Dimension 20

Adventuring Party

The Roll That Broke Brennan

Season 4 Episode 6

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Brennan: Hello! (laughs) Hello one and all and welcome back to another thrilling episode of "Adventuring Party"! I am your humble Dungeon Master, Brennan Lee Mulligan. With me as always are our sylvan sleuths. Say hi, sylvan sleuths!

All: Hi, sylvan sleuths!

Ally: Please leave both of those in the edit, we must.

Rekha: Sorry, you have to be honest, Brennan.

Brennan: Hey, you got to be honest. Gang, my earbud fell out, okay? And that's what happened. Well, long awaited, finally, here we are, episode six. Things really heating up. Things really heating up! Ooh, it's getting hot in this manor house. Should we just start with it?

Raph: Yeah.

Brennan: Should we just get down to it? Let's just get right down to it.

Raph: Ally has been waiting for two, three weeks.

Rekha: Ally, what I have to say is this is the moment Rosalind Crumb showed me her taint. This is what broke Brennan.

Ally: I knew it!

Brennan: The question is,

“Rekha plus Brennan, that nat 20 religion check to see if ghosts are real was so unexpected and so cool. Was the reality of ghosts something you were hoping to save for one of the last episodes, and Rekha, how did it feel to be rolling? Hella good.”

Rekha: From my end, my roll was very specific, but if you zoom out, yes, the ask is if ghosts are real, because if we remember my actual roll is I want to see… And in retrospect again, I'm looking at Rekha and I'm going, my god, but she's already happened, she's done. What I go is, if ghosts can go through walls, you don't need to go with the eye holes. What I wanted it to do is I wanted to summon a ghost to get me a bunch of boring paperwork from his study, and the medal. Now, I wanted a ghost to do that. So yes, inherent in my ask is, are ghosts real? Yes, that is I guess what I am asking. Now...

Brennan: No, go for it.

Rekha: Now what did I think I was gonna roll? I don't know. Badly. And so I thought you'd say, no, a ghost can't get paperwork for you, and I'd go, fuck, how do we get into that room? Again, forgetting a couple of clues I could've picked up on because my brain was just so focused, like, ugh, how do I do something also fun, you know? I want a little set piece, I don't want to just like go in through a door, 'cause I remembered after the fact watching Rekha, I'm like girl, you remember you heard a bunch of shit happening in that room, right? So I felt stupid. But then when I rolled it, it was like, I don't know what this means, and then sort of seeing your reaction, kind of like if you ask your parent a question and you don't know if it's an important question or not when you're like little, and then they have like a ghastly look on their face and you know, uh-oh, I've shaken daddy.

Brennan: It's the thing-

Raph: Don't shake daddy!

Ally: Don't shake daddy!

Brennan: ♪ Don't shake daddy ♪

Ally: From Parker Brothers!

Brennan: From Parker Brothers. Amazing. Well first of all, I love that metaphor, and I love that specifically too, when you're a kid, you're just like, hey, I have two questions. What do you call the kind of bird that lives in the tree outside my window, and where do babies come from? And it's like-

Rekha: To you, they're equal, because you don't know anything.

Brennan: I don't know anything, I have no context. But what I would say is, so this fucking nat 20, right? Right, but what you're saying is that you're thinking of your ask in terms of what it does for you rather than what it makes true about the world, which is obvious.

Rekha: Absolutely.

Brennan: Because of course the whole thing is, PCs are in first person and the DM is in third person, so your focus, so it would be, you know, it's the kind of thing where it would be like, hey, genie, I want to make a wish. I would love for the one true true savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, to get me two slices of pepperoni pizza.

(all laughing)

And the genie has to be like, you understand that in the way you've worded this wish, this is gonna do a lot.

Rekha: Yep, it's gonna get me two slices of pizza. I understand it perfectly.

Brennan: There's a lot packed in here, you know?

Ally: Wow.

Raph: Fantastic.

Brennan: It's like, whoa. So yeah, your request of like, can I summon and bind a ghost? Which, by the way, in a world where like Raph is playing, Raph is playing a non-magical character who has spell casting abilities in the mechanics of D&D. Summoning and binding a ghost is something that even in worlds with magic, you can't do right. There's straight-up like wizards and clerics in regular D&D that are like, oh, I could blow some stuff up and I can like teleport, I don't know how to bind a ghost, that's hard, that's really hard. And you're like, let me just roll this religion skill check right here. By the way, Daisy, not proficient in religion, so this is just like plus your raw intelligence modifier. It's untrained, like, literally someone who's like, I've heard of the Bible, let me give this a whirl. And boy did you hit that nat 20. I will say the thing that I didn't say before now, but I'll say it here.

Raph: Yeah.

Brennan: And this is spoilers for later episodes, so let me think of how to word it carefully. The ramifications of that roll caused me to, in the moment, rewrite a percentage of the campaign I would say greater than 20.

Rekha: No!

Ally: Ooh!

Rekha: No!

Brennan: It's all groovy! Listen-

Raph: I have so many questions now.

Ally: Yeah, same.

Katie: Yeah.

Rekha: Rosalind was never supposed to show her ass, she was supposed to show her titties!

Brennan: Yeah, no, just to have people, you know… Because it's… Listen, if I wanted to write a book, I'd go write a book. I chose to play D&D. That's a game where everyone's writing a story together. You rolled, you asked for a thing, you hit a nat 20. Nat 20 means success. So, I… I don't know that I have an instinct stronger other than, like, do your best to be kind to people more than honor a nat 20. A nat 20 must be honored in some way, right? And so that happened, and you watch me, you know.

