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Speaker 6: Hello and welcome to this rebroadcast episode of the Superhero
Speaker 6: Ethics Podcast. As I've mentioned, we're on hiatus during September,
Speaker 6: but we're showing you some of our old episodes that
Speaker 6: we feel are still relevant to some of the great
Speaker 6: conversations we've been having lately and other things going on.
Speaker 6: In recent episodes, before we went on hiatus, Paul and
Speaker 6: I were talking about the new Batman show, and so
Speaker 6: as part of that, we wanted to give you a
Speaker 6: chance to hear on episode about Batman The Long Halloween.
Speaker 6: This is one of the classic Batman animated movies, relevant
Speaker 6: to what's happening with the new show, relevant to the
Speaker 6: things Paul and I were talking about, and of course
Speaker 6: relevant now that we've turned the corner into spooky season.
Speaker 6: Please check it out, and of course, please continue to
Speaker 6: be a fan of Superhero Ethics. Thank you so much.
Speaker 5: We have spoken.
Speaker 6: Hello, Welcome to this episode of the Superhero Ethics Podcast.
Speaker 6: Today we're talking about a Batman animated story that appeared
Speaker 6: on HBO, an animated movie based on a lot of
Speaker 6: people's favorite comic run of Batman The Long Halloween. This
Speaker 6: story you can see origins of the Dark Night in
Speaker 6: you can see origins of the Batman with Robert Pattinson
Speaker 6: and Paul Hoppy and I are gonna be diving into
Speaker 6: it right after this commercial break.
Speaker 5: We have no control over.
Speaker 6: Welcome back. This is Matthew host Day. Then pronounce and Paul,
Speaker 6: this is a story that I know you have wanted
Speaker 6: to talk about for a while, Batman The Long Halloween.
Speaker 6: And just to give a quick explanation for folks, this
Speaker 6: is an animated movie you can find on I think
Speaker 6: it's an HBO plus primarily. There may be other ways
Speaker 6: to get DC movies. DC Animation has been putting out
Speaker 6: a ton of animated movies, primarily about Batman, some about Superman,
Speaker 6: some about more of the Justice League in general that
Speaker 6: aren't they talked about much, but that Paul has really
Speaker 6: turned me on too. We've been having a lot of
Speaker 6: fun going through them, and we're going to really have
Speaker 6: a lot to talk about because it raises some of
Speaker 6: the fundamental questions of Batman and the Batman stories. And
Speaker 6: we'll tell you more about what the story is in
Speaker 6: a second, but first, Paul, let me just have as
Speaker 6: an intro, tell me more about like why it was
Speaker 6: that you loved the story and why you wanted to
Speaker 6: be what we talked about.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so I don't really follow like what's coming out
Speaker 5: when and stuff like that. But when Lee and I
Speaker 5: were at her mom's last year, you know, kind of
Speaker 5: in the middle of moving we technically didn't really live
Speaker 5: anywhere for like about a month, you know, and we
Speaker 5: were on our way to Vegas. We were, you know,
Speaker 5: browsing HBO Max and we're like, oh, there's this is out.
Speaker 5: You know, maybe she actually knew it was out because
Speaker 5: she like reads things in the news and whatever, but right,
Speaker 5: but so we just put it on and watched it
Speaker 5: and it was like, oh, this this is really good.
Speaker 5: And then it was like, wait, that was part one,
Speaker 5: and then there's like a part two, and we watched
Speaker 5: the part two, which you know, conveniently actually came out
Speaker 5: the same day, which seems like it's interesting that they
Speaker 5: broke it into two parts, and I guess we could
Speaker 5: talk about that a little later, But basically, you know,
Speaker 5: it's it's kind of like a three hour animated movie
Speaker 5: that covers the span of a year. You know, from
Speaker 5: Halloween to Halloween, and I just think it's the type
Speaker 5: of Batman story that is like my favorite type of
Speaker 5: Batman story and is fairly different from a large amount
Speaker 5: of you know, other superhero fiction that we see on screen.
Speaker 5: And then just the animation I think is fantastic, and
Speaker 5: in terms of story, I think DC's animation is overall, like,
Speaker 5: on average, the best stuff they put out on screen,
Speaker 5: you know, compared to say television non animated and then
Speaker 5: like live action films.
Speaker 6: And I think a large part of that is because
Speaker 6: the bar is so much lower in a weird way,
Speaker 6: and that they're not having to have this constant like
Speaker 6: first of all, the budget is much lower, so they
Speaker 6: don't need to justify the huge budget, they don't need
Speaker 6: to have a huge mass market appeal, and just I
Speaker 6: think in some ways these movies are really helped by
Speaker 6: mostly flying under the radar screen because they're not therefore
Speaker 6: in the you know, well, how does this compare to
Speaker 6: the other version of Batman, How does this compare to
Speaker 6: the Marvel movie that's coming out at the same time,
Speaker 6: How does this tie in all these things? It just
Speaker 6: gets to be a story on its own in a
Speaker 6: really great way.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And I mean I think this is what you're saying.
Speaker 5: But in terms of the bar being lower, I think
Speaker 5: you mostly mean like, well, like financially right in terms
Speaker 5: of like how much money something grosses. And I mean,
Speaker 5: I guess in terms of.
Speaker 6: Said the bar is low, I was not quite. I meant.
Speaker 6: I mean it's more that like the expect the outside
Speaker 6: expectations that don't really have much to do with the
Speaker 6: movie itself are mostly not there, right, and and.
Speaker 5: Certainly the you know, broader population doesn't have expectations for what,
Speaker 5: you know, the thing's going to look like. I do
Speaker 5: think that there are a lot of people who are
Speaker 5: really into animation DC, and you know specifically animated DC
Speaker 5: that you know, occasionally something comes along and is highly
Speaker 5: anticipated and is very disappointing to most people, like say
Speaker 5: the Killing Joke, which I recently watched a thing about it,
Speaker 5: and I was like, I was like, I feel like
Speaker 5: like they're saying things about the animation. I think the
Speaker 5: animation was fantastic. Like the the story, you know, there's
Speaker 5: you know, you can have your issues with the story, sure,
Speaker 5: you know, and in terms of how it was adapted precisely,
Speaker 5: but but yeah, I mean, I think the expectations are
Speaker 5: amongst a smaller group of people, I would say, and
Speaker 5: you just don't have the same amplitude of you know,
Speaker 5: the types of reviews that you're going to get and
Speaker 5: the types of responses. So I think generally that's like
Speaker 5: healthier for anything someone's creating right where it's just like, yeah,
Speaker 5: you get to do your thing. You get to say
Speaker 5: this is what we want to do. You do it
Speaker 5: the best you can, and then people will take it
Speaker 5: as they do, as opposed to you know, having huge expectations.
Speaker 5: You know, it's like a team that wins a championship
Speaker 5: and then the next year, you know, if if they're
Speaker 5: like the runner up, then that's a disappointment somehow.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 5: It's like I feel like that's how feature films or
Speaker 5: like blockbusters are often treated. It's like, oh, well, is
Speaker 5: this a disappointment compared to such and such.
Speaker 6: It's like why why is that?
Speaker 5: Even the conversation, you know, it's just like can't can't
Speaker 5: the thing just like live on its own, like is
Speaker 5: this good? Is it not good?
Speaker 6: Do what you do?
Speaker 5: Like I do not like it? And so I I
Speaker 5: that's my very long winded way of saying yes, I
Speaker 5: agree that I feel like this animation manages to not
Speaker 5: be a victim of expectations.
Speaker 6: And I think one part of that may be that
Speaker 6: this is a lot more kind of day in the
Speaker 6: life aspect to this we talked about on the last
Speaker 6: podcast a little bit in terms of dread. Well, I'm
Speaker 6: not sure what orders will come out in its right dread,
Speaker 6: but not even.
Speaker 1: The day in the life, but like a year in
Speaker 1: the life, a year in the life.
Speaker 6: But also this is not part of a very fixed continuity,
Speaker 6: and I think in some ways that really helps it,
Speaker 6: because like I love the MCU, I do like continuity,
Speaker 6: but I think part of what has gotten away from
Speaker 6: is and I think in some ways, like the age
Speaker 6: of the Internet makes this harder. But like there used
Speaker 6: to be a lot of stories where it was okay,
Speaker 6: we know who these characters are, and because we're going
Speaker 6: to tell you a story that isn't about a fundamentally
Speaker 6: change moment in this character's life, it's just kind of
Speaker 6: about like the character doing the thing the character does,
Speaker 6: and a lot of other characters doing the things that
Speaker 6: those characters do. It's okay that we don't know exactly
Speaker 6: where this fits in time compared to this other version
Speaker 6: of the story, or if it a little bit contradicts
Speaker 6: that version of the story. It's just kind of a
Speaker 6: standalone story using characters that we know well. I think
Speaker 6: that's very hard to do in the MCU or like
Speaker 6: you know, in the in DC. Now we have to
Speaker 6: have long conversations about like, well, the Robert Pattinson Batman
Speaker 6: doesn't exist in the same universe as like the Snyder
Speaker 6: Verse or like this other thing, and we have specific
Speaker 6: about it because the animation has never been trying to
Speaker 6: be part of one whole, unified universe. Like, yes, this
Speaker 6: movie does tell the hard beat Dent origin story, and
Speaker 6: it does tell the death of Falcone, but it also
Speaker 6: doesn't it doesn't make pretensions to sort of be like
Speaker 6: a definitive story that everything else has to reference. And
Speaker 6: I think that really helps it just be its own thing.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I agree. I do think that there are basically
Speaker 5: there are like runs of comics right which will have
Speaker 5: continuity with each other, and then often they'll have some
Speaker 5: giant multiverse thing that's like okay, share whatever that like
Speaker 5: theoretically connects all of them, Like I think DC has
Speaker 5: like fifty two universes exactly.
Speaker 6: Yep.
Speaker 5: But you'll get so, you know, and with the animated movies,
Speaker 5: you got a series of them that you know, there
Speaker 5: was this one run of them that I didn't love them,
Speaker 5: you know, but they were kind of all in the
Speaker 5: same style, and they kind of all had a continuity.
