Welcome to another epic edition of the Binge Cast where we talk about everything from our personal Game of Thrones house sigils to “You know, that song about the music and then the radio is on?” Ammon is so drunk at the end of this episode Law and Moreno are a little scared.
Things kick off with some TV Round-Up and straight into Fargo. We also dicuss Game of Thrones, From Dusk till Dawn, Hannibal, Silicone Valley, Penny Dreadful, The Americans, and others.
Google voice provides one of the show’s creepiest moments when it sounds like a caller leaves a message from beyond the grave.
When it comes to What Did You Watch This Week, Moreno fires off 6 or 7 30 for 30 documentaries. Ammon watches NEIGHBORS, THE MECHANIC, and JAWS. Law fits in ENEMY, and CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER. And then Law and Moreno get down to business with GODZILLA, answering all of Ammon’s questions about the film. Even the ones he is incapable of asking. So drunk.
Stay tuned this week for another Game of Thrones commentary, Movie Homework featuring the BACK TO THE FUTURE TRILOGY, the Fargo commentary, and a new Binge Music Cast. We’re here all week long, bitches!
Finally, the epic dance/dinner sequence is happening and it was everything I expected it to be, plus some. There were of course some differences, mainly in that Richie survived. Besides that, we’re given a HUGE amount of back story regarding the people running the Titty Twister, and the people in charge of them. There was enough blood and guts to satisfy most horror fan’s needs, and a fair amount of it were practical effects. I was very happy with this episode, everything about it was better than the movie, I have a feeling Rodriguez spent most of his time coming up with the Titty Twister back story and kind of breezed through everything else.
Right away, Santanico gets down with her snake dance, which isn’t as large as Salma’s, but then again, everything on the new girl is smaller than what Salma had going on. Anyway, things are almost identical to the movie at this point, right down to the wine running down the leg into Ritchie’s mouth routine. A lesser known fact would be that the house band in the show (originally Tito and the Tarantulas in the movie) covered their song After Dark, but the show version was in Spanish. It made more sense to be in Spanish since they are in Mexico, but the house band just can’t compete with the Tarantulas. But of course, shit hits the fan when Richie is stabbed in his hand (through the bullet hole, and this time done by Freddy), for probably a good 20 minutes, the entire screen was filled with blood and body parts. Speaking of Freddy, he’s bitten and drained(?) by Santanico, but that isn’t the last we see of him, more on that later.
With all the commotion going on, there is a group sitting in a VIP section which includes Carlos and Narciso, none of the stripper vampires are touching them and at first we don’t know why. Later on we’re shown just exactly who these men are in relation to the Titty Twister. Now, it isn’t made explicitly clear whether or not these are actually vampires, as Sex Machine (Jake Busey) points out, there is an ancient culture that is believed to have been reptilian, or more snake like than anything else. There is more explanation regarding just what/who these people are, but we don’t know the entire story just yet. One important thing that drastically varies from the movie is that these vampires have no fear of a cross, as shown by one of them eating the one Jacob was holding in front of her face. At least they all die when either their head is cut off, or their heart is stabbed, though.
Here is another big change, not all of the bar patrons and vampires are killed off, well, most of the patrons are dead, but the vampires retreat into a back room which is blocked off by gates. Actually, all of the windows and doors become barricaded once the fun starts. In the back, we’re shown the surviving strippers, who are essentially slaves, along with Carlos and Narciso among other no named people. After some talk, we come to find that Carlos and the girls are servants to the “board” of people sitting at the table, all of whom are cannibals. But alas, a mutiny happens and each of the board members including Narciso is killed.
