Okay, so, Belch, this week on King Me, fear human nature. This is the Mist 2017. King Me! There I say it, there I say, King Me.
Welcome to King Me, the official Stephen King movie podcast, the official podcast of King King Me, the official podcast of, um, everything's going great over wherever you are. No matter where you are, the things are going how you want them to go. Real swell for you. The official podcast of humanity's redemption.
We're living it. Good for us. I am, of course, Dan Gagliardi. Joined.
No. No, go ahead. You go first. Joined by always.
What? Okay, go ahead. Robbie. There we go.
Rob. Hi. Welcome to King Me. Oh, thanks.
Dan. So, um, how have you been? No, go ahead. Let me tell you buddy.
Thriving. Alright. Alright. No, so I think, so we had, we had recorded maybe one or two episodes.
I can't remember if it was one or two and we did those last year and they were like, not, not completely free pandemic, but I think at the very, very beginning of the 90s. I think it was, it may have still been in the era where we were like, this will be a fun four weeks or whatever. Whatever they said. I heard two weeks just turned into four weeks guys.
Well, surely that's the ceiling. Surely it can't get any worse. And then as we all know, it did not. No, yeah, that was the last thing that we recorded was the cell.
Sorry. We're catching up with everybody that's listening to not the cell. Sorry. That's a different project.
Yeah. It was 2016's cell. Really, really around the radio tower. Right.
Full of cells. Man, where was that in 2020? Shit. We, we've recorded that one.
We recorded that was pre pandemic. So the last sucks. That's a bummer. So we recorded that.
So people that were listening last week, we might sound different than this. I, um, yeah, I don't know. Have you listened back to that at all? I still haven't listened back to it.
No, I haven't. Yeah, maybe we will. Little or maybe behind the sausage carton. We are banking a few before we start.
Right. Well, that was the, that was the idea last year. It was like, well, bank a few. And then, and then I don't know, we got busy with something.
Something suddenly came up. Well, I spent, you know, uh, 2020 was a big year for me. I actually spent the better part of it with, um, a few, uh, really cool dudes. I know, uh, planning a trip to Washington, D.C.
Oh, yes. Nice. Yeah. Um, so how did that go for everybody?
Really good. Oh, really good. Yeah. Yeah.
You know how I know some people in the FBI. Yeah. So I told them what we were going to be up to because I was really excited. We're really excited.
Well, they were cool with me. Oh, went real well for us. Dude's car got a little dinged up. Oh boy.
Where were you on January 6th? Well, talk about eight right now. No, no, no, no. It's just like talk about a frickin' horror show, right?
That's what this is. So it's relevant. Yeah. I would have to check to see when we recorded last, but needless to say, the last time that we recorded, uh, the world had not completely fallen apart.
Um, and well, we're, we are back. Yeah, we're back. We're back now. Um, we, we figured, you know, now was the time to come back.
We, we heard your. We heard your. We heard your. Yeah.
No, we heard your cries. We're back. You can, you can rest easy. We heard your cries.
I think they were for our show. I can't be sure. Ah. Yeah.
So we just do a, I mean, on my end, that sounded like a, um, Danny Zuko and, uh, what's her name? And a summer night. Yeah, it's a. You want to?
Oh. I'll do the travolta. Oh man. So yeah.
Um, you've been back to the movies? Nope. Not yet. Have you?
No. No. But I went streaming everything. Yeah.
It's okay. It's not great. You know, there is something to be said for the rigid, um, you know, I know a lot of theaters have kind of switched over to the, the lazy boy seats, but there's something to be said for being forced to be kind of upright. I 100% agree.
Hey, we agree. Though the, you know, those lazy boy seats are very nice, super comfortable, but, uh, I get real tired, man, and I might just fall asleep. Here's the thing. I'm a sleepy bitch.
Yeah. I get real sleepy. That's like, that's, that was, that's the good thing also about Alamo draft houses. Like you got to eat.
You can't, you can't sleep. You got a meal to eat. Yeah. Right.
They made this for you. Hey, wake up. Yeah. Your, your mozzarella sticks are here.
No. I, uh, yeah. Of all the theater, like obviously you've been to the upright, you know, old school chairs, you've been to the lazy boy ones and I guess, have you been to one of the dining theater experiences also? No, no, I have not done that.