Speaker 5: And then there's like the flashpoint story and then you know,
Speaker 5: then it kind of reverts and then they just start
Speaker 5: making a new continuity, right, And so you you do
Speaker 5: get these kind of series, but I don't think there's
Speaker 5: ever this sense of this is the you know, definitive
Speaker 5: version of these characters, right. It's it's like this series
Speaker 5: of interpretations. And you know this story, as you mentioned,
Speaker 5: the Dark Knight borrowed from it. The Batman borrows from it, right,
Speaker 5: quite heavily. I mean I think I somewhat jokingly referred
Speaker 5: to the Batman movie as the short Halloween, because yes, right,
Speaker 5: it has so much from this. But it's a week
Speaker 5: instead of a year, which for a for a live
Speaker 5: action feature film, I think a week or a day
Speaker 5: or two or three days I find usually the perfect
Speaker 5: length of time. I think really extended movies don't work
Speaker 5: that well. The reason this works well to me is that,
Speaker 5: you know, the principal plot revolves around holiday, this like
Speaker 5: person who murders people on holidays, and each scene or
Speaker 5: each sequence, basically the movies are broken up into segments
Speaker 5: that are each kind of like one day, right, and
Speaker 5: it'll be just a series of of holidays. So it's
Speaker 5: basically like twelve days played across three hours. So you
Speaker 5: essentially maybe get twelve fifteen minute segments more or less.
Speaker 5: A couple of them are shorter, but yeah, I think
Speaker 5: the fact that there isn't this weight of continuity on
Speaker 5: this really lets it breathe more and lets them One
Speaker 5: of the things I really enjoyed here is that they
Speaker 5: have so many members of the Rogues Gallery in it, right,
Speaker 5: and they're able to be bit players and you can
Speaker 5: kind of do whatever you want with them, and it
Speaker 5: doesn't feel like, oh, but that's not that character. It's like, no,
Speaker 5: that's that's this version of that character. And if I
Speaker 5: didn't like any of the versions of them, like, it
Speaker 5: wouldn't have felt like such a big deal. I didn't
Speaker 5: really dislike any of the versions of them. Particularly, you know,
Speaker 5: there's a few things about like, well, why is Ivy
Speaker 5: like always working for someone else, she's like the most
Speaker 5: powerful of all these people and whatever, you know, Like,
Speaker 5: so she doesn't have the depth that I'd like to
Speaker 5: see in her character. But like that's okay, because this
Speaker 5: isn't like the Poison Ivy. It's like, it's just Poison
Speaker 5: Ivy in this one thing and she's a small part
Speaker 5: of it, and like that's fine. And there's a lot
Speaker 5: of characters like the Joker, you know, similarly, is this
Speaker 5: kind of minor character in this story that just it
Speaker 5: makes it feel like it's Gotham. It makes it feel
Speaker 5: like there's this depth and there's this breadth without feeling
Speaker 5: like it's trying to be the defining version of anything.
Speaker 5: And I just find that really pleasant.
Speaker 6: I think that's a really good way to put it.
Speaker 6: And it kind of addresses something that you and I
Speaker 6: have always talked about, which is that the part of
Speaker 6: the problem with these larger, interconnected universes is that it
Speaker 6: doesn't make sense that a whole bunch of people never
Speaker 6: show up. And yet, you know, if you have a
Speaker 6: story where it would make sense for Captain America to
Speaker 6: show up for five minutes, but you don't have the
Speaker 6: budget for Christopher Evans to do you know four days
Speaker 6: of shooting to get hit those five minutes, it's hard
Speaker 6: to make it happen. But here you can do that.
Speaker 6: And I will fill in the details of what the
Speaker 6: actual story is in a second, but it's it's as
Speaker 6: Paul said, there's stuff that's happening, and so at various
Speaker 6: points in time, different characters make appearances, and in many
Speaker 6: cases it makes sense why they're showing up for various reasons,
Speaker 6: or another, as you said, some less something's just because
Speaker 6: someone involved has hired them, and it's like, oh, okay,
Speaker 6: that's fine. But like the Joker was my favorites because
Speaker 6: the Joker, Like the minute the Joker shows up, a
Speaker 6: part of me thinks, oh okay, so this is actually
Speaker 6: a Joker plot on some level, and it's like, no,
Speaker 6: the Joker's just mad that this other villain is getting
Speaker 6: so much of the headlines and attention. So the Joker's like, no,
Speaker 6: I got to try and fix this. I got to
Speaker 6: try to make it all about me. And it literally
Speaker 6: winds up just like gas attacking a thing that half
Speaker 6: the city is going to be at. Because this is
Speaker 6: the Joker says like, yeah, there's a fifty percent chance
Speaker 6: that one of the random people I kill will be
Speaker 6: this guy, and then that way I don't have I'm
Speaker 6: not losing the attention. And it fits so perfectly for
Speaker 6: the Joker, and it gives Batman a chance to deal
Speaker 6: with a Joker, but it isn't a Joker story and
Speaker 6: Joker doesn't take over the story.
Speaker 5: Yeah, totally. And yeah, and it just does that with
Speaker 5: a whole lot of characters, right, Yeah.
Speaker 6: Do you want to try giving a brief summary of
Speaker 6: the story and so that we kind of fill things
Speaker 6: in as we go or do you want me to
Speaker 6: try to do that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'll give a brief summary first of all. Just
Speaker 5: in terms of the feel of the story, I want
Speaker 5: to say that like, it's a story where Batman does
Speaker 5: Batman things, but it doesn't really feel like it's a
Speaker 5: story about Batman doing Batman things, you know, like like big,
Speaker 5: you know, gadgety, like huge fight scenes and stuff like
Speaker 5: that's in there, but that's not the focus. It's really
Speaker 5: it's a mystery detective story. And it's also less of
Speaker 5: a story about Batman being a great detective and more
Speaker 5: about Batman becoming a great detective. And the basic premise
Speaker 5: is Carmine Falconi is like the big mob boss in
Speaker 5: the city. And then there's also Maroni, right, who's like
Speaker 5: his main competition. And someone kills Falconi's nephew on Halloween,
Speaker 5: who actually was about to testify against Falconi, right against Carmine,
Speaker 5: And so the the whole thing has this you know,
Speaker 5: Harvey Dent, James Gordon Batman, you know, trio of characters
Speaker 5: doing that whole dark night trying to bring down the
Speaker 5: Gotham mob, right, which is like this very traditional mafia situation.
Speaker 5: And throughout basically throughout the year, on every holiday or
Speaker 5: on one holiday per month, basically somebody comes and kills someone,
Speaker 5: usually part of Falcone's crime family, right, or family, actually
Speaker 5: not even they they kill someone who's who's not really
Speaker 5: part of the crime family, who he doesn't want to
Speaker 5: be part of the crime family. But so it feels
Speaker 5: like it's this you know, something against Falconi. Right. Meanwhile,
Speaker 5: there are all of these you know, costumed villains locked
Speaker 5: up in Arkham, and at various points, various ones of
Speaker 5: them get free, right. And actually I would say that
Speaker 5: this is the story of if you look at kind
Speaker 5: of the over story, the overarching thing. This is the
Speaker 5: story of how Gotham goes from being you know, basically
Speaker 5: like a mobbed up town to a costumed villain town.
Speaker 6: And there's a clear distinction between the two in a
Speaker 6: way that's really interesting, especially in the respective of it.
Speaker 6: In some ways, the traditional kind of like you find
Speaker 6: him in any you know, Godfather Goodfellow's movie, criminals are
Speaker 6: a lot worse or a lot scarier in some ways.
Speaker 5: Right exactly. And the I think also like you could
Speaker 5: kind of look at it in the like D and
Speaker 5: D alignment sort of fashion, where it's like, you know,
Speaker 5: you've got Harvey Dent and James Gordon, who are trying
Speaker 5: to be lawful good, right, and then you have organized crime,
Speaker 5: which is lawful evil. And then you have you know,
Speaker 5: the Joker and people like the Joker, which is like
Speaker 5: chaotic evil. And then you have Batman, who's like chaotic good,
Speaker 5: but everybody's kind of trying to work with someone else
Speaker 5: to further their own ends.
Speaker 6: And you know Catwoman, who's chaotic. Catwoman who's like somewhere
Speaker 6: chaotic neutral, chaotic good.
Speaker 5: Exactly, and like, yeah, in this she's more of you know,
Speaker 5: she's more basically just like an anti hero like Batman,
Speaker 5: you know, right, there are a lot of similarities between
Speaker 5: this catwoman and the Batman catwoman, and you know, at
Speaker 5: the end of it, not not to give away necessarily
Speaker 5: the final story, because I feel like we could kind
Speaker 5: of cover this without saying, you know who, what the
Speaker 5: actual answer to the mystery is. But it's basically, you know,
Speaker 5: there's a serial killer, and it's about Batman and others
Speaker 5: trying to figure out who that is while all this
Speaker 5: other stuff goes on at the same time.
Speaker 6: Right, Yeah, I think it's some point I do want
Speaker 6: to say who it is. I think there's some really
Speaker 6: interesting after questions around that that gets into some of
Speaker 6: the things, but we can have kind of like that'll
Speaker 6: be on a spoiler section later. Okay, that sounds good
Speaker 6: for sure, because yeah, I think you're right. I want
Speaker 6: to talk about just some of the different parts of
Speaker 6: it that I most enjoyed and the questions that kind
Speaker 6: of raises it. You know, it's funny we're talking about this.
Speaker 6: This will probably come out a couple of weeks after
Speaker 6: our episode on Dread. We have recorded it very recently.
Speaker 6: After recording the episode on Dread, the movie about I
Speaker 6: keep wanting to say, Judge dread, but that's the Stone version.
