The 2024 Spring Mailbag
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Nathan Hubbard, spring has sprung, the birds are chirping, and the pop girls are pop-girling. Oh, and you know what that means, Nora Prinziati. Every single album is back. This spring is packed with new releases from some of the biggest pop stars in the world, including our girl Taylor Swift, and we'll be covering it all. We'll, of course, break down every angle on the Tortured Poets department.

And we'll also cover new music from Beyonce, Dua Lipa, Maggie Rogers, Kacey Musgraves, and Ariana Grande. It's Pop Girl Spring on every single album. New episodes starting March 28th. On Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

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The hype house are marching.

Greetings and welcome to House of R.

a Ringerverse podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Mallory Rubin. It is my absolute pleasure to invite you not only back to the Owlery, but also to House of R's new-ish, ish, probably going to have to stop saying new-ish soon, podcast feed. Joining me today, Carlos, can I get a little drum roll, please? Person in studio here.

At Spotify. From Los Angeles. LA. It's New York Times bestselling author. I had to do it in person. Joanna Robinson. Life finds a way and you will always find a reason.

I agree. Okay. I agree. Jo, it's spring mailbag time. Sure is. We're here today to receive questions from the bad babies and then answer them together. Carlos is here. I mean, Carlos is on Zoom, but like he's here. Isaiah is literally here. He's here in studio with us kindly once again. He's eating a bagel. A bagel and cream cheese. It looks delicious. We're nearing the lunch window. Oh, historically a great time for us to podcast.

Before we receive the Ravens and unwrap those Raven scrolls, some quick programming reminders, as always. It's an active week over on the Ringerverse. Two episodes up already this week. Mint Edition went up on Monday. That's an MCU time capsule. Check that out if you haven't yet. And Button Mash...

Van Lathan and Ben Lindbergh on Fallout Season 1. The full binge. Ah, love it. Covered on Button Mash. That went up on Tuesday. I believe today is Tuesday. So that went up today. Wow. Look at that. Midnight Boys. Pew, pew. Coming tomorrow, Wednesday, here at the House of R. We'll be back with you later this week for...

our second X-Men 97 check-in. We're going to hit the next three episodes. Important. Four, five, six. Podcast episode. What is your emotional preparedness for this conversation that we will be having on Friday? No major spoilers in case you're not caught up with X-Men 97, but I will say I have stopped shaking.

But I have not yet fully emotionally processed everything that I saw last week on X-Men. We'll process it together. I literally did shake. Like, I had a moment where I was like, is this what it means to be Mallory Rubin? Quivering like a leaf on the wind. Should we mention what we're going to be doing next week?

Next week, as you might know, is the five-year anniversary of Avengers Endgame. Astonishing that half a decade has passed. Of course, here at the House of R, over on the Ringiverse, we will all be commemorating this. This is why the Junior Mints just did the MCU time capsule. So, Joe, we will be doing not one, but two Hall of Fame episodes. We're inducting

Tony Stark Iron Man, Avion of Amlads, into the House of our Hall of Fame. And then we are inducting Steve Rogers, Captain America, Avion of Amlads, into the House of our Hall of Fame. That's going to be our way of looking back at Endgame and really the Infinity Saga. I truly cannot wait for that. Listening at home, you might say, didn't you just do a Winter Soldier episode? And I will say, and? I think it's hilarious that you think there's a ceiling on how much we can talk about Steve Rogers. So...

We'll be back. Oh, boy. Jo, how can everybody follow along? Oh, my God. I'm thrilled that you asked me that in person. I'm thrilled to sit across from you and look at your beautiful face and monitor your water consumption. I didn't fill up my bottle before we started. Rookie move. Rookie amateur shit. You can tell how unaccustomed I am to recording in person. Yeah.

Um, yet there's no caffeine source around you. Like, I don't, I just, I don't even know. I just inhaled a cold brew like 30 seconds before you found me. If you're not snorted. Listen, Hobbs and dragons at gmail.com is how this whole mailbag came together. This is how you can reach us is how you can put questions in front of us.

So that is always open and active. You can send your Tony Stark thoughts. You can send your Steve Rogers thoughts. You can certainly send me thoughts about episode five of X-Men 97, which many of you already have. Some of you in poetry form. Like people are with me on how I feel about episode five. Poetry form like people are sending you snippets from the

The great poems of our time to try to tap into some emotional truth or people are writing you original poems. There's at least one original limerick involved. I stand in awe of the bad babies now and always. They're legends forever. Why don't you follow us on social? Yeah, do it. On Twitter, on Facebook, on Instagram, on TikTok. Jomie would really appreciate it if you did that.

Jomie is trying to chase us down the building and get us to do social stuff. We'll see if that happens. We're ready. We're ready. We're always ready. We're going to be in those Instagram reels every minute of every day before you know it. Nobody's business. And...

you know, subscribe to the pod. Yeah. Why not? House of R? Yes, please. Guess what? June's coming fast. Yeah. And we've got a lot of good stuff all the time, but June use, uh, must not miss. And then, you know, over on the regular verse as well, because those kids are the best.

Back to you, Mallory Rubin. The last programming reminder is typically our friendly neighborhood spoiler warning. And that's always a tricky one with a mailbag because if we just listed every topic that we were going to cover right here in the spoiler warning, then you'd know what all the questions were about and where's the fun in that. So we'll just issue the same spoiler warning that we typically do for our mailbag.

You'll hear what we're about to talk about when we read the question. And this is a pretty spoiler-safe place, the mailbag, typically. We will have a couple questions at the end of the mailbag that we will be sectioning off. There will be a spoiler warning right before we get to those, and those are just some...

hot d prep questions that require a little bit more plot specificity than seems permissible in the non-spoiler section so if you're interested in that some pre-hot d reading yeah stay tuned you'll get the spoiler warning before then if you don't want that you'll get the spoiler warning before then you can bounce but we hope you stay until then our last two questions exactly we'll go through everything in the last two mere moments at the end there you go

All right. Anything else before we dive in? I'm so excited. There's so many good questions today. We love a mailbag. We do. We love a mailbag. We love a seasonal mailbag. We love a topical mailbag about a specific thing like Dune or anything else we've done. Mailbags on. Pretty sure we did the Thor Love and Thunder one. A different time in the MCU. A different time. A different time. Let's get to it, man. I'm so...

I'm excited that you invoked Dune episodes because we're about to talk about that in a second. We sure are. Okay, Carlos, are you standing by? Is your finger poised on the call? Okay, we've received a thumbs up on the monitor in which Carlos looms. Jo. Yes. Why don't you, I'll read the questions later, but why don't you hit us with this first one here, which we're not going to read in full, but it's more of a vibe that we're sharing here. We got a special request from a bad baby named Tyler.

who per his email is, there it is, is gunning for husband of the year. And Tyler asked if we might say happy birthday to his wife, Katie. Guess what? We're going to do it. We can. Happy birthday, Katie. Happy birthday, Katie. Great stuff from Tyler here. Love to see the bad babies out there hustling for each other. You know? Husband of the year. Husband of the year. He says they listen to the podcast together. That's beautiful.

Katie loves some things you might have heard of. List them. Dune. I love Dune. Rings of Power. Oh, these are just house of our fastballs down the middle here. Mallory, have you heard of a special Scottish text known as Ereboda? Ereboda?

I don't know what accent that was. Was that a Scottish accent? No, it was not. I was like, oh, I'll do a French accent, like Harry Bauder. But I was like, but you just said Scottish. This is like your Tom Riddle graveyard story. I remember that. I remember that. That French accent fondly. That's probably why I thought of it. Oh, man. And guess what? Katie likes thrones. So, Katie, write down our wheelhouse. That's not how you say that. Happy birthday. Katie.

Thanks for being a bad baby, Tyler. Thanks for being a bad baby. Happy birthday to Katie. We love you both. I hear they're indoctrinating their child into geek stuff too. Fantastic. Thanks, Tyler. Wonderful. Okay, Jo, it's time for our second question. Usually we say who sent us each question. As you are assembling the contenders for any mailbag,

You put together a spreadsheet, you color code it. We both love a color coded spreadsheet. This is one of the many things that we share in common. And one of the columns is the name of the person who emailed us. And here's what you put for question number two today. You put everyone. I think the last time we did this for this question.

I wrote every fucking one. So this is like a tamer version of that. Okay, here's the question. It's in all caps, folks. Where is the Paul Atreides Hall of Fame episode? I think the goddammit is left unsaid, but I felt it. There you go. We've gotten a lot of questions about this.

And a lot of people think we just tossed it in the bin. We did not. I was sick. I got very sick that week. Mel was sick, but we didn't do it the next week. We saw a strategic opportunity. We wanted to save it for like sort of the second dune wave. Wait until Shayhalud comes back around. We are latched in. Yeah. And we are riding that sandworm all the way. So the...

So when is the Hall of Fame episode coming? It is coming when Dune II hits HBO Max. Yes. It is hitting, like, pay for streaming this week. Today, I think. The 16th. Sheesh. But that means it'll be on Max probably around the end of May. So when you can just...

