Episode 97: My Life with the Walter Boys (S1E4-5)

We return to Silver Falls, Colorado for another hearty helping of Walter Boys, where seven teenage boys, one transplanted New York City girl, and approximately zero well-developed supporting characters continue to grind their way through a love triangle nobody asked for. Episode 4 is titled "Nineteen" (there's a reason, you'll figure it out about three seconds before the show tells you), and Episode 5 is titled "Thanksgiving," because when you're two-for-two on uninspired titles, why start trying now?

Before we get into it, Liz unveils her long-promised trope bingo board - 24 squares including Emily Good Ideas, Quirk Chungus, Chekhov's Teapot, Toby Tucker, "Am I a f-ing bet?", and the ever-reliable "how are they affording that?" We workshop squares, argue about overlap, and debate what the loser has to make for dinner. Then we plunge into two episodes where Jackie breaks a teapot, breaks a curfew, jumps onto a circuit breaker panel with the confidence of a licensed electrician, and very nearly breaks both Walter brothers in a single 48-hour period. Scott is unconvinced. Liz is annoyed by everyone. Nobody can remember which brother is which.

Peak Dumpster Moments:
◆ Jackie, during a massive Colorado storm, fixes a whole-house power outage by flipping one 30-amp double-gang breaker - which Scott takes personally
◆ The English teacher, Mr. Chaudry, asks the guidance counselor out and threatens to put a little icing on her cake
◆ A truth-or-dare round at an unsanctioned lake house party with a comically oversized fire pit
◆ "I wanna put my mouth on your mouth"
◆ Mark Blucas wields a Butler of Sheffield elk-handled knife to carve the turkey. We question whether production would ever let Mark Blucas hold an actual sharp object.
◆ Haley shows up with a hairdo so structurally ambitious it constitutes a jumpscare

The Tangent Files: A detour into Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet. The goth band auditioning at the Lark launches a prolonged effort to remember the name of Richmond's favorite band from The IT Crowd. Uncle Richard arrives for Thanksgiving looking like he's fresh off a Joseph A. Bank East Coast Convention. Liz delivers a full-throated sermon on the madness of eating Thanksgiving dinner at one in the afternoon. We also learn that "Treehenge" is apparently a real thing, or at least as real as "Manhattanhenge," which is dubious.

The Verdict: Scott notes that the Thanksgiving episode is measurably better-produced than its predecessors, though both hosts remain united in their disdain for roughly every character except for George Walter, who is essentially Mark Blucas being a dad. We crown the show a fingerling potato - interesting-looking, structurally puzzling, and nobody asks for them at dinner. Scott concurs. A finger blasted fingerling, if you will.

Coming Up Next: I'll Be Seeing You by Lurlene McDaniel, a 1996 weepy about a 17-year-old named Kyle who is blinded in a chemistry experiment explosion (apparently he poured the water into the acid) and the 16-year-old girl with a facial deformity who falls for him in the hospital. The cover features Kyle in Vietnam-bandana eye-gauze sporting a near-Hasselhoff quaff and 17-year-old forearms that could only belong to a Hobbit. Also: a pair of completely unnecessary background crutches. We dive in.

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Episode 96: Leaving Las Vegas

Dumpsterpiece Theatre takes a sharp detour from its usual diet of romantic comedy slop to tackle a genuinely good (and devastating) film. Nic Cage plays a Hollywood screenwriter who cashes in his severance check, packs a suitcase full of liquor bottles and heads to Vegas to drink himself to death. Elizabeth Shue is the escort who falls for him anyway. It's bleak. It's heavy. We watched it so you don't have to, though in this case you probably should.

We run the inflation math on a 1995 hooker, debate whether a liquor store can legally sell one man that much alcohol, and try to figure out how someone survives weeks without food on nothing but bottom-shelf vodka and the occasional screwdriver. There's a spirited defense of Nic Cage as a legitimate actor, an Always Sunny comparison that writes itself, and a motel called the Whole Year Inn that Ben's booze-addled brain reads very differently. Scott shares the tale of a Vegas cab driver who handed him a brothel catalog before he'd even left the airport, and we learn that Nic Cage turned down the role of Harry in Dumb and Dumber to make this film - a casting what-if that briefly breaks our brains.

