Chatty AF 197: Scott Pilgrim Takes Off Retrospective (WITH TRANSCRIPT)

ALEX: What’s up, everybody? We are Chatty AF and we’re here to make you think about themes and stuff. I’m your frontman for tonight’s show. I am Alex, one of the managing editors here at AniFem. I’m also a writer and researcher in the world of queer young adult fiction. I’m joined today by Caitlin and Toni on, well, whatever instruments they want to play to back me up. You guys want to introduce yourselves?

CAITLIN: [to the tune of ‘Black Sheep’ by Metric] Hello, again, friend of a friend. I am Caitlin.

ALEX: [Chuckles]

CAITLIN: Hi, I’m Caitlin, AniFem’s community manager, as well as an editor and writer.

TONI: [Speaks in singsong] Hello, my name is Toni Sun. And can I introduce to you this most amazing show? [Speaks normally] Okay, I’m Toni. I’m a contributing editor here at AniFem. And I am also just an educator and musician. You can find me @poetpedagogue on Twitter.

ALEX: Welcome, everybody, to another episode. Today we are talking about Scott Pilgrim Takes Off and the Scott Pilgrim—I suppose it’s a franchise now—the Scott Pilgrim franchise more broadly. Normally, this would not be within our scope. As referential and adoring as it is to Japanese pop culture, it is Canadian, and does not normally fall under our umbrella here at Anime Feminist. However, the new animated series that dropped on Netflix this November comes to us from Science Saru, the animation studio that has given us, well, many cool things, but some staff favorites including Devilman Crybaby, Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken, and The Heike Story. So, Scott Pilgrim is anime now, and good for him! I think. Hm, we’ll get into that.

So, this is going to be an interesting one because some of us on the chat today have some familiarity with this series and some of us have absolutely no familiarity with this series. It’s gonna be a fun thing to talk our way through, given the nature of these adaptations. Caitlin, can I throw to you first? Can you tell us what you know of Scott Pilgrim? What is your familiarity with this tale?

CAITLIN: I don’t remember exactly how I ended up reading the comics. But I do remember the year after I graduated college, when the last volume came out or was coming out, my friend shoved all of the volumes at me and was like, “Here, read it!” So, I read it. I saw the movie in theaters twice, maybe three times. I have cosplayed Ramona. I would say that the only bit of Scott Pilgrim media I am not intimately familiar with is the game, because it is a genre of game I’m terrible at, but I’ve heard it’s very good. And also, the movie came out in 2010. I was born in 1987! Do the math!

ALEX: You’re not making me do math live on air. [Chuckles]

CAITLIN: I was 23.

ALEX: Okay, so you were the same—

CAITLIN: I was 23 when the movie came out.

ALEX: [crosstalk] So you were the same age as the characters. That’s interesting. Okay, okay.

CAITLIN: Yes, I was. I was.

ALEX: Okay. Toni, how about you?

TONI: Well, I’m the odd one out here because I have basically no familiarity whatsoever with the original franchise at all. I was exposed to it entirely through talking to my roommate about the fact that there was a Netflix adaptation and them saying, “Oh! Yeah! I love that comic. I will never watch the Netflix adaptation because it is very special to me.” And so I was like, “Okay.” And, you know, I had heard about Scott Pilgrim before that. And I think I mostly thought, “Wow, that sounds like a dumb thing, to have a thing about fighting somebody’s evil exes. Isn’t that kind of possessive? Weird damsel-in-distress thing,” which obviously is a very, very, very shallow read of the comic, I mean, not having read it.

CAITLIN: Oh, there’s so much more to it.

TONI: Absolutely. I’m sure there is. But you know. And having watched the show, I can’t imagine it being that shallow. So, yeah, I am coming to it fresh and I will have lots of questions, I’m sure.

CAITLIN: All right, Alex, how about you?

ALEX: Yeah, so I’m on the spectrum closer to you, Caitlin, right down to the fact that I do, in fact, still have a very well-loved and beaten-up replica of Ramona’s messenger bag. It’s the blue one with the pink star on it, which I used and loved for many, many years but has since been retired. I came to the movie first, in 2010, where… I won’t make you do math, but let’s say I was closer to Knives Chau’s age than to Scott and the others’, so I was kind of like, “Wow, this is such an interesting vision of a potential young adult future.” Yeah, I came to the comics after that and was quite fascinated by the differences I found, having seen the movie first. And I was fascinated by differences again, now having watched the anime, but we will get to that in time.

To provide some context for how we got here… So, as you both said, this began with comics. This is a graphic novel series by Canadian artist Bryan Lee O’Malley. It began with… Volume 1 was Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life in 2004. This was followed by Scott Pilgrim vs. the World—

CAITLIN: Which was when I was Knives’s age, for the record.

ALEX: There you go.

CAITLIN: I was 17 in 2004.

ALEX: The distant year of 2004. The distant, futuristic year of 2004. [Chuckles] This was followed by… We had Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Scott Pilgrim and the Infinite Sadness, Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together, Scott Pilgrim vs. The Universe, and it all concluded with Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour in 2010, which was a big year for the franchise because, as you said, 2010 is also the year we got the live action movie, directed by Edgar Wright. We also had the tie-in game called Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game. And so, yeah, this series that drew a lot of inspiration and made a lot of homages to movies, video games, anime, has now been a movie, a video game, and an anime. 

This was a pretty big staple of geek culture in the 2000s and the early 2010s, although, you know, it’s persisted through. It’s pretty beloved. Especially following the release of the movie, it was a pretty big deal around… Even I, who wasn’t super active in the convention scene or anything like that at the time, I remember seeing a lot of cosplay, a lot of merch, a lot of general buzz about this series.

CAITLIN: It is worth [noting] that it wasn’t really successful in crossing over out of the geek community because the movie was considered a flop. It did not make its budget back.

ALEX: Mm-hm, mm-hm. One of those… We may call it a cult classic, I suppose. [Chuckles] But I wonder if it— I don’t know. I would like to know your opinion on this, Caitlin. Do you reckon— It kind of hit this interesting little sweet spot where it was obviously very inspired by and had a lot of the vibe of, yeah, manga, anime, video games, but it was from the distant foreign land of Canada. You know, it was an English-language comic set in a setting that would have been more familiar to North American fans especially. And it’s like, “Oh, wow, this really video-gamey plot can happen in Toronto, a place that I kind of recognize.” I don’t know. Do you think that was a factor in what made it seem so cool and novel?