Pull up the old Zaslav machine and turn on Dune 2 at home. Yes. Turn off the lights. Close the blinds. Get the sound system going. Crank the sound. Yeah. If you have the Dune popcorn bucket, break it back out. Mine is literally in my car. With you here? Do you keep it with you all the time? No, I just never took it out of the trunk from the last time I was in LA. I have a number of follow-up questions. In the trunk of the car. Not with me in the front seat always. Anyway.

Tell your neighbors, tell your friends. If you see someone asking this in the Facebook group, on Reddit, on Twitter, do us a solid. Tell them, hold your sandworms. It's coming. Yeah. You know, our...

One of our many sister pods is the Ringer Podcast Network is a robust network. And one of our sister pods is a wonderful podcast called Every Single Album. And right now, Nora and Nathan are in the midst of a series, a run that they are calling Pop Girl Spring. It's Dune Girl Spring. Yeah. Here at the House of R. But why would we stop talking about Dune? Right.

Get out many, many, many, many veils and drape them over you. If you can make chain mail out of paperclips, why not do it? And throw that on top of your head as well. It's Dune Girl Summer. You know, you invoked Zazz. Yeah. Just my one request, should anyone be listening, is...

I like the math that you threw out there in that late May window. Let's try for that. I'm just saying, don't push this to mid-June, Zazz. For the love. Because then where will we be? We'll say, we'll see you, Hall of Fame, in the fall. We'll be doing the six-month anniversary check in that case. Okay, but ideally, we should do it on the date that Dutra was supposed to come out last year. I love this idea. Great. Love it. That's our backup.

You heard it here. A solid plan. Tattooed onto our faces. Professional podcasters. All right. Number three. You know, we just mentioned or alluded to Lady Jessica, and our next question comes from Jessica. And it's about Rebecca Ferguson-ish. Ish. I mean, she's always on our minds. True. Love your podcast. Hey, thanks, Jessica. You've said...

many times. How much you think Apple TV Plus is a great source for sci-fi content. I'm a recent new subscriber. I've watched Silo and don't know where to go next.

Could you give your top three Apple TV sci-fi series picks to help me narrow down the large number of options? Can we just say before we answer the question in the spirit of the question? Yeah. Watch Slow Horses before you watch anything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll talk about the sci-fi options, but watch... If you are new to Apple TV, the first thing that you should do is catch up on the...

I just heard from a... On every season of Slow Horses. I just heard from a bad baby the other day that, like, they watched it because we talked about it all the time, and they were like, I never would have found it were it not for you. So, you're welcome. Was the email subject line and or first thing this person said to you in person, you can wash a coat? No, it was more... It was just, like, splattered with noodle broth, though. Just, like, completely splattered.

Covered in noodle splatter. Yeah, Apple TV Plus. Oh, you and Greenwald with the Plus. I have mine. I love that. Beautiful. Okay, I just want to kind of amend what we've said about sci-fi and Apple TV Plus. Do it. I will say my take on this is that I like that Apple is dedicated to sci-fi as a genre. Yes.

They're throwing a ton of money at it, and we as sci-fi fans have been used to low-budge, shitty effects versions of the stories that we want to see for years. Combing through the library, I don't know that I can wholeheartedly recommend all of these experiments. What was true is that they're dedicated to trying, and that makes me really happy. I agree. I agree with this. I can give you two strong recommendations. Are they Severance and For All Mankind? They are Severance and For All Mankind. Those are also my two.

And I don't have a third. I know some people like Foundation. You like season one of Foundation. I like Foundation. So, again, in the context of a question that comes to us with the I have already watched Silo note, because I think that would have been then my third. Definitely third on the list. I would include Foundation, I think, actually, very much in the spirit of your...

framing of our read on the Apple TV sci-fi experiment and investment. My experience with Foundation, a show that I was eagerly awaiting and anticipating, has been, I need a word that's stronger than uneven and varied. Like, sometimes I'm awed by it and sometimes I just find it absolutely impenetrable and complicated and complex to

At the expense, I think, of the thing that it is trying to do. It also includes a, I think, genuinely wonderfully based performance. And he is one of my favorite performers.

I've enjoyed... People in the history of the world. I've enjoyed every photo of Lee Pace from Foundation that you have ever sent me. Yes. And I can recommend that. I would say it's a big part of the group chat that we share, the two of us and Kate Halliwell. It's mostly just Lee Pace and Foundation. I was trying, like, because I could only come up with two, I was trying to, like, figure... I didn't know if you were going to throw out Mythic Quest as, like, a genre. Obviously, it's a little... I love Mythic Quest. It's a genre show. Ish. Ish. Ish. It's about genre things.

You love Mythic Quest. I love Mythic Quest. We can toss that out there. That's a great one. I was like, Joanna, I had to take a look at myself and I said, Joanna, are you a sci-fi fan? Because I was like, could only come up with two, really. And I was like, no, I mean, I love Star Trek, I love Sliders, Battlestar Galactica, X-Files, like, Star Trek. Of course you're a sci-fi fan. Blah, blah. Some of the, like, the first season of The Expanse I think is perfect, blah, blah. I think some

something is true about app I'm not going to go too far into like Hollywood Andy territory but I do think that something is going on with Apple that is crystal clear is that they have they're throwing a lot of money at the board and a lot of ideas of the board and there's a lot of great ideas there's not a tremendous amount of like creative executive oversight at Apple but

So, in some cases, I'm sure that is a good thing, and there are plenty of cases in this world where we've asked for less exec interference. But Apple is a tech company that is trying to not play by the rules of television, but I think they're missing a key element, which is someone to help shape technology.

some of these great IPs, great ideas with these tremendous budgets and these great casts and all of that into television that really sings. Call us. Yeah. That's what I'm hearing from you. Oh, yeah. I definitely have a lot of expertise in that area. But, you know, like when we talk about FX and we talk about John Landgraf, we talk about HBO, we talk about Casey Bloys or Frenny Orsi and stuff like that. Like these are people who know television, who are there with a guiding hand, and Apple doesn't really have a comparable version of that.

I would love that to happen because, again, they're dedicated to sci-fi, which is really exciting. Which is awesome, yeah. And they're putting a lot of money into it, which is really exciting. And we would just love for all of those shows to be as good as Severance and as good as the first couple seasons of For All Mankind. So I will say, I have never seen For All Mankind, which I consider like a massive hole in my genre TV education. But everyone I know who watches it and whose opinion and taste I trust considers it like one of the

10 best shows of recent years. It's one of my husband's favorite shows. Our buddy Ben Lindbergh, Miles Suri, like they just think it's sensational and outstanding. I really want to catch up on it soon. Who knows what soon means? Soon, I'm saying soon here in a like Sandman coming soon way. Yeah. Like really open to interpretation, but I very much look forward to catching up on that because people love it and I just love, as you know, I love Iran more. I love Iran more production, so I kind of, I can't believe how late I am to that. Severance, I think we agreed that it was one of the

like best freshman seasons of a show. If they had a stronger like executive hand behind the scenes, perhaps they wouldn't be like floundering the way that it is right now. We're just getting these little morsels of nourishment and encouragement on the Apple TV social channels on the severance front. We're getting like a photo of Adam Scott running. Right. You know, they're keeping us ready. It's coming eventually. On this front though,

The Dark Matter trailer did drop. But it looked quite interesting. I remain very excited for Dark Matter, which is now just, I think, three weeks away. May 8th. So I'm excited for that. I hope that's good. The trailer looked spooky and cool and intriguing and high concept. And when we watched the trailer, Adam turned to me and said, wait, is this about a version of you in the multiverse stealing another youth's life because Jennifer Connelly is hot? And I said, yes.

I don't know because I haven't read the book, but I do see why you're asking that based on the trailer. And if it is in fact what it is about, I mean, who among us? Honestly. Are you like, is this play about us? Interesting. Who among us? Okay. Next question. Number four comes from Ethan. How did you find your people? What did you do in college to find the groups, clubs, and communities that made you feel included? What suggestions do you have for my students

but also other college students across the nation for this fall? So you can answer this like specifically in this moment in time if there's something you want to mention and throw out there or just more generally, like how do you find people, how have you in the past found people in your life who share your passions? I didn't put Ethan's full email in there, but Ethan told this great story about, so he's like a college, does college advising. And he told a story about how when he went to college, he felt so like lost, adrift,

And to, like, soothe himself one night in the dorms, he put on Indiana Jones because he just, like, loved it so much. And two people in his hall heard the theme song playing through the dorm door and knocked on the door and were like, can I come watch Indiana Jones with you? I love this. And so this idea of, like, I think the premise is maybe even more specifically, like,

Find the people who enjoy the stories. We talk about this all the time, like sharing stories with people. We have another question about that that I think is like an interesting pair with this. So thinking about my own experience, when I went to college, not everyone goes to college, but at some point you go into a wider world where it's harder to maybe find friends because you don't have the built-in infrastructure of school or people are working from home more often or whatever. This is a common thing.

want that people have is connection. And I think something that I did when I went to college to find my people there was sort of open my mind in terms of like what might foster connection. So like, you know me, I'm not a huge like video. I didn't like

like pretend anything but I just like played more video games freshman year than I ever did because it was like a fun bonding activity with people or like or one of my college roommates really loved country music and I didn't but I got like I was like I'm interested like let's let's hear what you're interested in too so like opening your mind to

to that helped me connect with people. And then like those people started watching Buffy with me, you know, like they got into like what I was into. And so that's just a thing that stepping into the wider world is about, is about sort of expanding what those points of connection might be. And I think college or any sort of like post high school time is a good opportunity for that. So, you know, and I found just like incredible people that way. And I never felt like

I was pretending to be someone else or I never felt like they didn't connect with what I connected with. It becomes this like, you know, sharing ideas. One, this is the last thing I'll say. One, I only lived in the dorms freshman year. And one thing we did probably about like halfway through the year. So we were already like good friends is we each of us brought a movie from home that

that we loved and shared with other people. Like my friend Raj loved Ben-Hur. So we watched Ben-Hur. I brought Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, a musical that I love. And everyone's like, Joanna, with love and respect, what is this? And they had a point. But, you know, I was just like an open to sharing things kind of environment, which I loved. How beautiful. Mallory, you're still friends. You've still got like a book club with your Syracuse people. That's true. How did you find them?

