Whine with Some Cheese

Eugenia and Avery limp across the finish line of Macbeth, Act Five, Scene Eight, fueled by lukewarm coffee, oat milk betrayal, and the righteous belief that Shakespeare owes them compensation.The scene opens with Macbeth refusing to die like a “Roman fool,” which the hosts interpret as peak coward energy from a man who has spent the entire play detonating everyone else’s lives. Macduff storms in with “Turn, hell-hound, turn,” bringing an aggression level that is wildly inconsiderate of anyone’s morning routine. Macbeth tries to act like he has been politely avoiding Macduff, a claim Eugenia compares to dodging someone you ghosted by pretending to study organic kale in public.Then comes the centerpiece betrayal: Macbeth’s “charmed life” logic hinges on the prophecy that no one “of woman born” can kill him. Eugenia is ready to file a complaint with basic biology, until Shakespeare drops the loophole: Macduff was “untimely ripped” from his mother’s womb. Avery spirals at the realization that five acts of misery culminate in a legalistic twist involving early modern obstetrics and semantic fine print that Macbeth never bothered to clarify with the witches.Macbeth briefly tries the “I’m not fighting anymore” route, gets called a coward, and throws a tantrum about refusing to kneel to Malcolm, because apparently humility is only for people who did not commit regicide. The fight happens offstage, which the hosts find rude and cost-cutting in the worst way. We then get a brisk dose of stoic nobility as Siward learns of his son’s death with the emotional temperature of a flight cancellation notice.Finally, Macduff returns carrying Macbeth’s head, and everyone immediately pivots into “Hail, King of Scotland” mode like a crowd cheering a bland opening act. Malcolm launches into administrative rebranding, announces new titles, invites everyone to Scone, and casually mentions Lady Macbeth’s offstage suicide, which leaves Eugenia and Avery furious about the uneven onscreen suffering and the complete absence of a trauma-processing intermission.By the end, they agree the real tragedy is the audience’s ordeal: the prophecy loopholes, the abrupt coronation planning, the uncomfortable chair, the wrong room temperature, and the fact that Macbeth’s final downfall is less poetic justice and more “gotcha, C-section.” They sign off demanding reparations, a perfectly timed beverage, and a future episode about literally anything that does not involve Scottish succession or head-related imagery.

Eugenia and Avery are dragged, once again, into Macbeth Act 5, Scene 7, a scene that opens with immediate alarums and the kind of chaotic stage energy that should come with a content warning and a hydration station. Macbeth storms in complaining he has been “tied to a stake” and must fight “bear-like,” which sends the hosts into a passionate defense of bears as dignified boundary-setters who do not deserve to be dragged into Scottish workplace drama.Before anyone can recover from the metaphor, Young Siward barges in with all the etiquette of a spam phone call and demands Macbeth’s name like he is entitled to a personal introduction mid-battle. Macbeth treats his identity like a reality-show reveal, Young Siward reacts with maximum theatrical outrage, and the two promptly start sword-fighting, which Avery finds exhausting to even imagine. Young Siward is killed, and Macbeth immediately congratulates himself with the extremely unserious flex that his opponent was “born of woman,” as if that is not… literally everyone.Then the scene doubles down on noise and emotional chaos. Macduff enters hunting Macbeth, loudly demanding the tyrant show his face and re-litigating his grief in the middle of a battlefield. Eugenia calls it attention-seeking; Avery calls it decorum failure; both agree the constant shouting is a direct attack on their nervous systems. Macduff refuses to waste his “unbattered” sword edge on random soldiers, insisting it is Macbeth or nothing, which the hosts interpret as revenge-driven main-character syndrome with a side of classism.Just when it feels like something might actually resolve, Malcolm and Old Siward appear to deliver bland victory updates and tell everyone to enter the castle like it is a casual restaurant walk-in. And then, of course, more exits. More “Exeunt.” More emotional abandonment. Eugenia and Avery end the episode exactly where Shakespeare leaves them: overstimulated, under-validated, furious about the lack of closure, and ready to file for compensation in truffle fries, cashmere, and a written apology from every institution that ever called this “culturally significant.”

Eugenia and Avery drag themselves into Macbeth Act 5, Scene 6 at an hour that should be illegal, only to discover that Malcolm’s big tactical masterstroke is, once again, “everyone carry branches and pretend we are landscaping.” They are forced to process drum-and-colours chaos, bough-based “leafy screens,” and the kind of loud, visually aggressive staging that would get a modern venue shut down for sensory assault.Malcolm orders the army to throw down their leafy screens like it is a casual wardrobe change, and Avery immediately questions the labor practices, the splinter exposure, and the total lack of HR involvement. Eugenia points out that Old Siward is basically being voluntold into combat with a cheerful “fare you well,” which is not a goodbye, it is a workplace safety violation. Siward’s son is also dragged into the front line, which feels less “right noble son” and more “nepotism meets trauma during a gap year.”Meanwhile, Malcolm and Macduff keep the safer, prestige-heavy part of the plan for themselves, delegating risk while reserving glory like the most insufferable middle management duo in history. Macduff then adds trumpets to the mix, loudly announcing “blood and death” at top volume while the army is supposedly trying to be stealthy. Eugenia calls it strategy malpractice, Avery calls it noise pollution and ecosystem harassment, and both agree that if you must stage a siege, a strongly worded text and a block button would have been cleaner.The scene delivers no action, only posturing, percussion, and a sudden exit that leaves everyone carrying imaginary sap on imaginary costumes with absolutely no closure. Naturally, it ends with an “Exeunt” that feels less like a stage direction and more like Shakespeare personally walking out of the room mid-conversation.

Eugenia and Avery are back in Macbeth Act 5, Scene 5, and once again Shakespeare refuses to give them a single scene where people eat brunch, communicate clearly, and heal with mimosas. Instead, they get a drafty castle, a siege, a mysterious “cry of women,” and Macbeth attempting to run a kingdom like it is a hostile coworking space.Macbeth orders banners hung and tries to act unbothered about “famine and ague,” as if he is not the direct cause of Scotland’s ongoing crisis. Seyton delivers news with the warmth of a weather app, first identifying the disruptive crying, then returning with the bigger bomb: the Queen is dead. Macbeth responds with the emotional availability of a broken espresso machine, casually tossing out “She should have died hereafter,” which sends Eugenia into a full-on rage about grief scheduling, basic respect, and the audacity of dying during someone’s workday.Then comes the centerpiece: Macbeth’s spiral into the famous “tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” speech. Eugenia calls it repetitive, Avery calls it a cleaning problem, and both agree that “dusty death” sounds like something a robot vacuum could solve. Macbeth follows up with “Out, out, brief candle,” somehow managing to pick a fight with lighting itself, and declares life a noisy tale told by an idiot, which Avery notes is a bold stance for a man who murdered his way into the job and is now shocked the vibes are bad.Enter a Messenger, because privacy is illegal in Shakespeare. The Messenger hesitates, Macbeth demands speed, and the news lands: Birnam Wood is moving toward Dunsinane. Macbeth immediately calls him a liar and threatens to hang him, because nothing says leadership like punishing staff for reporting reality. Eugenia points out that the witches’ prophecy was always a loophole buffet and Macbeth simply did not read the fine print. Avery adds that any competent lawyer would have flagged “until” as a red-alert clause.By the end, Macbeth finally admits he is starting to doubt the “equivocation of the fiend,” which is roughly four murders too late, then tries to command the wind like it is an intern, and concludes they will die in armor because self-care is apparently banned in medieval Scotland. Eugenia and Avery sign off furious, under-caffeinated, and still denied the one thing they truly deserve: soft lighting, closure, and grapes.

Eugenia and Avery wanted Netflix rom-coms and reality dating show meltdowns. Instead, they get Macbeth Act 5, Scene 4, aka the moment Shakespeare makes an entire army commit to an outdoor team-building exercise with drums, colours, and a suspicious amount of forestry.From the aggressively vague setting (“country near Dunsinane,” like it is a sketchy real estate listing) to the stage direction “a wood in view” (the least helpful location tag in human history), this scene immediately threatens their peace, their pores, and their brand. Malcolm announces the plan: every soldier must hew down a bough from Birnam Wood and carry it to hide the army’s true numbers. Eugenia calls it what it is: manual labor disguised as strategy, with a side of splinters and ruined manicures.Avery spirals over the environmental impact and the lack of SPF, while Eugenia points out that if Malcolm wanted to “shadow the numbers,” he could have simply used a better angle and a filter. Instead, he chooses foliage-based catfishing, which they argue should be investigated as influencer fraud. Meanwhile, Siward asks what wood they are looking at like he has never heard of maps, and Menteith contributes peak background character energy by agreeing with everything and adding nothing.Macduff drops in with dialogue that sounds like it was written to punish listeners with extra syllables, and the episode pauses to mourn the scene’s biggest omissions: no catering, no charcuterie, and Ross being present but denied a single line, which Eugenia labels toxic group dynamics.Then it ends with the ultimate insult: “Exeunt, marching.” No goodbye, no closure, just more walking, more mud, and more cardio nobody consented to. Eugenia and Avery close out unified on three points: Birnam Wood is overrated, Malcolm should have hired a TaskRabbit, and if anyone asks them to carry a branch, their lawyers will be the first to arrive.

Eugenia and Avery arrive ready for brie and emotional stability, and instead get Wisconsin cheddar and Macbeth in full managerial meltdown mode. In Act 5, Scene 3, Macbeth paces around Dunsinane like a man who thinks he is immortal because a trio of witches gave him a loophole prophecy, and he takes that confidence out on everyone with a pulse, especially the terrified servant he humiliates with “cream-faced loon” energy that would get you fired in any decade with functioning HR.The hosts break down Macbeth’s favorite hobby in this scene: ordering Seyton to fetch armor, declaring it unnecessary, insisting on it anyway, demanding it again, and generally vibrating with toddler-in-a-tiara entitlement while an entire invasion approaches. They also linger on the surprisingly bleak “yellow leaf” metaphor, because nothing says “I am thriving” like publicly comparing your reign to seasonal decay while insisting you are still untouchable.Then comes the doctor, and the episode shifts from war room to customer service desk: Macbeth demands a cure for a “mind diseased,” wants guilt deleted like a corrupted file, and asks for trauma to be plucked out by force of royal impatience. The doctor, understandably, refuses to perform a medieval memory wipe and basically admits he would rather be anywhere else on earth than in this castle’s vibe swamp. Eugenia and Avery treat it as the most relatable resignation in the play: a professional quietly realizing the job is not worth the bad energy.Along the way, Macbeth throws shade at “English epicures,” requests horse logistics like money is imaginary, and delivers an unintentionally hilarious moment of fear management that sounds suspiciously like a makeup tutorial. By the end, everyone is exhausted, the cheese is still wrong, and Macbeth’s big invincibility speech lands exactly as it should: not as power, but as a fragile man clinging to prophecies, armor, and denial while his staff updates their resumes in real time.

