Chaz and the assembled Order of Mildly Concerned Scholars (Wolfy, Scott, Corey, and returning guests Heath McCoy, Laura Morrissette, Debbie Pastore, and Michael Pastore) set out this week expecting to discuss "Mr. Blackwell."

Instead, they find themselves attending his funeral.

Not literally.

Emotionally.

Because this week isn't really about the song.

It's about what happens when the villain finally gets a chance to explain himself.

What unfolds is less a chapter of Scott's ever-expanding Elder screenplay and more a direct transmission from a past nobody was expecting to feel sorry for. The armies vanish. The battlefield falls silent. The purple lightning takes the night off.

And standing where the monster used to be...

...is a father.

A grieving widower trying to protect his daughter.

A man desperately looking for purpose after loss.

A future tyrant who, disturbingly, sounds an awful lot like a hero.

Laura Morrissette returns as a young Sypha and immediately steals the episode, while Heath McCoy takes on a younger Mr. Blackwell—a version of the character who still believes the world makes sense, the Elders can be trusted, and promises actually mean something.

Meanwhile, Scott continues constructing a mythology that becomes more complicated every time someone tries to explain it.

There are sacred groves.

There are magical oaths.

There are mysterious ceremonies that become increasingly difficult to distinguish from recruitment into an extremely powerful fantasy cult.

And hovering over everything is a growing realization that Cornelius and Blackwell may not be opposites at all.

They may simply be standing at different points on the same road.

There is sympathy.

There is suspicion.

There is the uncomfortable sensation that the story has quietly shifted beneath everyone's feet.

Because once you've seen the man before the fall...

...it's a lot harder to cheer for the fall.

Featuring:

• Heath McCoy becoming Young Mr. Blackwell and somehow making him "relatable" (woah yeahhh)
• Laura Morrissette returning as Sypha, future heartbreaker of podcast listeners everywhere
• Debbie and Michael Pastore reprising Sarah and Thane as the Fellowship of Mildly Injured Heroes continues its journey
• Morpheus presiding over an oath ceremony that raises significantly more questions than answers
• The Elder somehow becoming even less trustworthy than they were last week

THIS WEEK'S SONG:

"Mr. Blackwell" — KISS

FINAL VERDICT:

Not the story of a villain.

The story of how a hero becomes one.

That feels much closer to the established Regarding Elder house style.

The Show

In this season of Regarding…, the panel tackles KISS’s Music From The Elder one song at a time—testing whether its epic ambition holds up under scrutiny. Alongside the analysis, Scott D. Monroe’s original screenplay tries to turn the album’s abstract mythology into an actual story.

Ambition meets accountability.

GO BONELESS

Certified boneless in the state of Ohio by the Boneless Podcasting Network. Go Boneless. Boneless Makes a Better Podcast.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Chaz, Wolfy, Scott, Corey, and special guest Heath McCoy return once more to the crumbling, smoke-covered battlefield of Regarding Music from The Elder—this time under the banner of “The Oath.”

And fittingly, absolutely nobody emerges emotionally intact.

What begins with discussions of “minimal editing,” accidental hot mics, and Boneless-grade production recklessness quickly spirals into one of the season’s most cinematic chapters yet: a full-scale supernatural reckoning involving telekinetic executions, airborne corpses, emotionally compromised heroes, collapsing belief systems, and enough purple energy blasts to bankrupt a mid-1980s special effects department.

Scott unveils the latest section of the ever-mutating Elder screenplay project, pushing the story fully into dark fantasy opera territory as Mr. Blackwell unleashes absolute devastation across the battlefield while Corey—bloodied, broken, and spiritually unraveling—comes face to face with the horrifying realization that maybe the Order of the Rose isn’t quite the noble institution everybody hoped it was.

Turns out “The Oath” may not be about loyalty at all.

It may be about what happens after loyalty curdles into resentment, manipulation, sacrifice, and generational trauma.

Fun stuff.

Meanwhile, Heath McCoy settles comfortably into the chaos as the panel collectively realizes they are no longer “doing a funny podcast about a weird KISS album.” They are now actively constructing a sprawling metaphysical war saga where Gene Simmons has somehow become a grief-stricken telekinetic warlord delivering Shakespearean monologues through clouds of black smoke.

And then…

because this season refuses to obey natural law…

Kevin Brown materializes out of nowhere.

What follows is one of the most unexpectedly beautiful moments of the entire series as Kevin delivers a theatrical reinterpretation of “A World Without Heroes,” transforming the panel from wisecracking commentators into genuinely stunned spectators. Comparisons fly somewhere between Daryl Hall, Broadway rock opera, and “the version KISS maybe should’ve recorded in the first place.”

Naturally, this leads directly into debates about Tommy, Quadrophenia, The Wall, theatrical ambition, and the creeping realization that Music from The Elder might actually have worked if the band had leaned harder into the weirdness instead of recoiling from it in terror.

Because if “The Oath” teaches us anything, it’s this:

Once you swear yourself to the bit…

there is no safe way back out.

• Mr. Blackwell going full cosmic vengeance demon
• Corey enduring approximately seventeen separate emotional breakdowns
• A battlefield sequence with enough destruction to qualify as progressive rock Braveheart
• Kevin Brown unexpectedly stealing the entire episode with one song
• Heath McCoy calmly observing the collapse of reality in real time

“The Oath” — KISS

Not a discussion of The Elder.

An oath-bound descent into full-blown mythological podcast theater.

The Show

In this season of Regarding…, the panel tackles KISS’s Music From The Elder one song at a time—testing whether its epic ambition holds up under scrutiny. Alongside the analysis, Scott D. Monroe’s original screenplay tries to turn the album’s abstract mythology into an actual story.

Ambition meets accountability.

GO BONELESS

Certified boneless in the state of Ohio by the Boneless Podcasting Network. Go Boneless. Boneless Makes a Better Podcast.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Regarding Music from The Elder, Chaz, Wolfy, Scott, Corey, and special guests Dan & Pang Pappathopoulos stumble headfirst into “Dark Light”—where the screenplay somehow becomes more unhinged, Mr. Blackwell starts sounding like a cosmic war prophet, and absolutely nobody can agree whether the Elder are enlightened guardians… or interdimensional HR managers from hell.

Meanwhile:

• Corey discovers the Order of the Rose may have built its entire business model on manipulation and disposable messiahs
• A creepy fox-man appears out of nowhere singing Ace Frehley lyrics like a haunted alley goblin
• An owl creature eats multiple soldiers onscreen
• Sypha drops a revelation massive enough to shatter the whole mythology
• Heath McCoy accidentally channels Randy Savage hard enough to threaten reality itself

And through it all, the panel continues the impossible task of adapting Music from The Elder into an actual coherent cinematic universe… one cease-and-desist at a time.

“Dark Light” — KISS

(with unexpected assistance from Ace Frehley, alleyway goblins, and purple lightning)

Not a rock opera anymore.

A full-blown fantasy franchise fueled entirely by commitment to the bit.

The Show

In this season of Regarding…, the panel tackles KISS’s Music From The Elder one song at a time—testing whether its epic ambition holds up under scrutiny. Alongside the analysis, Scott D. Monroe’s original screenplay tries to turn the album’s abstract mythology into an actual story.

Ambition meets accountability.

GO BONELESS

Certified boneless in the state of Ohio by the Boneless Podcasting Network. Go Boneless. Boneless Makes a Better Podcast.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.