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snowpiercer-recaps · 3 years ago

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Season 1, episode 2: Sean Beef

Spoiler alert!!! This is a rewatch recap of Snowpiercer s1e2: Prepare to Brace. Naturally, it is full of spoilers for that episode. However, it also contains spoilers for some other episodes of season 1 and season 2. You have been warned!

It’s the morning after the battle. Josie provides this episode's voiceover, and explains that the only thing keeping her alive is petty spite. Highly relatable.

Meanwhile, Ruth is making sure to get her 10k steps in by walking to work through puddles of yesterday’s spilled blood. She takes to the IKEA stool/stage, and then continues Till’s tradition of treating the tailies like naughty school children.

We learn that Josie and her clever revolution bandana managed to hit the sweet spot between sexism and white woman privilege: she’s completely off the hook for killing two Jackboots last night! Winnie, however, is not so lucky. Strong Boy’s personal trainer is plucked from the crowd, and for a tense moment the Tailies prepare to watch a five year old child get her arm frozen off. Thankfully, Winnie’s mom, Suzanne, rushes forward to volunteer as tribute. Ruth returns one foot to the stage, and announces that Suzanne Everdeen will be the Tail’s first ever volunteer.

There’s no doomscrolling Twitter before bed on Snowpiercer. Instead, they’ve created their own version: the Notary reads Z-Wreck, Strong Boy and Pike their rights - or, more accrately, their lack of rights. She also hints at some strange culty vibes. Fun! Then, Klimpt puts the revolutionaries into suspension in the drawers.

On a brighter note...

Nope! Just kidding! It’s actually worse in the Tail. Much, much worse. Suzanne’s arm gets frozen and shattered into rat food.

Josie then finally does the last part of the opening monologue. I don’t think I’ve ever heard “eat the rich” said in such a posh accent before.

After the opening credits, Melanie is having a lovely, nerdy time marking Javi’s homework, when the train begins to shake.

Just like a family of rats in a geothermal vent, unnecessary gendering has, unsurprisingly, survived the apocalypse: we find out the train is a girl.

Diversity win! Another woman in STEM!

Bennett and Javi casually inform Melanie that the train has triggered a few avalanches this morning. In return, she informs them that she has to go and deal with First, who are being overdramatic about just two little murders and one tiiiiny uprising. Javi would like to continue discussing the issue of the deadly avalanches with his superiors, and he insists they need to slow the train for safety. But Melanie thinks an avalanche would be less scary than Lilah Folger’s reaction to closing the Jacuzzi car for a couple of hours. So, she puts on her Manager Hat, ignores Javi’s very valid concerns, and tells him to just do what she says. Javi wears the expression of a weary employee who knows he’ll get the blame when everything inevitably goes wrong.

Layton - who was apparently allowed to go back to bed for five more minutes after watching his friends get drawered - gets woken up by his new dad Roche. Till has a very pretty bruise on her jaw, and she’s grumpy because it’s Layton’s fault. Roche tells Till to be nice to her new brother: they’ve gotta spend the whole day together!

We move on to… another full shot of a naked ass! That’s two for two, so far. After their public biosecurity showers, some tailie sanitation workers run into Layton and Till on their way to their slavery shift. They barely get to interact, though, before the scene cuts to Melanie and Ruth’s daily flirting appointment in the First class dining hall.

Melanie’s W badge is upside down: turns out she was working for Milford Industries all morning. We don’t linger on that for very long though, because the iguana has to make another quick cameo! It's wearing the same outfit as the previous episode, which strikes me as very unusual for a first class passenger. I wonder if it lost its luggage at departure?

Ruth then notices Melanie's badge, and because it’s still Flirting Time she reaches forward and spins it around. In response, Melanie makes an expression that’s gayer than any joke I could ever write, and the good ship Mel/Ruth catches another wave.

Lilah Folger and Mr. Sharma are worried about the rebellion, so Melanie does a little bit of gentle gaslighting to keep them calm. Lilah reveals that she used to be a lawyer, and LJ immediately publicly drags her mother. She’s a better comedian than Osweiller, at least. Lilah Sr. replies by casually reminding everyone that the freeze taught them all that they have the capacity to kill. Excuse me, what? Is she threatening to kill her daughter over a joke? Did she just admit to killing people? Is she also accusing Melanie of killing people? (e.g. Wilford and/or Alex?) I need a chat with Lilah Folger asap to dissect that comment, please.