(Brennan buzzing)

For like a few minutes on camera. What that is is me going like, okay. We are going to… And to put it in other ways, it was me going in and being like, on the fly, like, okay, these things are going to move. I don't know how to say it without spoiling stuff. Suffice it to say, I had to think about all the parts of the campaign you interacted with, think about the things I would need to change to honor that roll, ask myself if changing those things in order to honor that roll would undo or make incorrect any of the clues that you had encountered in five previous episodes, ascertain a way to do it that left… I think the closest thing I can make an equivalence to is when like an incredible waiter has this whole set table and slips the tablecloth out from under it, of like, nothing changes and this is now in my hand, right? And now I put it on myself, and I'm a ghost.

(all laughing)

It was crazy, it was really crazy.

Ally: Whoa.

Brennan: But it's one of my… The look on your and Raph's and in fact all the rest of the cast's faces, mwah. I will-

Katie: My face doesn't move very much and I apologize for that, but I am excited inside.

Rekha: Thank you, Katie. I've been kind of holding onto that for a few months.

Ally: Yeah, I've been kind of like, I don't know, this person keeps singing little, like, ditties about soup.

Katie: ♪ Turtle soup! ♪

Ally: And I can't tell if you're happy or sad about the soup.

Brennan: Katie, I think that's completely fine, and obviously, like, your way of emoting is not a wrong way and ours is not a right way.

Katie: Mine is the wrong way. Yeah, for sure.

Brennan: I was going to say, if in the future it helps you to express that inner excitement, you know, if we go "Mice and Murder" round two, just sing "Turtle Soup" and that's how I'll know that you're having a ball.

Katie: All right, good. Thank you.

Rekha: That's good.

Katie: I'll do that.

Brennan: The idea of me being like, you see the ghostly visage of Connor McCabbage-

Katie: ♪ Turtle soup! ♪

Rekha: Yeah, absolute psychosis.

Brennan: I need people to know that these Adventuring Parties have been batch shot, we have not kept calling back "Turtle Soup" three weeks in a row.

Rekha: Yeah, that's not something that lives at the front of all of our minds.

Ally: Yeah, you wish that was true, Brennan.

Rekha: Actually, we shoot one a month, it's pretty stupid.

Brennan: It's a bad way to do it. We started shooting the day we wrapped and are just barely gonna catch up in time.

Ally: Next New Year's, I'm gonna text Happy New Year's, turtle soup, Brennan.

Brennan: Yeah every night around two, three o' clock in the morning I bolt upright, covered in sweat, and go (gasps) ♪ turtle soup! ♪

Ally: Oh boy.

Brennan: Amazing! No, so this nat 20 was... It's just that, and I said this earlier when I was talking about Grant's nat 20. I anticipated, nat 20s, like they say, like, you know, the way Houdini died is that he got punched in the stomach by someone who, like, he had a trick where you could punch him in the stomach as hard as you want and he would survive because he was ready for it, and someone came up and sucker punched him and he died, which is horrifying and really, really sad. This was apocryphal, am I saying an urban myth or am I saying what really happened? I'm gonna Wikipedia this right now. But the point being, in general, right, like, I walked into this like, I was like, listen, they are not gonna catch you without your hands on either side of your face. Like, you have your hands up, they're gonna roll nat 20 investigations. They're gonna roll nat 20 perceptions. They're gonna roll nat 20 insights. Are you ready for that? And I was like, yes. And then Rekha goes, I want ghosts to be real, and I was like, fat chance. And Rekha said, try me. And then I had to rewrite the setting. Listen, people have done things. Like, "Unsleeping City Two", Ally did something that made me have to rewrite the campaign, but it happened in a way where I said cool, I have days to handle this. This was, Brennan, this changes everything right now and cameras are rolling. (Brennan mumbling) Jocelyn Gordon Whitehead, who repeatedly struck Houdini's abdomen.

Raph: That did happen.

Brennan: It did happen.

Raph: I wonder if we know for sure if that was the cause of death.

Brennan: Right right right, that makes sense. So that was our nat 20 religion check. Big insights here. Also, big emotional catharsis. Gangie Green calls Mrs. Molesly his mum, his mother. How sweet. Katie, thank you so much for, like... 'Cause this was not your vision of the character when we started, and it's so tender and sweet. This was an amazing going with the flow, yes anding of this sweet mole woman.

Katie: Totally, I did not see... I remember in an earlier episode when this happened where I was like, ooh, I can't be mean to this old, sweet woman. 'Cause I remember thinking, like, do I want to play my character's game, which is to be like, doesn't care about anyone, hates everyone, very much solo loner, content with that lifestyle, or do I want to just like, yeah, like do the correct improv move of being like yes and. But yeah, it was definitely hard because it was not like the character I set out to play, this like accidentally sweet, like, thief. But I mean, it worked better I think. But yeah, definitely not intended.

Brennan: Well I think actually, though, almost the game of it becomes, this guy is a murderous, borderline feral, like, nightmare, and he loves this old lady so, so much. So like that almost to me is like, oh that's a strong game of like, "Don't you worry, I'll kill them. I'll kill them if they hurt you." Like that's so funny, that's my favorite thing in the world.

Katie: Yeah.