I went to one of those one time. There was, uh, you could, it was like a fucking Applebee's menu. It was like really crap. And then, you know, there was a bar around the lobby or whatever.
And it was not a great experience. I got to say, like, I don't, I just want to watch the movie. I want somebody come over me and like, Hey, can I refill your drink? Yeah.
It honestly is like as stress inducing to me as like if I had to eat a bag of potato chips, like the crinkling, you know, or like a potato chip bag full of, um, like courier, like marinara sauce, just something that's going to carry, you know, something that's like, like a big old bag of Indian food. Yeah. Exactly. Um, who brought this?
So have you not been back because you're, um, bitch made, you're scared? No, I, I, uh, did they accidentally inject you with bitch made juice? Yeah. Shit.
I got, I went to get the vaccine and they accidentally injected me with estrogen. Oh, no. Oh, no. Yeah.
I couldn't help noticing you were eating a tofu. I mean, a lot of tofu. I'm a big soy boy now. Yeah.
You, uh, I saw that you, um, you got a Nintendo switch the other day and you went, ah, for the viewer at home. Yeah. That's, no, I just, uh, there haven't been any movies that I've really been interested in seeing. What about, um, yeah, you're right now.
I actually can't think of any. I mean, I come out. What's that? What's come out?
The father. Yeah. The father. Everybody's racing to the seat of the theater to see the father America was swept up in Father Mania.
Hey, how's the last year of your life been? You want to see a sad movie, please? Yes. Well, okay.
I mean, do you feel like the, the mist? So the stand came out while we were. Oh, yeah, the stand. And I, we don't have to talk about it on this episode.
Yeah. Talk about it in at our current pace. Right. 50 years from now.
Right. Yes. I will be, I'll be like, Hey, can we push back recording by an hour? I have my dialysis appointment.
Can you watch the, the, uh, the whole series? No, I haven't. I haven't. I didn't like what I saw.
I'll tell you that though. Yeah, me either buddy. I watch the whole thing. And you know what?
Not great. I'll tell you what else though, wasn't great was the mist. The mist. The mist.
It's, it's like, you know, pandemas high football. Right. Um, it kind of had pandemas vibes because it's like the town is overcome by a deadly sort of cloud of moisture. Right.
I mean, very similar. Oh, I hadn't thought about that. Mm. Oh, I get it now.
Okay. Yeah. Suddenly I like this whole series. Oh, now it makes sense.
I get it. Yeah. I mean, I mean, I mean, hey, is there any more banter you wanted to do up top before we get into it? No, no, no, no, no, no, let's get into it.
I mean, it cut you off. No, cut off the banter. Let's get it right into this. Yeah.
Do you think this is like Marin for people where they're like skips? Skip skips. Skip the first 15 minutes. Yeah.
What was that? What was that? Seven Brew Dog. Whoa, hold on.
You drink Brew Dogs now? Yeah, dog. Oh my God. You used to drink LaCroix.
I know. I'm out. Wow. Congrats.
Thank you. Why don't you tell the people what you're drinking? I know you're drinking a fucking, I caught a glimpse of the can. I'm going to write it down on a piece of paper and then you tell everyone what you had.
Okay. So while Dan is writing this down, I also want to point out that Dan has a really nice microphone right now. Thank you. Yeah, you can hear that butt end, that real low end.
Yeah, fucking thick fucking dump truck. Fucking low end. Got that Questlove ass on this microphone. All right.
I know what you're drinking. Okay. He's written it down and he's going to show it to me right now. Turns it.
Was that Sea Quench? Yes. I'm sorry, buddy. It's wrong.
You're wrong. That's hell or high watermelon. Oh, I turned to the wrong page in here. Oh, sorry.
Oh, that was the wrong page. All right. Yeah. I'm glad for a movie.
A parody movie. It's a well, it's about a guy who drinks salt water to stay alive. It's part of the like an Aquaman. I gotcha.
No, nothing like that. It's it's like crank. It's crank three sea quench. Oi.
Where's your where's your bug? Our bug salt water. This is brackish. This will do in a pinch.
He's got a big wide mouth open like a whale. It's like swallowing up like water and kelp and shit. He's a reverse whale. He's now the krill.
