A Clash of Kings, Vol. 18 [Jon 4 / Bran 5]
Second Breakfast with Cam & Maggie
Release Date: 10/09/2026
Ken Russell's The Devils
Second Breakfast with Cam & Maggie
The most controversial and censored movie of 1971 has finally been restored to its full glory — and it might just be the greatest Faust fable of all time. Vanessa Rengrave’s Sister Jeanne is easily the best Mephistopheles ever put to screen, and Oliver Reed’s Grandier is an operatic, literally mustache-twirling Faustus. In this episode, we’re breaking out the Marlowe to do a full-bodied analysis of Ken Russell’s The Devils through a Faustian lens. Topics include: offscreen contracts, implied terms, the effect that a hundred Mephistopheles have on one Faustus, Ken Russell’s brutal...
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What Happens When You Watch Too Many Movies
Second Breakfast with Cam & Maggie
Maggie did the math and concluded that we see about 200 movies a year. In this conceptual episode, we’re trying to figure out how that ridiculous fact has changed us, how we think about movies, and how we talk about works of art on this show. The answers are a kaleidoscope of good, bad, personal, and academic. And yes, before you ask, we do at one point passionately reflect upon Jason Statham’s The Beekeeper. LINKS: , , , , Feedback & Theories: 00:00 Introduction 01:20 Burnout 05:56 Fandom 11:13 Mediocrity 14:28 Curiosity 20:31 Ritual 24:35 Reflection...
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Digger
Second Breakfast with Cam & Maggie
Digger is far and away the most thought provoking movie of the year. Ignore the critics and the box office, find the biggest screen you can, and make up your own mind. In this episode, we’re focusing in on the film’s incredibly complex and compelling navigation of satire — which has at least five distinct angles. We examine the film’s central ‘misdirection monologue’ to disentangle these critiques, before working through our own interpretations of the moment. Then we engage with some of the (misguided) reaction to the film, including the absurd idea that this movie is just...
info_outline![A Clash of Kings, Vol. 18 [Jon 4 / Bran 5] show art](https://assets.libsyn.com/content/207314223?height=50&width=50)
A Clash of Kings, Vol. 18 [Jon 4 / Bran 5]
Second Breakfast with Cam & Maggie
The Reeds have returned to terrorize Bran with dire, vague prophecies — and in this episode, we’re going to follow their lead and explore all the horror, fantasy, and philosophical dread we can find. Maggie charts prophecy and prayer through the sudden resurgence of the supernatural. Cam rediscovers our old Macbeth theory, but through a brand new lens. GRRM’s Macbeth isn’t Ned Stark, or the Starks in general, but the castle itself. Winterfell seems to have come alive in the aftermath of Renly’s death, and we work together to craft a theory about ghosts, gods, dreams that makes sense...
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Verity
Second Breakfast with Cam & Maggie
Verity has a fantastic premise and some jaw-dropping twists. We both devoured the book. But then we read the ending, which backpedals and defangs everything that’s interesting about the story’s most interesting character. And then there’s the brand new epilogue, which unwids the central drama even further. And THEN there’s the movie, which doubles down on all of these problems until there are no fun wrinkles left. No texture, no intrigue, no unlikable characters. In this episode, we’re tracing this strange, compounding “nesting dolls” problem across multiple editions of the book...
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Hope
Second Breakfast with Cam & Maggie
This might be the most difficult-to-describe movie of the year. It’s Mad Max: Fury Road meets Curb Your Enthusiasm with a lot of Independence Day thrown in there, but then at the end it kinda turns into Avatar? We can guarantee you that you’ve never seen anything like this, and that it will be one of the most energizing and entertaining theatrical experiences you have this year. Topics include: the secret delights of (occasionally) bad CGI, unexpected genre mashups, evolving creature design, how to portray / maintain urgency onscreen, the relationship between action and emotion, and the...
info_outline![Diablo IV [Season of Hell's Legacy] show art](https://assets.libsyn.com/content/206683803?height=50&width=50)
Diablo IV [Season of Hell's Legacy]
Second Breakfast with Cam & Maggie
As we discover in this episode, Maggie loves change and Cam hates change. Guess how we each feel about the big news out of Blizzcon? Diablo IV just dropped the best season they’ve ever made but also kind of put the game out to pasture. Diablo V was announced. Destiny 2 was brought back from the dead. It’s a lot to talk about, in addition to our traditional state of the game check-in, analysis of the seasonal campaign, respective class updates, and wrap-up questions about the future of the franchise. LINKS: , , , , Feedback & Theories: 00:00 Emotional...
info_outline![A Clash of Kings, Vol. 17 [Sansa 3, Catelyn 4] show art](https://assets.libsyn.com/content/206514143?height=50&width=50)
A Clash of Kings, Vol. 17 [Sansa 3, Catelyn 4]
Second Breakfast with Cam & Maggie
The shadow baby has finally arrived, and with it, the tragic end of Renly Baratheon — except that none of it goes the way we expected it to. In this episode, we dig deep into the first ever explicitly supernatural ‘act of god’ in this series, only to find that the god in question might not be the Lord of Light at all. Maggie tracks the hit rate of prayer in Westeros and searches for narrative ghosts. Cam questions the duality and prominence of Stannis Baratheon. We work together to uncover the couplet comparisons between these two chapters and develop an overarching theory about the God...
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Resident Evil
Second Breakfast with Cam & Maggie
Expectations are the trap of all adaptations. This Resident Evil movie lives in many shadows: the beloved game series, the false impression that the trailers gave that this was a very straightforward scary movie, and the towering legacy of Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead. But the wonderful thing is that this movie is still fantastic. Even if it’s not ‘the scariest movie of the year,’ it might just be the best horror comedy of this century — and the very first one to truly speak to our modern sensibility. Put another way, this movie often feels like a Twitch streamer playing a horror game, and...
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Parasomnia
Second Breakfast with Cam & Maggie
Parasomnia terrified me in a way that I haven’t felt since Oddity. This movie feels like it was made in a lab to appeal to us specifically, as a mashup of Insidious 1 & 2, Hell House LLC., The Blair Witch Project. James Ross II has created a powerhouse work of indie horror with remarkable emotional investment, under-your-skin creature design, a grounded and restrained directorial style, and some deliciously upsetting body horror. LINKS: , , , , Feedback & Theories: 00:00 Impressions 02:12 Insidious / Hell House 04:20 Emotional Stakes 07:48 Creature...
info_outlineThe Reeds have returned to terrorize Bran with dire, vague prophecies — and in this episode, we’re going to follow their lead and explore all the horror, fantasy, and philosophical dread we can find. Maggie charts prophecy and prayer through the sudden resurgence of the supernatural. Cam rediscovers our old Macbeth theory, but through a brand new lens. GRRM’s Macbeth isn’t Ned Stark, or the Starks in general, but the castle itself. Winterfell seems to have come alive in the aftermath of Renly’s death, and we work together to craft a theory about ghosts, gods, dreams that makes sense of all the reawakened magic that is crackling through Westeros.
LINKS: Patreon, YouTube, Spotify, Instagram, Cam's Books
Feedback & Theories: [email protected]
00:00 A Milestone Episode
02:01 Recap of Chapters
21:25 Supernatural Couplet
27:44 Prophecy & Prayer
34:53 Direwolf Dilemma
40:59 Macbeth Returns
43:33 A Haunted House
51:25 Refining the Theory
55:36 Reawakened Magic
01:00:10 The New Binary
01:04:50 Closing Thoughts