Brennan: And we discover in this one bedroom scene, which was very fun for me because I knew that, like, we needed to enforce consequences for the attempted escape from the house, but also you guys actually find more clues in that bedroom scene when you're under arrest. Like, we find out from Mrs. Molesly that the elevator does go downstairs, we find out... You all had these insight checks into Hawkins and Harding and Constance, and Buckster makes that insight check into Jeremy about, like, he's not sure whether his dad is alive or dead.

Raph: Right. Never heard of the shrapnel.

Brennan: Never heard, yeah, the big speech. He has never heard of a war wound on behalf of his father, right? So there's all these kind of wild things coming together in this moment. Is this also the episode where Daisy and Ian go back and actually go into the secret study and like figure out the busts and get into the study?

Rekha: Yes.

Brennan: Yes yes yes, that's right.

Rekha: Yes, and she takes the ledgers. And there's another like, ugh, Rekha, she already happened moment. We ended up doing it, but I was just like, how obvious? Like, I was so glad Raph spotted this. It's just like, oh, we put all the busts back the way they're supposed to be.

Katie: Yeah, that was so smart. What a good move, Raphael.

Rekha: So fucking smart, Raph, yeah. Truly so smart. It's like, duh, that's the number one way people get caught in these movies, is they, like, unscramble a thing and like leave it, you know, when they walk out.

Katie: I wouldn't have thought to do that either, though. Like yeah, Raph, you were really playing this game well.

Rekha: Yeah, for sure.

Brennan: That was very, very fun. I loved Ian in that bust scene of, like, the Roman emperors, Barkus Aurelius. Yeah, and remembering that stuff, 'cause I, like, checked a few times of like-

Rekha: Yes.

Brennan: If you're gonna leave.

Rekha: You were very generous, Brennan. The amount of times you asked us that we wanted to do anything else was very nice.

Katie: I also liked Rekha's, like, I'm gonna spit.

Rekha: Yeah, yeah, is that what you wanted? Again, I can't play these games. And then only after Raph said the thing about the busts, it was like, oh, I turn off the light, duh.

Katie: Yes.

Brennan: There was a big part of me, though, that was like, listen, I will, I'll, like, if you guys give me a petard, I'll hoist you by it, you know what I mean? But I don't want to do that. Everyone was such a new player, I didn't want to-

Rekha: Which I love.

Brennan: You know, like, it's the same thing, I do that all the time. This is a bit of a tangent, but like, I specifically have strong distaste for, in improv, if you can tell that your scene partner did it as an honest mistake.

Rekha: Yes.

Brennan: Making it the unusual thing in the scene.

Katie: Yes.

Rekha: I agree.

Raph: Oh, yeah.

Ally: Definitely.

Katie: Absolutely agree with that.

Brennan: It's a dick move. I think it's way old school, it's a dusty old trope of like, you know, if someone comes out. I remember, and I can't imagine any of my old teammates are watching this, but I remember one time in a monologue talking about the cost of a house and how much a house cost, and my family does not have a lot of money, and I got the number of what an average house costs really, really wrong, and everyone literally in the monologue, like, laughed at it and was like, that's crazy! And I was like, I'm gonna kill everybody here after the show tonight.

Ally: Oh my god!

Brennan: I've never felt so low. I felt so bad, and like, it was just one of those things where I was like, you know, everyone here can go fuck themselves. But that moment of like... Yeah, I think, and in that same vein of, like, I don't ever want to pounce on an honest mistake or a mistake that is unintentional, so to me it's like, we're gonna do the saying Beetlejuice three times thing. I'm gonna ask you three times if there's nothing else you want to do in the room, and after that, you know, everybody gets to feel good about what happened and not, you know, like-

Rekha: Yes, 'cause I think, too, again, that like mindset of when you watch the game show and you're like, come on, it's this! 'Cause when I'm watching, I'm doing that to myself.

Katie: Yes, same.

Rekha: But like it is so much more helpful when you're seeing the big art and you're like, that's what that person looks like, and you're seeing the sets, and you're like oh, those are the busts, as opposed to kind of flipping between Roll20 and honestly just Zoom, you know? And I'm mostly looking at the Zoom.

Brennan: Yeah, as you should be, we're all performing together. A million percent, I totally, totally agree with that. But that was still very, very fun. We also get a bombshell in this episode from one Daisy D'umpstaire.

Rekha: Mm-hm.

Brennan: That Fletcher Cottonbottom, according to Daisy, is still alive.

Rekha: Yes. Yes. All I was gonna say was, I texted Brennan early on in the campaign and said, does it fuck you up if I know that Fletcher is alive? And you said, not at all.

Ally: Ooh!

Rekha: So that's why I went through with that, and I saved that because I didn't know when I wanted to use it on Grant.

Ally: Wow.

Brennan: Yes. Well, I think a lot of kudos to you, Rekha, for carrying some heavy baggage in terms of, like, you asked for something, like in other words, there are certain characters in this game who get to go through a confusing scenario, but being perfectly ensconced in their character. Like, everything that I know is something my character knows and everything my character knows is something that everyone else knows and off we go to the races to have a good time.

Rekha: Yes.

Brennan: You had something that you knew was not just personal information, but kind of story information. And I told you, and I think we even had a back and forth of like, when should I drop this? And I was like, feel it out. Whenever's good for you. Whenever you think Daisy would. Which I know is a stressful thing to say, because now you have a little kind of like delegated DM task.

