October 31, 2025 • 38 mins
BOO! It is back. Well… not Pennywise, not yet. But if the first and last ten minutes of this new Stephen King prequel series teach us anything, it’s that you don’t need Bill Skarsgård to show Derry, Maine as a full-blown nexus of evil. Kids should probably skip this one, but fans of horror should not. On the podcast, we break down the 53-minute pilot: plot points, expectations, standout moments, comparisons, reception, and the weird trivia we picked up along the way. I’ll say right off the bat, between The Music Man and the show’s heavy reliance on turtles, it had me from the jump. That said, hear our thoughts and let us know what you think.
Welcome to Today’s Episode!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:15):
Welcome to today's episode, the podcast, where we
discuss the most recentinstallment of a different
series every show.
It is Halloween, and we are hereto discuss this hour-long pilot
based on Stephen King's It.
It welcome to Derry.
It's also based on the 2017 and2019 movies, chapter one and
chapter two.
What do you think of them?
I thought that they were uhscary, you know, for the most
(00:36):
part.
I like the first chapter betterthan the second.
I think you're in the majoritythere.
I didn't like the adults.
SPEAKER_01 (00:42):
I didn't like the adults.
I agree with you.
I remember for it chapter one, Icame in kind of late, so I sat
down right as that boat wasgoing downstream into the sewer.
But I thought that the firstchapter was one of the best
films of 2017.
I like the kids, I like theirchemistry.
I thought that Sophia Lillis, Ithink her name is, who played
Bev.
Her career is taken on.
I thought she was a standout.
(01:03):
I and like you said, it had somereally scary moments to it, but
also had a lot of humor to it.
SPEAKER_00 (01:07):
I do remember being a little taken aback that Mike
from Stranger Things was also init, and it was just like, but
you're friends with the othergroup, and I don't like mixing
you in the world.
SPEAKER_01 (01:16):
That was back in the day, though, when like Stranger
Things season two had just comeout, right?
SPEAKER_00 (01:19):
Yeah, and we're only at season three right now.
Yeah, well boy, they takeforever.
SPEAKER_01 (01:24):
But uh, with chapter two, I also agreed with that.
It wasn't as good.
I thought the runtime was waytoo long, the pacing was very
sluggish.
I did think when they started toflash back to the younger, the
loser group, when they startedincorporating them, the movie
got better.
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (01:39):
The scene where uh there was the benches like in
the um baseball game orwhatever, and then like the kid
walked underneath.
Was that the first one or thesecond one?
Because I thought it was thesecond one.
I thought James McAvoy wasprobably.
SPEAKER_01 (01:51):
Oh no, no, that was the second one.
SPEAKER_00 (01:52):
And and yeah, that part was still good.
And I remember seeing that andbeing like, ooh, that's the part
from that's the scary part.
But yeah, so when did the 2017and 2019 movies take place?
Remind me.
Uh wasn't it like the 80s?
Late 80s, and then 2016 was so27 years, uh 89.
And then the 90s miniseries,which you watched.
SPEAKER_01 (02:10):
I just saw a couple days ago.
For the first time, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (02:13):
It had what were your impressions of that?
SPEAKER_01 (02:15):
It had the same problem where part one set up.
I didn't think that they were asgood as the Bill Skarsgarden
movies, but it set up like avery Tim Curry did a great job,
but I'm saying more like thekids when I was when you were
following them, that was when itwas interesting.
When you got to part two, it wasawful.
Like following the adult filmsthat they're following the adult
uh characters.
SPEAKER_00 (02:35):
Was it that the adults act too much like kids or
are they just too boring?
SPEAKER_01 (02:39):
There was one scene with Bill and Mike where they
were on a bike like ridingtogether and they were supposed
to be acting like kids, and itwas very strange.
I also know that part two on ABCis kind of notorious for being
as bad as it is, like, spoileralert, but it turns into a giant
spider and they're still using aslingshot and they're all
adults.
SPEAKER_00 (02:58):
Yeah, that's the part that I think is like when
you're an adult, when whenyou're watching a kid do things
and it's like, oh, they're intheir magical realism thing.
Like it's it feels like thatcould actually happen to the
mind of a kid.
But when you're watching anadult, do you're like, why
didn't you go to the police?
Why didn't you like actually dothings that an adult would do?
SPEAKER_01 (03:15):
Right.
And I mean, like, that's that'spart of the reason why in part
one, when they're using aslingshot and like they hit Tim
Curry's head and like lightcomes out, it doesn't come
across as like bad as themtrying to hit the abs of a
spider or something.
SPEAKER_00 (03:26):
You said it already, but penny wise, you like both
renditions of it.
Now, the 1990s version, it wasmore uh taken to the books time
period, so like 1960, 1990 werethe two timelines.
Here in the new pilot wereintroduced in 1962, but it is in
the same canon as the 2017films.
(03:47):
So a lot of the characters thatwe know from later on are
actually their like relativesare appearing in the previous
series here, which isinteresting.
Um, what do Johnny Depp, DanielRadcliffe, and Diddy all have in
common?
Oh god.
Oh, you don't want to know?
No, it's uh it's fear of clowns.
Chorophobia.
Chaphobia.
SPEAKER_01 (04:06):
And like they just can't like stand to look at
them, or do you what is it?
I have not asked, but so let'stalk about the 53 to 50.
Are you afraid of clowns?
No, not really.
I never understood the fear thatmuch, but I knew that there was
like in back in 2016.
It's a disguise.
Back in 2016, there was likethat huge clown-like fear,
right?
Yeah, like that one.
(04:27):
I don't know.
SPEAKER_00 (04:28):
53 to I think it was on the tail of Joker, right?
SPEAKER_01 (04:31):
Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_00 (04:32):
53 to 54 minute pilot.
What year?
1962.
How do we know that?
Because the music man is playingat Derry's Capitol Theater, and
Maddie Clements, a 12-year-oldboy, is watching this movie.
Now, I think some articles werequick to point out that the
music band didn't actually comeout in theaters until June, and
yet we're in the year wrong.
SPEAKER_01 (04:54):
Or no, they got the time frame wrong because we're
in January.
Right.
Because I was gonna say we'rearound Christmas time.
There's a lot of snow.
SPEAKER_00 (05:01):
Think it might even be New Year's.
SPEAKER_01 (05:02):
Yeah, there's a lot of snow in Maine, and I think
that I even saw some Christmastrees.
Yeah, Paul Bunyan is on thebillboard, which is a direct
reference to the movie wherePaul Bunyan literally chases
after whoever uh Mike Wolf orFinn Wolfhart.
SPEAKER_00 (05:16):
You want to take a guess at how expensive it was to
go to a movie in in uh 1962?
Oh god, I would say maybe adollar.
Hey, you got it.
You got it?
82 cents to a dollar.
So you're right in the yeah,yeah, yeah.
And so we're listening to TheMusic Man, the first play I've
ever gone to, and probably stillone of my favorites for that
reason.
And Trouble in River City isplaying, and uh, I know like all
(05:40):
the words in my head, and so I'mwatching this and I'm like, what
a good way to start off the TVshow.
SPEAKER_01 (05:44):
I couldn't get over it because last year on comedy
Bang Bang, the both likeepisodes back to back have Scott
Ackerman and uh and they wereboth on the best of Scott
Ackerman and Paul F.
Tompkins, and they're fightingover if the music man was
actually a good person or not.
SPEAKER_00 (06:00):
So whenever uh Harold Hill.
So you're that was one of thedeeper points I wanted to like
kind of bring up was like that'sa story about a small town.
Now it is like earlier, like1910s to 1920s time period.
So it could actually be the itversion previously, like that
because they're gonna make threeseasons of this.
This one takes place here.
(06:21):
The next season, I think, isgonna be like 30 years in the
past before.
SPEAKER_01 (06:24):
So it's gonna be a trilogy.
Do you know if it's gonna belike an anthology or is it gonna
be based on like the well it'sjust gonna continue the
storyline so that it's allconnected.
SPEAKER_00 (06:32):
But the the how Harold Hill thing makes a lot of
sense because that guy was sortof a sleaze bag coming into
town.
But the whole idea is thatbecause he fell falls in love
with the town and the librarian,despite the town being kind of
like uh pushy towards him atfirst, that he turn turns the
other, or he like becomes abetter person by the end, right?
(06:52):
And uh and he actually doessucceed in like making himself
better and also making the towna little bit better.
And it it like is like the exactopposite.
Yes, he just keeps onterrorizing this place, right?
Yeah, no, I so and I mean goingafter kids, I think uh obviously
is almost the exact opposite,like where he comes in evil and
(07:16):
then he leaves good.
Like, that's not really whathappens with it, unless you're
talking about the final moviewhere he is proud of the kids.
That was such a weird way tokill him off.
It's so memorable, though.
That was my other favorite partof the second one.
Was what was his line?
All grown up, all grown up,yeah.
Okay, so Maddie Clements iswatching the music man.
They're singing Trouble in RiverCity, and he's he's he's using a
(07:38):
pacifier, right?
Oh, well, I well, what I waswondering was is it a ring pop?
I thought it was a ring pop too.
Some articles said ring pop.
I I'm instantly was like, Oh,it's just candy, right?
Ring pops weren't invented until1977.
That's a simple Google search.
So this kid had probably apacifier in his mouth, and the
(07:59):
only thing people were sayingwas he comes from a broken home,
and so that's his like thingthat he does, like a baby.
SPEAKER_01 (08:05):
Still, I he was like what eight, 10 around there.
12, he's 12 years old.
Yeah, he's 12 years old.
SPEAKER_00 (08:11):
Uh yeah, there's no way that he would be.
So it's just a little bit of anodd thing from this kid.
The usher obviously is used toseeing him sneak in, catches
him, starts like running him outof the theater, and that's where
we meet Ronnie, who is theprojectionist's daughter.
And we also get the backstory onMaddie because the
projectionist, her dad, says,let him go.
(08:32):
His family is broken.
SPEAKER_01 (08:33):
There's also the save the cat moment where Ronnie
doesn't sell him out becausehe's hiding right behind the
post.
SPEAKER_00 (08:38):
Ronnie knows and she is the last person to actually
see Maddie alive.
Not technically true because theusher does see him after Ronnie
leaves.
But yes, she's the last kid whoto see him alive.
And one thing that I do want topoint out is that later on when
we meet the Losers Club and allthat, and uh and Phil and Teddy
are talking about how Maddie'smom was trying to get them to go
to his birthday party and tryingto pay them with candy, and they
(09:00):
still didn't go.
That doesn't sound like parentsthat are like terrible to their
kid, does it?
That they were really, reallytrying to get other kids to go
to his birthday party.
I think it was I saw like adistinct difference between what
Maddie believes is going on inhis home or how he's presenting
it and what actually is.
It both could be true.
Maybe his mom really does careabout him and his dad is
abusive, but like it did seemkind of contrasting with like
(09:24):
the background they were givingthis.
SPEAKER_01 (09:25):
Either way, you know it's not going to end up well
for Maddie.