CAITLIN: I mean, I had never been to Toronto. I grew up in Los—

ALEX: [crosstalk] So it could be like this in real life.

CAITLIN: I grew up in Los Angeles, which might as well have been Australia when it comes to familiarity with Toronto.

[Chuckling]

CAITLIN: So, I don’t know if it’s that, necessarily. I think that Toronto itself is— They reference this in the anime. It’s like Toronto itself is a character, because they reference a lot of real-life locations. Unfortunately, a lot of them don’t exist anymore, sadly, because gentrification has destroyed a lot of the smaller businesses. Honest Ed’s— Not Honest Ed’s. Honest Mike’s? [Editor’s note: it’s Honest Ed’s]

ALEX: We’ll check it in post.

CAITLIN: I don’t know.

ALEX: Honest somebody’s, yeah.

CAITLIN: Yeah, that’s gone. It doesn’t exist anymore. So, the way you phrased the question implied a little bit of, like, “It’s like my Japanese mangas but it’s more local.” And I don’t think that’s… [Hums thoughtfully] Like, it wears that influence on the sleeve, but I don’t know. Even as someone who was deep in the weeb weeds when they read Scott Pilgrim… if anything, I think that might have hurt it, because anime and manga fans are very, very quick to reject something that tries to ape anime and manga.

ALEX: Okay. In any case, it sits in this interesting in-between kind of space. What is it actually about? You know, we can talk about its various influences along the way, but what is the actual story that we’ve got going on here with the comics and then the movie? It’s about Scott. It’s about a guy named Scott. He describes himself as being between jobs. He’s an aspiring musician in his early 20s living in, as we have said, the magical foreign land of Toronto, Canada. He’s in a band that sucks. He’s dating a high school student because, in his own words, it’s an easy relationship where the expectations are low and they just kinda hang out and hold hands sometimes. She’s obsessed with him and thinks the moon shines out of him, and he’s just kind of coasting along trying to rebound from his most recent breakup. This is our hero, everybody. Hooray.

He’s also been having dreams about a girl with colorful hair rollerblading through a kind of ethereal space and is very surprised to meet her in person and discover that she’s real. He learns her name is Ramona, he engineers a situation that means they can meet again and asks her on a date, they go out, they kind of hit it off, and then the new romance is rudely interrupted. It turns out that every person Ramona has ever dated before has formed a League of Evil Exes and Scott has to video-game-style fight each of them if he wants to win the right to be her new boyfriend. 

The series uses the structure of the Evil Ex fights to kinda tell a story about Scott and Ramona’s growing relationship as they’re each forced to confront their past mistakes and flaws and work out what a successful romance even is. Like, sure, you can punch her ex-boyfriend ‘til he turns into coins, but does that mean you’re actually compatible as people? That’s kind of the question that it asks, going forward.

So, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off adapts the early part of the story more or less exactly—shows Scott dreaming about Ramona and meeting her—all the way up to the first fight with Evil Ex number 1, Matthew Patel. And then it diverges completely by having Scott lose that fight. And it looks like he’s frickin’ died. [Chuckles]

CAITLIN: The way I like to describe it is [that] the first episode is exactly what you expect until the last minute, and then it’s nothing like you expect.

ALEX: Which is a bit cheeky of them, honestly, especially because a lot of the marketing material was billing this as a new adaptation—especially because it got a lot of the old or, I think, all of the old… “The old,” sorry. From the ancient year of 2010! The movie live action cast was brought back to voice their characters again, and it was really amping that up, the nostalgia factor, like “It’s Scott Pilgrim, again!” in a lot of the marketing, which is very mischievous of them to do that, knowing that they do this twist in the very first episode. They’re like, “Actually, we’ve killed Michael Cera and turned him into coins.” [Chuckles]

So, they do walk this back. It turns out that Scott is not dead. He has been pulled through a portal. But we still have this thing going on with Scott Pilgrim. The hero of Scott Pilgrim has been quite literally pulled out of the narrative. And so we get something very different now that he’s not quite in it, and I would like to know what you thought of this twisty-twist, of this turning into something very different.

CAITLIN: I loved it. I was grinning with delight when I realized… I mean, it took me a second to realize what had happened because I was just like, “Well, he’s gonna fight Matthew Patel and he’s gonna win and…” And then Matthew Patel is standing there, going, “I won?” and I’m just like, what? And I’m watching with Jared. And we’re both like, “What? Wait a second!”

ALEX: And they roll credits. And it leaves you sitting with that feeling. [Chuckles]

CAITLIN: Yeah. No, it does. You just— I was so ready for anything it was gonna throw at me. And I adored the whole series.

ALEX: So Toni, then, from your perspective, as someone coming into this new and, as you said, really only knowing, kind of, the premise, how did this make you feel, the first episode throwing this at you?

TONI: Well, it kind of made me feel similar to when I watched Executioner and Her Way of Life.

ALEX: Ahaha, yes. [Chuckles]

TONI: Which, you know… The thing is that I have absolutely zero investment in isekai, and unlike many of y’all, I have not been forced to watch a million different isekai for reviewing purposes. So, watching that, I didn’t quite experience the catharsis that I’m sure many of you all did, both watching a stupid isekai protagonist be shanked in the head or watching Scott Pilgrim be shanked in the head. What I had heard, though, from so many different people, is that so much of Scott Pilgrim is partially about how Scott kinda sucks. He is not responsible. He’s not a thoughtful person. He’s certainly a mess. And yeah, so, it was interesting to kind of think about, like, okay, so what would this series be like if it was focusing more on Ramona and her narrative completely independent of Scott’s? 

Although, I mean, it is dependent on him in the sense that she’s trying to find him, but independent in the sense that she’s having these individual relationships with these different exes that she’s trying to resolve. And it feels almost like it’s become more about that than it is necessarily about finding Scott, kind of her reflecting on her life and the choices that she’s made and the unhealthy patterns that she’s noticed she tends to enter into. And overall, I really enjoyed the series. I think that the ending… I mean, should we be spoiling things?

ALEX: I think we can take this as a spoilercast. Let’s just dive in and chew it all up.

