PLUS Heated Rivalry, and Stranger Things finale spoiler discussion

27:50Very good. Hi team, just wanted to say that it's interesting that Boyd enjoyed Red Eye. Oh my God, what are the chances? Scary. For what is an airplane if not a corridor levitating? I mean that's a fair point it's a corridor in the sky a corridor in the sky I don't think that's fair anyway Alvin continues you haven't got any say in the matter have you if you're on board an aeroplane you have to you're stuck in the corridor you can be running around corridors walking around corridors incessantly with your gun that's a different thing he continues and says look forward to the review of the next season for also what is a train if not a series of corridors locomoting?

28:34Trains and planes. That's true. I mean, it's a fair point that I do absolutely love train and plane set stuff. But I do have issues with corridors. Oh, and then he says, static corridors. If you could answer the question below too, that'd be great, which is kind of a passive way of saying that I hadn't, I missed his message from the 24th of November. Right, okay. And he said, contestants based on current, past and semi-regular hosting duties and the original title for this was Pilot TV Tracers. He lists James, Boyd, Kay, Beth, Terry, Steph and Sophie. Who would you pick to be the traitor that would win the contest?

29:10Not James as everyone would suspect him straight away and kick him out for the first round. It's Steph. It's Steph would win. No one would suspect Steph was a traitor. She's so guileless, like generally. Well, do you know what the thing is, right? You're right. No one would suspect her. however she would talk too she would if she was the traitor she'd give it away she would give it away by talking too much because she would try and overcompensate I think she would I think she would make mistakes like some of the classic traitor mistakes she would talk herself in knots she would yeah I don't think she'd win at all I think she'd be I kind of think Terry really?

29:45yeah Terry potentially she would be my first suspect as we said oh yeah oh yeah but it's so obvious that you'd think it would be I think it would be a double bluff yeah oh a double bluff yeah oh yeah you might be right you might be right I would be terrible because I can't lie I would laugh and smile through it because I just we would just look at you without speaking yeah and you know do that thing and anyone listening to the blooper reel will probably have heard this the bit where you'll be talking and I'm looking you're just bursting in hysterical laughter because I'm staring at you do you know what I smile and laugh anyway all the time but if I because I don't lie because I can't I'm so shit at it and I don't want to either but like I then smile even more like that's how my mum's always been able to catch me out it's a really innocuous thing she's like you know she feeds us all the time she's like have you eaten this and I'll be like yes and then I'll just smile you're the opposite of poker face yeah I mean it's like just Boyd is another one my mum can detect it also Boyd from working with him for decades like have you ever asked me and I rarely light him but if I'm just like concealing something or something he always goes he just pulls this kind of like he arches an eyebrow and then I just unravel so yeah I'd be terrible yeah I think Beth would be good I think Beth would win yes do you know what she's dark horse's old Beth Webb I think so I imagine she's got a good poker face.

30:55Very much so. Unlike me. She's got a good poker face. She is very open and honest, a person, but I think that kind of thing can work because you don't necessarily think, oh, you're going to be the traitor. Oh, she'll cut you. She will. I wouldn't suspect her either. That's what I mean, yeah. It's more that. It's that you'd think, oh, no, you wouldn't suspect, yeah, because of her manner. Do you think you'd be good, Boyd? I think I'd be okay. I think I'd find it very stressful. I think I'd find it stressful. like Jonathan Ross did I think Jonathan had it you know Jonathan famously found it incredibly stressful just couldn't get used to the nightmare situation of the whole format I think I'd be the same I'd find it too difficult I think your positive points would be because you're inscrutable I think people would find you hard to read I mean I obviously you're like an open book to me but I think to other people they would find it very hard and I base it on the fact that for most of my career I've spent fielding questions people going what does Boyd think about this I don't know does he really think this and I'm like You're the boy whisperer.

31:53Yeah, supposedly, I mean. Yeah, maybe, maybe. Yeah, I think I'd do it. I'd do it. I'd do it okay, yeah. So you'd find it stressful, but I think ultimately you would win. No, I don't think I'd win. I don't think I'd win, no. I think it's more, as I said, I think Beth would win. I think James, oh my God, James is a tracer. James, you would fall to pieces and you'd have a nervo every five seconds and you'd probably talk to me. Like you'd choose me maybe as a co-collaborant, like someone to reveal yourself to you and you'd just be like, oh my God. I'm revealing myself to you. What is this event? Yeah, it's not heated rivalry.