Because if you look at like thethe it like uh ABC film, it
starts off with a little girl onher bike and then uh the clown
comes out and kills her.
Wow.
And then uh part two didn'treally have it, but then chapter
one started off with Georgie'sdeath.
Then chapter two was the personwho was a little bit older, it
was Adrian, and he was 23, butstill that person dies.
(09:47):
That's the first scene.
So I was uh already like, okay,what's gonna happen to Maddie?
How are they going to introduceit?
SPEAKER_00 (09:53):
Maddie is Matthew in the original book, and he's only
like said in a small part, Ithink it was even in before
times, like it was like 19again, early 1900s, and he was a
baby.
So they were like an yeah, theythey mixed a lot of people's
characters and they like theyfleshed things out and they
changed stuff.
But overall, I think it stayedto the tradition of it because
(10:13):
this next crazy hitchhike scenewhere he gets into a car and
he's just like, take me anywherebut dairy, right?
SPEAKER_01 (10:20):
I'm gonna I'm gonna label it as the most horrifying
scene of 2025.
Maybe alien earnestly.
I mean, the second she pulls outthe liver, but really what the
mom said when the mom said Icouldn't even keep those uh legs
closed if I glued them up.
Oh, she's like 14 or something.
SPEAKER_00 (10:39):
Call her daughter.
It wasn't she didn't call her astraight up whore, but she
called her a like a hussy or aharlot.
She called her a harlot, andthis is a kid, and it was just
like, yeah, so out of bounds.
And the like first instant thathe gets in the car, everybody's
flags are up.
Like, right, are is this familynormal, this nuclear family?
They see it.
SPEAKER_01 (10:57):
Because it seems like it, it seems like it seems
like the mom and dad.
SPEAKER_00 (11:00):
Because they say, Hey, where can we take you?
And then uh followed by we'regoing to Portland.
Like, if it was an evil car, whynot just kill him right at the
get-go?
But like, that's what the itclown is.
It's like it only grows the moreit's able to stay.
Yeah, he likes to play with youa lot of times.
So it waits until it startsdoing some weird stuff, even
(11:20):
with the raw liver.
That's when I was like, Oh, thisis absolutely not good.
But the kid pulls it out, thegirl does, yeah, and she starts
to dip her fingers into it.
Yeah, saying she loves thesmell, puts it in front of
Maddie's face, and then shestops annoying him for a second,
and she turns to her otherbrother and who's like spelling
out words very loudly and tellshim to shut up, which is very
(11:40):
normal in like a family.
SPEAKER_01 (11:42):
But it pulled it back for a quick second.
SPEAKER_00 (11:45):
For a quick second, you're like, oh, maybe things
are still okay.
And then the mom gives birth toa deformed winged demon baby.
SPEAKER_01 (11:52):
You actually see it coming out, you see an uh an
umbilical cord and all likeeverything.
And I do have to admit thatwhile I was just like so
cringing during the scene, I didhave to laugh when the dad
started chanting O-U-T becausethey were it was just like they
were summoning it.
So insane.
And yeah, you obviously it'slike no nudity, but you see it
(12:13):
through her underwear.
SPEAKER_00 (12:15):
It was just nudely.
It was like alien, like where itjust bursts through the guy's
stomach and you don'tnecessarily see the full thing.
SPEAKER_01 (12:21):
It was like alien, it reminded me a little bit of
the M.
Night Shyamalan movie Old, wherethey were on a beach, they had a
similar kind of pregnancy.
Uh the changeling, more justbecause it was a horror show,
but I know that the pilot alsohad a pregnant scene in that,
but I think that was on asubway.
But this one by far took thecake in terms of like how just
disturbing it was.
SPEAKER_00 (12:41):
It reminded me a lot of the Rolls-Royce Wraith in
Nosferatu, Joe Hill's book, JoeHill being Stephen King's uh
son.
It when I read that and alsowatched the first episode or
first few episodes of theseries, um, that had the whole
idea was that this guy who hadwould take these kids to
(13:02):
Christmas land.
So he would kidnap them, stickthem in the back, and the car
was the actual evil presence.
And what it would do in the backis it would just leech their
like energy and theirimagination and turn them evil
into like the little gremlinkids.
And that's where he would justkeep them in this Christmas land
thing.
But it reminded me so much ofthat because when the kids would
get in, they'd get so scaredbeing in the back seat.
And you could tell him that hewas super scared when everything
(13:23):
was going down and the demonbaby came shotting out.
He just immediately looked outthe window and just started
sucking on the pacifier again.
And that's where you saw thewhole family turn and just stare
at him, including the deformedbaby.
And for like another second, youwere like, are they not allowed
to act unless he's looking atthem?
And then no, they stillattacked.
(13:43):
And that guy was, I guess hedied right there.
But we were led to believe maybehe could have been kidnapped.
Well, we never see the episode.
SPEAKER_01 (13:50):
The part that I just couldn't get over is that you
saw there was a quick scene ofthe mom holding on to the cord
as the baby was run like I waslike, this is this is this is
this is literally insane.
SPEAKER_00 (14:02):
Like, this is even more insane than the movies.
It does feel like if you everconnect it to Land Before Time,
the first Land Before Time isknown to be just tragic and sad,
but also bittersweet.
And then every Lambert LambBefore Time sequel TV series, I
think they actually had like 19movies.
Wow, it got more and morechildish.
(14:23):
This is the opposite.
It feels like it's gettingdarker and darker.
And it they did say uh on HBOthey were able to do darker
things than they were able toeven do in the movies.
SPEAKER_01 (14:33):
There was a viral music video called Die Fantasy,
and then I and then we can moveon.
But there is a viral music videoback in 2013 called Die Fantasy,
and very, very similar to whathappened here.
This just felt like the liveaction version of it.
But yes, then we cut forward intime.
SPEAKER_00 (14:48):
Before cutting forward, I just want the
concentration on the first 10minutes here is so important
because to me, I feel like thefirst 10 minutes and the last 10
minutes make this series anecessary watch for any Borough
fan out there.
Agreed.
The rest of the show, there's afew things I would like to
critique, but I don't think weshould concentrate on them as or
(15:08):
at it as long as we concentratedon the first scene here.
But yeah, so we jump to April.
We're at the standpipe, which isa famous thing for Stephen King.
He includes it in almost all hisit's the water tower.
And we're introduced over thecourse of the next few scenes to
the Proto Losers Club, whoinclude Looney Lily Bainbridge.
How would you describe her?
SPEAKER_01 (15:27):
It was the person that Maddie liked, but she's
also an outcast.
Like she's opening up her lockerand a pickle jar is falling out.
SPEAKER_00 (15:33):
Her dad died a year beforehand, um, almost to the
day, and he died in a picklejarring accident where he got
stuck in the machine and mangledto death.
And she blames herself, whichthen she will later on blame
herself for Maddie's death too.
SPEAKER_01 (15:46):
Well, she also only has like one friend, and even
that one friend is kind ofgetting tired of being around
her.
SPEAKER_00 (15:52):
Well, that's because yes, she after she had a
psychotic break, and she wentto, I think the place was called
Juniper Hill.
She mentions it for like a quicksecond.
Same insane asylum or whereverthat they took Henry Bowers, the
bully who like grows up, andthen like we see different
scenes from him in the in thedifferent chapters, right?
Uh so they are consistent withwith that.
(16:12):
And so she's in that clinic fora while.
She gets out, she goes back tohigh school, and obviously kids
are gonna tease her for the factthat she's loony.
And so she doesn't have a lot offriends.
In fact, the two other kids,Phil and Teddy, uh, Phil is a
conspiracy-loving nerd, he's notthat into schoolwork.
Teddy is kind of the oppositewhere he really is about the
schoolwork.
Teddy's the main character,though.
(16:33):
It does feel like it.
Uh, yeah, he's Jewish and hedoes, he's the one who asks the
adult at some point what to doin the scenario where like weird
things are happening.
And that's where his dad, who isalso Jewish, is like, don't
compare what's happening indairy ever to like the
Holocaust.
And that kind of shuts him up.
However, he also mentions whatwe talked about in the Ed Dean
(16:55):
series, which is that the Nazis,that one lady um would like make
lampshades with people's skin,and then suddenly we see a scene
where Teddy is in his room andhe's being haunted by it um with
a lampshade of skin.
SPEAKER_01 (17:10):
God, that was yeah, you see like the faces of the
skin in the skin.
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (17:13):
I think it wasn't just CGI, I think it was
practical effect too.
Like they did like a mix of thetwo.
SPEAKER_01 (17:17):
I always like it when TV shows do that.
But yeah, what do you think?
He's also the one that's mosthaunted by Maddie.
Like Phil, you can tell, is kindof put off, but he's not, he's
not really willing, I think, toadmit to himself that he cares
that much.
SPEAKER_00 (17:29):
I think guilt is a big thing.
Yeah, it's something that likethe uh Pennywise like eats off
of too.
But like you said, Looney LilyBainbridge, Maddie had a crush
on her.
He took her to the water tower,which he wasn't supposed to do
technically, and then he triedto kiss her.
She said, We're just friends,but at the same time, she felt
bad about that because shedidn't know if she like liked
him like that.
She just hadn't thought of himthat way.
SPEAKER_01 (17:50):
I just say that, like, also whenever the show
goes out, like in that firstscene where you're able to see
the snow and the lights or thatfireworks scene, when it goes to
the exterior, it looks great.
SPEAKER_00 (18:00):
Yeah, they shot in the same place that they shot
the movies, which was I think inOntario, but they were able to
outfit the town and make it looklike that time period.
Uh, you've already talked aboutMarge, and then we talked about
Ronnie.
Phil has a kid sister who endsup joining later on, named Susie
in real life.
Phil and Susie are brother andsister.
That is cool until you find outthe ending where they are
massacred.
Um, so guilt, yeah.
(18:21):
So Lily has the guilt withfather, with Maddie, and how
does it come about?
How does it uh rise up withMaddie?
She's in the bathroom, similarto Beverly, Beverly Marsh.
And what happened in BeverlyMarsh's scene?
That was the blood scene, right?
SPEAKER_01 (18:35):
Where the balloon, right?
SPEAKER_00 (18:37):
Filled with blood, comes out of the faucet.
Instead, here what Lily hears isMaddie's voice singing the
trouble song from Music Man, andthen not Taylor Swift.
Not Taylor Swift.
That's a good point.
Uh, and and so she says, Come onout.
No, she's like, Maddie, whereare you?
You know, and uh please, pleasecome home.
SPEAKER_01 (18:58):
I mean, what it is is black phone, basically.
That's why I connected.
SPEAKER_00 (19:02):
I was gonna say there are a few moments
scattered throughout, not justthe first 10 minutes and the
last 10 minutes, that I do like.
And when he yelled, he won't letme, I was like, Ooh, good
shivers, you know, like that,like, yeah, that moment of like
maybe he is still alive, and atthe same time, he's trapped.