So it's, I would say, a combination of like circumstance and then very much what you outlined, right? Of saying in some way, like, this is a thing I love and then seeing if that is received, right? And or spotting that somebody else is interested in the thing that you like. So, you know, some of my dearest friends to this day, the Juice Book Club pals, you know, we've named our book club. It's called Pulp, Pals United in Literary Pleasure. What? Yeah.

Why is this the first I'm hearing of this? Pulp is also like an orange, you know, the Syracuse orange. So it's really, really in the pulp of a paper. It's working in a lot of levels, I think. And pulp the band.

Yeah, and one of our pals and members of Pulp, Suzanne, made us little stamps so that every book that we read for book club, we can stamp with a little pulp. Why have I... It's a very recent development. Oh. The naming is recent. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, okay. I'm less outraged now. We have a book club coming up this weekend, actually. Is it A Quarter Throne in Roses time? No, I was... I would...

hmm, is chastised strong enough? Ridiculed and scolded on the last Zoom for being the only one who has yet to. But again, that was Side Book Club. That was, you know, the squad battle. But the two other members of the Side Book Club have, they are in fact almost finished with the second book. Eventually I'll get there. I know. Maybe after a while.

So a couple of those folks, Suzanne and Allison, we just happened to be on the same freshman year dorm.

They were roommates. I became friends with each of them individually. And then we sort of all became friends with each other. One of the other members of our book club, Taylor, she's the one I told you a story about the other day. You strike me as someone who would be good at foreign languages. We met in our orientation group and I was like, you're my first friend. Just like, please don't go to this placement exam. Just come hang out with me. And our other pal, Katie, who we met sophomore year in a Jane Austen class.

One of my favorite classes that I ever took. You know, we went to England for spring break for that trip. I do know that you did that. It was magical. It was magical. I'm forever jealous of that experience. So freshman year, I had in my dorm room...

I would like just sometimes I had actual posters or photos and then sometimes I would just print stuff. So like I had a Prisoner of Azkaban movie poster that I had that I had hung up. But then I just like printed when they released the cover art for Half-Blood Prince. I just like printed it and hung it on my wall. And of course, I had my Harry Potter books with me. So a lot of like I am a Harry Potter obsessive signals in my freshman year dorm room. And Allison...

was also a Harry Potter obsessive, as was Taylor. So they saw that. They knew I was into it. As I told you, we ended up eventually with the passage of some time. We all gave each other marauder nicknames. Suzanne, who at that time had not read the books, was Wormtail until she read the books. And then it just sort of stuck. And like that's sometimes what happens. It was so tough. Really tough. She's a good sport. So you get her being late to the reading. She's a good sport. Okay, this is Pulp's... This is a squad battle. I don't know. Pulp's signal, if you're listening...

You all have to assign each other Quarterthorne and Rose's names. And since Mallory hasn't done the reading... Oh, I'm the Wormtail this time. You're like Tamlin or something like that. So I don't know what that means. I assume it's bad. And when I find out what that means, I will be, I think, ashamed.

So that was like my early college experience of really bonding with them over Harry. And then that opens up into like, I mean, we're talking still, you know, VHS into like the DVD era. I was just constantly rewatching like Fellowship and, you know, you're Lord of the Rings. Okay. This was when my dad gave me that copy of Dune, right? I'm reading Dune. Taylor's like, what's this? I recommend it to her. She reads Dune. We start talking about Dune all the time. So it just became a beautiful friendship, not only rooted in like going to games at the Carrier Dome together and we're studying journalism, we're in Newhouse together, but it

Like, we would watch movies all the time. We would recommend books to each other. And it was just like, it's the foundation still in so many ways of our friendship, which is like, you know, going on two decades at this point. It's beautiful and it's a thing I cherish. And like... I was thinking about this a lot when we did the... We just did the 1999 draft on Big Pick. Yeah.

Yeah. So you and I have been in a 1999 movie, Headspace. Yeah. That was the fall of my freshman year of college. And I was reminded there is a version of Midsummer Night's Dream that came out that year with like Michelle Pfeiffer and Kevin Kline. I had it ranked. And I was just like, I got half my dorm to go to that movie with me. And like, I, and not the kind of people that you think, and did they love it? I don't know, but they went. And that was just sort of the attitude. It's just sort of like,

go try the thing. And I was like, how did I was just like thinking of some specific people where I was like, how did I convince that person to go see Midsummer Night's Dream with me? I don't know. I think that's one of the signals that you can look for, right? When you're like, who can share this thing with me? A lot of people consume the same things, but like when you find somebody who either loves it the way you do or who wants to understand why you love it the way you do, that can be such a magical thing. And like, you know, because that was such a special part of my college friendships, like

my first couple years in New York City after school working at SI, like grinding myself into dust to try to do a good job. And you're like, how do you maintain a foothold in like that headspace, right? In that like very emotionally rich and rewarding space. And I, cause I was thinking about this question and thinking back to like other moments in my life where something like that has happened. So like with Thrones, it got it in a couple ways in those early SI days. Cause there was like the first experience I had reading A Song of Ice and Fire, which might now, you know, one of my,

best friends in the world, Steve, other Steve. You've heard of other Steve. I have. We read A Song of Ice and Fire in tandem for the first time. He was working at golf. I was working at SI. And we would meet up at the Time Inc. Cafe, like at the pasta bar for lunch and like talk about the chapter that we had just read. And, you know, I remember like one week I wasn't in New York City because I had actually I was taking a trip up to Syracuse to visit the pulp crew. And I

you know, you get so used to the rhythm of talking about something with somebody. And I remember like texting him

I was reading on the train. I love to read on a train. And I was like reading and shaking, quivering. Like a leaf on the wind. And texting him. And I'm like, where are you in the book? And he's like, well, I was just with Renly and we were in the exact same spot. And we were talking about it even though we weren't together and just kept it going. And then, you know, as the show became such a sensation, and this was before I joined Grantland and started like writing about it and potting about it.

I wanted to talk about it all the time. And our now colleague, Ben Glicksman, who I worked with at SI before he joined The Ringer, we and another pal of ours, Chris, would meet up in the mornings every day and go and get an iced coffee and just talk about our personal, just for us as friends, Game of Thrones character power rankings.

And like, it was just a thing we did. Oh, you were potting before pods. Yeah. And like loved it. And it was just, I was like, do I?

want to like do this with my life it's like amazing right and then you know you go and you start like I'm starting to talk about it with like Chris and Andy and then you know write and talk about it with Jason and then like it's builds and builds and builds so it's just like I don't know it's such a fun thing to think back on like all those little moments and obviously like I feel like you know very lucky that um my dad was always like encouraging of the oh let's go see you know the re-releasing Star Wars let's do this let's do this so you know I

The other thing that we should say is not to encourage anybody to spend time the way they might not otherwise be inclined, but one of the cool things, one of the only good things about the internet, a lot of bad things about the internet, but it's a way to find people who share your passion. So maybe there's a version to get back to the question of that dorm room signal or this club on campus or whatever. But if there's not...

you know, maybe there's a bad baby out there who loves the thing you love. Like, you've had this so much with, like, Storm of Spoilers listeners. Oh, yeah. And, you know, we got this with Binge listeners. We have it now with Ringerverse and House of R listeners. Like, people who meet through the fandom of the pod, like, and the fandom of the things that we talk about on the pod, right? Yeah. That's, like, always such an incredible thing for us to hear about. And we've got, like, we've gotten notes from people over the years who, like, met and got married. Got married.

It's honestly incredible. So incredible. You know, jump into the jump into the whatever social media platform like you love peach perhaps and find a bad baby. I mostly agree. I just do. I like this is where I'm going to sound like so musty and dusty and old. I just do want to encourage people like if you're going out into the world again, be at college or something else.

