Top 10 Moments of 2023
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Greetings, and welcome to House of R, the Ringerverse podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Mallory Rubin, and it is my absolute pleasure to invite you not only back to the TVA, but also to our new-ish House of R podcast feed. Joining me today so that I can tell her I'm old, I'm satisfied, and she was my purpose. It's my House of R podcast.

Permanent title. Co-host, New York Times bestselling author of MCU, The Reign of Marvel Studios, Joanna Robinson. Hello. I love the little like Easter eggs that were sprinkled in there. A little preview of what's to come here. Little tease. Little tease. We are here, Jo, for a very exciting episode. One of our favorite things to do. It's a

Now in its second year running, officially a house of our tradition, our year end top 10 moments countdown. But before we follow the pathway to Paridia, some quick programming reminders. Next week, we have a slightly different house of our schedule. We're not going to be with you in the usual Monday, Tuesday window because Percy Jackson premieres the middle of next week and we will have a Percy pod for you on Thursday.

Wednesday, right here on the House of R. So tune back in for that. Over on the Ringiverse, the Junior Mints are getting hyped because Mint Edition will have a pod on the things we missed this year. That's Monday. And then the Midnight Boys, they're heading to the ocean. They're heading to Atlantis. They are embracing the magic of aquatic cinema. They are podding about Aquaman.

Joe is thrilled. They've caught the Aquaman fever from you. I love this for you. You're passionate spreading. I can't wait to listen to this podcast. I know. It's great. Oh, boy. Joanna, how can everyone follow along? I'm beyond thrilled that you asked me this question because I have a couple ideas for you. Number one, what if you just

Subscribe to the pod. What if you just subscribe to House of R and Ringiverse while you're at it? That way you can get everything, everywhere, all at once. Mallory and I have...

At least two more podcasts to do before the end of the year after this. That's like on this feed. That's quite exciting. Just some holiday treats for you. Also, follow us on social. That's a good thing that you might want to do before the end of the year because I hear a rumor that Jomie's got some fun stuff cooking up somewhere out there in social media land. So Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, et cetera. You might hear all of our voices involved in something. Who's to say? Who is to say?

Last but not least, definitely not least. We would love it if you would email us hobbitsanddragons at gmail.com. Are there any hobbits and dragons on our list today? Maybe not. It wasn't a very dragon-y hobbity year. The last year's list, yes.

And next year's list, probably. So it's just a bye year for Hobbits and Dragons, but the email still lives on. So send us your apples and your pickles and your season's greetings and your Percy Jackson thoughts. And we will see you in the inbox. Wonderful.

The last programming reminder is the Friendly Neighborhood spoiler warning. But in order to explain what we're going to spoil, we have to explain how today's pod is going to work. So again, this is a year in tradition. It's the House of R top 10 moments of the year. If you've listened to a hype meter pod or any sort of top moments preview pod that we've done, you know the drill. You know how a top moments countdown works. We are counting down from 10 to 1.

We have each made a list, our respective favorite moments from the year. How many will overlap? We don't know. Only Carlos knows because he has our picks, but we don't have each other's. We will be revealing our list to each other in real time. So if we have the same moment, like if, for example, we have both selected...

Gaia becoming the most powerful character in the history of the MCU. And I have that at, I don't know, 10. And Joanna has that at, let's say, one. We wouldn't wait until we got to Joanna's number one spot to discuss that historic moment from Secret Invasion, right? That's the rule.

If we have different moments from the same show or film, we'll chat about them in different spots. If something is like proximate, but not completely overlapping, you know what? We're going to figure it out in real time. That's going to be part of the fun today. What is eligible for selection?

It's anything in the House of R or Ringiverse orbit. So our list will probably largely be comprised of things that we have discussed or actually covered on the pods, but not necessarily exclusively if it is nerd culture, if it's fandom, if it's genre storytelling, if it's something that fits here, it is eligible for inclusion today, but it has to have already aired. So if you're like, you guys have been mentioned Percy a lot. Am I going to get a spoiler for something that hasn't aired yet? No, we're not talking about anything that comes out in the next two weeks.

Only things that have aired to this point. So with apologies for anything that is being released in the final two weeks of the year, this is the day the pod comes out. That's how it happened. That's how it happened. We reserve the right to amend this list. Should Aquaman, you know, rocket his way to the top, you know, if we need to come out. It's a living document. Yeah. Number one was clearly Aquaman. Our apologies, you know. So that brings us to the

Friendly Neighborhood spoiler warning, which is basically content from 2023. Now, if you're listening to the pod, you're probably familiar with most of this. We will be talking about things that happened in the stories that we have selected today, including some stuff from finales, presumably, like things are going to come up. So you'll get a sound bite, you'll get a little clip and like a signal of what the pick is if you don't want to hear particulars from that

discussion point. You'll have the opportunity to scan ahead, but this is a celebration of things that we love this year. So hopefully it will be a welcoming space for all. Jo, anything else on the rules front? How the exercise works today? Anything else that we need to lock in or consider or clarify for the bad babies? I'll just say that there's like a few like relatively fresh things on my list. I tried to space out over the year and over different like, you know, studios and streaming platforms and stuff like that. But, um,

For the freshest things, I will tread lightly on like, I can talk a little more vaguely about the thing that you might not have quite gotten to yet. That's sort of my plan. But, you know, if it's something from January or March, I'm like, you know, you either saw it or you didn't, I guess, so far this year. I'm really excited to do this. I love doing this with you. It's always like a fun, like, it's both a like,

personal tour of the pod and what we covered this year. And also just like a fun little like guessing game of what do I think Mallory has on her list? What can I leave off my list that I am so confident Mallory will have that like it will get covered, you know? Stuff like that. As always.

You are a beautiful mystery to me and I am as painfully predictable as possible. I have no doubt that you were able to anticipate like at least seven of the 10 things on my list. No doubt. No doubt. But I love it, Joe. We're like building an audio scrapbook of our year together. It's wonderful.

A lot of these picks were very like emotion based, based almost as much on our like friendship and podcasting relationship as it was like purely something I enjoyed watching. Because I mean, that's the whole part of this podcast is like, you know, we watch these things, we love these things, and then we talk about these things and we grow to love them even more. And so it's just like, you know, I feel very fortunate. Me too. I love you. I love you too. Should we do it? Yeah.

Okay, it is time for our countdown of the top 10 moments of the year. Joanna, why don't you go first? How exciting. So what's true also, if you go around my list, is we're going to start sort of light and then things get a little like heavier, more emotional. So like we're going to have some like little fun and funny right here at the beginning because that's where this stuff belongs. So Carlos, will you please play our first clip?

No, Grogu. He's not a pet. No, it's a wing. Bad baby. Sorry about that. He's young. No, Grogu. Incredible. I was hoping you would have this. Great. This is from the Mandalorian season three premiere.

And this is when, you know, Grogu first meets the Anzalans who show up here in season three of The Mandalorian. It not only inspired an all-time incredible soundboard drop

from Steve and Carlos when they are producing the podcast, but gave name to our listeners, the bad babies. Yes, the bad babies. When Mallory and I, when I was out on book tour, when Mal and I did the live show, we saw people with their own homemade merch, own homemade bags or t-shirts or whatever that said bad babies on them, and it just thrilled me to my core. So this moment of television will forever stand as this origin story of...

you know, an important part of our podcast. Incredible. I love it. I don't feel like this is really a spoiler because this is, again, there's not a person on the Zoom or listening who didn't know this would be true, but I have a Grogu moment coming later and I smuggled this inside of that moment, but I was really hoping you would have it. And here it is. Wonderful. What a perfect way to start.

No better way. The bad babies. I'm also just like, I'm just a huge Inzelin fan. Like, I think Boba Frick is one of the greatest cinematic creations of all time that the other Inzelins showed up. In your favorite movie. Dream of my lifetime. Yeah, I mean, Rise of Skywalker, a perfect piece of cinema starring Boba Frick. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Fantastic pick. Can't think of a better way to start. You're living in the moment and I'm going to take us to the past. Carlos, can we hear my number 10? It looks bad. Does it hurt?

Everything hurts. I know how that feels. Well, where doesn't it hurt? Here. It doesn't hurt here. Here. That is, of course, a beautiful moment between Indiana Jones, Aviad Van Laad, and Mariam in Dial of Destiny 3.

Indy and Marion, Finding Closure and Giving Us an Elbow Kiss Callback. This is a really fun and lovely movie that, I mean, we talked about this in real time, but it's certainly now, a few months later, seems to have like vanished from our collective memory. We just don't talk about the movie. It makes me sad. And so...

