Wuthering Heights 2: Minchin’ and Munchin’

Show Notes

In this episode, chapters 10 through 24 are no match for the fearless FTC gang, who continue to unravel the gothic, ghostly tale of Cathy and Heathcliff, along with the useless Mr. Lockwood and the shrewd housekeeper Nelly, who everyone agrees is a huge meddler. Is she a hapless rube forced into the middle of the action by those stronger than her, or is she simply a messy bitch who loves drama? Rachel finds a huge bag of donuts. Jackie proves she can continue a joke train forever. Theo cries over spilled milk. Topics include: bad juju, throat punches, the ethical treatment of composers, horse changes, brain fevers, cousin love triangles, going all fuckin’ Sherlock Holmes mode, and embarrassing teenage love notes. 

 

Content warning: death, violence, domestic abuse, animal cruelty

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* Intro music begins -

THEO: All right, should I read this thing, this excerpt?

JACKIE: Mhmm.

T: “And I pray one prayer. I repeat it, til my tongue stiffens.” (speaking unnaturally with a rigid tongue and slurring) “Catherine Earnsssshaw, may ye not rest aslonfshth…”

J: Nope. Nope. Start over.

T: Why?

J: Loosen that tongue up.

* Intro music ends -

J: Hello, everyone, welcome to Fire the Canon. It's Jackie, your host!

T: What?

J: What?

T: Is that how we’re doing it? Is that the order we do things in?

RACHEL: Yeah, where's that trademark squeak?

J: I decided not to do it this time, because you made me fucking self-conscious about it.

T: Mmm. We can add it in post.

J: You're gonna just add it in?

R: Yeah.

T: Yeah.

R: You know how many squeaks he's got?

J: Which word do I have to squeak on? Because it could be anything.

R: HI everyone!

J: Yeah, but what if I decided to switch it up and just say, like, “Hi, everyone, welcome to FIRE the canon!”

T: Ooh!

R: (squeakily) I’m JACKIE!

T: A freaking squeaker!

R: And I'm Rachel, your other host.

T: And I'm Theo, the producer.

R: Welcome to Fire the Canon.

J: This is the podcast where we read the books in the western canon and decide if they belong or not.

R: Thank you for joining us this week. This is episode two of our miniseries on Wuthering Heights. Yes, do you want to do a very, very quick summary, Jackie?

T: VERY quickly.

R: Very quick.

J: Okay, hold on, that’s a lot of pressure.

R: It doesn't have to be that fast.

T: Okay. So to start, Lockwood is confused about who is whose daughter, and whose dad or something, and then he says -

J: He’s just naming all his favorite parts.

T: “Are these your cats?” -

J: Okay, I knew he was going to do that. Yeah, okay. So very brief summary of the first nine chapters of Wuthering Heights that we covered last time...

T: There are dead rabbits.

J: There’s a narrator who is the tenant of Mr Heathcliff and he's getting all of this intel about what happened in the past couple of decades from his housekeeper, Nelly, who used to also be the housekeeper for these other families that lived in the two houses. The two houses are Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. She's kind of just describing all of what happened between the members of the family. So little Cathy was a child when she was introduced to Heathcliff, who was an orphan that her father brought from the streets of Liverpool and just installed in their house. And they grew up together and were wild together and were out of control together and probably are soul mates. But they decided, or I don't know if they decided, but Cathy decided, not to marry Heathcliff, even though she's his soul mate. She decided to marry the neighbor boy, Edgar Linton, who's very pretty and blond and well mannered and…

T: Gotta love him!

R: Rich.

J: Rich? Oh, I thought you said little bitch. He - that, kind of, too.

R: “He’s a little bitch! No, I like him.

J: Yeah, but Heathcliff greatly, greatly disdains him. That's pretty much it, right? I mean other stuff happens, but…

R: Yeah, Heathcliff runs away at the end. Good job.

T: Perfect.

J: Okay, Heathcliff is starting a pattern of behavior in which he runs away, then complains that Cathy isn't showing him enough attention. He did that kind of a few times in smaller ways in the first episode as well.

R: Hmm.

T: Hmm!

J: Like, he would refuse to speak to her and then be like, “Why doesn't she want to talk to me?” He runs away and then he's like, “Why doesn't she love me?”

R: He's got a point.

J: He doesn't try to marry her, and then he's like, “Why didn't she marry me?”

R: He literally heard her say, “I'm not going to marry him because it would be degrading to me to marry him.” So I’m not gonna fault him for that.

J: He didn’t even ask. He didn’t even try!

R: Yeah, I'm not going to fault him for that.

J: Well, he should have tried before that. What business do you have going around saying, “I'm never going to marry him” when you didn't get an offer of marriage?

R: Well, they were soulmates. She knew that he would marry her.

J: I think that's one question I had about this whole thing. When did they realize they were in love with each other? Or did they ever realize it and they always just knew it? Was it like a big secret or something? It seems like it's not.

R: I assume they didn't know when they first met because she picked on him for a couple days.

J: Couple days.

R: So sometime between when she stopped picking on him and when she said, “I'm literally in love with him.”

J: We never got to be there or be present for this process of the few days between when Cathy met him as a child, hated him, and then started like, being his best friend. I think Emily Brontë probably made that deliberate decision to have the narrator not be present for those days, and it's just a total mystery as to what transpired then.

R: Yeah, I mean it had to be a deliberate choice, because Nelly somehow saw everything else of note in the neighborhood.

J: Everything else, right.

T: Does Nelly say she, like, went on a vacation and came back?

R: Yeah, basically, I think she said like “I went to town to get something and when I came back they were best friends.”

T: Wow.

J: Yeah, it almost feels a little devilish, a little spooky.

R: It's spooky?

J: I don't really think that, but I do kind of just want to add in more supernatural stuff. All right.

R: We had a freaking ghost! You need more than that?

J: Their love is supernatural and weird.

T: And devilish. And kind of spooky.

R: And there's a ghost.

T: So we'll just say ‘devilish and spooky’ every once in a while to add in a little more supernatural flavor.

R: Yeah, can you make a sound effect?

J: Can it be a stinger?

R: Please?

T: (heavy sigh)

R: Spoooooky Crisp! Like that.

J: Spooky Crisp? Like a cereal?

R: Don’t they do that? Isn't that like a holiday rewrap of the box? Surely.

J: What?!

T: I mean, they should.

J: Spooky Crisp?

R: You know, Cookie Crisp, where the guy says, “Cooooookie crisp!” I'm saying, don't they do like a Halloween version?

T: Oh, yeah, they do.

R: They do?

T: Yeah. It’s been done.

J: Spooky Crisp!

R: Wow. All the good ideas have been had.

T: Oh my gosh, and you'll never believe it.

R: What?

T: It's, like, a ghost on the front.

R: A ghost of their normal mascot or a totally different ghost?

J: What is their normal mascot? Is the normal mascot a cookie?

R: I think he's a wolf.

T: Yeah, he’s a wolf.

J: A wolf?

R: A cookie? He's a wolf that says, “Cooooookie crisp!”

T: Yeah.

J: Man, you remember a lot about Cookie Crisp. I think I…

R: That's literally the only thing. I don't even know if I've had Cookie Crisp.

J: For a girl who didn't have a cable, how did she…?

T: That was one of the five DVD's that Rachel has.

R: Yes, commercials - cereal commercials -

T: Best commercials of the early 2000s.

J: Yeah, I think I just… I think I just pushed them out of my mind because they were such a disappointing cereal.

T: Really?

R: You know what's really good, is Reese's Puffs.

J: Oh man, I could kill some Reese's Puffs. Kill ‘em.

R: Yeah. It's Reese's for breakfast.

T: Oh my gosh. You guys ever had a cereal sundae at Tristan and Andrew’s house?

J: (mumbling) No.

R: Yeah!

T: No, you didn't.

J: Yeah, I was just there this past week!

R: Why would you even ask?

T: Do you know what it is?

R: You told me.

T: This is what I would always eat at my friend Tristan's house growing up when we would have - we'd have a sleepover, and then in the morning we would eat a cereal sundae, which was, you'd get a big, tall cup, you'd put a layer of -

J: He’s holding his hands about four inches apart now.

T: You get a layer -

R: A HUGE cup.

T: You get a layer - you get a layer of Reese's and then you put a layer of whipped cream and a layer of Reese's and a layer of whipped cream and then you just like, stir it up and it’ll be like, the best parfait. It’s a cereal sundae.

R: Just… Reese’s… cups?

J: Does that make a… that’s a parfait?

T: Uh, Reese’s puffs. Yeah.

R: Puffs. So the only thing different from regular cereal is that you use whipped cream instead of milk.

T: Yeah, and it is so good. That's the other difference, is that it’s so good.

R: You would eat a giant thermos full of whipped cream and candy, basically?

T: It wasn’t a thermos, but it was a big cup. I don't know if I own a cup this big anymore. I don't think I've ever owned a cup this big.

J: What if it turns out -

T: Sorry, it's not about the cup! It's about the cereal sundae! You guys, you have to try this. It was so good. It's funny, because it gave me energy for the rest of the day when I was a kid, but…

J: But now it saps your energy instantly.

T: Yeah, I’m sure, and it gives you a stomach ache before you're finished with it, I bet.

R: I bet I could eat it just fine.

T: You don't know how big this cup is, Rachel. I've seen you eat tiny portions of things and think like, “Oh, this is a really big cup I'm eating out of!” It’s not as impressive compared to…

R: I've also eaten large portions of things. I have to stop myself, like I could easily - every time I don't eat a whole pizza, it's because I'm holding myself back. Let's just put it like that.

T: Really?

J: Yeah, every time I don't eat every can of tuna in the vending machine, it's because I'm exercising a lot of restraint.

T: Ahhh.

J: Hold on, we got to go back for a second. What if the entire first season of this podcast and the first episode of season two was all just, like, the lead up to a recipe? One of those blogs where it's like, “Let me tell you a huge, long story about my grandmother and how she grew up and then like what we used to do together when we visited her as kids and stuff,” and then like you have to scroll down, like eventually, after thirty gigs of information, there's the recipe.

R: It’s: cereal, whipped cream.

J: What if this whole podcast was just the lead up to Theo's recipe for cereal sundae and it's just like, “Reese’s puffs, whipped cream, Reese’s puffs, whipped cream”...

T: And we didn't reveal that in this season finale, or the first episode of the second season. It was the second episode of the second season where we reveal -

R: The perfect time.

J: So we're going to put that on our website. Like, if you want to get to the recipe, you're going to have to go through all this stuff first.

R: You’re gonna have to go through us first.

T: Yeah.

J: All right.

R: All right.

J: Let's move on.

R: So first, chapter ten. We open with our narrator, Mr. Lockwood, very sick. He's out for like a month, and he says at one point that Heathcliff visits him with some dead birds to eat, I guess, and he tells Nelly to tell him the rest of the story. So she gets back into it. She says after Cathy married into the Linton family - which, if you recall, her husband's name is Edgar and her new sister in law is named Isabella. So she says Cathy was actually very well behaved at first because basically everybody just did whatever she wanted, so she never had a reason to be a brat, which I guess is one way to handle things. Soon after the marriage, Heathcliff shows up again and he just like pops out of the darkness one night -

T: Ooh!

R: - to Nelly and says, “Hey, tell Cathy I'm here.”

J: Yes, she's outside picking apples and all of a sudden Heathcliff pops up and she acts like she doesn't recognize him? Which I'm confused about, because she's probably only met like forty people in her life tops, and this has got to be like the only black guy.

R: I guess three years when you're a teen could be a big deal.

J: She's like, “Who is that?!”

R: But finally she's like, “Oh my gosh, I recognize him from his eyes!”

J: …And the rest of his face, and his voice and his - what?!