Don't spend all your time on the computer. Don't disappear entirely into your computer. Like, you know, you want to be, like, out there. Just push yourself out slightly outside your comfort zone. This is a really good time for it. It can be really hard and scary, which it definitely was for me. Yeah, same. But, like, and I definitely, like, was on certain message boards. So, like, you know, like, there is that comfort of, like— The amount of time I spent on MuggleNet and Maliki Cauldron, I just simply could not possibly recount. Right.

Yeah, the Buffy message board investment time for me was pretty high. But then also just like, yeah, hang out with people in person. It's important. We're here together in person. In person. It's so special. Love that phrase. Isaiah, how was the bagel? You know? Wonderful. Thumbs up? Excellent. Awesome. All right, next question. Question number five. This comes from Chris. What a beautiful beginning to this email. Yeah.

My wife and I are planning a trip to Baltimore. Fuck yeah, Chris. So that she can attend the nearby Maryland Sheep and Wolf Festival. This is just iconic. This is like, I have no notes. Talk about finding your people. This is amazing. I'm so happy for her that she found a Sheep and Wolf Festival in Maryland. I have to ask my stepmom about this. I'm

It's possible that they've taken this one off the board, whether or not my stepmom is attending this. She's a big knitter. But she has too many skeins of yarn and she's not allowed anymore? You can never have too many skeins of yarn. Chris continues.

You know, I knit. I used to. I think I've lost the skill. But in college, I knit. Well. It's very soothing. Oh, yeah. Though, as my stepmom likes to say, it's a winter sport. So I've really lapsed since I moved to California. I prefer crochet. Oh, intriguing. I actually do know you knit because then you used to like. I would make scarves for my friends. Like Hermione, you would just like throw knitted things at people. I wouldn't like leave like little socks out for you. And hats, yeah. Yeah.

I actually only ever made scarves. I never advanced to being able to make one. Oh, I can knit a scarf. Yeah. Okay. Chris's email continues. It was a mistake for us to see what Carlos's face looks like when we do these thoughts. I'm glad. I'm glad to see it. Naturally, one of the first things I did was check the Orioles schedule. I would like to... Fuck yeah, Chris!

to see if they'll have any home games while we're there. I regret to inform you that I also did some Googling on this front, and I believe after my one Google search, it does appear that the Maryland Sheep and Wolf Festival is May 4th to 5th, and the Baltimore Orioles will be on the road. But maybe extend the trip, spend a little more time in Maryland. It's a great place. I'll now say for the third time, Chris's email continues.

I view Camden Yards as a sort of mecca for House of R listeners. It's beautiful. You're going to cry. That is beautiful. Now I'm laughing at this next part, this parenthetical. As you both almost equally are massive fans of the O's. That's exactly right. It's a lifelong passion for us both. Which made me wonder, what would be the official holy site

of the house of R what destination would you choose where all the bad babies can make a pilgrimage I love this question I am so pleased with my answer for this question mine is like so obvious but I can't wait to hear yours and we should say that Chris was only one is it a crevice Chris is not a crevice not um

Chris is one of several people who emailed us something about either the O's or baseball in general. And we want to say we have an upcoming...

Probably. It's been postponed a few times. Now, this is bold of all the things we've committed to saying that we're going to eventually podcast about. This is a bold one to put on the record, but I love it. I love it. Allegedly, we're doing a baseball podcast at some point with Ben Lindbergh. Yeah. And we are saving a lot of your baseball questions for that. Yes. The entire podcast is going to be about Colton Couser. Are you familiar with Colton Couser? Obviously.

Coming off AL Player of the Week honors. Exactly. Yeah. And I was like, it's about time. Which of the nicknames that's instantly taken root at the beginning of Colton Couser's toured rookie campaign do you like best? Do you enjoy Kevin Brown's, I think, instantly iconic, Holy Couser! Home run call? Do you prefer The Milkman Always Delivers, which has become very popular? I like Jolton Colton. Let's give it a try. Great. Let's see how it goes.

Okay. This is why they don't let me on baseball pods. But allegedly we're doing a house of our, it's like going to be, anyway, I got it. We were talking about sports for a couple weeks in a row on the Shogun pods. And we got several emails from listeners being like, no more sports on the Shogun pods. Did that begin after the Kirk Cousins, Baker Mayfield? That was the first, that was the beginning. And then only just sort of went from there. And the feedback came in immediately after the? No, it took a couple weeks.

Because then we went into the NBA and then the people and like my favorite one was like the last one we got where it's like, Joanna, the queers don't understand all your sports references. Stop it. I was like, fair enough. Okay. Like you, Kai and Rob, I was confounded by the Kirk Cousins comp. Listen, we moved on from there. There were a lot of other great answers, but that's not why we're here. We're here to talk about Chris's question.

All right, where are you taking the bad babies? What's the bad baby pilgrimage? Don't worry, it's easy on the budget. Okay. Uh-huh. Yeah. I'm pretty sure I sent you a video of this. I know I sent it to Sean Fennessey. Okay. I sent a video to Sean, and Sean was like, I want this to be where we record all of our podcasts from now on. And I'm pretty sure I sent the same video to you. And it is the...

the Giunti Odeon Movie Theater in Florence, Italy. And if you haven't seen this place, I'll just let you know that if you go to the website, Giunti is spelled G-I-U-N-T-I. The website calls it, get ready for this, a place made of stories. I mean, it's exactly what we and Tyrion Lannister need to hear. The main...

The Odeon is they reconfigured it recently where they took out all of the seats on the floor. It's got a mezzanine where there's like 200 sort of like plush velvet seats up there. But on the floor, they took out all the seats and they put in bookshelves. So by day, it's like a bookstore that you shop down on the bottom floor there. And actually, like you can shop it while they're showing movies. And I've checked the lighting situation online.

It does oddly work. I was skeptical, but it does oddly work. They light it in a certain way where, like, the shelves are lit up, but it doesn't interfere with the screen. They show movies at night, bookstore by day. You can shop the books while you're watching the movies or do one or the other. They have...

new movies that they show, they show them all in their original languages. They're not dubbed, but they have subtitles. They have series called like Cinema is a Woman where they're playing like Devil Wears Prada and Cruella. 80s Cult where they're playing like Who Framed Roger Rabbit in Brazil. Then they have like, they're doing Civil War or like whatever else the new movies are out that you want to see. It has a cafe. This is a queue for Mallory.

It has a cafe that is open all day. Okay, thank you. And they will serve you coffee all day, Mallory. You know the Italians. They will not stop...

The espresso machine. One of the many reasons I love Europe. This is an all-day affair. And I just want to show, I was like looking at the menu at the cafe at the Odeon. And it is like story themed. So they have like one page that says like American Dream, but it's like Isoni Americani or whatever. And there's like a quote and it says, Il grande Gatsby, right? It's like a great Gatsby quote.

They have a Reuben sandwich from Albie Reuben. I hate Reuben sandwiches. Okay, I saw you might. It's too much dressing. I don't fuck with that. And they are, to be clear, aperti tutti i giorni, which means open all day. So there you go. Coffee all day. Books most of the day. Movies at night. This is the Odeon in Florence. It's right by the Ponte Vecchio, the Uffizi. We can just like water around. I love the Ponte Vecchio. There you go. Did you just spin my water all over my hair? I did. I did.

It's the joy of being together at first. And I think it's because you know that I chose something very good. I think that's wonderful. I have been to Florence once in my life. I thought it was one of the most spectacular places on the planet. And I would love to return. I would love to return with you and the bad babies. I'm in. Let's go. Consider this my formal RSVP. Great.

maybe after we go to Florence, we can just pop over to my pick again. It's an obvious one, but sometimes every now and then in life, I'm like, just because it's obvious, it's not necessarily wrong. And I think that we belong, two of us together, Carlos and Isaiah, you're welcome to come. All the bad babies are welcome to make the pilgrimage with us to jolly old England, to the United Kingdom, where we can just tour together.

Oh. Go, like, let's get a bus. So your answer is the UK. The United Kingdom. But, like, let's... So we're going to have, like, a... We're going to have an itinerary. Maybe it's, like, a... Maybe it's a trip that we make, like, I don't know, once a year. The House of Art tour. Yeah. The House of Art bus tour. And then... Nat bus? Other people are...

able to maybe like replicate or approximate the itinerary if they're not able to join us, we will start in Belfast and we will tap into our Thrones fandom. Right. This is a, it's gotta be, it's either, it either has to be, I think where we begin or conclude the tour. Uh, I would like us to spend some time in Oxford. I would like us to have a meal, a steak and ale pie, uh,

That would be my preference. Maybe some fish and chips. Obviously a pint at the Eagle and Child Pub. Because the professor is always welcome. Because the professor is always welcome. Got it. Exactly. I mean, how can House of Art Pilgrimage, if it's not going to be at this beautiful shared reading, shopping, and viewing space in Florence, be anywhere but where Tolkien used to sit and chat about his works? Yeah.