TONI: Yeah, the ending, where it turns out the villain is Scott himself as an older person, I thought really was… and we can get more into this later. I think we will. I think it really hammered home that I think part of what the series was doing was trying to question some of the assumptions, maybe, of the original comic and question where the original comic leaves its characters and whether their journey was perhaps as transformative as it should have been. But I don’t know, I’m curious. In the original comic, does Scott actually grow from the beginning to the end—

CAITLIN: Oh, yeah!

TONI: —or does it really feel like, if Scott was left to his own devices, he would become this character that he is in this anime, which is, I mean, the antagonist, who is kind of terrible?

CAITLIN: Oh, yeah, he grows a lot. He grows a lot. I just reread the whole comic in the last couple of days. He goes through a whole journey. Especially towards the end, his life falls apart, Ramona disappears on him, he and Wallace get kicked out of their apartment, so he’s drifting from sleeping in other friends’ beds to other friends’ beds, and then Gideon shows up, and he has to really figure out his life, he has to reconcile with his exes and take a look at himself in his own role, because Ramona finds out that he went on his date with her when he was already dating Knives. It’s a whole thing. And Ramona also has to do a lot of reflecting, as well. Just, the focus is more on Scott.

ALEX: Yeah, and I— This is a good segue, actually, into something I wanted to talk about with the movie, which I recognize you also have not seen, Toni, except for saying you had a look at it [and] were not necessarily very impressed by some of the choices that you saw. So, the movie is, as movie adaptations often are… even if it was a flop, it’s probably the better-known version of the story, or at least the one that got a lot of people into it. And let me know if you agree with this, Caitlin. The movie was very fun, but I kinda had two main gripes with it. The first is that, because it is a movie adaptation of a longer series, it compresses the timeline quite a lot. So, maybe the movie’s version of the story takes place over a couple of weeks, whereas the comic’s takes place over months and months, maybe even a whole year.

CAITLIN: About a year. About a year.

ALEX: Thank you, yeah. So what you get from that is a much more slow-burn sense of character development for Scott, as you said, you know, him really having to pull his head out of his ass and grow as a person in a very gradual kind of way. It also means that you get Ramona and Scott actually being together for months and months, so you get a much stronger sense of their actual relationship and how they work as a couple and what they’re actually fighting for, so to speak. So the movie is very much missing that sense of gradual growth. And specifically, the second gripe that I have is a little bit to do with casting and direction and how that kind of skews some of the characterization. Specifically, I think Michael Cera’s Scott is a different beast to the Scott from the comics in a way that impacts the character arc and the way that relationship is portrayed. What do you think of that?

CAITLIN: I… Listen, yes, I agree. I love the movie. It is very different from the comic in a lot of ways, but I’m fine with that because I expect adaptations to be different and there’s a lot of stuff with the comic that you can’t do with the movie. I’ve had a lot of conversations about this with people lately. I don’t think that there would be an actor who could pull off the comic version of Scott like you would want for the movie. I think Michael Cera was a different Scott, but he was a good Scott for what you needed for the film. Like, for example, Michael Cera: not a good-looking guy. He’s funny. He’s charming. I would love to hang out with him. Not really a good-looking guy by most people’s standards, whereas in the comic, it comes across that Scott is like nerdy cute. And so, Michael Cera adds this kind of pathetic nerd charm that… I think Scott’s a little bit douchier here in the comic. He still has nerd charm, but people keep saying, like, “Scott, if your life had a face, I would punch it,” because he keeps getting away with shit.

ALEX: [Chuckles] I do love that line. Is that from Kim?

CAITLIN: Yeah.

ALEX: I think [obscured by crosstalk].

TONI: [crosstalk] Oh my God, y’all. Relevant to this, I was looking up who played who in the adaptation. So I looked up Kim Pine, and the first thing that pops up is an image of Kim Pine kissing Scott. And I’m like, “Wait, did they kiss in the comic? I don’t like that.”

ALEX: They dated. They dated in high school.

CAITLIN: Yeah, they’re exes.

TONI: Oh. Ah, gotcha! Understood now. I thought for a moment that this was an Araragi situation where he… Oh.

ALEX: [Chuckles]

CAITLIN: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No. Listen, Scott’s exes show up, and it’s, you know, thematic resonance and whatever.

ALEX: Mm-hm. But I think you’ve—

TONI: Yeah, okay. So, I suppose it’s worth—

ALEX: Sorry, you go, Toni. [Chuckles]

TONI: I’m just gonna say I suppose it’s worth mentioning now what my gripe with the movie is. I hate the costumes so much!

CAITLIN: No, but you see—

TONI: The costume and makeup work is so atrocious! And I know it’s accurate to the comic, but it’s—

CAITLIN: [crosstalk] It’s of the time! It’s of the time!

TONI: [Sighs]

CAITLIN: That was 2010, baby!

TONI: I was in high school in 2010, and people were not dressed that garishly—or from what I remember.

CAITLIN: [crosstalk] I mean, it’s— It’s an aesthetic choice. The movie is very flashy. I don’t think it’s… A lot of the… Because Scott wears a lot of, like, band T-shirts.

TONI: I’m thinking about Matthew Patel in particular.

CAITLIN: Oh, well, he’s a weird theater nerd.

TONI: That’s true, I guess.

ALEX: [Chuckles]

TONI: I guess. I mean, sort of. [Chuckles]

CAITLIN: They make fun of him! They make fun of him.

TONI: I know, but—

ALEX: [crosstalk] The transition from comic to live action is always interesting.

CAITLIN: They are just like, “What, are pirates in or something?” They make fun of him for dressing like that.

TONI: I know. There’s something about the original comic, though, that makes it look less horrendous, even though it’s the same outfit. I don’t know why.

CAITLIN: Well, I mean, they’re both very… The movie is also very stylized. It does fit in with the movie aesthetic, I would say.

ALEX: This is true. The movie is very stylish, which, again, is Edgar Wright having the time of his life with editing and special effects and comic-booky nonsense, which, again, he’s great at. The movie’s fun. But I think earlier you hit the nail on the head—

TONI: And to be clear— Yeah, sorry.

ALEX: Just earlier, you hit the nail, Caitlin, I think, with describing Scott, Michael Cera’s Scott specifically, as nerdy and cute because I think he is a much cuter, wetter [Chuckles] version of Scott.

CAITLIN: [crosstalk, amused] “Wetter.”

