SurrealTube: Don't Hug Me I'm Scared "Transport"

Hello, everyone, and welcome to yet another episode of Surreal Tube. Here at Scary Stories, we tell I am one of your hosts, Chris Stashe, and I am the other one of those. Emma, there's two of us, but I am the other one of the place Where we are, we are where we are, or whatever the hell yellow guy said. If you've been following along with us, we've been watching a little show called Don't Hug Me, I'm Scared, which originally started out as a YouTube series and then it morphed into a show, a real show on the real Internet that you can watch if you're so inclined, and you should be the Internet. And I guess you know at this point, if you're following along with us, we're very near the end.

We're in the penultimate episode of the first season, possible only season remains to be seen. Again, we don't know. It took him a very long time to get to this point, so I would hope it doesn't take another ten years. But again, where this is like still brand News October of last year. So we're gonna be talking about the fifth episode of Don't Hug Me I'm Scared aptlete titled transport Our three friends meet yet another teacher who is the worst one yet, frankly, in a lot of ways, No, Lily and Togny were the worst.

He's terrible in a he's terrible in a different way. Horrible actually, now that it's just it's it's varying degrees of horrible because he's like, I don't understand what he is, Frankly, okay, okay. So he's obviously supposed to encompass the idea of transportation as a whole, and so he's able to transform and morph into all different types of transport vehicles, car and plane, boat and submarine in order to show our trio what it means to be transported, I assume our the history of transportation. It's clearly meant to be Thomas the tank Engine, right, is it? I guess when I think of choo choo trains that talk, there's only one that I can think of.

When I was I just as soon as I saw choo Choo, all I could think was choo Choo Charles, Which is that new like indie horror game? I have to you have to see things I need to show you think, are you talking about the like the Thomas the Train Engine game is that it's like it's like a Thomas the Train train character, right, uh big spider train right, yeah, okay, yeah, that's Charles. I mean that's but that's inspired by Thomas the Tank Engine, right, I'm assuming that's what this is. This is a pretty direct send up of that kid show. I think it's only because of the placement of the face.

You put a face on a train's just but that's what I'm saying. It's like, how much of it could it really be? Like, oh, yes, this is a callback to Thomas the Tank Engine when it's just like the only similar things here is it is a train and it has a face, and it has the same color scheme. That's it. It's blue and yellow.

Oh, Thomas is blue and yellow. Those are like the two of the three primary game. You know what. I'm surprised that Thomas the Tank Engine is not what you thought of, because that's like again, kids the Kids. That's fair.

It's it's i mean again like a kids a show about kids shows, sending up kids shows. I'm surprised it's taken this long to do something that's so direct, because again, they haven't done Barney or Teletubbies or anything else. But I haven't needed to, right, and I mean I don't think they do here. And obviously the direction that they go ends up deviating pretty far away pretty quickly because he's a choo choo train for like two seconds frankly, like, yeah, starts out as a little train and then becomes effectively a horrifying person in a train suit. I mean we missed out on what Time Child or something.

Yeah, the Time Child shows up at some at one point looking for our trio because they went out on the road. This is the first time we've seen outside, like like like traveling outside. I don't know, like this is personal time had travel right, because like even when we saw them in the Love episode, they were outside, but they didn't go They weren't walking around. There was just yellow guys in a tree and they're having a picnic. Like yeah, um, I mean like in the death episode, like they were outside to bury duck, but like they never showed how they got there.

Obviously with Uh Lily and Todney Uh in the Family episode, they also just sort of showed up there. This is the first time that they showed a large expanse of the environment I suppose theoretically, who knows it's a weird episode because the first three quarters of the episode, the first and nine tenths of the episode is pretty straightforward. Yeah, and then part of the course yeah, and then when we come back from the kind of little intermission that they always do, it just goes in a very strange direction off the rails. A sorry anyway, Uh, it's just it's weird because we were talking on the last episode about whether or not they would address and it's like the reality of the show and what and like, because again we talked about it the last episode, Red Guy, the actor who played him with the hat with the head coming off, Like, there were plenty of things that this show has done to show us that there may be a reality sub beyond this one that we're not seeing, and now fucking confirmed it more or less at the end of this episode, right, that reality plays an actual role in the context of the show itself.

That's self awareness, you know, it was baked into the latter half I would say of the original YouTube series specifically, like I would say the last episode, the last episode and a half of the YouTube series, And I guess that's sort of honestly, now that I'm saying it out loud, it's the second half of the you know, of the second to last episode is where things started to break down. Yeah, and that starts eating acts starts eating duck, right, And so it's almost as if it was following that same formula of like, well, they've established the world up until this specific point, and now they're ready to fourth wall break like more than they had been, making it more than like making it a true plot point that they're deviating from the type of system that they've created for themselves.

