FLICK'N'BEANS
Longtime friends and bandmates Bridget and Wendy review one movie each week over fancy coffees every Sunday morning. Includes lots of swearing, laughing, and dog panting. Sometimes other friends join in.
You'll like this if you like "How Did This Get Made?" or "Unspooled."
FLICK'N'BEANS
EP 136: BUGONIA - Duh, You Need Your Hair to Communicate with the Andromedons
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Good Morning!!!!
WTF Emma Stone? This is a wild ride and we're never sure whether she's an alien (unlikely) or not (possible?).
Conspiracy theorists unite - maybe we're an alien race, maybe Earth is flat, maybe we've never been in outer space, but we definitely know that an Andromedon's nervous system is different and Benadryl cream keeps them complacent.
Enjoy!!!
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Foreign. Good morning.
>> Bridget:I'm Bridget.
>> Wendy:And I'm Wendy. And this is Flicking beans.
>> Bridget:What's up? Sunny out.
>> Wendy:Yeah. Beautiful weather this weekend. Yesterday was so gorgeous. I was just out, like, running errands, but I was having the time of my life.
>> Bridget:Yeah.
>> Wendy:Being able to. The wood. Yeah.
>> Bridget:It wasn't, you know, enjoying the weather at all.
>> Wendy:Do they have a patio at all there?
>> Bridget:No.
>> Wendy:Okay, then.
>> Bridget:Yeah. No. You made coffee.
>> Wendy:I did folders in your cup with hazelnut and a little coconut milk for good. Yeah. So this one, our movie this week, Begonia 2025. Currently streaming on Netflix. So did you happen to look up what begonia means? I didn't, no. Because I thought it was the flower.
>> Bridget:No, it's bug on.
>> Wendy:Yeah, yeah. Begonia. The flower is spelled with the egg. This is spelled with a U. So it is some kind of myth, I guess in the context of this, maybe we can call it a conspiracy theory, but I think it's like a historical myth where bees would spontaneously appear out of rotting cow carcasses.
>> Bridget:Okay.
>> Wendy:There's no, like, historical proof of it, but there's lots of writings about it.
>> Bridget:Okay.
>> Wendy:I don't know if it. They were experiencing a phenomenon where the bees just got in there and they thought they were spontaneously creating them, but. Yeah, that's where the name comes from. So. Which makes a little sense because the guy's a beekeeper.
>> Bridget:Yes.
>> Wendy:But it's weird.
>> Bridget:Yeah, yeah, I get it now, because conspiracy theories. This guy is f****** crazy.
>> Wendy:Yeah, yeah.
>> Bridget:He's got the sweetest brother.
>> Wendy:Oh, Don. Donnie Don.
>> Bridget:Oh, and he has glorious hair.
>> Wendy:Donnie's hair.
>> Bridget:Oh, God. Don't you just want to run your fingers through it? Yes.
>> Wendy:It's so fluffy and full and curly and. Yeah, that's like my dream hair. That's my brother's hair. That's a little. Maybe a little bit. Why? It makes me angry, cuz. Like, why didn't I get those genetics a little bit?
>> Bridget:Why? His head is so big?
>> Wendy:Maybe. Yeah. All the volume.
>> Bridget:Yes. So Don is not a professional actor. And they wanted to find someone who was a non professional, neurodivergent person to play this.
>> Wendy:Yeah. I did look up that he was. He is neurodivergent. But I didn't realize that he had not acted. He did a great job.
>> Bridget:He was so good.
>> Wendy:Yeah.
>> Bridget:A man of few words.
>> Wendy:Yes.
>> Bridget:Yeah. But he's the one with the conscience. He's being dragged along by his cousin who is the conspiracy theorist extraordinaire. And it's strange because, you see him going after Emma Stone, who is a
>> Wendy:big executive of a healthcare pharmaceutical company.
>> Bridget:Right?
>> Wendy:Yeah.
>> Bridget:But he's also got a vendetta against her.
>> Wendy:Yes, personal.
>> Bridget:She didn't save his mom.
