Katie, MJ, and Joe return after a brief hiatus to discuss not one, but two films! (Don’t worry, Darcy will be back soon!)  

First, License to Drive (1988) provides fertile ground for theorizing a Jacob’s Ladder-esque, life-before-his-eyes story structure wherein Les Anderson (Corey Haim) dies at the end and the film circles back upon itself, Finnegans Wake style. Other topics include: Teenage deceit, personal experiences getting our licenses, the snowballing of lies, North by Northwest, patrilinear murder, Heather Graham as fey or chaos witch, the problematic nature of putting a vulnerable woman in a trunk, the greedy 80s/the reward system of cheating, and more...

Second, we have Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead (1991), Katie and Joe’s childhood fave. Nostalgic reflections ensue! Katie warmly remembers how Joe would constantly watch the VHS (recorded off of HBO) as their after school ritual. Joe recounts how Christina Applegate’s character Swell exemplified the “not a girl, not yet a woman” theme. MJ theorizes that it’s an existential survivalist thriller. Other topics include: adulthood as service, the douchey business world (“Fake it ‘til you make it!”), sexist reviews, iconic lines (“I’m right on top of that, Rose!”), twinning, latchkey kids, gender role reversal... among other things!

Then we cap it off with a compare/contrast.

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