Transcriber: MynarLenahan
Sylvia: Um, how far did you get in it, Jack?
Jack: Oh my god… I met the cool, old beetle that runs the train service or that is the train.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Keith: [Agreeing] Hmm.
Sylvia: That kicks ass.
Jack: Um, and I met the- [Laughs] I met the cartographer who just sings all the time. And I think his girlfriend or wife-
Sylvia: His wife, yeah.
Jack: -who is, like, this extremely bored shop owner?
Sylvia: I love her. There’s, like, a bit of dialogue I got where it’s like “She has to bend to get into the door of her shop.” But I’m like, “Aw, me.”
Jack: That’s so good.
Sylvia: Representation.
Keith: I can’t believe you’re only just playing, uh…
Keith & Jack: [Together] Hollow Knight.
Jack: We’re both bad at it, so… y’know…
Sylvia: I’ve put, like… I’d say four hours into it? At most?
Keith: Oh, you’re both just playing it?
Jack: Now, I’m always on the verge of playing Hollow Knight.
[Sylvia laughs]
Keith: Okay.
Sylvia: I am just playing it because I just got Game Pass for the first time like last week.
Keith: Ohh…
Sylvia: I hopped on that $1.99 for like three months, I guess?
Keith: Nice. Not bad.
Jack: That is pretty good, yeah.
Sylvia: Or, like, that rate for three months.
Keith: That’s about to be Forza and Halo, too.
Janine: Mmm-hmm.
Sylvia: Yeah. Right now it’s Psychonauts, mostly.
Jack: [Laughs] Sure. Yeah.
Sylvia: Um, Psychonauts-
Janine: Is Psychonauts worth-
Keith: I loved it.
Janine: I never played Psychonauts and-
Sylvia: I-
Janine: -I can’t tell if it’s worth going back to the first one or if the second one is worth doing if you don’t have any fondness for the first one or…
Sylvia: I don’t know-
Keith: I have a good answer for this, I think.
Sylvia: -but the second one does have, like, a summary at the beginning of everything that happens in the first one.
Janine: Okay.
Sylvia: But I’m, like, coming back to this after, like… I think the last time I played Psychonauts was at least, like, six years ago.
Keith: So, I didn’t play the first Psychonauts until two weeks before Psychonauts 2 came out.
Sylvia: Okay.
Keith: And as Psychonauts 2 was coming out, I heard from everyone, “No, you don’t have to go back and play Psychonauts 1.” But upon finishing Psychonauts 2, I was very glad that I played Psychonauts 1. Not because I felt like I would have missed a lot… although you do miss an entire game’s worth of game if you don’t play it…
Sylvia: Yeah, there’s some stuff where you’re like, “Why is this a thing?”
[Janine chuckles]
Sylvia: Like, Moose was watching me play and I have to sheepishly explain why the bacon thing is going on.
Jack: Oh yeah… [Chuckles]
Keith: But I did feel like if I had skipped Psychonauts 1, I would have finished Psychonauts 2 and been like, “Wow, I wish I had fifteen more hours of Psychonauts to play…”
[Jack laughs]
Keith: And then I would have had to go back to Psychonauts 1 and probably not enjoyed it as much-
Janine: [Warily] Ahh…
Keith: -after having finished 2-
Sylvia: Yeah.
Janine: That’s a good point.
Keith: -which is just… Y’know, Sixteen-years newer of a game. I thought 1 was like… It showed its age, but it was a lot less… I always heard it was janky and broken and it kind of wasn’t. Like, it kind of just felt like an old game, so…
Sylvia: Yeah…
Janine: To be fair, you play a lot more pre-PS3 games-
Keith: [Laughs] Yeah.
[Sylvia laughs]
Janine: -than the average person.
Keith: Yeah, I guess that’s true. I-
Janine: Especially ones that are, like, busted a little bit, so…
Keith: Yeah. I really liked it. I thought that the writing was still funny. Like, almost all of it still held up. I think that the basic premise of Psychonauts is kind of busted in a way that Psychonauts 2 doesn’t fix either-
Sylvia: They’re trying, they’re trying…
Keith: -But it was so good. It’s the only game I played this year that I was like, “I wish I just had more and more of this to play.”
Janine: Hmm.
Sylvia: Yeah, I’m, like, completely in love with it so far.
Keith: Yeah, I love everything about it.
Jack: I need to get back to it.
