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Marvel goes full horror for its first ever Special Presentation, Werewolf By Night, bringing spooky terror — and fun — just in time for Halloween. In the hour, we meet Jack Russell, played by Gael García Bernal, Elsa Bloodstone, played by Laura Donnelly, and Man-Thing, played by Ted. We discuss all the gory delights on the special, talk Easter eggs, and where the characters might show up next.
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Full Episode Transcript
Alex: Welcome to MarvelVision, a podcast about Marvel, the MCU. And right now, ahhhhwoooo Werewolf by Night, I’m at Alex.
Justin: Oh my God. Was that a werewolf, or the Cookie Crisp dog saying, “Cookie crisp”? I’m Justin.
Pete: I’m Pete.
Alex: And spoilers here. If you’ve ever checked out Cookie Crisp, or Werewolf by Night, which is currently on Disney+.
Justin: Is there a connection? Maybe.
Alex: We’ll explore it over the course of this podcast, but this is a standalone Marvel Halloween spooky special. There are implications of course going forward on the horror side of the MCU. This focusing on the character Jack Russell, aka. Werewolf by Night. First invented, created, in 1972.
Justin: Invented? Thomas Edison, he invented the light bulb and Werewolf by Night.
Alex: No man. Well, Nicola, I was going to say Nikola Tesla invented him, but Nikola Tesla came up with Vampire by Day, I believe is what he came up with.
Justin: That’s right. And that was obviously turned into the Twilight Series.
Pete: It’s all electric.
Alex: Exactly. Marvel Spotlight number two in February, 1972. Created by Roy Thomas, and Gene Thomas, and Jerry Conway, and Mike Ploog. And there’s been a bunch of different iterations, but basically what you need to know was this was a way of Marvel bringing horror back to comic books after, I believe it had been banned for a very long time, because the comics code. Now Marvel Cinematic Universe hasn’t exactly banned horror, but they haven’t full on gone into horror here, and that’s what we’re getting. It is directed by Michael Giacchino, who you probably know best as a composer for so many different things, from Marvel stuff, to Star Trek, to Pixar stuff, to beyond. Basically if you’ll love a modern score, it’s probably by Michael Giacchino, but now he is trading his hand as directing. And it was written by Heather Quinn and Peter Cameron who have done other things in the MCU. Justin take it away.
Justin: I was just going to say a bit of news I saw in the biz that maybe is a good sign about how Marvel thinks this project went, is Michael Giacchino just got signed by the agency CAA, so I bet he’s going to be doing more.
Alex: Creative Artist Agency?
Justin: That’s correct.
Pete: Ooh.
Justin: Which is a chap… It’s a big agency in Hollywood repping creatives, and I think that means he’s going to be doing more stuff.
Alex: Sorry, just real quick, I just want to get more into this. Was this part of a competitive situation, Justin?
Justin: Yes. You wouldn’t believe how the shingle came through for him to get this?
Alex: That’s great stuff, and I’ll tell you what to get actually get into the special itself, or at least broadly talk about it. This is great. This is easily one of my favorite things that Marvel has done in a really long time. It’s what I wanted out of the MCU in a really long time. I was very happy with this. I was very happy with the fact that beyond just being a fun 53 minute special, that is a perfect Halloween night watch. If you want to flip it on, you don’t need to know anything about Marvel or MCU.
Alex: I know Pete’s going to take exception to be framing this up in a negative way, but a lot of these projects for a very long time, and this includes even the stuff that I really like, often feels like you’re putting together a puzzle. How does this piece fit with this other piece? And of course we’ll get there. A lot of the characters are being set up for, I assume, other iterations and other projects on Disney+ in movies, et cetera. But this is something that you could just jump in. You don’t have to worry about how it fits together, and just have a blast watching it.
Justin: I agree. I thought this was great and I think it had a lot of the flourishes and specificity and sort of weirdness that I’ve been missing in other Marvel things. The fact that it was in black and white, except for some interesting touches here and there. It was funny while still maintaining the horror bonafides. The tone was really specific, and it’s a hard tone to strike where sometimes comedy and horror, while sort of operate the same way with setting up tension and then releasing it, are hard to balance. And I think this, I don’t know what we call it, movie special does a great job of doing that.
Pete: It’s a special presentation, etcetera. Right? For a Marvel spooky flip.
Justin: Honestly, the Marvel flip…
Alex: I know Pete has some opinions. But yeah, it’s important to me to go back. You jumped in.
