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Saga Book Club #16 - Y: The Last Man, pt. Three · 22 Panels - A Comic Book Podcast

• 0:03
  Tad Eggleston: Good evening, everybody. Welcome back to the Saga Book Club on 22 Panels, where, as we continue to wait for the return of Saga.
• 0:12
  Tad Eggleston: We… we continue our way through the works of Brian K. Vaughan, specifically, Why the Last Man? Volume 3 this week. So, hello Marisol, hello Lee, hello Josh, hello Matt, how is everybody?
• 0:29
  Marisol: Hello.
• 0:30
  Marisol: Yeah, right?
• 0:32
  Lee Woods: Sad and tired. No kidding.
• 0:36
  Lee Woods: Definitely tired, though.
• 0:39
  Marisol: Yes, agreed. Actually tired.
• 0:42
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, tired is reasonable.
• 0:46
  Tad Eggleston: is definitely reasonable.
• 0:49
  Tad Eggleston: And so, who wants to throw out?
• 0:54
  Tad Eggleston: First thoughts on the read. I like this volume.
• 0:57
  Matt: I forgot just how brilliant Brian K. Vaughn is. I forgot that ampersand was what saved him.
• 1:05
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 1:06
  Matt: And I was like, oh!
• 1:07
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and specifically…
• 1:09
  Marisol: easy.
• 1:09
  Tad Eggleston: Spoiler, spoiler, spoiler.
• 1:11
  Tad Eggleston: Marisol, are you done with… are you done with Volume 3, or are we about to spoil?
• 1:17
  Marisol: I've made it that far.
• 1:19
  Matt: Good.
• 1:19
  Tad Eggleston: Spoiler, spoiler, spoiler. Specifically, Ampersand's problem with throwing feces is what saves.
• 1:28
  Matt: Saved him, exactly.
• 1:31
  Tad Eggleston: So, so the opening, where you're dealing with all of the ampersand.
• 1:37
  Marisol: It's.
• 1:39
  Matt: Just, it's some brilliant foreshadowing that no one's gonna see the first time.
• 1:42
  Tad Eggleston: No, nobody saw that the humor was also foreshadowing.
• 1:47
  Matt: Exactly.
• 1:47
  Tad Eggleston: Bye.
• 1:48
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, no, that was… that was beyond… beyond brilliant.
• 1:52
  Josh Eiserike: I I I do wanna
• 1:55
  Josh Eiserike: highlight how he explains that, and, like, how Dr. Mann, like, it starts really medical, and then less medical.
• 2:01
  Matt: He said dumb it down More, more, more.
• 2:07
  Marisol: Dumber. Okay, a little more dumb. Dumber than that.
• 2:11
  Matt: To me, like, I'm a dog, like…
• 2:13
  Josh Eiserike: Just really, really smart exposition.
• 2:16
  Tad Eggleston: Explain it to Ampersand.
• 2:19
  Tad Eggleston: Yes, yes, Amber Sands can understand.
• 2:26
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, no, I,
• 2:29
  Josh Eiserike: So.
• 2:29
  Tad Eggleston: I like this volume a lot.
• 2:31
  Josh Eiserike: My… my… let me ask you all a question, because my recollection
• 2:36
  Josh Eiserike: of reading this as it was coming out was there were a bunch of theories presented as to why York survived, and
• 2:43
  Josh Eiserike: Amber Sam's poop was just one of them, so this is, this is it, this is why he survived.
• 2:48
  Tad Eggleston: I don't remember for certain, this is what it is right now.
• 2:52
  Matt: Right.
• 2:53
  Marisol: laughs.
• 2:55
  Josh Eiserike: That was my recollection.
• 2:58
  Josh Eiserike: There's the thing with the ring, and then the thing with the amulet, and then… or that's what I guess we'll call it.
• 3:02
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, but both the ring and the amulet were… were… Pretty disproven.
• 3:08
  Josh Eiserike: Yeah.
• 3:12
  Tad Eggleston: And I think the amulet was always more of a…
• 3:19
  Tad Eggleston: The fans wondering about it, then… then…
• 3:22
  Marisol: No.
• 3:26
  Tad Eggleston: You know, I mean, I guess… I guess there were non-science people who were convinced that it being stolen had caused everything, and that it was a magical thing.
• 3:34
  Matt: Oh, yeah, exactly.
• 3:36
  Tad Eggleston: Really, I think…
• 3:38
  Marisol: The whole purpose of that amulet. It's like I.
• 3:41
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 3:42
  Marisol: I guess it's important. It's a historical trinket. Apart from that.
• 3:46
  Tad Eggleston: It's a historical trinket that kinda becomes, red herring.
• 3:52
  Matt: It's a MacGuffin.
• 3:53
  Marisol: Right.
• 3:55
  Tad Eggleston: It's both the MacGuffin and the Red Herring, I think.
• 3:58
  Matt: Yes!
• 3:59
  Tad Eggleston: Oh.
• 4:00
  Matt: I think so.
• 4:01
  Josh Eiserike: I thought Beth was the McGuffin.
• 4:06
  Tad Eggleston: Well, except that Beth is, is, is real.
• 4:09
  Josh Eiserike: But, but, but Beth is what's driving Yorick. Like, this is a quest for Beth, above all else, for Yorick.
• 4:17
  Matt: She's not…
• 4:19
  Tad Eggleston: But I thought… I thought part of being a MacGuffin was, by definition, you don't actually truly define what it is. It's like the gold in the briefcase.
• 4:29
  Josh Eiserike: It can be anything, it's just the reason for the story, what gets the character going.
• 4:35
  Josh Eiserike: So in Raiders of the Lost Ark, it's the Lost Ark.
• 4:38
  Josh Eiserike: In Notorious, one of my favorite MacGuffins, it's just secrets. Like, that's it. Secret… or is that North by Northwest? I think it's North by Northwest, it's just secrets. Doesn't matter. But it's usually something tangible, like the Maltese Falcon.
• 4:55
  Tad Eggleston: That's fair.
• 5:01
  Tad Eggleston: So more of a red herring, though I think, I think it's… I mean, it's certainly the MacGuffin for some non-York characters.
• 5:09
  Josh Eiserike: For sure.
• 5:14
  Tad Eggleston: Which is another thing that Brian does brilliantly. They're all… all of his characters have a purpose.
• 5:21
  Tad Eggleston: And not just a purpose to the main character's story. They have… they have an autonomous purpose that you may not get to see all of. You're gonna see parts of it, you're certainly gonna see where it… where it intersects with the main storyline, that sort of thing, but… but it's not just going to be in service of the main storyline.
• 5:42
  Tad Eggleston: And, like, that's… it's definitely…
• 5:48
  Tad Eggleston: An example of how he does much deeper storytelling.
• 5:53
  Tad Eggleston: than…
• 5:57
  Tad Eggleston: Many people are capable of.
• 6:00
  Matt: there.
• 6:00
  Tad Eggleston: Many great, great, great stories where… where massive numbers of the characters are.
• 6:07
  Tad Eggleston: One and two-dimensional.
• 6:10
  Tad Eggleston: You know, Brian doesn't have many… One- and two-dimensional characters.
• 6:16
  Marisol: No.
• 6:19
  Marisol: And, like you said, we might not see all of them, but we.
• 6:21
  Tad Eggleston: The parts that we do see of them are… But you know it's there. The part that…
• 6:25
  Marisol: the.
• 6:25
  Tad Eggleston: You see shows you that.
• 6:28
  Tad Eggleston: Errors.
• 6:29
  Tad Eggleston: something there.
• 6:31
  Tad Eggleston: You're doing.
• 6:33
  Marisol: Definitely had a lot of…
• 6:34
  Tad Eggleston: with me, so this is… that is very Jaime Hernandez-like, you know?
• 6:39
  Marisol: screen.
• 6:40
  Tad Eggleston: There's no character in Love and Rockets that you don't… No, could potentially… Have a deeper story sometime.
• 6:52
  Tad Eggleston: There's no…
• 6:52
  Marisol: Right.
• 6:53
  Tad Eggleston: Doesn't matter if they're just somebody at the bus stop.
• 6:56
  Tad Eggleston: there's a depth to the way they get drawn that lets you know that Jaime knows something about them.
• 7:03
  Tad Eggleston: Whether or not it'll ever come out, how much it'll matter, who knows? But they're not just a drawing on the page.
• 7:12
  Tad Eggleston: Now.
• 7:14
  Marisol: Right, and like, with everyone having her own purpose within the story, not just for Yorick's story, but for the story as a whole. Right. Like, I got such emotional whiplash reading through when we met, 7-Eleven.
• 7:28
  Tad Eggleston: Oh.
• 7:29
  Marisol: It's like.
• 7:29
  Marisol: How… first, it was like, okay, great, another…
• 7:34
  Marisol: Agent, someone else to help them, and then how did we get to… to…
• 7:41
  Matt: EBS1?
• 7:41
  Marisol: Mild physical and psychological torture, and then now we're at the end of everything and we're okay?
• 7:50
  Marisol: Right. Because that was an intervention?
• 7:52
  Matt: Yeah, that went… that went pretty quick.
• 7:55
  Marisol: It did, and I felt like I couldn't really sit with any of my feelings on any of it for very long, because it was just…
• 8:03
  Matt: There's a lot to unpack.
• 8:05
  Tad Eggleston: Which I think was part of the point, because to the extent… and Lee would need to talk much more to this, but to the extent that, like, has any…
• 8:18
  Tad Eggleston: real basis in… in… psychology, I think that it's…
• 8:24
  Tad Eggleston: The shock of going through all of those emotions at that speed.
• 8:31
  Marisol: the.
• 8:31
  Tad Eggleston: Kinda rattles out what matters, or at least that's the idea.
• 8:39
  Lee Woods: Yes.
• 8:41
  Matt: What if that was his realization that he didn't want to die?
• 8:45
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 8:46
  Matt: And he went about it.
• 8:47
  Matt: With a very roundabout way!
• 8:53
  Marisol: Specific?
• 8:54
  Marisol: Curio soup is what it was.
• 8:58
  Lee Woods: it's just, for me, the entire time as you're having this conversation, I'm like, yeah, I kind of wish sometimes therapy was that quick. But…
• 9:06
  Marisol: Well…
• 9:06
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I would imagine, and I forget if there is in the book, Lee's the one that binged all of it, so he might… I would imagine that, like, that wasn't a long-term therapeutic fix.
• 9:18
  Tad Eggleston: That it might even have long-term consequences. But even to the extent that it could reasonably fix, the idea is to get you to the point where you can do what you need to do
• 9:33
  Tad Eggleston: Right now, and we'll worry about 5 years from now, 5 years from now.