Rekha: And a piece of the mystery that, because I don't see how the pieces fit together yet, I can't go and like solve it off on my own and be like fuck you, Sylvester. That would be the dream, right? Where I see how that piece fits in perfectly. But I could not crack anything, and I wanted to use it against Grant 'cause I knew it would make Sylvester feel bad. And to your point, Brennan, something that was hard and I noticed myself doing is Rekha, the player, was being like, oh my god, a bust! Fletcher Cottonbottom, he trades art! Speaking as if I don't know shit about Fletcher Cottonbottom as my player, but as Daisy, I did mention one time, like, well he's dead or something, and someone was like, well we don't know that, and I went, uh! And that was me lying.

Katie: Wait, when did you find out that Fletcher was alive?

Rekha: I think I asked you in episode one, Brennan. I don't remember.

Brennan: Yeah, and it was early, it was way early on, and you checked in, and I was like, sure, that sounds fun to me, yeah yeah yeah, absolutely.

Rekha: 'Cause the way I tried to play Daisy is I'm like, just take big swings, Rekha, and deal with the repercussions. If you nail them, that'll be great. If you don't, you'll fizzle and it's fine.

Brennan: I really love that, and I think actually this brings us to another question, was for the group, which is,

“Was it more fun to hold back a secret or reveal it to the group?”

There are periods throughout all of this where a character or characters will know something that the other characters don't know or just don't know yet, and obviously this episode has some instances where Daisy has some ledgers that she's not gonna share with Buckster and, you know, our characters are going upstairs each having gleaned a separate thing from an insight check. What was that experience like, which is very unlike normal D&D of like both having secrets, keeping secrets, and at times revealing secrets?

Raph: I'd much rather reveal them than keep them.

Ally: Yeah.

Katie: Me too.

Raph: Yeah, keeping them was stressful.

Rekha: It was too much. I agree. The only caveat I'll say is I regret not revealing them in a more fun, character based way.

Raph: Grant did a great job with that.

Rekha: Grant is the perfect example of doing that.

Katie: Grant killed it.

Rekha: I was like so anxious about what I knew and how to like process it myself that I was like, hey guys, this is what I learned, you know? Like, I wish I had done it in a little more fun, like, and she takes out her handkerchief, you know, whatever kind of stuff.

Raph: I will say, Gangie did a very funny job with the mushrooms, explaining the science behind that.

Rekha: Oh yeah, that was good.

Brennan: So funny. So funny.

Raph: Very detailed.

Katie: That was, like... Well, I had just researched that on my own afterwards, 'cause I was like, that's really weird, the mushroom thing. So that wasn't like something that Brennan had given me, I just like was a nerd after, and I, like, yeah. I mean, it was not, like, part of the character game to be smart.

Brennan: Katie. Katie, though. The fucking interaction with you and Sylvester where you explain mushrooms and Sylvester goes duh and then it comes back to you, it flips around, and you go, "Duh, duh, duh!" Mwah, so good, so good.

Ally: So funny.

Katie: That was fun to watch again and, like, remember that happening.

Brennan: Yeah, god, that was so, so funny. No, I loved this so much. There was... Oh, and then I think we maybe also have to talk about... So yeah, the secrets was very, very fun, but I also do... Oh, we actually have another question here that I do want to go to first, a little side note.

“So much was on the line this episode between the confrontation of Gangie, Buckster and Lars after emerging from the elevator, the public revelation that Fletcher Cottonbottom was not dead, and Ian and Daisy's investigation of the secret study, and the smart thinking to not leave behind evidence of their discovery. So much could have gone terribly wrong this episode. How difficult would it have been to move forward if the crowd hadn't been persuaded, if Lars hadn't been able to get past Hawkins, or if Ian and Daisy had forgotten to rearrange the busts?”

Well, I'll answer the busts part. I would've fucked you guys if you had...

Rekha: Well, how can I... Are you allowed to reveal how you would have fucked us?

Brennan: Yeah for sure.

Rekha: Okay.

Brennan: Think about the fact of... So let's picture everything goes bad. Lars doesn't bust through, they're arrested. There is no persuasion to get them out, that persuasion check fails, so there's no other friends around to help anybody, right? In other words, it's just, you know, because Sylvester's persuasion is pretty much no one here's authorized to arrest these people. Like, the person doing the arresting could very well be the murderer, like, relax. But, so like let's say, basically what I saw that persuasion check as more than anything, especially because it's like Ian was helping with it and all this other stuff was happening was, it was a big cool down, it was like, it wasn't like, hey, I'm exonerating them, they aren't covered in blood and rainwater and tried to go outside. It was more like, buddy, relax. You're not the fucking constables. You know, like, you got to take it down. We don't know who the murderer is, they went outside. What, their master plan as the murderers was to escape outside and all get stabbed a bunch? What the fuck are you talking about? Like, it was a cooling of nerves. It was like a, we're not going to let mob mentality take over, cooler heads are going to prevail. Yes, this is suspicious as hell, but also clearly this is not some master plan, they're injured. And, you know, you all go upstairs. So that persuasion check, if that goes wrong, you all are like locked up, man. You're not like in a room being medically tended to and like asked not to leave with two of the footmen outside, you're like chained up. You are like manacled, put somewhere, it's bad news. And then if Daisy and the vicar leave all that stuff there, it then becomes a question of, if Daisy and Vicar Ian come down, then all of a sudden it is, then all of a sudden it is like, Colonel Hawkins comes down and says, "Someone's been in Squire Badger's secret study," and Daisy gets searched and the books get found, right?

Katie: Okay.

