Matthew: Hello, once again for an episode of the IMMP podcast from the Inter Millennium Media Project for your dose of nostalgia, media criticism, and misuse of parental authority. My name is Matthew Porter. And I'm Ian Porter. I'm his dad. He's my son. And we're watching another movie. I've made him watch a movie again from the 1980s.

Ian: From the late 80s. Yeah. 

Yeah. I mean, there's something about the late 80s where some of the the style and visuals were starting to coalesce into what I would call. start knowing growing up, cinema wise. So it doesn't feel as distant and weird sometimes. This feels like a movie that just exists in that sense.

Matthew: Yeah, there are, you can definitely peg this as the 80s, but there are dramatic differences between this and, say, Something Made in 1983. And this was made in released in 87.

Ian: 87. 

It's No Way Out, starring Kevin Costner and Gene Hackman. Yes. 

Matthew: And before we forget there are a lot of twists in this movie.

We're going to give away every single one of them as we discuss it. So if you haven't seen the 1987 film, No Way Out, and you're interested in that, go watch it now. And then come back and listen to this podcast. If you've seen it, stay with us. 

Ian: Yeah. There are definitely times when our podcast is to tell you about movies you might not have seen and you wait until the end to decide whether or not this one you're gonna, if you're going to want to see it first.

Yeah. That's kind of important. We will talk about whether or not we think it was worth it at the end, but that's different than sometimes what our, Our screener no screen stuff usually yeah 

Matthew: that is a different question so yeah this is a movie from nineteen eighty seven and it is a it's not a mystery because there isn't a who done it that somebody's trying to figure out but it is a thriller it's more of a ticking clock.

It's got people with different goals and the time is running out they need to achieve what they need to achieve they need to prevent others from finding out what they need to find out. 

Ian: In in parallel and similarity to. Early I M M P. Watch Columbo. This is a how catch them. Yes, yes. It's not a whodunit, it's a how catch em.

But the problem is that this is also based on a book. It's roughly based on this book. 

Matthew: Right, it takes the overall outline and idea behind this book. 

Ian: But it's based on the big clock. It even tells you such in the beginning. And that means that the how catch em is how catch em when they're gonna catch me instead.

Matthew: Yes, 

The person who most of the evidence points to, but who isn't really guilty is overseeing the investigation as to who committed the murder. Yeah. It's a nice, it's a nice little combination there. 

Ian: It's a nice combination. And it is also, because of that, a story of nobody is good, everybody.

Yes, everybody is a, a messed up problem of a person cog in a very, very large mechanism. 

Matthew: And it's also what they've done with this movie is they've taken that idea and put it into a setting that That was starting to come back and starting to be of interest to people and that is the, the Washington D. C.

government insider kind of setting. Yes. The movie takes place around and most of it in the Pentagon. Mm hmm. Because we've got Kevin Costner playing Commander Tom Farrell, an up and coming military officer with commendations for bravery. We get to see a cool action scene about how some of that comes about.

And we've got Gene Hattman as the Secretary of Defense. Yeah. Secretary Bryce. And then we've got Will Patton as Bryce's general counsel and all around assistant and right hand man.

Ian: And that is such a, such a setup of putting it there because it means all the tension, all the focus, all the, the reasons to be. To be scared in this many way and the ways this could go wrong are so heightened like this event has such long reach and so many other elements at play, it makes a wonderful, wonderful base point 

Matthew: and it was very, very popular thing at the time because we were heading into that late 80s.

heyday of the techno thriller, where the combination of technology and politics and suspense was all coming together and people wanted stories in that setting. And, and they use that very well. The opening shot of this movie starts at the, the Washington monument. And then pulls back to take in more and more of the greater Washington area, including the Pentagon.

I did find myself thinking that was an expensive day of shooting back in the 1980s. And today, they would have gotten something that looks just as good with a drone. Yeah. Not, not super cheap, but still. 

Ian: Still, that was expensive. And, and they definitely, and they, and they go with an immediate technological, it's a tech thriller also.

True. Because this is dealing with advanced. You know, investigation technology that the Pentagon has, that others might not yet, and they start out with fonts and such that immediately give us this scanline computer effect. 

Matthew: Very, yes. Computers are a big part of the plot, and that is very 80s techno thriller.

Ian: 80s techno thriller in a wonderful way. We, we start out with this, we start out with this brilliant panning shot and then we immediately get hit with tension because we enter into an interrogation. 

Matthew: Yes. Gavin Costner in his Navy uniform, which has been through a lot. And so has he in a, a windowless room being interrogated by thugs with with microphones and recorders.

And he's, he's getting frustrated because he keeps telling them, I've told you everything that happened. What more do you want from me? And they set us up with this. Why is this U S Navy officer being interrogated by people? What did he do? Yeah. 

Ian: What did he do? And then he's being asked how he became to know the Secretary of Defense.

Yes. 

Matthew: So the entire movie is a flashback bookended by these interrogation scenes, the very beginning and end. 

Ian: And it's six months earlier. 

Matthew: Yes. 

Ian: Which is a short time frame for the story this is about to tell. 

Matthew: Yeah. There's a lot that happens in those six months. Yeah. And most of the story takes place over the course of just a few days towards the end of that six month period.

Ian: Yeah, about like 

Matthew: about a week and a half maybe? Yeah, but we have to go back six months earlier to Commander Tom Farrell's. First attempt to come to the attention of the Secretary of Defense. Hmm. Scott Pritchard, the the general counsel to the Secretary of Defense, is somebody that Farrell knew in college, he says.

And he was getting an introduction from Pritchard to the Secretary because Farrell had worked in naval intelligence, apparently, had worked at the Pentagon, and wanted to get back into that political world. Obviously, he was a smart officer with ambitions. And. It doesn't go very well. Bryce. Yeah.

Secretary of Defense kind of blows him off. And they're at an inaugural banquet. So this is, they don't talk about the president, but this is kicking off whatever president this is, their second term. So Bryce is looking forward to another four years as Secretary of Defense and has no interest in, in Farrell.

Ian: Yeah, this was released in 87, but I'm trying to figure out if we figure out what year it's set in. 

Matthew: I don't think they ever say. There might be one of their newspapers that indicate that, but it's more or less right at that time. 

Ian: I wonder if it's supposed to be set just two years ahead where an election would be kind of time wise.

Matthew: Oh, that they're, they're giving it offset the way the West Wing used to do? Exactly. Their election years were not really in the real world election years? 