It's interesting. The timing is a little uncanny. Well, you know, I think, I mean again, I think with a show like this even again, because we talked about this in the last episode, like who's watching this, right? Is the audience for this show effectively just people like us who saw whenever they saw the YouTube series, they saw it and then they were like, oh my god, this is finally there's something else or was it people who were finding this for the first time. Because if people are finding this for the first time, they don't know any of that, right, they don't know that there's a fourth wall break, they don't know any of that stuff.

It's it seems to them on the level right there, there really hasn't been a whole lot of any of this up until this point, like a little bit in the last episode, a little bit. But like again, the show, like you said, more or less is presenting itself as a kid's show. It is maintaining that reality that it's a kid's show, even if the message is strange. There's no break breaking through peering through the people stuff that we're used to with the series. I guess at the end of the series the way it was before.

So I guess they're just doing it again because it worked before, or maybe they're also assuming people didn't see it before and they want to do it again in a different way. But is it really different though? That's a question, like is it different? Is that the is? Yeah, it is what they're doing different than last time, or is it effectively kind of the same gimmick.

I guess it remains to be seen. I think it's less, you know, is it the same? And more so are they going to do the same thing with it? Right? That's that's what I want to know.

Is it going to be like the same message of you know, this is actually like in the universe. This is a kid show that's being created, it's a meta narrative on kids shows, or are they going to be doing something more with it that we haven't seen yet. I would argue that if this, if it is following the same timeline, roughly, they're doing that for a reason, and they might be doing it specifically to cue us in as prior audience flowers, because I mean, obviously they are taking to account both audiences, right. They wanted to make something that they knew that people could just like come in and see for the first time. But they also I think wanted to drop in the little lore and the little extra bits, little callbacks just for us who have seen it, like Roy's I in the beginning, same as Pesky be and Roy in this episode effectively, And yeah, Roy was in this episode very very briefly.

There were a lot of weird symbols in this episode. Well, you have yellow guy having a dream that again, like it doesn't send a community new town, right, and it's what would happen if they got where they were going. But we're led to believe by the way the episode ends that there may not be anywhere you go. Well, okay, I gave we're setting up this idea with I think I think it comes back to Girlton and Hobrus. I think they were using that as as this allegory, so like he was Red Guy was saying in the car while they were driving, uh, you know, after things were starting to like break down.

Uh the console was no longer working, so Duck couldn't continue to watch the show, which by the way, would kill my motion sickness. I could never uh, I hear you. But Duck saying like, I won't know how it ends, and Red Guy really hammers home this idea of like it always ends the same way and then they always start back up at the house the next episode, right that, and he made that really clear. And at the tail end of the episode where uh you know, there was like this weird cutaway um that almost showed like a weird like third party person moving a car next to a house, and it like this narration reiterating that same point that they'll end up back where they started and the journey always ends up back at home.

I think is even I mean again, like that's a TV show for you in a lot of ways, right, Like most sitcoms, they go in a circle, like the how many episodes of The Simpsons or other cartoons or TV shows is just oh, we had this crazy thing, but now we're just back to the status quo. So it's it's it's still lack of consequences, right, Yeah, And not obviously not every show follows that formula. There are tons of shows that have a full narrative that goes the entire time episode to episode, and everything in the in you know that's happened previously matters. And I think what we were talking about in a recent episode of us talking about this is wondering is that going to be the path that this show takes?

Is it going to continue resetting? We were we were already talking about this, which I think was really interesting because I didn't think that this would be like a massive, you know, point that they were trying to make. But I'm starting to wonder if it could be. Which is this idea of is it are they actually going to continue, you know, starting it from the beginning every time, or will there be some weird meta narrative that they wove in there? And we were sort of batting back and forth the idea of like maybe there's a meta narrative.

Maybe there won't be. I won't really mind if there is, there isn't. And I think they were setting us up for that in a weird way, to really make us believe that it was just going to be purely episodic and it wasn't going to be some you know, weird arc or through line. And it's now like you know, joking with us saying like you thought, yea trick too again you thought, no, there is something deeper going on here, and there is something more we're going to talk about here, and that's subverting of expectations. Yet again they did it again in another really cool, thought provoking way.