I don't need no little prongs. They call them prongs, right? They do. They do.
Prongs. Wow. Isn't it? This is truly a new leaf.
We talked about British people. I didn't say apples and pears once. That's big for me. That is big for me.
You've come a long way in this past year. I sure have. You have a lot of interesting thoughts on the direction the country should take. Well, for the first time in my life, I see clearly I have a vision for what direction the country should take.
Yes. We should walk the path of freedom. Yeah. Yeah.
Okay. What do you not want to be free? All right. Oh, yeah.
What? No, no, go ahead. No, no. I want to know what you had to say.
I was going to jump into the mist, but you had something else to say. No. Let's much like Harry Nelson jumped into the fire. Let us jump into the mist.
Great. The mist 2017. Can we do a jump into the fire sound drop? Yeah.
Okay, cool. But we'll cut it before the word fire and I'll say mist. Yeah. You're going to do this, right?
Yeah. Thanks. So, all right. So the mist from 2017 was a 10 episode series.
I assume, excuse me, we haven't, I didn't watch, we watched the first five episodes, right? I have not watched the second five episodes. No, neither have I. So we have both watched the first five episodes twice because we had intended to do this a long time ago.
Right. It was so weird. Like, oh, what a, I don't know. I've never suffered from dementia, but I feel like the sort of like realization of like re-remembering these totally boring nondescript things.
Yes. Yeah. Oh, God. This time around.
So, right, we watched it last year. We were going to record this and then we didn't record it. So we were like, okay, let's do it now. And I don't remember anything about the show.
Just it wasn't good. So let's rewatch. So yes, the whole time I was rewatching, like I remember all of this, but I don't remember what happens next until it happens. And I, this time around, I was almost like, is this not as bad as I thought it was?
And I was like, no, no, no, it's terrible. It's really bad. It's so like, I mean, it's just flat the whole time. It's very flat.
It has like, you know, several groups of characters that you're following. It sure feels like nothing happens to any of them. The only thing that happens to any of the characters in the first five episodes is that the ones on the periphery die. Like you get your set up for everybody and then they just coast until someone near them gets their brains eaten by a bug.
Maybe. You see, that was like, so, right. So we didn't watch the latter portion of this season. So I don't know if this is like a self-contained story.
I don't know if we get to episode 10 and it's just going to be on a cliffhanger and we're like, well, you know, this did not get picked up for a second season. So in our fan petition. Yeah. I'm just going to have to write my own missed TV series fanfic.
And so, all right. Do you want to do you want to break down? So we're going to be talking about the first five episodes. We don't have to go into excruciating detail because there's really not much detail.
Yeah. Yeah. If they won't go into excruciating detail, why should we? Yeah, I'm not going to.
I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to do it. I'm going to do it. Yeah.
Let's talk about our main characters here though. The what's their name? What's their name? The Copeland's.
Hey, let's go. So you got Daddy Copeland, which is Kevin. And then you have Eve, which is Mommy. And then you have their daughter, who is Alex Cunningham.
I'm seeing that too. I see there's a slash though. Oh boy. And I ain't talking about, oh, I wish I knew his name.
It's like Saul Goodman or something. Yeah. Well, you know what? Have you heard the story about the band forming?
Where? No. So, so slash and what's the best player's name? Saul Hudson.
Sorry. Duff, Duff, McKagan. Yeah. So, yeah, they were like, they were practicing and they got like a huge fight with the guitar player, like the guitar player they had before slash.
Right. So he like storms out, right? Yeah. And they're like, what are we going to do?
We have a gig tonight. Oh, no, man. And what God, I'm so bad at this. What's the drummer's name again?
The drummer, the first drummer was like I will never know. I guess it's not that important. We can have it be that the guitar player quits and Duff McKagan says they're called Saul. Yeah.
So in that story. Oh, man. Yeah, that story ends with him saying better call Saul. Better call Saul.
And him can mean Duff McKagan. It can mean the drummer, the original drummer. Well, Axel Rose could have said it. Hey, better call Saul.
And then it broke into the little theme music there. So the theme music, you mean welcome to the jungle? No, it does better call. Better call Saul have a little ditty at the beginning.
Does it? I've never seen it. Well, me either. So we're both out of our elements here.