Sylvia: I’m probably going to go back to the first one. Yeah-
Keith: I 100%’d it. There is nothing left in Psychonauts 2 for me to do.
Sylvia: Oh, damn!
Keith: I did everything. Yeah.
Sylvia: Oh, my god. That excites me, though. Like, hearing that someone I know enjoyed it that much to do that means I am probably to do the same.
Keith: Yeah, I found… Literally, Sylvi: Every single one of those little-
Jack: [Laughs] The figments?
Keith: -fucking figments, I got. Every single one of them.
Sylvia: Oh yeah. I did that with the first one.
Keith: Wow.
Sylvia: Yeah, well, like… I played the shit out of this game when I was, like, in my late teens/early twenties.
Keith: Yeah. And again: No fondness for it. I did not play it for the first time until this year, so, like…
Sylvia: I’m glad to hear that it holds up.
Keith: It holds up.
Sylvia: I was worried, because I was like, “I don’t remember if the stuff that was a problem when I played it was because I was playing it on a shitty computer or because, like, it was busted.”
Keith: I played it on… What did I play it on? I think I played it just on Game Pass.
Sylvia: Yeah. It’s on Game Pass, yeah. ‘Cause-
Keith: Yeah, I think I just played it on my Xbox and it ran great. It worked great. Like, it was good to the point where there was one big gameplay thing and one big plot thing from Psychonauts 1 that I was like, “Wow, I wish that Psychonauts 2 worked this way.” Like, you could just jump way higher-
Sylvia: Mmm-hmm.
Keith: -and the entire time I played Psychonauts 2 I was missing how high you could jump in Psychonauts 1. And then-
[Art arrives]
Jack: Hi, Art.
Keith: -also a bunch of characters. I was like, “I liked all those characters, but they’re just gone.”
Art: Hey.
Sylvia: I know, I wish more of the campers came back.
Jack: I love the campers, yeah… Also, some absolutely fantastic Double Fine names in that game.
Keith: Oh yeah.
Jack: The characters have great names.
Sylvia: Truman Zapatto [sic] is, like, the big one-
Jack: Yeah.
Keith: Who?
Sylvia: -that I’ve been really enjoying.
Jack: Doogie Boole or something… [Laughs]
[Janine laughs]
Keith: Yeah.
Sylvia: Yeah. God… It’s just been like… I’m on the third… uh, brain you jump into? [Chuckles]
Jack: Uh. Which one is that?
Sylvia: The concert one. Just to try and be as vague as possible.
Jack: Oh. I have not gotten there yet.
Keith: I know that everybody on the planet has said this, but it is tremendous.
Sylvia: It’s beautiful. Like, I’m early in it…
Keith: [Laughing] It’s so good…
Sylvia: …But I’m losing my shit every five minutes.
Keith: Yeah.
Jack: I think I must be just before that.
Keith: Ohhh, Jack… You’re…
Sylvia: Probably.
Keith: I mean, okay: So I have a particular fondness for the style of music that it is simultaneously homaging and skewering-
[Sylvia & Keith laugh]
Keith: -And so I can’t say that if you don’t have a fondness for that music it’s as good as I felt it was, but I think you’ll probably love it.
Jack: I’m just at the point where the… What’s it called? The Motherbrain? The headquarters?
Sylvia: The Motherlobe.
[Janine chuckles]
Jack: The Motherlobe. The outside of the Motherlobe has opened up…
Sylvia: Yeah, you’re close to the bit, then.
Jack: I think I got sidetracked where it was like… Um. Now I’m trying to be vague. [Laughs] You get given a lot of things that you can go and do at that point and I went off to do them.
Sylvia: Yeah. [Chuckles] But that’s how I spent my morning. I just got to this, like, new dungeon and then was like, “Oh, we gotta record?”
[Sylvia & Jack laugh]
Sylvia: I’m just, like, very happy to have something that hits the tone of all the dumb shit I loved when I was, like, a teenager, but not make me feel like I’m dying inside at the same time.
[Janine, Sylvia, & Jack chuckle]
Sylvia: Like, it’s actually, like, enjoyably like that?
Keith: I know, I can’t believe how good it was.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Keith: I felt like an idiot for not having played the first one for so long.
Sylvia: The happiest moment I had was when I was playing this and Raz fell and screamed. And I just said to myself, “Oh, that’s Invader Zim.” And then I checked and yeah, Raz was voiced by Invader Zim.
Keith: Oh, yeah, it’s totally Invader Zim. Yeah, for sure.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Keith: He’s also, um… Daggett from The Angry Beavers.