So I gotta give them props, because, like I said, we were already thinking, like, was that going to be where they take this? And it looks like they are and still not in the way that I thought they were well and that and that's the thing, you know, similar to yourself, it's it's been a concern since we saw it in the first season that it's like, all right, so you've kind of shown us this little trick that you're going to do with the characters, and oh they're oh they're different colors now, or you know, they're not actually there, and that it is a puppet. It's not a person or a duck in the in that context, it is just a puppet. I think they've kind of shown it already, and I think, like yourself, I was really concerned that it was going to be just more of the same ground being tread.

I don't know where they're going or what they're doing. It's weird to see a hand pushing their car back to their house with the the journey always ends up back, and mind you, they're not in the car, though, But I mean, I supposed to represent it, right, I don't think very clearly. Right. I don't think it matters if it shows them or not, because yeah, I don't know what they're trying to say about these kinds of shows though, Like what, I don't know what their messages they're trying to get across. But I appreciate that they are continuing to push the expectations that I have with this narrative in interesting ways, like ultimately the way this episode ends, and even I mean, here's I mean another thing that we've kind of seen a little bit of in every episode, but they do it really well.

Here Medium's changing. I mean, they have a full animated section in this episode which is really well done. Yeah, all the morphing, and it's just like it's a constant, Like, dude, there's a there's like a beat to it almost you kind of know where it's going to go to the next one, and then the next one and the next one. Eventually it's got to reach this kind of terminus with this character. But I just don't know.

I guess for me, when we get to the end of this series, if the next season comes out, are they going to do like they did before and disregard all this stuff, because that's the kind of thing that does bug me, And I wonder does it bug you that they're not addressed saying the thing that they've already addressed unless this is a prequel, But again that's just speculation. But right, they're they're they're not acting like what we saw in the first series happened, or they're not acknowledging it openly in this version of the show at least. Right, will you be disappointed if they never do? No? I mean, I think it's like a lot of other things like five Nights at Freddie's and Undertail like things where the mythology is there, but it's not.

The point is to entertain it. Deeplore right, It's it's not like it's not something where it's like they're clocking you over the head with it, and this they're kind of but again they're clocking you over the head with it, but they're not explaining it. They're just showing you these like weird things and saying, Okay, it's weird. And even our characters in the show think it's weird because again there they end up in a kind of junkyard at the end of this episode, and even they're like, fuck do we do now? I mean, this is the I think the coolest thing about ending up where they're ending up is like this is like the first time that they have been surrounded by non felt materials only like I mean, like I would say, like the Family episode, it does show like more like realism in the set design, but like this is the first time where nothing has a face.

It's very literally a real life junkyard, like you can tell like, no, it looked like nothing there was stage. It looked like the crew was like, hey, find us a junkyard that we can film at. Yeah, it's stark and weird juxtaposing the characters in that scenario. I mean, it'd be weird to see the characters anywhere that's not felt, given that all we've seen up until this point is felt felt and felt and felt and felt or animated or cgi, but never them walking around in ostensibly our world. Again, it's not made clear.

It's so sadly our world too, like it is the lowest of our world. It is it is our unwanted, it's our trash like it's it's a very interesting place metaphorically, because you were even saying earlier like this idea of like you don't know, like what they're going to do it, like where are they going? Like? And I feel like that was the whole purpose of the episode is a visual representation of where where is this going? Where are we going?

I think that there's a lot of visual metaphors that you can take with this show as a whole. But it's funny because the more that you put them into words and contextualize them, it's really easy to start seeing those threads. But I in terms of like subtle, I mean, the show is not subtle, but kids shows aren't subtle. I mean I that's one of the things I appreciate many of the One of the many things I appreciate is that kids shows aren't subtle because kids, again, you need to just get it out with kids, like just get to the point. And I appreciate that this show is unsubtle with its kind of messaging, even if it is may be a little on the nose, but I'll give it a pass because again, it's emulating a culture.

Yeah, but it is so clever about it. And that's what I love about how they we've been narrative, but it's it's interesting, you know. Obviously the whole purpose of this episode is supposed to say, all right, we get it. We're always in this house. This is you know, usually a catalyst will come in somehow transport us somewhere, and then we're back at home and we never learn anything and nothing ever changes, and that lack of consequences, which is pretty part for the course for most children's programming.

Usually if there are consequences, they learn them in the episode and then it's not really ever called back to you sort of just assume that, you know, that might be a lesson that the main character will have to relearn later. On just in a different context, and that's obviously not satisfying, but it doesn't really need to be for a child, but for us, it's not satisfying. And seeing the same formula over and over and over again, how many times can you spoon feed that to us until we're like, we get it. Let's we want to see something new. And I think we in that case, we are supposed to be Red Guy in this episode.