Speaker 6: This is the urban version. But the movie deals with
Speaker 6: a lot of the same issues that does, and it's
Speaker 6: questions that are very central to what I love about
Speaker 6: Batman in general, which is all these questions around like, Okay,
Speaker 6: when you've got a broken justice system and it's almost
Speaker 6: impossible to fight the criminal elements because of that broken
Speaker 6: justice system, and that gets in all sorts of sociological analysis,
Speaker 6: to be sure, but like what do you do? And
Speaker 6: I remember I said at one point as I was
Speaker 6: watching the movie, oh, this is going to be the
Speaker 6: Dark Knight, because it is set at the beginning while
Speaker 6: Harvey Dent is still Harvey Dent before anything has happened
Speaker 6: to him, and it's Harvey and Gordon fighting with each
Speaker 6: other about how to best take down these mobsters at
Speaker 6: a time when neither one of the two of them
Speaker 6: trusts each other, and Batman trying to get in the
Speaker 6: middle and them having these interesting conversations about how do
Speaker 6: we deal with like to what extent can we break
Speaker 6: the law or can we cross lines in order to
Speaker 6: take down these people from whom there are no lines
Speaker 6: and there are no laws, And that part it's very
Speaker 6: much the Dark Knight story, and then as it continues,
Speaker 6: you see that it's kind of the Dark Knight story
Speaker 6: and the Batman Robert Pattinson's story all kind of mixed
Speaker 6: up together. At least both of those are drawn.
Speaker 5: From this, right exactly. So it feels that way when
Speaker 5: you watch this after seeing those, But it's like, oh,
Speaker 5: those just actually extracted these particular things from this story.
Speaker 6: And so I want to start there with what was
Speaker 6: your take on so certainly, I think, for one thing,
Speaker 6: it shows the slow, slow descent of Harvey Dent. Like
Speaker 6: I love The Dark Knight, Don't get me wrong. I
Speaker 6: thought the actor who played him was fantastic, Aaron Eckstein.
Speaker 6: I think it is Eckhart, but it shows in a
Speaker 6: much slower way and a much more protracted Like you said,
Speaker 6: over the course of a year, what did you think
Speaker 6: of Dent in his kind of evolution of a story
Speaker 6: in this?
Speaker 5: In this movie, I feel like this Dent has a
Speaker 5: little bit more room to develop. It's it's interesting because
Speaker 5: in terms of run time, this is actually longer than
Speaker 5: The Dark Knight, right, which feels like a pretty long movie.
Speaker 5: I think The Dark Knight is like two and a
Speaker 5: half hours I think that's the or take, right, and
Speaker 5: this is three hours, you know, but it's two one
Speaker 5: and a half hour animated films or like one twenty
Speaker 5: five you know, a minute twenty five, minute twenty seven
Speaker 5: or an hour twenty five. Sorry, So it feels like
Speaker 5: there's more room for some of those things to breathe here. Also,
Speaker 5: you know, the Dark Knight, Like, I mean, I think
Speaker 5: Aaron Eckhart did a great performance of Harvey Dent and
Speaker 5: then two Face than you, but I mean Heath Ledger
Speaker 5: was just sucking up all the oxygen in the movie,
Speaker 5: you know. Like I'm not saying the Joker wasn't great
Speaker 5: in this, but the Joker doesn't dominate the story, you know,
Speaker 5: as we've discussed, and there are a lot of characters here,
Speaker 5: and so I'm not even sure Dent gets more screen time.
Speaker 5: But the fact that this is spread out over a year,
Speaker 5: it just you know, so you get to kind of
Speaker 5: see these snapshots of where Dent is at these different
Speaker 5: points in time, right it kind of I'm not gonna
Speaker 5: go there. I was I was going to say something
Speaker 5: about the last Jedi, not the last Jed. Jesus, what
Speaker 5: am I talking about? I was going to say something
Speaker 5: about Tales of the Jedi and how it to particular
Speaker 5: character over several instances. But if you had like twelve
Speaker 5: instances there, maybe it would have felt different, right, And
Speaker 5: so here it's like you get these little snapshots of
Speaker 5: where Harvey is at different points in time, and for me,
Speaker 5: that really sells it because it it lets there be
Speaker 5: this transformation that isn't just oh, you know, this one
Speaker 5: event happened and now all of a sudden he's two Face, right,
Speaker 5: even though that was kind of in there, that was
Speaker 5: his nickname whatever, but like that one kind of goes
Speaker 5: from like white night straight to like two Face. And
Speaker 5: this feels like there's always this conflict in there. There's
Speaker 5: always some complexity to the character. We don't see all
Speaker 5: of it, right, it's not the Harvey Dent story, but
Speaker 5: that is a huge part of the story, and they
Speaker 5: get to kind of have a little bit more of
Speaker 5: a slow burn with it, both because of run time
Speaker 5: and because of the fact that it's like the basically
Speaker 5: these like you know, there's a dozen snapshots throughout time.
Speaker 6: Right, And I think one reason why it really works
Speaker 6: is that, as you said, it's not just the one moment.
Speaker 6: It does. There's a lot having to do with his family,
Speaker 6: but more than anything, instead of thinking about him losing someone,
Speaker 6: it's about it's really about cynicism and pragmatism and him
Speaker 6: starting out as this peron. Because one of the first
Speaker 6: kind of major conflicts is they come a bunch, they
Speaker 6: come across a whole pile of you know, Falcone's money
Speaker 6: and like literally just like stacks of cash, and they're
Speaker 6: trying to decide what to do with it. And one
Speaker 6: of the things they realize is if they go buy
Speaker 6: the books, if they follow the law what they're supposed
Speaker 6: to do, of like turning it in, there's a very
Speaker 6: good chance that Falconi is going to intercept that at
Speaker 6: some point and get it back, because the whole system
Speaker 6: is so corrupt, right And and Catwoman is kind of
Speaker 6: there and winds up suggesting what they wind up doing,
Speaker 6: which is burning it, which is very illegal. And you
Speaker 6: can tell that like Dent is the one who winds
Speaker 6: up coming around to that position, but you can see
Speaker 6: that he's wrestling with it and that from that, and
Speaker 6: then as you said, it's almost a year later that
Speaker 6: he gets you know, attacked and has his face burned away.
Speaker 6: This time with acid and let's on, is it becoming
Speaker 6: two face? You just get to see his sort of gradual.
Speaker 6: To me, it's such a fundamental question that hits for
Speaker 6: all of us because it's about lack of faith in
Speaker 6: a system. You know, he starts out as the character
Speaker 6: who most thinks, no matter how much corruption there is,
Speaker 6: no matter how much goodness there how much badness there is,
Speaker 6: the law and the system of justice and the system
Speaker 6: of laws will will work if we stick to it.
Speaker 6: And really the stories about his just losing all.
Speaker 5: Faith in that, yeah, and you know, at the beginning,
Speaker 5: Gordon's like, bend to the rules, don't break them, but
Speaker 5: you know, and then they just they just break them
Speaker 5: right away. But but there's this this wrestling with that
Speaker 5: right and this like you know, I mean, he's a
Speaker 5: da like his whole career is I am going to
Speaker 5: use the law to you know, try And mostly it's
Speaker 5: specifically this this one guy he seems to like really
Speaker 5: want to go hard against. But I think overall he's
Speaker 5: you know, a true believer that that is the way
Speaker 5: or at least a way, if not the way of
Speaker 5: trying to to change things right. And you know, we're
Speaker 5: led to believe things have been quite bad and that
Speaker 5: there's you know that this cynicism is is shared, you know,
Speaker 5: by most of the population, and I think really, you know,
Speaker 5: it ends up kind of coming through that like, yeah,
Speaker 5: that maybe that's just not going to work. And you know,
Speaker 5: by the end of it, there's a question like is
Speaker 5: I mean, is any of it going to work? You know,
Speaker 5: is doing things not according to the system? Does does
Speaker 5: that work? Like you know?
Speaker 6: I mean, in that regard, it's almost a much less
Speaker 6: hopeful story than The Dark Knight is at least and
Speaker 6: here we're talking about to how The Dark Knight is
Speaker 6: about like the fall of Harvey Dent, because by the
Speaker 6: end of The Dark Knight you certainly get the perspective
Speaker 6: that there's this idea that, like a White Knight fault,
Speaker 6: the White Knight didn't work, but that actually what Batman
Speaker 6: does does work and will help and will turn around
Speaker 6: the city, even if it has to be done in
Speaker 6: a way where no one understands what Batman's actually doing
Speaker 6: or that kind of thing. And then it gets really
Speaker 6: messy with a third movie. But there is I think
Speaker 6: an in to me, the end of the Dark Knight
Speaker 6: movie is much more hopeful, whereas this one is like, okay, well,
Speaker 6: like Batman, like Harvey Dent has been caught, it's been
Speaker 6: figured out who Holiday is, and that has its own ending.
Speaker 6: But I don't have any sense that like Batman has
Speaker 6: turned things around in the city in any way.
Speaker 5: Yeah, definitely not. Right at the end, Batman is there
Speaker 5: on the rooftop, you know where the bat signal is
Speaker 5: with Gordon and two face now and he says something
Speaker 5: like was it worth it? And Twoface says he wants
Speaker 5: to know whether the good guys won. Jim and Gordon's like, yes,
Speaker 5: the good guys won, but we won't know for a
Speaker 5: very long time if it was worth it, which to
Speaker 5: me is like saying, yes, we won this battle in
Speaker 5: terms of we achieved the goal of taking down Carbine Falcone, right,
Speaker 5: but we won't know for a long time whether or
Speaker 5: not that's going to make a positive difference for the city.
Speaker 6: Right. Yeah, I think that's a really good way to
Speaker 6: put it. That was the exact language. There's ocurrent to
Speaker 6: me of the battle versus the war, and it's it's
Speaker 6: part of a trend that I think I'm really appreciating
Speaker 6: because you know, we had like decades and decades of like,
Speaker 6: Batman is good, Batman is helping Gotham, and then you
Speaker 6: always had wonder like, so, why is Gotham so bad
Speaker 6: after so many decades of Batman doing this? But that's
Speaker 6: the timeline of comics. But then I think you started
Speaker 6: to get a lot of criticism of Batman starting about
Speaker 6: like ten years ago, so that was like, well, but
Speaker 6: Batman is not actually helping. All Batman is doing is
Speaker 6: punching poor people, which I think there's some legitimacy of
Speaker 6: those complaints like why doesn't Batman spend his money to
Speaker 6: make the city better? I think he actually does in
Speaker 6: a lot of ways, and a lot of those stories don't.