>> Wendy:She was part of a experimental drug trial and she was a drug addict. So he has a kind of a double hate for the pharmaceutical companies. Pharmaceutical companies. Because his mom got addicted to opioids and then they tried to cure her with another medicine and it just put her in a coma. Yeah. He's p***** at her for lots of reasons. And then so the whole movie you're kind of confused about who's telling the truth because you're kind of led to believe that he's totally crazy. None of the things that he's saying are true. Because he's repeating all of this stuff that we've seen online about aliens and they're in our government and they're controlling our minds among us. Yeah. Killing our bees and all this stuff. So you think, oh, he's just crazy. But he has this personal vendetta against her. He thinks she's an alien because her company hurt his family. But then there's a lot of twists and you start to wonder like, is she an alien or not? Is she lying? I don't know. It's so hard to tell because she's got that CEO speak. She's a master negotiator.
>> Bridget:She is.
>> Wendy:She just knows how to manipulate people. I think I knew this before, but it was just a little eye opening, like oh, that's really how people in those positions get there. Not because they work hard, it's because they're really good at manipulating people.
>> Bridget:Corpse speak and all that.
>> Wendy:You end up hating her too.
>> Bridget:Well, the first thing they do is kidnap her.
>> Wendy:Yes.
>> Bridget:Donnie's in the backseat, Teddy's driving. And Donnie's job at that point is to shave her head immediately. The poor guy.
>> Wendy:Yeah.
>> Bridget:And then she wakes up tied to a table.
>> Wendy:Yeah. No hair.
>> Bridget:In the basement.
>> Wendy:They believe that she can communicate with her mothership through her hair. Which is ridiculous. I would probably say right now that if you're listening to this and you haven't watched Begonia and you don't want to have any spoilers, maybe stop. Because I think a big part of the. The fun of this is not knowing until the very end what the truth is.
>> Bridget:But I see dead people.
>> Wendy:I got a couple spoilers on accident when I was looking up the of it. Cuz it said the twist at the end is that she is the alien. But there's another Spoiler just in the TV rating too. I knew somebody was going to kill themselves because it said death, including suicide. Yeah, that comes later.
>> Bridget:But yeah, he wants to do the right thing. But he also wants to do the right thing by his cousin.
>> Wendy:Right. They only have each other. Yeah, they're desperate because they only have each other. They're lonely. And that's all playing into this psychosis that you think that they have. And I don't think everything that Teddy figured out is true, but he's pretty point on about a lot of stuff. Yeah.
>> Bridget:Because at one point she does get loose. Then all of his information is by his computers down there in the basement. So she's pouring through all that and she's like holy f***.
>> Wendy:Yeah, he knows. He knows.
>> Bridget:Now I have to change my tactics. He hooks her up to electrod and tries see how far he can take it because he's done this before.
>> Wendy:Yeah.
>> Bridget:With other people he thinks are aliens.
>> Wendy:Yeah, we don't killed them. Oh for sure.
>> Bridget:Yeah.
>> Wendy:When she finally finds all his research, there's body parts in jars and.
>> Bridget:Oh God, yeah.
>> Wendy:Like it looks like a serial killer's basement.
>> Bridget:Well, in a way he is.
>> Wendy:Yeah. And they weren't all aliens either. That's the thing.
>> Bridget:Yeah, no, no. But he finally found one. And when she could take more electricity than anyone else, he apologizes because he's like oh God, I didn't realize. Like you're the queen.
>> Wendy:Yeah.
>> Bridget:Of Andromeda. Yeah, yeah, but yeah is actually true.
>> Wendy:It's actually true. I know. And the hair, they actually do use it to communicate. We find out later. But. But poor Donnie has to witness Teddy doing this to her and he doesn't understand what Teddy's doing. He's like, no, you're going to kill her. Like you're putting hundreds of voltages through her and pulls the plug. I mean, I get it. I just felt so bad for Donnie during this whole thing. Cuz he sweet, innocent and he wants to make Teddy happy because it's like
>> Bridget:they've been living together for a really long time. Also in preparation for traveling to this other planet.
>> Wendy:Yes.
>> Bridget:They work out together. There's so many things they're doing, like yoga push ups.
>> Wendy:I liked the contrast between their workouts and Emma Stones in the beginning because like she's doing kind of some of the same things. She's preparing for battle too. And she's got this beautiful house, a big yoga man, a personal trainer, and they're trying to do yoga on towels in the living room.