Ian: Mm hmm. That 

Matthew: could be. Either that or it was in 80, it was, um, in 86. 

Ian: That could be. But I still, like, they, very much West Wing. A lot of the, the kind of the extras and the, the tone setting.

But that show did, this movie does as well, to some extent, I feel. 

Matthew: I guess, and to the extent that, that Aaron Sorkin and the West Wing was sort of optimistic about government, this was very much not. 

Ian: Both of them have this kind of like, here's the bubble and there's this outside pressure, we will hint.

Right. But we get the bubble here of this inaugural ball. And it's kind, it's a, a big party. People are talking about the upcoming four years. And yeah, he's, he gets completely brushed, brushed off. And it's like, he's, he, he seems disappointed, but then he's given a new assignment to the Philippines. 

Matthew: And a couple of character details, a lot of interesting things dropped into dialogue.

He mentioned, he describes Scott Pritchard as somebody he knew in college. That tells me that Commander Farrell did not go to the Naval Academy because he wouldn't have just referred to that as college and there's no indication necessarily that Pritchard served, so he must have been ROTC and that was his path to becoming an officer after he had his degree, which, which makes perfect sense, but I love the fact and, and that fits in with some of the other details we learn later.

I love the fact that they are consistent with so many of their details. I'm sure that there are, are things that people could point out that aren't. But I liked a lot of those, those details. 

Ian: I assume, I assume that they had someone who was there specifically to get some of the military aspects right.

They had some form of liaison, such as they do very well in that. And it helps make a, this kind of action spy thriller work better. 

Matthew: Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure you're right about that. They had good consultants, I think. 

But something else very important happens at this banquet where where Farrell did not get what he came for, which was a solid introduction to the Secretary of Defense, but he does meet Susan Atwell, played by Sean Young.

Ian: Yeah, Farrell, Farrell couldn't get a job, so at least he'll hook up with somebody, but it's, it's the little, it's the thing of the two of them hitting it off and immediately going to her limousine. Yeah. And having a very prolonged

tourism film plus awkward karm hook up. They certainly do hit it off. 

Matthew: Very, very 

Ian: steamy. They hit it off. And, and, and when all of that is said and done, they finally introduce each other by name. It's, it's, it's the little thing of that they don't give each other their names until after all of that goes down.

Yes. Is very telling of just kind of the environment, setup, culture, and people they are. 

Matthew: And, and you're right, it is kind of a tourist film as well because they're just driving around all the landmarks of D. C., and for somebody, for anybody who saw this movie at a particular age, that phrase, show us the monuments, has a whole additional level of steamy meaning.

Ian: Yeah. I, I have rarely seen. The Washington Monument be used as euphemism in that way, cinematically, 

Matthew: yes, it's 

Ian: effective. 

Matthew: And it's more than just that. It's the kind of the romance of Washington, D. C. and these beautifully lit. Paragon of architecture and monumental symbolism. 

Ian: Well, just early on, this movie sets up the concept of the aphrodisiac power of power.

Matthew: Very much, 

very much. 

Ian: Authority has. this connotation baked into it early by this. Yeah. So these, these monuments, the power, the American system and everything else has that embedded in its depiction. 

Matthew: Yes. The ways that, combines with sexuality, but also the ways that it sort of distorts it.

And we do see then, and, and this is not just a kind of a one night stand for Susan and Commander Farrell. This begins a romance that continues as long as it can. I don't think it's very long though, before, as you said, he, has to go back out on deployment. His ship is headed for the Philippines and we get an action scene, 

Ian: Action scene! Boat action!

Matthew: We actually see a Navy commander, Tom Farrell on a ship in a storm where he single handedly goes out to save a man who's washed over the bow on a forward watch. 

Ian: It's the fact that the man who's there is In a situation where he will die, but he's on a safety line, so he can't be swept away and Farrell runs out there to get him back.

So he doesn't die tethered to the side of the ship and pins there. Farrell doesn't have a safety line. 

Matthew: Yes, it's a great heroic scene. It really brings a great 

Ian: heroic scene. Wow. 

Matthew: I am. I am totally behind Commander Farrell. What a guy. 

Ian: It's like what we get like, okay, he's aspirations. Okay, he doesn't make great choices.

But he's a good officer. Yes. That's what we get in pretty rapid sequence in that sense. For the amount of time it spends in the film. 

Matthew: And it establishes very well that Farrell is not just one of these Navy officers who wants to get away from the ocean as soon as he can, because he wants to get into politics and get closer to power. No, he's somebody who takes his. his position as an officer seriously, and takes his command of men seriously, and his job aboard ships seriously.

So he is a well rounded and diligent person, in addition to being smart and ambitious and knowing that there's a lot of future for him if he could get involved in the political side of things. 

Ian: Mm hmm, and he cares about even the the even the lowest of his of his crew and the men under him Yes, 

Matthew: and we see then more of him in the Philippines I'm not sure is the guy that he's kind of hanging out with in the Philippines.

That's not the guy He saved is it I can't tell might be But we see him, you know, knocking around the Philippines and and 

Ian: getting his bag stolen, but kind of being chill about it. Like a little kid runs up, grabs the bag. It's like he's got like a toothbrush. Yeah, he's got a 

Matthew: toothbrush and some skivvies.

I'm not going to run after him. Let the kid sell it if he can, whatever. And he's even there from Manila. He's trying to call back to Washington to talk to Susan. He can't get through to her. 

Ian: Partially because she hangs up. 

Matthew: Yes. And the reason she hangs up is that the guy who pays for her apartment and everything else is there.

And that is secretary Bryce. 

Ian: Oh, 

and note, she's not mrs. Bryce. 

Matthew: No, no, she is not. 

Ian: No, she is not. 

Matthew: So we learned she is Bryce's mistress. 

Ian: Yeah, so here's an officer wanting a job with the Secretary of Defense and he has courted the Secretary of Defense's mistress. Yes. That's a messy setup.

Matthew: So we're beginning to learn more about Secretary Bryce. We learn this. Yeah. We soon after that, we see him meeting with his general counsel, Pritchard, and he's treating Pritchard horribly. And he treats so many people horribly. He is somebody. Gene Hackman is so good in so many, so many kinds of roles and he plays this very well.

He is somebody who is incredibly confident in his own intelligence and his own abilities and he is utterly dismissive about everybody around him and he's constantly telling Pritchard what he's doing wrong, what he should be doing differently, how, you know, I, I can barely tolerate the fact that, that you're wasting my time with some of these questions.

