Latest / Murder Files Unsealed / Ian Brennan Discusses Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story

Transcript

Ian Brennan Discusses Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Imagine a pristine Victorian parlor. You know, we're talking 1892.
• 0:03
  Speaker 2: Right, the classic setup.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. You have the delicate teacups, the tightly laced corsets,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: and just this absolute suffocating silence of rigid social decorum.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: Just incredibly repressed. Right.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: But now imagine a searing, completely distorted 1970s punk rock
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: guitar solo just suddenly screaming over that silence right as
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: someone swings a heavy wood-splitting axe into the floral wallpaper.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: It's quite the image.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: It really is. And, you know, today we are looking
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: at how television takes the darkest, most unfathomable parts of
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: human history and kind of alchemizes them into entertainment.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: Which is a huge topic.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Huge. We are pulling from this incredibly revealing interview with
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Ian Brennan. He's the co-creator behind the Netflix anthology series,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: The Monster Franchise. And we're specifically focusing on his insights
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: into the newest installment, which is Monster, the Lizzie Borden story.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: Right, which is a big pivot for them.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: It's a massive pivot. And then to kind of figure
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: out why we even watch shows like this in the
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: first place, we are diving into a fascinating psychological breakdown
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: of classic fictional horror villains, which honestly serves as this
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: bizarrely accurate personality test for human survival instincts.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it is a massive scope we're covering today for you.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: We have these two distinct pieces of source material, but
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: they are absolutely speaking to the exact same underlying human fascination.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they really are.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: We're going to explore how creators take these grim historical
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: facts and turn them into compelling television. You know, and
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: why certain monsters captivate us while others are just, well, forgotten.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Completely forgotten, yeah.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: And what our own survival strategies against fictional slasher movie
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: villains actually reveal about how we navigate very real everyday anxieties.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: So if you are ready, we are just jumping right
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: into the deep end of this deep dive. And I
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: think the most jarring thing about this new season of
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: Monster is the sheer tonal whiplash.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: Because if you look at the lineage of this anthology series,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: it has been defined by a very specific, just relentlessly
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: grim modern aesthetic. You know, we've had Jeffrey Dahmer. We've
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: had Ed Gein, the Menendez brothers.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: All very 20th century.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Brennan even mentions in the interview that the web
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: of these 20th century killers is so tightly tangled. that
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: John Wayne Gacy actually shows up in Dahmer's story.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: Right, I remember that.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and Ted Bundy makes an appearance in Ed Gein's.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: It's like this interconnected cinematic universe of modern horror. And
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: it's all defined by, you know, neon signs, drab apartment buildings,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: and sterile forensics.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: It's a very heavy, oppressive atmosphere. I mean, those previous seasons,
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: they really just sit on your chest while you watch them.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: They do.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: They're so heavy.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: But for this new season, Brendan and his team make
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: this massive pivot. They leave the 20th century entirely and
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: they go all the way back to 1892. Right. They
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: focus on Lizzie Borden, who's played by Ella Beattie, a
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: woman who history tells us was famously acquitted of murdering
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: her father and stepmother with an axe in Fall River, Massachusetts.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Which is wild in itself.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: But the shock isn't just the change in scenery, you know,
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: or the era. The real surprise is the tone. Because
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: Brennan explains that this season features an overtly dark comedic tone.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: Wait, really?
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: Comedy?
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah. He mentions they are leaning heavily into the witty
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: vernacular and the repressed Victorian environment.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: I just I have to pause there because looking at
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: a brutal double homicide and deciding that what the story
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: really needs is a layer of irony and comedy. It
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: just feels incredibly counterintuitive.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: It does sound strange at first.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: Right. Like how does a creator justify finding humor in
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: someone taking an axe to their parents?
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: It definitely sounds callous on the surface. But when Brennan
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: explains the mechanics of the era, it actually makes a
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: profound amount of psychological sense.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: Okay, unpack that for me.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: Well, he notes that in this Victorian society, there are
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: a lot of things that are clearly happening but going
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: completely unsaid.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Oh, the repression.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: Exactly. That is the core mechanism of the comedy. It's
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: the relationship between societal repression and irony. When you have
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: a culture that forces people to constantly bite their tongues.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: Right, where strict manners and decorum are everything.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: Or that mandates that the most visceral, violent human emotions
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: must remain completely buried. You are essentially building a psychological
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: pressure cooker.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: Oh, I see.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: And a pressure cooker is inherently absurd. The contrast between
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: polite conversation over tea and the sheer rage bubbling right
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: beneath the floorboards, it creates this unbearable tension.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes sense.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: So... The dark comedy is born entirely out of that tension.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: I mean, I understand the pressure cooker concept for sure,
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: but I still kind of struggle with the ethics of
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: how we as an audience consume this. Like, is it
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: just easier for us to laugh at a brutal double
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: axe murder simply because it happened in 1892?
