CINEMISSES! Dark City

In this episode of CINEMISSES! Tug and Matt explore the widely missed film 'Dark City' wondering why it didn't enjoy more (or really any) success when it was released in 1998. Their conversation highlights the film's exploration of memory, identity, and the nature of reality, as well as the significance of its visual style and special effects. Tug, sounding even worse than the throat clearing episode, would be diagnosed with bronchitis days after recording. So, there's that. Enjoy!

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Transcript

Matt Loehrer (00:00)
Hey, Tug, how's it going,

Tug McTighe (00:01)
It's going great We're talking about a movie called Dark City today That came out in the year of our Lord and Savior. That's abbreviated as YOOLAS 1998, isn't that correct?

Matt Loehrer (00:15)
That is absolutely correct.

Tug McTighe (00:16)
So there's a lot of shit in this movie, the movie that predated The Matrix, because that came out in 99, right? 99?

Matt Loehrer (00:21)
Not by much, yes.

And influence the matrix.

Tug McTighe (00:26)
Yeah, there's a lot

in this that is Matrix-y.

Matt Loehrer (00:29)
Absolutely.

Tug McTighe (00:30)
And again the point of this podcast hi everybody welcome to Cinemass's a podcast about the movies that Matt and tug somehow didn't manage to see The reason you brought this up in the first place is because it's right up my fucking alley and I didn't even really know it existed. So

Matt Loehrer (00:44)
for sure.

And I,

so it's interesting. Some of these movies that we're gonna do are gonna be, how did you miss it? This is not one of those. I get how you'd miss it. This came out in February of 1998. Titanic was on its like 17th week in theaters and just beat the shit out of this

Tug McTighe (00:56)
Right. Right.

It's really hard to go up against the sinking of that ship. Do you know what? Never seen it.

Matt Loehrer (01:18)
Absolutely. So

that's, that's probably one we won't do because I don't want to see it again. But yeah.

Tug McTighe (01:23)
Yeah, I don't have any desire. I've gone this far.

I've gone this far. I'd to go a little farther.

Matt Loehrer (01:29)
Right, was

a Titanic was a juggernaut. And this movie came out and was a bomb. But let's talk a little bit about it. The log line is a man struggles with memories of his past, which include a wife he cannot remember in a nightmarish world. No one ever seems to wake up from. So that's interesting, right? Yeah, so I would like that the movie poster.

Tug McTighe (01:50)
It's out, right? It's okay. Yeah.

Matt Loehrer (01:57)
had a clock on it, I think, and Rufus Sewell kind of making a crazy face and it said they built this city to see what makes us tick. Last night, one of us went off.

I don't think that's I don't love that.

Tug McTighe (02:06)
Okay, we're gonna,

no, I'm gonna table my criticism because you're giving it away already. just let's table it until we get there. Can you read it again? It's terrible.

Matt Loehrer (02:12)
Okay. Right!

Okay, that sounds great. And I think and tell me if I'm wrong, and I don't know a lot.

It's bad. They built the city on rock and roll. No, that's not what it was.

Tug McTighe (02:25)
And it's what would have been better.

Matt Loehrer (02:27)
way that people that make the trailers are not the same people.

Tug McTighe (02:27)
No, they're, no, they're, it's

a little bit like a, when you write a newspaper article, your editor typically writes the headline.

Matt Loehrer (02:34)
Right. So I'm pretty sure Alex Proyas did not choose to do this, but he kind of went along with it. I think that happened a lot. So this was a Techno-R film. It was directed by Alex Proyas, who had previously found success with The Crow, which is also another cult classic. Yeah. And he went on to direct I, Robot with Will Smith, which I didn't think was great.

Tug McTighe (02:41)
Yeah.

which I quite liked.

I actually like that one as well, it

could have been worse.

Matt Loehrer (03:02)
It could have. And then he did a forgettable Nick Cage movie called Knowing, which I'm pretty sure I saw but couldn't tell you what happened. And then he did Gods of Egypt, which I never saw and I'm pretty sure was objectively.

Tug McTighe (03:08)
I, it sounds familiar.

Matt Loehrer (03:15)
in peace.

Tug McTighe (03:15)
always always

always dependable William Hurt.

Matt Loehrer (03:18)
almost always dependable.

Keifer Sutherland, was one of my favorite parts of the movie. Jennifer Connolly, who's always great. And Richard O'Brien, who some people of an older generation might remember was in the Rocky Horror Picture Show, which I never saw. But he was awesome in this. He played Mr. No, Mr. Hand. Yeah, he was the main bad guy.

Tug McTighe (03:33)
boy.

Who did he play?

he was the main bad guy. Mr.

Matt Loehrer (03:44)
So this was shot at Fox Studios Australia, Alex Price is from Australia. It got generally positive reviews, but it was a bomb at the box office. And Roger Ebert particularly enjoyed it to the point that he contributed to the extended director's cut version of it.

Tug McTighe (04:00)
for

all of our listeners who are none, you need to go, if you like this movie, you need to do a little Google research in on Roger Ebert's fucking love of this movie. He went bananas for

it the best movie in 1998, and like you said, even came and offered to do a the commentary on one of the DVD releases.

Matt Loehrer (04:20)
If you want to see this movie for free and you have a library card, there is a website called Canopy, K, Canopy with a K, K-A-N-O-P-Y dot com. If you go there and you enter your, you find your library and you enter your library card number and your PIN, there are all sorts of movies that you can watch for free and this is one of them. So if you want to.

Tug McTighe (04:41)
Wow,

I think I paid $3 for it on Amazon Prime, but that's because I wanted the director's cut. I could have watched the studio cut for free, which we will get into. But so as always, we're going to talk about what I think, what I thought I knew about the movie. First, okay. So I knew that a guy wakes up, he has amnesia, he suspected of murder, he becomes a detective, he has to solve his own crime or clear his own name.

Matt Loehrer (04:48)
Okay.

Yes.

Okay, which is what?

Tug McTighe (05:07)
This is a classic like noir trope, right? Memory loss. So many movies share this angle. The Mento, The Born Identity, right? He wakes up, he doesn't know he's that guy. The Hangover, where they wake up, they don't know what happened. And of course, Sarah McTie's favorite movie, Overboard, where Goldie Hawn gets hit in the head and then Kurt Russell pretends she's poor.

Matt Loehrer (05:17)
Yes.

Yes

Yes, I have seen that a hundred times.

Tug McTighe (05:33)
Yeah, so, so I knew that it was some kind of a guy wakes up and he's the same, but everybody else is different, which leads me to my next point. Alex Proyas has a professed love of the Twilight Zone, which I also share that love of. So I knew if this was many people, Alex included have tried to make Twilight Zones and this is kind of a kind of a Twilight Zony thing, right? So.

Matt Loehrer (05:45)
Yes, goodbye.

for sure.

Tug McTighe (05:57)
So I'm good. also loves Kafka, Franz Kafka. And I read a lot of Kafka, the metamorphosis and the stranger, not the stranger, that's Camus. The trial is Kafka, where the guy wakes up, but he's arrested and doesn't know what happened. Why was he arrested?

Matt Loehrer (06:04)
Okay.

I,

there was a bug.

Tug McTighe (06:12)
So, Kiefer

Sutherland as somebody. I figured he was the murderer, but I thought, but I said, I'll wait and see. there's a character named Mr. Hand, but he was not played by Ray Walston, who played Mr. Hand in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, which I think frankly was a miss. could have been a, a, a, a nice nod to Ray Walston late in his career. but, but.

Matt Loehrer (06:16)
Yeah.

Okay.

He was not.

yeah.

Tug McTighe (06:37)
leading me into my what I knew was the case because when I was researching I learned this that it must be good if the studio makes you add some bullshit narration onto it at the end okay so so the studio has done this so many times because they think we're stupid and they think we won't stick with the story and they think we won't work to figure it out here's the problem

Matt Loehrer (06:48)
Okay, so let's talk about, let's address the elephant in the room.

Tug McTighe (07:00)
in a noir like this, in a mystery, in a whodunit. That's the fucking point.

Matt Loehrer (07:06)
it's to figure it out.

