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Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to this episode of Superhero Ethics. Friends.
Speaker 2: If you go back to the very beginning of this podcast,
Speaker 2: I think the first, if not some of the first
Speaker 2: episodes that Paul and I talked about were about Batman.
Speaker 2: He is the character who I think, for both of
Speaker 2: us is one of our absolute favorites and not our favorite,
Speaker 2: and certainly when we keep coming back to because I think,
Speaker 2: when done right, his story raises so many of the
Speaker 2: issues and questions that this podcast is most interested in,
Speaker 2: things like vigilanteism and who gets to decide what is
Speaker 2: right or wrong and what to do about that, cops
Speaker 2: in a corrupt world, all of these kind of questions
Speaker 2: wealth And so when I found out that there was
Speaker 2: another addition to the Batman ouvra, the recent show called
Speaker 2: Batman Cape Crusader, which usually enough is not coming out
Speaker 2: on Max, even though I'm pretty sure Max is owned
Speaker 2: by Warner Brothers the DC connection there. It's on Prime.
Speaker 2: So there's a story there that I'm not sure about
Speaker 2: which readers know about, please let us know. But once
Speaker 2: I saw that to come out, I knew that I
Speaker 2: wanted us to watch it, and I knew wanted Paul
Speaker 2: to watch it with me, and my first thought, as
Speaker 2: I know Paul was very busy. He doesn't always get
Speaker 2: to watch things, so I want to check in with him,
Speaker 2: and he said he'd already watched all ten episodes. I thought, Okay,
Speaker 2: I've got my homework. Let's do this. So Paul, let
Speaker 2: me just start by asking you before even going to
Speaker 2: the show, let's kind of do a check in for
Speaker 2: people who haven't gone all the way into our back catalog,
Speaker 2: what are you feelings on Batman as a character.
Speaker 3: I like Batman as a character. Batman is one of
Speaker 3: my favorite characters. One of the things I really enjoy
Speaker 3: is that there are many iterations of Batman, and some
Speaker 3: of them I like a lot more than others, which
Speaker 3: I guess we'll probably get to here some of those instances.
Speaker 3: But the thing I think I've always liked about Batman
Speaker 3: is just that, you know, Batman's a character who based
Speaker 3: had you know, who had tragedy early on in life,
Speaker 3: which you know I had some of, and thus found
Speaker 3: that kind of relatable, and then basically decided like, this
Speaker 3: is something I don't want to happen to other people,
Speaker 3: So I'm going to try and do something about it
Speaker 3: in whatever way I feel I can, and I think
Speaker 3: the fact that Batman does that in a way that's
Speaker 3: outside of the system, the I think not super healthy
Speaker 3: system is something I appreciate. Obviously that may or may
Speaker 3: not work in reality, and in various Batman stories it
Speaker 3: works better than others. But for me, it's mostly like
Speaker 3: just the idea of having conviction in something and then
Speaker 3: just taking extraordinary action as a result of that conviction,
Speaker 3: and then also like just wearing black all the time,
Speaker 3: you know, that's the other that's that's the other half,
Speaker 3: those two things. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I often think about how much the nineteen eighty nine
Speaker 2: Batman Tim Burton Michael Keaton really shaped a lot of
Speaker 2: my identity and ideas of high school, and how much
Speaker 2: he became the superhero I cared about, particularly because I
Speaker 2: think it's interesting. I think you and I have very
Speaker 2: different approaches to Batman. All that you just said I
Speaker 2: think is interesting and important and would be on my
Speaker 2: list of reasons why I like Batman so much, but
Speaker 2: probably like near the bottom because for me, it's really
Speaker 2: about the idea of the ethical questions about it, because
Speaker 2: I think it's a theme that we've come up with
Speaker 2: a lot, especially when Jessica Plumbers come on. She's very
Speaker 2: much a Superman fan, and kind of we tease each
Speaker 2: other about like are you a Batman person or a
Speaker 2: Superman person? I grew up with a Christopher Reeve movies
Speaker 2: and they were fun, but as I got older, I
Speaker 2: didn't believe them, Like they're very much based on the
Speaker 2: idea of could this person exist who is super not
Speaker 2: just because of his power set, but because you can
Speaker 2: absolutely trust him not to abuse those powers, and that
Speaker 2: that's in many ways always felt that's more of the
Speaker 2: fantasy than the idea that he has these powers to
Speaker 2: begin with. And I think what I loved about Batman
Speaker 2: is that from the first they were always much more
Speaker 2: about the moral complexities about it, you know, and even
Speaker 2: like sometimes it's really about like should he be doing
Speaker 2: this in terms of like is it helping the city?
Speaker 2: Is should he be more of a vigilante or less?
Speaker 2: The way that I think the Who's directed The Dark Knight.
Speaker 4: And Christopher Nolan, Yeah, sometimes I think it's about like
Speaker 4: as it a Christopher Nolan movies, particularly The Dark Knight,
Speaker 4: sometimes it's more about just for him personally in terms
Speaker 4: of like how he's working through trauma, and I think
Speaker 4: a recurring.
Speaker 2: Story as always like is this actually helping him with
Speaker 2: his trauma? Is this a good way for it to
Speaker 2: deal or is it is it doing more harm to
Speaker 2: Bruce Wayne than it is good for the city And
Speaker 2: how he balance those things and stuff like that, and
Speaker 2: I one thing I was thinking about a lot in
Speaker 2: terms of this is that you know, we hear so
Speaker 2: many debates about canon and about like what is real
Speaker 2: or not, And for example, with Star Wars, I know
Speaker 2: that you know, you and I have talked a lot
Speaker 2: about how Luke Skywalker is treated, and like, I really
Speaker 2: love the way Luke was treated in Last Jedi Eve
Speaker 2: very much did not that's totally legit. But part of
Speaker 2: the thing is we only have one version of Luke, right.
Speaker 2: Batman is a character who I think part of what
Speaker 2: I love about him is that we now have so
Speaker 2: many versions told by so many people that were kind
Speaker 2: of beyond a discussion of canonicity, because every story it
Speaker 2: may exist in partnership with a number of other particular stories,
Speaker 2: but it's one particular version. And I was thinking about,
Speaker 2: especially in terms of a phrase that you and I
Speaker 2: used a lot in particularly regarding the Batman of the
Speaker 2: Snyder verse, the ben Affleck Batman, which is not my Batman, right,
Speaker 2: which I think people sometimes hear that. I think sometimes
Speaker 2: people used it in the same manner of that very
Speaker 2: toxic like my version is the right one and all
Speaker 2: the others are bad, et cetera, et cetera. Actually, what
Speaker 2: I love about not my Batman is to me, since
Speaker 2: I understood it, I think you would agree, but you
Speaker 2: can tell me if I'm wrong. It's a statement of saying, Look,
Speaker 2: there is no one definitive Batman. There are lots of
Speaker 2: different different Batman's out there. There are particular ones that
Speaker 2: I like and that feel right to my understanding of Batman.
Speaker 2: And so when I say Batleck was not my Batman,
Speaker 2: I'm not saying someone else is wrong for liking it.
Speaker 2: I'm saying my opinion is that that doesn't fit the
Speaker 2: Batman idea that I really care about, Mike, And to me,
Speaker 2: that makes it a lot more interesting to talk about
Speaker 2: Batman because we're not getting into the like who's right
Speaker 2: or who's wrong. I mean, I have my feelings on that,
Speaker 2: but it's not about you know, are you a real
Speaker 2: fan or not it's just what part of Batman speaks
Speaker 2: to you? Did that sound right to you?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Pretty much. I Mean, I'm sure people use any
Speaker 3: given hashtag in a number of different ways, right, But
Speaker 3: for me, I had a visceral negative reaction first to
Speaker 3: the casting news of Ben Affleck and then to the
Speaker 3: actual character in the movie Batman vs. Superman or vice versa.
Speaker 3: Yeahs Batman versus sup anyway, But then I kind of
Speaker 3: had a bit of a moment of mostly I think
Speaker 3: because they kept coming out with animated films and I
Speaker 3: would go back and watch some of the others, and
Speaker 3: I was just like, you know what, this is okay
Speaker 3: that there's a lot of different Batman's, and in fact,
Speaker 3: it's kind of cool, you know. And if the only
Speaker 3: Batman we ever got was live action Batman, and we
Speaker 3: were going to get one per decade or every twenty years,
Speaker 3: and then that was going to be the only one
Speaker 3: we had for like ten or twenty years, I think
Speaker 3: I would have felt differently, right, like it would have
Speaker 3: bothered me more like it bothered me at first. Then
Speaker 3: I was like, this isn't really a big deal, you know.
