Episode 144: Crusty Jugglers | Hot Fuzz, The History of Bromance & The Greater Good

Welcome to Sandford Gloucestershire! This week on the podcast, we’re covering a movie that’s been on our to-do list as long as we’ve been recording: HOT FUZZ. The insane cosy mystery/buddy cop flick/madcap action spectacular/slasher horror film by Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg is a masterpiece of genre pastiche and comedy that brings up some unexpected philosophical questions. What is the greater good? What is the right way to serve a community? What do you do when the swan’s escaped?

In this episode, we’ll explore just a few of the threads that come together to make Hot Fuzz a complex, rewatchable masterpiece. We’ll discuss the tradition of the bromance in literature and history, and we’ll head deep into the complexities of morality and how the “greater good” can be distorted in a vacuum.

We’re doing a Lord of the Rings GIVEAWAY! Follow us on Twitter and check out our pinned tweet to enter for your chance to win two LotR Funko POPs and a set of LotR Trivial Pursuit.

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Episode 140: None of This Is Bad | The Good Place, Moral Philosophy & Religion

Welcome. Everything is fine. NBC’s acclaimed philosophical comedy The Good Place came to an end recently, and we’re here to discuss the emotional series finale and the lasting legacy of the show. Having finally reached the real Good Place, Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani, and Jason (along with architect Michael and not-a-girl/not-a-robot Janet) have overseen the creation of an entirely new afterlife system. In the finale, “Whenever You’re Ready,” the show grapples head-on with the most difficult questions of existence. What happens after we die? What does it mean to live a good and happy life? Can people really improve, and how? In this installment of the Midnight Myth, we’ll also grapple with these questions of morality, spirituality, and Maximum Derek.

We’ll look for insight in Buddhism, Virgil’s The Aeneid, Aristotelian virtue ethics, and other tentpoles of moral philosophy. Will we find the forking answer to lasting peace? Maybe. But until then, take it sleazy.

*Spoilers for Seasons 1-4 of The Good Place!*

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Episode 90: Pobody's Nerfect

Holy motherforking shirtballs! The Midnight Myth is finally taking on NBC’s The Good Place, one character at a time. This week, the question is: what does it mean to be an Eleanor? Following the central protagonist through the two and a half seasons of the Good Place (and through countless metaphysical realms), we’ll discover some surprising truths about morality, change, responsibility, and of course—horniness.

Episode 79: One Trick Pony

Content Warning: This weeks episode deals with themes of sexual assault.

On this weeks podcast Derek and Laurel dive into season 5 of Netflix’s original hit cartoon series, BoJack Horsemen. As we watch BoJack’s perpetual self-destructive cycle, we are left to ask if there is a reason to be moral in a post-Enlightenment world where rationality gives life little reason to behave. From Philosophy to Hollywoo cover ups of sexual assault, no topic is off the table. We must ask, Hollywoo stars and celebrities, what do they know, do they know things? Are they condemned to be free? Let’s find out in this weeks Midnight Myth. 

Episode 74: De-Mentor

Hot on the heels of the Boy Who Lived’s birthday, Derek & Laurel are revisiting the Harry Potter series for a discussion of the mentor role in storytelling. The Obi-Wan’s, Gandalfs, and Mr. Miyagi’s of the world inspire our heroes, give them strength, and hold them to a standard of morality and courage. To unpack Harry’s many mentor relationships, we’ll focus in particular on the one that develops between Harry and Defense Against the Dark Arts professor Remus Lupin in the third installment of the franchise, Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban. What makes Remus a great mentor? To answer this question, we’ll consult Thomas Aquinas, Thomas Jefferson, and more.

Episode 73: 5 by 5

Great rivalries throughout the ages: Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy, Black Swan and White Swan, Black Panther and Killmonger, Batman and the Joker… but few rivalries have the intensity, longevity, or singularity as the one between Buffy Summers and Faith Lehane. Two girls in all the world, chosen to defeat the vampires, the demons, and the forces of darkness, when two slayers come head to head, it’s a clash of destinies. Fresh off the announcement of a Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot, Derek and Laurel unpack one of television’s most fraught relationships. Friends, enemies, or frenemies, Buffy and Faith give us the perfect literary foils, supernatural doppelgängers, and philosophical opposites. We’ll dig into Ancient Greek Cynicism, Kantian ethics, 19th century literature and more as we unravel the ties that bind the two slayers together.

Episode 57: Cripples, Bastards, and Broken Things

If you’re like us, you’re missing Game of Thrones hard. As we wait (and wait, and wait) for Season 8 to drop, we’re jumping back into Westeros and its gray moral landscape to study fan favorite character, Tyrion Lannister. He’s a hedonistic nobleman whose philosophical alignment makes our heads burst with ethics questions, whose constant quips make for great tee shirts, and whose arc is as hard to parse as it is fun to watch. Join us as we deconstruct why we love Tyrion, and why we should look closer at some of his actions before we pick up where we left off with him. Questions of morality, monstrosity, and Medieval English history abound in this SPOILER-FILLED adventure of an episode.

Episode 51: Champs

As Philadelphia-based podcasters, we’re understandably pretty high on the Eagles’ Super Bowl Victory. But the game that brings a country together one Sunday each year is more than a game when viewed through the lens of sporting history and the idea of cultural identity. This week, Derek and Laurel look to one of the great sport stories, which also has roots in scrappy Philadelphia: Rocky. As a character, as a symbol of America, as a perseverant fighter, Rocky Balboa has inspired a generation of sports fans and cinema junkies alike. Join us as we explore the underlying moral philosophy and artistic heritage of America’s favorite underdog.

****CORRECTION: Derek is acutely aware that dentology is not a word. Painfully aware. However, when Derek recorded the above episode, he fucked up and misspoke deontology (a word whose roots go back to Ancient Greece), which is the moral system he was referring to. Feel free to tweet at him #dentologyshame for the rest of his life.****