Tug McTighe (07:07)
to figure it out

or for them to surprise you with a twist and a turn so you told me specifically please watch the director's cut and you said if you can't find the director's cut borrow my DVD then you said if you don't have a DVD player watch it but skip ahead to three minutes watch the one with the narration so after the fact I watched it I saw the narration and I'm like you watch two minutes of narration there's zero reason to watch the movie

It literally fucking spells the whole movie out. And by the way, spoiler alert for however old this movie is, 35 years or whatever.

Matt Loehrer (07:31)
Yeah. They told you everything.

26 years.

Tug McTighe (07:38)
the in

the in the in the narration it's like He's not really a bad guy it's the aliens named the others that are tuning and retuning the world and shaping reality to study to see if men have a soul and I'm like dude bro studio slow down you you have fucked it all up and it's very frustrating having just watched the movie and Seen how it all played out and liked how it all played out to go. That's what that was those were their notes

Great. So.

Matt Loehrer (08:04)
right? That's

because the studio guys like I don't get it. Nobody's I don't get it. So nobody's gonna get it. Yeah. Well, anybody that knows you and me knows that there's a 1984 movie that we loved that does the same thing. And what movie is that time? Yes. Well, it's Alan. Alan Smith is doomed.

Tug McTighe (08:07)
I don't get it, right? Sorry Sorry monkey, right? You're not even a chimpanzee,

Yes. Yeah, that's Dune. David Lynch's Dune. they, Alan Smithy,

yeah. They actually handed you a, when I went to see it at the Glenwood Theater in 1984, they actually handed you a little pamphlet. A little, a little four pager that had pictures of the planets on it and gave you some terms. But anyway.

Matt Loehrer (08:40)
wow.

Not exactly the same because that was more of a hey, this is really heavy and there's a lot of stuff coming, so we're just gonna. We're just going to tee it up for you and they did that.

Tug McTighe (08:47)
HHHUHUH

That's correct. Not Yeah, they didn't

say right. This isn't

if you've ever seen Dylem for Murder.

They didn't put narration on it at the beginning that says the butler did it. Right? It's the whole anyway. So I'm sure we'll come back to this because it is a frustrating frustrating and I think to what is a really interesting story and a really fun a fun. How's it going to end? Right.

Matt Loehrer (08:56)
I haven't.

Right, that's the whole point. Okay.

For sure. So

let's skip past that. We open on a slow zoom into the city, a very dark, gritty city at night. And we're zooming into a circular window, which I thought was interesting, because you don't see a lot of hotels, but you know it's in a hotel, because there's a hotel sign with one of the lights is out and like flickering on and off. And we come into a room where, what did we find, Tug?

Tug McTighe (09:41)
Well, we find a dude who was awakened in a bathtub, naked. There's blood on his face. His clothes were in a corner. There's a goldfish flopping on the floor. He opens the door, knocks over the... sorry. It is a flopping on the floor. He knocks over the bowl. And then he does a nice thing. He saves the cat. He puts the goldfish in the Showing you he may not be a bad guy.

Matt Loehrer (10:05)
Right.

Tug McTighe (10:05)
Right? But then he wakes, he walks, he opens up the door, he finds keys, a suitcase, some initials on the suitcase, some postcards, all clues to who the fuck he really is. He's... Yeah. Has a... He's already starting to have... We're starting to see that he... Right from the get-go, they're showing you, again, not telling you, something's wrong with his brain. Because he's having flashbacks.

Matt Loehrer (10:15)
Yeah, he sees that show beach postcard and so then we get some kind of.

Having watched Godfather last time, it's interesting to me how much we talked about showing and not telling. And I know you just said that, but there's a ton of exposition in this movie. Like, Trevors whole point is...

Tug McTighe (10:45)
I haven't noted...

Matt Loehrer (10:50)
So it happens right now. The phone rings. He picks it up. It is Dr. Shreiver.

Tug McTighe (10:52)
Yes, and

Dr. Shrever, Kiefer Sutherland calls, and in my notes I wrote, calls and tells him he can help. Exposition here. Kiefer tells him who he is and what had happened. He sees the dead woman in the room. He runs away. Bad guys come out of the elevator. Clerk calls him Mr. Murdock. He leaves. For some inexplicable reason to me, he throws away the entire

Matt Loehrer (11:02)
Right.

Tug McTighe (11:17)
suitcase of clues except for the Shell City postcard. No, Surf's, Shell Beach. And then the clerk comes into the room, because he owes two weeks of rent. The clerk comes into the room, sees the bad guys looking around, the trench coat mafia. And one of them says, sleep now. And the clerk falls asleep. So we know there's

Matt Loehrer (11:20)
Yeah, Shaw Beach.

Mm-hmm.

Tug McTighe (11:40)
We now know there's magic in the world.

Matt Loehrer (11:41)
Yeah, and there's strange looking dudes, they're chalk white skin, they're all dressed the same. They seem to be wearing a woman's coat with like a fur lining and a hat. There's a kid version, there's a really tall guy, there's a regular size guy, you get a lot of variation within but but you can tell they're not normal people. And and they're living outside of this world.

Tug McTighe (11:44)
Yeah, they have really long fingers.

Yeah, there's a kid version.

They're correct.

HHUHUHUHUH

Matt Loehrer (12:06)
So yeah, one just to run it back a little bit. He found

a corpse in his room, a dead woman, freshly dead with a knife, right? Kind of swirling, yeah, kind of spiral cuts on her body. maybe that's why he got rid of his suitcase, but it doesn't matter, because you know that he didn't need it, so that's why he got rid of it, right?

Tug McTighe (12:13)
Yes, ritualistic and some sort of ritualistic cuts on her.

and

he kept the postcard.

To Shell Beach, yes. Right.

Matt Loehrer (12:30)
Yes, and that's important. So Shell Beach, we'll remember that. And

we're also seeing that they're introducing some kind of stylistic effects, like special effects. And I think this was a cool thing in 1998 too. And The Matrix picked up on that and ran with it where we were seeing new things that people can do with special effects. And a lot of the visual effects people that were on this movie were also on The Matrix a year later.

Tug McTighe (12:55)
Yeah,

you start to see this. called, when I talked to you, called it the, the sit in city-ification, where it's, you can tell, now you can tell, and on TV you can tell.

You can tell that there's a lot of digital and green screen stuff, but it works because it's so stylized. So that's why it worked at Synth City too, it was really stylized. So I thought that was really cool looking.

Matt Loehrer (13:18)
Absolutely. And the sleeping is important here, too. Everybody was asleep when Murdoch. Sorry, I told you his name already. But when our guy woke up in the bathtub, everybody else was asleep everywhere in town. And they showed that scene, too, where people are driving in their cars and they stop and everybody kind of passes out. One thing I noticed, the the movie sign, they show people standing in front of the movies and waiting to go in and they all kind of fall asleep. Did you notice what was playing?

Tug McTighe (13:36)
They just, right.

Matt Loehrer (13:47)
The movie was called The Evil Late Show Nightly. And then next to that it said Coming Soon Book of Dreams, so we could probably unpack that if we wanted to. We don't have to. Little for yeah, the evil playing nightly. There's evil every night. It's these guys. OK, so moving on.

Tug McTighe (13:53)
there you go. A little bit of a, yeah. Okay. Okay.

Yep. All right. So

yeah, we cut to Jennifer. First appearance to Jennifer Connelly. She's a nightclub singer. Again, they're laying on the noir tropes pretty thick. She's a torch singer in a nightclub in a very good green dress. She gets handed a card by her friend says, hey, was some guy, your husband's doctor was looking for him. And she's like, who? She hands him a card, and that's where it says Dr. Schreber.

Matt Loehrer (14:12)
Absolutely.

Tug McTighe (14:29)
is keeper Sutherland. We learned that she is Murdoch's wife. Matt mentioned Murdoch. So our guy's name is Murdoch. Here in to be known as cleverly Murdoch. Right. So we learned that Jennifer Connelly is his wife and she but she doesn't know who Shreiber is. So she's dubious. And again like I said this is where we're starting to get pretty Norish. We're getting all the tropes right. And you can start to list them off. She's a femme fatale.

Matt Loehrer (14:41)
He doesn't have that yet, but we know.