And it makes sense because Red Guy is the one arguing with the other two. The other two were like, we're enjoying this, like we like being at home, we like the status quo. We're this is where you know, we do our stuff and this is how it happens, and we're happy with that. We're fine with that and we're comfortable here. And Red Guy this time is the catalyst that says, I don't want to do this anymore.

Though this is boring, this is bland. I want to see something new, and so I think we're supposed to be Red Guy in this episode. Would you contend that we're supposed to be Red Guy most of the time, though I feel like probably, I mean the closest analog for the audience. I feel I mean again, he's the most humanoid, which I think kind of it's true ahead already, but I mean the way he's treated at the end of the last season and even in this season with the family episode where he meets his family, like I don't know what, it all felt more humannoid than anything else. Even though right, Yellow Guy looks like a human as well, he's humanoid.

Red Guy is more humanoid, just I think by his mannerisms. Yes, and I think it's most people would argue that Yellow Guy is supposed to be the standard for the audience, but he's supposed to be a representation of the intended audience, not the actual audience, right who the audience actually would be worth this to be an actual kid show exactly, But instead we are right, especially in this episode. I would argue, in a lot of episodes that we can all relate probably the most too, Red Guy, but definitely in this episode. We are often the ones as the audience questioning the status quo, and that is what Red Guy is doing. And as soon as they're given an opportunity to escape, you know, Duck and Yellow Guy are like, Okay, that was fun, We'll go back home.

Red guys the one that pushes Red guy is the one that says, no, we're going to see this through. We're going to see where this takes us. And it's interesting because then first of all are the teacher dies, which it leads to some comedy that's pretty gold, like Duck saying don't get out of these cults, which is that was never not gonna be funny to pure bastard all the time. That's Duck for you. I mean, it's it's very clear that it's supposed to be a representation of running out of gas because at the very beginning, the train is introduced with drinking his special drink, which is I immediately said oil, but it's probably just straight up gasoline.

I don't know. I don't think that trains run on gasoline. But it's a kids show, I guess, so we're gonna don't worry about that. It comes from deep inside of the earth. I appreciate the ancient ones, the ancient ones.

I did appreciate that. Yeah, that's that's much appreciated, because that's just as goofy, a way of explaining it as humanly plausible, so of course perfect. Yeah, the cryptic goofy. I mean that's what the show thrives on is cryptic goofy well, and again, I mean if you really told kids what it was, they'd be horrified. Dead dinosaur all kind of just boiled up into a soup through tashas yea the Ancient Ones special drink.

So obviously, after this whole to the animation, which again is beautifully done, as you said, um our transport teacher runs out of gas and dies very similar to a car, very similar. I mean, like I obviously that's that's what it comes down to. Red guy, you know, push us forward as much as he physically can until he cannot. So it's it's interesting. So the car dies, but they could keep going, right, and then he comes.

Then the teacher comes back to beg for gas. Right. Is that is that the timeline? I guess? So, yeah, it's weird.

The teacher dies, but they're still able to drive they I guess there's still a car. I guess, so going off of battery alone. Is that how that works? I know that. I mean it's not he's not an electric vehicle best I can tell, because he's drinking Ancient one Goo.

Maybe he's a highbrid Yeah, I feel like they would have said that though, oh who cares. That's fair. Look, I think I think it was smart to have the teacher in this episode be a big I get a bigger part, but also I mean as big of a part as they all they ever are, which is to say the focus of the episode. Really, like every time there's a teacher, they kind of are the focus of the episode except for jobs. Yeah he left, it's gone, But that was so because they had to they had to really sell the audience on those characters.

So that's the episode of this show, this run of the show where we get to learn the most about the characters. Fair. So, yeah, they didn't want to focus too much on the teacher and establish the you know, a teacher being a reoccurring character. So that makes sense, but I definitely think it's important to talk about obviously, now that Red Guy is driving the car and thinking that they're you know, a whole world of possibilities, then the GPS comes in to also tell them a million times to just go home, and that like, sure, there are like a couple of maybe like a few safe places that they could have gone, but that's not where Red Guy wanted to go. And when the GPS was basically like we should you guys should honestly just go home.

Red guy rips it out of the car, and I believe she said something along the lines of like you're making a mistake or something like going to regret this, you're making a mistake, which they did. They loved the safety, and then reality broke down or they broke through reality. It's not made clear what happens really like, right yeah, I mean obviously there was a short amount of time where they were just parodying what it's like to be in a car in general, right, which I feel like they got a lot of mileage out of Tell movies. Fucking yeah, miledge. I feel like, right like, I don't know, you're not going to acknowledge your amazing pun, just then not to acknowledge it.