So she goes and she tells whoshe thinks is his best friends,
Phil and Teddy.
Teddy and Phil sort of don'tbelieve her.
(19:23):
That's when uh Phil or Teddy ishaunted by the lampshade.
He tells them about it, they alldecide to start investigating.
Um, so Lily, Teddy, Phil, andSusie go to the library.
They find out that Ronnie'sfamily was the last one to see
him.
So they go to her and she getsmad, but then she also admits to
having this guilt uh over it andhaving heard Maddie's voice.
(19:46):
So at this point, Phil is likethe only one who hasn't had any
guilt.
So why is he dying?
Is my question.
SPEAKER_01 (19:53):
I, you know, that's a good yeah, because he doesn't
even seem to be, we haven't seenhim haunted yet, right?
SPEAKER_00 (19:58):
Yeah, but he does flip out after um Teddy comes to
him and says, I was haunted by alampshade.
Because he was like, I've knownTeddy since forever and he would
not make that up.
SPEAKER_01 (20:07):
Talking about that library scene, they use I don't
know what the machine is, butlike that kind of uh makes
newspapers bigger.
I always like seeing those.
The micro something or other.
And they say that the in the inthe article um about Maddie that
the last place that he was atwas the cinema.
Yes, like and so that's why theyend up going there at the very
end.
SPEAKER_00 (20:27):
Right with Ronnie.
Ronnie sets up the same film,the music man.
SPEAKER_01 (20:31):
Looked okay, so I just saw this a couple weeks
ago.
Maybe I wouldn't make thisconnection otherwise, but that
cinema looked to me a lot likeCinema Paradiso, like the movie
classic there.
SPEAKER_00 (20:41):
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (20:42):
Something that you would go in there and but
especially with like Ronniesetting up the projection and
everything, and you seeing thefilm reels, it just brought me
back to that movie,surprisingly.
SPEAKER_00 (20:50):
So it felt like a classic.
It also, for some reason,reminded me a little bit of
Inglorious Bastards.
So uh we're watching this thing,and it's the last 10 minutes, so
we know something scary is gonnahappen.
And it becomes forced gump.
Like they're watching the film,and suddenly Maddie shows up,
and I'm thinking, this is cool.
Can we spend like the next fewuh episodes watching the music
(21:11):
man and just have Maddie likeinteracting with these
characters?
No, no, no.
He's they zoom in on him, he canhear his friends yelling at him,
come on home, you know?
Yeah, and he's holding what weknow to be the baby, but it's
like wrapped up, so they don'tknow what he's holding.
SPEAKER_01 (21:27):
The first shot we get though, when he doesn't say
anything and they just show himin the film, that was that was
cool, but it was so funny to me.
It was like that that that was agreat, great moment, right
there.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (21:36):
So Teddy and Phil and little Susie are the only
ones in the theater because Ino, no, no, and um uh Lily is
also there, right?
Yes.
Ronnie is up in the balcony orwhatever, setting up the
projection.
So basically she's safe.
And that's when Maddie has aturn.
He stops being just their oldfriend Maddie, um, and he he
kind of goes Robin from Joe.
(21:58):
You know when Joker kidnapsRobin in that famous cartoon and
then turns him into the joker.
SPEAKER_01 (22:02):
You're talking about like the Batman Beyond one,
right?
SPEAKER_00 (22:04):
Uh yeah, I think that's but it was like right
now, yes.
It follows the comics, yeah.
So like when his face he goesinto like almost the demented uh
Bill Skarsgard look, he does thesmile and his face lightens up
and it looks like he's almostgoing full clown.
And I was like, is this gonna belike a new origin story for
Pennywise?
(22:25):
Is Pennywise Maddie?
And then no, I think it's justPennywise's spirit is inside uh
Maddie right now, and he's justusing him as a vessel.
SPEAKER_01 (22:34):
Well, you should also mention that he tray like
the music man kind of fades outin the background.
He's he's walking away from themovie practically, and then it's
just him towards the screen.
SPEAKER_00 (22:43):
Yes, he's breaking the fourth wall, literally.
SPEAKER_01 (22:46):
Right, and but it's just it's just him against
blackness by the time that he'shaving his evil moment.
SPEAKER_00 (22:51):
I thought he was gonna walk out of the screen.
He sort of did.
He threw the baby out of thescreen.
And I know the baby's scary, butit is tiny.
And I was thinking, maybe if youhit it.
What did they have to hit itwith?
They didn't have a fists.
I mean, you I'm saying like, butthen it proceeded to just maul
and dismember uh all three ofthem, uh Teddy, Phil, and most
(23:14):
sadly his sister, Susie.
Susie had the moment, theGeorgie moment, where uh uh uh
uh Lily asked for her hand,yeah, tried to pull it, and
ended up with a mangled arm inher in her hand.
SPEAKER_01 (23:28):
Because yeah, so this was insane to me because we
start off the first thing, thefirst person that dies, I think
it's the person that's thrownagainst the window, is uh is
Teddy.
Like just so sad.
His his body just getscompletely smushed.
You see like the blood and goreand everything.
It was crazy they killed Susieoff, though.
The like the youngest personusually horror TV shows or
(23:49):
movies like save that one.
I was gonna say my initialimpressions, but absolutely she
had perhaps the most graphicdeath with the hands still being
clung to Lily by the time thatLily leaves.
SPEAKER_00 (24:00):
They went there, yeah, yeah, and then she screams
because Ronnie has come down atthat.
In my mind, I was like, how canI make this so that like by the
end of it they find out it's amemory or like they're gonna
bring them back to life?
And I was like, nope, nope, itseems like they're actually
killed off, killed off.
SPEAKER_01 (24:14):
Yeah, I mean, I that's that's getting into kind
of my my impressions where it'slike I hope that they do remain
dead.
I'm I if they still come back inghost form, I still think that
that's fine.
I hope Phil remains dead.
No, I'm exactly I'm just sayingthat like if it was any other TV
show, I would be more afraidthat they'd be bought back.
But I think that it a lot of thetimes when they're dead, yes,
(24:35):
you might see them inPennywise's form, but they but
they're like dead.
SPEAKER_00 (24:38):
I have some more to say, and you have some more to
say on the impressions, but I dowant to approach the second
storyline really quickly.
Major Leroy Hanlon, uh, a blackKorean war veteran, newly
assigned to Derry Air ForceBase.
It's the place that we saw Phillooking at from the water tower
at the beginning.
He's studying this militarycamp.
They have B-2 bombers, and so uhthey're they're not exactly sure
(25:00):
what's going on there.
They're running experiments.
Reminds me a little bit ofanother Stephen King story, The
Mist, you know, where uhsomething wacky could be going
on.
Maybe they have monsters.
Some interested uh sleuths onthe internet were thinking maybe
that they're hunting Pennywise.
Um but yeah, you have uh themain guy, uh Leroy Hanlon, who
is obviously connected with MikeHanlin, the main character of
(25:21):
the original series.
I think it's his grandpa.
General Shaw is played by JamesRemar.
He is the one who apologizesconsistently every time there is
any sort of racism directedtoward towards Hanlon.
Yeah, he's also the one thatkind of steps in.
And I bet you didn't recognizeCaptain Paulie Rooster.
SPEAKER_01 (25:37):
Oh, I absolutely did.
I did.
SPEAKER_00 (25:38):
Okay, Rudy Mancuzo.
SPEAKER_01 (25:40):
Yeah, Rudy Mancuzo.
What is he doing in that?
Not playing the piano.
That's what he's not doing.
I was I was shocked.
I was like, wait, wait, wait,wait.
A YouTuber is now in the world.
SPEAKER_00 (25:51):
Best friends with the grandpa.
SPEAKER_01 (25:53):
I mean, here's the thing YouTubers usually make the
jump, but they don't make thejump into like a huge series
like It Welcome to Dairy most ofthe time.
SPEAKER_00 (26:02):
It's actually related to Andy Muschetti and
Barbara Muschetti, the brotherand sister team who do the who
who created the and developedthe series and no, I'm just
making that up.
I have no idea.
I have no idea how he how he gotinto it.
Um it's just funny that, yeah,you have a YouTuber there um and
you've shown me videos of hisbefore.
And then uh I also wanted topoint out that um they get
(26:25):
attacked, right, in the middleof the night, because we see
very small bits of this story,but they get attacked by these
people wearing gas masks.
The last time we've seen like agas mask show would be like
Teacup, which again was likelast year.
SPEAKER_01 (26:36):
Or the stand.
I mean, but my question aboutthat.
SPEAKER_00 (26:38):
Yeah, my is that's a good point.
Uh is why didn't they grab thegas mask and try to rip it off?
You know, they had a fewseconds, and I feel like that
would have been the go-to moveis grab that gas mask and rip to
see who it is.
SPEAKER_01 (26:49):
Who it is, yeah, because they're asking for uh
specs on the kind of just laughoff the fact that he was
attacked by the end.
They've yeah, it was also justweird that like Pauly Russo was
the one that basically chasesthem off.
Like they don't they don't evenlike injure them really, they
just kind of run away.
Right.
Right.
It was I guess they just didn'twant to fight two people.
Uh and they had guns, right?
So they had guns and there waslike four of them.
(27:09):
It was very s weird, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (27:11):
Yeah, we'll find out more about that later, but for
now on the pilot.
He is a pilot, so it's got adouble meaning there.
The pilot, the pilot.
Um, and and and that that'sabout the episode.
So let's talk about what otherimpressions we had on it.
Uh you want me to kick it off ordo you?
SPEAKER_01 (27:25):
Uh I'll I'll start off with mine.
Okay.
Guess because we were justtalking about it.
The army-based story I hated.
Don't know why it was in theshow.
Really wish that they justfocused on the kids.
Thought that it was the like itbought the showdown.
Yes, it had some famous peoplein it, but I'm sure it's going
to be explained more in theseven episodes left, but I just
wish that it was out of thestory.
SPEAKER_00 (27:44):
Ah, I liked it.
You really?
Yeah, I think because I didn'tlike necessarily all the kids'
scenes, especially when theywere together, I felt like it
was a little stilted, like theywere really trying to pile in
the references, and it came atthe cost of actual natural,
authentic dialogue and way ofmaking these kids not seem like
actors.
And so seeing then this otherstoryline kind of taking a break
(28:04):
from it, um, I think that theyoverkilled the fact that, like,
the first second he gets inthere, he is uh he's not given
the proper salute becausethere's some racists.
James Remar apologizes there.
Then the next scene heapologizes for it.
Then the next scene, he isattacked by a bunch of racists.
I I would think um in the gasmask.
(28:25):
It just felt like there was anoverwhelming message there when
they only needed to do it onceor maybe twice to kind of get
the point across.
Um as far as the kids areconcerned, I think Marge is
getting promoted because I thinkshe's gonna be part of the
losers club now, and it's justgonna be Ronnie, Lily, and
Marge.
So it's gonna be three threegirls, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (28:45):
No, I mean, and also I like the way that the 60s was
portrayed.
