's telling Cora this story about his past failures and what's helping what's not helping him, what's making him keep her at arm's length?

Like why he's afraid to get closer to her, and so then like the metaphor of pulling the chair good.

Yeah, and just like even the way that the chair scrapes, yeah, on the floor.

Yeah, the whole thing really works.

It really works.

With one exception, I thought that the suspenseful scenes in this movie were done pretty well.

Liam getting separated from the group when Aggon interferes.

I thought that was genuinely suspenseful.

I wasn't totally sure it was going to happen there.

I thought his dive in front of the bullet was well done.

We'll talk about a saying that I thought wasn't one hundred percent for me, but I did think that they really brought the suspense for me.

I will agree that seeing in the tunnel, there was one part of it that was a little bit hokey, and I wonder if that is going to be in your wishes, I'm sure, but yeah, I thought I thought that was good too, because I was like, where's the agon leading him?

Like what's happening here?

Yeah?

Thought, did you at any point wonder if Egon wasn't Agon, like if it was Bail in disguise like leading him?

Oh?

I did not, but that would have been a fun twist.

Yeah, Like when he disappears for a second, I was like, oh he being led astray?

Yeah yeah, yeah.

Do you have any more likes?

I have two little ones.

Well, okay, Cora.

I really liked that Cora's realization of who Liam was in their relationship with something she came to on her own and wasn't something that she needed to have Angels blained to her, h Okay, I didn't want them sitting there being like, no, the reason why we feel connected is that I needed her to get there on her own.

I think that's the only way she understands it.

And finally, when Finn takes off to apprehend Magnus after Susette sees that text on her phone, she's like, wait, I want to know what happens at the end of our day and he returns, oh to kiss her.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's an A plus scene.

Yeah.

You know, you know, I like I like Finn.

I really like Evan Roderick a lot.

I know I'm gonna be like, maybe I'm gonna have to get into some auroraty Garden.

Oh my, want to watch some Evan Roderick.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, do you have more likes?

I don't.

Well, I'm wondering if you'd like to talk about Finn and your wishes.

Well about his Like the way he moves on so fast.

Yeah, I didn't hate it, but I wonder if you did.

Really I did.

I just I'm like, he moves on real fast, like real fast, and I feel to me like it undercuts the emotional weight of Cora choosing Liam because it makes it feel like nobody really cared that much, you know what I mean.

He had Susette lighting in the wings that was no big deal.

Yeah, exactly, and and Coor being so worried about Finn that I appreciated, Like I was like, Okay, she really cares about him as like a person or as a friend, like she wants she's worried about his safety.

So I enjoyed like that part of it, Like she wasn't just like, eh, he's just some dude or whatever.

But Finn, on the other hand, I was like, Finn dude, like no love lost, Like, oh, Cora chose Liam, so oh bestie looks good.

So especially after the second movie where he looks so forlorn seeing them kissed.

Yes, yes, and we're talking couple days later, Yes, just days later, exactly.

Yeah, I was kind yeah bothered.

What do you think about Suzette though being pissed when Cora goes on that date with Finn.

I mean, I'm not really sure, Like I have a hard time understanding Susette's motivations, Like is she just there?

I mean, was she just doing all those things just so she could live in the modern world?

Like she didn't kind of like how Cora's like, was our friendship all bs?

Like, Well, that's my question about Suzette, right, because when we learn that she's working for bail, you start to question her motivation, but then she seems to genuinely like she says, yeah, of course she was there to just do a job, but then she became a genuine friend of Cora's.

I feel like she's not acting like a genuine friend to Cora when she's frustrated by Cora's spending time with Finn, Like because Cora has two guys on the hook, maybe she's upseteah, But yeah, that doesn't mean that Suzette's entitled to one of them.

She's not in a relationship with either.

She hasn't done anything wrong, and so I didn't love that from Susette.

I thought that was like told us a different story about who she was in her motivations than we were led to believe.

At the conclusion, as mentioned, there's a scene that doesn't land for me, and that is when they catch Boyd.

He shuts up the light and runs.

That's it.

Yeah, it's not screaming mastermind criminal to me, he.

Like shuts the lights off and takes off, and then Susaid just flips the switch back on and then.

They run after him.

I was like, what this guy's been running?

It was like criminal enterprise and that's his best move.

I'm so glad it didn't land for you either, because I was like, what.

Yeah, it wasn't my wasn't my favorite moment.

I'm so sorry, Maddie.

I still love you.

Was it equally as bad as when the guy fumbles the gun in the movie number one?

They have the same energy, for sure?

Yeah, for sure?

For sure?

For sure.

The moment when the angels appear in front of Cora, Yes, it was a little bit too much for me.

It's it's and you mentioned it.

I think in it was either last week's episode.

But you're like the quantum weep.

Yeah, that's all I could think of when I when I saw it now, I was like, this is a little bit unbelievable.