Back in the main room, the Fullers, along with the Gecko and Sex Machine are trying to devise some sort of plan to escape. Unlike the movie, these people actually try shooting their way through the door, but turns out to be reinforced as noted by Richie. With this down time, Seth is trying his best to get some answers from Richie, but frankly Richie doesn’t have any answers and is just as surprised as everyone else. After some back and forth arguing about the job and money related things, the next wave of vampires start to enter the room. Here is my biggest issue with the episode; Seth and Richie were make a bomb out of gunpowder extracted from bullets…ok so far that’s fine. But why in the hell did they not use this bomb on the huge WOODEN door? Instead, it’s used in the middle of the room and is supposed to kill whoever gets close, which it doesn’t. With everything going to shit, all of a sudden we see Freddy wake up, even though he was bitten earlier. So as Seth and Richie are talking to the others, Freddy shoots Richie in the back. We aren’t sure if he’s killed or not because Santanico and the girls drag him into the back as the gates close.
This week’s episode ran for an additional five minutes, which doesn’t say very much because they were able to squeeze in probably two more commercial breaks. Even with the additional commercials, there isn’t any taking away from the quality. This week was probably the best of the series, the reason for me is that everything is getting explained, even down to the pyramid (which Sex Machine knew was below the bar). With three episodes left, I’m curious what’s to come of Richie, as this was probably the last time we see him as human, and something must happen with Freddie. I’m not sure what that is yet, but obviously he’s more important than just a lonely Texas Ranger.
This episode should have been titled “Place of Missed Opportunities” as so many things could, and SHOULD have happened, but of course, they didn’t. This week wasn’t bad, not really, but all I could think to myself was “blah blah blah” as the episode progressed. Place of Dead Roads was a mix of filler and movie content, basically like how they handled the motel. While there were some interesting things happening, ultimately I was bored and aggravated by the time it was over.
We start off with a flashback to Richie with a huge beard and living alone in what looks like a little shack, after a failed attempt at hunting, someone approaches him about a job. This is presumably relating to the bank heist with his brother, but we weren’t given an answer. The flashback seemed really out of place since it was never touched on for the remainder of the episode.
Back to the present and I have only one question – where the hell are Cheech and Trejo? We had the exact same character at the entrance of the Titty Twister, although he was spouting PG-13 things rather than the X-rated things Cheech said in the movie. Besides missing out on this, there was no Trejo as the bartender, nor was Tito and The Tarantulas the house band. With how frequent all of the people I named have worked with Rodriguez, I think it’s a little weird that they weren’t part of this series at least in a cameo. Oh, Sex Machine is in this, but is played by Jake Busey.
Entering the Titty Twister one that is really apparent – the FX budget must have been around $100 for this episode, the backdrop showing the exterior of the Titty Twister is so bad that it was laughable. The reveal of the interior was similar to the movie, but with less nudity, one of the biggest changes was that the eye symbol on Richie’s knife is a huge set piece behind the stage. Another change being that Carlos is the owner of the bar, which causes Seth to be suspicious as he doesn’t like to do business on either party’s territory.
Things are still on track with the movie as Seth goes to the bar and asks not-Trejo for some liquor, everyone goes back to the table and tensions are high between Jacob and Seth. Instead of Kate taking the shots from Seth, its Scott’s turn, but he gets really wasted and it’s pretty hilarious. With all of their bickering and arguing going on, there doesn’t really seem to be any immediate threat between the Gecko’s and the Fullers. For some reason Clooney and Keitel were able to make things far more uncomfortable and believable.
Remember how after Seth and Richie beat up Cheech’s character in the movie outside of the bar? Well a similar altercation happens here, but with Seth rather than Richie, and he’s outside of the bar as it happens. Seth was doing something in the RV while he’s approached by not-Cheech, a fight breaks out and quickly not-Cheech and his goons get the better of him. This was somewhat disappointing as they’re making Seth less and less of a big badass. At this point we’re introduced to another character – Narciso, and for some reason he is able to call the guys off of Seth and save him. Turns out he is working for Carlos, but is also warning Seth to not go through with the deal, as something bad is going to happen to them.
Something interesting is happening with the dynamic of Richie and Seth; we all remember that Seth was a tough guy who constantly would put Richie in line if he was staying. Things started out that way in the first episode, but here we clearly see that Richie is the one taking the reins and Seth seems intimidated by him, it’s almost completely reversed than what happens in the movie. There is even a point where Richie pulls a knife to Seth’s throat, nothing like this would ever happen between these characters if we were still in the movie universe. I’m not saying this change is bad; it’s just strange seeing the role reversal.
