Atrium Waymond finally finds the words — the only thing I do know is that we have to be kind — and then turns and aims it directly at his wife: please be kind, especially when we don’t know what’s going on. In the Hong Kong alley, Foxy Waymond tells Evelyn he knows she sees herself as a fighter. So does he. This is how he fights. The music swells. Evelyn is waking up. And then Jobu’s voice cuts through with one word — bagel — and the whole thing stops dead. Alpha Gong Gong orders the attack. Jobu steps forward, completely earnest, and tells her mother she could still turn around and avoid all of this.
Lester makes the case that this is The Last Temptation of Christ, and Kynan — who covered both the Kazantzakis novel and the Scorsese film on the other show — agrees completely. The temptation on the cross wasn’t power or bread or kingdoms. It was a normal life: come down, get married, have children, grow old, don’t be the son of man. That’s the one that actually lands for a regular person, and it’s exactly what Jobu is offering here. You don’t have to be the hero. You can just walk away.
We also dig into why the be-kind speech doesn’t exist in the 2017 draft, what changed between 2016 and 2020 to put it there, and how differently it hits now. Plus: why Foxy Waymond calling kindness a strategy reframes the whole thing, and how that connects to the genuinely radical pacifism of Jesus, Gandhi, and King, which was never about overcoming anyone.
- Show archive
- Learn more about supporting this podcast by becoming a member. It’s just $5/month or $55/year. Visit our website to learn more.
- Banana for Scale Facebook Group
- The Devil’s Details: The Evolution of the Devil Through Art & Literature
- The Exorcist Minute
- Connect with Kynan on Instagram or Letterboxd
- Connect with Lester on Facebook, Instagram, or X