R: Yeah, everything. Although he's totally changed now. He's looking more gentlemanly, I guess. He says, “I want to talk to Cathy, pass on my message. I'll be waiting outside basically forever.”

J: The whole rest of this book basically is a game of telephone, with Heathcliff saying like, “Pass it on,” and then Nelly goes inside. “Okay, pass it on.” (whispering sounds) Just going back and forth.

R: Lucky for Lockwood, he asked the one person who was present for everything what was going on with these people.

T: Yeah, really.

J: She’s hugely instrumental in shaping everything that happened. I feel kind of bad for Nelly. We’ll get into that in a second.

R: Well, she lost me a little bit in this section.

J: Yeah, no, no, she does, but well, I like her.

R: All right!

J: All right, we ran the gamut.

R :So Nelly goes inside and she's like, kind of scared to tell Cathy that he's there, but finally she does and Cathy is so excited she like, runs outside and then Nelly tells Edgar, “Oh, by the way, yeah, that's Heathcliff.”

T: What?!

R: So [Edgar] opens the window. I know! She's constantly tattling.

J: And remember Edgar doesn't like Heathcliff because he got a face full of hot applesauce from him one time.

T: Yeah!

R: Yeah, also, they’re love rivals.

T: Whose side is Nelly on, anyway?

R: Right now, she's definitely on Edgar's side.

J: They’re love rivals, but Cathy is saying, “He's my greatest, dearest friend and if you're my husband and I love you, you have to be his friend as well.”

T: Been there.

R: He hasn't had to deal with that yet because, luckily for him, Heathcliff had disappeared for three years. But so he yells out the window. He's like, “Oh, if you're going to talk to him, bring him in and then you guys can go talk in the kitchen because he's just a servant.” And Cathy's like, “Are you kidding me? I'm your wife, I'm not going to talk in the kitchen. We're going to talk in here and you can set at a separate table with your sister if you'd rather, and I'll sit at like a servant table with him, whatever.” So I guess he kind of ignores that. So when Heathcliff is talking to her, he has a tendency to just like… he tells everyone his diabolical schemes with no prompting. He's talking to her and she's like, “Oh my gosh, it's so good to see you,” and he says, “Yeah, well, my plan was I would look in the window, see your face once, go to Wuthering Heights, murder your brother, and then kill myself.”

T: Woah!

J: “But instead it was all ruined because I saw your face, and you were so excited…”

R: “But you were so happy to see me, yeah, I decided not to, but if you're ever not happy to see me… I've still got Plan B.” But she doesn't say anything, like -

J: “Are you crazy?”

R: “A ha ha ha ha…” or, “Don't do that.” She just continues on. Nobody says anything.

J: He has that habit left over when he was a child and he would say to Hindley, like, “Okay, you're going to give me that horse and if you don't do that, I'm gonna go and tell your dad that you beat up on me and all this stuff.”

R: And he told Nelly like, “I'm going to get revenge on Hindley.”

J: Just don’t tell him!

T: Well, boys will be boys.

R: Boys will be boys. Catching a glimpse of their true love's face, killing her brother, killing themselves. Typical boys.

J: Painting the door with the blood, throwing a guy off of the garrett…

R: Catching a baby and then wishing they hadn’t…

J: Just boy things!

R: Yes, so after he leaves, he stays for a couple hours. When he goes, Cathy apparently like talks to Edgar about how great he is and how he's looking so fine now, and she's so happy to see him -

J: She’s so happy, she could have every horrible thing happen to her in the world and she would still be happy, because she's so excited to see him.

R: She tells Nelly like, “I tried to tell Edgar all this, but he was like telling me he was sick and had a headache and then he started crying.” Yeah, Nelly said, “Obviously, because he hates him. You wouldn't talk about Edgar to Heathcliff, would you?” So she says, look, why -

J: But… poor Edgar!

R: I know. She says, “I have such faith in his love that I believe I might kill him and he wouldn't wish to retaliate.” And Nelly's like, “Uh, you should value that quality in a husband, girl!”

J: Is that a valuable quality? I feel like that's a red flag.

R: His devotion.

T: Wait, who might kill who?

J: If she - if she killed Edgar, he wouldn't even be mad at her.

R: Yeah.

J: Like he loves her that much and he just is gonna bend to her every will.

R: Yeah, and then she's like, “Okay, I see your point. I'm so happy!” And she says, “I'm gonna go make up with him right now. Good night! I'm an angel!” And runs off.

J: A little foreshadowing, don't you think?

R: Maybe that should be our sign off for the podcast.

J: Good night! I'm an angel!

R: Bye, we're all angels.

J: Every time you hear the stinger, an angel gets its wings.

T: Hmm?

R: And that's us. So Heathcliff continues to visit and he comes more and more frequently, and poor little Isabella gets a crush on him. And Cathy finds out because Isabella tells her, like, “You were so mean to me when you walked off with him and left me alone!”

J: Yeah, she starts getting annoyed with Cathy and just kind of being rude to her all the time, and Cathy's like, “What is your deal? What do - why do you have a problem with me all of a sudden?” And she said, “Because you wouldn't let me walk with you and Heathcliff the other day.” And Cathy's like, “I didn't think he wanted to hear what we were talking about,” and she was like, “Well, I did, because I love him!” And then she kind of just blurts it all out, and Cathy's like, “You're kidding me, right? Like, he's a monster. He's a straight up monster. He'll destroy you.”

R: She says, “He's an unreclaimed creature without refinement, without cultivation, an arid wilderness of furzy and windstone. I'd as soon put that little canary into the park on a winter's day as recommend you to bestow your heart on him.” But of course Isabella is a teenage girl with a crush, and she's like, “How dare you say that? You're supposed to be his friend! I'll never believe such things.”

J: Yeah, she's like, “You're clearly just jealous and you don't want him to love anybody but you. You don't want anyone to love anybody but you, so you're going to go ahead and just try to, you know, crush all of my love for him.”

T: Wow.

R: She's like, “If you would stay out of my way, then I could win his heart.” Anyway. When Heathcliff comes back next time, Isabella is very embarrassed and wants to leave, and Cathy's like, “No, you can't leave. You told me you want to be with him all the time. Listen to this, she has a crush on you!”

J: She holds Isabella by the arm and tells Heathcliff how much she's been tormenting herself, and it's an unbearable scene.

R: It's really mean.

J: Yeah.

R: And poor little Isabella is like struggling to get free.

J: Digging her claws in.

R: Cathy, finally lets go, because Isabella is like, gouging at her with her fingernails, and then she lets her run away.

J: And Heathcliff says, “Well, you might be joking with me, Cathy, because it's clear she wants to be rid of my society now.” Very mean.

R: Yeah. But it turns out he seems a little bit interested, because he says, “Now, she's Edgar's heir, isn't she?”

T: Oh no!

R: And Cathy says, “Well, you know, hopefully she'll have a bunch of nephews to take the spot. She says like, “Also, you're not supposed to covet thy neighbor's goods, and these particular goods are mine, so quit it.” And he says, “Hey, if they were mine, they would still be yours!” And then that's the end of that chapter.

J: Their arguments are all so weird, because they just claim to be the same person and then it doesn't matter anymore.

R: Yeah.

J: It’s like, “Rachel, you said I made you mad? Well, I'm you and I made myself mad, so whatever.”

R: Yeah, so… we’re done!

T: I feel like if you're going around telling everyone about your devilish plots to murder people, you don't want to start saying things like, “Oh, and she's Edgar's heir, right?”

R: “She gets all his money if your husband, whom I hate, dies?”

J: Yeah, he's not trying to hide his nature from Cathy at all, and he even says to her that Isabella is not tempting to him in any way at all, like she's not even worth his regard. But you can tell that he's starting to kind of form some little ideas.

R: So in chapter 11, Nelly finally does get to see Hareton again. He is the son of Cathy's older brother and the current heir to Wuthering Heights. So it's been ten months since she last saw him. But he doesn't recognize her at all and he's a huge brat. Like, threatens her and won't let her in. So she ends up walking back home and on her way she sees Heathcliff and Isabella sneakily meeting and, like, sees him kiss her, it seems like?

J: Yeah.

R: So she runs in and tattles, of course, and Cathy, when she's talking to Heathcliff, he's like, “Oh, don't be so jealous!” And she says, “I'm not jealous OF you. I'm jealous FOR you. Marry her if you want to, I don't care.” And he gets really, really angry when she says that and she's like, “Oh, so the problem is that I'm not jealous.” He says, “If I imagined you really wished me to marry Isabella, I'd cut my throat.”

T: Wow!

R: Like, what a weirdo! He's got…

J: There's just… doing … they're doing everything opposite!

T: What do you mean?

J: He knows she doesn't want him to marry Isabella, so he's going to marry Isabella. And if she wanted him to do it, he would kill himself because that would mean that she's not in love with him.

R: Yeah.

J: They're - they're wrapped up in some weird knots, man.

R: Yeah. So, Nelly leaves, they kick her out. And Cathy is arguing with Heathcliff. Nelly tattles to Edgar, who gets really angry obviously, and then he comes into the room and he hears that Cathy and Heathcliff are arguing with raised voices. And when he gets in and he tries to tell him off, the two of them both start mocking him, like really meanly, saying, “Oh, you're such a baby, quit acting tough when you're not actually going to hit him. If you're not going to apologize or just get beat up by Heathcliff, you should leave!”

J: Yeah.

R: They're so mean! So then at this point, Heathcliff shoves the chair Edgar is sitting in. He pushes the chair, and immediately Edgar springs out of the chair and punches him in the throat. It takes his breath out and he starts choking, and then Edgar, like, walks away to get back up. What's really funny is that for the previous several paragraphs Heathcliff has been saying, like, “You're not even worth it, I wouldn't fight you no matter what!” And Cathy says like, “Yeah, him fighting you would be like the king sending an army to crush a colony of ants. He would never try to hurt YOU.”

T: Aww!

R: And then as soon as Edgar punches him in the throat, Heathcliff’s like, “I'm gonna fight him.”

J: She locks him in the - she's always like, trying to keep people in the room where they don't want to be with Heathcliff. So Edgar wants to leave, but she takes the key, locks the door and then throws the key into the fire. And then Edgar's just stuck there, so he has to punch him in the throat.

R: Basically. So anyway, it causes a big drama and Heathcliff leaves. And Cathy is so upset she tells Nelly, like, “As punishment for that, I'm going to break their hearts by breaking my own.” And the whole time Nelly is like “Mhmm yeah. Sure, sure.” Basically just rolling her eyes at how dramatic everyone is being, which is kind of funny because it feels like this is almost a commentary on a gothic novel instead of one of the earlier Gothic novels. Because you have this character who acts like a normal person around everyone who's caught up in all the drama. So it's kind of interesting. But Edgar tells Cathy, “Look, you have to pick one. You can have me or you can have Heathcliff, but you HAVE to pick.” And instead of picking, Cathy throws a fit. She like, slams her head over and over into the couch arm, and like bites at her lips until her mouth bleeds. After she throws this violent, violent fit, she runs up to her room and locks herself in for three days and won't take any food or water and doesn't come out, and she kind of acts like a brat. She's mad that Edgar hasn't tried to check up on her, and then she starts throwing another violent fit, like trying to open the window and physically fighting off Nelly, who runs off to find Edgar and says like, “I can't control your wife, you have to help me.”

J: Yeah.

R: And he realizes that she is sick and not just pouting, and he tries to blame Nelly.

J: But she kind of pouted herself into sickness. Like, how did she do this voluntarily?

R: Yeah. That's… what I'm wondering. She, at this point, is acting very weird. She tells Edgar the next time she's able to go outside on the hills -

J: - will be the last time.

