True Detective: Night Country - Season 4 Wrap-up Part 1

[00:00:01] Okay, David, this is where we're supposed to choose a side. Green or black? John, my soul is as black as night. Your turn. I am black for life! So, we're not fighting? I thought this is where HBO wanted us to, like, pick sides and fight and stuff.

[00:00:24] Don't worry, I'm sure we'll find plenty to disagree about on the pod. But we seem to agree on one thing. We both really like this show. The politics, the drama, the lore! It was made for the Lorehounds.

[00:00:35] And since we just finished recapping Season 1, we couldn't be more ready to defend our Black Queen in the Dance of the Dragons.

[00:00:42] And with the season pass option in Supercast, listeners can get early ad-free access to each weekly scene-by-scene deep dive, plus our custom show guide with all the characters and connections. See you in the Lorehounds podcast feed each week for our Dragonfire Hot, but probably positive, takes.

[00:01:00] The Lorehounds House of the Dragon coverage is also safe for team green consumption. Side effects may include a deeper understanding of dragon lore, a heartened conflict with itself, and an inescapable urge to read the book Fire and Blood by George R.R. Martin. Dragon seeds may experience burning.

[00:01:11] Hatchdoor Sewer! Welcome to the True Detective Podcast, where the Lorehounds, your guides to the weirdness of the long night. I'm David. I'm John, and this is our season wrap-up coverage for True Detective Season 4, written and directed for HBO by Isa Lopez.

[00:01:43] To help us break down the season, we've got a special guest with us today. Author and podcaster Ron Dawson will be joining us right after the intro. We're going to start off with our hot takes on the season as a whole.

[00:01:55] From there, we're going to use all the feedback we got as our framework to work through all the issues that this season of television has raised. We got a ton of feedback, and we're able to include everyone who took the time to write in.

[00:02:08] But in some cases, we've edited for brevity so that we can get to everyone.

[00:02:13] The season's over, so if you need to get in touch with us, use our lorehounds at the lorehounds.com email address to get in touch or head over to our contact page on our website.

[00:02:24] And there you can use the contact form or record us a voicemail. Also, join us on our Discord. You can find links to the Discord and all of our other contact details and our affiliate podcast in the show notes.

[00:02:37] Our family is growing, and we just launched a new podcast called Rings and Rituals, co-hosted by Marilyn R. Pukila and Dr. Sarah Brown, about all the rituals seen in The Rings of Power Season 1, as well as looking at how ritual plays a vital role in our own daily lives.

[00:02:54] If you want to support our community, check us out on Patreon. Subscribers get early and ad-free access to all of our podcasts, as well as a number of other benefits. More about this and our podcasting schedule at the end of the podcast.

[00:03:10] So David, we've got a special guest with us here today. We've got Ron. Ron, thank you so much for being here and for joining us on this podcast.

[00:03:20] Well, thank you guys for having me. It's a pleasure. Can't wait to jump into all of this because I got some thoughts, gentlemen. Excellent. You're in the right place. Well, before we get to your thoughts on True Detective, can you tell us a little about yourself?

[00:03:35] Yeah, basically by day I am a content marketer for a tech company. By night, I do make a lot of TikTok videos about faith and deconstruction. I wrote a satirical memoir about my journey as a black man reconnecting with the black community.

[00:03:52] And I'm currently writing a second manuscript about my personal journey of faith. My podcast is Dungeons and Durags, named after my book. And a while ago, I did a podcast called Radio Film School, which I kind of describe as this American life for filmmakers.

[00:04:11] So I've been around the podcasting parts for quite some time. And I'm good friends with your, I don't know, your brother podcast. Our spawn point. Yes. Yeah, I've had Aaron on my show a few times and I've been on his as well.

[00:04:28] Yeah, and that's where I heard you first. You subbed in for the Fargo, one of the Fargo episodes. Yes, yes, that's right. Oh my God. Yeah, I was like, I got to talk to this guy on our podcast. He immediately rushed to Discord to pitch you to me.

[00:04:42] Yeah. We got to get him. I feel honored. Thank you for having me. I'm curious about your movie podcast. Is that just on hiatus or is that done for now? Yeah, it's done. I did it over two years. I think it launched in 2015.

[00:04:59] And at the time, No Film School called it the filmmakers podcast we've all been waiting for.

[00:05:05] And it's an audio style documentary style podcast where I mix in interviews with lots of different filmmakers and have a lot of different types of like audio design and sound design and music. So it's a lot of fun. It's still online. You can still find it.