32:27It's like, I think, well, you'd need someone to offload to. Oh, yeah, 100%. There's no way I could not talk about it. I feel out of the three of us, you would choose me as a soft touch. Yeah, I would 100 % need to talk to someone about it. Yeah, and then you'd be like, oh, God, I'm finding this really stressful. I've got anxiety, I can't do this. And I'd have to talk you off the ledge of the turret, frankly, I think. No, I don't do lying. Yeah, he could not, James could not keep it together. No, he'd have a breakdown. Yeah, he'd have a breakdown. I don't have it in me to do that. Live television breakdown.

32:56Yeah. Which, I mean, would be entertaining. It could. It'd make for good TV, I think. Yeah. So anyway, that was the new message from Alvin. But now going to Annika, who says, Happy New Year, Bunch. A couple of questions from me. Not sure if I missed it, but I can't recall you mentioning The Beast in Me in your epic review of the year. Did any of you finish this series? I didn't finish it. A lot of people have talked about it. In fact, I seem to recall that it was one of Alistair Campbell's TV shows that he was talking about at the end of the year that he was watching. How do you kept abreast of that?

33:27I listened to his politics podcast. Oh, the rest. The rest is politics. Yeah, that's it. He does with Roy Stewart. And yes, I believe that came up as well. Showed it Blue Lights, by the way. That was one of his shows last year. Which you were obsessed with. Which I was obsessed with. I was like, yes, Alistair, come on. But yeah, beast of me. I didn't. But people have talked about it being very good. I liked it but I didn't it didn't jump to the top of my sofa list I finished it and I really liked it it definitely it's a bit of a stretch it's slightly a bit longer than it used to be 8 I think oh it feels like a 6 yeah it could have been a 6 that's I think would be my issue with it it gets slightly repetitive in the middle but it's still really fun really good fun and Claire Dana's ability to basically cry unrelentingly throughout Wow, is extraordinary.

34:18There is. Why don't you have crying headaches? Because I would. Have you seen the TikTok video of that person? Oh, yes. Yeah, who's on a phone call doing it as Claire Dade. That's brilliant. Genuinely spot on perfect. It's so funny. Yeah, she's a great on-screen crier. Matthew Rhys is the real, I mean, he's literally the star of the show, the two of them, but he's fantastic. Seeing him going for it in such a kind of ridiculous way is the best thing about that series. But I enjoyed it a lot. Yeah. The second part of Annika's email says, Can Boyd, for absolute clarity, I love this, list his ultimate top 20 films and TV shows of all time?

34:53Because I feel like nearly every film slash TV show he mentions is on this list. But if you do it, Boydy, it's then canonical and you can never deviate from it. I don't think we should pin him down in a way because I do enjoy him saying that every show is like, you know, the greatest film of all time. For the record and for the pilot TV audience, what is your number one favourite individual film? Only one. Film and TV show. It's another at just number one. Yeah, that's a good one, James. Hold on. Do you know what? It's probably Annie Hall, Woody Allen's Annie Hall. Okay. Yeah. And what about TV show?

35:26TV show, probably... Mrs. Brown Boys. Seinfeld. It's probably Seinfeld, yeah. Okay. Maybe Curb. No? No, you had one choice, Boydie. One choice. I watched a lot of Seinfeld in my hotel room in New York, actually. Oh, out of interest. Yeah. Where were you staying? I'm not going to say... What? I mean, come back, boys. You're not there now. We can't stalk you. Oh, my God. That is like literally one of the silliest things you've ever said.

35:53Surely it was the Hilton. I was taking the standard hotel East Village, in the East Village. Oh, nice. I've seen it many times before. They've got good stationery there, I think. Good stationery? Yeah. Did you steal any of the stationery, Boydie? I did not. Or any of the toiletries? No. He's not a gentleman who needs to. No, I didn't steal. James and I, on the other hand, were looting it. There'd be like four robes in my suitcase. Anything that's not nailed down. A hundred percent. Oh, if you take a robe, they're just going to charge you for it. It's fine. That is true. Never go for the robes, James.