R: It will be when they bury her.

T: Wow.

J: Yeah, she says, “It's going to be the last time. You're going to bring me out there, meet me on the hill, and then you'll come back and I won't,” basically.

R: Yeah, and she says, “Don't bury me in the church. You have to bury me outside, and it's your choice if you want to be buried with your family or me.” So it's just very strange because at this point it's like, why are you talking like this? You were just pouting alone for three days.

T: How old is she?

R: I think she's…

J: 19, 20?

R: Yeah, maybe, maybe twenty ish.

T: This has got to be the devil. Right?

J: But it would be not the devil if she was a different age?

R: 45? Totally normal behavior.

T: Well, I could kind of understand saying something like that if you’re like, 80.

J: Oh, like you had dementia or something?

R: Or saying like, “You need to bury me somewhere.”

T: Yeah, like talking about how you're gonna die. Like, “This is my last time locking myself in a room for three days.”

J: Yeah, it's almost funny.

T: “Can’t keep this up like I used to.”

J: Yeah, I mean it's almost funny, except that you can see where it's going. Like, she's saying things like, “How can Edgar just be sitting in a library reading books while I'm DYING? And how can Heathcliff be just walking around outside while I'm dying? I'm dying! Everybody knows that, and nobody cares!” And Nelly is just like, “...Yeeaahhh, you're fine. You're gonna be fine. You just ate some food, you're going to feel better tomorrow.”

R: So Nelly, like, runs off, and she goes outside and she finds that Isabella's dog is tied up. She learns that Isabella and Heathcliff have eloped. The next morning she tells Edgar, and he says, “Well, I guess I won't talk to her anymore, but I'm not disowning her. She disowned me.” And that's the end of the chapter.

J: He's focused on his sick wife. Doesn't have any time to spare for his sister.

R: Yeah.

T: I feel like if I were Edgar, I would think, like, “I made a mistake marrying this person.”

R: Yeah, YOU would!

J: And they've only been married for less than a year, right?

R: Just like a couple months, honestly, I think.

J: Yeah, because a little bit later, when it starts to become springtime, he says, “Oh, Cathy, last spring, here I was wishing that you would join me in this house, and now here you are.”

R: Yeah, it's a year later.

J: And things are already going way off the rails.

R: So chapter 13. Two months pass, and it turns out that Cathy has a brain fever.

T: Oohh.

R: So…

J: What? You've never had a brain fever?

R: I don't think so.

T: I've got a fever for brains.

J: Is it like a disco fever? Like she just can't get enough of it?

R: I've got a fever, and the only cure for it is more brains.

J: More brains.

T: And then she's a zombie.

J: Yeah, I mean, if you did have a fever eating up your brain, then I guess the cure would be replacement of the brain. More brains.

T: More brains!

R: Replacement of the brain. Is that your medical diagnosis?

J: Yeah. “She's a-sufferin’ somethin’ awful with replacement of the brain.”

R: Gotta go to the Spirit Halloween Rx.

T: Just write me a prescription for more brains.

R: Then it's legal.

J: Yeah, I don't know. My insurance is kind of crappy, I don't think I would pay for it.

R: Darn. Oh well, plan B. Okay. So -

J: Won’t pay for that, either. It’s a Catholic hospital, Rachel.

T: Nice! Getting political!

R: Uh oh! So Cathy predicts her death yet again.

J: Well, she - yeah. People should stop believing her after a certain point, right?

R: Well, we'll see!

T: Yeah?

R: So Isabella sends a really long letter to Nelly, and she tells her, like, “Oh, you know, give my love to Edgar and Cathy, blah, blah, blah. Okay, now here's the part you're not allowed to tell them. My life here sucks. It's so bad and everyone is really, really, really mean to me.”

J: She goes to visit Isabella at Wuthering Heights, and Joseph meets her at the door, Vinegar-Faced Joseph, the old guy who's always like quoting scripture. Nelly says, “Can you come in with me and help me find Isabella?”, right? And then he says, “Mm mm mm! Did ever a Christian body hear anythin’ like it? Minchin’ un munchin’!” And Nelly says, “I thought he was deaf, so I repeated what I said.”

T: She thought he was deaf, like she says... He wasn't responding to anything? He was just saying that?

J: Yeah, she said, “Joseph, whom I followed to the stables, I requested him to accompany me in and he responded, mm mm mm, minchin un’ munchin’.

T: What? Okay, how do you spell that? How - why do you -

J: “Minchin’ un munchin! How can ah tell what ye say?” And Nelly says, “I say, I wish you to come with me into the house,” thinking him deaf.

T: Minchin and munchin’?

J: What does that mean?! “Minchin’ un munchin’. Mm mm mm.”

R: It means complaining.

T: Oh. Minchin’ un munchin’... I can see…

R: Isn't it “monching”? Or is it spelled ‘munchin’?

J: It says, “minchin’ un munchin.” Yeah, it’s just so funny that -

R: Minching UND munching? Is he German?

J: Minchin’ UN munchin’. That's what it says! But I love that he says, “How am I supposed to be able to tell what you say, Nelly? You're so incomprehensible.”

R: Yeah.

T: That's what he says?

J: He says, “How can I tell what you say?”

T: Wow.

R: They're all weird, all these people.

T: Yeah, but he's the only one who I really feel attached to.

R: Really?

J: You feel attached to Joseph?

T: He’s funny.

R: What about Mr. Lockwood, the one who confuses rabbits for dead cats? No, dead rabbits for cats.

J: Dead cats for rabbits! Oh no, it goes the other way too?

R: Dead cat equals live rabbit. Dead rabbit equals live cat.

J: So he looks at the things on the couch and says, are those your favorite cats? But they were really rabbits.

R: Dead rabbits, right. Skinned, I think.

T: I like to think of it kind of like a sitcom, and that would be his signature gag. Every episode there's got to be some point where he mistakes a dead rabbit for a cat or the other way around.

R: Ay, ay, ay.

T: You don't like that?

R: I mean, that's just a lot of dead animals in a sitcom.

T: But, but -

R: But, but? Go ahead!

T: Well, it could be the same one!

J: The same one!?

T: Well -

J: He sees the same animal, just rotting and rotting and rotting over the course of the season. And he's like, “Is that a cat yet?”

T: Yeah.

R: It’s the rule of threes.

T: Yeah, and then - and then, yeah. The other actor turns to the camera and says, “He's just not gettin’ it!” Womp, womp!

R: “We gotta teach this guy a lesson.”

T: Yeah!

J: “How many times must we teach you this lesson?”

R: All right. So when Nelly shows up, of course the only thing Heathcliff wants to talk about is Cathy. So he says, “Basically, [Edgar] couldn't love as much in 80 years as I could in a day. And Catherine has a heart as deep as I have. The sea could be as readily contained in that horse trough as her whole affection be monopolized by him. He's scarcely dearer to her than her dog or her horse. It is not in him to be loved like me. How can she love in him what he has not?” So he's saying, like, “I used to be worried that she cared about him, but now I'm not at all. I can tell that I'm way better.”

J: “He's so unlovable, I'm not even having to worry about it.”

R: Yeah.

J: So when he says, “I could love more in a day than he could in 80 years,” he could have proved a point for Claxton in, like, probably 12 hours.

T: Ohhh.

R: Yeah, sorry, Claxton.

T: I don't necessarily think it's about loving.

J: You don't think so?

T: Well, I think if you're saying your marriage was entirely to prove a point, it's not about… the point you're proving is probably not love.

J: You don't think the point was, “I love this woman so much.”

R: Okay, so at this point Isabella sticks up for her brother, but Heathcliff, of course, is a huge dick to her.

J: SO mean.

R: And he says stuff like, “The only good thing about her now is that she's finally figured out that I don't love her at all and never did.”

J: Yeah.

R: Like, “She's so dumb I didn't even have to lie to her to convince her to marry me.” He's just really, really, really mean.

J: Yeah, he says, “I told her how I was and she decided she wanted to marry me anyway, so she's an idiot and this is her fault.”

R: Yeah. And so Isabella tells Nelly, “Do not tell my brother what things are like for me over here, because Heathcliff wants to have power over him, and if my brother finds out and he wants to save me… You know, that gives Heathcliff the power.” So she says, “I would rather myself die - or, hey, Heathcliff could die. Both of those are fine.” She says that in front of her husband.

J: No, they're not hiding any of this from each other. And they've been married what - a few days?

R: Yeah, I mean it's - it hasn't been long. They've just gotten back to Wuthering Heights, I guess. So, since their honeymoon ended, it's only been a couple days.

T: Yeah, well, Heathcliff can love more in two days than most people could in 80 years, right?

J: Yeah, so that was like 160 years of love.

R: To prove a point.

T: They’re kind of tired of each other.

J: Yeah, he says the day after their wedding she wanted to go home.

R: Yeah! The morning!

J: The morning of. The one funny thing that Isabella says is, “He is ingenious and unresting in seeking to gain my abhorrence.” He's so GENIUS with all the different ways he makes me hate him!

R: Yeah, he really is. So he gives Nelly a note to pass on to Cathy, and she says, “All right, I'll do it.”

J: So Nelly is giving Catherine this letter from Heathcliff and she just says “Here, ma'am, there's a letter for you.” And Cathy is sitting there, like, the picture of living tuberculosis, basically, like totally pale, wearing a white gown, long, uncombed hair just kind of sitting on her shoulders, staring out the window pensively, seeing some other world that's not there. And she tries to hand her the letter, and Catherine, like, lifts up her hand and then just can't even close her hand around the letter, and just lets it fall on her lap. And eventually Nelly has to pick up Catherine's hand and just put the letter in and say, “It's from Heathcliff,” and then she's like, “Woop!” and she wakes right up and opens it.

T: And perks up?

J: But then she looks at it, and she… it's like she can't understand it. So she looks at Nelly helplessly and Nelly is like, “Let me translate for you.”

R: Yeah, it's pretty funny.

T: She is really committed to this bit.

R: This bit.

J: Yeah, this dying bit?

T: Yeah. This ‘wasting away’ bit she's doing.

R: She is a natural-born comedienne.

T: I admire that.

J: Yeah, so funny.

R: So as soon as she gets the letter, basically, Nelly's like, “Oh my gosh, it's Heathcliff!” Some dogs start barking and she realizes he's come into the house. And he basically like, almost immediately -

J: What if - hold on, sorry. What is of the point of giving a letter? It's like, “Here, here's a letter for you. Also, he's standing outside. Also, he's coming up the stairs right now.”

R: He could sense when she got it, I guess?

J: Why give a letter? Just come up!

R: Well, he wanted her to have a warning, he said.

T: The letter just says, “Warning, warning, Heathcliff approaching.”

R: Yeah, exactly.

J: “Here I come! Up the stairs!”

R: “By the time you read this, I'll be in front of you.”

J: Yeah.

R: “At the end of this sentence, look up. Here I am.”

J: First of all, the warning doesn't count for anything, because what can she possibly do to get ready in the amount of time that he gives her? And also, like, the warning could have just been like “Hey, Nelly, tell her I'm on my way up.” Instead of, like, “Cram this letter into her hand and make her read it.”

R: Because Nelly said, like, “Don't come see her, you're going to make her more sick if you surprise her.” And he's like, “Just ask her if I can see her.”

J: Yeah! “This counts! I’m not surprising her!”

R: “I’m gonna warn her, and then just ask if she wants to see me.” But instead of waiting to hear an answer, he like, comes up.

J: She had multiple seconds of headway.

R: True. She wasn’t surprised. So he, somehow, is able to find the room she's in almost right away. Like he looks in one room but then he immediately finds the room Cathy’s in.

J: Wouldn't have been impressive in my house, but in Thrushcross Grange… probably.

