V “Reflections in Terror” (w/ Michael May)

What’s up, dudes? It was the miniseries that examined fascism through a 1980s American lens…with sci-fi! Michael May from After Lunch, Crestwood House, and Hellbent for Letterbox and I talk the Christmas episode from V  “Reflections in Terror!”

In this 9th episode from the 1984 series, Diana sends a mistletoe sales lady to collect the starchild Elizabeth’s blood. With it, she’s able to clone the starchild at Christmastide. Unfortunately, the clone is feral and kills just about everything. 

Meanwhile, Donovan, Ham, and Farber work with a church to smuggle orphans into the free city of LA to get them to foster parents. Consequently, the action draws Visitor suspicion, and the Resistance has to use force to succeed. While all this is occurring, Bates discovers that Julie is a mole and has the restaurant headquarters attacked. Luckily, everyone escapes, the clone dis in Elizabeth’s arms, the tracker is killed, and Ham plays Santa!

Clones? Check. Santas? Both Willie and Ham. Casablanca ripoffs? Only if it’s between Julie and a Visitor playing piano!  So grab your guns, hide out in a church, and fight reptilian aliens to this episode on V “Reflections in Terror!”

After Lunch

Check us out on Facebook, Twitter,  Instagram,  Totally Rad Christmas Mall & Arcade, Teepublic.com, or TotallyRadChristmas.com!  Later, dudes!

Transcript

SPEAKER_13 0:00

You promised we would be together again for Christmas dinner. And you will. Our Christmas dinner. We're talking V reflections and terror. Hit it. Purple Rain was in theaters. Springsteen sang Born in the USA, and the Resistance fought the visitors. Yes, it's that simple. I'm your host, Jerry D with another episode of Totally Rad Christmas, the podcast that talks all things Christmas in the 80s, toys, movies, specials, music, and fads. If it was gnarly during Christmas in the 80s, we got it covered. Now, joining me is a Totally Rad Christmas All-Star from After Lunch, Crestwood House, and Hell Bent for Letterboxd. It's Michael May. Michael, how's it going?

SPEAKER_15 1:20

It's going really well, and the listeners can't see, but I'm sticking out my forked tongue and la la la la la la.

SPEAKER_13 1:27

I was I was worried when you had that mouse. I was like, what's going on?

SPEAKER_15 1:31

I got a stack of them here if I get hungry during the show.

SPEAKER_13 1:35

That's right. Just pop it in.

SPEAKER_15 1:37

Yeah, it unhinged my jaw.

SPEAKER_13 1:41

I tell you what though, when I saw that as a kid, that freaked me out.

SPEAKER_15 1:45

Uh-huh. Uh-huh. There are images from this thing that I had forgotten, like how seared into my brain they were. And then when I saw them again, I was like, oh, yep, I remember this part.

SPEAKER_13 1:54

Oh, the uh the red jumpsuits with like the you know, Diana wears that black yeah. Yeah, oh man, good stuff.

SPEAKER_15 2:02

Yeah, oh yeah. A lot of the designs and stuff are really, really cool in this.

SPEAKER_13 2:06

Yeah, they really are. I mean, it it was really well done. Now we're gonna be talking more about the series in a little bit than the actual like V miniseries and V The Final Battle miniseries. And you know, budget-wise, it wasn't wasn't quite as much, so you could tell there was a little bit of a step down, but it was still I I still thoroughly enjoyed it. Before we get into that, though, just like Carol Kane did to Bill Murray and Scrooged, I want you to hit me with the toaster. So I'm gonna ask you some questions and I want you to hit me with the first thing that comes to your mind. Okay, you don't have to think too hard about it. So let's say that you're making Christmas vacation with a cast of V. Oh my. Who would you cast as rusty?

SPEAKER_15 2:44

As rusty.

SPEAKER_13 2:45

Yeah, rusty. Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_15 2:47

Boy, you that's that's a curveball right there. That's right. I mean, I guess Mark Singer's kid. I mean, he's the only age-appropriate one that I can think of. But boy, it'd be fun if it was somebody like Ham. But uh, I'm gonna save Ham for another role. He's too good for Rusty.

SPEAKER_13 3:06

Ham would be funny. And then you got Farber as like cousin Eddie, right? Yeah, yeah. I'd be into that. I'd watch the heck out of that. Okay, let's get that's good. What would you title a Hallmark Christmas movie starring Elizabeth? That's you know, the star child. Elizabeth and Kyle.

SPEAKER_15 3:25

Oh, wow. It's gotta have the word star in it, right? Uh Christmas Star Child? No, that's maybe. I don't know. That's that's that's I guess that's cheesy as cheesy as any hallmark thing. So yeah, Christmas Christmas Star Child.

SPEAKER_13 3:41

There's a lot of them like that.

SPEAKER_15 3:43

Star Child of Bethlehem.

SPEAKER_13 3:44

Yeah, there you go. Yeah, yeah. I like that. I really like that actually. I was like, when you wish upon a star child? I don't know. That's good. All right. And finally, which character from V is most likely to fly Airwolf and which would drive Kit?

SPEAKER_15 4:06

Mark Singer's got to drive Airwolf, I think. Right. I mean he he looks even kind of like John Michael Vincent and Kit. You know, I want it to be him again, but I don't think him and Kit would get along very well.

SPEAKER_13 4:16

I think it'd make for some great television.

SPEAKER_15 4:18

Oh, what's the character What's Harry White's son's name? That's that's like isn't he Kyle? Is that Kyle? Is that he's the one that Elizabeth falls in love with?

SPEAKER_13 4:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_15 4:31

Yeah, that's Kyle. I think that's him, yeah. Okay, all right. I'm I'm don't get to remember my character names, but yeah, he would he would drive Kit and then Mark Singer would fly airwolf.

SPEAKER_13 4:41

I like that too. Mark Singer, I love Mark Singer. I'm I wish he got more roles because the only thing I really know him from is like this and Beastmaster, right?

SPEAKER_15 4:50

Right, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_13 4:51

And and he does great in both. I would have liked uh to have seen him in more things, but anyway, that's just a way for our listeners to get to know you a little bit better. So thank you for that. Now, tonight we're here to talk about V. What do you remember about V like thoughts on the other?

SPEAKER_15 5:30

Uh yeah, I remember when the the miniseries came out, and uh, you know, this was in days as we our family didn't have a VHS player. They probably that existed, but we didn't have one, so it was like catch it on TV or never sleep.

SPEAKER_16 5:44

That's it, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_15 5:45

And I remember watching like part of I probably caught like the first half and missed the second half. So actually I bought the novelization of it just so I could like finish the story.

SPEAKER_17 5:55

That's cool.

SPEAKER_15 5:55

And I thought that was really cool, except that that first miniseries ends on a cliffhanger, which I was like super bugged about. And then V The Final Battle came out, what, like a year or two later? And um, I know I didn't see all of it, but a boy, I remember seeing that second episode because that's the one where Elizabeth is born.

SPEAKER_13 6:12

Oh, right, right.

SPEAKER_15 6:13

And that's a scarring moment. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Uh so it wasn't actually until I was preparing for this, and one of the reasons I really wanted to do this episode with you is because I've always wanted to go back and like just watch all of it, yeah, back to back. And this was like a perfect excuse to do that, but uh, but this is the first time I've actually seen the whole thing in my life.

