The Summer of Action continues, and it feels like a steel mill outside. Hot enough to melt a liquid nitrogen-frozen T-1000! Oh, yeah, and it's also 40th anniversary of the first movie in this series. So, chill out, dic...oh, wait! I mean, chill out and relax while we discuss some James Cameron cyborg stuff.

Overshadowed by its sequel, is there any reason to watch the original movie in this series? The Common Craig argues its merit as a slasher-style horror film with a science fiction coat of paint. Arnold Schwarzenegger stars as a seemingly unstoppable cyborg from the future, sent to the past to wipe out any Sarah Conner that gets in its sights. Grab your phased plasma rifle in the 40-watt range, and join us for a 40th anniversary celebration of The Terminator (1984)!

And then from there, with reportedly a nearly $100 million budget increase, can James Cameron deliver on the promise of a sequel to match the intensity of the original? Or will it be all Hollywood polish and little substance? Get ready to up the ante, with dueling Terminators, both trying to track down a 10-year-old John Conner, with the future of the human race potentially at stake! Beware of AI, or prepare yourself for Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)!

It's time we does the tell, so that we 'members the man who in the roar of an engine lost everything. A burnt-out, desolate man, who wandered out into the wasteland. It was there, in that blighted place, that he learned to live again. Witness us doing the tell, so we will ride eternal, shiny and chrome.

While we have not yet had a chance to see the new movie, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024), it feels right to blaze into the Summer of Action by discussing the previous films in the series. Join us as we spend some time with Max. His time in the Interceptor with the Main Force Patrol, battling gangs in a world in decline in Mad Max (1979), to the post-apocalyptic mercenary loner, in search of gasoline in The Road Warrior (1981). And then from there, displaying moral fiber, placing himself in harm's way, showing compassion to protect a group of abandoned children in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985), and to assist a group of woman struggling to escape an oppressive regime in Mad Max: Fury Road (2015).

Mentioned way back in Episode One of the podcast, one of Nicole's favorite horrors finally receives the featured treatment. Please don't tell Angela Bettis that it took us this long to get back to it.

If you can't find a friend, make one. Angela Bettis stars in writer/director, Lucky McKee's May (2002), delivering a charming, moving performance as an awkward young woman who seems to have a difficult time meeting and connecting with people. When she does meet someone new, she sometimes sees parts of them that are not particularly appealing, leading her to develop a solution to the problem. So many pretty parts, no pretty wholes.