Till takes her new big brother to the chains, where he receives verbal abuse and sees some more foreshadowing - a baby! Till and Layton grab some noodles with Jakes, the Tunnelman who found the body. Layton asks him “Hey, if I were to lead a band of revolutionaries through the train, what checkpoints would I need to worry about?” But Till is a quick learner: she detects what Layton is doing, and stops Jakes from answering the question.

In the clinic, Nikki’s having a pretty rough time waking up. Jinju suggests that maybe Mr. Wilford should stop drawering people because it’s clearly dangerous and doesn’t work properly. But Melanie and Klimpt don’t care about little details like that!

Meanwhie, Till and Layton have finished their noodles, and visit the nightcar!

Miss Audrey’s foreshadowing medium of choice is song, so she treats us to a few lines of Say it ain’t so, Joe(seph Wilford). The song includes several on-the-nose gems, such as:

We’ve pinned our hopes on you, Joe

One man’s word held the country together

We’re clinging to his charm and determined smile but the good old days are gone

The image and the empire may be falling apart

I’m sure they’re telling us lies, Joe

The truth is getting fierce

So, by the time Layton asks Audrey about Melanie Cavill’s role on the train and she replies, “It’s her lips to God’s ear, isn’t it?”, we can be relatively sure that Audrey knows Melanie is Mr. Wilford.

To firmly establish herself as a true ally to the working classes, Audrey gives Layton a free drink and gets him some time alone with Zarah. Audrey and Zarah do a very poor job of describing what they actually do in the nightcar, and instead let Layton experience it for himself.

Layton’s nightcar experience takes him back to the day he proposed to Zarah. It’s a cute scene: they’re both naked, in bed, and they’re about to share donuts when Zarah notices a ring fall from one of them. Then, I shit you not, Layton asks her, “You wanna do this thing?” Zarah, very understandably, does not immediately say yes to his lame ass proposal. But, after a bit more discussion, they get engaged.

(Sidenote: the subtitles spell Zarah’s surname differently in this scene and I find it very annoying!)

Zarah was clearly not trying to get laid when she walked into the experience room - she is wearing the ugliest brown suit I’ve ever seen, and she almost immediately began to talk about meditation.

However, their shared memories of donut sex prove too hot to handle, and Zarah and Layton fuck against the door to an unnecessarily epic soundtrack.

As they get redressed, Zarah tells Layton that Sean Wise - who so clearly had a spy's name - was probably a spy. He got perks, like winning the baby lottery. She was going to have a baby with him. i.e. she recently stopped whatever birth control they use in Third. But Layton either doesn’t understand her implication, or is completely happy with the idea of having an unplanned child with his ex! Before they have time to discuss it further, Till interrupts them to pass judgement and be jealous of her new big brother: she’s never had sex in the Nightcar!

They head down to the clinic next, and meet Doctor Pelton. She tells them all about how she ended up working on Wilford’s Dreamliner while she prepares to do her first ever autopsy. She’s a bit quirky and sarcastic, but overall a lot more reasonable than Klimpt.

Layton stares longingly at Till’s pen the whole time Pelton is monologuing. When Pelton finishes, Layton teaches his new little sister how to be a homicide detective. They ask some questions, take some notes, and have a proper look at the body’s legs. At this point, Layton finally suggests that the missing limbs could have made their way to the butchers.

Somehow, despite Till and Pelton’s dark senses of humour and this show’s propensity for heavy foreshadowing, nobody refers to the cannibalised murder victim as Sean Beef. I would like to lodge a formal complaint.

Layton does a bit of dramatic storytelling about how one time, at band camp, everyone in the Tail ate a bit of raw cannibal heart. Even the writers don’t know what to say about that revelation, so instead we cut to the cattle car.

Layton and Till try to get the butcher to let them in, claiming “Brakemen’s business.” But the butcher knows his rights! He tells them to come back with the notary. Take note, kids: no warrant? No entry! Don’t let cops trick you into inviting them in.

Elsewhere, Melanie lives her best matrix fantasy by chipping open several cars full of drawers, as far as the eye can see. But before she has time to start fighting Klimpt and Jinju in slow motion, an avalanche hits and they have to brace.

