Overthinking It Podcast

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It’s Gemini season, and Mark Lee, Peter Fenzel, and Matthew Wrather (and their dopplegangers), overthink the concept of twins and doubles in their lives and the popular culture. Whether the twin is a dark mirror, just another quark in the multiverse, or a satirical imitation of the original, it always opens up complex and multivalent possibilities in identity and time, whether the canvas is a needlessly complex Star Wars card game, Taylor Swift’s musical eras, or the natural world.

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Episode 882: Doctor Smirnoff Ice 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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Ben Adams, Pete Fenzel, and Mark Lee steal a TIE Fighter, huff some rhydo, and sacrifice everything they hold dear to bring you this podcast on the superb second season of Andor. After they sell some antiques to high society, our panelists escape to their secret rebel base to explore the many salient cleavages in the show: choice vs. free will, freedom vs. tyranny, chaos vs. order, planning vs. doing, and even the light and dark sides of the Force. Yes, the Force still binds all living things in the galaxy, even in a show without space wizards.

The panelists analyze as many of the fascinating characters as they can: Luthen, the ruthless, paranoid spymaster with friends everywhere and nowhere at the same time; Andor, the deadly spy who makes sure to water his plants before going out on a mission; Mothma, the senator who’s a killer on the dance floor and by proxy; Syril, the hapless tool of the fascist state who kept making the wrong choices until the end; and Dedra, the cog in the Imperial war machine brought down by her own acts of rebellion.

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Episode 881: You’re Not Used to Subtle Nods in Star Wars Shows 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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It’s that time of year, some years, when Pete Fenzel convinces Matt Wrather to join a storied 2-hander about the stories emerging from the NBA playoffs. Though really, it is about all of us. Aren’t we all experiencing the loss of Jayson Tatum’s Achilles tendon?

Paying ample respect to the pain and anguish the man himself and those close to him must be enduring in the face of a potentially life-changing injury, Pete and Matt broaden the discussion to the secondhand and thirdhand expressions of tragic grief, especially ESPN Analyst Brian Windhorst’s near-poetical declaration of a “dark cloud” hanging over the hometown victory of the New York Knicks, to the irritation and chagrin of Knicks fans, whose players also sometimes get injured.

From the perspective of a Knicks fan living in the Boston Area for two decades, Peter inducts Matt into the outsider view of Jayson Tatum mythology: the eternal future, the dynastic present brought low, what he means to Boston sports, and why his particular Achilles tendon was of such grave concern to so many, but not that many. They also talk about Damien Lillard for about 30 seconds.

Subtopics include the social role of tragedy; the ancient tradition, often defied these days, of valuing the tragedies of the mighty over the tragedies of the humble; the poetics and practicality of the “championship window;” a tangent about crying at Fuddruckers; and whether and to what degree old broken-down red tractors in children’s books are diegetically sentient.

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Episode 880: Run Like the Wind, Horse 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, Mark Lee, and Matthew Wrather celebrate Handi-Cast ’25, overthinking the concept of handiness and and the related but distinct culture of DIY. (Do what yourself, though?) Gender roles, technological implications, collaboration & relationships, and the four-hour minimum—all these show up in their lives, and in the YouTube videos they watch.

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Episode 879: Lo and Behold, This Pot Rack I Have Wrought 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 Belinkie, Mark Lee, and Matt Wrather overthink Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith on the occasion of its 20th anniversary theatrical re-release. Opinions are mixed on how well it holds up, but not surprisingly, everyone agrees that Ian McDiarmid absolutely killed it as Emperor Palpatine. Everyone else still suffers from the stilted writing, but the action, especially in a 4DX theater with moving seats and spraying water, remains highly entertaining, although admittedly pitched at a 10 year old boy’s level of interests.

The panel digs deep into Anakin’s turn to the dark side, the nature of evil, and the extent to which the story of a democracy’s fall resonates in 2025. Naturally, Andor works its way into the conversation: yes, the galaxy is big enough to have stories centered on both space wizards and everyday people, and the differences in storytelling are dramatically different.

No younglings were harmed in the production of this podcast.

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Episode 878: Your Cootie Level Is Off the Charts 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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Mark Lee, Matt Wrather, and Pete Fenzel, having been friends for a very long time, have no qualms with sharing deep, complex, personal, niche, or even annoying conversations. But in this podcast, we tackle the prospect of how to talk to other people, with whom we share far fewer than 850 podcast episodes on average, notably other parents we associate with in the context of our own children’s care, schooling, and activities.With the monoculture shattered by time and technology, and even commitment to local sports teams uncertain, how do you break the seal of silence on new and potential personal relationships?

