Alexander Winn and Lacey Hannan return yet again to discuss chapters 14 – 17 of Andy Weir’s The Martian. The pair debate on which is deadlier, Martian Snakes or Martian Vampires, and whether or not the fabric is wracked with guilt over letting Mark Watney watch his potatoes go extinct on its watch.
πππ ππͺππ₯πππ€ππ€ is a live talk show that aims to find the relationship between science and fiction in pop culture. We’ll discuss a book, movie, or show each week that’s science-focused and talk about just how realistic it is, where reality is cooler than fiction, and exactly where certain liberties were taken.
[00:00:03] Hey, folks, this is Alexander WinnΒ
[00:00:06] and I am Lacey Hannan,
[00:00:07] and we are here with the latest episode of The Synthesis, reading through The Martian. This week we’re doing chapters 14 through 16.
[00:00:16] And I actually want to know just to kick us off. Yeah. Who’s reading with us?
[00:00:22] Yeah. Chime in in the comments and let us know if you’re reading along.
[00:00:25] Also, you guys, I’m super congested, so I will try not to just, like, sniff the entire time, but give me some leeway because it’s a lot up my bed.
[00:00:40] So jumping right in. We are picking up in Chapter 14.
[00:00:45] And there was a there was a cliffhanger.
[00:00:48] There was a cliffhanger. Exactly. Mark Watney has been having some good times. Things have been looking up. He’s finally in contact with Earth. He’s got his potatoes, girl, and everything’s going good. And so one day he walks into the airlock and it explodes. It rips off of the side of the hab. And once again, we are reminded that the hab is not a building, it’s a tent. And so the hab canvas rips all the way around the airlock and essentially becomes a cannon. And the force of the air pressure inside launches mark in the cylinder of the airlock, 50 meters across the Martian surface. And he lands and just he’s about had it. And that picks up with Chapter 14, which I think is a long overdue tantrum.
[00:01:42] Well, yes, but I will start by saying that this chapter, more than any other one that we’ve read so far, is the most fun to quote.
[00:01:52] Yes, there are
[00:01:54] so many great lines. Yes. So just bear with me because it’s so fun. I’m going to read, like, practically the entire chapter to you today. Yeah, I’ll restrain myself.
[00:02:06] Oh, no, I’ve got a few, too. But yeah, he has a tantrum, which I think is, you know, it’s good to see it’s good that this guy who is in this incredibly deadly situation is constantly under threat for his life. And, you know, everything keeps going wrong and then he solves it. And then another thing goes wrong. It’s nice to finally get him just being like, you know what, fuck this.
[00:02:26] And he just he just drops f bomb left and right. It’s great.
[00:02:31] Leans into it. It’s very cathartic and it’s totally understandable. You know, it’s one of those things where it’s like you sort of amazed that it took him this long to get to this point of frustration. But he can’t be too frustrated for too long because he is actually in a crisis situation. Which brings us to the very first quote that had me laughing out loud because he realizes that the air is leaking as he as he puts it, there’s a hissing sound and he says either it’s leaking or there are snakes in here.
[00:03:05] Either way, I’m in trouble.
[00:03:07] Either way, I’m in trouble, which is the idea. Like, how could it get worse if you’re stranded on Mars? What could be worse? It would be worse if there were snakes in the air.
[00:03:17] Yeah, yeah. I that that is also one of the ones I wrote down. And I am now imagining the things that could make it worse. Vampires, vampires that. Yeah, yeah. I’m just putting
[00:03:30] it out there. There’s, you know, we’ve talked before about how Lacey is reading the book and I’m doing the audio book and every like for the most part, whatever it’s equivalent. But every once in a while I do really feel bad for you that you’re not getting Wil Wheaton’s delivery because his delivery on, you know, it’s leaking or there are snakes in here is just so I
[00:03:52] don’t need Wil Wheaton. I am an actor. I don’t need him.
[00:03:56] You don’t always make the same choices that he does. He’s making good choices.
[00:04:00] Maybe mine would be better. Maybe. I don’t need a
[00:04:04] man Darton shit in here,
[00:04:09] OK?
[00:04:10] You know, I expect this kind of grief from Jacob, not from you.
[00:04:14] You’re already starting it, are we?
[00:04:16] It’s necessary.
[00:04:17] No, it’s
[00:04:18] part of the fabric of this show is how terrible geographies.
[00:04:22] Oh Lord, yeah. OK, well enjoy it guys. I can’t stop that train. Yeah, it will go on until the joke is dead ten times over. So I like that he gets his little tantrum and then he goes straight into problem solving mode just full on. And he’s like, things aren’t as bad as they seem. I’m so fucked, mind you, just not as deeply so.
[00:04:50] Yeah, and, you know, the first challenge is there’s air leaking, and that is a tricky thing when it’s a small amount, which is an interesting thing to think about is the sort of it would be easier if it were scarier, you know. And so what he does is and again, this is a great little bit of self-awareness. Mark decides to set something on fire and he has a moment where he’s like, yes, I know that a lot of my solutions deal with setting things on fire.
[00:05:23] He calls himself a determined arsonist. Yes. And I just I love. I love that
[00:05:29] that’s a good band name the determined arsonist’s,
[00:05:32] that’s a good like early aughts IMO. Bad name.
[00:05:38] Fair enough, just to point out that I don’t know my band name genres and eras well enough of Ali.
[00:05:45] Get it together, man. Oh, I, I, I like to that I also like the the quote NASA never considered what would happen if it the hab or the the airlock was launched 50 meters Lacey bums. Me, I’m just like I love that he just calls them names. Yeah. And everybody can like this is this is just. It brings me joy and happiness, which is the same word, so I’m being repetitive. Yeah, OK.
[00:06:18] But this this chapter, I confess that even for me, this chapter did start to drag in certain places. But I did also have to stop and really appreciate the fact that this chapter is kind of a tour de force of all the all the ways that Andy Weir’s writing is better than it could have been. Because, for example, you know, a lot of writers when when writing this prompt would make Mark sort of a superhero. And I really appreciate the fact that, no, Andy Weir does take the time to be like there’s a leak. What if I just, like, put my hand over it? OK, it’s getting cold. Getting really cold. It’s getting pretty paint. All right, I’m not doing this. And, yeah, we just we took that moment to have him just like see if you can do it the easy way. No, you can’t do it the easy way. And then he does a little smoke thing. It creates a little fire. He starts producing some smoke and he has to do it like four or five times. Yeah. Because he keeps like breathing and or
[00:07:19] smoke or something else happens. Yeah. And I, I love the amount of patience that he has to have while not panicking, you know, to to be able to say, OK, I’m on a time limit here, I’ve only got so much available to me, I keep screwing up. He doesn’t do it as third time’s a charm, which I appreciate because the rule of threes gets a little bit boring sometimes. So fourth time. All right. No panicking. He just got the work done, which I don’t know, there’s just something about like, no, he’s not a superhero, but this man is capable and patient and that’s why he’s here is because he threw his he threw his tantrum. He had the emotional outburst and then he got to work. And I think all of it speaks to why he’s he would obviously be picked to be an astronaut. So, um, but I do like that. Before he even tries, he says, um, if in fact, this is exactly how Apollo, the Apollo one crew died, wish me luck. And I’m just like, whoa, yeah. That like Worf, um, that was that it was it was both funny and also.