36:19Really? Is that Rukiara? Just go for toiletries and stations. 100 % Rukiara, yeah. Yeah, no, it was very nice. What was I talking about that for? Oh, yeah, I watched Seinfeld there. Yeah. Okay. Seinfeld, I think, would be number one. Anika, we've kind of answered your question. Okay, what's your favorite TV show of all time? Oh, my God. I can't do that on the spot. So you don't have like a nailed-on number one that is always your go-to number one? no because my go to number ones like can vary on my mood do you know what I mean yeah well I was going to say that that my if I to answer Anika's question if I did list come up with a list of my top 10 or 20 TV films of all time it would change constantly that would be today but your number one rarely should change I'm a firm believer that lists are always in flux but your number one what's your number one TV show West Wing without a shadow of a doubt yeah there are many that I love but that is first and foremost yeah fair enough okay I'll come back to you right message from Stuart it's about the night manager and he says just listening to your review I'm wondering if either you or James who have watched the first series recently will pick Boyd up on erasing the actual first episode of series one all set in Cairo the Zermatt stuff isn't until episode two from his brain it looks like the answer is no so apparently you got that wrong Boyd that's a good point consider your knuckles it is all Cairo yeah that's a really good point I don't remember you saying no I don't remember genuinely I completely forgotten that in fact Russell Tovey's in it isn't he he is as the dodgy dodgy diplomat I completely forgotten that yeah it's funny because the big spectacular thing that happens in episode 2 I haven't gone back and watched it recently is yeah is later would you like to issue a formal apology I would like to issue a formal apology I do apologise formally yes good at any point did you have a conversation with the night manager of The Standard.

38:15Yes. Yes, I do. Really? Well, the person behind the desk, yeah, you know, like two in the morning, you know. Did you see, oh my God, boys keeping late hours. I was on holiday, it was New Year. Did you go to, did you see anything on Broadway? I didn't see anything on Broadway, no. What was the highlight of your trip? I went to the cinema, I went to see the house, what's it called? The... House Sitter? House Sitter? Is that the name? Sydney Sweeney, is that one? Is it The Housemaid? The Housemaid. The Housemaid. Not a house sitter. My niece. House sitter is Goldie Hawn. Yes, what am I talking about?

38:49My niece clearly was obsessed with it over Christmas. The Housemaid, yes. I went to see The Housemaid with Sydney Sweeney. And I'll tell you why. I wouldn't normally go to a cinema when I'm on holiday. I was only, you know, four or five days or whatever. Yeah, God, like, have a break, Boyd. No, no, no. But everyone was telling me, people were saying that there are articles online saying that watching The Housemaid is a brilliant communal experience in the cinema. because it's have you seen it? No. Oh it's so whack it is absolutely ridiculous it's like the cinematic equivalent of these many many shows we've had on TV recently that have been bonkers like interrelationships like the mad So the twist that makes everyone gasp collectively Yeah, the mad twist and it's absolutely I saw in a packed cinema and people were gasping and you know it was so compelling and funny and entertaining that it was a real communal experience and thankfully not just people on their fucking mobile phones chatting to each other There's a house made too coming, I believe.

39:43Oh, I'm sure, yeah. But apparently the book is a phenomenon. Yeah, the book is an absolute massive phenomenon itself. I had it, I haven't read it. And the film is incredibly entertaining, but particularly in that communal experience. Oh, that makes sense, because she was really trying to convince us all as a family to go into it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would do so if you can, because I had a great time. I might make my annual pilgrimage to the cinema. To see the Ballad of... Can I bring that up? That's 2025's drama. Time for one more? Yes. It's a part two from Stuart, who says, also will you be reviewing Drops of God series 2 on Apple this month I love the first season so really looking forward to the new one even if it will make me want to drink irresponsible amounts of wine now Stuart I can't say what I thought but I've actually watched the first episode but I too really enjoyed Drops of God did you watch all of season 1?

40:29yes did you? yes because we talked we reviewed it and then I went back because I really liked it I do recall this actually yes and I would say all I'm saying it's not a review but if you liked the first series is more of the same. Obviously, if I knew more about wine, I'd say something about a taste that develops into a special something bouquet. I don't know. It's to be savoured. Sure. And it goes allegedly, it's allowed to breathe. Ah, right. Okay, good. Yeah, there we go. That's it. Okay, that is this week's postbag. If you'd like to send in your messages, do send them in to pilottv at empiremagazine.com.

41:05The postbag is probably, I don't know how full it is, to be honest, because I haven't looked, because Kay's in charge of it. But let's assume that we used up a lot of last year. So if you haven't written in for a while, send us some 2026 missives. Yes. Actually, do you know what is pretty... I mean, we did a massive clear out at the end of last year. So, yeah, get in touch. Yeah, get in touch with the postbag. Right, we are going to have some spoiler chat now because the second and third tranches of Stranger Things dropped over Christmas. Specifically on Christmas Day and New Year's Day, Boydie.

41:35Just to make absolutely sure that people know. Thank you. Thank God you know what you're talking about. Thank you, yes. Obviously, he's referring to an egregious mistake he made. I don't know what you're talking about. James' mistake. Yes, so we have now seen those. So I'm going to sound the spoiler klaxon. If you are the only person alive, apparently, at this point, who has not seen the Stranger Things finale, you might want to turn this off, but we're going to get into this a little bit now. Now, Kay, I'm going to exclude you from this because I know you are not a strange thing yourself. Am I getting dismissed?

