222 – Lifting Her Up Caused Her to Fart
The episode opens with Adam disclosing that he is currently unemployed and wrestling with depression-fueled boredom — the paradox of having nothing to do while lacking the motivation to do anything. He reports filling his days with chores, daily Peloton rides, occasional haircuts, and no travel on the calendar until July. Daniel follows with his running update: he completed his fourth Springtime Surprise event at Walt Disney World — a Joy and Sadness–themed 10-miler — marking roughly three years of running. Friends Zach, Taylor, and Rodan tackled the full 19.3-mile challenge over three days. Daniel’s next race target is a Peanut Butter and Jelly Run in September; in the meantime, he plans a low-intensity summer of 5K and 10K maintenance runs. Adam then recounts a pre-theater taco dinner before seeing Mamma Mia with his partner Marc, and relays an incident where his elderly mother — on oxycodone for a pinched nerve in her wrist, compounded by chronic back pain and two knee replacements — fell out of bed and couldn’t get up. Adam drove over to help, and the two managed to lift her back onto the bed, with an involuntary gas release from the patient marking the climactic moment of the story.
The middle section of the show is dominated by two extended recaps. First, Daniel delivers his long-teased Survivor debrief, skewering a game twist in which contestant Christian Hubeki was sent to a time-limited floating-raft puzzle with no upside if he lost — he was forced to return to camp and publicly announce both a lost vote and a pre-placed urn vote against himself, eliminating any strategic maneuvering. Daniel and Adam agree the compelled public confession was the design flaw, not the puzzle itself. A follow-up two-hour episode featuring MrBeast and a food auction (fries, charcuterie, sea slugs, and a whole cheesecake) rounds out the Survivor talk. Second, Daniel delivers the episode’s anchor segment: a full recap of the inaugural Dollywood Half Marathon weekend in the Smoky Mountains. He and Zach stayed at the DreamMore Resort, collected their bibs from a comically undersized expo, ran their respective races, and spent two days in the park. Daniel extensively praises Dollywood’s immaculate landscaping and overall cleanliness, visits the Dolly Parton museum and life show, and comes away newly converted to the Dolly Parton canon after learning how many songs she wrote.
The back half of the episode cycles through several recurring and one-off segments. The Contact segment produces one voicemail from friend-of-the-show Scotty Aussie Battler, which launches a debate about hot pot and fondue restaurants, with both hosts arriving at the same verdict: you are paying restaurant prices to cook your own inferior food. The Gay Mix News Game follows, with Daniel answering five NYT current-events questions perfectly — touching on the Supreme Court Louisiana redistricting ruling, the White House Correspondents’ Dinner assassination attempt, demands to fire Jimmy Kimmel, a Trump-portrait anniversary passport, and the Elon Musk vs. OpenAI trial — before stumbling slightly in a Trivial Pursuit bonus round. A semi-comedic side story involves Daniel being recruited by friend Joe Betance for a cross-promotional appearance on an escape-room podcast, only for his Riverside recording app to crash immediately upon joining, leaving Adam to carry the interview solo. The episode closes with the Birthday Segment — featuring Kate Mulgrew (71) and Jerry Seinfeld (72), identified via themed audio clips — and a coda in which Daniel recounts discovering an Air Supply YouTube recording from Epcot’s Garden Rocks concert series and concluding, with audible relief, that he had not missed anything of value.
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