Pete: No, I just said it. We’re on it.
Justin: The Marvel flip is a mess. Pete, it’s a mess. What’s happening here?
Alex: It’s almost too many.
Justin: It’s as if the Marvel flip itself was bit my a werewolf.
Pete: Before we get into it…
Justin: Is the Werewolf by Night Jack Russell, or is it the Marvel flip that is somehow mutating it to something we don’t even understand?
Pete: Before we get into the fun creative choices they took with the Marvel Flip. Let me first back up the truck and address the nonsense.
Alex: Talk about how you woke up today, go ahead.
Justin: Back up the truck. The truck hasn’t moved, Pete. The truck is still in the driveway.
Pete: Why can’t we just enjoy something that’s great. And I agree, really nice, very creative, in its own little pocket without putting down other projects. Can’t we just enjoy what this is, and try to immediately categorize it and compare it to the last couple of things. Let’s just… This is a sweet little fun Halloween pocket of creativity, and really some dramatic fun choices being made with the noir stuff going on. It is great and so much fun. And if you’ve got an hour sit down, have yourself a blast. I loved it. I absolutely loved it from start to finish.
Justin: Yeah. Alex, how dare you say that. As Pete said, this is a fun pocket.
Alex: Yeah, I’m sorry, I disagree. It was more of a fun cuff at the bottom of the pants is what I would say.
Justin: It was a delightful pouch.
Pete: Wow.
Justin: It was a delightful pouch.
Pete: Yeah. It’s the poly pocket of Marvel Entertainment.
Alex: I’m sorry. You’re absolutely right, Pete. From now on, I will try to approach literally everything that I watch as if I was a baby who has lost track of what I’m watching. As soon as I look away, it doesn’t exist. I come back something new, something surprising. Peek A Boo, here it is.
Pete: I’m excited for new baby Zelbin. I feel like this is a good step forward.
Alex: Who said that? Oh, it’s Pete.
Justin: I love Pete. Yay.
Pete: Yay. Fun times. But yeah, so we got this fun special presentation and then they, which I’ve been asked them to do for a while now, is be creative with the Marvel Flip. Make some fun choices along the way. And really…
Alex: Yeah, you really are asking for it here because I got to say by one little qualm with this, I was too many openings. Calm down. Love the special presentation thing. I was like, this is very fun, what a fun throwback. So cool. And I was like, well what a great replacement for the Marvel flip.
Pete: Scary credits? This was all fun.
Alex: And then they went into the Marvel flip, and I was like, okay, so we’re doing credits again. And then after the whole Marvel Flip thing, they did a third round of credits. That’s too many credits. Make a choice buddy.
Justin: Yeah.
Pete: I think they’re having fun with it, and it pays off. And I got scared during the credits, you know what I mean? They did a good job of setting this tone and being like, “This is going to be freaky.”
Alex: Here’s what I think. Could you imagine a situation where there were three people all trying to make jokes about the exact same thing, and no matter what the previous person said, they were just plugging through with their joke anyway?
Justin: That’s why I like it when we make our jokes on top of each other. That way it’s not taking him too much time.
Pete: Yeah, exactly. And then nobody can hear what we talk about.
Justin: Eventually we’re going to sync up and we’re going to say the exact same thing, at the exact same time. And it’s going to be, we’re have to end everything.
Alex: Yeah, well to contradict baby Alex over here. I did want to say, per what you were saying earlier Justin, and then we can get into the stuff proper, maybe pass the title sequence. I don’t know.
Justin: No, I got more to say.
Alex: But this felt to me like the same sort of promise I got all the way back with Guardians of the Galaxy. And we’ve talked about this a lot on the podcast. But seeing guardians felt like, “Oh this is limitless what we can do here in the Marvel universe. It can go anywhere. It can do anything. How exciting.” Obviously I love that movie, it’s fantastic. But the promise of being able to go in different tones and directions and literal visual styles as well was so exciting to me. And it isn’t that we lost that, but that was integrated as a whole into the rest of the MCU with some variations here and there. That’s what this feels like. Again, it feels like something that gives that promise. And maybe I’ll be disappointed again to see it reintegrated and we’ll have to wait another decade to see something fresh and new. But I don’t think so. I want this to be successful because I want more of this type of thing on Disney+.
Pete: You can’t help yourself, can you?
