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Pete Fenzel and Matt Wrather convene cross-country, with snow piled in the East and sun set in the West, to clear their bottleneck of constrained podcast topics. In this storied two-hander, they dissect the perception and reality of bodies of work that strain our ability to perceive and accomplish.

The two share their subjective limits on the feet of snow that had just fallen, from the individual snow shoveler fighting a private war with the sky, to the kaleidoscopic social media snow spectator bombarded by accounts and moments from a hundred cold days while lounging in temperate comfort. These swarming pinholes alluding to some greater image beyond a veil, recall instagram stories about Taylor Swift concerts or the current state of public truth.

They further consider two masterpieces of slow and steady work done faster than seemed possible: Alex Honnold’s methodical ropeless climb of the skyscraper Taipei 101, and the Eliyahu Goldratt novel The Goal, an 80s classic about the Socratic method, narrative reinvention, communication in marriage, art’s relationship with truth, and very detailed, specific instructions on how to successfully implement lean manufacturing techniques in late 20th century bearing assembly manufacturing plants, which at this moment has a 50/50 shot of being on the waiting list at your public library.

The work continues, as we consider not how to optimize our own local maxima, but to maximize throughput – of mind, body, and soul. By which we mean duty calls on people especially in positions of authority to accept and enforce accountability for our duty to each other as humans, and also the New York Times rebooted Scrabble.

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Episode 917: Snow is Smooth, Smooth is Fast originally appeared on Overthinking It, the site subjecting the popular culture to a level of scrutiny it probably doesn't deserve. [Latest Posts | Podcast (iTunes Link)]

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Pete Fenzel, Mark Lee, and Matt Wrather overthink Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, the latest installment in the Benoit Blanc Cinematic Murder Universe. The panelists appreciated the rich, cinematic presentation of the movie, especially compared to most made-for-Netflix movies, but they also took issue with how the film treats Catholicism more as symbolic wallpaper than as a lived, institutional reality. Where are the baptisms? The first communions? The immigrants? Most importantly, why is everyone so concerned about finding a lost diamond when it would’ve been a lot easier to embezzle the Sunday collection money?

Those critiques aside, everyone appreciated the portrayal of Father Jud as an authentic moral center for the story and as a thematic counterbalance to Benoit Blanc’s cold rationalism. It makes for a very different Knives Out movie compared to its predecessors; whether it’s better or worse than those is largely a matter of taste and perspective. But it’s beyond argument that Daniel Craig’s accent remains sublime through them all.

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Episode 916: The Council of Trent? Hello? originally appeared on Overthinking It, the site subjecting the popular culture to a level of scrutiny it probably doesn't deserve. [Latest Posts | Podcast (iTunes Link)]

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Peter Fenzel and Matthew Wrather return to Downton Abbey (thrumming music and all), for what may be the last time. This show has been an exceptionally deep well for us over the years and this film is not no exception. It’s a little thin, honestly, but it knows the assignment and it has its charms, including the spectacle of Lady Mary cast out from polite society, Robert visibly flustered when he sees a showgirl, Edith finally bringing some main character energy, and Mrs. Patmore asking Mrs. Hughes-Carson about boning.

This is a film about what becomes of the children (do they get a prize at the fair?), and how we hand off our patrimony from one generation to the next; it’s only fitting that it has not one but three Fenzelian Downton Abbey Moments®. Matt and Pete go into them in detail, even though Matt is a little disappointed that the packed plot doesn’t leave enough room for each event to breathe.

If you’ve ever had a fight with a family member at a real estate viewing, you’ll be delighted by the supremely relatable Crawley family and their (now multi-generational!) foibles.

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Episode 915: This is MY House. MY HOUSE. originally appeared on Overthinking It, the site subjecting the popular culture to a level of scrutiny it probably doesn't deserve. [Latest Posts | Podcast (iTunes Link)]

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Jordan Stokes and Pete Fenzel dash and dart in playful mayhem around the 2023 version of Tom & Jerry, a reimagining of the cat and mouse duo set against the vibrant backdrop of Singapore. The series (available on HBO Max and Cartoon Network Asia’s YouTube Channel), is a painstaking work of classic animation slapstick, with zero dialogue and maximum expression, and has been a captivating surprise.

Jordan and Pete discuss the history of Tom & Jerry as MGM’s answer to Walt Disney, the birth of Hannah Barbera out of Tom & Jerry’s success, and how the practical considerations of 1940s and 1950s animation shaped the aesthetic and kinetic vocabulary of Tom & Jerry, which the 2023 show recaptures and reimagines so expertly.

The duo also parse the new show’s pacing, complexity, and delicate use of theme and symbol, and the simple patterns that it spins into densely intertwined nonverbal plots with layers of setup and payoff, from its exploration of the smell and taste of Durian to its take on how notions of creation and destruction changed with the development of modern art.

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Episode 914: Jerry Wants to Visit Wrath on Tom originally appeared on Overthinking It, the site subjecting the popular culture to a level of scrutiny it probably doesn't deserve. [Latest Posts | Podcast (iTunes Link)]

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Peter Fenzel and Matthew Wrather overthink the various forms of household audit. Is it a purge? It it a culling? What is the difference in how the discerning overthinker addresses the freezer, or the toy chest, or the closet, or, worst of all, the snack basket well out of view high atop a kitchen shelf. Does the Sorites Paradox apply to a heap of goldfish crackers? And what about the nuggies? Are they made from real dinosaurs?