And yet Pritchard is utterly devoted. To Secretary Bryce and will do anything for him 

Ian: from the early things when When Farrell was trying to get a job, Pritchard was like, I'd take a bullet for that man. 

Matthew: Yes. 

And the way that that Will Patton plays this, you absolutely believe him. That's not an exaggeration.

He is so devoted to Bryce. 

Ian: Extremely devoted. 

Matthew: And yet Bryce, who blew off Commander Farrell at that first introduction, he remembered the introduction. And now that he sees Farrell in the newspaper about this heroic rescue and that he's, he's been been awarded, I think it was the Navy cross. He says, get him to, to Washington.

I think we need a hero on our team. Let's have him work for us at the Pentagon, which is what commander Farrell wanted. So next thing you know, he's being recalled from Manila and he Is working in the pentagon as intelligence liaison. He's going to be the liaison for the secretary of defense to the various intelligence agencies in washington 

Ian: Interesting position to be in 

Matthew: yeah, it it's political and yet it draws upon his experience in naval intelligence And his, his, his charm, to be honest, so it's a good spot for him, and it keeps him in Washington, which means he can reconnect with Susan, and reconnect they do.

Ian: Yes, although we gotta admit, Bryce's reasoning and attitude to Farrell's position is not as positive as we're describing it. Bryce wants him to be eyes and ears within the CIA, and gives him this dismissive, unless Unless you say so, you say yes. 

Matthew: Right. Unless you unless you demur, I will assume that all of your responses are in the affirmative.

Ian: Yeah. Which is very much, immediately, it sets up Bryce as someone who does not trust or like the CIA. 

Matthew: Well, that's interesting. I got the impression that Bryce just didn't like anybody. That this was not, he didn't, he clearly didn't like the CIA, but I think he, he saw Farrell's value and was glad to have Farrell on board.

He just didn't want to have Farrell waste his time by having to say yes, sir, to everything. 

Ian: Oh, I, I took that very differently. I took that literally as a I don't like the CIA. You're my inside man there. You're talking with them. And you work for me to do what I want attitude. I took it much more immediately negative and much more immediately hostile in a more than just I'm unpleasant in a directed kind of force.

Oh, 

Matthew: that's interesting. That's a different take. 

Ian: Yeah, 

Matthew: but, but Farrell immediately starts doing that job shows that he's got a knack for it. He's not, he knows the subtleties of getting what you want out of the other agencies, because especially back in the 80s, things in theory have changed now after 2001, but there was a lot of hoarding of information and lack of sharing of information among agencies and there, the various defense intelligence apparatus didn't necessarily know everything the CIA necessarily know what the FBI knew, and they're trying to get information out of the CIA.

And they, they have lots of fun, interesting political reasons for all of this. Although the informational MacGuffins about there's a vote coming up on the phantom submarine and the people who are in favor of this phantom submarine are going to use the CIA to give Congress inflated estimates about Soviet capabilities, which is going to make them vote for this.

And the Pentagon wants to use the money for something different. 

Ian: I enjoy all 

Matthew: that detail. 

Ian: Oh, it is great. And there's definitely a, well, there's all these reports and such from each of the departments, but by the time you get that information, it's not actionable. So having your inroads, having the information early, using that is such an important part.

Matthew: And they want the raw data. They don't want the, the self serving summary that they're going to send to Congress. They want the raw data so that they can refute the summary if they have to. 

Ian: But that changes the nature of what Farrell's job is so much because suddenly Farrell is trying to bend and blend through these cracks and gaps to be able to leverage stuff out early to make it workable.

Matthew: Yeah. And he is reporting directly now to Pritchard, 

Ian: while he's doing all of this, he's also, 

Matthew: yes, he's also a romantic Susan 

Ian: a lot. 

Matthew: Yes. And they're going off on, on romantic weekends and, she eventually lets Farrell know, that, she is Bryce's mistress.

And he's paying for her apartment and all this and she doesn't love Bryce, but that's, that's what her life is. And she's very comfortable in it. And yet she's in love with Tom. That becomes clear. 

Ian: Yes. 

Matthew: Eventually she promises she'll find a way to end that, to end things with Bryce.

But Bryce finds out that she was with somebody on her weekend getaway. 

And Bryce is very jealous. 

Ian: Yes. Bryce is extremely jealous. And during all this, we're getting a lot of things that is, that are very of their time, I will say, because this is a story about going for the long weekend and not being contactable because it's all landline.

This is a story where having a photo of something means someone took a Polaroid picture. This is a story where Paying with cash is so much more common, but cards are potentially used and yet traceable. 

Matthew: And yet tracing them takes a lot more time and effort.

Ian: It's one of these things where there's that gap of technology that seems so foreign now, but it makes this slipping away for the weekend and coming back and being unknown possible. 

Matthew: And around this time, and they actually put this in as part of some of those political machinations that we were talking about, Farrell is trying to connect more with the CIA to get this information, he's supposed to, and Pritchard is trying to keep him at arm's length from the CIA, which means we get a scene or two inside the CIA with CIA people talking to each other and talking about Bryce, talking about Farrell and talking about Pritchard.

And they mentioned something that another movie would have saved to be the, the shocking revelation at the end. And that is the fact that the CIA knows that Pritchard is homosexual.

Which, which had still had a great deal of stigma in the 80s, which this movie is part of. And we'll talk a bit more about that later. I'm sure. But they reveal that early on because it definitely affects the way that you see in the movie, Pritchard's devotion to Bryce.

Ian: Suddenly there's an extra element in the way it's depicted. 

Matthew: Yes. And, and it doesn't really have much else to do with the movie for most of its runtime, except it gives this additional drive to why Pritchard would do literally anything for Bryce. 

Ian: Mm hmm. And it adds to that That power is the attractor aspect.

Matthew: Yes. Yes 

Ian: where we see how awful Bryce is and there's a little bit of a question as to how much It's about Bryce's position or Bryce as a person. There's some, there's some confusion and blurring in there, I'll say. Yeah. 

Matthew: Mm-Hmm. 

Ian: in the way they depict it, so, right. 

Matthew: And Pritchard is shown as, as very intelligent, very capable, not entirely stable, 

Ian: yeah. 