Acknowledge pun acknowledged perfect. I feel I feel like they get as much out of the in the car sequence as they can, which leaves some funny bits that have nothing to do with the overall story, and that is very welcome in this show because we haven't had a lot of those moments. A lot of the show is just like go go, go, go, goggle. We gotta get to the point. We gotta get to the song, we gotta get to the thing, And I like that this episode kind of just get to hang out with the characters a little bit.

It's interesting for an episode that's so much about going somewhere, this is like the longest they've stayed in a single spot, which is within a car, right, totally, I totally agree. I actually really liked this episode. Like it's not much in the way of the message, which I'm okay with, but I thins away from that. Yeah, right, but I think it's more in line with the first episode, which was just getting to spend some time with these interesting, weird characters. Right, So I think the next important thing is talking about Yellow Guy's dream sequence and why that existed and how that sort of ended.

So, I mean, obviously, so Red Guys talking is trying to like talk up Yellow Guys to like this idea of going somewhere new. Yeah, at this point, Red Guy is fully accepted, like he doesn't even want to ever go home, right. He was saying, like they're going to live somewhere else, They're going to get new houses. They weren't going to live together. But that's okay because we'll have neighbors and all of that to sort of quell all of Yellow Guys's fears and become complacent with what was going on.

And then he continues to have this dream sequence of what it would be like to live in a community with more people, a more involved external environment. And there are a lot of kids shows that have that, you know, lots of kids shows that exist within like a small town, yeah, with those reoccurring characters and the shops and this one's the postman and this is the you know, store clerk, like the police officer, And so it makes me wonder, though, what was the purpose of that, because the only thing I can think of is that it just led up to the ending gag of oh, one of your neighbors wants to give you a gift. Oh it's a rat or something, and it was like a bird. The bird flew away and Yellow Guy woke up to a bird flying into the car window, which I mean, like, I like the transition.

I thought that was really neat, But what was the point. I think it was to show off the fact that they did a ranking in bass and a magic thing, because it was it was the frosty of this Snowman, Rudolph the Red Nose reindeer style of animation where it's like Little Maquette puppets, right, which is impressed with Little Wooden puppets. Yeah, hey, which is? And a magic ranking in bass. You've seen it if you watch those at Christmas time, it's that same thing.

I personally appreciated it, but I think, to your point, what a waste of ten minutes. I mean, it wasn't ten minutes, but it dragged, and it feels like it just kept going on and on and on. It's like, all right, we get it. There was two funny bits, the thing with the bird and the thing with Duck being a dog. Yeah, Duck was a dog.

That was interesting. Didn't understand the point of that one either, But I guess dreams are supposed to be weird. I guess. I mean, he's the only one out of the three of them who is an animal, So yeah. I do think the interesting thing, though, is that I'll so the way that it ended, because I almost forgot, is that yelog I gets hit by a car in the dream, and obviously there must be some kind of symbolism.

They're they're in a car, they're going somewhere Yelogi gets hit by a car. There's something there, I just don't know what. There's a point that they're making there, there's a there's a foreshadowing maybe that they're making there. I just don't know what it is. I don't that I felt was pretty leak.

Again, it just felt like an interesting, jarring transition, which if that was all it meant to do, then it's served its purpose. Yeah, but that's it feels like a lot of time spent right just for that. You feel like there's a quicker way to get to that gag. It felt a little self serving, similar to the to the Family episode. Maybe it is self serving.

We've seen them be self serving before, so it's not. It's not out of bonding. Yeah, a few shows do it as well as this show does. It does a bird flying into a window. I feel like that has some like ominous meaning though, yes, like in like horror movies and stuff, it totally does.

Like what is like the to possess, the possession like it normally signifies, like the uh, like the presence of like a demon or an evil spear, Like just thinking of things off top of my head that come to mind, the conjuring Amityville horror like Haunted House movies where birds are like attacking the house. I don't know, again, like maybe it's a you know what it's normally seen, Like you kind of just mentioned as like a bad omen so that maybe I would think is like it usually represents a bird flying into a window and dying, retentious omens. Yeah, I just want to know if it went like deeper, if it was more specific than that. But I think you touched on something interesting. I don't know if this is the case, but saying that, like the presence of something demonic, which I mean like they obviously like I think a lot of people would describe this show as relatively demonic but like evil adjacent.