ALEX: And at the same time, Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s Ramona is much more cool and deadpan. And again, because you have this compressed timeline, you don’t necessarily get to unpack these characters in the same way, so they’re maybe a bit more archetypal and they kind of… You know, you still take the time to, for want of a better word, kind of deconstruct this idea of “Ramona is the Manic Pixie Dream Girl that you’ll have to literally fight to win in the end!”

CAITLIN: No, she’s a train wreck. And I think the biggest issue with the movie I have had… And I understand why they made these decisions, because (A) the last volume of the comic wasn’t out and (B) that time compression. But the ending for Ramona hit so much harder in the comic. It is both of them reaching, having to work towards this place where they can be a couple, whereas in the movie, it’s just like, well, Ramona is being controlled by Gideon, and Scott has to beat him.

ALEX: Mm-hm. Yeah, you lose a bit of the nuance with that really compressed timeline. And again, I think with some of the storytelling and directorial choices they had to make to go for a certain cool factor, to simplify the story, to pare it down into a 90-minute length or whatever… all of which is very interesting, because of course now we have Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, which feels very consciously… which, by the way, is written by Bryan Lee O’Malley—or co-written by him at least—who is the original creator. And—

CAITLIN: BLOM. BLOM is [what] the fans call him.

ALEX: What do they call him, sorry?

CAITLIN: BLOM.

ALEX: [Laughs]

CAITLIN: I don’t know if fans actually call him that. I just like saying BLOM.

ALEX: Well, they do now. You’re a fan and you’re calling him that.

CAITLIN: That’s right.

ALEX: [Chuckles] It’s also executive-produced by Edgar Wright. So, he’s like… I don’t know. It felt very, again… with all this nostalgia and the marketing being like, “It’s like the movie you remember,” and then the series is, it felt like, a very conscious kind of returning to this story older and wiser and playing it out again in a different way, in a way that was very self-aware and very referential to the movie—to the point where they are, at one point, on a movie set, basically making the Edgar Wright movie because someone dropped the script off from the future.

CAITLIN: [crosstalk] Yeah, Edgar Wrong!

ALEX: Oh, yes. Edgar Wrong. [Chuckles]

CAITLIN: The name of the director in that was Edgar Wrong. [Chuckles] And Simon Pegg and…

ALEX: … and Nick Frost turned out for this voice cast. That was cute.

[Chuckling]

CAITLIN: That was just a fun little cameo.

ALEX: Yes, those are two actors that appear in all his work.

TONI: [crosstalk] I should be clear. I am a fan of Edgar Wright. I’m not an Edgar Wright hater here.

CAITLIN: I think you should watch the movie if you like Edgar Wright.

TONI: I love Hot Fuzz. I think Hot Fuzz is a fantastic movie. And then The World’s End was very formative for me growing up. The World’s End was like… Yeah, it’s just one of my favorite movies, at the end of high school. But anyways—

CAITLIN: You should watch the Scott Pilgrim movie, then. You should.

ALEX: I think it would be fascinating to watch— you have watched Scott Pilgrim Takes Off first and then go back to the 2010 movie. I think that would be a fascinating, well, time-travel exercise, fittingly enough for Scott Pilgrim Takes Off.

So, yeah. So we’ve talked about… We have various, various versions of Scott across comic, movie, and now Takes Off, which, again, Takes Off kind of follows this to a certain extreme and is like, “Well, actually, you remember how Scott wasn’t actually a great guy in the comic and had to learn and grow? We’ve extrapolated on that to the point where he has become the ultimate antagonist in the series.”

CAITLIN: The eighth Evil Ex.

ALEX: The eighth Evil Ex. Exactly. Which, by the way, I am obsessed with the fact that it is a plot point in the show… In fact, the final confrontation of the show is actually the love interests from this comic that you liked, they fucking got divorced! And now one of them is going back in time to try and make sure the relationship never happens in the first place. And that is fascinating, as your “what happens next,” your continuation of your beloved pop culture series. It’s like, “Aw, what happened to my OTP?” It’s like, “They got turbo divorced and created a time wormhole that…”

[Chuckling]

CAITLIN: And one of them went back in time to make sure that they would still meet.

ALEX: Yeah, which… I don’t know. Maybe we’ll talk more about the ending in a minute. But we’ve talked a bit about Scott as antagonist. Can we talk a bit about Ramona as protagonist? Because that is, as we say, the new thing that we get when Scott is literally ripped out of the narrative—by himself, it turns out. He’s his own worst enemy. 

We then get a lot of screen time with Ramona. Which, we obviously got a lot of screen time with Ramona before, but as we’ve said, regardless of the level of depth that she was allowed by the various narratives, she was always kinda like… the series is very much Scott’s point of view, so she was always kind of in the role of love interest. But now it’s kinda done a switcheroo. So instead of the story where Scott is fighting to get Ramona, we now have Ramona solving mysteries to get Scott. And I don’t know. Having met her for the first time through this format, Toni, what did you think of Ramona? What do you think of her?

TONI: I thought Ramona was definitely an… interesting character. It was funny. When I first put on the show, I watched like the first five minutes. I know my roommate keeps making surprise guest appearances as a character in our podcast.

ALEX: [Chuckles]

CAITLIN: It’s okay. Jared’s a recurring character.

TONI: But they noticed that they reframed the opening shots of the show so that instead of it being this kind of comical “Dude, this is a dream. Why are you making such a big deal? Quit being…” which is a very dismissive attitude that Ramona takes towards Scott, towards the more romanticized kind of thing, where she’s not making fun of him, the narrative is not making fun of him. It is uncritically a romantic thing. And I thought that was interesting because then, when I actually felt like I got to know Ramona in the show itself, she embodies this very wry, slightly sarcastic, an unsentimental character, to the point where after Scott died, I was a little bit surprised at the way that she— It’s not that she immediately moved on or something but more that she seemed, at first, really unbothered by it, just like, “Oh, he’s dead. Hm. Well.” Very matter of fact. 

And then over the course of the series, seeing her confront her ambivalence, in a sense, right, confront all the ways that when situations got difficult, she kinda just shrugged her shoulders and walked away, right? And I felt like that made it make more sense, right? And also, she… I really… There were certain moments in this series that I just found incredibly profound, especially with… I mean, my favorite episode, I think, was the one where she was confronted by her old college roommate/lover. I really, really connected with that episode because I’ve definitely been in situations where people, instead of trying to sort through mess, just walk away from it. And I’ve been thinking a lot recently about just how much our propensity to conflict avoidance sometimes and temptation to just kind of walk away from things that have gotten even a little messy, how much harm that can do when people are disposable. 

