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The Last Kingdom with Matt Boren

This week on Make Me a Nerd, Mandy Kaplan straps on her metaphorical codpiece and dives headfirst into the sword-swinging, land-grabbing, god-invoking world of The Last Kingdom with guest Matt Boren¹—actor, author, screenwriter, and senior prom date emeritus. And if you’re wondering how the man who wrote Folded Notes from High School and Minister of Loneliness became obsessed with decapitations, Danish warlords, and subtitles thick with blood and Old English vowels—well, Mandy is too. But it turns out: it’s all just General Hospital with furs and beards.

Matt lays out the appeal of The Last Kingdom not as a history lesson (God no), but as an ongoing saga of trauma, identity, and—most crucially—soap-operatic betrayal. We learn that he came to the show late, post-Game of Thrones awakening, and stayed for the storylines that feel pulled directly from daytime TV: surprise siblings, secret lineages, and more brooding than a Shakespeare festival in the rain. Mandy, meanwhile, is just trying to keep track of who’s who, why everyone is named Uhtred, and whether “Sieges are for Turds” is historically accurate or just someone’s idea of a bumper sticker.

Together, they cover three episodes: the brutal pilot, the climactic battle of season three, and the series finale disguised as a prequel to a disappointing movie. Along the way, they debate teenage kings, historical trauma, and whether The Last Kingdom is actually just The Princess Bride with more fire and fewer laughs. Mandy confronts her own aversion to violence (there’s so much head stuff), and Matt admits he watches most of the beheadings out of the corner of his eye—because, like most writers, he’s here for the emotional subtext, not the arterial spray.

Plus: the quiet horror of teenage monarchs, the eternal trauma of land disputes, and why Mandy wants everyone to just share the damn land already. Also: Matt confesses he may in fact be a “quotationist,” and Mandy delivers her thesis on why all television—yes, even this—is basically Friends with fewer coffee mugs and more impalings.

Links & Notes

Make Me a Nerd

¹ Matt Boren may not identify as a “nerd,” but any man who quotes General Hospital while explaining 9th-century Anglo-Saxon land disputes is at least a Level 12 Soap Mage. That’s canon.

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Make Me a Nerd is a podcast for full-blown nerds and those who are nerd-curious. Its host, Mandy Kaplan, is a mainstream middle-aged mom who loves all things Football, Taylor Swift, and Housewives. Each week, she will be introduced to some form of nerdery way outside her comfort zone. By who, you ask? (we know it’s whom, that was a “nerd test,” and you passed it) A full-blown sci-fi/D&D/Ren Fair-loving geek guest determined to expand her horizons and recruit her to nerd-dom. You know what they say: “May the forest be with you”!
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