In this episode I speak about season 6 of Black Mirror on Netflix, the final season of Jack Ryan on Amazon, the movie American Fiction and another addition to our GOATs doing GOAT $hit segment!

 

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Jack Ryan series finale: https://www.amazon.com/Jack-Ryan-Season-4/dp/B0BYT9NB1G

 

Tom Clancy writers: https://rare.us/rare-life/tom-clancy-books/

https://tomclancy.com/author/grant-blackwood

https://tomclancy.com/categories/jack-ryan-novels

https://tomclancy.com/categories/jack-ryan-jr-novels

 

American Fiction: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt23561236/?ref_=ttfc_fc_tt

 

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[00:00:00] What's up, folks? What's going on? Welcome to the Spun Today podcast, the only podcast that is anchored in writing, but unlimited in scope. I'm your host, Tony Ortiz, and I appreciate you listening. This is episode 254 of the podcast. And in this episode, I speak about. Season six of Black Mirror on Netflix, the final season of Jack Ryan on Amazon, the movie American Fiction, and another addition to our goats doing goat shit segment.

Stick around for all that good stuff. But before we get into the episode, I wanted to tell you guys about a quick way you can help support this show if you so choose. Then we'll jump right into the episode.

Black Mirror season six

was released in 2023. For those of you who don't know, don't follow the show. It is

an amazing watch. One of my favorite shows for sure.

And it has six seasons available [00:01:00] on Netflix.

And if you haven't seen any episode, don't worry. It's not like one of those types of shows where you have to follow specific characters or like watch it from, you know, episode one through to the latest episode.

Each season, each season is like a, it's an anthology. So it's like these individual stories, individual short stories, if you will. And each one is kind of like its own movie. Think of it that way. So you can literally go in, check out the descriptions, see which ones you might, might be interested in and like, and it just started that way.

That's what I did initially years ago. When I, when I first got put onto the show. And since have watched every single episode. I think every single episode, actually. I was Well, reading up and refreshing my memory on a few of these episodes, I went back and noticed like one or two episodes that I either don't remember or [00:02:00] maybe never even saw.

But yeah, and it's not a lot of episodes per season. Some seasons only have three episodes, for example. Some have six, some have five, some have four. This latest season, season six, has five episodes. All of which are really cool. I would say two to three are awesome. Two are awesome. One is really good.

And a couple of them I could were my favorites. But they were worth the watch either way. Because it really is a good show. Very well done.

And here's the official synopsis of the show.

Black Mirror is featuring stand alone dramas, sharp, suspenseful, satirical tales that explore techno paranoia. Black Mirror is a contemporary reworking of The Twilight Zone, with stories that tap into the collective unease about the modern world.

In the synopsis for this specific season is twisted tales that span eras and terrors. Deliver a [00:03:00] myriad of surprises in this game changing anthology series. Most unpredictable season yet.

And as we like to do here on the Spun Study Podcast, wanted to shout out the folks that make it all possible. The writers.

Black Mirror was created and is mainly written by Charlie Brooker. And there was one episode here in season six that was written by Bisha K. Ali, shout out to the writers of this amazing series and awesome season.[00:04:00]

So the very first episode of the season is called Joan is awful.

And the summary is that an average woman discovers a global streaming service has adapted her daily life and her secrets into a drama starring A list actress Salma Hayek.

The name of the streaming service is Streamberry. It's similar to think of like Netflix for example. And this lady is essentially, you know, going through her life. Goes to work.

Has certain conversations at work.

She has a husband or, or at least a fiancé or live in boyfriend or something like that. That they depict their relationship kind of as like very routine, very going through the motions.

And she

Gets a text from like an [00:05:00] ex boyfriend or an old flame and says that he's in town and just wants to meet to say hi for a drink or something like that and she hesitantly goes Winds up going.

I think they wind up kissing or something like that. And then they she leaves and goes home then they are about to

Have dinner her and her boyfriend and They put on the TV and they say, Oh, Oh, look, there's a new show called Joan is awful the hell. And her name is Joan and they start playing it and watching it. And it's going through pretty much everything that happened to her that day. So it shows her like in the show, it shows some high, which plays her character

going through the motions with a boyfriend, goes to work, shows a very similar conversation that she has. Her assistant is very similar and quirky and shows like what she said behind the back of someone that she fired and almost [00:06:00] identical to like what happened to her

in real life. So she's watching it like, wait, what? What the fuck? Is this a joke? Like, what are you doing? What is going on? And then the boyfriend, he's just like, well, what are you talking about? You know, just like a show. But then he even starts catching on like, wait, this is very similar to, this seems like us.

And then he sees in the show that she gets a text from an old boyfriend and then she's like, wait, that didn't happen. That's not true. And then, you know, she wants to stop watching for obvious reasons. He wants to keep watching for obvious reasons and so on and so forth.

In long story short, the

world of this main character like falls apart.

And in almost real time, it's showing this on the show, like in the next episode of Jonah's Awful, and just highlighting how she's like a bad person and she's like flipping out and going to, she goes to a lawyer, she tries to sue Streamberry, [00:07:00] she loses her job, and all of this is being depicted on the show as well, right?

Like, like a beat behind what's actually happening in real life, and she's like, how the fuck is this happening? And then the lawyer

winds up letting her know that in signing the terms and conditions, you know, like the, those like pages and pages worth of terms and conditions that we all just like click the checkbox on and click accept, which I believe South Park did an episode of like years ago, but

the lawyer explains how in the terms and conditions, one of the things you signed off on was giving your likeness, right? Signing over your likeness to StreamBerry and it's completely legal and they could do what they're doing. And from a company perspective in StreamBerry, they're using some sort of like AI and like high level tech to enrich their algorithm such that it gives the user, like the [00:08:00] watcher, the most targeted experience possible, which I can totally see a corporation doing.