I think that our recent Doctor Who experience, by the way, did you see? Let's see if I'm limber enough to like... Oh my God! Joanna got me these Converse. They're the Converse at the 15th Doctor.

was rocking, inherited from the 14th Doctor in the specials. So, you know, Tan, obviously, we talked a lot about, like, which color of Converse was Tan wearing over the course of his seasons. We had the cream. We had, like, the cranberry. Maroon, yeah. And then...

tenant back in our lives as 14 wearing these wonderful, beautiful, like light gray slash parchment. Papyrus is the technical color. Papyrus, beautiful. Yeah. Converse. And they were briefly on 15's feet for just a moment there. We're going to, we'll come back to 15 in a later question. And I loved them and I talked about them routinely, frankly, probably more than was warranted on our podcast. And Joanna took note, like a good co-host and pal and a brick

procured them for me and I'm wearing them today and they're great. I love them. I did buy you those shoes. Adam helped me with the sizing. That was great. I love it. And my friend Danielle helped me find them because they were out of stock and so I had to get them on like a... I don't understand your world of sneakers. Did you do StockX? It was... No. I used to have it on my phone. I took it off the phone but it was... No, I have it. Goat. You used goat? Yeah.

Is that legit or no? Yes. Okay. Holy shit. Isaiah and I are genuinely impressed right now. All right. Wow. I got them off go for you. Oh my God. I couldn't find them anywhere. I'm actually astonished right now. Okay. Oh man. In London, for our Doctor Who sob, we will of course be going to Shakespeare's Globe. Right.

I think while we're there. Oh, is that our Doctor Who stop? We don't want to go to Cardiff? We can go to Cardiff. We can go everywhere. There's no limit to where we can go on the itinerary. I feel like you're not really answering the question. While we're in London, we should, I think, go to the reading room at the British Museum. We should, of course, go to the British Library. This made me think about how you noticed that there was an exhibit at the British Library called Fantasy Realms of Imagination Exhibition. And we did not

go to that. And I feel like that is a regret we will carry. Not only that, but I signed up for a lot. I like paid money for a lot of the like digital programming and I did not do any of it. Maybe I still have access to it because I did spend hard-earned American... Sounds like something we can tap into for a future pilgrimage. Obviously, we can go to King's Cross Station. Yeah.

We can go... You know, Marvel. We haven't hit a Marvel stop yet. Should we go to Greenwich? Channel Arthur the Dark? What do you think? I think more importantly... We can take a tube route that makes absolutely no sense. We should go to Edinburgh because there's this cafe in Edinburgh where...

just briefly, Wanda and Vision stand outside of. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they have it, like, plastered all over that cafe. They're like, this is the place. Oh, Edinburgh would be a great place to go. I love it there. What do you think? I think that's a dream. I think it's the filthiest smuggle you've ever accomplished on this show to be like, how about all of the UK? But...

If we're thinking about the spirit of the question, like a house of our pilgrimage, shouldn't it contain some smuggles? I want to go on this trip, so you let me know. Okay. Yeah. Our next question. Oh, boy. I'm excited for this one. Our next question, question number six today, comes from Eric.

Both of you must draft the other's dream date scenario. Using everything you know about each other, design your co-host's perfect evening with their favorite fictional someone. The categories are, who are they with? Where are they? What's on the menu? Post-dinner movie? Dessert? I'm not prepared for your like...

Your smooth listening radio voice in person. It's not, nothing could have prepared me for it. Who are you, who are you pairing me with for a memorable evening? Take me through it. Could not possibly be easier for me to do. Really? I think so. Fictional partner on this date is so quite clearly Detective Sergeant John Book.

from Witness, as played by Harrison Ford. I didn't know we were opening this up beyond, like, the stories we cover at the House of R. Obviously, already, I have no notes, but I can't wait for you. Does the date involve a sponge bath? I'm just going to sit back and listen. Where are you? You're at Camden Yards for Game 5 of the World Series this year. The O's lost Game 4 to keep the tension up. Oh.

Okay. Right? Okay. Did I do that correctly? Sure. So if they win game five, they win the series. So they took the first three. Yes. Okay. And then they lost. Okay. And then you're going to go for game five. Game five at home. And they're going to win. Okay. Great. And that means they win the series. But you're like, it's not a sure shot because they just lost last time. Uh-huh. So you don't know. Yeah. Okay. Okay. What's on the menu? Yeah.

Ice cold Natty Bow. Of course. You know, Natty Bow is back at Camden Yards this year. It's a huge thing. Huge. And I've been told that you should get... I've been to a baseball game with you. You got a hot dog. I did. So I know you like a hot dog at a baseball game.

I love a hot dog at a baseball game. But I've been told that at Camden Yards, you should get a crab mac and cheese hot dog. How do you feel about that? Is it too much? My move at an O's game is always Boog's barbecue. Get a pit beef sandwich from Boog's. Okay. Always. You know, the internet was fairly mixed on Boog's, but if you love that... The internet doesn't know what the fuck it's talking about. Okay. Everyone seemed to agree on this crab mac and cheese hot dog, but if you say...

You think Dawn Book would appreciate... I think a crab mac and cheese hot dog sounds delicious, but let me put it this way. Sounds like way too much for me. I don't know. I have a long evening in mind. Oh, yeah. You want to play it safe. I wouldn't even need to strategize accordingly, I think. I wouldn't even eat any barbecue if I were you. Okay. Post-dinner movie. Uh-huh. Yeah. I know we're with...

book, but I kind of thought like maybe we're also kind of with that era of Harrison Ford, right? We're obviously not literally thrilled anymore. We're not watching Harrison Ford movie. Harrison does not strike me as someone who likes to watch his own movies. But if there's one thing he loves, it's a plane. So we'll be watching the film Memphis Belle. Oh my God.

At the currently closed, but hopefully soon to be reopened Parkway Theater in Baltimore. Very specific. For desserts. Yeah. Is this where the sex comes in? Well. Or is that after dessert? It comes, this is just for you. There's an ice cream shop in Baltimore called Be More Licks.

Thank you, Carlos. And I feel like, obviously, we're there in the fall because of the World Series. Oh, my God. And their whole menu...

includes such flavors as like Mexican hot chocolate, caramel tres leches. They've got thriller in vanilla, caramel apple swirl, like all apple butter oatmeal cookie, right? So we're having like a lovely spicy at be more licks and the excitement that a young Harrison Ford no doubt

uh achieved watching all of those planes and thinking of all the planes that he could crash in the future yep followed by a sojourn to be more licks we'll just lead you into the rest of the evening and i think you can take it from there i have no notes great that is my specially designed evening for you you're a pal you're a gemstone learned a lot about baltimore seems like a pretty great place it is it's a wonderful city wonderful city

So, no, the only note you have is you would eat barbecue instead of... I would have boobs at the game. I would never eat a crab mac and cheese hot dog. That sounds like a hat on a hat. I mean... I would eat crab mac and cheese and a hot dog. As I've told you before, the hat on the hat is a fitting experience for the O's. You know, the hat on the hat for the bird. I will be looking into be more licks. I will be investigating. This is wonderful. I'd like to thank you once again. Okay.

I had a harder time just because there were so many different ways I wanted to go with this. I had a number of candidates. But perhaps because of the summer we're heading into and the headspace I find myself in, I'd like you to begin your fantasy thinking about this evening. You're sitting, you're waiting, and in the doorway, suddenly you see a couple golden glints. First, golden locks. Then, a golden hand. Yeah.

Because you are going on a date with Jamie Lannister. Before dinner. You're starting the date. The reason this is already uncomfortable is that you and I have, like, eaten a meal in the same room as Nikolai Koster-Waldau. Oh, yeah.

And this just... We're going fictional character. As you like to sometimes draw the distinction, we're going fictional character, not real person. Fictional character. Leave Nick alone. There's a whole romance novel about this that exists that I find disturbing. I wanted to tell you that my runner-up, because of course I considered Obi-Wan, I considered Jorah, I considered Spike, but I don't know enough about that to craft the right evening for you. I think that's fair. I came extremely close to...

I'm sketching out an evening for you and Sawyer. Extremely close. The thing is, the thing that's... Okay, I love this. I'm really excited to go on this journey. Confronted with the reality of dating any of these nightmare people, I'm like, I don't think so. Well, but this is like, you know, your problematic faves. And like, it's a memorable evening. Who knows what the future holds after that, right? Okay.

Okay. One night only with Jamie Lannister. Let's go. Pre-dinner, get to know your drink. So I think he's probably going to go for some, you know, mulled wine, like a mead, something that's a part of his life. Yeah. But because he's a thoughtful date, he knows that you like tequila. And so he will be preparing for you and your pleasure this evening, a tequila cocktail. Now, where will you be sipping this cocktail? You will be...

Because if there's a thing that I know about you, that the listeners know about you, and that Jamie Lannister doing his prep for this date knows about you, it's that you love an Ocean Vista. Correct. And so you will be on the cliff sides of Mendocino. Great. My favorite place in the world. With tequila. With a tequila cocktail in your hand. Yeah.