• 9:39
  Lee Woods: Right.
• 9:39
  Matt: And you also don't know how long it actually took. We read it as.
• 9:44
  Marisol: one.
• 9:44
  Matt: Three pages? Right. It could have been hours.
• 9:48
  Tad Eggleston: Or days.
• 9:49
  Matt: Or days, exactly. So, you know…
• 9:53
  Matt: I feel like he kind of did us a disservice by not making it, by not telling us how long it took.
• 10:01
  Marisol: Okay.
• 10:03
  Lee Woods: Yeah, because the entire… Not just with therapy, but also the portrayal that…
• 10:08
  Lee Woods: a, quote, therapy session, because it's not a real therapy. In the book.
• 10:14
  Matt: Whatever.
• 10:15
  Lee Woods: Yeah, please don't do that. That's a lot. That's what we call traumatizing your patients.
• 10:23
  Matt: It's the rapist.
• 10:24
  Marisol: Really something we're not trying to do.
• 10:27
  Lee Woods: Yes, generally that's the goal. But it is this idea of
• 10:34
  Lee Woods: With our behavior, and every theory has its sort of understanding of this for human behavior.
• 10:41
  Lee Woods: that there's a goal that you're striving towards, whether that be in your awareness or not in your awareness, that we are all striving for when we do X, Y, or Z. So, for…
• 10:52
  Lee Woods: Yorick, I definitely saw the aspect of Not necessarily reverse psychology, but…
• 11:02
  Lee Woods: And I'm going to try to be careful here.
• 11:06
  Lee Woods: But when you strip the person down.
• 11:10
  Lee Woods: To their, sort of, base drives.
• 11:13
  Lee Woods: There comes a sort of clarity from that.
• 11:16
  Lee Woods: And that's what happened with Yorick.
• 11:19
  Lee Woods: So, for him… and again, you can do this with anything. I think monks even do this with fasting, right? So when you ship it down, like, to the basis of, like, even food, there could be a sort of sense of clarity there.
• 11:33
  Lee Woods: in a very simplified version, so… but yeah, with York and that sort of,
• 11:39
  Lee Woods: therapeutic approach, I'll call it that, that there was some clarity, for sure, but also, it is something that
• 11:49
  Lee Woods: Does lead to further chapters.
• 11:54
  Lee Woods: For the listening audience, I just smile really big.
• 11:58
  Tad Eggleston: So, yes. Foreshadowing, Lee says.
• 12:02
  Lee Woods: Yes, foreshadow.
• 12:04
  Marisol: Hello.
• 12:05
  Tad Eggleston: And he might even mean inside the book, not in his fanfiction that he wrote when he was done reading the book about the further psychological ventures of.
• 12:14
  Marisol: You look brown.
• 12:15
  Lee Woods: I told you that in confidence!
• 12:20
  Lee Woods: Josh is a writer.
• 12:21
  Tad Eggleston: Lee's, Lee's like, I wanna be York's therapist!
• 12:28
  Lee Woods: Man.
• 12:29
  Marisol: Jacob still leaves secret writings on the air.
• 12:32
  Matt: And.
• 12:33
  Marisol: paper.
• 12:33
  Matt: Hard pass, dude.
• 12:35
  Tad Eggleston: He just writes them as therapy notes. They're not, like, in-depth dialogues.
• 12:40
  Lee Woods: the.
• 12:41
  Tad Eggleston: He just has fake session notes.
• 12:44
  Josh Eiserike: Professional question, Lee.
• 12:47
  Lee Woods: Oh, no. Okay.
• 12:48
  Josh Eiserike: Which would be the harder job?
• 12:50
  Josh Eiserike: York's therapist or Hazel's therapist?
• 12:57
  Josh Eiserike: You're the expert!
• 13:02
  Matt: Gotta be like that, Josh!
• 13:05
  Lee Woods: My mind… 10 out of 10 goes Yorick.
• 13:10
  Josh Eiserike: Okay.
• 13:11
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 13:12
  Lee Woods: Mainly because…
• 13:15
  Matt: His situation is more traumatic.
• 13:18
  Lee Woods: End quote.
• 13:20
  Marisol: You're quoting.
• 13:22
  Matt: notes.
• 13:22
  Lee Woods: Yeah, I would say, definitely York, because he's what you would call, like, he's stuck in, like, a developmental stage. So you have, quite literally, a grown man in a young boy's body.
• 13:36
  Lee Woods: But…
• 13:36
  Matt: The last man.
• 13:38
  Lee Woods: Yeah, of course, last man's body.
• 13:41
  Tad Eggleston: Maybe he should be the last.
• 13:42
  Lee Woods: Well done.
• 13:43
  Lee Woods: What's that?
• 13:44
  Tad Eggleston: The Last Boy.
• 13:46
  Lee Woods: The last boy.
• 13:46
  Josh Eiserike: Well, I mean, that was Brian said this. That was his initial pitch. It's the story of how the last boy on earth becomes the last man on earth.
• 13:55
  Lee Woods: And that tracks, especially as, I think we even talked about it, the first volume, right? Especially the fathers of the podcast, were just like, yeah, he's a kid, he's an idiot, like, and I was like, well, that tracks, like, that's…
• 14:10
  Lee Woods: Which shows, even if he's the last man on Earth.
• 14:13
  Lee Woods: So I think, in part, it is the… where York is developmentally stuck.
• 14:21
  Lee Woods: But also the aspect of, like, he's literally the last man on Earth.
• 14:25
  Lee Woods: And trying to balance that. Now, how do you become a man
• 14:30
  Lee Woods: When there's no longer, say, a father figure, or you have no longer have any role models, or someone to look up to, which is clearly something that seems like, at least in the story, he's lacking.
• 14:43
  Lee Woods: So I would definitely see that as much more challenging. Hazel, I mean, wow. I mean, yeah, war, politics.
• 14:54
  Tad Eggleston: Losing your dad, living on the run.
• 14:57
  Lee Woods: It's… I mean, all of that, just how much.
• 14:59
  Tad Eggleston: Violence.
• 15:01
  Lee Woods: Seems so real today, right?
• 15:03
  Josh Eiserike: Yeah.
• 15:03
  Lee Woods: Very, very real. But even then, when you say Hazel is, well, which Hazel?
• 15:11
  Lee Woods: Because…
• 15:11
  Josh Eiserike: Right.
• 15:12
  Lee Woods: It depends on which version of her we're looking at.
• 15:16
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, this is… this is from my armchair psychologist standpoint, Lee, so correct me if I'm wrong.
• 15:26
  Tad Eggleston: One of the things Hazel has going for her is that she is young.
• 15:34
  Tad Eggleston: And therefore, it has a greater… Resilience and ability to… Build new…
• 15:43
  Tad Eggleston: pathways, neural networks, etc. And also that, in spite of everything else, she actually has a really good support network.
• 15:56
  Marisol: Okay.
• 15:57
  Lee Woods: She does.
• 16:00
  Lee Woods: Yeah, I would look at it more contextual, because especially…
• 16:06
  Lee Woods: In addition to the war on the run, and even the social, or support network is how she sort of forms attachments. I think that would be sort of interesting to explore there.
• 16:20
  Lee Woods: and I gotta imagine, to some degree, at least, especially kids in, like, foster homes or military families are always, like, kind of uprooting and moving elsewhere, is how do you form meaningful relationships with this idea of maybe it's only a matter of time before
• 16:38
  Lee Woods: either you leave or I leave, right?
• 16:40
  Tad Eggleston: Perfect.
• 16:41
  Lee Woods: So, especially as a therapist, it's like.
• 16:46
  Lee Woods: would Hazel be able to open up to me? Sure. And it's like, okay, well, is she able to do that with other people? Versus, does she not open up with me? Because I can imagine what she does with me in therapy, she would do outside of therapy. So…
• 17:03
  Lee Woods: But yeah, I would… each would have its own challenges, don't get me wrong. But yeah, I gotta imagine just York being the.
• 17:11
  Lee Woods: I'll say this more nicely, being the naive
• 17:14
  Lee Woods: individual that he is, I think he'd be definitely the more challenging one.
• 17:20
  Lee Woods: But now I am thinking about pen fiction.
• 17:23
  Josh Eiserike: Well, I'm gonna take this fan fiction one step further, and then we can move on, Lee. And what if the will walked into your office? Ethically, could you be his therapist?
• 17:31
  Lee Woods: Ethically, yeah.
• 17:33
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, he's not dead, he's not alive anymore, so…
• 17:36
  Lee Woods: Oh, well, that poses some issues.
• 17:38
  Josh Eiserike: Will?
• 17:40
  Matt: There's Ouija boards!
• 17:42
  Josh Eiserike: The world died?
• 17:43
  Tad Eggleston: Thought he did.
• 17:45
  Josh Eiserike: Why am I not remembering this?
• 17:47
  Matt: far.
• 17:48
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, no, no, that's right, that's right. He should have died, but it was… Yeah, no. That's right. See?
• 17:57
  Lee Woods: For a moment, for a moment, Josh was very sad.
• 18:00
  Tad Eggleston: I'm now remembering that Sophie took a bullet for him rather than the other way around. Motherfucker.
• 18:07
  Marisol: Yeah…
• 18:10
  Matt: Just remember how many.
• 18:12
  Marisol: uses.
• 18:13
  Matt: Penises.
• 18:14
  Lee Woods: Good.
• 18:15
  Marisol: you.
• 18:16
  Lee Woods: Goose is yeah, I could definitely see the will mainly because it is not about me, it's about the person in front of me, and I am a professional.
• 18:30
  Tad Eggleston: But what about when he told you he was going to commit a crime?
• 18:35
  Josh Eiserike: Well, you're a mandated reporter, aren't you?
• 18:37
  Lee Woods: Oh.
• 18:38
  Tad Eggleston: That's what I'm saying. So the will go see Lee.
• 18:43
  Matt: his job!
• 18:47
  Lee Woods: I appreciate y'all looking out for my wallet. It's really nice.
• 18:53
  Tad Eggleston: Now, if you turn in… Somebody, when they've admitted to a crime, and you prevent
• 19:03
  Tad Eggleston: mass carnage. Does that mean that
• 19:08
  Tad Eggleston: You get to keep all of their money?
• 19:11
  Matt: Barely.
• 19:12
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, that seems reasonable.
• 19:17
  Lee Woods: Oh, now we reached the scope of my, I have no idea.