Like something like that through like algorithmic optimization and just like focusing on the bottom line, you know what I mean? Like an evil corporation

that just wants to increase profit quarter after quarter after quarter and losing sight of the damage that it's doing otherwise.

And then there's another layer to the episode where it gets into this

like quantum computing

baseline reality versus fictive reality. Type of thing as like the, the Joan is awful, the main character that we see that we think is the real Joan. She starts investigating the company and, and you know, taking matters into her own hands, tries to break into the company and figure out where they have this

super computer that's facilitating all this. And

she finds out that there's layers and layers and layers to this Joan is awful character.

Where she's seeing Salma Hayek, this famous actress, playing her life. [00:09:00] There's, she is the. Actress that somebody else in a different layer or a different level of reality is watching her in a similar way on her streaming service, watching the Joan that we think is the real Joan, they're watching her on TV and so on and so forth.

So she's like, wait, she's like contemplating mine, like, not even real. Am I like CGI? Am I like AI or something like that? And then it gets into the question of what's real. What's what are people quote unquote.

What if we do create like AI or like sentient AI?

Do they really have feelings and thoughts and are they real? Should they have rights, et cetera? It's really, really interesting. It's like a mind bending, when you think you know what the episode is about, it winds up opening up like all these other layers

and inevitable questions. And that was definitely either my favorite or tied for favorite [00:10:00] episode of this season, Joan is awful.

The second episode of Lock Henry

is the one that I would say is like my tied to tied as my favorite episode of the season.

And the summary for it is that while filming a nature documentary in a sleepy Scottish town, a young couple catches wind of a juicy local story with ties to shocking past events.

Now in this episode, what stood out to me was first of all, like the way it was shot. It's very scenic. It's very beautiful looking

the acting is great Everyone in it from like the main character his girlfriend his mother his best friend like stole a show. He was like the comedic relief and

It follows this couple that goes Back home to, to the guy, the guy's hometown and the mother's meeting his, his girlfriend for the first time. And this town is really beautiful, but it's like [00:11:00] dead, like almost nobody's around. It's kind of eerie and creepy in that sense, but it's so beautiful and the girlfriend's even even notices that and she's like, what's going on here?

Like, you would think that, you know, especially with this weather and this time of year that. This would be like a pop in place, you know what I mean?

like a vacation spot for folks and She even asked this to The guy's friend Which is running a family Restaurant slash pub

and the friend tells him wait, you didn't tell her about Ian

Adar

And remember, they're, they're like these film school kids that are, like, home from college to do this like, nature documentary. And that's what they're into. Or to do a documentary period, and they chose to do it about nature, a nature documentary. And, the kid is like no, no, no I didn't wanna, like, speak about that or whatever.

And she's like, wait, who's Ian Adar? And [00:12:00] The friend or he and the friend but mainly he, the main character, he starts telling his girlfriend the story of Ian Adar. And this is probably like the scene that, that made the episode for me was his telling of the story of Ian Adar was like perfect spot on storytelling.

Like it was just enough. Detail for like listeners and like watchers of the show to like add their own color and the visuals that they showed during his telling of Who Ian the Dar was definitely helped as well

But it's absolutely like what roped me into to the episode

But essentially this Ian the Dar character was a local guy who's kind of like a loner creepy guy that used to like go into the the pub and drink and and get drunk and

Lived in a house down the road with a farm and [00:13:00] the, the main characters father in present time had passed away, but he used to be a police officer and

they tell this very suspenseful story of how there was like a one day he got really drunk to see in the dark character after

a couple that was on vacation because it used to be a really popular spot, this place. Which ties to the, the girl's expectation of, you know, why isn't this like a more popular place? It used to be. And then this couple went missing. And they couldn't find them. And then one day Enidar is in the pub

and got really drunk. And then winds up going home and there's a disturbance in his house. And

somebody calls the cops. The father of this kid goes and winds up getting shot by Enidar. As the telling of the story not killed, but then we find out that later on from his like wounds and like stuff like that, he got sick [00:14:00] and it was never the same and then wound up dying. So the mother and, and like the family blame Inidar for the father's death, but ultimately they found like this hidden dungeon in the house and like the remains of these people that were missing.

And this Inadar character was some sort of like serial killer guy. And since then, the town became like a ghost town. Hence the state that it's currently in.

Now the girl, she's like, We're not doing a fucking nature documentary anymore. We have to do a documentary about this. This is the story. We have to tell the story. And you know, they're film buffs and he's reluctant to do it. Doesn't want to open up like old wounds of you know, the family and the father dying and The story and stuff like that.

The friend wants to, wants them to tell the story as well to see if it brings like more popularity back to the town and more tourists and stuff like that.

And the girl's [00:15:00] really pushing for it. And even the mother says that she, it's important to tell the story. So then the kid gets on board and they start, you know, investigating and going into the house that was boarded up and going into that dungeon and taking videos and pictures and all this stuff.

And the mother's this very like proper, you know, buttoned up

lady. And the, like the kids are walking on eggshells around her. Don't want to make so much noise. And you know, she's nice, but very like buttoned up and proper.

And long story shorter as they're investigating and the girlfriend is in the house by herself for some reason, like the, The guy went to visit with his friend or something like that. I forgot where he went, but she's just like rewatching some of the footage that they shot that day. And they were recording on top of an old VHS tape of some sitcom show that the mom used to watch and the father.

And she finishes watching the footage and, but [00:16:00] the leaves the tape playing while she's like writing something down or something like that. And then the, this other footage comes up. All of that same dungeon area in the house, but it's like old footage.

