This week's main topic can be roughly called, "my part of the couch." More specifically, why are your hosts so piqued about how hard it is to have nice things—let alone their own things—in their respective households?

This week kicks off with Merlin ranting about his mixed feelings about spoiler warnings, and, as usual, John assumes the role of Good Cop on the audience's behalf.

Then, there's some discussion of how John has been gently introducing Merlin to his favorite anime films. Note: audience homework to watch the film Millennium Actress for future discussion is assigned.

Is this a simple tragedy of the commons? Are they just unintentionally acting like 50s TV Dads? Will their daughters eventually steal literally everything? And, honestly, how hard is it to put your phone just anyplace besides John's exactly-iPhone-6-sized spot on the mantle?

It seems so simple.

Professor Siracusa’s Anime class is back in session, as we watch two short films with similar themes, both by director Makoto Shinkai. First there’s “The Voices of a Distant Star,” which features a boy and a girl separated by light-years as she fights an alien scourge. Then there’s “5 Centimeters Per Second,” in which a boy and a girl are separated by… a long train journey. Both are beautiful explorations of teenage romantic angst and isolation, with images that will stick with our panelists for a long time.

The tragedy of the commons is an economic theory of a situation within a shared-resource system where individual users acting independently according to their own self-interest behave contrary to the common good of all users by depleting that resource through their collective action.

Marina (properly) reads the opening of Anna Karenina in the native tongue.