• 19:21
  Lee Woods: That's up to the…
• 19:22
  Tad Eggleston: Shouldn't that be the spoils?
• 19:25
  Lee Woods: Like a pirate.
• 19:27
  Matt: Prisoners don't have money for lawyers.
• 19:31
  Matt: He's not going to sue you for it back. Win.
• 19:36
  Tad Eggleston: Hmm.
• 19:38
  Tad Eggleston: Josh has his thoughtful look on again.
• 19:41
  Matt: you.
• 19:42
  Lee Woods: Yeah.
• 19:42
  Josh Eiserike: I'm thinking about why.
• 19:46
  Tad Eggleston: Well, we can go back to why.
• 19:48
  Lee Woods: I.
• 19:48
  Matt: Is that the book we're reading?
• 19:50
  Josh Eiserike: Yeah.
• 19:51
  Marisol: We should circle back there eventually. There was, there was one.
• 19:55
  Josh Eiserike: One moment.
• 19:57
  Josh Eiserike: That just, like, that I want to draw attention to, that emotionally just got me.
• 20:03
  Josh Eiserike: And… I actually think it's the coloring.
• 20:07
  Josh Eiserike: It's, when Yorick and 355, excuse me, are on the roof, and she shows him the picture of, the baby, and there's a page turn, and then the sun starts to come up, and it hits Yorick on the face.
• 20:20
  Josh Eiserike: And I was like, like, I… it's the coloring, and it was just perfect. If you're digitally reading it, it's on page 156 of the PDF.
• 20:35
  Josh Eiserike: Like, I don't, I don't know why, like, that was the moment that just got me.
• 20:53
  Tad Eggleston: Let me see, let me see.
• 20:59
  Marisol: I'm glad that baby survived.
• 21:02
  Josh Eiserike: Yeah.
• 21:03
  Matt: For now.
• 21:04
  Matt: So.
• 21:05
  Marisol: For now, yes.
• 21:06
  Matt: Yeah.
• 21:07
  Lee Woods: laughter.
• 21:08
  Marisol: Who knows what happens if he goes outside his little bubble, but for now…
• 21:12
  Tad Eggleston: I mean.
• 21:13
  Matt: Spoiler alert, so far!
• 21:17
  Lee Woods: I am just sitting here.
• 21:19
  Marisol: For now, things are… Somewhat slightly, maybe… Happy there? Question mark?
• 21:27
  Tad Eggleston: Josh, what page did you say again?
• 21:29
  Josh Eiserike: Pdf, it's 1 56, although I you know I I
• 21:33
  Josh Eiserike: Exquisite corpses is maybe an exception, but I, I think killing babies is like
• 21:39
  Josh Eiserike: In narrative fiction, like, a baby's gonna probably be fine.
• 21:46
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I don't know, because, I mean, you do have…
• 21:53
  Tad Eggleston: For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn.
• 21:59
  Marisol: Oh.
• 22:01
  Matt: Where?
• 22:03
  Tad Eggleston: That's… somebody asked Hemingway once how short you could make a story, and he said he could give you one in 6 words.
• 22:12
  Matt: It was nice.
• 22:12
  Tad Eggleston: For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn.
• 22:19
  Marisol: That's sad.
• 22:20
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, the coloring is fantastic there.
• 22:25
  Josh Eiserike: Like, just color, art, script, all working.
• 22:30
  Josh Eiserike: In conjunction at the highest level, just very simple.
• 22:33
  Marisol: It makes it feel… it just makes things feel very hopeful in that panel.
• 22:38
  Josh Eiserike: Yeah.
• 22:39
  Josh Eiserike: Which…
• 22:41
  Josh Eiserike: You know, on the conversation we had about the book versus the TV show, like, I think the book works.
• 22:48
  Josh Eiserike: Really well, because of the humor, because of these moments of hope, that it's not just, you know, apocalyptic.
• 22:56
  Josh Eiserike: dystopia.
• 23:02
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I don't think life without humor is really ever really life.
• 23:09
  Tad Eggleston: I think even when you're not talking apocalyptic dystopia, like…
• 23:17
  Tad Eggleston: Anytime they try to do something where, oh, this is serious, so nobody would joke around, it never works nearly as well as the thing that has people making jokes to break the tension, that has people
• 23:30
  Tad Eggleston: Laughing at things that they shouldn't laugh at, because… We do that sometimes.
• 23:36
  Josh Eiserike: Yep.
• 23:37
  Tad Eggleston: We particularly do that sometimes when, like, the option is scream, cry, and crawl into a hole.
• 23:47
  Tad Eggleston: Yep. Or laugh, breathe, and act.
• 23:55
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, you know.
• 23:59
  Tad Eggleston: So yeah, I… I… I think… I think Brian does that well, where he's got the tender moments, and the funny moments, and…
• 24:09
  Tad Eggleston: Nobody can be bleak all the time and still function.
• 24:13
  Josh Eiserike: Yes.
• 24:15
  Tad Eggleston: Dino.
• 24:17
  Tad Eggleston: At least I don't think so. This is another place where I'll turn to Lee.
• 24:22
  Tad Eggleston: Maybe there are cases in the psychiatric literature of people being bleak all the time and still being functional human beings.
• 24:32
  Tad Eggleston: But it doesn't feel likely.
• 24:35
  Lee Woods: Well, there's an interesting factoid, don't you say that? People that are depressed tend to see the world more realistically.
• 24:43
  Lee Woods: Yes, pessimistically, sure, but with a little bit more, realistic.
• 24:48
  Lee Woods: expectations.
• 24:50
  Lee Woods: But it also depends on what you mean by bleak, right? So, are they.
• 24:56
  Lee Woods: I know you said humor, humor without not really a way of living.
• 25:01
  Lee Woods: Is it just lack of humor? Is it lack of range of expressions or emotions, or is it more?
• 25:07
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 25:07
  Lee Woods: Like, experiences? Like, what does it mean?
• 25:09
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, that's kind of what I was saying, it's like…
• 25:13
  Tad Eggleston: Generally, the people who are depressed and still functional.
• 25:17
  Tad Eggleston: Aren't so depressed that they… that they can't see…
• 25:24
  Tad Eggleston: some of the other parts of life, and experience some of the other parts of life. Or… or will…
• 25:33
  Tad Eggleston: will sometimes fall into gallows humor. It's like, okay, yeah, this is depressing as fuck.
• 25:39
  Tad Eggleston: But I'm gonna laugh at it, because it's also funny as fuck if it wasn't actually happening.
• 25:46
  Lee Woods: Yeah, I laugh.
• 25:48
  Marisol: the.
• 25:49
  Lee Woods: Because it's so ironic.
• 25:50
  Marisol: you.
• 25:53
  Tad Eggleston: know.
• 25:53
  Lee Woods: I've actually been listening to a lot of Bo Burnham.
• 25:56
  Lee Woods: If you're familiar with the comedian.
• 25:58
  Tad Eggleston: Bo Burnham.
• 25:59
  Josh Eiserike: He's great.
• 26:00
  Marisol: Yeah.
• 26:00
  Lee Woods: So good. Especially his song, Sad, is what came to my mind.
• 26:07
  Lee Woods: But yeah, it is an aspect of, like, the sort of human condition, is that this stuff is so ridiculous, or so…
• 26:14
  Lee Woods: bleak, as it were, to keep Tad's word there, is that
• 26:19
  Lee Woods: Yeah, all we can do is laugh.
• 26:21
  Lee Woods: Yeah. to sort of deal with our own discomfort or our own sadness. It's the same reason why, like, some people, they get angry, like road rage, they just laugh, right? It's so ridiculous that the only thing you can do is laugh, because the alternative is worse, right? Right.
• 26:38
  Lee Woods: Yeah. And it is a way to kind of circle back to Josh's work here.
• 26:42
  Lee Woods: To be hopeful.
• 26:44
  Lee Woods: Right? In the bleakest of situations, on the rooftop, and fiance in the ring, and all this.
• 26:51
  Lee Woods: even when he's sort of losing sight of it, it's still the goal, it's still the drive to sort of get there. Yes. That even people that are depressed, whether it be clinical depression or non-clinical depression.
• 27:04
  Lee Woods: Is that there's still a drive to…
• 27:07
  Lee Woods: Either alleviate that to feel better, or at least alleviate the depression, the sadness.
• 27:16
  Lee Woods: Hence, gallows humor.
• 27:18
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 27:19
  Josh Eiserike: As an aside, you mentioned Bo Burnham. If you haven't heard Phoebe Bridger's cover.
• 27:24
  Josh Eiserike: Of his song, That Funny Feeling, put it at the top of your list.
• 27:29
  Tad Eggleston: Good to know.
• 27:30
  Josh Eiserike: It's, it's not quite Johnny Cash covering Nine Inch Nails, but she almost like surpasses the original, and the original is great.
• 27:39
  Tad Eggleston: Nice.
• 27:39
  Tad Eggleston: Nice.
• 27:42
  Lee Woods: I'm looking at right now…
• 27:44
  Josh Eiserike: Anyway.
• 27:50
  Lee Woods: So.
• 27:50
  Tad Eggleston: want… Go ahead.
• 27:53
  Lee Woods: Sorry, and this is more for the more literary, I guess, literate folks, because I'm…
• 28:00
  Lee Woods: the whole idea of a MacGuffin, and I get the red herring, kinda, but the MacGuffin and that type of, things that y'all caught.
• 28:10
  Lee Woods: Was that things that, kind of.
• 28:13
  Lee Woods: Took you out of that fantasy? Was it something that you did not like? Or was it just…
• 28:19
  Lee Woods: I don't know, was it just, like, confusing? Because from, I guess for me, it was just like, oh.
• 28:25
  Lee Woods: Yeah, there's all these different things, and we're still trying to figure out why, no pun intended, this shit happened. Again, no pun intended.
• 28:34
  Lee Woods: But it's like…
• 28:35
  Tad Eggleston: What was it?
• 28:36
  Lee Woods: Like, for y'all, like, these MacGuffins, what… did it take you from that, or…
• 28:40
  Tad Eggleston: No, I… it makes it more real to me, because, you know, science is solving mysteries.
• 28:50
  Tad Eggleston: So, like, when this happens, it makes… it's way more real that they would have to play with many different ideas to try to figure out what happened than that there would be any sort of straight path To discovery.
• 29:08
  Marisol: Especially since this is an event that happens so suddenly, it's like…
• 29:11
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 29:12
  Marisol: At least in my mind, it's like, why couldn't be the why couldn't there be a magical component to all of this?
• 29:19
  Marisol: It's… What.
