Kill James Bond! (Podcast)

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The Culprits (Left to right: Abigail, Devon, and November)

Kill James Bond! is a biweekly podcast (with bonus episodes in the off weeks) dedicated to analysing the James Bond franchise through a leftist, feminist, anti-imperialist lens, hosted by Abigail Thorn of Philosophy Tube, November Kelly of Trash Future and Well There's Your Problem, and Devon.

Each mainline episode examines an installment of the franchise - beginning with 1962's Dr. No - and applies the nominally-scientific "SCUM System" to it - rating its levels of Smarm, Cultural Insensitivity, Unprovoked Violence and Misogyny out of 007. Bonus episodes, meanwhile, look at Bond-adjacent works - tie-in video games (like GoldenEye (1997)), or films starring Bond actors (like Sean Connery's role in The Name of the Rose), or spy films that reference Bond (like Cars 2). Having completed a thorough drubbing of all of the cinematic Bonds thus far, they have continued on with other spy-themed movies, from the serious (Breach, Syriana) to the... less serious (Totally Spies!). After the mainline Bond movies, the podcast tackled the The Bourne Series and The Man from U.N.C.L.E..

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Season 1

Season 2

Season 3

This podcast provides examples of:

The Ace:
- Minor villain Kronsteen from From Russia with Love is treated as this. The hosts praise him as being infinitely cooler than Bond, cry foul when he is offed by Blofeld and invent the Kronsteen Rosette to honor similar unappreciated villains.
- Inspector Fan Sing-Ling also gets this honour.
Actually Pretty Funny: They are of course inclined to dislike Bond and Bond movies but the hosts are always willing to admit when something is good. Any time when a Bond shows empathy, kindness, or general restraint they find themselves endeared, and they have to pause to re-orient themselves and wonder if they're getting soft. To their great aggravation, they all really enjoyed the first two Daniel Craig movies.
Artifact Title: At the end of season 1, they get to No Time to Die, which is currently the last Bond movie. Season 2 covers general spy/military movies, rather than any actual James Bond. Season 3 is/was about Eurospy films.
Ascended Extra: The whole point of the Kronsteen Rosette and Goodnight Cross, awarded Once an Episode for underappreciated Bond villains and allies respectively.
- They later add the Kaufman Star, for minor characters which elevate or derail a film.
Author Appeal: The bonus episodes are decided by the hosts, which often means covering films they're personally interested in. For November, this often means foreign-language films like The Lives of Others and All About My Mother, whereas Devon will pick martial arts flicks, often from their vast collection of Hong Kong bootlegs.
Awesome McCoolname: They're quite taken by the name of a boat being Disco Volante.
Bait-and-Switch:
- The Teaser for On Her Majesty's Secret Service opens with Abi appearing to give a sincere dedication and eulogy to the recently deceased Prince Philip...only for it to be for DMX instead, with all three hosts declaring Philip is in hell.
- The description for their first Casino Royale episode indicates it will be the 2006 Eon film. It's actually the 1967 parody version.
The Big Guy: The hosts get a lot of mileage out of any time some enormous and absurdly muscular Hollywood action hero is supposedly inconspicuous among normal sized or even normal-large people.
Bile Fascination: They hated watching Shoot Em Up but acknowledged at the start of that episode that really terrible films sometimes make for the best podcasting material, and this one particularly says a lot about masculinity that makes for a good dissection.
Brick Joke: While introducing Moonraker the hosts posit that it was written by the same person who wrote The Spy Who Loved Me, a movie they rather enjoyed, 'helped' by a baboon, who was responsible for all the nonsensical parts. Later in the film Devon gets wildly indignant about the villain causing his own problems and Abi, mirroring their tone, exclaims "What is this baboon doing in here!?"
Brown Note: While they enjoyed For Your Eyes Only quite a bit overall, Margaret Thatcher appearing at the very end horrifies them. Abi claims she got an aneurysm and they agree that there should have been a trigger warning.