Now, you might be thinking, okay, well, Mendocino is my favorite place, like up on the cliffs looking out into a beautiful ocean vista. That sounds great for me. Is there any risk that this triggers some childhood memories of Casterly Rock? Yeah, I was worried about that. I thought you might be. Yeah. I'm here to tell you this is a key part of what's going to lead to him opening up to you this evening. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. He's going to be like, I used to leap into these waters. Exactly. Okay. Exactly.

Just because I think it would be a nice part of the evening. At some point, you all will be taking a stroll and a cat will cross your path. Okay. And you will pet this cat. Okay. Maybe it came from like a bookstore, a Mendo bookstore. Yeah, the Mendocino Gallery Bookshop. Great. Where they have a cat. But,

But fantastic. That one then. That cat is called the Great Catsby. Just go ahead. The Great Catsby. And, you know, you see Jamie also pet the cat. And you're like, wow. What a surprisingly tender glimpse I just got. With the metal hands? No, I think not. I think not. With the heavy metal hands? No, you know, I think just with the other hand. Because we're not yet at the point of the evening where he's, like, ready to say, I was that hand. You know? We need to, like, build up to that. Yeah, yeah. We need to build up to that. So, you know...

it's still a little too early for dinner. And you two have blocked off a lot of time. You've got a couple hours. You know there's going to be more conversation later, but you just sort of want to like spend time in each other's company, sharing a thing that you love. And he's ready for this because he has, you know, he's a student of the streaming wars. He knows where every movie is and he's ready to watch. Got a little projector screen. Almost famous.

It's like, what would be the perfect evening for Joanna Robinson? He's ready to watch Almost Famous. Okay. Okay. It's time for dinner. Yeah. Favorite place, favorite drink, favorite movie. You put a cat. There's a cat. Cat on a hat. Okay, great. Mushrooms, seven ways. You know, it's like a structure for a meal that makes sense in Westeros, but it's a...

prime ingredient that you have spent a great amount of time in the last year plus studying, examining, and considering. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you will be enjoying this delicious meal together. While there are seven courses, you know, part of the experience is like maybe just a nibble or a notch so you can kind of like pace yourself, right? Wonderful. It is then time.

for a bath confessional. Because it's Jamie Lannister. Yeah. Right? And you love, like, a hot spring. Yeah. So, you guys are going to spend some time letting the steam clear your heads, open your souls and your hearts. Is he going to, like, actually...

He's not filthy, though. He's clean already. Is he not just going to sit there in his grime and make no attempt to scrub any of the filth off of him? Yeah, he's already clean. This is really just... This is not a way to just trade your filth with each other. That'll come later.

I regret putting this question on the street. I should have known better. This is just really about opening up, you know, letting you glimpse his true self. He will at some point in this hot spring say to you, by what right does the wolf judge the lion? And he's going to ask you like, will you call me by my name? It's Jamie. It's Jamie. It's Jamie. Call me Jamie. Okay.

Does he have the gold hand on or is it stumped akimbo in the bath? I think there's no high burn bandaging anywhere in this scenario for the date, right? Got it. So we might be fucking with like candidate here. It's a little bit, but for the sanctity of your evening, I think it's worthwhile. Okay. I'm sorry to tell you that it's now time for some shared reading. You towel off. You...

Think that you're on the verge of retiring to your respective rooms, but that's not what awaits. You want to spend a little more time together and you want to share something with him that you love. You want to help open his mind to all of the possibilities that exist beyond the truth that he thinks has defined and bound his life. He's definitely already seen almost, he's like almost famous. It's old news to me. You read him, Dune.

And you help him understand or at least begin to contemplate that sometimes legacy, maybe it's a burden best cast aside. You give him something to noodle on. Wow. And then he says, I'd like to return the favor. And again, it's not going to be the last time you hear that this evening. And he goes over to your traveling bookshelf because in this scenario, whenever you go to Mendo, you have a traveling bookshelf with you. Yeah, of course. And he's like,

He's attuned. He's attuned to your wants and your needs and your passions and your interests. And so he notices that one of these spines is a little more worn than the others. And he thinks this must be a favorite, a favorite of Joanna's. And he opens it. To clarify, do we read all of Dune? You selected a passage that you thought would resonate. Because it's like... Maybe a couple passages. Several weeks later. We have some more activities ahead. Okay, great.

And he opens the book and he begins to read to you from good omens. All right. Yeah, I know. Does he do like voices? Yeah, he studied the audio book, you know, just to make sure he was really prepared. Okay, cool. And then when it seems like the evening is at last winding down, he says, kneel, Lady Joanna. Actually, you know what?

This is all terrible. This is like the worst thing that's ever happened to me. Oh, man. We are mere days away from something that's in my calendar as the Serbry anniversary. There you go. There you go. He knows this is an important thing. It's April 21st. And, you know, you wonder, is the evening about to take a turn for the better? And then he says, in the name of the warrior, I charge you to be brave. In front of a...

robust fire. A roaring fire. Roaring fire. He begins to unbutton. And you ask the question that's on everybody's minds. Yeah. What about Cersei? And he goes to the open window and he pushes her portrait out and he says, the things I do for love. End scene. I mean, the scene continues, but that's the last thing I'll say on the podcast. Delicately paid to black. Left open to the imagination. So the point is, this is like a what if...

Jamie never left Brienne crying in her curlers in the courtyard. It's really just like, what if you got to watch Almost Famous and read Good Omens and share some tequila and a delicious mushroom dish and a beautiful ocean vista with Jamie Lannister and you got to change his life and he got to change yours. This is wonderful. Thank you for sharing with me. Again, this is also the worst thing that's ever happened to me. If it had been with Sawyer, you would have, obviously, he would have read Watership Down. Yeah. So,

What do you think? I think you know me very well and that was the point of this exercise. I have no notes about... At no moment did you show that you didn't know me. I still don't think I would ever want to date Jamie Lannister. Just one passionate evening. No. One passionate evening. I don't... No? Then you go your separate ways? I don't want it. You don't want it. Would you have preferred to spend the night with Jorah? I need to think about it. Casey! I need to think...

Wow. Experiencing that in person was a real eye-opener for me. I can actually see Isaiah adjust the levels. Isaiah wanted to turn the volume down. I know. I wanted to do it too. All right. Oh, man. John Book, that was a great one. Boy. Well, that was special. Thank you for spending all that time. I appreciate you. Okay. Our next question, number seven, comes from Sam. It says, top secret question Joanna wants to surprise Mallory with. I don't know what this is. I'm terrified. As you know, I

The subject is... Live in fear of surprises. I know, you hate a surprise. Okay, Carlos is ready, but give me one hot second, Carlos, because I want to pull up this email. This, you hate a surprise, and I know that about you, and I'm sorry to do this to you, but I think it'll be worth it for the radio that it will produce. Okay. I've never submitted a mailbag queue before, but I assume it must begin with the obligatory husion of the pod, which I am very much so.

Unfortunately, I do not write to you today to discuss Hobbits nor Dragons, neither about mutants of the 20th century and certainly not about a trio of body problems. Instead, I write to ask a question that is, that this bad baby has been dying to know, have you all listened to Beyonce's new album? I'm sure the answer is yes, and I'm sure you both love it, but much more important, that's not the question, much more important is what Beyonce does in the opening track, American Requiem, at the minute 53 mark.

Beyonce delivers, once again, delivers the unthinkable. However, keen listeners such as myself will immediately recognize this. Carlos, can you play this for me, please? Wow. Her spot on impression of Mallory Rubin's infamous hot D dragon screech. Baby confirmed. And baby is spelled B-U-Y. That's all I got.

It's all I think about every time I listen to this album and I need to let you all know. I wonder which dragon she's impersonating. I'm sure you all have some thoughts. Incredible. Amazing email. Holy shit. We should... Carlos, will you play it one more time, please? Beyonce, come on House of R, I think, is what we're saying. Stay up for something. It's the time to face the wind.

Oh, man. This is remarkable. It should be noted, and I actually put this in the doc, can you read this, that Beyonce also mentions Thanos on this album. At the snap of my fingers, I'm Thanos. Yeah. My assumption when I saw that there was a secret Beyonce question was like, all right, what could this be? Cowboy Carter, is this something about Gunnar Henderson or Jordan Westberg and like an Oriole cowboy connection? That was my only guess. But wow, the dragon screech.

I had no idea. I feel transported. My goodness. Thank you, Beyonce. Thank you, Beyonce. And thank you, Sam. For everything always. And thank you, Carlos, for playing that cue. I appreciate you. Amazing. Okay. It's funny because I've listened to the album a bunch of times, but I just didn't clock that. And then I read the email, I went to the timestamp, and I played it, and I was like, holy shit. All right. It's almost Dragon Screech season again. Exciting times.

Okay. Our next question, number eight, comes from Emily. I loved hearing you both talk about learning to love a series or IP with a loved one. Right now, I'm facing the opposite. I'm splitting from my husband of eight years who introduced me to all things Marvel. I've grown to love Marvel so much and have so many good memories involving Marvel and him. Now I feel a sense of grief whenever I want to watch or talk about Marvel and have to negotiate a new kind of relationship with the material.