[00:08:36] Um, it’s a little
[00:08:37] dark, it’s really dark, little dark
[00:08:39] Vermaak Yeah, yeah,
[00:08:40] yeah, um, so that I appreciate that. I also apparently put a note in here to myself that I used to carry duct tape in my car and I should carry that shit in my car. And also don’t forget to put scissors or a knife in there, too.
[00:08:55] So just in case your airlock gets launched 50 meters,
[00:08:59] listen, now we see if NASA trusts that we should trust it. Exactly. So it used to be a part of my emergency kit. It’s no longer there. And why. Yeah, why.
[00:09:09] So it’s a clear mission, clearly. Yeah. Um, so he’s able to patch the hole. He’s able to get his suit to stop leaking,
[00:09:21] not without losing his hand to the helmet. Yeah. Which I think is great. And he tells us to stop laughing and I didn’t.
[00:09:31] Disrespecting Martin. So the next thing I’ve got is rolling the airlock.
[00:09:38] No, we have to talk about how he actually did the EVA suit, EVA suit, pressure, math, OK, and just how dull that was. I appreciate listen, like we’ve said, appreciate all of the fine detail, the extras, because most entertainment wouldn’t include that. I think this may have crossed the line just a little bit because it got really it got dull and I was like. I’ve been working really hard not to skip. And this is this is one of those moments where I just kind of. Skim read it because it was it was a little too much,
[00:10:17] we like hearing that he did the math, we didn’t actually need to see the math that’s calculating it out
[00:10:24] for whatever reason. It has worked in the past, but I can’t quite figure out why it didn’t work here. I think maybe it was because the tension, it didn’t add to the tension, but the tension was there, too. It wasn’t really high, but there was this level of tension that wasn’t being challenged by this math. We knew it had to be like, yeah, to be done to a certain point. To a certain degree, he needed to know, but we didn’t actually need to know. And there have been times that he’s skipped the math and science. And I think this would have been a good time to do that.
[00:11:00] There’s also something to be said for the fact that it’s sort of secondary math. You know, a lot of the time in this book, you know, the problem is he needs water. And so here’s how I made water or hey, he he needs to, you know, set up the rover properly. And so here’s how I set up the rover properly. Whereas in this chapter, the problem is that the hab just blew up. And so spending a lot of time on the nitty gritty details of how he patched his suit is a little bit missing. The point of what’s happening right now, like it’s important. And to Marc, it’s obviously very important to to deal with these nitty gritty details. But to us, I found myself kind of wanting to. Go address the fact that the whole hab just blew up, you know, the nitty gritty of patching the suit kind of paled in comparison to what was happening in the background. So let’s get to that.
[00:11:52] Yeah, yeah, I do like that. The one thing I will say for the math is that it’s set up why he needed to roll the airlock. Yes. And I found that to be pretty interesting. I found it to be really smart. He’s not taking chances. He’s he’s doing the math. And he figured out what’s doable and what isn’t. So he has this plan and he knows it’s going to hurt his body. But he has to do this so that he can do the rest like he’s not and he’s not coming up with plan B, he’s OK. This is what I know. So this is what I’m going to do. That’s it.
[00:12:31] Well, and that sounds painful. Rolling the airlock, he talks about having to jump diagonally and sort of body slam up into the corner, which, by the way, one of the things that is always a shame when there live action movies and TV shows set on Mars is that I don’t think I have ever once seen any movie try to accurately render low G. You know, every once in a while on The Expanse, they’ll do something where somebody like pours a drink and it pours real slowly. But for the most part, it’s just actors and the actors are on earth. And so they just deal with it like it’s earth gravity. But, you know, if you were actually on Mars, it’s low gravity all the time, which means that like every step you take, you would fall a little bit slower and like every every thing you pick up would fall a little bit more slowly. And so when he jumps, he would be able to get way higher than would sort of seem. Right. And that would be fun to see in a movie. And they don’t do it, which is a shame. But yeah, the idea of sort of launching yourself up and forward to body slam a wall over and over and over just to keep rolling the airlock just sounds awful.
[00:13:40] I now need that. I feel like maybe it was an outtake and I feel like it’s important that we find the scene and then. The soundtrack to it would be every step you take.
[00:13:56] Yeah, I could see you just waiting for me to shut up so that you could listen.
[00:14:00] It’s now stuck in my head and it’s going to be here for a week.
[00:14:03] You’re welcome.
[00:14:05] So everybody can join me in this hell and I will be living in.
[00:14:10] So he does ultimately get back to the deflated hab.
[00:14:16] Not without skipping. OK. He says that it is it is more efficient to skip than run. And I felt like, man, there was more humor to explore there. And I really enjoy the mental image, which maybe Andy Weir is like, hey, I did all the math. You can do the heavy lifting of imagining him skipping after all of this work. And I suppose I’ll give that to him because he’s doing so much math. But I, I really enjoyed that. He included that little tidbit. It’s more efficient to skip. Yes. Good to know. So next time you guys are on Mars. Yep.
[00:15:00] It’s important to keep that in mind. Yeah. Good tip. That being said, he gets back to the lab and I was surprised by how hard it hit me that the potatoes are dead, the farm is dead. I mean, it’s like it’s sort of a given, you know, the high blew up. But there’s a line where he says potatoes are now extinct on Mars. And that was a moment that was, you know, he he worked so hard for those things and I think he only got like two harvests I and
[00:15:30] see for me. OK, as soon as everything went wrong and the air airlock was launched 50 meters, I my first thought was the potatoes. Listen, we’re only halfway through the book. Well, a little bit more, but pretty much only halfway through the book. We know Mark Watney survived. So my first thought was the potatoes. I have been grieving for the potatoes for all of this math and all of this physical labor. He’s doing so.
[00:16:03] And, you know, obviously, like I knew to, there’s no way that they could survive. You know, when you’re watching the movie, there is a shot of when this thing launches. There’s specifically a shot of all the potato plants and they all kind of go as the wind just blasts out the room.
[00:16:18] The other thing that I grieved, weirdly, was the loss of the bacteria. Yeah. So hard that bacteria so that he could even soil bacteria. Yeah. And like, dude, he lived with that smell in the rover. Yeah.