Complexity Addiction: The trio argue that the villain in Without Remorse made things far too complicated for himself by involving actual soldiers and actual operations in his plot, especially as this gives Michael B. Jordan's character both the opportunity and the impetus to stop him. Given his high level of authority, he has access to everything necessary to get exactly what he wants—he doesn't need a nonsensical web of double-crosses and secret operations with multiple failure points that, as the hosts contend, is only "clever" because the writers made it so that it worked out perfectly until the last step.
Dev [yelling]: It doesn't make any sense!
[overlapping yelling from all three hosts]
Abi: Why not just lie? Why not just lie? It's much easier to do!
Conversational Troping: Discussing Licence to Kill the hosts repeatedly call its main plot a Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
Cop Hater: Very ACAB as a podcast. Abi in particular will bring up the Covert Human Intelligence Act and the related Spycops scandal whenever Bond seduces a woman under a false name.
Courtroom Episode: Loosely parodied in The Foreigner (2017) episode, which has Abi and November arguing for and against the film respectively while Devon acts as a judge. Devon mostly agrees with Abi but sides with November because "the movie made my friend feel sad."
Creator Career Self-Deprecation: Frequently refer to unfashionably-dressed characters as "dressing like podcasters".
Cuteness Proximity: Abigail is quite taken by the presence of a "tiger kitten" in Octopussy.
Damned by Faint Praise: By the middle of their live show on Goldmember, the hosts start giving it what November calls "remedial points" for any joke that isn't actively racist—note this doesn't mean they're saying the jokes are good. (They do actually find some parts funny, but in general they find the movie has a tendency to run even its good punchlines into the ground by repeating every one multiple times.)
Darker and Edgier: Though not without some jokes, the Rambo miniseries is more solemn and cynical compared to the rest of the podcast. The hosts make it clear that they take no joy in tearing apart the xenophobic, far-right ideology of the films and their pornographic approach to violence and misogyny.
Devon: The other ones, we've had, like, running jokes, 'cause things have happened that are funny...Rambo has given us fucking nothing but racism from start to finish.
Abi: It's depressing. It's a sad series of films.
Designated Hero: Discussed in the Without Remorse episode. The hosts talk about how John's Aleppo mission actually comes off as sinister and frightening rather than badass if you don't automatically buy into the premise that "American flag patch=good"—without that, it's a sequence where large, threatening soldiers coldly slaughter much weaker-looking people, many of whom are even unarmed. Abi also points out that the sound editor made the odd decision to put in the sound of screams, including children's screams, in the background, which combines to make the SEALS look less like heroes and more like a "death squad".
Devon: That's the protagonist doing this, huh? Okay, alright.
Abi: First thing we see him do is murder two unarmed people.
Distracted by the Sexy: November failed to take notes whenever May Day was on screen for some reason. This also occurs with Xenia Onatopp in Goldeneye. During The World Is Not Enough both November and Abigail got this from Electra King, causing Devon to threaten to get the spray bottle.
- Also works as an in-joke in From Russia with Love when Abi opines that Tatiana, a blonde wearing black underwear and a choker, would have been perfect if she was American.
- Everyone except November kept getting sidetracked recapping The Mask of Zorro, finding it an extremely horny movie and exclaiming over the Zorros, a far more appealing model of masculinity to them than Bond has ever been.
- At the live Grand Finale, November brandishes the spray bottle at Devon and Abi the very second they bring up Ana de Armas’ character.
Devon: Listen! She’s wasted in this movie! I think it’s cool that she has a gun!
Abi: It’s a really nice dress!
- While watching The Helicopter Spies, November mentioned Julie London's headshot on her Wikipedia page - "Good lord, oh my god!" - prompting the other two to look her up and whoop, swear, and laugh in admiration. Devon then encouraged the listeners to stop what they're doing and see for themselves.
The Dog Bites Back: Presented as this by the hosts. After faking out the audience by reviewing a different Casino Royale, the next review would be a Christmas special celebrating one million downloads, based on a Twitter poll. Penguins of Madagascar won by a country mile, much to their disgust, and they spent a good chunk of the episode mad at the hogs for it, while also acknowledging it as payback for the fake out.