>> Bridget:Oh God.
>> Wendy:Yoga's for everybody.
>> Bridget:Yeah, it is. Yeah, it is.
>> Wendy:We were just talking about yoga before we started.
>> Bridget:We skipped past how they kidnapped her. They went to the Halloween store and bought Jennifer Aniston mask.
>> Wendy:Yeah.
>> Bridget:She gave her enthusiastic consent.
>> Wendy:That's great.
>> Bridget:It's so funny.
>> Wendy:It is funny.
>> Bridget:And why that mask?
>> Wendy:They were in a Goodwill and that's what they had. Okay. I think. But, yeah, I wrote in my notes, I think it might have been more inconspicuous if they didn't have those masks on. If you're just hiding and you don't have a big Jennifer Aniston face on you, you probably would blend in better. I guess they're just trying to hide their identities because she has cameras. It's weird that nobody seems to really come after her, though. No, they don't know looking for her. At least not with Teddy and Donnie.
>> Bridget:Well, she may or may not have friends at all because she's such a power b****.
>> Wendy:Tr don't you think that somebody at work would be looking for her? Yeah, she does try to say that to them. Like, somebody's looking for me. Like, this isn't going to go well for you, but doesn't really turn out that way for them. Like. Well, we never get to find out. But they don't come looking there anyway. Nobody suspects them.
>> Bridget:Why did they cover her body in cream?
>> Wendy:Antihistamine.
>> Bridget:Yeah, like Benadryl. All over her body.
>> Wendy:He says that their nervous system is different and it blocks the signal somehow.
>> Bridget:This is so great.
>> Wendy:Yeah.
>> Bridget:I just love this guy. He is so crazy.
>> Wendy:So that must have been one of the experiments that.
>> Bridget:Yeah.
>> Wendy:He conducted was antihistamine on Andromedans.
>> Bridget:Andromedans, yes.
>> Wendy:And I believe I'm not too deep into all of these conspiracy theories, so I don't know, but I believe that most of the stuff that he was saying is common. Common. If you dig into that stuff. I noticed in the transitions, they had flat earth pictures.
>> Bridget:Oh, God, I love flat earth.
>> Wendy:Flat Earthers.
>> Bridget:I love me some flat Earthers. Here's the documentary.
>> Wendy:Yeah, you told me. I could never find it, though. If we can find it, we should watch it for the podcast because I do want to see it, but I couldn't find it.
>> Bridget:It's amazingly crazy. Yeah. I mean, of all things, we know the Earth is f****** round.
>> Wendy:Yeah.
>> Bridget:It's been seen from space now.
>> Wendy:Well, they say nobody's been to space.
>> Bridget:Yeah, well. Yeah, well. Oh, God. Teddy tells Don as they're embarking on this that they have to clear their psychic Cache. And that means no whack in it, no gaming, blahbity blah. And then he tells Don that he needs to be chemically castrated.
>> Wendy:Yeah.
>> Bridget:And he's like, are you sure?
>> Wendy:Yeah. I want to be with somebody someday.
>> Bridget:Yeah, someday.
>> Wendy:I felt for him, and I looked it up.
>> Bridget:Okay.
>> Wendy:Whether or not it's reversible. Yes. Chemical castration is only effective while you're taking the medication.
>> Bridget:What is it?
>> Wendy:It blocks your hormone producers. You don't produce testosterone in the same way. So that's all it is. I don't know if it makes you sterile.
>> Bridget:I think they're gonna need testosterone for this endeavor.
>> Wendy:I agree. Why?
>> Bridget:They always had suits on. Suits and ties. Whenever they interacted with her.
>> Wendy:With her? Yeah. They wanted. So weird, because the rest of the time, they're very schlubby.
>> Bridget:Yeah.
>> Wendy:Yeah.
>> Bridget:Schlubby in their suits and t. True.
>> Wendy:Yeah. Poor Donnie's like, it doesn't fit me. It's too small. I don't look good.
>> Bridget:Oh, he's so cute.
>> Wendy:Yeah. A lot of crazy stuff.
>> Bridget:Don could have gone to her planet with her.
