Giving Up

In their triumphant return to the airwaves, the crew re-aquaints themselves with the structure of their own podcast as they tackle subjects like fine dining, cannibalism, and The Sex Talk.

On this momentous occasion, the tenth episode of Giving Up and the last episode before the holiday break, John, Youngmi, and Alex reflect on the past half season, share in their distrust of lakes, and finally dive into the Half Baked Harvest controversy that they've been threatening to talk about for months.

The crew ends the season with a rousing Newlywed Game and by sharing their hopes for 2024.

Returning after a two-week break in recording the crew catches up about Alex's trip to Mexico, Youngmi's son's pneumonia, and John's completely baseless feeling that Alex and Youngmi are mad at him because they stopped responding to the group text for five hours last Friday. The thunderdome yields a discussion of online fame.

Sorry if you're seeing this twice! A draft of the episode went up on Sunday by mistake, but we're not mad at you for listening!!!

In this episode the crew wonders why the discussion always comes back to defecation and Alex and Youngmi are horrified that John sometimes forgets to eat. The Thunderdome results in a discussion of how each generation has a different level of intimacy with technology.

Just a heads up: this episode contains some discussion of disordered eating and intimate partner violence.

During a discussion of feeling one's age, the crew makes a collective realization that John and Alex are actually Hunter Schafer's parents. The discussion of age continues during The Thunderdome when the crew discusses age gaps in straight relationships.

The crew starts with a fullsome discussion of constipation and infant feces before consoling John about the demise of his non-alcoholic drink company. The Thunderdome finds John, Alex, and Youngmi diving into their pasts with surprising results.

The crew dissects the internalized misogyny and homphobia inherent in policing one's own speech patters and how to impugn someone's actions without coming off abelist. The results of The Thunderdome lead the crew to reflect on the relationship between restaurant working conditions and food media against the backdrop of Momofuku Ko's closure.

John laments his indifference towards his own birthday while Alex and Youngmi ponder how to raise oppression-aware children without making them insufferable perma-victims. The Thunderdome features a surprisingly magnanimous outcome and the crew wonders, finally, what trick-or-treating will look like after the apocalypse.

Without planning on it, Alex, John, and Youngmi end up recording a Halloween special. John tells the group what it's like to have sleep paralysis and Alex recounts the time she cast a spell on herself and accidentally burned her house down. Spooky season indeed.