Tug McTighe (14:56)
She's a nightclub singer. She probably cheated on him. Maybe she wants to kill him. There's all that stuff that just is instantly brought with this film noir kind of style. Dr. Schreber calls her. She picks him up. She picks up the phone or he calls her or she calls him. Tells him he's had a psychotic break. I've been treating him since your estrangement. You learn they're estranged. Only person who can help is me.

Right? He may be wanted for murder. So he again lays out a lot of story here in a phone call. But now this is what brings her. This is what brings her into the story.

Matt Loehrer (15:34)
she goes to visit Schrieber at his place. And do you remember what he's looking at when she gets there?

Tug McTighe (15:39)
PORN?

Matt Loehrer (15:39)
That's a good guess, but no no he's got mice or rats in a maze Right

Tug McTighe (15:44)
does that's right that's right another

another nod to what may be going on here

Matt Loehrer (15:48)
So they have a conversation. He knows a lot about Murdoch that she doesn't.

Tug McTighe (15:49)
So then, yeah.

Yeah, and she's never

seen him before or had no idea who he is.

Matt Loehrer (15:57)
and she didn't know her husband was seeing a doctor. So this is all news to her, but he definitely wants to find Murda.

Tug McTighe (15:59)
Right, right, right.

that is clear that we need to find him at all costs, They say that a couple times. Everybody sort of says that. So now we meet the cop, Frank Bumstead. These are great names.

Matt Loehrer (16:16)
Well, before that, we have a quick scene with Murdock, knows that his initials are J Murdock. Because the guy called him because Shreiver when he talked to him called him Mr. Murdock. But he doesn't know what the J is. So he's like, hi, I'm Jim Murdock, Jacob Murdock. Johnny Murdock. Yeah. He's he's kind of thinks he's going

Tug McTighe (16:29)
That's okay. That's right. That's right.

He's like, Jack, Jimmy, hey, Jim. Right, right, trying to figure it out, right.

Matt Loehrer (16:41)
now on to Bumstead.

Tug McTighe (16:43)
Yeah So again, William hurt Bumstead. He's the cop He goes to investigate the murder scene. It's sort of a traditional detective show murder scene Where's was new ski that guy went crazy. He was on this case for For for weeks and he went nuts and we don't know where he is and his wife doesn't know where he is and then we learn here That more murders of this manner have been happening

Matt Loehrer (17:04)
Right. And there's is this where the scene is with the shoelace where he notes the guy.

Tug McTighe (17:08)
He tells the

yeah, the young cop. Yeah, your shoelace is untied.

Matt Loehrer (17:11)
Yeah, so I don't

that'll come back later, but he's that kind of guy. He's a no-nonsense by the book have everything buttoned up everything needs to make sense and fit together. So he goes to the hotel where there's a hotel attendant. It's not the same guy.

Tug McTighe (17:15)
Yep.

Correct.

Yeah, so when Murdoch came down and the clerk called him Murdoch right after he woke up and escaped the trench coat guys, the clerk's like, you owe us for two weeks. You better bring it back, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then remember he went up to the room and they said sleep to the clerk. then Bumstead comes same

Matt Loehrer (17:42)
Mm-hmm.

Tug McTighe (17:46)
Clerk office, different clerk, but saying the same things. He left town, he didn't pay, he owed us two weeks. Right. Right.

Matt Loehrer (17:49)
Yeah, he said, told him, on the barrel head. So he used the same turn of phrase.

So you know it's the same guy, but it's not the same.

Tug McTighe (17:57)
So again, there's I'm only thinking of this now. So that's that's sort of the point of dissecting it You start to think some of this is Exposition But it's it's giving you it's giving you all this all this information That you don't understand Why is that guy different? I thought he was What does he mean? Why is it? So there's a lot of that in this which again adds to the layer of I don't know agitation or

Or maybe it adds to the layer of I don't understand this that the fucking, you know, banana-eaten monkey guy at the studio couldn't figure out. You know, so there's just there's lots of information that you're like, I don't get any of this. That's what makes it interesting. Right.

Matt Loehrer (18:38)
Yeah, that's why you're watching it. You're

gonna figure it out, you know. Anyway, so now we're now we have Murdoch at the Auto Mat where he's recognized by the guy at the Auto Mat. And this was a good exchange, I thought. When did I leave it last time you were here? When was that when you left your wallet here? So he doesn't learn anything out of that, except that he's got a wallet and now he knows his name.

Tug McTighe (18:52)
Hey, you left your wallet, dummy!

Right,

so the guy puts it, he goes, right. goes, what is his name, John? Yeah, he goes, John. But no, no, yeah, I'm getting to that. So in the automat is where the guy behind the thing puts the food in the little box that's locked, and you don't get to open it till you pay it. And then this is when we learn he's got some kind of psychic powers. And he does a little.

Matt Loehrer (19:10)
but he used his mental powers. OK, go ahead.

Tug McTighe (19:28)
It looks like Aquaman and the super friends, nyeh nyeh nyeh nyeh nyeh, out from his forehead and it opens the little drawer where his wallet is. He takes his wallet and then he realizes.

Matt Loehrer (19:37)
Which again was kind of a neat visual effect. thought I hadn't seen anything exactly like that before and they used it to good effect here. But. He meets the cops first, so this is our second second movie in a row where we've got corrupt, corrupt jerk cops. Yeah, so they're like hey, where you going buddy and they got a nightstick and he's like. Yeah, kind of like he's just minding his own business. But yes, then he meets you know May who's the we assume the hook.

Tug McTighe (19:39)
Yep. Yep.

Alright, he also meets May.

Does he meet the cop first?

Where you going buddy?

Another prostitute.

Matt Loehrer (20:07)
hooker with a heart of gold, she comes

Tug McTighe (20:08)
Yep.

Matt Loehrer (20:08)
in and saves him from the cops.

and they go off together.

Tug McTighe (20:11)
Right, so then this is when I think we cut back to Bumpthead.

Matt Loehrer (20:19)
we learn that prostitutes are being killed. There's a serial killer and he's killing prostitutes. So we know that. And then they mentioned Wolensky.

Tug McTighe (20:21)
Right.

who was on the case.

Wolensky's office, Bumstead is in there, and Wolensky's office looks like every cliche of the obsessed lunatic drawing pictures of a thing that only he can see.

Matt Loehrer (20:40)
Right, he needs a padded cell. he breaks,

we actually see Wilensky, he breaks into the office and then they drag him.

Tug McTighe (20:45)
Right,

right, right. He seems to be a lunatic at this point.

Matt Loehrer (20:46)
and what he says

yeah but what he says is. Right you know if you if you listen to it- but of course they don't they don't.

Tug McTighe (20:52)
Well, again, they're telling you shit

you don't understand. You don't yet understand what he's saying, but you will. That's exactly right. That's exactly right.

Matt Loehrer (20:57)
Yeah, but an hour from now you're going to be like, that's what that meant. OK,

yes. And then who should walk into the police station? But Emma. Yeah, trying to. She's trying to. To place a missing persons report. For her husband and he's looking for her husband so. Yeah.

Tug McTighe (21:05)
Well who do you think? The wife!

So isn't that great and coincidental?

And again, the classic sort of love triangle, were this another movie, she might have tried to pay that cop to kill her husband. There's a lot of that stuff that they push out on the surface, and you're just so off balance, you don't know what's gonna happen. Which again, I'm gonna keep saying that, is fucking cool.

Matt Loehrer (21:40)
Yeah, yeah, you at this point, if you've never seen this, you probably don't know what's going on. So he lays bumps that lays it out for for Emma, you know, your husband's. She's like, which, know, we think he's possibly, you know, involved in a murder. Of one of these prostitutes, she says, which one? And he's like all of them. She's like, forget it. He's like, no, no, no, no, no, leave. But basically she's saying, you don't know my husband the way I do.

Tug McTighe (21:44)
No.

All of them, yeah.

Matt Loehrer (22:06)
he would never do that. So she takes off.

Tug McTighe (22:11)
Yeah, she

takes off. And then she leaves. Now we know Bumsit is on the case. Right. So then we're back at Mays.

Matt Loehrer (22:15)
Then we're back with, yeah.

Yes.

Tug McTighe (22:20)
She takes off her

clothes, in my mind, for no real reason.