• 29:20
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and in a world, you're gonna have… you're gonna have people who look for magic, you're gonna have people who look for spirituality, you're gonna have people who look for… for science.
• 29:34
  Matt: But it's comics, it could be anything. They can do that. That's true.
• 29:39
  Josh Eiserike: I'm gonna…
• 29:40
  Tad Eggleston: you
• 29:41
  Tad Eggleston: I think it's both realistic that you would have everybody looking for it, and, like, you get the further feeling in the comic, because in the comic, like, as much as you…
• 29:53
  Tad Eggleston: like, I was relatively certain, relatively quickly, that this was a real story, and that there wasn't gonna be a huge magical element, but…
• 30:02
  Tad Eggleston: There are no guarantees.
• 30:05
  Tad Eggleston: You know…
• 30:07
  Marisol: have even something like, like Love and Rockets, where you have those stories that, like, I. Like, in reality, but there is a sort of.
• 30:18
  Tad Eggleston: Magical realism thrown.
• 30:19
  Marisol: Or mystical, yeah, things.
• 30:21
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 30:22
  Marisol: Within those stories.
• 30:25
  Josh Eiserike: as
• 30:26
  Josh Eiserike: As is often the case, especially when we talk about the will. I'm going to be a voice of disagreement here. Okay.
• 30:34
  Marisol: laughter.
• 30:35
  Josh Eiserike: And, and this, this actually… My 25-year-old self feels pain with what I'm about to say.
• 30:43
  Josh Eiserike: But… Sorry.
• 30:45
  Marisol: Through it.
• 30:46
  Josh Eiserike: I don't think this volume held up for me as I had hoped it would.
• 30:51
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 30:52
  Josh Eiserike: And one of those reasons
• 30:55
  Josh Eiserike: is all of the different explanations, and I agree with you, Tad, that yes, we do need to go down the path of different people are going to have different ideas, whether it's the Amazon's idea, or if it's the amulet, or if it's the poop, fine, I'm okay with that.
• 31:14
  Josh Eiserike: But the idea that.
• 31:17
  Josh Eiserike: The ring saved Yorick's life.
• 31:20
  Josh Eiserike: Totally took me out of the comic.
• 31:22
  Josh Eiserike: We'll see.
• 31:25
  Tad Eggleston: Go ahead, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 31:27
  Josh Eiserike: I want to make two quick points.
• 31:29
  Josh Eiserike: it felt so far-fetched, whereas everything else, at least the Amazons, I know they believe what they believe, but the Amulet of Helene, like.
• 31:38
  Josh Eiserike: I'm totally fine with, like, okay, it was some magical thing.
• 31:42
  Josh Eiserike: Doesn't matter. That kind of works in the world, the story's set up. That's within the realm of probability.
• 31:49
  Matt: But his ring can't?
• 31:51
  Josh Eiserike: But the ring camp because that assumes that Yorick was the only person on the planet who was proposing at the time.
• 31:58
  Matt: No! He was the only person on the planet that possessed the ring!
• 32:02
  Josh Eiserike: I… it's… it's a little far-fetched. The other thing.
• 32:06
  Matt: obviously.
• 32:06
  Josh Eiserike: More far-fetched. Hold on, hold on, and then you can all yell at me.
• 32:12
  Josh Eiserike: And this is just what totally does not work for me at all was that.
• 32:18
  Josh Eiserike: Beth starts to… our Beth, not Beth in the church, but Beth in the outback, starts to suspect that Yorick is alive because of a dream.
• 32:27
  Josh Eiserike: And to me, that's kind of bullshit.
• 32:32
  Josh Eiserike: I still love this comic more than most comics I've ever read.
• 32:37
  Josh Eiserike: But having now, you know, just gone through rereading Saga and Spectators, like, to me, this is…
• 32:49
  Josh Eiserike: The wheels are a little creaky as we're… as we're rounding into, you know, the back… the back… I mean, we are in the back half of the book now. The wheels are a little creaky.
• 32:58
  Tad Eggleston: So.
• 32:59
  Lee Woods: I'm kidding, I'm kidding.
• 33:01
  Josh Eiserike: the.
• 33:02
  Tad Eggleston: I'm gonna push back hardest on the ring, and not because I… disagree that it was ridiculous that the ring could possibly be it, but because…
• 33:13
  Tad Eggleston: I don't think anybody in the book.
• 33:15
  Tad Eggleston: doesn't also disagree. Like, I think, more than anything.
• 33:21
  Tad Eggleston: Dr. Mann wanted
• 33:24
  Tad Eggleston: 355 to get rid of the fucking amulet so that they didn't have people chasing them for the fucking amulet.
• 33:31
  Josh Eiserike: I would agree with that.
• 33:34
  Tad Eggleston: And she had a delirious Yorick, convinced that it was the ring.
• 33:40
  Tad Eggleston: And.
• 33:41
  Tad Eggleston: She'd been striking out, so she couldn't rule out that it was the ring.
• 33:46
  Tad Eggleston: And she wanted 355 out of her hair. So go trade your fucking amulet for the ring.
• 33:54
  Josh Eiserike: I'm fine with that.
• 33:55
  Tad Eggleston: I don't think at any point she believed that the ring was gonna be it.
• 34:00
  Tad Eggleston: I think there was maybe one scintilla that she wanted the ring around just in case all else failed.
• 34:07
  Matt: But she didn't believe the amulet was the culprit either.
• 34:11
  Tad Eggleston: Right! Yeah.
• 34:13
  Tad Eggleston: Oh.
• 34:14
  Matt: Okay, I'm going to trade one MacGuffin for another.
• 34:16
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 34:18
  Tad Eggleston: And as for Beth in the desert, like, A, I think she's being drugged. So, I think we're seeing both a fever dream and a hallucinatory dream.
• 34:31
  Josh Eiserike: We are.
• 34:31
  Tad Eggleston: And in that sense.
• 34:34
  Matt: Well, she shouldn't address that way.
• 34:36
  Tad Eggleston: Particularly because they, they, they set it up.
• 34:40
  Tad Eggleston: in advance that York had had this other dream that he told her about.
• 34:49
  Tad Eggleston: It makes some level of sense.
• 34:52
  Tad Eggleston: You know, whether or not it actually winds up convincing her that
• 34:55
  Tad Eggleston: That he's alive becomes the secondary question.
• 34:59
  Tad Eggleston: You know, and we don't know that yet. We know that she got to dream that he was saying that she was alive. You know, he was alive. But, like, we don't know if after that, she's gonna treat it like a weird dream, or like an omen.
• 35:16
  Matt: I'm guessing Omen, or else Brian wouldn't have done it.
• 35:20
  Matt: Because the look on her face, she's like, oh, shit.
• 35:25
  Tad Eggleston: Particularly in the short term, wouldn't that be the look on your face? I mean, it's.
• 35:29
  Matt: seems.
• 35:29
  Tad Eggleston: a reasonable fantasy.
• 35:35
  Josh Eiserike: But that's the point, like, fantasy. It's been 2 years.
• 35:39
  Marisol: Okay.
• 35:39
  Josh Eiserike: All the men are dead. She has absolutely no reason to believe he's still alive. My feeling, and this is something I say to my… narratively.
• 35:49
  Josh Eiserike: something I say to my students, unless we're in Inception or Nightmare on Elm Street, dreams have no narrative weight.
• 35:56
  Tad Eggleston: Right, and I don't think it's supposed to. I think it was more our… Brian's way of showing us that she was alive.
• 36:03
  Tad Eggleston: Than having anything to do with… telling us.
• 36:07
  Josh Eiserike: But we've seen she's alive.
• 36:08
  Matt: Right.
• 36:09
  Tad Eggleston: Well, we saw she was alive a while ago.
• 36:12
  Tad Eggleston: We haven't checked it out.
• 36:13
  Marisol: which is…
• 36:15
  Tad Eggleston: I've been up to, for a while.
• 36:17
  Tad Eggleston: And, like, she's alive, but she's also, like, kind of prisoner of these aboriginals who think she might have been involved in killing all the men.
• 36:27
  Tad Eggleston: And that's why they're drugging her and tying her up to trees in the sun.
• 36:34
  Tad Eggleston: And she's having fever dreams about her boyfriend!
• 36:38
  Tad Eggleston: This all seems reasonable to me.
• 36:41
  Tad Eggleston: How far it… how far it moves the plot? I don't know, but none of it feels not real to me.
• 36:49
  Tad Eggleston: You know.
• 36:50
  Marisol: I mean, the dreams, in my opinion, could also be, like.
• 36:53
  Marisol: Beth's way to keep herself going, like, she's subconsciously reinforcing, no, Yorick's alive, he's gotta be okay, he's fine, I'm gonna find him.
• 37:06
  Marisol: As far as I know from what we've read, that's.
• 37:10
  Tad Eggleston: Because also, she hasn't gotten out.
• 37:11
  Marisol: the.
• 37:12
  Tad Eggleston: Doesn't necessarily know that all of the men are dead.
• 37:17
  Josh Eiserike: Can we go spoilers for a moment?
• 37:21
  Marisol: Yes.
• 37:22
  Tad Eggleston: Anybody who hasn't read on this and Why the Last Man, pause the episode, finish reading, come back later. Alright.
• 37:30
  Matt: just.
• 37:31
  Tad Eggleston: Spoil the waste, Josh.
• 37:32
  Josh Eiserike: she was going to break up with him.
• 37:35
  Josh Eiserike: Yes. Why is she dreaming about him?
• 37:39
  Matt: Has a connection with him.
• 37:41
  Tad Eggleston: You know?
• 37:42
  Marisol: Crazy conscious weird shit, man.
• 37:45
  Tad Eggleston: You never dreamt about an ex?
• 37:47
  Matt: Yeah, she's gonna break up with him.
• 37:49
  Josh Eiserike: Of course, but.
• 37:49
  Matt: Now all men are dead.
• 37:51
  Josh Eiserike: Oh, I need to…
• 37:51
  Matt: But she's not supposed to have any feelings about that.
• 37:53
  Josh Eiserike: They're still alive.
• 37:56
  Josh Eiserike: It has no bearing on my life!
• 38:01
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I feel like you're reading more into the scene than I am so far, because I didn't feel like she was having some huge, massive revelation about what she needed to do with her life.
• 38:14
  Josh Eiserike: I'm going there now.
• 38:15
  Tad Eggleston: She had a fever dream. Now, maybe… maybe, like.
• 38:21
  Tad Eggleston: again, I don't… I don't remember the next volume. Maybe it starts turning, and she starts searching for York, and then…
• 38:28
  Tad Eggleston: I don't know, maybe, but sometimes you cheat.