Alex: Who said that? Pete, it’s Pete again.
Pete: You can’t help yourself. You lead right back into it. You can’t just say something nice, you got to shit on 10 years of something.
Justin: The future 10 years, he’s saying.
Alex: Well, just quick question, are we talking about this special, or something else, Pete?
Pete: That’s why I’m wondering. That’s why I’m wondering what’s going on with you. You know what I mean?
Justin: I think to your point, Alex. Wow. To your point, I feel like it’s Marvel is the most successful when, I think, when it takes its ideas from the comic universe and steps out of it for a second and examines them. That’s why I think Guardians was so cool because it took all the comic stuff that we all love and looked at it from a new place, and then made it.
Justin: And this feels like it’s doing the same thing where it’s taking horror, mixing comedy in a good way, mixing film styles. It’s shot incredibly well. There’s a lot, especially in the second half, I thought so many of these, the sequence where it’s a slow push in on Elsa and you see him transforming in shadow behind her. And on her face. I thought that was so… It’s a swing. It’s a little bit of a, you have to have the confidence to be like, “No, we’re going to linger in this shot and not see him transform.” Which you would in a sort less creative movie. And so we just see it in shadow and then quick cuts to his fingers and stuff. I thought that was great.
Alex: Now just to mention this, and again I’m assuming most people have seen the special, but in case haven’t, one of the pleasant surprises here I think is that this isn’t just a Werewolf by Night special episode, though Gael Garcia Bernal does a great job as this new iteration of Jack Russell. It’s also very much an Elsa Bloodstone show, and features Laura Donnelly as Elsa Bloodstone. She’s been in a bunch of stuff which might know her from The Nevers, which is not particularly a good show on HBO, but she is awesome in it, and easily one of the best parts. So she nails Elsa Bloodstone here and I just thought overall, having these two excellent actors in these characters, great. Loved watching them play off of each other.
Justin: Well, and the other thing that I thought really worked here is, first off, I think they treated us the audience a little smarter than some other movies and TV shows. Where we didn’t have to hear a whole thing four times. Like, “Well if the man thing senses fear, you will burn at his touch.” Before we finally just got him doing it, and it just happened and we didn’t need to have a whole big explanation, just did it. And I was like, I didn’t wonder. I feel like someone watching is like no, that if you got that guy touches you turn into flames.
Alex: Well, I do want to mention this as well. I mean jumping off of that, but I think this special really played by Star Wars rules. A lot of people talk about this and then they don’t really follow up on it. The original Star Wars just thrust you into this world. And didn’t explain a lot of the backstory. Occasionally there were little monologues about it, but mostly it was like, “Yeah, this guy is chopping off his arm at a bar. There’s a bunch of weirdos of this bar. Hans Solo has a backstory, you don’t need to hear it. Let’s just roll with it. This is the forest, this is how it works. Let’s go.” And there were a lot of flourishes like that. You were mentioning the man thing, but also Jack Russell’s paint on his face.
Justin: Yeah, Ted.
Alex: Ted of course. Yes, sorry to call him man thing, I apologize. The Jack Russell’s designs on his face where he’s like, “That’s for my ancestors.” Him referencing the Dracula head of being like, “Yeah, we fought once.”
Pete: Yeah, they fought a couple times.
Alex: Yes, all of this stuff throughout the special, clearly these characters have backs stories, histories, relationships. We only get to know what we need to know to enjoy this 53 minutes. And you’re saying Justin, it’s such a smart, confident choice that I absolutely loved.
Justin: And I think the other thing that really worked is, simple. The story was simple. It’s like, “Hey, we have this object of power, the bloodstone, and all these killers are going to come here and fight over it. And once we’re there it’s like, “Oh great.” I know half of these people are red shirts. We’re going to see them die in cool ways, and we’re going to see… We get a couple twists and turns along the way. But keeping this general premise simple. Compare this to, and I’m not saying it’s bad because I did the movie, but the Doctor Strange Multiverse of Madness movie where it’s the opposite of simple. Everything is wildly complicated from the jump and you’re sifting through it so much in your brain that it’s hard to really get swept up in the narrative. And this did such a great job of just being like, “Hey, come hang out. It’s a special presentation, let’s ride.”