Alex Copeland, Alex Cunningham. So she plays. Well, I don't know why that is. Oh, OK.
I bet I know what's going on here. Remember how the one guy is Brian Hunt, but then Brian Hunt is also there? Yes. You think there's some like parallel universe stuff happening?
Or do you think just that's the real Brian Hunt from the Army base? I think it's the real Brian Hunt. So the TV show opens with the soldier who like he's coming to, he's coming to, I guess he was like not unconscious or whatever. He doesn't know who he is.
And then what's like his dog, the dog that he's with gets attacked or something by like a missed creature. Yes. And it scares him a great deal. And then he runs off.
A great deal. A great deal. So we're, I don't know, he's going to be one of her main characters. There's Mia, who's like, I don't even know, she's like a drug addict, thief, con person, something.
That's kind of vague. What she's actually. Yeah, she's a she's like a junkie who's also like a covert ops. She's very good with a gun and like good in hand in close quarters combat.
Right. Her deal is very unclear. She has a go bag with like hundreds of thousands of dollars and like a passport in it. Yeah.
So when we meet her, she's like, right, that's in the barn or whatever. There's some like big guy kicking the shit out of her being like, where's the money? Lebowski kind of thing. Right.
And then, but then with her like hands behind her back, she like kicks his ass, right? Right. Yeah. She manages to like, you know, wriggle free and get away from that.
And then she goes to the house she used to live in, which is now occupied by like another tenant or something and tries to go into the shed to get her like go bag with her. Right. Yeah. Unexplained amount of money.
But then she also kicks the shit out of that guy. I think he pulls a gun on her and he's like, you know, I trust bullshit. And then yeah, she kicks the shit out of him. So like, that's all we kind of know about her.
I don't know. We're five episodes in it. I still don't know much more than that about her. Yeah.
I really don't get what her deal is. I feel like you kind of have to explain when someone's good at fighting. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. You should say something. Just have one person be like, wow, you're really good at that. And even if she's just like, oh, yeah, thanks, I practice, I would have been fine.
Just someone to be like, you're a lot better at this than the rest of us. Right. And yet Kevin is in charge. It's like in like Schwarzenegger or Stallone movies where other people are like not amazed at the way that they look at all times.
Like, whoa, we're like creeped out, you know, you are enormous. What is your deal? How are you the sheriff of a small Texas town? Oh my God.
Yeah, I was about to say, oh my God. And that's how you talk? What the fuck part of Texas are you from? So we have, okay.
So we have the family of the Coplands, right? So the daughter, Alex, she's one of the main characters here. Her friend is Adrian. Oh boy.
That friggin wet blanket. Who's like, I feel like his main characteristic is like, he's gay and he's like, no, he's not. He's pansexual. They go out of their way to have it.
Okay, one thing I actually appreciated about this show is that they like wrote a sex nerd character, but they seem kind of disdainful of him, right? Where she's like, so there's a scene where Alex, Kevin and Eve's daughter, Alex, who's best friends with Adrian, they go to a party together and Adrian's like, I don't know, like a goth kid, I guess. He wears like black eyeliner and like black sweatshirts and like, I would, I won't be smurched God's by calling him one. I'll say he's like a misunderstood kid.
Like that's he, he shops mostly at Hot Topic, but that's like the extent of it. I don't know. I feel like he just buys black sweatshirt at Coles. You know, the squeeze song, black sweatshirt at Coles.
Yeah, no, he's just like, he's totally nondescript. He's not goth enough to be goth. I feel like if you were like, Hey man, what's your deal? He'd be like, Oh, people don't really understand me.
I'm misunderstood. That's my whole deal. My deal is that I think no one gets what my deal is, but actually everyone does and they just find it kind of annoying. Yeah.
Hey man, what's your deal? Actually nobody gets my deal. No, I get it. But like, what is it?
What is your deal? Forget it. Yeah. So there's like a line where Alex is like, you know, Alex is dragging him to a party.
He's throwing a little fit the whole way. Right. She's like, when you, she wants to go because there's like a boy, she wants to date there. Right.
Who's like the big football stud? Yeah. Jay, his name is Jay. Jay.
