This Show is Awkward

Three episodes after raising the question, Henrique Couto finally remembers to deliver Michelle’s 2020 COVID-19 antibody-test result: it was negative. The friends immediately turn a medical update into jokes about communism, licking objects and touching one’s face at work. A historical negative antibody result does not prove lifelong absence of infection or immunity, and this improvised discussion is not testing, diagnosis, exposure or public-health guidance.
The better reason to celebrate is that This Show Is Awkward has reached its thirtieth episode—roughly twenty hours of Henrique and Michelle talking. They compare that total with Henrique’s much longer early podcast, The Freak Forum, imagine the show as an elaborate interrogation method and briefly discuss gardens and late frost. Then Henrique decides the milestone demands a medically prescribed internet quiz, a phrase that should reassure absolutely no one.
The first twenty-nine-question quiz asks about relationships, careers, confidence, pets, money, terrain and contentment before diagnosing Michelle’s problem as “missing a pet.” The comments are substantially darker than the result. A second quiz asks about lottery purchases, dance, travel, entertainment and favorite foods, changes its questions when the page is reloaded and ultimately reveals that it was only collecting answers for friends to compare rather than calculating any result.
A final quiz tests how magical Michelle is through telekinesis, phoenixes, cloaks, quests and badly spelled choices. She earns the verdict “somewhat magical,” which feels designed to let her down gently. The episode preserves the sites’ conclusions as absurd entertainment, not psychological, relationship, financial or life advice. Contains profanity, pandemic and medical-test discussion, torture and terrorism jokes, a quiz comment referencing suicide, antisemitic humor, self-esteem and depression references, and repeated inserted social-casino advertisements.
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Lunch gives Henrique Couto hope, right up until an overfilled hot dog deposits habanero relish and mustard across his face. That mishap revives memories of touching his eye after cutting peppers, seeking stronger imported mints and eating so many sour candies as a child that a white layer formed on his tongue and peeled. Michelle prefers sweetness and finds even orange juice too sour. These extreme-food stories are anecdotes, not chemical-exposure, first-aid, dietary or food-safety guidance.
The real subject begins when toothpaste and whitening lead Henrique into a decade of dental history. A fractured molar became infected while he was awaiting gallbladder surgery; after medical clearance, the tooth was extracted and later replaced with an implant. He discusses sensitivity toothpaste, whitening strips, retainers, a replacement crown and the painful limits of local anesthetic around infection. Product opinions, pain medication and procedure descriptions are not dental or medical recommendations.
Both hosts then compare childhood orthodontia. Each had a palate expander and remembers the key, the pressure and food getting trapped against the roof of the mouth. Henrique also wore a lip bumper and braces for roughly five and a half years after an early injury affected the development of his lower teeth. Springs, separate wire gauges and unusually positioned adult teeth made his treatment complicated enough that photographs of his mouth appeared in his orthodontist’s educational book.
Michelle remembers believing braces would never feel normal and becoming so distressed that her father wanted to confront the orthodontist. Henrique remembers his mother’s determination that he should be able to smile confidently and the technicians crying when his long treatment ended. Friendship turns a painful subject unexpectedly comforting—at least until he recalls an emergency toothache triggered after putting peroxide on an irritated gum. Contains profanity, graphic dental and tongue details, infected tooth and surgery discussion, prescription opioid references, religious and ethnic jokes, body-image anxiety and repeated inserted social-casino advertisements.
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Henrique Couto begins by proposing 167 Questions, a childhood game he invented moments earlier, then records as if the show were already two weeks in the future and the pandemic had ended by tearing a dinosaur-filled hole in Earth. Michelle responds with a real early-lockdown story: when she briefly opened a closed supermarket entrance to discard old food, shoppers rushed the doors while employees struggled to close them, creating the closest thing she had seen to a zombie-movie horde.
The conversation turns to Plandemic, the viral conspiracy video Henrique had not watched before it was removed from YouTube. He criticizes recycled stories about secret elites and traces how vague conspiracy language can descend into antisemitic myths about Jews, the Illuminati and lizard people. The hosts also debate whether removing misinformation can make believers feel vindicated. This is a historical discussion of conspiracy thinking—not an endorsement of the video or a reliable account of COVID-19 origins, laboratories, governments, public-health agencies or platform policy.
