Don't stop, don't sleep, don't let your guard for one second: we've been watching It Follows and it is pretty bloody scary. Horror stories of another kind as Nath explores the raw brilliance and tabloid tragedy of Paul Gascoigne as revealed in a new documentary, which is strangely coy about the man's violence against his wife. And Sarah chats about her review of Scarlett Thomas's funny, ambitious and ecstatically rude new novel, The Seed Collectors. Plus! Our advice on mystery staircases, and the last word anyone will ever need on Byron (twat).

We went to see Mark Thomas do his new show about trespassing! That was good, so there's some chat about that and how it reminds Nath of his own experiences re-walking London. Then Sarah has read techno-conspiracy thrill-ride Whiskey Tango Foxtrot by David Shafer and Nath has read Climbers by M John Harrison, so there's some chat about that. And then there's some more chat about things that we have been writing this week (Sarah: drinking in pregnancy and how it's weird that everyone is always telling women what to do; Nath: FIFA as an exemplar structural sexism), and also what Steve Hogarty has written, which is a brilliant piece about going to St Petersberg to play a game and having a terrible time. Then we answer some of your questions, and then there is NO MORE CHAT UNTIL NEXT TIME BYE.

Musical goings on this week, as Sarah heads off on a pilgrimage to Hyde Park to kneel at the altar of Taylor Swift, while Nath whispers the Warrior's Prayer and talks about Mogwai's excellent 20th Anniversary show. Metal remains a theme for our movies this week - the exquisitely odd and probably awful Excalibur and Hawk The Slayer - before Sarah gives the Pope a good shafting, and we try to answer your questions.

After a week away the podcast returns only HUGE, with two weeks' worth of thoughts and talk making this the longest and quite possibly least disciplined episode ever. Under discussion this week is HBO's dark documentary of privilege and injustice, The Jinx, as well as the Wachowskis' new Netflix show, Sense8. We discuss the conferences that stopped us recording last week - Nath went to E3 in LA, Sarah to the British Humanist Association in Bristol - and what we've written this week, including work on the return of Doom, the strangeness of LA, and Irish abortion. Then, in a new regular, we answer your questions - you here mostly meaning 'Caroline' - and for no reason at the end there's talk about Marc Maron's interview with Barack Obama.

Drugs, murder and collapsing identities: we follow the Silk Road to ruin with Wired's astonishing two-part feature. Then hark at Nathan's untrammelled enthusiasm for E3, listen to Sarah rave about Ali Smith winning the Baileys Prize, become marginally bilious with us as we grapple with dirty old man poetry, and get a bit giddy about the lovely Nolan North.

If I told you this episode was about consciousness, empathy and growing up in Ex Machina, Leslie Jamison's essay The Empathy Exams and Judy Blume's new novel In the Unlikely Event, you might be like, "Hmm, interesting, I'll bookmark that for later." But! If I told you it's also about Sarah squawking "FOKKEN YOU IN DA FACE" and Nath doing impressions of a sad South African robot, you would probably press play instantly.

Mad Max: Fury Road is the week's big talking point, and some questions need to be answered: How on earth did it get made? Why is it so brilliant? And can Sarah pull off the "oil crown" Furiosa look in the office? Then, because in the distant future there is only phwaor, we take a look at Polly Vernon's Hot Feminist, before rounding on Game Of Thrones with a look that says "Stop bloody raping people, Game Of Thrones."

Not sure we actually get to the point at all this week, but ostensibly you will hear about: Taylor Swift's video and why it is brilliant (yes it is brilliant), practical magic in A Wizard of Earthsea, and Sarah has reviewed Kirst Logan's novel The Gracekeepers. Hurrah!

A postmortem of Politics Christmas, which seems to have birthed a new era of intolerance and awfulness ALREADY, and can only be made better through the masochistic review of hopeful pre-election left-wing headlines. The Witcher 3 provides some respite from reality - "It's like real life, in a game" - but then Sarah brings the election back up by having written about it, and everyone waltzes offstage crying and reciting favourite passages from Flann O'Brien. Kafka's The Castle is somehow involved.

Sarah has read some BOOKS this week - namely Ali Smith's How To Be Both and Do It Like A Woman by Caroline Criado-Perez. Politics Christmas Eve is celebrated with Politics Quizmas, in which Sarah is challenged to identify local parliamentary candidates using snippets of their CVs and hompages ("I'd love to give up work, politics and city life and spend my time caring for large, wild cats") and Nathan has written something about Star Wars, motion and memory.