Janine: [Recognising] Oh.
Sylvia: Yeah, he does a lot of that era of Nickelodeon shows, I think.
[Sound of candy being poured. And then spilled.]
Austin: [Laughs] Oh. It didn’t work the way I hoped.
[Sylvia laughs]
Dre: What happened?
Janine: Candy accident.
Austin: I spilled a-
[Austin bursts out laughing]
Austin: This is extremely funny. Ah…
Jack: Hello.
Austin: [In background] Hi.
Sylvia: Hello.
Jack: Bit far away from your microphone?
Sylvia: Austin spilled something.
Dre: Yeah, Austin spilled something.
Austin: [In background] Yeah…
Jack: Oh no!
Dre: Austin made an accident with something.
Jack: Oh no. [Laughs] The fact that it-
Austin: [Returning] What I wanted was four jelly beans…
Ali: Mmm.
Austin: …I got instead. They’ve fallen everywhere. It’s fine.
[Ali laughs]
Austin: The bag was ripped in a way I did not intend.
Keith: What kind of jelly beans?
Austin: Classic Halloween candy jelly- [Laughs] So. These are classic Brach's Jelly Beans, which I don’t even like that much. But, a friend gave me a bag of them… [Laughs] …on Halloween because her boyfriend knows a guy who knows a guy who works for Brach’s.
Ali: [Laughing] What the fuck?
[Jack laughs]
Austin: And she-
Janine: Classic jelly bean hook-up. Right.
Jack: Wow!
Austin: I have to explain to you that this story includes, um… An element of this story is that a Broadway singer’s pianist likes jelly beans.
Jack: Ohhh…
Austin: Ah… It’s truly all over the place. The point is that my friend loves these jelly beans. The last time that we hung out, which was like six months ago, it came up that she loves these very- These are like just, y’know, jelly beans. Very by-the-book, classic jelly beans. And so…
Keith: It says it right on it: “Classic Jelly Beans.”
Austin: [Laughs] It does. I’m looking at them.
[Ali and Keith laugh]
Austin: It literally says, “Classic Jelly Beans.” Yes. Um… This comes up in conversation. The story ends up being told about how this pianist was… [Chuckles] The long story short is the pianist during rehearsals would have a little bowl of jelly beans out on the piano while playing and…
Janine: Cute.
Austin: It is. And then you’re supposed to strike everything from the stage that’s not part of production, but the… What do you call them?
Janine: Sneeze?
Austin: The stagehands didn’t know…
Janine: Oh.
[Austin & Janine laugh]
Austin: …didn’t know who they were for. They assumed that the singer, like, wanted the jelly beans to be out there.
Jack: As a prop.
Austin: As a prop, as a “Oh, maybe she likes jelly beans. I don’t know.” Right?
[Janine laughs]
Austin: And she didn’t. And so then the pianist—in the middle of playing the live show—was like, “Well, all these jelly beans are here. I’m gonna start eatin’ them.”
[Ali & Austin laugh]
Austin: And-
Jack: Gotta keep the energy up.
Austin: Yeah. And at one point in between songs the singer turned to the pianist and was like, “Are you eating jelly beans?” And just, like, completely owned him in front of a whole crowd of people…
[Everyone laughs.]
Janine: Oh, no…
Austin: …For eating jelly beans in the middle of the performance. [Clarifying] Like, in a friendly manner, y’know.
Ali: Mmm-hmm.
Austin: Anyway, this came up in conversation at a party and a different person at that party was like, “Oh. So a friend-of-a-friend-” [Clarifying] The person who was playing was a friend of my friend’s boyfriend. Then a different person at this party- A different friend of my friend’s boyfriend was like, “Oh, my partner works for the jelly bean company as a..”
[Jack laughs]
Austin: “...at a high level.” Like, not an executive, but, like, higher than a regional manager. Like, in corporate, you know what I mean?
Ali: Mmm-hmm.
Austin: “I could just get you jelly beans.” In fact, I think the way it was phrased was like, “I have a shipment coming soon.”
Keith: Wait. Jelly beans? The rarest candy on Earth?
[Ali and Janine laugh]
Austin: Well, they shipped her a case of jelly beans.
Jack: What!
Janine: God.
Austin: Like a case. So she’s like, “I just have so many now, Austin. Here.” And she gave me a whole bag of-
Dre: “Free me from this prison of jelly beans.”