Speaker 3: It's like, yeah, that's not my Batman. You know, and
Speaker 3: like when I then watched the Batman the Matt Reeves movie,
Speaker 3: I was like, in the beginning, I was like, Oh,
Speaker 3: this doesn't feel like my Batman. And then as the
Speaker 3: story went on, I was like, Oh, they're kind of
Speaker 3: telling a story of how you know, Batman becomes Batman, right,
Speaker 3: how he goes from being a guy on a quest
Speaker 3: of vengeance to being a guy who's like trying to
Speaker 3: do something more really, you know, right, and how he's
Speaker 3: going about it differently. And also I left out, you know,
Speaker 3: the idea of like being a detective of really trying
Speaker 3: to seek the truth and then do something about it,
Speaker 3: as opposed to kind of assuming you already know the
Speaker 3: truth or just not even having the mental capacity the
Speaker 3: or the you know whatever resources to ascertain like what's
Speaker 3: going on. And you know, stories of intelligence are always
Speaker 3: interesting to me, but then especially like how someone uses
Speaker 3: their intelligence and so and that's really maybe the most
Speaker 3: important aspect of Batman because like to me, like when
Speaker 3: I see Sherlock Holmes, I'm like, that's my Batman kind of,
Speaker 3: you know, like it's it's the same arc type in
Speaker 3: many ways, not exactly the same, right, There's differences of course,
Speaker 3: and Sherlock Holmes is often referenced in Batman's stories. Sometimes
Speaker 3: that's like one of his mentors. Sometimes, like in this
Speaker 3: in The Kate Crusader, they refer to, Oh, I've read
Speaker 3: those stories too, you know they're there. They they mentioned them,
Speaker 3: and they allude to them, and you know, that idea
Speaker 3: of a character who really wants to know what's going
Speaker 3: on and is curious about the world and has the
Speaker 3: mental acuity to kind of like really see what's going
Speaker 3: on and figure stuff out. And so I really enjoy
Speaker 3: that there's so many different Batman's. I mean there's literally
Speaker 3: ones where Batman is a man bat and I know
Speaker 3: there's a character called man bat but like where and
Speaker 3: actually I think that characters called Batman in It's that
Speaker 3: there's there's a lot of Batman stories, that's the point,
Speaker 3: and there's a great diversity of them, and I love that.
Speaker 3: And like here, we also get different versions of Penguin.
Speaker 3: We get a different version of you know, harlen Quin's Out,
Speaker 3: we get we get a lot of characters more different
Speaker 3: than they were in something else. And that's cool because
Speaker 3: we know we're going to get another version again soon
Speaker 3: and so if we don't love this version, like, there'll
Speaker 3: be another version, and it's not like this is the
Speaker 3: one true story. It's like, no, this is a story.
Speaker 3: Enjoy it, don't enjoy it. Take it for what it is,
Speaker 3: you know, get what you get out of it. And yeah,
Speaker 3: I just I appreciate that about you know, Batman's storytelling
Speaker 3: in general.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a real what if element to it. And
Speaker 2: I want to say from the beginning, I think there's
Speaker 2: probably a lot more characters who in comic books. Just
Speaker 2: if you've been writing a comic book about someone for
Speaker 2: fifty sixty seven years, you're gonna have so much diversity
Speaker 2: and so many different writers and so many different ideas.
Speaker 2: The thing is that, and there are lots of great
Speaker 2: people who really focus on comics. Our friends at Hype
Speaker 2: is my Superpower podcast. They focus on Marvel comics, but
Speaker 2: I highly recommend them. Both Paul and I are people
Speaker 2: who really love comic book characters but aren't really big
Speaker 2: comic book readers. I think Paul, you've read more than
Speaker 2: I have. But I think we agree that, like our
Speaker 2: main interaction with characters like Batman is on screen.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's accurate.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so I think that for whatever reason, Batman
Speaker 2: is one of the few who has gotten so many
Speaker 2: iterations on screen, particularly with animation, but also just like
Speaker 2: if you're a gen xer or even an old and millennial,
Speaker 2: think about how many different actors have played a live
Speaker 2: action Batman in your lifetime. In my lifetime, we've had
Speaker 2: Keaton Clooney, Val Kilmer, Ben Affleck, Robert Pattinson, if you
Speaker 2: want to stretch it a bit, the guy who played
Speaker 2: the voice of Lego Batman, you know, I mean, Yeah
Speaker 2: willernt thank you well.
Speaker 3: In terms of live action, also, there's a one of
Speaker 3: the shows, right has oh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Gotam has young Bruce Wayne, and then the show
Speaker 2: Uh Titans, which is kind of the teen Titans TV
Speaker 2: show but live action as the guy who plays mormont
Speaker 2: As as an older Batman. Yeah. So they have just
Speaker 2: so many different versions. And so with that, I think
Speaker 2: one thing I want to also touch on, just because
Speaker 2: you brought this up with the detective part that's so big,
Speaker 2: I think the thing that helps for me make Batman
Speaker 2: such an interesting raised so many interesting ethical questions, and
Speaker 2: I think it very much goes in with the detective
Speaker 2: because he always wants to learn more. Batman probably cares
Speaker 2: more about the motives of his rogues gallery than most others.
Speaker 2: I think Spider Man is maybe the closest eval for sure,
Speaker 2: and because of that, Batman often has a lot of
Speaker 2: sympathy for a lot of the people in his rogues gallery,
Speaker 2: and it goes a lot beyond like Batman good villain
Speaker 2: bad in that Batman is for the most part, with
Speaker 2: some exceptions, you know, actively breaking the law, and there's
Speaker 2: a lot of ways which you could look at, like
Speaker 2: he raises all the questions like is a a vigilante
Speaker 2: a good thing or a bad thing? His villains are
Speaker 2: doing actual harm to people, but often have somewhat understandable motives.
Speaker 2: Iceman being one of Iceman, Doctor Freeze, mister Freeze.
Speaker 3: I'm name, he's also doctor Freeze though, right, because he's
Speaker 3: a doctor and his last name is Freeze Victor Freeze. Yes,
Speaker 3: but his his name is is you know, he goes
Speaker 3: by mister f who.
Speaker 2: Is not defined by the bad puns as the Arnold
Speaker 2: Schwarzenegger version of him, would they think, But again, but yeah,
Speaker 2: that's so. I think that's the other really important part
Speaker 2: of him is that there's a lot more about who
Speaker 2: the rogue squad are and how they became villains, and
Speaker 2: most of them are very over the top, some of
Speaker 2: them are very malicious and evil some of them. And
Speaker 2: I think we're still a good example in this In
Speaker 2: this show we'll talk about a second really don't understand
Speaker 2: that they're doing harm, and Batman often has a lot
Speaker 2: of sympathy for them, And like, I love that you
Speaker 2: talked about vengeance. I think in many ways, Batman is
Speaker 2: one of the best stories we have about how to
Speaker 2: shift from wanting to do vengeance to wanting to work
Speaker 2: for justice or wanting to you know, prevent harm to others,
Speaker 2: and how there's a danger of falling into vengeance instead
Speaker 2: and all those questions.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2: So with that, let's start talking about this show. And
Speaker 2: I don't think you're gonna have to have watched the
Speaker 2: show in order to enjoy the conversation, but we will
Speaker 2: be spoiling a lot of things in it, So highly
Speaker 2: recommend if you can, you haven't seen the show yet,
Speaker 2: hit pause, go watch it. It's ten thirty minute episodes,
Speaker 2: so it comes out to you know, about five hourage
Speaker 2: or so. Content. It's I think it's very good. I
Speaker 2: think I've got some problems with that talk about, but
Speaker 2: overall quite an enjoyable part of the story. But with that, Paul,
Speaker 2: what really struck you about this version of Batman?
Speaker 3: Well, to begin with, I felt like this Batman himself
Speaker 3: was similar to the the Matt Reeves Batman right in
Speaker 3: The Batman where he was.
Speaker 2: Notable Matt Reeves as an executive producer of the show.
Speaker 3: Yes, exactly. Yeah, And like when I saw his name
Speaker 3: in the credits and that it like made it easier
Speaker 3: to make the connection. Okay, that's that's why he's calling
Speaker 3: him Pennyworth, not Alfred. And that's like kind of I
Speaker 3: mean spoilers, right, you just gave the spoiler warm Like
Speaker 3: by the end, he calls him Alfred. Like that's his
Speaker 3: big character moment. That's like Batman's big character moment is
Speaker 3: like he stops calling Alfred Pennyworth. He calls him Alfred,
Speaker 3: he corrects himself. He's like, this is a person. I'm
Speaker 3: gonna treat him like a person that's important, you know,
Speaker 3: not just like he's you know, a servant, right and
Speaker 3: and not just like he's a cog kind of in
Speaker 3: the Batman machine. So in terms of Batman, I feel
Speaker 3: like he was a very kind of consistent, very much
Speaker 3: my Batman, who's not quite yet all the way by Batman,
Speaker 3: you know, like he talks about vengeance. He he picks
Speaker 3: up a gun and fires it a number of times
Speaker 3: but scares him, I guess, and then he gets apprehended,
Speaker 3: not Batman. There's a whole thing about hunting down Batman,
Speaker 3: which like I can do without, you know, I'm like, okay,
Speaker 3: I've seen enough iterations of that story kind of you know,
Speaker 3: and and it never makes a ton of sense to me.
Speaker 3: It's it's it's interesting that the cops are just like
Speaker 3: shoot on site and they're really into shooting at people
Speaker 3: in this story. You know, I think Batman himself is
Speaker 3: probably not at all the most interesting part of this story.
Speaker 3: I feel like this Batman is very much just like
Speaker 3: you know, he's who he is. He's a Batman that
Speaker 3: I recognize as Batman. And I think actually the Gordons
Speaker 3: are two of the most interesting characters here, and you know,
Speaker 3: they talk a lot about you know, Barbara Gordon in
Speaker 3: this version is a public defender and her father, Commissioner Gordon,
Speaker 3: is a commissioner, right, and so he's already Commissioner he's
Speaker 3: in charge of the whole police department, and but he's
Speaker 3: got pressure from the mayor's office. I had flashbacks to
Speaker 3: a wire conversation yep, during you know, think about this
Speaker 3: whole thing, and you know, Barbara and and her dad
Speaker 3: like have a lot of conversations about you know, what's
Speaker 3: the justice system doing? You know, is it is it
Speaker 3: doing good? Is it you know it's putting people behind
Speaker 3: bars in the way that they're doing it. Is this
Speaker 3: a good thing? Is this like what we should be doing?