[00:16:34] Although one could argue he could make the bacteria again.
[00:16:36] Sure. But like what’s the point now. Right. So there was a. There was a part of me that also grieved the bacteria, and I don’t exactly have a good reason. That’s kind of weird,
[00:16:49] a little bit, but it’s understandable. That was a that was a real sort of. Yeah, exactly. And I just I really appreciate, you know, so on the one hand, this chapter is kind of storytelling 101 when things are going really well for your hero, especially when it’s a survival story, you have to just throw a rock at him, like you just have to do something to keep the keep the tension up, keep the the audience on their toes. But at the same time, I really appreciated in this story that it wasn’t totally random. Like it’s not like he literally got hit by a meteor or something like this is this is something that was always kind of lurking in the background. What if the hab breaches one of the breaches and you know what it did and it just really does a good job of keeping us from ever feeling too safe?
[00:17:41] You know, I kind of wish that we got the perspective of the fabric and like, how do I really. Yeah, listen,
[00:17:51] as the fabric wracked with guilt that it has let Marquart me down like.
[00:17:54] Yes, yeah. I don’t know why that sounds funny to you, but I as as a once pronounced Catholic. Yeah. I’m feeling the guilt for it. OK, ok, ok. See I am I was raised an only child and so I like to, to, you know, make everything around me come alive and I want to know all of its thoughts and feelings and I want to know about this fabric.
[00:18:20] And also the fabric feels terrible. It should.
[00:18:23] But more importantly, I want to know I’m maybe not. More importantly, I want to know the people who made it. What happened to. Is that a publicly traded company?
[00:18:35] Yeah.
[00:18:35] Because what happened to their stock. Yeah, right. It’s not going to save it. No. Um, just
[00:18:44] somewhere off screen there’s like a tech who worked on that had fabric that was like, oh this is my moment to work.
[00:18:53] So I definitely wanted to know ancillary thoughts and feelings around it because even the NASA guys don’t really comment on it. They’re like, yep, there’s always a possibility. There’s always a possibility. And, um, yeah.
[00:19:07] Thanks for leaving the little he writes OK with rocks. Morse code message for NASA just so they know he’s alive because that must have been a very scary thing to wait, you know, like how smart do it. And the image comes up on the big screen and it’s a blast.
[00:19:20] So I wanted to see I wanted to see the gal or what’s his name that I fell in love with. That’s like we’re waiting on a picture. Oh, shit. Like, I just, uh, I wanted to hear their perspective. We know what it is. It’s ours, too. But the gist
[00:19:37] of it, there was a period of time there where they didn’t know if he was alive and. Oh, damn.
[00:19:43] Um, so at the end of this chapter, at the end of Chapter fourteen, we know that he knows that he has to be rescued by souls. Six hundred instead of soul. Eight hundred and fifty six, which is a big deal.
[00:19:57] Yeah. That’s, you know, almost a year. Yeah.
[00:20:01] But then we start chapter fifty and with now he actually has to be rescued by so five hundred eighty four, not so six hundred. And I was like oh those 16 days are a big deal. Like that’s a lot of potatoes because what they said that’s like one hundred and sixty potatoes he couldn’t find because later we find out the math is he has to eat ten potatoes a day. Yeah. Maximum. To get to function, yeah,
[00:20:31] you know, one of the things that jumped out at me about the beginning of Chapter 15 is we suddenly switch to a dialog transcript. And, you know, it’s an interesting thing in this story that we kind of jump story types a lot. You know, it starts out as a first person narrative and then several chapters in it jumps to a third person narrative with the characters on Earth. And then all of a sudden we’re getting a flashback and then we’re getting a computer log from the Pathfinder and now we’re getting a dialog transcript. And it kind of it’s an interesting choice to keep switching it up. I feel like it kind of gives some of the gravitas that stories like Game of Thrones have where it jumps from character to character to character to give you the sense of the whole world. I feel like this is a much more narrow story in the sense that it’s really just everybody focuses on one person, but it still gives you some of that breadth to have all these different perspectives on the same situation.
[00:21:26] I mean, it keeps it interesting and in some ways I almost don’t notice it. Yeah, because for me, it’s just the story is moving along. And so I almost I it took me a minute to remember what you were talking about. Yeah. Um, because it kind of doesn’t matter. I, I need to know how they’re communicating. I need to know who’s communicating and so long as I know all of that. I can get to the next page. Yeah, so
[00:21:54] so we pick up on Earth and they are trying to figure out how does this affect the planet? Like what do they need to change? What do they what can they do? And one thing did jump out at me, which, you know, if I ever get to talk to Andy Weir, I’ll ask him. This seems like the kind of thing that he would have an answer for. But they’re all sitting around and they’re talking about how they can only send food. They can’t send any complex machines like the oxygen or the water reclaimer or anything like that. And my overwhelming thought was like, yeah, but guys, you could send parts, right? Like you can you can IKEA that ship and just send them a whole bunch of stuff that he can build a water reclaimer and oxygenate or at least repair the one he has, like he’s got nothing up there. At least send him some baggies of washers and screws and stuff just in case something gets stripped or a hose gets punctured. You know,
[00:22:46] I don’t know for me. I’m just sitting there thinking he needs he needs food. And yeah, all he had, like, why why swap out food for parts when they think that the more food. Yeah. Yeah. Um, which we’ll see what comes of that. They have forty eight days to make a probe
[00:23:05] which is nothing
[00:23:07] insane. Yeah. And OK, so I kind of love that Bruce is being a good leader here. He is communicating clearly. Here is the deadline, here are the problems we have and here are here’s what we have going for them. And so I just like I was like, this is a minor morale boost. Which is better than no morale boost, since these guys are going to have none in forty eight days. Yeah, but I
[00:23:38] yeah, it is a funny character. He doesn’t have a lot of personality, but I appreciate, you know, he’s sort of Bruce is probably sort of the most realistic character in this entire book because he’s the one who’s like, you know, he probably lost two inches of his hairline over the course of this book. Like, Bruce is kind of the long suffering guy who’s always getting bad news and is just like, you know, we’re already working around the clock. I don’t know how much faster we can work know he’s he’s the guy who actually works at NASA and isn’t a superhero in a novel. And I appreciate that. You know, I appreciate that this guy is he’s working the problem, I.
[00:24:13] OK, so then they name it Iris. Yep. Which she’s the goddess of Something In Rainbows. What was the first thing.
[00:24:20] Oh, if you haven’t asked me, I could
[00:24:22] have told you something about the wind, right? She makes things. Yeah, so whatever.
[00:24:26] And North Wind or something.