Austin: “Free me from this-” Because my guess is she must have like another dozen or two dozen of these bags at home, y’know?
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: She’s, like, giving them away. Just producing them from her purse, y’know? Like chapstick.
Keith: And this is barely enjoyable of a snack, I imagine.
Austin: Right. I wanted three and I’ve poured a dozen out [Ali laughs] which is not what I intended to do.
Keith: Right.
Janine: Are they soft beans or, like, the tougher kind of beans.
Keith: They have a harder outside, but they’re pretty soft on the inside, right?
Austin: They’re soft on the inside, yeah. Mmm-hmm.
Janine: Right. Okay.
Austin: But they’re substantial. And they’re a sizable bean. They’re not a big bean.
Keith: Oh, this dwarfs a Jelly Belly.
Austin: Oh, dwarfs a Jelly Belly, but not like a novelty bean. You know what I mean?
Keith: Right. They’re kind of the size of beans.
Austin: Yeah. But made of jelly.
Keith: Yeah, I mean I guess so are Jelly Bellys, too, but just a different kind of bean.
Janine: [Realizing] Ohh… Jelly bean. I see.
Austin: Yeah. Mmm-hmm. Phoenix Down.
[Sylvia bursts out laughing]
Janine: “The size of a bean.”
Austin: Mmm-hmm.
Jack: Albuquerque…
[Keith, Austin, and Dre laugh]
Sylvia: Phoenix Down…
Austin: [Chuckling] Tails Prower. Got it.
[Janine chuckles]
Sylvia: God…
Dre: Oh, Phoenix Down…
Art: [To Austin] No, you did that wrong.
Janine: Yes! Tails per hour….
Austin: Tails per hour, right? That’s it?
Keith: Right. Yeah, yeah.
Sylvia: That’s how it works.
[Crosstalk 00:12:44]
Keith: Three tails per hour.
Austin: How many tails per hour?
Janine: Uh-huh.
Austin: Prower… Prower… Yeah, uh-huh.
Dre: [Chuckles] God…
Art: Friends at the Table: Some of the lowest tails per hour there are.
[Austin, Janine, & Ali laugh]
Art: Sometimes less than one.
Keith: This new Halo is weird.
Austin: It seems like it. I saw that they fucked with the numbers… The XP numbers on… stuff?
Keith: They did.
Austin: But I don’t know that they made it better from what I saw. I saw a chart that made it look… not better.
Keith: So what they changed was how quickly you earn XP towards your Battle Pass.
Austin: Right.
Keith: And I’ll say that, as far as I can tell, they did make it probably about fifty percent faster, but then also… That’s not the problem with this game.
Austin: Mmm-hmm.
Keith: I mean, yeah, it sucks that the Battle Pass is slow, but…
Austin: That’s not what your problem is at this point.
Keith: Right. I would say that the existence of a Battle Pass system at all is a problem-
Austin: [Chuckling] Uh-huh.
Keith: -versus Halo 5, where everything was in loot boxes, but I was earning four to five free Loot Boxes every time I played.
Austin: Right…
Keith: And so by the time I stopped playing Halo 5, I had hundreds of totally free bits of armor. Versus this one. That seems pretty much impossible because almost any item worth having is exclusive to the paid Battle Pass.
Austin: The Battle Pass. To the purchased Battle Pass. Yeah, I saw that.
Keith: But the thing that’s weird about it is that there’s only three match-making playlists.
Austin: Yeah, it’s Big Team Battle, Quickplay, and what’s the third one?
Keith: Ranked. [Scoffs] Ranked Quickplay.
Austin: Oh, okay.
Keith: So yeah. And there’s no way to just have Slayer. There’s no way to just have objective games.
Austin: Right, right.
Keith: There’s no…
Austin: It’s really funny, because I saw so many people right before it came out being like, “Damn, that’s it for Battlefield! Pack it up, EA. Halo is out here.” And then everyone is kind of meh on Halo also. So, I don’t know…
Keith: Yeah!
Austin: Weird year for shooters.
Keith: I mean, the core of the gameplay is solid.
Austin: Okay.
Keith: I think some of the weapons-
Austin: I’ve played some. Yeah.
Keith: -are some of the best that have been in a Halo ever.
Austin: I like that pistol a lot. I think that the starting pistol is too good, which I know is just like a classic Halo thing. But I am landing headshots with that thing.
Keith: They actually weakened it a little bit versus Halo 5.
Austin: Oh, did they?