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: That's a really fair question.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: Because they're wearing corsets and speaking in this stiff formal vernacular,
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: do we just feel insulated from the reality of the violence?
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: Right. Like it's not real to us. Exactly.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: Does time plus a change in wardrobe equal comedy? Or
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: are we just using the aesthetics of the Victorian era
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: as a shield so we can avoid confronting the absolute
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: horror of the crime?
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: I mean, that right there is the central dilemma of
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: historical true crime. How much distance do we need before
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: tragedy becomes entertainment? Brennan actually acknowledges that this dark humor
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: isn't a completely new invention for the monster franchise. He
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: notes that an underlying absurdity was present in the Dahmer
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: and Menendez seasons as well.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: Well, sure, there's always a level of grotesque absurdity in
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: extreme human behavior.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: Exactly. But in those modern stories, the proximity to our
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: own timeline makes the horror far outweigh the comedy. It
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: just hits too close to home.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because we remember the news broadcasts. We recognize the clothes.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: Exactly. But with Lizzie Borden, the distance of over a century,
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: combined with the extreme, almost alien rigidity of the society
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: she lived in, It allows the irony to move to
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: the forefront. You are laughing, but the laughter is directed
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: at the suffocating absurdity of the environment, not the violence itself.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: Right, which brings us to the reality of that suffocation.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: Because as much as the tone of the show plays
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: with irony, Brennan's actual research process to write it was
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: incredibly stark.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, very different from the tone of the show.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: Exactly. We are moving from the comedic tone of the
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: final product into the absolute unfunny tragedy of the actual
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: historical record. Because Brennan says he actively avoided watching any
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: prior screen adaptations of Lizzie Borden.
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: Oh, wow. He didn't watch any of the old movies.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: None of them. He didn't watch the old movies. He
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: didn't watch the TV specials. He relied entirely on the
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: primary source material from 1892.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: That is a remarkably disciplined methodology for a showrunner. I mean,
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: when you're dealing with a figure who is essentially mutated
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: into a nursery rhyme over the last century, You really
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: have to peel away all that accumulated pop culture baggage.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: You do. You have to look at the raw data,
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: the court transcripts, the witness testimonies, the physical blueprints of
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: the house.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: And based on that pure primary research, Brendan actually came
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: to a definitive conclusion. He states that despite her official
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: acquittal in a court of law, the strange circumstances of
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: the case make it impossible for him to believe she
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: didn't commit the crime.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: He's just certain she did it.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah. He says the timeline... And the physical realities of
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: the space simply do not make sense of anyone else
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: held the axe.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: Just think about that from a research perspective. You know,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: you are isolating yourself with nothing but the raw evidence
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: from 1892.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: Just you and the documents.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah. You're looking at the photographs, the floor plans, the alibis.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: And your conclusion is, without a doubt, she is a
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: brutal murderer. But despite concluding that she committed this horrific act,
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: Brennan admits he was completely surprised by how much empathy
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: he ended up feeling for her.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: Which is such a complex reaction. It is.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: He describes Lizzie Borden in the interview as a young
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: woman who was in a cage her whole life.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: And that concept of the cage, that's really the foundation
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: for everything the show is trying to communicate. The cage
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: is literal, of course. Right.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: The physical house.
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: Well, the house, but also the physical constraints of Victorian
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: domestic life for women. The restrictive clothing, the confinement to
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: the physical boundaries of the home. The absolute lack of
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: financial or social independence.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: It's so suffocating.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: But it is also a psychological cage. You have an
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: intelligent woman trapped in a house with a domineering father
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: with no viable exit strategy, no agency, and no voice
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: in her own future.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: So the challenge for a storyteller is navigating that tension.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: How do you balance the knowledge that someone committed an
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: unspeakable atrocity with the deeply human understanding of the profound
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: isolation that drove them to a breaking point?
