Warning.

Today's episode contains spoilers.

For gen V season two episodes one through three and Yeah Coming film Him, Hello.

And as Jason Cantepcio and.

I'm Rosey Night and welcome back to ExtraVision the podcast when we talk the video, favorite shows, movies, comics, and pop culture.

Coming from iHeart Podcast, We'll bring you three episodes a week, close news on Saturday.

In today's episode, we are gonna be talking about gen V season.

Two episodes one to three.

It's back?

Did you know what was coming back?

I like the first season.

I didn't really know it was coming back, but I'm very glad it's back.

We will also be talking about the new Monkey Poop produced movie Him, Did.

It live up to our feelings?

How Ian will be?

Ravis?

We are football?

You will be watching And then this week.

Instead of TG I F we are gonna ask is this a sports movie?

And we are gonna pitch some unexpected movies that may not be sports movies to cause some fun discussion before we head out this weekend.

But fus, Joe, well Joel join us for GENV?

How are you doing?

I'm checked in three episodes is a lot, but you were talking about.

They move with they move quickly, good pacing.

It's swift.

It's really swift and to your point, like we we have screeners for everything.

We try to say like current with y'all.

But text She's like, I had to watch.

I had to.

We had to get into more episodes because yeah, the cliffhanger after.

Three, Oh, where are we going from here?

I'm very excited.

So yeah, I was excited to turn to gen V.

I was nervous.

Season one is a hard watch.

Like emotionally, yes, I mean anyway, I just felt like it's really vulnerable kids being abused.

On a lot.

You're just like, wow, this is difficult, and so I made it a bit difficult for me to start my watch of season two.

But I will see it.

It resonates, it works.

I thought the memorials to Chance were done tastefully.

We've seen this happen before, where people passed before is anticipated, and then you're trying to address that death.

Within the context.

That's what happens, and it's done to varying degrees of success.

I don't want to call anything out because they're all made from very loving places, but sometimes you're like, uh, this doesn't connect to the story and it's weird, but here I like this.

Yeah, I feel like they deal with it well.

I also do have a question for you guys about where the story's going and if you think it would have been different once we've talked about if chance was had not passed away tragically, because I think they switch main characters this season that was not necessarily the purpose.

But I am happy because I love But I will quickly get everyone up to date.

If you have not watched please Gen B season two episodes one to three B where because there will be spoilers.

Picture this.

It's nineteen sixty seven, Top Secret.

Lab Westpongebob from Broadway aka Box Woodsman aka Ariana Grande aka Even Later an incredibly incredibly distracting stunt casting for weeks and immediately.

You're just like, what the fuck is going on?

We He tries to stop his colleagues taking an early version of V Compound V, which we know gives soups their superpowers.

He is not speedy enough to tell his colleagues that it is not finished, and watches his entire division get consumed by kind of extreme powers like twisted versions of Fantastic Four.

People are bubbling they're bursting into flames.

It's clear that icles technicals like all kinds of multings that you expect to see.

Oh my gosh, truly there's more of that as we get in this so much too.

It is also revealed that Bock Woodsman is in this world.

Thomas Godolkin, the man credited with pioneering Compound B and of course the legendary figure behind the university where we will be joining Goodlkin You aka Thomas Godolkin.

He's also the head historical torturer, as was revealed at the end of last season that basically Godolkin You was made as a place to torture shop heroes and learn more about their powers.

After the previous Dean Indi Raschetti created a virus to wipe out soups.

God You has now taken a sharp turn to the right, branding themselves is an anti woke safe space where you become the hero White supremacy so desperately needs.

Speaking of which, the guardians of Goodlkin, the heroes known as Kate and Sam Boo his His Tomatow Tomato, are the poster children for white supremacy, with Kate constantly wiping Sam's mind so he doesn't have to face the horrifying truth of what they are doing and how they sold out their friends editors.

Not that was during the events of the Boys season.

Football really good interweaving of the Boys, both characters and plas wines into this season like really good.

I was impressed.

It feels whole.

If you are watching as a boy's lover, you will understand from the Boys where you are stat where everything stands.

So, Jordan and Emma are transported out of the prison known as Elmira aka The Woods.

They have been in there around a year.

We work out being tortured and tested on.

After being captured, they expect that they're going to die.

It's an emotional moment, but instead they are welcomed by the aforementioned Kate, who is there to tell them don't worry, it's all good.

It's actually better than good, because uh, you're free from the jail that I put you in and now you can come back to school.

Great, just what everyone wants.

When they escape from jail, Jordan puts in an all time aligned delivery with why don't you read my mind?

Kunt, which was like I legit, like yelled you do not hear that word on TV a lot, and that was an untold good delivery.

Kate tries to make amends, but it's then that Kate learns, you know, kind of speaking to what we were talking about along with the audience, that Andre died while trying to escape El Mirror, and that is our first kind of understanding of how the show is going to respond to the tragic death of Chase Podoma, who actually died between seasons, and this episode and the series are dedicated to him.

To Chase, we then see that Emma and Jordan are allowed back to God You and essentially a normal life as long as they pretend that Indi Raschetti was behind the woods rather than it being a key part of what's success and how they have gotten superpowers over the years.

There is a new Dean at God You who goes by the Superior Mantal Cipher.

He's very creepy and who almost blends Kate's hand in a blender when she tries to use her powers on him.

He's clearly our arch nemesis, but that still leaves one big question mark.

There is a time jump, but where is Marie Moreau.

It is something that nu Dean wants to know too, so he sends Kate on her trail, where, like any great superhero has to do when they're on the run, she is beating the shit out of bigots in a strip wall parking lot and just reminding us that her powers are some of the most innovative and incredible to watch on screen as she puts paid with be attackers in a very impressive fight sequence.

I love Marie's blood bending powers.

I think they are brought to life so well here in more God You news that will pay forward the rest of this season, there is a new frat that has been allowed back on campus after killing a person during hazing.

But now you know it's run by one of the college's worst white sexual abuses, so they let them back and at their big welcome party, Jordan's getting wasted and punching butt beer over everyone.

More butt play, Joelle, there you are, but butt beer coming right out of the butt fresh from the keg disgusting.

Well.