Pete: Yeah, I really appreciate the fact that not only was it simple as you’re calling it, but also the fact that it was shot black and white in a way that you didn’t miss the color. It was such a noir choice that you weren’t kind of questioning it along the way. Like, “Hey, when’s this going to turn into color?” You were having fun in this world that it just started with as Elvin says, the Star Wars thing. Where I just really appreciated the fact of, we’re here, this is what it’s going to be like, this is the tone, get used to this, and we’re off and running. I mean the whole fun twist. I mean we got a lot of cool Easter eggs. We got Man-Thing Ted, we got these… There was a lot of nerd references. So it did occupy my comics brain in a fun way.
Pete: But it also was its own separate thing. I really appreciated all the artistic choices they were making with the camera, as well as just the whole look of everything. It was this old fun time monster movie feel to it. And it really just delivered on that level the whole time. And then they just fun of them at the end just sitting around campfire talking about sushi, just what a fun way to end it. And then the Elsa got her color back, it was just frozen all over again. You know what I mean? You had that good feeling at the end of it. Bloodstone reference for a little Jumanji love. It was just fun. It was just a fun.
Justin: The stone, the stone never bothered her anyway.
Alex: There’s bunch of things I want to respond to there and I do want to come back to the whole black and white color of it all. Actually let me mention that first. Just a point of not clarification but I guess information. So as far as I understand it, they actually shot it both ways. They shot it in color and then had a monitor to watch it in black and white as they’re doing it because the idea was they really wanted to do it in black and white, but they weren’t confident that Marvel would want to do that, Disney+ would want to do that. So when they delivered, I believe the initial cut of the episode, they sent it to Kevin Feige in black and white. Like, “This is how we want to do it. I don’t know if you’re going to go for this.” And Kevin Feige was like, “Looks great, let’s do it.” So kudos to him for doing it.
Justin: I can speak to that.
Alex: Yeah, go ahead.
Justin: I can speak to that from a production standpoint, because the way I shot a commercial in the similar thing where the people were not. We were like, “We want to do it in black and white.” And they were like, “We don’t know if that’s going to work.” We’re like, “Okay, well we’ll show you.” And so because of the way digital film production, you’re gathering the data for color. The only real difference is you really want to light it a little bit differently for black and white. So I bet they were able to just tweak that and then they had both cuts color and black and white and it’s just simply flipping a switch in post to go back and forth between either of those things.
Alex: Well yeah, that’s the big thing like you said, is for anybody wondering out there is that you can’t just film it in color and then put a black and white filter over it. There are things that you actually have to do on the stage to make it work. And I think Pete’s been saying they made it work.
Pete: And also what’s nice about the black and white is you get that cool Ted reveal where it’s almost part of the wall, and if that was in color, that would be so much harder to pull off. And it kind of really adds to this monster fun, of the reveal shock value. But oh it’s just Ted and they’re cool. Just the tone of them immediately talking, even though we were in pins and needles mere seconds before was such a fun twist.
Justin: I wish I had, was able to switch black and forth between black and white, and color because I would be wearing the mask style yellow zoot suit all the time. And in black and white you’d be like, This guy’s dressed normally and then I’d scare the shit out of you when we hear ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’. And I’d be like, “That guy’s wearing.”
Pete: Great use of ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow’ mean, come on. That’s such an iconic song. And you think like, “Okay, I’ve heard that and seen that and in all the ways.” But man really just a fun way to make that even better. I was really impressed.
Alex: It was a delightful needle drop. We’ve already been talking about this a bit, but I do want to talk about Man-Thing because he is the third part of this.
Justin: Ted.
Alex: I thought the effect for Man-Thing, the way they did him almost, maybe I was imagining this, but it almost felt like they gave him a little bit of a Claymation movement in a certain way. Versus CGI.
Justin: I think it had a little weight to it. His face felt not just CGI where it’s all just floating. It felt like, “Oh, it’s sort of heavy and almost gross.” Is what I was thinking when I was watching it.
Alex: And it didn’t feel that way necessarily in the last scene. I think that was a little more, because there was more movement to it felt a little more like the CGI characters that we regularly see in Marvel. But I thought that was awesome. I thought, I love the effect, the facial expressions were so much fun and funny to watch. And the reveal towards the end of the episode, which I definitely should have seen coming. But when he comes back and saves Elsa towards the end, great. Just a great reveal. I laughed out loud because it was so much fun.
Pete: And then that was funny. He went that away. Just so funny. Just such a fun use.