And she pretty much sees the couple that went missing and the mother of the guy and the father, and they're into this like eyes wide shut style, sex torture thing. And the girlfriend is watching this like, what the fuck? And then realizes that the mother and the father, the cop were the ones that killed that missing couple.

And they were, you know, they did it again in this like Eyes Wide Shut style, like sex play, torture, craziness. And she like stops it and then right there there's like a knock at the door or the mother opens the door and she's like, Oh, dinner's ready. And she, and she, you know, she's trying not to freak out.

And she's like, Okay, I'll be right there. And then winds [00:17:00] up going upstairs and saying that she's going to get some air or something like that. And it's night time,

but ultimately she goes, she winds up getting out the house. The mother realizes, you know, goes back to the room, realizes what she saw, and then tries to find the girl. She drives and catches up to her. Then the girl, like, runs into into, like, a wooded area, like, down by a river and tries to hide. Winds up, like, slipping and banging her head, and pretty much she drowns in the river and dies. Then the mother

just had another added twist to everything. The mother winds up going back to the, to the apartment, taking out all the VHS tapes and footage and stuff and set and write a letter to her son, which still isn't home by the way,

and explaining to him everything and what she was involved in. And what his father was involved in and that with the footage that's on that tape, he'll make [00:18:00] like an amazing documentary and then she winds up hanging herself, which is sick and unexpected. And then the story goes on to, to show the kid, you know, being the film buff that he is, but also reluctant to like the whole thing.

He winds up putting out this documentary, the town blows up with like tourism and stuff like that. It like fast forwards, like a year or two later and he winds up winning like all these like awards and, you know, like Emmys, Grammys, whatever it is that you went for this,

but it's like that type of event and he's like pretty much miserable. Like, he has obviously what he wanted with this, like documentary filmmaking fame, he brought back life to his hometown, but obviously lost his girlfriend and his mother and is completely mind fucked with what happened. So. Dope, dope episode.

Lock Henry.

Now the next three, I'll go a little quicker. We have beyond the sea, which was a really good episode.

It starts my [00:19:00] guy Jesse from breaking bad.

And he and he plays this astronaut, he and

another character and it says in an alternative in 1969, two astronauts on a perilous high tech space mission. Grapple with the fallout of an unfathomable tragedy back on earth. And essentially they're these astronauts that are in like in deep space. But they have these only two were made state of the art, like physical bodies back on earth.

And they're able through some sort of technology laid down in a pod for

like in their like spaceship or wherever they are in space. And It puts them to sleep, but like beams their consciousness into this body that's back on earth and they could do it for, I don't know, five hours, eight hours a day or something like that, or every so often, you know, and while one does it, the [00:20:00] other one has to, you know, be in the spaceship, you know, man, the spaceship and, and everything and the other, you know, does that to spend time with their family, both of them are like married, they have a kid or two.

So And

They take turns doing this every day and then the rest of the day, you know, they're working out in space and doing the research and work that it is that they do.

Then one day, one of them goes back and I forget exactly how it happened, but it was, Oh, I do remember how it happened. The somebody breaks into their house and, it's like this think of

like the Sharon Tate style murders.

But it's like a religious cult thing that this is like you know ungodly You know, you're like an abomination here on earth. You're not really human

It's like that type of mentality that drove these folks to like break into the house. They wound up tying tying up the guy [00:21:00] and

He you know his body it that's not his real body But he's you know, he he's beamed in and then they top his wife his kid

And they wind up killing his wife and, and child in front of him while he's watching, and he can't do anything about it. And then they, you know, they can't kill him because it's not really his body, but they fuck up the, that machine, robot, AI, whatever, body so he can't ever, like, beam down again.

Then he beams back, obviously he's in, in real life, you know, he's in outer space. Not in real life, but, you know.

And he's completely distraught. It's a, you know,

story blows up. It's pretty much going crazy. And then his other astronaut buddy friend is, finds out about it. And then he, you know, they, they speak back to like space command or whatever it's called.

And they try to give the, the friend you know, pointers and things to speak to him about. And,

you know, they try to [00:22:00] like keep tabs on him. To see what's going on, you know, don't fuck up like the mission

and then, you know, he has to deal with him coming back to his family and his life, but knowing that he left this unstable person up there that just lost his entire family

and they think of like he and his wife think of, you know, like once he's like a little bit more settled, you know, They offer him to use his body. So Jesse's character offers him to use his body to go down, you know, to beam down. Just so he could feel the air again and be around people. And he winds up doing this.

They wind up doing it every so often. It's apparently, it's helping him.

But then he and the wife kind of hit it off a little bit. And he's into painting and they get a little flirty.[00:23:00] The wife you know, pushes back on the whole thing eventually.

But then Jesse's character finds out about it, gets upset, tells him that he's not going to let them, you know, beam down anymore. You know, they're not supposed to be doing that anyway. Cause it like breaks protocol.

And then the guy convinces him to do it. One more time. Just so he could apologize to the wife and he reluctantly agrees. Then he comes back and then the next time Jesse beams down, he beams down and he sees blood everywhere. He's like, what the fuck? And then he realizes the guy beamed down that last time and wound up killing his wife and kid.

And he has no other option but to like beam back up. You know, he beams back up and the story ends with them. Him just like flipping out, but then him telling him to like, take a seat. He's like completely calm and fucking psycho, but tells him, you know, take a seat. Now, now we're even basically, I lost my family.

You lost yours. You can't tell anybody about it. Cause you know, there's [00:24:00] nothing anybody can do. We weren't even supposed to be beaming in each other's bodies or whatever the hell. That was a really good episode. Now, the last two that I'll mention Maisie day. The main character is played by Zazie Beetz from Atlanta.