Emma ends up in the same room with her ex Sam I could have killed him in this moment, and his new girlfriend in a heartbreaking sequence where it becomes extremely clear that Kate is using her powers to numb Sam into submission, removing his memories and any emotional connection to the devastating choices they have made to kill many, many people and promote Vaught's white supremacist superhero agenda in the world.

Annie saves Marie from Oh oh dear uh, Let's put it this way.

Starlight saves Marie from Dog not the Bounty Hunter.

Their take on Craven and very horrifying, reveals that the Dolkin was trying to create something known as Project Odessa, and that she needs Marie to go back to school undercover and find out what secretive scheme was and whether God You is trying to revive it.

I just have to say, hey, guys, nobody loves going back to school more than these kids.

This is like a Twilight level of like, don't go back to school.

Like in Twilight they always I'm like, just don't matriculate, guys, like, don't go back to fucking school.

Jordan and Emma fi Marie tell her Andre die and reveal that he killed himself while trying to save everyone bombshell on her.

Kate appears tries to convince Marie to return to school, but after she uses her powers on Marie.

Jordan smashes her into side of building and it appears that Kate is no more.

Episode one is done, and it's our longest recap because I think there's a lot of stage setting for the rest of the season.

Episode two, after Kate's murder question Mark we Can Dream, Emma is trying to get Marie to follow Kate's plan, which is becoming a super famous superhero influencer.

So vort can't kill you because people know who you are, and Jordan can't quite find it in themselves to forgive Marie for leaving them in the you know, torture prism, which understandable, yes, very understandable, because Marie managed to get out.

It seems at least halfway through when the rest of the guys were there.

With Emma's instruction, it quickly becomes clear that Marie's gambit is working.

Her very awkward video goes viral and she gets a meeting with Dean Cipher.

He is extremely creepy, no one knows what his powers are, and the one thing that does get confirmed here is Marie confirms Jordan's memory Cipher was working on them at El Myra.

He is an evil scientist and he failed.

Sarah bullshit line about Andre and how his death definitely wasn't her fault or his fault because Andre was just like his dad Polarity, he has superhero ms, whereas using his powers are slowly destroying his brain.

Scary stuff.

Emma, Jordan and Marie tried to avoid his eagle eyes as vaught Now's tones on the water wokes to stoke salacious stories about humans and their so called oppression of superheroes, a big through line this series.

While humans at God, you are now being treated as lesser classmen, let's say, with separate entrances, higher security.

And Andre's dad Polarity gets hired by Cipher as part of the new all Soup faculty, the first one ever, and you can assume that he is really there to find out the truth about what happened to Andre.

Trad wife soup content that's a new thing this year.

A winged butterfly superhero.

Yes, they get extra very exhausting.

They get extra credit at school for posting viral content that supports the idea that Kate was actually attacked by Starlighters, who are your kind of superhero antifascire like very obvious analogues being made, and we will talk about that again.

And the big through line at God You is make America super again.

So if you're feeling like this might be a good escape for you from normal daily life, don't watch it.

It's not I'd say I'd.

Escape.

Escape that you get, You get some get some interesting notes and touches here on what I think is a theme from last season coming through, which is God You.

Last season was all about being inclusive and kind of the idea of how institutions play into.

That that is gone.

Big Chief Aparchies Diversity Shack, nicely named is now super Training, where Cipher is essentially trying to make super soldiers and is very clearly obsessed with Marie and Marie's powers.

Emma teams up with Andre's dad to research Thomas Godolkin.

In the God You Archives, Emma is high on something she thought was xanax because this is still a boy's show, and happens to love the security guard librarian who used to be a hero called the Rememberer, and that allows them into the archives.

We see the frat rushing with the Deep, reclaiming his role as the sort of awful alpha male in this new Godolkin that's more accepting of rapists and racists than ever.

That's a hard pill for Andre's dad to swallow, especially when Emma, you know, and he discovered that the archives include an extensive amout of just like Neo Nazi and Ku Klux clam memorabilia, as well as a file about the Adessa Project.

Can just pause you here to say, I love these These two are so cute together.

Shockingly Yes, I'm wow, look at a like a respectable teacher or somebody with like actual like like every time we thought I was like, oh no, it's gonna gothing, he's like yeah, he's like actually, I'm just a concerned parent, Like it's it's weird.

What's happening.

Someone explained it to me.

I mean, we get.

This is really funny because you can like trying to recap this show without including every insane sequence of superheroes.

I will say, while they are in the archive, Emma accidentally grows to a giant size and it's completely naked, and.

Andre's dad just this, yeah, very fun bit.

And Andre's dad proves.

That he is a good guy because he's just like, oh my god, giant teenager boobs go away like I don't want to see them leave me alone, And those two are clearly becoming a little duo to very fund very fun duo and also nice to see an adult who isn't like the worst person in the world on this show.

Yes, and we learn about Project Odessa.

It seems to be what how Homelander was created, essentially breeding a superpowered baby by putting the into its genetics rather than as an injection, which we know can.

Have terrible side effects.

And guess what, it is full of dead babies in that file.

Every baby died except for.

One baby called Marie Moreau, who is now the chosen one in this universe.

That would be a good, important thing for Marie to know, but she's too busy making sweet love with Jordan, who she then quickly tells immediately that she loves, which is just one of the sweetest, awkwardest teen things they get right about this show.

They are disturbed by that awkward moment because Jordan does not respond by the fact that people with Dazzlers style powers apparently many of them.

Lots of people got firework power in this universe.

We learn they are celebrating the killing of an innocent black man whom Marie had earlier saved from the biggots at the Strip Mall.

He was killed at the hands of Dog, not the bounty hunter, and just in time to cause more chaos, we learn that he is being blamed for the attack of Kate, and Kate wakes from her coma sees what her possession did to the nurse, which by the way, caused the nurse to stab another nurse in the eye.

Quite disturbing yes, and sadly for her, evil Cipher is outside ready to blackmail her into doing more terrible things for the so called greater good, which is basically Kate's entire art in this show.

And we will come back for a final episode three recap and.

Quick discussion after some add and we're back.

A new human student working jitter Bean the coffee shop gives us some insight into the anti human mindset.

Settling in at God You, Marie and Jordan decide to hunt down her Marie's Auntie Pam, who blames Marie her parents' death, while Kate is back with a fake arm and apparently serious PTSD, including her powers which are not working in the ways she would expect.

Hero Optimization Class, as they call it, seems to be ramping up Cipher centers on Marie and the potential of her blood bending.

