From our Baba Yaga Files: Jessica Fletcher
This week we do our first deep dive into our Lord and Savior Jessica Fletcher. Lucy & Evelyn talk shoulder pads and guest stars, the difference between “prestige” and “workhorse” TV and Jessica Fletcher as an iteration of The Crone. Recorded July 21, 2021.
Witch of the Week: Wally Funk
Evelyn Archer: askevelynarcher.com @evelynarches on IG & Twitter
Lucy Neptune: @lucyneptunewnd on IG
Stuff we mentioned:
Logo by Alex Zapata
Music by Prettysleepy on Pixabay
Transcript by Otter AI
Public Library Association
From our Baba Yaga Files: Jessica Fletcher
This week we do our first deep dive into our Lord and Savior Jessica Fletcher. Lucy & Evelyn talk shoulder pads and guest stars, the difference between “prestige” and “workhorse” TV and Jessica Fletcher as an iteration of The Crone. Recorded July 21, 2021.
Witch of the Week: Wally Funk
Evelyn Archer: askevelynarcher.com @evelynarches on IG & Twitter
Lucy Neptune: @lucyneptunewnd on IG
Stuff we mentioned:
Logo by Alex Zapata
Music by Prettysleepy on Pixabay
Transcript by Otter AI
Public Library Association
EPISODE 3: WE ARE ALL JESSICA NOW
Tue, 3/29 11:30AM • 1:08:20
TRANSCRIPTION BY OTTER AI. 100% ACCURACY NOT GUARANTEED. EMAIL witchesanddicks@gmail.com
Lucy Neptune 00:01
There's something a bit supernatural about detectives.
Evelyn Archer 00:04
And there's a bit of the private dick in a witch.
Lucy Neptune 00:06
Veronica Mars removes hexes.
Evelyn Archer 00:08
Willow Rosenberg solves crimes.
Lucy Neptune 00:10
I'm Lucy Neptune.
Evelyn Archer 00:11
I'm Evelyn Archer.
Lucy Neptune 00:12
We're coming to you live to tape from unceded Narragansett and Wampanoag land.
Evelyn Archer 00:17
And we're here to have a little chinwag about witches, private dicks, and the place where the "Little m" mystery meets up with the "Big M" Mystery. This is Witches and Dicks.
Evelyn Archer 00:00
Hi folks, it's Lucy and Evelyn coming to you from the future. We're preparing our season closer episode and we want to hear from you.
Lucy Neptune 00:08
You can ask us anything. Book recommendations baking problems, a mystery you just can't solve?
Evelyn Archer 00:14
Send your questions to witchesanddicks@gmail.com or hit us up on Instagram and @witchesanddicks. Let us be your Agony Aunts and you could hear your letter read on the air.
Evelyn Archer 00:00
All right, we're going to get going again.
Lucy Neptune 00:02
Here we go. All right. All right. Hey,Evelyn. Hey,
Evelyn Archer 00:05
Hey, Lucy.
Lucy Neptune 00:07
Happy to see you.
Evelyn Archer 00:08
I'm so happy to see you too.
Evelyn Archer 00:15
Lucy
Lucy Neptune 00:23
Yes.
Evelyn Archer 00:23
What's up?
Lucy Neptune 00:24
Oh, girl, I am really happy. It's Wednesday cuz that means I come here to your house. Yes. And we do a podcast which is really great. It's super fun. Um, and yeah, I am plotting my exit from my day job. Losses lives across the street from you. Yeah, no, true weird Rhode Island. He doesn't know yet. But um yeah, so that's good. And yeah, just trying to keep up with everything. We were talking before about what were we watching what I have been watching and I just want to give a huge shout out. Is Kevin James Thornton. Oh my God. It is. My day go by better.
Evelyn Archer 01:03
Kevin James Thornton. I found him on Tik Tok. I'm off of the tick tock. I'm too old for the tick tock. It's too chaotic for me. I can't handle it. But he puts all his videos up on Instagram now anyway, Kevin, James Thornton. You know if you know you know, if you don't you don't and you should go on Instagram and tick tock and watch his videos. It's so hard to explain without playing them for somebody like right any way I can describe these doesn't do it justice. He is an exceptional storyteller and exceptional storyteller all told in auto tune,
Lucy Neptune 01:40
which I wasn't sure I would like but now I love I love it. And I think to myself during the day during the workday. That's amazing. open Excel. And I sing my way through my bullshit tasks.
Evelyn Archer 01:55
Yeah, yes,
Lucy Neptune 01:57
so I think I know so I need autotune really to do it. Oh, yeah. Live from my queue.
Evelyn Archer 02:02
You totally should do. That's fantastic.
Lucy Neptune 02:04
I'm in my cube fantastic. Anyway, shout out and big love.
Evelyn Archer 02:08
Oh my god big love to Kevin James Thornton. We'll we'll put a link in the show notes in case you're interested. My long suffering husband and I have been doing a big rewatch of a show that we loved. God is it 12 years ago that it oh my god so long ago. It's a show called fringe that was on like Fox or something. I don't remember where it was. Oh my god, it's so good. It is it's got a very X Files vibe to it. And we just we're finishing up season one tonight. And it's Joshua Jackson, my beloved Pacey from UK and an Australian actress doing a very convincing American accent and a tour of who I don't know before after button a name her performance as Olivia Dunham is you think I the thing is it's so good for the first like three seasons I don't notice it. And then a thing happens where she has to do a thing I'm not going to spoil anything for your money. And then all of a sudden you realize oh, you're a proper actress. You're not just like you know the hot Hollywood girl and the kind of main guy in this is a kind of a mad scientist character played by the amazing John noble Do you know John noble, the actor?
Lucy Neptune 03:31
Remind me what he's been.
Evelyn Archer 03:33
He is super famous in Australia. He is like the, you know, Laurence Olivier of Australia. He was it you might know him as Boramir’s father, the king of Gandour from Lord of the Rings. You might know him if you see him,
Lucy Neptune 03:57
I'm gonna offend a million people and really watch those. That's okay.
Evelyn Archer 04:02
Okay. But that's okay. Then Then maybe you don't know who he is. But
Lucy Neptune 04:07
he's there was he in strictly ballroom, that's more my speech.
Evelyn Archer 04:10
But that is that's one of the few things that have met he does a lot of theater in Australia. He's like, basically head of like, their Royal Shakespeare Company. I think he's very well known there. And he is giving a performance here as Dr. Walter Bishop. That is, he's making some interesting choices. And in the hands of a different performer. This would be just another Gregory House. I'm so brilliant. I'm an asshole character. And he is not doing that. He is he's doing a lot. He's doing a lot. And I love Walter Bishop, even though he's dangerous and but not like Ooh, he's dangerous. No, Walter, you're gonna hurt somebody.
Lucy Neptune 04:53
It's really I'm interested in the out on the edge kind of perform it is and
Evelyn Archer 04:57
it's about fringe science. There is A beautiful deployment excellent deployment of the actress Blair Brown from Days and Nights of Molly Dodd. Oh god, yeah, yes. And I'm not even going to spoil for anyone. The big reveal, don't Google it if you plan on watching the big reveal of who plays the mysterious, absent scientists, Dr. William Bell is some of the best gorilla casting I have ever experienced. And this was in the days before Twitter, okay, like, this was before Twitter. This was before TiVo, like we had to watch this every week. This was the very end of that. But we're, and it's not streaming anywhere first and on any of our streaming services. We literally have DVDs out from the library. Like it's 1995
Lucy Neptune 05:47
Nice. Was the nine.
Evelyn Archer 05:48
Yes, the library
Lucy Neptune 05:51
can hook you up the lot.