SPEAKER_13 6:36

Yeah, so I I saw I've seen the original miniseries and V The Final Battle. I I've seen those each like five, six times. So I know those. I wasn't even aware that there was a TV series. Like my fa I remember everybody watching it, but for some reason in my brain, I I kind of merged it with like, oh, they were just showing the miniseries again. Sure, yeah, you know, so I didn't remember it, but I gotta say, there's a few differences that we'll talk about, but I really want to go back and watch the whole mini-series or the whole uh uh TV series again as well. Um I I was hoping to do that for this. I didn't get a chance to because I took over a new position as chief operating officer of my company.

SPEAKER_16 7:19

Oh, cool.

SPEAKER_13 7:19

And I've been sent on a few trainings here and there. So I just got back from North Carolina a few a few weeks ago or a week ago. So yeah, good times, good times. But so I didn't get a chance to, but I'm really looking forward to it. There were some there was some amazing things, and I don't remember how it ends. Reading about it, it was like, wow, the it really kind of started jumping the shark, didn't it, with the the star child and the leader and yeah, like that first miniseries, I think it was only two episodes, but it was pretty deep.

SPEAKER_15 7:49

Like it was it was kind of getting into like ooh, what would what would how would Americans react, you know, if you know the Nazis came in and took over, basically. Right. And then it ends on a cliffhanger, and then the second miniseries, the final battle, just kind of it doesn't abandon all that. That's those themes are still kind of in there, but it's much more like just sci-fi adventure. And it's cool, they got a bigger budget, the ships look cooler, there's a lot more action, it becomes you know, just very kind of pew-piew pew. Um for sure. But but it and it does end, and that's what I was really surprised because I knew like there was this TV series, so I assumed that Final Battle also ended in a cliffhanger that then carried on into the TV series, but that's not the case. Like it they they wrap it up in a really dumb way, but they wrap it up, and and then the TV show, like the first episode of the TV show, kind of has to like kind of scramble to explain. Right. I mean, it's not really a retcon, it's just like now maybe it is a little bit, but I don't know, they don't change anything, but they just like okay, the the thing that worked at the end of that, maybe there's some loopholes that kind of the visitors could explain.

SPEAKER_13 8:52

Yes, which they do, and that's what how they're able to still be on Earth. Right. Because you're right, it the spoiler alert if you haven't seen this thing that's like 40 years old, you know, at the end of the final battle, like they release this red dust, right? This deadly like bacteria that's harmless to humans, but is fatal to the the visitors, and so that's how they're able to like win, but then they retcon, well, like we said, not quite retcon, but kind of get around it a little bit, yeah, by saying, Well, it doesn't do well in like warm climates, so you know it's fine, like we just won't attack Canada, you know.

SPEAKER_15 9:28

Yeah, they can't attack Canada or South America, but kind of everything in between they can that's right, it's it's fine, it's a it's okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_13 9:36

Yeah, so um yeah, so Texas, we're just we're all messed up here in Texas.

SPEAKER_15 9:42

Oh yeah, you got some heroes in Texas, so I was watching those news reports.

SPEAKER_13 9:45

That's that's right. There's there's a few here and there. I did like I did like those news reports, right? So yeah, that that was a really cool feature of it.

SPEAKER_15 9:54

Uh yeah, what a crazy way to like introduce every episode, right? It's just like here's our news report, like and and it doesn't have anything to do with a story you're about to watch. It's just like here's a news guy, and he's gonna tell you stuff that's going on around the world, and he's done, and now we're gonna do our show.

SPEAKER_13 10:09

Yeah, it's like so we're focusing on this, but it really is a global impact.

SPEAKER_15 10:14

So yeah, it's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_13 10:16

Yeah, it's definitely different. So I enjoyed that. Uh V created by Kenneth Johnson. Now, that guy, if you never heard of him, he has uh quite a resume. He basically created the Bionic Woman, he helped developed the Incredible Hulk TV series. Uh yeah, I mean, quite a lot of things, but he he wrote and directed V, the original miniseries, based on Sinclair Lewis's anti-fash fascist novel, It Can't Happen Here.

SPEAKER_16 10:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_13 10:44

But apparently it a lot of studios didn't, they thought it was too like heady, you know, like too cerebral and intellectual. So they introduced, in order to kind of get around that, they introduced this race of reptilian aliens.

SPEAKER_15 10:59

Okay, that wasn't in the novel.

SPEAKER_13 11:01

No, no. So it's like and and it really was. They they literally admit that it's basically a Star Wars cash grab. So hey, Star Wars is popular. Let's have everybody look like Bosque, you know, and we'll go from there. So yeah, I mean it's it's a reptilian race of reptilian aliens. They they're they're called the visitors, they come to Earth, they promise that, or they it make it seem that they're there to to share their technology, but they need some minerals and resources that their planet doesn't have. Well, turns out they really just want to take over the earth and you know, all the blah blah blah, eat the humans and you know all the usual sci-fi tropes, and it kind of kind of goes from there. But yeah, the original is like you were saying, has at its heart like this very what if world war two was lost kind of uh vibe, and it still kept it in that original that mini-series, you know. It's like first they come for the scientists and then they come for reporters and all this, you know, what if it happens to you next? And it it was very exciting, it's almost like like a serious version of Top Secret, you know. Right.

SPEAKER_15 12:21

That's funny, you know.

SPEAKER_13 12:23

Like I I could see Mark Singer interacting with like Val Kilber or something, but Chocolate Mousse, you know.

SPEAKER_11 12:36

All the all the great characters. This is Chevalier, Montage, Détente, Avantgarde, and Déjà Vue.

SPEAKER_04 12:50

Have I not met before, monsieur? I don't think so.

SPEAKER_11 13:00

Au Vazir, Poisson, Souffle, Scago, Chocolate Mousse.

SPEAKER_13 13:10

But yeah, and then you're right, it really kind of just evolved into standard. I guess it was such a big hit that it kind of just evolved into that. I know Kenneth Johnson left after that first miniseries.

SPEAKER_16 13:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_13 13:21

He wrote, he had some writing credits of the final battle, which was its sequel, but he really didn't have much involvement. And then the series happened and he didn't have any involvement with that. Okay. So yeah, this was uh post-Kenneth Johnson. It all aired on NBC. It aired May 1st and 2nd, 1983. And then the final battle was 84, and then the TV series premiered October 26th, 84. There was 22 episodes. We're gonna be talking about episode 9, Reflections in Terror. This aired December 21st, 1984. And man, I liked this episode, but it just didn't quite I don't know. It was it was odd, but also like it scratched my V- itch, but yeah, but not quite all the way, you know. It's yeah, it was just uh it was a fun episode though, I gotta say. What were your like like initial thoughts on it?

SPEAKER_15 14:17

Yeah, I really I like the episode that I'm like I'm really enjoying the series more than I expected to. Like, I'm kind of surprised at how much of the mini-series cast they were able to retain. And you know, they kind of have to move pieces around, and like instead of having like these cool kind of underground bunkers and stuff for the rebellion, they're kind of running in out of a Cajun restaurant. Um they introduced what's the actor's name? I called him Perry Mason because he played Perry Mason on Lois and Clark.

SPEAKER_13 14:48

Oh, Perry White, you mean Lane Smith?

SPEAKER_15 14:50

Perry White, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_13 14:52

Lane Smith, yeah.