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: As Brendan puts it, The more he learned about her
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: daily life, the more what she did made a strange
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: sort of sense.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: That cognitive dissonance is just wild. It's kind of like
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: being a juror on a high-profile case who is completely sequestered.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: You know, you are only allowed to look at the
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: raw evidence, the blood spatter, the timeline.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: You're not tainted by the media. Right.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: You refuse to read the opinion columns or watch the
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: news coverage. You are just looking at the facts. And
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: the facts say this person took an axe to their
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: own parents. Yeah. But looking at that evidence while simultaneously
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: feeling a deep, sorrowful pity for the perpetrator must be
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: an overwhelming emotional conflict. So how does a showrunner bridge
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: that gap for an audience? Like, how do you make
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: a viewer sitting on their couch in the 21st century
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: sit in that same uncomfortable space of feeling empathy for
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: an axe murderer?
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: Well, you bridge that gap by expanding the context beyond
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: a single house in Fall River. You really have to
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: show the audience that The cage Lizzie was in was systemic. Right.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: It wasn't just her.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It was a societal cage that trapped millions of women.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: And this is where Brennan and his team made a
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: highly unconventional narrative choice. They actively refused to let this
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: show feel like a standard stuffy period piece.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: Thank goodness. Yeah.
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: So to shatter that illusion of polite distance, they injected
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: the show with 1970s and 1980s female punk hits.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: Which is just, that is the moment the entire concept
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: shifts for me. We are in 1892, we have the corsets,
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: we have the parlor, and suddenly we are blasting Joan
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: Jett or Bikini Kill over the soundtrack.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: It's brilliant.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: It is a jarring, brilliant choice. But they didn't just
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: use music to expand the scope, right? They used actual
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: historical figures.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: They did.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: The narrative weaves in and out of Lizzie's timeline to
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: track a historical lineage of female rage. They go deep
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: into the past to feature Elizabeth Bathory, who's played by
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: Vicky Creeps, And then they slingshot forward into the modern
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: era to include Aileen Wuornos, played by Sarah Paulson.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: The structural ambition there is really fascinating. Because by using
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: anachronistic music, you know, blasting punk rock over the 1890s,
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: you are forcing the viewer out of a mode of
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: passive historical observation.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: Right. You can't just zone out. No.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: You can't just sit back and observe these people as
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: historical artifacts. The visceral, aggressive energy of punk rock connects
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: directly to the Victorian suffocation.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: Oh, that makes so much sense.
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: It translates the internal scream of a repressed 1890s woman
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: into a sonic language that a modern audience instantly understands.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: It makes the rage immediate. You know, it makes it contemporary.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And Brendan makes it very clear why this modern
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: connection matters. In the interview, he points out that women
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: in America only got the right to vote in 1920.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: Which wasn't that long ago, historically speaking.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: Not at all. And he adds his perspective that half
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: the Internet would still like to roll that back today.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: So by his logic, The systemic repression that drove Lizzie
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: Borden to the breaking point isn't just some relic of
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: the past. It is a continuously modern threat.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: So he is using the past as a warning system
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: for the present. And, you know, the inclusion of Elizabeth
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: Bathory is a massive swing. Oh, huge. Brennan actually refers
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: to her presence in the show as a female underline
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: beneath the whole proceeding. And for context, for you listening,
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: Bathory was a Hungarian noblewoman from the late 1500s. She
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: was accused of torturing and killing hundreds of young women.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: Just incredibly dark stuff.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And Brennan points out a really interesting piece of
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: trivia from his research. Bathory is arguably a much bigger
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: historical inspiration for the Dracula legend in the Austro-Hungarian Empire
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: than Count Vlad the Impaler was.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: Wait, really?
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: I had no idea about that. Yeah.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: They are taking the ultimate Gothic monster myth, you know,
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: the vampire, and anchoring it entirely in female violence.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: That is wild.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: And they present these historical tangents through a very specific
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: narrative device. Brendan calls it a dramaturgical break.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: Okay, break that down for me. What exactly does that
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: mean in television production?