Evelyn Archer 05:53
Yeah, shout out to libraries because the library is hooking me up all the time. Shout out to my to my branch. Rochambeau What's up, Bonnie? Hope you listening. We love you. What else you've been up to?
Lucy Neptune 06:05
Ah,
Evelyn Archer 06:07
I don't remember. I therapy today. That was good.
Lucy Neptune 06:11
That's good. I'm going to go to therapy Friday. Evelyn's therapist.
Evelyn Archer 06:18
Same Listen, my therapist is getting so much work. I have referred like every woman over 40 in the city, who is some kind of like weirdo artist, Vagrant, creative professional, having problems like she's getting all of them like I'm serious that I've sent her like three or four people commission. She should give me commission, she should give me all of my therapy for free. No, she shouldn't because her job is important and she deserves to get paid. But then again, we're creative professionals and our work deserves to get paid to and I haven't seen that happen yet. Well, we'll see what we can. Well, we're here today. I'm so excited. You guys. We're here. I am here today to talk to you about our Lord and Savior Jessica Fletcher. Yes, we're doing Murder She Wrote today.
Lucy Neptune 07:12
Have you accepted Jessica flat Have you accepted
Evelyn Archer 07:15
Jessica Fletcher as your personal Savior? Yes, actually, I have. Murder She Wrote was a show on CBS that ran from 12 that ran for 12 seasons from 1984 to 1996 starring the indomitable Angela Lansbury as the titular Jessica Fletcher, who is a retired high school English teacher. She is widowed, and she finds herself in retirement in her third act as a best selling mystery author with her first book, The corpse danced at midnight. Yes, this is how much I know about the show. And then each episode, she just goes around and solves a different mystery. It's definitely what they would call today. Monster of the Week. There's there's no overarching plot. This is not prestigious TV. There's one. Sometimes there are two parters there's one mystery one week and it is spectacular. And so today for our Baba Yaga files is our crone Jessica Fletcher This is I think it's your first time watching or
Lucy Neptune 08:19
you know I when I watched a few I do remember a couple things and people so I'm sure I watched it at some point back in the day but I think I was what trying to walk away from it because I was like oh, that's what grandma watches Sure. versus me as a young amazing not Yeah, yeah, I feel trying to be amazing. 17 year old or whatever I was back then. But I do remember certain things but it was it was just fantastic.
Evelyn Archer 08:48
It see it ran on like a loop. Like when I was growing up. My mother was obsessed with Murder She Wrote this was like I said, this isn't the olden days. This is what it was running on TV. This was the 80s I was in high school and we had a VCR and she would put the little blank tape in the VCR and press record when Jessica Fletcher would come on and so we had all these old Murder She Wrote episodes and I think like you will see I at the time tried to distance myself from it because I was just way too cool for that right yet. Meanwhile, I was upstairs watching hours and hours of Forensic Files like explain that. And I liked it but I never really got into it and much, much much of that is you know, this is something that sorry. So think that your mom watches but by the time I was in my I don't know. Late 20s I think my late 20s Man it all came rushing back and I hear that opening music and I am right back there in it and I rewatching them now as an as a grown up and rewatching them again. They're all available to stream on peacock for free if you're interested Man, they really hold
Lucy Neptune 10:01
up. They're really good. I am gagging every which way every which way count the ways in which I get let's count the ways in which you got. Here are the ways in which I got number one. So first of all the theme song. Oh my god, let's start right at the top is I
Evelyn Archer 10:17
don't know No, no, no, no, no pradhana like, I don't want to get hot
Lucy Neptune 10:22
rates. Probably one of the great theme songs in television history, I'm going to say their most memorable one instantly evokes a sense of Cabot Cove main, just dodger. And I have to say you can tell how good an actress Angela Lansbury is by watching her fucking type in Yes, she has a couple of things with her typing. I'm like, Look at her. Look at her go. Like I studied acting talk. For a while there's thing called destination. She has really good destination in her fucking typewriter scene. And
Evelyn Archer 10:49
I can tell you like I did not study acting, but I do watch a lot of television. And I can tell you that just Angela Lansbury is not phoning in Jessica Fletcher knew her. Jessica Fletcher has nuance and specificity. Like she really physically embodies that character. It is it's not you think it's just gonna be like a throwaway. You know, like, she cuz the thing is she could have she could have phoned that in and it would not, we wouldn't have noticed the difference. We would have thought Oh, that's great. We would have thought saturate, bringing it hard. Oh my god, she brought it so hard. She worked for 12 years. That's amazing. And this is the olden days when they used to do 22 episodes a year, a different episode every week.
Lucy Neptune 11:37
Let's see chapter one on the call. She's 59 Right? She
Evelyn Archer 11:40
was she 59
Lucy Neptune 11:42
I believe 58,59 When she started. I'm not even that old and I could not possibly do that.
Evelyn Archer 11:49
Oh my god. I so and she's running
Lucy Neptune 11:52
in the
Evelyn Archer 11:52
Oh, yeah. Jogging, jogging with like her little gray jogging suit with the towel. Yeah, she's not like she's rocking. She is. Yep. And waving at everybody. And it's this really. And I think that there's something about her even though as a teen, I was like, distancing myself from it. I'm like, too cool. For her. She wrote, I'm not a grandma. But the thing is, it ran all the time. It got into me in a way that I did not anticipate until I went back to rewatch them. And I do think that there's, I mean, the podcast is called Witches and Dicks. And I think that there is something really interesting about this intersection, right? Of this particular kind of detective of an old woman now. And the thing is, when I was a kid and watching Murder, She Wrote, Jessica Fletcher seemed elderly, like she should be in a home. Right, two days away from she's two days a week in her hip, right? And now, I just had my 50th birthday, like two weeks ago. So I'm like, you know, she's not that old.
Lucy Neptune 13:02
No. We are now Jessica.
Evelyn Archer 13:05
We are now almost Jessica Fletcher's age. And I'm gonna have to look that up to see exactly how old she was when she started. Like how old the character is. And one of the things that's really an I'll be honest, like, the thing that started me back down the The Murder, She Wrote rabbit hole. l was probably like I said, late 20s, early 30s. I'm a writer for those of you in the viewership that don't know. And I had been trying really hard for a really long time I got my MFA, I did the whole thing to write these really like important, artistic, experimental novels, and they weren't going anywhere. And what was worse. I was boring myself. And at the age of about, I don't really remember, but it was like, maybe early 30s. I was like, Oh, I can write things that are fun. What are things and I hadn't even read anything for fun in the longest time, like, everything I read was like, very super cereal, super literature, super experiments, super art, art, post, post, post, post, post, post, post modern. And I read, I went back and reread, I believe it was murder at the vicarage. It was an old Jane Marple. And it was like a light went on. I'm like, Oh, this is what reading can be again, and I got like D and it wasn't like I suddenly got into mysteries. I remembered that I had always been into mysteries, but thought I was too cool for them. And I'm not too cool for them. I'm not cool at all, like not in that way. And so I started writing essentially, murder mysteries, not like cozy ish ones. They're a little bit different, but they're the mystery plot for my money is the strongest novel plot that exists. It is. It is so strong, you can hang anything on it. And so I went back and watched a bunch of this stuff. And I'm watching. And I'm thinking about it now as like, clearly, clearly as I'm doing a podcast in my living room, my publishing career has not taken off like I anticipated that it would. But watching these old murder she wrotes, that's what she did. She wrote a book and got rich and kind of famous, definitely famous, and then and kept writing books and
Lucy Neptune 15:26
her writing career takes her on travels. And she Yeah, you know, in this city, for whatever reason, part of her book tour Exactly. Oh, and then someone's dead.
