This Show is Awkward

For their 50th episode, Henrique Couto and Michelle compare the everyday upgrades they would hate to surrender. The question begins with Henrique’s slow-close toilet seat, which matters enough that he tries to replace a broken one while recovering from a strained back. Confusing instructions, upside-down mounting pieces and repeated bending turn a supposedly quick repair into a painful ordeal until his friend Rachel completes the installation. The story is comic frustration, not medical or home-repair guidance.
Michelle’s indispensable tool is a drawing tablet. She prefers the feel of paper, but a stylus lets her prepare digital artwork without scanning faint pencil lines or drawing with a mouse. Friends’ answers expand the debate to automatic headlights, air fryers, ice makers, cruise control, music storage, wireless headphones, air conditioning and electric kettles. Some conveniences barely register for one host and feel essential to the other: Michelle refuses cruise control, dislikes ice and cannot find wireless earbuds that fit comfortably.
Kitchen choices spark the strongest opinions. Michelle prefers a gas range because the visible flame responds quickly and stops heating when switched off, while Henrique appreciates the speed and easy-to-clean flat surface of his ceramic electric stove. They agree on temperature-controlled electric kettles and discuss garbage disposals, bidets, hot sauce and heated car features without reaching a universal definition of necessity. These personal preferences are not appliance, food-safety, electrical, driving or purchasing recommendations.
The final comparison shifts from household products to creative technology. Musician Ray Mattis describes how computer-based recording simplified composing to picture after years of timing scenes and recording on a standalone multitrack system. Henrique contrasts that transition with film schools that still required costly celluloid work when he was considering college, while Michelle recalls recording her first EP during a class and valuing the independence she gained from school. The episode turns a broken toilet seat into a broader conversation about tools, habits and the point when convenience becomes a genuine deal breaker.
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Henrique Couto opens a debate with surprisingly high stakes: Coke or Pepsi, cans or two-liter bottles, name brand or store brand? His real loyalty is to Diet Coke, which leads to a comparison with regular Coca-Cola, Diet Pepsi, Diet Dr Pepper and Coke Zero. The hosts treat flavors and marketing as personal impressions from 2020—not nutrition advice or definitive product history.
A return to movie theaters adds two more pop-culture discoveries. Henrique describes seeing Akira in 4K and the independent horror film Shortcut in sparsely attended screenings, then eating sushi in the car between shows. He dates the experience to the pandemic and explains his own comfort level rather than recommending a health or safety practice. Availability, seating procedures and theater conditions may have changed since the recording.
The biggest adventure is Ghost of Tsushima. Henrique is absorbed in its samurai standoffs, haiku writing, hot-spring reflections and conflict between honor and survival. He recounts side stories involving stolen rice, poisoned villagers and the choices that follow a defeated enemy, while Michelle questions his increasingly enthusiastic approach to virtual violence. This section contains game spoilers and discussion of fictional executions, war, poisoning and death.
Michelle closes with a vulnerable update on a post-apocalyptic comic she was preparing to publish on Webtoon. She considers the title At the End of Everything, discusses a missing chapter cover and explains why consistent art, memorable characters and reader connection matter to her. Henrique praises the work and the expanding role of Rick, a character who began as a real estate agent. The original source linked the comic, but its 2020 launch status is historical and the old URL is not reproduced here.
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A photograph of filmmaker Uwe Boll in a boxing ring sends Henrique Couto into a story about Boll challenging critics to sanctioned matches. Henrique explains why he printed the image for his office and recalls appearing for a few seconds in a documentary after its producers licensed part of his parody video. The hosts treat the episode as a strange piece of film-culture history, not an endorsement of violence or a complete account of the bouts.
The joke opens into a much more vulnerable discussion of criticism. Henrique says published reviewers and anonymous commenters have told him to kill himself, attacked his collaborators and mocked a premiere dedication to a late friend. He distinguishes constructive criticism from personal cruelty and describes “thick skin” as being hurt without letting the hurt end his creative work. He also disputes specific reviews of Babysitter Massacre that, in his account, misstated the production’s camera and sound equipment.