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: So a dramaturgical break is essentially a moment where the
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: linear plot stops moving forward entirely, just so the creator
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: can make a thematic point.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: Think of standard television as a moving train, right? A
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: dramaturgical break is when the conductor hits the emergency brake,
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: the train stops completely, And everyone is forced to get
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: out and look at a mural painted on the side
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: of the tracks before they can get back on and
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: continue the journey.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: That is a great analogy.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: He specifically talks about the sequences involving Bathory, referring to
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: them as Elisabetta and the Furies. He says that executing
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: these scenes felt less like traditional television narrative and more
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: like crafting a music video.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: Oh, I love that.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: It is a highly stylized, highly visual way to inject
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: massive amounts of backstory in historical context. Without resorting to,
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: you know, tedious voiceover narration.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: Well, I appreciate the structural ambition of a dramaturgical break,
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: but I kind of have a serious issue with the
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: philosophy behind the Aileen Wuornos inclusion.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: Okay, let's get into it.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: Like, I see what they are trying to do by
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: linking Bathory, Borden, and Wuornos to show this lineage of rage.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: But there is a massive risk here. Aileen Wuornos was
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: a real-life modern serial killer who murdered seven men.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: Right. Very real, very recent trauma.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: Exactly. And Lizzie Borden, assuming she did it, brutally murdered
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: her parents. So is it dangerous or at least highly
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: irresponsible to elevate convicted murderers into avatars for universal systemic
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: female oppression?
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: It's a very valid concern.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: If we are arguing that their extreme violence is a direct,
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: understandable reaction to the cage of patriarchy... Are we accidentally
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: justifying their actions? Are we romanticizing serial killers by wrapping
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: them in a cool punk rock aesthetic and calling it
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: a feminist lineage?
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: It is the absolute razor's edge that the entire true
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: crime genre, and this franchise in particular, constantly balances on.
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: When does contextualizing a killer cross the line into glorifying them?
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: Right, that's the line.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, by framing Wuornos and Borden within a broader historical
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: struggle against oppression. The creators are deliberately challenging the audience.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: They're asking you to hold two contradictory truths in your
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: head at the exact same time.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: Okay, what are the truths?
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: The first truth is that the systemic abuse, poverty, and
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: repression these women faced was real, valid, and soul-crushing.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: But the second truth is that the violence they enacted
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: in response to that trauma was horrific, unjustifiable, and monstrous.
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: The show isn't arguing that the murders were a righteous rebellion.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: It is arguing that monsters are forged in very specific environments.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: I see.
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: If you ignore the environment, if you refuse to look
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: at the cage, you will never understand the mechanics of
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: how the monster was actually made.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: That makes a lot of sense. You have to study
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: the forge just as closely as you study the weapon
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: it produces.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: And I think that brings us really nicely from the
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: heavy thematic design into the actual mechanics of television production.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: Let's look at how they brought this to life. Specifically,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: the humans they chose to embody this rage.
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: The casting.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: Yes, the casting. Because the process Brennan describes sounds almost mythical.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: We know Ella Beattie was cast as Lizzie Borden, and
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: Brennan says he knew she was the one within seven
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: seconds of watching her audition tape. Seven seconds.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: That's practically unheard of. Right.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: He said she was the only person who could do it.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: Seven seconds in the casting world is basically a blink.
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: To have that kind of absolute certainty so quickly... speaks
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: volumes about the immense pressure of casting an iconic historical figure.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: Oh, I can't even imagine the pressure.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: When a character is that well-known, every executive, every producer,
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: and eventually every viewer has a preconceived notion of what
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: Lizzie Borden should look like, how she should sound, how
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: she should move.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: We all have the nursery rhyme in our heads.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: Right. So to find an actor who instantly shatters those
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: preconceptions and replaces them with a living, breathing character in
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: under 10 seconds... That is an incredibly rare phenomenon in Hollywood.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: And the production takes an even bigger risk from there.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: The core emotional anchor of this season revolves around a
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: sapphic romance between Lizzie and the family maid Bridget Sullivan,
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: who is played by Vicky Creeps.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: Now, in standard Hollywood production, if you have a core
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: romance that is going to anchor seven hours of television,
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: you do endless chemistry reads. You just have to. You
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: absolutely have to. Chemistry reads are the industry standard for
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: a very good reason. You put the actors in a
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: sterile room together, make them read scenes back and forth,
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: and see if there is any actual spark. Otherwise, it
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: just falls flat. Exactly. The financial and logistical risks of
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: skipping that step are astronomical. Chemistry is the one thing
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: a director absolutely cannot fix in post-production. That's such a
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: good point. You can fix bad lighting. You can loop
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: in new audio. You can even fix clunky dialogue with
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: clever editing. But if two actors do not connect on
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: a human level, the screen goes dead and the audience
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: just tunes out. Which makes it completely insane that Brennan
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: admits they did absolutely no chemistry reads for this. None
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: at all. None. They cast creeps, they cast Beatty, and
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: they just trusted that the magic would happen on screen.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: They basically rolled the dice on the emotional core of
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: the entire season. It's wild.