Like we've already talked aboutthe music man was there, but
Bert the turtle mascot,obviously.
So turtles, right?
SPEAKER_00 (28:54):
Let's talk turtles.
Very important to Stephen King'suniverse, especially the it
universe, because it's likethere's this magical super
cosmic turtle, kind of like anavatar that is supposed to be
the antithesis to the evil thatis Pennywise or it.
And so that like at some pointwe should see an Avengers style
turtle versus clown fight.
(29:15):
But Bert the Turtle was there.
And also, if you remember,Maddie gave uh Lily his Cracker
Jack turtle that he got.
Yeah.
And she said it's good luck.
My question is, had he kept thatturtle, would he still be alive?
Is that turtle what kept Lilyalive?
I would think yes.
SPEAKER_01 (29:31):
Yeah, right.
I would think so too.
I thought that Bertha the Turtleworked well though, because
obviously it was a symbol of theCuban Missile Crisis, so it fit
right in with the timeline.
SPEAKER_00 (29:40):
Yeah, but I I love any turtle reference, I love any
music man reference.
For that reason, this show isgoing to get high marks for me
for I'm just giving that away.
I do think it's the search thatkind of fucked them overall, the
kids.
Had they not gone so hard, Ithink they were like egged into
it, but had they not done that,then it It would not have been
(30:01):
able to, I think, put themtogether and have them in the
same place and just do thismassacre in the same way.
I think it was sort of a ritualfor him.
SPEAKER_01 (30:07):
Because of that, it's kind of a nitpick, but it
does just re-tread, it feelslike territory a little bit too
much for me personally.
SPEAKER_00 (30:15):
I I think a lot of people expected the kids to die
because we all know where it'sheading.
Right.
They were not successful atdefeating this monster until the
the the chapter one and chaptertwo.
So we know that like possiblythese kids are all gonna die,
but to happen in the firstepisode, after you spend so much
of it trying to I the peoplewere saying it's a bait and
switch, they pulled the rug out,but in a good way.
SPEAKER_01 (30:35):
Yeah, and that's that's what leads me to actually
my next pro, which was that thepacing was really good.
I mean, I'm not sure if we'regonna agree on that, but I felt
like by the time, even though itended with a bang, I thought I
was expecting it to keep going,not feel like 50 minutes to me.
I was like, oh wow, okay, thatwas pretty fast.
SPEAKER_00 (30:50):
Yeah, when you spend the first 10 minutes in such
graphic violence in the last 10minutes and stuff, you are kind
of left being like, I that didnot feel that long.
Like I was I was entertained.
Um, I do feel like the theadults kind of have a Charlie
Brown effect in all of thesethings where and I think it's
even addressed in uh in themovies where they forget what
(31:11):
happens after these tragedies.
But it's crazy that thathappened.
Like, this isn't one or twobodies in a small town, it's
killing a lot of people.
And the fact that they had thislike memory wipe, Alzheimer's
like lock and key style, kidsonly remember, it it makes it so
that the world, it's hard tofigure out how if you were in
that situation, you would beatit.
SPEAKER_01 (31:31):
But talking about the fate of the main characters,
it feels like we're startingback at square one.
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (31:36):
They have to reintroduce you to a whole new
litany of like, because I'm assure the losers group is going
to be made up of more than threepeople.
Right.
But now we're we're followingLily and you have to find more
losers.
SPEAKER_01 (31:46):
Uh but my thing is more like, what was the point of
telling Teddy's backstory if inthe end they were just going to
kill him off?
SPEAKER_00 (31:52):
Uh oh, Teddy's backstory?
I thought you were talking aboutMatt again.
Um, I I think they'll still showup.
Like, I don't think thosecharacters are gone in the way
that, but they'll just beghosts, like they'll be the evil
versions of themselves.
SPEAKER_01 (32:03):
To me, it's one of the things where it's like we've
started a race, and I feel likewe're going a couple steps back
because this next episode isgoing to have to be probably
flushing out or giving morecharacters or adding them to the
story.
And I feel like, you know, it'sit's gonna be like a second
pilot.
Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_00 (32:18):
I found that like my main criticism was definitely
the kids' writing.
Like I just it's Phil and Teddy.
I I by the end, I think Teddywas okay.
I didn't like Phil's character.
I felt that like the Lily Maddiepushing that love story when
like they were just kids.
It didn't feel like Maddie hadreally that much motive to leave
based on what we were seeing.
(32:39):
Um, the fact that she rejectedone kiss.
SPEAKER_01 (32:41):
Uh plus she was she she she felt bad about it, like
she still wanted to be there.
SPEAKER_00 (32:45):
When you compare this to Stranger Things, because
everybody's gonna compare it toStranger Things.
Very much those kids in thatfirst like episode, they didn't
have any references that theyhad to push in there.
Now, they obviously were payinghomage to the 80s and and
horror, but like the kidsthemselves in those first two
seasons were so good at seeminglike real people, like real kids
that you'd want to hang out withor that you just uh you'd see.
(33:08):
Like there was nothing about itthat felt stilted and as corny,
right?
Right.
This did have that.
This I felt like that was itsmain hiccup.
All also, you could say thatthere was no Bill Skarsgard.
SPEAKER_01 (33:19):
I was yeah, so that was my thing.
The CGI a little bit off, butalso no pennywise, all
iterations make sure to have himin the first scene.
And I get that they are usinghim sparingly, but it's called
it.
The poster is him with aballoon, just him on the front.
Why do we have to wait?
Because I feel like we're notgonna get a lot of him next
episode either.
SPEAKER_00 (33:38):
And if that's the case, that's the case, I'd be
mad.
But just one episode without it.
I think it was also subvertingexpectations.
Kill all the kids, don't havethe monster in it, have the baby
monster in it.
I I still wanted to see him.
Yes, that's where I'm comingfrom, too.
Is uh but it would have stillbeen nice to see like the scary
monster.
Right.
Okay, and then uh yeah, so mypros though, I already said
(33:58):
Music Man, the significance ofthe turtle, uh, also Miles
Urkhart, the guy who played umMaddie, he his first role was in
Turtles All the Way Down.
Um, so does the show, do youthink, expand the pennywise
mythology on television withoutlosing the cinematic polish and
tone of the movies?
Yes.
(34:19):
Okay, because that's what theyset out to do.
As I said, Andy Muschete and hissister Barbara Muschetti are the
ones who developed this.
Um Benjamin Walfish is the sameperson who did the score in the
movies, did the score here.
You have writer uh Jason Fuchs,who penned a lot of the series,
Fuchs and Caleb Kane, Brad CalebKane, who voiced Aladdin's
(34:39):
singing uh singing voice in likethe 90s movies.
Oh, the cartoon versions.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Uh, so he's the co-showrunner.
Um, and they also, like I toldyou, uh, shot in Port Hope,
Ontario, and they shot it underthe title Greetings from
Fairview, all these other reallytiny facts.
Last one I'll throw in there isthat Teddy's older brother, the
(35:00):
one who comes into his room, islike, I don't know why we're
related.
Yeah, after the lampshade Stan'sfather from the film, he's the
future rabbi of Derry.
So he does take a what are yourcomparisons for this show?
SPEAKER_01 (35:09):
Uh I kind of went through them all, but I had um I
had Stranger Things, like wetalked about the terrifier just
because Terrifying Clown, BlackPhone, Haunting of Hill House,
just because of the tone,really.
I saw one place, one article,compare this to Untamed.
I don't know how, but I wantedto see if you could guess why,
how you could even connect thetwo of them.
SPEAKER_00 (35:29):
I mean, both regard an investigation and a missing
dead kid.
Um, that's about it.
SPEAKER_01 (35:36):
You just yeah, I was I was very confused by it.
But overall, I'll be giving theshow an eight out of ten.
Eight out of ten if Phil andSusie and Ted are actually dead.
Seven if they come back.
But again, I don't think I don'tthink that's happening.
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (35:48):
Um, I'm saying for the pilot, yeah, 7.58 is is good
to give it.
I would also be uh trepidatiousbefore like jumping in and
saying the whole show is gonnabe great.
Um again, it you have to see ifyou're a horror fan, the first
scene, the last scene here.
Uh, I would compare it toinvasion, as in the you had the
kid plot, and then you had theside plot with the military.
Uh Leroy is kind of like thatcharacter in that.
(36:10):
Um, obviously Stranger Things.
At one point, the writer strikeaffected this, and so they had a
state of spontaneous growth.
I know that Stranger Things hashad to deal with the same thing.
Gas mask, teacup, shiningconnection.
There is a character from theshining who is in the television
series.
I don't know if we've seen himyet.
And then them, because of theracism.
1953 is when that took place,also had some crazy shit with a
(36:32):
baby, I think, uh, later on, butnot not like, yeah, different
type of horror.
The reception for this thing hasbeen pretty good across the
board.
I mean, they've had so manypeople weigh in because it is
one of the most anticipatedshows of the year.
Um, some of my favoriteheadlines were like, even Dairy
Girls fans who have switched onin confusion might be convinced
to stick around.
That was the independent.
The Guardian, actually, I don'tthink gave it a great review,
(36:53):
but a lot of the negativereviews were kind of reiterating
the same thing I was talkingabout, which is that the kids
weren't as likable because theydidn't come across, especially
in their scenes together, asthat authentic, like they were
actually friends.
Um, especially the scene wherethe Phil was like peeping.
I think that was the one where Iwas just like, this feels so
dumb.
And that was like one of hisfirst few scenes.
(37:14):
Yeah, he didn't get that many.
And I think part of it was like,Oh, we're gonna kill these kids
off, so we can't make them too.
Like they can't, but it butMarge is kind of like Barb was
in Stranger Things, but she'sgonna survive.
So yeah.
Um, Welcome to Dairy feels likea lesser imitation of Netflix's
phenomenon in almost every way.
That was the rap negative.
Um, TV Insider says it's not asclever a brand as FX's superb
(37:36):
alien earth.
It's not top-tier king, or eventhe best it, but it's far from
the worst.
The worst being ABC's part twoversion, right?
Okay, and then uh 60 onMetacritic, 8.1 on IMDb, 76 on
Ron Tomatoes, critic score, 81audience score.
It's nice when they link up likethat, and it seems like
everybody's sort of on the samepage.
(37:57):
Um, Reddit is like flurry withuh different ideas of what's
going to happen next, but theywon't have to wait long because
the second episode it comes outtoday, tonight.
They're releasing it early,which is really cool.
Um, thanks for listening.
We'll see you on the nextepisode.
Hope you enjoyed this one.
Bye.
Bye.
Welcome to today's episode, the podcast, where we
discuss the most recentinstallment of a different
series every show.
It is Halloween, and we are hereto discuss this hour-long pilot
based on Stephen King's It.
It welcome to Derry.
It's also based on the 2017 and2019 movies, chapter one and
chapter two.
What do you think of them?
I thought that they were uhscary, you know, for the most
(00:36):
part.
I like the first chapter betterthan the second.