Evelyn Archer 15:34
Let me see. Let me see what I could do it. She's all what I love is that she's always like, well, I couldn't possibly interfere in a police investigation. And they always have to have like a reason to get her involved. But it was really, what I'm interested in now at 50 is how this was her third act. Right? Like she had a whole career as a school teacher, her husband died and she was writing the corpse danced at midnight, out of a sense of grief, like just to something to occupy her. And because what is it that that you always seen instead of there's an awful Techbro saying, move fast and break things? And Lucy has a an opposite of that. What is it that
Lucy Neptune 16:12
you stance freely with the things and people you love?
Evelyn Archer 16:15
That's right, and that's what Jessica Fletcher did. She danced freely with the thing that she loved and it worked out for her. And that may not be realistic, but it certainly does make me feel good. And so I did I am a Kanwah sewer of Murder She Wrote. I went through a period where I watched one every day and tweeted about it. I have the first three seasons on DVD. But I curate it. I think it was four episodes. And I realized now that I had given you I could have done a little bit better on the curation there at the end,
Lucy Neptune 16:47
I watched another one I watched the the one with the movie, the older actors from the movie. Oh, right. That's a weird I can't how I'd loved it though.
Evelyn Archer 16:55
That was a weird one. But it's very unlike the other ones. And so we watched, hurray for homicide. We watch Jessica behind bars. We watched crossed up I love crosstalk crosstalk is one of my very great, and then we watched it was one of the MO McGill episodes. Oh, yes. I should have given you the first mm McGill episode so that you were a little more oriented into what was going on. I'm not even kidding. You guys. Listen. They pull a whole like identical cousin situation.
Lucy Neptune 17:27
Angela in red hair. Yes, please.
Evelyn Archer 17:29
Yes, with a Cockney accent as her cousin Emma McGill, who is an old vaudeville performer. Yes. And we all know that that is a really deep cut because Angela Lansbury I believe originated the role of Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney we taught so those are always really fun. Yes, so and we watched the pilot. Yes, the pilot partner and the death of the murder Sherlock Holmes. Yes.
Lucy Neptune 17:54
Oh, and I watched menace anyone? Oh, I
Evelyn Archer 17:55
love menace goodbye with Brian crap Ryan J instance.
Lucy Neptune 17:59
Okay, so here's another guest. You will not stop gagging on the guest stars. We have seen in my five or so six episodes that I've watched. count the stars. I've seen Bryan Cranston, Linda Hamilton. Anthony Garcia.
Evelyn Archer 18:15
In our array for homicide alone, we get marry from Little House on the Prairie. Gomez Adams and Arnold horshack from Welcome Back, Kotter. Come on and Jessica behind bars that is my I gave you that one just for the guest star game. That's really it and gorgeous Yvonne DeCarlo as the cook in women's prison from the Rangers from the monsters, and from also many other fantastic things she's known for the monsters. Freakin Jan Brady. Adrienne Barbeau
Lucy Neptune 18:46
you know what she'll Draco Butch realness and by just so hot. So Heath plumb Jan Brady with a permed out mullet.
Evelyn Archer 18:55
Stop. It's come on that moment. Yes. And did you recognize Shug Avery?
Lucy Neptune 19:01
Ah, that's what she was. I couldn't I'm like looking at her
Evelyn Archer 19:04
that Shug Avery. From from color color purple. Yeah, my God. Now you have to understand I never remember any. I don't remember actors names. Oh. I never remember I named him. I never more actors names. So that's why I'm like, Oh my God. Look, it's Arnold horshack. Right from Welcome back. Kotter. I was like, is that Gomez and Gomez Adams? His name is John Aston. Yes, yes. John Astin actually shows up as a regular character in later seasons. Oh, great. The realtor is so great. Yeah, he's really great. The guests Our guests are outrageous. Just,
Lucy Neptune 19:38
Oh, it does not disappoint. It really does
Evelyn Archer 19:41
not disappoint, but I'm interested in your like, I have my own thoughts about it. But I'm interested in, you know, a new comer.
Lucy Neptune 19:49
Right. So Jessica Fletcher is the shit. First of all. One of the most important things I think I want to note here is that she's a really, like active she actively tries to be a good person. Yeah, she always it always shows her knowing, you know, the train conductors name, yes. And having a little friendship and then that actor gets a minor, like more than just like a one line, curled occurring thing. She always knows people's names. She has a lovely ways of kind of, she has great social graces, which are really nice. The Oh, man. So that's great. The writing is really tight. The vocabulary that they use is actually really good. There were some words I can't remember what they were, but there was like, Ooh, you don't hear that word every day. Now,
Evelyn Archer 20:39
that's not actually something I clocked necessarily, I'm curious like that. I
Lucy Neptune 20:42
guess I clocked it because I just I think, maybe you know, you know, my roommate, and I will like turn on SVU and we're sitting there eating dinner sometimes. And you don't get the it's just a different machine. Yeah, it's a different, it's a different machine. And so and I'm also it's like firing all my older synapses because like, oh, 70s 80s television framing, like the aspect ratio is different on your screen. And the fashion, the fashion Oh shit. I was getting serious 80s Like fashion. I all through high school. I my hair was quite similar to Jessica Fletcher's unfortunately. And the big chunky earrings, the shoulder pads, like oh, there's so many good things.
Evelyn Archer 21:24
Oh, in the Emma McGill episode. Did you get a load of Daphne Moon? Yes. From Fraser outfits are spectacular in that that's what I was thinking of that big hat and you peplums And then like the the snobby, rich bitch lady with the kind of fake Halston dress like, oh my god, it's so good. It's so good. It's so good. And it
Lucy Neptune 21:49
and Jessica smart and she sees things and one thing I noticed, especially in the the hurricane episode, which was tossed out crossed up, it's a whole thing of this woman sticking to her guns when all these people are telling her No, that isn't possibly what you could have heard absolute. That's
Evelyn Archer 22:08
okay. That's okay. So in crosstab Jessica Fletcher is Jessica Fletcher is fine on her back with a bad back and gets on a landline telephone. This is a plot you could never make happen now. On a landline telephone during an electrical storm in Cabot Cove, Maine. The lines get crossed and she overhears somebody is going to get somebody saying the old man has to die tonight. Yeah. And so be talking to a hitman talking to a hitman. And it's interesting that you say that she's actively trying to be a nice person. She's not nice. She's good. Nice. Thank you. Yes, yeah, that is when you are trying to make everyone feel comfortable all the time. And Jessica Fletcher is concerned with justice. Yes. She is concerned she is disappointed in your behavior when you become a murderer.
Lucy Neptune 23:02
And yes,
Evelyn Archer 23:03
there's this sense of non judgment right with her as well. Now she she encourages
Lucy Neptune 23:11
others voices she wants if you don't feel like you should say something or has she's there to say no. Tell me everything. No, you are your your voice matters.
Evelyn Archer 23:21
Your voice matters. And she is using her privilege in a particular way. Yeah. And she's interested in justice. She cannot abide a bully. And she hates hates gossip. She hates gossip. She finds gossip to be useless and harmful. But she won't judge you for it. Was this in a pilot? Where like the wild sister comes to the fancy party naked under her fur coat? Or is that a different episode? Did that happen in the pilot pile? Okay, there's a scene somewhere where like, you know, one of the suspects is the wild daughter. And she shows up at this fancy party in just a fur coat and like, flashes everyone and everyone is just their jaws are on the floor. And Jessica Fletcher gives a little like gives a little she's like it's it's just a naked girl, guys. Everybody calm down.
Lucy Neptune 24:17
It's the 80s
Evelyn Archer 24:21
And she's not here for your slut shaming. She's not here for your class. Bullshit. She is going to stand up for every little guy. Everybody everywhere. She She's not just interested in order. Right? She's interested in actual justice. Right. Right. Which I think is really interesting.
