Second Breakfast with Cam & Maggie

Get bonus episodes on  Patreon !   Things are heating up at Winterfell. George is carefully restaging – and then pointedly pivoting from – the sexless murder plots of Macbeth. In this chapter, Catelyn and Ned officially evolve past their Scottish counterparts. The Jon and Ned echoes pay off in a tragic structural reenactment of Jon's birth and Catelyn's rejection of him. Ned's blindness stands in...

Get bonus episodes on  Patreon !   Fallout 3 released in the autumn of 2008, just as Cam's life completely exploded. 15 years later, he replayed a game he thought hated. Fallout 3 is a masterpiece, and this episode tracks the journey of revisiting such a time capsule so many years later. Memories, revelations, sledgehammer metaphors – wandering through the Wasteland again was a fascinating, powerf...

Get bonus episodes on  Patreon !   Today we're tucking into a welcome feast – the Great Hall of Winterfell. On the menu: bread crusts, bacon grease, and possibly a brand-new literary device. Cam thinks he's discovered a new type of echo that uses repetition to boil down imagery and spark revelation. We also celebrate the introduction of Tyrion Lannister by attempting to label the ongoing trend of...

Get bonus episodes on  Patreon !   Who doesn't love a little pomp and circumstance? Some glitz and glamour to close out a wonderful year of art? 2023 was chock-full of movies, books, comics, games, and shows that we loved (and loved talking to you about). In this episode, the fourth annual Brekkie Awards, we start with a big ole year in review segment before handing out awards in the following cat...

Get bonus episodes on  Patreon !   Down into the crypt we go! After three chapters on the periphery, we finally dive into the mind of Ned Stark, the daddy of Winterfell. Cam continues chasing death prophecies across three lightning-bolt moments from this chapter, while Maggie resurrects an old, classic theory to better understand the series' approach to fate and omens. We close by evolving our Mac...

Get bonus episodes on  Patreon !   You guys weren't kidding, Path of Exile is ENORMOUS. The locations are boundless, the enemy variety is staggering, and the character customization is nothing short of incredible. But the bigger this game gets, the more there is to miss out on. In this episode we consider the idea that there is no one right way to play a game. It's all up to you – how much you eng...

Get bonus episodes on  Patreon !   Sail across the Narrow Sea with us this week! Daenerys Targaryen introduces us to a whole new side of George R.R. Martin's world, and with her come new characters, new places, and new perspectives on prophecy. Echoes, of course, abound here: shades of the Stark children make their way into Dany's storyline (especially Jon), while the magical power and fated poten...

The Buffet is back, and we're open for business! On today's menu, we have a discussion of Eli Roth's glorious seasoner slasher, Thanksgiving; a frustrating reflection on Ridley Scott's Napoleon and the trouble with director's cuts; and an enthusiastic chat about the new film adaptation of Ottessa Moshfegh's Eileen and the trend of ambiguous endings in literary fiction. We wrap things up with a wil...

Get bonus episodes on  Patreon ! Three chapters in, the themes of death and prophecy are only growing deeper and more complicated. In this chapter they swirl together to provoke an intriguingly incomplete echo of Macbeth. Maggie's also spotted a trend of opposing forces: the North vs the South, the old gods vs the new, the Starks vs the Lannisters, and more. We dive deeper into this idea with a cu...

Get bonus episodes on  Patreon ! What do you get when a philosopher, an art historian, and a Greek mythology expert watch Emerald Fennell's new movie Saltburn? Three radically different but equally passionate experiences. In this episode, we work together to unpack the magic and mystery of this fantastic film. Topics include: the sexual subconscious, the reversal of the Greek hero, the Minotaur in...

Get bonus episodes on  Patreon ! Who wants to talk about death?? George sure does. Luckily, we are both sickos who just spent a year and a half talking about evil, so this chapter is actually sort of breezy. We've got corpses and executions, and a masterfully constructed, intricate tableaux of dead animals that contains prophecies, secrets, and revelations about the Stark family's tragic and compl...

Get bonus episodes on  Patreon ! We're tackling another heavyweight horror classic today. Cam's got a freewheeling theory that starts with Faustus and runs through Jane Austen, Thomas Hobbes, Nietzsche, The Exorcist, and The Dark Knight Returns. We believe that this is a story about the problem of evil, about the endless traumatic tension between the state of nature and the social contract. It's a...

Get bonus episodes on  Patreon ! The day is finally here: our third adventure in long-form literary analysis has begun. The prologue of A Game of Thrones gives you everything you need to fall in love with Westeros: George R. R. Martin's immediate interest and unmatched skill for worldbuilding, conversational characterization, and a fearless, brutal, relatable preoccupation with death. His characte...