[00:05:24] Very cool. Awesome. Well, thanks again, Ron, for being here. David, I know you have a few things to say before we get into our discussion of True Detective season four as a whole.

[00:05:36] Yeah, I wanted to point out as I've been compiling the feedback and reading a few things online and listening to some other podcasts, the point of this distinction between criticism and critique, I think, has really been highlighted for me around this.

[00:05:56] This season seemed to have engendered a lot of different reactions. There's some folks who just really love this. There's obviously the toxic fan bros from season one kind of thing.

[00:06:09] And I don't know, I know we're not really interested in litigating all of that other than to say that there is a space of personal enjoyment that's subjective and that's your own.

[00:06:24] And then there's critique, right? We're going to go, oh, you know, this kind of was a little bit broken or this didn't line up quite right. Or there's a hole here in the plot. Like what's going on there versus criticism? Like, oh, it sucked.

[00:06:36] Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, you know, I hated it. I hate the director, all that kind of stuff.

[00:06:41] And so one of the things that we really work on, at least on the lore hounds, is trying to be to work from a place of critique and not criticism. You know, being critical without negative. We don't really enjoy yucking other people's yums and things like that.

[00:06:57] So I think we really for me, that's really where, you know, I just kind of want to invite all of the listeners into the space of we're doing critique here and not criticism.

[00:07:07] So just be aware of that, even though we're maybe hard on a couple of points here or there, we are also not looking to tear the show down.

[00:07:15] And I think, again, the wide range of reactions from the people who've been watching the season really points to something that Lopez has touched on some stuff that has provoked reaction. And I kind of almost assert that that transcends it into art as opposed to just entertainment.

[00:07:35] So I just wanted to make sure that our listeners understood where we were coming from, because I know we've strayed. I would say we've strayed over the line in the past. We might have said some stuff and people weren't necessarily clued into where we were speaking from.

[00:07:51] So does that make sense? You guys? Yeah. Yeah, it makes total sense to me. Okay, cool. You know, I want to say you mentioned Issa Lopez and her the quality of her work this season. Did you know about three hours ago? Yes.

[00:08:05] She was renewed for season five to lead season five of True Detective. So it looks like she's going to get another crack at this, which is good. And it's not only season five of True Detective, but she's got an overall deal with HBO.

[00:08:19] So she's going to be producing some other stuff for them outside of the True Detective, outside of the True Detective brand. That's awesome. Glad to hear. Yeah.

[00:08:29] Yeah. And that's even more interesting to me because I think that there was a discussion on our Discord today that really struck me that said, Do you think that this season was helped or harmed by its attachment to the True Detective brand?

[00:08:47] And I don't know. I don't know. I think she would have been graded on less of a curve if it was not a True Detective brand. And I mean a negative curve.

[00:08:58] Like, I don't think she would have been starting off like trying to measure up to something in people's eyes. But I also think that she wouldn't have had as much of a built-in audience if this were a new IP.

[00:09:09] Yeah, I would agree on both counts as far as that's concerned. I think that when you look at, first of all, much props to Issa. You get your paper, Issa. I think it's great that she got the deal because she's empirically a talented creator, filmmaker, writer, etc.

[00:09:30] And this question you brought up, John, is a question that I had. Was this hurt? And I think it was hurt in so much that it invited criticism that it probably wouldn't otherwise have had because of the comparison to season one.

[00:09:47] And having it be a story that fits within the True Detective brand, so to speak. And two, I think there may have been directions she would have gone in if it wasn't connected to True Detective. Like, would she have leaned more into the supernatural?

[00:10:08] And that's something we can talk about later if it wasn't connected as part of this True Detective world. But like you mentioned, would it have gotten the audience that it got if it wasn't connected to True Detective? Probably not, to be honest.

[00:10:23] Even with Jodie Foster's name attached to it, I don't think it still would have gotten as much as if it didn't have True Detective on it. Right, right.

[00:10:34] Yeah, I mean, how many Apple shows have had huge names on them and we just haven't seen a huge audience, right? Like Chris Evans was on an Apple show that kind of didn't have a big viewership.

[00:10:45] And I don't know if a big actor is enough to sell a new IP these days. I think people really need to be in on a franchise or in on an idea of a franchise. Or you have to be the Rings of Power marketing with a billion dollars.

[00:11:01] Right. But even then, you have the Lord of the Rings franchise, right? Like you have a built-in fan base there. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I was thinking of Josh Brolin, I think. Was it Rangeland or something like that was on Apple TV?