Do Wrong, Right: In their review of Robocop 2, upon seeing a villain apparently try to use a child as a human shield, Abi jokes that it's a bad choice because the child isn't big enough.
Embarrassing Nickname: Daniel Craig's Bond is quickly saddled with the nickname "Craig Fingersuck" after the scene in Casino Royale (2006) where Bond puts Vesper Lynd's fingers in his mouth.
- Abi’s old schoolfriend John has had three, each one getting worse: "Paedo John" for dating a girl in the year below him at school; "Homophobic John" for his religious objections to marriage equality (which led Abi to cut all ties with him); and - much later - "John the Rapist".
Enforced Method Acting Invoked: Brought up in the early Bond films, whether it’s Connery’s fear of spiders in Dr. No making him sweat on camera, or Harold Sakata’s martial arts background resulting in Connery’s back injury in Goldfinger. Played for laughs with George Lazenby; him breaking a stuntman’s nose in his audition is taken by Abi as an early sign he couldn’t act.
Faux Affably Evil: Roger Moore's Bond, at least in his first few films, is just as sexually aggressive and into Questionable Consent as Connery's, but that he also smiles more and is smarmy about it and seems friendlier, rather than just having Connery's brutality, quite puts the hosts off.
Fun with Acronyms:
- The SCUM System on which James Bond movies are scored in which SCUM stands for Smarm, Cultural insensitivity, Unprovoked violence, and Misogyny. After the No Time to Die live show, non-Bond movies are also brought under the SCUM System.
- The GIRTH System on which non-James Bond movies were scored prior to the No Time to Die live show for pillars of toxic masculinity in which GIRTH stands for Glory, Intellectualism, Respecting the Troops, and Heterosexuality.
Gratuitous French: OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies is a French film, so for that episode, Devon recites the normal podcast introductions in French. Sort of. To a listener who understands no French, the main hint that something is up is the smothered laughter of the other two hosts, and that at one point Devon says "pedophile" in their Frenchest accent.
- While covering Rising Sun they introduce themselves in much worse faux Japanese.
Hate Sink: While the franchise as a whole is one for the show, the hosts have particular contempt for the Connery films for their overt racism and misogyny, with Connery’s version of Bond being the most overtly predatory. This even extends to Never Say Never Again, where the subtext of pining for the good old days is read as reactionary, as though the best Bond is the one who explicitly rapes two women in two consecutive movies.
Hypocrite: In a couple of films where Bond is taken aback by a woman initiating a kiss with him - in one of them he says she should ask first - the hosts call him this, considering that if he's the same guy across all these movies he's forced kisses and worse quite readily.
Identical Stranger: The Cold Open for the episode on Breach is Abi talking about her first encounter with the film: she and some guys from school spotting the poster and noticing that Ryan Philippe was the spitting image of their friend "Paedo John".
Implausible Deniability: Played for laughs in their episode on Planes: Fire & Rescue. Abi had to take the week off, so November and Devon do a brief gag where they play several clips of her blatantly lifted from other projects that make no sense in context and insist she's definitely there with them.
Devon: Abi, how do you feel about all those people being mean to you online?
"Abi": No, I’m gonna fucking kill that cunt-
Devon: That’s a bit rude, Abigail! Come now!
Informed Attractiveness: The Penguins of Madagascar are supposedly extremely cute, particularly Private. None of the hosts find any of the purportedly adorable animals to have appealing models, but they do think the octopus villains are cute.
I Resemble That Remark!: Watching Tomorrow Never Dies, Abi became self conscious as the other two joked about Brosnan Bond's go-to move during sex being to bite his partner's shoulder.
I Want My Jetpack: While recounting Moonraker the hosts sigh considering how science fiction at the time of the movie predicted a wildly optimistic future, while science fiction today mainly predicts a Crapsack World.
Liar Revealed: With Season 2, the hosts introduce a new medal: the Brian Cox Award for Services to Intelligence, presented to any character who immediately reveals their plans when challenged. Named after Cox’s character in The Bourne Supremacy who goes from denying Blackbriar to blabbing about a secret CIA death squad within seconds.