I was even listening to this podcast… not podcast, this book by Naomi Klein called Doppelganger, in which she talks about how the online attitude where you can just block or mute anybody who you’re a little grumpy with and basically disappear them from your life without them knowing that you’ve disappeared them from your life… especially if you mute them, they have no idea you muted them, so they’re basically not even… kinda carries over into how we can treat the people around us, where if we want them to not be present at all, then we can just, like, bam, they’re gone and we never have to think about them again. Which, I don’t know—

ALEX: [crosstalk] Ah, it’s a good thing this story takes place before the invention of social media, because both Ramona and Scott would be insufferable on it, I think.

[Chuckling]

ALEX: Sorry, as you were saying.

TONI: Oh my God.

ALEX: [Chuckles] It’s a period piece. It’s important. As you were saying.

TONI: But yeah, I guess I just have been thinking a lot lately about this idea of disposability politics, which is different from cancel culture, right, but the idea that we don’t actually owe each other anything or we don’t have any responsibility to each other to sort through mess, to conflict-resolve, to do anything, to be in community with each other, and that at any time we could just drop off the face of the earth and that the other person just has to be okay with that, right? And I’ve been thinking about that so much and also the tension between, like, on one hand, that is the nature of relationships, and if we weren’t allowed to do that, then relationships would be really fucked up and abusive, right? We need to be able to, for any reason, drop out of these things, right? But also, at the same time, it’s like… but we do have that ethical commitment. Just because we should be allowed to do something doesn’t mean that it’s not fucked up and wrong sometimes, you know!

CAITLIN: Mm-hm. I think you’ve really hit on one of the fundamental things about Scott Pilgrim and the things that Scott Pilgrim Takes Over [sic] is in conversation with from the original is that Ramona has always been the one who leaves. She is the one who… She takes off at the first sign of conflict. And so, now, Scott has disappeared in the middle of nowhere. And if anything, she seems to be one of the more concerned people at his funeral. But I just chalk that up to [how] a lot of Scott Pilgrim operates on dream logic.

ALEX: [Chuckles]

CAITLIN: I mean, it’s true! It’s kinda got magical realism vibes. Now she is confronting not just the mystery of what happened to Scott but her own history with her exes, what she did to Roxie when she was just like, “Yeah, I was just experimenting. I’m outta here. Bye!” or her dumping Lucas Lee for Todd Ingram. She kind of messes people— She disappears and that messes people up and she’s having to deal with that, and her older self is the one saying, “Yeah, I was done running away. But Will Forte’s Scott decided that he wanted to run away.” I loved how they— How did the cast members, who are mostly 38 years old, feel about calling 37-year-old Scott “Old Scott”?

[Chuckling]

TONI: [Hums solemnly]

CAITLIN: But that was very much from the point of view of a 23-year-old, you know! To a 23-year-old, 37 does seem old.

ALEX: Yeah, I was also impressed that Wallace has gone gray by 39, as well. I guess he’s had a very stressful life, what with being Scott’s roommate and all.

CAITLIN: Well, some people just go gray early.

ALEX: [Chuckles]

TONI: [Laughs] Blame Scott for every silver hair that he has. I’m sure that’s what he does.

CAITLIN: Oh, I’m sure he does.

ALEX: I think it’s fair. Talking about Ramona’s exes, though, and talking about the third episode, because I felt like that was much, much stronger a take on her relationship with her exes… And it’s especially interesting to me that Roxie goes first and has, first of all, a beautifully animated fight scene, which is just them fighting in the video shop and falling through all the different movies set pieces—for no reason other than, as you said, dream logic and also it’s cool—and yeah, this really raw emotional conflict between the two of them, which we kind of didn’t get in the original. The movie, especially, is very… Again, because of the compressed timeline but also because it’s 2010, Roxie’s kind of joke. The idea that one of the—

CAITLIN: Ol’ Bi-furious.

ALEX: Yes. [Chuckles] It’s like—

TONI: Oh, not bi-furious!

ALEX: Yep. Which, admittedly, that’s a good line but it’s not amazing in the context of representation. It’s very just like… What is Scott’s line?

CAITLIN: [crosstalk] And Mae Whitman is very good.

ALEX: He figures out that Roxie is one of Ramona’s exes and is like, “Wait, you had a sexy phase?” That’s what he says. And again—

TONI: [Gasps, feigning shock]

ALEX: Yeah. [Laughs] And she fares a bit better in the comics because, again, the comics have more time. And she also gets defeated in a different way, which is slightly less embarrassing for her.

CAITLIN: Yeah! I didn’t like how the movie handled that.

ALEX: Because for context, Toni, and correct me if I’m remembering this wrong, Caitlin, Roxie is defeated because Ramona’s like, “Oh, if you touch her behind her knee, she’s really sensitive,” and so Scott does that and Roxie basically goes “Ooh!” and kind of has a very, you know, kind of pleasure moment and collapses to the floor. Which (A) is like, “Aw, man,” but also, (B) that wasn’t her thing in the comics. That was Envy. That was an Envy trait, and they took that from Envy and gave it to Roxie instead! So, Roxie gets done a little— I don’t know. I was gonna say I don’t want to say Roxie gets done dirty in the 2010 movie, but maybe I think it’s fair to say that Roxie gets done a bit dirty in the 2010 movie.

CAITLIN: A little bit.

ALEX: And so, very interesting that we get this more nuanced picture of all the Exes, and, again, very interesting that Roxie goes first to kind of set that tone, to be like, “No, no, this is what this story is about now. It’s about taking these more one-dimensional characters who were literally the bosses in the video game that is Scott’s romantic relationship and sort of humanizing them more and actually looking at the relationships and implying much more of an actual relationship between her and Ramona than we initially got.” And because Roxie’s episode was so strong, I kind of felt like the Lucas and Todd episodes that came after were a bit weaksauce and kind of random. But…

CAITLIN: I loved those episodes. I don’t know what you’re talking about.

ALEX: [crosstalk] Okay. [Chuckles]

CAITLIN: Like, listen, everyone on the internet’s talking about Scott Pilgrim yuri. I’m here for the Scott Pilgrim yaoi.