Does he know she's Adessa?

Yes, probably, and we will learn that that is true.

Sam, he's losing it.

Everyone's a puppet again, which never goes well for him.

Marie reveals that due to how she got her powers, Jordan was the first person that she ever had sex with, and while Jordan could be sweeter, they're a little distracted by the fact that they are now number one in the rankings and God you is coveting photos of them in both gender representations after the speech that Bought wrote for them, calling them transtastic and saying that everyone.

Was assigned author at birth.

Jordan reveals this is very interesting and rare in TV that they are not trans.

They are actually by gender, some nice representation we never really get.

Emma helps out the human at Jita being to try and solve who their kind of repeat resist graffiti artists that's causing them so much trouble.

Turns out that it is a chameleon who Emma wants to make.

Yes, you think that this is not a good person, but it seems like some of the students at least are not happy about how God You is treating humans right now.

So Sam needs Kate to save.

Him from his own guilt and accountability, but because she can't use her powers without accidentally killing him, he is left to his own devices, which is never a good situation, seeing as he was raised in a prison and he can't control his emotions.

Jordan tries to help him, leading to a fun all out battle through campus until it becomes clear that Sam is feeling suicidal, so Jordan and he decide to smoke it up, always a good idea when you're depressed, and come up with a plan for him to head home.

Meanwhile, Marie is on the hun for aunt Pam manages to track her down to an apartment where Pam refuses to take any ownership in the fact that she abandoned a young woman out of fear when Marie needed her most, which may I just say like when we met Marie in season one, she was literally in like a juvenile delinquency prison, like she was left there after accidentally killing her parents when she got her period.

That was the moment I realized jen v was not gonna pull punches in its why a kind of exploration of the boys.

Pam then reveals that Marie's parents couldn't get pregnant, so they took part in an all expenses paid IVF treatment at a clinic at where Else got you where Marie was conceived and we learned through photos later born into the hands of none other than Dean Cipher himself.

Emma discovers that Harper, one of her fellow students, is the graffiti artist and enlists her in her roommate to help in their anti God youth scheming.

Emma is the only one who just wants to stop playing along and fuck things up, so we support her in that, though she is probably gonna make.

A mess of it.

Marie comes to terms with the fact her sister Annabeth, who she has been looking for since she accidentally killed her parents, has been living with her aunt Pam for years, and it's an unhappy family reunion.

And speaking of family reunions, Jordan and Sam, oh yeah, no, speaking of family reunions, Sam decides he is going to go back home and we will see the fallout of that coming soon, seeing as his parents locked him in a prison and allowed vote to steal his own powers for their superpowered son.

At the newly restored Thomas Goodolkin Day returned to a previously erased racist tradition, Jordan tells Marie he loves her, which seems to be out of character until it becomes clear that Jordan plans to tell the truth about what happened to Kate and Andre in front of the whole school and their ever more fascist student body.

Jordan does just that and reveals that Andre died.

A hero and it was them who attacked Kate, and the school is not into it.

There's lots of booing, lots of jeering, and it is on that note that we leave god you until next week.

Oh my god.

Three episode premieres.

When will you guys forgive up?

Like, give us a break?

I love it.

I love to be able to watch that much TV, but it's a lot.

Three episodes as a starter is a lot.

How were you guys feeling after these three episodes?

I thought like this was a good number of episodes that starts off on like you really get a good understanding of, like this is what season's about.

The mystery is kind of well established, you know, I'm all about as me and it helps it really does.

I think you could have gone week to week, but this really is like it punches it up.

You're like, I'm here, I'm ready to dive in.

So yeah, you know what the conflict.

Saw exactly exactly Jason.

Before we started, we were talking a little bit about your reaction to the show, and you had some interesting thoughts and I wanted to talk about them.

Well, I like the show.

If I want to first preamble, I really liked the show, and I think it's a I think it's at this.

Point better than The Boys.

I agree.

I think that I was really impressed with the integration with various plot lines and characters from the Boys, and the way it puts you so squarely in the timeline.

Of the you understand exactly where you are in the.

Timeline of the Boys.

I think the acting's great.

I think the way they dealt with the loss of chance has is impressive.

Now not to be the guy that makes it, I can feel already about like people being like, why is it got to be about this?

But here is my watching these episodes, I like have this very kind of like under the surface feeling that like I can't escape from and it's about how this show appears to be like it it's using the very common superhero metaphor of like power and oppression, right, and essentially kind of importing like the X Men metaphor into the equation where people with powers are actually the minority in this world.

And we see Cipher kind of foisting this ideology on the kids, like don't you understand, like if the humans team up against us, we're finished and we are also superior to them, which I think is interesting, and but I can't escape this feeling that like this is a show.

About how.

It's a show that allows a white audience to feel oppressed and therefore justified in using power, and that even with the characters of color, they exist essentially within a white milieu, never connecting aside from like you can you can point to like oh, here's a moment, and here's a moment, but aside from these very rare moments, they are really never connecting with their Black americanness, Asian americanness.

They are always existing with this within this white power structure that they don't question.

Yes, the show is about creeping fascism or overt fascism, and the way that the fascism of this world solidifies its power.

And yet even though that is the villain, our heroes like never think about it, engage with it, push back against it in a meaningful way.

It's all about this kind of very circumscribed and targeted plot line mission that they are on that deals with them personally in the way that they have lost or been hurt or had trauma, and it's never about like anything larger than that.

And listen, I think there's an interesting question here about like, can you fight fascism using the power of fascism?

You know, like necessarily it's yeah, what's it cool?

That's it's the Luthen argument.

You're like, sure, using that, can you do those of your oppressor to fight them?

But but Euthan named the enemy, right, And m hmmm, I guess I'm a little irked that it feels like my heroes never name the enemy, and I'm left wondering if they are not merely the latest and.

More more graspable version of the enemy.

I don't know.

This is essentially, this is a feeling that I have that I'm not even fully able to.

Take it to describe aversation.

But I'm left over these three episodes which I really enjoyed.

Again, I think this is a really good show.

I'm left wondering, like just feeling weird about it.

I don't know and if I'm.

The only one that I'm the only one and I'm over.

Nauticalized by these No you're not, just let me, let me, let me hop in.

Because I had a similar experience with a different text.