This was something that you and I loved and loved talking about and loved having as an, forget excuse, an opportunity to like revisit the entire franchise and spend a frankly astonishing but thrilling amount of time with Harrison Ford's filmography. And so I had to have it on my list. I love the elbow kiss moment on its own. It's sweet, it's tender, it's sexy. It's giving Golden Bachelor fans

Old people still fuck aspirational vibes, and I'm here for it. And it's this beautiful moment on the heels of the split and the rupture, on the heels of the deeply touching and moving moment of vulnerability from Indy earlier in the film where he told our wonderful wombat,

When she said, how would you have stopped him? Meaning, but I'd tell him he was going to die. I'd tell him that his mother would find no end to her grief and that his father would be helpless to console her. This connection rediscovered and restored. So in a vacuum, it's beautiful. But more than that, it is beautiful.

Just like the best kind of nostalgia to me. It's not just a callback for the sake of being a callback to the... In reverse, a callback in reverse to the elbow kiss moment in Raiders. It's a way of reminding us of how much time we've spent with this character. Like of how we have seen...

Indiana Jones live a life in full. And that is awesome. And we had a wonderful time talking about it together. And I'm glad we're getting a chance to do it again right now. I love this pic. This is one of a few that I was so hoping you would have on here.

I don't have it, but I'm so glad you do. In addition to watching nearly 200 episodes of another television show that we may or may not talk about later this year, another big sort of watch project that you and I had this year is we watched like every single Harrison Ford movie for a different podcast. But like, that's something that we did together this year, just in our spare time. So like getting to go down that path with you, you know, your number one...

your number one guy, Harrison Ford, like getting to... No one I love more. Yeah, getting to sort of just like, happy Hanukkah, Adam. Getting to sort of like marinate in that with you. I know, I know. Getting to sort of like marinate in that with you was just like so delightful. This scene absolutely reduced me to tears every time I watched it in the movie and then just reduced me to tears while I was listening to it. And part of it is that like,

you're right to point out that this is just like the perfect kind of nostalgia. And part of that is the just absolutely perfect

chef's kiss deployment of the theme, their love theme. Like when that John Williams score comes in, that's what really like pricked the tears into my eyes this time listening to it. Yeah. So it just like reminds us of our shared history with this love story of the idea that love stories endure either on the golden bachelor where apparently that guy is

not who he says he is or an Indiana Jones where these people are trying to be their most authentic selves, you know? Uh, yeah. The, the, the, there's a, there's a lot of golden batch waiting for you to catch up on boy. It's been a run, Joe. It's been a run. I've been following the, uh, the controversies. Yeah, I bet. So yeah. What a movie. What a time to be Harrison Ford fans. What a time to be Indiana Jones fans. What's your number nine? Carlos.

will you play number nine please jeff honey it was the strawberry lube that was the moment where i chose to be this version of myself

Because I could have gone strawberry. I almost did. I'm thrilled. This is also one I was hoping you would have. Thrilled right now. Season two, episode three of Yellow Jackets, a show we covered with Carlos over on the Prestige TV podcast feed. So if you didn't hear it on this feed, that's because it was over yonder. But Yellow Jackets is genre-based.

so it qualifies. And this is just like, I was kicking around, you know, the corners of the Yellow Jackets to figure out what I wanted to include from it. And of course I could have, you know, I wax poetic about Elijah Wood like every single episode. There was this whole musical component that you know I was thrilled for, but I'm just like saving my musical juice for something else because I know there's only so much

musical juice I can squeeze out of a Top 10 Moments episode. And so I was like, we're not going to do musicals. We're not going to do Elijah Wood. We got to go back to Jeff. And this moment in particular, when Shauna and Jeff are sitting down in a diner and Jeff is like thinking about sort of like how different he is from who he was as his teenage self, which is like a big part of the show. And he talks about this time.

that there was some strawberry lube they could have tried. And something that he said at the time was, I think this stuff is for bisexuals and goths, right? And he basically was just sort of like, this isn't for us. And he's sort of lamenting the road not, the strawberry lube road not taken. And my memory of this moment is that you and I had a field day with this because not only is it like objectively hilarious, not only is like Jeff Sadecki one of like the greatest comedic TV creations of all time, but like,

Um...

What I love about this is that we were able to, like, find the humor, find the, like, blue streak of humor, et cetera, all of that, but also find the deeper meaning of, like, it is kind of profound to think about the edgier, riskier things in your life that you didn't try, you didn't do, and how you then feel later locked into this more boring version of yourself or, you know, where you're just selling sectionals and, you know, et cetera. And so...

I just love that about us. This is kind of a love letter to us of like the fact that we could take the strawberry lube moment and make it this like, and poor Carlos trying to keep the run time down is like, are they still talking about the strawberry lube moment? We were. We talked about it for a while. So season two, episode three, DJ Steve, a Yellow Jackets strawberry lube moment. Fantastic pick. I am absolutely thrilled that this is here. Yellow Jackets was the hardest thing for me to leave off my list.

And I was, I once again had the comfort and dare I say, forget confidence, certainty that we're really building a shared list. We really are. This is a wonderful exercise. Loved that moment. Love talking about it with you. I'm thrilled to tell you that we're going to stay in Lubeville for a moment here, though I'm about to talk about something where Lube was not required. It's time for my number nine.

I don't have a soundbite for this because this is from a book and I will, I guess, in place of the soundbite, read a passage, though I guess one day we will talk about this in full.

And we will read all the passages in full. And it will be a true House of R after dark experience. And I can't wait in case anyone is driving around right now with their children in the car and did not expect to have like truly vivid sex scenes read aloud on the pod. I will limit myself out of decency.

to one sentence that I think sums up the experience. And it is this. I bet you taste just as good as you feel. This is, of course, Rebecca Yaros' fourth wing. Now, on the spoiler front,

This is one where a bazillion people have read Fourth Wing, and so it seems like it's fair game. But I don't know that anyone listening to the pod would have expected it to come up today. And so I am going to actually, even if this is needlessly cautious, not say the character names, just in case anybody wants to preserve the surprise. I'll say this is about character name redacted and character name redacted.

finally fucking, and it is an extraordinary reading experience. Joanna and I have not talked about it on the pod together, but we have discussed it, and we will be talking about it on future pods because this is being adapted, and we're going to get to cover this, and we will have...

intimate relationship with the core text when it is time to discuss this canon. I can't wait. We are talking about a couple sex scenes in this book that cause, I want to be clear, I'm not speaking symbolically, quite literally, lightning to strike due to the power of an orgasm. Furniture is broken.

Things happen. This is just when I think about memorable moments from the year, got to be on the list. I can't argue against it. My fourth wing feelings are mixed, but I was so excited when you wound up reading this, I think for your Syracuse book club. That's right. A couple of months after I had talked about it on the podcast and I was just like, oh, I can't wait for Mallory to get to

That specific part of the book. It also just reminds me of all this, like, fan fiction that I promised I would send you that I need to send you just so you can, like, further explore. I'm eagerly awaiting. These moments in your life. I think it's good holiday reading, perhaps. Anyway, fourth, I...

Honestly, as you were setting that up, I was like, I can't believe she's going fourth wing. This is wild. Wonderful, wonderful pick. Wonderful pick. Again, it's a list of moments, you know? Memorable moments from the year? It really was memorable. And I lied. There were dragons on the list. So here we go. There are dragons. I should say. I'm just saying dragons are tangentially involved. All right. Who's to say? Okay. My turn. Do you want to talk more about fourth wing? Number eight. Let's do it.

Save it for the future. Have you... You haven't read the sequel yet. You're saving that to come up again on Book Club? No. December 30th, Book Club. The way the Book Club works, Joe knows this, but for everyone listening, it's five of us, college roommates, college pals, started the Book Club during COVID, kept it going. It's wonderful. And we alternate picks. But... So one of the members of Book Club picked Fourth Wing, but everybody decided...

that it would be impossible to wait too long to read Iron Flame. And so we hit pause on the individual selections, decided to make Iron Flame a group pick. We did read something in between, but that will be the late December book club. So I haven't started it, but it's going to be my holiday week read just around the bend. I wouldn't allow myself to start it until then because I knew I wouldn't be able to put it down. Like you said, lots of notes, lots of thoughts, but also...

Undeniably addictive. It's a page turner. Oh, it's a page turner. Correct. Oh, boy. Speaking of reserved musical juice, Carlos, will you play my number eight clip, please? Drinking every second of the joy. You learned it. A success of.

I work so hard for this, and now the fellowship sees me as one. The sky is the limit, the future is infinite with possibilities.

So Mallory, if that does not sound familiar to you, that is because it's from a show that you do not watch, but you support me in my love of it. It is from season two of Strange New Worlds, a Star Trek show that I absolutely love. Episode eight, Sub Space Rhapsody, the musical episode. I got to cover this with good old Ben Lindbergh. But yeah, this is a musical. The reason Mallory discussed length of clips today, I think that's my longest clip.