Matt Loehrer (22:22)
Right. Well, I don't know. There's probably reasons.

Tug McTighe (22:24)
Because she just gets into

a robe, right? Then we learn she has a daughter.

Matt Loehrer (22:29)
I think she's trying to entice him. So, you know, she's being sultry and naked. He gets his name, because she says, she says, what's your name? And he looks at his wallet, he says, John.

Tug McTighe (22:31)
Well, I think so too.

Hic!

has this driver

who's trying to drive- John!

Matt Loehrer (22:45)
She says, that's that's appropriate or something like that. And we realized, too, that he knows about the killers, too. He knows about the murders. Because he says, you know, are you worried about doing what you do? You know, with this killer around, so he has this knowledge, too, which I thought was interesting. He doesn't know who he is, but he knows that that's going.

Tug McTighe (22:47)
That's a common name around here, yeah.

Yes.

Aren't you worried? Right.

there's some again

there's something yeah there's something in there

Alright so Murdoch flees, right there everybody's after him.

Matt Loehrer (23:12)
Right, she's disappointed because he heads out the door. She thinks she's going to make some money and she does not. He takes off. He's out in the street. He sees the Shell Beach billboard.

Tug McTighe (23:15)
Right, right.

Right, and it's like there's a waving arm that I said that there's been a couple instances of clocks here, Matt, so far. And I thought that even the arm kind of looked like a clock to me. Yeah, so then he does the the shell beach billboard. He holds the postcard up. Yeah, he decides to climb to the top of the shell beach billboard.

Matt Loehrer (23:30)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah, a hand on a clock. No, that makes a lot of sense.

And then he decides to climb up there, I guess.

Tug McTighe (23:49)
It gets really good. We have a fight between Murdoch and the trench coat mafia. The same guys that were in his hotel room

They're now on the billboard, like high up in the sky on this narrow platform.

They try to make him sleep and it doesn't work. They're surprised. Right. So then they all pull out these really wicked knives.

Matt Loehrer (24:04)
Yeah, they were surprised. they, you pull out a knife instead.

Tug McTighe (24:10)
We'll do this the old-fashioned way But then he uses the second instance of him using his powers there's a dodgy board on the on the platform and he uses his powers and the guy it breaks and the the Lead the lead guy that was attacking him falls down And he and one of them falls and falls away and the other falls and he gets caught in these ropes Kind like he's being hung underneath but then

Matt Loehrer (24:10)
Yeah. Right.

Tug McTighe (24:36)
The first one that fell rises up from behind so he can fly. Right? And tries to... Yeah. Yeah. They're just standing up like floating. Yeah. So then he rises up and then one of the... And this part was fucking great because this is like a huge plot point. What they're kind of grappling and that huge arm comes down and...

Matt Loehrer (24:39)
Yep. And it's kind of cool to see them when they fly. They're just standing up flying through. They don't fly like Superman.

Tug McTighe (24:59)
bash is in his head

Matt Loehrer (25:01)
Yeah, cuts off the backside of his skull.

Tug McTighe (25:02)
Yeah, and

blood flies everywhere. And then he falls down and he's bleeding out. And a strange creature crawls out of his head, and then they both die. So Matt, I want to hear your thoughts on this strange thing coming out of the head.

Matt Loehrer (25:15)
So yeah, that was kind of cool in that you get, there's more to these guys than they're just aliens with superpowers, right? or whatever they are. Like his head comes, his head gets sliced

Tug McTighe (25:24)
whatever they are.

Matt Loehrer (25:27)
and yeah, this black blood comes out and this creature that's kind of like a jellyfish. It's.

Tug McTighe (25:32)
Yeah, like it

has let it looks like a scorpion kind of or something. That's a tail But it's it seemed to be translucent maybe Yeah

Matt Loehrer (25:35)
It's like a scorpion crossed with a jellyfish.

Absolutely.

again, it felt kind of like something you'd see. mean, it was it was new visual effects. It felt like a new kind of special effect that I hadn't seen many times before. It was pretty cool. So you're like, this thing's this is what it was. Is it just a human body they're controlling or what is it? But you know, something's going on. So they're not excited about that. The guy's dead. The creature dies when it's exposed to the air.

Tug McTighe (25:51)
Yeah, it was cool.

Right.

Matt Loehrer (26:10)
And then now, yes, he escapes, he gets away. So the next scene, we're down in the bowels of the city, we believe.

Tug McTighe (26:11)
He escapes.

Yeah, OK, so this

was the part that I had to rewind it because it sort of does, again, sort of like Sin City, it does this fast pan, not even a pan, but like you're in an elevator going down and it goes down, down, down, down, down, down, down. And we're transported into this underground cavern where there's hundreds of these trench coat guys and this machinery.

Matt Loehrer (26:38)
Yeah, tons of them.

Tug McTighe (26:40)
There's machinery down there. And they all have names like Mr. Hand or Mr. Block and then Mr. Book. then there, and then, OK, I'm beating a dead horse here, but it's important. Now we get another pile of information that doesn't make any sense.

Matt Loehrer (26:45)
Mr. Book, Mr.

Tug McTighe (26:57)
little bit like throwing 100 puzzle pieces on the ground.

You jump out the puzzle and you're like well I can see that it's there's a there's a lot there But it doesn't make any sense. So he's they say They they talk about how the procedure doesn't always take They talk about how Murdoch has powers They they're like bulk. No way. They're not advanced enough

Matt Loehrer (27:17)
Yeah. So that's the

first time we hear about tuning. They say he can tune.

Tug McTighe (27:21)
Yeah,

yeah he can tune and they're no no They also say dr. Schreber hasn't called in so he's working for them or Has some kind of connection to them? And then the leader set second instance up we've got to find this guy he says at all costs we have to find this guy

Matt Loehrer (27:38)
Right.

So I think we do learn some things. They give it to you in little pieces and they're like clues. you know, so after this scene, you know that there is a leader, right? Mr. think it's Mr. Right. And that there's a society and it's right. And it's a common purpose. Like they're all in it together and they all want the same thing.

Tug McTighe (27:50)
You know, yes, you know there's some sort of a group of society,

They have some purpose.

Yes, yes.

Matt Loehrer (28:05)
And I don't think it's a democracy. think it's just, whatever you would call it. They all want the same thing. Two, when we talk about machines, they're really weird machines. And I felt like, even though I've never seen the movie, Metropolis, Fritz Lang's Metropolis, that face, so there's a face that has a clock inside it. And that's what the machine looks like.

Tug McTighe (28:07)
Right.

Sure.

Yeah, that

opens up. It looks like the robot Maria. Right. And it's kind of steampunky in a way, and it's just metallic and old and yeah.

Matt Loehrer (28:32)
Yeah, it opens up from the middle. I thought that was.

Okay, so I'd like to talk about that too, because, and I'll make this quick, we, I can take as long as I want, I guess. When we talk about this as sci-fi, and you and I have had this conversation before, there's not a lot of science in this. It's sort of chemistry, but it's really magic, and it's not.

Tug McTighe (28:53)
No, no, no.

It's ma- it's it's more- it's

more fantasy, really. It's magic.

Matt Loehrer (29:03)
I mean, it's syringes. It's not, you know, it's not high. Even the machines that we talked about are like magic machines. There's no, you couldn't like, you don't see circuit boards and things like that. Right. I don't think it matters.

Tug McTighe (29:05)
Sure.

No, they're not computers. Like when you want, yeah,

it doesn't matter. again, that's sort of the part of dissecting this kind of tropey genre stuff is going like Star Trek, Star is sci-fi because it's sci-fi. Star Wars is fantasy. Right? Because the force is, and you just fly anywhere you want. Right? You just get in a car and drive to another planet.

Matt Loehrer (29:28)
For sure. The Force is magic.