Speaker 3: Kind of? And you know, I'll say that, you know,
Speaker 3: the Matt Reeves Gordon and who's not yet commissioner, but
Speaker 3: you know in that version he's black, right, And it's
Speaker 3: not a big deal within the context of the movie.
Speaker 3: I think they actually do kind of say something about that, right,
Speaker 3: that's kind of but maybe they don't think the movie so,
Speaker 3: but like it's still regardless of whether it's relevant within
Speaker 3: the context of the story or to what extent it is,
Speaker 3: I think it's obviously going to be relevant in terms
Speaker 3: of how the story feels living in our world right
Speaker 3: and watching it from from where we are, and and
Speaker 3: so to see Barbara, who in this story is also black,
Speaker 3: have this conversation with her father, the two of them.
Speaker 3: I think that conversation about the justice system and what
Speaker 3: it's doing. Is it doing good? Is it doing harm?
Speaker 3: I think that conversation feels different when it's between two
Speaker 3: black characters than when it's between two white characters, which
Speaker 3: is what we see, I think a lot more often
Speaker 3: just because of you know, the demographics of television and
Speaker 3: movies really, but so I feel like, you know, here
Speaker 3: Barbara has a lot more agency than she does in
Speaker 3: some other versions. You know, she's she's doing she's an
Speaker 3: adult doing adult things, and you know, she's friends with
Speaker 3: doctor Quinzel and with I think a Sergeant Montoya, Detective Montoya, right,
Speaker 3: and and I think there's a lot of really good
Speaker 3: stuff in all of those dynamics. And I enjoy her
Speaker 3: and AND's Commissioner Gordon and kind of all of them
Speaker 3: getting to be a little bit more center stage characters.
Speaker 3: And like while like Batman's doing Batman things, and you
Speaker 3: still get to see Batman do cool things and be
Speaker 3: a detective and like do stuff, right, but like he
Speaker 3: you know, in some in some stories, I think he's
Speaker 3: kind of sucking up more of the oxygen than in others,
Speaker 3: and in this one, I feel like it reminds me
Speaker 3: I feel almost a little bit at points of Batman
Speaker 3: Returns right, which we covered with with Ashley and how
Speaker 3: you know, Batman's there doing Batman things, but it's like
Speaker 3: there's a lot of other stuff going on. And after
Speaker 3: recently talking about Cobra Kai and how it felt like
Speaker 3: the show's writers were not very interested in their characters
Speaker 3: and they're kind of just about creating this kind of
Speaker 3: drama here, I really do feel like the writers are
Speaker 3: very interested in their characters, the same way Batman's very
Speaker 3: interested in his rogues gallery, and like, what are their motivations?
Speaker 3: Why are they doing what they're doing? Right, It's not
Speaker 3: the antagonists are not antagonists for the purpose of having
Speaker 3: an antagonist. They are antagonists because they want something different,
Speaker 3: because there are people who want something different than what
Speaker 3: the protagonist wants. Basically, sure, and I think that just
Speaker 3: makes better stories.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it really does. And a couple of times we
Speaker 2: actually get the point of view of an antagonist. In
Speaker 2: one case I'm definitely talking about in a bit, But
Speaker 2: I want to focus especially on the Gordons, as you said,
Speaker 2: because one of the dynamics that we've seen a number
Speaker 2: of times, is the idea of kind of what is
Speaker 2: the role of the public defender, of the defense attorney,
Speaker 2: and the frustration that cops and prosecutors often have with
Speaker 2: that person, and is that person incredibly corrupt and are
Speaker 2: they part of the police, are they part of the problem,
Speaker 2: or as I think is the much more accurate portrayal,
Speaker 2: should they be understood as part of the justice system,
Speaker 2: in that their job is specifically not to try and
Speaker 2: allow criminals to go free. It's to make sure that
Speaker 2: the justice system is as non corrupt as possible, that
Speaker 2: there aren't cutting corners, that they are doing everything the
Speaker 2: way that they should be doing. And we can talk
Speaker 2: a lot about whether that's a system that is like
Speaker 2: whether it's a band aid or a real monitor system
Speaker 2: or all that kind of things. Like take, for example,
Speaker 2: in the TV show Arrow, you have this exact same
Speaker 2: dynamic in the Land's family where the father is a
Speaker 2: police captain. I think you've actually become a police commissioner.
Speaker 2: He could kind of rise up through the ranks, and
Speaker 2: his daughter is a defense attorney and he gets mad
Speaker 2: at her for defending and they have like the very
Speaker 2: surface level of this conversation, but it never really goes deeper,
Speaker 2: and I feel like here it does go a lot deeper,
Speaker 2: especially as he said, by giving Barbara friendships with a
Speaker 2: psychiatrist who is also another person who you know. She
Speaker 2: is the person who decides if a person is like,
Speaker 2: you know, a criminal or mentally you know. She's the
Speaker 2: person who decides, like whether or not a person is
Speaker 2: like mentally fit in order to like stand trial, or
Speaker 2: should be understood as sick and not evil. And that's
Speaker 2: a whole other system we can spend many episodes about,
Speaker 2: and of course her character goes in some interesting directions,
Speaker 2: but the conversations that they have helped to again ground it.
Speaker 2: And I very much agree with you that making them
Speaker 2: both black in a system that we're often idiots people
Speaker 2: of color and especially black people who are the victims
Speaker 2: of prosecutatorial misconduct, police misconduct, and often are not able
Speaker 2: to afford the fanciest attorney defense attorneys, and they'll get
Speaker 2: the public defenders, who I want to be clear, are
Speaker 2: doing the lord's work. I mean, public defenders are some
Speaker 2: of the most unappreciated people in this country, I think,
Speaker 2: but often they don't have the resources to do a
Speaker 2: very good job, and so often don't get a good defense.
Speaker 2: And so yeah, I really appreciated the way that that
Speaker 2: those conversations because I think for me, one of the
Speaker 2: fundamental questions I think at the heart of Batman I
Speaker 2: think has always been there, but that Christopher Nolan I
Speaker 2: think really brought to the surface a bit. And there's
Speaker 2: a question that, like we're wrestling with a lot more
Speaker 2: today than we have been in the other times in
Speaker 2: the past, at least more publicly, can the system be saved?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: And is the role of Batman that the justice system
Speaker 2: fundamentally works, but they're people who have slipped through their
Speaker 2: crawt and so Batman is there to deal with That
Speaker 2: is the idea that the system is corrupt and fixable,
Speaker 2: but you need a Batman to be dealing with the
Speaker 2: stuff that the police can't deal with right now, so
Speaker 2: that the system can fix itself, which is kind of
Speaker 2: the Christopher Nolan version of two of the movies, but
Speaker 2: not that his vision gets very confused, I think, or
Speaker 2: is it the idea that the system is utterly fundamentally
Speaker 2: broken and unsavable, and so you need a Batman and
Speaker 2: a lot of other bad people and I don't think
Speaker 2: this show really tries to give an answer to that.
Speaker 2: It really because part of the idea is that I
Speaker 2: think Nolan is, as you said, no, Nolan's sire giving
Speaker 2: me commissioner. Gordon definitely is one of the good cops
Speaker 2: in an a cab world, but you know, in a
Speaker 2: he's trying to do the best he can, but he
Speaker 2: wants to be a Yeah, he is of the idea
Speaker 2: that like, you can toss out the bad apples and
Speaker 2: save the whole bunch, and he wants to find those
Speaker 2: bad apples, but he's dealing with not only all of
Speaker 2: his pressure from on top, but also a lot of
Speaker 2: his subordinates just are utterly uninterested in what he's trying
Speaker 2: to do and wind up kind of going around him,
Speaker 2: particularly Bullock and Bullock's partner Flass. Yes, Flass, thank you,
Speaker 2: and so yes. I just think it's it. I like
Speaker 2: things that raise harder questions for us without giving a
Speaker 2: specific answer, and that's what I kind of think this
Speaker 2: was done. Like I at least didn't think it was
Speaker 2: giving a specific answer of here's the way the criminal
Speaker 2: justice system should be. It was saying like, this is
Speaker 2: a broken system, and Gordon and Batman are kind of
Speaker 2: on two opposite ends, both trying to fix the system
Speaker 2: and here's where they're successful and here's what they're not.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely, And I feel like I feel like trying
Speaker 3: to give a clear answer one way or the other,
Speaker 3: certainly in a show like this, I think would be
Speaker 3: a mistake. You know, Like I mean, I guess you
Speaker 3: can have the viewpoint that the system is good and
Speaker 3: sometimes people are bad, and so you want to try
Speaker 3: and portray a picture of optimism. They're like, hey, look,
Speaker 3: we can make the system work, we just have to
Speaker 3: kind of root out the bad apples. You can also
Speaker 3: have the opposite viewpoint that, like the system is maybe
Speaker 3: even inherently bad, not just like the system's corrupt, right,
Speaker 3: it's bad and needs to be dismantled. And that's another viewpoint.
Speaker 3: But I think if you're trying to tell a Batman story,
Speaker 3: I think, I mean, you could obviously the first one.