>> Wendy:Yes.
>> Bridget:But he shoots himself.
>> Wendy:Yeah.
>> Bridget:Right in front of her.
>> Wendy:He just can't handle betraying Teddy. I think he's also scared to leave. So he's like. Well, he takes a deep breath and he goes, okay, I think I'm ready to go now. And the stone's like, okay, let's go. Like, let me out and we'll go to my home planet. And then he says, tell Teddy I love him and I'm sorry, and then blows his own head off.
>> Bridget:D***. That hurt my heart.
>> Wendy:Me too. Because you can see his turmoil the whole time, and you want a happy ending for him, but it's not a happy ending for anyone, unfortunately. So back and forth, back and forth. All through the movie, you can't figure out whether she's lying or telling the truth. And then she finally get Teddy to take her back to the pharmaceutical company, which he works at, by the way. Oh, yeah, Packing boxes. There's so many ties. It's such a crazy web of stuff.
>> Bridget:Yeah. She takes him to her fancy office, tells him that the portal is in the closet, and she has to use this calculator. And I'm like, she is just biting time until the cops get there.
>> Wendy:Y.
>> Bridget:But it's true.
>> Wendy:Yeah. Before we find out whether it's true or not, though, Teddy has strapped a bomb to himself, and she tells him to get in the closet, and she says she's going to beam him up, and he's like he trusts her. He gets in there and then his homemade explosive goes off. And what happens? His head flies out and hits her in the head.
>> Bridget:That's gotta hurt.
>> Wendy:Man, oh man, what a way to get knocked out.
>> Bridget:Ouch.
>> Wendy:Why another head?
>> Bridget:It's like throwing a bocce ball.
>> Wendy:Oh. But then after that happens, you're like, oh, okay, it was all fake. And then she runs around the office, somehow eludes them again. Oh, they take. She jumps out of the ambulance. That's what it is.
>> Bridget:And runs down the street back to her office. She's covered in blood.
>> Wendy:Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of running around town just covered in blood. Yeah. Like at one point, Teddy is riding his bicycle in his bloody bee suit after he kills the cop. God.
>> Bridget:Yeah.
>> Wendy:And then I wrote, why does he still have the bloody bee suit on? And then I wrote, that's a great band name.
>> Bridget:Woo hoo. Coffee break. Let's talk about our beans.
>> Wendy:Are you enjoying Flickin beans? Don't keep it to yourself. Spill the beans. Movies are better shared. And so is coffee. Can you drop our pod into a friend's inbox? A group chat? Or just tell that cashier at your coffee shop that you love our podcast. A little worth of mouth goes a long way. Let's spill the beans. Thank you, bean flickers.
>> Bridget:Love you.
>> Wendy:Bye, buddy.
>> Bridget:Bee suit.
>> Wendy:But yeah.
>> Bridget:So is chemical castration true?
>> Wendy:I feel like that has to already be abandoned.
>> Bridget:Probably so. Okay, so she's back in her office again with this blown up guy in her closet.
>> Wendy:And her calculator.
>> Bridget:And her calculator. So she climbs right in there.
>> Wendy:Yeah, it's gross.
>> Bridget:I wonder if his bloody body parts transported with her.
>> Wendy:I had that thought too. Yeah. A really weird thing happened while we were watching it is when he got into the closet, there was a fly that was like, stuck in our window downstairs. And I was like, oh, now is there a fly in there? And Joel's like, it's going to be like the fly. And then we realized that it was in our room. So. Yeah, it didn't seem like any of the body parts went with her, though.
>> Bridget:Then we see her planet.
>> Wendy:Yeah, it's gooey.
>> Bridget:Yeah. She comes out of like, goo, like a. Like a lake or something, but it's not water.
>> Wendy:Yeah.
>> Bridget:Then she's holding court with her other, I guess underlings or other Andromedans for
>> Wendy:some reason, completely wearing what looks like knit.
>> Bridget:We have to talk about what the is that?
>> Wendy:I was like, what was a weird style choice?
>> Bridget:You can't Even walk around in that. Yeah, it was like. Like when you try to knit something for a Barbie.
>> Wendy:Yeah, it was.
>> Bridget:It was weird. They were like encased in like a bell shape all the way down to the ground.