I don't think i've read Mlang's Blood over Brighthaven, but the story similarly with like there's there's a class that's being marginalized.

You see a lot from the girl who's from.

A class of power, and the whole time she was like, I don't understand why these people are oppressed, and it's so annoying, and I'm like, what are we doing?

I hate this character.

I hates any time with her.

By the end of the book, you get to a point where she's like, oh, the problem is me.

Problem is this, And also I can't eradicate it out of myself, so I'm gonna have to radicalize myself.

And I completely it was so like mesmerizingly good by the end of it.

But the slog to get there, and I don't even call it slog because it's like it's well written and like the journey there makes sense so that by the time you get there, it's like valid.

But like I think, as people of color currently fighting a lot of different types of oppression at once, like watching it be homogenized into a system of like, oh, well, we're all oppressed is really annoying.

And I think also it's really difficult to watch people who literally have powers being like I'm powerless and terrified when you're just like what, it's really hard.

That is the thing that that just on a kind of existential level, but in a small way, not in a way that like this show is ruined for me.

No, it's like a little warning light that I'm like, I don't know about this.

I don't know where we're going with this.

Yeah, is that exact dynamic, Joelle.

The powerful people who are like, actually I'm the victim.

That makes me feel a little weird.

It just makes me feel a little.

I think you are right to feel weird.

I would say, like, I love that this conversation is you guys are having this conversation, because I do think especially the first season, this was also something it really really struggled with my current gut reading of it.

I'm hoping that by the end of the season we end up in a situation where we are able to have our heroes say what the problem is because the Boys has been dealing with it for a long time, this idea of these white supremacist heies.

Jason, I know, me and you were both feel like the Boys kind of fell off posts.

You know, storm Breaker or whatever her name was, you know, and I think that storm Watch maybe, but I think that like there is a tendency for this show to go all out in the silliness or even all out in that emotional character stuff which I love, but not necessarily reckon with the stuff it's putting on screen.

I wonder if that will change this season, simply because I do think this is adding to a trend that we have been noticing for twenty twenty five, which is essentially like the no subtext trend, where everything is just text.

And I feel like a lot of people who are watching this, I mean, even super producer Ian mentioned it felt almost like two on the nose, and I think that that, along with you know how a lot of people have been resonating with certain parts of Alien Earth and the corporate kind of ownership of alien Earth and the Shenanigans of rich people who are not necessarily the most clever people or people you want to be in charge of stuff.

I do wonder if twenty twenty five has gotten us to a place and we're going to talk about him too where I also believe that as a movie with essentially no subtext, it's just all texts, I am like very interested in where we're at, which is I think that these things are supposed to be subtextual stories, but I think that our reality has caught up way faster too.

Things that are supposed.

To be analogous and seem over the top actually seem like, well, maybe you're not being real enough about it.

Maybe it's actually not.

You're I think you might be onto something with You're onto something, yeah, yeah, but can I.

Plus it with this?

We also know like in this country, like reading comprehension is down, and media literacy has never been on, And so I think that there's something to be said about artists being like if I tackle the problem head on, but make it so visually compelling or like way over the top funny and bizarre, can I then connect you to the message in a way that it's like literally coming to entertainment.

It's seeking up on you in that like you know, and I think for a lot of folks, like they're watching and consuming a lot more television or TV shows or YouTube than they are reading about what's actually happening in the world.

And perhaps I wonder now that this is a solution, but perhaps it's just like a good thing that artist, maybe like you would have just spell it out so that we can maybe get on the same page about stuff.

Because I will say the read that I had and this is obviously I think just living here and on the specific of like that notion of like Superos being oppressed, which is really funny because we have lived with the X Men doing it and finally getting it right after like forty plus years, you know, they were able to kind of expand it out of just this idea of some white heroes who are oppressed that this you're like, okay, guys, like, have we not solved this already?

Though I will say my read specifically on it being used by the dean of this institution was very much felt to me like a commentary about how like rich white people are often saying that they are the ones who are oppressed in our real world and that leads to a lot of oppression of actually marginalized people.

Yes, but also it's like, am I just living?

Does that feel relevant to me?

Because of the time?

Is it intentional?

I think the show could move with a little bit more intention when it comes to the way it's using analogies of racism and race and white supremacy when it has a cost of lead characters who are people of color, who, like you said, barely get to ever interact with their own culture.

So I think you touch on something very important, and I'm interested to see how the rest of the season kind of shakes out, because this feels like you could finally say that that's bad.

I feel like finally we've gotten there.

You can be like it's bad when people do this, but I guess we will.

Uh.

In a lot of ways, it reminds me of like the confusion of people who realized, for whatever seasons it is into the boys that like Homeland.

Hermanda was a bad guy.

Yeah, it feels that very obvious text feels almost even more buried in a way that can either be like really interesting in gen v or Eve or troubling to me, but I'm unsure about like how it's gonna shake out at this point.

I think that makes you make a great point, you do you do there?

In addition to kind of, you know, expanding this world in a really beautiful way, I think this show also has done a really good job of like.

Folding inward.

And by that I mean I guess, yeah, a lot of the like little plot lines you have in season one that could have easily just been forgotten about and then never talked about again, they bring them back in such beautiful ways, like Jordan wanting to be number one and being best friends with the former number one and then that guy dying.

That's all like episode one.

Like you could easily have move passed up, but to come back to it, like see Jordan get their dreams, like right now at this really pivotal point, make the choice to actually be a hero and be like, no, I'm just gonna tell y'all.

How you're true.

That's suddenly Jordan is so much more interesting to me again, Like I like Jordan, but before they were kind of just like I want to win it, I'm not and I'm moody about it, and I've got some family issues, which is, you know, good, but this is instantly much more compelling.

I'm obsessed with Hamish links.

He's so scared.

He's really good ship.

He always power.

What are let's figure out, let's.

What are powers?

That's the big Is he a human?

He says a lot like he often talks about how he he doesn't.

He's like I see everything, like I don't know.

Does he have a power he can see through other people like that eyes kind of like what we were bragging on boy Cavaliet for not utilizing in the hybrids his power like.

One of those like game theory type powers where he's like I.

See the full game, like I see the yeah.

Yeah, maybe something like that.

And then I also to wonder if if he uses his powers, he has a deteriorating thing too.

And that maybe he knows about.

We get that very.