Brennan: And then it's way worse for Buckster and Daisy at that point, and maybe the vicar as well, which leaves you in a position where Sylvester Cross is the only person who's not locked up for one reason or another, right?

Rekha: Uh-huh.

Katie: Whoa.

Brennan: So yeah, it could have gotten so bad. These rolls were critical. I'll also point out that I had no beef with that happening. Like, there was nothing in my head of, like, you're gonna fuck the story up if everyone gets put in prison. No, I was like, cool. In that time, much like Buckster says in this episode, I'm like, you got Gangie, you can get out of manacles. But now you're gonna get attacked on sight, and now the stakes are, so like all you guys did a very good job of using skill checks to avoid a way worse version of these events for sure. So, you know, good looking out.

Katie: I almost think it would've been interesting if that had happened and then, you know, we got to use our kind of like thieves' tools and other things to like get out, that could have also been like a really cool episode.

Brennan: Yeah, absolutely. That's why I was ready to be harsh, 'cause I was like, the world where everyone's manacled up and Cross has to figure something out and get them or whatever and fucking Lars puts an elbow through the window and Gangie skitters down the outside, that's a fine world, I'm down with that.

Katie: Oh that's fun, yeah.

Brennan: You know, like, dope. I obviously think that you all made the right call to avoid that, because I think what you all correctly analyzed was, we can go to that world where we're smashing windows and darting into the night. That can happen anytime. Once we get there, there's no coming back to how do you do, say, I wanted to talk to you about something world.

Katie: Yes.

Ally: Yeah.

Brennan: That's like, okay, we've come to this level, now we kind of only can operate in this level for a little while.

Rekha: Yeah.

Brennan: So I think you guys made the right call to hustle to avoid that fate. But absolutely was something I was prepared to throw at y'all. Yeah, so much could have gone wrong. Well done, sylvan sleuths, well done. Let's talk a little bit about the end here. Your girl Catherine McCabbage shows up.

Katie: I loved that ending.

Brennan: A widow showing up in the rain saying I've seen my Connor.

Rekha: Yeah, and it was a nice, like... The threads are all coming up like kind of when you want them to, 'cause I remember I asked the question in episode one, is Catherine McCabbage here? I think I asked Constance that.

Brennan: Yes.

Rekha: And they were like, no, she's not coming or whatever. And then I kind of forget about her a little bit.

Brennan: Yes.

Rekha: Until Connor comes up, and then you're like like, oh, at least for me personally, and on Daisy's journey, and you're like, oh yeah, fuck. Oh, he's alive or he's a ghost or I don't know what this is! And then you almost still forget about Catherine, and then when she shows up, yeah, it's like, like, all these threads keep, like, yeah, I don't know.

Brennan: I forget, at the end of this episode, does Vicar Ian... No, it's just, does Vicar Ian say anything to Catherine at the end of this episode? I think it's maybe just Rekha opens the door and Catherine's there.

Rekha: I think that's where it ends.

Brennan: That's where we end. But it's very funny. I mean, Catherine's been absent for, you know, four episodes, 'cause Catherine only appears in... Well, she does appear in the very first scene of episode one. She appears with the vicar when Gangie is-

Raph: Right.

Brennan: Is grave robbing. But yes, Catherine McCabbage, sweet Catherine McCabbage, the poor widow. Once again, I just got to shout out Tucker Donovan, our amazing artist.

Rekha: So cute.

Brennan: Catherine's art, little rain soaked-

Ally: So good.

Katie: Perfect.

Brennan: She's so, yeah, adorable. Also I don't know if anyone saw this, but Tucker also did art of me as a donkey.

Raph: It was great. It looks really good.

Katie: Wait, where can we find that, Brennan?

Ally: Where?

Brennan: I'll do a little retweet of it, but it's my fursona. My fursona is a donkey.

Katie: I love that.

Ally: Oh my god, that's so funny.

Brennan: I love it. They're great, I love donkeys. But yes, Catherine McCabbage shows up. And I'm trying to just think of any other big pieces of info in this, I mean there's a lot of information that gets dumped out here, but...

Rekha: Oh, just like in the reveal with Fletcher, you gave Grant and I a lot of time as Daisy and Sylvester to hash out relationship details that I was like, I need to get this stuff out somehow during this campaign, and it was a nice moment where everyone has to make an insight check into someone and we just do it on each other. Like, a relationship info dump. That was nice for me, 'cause I was like, I don't know where to drop some of this stuff. Like, where do I mention in this party partly why I left him.

Brennan: Yeah, for sure.

Rekha: So that was very helpful to me.

Brennan: No, that was really wonderful, I loved that scene. I loved it for how inadvisable it was. I loved it for, it's the perfect story moment of like, here's the two, like, all the other sleuths are gonna take a second to like read the room and scan it, and then our two, like, our corporate spy and our gentlemen detective are just, only have eyes for each other. It's like, ah, we love it. Really love it. Yeah, more questions, more questions.

Raph: Yeah!

Brennan: Yeah, here we go. We got more. Let's see here. Bum bum bum. I would say, oh this is a good one.

“What is the best and worst British foods in your opinion?”

Best and worst British foods in your opinion.

Raph: Yeast! Yeast!

Rekha: Isn't that Australian? You're talking about-

Raph: Yeah, the yeast extract.

Rekha: You should bleep this out. Ally, it's yeast. Don't say Vegemite, it's a brand. You can't say Vegemite. If you say Vegemite it's, like, brand.

Ally: Yeast just as a general concept is the worst part.