SPEAKER_15 14:52

Yeah. Oh, well, what do you expect? Garland's thrown at your feet? So he's he's kind of like this collaborator, this technology collaborator. Oh, Julie is kind of working for him. So I don't know, they introduced some new characters, they got enough of the old characters. Yeah, so I really have enjoyed the series. And how far have you gotten on it? This this episode. Uh, okay, okay.

SPEAKER_13 15:13

So I won't spoil it. Trying to time it.

SPEAKER_15 15:15

Yeah, I understand that it gets crazy like right after this, it just kind of goes off in a whole new direction. So I'm I'm very much looking forward to that.

SPEAKER_13 15:24

But well, the whole thing with the Star Child, because I knew they were, you know, the you know, Diana, who's like the big bad basically, she's throughout like the original miniseries and then the final battle, she's like, I guess, the the leader of the sect of visitors that we focus on.

SPEAKER_16 15:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_13 15:40

Well, she does genetic experiments, and you know, it's very like Mingala and you know, all those. You're right, it's very Nazi coded, right? Yeah, yeah. So she does a genetic experiment, they get uh Robin, they get Robin pregnant uh with the visitor, and so she wants to see what's gonna happen. And then all of a sudden, like I don't remember her in the in the final battle having like super powers. Does she?

SPEAKER_15 16:06

The very end, okay. So they're like our heroes like take control of the mothership or one of the motherships.

SPEAKER_13 16:13

I remember that, yeah.

SPEAKER_15 16:15

And there's some kind of doomsday weapon that's pointed at Earth because the visitors are all escaping you know from the red dust, but they're gonna destroy the earth kind of in retaliation, right? And all of a sudden, Elizabeth, who is like she went from baby to like eight or nine years old, like in a couple of days basically, but she starts to sparkle and is able to like interact with the mothership to destroy the doomsday weapon before it's able to strike.

SPEAKER_13 16:42

Okay, see, I did not remember.

SPEAKER_15 16:44

Sparkle cap powers came from nowhere.

SPEAKER_13 16:46

That's what I'm saying. Like I'll like what? I mean, I I imagine, you know, because they do have the red dust still in this, and you know, Diana tries to we'll get into it in a little bit, but she tries to get some blood from Elizabeth to figure out why she's immune to it, even if she's part visitor. It's like, well, she's part human too. Like, come on, like it's not that hard. But you know, I her ultimate goal is to find a cure for themselves against the red dust as well. But like all of a sudden, she can do all these other things, and I was like, wow, I did not remember that at all. It really took me by surprise.

SPEAKER_15 17:25

Yeah, I feel like they just kind of can add powers, whatever they want to you, and I think she took another big age jump from the last battle to the TV show where she's now like in her 20s or something.

SPEAKER_13 17:34

So right, and then like steals her mom's boyfriend. So it's great.

SPEAKER_15 17:43

Yeah, yeah, we'll talk about that. That will come up.

SPEAKER_13 17:47

So uh the episode opens, and it's Christmas time. It opens on the Freedom Network. They're reporting. We learned that in the Philippines, the I like on one of the islands in the Philippines, resistance guerrillas have like annihilated a visitor visitor regiment.

SPEAKER_01 18:01

Good evening. I'm Howard K. Smith, and this is the state of the war tonight. On the Philippine island of Mindanao, resistance guerrillas under the leadership of Commander Beloy surprised and annihilated a regiment of alien shock troops moving to occupy the islands. On the Brazilian front, resistance leaders suffered a grave setback with the capture and execution of several high-ranking leaders in the Mato Grosso battalion. Here at home, our guerrillas claimed a major victory on the ground fighting in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains between Taos and Albuquerque, New Mexico. Casualties were said to be light in skirmishes along the Santa Fe Trail, as a number of alien outposts were overrun and destroyed.

SPEAKER_13 18:40

We get like reports from Brazil in the U.S., guerrillas were successful, like overrunning and destroying like several visitor outposts as well in like New Mexico or something like that. And so, I mean, like, oh, and then they give out like a special Freedom Network medal, which I thought that was a nice touch, you know. Um a lady that you would not have thought. I mean, just looking at her, it's like she doesn't seem she's like a normal, normal lady, Marilyn McGeorge from Biloxi, Mississippi, housewife, who spotted a visitor patrol boat off the Gulf Coast and rammed it with her husband's fishing boat. I was like, that's very don't tread on me energy right there. So good stuff. Anyway, so that's like the intro. Then we cut to the like our actual cast and crew. Silent Knight is playing. Wait until you see this house. You are gonna love it.

SPEAKER_03 19:52

I can't wait. My mother's gonna need us later.

SPEAKER_13 19:58

Hey, come on. I want to buy you a present.

SPEAKER_06 20:08

Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!

SPEAKER_17 20:10

Merry Christmas.

SPEAKER_06 20:11

Thank you. Your generosity has been deeply appreciated. Oh, I have something here. I've been saving this one all day for a pretty young girl like you. Ouch! Oh dear, look what I've done.

SPEAKER_13 20:26

And we get Elizabeth and Kyle, I believe is his name. They approach the this old woman ringing a bell like Salvation Army style. And she she has corsages for that she's uh trying to try to get rid of, which is like I don't think I ever remember them with corsages.

SPEAKER_15 20:45

No, that's that's pretty hardcore. I mean, maybe you get a little like you know, memorial poppy or something like that, but uh but a whole corsage, yeah, they were pretty intricate.

SPEAKER_13 20:59

Yeah, they're not cheap either, so yeah, wow, good for her. But uh she gives Elizabeth a corsage and accidentally, quote unquote, pricks her finger to get a blood sample, and she apologizes and gives her another one, and it's made from mistletoe. So, all right, well, so now she's got mistletoe on, so I guess you gotta kiss her, Kyle. Turns out it's like a whole big visitor plot, right? It's Diana has devised this whole scheme uh just to get Elizabeth's blood. But I do have like while the the old woman has like a visitor communicator on her, right? Well uh she's like checking it out. You can see some of the like visitor writing. We get the picture of Elizabeth on it, she's like, All right, that's the lady.

SPEAKER_15 21:43

So yeah, yeah. Like, yeah, they went from like not knowing who Elizabeth was to like we know her every move, and we're we've got agents staked out just waiting for her.

SPEAKER_13 21:53

Yeah, one of them will turn up, I think is what a line that someone says. One of them will turn something up. So yeah, I knew one of them would.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

Find her.

SPEAKER_13 22:00

Anyway, yeah, this old lady, there's like some kind of anti-coagulant or something on the actual on the actual corsage itself. So she's able to deliver the blood. She's able to deliver the blood to Diana, who immediately like has her tossed in the dungeon to be eaten later.

SPEAKER_15 22:17

Yep. You told me I could be with my husband for Christmas.

SPEAKER_13 22:22

And so you shall. That's right. You're gonna be our Christmas dinner. That's right. It's very twilight zone, right? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 22:32

Excuse me. I've done my part. Where's my husband? Why, where he's always been. Here in detention. You promised we would be together again for Christmas dinner. And you will. Our Christmas dinner. Take her away.

SPEAKER_03 22:47

You lied! You said you would let him come home! You lied! You lied!

SPEAKER_13 22:54

Humans take holidays so seriously.

SPEAKER_15 22:56

Diana needs a mustache so she can twirl it.