Speaker 3: The second one I think is tougher. The second one
Speaker 3: feels more like you're gonna have to tell a punisher
Speaker 3: story or something. I don't know, you know, if you
Speaker 3: want to go there. But I feel like a lot
Speaker 3: of the best questions, a lot of the toughest questions
Speaker 3: are best left unanswered in fiction, and I think it's
Speaker 3: generally better to present characters with different viewpoints, have events
Speaker 3: that challenge those characters' viewpoints, as happens with Barbara, right
Speaker 3: and happens with Jim as well, Jim Gordon and I
Speaker 3: mean Nan Batman for that matter, and basically challenge your
Speaker 3: characters and just kind of show how someone might deal
Speaker 3: with sort of thinking one thing, then seeing something that
Speaker 3: kind of contradicts that to some extent or challenges that,
Speaker 3: and then kind of how do they square that and
Speaker 3: how do they proceed? And not saying, oh, this is
Speaker 3: the way things are, this is the way things should be,
Speaker 3: but kind of just like telling a story where people
Speaker 3: are people, you know. And I think even just asking
Speaker 3: the question and just putting it out there is it.
Speaker 3: I think it trusts the audience to an extent to say, like, look,
Speaker 3: here's some stuff to think about, and go ahead and
Speaker 3: think about that to the extent that you want. Right,
Speaker 3: We're not going to like constantly belabor it. We're going
Speaker 3: to put it out there and then you know, here's
Speaker 3: an explosion and here's some cool, cool fight scene, and
Speaker 3: you know, yeah, and then a couple character moments, and
Speaker 3: so it's not like the whole show is this stuff, right,
Speaker 3: but this is a These themes are are present, they're
Speaker 3: thick within the show's broth.
Speaker 2: I mean, in some ways what you described is kind
Speaker 2: of the kind of story for which this podcast exists,
Speaker 2: because I always thought that a lot of what we
Speaker 2: do here is when fiction raises questions, and if they
Speaker 2: offer we discuss those questions, and if it offers an answer,
Speaker 2: we might wrestle with an answer, or in this case,
Speaker 2: we're much more open we can talk about that. And
Speaker 2: one thing I kept thinking about, especially with your comments,
Speaker 2: has now brought up for me is that I feel
Speaker 2: like the movie The Batman doesn't offer a solid answer,
Speaker 2: but offers more of a direction than an answer could
Speaker 2: go in that I don't think I saw here, and
Speaker 2: maybe you saw it and just missed it because and
Speaker 2: I think you actually helped me see this. In the
Speaker 2: movie The Batman, there are more explicit than they are
Speaker 2: on this about part of what he wants is he
Speaker 2: wants to make criminals be afraid, and then in some
Speaker 2: of the last scenes of that movie, he winds up
Speaker 2: being the literal light that helps that other people can
Speaker 2: follow towards salvation, towards being saved from this drowning, you know.
Speaker 2: And I think it's the idea of like I don't
Speaker 2: want to offer fear to the bad people, I want
Speaker 2: offer hope to the good people. Yeah, and which I
Speaker 2: think is a very interesting kind of like, hey, what
Speaker 2: if this is a shift And it's interesting to me
Speaker 2: that that this Batman doesn't go there, but I kind
Speaker 2: of wonder, like, like, to me, it seems like they're
Speaker 2: both part of the same kind of conversation, if that
Speaker 2: makes sense.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, yeah, I think. Yeah. I mean that image of
Speaker 3: Batman holding this like flare in the darkness and leading
Speaker 3: all these people through the water like out of you know,
Speaker 3: this submerged stadium or event venue or whatever, is like
Speaker 3: that's that's to me, that's like the most enduring image
Speaker 3: of that film, you know. And like maybe he's still
Speaker 3: inciting fear in people who want to do harm to
Speaker 3: the people who he's trying to inspire hope in, right
Speaker 3: and here, Yeah, there's definitely not that like symbol of
Speaker 3: hope kind of thing going on right so much, but
Speaker 3: there's I think it's you know, I mean, it's a
Speaker 3: whole season it's like you said, it's close to five hours. Honestly,
Speaker 3: like the actual run time minus the credits is probably
Speaker 3: not that different from the Batman movie, right, But there's
Speaker 3: so many more characters here, Yeah, I mean the Batman
Speaker 3: takes its time with a smaller number of characters. Here,
Speaker 3: we really we have a big cast.
Speaker 2: I do think as I think about it, there are
Speaker 2: some elements of hope in this story as well, particularly
Speaker 2: a Batman offering hope to the characters. I think for
Speaker 2: Jim Gordon, because I think when Jim Gordon like, there's
Speaker 2: the sort of feeling of like for both JM and
Speaker 2: for Barbara and some others, they at first very much
Speaker 2: resist the idea of the Batman because to them they're
Speaker 2: dedicated to the system and someone working outside the system
Speaker 2: is by definition wrong and bad and just as much
Speaker 2: of a criminal, right, and towards the end, I think
Speaker 2: both of them like, I think, especially for Jim, the
Speaker 2: Batman helps remind him that he's not alone. Yeah, there
Speaker 2: are others who want to fight the fight that he's fighting,
Speaker 2: that even if most of the systems corrupt, there are
Speaker 2: people who want something to be better, And I think
Speaker 2: we see scenes of the people of Gotham. Having some
Speaker 2: sense of Batman gives me some hope that someone's on
Speaker 2: my side at a time when it seems like all
Speaker 2: the people are out to get me, including the cops.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you're right, Yeah, for sure. And I
Speaker 3: think you know the scene of you know, going into
Speaker 3: that burning building now and where where Gordon confronts Batman
Speaker 3: for the first time but then realizes like at that point,
Speaker 3: Batman just cares about like saving people from the fire,
Speaker 3: you know, like that's what he's there for. At this point.
Speaker 3: He tried to catch the fire bug, right, but like
Speaker 3: that didn't work out, and now he's just, you know,
Speaker 3: he's just trying to to save some kids whatever. And
Speaker 3: I think that's where where Gordon like sees who Batman
Speaker 3: is right in terms of like what he's really trying
Speaker 3: to do, you know. And then you actually get kind
Speaker 3: of like the the flip of that where where Barbara
Speaker 3: actually runs into a burning building or a destroyed building
Speaker 3: to say, Batman, you know, right, and then.
Speaker 2: Batman's kind of a gig to her about it.
Speaker 3: But that's again, yeah, Batman's just kind of a Batman
Speaker 3: to her. You know. It's like that's that's what you know.
Speaker 3: He he doesn't want other people risking themselves for him, right,
Speaker 3: which I think maybe eventually he comes around on, but
Speaker 3: like not soon, not in most of the Batman's I see, well, because.
Speaker 2: I think there's sometimes there's this idea of, like I
Speaker 2: think in the Christopher Nolan movie, Batman does not want
Speaker 2: other people trying to be like assistant Batman, in part
Speaker 2: because he doesn't need them and they actually get in
Speaker 2: his way. In this one, I think the implication is
Speaker 2: that he may well have saved himself. He's Batman, but
Speaker 2: he's unconscious in a burning building.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it looks pretty blak.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I think that there's a good possibility
Speaker 2: that Gordon doesn't save him. He dies in that moment,
Speaker 2: And so it's not even just the I don't want
Speaker 2: you to help me. He's unable to acknowledge that he
Speaker 2: needed her help. And I think that's very tied in
Speaker 2: to the Pennyworth Alfred thing, where this is also the
Speaker 2: start of him realizing he needs Alfred both as like
Speaker 2: his man in the chair, but also is like his
Speaker 2: only human connection is Bruce Wayne.
Speaker 3: Right, the only person who knows all of who he.
Speaker 2: Is really, Yes, exactly exactly. I want to quickly comment
Speaker 2: on the firefly and then use it as a way
Speaker 2: to start talking about some of the antagonists we get
Speaker 2: because Firebug, forgiving, he's not fire flies, as he reminds us.
Speaker 2: He's only in one episode. We don't get much of him,
Speaker 2: but we got one moment that I thought was such
Speaker 2: a beautiful way of showing us his inner story and
Speaker 2: that he is someone who is not malicious in the
Speaker 2: slightest because he is portrayed as someone who just is
Speaker 2: You know, I don't know what technically the term pyromaniac means,
Speaker 2: because I know that there's a medical definition and I
Speaker 2: don't know if this is at all accurate to that,
Speaker 2: But I think we are supposed to believe that he
Speaker 2: is someone who has an obsession and of love with
Speaker 2: fire and simply does not understand the negative consequences of it. Right,
Speaker 2: And we see him getting ready to light a building
Speaker 2: on fire and including lighting the number of children on fire,
Speaker 2: and we get a moment like literally through his goggles
Speaker 2: and what he sees is children playing in the street
Speaker 2: and having fun, and then children on fire having even
Speaker 2: more fun rather playing in the street, and like it
Speaker 2: would be very hard, I think to externally try to
Speaker 2: convey the idea that he doesn't understand that he is
Speaker 2: doing harm. But just with those three seconds, I think
Speaker 2: you feel the same. But tell me, yeah, I was
Speaker 2: hit so hard with this idea of, oh, he is sick.