I think you're in the majoritythere.
I didn't like the adults.
SPEAKER_01 (00:42):
I didn't like the adults.
I agree with you.
I remember for it chapter one, Icame in kind of late, so I sat
down right as that boat wasgoing downstream into the sewer.
But I thought that the firstchapter was one of the best
films of 2017.
I like the kids, I like theirchemistry.
I thought that Sophia Lillis, Ithink her name is, who played
Bev.
Her career is taken on.
I thought she was a standout.
(01:03):
I and like you said, it had somereally scary moments to it, but
also had a lot of humor to it.
SPEAKER_00 (01:07):
I do remember being a little taken aback that Mike
from Stranger Things was also init, and it was just like, but
you're friends with the othergroup, and I don't like mixing
you in the world.
SPEAKER_01 (01:16):
That was back in the day, though, when like Stranger
Things season two had just comeout, right?
SPEAKER_00 (01:19):
Yeah, and we're only at season three right now.
Yeah, well boy, they takeforever.
SPEAKER_01 (01:24):
But uh, with chapter two, I also agreed with that.
It wasn't as good.
I thought the runtime was waytoo long, the pacing was very
sluggish.
I did think when they started toflash back to the younger, the
loser group, when they startedincorporating them, the movie
got better.
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (01:39):
The scene where uh there was the benches like in
the um baseball game orwhatever, and then like the kid
walked underneath.
Was that the first one or thesecond one?
Because I thought it was thesecond one.
I thought James McAvoy wasprobably.
SPEAKER_01 (01:51):
Oh no, no, that was the second one.
SPEAKER_00 (01:52):
And and yeah, that part was still good.
And I remember seeing that andbeing like, ooh, that's the part
from that's the scary part.
But yeah, so when did the 2017and 2019 movies take place?
Remind me.
Uh wasn't it like the 80s?
Late 80s, and then 2016 was so27 years, uh 89.
And then the 90s miniseries,which you watched.
SPEAKER_01 (02:10):
I just saw a couple days ago.
For the first time, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (02:13):
It had what were your impressions of that?
SPEAKER_01 (02:15):
It had the same problem where part one set up.
I didn't think that they were asgood as the Bill Skarsgarden
movies, but it set up like avery Tim Curry did a great job,
but I'm saying more like thekids when I was when you were
following them, that was when itwas interesting.
When you got to part two, it wasawful.
Like following the adult filmsthat they're following the adult
uh characters.
SPEAKER_00 (02:35):
Was it that the adults act too much like kids or
are they just too boring?
SPEAKER_01 (02:39):
There was one scene with Bill and Mike where they
were on a bike like ridingtogether and they were supposed
to be acting like kids, and itwas very strange.
I also know that part two on ABCis kind of notorious for being
as bad as it is, like, spoileralert, but it turns into a giant
spider and they're still using aslingshot and they're all
adults.
SPEAKER_00 (02:58):
Yeah, that's the part that I think is like when
you're an adult, when whenyou're watching a kid do things
and it's like, oh, they're intheir magical realism thing.
Like it's it feels like thatcould actually happen to the
mind of a kid.
But when you're watching anadult, do you're like, why
didn't you go to the police?
Why didn't you like actually dothings that an adult would do?
SPEAKER_01 (03:15):
Right.
And I mean, like, that's that'spart of the reason why in part
one, when they're using aslingshot and like they hit Tim
Curry's head and like lightcomes out, it doesn't come
across as like bad as themtrying to hit the abs of a
spider or something.
SPEAKER_00 (03:26):
You said it already, but penny wise, you like both
renditions of it.
Now, the 1990s version, it wasmore uh taken to the books time
period, so like 1960, 1990 werethe two timelines.
Here in the new pilot wereintroduced in 1962, but it is in
the same canon as the 2017films.
(03:47):
So a lot of the characters thatwe know from later on are
actually their like relativesare appearing in the previous
series here, which isinteresting.
Um, what do Johnny Depp, DanielRadcliffe, and Diddy all have in
common?
Oh god.
Oh, you don't want to know?
No, it's uh it's fear of clowns.
Chorophobia.
Chaphobia.
SPEAKER_01 (04:06):
And like they just can't like stand to look at
them, or do you what is it?
I have not asked, but so let'stalk about the 53 to 50.
Are you afraid of clowns?
No, not really.
I never understood the fear thatmuch, but I knew that there was
like in back in 2016.
It's a disguise.
Back in 2016, there was likethat huge clown-like fear,
right?
Yeah, like that one.
(04:27):
I don't know.
SPEAKER_00 (04:28):
53 to I think it was on the tail of Joker, right?
SPEAKER_01 (04:31):
Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_00 (04:32):
53 to 54 minute pilot.
What year?
1962.
How do we know that?
Because the music man is playingat Derry's Capitol Theater, and
Maddie Clements, a 12-year-oldboy, is watching this movie.
Now, I think some articles werequick to point out that the
music band didn't actually comeout in theaters until June, and
yet we're in the year wrong.
SPEAKER_01 (04:54):
Or no, they got the time frame wrong because we're
in January.
Right.
Because I was gonna say we'rearound Christmas time.
There's a lot of snow.
SPEAKER_00 (05:01):
Think it might even be New Year's.
SPEAKER_01 (05:02):
Yeah, there's a lot of snow in Maine, and I think
that I even saw some Christmastrees.
Yeah, Paul Bunyan is on thebillboard, which is a direct
reference to the movie wherePaul Bunyan literally chases
after whoever uh Mike Wolf orFinn Wolfhart.
SPEAKER_00 (05:16):
You want to take a guess at how expensive it was to
go to a movie in in uh 1962?
Oh god, I would say maybe adollar.
Hey, you got it.
You got it?
82 cents to a dollar.
So you're right in the yeah,yeah, yeah.
And so we're listening to TheMusic Man, the first play I've
ever gone to, and probably stillone of my favorites for that
reason.
And Trouble in River City isplaying, and uh, I know like all
(05:40):
the words in my head, and so I'mwatching this and I'm like, what
a good way to start off the TVshow.
SPEAKER_01 (05:44):
I couldn't get over it because last year on comedy
Bang Bang, the both likeepisodes back to back have Scott
Ackerman and uh and they wereboth on the best of Scott
Ackerman and Paul F.
Tompkins, and they're fightingover if the music man was
actually a good person or not.
SPEAKER_00 (06:00):
So whenever uh Harold Hill.
So you're that was one of thedeeper points I wanted to like
kind of bring up was like that'sa story about a small town.
Now it is like earlier, like1910s to 1920s time period.
So it could actually be the itversion previously, like that
because they're gonna make threeseasons of this.
This one takes place here.
(06:21):
The next season, I think, isgonna be like 30 years in the
past before.
SPEAKER_01 (06:24):
So it's gonna be a trilogy.
Do you know if it's gonna belike an anthology or is it gonna
be based on like the well it'sjust gonna continue the
storyline so that it's allconnected.
SPEAKER_00 (06:32):
But the the how Harold Hill thing makes a lot of
sense because that guy was sortof a sleaze bag coming into
town.
But the whole idea is thatbecause he fell falls in love
with the town and the librarian,despite the town being kind of
like uh pushy towards him atfirst, that he turn turns the
other, or he like becomes abetter person by the end, right?
(06:52):
And uh and he actually doessucceed in like making himself
better and also making the towna little bit better.
And it it like is like the exactopposite.
Yes, he just keeps onterrorizing this place, right?
Yeah, no, I so and I mean goingafter kids, I think uh obviously
is almost the exact opposite,like where he comes in evil and
(07:16):
then he leaves good.
Like, that's not really whathappens with it, unless you're
talking about the final moviewhere he is proud of the kids.
That was such a weird way tokill him off.
It's so memorable, though.
That was my other favorite partof the second one.
Was what was his line?
All grown up, all grown up,yeah.
Okay, so Maddie Clements iswatching the music man.
They're singing Trouble in RiverCity, and he's he's he's using a
(07:38):
pacifier, right?
Oh, well, I well, what I waswondering was is it a ring pop?
I thought it was a ring pop too.
Some articles said ring pop.
I I'm instantly was like, Oh,it's just candy, right?
Ring pops weren't invented until1977.
That's a simple Google search.
So this kid had probably apacifier in his mouth, and the
(07:59):
only thing people were sayingwas he comes from a broken home,
and so that's his like thingthat he does, like a baby.
SPEAKER_01 (08:05):
Still, I he was like what eight, 10 around there.
12, he's 12 years old.
Yeah, he's 12 years old.
SPEAKER_00 (08:11):
Uh yeah, there's no way that he would be.
So it's just a little bit of anodd thing from this kid.
The usher obviously is used toseeing him sneak in, catches
him, starts like running him outof the theater, and that's where
we meet Ronnie, who is theprojectionist's daughter.
And we also get the backstory onMaddie because the
projectionist, her dad, says,let him go.
(08:32):
His family is broken.
SPEAKER_01 (08:33):
There's also the save the cat moment where Ronnie
doesn't sell him out becausehe's hiding right behind the
post.
SPEAKER_00 (08:38):
Ronnie knows and she is the last person to actually
see Maddie alive.
Not technically true because theusher does see him after Ronnie
leaves.
But yes, she's the last kid whoto see him alive.
And one thing that I do want topoint out is that later on when
we meet the Losers Club and allthat, and uh and Phil and Teddy
are talking about how Maddie'smom was trying to get them to go
to his birthday party and tryingto pay them with candy, and they
(09:00):
still didn't go.
That doesn't sound like parentsthat are like terrible to their
kid, does it?
That they were really, reallytrying to get other kids to go
to his birthday party.
I think it was I saw like adistinct difference between what
Maddie believes is going on inhis home or how he's presenting
it and what actually is.
It both could be true.
Maybe his mom really does careabout him and his dad is
abusive, but like it did seemkind of contrasting with like
(09:24):
the background they were givingthis.
SPEAKER_01 (09:25):
Either way, you know it's not going to end up well
for Maddie.
Because if you look at like thethe it like uh ABC film, it
starts off with a little girl onher bike and then uh the clown
comes out and kills her.
Wow.
And then uh part two didn'treally have it, but then chapter
one started off with Georgie'sdeath.
Then chapter two was the personwho was a little bit older, it
was Adrian, and he was 23, butstill that person dies.
(09:47):
That's the first scene.
So I was uh already like, okay,what's gonna happen to Maddie?
How are they going to introduceit?
SPEAKER_00 (09:53):
Maddie is Matthew in the original book, and he's only
like said in a small part, Ithink it was even in before
times, like it was like 19again, early 1900s, and he was a
baby.
So they were like an yeah, theythey mixed a lot of people's
characters and they like theyfleshed things out and they
changed stuff.
But overall, I think it stayedto the tradition of it because
(10:13):
this next crazy hitchhike scenewhere he gets into a car and
he's just like, take me anywherebut dairy, right?
SPEAKER_01 (10:20):
I'm gonna I'm gonna label it as the most horrifying
scene of 2025.