Freddy is still wandering around the desert with no water as he comes across some severed heads on stakes and is instructed by one of them to follow the road, and of course it will eventually lead to the Titty Twister….yes, one of the severed heads speaks to him in both Spanish and English. He ends up stopping at a little restaurant first where he has a flashback with Earl talking about the dark days of the Rangers, basically where some would kill Mexicans in frustration of not finding whoever they’re looking for. After a little while Freddie is taken by the same cartel guys who came to the border crossing and shot up the place. They end up taking him to Carlos to interrogate him regarding the Geckos.
The whole point of Carlos holding Freddie is to find out what the knife has shown him; eventually Freddie tells Carlos that someone in his crew is going to screw him over (Narciso). After some torture and some fighting, Freddie is loose and is on his way to the Titty Twister, he finally arrives, but doesn’t interact with the Gecko’s just yet.
A couple more interesting things happen towards the end of what seemed like an extra-long episode: Richie makes out with Kate but gets caught by Seth, Jacob and Scott try to devise a plan to leave the bar but ultimately doesn’t happen and most importantly Richie lets Seth know that everyone needs to stay put and see the Titty Twister for what it really is. Obviously something more is going on with Richie, and I’m really hoping they don’t turn him into the big bad guy of the show. The episode ends when Carlos takes the stage to introduce the beautiful Santanico, Richie is stunned because he recognizes Carlos as the man who gave him the knife in the first place. I’m sure it was established earlier, but I forgot that the Gecko’s never met Carlos and they still don’t know who he is at this point.
Overall it was decent, nothing too groundbreaking in terms of the story; I’m interested in seeing when all hell breaks loose and what happens with Richie.
Most of this episode was the same as the movie, but for once, the additional scenes made things a little better. Rodriguez somehow made it possible to turn what was already an intense situation, into something more hectic. Self Contained may also have been the funniest episode of the season to date, as I laughed pretty good at a couple of scenes. This episode was all over the place in terms of the time line, as some scenes were repeated twice but from two separate viewpoints. I’ll try my best to keep things linear, but probably not.
The trip from the motel to the border is where Seth and Jacob get to know each other a little better and to ease some of the tension between the brothers and the Fullers. Here is no different, Seth finds out about Jacob being a pastor, and also about his wife passing recently. They also come to a similar agreement to what we saw in the movie. I was wrong last episode when I assumed Jacob killed his wife and was on the run to Mexico, what actually happened was an accident, but I have a feeling we aren’t shown everything about their relationship prior to that.
Ranger Freddie is still on the Gecko’s tail, although being given a direct order to stop his pursuit; Freddie has no part of it and beats up a fellow Ranger, steals his truck and makes his way for the border. Things get interesting/weird/awesome when he arrives at the border patrol station and notices the Rambler. When Freddie approaches the Rambler, he is intercepted by a couple of border patrol agents and is taken inside where he is questioned about his actions. I’ll come back to this as we’re thrown back into the Rambler.
Back inside with everyone, Seth and Carlos are discussing the events at the motel and how Seth needs him to cross the border. We remember in the movie that they were able to cross due to blind luck; there was no assistance from anyone. I’m still not sure why Rodriguez is making Carlos such a big character in the series; he literally had just a handful of lines in the movie and seemed like just a random drug dealer. I don’t have a problem with Fez playing a hard hitting cartel leader/demon, it’s the character itself which I find stupid.
Things start to jump around at this point, so it might seem a little confusing. Richie is having more visions, but this time sees Santanico Pandemonium again, and is given yet another vague warning, he is also convinced that Jacob is a demon and that Scott has a tail. When Richie pulls Seth aside and describes these visions, it’s pretty hilarious since Richie has such a dead pan delivery. When everything calms down, Kate and Scott are devising a plan to overthrow Richie, turns out Scott has a revolver for some reason and ends up pulling it on the unsuspecting Richie. At this point, I feel D.J. Cotrona is at his best while portraying Seth. The speech that he delivers to Scott is both well said and terrifying at the same time. Safe to say that the tensions are high at this point, but nothing else happens.