Speaker 2: He is not malicious in the slightest and like he's
Speaker 2: a danger and we have to prevent that. But this
Speaker 2: is not a person who wants to do harm. This
Speaker 2: is a person whose brain is different enough and off
Speaker 2: kilter enough. I guess I could say that he fundamentally
Speaker 2: does not understand that what he's doing is not good.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, you know. I mean, he clearly does not
Speaker 3: have a grasp on the reality of what fire does
Speaker 3: to human bodies. He has a different view, and he
Speaker 3: thinks that's a good thing. Not in a oh good,
Speaker 3: I'm going to kill people, but like, look on fire,
Speaker 3: isn't that great? You know, like like you light a
Speaker 3: log on fire and then it's bursting in flame and
Speaker 3: it's so pretty, and like why wouldn't they be happy
Speaker 3: this way? And so he's clearly not well in a
Speaker 3: very very specific and very harmful way. But like he's
Speaker 3: he's not evil, he's not trying to cause harm. You know,
Speaker 3: it's like if somebody's swinging their arms around wildly because
Speaker 3: they're excited and maybe they have scissor hands or something,
Speaker 3: and they don't understand that their scissors are hitting people. Right,
Speaker 3: it's like the same thing kind of where it's just
Speaker 3: like it's a total disconnection from the consequences of his actions.
Speaker 3: And I mean even thinking that there are these positive
Speaker 3: consequences that aren't what's what's real, and he just he's
Speaker 3: just a guy who needs help, right like he and
Speaker 3: I don't. I also am not going to speak to
Speaker 3: the you know, the accuracy of that from the standpoint
Speaker 3: of psychiatry, But as far as as a character goes,
Speaker 3: I like seeing some characters who and this is very
Speaker 3: common in Batman villains, but this is even like this
Speaker 3: is that to like an extreme example, and and it
Speaker 3: was delivered so brilliantly in this simple visual right in
Speaker 3: a way that you could have some expository dialogue. Oh,
Speaker 3: you know, when he sees children lighting on, like it
Speaker 3: would be awful if they tried to just deliver that
Speaker 3: with dialogue. But here just like boom, just in just
Speaker 3: a few frames. Even it's like we see it and
Speaker 3: we see the world through his eyes, and we understand, like,
Speaker 3: this is someone who needs to not be out on
Speaker 3: the street with access to fire, right like they're you know,
Speaker 3: and that doesn't necessarily mean he needs to be like
Speaker 3: locked away in Arkham for his whole life, right, And
Speaker 3: that's where kind of our you know, concerns and thoughts
Speaker 3: about the justice system comes in, where it's like, well,
Speaker 3: what is an actual practical way to try to help
Speaker 3: someone like this lead a fulfilling life with out lighting
Speaker 3: other humans on fire? Like? How do we do that?
Speaker 3: And I don't think there's a simple answer to that,
Speaker 3: but I think there are some very obvious bad answers,
Speaker 3: and I think most of what our world does, and
Speaker 3: most of what Gotham does, are those obvious bad answers. Here,
Speaker 3: he's deliberately let loose by Harvey Bullock and Flass in
Speaker 3: an attempt to draw out Batman, which you know works
Speaker 3: because Batman's like, oh, a building's on fire with kids
Speaker 3: in it, I'm going to head over there. Right. This
Speaker 3: was part of their you know, hunting hunting Batman program,
Speaker 3: and then they murder, I mean Flass murders, right, is
Speaker 3: it Flass? Who does it? Right? It's not Bullock. I
Speaker 3: think it's yeah Bullock. Yeah, literally just murders firebug and
Speaker 3: he falls out a window and then is deemed a hero,
Speaker 3: you know, for for stopping the bad guy who he
Speaker 3: literally put out on the street with access to to
Speaker 3: his equipment. And and yeah, I think I think the
Speaker 3: like Harvey and Flass, the Bullock in Flass, not to
Speaker 3: be confused with Harvey Tent. Their dynamic I think is interesting.
Speaker 3: I think them being like so corrupt and like really evil, right,
Speaker 3: like they don't they don't seem to have very complex motives,
Speaker 3: and I think that really adds a lot to it,
Speaker 3: you know, showing these like very bad cops. I also
Speaker 3: think it's interesting that they have Flass as a as
Speaker 3: a black character here, and you know, it adds to
Speaker 3: the whole you know that this when we're talking about
Speaker 3: criminal justice and stuff, like in some places it really
Speaker 3: is like the whole thing is like a bunch of
Speaker 3: white people and policing you know, black neighborhoods. And obviously
Speaker 3: that's bad and doesn't make any sense, but oftentimes there
Speaker 3: are you know, there's a number of black folks in
Speaker 3: the in the a you know, police system, in the department,
Speaker 3: And and that doesn't always make things better, right, It's
Speaker 3: not like that automate Like it's a better starting point,
Speaker 3: but it doesn't necessarily mean that the system is then
Speaker 3: going to be good and just and deliver the results that.
Speaker 2: Like they're women who uphold patriarchy, either gay people, transaction,
Speaker 2: all those kind of things. Yeah, And there's a couple
Speaker 2: of things I want to touch on there. One is
Speaker 2: I think you're right, it's actually this is this is
Speaker 2: holding up mirror to another part of this whole justice
Speaker 2: system idea, which is I think it's very tied to
Speaker 2: the vengeance we hear about people doing terrible things. Like
Speaker 2: if you hear about someone who lights children on fire,
Speaker 2: like most of us, I think even those of us
Speaker 2: who have a very kind of like more nuanced idea
Speaker 2: of what criminal justice should be, my first response is like,
Speaker 2: that's a horrible person. And what I didn't have to
Speaker 2: fight is like I want something horrible that I happen
Speaker 2: to that person because they're lighting kids, it's on fire.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: And I think a lot of times it's hard for
Speaker 2: us to reconcile this idea that a person can do
Speaker 2: so many horrible things and then what do we do
Speaker 2: with that that desire for vengeance, whether it's personal or
Speaker 2: kind of societal. And with the Firefly character, we get
Speaker 2: this interesting idea of like, yeah, this person doesn't want
Speaker 2: to do harm, And a lot of the push for
Speaker 2: reform in our modern day police state system is this
Speaker 2: idea of like, how can we separate out the need
Speaker 2: to put people in a situation where they are unable
Speaker 2: to continue doing harm? How do we help to reform
Speaker 2: them if possible, so that they will no longer do
Speaker 2: harm and separate them out from the they are bad,
Speaker 2: therefore they should suffer, so that our desire for vengeance
Speaker 2: feels better in some ways. And you know, some will
Speaker 2: argue that the threat of punishment is a deterrent. I
Speaker 2: think we've seen pretty clearly statistically that's not the case.
Speaker 2: But you know, that's another point of view and not
Speaker 2: to be argued here. But yeah, the point being, I
Speaker 2: think all of it, and then putting it up against
Speaker 2: people like Quinzel, who we see kind of already as Harley,
Speaker 2: and I want to give her her whole conversation in
Speaker 2: a few minutes, who I think is acting somewhat more.
Speaker 2: She may have some you know, motivations that are more
Speaker 2: altruistic of doing good or trying to save people. But
Speaker 2: I think she also has a lot of run personal motivations,
Speaker 2: and especially towards the end, and that like compare a
Speaker 2: cop like Bullock in this who, as he said, is
Speaker 2: just like pure malevolence in many ways, with someone like
Speaker 2: the image of Montoya in the Dark Knight, who wants
Speaker 2: to be a good cop, wants to do well, but
Speaker 2: when put up against the desire, I think it's her
Speaker 2: mother is like going to be killed unless she helps
Speaker 2: the joker. She does the corrupt thing, but for very
Speaker 2: different motivation. I think. I think you can look at
Speaker 2: her and Bullock and call him equally corrupt, and I
Speaker 2: think that in terms of the harm they do, that
Speaker 2: may actually be somewhat accurate, but the reasons for it,
Speaker 2: again are fundamentally different, you know, just like the fire
Speaker 2: bug and Penguin.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so you pivoted a penguin there, which which
Speaker 3: I think is a good because you were talking about
Speaker 3: Quinzel for a minute. Yeah right, But yeah, I mean,
Speaker 3: if we want to talk about penguin, like Penguin.
Speaker 2: Is the most like clearly malicious, like she just wants
Speaker 2: to get rich and have power.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she's just a mob boss, you know, who's like
Speaker 3: not doing it for family. You know. It's like she's
Speaker 3: just like, yeah, I want money. I'm somehow a master criminal,
Speaker 3: even though I'm going to bump off one of my
Speaker 3: own kids, despite by just like a tip off from
Speaker 3: my enemy. That part didn't really work for me. I
Speaker 3: was like, wait, what, You're not going to try and
Speaker 3: fact check this? But I did appreciate, Like I didn't
Speaker 3: like the first episode that much. I think it's a
Speaker 3: mini driver as Penguin.
Speaker 2: By the way, and just to be clear, yeah, for
Speaker 2: those onse who are hearing a she and I mean driver,
Speaker 2: they do a number of interesting flips in the show,
Speaker 2: and one of them is they make Penguin a woman.
Speaker 2: And we'll talk about that a second, be a good one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, she's just a mob boss. She's
Speaker 3: just like I mean Penguin. Usually, it's pretty much kind
Speaker 3: of what Penguin is a lot of the time, right,
Speaker 3: She's basically a fairly normal penguin. She just happens to
Speaker 3: be a woman. And what I like about that in
Speaker 3: particular is that Batman has a real tendency to take
Speaker 3: almost every female villain and have them be sympathetic relatable,
Speaker 3: not like a real evil villain the way you know
Speaker 3: Joker or maybe Riddler or a handful of other male villains.