Justin: Two other things I want to say before we maybe talk about it a little bit more detailed. I was so into this story that I forgot, I didn’t even realize that the bloodstone was red. I was like, look at that. And then I was like, “Oh. Oh right. It is in color when everything else in black and white.” I was just in it. And I feel like that’s never happens. To be that into something that I don’t notice that. And second, the first half…
Pete: Especially for somebody works in production.
Justin: Yeah, I’m an idiot I guess. The first half, watching the first half and I was like, “Oh the Bloodstone, who’s this going to be?” And then he transforms, Jack Russell transforms. I was like, “Right, werewolf.” I forgot he’s going to do that. ‘Cause that’s just how into the actual just regular story I was. And I was like, “What is the mystery with this guy? He seems to be not good at killing people.” I was like, “Oh right. Because he does it when he is a werewolf. That’s what it is.” And just not to say I am stupid, but I do think this story was so effectively told that I wasn’t sitting there being like, “When are we going to get the hairy guy in here?”
Pete: Oh wow. Well, speaking…
Alex: Well, because also… Go ahead Pete.
Pete: No, no. I just feel like speaking of moments that I was a little bit like, “Oh right.” One of the only negative things for me was when the werewolf was fighting, there was almost a werewolf fu, where it was a little bit too choreographed for me. Where I felt like, I don’t know if the werewolf is this well trained in fighting. I appreciate the fact that if you’re going to fight all the time, maybe you learn different ways to do it. But I felt like that was the only part for me where I was pulled out of the moment a little bit. Where the werewolf was doing a lot of choreographed fighting instead of just flailing and being a werewolf. But maybe…
Alex: I could definitely, I could see that I did not personally have a problem with it because during that sequence, there’s two things going on, right? One, they have the reveal, which I think was really well filmed of the werewolf effect. Which is kind of cheesy looking, very 1930s, Universal horror movie werewolf, very purposefully so. But the way that Michael Giacchino and his staff film it, its little pieces and it’s mostly far away. And like you were saying earlier, Justin, it’s all in shadow. So when he is jumping around and doing these things, I think it’s purposefully.
Alex: It didn’t have that CGI blur thing going on to me. So even though I’m sure there was a lot of that going on there, so much as it felt like we’re doing this in a very frenetic way. So you don’t see him standing there in the chintzy costume exactly how they would do in the 1930s. The other part of it is that whole sequence really Christ in for me that, oh yeah, we’re do just a reminder that we’re doing superhero horror here. This is not a horror movie. This is comic book horror. This is Marvel Universe Horror. So we are getting lots of blood and gore. Blood splashed on a camera, which is one of my favorite effects. It’s just so simple, but so effective.
Justin: It works every time.
Alex: Every time. It’s so great.
Pete: That’s your favorite effect?
Alex: I love it. It’s so fun just because it just splashes on the camera, and obviously they’re not splashing the camera with anything, but it’s just very fun. But you get this action sequence like you’re saying, which it is a werewolf doing werewolf Fu, and jumping around and beating up these dudes. Who, to clarify, in the trailer people thought they were part of the TVA, the Time Variance Authority. They’re not part of the Time Variance Authority. They just have very similar costumes.
Justin: Yeah, that’d be a wild reveal. To your point, I feel like this whole thing to take it to comic books, it felt like it was drawn by Kelly Jones, or Jay Lee, or an artist that really is putting that tone on it. And I think to be able to create that and from a film standpoint is really hard and really cool that they pulled it off.
Alex: We’ve spent a little time talking about the werewolf, so let’s go back and talk about Elsa. I thought this was a great introduction for her here. She’s a fantastic, very underused character in the Marvel Universe I think. But like I said earlier, Laura Donnelly channeled her perfectly. I love centering her here. I think centering her in this bloodline, and this whole society, that’s something that I’d be interested to explore more. Particularly now that she’s the chief of it. And like we were talking about in terms of simple introductions, granted there is a little bit of exposition there, but having her come in and then being like, “You got to get out of here. You’re not wanted here.” Simple things like her dragging the chair across the floor and annoying everybody. Great.
Justin: Classic men in black chair pull a bit.
Pete: Oh yeah. But I also think it was such a, we’ve seen so many times the, “This is the family tradition, and you have to fit into this mold.” And the younger person being like, “I don’t like these awful ways, I’m different.” So I think they handled that really well of her being over all of this, and the mom being really into it. And I just felt like you’re saying yourselves, we didn’t get this whole thing. They just showed us instead of told us. And they did a really good job of that, because we don’t have to relive something we’ve seen in numerous ways and different iterations. So I thought that it was handled really well, and just her like expressions said so much about what she’s about. And it’s also exciting moving forward because now that she does have this, how is she going to change things? What kind of things can she do? So I was really impressed with that.