Melanie should have listened to her employee! There’s a huge avalanche, it slams the train, and the butcher and the cows all die. But that’s good news for Till and Layton: they get to play in the butcher’s freezer without a warrant! Layton finds a handy bit of wire, and Till discovers a ventilation shaft full of dismembered, frozen limbs. A fruitful trip to the freezer for everyone!

Boki waits for Melanie and Bennett to finish investigating the breached car, then pretty much just indirectly accuses them of lying about Mr. Wilford. Bennett and Melanie do not do the best job of hiding their initial reaction:

But eventually they unconvincingly cover for why Melanie is wearing a breachsuit. Boki and Melanie argue about the speed of the train, and Melanie once again doesn’t give a fuck about health and safety: she gives him just half the speed reduction he needs to repair the damage. HR are still working through their complaints from last episode, so she'll get away with it for now.

Back in the Tail, it’s time for school! Since the middle school trigonometry teacher had to die to trigger a revolution, the pre-teens have rejoined the younger children this morning. Miles keeps answering the easy questions aimed at kids half his age. Lights is far more patient than I would be, and manages not to tell the little shit to shut the fuck up.

Meanwhile, Patterson (Winnie’s brother) has been allowed out of the Tail to procure some painkillers for his mother. In an unsurprising twist, we discover Osweiller deals drugs to the Tail, in exchange for oral sex. They finish up early to avoid getting caught, and only when he's zipping up his pants does Osweiller explain that he doesn’t really have painkillers - just Kronole. He is a truly disgusting human being. Patterson tells Osweiller that wasn’t the deal; he doesn't want to give Kronole to his Mom! As always, Osweiller’s a dick about it.

Back in the tail, Patterson dejectedly hands Josie the Kronole. For everyone’s sake, he doesn’t answer her question about how he got it. Josie gives Suzanne the drugs. Tail life continues to be incredibly bleak all round.

Uptrain, Jinju inexplicably has to explain to Bennett that the dead cows don’t just mean ‘no more beef’. There’s also no more milk, manure, methane... How does Ben not already know this?? He's supposed to be smart!

Next, Ruth makes yet another trip to the Tail. Have they considered erecting a permanent stage for her? It would save a lot of stool placement time. Ruth gives Winnie a menacing little wave, then announces the new apprentices who will get to move uptrain: two kids we’ve never met, and the boy they call Miles and Miles!

From there, we immediately cut to Till having a phone call with her dad boss. Layton gets her to hang up before she accidentally ends with, “I love you” and makes things awkward for them all. Laytona and Till have another little detective lesson, before a Jackboot deliberately bumps into Layton and calls him a Tailie. After their day of bonding, Till has decided that, actually, she likes her new big brother. She defends Layton’s honour by beating up the bully, even though he’s twice her size.

When she lets him go, the Jackboot calls her a Tail fucker.

Do you hear that? It’s the sound of absolutely no one writing fanfiction. Seriously: what the fuck is that Jackboot talking about?

Layton and Till head home to tell their dad boss that they’re friends now. Till gives Layton a two second patdown, and he manages not to sound sarcastic when he says she’s good at it. The Brakemen shut Layton in the cell, then leave for the night.

As soon as they’ve gone, Layton takes Melanie's eternal advice and prepares to brace. Sqeamish readers/viewers may want to do the same. The train detective undoes his pants, winces, and a moment later his folded-up piece of wire lands in the sink, next to a pen.

If Layton did what they’re implying that he did… look. I'm not trying to judge the guy. But imagine if they had to pause a murder investigation and a brewing revolution just because Layton perforated his bowel trying to smuggle a scrap of wire in his ass! Most of the doors are controlled by chips anyway! Miss Audrey is gonna need to have a thorough chat with him one day soon about the importance of flared bases.

Thankfully, Layton seems fine for now. He makes a little map of the train and tries to hand it off to the sanitation crew on their way home. But they don't manage to pick it up. He tries to buy them time, by letting the Jackboots beat him to a pulp. Unfortunately, only the second part of of his plan is successful. He receives several strong kicks to the ribs and multiple potentially-fatal blows to the head.