[Laughter]

TONI: But they were cowards! They only showed kissing! Cowards, all of them!

ALEX: [Chuckles]

TONI: And that kissing was on the movie set, too. Hm.

ALEX: Yeah, that was not a plotline I was expecting, as this… just all about “How are we developing Todd Ingram as a character? Well, he’s gonna realize that he likes men, get dumped by Wallace, and then revoke his veganism by sadness-eating a bunch of poutine.” [Chuckles] Like, ah, okay, well, if that’s the direction you want to take with this character, that’s fine by me. [Chuckles]

CAITLIN: Mm-hm. No, it was not at all what I expected, but another—

TONI: I am happy to— Sorry. [Chuckles]

CAITLIN: I thought it was another delightful surprise.

TONI: I was happy to see Wallace getting some. I mean, that was my main thing, is that Wallace is a very fun character, so watching him—

CAITLIN: Oh, I love Wallace.

TONI: So, watching him get some was satisfying.

CAITLIN: I figured you would like Wallace.

TONI: Wallace is fun. Wallace is like my kind of guy.

CAITLIN: Wallace Wells, drunk homosexual.

TONI: Wallace Wells. He’s basically me, so it’s okay.

CAITLIN: I wasn’t gonna say it.

[Chuckling]

CAITLIN: I wasn’t gonna say it.

TONI: But you were thinking it, weren’t you?

[Chuckling]

CAITLIN: I was! I was. Also—

ALEX: Wallace is great.

CAITLIN: In the comic he always read as kind of Asian to me, which is why I was surprised when he was cast as Kieran Culkin.

TONI: Well, that’s my thing about—

CAITLIN: [crosstalk] Although Kieran Culkin was amazing in it, in that role.

TONI: Well, that’s the thing, though, is that the— That’s my other gripe with the movie, is that there’s so many characters who I frankly think come across as not white who are cast as white people! And I’m like, why? And I know Lucas Lee is based on Jason Lee, so, okay, maybe you can get away with that. That’s fine. But yeah, Wallace Wells… That boy is not white. Come on. Just stop. Especially in Toronto! Toronto is such a… Canada in general is extremely Asian. And Toronto in particular is very Asian. So, removing that aspect to me removes a key aspect of what makes Toronto an interesting place. Yeah, I find that very frustrating personally.

ALEX: Well, on that, do we want to talk about Knives, Ms. Knives Chau, the high schooler? Because she also got a bit of a different spin in Scott Pilgrim Takes Off that, yeah, is another interesting retake, redo, on some of the main female characters. What do we think of Knives?

CAITLIN: Yeah. My feeling with Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is it asks… You know, the comic is from Scott’s perspective, everything is kind of revolving around Scott, the characters have their own lives and their own relationships, but it’s all kinda filtered through Scott’s lens, and he is the pivotal relationship for a lot of characters such as Knives. And so, the question is “What if Scott wasn’t there, farting around, being an idiot, messing up all of these…?” Not messing up. That feels unfair, but you know what I mean. Just being a human wrecking ball.

TONI: No, you can say it. You can say it.

CAITLIN: He’s a human wrecking ball. And Knives is kinda… Instead of being the girl who is admiring her boyfriend play in his shitty band, she becomes a musician. She does not spend all of her time competing against Ramona. She’s able to figure out her own self much more. And I thought it was a really satisfying arc.

ALEX: I thought her line at the end was very sweet, where she said, “I’m glad that you’re alive, but I’m also glad that you died,” [Chuckles] which is such a… Yeah, Knives, I think, got a much more quiet, maybe a bit more subtle kind of arc. But I agree, it was very satisfying and it was very… I still kinda had this question, I’m like, “Don’t you have any friends your own age? Why are you still hanging around all these 20-something-year-olds?” But also, yeah, she is the missing ingredient. She makes the band not suck. Then, you know, turns out she’s like a musical prodigy who can learn bass in four hours or whatever. And I like that she begins mournfully wearing Scott’s jacket everywhere and then slowly takes it off as it goes along. And, you know, I… [Chuckles] I felt that—

CAITLIN: By the way, I just want to express real quick how happy it made me when Envy Adams came out and started singing “I Will Remember You” and it was Metric.

ALEX: I didn’t know it was a cover.

CAITLIN: [crosstalk] In Scott Pilgrim Takes Off?

ALEX: I didn’t get the gag with that, but I was like—

CAITLIN: Oh no, that’s a super iconic song!

TONI: [Surprised] Oh.

CAITLIN: Did you not know— Oh my God. Come on! Come on!

ALEX: My God, are we too young? [Chuckles]

TONI: Listen, the only things I listen to are avant-garde classical music and house music they play at raves, okay? So, leave me alone.

ALEX: And anime opening themes.

CAITLIN: Oh my God.

TONI: That, too. That, too. That is true.

CAITLIN: I’m dropping the Wikipedia article in the Discord.

ALEX: [Chuckles] I will say I was kind of disappointed we didn’t get much Envy Adams content in this because I really liked her. But then again, I recognize she did get quite a satisfying arc and conclusion in the comics and got a lot more screen time, so maybe that’s why, but still I was like, “Ah! Where is she?” It was me at the back shouting, “Envy! Envy!”

CAITLIN: Yeah, and also, she’s not gonna figure very heavily into Ramona’s story. Poor Envy. Her boyfriend figured out he was attracted to men and…

ALEX: And lost his vegan powers.

CAITLIN: [Sighs] Lost his vegan powers.

ALEX: Which, oh, yeah, by the way, Toni, if you’re vegan, you get superpowers. This is established lore in the comics. How and why is not really explained, so I can’t explain it any more than that, but…

TONI: Listen, I already… I asked my roommate about this, again, and I asked them and they were just like, “He has vegan powers. It’s just vegan powers. That’s all there is to it! There’s nothing more to it.”

CAITLIN: [crosstalk] With Scott, you just roll with it. Whenever they introduce something weird like that, you just go with it. You don’t question it. Just accept it.

TONI: I know in the notes, we have something about talking about the epic time-traveling divorce and midlife crisis stuff.

ALEX: Yeah. [Chuckles]

TONI: I actually kinda do want to talk about that.

ALEX: Let’s talk about that, to round us out.

TONI: [crosstalk] There is some stuff there that— Yeah, because I have some thoughts on that… I’m like… yeah.

