The End of the World with Michael and Stu
The Apocalypse is Everywhere. The End of the World with Michael and Stu is a (hopefully) insightful and (hopefully) humorous exploration of the rise of apocalyptic news, apocalyptic thinking and apocalyptic culture. Each week, we’ll be looking at a work of art, a piece of media, or an historical event related to the (hopefully not) impending End of the World.
Episodes
99 episodes
99: Concrete Jungle
This week we are tackling 2007's I Am Legend, a film so bad not even Stu can pretend it is a "masterpiece." Much time is spent in pointing out the many problems with the main character's behaviors in the film (it stars Will Smith ...
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Season 1
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Episode 99
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52:01
98: With Arms Wide Open
This week we are revisiting a 2016 New Yorker profile of Sam Altman by Tad Friend for insight into how we got where we now are with regards to AI and its seeming inescapable ubiquity. The article is quite revelatory, as it shows u...
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Season 1
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Episode 98
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56:31
97: Interstellar Grace
This week we are discussing the Heaven's Gate cult, which famously brought about its own end through mass suicide in March of 1997 as the Hale-Bopp Comet sailed past the Earth. We discuss the group's origins in the "cultic milieu" of the early ...
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Season 1
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Episode 97
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1:03:25
96: I'm as Mad as Hell and I'm not Going to Take This Anymore
This week we are considering Sidney Lumet's 1976 classic Network. Written by acclaimed screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky and featuring an all-star cast, the film examines the breakdown of the supposed objectivity of the news media in a...
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Season 1
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Episode 96
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59:29
95: In a Silk Suit Tryin' not to Sweat
This week we are tackling Kathryn Bigelow's 2025 film A House of Dynamite which deals with one of our "favorite" nightmare scenarios, namely, a nuclear missile of unknown origin being fired at a major American city. We analyze the...
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Season 1
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Episode 95
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50:02
94: New York is Now
This week we are charting some of the reactions (and overreactions) to last week's mayoral election in New York City wherein Zohran Mamdani emerged triumphant. Can Mamdani's campaign point the way for future Democratic Party successes, or is it...
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Season 1
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Episode 94
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56:39
93: Time I had Some Time Alone
This week we're getting into Abel Ferrara's 2011 film 4:44 Last Day on Earth which follows an actor, Cisco (Willem DaFoe), and his painter partner, Skye (Shanyn Leigh), on....the last day on earth. With nods to some of our old favorite...
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Season 1
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Episode 93
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52:05
92: Can't Touch the Bottom in Too Deep
This week for Halloween we are covering "The Shadow over Innsmouth" by H.P. Lovecraft. We get into Lovecraft's troubling history of racism, showing how it works as a manifestation of the anxieties of white supremacist ideology. We also discuss ...
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Season 1
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Episode 92
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1:01:48
91: I'm Looking Through You
Is our genetic makeup our destiny, or is there someway we can overcome the code on which our bodies and minds are based? This is the question asked by this week's film, 1997's Gattaca, written and directed by Andrew Niccol. We get into...
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Season 1
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Episode 91
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56:55
90: We Are Your Overlords
We're finally covering the Norse vision of the apocalypse, Ragnarök. We go over the Norse pantheon of gods, Odin, Thor, Loki, all your favorites, and then we get into some of the events that presage the coming of doom before plunging fully into...
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Season 1
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Episode 90
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58:00
89: Life is a Highway
We're finally tackling 1981's Mad Max 2 or The Road Warrior. One of the most influential post-apocalyptic films of the last fifty years, it is also considered to be one of the greatest action movies of all time. So of course, ...
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Season 1
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Episode 89
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51:53
88: What's in Your Head?
This week we have bowed to pressure and are at last covering a 2013 National Geographic documentary called "How to Survive the End of the World: Zombie Earth." This is the first entry in a six part series to which we shall be returning periodic...
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Season 1
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Episode 88
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45:22
87: No One Can Hear You Scream
At long last we are covering Ridley Scott's 1979 masterpiece Alien. We go over how the film is really about, surprise, capitalism, and how the ultimate aim of capitalism is to discover the perfect war-making commodity, in this cas...
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Season 1
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Episode 87
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51:14
86: How Can I Bring You to the Sea of Madness
This week we are talking about 2022's Triangle of Sadness. Directed by Ruben Östlund, the movie looks at class divisions in three stages, zooming out from the troubles in an individual romantic relationship, then looking at class as it...
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Season 1
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Episode 86
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49:59
85: On that Day the Dead Shall Wake Thee
We've gone back to a total classic of the apocalypse genre, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, to mark our return from our "brief sojourn" in the realms of the afterlife. We get into all sorts of stuff about childhood traumas caused by the fi...
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Season 1
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Episode 85
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54:29
84: A Brief History of the Afterlife Five The Vedic Religion
In the final installment (for now) of our afterlife miniseries, we are considering the ancient Vedic Religion, the ancestor of modern Hinduism which arose in northwestern India in the second millennium BCE. We talk about the idea of being reinc...
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Season 1
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Episode 84
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48:06
83: A Brief History of the Afterlife Four Ancient Egypt
Moving in a parallel direction to our last topic, we are going over the afterlife beliefs of the Ancient Egyptians this week, touching on mummification, the pyramid texts, the Egyptian Book of the Dead, and the elusive Field of Reeds. We compar...
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Season 1
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Episode 83
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50:00
82: A Brief History of the Afterlife Three
It's part three of our foray into the history of the afterlife, this time with a focus on Ancient Mesopotamia and the legendary Epic of Gilgamesh. We go over the conception of the afterlife presented in the poem, which is very egalitarian if no...
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Season 1
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Episode 82
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49:15
81: A Brief History of the Afterlife Two
In the second installment of our afterlife miniseries we delve into the prehistoric realms, discussing the earliest evidence we have for some kind of a belief in the afterlife in prehistoric, neolithic peoples. We also consider the Neanderthal ...
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Season 1
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Episode 81
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51:59
80: A Brief History of the Afterlife One
This week we are deviating from our normal subject matter slightly in covering Albert Brooks's wonderful 1991 film Defending Your Life as a way of introducing the miniseries we'll be running for the next month. The afterlife seems like...
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Season 1
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Episode 80
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53:24
79: I Still Dream of Orgonon
This week we are discussing right-wing paranoia about weather control and how it is being used as a comforting belief that enables one to evade accepting the reality of human influenced climate change. We go through the history of the "chemtrai...
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Season 1
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Episode 79
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47:56
78: Islands in the Stream
This week we are discussing the recent furor over the Jeffrey Epstein case which has begun to surface divisions within the MAGA movement. We go over the actual history of the prosecutions of Epstein and Maxwell, look at the various ways Trump s...
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Season 1
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Episode 78
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52:40
77: How Many Ways To Get What You Want?
This week we are discussing the Biblical Antichrist. What does the New Testament have to say about this ominous figure? Why do some Christians maintain his return is a necessary precondition for the so-called "second coming" of Jesus Christ? Wh...
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Season 1
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Episode 77
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56:47
76: I Won't Forget to Put Roses on Your Grave
This week we are discussing Edgar Wright's zombie comedy about the mundanity of day to day life under late capitalism, Shaun of the Dead. Featuring star turns for Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, the movie examines the question of how t...
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Season 1
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Episode 76
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44:51
75: The Days Are Long And the Nights Will Throw You Away
For our 75th episode spectacular, we are discussing 28 Days Later, the 2002 film directed by Danny Boyle and written by Alex Garland that reinvigorated the zombie movie for the 2000s and launched a franchise that has been back in ...
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Season 1
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Episode 75
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47:20