Speaker 6: It's easy to sort of make that critique without realizing
Speaker 6: that that's not quite accurate. But that's the whole other story.
Speaker 6: But I appreciate that, I think with some of the
Speaker 6: newer stories, and I think Pattinson's Batman definitely does this,
Speaker 6: and this Batman does it as well. Instead of it
Speaker 6: being attacking him himself, it's much more of a like, yeah,
Speaker 6: Batman is winning these individual battles and he's saving people's
Speaker 6: lives by doing so, and he is stopping bad people
Speaker 6: by doing so, but is he winning the war? And
Speaker 6: I really appreciate that level, and I think in part
Speaker 6: that's part of the self reflection that Pattinson is going
Speaker 6: through in the movie, and that by the end of
Speaker 6: that movie he kind of is like, well, maybe by
Speaker 6: giving hope instead of by giving fear, I can win
Speaker 6: the war in a different way. And I this movie
Speaker 6: doesn't get to that place of hope by the end,
Speaker 6: but I guess it sort of does with the trigger treaters.
Speaker 6: But I think I really like that about this movie,
Speaker 6: is that it's giving a chance for him to for
Speaker 6: him to win the battle, but for him himself to say, like,
Speaker 6: I don't know if this is winning the war.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And you know, I think I have a lot
Speaker 5: to say about those particular criticisms, and I I won't
Speaker 5: get too deep into it, but basically just I think
Speaker 5: it's always been or for a long time, I think
Speaker 5: it's been more complicated than that. But I do think, like,
Speaker 5: you know, there's there's a thing in the like the
Speaker 5: very first scene is Falcone trying to get Bruce Wayne
Speaker 5: to sign on to doing something with him, some business thing,
Speaker 5: because Falconi and Thomas and Martha Wayne had like done
Speaker 5: some things like building some hospitals together or whatever that somehow,
Speaker 5: you know, maybe lent some legitimacy to like the Falconi name, right,
Speaker 5: but also like you know, built hospitals right like and
Speaker 5: and Bruce just responds, you know, I believe in Gotham City.
Speaker 5: And at the end, Falcone asks the same thing, He's like,
Speaker 5: do you still believe? And and Batman's like, I do
Speaker 5: you know? And I guess somehow he knows that's him, oh,
Speaker 5: because yeah, he basically tells him it's him because of
Speaker 5: the thing about the coin or whatever. There's there's like
Speaker 5: a line of dialogue that's shared where he basically tells
Speaker 5: a dying Falcone that you know, he's Bruce Wayne.
Speaker 6: I think and it.
Speaker 5: I think there's this idea that like, like Batman does
Speaker 5: believe in in Gotham and like wants Gotham to be better,
Speaker 5: but that it's like that it's complicated, and that I
Speaker 5: think there is some logic to the idea or some
Speaker 5: truth to the idea that like, you you can't just
Speaker 5: ignore like violent crime, right, Like you can't just have
Speaker 5: people going around murdering people and then not do anything
Speaker 5: to try and make that happen less basically, right, But
Speaker 5: that also one of the main reasons that there is
Speaker 5: as much violent crime as there is or violence. I'm
Speaker 5: not even gonna say crime, right. The reason there is
Speaker 5: as much violence as there is is partially because of
Speaker 5: resources and a lack of resources and the desperation that
Speaker 5: comes from having a lack of resources. And so, you know,
Speaker 5: I think sometimes you get people saying, oh, we should
Speaker 5: only address this situation like in terms of like social programs,
Speaker 5: and then sometimes you get people saying, oh, we should
Speaker 5: only address this situation in terms of, like, you know,
Speaker 5: really harsh policing. And I'm not arguing for the government
Speaker 5: doing both of those like exactly, but what I'm saying
Speaker 5: is overall, like, I think you have to find ways
Speaker 5: to address both the urgent immediate right now, you know,
Speaker 5: somebody is suffering from violence and the ever present pressing
Speaker 5: issue of there are resources are not being distributed adequately
Speaker 5: to everyone.
Speaker 6: Basically, Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 6: And I think the way I've been kind of seeing
Speaker 6: it more and more, and I think you helped me
Speaker 6: understand that The Batman the Patentson movie kind of actually
Speaker 6: has some of this in it. That I think if
Speaker 6: the view is we have this broken system, and as
Speaker 6: part of this broken system, people are getting hurt, people
Speaker 6: are getting killed, and bad people are doing bad things
Speaker 6: and getting away with them, and the phrase bad people
Speaker 6: there is very subjective, obviously, but that one thing that
Speaker 6: can be helpful is to have a person who is
Speaker 6: sometimes using violence as a way to protect people and
Speaker 6: to stop people from doing bad things. Maybe we just
Speaker 6: get rid of the whole idea of bad people in general,
Speaker 6: but just like stopping people from doing bad things and
Speaker 6: protecting people from bad things happening to them. And I
Speaker 6: think for too long the thought was if you do
Speaker 6: that enough, and if you punch the people who are
Speaker 6: doing the bad things hard enough, they'll stop doing the
Speaker 6: bad things and everything will be better. And then the
Speaker 6: other side of the argument has been, well, but no,
Speaker 6: you're actually making things worse by punching the bad people
Speaker 6: and try to save people. And I think the first
Speaker 6: point is clearly wrong. The second point, I think there's
Speaker 6: some truth too, but I think goes way too far,
Speaker 6: and at least where I'm coming down to it, I
Speaker 6: think you're coming to a smile place is like what
Speaker 6: Batman is doing is one necessary part of the equation.
Speaker 6: There also needs to be wor like what Batman is
Speaker 6: doing is saying, we've got a bad system and people
Speaker 6: are being hurt and people are getting away with it,
Speaker 6: and I'm going to try and within that system, try
Speaker 6: and make those two things change. And I'm reflecting the
Speaker 6: fact that those things in the system are a big
Speaker 6: part excuse mean that those things in the system are
Speaker 6: a big part of what it makes it hard to
Speaker 6: change the system. So that I'm hoping that my protecting
Speaker 6: more people and stopping more people from doing bad things
Speaker 6: and maybe giving some people some hope will create room
Speaker 6: for other people. And maybe I'll help or maybe I'll not.
Speaker 6: Maybe it's Bruce Wayne who'll do this to actually make
Speaker 6: the change happen. And it's kind of a V for
Speaker 6: Vendetta thing of like v can do all the violence
Speaker 6: to stop things, but it's the people who then have
Speaker 6: to like actually make the change and do the positive thing.
Speaker 6: And I think what I'm coming down to is that
Speaker 6: kind of a place of like I think Batman can't
Speaker 6: punch the system until it is better, but Batman can
Speaker 6: figure things out, do the detective work, do the fighting work,
Speaker 6: protect people, stop bad things from happening and in so doing,
Speaker 6: making it possible for maybe him or maybe others to
Speaker 6: actually make the change, but that those have to be
Speaker 6: two kind of different things. Does that make sense?
Speaker 5: Yeah, that makes sense, ton of sense, you know, and
Speaker 5: especially you know, I mean if Batman can stop the
Speaker 5: you know, stop people from causing harm to others without
Speaker 5: causing irrevocable harm to those people, right that are attempting
Speaker 5: to inflict the harm, like, you know, And that's sort
Speaker 5: of the you know, the difference between like lethal and
Speaker 5: non lethal. In in comic books, you have non lethal.
Speaker 5: In our world, you have less lethal, right, less likely
Speaker 5: to be lethal, but like in terms of using that
Speaker 5: sort of violence as opposed to just killing everybody like
Speaker 5: the punisher would, right, And I think, you know, V
Speaker 5: for Vendette is a great example, because like V's not
Speaker 5: going to just take the mask off and then be
Speaker 5: someone who's like, you know, trying to help solve the
Speaker 5: other side of the equation, right, whereas Batman can take
Speaker 5: the mask off and pretend he's just Bruce Wayne and
Speaker 5: then probably do a lot of good in theory, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 5: And I mean, of course, it's not like you can
Speaker 5: necessarily just use a bunch of money to change everything.
Speaker 5: But you know, money does help, and I think influence
Speaker 5: helps more. And I.
Speaker 6: Don't think this is a perfect example, and certainly it
Speaker 6: gets watered down over the many seasons in different directions
Speaker 6: it goes. But I think Oliver Queen is a good
Speaker 6: example of how that can work, where at least in
Speaker 6: the CW show, and I think in some of the
Speaker 6: other versions as well. You know, the Arrow or the
Speaker 6: Green Arrow is doing that kind of Batman work, but
Speaker 6: then his other persona Oliver Queen is using his money
Speaker 6: and using his political influence to try and change the
Speaker 6: system and make the systemic changes so that it's not
Speaker 6: all the bad things that are happening. And like I
Speaker 6: think in the Patentson movie, I think we're starting to
Speaker 6: get there, especially in the way that movie ends. And
Speaker 6: so yeah, I would love to see more of that
Speaker 6: kind of thing. And which is again, let me actually
Speaker 6: back up your second because my point is I'm not
Speaker 6: saying that those are therefore better than this. I'm saying
Speaker 6: what I like about this is I feel like it's
Speaker 6: much more honest about saying this is what Batman can do.
Speaker 6: And there's a whole lot he can't do, and that
Speaker 6: the reason why the ending of it is so beautiful
Speaker 6: is that it's Alfred who's kind of saying like, no,
Speaker 6: but there is hope, Bruce, that what you're doing can
Speaker 6: create space for other people to do that, and that
Speaker 6: the fact that the kids are going back trick or
Speaker 6: treating again is the proof of that in a really
Speaker 6: great way.
Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly exactly, and it does. There is a thing
Speaker 5: about you know, I think Batman saying like, I think Batman,
Speaker 5: can you know, make a difference or something like that,
Speaker 5: or still he says something and then Alfred's like, I
Speaker 5: you know, I think the same is true of Bruce, Wayne,
Speaker 5: right and h and yeah, you're right with the trick
Speaker 5: or treaters at the end, it does. It does have
Speaker 5: that that that feel of like, oh, maybe you know,
Speaker 5: maybe there is some some hope for this city based.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I also, I think you talked about this at the
Speaker 6: very beginning in terms of what you liked about it.
Speaker 6: I think as part of that, it is so important
Speaker 6: that this is primarily not like the biggest thing Batman
Speaker 6: does is being a detective. He I don't think we
Speaker 6: ever see the batmobile or like any kind of super
Speaker 6: We don't see much like super gadgets or like Batman
Speaker 6: doing all like the Great Toys, as Jackie Dixon Joker
Speaker 6: calls it. Like, mostly what we see Batman do is
Speaker 6: is figuring out mysteries and occasionally winning fights when he
Speaker 6: needs to win fights. And I really liked that because
Speaker 6: I think it also kind of highlights that, like, in
Speaker 6: many ways, the biggest thing that Batman can do is
Speaker 6: not just win fights with violence and cool toys and
Speaker 6: show off, but is can dig into the things no
Speaker 6: one else wants to dig into and figure things out.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Absolutely, I mean it's it's interesting because most of
Speaker 5: the story is about mobsters of one type or another,
Speaker 5: or various criminals, right, getting.
Speaker 6: Killed or in cops and DA's yeah, and cops.
Speaker 5: And DA's no art, DA's killed in this.
Speaker 6: I mean, Oh, but I just mean that it's it's
Speaker 6: about Dent in his family as much as it is
Speaker 6: about about two family, the Dents and the Falcones.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but I was I was making a very specific point,
Speaker 5: which is the violence done is basically violence largely against uh.
Speaker 5: It is like very specific targeted violence against the Falcone
Speaker 5: family and associates. Right, It's not about these big plots
Speaker 5: to destroy all of Gotham. The Joker tries to you know,
Speaker 5: murder half of the people theoretically, and Batman stops him.
Speaker 5: But that's like a side note that's usually act three.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, you're right, right, there is no big plot
Speaker 6: to stop, right.
Speaker 5: The big plot to stop is usually the main act.
Speaker 5: Like in The Batman there's a big plot to stop
Speaker 5: at the end, because that's how you structure blockbusters. And
Speaker 5: I feel like there's value in that act. I don't
Speaker 5: feel like it ruins the movie or anything. And I
Speaker 5: don't think it's a third act. It's like a seventh
Speaker 5: act or whatever. I haven't really thought a ton about
Speaker 5: the exact structure of the whole movie, but I do
Speaker 5: know that's a thing that a lot of people felt like, eh,
Speaker 5: like did we need to do this? And I do
Speaker 5: actually co sign the view, like no, I don't think
Speaker 5: you needed to do that exactly that way, right. I
Speaker 5: do think it's interesting that here, you know, the most
Speaker 5: public thing Batman does is save all those people from
Speaker 5: the Joker, Right, But that's a side note in this story,
Speaker 5: which I actually find a lot more elegant and interesting,
Speaker 5: where it's like Batman's trying to solve this mystery of
Speaker 5: a bunch of you know, criminals mostly getting killed, and
Speaker 5: you know spoilers, eventually maybe he does, and but he
Speaker 5: saves like these tons of people from Joker talks in
Speaker 5: and like that's a side note, right, that's just like,
Speaker 5: oh yeah, this happened, And I think that's kind of
Speaker 5: cool to frame the story that way.
Speaker 6: The Big Bad's plan is to eventually kill the last
Speaker 6: of the mobsters, and it works like the Big bed
Speaker 6: that was the thing the Big Bad wants to do.
Speaker 5: Do you want to actually get to the spoiler section? Now?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I was thinking let's do that, So let's just
Speaker 6: take a quick break and then we're gonna talk about
Speaker 6: the who Holiday is and some other spoiler stuff and
Speaker 6: then wrap up right back. All right, so we're back.
Speaker 6: So yeah, let's start talking about the Big Bad Holiday
Speaker 6: and who it gets revealed to be because we're now
Speaker 6: it's spoiler sections going into spoilers. In three to one,
Speaker 6: Holiday is Gilda Dent, Harvey's wife, which I definitely did
Speaker 6: not see coming. What did you think of kind of
Speaker 6: the way that story wound up playing out?
Speaker 5: I thought it was I liked it a lot. I
Speaker 5: think early on you were briefly supposed to entertain the
Speaker 5: notion that maybe it was like the Joker or something,
Speaker 5: because he just escaped at a certain time. But they
Speaker 5: were supposed to, oh, it's not him. And at the
Speaker 5: end of the first one, you were supposed to think
Speaker 5: it was Alfonso Falcone, Carmin's son, right, who actually was
Speaker 5: Guilda's first husband, and they had met at Oxford and
Speaker 5: and she was pregnant, and then they got married, and
Speaker 5: then Carmine found out and had it annulled and forcibly
Speaker 5: aborted the you know, the fetus or whatever it was
Speaker 5: at that stage, which you know that's not pro choice, right,
Speaker 5: like non consensual abortions are bad, And she.
Speaker 6: Uses the words ripped from my womb, and while the
Speaker 6: word infertility has never stated, Yeah, there's a flought line
Speaker 6: with Harvey and her that she can't have children. And
Speaker 6: so I think the idea is that they did it
Speaker 6: in a way that want to basically like she's unable
Speaker 6: to get pregnant again or unable to carry a.
Speaker 5: Child, right, exactly like they might have you know, hysterectomized
Speaker 5: or whatever is that a word like, So, so you
Speaker 5: know this is violence done to her? This isn't you know,
Speaker 5: a choice of hers anyway.
Speaker 6: And for those, by the way, who decided not you
Speaker 6: don't want to go watch The Louie, which is totally fine,
Speaker 6: then I think it is very good. But for those
Speaker 6: who are fine being spoiled but are still listening along,
Speaker 6: we only learn all this at the very end. Right.
Speaker 5: Yes, I will say I definitely knew it was her,
Speaker 5: Like I watch a lot of mysteries, and there you know,
Speaker 5: there are things I won't talk about, like how the
Speaker 5: mystery was kind of presented, but I do think they
Speaker 5: did a lot of things that are an effective way
Speaker 5: of of throwing people off the trail, right, which which
Speaker 5: when you watch a ton of mysteries then often kind
Speaker 5: of become like meta clues, you know where, Like.
Speaker 6: I will also say I watched it well, very high
Speaker 6: on some anti migraine medicine. I was having trouble following
Speaker 6: some parts of the plot, so it's pretty possible it
Speaker 6: was a lot more obvious than I thought.
Speaker 5: Fair fair, I wouldn't say that I thought it was obvious.
Speaker 5: I would say that they did some things that I
Speaker 5: that I found to be very clear. Mister Rex, like
Speaker 5: they kept talking about Holiday, oh, him, him, this guy,
Speaker 5: this guy, and I'm like, they keep saying him, like
Speaker 5: it can't possibly be a woman. And that's exactly the
Speaker 5: sort of thing you want to do if the killer
Speaker 5: is actually a woman, right, And and then you know
Speaker 5: there's some other things throughout, But yeah, I thought it
Speaker 5: was a good mystery. I didn't think from like, you know,
Speaker 5: the first scene, that it was her. You know, it
Speaker 5: took a while. I think I solved it before Batman did,
Speaker 5: but I like that throughout Batman is like, you know,
Speaker 5: I didn't know that Batman would have to be a
Speaker 5: detective to do this basically, right. And then by the
Speaker 5: end he becomes a good enough detective to solve it right,
Speaker 5: and no one else does except well, Harvey actually solves
Speaker 5: it right, and and Harvey actually kills Carmine, right, it's
Speaker 5: not it's not her who does it.
Speaker 6: And then when he gets caught, he takes credit for
Speaker 6: all of everything that happened, kind of covering for her exactly.
Speaker 5: And we don't even know whether Batman tells anyone else
Speaker 5: at the end because he's basically he's like, I need
Speaker 5: to know that Holiday is done, and she's like not done. Finished,
Speaker 5: like that was it. You know, She's she's not like
Speaker 5: a serial killer who wants to kill a lot of people.
Speaker 5: She's a person with a vendetta that has been completed,
Speaker 5: you know. And and so I think at the end
Speaker 5: of it, Batman's like, yeah, okay, like you. And I
Speaker 5: think he sees like like his parents were also killed
Speaker 5: by Falcone, right, or by their association with him, maybe
Speaker 5: by Maroney, I'm not sure. And I think it's stated
Speaker 5: that like nobody knows, right, it's not clear. It's clear
Speaker 5: that that was the reason they got killed, but it's
Speaker 5: not clear exactly who did.
Speaker 6: It, which I have to make a quick interruption. We
Speaker 6: do see a flashback to his parents' death, and we
Speaker 6: saw a hand reach for the pearls and I audibly groaned,
Speaker 6: But then they drip away, and that's all wes see
Speaker 6: of the pearls. And I was like, Okay, that's fine,
Speaker 6: there's no slow motion of pearls. I can deal with that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And we don't even really see them get shot
Speaker 5: in like full frame, you know, the way it's shot
Speaker 5: is it. I think it shows their faces and then
Speaker 5: it shows like Bruce's face, and then it cuts back
Speaker 5: to Batman in crime Alley which they don't name, and
Speaker 5: some other family who's like, uh, get away from him, and.
Speaker 6: Right, and it's happening while he's on a hallucinogenic drug.
Speaker 6: So it's much like I don't want to keep seeing
Speaker 6: that scene, but I feel like, if you're gonna show
Speaker 6: me that scene, they both earned it in the plot
Speaker 6: and then also like didn't do it as bad as
Speaker 6: it normally is. That that was my aside.