Great actress. It wasn't my favorite episode. It's a troubled Hollywood starlet who goes to great lengths to escape packs of invasive paparazzi as she deals with the aftermath of a hit and run.

And yeah, it didn't really, it wasn't a favorite episode of mine. She plays a paparazzi that's like in the paparazzi game and wants out, wants a different life. But they're tracking this like super popular actress who's trying to like hide out in rehab because she has like a drug problem. And then there's like this, I don't know, felt like lazy twist unexpected.

I don't know, not maybe not lazy, but.

Because it got me like I was interested in the episode just because [00:25:00] of like the acting and the writing in general and the characters in it. And it was. Somewhat suspenseful, but like the what happened at the end. I was like, ah, come on which was pretty much the The starlet that they were tracking down Was in this like rehab place and like tied down and they they wound up trying to save her Because they pretty she pretty much went into this rehab place and they like tied her down To, you know, like fight off the, the drugs and, you know, she was going to get sick and throw up and stuff like that.

And they didn't want her like breaking out and getting drugs or anything. So it would be like an easier time for her if she was just tied down. So the paparazzi, Zazie Beats, and a couple other folks, they track her down. They try to get a picture of her because it's worth a lot of money in the rehab place.

But then they realize that she's tied down. And when they go, they go to free her and she winds up turning into a werewolf. So, and she winds up killing a couple of the [00:26:00] paparazzis as he beats, gets away. And then at the end, I think winds up killing her as well. But yeah, that was a little, just like a little far fetched in my opinion, but that thing was great.

And the last one is called Demon 79. This is Northern England, 1979. A meek sales assistant discovers she must commit terrible acts to prevent an imminent disaster. This was another one that was good. It keeps you

roped in because you want to know if it's true or not, what she's going through. And it's this Indian girl in 1979. She's a she sells shoes. She works at like a malls department store selling shoes. And the people she works with and, you know, her boss and coworker and stuff like that, they all treat her different and they say, oh, you have stinky food and, and, you know, she's treated, she's very othered, you know, her neighbors or the people treat her [00:27:00] like very differently.

And then this like demon appears and that only she can see in here and tells her that she has to essentially kill three people

or the entire world would end.

So they're showing this and you as the, as the viewer are like, is this real or not? Is she like a schizophrenic imagining demons and shit? Or is this like really happening within this world? And she's going through those same emotions. She's like, she thinks she's going crazy, but then

ultimately is convinced of this

and winds up going through the motions and doing things with the, with the demon.

And the demon tries to like aggro on and, and. And, you know, motivate her to, to kill people and forget what it was. If it had to be only good people, it couldn't be bad people because bad people would be too easy. It has to be like three innocent people or something like that.

Or if it was the other way around, if it had to be bad people and couldn't be innocent people and she wound up killing [00:28:00] like an innocent person, I think that's what it was. It's one of the killing an innocent person. That person didn't count. So she wound up killing like an extra person. And then at the end, she winds up getting caught like in the act and is, you know, there's like a cutoff time.

It's like midnight at, you know, you know, three days later or something like that. The world was going to end and she's like in the interrogation room with the cops and they're writing her off as fucking crazy. The clock strike struck 12, nothing happened.

And then she's like coming to the realization, holy shit, I killed these people. I am crazy. It's 12 o'clock and nothing happened.

And then like three or four minutes later, you hear sirens going off

and like the towns, like fog horns and everyone in the precinct is like going to the windows and you just see like bombs and fire and plague and just like everything going to shit.

And then she comes to the realization of, Oh, I'm not crazy. [00:29:00] So she's happy about that, but then at the same time, oh, but the world is ending so

There is that But yeah, Black Mirror Dope series, like I said in the beginning of this little recap and review Go back to see all the seasons all the episodes Some of them are fucking amazing. A lot of them are great most of them are either great or really good and there's like a I could count on one hand, less than one hand, probably just two or three that even, even the ones that, like I mentioned in, in this season six, the last two episodes weren't my favorite, but they were, you know, it wasn't like, Oh, why'd I watch that?

You know what I mean?

And that is my little recap and review of black mirror season six available on Netflix

testing, testing one, two, one, two.

Tom Clancy's, Jack Ryan,

created by Carlton Qs and Graham Roland. Based on the characters by novelist, Tom [00:30:00] Clancy

had its series finale last year in 2023.

Very quick aside, because I don't wanna forget Tom Clancy, I, I looked them up like when I, when I'm into like a show or a movie or, or like a book, and I may not know the author or the writer or the creators.

I look them up usually like to follow them on, on Twitter or Instagram and just to see like what they're up to, what they're working on currently. And I did that with Tom Clancy

being that this is a character that he developed, that he created and has like a bunch of, of novels about him. And I found out that he died in 2013. And since,

since he died, he's put out more content, whether it be films, Shows like this one and books

and at first I'm kind of like, yeah, that's I guess it kind of sort of makes sense if you, you know, you create certain characters and you have like a, [00:31:00] a large backlog, you know, your state or something can like license out the content and

one of your older books could be adapted into a movie or TV show, et cetera. I thought it was like that type of deal. But then I found out that's not the case and that he's since he's. Past again in 2013. He's put out over a dozen new books. We're not he is like physically impossible but

He built out such a well known IP in like his name tom clancy and all the characters that he's created and Like Jack Ryan, for example,

but also different, like, series of, like, movies and shows, like, The Hunt for Red October, starring Sean Connery and Alec Baldwin Patriot Games, starring Harrison Ford, etc., that his name alone

is the Tom Clancy name, like, it became an entity, essentially. And The publishing house [00:32:00] has other writers

that since his death have written under the Tom Clancy banner, if you will, but under the Tom Clancy name. So it'll be a new book by Tom Clancy, but it's really written by Grant Blackwood, Mark Cameron, Dick Couch, Mark Greeney. And Mike Madden probably amongst others by now. I thought that was so fascinating and interesting and just a testament to something that I like to highlight and underscore the importance of owning your content, owning your IP.