A gentler family update changes the mood. After a long estrangement, Henrique and his grandmother had begun speaking again, exchanging cards and bonding over pictures of his dogs. Her delight in the pets offered a welcome connection while she was isolated during the 2020 lockdown. The moment also captures why Henrique and Michelle describe the podcast as a personal conversation between close friends rather than a formal filmmaking interview.
The hosts close by brainstorming Halloween during the pandemic. Michelle imagines webbing off her porch and leaving candy outside, while Henrique discovers that his community had scheduled Beggars Night and considers a mask-based costume and individually packed treat bags. Their excitement, jokes and improvised precautions reflect one conversation from 2020—not current public-health guidance. Michelle also explains how forced theme days at Hot Topic exhausted her enthusiasm for costumes.
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Henrique Couto and Michelle begin with an unusually direct question: what do you do when depression starts to spiral? Speaking only from their own experiences, they compare sadness, sleep disruption and the struggle to keep functioning. Henrique describes lifelong anxiety and depression, a recent mild panic attack and days of feeling hopeless during 2020. He says the bad days had become less frequent, but looking back at the earliest weeks of lockdown still frightened him.
Even ordinary entertainment could bring the pandemic rushing back. A masked photo shoot in an instructional video prompts the hosts to discuss how COVID-19 changed their reactions to photography, older television and public life. They also wrestle with personal risk decisions: Michelle had returned to public-facing work, while Henrique questioned when and how he could responsibly make films again. Their uncertainty belongs to September 2020 and is not medical, workplace or production-safety guidance.
Much of Henrique’s distress comes from creative work put on hold. He wanted to make a Babysitter Massacre sequel as promised through crowdfunding, yet feared changing the project beyond recognition or exposing a cast and crew. A webcam-based movie and an extremely small production offered possible alternatives, but neither erased the frustration. Michelle connects that pain to an earlier lockdown period when she could not draw, and both hosts describe creativity as something that can feel like a burden and a lifeboat at the same time.
The conversation finds modest points of connection rather than a simple cure. Recording podcasts, photographing a sunset and watching anime together online gave the hosts moments of purpose, even when plans failed or worry remained. They discuss Re:Zero, Mob Psycho 100 and Erased before ending with a deliberately inappropriate bar joke. This candid episode includes depression, anxiety, panic, isolation, brief references to suicide and overdose, chronic pain, COVID-19 exposure, profanity, violent humor and sexual material involving an animal.
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Michelle’s cat Gigs has made it through a long-delayed veterinary visit, but getting there means confronting Michelle’s fear of doctors and handing her pet over without entering the clinic. Gigs cries through the car ride, behaves well for the staff and returns with an eye cream for an ongoing issue that might relate to an earlier facial injury or seasonal allergies. Michelle is relieved that the veterinarian is not alarmed. The story reflects one owner’s pandemic-era experience, not veterinary or medical guidance.
Henrique Couto has spent much more time at a veterinary hospital after Henwolf’s surgery and Chicano’s dental procedure. His latest appointment goes wrong when the clinic cannot find a booking that he confirmed by text. Although the staff offers to fit Henwolf in whenever a doctor becomes available, Henrique reschedules because he wants her usual veterinarian to examine an older dog, discuss new paw chewing and provide a proper checkup. He is angry about the inconvenience but deliberately avoids blaming the staff for an ordinary mistake.
The friends compare how differently their animals handle travel and care. Henwolf loves car rides, prances toward the clinic and seems delighted even after vaccinations; Chicano is more apprehensive but settles down to nap during long drives. Gigs can tolerate unfamiliar places yet hates the moving car. That contrast leads to bedtime routines, rescue histories and Henwolf’s rebellion against a replacement dog bed. After losing an expensive cushioned bed, she chooses the floor or Chicano’s older bed instead of the new orthopedic model, despite Henrique’s attempts to make it smell familiar.
A darker delivery story opens the episode. Michelle recounts a Facebook post about a missing package of cremains that was eventually found in a flowerpot, prompting the hosts to imagine what porch thieves expect to discover. From misdelivered Amazon boxes to contactless food photos that resemble snapshots of Henrique’s house, they consider how quickly people became comfortable sharing addresses and accepting rides or meals from strangers found online. Package mishaps, nervous pet parents and a very opinionated dog all point to the same awkward truth: convenience never removes uncertainty.