Matthew: And this comes up, this becomes very important because when Bryce learns that Susan has been seeing somebody else, he gets very angry. And there's this confrontation at Susan's townhouse. And he winds up slapping Susan and she falls over a stairwell railing and dies. 

Ian: He kills her. He kills her.

Over the railing and we see this, this moment of realization as As you know, Bryce sees her fall and she falls and lands on the glass topped table and is dead on impact. 

Matthew: And this, the way this scene is shot and cut, we see both characters realizing what is happening and neither of them can do anything about it.

You see him reaching for her to try to keep her from falling and of course he can't. And and this is, this is the last we get of Sean Young's performance, of course. So it is worth noting that she plays this role very well. It's a, the role has its limitations, obviously, but she plays it with a lot of nuance and a lot of sophistication that, that some would not necessarily bring to that role.

And, and she was really, She did that with so many interesting roles in the 80s from Blade Runner to this a lot of bringing some more depth to roles that were generally small or understated. 

Ian: Yes, she's got a lot of, amazing amount of skill and brings a lot of depth. Of depth and subtlety in this because she's becomes this pivotal part of the story and the entire narrative rotates on this one moment and she's able to give it that weight and haunt the rest of the film properly 

Matthew: and and now Bryce he's he's just committed murder.

Murder of his mistress and he goes to Pritchard essentially just to unburden himself. He says, I just had to tell someone about this. I had to tell you about this before I go to the police and Pritchard immediately says, no, wait a minute. Yeah, we don't have to do that. You are too important. We can make this go away.

And Pritchard immediately takes over and it shows Bryce as somebody who is. He's overly confident, he's very intelligent, and he sees, he positions himself as a leader, but he is very easily led. 

Ian: Yes, very easily led. And he does have, he did have enough morals to, the first thing to do was turn himself in.

Yes. But, no. He has surrounded himself with people of a mentality and is easily led down that mentality himself. He's not going to. They're going to cover this up. 

Matthew: So Pritchard immediately takes over and he goes to the scene and cleans everything up. And I don't know how they arrange for someone to discover The body, but evidently they do but they immediately turn it into a Department of Defense investigation because they decide how to, what, what excuse do we have for the D.

O. D. taking over this murder investigation that local police should otherwise handle? There's this, this legend, this, this long standing rumor that there is a mole deep within, The Department of Defense, somebody who came to the United States as a teenager and has lived as an American and has gotten himself embedded in the highest levels of, defense establishment in America and.

They just refer to him as Yuri. 

Ian: Yeah, this KGB sleeper agent. 

Matthew: We set up that this Susan Atwell was somehow connected with or was, was involved with this Yuri, this sleeper agent. And that's why the Department of Defense has to run this investigation. So they do that and they run it from within the D.

O. D. and Pritchard assigns this new guy who reports directly to him to supervise the investigation. 

Ian: Mm hmm. Tom Farrell. Tom Farrell. And it works so well because Pritchard starts pulling up about mentioning this Yuri story almost out of nowhere. It's like, it was not hinted before, it was not something whispered before, which makes this cover up feel so much, so much deeper, because it's like, I'm, I'm going to pull on this old thing that's practically forgotten.

Matthew: Right. It's kind of an as you know, Bob, but it works because it is, it's this thing that people in the DoD have told each other for forever, and you know, maybe there's some truth to it, maybe not, but there's absolutely no evidence. Right. But they don't need that to use this as part of the cover up. 

Ian: Yeah, it's, you know, no, no, no, no, no.

We're gonna hunt down the boogeyman. What? Yeah, that's, that's nothing, but it's something we can use. 

Matthew: Yes, it means that the local police don't get involved in the investigation that could lead back to Bryce. 

Ian: And now they're hunting for Yuri, but Farrell's doing the investigation and he knows a lot of it because he was the other man.

And there's all these little pieces that point towards him. These pictures, the. The trip that they took, all these things, he's going to have to investigate now, that are all about him. 

Matthew: And on the night of the murder, Farrell sees Bryce going into Susan's house, and Bryce sees Farrell, but Farrell's in shadow, and Bryce can't see who it is, but he knows somebody else was there.

So we have, if we can find out who that was, we can pin all of this on him, we can say he's Yuri, we can say he's the murderer, and that, that's part of how it goes away. So, once he's been led by Pritchard, Bryce starts to contribute ideas to this cover up.

Ian: And yeah, once he's in, he's in completely, and they are investigating. There's a couple of things that are important to note in terms of the evidence. We have the trip itself, which was paid mostly in cash, but they interacted with various people. They interacted with a boat rental place and a fancy restaurant.

There is a box, though, a gift that Susan had that was given to her by Bryce that was actually a gift from a foreign dignitary that Bryce gave to her instead. And all these little pieces of evidence that are coming and going in the, the story are very important.

Very much like a game of Clue where you get the different pieces and put them into the right places. 

Matthew: Oh, very much. Very much. And we get to see most of this investigation happening in this situation room in the basement of the Pentagon, where the, the evidence is being logged 

and, and all the computer aspects of this investigation are being run by Dr.

Sam Hesselman, who is a friend of Tom's apparently from when Tom previously worked at the Pentagon. And he's very smart, very loyal. And they've got all this wonderful 80s technology. 

Ian: So much cool stuff. I don't think I can get the name right. George de Zunza. 

Matthew: Yeah. D Z U N D Z a Zunza great character actor.

He was on the first season of law and order. He's just excellent. Yeah. And he's kind of, he does a lot of, as you know, Bob type stuff for us, explaining the computer stuff to Pritchard and Farrell, so that we know what's going on. And it involves whether they can interface with other agencies, databases, and it's all this wonderful command line stuff.

Ian: And they've got, So much cool advanced stuff, all these databases on hand, but they've also got photo work where it's doing adjacent adjacent pixel analysis to take the blurry piece of the negative that they've got from this Polaroid picture and try to create an image of it. 

Matthew: Yeah, the Polaroid didn't turn out.

I think they tore the it's an old fashioned Polaroid. It's not a, an SX, 70 type of thing. It's, you've got to wait and then pull the. The cover off of it, and that was messed up. But they're analyzing it to see if they can pull out a, an image from it. And this is a picture that we saw Susan take of Farrell.

So if they can get this image, it would place Farrell in Susan's home and lay the finger on him as being Yuri. 

Ian: But it's going to take time, so that Polaroid and the computer processing it becomes the ticking clock. 

Matthew: And the way they present this, it sounds the way Sam describes it, it's an early kind of machine learning.