Pandemic fatigue drives the politics underneath the episode. Henrique describes distrusting leaders across parties, needing comfort food while income is uncertain and feeling more visibly failed by institutions than usual. The friends compare 2020 stimulus payments, direct deposit, a debit card issued with a one-month expiration and their shared instinct to save rather than celebrate. Every political, banking, tax and relief-program detail reflects an improvised 2020 conversation and is not current public-health, financial or government-benefits guidance.
Tiger King offers a stranger distraction. Henrique is fascinated less by the animals than by the people who accept exploitation, unpaid labor and cultlike control for access to big cats; Michelle still is not convinced the series deserves her time. From tiger sanctuaries they wander into golf, sanctioned yelling, funk musicians’ vocal sounds and songs Michelle invents for Gigs. Contains pandemic misinformation discussion, politics, antisemitic conspiracy material, anxiety and financial distress, animal exploitation and death references, profanity, and repeated inserted social-casino advertisements.
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In May 2020, Ohio was beginning a gradual reopening while the Philadelphia area remained under tighter restrictions. Henrique Couto feels unexpectedly energized by the smallest hint of change, but he and Michelle immediately collide over masks, conflicting early messaging and whether a used-DVD store can ever feel normal with limited capacity. The discussion captures uncertainty from the first pandemic spring and does not provide current masking, reopening, exposure or public-health guidance.
Michelle has just completed a COVID-19 antibody test at a Quest Diagnostics location and is waiting four to five days for a result. She describes checking in by QR code, waiting anxiously in her car and having blood drawn from her dominant arm because she did not want to inconvenience the technician. Then the friends explore both possible outcomes: a negative result might mean caution or luck, while a positive result would make Michelle fear that asymptomatic work in supermarkets had unknowingly harmed someone.
That guilt becomes the emotional center. Michelle imagines a chain of transmission leading from a cough, sigh or touched surface to a stranger’s death; Henrique reminds her that a virus moving through a population is not the same as one person intentionally causing harm. They compare Henrique’s own brief episode of fatigue and aching joints, 2020 uncertainty about antibodies and reinfection, local case counts, testing capacity and delayed reopening. Those claims and figures were incomplete even at the time and are not restated as medical fact.
Two days after the recording, Michelle turns thirty-six. Her usual family meal and day off have become a half day of essential work, a virtual gathering and the hope that the laboratory result arrives early. Henrique wishes he could do more, celebrates the friend who has helped him through months of isolation and asks listeners to send birthday wishes after the fact. Contains pandemic anxiety, death and transmission guilt, medical testing and blood draws, inaccurate or outdated health speculation, dark humor, profanity and repeated inserted social-casino advertisements.
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Recorded during the first pandemic spring of 2020, Henrique Couto and Michelle try to follow an emotionally heavy conversation with an episode about whatever is still bringing them comfort. The attempt begins with friendship: Henrique thanks Michelle for patiently listening through his depression and anxiety, while Michelle rejects his insistence that she is an unusually good person. Their discussion of isolation, masks, testing and reopening reflects uncertainty at that moment and is not current medical or public-health guidance.
Food offers Henrique an immediate refuge, from grilled cheese and eggs on toast to hot dogs, pizza and carefully appreciated delivery orders. Michelle is having the opposite experience, describing stress, nausea and familiar foods that no longer taste comforting. She finds more pleasure in turning protective clothing into a creative project, including layered masks, a turquoise poncho and plans for increasingly strange accessories.
Henrique’s biggest bright spot is Uncle Henny’s Campfire Stories, a weekly livestream where he builds a faux-woods set and reads mean-spirited children’s horror from the Scary Stories for Sleepovers books. Audience messages, new friendships and unexpectedly generous tips make the ritual feel meaningful; one father even says that he and his young son listen together before bedtime. Michelle also values an online Gurren Lagann watch party and looks forward to more Mob Psycho.
The positivity gets harder when both hosts talk about missing their mothers, regional case differences and the uncertain prospect of reopening. They acknowledge that they do not know the true infection rate or the right timetable, then end with Giggs the cat trying to shut down Michelle’s computer. Contains depression, anxiety, disordered appetite discussion, pandemic illness and death, inaccurate or outdated health speculation, profanity, dark humor and repeated inserted social-casino advertisements.