>> Wendy:Yeah. And their hats too.
>> Bridget:You know when those arm knitting things were popular and you had the huge chunky.
>> Wendy:It is like that.
>> Bridget:Yeah, exactly. Who. I didn't even look that up. But I. I'm curious why that was the wardrobe choice.
>> Wendy:Yeah, it was very bizarre.
>> Bridget:So weird.
>> Wendy:I thought it kind of looked like paracord. Are you familiar? It's a nylon cord that a lot of people braid into like bracelets or necklaces. And then you wear it and then if you are like out camping, you can unravel it and use it as a rope. That's what it looked like to me. And then you can knit it and braid it. I've crocheted it before. Like, I don't know if that's what it was made of, but that's what it reminded me of. Nice. So maybe it's their survival.
>> Bridget:Yeah.
>> Wendy:Like I have this whole suit of rope if I need it. Yeah.
>> Bridget:Yep. Oh my God. So weird.
>> Wendy:And they address the hair when she's talking to the court. They're like, we couldn't get in touch with you because you had no hair. So that. He was right about that part. Yeah, yeah.
>> Bridget:At least she had her own way back.
>> Wendy:Yeah, yeah.
>> Bridget:With the calculator, obviously she's. It was like a series of 26 numbers. Yeah, just wait, let me think.
>> Wendy:I for sure thought she was stalling at that point, cuz why would you have a code that's that long but
>> Bridget:on a handheld calculator?
>> Wendy:She does take it out of a decorative box though. So you're like, well, why would you keep your calculator in a box like that Unless it was special with sarcasm. Rich people.
>> Bridget:Texas Instruments.
>> Wendy:Yeah, you have to be rich to have those. Oh my God.
>> Bridget:Some people played a prank on one of the accountants where I used to work. He absolutely was obsessed with his calculator. And he had had it since college.
>> Wendy:Yeah.
>> Bridget:Some people went in, it might have been his birthday, and they completely taped it down to his desk. Like he had to cut it out. It's funny. And he was very p*****. Oh, well, he never could take a joke.
>> Wendy:Accountants.
>> Bridget:And I swear it was not me. I did not do that. But I enjoyed watching it go down. It was ingenious though, that that was the plan. Makes me wonder if she repeatedly went back and forth.
>> Wendy:Yeah.
>> Bridget:You know probably because she's got, you know, her queen stuff.
>> Wendy:Yeah. Back home for sure. I mean, she had a port in her office, so it would be convenient to just go back and forth, decide things on her council. She's. Well, she's so off putting on purpose.
>> Bridget:Yeah. Made me want to watch poor things again, though.
>> Wendy:Yeah. Yeah, that's a good one. And it's the same director, right? Or producer.
>> Bridget:Yeah. Oh, yes, it is.
>> Wendy:Yeah.
>> Bridget:Yes, it is.
>> Wendy:Yeah. They're both messed up, but Emma Stone is wonderful in both of them. Usually Emma Stone plays a likable character, so it's kind of of fun to have seen her in a role where she's not very likable.
>> Bridget:And this was a remake, really? Yeah. It was a 2003 Korean film.
>> Wendy:Okay.
>> Bridget:And it was called Save the Green Planet.
>> Wendy:That title makes more sense. I thought the beekeeping would play more into it because that's how the summary was written.
>> Bridget:I was too focused on the characters, but apparently there are honeycomb shapes all throughout. Like inside their house, there's like a honeycomb shaped window and all that stuff, you know, and I wasn't looking for that.
>> Wendy:Right.
>> Bridget:It's kind of interesting how they just kind of sprinkle that stuff throughout.
>> Wendy:They do have a lot of shot of bees doing their pollinating, I guess.
>> Bridget:Well, okay. I do have another fun fact.
>> Wendy:Okay.
>> Bridget:They could not get the bees to pollinate the flowers on camera.
>> Wendy:Really?
>> Bridget:Yeah. And they happened to, like, they were at a park or something and they happened to catch some bees around the flowers, turn on those cameras. So it's like the bees didn't even know they were in a movie.
>> Wendy:No. That's sweet.