Yeah. Because it's analyzing, It's breaking it down into pixels based upon the emulsion resolution. I'm nerding out about this now. And then it is analyzing the pixels and determining if this is a picture of a face, what is the most likely thing we would have in the next pixel that we can't quite determine.

It's very simple. Yeah. Guide it to, you know, looking for a face. If we said we were looking for a giraffe, it would come out as a very different picture because you're, you're prompting it and then it's using machine learning to figure out what is most likely to be the next thing. This is pretty advanced stuff for the 1980s.

Ian: And it is very similar to stuff that we've got now in terms of like content aware fill and even before you get into some of the AI generation stuff and all the problems what we got now on that we've got some very interesting stuff about just how this is set up and the technology is reasonable. 

Matthew: Yes, and the thing there is.

Farrell has to figure out how to get out of this, and how to, to keep himself from being nailed for a murder that he did not commit. 

Ian: And he's gotta do so while continuing to be the lead investigator, to lead this investigation.

He, he can't just Stop and slow down because the machine will do its job and he'll wind up out of it. He's got to figure out how to manipulate stuff and get the truth out while he works. 

Matthew: And he's got people from the, the DODs Criminal Investigative Division there to do legwork. But also Pritchard has directly hired two other guys.

with special forces background. And obviously these are thugs. It becomes clear that Pritchard is prepared to use them to do whatever is necessary. So if a witness comes to light, we've met one of Susan's friends earlier, she might be able to connect Bryce to Susan. Pritchard sends these thugs to deal with the friend and get her out of the way.

Ian: And Farrell stops the thugs because he can't let that happen. But that results in a wonderfully wild chase scene. 

Matthew: It, it seems so. Out of place though in this movie, it's one of these places where somebody looking at the script just kind of said, Oh, it's page 105.

We need a chase scene. So they add that big chase action scene because

it seems like Farrell is revealing. The fact that he's not on the same page as Pritchard here granted. He's trying to save a life, but yeah How about what does he expect to have happened? I mean she's he eventually gets to her first and tells tells the friend to disappear totally but still What what has he gained I can understand why he did it But it does see it seems in terms of tone in terms of logic It doesn't make a lot of sense with the movie 

Ian: And it's, it's also eighties parkour,

Oh, very. It's like I have seen stuff, I've seen stuff in, in modern YouTube, and this is not hard to core parkour. . This is mild core parkour, but it's fun. , 

Matthew: more park than core.

Ian: More park than core,

but it, it involves like a car crash and hopping fences. And I do appreciate any action scene where our main protagonist does not make a landing, lands hard, and is really, oh, okay, keep going, for a little bit. That is appreciated. He's not superhuman, he's human, and it's not easy.

But yeah, Farrell has seen that Farrell has seen that Pritchard is

Ray overboard already, and he has stopped Pritchard from committing more murders to cover up a murder. 

Matthew: Yes. 

Ian: But, but his main things are, is trying to talk with people he's being prevented talking with anyone outside. He can't talk to his CIA contacts or anything else, even if he's trying to do it as a, well, we'll have more work after this.

Nope, that's not allowed. And he can't make more progress on anything else using any of their resources. But he's, he has gotten a list of all the gifts being sent to the secretaries. because everything has to be registered if it's a gift from a foreign dignitary. So he's getting that list printed out.

Matthew: Yes. So there are a few different paths being followed here. One is that list of state gifts. That were given to the secretary of defense and others, and he's looking for that box because that is in the evidence that was found and it does turn out that it's not there.

Bryce never registered it the way he was supposed to. He just kind of diverted it and gave it to Susan. So Farrell works with Sam to insert it into the database so that it shows up in the printout the way it should have had Bryce followed the rules. 

Ian: Yeah, so it's like, do, do Bryce's job for him so that his job can be the petard to hoist him.

But this means he brings Sam in on saying, hey, that photo's gonna show me. I'm the other guy. This is all a cover up. And he does this piece by piece explaining it to Sam, but Sam joins Farrell's side. 

Matthew: He does. You can see he's got some qualms about it, but he does because he is loyal to his friend Tom.

Also, in the meantime, earlier on in the investigation, Pritchard brought Tom Farrell in on what's really going on with Bryce, and the fact that Susan was Bryce's was Bryce's mistress, and he insists Bryce had nothing to do with the murder, Farrell knows better, because he saw Bryce going in to her home on the night of the murder, but says, we just have to avoid getting Bryce entangled in this, so we have to find out who really did it, While avoiding any connection to Bryce 

Ian: and you see Farrell like he understanding what this cover up is going to be go to the bathroom and real at how this is being handled and what's going on.

And that's like, like, I know you don't want to kill them. But now you're turning into this hunt. Curie, what's going on here? And Bryce is terrified. Well, look, we can't even convince our own people. 

Matthew: Yes. How are we 

Ian: going to convince the outside world but Pritchard is is steadfast and saying, no, no, no, no, this is what we'll do.

This is how we'll do it. This is, this is Pritchard and Pritchard's investigation completely. 

Matthew: So the rest of the investigation, it really just comes down to these ticking clocks of the photograph and the printout with the jewelry box. And then it's accelerated at the very end, because eventually we get the fact that they are looking for contacts that, that Yuri and Susan 

may have interacted with in their trip right before the murder, and eventually they find a couple of people, the person at the hotel, the person who rented them a boat, and they are brought to the pentagon. 

Ian: Yeah. 

Matthew: And, and essentially invited to look at everybody in the pentagon to see if they recognize and they do rec.

One of them recognizes Tom, but Tom runs away before they could find who, who the guy was pointing at and saying, that's him. By the time they get there to confirm who he's pointing at, Tom's gone. They eventually walk these two guys through the pentagon. They don't want to just seal the exits and have everybody file past them on the way out, because that would invite TV coverage.

So instead they have these two civilians visit every single room in the pentagon. Yeah, 

Ian: I was about to say. It's like, 

what? I mean.

What, what is this? Like first we're going to tour the, the classified documents room. Then we're going to go to the hot dog stand in the middle of the plaza. And then we're going to go, go to the rest of the place. Well, it's the, it's the most, it's honestly the most ridiculous part of it in some ways, but it's such an excellent, excellent piece in the other ways.

Matthew: Because it's not like they took a lot of time to vet these, these two guys, the guy worked at the boat rental stand and the guy who worked at the hotel and. It does not seem out of the question that some foreign intelligence apparatus might try to put somebody in at a hotel in the greater Washington, DC area, maybe every hotel in the Greater Washington Hotel, Washington 

Ian: DC area.