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Wow. Is it the same basic… Just, like, it’s a semi-automatic pistol in a way that Halo pistols traditionally feel like… different from that?
Keith: I think it was a little slower, but maybe even twenty percent stronger in Halo 5.
Austin: Right, right.
Keith: More like the original Halo 1 pistol.
Austin: Gotcha.
Keith: And I think the nice one about this is that it feels really, really good up close. Oh, the other thing is that they eliminated headshot damage for shielded enemies. So when someone has a shield, it doesn’t matter if you hit them in the head or the body, it does the same amount of damage.
Austin: Ohh…
Keith: And then, when you break that shield, there’s a damage drop-off for body shots and a huge increase for headshots.
Austin: I mean, that’s the thing, I just keep getting headshots with that thing and it’s just like…
Keith: Right.
Austin: …killshots with it and it’s great.
Keith: Yeah. And then… But there’s no Fiesta. There’s no, like, Big Team Heavies. All of, like, the fun, goofy stuff where it felt like Halo knew that it was kind of a fun and goofy game is just not there.
Austin: Yeah…
Keith: And they’re gonna do… And I’m trying to look into… Next week they’re launching the Fracture: Tenrai event that gets you, like…
Austin: What the fuck is that?
Keith: …the gas-mask, samurai costume.
Austin: Oh. Right. Uh-huh.
Keith: And all of their info on it- They’re like, “Hey, read here for more info on Fracture: Tenrai.” And then just all it talks about is like, “Here are the free items you can expect to unlock.”
Austin: Right. Uh-huh.
Keith: And I’m, like, “But what is it? What kind of game type is it?”
[Austin types in the background.]
Austin: [Laughing] That’s very funny.
Keith: It’s so weird! Like, on the Halo Waypoint thing, it’s like, “Fracture: Tenrai: That’s an event where you unlock, y’know, the Yoo… rai… I think it’s the Yorai…”
Austin: Yoroi…
[Austin & Keith try to pronounce it.]
Keith: “..um, armor.” And I’m like, “Okay, okay. Read below for more info. Okay…” Scroll down, scroll down. “You can play this event and win free armor things and you can work on an event playlist and it will come back, so if you don’t unlock everything you can unlock it later in the season!”
Austin: But what is it?
Keith: And I’m just like, “I just wanna know when I can expect to have a fun game type in Halo to play.”
Austin: What are you missing in terms of game types at this point?
Keith: So I want to be able to just play Slayer.
Austin: Right, okay.
Keith: And if I’m done with Slayer, I want to be able to just play objective games.
Austin: Right.
Keith: Like, yesterday I went three hours and I didn’t have one single game of Slayer.
Austin: I’ve yet to play Slayer.
Keith: [Exasperated] Yeah!
Austin: I’ve played probably also about two or three hours of it at this point.
Keith: [Exasperated] I like Slayer!
Austin: I’ve played Oddball. I’ve played lots of… y’know, whatever the control zone ones are.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Both the ones where you control two and it starts counting, and the one where if you control three it counts as one win.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Or one point. But yeah, I’ve not played Slayer or Team Slayer yet.
Keith: Yep. So, I wanna see that. I wanna see… So the new Big Team Battle game type is called Stockpile.
Austin: Uh-huh.
Keith: And it’s sort of like multi-Capture The Flag? You have to capture five little flags…
Austin: Oh, I’ve not played this yet. That’s interesting.
Keith: …and then that scores you one point.
Austin: Gotcha.
Keith: It kind of really sucks and I hate it.
[Austin chuckles]
Keith: Um, it’s not fun at all, because you’re either on a team where your team, like, is the team that cares and you win immediately or their team is the one that cares and wins immediately. If everyone’s not participating, that team loses.
Austin: Yeah…
Keith: And sometimes both teams don’t care and so it just goes until it times out. And that’s rough. Um, and so, the fact that there’s no, like… If you launch up Halo: The Master Chief Collection, there’s Big Team Battle, Big Team Heavies… There’s probably a Big Team Fiesta-
Austin: Mmm-hmm.
Keith: -which is like the random weapons game, and there’s maybe like an event thing going on where it’s like, “Hey, for this week, there’s this other fun game type, and there’s all the regular Slayer game types.” And there’s no Free For All in Infinite. It just seems like a normal Halo game should have ten or twelve playlists for you to pick from.
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: Team SWAT. I love playing SWAT. It’s a really good way to warm up when I’m like, “Ah, I’m not like… First game of the day! No shields! Let me just, like, try and get heads. And, you know, get my fingers moving right.” No, there’s no SWAT.