>> Bridget:Those weren't the trained bees. And she got cold feet before shaving her head. And then she said it was super freeing. And her mom had lost her hair to chemotherapy at one point.
>> Wendy:Yeah.
>> Bridget:So she was kind of feeling like, yeah, like I need to do this. Like we said earlier, they shaved her head in the car and they described it as having four moody cameras on her. And, you know, it had to be in one take. How you shave your head twice.
>> Wendy:You can't. Yeah.
>> Bridget:Oh, my gosh. And then right after she got her head shaved, she went and shaved the director's head.
>> Wendy:Really? Yeah.
>> Bridget:Yeah.
>> Wendy:I have often wondered, like, what it would feel like to shave my head.
>> Bridget:Yeah.
>> Wendy:I think everyone has probably.
>> Bridget:Well, God, imagine just how easy. That's an easy hairstyle right there.
>> Wendy:Yeah.
>> Bridget:She hid it under hats and wigs and things until it grew out. But she was like, I Kind of want to walk around bald. Yeah, why wouldn't you?
>> Wendy:Why not?
>> Bridget:Why not? Yeah, she's got a nice looking head.
>> Wendy:Yeah. That's the thing is like, if you've never shaved your head before. Yeah. You might find some weird stuff under there. I know for sure that I have a birthmark on the back of my head cuz I was from being a baby. I had it. I don't think a bald head is good. Look for me.
>> Bridget:Billy has weird moles.
>> Wendy:I have a couple of those too.
>> Bridget:Yeah, they're not gonna look good. No, they stick out.
>> Wendy:Yeah.
>> Bridget:Yeah. Like in a big way. You wouldn't believe it.
>> Wendy:So the conclusion is that this alien council who has been ruling our planet since the time of Atlantis, there's a whole backstory there. But that whole idea that humans have made a civilization before and then been wiped out is very interesting to me because some of the stuff that I learned about, like the pyramids and stuff like that doesn't line up with like, what we've been taught.
>> Bridget:Right.
>> Wendy:And I don't know what's true, but
>> Bridget:you know, oh, I hope we find out. But yeah, I believe that too.
>> Wendy:Yeah. It makes sense that we could have done this before and been wiped out. Wiped ourselves out for some reason or gotten wiped out by aliens. Well.
>> Bridget:And it sucks that we're still too dumb to figure out how they did it.
>> Wendy:Yeah.
>> Bridget:With all of our technology and all of our machinery and blahbity blah, blah.
>> Wendy:Well, Emma Stone's character says at one point that this version of humans that exists now are modified from old humans. They made themselves more aggressive so they could be tougher. And that aggression has never gotten bred out of us, even though we've gotten technologically more advanced. So we're just all these like horrible mean apes. You're like, yeah, yeah, it feels like that. Yeah. So the council is meeting at the end when she's back up there trying to decide whether they're going to let humans live because they're destroying the planet.
>> Bridget:Right.
>> Wendy:And they decide, no, we're not gonna let the humans live. And the last, like few minutes of the movie is just showing people dead in all these different ways. Air traffic controllers.
>> Bridget:It was like she had like a flat earth table with a bubble over it. She just popped that bubble. It's all over. Yeah. People laying dead in the streets. Just like bird box.
>> Wendy:Yep. And somehow there's no children. Joel pointed that out. He's like, how come the whole world's dead and they're not showing any, like, babies or kids. It's like. It's too sad. Come on. Well, the rest of the movie was messed up.
>> Bridget:Yeah. Definitely.
>> Wendy:Might as well show that, too.
>> Bridget:Goodness.
>> Wendy:It went on for a long time. I felt like they're like, what are all the different funny ways? It was almost like it was a joke. Ways that people could have died, like face down in their soup, driving an airplane.
>> Bridget:I can't.
>> Wendy:One of the couples was having sex.
>> Bridget:Oh, yeah.
>> Wendy:So that was funny. Sure.
>> Bridget:This way. As long as. But, you know, as long as I went and not the person on top.
>> Wendy:You went together, it's fine.
>> Bridget:Like Private Benjamin, Married for four hours. Okay. Well, did we do it?
>> Wendy:I think we did it. Reflect. So be okay. Love you.
>> Bridget:Bye. Bye.