Maybe alien earnestly.
I mean, the second she pulls outthe liver, but really what the
mom said when the mom said Icouldn't even keep those uh legs
closed if I glued them up.
Oh, she's like 14 or something.
SPEAKER_00 (10:39):
Call her daughter.
It wasn't she didn't call her astraight up whore, but she
called her a like a hussy or aharlot.
She called her a harlot, andthis is a kid, and it was just
like, yeah, so out of bounds.
And the like first instant thathe gets in the car, everybody's
flags are up.
Like, right, are is this familynormal, this nuclear family?
They see it.
SPEAKER_01 (10:57):
Because it seems like it, it seems like it seems
like the mom and dad.
SPEAKER_00 (11:00):
Because they say, Hey, where can we take you?
And then uh followed by we'regoing to Portland.
Like, if it was an evil car, whynot just kill him right at the
get-go?
But like, that's what the itclown is.
It's like it only grows the moreit's able to stay.
Yeah, he likes to play with youa lot of times.
So it waits until it startsdoing some weird stuff, even
(11:20):
with the raw liver.
That's when I was like, Oh, thisis absolutely not good.
But the kid pulls it out, thegirl does, yeah, and she starts
to dip her fingers into it.
Yeah, saying she loves thesmell, puts it in front of
Maddie's face, and then shestops annoying him for a second,
and she turns to her otherbrother and who's like spelling
out words very loudly and tellshim to shut up, which is very
(11:40):
normal in like a family.
SPEAKER_01 (11:42):
But it pulled it back for a quick second.
SPEAKER_00 (11:45):
For a quick second, you're like, oh, maybe things
are still okay.
And then the mom gives birth toa deformed winged demon baby.
SPEAKER_01 (11:52):
You actually see it coming out, you see an uh an
umbilical cord and all likeeverything.
And I do have to admit thatwhile I was just like so
cringing during the scene, I didhave to laugh when the dad
started chanting O-U-T becausethey were it was just like they
were summoning it.
So insane.
And yeah, you obviously it'slike no nudity, but you see it
(12:13):
through her underwear.
SPEAKER_00 (12:15):
It was just nudely.
It was like alien, like where itjust bursts through the guy's
stomach and you don'tnecessarily see the full thing.
SPEAKER_01 (12:21):
It was like alien, it reminded me a little bit of
the M.
Night Shyamalan movie Old, wherethey were on a beach, they had a
similar kind of pregnancy.
Uh the changeling, more justbecause it was a horror show,
but I know that the pilot alsohad a pregnant scene in that,
but I think that was on asubway.
But this one by far took thecake in terms of like how just
disturbing it was.
SPEAKER_00 (12:41):
It reminded me a lot of the Rolls-Royce Wraith in
Nosferatu, Joe Hill's book, JoeHill being Stephen King's uh
son.
It when I read that and alsowatched the first episode or
first few episodes of theseries, um, that had the whole
idea was that this guy who hadwould take these kids to
(13:02):
Christmas land.
So he would kidnap them, stickthem in the back, and the car
was the actual evil presence.
And what it would do in the backis it would just leech their
like energy and theirimagination and turn them evil
into like the little gremlinkids.
And that's where he would justkeep them in this Christmas land
thing.
But it reminded me so much ofthat because when the kids would
get in, they'd get so scaredbeing in the back seat.
And you could tell him that hewas super scared when everything
(13:23):
was going down and the demonbaby came shotting out.
He just immediately looked outthe window and just started
sucking on the pacifier again.
And that's where you saw thewhole family turn and just stare
at him, including the deformedbaby.
And for like another second, youwere like, are they not allowed
to act unless he's looking atthem?
And then no, they stillattacked.
(13:43):
And that guy was, I guess hedied right there.
But we were led to believe maybehe could have been kidnapped.
Well, we never see the episode.
SPEAKER_01 (13:50):
The part that I just couldn't get over is that you
saw there was a quick scene ofthe mom holding on to the cord
as the baby was run like I waslike, this is this is this is
this is literally insane.
SPEAKER_00 (14:02):
Like, this is even more insane than the movies.
It does feel like if you everconnect it to Land Before Time,
the first Land Before Time isknown to be just tragic and sad,
but also bittersweet.
And then every Lambert LambBefore Time sequel TV series, I
think they actually had like 19movies.
Wow, it got more and morechildish.
(14:23):
This is the opposite.
It feels like it's gettingdarker and darker.
And it they did say uh on HBOthey were able to do darker
things than they were able toeven do in the movies.
SPEAKER_01 (14:33):
There was a viral music video called Die Fantasy,
and then I and then we can moveon.
But there is a viral music videoback in 2013 called Die Fantasy,
and very, very similar to whathappened here.
This just felt like the liveaction version of it.
But yes, then we cut forward intime.
SPEAKER_00 (14:48):
Before cutting forward, I just want the
concentration on the first 10minutes here is so important
because to me, I feel like thefirst 10 minutes and the last 10
minutes make this series anecessary watch for any Borough
fan out there.
Agreed.
The rest of the show, there's afew things I would like to
critique, but I don't think weshould concentrate on them as or
(15:08):
at it as long as we concentratedon the first scene here.
But yeah, so we jump to April.
We're at the standpipe, which isa famous thing for Stephen King.
He includes it in almost all hisit's the water tower.
And we're introduced over thecourse of the next few scenes to
the Proto Losers Club, whoinclude Looney Lily Bainbridge.
How would you describe her?
SPEAKER_01 (15:27):
It was the person that Maddie liked, but she's
also an outcast.
Like she's opening up her lockerand a pickle jar is falling out.
SPEAKER_00 (15:33):
Her dad died a year beforehand, um, almost to the
day, and he died in a picklejarring accident where he got
stuck in the machine and mangledto death.
And she blames herself, whichthen she will later on blame
herself for Maddie's death too.
SPEAKER_01 (15:46):
Well, she also only has like one friend, and even
that one friend is kind ofgetting tired of being around
her.
SPEAKER_00 (15:52):
Well, that's because yes, she after she had a
psychotic break, and she wentto, I think the place was called
Juniper Hill.
She mentions it for like a quicksecond.
Same insane asylum or whereverthat they took Henry Bowers, the
bully who like grows up, andthen like we see different
scenes from him in the in thedifferent chapters, right?
Uh so they are consistent withwith that.
(16:12):
And so she's in that clinic fora while.
She gets out, she goes back tohigh school, and obviously kids
are gonna tease her for the factthat she's loony.
And so she doesn't have a lot offriends.
In fact, the two other kids,Phil and Teddy, uh, Phil is a
conspiracy-loving nerd, he's notthat into schoolwork.
Teddy is kind of the oppositewhere he really is about the
schoolwork.
Teddy's the main character,though.
(16:33):
It does feel like it.
Uh, yeah, he's Jewish and hedoes, he's the one who asks the
adult at some point what to doin the scenario where like weird
things are happening.
And that's where his dad, who isalso Jewish, is like, don't
compare what's happening indairy ever to like the
Holocaust.
And that kind of shuts him up.
However, he also mentions whatwe talked about in the Ed Dean
(16:55):
series, which is that the Nazis,that one lady um would like make
lampshades with people's skin,and then suddenly we see a scene
where Teddy is in his room andhe's being haunted by it um with
a lampshade of skin.
SPEAKER_01 (17:10):
God, that was yeah, you see like the faces of the
skin in the skin.
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (17:13):
I think it wasn't just CGI, I think it was
practical effect too.
Like they did like a mix of thetwo.
SPEAKER_01 (17:17):
I always like it when TV shows do that.
But yeah, what do you think?
He's also the one that's mosthaunted by Maddie.
Like Phil, you can tell, is kindof put off, but he's not, he's
not really willing, I think, toadmit to himself that he cares
that much.
SPEAKER_00 (17:29):
I think guilt is a big thing.
Yeah, it's something that likethe uh Pennywise like eats off
of too.
But like you said, Looney LilyBainbridge, Maddie had a crush
on her.
He took her to the water tower,which he wasn't supposed to do
technically, and then he triedto kiss her.
She said, We're just friends,but at the same time, she felt
bad about that because shedidn't know if she like liked
him like that.
She just hadn't thought of himthat way.
SPEAKER_01 (17:50):
I just say that, like, also whenever the show
goes out, like in that firstscene where you're able to see
the snow and the lights or thatfireworks scene, when it goes to
the exterior, it looks great.
SPEAKER_00 (18:00):
Yeah, they shot in the same place that they shot
the movies, which was I think inOntario, but they were able to
outfit the town and make it looklike that time period.
Uh, you've already talked aboutMarge, and then we talked about
Ronnie.
Phil has a kid sister who endsup joining later on, named Susie
in real life.
Phil and Susie are brother andsister.
That is cool until you find outthe ending where they are
massacred.
Um, so guilt, yeah.
(18:21):
So Lily has the guilt withfather, with Maddie, and how
does it come about?
How does it uh rise up withMaddie?
She's in the bathroom, similarto Beverly, Beverly Marsh.
And what happened in BeverlyMarsh's scene?
That was the blood scene, right?
SPEAKER_01 (18:35):
Where the balloon, right?
SPEAKER_00 (18:37):
Filled with blood, comes out of the faucet.
Instead, here what Lily hears isMaddie's voice singing the
trouble song from Music Man, andthen not Taylor Swift.
Not Taylor Swift.
That's a good point.
Uh, and and so she says, Come onout.
No, she's like, Maddie, whereare you?
You know, and uh please, pleasecome home.
SPEAKER_01 (18:58):
I mean, what it is is black phone, basically.
That's why I connected.
SPEAKER_00 (19:02):
I was gonna say there are a few moments
scattered throughout, not justthe first 10 minutes and the
last 10 minutes, that I do like.
And when he yelled, he won't letme, I was like, Ooh, good
shivers, you know, like that,like, yeah, that moment of like
maybe he is still alive, and atthe same time, he's trapped.
So she goes and she tells whoshe thinks is his best friends,
Phil and Teddy.
Teddy and Phil sort of don'tbelieve her.
(19:23):
That's when uh Phil or Teddy ishaunted by the lampshade.
He tells them about it, they alldecide to start investigating.
Um, so Lily, Teddy, Phil, andSusie go to the library.
They find out that Ronnie'sfamily was the last one to see
him.
So they go to her and she getsmad, but then she also admits to
having this guilt uh over it andhaving heard Maddie's voice.
(19:46):
So at this point, Phil is likethe only one who hasn't had any
guilt.
So why is he dying?
Is my question.
SPEAKER_01 (19:53):
I, you know, that's a good yeah, because he doesn't
even seem to be, we haven't seenhim haunted yet, right?
SPEAKER_00 (19:58):
Yeah, but he does flip out after um Teddy comes to
him and says, I was haunted by alampshade.
Because he was like, I've knownTeddy since forever and he would
not make that up.
SPEAKER_01 (20:07):
Talking about that library scene, they use I don't
know what the machine is, butlike that kind of uh makes
newspapers bigger.