R: Exactly. So what I was going to say is, I know what it's like, and I realized what my soulmate is. And it's Moomin-based apparel. Do you guys know the Moomins?

J: Because of you I have to.

T: No.

R: I can show you a Moomin, or I guess not. But so basically, they're - this Finnish cartoonist came up with them. They’re these little white… they're called Moomin trolls. They're very cute. They look like bipedal hippopotamuses.

J: Theo, when we were at Stephen's apartment and we played that ‘To Serve Man’ game, Rachel had Moomins all over her.

T: Yeah.

R: I've got Moomins to my right.

J: I've got Moomins to my left!

R: Moomins to the left of me, Moomins to my right.

T: Got Moomins to my left, got Moomins to my right.

R: But anyway. So they're very popular in Finland and very popular in Japan. Those are like the two countries that have Moomin-themed parks, like Moomin amusement parks. I really wanted to buy some Moomin clothes, and when I went to Tokyo with my friend Jordan, I didn't know if there was a Moomin collaboration. I went into a - it was like, a four-story high Uniqlo. And obviously I can't read Japanese, but as soon as I went in I just, like, immediately, I went to an escalator, went up some stairs, and then walked - bzzt! - right to some Moomin stuff. And when I got there I was like, looking at the t-shirts and dresses and everything, and Jordan was in complete shock. She's like, “How did you do that? I have never seen anything like that before. It was like you were a magnet being drawn directly to these Moomins.” But I have no memory. I, I remember seeing the store and I remember being at the Moomin clothes.

J: You like, dissociated. Something took you over there.

R: Yeah.

J: Do you think a Moomin inhabited your body and was like -

R: “Buy some stuff with me on it.”

J: Did Jordan say how you maneuvered the escalator? Like, how was your body moving during this time? Was it…

R: We’ll get her on the pod and we’ll find out. Anyway. So, Nelly is watching while Heathcliff and Cathy are just like, kissing and kissing, hugging and carrying on and it’s just embarrassing, honestly.

T: Wait, cheek-kissing, or kissing-kissing?

J: Kissing-kissing.

R: It doesn't specify, but I think it's kissing.

J: I’m pretty sure!

R: It says he kisses her all over.

J: It says he kisses her a lot, and then Nelly says at one point, [Cathy] kisses him instead of just BEING kissed.

T: (gasp)

R: And then they're KISSIN’.

J: And then he can't take it anymore, and they're just like, so passionate and they're just yelling at each other, and -

R: Nelly’s watching, like a real creep.

J: But yeah, so do you want to say what they're saying? Because so, Cathy is basically like,
“You killed me! You're my murderer, it's your fault.” And he’s saying, “How could you say that? You're the one who killed yourself, and then by you killing yourself, you're also killing me!”

R: He says, “You're about to die. Remember, these are the last words I'm going to remember about you. Are you trying to make me suffer as much as you are?”

J: Yeah, like, “You're about to die, but that's going to be fine. Imagine ME walking around this earth all by myself without YOU.”

R: Yeah, “You'll be peaceful, I'M going to be MISERABLE.”

J: And so they're kissing, embracing. She's pregnant! Seven months pregnant, we forgot to mention.

R: So after she blames him for her death and he's like, “Don't blame me for your death!” She says, “Okay, okay, okay, you, you didn't kill me, you would never hurt me.”

T: I… I don't know about these two.

J: And he says, “How do you feel about me - you know, you're going to be at peace, but I'm going to be tormented.” And then Cathy says, “I shall not be at peace!” She moans, and her heart beats VISIBLY and audibly, she's so agitated.

T: Woah.

J: And everyone's like, “Ooh ooh ooh. Ooh. Okay. Don't, don't excite her.”

T: That's cool!

R: Yeah. NOW he's interested in marrying her!

J: No, it's not a sexy thing! She's very ill!

R: No, he’s just fascinated. So then Heathcliff apparently is still so proud, that he can't let his true love see him upset while she's dying. So he like, turns his back on her for a while. Then Cathy talks about him to Nelly. Then he turns around again and they embrace, and they're both weeping, finally. So he actually is crying, and Nelly makes a snide remark, like, “Oh, so, I guess he CAN cry, when it's a big deal!”

T: Why did she say that?

R: I don't know!

T: Was there another time when he was supposed to cry and he didn't?

R: I don't know!

J: His entire childhood when he was getting beaten up, and he was just so rude that he didn't even cry?

R: Yeah, I guess that's what it is?

J: The narrator says, “They were silent, their faces hid against each other and washed by each other's tears. At least, I suppose the weeping was on both sides, as it seemed Heathcliff could weep on a great occasion like this. I grew very uncomfortable, meanwhile.”

R: Yeah. “Finally, I am not into this.”

J: “It took a while, but I did eventually become uncomfortable.”

R: “You know me, I love to spy, but… this is a little far.” So finally they're talking and she's like, “Oh, I'm so sorry for what I've done. Can you please forgive me?” And he says, “I forgive what you've done to me. I love MY murderer, but yours? How can I? Now that we've established you're dying because of yourself, I'll just say, I can't forgive you for making yourself get a brain fever.”

T: … Huh.

R: Huh!

J: “I could forgive my brain fever, but yours? Never.”

R: Yeah, it's very strange. So then the church is let out. They hear the bells, and Nelly's like, “You gotta get out of here, her husband's gonna be back soon!” And Cathy will not let him leave, like she's holding him really tightly. She's like, “You can't leave, this is our last time seeing each other!”

T: Well, we know how to break that grip. We know how to break Cathy's grip.

R: Yeah. Clawing.

J: Oh, you mean like (back and forth sawing sound). No, SAWING.

T: I was thinking on the window.

R: Oh!

J: Clawing or sawing.

T: Clawing or sawing! Those are the ways.

R: Clawin’ or sawin’.

J: Oh, let me count the ways!

R: Two.

T: Minchin’ n munchin’.

J: Minchin’ n munchin’! That’s four.

R: So Linton shows up, because Heathcliff’s like, “Fine, I'll stay with you, and if he finds me like this and puts a bullet in my head, then I'll die happy.” So now they're both thinking they're gonna die. So Linton shows up, and at this point Cathy is totally passed out and Heathcliff hands -

J: And Nelly says, “Oh good, she's dead. It's over.”

R: Yeah, so Heathcliff hands her floppy body to her husband and is like, “Deal with her first, don't worry about me,” and then runs away and tells Nelly, “I'm going to be hanging out in their garden… all night. So just give me an update tomorrow morning.” And that's the end of the chapter.

J: He hangs out in the garden for six hours.

T: That's so many hours.

R: Yep. It's pretty funny. Chapter 16 starts, and Baby Catherine is born premature at seven months, and her mother, Cathy, dies. So just -

T: (gasp)

R: Yeah. So, to keep things simple, I'm going to call her daughter Catherine all the time.

T: Can I tell you what my solution to all of this would have been?

J: Sure.

R: What is it?

T: Get yourself a hobby. Like, I feel like none of these people have any hobbies, or…

R: Instead of writing this book with confusing names, Emily should have gotten a hobby.

T: Uh, I meant all the characters should have had hobbies. Because if he just has time to just like, sit around in a garden for six hours, like -

J: He could have been transcribing our podcast.

R: What if he were a composer?

T: That would have been - he would have thought, “You know, I'm going to go back and engrave some of the music I've been writing. I'm not going to just stand around in this garden.”

R: He could have written a wonderful song about it.

T: Oh. Yeah. He could’ve.

R: Theo seems a little jealous that his personal life isn't this passionate and turbulent.

J: It's because you spend too much time not standing around in gardens.

T: That’s true. Oh, I thought you were saying that because I made the rule that no one's allowed to tell me to write a piece about it anymore.

R: Well, I've already broken that rule and I'm going to continue to do so.

J: I think that, uh, the audience is not going to know what that means.

T: To the audience: here's where it happens if you're a composer. Uh, somebody drops a glass of milk. They turn to you and they say, “Write a piece about it.”

R: I’ve never done that, by the way.

J: Here's what happens when you're Rachel: someone says “somebody”, and you assume it means you.

R: Well, I’m the one he told the rule to!

T: It was for everyone. Literally anything that happens, someone will turn to you and say, “Write a song about it.” And I just feel like, come on, guys. I’m not your…

R: Little monkey on a string.

J: I’m not your little bard.

T & J: I'm not your little monkey on a stick.

T: Yeah, so, just saying. Treat the composer in your lives better.

J: What he actually said to us was, “I hate when you're a composer and everybody's always just asking you to write songs!”

R: Yeah, how dare they!

J: As though that's so out of the breadth of what he should be doing.

R: You realize doctors are constantly being shown rashes, right? And moles and everything? And they actually help people. Maybe you should write a song for once.

T: They don't!

J: Maybe you should become a doctor.

R: Yeah.

J: And nobody would ever ask you to write a song.

T: You know what? My cousin is a doctor, and his defense against that is he says, “I charge (blank) an hour.” I don't know how much he charges.

R: Wow, sounds like a bit of a jerk. My dad is constantly removing moles for people for free.

J: Yeah, in fact against their will a lot of the time.

T: I should just say what my rate is. I guess I need to figure out a rate.

R: I'll never pay you.

J: Yeah, figure out a rate.

R: If you ask me for money, I'll never pay you. If you don't ask? I might pay you. So just bear that in mind. It's Rachel's Gambit.

J: Okay, so you're saying someone drops a glass of milk and says, “Write a piece about that.”

T: Anything that happens, they say, “Write a piece about it!”

J: I'm just trying to mash this up with a doctor, and I'm imagining someone going to you and being like, “My tonsils are real swollen. Can you write a piece about that?”

T: I would not be surprised if someone said that to me.

R: Well, now that's it’s on the podcast -

T: Honestly. I really wouldn't.

J: Or someone goes to a doctor, spills some milk on the ground, and says, “Fix that.”

T: Yeah.

R: Yeah.

T: I think you're focusing a little too heavily on the milk thing, Jackie. I just meant that anything -

R: The point is, he doesn’t want to write music. That's why he's a composer.

J: Yeah, and it's absurd to ask him to do it.

T: The point is that almost nothing -

J: Look, he's starting to take off his jacket because he's getting irritated again! That's what he does!

R: Tears his shirt open and starts yelling.

T: Look here! Almost nothing is a good foundation for music, but everything is suggested to me all the time by everyone.

J: Almost nothing is a good foundation for music?! Are you insane?

R: Yeah, I don’t think that’s true.

T: Name something and I'll tell you if it's good or not.

J: Milk!

T: Terrible!

R: I bet there's been good songs written about milk.

T: Maybe jingles to advertise milk.

R: Sprinkling bacon?

T: Yeah, not good.

J: All right, let's move on.

R: Yeah, thanks, Theo.

T: (frustrated sigh)

R: All right, so, baby Catherine is born prematurely -

T: I'm just trying to use our platform for good! Okay?

R: I’m NEVER going to stop telling you to write songs.

T: Fine. Go ahead.

R: All right. So, okay, at this point Cathy's dead and while her body is in state, Nelly goes in to see it and she notices a little tuft of blond hair on the floor, and she looks and she realizes -

J: She goes all fuckin’ Sherlock Holmes Mode and realizes where it comes from.

R: Yep! She solves it.

J: Wait! Theo, can you guess? Where’d that hair come from?

T: So it's Cathy's body…

J: Her body is lying in the coffin, and on the floor is a little lock of blond hair.

T: Is that not Edgar?

J: Yeah.

R: It is. But what's it doing on the floor?

T: Why is that so shocking?

R: Because Heathcliff went in to see her body, saw her locket, opened it, took her husband's hair out, and put his own hair in!

T: Ohhh.

