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Cam revisits one of his very favorite works of science fiction, Halo: Combat Evolved, only to find that the game has changed. This is a conversation about rose-tinted nostalgia, art direction, the heresy of video game remasters, and the enduring magic of Master Chief.

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The fifth Targaryen checkpoint is a cornucopia of prophetic symbolism. The Macbeth allusions of the Winterfell era cross-pollinate into Dany's story. The seeds are planted for a golden Lannister coup. More than one fateful prince is introduced. None of these things are what they seem – and if you ask Cam, somehow all of it is about Dune.

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This is cause for celebration: indie darling Art the Clown has the #1 movie in America, with an unrated, unhinged, and unbelievably great Christmas slasher. After our first impressions, we break down the franchise thesis statement that is the movie's opening scene, Art's ever evolving slapstick physical comedy, the overwhelming heart and humanity of this story, and all the wry, innovative nods to classic horror along the way. Cam takes a moment to discuss the fact that Art is officially a demon and do some Faustus analysis. We close by looking ahead to the future of the franchise and theorizing about conspicuously absent characters, suspicious deaths, and Art's endgame.

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If Ned Stark is playing checkers, this chapter finally shows us who's been beating him at chess. Cersei Lannister arrives on the scene, but she's not quite the character we grew to love on HBO. By trying to read this character introduction with fresh eyes, we see her in a whole new light, like a lost Targaryen conqueror falling from the pages of Fire & Blood. Cam revisits the ghost of Ned Stark and the grey soup of immorality he drowned in. Maggie completes her seen & unseen analysis as the omens of good and ill rage in the sky. Also, someone in the book finally looks at the camera and says the title.

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French puppet vampires – if that's not enough to sell you on a horror movie, then I don't know what is! The Vourdalak is equally unnerving and delightful, and this discussion covers our first impressions of the film, the kaleidoscope of influences that it seems to pull from (Sleepy Hollow, Barry Lyndon, The VVitch, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), and a deep dive into the miraculous puppetry / creature design.

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Ned's pseudo-afterlife continues to unsettle us. George R. R. Martin seems to overlap Ned's virtuous right-and-wrong morality system with Sansa's (understandably) naïve moral binaries. Is this comparison a rebuke of the doomed Ned Stark or a validation of his idealism? In this episode, we're teasing out hypotheticals, parsing moral frameworks, examining distillation echoes, and working together to lift the veil of metaphor and objectively interpret dreams.

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The Substance is an incredible surprise, a thrilling, ruthless, unflinching body horror satire that gave us the best theatrical experience of 2024. We start things off with a spoiler-free reflection / recommendation before diving into the grotesque smoothie of influences that shape this story. These include: The Picture of Dorian Gray, Cinderella, Black Swan, Tusk, Frankenstein, and -- most notably -- Cam's beloved Doctor Faustus. After that, we dissect all the delightful, inverted Kubrick echoes, from The Shining, Eyes Wide Shut, and a full-scale mirror image of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

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Bittersweet doesn't even begin to describe this brief moment of seeing Ned Stark on the Iron Throne. Maggie tracks the omens and bloody motifs nipping at Ned's heels, while Cam tries to understand Ned's principled defiance as a singular act of sacrificial heroism comparable to the finale of The Witcher series, and the Pilgrim's ascension to Heaven in Dante's Divine Comedy.

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What is Star Wars? This question lies at the heart of our discussion, and we think at the heart of every Star Wars project in any medium. Cam has a novel (and possible stupid) new answer to this question, and this episode tracks the cascade of epiphanies about the Star Wars franchise that were sparked by his recent playthrough of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. We're talking about identity crises and some light color theory, and westerns and space fantasy, but more importantly, there's a character in the game named Turgle who kinda looks like Maggie. Look it up.

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The friendship between Tyrion and Bronn is a fan favorite. In this episode we explore the roots of this relationship: Cam points to the transactional nature of every plot point in this chapter, exposing the bitter corruption and self-interest that plagues Westeros (and especially Bronn and Tyrion); while Maggie returns to her "court fool" theory from a few chapters back, arguing that Tyrion may not be the only fool in this story. Tolkien and Sapkowski come into the mix here, as do shadowcats, the problem of evil, and curious choices of meat.

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