Movie Time Machine : A Retro Movie Review Podcast · chad the friend

EP105: Burritos to Aliens

June 19, 2023·52 min·5 clips

The episode opens on burritos. Qdoba comes up first, which leads into a quick comparison with Chipotle and Pancheros, plus the reminder that queso changes the whole calculation. Taco Cat shows up soon after. They remember it as a standout Minneapolis burrito spot with an unusual start, including the house-delivery phase and a later run near Midtown Global Market before the pandemic shut it down. The food memory keeps rolling. Hospital visits and delivery burritos get folded into the same warm recollection, which is exactly the kind of side path this show likes to follow. From there the conversation slides into the show. They talk through the family power dynamic that hooked them early and why the first stretch of episodes makes the Roy chaos hard to ignore. Nobody is an obvious hero. That is part of the point, because they keep circling the same issue: the show is beautifully made, but it asks the viewer to spend a lot of time with people who are hard to like. Greg becomes a live question. One host admits to rooting for him, while the others push back and stay focused on how strange and funny the power games become around him. Tom Wambsgans gets plenty of attention. Matthew Macfadyen is praised for making Tom feel equal parts pathetic, hungry, and oddly believable, especially in the way he moves around Shiv and tries to secure his place in the family. Greg and Tom together are treated as the show’s best comic engine. Their scenes are described as the sort of awkward, slippery partnership that turns pure misery into something watchable. The hosts do not act above the jokes. They are happy to laugh at the ego, the bad decisions, and the endless little humiliations that keep the show moving. That looseness is the charm. The episode keeps wandering on purpose, and the conversation feels like friends letting the recording run while they chase one thought after another. The show also keeps circling back to what Jamie has been watching. It is framed as a follow-up on the shows he said he started back in 2020, which gives the whole thing a checking-in feel. Near the end, they widen the lens to streaming wars and future TV talk, and the episode closes with the same easy, conversational energy it started with.

As heard by us

A burrito-fueled hangout that becomes a sharp Succession discussion.

EP105 plays less like a formal review and more like a conversation that keeps finding its own pace, starting with burritos, moving through a Minneapolis food memory, and settling into Succession.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

For a burrito detour that slides straight into Roy-family mess.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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