J: And then Nelly picked up the little blond hair and intertwined it with Heathcliff’s black hair!

R: Twisted the two hairs together, and put it in the locket.

T: Oh my gosh!

R: She's a meddler.

T: That's gonna ruin all of their…

R: Plans.

J: Plans!

T: Yeah, all of the ghost activities, all of their undead life.

J: There are times where I'm like, I feel so bad that Nelly is in the middle of all this, because sometimes she doesn't want to be, or she claims she doesn't want to be, and Heathcliff forces her to, or Cathy forces her to.

R: Yeah.

J: But sometimes she just does stuff off her own accord that she has no business doing. Like this!

R: It’s so funny.

J: What kind of juju are you messing with??

R: She loves to be involved. It's obvious.

T: But she wasn't tempted to put her own in there too?

R: Get some more hair in the mix!

T: Yeah.

J: What if that little tuft of blond hair belonged to, like, a dog? You know? Like she doesn't know what the fuck that is.

T: Or like, a dead rabbit!

J: Yeah!

R: I think she said it was like, wrapped at the end.

J: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

T: One of the many dead rabbits laying around.

R: All right, Theo, you love dead rabbits.

T: (insecurely) I’m not going to bring them up.

J: Yes, you are.

T: I’m not going to bring them up ever again, and you're going to miss it!

R: Just do it.

J: The new Nike slogan - Just bring up dead rabbits.

R: So Cathy is buried in a corner of the churchyard instead of in the church, and it says the wild plants kind of spilled over the wall. And then Nelly says, “By the way, her husband is buried next to her today.” So she gives us a nice little spoiler.

T: Edgar’s dead.

R: Yep.

J: Well, it has been 23 years.

R: He was like, 23! He doesn't have to be dead. So in chapter 17, Isabella Heathcliff arrives. Because she, you know, she married Heathcliff, so she took his singular name as her last name. And she has like, blood running down her neck. And it turns out she's been running away from her husband, and she's just stopping there to get a change of horses and then she's gonna go into town.

J: A change of horses.

R: …Yes? Exactly.

J: I know, it's just funny to imagine. Like, “Hold on, I'm just going to stop and change my horse real quick. Can you wait outside?”

R: “Yeah, I don't like this one.”

T: “I'm gonna slip onto something more comfortable.” A different horse.

J: “Oh, this old thing? It was my mother's.”

R: Last season's horse. So she says -

J: (indistinct mumbling)

R: What?

J: No.

R: Say it.

J: Just - I could… know I could just go on with that joke train forever.

R: Go ahead.

T: Go on, say one more.

R: Yeah.

J: Say one more?

R: Prove that you could do it forever by doing one more.

T: Yeah.

J: You know, it's just like, sometimes the things you get at Target are just like, so hit or miss. Like I have some horses from Target that I've had since high school, and then I got a horse at Target last week. It fell apart after two days!

T: Mmm.

J: It's ridiculous. …It wasn’t as good of a joke as it could have been.

R: Well, because I'm thinking about horses falling apart!

T: You are?

R: Yes, she just said it!

J: Yeah, why would you think about that? Nasty!

T: I was so focused on, is this true about Target? And is this slander?

J: No, it is true. I do have shirts, not horses.

T: Huh.

R: I don't know if it could be slander if you say that you bought a horse at Target and it fell apart. Found the loophole!

J: I want to do that, like just try to ruin different businesses by accusing them of ridiculous things. Like, “This car Dunkin’ Donuts sold me sucks.”

T: They're not known for their cars.

R: Oh, one time I saw giant trash bags full of Krispy Kremes behind the Krispy Kreme. Like, totally clean, clear trash bags with just doughnuts inside.

J: Big enough to fit the whole store in?

R: I could have fit in one of those bags.

J: Wow.

R: They were just full of delicious glazed doughnuts. And I was so tempted to take one of the bags. Because it was just a trash bag only of donuts, no trash. There were, you know, like six of them.

J: But what don't you don't know is that, somewhere in that bag, there's a single q-tip.

T: Used?

R: Well, I can't say it would still be worth it because I didn't even take the donuts, but I really… ugh, I think about it.

T: That’s interesting.

R: I just was like, I couldn't do… I couldn't eat all those donuts. I would love to have a bag full of donuts.

J: You know, the reason I decided to forego the trash bag full of donuts I found behind the Krispy Kreme is just because of my temperance.

R: Yeah.

J: I just couldn't.

R: I knew if I took the trash bag I'd eat the whole thing.

J: Very impressive.

R: There's nothing wrong with taking totally fine food from behind a restaurant, by the way. If anyone else has stolen a donut, any of our audience that have taken a clean trash bag full of donuts, I salute you.

T: Yeah.

J: Don’t you think they would taste like the trash bag? I feel like trash bags kind of have a scent to them.

R: No, you just take some from the middle.

T: From the middle?

R: It was a giant - it wasn't a normal trash bag. It was a giant trash bag.

J: Like, tunnel your way in there.

R: There were hundreds of doughnuts that did not touch the edges at all.

T: Yeah, I’m imagining you just reach your arm elbow-deep into a bag of donuts…

J: Like you’re delivering a cow or something.

R: Yeahhhh!

T: Yeah! And your whole forearm is just glazed after that.

R: What's wrong with that?

T: Uh, sticky? Sticky is wrong with that.

R: You can wash it off.

J: Yeah, it's like the Midas touch, like she just glazes everything...

T: It’s the Midas touch! Haha. That's pretty funny. Yeah, you get everything sticky that you touch. It's a blessing and a curse.

J: Yeah, can you just imagine someone coming around with like, a glazed forearm. “It's not gross because I only touch the middle of the bag!”

R: So anyway, Isabella says that Heathcliff had been gone from the house since Cathy died, but he just reappeared and he wants to come in the house. Hindley tells her, “I'm gonna shoot him. Just be quiet and I'll kill him for both of us.” She's like, “I can't let you do that, I'm gonna have to warn him.” So she lets him know, but he thinks she's plotting to kill him. She's like, “Look, I'm telling you that Hindley's going to kill you, and now that I've told you, you can come in and get shot or you can stay out, I don't care.” And so then Hindley’s like, “Oh, you're talking to him out the window?” And he tries to stab him through the window!

T: What?

R: But Heathcliff grabs the knife from him and there's a scuffle, and Hindley's wrist gets a giant gash and he's just bleeding all over the place.

J: They're always trying to do things through windows. Like, do things without windows in the way.

R: It’s a family trait.

J: Yeah.

T: I mean, I kind of feel like, can’t you just take the thirty seconds to go to the door and outside and go over to where Heathcliff is?

R: He's very drunk all the time.

J: It just doesn't have the same -

R: panache.

J: - joie de vivre to it.

R: Yeah, so then Heathcliff, bandages Hindley up, which is nice of him. And Joseph -

J: It took me several retries of reading this passage to figure out if Heathcliff had killed Hindley or not, because he says that like, he dragged his body into the pool of blood. POOL of blood! How is this guy alive?

R: This happened to Bekah a week or so ago.

J: She was dragged into a pool of blood?!

R: This exact thing!

T: Really?!

J: A man punched through the window and stabbed her?

R: She was drinking a mug of tea, and she dropped the mug and she went to pick it up, but she accidentally slammed her wrist onto a shard of porcelain. And she got a giant, really deep gash in her wrist. And she like had a pool of blood all over the place and she had to go to the hospital and get it stitched up, and she doesn't have full use of her fingers right now, still.

T: And someone dragged her through a pool of blood?

R: Keahi did, to get her to the car.

T: Who’s that?

R: Her roommate.

J: I refuse to believe she dragged Bekah through a pool of blood and then, like, piled towels around and was just like, “Well, someone nurse her back to health now.”

R: Who’s to say how big a pool is? So Isabella is telling this story to Nelly and she says,
“Yeah, I was purposefully making remarks at Heathcliff trying to make him angry, and like using Cathy's death against him.” “Because,” she says, “I could see that he was suffering a lot, but I didn't have anything to do with it and I wanted to have something to do with it.” And Nelly's like, “Hey, come on.”

J: “Hey!”

R: She says, “No, he sucks. I would rather -”

J: It’s like the sound Theo makes when we fight with each other.

R: Yeah. “Heyyyyy.”

T: (cautiously) “Hey… hey…”

J: “Hey, don't upset Heathcliff on purpose.”

R: “Don’t use your husband's true love’s death against him. Heyyyy.”

J: “Ah, naughty. Don’t do that.”

R: So she says, “I would rather him actually suffer less, as long as I was the one who caused the suffering and he knew that it was me.”

J: Okay, I don't know how to phrase this, but this book is full of stuff like that, where one character says, “I wish this other thing would have happened. As long as it were totally absurd, then I would be okay with it.”

R: So, in response to Isabella's needling, Heathcliff throws a knife at her and it gets stuck in her head, and she pulls it out. And then she says she threw another cruel remark at him in response.

T: Wait, wait, say this again?

J: He throws a knife at her, it gets stuck in her head, and she says something sassy.

R: She like (plopping sound) pulls it out and says a sassy remark.

T: Oh! I've got a good sassy remark she should have said.

J: Okay, what is it?

T: “Heh! KNIFE one!” (click sound) And then takes the knife out.

R: So, okay. Isabella escapes because Hindley and Heathcliff are grappling with each other. So later on the doctor tells Nelly, “Oh, guess which of our friends died?!” and she's like (excited gasp), “Is it Heathcliff?”

J: “Spin the wheel!!”

R: And he says, “Noooo! Iiiit's Hindley!” He says, “Yeah, he drank himself to death.”

J: And this is the same doctor who Hindley once put head-down in the marsh, so he's pretty pleased, right?

R: Yeah, but Nelly was raised… she apparently was the same age as him and they were raised together as children, so it was almost like a foster brother. And she just like, sits down and cries and cries, because she remembers when he was a little boy.

T: Right.

R: So then they are thinking, “Hey, this is great, we can get Hareton back, because he is Cathy's nephew.” So the only relative he has is Edgar Linton, and [Nelly] wants to get him back. But Edgar's like too distraught about his wife's death, so he doesn't really seem to care that much, which isn't great. And it turns out Heathcliff wants to keep him. In the next chapter, 12 years have passed, which Nelly says were great for her. And this is kind of funny because, you remember our narrator was mad when she tried to jump forward three years, but this time she jumps for 12 and he's fine with it. He's like, “let's get to the end.”

J: Like, all right, that kitten's been licked, let's go.

R: Yeah.

T: Well at this point I'm also thinking, like, I mean, all the characters that I cared about are dead now, so.

R: Time to care about more characters.

J: You only cared about Catherine and Hindley?

T: And the… and the rabbits.

J: Okay.

R: They started dead!

T: Sorry, I said I was going to stop bringing them up.

J: They started dead, maybe they're going to come back.

T: I would have been like, “Can you back up a few more years and talk about the rabbits?”

J: What if that’s like, the narrator sticks his hand out the window and is grabbed by a tiny, cold little -

R: Grabs a dead rabbit.

J: Yeah, a little rabbit paw. It’s like, (squeaky voice) “Let me in! Let me in!”

T: “You made fun of us earlier!” “No, you have it all wrong!”

R: “I thought you were a live cat! An honest mistake, I assure you!”

T: “I was just unlucky!”

R: That's your favorite part for sure.

T: I'll move on now.

J: Yeah, he can’t move on! He said he was never going to mention it again, that was like ten minutes ago!