Speaker 5: We can go back to the b Yeah, yeah, one
Speaker 5: hundred hundred percent. And you know, I was happy in
Speaker 5: The Batman where they didn't have that scene right here.
Speaker 5: I felt like, Okay, if you're gonna do it, that's
Speaker 5: the way to do it. Cool, moving on, great, And
Speaker 5: you know, and and because this is an earlier Batman,
Speaker 5: this is like year two Batman. Right, there's a there's
Speaker 5: a comic Batman year one, and this is like year
Speaker 5: two basically. And yeah, so I think I think Batman
Speaker 5: like understands like Bruce understands where Gilda is coming from,
Speaker 5: you know, in terms of this like wanting vengeance and
Speaker 5: he's chosen a different path, but you know, she's essentially
Speaker 5: gotten vengeance on all the people that he might have
Speaker 5: wanted vengeance on right, So you could say he's got
Speaker 5: like a little bit of a conflict of interest really,
Speaker 5: and in terms of like letting her walk or maybe
Speaker 5: letting her walk, we don't even know, but it does
Speaker 5: seem like he's just like, Okay, well you did all
Speaker 5: these you know, you you caused all this harm to
Speaker 5: all these people. But if you're done now, okay, you
Speaker 5: know what am I geting to do? What's the point
Speaker 5: in bringing you in? And you know, and like he
Speaker 5: just stands there while she's destroying the evidence.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it reminds me a lot of You're probably gonna
Speaker 6: know much more about this than I do, and we
Speaker 6: don't need to go too into the details. But Dexter
Speaker 6: is another favorite TV show of both of ours. I
Speaker 6: think the ending notwithstanding, yes, but where one of the
Speaker 6: points is like he is someone who, on the one hand,
Speaker 6: like he wants to kill in order to like, you know,
Speaker 6: have vendettas and to take out bad people, but for
Speaker 6: him it also is a compulsion. For him, it is
Speaker 6: a compulsion he couldn't just stop. And he comes across
Speaker 6: as someone who he thinks might be kind of like
Speaker 6: a partner, both romantically but also in the same way.
Speaker 6: But what is it revealed eventually is that she had
Speaker 6: a similar thing. She had a vendetta against a specific group,
Speaker 6: and once she's finished with that, she no longer needs
Speaker 6: to kill the way he does. And in some ways
Speaker 6: I think that that's kind of the question that Batman
Speaker 6: is trying to get at in that final scene with Gilda,
Speaker 6: of like, are you going to do this again? And
Speaker 6: you're right, we don't know exactly what happened. We don't
Speaker 6: know if he turns her in, but I think he
Speaker 6: doesn't because I think what's pretty clear is that he
Speaker 6: is satisfied that she believes she's not going to do
Speaker 6: this again, and then he just he doesn't really say anything.
Speaker 6: He just walks away.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, And I think that's that to me matches
Speaker 5: kind of what sort of the lack of the idea
Speaker 5: of justice being the most important thing, right, the idea
Speaker 5: being like, the most important thing is what's going to
Speaker 5: happen next? You know, Okay, we know that you did
Speaker 5: these things, right, we know that you murdered these people.
Speaker 5: Are you, you know, a murderer in terms of your actions?
Speaker 6: Well?
Speaker 5: Sure, yeah, But are you a murderer in terms of
Speaker 5: your like what you want to do with your life,
Speaker 5: you know, like dexter Is is compulsively wants to kill,
Speaker 5: like it's just a thing, right and and so you
Speaker 5: know his dad from Jericho wants to like find a
Speaker 5: way for him to channel that in a constructive way
Speaker 5: that also won't get him in as much trouble, right,
Speaker 5: And here that's not like who this guilda is as
Speaker 5: far as we can tell. I mean, sure, I would
Speaker 5: think like if someone deeply wrongs her in the future,
Speaker 5: she's more likely than a random person to then go
Speaker 5: through some sort of violent vendetta. But all the people
Speaker 5: that she really had on her list or dead, she
Speaker 5: crossed off everyone on our list. And it's like, you know, okay,
Speaker 5: well it doesn't seem like you're going to be causing
Speaker 5: a lot of harm going forward, so you know, yeah,
Speaker 5: go live the rest of your life.
Speaker 6: I'm so torn on that, because you're right. I think
Speaker 6: this is kind of what we talked about with with
Speaker 6: Dread not long ago. Criminal justice can have a number
Speaker 6: of different approaches, and one approach can be you did
Speaker 6: a bad thing and so therefore you should be punished,
Speaker 6: which I think both you and I are like pretty
Speaker 6: strongly rejecting because it's just to be proven it doesn't work,
Speaker 6: and it feeds into the worst impulses. Another is, we
Speaker 6: want to prevent you from doing future harm, and so
Speaker 6: therefore we're going to put you in a place where
Speaker 6: you are incapable of doing future harm, which I think,
Speaker 6: you know, I think can be very helpful. But also
Speaker 6: there's like a difference between helping to get someone to
Speaker 6: a point where they're not going to do harm versus
Speaker 6: just locking them away in a cage somewhere. What I
Speaker 6: think a third thing is that preventing people in society
Speaker 6: from doing harm in general does involve letting them know
Speaker 6: that if they do harm and get caught, then something
Speaker 6: bad might happen to them. And like, to me, here
Speaker 6: it kind of goes to the thing you were saying
Speaker 6: before about how like I fully want to reform the
Speaker 6: justice system, but I also don't want to say because
Speaker 6: right now we have a broken police system, we should
Speaker 6: do nothing about people who do violence to each other
Speaker 6: until we have a good system to treat them with,
Speaker 6: you know, like we got to do something about it
Speaker 6: still today and now. So I think that's the one
Speaker 6: part where I stumble a bit, though I do think
Speaker 6: that they resolve it well because I do think that,
Speaker 6: like you know, I think a world in which we say,
Speaker 6: if you do a bad if you kill someone, but
Speaker 6: then by the time you get caught you can prove
Speaker 6: you're never gonna do it again. You always get to
Speaker 6: walk free. Like that's not a good situation. But the
Speaker 6: problem being that if people think, like, oh, someone else
Speaker 6: killed and got away with it. The fact that Harvey
Speaker 6: Dunn takes responsibility for all those crimes, I think is
Speaker 6: the one other factor that I think helps Batman be
Speaker 6: okay with it, because I do think at least that
Speaker 6: the Batman on some levels, like I said, he's not
Speaker 6: just gonna say, okay, you're never gonna kill again. I'm
Speaker 6: going to all of you walk free. But the fact
Speaker 6: that he both understands where he's coming from, where she's
Speaker 6: coming from so much he sympathizes with that. But also
Speaker 6: I think that someone else has taken credit and so
Speaker 6: at least in the public's mind, this this this crime
Speaker 6: has been dealt with, is a part of what allows
Speaker 6: him to walk back up those stairs. Yeah.
Speaker 5: I agree with with that last part for sure. I
Speaker 5: think in terms of you know, punishment as a means
Speaker 5: of dissuading people from doing things. I think that's a
Speaker 5: that's a whole conversation, you know, But I do think
Speaker 5: here it is definitely true that he is, you know,
Speaker 5: given that opportunity to not not have someone visibly walking free,
Speaker 5: right to have the case be closed, as you know,
Speaker 5: to face and Harvey took credit. And it's like, okay, well,
Speaker 5: what's the value in like, he's he's going to be
Speaker 5: in Arkham as long as Arkham can hold him, which
Speaker 5: as we all know, is probably not very long. But
Speaker 5: you know, it doesn't really matter whether he I mean,
Speaker 5: because he definitely killed Carmine, right, so like, yeah, you know,
Speaker 5: he'll he'll be in there for a while no matter what.
Speaker 5: And then and he also I guess he orchestrated the
Speaker 5: Arkham prison break as well himself, so even more evidence
Speaker 5: that it probably won't hold him that long.
Speaker 6: Yeah, And and to be clear, to be clear, I'm
Speaker 6: not saying that like retributive justice helps with prevention, like
Speaker 6: that's been proven to be very clear. I'm just saying
Speaker 6: that also like a system of no consequences whatsoever doesn't
Speaker 6: seem great either, and that just.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I get you. I get you. Yeah, so
Speaker 5: so I feel like, you know it, Batman kind of
Speaker 5: gets to have it both ways here right where he
Speaker 5: he gets to let this person who has been greatly
Speaker 5: harmed and then done a large amount of harm as
Speaker 5: well in vengeance for that, he lets to let her
Speaker 5: walk and then you know, maybe have her second life
Speaker 5: or third life as this it seems like this this
Speaker 5: middle one's kind of been like a purgatory of sorts
Speaker 5: for her, and like, who knows what she'll do after that? Right,
Speaker 5: and there is this theme of like a second life
Speaker 5: obviously Batman, you know from Bruce Wayne. But there's this
Speaker 5: this great scene between Harvey Dent just before he becomes
Speaker 5: two face and Solomon Grundy, who just keeps saying born
Speaker 5: on a Monday and and like, but then Harvey goes
Speaker 5: through the whole cycle of like on Tuesday, something else happened,
Speaker 5: and Wednesday, and then you know he died on Sunday,
Speaker 5: and then Grundy's like born on a Monday, and he's
Speaker 5: like a reborn and then then you know, Dent takes
Speaker 5: off the bandages and now he's two face, and you know,
Speaker 5: this is very clearly kind of his his second life
Speaker 5: and so you know, maybe Guilda can have a second
Speaker 5: life as whatever else.
Speaker 6: You know, I did quite like the character of Luca Grundy,
Speaker 6: I mean, sorry Solomon BROSI, I mean sorry Solomon Grundy
Speaker 6: as the Luca Brozi stand in for this, And yeah,
Speaker 6: I thought that was really the use of that poem
Speaker 6: was really well done.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I don't know you had mentioned that. I mean,
Speaker 5: I think there's definitely some like nods to the Godfather,
Speaker 5: as in not to mention, like specifically calling Carmine, you know,
Speaker 5: the Godfather. But I didn't totally get the the Luca Brazi,
Speaker 5: you know connection. I mean, he didn't sleep with any fishes.