I do appreciate that both the boat the boat rental guy and the the, major D are in their same outfits they were on that weekend. It's very much the Game Master doesn't have a different mini for this guy. So he's got the same exact look. 

Matthew: That's right. He's the, the, the, the bellboy from the hotel is still in his exactly.

Ian: It's like, like, this is just the costume we've got for this one character. That's all it is. Pretty 

Matthew: much. Yeah. This is your second day of filming. No, no costume change. You're just in a different set. 

Ian: But they, they walk these people through, which means now Tom is running around trying to do his investigation, directing where he should, where these people should be sent to do, to do this, and trying not to be seen by them.

Matthew: And meanwhile, Sam has had some qualms and realizes, you know, he, loyalty to his friend Tom Farrow was one thing, but this is serious. I'd better talk to the, the general counsel about it. So he tells Pritchard what he's been doing for, Tom. And what Farrell has told him is in the picture.

Ian: And Pritchard is very, very intrigued by this, and thanks our good tech man, and then shoots him. Then shoots Dr. Hesselman. just multiple times in a heart wrenching scene. It's, 

Matthew: it's terrible. Where the 

Ian: nicest, the nicest guy in the Pentagon is, is killed for doing what should be the right thing.

Matthew: And you get that pathos, and you also get, as they go into this final act, yes, Pritchard will do absolutely anything that he sees to be in Bryce's benefit. 

Ian: Absolutely anything. And 

Matthew: this eventually becomes a You know, the net gets tighter and tighter. He eventually does get the printout that has the jewelry box that Sam inserted into the list of gifts.

Ian: And he avoids being seen by the two witnesses in the most ridiculous way possible. Why? Would the Pentagon have open, person sized air vents of all the locations ever? I was so bothered by that one, I will just say. It was a, seriously?

Matthew: It was the 80s. 

And in the 80s, there was a lot of experimentation going on with the benefits of air ducts for inter office transit.

It had its efficiencies, there were some problems, but, you know.

Thank you. I've shown you enough 80s movies, you should know this by now. Oh, 

Ian: absolutely. Oh, that is brilliant. 

Matthew: But yeah, he does the old, Sneak up through the, it goes, it locks himself in his own office, goes through the air vent. So when they they, they open up the door, he's not there. He must've gone somewhere else.

Ian: Mm hmm. Like, oh, we had to open a locked door. It's like, okay, but he gets the information and deals with it and has another chase sequence through the Pentagon with Pritchard's two thugs. Right. That, that delivers him to Bryce's office where he confronts Bryce about the information and what he knows and what he's, I, I, it's kind of interesting.

He. He tells Bryce he knows and then proves the evidence, but doesn't quite say, I figured it out via the investigation. 

Matthew: No, 

Ian: no, 

Matthew: he doesn't. And so there's this confrontation with Bryce and, and Pritchard. Commander Farrell. 

Ian: Mm-Hmm. . And the entire place is kind of aware that something's happening and crowded outside the door to some extent, but they can't hear in.

Matthew: And once Bryce knows that Farrell has got him, he starts trying to make a deal with Farrell. I can give you anything you want, any kind of political access or power you want. You've seen what I can do. You've seen, I am the secretary of defense and we can pin it all on Pritchard. You know, that kind of person, they believe anything that we say about his, you know, his, his degeneracy that has led him to, to betray his country.

And Pritchard is shocked and horrified by this. And just before this and part of this confrontation, he has been holding them at or holding Farrell at gunpoint. But then Pritchard, kind of, for his last demonstration of he would do anything for Bryce, he kills himself. 

Ian: Yes, in a very terrifyingly graphic scene.

Matthew: Yes, yes, he uses this gun on himself, and it does set him up for what Bryce was just saying. We pin it all on, on Pritchard. And once he realized he was cornered and he couldn't get out, he he committed suicide rather than being taken in and interrogated. 

Ian: And so, in rushes to everyone else after hearing the gunshot, and Bryce just likes to look at all the other officers and say, there's your Yuri.

Matthew: Yep. 

Ian: And that's how the investigation ends. 

Matthew: Yes, it ends a little bit too neatly in Bryce's favor, except at the very, very end, Commander Farrell still has the printout, which shows that an item in evidence at Susan's home was a gift given to the Secretary of Defense. He gives this to the guy who was kind of his gopher during the investigation and says, bring this to Marshall at the CIA. The guy that Farrell had made the connection with wake him up if you have to get this into his hands So he's giving the CIA the piece of evidence that the end of the thread that they can pull on to connect Susan's murder to Bryce And we never see what happens there.

We just see that Farrell has that ace in his sleeve and plays it. 

Ian: But, but what we see Farrell do is, he goes off to Susan's grave. Because partway through the investigation, he had to sign off on approving it being, approving her going to be buried. 

Matthew: Yes. 

Ian: Released from the morgue. Is buried. Deep moment where this piece of just paperwork is also so important.

But he arrives and he's picked up by a pair of opeeratives and brought to this investigation, this interrogation we saw at the start.

Matthew: Right, so we've got the other bookend.

Ian: And audience. This is one of those things that is, you know, if you did want to watch this movie, go watch it before we say this next part, because we're going to, we're going to talk about something big here 

Matthew: or just pause right now and see if you can guess what we're going to say.

Ian: See if you can guess it. That's a good point. He's being interrogated by Soviet agents. 

Matthew: His own handlers. 

Ian: Because he's Yuri. 

Matthew: He is.

Ian: Oh my goodness. 

Matthew: The Soviet sleeper intelligence agent who came here when he was a teenager. Worked his way into the military. That's why it makes sense that he was ROTC. Wasn't vetted as highly.

As academy candidates would as a midshipman would be and and he worked his way up into an officer position in the Navy got inside the D. O. D. In the military intelligence apparatus. He was like a dream asset or a dream operative for Soviet intelligence and he just threw it away and all this stuff. Even getting involved in Susan wasn't an instruction from his handler and it turned out the nice old man who rented him his apartment in D.

C. That was his Soviet handler. 

Ian: Oh, my goodness.

That revelation had me sit up straight in my chair. Just like, Oh, that was great. 

Matthew: Wasn't 

Ian: it? This is a movie you can never see again the same way. The moment that hits, I realized I just saw a film for the first time that I can't ever see the same way. That 

is so 

good. 