Austin: There isn’t.
Keith: I mean, like, classic stuff from Halo 2. Like, all these things were in Halo 2. And have been in every single Halo. It just feels like… I’m confused at what happened that year where they were… supposedly just about to put this game out. And then delayed it, because of the graphics…
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: And I kind of feel like maybe they never weren’t going to delay this game by fourteen months?
Austin: Maybe. I- Yeah, I don’t know. I’ve heard some stuff that is mostly about the campaign. That that delay was mostly about the campaign, but I don’t know.
Keith: Yeah! And then I’m like, “‘Cause if that’s true-” That’s ‘cause it’s also what I heard. “-if that’s true, where did that year go to where this game came out?” And they’re like, “We’re introducing to you our awesome, y’know…”
[Austin chuckles]
Keith: “...Awesome matchmaking playlist!” On, like, Halo Waypoint.
Austin: Yeah…
Keith: It’s not, like, they can be negative. Like, “Hey, you know, sorry about how few playlists there are.”
Austin: Yeah, yeah. I getcha.
Keith: But I get that they have to be positive about it, but I don’t understand where that year went if it’s launching with three playlists. And a bot playlist.
Austin: Good question. I don’t know. [Pause] Dre, are you back?
Keith: And they even said, y’know—in that Halo Waypoint article that I was reading—they were like, “Yep. This is our launch line-up of playlists. We’re gonna be watching and adding and removing stuff as the community-”
Austin: So it’s not like it’s gonna change when the actual [Unintelligible 00:20:43].
Keith: Right, I kind of had heard from a few people like, “Oh, well, obviously when the game actually launches on the 8th, those playlists will hit.” But according to this Waypoint article that is not the case.
Austin: [Groans] Yikes.
Dre: Hey, I am back.
Austin: Welcome back!
Dre: I am sorry.
Keith: Hey, Dre!
Austin: No worries, no worries. Hi. Um, alright.
Sylvia: Should we do a three-two-one, or..?
Austin: Let’s do a three-two-one.
Dre: Cool. Okay.
Austin: Three… Two… One…
[Everyone claps]
Sylvia: To talk about unrelated things, I watched The Matrix Reloaded again last night and all the fight scenes in that shit still hold up.
Austin: Let’s fucking go. I need to watch it again. I really need to watch the whole trilogy.
Sylvia: It’s so good!
Austin: I was always a defender of those movies, so…
Sylvia: Yeah, well we watched… Moose hadn’t seen the first one…
Austin: Okay.
Sylvia: …Like, any of them, so we watched the first one together…
Austin: Oh, wow.
Sylvia: Yeah, I know! Um, and like… We both really liked it, but he was like, “I don’t know if I wanna watch the sequels. I kinda just want to let that be its own thing.” Which I’m like, “That’s cool. I’m fine with that.”
Austin: Yeah. “I accept this.”
Sylvia: “I hope you don’t mind me info-dumping to you about the other two movies constantly though.”
Austin: Uh-huh…
Sylvia: “‘Cause I’m fully getting, like, hyper-fixated on this stuff.”
Austin: I’m so fuckin’ ready.
Art: Yeah, it’s gonna be…
Austin: I’m… nervous-
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: -because of some stuff I heard about the script, but… excited just to see them do this. See… it’s just Lana, right? It’s not both…
Sylvia: I’m pretty sure it’s just Lana directing it.
Art: Yeah.
Austin: Okay, well, still.
Art: Um, Lilly is working on a Showtime show exclusively.
Austin: Oh, okay. Interesting.
Art: It’s on the air and I don’t get Showtime, but…
Sylvia: Huh.
Austin: Ah, well there’s your problem.
[Austin types]
Austin: What is it? What’s she working on? Let’s see…
Sylvia: Uh, is it Work In Progress? Is that the name of it?
Austin: Uh… Yes.
Art: I think she had a quote that was really close to that, like, “I know authors who use subtext. They’re all cowards.” [Austin laughs] …about doing work on the Matrix anymore.
Austin: Oh, wow. Interesting.
Art: Like, in a supportive way, but, like…
[Austin & Art chuckle]
Austin: Yeah? Uh-huh? That makes sense to me. I can imagine not wanting to go back to an old thing.
Sylvia: Literally, like, what? Over twenty-years-old now? That came out in ninety-nine?
Austin: Yeah… Exactly.