I always like seeing those.
The micro something or other.
And they say that the in the inthe article um about Maddie that
the last place that he was atwas the cinema.
Yes, like and so that's why theyend up going there at the very
end.
SPEAKER_00 (20:27):
Right with Ronnie.
Ronnie sets up the same film,the music man.
SPEAKER_01 (20:31):
Looked okay, so I just saw this a couple weeks
ago.
Maybe I wouldn't make thisconnection otherwise, but that
cinema looked to me a lot likeCinema Paradiso, like the movie
classic there.
SPEAKER_00 (20:41):
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (20:42):
Something that you would go in there and but
especially with like Ronniesetting up the projection and
everything, and you seeing thefilm reels, it just brought me
back to that movie,surprisingly.
SPEAKER_00 (20:50):
So it felt like a classic.
It also, for some reason,reminded me a little bit of
Inglorious Bastards.
So uh we're watching this thing,and it's the last 10 minutes, so
we know something scary is gonnahappen.
And it becomes forced gump.
Like they're watching the film,and suddenly Maddie shows up,
and I'm thinking, this is cool.
Can we spend like the next fewuh episodes watching the music
(21:11):
man and just have Maddie likeinteracting with these
characters?
No, no, no.
He's they zoom in on him, he canhear his friends yelling at him,
come on home, you know?
Yeah, and he's holding what weknow to be the baby, but it's
like wrapped up, so they don'tknow what he's holding.
SPEAKER_01 (21:27):
The first shot we get though, when he doesn't say
anything and they just show himin the film, that was that was
cool, but it was so funny to me.
It was like that that that was agreat, great moment, right
there.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (21:36):
So Teddy and Phil and little Susie are the only
ones in the theater because Ino, no, no, and um uh Lily is
also there, right?
Yes.
Ronnie is up in the balcony orwhatever, setting up the
projection.
So basically she's safe.
And that's when Maddie has aturn.
He stops being just their oldfriend Maddie, um, and he he
kind of goes Robin from Joe.
(21:58):
You know when Joker kidnapsRobin in that famous cartoon and
then turns him into the joker.
SPEAKER_01 (22:02):
You're talking about like the Batman Beyond one,
right?
SPEAKER_00 (22:04):
Uh yeah, I think that's but it was like right
now, yes.
It follows the comics, yeah.
So like when his face he goesinto like almost the demented uh
Bill Skarsgard look, he does thesmile and his face lightens up
and it looks like he's almostgoing full clown.
And I was like, is this gonna belike a new origin story for
Pennywise?
(22:25):
Is Pennywise Maddie?
And then no, I think it's justPennywise's spirit is inside uh
Maddie right now, and he's justusing him as a vessel.
SPEAKER_01 (22:34):
Well, you should also mention that he tray like
the music man kind of fades outin the background.
He's he's walking away from themovie practically, and then it's
just him towards the screen.
SPEAKER_00 (22:43):
Yes, he's breaking the fourth wall, literally.
SPEAKER_01 (22:46):
Right, and but it's just it's just him against
blackness by the time that he'shaving his evil moment.
SPEAKER_00 (22:51):
I thought he was gonna walk out of the screen.
He sort of did.
He threw the baby out of thescreen.
And I know the baby's scary, butit is tiny.
And I was thinking, maybe if youhit it.
What did they have to hit itwith?
They didn't have a fists.
I mean, you I'm saying like, butthen it proceeded to just maul
and dismember uh all three ofthem, uh Teddy, Phil, and most
(23:14):
sadly his sister, Susie.
Susie had the moment, theGeorgie moment, where uh uh uh
uh Lily asked for her hand,yeah, tried to pull it, and
ended up with a mangled arm inher in her hand.
SPEAKER_01 (23:28):
Because yeah, so this was insane to me because we
start off the first thing, thefirst person that dies, I think
it's the person that's thrownagainst the window, is uh is
Teddy.
Like just so sad.
His his body just getscompletely smushed.
You see like the blood and goreand everything.
It was crazy they killed Susieoff, though.
The like the youngest personusually horror TV shows or
(23:49):
movies like save that one.
I was gonna say my initialimpressions, but absolutely she
had perhaps the most graphicdeath with the hands still being
clung to Lily by the time thatLily leaves.
SPEAKER_00 (24:00):
They went there, yeah, yeah, and then she screams
because Ronnie has come down atthat.
In my mind, I was like, how canI make this so that like by the
end of it they find out it's amemory or like they're gonna
bring them back to life?
And I was like, nope, nope, itseems like they're actually
killed off, killed off.
SPEAKER_01 (24:14):
Yeah, I mean, I that's that's getting into kind
of my my impressions where it'slike I hope that they do remain
dead.
I'm I if they still come back inghost form, I still think that
that's fine.
I hope Phil remains dead.
No, I'm exactly I'm just sayingthat like if it was any other TV
show, I would be more afraidthat they'd be bought back.
But I think that it a lot of thetimes when they're dead, yes,
(24:35):
you might see them inPennywise's form, but they but
they're like dead.
SPEAKER_00 (24:38):
I have some more to say, and you have some more to
say on the impressions, but I dowant to approach the second
storyline really quickly.
Major Leroy Hanlon, uh, a blackKorean war veteran, newly
assigned to Derry Air ForceBase.
It's the place that we saw Phillooking at from the water tower
at the beginning.
He's studying this militarycamp.
They have B-2 bombers, and so uhthey're they're not exactly sure
(25:00):
what's going on there.
They're running experiments.
Reminds me a little bit ofanother Stephen King story, The
Mist, you know, where uhsomething wacky could be going
on.
Maybe they have monsters.
Some interested uh sleuths onthe internet were thinking maybe
that they're hunting Pennywise.
Um but yeah, you have uh themain guy, uh Leroy Hanlon, who
is obviously connected with MikeHanlin, the main character of
(25:21):
the original series.
I think it's his grandpa.
General Shaw is played by JamesRemar.
He is the one who apologizesconsistently every time there is
any sort of racism directedtoward towards Hanlon.
Yeah, he's also the one thatkind of steps in.
And I bet you didn't recognizeCaptain Paulie Rooster.
SPEAKER_01 (25:37):
Oh, I absolutely did.
I did.
SPEAKER_00 (25:38):
Okay, Rudy Mancuzo.
SPEAKER_01 (25:40):
Yeah, Rudy Mancuzo.
What is he doing in that?
Not playing the piano.
That's what he's not doing.
I was I was shocked.
I was like, wait, wait, wait,wait.
A YouTuber is now in the world.
SPEAKER_00 (25:51):
Best friends with the grandpa.
SPEAKER_01 (25:53):
I mean, here's the thing YouTubers usually make the
jump, but they don't make thejump into like a huge series
like It Welcome to Dairy most ofthe time.
SPEAKER_00 (26:02):
It's actually related to Andy Muschetti and
Barbara Muschetti, the brotherand sister team who do the who
who created the and developedthe series and no, I'm just
making that up.
I have no idea.
I have no idea how he how he gotinto it.
Um it's just funny that, yeah,you have a YouTuber there um and
you've shown me videos of hisbefore.
And then uh I also wanted topoint out that um they get
(26:25):
attacked, right, in the middleof the night, because we see
very small bits of this story,but they get attacked by these
people wearing gas masks.
The last time we've seen like agas mask show would be like
Teacup, which again was likelast year.
SPEAKER_01 (26:36):
Or the stand.
I mean, but my question aboutthat.
SPEAKER_00 (26:38):
Yeah, my is that's a good point.
Uh is why didn't they grab thegas mask and try to rip it off?
You know, they had a fewseconds, and I feel like that
would have been the go-to moveis grab that gas mask and rip to
see who it is.
SPEAKER_01 (26:49):
Who it is, yeah, because they're asking for uh
specs on the kind of just laughoff the fact that he was
attacked by the end.
They've yeah, it was also justweird that like Pauly Russo was
the one that basically chasesthem off.
Like they don't they don't evenlike injure them really, they
just kind of run away.
Right.
Right.
It was I guess they just didn'twant to fight two people.
Uh and they had guns, right?
So they had guns and there waslike four of them.
(27:09):
It was very s weird, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (27:11):
Yeah, we'll find out more about that later, but for
now on the pilot.
He is a pilot, so it's got adouble meaning there.
The pilot, the pilot.
Um, and and and that that'sabout the episode.
So let's talk about what otherimpressions we had on it.
Uh you want me to kick it off ordo you?
SPEAKER_01 (27:25):
Uh I'll I'll start off with mine.
Okay.
Guess because we were justtalking about it.
The army-based story I hated.
Don't know why it was in theshow.
Really wish that they justfocused on the kids.
Thought that it was the like itbought the showdown.
Yes, it had some famous peoplein it, but I'm sure it's going
to be explained more in theseven episodes left, but I just
wish that it was out of thestory.
SPEAKER_00 (27:44):
Ah, I liked it.
You really?
Yeah, I think because I didn'tlike necessarily all the kids'
scenes, especially when theywere together, I felt like it
was a little stilted, like theywere really trying to pile in
the references, and it came atthe cost of actual natural,
authentic dialogue and way ofmaking these kids not seem like
actors.
And so seeing then this otherstoryline kind of taking a break
(28:04):
from it, um, I think that theyoverkilled the fact that, like,
the first second he gets inthere, he is uh he's not given
the proper salute becausethere's some racists.
James Remar apologizes there.
Then the next scene heapologizes for it.
Then the next scene, he isattacked by a bunch of racists.
I I would think um in the gasmask.
(28:25):
It just felt like there was anoverwhelming message there when
they only needed to do it onceor maybe twice to kind of get
the point across.
Um as far as the kids areconcerned, I think Marge is
getting promoted because I thinkshe's gonna be part of the
losers club now, and it's justgonna be Ronnie, Lily, and
Marge.
So it's gonna be three threegirls, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (28:45):
No, I mean, and also I like the way that the 60s was
portrayed.
Like we've already talked aboutthe music man was there, but
Bert the turtle mascot,obviously.
So turtles, right?
SPEAKER_00 (28:54):
Let's talk turtles.
Very important to Stephen King'suniverse, especially the it
universe, because it's likethere's this magical super
cosmic turtle, kind of like anavatar that is supposed to be
the antithesis to the evil thatis Pennywise or it.
And so that like at some pointwe should see an Avengers style
turtle versus clown fight.
(29:15):
But Bert the Turtle was there.
And also, if you remember,Maddie gave uh Lily his Cracker
Jack turtle that he got.
Yeah.
And she said it's good luck.
My question is, had he kept thatturtle, would he still be alive?
Is that turtle what kept Lilyalive?
I would think yes.
SPEAKER_01 (29:31):
Yeah, right.
I would think so too.
I thought that Bertha the Turtleworked well though, because
obviously it was a symbol of theCuban Missile Crisis, so it fit
right in with the timeline.
SPEAKER_00 (29:40):
Yeah, but I I love any turtle reference, I love any
music man reference.