Speaker 5: I guess he actually does. He lives in the sewer,
Speaker 5: So I don't know.
Speaker 6: Yeah, maybe I think just in like they put him
Speaker 6: in a suit and they had him as the kind
Speaker 6: of like almost nonverbal but big effective killer type.
Speaker 5: Yeah, okay, fair, fair, So just more in terms of
Speaker 5: vibe rather than kind of plot positioning.
Speaker 1: I got you.
Speaker 5: I feel that.
Speaker 6: Yeah. So there's one other thing I want to say
Speaker 6: about the Guilda thing, and then we can do some
Speaker 6: last things in the wrap up, which is that I
Speaker 6: think part of why I didn't see it is like
Speaker 6: it works very well for the story, and I think
Speaker 6: if I hadn't gotten really invested in the other version
Speaker 6: of what we were seeing of her, I would have
Speaker 6: liked a lot more. But one of the things that
Speaker 6: is done is that and I think probably some of
Speaker 6: this is very real, but some of this is to
Speaker 6: sell her story throughout the story. Until then, Guilda is
Speaker 6: very much kind of a shut in and like she's
Speaker 6: constantly like she's had has obviously like a lot of
Speaker 6: very down moods, and she doesn't want to go out
Speaker 6: as much as Harvey does, like be seen in public
Speaker 6: as much as Harvey does. And I thought it was
Speaker 6: one of the most beautiful explorations I'd seen of a
Speaker 6: character going through long term depression and reproductive loss of
Speaker 6: some kind. And the way they showed Harvey not like
Speaker 6: hitting her, not like being terrible to her, but still
Speaker 6: reacting in the way that I think is very common,
Speaker 6: but it is actually quite harmful for a person who
Speaker 6: doesn't quite understand the mental issues that someone else is
Speaker 6: going through to respond to with them, you know, And
Speaker 6: he kind of gaslights her at times. He's kind of
Speaker 6: like trying to get her to minimize things, and it
Speaker 6: wasn't Again, it wasn't shown to be like, look, how
Speaker 6: evil Harvey is to her, so he belongs to everything
Speaker 6: that's happening to him. But I think it was a
Speaker 6: way of showing that Harvey is getting so wrapped up
Speaker 6: and everything else that's going on to him, that part
Speaker 6: of his fall is that he's really neglecting the emotional
Speaker 6: needs of his wife and of that part of his life.
Speaker 6: And I still think a lot of that is true
Speaker 6: and a lot of that still works. But knowing that
Speaker 6: some of that at least was an act, because like
Speaker 6: you know, she would say like Harvey, I really need
Speaker 6: to leave, and then a little while later the holiday
Speaker 6: would kill someone. It was like sort of like, Okay,
Speaker 6: you gave me one character and then showed that that
Speaker 6: character was kind of a shadow for the real character,
Speaker 6: and that's cool. But I really love that first character
Speaker 6: you gave us. It was a little sad that that
Speaker 6: it wasn't taken away, but it definitely was like going
Speaker 6: back and watching it now, I think I'm gonna have
Speaker 6: a lot less sincerity of what Gilda is putting out,
Speaker 6: you know, And I'm a little bummed about that, even
Speaker 6: though it still makes her a great twist.
Speaker 5: I hear you. I did just watch it for the
Speaker 5: second time, and I'll say, I don't feel like she
Speaker 5: was putting on an act, you know, Like I do
Speaker 5: think you know, when she was at one point she's
Speaker 5: like under police protection or whatever, and she's like, you know,
Speaker 5: I think she's like, oh, I have to go do this,
Speaker 5: I have to go do this, and they're like no, no, no,
Speaker 5: but you know, we can't leave you alone or whatever.
Speaker 5: And I think, like, I feel like she's both of
Speaker 5: those people though, you know, like I think as Holidays,
Speaker 5: she's not like there's no personality there, right, She's she's
Speaker 5: going and doing a thing. And I get you that
Speaker 5: it feels like, you know, you've taken this very specific
Speaker 5: character and then added this other thing that feels sort
Speaker 5: of I mean, it definitely doesn't let the first character
Speaker 5: just be just that, right, right, And and so I
Speaker 5: feel you there, but always.
Speaker 6: I think it's also just the normal representation stuff we
Speaker 6: talk about of if there hadn't been so few of
Speaker 6: that first character, I probably wouldn't mind theyr here as much.
Speaker 5: Right, Yeah, where it's like it's like, oh, we finally
Speaker 5: get you know, a representation of this is also a
Speaker 5: serial killer on holidays. Okay, okay, you know.
Speaker 6: But yeah, but it still was a great twist. And
Speaker 6: I think that's part of why Also I didn't see
Speaker 6: it coming is because, yeah, the scene where she's with
Speaker 6: those cops and wants to get off by herself, I
Speaker 6: think it's probably a lot more suspicious than I gave
Speaker 6: it credit for.
Speaker 5: H Yeah, and then also it's just like from a
Speaker 5: storytelling perspective, it's like, why is this story giving her
Speaker 5: so much room?
Speaker 6: You know?
Speaker 5: I think it's great that it does, and I think
Speaker 5: it would be great if a story where she wasn't
Speaker 5: the killer did that. But typically, you know, a comic
Speaker 5: book story isn't going to focus on you know, the
Speaker 5: depressed wife of the like third protagonist. You know, like
Speaker 5: that's that's a that's an unusual choice. And and so
Speaker 5: to me that probably popped out as well as like
Speaker 5: an instant like well who's she? Like, you know, like
Speaker 5: what is what is she? Why is she in this
Speaker 5: story so much? Which isn't I don't mean like it
Speaker 5: would be a bad choice otherwise, I think it would
Speaker 5: be a great choice. Otherwise it would be very interesting
Speaker 5: but but it just would be an unusual one. It's
Speaker 5: it's I wouldn't expect storytellers to go to the that
Speaker 5: those lengths and funny.
Speaker 6: I think in some ways you actually made my point
Speaker 6: better than I was making it, and also helped me
Speaker 6: understand how we see the movie a little differently, because
Speaker 6: to me, Harvey Dent is one hundred percent the main
Speaker 6: character of this, Like I see it primarily about his
Speaker 6: and part of that's because I've always been so fascinated
Speaker 6: with his story, so maybe that's what I glom onto most.
Speaker 6: But you're right, I thought it was so interesting and
Speaker 6: so different that they were giving us her story. Yeah,
Speaker 6: and I want to I wish we saw more of that,
Speaker 6: and so that was part of Also, I think the like, oh,
Speaker 6: that's why you give us her story, not just because
Speaker 6: you think it's interesting. Okay, that's fine.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Yeah, And I do feel like they thought it
Speaker 5: was interesting enough to be actually the I mean, in
Speaker 5: another way, she's the main character, right, Yeah. It's like, sure,
Speaker 5: it's called Batman The Long Halloween, and a lot of
Speaker 5: it focuses on, you know, Harvey Dent and him becoming
Speaker 5: two Face, but like it's a story about serial killer, right,
Speaker 5: and she's like, in some way, the villain is always
Speaker 5: the star, right, and I wouldn't I wouldn't even call
Speaker 5: her a villain, you know, but she's she's definitely the
Speaker 5: serial killer, you know, she's the one you know who
Speaker 5: done it, and and so yeah, I think, you know,
Speaker 5: I would. I would love to see something similar that's
Speaker 5: a mystery that also has characters who you wouldn't expect
Speaker 5: to be as well fleshed out as well fleshed out
Speaker 5: as she is, who are actually then red herrings, you know.
Speaker 5: And it's like that's all the when you do a mystery,
Speaker 5: you can take any character and make them a big
Speaker 5: deal either because they are.
Speaker 6: With a number of members of Falcone's family right.
Speaker 5: Exactly, you know, and they none of them I felt
Speaker 5: got quite as much, but a lot of them got
Speaker 5: way more than they would in a story that was just,
Speaker 5: you know, an action story. This wasn't an action story.
Speaker 5: It was it was a mystery that had action in it.
Speaker 6: Right, I think you're right. All right, Well, there's a
Speaker 6: couple of last things I wanted to touch on and
Speaker 6: hear from you as well before you wrap up. I
Speaker 6: was really impressed with with voice casting Jensen Eccles, who
Speaker 6: is most known for Supernatural and now for the Boys.
Speaker 6: He's the voice of Batman, and I thought he was
Speaker 6: very good. And it's also interesting because like when we
Speaker 6: people talk about who are the Batman, you know, who
Speaker 6: are the people who played Batman? Actually never heard his
Speaker 6: name mentioned in the in the conversation, I think because
Speaker 6: this is much smaller. The only little I love having
Speaker 6: Katie Sakoff, who people know from battles for Galactaga and
Speaker 6: some other things is poison Ivy and some other great people.
Speaker 5: And as Bokatan.
Speaker 6: Yeah yeah, oh yeah, very much so. The only thing
Speaker 6: that like, I thought it was a good voice acting,
Speaker 6: but it just kind of like rubbed me a little
Speaker 6: bit the wrong way. But again I focus on these things.
Speaker 6: A lot. Nia Rivera, who a lot of people know
Speaker 6: from Glee where she really got her start, fortunately has
Speaker 6: passed away. She was the voice of Selina Kyle of Catwoman,
Speaker 6: which I thought was great. Nya is Latina or Nia?
Speaker 6: Someone is dead? Do you say was?
Speaker 4: Or is?
Speaker 5: I say it was? And you know, I say died
Speaker 5: violently by drowning, not passed away, but you know, yeah
Speaker 5: that's me.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Nia was Latina and quite dark skinned, and so
Speaker 6: to have her voice acting a much lighter skin Selena
Speaker 6: Kyle I didn't love. But I also know that, like
Speaker 6: we're still going very slowly on that kind of thing,
Speaker 6: so fair enough. But yeah, other than that, I really
Speaker 6: love the voice acting and I thought you're right, the
Speaker 6: animation was just absolutely gorgeous.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean the first one, at least the first
Speaker 5: one was dedicated to her, as she died some time
Speaker 5: between recording the voice and doing the what's it called?