I think that's the challenge of a movie where you're incorporating angels who are not human?

How do you how do you express that right?

Because I think the better way to do it is they just walk on screen as opposed to materializing.

On Yes, yes, yes.

The only thing is that doesn't then communicate to the person who doesn't know who they are that they are otherworldly.

Mm hmm.

How Cora's I think she even says like, I know what's going on here, but this is still hard for me to accept when she sees them.

So I think I think they need in like a little bit of some sort of other worldliness in order for her to fully grasp what is going on.

But I don't think there's a way to do it.

In the book, they like materialize out of the mist, and that gives me hokey vibes too, Like totally in all of it, it's hard to execute.

I don't love it.

Yeah, even with Brendan Penny, Like at the end as Gabriel, I was like, He's like I'm right here.

I'm like, Okay, I don't know.

I don't know.

I have to admit, like, as much as I liked the end of movie two, like just this movie like kind of just.

Limped into home base for me, Oh, was that a same thing?

Yeah?

I just was like, this is like too much, Like all this all this angel stuff was was.

Too much for me.

I also didn't really like that we didn't get any closure on Bail.

Yeah.

I mean, I'm guessing you know, we didn't get closure on his efforts, Like I wanted to see him be like, dagnam it it didn't work or whatever, like you know whatever.

But wait, did it work though?

Because he was trying not to get them to get right?

I guess technically he prevented Cora and Finn from getting together, but second chances happens.

Yeah, I don't know.

I just they didn't.

They didn't.

They needed to close that chapter out.

We needed to see something that ended his story or that he moved on to another mission or well whatever to that point, do you think this would have been better served as a series of eight episodes?

No, because I thought three was too long.

Oh that's interesting because I think in a series, they could have done all of those things like you could have had we would have dug a little deeper into Bail and Susette, and maybe there would have been a little more of a window between Finn's Finn's letdown and hooking up with Susette.

Rebound is Yeah, I mean, I guess I could see that like a six episode maybe an eight episode one season.

Wonder sure I could.

I could maybe get get onto that.

I don't know.

Part of me felt like three movies.

Six hours was too long.

My biggest complaint Movie number one was that it was slow.

I thought this this installment was also a little bit slow, but it was so heavy on the solving the crime part of it that I didn't really care about.

So that's where I land.

All Right, are you readfferent?

Did you see that?

Yes?

I have none, Okay, I have two little, very little.

In movie one, I thought I bumped on something.

They were using they pronouns for Gabriel.

Yeah, it's a he.

They straight up use he him pronouns in this movie.

So that was a nothing burger.

Finally, they go to the bar Dante's like Dante's Inferno about you know, the seven circles of hell.

Funny now that's all.

Oh oh, I just had to did to see that.

I just made the connection.

The coffee place that they go to is called the Cat something the cat Cafe or something like that.

And Susette was a cat burglar.

Look at that, Look at me.

Put the pieces together.

I love how like the worst people, they can come up with our burglars.

Right.

Liam was a bad guy because he used to steal from people.

And Susette, you know, her soul needed salvation because she was a cat burglar.

Like these, these are the souls that need redemption.

Although I guess when you think about it, we don't really want to see redemption for like super bad guys.

So sure, I don't want to see like a murderer being like, well, now you're nice, so I forget you.

Yeah, good point.

Well I'm a little worried about your rating.

I mean, it does not change from movie one or two.

It's a four star.

I give it five.

Are you for real?

Really?

Yeah?

I liked this series a lot, and I thought the movie I like it.

I'm glad you did.

I'm glad you did so, I'm are you putting the boxing gloves on?

In the Girls Gonne Hallmark Facebook group and like really defending your choice here.

I mean, if it doesn't hit, it doesn't hit.

We've been there too, So I thought it was well executed.

I was into the story.

I thought the production value was super high.

I thought Lachlan and Katie and Evan were fan frea fantastic as we're Maddie and niall like, I really, I think there's a lot of positives about that movie.

But if the story doesn't hit for you, the story doesn't hit, it's.

I just mean, like i'd even four stars.

You know, four stars is not a bad rating.

Yeah, I'm not, and I'm not saying you.

A lot of people like I didn't like this, and I think it's just so different from what they've come to expect in a lot of ways.

The style of the movie.

People are like, is it a mystery?

And then so they were like, well, I don't like mystery, so I don't like this, But I feel like, eh, the mystery was heavy in Movie three, but not throughout.

It was just kind of a third place point to me.

And it's it's just different.

And I think the trilogy, which is not what they're calling it.

They call it a mini series, a three part special event.

You know, I think that's different and people have a hard time wrapping their heads around that, so we'll talk more about it and tomorrow's episode.

Yep.

Yeah, Well, thanks for listening to this episode of Girls Gone Hallmark, a Bramble Jam podcast.

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