SPEAKER_13 22:58

She's so she can twirl it, yeah. Oh, I want to see that so bad. Oh man. Uh yeah. So this poor lady, unfortunately, is gonna be eaten. Next, we get Donovan and Ham. Like it hard cut. That's the one thing about the show, right? It's like you get these, we're focused on him, and then it's like hard cut over here. So hard cuts to Donovan and Ham smuggling some orphans in a red van to the city. Like you do. And it's I mean, nowadays that's a very different thing, right? The FBI's involved. But but back then, I mean, I guess it's fine. Yeah, yeah. So Donovan, of course, played by Mark Singer, who I mentioned I knew from the Beastmaster. He's Dar.

SPEAKER_04 23:47

You've just got to show them who's in command. You owe me your life, but I'll accept this as payment.

SPEAKER_13 23:57

Ham is Michael Ironside. Sure is like one of the great character actors of our time. Yeah. Yeah. Uh hello, Mary Lou, or you know, Prom Night 2, Hello Mary Lou. He was in Highlander 2, The Quickening, Total Recall, The Karate Kid, I think, Part Four, like just a bunch of like those kinds of movies. Uh, he's just he's good. He's really good. A kids. They're playing there, so and it's it was actually refreshing to see him here, not as a villain.

SPEAKER_15 24:34

Yeah, yeah. He's got an edge. He does have an edge, yeah. He does have an edge, and and uh and actually they they do some they really play with that in this in a way that they don't in a lot of the episodes. Like a lot of times, like he and Marxing his character's name is Donovan. Donovan, yeah, and they're very kind of antagonistic, they got a history, and right, yeah, and and Donovan's always criticizing Ham for kind of his ruthless tactics, whereas Donovan's a little bit more you know trying to not just murder people. Well, Ham's like kind of really the the kind of evil, like not evil, but mean tough guy. Right. And uh, but they really play with that in this episode.

SPEAKER_13 25:10

They do, and I like it. We also get a little bit of backstory um on Ham a little bit later as well.

SPEAKER_16 25:16

Right.

SPEAKER_13 25:16

So that comes into play. He has a great interaction with uh one of the orphans later on. So but yeah, it's like this 40 con a line van, right? And there's a visitor like patrol jeep with the gun on turret and all sorts of things, and uh Donovan like is the lookout, sneaks back into the van, and they're able to like pass into LA because like you mentioned earlier, Lane Smith, who plays Bates, he's I don't remember if he's mayor or governor, but he's he's like basically declared LA as like like an open city, so it's fine for visitors and it's fine for humans, it's kind of Casablanca. Yeah, well we'll see later on, it's really Casablanca. Yeah. There's like a scene ripped straight from Casablanca, yeah. But yeah, so like Bates is the one in in charge of the city, and so people can come and go and and from both sides. Well, Bates also reprimands his uh his guy Chang, who I guess works for him.

SPEAKER_15 26:17

He has like security, basically.

SPEAKER_13 26:19

Yeah, yeah. He's like reprimanding him like for failing to find the resistance because Bates wants power and wants to try to make deals with the visitors. But Donovan and Ham pull up to what a church, it's St. Ann's Church. They pass what I thought was a cool little nativity, it's like a blow mold nativity set. Looks a lot like one that my parents had.

SPEAKER_16 26:41

Oh, cool.

SPEAKER_13 26:41

There's like a little mini wooden uh nativity frame, like stable frame as well. Yeah, so I thought I was like, wow, that's cool. Like that takes me back.

SPEAKER_15 26:49

Yeah, yeah, it was a very cool 80s nativity scene.

SPEAKER_13 26:53

Well, they they pass by, they they run into Farber and Father Turney. Uh Farber and Ham were kind of like the the go-getters, right? Uh if I recall in like V, the final battle.

SPEAKER_15 27:05

Like Yeah, yeah, Farber was yeah, Ham's right-hand man. He this is his first reappearance like in the series. Which played by another great character after Mickey Jones, who I just he was, you know, countless motorcycle gang members, you know, in the A-Team and Magnum, and you know, all that like just super recognizable. I really like that guy.

SPEAKER_13 27:27

Yeah, he's definitely one of those guys that if you see you're like, oh, I know him. Yeah, yeah. And yeah, I think they there's like a throwaway line, something about like he was in the desert fighting, uh something like that. So, but yeah, he's back. And so he and Ham have a nice little reunion. But uh Mark Singer, sorry, Donovan mentions uh I might call him Mark Singer, I apologize, guys. But he mentions that they found foster homes for all these kids already, all these orphans. Father Turney says that the visitors are starting to like pay more attention to the church, that there's like things going on, and so there's more patrols, and so they might have to cool it for a little bit with uh some of the orphans. But while all that's going on, this is where Ham talks with a little girl named Jennifer. When he introduces himself, she laughs and says his name sounds like a sandwich, right?

SPEAKER_15 28:22

Off on the right foot already.

SPEAKER_13 28:24

I was like, what a what a little kid thing to say. Like I can totally see my six-year-old saying this. But cut to outside where some visitors are destroying the little nativity, and then Ham, Donovan, and Farber go beat them up.

SPEAKER_15 28:40

Yep. Yeah, these visitors are armed to the teeth, but we just we just wrestle with them and just go right in and just we'll get there before they can shoot us.

SPEAKER_13 28:50

Don't worry about it. So hard cut to Robin, the mother of the Star Child. Oh she a great character, but she catches Elizabeth like making out with her man, so with Kyle. So she's super hurt, and I mean, yeah, tough look, Elizabeth, tough look.

SPEAKER_15 29:14

So well, except that so have you have did you watch the series up to this point?

SPEAKER_13 29:18

No, I I didn't get to watch the episodes before then.

SPEAKER_15 29:21

So okay, all right. Because yeah, Robin's claim on Kyle is completely in her own imagination. Like Kyle has never reciprocated towards her. He's been friendly to her, he's been nice to her, but her only claim is that she did tell Elizabeth that she thought that Robin thought she was in love with Kyle. So you know, that's yeah. But he is certainly not her man.

SPEAKER_13 29:46

Gotcha. All right. Well, that's good to know. Well, that's uh yeah. I mean, really the most romantic interaction that we get with her was with that visitor from the originals.

SPEAKER_15 29:58

So she's really lucky with guys.

SPEAKER_13 30:01

Like she's we'll leave it at that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_14 30:07

Well, we we go to the that restaurant you were talking about, that club, and we get Willie playing piano and terrible.

SPEAKER_11 30:43

Take a while.

SPEAKER_13 30:45

He's doing a really poor rendition of Deck the Halls with uh the wrong words and everything. And Willie played by Robert England, Freddie Kruger. He's that guy.

SPEAKER_15 30:54

Oh, yeah, Freddie Kruger.

SPEAKER_13 31:01

Yeah, so I mean, there was a lot of like little cool actors in here. I love V, man, because you never knew who you were gonna get. Right. But he's doing this really horrible job of playing deck the hall, and this other like visitor just pushes him out of the way and starts playing the visitor like I guess national anthem.

SPEAKER_15 31:20

That's what they say.

SPEAKER_13 31:23

Are there nations on triacs? Apparently. Oh man, that's amazing. I want to play it at the Olympics now, you know.

SPEAKER_15 31:37

Yeah, so it's an interesting piece too, because it's very discordant, right? There is there's not like a lot of melody to it, which you know, it sounds very alien, so I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_13 31:47

Yeah, it would have been cool, and I know it's you really hard to do on a piano, but it would have been cool if they had gotten like some quarter tones or like some just weird, like not quite harmonies. Because how would they have gotten that together, you know?

SPEAKER_15 32:00

Right.