Art: Ninety-nine, yeah. And the sequels were both 2003.
Austin: [Softly] Oh yeah, you’re right.
Sylvia: What? Were they both the same year?
Art: Remember when you could release two giant movies of the same franchise in one year?
Sylvia: I fucking didn’t know that. Oh, my god…
Austin: Wait, what is? What is this?
Art: The two Matrix sequels both came out in 2003.
Austin: Oh yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Art: They came out, like, six months apart in the same year.
Sylvia: That rules.
Austin: Yeah, but it was also four years after the original and, like… I just said this on the other podcast, but a lot changed between ‘99 and 2003 in the culture.
[Sylvia chuckles]
Austin: Y’know?
Sylvia: Uh-huh.
Art: Mmm-hmm.
Sylvia: Oh, it’s… You can feel it. [Chuckles]
Austin: Oh yeah.
Art: No, [Matrix] 2 is so good. Everyone who doesn’t like 2 is so wrong. I haven’t watched 3 again, but 2 is so good.
Sylvia: 2 is incredible.
Art: I mean, I guess unless your complaints about 2 are, like, very specific and CGI-based. In which case, just, like… Okay, nerd…
Sylvia: The thing is, yeah, the CGI still looks fine.
Art: But yeah, the narrative of 2 is rock solid.
Sylvia: Yeah, no. [Matrix] 2: Banger start to finish. Can still confirm that.
Austin: Mmm-hmm. [Chuckles]
Sylvia: Also, it was really nice seeing the ways they used having, like, clearly a much higher budget for the sequels, because the wirework they do so much more with it in Reloaded alone.
Austin: Yeah.
Sylvia: I don’t remember, like, anything about Revolutions though. ‘Cause, like, I saw it when I was, like, a kid. [Chuckles] But I only had ever had rewatched the other two because of the sort of cultural opinion around the third one.
Austin: Right… Yeah. I’m very curious. It’s been decades for me, so…
Sylvia: Mmm-hmm.
Austin: At least since college.
Art: No, it’s weird the ways in which we decide to dismiss those movies, like…
Austin: Yeah.
Sylvia: Mmm-hmm.
Art: And I’m sure people smarter than me can say more about that, but, like…
Sylvia: I mean… I’m not comparing them, because I don’t think the quality is the same…
Austin: Mmm-hmm.
Sylvia: …But, like, the whole, like, ending ruining it for people thing reminds me a lot of what happened with Game of Thrones very recently.
Austin: Sure.
Sylvia: Where people were just so let down by the way it closed to them that, like, it sort of just ended up back-sliding their opinion of the rest of the stuff.
Art: Sure. It’s hard for me, though, because I think there’s just this fierce anti-intellectualism at parts of the Matrix sequel backlash.
Sylvia: Oh sure.
Austin: Mmm-hmm.
Art: Because people just didn’t like listening to monologues?
Sylvia: That was a thing I remembered a lot. People just being like, “Uhhhh, the architect…”
Keith: Are we talking about Matrix… the new one that’s coming out or the third one from before?
Sylvia: I watched Reloaded recently, so we’re talking about that.
Keith: Oh. I love Reloaded.
Art: We’re talking about Reloaded.
Austin: We’re all Reloaded fans here. [Sylvia chuckles] This is a safe place for Matrix 2 fans.
[Keith laughs]
Sylvia: Good.
Keith: Yeah, Reloaded rules. I don’t get-
Austin: [Chuckles] I don’t get it either. I never have.
Keith: I don’t even know what people are talking about when they say they don’t like Reloaded.
[Austin laughs]
Keith: Like, just a fundamentally alien concept Reloaded wasn’t good.
Sylvia: It’s also one of those things where people are like, “Oh, I need someone to explain the architect scene to me.” [Austin chuckles] And maybe this is me being kind of an asshole, but it seemed pretty straightforward.
Keith: Right.
Austin: Yeah, uh-huh.
Art: It’s very straightforward.
Keith: Right. Yeah. I mean, he shows videos he’s talking about.
[Austin laughs]
Sylvia: Yeah, it’s literally…
Keith: He shows little fun film clips of everything.
[Austin & Sylvia laugh]
Austin: This is one of the things Art and I I think bonded over as friends was our collective love of this movie. And the fact we didn’t understand people who didn’t get the architect. [Correcting] Not people. I understand as an individual not understanding something. Like, everyone comes to something with their own history and their own baggage and their own limits and their own, like… whatever.