Tug McTighe (29:39)
Right in Star Wars or Star Trek is like we've got to get another day lithium crystal. We can't go that faster We'll burn up and ba ba ba ba there's all these reasons right but here it's just like yeah, it's It's again. It's that sort of I think Metropolis is a great great great call. It's this sort of old looking weird looking machines, but Clearly these guys have mind powers. So maybe the whole thing is powered by their minds. It's just hard to know

Matt Loehrer (30:00)
Yeah, absolutely. Right. So and again, it's, you know, because it's noir, because you feel like it's the 1940s and everything in it is specific to that. They've got these syringes, but they're very kind of old timey looking engraved. Yeah, it doesn't look like modern scientific stuff. And I think it works. I mean, I think it works for that. So

Tug McTighe (30:12)
yeah, I think, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Matt Loehrer (30:20)
So now we're back to Emma in Bumstead. He drops her off at her apartment.

and they were talking about, more about Murdoch, is he the murderer, is he not?

Tug McTighe (30:30)
Right,

right. So she gets upstairs. Who's there, Matt? Murdoch, he's waiting for her. He comes clean. can't remember anything. She makes him remember Schreiber. She mentions Schreiber. He's starting to get some, yeah, Schreiber. Who's this guy? She admits she had an affair. They were estranged. He left three weeks, two weeks ago and never came back home. He says, I think I'm losing my shit.

Matt Loehrer (30:33)
Murdoch!

Tug McTighe (30:55)
But I didn't murder anybody. She says she believes him.

Matt Loehrer (30:58)
must remember her and remember what she did. Right? Okay. So that part he remembers.

Tug McTighe (31:01)
He does, he does. It's all starting to, yeah.

She says she believes him, he's not the killer. He's like, you're setting me up, this is bullshit. And then Bumstead, of course, Bumstead tries to arrest him.

Matt Loehrer (31:13)
yeah, because the car was still outside. He's like, what's the car doing there?

Tug McTighe (31:14)
That's correct. He watched. Right,

right. So then she helps him escape. And then there's a stairwell chase, which is a classic up and down the

Matt Loehrer (31:18)
Yeah.

Tug McTighe (31:22)
he jumps down, Murdoch jumps down, Bumstead jumps down, up and down the thing. and then now we heard about tuning a minute ago. He comes with this dead end and he zaps the wall and a door appears.

He alters reality, which is what I said in my notes. And then the door closes, bumps, they can't get through. But.

Matt Loehrer (31:41)
Well,

door closed, the door disappears after he goes through it. So he's like, there is a door there. I don't know how I missed that the first time. But this is probably the third time he's done

Tug McTighe (31:44)
Yeah, yeah, I can't get it right, right. It's gone. There wasn't right again matrix II so that

Matt Loehrer (31:52)
But he's still doing it unconsciously. It's instinctive, right? It's a reflex. So he doesn't, I don't even think he knows what he's doing or that he's doing anything. I don't think he's, he's having a rough day. So he's not even questioned.

Tug McTighe (31:56)
Correct, correct.

Yeah. All right. let's, before we move any further, let's take a little break and read an ad for our sponsor, Little Bear Graphics.

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All right, we're back. So Murdoch's made this door with his brain powers.

He's escaped through it. The door disappears, leaving Bumstead chasing shadows. But one thing happens that no one was expecting. Murdock drops Dr. Schreber's business card on the floor so Bumstead can find it.

Matt Loehrer (33:03)
He asked the cab driver how to get to show beach.

Tug McTighe (33:06)
Yeah, yeah, he jumps in

a cab and he says, how do you get to Shell Beach? And this is another something weird happens that we don't know why it's happening, but we're putting it in our little detective's notebook. The cab driver's like, yeah, man, you just drive straight down Maine to take a left on, no, wait a minute. I think you got to go over on Euclid to, hold on. And he's like, well, can you remember now? He's like, give me a second. So the cab driver can't remember how to get to Shell Beach, which Murdoch thinks is weird.

Matt Loehrer (33:25)
Yeah, is it the Crosstown?

Tug McTighe (33:35)
The cab driver can't believe and we think is weird too.

So then the, okay, I wrote this on my notes, right? The cab driver can't remember how to get to Shell Beach. I think they can affect reality somehow, the trench coat guys, right? So then Bumstead visits the doc, they don't like each other. Bumstead leaves as Murdoch arrives at the doctor's office. He follows the

Matt Loehrer (33:46)
You

Tug McTighe (33:55)
Here in the hot tub room, the bath house, we get a shit ton of exposition about the trench coaters are aliens, they don't like earth's moisture, Schreiber works for them doing something to people, whatever they were doing to Murdock didn't work. It was not the first time they did it to him, it doesn't seem like, but now it's different because he's growing powers he can tune. And then trench coat says something about

We were talking about this off the air. Speak to this a little bit, Matt. He says something about, we need another Murdoch.

Matt Loehrer (34:28)
We need another template. So prepare another template. So whatever these syringes that they're putting in people, they want another one like the last one they put in. They want to duplicate the one they put into Murdoch.

Tug McTighe (34:36)
Okay, okay, okay,

okay. So then trench coat guy leaves. We cut to Bumstead. He visits Lewanski in prison or in jail. This guy's right out of his mind. But again, he's got drawings. And now you're realizing the drawings that he's making and making and making look like those swirls on the murder victims. So he's seen this. Something is going on with him.

Matt Loehrer (34:56)
Right.

He

had a great line too. He's like, is this about the case? William Hurt says. And he says, there is no case. There never was. That's one of my favorite lines from the thing. It's like, what does that mean?

Tug McTighe (35:09)
Right, right, because

he's on top of, he realizes there's some bigger conspiracy here. Lewandowski does. And it turns out he's been chasing them for a while. He's been chasing this case for a while.

Matt Loehrer (35:16)
Exactly. He knows what's going on.

Tug McTighe (35:24)
doctor, come back after his bathhouse, he's hanging around.

walking, he's looking at his watch, he's walking to a place and a door appears. And he goes through the tuned door. We're now calling it the tuned door, And now he's back to the place we talked about earlier with the machinery where the aliens do their work with memories and artifacts from these people's lives. Okay, so this is important. So Matt, talk to me a little bit about your perception of they have these artifacts from people's lives.

Matt Loehrer (35:36)
Mm-hmm.

Tug McTighe (35:54)
They've got these boxes of stuff. So just talk a little bit about that.

Matt Loehrer (35:58)
Right, right. So they're creating stories. They are taking memories in chemicals and mixing them together to create new stories that they inject into people.

Tug McTighe (36:09)
into other people.

Matt Loehrer (36:10)
He felt

into other they they switch him around and

Tug McTighe (36:13)
They're taking stuff

from you and stuff from me and then sticking it into somebody else.

Matt Loehrer (36:16)
or just making it up from scratch, regardless, what they put into you is who you are. So when they talk about a template for Murdoch, that's what the Murdoch template was. It's his, the sum of memories and lifetime memories they created for him that they injected into his brain. Is it real? No. I would say maybe, but I'm guessing, like it could have come from somewhere or he could just be making it up out of whole cloth. I don't know. But he does.

Tug McTighe (36:18)
Right.

Right,

when I saw this, I'm like, this is a little bit like Total Recall.

Matt Loehrer (36:47)
Right, but Schreiber does give us the purpose that they're looking for the human soul.

Tug McTighe (36:52)
I wrote, they're changing people's lives and experiences, retuning them, if you will.

Matt Loehrer (36:57)
Yeah, so we see, so they're like, now it's time to get back to it. The face machine opens in the middle and we see the clock inside and this is the machine that controls the city. So yes, we see this.

Tug McTighe (37:08)
But this

is when it strikes midnight, everybody goes to sleep.

Matt Loehrer (37:10)
Everybody goes sleep and that's when they do their job. They transform the citizens. Murdoch's awake walking through it. So he...

Tug McTighe (37:12)
They shoot. He's the only one awake. He

can see this happening. And also you see the buildings reshaping and the roads going a different direction and something being built where it wasn't before. now you know why the cab driver couldn't figure out how to get to Shell Beach.

Matt Loehrer (37:30)
So we see Shreiver kind of like Santa Claus going house to house and implanting memories into the husband and wife. So there's a cool scene where there's kind of a shoddy beat down apartment and a husband, you know, dressed, you know, working man, kind of poorly dressed, shabby, shabby clothes.

Tug McTighe (37:34)
Yeah, right. Right.

Matt Loehrer (37:50)
is telling his wife about how, you know, he hates his boss and you know, he treats him like a dog and then they fall asleep and the visual effects are really cool. It's kind of a transformation. So you'll see the the apartment get bigger and you'll see a chandelier grow out of the ceiling and their tiny table gets really long.