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: By omitting those reads, Brennan and the team were relying
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: entirely on the established sheer talent of these actors to
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: dynamically manufacture that connection in real time on a hot set.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: It is high wire filmmaking without a net. It requires
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: immense trust in the performer's ability to generate emotional intimacy
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: from scratch.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: And the supporting cast requires just as much trust because
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: they brought in Billy Lord, which Brennan mentions was a
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: suggestion directly from Ryan Murphy. And they brought in Jessica Barton.
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: A powerhouse cast.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: Unbelievable cast. And Brennan is actually incredibly blunt about his
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: casting privilege here. He admits that they are spoiled as creators.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: He says that actors would give their eyes and teeth
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: to work with Ryan Murphy.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: I mean, he's not wrong.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: He's really not. It is kind of like being the
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: general manager of a dynasty sports team. When everyone in
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: the league desperately wants to play for your head coach,
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: you get the absolute pick of the available talent.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: And having that level of access completely alters the mechanics
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: of the writing process, too.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: Oh, how so?
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: Well, when you do not have to worry about whether
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: a mid-tier actor can pull off a complex, emotionally nuanced line,
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: you can push the boundaries of the script much further. Right.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: You're not writing defensively.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Brennan specifically mentions that having worked with Billie Lourd
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: before on Scream Queens, it made writing for her exponentially easier.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: He could literally hear her specific deadpan vocal cadence in
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: his head as he was typing the dialogue.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: That's a huge advantage.
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: Huge. When a writer is tailoring the script to the
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: specific strengths of an actor they already know and trust,
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: the writing becomes incredibly sharp. It just removes all the guesswork.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: Well, if casting the right people is crucial and having
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: your pick of the talent pool makes writing easier, Brennan
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: drops a massive bombshell about what makes his job actually difficult.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this part was fascinating.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: Because it is not the writing, it is not the casting,
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: it is picking the subject in the first place. Right.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: And this brings us to the cutting room floor, and Honestly,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: a very harsh truth about the true crime genre, because
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: they considered a lot of other real-life monsters before landing
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: on Lizzie Borden.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: The list of scrapped ideas for the monster anthology reads
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: like a true crime hall of fame. It really does.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: It's a heavy list.
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: Brennan mentions they consider the Unabomber. They looked at BTK,
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: the Green River Killer, the Zodiac Killer. He even mentions
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: a mysterious figure he just refers to as Luigi.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: Which I'm so curious about.
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: Me too. But then he delivers this deeply analytical, almost
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: cynical perspective on his own genre. He states, and I quote,
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: The thing that stands out to me working on a
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: show like this is how few killers are interesting at all.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: They're mostly not. They're just awful.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: Wow. You know, that statement, that just stops you in
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: your tracks. It does. How few killers are interesting at all.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: He's noting that, I mean, there are countless killers, right,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: throughout history, but very, very few of whose stories... actually
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: possess the narrative depth to warrant, you know, six to
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: seven hours of television to unpack that story, right? Finding
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: the right subject is the absolute hardest part of his job.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: The writing itself is the easy part. I mean, you
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: can just kind of bang that out, right? He has
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: probably written four abandoned starts to the series just trying
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: to find a narrative that holds water.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: It is a profound observation because it highlights the fundamental
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: tension between the sheer horror of a violent act And
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: it's narrative value. Like, what is that? What is the
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: tipping point where, you know, where a horrible crime becomes
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: fascinating enough to sustain a multi-hour psychological deep dive?
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Yeah. Let's look at the scrapped list. Why might
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: the Zodiac Killer or BTK not meet the threshold for
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: a seven-hour character study compared to someone like Jeffrey Dahmer
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: or Lizzie Borden?
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: No, let's break that down. Why is the Zodiac Killer,
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: one of the most infamous figures in American history, considered boring?
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: for a character-driven television show.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, why?
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: Because with the Zodiac Killer, the mystery is entirely built
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: around the who, not the why.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's true.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: The fascination is purely procedural. Once you remove the puzzle-solving
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: aspect of the ciphers and the police chase, what are
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: you actually left with? You do not have a clear
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: psychological motivation to explore for seven hours because we do
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: not even know who the person was to begin with.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: You can't write a character study about a phantom.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And then look at BTK, Dennis Rader. You have
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: a man who is shockingly mundane in his daily life,
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: a church leader, a compliance officer, and whose crimes were
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: driven by a profound hollow cruelty.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: Right. There's no mystery to his inner life. It's just bleak.