And I, like, we made an agreement of how long we would keep certain clips. I agonized over this one. I violated the time limit multiple times. Fair enough.

many different versions of this clip. I kind of wanted to pair it with this reprise where you get to hear Ethan Peck, who plays Spock, sing, and he's got this beautiful baritone. He does a reprise of this. But I was like, let's just not be greedy. Let's keep it a one. Pick the most, like, bangery of the songs and did a kind of lengthy clip in the hopes that it would sort of get people to be like, ooh, that song sounded fun. I would like to see that or, you know, watch this wonderful Star Trek show. I love this show in general. Um,

It is. I think it's really friendly to people who've never seen Star Trek before. But as I mentioned, like Spock is here, you know, Kirk shows up like your characters that you know are in this show. And it's a Star Trek show that that feels the most like the Star Trek that I fell in love with as a kid.

And then they were like, hey, Joanna, on top of that, would you like a musical episode? And this is not the only time I feel directly catered to this year, but it is one of the times that I feel directly catered to this year. And I loved this episode. I listened to the sound. I'm surprised I didn't show up on my Spotify rap. I listened to the soundtrack over and over again. And what I love about this song in particular, not just because I think it's a really fun little poppy number, but

But what the character is celebrating in this song...

is a promotion. Like she's got a fellowship that she's really excited about. So she's like, the whole bar just like erupts in celebration of her getting this like exciting scientific fellowship that she's been working hard for. And it was just sort of like, you know, like the background singers are like, you worked hard. You deserve this. Like, this is great. I'm just like professional achievement. How does that? Ambition, scientific curiosity. Like what a cool thing. And that's, I mean, that's something so cool about Star Trek is that it just like,

And part of it is like, you know, seek out new life and new civilizations. Like intellectual curiosity and the pursuit of that is as celebrated as, you know, there are certainly like love songs in this episode and all this sort of stuff like that. Like the general things that you think that you celebrate in a musical number, but this is like the promotion musical number. And I just like really love that about it. So, yeah. Great pick. Thanks. I look forward to watching one day. Big show in my household, as you know. Adam is a...

Passionate fan. Passionate fan. One day I will join you. I believe you. My number eight. This is the first one I think we might have overlap. Carlos, is my prediction correct or are we safe to play my clip for number eight? So this is one that you guys both have. Well, you guys both have the same movie, but it's a different...

part of the movie and it's actually okay I'm gonna be coming off that we can yeah and I think we're gonna basically play these back-to-back so here's okay okay you know it really is always so great to talk to you yeah yeah I mean how many people can you talk to about this stuff you don't even know what you're the only friend I've ever really made after Peter died other than Hobie all right

That's different. Yeah? How's that? I don't know. You and me, it's... We're the same in the important ways. This is, of course, Miles and Gwen hanging upside down from the clock tower. Looking out over the city from Across the Spider-Verse. Joe, is your Across the Spider-Verse moment literally your number seven? Like, do you want to play your clip two and then we can just talk about the movie and these moments together? Should we do that?

Let's do it. Okay, Carlos, let's hear Joe's number seven, and then we'll talk about my eight and her seven in tandem. Here's the deal. Wherever you go from here, you have to promise to take care of that little boy for me. Make sure he never forgets where he came from, and he never doubts that he's loved, and he never lets anyone at those big fancy places he's going to be in tell him that he doesn't belong there. And when he comes home, and he better come home

You're going to be early and you're going to be holding a normal, nice cake. Yeah, okay. You got to promise, Miles. I promise. That is, once again, Miles Morales and his mother Rio. Kind of in close proximity to each other, those scenes in the first hour of Across the Spider-Verse. I'm crying. Very moving. I cried making that clip. I cried listening to that clip.

Do you want to talk about why you picked the, I love the Gwen and Miles upside down moment. You want to talk about why you picked that moment? Yeah. I mean, this was one of our favorite movies of the year and there are a lot of top moments candidates inside of this film. Like a lot. It was actually, on the one hand, it was an easy pick because I love this so much. And on the other hand, it was difficult because it was tough to narrow down from a set of like a dozen possible picks. But ultimately this scene between Miles and Gwen,

looking out over the city that they have tasked themselves with protecting, talking about isolation and connection is the moment from the movie that I think about the most. Other than, of course, the...

Air Jordans, but that's... We all know. We all know that that's top of mind. There's this element of familial stress and tension and advice, which connects, obviously, directly to what you selected. There's this will-they-or-won't-they aspect to this scene with the little hand reach and then the speedy retreat and trepidation. Yeah.

Mostly, I think about this scene as a snapshot of two young people who are simultaneously trying to navigate existence, trying to find their way in the world, and then realizing that they have already found a sense of belonging with each other.

When Miles says, maybe some things are supposed to be just for us, and Gwen says, that's a nice way to think about it, it's just tough for me to think of too many moments from the year that summed up something elemental about connection as beautifully as that. And similarly, we're the same in the important ways. I just love that line and that idea and what it means to the characters and what it means to us watching so much. And I think that the scene...

simultaneously captures that really elemental quality of why a lot of people love Spider-Man stories, right? That coming of age, how do I find my way? How do I find my sense of self aspect of a number of versions of the tale with the very particular palette of

of the Spider-Verse franchise. These characters, this mashup, jaw-dropping, astonishing visuals. It's just a perfect, perfect movie moment. Ever since seeing that, you know, like one of the best moments from Into the Spider-Verse, the most famous moment, is Miles' leap from,

where he's upside down, you know, when you get the beautiful cityscape and then Miles sort of like upside down, right side up, the camera tilts, all this sort of stuff. So to give us this beautiful upside down moment for them, this shared, like only we could sit like this sort of visual that comes with it. I, ever since I saw that moment in the, you know, we saw a visual of it in the trailer of like Gwen's little ponytail, like, you know, upside down. I just like shoulder boop delighted by it.

Why I picked Rio and Miles, and it was interesting, in pulling this clip, which comes around the 40-something minute mark, it's kind of, I don't think, you know, this is a story told in two parts, but I don't think we always remember sort of like how long it is

that Miles is like essentially home, you know what I mean? And that's a thing we like to talk about in terms of like what's worth defending, what's worth protecting. You got to go to Bilbo's birthday party in the Shire before you go off on an adventure so that we understand what is worth protecting here. That idea of belonging and connection and not just like connection in the way that like Miles and Gwen are tethered to each other by like, you know, this gossamer string of, you know, between multiverses. It's

a connection that is an anchor for Miles and his family. It's just like, no matter where you go in the multiverse, you belong here. And something that Rios, it was hard for me to cut this down because there's beautiful stuff from Rio before this and beautiful stuff from Rio after this, but this was like the best I could do to sort of chunk it out. But like after this,

directly after this, she says, like, don't get lost. And what she's doing here, she's extracting a promise from him that he will come home. And she doesn't know that he's about to head out into this, like, multiversal adventure. And he's so close to telling her who he is in that moment. Um...

And she's like, promise me you'll come home. And so we have to be thinking about that. When we think of Miles at the end of the movie thinking that he's coming home and he's far from home and he doesn't know how to get home.

And we are desperate for him to be reconciled with his loving family. And you need to have this in order to feel the, not just the danger, but just sort of the angst of like, I thought I was coming home and this is not my home. And I just think that like, also this anchor that Miles' parents in this story, again, to your point about spider stories,

you know, the Aunt May, Uncle Ben, like the sort of the parental figure and the role it plays in a spider story is so important. This is, you know, slightly different in that it is his parents, but it's important for any spider person to have that voice telling them who they are in the face of these extraordinary circumstances so that later in the film,

When Miles is able to, I mean, I don't know if defy is the word I want to use, but just sort of like disagree with Miguel and sort of go his own way. The only reason he's able to do that or a reason he's able to do that is this moment when Rio's like, remember who you are. Don't let them push you around. Don't tell them that you don't belong. Don't tell them, you know, don't let them feel like make you feel small.

Like, stand tall. You know who you are. And in a story of Miles of, like, bifurcated identity, you know, do I belong here at my school? Am I, I am, like, mixed race? Am I Spider-Man? Am I Miles? Like, all this sort of stuff. This reminder of who he is.

anchored so firmly by this character. And what I love about Rio, last thing I'll say, is that this is a film and a franchise that's chalked with familiar voices. Lauren Velez is not an actress that it pops the same way that Nicolas Cage would or these other more familiar voices that we've heard in here. And so she's just so embodying

It's not just like, oh, there's so-and-so playing this. It's like, this is Rio. This is Miles' mom. That's what it sounds like to me. So I just love this moment. It's a great pick and a beautiful movie. Look at us having it in a similar spot on the countdown. I love it. I love it. It's almost like we've been... Potting about stuff together for two and a half years. Almost like it. Almost like it.