ALEX: Mm-hm, yeah, the time-traveling turbo divorce, as I will call it. You can imagine that appearing in big cartoony font above my head as I say that.

TONI: Okay. Part of my confusion with that was like, does this show operate along the theoretical-physics, branching-timelines kind of time-travel mechanics where when you go back in time, you create a new timeline where you’ve gone back in time?

CAITLIN: Scott does say something about his memories changing.

TONI: [slowly] Okay.

CAITLIN: It’s kinda glossed over.

ALEX: Yeah, I think in the same way that a lot of the other sci-fi elements are glossed over. I don’t know. Judging by the fact that whoever it is is like, “How did you build a time machine?” Like, “Ah, the twins helped me with it. It’s super easy. They got a robot. It’s fine. Kid stuff.” And they just keep talking. You know, as with the dream logic of everything.

TONI: To me that’s—

CAITLIN: And then they sing the Bubblegum Crisis theme song.

ALEX: [Laughs]

TONI: Oh my God. And then there was that moment where Roxie fucking sings “The Hampster Dance” on her way out of the VHS store and I, like, died.

CAITLIN: By the way, Toni, also for context, you know the scene where they’re showing footage from The Clash at the Demonhead concert and everyone in the audience is singing along?

TONI: Yeah?

CAITLIN: That was a song from the movie. And it did, for a second, for me really feel like being at a concert where everyone is singing along with the band’s iconic song.

TONI: Aw.

CAITLIN: It just… Yeah. Just, you know? Scott Pilgrim Takes Off just… it really taps into the nostalgia bomb without being really aggressively like, “Are you nostalgic now, millennial woman?”

ALEX: I mean, especially in that “Are you nostalgic for this? Okay, we’re taking it all apart and doing it again differently.” [Chuckles] I feel like that’s a pretty big factor in… Like, it’s not just going back and polishing itself and showing you the shininess. It’s just like, “Okay, you remember this.” It’s relying on a lot of audience prior knowledge and expectations to do all of its twists and turns, which, again, is why, yeah, Scott fucking— The title changing to “Scott Pilgrim Fucking Dies” at the end of the first episode is so interesting because you’re like, “What, that’s not how I was expecting that to go. That’s not how I know that that goes.” And again, the whole time-travel thing of being like, “Well, this is an alternate timeline. The timeline that’s already happened is the movie and the comics. That’s the story you already know. And the characters from that story have come back to try and stop that story that we already know from taking place.” It’s so meta and delicious in that way.

CAITLIN: And just seeing them making the movie that people have seen.

ALEX: Mm-hm. Yes. Layers and layers.

TONI: I also think— Okay, here’s the reason why I asked that question earlier, though, about time travel, because that really matters to me about character motivation for the antagonists, right? Are they trying to prevent themselves from having to experience this horrible thing and so they can erase their memories of the horrible thing, à la…? What’s that movie called? Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind sort of thing?

CAITLIN: Good movie.

TONI: Or— Fantastic movie. Or are they trying to create a new world and be altruistic to a different version of themselves that will then get to experience a better future? That matters to me, because the beauty of the ending to me, if she indeed is choosing to stay with Scott even though it’s going to turn out badly… It really reminds me of what I love so much about Arrival and the ending of Arrival. Have y’all seen Arrival?

CAITLIN: I have not actually seen Arrival. I know I need to.

ALEX: I haven’t seen it either.

TONI: Ugh.

CAITLIN: I’m sorry. I know! It’s a movie about linguistics! [Sighs]

TONI: Okay, first of all, you need to watch it and you’ll love it, Caitlin. It’s fantastic.

CAITLIN: I know. It’s made for me.

TONI: It is a fantastic movie. But to me, this idea that even though you know that the future is going to turn out poorly and that you can kinda see where things are going and you can see what direction your romance with somebody is gonna go in, that you still then choose to kind of let it happen and experience it fully because you yourself in the moment know that it feels right for you now in this moment, I think that’s something really interesting to me.

CAITLIN: Ah, the Unlimited Ex Works. I’m sorry. That’s a Fate/stay night reference.

ALEX: No, no, yeah.

[Chuckling]

ALEX: Well, fucking older Scott turns up with darker skin and white hair and tries to kick his younger self’s ass. That is the big twist in Unlimited Blade Works.

CAITLIN: [Chuckles] Yeah. And here’s the thing…

ALEX: [crosstalk] Not to, you know, spoil a 20-year-old visual novel on this podcast. [Laughs]

CAITLIN: Yeah, sorry. Here’s the thing, though, Toni. I would be surprised if Scott thought that far through. Scott’s an idiot.

TONI: No, for me, Ramona, though! Ramona’s the one who chooses to stay with Scott. That’s what I’m saying.

ALEX: Yeah, and Ramona, too, is the one who went back in time, was like, “Well, look, maybe my time-traveling, separated husband is going to try and erase this, but I wanted you to know the story still. And so that’s why I dropped the script on young Neil’s desk.” That was really interesting. And that idea of— It pairs very nicely with the ending of the comic, because that was also quite uncertain but kind of hopeful in a way that I really enjoyed, because it’s not a straightforward “And they lived happily ever after.” Despite all of the zany video-gamey stuff going on, it’s a very grounded ending, in that it’s Scott and Ramona being like, “Maybe this will work? We just have to give it a shot.” And it’s this imagery of them kind of jumping into the unknown together, literally. 

And so, this kind of felt like, yeah, a return to that in a really interesting way, of “Look, maybe you’re gonna have some good times and then you’re gonna get time-traveling turbo divorced. But does that negate the good times? That mean it’s not worth it? Does it mean that if you know this is a possibility, you can’t work to change it and become a better person and stop those mistakes from happening?” Because as a romance story… Because ultimately, this is a romance. You know, it’s a story about Scott trying to get the girl, or, in this case, Ramona trying to get her boy. That’s just fascinating to me, building that romantic uncertainty into the plot and into the ending, being like, “Listen. Maybe it won’t work out. But are you choosing to go ahead and be happy for now and try to work on it and try to do your best?” Okay, yeah, you are choosing that, because that’s all we can do as humans. We can’t try to make a perfect timeline where you never break up, because that’s unhinged. [Chuckles] I thought that such an interesting return.

CAITLIN: And that’s part of why I feel like it’s so in conversation with the comic from an older, more experienced perspective, because Brandon [sic] Lee O’Malley was about the same age as the characters when he started it and now he is much older. Now he is older than Old Scott.