Lucy Neptune 24:41
Ah, so good. Oh, all right. Let me look at my notes here. Do should we talk about cross step or should we talk about I really want to talk about Jessica behind bars. Let's
Evelyn Archer 24:50
talk about Jessica behind bars, Jessica behind bars and the end of prison reform. Okay, so in Jessica behind bars, Jessica Fletcher is taking over one For a friend of hers who teaches a creative writing class at the women's prison, she goes to teach this class, the women's prison. And there's a lockdown a murder. And Jessica has to figure out who the murderer is, or all the inmates are going to, I don't know have a rule on riot. Yeah. Full on riot heads. They're gonna and this is Oh, it's oh my god, it's so good. And even at the end of this, like Jessica, of course wants, she wants prison reform. Right? Like, she stands with the pros. She stands with the prisoner solves
Lucy Neptune 25:34
the murder and people are held to account however, she also sides with the inmates and saying, you know, I respect the things because she checks out the soups that they're supposed to eat. Yeah, point and Yeah. And she's
Evelyn Archer 25:47
like, this is not good. Like you've been they've been diluting the medication that they'd been giving to like the entire it turns out I mean, spoilers for Jessica behind bars. Okay, that was like 30 years old. Sorry, spoilers for this episode of Murder, She Wrote. But it turns out that this women's prison was completely corrupt from the top down, and none of the inmates at the prison. Were doing anything wrong. Now they did go a little bit crazy. Adrienne Barbeau given me some butch realness with that shotgun along with Shug Avery, I didn't mind I, I didn't hate that. I'm just saying, I did not hate that. But they're even those kind of violent prisoners are really just portrayed as desperate.
Lucy Neptune 26:36
Right? Lighter. They have not been heard for a long time. They have not been properly cared for respected and a long time and they're not going to frickin take it anymore. No. And they've got thoughts and plans about that.
Evelyn Archer 26:48
And our kind of the main inmate Mary, the one who's accused of murder, yes, is a gifted and sensitive writer. She is in jail for having killed her abusive husband. Right. And at the very end, the Jessica's this moment with the warden, and she's and Jessica says So when is Mary's what's her parole situation? The wardens like oh, she's going to get her parole hearing soon. Don't worry, I'm going to make sure that you know, we do everything we can to get her parole. And Jessica Fletcher gets very serious with this woman. She goes, Yes, I will, too. I'm going to make sure that this woman gets paroled. And I certainly do have like very serious with this word and I certainly do hope that you're going to have some changes going on in this place. Like the medicines like I said the medical stuff was being diluted so people were in the infirmary and paint it it was a real
Lucy Neptune 27:41
it was great and and it's an all woman. Oh my god it is even the voice on the phone they call the lieutenant governor who is
Evelyn Archer 27:50
a oh my god loose all women. I didn't even clock that. I didn't even clock that. It is
Lucy Neptune 27:57
all director I checked. But but all the way. I
Evelyn Archer 28:00
think that's I mean, that's the law in the 80s, right? You women weren't allowed to direct TV because our vaginas made it impossible for us to do that.
Lucy Neptune 28:07
However will I direct with this vagina?
Evelyn Archer 28:11
Oh my god. But yes, it's I didn't even clock that that the lieutenant governor, the voice on the phone was was a woman as well. It's well, and this is one of the things that I've been thinking about with, you know, Jessica Fletcher, and images of the Crone. And I can't help but think about Baba Yaga. Russian folktale she lives out in a hut on chicken feet in the woods. Sometimes she's good sometimes she's bad. Don't worry people we're going to do there's a whole episode about Baba Yaga.
Lucy Neptune 28:50
flies through the forest on her mortar and pestle. That's right. Ain't no broom for Baba Yaga.
Evelyn Archer 28:54
No broom for Baba Yaga. But there are there is this place in detective fiction for these old lady detectives. There's Jessica Fletcher. There's Miss Marple. There's several of them. And one of the things that they will often do is similar to what we were talking about with Veronica Mars, because she is so young. It's kind of the same thing. They're They're counting on being underestimated and they're utilizing that Jessica Fletcher doesn't really truck with that so much. She's not often underestimated.
Lucy Neptune 29:33
And if she is she I think Jessica just like sidesteps that yeah, that's your foolish. Yeah. She's
Evelyn Archer 29:41
not going to use that to her advantage.
Lucy Neptune 29:43
Use it. And she could if she wanted to, of course, yes. And she I don't think she'd judge Miss Marple. Veronica Mars blame anyone for doing this. Certainly
Evelyn Archer 29:53
not it's just not in her wheelhouse. But that's
Lucy Neptune 29:55
not that's not
Evelyn Archer 29:55
what I was thinking about. Something that you said before we started recording About while Baba Yaga what's interesting about Baba Yaga? Is that you can't really tell Is she good or bad? And Jessica Fletcher is always good. And I'm like, Well, that depends on who you are. It depends on what you're trying to hide. And I'm quite sure these people that I'm quite sure that that assistant to the warden does not think Jessica Fletcher is a good person, right? And so in a way, and the thing is she would she would put if she found out her best friend had committed a murder. She would not cover it up. Correct. Right. Veronica Mars will cover it up.
Lucy Neptune 30:36
That's pretty true. She'd work
Evelyn Archer 30:38
it out for you. She'd worked it out for sugar. I have a
Lucy Neptune 30:41
few other notes about this episode. Let's see. Oh, it was. I've noticed in the episodes that I've watched they have, you know, for 80s standards work to have some diverse casting, I say some diverse cast.
Evelyn Archer 30:55
Yeah. It's not great. I'll say this. It's not great. It's not great. But it's the less white and stuff that I've watched that's come out in the last five years,
Lucy Neptune 31:05
right? You can tell they were making an effort, which I think is good. That episode, particularly it had it was looking at themes of power, ambition, race, class, you know it. And then this question of what is just versus what's revenge. The women are mad, and they're ready to just kind of act rashly and start shooting, essentially, they get the guns from the guards and all that and just says hold it. Hold it. Who do you want to be? Yeah, essentially, and how I can help you do these things. But let me let me help you. It was kind of like getting proof versus a gut. You know, just Yeah, your gut. So that was really really cool. There's also a locked room mystery within it all. Yes, there is. Yes, that is cool. And I also just because I also noted a really big chart of female anatomy with a uterus on the wall. I was like that in the doctor's office, there's a uterus. I didn't you know, it wasn't anything crazy, but it was there and I saw it and I I appreciated seeing that.
Evelyn Archer 32:15
But I think that at least for me, it's a great episode. But one of the weakest mysteries
Lucy Neptune 32:26
interesting. I still a fun
Evelyn Archer 32:29
episode to watch. Yes, it's still a good episode to watch. But like crossed up as a tighter mystery but not quite as much fun to watch.
Lucy Neptune 32:37
I did like all the the reveal at the end, though. In behind bars, the there was more than one person kind of behind it. And who is in cahoots with who? Well that I didn't expect.
Evelyn Archer 32:46
I didn't expect that either. But But I think that the she committed suicide against spoilers, people. The doctor committed suicide, nobody murdered her. Is the
Lucy Neptune 32:56
Yeah, but there's people responsible for others. There was
Evelyn Archer 32:59
people responsible for other stuff, but like that part of it, it's like, oh, locked room. Yeah, nobody got in, like,
Lucy Neptune 33:06
[sad trumpet sound]
Evelyn Archer 33:11
That was kind of a bit weak. But I do think that there's something to be said, for. Here's the thing. In witchcraft circles, one of the things they talk about what you know, witchcraft is, is affecting your will upon the world, upon the material world. And that's a really, what a detective does. Jessica Fletcher is enacting her will, through her intellect and her being very specific and noticing details, et cetera, et cetera. That is its own kind of witchcraft. That's, that's my connection there.