SPEAKER_13 32:01

Like their style of music, I'm sure, would have been very different.

SPEAKER_15 32:04

It's pretty cool he learned how to play the piano, though. The piano that's right.

SPEAKER_13 32:10

I just imagine him like with a guitar back in his room.

SPEAKER_15 32:14

I gotta figure this out.

SPEAKER_13 32:16

Hey, check Colin is buddy. Check it out. Look what I figured. I learned how to play. You know, oh man, but they start. Is it Julie that starts singing America the Beautiful? Or I don't remember who it is.

SPEAKER_15 32:31

It's yeah, it's Julie.

SPEAKER_13 32:32

Yeah, okay. Yeah, so she starts singing America the Beautiful, like at the top of her lungs, and the visitor starts playing even louder, but then we get everybody joining in, Casablanca style.

SPEAKER_15 32:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_13 32:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_15 32:44

I mean, it's straight out of the they let her do a whole verse by herself, and then they join her on the second verse.

SPEAKER_13 32:53

Maybe they maybe they weren't sure if she was gonna continue.

SPEAKER_15 32:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:58

All beautiful spacious lies for amble waves of rain.

SPEAKER_13 33:41

But yeah, I mean, it's it's literally just um a ripoff of Casablanca at that part. But then, yeah, Donovan, Ham, Farber, all of them just start joining in, and the visitor finally gives up and closes the piano and goes away. So take that, people. But uh the episode really kicks off now because Diana, who's gotten Elizabeth's blood, and remember, she's the the the visitor commander, she starts creating a clone of Elizabeth. Yeah, and so she wants to know, first of all, how she's immune to the red dust, but also, you know, she's got Elizabeth has crazy powers. Hey, maybe we can use these crazy powers as well. So yeah, just genetic experiments all over, and we get like this really grotesque looking, but also very cheap looking cocoon. It's like you see the original effects, and then you see these, and you're like, Well, they only kind of had half the budget. I get it. Right, right.

SPEAKER_15 34:43

But it is very green and slimy, it's very green.

SPEAKER_13 34:47

I was expecting it to be a little more like olive y green, and it's that it's like uh it's like Christmas tree green. Christmas tree green, that's right. What's Christmas time, you know?

SPEAKER_15 34:56

Right.

SPEAKER_13 34:58

Oh man. But it does yield uh an Elizabeth that grows up, well, or an Elizabeth clone, like a bad Elizabeth. Elizabeth, I guess. Oh, I get it it uh does, you know, an Elizabeth clone that also grows up really quickly. So that comes into play in a little bit. But yeah, so Elizabeth and Julie, they have a little talk about Robin. She notices how she's bleeding and like the blood still hasn't seemed to like clotted yet. So she she goes to take a sample and check it out. She finds out that hey, there is an actual like dioxin, I think is what it's called, this anticoagulant, which is why kind of pieces it together in like a very Sherlock-Holmes way.

SPEAKER_16 35:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_13 35:45

That wow, they must be trying to make a copy of you. Like, wow, that's where did you get like that's a stretch?

SPEAKER_15 35:54

That's a good leap.

SPEAKER_13 35:55

Like, she could have poked her finger on like a nail that had some on it or something, right? I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 36:01

What is this? Lady was selling corsages. I just poked it on a thorn.

SPEAKER_07 36:07

That's really strange. The blood doesn't seem to be coagulating. Hang here for a second. I just want to get a culture of this. It's not gonna work better. It's fine, real. Yeah, I know. There, see. I'll run some tests in this when I get back to the lab. I found traces of dioxin in it. What is that? Well, it's it's a very powerful poison, but in this case, maybe it was used for preserving blood for keeping it fresh. Oh, what could that mean? I don't know, but one thing I do know for sure, Robin, is no flower pedaler would have been using it. I don't know how Diana did it, but she must have created Elizabeth's double.

SPEAKER_15 36:49

Or just I mean, just the visitors taking her blood work that could be a million better explanations than they're making a clone. Just like even if they are trying to find like a cure to like the red dust, like that. That makes more sense to me.

SPEAKER_13 37:02

Makes a lot of sense, right? Right. Not I'm like I you don't immediately jump to clone, I guess. Well, Willie comes in as Santa while they're talking, and he doesn't get to be Santa, unfortunately. Poor Willy. Poor Willie. You just can't catch a break. Yeah, but we go back to the visitors, uh, the visitors headquarters, and one of them hears a noise, goes in, and it's an Elizabeth clone that's hatched from a cocoon. We don't see it, we just see the the cocoon all empty and gross and the glass shattering. And she kills the visitor and runs off. And when Diana comes in, we get she sees like a nice little cutout in the wall of very very Looney Tune style, right? It's totally coyote shaped. But she said she calls for like the best tracker to go after her.

SPEAKER_16 37:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_13 37:57

So meanwhile, Ham ruthlessly beats a visitor and breaks his neck because a visitor was like based what burned the church and burned their car. Yeah, burned like St. Anne's. So I mean, he goes full PTSD on them. I mean, they're they're like having to pull him off, and he was about to shoot him after he's already broken his neck, and they're like, Okay, like he's dead, man. Take it easy, it's okay. But they find Jennifer, and Ham's a little rough with her here. She she even says, like, you're you know, why are you hurting me? Or you're something like that. Because he's like, Where are they? Where are they? He's kind of crazed, and so she leads him to the others who were, I guess, in like a basement somewhere.

SPEAKER_15 38:35

Something like that, yeah. Yeah, what are you doing out here alone?

SPEAKER_03 38:41

Right, you're hurting me. Father Trinity said she'd be coming back for us.

SPEAKER_04 38:51

Where is he, sweetheart?

SPEAKER_03 38:55

Sweet.

SPEAKER_13 38:55

She thinks Ham's mad at her, and he's not. We we come to find out it a little bit later, but I'll get into it now. We come to find out that he actually had in Vietnam, he fell in love, got married, had a child, was gonna bring them back to the US, but while they were at the they while he was on assignment somewhere else, there was an air raid, and one of the guys, one of the pilots dropped the bombs too soon, and his wife and child were killed.

SPEAKER_12 39:23

See, it happened while we were in NAM. Just before the fall of Saigon. He had married a local Eurasian girl. They'd had a daughter. Cute little thing.

SPEAKER_08 39:37

Had.

SPEAKER_12 39:38

Ham and me got ordered to Nicaragua. The brass promised they'd airlift his wife and child out. So he packed them up and left them in a church on the edge of Saigon. What? An airstrike was called in to halt the Kong advance. One flyboy jumped a gun, dropped his napalm early. It hit the church. By the time we got back, all he found was a burnout building. Saigon fell. Ham kept slipping back in, searching. He never found him.

SPEAKER_13 40:12

So yeah, he's got a thing.

SPEAKER_15 40:14

Yeah, yeah. It's starting to click, starting to make sense, like why he is the way he is.

SPEAKER_13 40:19

Why exactly, exactly. That's rough. I mean, especially being around kids. We get a great scene later on, you know, with at the end with him and kids. But yeah, I mean, poor guy. That's rough.

SPEAKER_16 40:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_13 40:32

So Robin and Elizabeth talk at this bridge. I guess they're like just taking a walk in a park. They're talking about Kyle. And Robin's basically like, all right, fine. He's yours, whatever. But she also says, like, look, I forgive you. It still kind of hurts, so I might move out for a little bit. Hey, you know, it's cool. Don't worry about it.