Quick clip of the chamber when Blondie's trying to escape his house after she comes in and she's like tell him the truth.

He's like, girl, contemplate your actions.

Get out of my house.

You see like this what looks like hyper chamber or something along the lines in the corner, And I was like, oh, is there a health issue?

Connected to his powers that he's trying, and he can only use them when absolutely necessary.

He's just so.

Terrifying and like chilling and even his like gladiator system of testing the students.

I was like, we're really in our demonic school bag in here.

I low the it's crazy.

I will say this.

We've invoked the name of the X Men.

So the whole time, I'm like, it's insane to me.

The Marble doesn't have X Men up and on.

So long we have been just put me in a school day.

You know what?

Watching this made me feel like sat.

Very concerningly x Men ninety seven aside, like what was our what was our immediate reaction to X Men ninety seven was Wow, they they did it.

They did they did They did the thing that the X Men is about, and they went there.

My fear badly for X Men.

The live action version is a bunch of people in a room trying to figure out how to stand all the hard exactly exactly exactly noble, ambiguous, kind of catch crazy version.

Of that, and that's what excares me.

Watching this was like made me feel like, oh shit, like are they figuring out?

Are they trying to figure out?

Like how to do what this show is doing, but even more ambiguous and they wholesome.

And I do.

Think as well that it's not it's no surprise that we think about the X Men and stuff because also like Cipher, as far as from what we know.

You know, obviously we've seen him blend Kate's hand and stuff, but a lot of the stuff, like having a room where the kids have to fight each other and use that powers, that's Charles Xavier behavior.

So I think it's normal for us.

To be and I will say, yeah, I'm excited because I also think the gladiatorial conversation and the way that he trains the students, and I always thought the ranking system was an interesting way of looking at college sports and analogous.

For the way that college sports exploited people.

And I think that we're in a good situation now with something like him, which we're going to talk about next, that I think is so textual that you can't deny what it's about.

And I feel like jen V needs to get to the place where people can't be confused whether Homelander is the bad guy or not.

You know, I think you sum that up perfectly.

So anyway, let's do it.

Let's go to him, I guess it.

Let's go to.

Him, Timothy, Timothy Shamalay.

And we're back to talk him, and we'd like to bring in him himself.

Super producer, Ian Ian himself.

Welcome.

Come, let's talk about Let's talk about the new movie Him, which we were lucky enough to see a screening last night, directed by Justin Tipping, of course, executive produced by Jordan Peel, starring Marlon Wayans, Tariq Withers, Julia Fox, Tim Heideker, and others.

I was, I was listen.

I was blown away by this movie.

I don't think it lands all that it's trying to create, and it is at times, for me, more metaphor than actual story at times, but I love the size of the swing, and it at times has things to say that feel so fucking necessary.

Just incredible, incredible film.

Your thoughts, Ian, Well, before we get into more of the themes in the metaphor and everything, I just want to talk about some of the more technical and aesthetic aspects of the movie.

I think visually it was stunning.

I think the way it was shot and edited was just beautiful.

And then Joel and I were talking about this when we came out of the theater.

The use of music, the soundtrack is awesome.

The use of music, and then the sound design.

I think the sound design, yes, might be the best part.

Every sound of like everything, you felt it every time you did.

You were in the same situation as me.

I believe you were in the front front row of the Imax Ryes.

Okay, so the sound design there that shit was shaking your chair like you were in when the first jump scare happens and you get this woman who kind of hits him on the way to heading.

To the window and she slams on the window.

It literally shook our chairs and everyone in the audience was like, what the fuck?

The sound was amazing.

I also, Ian, why don't you quickly just explain what the what happens in the movie because it's like you can explain it in five minutes.

Is it really is a ViBe's film?

Yeah, So basically, Marlon Wains plays the greatest quarterback of all time essentially, and the main character Cade is an aspiring, you know, product prodigy quarterback and as a kid he's watching you know, one of Marlon's Isaiah White, does his characters name watching one of Isaiah's games and he wins the game, but he breaks his leg in like a horrific injury, and his dad is like, that's what a real man does, you know.

He puts his body on the line, He sacrifices to be great, like do you want to be the greatest?

Like?

Do you want to be the next Isaiah?

Do you want to be him?

And so we fast forward to kid as an adult and he's getting ready to enter the league, but he's attacked and suffers a brain injury, and so that puts his chances of making the league kind of in jeopardy.

But he gets offered an opportunity to train with Isaiah, who is contemplating retirement.

He's getting up there in age, and so he goes to his remote compound in the desert to train with him.

And it starts out as a nice like mentorship training thing, and then it devolves into some weird sinister shit, some weird ritualistic stuff.

Mm hm, very viby, yeah, just grllo inspired.

It was giving Like if I was going to make a niche sub subgenre for it, the way they do on Let a Box, I would say it's like a gallo American folk horra or American giallo folk cora, because it's very much about the folkloric nature of football and football icons and mascots and uses that to create its own kind of like accult mythology.

Yes, but I would say I agree with both of you.

I think for me, the thing that blew me away so much was one that nobody had ever made a horror movie about this before, because when you actually think about what it takes to be a professional athlete, I think that the storytelling is so clean and so clear with the notion of what you have to sacrifice, whether it's your own body, whether it is your own health.

Because he goes to the compound.

With CTE with a traumatic strain injury, it is actually in that way, it's actually a disabled lead in a movie, to which I thought was really interesting because that impacts how he visualizes the space.

And I just thought, as somebody who has, you know.

Come to America two thirds of the way through my life so far, and was like kind of learning about the NFL and about football and about history of football, and about colleges and the way that kids couldn't make money when from their own likenesses until recent laws.

I just felt like everything that the movie was saying, I was like, it's not that extreme.

I feel like it's a stylized representation of what you were asked to do, but in a way that is just saying, yeah, this ship will fuck you up.

But like I thought that like obviousness was just really appealing to me, the simplicity of that message.

Yeah, because that's the other thing.

It's it's a tight it's a tight film.

It's only like maybe an hour until which is which is good, which is really But so I think it was tight.

And to Rosie's point, it's like the message it's trying to get across is very clear, it's very straightforward, and I think they do a good job of accomplishing it.

But Jason, what are your thoughts on the movie?

How did you feel about the story?

And Well, the story doesn't the story doesn't hold up all throughout the film, not for me anyway.