Eugenia and Avery are back, and somehow Macbeth has found a new way to be loud without even showing up onstage. In Act 5, Scene 2, a group of Scottish lords gathers to gossip, strategize, and casually announce that an English-backed force is closing in on Dunsinane, led by Malcolm, Siward, and Macduff. Which sounds heroic in theory, but in practice reads like an aggressively percussive group project with muddy boots, zero indoor voice, and no one checking whether the group chat even has Donalbain on it.The hosts immediately take aim at the scene’s real villain: logistics. Everyone is marching, everyone is meeting at Birnam Wood, and nobody is offering arch support, water breaks, or a self-care station. They also resent being forced to pronounce names like Menteith and Caithness before their vocal warm-up tea, and they deeply object to Shakespeare’s habit of describing an entire political crisis using metaphors that feel like a belt, a garden, and a medical cleanse all happening at once.Meanwhile, Macbeth’s reputation gets dragged through the heather in real time. The lords debate whether he is “mad” or running on “valiant fury,” while also acknowledging the obvious: his secret murders are catching up to him, loyalty is now purely transactional, and the crown is starting to look like it belongs to someone else. Eugenia and Avery fixate on the most vicious image of the scene, the comparison of Macbeth’s title to a giant’s robe hanging on a dwarfish thief, which they interpret as equal parts political critique and catastrophic styling note.By the end, the lords decide to march toward Birnam, framing Malcolm as the “medicine” for Scotland’s “sickly weal,” which only irritates the hosts more because they did not consent to medical imagery, botany metaphors, or any form of emotional purging before noon. The scene exits exactly as it began: with marching, noise, and the crushing sense that everyone gets to leave while Eugenia and Avery are left holding the microphone and the trauma.

Eugenia and Avery arrive at Macbeth Act 5, Scene 1 already offended by the concept of Dunsinane Castle, because it sounds cold, Wi-Fi-free, and built entirely out of ankle pain. Unfortunately, the scene is not about renovations or guest amenities. It is about Lady Macbeth sleepwalking through a full psychological breakdown while two employees stand around providing the least helpful form of “care” ever recorded in Western literature.A Doctor and a Gentlewoman lurk in the dark for multiple nights, apparently without snacks, blankets, or any professional urgency. The Gentlewoman gives a detailed play-by-play of Lady Macbeth’s bedtime habits, then suddenly refuses to repeat anything she has heard, launching what Eugenia calls the “I know something you don’t know” era of medieval workplace ethics. The Doctor pushes for details anyway, which the hosts interpret as the earliest known example of mansplaining someone into violating confidentiality.Then Lady Macbeth enters with a candle and begins the iconic handwashing sequence: eyes open, senses shut, and scrubbing for a full quarter of an hour while insisting she cannot remove an invisible bloodstain. Eugenia and Avery spiral into the practical horrors of medieval soap, ruined cuticles, and a moisture barrier that never stood a chance. The monologue escalates into half-confession, half-anxiety dream, with shout-outs to “hell is murky,” the old man’s shocking blood volume, the Thane of Fife’s wife, and the devastating realization that not even “all the perfumes of Arabia” can fix what guilt has done to one little hand.Meanwhile, the Doctor contributes a lot of observation and almost no medicine. He openly admits the case is beyond his practice, suggests she needs divine help more than a physician, and gives the Gentlewoman vague instructions to remove “the means of all annoyance,” which helps nobody and clarifies nothing. The scene ends with the Doctor mentally checkmated, the Gentlewoman clocking out, and the audience left screaming for literally any intervention, whether that is a proper treatment plan, a privacy policy, or at minimum a weighted blanket and a silk eye mask.In short, it is a haunting, darkly funny episode about guilt, insomnia, and the realization that medieval Scotland had neither confidentiality nor concierge medicine, and somehow expected everyone to just wash their hands and go to bed.

Eugenia and Avery stagger into Macbeth Act 4, Scene 3 already furious, mostly because this scene opens with Malcolm requesting a “desolate shade” as if England is not one continuous, branded experience of gloomy outdoor seating. Macduff immediately counters with sword-first urgency, and the hosts are forced to watch two stressed men try to save Scotland while somehow making everything sound like a lecture, a therapy session, and a guilt trip all at once.The core of the episode is Malcolm’s extended loyalty test, aka the moment he decides the best way to vet Macduff is to announce, at length, that he is allegedly lustful, greedy, deceitful, and completely lacking in “king-becoming graces.” Eugenia is personally offended by the sheer runtime of Malcolm listing vices like he is reading the ingredient label of a cursed protein bar. Avery is equally offended by the manipulative structure of the “confession,” because Macduff is trying to grieve a collapsing nation and instead gets dragged through an emotional obstacle course that ends with Malcolm cheerfully admitting it was all a test. The prank-to-patriot pivot is brutal, and neither host appreciates being asked to redirect their hate on a schedule.A random Doctor then arrives to announce that England’s king can apparently cure “the evil” by touch, which sends the conversation into a spiral about magical healthcare access, elitist miracles, and why nobody is offering this healing service for modern anxieties, cracked nails, or the stress of reading Shakespeare before noon. Just as the scene almost finds a rhythm again, Ross shows up and performs what the hosts consider the single most infuriating information delivery in the play: Macduff asks about his wife and children and Ross responds “well,” forcing Macduff to pry the truth out word by word like it is an optional paid upgrade.When Ross finally admits Macduff’s family has been slaughtered, the scene pivots from political strategy to raw grief. Malcolm tries to comfort Macduff with polished lines and self-help energy, and Eugenia and Avery debate whether this is supportive leadership or wildly inappropriate timing. Macduff’s “pretty chickens” metaphor lands like a punch, Malcolm’s “dispute it like a man” line gets dragged for toxic masculinity, and the hosts end up exhausted by swords, speeches, and the sheer audacity of a scene that demands deep emotional processing before lunchtime.By the end, Malcolm and Macduff redirect their pain into revenge, the night gets one last poetic line about eventually finding day, and Eugenia and Avery demand restitution for the hours lost, the stress incurred, and the psychological damage caused by Ross’s tragic slow-drip delivery system.

Eugenia and Avery stumble into Macbeth Act 4, Scene 2, where the setting is Fife, the vibes are damp, and the home security plan is essentially “hope for the best.” While they try to recover from the insult of having to be awake at eleven, they watch Lady Macduff begin the scene in full grievance mode: her husband has “flown the land,” and she is not taking notes on patience, projection, or emotional regulation from Ross, who shows up to offer vague reassurance and then immediately retreats like a man allergic to consequences.Ross tries to “school” her, Lady Macduff bites back, and the conversation spirals into a surprisingly spicy mix of abandonment, moral grandstanding, and a bird metaphor that neither host is willing to respect unless it comes with peacock energy. Meanwhile, Lady Macduff’s son steals the scene as an aggressively precocious child philosopher who treats impending doom like it is an opportunity for a logic puzzle. Eugenia and Avery debate whether the kid is iconic or simply boarding-school bound.Then the episode escalates, fast. A Messenger bursts in with the most unhelpful warning imaginable, heavy on doom and light on specifics, and Lady Macduff responds by pondering the nature of “doing good” while danger is allegedly “nearly” approaching. This is, according to Avery, the exact moment where a panic room should appear, along with a security consultant and a group text.Instead, murderers arrive with zero etiquette and even less respect for boundaries. They demand Macduff’s location, Lady Macduff snaps back in maximal Shakespeare mode, and her son decides to defend his father’s honor with a well-timed insult that gets him stabbed on the spot. Eugenia and Avery immediately pivot from moral outrage to practical horror: blood, velvet, upholstery depreciation, and the sheer chaos of shouting “Murder!” as a plan.Lady Macduff exits pursued, the scene refuses to provide neat closure, and the hosts are left furious at Ross’s uselessness, the Messenger’s vaguebooking, and Shakespeare’s commitment to devastation without any audience-friendly resolution. They close by demanding that next week’s assignment involve better lighting, better boundaries, and a plot that does not end in “exit, pursued by murderers” with no follow-up.

Eugenia and Avery are dragged into Macbeth Act 4, Scene 1, aka the mustiest cooking segment ever written: three witches circling a cauldron, chanting like they are auditioning for backup vocals, and tossing in an ingredient list that sounds like a chaotic Brooklyn tasting menu curated by someone who hates joy.They open by litigating the cave’s total lack of air conditioning, lighting, and basic hygiene, then spiral into the scene’s greatest hits: the cat mews, the hedge-pig whines, and the mysterious “Harpier” who shows up with “it’s time” energy like a manager who lives to ruin brunch. From there it is nonstop culinary horror: eye of newt, toe of frog, tongue of dog, dragon scales, wolf teeth, and a rapid-fire grab bag of questionable body-part sourcing that has Avery calling cultural appropriation and Eugenia calling OSHA.Then Macbeth storms in and immediately chooses aggression. He insults them, demands answers, threatens to weaponize weather, and basically acts like every man who cannot handle being told “no” at customer service. The witches finally agree to show him their “masters,” dump in sow’s blood and gibbet grease, and unleash the three apparitions: an armed head warning him about Macduff, a bloody child promising “none of woman born” can harm him, and a crowned child holding a tree who says he is safe until Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane.Macbeth hears “impossible,” decides this makes him invincible, and of course still tries to overachieve by asking about Banquo’s line. The witches respond with their only good boundary of the day: “Seek to know no more.” Naturally, Macbeth tantrums until he gets the real nightmare: a procession of kings with Banquo smiling behind them, stretching his worst fear into infinity.The witches vanish without so much as a party favor, Lennox wanders in like the friend who missed everything, and Macbeth immediately pivots from prophecy shopping to impulsive decision-making: learning Macduff has fled to England and deciding to take it out on Macduff’s family. Eugenia and Avery close the episode declaring this scene a damp, unsanitary masterclass in impulsivity, manipulation, and terrible workplace conditions, and they formally request that next week’s literature come with central heating and zero bodily fluids.

Eugenia arrives vibrating with rage because today’s script is Macbeth Act 3, Scene 6, also known as “two nobles talk around the truth so hard they practically sprain an ankle.” Avery is already emotionally compromised thanks to a manicurist cancellation, and now they are forced to sit through Lennox and an aggressively unnamed Lord delivering the most passive-aggressive political gossip ever recorded.The scene is basically Scottish court whispering, but with extra syllables. Lennox opens by implying the audience has already connected the dots, then proceeds to list the dots again in the most exhausting way possible: Duncan’s murder, Banquo’s murder, Fleance’s convenient disappearance, Malcolm and Donalbain getting blamed because they fled, and Macbeth performing “pious rage” like a community theater actor who thinks volume equals talent. Your hosts are not impressed. They are, however, furious at the victim-blaming energy of “Banquo walked too late,” which they translate as the Jacobean version of blaming someone for being attacked.Then the conversation turns into workplace and hospitality malpractice. Macbeth slaughtered the drunken guards, burned through staff, and somehow everyone is still expected to applaud it as “nobly done” and “wisely too.” Eugenia cannot stop thinking about household turnover rates. Avery cannot stop thinking about linen stains and the poor tablecloths being sacrificed to blood and bad vibes.The real social scandal is that Macduff skips Macbeth’s feast, which Lennox frames like an unforgivable RSVP crime instead of basic self-preservation. Suddenly “self-care” is “disgrace,” Scotland is a chaotic murder-hole with terrible branding, and England becomes the golden land of competent leadership, specifically “the most pious Edward,” where Malcolm is being received with warmth and functioning governance. Naturally, Macduff goes there to recruit help, waking up Northumberland and Siward like it’s a group project nobody volunteered for.By the end, the Lord’s big plan is essentially: send an angel, send prayers, and hope it all works out. Eugenia calls it performative allyship. Avery calls it the most anticlimactic exit imaginable. Together, they declare Lennox and Whats-His-Name the patrons saints of broad words and minimal action, then demand emotional damages paid in vintage Chardonnay, silence, and a cheese plate nobody is allowed to touch.

