Merlin the Duck has somehow become one of the biggest stars of the World Cup without setting foot inside a stadium, and Ned and Josh spend a good chunk of this episode working out exactly why he's banned and whether he's at risk of spotting a relative on a dinner plate. From there it's straight into a review of the new Supergirl movie, with both hosts defending the leads against some harsher reviews online. Josh admits to an impulse-buying habit that saw him swap shopping centres just to dodge temptation before immediately failing anyway, landing on an RGB light as his latest unnecessary purchase. The episode wraps with a deep dive into a soggy rugby league clash, featuring a team name that might be the best in the competition.

Josh's new hobby of photographing planes at the airport earns a polite but firm cross-examination from Ned, before the conversation turns to the Croatian pony named Mile who was abandoned at birth for being too small and is now recovering from surgery while living in a fourth-floor apartment. Backrooms gets pulled apart alongside a crash course in creepy pasta internet history, and Ned reflects on the strange sadness of realising he can no longer recall a single AFL theme song — something he once had burned into his memory to connect with his sports-mad dad. The episode closes with a very genuine and unresolved debate about whether biting your tongue or burning your mouth is the worse experience.

A learner driver in an L-plate car full of laughing family members went through a McDonald's drive-thru this week and looked absolutely terrified, which is correct, because drive-thru kerbs are scuffed to hell for a reason and the pressure of ordering while also steering is real. Josh has started calculating what calibrated driving speed makes him look responsible enough to be trusted with stepson lessons in a few years. Claw machines are a young person's game and Ned knows this about himself, which is the only thing that kept him walking. Henry Cavill was at the races and the ascot-versus-fascinator debate opened a taxonomy rabbit hole no one was prepared for. The Simpsons will keep selling merchandise forever because nine-year-olds keep discovering it and falling in love with it before anyone can warn them about season twenty-something.

The boys open with a correction nobody asked for, turns out that Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce wedding rumour might have been a swing and a miss. From there it's straight into the World Cup, the Socceroos' rough outing against the US, and what it's like watching football fans from around the globe experience America for the very first time. The TSA has had to weigh in on ranch dressing as a carry-on liquid, McDonald's has quietly dismantled the McSmart Meal in three painful tiers, and Pauline Hanson decided mid-tournament was the perfect time to go after SBS. There's also a deep dive into how Don Draper's secret family lifestyle simply couldn't survive in the smartphone era, plus why the word "fraudster" is far too charming for the people who scammed Josh's nan.

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Magic the Gathering has a Ninja Turtle crossover that's either the best or worst thing to happen to card gaming depending on who you ask, and Ned is firmly in the best camp. Somewhere in the middle of all that, a mother from Virginia decided to name all six of her kids after American states, a woman without a right hand got fined for using her phone, and a flight full of Knicks fans lost their collective minds while one lone passenger watched Avatar on a loop. Josh gets pulled over in Western Australia by an officer convinced he'd flicked a lit cigarette out of a moving car, which would require Josh to smoke, which he does not.

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Josh recounts a near-disaster involving a stray cat, his partner, and some very questionable advice given while half asleep. The conversation then shifts to Indiana Jones and a quick look at just how violent the franchise really is, before landing on the bizarre real history of Ötzi the prehistoric ice mummy. There's also a check-in on the current "ebb and flow" of Ned's relationship with his American Staffordshire. There's a worm-themed relationship thought exercise, plus a hot air balloon trust test that gets surprisingly deep.

Ned and Josh kick things off riding the high of the Knicks' first NBA championship win in decades before things take a turn when Josh confesses his step-sons gave him a brutal new nickname after catching him mid-photoshoot for work. From there the boys debate whether Ned is a coward or a cool guy, before diving into why YouTube Premium's $29.99 monthly fee might just be the most ballsy subscription on the planet. They also get into the surreal sight of a UFC octagon on the White House lawn, complete with claims about runway lighting issues for pilots nearby. A rollercoaster of sport, scandal, and circumstance.

Ned and Josh try, and immediately fail, to become cool, a bejewelled payment wand gets debated with more intensity than it deserves, and Josh reveals his deeply specific career goal of voicing a poker machine. A rumour about Taylor Swift getting married at Madison Square Garden sends the boys into the Harry Styles rafters problem, and the question of whether you'd invite Scooter Braun to your wedding purely to spite him gets a surprisingly warm reception.

Ned's upcoming trip to the Basque Country opens a leave request neither of them was prepared to file, Superman's powers get stress-tested against Josh's anxiety disorder, and industrial adhesive is held up as the definitive argument for paying attention in sex ed.

This week the boys are navigating public holidays, long weekends, and the very specific psychological damage of going back to a five-day working week when three days off felt like your actual natural state. Somewhere between debating whether a four-day week deserves a salary sacrifice, deciding what life stat you'd want confirmed at the pearly gates, and working out whether a brain chip is a medical miracle or an alien recruitment ad, Ned and Josh also get deeply invested in what Lenny the staffie is detecting on his neighbourhood walks, weigh up selling a $300,000 playoff ticket to someone who probably doesn't deserve it, and figure out why the golden era of band nicknames is never coming back.

An out-of-office reply becomes a full charity fundraising pitch, and the boys debate where the line is between being absent and just showing off. Producer Michael gets roped into a pronunciation test to settle whether South Australians genuinely say a word a way. Somewhere in there, someone skied in Japan without knowing bears existed there, and someone else is quietly vibrating at their desk after too many coffees.

The bear problem in Japan has gotten so bad they've built robot wolves to handle it, and the boys fully support this logic. Meanwhile, England's apex predator is possibly a badger, and Australia's solution to pest control was cane toads, which went about as well as expected. There's also a long detour into whether marathon runners need to calm down a little.

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