Raph: Yeah, exactly. Every form of yeasty food.

Katie: Fish and chips! Delicious!

Raph: Fish and chips I like the most, probably.

Ally: The worst?

Katie: No, the best.

Ally: Oh, yeah, I would agree.

Rekha: I would say the best is scones with clotted cream and jam.

Ally: I went to a music festival on the heels of a breakup, we're talking the next day after an absolutely brutal breakup.

Katie: Oof.

Ally: I went to this music festival, went and stayed in the Airbnb that we had bought together alone, and was just like, it's fine! This was over in Paris.

Katie: Wait, did you go by yourself to the festival?

Ally: Yes, I went and did the whole trip that, like, the couples trip by myself 'cause I was like, it's fine. But anyway, I was having a breakdown, obviously, and there was a fish and chips truck there and I ordered while sobbing.

Raph: Oh man, this is in Paris?

Ally: I literally ordered fish and chips, yeah, with like minted mashed peas while sobbing. They were just kind of like, yeah, okay, here you go buddy. And I was just like, thank you!

Raph: Was this when you were doing Boom Chicago?

Ally: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Raph: Oh my lord.

Ally: My big life abroad. But now when I eat fish and chips, it's like deep in my DNA comfort food.

Raph: Oh, wow.

Ally: Just like oh, yes, you were there for me.

Katie: Nice.

Rekha: I feel like a lot of the worst British foods I haven't had 'cause they're like meat pie.

Katie: Yeah.

Raph: Right.

Rekha: The types of like cuckoo stuff you see on "Great British Bake Off" that's like a big suet lump or like whatever.

Katie: Yeah.

Ally: I can't get into blood pudding.

Rekha: Blood pudding, yeah.

Ally: Yeah, I think that might be kind of gross. But I do love a full English breakfast, that always sounds really good. Give me some beans, give me some sweet beans in the morning.

Katie: I love beans, beans are delicious. I'll take some beans.

Rekha: Yeah, beans are good.

Brennan: I might have to agree that just a classic fish and chips is so hard to beat. You know, with all the fixings, the lemon, the tartar sauce.

Ally: Oh, you got the malt, the malt vinegar.

Katie: Yeah.

Brennan: Ooh.

Raph: I literally had it last night.

Rekha: Really?

Katie: Really?

Brennan: Really? Where'd you get it? Where'd you get it in Los Angeles?

Raph: Oh, I got it from not a British place. I got it from The Kitchen on Fountain.

Katie: Oh, I love that place, that place is good.

Raph: Yeah, it's walking distance from me.

Brennan: Fish and chips is really good.

Ally: Oh yeah?

Rekha: Where do you live?

Katie: Yeah, what's your address?

Raph: Oh, my address?

Brennan: I was gonna say that the... I really love fish and chips, I really love, ooh, sticky toffee pudding.

Rekha: Yes.

Raph: Oh, that sounds really good.

Katie: That sounds incredible.

Brennan: It's so good. I've never had the pleasure of being, I really want to go to England, I would love to go to-

Ally: Yeah, I've never been either.

Brennan: I've been to Ireland and Scotland, and I had sticky toffee pudding, that's where I've had fish and chips the most and sticky toffee pudding. I had a sticky toffee pudding in this little inn in a place called Glenelg in Scotland.

Ally: Wow, slow it down for us.

Brennan: Me, let me hit you with this. Me and Iz, we get in front of us, some sticky toffee puddings, you know, they've liquified a little, they take the shape of the container, you know, something in there. Like the craggy moors of the highlands themselves, this sticky toffee, it was a mountain. It looked like it had formed, it looked like it had been wrought into being by the same immortal hand that shaped the very hills and mountains themselves.

Raph: Wow.

Brennan: Enormous, it was enormous. It was covered in this thick, thick glaze. I was like, oh, that's like solid, it's got to be like a candy glaze, and it's like, oh, it's dripping glacially, glacially dripping, like, slow. And when I say it was like-

Rekha: This is very sexual.

Katie: This is so sexual.

Ally: Yeah.

Brennan: When I put a fork into it and peeled back a little bit of the pudding, a perfect curl of steam emerged from the sticky toffee pudding.

Ally: Oh my god.

Raph: Crazy.

Brennan: The temperature was-

Ally: Modern dance.

Brennan: The temperature was the perfect, it was that type of piping hot where as it's going to your tongue, you're like, careful, it's gonna be too hot, and then you get it, and you're like, no no no. It was, it was on the plate, and in moving here, it's perfect.

Katie: Ooh.

Ally: Oh my god.

Brennan: It was too hot for the mouth on the plate, and as it moved up, it was perfect.

Katie: I'm gonna make this, this sounds so good.

Ally: That sounds wild.

Katie: I want to literally make this now.

Brennan: To get from Edinburgh to this place where this sticky toffee pudding is, it's a 3 1/2 week drive. No, I'm kidding, I'm kidding. It's on a road where you get to the end and it's like, "The road's done, there's no more, like. Cannae go far!" That's how far away it is from anywhere else. Me and Iz are like, so we have to go back to get that pudding again. Like, we will go to the ends of Scotland for this pudding.

Katie: Wait, I need to go.

Brennan: I'll shoot you the details, it's-

Katie: Can you, please? I want to go to Europe so badly. I am the least well traveled person in the world.

Ally: I want to go anywhere so badly.

Raph: I only want to go to Cuba.

Katie: That'd be incredible, wow.

Raph: I'm gonna do it.