[00:11:13] And I'm sure they got a few spikes in viewership on the early episodes, but then it sort of dropped off. And so, yeah, a big name isn't going to carry you episode to episode, right? It may get you that initial interest, but... Right.

[00:11:29] Well, anyway, we've kind of already started going into it, but maybe we should get into our overall hot takes on the season. So Ron, as the guest, would you like to begin? Sure. I would say for me, I felt like it was well deposited.

[00:11:47] It was empirically well shot, well crafted. The acting was amazing. I think there's a lot of aspects about it where you just can't deny the quality of it. And I think I was a lot more drawn into the first set of episodes than the...

[00:12:05] I would say the first half of the season, I was a bigger fan of than the second half. And I wasn't too hot on the finale, to be honest. That's my hot take on the finale. I didn't think it was terrible or bad or anything.

[00:12:19] And as we get along, I can go into more detail. But I think the biggest critique I had of it from as a detective mystery, I didn't feel like they did a lot of detective work. If that makes sense. There was some Sherlockian stuff, for sure. Right.

[00:12:39] And I think there's a way you can... I mean, what makes a mystery really engaging for the audience is where... The audience doesn't necessarily have to be able to figure it out.

[00:12:53] But in subsequent watches, they could see little things where they could figure it out if they want. And I kind of felt like, particularly in the finale, there was a lot of interrogation expositional dumps that kind of answered a lot of questions.

[00:13:10] So I liked how they got to certain destinations, like the big mystery of how the men get out there, that kind of thing. I liked the resolution. I wasn't too crazy about exactly how they get there from a mystery detective perspective, personally. Yeah, I can get that.

[00:13:31] I see what you're saying. The whole, all right, let's sit down with a cup of tea and I'll tell you everything that happened. Listen, children, to my story. It was written long ago. Yeah, I see what you're saying there. So that's my general take.

[00:13:47] It's funny because I actually just recently watched season one. When it originally came out, I started it, but I never finished it. So it's fresh in my memory. And a lot of people kept referencing Supernatural. There really is no Supernatural in season one.

[00:14:06] The closest thing to Supernatural are the visions that Cole has. And I never got the impression that they were Supernatural. I never got the impression they were leftover drugs that he had done. He was undercover in narcotics for four years. Serious PTSD, under a lot of stress.

[00:14:24] Yeah, I never got the impression. And they weren't presented in a way to make it feel like it was Supernatural. So I always thought, and I never saw seasons two and three. So maybe there was more Supernatural illusions in those.

[00:14:37] Season three tripped through time a little bit because of the way that the character construct for Mahershala Ali's character was dealing with these multiple time frames. And his own, I think dementia, his character might have had dementia and that's what his time trips were.

[00:14:53] But it wasn't at all moving through the boundaries of time and space in Star Trek wise. Yeah, yeah. And so I think, you know, from a hot take perspective, the conversation of a Supernatural in this world, in this particular show, obviously came up a lot.

[00:15:14] And I felt like it was the kind of thing where if it wasn't connected to True Detective, maybe it would have been a more traditional Supernatural detective show.

[00:15:25] Where she could have leaned in more to all of these references to Sedna and Supernatural being more concrete as opposed to just what they were possibilities of head trauma or whatever.

[00:15:40] And you could have done that the other way as well, but I just kind of felt like it was, it just kind of left me wanting it. And I think there were so many main storylines or primary storylines.

[00:15:56] I think that was the other thing that I felt kind of took away from it. All of these main through lines that we were following as opposed to having one, maybe two main lines to follow. I don't know if you do have the same sense from that.

[00:16:15] I think I felt more jumbled in the beginning than I did at the end. It's funny that you said that you liked the first half better because I like the second half way better. Really? Yeah, I had similar issues to you with the finale.

[00:16:29] Maybe not the, because I actually really liked the sitting around the table telling the story and then oh, it's just a story. But I also have read all the Wheel of Time books, so I'm just a glutton for explanational punishment.

[00:16:41] But the first episode I watch it and I'm like, I don't know if I should have agreed to cover this because I don't know if I'm going to like this. Because it was just so much like you're saying, right?

[00:16:53] It just felt like so many big plot lines that I couldn't wrap my head around yet. And I think the show took a long time to start answering its own questions. And when a mystery show is doing its job, it steadily answers questions and raises new ones.