Peak Moments:
◆ Ben packing for his big move: every bottle of liquor in the hotel room goes in the suitcase. Clothes? One shirt. Priorities.
◆ The rental agreement that comes with a very specific monthly payment arrangement. "I accept your terms."
◆ A poolside romantic getaway that goes sideways when Ben tries to retrieve his "drinky" and obliterates a glass table. "I'm like a prickly pear."
◆ Julian Lennon shows up as a bartender. French Stewart is apparently somewhere in this movie as "Businessman Number Two." Neither of us spotted him.
◆ A cab driver delivers one of the most callous lines in film history to a visibly beaten woman. We are not okay.

The Tangent Files: A discussion of first-person-POV spiral movies produces a surprisingly deep list including Elijah Wood as a serial killer, a Tokyo drug dealer who experiences the afterlife through his own blinks, and a dance troupe whose sangria gets spiked with LSD. We also learn that the author of the source novel got his start writing an episode of Rugrats - and was disgusted by the editorial changes. There's a Laserdisc rabbit hole involving a rumored unrated cut, eBay listings between $200 and $1,000, and the open question of whether you can even find a player anymore. Scott may or may not be shopping.

The Verdict: A well-acted, well-written film that makes you never want to drink again. One of those movies you see once and say "I'm good." We put it in the same category as Requiem for a Dream Too heavy for the dumpster scale, so Liz decides to debut the Potato Poll instead. This one's a blue potato.

Coming Up Next: My Life with the Walter Boys - a hard left back into our regularly scheduled programming, assuming we can remember any of their names. Cole, Alex, Benny, Qbert, Filthy Dave, Dirty Sanchez... we'll figure it out.

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Episode 95: People We Meet on Vacation

Netflix rolls another rom-com off the assembly line with People We Meet on Vacation, and this one checks so many formula boxes we're officially proposing trope bingo cards. You've got your opposites attract, your one-bed situation, your rain kiss, your declaration of love blocking traffic - the works. The anamorphic lenses make half the shots look like someone smeared Vaseline on the camera, and the title doesn't make any sense. We have thoughts about that.

We dig into the When Harry Met Sally parallels, debate whether you could actually lock your keys in a 2016 Subaru, question why a man in his early thirties throws out his back from a gentle reach, and have a serious disagreement about saxophone in music. There's a chainsaw-carved Bigfoot that becomes the emotional backbone of the entire film, a wedding officiant making some bold wardrobe choices that nobody acknowledges, and a climactic romantic scene that one of us believes got completely torpedoed by wooden acting. We also spend some time on the logic of chasing a jogger through a neighborhood when you could simply wait on his porch.

Peak Dumpster Moments:

◆ A gas station wishing well that exists solely as a plot device to strand our leads at a motel with - you guessed it - only one room available. The other room has "a big stain on the floor." Subtle.

◆ A proposal that happens with suspicious speed after a friend-zoning. We have opinions about the ethics of this.

◆ One of us gets genuinely distracted by an outfit involving red cowboy boots and what can only be described as genie cosplay.

◆ Mr. Yeti: therapist, confidant, load-bearing emotional prop. You'll understand when you see it.

◆ The big romantic payoff features the line "You're not a vacation to me. You're home." We award it the Pulitzer it deserves.

The Tangent Files:

A casual mention of Jameela Jamil playing Poppy's boss spiraled into a full investigation of her coming out as "sapiosexual" - which, as far as we can tell, just means having standards. This led to the discovery that the opposite is called "morosexual," that Jameela once had an accidental orgasm DJing on top of speakers at a farmers' ball, and that WebMD has an entry for all of this. We also revisited the legendary Tuscan Whole Milk and Three Wolf Moon reviews on Amazon - one of which is miraculously still live with 3,100 reviews including "In the beginning God created the heavens and the shirt." A Niagara Falls hotel tangent revealed bed bugs, a $200 fine for eating a sandwich at a public table, and the fact that Canada will not let you keep the Do Not Disturb sign up for more than a couple of days.

The Verdict: It doesn't make your eyes bleed, but it doesn't make you feel much of anything either. Taylor Swift is contractually present. The title still doesn't make sense. 2 out of 5 dumpsters / 3 out of 5 dumpsters.

Coming Up Next: Leaving Las Vegas - Nic Cage drinks himself to death in the desert, Elizabeth Shue is a seen-it-all hooker, and we may or may not end up doing a full Battle of the Vegases.

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