Second Breakfast with Cam & Maggie

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True to our name, we decided to give Robert Eggers' Nosferatu a second chance. While we emerged from our first viewing fairly united in our opinions, this second viewing brought us to vastly different places, and this episode is our chance to unpack those together. For Cam, the film felt much more vibrant, both in its visuals (thanks, digital projection!) and in its continuation of Eggers' favorite themes, including temptation, lust, Faustian contracts, messy relationships, animal omens, and commitment to period. For Maggie, this second viewing seemed to double down on her frustrations with the film. The hollowness that we identified in our first episode creeps in again here, but this time we understand it a little better: through Ellen's fraught relationship with Orlok, and the way the film directs us to experience it. Our discussion concludes in a fixation on a central question: does Ellen love Orlok?

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Comparison may be the thief of joy, but it makes for a pretty good podcast. Maggie's investigating a parallel between Catelyn and Sansa that illuminates the lessons and limits of brute force willpower. Cam is rolling up the last four chapters to reveal a recurring structure that lets us peek behind the curtain at the real power players of each storyline. The uneasy similarities between Ned and Robb make us question the sheer survivability of principle in Westeros.

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Star ratings, tomato scores, letter grades, thumbs up or thumbs down – we tend to view most works of art through binary, objective lenses like these. And while reviews do have their value, they've never been our goal here on the show. Every week we welcome our listeners with "thoughts, theories, and literary analysis", and this episode is our chance to dive deep into that mission statement. We discuss reviewers we genuinely enjoy and respect, the pitfalls of reviews as a whole, the value of open-ended discussion and ideas, and what it is we're trying to do instead. We love doing these conceptual episodes – sit back and enjoy!

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The stars have alighted in this very special episode of Second Breakfast as we accidentally work together to form one massive theory about the avalanche of echoes crushing poor Ned Stark. After we catalogue these eerie similarities, we ask the more important question: so what? What is the point of all these dozens of distillation echoes? The answer takes us to a shockingly simple and powerful place.

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The War of the Rohirrim threads the needle magnificently, bringing something fresh and new to the Lord of the Rings franchise while proudly honoring what came before it. After our initial impressions, we do some spotlight analysis on the film's standout characters, Hera and Helm, and close with a reflection on the titanic expectations we had in the months leading up to this release.

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The King is dead, long live the King. Joffrey's first day in power leads Cam on a spiraling journey through Macbeth's ghost of Banquo scene and the Ship of Theseus as he tries to make sense of all the uneasy parallels being drawn between Robert Baratheon and his brutal son. Maggie keys into the missing tapestries in the throne room to decipher the Lannisters' view of prophecy. Ned rots in the dungeon.

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As the year winds down, it's finally time to crown our favorite works of art from the year that was 2024! As ever, we have two categories: our favorite works of art that released this year and our favorite works of art that we discovered this year. Four awards, two nominations, one blowout episode! See you in 2025!

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Check out our discussions on the works of art mentioned in this year's Brekkies: The Substance: https://youtu.be/YzmKoP0spcI

Oddity: https://youtu.be/ml7eZp5Df2E

Longlegs:

Episode 1 ("Longlegs Remixes Horror Classics"): https://youtu.be/ipV8lwWsbk8

Episode 2 ("Longlegs isn't Satan, he's Mephistopheles"): https://youtu.be/FALrlapZjsY

The Vourdalak: https://youtu.be/EVtgk43tN4A

Jack White's No Name:

Episode 1 ("Jack White's NO NAME: A Bootleg Masterpiece): https://youtu.be/l5zJerS_-FI

Episode 2 ("Overthinking Jack White Album Covers"): https://youtu.be/AIVttVIH7DU

Sam Raimi Spider-Man trilogy: https://www.patreon.com/posts/106504094?utm_campaign=postshare_creator

Fire & Blood series: https://www.patreon.com/posts/103114220?utm_campaign=postshare_creator

God (Girl) of War: https://youtu.be/0-983cMvMoU

God Emperor of Dune: https://youtu.be/X_k6Cc_JL7w

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In this episode, we're chasing one burning question: why didn't Robert Eggers' Nosferatu work for us? The answer takes us on a long journey through editing, cross-cutting, overstuffed ensembles, mechanical villains, and the many challenges of the source material. We also consider the lineage of the original Nosferatu and celebrate this new version's homage to color washing. Cam takes a moment to break down the film's remarkably deft Faustus fake-out, and we work through a cascade of (loaded) echoes from across Robert Eggers' filmography, before closing with some reflections about this month-long retrospective.

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Is Tywin Lannister the 'Big Bad' of Game of Thrones? Is he the series' ultimate strategist and mastermind, and if so, then where does it all go wrong? Why does he never sit the Iron Throne? We're diving into all of these questions today, alongside a long-awaited new installment of Maggie's Bird Corner, Cam's Russian Nesting Doll theory, and more than a little time spent comparing Westeros with the world of Succession. Happy Christmas!

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Our Robert Eggers Retrospective series concludes with The Northman. Revisiting this film after two years, Cam discovers that instead of just being 'Viking Hamlet,' the film is actually a freeform hybrid of Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Hamlet, and Doctor Faustus. Maggie tracks the strands of fate that connect these doomed characters, and the stylistic departures of Eggers' third film. Together, we chart echoes from across every project in his filmography and close with a deep discussion of The Northman as a revenge story.

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