Lucy Neptune 34:07
And again, thinking of our Venn diagram, she's exceptionally good at seeing the signs and seeing the clues and seeing reading people and thinking about, well, what is actually their intention, even though they say this, but do they do they mean? Do they mean what they say? And I think discerning that is is, I think part of her witchiness
Evelyn Archer 34:32
part of her superpower as it were.
Lucy Neptune 34:36
It's interesting, she's so when I think of Baba Yaga I think of a much older woman. In a sense, like, more like 80s 70s 80s Perhaps and I think Jessica Fletcher was kind of in our golden years and some like 5060s kind of
Evelyn Archer 34:53
thing. I think that that's probably true, but I know that when I watched it as a kid, right, we thought, you know, the only reason we think that is because we're close to that age now.
Lucy Neptune 35:01
She's so young.
Evelyn Archer 35:03
She's so young. And I mean, but she is whether we but I think that there is resistance to say, Oh, well, they're not old. She's not that old. No, she is. And I think when when when I say, Oh, they're not that old. What I'm saying is I'm not that old.
Lucy Neptune 35:24
Right? I'm certainly not at yet.
Evelyn Archer 35:28
No, but I am a crone.
Lucy Neptune 35:31
Technically, yeah. You know, I looked up the definition from because we've been talking about this. I'm 53 for the record. And so I just like, I'm not a crone yet. I'm just, you know, I'm in my prime.
Evelyn Archer 35:42
Who says being a crone can't be your prime?
Lucy Neptune 35:45
Well, I guess I always think of Crone as very, very old. But when I looked it up, it's it's concerned. Just you know, when you stopped the menses,
Evelyn Archer 35:53
yeah, when you can no longer bear children, you are a crone. And to me, that is a culture problem. That's a society problem. The fact that we have internalized the idea of the crone, it's like, oh, no, that means that someone at the very end of their life, no, I think that the crone is the prime of life. And I think that because I'm in it. I'm almost there. I can see the finish line, right. But I think that whatever time of life you're in, that's what you think about it.
Lucy Neptune 36:26
I think so I think there will come a time when I will feel old and say I am old, or will my body will feel. I feel I feel as I feel the freest I have ever felt. Yeah, I think in life, and that's so nice.
Evelyn Archer 36:43
Well, and I think that having the childbearing years behind you, feels like a relief. Definitely, like now we can just bang for fun. Like, we don't have to worry about getting pregnant anymore. Like, that's so exciting.
Lucy Neptune 36:58
That's a good thing.
Evelyn Archer 36:59
That is really exciting. But I do think that it is like, I know that you you've expressed that to me, it's like I'm not crone might Yeah, er, but it's what we associate with that. Right, right. Well, if you're beyond childbearing years, you might as well be dead. And that's a cultural thing. I think that we've internalized as, and that's why there's that association. And I think that even a character like Jessica Fletcher, and what was that 1984 When it started at 59, almost 60. Yeah, that's for Hollywood. You're basically dead. I mean, come on Weekend at Bernie's. And yet, Detective Jessica, something that may not have really come across in the few highly curated episodes, and I recommend it to you. But if you watch enough of these, something starts to kind of happen in aggregate, where you realize that people over 50 are getting it all over the place. Now, Jessica has suitor after suiter that she rejects because she, she told me no, man,
Lucy Neptune 38:03
I read in the trivia site, that her one and only screen kiss is in that pilot
Evelyn Archer 38:12
episode, and she wouldn't do it again. Right. She's like, we're not doing that. We're not defining her that way. Now, I do agree that on the other side of that, there is something about it's good to, like, allow somebody like that to have a romantic relationship. I think that that's okay. But you have to remember, it's the mid it was the 80s. Okay, it was the 80s. And the idea of a protagonist, female character, without any definition. Like as somebody, a wife, or somebody, you know, girlfriends was really unusual.
Lucy Neptune 38:54
Right. And I think they probably worried that it wouldn't be enough necessarily to just have her be out solving these crimes like, yeah, need the romance factor, right.
Evelyn Archer 39:02
And she and and Angela Lansbury really pushed back on that. I love it. And I believe it was around season nine that she and her husband there. They developed a production company and took it over. They were like, You guys suck. Yeah, we're, we're doing we're doing this. We're taking it over. We're taking it over. Now, but I think that she's a different kind of crone than Jane Marple.
Lucy Neptune 39:21
Over shirt she's she's a lady and these kinds of wonderful like, She's always got her outfit. Her Pajama Game is really good.
Evelyn Archer 39:29
Her pajama game is on point. I'm not gonna lie. I'm a little jealous. Jessica. She has pretty great pajamas. Yeah, it's true. And I also really like that she has a very strong friendship with the town Dr. Seth Hazlitt. You often see them having dinner at her house playing chess going places together. And to really see a platonic friendship between a man and a woman is really, you know, great. And, but like, like Thinking about Baba Yaga. And I'm thinking about the story of Vasilisa. Vasilisa goes to Baba Yaga's house in the woods because it's kind of like a Hansel and Gretel story where the evil stepmother is like our fire went out go to Baba Yaga's house and get us some fire and she's like, Oh no, Baba Yaga she's gonna eat me. And Baba Yaga says gives her some tasks and she does them. And then Baba Yaga's like, great. Here's your fire. Also, I'm going to murder your whole family because they're dicks. Right? Like Baba Yaga is interested in justice. Okay. She's interested in justice. And she's also a place you go to for wisdom. You go there for light you go there for it's not easy wisdom. No, it's not. It's not easy wisdom, you have to work for it. But I do see characters like Jessica Fletcher, not her specifically, but characters like that as being a kind of a font of that kind of wisdom. But one thing that kind of separates Jessica Fletcher in particular from that kind of witchy iconography is that she's not an outlier. Right. She's part of a community, which is unusual for
Lucy Neptune 41:10
and perhaps a leader of sorts in her. Well, they're
Evelyn Archer 41:13
always trying to get her to run for mayor. Like there's a whole episode where they're trying to get her to run for mayor and she's like, Absolutely not. Like in fact, she's so smart. She knows she's like, nobody wants that job. Like I don't want to be mayor. That's dumb. But she is integral to the community, right? She's
Lucy Neptune 41:33
right. She's normal. Not quite weird enough to be. She's She has Baba Yaga vibes. But Baba Yaga is she's the scary house on the outside of town that you're like, not so sure. And you know, there's there's a lot of risk like, but you wouldn't just go up and knock on the door. There. But Jessica's house, she would be like, Oh, I'll go ask her if she wants to buy a magazine subscription.
Evelyn Archer 41:55
And I don't know I'd knock on Baba Yaga door. I don't see her as carry like
Lucy Neptune 41:59
I'm terrified of a house on chicken.
Evelyn Archer 42:01
I love how like I look at a house on chicken legs. And I'm like, Yes, I want to go there. Yes, I am. It is disturbing. I will give you afraid it is. I'm not. It doesn't frighten me. But there is to me, it's about her deep participation in the community. She is on committees and I mean when we have an episode and Kabakov Kabakov episodes are my favorite. But she's always traveling because you can't kill off everyone in Cabot Cove.
Lucy Neptune 42:34
I was reading the statistics. It was an actual town. The the murder rate of Cabot Cove is horrendous. Like a warzone. break for consumption. It's just my consumption. Let's see. Should we talk about the other episode? Yes. Yes. So crossed up is amazing. I love that she's running the operation from her from her bed and still kind of knows a great deal. And the in the timing of here comes the hurricane. And yes, it supernovae here comes somebody breaking into her to her room and
Evelyn Archer 43:12
Oh, and did you clock the guest star in this one?