R: Okay, 12 years have passed. Nelly says that Catherine is spoiled, but she has a better nature than Cathy did. So she also is very, very sheltered. Her dad really won't let her leave their property, which you know, he doesn't want her to run into Heathcliff. And she has this fascination with a place which, if we were on Zoom, I would make Theo or Jackie have this as their Zoom name. I'm sure it's pronounced “Penniston Crag”, but it's spelled as “penis tone crag”. Isn’t that a weird - a weird name for a rock? So one day Cathy walks off with her little pony and some dogs, and she disappears. And Nelly finds her at Wuthering Heights. And Heathcliff is gone, luckily. So she is hanging out with Hareton and with a servant woman. At first she's like, “Uh, so, are you the son of the master of this house?” and he's like, “No.” She says, “Oh, so are you a servant?” And he gets really angry about that. And then the servant woman says, “Actually, he's your cousin,” and Catherine gets very angry about that. She's like, “There's no way this guy is my cousin. He's so dirty and bla bla bla bla bla.” She's just a little bit of a snob. So we learned that they had like, come upon each other and their dogs fought. So he took her back to their house and separated the dogs. He shows her all around the nature areas and she has a really fun time, but she kind of ruins it by being like, “Eww, this gross boy? There's no way he's my cousin!” So after they leave, Nelly says, “You have to keep this a secret from your dad, or he might get so mad that he takes me away from you because you're not supposed to be at Wuthering Heights.”

J: Nelly, such a meddler.

R: Yep. So in chapter 19 we learn that Isabella has died. Edgar had gone to see her before the death, and he returns with her son, who, Theo, his name is Linton Heathcliff.

T: Oh god!

R: So we're going to call him Linton.

T: Let's just call him L.H.

R: Let's call him by his name.

J: And then the two houses get together, and they have Wuthering Grange.

R: Thrushcross Heights. Okay, let's not… I'm worried that's actually going to confuse Theo. Okay, so Linton is the son.

J: And then Catherine Catherine.

R: Catherine Catherine.

J: Sirhan Sirhan.

R: I'm really worried we're going to confuse Theo, Jackie. I would love to go on this joke journey, but I am worried.

T: We need, like, a joke safe word that I can say whenever I'm getting too confused about things.

R: Help!

T: Yeah, just help. That’s the safe word.

R: Dead rabbits! No, you'd say that too much.

T: Popcorn!

R: So he was born soon after Catherine. He's like six months younger. Heathcliff had figured out that his wife had a son, and he knew where she was living, but they'd kind of worked it out that he wasn't going to take the son and he would pay for her to live there. But he said like, “If I wanted to take him, I could just get him any time I wanted to, but for now it's fine.”

J: And this is Heathcliff's son?

R: Yes, his name is Linton Heathcliff. And he is very frail and blond. Edgar returns, and Linton and Catherine get along really well. They're having a nice time and Edgar says, “Oh, you know, if he lives with us, she will eventually get him to, you know, play more and get some energy and blah, blah blah. It will be really good for him.” But that night old vinegar-faced Joseph arrives and says, “Heathcliff sent me to take him, and I have to take him right now.” And Edgar kind of gets a bit of a backbone and he says, “No.” And then Joseph's like, “Yeah, I'm going to take him.”

J: He really grew a backbone there. “Nooo!”

R: A bit of a backbone! And then Edgar says, “Look.”

T: Just one word.

R: “He's a frail, sickly boy and he's already asleep. We're going to keep him tonight and then we'll send him back tomorrow.” And Joseph says, “Well, just be careful, because tomorrow morning Heathcliff’s going to show up and get him.”

J: How old do you think Joseph is by this point? He's got to be like 140 years old.

R: He's probably like 48. With the way people aged back then.

J: I just - he was ancient before, and now it's been like, over a decade later.

R: 12 years, yeah.

J: Well, first three years and then…

R: When the story started, he was 15. Old Joseph.

J: Vinegar-faced Joseph.

R: Yeah, I mean he's what? He's probably in his 60s now, something like that. That would make sense to me. He's probably weathered as well.

T: Wuthered.

R: All right. So that's the end of that chapter. And in the next chapter - see, we're going to zip through the end. In the next chapter Nelly delivers Linton to Wuthering Heights early in the morning and she's like, telling him a bunch of lies on the way, saying like “Oh yeah, you know, it's your dad. You're going to love him, he's going to love you. You can visit your cousin all the time, it's so close, your new house is going to be great, blah, blah, blah.” Which makes me mad, like. Come on, Nelly. And when she drops him off, Heathcliff talks more in front of everyone to Nelly about his revenge plan. He's like, “My son sucks, but I want him to rule over Wuthering Heights and Hindley's son to be his servant, and it's going to be great. But my son really, really sucks.”

T: Wait, why does he suck?

R: Because he's blond and frail and a wimp. Like he cries a little bit and he doesn't want to eat porridge.

J: Like at one point they try to tell him to sit on a chair and eat some food, and he says, “I can't sit on a chair!”

R: Yeah. “Sit wherever, you weirdo!”

J: No explanation.

T: Why can’t he sit on a chair?

R: Yeah. So he just doesn't like him. He reminds him of the Lintons and when he heard that his wife had given the son that name, he's like, “Well, I guess she wants me to hate my son, too.”

J: Done deal.

R: He's… yeah. “Consider it done. I hate that baby.”

J: “It was a real stretch, but I managed it in the end.”

R: “Yeah, but I've put in so much practice hating literally everyone else except Cathy that I was able to do it in the end.” So that's the end of chapter 20. In chapter 21, we learn that Nelly and Edgar have been periodically getting news about Linton, and the news is not great. He is a brat, too. Which she says it's because he hasn't gotten any love and affection, and also his dad has ordered all the servants to give him whatever he wants because he's so sickly that, I guess, Heathcliff is like, “We gotta keep him alive long enough for my revenge to work, so don't anyone make him mad.” So now he's a brat too. Which, Nelly is constantly saying, “Oh, this kid? Brat now. This one? Also a brat.”

J: “Yeah, because I didn't get to raise them.”

R: Yeah, I guess, although she raised Catherine, and Catherine is a bit of a brat.

J: Yeah.

R: So, who's to say? Nelly and Catherine are out walking one day and they accidentally run into the Wuthering Heights crew. And this time Heathcliff is with them, and he says, like “Oh, hey, come on to my house, there's a boy there who you know.” And Catherine says, “Oh, I don't think so, but yeah, let's go!” And the whole time Nelly is saying, “Don't go there, don't go there.” She's like, “I've got to see if I know this boy!”

T: Wow.

R: Very easy to kidnap.

T: People were so naive back then.

R: Yeah, really.

J: You drive past in a white van and it's like, “Hey, there's a boy in here you know!”

R: “You know this -” yeah!

J: “Come see who it is!”

R: She's very gullible. So while they're walking, Heathcliff is telling Nelly his evil plan, which is, “I want my son to marry this girl, because Edgar won't like it.” So he says, “I want them to fall in love and get married, because Edgar will be really upset if she marries my son.” He says a bunch of weird stuff about Hareton. He really hates his own son, and he really likes Hareton, like he admires him a lot and he thinks that he has a lot of really great qualities. So it's great for him to ruin him, basically. Like, it's good revenge. And he says… he is so weird. He says like, “My son sucks, but I'm polishing him up. He's a piece of tin and I'm polishing him to look like silver, whereas Hareton is like a piece of gold and I'm just smothering him in trash.” And his dad, if he were alive to know this, he would be much more upset because his son actually has a chance of being a good dude, but I'm purposefully making him an ignorant, stupid dude with bad habits.

J: This is what I'm saying. Like, Emily Brontë was trying to do something Shakespearean, but psychologically.

R: Yeah. And Nelly's just like, “Ugh.” If somebody said that to me, I would have a lot more to say!

J: “Ugh, more weird logic. Can't follow this.”

R: Yep.

T: Dang, she has a good memory, though.

J: She really does.

R: Who, Emily?

T&J: Nelly.

R: Oh yeah. It's funny because at one point Lockwood says, “I'm going to write this exactly the way Nelly told it. I'm going to compress it a little bit, but she did a great job.” This is Heathcliff's little speech about Hareton, because it's so weird that I want to just read it. He says, so he asks Nelly like, “Did I ever look as stupid as he did when I was his age?” And she's like, “You were way worse because you were so sullen.” So she's like, constantly giving it back to him, which is pretty funny. Everyone's fine with it. I don't know why. But he says, “I've a pleasure in him. He has satisfied my expectations. If he were born a fool, I should not enjoy it half so much. But he's no fool, and I can sympathize with all his feelings, having felt them myself. I know what he suffers now, for instance, exactly. It is merely a beginning of what he shall suffer, though.” So he's purposefully trying to create a love triangle with these three cousins to get revenge on this dead guy who won't know anything about it! He sees that Linton is being a little bit snobby towards Hareton and he's like, “Ha ha ha, I'm recreating this. It's going to be awesome!” So he's trying to make all of these teens fall in love.

J: Yeah.

R: He’s like, smashing them together like Barbies.

J: Which would be a great anime premise, I have to say.

R: Forcing teens to fall in love?

J: Yeah, if it were cute. This isn't cute. Like, imagine just like, a meddling old man being like… you know?

R: Yeah, yeah, true. So he says, yeah, that “Hareton is gold put to the use of paving stones and Linton is tin polished to ape a service of silver.” So, yeah, and he says, “Also, even better, Hareton is really fond of me. So if his father rose from his grave and scolded me for how I'm treating him, he would get mad at his dad because he really loves me. Isn’t this awesome? Look at my great revenge.”

J: Yeah, just preparing for the ghost argument.

R: Yeah.

J: “If that DID happen, I would win.”

R: The ghost argument?

J: Like if he rose up from his grave and was mad, just wanted to go ahead and -

R: Oh, if he argued. I thought you were saying that you personally would win a ghost argument.

J: No.

T: But Heathcliff hasn't seen a ghost yet, right?

R: Right.

T: So..

R: I don't think he's prepping for a ghost argument.

T: I'm just trying to figure out why he cares so much about showing this dead guy that he's getting revenge.

J: He just hates him.

R: He just wants the revenge. He's thorough.

T: Yeah, I guess revenge is his hobby.

R: Yeah!

J: Hindley is what he believes ruined his chances of marrying Cath.

R: Which is true.

J: Yeah, Cathy had said “If Hindley hadn't ruined him like this, I would have married him. I would have thought nothing about marrying Edgar, but I did because of what Hindley did to him and how he ended up as a person.”

R: Yeah.

J: So, he's really the source of all of his misery.

R: Oh yeah, yeah, he sucks. So Cathy says, “Oh, is this guy really my cousin?” And Heathcliff says “Yes, he is.” So once they leave, Catherine is forbidden from visiting Wuthering Heights again. But it turns out, Nelly discovers that she and Linton have been writing each other secret letters and they've been like confessing their love, and she's reading them and says like, “These are so embarrassing, this poetry is so bad, how humiliating these love letters are, they're so badly written.” Which, of course. So she steals the letters and when Catherine says something to her about it, she says like, “Please, don't show my dad, don't tell my dad, you can burn them.” So Nelly starts to burn them and then Catherine says, “Wait, can you just give me a couple to keep as a memorial?” And Nelly's like, “No, I'm going to burn all of them.” So she's burning them and then poor little Catherine reaches into the fire to grab the letters, but she just gets like scraps and burns her hands. And then Nelly says like, “For that, I'm going to keep some of these so that I can show your dad if I feel like it later!”

T: Woah!

R: Yeah, so she keeps most of them and then she sends Linton a note that says, “Catherine's not going to talk to you anymore.” And that's the end of chapter 21.

T: Gosh.

R: Yep.

T: So much of this book hinges on tattling.

R: On Nelly tattling.

J: That's why I said it's like a game of telephone, the entire thing.

R: She really did orchestrate this for sure.

J: I don't think I want a Nelly in my life.

R: Did you think you might?

T: Yeah.