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This might be my longest clip. It's either my longest or my second longest. Carlos, is it safe to play my number seven? We've known each other a long time. We've been on this planet for a long time. I mean, you and me. I could always rely on you. You could always rely on me. We're a team, a group, a group of the two of us. And we've spent our existence pretending that we aren't. I mean, the last few years, not really. And I would like to spend... I mean, if Gabriel and Beelzebub

Can do it. Go off together. Then we can. Just the two of us. We don't need heaven. We don't need hell. They're toxic. We need to get away from them. Just be you and me. What do you say? Come with me to heaven. I'll run it. You can be my second in command. We can make a difference. You can't leave this book, though. How cruelly. Nothing lasts forever. No. No, that's what it does. Good luck. That's...

Like emotional terrorism. Oh my God. Can I just say, we are doing such a good job building this list. We are doing such a good job. I am in a state of distress right now hearing that again. Joanna, that is of course Crowley.

Finally telling Aziraphale how he feels in the Good Omens season two finale. I think about this scene a lot. Two of the great performances of the year and recent years, and that is true even in an inconsistent season. We had a really fun time talking about

These characters talking about this season of TV, the first season, the trope at play in the story, and also the book and how meaningful the book is. This is one of Joanna's favorite books of all time. It was at one point her favorite book of all time. And so it was incredible to get to dip our toes into the world together. Hot David Tennant Summer delivered for us in a lot of respects. I suspect some of them will come up elsewhere in the pod today. We'll see.

But this moment, Crowley finally going for it, risking that rejection, choking out this declaration that he has resisted for centuries, going in finally for the kiss. And then Aziraphale, we talked about this at the time, but an angel,

With the most deeply human response, the most relatable fear and backslide, just simply not being ready to embrace and receive the very thing that you crave and have longed for. It was the journey from euphoria to utter ecstasy.

anguish in the span of mere moments in this scene was extraordinary. And I just can't shake the stomach twisting feeling of, I forgive you. Don't bother, which killed me. And listen, do you hear that? I don't hear anything. That's the point. No nightingales, you idiot. We could have been us like that idea. We could have been us and,

I, it's, it's in this moment of sorrow and heartache, but it's like the most romantic thing I've ever heard. Right? Like what more could anybody want than for another person to say to them, we could have been us. I just think this is beautiful and like shattering. And I loved it. And I love that we got to share it together. Jeff could have been strawberry lube and Aziraphale and Crowley could have been in us.

That might be House of R in a sentence, honestly. Listening to this scene again, having rewatched it a million times and knowing every single word of it,

The one that really hit me this time listening to Carlos play this clip was when Aziraphale says, Oh, Crowley, nothing lasts forever. And it just, like, reminded me of, like... I mean, it's just absolutely gutting. And it just reminds me of conversations we've had about, like, you know, Doctor Who and Happily Ever Afters. And, like, it's just a time, you know? It just means some time. And this, like...

Just all the, just shaking my head at everything that Aziraphale says, where I'm just like, don't, you just stop. Don't, you don't, you're making the biggest mistake. Anyway, we know this is not the end. We know that there's more to this story. We're grateful for that. This is a very traumatic finale. It was a mixed bag of a season, but this scene, these actors, their connection, Tenet just,

Absolutely going for it. Just very special. Very special. We've got us on here. My turn? Yeah. Oh, this voice might sound familiar. Carlos, will you play this clip, please? Well, actually, this is one that Mal has hired. Amazing. This might be the shock of the pod. Amazing. Wow. I thought you might be shocked. I thought you might be shocked by my placement. Holy shit. I'm stunned right now.

Yeah. But I love it in a great way. This is amazing. I'm happy that it's higher and I don't have to sacrifice any of my rankings to get it higher. So great. Oh man. Incredible. Okay. Well, we'll put a pin in that. Everybody knows what we're talking about because of your transition into the clip setups. This is wonderful. Okay. We will, we will be there.

Soonish. In a while. We'll see how soon. Okay. That means it is time for my number six. I feel confident Joe doesn't have this one. Carlos, can you play my number six? When Sire moves us to the new world, we're going to need names. I mean, 89Q12, it's not really a name. So I would like my name to be Lila. Lila. Lila. That's a pretty name, Lila.

Thank you. I think my name shall be Teeths, because although we all do have them, mine are definitely the most prominent. Teeths. Teeths. Lila. Teeths. Me be called Floor, because me is lying on floor. You're lying on a floor? So your name is Floor? Yes.

Floor. What about you, friend? Someday, I'm going to make great machines that fly. And me and my friends are going to go flying together into the forever and beautiful sky. Lila and Teeps and Floor and me. Rocket. Rocket. It really is good to have friends. Yeah. Just sitting here weeping.

Can I just say? Move to tears. I have never been more confident of anything in my life than I was confident that I could skip this because you would have it on hold. Yeah, this was a lot. There's another one that I am also sure you have on here that I didn't put on here, but I was like, she's got this one and she's got the other one and I can...

I can make room for other things because Mal will cover it. So Mal, take it away. So obviously I have this at number six. It's not number one on my list, but I will say it was the first thing I wrote down. When I started to build my notes, it was the first thing I put into my document. It was the first thing that popped into my head. I nearly picked Rocket's King's Cross moment and that I got you killed just dagger. But Rocket and Lila and Teefs and Floor

smiling and giggling as they pick their names and dream of what awaits is the Guardians franchise to me. Like, you cannot... You can't get to I Got You Killed without this. You can't have I Didn't Ask to Get Made in the first Guardians film without this. You can't really have the response to Peter's I Look Around at Us and You Know What I See Losers moment without this. I mean, folks who've lost stuff...

When they pick their names, they're saying, this is who I am. This is who I choose to be. I'm not going to be who the high evolutionary or anybody else tried to make me or told me I needed to be. I'm going to be who I decided to be and who you have helped me find the strength to be. And they're saying, this is what I'm going to do with my life. And you're the ones I want to share it with. It is beautiful. And I loved it in the movie. I loved that. I love, I should say this is Guardians of the Galaxy 3. I don't think I said that.

I think everyone probably figured it out, but just in case. I love the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise. I loved the third Guardians film. It was great to have a reminder of how a superhero movie can still move you this deeply and work this supremely. It's a reminder of the importance of endings and conclusions and stories that have...

confinement and shape and so much life and loss and hope and joy and sorrow inside of them. I just absolutely love this. Also, animals. This is just a fastball down the fucking middle for me. No notes. No notes! I love that you have this on here. As I said, I was so certain you would. And I love discussing this movie with you. This is a great, great House of R episode. And...

What's so funny is like, you know, I talked about Marvel a lot this year because I wrote a book about Marvel and I wound up talking about it a lot. And every time someone was like, oh, what a garbage year for Marvel, I would be like, excuse me, Guardians is like people really liked Guardians. It made a ton of money. Critics liked it. People liked it. Like you can't say it was a whole garbage year at the at the movie theater for Marvel when Guardians exists.

And the image that always comes to mind when I when I I don't know how your brain works in terms of like visuals when you're talking about a thing. But anytime my brain thinks Guardians 3, the visual that I get is little Rocket with his little face like upturned looking at the sky talking about like going into the, you know, wild blue yonder essentially. And so it's just a very special moment out of a really beautiful film that you and I both really liked.

Great pick. Thanks, pal. All right, we're into the top five. Okay, I know you don't have my number five because I don't think you've seen it yet. And so I just want to premise this. This audio clip, it's hard to capture what's happening here. So I'll just say it's a short clip. Towards the end of it, you're going to hear a rustling of paper. That is someone throwing a book in the ocean. And then you're going to hear another rustle of paper. And that's a woman handing another book to...

The woman who's talking. I'll explain that again after. But just one rustle of paper, a book going overboard, the other rustle of paper, just another book being pushed into that person's hands. Carlos, will you play this for me? These two are fighting and ideas are banging around in Bella's head and heart like lights in a storm. Oh, you're always reading now, Bella.

What?