One of the biggest changes from the series to movie happens here, Jacob accidentally lets his foot off the gas and rear ends the guy in front of him. Jacob wants no unnecessary attention from the agents so decides to try and brush the guy off since there is no damage. But with the guy pushing, Jacob punches him and he drags him on board. So, when the agent gets to the Rambler (I’m pissed Cheech didn’t have a cameo) we have the Geckos, Kate and a stranger passed out inside. Jacob came up with a plan to have Scott go into the guy’s car and do what he can to get it across the border, but unfortunately Scott is too panicked and is taken inside for questioning. Jacob uses a similar excuse to the movie when asked about who he’s with and his intentions in Mexico and things go over well until Seth knocks Richie out in the bathroom, so she comes aboard and starts looking around. Difference here is that they have an unconscious person on the couch, which Jacob covered up completely and passes off as his napping daughter.
This is the second of the biggest changes this episode; remember how Freddie was taken into the border patrol station for questioning? Well it turns out that Carlos was posing as I assume someone crossing the border, and was sitting in the office of the agent who stopped Freddie in the first place. With the agent distracted, Carlos gets up and gets all serpent like on the poor guy, I thought of Terminator 2 at this point because now Carlos is able to mimic the person, right down to the clothes he was wearing. So when the agent goes outside to stop Freddie, we’re shown the scene again but Carlos is now the agent (Carlos looks into a mirror and he sees the reflection of the agent, as we the audience sees Carlos). He was also aware that another agent pulled Scott out of a vehicle and is holding him, so Carlos lets him go back to the Rambler. In doing so, he makes the agent already on board leave. He and Seth have a quick moment but all Seth can see is a uniformed border patrol agent, but it’s obvious to us what’s really going on.
Finally, they’re next to pass through the gates into Mexico, but not before Freddie finds the real agent’s dead body inside, breaks out of the office he was locked in, and starts running to the Rambler with his gun drawn. We learn Carlos’ plan to help the guys get across also included some armed cartel members ready to fire at any agent on the US side of the border, which they do. Everyone crosses and they couldn’t be happier, along Freddie, but he uses the Rio Grande to cross illegally. Interestingly enough he decides to ditch his Ranger’s badge, obviously things have become even more personal to him now.
First order of business after crossing was to ditch the guy who they held captive onboard, they give him a handful of cash and leave him on the side of the road, pretty nice considering what the Gecko’s did to other witnesses. Then finally, we see the Titty Twister in all of its seedy glory, I really can’t wait until next week and see if Danny Trejo or Cheech have a cameo, I’m not giving up on Cheech being in this!
Self Contained was probably the best episode of the season so far, I hope this trend continues since I said that about last week. There are only 5 episodes left and I hope we spend all of that time inside the Titty Twister. I wonder if Tito & The Tarantulas will be the house band?
There’s tons of stuff to get through this week and we waste no time in getting through our new voicemails. Listeners provide reviews of BOYHOOD, JOE, NOAH, CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER, and the new pirate TV show, Black Sails. Ammon explains all this jargon with creepy-yet-exquisite ease.
Moreno Ammon, and Law discuss the latest GOONIES 2 rumors, give a mini Game of Thrones preview, and touch on some other TV Round-Up with Review, From Dusk Till Dawn, The Following, and others. We also let the love for Nicolas Cage flow and try to figure out what it’s gonna take for him to become a major player in Hollywood once again and look back on the first week of the Hottie Fantasy League.
Moreno re-visits SUPER 8 and then he and Ammon finally watch THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG. Ammon adds reviews for IN THE BLOOD, INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS, and revisits FACE/OFF, WOLF OF WALL STREET, and THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISOU. Law gets wasted and forgets to review anything.
If you’d like to win a blu-ray copy of KNIGHTS OF BADASSDOM, send a pic of yourself in the worst cosplay of all time to admin@bingemedia.net. Worst one wins. Winner will be announced on next week’s show.