[00:17:12] And I think it took a while to do that. Around episode three and four, I thought the show really hit its stride. Episodes five and six got a little weaker again. Overall, the season, I'd say like a B plus. It's not the best thing I've ever seen.

[00:17:26] It's not the worst thing I've ever seen. It's pretty good. It's pretty good. And I would recommend to people watch it if they haven't watched it. You know, if somebody says I'm looking for a good mystery show to watch on HBO. Great. I'll recommend this.

[00:17:39] I just would say it's not the greatest show I've ever seen. Yeah, no, I think those are all good points. So David, what were your initial thoughts on the season? Your initial thoughts, your final thoughts on the season. My final thoughts. I've got a lot of thoughts.

[00:17:56] I put a lot of emotional work into this season. Obviously, you know, doing the online detective's journal thing. And it's the first podcast that we covered out of the gate for 2024. And I think this slot for this January, February time frame on Sunday nights, HBO.

[00:18:18] It's got a lot of kinetic energy to it, right? It's a big one. And I think there's a lot of expectation for it. I think it's funny because as I was doing the outline for this season wrap up, I started listening to a bunch of the other podcasts.

[00:18:36] The official one today, there was an amazing podcast, Vanity Fair, still watching. They actually have Issa Lopez on and spoiler warning for that. If you liked the mystery of what the show left you with,

[00:18:50] if you like that feeling of don't listen to that because she just pulls the curtain back. She flips on the lights and she starts talking about how she did all the props set up and the set decoration. But it was really good, really interesting insight.

[00:19:03] But anyway, I had to stop myself from listening to all the other podcasts because I'd be like doing the dishes and then I'd run to my computer to make a note. And then I'd come back and then two minutes later, I'd run back and make another note

[00:19:15] because there's just so much density in this season of television. There are so many layers and issues that this little six episode season packs in. It's kind of crazy. And I think I would echo what you both have kind of said,

[00:19:35] which is I don't know that six episodes was enough for what she was trying to pack in. The density that she was going for, it was too much for six. So by the time we hit three and she's still introducing new characters

[00:19:48] and we're like, wait a minute, we've only got three episodes to go and you're already dropping and you're still dropping a new character on us. What's going on? And so I don't know what the imperative was there.

[00:20:03] Why is it six and whose choice it was and what have you. And I'm glad it's not 12. I don't know that that would have been a very different show, but I could have seen seven and I think I would have been more comfortable with seven.

[00:20:16] A little bit more breathing room, a little bit more detecting, maybe a little bit more character. There's a lot of character work, but it's again, very compressed. Whereas the original season one had 10 episodes

[00:20:28] and there were those long car rides where Russ and Marty would talk about all this stuff. And then there was a whole side quest mission that they went on for a couple of episodes where this like, man, everything was just really compressed and really fast.

[00:20:43] So I think that's my chief complaint is that the compression drove plot mechanics together in such a way that they kind of were grinding against each other a little bit. And I had the experience of when I was doing the outlines or doing detective journal work

[00:21:04] and I was watching scene by scene, man, individual scenes were just bangers and just, oh, there's so much fire there. The acting was incredible, you know, especially all these young actors like Callie Reese, Isabella Starr, LeBlanc played Leah, Anna Lam who played Kayla.

[00:21:21] Akka, I'm not sure if I can pronounce her last name correctly, Nivania who played Jules. Just an incredible amount of raw talent there that was just really well put together. And yet she's just hammering out story, you know, just more and more plot details,

[00:21:46] more and more little plot setups. And it's like, oh my Lord, you know, like we got to slow down here. So I really loved this season of television. I think it was a really fascinating look. I love the recentering of it to night country, to Alaska,

[00:22:05] to perspective of women as police officers, as these guardians. That's one of the hallmarks of a true detective season is this guardian. What cost do the guardians pay to be guardians, to be the bad men at the door? So I loved all of that. Visual effects, amazing.

[00:22:29] Sound effects, incredible. Side note on production, apparently according to Lopez on the Vanity Fair podcast, the whole thing about the color teal complete, we call it a Markley. It's a false lead. I knew it. Those folks were like teal watch and I banned it from this podcast.

[00:22:53] I banned it from this podcast because I knew it was nonsense. And I was my internet. It was totally nonsense. So which is very cool. But anyway, so much I enjoyed. Sorry, sorry. I was going to say, you maybe should finish your thought.

