The Rank

🎙️🌌 John returns to the moral playground for The Good Place — Season 4, Episode 12: “Patty.” The episode brings a surprise guest: Hypatia of Alexandria — who insists everyone call her “Patty” (played by Lisa Kudrow) — and quickly turns into a bittersweet lesson in why endless perfection can hollow out meaning. When Chidi excitedly tries to quiz Patty on philosophy, he finds her distracted, muddle...

🎙️🔥 John suits up for Action Movie Rankings with a gritty look at Greenland (2020) — Ric Roman Waugh’s grounded disaster-thriller about one family’s fight to survive when a planet-killing comet (nicknamed “Clarke”) sends the world into chaos. John Garrity (Gerard Butler), his estranged wife Allison (Morena Baccarin), and their diabetic son Nathan find themselves suddenly “selected” for emergency...

👊😂 John’s back at Shulman & Associates for The Mindy Project — Season 3, Episode 3: “Crimes & Misdemeanors & Ex‑BFs.” In this wild ride of an episode, Mindy (Mindy Lahiri) hits a major snag — she discovers she hasn’t paid taxes in six years, and the tax lien threatens to sink the whole medical practice. To save herself (and the office), she turns to her ex-boyfriend and lawyer, Cliff...

👊🚕 John’s back at the Sunshine Garage for Taxi — Season 2, Episode 18: “What Price Bobby?.” This time, Bobby Wheeler (Jeff Conaway) gets a high-stakes break when a well-connected theatrical agent named Nora picks him up in his cab and — impressed by his charm — offers to represent him. What starts as a seemingly legit shot at stardom quickly morphs into something murkier when it becomes clear th...

🎙️🌌 John returns to the moral playground for The Good Place — Season 4, Episode 11: “Mondays, Am I Right?” After Judge Gen’s decision, the crew faces the messy, urgent work of building a new afterlife system that actually proves humans can improve. Michael, Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani, Jason and Janet begin training a skeptical team of former Bad Place demons and testing human subjects — but quickly r...

🎙️🔥 In this episode, John suits up for Action Movie Rankings with a deep dive into Shane Black’s Iron Man 3 (2013). The film finds Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) physically and psychologically unglued after the events of The Avengers — battling insomnia, anxiety, and an obsession with building ever-more-sophisticated suits. When the mysterious “Mandarin” terrorizes the U.S. and Stark’s world is l...

👊😂 John’s back at the Shulman & Associates office for The Mindy Project, Season 3, Episode 2 — “Annette Castellano Is My Nemesis.” In this episode, Mindy (Mindy Kaling) finally meets Danny’s formidable mother, Annette (Rhea Perlman), and her first impression couldn’t be worse — Annette thinks Mindy is Danny’s cleaning lady. John digs into the comedic and emotional layers of the episode: why...

👊🏕️ John’s back with the Bundys for Season 3, Episode 4 — “The Camping Show.” What starts as a guys-only fishing trip for Al and Steve quickly derails when the rest of the family tags along — and then the plot twist no man wants: Peggy, Marcy, and Kelly all hit “that time of the month” at once, turning the outdoor getaway into pure misery for the men. Expect cranky tents, ruined fishing plans, an...

🎙️🌌 John returns to the moral playground in The Good Place — Season 4, Episode 10: “You’ve Changed, Man.” After Chidi wakes with his full memories restored, the gang scrambles — energized and terrified — to hammer out a new afterlife system that might actually pass muster with the Judge and Shawn. As Judge Gen closes in searching Janet’s voids, Michael, Janet, Eleanor, Tahani, Jason and a newly f...

🎙️🔥 In this episode, John tears into Edgar Wright’s 2025 take on The Running Man, a high-octane sci-fi action reimagining of Stephen King’s Richard Bachman novel. Set in a near-future surveillance state where a brutal nationwide “game” turns human survival into mass entertainment, the film follows Ben Richards (Glen Powell) — a wronged man forced into the deadly spectacle — as he fights hunters,...

👊😂 John’s back in the Shulman & Associates office for The Mindy Project, Season 3, Episode 1 — “We’re a Couple Now, Haters!” This episode kicks off a new chapter for Mindy (Mindy Kaling) and Danny (Chris Messina) now that they’ve made things official — but their very different ways of dealing with their relationship are already causing friction. E-mail your fan questions, comments, and sugge...

👊🚕 John’s back at the Sunshine Garage for Season 2, Episode 17 — “Guess Who’s Coming to Brefnish?” In this one, Latka (Andy Kaufman) falls head over heels for Simka Dahblitz (Carol Kane), a woman from his native land. But when she reveals she’s from a despised “mountain people” group — a community Latka was taught to look down on — things get complicated. As the pair wrestle with their growing f...