Lucy Neptune 43:15
I have to remember
Evelyn Archer 43:17
the older brother from Leave It to Beaver. Yes. Yes. Yes. It's a Hugh Downs. Is that as they know?
Lucy Neptune 43:22
It dad younger brother. It was the Beaver himself.
Evelyn Archer 43:26
No, that wasn't the beaver. That's Jerry. Jerry Mathers was the beaver. Oh,
Lucy Neptune 43:30
yes. Okay, so yes, I'm sorry the older brother the older brother. Yes,
Evelyn Archer 43:33
the older brother from Leave It to Beaver when I'm sure spoilers was the culprit.
Lucy Neptune 43:37
Yeah, but come on the white cat. Yeah, well, I own a White Cat and Cat Cat to look at and
Evelyn Archer 43:45
yes, someone's cat allergy is featured very prominently in this first husky voice, but crossed up is a great one. I gave you that one because it's I don't know the timing of the of the thunderstorm. And there's actually like a spoopy moment where somebody comes into Jessica's room and like pulls a gun on her while she's flat on the bed and you see a reaching for a crutch like she's gonna wet like swing this crutch right? But no, do you know how she brought the the police to her house before
Lucy Neptune 44:19
we tell them that you also get the wonderful kind of 70 shot of the gloved hand and the wire cutter going and cutting off the phone while she was on the phone love it. She's on the phone talking to kick. Oh shit, here they come. It's such like kind of like like it's a classic structure but it works and it works really nice really works and then tell them how she got helped tell them
Evelyn Archer 44:41
at the beginning of the episode because she is bedridden. Seth has let her friend and town doctor gives her a Life Alert necklace. In case nephew Grady is not there to help her and she has some kind of problem. She literally brought the police with help I've fallen and I can't get up. Like talk about taking that like, what you think aging is like is not actually what aging is like. Right kind of thing she's like so this thing that is the icon of someone who is helpless. Mm hmm. is being used to summon the police because you're you've solved a murder.
Lucy Neptune 45:20
Yeah, here comes the cows. So good. Really good. So good. Good. So good. Oh, and then what's your name? Dodie. When she starts crying Ooh, the white woman five
Evelyn Archer 45:32
years privilege like white privilege tears. Yeah, she goes
Lucy Neptune 45:35
off duty gross Dodie’s duties the worst Dodie's the worst. Who else? I really enjoyed minutes anyone? I
Evelyn Archer 45:44
let's talk about menace anyone like I'd forgotten menace anyone except that I really liked it. I did not go back and rewatch that it's okay. Oh my god. As you can guess folks. It's about tennis. Get it says Yeah.
Lucy Neptune 45:55
With Bryan Cranston. And Linda Hamilton. Yes. Oh, and there's somebody Oh, Van Johnson, I believe is the the father
Evelyn Archer 46:10
oh my god, it is Van Johnson.
Lucy Neptune 46:12
Yes. Guest stars every which way tennis and exploding car.
Evelyn Archer 46:18
Oh, that's right. There's an explorer.
Lucy Neptune 46:20
It's Oh, there's so many delightful things. There's, yeah, there's a there's a delightfulness. And re in watching these, to me for sure. Because there are built like little watches that are kind of perfectly running. And just very, you know, you're in good hands. You can just sit back and be like, let's go. Let's do the thing. And, and there's also little surprises and twists. And it's fun. I'm sure people who know more about kind of cinematic camera movement will really thrill on it. But there's I just remember like 70 is kind of like, well, we're gonna start here and then pan this way and swoop around. Like there's camera moves, which I'm not describing well, but I'm sure people would be like, Oh, look at that all kind of camera action. Well, then we got into that whole NYPD Blue jerky jerky camera.
Evelyn Archer 47:04
It's just what I was. Yeah, I was gonna bring this up too, is that that Murder She Wrote, feels like a terrific antidote to my prestige TV exhaustion. I am exhausted from prestige TV. Even stuff that's not pristine. That shouldn't be prestige TV is what does it somebody calls it first. Fotini. Like, it's not really prestige. It's faux teach. But there's always this. There's something super dark about it and super dramatic about it. And you all it's takes place over eight episodes, and you have to watch all of them or you're going to get spoiled and the stakes are really high and it's kind of mumblecore it's come humbly and, and also like super complex and super twisty and has to be just the greatest thing anybody has ever seen. And Murder, She Wrote ghosts. Fuck you. It's going to be food poisoning at the diner this week. Like, that's actually a really good episode. Literally, that is an episode about food poisoning. And it is a real antidote for me for that kind of prestige exhaustion because it's not prestige. This was network. primetime. I want to say it was like a Sunday night show. I
Lucy Neptune 48:24
think it followed 60 minutes. Yeah. So you're in a
Evelyn Archer 48:28
Yep. And it is yes, it is aimed at an older audience. And older people or an Audience Yes, that I think are really getting missed.
Lucy Neptune 48:41
I just saw an article headline that Netflix is skewing a bit towards the older audience. Because some of its younger readers watcher viewership. Language fails me at this hour sometimes have straightaway. And it's funny because I actually during Panni I gave my parents a login for my Netflix because they didn't have it. And they're like, Oh, we watched Lucifer. We watched this. We watch.
Evelyn Archer 49:06
This was another great one that that's all teach for sure. Yeah. But it's trash. And I love it. Yeah. And the thing is, murder shirts, not trash. It is well executed. It's well put together. It is. I usually use this term to talk about books, but this is definitely what I like to call a buttonhole show. Like a buttonhole book. It's from a poem, I think by Naomi Shihab Nye, I want to be famous the way a buttonhole is famous, not because it did anything spectacular, but because it never forgot what it was supposed to do. Yeah. And this is a buttonhole show. Yes. And it does exist there. There is something so soothing about it to me. And I know I've talked to I don't know if I've talked about this on the podcast before if I have I'm so sorry. I'm fascinated by this fact. So I talked about it again. So when they were doing you know, research on two but it might not have been winning in stress, it might have just been people in stress about what can you do to actually alleviate your stress, they found that the most stressful thing that you can actually one of the most stressful things that you can do for yourself is to basically lay in a bathtub with cucumber slices on your eyes go and relax, relax, relax, relax, relax, that actually elevates can elevate your heart rate. But what they found actually, lowered heart rate, lowered blood pressure was reading or watching police procedural and cozy mysteries. And I think it's you mentioned something about this where there's a structure to it that's really strong. But it's different enough inside to kind of keep you engaged, without the stakes ever being super high. Like yes, there's been a murder, but in a real kind of, and the Murder She Wrote is definitely a cozy mystery. In a cozy mystery. The person who gets killed either a super deserved it, and everybody's glad he's dead. Or B, nobody knows them. So you don't care like you care about justice. We're not talking about cozy mysteries don't involve like, the brutal death of someone's child. Okay, this is you know, right. Who killed Oh, I forget who what's the name of the person that gets killed in behind bars. The doctor I don't remember doctor, I don't remember her name. Exactly. The doctor, the doctor. And we she literally had three lines before she got off. So we're not emotionally invested in that character. We're emotionally invested in the person who's been falsely accused. And I feel like there is something in that that is very like I Ashiq a manga like where it's soothing and there's a rhythm to murder mysteries. That's for me it's like being rocked to sleep like a baby Yes.