42:02No, you can stay here because you have to listen to me and Boyd talk about it. I was like, okay, I thought it was permission to leave. Kay's eyeing the door. No, you can't leave. Trapped in this studio. You can never leave. Literally, yeah. Now, we should say, you know, that we have the chunk and then we have the final episode, which is two hours and eight minutes long, as I recall, which dropped on New Year's Day. It's been a mixed response, I think it's fairly safe to say. There was a backlash to it. Lots of people furious that not enough people died. People didn't like the ambiguity of the ending.

42:30There was, I mean, the Duffers, fair play to them. They've gone out and they've done quite a few interviews on this and they have fielded a lot of this stuff and talked about it a fair old bit. I think they're a bit tired about it all. But, Boydie, what did you think of the finale? Well, first of all, I watched it in my hotel room in New York as well. Oh, God. When will you stop talking about it? So you're saying it was standard? Very good. I was tempted, and I very nearly did, because they were showing it in cinemas in America. Oh, okay. Yeah, that would have been cool. You could have gone twice to the cinema in a three-day break.

43:04That would have been a lot, right? Well, exactly. and also to be honest I saw the people like were queuing I did out of interest check out the screening so basically it was it was dropped at 8pm I think in East Coast New York when I was there so I did have a wander around near the hotel where there's quite a few cinemas in that area and there were big queues of people waiting to get in and it was definitely a phenomenon and they were sold out massively I think the whole the whole kind of cinematic release of the finale has been a massive hit for Netflix so Netflix may want to reflect on, you know, how watching things in cinemas is still a thing.

43:39But as a side issue, it was so cold when I was there, even colder than it is here right now in the UK. That's impossible. It's freezing. I can't watch it in the cinema, walk to the cinema. I was watching it in my hotel room. Anyway. What were you wearing? No, I'm joking. I don't know why I'm getting into that whole thing, but business context, you know. But what I was going to say was I watched it on my smaller laptop screen, right? Normally, because we've got, you get your, particularly, you know, everything on Netflix I watch on my giant screen at home, but I didn't have access to that. And I also couldn't stream it in my hotel room.

44:11So I had to watch it on my small laptop. Why can't you stream it in your hotel room? What kind of hotel is this? They didn't have a stream. Yeah, they didn't. Unbelievable. I know, I know. So you've got your fancy hotel. Should have gone to the four seasons. Yeah, exactly. Anyway, so the context is I was watching it on a small laptop screen, which is not ideal for one of the most visually spectacular shows, or at least a show that's attempting to be incredibly visually spectacular. And I was reading and it cost hundreds of millions. I think it was 50 to 60 million an episode towards the end. It was getting wild.

44:36And I think it was like 400, 500 million as a thing. I mean, that is wild is the word. So, do you know what? It made me real. I enjoyed it. Broadly, I enjoyed it. I thought it was pretty decent. I thought the criticism of the previous tranche, which included the big coming out scene. Yeah, so The Bridge is the penultimate episode. That got review bombed and is now the worst rated episode of the show because the anti-woke crowd had a go at it. And I think the review bombing phenomenon is really unfair. And I think this crystallized for me how unfair it is because I thought, I didn't mind it. So I thought it was a perfectly decent, you know, emotional scene.

45:14And I thought that actually that, I thought the acting was really good. A lot of people slugging off the performances, saying why did he have to do this, have this moment with the whole cast? It was unrealistic. But they explained why he felt he wanted to do it to everyone at the same time. and they made that quite clear in the writing and in his dialogue and I just thought it was the definition of review everyone suddenly decided this was the worst thing that had ever been shown on TV this scene and I just don't think I thought it was pretty good I think the conversation around that scene is interesting and it's partly because it goes on for like it's quite an extended scene right like it goes on for a while and you know it's clearly very personal to Noah Schnapp who is himself gay and but I was speaking to a younger relative of mine on Christmas about it and they were like we don't understand why it went on for so long it was so weird and i was just like of course you don't understand because you're so young you don't remember the 1980s and so i actually literally had to explain to him i was like like no no no it was a massive deal back then it's not like it is now yeah and this is why i thought it was quite interesting we're talking about heated rivalry the phone thing for me was key because positioning it in the mid-noughties again like if you think it's really hard to kind of quantify how far things have moved on between say 2006 and 2026 but things have moved on a lot.

