Episode 136. This week we welcomed the holiday season by watching 1988's Scrooged, a contemporary retelling of A Christmas Carol. Frank Cross is a TV executive planning a massive live broadcast production of A Christmas Carol for Christmas Eve, but big business is the only thing he has going for him. He's estranged from loved ones, and his colleagues regard him as heartless. All day on the 24th, he's struggling to keep the show running as he's being haunted by spirits revealing to him the error of his ways and how he needs to change his life to find true happiness and bring it to the people around him.

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Episode 135. We watched season one of the Netflix original anime series Great Pretender. Makoto Edamura considers himself the best scam artist in Japan until he's outsmarted by Laurant Thierry, a man who he thought was just a clueless tourist. Fascinated to learn his ways and eager to get his money back, Edamura follows Laurant to Los Angeles and finds himself deep in a false drug-dealing scheme that has more levels of lying that he ever could have guessed. He becomes a reluctant part of Laurant's globe-trotting criminal team, trying to survive through rigged air races in Singapore and fraudulent art auctions in London.

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Episode 134. We finished reading all ten volumes of Irredeemable and wow what an ending! Tony is back on Earth, still set on destruction, and the world's few remaining leaders turn to their last hope, a secret weapon that could stop him but doom millions of citizens in exchange. Tony discovers the origin of his powers, finally getting an answer to the question that has plagued him his whole life, "why am I?" As the Paradigm struggles to preserve society, Qubit devises a plan to both save the Earth and give Tony a chance at starting over.

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Episode 133. We watched M. Night Shyamalan's trilogy of unconventional superhero thrillers, Unbreakable (2000), Split (2017), and Glass (2019). Security guard David Dunn is the sole survivor of a massively fatal train crash who realizes he isn't just lucky, he's invulnerable, and he's always felt a duty to protect the people of Philadelphia. Art curator Elijah Price was born with terribly fragile bones, unsure of why he exists in this world, but sure that comic books have a core of truth to them and that superheroes and villains must be real. Kevin Wendell Crumb is a man with multiple identities taking over his life, fighting for control, and convinced that he contains a secret identity with beast-like strength and ferocity. What does the converging of these men mean for truth, justice, and humanity itself?

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Episode 132. We watched Rian Johnson's 2019 murder mystery Knives Out. A best-selling author kills himself the night of his 85th birthday party, leaving behind a family more concerned about their inheritance than they are about grieving, a nervous private nurse who may not be telling the whole truth, and a detective with a sense that this isn't just an open-and-shut suicide case. As the nurse tries to avoid the suspicion of the desperate family members, she learns that she was the one the author trusted above everyone else, and only she can be responsible for setting everything right.

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Episode 131. We read the first four volumes of manga The Drops of God by Tadashi Agi and Shu Okimoto. Shizuku Kanzaki is the son of a famous wine critic who's never drank wine himself. When his father dies, Shizuku finds that he legally adopted his wine critic protege and wants his two sons to compete for their inheritance. In his massive wine collection, he has named "Twelve Apostles," wines that exemplify the art form, and "The Drops of God," the greatest wine he's ever tasted. Whomever can identify these wines takes the whole inheritance! Shizuku teams up with aspiring sommelier Miyabi to learn everything he can about tasting and appreciating wine, and how wine can help you bring people together and better understand your world.

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Episode 130. We're continuing our monthly coverage of the comic series Irredeemable, talking about volumes 5-7 this week. Qubit has sabotaged the team's attempt to kill The Plutonian, believing that there's still a way to solve the problem without putting death on their consciences. He knows of a secret force who can capture Tony -- but can anyone keep him locked up for long? We learn Modeus's true intentions in antagonizing Tony, and why he may be trying to help the man more than hurt him. In Tony's absence, The Survivor begins his reign as the world's new most powerful superhero, troubling both enemies and allies. The world could rebuild itself, but the cost on individual lives may be too high to pay.

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Episode 129. For our final Halloween episode this year, we watched a Netflix original show from India, the ghost story Typewriter. An author of horror novels died mysteriously in his mansion decades ago, and the place has remained empty since then, believed to be haunted. The author's family is moving back into the estate and they uncover an abandoned typewriter, which sets off a chain of mysterious deaths and unnerving paranormal experiences. Dark magic took place in this house, and we follow parallel investigations from the family, the local police, and a group of kids in a "ghost club," all trying to understand the past of the house's inhabitants and what malicious forces have been reawakened.

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Episode 128. We watched Anna Biller's 2016 film The Love Witch, gorgeously styled after low-budget 1970s Technicolor melodramas. After the destruction of her marriage, a witch named Elaine moves to a new town and sets her sights on finding true love. She brews spells, seduces men, and when they don't turn out to be the love she's looking for, she kills them. She falls for the detective investigating her last murder and believes her romantic fantasies may be coming true, but her magic doesn't always do the trick and reality comes calling.

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Episode 127. This week we read the DC comics series Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E., with issues written by Jeff Lemire and Matt Kindt. Frankenstein, the big green monster you know and love, works for the Super Human Advanced Defense Executive, a high-tech organization that protects the world from arcane threats. He teams up with his estranged wife, the four-armed Lady Frankenstein, and a group called the Creature Commandos, featuring a vampire, wolfman, mummy, and fish lady scientist. They're here to stop the world from being overrun by the mysterious natural force The Rot, which threatens to deform and decay all living beings.

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