Speaker 5: Oh and the and the release of the movie.
Speaker 6: Yea, quite tragically.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah, I mean in terms of I don't know,
Speaker 5: it's it's interesting because it's like that's also kind of
Speaker 5: the the opposite of like if you have, you know,
Speaker 5: a white actor playing a character with darker skin, like
Speaker 5: that also is going to be I don't know. I
Speaker 5: guess what I'm trying to say is I think that
Speaker 5: this is probably less problematic than that. And it's possible
Speaker 5: that they basically had the animation and then they cast her.
Speaker 6: You know, right, that would yeah, that would make some sense.
Speaker 5: But yeah, I thought she was a very good catwoman regardless,
Speaker 5: and I did feel that.
Speaker 6: Who was it?
Speaker 5: I felt like Jensen Ackles was kind of trying to
Speaker 5: do a Kevin Conroy without like trying to do a
Speaker 5: Kevin Conroy impersonation.
Speaker 6: I wondered at first to do it was Conroy because
Speaker 6: it sounded it definitely sounded like that strong groth, giving
Speaker 6: very little emotion but not quite there.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And I would say, you know, I don't want
Speaker 5: someone to do an impersonation, but to me, this kind
Speaker 5: of hit the sweet spot of like feeling like it
Speaker 5: was in the spirit of the Kevin Conroy Batman without
Speaker 5: being like, I'm going to try and impersonate Kevin Conroy.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And overall I did think the voice acting was
Speaker 5: excellent and the Yeah, but the animation was just on.
Speaker 5: I feel like it's on another level from a lot
Speaker 5: of the other animation that we see from, you know,
Speaker 5: especially Disney, I guess, particularly in terms of like Star Wars,
Speaker 5: you know, I mean, there's things in the Star Wars
Speaker 5: animation that I think are great, like it's the settings
Speaker 5: and stuff, but in terms of the characters themselves, like this,
Speaker 5: it feels more to me like a comic book that moves.
Speaker 6: You know. Yeah, I think it's very good. Yeah, it
Speaker 6: ruined me that way of us the Spider Verse. Yeah,
Speaker 6: you have a very different styles. Any other last things
Speaker 6: you wanted to bring up before we wrap up?
Speaker 5: Uh, yeah, there's there's one more line from Gilda at
Speaker 5: the end where she says, in the end, I loved
Speaker 5: him talking about Harvey, but not all of him. And
Speaker 5: I feel like that kind of parallels some of the
Speaker 5: Bruce and Selina relationship where because they're like actually together,
Speaker 5: they are a couple and Catwoman knows who Batman is,
Speaker 5: but then they're not a couple, and it's like they
Speaker 5: clearly can't really make it work, but they kind of try,
Speaker 5: and then then it doesn't work, and then it does,
Speaker 5: and you know. There are two more stories that follow
Speaker 5: this in the same comics continuity. One is called Catwoman
Speaker 5: when in Rome and the other one's Batman Dark Victory,
Speaker 5: and the latter I think is is like a Dick
Speaker 5: Grayson Robin origin, which I think would be really interesting
Speaker 5: to see like handled in the same kind of on
Speaker 5: the same level as this, And I would really like
Speaker 5: to see the Catwoman one in Rome, which is she
Speaker 5: like takes a trip to Rome to try and find
Speaker 5: out what's up with you know her, I guess mostly
Speaker 5: her mom because Falcone is dead now here and yeah,
Speaker 5: and it looks like it's like a week and you
Speaker 5: know whatever. But unfortunately, you'd have to get a different
Speaker 5: voice actress, mostly unfortunately because you know, someone died and
Speaker 5: that sucks, right, But it would be nice to see
Speaker 5: like a Catwoman story that's like, this is a Catwoman story,
Speaker 5: you know that's not the halle Berry movie.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, because it is that same story from the
Speaker 6: Batman of Falcone. Was her father right exactly? And she
Speaker 6: says a name at the very end, would I think
Speaker 6: is supposed to be the point that that's Selena Kyle's
Speaker 6: mother's name. Yes, she doesn't even know her mother's name.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think he says Louisa. And when she's at
Speaker 5: the very end, she's trying to save Sophia, which is
Speaker 5: I guess her half sister or sister, and she's like
Speaker 5: Sophia and then Sophia like let's go and falls to
Speaker 5: her death. But it feels almost like they know each other,
Speaker 5: you know, like she knows her. Yeah, which was just
Speaker 5: an interesting like just little thing.
Speaker 6: For sure, for sure. Yeah, a couple of little things.
Speaker 6: I loved. The joker at one point makes a comment
Speaker 6: that why he has to. Like, why he's so invested
Speaker 6: in the holiday story is that he, like Batman, loves
Speaker 6: a good puzzle, right, which is I've never really heard
Speaker 6: it expressed quite that way, but I really like that
Speaker 6: is that something that binds the two of them together.
Speaker 6: Early on we talked about how kind of like this
Speaker 6: is about Batman kind of learning how to do the
Speaker 6: stuff he does, especially detective work. There's a scene where
Speaker 6: it's pretty clear and Gordon actually says this, like he
Speaker 6: doesn't use the words good cop, bad cop, but but
Speaker 6: he basically was like, I thought we had a thing
Speaker 6: where we were gonna like bluff the violence, and Gordon
Speaker 6: does the like, yeah, I hope you answer me or
Speaker 6: else I can't do with Batman. Yeah, And then Batman
Speaker 6: is like does the no, No, dude, it was a bluff.
Speaker 6: It was a bluff.
Speaker 5: We can't do this Like I thought we were doing
Speaker 5: a bit here.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it was really good. And I also just like,
Speaker 6: I haven't actually seen this much since the original Godfather,
Speaker 6: and I think it's very much a reference. Actually, no,
Speaker 6: it's in Good Fellows where it no, forgive me, this
Speaker 6: is a bit that I haven't seen since Goodfellas. And
Speaker 6: then Goodfellows did it in reference to the Godfather, but
Speaker 6: in both of them, there's a scene where the mobsters
Speaker 6: are like making a spaghetti sauce that's really great. Oh yeah,
Speaker 6: and so having Falcone make a reference to how like
Speaker 6: you have to get the basil just when it's really
Speaker 6: fresh to like make the good sauce, I was like,
Speaker 6: oh I love that, thank you.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it just really made me want to some pasta
Speaker 5: with some like red peppers, like and you know, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 6: We're gonna do now, as we're doing for most of
Speaker 6: the year, is we're gonna wrap up, We're gonna give
Speaker 6: the outro, and then there's gonna be a bonus section
Speaker 6: where we talk little bit more about the episode and
Speaker 6: other things we'd recommend, which if you're a Patreon you
Speaker 6: get to find out about and so, Paul, before I
Speaker 6: go into all that, for folks who have following you,
Speaker 6: what do you want them to know?
Speaker 5: I'm Zen Madman in all the places, Twitch, Twitter, YouTube,
Speaker 5: I've started coaching, writing and creating again, and details and
Speaker 5: all that are available on my website Zenmadman dot com.
Speaker 5: Like Matthew, I'm also launching a Patreon and support there
Speaker 5: will help me spend more of my time making stuff
Speaker 5: for folks. So if you're heading over to support the
Speaker 5: Ethical Panda, which you absolutely should do, feel free to
Speaker 5: stop my mine afterwards. That's awesome.
Speaker 6: I'm really glad to hear you getting those things started.
Speaker 6: And as Paul said, you can find both of us
Speaker 6: now on Patreon. I'm the Ethical Panda. Paul is Zen Madman,
Speaker 6: and I know on Zen Madman you're geting a lot
Speaker 6: of great stuff right here. If you do sign up
Speaker 6: to be a patron, pretty much any level, you'll get
Speaker 6: to have the bonus content that we're about to do.
Speaker 6: We've been having a lot of fun making those, so
Speaker 6: I really hope you get to check those out. But
Speaker 6: for everyone who's going to be stopping here, as you know,
Speaker 6: the best way to find us on all the places
Speaker 6: is the Ethical Panda. You can fin us on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok,
Speaker 6: Twitter and TikTok and the main ones have been focusing
Speaker 6: on lately. But we do have a discord. We do
Speaker 6: have a Facebook page and depending on content and generation,
Speaker 6: I'd be happy to make more things there. So let
Speaker 6: us know what you think. This is not a movie
Speaker 6: a lot of people have seen, but if you have
Speaker 6: seen it, we'd love to hear it. If you haven't,
Speaker 6: what do you think about it? You know, wanting to
Speaker 6: watch it, or what do you think about all the
Speaker 6: questions we raised about you know, this new idea of
Speaker 6: who two Faces could be or how you know two
Speaker 6: Face's origin story or holiday and who Holiday could be
Speaker 6: and the mystery and what Batman decides to do at
Speaker 6: the end. Would love to hear your feedback in thoughts,
Speaker 6: the Ethical Panda, Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, all those places, and
Speaker 6: the best way to find all that is going to
Speaker 6: be in the show notes, or if you go to
Speaker 6: our website, the Ethical Panda dot com. There you'll find
Speaker 6: all the concient information. You'll find information about all the
Speaker 6: other podcasts we're doing. We've been doing episode by episode
Speaker 6: coverage of The Bad Batch. We have a great episode
Speaker 6: coming out on the Last of Us with Danielle written
Speaker 6: in the Star Wars, who's a huge fan of that.
Speaker 6: Owen is gonna have a uh, she's played the whole
Speaker 6: video game. I have not, so we're gonna have a
Speaker 6: great conversation about that. That will be here on this
Speaker 6: podcast coming soon. All that's gonna be up on the
Speaker 6: website so thank you so much for listening. If you're
Speaker 6: a patron, then we will have more for you interest
Speaker 6: a second for everybody else. Have a great day.