46:27Like, the amount of casual homophobia in the early noughties was extraordinary. And while, of course, it still exists, it is far less now. And it feels, and yes, we are in a very elitist London media bubble, but it feels like, you know, coming out now, it's not, it may not be no big deal, but it's certainly, it's much more commonplace. It's much more everyday. It's much more, oh, yeah, it's fine, you know. Whereas, I thought that scene was very powerful because it made you remember kind of the era of, okay, not in the US, section 28, but when it wasn't okay to be seen to be gay. Like, this was, this was like I almost felt like a life ending event and I thought actually giving it that kind of way anchored it in the time period for me so I was very happy with it 100 % agree and if they had I was really surprised by the some of the reaction and there were loads of like really snarky online reviews of it really hating that scene I just thought I'm not really a fan of that kind of criticism that sees every moment that you know a character that has to a certain extent defined by either their sexuality or race or whatever, or gender, those things that take those moments as being so important that we have to overanalyze every single element of it.

47:31I'm like, no, no, no, no. It was just a very perfectly decent, quite moving, quite emotional scene in which, as you say, was grounded in the timing in the late 80s. I think a lot of people saw it as a salvo in the culture war. I think they saw it as pushing some kind of liberal agenda, whereas actually that's not what that scene was intended to do. I think that's just how it was interpreted. Absolutely. and as you made the point this is very personal for Noah Schnapp because he's been through this albeit obviously in decades later as I'm acting and as he himself has pointed out a completely different situation but if he wasn't happy I'm sure him and the Duffer brothers would have in fact I've read a lot about it they did together decide how to deal with that moment and I thought it was a perfectly valid way of dealing with that moment so that was interesting but watching the finale with its the spectacular spider thing yeah the mind flare who I was wondering if they'd forgotten about the Mind Blight, because we've not seen it for two seasons.

48:26Exactly, and it turns out they were keeping it in cold storage for to have the biggest thing, monster thing, like the gigantic spider with eight million legs and loads of different mouths. It was immense, and it did feel like they'd been holding back so they could give you the biggest monster battle. But it was like a traditional monster movie at that point. Literally just a bunch of people trying to kill this huge gigantic CGI beast. Although, it's funny, I know the people I work with very well. I had my main issue with that scene was exactly the issue I think Nick had with it when I came back into the office.

49:01I was like, Nancy was like, right, we're going to go into that canyon. I'm going to lure it in. You attack it from the top. I'm like, this is a fucking free solo. How are you getting up the cliff? And apparently they got up there in the same amount of time it took her to run across the ground. But like I say, minor thing, but it just bugged me. There were so many scenes set in that world that didn't make sense to... I was confused by all the... You know, all the different bits of the Upside Down that were being explored by different groups of people. That stuff, right? That kind of liquidy... Everything was melting, right?

49:33Yes. That melty, liquidy stuff. Did they ever really... Well, it seems to me that was the dark matter, wasn't it? They disrupted the dark matter and it caused some kind of localized distortion. All I'd say is there's one moment where this white viscous fluid splurted all over one of the characters. And it was like that scene in Scary Movie. Or indeed, the boys. Or the boys, exactly. And I was like, this is not what you're intending it to look like. I'm like, someone should have stepped in and gone, you know what this looks like? It looks like it wouldn't have been out of place in the heated rivalry.

50:06It was like, that was unintentionally. Yeah, I think that was probably unintentional. It didn't need to be that long. So then you have the farcical situation. I'm sounding very critical now, but bear in mind I did enjoy it broadly and it was entertaining and spectacular and would have been even more spectacular on a pig screen at home but I think the finale God let it go No I'm making that point I shouldn't necessarily be judging it but I thought the finale was so funny how it ended after about an hour or so the big giant spider monster thing had been defeated and they're all like they'd all you know whatever happened Eleven had gone just gone away and we didn't know whether she was alive or dead or whatever but she'd gone And then I looked at the time, it's like, there's another fucking hour to go.

50:49Yes. It was like, what happens now? I know. And I thought there was going to, I thought, just a bit, say quickly, I don't mind having, like, what's the Lord of the Rings film where there's eight different endings? Return of the King. It was the Return of the King. Literally. But to be fair, that was deliberate. And they'd said before doing this season that they wanted a Return of the King type ending where they wrap up the plot. Right. And then they have an expended period of time wrapping up the character arcs. So that was a deliberate thing. but time-wise, I believe it's like 30 minutes or 30-something minutes, the Return of the King ending.

