Our adventure begins with the Grandmothers, a footnoted sister, more mounted heads than fireplaces (which is saying something), and some thick-ass man-thighs.

As we make our way through French history, we'll learn about why Paris was an "immense workshop of putrefaction," take the most horrifying raft ride of all time, get Gothic and emo with a spicy lady named Germaine, and ponder whose day that small newsie boy just ruined.

Along the way, I mess up the same joke twice, tell an inappropriate story, and make us all do a thought experiment that, in retrospect, might not have been necessary.

What did those three brothers do? When is the best time to take an unexpected hunting trip? What happens if your bird goes to hell? We'll discuss. And, we'll have a Merrrrrrry Christmas in the Languedoc. Two of them; two Merrrrrry Christmases. Yay!

I swear, I'm fine. All of this is healthy.

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Before we begin the Toulouse-Lautrec journey, we of course need a 5 hour fever dream of French history. It only took me one episode in this series for me to lose my mind, so that's pretty exciting :)

Act I: Entirely Too Many Louis

Act II: Little Internal Structures

Act III: It's a Family Affair

Primary Sources

Toulouse-Lautrec: A Life, by Julia Frey

Toulouse-Lautrec, by Gerstile Mack

Toulouse-Lautrec, by Henri Perruchot

The Unpublished Correspondence of Toulouse-Lautrec

A History of France, by John Julius Norwich

A History of France, by Joseph Bergman

The Industrial Revolution in France (1815-1848), by Arthur Louis Dunham

Dawn of the Belle Epoque, by Mary McCauliffe

Fashioning the Bourgeoise, by Phillip Perrot

The Art of Cuisine, by Maurice Joyant and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

In the Frida finale, we alternate between having lots of fun and exploring the cavernous depths of human suffering. But we also have fun? If you're here at the end, thank you so, so much for taking this entire weird journey with me. This really has been a life-changing project for me. Seriously, though, we will have some fun. Also, it gets sad. Like, really sad.

In what was supposed to be the finale, but instead turned into the episode before the finale, we learn quite a bit. Really, we learn too much. About neckerchiefs, turkeys, monotheism, Val Kilmer, making still life paintings look like porn, broken columns and wounded deer, and the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema. Along the way, Frida puts it on a German guy, takes a surprising new job, decorates a pulqueria, and makes a desperate choice when it comes to her health.

The episode that broke me.

11/28 update: two-parter finale is on the way soon. Apologies for the delay, it's been a crazy few months and anything under 4 hours for the finale would've been a crime.