That is from the Searchlight film Poor Things, which is recently in theaters. And I know Mallory's going to watch it when she gets a chance. She's excited to. That is Emma Stone as Bella Baxter and Mark Ruffalo as her sort of like erstwhile paramour. Delightfully ridiculous accent work from Mark Ruffalo throughout the film. Just completely preposterous. The story of Poor Things, which we've mentioned here and there on the podcast, is a story of like a woman

woman who was created and her journey towards like self-realization and intellectual opening and independence and awareness and all sorts of like, it's an incredible film, incredible performance by Emma Stone. And so in this scene, Bella, who is on this cruise with,

you know, her paramour, Mark Ruffalo is sitting here with an older woman and a gentleman and they're reading and they're discussing like philosophy and her paramour is frustrated that she just doesn't want to like only have sex with him all the time anymore. She wants to like read and discuss things. And so he, he snatches the book out of her hand petulantly and throws it overboard. And then this old woman who's sitting next to her, just like silently hands her another book while like sort of smirking at him. And it's just like an incredible moment. Um,

Really hard to capture in a sort of audio clip, but I love this movie. I'm really excited to talk to you about it when you get a chance to see it. And I just, like, this is such an important theme, I feel like, this year. It'll come up again for another pick of mine. I'm just like, I don't know, like, and similar to sort of your Rocket clip, this idea of, like, individuals who are considered victims

or created or manufactured or somehow not themselves.

figuring out themselves, latching onto who they are, who they want to be, their wants, their desires, opening themselves up to the world. And such a beautiful message pinging around a bunch of film and television this year of that inspiring act of self-discovery and independence. And, you know, for me, especially as it pertains to women, but just like across the board, honestly. And I just, I love this movie. I had such a blast.

watching it. It's so weird. It's so weird and it's so wonderful and I can't believe it exists. And yeah, poor things. That's my number five. I love those. I can't wait to see this movie. It's one of my most anticipated releases and the just little kernels I've gotten to soak up from you on the pod so far has me even more excited than I already was. Can't wait. Can't wait.

And we all know what you're alluding to for higher on your list. Can't wait for that either. Maybe. I'd say that was one of the locks of the pond heading in. My number five is from a show that you have already selected a moment from. And so I think it is safe for us to hear my pick. Carlos? Grogu is my apprentice. He is no longer a foundling. Add him to the song.

He is too young to speak, so he is too young to take the Creed. He must remain a foundling. If his parent gave permission, couldn't he then become a Mandalorian apprentice? Yes, but his parents are far from here. If they're even alive. Then I will adopt him as my own. This is the way. This is the way. Let it be written in song that Din Djarin is accepting this foundling as his son.

You are now Din Grogu, Mandalorian apprentice. This is the way. Okay. The Mandalorian season three makes its second appearance of the pod. Had to have a Grogu moment. I had a...

hard time picking my moment from Mando season three. I knew I wanted a moment from Mando season three, and I knew in the depths of my soul that it would involve Grogu. You know, I think if we're being real, like, there's nothing in season three that pops to your mind quite as instantly. I think the pick you made for all of the meta reasons about our community is, like, a different thing, but...

There's nothing quite like Din removing his helmet and Grogu reaching up and touching his cheek in the season two finale, or even it wouldn't be a House of R moments pod if we didn't, for shocking reasons, invoke Boba Fett at some point. Even though you got the shirt force flip hug in Boba. But I think the flip side of that fair and accurate observation is that

If you just spot watched Grogu scenes for Mando season three, you would think it was the best season of TV that had ever been made.

In the history of television. Most important season in the history of television. After most important moment in the history of television gives us the most important TV show in the history of television. I considered Grogu spinning in Grief's chair. I considered, of course, the iconic bad baby, no squeezy namesake of the bad babies. I considered Grogu

Zipping off to fetch Bo and save Dad from Spiderborg, I consider the Kroku dart training scene, though this little wrist is just so precious, but that scene actually pains me slightly, as you know.

I considered Grogu receiving his newest piece of armor. You know, you will grow into this, Rondell, as you grow into your station foundling Grogu. I loved that. I considered the additional post-order 66 backstory. I considered him driving IG-11's corpse car on and on and on and on and on and on the list of Grogu season three candidates. Go. But ultimately, I went with the scene that...

While admittedly in real time when we talked about the finale sparked a little bit of a, okay, we're really moved. This is incredible. But isn't Mando already his dad response in us? It did spark that response in us in real time. And I have to acknowledge that here. When I revisit this, when I think back to it, when I revisit it, when I see the look on Grogu's face,

as Din says that he will adopt him. And he looks up at him. When we hear those coups, the truth is, Joanna, that this warms my heart like the fires of the Great Forge. It does. It does. And it sets up, hopefully, it sets us on the course of Mando season four, rediscovering some of the formula for success and some of the magic of prior seasons.

You must leave Mandalore. Take your apprentice on his journeys, just as your teacher did for you. I'm still not used to calling Mando Jaren or calling Grogu Din. But when I think about the emotion of this moment and how much it meant to Din, to Grogu, my heart feels full. And I know for a moment the kind of joy that only Grogu can bring me. So here it is, a number five.

I'm so happy for you that you found a space to bring pretty high percentage of babbles and coos per second of your clip. Had to happen. Like, pretty high ratio. I love that for you. Yeah, we had some questions about Grogu joining Din's covert. We're, like, not sure we're down with them, though apparently we were reading the situation wrong. I don't know what to tell you, but...

Yeah, a lot of thoughts and questions about this season of television, but never a thought and question about Grogu. And, I mean, I think our main notes for season three were about how often we felt Grogu was sidelined from the plot and how, like, inessential he felt to the plot. And we were just like, that feels like a mistake. Why would you do that? Why would you bench your finest player? And so...

Yeah, I was pulling some faces, which is why Mallory's laughing over the Zoom about when she was like, hopefully this is course correct for season four. And it's just like, yeah, here's fucking hoping. I hope that's true, too. I love Grogu. Dare to dream. And I love, you know, Paige's voice performance is really good. And, you know. We need never speak of the Darksaber again. Father and child roam the galaxy together and have adventures. Let it happen. I can't wait.

Most crucially, let Cobb Banth get out of the Bacta tank. But that's a wish for another day. We should have updated our tally here for the year-end pod. We haven't talked about this, but I am so...

Tim Wolfond is now going to be in Noah Hawley's Alien series that he's making for FX. And I'm like, this motherfucker is never getting out of the back to tank. Never coming back. I don't think he is. I don't know. I won't make you any more promises, but I will hold on to an ember. An ember of hope. Thanks. I know for a fact, Carlos, that you can play my number four. How did this terrible creature come to be? Hate alone was not enough. It took one more ingredient. Love.

Poison by betrayal to bring so much bloodshed. Woe to create the unreal. This is from season one, episode five of Blue Eye Samurai, titled The Tale of the Ronin and the Bride. This is a show, again, that I know Mallory is eager to get to when she has this bare moment. I did start Scavenger's Reign, by the way. Oh, nice. Nice. Yeah. I'm starting to chip away.

We're racing here at the end of the year. And when we catch our breath, we'll get to some things. But this is a season of television that I absolutely loved, full stop. I was just blown away by it. I think it's incredible. A listener of the pod, a friend of the pod, texted me the other day and was like, why is this the best show ever? And I was like, I actually don't know that I can...

wholly disagree with that hyperbole. Like, it's just so good. And I'm thrilled it's getting a second season because that just, like, gives people more time to catch up so that we can maybe, like, all, like, watch season two together or something like that. But the thing about the tale of the Ronin and the Bride that I wanted to put in here is, like, we get... This is a... It's a great show. I don't think I've...

I don't know that anyone has made this particular bid to you, but listening to the, thinking about this episode in particular, I know I told you that there were flashbacks, but like, it is very lost in its like, letting the flashback story of this individual inform the interactions that you're seeing in the present day storyline. And this episode in particular has a very like,

Just an unexpected... This is one of the ones that I'm going to tread lightly on because I don't want to spoil it for people who haven't seen it. But a very unexpected backstory, some surprising turns in the plot, and then a really crushing inevitable conclusion. And it has this frame narrative of these storytellers telling this sort of shadow puppet story of the Ronin and the Bride. So here you hear, it's not usual. It's sort of just like an extra step elevation story.

of this storytelling. This is already a great show. And then they used this little framing device to

telling the tale of the ronin and the bride, which is not really the story you're watching, but has enough parallels to the story you're watching so that when you hear the voiceover narrator or you cut away to this animated shadow play, it's not shadow play, it's like puppetry or whatever, your mind is racing, trying to form connections between that story that's being told, who's the ronin in this situation, who's the bride, what's going on? And that's a particularly fun question to ask

about our main character, Mizu. And that twist of the knife of like, it wasn't just like violence or anger or whatever that formed this person. It was love and then betrayal. Like you can't become as...

angry and violent and all these things without previously having opened your heart up at some point. And that's when you slam it shut. You gotta slam it, you gotta open it up before you can slam it shut. And this scene in particular comes when

Mizu, our titular samurai, is, I would say, at their lowest, having been rejected by their most loyal companion as being not honorable enough, not heroic enough. And I love the bottom of the barrel for a character. And I love a framed narrative. And I love this show. So Blue-Eyed Samurai, The Tale of the Ronin and the Bride. Fantastic.