🎬🧠 In this episode, John dives into “The Answer” (The Good Place — Season 4, Episode 9). With humanity’s fate hanging by a thread, Michael (Ted Danson) must resurrect Chidi (William Jackson Harper) and recover the one idea that can change everything. So the episode flashes through Chidi’s life, his memories, and the slow, messy formation of the moral philosopher we think we know. Between childho...

🎙️🌌 In this episode, John tears into the 1987 sci-fi action satire The Running Man. Set in a near-future dystopia where televised violence is national entertainment, the film follows framed ex-cop Ben Richards (Arnold Schwarzenegger) — sentenced after refusing to fire on unarmed civilians — who’s forced to fight for his life on a brutal game show run by the gleefully menacing host Damon Killian (...

👊🚕 John’s back at the Sunshine Garage for Season 2, Episode 16 — “Tony and Brian.” This time, Tony Banta’s tough-guy exterior softens when he meets Brian, an eight-year-old orphan who wanders into the cab company. What starts as a simple act of kindness quickly turns into something deeper, as Tony bonds with the boy and considers adopting him, a dream that seems just out of reach. When a wealthy...

🎙️💘 John takes a look at one of The Mindy Project’s most iconic episodes — the Season 2 finale, “Danny and Mindy.” This rom-com–infused closer finds Mindy Lahiri (Mindy Kaling) chasing love in true cinematic fashion when a missed connection on the subway leads to a mysterious admirer named “Andy.” What starts as a dreamy, modern romance twist quickly unravels when it’s revealed that “Andy” is act...

🏈📣 Al’s high school glory days come rushing back when a Polk High football prodigy threatens to break his long-standing touchdown record. Determined to defend his legacy, Al dusts off his cleats — while Kelly joins the cheer squad to chase the new star player for entirely different reasons. As nostalgia, ego, and teenage hormones collide, the Bundys turn a simple school rivalry into full-blown f...

🎬🧠 John dives into one of the series’ pivotal hours, where the Soul Squad literally throws their own funerals while waiting for Judge Gen’s verdict on Michael’s neighborhood experiment. Tahani gets a first-class send-off (in a private jet), Jason goes full Jacksonville poolside, and a frozen Chidi is wheeled around Weekend at Bernie’s–style as Eleanor struggles to find the words he deserves. Mea...

In this episode of The Rank Podcast , John dives into the dark and gritty 2025 Action/Horror thriller Sinners . Blending brutal combat with psychological horror, the film follows a group of fallen mercenaries trapped in a cursed city where every violent act brings them closer to eternal damnation. As the body count rises, so does the tension—forcing each character to face the sins that got them th...

🎙️😇 John dives into Season 4’s tense midseason turn with “Help Is Other People,” the final day of Eleanor and Michael’s year-long experiment. Simone nearly pieces together that she and the other residents are being studied, and her discoveries kick off a chain reaction that threatens to undo everything the team has built. With hours left on the clock the group scrambles to pull off last-minute go...

🏡💔 John wraps Season 2 with a bittersweet, rom-com–style episode as Mindy considers buying the condo next door to Danny — a move toward independence that suddenly feels loaded when she starts seeing Officer Charlie (guest star Tim Daly). Danny’s good-guy swagger slips into thinly veiled jealousy, forcing both of them to confront what friendship vs. something more actually looks like. Meanwhile,...

⚖️🎥 In this episode of The Rank Podcast , John dives into the 1957 courtroom thriller Witness for the Prosecution , directed by Billy Wilder and based on Agatha Christie’s classic short story and play. Starring Charles Laughton, Tyrone Power, and Marlene Dietrich, this gripping film follows a veteran British barrister who takes on the defense of a charming man accused of murder—only for the case...

🚓💊 John tackles Season 2, Episode 20 of The Mindy Project, a sharp, topical installment where Mindy steps in to help an 18-year-old patient get birth control—only to have the girl’s overprotective cop father (guest star Tim Daly) storm into the clinic and accuse Mindy of wrongdoing. The confrontation escalates into a chaotic night that includes the teen crashing at Mindy’s place and a party that...

🎽🎸 Peggy is convinced she spotted Elvis at the mall — and when Marcy notices a sweat stain on one of Al’s shirts that eerily looks like The King’s silhouette, the Bundy house becomes an instant roadside attraction for Elvis fans and impersonators. Chaos follows as tourists and devotees swarm the Bundys, forcing Al to hole up at the shoe store while Peggy tries to cash in on the sudden fame. John...

🎙️📚 John digs into Season 4, Episode 6 — a story framed by Michael telling Bad Janet about a crisis in the neighborhood that threatens the whole experiment. The trouble starts when Brent publishes a hilariously awful spy-golf novel, Six Feet Under Par: A Chip Driver Mystery , whose tone and content (racist/misogynistic passages and terrible prose) spark a backlash that exposes how fragile the gro...