Matthew: We've talked about some of the performances here with, with Gene Hackman and, and and Patton and Sean Young, really good performances.

We didn't really say much about Kevin Costner's performance. There isn't a lot to say about Kevin Costner's performance. 

Ian: Yes and no. He plays it very flat. He's, he's, but also, he's constantly under stress. He plays, he plays a man haunted by a ticking clock very well. 

Matthew: I guess. I always thought that his seemed very artificial, very But that works.

Oh true true. He's putting on something when 

Ian: when that revelation turns what looks like an okay performance Into a performance And that's such a layered aspect. I actually thought it worked better when I realized Oh He's playing an american in that sense Why is he so, you know, hi, , I'm Mr.

Normal. It's, that's because his, that's his role. It fits actually. 

Matthew: That's, that's interesting. He might've brought me around there. It's always, it was like he had to stop and think about its decision before every line. But maybe his character did maybe his character had to stop and say, Oh, what would the super guy?

Handsome American naval officer say in this situation. Oh, that's what he'd say and then he says it There's a little bit of that artificiality. 

Ian: Yeah, that little bit of delay is not enough to make him Off, but it's unable to make him seem quiet, reserved, maybe a little awkward, but effective. And it makes all these little things, the, the sudden and whirlwind romance, the throwing the money around to court her.

But that also has another element to it, because why did he throw away being a perfect? Perfect asset. Yeah, he did love her. 

Matthew: Yes, he really did actually fell in love. And that when we saw that when he got so upset when he realized who is this murder victim we're investigating and he sees that it's Susan and he kind of breaks down.

That was real. 

Ian: That was real. But he heads off. With his handlers saying, Oh, he has nowhere to go, 

Matthew: right? They want, they want to send him back to Moscow. And he's going to be a hero of the Soviet Union. There's no more value for him here in the States. And he doesn't want to go back. He wants to continue to be commander Tom Farrell in America.

And, and I think that his handlers are being short sighted. Yeah, because he did help on. He is the American officer who worked with the Secretary of Defense to help find Yuri, this legendary Soviet agent who's now dead, and he's got friends at the CIA. And even if this brings down Bryce and he has no future in the D.

O. D. He could still have quite a future in the American intelligence apparatus. So I don't know. I think as Yuri, he would still have some value to the Soviet. Yeah. 

Ian: Yeah. Yeah, he killed off the investigation for himself in multiple ways. 

Matthew: And solidified other ties at the same time. 

Ian: And yeah, he's actually a great asset, but also, if he could fall for her, if he could do this out of the love for her instead of the love for the Soviet Union, maybe he's not the loyal.

agent they want. And there's an element of, his position's great, but his asset value is less. And it's such a wild way to end it, because after all that tension, there's, we dig, we, we build up all the tension, we dig back through, and then it digs one layer lower through the core of what we thought of this.

Yes. And we end a layer deeper than we thought . It's so well done. That is, that was excellent. 

Matthew: There are a couple of other things that we should mention about this movie, good and bad. One of them is the, the portrayal of one gay character, and it's very much steeped in some of that 80s stigma, and this is a, an incredible character defect which leads to his derangement and violence and everything else, and I, you know, it's, .

It was a trope that was too often and too easily used. Yeah, played very well. It fits into the screenplay and the story very well, but it's still, it's kind of unpleasant to see just because it is, it's tied up with so much else that was going on at the time. 

Ian: It, that was an unpleasant needed part and almost unneeded.

I'd say there are 

Matthew: plenty of other reasons why you could make Pritchard the, the person who is irrationally devoted to Bryce and willing to do anything for him, including murder. 

Ian: Yeah. 

Matthew: Without having that be, oh, here's the reason. 

Ian: Yeah, that was unnecessary. 

Matthew: Something good I want to mention about this movie, the wardrobe and the costumes.

Excellent. It's some great 80s wardrobe. Some of the suits that we see on Bryce and on Pritchard, really, really great high end suits in these wonderful late 80s styles. And some of Susan's Wardrobe some of the gowns we see her in even the casual clothes that had that that kind of 80s flair And it was just getting into that sort of a time that that way that the 90s fashion brought in things from different time periods Those were all fun to see 

Ian: those were excellent.

Matthew: And if you like naval uniforms 

Ian: Oh, yeah, 

Matthew: we get 

a wonderful naval uniform. Fashion show we get we get Commander Farrell in In dinner dress blue jacket we get Farrell in dinner dress white jacket, on board ship we have him in his service duty khakis. Most of the movie, he's in Washington DC and in the Pentagon in summer whites.

And of course, you know, it's, it's a young Kevin Costner. He looks great in all this stuff. So really, really great costume and wardrobe. 

Ian: Honestly, excellent set design as well. This is a visual movie in a great way. Yeah. All of its scenes are, it's, it doesn't do a lot of wild camera tricks, but it does great framing, where, you know, people will talk about something, and through the windows, door to the adjacent room, where the people they're talking about are, or the issue of, you know, the, the impending threat is there.

The hallways that are shown constantly give great sense of scale, but they keep that, the edges, the walls close. So everything feels funneling and constricting while being a big open hallway. 

Matthew: Right. You get the sense of it being maze like. And very often, you're right, there is, there is something like a door or a window, some potential exit that is not accessible to our character.

Making that title literal. 

Ian: Yeah. No way out. It's just so, so present. Glass is used so effectively because the rooms with glass are where things are being found, but when we wind up in places where secrets are being said, it's covered in wood paneling and dense and heavy settings. The fact that she falls onto a glass topped table almost feels like a cinematic aspect that ties into the glass filled room of screens and monitors that will investigate her murder.

There's almost a, a wood versus glass element in the, in that back and forth styling. 

Matthew: And repeatedly, we have scenes where someone has someone else follow them into another room, and you know something's going to go down. Some, some critical piece of information is going to be revealed

from one character to another, even if it's something we already know as the audience. And very often those are rooms with glass walls, but they are separated from other characters so they can have that information exchange. It's, it's well shot in that way. , we were talking about costuming also have to mention some of Sean Young's hairstyles are terrific.

Yeah. Maybe I'm being influenced by the fact that I saw this first in the eighties when I was a young man and the decade in which I met the love of my life. Terrific. Hairstyles. That makes sense. Absolutely. Terrific. 

Ian: Hey, that's a, that's a style aspect, , 

Matthew: but but I think we might be getting down towards our final questions.