Tug McTighe (37:59)
get retuned.

What turns, The walls move

and it goes back and it turns into a big opening foyer with marble and stuff. Really cool.

Matt Loehrer (38:16)
Yeah, it's very cool.

put new new so they put really nice clothes on him and they there's Shrevers going room to room and they've got two kids so he injects them in their forehead with a syringe and I'm like does he have to do this everywhere?

Tug McTighe (38:29)
Right, which then you go, that's why he had

that drip of blood on his forehead in the very first scene.

Matt Loehrer (38:34)
Right, so so again you're piecing it together. You're getting some clues. So then afterward now it's they awake and the tunings over and the family. The guy and his wife continue the conversation, but it's a different conversation. He says, well, I told Johnson I had to let him go and she said it's good that you did. He seems like a deadbeat, so it's almost like he's traded places with. Like he's now the boss.

Tug McTighe (38:50)
Correct.

Right.

that he was mad at before. Right, right.

Matt Loehrer (39:04)
of the guy he was before, that he was mad at before.

that just shows you how they transformed the city, how they move memories around from people to people, how they kind of create these artificial scenarios.

Tug McTighe (39:15)
Yep. So Murdoch confronts the Doc, because they're the only two awake.

And then John he's trying to escape John Murdoch mind blasts him gives him a mind blast and The doc is like you have the power to stop them He says you can help I I can help you. I'm the doctor. I can help you learn to use the power and Then the then that then the clock starts again the tuners Start start the clock again Everybody wakes up Murdoch runs and that they tell the doc. Hey, there's a lot of work we got to do

Matt Loehrer (39:26)
Mm-hmm.

Right, so he, I think this is the first time he realized, Mr. Hand had told him that he can tune, but I don't think he really believed it until he saw it in action. no, no, you didn't get anything wrong. I just think this is the moment where he realizes.

Tug McTighe (39:52)
my fault, yes. No, no, because, but

it is important to say when they were down in the basement the first time, Mr. Han's like, he can tune and the boss is like, no fucking way he can tune. And now, now they're like, he can tune.

Matt Loehrer (40:04)
Yeah, I know what mean.

Right.

Right.

Tug McTighe (40:12)
Alright so Emma does another number, no sorry Bumstead who was in his office sleeping because everybody sleeps he wakes up and he's looking at the fingerprints looking at the swirls and he's making some kind of a connection he's very protective of this accordion that's we see that for the first time we don't know what it

okay, so So Emma does another number at the club bump said watches We cut to the yeah goat we cut to the tuners playing their next experiment. They're unable to do the next They can't do it the next night. Like you said the machine the machinery is something's wrong with the machinery Murdoch Murdoch has become too powerful his he's his discord has messed up their whole

their whole system. So Mr. Hand says, let me imprint me with Murdoch's memories so I'll know who he is and what he wants and how to find him. So they put him in a weird, like a torture rack, spin him around, stab him in the thing with Murdoch's memories. We see all these flashes.

Matt Loehrer (41:03)
and how to find it. Right.

Tug McTighe (41:15)
We've seen some of before of what Murdoch has been through And then in those in those memories we see Murdoch is murdering prostitutes

Matt Loehrer (41:25)
Yeah, he actually was the prostitute murderer. How about that?

Tug McTighe (41:27)
But then we see

his face turns into Mr. Hand's face, right? So he remembers the name, Carl Harris. Carl Harris was the suitcase with KH that he threw into the river. OK? So then they go to May, poor May, who just wanted to be nice. They go to May looking for John. Mr. Hand comes toward her. He pulls out the knife.

Matt Loehrer (41:31)
Right, absolutely.

That's right. Uncle Carl.

Tug McTighe (41:51)
You know it's not gonna be great.

Matt Loehrer (41:52)
That's the end of me.

Murdoch's on the subway trying to get to Shell Beach, but all he has to take the Express. And it goes right by. It doesn't stop and he says, how do I get on that? And they're like, you can't get on that. That's the Express. So then he sees Walensky and Walensky doesn't know Walensky, but Walensky recognizes him. We get a lot of exposition out of Lewinsky. He says, you know.

Tug McTighe (41:55)
Mm.

Right.

He tells us the tuners

are switching. told us what we've told you already. The tuners are switching people's memories. They're experimenting. Sometimes one of them wakes up in the middle of it and they have to get rid of them because they're fucking up their deals. And then then I found a way out. He jumps in front of the train.

Matt Loehrer (42:31)
He says it's okay, because I found a way out.

Yeah, so suicide is his way out,

so Mr. Hand, the main stranger, goes to Emma, meets her at the pier, basically says, I met my wife here and is retelling how the memory... Yeah, he's got his memory. Yeah, she doesn't seem to notice that he's a big weirdo.

Tug McTighe (42:48)
And she says, I met my husband here because he's playing her. Right.

he's got freaky weird

long fingers and he's all white yeah she's like i don't care that's normal right right right

Matt Loehrer (43:02)
He's wearing a woman's

Murdoch, on the other hand, is on his way to the Neptune Park.

Tug McTighe (43:10)
That's right, because he remembered Carl Harris. Okay. So he goes to this Neptune park and, and he meets uncle Carl who takes him in. And now we're getting some intercutting here. then Emma starts to retrace Sean steps. finds May murdered in the same ritualistic way the others were killed. We learned that Mr. Hand was the murderer. We see that in a flashback. John goes to Neptune museum.

Matt Loehrer (43:20)
of the car.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Tug McTighe (43:36)
She gets caught by Bumpstead who has been following Emma. Emma gets caught by Bumpstead. John meets Uncle Carl who shows him the slideshow of his life at Shell Beach, right? Including the fire that his parents died in. And again, nobody can remember. He says to Uncle Carl, how do you get there? Can you remember how to?

Matt Loehrer (43:44)
including the fire that his parents died in.

No, he said, when did that

happen? He's like, Johnny, who can remember? Or maybe he did ask how to get there.

Tug McTighe (43:56)
Right. And

he's like, I don't know. It's, know, what does it matter? But nobody could remember how to get shell beach.

Matt Loehrer (44:02)
Yeah.

Yeah, that was the, his line was the old cracker barrel ain't what it used to be.

Tug McTighe (44:07)
That's right. So the all is lost moment, right? Is

Johnny he was calling him Johnny Johnny Murdoch learns that his parents died in a house fire He sees that he has a bad scar From the fire in an old photo, but he doesn't have one in real life And he's like what the fuck? He's learning that his memories are not his own and that his life his life indeed is not his own

Matt Loehrer (44:12)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, but it's all lies. right.

Tug McTighe (44:33)
Right? So

then we go back to the murder scene. May's daughter is under the bed. She's drawing a picture and she has drawn the strangers as the murderers.

so now the bad guys are closing in right Carl calls Emma. Hey, I got him. Call uncle Carl. He came she's like i'm on my way Bum said heads over to see him. Mr. Hand follows the clock strikes midnight. Everybody sleeps The other tuners all show up as the dark city begins to change itself again

Matt Loehrer (44:47)
Right.

Yep, sleepy time again.

We have a chase scene Murdoch getting chased by the redness.

Tug McTighe (45:03)
Murdoch, yeah, Murdoch tries to run. Mr.

Hand appears, they fight on the rooftop. Mr. Hand comes clean about who they are and what they want to do.

Murdoch's about to be captured but Emma and Bumstead the cop save him But now he's arrested Where you're like, yay, they saved him cut to why am I in cuffs? right

Matt Loehrer (45:19)
Right.

Hey, worth

noting in the last scene, the rooftops they were chasing over were the same ones that Trinity ran across in at the opening of the major. It was the exact exact same set. So now we have an interrogation. Bumstead. So he's asking. So he's interrogating Bumstead as much as Bumstead interrogating him.

Tug McTighe (45:30)
There you go. course. Why not?

Right. So, yeah.

That's exactly right.

How do you get to shell beach? Tell me. He doesn't know, right?

Matt Loehrer (45:45)
Right.

When is the last time you remember doing something during the day?

Tug McTighe (45:48)
Yeah, Murdoch, this is really important. Murdoch says, it's never day here. When's the last time you can remember anything happening in the daytime? The night never ends. So we now know they're in some kind of a zoo. We thought it, but now we know it, right?