Speaker 3: I mean, overall, batman villains tend to be more relatable
Speaker 3: than a lot of other villains, right, which we've been
Speaker 3: talking about, But like that's especially true with female villains,
Speaker 3: especially true with attractive female villones. And you could say, well,
Speaker 3: you know, Penguin's kind of heavy and like, so maybe
Speaker 3: they're not totally breaking that mold, but I did just
Speaker 3: feel like this Penguin basically let us say, like, look,
Speaker 3: there are some really nasty, malevolent people in the world
Speaker 3: who are just greedy and just want stuff, and we
Speaker 3: have to figure out what to do about that. And
Speaker 3: then there's and some of them are women, some of
Speaker 3: them are men. And then there's also you know, people
Speaker 3: who do villainous things that aren't motivated by greed or
Speaker 3: by mouths. I mean, greed analys are kind of two
Speaker 3: different things, right. There's like wanting someone else to suffer,
Speaker 3: and then there's just like wanting to have stuff for yourself, right,
Speaker 3: And those are the two things that we might call evil, right, I.
Speaker 2: Would say count Woman is a very interesting counterplay because
Speaker 2: in this Catwoman has no altruistic motives. She's purely agreed,
Speaker 2: but she's not really malicious. She's like, rich people have
Speaker 2: stuff that sucks. I want stuff, yeah, take stuff from
Speaker 2: rich people. And she's not actively trying. And yes, I
Speaker 2: do think that she is much more attractive and flirts
Speaker 2: with Batman in a way that Penguin, who is both
Speaker 2: heavier set althought have a comment on that, because I
Speaker 2: think there is a heavy set character who is portrayed
Speaker 2: as very attractive in this, but also she's older and like,
Speaker 2: you know, she has the nose of the Penguin idea.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I think they didn't try to give Catwoman
Speaker 2: any kind of altruistic motive. They didn't try to give
Speaker 2: her a hero turn as often happens. But she's also
Speaker 2: not She's just a burglar people. She doesn't have some
Speaker 2: deal plan. She just wants stuff. Rich people have stuff,
Speaker 2: right exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I feel like, I don't know, I almost
Speaker 3: think like if you took out like a you know,
Speaker 3: an alignment chart, like a D and D alignment chart,
Speaker 3: like you'd have characters who were really onlike basically every
Speaker 3: point when you really think of it, you know. And
Speaker 3: and so I just really appreciate the you know, the
Speaker 3: diversity of villains in terms of you know, not just
Speaker 3: what they look like or whatever, but like motivation, right,
Speaker 3: there's yeah, and it I think it plays better when
Speaker 3: you have a villain like Firebug, when you also have
Speaker 3: a villain like Penguin, right, when you also have a
Speaker 3: burglar like Catwoman, and and just you know, and then
Speaker 3: even someone like Colou was a Carlo what was his name,
Speaker 3: Basil Carlo. You know, he was clayface here, but yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, where he's got it's kind of more vanity
Speaker 3: and some vengeance and stuff like that going on, you know.
Speaker 3: And and there's just there's all these different motivations, and
Speaker 3: I feel like the writers were very interested in the
Speaker 3: motivations of the characters, and you know, and so Batman
Speaker 3: was able to be interested in the in the motivations
Speaker 3: of the characters. Right if if you don't have complex motive,
Speaker 3: then you can't really have a detective who's that interested
Speaker 3: in motive because it's always simple essentially.
Speaker 2: Well, also, I think it's a part of what would
Speaker 2: allows the Batman character to shift away from vengeance is
Speaker 2: because vengeance is driven on this idea of these are
Speaker 2: bad people, they deserve to suffer. And I've always thought
Speaker 2: that some of those interesting stories are where and I
Speaker 2: actually think the TV show Gotham did one of the
Speaker 2: best jobs of this is that when you know when
Speaker 2: a person does something bad to you, and this can
Speaker 2: be on like broad political scales or just like you know,
Speaker 2: the person in eighth grade who you know, stowing your
Speaker 2: pencil or whatever, like, it's easy in your head to
Speaker 2: build them up to be a monster. And that's very
Speaker 2: much what young Bruce Wayne does with Joe Chill and
Speaker 2: then gets this very disappointed feeling when it's just like
Speaker 2: this is just a guy who like is killing people,
Speaker 2: Like he's not good, like you know, upstanding, one full guy,
Speaker 2: but also someone who's just as much a victim of
Speaker 2: like the poverty system and all this, and is driven
Speaker 2: to desk primes of desperation much more than like you know,
Speaker 2: malicious like I want to rule the world crimes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and like killing them is not going to change anything. Yeah,
Speaker 3: exactely not going to bring my parents back at least
Speaker 3: right for sure. For sure, Let's talk about harlequin quinze
Speaker 3: uh Heart Harley and Quinzel.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's talk about Harley and Quinzel. And I want
Speaker 2: to start just by saying, because I kind of mentioned
Speaker 2: her before, they change her character in a number of ways,
Speaker 2: one of which is until the very end of the
Speaker 2: show it's not clear whether she is like already connected
Speaker 2: to Joker or not, and we'll get to that in
Speaker 2: a bit. But also they make her I think Asian
Speaker 2: is supposed to be her her background, and they make
Speaker 2: I mentioned that I do think there's a character who
Speaker 2: is heavier set but also quite attractive. She's definitely not
Speaker 2: portrayed as like model Finn. She's presented as heavier, but
Speaker 2: when she puts on like the Harlequin outfit in her case,
Speaker 2: it's form fitting and like she looks damn good in it.
Speaker 2: Like I think a thick would rather be a very
Speaker 2: appropriate description. And I liked that a lot in terms
Speaker 2: of her character, and I thought reflected On the one hand,
Speaker 2: I want to say it reflects a like, you know,
Speaker 2: we don't have to portray all attractive people as the same.
Speaker 2: I don't want to give the show too much credit
Speaker 2: because I think it reflects like changing beauty standards in
Speaker 2: our world that like you know more hourglass figures are
Speaker 2: portrayed as a lot more attractive, particularly for women of color,
Speaker 2: and like all the nonsense that gets into but I
Speaker 2: just liked it as one more difference of her character,
Speaker 2: of like, because particularly when she is a psychiatrist, she's
Speaker 2: not presented as the sex pot. You know, she's not
Speaker 2: pencil skirts and impossibly high heels and all this kind
Speaker 2: of stuff. And and yeah, and she's presented as like
Speaker 2: at first, I think you're very much supposed to think
Speaker 2: this is the person before she's met Joker in any way,
Speaker 2: who is just a psychiatrist who has sympathy for her patients.
Speaker 2: What we learned is that she's kidnapping and brainwashing her patients,
Speaker 2: and she might have some like, well, this is actually
Speaker 2: the best way to cure them, but showing them also
Speaker 2: means that they're all brainwashing and doing like She's kind
Speaker 2: of a sadistic dominatrix type in some ways, which I
Speaker 2: think is going to cause a lot of young people
Speaker 2: to ask a lot of questions that they'll be dealing
Speaker 2: with the rest of their lives. And that's fine, but
Speaker 2: catwomen have been doing that for generations. But also just
Speaker 2: I think like there's been this growing trend and I
Speaker 2: think Margaret Robbie has a lot to do with it,
Speaker 2: but other people as well, of like, can we not
Speaker 2: just make Harley an appendage to Joker but give her
Speaker 2: a lot more independence? And normally that's in kind of
Speaker 2: Margot Robbie veiled way Joker makes her and then she
Speaker 2: breaks free. This really portrayed a Harley completely free of Joker,
Speaker 2: who's just kind of awful and badass in her own way.
Speaker 2: What do you think of her portrayal in this?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I thought it was super interesting. I enjoyed it
Speaker 3: a lot. First of all, we meet her at as
Speaker 3: Bruce Wayne's psychiatrists, right court appointed psychiatrist because he he
Speaker 3: does something angry and then he you know, he's mandated to.
Speaker 2: Go to Remember he does not willingly do this.
Speaker 3: It's a like, yes, this is this is not Bruce
Speaker 3: Wayne being like maybe I'll get some therapy.
Speaker 2: Does seem like Harley is the only psychiatrist in Gotham
Speaker 2: because she apparently has a wide wide range what climate
Speaker 2: client she deals with, but that's we can put that
Speaker 2: aside for now.
Speaker 3: Yes, And she's also like an expert wetness in court
Speaker 3: cases and yes, although it was Leslie Tompkins, right, Leslie
Speaker 3: Thompson was there. I think Tompkins. It was Tompkins. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: but like, yeah, there's not there's not a lot of
Speaker 3: other a lot of other strikes there. But so we
Speaker 3: we definitely see her in a very you know, in
Speaker 3: her own professional environment, and then we see her being
Speaker 3: very you know, proactive in a you know, in terms
Speaker 3: of dating and and like just being her, right yeah.
Speaker 3: And then then we see that not like she's become
Speaker 3: Harley Quinn, but like she's been Harley Quinn for some
Speaker 3: time because she's got this collection of former billionaires who
Speaker 3: she got, most of whom to donate moneys to charity
Speaker 3: and whatever, but also to like dress up as babies
Speaker 3: and whatnot and like do stuff for her. And it's
Speaker 3: it's definitely it's one of these like, Okay, I see
Speaker 3: what you're doing. But also I have some notes, you know,
Speaker 3: like maybe you can brainwash them without having them dress
Speaker 3: up like babies. I mean, if that's what they're into, cool,
Speaker 3: no problem whatever. To each their own.
Speaker 2: But I don't think this is the best illustration of
Speaker 2: active consent in kink.