But what what are you know? I guess it it comes down to the mechanics of the world as a whole. What would it mean if there is a demonic presence in this show? Like or is it just a bad omen because I could also see it just being a bad omen And maybe we're not supposed to read that deep into it, but I think it's a bad omen of like because again, like the way the episode ends, they end up going as far as you can go right past the edge of their world, seemingly into something else or the real world or whatever. Maybe it's again similar to the sat nav trying to warn them to turn around, because the sat nav is like to the moment, is being thrown out the window.

Like you said, it's telling them turn around, turn around, don't do this bad idea. And it's like, maybe that's what it is. But again, to what end, because we don't. Seemingly they make it back to their house at the end of the episode, so they're solid. Maybe yeah, again, the show is signaling to us that it understands the circularity of these narratives of start here and in the same place, like the show.

That's it. The show's commenting on it, but whether or not it actually is ever going to say anything about it other than shows do this. Yes, we know that remains to be seen because that's not a what is That's not astute observation to say TV shows that run for a long time or kids shows reset themselves every episode. Yes, correct, like there's so many TV shows that do it. It's not anybody can make that observation.

Now, Like you've said, the show normally is at its best when it's operating in a subversive or interesting or new way as opposed to just yeah, duh, right, and then that's kind of always my tickets. And then and then what because everybody can make that statement, but what is what is your observation on that? So again remains to be seen. They said, oh, everything ends up at the home? Okay, got it?

Are they going to do again? I probably end this the way I ended the last one. Where does this go from here? And now it's an even bigger question because they've field Now we have seen a human being in the show effectively, Yeah, there is another hand that moves right. I suppose that sounds like it was some kind of saying somebody said before, right, this is the hand that moves the car like again like, we don't know that sounds like a side.

Well, we don't. Again, we don't know what the limitations and rules of this world are. But it's becoming very apparent, very quickly that there is something else going on. What it is, we do not know why, if it's benevolent, if it's not, if it's just you just exist in this show, and if you are doing something against what the show is wanting you to do, you can break through, Like again, I don't know, because the show really hasn't even if we get into like the dark lore, I don't know how far it goes. Probably pretty far, I'm sure.

Okay, So what do you think is the better ending here? In terms of like, I feel like there are so many different like ways to take the whole Like if you go against the status quo, like you can break free, you can enter the real world, right, and or you could stay complacent and stay in the fake world, which is better? Like which would you be more commended to do? I feel like a lot of different you know, pieces of media take that differently, Like, oh, you know, I could live in a virtual reality where everything is perfect, but I know it's not the real world. Or I'll choose to live in the real world even though it's not perfect, And like, which of those choices is the right choice to make?

And I guess that's sort of what I'm stuck wondering is did Red Guy make the right choice to escape? Is that what he was what we all would want him to do, want the Trio to do, is escape because where they ended up it doesn't seem at all better. If anything, it seems significantly worse. Well, what is that? What is that commenting on?

Is probably even the bigger question. What is the comment on If you go against that and you get somewhere and it's worse, shouldn't you have just stayed home? And that's what I'm wondering. I mean, it's the matrix, right, it's the same thing. Look, if you read red pill yourself, right, yeah, blue pill, and you stay complacent, complacent I mean, I mean again, I mean again, Hey, I wouldn't put it past them.

But at the same time, like again, I feel like the only thing that decides this is whether or not you know, if you know, if you can't tell that it's not real, like they say in West World, it doesn't really matter, right, Okay, weird examples. So they sell now at the store vegetarian hot pockets, Okay, like it's made by Dole or something, and it's you know, Philly cheese steak plant based pot pockets whatever the fuck right, As we bought them at the store and I tried one, and my comment to Kate was, I didn't eat hot pockets before expecting to taste the quality of the meat. So eating this which has a similar texture and taste the same should not upset anyone who eats a hot pocket, and frankly, hot pockets should disappear, and we should just eat plant based ones because you can't tell the difference anyways, because it's just kind of goopy and it's the same thing.

It's like, if I can't tell I was eating meat before, it does shouldn't matter that I'm not eating meat now if they can't tell. I don't know if it matters, I guess, but I think I just don't know the way this ends. Will they be cognizant of that in the next episode, if they go back to the way everything is, will they be cognizant? That's my last question for you. Do you think the next episode, like if you had to guess, if you had to bet money on it, do you think the next episode is going to start with them at home?