Apologies for missing last week, was out of town. Now that’s out of the way, I’ll say that it’s now apparent that this show is at its best when it’s recreating scenes from the movie. Most of the new scenes don’t really have anything going for them, at least not in my opinion. The start of this episode puts us about 20-30 minutes into the movie, kind of strange when you look at it that way, but I have to compare.
Held up at The Sun Drop, right off the bat we are shown this isn’t the little dinky motel as in the movie (this one actually has a pool). There is a lot of jumping around from character to character, everyone’s story is included with the exception of Carlos, and I’m glad about that. The body of Kyle, Kate’s now ex-boyfriend was found by Freddie, but his superior isn’t too pleased with him because Kyle isn’t missing his eyes, so obviously this isn’t a murder Richie had committed.
Back to the main storyline, the Gecko brothers enter the Fuller’s room exactly the same way as the movie, even down to the dialogue. Seth is in full “Clooney” mode and it’s awesome, he’s starting to be as intense as his movie counterpart, but not quite there yet. Richie, on the other hand is far better than Tarantino could ever dream to be, both the actor playing Richie, and the character himself. When Richie is sent to the pool to find Kate, this is where things start to get a little deeper and we learn what could possibly be the biggest change from the movie to the show – JACOB IS ON THE RUN FOR KILLING HIS WIFE. Would make sense why the family was going to Mexico in the first place, I guess. We don’t learn too much about this but we are shown flashbacks via Kate and we see a police report. At the pool, Richie imagines Kate saying something to him, and sadly, the famous line of “will you eat my pussy for me” isn’t here, but rather replaced with “will you take off my bikini for me?” Oh well.
Back to Freddie, the knife he is carrying around is giving him similar visions as to what Richie is experiencing. We don’t know whether or not the knife is what caused Richie to be this way, or if Richie made the knife this way. Doesn’t really matter at this point, what does matter is that Freddie stumbles across The Big Kahuna Burger which has Seth’s ex-wife/accomplice holding it up. She agrees to help Freddie find the brothers in exchange for some leniency. With the information, Freddie heads straight towards The Sun Drop and immediately starts looking for the brothers. Finally getting the room numbers, he checks it out and finds the teller’s body, and later Jacob, who denies seeing the brothers.
Then some action happens, a couple of disposable sheriffs are gunned down by the brothers, along with a pretty good shoot out involving Freddie. While chasing them, Freddie is having more visions of the past, but nothing really comes of this. He is reminded again that he has something that doesn’t belong to him (the knife), I’m pretty sure Freddie is going to end up getting possessed or something along those lines. One corny moment – Richie is hiding behind a vending machine as he sees the sheriffs running down the hall. He says to himself “eyes find eyes”, closes his eyes, and somehow they don’t see him as they walk passed!? Freddie and Seth run into each other on the roof, as they’re both out of ammo, they fall off and land right on the RV, pretty convenient that Richie moved it against Seth’s orders. With Freddie hurt on the ground, the happy family takes off down the highway.
The driving from the motel to the border takes merely 10 minutes or so in the movie, there is some talk between Jacob and Seth so they’re probably going to expand on that and we won’t see Mexico next week, I’m guessing. But when we do get there, Cheech better be the border patrol agent.
Armed with a bucket of beer, two turntables, and a microphone (nobody knows what the turntables are for), the Binge Cast boys are back to sexually assault your head holes.
TV Round-Up rocks out with hate for The Walking Dead and satisfaction with Hannibal, Bates Motel, and The Following. Law and Ammon argue over From Dusk Till Dawn (The Series) as they try to convince Moreno one way or the other as to how the show is.
Moreno re-visits THE DEPARTED. Ammon checks out HOMEFRONT, NON-STOP, and MORTAL INSTRUMENTS: CITY OF BONES. Law sits through MUPPETS MOST WANTED, CONTRACTED, and FREE TO PLAY.
Almost everything from this episode is fresh from the head of Rodriguez, and didn’t exist in the movie. I see every recap including a sentence like that, but what am I supposed to do? The whole point of the series was to expand on the story and flesh out the characters. There were good and bad things this week, mostly good, but the bad was BAD.