[00:24:27] Yeah. And, um. I love that Mark Watney says, you know, cool, the gay probe is coming to save me. Got it. Gay probe. I like that more jokes could have been made off of that phrase. Yeah, and some writers would have done it because it’s low hanging fruit. Yeah, but in more characters have like lots of characters have been written to go for that low hanging. Yeah, but I liked the exercise and restraint. I appreciated that the level of humor is a little bit higher than that. Not always, but he’s funny without being derogatory and that’s kind of what you backed out.
[00:25:14] So I saw an article talking about the humor of Brooklyn nine nine because the captain in Brooklyn, nine nine is gay. And they do make kind of a lot of gay jokes. But it’s a different kind of gay joke than you really see in a lot of television because it’s not making fun of him for being gay. It’s playing with humor about being gay. And it’s interesting. And I feel like this falls into that same category, like he could have made a joke about gay people and instead he just made a joke about rainbows.
[00:25:44] Right, exactly. It’s like this. There’s something to be said for. We can make fun of ourselves. We can you know, we can make these jokes can be brought to a higher level while still in some ways being based on stereotypes. Yeah, and that’s what it’s from. But the fact that some people know how to elevate that humor is just really fun to see, because I feel like we’re kind of entering into this era of, you know, like the good place. You know, there’s just a higher level of humor that doesn’t appeal to everybody. It doesn’t have to. But I just like that it’s out there. And this is another good example of it.
[00:26:21] Yeah, for sure. So so we do meet one of the last big character additions in this world. Apparently, he’s very happy to meet Rich Pournelle.
[00:26:33] It’s Donald Glover. It is Donald Glover. And it’s
[00:26:36] Donald playing. Playing Obied.
[00:26:38] Oh, Donald Glover’s so great. He can do no wrong. And I say Donald Glover. Twenty twenty four maybe. I just I Rich Pernell is my job and he’s played by Donald Glover, which means he’s even more my GM. He’s my jam times too and I’m just.
[00:26:59] Awesome, yeah, it’s interesting, I think Rich Pernell might be the most different between the book in the movie, and obviously we’ll get into this more when we get to the movie. But he’s he’s much more specific in the movie and the will. We’ll get into some of the inspirations there. But I was kind of surprised when I read the book that he he’s the one who doesn’t match up quite as well, but he’s a very fun character. And, yeah, he’s just, you know, great at what he does. Rich Pournelle calculates orbital trajectories, and that’s a cool job for I mean, if you love math, if you hate math, it would be a nightmare. But if you love math, like, that’s cool. Calculating orbital trajectories go on. So, yeah, he’s
[00:27:42] he’s a guy that I would absolutely be interested in talking to at a party. I know he wouldn’t be there because, as he says, he doesn’t have friends. Yeah. But I would want I would want to I would just
[00:27:54] latch on to him and like the whole party would go by and you just be like, tell me about you.
[00:27:58] You know, how like you introduce a dog to a party and everybody’s like, oh, the dog. That’s how I would be with rich poor. Now I’d be like.
[00:28:08] Just so excited to hang out, just
[00:28:10] tell they’d be like, you’re obnoxious and weird and please stop talking to me and asking me stupid questions. And I’d be like, but you have to tell me everything. I’m not going to understand even half of it, but I need to know. Yeah, I, I listen, it’s dog lover. Um. OK. OK, are you ready? OK. So. I have a little thought experiment.
[00:28:36] OK, take it away. This is.
[00:28:40] And he talks about the Watney report and how it’s like the number one show in its timeslot, in its timeslot for two weeks running, I need including you. I need everyone to just close their eyes. Do it, OK? Close your eyes and I want you to consider the most likely deadly situation you based on who you are as a person that you could ever be in. Like for me, I like to climb mountains. I like to climb things I shouldn’t. I most likely going to climb something someday on a mountain that I can’t get back down and it will be a life or death situation. So find yours kayaking, hiking, something to do with an airplane. I don’t care. Pick something where based on you, maybe it’s a zombie apocalypse. OK, now. You are there by yourself and you have only your wits and the supplies you brought with you, and for God knows what reason, no one can get to you right now. Maybe a drone can see you, but it has zero weight capacity. Now, imagine there’s a show. How about all of this, can you imagine the amount of armchair quarterbacking, the amount of picking apart every single thing you do and you know this. You know that? The people you love most, like put yourself in your mother’s shoes or your partner’s shoes or whatever, and they’re watching you every cent, like it’s not even every second because they don’t have access to that. They are only given what the news gives them. And they see what everybody else does and everybody else is treating it like reality TV, but there you are sitting on your mountain or whatever, and you’re trying to figure this out while also knowing that everybody is watching
[00:30:46] you do it. Yeah, that’s one part that got left out of this book. And thank God is all the people on the Internet who would be I mean, first of all, the people on the Internet who would be calling it a hoax, calling it a conspiracy. And then also all the people that are like, what a dumb ass. Why didn’t they, like, keep some of the potatoes in a plastic bag in case this happened?
[00:31:04] Right. But like. Yeah. And then can you imagine the other stuff that the kind of tangential stuff, you know, who people buying ad space during the Watney report, how much money they’re spending on it. This is kind of the moment she said Watney report. This is everything that hit me. I was fascinated and horrified. But as we know, it’s it’s important that it’s happening because as as is noted in the chapter, this is how they’re going to get their emergency funding is because everybody’s interested. So while it might be horrifying that his life is being put out there like this, it’s how they’re going. It’s part of how they’re going to save him. I don’t know. I there’s just something so fascinating about.
[00:31:55] Some yeah, some of the people in the some of our viewers have chimed in, Emon economist says she would be negotiating with a white dragon, which is pretty awesome. Jay Graps says, Get me into a pit with a ranko and see how fast I die. And all I can say is, if only,
[00:32:11] oh, my God, first of all, rude. And I feel like I’m an economist. You and I are on the same page about a lot of things. And I appreciate that you are here just. So, yeah,
[00:32:27] so we get this conversation about how to buy more time as they’re preparing the Iris probe because Bruce is running behind and we need to buy a few more days. And there’s one of the you know, every once in a while, Andy, anywhere does something that I just sit back and I was like, and I’m just going, how did you do that? And one of those things is, you know, normally in any other context, inspections are an annoyance. They are a bother. They are something frustrating that the bureaucrats require or at the very worst, that that that is a necessary evil or whatever. But he somehow wrote a story and maneuvered us into a situation where skipping the inspections is the scariest thing that anyone could possibly suggest. And it’s I’m just blown away in this scene. How when when Teddy asks basically what would happen if we skipped the inspection? How often do the inspections find a problem? Everybody goes silent. And even I was like, what
[00:33:33] would my first thought was, you know, someone should have warned me of this when I was younger because I skipped a lot of oil changes and then put six holes in my engine. And then you were there. My car gave out on the freeway one hundred miles outside of L.A. So, like, inspections are important. People are get your oil changed. I know you need it done. Um, but yes, I they they made it strangely scary. Yeah.