R: So chapter 22, Nelly and Catherine are going out for a walk, and Catherine kind of like climbs a tree and drops her hat. And she climbs down onto the other side of this wall to get the hat, and then it turns out the wall is locked and they can't get out, so she's stuck. And then while she's stuck behind this wall, Heathcliff rides up and starts talking to her and then Nelly interjects and he's like, “Oh, Nelly? You're on the other side of the wall?” Which is very lucky for us, and he's telling her, he says -

J: Do you think there's more than one Nelly? Like how many Nellys do we think are in any given place at one time?

R: She just picks the most interesting character, I guess, and sticks to them like glue.

T: Well, I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of stuff she missed.

R: Yeah, like the two of them becoming friends.

T: Yeah.

R: It’s the one thing she doesn't know. So he says, “Hey, my son is dying because you abandoned him, and you have to go see him or he's going to die and it will be your fault. And also, I'll be gone for all of next week, so you should just go to my house, or else you're going to kill my son.” And Catherine really wants to go. Nelly's like, “No, he's just being, he's exaggerating, there's no way that's the case.” He wants her to fall in love with Linton and Linton to fall in love back so they get married and adult Edgar gets upset. And then he wants Hareton to be in love with Catherine but be thwarted. So then he's getting his revenge on Hindley.

T: It's ingenious.

R: Diabolical, you might say. So Catherine convinces Nelly to let her visit Linton. She says, “Please, just let me see him one more time.” So that's the end of chapter 22. Chapter 23, they show up at the house and she sees Linton and he is sick, but it of course has nothing to do with her. And he's being a huge brat. They have a really big argument about their parents, because Linton says, “You know, your mom was in love with my dad, and hated your dad. My dad told me that.”

J: Good source. Solid.

R: Yeah, “My dad said that actually, he's the cool one and your dad sucks.” Anyway. So they're arguing about their parents and it's kind of weird because, you know, of course none of them know anything about their parents. Catherine's like, “Oh, well, your mother left your father,” and he says, “No, she didn't!” So they're really arguing and they don't know what's up. They should just ask Nelly, obviously.

J: I’m sure she'll give a straight answer.

R: Yeah, it'll take her several months of storytelling. But so they end up making up because Catherine is worried about him and she's like, “Oh, I can't, I'll feel so bad about making you even more sick.” Because while they're arguing, she pushes his chair a little bit and then he has this huge coughing fit and he says, “You shouldn't have hit me!” She's like, “I didn't hit you, I just pushed your chair. But also, if somebody pushed my chair with that little push, I would be fine. I had no idea this would happen to you.”

T: Wow, how insulting.

J: It’s like she found the cheat code or something.

R: Yeah, Catherine promises that she's going to visit Linton again and Nelly's like, “No, you're not.” And while they are walking away, Nelly seriously disses Linton. It is uncalled for, I would have to say. Catherine says, “Oh, he's such a pretty little darling. I would make a pet of him if he were mine, and after we were used to each other, we would never quarrel. Don't you like him?” And Nelly says “Like him? The worst-tempered bit of a sickly slip that ever struggled into its teens? Happily, as Mr Heathcliff conjectured, he'll not win 20. I doubt whether he'll see spring indeed, and small loss to his family whenever he drops off.”

T: Gosh!

R: She says, “Lucky for us his father took him, because the kinder he was treated, the more tedious and selfish he would be.”

T: Talking shit about how someone's about to die.

R: You have interacted with him twice! Yeah, and he's like a 13-year old boy. She says, “Thank God, he's gonna die any day now.”

J: Yeah, “He really struggled to make it this far, but…”

R: So do you see why Nelly has lost some of my esteem? My good opinion, once lost, is lost forever.

J: I can't stop thinking about the person who wrote this, like how do you think Emily Brontë came up with such a nasty things? Like physical gore, emotional torture. Crazy insults. I don't know. I have to say, like, this is a similar kind of thing to what I experience when I watch a very tense action movie or something, or like a Marvel film. Everything is on the line, and the tiniest slip could just destroy everyone and everything, and at a certain point I'm just like… just…. let it happen. Aren't you tired?

T: Oh, it's too much tension.

J: Yeah, like who cares? All these people who are like, “I want him to die, and I want this person to die!” and it's like - just give it a minute. It's gonna happen.

T: Yeah, well, because to me it seems like things have come to a breaking point numerous times and the story just keeps going.

R: Yeah.

J: Because they keep having kids! And every single time someone has a kid, they run and go get Nelly and they say, “Ope! Mom's dying! Your turn. You're up, Nelly!” and then she comes and gets the kid and raises it. Every time. Is she killing these moms? There’s some Munchausen kind of thing going on.

R: Well, she didn't want Linton.

J: Oh, you're right.

R: And she didn't have access to Isabella. So we know she's cleared for that one at least. That's how we end that chapter, with Nelly being really rude about a boy with a terminal illness. And then our final chapter for this episode, chapter 24, we learn that after that incident, Nelly actually got very sick. So she was sick for a long time, maybe a month or something. Catherine had been taking care of her and taking care of Edgar, who also had been sick. Nelly, once she recovers, she realizes that Catherine has been sneaking out after her and Edgar were in bed to visit Linton at Wuthering Heights.

T: That's bad.

R: It’s a big deal. So Catherine tells her about when she went back to visit. She said, “Oh, the first time I went it was because I was worried that I'd killed him by pushing his chair a little bit. And when I saw Hareton -” who, earlier, they realize that he didn't know how to read. When she saw him this most recent time, he's like, “Oh, look, I can read that,” and he points to this sign that has his name on it and he reads it and she's like, “Okay, do you know what the numbers are?” And he's like, “No, I don't know those yet,” and she laughs at him and it looks like he's thinking, “Should I laugh too or is she making fun of me?” And Catherine's like, “I was making fun of him.” And Nelly scolds her for that and says, “Hey, if you were raised that way you also wouldn't be able to read, so quit it. Also, he's your cousin, so it's weird for you to act like this.” And Catherine says, “Oh, well, you know, he deserves it. You'll see.” So when she gets in and she's visiting with Linton, Hareton comes in and he's like, “You guys need to get out of here. Go sit in the kitchen or something.” And the two boys fight and it's weird. Linton's yelling stuff like, “I'll kill you, I'll kill you!” So it's just really dramatic and she eventually leaves. But when she leaves, Hareton, like, springs out of the darkness and grabs her horse to be like, “Oh hey, sorry.” But she says she didn't realize - she thought he might be trying to grab her or something. So she like, whips him?

J: “Oh sorry, my horse is the same size and color, so I just got it confused.”

R: Yeah! But yeah, so she whips him and then goes home. And then she ends up going back, and then going home again, and going back, and she says, “Oh, don't worry, most of my visits with him are unpleasant, like I've maybe had three or four enjoyable visits this whole time. He's mostly just whining a lot.” And she says, “Okay, don't tell my dad, bye!” and then Nelly immediately goes and tells her dad.

J: Nobody ever learns. Don't tell Nelly a thing.

R: Yeah, the dad says, “Look, you can't visit him anymore, but he can come visit us.” And then Nelly says, like, “If he knew the state his nephew is in, then perhaps he wouldn't have said that.” And that's the end of the chapter.

T: Wow.

J: Gotta keep tabs on your nephews.

R: Yep.

J: Don't let them out of your sight.

R: You have got to tell how healthy they are at all times. So that's the end, and we are almost caught up to the present day. So we're in the thick of it.

J: So, that pale, thin young woman that we saw at the beginning who is like, threatening to be a witch to Joseph... That's young Catherine.

R: “I’ll be a witch to you!”

J: So we are almost caught up. What Nelly's describing now probably happened within the last year.

R: It did, yeah.

T: Oh wow!

R: So we're close. So somehow, she's gonna fall in love with this sickly brat, marry him, her dad's gonna die, and she's gonna be living at Wuthering Heights and then her young husband dies.

T: Within a year?

R: Yeah, within a year.

J: And then she's stuck at Wuthering Heights with her cousin Hareton and Heathcliff.

T: I can see why there was a weird vibe when Lockwood showed up.

J: You think?

R: Theo's finally starting to understand why it was so awkward. I still don't understand why Heathcliff didn't just send her back to [Thrushcross Grange.] Well, I guess he wanted to rent it out. They do talk about how he's very cheap.

T: What's his job?

R: Nobody knows. They don't know how he made his money.

J: That's one thing that Cathy says to Isabella, way back, years ago when Isabella was like, “I'm in love with him, I want to marry him!” [Cathy] is like, “Nobody knows what he's been doing all these years or how he made his money. It's possible that he did something legitimate. But it's also possible he's been just doing a bunch of crime.”

R: Well, Nelly - I think Nelly's like, “You could just ask him and he would tell you, Cathy, if you really want to know.”

J: I don't think she wanted to know, though.

R: She didn't ask. Anyway, so that's… I mean, what are you thinking right now, Theo? Is everyone you care about still dead? Are you interested in anyone who's alive?

J: Did any of them come back?

T: It's hard for me to care as much about the second generation.

R: Well, the first generation is still alive, though.

J: Would you say the same about Pokemon?

T: Yeah, absolutely.

R: Yu-Gi-Oh?

T: Yes!

J: Okay, then sorry. It wasn’t - sorry, I’m sorry!

T: Keep naming things that I love and ask me if I don’t like the second generation as much. It’s a mess.

R: Okay. What about the Redwall sequels? Is the first one the best?

T: Mmm… I don't remember.

J: Cop-out!

T: It's been a long time.

R: Okay, let me look them up.

T: I was about to make up an opinion, but then I realized…

R: “I need to take this seriously.”

T: This is a books podcast! Yeah, people are going to want to know how I really feel about the Redwall books.

R: Yeah.

T: I bet you “Mossflower” is pretty highly regarded.

R: Is that the first one?

T: I don't think so.

R: Redwall, it looks like, is the first one.

T: Yeah, and then Martin the Warrior.

R: Martin the Warrior, I think, is the fourth one.

J: What is he, a little mouse or something?

T: Yes!!

R: (mockingly) Yes, Jackie, they’re little mice! Redwall, Mossflower, Mattimeo, Mariel of Redwall, Salamandastron, Martin the Warrior, the Bellmaker.

T: Whoa!

J: SalamamandaSTRON?

T: Yeah, it's where the badgers lived. Pshht. Come on.

R: Come on.

T: Surely you guys know the war cry?

R: “La la la la la la la!”

T: Was that it?

R: I don't know. What is it? The badger war cry?

T: Yeah, I never knew how to say it. It was something like, “Eeeuuuallieeaayyy!”.

R: “Hell, yay!”

T: “Hell, yay!”

R: “Eulalia”?

T: Yeah, that's what it was.

R: “Hell, yay.”

T: “Euueallleieliiee.”

J: I can't participate.

R: Is that how you said it in your head whenever you read it?! “Yeaaauhhhh!”

T: “Eualieay!” I think is how I said it, but I like the idea of someone saying, “Yay!” and then I intensify it by saying “HELL yay.”

R: Wait, Jackie, do you want to hear the battle cries from the Redwall creatures?

J: I mean, I… I guess?

T: Come on! We got to get to two and a half hours on this recording.

R: Okay, the war cry of the shrews -

J:, I will say that In high school I had to memorize and recite some Edgar Allen Poe poem and I chose “Eulalie”. So now I'm just imagining it going along like how Theo said it, like “While ever to her dear Euaalalaliieealleeey upholds her matron eye.”

R: The war cry of the shrews is, “Laga laga laga loog,” by the way. Just gotta get that in there.

J: I would have hated this, I’m glad I didn't read it.

T: Yeah, I love that!

R: The war cry of Queen Warbeak is, “Spar-a kill, kill, kill! Eeee!”