Eugenia is already at her limit after offensive tablet font choices and an over-foamed almond milk latte, and Avery is one wrong hair wave away from a full meltdown. Unfortunately, today’s assignment is Macbeth Act 3, Scene 5, where the witches convene on a damp-sounding heath and somehow manage to create the most toxic group project in all of classical literature.Enter Hecate, the self-declared boss of magic, storming in with thunder and the exact energy of a creative director who discovers the interns went viral without tagging her. She is furious that the three witches “trade and traffic” with Macbeth without inviting her to “bear my part” or take credit for the “glory of our art.” Your hosts translate this immediately into modern terms: nobody added her to the calendar invite, nobody respected the chain of command, and the etiquette failure is catastrophic.Hecate then lays out the plan with the kind of scheduling cruelty only a morning person can love. The witches are ordered to meet her at the pit of Acheron in the morning, which Eugenia finds personally hostile to collagen production. Hecate spends the night chasing a “vap’rous drop” hanging from the corner of the moon, distilling it into magic, and building “artificial sprites,” which Avery insists is unacceptable unless they are premium and artisanal. The goal is to pump Macbeth full of confidence until he spurns fate, scorns death, and floats above wisdom, grace, and fear, which is basically enabling main character syndrome with extra sound design.Then comes the line that sends them into existential outrage: “security is mortals’ chiefest enemy.” Is Hecate anti gated communities? Anti emotional stability? Anti identity theft protection? The episode spirals into a full debate about whether security is actually the enemy, or if the real enemy is poor planning, off-stage witch music no one was invited to, and a workplace culture where the supervisor does all the labor while Macbeth benefits without giving proper credit.By the end, Eugenia and Avery agree this scene is about exclusion, terrible scheduling, and the cruelty of expecting anyone to do “great business” before noon. Macbeth may be headed for his destiny, but your hosts are headed for a nail appointment and a long, righteous complaint about the Renaissance.

Eugenia is one fluorescent bulb away from suing the studio, Avery is mourning the cheese segment because the brie has gone full dairy puddle, and together they’re forced to relive Macbeth Act 3, Scene 4, the banquet that proves you can, in fact, ruin a dinner party so badly it becomes folklore.Macbeth opens the evening with peak seating-chart dictatorship, ordering everyone to “know your own degrees” like he’s running a boarding gate. He announces he’ll mingle with the guests as if that’s a gift, while Lady Macbeth sits there delegating basic hosting duties and trying to keep the vibes intact.Then the night is torpedoed by the worst kind of interruption: a murderer arriving mid-event with blood on his face to deliver an update. Not a note. Not a discreet whisper. Not even a servant with plausible deniability. Just a walking biohazard at the door, announcing that Banquo is dead and Fleance escaped. Macbeth immediately spirals into “I’m trapped and suffering” mode, as if one loose end is a personal attack, while your hosts remind everyone that actual suffering is being stuck in a villa with only four bathrooms.Lady Macbeth attempts emergency damage control, brushing off Macbeth’s behavior as a “momentary” fit and implying this is basically a long-running personality quirk. Which would be funny if her husband weren’t about to publicly implode in front of his entire guest list.And then the real headline arrives: Banquo’s ghost shows up and takes Macbeth’s seat. No RSVP, no hostess gift, no respect for the seating chart. Macbeth reacts by arguing with the invisible, yelling about gory locks and innocence, and challenging the apparition to transform into various terrifying animals like he’s trying to intimidate his own conscience through a wildlife slideshow.The guests, understandably, flee. Lady Macbeth practically shoves them out the door with forced politeness, pretending the evening hasn’t become a full-scale social catastrophe. Once the room clears, Macbeth doubles down on paranoia, ominous metaphors, and the belief that blood inevitably returns for blood, before deciding the obvious next step is to visit the Weird Sisters early tomorrow, because nothing says “responsible leadership” like an unannounced witch consult at dawn.By the end, Eugenia and Avery are less moved by tragedy than offended by the etiquette violations: a ruined banquet, a husband shouting at empty air, an uninvited ghost stealing the head seat, and a hostess doing PR triage with a smile. Also, the cheese pyramid demand is renewed, in writing, with a very specific ziggurat requirement.

Eugenia arrives furious about the studio vibe, Avery is one construction smell away from suing the city, and together they’re forced to dissect Macbeth Act 3, Scene 3, a.k.a. the murder plot that collapses under the weight of bad scheduling and worse lighting.The scene opens on a lawn with a gate, which already feels like a logistical nightmare. Three murderers stand around bickering about who invited whom, as if group chats and calendar invites have never been invented. A third guy shows up claiming Macbeth sent him, and the other two accept this with the kind of trust that only exists in people who are about to botch their one job.Then comes the lighting, or whatever this is supposed to be: “streaks of day” and barely-there glow from the west. Eugenia and Avery spiral immediately, because if you cannot see your target clearly, maybe do not schedule an assassination at dusk. But the team pushes on anyway, announcing the sound of horses like it’s groundbreaking detective work, and waiting for Banquo to request the most basic thing on earth: a light.Banquo rides in, calls out “Give us a light there, ho,” which your hosts interpret as both rude and deeply unserious for a man about to be attacked. The murderers jump him, Banquo gets one last burst of theater with “O, treachery!” and then tries to speedrun trauma parenting by shouting at Fleance to flee and avenge him. Fleance does the smart thing and escapes, which instantly turns the whole ambush into a half-finished assignment.And the murderers’ reaction is the true punchline: they immediately argue about who “struck out the light,” admit they “lost best half” of the job, and decide to leave and report “how much is done,” which sounds suspiciously like “we’re going to spin this and hope payroll still clears.”Eugenia and Avery leave the scene less moved by tragedy and more stressed about the operational incompetence. A botched hit, a missing heir, and a crew that cannot handle basic visibility. It’s not suspense, it’s a cautionary tale about why you do not outsource a high stakes plan to people who cannot even keep the lamp on.

Eugenia is trying to set boundaries, Avery is grieving an oat milk latte, and somehow they are both forced into Macbeth Act 3, Scene 2, which is basically a masterclass in wealthy guilt spiraling with zero coping skills.Lady Macbeth opens the scene like an anxious event planner who cannot stop checking the guest list, immediately asking whether Banquo is gone. A servant delivers the kind of information that should have been a text, and Lady Macbeth launches into the most exhausting complaint imaginable: they got what they wanted, and they are still miserable. “Naught’s had, all’s spent” is her thesis, and it is the emotional equivalent of buying the crown and then demanding a refund because it did not come with inner peace.Macbeth arrives in full brooding mode, announcing he is keeping alone with his “sorriest fancies,” then trying to slap a motivational poster over the problem with “what’s done is done.” It does not land. He immediately pivots into paranoid metaphor soup: they have “scorch’d the snake, not kill’d it,” they eat in fear, they sleep with nightmares, and apparently Duncan is the only person in Scotland getting any rest. Eugenia and Avery agree that if your best argument for murder is “at least the dead are sleeping,” you need therapy, not a crown.Lady Macbeth tries to do crisis PR, urging him to sleek over his rugged look and be bright and jovial for the guests, especially Banquo, who Macbeth is about to flatter to his face while secretly panicking. Macbeth hates the hypocrisy, describes their public honor as bathing in “flattering streams,” and then detonates the scene with the iconic line: “O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!” Which is either poetry or a medical emergency, depending on how much patience you have left.From there, Macbeth escalates into bats, beetles, thickening light, crows, and “night’s black agents,” basically begging the universe to turn the lights off so he can commit more crimes in peace. Lady Macbeth tries to keep up, asks what is to be done, and Macbeth responds with the most infuriating relationship strategy imaginable: he tells her to be “innocent of the knowledge” until she can applaud the deed later. In other words, do not ask questions, just clap when the violence pays off. Avery calls it toxic. Eugenia calls it grounds for immediate divorce.They exit with no resolution, just more dread, more metaphors, and the creeping sense that these two are going to keep “fixing” their problem by doing additional harm. The scene ends, the trauma remains, and your hosts demand compensation, preferably in the form of a nap, emotional damages, and a firm ban on tragedy before noon.

Eugenia’s kombucha is tragically room temperature, Avery had to survive the insult of smelling asphalt through a car vent, and somehow that still is not the worst part of their day, because Macbeth 3.1 exists.This scene opens with Banquo doing the most, congratulating Macbeth while also mentally screaming “you played foully” and quietly spiraling about the prophecy that gives Macbeth the crown but gives Banquo the dynasty. Naturally, Macbeth responds the way all stable leaders do: he throws a feast, announces Banquo as the “chief guest” with the desperation of a host who knows the party is already losing status, and then immediately interrogates Banquo about his riding schedule like he is trying to book him into a murder appointment window.Lady Macbeth tries to spin it as hospitality, because apparently forgetting a guest would create a “gap” in the feast, and Eugenia would like to remind everyone that forgetting a guest can also be an extremely effective curatorial choice. Macbeth then dismisses the whole court so he can keep himself alone until supper, which is not brooding, not strategy, and certainly not etiquette. It is pre-dinner melodrama with a side of paranoia.Then the real disaster arrives: Macbeth hires two murderers like he is outsourcing treason to the gig economy. He manipulates them with bargain bin psychology, insults them with a dog ranking system, and still expects loyalty and precision on a tight deadline. His “fruitless crown” breakdown turns into a full project brief: kill Banquo, also kill Fleance, do it within the hour, figure out the timing yourselves, and please do not embarrass the upholstery. The leadership style is chaotic, the planning is nonexistent, and Avery is offended on behalf of anyone who appreciates quality villainy.The scene ends with Macbeth essentially putting Banquo’s soul on an express shipping schedule to heaven, while everyone pretends a solemn supper is still going to happen on time and with decent wine. Spoiler: if your host spends the afternoon arranging an assassination instead of checking the menu, the event is doomed.

On this episode of Whine with Some Cheese, Eugenia and Avery are forced outdoors against their will for Macbeth 2.4, the scene where Scotland’s vibe collapses so hard that even the sun gets dragged into the scandal.We open with an “Old Man” who insists on saying he is seventy in math, immediately launching into weather trauma like he is the original doom-scroller. Ross joins in and announces that the heavens are “troubled,” which is not helpful because the one thing nobody needs is cosmic mood lighting when they are trying to look expensive. The day is dark, the “travelling lamp” is being strangled, and Eugenia is ready to fire the sun and sue the entire atmosphere for creating unflattering conditions.Then the animal behavior segment arrives, and it is not cute. Ross reports that a proud falcon was taken out by a mousing owl, which Eugenia interprets as a personal attack and Avery labels as a full collapse of the social hierarchy. If the birds are not respecting status, what hope is there for civilization? Immediately after that, Duncan’s horses go feral, break their stalls, declare war on mankind, and apparently eat each other. Yes, eat each other. Eugenia is horrified, Avery demands a manager, and both agree that if the scene had included a proper grazing table, none of this would have happened.Macduff then strolls in with questions, the princes have conveniently fled, and the political logistics become a travel nightmare. Macbeth is already being positioned for the crown, Scone is suddenly the destination, and Colmekill is described in a way that sounds less like a royal resting place and more like questionable storage. Macduff refuses to go to Scone, heads to Fife, and drops a metaphor about old robes versus new ones that turns this national crisis into an unsolicited fashion critique.By the end, Eugenia and Avery have reached a verdict: the lighting is hostile, the birds are inappropriate, the horses are unsupervised, the itinerary is chaotic, and nobody offered a single canapé. Scotland can keep its omens. They want an apology, a gift basket, and a world where the sun stays on schedule.