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: There isn't necessarily a complex societal cage or a deeply
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: layered psychological trauma to unpack that sustains a narrative arc.
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: As Brendan says, it's just awful. To sustain a narrative
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: across multiple episodes, There has to be a relatable human element,
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: no matter how distorted or grotesque. There has to be
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: a complex why that a writer can dig into.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: Which I think holds a very dark mirror up to us,
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: the audience.
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: It really does.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: Think about your own media diet for a second. When
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: you consume true crime podcasts or documentaries or anthology shows,
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: are we guilty of turning real devastating human tragedy into
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: just another form of content?
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: It's a tough pill to swallow.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: By demanding that a killer be interesting or fascinating to
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: keep our attention, are we losing sight of the fact
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: that real people lost their lives? Yeah. It is a
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: deeply uncomfortable ethical line to walk. And Brennan is basically
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: admitting that he has to walk that exact tightrope every
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: single day at work just to figure out what show
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: to make.
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: And this, you know, this kind of, it is the,
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: it's the inherent paradox of true crime.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: Is that, you know, we are drawn to it, not
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: just to witness the horror, but to try and understand
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: the incomprehensible mechanics of human violence. Which kind of, that
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: sort of naturally brings us to our second source. Because
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: if we spend all this time dissecting the psychologies of
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: real life monsters to figure out what makes them tick,
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: it is incredibly revealing to look at how we process
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: fictional monsters.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: And I am so excited for this part.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: The source provided this fascinating psychological breakdown, a survival quiz, essentially,
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: that categorizes classic horror movie villains into five distinct archetypes.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: And it uses these fictional threats to understand how human
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: beings strategize against different flavors of fear.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: This breakdown is incredible because it isn't just a generic
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: personality test. It is asking which slasher villain do you
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: actually have the specific psychological instincts to survive? And it
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: outlines five very specific archetypes. Let's start with the classic
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: unstoppable force, Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: Okay. Jason.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: The source describes Jason as entirely predictable. He moves in
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: straight lines. Surviving him requires high spatial awareness, utilizing the
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: terrain or water, and maintaining continuous, relentless movement. Right. So
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: imagine you are being hunted in a massive forest. If
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: your instinct is to hide in a cabin and try
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: to build a barricade, you die.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: You're cornered.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: Exactly. If your instinct is to keep running, keep tracking
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: your geography, and use the lake to your advantage, you survive.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Jason represents the archetype of the relentless, unstoppable force.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: He doesn't outsmart you. He simply outlasts you.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: So true.
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: From a psychological standpoint, the people who survive this type
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: of threat are the ones who do not succumb to
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: the freeze response. They don't try to reason with the threat.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: They don't try to negotiate. And they don't hide, hoping
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: the problem magically disappears.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: Because it won't.
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: No, it won't. They map their environments. They think strictly
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: about geography, distance, and physical obstacles. The fear of Jason
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: is the fear of inevitability. And the survival instinct required
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: is pure, pragmatic motion.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's look at the next archetype, Michael Myers from Halloween.
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: A completely different kind of threat.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: Totally different. The source says he is patient, he is methodical,
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: and he blends perfectly into suburbia. To survive, Michael, you
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: need the instinct to notice the subtle wrongness in ordinary
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: safe spaces before the threat actually strikes.
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: The subtle wrongness.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: Imagine you are walking into your own house after work.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: The locks are secure, the lights are on, but you
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: notice a single chair is pushed out from the dining
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: table when you know you've tucked it in.
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's creepy.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: If you ignore that chair, Michael Myers gets you. If
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: that subtle wrongness sets off alarm bells, you survive.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: This is where the psychology gets incredibly nuanced. Michael Myers
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: is the personification of the hidden danger in safe spaces.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: He's the shadow in the perfectly manicured neighborhood. Right.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: He's the guy standing behind the hedge.
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Surviving him requires a high degree of hypervigilance. You
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: have to be the person who notices that the front
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: door is unlocked when it shouldn't be, or that the
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: dog is barking at a completely empty corner of the yard.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: You have to trust your gut.