Limited Move Arsenal: Connery’s Bond has three moves: Light Attack, Heavy Attack, and Grapple. Later expanded to include the special attack Exploit Disability.
Live Episode: Befitting its status as a Grand Finale for the original format of the podcast, the No Time to Die episode was recorded as a live show in front of an audience.
- In April 2023, the hosts reunited in person for three live shows across three nights to cover the Austin Powers trilogy.
- Another three-night series of live shows happened in March 2024, this time focusing on the Charlie's Angels movies.
Loony Fan: They make frequent jokes about parasocial relationships with their fans, including saying that they're all each listener's real, personal friend and also each is single, as the appearance of availability and interest drives engagement.
Lotus-Eater Machine: The hosts speculate that Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (and by extension the first film) is actually one of these for Pierce Brosnan's Bond, created by him to endure being tortured in a North Korean prison for eighteen months. Abi even mentions Robert Nozick and the "experience machine" when introducing this idea.
Mildly Military: Played for laughs in the cold open to their The Hunt for Red October episode. Devon pretends to be a Soviet submarine commander, and says that November's uniform is too confusing for them to introduce her; Nonsense proceeds to declare herself at least four completely separate ranks. Abigail, meanwhile, is "Lieutenant Hypebeast", whose only job is to tell Devon they'll win a medal every time they make a decision.
Money, Dear Boy: As an actress herself Abigail quite respects the majority of actors taking on bit parts or poor roles for this reason, saying at a few points that she herself would play any part she was given to her utmost ability even if it was for a Bond movie.
My Friends... and Zoidberg: During their review of Penguins of Madagascar, the hosts list Skipper, Rico, and Kowalsky, and only then tack on Private, "the fourth penguin who is also here", a designation that persists for the whole episode.
Never Learned to Read: One of Bond's many fleeting lovers coyly says "I never learned to read", which the hosts made into a drop since it's such a bizarre way to flirt. Because there are so many drops it got lost before too long, but they'll still say it in the same tone whenever a character makes that kind of admission of ignorance.
Non-Indicative Name: A minor Running Gag in the "The Spy in the Green Hat" episode is that while there are definitely spies, and there are people with hats, none of the spies have green hats until the last ten minutes (and even then, the hosts contend his hat is insufficiently green to deserve the moniker).
Not Distracted by the Sexy: Devon is the only host who is not enamored with Xenia Onatopp in the Goldeneye episode.
- Abi and Devon don’t get why November and guest Phoebe Roy are so hot for Vesper Lynd. November says because she has dark hair and eyes; Abi points out she has those at well, causing November to hastily move on after a beat.
- Abigail, Devon, and guest Maddie are amazed by "old Zorro" and "young Zorro" in The Mask of Zorro. November waits this out patiently but gleefully joins in in speculating about the dom/sub relationship of the Zorros, and how hot Old Zorro's daughter is for Young Zorro.
One-Scene Wonder: Discussed Trope - Frequently pointed out by the hosts when a minor villain or character ends up stealing the scene. This led to the creation of the Kronsteen Rosette and Goodnight Cross for a minor character (villainous and heroic, respectively) who went beyond the call of duty and became more interesting than the main characters. Then there's Doctor Kaufmann from Tomorrow Never Dies, which led to the hosts going on a long digression over how much he stole the entire scene and, arguably, movie.
November: How are you supposed to recover from this? How are you supposed to go on recording your podcast?
Devon: I will never recover financially. [...] He's in this movie for 2 and a half minutes, and in my heart forever.
- Casino Royale (1967) and its memorable performance from Orson Wells has them awarding his character the rare Kaufmann Star, for a character who "obliterates" the movie. For Kaufmann himself it was thanks to a bizarre performance, while Wells' character simply out-acted everyone else by a shocking margin. The star is not given in every film, and it's also not limited to the free feed movies - they gave one to a henchwoman in Stormbreaker as well.