At whatever level you're on from zero listenership and readership to millions and millions and millions of listeners and or readership, because ultimately, if something does pop off in the direction of being

financially viable,

why not have your situation set up in a way where you didn't give away the rights, you didn't sell off the [00:33:00] rights for a one time fee or, you know, the short term bag, but

you've created something valuable.

That can and will go on for decades after you're gone

and your kids and maybe even your kids kids

Could benefit from it Like why not set it up that way, you know what I mean, but to each their own. Anyway, Jack Ryan is a dope series and The official synopsis is of the show is up and coming CIA analyst Jack Ryan is thrust into dangerous field assignments

and it stars John Krasinski From the office, which when I first saw the show, I was like that, like, I know him as like Jim from the office and it's a comedy. And this is like a serious, you know, CIA analyst guy,

but it totally works. And it just shows like his range as an actor, in my opinion. Also starting Wendell Pierce,

shout out to Wendell Pierce, shout out to the wire

[00:34:00] and Michael Kelly.

It was a great, like character actor. I think that's what you call a character actor. Shout out to a house of cards where he played Doug.

And as we'd like to do here on the sponsored a podcast, because if we don't do it here, then who will let's shout out the writers. First and foremost, Tom Clancy, of course, based on the characters that he created Carlton Kuse, Graham Roland,

Joe Griscoviak, Jeff Kempler, Jada Nation, Aaron Rabin, you name it. Vaughn Wilmot, Stephen Cain and Robert David Port. Shout out to each and every one of the writers that, and creators of the series that put together this final fourth series finale.[00:35:00]

So like the synopsis says, if you're not familiar with the show, it all revolves around this genius. CIA analyst. He's kind of like a desk analyst research guy that winds up going into the field and then you start finding out that, Oh, he can, he can do the field as well. He has like a background being like a Navy seal, I think, or just like one of those like superhero type characters in, in shows, you know, they could do it all smartest guy in the room, toughest guy in the room.

And I love shows like that. Cause I could finally relate to someone, you know what I mean? Let me stop. But definitely, I definitely do enjoy those shows. You kind of like vicariously live through characters like that.

And this season, this final season, [00:36:00] had to do with a drug cartel teaming up with a terrorist organization. And how

that type of matchup would combine unlimited resources with Like unbridled terror and hate, which is obviously a dangerous combination, especially when, and if it's aimed towards the U S for example,

Michael Pena is a big part of this final season as well. Another great actor.

If you don't know him by name, he's, he's the, the Spanish guy that is like in everything. When you see him, you'd be like, Oh yeah, I know that guy.

And in the very first episode, actually, Ends with

a really dope scene where he is in Jack Ryan's apartment. When Jack Ryan gets home with his girlfriend and they get home [00:37:00] from some event that they were at and she's going to go take a shower or something. He's going to the fridge and Michael Peña just points a gun to his head and tells him to turn Pluto back on.

So at this point. The story. Basically, Jack Ryan has ascended and he's like assistant to the head of the CIA like sec second line. And they're getting a lot of pressure from, from the Senate to

be more transparent and highlight programs within the CIA, like covert operations and stuff like that because there had just been a coup slash murder of a president in a country in Africa and.

You know, conspiracy theorists and folks were blaming the CIA as them having something to do with it. So a way that Jack Ryan and

Director Wright chose to deal with that was to turn off the funding for all these [00:38:00] programs that you couldn't trace or like where the money was going to and stuff like that. And one of these programs was Pluto, codenamed Pluto. And Michael Peña just shows up, puts a gun to Jack Ryan's head. Remember, Jack Ryan's like the badass, you know, handles everything, knows everything that's going on at all times.

And here's this guy, apparently within the CIA as well,

in his apartment with a gun to his head, telling him to turn the shit back on, turn the money back on for that operation.

And we see Michael Pena's character in Mexico.

Like they show a few scenes of him there and like being a bit like a bad ass there. And as the viewer, we're kind of like, wait, is he CIA? Is he part of this cartel? Is he like a double agent? Like what's up with him? And ultimately we find out that he is in the CIA, but he's being used by the folks that are running the Pluto program that are working with This either the drug cartel and or [00:39:00] the terrorist organization side to try to facilitate what they have going on and they're pretty much being paid off.

That's essentially what this season is all about. It has great fighting scenes, very suspenseful,

like scenes with a helicopter. Oh, I'm sorry, with a plane that they're finally getting away. Jack Ryan's character is and. Mike November's, which is Michael Kelly's character and Kathy Mueller, which is John Krasinski's Jack Ryan's girlfriend played by Abby Cornish

and Michael Pena's character. They're all like getting away from a situation that they're in that they're flying out of

to take a chow fa the head of this drug organization

or not the head. He was like the higher up about to become the head, but he, he was turning against the organization. And like speaking to the CIA to be able to get his family, his wife and daughter out.

So they're in this situation where [00:40:00] they are about to get out of the country on this private plane. They load everybody up, but then Jack Ryan and Michael Pena themselves have to stay behind so the plane can go, can fly off. With Jack Ryan's girlfriend, Chao Pha's wife and daughter.

Cause you have like a ton of just like jeeps and jeeps and with heavy machinery machine guns and a bunch of soldiers just like coming at them. So the plane can take off. They stayed down to like, you know, give them a cover pretty much and like shooting back at them. And then Michael Kelly's character, Mike November just comes with a fucking helicopter and like mows down all the.

