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THOMAS MIDDLEDITCH returns to make a big movie with The Boys.

This epi is a sweet treat.

Also, did anybody else get the feeling there was never any bus station to be dropped off at the start of the movie. I'm not from Texas and the Southwest but that didn't really look like a bus terminal and didn't really look to be open at all for anything.

Again this combined with some things said earlier about Richard's lack of character development is why the ending never fully landed for me. Like you said it wants to be this two hander but seemingly Richard gets the majority of focus and the fact that there are this moments where he could have growth or change he doesn't. Nat is the audience surrogate so I guess maybe it wants us by spending time with Richard to change like Nat does. Like you said we see very little of Nat separate from Richard. The two scenes are at Casey Wilson's house and when he's with Taissa Farmiga. The first does nothing to further his character and this second should but again because we know so little I'm not sure if it does. She's a fellow art student so she should have had some change on Nat. Either he realizes something about the path he's on and sees need to change or she cements his resolve in what he is doing. I don't feel either of those things come out of it. He remains a bit of blank character and a mystery. In a a few ways this movie reminds me a bit of Robert Altman's California Split. If you haven't seen the movie it's about a writer who is a small time gambler who meets this larger than life heavy duty gambler. They become friends and the writer starts falling into the world of gambling more and more and they go on a trip to Reno for a big score. However at the end of the movie they heavy duty gambler stays the same while the writer goes through and arc and learns about himself. In a way that's what this movie was going for the Richard character. It's okay if he doesn't change because he's suppose to be the catalyst for change for the other character. The difference being the main focus of California Split is the writer character. There is no doubt that this is his journey and story. While most of the movie is them together it is the writer who gets scenes alone and a family and backstory. So at the end when Elliot Gould is still Elliot Gould that's fine because there was never any exception or hint of him being more. Again I don't think this is a bad movie, but I just wish a bit more care was done to balance out the characters or story to match the ending they wanted.

Welcome! Thanks for the info. I had never heard that before. But I remember being told in Catholic school that taking your own life was the greatest sin because you were rejecting God's gift of life. And I was like, well cancer attacks your own body too but nobody blames you for cancer or says "she cancered herself to death." Anyway, I'm not super religious anymore but I remember our teacher taking the class aside and saying, "But God is also omnipotent and would know what kind of pain you were in and take that into account." I liked that version better.

I kind of saw its consequences when he proposed in the diner. He was so emotionally bare that he was searching for any connection, so when we meet the two women in the bar and he and Nat have their own nights with them, he's desperate to connect in any way. But yes, it is inconsistent for the character since everything else we see from him, he's extremely mercurial and reactive, yet he's also supposed to be harboring this love for this girl he met in high school? Maybe it would have been better if Casey Wilson tried to use him as a way to escape her suburban life by connecting with this wild free spirit from her youth. Just spitballing. Speaking of missed opportunities, I could have used several scenes of Pamela Reed as Dotty actually yelling at bears, maybe even saving Richard in the process.

I found this episode especially funny because I am a big fan of Sean and Hayes

281 gigawatts!!!

what if he does score with conan and they end up in a relationship together? ugh, we'd never hear the end of it.

I don't remember that but I was happy that Nat double-checked Richard's statement that there was no bus station in the one town. I thought sure it was going to be Richard BS'ing to keep Nat around but it was true.

Did everyone else keep expecting the dudes in the bar fight to come back? Even as far along as when Dottie’s truck pulls over to pick them up, I fully expected it to be them. I mean, maybe that’s on me. Maybe I’ve seen too many road trip movies, but it felt weird to me that they never came back. Again, it’s one of those moments where you expect some kind of consequence or payoff but nothing happens. And maybe that’s the point? Maybe the filmmakers were trying to subvert our expectations by saying, “In real life, there aren’t always repercussions.” And that’s fine. But I also think it’s difficult to take those kinds of narrative risks and still have a story that feels “complete.”

As the minisode said, libraries. There is the drawback of the librarian silently judging you but it's slightly better than paying to rent them.

Yep. Dells

I'm not gonna defend all the dramatics, because I also felt it wasn't a great film in that regard. Maybe pushing it to the end would have helped give Richard's story some form. But I think as it is, it had to do with Nat taking him to her house and even forcing the confrontation - remember, Richard chickened out there and wanted to leave. They were helping each other move forward. Did Richard actually move forward? Probably not, in the end. Even though Richard blurting out "I love you" and angrily insulting her family wasn't the right move, Nat did get him literally to the point where he could bury these imaginary feelings that were his big hang-up. And it does make an impact as it leads directly to him proposing to the other girl, who clearly is just a replacement obsession. (Yes, there's no real growth to Richard's arc, but it is the progression of his story. I think they're related occurrences.)

http://www.soundcloud.com/foomanfat/lets_hear_you