Badlands Story Hour Ep. 178: Mercy

Chris Paul and Burning Bright take on this year's Amazon original about a near future AI dystopia, and yes, they clock the irony of Amazon making a movie about the machine while being a very large piece of the machine themselves. They dig into how the film handles its "will the AI save us or enslave us" premise without tipping too hard in either direction, trade notes on director Timur Bekmambetov's earlier work, and needle the production for looking like it was shot in about a day and a half. From there the conversation drifts into bigger territory, accountability, justice, and who really owes who an apology for the last several years. Expect some sharp back and forth on personal responsibility that goes well beyond the movie itself. Stick around for next week's pick, a recent Netflix whodunit from a director they have very mixed feelings about.