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Episode 913: Eating them in Effigy is an Affront to Their Plight originally appeared on Overthinking It, the site subjecting the popular culture to a level of scrutiny it probably doesn't deserve. [Latest Posts | Podcast (iTunes Link)]

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Peter Fenzel, Matt Wrather, and Jordan Stokes overthink past New Year’s resolutions, and past New Years Resolution episodes of this podcast. Pete emphasizes the importance of planning (Matt calls it “scaffolding”) to support ambitious resolutions. But Jordan thinks the dominant strategy is shrinking the resolution to fit the scaffolding you’ve got, and aligning your resolutions with yourself rather than an idealized future super-self. Even the most longed-for self improvement is likely to fail if achieving it involves becoming someone that you’re not.

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Episode 912: I Don’t Remember the Movie; I Do Remember the Mr. Pibb originally appeared on Overthinking It, the site subjecting the popular culture to a level of scrutiny it probably doesn't deserve. [Latest Posts | Podcast (iTunes Link)]

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Matt Wrather returns to the Overthinking It podcast after a legendary wrestling match with Los Angeles traffic to join Jordan Stokes and Peter Fenzel in a discussion about finding an honest way to relate and experience overplayed Christmas pop songs. To do this, they chart the history of acting method and Constantin Stanislavski’s three major apostolic traditions: that of Lee Strasberg, that of Stella Adler, and that of Sanford Meisner.

The Overthinkers consider repetition: how in some situations it seems to sap words of all meaning, and in others it provides tiny crack in the door that might be forced open toward honesty with great personal emotional effort – or perhaps through singing at half speed and then speeding up the tape so we sound like anthropomorphic rodents. And there is no greater pursuit they might apply these techniques than The Reason for the Season.

When we sing what we sing, do we mean what we mean? How does ritual bring into being the acting of our own values in real life? Do we, in fact, know it’s Christmas time at all? Do we want a lot for Christmas? Do I still want a hula hoop? Do you still want a hula hoop? I still want a hula hoop. You still want a hula hoop? I still want a hula hoop.

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Episode 911: Spoilers for The Seagull originally appeared on Overthinking It, the site subjecting the popular culture to a level of scrutiny it probably doesn't deserve. [Latest Posts | Podcast (iTunes Link)]

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Jordan Stokes and Pete Fenzel take on the traffic-waylaid Matt Wrather’s challenge in our now-annual holiday literary episode: contrast the forms of knowledge in two enduring 1890s holiday classics. Jordan and Pete take on the New York Sun editorial commonly known as “Yes, Virginia, There Is A Santa Claus” by Francis Pharcellus Church, and the Sherlock Holmes holiday adventure “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

On one hand is faith, feeling, and phenomenology, and on the other, observation, measurement, and deduction. In both cases the mentor moves the mentee from ignorance to knowledge, though of different sorts, and from thence, to the Christmas Spirit, be it childlike innocence or goose-oriented Victorian mercy.

Marvel as Stokes calls for the triumph of human investigation over every dark corner of material reality. Stir as Fenzel invokes faith even in Sherlock Holmes’s assurance of a happy ending. Revel seasonally in the moral philosophy of Santa Claus.

As a bonus, the two also tackle Pursuit to Algiers, a latter Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce Sherlock Holmes feature – perhaps the Fast & Furious 6 of 221B Baker Street. In this, they reflect on the middle career of clinical psychologist Marjorie Riordon, who between modeling for war bonds and her study in speech pathology took a few special moments to sing and play piano with Dr. Watson on an international steamboat thick with campy assassins.

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Episode 910: The Tooth Marks on the Milk and Cookies originally appeared on Overthinking It, the site subjecting the popular culture to a level of scrutiny it probably doesn't deserve. [Latest Posts | Podcast (iTunes Link)]

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Matthew Belinkie, Peter Fenzel, Mark Lee, and Matthew Wrather overthink the work of Tom Stoppard, the Czech-born English playwright. He seems like a playwright designed in a lab for Overthinking It, and the guys dive into Arcadia (1993), a play about thermodynamics, academia, history, poetry, sex, uncertainty, and time. What matters, the individual scientist or poet, or the work they create? The answer is “yes.”

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Episode 909: Tom Stoppard was an English Playwright originally appeared on Overthinking It, the site subjecting the popular culture to a level of scrutiny it probably doesn't deserve. [Latest Posts | Podcast (iTunes Link)]

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The Phantom of the Opera is by most measures the single most successful piece of musical theater of all time. Somehow it’s escaped the scrutiny of the Overthinkers, until Mark Lee returned from a visit to the immersive reimagining of the show, Masquerade, as a changed man, utterly obsessed, driven to madness, and wearing a porcelain mask covering half of his face.

Enchanted by Mark’s newfound enthusiasm for Phantom, Pete Fenzel and Matt Wrather followed him to the underground lair to make the Podcast of the Night. The panel explores how a sense of place undergirds both versions of the show, the many different ways the “problematic” character and actions of the Phantom can be interpreted, and whether or not the show is any good at all—or if it’s all just a noisy maximalist thrill ride (DUN DUN DUN DUN DUUUUUN). Spoilers for the immersive version, in particular its ending, which radically recontextualizes the Phantom and his relationship with his own sense of self worth.

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Episode 908: This Is Porcelain AF originally appeared on Overthinking It, the site subjecting the popular culture to a level of scrutiny it probably doesn't deserve. [Latest Posts | Podcast (iTunes Link)]