Second Breakfast with Cam & Maggie

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The question that hung over Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga was simple. What can this film offer that is different or better than Fury Road? As it turns out, the answer is Chris Hemsworth's performance as Dementus - a bonkers, fearless villain who somehow simultaneously evokes Charles Dickens, Jack Sparrow, Shakespeare, Victor Hugo, and the great Ian McShane. This is one for the ages, and we've got LOTS to say about Hemsworth's work in this movie.

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Ned Stark may already be dead. In this chapter, Littlefinger eulogizes him to his face, capping off a series of three failed initiations into the world of liars and crooks that is King's Landing. Cam's diving into unseen spymasters and unnoticed liars, while also keeping an eye out for Bran Atreides the God Emperor and the conspicuously absent white walkers. Maggie examines the suffocating falsities present here, both on the page and throughout the Red Keep. Pour yourself a glass of iced honey milk, and try not to gag! PS: can you imagine if Ned had a direwolf?

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Oh it feels so good to say this: Diablo IV has never been better than it is in Season 4. Loot Reborn is a full-scale reworking of the game's core systems. The gameplay loop and recurring activities are stronger than ever, and for once in this live game, all of these great new additions are here to stay. The campaign is short and sweet – incredibly rewarding while trimming the fat of everything we have disliked in the past. The Necromancer has become one of the best classes in the game with multiple viable builds and an electric mix of close- and long-range combat. After doing a power ranking for all the classes, we discuss the ideal time investment for seasonal content, and debate the lifespan of this new and improved Diablo IV.

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In his own words, this chapter had Cam feeling "puckish". Forgoing all the traditional ambiguities and symbols, he focuses on the character trend that quietly runs through these pages: a devastating comedy of manners and pretense that crushes the spirits of all our major players. Meanwhile, Maggie dives headfirst into the mythology, the metaphors, the dreams, and the complicated relationship between stories and memories. We close by revisiting last week's Faustian dragons and the ongoing narrative resurgence of the white walkers.

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The Fall Guy feels like a passion project about passion -- it's a love letter to stuntmen, artistic craft, and the fading genre of romantic action comedies. It's also the best movie of director David Leitch's career. So why is the entire discourse surrounding the film about box office receipts? Join us for a little 'state of the union' about online film discussion, barometers of success, and the rip-roaring good time that is The Fall Guy.

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This third 'Targaryen Checkpoint' delivers a whole new level of prophetic, high-concept imagery for us to discuss. Maggie focuses in on Dany and Viserys as avatars of the House of the Dragon's simultaneous rise and fall, before diving deeper into Viserys' ghostly, almost undead turn in these pages. Cam finds a corollary for all the White Walker breadcrumbs we've been chasing in Dany's fiery dragon dream, which he analyzes through the lens of his beloved 'Doctor Faustus'. We close with an unexpected, possible Dune crossover as GRRM seems to tip his hat to Frank Herbert -- and remind us to always be on the lookout for aspiring tyrants.

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Get bonus episodes on Patreon! 600 pages of expertly dramatized philosophy and theology, starring a giant worm with a human face – this book was written for Cam. Our discussion starts with the compounding, echoing relationship between all of the Dune books, before settling on the unexpected Nietzschean flair of Frank Herbert's God Emperor. Alongside the ghola, he's one of the central walking thought experiments that plays out the intellectual curiosities of this world and their underlying and emotional agonies. This series remains a thought provoking and devastating character study. Herbert has managed to pull a fourth rabbit out of the same sandy hat.

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Every Arya chapter is Valjean screaming "Who am I?" at the audience, but this one in particular really is a carousel of futures. Cam examines the half dozen personas explored in these pages and the constant refinements of that central question. Are you your circumstances? Are you your defining characteristics? Are you your vocation? Maggie revisits the Stark children / direwolf relationship for all its prophetic implications. Together, we take a closer look at the Stark family mantras, grappling with the survivability of the lone wolf vs the pack, and debating the utility of "winter is coming".

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Get bonus episodes on Patreon! Grab your Leviathan Axe and hop in the boat: we're heading to the Lake of Nine today to discuss Maggie's experience playing (and not playing) the masterful 2018 God of War. Maggie has been going further and further out of her comfort zone with games, and God of War was no exception. But the world and the story gripped her so much that by golly she was going to make it work for her. Join us as we discuss Maggie's unique journey of playing through the game (with a big helping hand), her increasing interest in story-focused games, hopes for accessibility in games, and questions about where to go from here.

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This week we're all the way at the edge of the world, and what do we find? Shakespeare! More specifically, Cam gets to talk about the Old Man archetype, which crops up here thanks to Lord Commander Mormont. The conversation spirals into a theory about omens, ignored warnings, and narrative vindication. Cam presents a relay race theory about Tyrion's role as the bridge between ice and fire, which Maggie reinforces with a callback to Bran's prophetic and ambiguous dreams.

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