[00:34:01] Um, especially because they gave very honest numbers like they say, how often do we find something wrong. And it’s like one in twenty. And then how often would that cause a mission failure. It’s about half. So we’re talking about one in forty which is a pretty low chance. And yet it’s still so scary, huh.
[00:34:21] What they say it was like three percent chance.
[00:34:22] Yeah. It’s like yeah it’s just uh.
[00:34:25] So yeah that was. Yeah. See lovely math. Yeah. You’re cool man. That was, that was good.
[00:34:32] Exciting math. Yeah. Um, in the meantime Rich Pernell has an idea. Yeah. And he’s going to take the time necessary to find out about that idea in one of the funniest scenes maybe in this whole book, Rich Pernell asks if he can take a vacation and his boss is like, yeah. And so he just starts working on what he wants to work on. And his boss is like, are you going to give me that thing? And he’s like, I’m on vacation.
[00:34:59] I was cackling. Yeah. You guys, I love Donald Glover. That’s just not
[00:35:07] Donald Glover in the book. But yeah.
[00:35:10] I can he can be whoever I want him to be.
[00:35:13] True, true, we all have a little clever inside ourselves.
[00:35:18] That’s not true. I don’t believe that at all. Yeah.
[00:35:22] I am glad that somebody mentioned that this is the best bonus Mar’s experimentation time since opportunity. Like, that’s one of those things that I’m kind of amazed that we got this far into the book with B before someone said this is awesome. Like it’s scary as hell, but it’s also a huge opportunity.
[00:35:40] I like what Mark had to say in response. Yeah, opportunity never went back to Earth. Sorry. Bad analogy. Yeah, it’s like. Oh yeah. You didn’t think before you typed man. Yeah. That’s so um. I have. Oh. Oh right. Because they do so. All I have written here is no Desco.
[00:36:03] Yes. Yeah. They’re sending a USB drive with music
[00:36:06] from all time period.
[00:36:07] No disco disco. It’s a great little touch.
[00:36:10] I just that made me laugh pretty hard. Yeah. Uh the next thing I have is another quote. I don’t remember who’s asking him, but someone says, Do you believe in God, VANKA? Sure, lots of them. I’m Hindu and I don’t know why, but that also just got me giggling because it’s just so. I don’t to me, I heard it dry, yeah, it’s like Yemen, duh, and there is I don’t really know anything about. Hinduism. Yeah, like, I don’t really know anything about it at all. I do love that. I mean, that’s like about the thing I know. Yeah. You know,
[00:36:58] I really like that line for a very particular reason, which is that, you know, in the movie, Venkat Kapoor is changed to Vincent Kapoor because they cast the actor whose name I can never tell you for, I think. Yeah, but he’s black. He’s not Indian. But I really appreciate the fact that they kept a little bit of that in this line is in the movie says, do you believe in God? And his response is, yeah, my father was a Hindu and my mother was a Baptist. So I believe in a bunch of them, which is it’s just nice. You know, they kept they kept the fact that he’s part Indian. Yeah, he’s he is he does still have that Hindu back story. Would’ve been so easy for them to just make a black guy and just cut off that entirely. But I really appreciate the fact that they didn’t. It’s just that that kind of, you know, dedication to authenticity, dedication to accuracy, that it’s like the same way that Andy Weir is being accurate to science. They are being accurate to the book with the same level of focus. Right.
[00:38:05] So we get is is the lunch.
[00:38:08] Well, the next thing we yeah. We get the launch. And specifically, it’s always scary when Andy Weir goes into exposition mode. This is hearkening back to the hab canvas right before the explosion when Andy Weir started zooming in on certain objects and the ominous music starts playing and you’re like, why are we talking about how the Iris probe was packed in here? This is scary.
[00:38:34] And then they go through, you know, they’re they’re doing all of the checks and you don’t even know what they’re talking about. They’re not telling you what any of these words stand for. Yeah, but you know what’s happening. OK, we’re going through the launch sequence. Yeah. And it’s taking up like three pages. What’s what’s going to happen? And you have Venkat is watching. He’s like, I’m an administrator. My work is done now. So he’s leaning against the wall. And at one point talking about the iris, he says he’s thinking about the outright outright lies and borderline crimes he committed to put this mission together. And it would be worth it if it worked. And you’re just like, yeah, but I sense it’s not good.
[00:39:20] And there’s that ominous music playing in the background.
[00:39:24] Exactly. I will say they also talk about how every single employee is there and present for the launch. And that made me tear up. I like it. It is get. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There is just something about the amount of heart and soul that people are pouring into this project. And it’s not just because, hey, I’m good at my job or I’m getting over time. It’s people people are putting their whole lives on the line to help this man get back to Earth. And it’s just there’s something so beautiful about that. And I need that and this crushing time of day where people are not working together. So, yeah,
[00:40:09] I was fascinated by how the Iris probe fails. Like he walks you through step by step. It’s very interesting talking about how the food was packed, the food particles getting compressed to half their size, but the oil doesn’t. So it starts to slosh liquefaction. And, you know, there’s something that I’ve always sort of hasn’t exactly bothered me. But in in sci fi stories and fantasy stories and superhero stories, there’s a thing that I noticed years ago that I sort of can’t stop noticing ever since, which is that nobody ever deals. How do I put this? Characters are whole objects. Characters are not a collection of organs. And so whenever you see a for example, if there’s a supervillain who has the ability to move things with his mind, he will pick up the hero and throw him. But he will not pull his arms off of his body like he’d never just reaches in and squeezes the guy’s heart. He just deals with the person as a unit. And so he throws the person. And then the same thing, like with Tony Stark in his armor, if his armor gets punctured, he will get injured. But as long as his armor is intact, he can hit the ground, going one hundred miles an hour and he’ll be fine. There’s there’s this sense that like, you know, Darth Vader can reach out and choke you, but he’s never going to just crush your ribcage. There’s always an external force that he’s applying. And so when I was reading about this, this liquefaction, it was very interesting because that’s the whole thing that’s happening here. It’s not the. The IRS probe breaks, it’s that the internal particles are moving relative to each other, the internal structure of the food that is being packed gets changed, and that’s what throws it all off. And I thought it was a fascinating sort of microscopic effect, having a macroscopic effect. Very cool way of of blowing up this probe, frankly.
[00:42:14] Your brain did a whole different thing that
[00:42:19] I went off in a hole.
[00:42:20] Yeah, I mean, that’s fine. I’ve done that before. I do that plenty. But it’s just funny that that’s where you went. Yeah. Whereas I went more in the direction of I wonder if it’s just the audience that gets to know why this happened. Oh yeah. Or if NASA figures it out, like
[00:42:38] if they figure out exactly what went wrong.