I think the most impactful part of it is probably the first like two acts of the.

Film, Yes I Am, and then the climax.

But I think the thing that.

The thing that I really engaged with was it does become more metaphor than story.

But the metaphor is so important to me and powerful and and it you know, I was left thinking about how I don't know if anybody has been to these you know, there's been a trend in the last like ten years, maybe twelve years of like barbershops, men's barbershops.

It was kind of like overly stylized like old timey, you know, with the old.

Chair yeah, yeah, yeah, big in London.

Yeah.

And it's to me that always represented a thing, a way for modern dudes to engage with like the trappings of old timey antique, old school masculinity in a way that was positive, in a way that we can hey, we can all agree that like getting a nice cream, like the shave with the hot cream, and like we can all agree that that's great, and the hot towel, and that we'd all agree that that that our forefathers loved.

That and that's cool.

That's a thing that they liked to do.

That was good, exactly exactly right.

And I think the thing that I was that I really that left that I'm still thinking about about him is the way it says, hey, here's the stuff that we that are forefathers, that the people who built this country love to do and that we we found a way to keep doing it that we still love, like measuring black men and see how big and tall they are, How big and tall we love to measure, how big and tall and strong they are, and we have found a way to keep doing it through foot and that part of it, that part of him is so powerful and unnerving to watch when they have that scene Caid goes to the compound.

And he skipped the combine.

They have skipped them could do it, and of course and the and the goats, like personal sports medicine physician is like, okay, let's take your measurements, and they do it right there, and you know they're measuring him from head to toe.

They're saying crazy shit about.

Him, and it is so like it's such a visceral moment that you that I felt like time collapse almost where it's like we felt and it is that feeling of Wow, we found a way to keep doing this, haven't we.

Yeah, but we don't want to talk about how similar this is to things that have happened in the past.

And it's those moments that I've found to be the most powerful about about him.

Greag.

I also liked, you know, the religious like subtext and context throughout.

You know, the team that he's trying to make is called the Saviors.

There's a lot of like Jesus imagery.

You know.

One of the lines that Marlin delivers that there's the famous saying, you know, God family football, but he inverts it so it's football family God.

But he also like used himself as a god.

Can we talk about that?

Because Joelle made one an incredible point, which was when he perceives him like where he is obviously God, but when he perceives himself like he puts that at the end, so he like perceives himself lesser than football and family, which I thought was a really interesting read.

But also the other thing that I thought was really funny.

I don't know if you heard this, but the guy who sat next to us the whole through the movie completely chill, Like we are popping off at a couple of friends there who are really stoked about the movie.

Some of this stuff early on.

When they were like calling him like slurs, when they were measuring him and stuff, My friends were like just couldn't believe.

That that it was.

They were just saying it the way it is really done in football and stuff.

But the bit the guy next to us, the only time he made like an outward exclamation of shock was when they said he went, you know they say like family, a good family, football, Well I say football family, God.

And this guy next to us went, what like that was like.

The most salacious thing, and we were just dying after that.

But yeah, I thought the writing around that kind of stuff was really great.

I also, as again coming from the outside of something I hadn't really considered about football culture, I thought that the kind of a cultish dedication of the fans outside, I thought they did a really good job of just bringing that aspect of like when you are a celebrity and you unknown and the way people interact with you and the like kind of how scary it must be to see these sweaty painted fans like running at you.

I thought.

But I also felt like that probably is another thing that like is scary as shit when you're a young guy in college, like and suddenly these people start actually they have ownership, and I just thought it was interest Weirdly.

That was the part that like didn't that the fans was the part that didn't really work for me.

That was when I felt like the movie lost it's its momentum.

It was really about like can uh, how far will he go to be him?

Right after they've shown us like really what this process is?

That to me is the most interesting thing.

And then.

And then the movie goes to another level when we see the climax of it in his essential like very violent rejection of this entire of this entire process.

Yeah, and talk a little bit about that, because it's very different to these movies.

They usually don't end.

They usually end with someone accepting it rather than rejecting it.

Right, So towards the end of the movie, there's you know, the big climax after he basically when Isaiah reveals what is really going on, that they've been ingesting the blood of like the previous great quarterbacks from the team throughout generations and that's how they're able to maintain this power.

Whoever has the blood is the goat and there can only be one.

So there's a showdown between the two of them and Caid wins and then he comes out of the tunnel into the field on the compound and you know the owner from the team is there is agent all the cheerly.

There's Julia Fox's character is there, and they want him to sign costumes, yes weird ritualistic like pig masks, and they want him to sign the contract essentially like signing away his soul, you know, and he rejects it and then brutally slaughters everyone there in a like in like kill Bill style level, like blood sprang everywhere.

But you know, I think that part was also interesting.

The again, the metaphor you know, of he's he's selling his soul, sacrificing his soul and his humanity to become the greatest.

But also it's the notion that he is basically like the owners in this cabal of people running the team or you know, using black bodies as a commodity for their entertainment or to generate revenue or income or anything, which you know is historically like basically what sports have been America.

That's what I'm saying.

It's the and the line again, I think this is that text versus subtext thing.

Is like the line where they have Tim Hideker like yell at him like you're not special.

We groomed you from childhood to be in this position.

That shit's just true again, like that is the way that whiteness can perceive what they do for talented athletes.

I thought it was very honest.

In some ways.

I enjoyed the yellow like bloody climax of him violently rejecting this entire power structure.

I also left.

Feeling like, you know, I love the I love the listen it is true that football is this machine that grinds up people's bodies and leaves them hollow, permanently incapacitated, sometimes brain damage to an almost horrific degree.

And at the same time, like, while I found the violent rejection to be like really cathartic, I was also left feeling like, and yet we will be watching the football.

There's someday exact multi billion dollar machine, Like is this not just a way that we is this like you know, like there's a I guess it's just a reflection of my own like interior cynicism about so much you know about this thing these days.

But I was left feeling like, I'm glad that that happened, that that somebody said it and pointed out like what a fucked up thing this is.

And at the same time, how do we score that with the fact that we are still watching.

I do think, yeah, I think that's a really good point.

I also think I definitely feel like the pacing is off a little bit in that thad act, Like the fight feels like it happens too quick, like between them, there's such a good build up to it.

But I don't, I don't necessarily it happens pretty fast.