The quarterback. Yeah. She's like, she says to Adrian, you know, when you fall in love with a boy, I'll go to go with you to whatever thing you want to go to. Whatever bullshit you want to do.
He's like a boy or a girl. I told you already. I don't fall in love with gender. I fall in love.
And then she cuts him on. She's like, personality. I got it. Yeah.
And we're all very impressed. Got it. Got it. Got it.
Got it. Got it. Got it. Thank you.
Yes. That was kind of good. She's like, I've heard this so many times. It's like when somebody's gluten free and they're like, I'm gluten free.
I know. Yeah. That's why we're at this place. Yes.
So, so they go to the party, right? Yeah. It's like typical like high school, like bully shit where some of the, like the jocks or whatever, they're picking on Adrian and then the like the football guy, like the one that Alex likes. So like steps in and like, you know, swashes the whole thing because he's like supposed to be a nice guy.
Yeah. He's a perfect gentleman. Right. Or is he or isn't he?
We don't know. Okay. So this is the great thing about the Miss 2017 is that it's got its finger on the pulse. Yeah.
Already heard that there's a pansexual character. But now we're going to do me too. Yeah. We're doing a meet and I ain't talking about Dan also.
No, no. So the next day, she's not home. Her parents are worried about her, right? And when they get her, she tells her mom, right, that she was sexually assaulted by the football player, Jay.
Yes. And that, and she knows she was drunk and she passed out, but she knows this because Adrian told her. Yes. Which we, as the audience, we don't see, we really don't see any of that.
We don't, right? Like we don't see, like a creepy kind of like she's passed out and like, can you standing over ominously or anything like that? Yeah. You don't even think you see her like drinking.
It goes straight from them like dancing and Adrian getting, uh, sucked in the jaw. Uh, to the next morning, right? It's like, yes. We wake up at the Copeland house and Kevin goes to like check on her and she's not in her room.
Now keep in mind also a couple of huge oversights in explaining this. Um, so Kevin and Eve, they don't exactly see eye to eye, wouldn't you say? No, they're, they're not doing great right now. Eve is also a sex nerd.
Yes. Yeah. So Eve is very like, doesn't want her to go party and you find out that the reason why is because Eve was, uh, uh, uh, I mean, they, they use, they use the word slut, right? It's like, yeah, what is she?
I guess she, I don't know. She seems like she was like a grown up. Like it wasn't, you know, when, when she was younger, she had like a reputation and like hung around with the bad kids or whatever. And this is a small town.
So everyone still knows who she is. Some, but she grew up to teach sex ed at, uh, the high school. Right. Right.
Which we come to find out that like that was because of Kevin that like before they got together, she didn't think that she could do anything. And then like being with him, uh, gave her like, I guess the confidence or whatever to become a teacher and to teach sex ed. Okay. So the daughter, Alex tells her mom that she was sexually assaulted, right?
Then they go down, the father goes down to the police station and who is like, he's not the chief of police, but he's like a captain or something there. No, I think he is the chief. Is he the chief? Yeah.
It's the football player. It's his father. His father is like the chief of police officer Connor Heisel. Everyone calls him Connor.
Connor, who's, I mean, a cab. Am I right? Yeah. Actually, yeah, we agree.
Yeah. Um, so this guy sucks. Uh, he's like, he doesn't believe any of it. Uh, he doesn't think his son has ever done anything wrong.
Uh, he doesn't think it's possible, whatever. Hey, when you're a parent, you don't understand. Yeah. Um, so, okay.
So the father is down to police station, right? The mother is taking her daughter. She, she has to go pick something up at the mall, like a prescription or something. Yeah.
Um, like Xanax or something for, for Alex. Yes. So, so she picks up the, she's picking up the prescription at the mall. It's like, it's one of these malls that's in small town.
That's like, it has like a CVS in it, you know, it's. So I was thinking about that. Have you ever experienced that? Or like, you said that like, it's thing I've never heard of.
Not in a hundred years. No, like, like malls from literally like 40 or, you know, 50 years, 45 years ago, whatever. That's what a mall was. It was just like every general story and everything like that.
And there was like a pharmacy there and shit. It wasn't like, you know, only like forever 21 and shit like that. Really? Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. It feels so cheated. I know.