For that reason, this show isgoing to get high marks for me
for I'm just giving that away.
I do think it's the search thatkind of fucked them overall, the
kids.
Had they not gone so hard, Ithink they were like egged into
it, but had they not done that,then it It would not have been
(30:01):
able to, I think, put themtogether and have them in the
same place and just do thismassacre in the same way.
I think it was sort of a ritualfor him.
SPEAKER_01 (30:07):
Because of that, it's kind of a nitpick, but it
does just re-tread, it feelslike territory a little bit too
much for me personally.
SPEAKER_00 (30:15):
I I think a lot of people expected the kids to die
because we all know where it'sheading.
Right.
They were not successful atdefeating this monster until the
the the chapter one and chaptertwo.
So we know that like possiblythese kids are all gonna die,
but to happen in the firstepisode, after you spend so much
of it trying to I the peoplewere saying it's a bait and
switch, they pulled the rug out,but in a good way.
SPEAKER_01 (30:35):
Yeah, and that's that's what leads me to actually
my next pro, which was that thepacing was really good.
I mean, I'm not sure if we'regonna agree on that, but I felt
like by the time, even though itended with a bang, I thought I
was expecting it to keep going,not feel like 50 minutes to me.
I was like, oh wow, okay, thatwas pretty fast.
SPEAKER_00 (30:50):
Yeah, when you spend the first 10 minutes in such
graphic violence in the last 10minutes and stuff, you are kind
of left being like, I that didnot feel that long.
Like I was I was entertained.
Um, I do feel like the theadults kind of have a Charlie
Brown effect in all of thesethings where and I think it's
even addressed in uh in themovies where they forget what
(31:11):
happens after these tragedies.
But it's crazy that thathappened.
Like, this isn't one or twobodies in a small town, it's
killing a lot of people.
And the fact that they had thislike memory wipe, Alzheimer's
like lock and key style, kidsonly remember, it it makes it so
that the world, it's hard tofigure out how if you were in
that situation, you would beatit.
SPEAKER_01 (31:31):
But talking about the fate of the main characters,
it feels like we're startingback at square one.
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (31:36):
They have to reintroduce you to a whole new
litany of like, because I'm assure the losers group is going
to be made up of more than threepeople.
Right.
But now we're we're followingLily and you have to find more
losers.
SPEAKER_01 (31:46):
Uh but my thing is more like, what was the point of
telling Teddy's backstory if inthe end they were just going to
kill him off?
SPEAKER_00 (31:52):
Uh oh, Teddy's backstory?
I thought you were talking aboutMatt again.
Um, I I think they'll still showup.
Like, I don't think thosecharacters are gone in the way
that, but they'll just beghosts, like they'll be the evil
versions of themselves.
SPEAKER_01 (32:03):
To me, it's one of the things where it's like we've
started a race, and I feel likewe're going a couple steps back
because this next episode isgoing to have to be probably
flushing out or giving morecharacters or adding them to the
story.
And I feel like, you know, it'sit's gonna be like a second
pilot.
Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_00 (32:18):
I found that like my main criticism was definitely
the kids' writing.
Like I just it's Phil and Teddy.
I I by the end, I think Teddywas okay.
I didn't like Phil's character.
I felt that like the Lily Maddiepushing that love story when
like they were just kids.
It didn't feel like Maddie hadreally that much motive to leave
based on what we were seeing.
(32:39):
Um, the fact that she rejectedone kiss.
SPEAKER_01 (32:41):
Uh plus she was she she she felt bad about it, like
she still wanted to be there.
SPEAKER_00 (32:45):
When you compare this to Stranger Things, because
everybody's gonna compare it toStranger Things.
Very much those kids in thatfirst like episode, they didn't
have any references that theyhad to push in there.
Now, they obviously were payinghomage to the 80s and and
horror, but like the kidsthemselves in those first two
seasons were so good at seeminglike real people, like real kids
that you'd want to hang out withor that you just uh you'd see.
(33:08):
Like there was nothing about itthat felt stilted and as corny,
right?
Right.
This did have that.
This I felt like that was itsmain hiccup.
All also, you could say thatthere was no Bill Skarsgard.
SPEAKER_01 (33:19):
I was yeah, so that was my thing.
The CGI a little bit off, butalso no pennywise, all
iterations make sure to have himin the first scene.
And I get that they are usinghim sparingly, but it's called
it.
The poster is him with aballoon, just him on the front.
Why do we have to wait?
Because I feel like we're notgonna get a lot of him next
episode either.
SPEAKER_00 (33:38):
And if that's the case, that's the case, I'd be
mad.
But just one episode without it.
I think it was also subvertingexpectations.
Kill all the kids, don't havethe monster in it, have the baby
monster in it.
I I still wanted to see him.
Yes, that's where I'm comingfrom, too.
Is uh but it would have stillbeen nice to see like the scary
monster.
Right.
Okay, and then uh yeah, so mypros though, I already said
(33:58):
Music Man, the significance ofthe turtle, uh, also Miles
Urkhart, the guy who played umMaddie, he his first role was in
Turtles All the Way Down.
Um, so does the show, do youthink, expand the pennywise
mythology on television withoutlosing the cinematic polish and
tone of the movies?
Yes.
(34:19):
Okay, because that's what theyset out to do.
As I said, Andy Muschete and hissister Barbara Muschetti are the
ones who developed this.
Um Benjamin Walfish is the sameperson who did the score in the
movies, did the score here.
You have writer uh Jason Fuchs,who penned a lot of the series,
Fuchs and Caleb Kane, Brad CalebKane, who voiced Aladdin's
(34:39):
singing uh singing voice in likethe 90s movies.
Oh, the cartoon versions.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Uh, so he's the co-showrunner.
Um, and they also, like I toldyou, uh, shot in Port Hope,
Ontario, and they shot it underthe title Greetings from
Fairview, all these other reallytiny facts.
Last one I'll throw in there isthat Teddy's older brother, the
(35:00):
one who comes into his room, islike, I don't know why we're
related.
Yeah, after the lampshade Stan'sfather from the film, he's the
future rabbi of Derry.
So he does take a what are yourcomparisons for this show?
SPEAKER_01 (35:09):
Uh I kind of went through them all, but I had um I
had Stranger Things, like wetalked about the terrifier just
because Terrifying Clown, BlackPhone, Haunting of Hill House,
just because of the tone,really.
I saw one place, one article,compare this to Untamed.
I don't know how, but I wantedto see if you could guess why,
how you could even connect thetwo of them.
SPEAKER_00 (35:29):
I mean, both regard an investigation and a missing
dead kid.
Um, that's about it.
SPEAKER_01 (35:36):
You just yeah, I was I was very confused by it.
But overall, I'll be giving theshow an eight out of ten.
Eight out of ten if Phil andSusie and Ted are actually dead.
Seven if they come back.
But again, I don't think I don'tthink that's happening.
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (35:48):
Um, I'm saying for the pilot, yeah, 7.58 is is good
to give it.
I would also be uh trepidatiousbefore like jumping in and
saying the whole show is gonnabe great.
Um again, it you have to see ifyou're a horror fan, the first
scene, the last scene here.
Uh, I would compare it toinvasion, as in the you had the
kid plot, and then you had theside plot with the military.
Uh Leroy is kind of like thatcharacter in that.
(36:10):
Um, obviously Stranger Things.
At one point, the writer strikeaffected this, and so they had a
state of spontaneous growth.
I know that Stranger Things hashad to deal with the same thing.
Gas mask, teacup, shiningconnection.
There is a character from theshining who is in the television
series.
I don't know if we've seen himyet.
And then them, because of theracism.
1953 is when that took place,also had some crazy shit with a
(36:32):
baby, I think, uh, later on, butnot not like, yeah, different
type of horror.
The reception for this thing hasbeen pretty good across the
board.
I mean, they've had so manypeople weigh in because it is
one of the most anticipatedshows of the year.
Um, some of my favoriteheadlines were like, even Dairy
Girls fans who have switched onin confusion might be convinced
to stick around.
That was the independent.
The Guardian, actually, I don'tthink gave it a great review,
(36:53):
but a lot of the negativereviews were kind of reiterating
the same thing I was talkingabout, which is that the kids
weren't as likable because theydidn't come across, especially
in their scenes together, asthat authentic, like they were
actually friends.
Um, especially the scene wherethe Phil was like peeping.
I think that was the one where Iwas just like, this feels so
dumb.
And that was like one of hisfirst few scenes.
(37:14):
Yeah, he didn't get that many.
And I think part of it was like,Oh, we're gonna kill these kids
off, so we can't make them too.
Like they can't, but it butMarge is kind of like Barb was
in Stranger Things, but she'sgonna survive.
So yeah.
Um, Welcome to Dairy feels likea lesser imitation of Netflix's
phenomenon in almost every way.
That was the rap negative.
Um, TV Insider says it's not asclever a brand as FX's superb
(37:36):
alien earth.
It's not top-tier king, or eventhe best it, but it's far from
the worst.
The worst being ABC's part twoversion, right?
Okay, and then uh 60 onMetacritic, 8.1 on IMDb, 76 on
Ron Tomatoes, critic score, 81audience score.
It's nice when they link up likethat, and it seems like
everybody's sort of on the samepage.
(37:57):
Um, Reddit is like flurry withuh different ideas of what's
going to happen next, but theywon't have to wait long because
the second episode it comes outtoday, tonight.
They're releasing it early,which is really cool.
Um, thanks for listening.
We'll see you on the nextepisode.
Hope you enjoyed this one.
Bye.
Bye.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Ruthie's Table 4
For more than 30 years The River Cafe in London, has been the home-from-home of artists, architects, designers, actors, collectors, writers, activists, and politicians. Michael Caine, Glenn Close, JJ Abrams, Steve McQueen, Victoria and David Beckham, and Lily Allen, are just some of the people who love to call The River Cafe home. On River Cafe Table 4, Rogers sits down with her customers—who have become friends—to talk about food memories. Table 4 explores how food impacts every aspect of our lives. “Foods is politics, food is cultural, food is how you express love, food is about your heritage, it defines who you and who you want to be,” says Rogers. Each week, Rogers invites her guest to reminisce about family suppers and first dates, what they cook, how they eat when performing, the restaurants they choose, and what food they seek when they need comfort. And to punctuate each episode of Table 4, guests such as Ralph Fiennes, Emily Blunt, and Alfonso Cuarón, read their favourite recipe from one of the best-selling River Cafe cookbooks. Table 4 itself, is situated near The River Cafe’s open kitchen, close to the bright pink wood-fired oven and next to the glossy yellow pass, where Ruthie oversees the restaurant. You are invited to take a seat at this intimate table and join the conversation. For more information, recipes, and ingredients, go to https://shoptherivercafe.co.uk/ Web: https://rivercafe.co.uk/ Instagram: www.instagram.com/therivercafelondon/ Facebook: https://en-gb.facebook.com/therivercafelondon/ For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iheartradio app, apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com