Matt Loehrer (46:00)
And also, how do you explain this? And he's like levitating the book that's full of that was blank with pictures. It had no pictures. That's not full of his memories. And then he uses his mental powers to levitate it and spin it around. So Bumstead flipping his lid.

Tug McTighe (46:06)
that's now full of dismembered- right, right.

That's right.

Right, so then.

He's in jail Emma's on the other side of the glass in the

the classic prison telephone billy scene From night from not from midnight express right another phone

Matt Loehrer (46:26)
Right. Another phone.

Tug McTighe (46:31)
We learned that the affair wasn't really her memory it was someone else's memory and that their memories are somebody else's they're all just a part of the experiment She had the feeling too that something wasn't quite right. You know that sort of they profess their love for each other

He uses his powers to break the glass they kiss Then the cop comes in and tells bum said that Wilensky committed suicide and he says hey the chief wants to see you

Matt Loehrer (46:52)
and also, Bumstead shoelaces untied.

Tug McTighe (46:57)
Bumstead shoelaces untied. Maybe he's that guy now. Right, right. So now, of course, Bumstead's like, I got to go see the chief. Who's at the police station? The tuner, the strangers. They get to the chief first. Bumstead, yeah, they get to the chief. Bumstead is now Fried Murdoch. And then Mr. Hand kills the chief.

Matt Loehrer (46:58)
So there's a little character development. Right.

The strangers are at the police station.

Tug McTighe (47:18)
So now we're really, really popping here. Murdoch goes to bath house. The doctor is there.

Matt Loehrer (47:26)
Yeah, we get a ton

of exposition out of Schrieber here, which is not unexpected.

Tug McTighe (47:28)
Yeah,

Schreber tells him all about the experiment. I can fix it. I have everything. I have all the answers you need. He pulls a gun on himself and says, inject yourself with this syringe. It'll give you all the answers. Bumstead stops Doc from using it. They all decide to go to Shell Beach together.

Matt Loehrer (47:44)
right well i don't think i don't think shrever wants to go at all but he doesn't have a choice yeah and it's a slog

Tug McTighe (47:47)
I think he wants to go but they decide he's gonna go with them. Now the tuners,

okay, what's that?

Matt Loehrer (47:53)
It's a slog to get to, it's not an easy way to get to Shelby.

Tug McTighe (47:55)
It's not an easy way

to get to shell beach. So now The tuners have emma They call her anna, please note Mr. Hand is there so now as as we get to the finale act three here murdoch schrieber and bumstead head to shell beach Schrieber tells the whole story how they kidnapped all the citizens of dark city The strangers they're performing mine experiments on them. They brought everyone to dark city, but nobody remembers where they came from

where they were or where they might have been, not even him. But they realized he.

Matt Loehrer (48:22)
And he gets some

sympathy. We get some sympathy for Schrieber here, I think.

Tug McTighe (48:24)
We do they realize that he could

help them and they just kept him awake Throughout all this sort again sort of matrix II where he's the one that's awake and everybody else is sleeping

Matt Loehrer (48:34)
but

also that they forced him to delete everything about himself other than his technical skills, science skills. Right.

Tug McTighe (48:39)
That's right. That's right. That's right. So he doesn't even know who he is at all, right?

So now it gets weird if it hasn't been weird enough. They get to Shell City, but it's a dead end brick wall with a billboard on it. Everybody arrives here. This is the confrontation. They have a fight. Mr. Hand threatens Emma. Bumstead's fighting a stranger. Bumstead and Murdock are hitting at.

Because behind the billboards a brick wall there. They're hitting the brick wall that sledgehammers that apparently Conveniently placed sledgehammers another good name for a band They break through the wall and it's outer space Okay, so So Bumson and a stranger are fighting and they they both float away into space Which and then you see that it looks a little bit like a disc world

Matt Loehrer (49:07)
Conveniently placed sledgehammers, yep.

Yes, it's the vacuum of space.

Tug McTighe (49:26)
Because it's a city in space, right? OK.

Matt Loehrer (49:26)
Yes. So you see that it's just a city in space. It's got. Yep, that's it's not

a planet. It's not Earth. It's nothing. It's just a city. And at this point. You know Mr Hand is threatening

and Murdoch says, why should I care? She's not my wife. I don't even know her. And he says, but you do care. And he says, yeah, don't do it. I'll give in. So he, he goes to sleep. He lets him put him to sleep.

Tug McTighe (49:55)
I'll help you. Right.

Right. So then they take him all the way downstairs again to the basement.

Matt Loehrer (50:01)
Yeah, and a fun

little ride like a, like a amusement park ride.

Tug McTighe (50:04)
like an amusement park ride. And they're testing him, and they confirm he's evolved, he can tune. And they're all like, kill him, kill him. He's a danger. He's a danger to us. the leader thinks that he, as an evolved person, can take the experiment the rest of the way. So he's the key. This is when we learn that they're sort of a hive mind. Well, there's no such thing as a sort of a hive mind. They're a hive mind.

Matt Loehrer (50:23)
Yeah, he's the key.

Tug McTighe (50:30)
So they want to become one with John Murdoch. want to shut down the experiment. They want Schrieber to imprint Murdoch with the Hiveminds collective memories.

And he's about to do it. But what does he do, Matt? The old switcheroo. He pulls the syringe out of his jacket that he said this is the one that has the answers. And he puts it into his head. And now it has all the memories that he needs to learn how to beat the strangers. The doc implanted them there so that he could destroy this once and for all. Now what is in those memories?

Matt Loehrer (50:43)
sorry.

instructions. He teaches him basically, he's been teaching him his whole life via his memories from childhood. He, the doctor.

Tug McTighe (51:07)
He the doctor, because the doctor is

in the memories as his teacher.

Matt Loehrer (51:12)
And he's everybody. He's the mailman. He's the firefighter that saved his parents. He's a teacher at school. He works at Uncle Carl's movie theater. So it was really cool. he's, whereas in the real life, know, the real world, he's kind of gimpy. He walks with a limp and he's got that halting manner of speech. He's really cool when he's in someone else's memory. So that was pretty neat.

Tug McTighe (51:14)
That's right. That's right. Right. Right.

That's right.

Here's a bad yeah.

Right, right, right.

Matt Loehrer (51:40)
And this again reminds me of the Matrix. mean you think about about

Tug McTighe (51:43)
100 % you're getting uploaded them your

skills and powers and memories are getting uploaded to you

Matt Loehrer (51:50)
Right, so I have to wonder how much of this the Wachowskis watched and thought, hey, we had to use that. Hard to know. now there's a big, he wakes up, they sense something's wrong, the strangers, but he wakes up and uses his mental powers to just make the constraints just melt off of him. So he steps off. Yeah.

Tug McTighe (51:56)
It's hard to know.

So now there's big fight.

The strangers,

Right, again, like Neo.

Matt Loehrer (52:18)
It was really cool.

Tug McTighe (52:19)
Right, right, so then Murdock starts to fight. They start to fight, and everybody's running around, and the machinery's breaking, and he's fighting with the leader. I'm going to call him the boss stranger. There's a big fight. They're flying. Again, like the standing up flying, like this. They're fighting. And Murdock.

Matt Loehrer (52:34)
Mm-hmm. They just kind of levitate up into the air.

Tug McTighe (52:41)
The walls break and they're now in Dark City and he throws the boss stranger through a water tower.

Matt Loehrer (52:48)
No, he threw a knife. The boss stranger threw a knife at Murdock, and Murdock stops it telekinetically and turns it around and stabs the guy in the chest, and he's flipping around backwards, head over heels, and then Murdock makes a water tower, because they hate water, come up through the air, and he crashes into it and explodes, and the creepy jellyfish scorpion comes out of his head.

Tug McTighe (53:00)
That's right.

thing comes out right

right but and you but you remember but this is all like again a little bit like Neo this is the culmination of he has these powers he makes the water tower appear he makes the knife turn right

Matt Loehrer (53:16)
and dies and that's the end of the fight.

Yes, he warned, yeah.

Yeah, he's controlling the machines now. He wants to know where... I'm sorry.