- While they forgot to do so in the episode itself, in the episode after The Spy With My Face they awarded a Kaufmann Star to The Vault because it's such a bizarre high concept thing in such a zany madcap movie that the hosts were forced to stop and talk about it at length. The Vault is a countermeasure against aliens, using it would deactivate every nuclear weapon on Earth, and you have to wear goggles to look into it because if you don't you're compelled to go inside and won't come back out. "You can't save a man who no longer exists." ...And it just looks like a shipping container, because the budget for the film was very modest.
Pet the Dog: Devon recounts that, while watching The Man with the Golden Gun on the train back home, the ticket inspector asked to see their Railcard. When they realised they had forgotten it, the inspector saw "the most defeated expression a human being has ever had" and told them not to worry.
Pinball Protagonist: Although it's certainly the least of their problems with Goldfinger, the hosts describe it as a Bond movie that is happening around James Bond.
Plot-Triggering Death: A common element of the movies the podcast reviews. After multiple James Bond movies used Agent 009 as the victim of the plot-triggering death, the hosts refer to all victims of the plot-triggering death as "009" as one of the show's many Running Gags.
The Points Mean Nothing: Of sorts. The SCUM System has no real connection to their enjoyment of the films. Notably, Never Say Never Again has the best score of the Connery films, even though they found it terrible and worse than Thunderball (which they found mostly boring). In contrast Goldeneye which the hosts unironically enjoyed as a good film (Abi even called it "the best one so far") still ended up with a very middle of the road score on the SCUM System. When A View to a Kill ends up getting the best score of any Bond film, the hosts are downright horrified and wonder if the system needs to be reevaluated.
Pstandard Psychic Pstance: The "no notes" reviews, in which the three recount Bond movies starting from Dr No without rewatching or reviewing them in any way, using only their memories and any surviving drops, feature a lot of pausing to wrack their brains and taking the "Cerebro pose", which Alice claims actually helps.
Questionable Consent: The podcast is not shy about pointing out when Bond's sexual encounters are less than good on consent. For instance, they criticize one encounter with a nurse who left him strapped to one of the Bond wigglers as Bond essentially telling a woman that if she doesn't sleep with him, he will get her fired—while she responds positively and flirts back, that is what he just said to her, more or less. They also particularly disdain the scene with Pussy Galore as "corrective rape that textually works".
A Rare Sentence: Any time a film has an unusual line or line read, the hosts capture it to play it back and discuss. They were delighted when in Penguins of Madagascar, Benedict Cumberbatch said things like "Slap the fruit!" and "I suppose we can't all be pengwings."
- While recapping ''Spy Kids 3D" they use the phrase "The old man is granted Megalegs" and are briefly distracted, speculating that this is the counterpoint to "For sale: baby shoes, never worn" - the happiest six word sentence.
- Guest host and producer Nate, discussing a fight in Three Days of the Condor, called an assassin an "alcoholic mailman who knows kung-fu", causing Abi to gasp "What a sentence!" while laughing. "Holy shit, the alcoholic mailman knows kung-fu!"
"The Reason You Suck" Speech: November, Abi and Devon deliver one to the professional film critics who talked about Master and Commander depicting wholesome male friendships, when the film also, and far more prominently, depicts the crew bullying a midshipman into killing himself. They then declare that, actually, they're the only ones who know how to do film criticism, and that they're not the new Siskel and Ebert - Siskel and Ebert were only the proto-Kill James Bond.
Refuge in Audacity: They loved The Man from Hong Kong, crowing in delight about the absurdly over the top levels of unprovoked violence that the Inspector gets up to.
Remember the New Guy?: The podcast gets a lot of mileage out of Mitchell from Quantum of Solace, and his one unforgettable line before his shocking Face–Heel Turn.
Rooting for the Empire:
- In-Universe, the podcast's central conceit is that Bond is a rapist and murderer, employed to protect the corrupt interests of Britain's elites, so they're well-inclined towards whoever he's opposing even if they don't always actually take that side. Plus, as the hosts are left-leaning, whenever the films' villains are communist they find them more sympathetic than was probably intended.
- The podcast hosts also openly admitted to rooting for the villain in Penguins of Madagascar because they loathed the main characters.
Rule of Three: The three times that Abi takes note of how George Lazenby walks.