Like at the last second when you're like, how the fuck are they gonna get out of this? They're like in this open field completely surrounded or fucked and Mike November shows up in this helicopter and with enough like weaponry to like hold them off [00:41:00] and allow Jack Ryan and Mike and Michael Peña's character to

get in the helicopter and get the fuck out of there.

It's like dope scenes like that. Acting director writes characters from Queens. Shout out to Queens.

There's some dope scenes towards the end of the series where Jack Ryan actually gets captured and he's being tortured, you know He's like tied up. He's being electrocuted fucking whipped and just like fucked up like a sick torture scene and to John Krasinski's Credit did a phenomenal job. It was like so believable and it's like a sick scene and

Michael Pena is In this like bunker place where they have Jack Ryan, he like broke into it to save Jack Ryan and there's a part where he, all he has is a spear gun because that's what he couldn't buy in terms of weaponry from like a villager that lived [00:42:00] close by and he gets into this facility and there's a, you know, there's this guy guarding a door and he's walking, you know, he hears something, he's walking around with a gun And Mike Pena fucking spear guns him in the dark, it was such a sick scene.

And just wound up like fucking everybody up one by one like John Wick style

to ultimately free Jack Ryan.

And I like this show in particular because it's not like the bad guys in the show. They make you not relate to them, but they're written in such a way where I don't want to see you empathize with them. But they humanize them a bit, you know, they're not like over the top just like evil for evil's sake type bad guys I think the the best villains in stories there's like something about them that you could relate to

or at least that you can sympathize with their Rationale whether you agree with it or not for like doing certain things

and there's a few of those characters Within this season within the show in general, but within this season, especially like the ex CIA guy [00:43:00] that felt wronged and he was like a, a hitman for hire basically for, for the bad guys.

Chau Fa's character,

which was the head of this drug organization and was doing it to get his wife and daughter out. And he killed his brother in law who was like on to him.

So on and so forth.

But yeah, really good show. It's definitely a fun watch. There's four seasons available on Amazon if you're interested. It's one of those that are just like action and entertaining and well written, in my opinion.

And that is Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan. Available on Amazon.

American Fiction. So a few weeks back, prior to the health related issues that I mentioned that My family's going through right now. My wife and I wanted to do one of our favorite things, which is go to the movies.

It's one of the things we really enjoy doing together. And

We saw American Fiction.

Which was [00:44:00] so, so good to me.

On a few different levels.

It's about a novelist who This is the official summary. It's about a novelist who's fed up with the establishment, profiting from black entertainment. And he uses a pen name to write a book that propels him into the heart of the hypocrisy and madness he claims to disdain.

Before we get into my little recap, let's shout out the writers, as we do here on the Sponsored A Podcast.

Because if we don't, who will? American Fiction was written by Cord Jefferson and Percival Everett. Shout out to them for putting this together. It was also directed by Cord Jefferson. Now it has a great, great all star cast starting with the main protagonist, Thelonious Monk Ellison played by Jeffrey Wright, Lisa Ellison, his sister played [00:45:00] by Tracy Ellis Ross, Arthur, who is the publisher

of Thelonious character played by John Ortiz.

Coraline, who plays a love interest of Thelonious, played by Erika Alexander.

Issa Rae is in it, she also plays a writer. Cintara Golden, Keith David, plays Willy the Wonker. It's like a funny little like parody scene within

the movie itself. I really like the Myra. Lucretia Taylor plays Lorraine. She's like that housekeeper slash caretaker for, for the mother. Agnes Ellison, played by Leslie Uggams. It's such a good film. So

it follows Thelonious Monk Ellison, who's a writer, and

he plays like this jaded writer that is a little snobby about his writing.

You know, he's respected by his peers, but he definitely doesn't make money, or at least not a lot of it.[00:46:00]

And he's snobby towards the

genre of writer that seems to just be writing to the market.

Issa Rae's character, Sentara Golden, is one of these writers,

which makes a beautiful case for it. And like there's a scene where they have a dialogue with each other. And back and forth and makes a strong understandable case for writing to the market because there are writers like that, right? There are writers and creators like that, that literally only write to and for a specific market.

There are podcasters like that as well that, you know, they'll do

Google trending searches, for example, and say, Oh, X, Y, and Z is trending. Let me do a podcast episode about that. Or writers that write to, Oh, what's popular now, vampires. Made of glitter that also own a knitting factory. Okay, let me write a story about that and they'll literally write a novel, a book, a short story or whatever about that.

That's called like writing to the [00:47:00] market. And then you have other folks

that write for the art of it, that write what they want to write, whether it's popular or not. I think I would fall more into that camp and they speak about what they want to speak about. So on and so forth. And it's not passing judgment on either. You know, both are, you know, The creator's prerogative,

but Monk's character is one that has disdain for the folks like Issa Rae's character, Centaur Golden, who is literally just writing for the market and her case was essentially, you know, if there is a market, if there are people that want to read this type of stuff that you call, you know, trash or like fast food, for example, in fast food type of writing,

and I'm able to create that for them to fill that demand. And make a living while doing it. Why is that, you know, like, why are you shitting on that? What's wrong with that? And the answer to that is essentially, [00:48:00] there is nothing wrong with that. That's, you know, the choice of that creator, that writer, and also the choice of that consumer.

To consume whatever the fuck they want to consume, right?

But what I love for it from a this like writing, you know, This, like, shining the light on this, like, area of like writing and creating Is that the type of, like, story she's writing are Like thought to be like racist and like over the top and highlighting like stereotypes of African Americans And like she's doing a reading for example, and she's you know, speaking normally and then You know being interviewed and then she's reading an excerpt from her story and then she's like, oh, yeah.