On this episode of Whine with Some Cheese, Eugenia and Avery suffer through Macbeth 2.3, a scene that starts with an unacceptable cheese plate and immediately escalates into the longest, most aggressive knocking sequence in literature.First up: the Porter, who responds to a late-night emergency like he is hosting open mic night at the gates of hell. Instead of opening the door, he riffs about farmers, tailors, “equivocators,” and the side effects of drinking, including nose-painting and bodily functions nobody asked to visualize before brunch. The knocking continues like an unpaid sound effect, and when Macduff and Lennox finally get inside, the Porter has the audacity to complain he is “never at quiet,” despite the fact that quiet is not in his job description.Then Lennox gives a weather report that is wildly casual for what sounds like the apocalypse: chimneys down, strange screams, ominous bird noise, and a suspicious amount of earth movement. Macduff goes to wake Duncan and returns with a dramatic triple “O horror” that turns discovery into a performance, while everyone else scrambles to look shocked in a way that will not stain their reputations.Macbeth enters the chaos and immediately commits to the worst possible strategy: he admits he killed the guards in a burst of “violent love,” describes Duncan’s body with metallic poetry, and somehow expects this to read as grief rather than panic. Lady Macbeth deploys the classic faint-at-the-wrong-moment maneuver, and the scene becomes a full-scale PR disaster held together by vibes, yelling, and a total lack of project management.Meanwhile, Malcolm and Donalbain decide the best response to their father’s murder is to book separate departures, one to Ireland and one to England, because nothing says stability like splitting up the heirs during a crisis. They leave us with the line “There’s daggers in men’s smiles,” which Eugenia and Avery agree is accurate, but also deeply late to the concept.In this episode: unethical cheese substitutions, door etiquette failure, drunken philosophy, a weather report from hell, the least convincing alibi imaginable, a perfectly timed faint, and two princes who treat tragedy like a last-minute travel deal.

On this episode of Whine with Some Cheese, Eugenia and Avery tackle Macbeth 2.2, the scene where the murder is technically completed, but the real crisis becomes noise control, basic cleanliness, and one man’s inability to follow the simplest instructions in the history of crime.Lady Macbeth has done the prep like a stressed event coordinator. The guards are drugged with possets, the daggers are staged, the timing is set, and the soundscape is already intolerable thanks to an owl screaming like it is trying to earn a speaking role. Macbeth returns from Duncan’s chamber immediately spiraling, holding the bloody daggers he was supposed to leave behind. Eugenia and Avery would like to note that bringing evidence back to your wife is not teamwork, it is incompetence.Macbeth then announces he cannot say “Amen,” swears he heard voices, and delivers the famous complaint that he has “murdered sleep,” as if sleep is a person with a publicist. He fixates on his hands like blood is a surprise, compares the situation to Neptune’s ocean, and generally behaves like a man who has never heard of soap and warm water. Lady Macbeth, meanwhile, stays focused. She refuses to indulge the melodrama, tells him a little water will clear them, and when he refuses to return the daggers, she goes back herself to plant them and smear the grooms with blood because apparently delegation is a fantasy in medieval Scotland.Then the knocking starts, because of course someone has to show up at the worst possible hour. Macbeth panics, Lady Macbeth tries to keep the operation moving, and the scene becomes a chaotic blend of guilt, poor planning, and the dawning realization that the real tragedy might be the endless cycle of cleanup that follows one poorly executed crime.By the end, Macbeth is wishing the knocking could wake Duncan, which is what we call inconvenient timing for regret. The episode closes with the hosts filing a mental complaint about the acoustics, the hygiene, and the fact that women are always stuck doing the actual work while men get to have the existential crisis.In this episode: evidence mishandling, weaponized melodrama, owl noise pollution, sleep as collateral damage, and a firm reminder that if anyone knocks, you do not answer.

On this episode of Whine with Some Cheese, Eugenia and Avery tackle Macbeth 2.1, a scene that begins with sleep deprivation, missing clocks, and enough open flame to void every insurance policy in Scotland.Banquo and Fleance wander the castle after midnight with a torch, a sword handoff that screams child labor, and the kind of nervous energy that would be solved instantly by modern melatonin and a decent bedside lamp. Banquo delivers a heartfelt plea for “merciful powers” to restrain intrusive thoughts, then immediately overshares that he dreamed about the Weird Sisters, because apparently boundaries are also out with the candles.Macbeth arrives with another torch and the world’s worst small talk, calls himself “a friend,” and then starts sounding Banquo out for a future meeting in language that feels suspiciously like a recruitment pitch. Banquo, for once, exercises a tiny amount of self-preservation and insists he will keep his “bosom franchis’d,” which is both a disturbing phrase and the only sensible decision anyone makes in this castle.Then the scene pivots into the main event: Macbeth, alone, launches into the infamous dagger soliloquy. He sees an imaginary knife floating in front of him, argues with it, reaches for it, watches it sprout pre-blood like a theatrical special effect, and treats his hallucination as if it is a customer service issue he can negotiate with. He drags in witchcraft, wolves, stones that might “prate,” and the general idea that nature has volunteered to be the night’s security staff, all while loudly monologuing in a place where anyone could walk by.Finally, Lady Macbeth’s bell rings, and Macbeth decides the bell is “inviting” him to commit regicide, as if murder is a gala and the bell is the embossed RSVP. He asks Duncan not to hear it, which is not how bells work, and heads off, leaving Eugenia and Avery with the unmistakable conclusion that this entire castle runs on terrible lighting, worse planning, and the belief that sound carries differently when you are dramatic.In this episode: insomnia, torch logistics, suspicious networking, hallucinated cutlery, and a bell that does far too much for one piece of metal.

On this episode of Whine with Some Cheese, Eugenia and Avery stumble into Macbeth 1.7, a scene that begins with confusing stage directions, questionable vocabulary, and enough open flame to get the entire castle shut down by a modern fire marshal.The atmosphere is already hostile. There are hautboys, there are torches, there is the mysterious appearance of a “Sewer” that sounds like plumbing but is apparently yet another staff member breathing near the carpets. Macbeth then spends a painfully long time alone in a lobby, delivering a monologue that can be summarized as: if you are going to do something horrible, do it quickly, but also the consequences are scary, but also ambition is really doing the most. He worries about “bloody instructions” boomeranging back, admits he has no real motivation besides vaulting ambition, and briefly flirts with having a conscience, which is bold for a man actively considering stabbing his sleeping houseguest.Then Lady Macbeth enters and treats her husband’s doubt like an inconvenience. Macbeth tries to back out, citing recent praise, “golden opinions,” and the basic etiquette principle that a host should shut the door against a murderer, not personally supply the knife. Lady Macbeth responds by escalating from sarcasm to full verbal demolition. She questions his courage, his love, and his masculinity, and then drops the most appetite-destroying image in the entire play as if this is normal dinner party conversation.Macbeth’s emotional processing lasts about one second before he pivots to logistics, which tells you everything you need to know about their relationship. Lady Macbeth counters with a complete plan: get the chamberlains drunk on wine and wassail, wait for “swinish sleep,” use their daggers, smear blood, and frame them. It is efficient, messy, and deeply rude to anyone who has ever tried to keep linens clean.By the end, Macbeth agrees that “false face must hide what the false heart doth know,” which is basically a lifetime subscription to acting and stress acne. The scene exeunts, leaving the inevitable cleanup for the servants, because of course it does.In this episode: lobby existentialism, weaponized relationship counseling, alcohol as strategy, and a renewed demand for an apology for making anyone think about boneless gums before lunch.

On this episode of Whine with Some Cheese, Eugenia and Avery endure Macbeth 1.6, a scene that is technically about royal hospitality but mostly reads like a luxury real estate walkthrough hosted by a king who will not stop reviewing the breeze.Duncan arrives at Macbeth’s castle and immediately starts praising the “pleasant seat” and the air like he is writing a five-star review for a boutique hotel. Eugenia would like to remind everyone that air is either Dyson-filtered or it is unacceptable. Avery would like to remind everyone that being forced to look up what a “coign of vantage” is counts as emotional violence.Banquo then sees a bird and delivers an extended martlet monologue that somehow includes architecture, nesting, and enough vocabulary to qualify as a personal attack. Words like “procreant cradle” and “pendant bed” fly around while the hosts attempt to survive the combination of ornithology, interior design, and the looming fact that Lady Macbeth is smiling through an assassination plan.Inside, Lady Macbeth performs peak hospitality theater, Duncan responds with compliment confetti, and the scene develops an alarming fixation on accounting language. There are audits, comps, and “in compt,” which is objectively too much math for a podcast that was supposed to involve cheese. Duncan also insists on handholding and being “conducted” to his host, confirming that boundaries do not exist in medieval Scotland, only entitlement and hautboys.By the time the scene exeunts, we have learned that the castle is apparently gorgeous, the birds are thriving, the air is “wooing,” and nobody has provided a single snack. The hosts remain stranded with their rage, their low blood sugar, and the unmistakable sense that Shakespeare invented the first property listing and called it culture.In this episode: real estate compliments, bird facts nobody asked for, hospitality as performance art, and a renewed demand for actual brie instead of metaphorical dairy.

On this episode of Whine with Some Cheese, Eugenia and Avery tackle Macbeth 1.5, the scene where Lady Macbeth receives a letter, reads it once, and immediately decides the appropriate response is spiritual invocation, full-scale event planning, and a complete rebrand of her personality.It begins with Macbeth writing to his “dearest partner of greatness,” which sounds romantic until you realize he is basically emailing, “I met three witches, they hyped me up, and by the way the king is coming over tonight.” Lady Macbeth reacts like any reasonable person would when handed a surprise royal dinner party and a vague prophecy: she calls on spirits to unsex her, requests thicker blood, swaps milk for gall, and announces that Duncan is not leaving the castle alive. Casual.Meanwhile, a messenger arrives out of breath, everyone ignores the concept of texting, and the castle’s boundaries dissolve faster than Eugenia’s patience. Duncan’s visit is scheduled with the confidence of someone who has never hosted, and Macbeth shows up with the energy of a man who thinks nodding counts as leadership. Lady Macbeth, doing all the labor, tells him to look like an innocent flower while secretly being a serpent, which is less a plan and more a lifestyle pitch delivered at maximum intensity.Also discussed: the raven as an overlooked allergy victim, “night’s great business” as a shipping label nobody asked for, the sensory horror of “blanket of the dark,” and the undeniable truth that regicide is inconvenient, stressful, and terrible for cortisol.By the end, the scene exits without delivering the payoff, forcing Eugenia and Avery to sit with unresolved murder logistics, questionable metaphors, and the lingering insult of having to wait for the next scene like this is a prestige TV cliffhanger.In this episode: letters instead of texts, spirits instead of therapy, power cravings instead of boundaries, and a desperate need to go shopping for anything that sparkles without requiring treason.