The episode starts off at the bank robbery which starts off both the movie and the series, we get a little bit of Richie’s visions, but more importantly, we learn he is a fucking serial killer! Talk about adding something to the characters, I’m not really sure how I feel about this, but I guess we’ll have to see how things turn out. Freddie, the deputy from the first episode, is the one that discovers a symbol drawn on the hands of the two girls from the liquor store, and then opens up a folder with some dead bodies…I guess Richie is the cause of this? They need to talk about this more because it doesn’t really make any sense yet. When it comes to the actual story of the movie, things are pretty similar, we still have the hostage in the trunk, and any fan of the original will appreciate the reveal.
We finally met the Fuller family, and Jacob (Robert Patrick) seems to still be in full reverend mode, we all remember in the movie that Jacob lost his faith once his wife died, his wife is still dead here in the show. We do know that he has abandoned his role at the church, but we aren’t sure if he lost his faith or not. Nothing really interesting happened with the Fullers, we get some banter between the siblings, and we also learn that Kate has a boyfriend who’s following them and trying to “rescue” her. This is where things start to get really dumb, turns out Carlos (Fez) is some type of “snake” or demon, or something along those lines. We remember him from the movie as having a tiny role, and being played by Cheech Marin. Things don’t stop there; everything is getting pretty supernatural, and weird.
With Freddie on their trail, it’s only a matter of time before he catches up to the brothers. It’s pretty cool that they’re adding some depth, and some side plots, but we can’t forget the overall story needs to eventually end up at the Titty Twister, and shit needs to go down in a hail of gunfire and holy water. We’ll see if things actually get to that point, and maybe beyond.
To get this show made, Robert Rodriguez went so far as to create his own TV network – El Rey. Not only that, he decided to take what is easily one of his top three movies and turn it into a 10 episode series, re-imagining certain things along the way. The pilot episode introduced us, again, to the Gecko brothers, both Seth (D.J. Cotrona) and Richie (Zane Holtz) are here, but they’re very different. I can’t tell yet if they’re different in a good way or not.
The whole point of From Dusk till Dawn – the series, is to retell the already popular movie, and they’re basically just expanding on the already existing story by adding some more depth to the characters. A major change straight from the beginning is that the ongoing Tarantino character Texas Ranger Earl (Don Johnson) has a partner – Freddie. The differences don’t stop there, though, some other things are slightly different in the show, and I think it makes things a little better.
When we first meet Seth and Richie you can’t help compare them to Clooney and Tarantino. While the TV version of Seth doesn’t have the same swagger as his movie counterpart, the TV version of Richie is much better, in my opinion, at least with what we’ve seen so far. Another thing is that TV Seth is a lot smaller than TV Richie, which might prove to make things difficult if the time comes where Seth bullies Richie as he does in the movie. Seth doesn’t seem as tough so far, I hope that changes because Clooney’s Seth was pretty badass and ruthless.
The biggest part of the episode, along with the first few minutes of the movie revolves around Earl. After visiting the liquor store, he immediately knows something is up, and from here things are pretty similar to the movie. The only real exception would be that Seth doesn’t actually kill Earl, and then the fact Earl has a partner…everything else is the same, but more drawn out and has some back story.
Some of the other changes include Seth talking to Carlos (Wilmer Valderrama) from inside the liquor store, this happens off screen in the movie but after they’re already at the motel. We also get a quick line from Carlos that tells us Richie can “see” things, and that Seth should trust him. There are a couple shots where Richie sees what are probably vampires/demons, and Santanico (Eiza Gonzalez), who we all remember her being first played by Salma Hayek.
With the pace the show is already taking, I don’t see it being a problem for 9 more episodes to cover everything in the movie. There was certainly a lot to include, and I’m sure Rodriguez will add some things to the story that he may not have had time for with the movie. If I had to complain about something, it would be that Seth doesn’t seem as “cool” as in the movie, and Seth’s visions were a lot different the vampires we were already used to. I have hope for the show, as it doesn’t seem to be pulling any punches.