Drew Gooden and Danny Gonzalez return to the strange orbit of Bashar by examining Alienated, a science-fiction romance connected to the man they previously discussed as claiming to channel the alien entity. The setup gives the pair an unusually rich target: a struggling scientist sees a triangular UFO, becomes fascinated with an artist whose sculpture resembles it, and gradually discovers that she is herself an alien. Drew and Danny wisely spend little time trying to turn the film into something more profound than what appears on screen, instead concentrating on its storytelling, dialogue, character behavior and increasingly peculiar attempts at science fiction.
Their chemistry remains the video's strongest asset. The opening channeling sketch efficiently reconnects this installment to their earlier Bashar discussion, while recurring jokes emerge organically from details in the movie rather than feeling entirely imposed upon it. The scientist's lollipops, the repeated "what are you doing?" dialogue, the triangular imagery and the characters' oddly confrontational conversations all become running material. Some of the funniest observations are also the simplest, such as questioning why an alien trying to conceal her origins would create and publicly sell artwork modeled after her spacecraft.
The movie itself provides plenty to examine because its plot seems simultaneously overcomplicated and remarkably slow to develop. A scientist is working on a potentially revolutionary means of reaching space, his father is obsessed with UFOs, an alien artist enters his romantic life, and a conspiracy-minded pursuer attempts to uncover her identity. Yet Drew and Danny note that the central threat takes a long time to become meaningful, with the alien hunter's role only beginning to generate substantial conflict well into the film. Their repeated confusion over what individual scenes are accomplishing is played for laughs, but it also becomes a coherent criticism of the movie's pacing and narrative priorities.
The romantic storyline fares even worse under scrutiny. David becomes intensely interested in Jordan almost immediately, while other characters speak about their connection as though a substantial relationship has already formed. Later, the film manufactures an argument when Jordan says an equation is wrong and David reacts with disproportionate hostility before discovering that she was correct. Drew and Danny's incredulous response is justified by what is shown: the conflict appears designed primarily to separate the couple temporarily rather than emerging naturally from their personalities or relationship.
Their discussion of the movie's science is appropriately skeptical rather than treating its concepts as established physics. The film eventually proposes manipulating the "frequency variable" associated with an object's position so that it disappears from one location and appears at another. Drew and Danny respond to the explanation as an extraordinary fictional hypothesis, joking about the idea of simply telling an object where to be. That distinction matters given the video's Bashar framing: nothing presented here establishes that the film's discussion of vibration, position or instantaneous relocation describes a real method of interstellar travel.
The commentary is less disciplined when it starts speculating about the filmmaker himself. A particularly extended riff imagines the movie's abrasive supporting characters as expressions of how its writer sees people who dismiss unconventional ideas, complete with jokes about Bashar and taxes. It is funny as improvisation, but it moves beyond analyzing the film into guessing at the creator's worldview and personal experiences without evidence presented in the video. Similar stretches occasionally favor escalating jokes over examining what the movie is actually attempting to communicate.
Presentation remains lively despite the lengthy movie being covered. Drew and Danny frequently build on each other's observations, turn minor props and editing choices into callbacks, and keep enough attention on the developing story that the audience can follow its major turns without watching the entire feature. The sponsor segment does interrupt the momentum relatively early, and the later commentary sometimes becomes deliberately chaotic, but the central conceit survives: this is less an investigation of Bashar's beliefs than a comedic examination of a Bashar-connected filmmaker's peculiar science-fiction story. The closing callback to the movie's possessive scientific dialogue gives the episode a fittingly concise payoff.
Pros
- Drew Gooden and Danny Gonzalez have strong comedic chemistry, frequently developing each other's observations into effective running jokes.
- The commentary identifies concrete storytelling problems, including the delayed central conflict, abruptly accelerated romance and contrived argument between David and Jordan.
- Recurring details such as the lollipops, triangles, repeated dialogue and alien artwork create callbacks that give the commentary cohesion.
- The video's treatment of the film's vibration-based teleportation concept remains appropriately skeptical rather than presenting speculative fictional science as established fact.
- The opening channeling sketch and closing research callback provide the episode with a satisfying comedic frame.
Cons
- Some riffs speculate about the filmmaker's personal worldview and experiences beyond what the material actually establishes.
- The commentary occasionally becomes so joke-dense that discussion of the movie's intended themes and connection to Bashar receives relatively little examination.
- The sponsor segment arrives during the early plot setup and temporarily breaks the momentum.
- Despite the Bashar-centered framing, the video ultimately explores the filmmaker's movie much more thoroughly than any relationship between its ideas and the purported teachings that inspired the premise.
Drew and Danny turn an awkward mixture of alien romance, conspiracy plotting and vibration-based pseudo-scientific language into consistently entertaining commentary, with their shared timing doing much of the heavy lifting. The analysis is strongest when it stays focused on specific problems in the film's dialogue, pacing and character logic, and weaker when jokes become unsupported speculation about its creator. As a comedic movie breakdown it works very well, even though the promised Bashar connection ultimately serves more as a frame than a subject of serious examination.