T: I don't remember that.

R: Maybe I should say the war cry and have Theo say if he knows it. “Galadeeeeep!”

T: Uh, a sheep?

R: It’s a guy named Finnbar Galedeep.

J: So he basically just says - he's basically Hodor. He just goes, “Hodor.”

R: Looks like that's what most of these are. “Ungatt trunn trunn trunn” is the war cry of Ungatt Trunn.

T: The war cry so nice, he trunn’d it thrice.

J: What would what would Theo's war cry be, then?

R: Theo Chandler, Chandler, Chandler!

T: No, Theo Chandler ler ler.

R: Yeah.

T: Chaaaand-ler-ler-ler! No, ch- I don't know.

R: What are you trying to make it part of?

T: What do you mean?

R: Like, what are you modeling “Chandler-ler-ler” after?

T: Uh, the three of things. No, you know what actually be a really good war cry? Is just you put the “th” at the end so it's “eoth”, and then just say it a lot. “Eotheotheotheotheotheoth!”

R: Couldn’t you just say, “Theo theo theo” a lot?

J: And then you don't have to end on “eoth”?

R: It sounds like the same thing.

T: Theotheotheotheotheotheotheotheoth!

R: You want it to be Theoth?

T: Uh, no.

J: He wanted it to be “eoth eoth eoth”.

T: Because the “th” is not a strong enough syllable to start on.

R: It’s not a strong enough syllable to END on.

T: Eoth! Eoth!

R: It should just be “eo eo”.

J: It just sounds like you’re lisping.

R: Sorry. Chand-ler-ler-ler!

T: Yeah, there’s not much you could do with Chandler. You could do Andlerch and just repeat that.

R: Andlerch andlerch andlerch.

J: So you just make it Pig Latin?

R: Andlerchay.

T: Andlerchay.

J: Andlerchay.

T: ANDLERCHAY!

R: “Let’s give ‘em blood and vinegar!” Why are they all some weird stuff, and then one person's like, “Here's just a normal phrase that a warrior would say.”

J: Because that one's from Alvin Bloodandvinegar.

R: Nice.

T: Oh, because it's all their names.

R: No, it says it's from Basil Stag Hare.

T: Oh, that name sounds familiar.

J: I hate this.

R: Bah-sil, perhaps? I don’t know if they’re British or not.

T: Bah-sil. They’ve gotta be.

R: They’ve gotta be.

T: It’s Brian Jacques! With a name like that -

R: With a name like Jacques?

T: Yeah!

R: I think it’s pronounced Jakes, by the way.

T: Really?

R: Yeah.

T: Hmm.

R: Hmm. By the way, Theo, you could marry Brian Jacques’ granddaughter.

T: Just because she's alive doesn't mean I could marry her.

R: She's probably around your age.

T: Even then, I mean, she's royalty.

R: “Just because a woman is alive and age appropriate!”

T: There are many other things that could stand in our way.

R: I'll Nelly you.

T: She did so many things. What's “Nellying mean”?

R: Like, tattling to your dad.

T: You'll tell a story about me years later to a stranger? You could talk about how I'm gonna die imminently and how it's going to be great.

R: No, I'll - what would happen is you would talk about how you're going to die and I would be like, “Whatever, you're fine.”

J: No, he's making himself the Linton Heathcliff piece.

T: Sickly boy!

R: The Linton boy. Well, I'm just saying that's a thin. Nelly did a lot. Okay, let's end this thing.

J: Yes.

R: Let's put ourselves out of our misery.

T: Eu-alleyay. That's going to be our new sign off. Eu-alleyay.

R: E-U-alleyay.

T: E-U-alleyay!

R: So, your mispronunciation of something from your childhood?

T: Yeah. Or hell yay, whichever one.

R: Hell yay! I thought it was going to be, “Goodbye, we’re angels!”

T: Okay, fine.

J: “Good night, we’re angels.”

T: “Good night!”

R: “Good night. We're angels.”

T: How about you two can say that, and then I'll say “Hell yay!” So we got a little bit of like, heaven-hell, good and evil going on.

J: Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah. And I'll say, “Welcome to purgatory.”

R: We’ll try it out and see what the audience thinks. Maybe they want us to say “Eualleyay” all the time.

T: They probably do.

R: I mean Tristan. If he commands it.

T: He could do it.

R: Okay, Jackie or Theo. How about one of you does this sign off stuff.

T: Well, that's been a great episode, another perfect episode. Guys, we love to hear from you.

R: We love love in all of its forms.

T: So please check us out on Facebook, on Twitter, on Instagram. Tell ‘em, Jack.

J: Yeah, @firethecanonpod, @firethecanonpod. Fire the Canon Podcast.

T: Respectively?

J: Respectively.

T: Our Gmail is [e-mail].

R: Everything else is Fire the Canon Pod. Our Instagram, our website, our Twitter bio - our Twitter handle, oops. Our bio? Fire the Canon Pod.

T: Every tweet we do? “Fire the Canon pod.”

J: And we also have a new patron to thank. We would like to thank our newest patron, Ross!

R: Ross!! Woo woo woo woo.

T: Roooossss!

J: Can we harmonize that?

T: No, I never want to do this.

R&J: (harmonizing)

T: Yeah, nice octave.

J: He said, “I never want to do this.”

R: So, as a composer, there are two things you don't want to do: write music, and harmonize.

J: Write music, and sing music.

T: Yeah, especially harmonizing with your friends? Oh my God.

R: Yeah, how humiliating.

J: Disgusting.

T: Keep it professional, I like to keep my professional life and my podcasting life - I don't know. I guess this is also a professional life.

J: Yeah.

R: We do get paid a little, tiny, tiny tiny bit.

J: Well, now we get paid enough that we have to file taxes, thanks to Ross. So, Ross is my sophomore year poetry professor at UNC. And he's still does that now.

R: Still teaches Jackie poetry to this day. Still hasn't learned.

T: Yeah!

R: “Is this a poem?” “Noooo…. That's a bean. That's a piece of chewed gum.”

J: “Yet again, that's a rock.”

R: “That's a garbage bag full of Krispy Kreme donuts.”

J: “Yep, she's still not getting it.” You know, if you go into the middle of the garbage bag, that's where the poems are.

R: Oh, delectable.

T: Oh, wait, wait, wait, “Is this a poem? No, it's a pile of dead rabbits.”

R: Unluckily for you.

J: “Strange choice for a poem!”
T: That would be pretty strange!

J: But no, so Ross is and was a great teacher and also a very good poet. So check him out.

T: When you said the thing about an interesting choice for a poem, then I pictured you flipping through an anthology, and then you turn one page and it's just a pile of dead rabbits.

R: Just falling out of the book?

J: Like a drawing?

T: It's like a pop up book, and it opens up and - (pop up sound) “Interesting choice.” And you flip the page and keep going.

J: Or like, you’re at a poetry slam or something and like, you know, the first couple people get up and go to the mic, and then the second person just goes up and drops a dead rabbit.

R: “Unluckily for all of you -”

T: “- I don't know what a poem is!” I both don't know what a poem is and I'm very bad at guessing, so here you go.

J: You know, I kind of just figured by law of averages or something, eventually I'm going to hit on a poem if I just try everything.

T: Yeah, right. I’m picturing you're sitting in the audience and like five people have gone before you and you're starting to get nervous, like, “They're doing things that are very different than what I brought. I don't know if mine's gonna come off very well.”

R: Who’s got two thumbs, a pile of dead rabbits, and doesn't know what a poem is?

T: This guy!

R: This guy. It’s a classic joke format.

T: It's true, and it'll save any faux pas. Like any time you're on stage and you have a big faux pas like that, like bringing up a pile of dead rabbits -

J: Like a fake paw.

R: Perfect.

T: Well, word play, you know?

J: Yeah, I love this idea of not knowing what a poem is. You know, what is a poem, really?

R: What is a poem but a pile of dead rabbits?

T: In the form of words.

J: Write a piece about that.

T: Oh my God, Jackie!

J: Heh! I remember in high school one time somebody was making some type of comment about, “How can you listen to Dubstep? That's not music!” or something. And then this guy, like, passionately tore a little corner off of his styrofoam lunch tray in the cafeteria and said, “How can you say that's not music?!” And then he like, rubbed the Styrofoam together and he said, “That - that's music!”

R: “Now THAT’S music!”

J: “Anything is music if you say it is!”

T: “Even this shitty sound I just made is music, so Dubstep can be too!”

J: Now That's What I Call Music 45.

T: That's not a good argument. He's basically saying, like, “I know Dubstep is terrible, but like, if this is music, Dubstep can be music!”

J: I'll just, I'll never forget the frantic looking around, like trying to find anything that could be an instrument, can’t do it, tears his own tray apart, and is like “Here it is!”

T: He was like, really hoping there's like a violin laying around, but…

J: The green beans are just leaking off the plate now. Yeah.

T: Wait, so did we thank Ross?

J: Yeah, not very well.

R: Consider yourself thanked.

T: He seems like a really cool guy. That's all I'm gonna say about him. Well, actually, I’ll also say he's nice and friendly from what I've seen.

R: He's the opposite of Heathcliff.

T: Ooh! Rachel's good at antonyms.

J: He also has a podcast. Check out Trivia Escape Pod!

R: Yeah.

J: Very fun. And Rachel and I guested on that, and our episode will be coming out soon. So if you just want more me and Rachel content, check that out.

T: Yeah. Sans Theo.

J: But if you don't want to listen to our episode, that's fine as well. There's many, many, many episodes that we were not even involved with a tiny bit. Trivia Escape Pod.

R: It was a nice experience. I'm excited to listen to it.

T: Nice.

J: It was a nice, cool, friendly experience.

R: Very chill.

T: And if you're looking for more Theo content, I also have another podcast - don't groan! Actually, that wasn't such a groan. What was that?

J: It was a little, like….

T: Yeah, it was just, like, tension I felt. Yeah, I have a podcast -

R: “Don’t have tension!”

T: Hey. I have a podcast -

J: The sexual tension you could just cut with a knife.

T: Oooh!

R: Ewww.

T: No, that's not true.

R: No, no, no.

J: He was like, “Wait a second!”

R: He was like, “Yeah! Nooo.”

T: That didn't happen.

R: Can't “yes, and” that.

T: I have a podcast called Inside the Mind of a Child Genius where we read stories that people wrote as children and we… laugh at them. And I do it with my cousin Joseph, and it comes out on the oneth, tenth, and twentieth of the month. So listen up to that. Thaaanks!

J:I love how he says “where people wrote things” - or, “where we read things that people wrote as children” and like, 99% of the time, it’s Theo.

R: He’s 99% of the people.

T: Once we get an audience, then people will send us stuff, I think. But currently we don't have an audience, but…

R: You’ll get there, just keep constantly plugging it in our podcast.

T:I think I do it, like, every ten episodes, okay? So, a-chill.

R: There's no way.

J: Wrong. Definitely wrong.

T: Check the tapes!

J: Check the tapes!

R You might edit them out occasionally -

J: Yeah!

R: But you definitely, while we're recording, plug it pretty frequently.

T: No, I don't!

J: But that’s okay, we're not complaining. It's just definitely more than every tenth -

R: We’re just complaining as a joke.

J: That means you've only plugged it like four times!

R: Yeah, there’s no way.

T: I think that's true!

J: Really?

T: Yeah. So, anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed Fire the Canon.

R: Good night, we're angels. …Jackie?

J: Good night, we're angels.

T: Hell, yay. How about this? I'll say -

R: Bye, Nell.

T: Hell yay to Rachel, and hell yay to Jackie.

R: Thank you.

T: That's our new sign off.

J: And also with you.

T: Okay, bye.

J: Bye.

R: Bye.