In the meantime, we are carrying on a beloved tradition on the Michael and us podcast, first instituted this time last year, I believe, because we didn't want to watch a movie.

Because movies take a long time to watch. When a franchise or a product or a podcast declines, you know, it becomes increasingly inward looking and self-referential.

Fortunately, we're immune to such pernicious forces.

That's right.

And that's why this episode is the second annual Michael and Us year-in-review extravaganza.

We're taking a little time with you, the members of Michael and Us Nation, to look back on all

the great content that we produced this year.

Pat ourselves on the back a little,

congratulate ourselves on a job well done, and for the second year in a row, hand out the Michael

and Us Oscars. I think that's what we're going to call them. You know, we're going to give awards

to some of the movies that we've talked about. And here's an actually non-ironic reason why I

quite enjoy this exercise. If you do two podcast episodes a week, which of course we only

started doing in November of 2020, and it's really only been just over a year that we've been

doing that. I won't say that you forget things, but I mean, each episode becomes less

consequential. I think it's fair to say. Well, you just don't remember every specific twist and turn,

every kind of in-joke. You remember

kind of big takeaways, you remember certain films, but you don't remember how certain

themes or threads developed or when or where they were introduced. And so the new year is a time

that I find myself feeling very reflective. It's a time where out of habit, but I think also

for quite genuine reasons as well,

a lot of us sort of look back on the previous 12 months and kind of take stock of everything.

And so I actually enjoyed doing that with this podcast because I feel like it's fun to remember

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