• 38:34
  Josh Eiserike: as Yorick did in the church.
• 38:37
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 38:38
  Marisol: Yes.
• 38:40
  Tad Eggleston: And on the ship.
• 38:44
  Marisol: the.
• 38:44
  Lee Woods: So.
• 38:45
  Lee Woods: Look at this!
• 38:46
  Josh Eiserike: Look at her… look at… okay, page… the final page, look at her expression, come on.
• 38:58
  Marisol: Oh.
• 39:02
  Josh Eiserike: Also, and while you all are going there, I will call out one thing that I…
• 39:06
  Josh Eiserike: I don't want to say liked.
• 39:08
  Josh Eiserike: but thought it worked very well on Reread that I did not pick up when I read it, because I was an idiot in my 20s.
• 39:17
  Josh Eiserike: The…
• 39:18
  Marisol: Most of us are.
• 39:19
  Matt: necessarily.
• 39:19
  Josh Eiserike: summary.
• 39:20
  Matt: all.
• 39:20
  Josh Eiserike: Yeah, the sub-subplot with Hero and their grandfather, and what happened to the grandfather. Like, that went right over my head.
• 39:28
  Matt: Oh, yeah, and what grandpa did the hero.
• 39:31
  Josh Eiserike: Yeah.
• 39:33
  Tad Eggleston: Grandpa doesn't seem like a good dude. No.
• 39:35
  Marisol: the.
• 39:36
  Josh Eiserike: God does to himself later.
• 39:38
  Matt: I feel like Grandpa has Nazi paraphernalia in his attic.
• 39:41
  Josh Eiserike: Oh, for sure.
• 39:42
  Matt: For sure. That's just my impression.
• 39:46
  Josh Eiserike: You know, he's… he's got, like, a clan robe and a trunk.
• 39:50
  Matt: Yes, in my humble opinion.
• 39:52
  Tad Eggleston: Trunk, or on a… On a clothes mannequin.
• 39:57
  Matt: Exactly In his closet, in his walk-in closet.
• 39:59
  Tad Eggleston: Might be in the attic rather than the closet, but… But is it hidden?
• 40:04
  Matt: Well, dude, he's totally in the closet.
• 40:07
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 40:10
  Tad Eggleston: Yes.
• 40:14
  Lee Woods: So it's.
• 40:17
  Lee Woods: Again, I'm very tired. I don't know how to quite phrase this question.
• 40:22
  Lee Woods: But the sort of fever dream for you, Josh, for, Beth, in the Outback.
• 40:29
  Lee Woods: It.
• 40:31
  Lee Woods: It was more like not… it wasn't a hook, or it was more like a gimme.
• 40:36
  Josh Eiserike: It was a cheat.
• 40:37
  Lee Woods: A cheat. Okay.
• 40:38
  Josh Eiserike: was.
• 40:39
  Matt: Lazy writing.
• 40:40
  Lee Woods: Lazy writing.
• 40:41
  Josh Eiserike: I'm not accusing Brian of.
• 40:43
  Lee Woods: I heard Josh say lazy writing. It's what it sounds like.
• 40:46
  Matt: I'm going to meet you.
• 40:47
  Tad Eggleston: I heard Josh say that Brian K. Vaughn guy, he's the laziest writer I've ever met. That's Josh Eiserite.
• 40:57
  Josh Eiserike: No.
• 40:58
  Matt: Yeah.
• 40:59
  Lee Woods: I'm sorry. I'm sorry. No, but okay.
• 41:04
  Josh Eiserike: So now, by the way, now I'm going to go to my comic book store next week and I'm going to try to, you know, put me down for the new book, Rome. And they're going to be like, I see Brian's blacklisted you.
• 41:16
  Tad Eggleston: And I'll go, awesome! Brian listens to 22 panels!
• 41:22
  Marisol: And that will be the only takeaway from that. Welcome to 2020.
• 41:25
  Lee Woods: 26, where the writer cancels you.
• 41:29
  Josh Eiserike: What a world. What a world.
• 41:32
  Lee Woods: But okay, so the fever dream was more like a cheat, at least for you. It didn't really.
• 41:38
  Lee Woods: It.
• 41:38
  Josh Eiserike: Like, look at… look at these two pages, like, listen to me, I'm alive. He says it twice, I'm alive. She wakes up, and then she… she has this, like, look of, like.
• 41:49
  Josh Eiserike: I would not call that confusion, it would be like…
• 41:53
  Josh Eiserike: certainty. And she says, York, with a period, not a question mark. Like, to me, that's very clear, like, she knows he's alive. We'll see what happens in Volume 4, maybe I'm dead wrong, I don't remember this thread at all, but boy, did this bump for me.
• 42:07
  Lee Woods: Okay.
• 42:07
  Matt: Not wrong.
• 42:10
  Marisol: I feel like this is also a. I don't know if it's. You'd call it a trope or whatever with the whole.
• 42:17
  Marisol: Meaning with dreams is definitely something we've seen a lot more in the early-mid-2000s.
• 42:26
  Marisol: Well…
• 42:26
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, Sandman was…
• 42:28
  Marisol: Ping is in her name.
• 42:29
  Josh Eiserike: But… But Sandman is about dreams.
• 42:34
  Tad Eggleston: I know, but, but, but it definitely…
• 42:36
  Matt: definitely put.
• 42:37
  Tad Eggleston: Put the whole.
• 42:38
  Tad Eggleston: Dream thing into the zeitgeist for a while.
• 42:48
  Josh Eiserike: It's a narrative cheat, my friends.
• 42:50
  Tad Eggleston: I'm not disagreeing with you.
• 42:52
  Matt: It's amazing.
• 42:53
  Tad Eggleston: I just…
• 42:54
  Matt: friends.
• 42:55
  Tad Eggleston: I just think that, that, like, sometimes they're allowed.
• 43:01
  Lee Woods: That's… okay, so if I can throw my two cents in here, because I… I read this as, how sometimes…
• 43:10
  Lee Woods: people can have dreams that are very much like… I don't necessarily want to say, like, premonitions.
• 43:16
  Lee Woods: But for lack of a better word, premonition.
• 43:20
  Lee Woods: Kind of seeing things happen.
• 43:23
  Lee Woods: But also, kind of took this as a…
• 43:26
  Lee Woods: Again, sort of a take on, and I'm presuming here, I have no idea
• 43:31
  Lee Woods: a Brian K. Vaughan experience with, like, Carl Jung, in the collective unconscious there, is that… Again, something…
• 43:41
  Lee Woods: That she kind of tapped into either, again, through drug-induced hallucinogenics or heat exhaustion or whatever the case.
• 43:52
  Lee Woods: That there was something that, for her, is like, okay, they're still linked in some way.
• 43:59
  Tad Eggleston: It's the ring.
• 44:01
  Lee Woods: which.
• 44:01
  Marisol: Yes.
• 44:03
  Lee Woods: I mean, that…
• 44:04
  Matt: ambulance.
• 44:04
  Marisol: It could be.
• 44:06
  Josh Eiserike: To my spoiler point.
• 44:09
  Marisol: You.
• 44:10
  Lee Woods: Yeah, please.
• 44:11
  Matt: writing.
• 44:16
  Lee Woods: Yeah, because now you have me curious, too, because I know the spoiler that you referred to, but also the ring from York to Beth.
• 44:27
  Lee Woods: it's almost like… It's almost, like, symbolic in both ways, right? At least the way I took it.
• 44:36
  Lee Woods: But yeah, I guess I'm wondering now, with the spoiler that you mentioned, Josh, I'm like, okay.
• 44:42
  Lee Woods: Did I read too much into it? Was there…
• 44:45
  Lee Woods: even as I talk about it, I'm like, okay, that, yeah, that doesn't quite hit the same way, and I'm not sure why.
• 44:54
  Marisol: I mean, sometimes a red door is just a red door.
• 44:58
  Lee Woods: Sometimes a cigar, sometimes.
• 44:59
  Tad Eggleston: No red doors are just red doors.
• 45:01
  Matt: I see a red door, and I want it painted black.
• 45:07
  Marisol: Damn it, man.
• 45:08
  Matt: I did…
• 45:09
  Josh Eiserike: I may have mentioned this on a previous discussion, but I remember
• 45:13
  Josh Eiserike: when the finale came out, which I guess will…
• 45:16
  Josh Eiserike: Be in not next book club, but the one after.
• 45:20
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 45:21
  Josh Eiserike: And we'll talk about that and how everybody feels, and I'm curious… and I vaguely remember how it ends, but I remember there was a little… like, people were not as excited about it, and I remember he said, this is the ending I initially pitched.
• 45:34
  Josh Eiserike: And I wanted to keep the ending to honor the boy who came up with this story.
• 45:41
  Josh Eiserike: So I, I really feel, reading this.
• 45:45
  Josh Eiserike: Again, He's still… and all writers do this.
• 45:51
  Josh Eiserike: we all get… we constantly get better, and I read… I read Saga, I read Spectators.
• 45:58
  Josh Eiserike: And the guy who's writing that I think…
• 46:01
  Tad Eggleston: Is Miles Monroe.
• 46:03
  Josh Eiserike: better writer.
• 46:04
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 46:04
  Josh Eiserike: Much, much better writer. And, by the way, the guy who's writing why the last man I'm still jealous of as a writer because it's still that great. But I know that in rereading that I know greater things are like, even greater things are going to come.
• 46:20
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 46:20
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, frankly, that's true just of Saga. Like, volume… I mean, I'm driven up the wall by the people who haven't liked it since it came back, because I'm like.
• 46:31
  Tad Eggleston: Both Brian and Fiona keep getting better.
• 46:36
  Matt: other.
• 46:37
  Marisol: Yes.
• 46:38
  Matt: 100%.
• 46:40
  Tad Eggleston: And, like, I get missing Marco, I get…
• 46:46
  Tad Eggleston: being thrown by the fact that we're suddenly going in a different direction than you expected. I get that because of the weight, you forgot that we've done that 5 or 6 times already, where we suddenly went in a different direction than you were expecting.
• 47:07
  Tad Eggleston: But it's just so good.
• 47:10
  Tad Eggleston: You know… Yeah.
• 47:16
  Tad Eggleston: So yeah, no, he's definitely becoming a better writer here. He's a better writer now. I have no doubt that he will continue to become a better writer, because…
• 47:27
  Tad Eggleston: The great writers never allow themselves to stop becoming better writers.
• 47:32
  Josh Eiserike: Correct.