Yes? I think despite the show doing what it did, the best thing to do, what I would do is have it open at home, not even acknowledge anything happened, right, Yeah, I mean, I feel like that would make the most sense and it would leave us with so many more questions, which I think is what they want exactly, and Frankly, let's not kid ourselves. Right. If we're writing this show, we get to the end of this last episode, we've fucking written ourselves into a corner that we should just get ourselves out of with a freebee. Like right, we said that the show comes back to where it started, and that's exactly what's going to happen.

We're like, what do you do with these three characters in a wasteland? Like really, like, we didn't even get to see Yellow Guy and Duck moving around freely because they're fucking puppets and that's not how that works. We saw them on a couch or in the car, where people can be hidden behind things and doing things. Red Guy is the only person that can even walk around. So I think ultimately they have to set it back at the house.

But I don't even think there's a point in doing anything else out in the wasteland because I think it's prohibitive to telling an interesting narrative. What do you have a bunch of shots of Duck's feet or something like. It's just there's limitations to this show that it gets around by changing the medium a lot of times, and I don't think it being real would be helpful for them to try to make a compelling show. Sure, So, I guess the question is if the next episode does start at home, which I think is what we're both banking on, we would both bet money that the next episode last. I suppose the last episode is going to start with them back at home, right.

I do think that any of the three of them are going to question it, like do you think that what happened in this episode is going to impact anything? And then like teachers are going to come in to try to distract them from it, or do you think it's like and that's like the story that they're trying to tell, is this, like you know, their characters that want to break out of the show and like and they can't and there's so many obstacles as to why they can't and why they shouldn't. Or do you really think that they're just going to introduce another teacher like it's episode two? Are they again? The question, I guess is a question I would have for you in response to your question, is are they trying to break out of the show?

Red guy was just trying to leave the house. I'm not sure he knew. Again, the question is when they reset the episode. Are they resetting even what they know because not necessarily because they talk about previous episodes. Right, he goes, hey, we had these teachers show up, and then Duck goes like that guy, But do they remember the things that have happened?

I don't know, because I don't even know if Red Guy knew that he was trying to leave opposed to just leave the house, not lead the show. I think it'll reset. I think it'll reset like everything else because it has already multiple times. But like, what if it starts that way and then they remember and then it starts it stops being I like Red Guy saying like, I just want to see something new, and it turns into Red Guy saying what is this? What are we tryed in?

Right? I think a lot of the stuff that we've been seeing is for our benefit and not for the benefit of the characters, because it feels like we as an audience are making progress with the narrative and the characters in the show are not. Does that make some not at all like they're not making progress in their own narrative, But we are seeing a gradual kind of revealing of what's going on, even if they're asking more questions ultimately by revealing the answers that we look for, which ends up being the way these things work. Rarely do you get an answer and no other questions asked unless it's the literal final episode, and sometimes they don't even want to leave it at that. So I don't know.

I mean again, I think the next episode opens like they've all opened. Maybe they hinted something, but I think all of this is for us the audience, and the characters have seen Again, if the first series in the second series are one and the same characters, they've seen stuff already and they're not commenting on it. So I have one other theory, and this is the kind of out there a lot that out there for the show, but like in terms of what they've been leading up to, what if this last episode is going to be like a meta making of don't hug me. I'm scared, like within the show's narrative, that's what I'm wanting, Like, you know, the same that they the same way that they showed like you know, red guy getting into the suit, like obviously like that was within the context of the show.

So I'm not saying and this is more so to get my point across to our listeners. But like, I'm not saying that's going to be like an actual the making of Don't Hug Me, I'm scared, or if it is, it's going to be a staged version, a scripted version of that for the sake of the narrative of the show, existing within the universe of the show. But I'm wondering, like if they're going to do that, like maybe maybe they don't talk about the last episode at all, Maybe they don't start at the house, maybe they start nowhere. Maybe it's just a this is the making of Don't Hug Me, I'm scared, but obviously like it's all scripted, that would be metas fuck. I feel like that might be too much.

I feel like that I said, Like that's why I said, like it's a little out there. But I feel like if I don't say it now and that's what it winds up being, I would have kicked myself. That's fair, I think, you know, even with the way this show does it, and as someone who's watched the fair amount of TV like you have it, it's hard to trick anybody anymore. It's hard to pull the wool over anybody's eyes anymore effectively sensitize. Right, We've seen everything a million times before, and everybody, you know, everybody who watches stuff like this, you know, is going to get something different from it.

But there are going to be a group of people who watch this and want to know all the answers, and that's going to be their motivation for watching this show, is to decipher the clues and what Like you asked, what does yellow guy being hit by a car I mean? And what does duck being a dog mean? Like if it means anything at all. I would like to believe that the people who make this show have an idea at the center of all of this that they're striving for. They're trying to get across, and they will maybe eventually let the cat out of the bag.