Beautiful pick. I'll give you a little scenes from a marriage snapshot, Joe. Yeah. Adam and I have assembled a list. It's a totally normal thing to do. Like made an actual Google doc of the movies and shows that we plan to catch up on in the next few weeks. It's fine. Everything's fine. And things were going great. And then I said, boy, samurai. And he just had this look on his face. And I was like, oh, do you not want to watch this? Yeah.

And he said, I already did. Already watched. Yeah. And I was like, outraged and actually wounded. And then he gave me this whole spiel about how he can't always wait for me because I have too much stuff to watch for work and blah, blah, blah, blah. And then he redeemed himself last night with the Rivendell Lego set, but it was touch and go for a minute. Then he said he would happily watch it again because he loved it.

Talk about love and betrayal. Love and betrayal forming an own real. Like that was your own real moment. I love that. I love that Adam will watch it again with you. You're going to love it. And I can't wait to talk to you about it. Can't wait. Yeah. Okay. So we're on my number four, which is your number six. Carlos, let's hear it.

Oh my goodness, Donna! Oh my goodness, Donna! I said so! Wilfred Mott. Oh, now I feel better.

Now nothing is wrong, nothing in the whole wide world. Hello, me old soldier. I never thought I'd see you again after all these years. Oh, Doctor, that lovely face. It's like springtime. And Donna's got her memory back. Without dying, which I recommend. Yeah, well, I knew it. I never lost faith. I said, he won't let us down. He'll come back and save us.

I love that we both picked this. I love it. My heart is full. Hello, Mule Soldier. So can I, let me just say quickly, I'm with you that I'm not sure this should have been as low on my list. Once I saw it was there, I was like, why was it there? I don't know. Um,

I think I got so excited. I think I got so excited about these new things, even though Wild Blue Yonder literally just aired. I think the reason this is the moment to pick is not just because it reduced both of us to a quivering, blubbering mess, which it did. Yes, it did. This is from Doctor Who, Wild Blue Yonder. But because...

It's this perfect culmination of this year-long watch project we had where the thing that got me excited, over the moon excited for these specials in the first place, were behind-the-scenes images from this very... I mean, actually a little later, because I think they filmed a chase. You could see Tennant and Tate with a wheelchair running, and I think they just decided to cut that for whatever reason. But I was like, oh, they got cribbons. It's not just Tennant and Tate.

fucking Wilford Mott is here. And I was like, oh my God. So that was my experience. I had like the tenant of like Wilfred Mott. Now nothing is wrong. Hello, we old soldier. You know what I mean? Like that's how I feel. That's how I felt knowing that that character was coming back for this special.

What is so special about this year long watch project that you so graciously joined me in? And I'm like, what a beautiful expression of friendship for you to spend like literally nearly 200 hours watching something just so that you could then watch this with me and be on precisely the same page as me. Maybe like maybe without the like decade of waiting, but still the affection is no less. Yes.

For an excitement, no less, an appreciation, no less, for Wilfred Mott as a character. And then for what Wilf is expressing here, which is doctor, that face. It's like springtime, that lovely face, which is how we feel getting to see Tenant play the doctor again. So it's just this like...

There's just like 90 layers of meaning in this moment for me. And then I just also am just desperately, desperately happy to see a character that I love. So yeah. And share it with you, which is what is most important. Oh my God. I love that we picked the exact same moment.

For me, this is the culmination. This moment right here, Donna and the Doctor opening the door of the TARDIS and seeing Wilf waiting. This is the culmination of our year in the TARDIS together. You, the Doctor, me, your companion, getting to go into the great unknown and beyond. I love what this meant for all of the characters in the scene and for us watching at home. What it means for Donna to...

Once again, be able to share the entirety of her life with the person who encouraged her to go live among the stars, to wander among the stars, but also ensure that she would always have like a garden waiting to call home.

Incredible. What it means for Wilf to know that he was right to place that faith, right? That faith rewarded, that promise fulfilled. What it means for the doctor, the moment when Wilf brings his hand to his face and

The way he is overcome with that emotion, what that means for the doctor, not only to see Wilf, a person he loves, but to see what he means to somebody else, to have that affirmation that people see the good in him, that someone like Wilf sees the good in him. Incredible. And then what it means for us, having gotten to share this, like for me to get to understand what these characters mean to you and then share it with you has just been an incredible gift that I will always cherish. And this felt like it encapsulated everything

All of the wormhole twists and turns and salt pours along the way is just absolutely magical. I loved it. The ups and the many downs of a complete Doctor Who rewatch. That's some bird. That is some bird. Oh, my gosh. All right. So we have three left. And here's my prediction. We have two of them are the same.

I think they're definitely two from the same property. I think one moment is the same. I feel sure one moment is the same. I feel like 90% that the other moment is the same. It could be slightly different. The third one, though, I think will be different. I think this is one of the ones you counted on me having.

100%. This is the other one that I was certain you had. Yeah. And I was like, I'll clear the decks for Mallory to take that one. And then I know what the similarly, the third that you have, I was like, absolutely 100%. This isn't Joe's top three. We're good. Look at us. It's like we know each other. All right. That takes me to my number three. Carlos, will you play this clip, please?

You have to never get old, never be rude, never show off, never be selfish, never fall down, never fail, never show fear, never get out of line. It's too hard, it's too contradictory, and nobody gives you a medal or says thank you. And it turns out, in fact, that not only are you doing everything wrong, but also everything is your fault. I'm just so tired of watching myself and every

single other woman tie herself into knots so that people will like us. And if all of that is also true for a doll just representing, then I don't even know. It's a Barbie hot Barbie summer. You knew that I had, of course I did. Of course I did. It was actually very, I was really torn between which moment to pick because the other moment to pick is

is at the end of the movie when Margot Robbie as Barbie has made this wish to become human. It talks about wanting to be not the thing that's created, but the one that creates, the person who's telling the story rather than the story being told, which I think is a beautiful moment. But I wanted to do this. Also, I could have picked literally anything Ryan Gosling says in the whole movie because it's all like absolutely delightful. I got it. Sublime! Sublime! But like...

But this speech, this rant as performed by America Ferrera is just an extremely important thing that exists inside a massive blockbuster IP movie. She says this about women and it is in some ways specific to women, but I am happy to open it up to everyone and say like,

All the expectations that you feel like you're being held to, all the ways in which you feel like you're being told you're not enough, all the ways in which you feel like you're striving, striving, striving, and no one is noticing, or just when you think you've fulfilled this expectation, you find a whole other realm of expectations are being placed on you. There are specific ways in which that is female, and there are plenty of other ways in which that is universal. And so that is...

I loved this movie, as you know. I saw it, what, like four times in the theater? Like a sicko. And each time, like bringing a different woman that I know to the theater to see it with me. I just think it's such an achievement. It's so funny. It left such a mark on the year, on pop culture, in a time when it is so hard to make your mark.

anymore in the crowded pop cultural landscape. And embedded inside of it are these very important messages for everyone and for young women especially, just sort of like trying to free you from the shackles of expectation that hinder all of us in fulfilling our

our lives and, and our individuation and all of that. So I just, I find this a remarkably profound movie in addition to being a very silly movie and a very fun movie. It's, it's just a candy coated, you know, vitamin. It's just a delectable. I love this movie. Barbie. I don't know. That was beautiful. You're beautiful. What an equally profound examination of this text. Yeah.

I also love this movie. I knew you would have this high up and I'm really glad you do. That's a, I think that's the perfect selection and beautifully stated. I am very, I don't, I know what your third property is. That is you. You won't be surprised that you weren't having it, but like, what is the precise? I think, I think I know what the precise moment is, but I'm not, you might've had a short list of candidates, but you won't be surprised when you hear it. Carlos, let's hear my number three. You did well. You're a warrior now. As I trained you to be. Is that all?

Ahsoka, within you will be everything I am. All the knowledge I possess. Just as I inherited knowledge from my master, and he from his. You are part of a legacy. But my part of that legacy is one of death and war. But you're more than that. Because I'm more than that. You are more, Anakin. But more powerful and dangerous than anyone realized. Is that what this is about? If I am everything you are... You've learned nothing. Don't say that! Back to the beginning.

I gave you a choice. Live or die. Incorrect. You lack conviction.

Had to keep it going through the Vader breathing. Had to. I think what's funny is I was like, oh, it's a lot of them because she didn't choose because she picked a really long clip. But I love it for you and I support it. But I was like, top of my list was

Oh, is that what this is about? I was like, that's got to be there. But also like, because that's not all I am. Like, yeah, there's just... I knew it was Hayden. Of course it is. I knew it was Anakin and Ahsoka. Take it away, Mallory Rubin. Had to be Ahsoka confronting Anakin and her fears and her doubts in the world between worlds. This is from Ahsoka episode five. I wish I had space on the list for more than one moment from Ahsoka because...