On this episode of Whine with Some Cheese, Eugenia and Avery drag themselves through Macbeth 1.4, otherwise known as the scene where a king micromanages an execution, hands out praise like free samples, and accidentally hosts the world’s most obvious setup for disaster.We start in Forres, in the least helpful stage direction of all time, “a room in the palace,” and immediately get a flourish that raises more questions than it answers. Trumpets? Jazz hands? Confetti? Nobody knows. What we do know is Duncan opens with a casual status check on Cawdor’s execution, as if he is following up on a package delivery, while Malcolm reports back with the kind of glowing review that could only exist in a world where someone’s best look is dying.Duncan then admits he cannot read faces, which is a bold thing to confess while running an entire kingdom, and immediately pivots into aggressive gratitude toward Macbeth. The compliments escalate into plant metaphors, harvesting metaphors, and enough “worthy” language to make the word meaningless. Macbeth responds with peak performative humility, Banquo responds like a loyal houseplant, and Duncan somehow gets emotional in a way that feels less profound and more like a software glitch.Then the gossip finally drops: Malcolm is named Prince of Cumberland, and Macbeth instantly spirals. In one breath, he plays passive about fate crowning him, and in the next he begs the stars to turn off the lights so nobody sees his “black and deep desires.” The scene closes with Duncan deciding to take his whole entourage to Macbeth’s home, which is either an innocent royal sleepover or the most intrusive houseguest move in literary history.Also discussed: succession planning that could have been an email, the mystery of what a flourish really is, and the fact that Macbeth volunteering to be his own “harbinger” is not the flex he thinks it is.In this episode: toxic gratitude, gardening as leadership, obvious red flags, and a desperate need for actual cheese instead of metaphorical compliments.

On this episode of Whine with Some Cheese, Eugenia and Avery return to Macbeth and immediately regret it, because Macbeth 1.3 is what happens when a thunderstorm hosts a networking event and the only career coaches available are three witches with questionable hygiene and even worse customer service.First, we learn the witches are not mysterious forces of fate so much as petty grievance machines. One is out here killing swine like it is a hobby. Another is still furious about being denied chestnuts, and responds in the most proportional way possible by cursing a random sailor to suffer insomnia for sixty-three weeks and making him sail in a sieve. Eugenia would like everyone to consider mindfulness. Avery would like everyone to consider Uber Eats.Then Macbeth and Banquo arrive, and the scene pivots into the least professional consultation imaginable. Banquo immediately comments on the witches’ beards and acts shocked that strangers do not exist purely to meet his aesthetic expectations. Macbeth demands answers, calls them “imperfect speakers,” and then acts wounded when they vanish without providing a follow-up email, a timeline, or a single actionable deliverable.The witches’ prophecy is the kind of vague corporate inspiration that ruins your day: Macbeth is hailed as Thane of Glamis, then Thane of Cawdor, then “king hereafter,” with zero dates and maximum chaos. Banquo complains he did not get enough prophecy attention, so they toss him a bundle of contradictions that read like fortune-cookie Mad Libs. Everyone is confused, nobody communicates, and Macbeth’s brain immediately jumps to murder, which tells you everything you need to know about Macbeth.Also discussed: the pilot’s severed thumb as a public health emergency, the drum as unnecessary noise pollution, “borrowed robes” as a metaphor that needs to calm down, and Banquo delivering a clothing analogy that feels like a dressing room moment presented as philosophy.By the end, Eugenia and Avery have filed an imaginary OSHA report for the heath, requested therapy for medieval Scotland, and mourned the fact that Shakespeare somehow managed to weaponize snacks.In this episode: witches with grudges, prophecies with no fine print, stormy ambiance nobody asked for, and the true tragedy, chestnuts are no longer safe.

On this episode of Whine with Some Cheese, Eugenia and Avery are dragged into Macbeth 1.2, a scene that begins with a literal bleeding Captain and somehow still finds time for poetry, workplace-appropriate metaphors, and extremely casual leadership decisions.While production continues its war on luxury by providing string cheese instead of Brie, Duncan asks the most unnecessary question imaginable, everyone describes violence with the confidence of people who have never heard of a trigger warning, and Macbeth receives the kind of career advancement that makes normal people consider arson. Eugenia would like to know who is cleaning up the stage blood and why it is not a paid union position. Avery would like to know why anyone is expected to listen to iambic pentameter while hemorrhaging.Together, they unpack the Captain’s battle recap, the baffling comparisons, the sudden arrival of Ross and Angus with urgency in their eyeballs, and the historic moment when Shakespeare accidentally invents medieval Scotland’s most chaotic HR policy: win a fight, get a title, no references required.Also discussed: Macdonwald’s mercenaries, the Thane of Cawdor’s abrupt firing, the suspiciously modern “ten thousand dollars” war bill, and the growing realization that in this universe, everyone gets to exeunt except the two hosts who are still waiting for their promised charcuterie board.In this episode: battlefield recap fatigue, toxic leadership, unseaming as a lifestyle choice, and a developing rebellion fueled entirely by the absence of aged Manchego.

This week on Whine with Some Cheese, Eugenia and Avery are forced, against every reasonable skincare guideline, to confront the opening of Macbeth. It is thunder. It is lightning. It is rain. It is an aggressively open place that threatens silk blouses, cashmere, and the very concept of indoor civilization.We meet three witches who treat scheduling like a personal attack on etiquette, communicate exclusively in riddles, and somehow think “upon the heath” counts as a venue. Eugenia would like to remind everyone that calendars exist for a reason. Avery would like to remind everyone that roofs also exist for a reason. Together, they unravel Shakespeare’s greatest crimes: ambiguous timing, moral ambiguity as a personality trait, and a complete lack of charcuterie.Along the way, they litigate “hurlyburly” as a word, panic over “fair is foul” and what it does to a carefully curated definition of foul, and issue a formal complaint about Graymalkin and Paddock’s vibe. If you have ever felt personally victimized by fog, unclear plans, or literature that refuses to respect golden hour lighting, welcome home.In this episode: witches, weather, etiquette violations, prophecy adjacent chaos, and zero cheese mentioned by Shakespeare, which feels actionable.

This week on Whine with Some Cheese, we stagger to the finish line with Plato’s Republic, Book X, the grand finale where Plato decides the true threat to civilization is… poetry, paintings, and apparently beds.First, Plato puts art on trial. He argues that poets and painters don’t create truth, they create imitations, and not even first-rate ones. Cue the infamous bed saga:there’s the Form of Bed (the perfect “bed-ness,” presumably with zero memory foam),the carpenter’s bed (a physical copy),and the painted bed (a copy of a copy),which makes the artist “three times removed from the truth.” Plato says this like it’s an insult. We say: being removed from truth is self-care.Then he escalates: poetry is dangerous because it doesn’t appeal to the calm, measuring, rational part of us, it appeals to the emotional part. Tragedy teaches us to indulge grief, pity, and dramatic reactions, and Plato claims that feeding that side of the soul makes us worse at handling real life. Which is… a wild thing to say in a book that ends with a full-blown cosmic myth featuring sirens, destiny spindles, and a reincarnation lottery.Because yes, after trying to evict Homer from the city, Plato pivots into the immortality of the soul, arguing (with logic that is, generously, vibes-forward) that evil can’t destroy the soul the way disease destroys the body, so the soul must be indestructible.And then: The Myth of Er, Plato’s elaborate afterlife travelogue. A soldier dies, comes back with spoilers, and describes a surreal cosmic sorting system: judges, sky-holes and earth-holes, thousand-year consequences, the three Fates managing the universe like a celestial casino, and souls drawing lots and choosing their next lives, only to drink from the River of Forgetfulness before being reborn. The moral Plato wants: your choices matter, choose wisely, and if your next life is terrible… that’s on you.Finally, Plato admits (in the most backhanded way possible) that he does love poetry, he’ll let it back in, but only if it behaves: hymns to gods, praises of famous men, and none of the fun tragic stuff that makes humans feel human.So, in one book, Plato:bans the poets,drags Homer,invents a metaphysical bed hierarchy,gives us immortality with questionable proof,and then drops an afterlife epic that is basically theater with extra steps.We remain pro-poetry, pro-catharsis, and proudly three times removed from reality, preferably with chilled kombucha and lighting that respects our cheekbones.

This week on Whine with Some Cheese, we drag ourselves through Plato’s Republic, Book IX, aka the book where Plato looks directly at anyone with taste and says: “That’s an unnecessary pleasure, and it’s ruining your soul.”Socrates traces how the democratic personality (lots of desires, lots of vibes, lots of “I contain multitudes”) allegedly devolves into the tyrannical person: a human being governed by one “master passion,” described as a monstrous winged drone (rude to bees, honestly) with Madness leading the internal security detail.We get the full tyrant origin story:“Unnecessary” desires wake up when reason falls asleep (especially in dreams),temperance gets purged like it’s a bad skincare ingredient,spending turns into debt, debt turns into theft, and suddenly Plato is acting like one latte spiral away from temple robbery.Then Plato pivots into the argument he really wants to win: that the tyrant looks powerful, but is actually a slave: to cravings, to fear, to suspicion, to the constant need to flatter and manipulate everyone around them. Supposedly, the tyrant can’t even enjoy pleasure properly because they’re never secure enough to relax.And because Plato cannot resist a grand finale, he starts doing math to rank happiness. Yes: actual arithmetic. He claims the best life (the self-ruled “kingly” soul) is 729 times more pleasant than the tyrannical one. 729. On purpose. For fun. As if suffering needed a spreadsheet.Along the way, we get:the tripartite soul breakdown (reason / spirit / appetite),the “true pleasure” debate (are we confusing relief-from-pain with actual pleasure?),and the iconic monster metaphor: the soul as a multi-headed beast + lion + human, where justice means feeding the human and training the beast, instead of letting appetite throw a coup in your nervous system.Plato’s conclusion: the tyrant is the most miserable person alive, even if they have feasts, money, power, and a private army of cravings. Our conclusion: if the tyrant is miserable, it’s only because the wine isn’t chilled properly and the beast didn’t get its truffle fries.

This week on Whine with Some Cheese, we suffer through Plato’s Republic, Book VIII, where Plato explains, at exhausting length, how every government inevitably collapses into something worse, mostly because humans have the audacity to want things.We start with the “ideal” aristocracy: philosopher-kings, gold souls, everyone knowing their place, and (unfortunately) a whole lot of communal living. Then the entire civilization unravels because the rulers can’t correctly calculate a bizarre nuptial/fertility number: some mystical math that’s supposed to tell you when to reproduce so the “metals” don’t get mixed. They botch it, the wrong types get bred, and the perfect city begins its spiral.From there, Plato gives us a greatest-hits decline:Timocracy (hello, Sparta): honor, war, gym-bro energy, and secret hoarding of gold like an emotionally repressed dragon.Oligarchy: property requirements for citizenship, rich people ruling, and the city splitting into two cities in one: the rich and the poor, quietly conspiring against each other.Democracy: “full of freedom and frankness,” where everyone lives however they want, equality spreads to equals and unequals alike, and society becomes a gorgeous, chaotic embroidered robe covered in every flower imaginable (which sounds amazing, but Plato is furious about it). Even the animals catch the vibe and start acting entitled.Tyranny: Plato’s horror finale: the drones (some stingless, some criminal) stir up resentment, the crowd elevates a “protector” who promises debt relief and redistribution, and the protector evolves into a tyrant with a bodyguard, a taste for purges, and a constant need for war to keep everyone scared, taxed, and distracted.Alongside each regime, Plato matches a personality type: the honor-obsessed timocrat, the miserly oligarch who suppresses “unnecessary” desires, the democratic soul that’s “many men” with no unity, and finally the tyrant—supposedly the most miserable of all, trapped by fear and surrounded by the worst people… even if, in theory, the private army sounds convenient for dealing with mediocre cheese and disrespectful sommeliers.So yes: Book VIII is Plato’s cyclical doom prophecy: an ancient political science rant that blames societal collapse on bad breeding math, unmanaged desire, and too much freedom. We remain unconvinced, under-chilled, and spiritually offended.