Lucy Neptune 52:06
Well, it's often about restoring order to some extent
Evelyn Archer 52:10
it's only about it's only about restoring order
Lucy Neptune 52:13
right well trying to and I think I think with the gentleman behind bars actually I was really bummed at the doctor died because as I started to watch them now I'm like, I start to watch them and then I think oh, let me guess who's gonna die? So I see the see the people and the guy who's gonna who's it's gonna be well there we go. But I was bummed it was the doctor because she was one of the black women character sighs damn fair. Um, but you see a little bit again in the flashbacks they give us more airtime and then they do kind of address race a bit more through the episode which was good Oh, but I think one of the things I've noticed in in Murder She Wrote is that there is usually some kind of larger theme like I think there were yeah show yes that were you know Magnum PI for example. Like he's solved crimes. He's
Evelyn Archer 53:08
cases there is a crossover episode. No,
Lucy Neptune 53:10
I can't wait. There's a crossover episode. Angela Lansbury. And Tom so you
Evelyn Archer 53:14
have to watch the episode there's an episode where Magnum P is on it's a two parter.
Lucy Neptune 53:19
She's on magnimous Yes. Oh, shit.
Evelyn Archer 53:21
It was the second part of that two part episode. They used to deal with sweeps week man, man Yeah, remember sweeps google it children
Lucy Neptune 53:31
but I think there's there's some kind of theme not quite a moral I don't think but like a theme agree is trying to fight for and I think that's really I think that makes us makes me feel like Alright, yes, we're going to you know, do good as you say and get out
Evelyn Archer 53:50
there. Like, there absolutely is like there's always something that she's kind of taking to task. Oh, in. Hurray for homicide. This is someone who has taken her book The court stands to midnight and turned it into an exploitative, ridiculous book. And I'm sorry movie into an ridiculous movie with like naked girls and dancing and it's super dumb and schlocky and awful. And she takes issue with that. She's like people deserve better than this. And then there is there's a moment in hurray for homicide. First of all, Mary Ingalls from Little House on the Prairie as a drunk starlets, loving it. So with the permed milk also with permed Mala they were very it was the at least there is a moment where they're showing you the movie that they're filming. Where there was like a full on dance number with like in a cemetery. Terraces oh my god, it was beautiful.
Lucy Neptune 54:57
i Oh, I had Aye aye aye that came on I was just I cover my mouth and then I just couldn't stop and I just started laughing and I loved every it's
Evelyn Archer 55:07
wonderful every now I want to pop out here. I want to be clear with listeners that I am not. I do not like Murder She Wrote, ironically. Okay, right, right. Like not for kitch fact. No, it's not. I mean, there is some kitsch factor to it, but I actually truly love it. And the fact that they did that, that they had a dance number in a graveyard with synthpop Ah,
Lucy Neptune 55:34
so good. It was so it was so correct, though. I mean, for for that time when it was made absolutely saying what are you doing to my book? And that was the right thing to show like, no, they're doing something really different with Yeah, yeah, for sure. For sure, man, Jessica Fletcher. Cheers to you. And, and I can't watch answer. Angela Lansbury without thinking of Bedknobs and Broomsticks. Oh, no. Write any of those kind of magic. All I
Evelyn Archer 56:04
hear is have a little priest when I see her. That's that from its priest. Have a little priest. Oh, is it really? Good. At least? Yes.
Lucy Neptune 56:15
Confession. I don't know very many musicals. I may have an MFA in theater. But I'm not amused.
Evelyn Archer 56:22
I don't have an MFA in theater. And I know every musical. I know. I
Lucy Neptune 56:26
don't I don't. I Okay, sidebar. I'm interested in Schmiggadoon.
Evelyn Archer 56:30
I am so there for Schmiggadoon.
Lucy Neptune 56:32
I feel like this is actually the musical precisely for me where I would find myself in a musical going. FUCKING KIDDING ME and trying to figure out how to get out of it.
Evelyn Archer 56:42
Well, what I love is that Keegan Michael Key who's in this who plays the guy who's like, these fucking mute, like he hates musicals. He was on one of these late night shows or something. And, like Stephen Colbert, whoever is like so in this you play a guy who hates musicals and is trying to get out. Can you tell me what it was like for you? He's like, literally the hardest acting job I've ever had. Because I love musicals. Oh, he was in the he was one of the best things in the terrible prom musical on Netflix. The musical itself is not terrible. Their adaptation was the worst. The worst. I will. You know what, that will be a special episode where I go off on how bad the prom was. But he was in it. And he was a bright spot in that whole shitty ass production. So good. He's so good. I really love to do. I'm excited to watch it. I'm excited
Lucy Neptune 57:38
because Bowen Yang is one of the writers. Ah, Bowen Yang is my new favorite thing. Listen, God,
Evelyn Archer 57:46
That iceberg when he played the iceberg. I didn't You didn't see. Okay. It's one of the greatest things I've ever seen on Saturday. Okay. It was on Weekend Update where he plays the iceberg that sank the Titanic. I love him so much. It was the weirdest, most wonderful. I love him. Do you listen to his podcast?
Lucy Neptune 58:07
I do not.
Evelyn Archer 58:08
But it can. They're great. It's called Las Culturistas. Okay. And it's him and Matt Rogers and they're lovely. They can be a little chaotic for me. Probably love it. It's, I can listen, I have to be in the mood, but I can't listen to it a bunch. But it's definitely that thing of like, when you listen to an episode of loss culture, he says it feels like I am the quiet person at a really fabulous dinner party. Oh, I must listen immediately. That's what it sounds like.
Lucy Neptune 58:41
I am in love with him right now. For his work on Nora from Queens with Awkwafina. Oh, yes. And it's He's so good.
Evelyn Archer 58:50
He's he just got nominated for an Emmy for SNL.
Lucy Neptune 58:53
Oh, fabulous. He's great. Yeah, he's great. Dynamite.
Evelyn Archer 58:56
He's dynamite.
Lucy Neptune 58:58
Super. Um, let's see. Do we have anything else we just want to say about Jessica Fletcher?
Evelyn Archer 59:03
I don't know. I think I might be all just for except to watch it. It's on Peacock. And point. And don't watch it ironically. Like we don't watch anything ironically. Yeah, no, she's
Lucy Neptune 59:13
great. Let's let's share that piece of trivia about that. Angela lensbury. And her husband would hire Oh, yeah. older actors in the woman who played the
Evelyn Archer 59:25
library in the library, I believe now this is a this is a folktale. This could be apocryphal.
Lucy Neptune 59:29
I believe it's true, but I believe that's
Evelyn Archer 59:31
true. When you watch enough episodes of Murder, She Wrote you will. If you are our age, you will kind of notice faces that you don't quite recognize. And they will be character actors from like the 50s and 60s who are now in their 60s and 70s. And you'll see a character has little too many lines for what needs to happen in that scene. Like they didn't really need lines but they have like four or five lines. It's so that they can get a day wage for their Screen Actors Guild and keep their health insurance. And the woman who plays the librarian, and I don't remember if the actress was ill or injured.
Lucy Neptune 1:00:14
She had multiple sclerosis. Oh leave. Madelyn Rhue.
Evelyn Archer 1:00:20
Madeline. Madeline Rue is a horror young adult author she
Lucy Neptune 1:00:25
was let me double check.
Evelyn Archer 1:00:26
It might it might be the same name. But yeah, she would hire them to be in their episode and give them enough lines so that they could get their health insurance. And that is very that is a very decent that's a very Jessica Fletcher thing to do. That's a very great unity minded right? Yeah.
Lucy Neptune 1:00:48
Gino Neil Madeline roo disabled librarian Madeline room. How do you spell ru R h u e?