Sylvia: Mmm-hmm.
Austin: That makes sense. But the collective movie-going public responded so loudly that they didn’t understand it when it was like, “What are you doing? Why are we doing bits at the MTV movie awards about how this doesn’t make sense? It’s fine. It makes perfect sense.” Anyway…
Keith: If I could, like, stop having a feeling for the rest of my life. [Sylvia chuckles] Like, a low-stakes pop-culture feeling. Not like a real feeling.
Austin: Yeah. Uh-huh.
Keith: If I could stop having a low-stakes pop-culture feeling, it would be… For the rest of my life for, like, everybody revolting against the ending of something… That is totally fine. I don’t understand what people are so upset about. [Sylvia laughs]
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: I just don’t want to have another Matrix Reloaded or Star Wars prequels or the end of Mass Effect 3. I just want it to be…
Sylvia: God.
[Austin chuckles]
Keith: I just want to not feel that way about things anymore.
Austin: Sopranos is a big one for me. The fact that people don’t like that ending is upsetting to me.
Keith: Oh yeah.
Austin: Anyway…
Art: I’m all the way psyched for that prequel movie. I didn’t think I’d get there, but I’m already at, like…
Austin: Nice. Congrats.
Art: Yeah.
Keith: I’m watching [Star Wars] Rebels.
Austin: Alright. Three… Two… One…
[Everyone claps]
Austin: Okay.
Ali & Art: Hey.
Austin: Hello.
Jack: Hello.
Dre: There he is.
Art: Hi.
Janine: Do we have Keith?
[Silence]
Austin: Oh, I thought I heard Keith. I thought I heard Keith when we last asked if people were here.
Dre: Oh.
[Ali laughs]
Austin: I guess not. Fuck.
Ali: Everyone who isn’t here say your name.
Austin: Fuck.
[Dre laughs]
Austin (as Jonathan): Jonathan.
[Ali laughs]
Jack & Sylvia: What?
Janine: Well, Fuck’s not here and Jonathan’s gone too. Dang.
Ali: Oh, damn…
Keith: [Arriving] Hello.
Ali: Hi…
Jack: Hi!
Janine: Hey.
Austin: Ah, there’s Keith.
Jack: Remember Zraig?
Austin: I think we’re back.
Art: Still waiting on Jonathan, though. [Chuckles]
Jack: Yeah…
Austin: Oh, fuck. We have to wait for Jonathan.
[Ali laughs]
Austin (as Jonathan): [Deep voice] I’m back.
Ali: Oh hey, Jon.
Jack: Oh, good. Good to go.
[Sylvia & Dre chuckle]
Austin (as Jonathan): I’m here. I got my new character sheet.
Ali: Ooh.
Dre: Nice!
Art: [Hesitantly] Oh…
[Ali, Sylvia, & Art laugh]
Austin (as Jonathan): Glad to be here, everybody. Thanks for having me on.
Keith: Jonathan, what’s your class?
Austin (as Jonathan): Um, y’know, Austin was just talkin’ about those… uhhh… the new character classes. I’m one of those.
Dre: Okay.
Austin (as Jonathan): I don’t know how to pronounce it, though.
Ali: Oh, the dream one? The dream one?
Austin (as Jonathan): Yeah. It’s the dream one. Yeah. Somnajac. But that sounds silly, so I’m thinking about calling ‘em Somniac…like… [Sylvia chuckles] …but it sounds like Insomniac- Ohh. I get it. I get it. Huh.
Ali: Mmm…
Art: There you go.
Austin (as Jonathan): Huh. Someone who does dream.
Art: Good work, Jonathan.
Austin (as Jonathan): Yeah. I’m gonna be a little quiet for the rest of this session, but uh…
Ali: Yeah, yeah!
Sylvia: Yeah, no worries. Don’t strain yourself.
Austin (as Jonathan): Get my feels… Feel it out a little bit.
Dre: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Austin (as Jonathan): I’ve never done this before.
Ali: Well, welcome to the show.
Austin (as Jonathan): Thank you.
[Ali laughs]
Ali: Do you wanna clap back in?
Austin: Hey, I’m back everybody, sorry.
[Ali bursts out laughing]
Jack: Ah!
Dre: That’s cool.
Sylvia: Yeah, no problem!
Austin: I had to step away really quick.
Art: You missed Jonathan!
Austin: Oh, fuck!
[Ali laughs]
Austin: I keep missing Jonathan!