SPEAKER_16 40:52

The drama.

SPEAKER_13 40:54

And Elizabeth, she gets like a feeling that someone's watching her, and she she kind of checks, but she doesn't see anything, so they leave. But a cop stops them. He's like, hey, you guys gotta get out of here. And as they leave, the cop hears Elizabad in the in the bushes. And so he goes to check it out and she kills him.

SPEAKER_17 41:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_13 41:15

Basically, she's just driven by this like insatiable desire to find Elizabeth, and I don't know, maybe kill her, maybe something. We we're not sure what. Later on, we'll we'll find out.

SPEAKER_15 41:28

But yeah, she's pretty feral. She's she's not real. I don't know. She might have an agenda, but I don't know what it is.

SPEAKER_13 41:35

Yeah, you can see she's like barely in a gown. Uh I don't know where she got the gown because she was, you know, small.

SPEAKER_15 41:43

So presumably she got the gun. Who did she murder for that child's gown?

SPEAKER_13 41:49

That's right. So presumably someone's someone else is dead.

SPEAKER_15 41:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_13 41:55

And the tracker is hunting her down. He's got like these little like predator goggles that he's using to kind of did you recognize that guy? He is I I think I know him from The Naked Gun two and a half.

SPEAKER_15 42:09

Oh, okay. I know him from Unforgiven, the uh the Clint Eastwood movie, Unforgiven.

SPEAKER_13 42:14

Oh wow, I haven't seen that in I think I've only seen it once.

SPEAKER_15 42:17

He plays his character is skinny. He's like uh he kind of runs the saloon where all the the ladies work. Oh, I got to very distinctive face.

SPEAKER_13 42:25

Yes, definitely.

SPEAKER_14 42:47

And it be dad, it was all so simple then.

SPEAKER_13 42:51

Oh that time we're gonna I remembered him from the Naked Gun two and a half. He's the one that comes into the apartment and tries to kill, he's about to kill Jane when Frank walks in and they fight him in the shower and then they pull back. Anyway, that's how I knew him.

SPEAKER_16 43:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_13 43:08

Um, but anyway, so but I do like his predator goggles, right?

SPEAKER_15 43:12

He's got these uh eyepieces, he's got a little monocle that likes flips down.

SPEAKER_13 43:18

That's right. And it's he basically sees, you know, like the the yaucha from from uh predator. So but then and Julie's watching the news while this is happening. She finds the uh the the be on the lookout, the bolo for um Elizabeth, you know, because of Elizabeth. So anyway, Chang shows photos. Uh we cut to Chang, he's showing Bates photos of known resistance members, and one of them's Julie. And at first, Bates can't really believe it, but Chang's like, Hey, I saw them. She's been talking with uh Donovan and Ham, and these guys that we know are in the resistance, so we think she's one too.

SPEAKER_15 43:54

Little backstory to that like this is she's been under suspicion by both of them before, but she's always Been able to kind of kind of play it out, pull it out, and yeah, and misdirect. So it's I don't think Bates wants to believe it. Uh he's he also has a little crush on her, but uh but yeah, this is this is kind of a game-changing episode because he actually finds out that she's right, yeah.

SPEAKER_13 44:18

So they they actually decide to set a trap and it works, unfortunately. Yeah, uh Donovan drops the kids off at a new loc location. Farber and he have a heart to heart. This is where we find out about Ham's family. And then Diana reprimands the tracker who's like, Hey, I'm like the best tracker you got. Like, I don't need this. And she's she basically is like, You're either gonna do this or you're gonna die.

SPEAKER_15 44:41

And so like Diana's the worst, man.

SPEAKER_17 44:46

She's totally the worst.

SPEAKER_15 44:49

She's so like arrogant and blustery and petty and never wrong in her own mind, but always wrong. But she always makes the wrong decision, it's always somebody else's fault. I hate Diana. I had a huge crush on her when I was a kid. Yeah, for sure, for sure.

SPEAKER_13 45:07

I mean, yeah, yeah. Beautiful woman, gorgeous hair, uh, you know, big poofy 80s hair. Yes, yes. So Kyle pulls up to the house to see Elizabeth. He's not home, or she's not home, so he goes to take a shower, and Elizabeth comes in and watches.

SPEAKER_15 45:26

Yeah. He doesn't seem too shaken up by it either.

SPEAKER_13 45:29

No, he's like, hey, you know, yeah, I'll be out in a minute. Don't worry, don't worry about me. I'll be on a minute. And she's just like standing there staring at him. Yeah. Like, all right. So Ham having his PTSD, he's talking with Donovan, who you know tells him, like, hey, my son's missing. I kind of I get what you're going through about losing family. And he ham's basically ham. He's like, Hey, if I wanted to talk to a preacher, I'd talk to Father Tony. So, you know, like, get out of my face.

SPEAKER_15 45:59

It's all heart.

SPEAKER_13 46:00

And Donovan's just trying to be like a good guy, right? Like, hey, I get it if you want to talk, whatever, but trying to be supportive. Yeah, like, come on, Ham. But while that's happening, Farber notices that, like, when's the last time you saw the phone company, the power company, like the water company, like all these guys working on a project in a building at the same time. So they realize something's up.

SPEAKER_12 46:24

When was the last time you saw the phone company and the water and power boys working the street at the same time?

SPEAKER_04 46:29

Yeah, and window washers across the street. Place is pretty busy out there. Let's go.

SPEAKER_13 46:33

And they know it's like a trap or a sting or something. But Julie and Bates have a little heart to heart about the club. And he has Chang like set up some sort of device or something. So when because he tells her, like, hey, we're gonna bomb the club. Yeah, you know, like we we know there's resistance there, we want the resistance gone. And so she excuses herself to go call them, and he has Chang set up this thing where like she calls, but it uh redirects to yeah, to Bates' office.

SPEAKER_15 47:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_13 47:08

And he's like, Oh, I'm so disappointed in you.

SPEAKER_15 47:11

Yeah, it's a pretty good moment, actually.

SPEAKER_13 47:13

It really is. I I was like, Oh, got her, yeah, they got her. So then she so then she tries to to run away, right? She like packs up the things and goes, and then it's like Benny Hill, you know, like Scooby-Doo, you know. They're just just yeah, there is Scooby-Doo. She goes in this door, but now she's hiding here. I mean, it's just yeah, but she manages to get away, luckily for her.

SPEAKER_15 47:37

Yeah, I like all that too. That was that was a fun chase.

SPEAKER_13 47:42

Elizabeth buys Robin and Kyle presents that has nothing to do with anything, they're just Christmas presents that doesn't come back in any way. But um, anyway, that was a nice little scene.

SPEAKER_09 47:52

I'm sure your mother will like it. Since the war, we don't get much imported material. Thank you. Hey, how are you? Merry Christmas.

SPEAKER_05 48:13

I'll take this one.

SPEAKER_09 48:15

Well, I don't know. It's my last one. Who's it for?

SPEAKER_05 48:20

Someone special.

SPEAKER_09 48:22

Well, he must be to have you. Okay.

SPEAKER_13 48:24

Just character building, character moment. Uh, but Elizabeth while Kyle's in the shower, Elizabeth's watching him. Elizabeth comes in, and Elizabeth Elizabeth is there. They have like, you know, they like touch hands, kind of like, I don't know. It's a it's a weird, um, it's a weird moment.