Ally: For what? Just to tool around? Get a cigar?

Raph: You can literally just go. Oh yeah, I'm gonna get so many cigars.

Rekha: Did you ask Raph if he's going to tool around?

Ally: Yeah, you just gonna tool around Cuba, or what?

Rekha: Like a fucking tool?

Ally: You just gonna fucking tool around?

Katie: Like a loser?

Ally: Oh, sticky toffee pudding looks like carrot cake.

Katie: It looks so good.

Ally: Confirm or deny?

Brennan: Yes, it depends on how you make it. I think there's probably a lot of different ways to make it. But like when you go look at it, these images that you're seeing, I don't know how to... Like, everything you're seeing on Google Images when you look up sticky toffee pudding is this little, like, cylinder, this little sad cylinder. It looked like a burly, kilt-wearing Scotsman went and was like, "You'll have sticky toffee pudding, right?" And literally, like, there's a well, like a drum, a hot drum, and just went in and ripped a mound out of like not a sad little, oh we made this yesterday and now we've heated it up, it was like, I don't know, it looked like it was mined from a deep, rich, hot magma ore of sticky toffee pudding.

Ally: Wow.

Katie: I got to go.

Brennan: I'm so hungry that I can feel my ribs shaking, I'm like-

Katie: I'm so hungry also.

Brennan: So fucking hungry. But the question was best and worst British foods. I can't really speak to the worst. I know there's like, you laugh about, like, ha ha, suet desserts like spotted dick, and you're like LOL.

Rekha: Yeah, what are you-

Brennan: Like, I'm not gonna have spotted dick, har har har. But I also feel like the vibe I get is that that stuff is like, I could be wrong, but I do often, like, when we were traveling in Ireland, it was sort of like, you can go to a place and get a traditional Irish breakfast, but also, you don't have to do that, go get shawarma at the good shawarma place.

Raph: Yeah, right.

Katie: Yeah.

Rekha: When I went to London after having seen a bunch of, like, British pastry shows, I wanted to get a bunch of really traditional things. I wanted to try, like, an Eccles cake and all these things, and my friend who lives there was like, huh, I guess you could get that here. You want what? Okay. I wanted like a baker torch or baker, what is it? Yeah, a baker's torch or whatever, the like cherry almond thing and, like, I couldn't find that anywhere except the kind of shitty ones at grocery stores 'cause they're like, yeah I guess we don't really eat this. And I'm like... Bakewell tart, Bakewell tart! That's what I meant to say. Bakewell tart.

Brennan: Bakewell tart, yes.

Katie: Oh, I've heard of that.

Brennan: The things you see on "Bake Off" all the time. And the vibe I get, again, I have never been to England, I really want to go, but the vibe I got from Ireland which was I think from having a lot of friends in Ireland and having a big Irish American family is there's sort of a thing of like, hey, there's lots of things we're very proud about in our culture. The cuisine, you know... Can we talk about literature? Can we talk about dancing? Let's talk about...

Katie: Totally.

Brennan: It's sort of like that's... You can just go to the good shawarma place, let me tell you. You know, like, that's how-

Raph: It feels like that's how, like, empires used to be, where they would admit, like, the things that they didn't do and just take the things of the people who they, I mean, sadly, like, took over, but like...

Katie: Yeah.

Rekha: Yeah.

Raph: They were quick to admit your thing is better than ours. You're better than us in this way.

Katie: And now we take it.

Raph: Yeah, basically. Yeah, right.

Brennan: We will definitely be doing your thing now. How that benefits you, sort of not sure.

Katie: It's not going to.

Brennan: Frankly don't care, but you know. No, it's very interesting, though, because obviously it's like, in New York and big cities in America, it's also cosmopolitan, but you would be, obviously there's incredible solely American cuisine traditions that are very, like, healthy and alive. Like, I don't know, I've just been looking at a ton of barbecue menus and like all the variety of like North Carolina barbecue and Texas barbecue and the differences therein, and I'm sure those exist in England and Ireland and other places as well, but it is definitely like, I couldn't speak... I feel like no one's forcing you to eat the worst English dish, you know?

Ally: Yeah, yeah.

Raph: Uh-huh, uh-huh.

Brennan: Hell yeah, we got more questions. Oh, I got to say shepherd's pie, too. Shepherd's pie slaps.

Ally: Ooh! Yeah.

Katie: Never had it.

Brennan: Love a shepherd's pie.

Ally: It's delicious.

Brennan: Love a steak and ale pie, I love a steak and ale pie is also great.

Ally: What is that?

Brennan: There's a lot of savory, meal based pies. It's like a chicken pot pie, but it has a deep, rich stout, like, brown ale as the stock with like steak in it as well so it's like, but also it's like a beef stock mixed with ale, the alcohol obviously reduces down. Me and Iz, for our third anniversary, we were supposed to go back to Scotland and COVID obviously made that not a reality. But we were gonna go on a big trip to Ireland and Scotland, it was gonna be very sweet and we couldn't go, and Iz, for our anniversary, we stayed home in our little apartment, COVID safe, and made steak and ale pie and a sticky toffee pudding like we would have had.

Raph: Wow.

Rekha: That's very cute.

Katie: Very nice.

Brennan: It was very cute. It was one of the most fun, so fun. We have a very good working relationship together. It's one of those things where you're in a relationship and it's one of those things where I was like, Iz is very much the reasonable kind of person who's like, we will do, like, okay, like, this stock means this or that, so let's do that. And I'm sitting here like, well we don't fully understand the instructions, so it's probably ill advised to get started if we don't know... I want to understand how we execute the finishing move on this meal before we've so much as even gone into the kitchen, you know?