It could have been great. I could have gone. I could have gone to the, you're telling me I could have gone to the mall to get my psoriasis ointment. And then they could have been like, uh, who's psoriasis ointment?
Is this Dan? Is there a Dan Gagley already here? And then you got it turned red in the back like, oh boy, that's me. Wow.
Boy, your face is red. You got it real bad, huh? Yeah. Yeah.
But I also would have had to get, um, I don't know, like alpha pills just to cool me down a little bit. Sure. Yeah. So my two conditions are that I have psoriasis and an abundance of alpha energy, which can, which must be medically tempered.
Right. Extremely, you've heard of low T. This guy's got high T. Um, queen.
High T with queen. What's on? He's back. So the dad's down at the police station with Adrian, the friend, um, they want to get a, his statement for all this, right?
The mom is at the mall picking up the prescription, right? At this time, the mist starts rolling in, right? And then the whole town starts getting all misty. And everybody, it's enough where people are like, they look outside, they're like, that's very weird.
Let's go check that out. Yeah. Everyone does run out to go see what's up in the mist, right? Including the like, uh, deputy policeman.
Yes. Who is that guy? Did you recognize him? Yeah.
He's like a guy, right? Yeah. Right. We can find out who it's actually is, but he's been, he's been under shit before.
I've seen that. His big fucking goop. His big Irish face. Yeah.
Sorry. Someone had to say it. The man's Irish. But he like, he runs out and he's like, I gotta get a selfie for the wife.
Yeah. Now that is on my list of, uh, actually I think he says, I gotta get a picture for the wife, but he starts taking selfies in a way that's very, um, aware that like very much wants to be like, aren't selfies hilarious? Yeah. Uh, that is one of my, one of my triggers.
So shows mentioned like podcasts now and I find that very grating. Oh, you know who he is? I'm sorry. He's, uh, from season one of Fargo, he's Sam Hess.
He's the guy that, um, he's picking on, uh, he's the guy who calls him the N word. Does he call him the N word? It doesn't, he owns like the trucking company with his big, his large sons. Yeah.
His large adult son. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Cause his last, right, the character's last name is Nygaard. Yes. Yes. Yes.
And that's like the joke he keeps making. Uh, it's very funny though. Yeah. We love to laugh.
We all love to laugh. And watch them. Yeah. They'll get in your ear.
So this mist, um, it's a bug mist. Yeah. It's a bunch of bugs in it. Um, we have, there's this older couple that's also there.
Um, what's her name? Francis. Raven. Uh, Natalie, Natalie Raven and, is there a husband's name like Benedict or something?
Yes. It's, it's her and her husband and they were like at the library or something and they're like, they seem, they're like old hippies. Like this guy has like, Birkenstocks on and, you know, like a fun hat. Yeah.
This actually, I was, I was delighted to see this archetype represented the whole setup for them. It's like, they show them just at home and she's like gardening and they're like still clearly very much in love. Like they do everything together. Yeah.
Sweet. It's very sweet. It's a good job saying them up. Also should mention briefly before we get to the library that, uh, what's her character's name again?
Natalie. Natalie. Uh, she, uh, she starts getting like the, the omens of the mist probably earlier than anyone. She, while she's the moth from the silence of the lambs poster lands on her hand.
And I guess the movie silence of the lambs. I suppose that was weird, right? That was weird. Why did they do that?
Hey, could have been anything. Yeah. And then a toad comes up to her and that's scary. Yeah.
Yeah. So anyway, she's like, I better get to the library. I got a research when a toad comes up to me. Right.
So her, so the mist comes in while her and her husband at the library, they, they leave and they're walking through the mist. Like they can't see anything. And this guy approaches them with a gun and he's, uh, he doesn't know what's going on. He thinks they're, they are hallucinations or something.
And he shoots, uh, the old man, husband. And then himself when he realizes that he has killed a real guy. Right. And so Natalie is devastated here.
And then she like stumbles her way into a church nearby church. So the, the, the father, Kevin Adrian there at the jail, who's also at the jail? Was that the con woman? Uh, what's her name?
Mia Mia, uh, the, the soldier from the very beginning, Brian Hunt. So they're there, you know, uh, in the holding cell or whatever, they get them out. We're grouping up here is what's happening. So we're picking up this.