[00:42:40] Yeah. Because you imagine that those scientists, they’re scientists, they’re their whole job is to figure out like how to fix things and end to to discover new things. And all of this stuff like don’t you have to be innately curious to be a scientist? And so I just wonder how much this just drives them crazy that they don’t know what went wrong. Yeah. And the likelihood is they probably never figure it out.
[00:43:09] It’s probably I mean, they probably have a they probably they probably end up with like here’s one of the three things that could have gone wrong. And one of them is that the food, you know, sure.
[00:43:20] I like I like the idea that they don’t quite figure it out. And like 20 years later, some physics students still at university is
[00:43:32] like writes his dissertation about
[00:43:34] like their theory on it. And everyone’s like, uh, I’m glad my dad’s dead. So he doesn’t know that this is what threw off the IRA. It’s like, yeah, that would be so infuriating that it’s the oil itself. Yeah, I, I don’t know.
[00:43:50] I mean, one screw that was weak that would have made it’s so heartbreaking. He specifically says if they had had more time for inspection, they would have found it. You know, it’s not often that God gets to weigh in on how this could have gone. Well, usually it’s just whatever happens, happens. But we are told it was it almost got caught.
[00:44:10] There are two things that if if these two things had changed, this would not have happened. It’s the bolt. And then also, if the if there had been during the sequence, if there had been two seconds or so, that the bar could have re solidified. But there was only a quarter of a second. Yeah. And you’re just like, it’s amazing how a second like one point seventy five seconds could do all of this and that a bolt fails and it’s like these are all reasonable things. Yeah.
[00:44:43] But they’re all totally and they’re totally like quantifiable. You know, it’s not one of those things where you just kind of throw up your hands like, oh, well, what can you do? It’s like, no, that could have we could have figured that out if we just had time. That’s so fixable. Oh, yeah. Heartbreaking. And it’s just that that’s the ending of the chapter as Iris just disappears. It’s just a gut punch. Yeah. So he does such a good job of making you feel the weight of that failure. And that leads us straight into Chapter sixteen, which has this very interesting framing system of Mark’s notes to the areas crew. Yeah. Keep cutting back and forth between things happening in the story. And then the next note to one of the areas, three crew. And it’s interesting, he’s got very different tones with each of the different characters. And I really appreciate that he didn’t just write one letter to all of them where he sort of singles them out. Now, these are different notes and they’re very different types of notes. And so he starts out with his note to Martinez, which is to talk to his parents that you’re my best friend, man.
[00:45:48] So I know that this is hard. I’m sorry that I’m asking you to do this, but but I need you to do it.
[00:45:55] Yeah, and that’s that’s so. Powerful, notably, it changes in the movie, notably, he asks Commander Lewis to talk to his parents. Yeah, I wonder why they do. They do a few things. They take a few things that other crew members have and they give them to Commander Lewis, I think, to to sort of bolster her character. Right. But, yeah, it’s very poignant. And then welcome to China, of all places I love. We are suddenly introduced. An entirely new character is totally unrelated.
[00:46:27] I love this part because it’s so pragmatic. Yes. And I love the idea that. OK, so. There’s this pragmatism, there’s this capability of like, OK, but if we if we go this route, which is the route we’re supposed to take, this is what’s going to happen and it’s not going to go our way, OK, or we’re not going to get what we want in the end. So we’re going to take this alternative route to get what we want. There’s just something underhanded about it that but in a very
[00:47:01] real
[00:47:01] way. It’s still within the rules set, for example. OK, I know we’re behind, but I, I too am watching Bridgton and there’s this, there’s this point in the second episode where, yes, I can totally relate it. Listen, there’s this point, the second half in weird
[00:47:17] ways
[00:47:18] episode where you know, the lead character, Daphne, is that our name, whatever she’s like, no one’s going to listen to us about this information because we’re not mad at her mom is like, we don’t have to be men. We will. We’re ladies and we can we’ll just talk because that’s all they have to do. Like they’re thero is not to be direct and be the man who says this is how things are going to work. No, no, no. They’re going to they’re going to do the route that was available to the women at the time, which is we’re going to gossip and ruin someone’s reputation so that we get what we want. Yeah, exactly. And that’s exactly what they’re doing here. They’re like, yeah, if we just talk straight to NASA.
[00:48:00] Yeah. Keep this between scientists.
[00:48:02] Yes. And it also is the guys at the top are going to eat it up if we save the Americans. Yeah. And it’s just so it’s so I thought it was brilliantly written.
[00:48:13] Very much so. And the other thing that I really thought was fascinating was it’s a very different kind of organization, you know, that we’re we’ve been living with NASA for so long and they’ve made these comments about how, like, you know, once they have the photos, they have twenty four hours to release them because they’re a public agency. This is not something that we can just keep secret because we’re not allowed to. And now all of a sudden, we cut to China where NASA doesn’t even know we have this rocket because it’s a state secret and we can’t share this and we can’t share that. And they don’t even know about this because it’s all state secrets. We don’t
[00:48:43] remember anything.
[00:48:44] Yeah. Here I am filling out a form where I have to provide enough information to be helpful, but also hide enough information because this is all state secrets. And it’s interesting to watch the sort of political machinations and the different way that this fundamentally similar organization has to operate.
[00:49:02] And he even says this isn’t actually a state secret, but we keep everything secret so that nobody knows when there is something that’s worth being hidden that would make it more obvious. Yeah, I just I appreciated the little insights that they give to the way another and another culture and government would handle this. So, yeah, it was it was really nice, very cool.
[00:49:25] And and a great statement about international support. Yeah. At the end of the day, it’s just awesome to see another country coming in and helping out with this effort to save one man.
[00:49:39] And that that. These scientists and this and this space. Um. Group also feels the same way. Yeah, you know,
[00:49:52] they’ve got the same spirit, they’ve got a very different structure and very different requirements, but it’s the same kind of person that’s working
[00:49:57] here. And I love that they say, you know, the American people are sentimental, but their government isn’t. Yeah. And it’s like, yeah, yeah.
[00:50:04] Just yeah. Before before you write this off, as the Chinese are the practical ones and the Americans are the idealists. No, no, no. The American Space Agency is ideal as the American State Department is not.
[00:50:15] Yeah, exactly. Which I really enjoyed. Yeah.
[00:50:19] Next up, we have marks note to Joe Hansen, which was hilarious. I love this one. Aspire to a level of cool known only as botanist cool and talking about how Lewis pulled him aside and made a rule that there’s no hitting on the hattrick
[00:50:34] to all of the guys. Yeah, well, and then. Well, the other thing that I love is he’s like, you’re really pretty. How did you get to be a nerd? And don’t get me wrong, you are a nerd. He’s like underlining that you’re very smart. And I don’t I’m having to do what you did and I don’t get it. Everybody has to walk me through like word for word. What needs to be done. Yeah. And dude, you’re a nerd and I am not a nerd botanist. Cool. Yeah, he’s cool school and he’s like, so when I see you again, let me give you a wedgie. Like, oh, remind me to give.