Even though the season ended with a whimper and we had some notes in the concluding run there.

The middle of this season was full, not only of episodes that I loved, but of moments that were just so deeply meaningful to me, and a lot of Star Wars fans who have connections that trace back some time to these characters. To Ahsoka individually, to Ahsoka and Anakin as a duo. Like, there was never any doubt that I was going to have an Anakin and Ahsoka moment on this list. Just never any doubt. This is one of the most important and central relationships in Star Wars to me. Seeing...

Anakin and Ahsoka seeing Sky Guy and Snips in live action, revisiting their past, talking about their fears and their needs and their nature and what is shared and passed down and carried on and what you can break free of or reform.

For me, hearing that back, revisiting that, watching it in real time, that felt like tapping into the Force and channeling it. I was like, I feel the energy between all things. This is magical. I had a number of Anakin Ahsoka

The contenders that I mulled, I think that ominous thrum of the Vader theme kicking in at the end of episode four when we realized what was happening was like a jolt of electricity in my heart that I can actually feel viscerally right now thinking back to it. The first time we flickered between the silhouettes of Anakin and Vader as Ahsoka was watching him charge forward. The...

but our mistakes cost lives. That doesn't bother you. Of course it does moment in the Battle of Ryloth memory and revisitation. But this exchange here, this stuck with me the most. I think the entwined pride and fear

of something like you're part of a legacy, which was a through line of our discussions across the episodes and across the season. The really like desperate need behind Anakin saying, but you're more than that because I'm more than that. And what it means like in a meta sense for us and Hayden to get to see him deliver a line like that

The frankly iconic comedy in a very intense, very emotional and very intense stretch of, is that what this is about? Yes, Anakin, it's about you becoming- You have to pronounce it correctly. Is that what this is about? Is that what this is about? Yes, it's about you becoming Darth fucking Vader, Anakin. It is. We're sorry. It just killed me. So good. And then like the just spine tingling chill of,

of seeing Anakin flash into Vader as he's charging toward Ahsoka, primed to say you lack conviction. I think as a Clone Wars and Rebels obsessive, I needed this moment as badly as Ahsoka the character did. And I want more still. I hope we get more in time. But I'm grateful that we got this.

You know, we talked about this a lot on our first Ahsoka pod, but I just forever cherish the circumstance of us watching the first couple episodes together at Lucasfilm HQ. Clutching each other. Clutching each other. And what adds to all of this is that...

You know, an acquaintance of mine, Tracy, who works at Lucasfilm, like, gave us, like, a nice little tour while we were there. And Tracy, for years and years and years, back when it was deeply unfashionable to, Tracy's been, like, the number one Hayden supporter. She worked with Hayden on the prequels. She, like, told me all these stories about Hayden on those, like, prequel press tours, stuff like that. All positive, all glowing, all, like, he's such the loveliest guy. And so, like, thinking about the, like...

faithful heart of Tracee Kenobi around Hayden to get this payoff for the Anakin faithfuls is very special in a meta way. And I think what's so interesting, what's forming from this list for the most part is a lot of these moments are just about like,

are you who they say you are? Do you have to be who they say you are? Or can you decide for yourself who you are? Which is just like a theme that's been ping-ponging back and forth in a lot of our favorite stories this year. And I wonder what's going on sort of in the culture right now. I think it's going to come up again. That's why it's so top of mind right here at the top of the list. But like that property really helps just sort of

Firm up the rest of the theme down the list, be it your rocket pick, poor thing's Barbie, Blue-Eyed Samurai, Miles, like, you know, all this stuff. Poor Jeff and the strawberry lube. Like, you know, it's just like...

Everyone's just trying to figure out who the fuck they are and where they fit in and how they can break the boxes that the world has tried to put them in. Violet and the Rider Squadron. Yes. Glad you brought it back to first place. Carlos, is our number two the same? We...

I think we have the same two and one in the same order, right? Or are they flipped? This is basically the same moment. So I'll play Mal's clip, but Joanna, if you want to hear yours as well, let me know. Loki, what are you doing? Open the door. Loki. I know what I want. I know what kind of God I need to be for you, for all of us. No. Loki. Oh my God, I just got to chill. Loki's long walk, our shared number two spot.

I clipped this sequence and was staring down the barrel of like seven minutes. It's a long walk. Yeah. And I was like, what do I clip? And like, I was like, I can't just make them listen to score and like the faint, you know, slippered thud of Loki's feet. Like, what am I going to do? So you pick, and I almost picked this. This is a really good pick. I happened to pick

When Sylvie says he's giving us a chance. And then you hear Natalie Hold's score ramp up, like that end ramp up of the score, you know, towards sort of the second half of the walk. And again, I was just sort of like, I could do many minutes of this. But I love...

Last year we had Viserys' long walk pretty high on our list, did we not? So I love that we're back to another long walk for a character. It's been a lot of long walks in our lives. We love a long walk, Jo. We do love a long walk. And there's so much in common between Viserys' long walk and Loki's long walk here. But I think in addition to just being an incredible moment on television, which you and I both agree it was...

This is just like a really special moment in podcasting when I like completely running on fumes at the end of a book tour in a closet in Austin, Texas somewhere. Talked about this episode, which is meaningful in its own right. But like you made you and Steve was also on the call, like made an incredibly safe space for me to get like very personal talking about what this meant to me. And it means a lot to me that I get to do stuff like this on the show with you. So like as a moment in isolation, as a storytelling moment, I'm

Feeding into that theme we were talking, I was just talking about in terms of like, are you who they say you have to be? Doubled down on with like you letting me get very messy on mic and keeping it in the pod is just very, very special to me. Loki is a show we were really anticipating. Again, I think there were ups and downs of the season, but when it comes to like the ending of a story, you talked about this a bit with Rocket and Guardians, like

I've rarely ever felt so satisfied by the ending of a journey for a character. If this is indeed the end. What do you want to say? I love that. It was so meaningful for me and for Steve and for everybody listening to share that with you. And it's an incredible thing to like...

talk about these stories together and in real time as we share them, like learn more about each other and each other's lives and the things that matter and why they matter. It's like a genuinely really special thing that we cherish. So thank you again for that. I know it meant a lot to a lot of people. And yeah,

So just a beautiful moment of television. Like we didn't get to talk about episode five together, but in the process of talking about the finale, you know, we, we were both thinking a lot about how crucial the moments between Sylvie and Loki were in that penultimate episode. I want my friends back. I don't want to be alone. How Loki himself, but also we as characters or we as viewers have to like understand that

what it means to give something up, right? How you have to feel that. And like, there wasn't a frame of this stretch of the finale where we didn't feel that. And seeing a character like Loki, who used to be this insecure, wounded, power-hungry trickster who was desperate for validation, join the proudest MCU tradition there is, like,

make the sacrifice play is an astonishing feat that really honors our time with the character and our time in the MCU. And to hear Loki, a Tom Hiddleston improvised moment, which we did not know when we recorded the finale pod. Like we didn't get to talk about that in real time, but that only enriched it further to know that the

call back to, I could have done it, Father, for you, for all of us. No, Loki from Thor was a choice that Tom made because just like the people watching at home, he understood, of course, what it meant to call back to that wound and to remind us of the corrosive effect that it can have when the people who should support you don't believe in you. And the healing counterweight of finding people who

help you not only help you be better, but like make you want to live a better way because they want to do that for you too. And how powerful that is when you, when people find that in each other, it was just incredible to watch. And it was not a happy moment. Like you noted earlier, like we're building towards some heavy stuff in the pod, but when, you know, just like when Mobius, when, when, when Loki time slips and he goes back to the time theater and he's sitting with an earlier Mobius and Mobius says, well,

There's no comfort. You just choose your burden. Like that's a heavy thing to have to grapple with, but it's meaningful and it's true. And when we saw Loki grab the strands of time,

and reforge them into the World Tree and finally assume the throne that he, at this point, no longer wanted. The weight of the choice that he was making just sat on our chests the way that a decade plus of time together in a world should.

It is the culmination of a story well told, an arc well and fully explored and traveled, and an experience that we've got to deeply share with each other. And I loved it, and I'm very grateful for it. And now we can let time pass. It's incredible. It was such like a beautiful... I love pain inside beauty. That's just sort of exquisite to me. And the...