SPEAKER_16 48:41

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_13 48:43

But just then the tracker comes in, he shoots the clone, and but he gets shot in return by Kyle, and Elizabeth holds the clone in her arms as as the clone dies.

SPEAKER_16 48:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_13 48:55

Elizabeth?

SPEAKER_05 48:59

Don't hurt her.

SPEAKER_12 49:01

Elizabeth, get away.

SPEAKER_07 49:03

She won't hurt me.

SPEAKER_12 49:05

You don't know that!

SPEAKER_07 49:06

I do. I can tell. He won't hurt you.

SPEAKER_17 49:49

Elizabeth, don't.

SPEAKER_05 49:51

She saved my life.

SPEAKER_13 49:52

You know, kind of like a weird that's gotta be a weird feeling, right? Like seeing yourself kind of die. Yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_15 50:01

The special effects there was pretty good, like when she's holding her own clone like in her arms. Like a lot of the shots were like, you know, back of one person's head while you're looking at it. But there was a shot of her holding herself in her arms, and I was like, not sure how you guys did that. It looks like they hired twins or something, but I don't know if that actor has a twin.

SPEAKER_13 50:22

I don't think so.

SPEAKER_15 50:23

I mean, I maybe, I don't know, but uh maybe if they did, I think they would have used it even more.

SPEAKER_13 50:28

I would yeah, I think they would have as well.

SPEAKER_15 50:30

I don't know. They did something, but it looked pretty good.

SPEAKER_13 50:32

I agree, I agree, because I didn't really notice very, very much. And usually you can tell and stuff like that, you know. But while all that's happening, we also get guys coming into the club pull out pulling out guns and starting to shoot it up. And Donovan and Ham Harbour were hiding behind like the Christmas tree, and they just come out behind the Christmas tree and they start shooting, they start shooting back.

SPEAKER_10 51:01

Can I get you?

SPEAKER_05 51:32

No, no, no, no, sir. Everything is under control. I suspect it will only be a matter of minutes. I take that back, Mr. Bates. What you have just heard is the last gasp of the resistance.

SPEAKER_13 52:05

Poor bartenders just like just jumps down. Um but they all manage to like they they pre-rigged it with explosives, they run into I don't know if it was the the freezer or um or just another entrance.

SPEAKER_15 52:19

Yeah, something like they have another entrance they mentioned later, but yeah, something is kind of like separate and that's secure so they can blow up part of the building and make it look like they were trapped in the rubble.

SPEAKER_13 52:31

Yeah, I think he says that that they rigged it, he wired the explosives to knock in just the walls and the ceiling.

SPEAKER_16 52:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_13 52:37

So I mean it makes sense. He's a demolitions expert. So but yeah, so basically Julie arrives just then to see the whole the place blow up, and she thinks the worst.

SPEAKER_15 52:46

Well, a nice bit of acting by Faye Grant, by the way. Like, I thought that was really good.

SPEAKER_13 52:51

I agree. I thought she did a fantastic, like you can see the the devastation in her eyes. Yeah, and then Mark Singer just kind of shows up, like, hey, it's okay with you.

SPEAKER_16 52:59

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_13 53:00

Right right behind her, like, shh, don't tell. Yeah. Of course, Diana's furious with everything. But we end with the resistance. It's they're they're having Christmas at at the burned club in like the basement, you know, kind of like very reminiscent of the old headquarters that they used to use, right? Yeah, that kind of feel to it. Elizabeth's trying to understand what's going on, like, like why would she seek me out? And and how come she didn't hurt me? And she just has all these questions. Willie tries to comfort her. Uh, he says, All creatures seek to reunite with their source to come together in peace and goodwill, like Christmas. And I thought, wow, that's very profound coming from Willie.

SPEAKER_15 53:46

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_13 53:47

You know, he's he's tends to be more of the simple-minded visitor.

SPEAKER_15 53:51

Right, yeah, true, true. But yeah, but I like the kind of outsider perspective on it. And yeah, but yeah, it's I don't know. He he know Mr. Spock, so it is a little bit strange coming from him in particular. But uh that's okay.

SPEAKER_13 54:06

Agreed, agreed. So yeah, from now on they can only come in through like the sewers, right? Or the alley. The alley or the sewers are like their only way into the club because it's demolished and uh they think everybody's everybody's done for. But just then Ham shows up and he's dressed as Santa. Yeah. And I do like how Jennifer's like pull like Mr. Ham. She knows it's him right away. She likes pulling on his beard, and I mean, it's a nice little moment. He gets to be the gift giver and the joybringer, which he usually isn't. So you know, it's a nice way to kind of deal with his the loss of his family. And it would have been nice if they had explored, like if that scene had gone on a little bit longer, but that's that's pretty much how it ends. So yeah, I mean, that's good.

SPEAKER_15 54:56

Yeah, it's a good episode.

SPEAKER_13 54:57

I I I liked this episode, you know. It was it was weird in some spots, but at the same time, it was like super enjoyable.

SPEAKER_15 55:05

So it's like 80s sci-fi schlock, you know, it's yeah, A plus. It's great, yeah.

SPEAKER_13 55:11

Yeah, for sure. I'd want I'd watch it again. But yeah, so I mean, overall, great episode. If you could be in this episode, I have to ask, who would you be?

SPEAKER_15 55:23

I would probably be Farber.

SPEAKER_13 55:26

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_15 55:27

Yeah, yeah. I like I like Mickey Jones, and we're not unlike in build, so gotcha, I gotcha. Or beard.

SPEAKER_13 55:36

I mean, I would like to be ultimately, of course, everyone I'd like to be Donovan, but I know I probably wouldn't be. I'd probably be more like Father Turney or something. Yeah. Or I'd probably be that poor bartender that you know has to just duck.

SPEAKER_15 55:51

He's actually he actually owns that bar. He does, yeah.

SPEAKER_13 55:54

I I just couldn't remember his name, so I was just calling him. I don't remember the life of me.

SPEAKER_15 55:59

What is his name?

SPEAKER_13 56:00

I don't remember.

SPEAKER_15 56:01

He's been around since the first mini-series as well.

SPEAKER_13 56:04

Right, right. But I just I don't remember.

SPEAKER_15 56:09

But I mean it's it's fine. Oh, Elias.

SPEAKER_13 56:12

Elias, yes.

SPEAKER_15 56:13

Yeah, Michael Wright is the actor. Yeah.

SPEAKER_13 56:15

Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, I'd I'd probably be Elias and just like jump out of the way when people start shooting. What would you say is your hap, hap, happiest memory or moment with V in general or this episode in particular, whichever.

SPEAKER_15 56:32

With V in general, I I mean this whole experience. I I I want to, yeah, I'd love to say it was like something I remember from my childhood, but really it's like this whole experience of finally catching up with it and seeing it all together. Like that has really been a blast, and I'm looking forward to keeping going after this episode that we just watched or talked about.

SPEAKER_13 56:50

So this is what episode nine. So you still have 11 more episodes. No, 13 more episodes because there's 22 episodes, so yeah.

SPEAKER_15 56:57

Oh, okay. That's that's more than I thought it was. But from this episode, it's it's close between the reappearance of Mickey Jones's character, but I think it's I'm gonna have to give it to Ham and his whole kind of journey with Jennifer and just uh him playing Crest uh Santa Claus at the end is pretty sweet.