Justin: Are we getting to a Blade Trinity type situation with if these characters are to appear in a Blade movie, alongside Blade. Elsa and Jack Russell?
Alex: Well, I think that’s definitely getting to our vision board section, but originally they had considered maybe putting Blade in this at some point and decided not to. Which I think is for the best again, to let it stand on its own. But yeah, this opens up. You can do more stuff with Jack Russell.
Alex: I was thinking particularly when he was turning into the werewolf that I would be into do one Werewolf by Night special year, or something like that.
Justin: Oh yeah.
Alex: It doesn’t need to be a series, doesn’t need to be a movie. Just have different adventures that he goes on that explore different aspects of supernatural horror. I think that would be very fun. I did want to take a little bit of a step back and talk about something that Pete mentioned in terms of Easter eggs. And I just agree with you on that point that, I think, one of the things that great about this is you can watch it both ways. You can watch it if you have no knowledge of Marvel or the comics, and just have a fun time with a superhero horror show, special presentation. Or there are so many, you could be Googling the heads, you could be Googling who these different hunters are. You can Google.
Justin: Hey quit Googling the heads over there, all right? Let’s just pay attention to what’s going on.
Alex: I’ll Google your head. Or the names of Elsa’s ancestors in that tomb when they’re locked in there. You can look up all of those and see which are crew members, which are people who are in the Marvel comics. But ultimately that’s just all side stuff. If you want to do that, that’s there, that’s great. But that’s not the point of the episode. It’s just a fun bonus, which is exactly what Easter egg should be.
Pete: One thing I’m surprised we haven’t talked about yet, and I feel like this was a huge game changer, but maybe it’s just me. I mean, I don’t know about you guys, but when I die, I want to die this with somebody turned into crank and then I come back to life or a little animatronic fun for everybody. I mean, come on. How crazy fun was that? I mean that’s, that’s going to change the funeral game forever moving forward, right?
Justin: I can’t wait to be turning the crank at your funeral and have you go like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Let’s back up. The truck. This was bananas good.” That’s my dream. I’ll be, and let’s just say, I’ll be your weird butler.
Pete: Oh, Oh man. That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.
Alex: Great. I’ll be the crazy lady who gets eaten by a werewolf. That’s my job.
Pete: Oh, that’s also very nice. Thank you.
Alex: I did that put at the end that I was already into the special by that point and I was already enjoying it. But that flourish, having him do a keep style pun at the end of his speech was what sucked me fully in because I was like, “Yep, they know the toe they’re going for and they’re having a good time here. This is great.”
Justin: Yeah, I agree.
Pete: I mean that whole build up to like, “Hey listen, I’ve just had enough, let’s let the guy of the hour.” I was like, “What are we about to see?” And it rode the line between creepy fun and I mean, that could have gone really badly of looking horrible, and being stupid, and making me have horrible flashbacks at Chuck E. Cheese nightmares, but this was super, super well done.
Alex: Did you went to the one in near the Barclay Center where they used the real mouse corpse, right?
Pete: Yeah.
Justin: That is really hard.
Pete: I don’t recommended it.
Alex: Yeah, no, it’s very unsanitary. Before we moved to the vision board session that we’ve already touched on a little bit, any other notes from the episode that you want to call out?
Justin: A couple quick things, great sword kill later on in the episode that Elsa has. I love just one swipe or then one in the middle. And this sword doesn’t really go in very far, just sits. I like when’s a little dirty? Yeah. Go ahead.
Pete: Just an amazing use of a flaming tuba. I mean, come on. That was just how I want to make all my entrances from now on. Just have somebody with a flaming tuba. I mean that was just really impressive.
Alex: You’re going to a lot of party and funeral ideas from this special.
Pete: Yeah.
Justin: Are you planning your own funeral Pete?
Pete: I hope. Well, you got to plan a little bit. You know what I mean?
Justin: Yeah, I know exactly.
Pete: You got to have instructions for when you die.
Justin: Yeah, exactly. Just when start the sharing the perishable food.