Speaker 3: World, right, yeah, fair enough, fair enough, Yeah, that aspect
Speaker 3: might be the first clue, right, right, right, Yeah, there's
Speaker 3: a lot of kidnapping going on, and so it does
Speaker 3: seem like she has a blend of altruism and I
Speaker 3: don't know if it's vengeance or sadism or exactly what,
Speaker 3: but like she's got some she's got a mix of
Speaker 3: stuff going on, which I like, you know, I feel
Speaker 3: like it doesn't have to be one or the other, right.
Speaker 2: I think especially it's particularly directed in a way that
Speaker 2: I think is a really important social commentary because as
Speaker 2: a psychiatrist, it seems like her specific like direction of
Speaker 2: anger is towards rich men, but especially rich men who
Speaker 2: are unable or unwilling to open up about their feelings.
Speaker 2: And it's often and I think she's very critical of
Speaker 2: Bruce Wayne in that, like at the end of their
Speaker 2: quartered sessions, Bruce was like, oh, I got a lot
Speaker 2: out of this, and She's like, no, you didn't. You
Speaker 2: can't open up at all, right, And you kind of
Speaker 2: get the sense that she kind of wants to kidnap
Speaker 2: Bruce and that on her collection, right, and we see
Speaker 2: like at least a couple of other cases. We see
Speaker 2: one our specific case where she does add someone to
Speaker 2: her collection, and it's exactly that it's someone who is
Speaker 2: another man who won't open up about his feelings.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and.
Speaker 2: Again I think adding to the richness of it, you
Speaker 2: talk about her dating life. We only see her go
Speaker 2: on one date, so I think that it is very
Speaker 2: open what kind of queerness she is, but she very
Speaker 2: clearly is queer. It's a date with Montoya and is
Speaker 2: presented and really kind of awesome, like our cute see
Speaker 2: way or a lot of She's like, she's super nervous
Speaker 2: and she's asking Barbara to like help in it kind
Speaker 2: of like middle school pass a noteway because everyone does,
Speaker 2: but especially if you spend any time in Staffac circles,
Speaker 2: like they'll often talk about women having no idea how
Speaker 2: with other women, and that was really well represented here.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I just think it And what I say
Speaker 2: all that is because I think the idea of the
Speaker 2: man hating lesbian who loves other women and like torturing
Speaker 2: men is a cliche that I think there's some you
Speaker 2: can have some fun with it, but also can become
Speaker 2: pretty queer phobic. That's not what he's shown here, you know, Like,
Speaker 2: I think it could go in that direction. For sure,
Speaker 2: but they don't start dabbling that part of it. She
Speaker 2: has romantic interest in a woman, she's torturing these men
Speaker 2: for her own benefit, but it doesn't take on that element,
Speaker 2: which I really appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. I mean I really appreciated that her
Speaker 3: relationship with Montoya was just presented very matter of factly,
Speaker 3: you know, like in the way that I feel it
Speaker 3: should be, you know, and that if we get another
Speaker 3: ten or twenty years of stories doing that in a
Speaker 3: like non sensational way, maybe we'll live in a world
Speaker 3: where like commenting on that fact doesn't feel necessary anymore.
Speaker 2: And I think that's important. And this is maybe are
Speaker 2: almost an hour. Is a ten episode show, and often
Speaker 2: we can do a whole hour on an episode, So
Speaker 2: we're probably gonna have to do a part two of
Speaker 2: this some other time. But I'll just say one of
Speaker 2: the things I think the show does is is set
Speaker 2: in a time that's probably somewhere in the thirties to
Speaker 2: fifties in terms of technology. There's no computers, there's no
Speaker 2: cell phones, there's dial up phones, all this kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: But also a lot of times when people are making
Speaker 2: sort of period pieces like this, particularly when it's white
Speaker 2: folks making them. It's sort of about, oh, hey, we
Speaker 2: get to be have people use the N word all
Speaker 2: the time, and we get to have people be horribly
Speaker 2: racist and sexist because those were the times. And I
Speaker 2: think there's been a growing direction. I think there's been
Speaker 2: a movement opposite that, which I feel like this is
Speaker 2: very much a part of of Yes, it's the nineteen thirties,
Speaker 2: but two women can kiss at a restaurant and have
Speaker 2: no problems, and a black man can be commissioner of police,
Speaker 2: and like even today, as you said, there's going to
Speaker 2: be some racism around that, and the show doesn't shy
Speaker 2: from that. But in the nineteen thirties, that would be
Speaker 2: almost impossible for a large city like this to have,
Speaker 2: you know, a black man in that kind of a position,
Speaker 2: let alone also you know, some of the other positions
Speaker 2: they have. And I think I think we can do
Speaker 2: a whole I'm gonna say both of the hot art
Speaker 2: I keep basically your debt and Harvey dat time Travelers
Speaker 2: got in the Galaxy and all that hit Tiger's got
Speaker 2: in the Galaxy.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 2: We're gonna save the Harvey Debt storyline and the idea
Speaker 2: of what time period should Batman be saved in for
Speaker 2: part two the Records some other time. But I do
Speaker 2: think I like that idea of it being kind of timeless.
Speaker 2: It is the technology of this time, but much more
Speaker 2: of the social mores of today or even like the
Speaker 2: future that we want.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely, And I think it's a reminder that like
Speaker 3: Gotham is Gotham. Gotham's not New York, Gotham's not DC,
Speaker 3: Gotham's not Detroit. It's Gotham, And this isn't This isn't
Speaker 3: the same world that even other Batman stories take place in, right,
Speaker 3: It's certainly not the world we live in right now.
Speaker 3: And so there's no reason that you can't have the
Speaker 3: technology that existed in the nineteen thirties or forties or
Speaker 3: fifties or even twenties right in our world world, in
Speaker 3: a world that just doesn't have these same issues, these
Speaker 3: same things going on that we have here, and even
Speaker 3: if it does, they don't necessarily have to be centered, right.
Speaker 3: It's like, and I think there's something to be said
Speaker 3: for literal historical stories that show a certain level of
Speaker 3: historical accuracy, but there's no reason that you can't tell
Speaker 3: stories in what looks like the same time period, but
Speaker 3: with some important differences that are like, well, they still
Speaker 3: have corruption, They've still got a lot of bad stuff,
Speaker 3: but they don't have the same racism, sexism, and homophobia
Speaker 3: to the same extent at least that we have now
Speaker 3: and certainly had, you know, in the thirties and forties.
Speaker 2: But in a lot of ways, I think you can
Speaker 2: I would positively compare this to Game of Thrones where
Speaker 2: because I think West ROAs and Gotham exist in very
Speaker 2: similar ways. And if your first response is to go, wait,
Speaker 2: but west Ross is fantasy, like the supernatural is literally
Speaker 2: introduced in terms of like an actual ghost in this
Speaker 2: set in this show.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, this is fantasy. Yeah, and I think which
Speaker 3: I lost by the way the way that all played out.
Speaker 2: But yeah, in both cases, I think this is a
Speaker 2: model like it is model in a particular time period,
Speaker 2: like Gothing is very much like similar to on nineteen thirties,
Speaker 2: nineteen twenties whatever, New York or Chicago, in the same
Speaker 2: way that West Roast is kind of a Middle Ages,
Speaker 2: you know, England or Europe or something like that, but
Speaker 2: where you know, this this show, as we said, is
Speaker 2: kind of saying, okay, and there are a lot of
Speaker 2: terrible things at that time period, we don't have to
Speaker 2: show them, I think the writer but even more the
Speaker 2: writer of the books, but even more the makers of
Speaker 2: the TV show were like, oh, wait a minute, there
Speaker 2: was a lot of sexual violence and bad treatment of
Speaker 2: women in that world. What if we do that all
Speaker 2: the time? It's got in ways where like actually a
Speaker 2: lot of like tits are going to be shown while
Speaker 2: like being over this sexual violence. It's bad bad? Isn't
Speaker 2: it fun to watch?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 2: And it got Yeah, I think it got a critique
Speaker 2: very legitimately, so HBO that would go on to like
Speaker 2: every mob show, some mobster has to own a strip club,
Speaker 2: and we have to have many scenes happen in that
Speaker 2: strip club.
Speaker 3: I mean speaking like the Wires like arguably the greatest
Speaker 3: show ever, but it definitely there are times when it's like, Okay,
Speaker 3: how are we going to get some more tits on
Speaker 3: this screen?
Speaker 2: Like right?
Speaker 3: It really you could hear the writers like like that's
Speaker 3: like almost like one of the biggest complaints, Like and
Speaker 3: it's not a lot of complaints, but it's just like
Speaker 3: this is clearly what this scene is for.
Speaker 2: I mean literally in season one they own a strip
Speaker 2: club and have many of their meetings at the strip club,
Speaker 2: and the camera always is like, oh, but who's on
Speaker 2: stage right now? Don't you want to know? Essential?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: And like it's sopranos they own a strip club. I
Speaker 2: think it's become a fairly common common thing, but yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, yeah, So I just really like that about this,
Speaker 2: the the kind of like it's it's the aesthetics of
Speaker 2: a specific time and period. I think this is what
Speaker 2: we'll talk about more in next episode. But it raises
Speaker 2: really interesting questions, like to what extent is Batman tied
Speaker 2: to a specific like both time in terms of like
Speaker 2: our understanding of wealth and understanding of the police, but
Speaker 2: also just an aesthetic that doesn't really connect to the
Speaker 2: world of cell phones and TikTok and and cyber and everything.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely, we're gonna talk more about that later, right,
Speaker 3: I don't go on to like twenty paragraph rant Cole.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so, what are a couple of little things you
Speaker 2: wanted to bring up?