This week on Whine with Some Cheese, we tackle Plato’s Republic, Book VII: the one with the Allegory of the Cave, aka Plato’s signature horror story about being forced into personal growth with absolutely no ergonomic seating, no consent forms, and, most unforgivable, no SPF.We start underground: prisoners chained in a den, staring at a wall of shadows cast by a fire while random people parade objects behind them like the world’s worst puppet show. They name the shadows, argue about the shadows, and mistake echoing voices for truth, because when you’ve only ever seen 480p reality, you learn to love the blur.Then Plato introduces his favorite genre: compulsory enlightenment.One prisoner gets released, compelled to stand, turn his neck, and walk toward the light. It hurts. There’s glare. There are “sharp pains.” He’s dragged up a steep, rugged ascent (basically an incline workout from hell) until he can finally handle reflections, then the stars, and eventually the sun, the symbol of the Good, blazing in “his proper place” like a cosmic ring light that actively hates your retinas.But the real betrayal is this: after all that, the enlightened person has to go back down into the cave and help the others. And when they return, their eyes don’t work in the dark anymore, so the prisoners laugh at them, call them ridiculous, and (in classic Plato fashion) would happily kill the person trying to free them. Enlightenment, apparently, is a punishable offense.From there, Socrates zooms out and gives us the education plan for philosopher-rulers, an exhausting curriculum designed to turn people away from shadows and toward truth:Gymnastics, because suffering must be holisticArithmetic, until you can “see numbers with the mind alone”Geometry (and the admission that it’s notoriously difficult)Astronomy, but not the fun “look at stars” kind, the abstract, true-motion kindHarmonics, for people who want their music to become math homeworkAnd finally Dialectic, the “coping-stone” of the sciences, where you stop using the senses and try to reach the Good through pure intelligence (a direct attack on anyone who just got lashes done)Plato also insists this can’t be rushed: you get sorted at 20, do dialectic at 30, serve in public life for years, and only around 50 do you finally get to contemplate the Good properly, after a whole lifetime of being dragged between caves, offices, and math problems.So yes: Book VII is chains, glare, forced uphill marches, mandatory academics, and the world’s least relaxing self-improvement program. And somehow, Plato calls it the “true blessing of life.”We call it: a cave with worse lighting and no Wi-Fi.

This week on Whine with Some Cheese, we drag ourselves through Plato’s Republic, Book VI, where Socrates takes one simple claim, “philosophers should rule”, and turns it into an aggressively long audition process for the VIP Lounge of Truth.First, Plato tries to define the philosophical nature like he’s hiring for an impossibly selective role: quick intelligence, love of truth, courage, temperance, and, most personally insulting, a good memory. Forget your phone three times a day? Plato says you’re an “empty vessel.” Rude.Then we get the Ship of State metaphor:a big, strong captain who’s basically deaf and blind, a crew of loud mutineers fighting to steer, and the actual navigator, the philosopher, getting mocked as a useless “star-gazer.” Plato’s point: society treats real expertise like a nuisance… but also, why is nobody filing a complaint? Where is the ancient Greek HR department?Socrates then claims the best “natures” get ruined by bad social conditions, and that the real Sophists are the public themselves: the crowd, the applause, the pressure to perform. He even argues that beauty, wealth, and status invite flatterers who keep talented people from doing philosophy… which is uncomfortably close to a personal read.And then, because Book VI refuses to be normal, we hit the famous triple-feature:The Sun Analogy: the Good is to knowledge what the sun is to sight.The Divided Line: reality and understanding split into levels, shadows, physical things, mathematical thinking, and finally pure intellection. (Yes, Plato makes us do math.)The Form of the Good: it’s “not essence,” but somehow above essence in dignity and power, which is either profound or just the earliest known example of someone talking like a dating profile.Finally, Socrates doubles down on the threat: unless philosophers rule (or rulers become philosophers), cities won’t stop being evil. One is enough, he says. One philosopher-king could fix the world. Which feels like a lot of pressure for a rich nerd who just wanted to think about absolute Being in peace.So if you’ve ever felt personally attacked by the phrase “lover of truth,” confused by a diagram, or blamed for society’s decline because your playlist isn’t sufficiently Dorian, congratulations. Book VI sees you. Unfortunately.

This week on Whine with Some Cheese, we get ambushed by Plato’s Republic (Book V… and then some): the part where Socrates warns Glaucon about “three waves” of controversy and then proceeds to surf directly into the most unhinged policy proposal meeting in human history.Wave One: Women as guardians.Equality? Love that. But Plato’s version includes mandatory naked gym training with the men, plus the charming reassurance that it’ll look “ridiculous,” especially for older women. Thank you, Plato, for the unsolicited body commentary.Wave Two: The community of wives and children.Romance is out, administration is in. Plato proposes communal parenting, separating babies from mothers, outsourcing childcare to wet nurses, and running reproduction like a breeding program, complete with rigged lotteries that pair the “best” with the “best” while everyone else blames “luck.” There are age cutoffs for reproduction, euphemisms about “unholy” children if you miss the window, and even a “check with the Oracle” moment that somehow makes the whole thing feel more normal to him.Wave Three: Philosopher kings.Socrates claims the city won’t be saved until philosophers rule (or rulers become philosophers), because only they love “the vision of truth.” Everyone else is dismissed as a “lover of sights and sounds”, festival-goers with metaphorical ears flapping, because enjoying music, color, and beauty isn’t Real Knowledge™. (Let us live.)And because Plato can’t stop once he starts, we also get a bonus descent into knowledge vs opinion, being vs becoming, the famous distinction between loving beautiful things and grasping Beauty itself. It’s a whole epistemology lecture that somehow feels designed to justify why the “special” people should be in charge.Along the way: children being taken to war on horses (???), a bizarre rewards program for brave soldiers that includes extra meat and unlimited kissing privileges (hello, consent), and a war policy that treats Greeks one way and “barbarians” another… which is exactly as charming as it sounds.So yes: this episode contains naked gym class trauma, ancient Greek eugenics vibes, communal baby logistics, and elitist gatekeeping about who counts as enlightened, all while we are, somehow, still hungry and still waiting for the cheese.Pour something sweeter than this dialogue, and join us for the Three Waves: where Plato replaces wine-and-cheese vibes with administrative dystopia, then calls us childish for objecting.

This week on Whine with Some Cheese, we drag ourselves through Plato’s Republic, Book IV: the book where Socrates looks directly at the concept of personal happiness and says, “No ❤️” because the goal is the greatest happiness of the whole city, not “disproportionate happiness” for any one class. A devastating idea, frankly.We start with Plato’s least glamorous proposal yet: the guardians, the supposed protectors and leaders, aren’t allowed property, wealth, or private luxury. No gold, no silver, no handsome houses, no spending money for “journeys of pleasure.” And somehow we’re expected to believe they’re the happiest people alive. Sure.Then Socrates lays out the moral architecture of the city like it’s a design brief:The city should be unified, not too big, not too small, “one and self-sufficing.”Wealth breeds luxury and softness; poverty breeds meanness and bad craftsmanship.And the most cursed claim of all: musical innovation is dangerous because changing the vibe eventually changes the laws. (So yes, according to Plato, your playlist is a constitutional crisis.)But the main event is when we finally get to the virtues—and Plato turns the city into a personality test.Socrates argues the ideal state contains four virtues:Wisdom (the rational leadership that knows what’s best)Courage (holding onto the right fears and priorities, even under pressure)Temperance (self-control: the “better” part agreeing to rule the “worse” part)Justice (everyone doing their own work and not meddling—aka the end of busybodies everywhere)Then he mirrors the whole thing inside the individual, giving us the famous three-part soul:the rational part (your inner CEO), the spirited part (anger, pride, “how dare you”), and the appetitive part (desire, cravings, martinis, impulse purchases). Justice, we’re told, is when each part stays in its lane and doesn’t try to run the whole show.By the end, Glaucon declares it’s “ridiculous” to even ask whether justice is more profitable than injustice, and Socrates hits us with the clean metaphor: virtue is the health of the soul; vice is its disease. Which we accept in theory, right up until Plato implies we should stop shopping, stop meddling, and stop letting music evolve.So yes: Book IV is basically a manual for how to make everyone miserable, in the name of harmony. We reject it. We embrace the right to be nosy, complicated, and spiritually supported by a good wine and a better thermostat.

This week on Whine with Some Cheese, we suffer through Plato’s Republic, Book III, aka the chapter where Plato stops pretending he’s “just asking questions” and fully commits to being a controlling stage mom for an entire city-state.First, he comes for the arts. Homer? Censored. Tragic underworld poetry? Deleted. Famous men weeping? Apparently illegal: lamentation is for women (and not even “good” women, which… sure, Plato, add that to the list). Laughter is suspicious, joy is destabilizing, and the guardians must fear slavery more than death, because nothing says “healthy society” like emotionally repressed warrior robots.Then Plato unveils his true villain arc: music regulation.He bans the “sad” modes, bans the “relaxed” modes, bans anything that sounds like fun, and leaves us with basically two acceptable vibes (Dorian and Phrygian). Flutes are too complex and “panharmonic,” which is Plato-speak for “people might feel feelings,” so the ideal city gets lyres, harps, and maybe a sad little shepherd pipe, because apparently we’re all supposed to roleplay as minimalists in a moral diorama.And just when you think it can’t get worse, we hit the lifestyle section: gymnastics, diet, medicine.Boiled meats? Banned. Fancy Syracusan dinners and Sicilian cookery? Outlawed. Fish, despite living near the water... nope. The guardians must survive on roast meat and austerity, and if you have chronic illness, Plato’s medical policy is basically: don’t waste the doctor’s time unless you can get back to work immediately. It’s productivity culture with a toga.Finally, Plato introduces the “noble lie”: a myth that everyone is born from the earth and made of different metals: gold rulers, silver helpers, brass/iron workers. Social sorting by fictional metallurgy, with “mobility” mostly downward if your kid isn’t the right metal. Totally normal, not dystopian at all.Oh, and guardians can’t have private property. No houses, no land, no gold, no personal wealth. They live in barracks, eat at a common mess, and are supposed to be “wakeful dogs” guarding the city… while the rest of us quietly mourn the loss of flutes, boiled fish, and human complexity.If Plato’s ideal guardian sounds like your worst roommate crossed with your strictest wellness influencer, congratulations: you understood Book III.

This week on Whine with Some Cheese, we stumble into Plato’s Republic, Book II, where Glaucon and Adeimantus decide they’re not leaving until Socrates finally answers the question: is justice actually good… or do we just pretend because we’re scared of consequences?Glaucon opens by forcing Socrates to sort all “goods” into three neat little categories (as if we have the emotional bandwidth), then drops the Ring of Gyges: a magic invisibility ring that turns a random shepherd into a full-blown monarch via seduction, murder, and a hostile takeover. And somehow we’re the ones who have to take notes.From there, the argument gets uncomfortably modern:If you could do whatever you wanted and never get caught, would you still be good?The “perfectly unjust” person wins by looking virtuous (hello, politics and PR).The “perfectly just” person gets treated like a monster for being authentic… culminating in some wildly graphic threats that nobody needed before lunch.Then Adeimantus arrives to say, essentially, “Great speech, but you still haven’t proved justice is worth it,” and roasts the entire moral education industry: parents, poets, and preachers praising virtue mainly for the perks: marriage prospects, social status, and afterlife rewards that sound suspiciously like an eternal, garlanded frat party.Socrates, sensing danger, pulls a classic evasive maneuver: “Let’s zoom out.” Instead of defining justice in a person, he proposes building a city from scratch: starting with bare necessities, then upgrading into a luxury “feverish” city after Glaucon insults the minimalist version as a “city of pigs.” Naturally, luxury leads to land hunger, land hunger leads to war, and suddenly we need guardians, education, and the original ancient blueprint for censoring poets because the gods in Homer are “bad influences.”By the end, we’ve covered invisibility rings, reputational virtue, torture-by-authenticity, luxury charcuterie economics, and Socrates quietly inventing content moderation… and we still don’t get closure.