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: The fear here is the violation of sanctuary. It is
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: the terrifying realization that the places you thought were the
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: absolute safest, your home, your quiet neighborhood, are actually completely
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: permeable to evil.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: The violation of sanctuary. That is such a powerful phrasing. Okay,
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: moving on to Freddy Krueger from Nightmare on Elm Street.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: Which is a huge shift.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: A huge shift. Freddy attacks the mind and the subconscious
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: through dreams. To survive him, the source says, you need
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: immense psychological resilience and the ability to stay grounded when
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: reality itself distorts. Right. Imagine you are walking down the
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: street and suddenly the pavement turns into quicksand and the
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: sky turns blood red. If you panic and accept the
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: new reality, Freddie wins. If you can logically tell yourself,
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: this defies physics, I must be asleep, you have a chance.
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: That completely flips the premise of survival. Because if Freddie
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: is about the mind... then physical strength is completely useless.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: You can't outrun him. No.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: Freddy represents the betrayal of our own minds. This is
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: the fear that your own thoughts, your hidden trauma, your
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: darkest memories can be weaponized against you.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: That's terrifying.
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: It is. To survive Freddy, you need extreme lucidity. It
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: is essentially a metaphor for surviving severe mental anguish or
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: panic attacks, holding onto your cognitive grounding techniques when everything
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: internal feels like it is collapsing.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: Wow. Next is Pennywise from It, the ancient shapeshifting clown
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: that literally feeds on terror. Surviving Pennywise requires direct confrontation
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: and refusing to give the entity the fear it needs
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: to survive.
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: That's a hard one.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: It really is. Imagine standing in front of a giant
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: spider that knows exactly what you are most afraid of.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: If you scream and run, it feeds on that panic
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: and grows stronger. If you link arms with your friends
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: and mock it, it shrinks.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: Pennywise embodies terror. Abstract dread. It is the kind of overwhelming,
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: shapeless anxiety that paralyzes an entire community.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's exactly what he does in the story.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: The survival strategy here is radically different from Jason or Michael.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: You can't outrun abstract dread, and you can't just logically
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: dissect it like Freddie. You have to face it collectively.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: The only way to starve Pennywise is through communal courage,
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: which isn't the absence of fear, but the refusal to
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: let the fear dictate your actions. It represents the necessity
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: of holding a group together and confronting communal trauma directly
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: rather than looking away.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: And finally, we have Chucky from Child's Play.
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: Ah, Chucky.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: The source says Chucky exploits being completely underestimated due to
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: his size and appearance as a children's doll. Surviving him
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: requires extreme skepticism and treating every unfamiliar thing as a
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: genuine threat no matter how absurd it looks.
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: Right, because he looks ridiculous.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: He does. Imagine a doll moves its head on its own.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: If you convince yourself it was just the wind or
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: a glitch... you are in trouble. If you immediately assume
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: the doll is sentient and hostile, you survive.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: Chucky is the archetype of the dangers of underestimation. He
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: represents the threat that hides behind a veneer of innocence
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: or total absurdity. The psychological trait needed here is a
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: ruthless refusal to be polite or dismissive. You have to
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: be willing to sound crazy to other people by pointing
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: out the danger that everyone else is laughing off. It
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: is the fear of the mundane masking the malevolent.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: So we have these five archetypes, right? The unstoppable force,
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: the hidden danger in safe spaces, the betrayal of the mind,
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: abstract dread, and the underestimated threat.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: I want to take this psychological framework and apply it
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: back to Lizzie Borden.
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: Oh, this is an interesting connection.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: Think about the Victorian society she lived in. Was that
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: environment that repressed 1892 culture essentially a Michael Myers scenario? Hmm. Like,
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: was it a seemingly quiet, highly structured, respectable environment where
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: the true danger, the suffocating misogyny, the potential domestic abuse,
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: was completely disguised by the mundane reality of teacups and
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: parlor rooms?
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: That is exactly how the mechanics of that society functioned.
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: Fall River, Massachusetts in 1892 was functionally identical to Haddonfield,
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: Illinois in 1978. That's so true. It was a place
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: where everything looked immaculate on the surface. And that surface-level
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: perfection allowed the real horror to operate in plain sight
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: without anyone intervening. Because acknowledging the horror would mean violating
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: the decorum of the sanctuary.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: Right, you couldn't speak out.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The society itself was the hidden threat, masking the
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: danger until the damage was already done.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: We have been in some incredibly dark, heavy places for
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: this deep dive. I mean, we have talked about axes,
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: Victorian cages, true crime ethics, and the psychology of slasher villains.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: We need a palate cleanser.