The just exquisite twist of the knife that is this sort of like for the trickster God, the chaos God to have like the ultimate trick play on him. Here's the thing you always wanted. And now it's your punishment. Your atonement, you know, is like, here's your actual glorious purpose. And it's sad and lonely, but also...

beautiful because you get to watch the people you love go on yeah receive the gift that you've granted them it's amazing important important all right last number one on the list okay this is definitely from the same show the question is do we have of course it's from the same episode of the same show i think carlos do we have the same moment okay so mal had two clips and then you have a completely different clip so how do you guys want to do this okay

Let's just hear them all and then we'll talk about it. Why don't we hear Joe's first and then you can play mine after and we'll talk about it all together. Okay, okay. Just tell me why. I did. Paying attention to things. It's how we show love. This is my street too. Just let me love it the way I want to. Love will abide. Take things in stride. Sounds like good advice.

But there's no one at my side And time washes clean Love's wounds unseen That's what someone told me But I don't know what it means 'Cause I've done everything I know To try and make you And I think I'm gonna love you back

Ellie? Oh, no, wait. Don't leave it. Leave it. Oh, this is good. This is Linda Ronstadt. Do you know who Linda Ronstadt is? No, I don't know who Linda Ronstadt is. Eh, it's better than nothing. Knowing that you warned me of the prize I have to pay. Molly, you did a musical moment at the top of the list. Two musical moments. I love that. I am...

A mess. A wreck. Yeah. Well, after us. Long, long time. Season one, episode three, long, long time. The Ballad of Bill and Frank. This is zero surprise because the episode was at the top of our mid-year best thing we saw this year list that we did. So I'm not surprised. Also, we just, as everyone did, just had an absolute emotional meltdown and delight with this episode. Yeah.

just an all-timer. Genuinely, we throw that around sometimes, but I just genuinely think this is going to just stand the test of time in TV history. I was just going to say this will stand the test of time. Absolutely. For a long, long time. Yes. Um...

Let me talk about my clip and then let me just glance on yours and then I can't wait to hear what you have to say about it. And I will just say the line that I picked is one that you and I both cited. You're usually better at quoting perfectly accurately and I usually fumble around the margins of something. But pay attention to things. It's how we show love.

is the mission statement of this podcast. That is what you and I do. And when people are like, why are these episodes three hours long? Or why are Mallory and Joanna crying all the time? Or like anything like that? It's because this is how we show love to the stories that we...

you know, love that we consume, that we admire, that touch us, that inspire us, that inform us, that build us and shape us. And you and I separately and now together have always had this fascination with and reverence for story, for genre storytelling, maybe specifically, but just in general, a good story. We love slow horses. There's no genre there. But like, I think that

This line, pay attention to the things is how we show love, has been rattling around my head since I heard it in the way that like...

Don Draper saying, I don't think about you at all or that's what the money's for. All these lines that just rattle around my head from great television, that's just going to stick for me. And so that's why I picked that part because I just felt like it was so reflective of us and what we do. This is my street. Just let me love it the way that I want to. That's what we do. Yeah.

As for the music, which I can't wait to hear you talk about, and I already know a bit about it because we talked about it on the Prestige TV feed, if you want to hear our coverage of The Last of Us. What I love about that, especially that Nick Offerman performance at the beginning, is like, I think about this all the time when I think about musical performances inside of film and television. And if the person can reasonably carry a tune in a bucket, they're going to be able to do it.

It matters so much more that you have the person singing and the emotion and performance of the person in the song. You know, so Nick Offerman is, like, not the best singer in the world, but a pretty good singer. And so it matters so much to hear him sing. Like, this is so much better than hearing, like, an auto-tuned, perfect version of this song, which is what some...

film and television and perhaps even my musical choice further down this list, go for. And I've just always urged people making musicals to let the performance come through, let the performer play and sing and open their heart up and pour it out in front of you because...

You know, I think Nick Offerman has said that he was like afraid to do this. This is like a vulnerable performance moment for him. And he's just so... It's so good. And I love that you picked that echo of that song in through the tape deck as this other partnership takes to the road. Mallory Rubin, what do you want to say about Long, Long Time? I had no doubt that we would both have Last of Us at the top. I felt fairly confident we would both have this episode. I did consider...

other moments from other episodes of The Last of Us just because it is such an extraordinary season of TV. Like I considered a Henry and Sam moment. I considered it wasn't time that did it for the finale, which fucking broke me. I thought you might. I thought you might. I got you from the penultimate. I mean, this is just a Titanic season of TV.

and the emotional heft of it is unceasing. But Long, Long Time is my favorite episode of TV of the year. And...

I love everything you said and everything you said about the pod and why we do what we do and why we do it the way we do it. And that line was unsurprisingly my smuggle inside of this pick because it was such a, it was such a meaningful thing to hear and to hold on to. And I think the genius of the show is the way that it is able to hold multiple truths in its mind at once and really like center and prize an idea like that. And then also show us the,

moments where save who you can save or these things that can be like totems and touchstones can also become anchors or elements that lead you astray in the season long question of like

When does the us that you're preserving and protecting definitionally mean that the them is on the outside? And it was just a rich text to parse and assess. But it is such a... And we both loved this about this and love this often in other stories. It is such a unrelentingly bleak story. And so the...

That bounty of hope in long, long time is just like a life raft. And when Bill sits down at that piano, I mean, we've spent mere moments with the characters at that point. And we get to see somebody who we're only thinking of if you have obviously like a different relationship to the character, if you've put the game, you know, a prepper, you

sitting in the secret cellar with the don't tread on me flag and talking about the jackpoots. And we're able to see beyond the veil, as is Frank, to the most vulnerable little glowing ember that somebody miraculously maintained in the hellscape around them.

That like maybe you could find somebody in the world who was worth loving and who would love you back is just incredible. And like there are a number of Bill Frank moments. I mean, I have a deeply like passionate connection to that song. As I talked about the pod, my mom used to play it all the time and like sing it to me when we were when my sister and I were kids. And so I just like kind of couldn't believe it when I was hearing it. It made me so emotional. It's like the sense memory kicking in.

So there's that and there's the echo. I love the way that it recurred across the episode and what that told us about these pairs and what the pairs are teaching each other and teaching us. There are a number of different Frank Bell moments that we could have picked. The strawberry. I was never afraid before you showed up. I mean, holy shit. I've had more good days with you than with anyone else. Like I'm old, I'm satisfied and you were my purpose. And then of course, what you already said, paying attention to things. It's how we should love. Yeah.

I will rewatch this episode until I die and I will never tire of it. And I will always find new things to latch onto and find meaning in. And so when we build toward Joel and Ellie arriving, to find that they were too late, to find Bill's letter. And for Joel and for us, and it's a fascinating text to revisit after we see what unfolds in the rest of the season, to think about...

what it means to love someone so fully that protecting them becomes the only way you think about the world. It is like a heavy, heavy thing to navigate. But I love this moment at the end with Joel and Ellie as they pull away in the truck and Ellie pops the tape into the tape deck because it is this sun-drenched, sun-dappled beacon of hope with this harbinger of doom.

underlying it, right? Like you have, knowing that you warned me of the price I'll have to pay, playing in our ears as we see the rarest thing, like a smile on Joel's face, a smile on Ellie's face as she looks at him. And it's just like beautiful anguish. And that's our absolute favorite thing. What an incredible episode of TV. I cannot wait for season two. A lot of David Tennant on our list, a lot of Pedro Pascal, no surprises.

The kings. The absolute kings. Patron saints of House of Mar. This was magical. We did it. We did it. We did a whole year. Incredible. Incredible. Any final thoughts? Um...

I can't wait to do it again next year. I'm so interested. See, we talked about this in the live show when we were doing our hype draft, but we don't really know what the shape of next year is going to look like. We have some little side posts. Again, we think they're going to be dragons. We think they're going to be hobbits. But what else is coming for us? I don't know. Fury Roads? Who knows? Fascinating. Full hype draft when we do that in a few weeks. I can't wait for that. Dune? Yeah. Dune. Great Dune trailer.

Great Dune trailer. Hell yeah. This was an absolute joy. I think my last thought is that on the holiday to watch list is Season 2 of Foundation. So I haven't seen it yet. If I had, perhaps Lee Pace's very lengthy nude scene would have made my top 10. That's my closing thought for the day. Tell me. Oh, Carlos. Great job. Joanna, I fucking love you. I feel so lucky to get to do this with you. I fucking love you.

A face like springtime. Nothing could ever be wrong again. Look at this house we built. We built it this year. Our new house. House of R. Incredible. That's a wrap. That's a wrap on today's pod. Thank you, Carlos. Thank you. For producing this episode, guiding us through our selections in real time. What fun. Thank you to Arjun Ramgopal, as always, for his additional production work on this episode and to Jomia Deneron for his work on the social for this episode. Remember,

Pop over to the ringer verse on Monday from into additions, rundown of the things we missed. We will be back in the house of our on Wednesday to chat about the two part Percy Jackson premiere. Until then, we might just wait here for a little bit. Let time pass.