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Recorded during the first pandemic spring of 2020, this unusually candid conversation finds Henrique Couto and Michelle exhausted in different ways. Michelle spends a week away from essential grocery-store work but worries about returning the entire time. A daily online watch party for Gurren Lagann gives both friends structure, emotional release and something difficult enough to match how the moment feels. Their health and workplace discussion is historical personal experience, not current medical, employment or mental-health guidance.
The anime opens a larger discussion of concentration, nightmares and the invisible baseline of stress. Henrique says movies no longer hold his attention and describes several nights of frightening dreams; Michelle explains why stories about people overcoming adversity are the only entertainment that currently feels useful. Both recognize that poor sleep, anxiety and constant uncertainty make ordinary tasks feel heavier.
Henrique then recounts facing a sink full of dishes after days of avoidance. He explains how a large mess can register as one impossible object rather than a series of manageable pieces, how shame led him to take a long “depression nap,” and how he finally got up after midnight to wash everything while Henwolf and Chicano kept him company. The clean sink and a later hour clearing leaves from the patio become rare, tangible accomplishments.
Michelle contrasts that struggle with the relentless demands of work, protecting coworkers, worrying about family and still maintaining her home. The friends reject the idea that “essential” and “non-essential” people should compete over who has it worse, and Henrique praises Michelle’s empathy while admitting that staying home does not feel like a purpose. They close with soft pants, Honey Smacks, creative work and the reminder that effort can count even when it does not feel impressive. Contains depression, anxiety, self-loathing, sleep disturbance, disordered eating and body-image language, pandemic workplace stress, profanity and repeated inserted social-casino advertisements.
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Quarantine has left Henrique Couto short on stories, so he hands Michelle control of the conversation and asks her to fill the show. She begins with a nightmare about receiving life without parole while illness spreads through a prison. That opens a candid tour of stress dreams, including Henrique’s early-pandemic stretch of waking more frightened than when he went to sleep and Michelle’s recurring fear that a familiar cat has been replaced by an indistinguishable double.
The doppelgänger-cat dream leads to Giggs and the complicated emotions of loving an animal whose visible injury came from a painful past. Henrique compares that experience with adopting older rescue dogs Henwolf and Chicano, describing Henwolf’s transformation from an obese couch potato into an energetic companion and Chicano’s gradual recovery from fear. The hosts discuss shelters, foster homes, less-adoptable animals and the uncertainty of never knowing a rescue pet’s full history.
Henrique remembers the moment Chicano saw him after a week apart, realized he had returned and raced to the car. He also describes Henwolf checking on Chicano after the dogs were reunited, while Michelle explains why recent encounters with death make adopting an older animal emotionally difficult for her. These are personal adoption stories rather than veterinary, behavioral or animal-welfare guidance.
The episode returns to dreams as Michelle admits that her most upsetting nightmares involve loved ones treating her cruelly. Henrique shares a dream in which nobody will tell him the year, then explains his experiences with sleep paralysis: sensing an unseen presence, seeing a figure beside the bed and mistaking a dark door for a towering person. His dogs’ calm behavior helps him reorient after waking. Contains nightmares, sleep paralysis, pandemic and prison anxiety, animal injury, suspected abuse and abandonment, pet death, profanity, dark humor and repeated inserted social-casino advertisements.
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Recorded in April 2020, Henrique Couto admits that his promise to stop making coronavirus episodes lasted about two weeks. Nearly a month into staying home, he is measuring time through laundry, grocery trips, perfecting grilled cheese and a grease burn earned while frying eggs without pants. Work is beginning to trickle back in, but empty days and a loss of routine make even recording his other podcast feel difficult.
Michelle is living the opposite version of lockdown inside busy grocery stores. After weeks of scarce paper products, nonstop messages and customers crowding the aisles, new entry limits finally make the workplace feel slightly more manageable. She plans a week off but expects to spend it helping employees remotely and worrying that she chose the wrong moment. Their case numbers, projections, testing estimates and reopening assumptions were tentative even when recorded and are not current medical or public-health guidance.