In this episode of Whine with Some Cheese, we drag ourselves (emotionally, spiritually, and optically, because the font is criminal) through Plato’s Republic, Book I: the book where Socrates takes one peaceful stroll to Piraeus and immediately gets soft-kidnapped into an all-night debate about justice.We cover the whole chaos tour: a torch race on horseback (a fire hazard), a cloak-grab that would absolutely be a lawsuit today, and Cephalus, garlanded like a birthday boy, explaining that money is great because it helps you achieve the breathtaking goal of… not committing fraud.Then the “definitions of justice” Olympics begins:Pay your debts (unless the debtor is a lunatic and you’re returning a sword, in which case… maybe don’t?)Help your friends and harm your enemies (group chat logic, honestly)Justice is the interest of the stronger (Thrasymachus arrives roaring like a wild beast and basically invents “might makes right,” but in extra syllables)Socrates does Socrates things: asking questions, reshuffling definitions like legal paperwork, and eventually landing on the deeply satisfying conclusion that he… knows nothing. Which is a bold move after we spent 25 pages suffering for intellectual enrichment we did not consent to.Pour the wine, assemble the charcuterie, and join us for entitlement, exhaustion, and philosophy-related emotional damage, because the worst part is: there’s more. Book II exists.Next time: we begrudgingly continue… if someone pays us and provides adequate snacks.

Eugenia and Avery reach the grand finale: Act 5, Scene 2 of Hamlet, aka a meticulously curated catastrophe where the cheese is warm, the wine is peasant-adjacent, and Denmark hosts the worst-planned fencing event in recorded history.Hamlet casually recounts his sea-voyage admin crimes (rewriting royal orders with a signet ring, like it’s a normal Tuesday) while Horatio enables in silence. Then Osric arrives as a walking HR violation, obsessing over hats, calling hangers “carriages,” and delivering the most try-hard hype speech ever written about Laertes. Claudius turns the whole thing into a rigged wager, horses, rapiers, messy odds, zero event coordination, while Laertes shows up with an “unbated” blade and a poisoning plan that screams overcompensating.From there, it’s pure escalation: Gertrude drinks the wrong cup, the duel detonates into betrayal, Laertes and Hamlet attempt last-second forgiveness logistics, and Claudius finally gets what’s coming to him, at maximum mess, and with zero respect for castle cleaning staff. And just when the bodies hit peak chaos, Fortinbras strolls in for a hostile takeover with no RSVP, no gift, and way too much cannon noise.Everyone dies. Nothing is decanted. Eugenia and Avery remain the real victims, still hungry, still unsatisfied, and still waiting for basic poison-control protocols and chilled dairy.

Eugenia and Avery are forced into Hamlet’s gravedigger scene, a bleak, dirt-forward nightmare featuring manual labor, legal debates about “self-drowning,” and a man cheerfully singing while tossing skulls like party favors. While two clowns litigate Christian burial rules (as if customer service exists in the afterlife), Hamlet shows up to clutch Yorick’s skull and spiral into the world’s least sanitary nostalgia trip.Then, because Denmark can’t do anything normally, the scene escalates into funeral chaos: a “budget-tier” burial, a priest with attitude, Laertes leaping into the grave, and Hamlet revealing himself just in time to declare he loved Ophelia more than “forty thousand brothers” and start a wrestling match in a hole.It’s death, dust, class privilege, and metaphors about turning Alexander the Great into a cork, aka the exact opposite of the vibe Eugenia and Avery requested. Pour something cold, keep your dairy properly chilled, and remember: if you’re going to contemplate mortality, at least bring a cheese board.

Eugenia and Avery suffer through Hamlet Act 4, Scene 7, where Claudius does what he does best: dodges responsibility and turns crisis management into a group project. Instead of dealing with Hamlet like a functional adult monarch, he sweet-talks Laertes into a revenge plan that is somehow both overcomplicated and deeply tacky: a “friendly” fencing match featuring a poisoned sword, plus a backup poisoned chalice because apparently one murder method isn’t enough.Along the way, Claudius name-drops a random Norman horse legend (Lamord… why?), Laertes goes full rage mode with church-friendly murder vows, and then Gertrude strolls in with a gorgeously poetic tragedy update: Ophelia has drowned, narrated like an art film while everyone else is actively plotting homicide.Pour something cold, distrust any “mountebank” selling poison, and remember: if your plan needs two poisons, your plan is the problem.

This week on Whine with Some Cheese, Eugenia and Avery battle hostile studio air, a tragic room-temperature oat milk latte, and the indignity of Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 6, aka “Another room in the Castle,” aka the scene where Shakespeare gives us zero décor details but maximum logistical nonsense.We start with Horatio standing around in an undefined castle room when a servant announces visitors: sailors. Sailors. With letters. In a world where nobody has invented basic clarity, font choices, or encrypted messaging. Horatio instantly assumes the mail is from Hamlet (because of course the universe revolves around him), and the sailors deliver a message allegedly coming via the ambassador bound for England.And Hamlet’s letter? It opens with the verbal equivalent of a dismissive text: “when thou shalt have overlooked this…” as if receiving pirate-adjacent crisis mail is a casual favor. Then Hamlet immediately assigns Horatio homework: get the sailors “some means to the King” and rush to Hamlet “with as much haste as thou wouldst fly death.” Translation: Horatio has been promoted to emotional support courier with no benefits.Then comes the plot twist that Eugenia and Avery refuse to accept as a sane sequence of events: Hamlet claims that two days at sea, a pirate ship chased them, Hamlet boarded the pirates during a fight, and in the blink of an eye… Hamlet is alone and conveniently captured while everyone else escapes. The pirates, in peak “what even is this story,” treat him “like thieves of mercy”, a phrase that sends Avery into an oxymoron spiral, and Hamlet casually admits he now owes pirates a favor.To top it off, Hamlet promises Horatio “words to speak in thine ear” that will supposedly leave him speechless, teases juicy intel about Rosencrantz and Guildenstern still heading to England, and signs off with the most cryptic non-signature imaginable: “He that thou knowest thine.” Sir. Please. Just write your name.Horatio, instead of doing what any modern person would do (ignore the message, set boundaries, and mute the chat), immediately mobilizes and decides to speed-run these letters straight to the King, proving once again that the real engine of this play is not revenge, but men enabling other men’s nonsense.In summary: pirates appear, communication collapses, the postal system is a menace, and Horatio continues doing unpaid labor for Denmark’s most exhausting prince. Eugenia and Avery are not okay, their toes are personally offended, and they’re one “ere” away from filing a formal complaint with the entire English language.

This week on Whine with Some Cheese, Eugenia and Avery arrive expecting aged Gruyère and a respectable Bordeaux… and instead get string cheese, boxed wine, and Hamlet Act 4, Scene 5, aka the episode where everyone loses the plot at maximum volume in the world’s least hospitable castle.First, Elsinore’s front desk staff (read: Gertrude) refuses to see Ophelia, because apparently grief requires an appointment. A Gentleman warns that Ophelia is wandering around in distress and saying things that could fuel “dangerous conjectures,” and only then does the Queen agree to receive her, because God forbid a woman’s breakdown disrupt the brand.Ophelia enters and immediately turns the hallway into a one-woman musical: songs about true love, death, shrouds, and a scandalous St. Valentine’s Day verse that basically dares the royal couple to faint. She’s grieving Polonius, she’s not being heard, and she’s serving chaos with a melody.Then comes the floral mic drop: Ophelia starts handing out symbolic herbs and flowers like a grief-themed gift bag:rosemary for remembrance,pansies for thoughts,plus fennel, columbines, rue (with a side of judgment),and the ultimate flex: “I would give you violets, but they wither’d all when my father died.”(Subtle! Completely normal! No notes!)Claudius responds the only way a man with zero coping skills and too much authority can: a dramatic monologue about how “sorrows come not single spies, but in battalions,” which is less empathy and more “my workload is insane right now.”And just when you think the scene can’t get louder: Laertes storms the castle with a crowd, breaks doors like this is a subscription service he’s canceling mid-charge, and the people start chanting “Laertes shall be king.” Because nothing says stable government like crowning the guy who just arrived in full grievance mode.Laertes demands answers about Polonius. Claudius tries the “divinity hedges a king” defense (aka don’t touch me, I’m important), while Laertes swears he’ll take revenge even if it means going full edge-lord. Then Ophelia reappears, “fantastically dressed with straws and flowers”, and Laertes collapses emotionally as she keeps singing, keeps symbolizing, and somehow outperforms everyone’s grief with props, lyrics, and timing.By the end, Claudius does what he does best: manages the crisis like a PR problem, offers a very dramatic “if I’m guilty I’ll give up everything” speech (sure, Jan), and escorts Laertes out to “judge” the situation with “wisest friends”, because apparently the kingdom runs on vibes and committees.Final verdict: Ophelia deserved care, not a castle-runaround; Laertes’ rebellion had zero planning and worse interior damage; Claudius is allergic to accountability; and the only consistent thing in Elsinore is the total lack of boundaries, snacks, and basic emotional regulation.

This week on Whine with Some Cheese, Eugenia and Avery drag themselves into Hamlet Act 4, Scene 4, the episode where Denmark becomes a literal hallway for other people’s nonsense and Hamlet discovers (again) that thinking isn’t the same thing as doing.While Fortinbras casually marches an army across Denmark, because apparently borders are just a suggestion, we meet a Captain who explains they’re headed to Poland to fight over a “little patch of ground” worth basically nothing except the name. Not profit. Not strategy. A brand dispute with a 20,000-man body count. Hamlet is stunned that anyone would spend “two thousand souls” and “twenty thousand ducats” on an eggshell… which is rich, because this man has spent four acts spending his entire personality on indecision.And of course, instead of acting, Hamlet reacts the only way he knows how: with a monologue. He watches a parade of honor-based stupidity and spirals into self-drag mode:He roasts himself for wasting life on “sleep and feed,”admits he’s either running on “bestial oblivion” or “thinking too precisely on th’event,”and somehow turns his cowardice into fractions (one part wisdom, three parts avoidance, relatable, honestly).Meanwhile Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are back doing unpaid emotional labor, trying to herd him along like a toddler who refuses to leave the playground. Hamlet promises he’ll follow “straight,” immediately lies, and stays behind to announce his newest rebrand:“From this time forth, my thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth.”We’ve heard it before, but this scene wants to be the turning point: if Fortinbras can kill thousands over a straw, then Hamlet should be able to finish his one simple task: stop soliloquizing, start executing.Final verdict: Fortinbras is doing the most for the least, Hamlet is inspired by the worst possible role model, and everyone in Denmark needs therapy, a project plan, and a firm cheese that doesn’t emotionally collapse on the plate.