[00:23:11] Because there was one other point I was going to make about the detective work. Yeah, go for it. I always like to give practical examples of what I think could have made it better. So when I think about, and I don't want to compare it to season one,

[00:23:27] but it's the easiest because I just recently saw it. But any really good detective show, even though, and obviously spoilers for season one, but even though they reveal to the audience who the killer was, you know, the guy with the scar on his face, whatever.

[00:23:42] So we knew who he was. So we weren't necessarily figuring out the mystery, but we saw Cole figuring it out. We saw the pieces he was putting together. So even though we knew who it was,

[00:23:56] we could still come along his journey of figuring out what was going on. Right. And he's putting the pieces together. And here in this season, we have Jodie Foster, who they present as someone who knows her stuff. She's always like, you know, are you asking the right questions?

[00:24:14] Are you asking the right questions? The only one who's doing anything that seemed close to detective work was little young prior. Like he was the one that was going out. It's true. At the end of the day, Jodie Foster's character, Danvers,

[00:24:29] didn't do anything that I could think of that was detecting. If we had just seen examples of like, if she was maybe, I think maybe in the finale, I think she sees the three fingered handprint or does Navarro see that?

[00:24:45] She does, but she has a flash. Yeah. It's Jodie Foster. Right. Right. So she sees that. And so maybe that is the closest, but we don't see a thread of her putting two and two and two together

[00:24:55] and coming up with six. And I almost said eight, but two plus two plus two. Anyway, we don't see her putting all those threads together to arrive at who the killers could be. And I think that's the kind of thing that would have kind of settled that for

[00:25:16] me and what have made it feel like, Oh, these are detectives actually doing detective work to figure out what was going on. And, um, even the moment where she figures out that Hank is involved in some way,

[00:25:31] it's, um, it's an intuitive moment based on a negative response from Hank. Hank doesn't say anything and she's like, Oh, okay. You are involved in this somehow. And then she goes and she talks to Peter and, and sort of leads him through it. But there was,

[00:25:50] that's all just a flash in a moment. We don't see her taking a puzzle piece from here and a puzzle piece from there and then another, another puzzle piece and building the picture. It's more of an intuitive flash and that's fine. But as you said,

[00:26:04] there was just a lot of intuitive flashes, not a lot of case building. Right, right, right. And Peter did a lot of that. The digital forensic work. I will say if using the Socratic method is not doing anything,

[00:26:20] I have a lot of professors to call up and get my money back from. So I think overall I'm, I'm satisfied with it as a season of television. I'm proud of it as a citizen of television in that fact that Issa Lopez is, you know,

[00:26:37] breaking through and we're able to recenter some stories and talk about some story lines in a way that we don't normally talk about. And, and talk and be with characters that we don't normally get to be with. The mix of supernatural and the mundane I liked,

[00:26:57] except there was just a couple of times where we swung so hard from one to the other. And again, I think that has to do with the compression of only six episodes, but the character work was really great.

[00:27:09] I could have seen some more time for them to develop, but the idea that these two women are going through their trauma, and that's another true detective hallmark for me is the, the, the brokenness of the two detectives gets intertwined with their personal

[00:27:30] lives, gets intertwined with the case work. And as the case becomes solved, so do their personal traumas become solved and they, and the two merge. And then the idea is, is then the our characters come out with a new perspective. They don't necessarily have to be fixed,

[00:27:48] but they come out in it. They've evolved, they've gone through an evolutionary transformational process through this. And now they're somehow different. And so I think that, and that leaves me satisfied. So for me, this is probably like a 9.0 on my, on my idiosyncratic scale.

[00:28:07] So it'll probably land in the top 10. I don't know if it's going to stay in the top five, because we've got so much more coming this year, but I could pro I feel that it's probably going to come into the, into the top 10.

[00:28:18] So that's saying quite a bit. Yeah. Like I'm not sure I'm there with you, David, but we'll, we'll talk at the end of the year. We'll talk at the end of the year. But again, it goes back to when I took apart the Lego pieces of the show,

[00:28:33] the individual pieces were in some cases really wonderful. And then it's her construction that that's the overall season construction that gets a little janky, a little bit wobbly and out of balance. Sure. And I had some thoughts about the role of women and the role of indigenous women.

[00:28:51] But I think we have a letter coming up where that kind of comes up and I can address it there. Cause I had some thoughts about that as well. And as a, as a person of color who is very passionate about representation in Hollywood and how it's done.

[00:29:05] Yeah. There are definitely some commentary ahead about the show. Yeah. The first email up actually we've got a, is a perfect framework for that. Yep. Yep. So I can hold on to that. In typical lore hounds podcast fashion.