But I think me the journey will always be more fun than whatever the final answer is, because the final answer is never gonna It's not gonna satisfy anybody. It rarely ever does. No, definitely not, definitely not Like would you be happy to have this written out clean and clear as day to you, No, it's not. It's not nearly as much fun to know what they're trying to say, it's more fun to kind of bring my own interpretation to it and see if I can get in the right direction. But I don't need it to be exact.

Yeah, I mean it's funny because I was just watching this, like, uh, I watched you know, like YouTube, let's play there this. I won't get into it. There's this one. Uh let's say that I've been watching with my boyfriend and we've been it's like it's like gas lighting the game, and like so the entire time we're thinking like what the fuck? What is the story?

What are they trying to say? Where are we? What is this? And then at the very end it's revealed that like this was all a simulation, and we went we looked at each other and we went lame, so lame. That were new.

It was a dream. That is the new. It's all a dream. And like we because we were in this, we were like, there has to be some like crazy fucking reason that all this shit is happening. What is this story?

What are they saying? And it was just it was all virtual reality and note of this actually mattered, and we were like, nah, it's it's the NW it's the same cop out as this is all a dream. I was the same home, so I'm with you, like, sometimes the answer takes all the fun out of it, Like I kind of just wanted this to be like just weird for weird sake, and then, like them, it wound up being like some like metic narrative on violence and like video games or some shit. I'll tell you about it later, but it was disappointing as fuck. Well, and when you give people an answer, all of a sudden, everybody's ideas become wrong.

Yeah, and that's I mean again, I don't know if Yeah, I don't know if if if certain creators care, because certain creators don't care, But there are plenty of creators that don't want people to lose whatever it means to them, whatever meaning they've assigned to it. And that's important to a lot of people, what they're getting out of it as opposed to what the director is intending you to get out of it, because people are going to get something out of things that they probably the director did not expect at all for them to get out of. And look, I watched Sherlock and John Watson and Sherlock Holmes are pretty you know gay characters, but they never go gay. And I get why the people who like that show felt the way that they did.

But it's like this, like I don't know if there is anything actually going on until the creators of the show show me something really apparent or obvious. All we can do is sit here and theorize. And I think theorizing ultimately is better than having it just yeah, like that, vomit it out just okay, I got it now, like boring, come on, Like I don't need I don't need it spelled out for me. I feel like even with something like this, I've seen enough things. I have a good enough head on my shoulders that it's going to give me everything I need to really understand it.

Right, So maybe the last episode will be weird. Maybe it'll be some strange, esoteric thing and we'll be at the end of it going holy shit. I didn't expect that, but I don't. I don't think it'll be that. It'll probably be a mixing of two things.

I don't think it'll be all in one direction or all I agree I have and I feel okay, I feel like it's definitely going to start as something and end as something else. The same way that this episode started is something and ended to something else. I think they're going to do a setup and subvert that setup, and like that's what they do best. But I feel like the first half is going to be, you know, something that either we totally expected or didn't expect at all, and then the second half is going to be the opposite of that, and there's nothing we can do about it. And I'm hoping that it's done well or else I'll be very dis pointed.

But I have a lot of faith in the show. I have a lot of faith in the creators, and even if it doesn't even if this episode didn't mean anything, the fact that it didn't mean anything means something, and I like that. So I guess, I guess we'll see. Yeah, I mean I again, I'm not going to look forward and see to spoil it for myself, but I am super excited to see whatever wherever this ends up, because where this episode ended is kind of open ended, so it could kind of go anywhere. I don't I don't think it will go all the way into the realm of crazy, but this show has surprised us.

It did with this episode, So yeah, the next time the final time, we're doing us a real tubun. Don't hug me. I'm scared. At least for this run of the show, we're gonna be talking about the final episode of the show, episode six, titled Electricity, and it'll probably be about nothing to do with electricity at all, wager, I guess, frankly. So until then, you can find Emma and I over at Weirdingwaymedia dot com, where this show is found, along with all the other shows that you would want to be listening to.

That's where you can find him as for this show, Scary Stories weetell dot com, Scary Stories wt on all social media's big thanks as always to Maggoty Odd and Dustin Retlits for the album artwork for the show. You can find maggoty Odd over at Dolan Museum dot com. And to our good friend Alex malmaca Blondo. You can hear his music at the beginning and the end of this show. Just search Blondo on Spotify.

As always will let our good friend the former host Society is mister Tim White. Lead us out. No mystery is closed to an open mind. Two