This week we’re dragged, against our pores’ consent, into Hamlet Act 4, Scene 3, the scene where Denmark becomes a full-blown workplace safety incident and everyone pretends that vibes are a substitute for basic crisis management.Claudius is in panic mode because Polonius is dead, missing, and apparently unrefrigerated (health code violations everywhere), so he does what every weak manager does: he asks Hamlet a direct question, “Where’s Polonius?”, and gets a surreal monologue in return.Hamlet’s answer is peak chaos:“At supper.”Not eating, being eaten. By worms. Because nothing says “please cooperate with the investigation” like a gourmet lecture on decomposition.He escalates into the whole worm → fish → king → beggar food-chain TED Talk, insisting “your worm is your only emperor for diet.”Which is… philosophically sharp, socially unacceptable, and deeply unhelpful when someone is trying to locate a corpse before the castle starts smelling like consequences.He dodges again: heaven, “the other place,” and a casually horrifying suggestion that they’ll smell Polonius in the lobby within a month. Hospitality is dead. Literally.Rosencrantz and Guildenstern re-enter as the world’s least effective troubleshooters (“we cannot get from him where the body is”), and Claudius finally does what he should’ve done earlier: ship the problem to England. Because why solve anything in-house when you can outsource it internationally?Then we hit the line that broke us:Hamlet calls Claudius “mother.”Claudius corrects him: “thy loving father.”Hamlet doubles down with a deranged family-tree argument about how husband and wife are one flesh, so father and mother are basically the same. It’s smug, it’s bait, and it’s exactly the kind of wordplay that makes you want to revoke someone’s speaking privileges.And once Hamlet exits, Claudius does the most Claudius thing possible: he’s alone, he’s stressed, and instead of fixing the mess he created, he writes to England asking them to kill Hamlet, a murder plot disguised as delegation.So yes: this episode has everything. Dead-body logistics, worm metaphors, passive-aggressive genealogy, and a king who treats governance like a failing food truck with a crown.Final verdict: Elsinore has terrible ventilation, worse hospitality, and absolutely zero project management. If anyone needs to be shipped off, it’s the entire court’s operations team.

This week, we’re back in Hamlet Act 4, Scene 2, aka: the episode where two exhausted courtiers ask one normal question and get rewarded with riddles, metaphors, and emotional violence, plus dairy served at a criminal temperature.Rosencrantz and Guildenstern arrive doing what every underpaid support staffer does in a collapsing organization: trying to locate a problem the boss created. Their request is simple, where did you put the body?, because Polonius is missing, the castle is one draft away from a biohazard, and someone has to get the cleanup done before dawn.Hamlet’s response? Pure “conceptual art prince” energy:He claims he’s “compounded [the body] with dust” and refuses to give a straight answer.When they press (politely! repeatedly!), he hits them with “Do not believe it,” like reality is optional.Then he unleashes the headline insult: Rosencrantz is a “sponge.”A sponge that soaks up the King’s favor, rewards, and authority, only to be squeezed dry and discarded when it’s no longer useful. Which is… honestly one of Hamlet’s sharpest political reads, even if he delivers it like a man who read Nietzsche once and now ruins dinner parties.And just when you think the scene can’t get more obnoxious, Hamlet turns philosophical and dismissive in the same breath:“The body is with the King, but the King is not with the body.”“The King is a thing… of nothing.”Great line. Terrible coworker.Finally, Hamlet caps it off by literally turning murder logistics into a playground game, “Hide fox, and all after”, and runs off, leaving two courtiers to wander the castle like unwilling interns in a true-crime cleanup crew.Under the jokes (and the warm brie), this scene is basically a masterclass in power using wordplay as a weapon: Hamlet’s grief is real, Claudius’s regime is rotten, and Rosencrantz/Guildenstern are caught in the middle, trying to keep their jobs while being treated like disposable cleaning products.Our verdict: Hamlet is brilliant, exhausting, and catastrophically allergic to direct communication. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern deserved severance, not metaphors. And if you ever find yourself in a castle with a corpse and a moody prince, choose the only sane option: facials over fatalities. Moisturizer over murder.

Today’s episode drags us—against medical advice, into Hamlet Act 4, Scene 1, aka: the morning-after group meeting where everyone talks about murder like it’s a scheduling conflict.We open with Claudius, Gertrude, and the two interchangeable assistants, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, entering all at once, too many bodies, too little ventilation, and not a single person offering glacial wine. Claudius immediately starts doing what he does best: turning a crisis into a reputation problem, decoding Gertrude’s sighs like he’s an “emotional translator” on payroll.Then Gertrude finally reports what happened: Hamlet, in a rage, stabbed through the tapestry shouting “A rat!” and killed Polonius behind the arras, because apparently “verify the target” was not part of royal education. Claudius reacts with the understatement of the century, “O heavy deed!”, and then, without missing a beat, pivots to: and how does this make me look?From there it’s pure crisis-management theater:Claudius insists Hamlet’s “liberty” is a threat, while pretending this is brand-new information.Everyone talks about the murder in metaphors that are way too organic and way too gross.Gertrude tries to soften Hamlet’s actions with “he weeps,” as if post-homicide tears are a cleansing ritual.Claudius announces the solution to felony and trauma: ship Hamlet to England at dawn, because nothing says “responsible leadership” like outsourcing your family’s collapse to another country.Meanwhile, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern get tasked with “speaking fair” to a man who just committed homicide, and also dealing with the least glamorous errand imaginable: retrieve the body and haul it to the chapel, because yes, Denmark is apparently running a one-stop shop for murder cleanup and awkward PR.We close with Claudius summoning his “wisest friends” to manage the narrative, because in Elsinore, the hierarchy is: 1) optics, 2) vibes, 3) maybe the literal dead guy, if time permits.Takeaways: don’t hide behind decorative textiles, don’t schedule deportations before breakfast, and if you’re tempted to solve problems by shipping people to England… therapy is cheaper.Next week, we’re petitioning for a break from royal crime scenes so we can return to what truly matters: temperature-controlled beverages and cuticle trauma.

Today’s episode is what happens when you mix room-temperature Riesling, sweating brie, and Hamlet Act 3, Scene 4, a scene so chaotic it should come with a cleaning fee and a warning label for anyone who owns textiles.We start with Polonius doing what he does best: being invasive. He coaches Gertrude on how to “lay home” to Hamlet, then promptly hides behind an arras to eavesdrop on a private mother–son conversation like a man who has never once touched a boundary in his life.Hamlet storms in already at a ten, immediately accusing Gertrude of offending his dead father, and then treats the entire room like it’s his personal TED Talk on “Why Your Second Husband Is Gross.” The argument escalates, Polonius panics and yells from behind the curtain, and Hamlet—because he’s apparently allergic to verification, shouts “A rat?” and stabs through the fabric like he’s rage-reviewing the concept of privacy.Plot twist: it’s Polonius, not Claudius. Hamlet responds with the emotional maturity of a man who has never had to pay a security deposit, calls the dead body an “intruding fool,” and then continues verbally power-washing his mother’s life choices with increasingly unhinged imagery. We get:the portrait comparison slideshow (Hyperion curls vs. “mildew’d ear,” because subtlety is dead),the absolutely cursed bed description (rank sweat, enseamed, stew’d, please stop),and peak Hamlet hypocrisy: shaming Gertrude like a moral authority five minutes after committing a stabbing.Then the Ghost shows up, still dressed like it’s 1601, still making dramatic entrances, and Hamlet has a whole conversation while Gertrude sees nothing and basically confirms, politely, that her son is spiraling in 4K.By the end, Hamlet commands Gertrude to repent, avoid Claudius, and clean up her soul… while he drags Polonius’s body out like a suspiciously heavy laundry bag and announces he’s off to England, because apparently that’s how you handle consequences in Denmark: commit a felony, then board a ship.We whine about:the arras maintenance and the dry-clean-only implications of murder,Hamlet’s “speak daggers” approach to communication,the Ghost interrupting what is clearly a family therapy session,and the fact that we had to read all this while our wine stayed warm like a personal attack.Next week we’re demanding something lighter. Like tax law. Or cement. Anything that doesn’t involve furniture-based espionage and body-dragging stage directions.

Today we were promised artisanal brie and a 2015 Bordeaux. Instead, we got Hamlet Act 3, Scene 3: a room in the castle, a murderer having a guilt spiral, and a prince who could solve everything in one stab, but chooses philosophical pickiness instead.Claudius decides he “likes not” Hamlet and ships him to England with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (two human beige cardigans). Polonius, who treats privacy like a hobby he hates, announces he’ll hide behind an arras to spy on Hamlet and Gertrude, because nothing says “healthy court” like curtain-based surveillance.Then Claudius is left alone for the iconic confession: “O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven.” He tries to pray, admits he can’t truly repent because he’s still keeping the crown and the queen, and lands on the bleak truth: words without thoughts don’t go to heaven. It’s guilt theater, performed by the one man who actually deserves it.And just when we think the plot is about to move? Hamlet enters, sees Claudius vulnerable, and decides he can’t kill him while he’s praying… because what if it sends him to heaven. So Hamlet postpones revenge for a more “aesthetic” moment, drunk, asleep, in pleasure, swearing, gaming, anything but spiritually convenient. It’s commitment issues, but with daggers.We whine about:Claudius’s guilt monologue vs. his refusal to give anything upHamlet’s Olympic-level procrastination when the target is kneeling in front of himPolonius treating eavesdropping like self-careRosencrantz & Guildenstern as the least luxurious travel companions imaginableThe fact that we read all this and nothing gets resolvedIf your brie is sweating and your king is sweating, one of you needs refrigeration, and it’s not the cheese.

Today’s episode is Hamlet, Act 3 Scene 2, also known as: Hamlet decides he’s the Stanislavski of Elsinore and everyone else has to suffer through his notes. We arrive already injured by Times New Roman, hostile studio lighting, and the fact that Shakespeare believes people “enter” and “exit” like it’s a cardio routine.Hamlet opens by lecturing the Players on how to act, no “sawing the air,” no overdoing it, keep it “trippingly on the tongue”, as if he isn’t personally a Category 5 emotional event at all times. Then he clings to Horatio with aggressively earnest praise, because nothing says stable prince like trying to “wear” your friend in your “heart of heart.”And then: the play-within-the-play. A dumb show reenacts a king being poisoned in the ear on a flower bank (unsanitary, insect-heavy, zero lumbar support), a murderer immediately woos the widow at the crime scene (men), and Hamlet narrates everything in the most cryptic way possible instead of simply saying: “Yes, this is about my dad.” The Player Queen vows she’ll never remarry, Hamlet mutters “wormwood,” Gertrude snipes “The lady protests too much,” and Claudius, Mr. Totally-Not-Guilty, eventually rage-quits with “Lights! Lights! Lights!” because the conscience has been caught and the vibes are ruined.After the chaos, Hamlet continues being unbearable to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (recorder metaphor included; recorders still hatefully shrill), harasses Polonius with cloud-shape gaslighting (“camel… weasel… whale”), and ends on the “witching time of night” promise to “speak daggers” to his mother, because in this play, everyone chooses drama over basic communication and a snack.We whine about:Hamlet’s acting notes from a man who cannot self-regulatePoison-ear murder logistics and the world’s tackiest on-stage wooingGertrude’s audacity and Claudius’s extremely obvious guiltRecorder metaphors, cloud nonsense, and workplace harassment by princeThe total absence of charcuterie at a royal performancePour something chilled, cut the cheese, and remember: if you’re going to catch a king’s conscience, at least fix the lighting and offer a board.