Pop Culture Pastor

Dave & Cody close out Ted Lasso Season 4 with the finale and a full season verdict.

Cody compares the season to The Hangover Part II, takes a well-earned victory lap for calling the Higgins twist weeks ago, and catches a red-string callback you probably missed. Dave connects Ted’s blind spot with Henry back to what went wrong with Nate, makes the case for Ted as the kind of leader who’s genuinely happy when the people he built move on, and the guys argue over the strangest line in the episode.

Plus Dave threatens to yell at Cody like Rebecca yells at Roy if Joe Rogan ever calls, final ratings for the season, and one desperate Bernie Sanders–style plea to the writers.

Dave & Cody waited for the finale to air so they could spoil all eight episodes of HBO’s Lanterns, the Green Lantern murder mystery.

They dug the Geek Phone out of the closet for the first time in ages to bring on Geek Scotty, the show’s resident comic book Merlin. He has the receipts for every lore complaint the fans raised. Cody admits a hologram almost made him cry and Dave admits the middle of the season got a little slow on him.

In Deeper Themes, John’s parents get compared to Whiplash, and the guys sit with Hal’s line about being fearless because he’s broken.

Before all that, the Warner Bros. and Paramount merger finally closes, and Gunn and Safran keep their jobs. Dave runs through the whole DCU slate and he still won’t let go of his Brainiac/Superman's parents theory.

SPOILER WARNING: Full spoilers for Lanterns Season 1 after the news segment.

Reviewed: Lanterns, Season 1 (HBO). Created by Chris Mundy, Tom King, and Damon Lindelof. Starring Kyle Chandler, Aaron Pierre, Kelly Macdonald, Ulrich Thomsen, and Nathan Fillion. All eight episodes are streaming on HBO Max.

The Lady Greyhounds play for promotion in the penultimate episode, and it delivers the feels

. Cody, a man famously immune to TV feelings, admits he nearly cried, while Dave was ready to rank it near the bottom until the second half flipped him.

Cody makes the case that Boots has been self-sabotaging all season, spots a Beyoncé-and-beehive connection that earns a rare co-Beard's Jam of the Week, and calls Shannon the next GOAT based entirely on her headphones.

Plus a sneaky burner-phone catch on the jet, two competing theories about where Richmond's shares end up, a confirmation that the twin-talking-in-unison thing is real, and a Live deep cut for all the 90s kids.

Cody has been waiting years for this episode. One of them gave it a 9.5.

The other one gave it a 7, which for Dave is basically a love letter.

Somewhere in between, we realized Patrick Swayze's motivational speaker is just Mama Boucher with frosted tips, and that it's the rare movie that takes a troubled teenager seriously.

25 years later, and we're still arguing about the ending.

Ted finds Alice crying and doesn't say a word. He just sits down and breathes with her.

We gave that one to Cody, and he explains why "I'm sorry" is the first thing out of our mouths when we finally break...and what Ted's actually doing by saying nothing.

Also: Cody's theory on who's buying up Richmond shares, and it is not who Rebecca thinks. Dave makes the case for an entire episode of nothing but Higgins doing detective work. And the two of them split hard on whether the Roy and Keeley payoff was earned or whether Roy had to act like a buffoon for twenty minutes to get there.

The song kicks in and the scene becomes permanent.

Dave, Cody, & Geek Paul draft the greatest needle drops in movies and TV — with one strict rule: no songs written for the movie. That knocks out more of your favorites than you'd think, and yes, we read the list of casualties on air.

Along the way we learn that "needle drop" started life as an accounting term, find out what diegetic means, and debate the song that's been permanently ruined by one scene.

Plus: Greta Gerwig casts Meryl Streep as the voice of Aslan, and the internet has feelings. We have a few of our own.

Cody cracks the code on this one. He noticed the entire episode is built on three word phrases, and once you see it, you can't unsee it. Dave floats a theory about Alice's hair that may or may not be a very bad sign. The Diamond Dogs investigate whether Zelda is the scorpion in her own story, and Cody has a guess about what job she's really after.

Also: why "Believe" hits different in a locker room full of women who were already running on it, a stat about reading to kids that'll make you feel something, the ongoing mystery of why every Derek in the Ted Lasso universe is terrible, and a finally-delivered theme song that is absolutely not the one Cody wanted.

Dave and Cody agree this one's the funniest episode of the season — and then spend a chunk of it being mad at two scenes.

Cody's therapist take on whether anything Roy says on that much pain medication counts as true. A real argument about whether Alice torching her own good night is bad writing or a character doing what she always does. Dave puts Keeley's hospital behavior on the record as a little devious.

Plus Cody's practical case against the Beard age-gap romance, why the Roy and Keeley story might be crowding out the players nobody knows yet, and the closing gift that got both of them.

This week the Lobby had a theme: settle it.

You sent in the arguments you can't win at home, and we ruled on them — including one where the defendant was sitting at the mic.

Cody's own wife turned him in over NSYNC, so we held a trial. He was recused, compelled to testify, cross-examined, and sentenced. He also finally admitted what he actually thought of the new Masters of the Universe, which is not what he said on the review episode, and the words "I was about to get a He-Man tattoo" were spoken out loud.

Plus: Dave reveals he was not a Princess Bride household, he was a Legend household, and offers a theory about why your 1980s VHS shelf determined your entire personality.

Also, Tom Hanks has beef with the Fonz. Jethro Tull is not a guy. And we owe Celeste an apology.

Recorded the night before drop with no real edit, which you will most certainly be able to tell.

Dave and Cody open with the only question that really matters: is a hot dog strictly a social food? (It is not.)

From there — Cody's therapist take on whether Ted's rear-view mirror advice is actually good advice or just a great line for a coffee mug, a Zelda Southport conspiracy theory involving a whole lot of unsold seats, and a genuine disagreement about Ted suspending Alice. Dave thinks it's growth. Cody thinks Ted might be making the Nate mistake all over again in a different outfit.

Also: a deep-cut reference to a Lawrence, Kansas music venue that made Dave whoop out loud.