51:19This is a 40 minute. It's actually longer than Return of the King. And it just didn't need to be that long. They could have done it in like a couple of minutes. And I liked, you know, I'm sure you would have lapped up the whole Dungeons and Dragons fest that it became. I thought that was sweet. But I came away with it in the end thinking, what do I think about this phenomenon? I came away thinking the show is at its strongest when it's intimate, when it's just about the characters. And there's some brilliant, beautiful scenes in the final tranche of episodes and in the finale about friendship, about the various romances that are going on, and love.

51:58And, you know, in a way, love will rule. It's kind of like the message in the end. Because, you know, it will... Or not. I actually thought the breakup scene between Nancy and Jonathan was actually quite sweet. That very much like they kind of just grown apart and need some space to find themselves. Yeah, that was good. You're right, yeah. But I think all of the, a lot of the machinations and the, you know, dividing it into different groups and the different cunning plans, it became very repetitive. That they'd all, someone would, to the point where I think it was taking the piss out of itself, wasn't it?

52:28Because there's a moment early on where they were sitting around going, who's got a fucking plan? And they have a kind of fun kind of competition, whose plan is the matter? But it did get very, I think in the last season, I thought there was a lot of repetition, a lot of stuff that could have been cut out if they really wanted to, and it felt a little bit like they wanted to serve up to the fans as much Stranger Things stuff as possible, but really, in the end, it was too much, I think. I think, as I say, the strong effects were the intimate scenes, and they were great. I could have done without long, long CGI-based battling.

53:01It just felt like those endings of Marvel films that annoy me sometimes, where everything just turns into the universe is exploding and dying, and we've got to beat monsters and all of that, which I find a bit refreshing. Well, the thing is, this was my big criticism, I think, of the DC action sequences, is that I think spectacle without character is pointless. Like, it doesn't do anything. So, unless your action scenes are pushing forward the plot or developing the characters further, then they're not really doing anything. I watched Mission Impossible 2 for whatever reason over Christmas, and let me tell you, that does none of these things.

53:31So, which, can I just say, it was on last night, on PC3. Was it? After a thing with Tom Cruise, with Ali Plum. I did not know that. And I literally just carried on watching it. Oh my God! Yeah, and I literally, but I ended up watching about half the film and it actually starts really well. Anyway, carry on. Yeah, I literally sat down and watched the entire film. That's mad. I don't know why because I'm doing an Invisible Possible rewatch. I watched the Brian De Palma one as well. That looks a thousand years old these days, but we are getting, we're getting sidetracked. But, you know, that action sequence at the end, I actually thought there was quite a lot of character in it, but also, it had the kind of smack of contractualism to it, like, where we have to show you doing this, then this character, and we can't have that character if we're not going to use this character and everyone has to have equal waiting and screen time.

54:09Which I thought, and that occasionally made it feel a little inorganic because everyone had to be contributing. I like that Will got to kind of like stop Vecna in his tracks and do something because Will, who let's be honest has been a fucking liability up until this point. I like that he now has something to do. And then Joyce coming in and hacking Vecna's head off with the axe and then you see like the things Vecna's done to everyone during all of it. You know, I thought, again, a nice bit of catharsis. I thought that worked well as well. So I was broadly pretty happy with it. Yes, lots of people have said there were no Demogorgons in the Abyss.

54:40Why were there no Demogorgons in the Abyss? This makes no sense. Yeah, that's a legitimate point. He's apparently got an army of them, but only when they're useful. Weirdly, I found the Abyss as this kind of weird, you know, it looks like an Arizona desert type place. I found that less interesting a place than the Upside Down, which isn't even really a place now. It's just like the inside of a wormhole. It's a dark reflection. So I maybe, you know, wasn't as wrapped up in that. I thought the fact that they worked a very interesting line where they lent on the mythology of the stage play quite heavily but without making it mandatory for you to see it which I thought was really cleverly done there were lots of bits of the stage play in there from the finding of the suitcase to the bits where you see young Joyce putting together the production when she's at high school and she's walking through Henry's memories and no point does Winona Ryder and Hopper make the connection oh Vecna we went to school with you that doesn't come up at any point but I suppose that's a lot to explain to people if they've not seen First Shadow.

55:36But Broadus Spring, I really liked it and I actually quite enjoyed the elongated end sequence as well. The thing that did stick in my mind though is that we don't see what happens to the army. Obviously, we have the time jumps. We don't see the army pull out of Hawkins. We don't see Linda Hamilton who had a thankless role in this show. We don't see them disappear. I will say, there's surprisingly little in the way of consequences for murdering a shit ton of people in this, which the main characters in this show do with wild abandon and nobody seems to mind. That's your soldiers. They kill a ton of soldiers and no one apparently cares and they just graduate as normal.