I know I want to stay connected to it. And I'm wondering if you all have any experience with something like this. I love this email. Beautiful question. Yeah. Thank you, Emily, for sharing this with us. Thank you very much. I think this is something a lot of people go through. Yeah. Be it like a romantic relationship or like a friend breakup or just friend drift apart or something like that. There are like shows and songs and whatever that remind you of the person, books, and it can be poignant and painful sometimes.

Um, I've definitely experienced that. Like I had a long standing, uh, like close friendship that ended not well. And she and I had like perfectly aligned tastes. So there was just like so much we had in common that now I had to sort of recontextualize. And I think what's really valuable for something like that is to, uh, form new memories if you can. So in the case of Marvel, in case of the MCU, um,

And maybe it's a great time because Marvel is, you know, not on its current winning streak right now. So it's not like you have to sort of like chase down the latest necessarily. But if you want to go back and watch some of your favorite Marvel properties...

And there's someone else in your life, a friend, a family member, a kiddo, like, you know, a nephew, like a niece, someone, you know, like someone who like is experiencing it for the first time or also loves it or something like that. You can like form new memories around it. I think that's a really good way to hold on the things you love. And then eventually.

Hopefully, I don't know the circumstance of this divorce, but like eventually, hopefully, ideally, you will have new memories around this thing, but you will still be able to like think fondly of sharing it with that person. I hope that's true for you as best possible outcome. But like I can understand like in the immediate aftermath, it might feel too painful. But yeah, so anything you can do. And again, actually, this might be a good time to like go back to Mallory's like what are you in college question of sort of like,

online communities is, I think, a really, like, easy, quick way. If you can't think of someone off the top of your head who would want to, like, go on a Marvel journey with you, I feel like there's always people who want to talk about Marvel online, definitely. So that might be a good way. But, like, yeah, just developing new inside jokes and new, like, ways to think about it and reference it. What do you think, Mel? I love that. Yeah, I know. This is a hard question because, like, everything is so personal and specific to, like, that and, you know, whatever everybody's...

particular experiences with a story, with a person, like, with whatever the source of the rupture is. So, obviously, like, you know, neither of us would want to presume, but, like, I think, like, the first thing that popped into my mind is, like, the kind of duality and dissonance of...

That's your story too now, right? Oh, yes. And it's like a thing you love. Yes. And like that it's actually important to not deprive yourself of things that bring you joy. Just because maybe somebody else like introduced them to you or brought them into your life. Like that's part of ultimately what sharing something is. It's like then it becomes yours too and it's yours to share with somebody else like if you want in the future. Yeah.

but then also listening to your own heart and your mind. And if something feels too raw or too soon, then taking the time, not necessarily feeling like it has to be all back immediately right away or it's gone forever. Give yourself the space that you need. And I love your point about new memories and new associations because there are plenty of...

friendships or relationships or whatever the case may be where it's like this was a big part of this bond with this person and like it's not necessarily like about just swapping that or subbing it but when there are other people who like you can find joy with and sharing that thing then that's like wonderful and it makes the world feel bigger in a very special and helpful way and

And I think like, you know, again, we don't, we won't presume and we don't, we don't know the particulars, but like that idea that in time, something that can feel like really painful initially with distance can then be like the source of a happy memory maybe. And like, you know, just because you're not in somebody's life anymore or they're not in yours doesn't mean that the like experiences that you had together like weren't real and weren't meaningful. And maybe that's something that can, you know, become a positive presence in your life eventually. So.

I hope that's the case, Emily. And I think, you know, I know for certain the bad babies are always down to talk about Marvel. I know that's true. We'll certainly be podcasting about Marvel. Quite soon. Our next question, number nine, comes from Amir. Question for you.

I have not watched a minute of any of the Doctor Who series or specials. Could I start with the new episodes that premiere in May, or would that be in bad form? Do you think I'd be lost, not that into it, or limiting my experience in some way? Or maybe...

Could this be an opportunistic gateway into the Doctor Who world? I know you did the rewatch slash Mallory first watch. So maybe you answered this question before on previous bots. Thanks, Joanna. You're my doctor. I was your companion for a beautiful.

year-long quests. What would your advice here be on the brink of a new season? I think if I were an executive at BBC or Disney+, I'd be like, now's the perfect time to dive in. This is sort of the prospect. This is what

a quirk of Doctor Who, which is like they do constant soft reboots with the idea of welcoming you into the universe. So every time there's a new Doctor, there is this sort of like introductory period, whether, and like especially when they shift showrunners, but like, you know, whether you're, you know, when I got into it with Christopher Eccleston, there were decades of Doctor Who that I had never watched. Right.

Plenty of people started with Matt Smith and never watched Eccleston or David Tennant. And I hope that plenty of people start with Shidi Gatwa and may never go back and experience Capaldi and experience Jodi. And I think that's always something that can wait for you. And if you decide you really like the show and you're like, I want more, then they'll be there for you. But I think the...

The proposition of this new season of Doctor Who, especially with his arrival to Disney, is this idea of like, now's the time. Come on in the water. Come on in. Yeah.

I love this. I would say at a minimum, it's worth watching the third 60th anniversary special. Yes. To learn about the bi-generation and like how 15 came into play in the first place. And then I would also recommend watching The Church on Ruby Road, the holiday special 15's first standalone episode. But if even two episodes feels like, okay, that's just then I'm in homework mode, I'm in prep mode, I just want to be able to like start or not. Yeah, dive

right in. Like, truly no better time than with a new Doctor in general. But this, like you said, it's, I mean, it's shooty. RTD is back. You've got that Disney reset. This just feels like a great time, actually. And then, like, go back later, you know? And if there's a particular, like,

foe or planet or like something that is very clearly a part of the larger lore that intrigues you, like pick a spot, pick an arc that you want to go back and watch. Don't feel like you have to necessarily like consume the whole thing in one project or one burst because that can feel really daunting. But also if you are so inclined, it's just a great way to spend some time. I had a blast.

Have I mentioned what sneakers I'm wearing today? The way you just said RTD is back and I know that you know what that means fills me with joy. Number 10. This is our last question before our hot despoiler section. And boy, what a question it is. This floored me. I didn't know this was a thing. Rachel.

I have to ask for the people. When will House of R be covering the Lord of the Rings musical after it starts its U.S. tour this summer? To be clear, the part I didn't know was a thing was the U.S. tour. I did not know this was going to Chicago this summer. I had no idea. It's just wild to see. Joanna, it's a Lord of the Rings musical question.

Maybe this should have been the dream date. I mean, what a time to be you. Take us through your thoughts here. I feel so lucky. You told me to choose between the MC musical question we got and the Lord of the Rings musical question. I chose this one just to save us some time. But we dipped our toe in the Lord of the Rings musical when Brian Cogman did like the Rings of Power prep episode with us. Yes. And he brought some info about that. And we listened to it a bit on Spotify or wherever you get your music. Yeah.

And I fell in love with some of the songs and Cochran was like, it's so good. I also did not know it was coming to Chicago. It's playing June, July 19th, September 1st. The Yard at Chicago Shakespeare. Have never been to Chicago.

What? I don't know why, but I've never been to Chicago. Oh, we should go. We should do this. I feel like this should be the carrot at the end of our hot D run. Oh, man. We have like eight weeks of intensive summer programming. I'll be down here in LA the whole time. Yeah, you will. And at the end of that, that ends mid-August, right? I believe the finale is August 4th.

Plenty of time. And then this is our reward, is we get to go to Chicago and see the Lord of the Rings musical. I love this. We're going to see this musical. We're going to have some deep dish pizza, some Chicago dogs. I'm going to check the Cubs schedule. Maybe we catch a baseball game. Yeah. Fantastic. Great. Should this be then, like, should this immediately transition into the pilgrimage? Should we just go to Florence right after? Yeah, and then all of the UK. Yeah.

A Lord of the Rings musical and a Bull Durham musical in the same year? Is this the thing in our lives? Is this happening? I feel like... What? Do you ever feel like... How? You're living in a simulation that was made just for you? I don't understand. This is incredible. The Bull Durham musical I'm really excited about as well. But yeah. Okay, so we'll pop down to North Carolina and then we'll go to the UK. On the way. On the way. Actually, that is...

That is, I am supposed to be in the Outer Banks for a family trip in mid-August. So the itinerary is coming together nicely. But I don't think the Bull Durham thing starts until like October or something like that. October? We'll check the dates. All right, we'll go back. Why not? Chicago Shakespeare on Navy Pier. Let's go. I'm in. And if you haven't listened to the musical, again, it's on Spotify where we get your music and it's quite good. Hey, Fidelity, how can I remember to invest every month?

With the Fidelity app, you can choose a schedule and set up recurring investments in stocks and ETFs. Oh, that sounds easier than I thought. You got this. Yeah, I do. Now, where did I put my keys? You will find them where you left them. Investing involves risk, including risk of loss. Fidelity Brokerage Services LLC, member NYSE SIPC.

Okay. Spoiler warning. We have two more questions. They're both really quick ones. Quick one. Quick one. Bobby B. Quick ones. They're both about House of the Dragon and things that you might want to know before House of the Dragon season two. But if you don't want to know before House of the Dragon season two, this is where we leave you.

