The plot is fairly simple. Good outsider helps struggling widow against corrupt forces. So it's the futuristic details that distinguish it. Farmers who buy genetically engineered seeds because of the promise of better harvests struggle to pay off their debts and inadvertently also poison their soil for alternative crops. Emmett's cybernetic implants are obsolete while genetic body modifications have become the new technological frontier. It's a solid futuristic western.

When you die, you end up in a car driving along a desert road towards your final journey. Apparently limbo looks like Route 66. Along the way, you'll probably have a break at the Desert Skies gas station. It is run by an attendant, a mechanic, and an AI, all of whose knowledge or ability to provide information about this celestial plane is scanty. But what they can offer is comfort, understanding, a shoulder to cry on, as you get to grips with the idea that you are dead. Desert Skies is about offering kindness when people are troubled by regrets or unknowns, or just because kindness is worth offering regardless. It's a balm for the soul. Highly recommended.

I have mixed feelings about Hothouse Bruiser. I appreciate that each episode takes on a different subgenre of noir: heist, murder plot, etc. There's an episode where Bruiser has to figure out who slipped him a drug that will kill him in 1 hour if he doesn't find the antidote, reminiscent of the plot of D.O.A. And I appreciate that the revelations come at a steady beat.But the way that Bruiser talks about and describes femme fatale Vera Grayle is so gross, it just makes me feel icky to listen to it. Sure, she's hot, willing to sleep with him and completely amoral, as femme fatales often are. And Bruiser is happy to cheat on his wife, if not necessarily with Vera. Compared to the many noir podcasts I've listened, the degree to which Bruiser salivates over Vera is notably excessive. The time he asks his boss if he's ever thought of having sex with Vera and the boss is like, yeah, all the time, it's like two frat bros comparing notes. The exchange is followed by Bruiser happily commenting that Vera's looks will go quickly now that she's been cast out to live at street level. He may grouse about acting morally compromised for money but he acts like she is beneath him because he considers her akin to a prostitute, and that is way worse. This is after an episode where she sticks out her neck to save him, btw. It's so gross.