TalKing of the Hill - Death and Texas
Added 2024-08-19 04:00:05 +0000 UTCThis month, we're covering a VERY Texan topic: capital punishment! When a supposed former student reaches out to Peggy from death row, she proudly signs up to be his personal tutor. But things take a turn for the worse when Peggy's Boggle-based education program leads to her smuggling him a very special kind of "timer sand." Will Peggy make it out of this one and escape all charges of being a coke mule? Listen in to find out, and learn as few depressing facts about the death penalty as possible!
Comments
Loving Bob's imitation of Dale, always makes me laugh
Josh Dietz
2024-08-25 00:43:59 +0000 UTCI always thought Peggy and Hank could have put sand in the hourglass with about an inch of cocaine on top. Wes tastes it, approves, but then still gets made into a pincushion when those Angry Aryans snort a bunch of sand up their noses. Sort of like when I worked retail and the “bag of money in the safe” that we were supposed to give to any armed robbers was just a bunch of $1’s with a $100 dollar bill on top.
Steven Bellah
2024-08-22 03:57:48 +0000 UTCWell said!
Bob Mackey
2024-08-21 05:41:49 +0000 UTCThis episode is such a wonderful encapsulation of the amazing details they put in this show. Even after a million rewatches I never realized you could read Bobby’s pollution easy
Anna Mansager
2024-08-21 05:00:37 +0000 UTCRight at the very beginning of the episode, Bobby is bringing in the day's mail, which consists of two pieces of correspondence: Peggy's letter from Wesley Martin Archer, which gets the engine started plotwise, and a scam letter from a credit card company that says Bobby has been pre-approved. Bobby is so excited to get his scam junk mail, to have a letter sent just to him, which is an imperative that will come into play later. This is telling us from the get-go that the letter to Peggy is a bunch of bullshit, on the same level of bullshit as a credit card offer sent to a middle schooler. Credit card companies mail these offers out, and they're just hooks for fish. These companies send out letters based off of publicly available information, having only a name and address. They don't care what your age and occupation are, they just cast their net out into the human water looking for someone foolish they can drag in. These missives are standard form letters. Even though they're sent by a faceless computer in a glass building, they always try to puff you up a little bit. There's always a little flavortext. This is the same thing Archer did! He took info from a yearbook, publicly available information, sent out a "form letter" based on nothing other than names and addresses, and waited for someone to fall victim to his scheme. Just the same as a credit card company! No one fell for it except Peggy. In this way, the first 30 seconds of the episode establishes that Peggy is going to be the victim of a scam. In this scene Bobby responds in a joking way to his letter because it's so obviously a scam. Even a child who is largely composed of cotton batting and biscuit dough can recognize that his letter is not a real offer. However, Peggy doesn't pay attention to her child. She doesn't take any lessons from his immediate rejection of the scam targeted at him. She simply takes her letter as fact. Both letters were just as full of crap, on the same line, but one gets immediately thrown in the trash and one gets taken as truth. Which is, of course, why we have an episode. Also, she's so happy to get this mail, this mail sent to her, before even knowing what the mail contains. Getting a letter just to her just for her feeds into her narcissism before she even cracks the envelope. In this way, the first 30 seconds of the episode establishes that Peggy is going to be the victim of a scam. It lays out how the scam is going to happen. It establishes these things with an incredible speed and efficiency. They just fuckin' do it. They lay everything out for the canny viewer, immediately. They mount Chekov's gun over the fireplace. This is fucking storytelling.
John Wagner
2024-08-21 02:58:24 +0000 UTCHenry, I believe the Books to Prisoners program you’re talking about is the one run by Left Bank Books. Its actually a volunteer run anarchist collective book store at Pike Place Market. Its a cool store to check out if you are ever at the market, they actually do sell new releases, and have a good collection of local small press works, and, relevant to the conversation, they have a section specifically for books prisoners are requesting you can buy as a donation.
marathedemon
2024-08-20 17:56:21 +0000 UTCRecently in Texas, Ruben Gutierrez's execution was delayed just 20 minutes before it was scheduled to take place due to post-trial DNA evidence. I have friends in Houston who are actively involved in the anti-death penalty movement and gave me more of a better explanation.
Blarghjon
2024-08-20 11:45:04 +0000 UTCBob, you are underselling how great it is to murder here in Canada. Until 2011, the maximum jail sentence regardless of what you did was life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years. In 2011 Stephen Harper passed a law allowing concurrent jail sentences so murderers stopped getting a "free murder" after the first one. But In all likelihood the Supreme Court will rull those sentences against the Charter. They just haven't taken up a case yet since the first people convicted under these new rules haven't hit 25 years in jail yet. A few judges have given jail sentences where the first parole opportunity would be when the convicted person is in their 80s in hopes those don't get overturned. While other judges have gone all out and give 150 year jail terms. Will be interesting to see what happens.
Alex Forsyth
2024-08-20 10:44:17 +0000 UTCThis episode sums up Peggy's character more than any other.
Dan Hughes
2024-08-20 10:25:16 +0000 UTCHey Bob I hope you know that being a Billy Bob Thornton completionist means you’ll have to watch at least 2 episodes of Catdog, because he voices their father. I look forward to the future what a cartoon episodes on the topic!
Tyler Rampley
2024-08-20 02:21:02 +0000 UTCNot too worried about Dale losing money on that deal. We all know he’s just going to wander around the prison going “Tssssss” instead of spraying actual poison.
Marshal Case
2024-08-20 01:57:25 +0000 UTCRe: Game and Watches. Those were my son's first video games, and he loved them and would take them everywhere and now he is an excellent gamer at age 5, consistently showing up my wife in various games on the Switch.
I.C. Weiner
2024-08-19 21:43:03 +0000 UTCIt's funny, as I'm listening to this I flipped to FX and this exact episode was playing
NewKillerStar
2024-08-19 17:33:34 +0000 UTCAlso good episode as always
Tricia
2024-08-19 15:54:12 +0000 UTCI have this edutainment show “Crashbox” on my mind while listening bc it had a game called “Mug Shots” where you the audience have to find holes in a criminal’s story to find the innocent one; so things like Meemaw having a boggle set would’ve been a good tip off in that game
Tricia
2024-08-19 15:53:46 +0000 UTCvery interesting discussion to hear as a former Texan. we often eulogize the legacy of future guest star Ann Richards, who did a lot of good for the state and was the last Democratic governor of Texas before George W Bush began their steady decline. it turns out that even she was pro-death penalty and oversaw nearly 50 executions under her tenure which just goes to show how long this has been a bipartisan issue.
Blake R.
2024-08-19 15:51:46 +0000 UTC