A detour takes the friends back to their visit to Centralia, Pennsylvania, where an underground mine fire led most residents to leave. They remember wandering a cemetery, finding the abandoned portion of Pennsylvania Route 61, walking cracked pavement covered with graffiti and discovering afterward that they had taken a needlessly difficult route. News that the graffiti highway was being covered prompts equal parts nostalgia, jokes and relief that crowds would stop gathering there.
The conversation returns to Michelle’s vacation plans: fan art, a back patch, mowing, driveway chalk and experimenting with bleach designs. Anxiety keeps turning every plan into a fear of getting sick, dying or disappointing people, while Henrique tries to make her promise she will be safe. They end by watching an ant cross the floor as Giggs remains occupied. Contains pandemic illness and death anxiety, outdated health and hospital-capacity speculation, workplace stress, a minor cooking burn, body disposal jokes, swastika references, profanity and repeated inserted social-casino advertisements.
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Henrique Couto and Michelle begin a new media-exchange experiment built around things the other person might never discover alone. Their friendship has long included trading art across personal taste—from all seven original Nightmare on Elm Street films during Michelle’s shoulder recovery to Re:Zero as Henrique’s first anime—so this time Michelle assigns a fan translation of Q Hayashida’s Dorohedoro manga while Henrique sends the 1987 erotic thriller Stripped to Kill without labeling the file.
After five chapters, Henrique is fascinated by Dorohedoro’s mix of grotesque violence, food comedy and unexpectedly sweet friendship. He tries to explain Caiman, a man with a lizard head who bites sorcerers so the mysterious person inside his mouth can identify whoever cursed him, and Nikaido, his gyoza-making companion. Failed magic experiments, theatrical masks and lines about gyoza keep colliding in a world whose logic is disturbing and funny at once.
The manga reminds Henrique of two rare earlier comic experiences: Godzilla vs. Barkley and the violent Columbus-made Voodoo Joe, whose cursed hero must help strangers take revenge. Michelle is more interested in what Henrique will think as Dorohedoro introduces additional sorcerers, while he promises to continue reading beyond the assigned chapters and appreciates that an unfamiliar format could still make him laugh aloud.
Michelle’s Stripped to Kill notes cover an undercover police officer entering a strip club, elaborate dance sequences, an effective mystery reveal and her conclusion that she is not sexually attracted to women. Henrique places Katt Shea’s Roger Corman production within the wave of stripper thrillers that followed, then discusses exploitation formulas, women as both victims and heroes, and later B-movie variations. Contains graphic comic violence, murder, dismemberment, sexualized nudity and stripping, a brief child-sexual-abuse reference, abortion and reanimated-fetus imagery, profanity and repeated inserted social-casino advertisements.
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Recorded in late March 2020, this episode captures Henrique Couto and Michelle living opposite sides of the first COVID-19 shutdowns. Henrique’s planned movie production disappears as Ohio closes schools and businesses, leaving him isolated with very little work. Michelle’s grocery-delivery job is classified as life sustaining in Pennsylvania, creating long shifts, scarce supplies and constant public contact while her landlord work is restricted by county orders.
Their routines have changed just as sharply. Henrique starts making grocery lists, reduces shopping trips, sanitizes his phone and tries to stretch a repetitive pantry; Michelle watches stores restock only to see tissues and other goods vanish before she can buy them. Both discuss handwashing, coughs, allergies, temperature checks, asymptomatic infection and limiting family contact. These observations reflect uncertainty in March 2020 and are not current medical, legal, workplace or public-health guidance.
Henrique’s frustration peaks over a Forbes headline saying New York Governor Andrew Cuomo had ordered “100% of businesses” to close when the article described exemptions for essential services. He argues that frightening, imprecise headlines can drive unnecessary panic and compares the ethical problem with the television station in George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead continuing to display outdated shelter addresses to retain viewers. His concern about misinformation is preserved without asserting that a particular headline caused deaths.
The hosts also compare Ohio’s statewide stay-at-home order with Pennsylvania’s county-by-county approach, reduced traffic, changed police responses and the difficulty of balancing health precautions with economic survival. “Wine with DeWine,” a nearly empty Chick-fil-A drive-through and an argument over whether landscaping can operate safely add gallows humor. Contains pandemic illness and death, obsolete health and emergency-order discussion, police and crime references, economic distress, profanity, dark humor and repeated inserted social-casino advertisements.
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