Speaker 3: Uh? Okay, a very little thing and this fits the
Speaker 3: kind of thirties forties theme. Also, there's the Clay Faces,
Speaker 3: a character. His name is Basil Carlow Right, and there's
Speaker 3: a scene where he and Batman are dueling with swords
Speaker 3: and they're going up a staircase and you see their
Speaker 3: shadows behind them, like dueling, right, and this is like
Speaker 3: a shot exactly from I think it was called The
Speaker 3: Adventures of Robin Hood anyway, the Robinhood movie with Errol
Speaker 3: Flynn and Basil Rathbone and Basil ye that yes, So
Speaker 3: Basil Rathbone was this brilliant actor who was very beloved
Speaker 3: but also didn't really get to play the leading man
Speaker 3: that much. He played Sherlock Holmes. But like you know,
Speaker 3: which also then I feel like ties in with Batman
Speaker 3: as well, you know.
Speaker 2: But it way, I want to make a small note
Speaker 2: on that because if you watch earlier versions of Batman
Speaker 2: or read version of Batman, and I'm like, why is
Speaker 2: but but the original writers never mentioned Charlock Holmes. Why
Speaker 2: is it all of a sudden they do. It's because
Speaker 2: the copyright ran now like not and the original like
Speaker 2: Kine and I forget their games. But the original writers
Speaker 2: of Batman have said that they were like in part influenced.
Speaker 2: Why they just couldn't mention it?
Speaker 3: Because yeah, yeah, that makes sense. I actually knew someone
Speaker 3: who and did something with the estate of Arthur Conan
Speaker 3: Doyle and whatever anyway, literally age so but like, yeah,
Speaker 3: so there's this like this really kind of nice little
Speaker 3: easter egg, like if you're into like thirties movies or
Speaker 3: forties movies or something, you know. Yeah, and so so
Speaker 3: I just really enjoyed that. And I'm sure there were
Speaker 3: other things like that, probably that maybe I didn't pick
Speaker 3: up on. I we'll talk more about Harvey Dent next time, right,
Speaker 3: But I liked this Harvey Dent story. There's certain things
Speaker 3: about it that I thought were really cool. And I
Speaker 3: feel like, when you see the Dark Night and then
Speaker 3: you see this Harvey Dent story, there's a nice kind
Speaker 3: of you know, two sides of the coin, which for
Speaker 3: two pays for Harvey Dent, I think plays really well.
Speaker 3: So I enjoyed that. I enjoyed the gentleman ghost thing
Speaker 3: where it's like Batman's like, well, obviously is not a ghost,
Speaker 3: and then the ghost shows up. He's like, oh, obviously
Speaker 3: this is a ghost. I need to change my worldview,
Speaker 3: you know, which. I just that's something that that like
Speaker 3: gets back to, like this will be my closing thing
Speaker 3: where like that gets back to what I love about Batman.
Speaker 3: That Batman has a very clear view of the world,
Speaker 3: has certain assumptions about what's going on. But when something
Speaker 3: comes and challenges those assumptions, the first thought is like, Okay,
Speaker 3: how can this be true given my assumptions, And then
Speaker 3: when the conclusion is like it can't be, then it's like, okay,
Speaker 3: then I need to adjust, right, I need to change
Speaker 3: my worldview.
Speaker 2: I may the impossible, whatever resist, no matter how improbable,
Speaker 2: be true exactly, exactly, And yet too, I love that
Speaker 2: so much because when I made a TikTok about this
Speaker 2: in terms of politics, but I to me, that's one
Speaker 2: of the highest ideas of intelligence. Is well, it sounds
Speaker 2: us in terms of like high, but like I think
Speaker 2: that is to me it is a sign of an
Speaker 2: the kind of mind that is needed to exist in
Speaker 2: this world. And I think so many problems like don't
Speaker 2: have that. You know, for example, the mindset of a
Speaker 2: lot of the police. If you're a criminal, you are
Speaker 2: a bad person. I will Gordon sees evidence about Batman
Speaker 2: that makes him change his worldview. Bullets sees that evidence
Speaker 2: but refuses to accept it. And exactly, I think in
Speaker 2: our own world. That is something that is one of
Speaker 2: the causes of so many problems is people who have
Speaker 2: a worldview and are unwilling to listen to evidence that
Speaker 2: would actually cause them to be like, oh, maybe what
Speaker 2: I was taught in like fifth grade biology forty years
Speaker 2: ago about gender doesn't actually still apply. You know, maybe
Speaker 2: what I my understanding of how economics works isn't actually
Speaker 2: how it worked, you know, like we just don't have
Speaker 2: that from some of people in this world.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, And I think you asked about cognitive dissonance
Speaker 3: in the poker podcast we did, or the episode about poker,
Speaker 3: and I think that's more what cognitive dissonance really is.
Speaker 3: It's that having a worldview and then getting information that
Speaker 3: contradicts that, and having that information like in your sphere,
Speaker 3: but not accepting it, and having this this dissonance between
Speaker 3: what you believe or want to believe, and then stuff
Speaker 3: that is is in your in your zone and like
Speaker 3: you can't there's there's dissonance there, right, that's not there's
Speaker 3: not harmony.
Speaker 2: Yep. Yeah, what else was it in your bowl list?
Speaker 3: Actually that was maybe most of it. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 3: there's like getting deeper into the Harvey Dent story, but
Speaker 3: like mostly that was about kind of I think I
Speaker 3: like this one better than The Dark Knight because the
Speaker 3: whole thing with like him and Barbara, I think is
Speaker 3: much more interesting than like Rachel getting fridged. Like, The
Speaker 3: Dark Knight's an absolutely brilliant movie, but like, you know,
Speaker 3: there's some spots, right, I mean we've covered it some times,
Speaker 3: and like there's some things where it's like, well, that
Speaker 3: doesn't make it a bad movie, but it's like, what
Speaker 3: if you told a story where the dude's motivation wasn't
Speaker 3: that a woman got killed? You know, Yeah, what if
Speaker 3: you told a different story than that?
Speaker 2: And yeah, we'll talk about that because I don't think
Speaker 2: that's his whole motivation, but I think that is the
Speaker 2: thing that causes his world for you to crack.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, that's fair, that's but yeah, I don't
Speaker 3: think you sell it so simply. I just mean, like
Speaker 3: you had one female character, you know what I mean
Speaker 3: of the concept.
Speaker 2: He totally agreed. I think The Dark Knight is an
Speaker 2: incredible movie that's also somewhat of its time and has
Speaker 2: some problems in that regard. And yeah, we'll talk a
Speaker 2: lot more about Dent because I realized I think I
Speaker 2: want to watch it again because and maybe this is
Speaker 2: just how powerful the Dent story is. I felt kind
Speaker 2: of burnt out, Like the last whole three episodes are
Speaker 2: about Harvey Dent and him becoming I don't know if
Speaker 2: he comes to face and that's kind of what we'll discussed,
Speaker 2: but something like that. So the Ins have his face
Speaker 2: burnt off and he goes on, you know, this criminal spree,
Speaker 2: and I was just like, Ah, there's so many other characters.
Speaker 2: Do we have to do that character yet again because
Speaker 2: we've done it in the Dark Knight? And I was
Speaker 2: kind of like, wait, is the Dark Knight big in
Speaker 2: my subconscious that this movie is from like twenty years ago?
Speaker 2: Seems like it was just done yesterday. But anyway, we'll
Speaker 2: justcuss that later. There's one other question that I want
Speaker 2: to ask that we're going to dive into in our
Speaker 2: member section, which is, what does the very last revelation
Speaker 2: about what I think is Joker? How does that affect
Speaker 2: how we see Harley Quinn? And if you want to
Speaker 2: listen to that, all I have to do is become
Speaker 2: a member. It's five dollars a month, fifty five dollars
Speaker 2: a year, you get the bonus content. The end of
Speaker 2: bonus all of our episodes, you get free episodes that
Speaker 2: are you get exclusive episodes that are just for members.
Speaker 2: We've been doing in the Star Wars starting the fall,
Speaker 2: We're gonna given the superhero ethics, all this kind of
Speaker 2: great stuff, and of course you get to help support
Speaker 2: the podcast all the informations on our show notes. One
Speaker 2: thing I'm also going to say is that this podcast
Speaker 2: is going to go into somewhat of a higatus. We
Speaker 2: have one more episode coming out that I'm recording with
Speaker 2: Riky about Genesis Neon Evangelic in the anime, and just
Speaker 2: some ideas of anime and crime fighting and all this
Speaker 2: kind of stuff in general. Our fighters are justice in general.
Speaker 2: And then we're gonna take most of September off of
Speaker 2: the hiatus. I need the time because I'm doing a
Speaker 2: lot of personal travel, but also because i want to
Speaker 2: take some time and actually like back up and rethink
Speaker 2: how we're doing things. I'm not getting your feedback as
Speaker 2: fast as I want to. We're not doing enough to
Speaker 2: promote the podcast, so we're kind of been September really
Speaker 2: focusing on those things, and then hit the ground running
Speaker 2: there will also be episodes and were going back and
Speaker 2: fighting some of the best of our older episodes and
Speaker 2: reputting them up in the feed and things like that,
Speaker 2: as well as key access to some other podcasts and
Speaker 2: things like that that I think we're early with checking out,
Speaker 2: so please stick around. We're gonna have that's be in September,
Speaker 2: but then new episode is coming in the fall for sure,
Speaker 2: So please become a member who want to listen to
Speaker 2: more that conversation, but if not, thank you all so much.
Speaker 2: I'm to have Paul and myself we have spoken