• 47:33
  Tad Eggleston: You know.
• 47:34
  Lee Woods: I agree with you, Josh, too. I think that…
• 47:38
  Lee Woods: to a large degree, I think we even mentioned this at a podcast, or I might be, I might be hallucinating, is that, yeah, Saga compared to this.
• 47:49
  Marisol: Awesome.
• 47:50
  Lee Woods: Much better. And I think when we're talking about cliffhangers, to be more specific, is that he got much better with his cliffhanger.
• 47:56
  Lee Woods: And even with Yeah, just how he flushes things out.
• 48:02
  Lee Woods: And again, I read this for the first time, just as a reminder. I just read this a couple months ago.
• 48:09
  Lee Woods: And I know it's been done for years, so I'm, like, still relatively fresh, so I don't have the sort of issue by issue that maybe… or even volume by volume that y'all had.
• 48:20
  Lee Woods: So… at least to me, I'm like, yeah, this is good, but it's still not.
• 48:25
  Tad Eggleston: I think somehow Marisol, and this is all my fault, is actually reading it for the first time now, so…
• 48:32
  Marisol: I don't know.
• 48:33
  Tad Eggleston: Once again, I apologize for that. I failed you.
• 48:37
  Matt: That is the word on the street, Tad.
• 48:39
  Tad Eggleston: I should have… I should have recommended this comic long, long ago.
• 48:43
  Marisol: now.
• 48:43
  Tad Eggleston: Long ago.
• 48:45
  Lee Woods: All right, hey, Vaughn, get Tad now.
• 48:48
  Marisol: When I first walked into the comic shop, and you started talking comics to me, like, oh, you like this? How about this one? Or how about this over here?
• 48:58
  Marisol: Because definitely reading through, having read Saga and Spectators… I'm gonna stick with the Saga example, though. Having read Saga and then reading why.
• 49:09
  Marisol: I very much feel the comparison of.
• 49:13
  Marisol: Why is, like… At least to me, Wise feels like a 90s action movie.
• 49:21
  Marisol: And Saga feels like a novel.
• 49:26
  Marisol: In matter of, like… Not to say that Y doesn't have as much depth as Saga, but…
• 49:35
  Marisol: I guess, like, the… The detail and the way everything is.
• 49:41
  Marisol: presented as far as, like, the story points, the characters.
• 49:46
  Marisol: What we're seeing, what we're going through, how things are playing out.
• 49:51
  Marisol: It's just definitely.
• 49:54
  Marisol: A lot's improved for Ryan, like you guys have said, in his storytelling.
• 49:59
  Marisol: And I'm not saying that Y is bad. I love 90s action movies. They're fantastic!
• 50:06
  Lee Woods: Sorry, no…
• 50:07
  Marisol: Definitely. It's definitely different.
• 50:12
  Lee Woods: Sorry.
• 50:12
  Marisol: You're not gonna get the same…
• 50:15
  Lee Woods: I'm so sorry. Sorry?
• 50:16
  Lee Woods: I'm so sorry, go ahead.
• 50:17
  Marisol: Like, I feel you don't get the same… impact… from…
• 50:26
  Marisol: A movie like that versus, like, reading…
• 50:29
  Marisol: Like, a book that the movie is based about, that kind of thing.
• 50:33
  Marisol: Yeah. But you can still enjoy both, and I still very much enjoy both.
• 50:43
  Lee Woods: Yeah.
• 50:45
  Lee Woods: My reaction there, if you…
• 50:47
  Lee Woods: Didn't… it wasn't necessarily about the action movie, it was more, like, how you understood it, right? And I think that was a great way to put it. Saga is a novel, versus, why Last Man is, like, an action movie. I thought that was a really interesting way to put it.
• 51:02
  Lee Woods: But y'all also had me thinking about, like.
• 51:05
  Lee Woods: When these stories came out, and there's certain timelines, Because.
• 51:10
  Lee Woods: At least when I'm reading Saga.
• 51:13
  Lee Woods: And, again, I didn't look it up, and I could just ask y'all, but to me, I get Game of Thrones vibes.
• 51:20
  Lee Woods: Which, I don't even know if it was around at the same time or whatever, but the fact that it was such a, like.
• 51:26
  Lee Woods: Wide political landscape and how they all sort of intersect and then they fuck off to their respective houses and territories.
• 51:34
  Marisol: this.
• 51:35
  Lee Woods: Like, kind of what… It reminded me of, but…
• 51:40
  Marisol: That makes sense.
• 51:41
  Lee Woods: I can, I can go with a 90s action movie.
• 51:46
  Marisol: I never got into Game of Thrones, but that analogy also makes a lot of sense to me. Game of Thrones.
• 51:51
  Tad Eggleston: This is good.
• 51:52
  Lee Woods: I don't… don't… don't believe that nonsense.
• 51:54
  Marisol: It's that. It's that. And Walking Dead and Breaking Bad. For some reason, I can't. I can't do it.
• 52:01
  Lee Woods: Oh, breaking.
• 52:02
  Tad Eggleston: I haven't watched yet.
• 52:04
  Marisol: And I get bored.
• 52:05
  Tad Eggleston: I prefer the comic.
• 52:08
  Tad Eggleston: But, Game of Thrones I love.
• 52:14
  Josh Eiserike: I am… I'm with you with Walking Dead, Tad. Prefer the comic.
• 52:20
  Josh Eiserike: Breaking Bad.
• 52:22
  Josh Eiserike: It's my wife's all-time favorite, and it took me to season two to get into it.
• 52:27
  Josh Eiserike: And then it's… it's pretty spectacular.
• 52:31
  Josh Eiserike: That… I don't know if y'all saw, the actor who played the son passed today.
• 52:36
  Tad Eggleston: I did.
• 52:36
  Josh Eiserike: Which was very sad.
• 52:38
  Matt: I did see that.
• 52:39
  Josh Eiserike: And.
• 52:40
  Matt: Honestly?
• 52:41
  Matt: The only person who was breaking bad in that whole series was him when he was trying to learn how to drive.
• 52:50
  Marisol: It's…
• 52:51
  Josh Eiserike: Hmm.
• 52:52
  Matt: Boom.
• 52:53
  Matt: I'll be here all week.
• 52:55
  Lee Woods: So…
• 52:56
  Marisol: You're on fire.
• 52:56
  Lee Woods: today.
• 52:57
  Marisol: Aww.
• 52:59
  Lee Woods: Okay.
• 53:01
  Josh Eiserike: I haven't, I haven't seen Vince Gilligan's new show, but, but he writes.
• 53:05
  Josh Eiserike: Very… kind of layered… thematic… TV scripts that, to me, feel on par with something like Saga.
• 53:19
  Tad Eggleston: That's fair.
• 53:20
  Lee Woods: Did you just pitch the showrunner?
• 53:23
  Lee Woods: For now,
• 53:25
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, it does kind of sound like it.
• 53:27
  Josh Eiserike: I, you know, I… I briefly met him during the writer's strike, he was…
• 53:33
  Josh Eiserike: Very, very nice and gracious. I didn't realize who I was talking to for a few minutes and that was very embarrassing. I got introduced.
• 53:40
  Marisol: Oh, yeah.
• 53:40
  Josh Eiserike: A buddy of mine's like, oh, this is my friend Vince. Like, oh, hey, good to meet you. Vince Gilligan. Oh.
• 53:50
  Josh Eiserike: No, but it, like, yeah, I would, I would totally watch Vince, Vince go against Saga.
• 53:58
  Marisol: Tad, I gotta say, though, I'm very glad you got me into Saga first, as far as reading.
• 54:03
  Marisol: I mean, Brian K. Vaughn.
• 54:05
  Tad Eggleston: Saga is just.
• 54:07
  Marisol: started S tier.
• 54:10
  Marisol: Honestly, you started S tier with that.
• 54:12
  Tad Eggleston: Saga.
• 54:13
  Marisol: And.
• 54:14
  Tad Eggleston: is.
• 54:15
  Marisol: I started reading Saga in my 20s.
• 54:17
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 54:18
  Marisol: And… I'm in love with it.
• 54:21
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, it was probably the first book I ever sold you, because it's the first book I ever sold.
• 54:25
  Marisol: Pretty sure, yeah.
• 54:27
  Marisol: And…
• 54:28
  Marisol: Honestly, though, I don't think… I would be enjoying Why the Last Man as much as I am now if you hadn't started me on something as top tier as Saga.
• 54:39
  Marisol: Because when did Y come out? Like early 2000s, 2002?
• 54:45
  Marisol: Somewhere around there?
• 54:46
  Josh Eiserike: Somewhere around there.
• 54:47
  Josh Eiserike: I think actually.
• 54:49
  Marisol: I'm, like, second grade.
• 54:50
  Josh Eiserike: 5.
• 54:50
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 54:52
  Marisol: Yeah, I was in elementary school when this came out.
• 54:56
  Marisol: Even if I had started reading it when you had.
• 55:01
  Marisol: sold me on Saga, I don't think I would have gotten as much enjoyment out of it as I do now.
• 55:08
  Marisol: One, because, you know, Being in that younger, early-mid-20s mindset.
• 55:15
  Marisol: But… also…
• 55:19
  Marisol: Now, being a fully matured 32-year-old, and still remembering what life in the world was like in those early 2000s, even though I was a kid.
• 55:30
  Marisol: It still gives me, I feel, a better connection with this story, and holds my attention, because, oh, this has a bit of familiarity to it.
• 55:43
  Tad Eggleston: Matt.
• 55:45
  Josh Eiserike: I, you know, thinking about what you just said, Marisol.
• 55:48
  Josh Eiserike: for me, reading it for… in my 20s, and I got in a little bit late, probably around the fourth trade, I started buying it in floppies, but I really…
• 55:58
  Josh Eiserike: related to Yorick, and I empathized with him and his choices.
• 56:02
  Marisol: and.
• 56:03
  Josh Eiserike: oh, this makes total sense, and this guy's great, and he's funny, and I love him, what a good hero. Now, you know, 20 years old, I read it, I'm like, this guy is an idiot!
• 56:12
  Josh Eiserike: So I do think there's a lot of truth to that.
• 56:19
  Marisol: Yeah, because, like, if I would have read this when I was reading Saga, I would have likely gotten bored with this and then set it down and said, whatever, I don't like it. I'm also very riddled with ADHD, so if something doesn't get my attention like that.
• 56:35
  Marisol: I'm not gonna pick it back up.
• 56:37
  Marisol: I don't like it. Goodbye. You've bored me.