Rule of Symbolism: Discussed in multiple episodes, with the crew (only somewhat) jokingly stating that the majority of movies are ultimately about 9/11 and/or being transgender.
Running Gag: Quite a few.
- Torture devices will typically be referred to as "Bond wigglers", after the spinal traction table in Thunderball that threatened to wiggle Bond to death.
- Referring to Roger Moore's Bond as "X nonce" (i.e. "helicopter nonce" or "snowmobile nonce").
- Several of the soundbites from the films get repeated often, such as "A man comes!" and "Oh, you must excuse this rather odd mixture of styles, but I refuse to go entirely Japanese."
- November threatening to use a spray bottle on the other hosts for being too horny.
- Abi being horny for any blonde woman, especially if they're American.
- Abi’s refusal to explain what hauntology means.
- Pointing out how increasingly ridiculous it is that nearly every iteration of Bond is meant to be the same person.
"In WWII, when I [Bond] was the same guy..."
- Their insistence that Dalton's Bond is explicitly Welsh James Bond. Abigail likes to break into a heavy Welsh accent for this bit.
- "So, Bond, what's the deal with this movie?"
- Describing problems Bond has to solve in the simplest terms possible, such as "rocket fall down".
- The "Pussy Clock", where Abi times how long it takes for a new woman character to be introduced to have sex with Bond.
- On the episode for Tomorrow Never Dies, November imported a running gag from Trashfuture by splicing her sound drop of Graham Linehan saying "my wife" into a sequence of Elliot Carver saying the same.
- The Harold Sakata school of acting, invoked when discussing Enforced Method Acting particularly of the "actually hurt someone doing a stunt" type.
- Whenever someone's killed in an absurd way: "Excellent work Agent 47, now make your way to an exit".
- After Bond shoves a man into maggots in Licence to Kill the hosts act as if he filled his pockets with them and used maggots in every fight scene, bringing them up while recounting said scenes. The last line in that episode is "Maggots!"
- "The cigarette that kills you instantly" and its counterpart, the cigarette that's good for you. The former is often used as a snowclone where another noun takes the place of cigarette.
- The Hench app, a hypothetical gig economy app similar to Uber, but for henchmen.
- "Please place your hand on this metal plate" in regards to henchmen who have failed the villain of the movie and are about to be disposed of, in reference to Blofeld's means of electrocuting members of SPECTRE that had failed him.
- Referring to any Giant Mook as a movie's "Mongo" and any smaller mook regarded as some kind of specialist as its "Mr Surname".
- Characters in non-Bond spy movies will be referred to by their Bond equivalents - the protagonist is 007, his boss is M, the shadowy evil organisation is Spectre, the spy who gets killed in the first scene to establish the stakes is 009, and so on.
- Apparently-innocuous objects that conceal deadly weapons or poisons are "the X that kills you instantly".
- Referring to Bond villains with particularly prominent obsessions as "[x] Blofeld". Stromberg in The Spy Who Loved Me, who plans to rebuild civilisation under the sea, gets renamed "Wet Blofeld", while Elliot Carver in Tomorrow Never Dies, who uses his news media empire to manipulate governments, becomes "TV Blofeld".
- Any time a movie visits London, they will play the clip of the copyright-avoiding Suspiciously Similar Song version of The Clash's "London Calling" from Agent Cody Banks: Destination London.
- In the first Bourne film, a CIA assassin codenamed "Professor" is activated by texting him the word "Chimp". The hosts promptly dubbed him Professor Chimp and referred to CIA assassins in all subsequent movies as "Professors chimp" and just "chimps" - and there are a lot of those coming from an absurd number of sinister projects, so it gets plenty of use.
  - The Bourne Ultimatum has plenty of flashbacks to how Jason Bourne became a chimp, which involved being asked "Do you commit to this program?" again and again until the hosts all found the phrase hilarious and started using it themselves.
- Misidentifying actors. Episode art for most of the Bourne movies is a shot of a non-Mark Strong actor with the caption "Mark Strong", who they joke is in all of the films. This returns in later episodes, whenever a host mistakes an actor.