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Henrique Couto expects Michelle to unveil an elaborate celebration for the episode nearest his 34th birthday. Instead, she claims her cat ate the handwritten material and her computer destroyed the outline. His exaggerated disappointment turns the missing party into the setup for a nearly episode-length improvised story about friendship, forgotten birthdays and the extraordinary lengths someone might take to make amends.
Michelle soon reveals that she is supposedly visiting from 2024. This future version says she drove back through time with balloons, wrote the wrong age in Henrique’s card and replaced her 2020 counterpart. She also warns that Henrique will someday be struck by an air conditioner on a cruise near the Bermuda Triangle. None of this is presented as a real event; the hosts keep building a deliberately ridiculous science-fiction scenario in real time.
The alternate timeline grows darker and stranger. Future Michelle has become a political leader, accidentally started an international war and committed mass violence, yet hopes Henrique can help manage the fallout. They debate returning to the future together, staging his resurrection, pursuing immortality and surviving hyperinflation. Absurd claims about later pandemics, vaccines, elections and cryptocurrency belong entirely to the fictional role-play and should not be treated as medical, political or financial information.
Beneath the escalating satire is a warm joke about how much the hosts value one another. Henrique is willing to overlook time travel, murder and dictatorship, but he is deeply offended that Michelle lied about the cat eating her notes. He ultimately asks for time to decide whether they can resume their friendship, leaving the birthday adventure on a mock-serious cliffhanger. The story contains extensive spoilers, profanity, fictional death and genocide, pandemic fatalities, assassination, suicide-adjacent self-killing, traumatic brain injury and political violence.
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In this September 2020 conversation, Henrique Couto admits he cut down the fast-growing mulberry and honeysuckle trees crowding his rented home. Michelle mourns the lost berries while he explains why branches near the fence, gutters and power line had become a worry. Their mock trial over whether the trees deserved to live turns ordinary yard work into a debate about responsibility, tenants who will not pay rent and the emotional cost of finally tackling an intimidating project.
The work was more eventful than planned. Henrique recounts falling from a ladder after one leg sank into disturbed ground, then describes the exhausting two-day cleanup and his relief at avoiding a serious injury. The episode also includes discussion of chainsaws, herbicide, ladders, tree roots and power lines. These are personal anecdotes, not landscaping or safety instructions; hazardous tree work, chemicals and electrical-clearance problems belong with qualified professionals.
Clearing the yard makes room for the real prize: a 10-by-10 barn-style shed with a loft. Henrique is delighted by the prospect of moving lawn equipment and sealed movie costumes out of his garage, while Michelle teases him about reaching the age when storage buildings feel thrilling. Because the shed was only ordered when this episode was recorded, the conversation preserves the anticipation and possible wait rather than treating installation, pricing or availability as current.
The final turn celebrates Michelle’s story “Eh, Real Monsters from NEPA,” written for the young-adult anthology Campfire Stories to Tell in the Dark and narrated for Weekly Spooky. The friends compare prose, comic and screenplay writing, talk about internal dialogue in light-novel adaptations and gently argue over whether Michelle should write more fiction. The closing spider confession restores the episode’s theme: both hosts can be sentimental about living things until fear, weeds or mosquitoes complicate the principle. Contains profanity, a ladder fall, risky yard-work discussion, insect death, dark historical jokes and inserted casino advertisements.
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Henrique Couto prepares Michelle for a presidential campaign she has never agreed to run by “muckraking” a completely invented political past. He produces fake social-media posts, concert transcripts and notarized statements; she counters every outrageous accusation with the kind of evasive explanation a candidate might try on television. None of these quotations or alleged incidents is real. The improvised bit deliberately uses offensive material to parody opposition research and public apologies.
The joke begins with Michelle criticizing Midwestern Beggars’ Night traditions, then expands into a friendly argument about Ohio, Pennsylvania and the East Coast. Henrique decides that her reluctance to seek office makes her an ideal president, while Michelle briefly warms to the idea of a dependable salary. What follows is less a campaign platform than two friends testing how long a fictional candidate can keep explaining away an impossible record.