[00:51:12] Yeah. He’s not asking for permission. Yeah.
[00:51:14] Like I just said, there’s something so validating about him being like, yeah you’re pretty but dude you’re a nerd. Yeah.
[00:51:23] It’s so good. I can very much empathize with this, considering that when I started dating Lacey, she introduced me to her weekly Dungeons and Dragons group. And yeah, you’re pretty hot, but you’re a big nerd.
[00:51:35] So, you know, I just want to rage barbarians forever, my friends. Yeah.
[00:51:43] So we come back to Earth. They’re talking about the new probe. How do we get food? And there’s no landing system is one of the first things they drop which holy crap, this thing’s going to hit the ground going three hundred meters per second for the Americans out there, a meter is roughly a yard. So if you imagine three hundred meters, imagine three football fields every second. That thing is moving the same fast and they’re just going to slam it into the ground and be like, go eat it.
[00:52:12] Yeah, find the food in there. Yeah, hopefully it hasn’t disintegrated. I mean, they’re going to work to make sure it doesn’t, but. Right. OK, I just have to point this out. I’m not in love. I’ve never been in love with the use of the term ghetto. Yeah. It’s just I’m pretty anti that. Um, and I could have gone to the source and found a couple of other words that could have been used, but I didn’t. There’s a thesaurus out there. Could have been used. That’s all I’ve got to say about it.
[00:52:45] There is a you know, I feel like I say this multiple times every episode, but I really appreciate the limits that Andy Weir puts on genius, that even in a world of super geniuses, a world that is competence porn, this is a world in which, as Rich Pournelle says, you can’t make a Mars probe in a month like, no, there’s just not a thing like even the super genius Rich Bernell is like, no, that’s what this is about. This is not how this is going to work. And it just keeps it grounded, you know, it keeps it to where he’s not. Tony Stark, you’re not just going to, like, whip this thing out in a weekend. No, it takes longer than a month to make a Mars probe. And, you know, it’s one of those things that I feel like a lot of people, even in the real world, would be sitting there going, why? Like, you just pack it. It’s like a you know, it’s like a box. You just put a bunch of food in there and you launch it. It take an afternoon. But it’s not this stuff is hard. It’s complicated. It takes a lot of work. And that’s just not a thing. Even in this universe,
[00:53:48] if I had told him beforehand, I would have made Alex read the conversation between Venkat and and Rich. We would have yeah, we would have done a little voice acting. Yeah, I, I won’t do that today purely because I didn’t give him a heads up that that’s what I wanted to do. Yeah but you guys, if you can find it I recommend. Going and reading it again, we’re in Chapter 16, and it’s when Rick comes in to vent Katz office with his idea and it is just a French kiss. So delightful, so delightful. Again, I love him. I love him.
[00:54:37] Next up, we have Mark’s note to Vogul, which again is hilarious, accusing him of being a supervillain. You’ve got a base on Mars. You’ve got a German accent. Like it’s just so there’s.
[00:54:48] You bought me a beer for breakfast?
[00:54:50] Yeah. There’s a special place in my heart for humor that is based on being just flat out confrontational. And, you know, if there’s anybody who knows about that. It’s obviously Jacob. Because he’s terrible.
[00:55:07] That’s all. So Annie is not a nerd,
[00:55:13] I know what the heck I mean, like I liked you so much you haven’t even seen Lord of the Rings.
[00:55:17] Come. Listen, I love her despite this. I love that she’s the only person in the room that is like, what is this Elrond thing? Like, what the heck? And I say,
[00:55:27] why does Elrond mean secret meeting? Yeah.
[00:55:30] And I was dying because obviously I know what this is. And I, I love Lord of the Rings. And Annie is not a nerd. Yeah, I am. And I love her like there’s
[00:55:42] something written in my notes. Annie hasn’t seen Lord of the Rings because she’s lame.
[00:55:47] Yeah, I mean, OK, but rude, like, true, but rude, you know, talk about confrontational,
[00:55:55] she can take it. She’s tough as nails. She is,
[00:55:58] uh, but I she does move back to the top of my list of favorites immediately after this. Teddy decides, yes, so the whole thing is they they brought in select people to decide, OK, are we going to do this Rich Pernell maneuver and get the HermΓ¨s crew involved or are we going to do this, um, backup iris mission? OK, and. Teddy decides he’s going to be a chickenshit coward, Bozek, and
[00:56:39] and it’s just not having any of it. And Mitch calls him out as a coward and
[00:56:43] storms storms out and it’s beautiful. And then but I was hoping.
[00:56:47] But it’s yeah, it’s kind of expected because Mitch has been pushing for this the whole time. And so you sort of allow yourself to fall into this belief that really it’s just Mitch that’s pushing for this. And then Annie pulls one out of left
[00:56:58] field and it’s beautiful. Yeah, I just. I love how forceful she is, I love how like. You can just you can just kind of feel the rage pull thing off of her, you know, you felt it like it was just wafting off of Mitch. But Annie, she’s she’s also a little barbarian. Yes. And I love her. Awesome.
[00:57:21] So I also have I don’t know why, but it always tickles me when women tell men if you had any balls, you would do this. It’s just it always lands for me. It’s just it’s I that line isn’t in the movie. But I can just picture Kristen Wiig telling Jeff Daniels if you had any balls, you just like. Yes.
[00:57:45] That that works. Exactly. And, um, so anyway, she tops my list again, just because she’s red.
[00:57:51] You know, one of the things that I again, if I ever meet Andy Weir, I would love to sort of talk to him about is I wonder how revolutionary an idea it is to have the HermΓ¨s go back like it’s presented as like this incredible course that Rich Pournelle has calculated and all this stuff. But, you know, we’ve all seen Apollo 13. We all know about slingshot ing around and coming back faster, like I wonder. So some of the backstory for The Martian Andy Weir worked, I think, at NASA or at JPL for years. He’s he’s done all the math. He actually programed a simulator, a physics simulator and calculated the course of the Hermes. The you can actually look up videos of the HermΓ¨s flight flight plan and how long it took to get to Mars, how long it took to get back. You can actually see its course through the solar system. And so I I wonder how hard it was to find a course that got them back to Mars, because on the one hand, it seems really, you know, complicated. But on the other hand, it’s like. Can you get there, cool, do it, you know, so it’s I’d be curious to know,
[00:59:00] yeah, there’s this moment in there that I just wanted to shout at Mark to lay off the disco hate. And it’s the happiest. It’s literally the happiest music on Earth. And I am new to love of disco. And that’s purely because learning about the history of disco. So someone just needs to teach Mark a little bit. You know, go, I’ve said it before, and I will say it again. Go listen to the you’re wrong about episode about this disco, because it’s just he’s just. He’s just as wrong about as the whitest person. He’s just too white to understand this, obviously.