We seek inspiration in shared experience, dance on the TMI knife blade of parenting challenges, and take wild ill-advised detours into horrific veterinary diseases in pets and wild animals. How do you talk about travel in a way that enjoins shared interest without frosting it in shame and elitism? How do you do more than listen and laugh, but also, how do you listen and laugh? What is the best way to talk about caring for an aging relative with someone you have only met twice in passing? And how might an overreliance on sympathetic negativity and self-deprecating humor create or reinforce negative feedback loops that damage your mental health as well as sell yourself short to others? We don’t know, we just have a podcast, it’s not like we’re doctors or anything. What do you think?

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Episode 877: I Have Lots of File Cards on Coyotes 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, Mark Lee, and Matthew Wrather overthink rebirth in popular culture, discussing the digital resurrection of cultural icons like John Lennon or Tupac and the multivalent intellectual and emotional experience of encountering these ghoulish digital simulacra. Can we reclaim what has been lost? Technology has come to mediate memory and legacy, storytelling and nostalgia, loss and identity. A Tupac hologram or a new Beatles song may not be what we need, but it is certainly what someone wants.

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Episode 876: A Hand Extended Through the Veil 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 are all middle-aged dads and painfully out of step with modern pop music. In an attempt to “get with it,” they all bring a new(ish) pop song to the table for discussion.

Mark’s children (or at least their older cousins) introduced him to “APT.” by ROSÉ and Bruno Mars. The kids may not fully understand what this song is about, but that’s OK, neither do most non-Korean speaking adults! Everyone goes on a journey of unlocking different levels of meaning across language and cultural barriers.

Matt selected a song by Chappell Roan, the spiritual successor to his beloved 90’s female rock/pop songstresses. “Red Wine Supernova” is possibly a reference to something very dirty, but it’s also wholesome in its exuberance.

Lastly, Pete evoked the spirit of his gym- and club-going past with the “hot dance/pop song” “It’s ok I’m ok” by Tate McRae. Who, or what, is really OK? The singer? This song? Are any of us truly OK in this day and age? You be the judge!

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Episode 875: The Popluck 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 Belinkie, Mark Lee, and Pete Fenzel map the branches of the Addams Family Tree. We start at the beginning with Charles Addams’s single-panel cartoons for The New Yorker, move through the classic TV show and legendary 90s movies, to the 2019 animated film and the Netflix comedy Wednesday. With a special focus on perhaps the franchise’s greatest single work, the 1993 comedy Addams Family Values, we focus on the inverted relationships between the Addamses and historical ideas of American sociopolitical norms and myths, spun in jokes and in horrors and modes of marginalization. From futile efforts to guillotine a baby to a murderous takedown of the First Thanksgiving, the Addams lampoon and problematize harm and harmlessness in human experience. Do they have superpowers? Are they really killers? What is Uncle Fester’s marriage saying about intimate partner abuse? What is the deal with the disembodied hand; is Thing enslaved? Is Thing happy? Is it all ookiness, set up and punchline, or, in the model of Gomez and Morticia, might it be the greater virtue to behold the horrors of the world, and, with them in full view, embrace duty and love? Plus, the obligatory Raul Julia appreciation that must be echoed whenever encountering the work of the legend.

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Episode 874: Here’s the Thing about Thing 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 and Pete Fenzel embrace their changing lives and discuss the groaners that have come to define one of the most common and commonly lampooned interpersonal relationships: the dad joke. We trace the special characteristics in the relationships between parents and children that confound and distort humor. We follow the forms of parental jokes as, transposed, they go on to distort relationships between adults. We frame several theories of dad joke phenomenology, relying on several different definitions of the term, chief among them the Dad joke that gives, inviting the listener to be smart; the Dad joke that takes, asserting a mocking superiority; the Dad joke from affability, projecting nonthreatening helpfulness, and the Dad joke from isolation, calling up animals, foods, and everyday objects as subjects to replace a lack of shared experience and perspective. Kindness and yearning and cruelty, hope and fear and Donald Duck: all are Dad, and all are Joke. Plus, learn the newest form of dad joke, and be ready to spring it on your coworkers, like a slinky during a fire drill. Call us oldheads, call us Overthinkers, just don’t call us collect, because like a broken iPad, we don’t accept the charge.

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Episode 873: No-Eye Deer 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)]