• 56:40
  Marisol: And…
• 56:42
  Marisol: I… I'm pretty sure I would have the feeling, reading Y, if I'd read it when I was younger.
• 56:49
  Marisol: the same way I felt, and, like, I would feel about Yorick and everybody, the same way I felt about
• 56:57
  Marisol: What the fuck was his name? The main character from Catcher in the Rye, where I just thought of him as an obnoxious, annoying idiot.
• 57:07
  Marisol: And I'm sure if I was younger reading this, I would have thought of Yorick as nothing more than an obnoxious, annoying idiot.
• 57:14
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 57:15
  Marisol: Now I have the…
• 57:18
  Tad Eggleston: There are actually a lot of Panels.
• 57:19
  Marisol: stand.
• 57:19
  Tad Eggleston: your.
• 57:20
  Marisol: returned.
• 57:21
  Josh Eiserike: Holden.
• 57:23
  Marisol: And Holden.
• 57:24
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 57:25
  Marisol: It was like, well, now I have the capacity to think beyond that and like, yeah.
• 57:29
  Marisol: Surface level, he's obnoxious. He's annoying. He's a young man.
• 57:35
  Marisol: That… I don't want to generalize, I'm sorry, fellas, but that's… that's how young men are.
• 57:41
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, Lane, you're not wrong.
• 57:43
  Matt: You're not wrong.
• 57:45
  Marisol: They are.
• 57:46
  Lee Woods: I still identify as a young man, so I'll take it.
• 57:49
  Marisol: Yeah. I say with love, they are dumb. They are impulsive. They are obnoxious.
• 57:56
  Marisol: They sometimes need a handheld and a babysitter.
• 58:00
  Marisol: And… Despite seeing all that with Yorick, which he is very much that.
• 58:08
  Marisol: I can see past that as, like, like we've mentioned earlier.
• 58:12
  Marisol: This is a young man now who has lost.
• 58:16
  Marisol: A huge amount of… Influence.
• 58:20
  Marisol: Male, specifically male influence in his life.
• 58:24
  Marisol: and male support… to… grow into a… Ideally functional adult.
• 58:36
  Josh Eiserike: Interesting you say that.
• 58:37
  Marisol: Dangling out in the middle of the ocean on his own right now.
• 58:42
  Josh Eiserike: I never made the Holden Caulfield connection, but I'll… the pop culture character that I always…
• 58:48
  Josh Eiserike: York reminded me of… I don't know, this is a… this is a deep cut, I apologize, folks. I don't know if anybody ever played the, LucasArts Monkey Island games?
• 58:56
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, yeah.
• 58:58
  Josh Eiserike: your.
• 58:58
  Tad Eggleston: AI.
• 58:59
  Josh Eiserike: Brush 3 put, to me, are like…
• 59:00
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 59:01
  Josh Eiserike: Like, just total idiot goofball.
• 59:05
  Marisol: Probably way before my time.
• 59:07
  Josh Eiserike: Almost before my time.
• 59:10
  Marisol: Oh, yeah.
• 59:11
  Josh Eiserike: almost.
• 59:12
  Marisol: isn't even a concept.
• 59:17
  Lee Woods: I like how you keep throwing those little factoids out there.
• 59:20
  Marisol: Absolutely.
• 59:21
  Lee Woods: I do the mic.
• 59:22
  Marisol: coworkers too sometimes. And like, how young do y'all think I am? They'll mention something. I'm like, how do you know this? Do you know this? Like, yes.
• 59:31
  Marisol: I grew up with my parents who grew up in the 80s. I know many of these things.
• 59:37
  Marisol: Not all of them, but many of them.
• 59:41
  Marisol: And sometimes it's just fun to tease them and make them feel old.
• 59:47
  Lee Woods: Well.
• 59:48
  Tad Eggleston: So.
• 59:50
  Marisol: Someday I too will be an old people. So.
• 59:54
  Tad Eggleston: So.
• 59:55
  Marisol: you.
• 59:55
  Josh Eiserike: Kind of how it works.
• 1:00:00
  Tad Eggleston: Before we wrap, Can we talk?
• 1:00:05
  Tad Eggleston: about the boat.
• 1:00:09
  Tad Eggleston: Because I think it brought up.
• 1:00:11
  Matt: It's always the boat.
• 1:00:12
  Matt: That's from Peacemaker. If you didn't watch it, watch it, it's great.
• 1:00:16
  Tad Eggleston: I thought… I thought it brought up some… interesting world building concepts.
• 1:00:24
  Tad Eggleston: Agreed.
• 1:00:25
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, you certainly were supposed to take…
• 1:00:30
  Tad Eggleston: The people on the boat, initially, to be the heroes.
• 1:00:32
  Matt: Sure.
• 1:00:33
  Tad Eggleston: And the person who… Have been spying, and… and…
• 1:00:40
  Tad Eggleston: Led the submarine to be the boat.
• 1:00:44
  Tad Eggleston: the villain, but then that kind of gets flipped on its head when you find out that the boat's carrying…
• 1:00:50
  Matt: Consider the villain to be.
• 1:00:52
  Tad Eggleston: heroin.
• 1:00:53
  Matt: Yup.
• 1:00:54
  Tad Eggleston: And or opium, at least. But then the captain makes.
• 1:00:58
  Marisol: Bad to be transporting drugs.
• 1:01:00
  Tad Eggleston: Well, except that the captain does make a really good point, and this is where I'm actually going to turn to Lee first.
• 1:01:08
  Tad Eggleston: Like, the supplies of Xanax and all sorts of other drugs are gone.
• 1:01:16
  Matt: Gone.
• 1:01:18
  Tad Eggleston: And… There's a real possibility that, like.
• 1:01:27
  Tad Eggleston: You're also seeing the… the… end of humanity? Because if you can't have children.
• 1:01:35
  Tad Eggleston: Then the youngest children will be the last people.
• 1:01:40
  Tad Eggleston: Are opioids the same scourge in that environment?
• 1:01:49
  Lee Woods: Oof.
• 1:01:50
  Lee Woods: That's a that's an interesting question.
• 1:01:54
  Lee Woods: Yeah, so here.
• 1:01:57
  Lee Woods: If I break that down, and especially the moral conundrum, as it sort of, as it were.
• 1:02:03
  Lee Woods: It came down to the sort of lesser of evils, right?
• 1:02:08
  Lee Woods: And… It's a classic thought experiment of, is stealing wrong? If you say yes.
• 1:02:16
  Lee Woods: But what if it's a poor person trying to feed their family?
• 1:02:19
  Lee Woods: Right? It creates that sort of dissonance, and it absolutely, as a reader, what it did for me.
• 1:02:26
  Lee Woods: Where it's just like, oh, yeah, I… they're the bad people, and then immediate next panel's like, oh, yeah, no, they're cool.
• 1:02:34
  Lee Woods: And it was just like, At least for me reading it, it was that there…
• 1:02:40
  Lee Woods: Trying to lessen the suffering of others.
• 1:02:44
  Lee Woods: Which, generally, is thought of as a good thing.
• 1:02:47
  Lee Woods: Right.
• 1:02:49
  Lee Woods: But it also reminded me to, again, is…
• 1:02:52
  Lee Woods: As we've already talked about in terms of, like.
• 1:02:57
  Lee Woods: history, like, is typically written by the victor, right? Everyone thinks that they're the hero of their own journey.
• 1:03:03
  Lee Woods: And it… it seemed as though, From a sociological standpoint, Is that…
• 1:03:11
  Lee Woods: it fell under this idea of enemy strain theory, where society has this sort of high bar for you to expect. Easiest thing to think of is just money. You need to make a certain amount of money a year to make it, like, to thrive.
• 1:03:25
  Lee Woods: Versus thrive, survive, excuse me. So, survive and thrive.
• 1:03:30
  Lee Woods: So, enemy strain theory says, you have the resources, but you don't quite make it to that level to thrive.
• 1:03:37
  Lee Woods: So then… The strain is, you then…
• 1:03:42
  Lee Woods: Go through societally not acceptable things, such as, like.
• 1:03:47
  Lee Woods: Selling drugs, in this case.
• 1:03:49
  Lee Woods: In order to make ends meet, that way you can thrive at that level.
• 1:03:53
  Lee Woods: To me, that was what…
• 1:03:55
  Lee Woods: that whole boat scene did for me. One, as a reader, was just like, yep, nope, you're cool people. Y'all are not the bad guy. This is actually the… the spies and…
• 1:04:06
  Lee Woods: The other fucks on the boat.
• 1:04:08
  Lee Woods: But then also, too.
• 1:04:10
  Tad Eggleston: But at the same time, are they? Because they're also just trying… To protect their own people.
• 1:04:17
  Matt: right?
• 1:04:18
  Tad Eggleston: You know, Australia kinda has its act together.
• 1:04:22
  Tad Eggleston: Which is why they're having… I mean, yeah, I mean, for me, what I loved about this is…
• 1:04:34
  Tad Eggleston: The nature of this story is that they're not gonna be… there's not a great way, particularly because your main character is the male.
• 1:04:44
  Tad Eggleston: There's not a great way to remind you just how dramatically the world has changed on a regular basis. So, what the boat was for me.
• 1:05:01
  Tad Eggleston: as well as just, like, we needed to start getting them towards Japan anyway, and that sort of thing, was, oh.
• 1:05:10
  Tad Eggleston: Let's… really Spend a… spend a few issues exploring how much the world has changed.
• 1:05:22
  Tad Eggleston: Like, on a grand scale, rather than a local scale.
• 1:05:29
  Tad Eggleston: And I liked that, I appreciated that.
• 1:05:31
  Tad Eggleston: Oh.
• 1:05:32
  Marisol: Respect. It was nice to see, too.
• 1:05:35
  Marisol: Because it's like, yeah, we only know what's been happening around this little pod of people that we've.
• 1:05:40
  Matt: and.
• 1:05:41
  Marisol: following.
• 1:05:42
  Marisol: Right. And the places that they've been to and the towns they pass through.
• 1:05:47
  Marisol: We haven't gotten too much of a…
• 1:05:51
  Marisol: Big look at how the rest of the world is handling this.
• 1:05:57
  Marisol: Until now, really.
• 1:06:04
  Tad Eggleston: Josh, you said you liked it too.
• 1:06:05
  Marisol: solidified.
• 1:06:06
  Tad Eggleston: Like, something else about it?
• 1:06:08
  Tad Eggleston: Sorry, Marisol, I didn't mean to interrupt.
• 1:06:10
  Marisol: Exactly.