I also do think as much as it's stylistically very enjoyable and you love to see k it, I think that a lot of times in stories like this, you end with the person finding a way to you know, ready or not, we end with Tomorrow weaving.

She survives and all the other people die, so she is.

Allowed to live on.

After this, I think that the interior logic of the film does slightly loosen and you start to ask more questions than you maybe would have found a different and it's very cathartic.

Well, I will say in the set, I think you're right in this sense, Rosie, which is it's after the movie.

I don't know.

To me, the most interesting question is like, okay, what now?

Exactly what you do now?

Because so many people were like we need him too, like they wanted because it is where he went.

It's it's one thing to, like in a moment of catharsis and revolutionary violence, to reject this, But the question is what do you do after and.

Do you think that's doing that?

You know even that, like I mean because like listen, this the the the team is meant and to to uh embody.

The entire yeah, the organization, all.

Of football, right, But so like the question then becomes like how do we how do we reject that?

Like it's the it's this.

I feel the same way about it as I feel when I have conversations with my communist friends where I'm like, you don't even realize how how much the system that you reject validates your emotional needs, you know, Like it was the same kind of citizen I felt when I played Animal Crossing for the first time during the pandemic, and like.

Even when even when we're.

Like I hate capitalism, it's killing us, but you know, the late capitalism is strong the world yaha, YadA yahda, we can we can imagine still, It's all we can imagine.

Still, it's the only way we can like have fun and quote unquote escape.

And that's the part of it where I'm like, oh fuck, like what I do need him to because like, tell me that you have an answer to this, and I feel like the unfortunately the answer is the answer.

The staring all of us in the face all the time is like none of us have the answer.

Yeah, it's also like the personal revolution can only take you so far, you know, as a singular person.

But yeah, I feel like, what do you guys feel like?

I feel like this movie could be huge and I feel like it could miss.

I loved it.

I thought it was really fun.

I thought I think it would be interesting.

Yeah, what do you think.

I think it could open to as big as like fifty mil that's my guess.

And I think that would be a big opening for this movie, because this is not an a twenty four movie, even though it feels like one.

Yeah, I think that the Jordan Peele association will get people in the door.

And I think that's gonna be intrigued for a lot of people.

And you know, to the point that we made earlier, a lot of Jordan Peele directed and or produced movies, you know, tackle these different aspects of our society through his unique lens.

And this one is sports, which is, you know, a unique twist on a horror movie, so I think it will have a good opening weekend, get people in the door.

But once people start seeing it, I don't know if it's going to have legs necessarily because I think to not to compare it to like a get Out or something like that, but I just don't think it's as short of a movie.

I think it's fair to do that because I think as soon as they put they say it's monkey Pole, they say it.

I think it's okay to compact because that's what people look to me want to do.

It's not on that level in my opinion, but story wise, story but visually and like everything else, and like the performances, which is another thing we haven't touched on really, but I think Marlon Wayne's was excellent in this.

I think this could be a career defining performance for him.

I feel like it too.

I feel like he goes completely wild and I feel like it's.

Super sinister but also charismatic, and the way he can switch it on a dime like was incredible because you know, we haven't really seen too many dramatic roles from him like this, so I think this could be, like I said, a career defining moment for him where this might open up opportunities to do more films like this.

And then Julia Fox, I think was also a nice little standout surprist.

She's so good, she's hilarious in it, so yeah, yeah, very.

Very funny, and she's very aware of the movie she's in.

I think that's like and Marlon is the same, I feel like, and I feel like the biggest influence here aside from you know, having Monkey Paul be a production company and the money that Jordan Peel's able to bring him because of the successive get Out and his other films, But like, I also feel like that leaning into comedy occasionally was very peelish the way that you're able to balance because it's not a horror comedy.

But there are moments like after he pulls when he pulls the gun on Cade and then he's like afterwards, he's like, let's just hang out like bro Like, let's just do like what bros do.

And then they cut and they he's like out in the desert shooting like old shit.

The only like bros would never just hang out and do like.

There was a lot of moments in there where there was like good laughs, which I think you wouldn't expect from how sinister and gory the movie is.

I also want to shout out I love the choice of how much of like the X ray style cinematography they used was very clever, a totally unique version of what we've seen.

It kind of reminds me they have a moral combat move like that.

They call it X ray and you get to see people's bodies being broken and stuff.

But I felt like the way they did it here in the different times that they chose to show it and show the damage that was being done or the way they were fighting the internal damage, I just thought was so unique and visually again like really striking.

It's beautiful, It's incredible like it it's a delight for the eyes.

I think it'll be essentially a cult film.

I think so too right.

We'll have a nice opening and.

I see and I think it will it will grow in stature, I think as the years go on.

But I don't think it's going to be a hit necessarily is a cult film.

I think it's a cult film, and I also think it could find a good home in seasonal viewing because I feel like people always want to have a movie to watch when it's Thanksgiving, have a movie to watch when it's Christmas.

Heave them this feels like you could watch this anytime, or is whenever the season's about to start.

I wouldn't be surprised if we start to have La cinemas screening this every year at the beginning of NFL season, Like it feels like it could have that kind of longevity and that kind of carving its own space as a seasonal watch.

But yeah, I'm really and I'm most excited to just see how it does because I feel like it's so much more inventive and visually strange and absurd than a lot of wide release movies.

So I'm hoping this can be a kind of crossover.

But I think you're right, Jason, and it's it's got cult movie written all over.

Uh, let's take a quick break and we'll be right back with the whole crew to discuss our sports movies that are not considered sports movies.

And we're back.

Let's welcome in the entire crew.

Welcome Aaron, Welcome Joelle, Welcome Ian who's already been here watching him.

We were left feeling like, Okay, great sports movie, that's not really a sports So then what are what are movies that are not considered sports movies that we consider sports movies?

And what are our favorite versions of those?

Let's start with it.

This is my favorite challenge that you proposed, Jason, if I could say, really we.

Can day I brought this up with someone.

It's like opened.

In the car on the hallway home off this him last night, just like a forty five minute drive just about this, because you start to get into those same issues we had with sci fi, like what does it mean to be a sports movie?

Like does it have to be about the sport?

Does it have to have the lead person playing a sport?

Does it have to revolve around a certain game like a big play?

At the end, there's lots of interesting conversations.

But but Aaron, what is your controversial sports movie that's not a sports movie that you were going to argue is a sports movie?

