With this episode, Thomas and Brett begin their Joker series, analyzing movies and themes related to the 2019 film. Directed by Todd Phillips and starring Joaquin Phoenix, Joker turns out to be a kind of master key for Psyop Cinema themes. The guys think about the history of the character, delve into Scorsese’s The King of Comedy, and consider how the Joker’s madness figures into the agenda of the global elite.

Initially, this was simply going to be a bonus episode about the 2022 film The Batman, which Thomas and Brett planned to analyze because of their previous coverage of Christopher Nolan and Zack Snyder’s depictions of the character. That evolved into the idea of a standard episode covering both Joker and The Batman. But we quickly realized the figure of the Joker ties together a stunning number of Psyop Cinema research threads. Looking down a rabbit hole filled with madmen, assassins, mind control, sinister magic, and a dizzying feedback loop between art and history, they realized this would take several episodes (and the connections have continued to surface in their research since). So strap in, everybody. This journey gets weird.