• 1:06:11
  Marisol: It's…
• 1:06:11
  Josh Eiserike: the.
• 1:06:12
  Marisol: It signifies to me, at least, that we… that they are very much embracing the
• 1:06:18
  Marisol: The world is not black and white, but different shades of gray type of thing.
• 1:06:22
  Tad Eggleston: Brilliant color.
• 1:06:24
  Josh Eiserike: Brody color. No, I, I.
• 1:06:27
  Josh Eiserike: This is probably my favorite part of these. Well, I read them in floppies at this point, but… of these, I guess, story arcs.
• 1:06:37
  Josh Eiserike: I did like… let me back up. To me, none of this gets to the high of when they're at the barn, and all those threads come together that we talked about last month.
• 1:06:48
  Josh Eiserike: Right. But I did really enjoy the reversal on reversal on reversal, and to your point, Tad, the,
• 1:06:57
  Josh Eiserike: I don't know if it's ethics or morals, but just the issues that.
• 1:07:03
  Tad Eggleston: Both.
• 1:07:04
  Josh Eiserike: Yeah, the issues that these bring up, and that, you know, the captain isn't necessarily a villain, to your point. I kind of like her for York, and admittedly.
• 1:07:16
  Josh Eiserike: I'm a sucker for any story with pirates.
• 1:07:21
  Josh Eiserike: you know, I just mentioned Monkey Island, like, 20 seconds ago, or whatever. Right. So I'm… I… I was… I was kind of down for this, and…
• 1:07:31
  Josh Eiserike: I don't remember if we see these ladies again, but I enjoyed this.
• 1:07:37
  Tad Eggleston: I was crushed.
• 1:07:40
  Tad Eggleston: when… The captain was crushed.
• 1:07:45
  Tad Eggleston: you know, when the captain was sitting there going, no, you don't get it, I… I was bringing them…
• 1:07:53
  Tad Eggleston: I got to be a hero because I brought.
• 1:07:58
  Tad Eggleston: A way to ease the pain when we'd lost hope, but you're the hope.
• 1:08:03
  Tad Eggleston: And that makes me the villain.
• 1:08:05
  Tad Eggleston: And I'm just, like, I wanted to cry.
• 1:08:08
  Tad Eggleston: Not… not just because there's truth to it.
• 1:08:13
  Tad Eggleston: But because it's like…
• 1:08:14
  Matt: Self-aware.
• 1:08:16
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and like, I want her to forgive herself. I desperately want her to forgive herself.
• 1:08:22
  Marisol: Yeah.
• 1:08:24
  Matt: hey.
• 1:08:24
  Josh Eiserike: Here, to the point earlier.
• 1:08:26
  Josh Eiserike: I mean, these are not major characters, and yet they all feel… all of them feel fully fleshed out.
• 1:08:34
  Matt: Yep.
• 1:08:36
  Matt: 100%.
• 1:08:41
  Lee Woods: Good one.
• 1:08:42
  Matt: Anyone that sleeps with Yorick full-fledged.
• 1:08:46
  Tad Eggleston: and Let's be fair, the captain didn't actually get to finish sleeping with yours.
• 1:08:53
  Matt: True, but she wanted to, so she's in the club.
• 1:08:55
  Tad Eggleston: And then she got upset when she found out he was engaged.
• 1:08:58
  Matt: Yes, yes, but they're not really engaged.
• 1:09:02
  Tad Eggleston: Ha ha ha ha!
• 1:09:03
  Matt: So, yeah, it's that gray area. I really appreciate.
• 1:09:06
  Marisol: They're just kind of sorta engaged.
• 1:09:08
  Matt: Yeah, but I appreciated the church check.
• 1:09:11
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, but her name was Beth, so, I mean…
• 1:09:15
  Matt: You're okay.
• 1:09:16
  Lee Woods: Wait, wait, I have to jump in.
• 1:09:18
  Matt: all.
• 1:09:19
  Lee Woods: Hold on. So I gotta say, just 40 minutes ago, y'all were talking about how he cheated on Beth.
• 1:09:29
  Lee Woods: But they're not really…
• 1:09:30
  Tad Eggleston: wasn't.
• 1:09:32
  Lee Woods: How does that work?
• 1:09:34
  Matt: Bernard!
• 1:09:36
  Tad Eggleston: Well, because the phone cut out when he was trying to ask her to marry him.
• 1:09:40
  Matt: Yep. She has no idea he has a ring, or… Yeah.
• 1:09:44
  Marisol: you.
• 1:09:45
  Josh Eiserike: And he has no idea what she was… spoilers to what we were talking about earlier. He has no idea what's on her end either.
• 1:09:53
  Tad Eggleston: And besides, he's the last man on Earth. He has responsibilities.
• 1:09:57
  Matt: That's right.
• 1:10:00
  Matt: And opportunities.
• 1:10:02
  Lee Woods: Yeah, that makes sense.
• 1:10:06
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, he and Beth cannot repopulate the Earth alone.
• 1:10:11
  Matt: Correct.
• 1:10:11
  Lee Woods: That attitude.
• 1:10:13
  Tad Eggleston: What?
• 1:10:14
  Lee Woods: I said, not with that attitude.
• 1:10:16
  Tad Eggleston: No! Babies take 9 months to gestate!
• 1:10:20
  Lee Woods: Cheers.
• 1:10:21
  Matt: Challenge accepted.
• 1:10:24
  Lee Woods: I'm so sorry, I'm sorry.
• 1:10:30
  Tad Eggleston: You can't have just one baby in the oven at a time.
• 1:10:34
  Tad Eggleston: You want to repopulate the world. You want to repopulate the world, and you've got thousands of ovens, and only one turkey baster?
• 1:10:45
  Matt: You need to sell that shit mail order.
• 1:10:47
  Josh Eiserike: Wilt Chamberlain, the last man on earth. How's that for an old reference?
• 1:10:52
  Tad Eggleston: That's funny.
• 1:10:54
  Lee Woods: I got that reference.
• 1:10:56
  Lee Woods: Yeah!
• 1:10:58
  Tad Eggleston: Oh… Do you remember the Saturday Night Live sketch?
• 1:11:04
  Tad Eggleston: We're, we're, like… It starts out, I was in bed with number 400 and… whatever, 400 and…
• 1:11:12
  Tad Eggleston: Or the one before that was still in the bathroom.
• 1:11:17
  Marisol: No.
• 1:11:18
  Josh Eiserike: Oh, but now I need to go watch that.
• 1:11:21
  Tad Eggleston: I feel like it was Tim Meadows playing him, but with, like, leg extensions. I don't remember, it's been a while.
• 1:11:34
  Tad Eggleston: No.
• 1:11:37
  Tad Eggleston: So… It… It's starting to get late.
• 1:11:41
  Tad Eggleston: Does anybody else have anything that they want to… specifically address.
• 1:11:48
  Matt: Megatory.
• 1:11:51
  Marisol: I just want to briefly comment that I do like that Hero is getting better.
• 1:11:56
  Tad Eggleston: I do too.
• 1:11:57
  Matt: slowly.
• 1:11:59
  Marisol: Slowly but surely, still struggling a lot with Victoria's…
• 1:12:04
  Marisol: Voice in her head, and talking to her, and…
• 1:12:07
  Matt: Don't call.
• 1:12:07
  Marisol: You know, that's on brainwashing and trauma. That shit will stick around for a good long while. And it takes a lot of work and a lot of time to get over it and make it manageable.
• 1:12:20
  Marisol: But I do like that they're showing she's trying.
• 1:12:26
  Josh Eiserike: I will, I'll, I agree, and I will add,
• 1:12:31
  Josh Eiserike: I thought the doctor man 355.
• 1:12:34
  Josh Eiserike: Liaison worked very well, felt very earned.
• 1:12:38
  Josh Eiserike: And I really like the effect of, like, you know, like, take off the glasses, let me see the glasses, so neither of them can really see what they're doing. I thought that was well done.
• 1:12:49
  Tad Eggleston: Hmm.
• 1:12:51
  Matt: So, spoiler alert, Pause here if you don't want to hear it.
• 1:12:57
  Matt: Isn't it her parents?
• 1:13:00
  Matt: That are looking for work.
• 1:13:02
  Matt: Ampersand.
• 1:13:03
  Josh Eiserike: That was my recollection.
• 1:13:05
  Matt: Yeah, that's my recollection, too. And I'm like, oh, I forgot about this, this is so brilliant!
• 1:13:10
  Tad Eggleston: If I recall correctly, and I don't remember a lot either, I don't know that her mom has anything to do with it, but it turns out that York is not the…
• 1:13:21
  Matt: Right.
• 1:13:22
  Tad Eggleston: The only man remaining.
• 1:13:24
  Matt: And Dr. Mann's parents, mother, father, whatever.
• 1:13:28
  Matt: is looking for…
• 1:13:29
  Tad Eggleston: Her father, that's what I meant, her father.
• 1:13:30
  Marisol: Alright.
• 1:13:30
  Matt: Yeah yeah yeah.
• 1:13:31
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, her father. And if I recall correctly, like, it's a full circle thing. He had been using ampersand for various experiments, so he might have actually caused the whole thing.
• 1:13:43
  Josh Eiserike: I vaguely remember.
• 1:13:43
  Tad Eggleston: remember.
• 1:13:44
  Matt: Yes? Okay.
• 1:13:46
  Tad Eggleston: He paused the whole thing.
• 1:13:49
  Lee Woods: And that's why he.
• 1:13:50
  Tad Eggleston: New to look for ampersand.
• 1:13:53
  Josh Eiserike: I don't remember…
• 1:13:54
  Marisol: Spoil it all they want.
• 1:13:55
  Josh Eiserike: I remember there were, like, there was, like, a robot fakeout at one point, but I guess we'll get there either next month or the following month.
• 1:14:00
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah. So, so yeah, we'll, we'll, we'll find out for next month. We'll, we'll, we'll find out how, how right we were and how, how wrong we were. Lee, don't tell us now, we've already spoiled enough for Marisol, at least, at least right now, she can toss it up to the, the decaying memory of three old men.
• 1:14:21
  Lee Woods: Fierce.
• 1:14:22
  Marisol: Spoilers and secrets are safe with my ADHD forgetfulness.
• 1:14:26
  Tad Eggleston: That too!
• 1:14:27
  Marisol: So.
• 1:14:28
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, wow.
• 1:14:28
  Marisol: It's.
• 1:14:29
  Tad Eggleston: For 22 panels, this has been the Saga Book Club, in which we've talked about the third volume of Why the Last Man, and we will see you after the next page.