Sure I would love to read an excerpt. Let me share this passage here. And then she starts reading quote Hey, yo, Sharonda use pregnancy again and not at 19 years old What is that, your eighth baby mama? You know, like, shit like that. She's like, writing in the book. And then Thelonious Monk's character is like, has like such disdain and grossed out and [00:49:00] like, what the fuck, how is this selling?

So he as like a

kind of to like shit on his certain publishers that don't want to like publish him anymore. And Arthur, by the way, is not his publisher, it's his agent. The character played by John Ortiz. He decides to write this like over the top hood,

like spoof almost, and submit that to the publishers that don't want to publish his, his other work. Cause again, it's not selling and the publishers are in the market of, or in the business of making money. So they're like the embodiment of creating for the market, minus the creating part, you know, they're just like peddling, but I digress.

He submits it as kind of like a fuck you to them. And then, and they wind up loving it. And they wanna, and he, he submits it like under a pen name. And Arthur, his agent calls him, he's like, yo, they wanna publish it. And he's like, really? They wanna publish my book? He thinks it's his, like, other book that, that he wrote.

The more, you know, like, [00:50:00] snooty writing and, you know, the shit that he's into. His literary fiction, if you will. And John Ortiz's character, Arthur, he's like, no, no, the The other book that you sent me over under the pen name and they want to give you a 250, 000 advance or something like, I forget the exact number.

That might be it. But he's like, what? He's like, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not going to do that shit. What are you fucking crazy? That was supposed to be a joke. But monks characters in a situation where this is a, another layer of the story where it really resonated with me.

His mother, Agnes is elderly. Her memory is starting to slip. They take her to. And they confirmed that it's like early stages of dementia. My father, as I mentioned here in the pod has dementia. So that definitely resonated and as well as him and Tracy Ellis Ross, which is his sister.

And they have a third brother Clifford Ellison [00:51:00] played by Sterling K. Brown.

But they're like between siblings, they're dealing with the fact of balancing the responsibilities of taking on the fact that their parents are getting older, that their parents are getting sick.

And what, how are they going to balance that? And what's that going to mean moving forward? And who's taking on which responsibilities? How are they going to tackle all of the issues that need to be tackled and taken care of?

And that's something that definitely hit home.

And something that we all inevitably deal with to one degree or another.

So he's in this situation where he, they need the money to confront you know, like the changing and added responsibilities in, in, in their lives with their mom being sick. And he's out to a lunch with his sister and, you know, they're speaking about these things, trying to iron out certain details and, you know, speaking about how money's tight.[00:52:00]

All around and then his sister right then and there literally has a heart attack while they're having lunch out of the blue Tracy Ellis Ross's character which sucked that she she like died like spoiler alert so early in the story

Which just threw a another curveball and an added need for him to get money because the other brother He's like going through a divorce with his family kind of like a midlife crisis coming out the closet like type of thing

he's like selfish and doing drugs and more of a burden than a help, you know what I mean? So it all kind of falls on Jeffrey Wright's character.

But then he, you know, he has this dilemma where he definitely really needs the money, which Arthur, his agent, is highlighting to him to take care of his mom. But also,

his creative beliefs and what he feels about like his integrity, his creative integrity, is being thrust into this situation as well, right? He doesn't want to publish that. But ultimately he does. [00:53:00] Begrudgingly and at the same time, I felt that that situation does a great job of, of being like social commentary for what's wrong with the virtue signaling. And you have these two agents from the publishing company

who are white and just like thrilled to speak to the writer, which again was under pen name. And he just kept playing it up and making it more absurd. He was like, yeah, I'm an ex, I'm an ex con. I don't do interviews cause I'm still running from the law. I'm running from the man and this and that or whatever.

And they were just like eating it up and they're like, Oh my God, this is so authentic. This is so real. And it was like cool to see like that

highlighting of that type of like hypocrisy of what happens when, you know, writing to a market or just like doing something ultimately for financial gain alone. Like when that runs amok, like. [00:54:00] Just highlighting all that is wrong with that type of mentality.

And not to be mistaken with that, that is all wrong. But what could be wrong with only thinking that way.

Lorraine's character, she was so sweet. Played by Myra Taylor. She is the like, home health aid caretaker

of the mom. And has obviously like been with the family for like years. So to the point that she's like family. She was like such, such a sweetheart.

And I felt like the ultimate, like, full circle moment for him, for Monk's character was

a couple of things. Like, on a personal level, you know, being more open, being, you know, letting your guards down a bit, letting people into your life, letting them love you. He was very guarded, very cagey. Pushed people away.

Which is not an uncommon trait for a writer or some types of creatives You know, you're kind of sort of always in your own head and you wind up doing[00:55:00] Things like that even without noticing at times.

I know I definitely have and then from a professional level the full circle for for his character was That ultimately he always wanted he wanted And needed money, but also wanted the validation that comes with the recognition of all your peers and being thought of as this amazing writer

and he kind of sort of came to the realization that these are two different worlds and it's okay you know i mean it's not like an either or type of situation

it's the ideal circumstance that you can do like your artsy fartsy type of writing and everybody and their mother would love it and it would be mainstream and niche at the same time and You'd be a literary hero and a millionaire simultaneously at the same time like sure but very unlikely that Would ever be the type of situation [00:56:00] that you would be in as a creative

But there is a happy medium with come again coming to terms with the fact that maybe not always but often it would be

a separate different type of approach to to creating

and that part of

the charm if you will of being on a creative journey is a Finding that medium of the happy medium where you are able to

create without compromising your

artistic integrity, if you will,

and also make some money while doing so,

which will help facilitate you being able to do more of what it is that you love to do, which is the writing and creating.