56:11No, it's okay. Don't worry about that huge body count when Nancy's like spraying bullets into men from the top of the Humvee or truck or whatever it is. And also no consequences for, by the way, the army and Linda Hamilton. Yeah, also true. They were killing a bunch of people as well. Yeah, what the fuck, you know? I mean... It was madness. Wow. I mean, maybe it's a commentary on the modern state of American politics, but let's move on from that. Yeah. And then there's the 11 aspect of it. Which I actually thought, you know, and a lot of people really didn't like the ambiguity of that. I thought it was actually very well handled from the, because when you see her through the portal, it doesn't feel right.

56:44Something feels wrong. Something feels off. And you can't quite put your finger on it. And then you do realize, just as Mike belatedly does during Dustin's speech, you know, when there's feedback in the speakers and he looks at the speakers and he's like, and you realize he's, at least he is like mind working. And he realizes, well, it makes him think of those, those broadcasters, they call them kryptonite, don't they? That kind of frequency broadcast. it's like well Elle would not have been able to move let alone get through the portal and she definitely wouldn't have been able to use her powers to pull him into the void to talk to him with those things directed at her so he's like so none of that can have been real so then he tells that little story but then they also make it very clear that Mike knows knows nothing he is guessing this is his he's making up this story to make sense of facts to him that don't fit together and it's a nice way to end and I like the idea that they all say oh you know I choose to believe in it I choose to believe in it but it also isn't you know and Sadie Sinker says she doesn't believe it's true.

57:35The Duffers say there is a canonical answer, and only Millie Bobby Brown knows it, but they won't tell any of the other cast. But ultimately, I'm not sure it really matters. I don't think it matters, no. Yeah, I like the ambiguity. Yeah, same. And I think it works quite nicely. Yeah, I think it's more moving this way, because he's having to invent, you know, well, one way, he's possibly having to invent a fictional way of dealing with the loss. It's like a coping mechanism. Yeah, exactly. that's what I was long-windedly trying to get to. Yeah, it's a coping mechanism. And I think that's more moving.

58:07Finding your coping mechanism that may or may not be true than just dealing with her death. This is more moving in a lot of ways, yeah. So no, I thought it was, I think it's good. And it's good to have ambiguity at the end of something like this rather than everything absolutely explained. That's what I found tiring about the whole epilogue in a way. Certain bits are like, all right, yeah, we get the idea. Move on and show us what happens to fucking 11. But yeah, I think they dealt with that pretty well. Yeah, I don't know what kind of what people want. On the one hand, people want everything tied up with a bow.

58:38But sometimes I think those finales feel, they don't ring true because that's not what life is like. I think having a little bit of ambiguity there is quite nice. And it gets you talking about it, which is good as well. But I also really like the end of the campaign, the D &D campaign, and they're all putting their little binders on the shelf. And then the younger kids, like the passing of the torch. Because it is a coming of age story, right? It's the end of childhood. They've grown up, they walk out of the basement, and then the younger kids run in to kind of start playing D &D as well. And, you know, the Duffers have talked about E.T.

59:05kind of casting a long shadow over this series. And that was the original ending of E.T., was that they were playing D &D in the end like they were at the beginning. But instead, obviously, it was cut to, you know, it's just E.T. It's Elliot's face, isn't it? It's the last shot of E.T. when his ship takes off. And they felt that that was more ambiguous than the ending they'd originally imagined for it. But yeah, I thought it was really well done. I think they've taken a lot of shit for it. but I also think there was nothing they could have done that would not have meant they took shit for it. Same with Game of Thrones, same with all these things.

59:33Because when it becomes a phenomenon, you can't make everyone happy. You just can't do it. And loads of people are saying, oh, they should have had the guts to kill more people. It's like, this isn't The Sopranos. It's a fucking family show. What did you imagine was going to happen? Although it became less of a family show. It did. By the end, it was pretty... But audience-wise, it's got a very broad audience. It's not what I would call an adult-aimed show. It casts its net quite wide. And I didn't think they were ever... It was never going to be like, all the kids are going to get torn apart by the mind flayer.

1:00:01Yeah, that's true. But there was quite a lot of tearing apart still. I mean, there was some bunger. I'll tell you who was good, who was a very valuable element of the cast, was Brett Gelman. I thought his... Really? Yeah. I thought he brought a lot of good, light-hearted jokiness to it. I don't mind him. Our reviewer, the Empire reviewer, I should say, called him out for his shtick and implied that he must have something on the production team because he's still allowed to do this. which I thought was particularly harsh. He is the light relief. I think he's good light relief. Yeah. I like him.