I think so. So, so stick around for those final questions and answers. But in the meantime, listeners, if you are enjoying the IMMP and you want more of the Intermillennium Media Project, go to IMMproject. com. And that's where you will find all of our back episodes and where you will also find a link to our discord.

And, And our contact page where you can reach us by email or by actual physical mail. We would love to hear from you What is what did you think of this movie? What did you think of other 80s movies? What else do you think we might want to talk about on the podcast? And you'll also find links there to our store and to our patreon if you want to support us You want to get fun things like t shirts and coffee mugs or additional bonus audio content on patreon and ian Where can people find you?

Ian: I can be found at itemcrafting. com or at itemcraftinglive on Twitch. Come join me, watch me paint some minis, play some games. Come hang out and chat. 

Matthew: And you can find me at bymatthewporter. com where you'll find links to whatever I'm doing including my YouTube channel where you'll find more of me rambling about movies and reviewing movie theaters.

Yeah! So Final questions. So It is a movie, so our first question is screen or no screen. 

Ian: I'm going to go with screen. When I watched this I watched this and my lovely Jen was next to me. She was like, Oh, well I'll do other stuff. Maybe I'll watch this and she got into this film delightful. She watched it with me.

We were like, oh Following it along getting all excited. So the fact that this can draw people in like that. It's just a good film. It's not great It's got his problems. It's from its time. We've discussed that but in terms of being an action thriller, it's a Brilliant at doing that and I'd say it's absolutely worth the watch It is going to be very different now that you know that ending Yeah, but i'm hoping you're hearing me suggest it and i'm suggesting you watch it not watch it for the first time 

Matthew: You know, I am really torn about this after watching it There are enough there are so many things that are done Well, but there are so many things in it that I find distasteful or just nonsensical That I was leaning towards a no screen You But now that we've talked about it, there are so many components, so many pieces that are done very well, probably would say screen with a lot of those caveats.

It's not the best movie of its type, but it's got some really good performances. Anytime you can see Gene Hackman in a role with this much power, that's great. So, yeah, I would say screen when it comes down to it. That's 

Ian: pretty good. Hmm. And now

Matthew: our second question is revive, reboot or rest in peace. 

Ian: Well, this is an adaptation, very loosely, of a book. The Big Clock was a 1946 novel that has been adapted three different times for film. Has it really? Yes. It's been adapted as The Big Clock Iin 48. So two years after the novel was published, a movie was made of it following closer to the original story.

It was then adapted in France into Police Python 357. 

Matthew: Oh, that is a cool name. That is the coolest name. Police Python, what was the number, as if it matters? 

Ian: 357. 

Matthew: Police Python 357. That is a heck of a title. 

Ian: Mm hmm. And so it's very much the same, you know, inspector having an affair with a woman who's murdered by his boss.

And he's put on the investigation. And now we've got No Way Out in 87. So this has been adapted three times. And every single one of them sets the environment a little different, sets it somewhere else. So what we're asking though is about No Way Out. And a revival would be a continuation of this story.

It'd be like the future adventures of Commander Tom Farrell. 

Matthew: I guess. And you could do something with that if, if his handlers realized what we were saying earlier that, you know, he hasn't been really, hasn't really been blown and he now has connections in the CIA. Maybe he could still be an undercover Soviet operative.

Ian: Maybe. I mean, you could do just a story about like a political intrigue of, An entire four years of a presidency after Secretary of Defense Bryce's scandal discovered by the CIA rocks through the political landscape. Could be a fascinating story, 

Matthew: but And it's not too many years later that the Soviet Union collapses.

Ian: Yeah, that's, I mean, this is, if this is in, in the year it was put out, 87, that's what, four years? Yeah, so what That's the end of that term? 

Matthew: So what happens to this deep sleeper agent who's at high levels in American defense and intelligence and seems to want to stay in America, not to have a super amount of loyalty to the Soviet Union, though he's doing his job, and suddenly, The Soviet Union is gone and he's still there within the American military and intelligence.

That's a good 

Ian: question. 

Matthew: Interesting possibilities for a commander Farrell or whatever his rank is by then. 

Ian: Yeah. Hmm. 

Matthew: So I could see a revival. You would have to set it sometime back then in the early nineties and it couldn't have Kevin Costner play that role. But that could be interesting. 

Ian: That could be interesting.

I think that I'm leaning towards reboot in terms of the idea of give us another version of the big clock again, do another version and keep going leapfrog to somewhere else. Give us another version of this story set in another place where this kind of power structure can be shown, where this kind of conflict can be made.

I'm trying to think of where. 

Matthew: And maybe something that pulls in some newer technology, something where they're using generative AI and machine learning from the 21st century to tease information out of these these bits of evidence and the ways those can be manipulated. 

Ian: Yeah. 

Matthew: That would be interesting.

Ian: That would be interesting. I mean, what is, what's No Way Out look like when it's about programmers dealing with a, a major project they're working on? Oh, 

Matthew: yeah. 

Ian: And, you know, someone did something to this. We need to figure out who, who modified the project before release. 

Matthew: Interesting. 

Ian: There could be some interesting stuff.

We could have versions set in, I mean, politics is so easy to go to, but there's business. There is, you could have the versions of this story with an island where people are isolated, which would force them to do their own investigation. There's just options. I feel like the big clock is moldable enough that another version is possible.

Both kind of were on track to get one and would be interesting to see. 

Matthew: Yeah, I would say 

reboot. 

Ian: I'd say reboot. So I'm, I'm, I want more of that. I want something else that can give me that kind of dramatic action. Although it won't have as good a twist as this one did at the very end. 

Matthew: That's hard. 

Ian: That's hard to do.

Matthew: But there was another movie after Mrs. Darling Wife and I saw this movie, she immediately said, now that you've seen this, you've got to see this other movie. Oh, and so we did, and that means that we'll be back in a couple of weeks with another tale of media from the 20th century. 

Ian: Oh, don't do this to me now.

Usually you send me a spreadsheet or something. We can work with this. Yeah. Yes. We'll, we'll be back and I'll find out what this is too. So yeah. Ooh. So yeah, 

Matthew: you'll have another movie to watch between now and then. 

Ian: Yay. Well, that sounds pretty awesome. 

Matthew: So listeners, we hope you will will join us then. 

Ian: Yay.

And in the meantime, go find something new to watch. Like I'm apparently going to do. 

Matthew: What