And if sometimes you wind up sliding to the left of that spectrum a little bit, and going more towards the making money side, and then sliding back to the right a little bit, and going more towards the doing what you [00:57:00] love side, then so be it. As long as you ultimately stay within that happy medium, which should be the place where you're most happy, I think is the ultimate creative.

goal. At least I feel like that's what it is for me. Anyway, tons and tons and tons of that I related to in this movie. I highly recommend it. American fiction. Check it out.

Goats doing goat shit. This is the spun today segment where I like to highlight extraordinary individuals that do extraordinary things. Even when, and especially when They don't have to

this episode's installment of a go to doing goat shit is none other

than Joe Rogan

who has made the list before this is probably his third if not fourth time

and the reason why as originally reported by Spotify's blog and picked up by the Wall Street [00:58:00] Journal Associated Press and others which I will link to in the episode notes is because in February of 2024 this month

Joe Rogan inked yet another Multi year licensing deal with Spotify for those of you who don't know one of the other reasons actually when Rogan initially made the go to doing goat shit list

was because he inked a 100 million licensing deal to take his podcast, the Joe Rogan experience exclusive with Spotify for three years.

I want to highlight again, it was a licensing deal,

which I love harping on and highlighting here on. The podcast, because there's a huge difference between selling something and licensing something. When you license something that you create, you can license it for X amount of dollars, sometimes, and usually less than what you would make if you just sold it outright.

But what's great about a licensing deal [00:59:00] is that once that license is up,

you still own everything and you can license it out all over again. So Joe Rogan did a licensing deal for 100 million, three years ago that recently expired. And because it was such a lucrative deal for Spotify and its shareholders,

which saw many, many, many times that hundred million dollars in stock profits as soon as the news broke.

But Rogan since again, maintained ownership of his show was now able to license it yet again.

And this time the deal has a few interesting caveats. First and foremost, it's another multi year licensing deal. The number of years I'm not clear on. I'm assuming it's around 3 to 5. But I haven't found actual reporting on the number of years. But it's a 250, 000, 000 licensing deal. Shout out to the [01:00:00] podcast, The Goat.

So not only did he make 100, 000, 000 over 3 years with the original deal, Now he's making another 250 million, which includes, by the way, upfront guarantee as well as revenue sharing on his ad sales.

But the sickest part, in my opinion, is that it's no longer exclusive with Spotify. This deal was so lucrative with Spotify that they didn't, they didn't even hold on to that part of it. That part of the deal. It said Rogan and team negotiated that. The podcast will once again, go wide, it'll be available everywhere.

So if you want to listen to it on Apple, you can, it's already actually on Apple. And there will be a video version available on YouTube as well.

Which is interesting because back in the day, before the Spotify deal, Rogan's Pod was wide, you know, it was available on every podcatcher. And the video versions were [01:01:00] exclusively on YouTube just because YouTube had the that's where videos would be seen, you know what I mean? It wasn't by virtue of any deal with YouTube, but that's just where video podcasts were viewed.

Part of when Rogan went to Spotify, part of the deal that was negotiated was that Spotify had to develop the capability. Of streaming video as well as audio, and they developed this entire

video capability through their app because of Rogan which other podcasters and, and content creators obviously have benefited from as well. But now that the deal is going wide again, or the show rather is going wide again, we will once again be able to watch the podcast episodes on YouTube, not just the video versions on Spotify.

But it does seem, for example, that Spotify is keeping, aside from YouTube, seems to be keeping, at least as of the recording of this episode, [01:02:00] the video rights

with Spotify, because you can still watch the videos obviously on Spotify, but on Apple, for example, where the podcast is already on YouTube. Available it's audio only so Spotify does seem to be retaining that I would imagine that the video versions of the podcast will be available on YouTube as they stated but probably on some sort of like delayed release like maybe a week later the video will be on on YouTube or something like that

but that's just my personal speculation on that

shout out once again to Rogan the undisputed heavyweight champ of podcasting goats you

For not only having one of the dopest and most important essential outlets on the planet Where folks from any and all walks of life? Can come and share their art and discuss their thoughts and share their [01:03:00] expertise with the world

but also for doing it right always doing a show with integrity and honor and

giving other podcasts everywhere including myself

A template for how to do it right

and not just in caring about what you do, loving what you do, pursuing your passions, striving

to be a better person, wanting to help others,

but in realizing that there's different ideas and thoughts out there, and that it's okay that they coexist. It's okay that they're differing opinions

are shared and explored. It's essential,

but also in just the

integrity that comes with the whole financial aspect of things. And in doing things right and correctly where he was very much the architect of not just selling ads on his podcast back way before the Spotify deal, way before the whole thing blew up when he only had one sponsor, shout out to Fleshlight, where

He, again, was very much of the architect of not just [01:04:00] selling shit to sell it, but only selling things that you believed in or that at least you tried and you liked and not, you know, just doing McDonald's ads just because they came with the bigger bag. Having that level of integrity and foresight clearly

snowballed all these years later into the 250 million

more than doubled up from the previous 100 million deal.

So shout out again to Joe Rogan and to Spotify for inking this deal

and for making yet another appearance on the Spun Today goats doing goat shit segment.

And that folks was episode 254 of the Spun Today podcast. Thank you very, very much for taking the time to [01:05:00] listen.

It really does mean a lot and I hope that you all are

taking away gems from the episode. And, or it's just helping you pass the time and whether you're at work or at the gym or whatever it is that you do while you're listening to this driving. I

hope it can help you pass the time. I hope it finds you and yours in a good, healthy place.

Maybe even motivates you and inspires you to do something creative on your end, which I'm definitely a proponent for.

If you have another minute or two, please stick around to listen to a few ways you can help support this show if you so choose.

And I'll catch you guys next time. Peace.