Unlisted Wall

Flying away from the wreckage of defeated Star Destroyers, we come back down to Earth to find a ravaged zombie hellscape awaiting us. We grab some pills and kill all sons-a-bitches with Valve's 2009 follow up to their seminal zombie shooter Left 4 Dead. After covering our time recently returning to the game we share some of our personal all-time favorites in the general topic section. Ben asks who died and made him gun monitor; Charles sadly tells him pretty much everybody, though it comes out a bit muffled due to being strangled by a Smoker.

Following the completion of our first year of publishing, we finally put the multi in our multimedia pod by making our first format switch, from movies to video games. So as not to make the circle incomplete, we return to our inaugural subject of Star Wars as the first object of focus - namely the 2020 team-based combat simulator, Squadrons. The better part of the episode is devoted to an overview of the game itself, mainly generalization of the concept and primary player experience, with the episode's back end given breathing room for us to speak on our past history with gaming as a hobby. Ben suggests nothing too fancy, flying is for droids; Charles gets no reading on that shield, up or down, but his friends are down there so don't worry.

Our time with Nicolas comes to an end as we wrap our discussion of Cage's trio of action blockbusters, bringing Con Air in for landing and then switching places for the genre/performance blending Face/Off. Once they catch the supercop, Ben would like to take his...his face...off. Eyes, nose, skin...it's coming off. Charles just wishes the FBI would stop shooting his place up.

In Nomine Nicolas, et Cagii, et Coppola Sancti, Amen. Our discussion of the three back-to-back action films that shot Cage into orbit begins, as we take a complete tour of The Rock and then board Con Air up until our connecting flight. Look, Ben's just a biochemist. Most of the time he works in a little glass jar and leads a very uneventful life. He drives a Volvo, a beige one. Charles has bettered himself inside. Earned two degrees, including his juris doctorate. He also killed eleven inmates, incited three riots, and escaped twice. He's a true product of the system.

Chronomancy and alien numerology behind us, now our friend Nick shows us the ways of demonology and the occult with another pair of his 21st century projects. Ben makes Charles buy the drinks, even though they killed the same number of innocent people; the neo-pagans won't take Charles's money for the mead unless he's in a bear suit.

This week we discover that Cage did, in fact, make two separate movies and not the singular picture that the Mandela effect convinced us existed. Ben peeks two minutes into the future to avoid the federal agents closing in; Charles and his rabbits are stalked and terrified by albino whisperers.

It doesn't matter how far you run, there are some demons you just can't escape. Ours is named Nicolas Cage, he used to act for a living. He won an Oscar for Best Actor, but then he made a deal with the Devil. Now he's out to steal our souls and take our podcast for a ride. Ben figures helming an excavator should count as riding it, so why wouldn't it catch on fire? Charles says any man that's got the guts to sell his soul for podcasting has got the power to change the world.

Since the wastelands of post-apocalyptic Earth failed to kill us off, we've turned instead to someone sure to be up to the task: Nicolas Cage. We start by examining the Indiana Jones/Assassin's Creed hybrid where Nick steals the Declaration of Independence to save it from those who would borrow it. Ben seemingly has to choose between saving the document or letting Charles fall to his death, but he's got other plans; Charles begs Harvey Keitel not to send him to prison, but Harv is adamant that somebody's got to.

We are Street Podcasters, and we are very late for work. Mega City One is a meat grinder - people go in one end, meat comes out the other. All Ben and Charles do is turn the handle. Both of the film adaptations of 2000 A.D.'s Judge Dredd are included as we wrap our post-apocalypse run with the Cursed Earth patrolled in turn by Sylvester Stallone and Karl Urban. You want fear? Ben's the fear. You want chaos? Ben's the chaos. But is he a pass or fail? Charles considers carefully before deciding: "He's a pass."

It's impossible to believe that Ben and Charles have ignored several warnings to conform to the rules that are vital to the continued growth and well-being of their beloved podcast, but they did. The Farm, both of them, after their current stretch of episodes is done. Charles doesn't know what a putz is, but he figures it's something bad and Ben better take it back; Ben would certainly say Charles has marvelous judgment, if not particularly good taste.