29: Invest in Sassy Droids

Published: June 6, 2018, 11:01 a.m.

In this week\u2019s episode, it\u2019s a sci-fi spectacular as Ebony and Caro navigate the asteroid field of a movie that is Solo. We talk everything from Ron Howard\u2019s directing to the squandering of Thandie Newton to the Star Wars series\u2019 gradual shift into a much less interesting approach to storytelling. We reserve particular ire, however, for the film\u2019s treatment of its feisty, politically revolutionary droid L3-37.\n\nFrom there, we travel back in time to 1984 to revisit the James Cameron classic, The Terminator! In later episodes, we\u2019ll look at other franchise properties, but we wanted to go back to where it all began. Our discussion touches on the great supporting performances of Lance Henriksen and Paul Winfield as a couple of cynical but decent cops, how Linda Hamilton\u2019s Sarah Connor is presented as a \u201cvirtuous\u201d mother figure, what makes the special effects so great, and especially Arnold Schwarzenegger\u2019s performance as a literal killing machine and how he came to embody an ideal of manhood in the 1980s. \n\nOther topics include the cancellation of Roseanne, the brilliance of The Americans\u2019 final season, and how so often even the warmest and most inviting children\u2019s literature tells children of color that they are not welcome to fully enter the worlds those books create.