Rekha: Yeah.

Brennan: Which is a great way to never cook a meal for yourself. More stuff.

“Adventuring Party has previously discussed who would be the person amongst Muppets in a movie.”

You know, like the one human who's friends, who's like on the adventure with the Muppets.

“If there was a Muppet version of "Mice and Murder", who would be the person a la Michael Caine in "A Muppet Christmas Carol" and who would play them?”

Ally: Ooh.

Rekha: Wow.

Brennan: So everyone's Muppets, but one of the characters. It's weird because these people are animals, so it's like who's the human.

Rekha: Ah! Yeah! What is that?

Katie: I guess I was thinking Sam, but it might just be because he was like our boss, and it... I'm like, he should be the human.

Brennan: I think the funniest person to be the human... Weirdly, oh this is interesting. Who's the human in "Mice and Murder"? I think it's funniest for Vicar Ian to be the human.

Ally: Oh, that's funny.

Brennan: Because Vicar Ian is friendly with everybody, like, knows Gangie, knows Sylvester, knows Lars, but is a little bit solo, like a little bit sort of like, my stake in this is different than everybody else's.

Raph: Right.

Brennan: So there's something very funny about Vicar Ian.

Ally: I was thinking Gangie just played by like an absolute creep actor or Katie yourself, and you're just surrounded by cute puppets and you're just kind of like, eh.

Katie: That's very funny.

Brennan: Get Crispin Glover to come in.

Rekha: Ugh!

Brennan: I'm not being mean, the guy, it's on his resume. I'm a creep, you know?

Rekha: I find him to be successful at that.

Raph: Yeah.

Rekha: He really crushes at being a fucking creepy dude in every thing he is in.

Ally: Or like Cillian Murphy.

Brennan: Ooh, yeah.

Raph: He was in "Back to the Future".

Brennan: I was thinking Cillian Murphy for Gangie earlier actually.

Rekha: Uh-huh.

Ally: Oh yeah.

Katie: How do you all know all these people? Oh, Cillian Murphy, all right.

Ally: Yeah, he's very that guy in the thing. But he's also, like, the lead in that TV show that everyone loves.

Brennan: "Peaky Blinders".

Ally: Perky blindies.

Brennan: I watched a few episodes of "Peaky Blinders".

Ally: I watched a couple seasons.

Brennan: And it's very well made, but I did have this thing of just like, and I think it's obviously in "Dimension 20" where we like, you know, we like switch wildly between like drama and comedy and mystery and tension and, you know, terror or whatever. For me, I need that tempo to, like, change up a little bit. You know, I can only watch so many scenes where someone's like, "Don't be shabby."

Rekha: Ugh, god! Yeah.

Brennan: Well, well, well, you think you're dangerous. Trust me my friend, I'm very dangerous myself. What you need to understand is, you're not dangerous, I'm dangerous.

Ally: And someone walks in and they're like, "Shelby it is."

Brennan: Shelby it is! Tell me, Shelby, you think you're-

Rekha: That would drive me crazy. 'Cause like, there's a certain brand of prestige shows that I believe just gets off on, like, the audience doesn't understand what's going on in the particulars, they understand maybe one out of every 20 things.

Ally: Wow.

Rekha: And they feel better watching it.

Brennan: Yeah.

Rekha: And for me, and sometimes that's intentional. Like, you have a "West Wing" where there is, like, really intentionally alienating jargon but you're supposed to pay attention to the relationships and also Aaron Sorkin just likes to write with his head up his own ass kind of thing.

Brennan: Yeah.

Raph: That's how I felt about "Tenet". I'm not sure that Christopher Nolan even really understands what the fuck.

Brennan: He doesn't! He doesn't.

Rekha: Spicy!

Brennan: He don't. Hey, all you filmmakers that think filmmakers are philosophers, read a philosophy book!

Rekha: Yeah, please.

Brennan: Just the one, just one will do you.

Ally: Oh my god.

Brennan: Yeah, for sure, I'm with you. Well, I've made an enemy. Yeah, I'm sure fucking Chris Nolan's people are watching "Adventuring Party". Dear Mr. Nolan. No, but I do know what you mean. There is a... I obviously love drama and deep, heartfelt stuff and catharsis and transformation and all that great stuff. I just don't think you get there with, like, trudging, self serious, oppressive gravity. Like, ooh boy.

Rekha: Yeah.

Brennan: No one cracks a joke in this world?

Rekha: Yeah, yeah.

Brennan: No one looks at the thing and is like, we need to go back, the timelines intersect at this place. And no one's like, I don't know what the fuck this guy's talking about. Like, somebody wouldn't say that? I would say that.

Rekha: Yes.

Brennan: Yeah. Well, media's bad except for funny stuff.

Rekha: Hi!

Raph: Yeah!

Brennan: Gang, this has been "Adventuring Party". Thank you so much for watching. Tune in next week for episode seven. Oh my gosh, Catherine McCabbage, what's going to happen? The mystery continues, and last but not least, let me just say… ♪ Turtle soup ♪ If we bring this up next time, it will be weeks later in our real lives, and you will know that our brains done broke. Take care, be well!

Katie: Bye!

Rekha: Bye!

Raph: bye bye!

Captions extracted by: gluegunshots

Edited by: gluegunshots and OliverC