Fall is here, and with a new season comes a new episode. Well sort of. We just do these whenever now, really. This is another fun one, but it is worth mentioning that the conversation does bring up sexual assault and how it is used/portrayed in books, movies, and TV. It’s not a huge focus of the episode, but if that’s something you’d rather not hear, you might want to fast forward through those bits or skip this one. Totally understand.
In the words of Ms. Frizzle, you gotta take chances and make mistakes! A new hobby, a relationship, bangs! Some things aren’t worth retrying (the people who can pull off bangs already have bangs, do not give in to the temptation!), but there are plenty of failed experiments that are certainly worth a second chance. That’s exactly what we did this episode, revisit something we first tried over ten years ago.
Pay revisited Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire, a book she first bought at her college bookstore. Like a lot of folks, Pay first become aware of the book when it became a Broadway hit, and the revisionist take of the Wizard of Oz sounded like a cool concept. The first time she gave it a go, it ended up back on the shelf, partially read. When she started reading it again for this episode, the reasons she didn’t finish it the first time popped up again.
It’s a bit dense and disjointed and would skip over parts of the story that sounded more compelling than what you actually get to read. The story is told from different points of view, but rarely from Elphaba’s perspective, which makes it difficult to really connect with her. That’s not to say that using other points of view is not an effective literary device in general, but it just didn’t seem to work as well here as it does in other books. Also, there was much more political intrigue than Pay was expecting. So while it has its fair share of fans, it just wasn’t up Pay’s alley.
Adri has been baking and making mistakes for most of her life at this point. She’s also been a fan of pro wrestling for almost just as long, give or take a few breaks in between. So when in 2008 Kate told her about a wrestling-themed baking competition, Adri was up for it! And she made the ugliest cookies inspired by Bret Hart and took the ugliest pictures of those cookies.
While she appreciates beautifully decorated cookies and has purchased several, Adri just doesn’t care about doing it herself. She’s more of a flavor/texture focused baker, so this kind of cookie was a strangely ambitious choice. And honestly she hasn’t done much decorating of this kind since, but it seemed worth a shot to try again. She almost left these cookies undecorated after the thought of decorating them felt daunting, but in the end stopped stressing and had some fun with it! And while they are still far from perfect, they are much better than the first time.
Is there anything you tried and gave up on? Maybe it’s time to give another go! Or trust your gut! We don’t know!
Episode Highlights
- What animated show do we discuss almost as thoroughly as our episode topics?
- What other books have we left half-read?
- What show did Pay watch all the way through, only for the last season to ruin it all?
- What bad movie does Adri wish she’d walked out of?
- What life lesson do we realize is the true message of the episode?
Further Watching/Reading
- How ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ Animated Its Realistic Fight Scenes | Movies Insider
- The winning entry for the wrestling baking competition
- Classic cut out cookies recipe | King Arthur Flour
- Royal icing recipe | Serious Eats/Stella Parks
Oh, yeah! That thing! 
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