This is a preview of our latest Patreon-exclusive bonus episode. In this clip, we discuss 1989 (Taylor's Version). To hear the rest of the episode, subscribe to our Patreon here ! LINKS:   Patreon ,  YouTube ,  Spotify ,  Instagram ,  Cam's stories Feedback & Theories:  secondbreakfastpod@gmail.com

Get bonus episodes on  Patreon ! 3,191 pages later, we've reached the end of our time with The Witcher. In this series-wide retrospective, we look back at our favorite and wildest running theories, from the problem of evil to the shadow of Yennefer, to the definition of "monster", femme fatales, butterfly effects, Sapkowski the investigative journalist, structural curveballs, Shakespeare, Tolkien...

Get bonus episodes on  Patreon ! Remember that feeling you got the first time you watched Dead Poets Society? What about the first time you watched National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation? Now imagine having both of those experiences at the same time. The Holdovers rides an impossibly fine line, to become the most honest and moving comedy drama of the year. In this discussion we're taking a closer l...

Get bonus episodes on  Patreon ! Discussion of Season of Storms, Ch. 16-Epilogue The final Witcher book goes out with a bang – and by bang, we mean avalanche of echoes, questions, and titanic ideas. Is Season of Storms as a whole an epilogue to the series? Is destiny a metaphysical conspiracy or a matter of individual human nature? Why is Sapkowski dropping loads of early Tolkien references? And m...

Get bonus episodes on  Patreon ! Discussion of Season of Storms, Ch. 9-15 We've followed the witcher through short stories and novels, but this final book in the series really feels more like a play. In this middle section of Season of Storms, we're overwhelmed by echoes that double as callbacks and new moments of insight into Geralt's character. Sapkowski gives us the new final form of his femme...

Get bonus episodes on  Patreon ! Sofia Coppola's Priscilla is a period piece biopic. David Fincher's The Killer is a stylish revenge thriller. But if you look under the hood, these films are playing with exactly the same uncomfortable idea: the shockingly dystopian and dispossessed state of modern America. LINKS:   Patreon ,  YouTube ,  Spotify ,  Instagram ,  Cam's stories Feedback & Theories:  s...

Get bonus episodes on  Patreon ! The latest sprawling adventure from Bethesda has reawakened an old feud. Since the days of Fallout 3 back in 2008(!), Cam has been trying his damnedest to fall in love with one of Bethesda's worlds. On that front, Starfield is a mixed bag. On all fronts, Starfield is a mixed bag. Join Cam and Maggie for a massively conflicted journey through the galaxy. Topics incl...

Get bonus episodes on  Patreon ! Discussion of Season of Storms, Ch. 1-8 Something has ended. Something is beginning. This final Witcher book is a prequel and a sequel. You could even call it a side-qual – though we would prefer you don't. Regardless, Sapkowski is back in top form with new structural experiments, echoes of destiny, Dandelion drama, and monsters we've never heard of. But there are...

Get bonus episodes on  Patreon ! The day has finally arrived. 160 episodes and many months later, we've completed the glorious, hysterical, convoluted death march that is 7 seasons of ABC Family's Pretty Little Liars. This is the ultimate couples' show, probably the funniest thing we've ever watched, and a genuinely fantastic, fun, and addictive work of art. Join us for a walk down memory lane, re...

Get bonus episodes on  Patreon ! Discussion of The Lady of the Lake, Chapter 12 Here it is: the final chapter of The Witcher saga. Yes we're sad, yes we're emotional, but we're also thrilled. This ending is perfect, poignant, surprising, devastating, and revealing. We get our final word on some of our long-standing philosophical grindstones, like the problem of evil, destiny, and non-intervention....

Get bonus episodes on  Patreon ! Discussion of The Lady of the Lake, Chapter 11 'The Scouring of the Shire' hangs over this chapter like Eeyore's black raincloud. Sapkowski's poignant, hollow homecoming hit us just as hard as Tolkien's did, but we think there's a different point being made here. So much has changed, and so many characters are now reverting to the way they used to be, but is any of...

Get bonus episodes on  Patreon ! Diablo IV shouldn't even be a live service game, but here we are! Cam played through this first season to see what it was all about, and this episode is an exploration of what he and his burly new Druid found out there in Sanctuary. Lots of promise, lots of problems - a proverbial mixed bag. Topics include: story structure, completion incentives, fun factor, season...