Alex: I want to give a shout out to, and we talked about him a little bit already, but Gael Garcia Bernal’s delivery on stuff, he just was so pleasant and funny. The thing where he sees Ted for the first time is delightful. Like Pete mentioned the sushi seat at the end is also delightful. But even little things like what he bumps into Elsa at the maze, and it’s like, “Hey, why don’t we just pretend this didn’t happen, and go on?”
Pete: Yeah, let’s just keep going in different directions.
Alex: What do you think? The way that he delivered that really made that joke land in a very surprising way.
Pete: Now this might just, Oh, go ahead.
Justin: Real quick one, it was almost the Buster Keaton-esque way of him trying to get the bomb to stick to the wall. Was super fun, just little piece.
Pete: Oh it was so funny. He sticks to the wall, and he is like, “Eh.” Its like, “Ah.” Yeah, that was just so funny. The way he’s so scared of it, but trying to get it to stick was such a fun moment. And this is probably just me, but I feel like this was a little bit of an homage, to Samurai Jack, when you have the really over the top Scottish warrior who we got to see for a little bit. I felt like that was really a fun character who’s very proud of his kills, and I thought. Yeah, just might be a stereotype, but I very much enjoyed the character.
Justin: Well, what I liked about that specifically was that we set this creepy, very careful tone for so long. Three intros, the flip, all that. And then we get to the Scottish accent, just cutting through all that to be like, “Oh, this is going to be a little funny too, so don’t worry about it.” And it reminded me of this whole thing had the tone of the second half From Dust Till Dawn. You know what I’m talking about? Once you’re pass all the sort of Quentin Tarantino stuff, and you’re into their, when they’re in the brothel, the bordello, I guess is the right word. And you see all the random red shirts who show up who are vampire hunters, and I love that movie and I love that tone.
Alex: Oh, one last little visual thing that I wanted to mention. Every 20 minutes they have a cigarette burn, which is a little circle in the corner of the screen that pops up to let you know when you’re supposed to change reels because you’ve run out of film. Obviously they don’t need to do that for this, but little visual throw of flourishes like that. Or like we mentioned, changing to color on somewhere over the rainbow, focusing on Elsa and letting it just slowly wash over, great. Just so much creativity on display here. This is clearly a great show piece for Michael Giacchino as a director. You can feel sometimes when somebody finally gets their shot that they’re just put in their all into it, and it paid off. So why don’t we move to the vision board. Again, we touched on the future a little bit, but what do you want to see off of this? What would you like to see next if anything in the MCU?
Pete: Well, I want to see them getting sushi for sure. I just want more.
Justin: That’s very much the next scene.
Pete: Yeah, Ted and Jack just kind of hanging out, living their lives. I don’t need a lot of things to happen. Just the two of them together is just adorable and so much fun.
Justin: I hope that sushi’s not scared because if it is when he picks it up, it’s going to burn, and I’m sure he wants it uncooked.
Alex: What about you Justin? What’s on your vision board?
Justin: Well, I don’t know if I want to see it, but the idea of the Blade movie featuring some of these characters, Elsa, Jack Russell. Maybe it’s not for the first one, because I do think, and maybe this is my love for the first Blade movie, the fact that that was on its own and a little untouched by a larger stuff going on was great. So to inject all this other Marvel stuff from this might be a little crazy. But I do think these characters all slide into a whole new section of the Marvel Cinematic Universe that I’m excited if they can continue to really crush this tone. I’m excited to explore that.
Alex: Yeah, I mentioned this a little bit before, but in terms of Jack and Ted, so great. Happy to see them wherever, but I think hold them off for a yearly Halloween special, or something like that. I think that would be a really fun way to use them. On the other hand, I think Elsa Bloodstone is somebody who is really well set up for her own Disney+ series, or to show up in the Blade movie, or Moon Night season two or something like that. She definitely feels like somebody who could jump around to a bunch of different places. But the biggest thing that I’m really looking forward to is Pete’s funeral. I would love to see that. It sounds like it’s going to be a blast.
Pete: It’s going to be so much fun, guys. You’re going to forget that I’m dead.
Justin: And that’s the point of every funeral, is to assume the person might still be alive at the end.
Alex: Justin and I will wander off and be like, “Okay, Pete, ready to tape that podcast?”
Pete: No.
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Pete: Oh my God.
Justin: Do you think that’s scary?
Pete: Cookie Crisp.
Justin: That’s what it is.
Pete: There we go. That’s better.