Evelyn Archer 1:00:54
I was thinking Madeline root r o u x is the
Lucy Neptune 1:00:57
Madeline is Ma d l y n Madelyne Madelyne. Madman but yeah,
Evelyn Archer 1:01:02
that's a really nice thing to end on yet. You know, long live Angela Lansbury is still with us. Our once and future queen. Yes. We love you. We'd love to have you on the show. Yes, call us up and be on the podcast. Yes, Dame Angela Lansbury. Dame Angela Lansbury. Yes. Fabulous. Fabulous. Um,
Lucy Neptune 1:01:21
let's see. Do we have a dick of the week? Yes, we
Evelyn Archer 1:01:24
do. Yes, we do.
Lucy Neptune 1:01:26
It's Jeff Bezos. And his Dickie
Evelyn Archer 1:01:31
Dick that went to space. So two weeks in a row, we've had Dicks in space. Yep. My husband who is a space enthusiast will be the first to point out that they did not actually go all the way into space. They touched the edge of space, and like saw kite or something and then came back. He's a dick. Here's what I hoped would happen. I hoped Jeff Bezos went up into space and looked out onto the void and saw the void in his own heart. And when he came back down to earth, he would help dismantle the system that put him in the air in the first place. That did not happen so he must be destroyed. Instead, he thanked all of the Amazon workers and people who had people who buy shit. Thanks for paying for this dick of the week. Yep. However, in that spaceflight, almost Yes, almost spaceflight. I can't think of her name Wally, Wally,
Lucy Neptune 1:02:37
I have to look up her left. Look up her last name. She's in her 80s
Evelyn Archer 1:02:39
She's in her 80s This was a woman who in the 60s trained alongside other astronauts, did all the training, did all the schooling, did all the everything and then in the end, they Wally Funk and then at the end they told her she couldn't go to space because of her vagina. And even John Glenn got on national TV to talk about how unnatural it was for women to go into space. Oh shit, and now wow, ever
Lucy Neptune 1:03:05
will I go into space with his
Evelyn Archer 1:03:08
space with his with China. And now while we funk has now surpassed John Glenn as the oldest person to make
Lucy Neptune 1:03:17
a spaceflight. Yeah, eat it. John Glenn. Eat it.
Evelyn Archer 1:03:20
Jeff Bezos. Jeff Bezos went up in an actual penis. I'm too tired to be mad about it. I just wanted to go away forever.
Lucy Neptune 1:03:30
Yeah, I was hoping they'd just leave them out there. I
Evelyn Archer 1:03:33
was hoping something else entirely though. I don't even want to say on the podcast because it's very ugly. Well, they're there. But when I found out Wally funk was on that that trip I changed my tune.
Lucy Neptune 1:03:43
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, that's probably why he brought her. Yeah, right. Insurance. Yeah, he, uh, Jeff Bezos talks to him to I don't want to talk bag of quarters in my purse, that kind of
Evelyn Archer 1:03:56
that kind of talk. I could do that kind of talk a little bit, just for a minute, just for just Just one quick second. But I am actually just so fucking tired. Yeah. We are still in the throes of a pandemic. We're having another surge of vaccinated people.
Lucy Neptune 1:04:13
And I saw there they're tracking breakthrough. Infections. Is that the right phrase? Breakthrough meaning if you have Vax been vaccinated and you still contract to contract it. There's this whole thing in the White House. Like no,
Evelyn Archer 1:04:27
I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. But there's still a pandemic happening. Flint, Michigan still doesn't have clean water. People live in poverty. Capitalism is a toxin. And the ocean was on fire ocean was on fire and you want to go to fucking space. Fucking gender reveal party.
Lucy Neptune 1:04:47
Are you kidding me? Listen, yeah, smoke, so it's another fucking gender reveal. We got to blow something up to show whether our child has a penis or vagina. Deal. Oops. Because 590 something square miles of forest burn and that smoke is tracking across over the hole.
Evelyn Archer 1:05:07
That's right now, yeah, I have been off social media for the last couple of days, because I've been feeling a little depressed. And it makes me more depressed. So I stay off of it, which is I don't get any news, which is probably good, because I didn't need to know that until right now. That's actually fine. But like, also just a gender reveal party. Seriously, where are we doing this?
Lucy Neptune 1:05:26
And if you want to do just got a fucking cake, like everybody else, oh, look, the insights bank?
Evelyn Archer 1:05:31
I do. I do have a little bit of a fantasy though, that like, if my wife had taken a very different turn, and we had had a baby together, and instead of we would do a gender reveal party. And the gender that gets revealed is that it's like a dragon. Or a robot or a spaceman more a dinosaur or something that's not a gender at all. I think that would be kind of a thought and what I just kind of want to say to the people doing gender reveal parties, I just want to be like, Guys, listen, folks. If you want to have a joint baby shower that men can go to you can just do that. You don't have to like you don't need explosive. You don't need explosives. Like it's just the worst. So yeah, dig the week, Jeff Bezos, but Jeff Bezos is kind of the dig of the week every week isn't a hate Well,
Lucy Neptune 1:06:22
pretty much so by local folks whenever you can
Evelyn Archer 1:06:24
buy local whenever you can, but the thing is, lots of people can't and there are no ethical choices under capitalism. Is this true? So it's true. It's a whole such sees the means of production not just by local. Seize the means of production. I'm yeah, I'm, I'm I'm a Bolshevik. But it is. Yeah, he's taking the week every week. Yeah, yep. Anything else?
Lucy Neptune 1:06:50
Anything else? Oh, One fun fact. Observed in Lucy's workshop. Oh, yeah. Was
Evelyn Archer 1:06:56
this workshop.
Lucy Neptune 1:06:57
The initials Murder She Wrote are an ambigram thing. If you flip it upside down, it still looks like MSW.
Evelyn Archer 1:07:04
Hey, I did not none kind of thing I know you like Grant. I do love palindromes and B gram I've never
Lucy Neptune 1:07:11
heard of and I had to look it up because I was like, what's the visual Palindrome called? And I said it's called an ambigram.
Evelyn Archer 1:07:17
I am the grand great, no. Well, fun little fun little facts. Well, folks, you've been listening to which is Dix with Evelyn Archer
Lucy Neptune 1:07:29
and Lucy Neptun brought to you this week in part by my new great stretchy pants which are really comfortable to sit in and
Evelyn Archer 1:07:37
the two cases of LaCroix seltzer that I got on sale at Target on my birthday and definitely the crispy black pepper chicken wings we get from Apsara Palace on Hope Street up the street. We can't stop. We can't stop eating chicken wings. We don't even like chicken wings. But these are so I'm brought to you in part by Irene and Watson who are my cats who really behave themselves tonight.
Lucy Neptune 1:08:02
They did they did Irene passed out with that little bag
Evelyn Archer 1:08:05
she she wore herself out looking in that bag. Alright folks, have a great one. And we'll see you next week. Yes, keep those cards and letters coming
Evelyn Archer 00:00
You've been listening to Witches and Dicks. Rate, review and subscribe to activate the tracking spell. It feeds the algorithm and helps new listeners find us. Leave us a five star review and we'll read it on the air. Send any and all correspondence to Witches and Dicks. That's witchesanddicks@gmail.com. We'd love to hear from you.
Witches and Dicks is a Harlow Gold Production with NancyLu Studios. To any extent that it was written, it was written by Lucy Neptune and Evelyn Archer. That's me. You can find Lucy on Instagram at @LucyNeptuneWND. You can find me on Twitter and Instagram @evelynarches. You can book a Tarot reading with me at askevelynarcher.com and you can buy my books, The Strange Files of Modesty Brown, on Amazon and Smashwords.
Our audio engineer is Nancy Lu herself. Our logo was created by Alex Zapata. Music by pretty sleepy on Pixabay. Transcript by otter AI. Special thanks to Allan Lewis for IT and moral support. This podcast brought to you by The Fool card, public libraries and too many candles.