Tug McTighe (53:31)
Right, doctor

is still alive. John has the power. He can control their machines. He can do anything. OK? So what does he do?

Matt Loehrer (53:41)
Exactly. But he wants

to find, he wants to well he wants to find Anna or Emma and Shreiver says Anna doesn't exist anymore. Emma doesn't exist anymore. She's Anna now. So Murdock says he's going to fix things. He's basically a god in this place.

Tug McTighe (53:46)
That's Emma Anna, yeah.

So what does he do? That's right.

So he retunes Dark City into what I called Shell Beach Part 2 Electric Boogaloo. But he also rebuilds everything. He rebuilds the city that was destroyed. He wants to turn it into something beautiful. Emma, who is now Anna, gets on the bus, and she wants to go to Shell Beach. And you see the thing on the front that Shell Beach. So Mr. Hand comes.

Matt Loehrer (54:06)
He repairs?

Mm-hmm.

Tug McTighe (54:25)
to John. He's still alive. says, but I'm because I imprinted your memories on me. I'm infected with you. I'm dying. And he says, we were doing is looking for your soul, looking for souls. And he says, you were always looking in the wrong place. And he points to his head and not his heart. So yeah, it was good. Right. Right. Right. Right. So then the final image.

Matt Loehrer (54:38)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, that was good. You wanted to know what made it human. You're not going to find it here. And he points to his head. You were looking in the wrong place. So that's pretty cool.

Tug McTighe (54:51)
of the film is

dark city becoming shell beach. He puts an ocean around it, brings the water in. He turns it turns the city to face the sun and the sun comes up. This is when you really see that looks like Discworld. And then he steps out into the sun at the end of the pier and sees Anna standing there. And she says, he says, Hey, do you know where shell beach is?

Matt Loehrer (54:58)
turns the city to face the sun.

Tug McTighe (55:12)
And she points up that way and she says, hey, I'll go there with you. And they reintroduce themselves to each other and walk into their new life together.

Matt Loehrer (55:21)
Right. She says, my name's Anna and he says, my name is John John Murdoch. that's, know, Fade to Black. That's the end. So he kind of is claiming that name, I guess. I think it's kind of I know who I am, or this is me.

Tug McTighe (55:32)
Sure.

Well, well

it again whoever he was Doesn't matter now He's because he was John Murdoch at the beginning of this he's John Murdoch at the end. He made his own Right. He made his own life here. What you're gonna think is another probably theme of this like you can do whatever you want

no matter what, know, no matter what, you think you were or who you think you are.

Matt Loehrer (55:48)
Yeah.

Well,

yeah, that was kind of are we more than the sum of our memories? And I don't I still don't know what the answer is. I thought it was a great movie. What did you think of it?

Tug McTighe (55:55)
That's correct.

Yeah, here's what I'll tell you.

It's impossible 20 odd years on to see a movie like this. And you're like, well, this is just like The Matrix. Except you're like, this predates The Matrix. And so they were working on this for probably five years. And The Matrix is working on it for probably five. So there had to have been some overlap. Because there's too much that happened in this that is Matrix-esque for it not to be imprinting.

Matt Loehrer (56:22)
Mm-hmm.

Tug McTighe (56:26)
imprinted on that movie, but what I'll tell you is great sci-fi fantasy noir thriller Really glad I saw it weirdo really cool weirdo bad guys like really unique Goal like it's not we need your planet's resources Or we need your we need your Your bodies to power our engines it is we don't

Matt Loehrer (56:36)
Yeah.

Well, that's a good point.

didn't, they didn't really get too involved. Like they didn't get more involved than they needed to be in the details of it. Like I don't need to know exactly why you need this. Just kind of tell me what you need.

Tug McTighe (56:58)
No, and

again, it was... We talk about this a lot when we talk about Marvel. Sometimes you just want Ant-Man because it's just a heist. The stakes are low. It's kind of fun. So the stakes are low. I'm making up a number. Let's say there's a million people in the city. I don't think there's a million. There's probably a hundred, maybe a thousand, right? It's a small thing. These aliens are...

Matt Loehrer (57:07)
Yeah.

Yeah, I'm just going to say a couple thousand probably.

Tug McTighe (57:22)
Doing this experiment not on the whole not on 8 billion people on 200 people For whatever reason we don't know nor do I care? That's not the point is for me to know why they're doing it and Then you had a nice mystery again I Kept saying they're giving you this information that seems meaningless. None of it was meaningless It all told you something and you you get to you get to see

kick-ass, weirdo effects and weirdo ideas all brought to life in a really cool way. And yeah, I'm glad I saw it. I think it's a weirdo sci-fi fantasy mystery. Like you said it last time, you're like, if you put all that in a blender and puked it out, welcome to Dark City. And that's what I think is cool about it is it's the same but different, which is, think,

Matt Loehrer (58:10)
Right? Yeah.

Tug McTighe (58:19)
Four guys that consume as much sci-fi and fantasy as we do, right? It's a lot of the same. But it's the world building. And how does the world work? And what are the rules of the world? Hey, I do think that's a great point to think. This movie did a good job of sort of setting up the rules. And it never broke its own rules, which I think is important. Because you'll be in middle of a movie going, wait a minute. They never told us he could do that. But they give you the rules. And they tell you what happens. And then they stick to it. I thought that was.

Matt Loehrer (58:35)
Agreed. 100%.

Right.

Yeah, there's a progression and it feels like a natural progression. Where he kind of goes from not knowing what's going on to figuring out what's going on. I think if I had one complaint. And I I don't really, because every movie is different. Every time you saw Shreiver, especially when he interacted with Murdoch, he just dumped a bunch of stuff on him like here's what's going on. A little less of that would have been great. I feel like.

Tug McTighe (58:47)
What's good with that?

Yeah.

Yeah, I agree

A little less than that would have been great.

Matt Loehrer (59:13)
Feel like the writer thought okay at this point. I need to level set everybody like here's here's what's happening in case you're lost Yeah

Tug McTighe (59:16)
I've got to f- yeah

Yeah, so I agree with that.

It does get a little long in the tooth because every time he's on camera, he's spewing that as I said, the kids are saying spilling the tea.

Matt Loehrer (59:28)
Yeah, and did they say that? And I loved him. I really did like, keep her stubborn in this. I thought he was great. And I thought him in the memories was such a neat way to explain kind of what's going on.

Tug McTighe (59:30)
I don't know. Yeah. Yeah.

That

bit was great. That two or three minutes of, here's how it all comes together, I thought was really great.

Matt Loehrer (59:47)
Yeah, it

was really cool. And he's kind of the hero. mean, he made this happen. So even though we think he's at least a little, as the kids say, sus or sketchy or a coward or whatever, he's really brave in his own way. And he made it happen. I mean, he made it all happen. anyway.

Tug McTighe (59:51)
Yeah, right.

Yeah.

He was fighting the fight in his own the way he could. Yeah. All right,

one more shout out to Little Bear Graphics before we

If you need graphic design, t-shirts, hats, or marketing materials of all kinds, and you need them before midnight, before time stops and we all get retuned, then give Matt Loracall.

Give Matt Lora a virtual ring at LittleBear Graphics. LittleBear.graphics. He can take care of all your marketing needs right here and right now. And he doesn't care if you're a femme fatale, a suspected murderer, or just a cop on the beat. Everybody is A-OK by him. He won't retune anybody. That's Matt at LittleBear.graphics.

All right, that's a wrap on Dark City. Next time, we're going to take a new look with fresh eyes on a film you have never seen that I have seen many times that I frankly can't wait to watch again in preparation. And that is Talladega Nights, starring the inevitable Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly among a cast of many people you will recognize from your comedy-loving days. You will hear such

Great quote says, if you're not first, you're last. You will hear other great quotes like, can't both of us be number one? No, that would make 11. And then you will also learn that Rubin is racing. So I'm looking forward to that. So all right. So this is I'm Tug.

Matt Loehrer (1:01:18)
Very good. I do love John C. Reilly, so I can't wait.

I'm Matt.

Tug McTighe (1:01:25)
And we are encouraging you to stop cinema missing and start cinema seeing. So if you miss something that you want to see, watch it today.

Matt Loehrer (1:01:36)
See you next