Miles and Josie have a sweet but boring goodbye that I can't be bothered to write about, and then we cut back to Layton. Luckily, lethal injuries don't affect main characters on Snowpiercer! Layton's got a few cuts, but he's fully conscious. He's cuffed to a chair in the Brakemen's lockup, and his mom and dad Melanie and Roche are Very Disappointed in him. Melanie asks what he sees when he looks at the train, and Layton just copies his friend Old Ivan's answer: it’s a fortress to class. Melanie is suitably unimpressed. She snaps again, and starts shouting about how difficult it is to keep everyone alive.

But Layton is too busy spitting blood from his mouth to sympathise, and when Melanie finishes her rant, he confronts her: he knows that Sean Beef was a spy, and that the real reason that Mr. Wilford needs a detective is to find out what secrets Sean spilled before he died.

Melanie has had enough of Layton's shit, and decides to take some inspiration from Lilah Folger for her next move: she tells Layton he'd already be dead if Mr. Wilford didn't need him alive to resolve this case.

Layton has just enough time before the credits roll to remind her that she's not his real mom.

#snowpiercer 1.02 #snowpiercer s1e2 #snowpiercer recap #incorrect snowpiercer recap #snowpiercer #snowpiercer season 1 #snowpiercer rewatch #snowpiercer netflix

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fullregalia · 4 years ago

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20/20.

This year, in hindsight, was a real write-off. I had grand plans for it, and while I ushered it in in a very low-key manner since I was recovering from the flu, I’d expected things to look up. Well, you know what they say about plans (RIP, my trip to Europe). I got very, very sick in early February, and I’m not entirely sure it wasn’t COVID. Since March, the days have been a carousel of monotony: coffee, run, work, cook, yoga, existential spiral, sleep. My Own Private Year of Rest and Relaxation, if you will. Of course, life has a way of breaking through regardless; I attended protests, completed my thesis, graduated from grad school, took a couple of road trips upstate, and celebrated the accomplishments and birthdays of friends and family from a safe social distance. It was all a bit of a blur, and not ideal circumstances to re-enter the real world, or whatever this COVID-present is.

Throughout it all, in lieu of happy hours, coffee dates, and panel discussions, I’ve turned even more to culture and cuisine to fill the the negative space on my calendar where my social life once resided. However, since a global pandemic ought not to disrupt every tradition, here’s my year-end round up of what made this terrible one slightly more tolerable.

After an ascetic fall semester abstaining from TV in 2019 (save for my beloved Succession), I allowed myself to watch more as the year wore on, and especially after graduation. I caught up on some cultural blind spots by finally getting around to The Sopranos, Ramy, Search Party, and Girlfriends. I wasn’t alone in bingeing Sopranos, it absolutely lived up to the hype and then some; this Jersey Girl can’t get enough gabagool-adjacent content, pizzeria culture is my culture!

Speaking of my culture, there was also a disproportionate amount of UK and European shows in my queue. Nothing like being in social isolation and watching the horny Irish teens in Normal People brood. I’m partial to it because I share a surname with the showrunner, so I have to embrace blind loyalty even though there was, in my opinion, a Marianne problem in the casting. Speaking of charming Irish characters with limited emotional vocabularies, I belatedly discovered This Way Up a 2019 show from Aisling Bea and Sharon Horgan. And while Connell and Marianne are actually exceptional students, I found the real normal people on GBBO to bring me a bit more joy. Baking was abundantly therapeutic for me this year, and watching charming people drink loads of tea and fret over soggy bottoms was a comfort. I also discovered the Great Pottery Throw Down, and as a lifelong ceramics enthusiast, I cannot recommend it highly enough if you care about things like slips, coils, and glazing techniques. GPTD embraces wabi sabi in a way that GBBO eschews flaws in favor of perfection, and in a time of uncertainty, the former reminded me why I miss getting my hands in the mud as a coping mechanism (hence all the baking). Speaking of coping mechanisms, like everybody else with two eyes and an HBO password, I loved Michaela Cole’s I May Destroy You; though we’ve all had enough distress this year for a lifetime, watching Cole’s Arabella process her assault and search for meaning, justice, and closure was a compelling portrait of grief and purpose in the aftermath of trauma. Arabella’s creative and patient friends Kwame and Terry steal the show throughout, as they deal with their own setbacks and emotional turmoil. Where I May Destroy You provides catharsis, Ted Lasso presents British eccentricity in all its stereotypical glory. At first I was skeptical of the show’s hype on Twitter, but once I gave in it charmed me, if only for Roy Kent’s emotional trajectory and extolling the restorative powers of shortbread. For a more accurate depiction of life in London, Steve McQueen’s series Small Axe provides a visually lush and politically clear-eyed depiction of the lives of British West Indians in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Lastly, how could I get through a recap of my year in tv if I don’t mention The Crown. Normal People may have needed an intimacy coordinator, but the number of Barbours at Balmoral was the real phonographic content for me.

