It’s been a while since Phil brought out the ol’ Chillpak soapbox, but on this week’s show, it comes in handy as Dean and Phil delve into the huge show biz news in “The Explanation of the Week” involving late night shows, corporate mergers, bribery, evangelical Christianity, and Stephen Colbert. In “What We’re Reading” the teachings of Taoist philosophy go into the spotlight. The first two episodes of “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” season 3 get reviewed and Phil defends the series from some recent criticisms about the show “not being about anything”. Then TV mysteries “The Residence” and “Poker Face” get discussed before the 1965 big-screen Agatha Christie-adapted mystery Ten Little Indians and 2024 Cannes winner for Best Director, Grand Tour, get reviewed.

There may be tricks aplenty, but we can assure you, this week’s Season 2 Episode 99 will definitely be a treat for the listener! Before Dean and Phil can fully celebrate the spooky (like Dean’s live exploration this weekend of the haunted Wheeler Mansion), they have to discuss the truly horrifying – a real-life horror story ending in tragedy on the set of an independent film western that claimed the life of a talented young cinematographer. Dean shares a story from “The Lone Gunmen” of how he was almost killed on set! That will lead to remembrances of other talented individuals who died recently, including a beloved actor from TV and stage, the 7th friend on “Friends”, a longtime star of “The Andy Griffith Show” and the drummer for both Elvis Presley and Jerry Garcia! Then, it’s off to the movies, where your friends in podcasting discuss a handful of Halloween-appropriate classics before discussing the box office performance of Dune and review the film as well. Finally, it’s the return of the “Vintage Movie Ad” game, where Dean will try to guess the titles (3 remakes of horror classics and 3 sequels to modern horror classics) just from their ad copy!