- When something noteworthy occurs in a movie twice, one of the hosts will point it out by saying "A second [x] has struck the movie". For example, when first Anthony Hopkins, and later Catherine Zeta-Jones show up in The Mask of Zorro, both cast as Hispanic characters, Abbie exclaims "A second Welsh actor strikes the film!".
Screwed by the Lawyers: Invoked; the hosts joke that the reason Vesper Cannot Spit It Out about being forced to work for Spectre is that the studio didn't have the rights to it yet.
Soft Reboot: While all the Bond films when a new actor takes over could count as this, November notes that the six-year gap following Licence to Kill, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, a new Bond for the 90s and the seeming victory of neoliberal capitalism, means that Goldeneye is the clearest example, as it’s the only one in the series not set during the Cold War.
Spoonerism: Abigail inadvertently derailed two successive episodes by referring to "car stunts" as "star cunts" and "champagne corks" as "champagne cocks".
The Stoner: "Sesh Gremlin Q," a character who first appears in the Octopussy episode and offers Bond a variety of drugs to partake in.
Suddenly Shouting: Abi became enraged trying to make sense of the world of Cars 2.
Take That!: Almost too many to name, but the episode on The Bourne Supremacy features a journalist from The Guardian as a supporting character, which is reason enough for Abi to vent about their repeated platforming of transphobia in the UK press.
The Teaser: Each episode opens with one. Usually it's a soundbite from the film being discussed, and sometimes it's a conversation or skit (i.e. the funeral for Geronimo the alpaca in Episode 15.5).
This Is Gonna Suck: November's reaction to My Little Pony: The Movie being the bonus episode. Her first line is a muttered "I hate (Abi) so much right now...". Being a Consummate Professional, she still recaps the episode and gamely discusses it, albeit through gritted teeth.
- Long before actually reaching Austin Powers the hosts all expressed great dismay at the idea of actually having to watch those films due to transphobic content, knowing it would make them sad. In one of the Patreon-only Q and A episodes they drew the analogy that watching Austin Powers would be akin to nuclear scientists just walking up to the Elephant's Foot - yes, there's plenty to discuss, but is that pain worth it?
This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: The hosts have fun noting how the DB5’s special gadget in Goldfinger is an ejector seat but only for the passenger, because of how incredibly situational it is.
Villains Out Shopping: Much to the confusion and delight of the hosts, the villain of One Spy Too Many, Mr. Alexander, spends one scene warming his hands over a brazier and then toasting marshmallows, and in a later scene delivers his dialogue while searching for his car keys. This, combined with his stated goal of breaking all Ten Commandments and somehow consequently surpassing Alexander the Great and ruling the world, has them speculating that his motivations are incomprehensible and his true desire probably is "Find keys". This also gets them on the track of imagining various classic Bond villains ambling around, walking through doors and forgetting why they'd come into a room, and complaining about the monorail running late.
Vocal Evolution: Around episode 4, Abi’s voice becomes softer, lighter and more versatile as her voice training goes on. The zenith of her vocal ability is in the review for Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore when she briefly uses her pre-transition voice, to November and Devon’s shock.
We Want Our Jerk Back!:
- While the hosts initially hated Roger Moore after watching "The Racist One", they end up coming round on him after watching Never Say Never Again. That film's reactionary themes convince them this is what the Bond films would have been if not for Moore being a daft old bastard, making the films sillier and camper, and turning the franchise into a national treasure. Devon starts off vowing to destroy Moore after Live And Let Die; by the end of Season 1, they have genuine affection for him.
- They all hate Sergeant JW Pepper, the racist Alabama policeman, in his two actual appearances, but start to miss him after that.
- When Craig Bond's characterization changes to make him more like the Bonds of older movies, they mourn the "death of Craig Fingersuck at the hands of that coward James Bond". Ridiculous as the finger sucking was they felt like he was more sincere and interesting before he started snapping off Bond One Liners.
Who Shot JFK?: During the intro for From Russia with Love, after it's mentioned that this film was the last one JFK saw before his death, the hosts joke that he was killed by the CIA for not loving the movie enough.

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