[00:29:17] This recording went way longer than we thought it was going to go. I think the raw recording was about two and a half hours and David and I still need to go record the response to that. The last few bits of feedback.

[00:29:27] So I'm going to do a quick outro here from this short season wrap, where we just talked about our general thoughts. Then later in the week, there's going to be about a two hour podcast coming out with just listener feedback from the whole season.

[00:29:39] So that'll be a lot of fun. Ronald will be on most of that too. For now. I just want to talk about what we're doing right now. We've got Shogun starting for our next premiere show. That's going to be on Hulu. It looks really good.

[00:29:49] It looks very game of Thrones. He David's putting together a special podcast. We also have some really in stories coming back soon with up men. We've got a new episode of the earth. See cycle coming soon. David's doing some Oscars coverage with Alicia.

[00:30:00] They're doing an MC universe episode on Madam web, plenty of stuff coming for now. I just want to quickly shout out our. Our YouTube channel. We have a lot of great content coming out there. We've got a lot of great episodes coming out.

[00:30:12] We're going to be doing a lot of fun stuff. So make sure you check out our YouTube channel. We've got a lot of fun stuff coming out. For now, I just want to quickly shout out our affiliates, Alicia and Anthony.

[00:30:25] Both of them are on a little bit of a hiatus right now, but I think Alicia is going to be back soon with some dune coverage. I also want to plug our Patreon subscription. We also just started a super cast subscription where you can get a little

[00:30:40] bit more flexibility on your membership. I think it's a similar thing. Same pricing as our Patreon, but it's going to give us a little bit more flexibility on how we offer things. So Patreon is not going away, but now you have another option.

[00:30:52] You can find all of that in the show notes where you can get ad-free episodes, early access. You can get our second breakfast Shire side chats, ton of exclusive content and of course the detectives journal for true detective and the Shogun guide. Of course, our top tier subscribers,

[00:31:11] our lore masters get us shout out at the end of every episode. Those are Samartian, Mark H, Michael G, Michelle E, David W, Brian P, Nick W, S C, Peter O H, Bettina W, Adam S, Nancy M, Dove 71,

[00:31:27] Brian 8063, Frederick H, Sarah L, Gareth C, Eric F, Matthew M, Sarah M, DJ Mewa, Andra B, Kwong U, Dead Eye Jedi Bob, Nathan T, Alex V, Aaron, T Subzero, Aaron K, Dally V21, Narls. And last but not least, Adrian.

[00:31:51] I just also want to give a thank you to our discord server boosters. These are people who just have their own free will. We didn't even ask, but have thrown a little bit a few bucks to our discord server to make sure that we have some extra features.

[00:32:05] Those are Opus and the machine, Narls, Aaron K, Tiller, The Thriller and John Lorehound. It's weird to thank myself, but thank you to everyone on that list and to our lore masters and to all our patrons and to all our listeners that stuck with us through the season.

[00:32:21] I hope you'll return for our season feedback, but until then we'll see you on the next one. The Lorehounds podcast is produced and published by the Lorehounds. You can send questions and feedback and voicemails at the lorehounds.com slash contact.

[00:32:39] Get early and ad free access to all Lorehounds podcasts at patrion.com slash the lorehounds. Any opinions stated are ours personally and do not reflect the opinion of or belong to any employers or other entities. Thanks for listening.

[00:32:54] Okay, David, this is where we're supposed to choose a side green or black. John, my soul is as black as night. Your turn. I am black for life. So we're not fighting. I thought this is where HBO wanted us to like pick sides and fight and stuff.

[00:33:16] Don't worry. I'm sure we'll find plenty to disagree about on the pod, but we seem to agree on one thing. We both really liked this show. The politics, the drama, the lore. It was made for the Lorehounds. And since we just finished recapping season one,

[00:33:30] we couldn't be more ready to defend our black queen in the dance of the dragons. And with the season pass option and supercast listeners can get early ad free access to each weekly scene by scene deep dive. Plus our custom show guide with all the characters and connections.

[00:33:45] See you in the lorehounds podcast feed each week for our dragon fire hot, but probably positive takes. The Lorehounds house of the dragon coverage is also safe for team green consumption. Side effects may include a deeper understanding of dragon lore,

[00:33:57] a heart in conflict with itself and an inescapable urge to read the book fire and blood by George R.R. Martin. Dragon seeds may experience burning.