All right?

So this movie centers around the competition.

It takes place in Philly, which is a sports town if I've ever heard of one.

The movie does like a really really good job of fleshing.

Out must your face right now is so are you like anti Philly?

Joel is that what that was or what?

No?

Just first it's like, is it the town?

No, that's Boston.

I'll just have that.

Yeah, my sports movie is key No, all right.

The movie is a really great job fleshing out multiple teams of competitors, and what I really like is it highlights kind of the darker, more salacious side of sports off the court or off the field.

So it has you know, like ex lovers, psychotherapists, there's a trophy wife, they have affairs with their trainers.

Like this is a complex movie about like the dark side of sports.

They also, for making the movie, had to stage the entire competition.

They couldn't record it an actual one, so there's over sixty hours of footage shot for this movie.

And the final thing at the end of the movie, we follow all the competitors home and we find out what their fates are.

Some of them have parlayed their sports fame into a music career, some of them have left their partner for a trainer.

Some of them are now like posing for calendars, and others of them are like making.

You know, I think I got I know, yeah, I know, Like name the fucking movie first.

It's gonna be so dumb as you are.

Editor, I feel like you need to say the movie first, because I've forgotten what the fuck we're talking about.

It's obvious I'm talking about best in Show.

Christopher guests nice.

No good.

I think that's a good one.

I think it's good.

I think it's that I love the leaden.

I agree, it's just dog sports.

I love it if it works and it's beautiful.

That was amazing.

What a journey.

Who dares follow that?

I'll go next.

I had such a hard time.

I called my dad.

I was like, Dad, sports.

He was like, the ultimate sports movie is Brian's songs, like, but people don't often think about it because it's sad, And I was like, oh, kind of, but it's it's also about truvents.

No, I'm gonna pass on that one.

So then I was like, well, maybe i'se pick like an endurance movie, Like is The Matrix technically a sports movie because you.

Have the marathon run and learn and train and like.

He exactly, but town like sports guns are in the Olympics, Technically that's a sport.

So I liked it, but I still wasn't giving me that good feeling.

But then we started.

Talking about dance movies, and I was like, yeah, Suspiria is a sports movie.

Is competition of ballet, about the stress of trying to.

Maintain all of that, about the community of ballet, and like the absolute like way it can take over your life and the dedication of it.

It's such a like fun horror movie.

I was like, this is for sure, I'm I'm gonna I.

Like that could be a great double bill with him too.

I feel like, aesthetically yeah.

Ian, Okay, So mine is the classic Nick Cannon film.

Drum Line.

It's a class.

Perfect It's obviously sports adjacent.

It's about a marching band, but I think in this movie, you know, the the drumming is the sport, but it has all the class the tropes of a sports movie.

You have the underdog story.

You know, Devin Miles comes in as like this hot shot like guy, but he can't read music.

But he's like really talented, but you know, he's challenging the system a little bit.

Nobody wants him on the team.

He's a kid who plays pick up but never played exactly.

There's a big there's a lot of training montages, there's a big focus on teamwork, obviously a lot of competition and rivalry, not only within the band trying to make the line, but then with the other school Morris Brown.

There's a big climactic competition at the end of the movie, you know, the tagline One Band, One Sound is the epitome of teamwork and collaboration, which is what sports is all about.

I love it.

So yeah.

It's also just like one of my favorite movies and an honorable mention that I had, which is essentially the same movie, but instead of Drumming, it's with Stepping Stump the ar.

Yeah, those are two sides of the same coin in my opinion.

But yeah, I love both those movies.

So I think Drumline is a sports movie.

I loved that one.

I think that's really good.

Jason wats yours well.

I think Ian put his finger on the things that you're looking for in a sports movie that even if it's not considered a sports movie, which your competition, rivalry, teamwork, the a a focus on the human form, bodies and the talent that inhabits those bodies.

And so I had a I had a handful of ones, but I think the one that that to me is.

A great sports movie.

That's not a sports movie.

Is Magic Mica, because there's more sports.

The first one with you Magic mins.

The first Magic Mic is my first, is my favorite Magic Mike.

And I think that you've got You've got it all there.

You've got a team that doesn't understand it's a team, yet, you've got mentorship.

You've got to focus on on the human form, on the on the athleticism and the physical talents of the human form, and then the teamwork.

And then you've got a challenge that needs to be met and the rivalries that need to be either fostered or put aside in order to meet that challenge.

And I mean therefore, it's got to be You've got some great montages, it's got to be.

It's got to be Magic Mic.

For me, Okay, I love that.

That's I'm a magic I am a I'm a Magic Mike lover.

I love Magic Mic one and Magic Mike XXL.

I So I had some really diabolical kind of ones I was thinking of.

The stupidest fust one I was thinking of was Matilda, because yes, in the main villain is an Olympic shot putter.

Okay puts children throughout.

And if she had not been that bad, and if she had not been, you know, this sporting kind of villain, Matilda probably would never have got her powers.

So that's my first one.

I think it's I think it is a reach.

I'm going to put out my real one that I think is, in my opinion, one of the best sports movies ever made.

But maybe controversial because a lot of what you're talking about does not happen in the movie.

I would say, what about the Safty Brothers legendary movie Uncle Gems Features because the movie, the movie literally cannot exist without the existence of basketball.

It has basketball stars in it, and not.

Just that, it has a focus on the human body.

Yes, and also at the end of the movie all relies on one game, like the entire movie is using hinges on the result of the game.

So I think I think that's one of the best.

This is definitely going on our letterbox, guys.

I will add this as a list to all let box because this is another good one.

Well, I love these pics.

All of these picks are absolutely fantastic.

Thank you for joining us, the super producers.

On the next episode of Extra Vision, We've got news and more Peacemaker, more Alien Earth that's new episode, Thank You Everybody.

We Are Him, We Are Him were.

X ray Vision is hosted by Jason and Rosie Knight and is a production of iHeart Podcast.

Our executive producers are Joel Monique and Aaron Cortman.

Our supervising producer is Abu Zafar.

Our producers are Common, Laurent Dean Jonathan and Bay Wag.

A theme song is by Brian Vasquez, with alternate theme songs by Aaron Kaufman.

Special thanks to Soul Rubin, Chris Lord, Kenny Goodman and Heidi our discord moderator.