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
62 episodes
62: A Dry Voice Comes from a Stingy Heart
This week we're are discussing Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson's recent book Abundance. This text offers a new vision of the future for the Democratic Party to center as it attempts to claw back power, ignoring for the most part the larg...
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Season 1
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Episode 62
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58:19
61: One Step from the Great Beyond
We're talking about the rise and fall of Julius Caesar and the end of the Roman Republic this week, following up on our previous episode. We've got anecdotes about Caesar weeping before statues, his run in with pirates, his war against Vercinge...
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Season 1
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Episode 61
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1:05:34
60: We're Together Dead and Lonely
This week we're discussing the run up to the final collapse of the Roman Republic, charting such characters as Scipio Aemelianus, the Gracchi Brothers, Gaius Marius, and Sulla and attempting to map them and their historical circumstances onto s...
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Season 1
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Episode 60
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1:02:18
59: A Man of Wealth and Taste
This week we are diving into the weird world of Robert Francis Kennedy, Jr., the newly confirmed Secretary of Health and Human Services in the second Trump administration. We go over his history of environmental activism and chart how this morp...
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Season 1
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Episode 59
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1:10:03
58: Where Strangers are as Family and Loneliness Can't Hide
This week we are discussing Todd Haynes's film Safe (1995). We get into how the movie explores the creeping sense of meaning being sapped out of suburban life in the late 1980s, focusing on the ways this parallels dilemmas th...
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Season 1
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Episode 58
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59:56
57: A Stronger Loving World to Die In
This week we are tackling one of Stu's all-time favorite comics, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons's Watchmen. We go through the main characters and discuss the apocalyptic ramifications of this extremely well-wrought tale of a society ...
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Season 1
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Episode 57
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58:46
56: As Parasites Might in your Blood
This week we are discussing all things CANADA! Specifically, why does President Trump claim it is a "great contender" to become the 51st state? What is it about the US's northern neighbor that is so attractive to the would-be empire builder pre...
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Season 1
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Episode 56
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53:57
55: The Ocean at your Door
This week we are joined by comedian, actress and writer Maggie Crane to discuss Bo Burnham's divisive comedy special Inside from 2021. We get into some of the critiques of the special, while also noting the things about it which w...
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Season 1
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Episode 55
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56:25
54: The Birds of Leaving Call to Us
This week we're talking about the first season of the hit Apple TV+ show Severance. We examine the ways the show functions as a reflection of our current, corporation-dominated world, exploring questions of work/life balance as we...
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Season 1
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Episode 54
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1:03:04
53: If I Could Turn Back Time
This week we are devoting a full episode to news, recapping the first week of Donald Trump's second term as president. We discuss the myriad executive orders the president has issued, ranging from his pardons, to his crackdown at the border, to...
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Season 1
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Episode 53
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47:34
52: A Duel of Personalities
This week we are discussing Coralie Fargeat's 2024 film The Substance, a movie that imagines what it might be like if you could recapture your youth. We get into the implications of the film for our culture, particularly as it relates ...
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Season 1
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Episode 52
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49:29
51: Tryin' to Run from the Destruction
This week we are discussing the "Y2K computer bug," the great potential apocalypse of the turn of the millennium that...did not live up to the hype. But rather than being another "when prophecy fails" situation, the reason this apocalypse was a...
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Season 1
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Episode 51
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49:33
Episode 50: Strewn with Time's Dead Flowers
This week we're discussing Robert Eggers' 2024 adaptation of FW Murnau's classic Nosferatu. Is it a poignant and disturbing meditation on the idea of forbidden love, recasting a classic story for our troubled times, or is it merely an ...
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Season 1
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Episode 50
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52:49
Episode 49: A World in White Gets Underway
It's our 2024 recap episode in which we go over all things apocalypse from the year we are concluding. Topics discussed include: the return of Trump, the continued disintegration of the Democratic party, the rise of a new oligarchy, the continu...
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Season 1
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Episode 49
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49:26
Episode 48: Five Golden Rings
It's Christmastime and in celebration we are covering a brilliant Christmas movie, namely The 12 Disasters of Christmas. This film is...a disaster. A Christian allegory mixed with a Mayan Apocalypse 2012 tale that is somehow also ...
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Season 1
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Episode 48
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49:44
Episode 47: There's a Madman Living in Waco
This week we're covering the siege of the Branch Davidian compound by federal authorities in 1993, paying particular attention to the group's leader, the enigmatical rock musician turned would-be messiah, David Koresh. We go through the history...
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Season 1
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Episode 47
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1:04:37
Episode 46: Shadow on the Things You Know
This week we are discussing avian flu and the possibility that it might be the next pandemic ahead of us, just over the horizon. We get into the history of influenza outbreaks originating in domesticated animals, such as, most famously, the so-...
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Season 1
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Episode 46
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54:56
Episode 45: It's a Godawful Small Affair
This week we are covering the 2005 Spielberg/Cruise film War of the Worlds. Made in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the film attempts to make some kind of connection between the H.G. Wells's classic story of alien invas...
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Season 1
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Episode 45
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53:53
Episode 44: Turn and Face the Strain
This week we are covering the COP29 climate conference which took place over the last two weeks in Baku, Azerbaijan. Have they solved the issue? Was this climate conference in actuality a "meet up" for lobbyists in the fossil fuel industry? Wha...
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Season 1
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Episode 44
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49:01
Episode 43: Our Shadows Taller Than Our Souls
This week we are discussing Cormac McCarthy's 2006 novel The Road. A bleak but simultaneously uplifting depiction of a journey through a world in which nature has been totally destroyed, the story offers glimmers of hope in spite ...
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Season 1
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Episode 43
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53:10
Episode 42: Project for a New American Violence
This week we are talking about 2013's The Purge, a low budget high concept home invasion thriller directed by James DeMonaco. We discuss the Aristotelian overtones of the notion that an annual night of violence might allow for a c...
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Season 1
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Episode 42
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46:25
Episode 41: The End of America with Michael and Stu
It's our election recap episode where we take accountability for our...mistaken belief that Harris would pull out a tight election, when, obviously...that did not happen. We discuss what went wrong for the Harris campaign, while analyzi...
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Season 1
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Episode 41
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47:59
Episode 40: There is No Turning Back
It's our election day special where we go out on a limb and predict who we think will triumph in the 2024 US presidential election. Is the seeming late swing to Harris real, and if it is real, will it be enough? Has Kill Tony doomed the Trump c...
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Season 1
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Episode 40
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47:00
Episode 39: Hurry Up Please It's Time
We're back on our election beat, in this episode gaming out potential outcomes of the November 5th US presidential elections. What would happen if Trump wins the popular vote but loses the electoral college? What if Harris wins in a landslide? ...
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Season 1
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Episode 39
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49:07
Episode 38: They've All Come to Look for America
This week we are diving back into politics, looking at the platforms of both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, paying particular attention to where each candidate stands on apocalypse-adjacent issues like climate change and military weaponry. The...
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Season 1
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Episode 38
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47:12