1:00:32I like him generally. I actually don't mind him. I think sometimes it gets a little bit wearing but broadly speaking, I think he brings a levity to it which I think is needed. I think so. Because Hopper's very intense and I think sometimes you do need and the kids have been through the ringer a little bit so it's nice that you have at least someone who's constantly like cavorting. Yeah. Which he was. Absolutely. Yeah. Any other thoughts? No. No. No more thoughts about Stranger Things. There's more Stranger Things to come, of course. There is an animated series coming, and there is a live-action spin-off, which we don't know anything about, but we do know that the bit where the rock, which he gets out of that briefcase, sinks into Henry's hand, and kind of puts him in sync with the Mind Flayer.

1:01:16That is the kind of the link between this show and the spin-off series. So we don't know exactly what it is, but that moment is going to be relevant to the live-action spin-off, which the Duffer brothers are working on at the moment. So we'll see what happens coming out. And they've got one other Stranger Things-related thing in development as well, but they haven't revealed what that is. I don't know if it's a show, a film, whatnot, but yeah. So Stranger Things has ended, but Stranger Things also has not ended because it's very lucrative and people like to make money. So there will be more. There'll be more stories from Hawkins.

1:01:45Oh, speaking of Hawkins, I like the reference to Montauk, which is where, obviously, Winona Ryder, and I keep forgetting the character. Joyce. Joyce and Hopper are going to Montauk. Montauk, of course, being the place where conspiracy theorists believe there were, you know, American government time travel experiments happened there. And that was the working title of this show. This show was going to be based in Montauk, and it was going to be about the Montauk experiments. But apparently, for cost reasons, they weren't able to do that. So I like that they had a little reference to that at the end.

1:02:13Wonderful. Stranger Things, then. That's us wrapped up. Kate, you can come back into the room now. And she's awake. And she's awake. Unlike last time, where you literally didn't realize we'd finished the podcast. Oh, don't bring that up again. I had your mute, which I wish there was a button for that in real life. It's completely understandable. Only remote recording, so unfortunately. I get it. Right, that's it for this week's Pilot Plus. We'll be back in your ears on Monday for the regular show when we will be speaking to Comrade K and Mickey Down for Industry, the fourth season of which lands on Sky, which is very exciting.

1:02:44And we will have... BBC? Yeah, yeah. Not on Sky at all. Boy, what are you talking about? It's on the BBC. It's Christmas, guys. Boy, it's Christmas Day and New Year's Day. Yes. Honestly. yeah we've got to get these things right yeah so industry as I said on the BBC and we will have Mark Heap and the legend that is Dawn French national treasure Dawn French on this podcast as well talking to our national treasure talking to our national treasure Boyd Hilton yeah thanks very exciting and we'll be reviewing the new series of Hijack the new series of Industry and indeed as we've already alluded to Kay very excited the 75 minute pilot episode of Star Trek Starfleet Academy listen listen listen while we're just together I'd be interested to know what listeners think right do you not think in this instance it's better for you like it's unnecessary for me to watch it bearing in mind I have no knowledge of Star Trek and you are going to inform the listeners much better than I will because I would just be saying oh this stuff happens and I don't know what's going on let me say you don't need to have the knowledge of Star Trek it's fine who's side are you on why are you forcing me to watch it he's right you don't it's aimed at non-Star Trek people really yeah it's a YA show so why are we okay this is interesting and we're changing rules.

1:03:53Anyway, okay, fine. Right, right, right. I'll watch it. Oh, I mean, but, you know, see what happens. You might love it. Yeah, you might enjoy it. You might love it. You might be a convert. You might be a tricky. Boyd, I'm going to remember this. Yeah, this betrayal. Well, I happen to have watched it, so spoiler alert, I'm not going to spoil what I think of it, but you might enjoy it more than you think, as well. Okay, all right. Well, that's my afternoon. I mean, you may not, equally. She seems fairly committed to not enjoying it. No, no, no, no. No, no, no, no. it's not that it's not in quotes hard sci-fi like foundational I'm not I'm not committed to not liking it it's just I thought I had to have a knowledge of Star Trek and I was like what's the point having said that you are right to resent the fact that it's 75 minutes I mean that to be fair I did not know that until I sat down to watch it so I was like oh interesting that's because you're like a pig and poop with it you don't care it could go on for three hours and you'd be happy but okay if I don't need knowledge of it then fine anyway you'll get to hear more about that on Monday's show we will speak to you then Pilot Out.