ALEX: [Chuckles]

CAITLIN: Not older than Very Old Scott! But it just feels like… Because Scott Pilgrim is messy. It’s a messy work, in the way— Like I always say that I love Fushigi Yugi for its mess, right? And I love Scott Pilgrim in the same way. It is art created in the moment by a young creative person who is working through some stuff, drawing from their own life, because, as we all know, in the case of Fushigi Yugi, Yuu Watase did go to another world and summon a— No. Anyway…

[Chuckling]

CAITLIN: But yeah! And so, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, instead of trying to be the more polished version of Scott Pilgrim, it looks at the themes of Scott Pilgrim and says, “Now we’re older. Now we’re more experienced. We’re more cynical. We’ve been through different kinds of heartbreak. We also see our exes in different ways.” You know, so much of Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is looking at Ramona’s exes as humans and them being able to kind of find their own place of peace.

That’s why at the end Scott’s like, “Okay, let’s go,” and they’re like, “Dude, we are so over this. We have moved on!” Because a lot of it was… the thematic element of it in the comic was Ramona has not dealt with her own breakups. It is an older and wiser Brandon [sic] Lee O’Malley looking back and saying, “This is my relationship with the characters now. This is my relationship with who I was.” And I think that’s why it hit so hard, because I was the same age as the characters and there were parts of Ramona that I really, really related to. Reading the comic really just brought it back. The part of the end where she’s like, “Yeah, I was trying to outrun change.” Like, whew! I had just graduated from college. I spent a year living in the city where I went to college and then I moved to Japan and people kept coming and going. That hit me in the chest like Ramona with her hammer.

ALEX: [Chuckles]

TONI: [Hums gently]

CAITLIN: And so, seeing it revisit those themes in a way that now connects with me in my mid-30s, I think that’s why I love it— I mean, I know that’s why I love it so much. Plus, it’s super fun and the animation’s amazing and it’s got great needle drops. And that’s why I wanted to hear your perspective, Toni, because it feels so much— I can’t imagine how someone would take it when they are not a millennial who read the comics at a time in the life where they were in a similar place to the characters.

TONI: Well, the funny thing is to me is that, I mean, I’m watching this as somebody who’s in a similar place to the characters.

CAITLIN: Yeah, I think that’s really interesting!

TONI: Right? I mean, admittedly, I’m a little bit older than them and I’m much more established in my career than probably they are, right? I’m like 28; the characters are like 23. But still, it was a very interesting thing for me to watch this reflection of a lot of the things I’ve been trying to figure out about my own life in terms of, like, “How do I have meaningful romantic relationships that don’t require me to sacrifice my values but also require me to grow a little bit and be a better person? How do I maintain friendships with people through mess?” 

Which, I mean the show is about mess and trying to maintain your care for other people and the importance of that even when mess happens. And I think that there’s this… Yeah, I really connected with it and it made me really interested in reading the comics. I’ll be honest, I really am very interested in reading the comics now. And I’ll be honest, I’m still not particularly interested in watching the movie. But that, I think, is also just partly because I think I tend to like animated and comic book forms more. It was really something special. I still think my favorite episode was Episode 3, though. Roxie is my heart. What a fantastic episode. And the animation, I will also say, was just spectacular throughout it.

CAITLIN: Incredible animation.

TONI: I’m so glad they got Science Saru to do it, because they were really the perfect team for this show.

ALEX: I think that is a very thematically beautiful place to wrap us up for today. There’s a lot more to talk about, of course. There’s so many things. We could dig so much deeper into Ramona and Knives and Kim, even, deeper into the Exes. We haven’t even talked about Gordon Goose and Julie becoming an evil power couple, which is so fucking funny!

CAITLIN: Gideon Graves, the poor little meow-meow! Poor little meow-meow Gideon Graves.

TONI: [crosstalk] He is such a poor little meow-meow.

ALEX: [Chuckles]

CAITLIN: He was not a poor little meow-meow in the comic, I’ll tell you that.

ALEX: Mm-hm.

TONI: [Hums curiously]

ALEX: [Chuckles] Honestly, Julie getting her dues. You know? Good to see her get more screen time and just be an asshole and get what she deserves in a positive way. So much more—

CAITLIN: Quick question before we go, before we sign off, though. Did you watch English or Japanese?

ALEX: Oh!

TONI: I watched the English. I will say I liked most of the vocal performances, but I believe it was Alison Pill as Kim… Kim’s the video store employee, right?

ALEX: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And the drummer.

TONI: That was the only voice acting that I thought was absolutely terrible. But in terms of highlights— That was a lowlight for me. But Johnny Simmons as Young Neil was so fucking funny.

CAITLIN: I thought— He was a lowlight for me.

TONI: Really?

CAITLIN: He had a lot of mush-mouth going on.

TONI: For me, some of his one-liners, though, were incredible. Like “Just when I discovered I’m a cinephile.” Like, oh my fucking God, that was… It killed me.

ALEX: “Is that my sleep paralysis demon?” [Chuckles]

CAITLIN: For me the best performance was Satya Bhabha. I know I’m not— I can’t do the aspirated B’s. Sorry. Sorry to people who know how to actually speak that language. I thought he was amazing as Matthew Patel. He really brought that anime energy.

ALEX: Mm-hm, mm-hm. And good for Matthew Patel for getting so much more screen time, you know?

TONI: [crosstalk] It was very camp. Honestly, I thought that Matthew Patel was a really compelling character in this. Yeah, just definitely reminds me of so many unfortunate dates I’ve gone on with actors in New York City—

[Laughter]

TONI: —that made me want to claw my ears and eyes and every part of myself out.

ALEX: That made you want to run away into Subspace and then be terribly surprised when they turn up years later as one of your League of Evil Exes. Like, oh God, no!

TONI: Oh, my goodness. Listen.

ALEX: [Chuckles]

TONI: Actually, though… Mm, I’ll tell y’all some other time, off pod.

[Laughter]

ALEX: All right, well, we will return in due time to the story of Toni’s evil exes on another exciting episode of the anime that is their life. For now, though, we’re gonna wrap it up. Thank you so much for listening. This is going to be, if not the last, one of the last podcast episodes that goes out for 2023, so I’m gonna say thank you, as well, for being along for the ride for this whole year.

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