Turning my attention across the Channel, after the trainwreck that was Emily in Paris, I started watching a proper French show, Call My Agent! It’s truly delightful, and unlike the binge-worthy format of "ambient shows” I have been really relishing taking an hour each week to watch CMA, subtitles, cigarettes, and all.

Honorable mention: The Last Dance for its in-depth look at many notable former Chicago residents; High Fidelity for reminding me of the years in college when my brother and I would drive around listening to Beta Band; and Big Mouth.

Music

My Spotify wrapped this year was a bit odd. I don‘t think “Chromatica II into 911″ is technically a song, so it revealed other things about my listening habits this year, which turned out to remain very much stuck in the last, sonically. I listened to a lot more podcasts than new music this year, but there were some records that found their way into heavy rotation. While I listened to a lot of classics both old and new to write my thesis (Paul Simon, Leonard Cohen, Prokofiev, and Bach) the soundtrack to my coursework, runs, walks, and editing was more contemporary. Standouts include:

Saint Cloud by Waxahatchee, which makes me feel like I’m breathing fresh air even when I’m stuck inside all day

La Bella Vita by Niia, which was there for me when I walked past my ex on 7th avenue (twice!) and he pretended that I didn’t exist

Fetch the Bolt Cutters by THEE Fiona Apple, because Fiona, our social distancing queen, has always been my Talmud, her songs shimmering, evolving, and living with me every year

Shore by Fleet Foxes, for the long drive to the Catskills

Women in Music, Pt. III by HAIM, because these days, these days...

Musicians have been reckoning with tumult this year as much as the rest of us, and the industry has dealt with loss on all fronts. I’d be remiss not to talk about how the passing of John Prine brought his music into my life, and McCoy Tyner, who has been a companion through good and bad over the years.

Honorable mention to: græ by Moses Sumney; The Main Thing by Real Estate; on the tender spot of every calloused moment by Ambrose Akinmusire; Punisher by Phoebe Bridgers; folklore by you know who; and songs by Adrianne Lenker.

Reading

What would this overlong blob be without a list of the best things I read this year? While I left publishing temporarily, books, the news, and newsletters still took up a majority of my attention (duh and/or doomscrolling by any other name). I can’t be comprehensive, and frankly, there are already great roundups of the best longform this year out there, so this is mostly books and praising random writers.

Last year I wrote about peak newsletter. Apparently, my prediction was a bit premature as this year saw an even bigger Substack Boom. But two new newsletters in particular have delighted me: Aminatou Sow’s Crème de la Crème and Hunter Harris’ Hung Up (her ”this one line” series is true force of chaotic good on Blue Ivy’s internet). Relatedly, Sow and Ann Friedman’s Big Friendship was gifted to me by a dear friend and another bff and I are going to read it in tandem next week.

On the “Barack Obama published a 700+ page memoir, crippling the printing industry’s supply chains” front, grad school severely hamstrung my ability to read for pleasure, but I managed to get through almost 30 books this year, some old (Master and Margarita), most new-ish (Say Nothing, Nickel Boys). Four 2020 books in particular enthralled me:

Uncanny Valley: Anna Wiener’s memoir has been buzzed about since n+1 published her essay of the same name in 2016. Her ability to see, clear-eyed, the industry for both its foibles and allure captured that era when the excess and solipsism of the Valley seemed more of a cultural quirk than the harbinger of societal schism.