SPEAKER_13 57:17

Priceless, yeah. I agree. That's definitely for the series. I I gotta say, I remember vividly, because it scared the heck out of me as a kid, when like their mask was first ripped off, and you saw that they were like these reptilian creatures, you know, like almost like a gorn, but not quite, you know, underneath. And then and it's so cheesy and terrible looking now. But back then, the special effect of Diana eating the mouse, you know, yeah, yeah, freaked me out. I I remember, but it was cool. I was I was still intrigued and I still wanted to watch more, you know. So yeah, good times, man.

SPEAKER_15 57:55

Those two memories and Elizabeth being born, and she looks like a normal baby, but then like the fork tongue comes out of her mouth. Yeah, oh crap.

SPEAKER_13 58:05

I do gotta say, I remember their their voices being like modulated or something, right?

SPEAKER_15 58:12

They were in the first miniseries, but I think they weren't, yeah. I don't remember if they had it in Final Battle. They definitely have dropped it for the TV show, though.

SPEAKER_13 58:20

They did, yeah, and I think that was just budget. I mean, if I had to guess, yeah. But now we come to my favorite part of the show, which is a little segment I call Gag Me with the Spoon, where we do our best impression of our least favorite part of the episode. As a guest, I'll let you go first, just kind of set up the scene for us a little bit.

SPEAKER_15 58:37

The scene is Robin is confronting Elizabeth about Kyle, and she says, You just knock every I'm behind my back.

SPEAKER_13 58:50

She does say that.

SPEAKER_15 58:51

She's so whiny.

SPEAKER_13 58:53

I know, I know. Like, come on, Robin. You weren't like that in the miniseries.

SPEAKER_15 58:58

Yeah, I mean, and she's Elizabeth's mom, but she always treats Elizabeth like a sister that she has a rivalry with. Like, she's there there's no motherly feeling from her towards Elizabeth at all.

SPEAKER_13 59:10

Well, and I get it. I mean, she, you know, she was seduced by this alien. Yeah, like turns out that, oh, by the way, he's part of this group that wants to like eat everybody. I mean, you know.

SPEAKER_15 59:21

Yeah, she has some trauma that she needs to she's working through. That is true.

SPEAKER_13 59:26

And then her baby like just grew up so fast, like, you know.

SPEAKER_15 59:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_13 59:30

Just and in what a year? Like, I because I think it's I think it's like a year, right? A year and a half, maybe.

SPEAKER_16 59:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_13 59:36

You know, and now she's like almost her age, so like I get it.

SPEAKER_15 59:40

But Robin always takes the selfish option. Like, she like even if there's like, I I think I just need some time by myself, I'm just gonna leave.

SPEAKER_13 59:48

That's all right. Let's see. I don't know how you're gonna get food. I don't know what you do for a living, but don't worry about it. It's gonna be all right.

SPEAKER_16 59:55

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_13 59:57

So I I couldn't decide what my least favorite part was. So I ended up just going with the line from Diana that I thought, and I kind of mentioned it already. I kind of took the easy way out because I thought it was just so cheesy the way she delivered it. So this is when the old woman is complaining. It's like you said I could have my my uh husband home for Christmas dinner, and Diana in great fashion says, and you will our Christmas dinner. It's like, come on, like okay, Kang and Kodos, you know.

SPEAKER_16 1:00:31

Yep.

SPEAKER_13 1:00:33

It's just all right. Oh man, but but you know, G.I. Joe taught us that knowing is half the battle. What do you think the other half is?

SPEAKER_15 1:00:41

The other half of the battle has to be don't take Holly from strange bell ringers for sure, yeah.

SPEAKER_13 1:00:49

Unless you want to be cloned. Maybe you do, I don't know.

SPEAKER_15 1:00:53

In which case and maybe if you start to bleed and you don't stop bleeding, put a band-aid on that.

SPEAKER_13 1:00:58

That's right. You know, they have the uh the liquid band-aids as well. That covers it right up. That's good, it's better than mine. I just thought of no one's half to battle, the other half to battle, or the other half is just red jumpsuits.

SPEAKER_15 1:01:12

Yeah, if you're gonna lose, at least lose in style.

SPEAKER_13 1:01:16

That's right. I was trying to remember, I was watching something and I noticed that they used it, it might have been rad. I think it was rad. They used some of the uniforms from V as part of their like BMX or racing deal. Cool. All right. So like that's pretty awesome.

SPEAKER_15 1:01:34

That's pretty awesome.

SPEAKER_13 1:01:36

Oh man. Michael, this has been a blast talking with you about this. Super trip down memory lane. Tell me about you know your shows or anything you want to plug.

SPEAKER_15 1:01:45

Yeah, so I got three podcasts. Uh Crestwood House is our our Halloween podcast. It we recorded all year, but we release episodes in September and October. So that's not available, but there's a nice backlog of a few seasons that are out there for people to listen. It's on the Cult Film Club channel. Uh Helmet for Letterboxd is a Western podcast that I do with my friend Pax. And then my main show is After Lunch, which is a sequel to the old nerd lunch show where we mostly talk about movies that we play dumb games and stuff too.

SPEAKER_13 1:02:16

I love it.

SPEAKER_15 1:02:17

Um, yeah, it's it's a blast.

SPEAKER_13 1:02:19

Yeah. Which we should be getting your co-host on here as well, too, when we talk about Cagney and Lacey soon this season.

SPEAKER_15 1:02:25

Oh, yeah, can't wait.

SPEAKER_13 1:02:26

That'll be fun. I used to love Cagney and Lacey.

SPEAKER_15 1:02:28

Me too. Me too.

SPEAKER_13 1:02:29

So yeah, that'll be good. Yes, definitely go check them all out.

SPEAKER_15 1:02:32

And they can find you on the Blue Sky is my main home, and it's just Michael May.whatever that handle is be Sky Social or something.net right.

SPEAKER_13 1:02:47

I don't know. Yeah, well, it's been a blast talking with you. This has been a lot of fun. So thank you. Thank you for that.

SPEAKER_15 1:02:56

Uh thank you so much for having me for giving me an excuse to watch this show. And uh, but I always enjoy whatever we talk about. I always enjoy coming on here.

SPEAKER_13 1:03:04

Yeah, yeah. We're gonna have some, we're gonna have a lot of fun, I think, uh, in in a few months. But on that note, I'm gonna end it with humans take holidays so seriously. So check us out on our social media pages, which you can find at linktree.com slash totally radchmas. And if you're feeling like your clone just saved your life, leave us a review on iTunes. It helps us reach more people and spread some rad holiday cheer. Now don't forget to check out our merch shop on tpublic.com and our super dope website, totallyradchristmas.com. To victory, to friends and family, to peace, to Christmas. Merry Christmas, everyone. Later, dudes.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:46

To come together in peace and goodwill. Like Christmas.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:59

Well, how'd you guys manage to keep this place intact?

SPEAKER_04 1:04:01

Oh well, Chris wired the explosives to knock in just the walls and the ceiling upstairs. Yeah, there's nothing left of the kitchen up there, so there's no way they can find the door.

SPEAKER_12 1:04:09

You mean the only way we can get in here is through the alley?

SPEAKER_04 1:04:12

Or the sewers?

SPEAKER_12 1:04:14

I kind of like it like that.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:19

Well, sweetheart, I don't think he's much in the Christmas spirit today.

SPEAKER_08 1:04:48

To victory.

SPEAKER_07 1:04:51

To friends and family, to peace.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:54

To Christmas. Merry Christmas, everyone.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:58

Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas.

unknown 1:05:00

Merry Christmas.