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: We definitely do.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: And this brings us to the most bizarre, jarring pivot
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: in the entire Ian Brennan interview. After discussing all of
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: this heavy, bloody material, the interviewer asks him about Glee.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: It is the ultimate tonal whiplash.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: It really is. Brennan, who co-created Glee with Ryan Murphy,
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: confirms that he is officially open to a Glee reboot.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: He says, and I quote, For the longest time, it
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: didn't feel like the right time, and for some reason, lately,
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: it has. Wow. And he adds that if the show returns,
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: he wants more classic rock, specifically citing the band Boston.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: Going from the psychology of Jeffrey Dahmer to high schoolers
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: singing the band Boston is quite the leap.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: A massive leap.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: But if we synthesize what this actually reveals about a
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: creator's mind, it is fascinating. How does a brain jump
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: from the darkest depths of human depravity to high school
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: show choirs?
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: Seriously, how?
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: What it highlights is a masterclass in heightened reality. Whether
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: you are building a highly stylized dark comedy murder anthology
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: with punk rock needle drops, or you are directing teenagers
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: bursting into earnest musical numbers in a school cafeteria, both
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: require an intensely specific, slightly surreal control of tone. It
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: is the exact same rider muscle being flexed, just applied
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: to opposite ends of the emotional spectrum. Both genres require
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: creating a world that operates on a slightly different frequency
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: than our own.
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: That makes perfect sense. It is all about heightening the
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: mundane until it becomes spectacular, whether that spectacle is violent
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: or musical.
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: But think about what Brennan said, that for a long time,
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: a Glee reboot didn't feel right. But lately, it has.
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: What cultural shift do you think has happened recently that
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: makes the earnest, musical, almost aggressive optimism of a show
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: like Glee feel relevant again right now?
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: That's a great question.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: After years of prestige, trauma, television, and grim true crime,
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: are we just culturally exhausted? Are we craving a return
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: to unironic joy?
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: That is the cultural pendulum swing in action. When reality
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: feels like a pressure cooker, much like the Victorian era,
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: society eventually seeks a release valve.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: We need to let the steam out.
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Sometimes that release is watching the darkest parts of
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: human nature get dissected on screen. allowing us to process
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: our anxieties safely. And sometimes the release is just needing
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: to hear a chorus of people sing loudly and happily together.
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: It is all about how a culture metabolizes the world
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: around it.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: Let's bring it all back to the center. We have
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: covered an immense amount of ground today.
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: We really have.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: We started by exploring the repressed, darkly comic world of
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: Victorian axe murders in the new Monster Season. We looked
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: at how creators use the anachronistic energy of punk rock
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: to track a centuries-long lineage of female rage, from Elizabeth
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: Bathory to Aileen Wuornos. We analyzed the harsh, uncomfortable truths
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: behind true crime adaptation, that finding a murderer with a
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: narrative complex enough to sustain television is actually incredibly rare.
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: We mapped our own psychological survival strategies against the iconic
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: horrors of Jason, Michael, Freddie, Pennywise, and Chucky, and Somehow,
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: against all odds, we ended up at the possibility of
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: a Glee reboot?
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: It has been a very complex journey. And I want
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: to leave you with one final lingering thought to mull over.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: All right, lay it on us.
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: We have spent all this time talking about how creators
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: like Ian Brennan make monsters interesting for us to watch.
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: We want the narrative. We want the psychology. Sure. But
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: think about those survival instincts we discussed from the horror quiz.
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: If our media diet is constantly training us to look
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: for the hidden threat in the suburbs, to hyperanalyze the
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: psychology of the attacker, and to never ever let our
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: guard down.
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: Oh, wow.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: Are these true crime and horror shows actually just entertainment?
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: Or have we subconsciously turned our television viewing into a
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: modern day survival simulator, desperately practicing how to stay alive
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: in a world we perceive as deeply dangerous?
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: That is a thought that is going to stick with me.
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: Every time we think we are just watching a show,
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: we are actually studying a reflection of our own survival instincts.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us on this incredibly
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: wide-ranging journey today. Remember, the deep dive is always ready
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: for your next stack of sources. Until then, stay curious,
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: trust your instincts, and maybe double-check those perfectly normal-looking locks
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: on your front door.