Transcendent Kingdom: Yaa Gyasi’s novel about faith, family, loss, and--naturally--grad school was deeply empathetic, relatable, and moving. I think this was my favorite book of the year. Following the life of a Ghanaian family that settles in Alabama, it captured the kind of emotional ennui that comes from having one foot in the belief of childhood and one foot in the bewilderment that comes from losing faith in the aftermath of tragedy.

Vanishing Half: Similarly to Transcendent Kingdom, Brit Bennett’s novel about siblings who are separated; it’s also about the ways that colorism can be internalized and the ways chosen family can (and cannot) replace your real kin. It was a compassionate story that captured the pain of abuse and abandonment in two pages in a way that Hanya Yanagihara couldn’t do in 720.

Dessert Person: Ok, so this is a cookbook, but it’s a good read, and the recipes are approachable and delicious. After all the BA Test Kitchen chaos this summer, it’s nice we didn’t have to cancel Claire. Make the thrice baked rye cookies!!!! You will thank me later.

Honorable mention goes to: Leave The World Behind for hitting the Severance/Station Eleven dystopian apocalypse novel sweet spot; Exciting Times for reminding me why I liked Sally Rooney; and Summer by Ali Smith, which wasn’t the strongest of the seasonal quartet, but was a series I enjoyed for two years.

Podcasts

I’m saving my most enthusiastic section for last: ever since 2018, I’ve been listening to an embarrassing amount of podcasts. Moving into a studio apartment will do that to you, as will grad school, add a pandemic to that equation and there’s a lot of time to fill with what has sort of become white noise to me (or, in one case, nice white parents noise). In addition to the shows that I’ve written about before (Still Processing, Popcast, Who? Weekly, and Why is This Happening?), these are the shows I started listening to this year that fueled my parasocial fire:

You’re Wrong About: If you like history, hate patriarchy, and are a millennial, you’ll love Sarah Marshall and Michael Hobbes’ deep dives into the most notable stories of the past few decades (think Enron and Princess Diana) and also some other cultural flashpoints that briefly but memorably shaped the national discourse (think Terri Schiavo, Elian González, and the Duke Lacrosse rape case).

Home Cooking: This mini series started (and ended) during the pandemic. As someone who stress baked her way through the past nine months, Samin Nosrat and Hrishikesh Hirway’s show is filled with warmth, banter, and useful advice. Home Cooking has been a reassuring companion in the kitchen, and even though it will be a time capsule once we’re all vaccinated and close talking again, it’s still worth a listen for tips and inspiration while we’re hunkered down for the time being.

How Long Gone: I don’t really know how to explain this other than saying that media twitter broke my brain and enjoying Chris Black and Jason Stewart’s ridiculous banter is the price I pay for it.

Blank Check: Blank Check is like the GBBO of podcasts--Griffin Newman and David Sims’ enthusiasm for and encyclopedic knowledge of film, combined with their hilarious guests and inevitable cultural tangents is always a welcome distraction. Exploring a different film from a director’s oeuvre each week over the course of months, the podcast delves into careers and creative decisions with the passion of completists who want to honor the filmmaking process even when the finished products end up falling short. The Nancy Meyers and Norah Ephron series were favorites because I’d seen most of the movies, but I also have been enjoying the Robert Zemeckis episodes they’re doing right now. The possibility of Soderbergh comes up often (The Big Picture just did a nice episode about/with him), and I’d love to hear them talk about his movies or Spike Lee (or, obviously, Martin Scorsese).

Odds & Ends

If you’re still reading this, you’re a real one, so let’s get into the fun stuff. This was a horrible way to start a new decade, but at least we ended our long national nightmare. We got an excellent dumb twitter meme. I obviously made banana bread, got into home made nut butters, and baked an obscene amount of granola as I try to manifest a future where I own a Subaru Outback. Amanda Mull answered every question I had about Why [Insert Quarantine Trend] Happens. My brother started an organization that is working to eliminate food insecurity in LA. Discovering the Down Dog app allowed me to stay moderately sane, despite busting both of my knees in separate stupid falls on the criminally messed up sidewalks and streets of Philadelphia. I can’t stop burning these candles. Jim Carrey confused us all. We have a Jewish Second Gentleman! Grub Street Diets continued to spark joy. Dolly Parton remains America’s Sweetheart (and possible vaccine savior). And, last, but certainly not least: no one still knows how to pronounce X Æ A-12 Boucher-Musk.

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