We'll see you on Friday for X-Men 97. If you do want to know, stay with us for a few more minutes. Oh, yeah. And we should say, if you send us an X-Men question, if you send us a baseball question, what are some of the other ones? Bad batch. Bad batch questions. We have episodes planned for all of those, so we will be answering those questions. Like, X-Men questions we'll talk about on Friday.

Mallory is going to do a bad, if all goes according to plan, bad batch episode with Ben. So she'll talk about all of your Asajj Ventures questions then. A mere weeks away from the finale. A mere seconds away. Carlos, in this spoiler warning here, can you insert a Beyonce dragon screech? Thank you so much. Oh, man. Great stuff. Love this new tradition.

Okay, question 11 today. First spoiler section question comes from Esme.

Could you say on the mailbag pod approximately which chapters of Fire and Blood you think the show will cover this summer? Okay, let's give two answers. Even though we said this was a spoiler section, let's still take this in two parts. Inside the spoiler section, spoiler light, and then like the more spoilerful. Like the first one, literally just going to say the chapter names. That way, if you don't want to know anything that happens in them, I will say though, even the chapter names candidly, I think are spoilers. So again, leave if you don't want to hear this.

We're talking two chapters of Fire and Blood. I think that's correct. We don't know this for sure. Of course, we have no idea where the season is going to end. That's what I wrote down. But based on all signs in the trailer, but also just how we think they're going to ultimately parcel out four seasons of plot, if we think it's four seasons, this is probably all they're going to do. The dying of the dragons, a son for a son, and the dying of the dragons, the red dragon, and the gold. We should say, even that first chapter...

the dying of the dragons and sun for a sun, includes inside of it some material that you already saw at the end of season one. Right. And it's definitely possible that that second chapter, the red dragon and the gold, includes material that we're not certain is going to make it into season two. There might be stuff in that that's season three. We're just not sure. There's some things that happen in that chapter that we haven't glimpsed in the trailer yet. We're like, oh, who knows? Maybe they'll save it. Are they holding it back? Maybe they just haven't shown us a peek of it yet. Okay. That was the spoiler light, just the chapter names.

Now we're really getting into like spoiler territory. Truly leave the podcast right now if you don't want to hear any of this. We'll explain now why we think those are the two chapters in question. So we're not going to go through every single thing here, but basically A Sun for a Sun starts with

Daemon taking Harrenhal, Jace's trip north, the fabled an eye for an eye, a son for a son, Lucera shall be avenged declaration. And then we go where we have a blood and cheese question coming up momentarily that we'll hit in a second. But like then we get in, what is Red Dragon in the gold cover? Burning Mill, Kristen becoming Han, Cargill Bowl, shout out.

Our favorites? The Cargill. Eric and Eric? I mean, two of the greats, two of the legends, two of the icons. We're not ready to move beyond them. I feel like they're the Beesbury of season two. God's be good. If only they had ever said anything literally memorable, then Eric and Eric would be our guys. Rook's Rest? Yeah.

Rook's Rest. Rook's Rest. Rook's Rest. Rook's Roost. I just can never say. I just like a mental brain block that I really have to try to shake before June 16th. I'll work on it in my own time. Corliss, Being Named Hand, Sowing of the Seeds. And then we get into the stuff that we're like not sure is going to make it into the season, but it's definitely in that chapter. Gullet, Honeywine.

King's Landing will that be in season two or not but there's I think no chance that anything after that is in this season so these are the two chapters to read to prep right I think so and if I had to guess I would say Gullet we're saving yeah you you've you've been on the Gullet is season three corner for a while yeah but I think we could get King's Landing yeah I think that could be a really good end of the season and just reordering yeah some of those events

It feels right. It feels in play. It feels right. It feels in play. It feels in play. I'm still kind of like hoping that Gullit is this season and they just don't want to show us that perhaps because they haven't finished their seafaring accidents and not ready to show us yet, but we'll see. So yeah, two chapters of Fire and Blood. You can read this like

in a few hours. Of an afternoon. Yeah. If you want to go back and read, like if you're genuinely like, I'm going to dip into Fire and Blood for the first time and you're like, well, what chapters would cover, would season one have aligned with and you want to start from there maybe and then go into the season two chapters. In that case, you would want to read Heirs of the Dragon, A Question of Succession and The Dying of the Dragons, The Blacks and the Greens. And you might, you might want to do Jaehaerys, Alisaine, Policy, Progeny and Pain. Just for the pleasure of it.

Start at the beginning. So the long reign. Read it all. Read about Maegor. Just read the last chapter of the long reign and then Heirs of the Dragon, A Question of Succession, and then The Black and the Greens. Fire and Blood is so fun. Yeah. We're almost back. Great stuff. This brings us to our last question. I'm really excited about this one. This is definitely one of the more deranged questions we've ever gotten. Diabolical. This was wild to read. Our 12th and final question today, and again, this is still spoiler territory, comes from Brandon. Okay. It's good every time.

I'm writing in because I want to know, do we know which episode of Hot D will have the blood and cheese event? I'd like to know for my weekly viewing party when I plan my menu for blood and cheese week.

I'd like to serve steak tartare and a cheese board with some red wine, but I don't want to get the episode wrong. Your assistance is much appreciated. Three pepper spicy pickles all the way. I like spicy pickles. Signed it with a pickle. Thank you, Brandon, for signing it with your pickle. Wouldn't it be funny if...

It took three weeks for blood and cheese to happen, and Brandon just every week put out steak tartare and some cheese. Sounds like a great accompaniment for an episode of TV, no matter what. Can I just recommend something just to plus this idea? Of themed food? Well, you know I love themed food. Yeah. I looked up something called... I'm afraid right now. Flesh and bloodlust platter on a website called... What? ghoulatheart.com.

Okay. I just want to, like, first look at this. What am I looking at exactly? Is it, uh, is it, what's at the center of that plate? Beets and fruit and cheese. Okay, I'm relieved. And...

Do you think it was like a human heart? I don't know. A vampire-inspired... Okay, we're not vampires here, but it is blood and cheese. Okay. A vampire-inspired charcuterie board complete with the aburaco chorizo and salami, blueberry goat cheese, black grapes, blackberries, blueberries, and pomegranate blood drops that surround a wheel of brie topped with blood orange and red wine macerated figs. That sounds great. Right? Love a macerated fig. Love some brie. I love a black

Oh, and they like found black crackers. Anyway, Goulet Heart is the website. This is the flesh and bloodless platter. And I think this, like, I'm not down on, I'm not against the steak tartare question. That just might tip your, like, who serves steak tartare? But if you're like, look, I made this beautiful charcuterie board. Yeah. You might not get their hackles up as high. The red wine splashes on the cheese board are also a...

We're tipping some. I think it's... Some tone, at least. I think... This is like when people took their phones out to film their friends watching The Red Wedding, right? Yeah. I think this is quite possibly the premiere. I feel like it has to be. So get your cameras ready for episode one. Get your bloody disgusting charcuterie boards in order.

Find your cheeses and have a great, disgusting time with your friends with House of the Dragon, season two, episode one. I'm thinking this is the premiere as well. Yeah. This feels like a vintage Thrones move. Yeah. Started this way.

And just if we think about like the sequencing of when Blood and Cheese happens in the books, like it should be, it should be, it's next up. It should be next up. So maybe they feel like they need to build and wait. Didn't we say the premiere is called A Son for a Son, I think? Or is that unsubstantiated? That's listed on IMDB. Oh, very shaky. Yeah, I don't know if that's... I feel like I saw it somewhere else. Is it confirmed? I don't think it's confirmed. I will say this. I don't think it's confirmed by any...

official sources. I would never trust IMDb. That's definitely not where I drew it from. But I might have drawn it from like a Reddit board of like someone who's like, I have some intel, but you know. Interesting. Why do I trust Reddit more than IMDb? Just, I do. IMDb is known to lie. So, okay, we're saying, we're telling Brandon get that cheese board and tartare ready for June 16th. Season 2, episode 1. We think that's right. If it ends up not being the case, um...

You'll have to just run it back in week two, I guess. But we believe this is going to be week one. Okay, that's a wrap. That's a wrap on the cheese board talk. That's a wrap on the spring mailbag, 2024 spring mailbag. Who knows if we'll do a summer mailbag. It's going to be a busy summer, but certainly a fall mailbag, I think. We'll do another seasonal mailbag soon. We love a seasonal tradition.

Thank you to all the bad babies who submitted questions. Thank you to Carlos Chiraboga for producing this episode. Isaiah Blakely for studio producing here with us yet again. Thank you to Arjuna Ramgopal for his additional production work on this episode. And of course, as always, thank you to Jomia Deneron for his work on the social for this episode. Thank you to Joanna for being here in Los Angeles in person for this episode. What a thrill. What a treat. What a joy.

Remember, head back into the ringerverse. We got a new Midnight Boys pew pew coming tomorrow on Wednesday. Joe, we will be back on Friday for some X-Men 97 talk. Stay strong. I can't wait to share that with you. We'll see you then. Bye. Bye.