A 2020 online list of presidential compensation and benefits becomes the episode’s second half. The hosts react to the salary, White House rooms and staff, Air Force One, Marine One, Secret Service protection, health care, pensions, transition expenses and state funerals. They imagine an orange, sponsor-covered White House, an unused guest residence and a family moving company hired at absurd rates. The figures and rules are read from contemporaneous web results and discussed comedically; they are not current legal, financial or government guidance.
Michelle finally accepts the imaginary job mainly so she can dismantle its excesses, although Henrique predicts that another term would require the oldest political trick in the book. The conversation remains satire rather than a real endorsement, candidacy or factual account of any person’s conduct. Contains extensive profanity and intentionally offensive fictional statements involving antisemitism, the Holocaust, racism, slavery, rape, AIDS, terrorism, war and death, plus political cynicism, alcohol references and inserted casino advertisements.
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Henrique Couto begins with a lockdown purchase he describes as “sunglasses for your ears”: tiny silicone inserts marketed as a way to make sound feel calmer and clearer without acting like ordinary earplugs. After wearing them for only a few hours, he is curious but carefully avoids naming or endorsing the product. Michelle questions what altered listening might do to a music mix and whether funneling sound could create other problems. Their discussion of tinnitus, hearing, anatomy and concentration is personal speculation, not medical or audiology advice.
That experiment opens a wider conversation about making and hearing music. Henrique remembers learning home recording from a book, placing instruments across a stereo field and discovering that a fresh listen can expose a mix that felt finished the night before. Michelle brings her audio-school perspective, while both compare concert earplugs, movie-theater volume, earbuds that never fit and the patience required to find equipment that works for unusually shaped ears. Product prices, availability and claimed benefits belong to the 2020 recording.
A sudden rainstorm sends Michelle away from the microphone to close windows and a door, prompting a tour of the mysterious ways water enters her house. From there the friends arrive at the approaching pandemic-era Halloween. Henrique explains the Midwestern custom of a municipality scheduling trick-or-treating as Beggars’ Night, sometimes separately from Halloween, while Michelle contrasts it with East Coast Mischief Night and the certainty that she would not be opening her door that year.
The nostalgic close becomes more personal when Henrique remembers his childhood home being toilet-papered by bullies. He repurposed the paper as fake gore for backyard horror movies, and Michelle imagines traveling back in time to guard his block before realizing a future car, identity and mortgage would create complications of their own. Contains profanity, bullying and a homophobic slur in the source discussion, hearing and injury anecdotes, firearms references, flooding jokes, pandemic uncertainty and inserted casino advertisements.
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Henrique Couto opens by celebrating minor improvements: suction-cup storage has cleared his sink, and a bulk purchase should finally end the mystery of vanishing scissors and pens. The friends then pretend this prerecorded episode can report on a vacation Henrique has not taken yet, complete with a misunderstood lake monster, catch-and-release fish and a wholesome battle against imaginary polluters. The silliness creates a relaxed frame for an episode devoted to Michelle’s creative life.
First, however, Michelle has to survive another home-improvement project. She painted different parts of her upper and lower kitchen cabinets blue, disliked the mismatch and spent days removing paint before starting again. Henrique is stunned to learn that her thumbnails served as the main scraping tools until she switched solvents. This is a comic account of a 2020 project, not painting, solvent, renovation or personal-protective-equipment guidance; acetone, damaged finishes and bare-hand exposure are discussed without endorsement.
The real centerpiece is Michelle’s comics. She explains the post-apocalyptic Philadelphia world of Stray Cats and introduces At the End of Everything, a newer zombie story whose character Felix is trying to buy a house while society quietly unravels. The hosts discuss publishing webcomics, balancing two long-running projects, creative drought during the early pandemic and Michelle’s route from shōjo manga such as Fushigi Yûgi to favorites including Dorohedoro and One-Punch Man. Any platform or release status reflects the original recording.
Henrique also turns the spotlight on Michelle’s music as Everyone Except Me. He remembers first hearing her CD, attending coffeehouse, record-store and house shows, briefly acting as her roadie and recognizing the strange, fearless performer who became his closest friend. Michelle resists every compliment, but Henrique makes the episode’s purpose explicit: the podcast exists partly so listeners can discover her songs, comics and point of view. Contains profanity, risky solvent and DIY discussion, animal-feeding anecdotes, depression and creative-block references, bullying humor and inserted casino advertisements.
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