[00:59:42] By the way, we’re we’re in Mark’s note to Commander Lewis right now, but we did skip over the very sweet note to back, which I don’t know how a romantic subplot got injected into the Martian. This is such a out of left field thing, but I really appreciate that Beck is in love with Johannsson. And Mark’s like, you got to tell her man. Like, that’s
[01:00:03] got to wait, but you have to tell her.
[01:00:05] Yeah, that’s how did we get romance into this.
[01:00:09] Incredible. I love that. OK, so here now we’re at the vocal. Got the email from Mitch
[01:00:16] that which, by the way, is there anything that Andy Weir doesn’t know? This whole discovery hinges on the nuances of German grammar, like who is Andy Weir and and who built him?
[01:00:28] Um, so I guess this part of the book becomes so stressful, but it’s like a fun stressful for. Yeah. Uh, and I was I was actually at the office reading this and I was so bummed because I was wishing that I was at home curled up with my with my London fog tea and my chocolate and just like trying not to hurry through this portion of the chapter because this chapter is so beautiful that matches like, screw all of you. I’m going to I’m going to tell Commander Lewis this way, that there is an option. Well, and gets to choose.
[01:01:06] And that speech, the the we die speech. If this happens, we die. If this happens, we die. If this happens, we die like it’s very good at setting the stakes for the rest of the story.
[01:01:17] And she brings up the fact that there’s mutiny. You were so used to mutiny stories actually being about men and he or she is a a military woman who is talking about are we going to do this or not? And there’s something that I found really like I don’t know if any of the other ladies found it this way, but I, I really appreciated it because, um, you know, rebellion is not one sided. It’s not it’s not one gender. It’s right. You know, and I felt like it was very true to her character. It was very well written. She talks about the consequences. And then she lets everybody leave and as they’re filing out, we’re seeing, she tells us essentially that they’re back to them, they’re on their old selves, they’re being their authentic selves. And they’re it’s like authentic mutiny is on the table. And I’m so excited.
[01:02:17] Well, and it’s it also injects some of the gravitas back into mutiny. You know, oftentimes in movies, mutiny is just the thing that you do when things get tough. But like, no, this is bad. Mutiny is intense and you need to take some time to think about it. Yeah.
[01:02:31] You have twenty four hours.
[01:02:32] I love I love how individualized their responses are to Martinez. Sort of plays it off as a joke. Hellyeah I’m in. Whereas Johannsson it’s all about trusting Commander Lewis and Voegele is very practical about it. I’ve already had enough space like. Yeah, very individualized responses. There is a quote. I’m down to my last three notes here, but I did want to make a note of Eagly. The listeners may notice a line. Rich Pournelle is a steely eyed Misael man is the code that the Aries team sends back to Earth to indicate that they’re following the Rituparno maneuver. That phrase gets used in Apollo 13. You are a steely eyed missile man. And I just assumed that was an Apollo 13 reference. But it turns out I looked it up. It’s actually a thing that people say at NASA. It’s a it’s a NASA compliment and nobody’s entirely sure where it is from. But the common belief is that it goes back to flight controller John Aaron due to his resolution of an electrical system failure during the launch of Apollo twelve in nineteen sixty nine that somebody called in a steely eyed missile man. And ever since then, it’s been a phrase that gets used at NASA.
[01:03:42] That’s awesome. I love that nice little tidbit of history. Right.
[01:03:46] Of course, you know, scientific accuracy. Let’s get some historical accuracy in here. Do I love how smug Mitch is when when Teddy calls him in and is like, you know, you leaked the thing and Mitch is like, I don’t know, somebody did in there, like, so not trying to hide it.
[01:04:04] Yeah, it is like you’re not Annie is just going to tell tell the public that you decided that. Yeah. This is what NASA’s going to do. Right. Oh, well, then you can’t charge any of them with mutiny and
[01:04:15] just absolute salute checker.
[01:04:17] We’re all off the hook. So and then Teddy’s like, I will find out if I figured out how to point this at you, I will fire you. Yes. And Mitch is like Mitch ever.
[01:04:30] Mitch has one of the greatest mic drop lines of all time, which is if I wasn’t willing to risk to take risks to save lives. Well, I guess I’d be you. Oh, man,
[01:04:47] like eat shit, man. Yeah, so good.
[01:04:50] It’s actually, you know, it’s interesting because in the movie, Mitch is played by Sean Bean and it’s interesting. It’s the meekest that I’ve ever seen Sean Bean play a character. He’s he’s always kind of like sullen and kind of in drawn. And it’s not the character that Sean B. normally plays. And it’s actually Mitch in the book is a little bit tougher than Mitch in the movie, and I appreciate that. But, man, that that walk away line is just perfection.
[01:05:18] I don’t know if we’re all seeing the same thing, but I, I need everybody to read, reread emon economists’ uh, little hurt her chiming in that Lewis’s mode is her dead character’s mode. And now I need to know the whole story.
[01:05:36] Yeah. We’re going to need backstory on your dad. Yeah.
[01:05:38] So if you could just like write it out maybe as like a little essay or something. I want
[01:05:45] you to know we mirror all these episodes to YouTube, so why don’t you write it up and post it as a YouTube comment so that people can come back later and read it
[01:05:53] so I can read it. Yeah.
[01:05:55] This is mostly just for this. This is from I want I’m
[01:05:58] and I don’t care about anybody.
[01:06:00] I care about humans other than myself.
[01:06:02] I don’t. So no, I wish that were true. That’s how it here first folks, I shut up. I want it, I want to read it. I will voice over it when I’m not congested. Um. All right. So that is this week. Yeah. No that’s it for you. Oh. What do you got. I just want to say last thing is. Again, we’re in Chapter 16, even if you’re not following along in the book, and so anybody following along the book just curious. I want to know I want you to go and read the last page, page and a half of this chapter, because I think it’s holy and marvelous and I just feel like you will do your best if you’ve been following along with us. And even if it’s not with the book, you’ll still know exactly where we are and it’s worth it. So absolutely right it guys.
[01:07:02] Yeah. So that’s it for us this week. Be sure to chime in and follow us on Twitter so that you can see these being broadcast live. Be sure to subscribe and hit the bell on YouTube. We also have a patreon page patreon.com-edgeworksenetertainment so that you can join in and get some excellent benefits and special content. We are all over the place on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and Reddit. So sign in and let us know what you think and follow along the.
[01:07:35] OK, we’ll see you guys next week.
[01:07:38] Talk to you later.