Original subtitles

Life... it's literally all we have.

But is it any good?

I'm a reviewer,

but I don't review

food, books, or movies.

I review life itself.

Over here.

Hello, and welcome to the show.

I'm your dedicated life reviewer, Forrest MacNeil,

and this is my life experience curator, A.J. Gibbs.

Hello, Forrest. I cannot wait

to find out what our audience wants you to do next.

Well, me neither. Please, let's have at it.

Eli from Rolla, Missouri...

A William Tell?

I-I don't really know what that...

I don't know.

Well, let's find out.

What does it mean and what is it like

to do a William Tell?

What it was, was horrible.

Oh, my God.

Have you ever heard this William Tell story?

Apple on the head thing?

Yeah. This guy in the 14th century

was forced to shoot an apple off of his son's head

with an arrow.

Yeah, and he did it, too.

I was faced with a major problem.

To review shooting an apple off my son's head with an arrow,

I would have to shoot an apple off my son's head with an arrow.

Oh, hey, buddy. Hey, how's it going?

As it happened, Eric was scheduled to fly here

with his grandmother for the weekend.

Hey, is there anything in particular

you're looking forward to doing while you're down here?

No, I don't have anything planned, really.

Well, I-I do.

I have one, sort of, activity.

That gave me three days to become a master archer.

[bleep].

It seemed unlikely, but then, what choice did I have?

I need to be really good at this, you guys.

All right, whoo!

[bleep] that apple.

- [bleep] that apple. - [bleep] that apple.

[bleep] that apple.

- Oh, Jesus. - Oh, [bleep]!

On my first day of practice,

I did not come anywhere near my son's precious face,

and that was all right with me.

My second day went slightly better than the first.

I think I've been holding this upside down the whole time.

Look at this.

Come on, Mr. MacNeil.

Oh! Mr. MacNeil, that's great!

That's, like, five points.

- You got him. - It would have been his foot.

Or that would have been his foot.

All right, let's do this.

On the day of Eric's arrival,

I had time for one last practice,

and I would leave nothing to chance.

I like the intensity, Mr. MacNeil.

Yep, it's all about intensity now.

I obviously had no innate ability

to zip a stick off a string,

so I invested in the most advanced

stick-zipping equipment available.

All right, Eric, we can do this.

No more [bleep] around.

- Oh. - Oh, my God.

- Oh, my God. - Interesting.

- Oh. - Holy [bleep].

You're like a [bleep] elf. This is insane.

- Whoo! - More!

No!

Use your pain.

Ho ho ho ho! You're my hero!

No! I would have killed him five times!

Okay, well, how many sons do you have?

One!

Then, yeah, that's a problem.

Tina was onto something.

Since I clearly could not put my boy

at the mercy of my bow and arrow skills,

perhaps I needed another son.

So what kind of child do you think would be

a perfect match for you?

Um... Well, it needs to be a boy.

Mm-hmm.

And...

it'd be great if he had a flat head...

and a thick skull.

Thick skull?

No.

No.

- You okay? - This...

this is a terrible idea.

I'm a [bleep] monster.

And that's when I had a revelation.

Dad, have you ever shot a bow and arrow?

A bow and arrow? Yes, at summer camp.

As a matter of fact, I won a trophy.

Of course, it melted in the fire.

You gotta be kidding me.

No, it was plastic.

This was meant to be then.

Come on over here.

I realized that the question I'd been asked was,

what is it like to do a William Tell?

Not, what is it like to be William Tell?

I could still experience a father/son apple shot,

not as the father...

- Okay, here. - But as the son.

What I need you to do

is just shoot this apple off my head, okay?

Are you out of your mind? I can't do that.

Aim it. Just see if you can aim it.

- Forrest. - What are you doing?

We have to talk about this

because William Tell did this 700 years ago, right?

We're still talking about it

because it's impossible.

Look, William Tell didn't have a bow like this.

Drunken hillbillies are taking down deer

at 100 yards every weekend with these things.

You're not drunk, right?

No. Are you?

You can do this.

You won a trophy in this.

Actually, we all took home a trophy.

We got... the trophy was for participating.

Everybody took home an archery trophy?

Yes.

Okay, but still, you did it.

I believe in you.

I just need you to believe in you as much as I believe in you.

Because if you... if you don't,

um...

I'm gonna try and shoot an apple off of Eric's head.

That's... Okay, just stand there, please.

Dad, you can do it.

Just focus on the apple.

The oppressed people of 14th-century Switzerland

needed someone to show them that

passion achieves the impossible.

William Tell did that.

And today, my father would do it, too.

Or so I dearly hoped.

Okay, I'm gonna do it.

- Do it. - I'm gonna do it.

- Do it! - I am gonna do it.

- Oh, no, no! God! - Ow!

Oh, my God!

Mr. MacNeil, he shot you!

- I know! - Oh, I'm so sorry!

No, you have nothing to apologize for, Dad.

Please do it again, okay?

What?

Don't let this be for nothing!

Please, Dad.

Try it again. What do you got to lose at this point?

This is terrible.

Would somebody put the apple back on my head, please?

Oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God.

Okay, thank you, yes.

God that hurts! Here we go.

You can do it, Dad.

Please, Dad!

Oh, God, no! What have I done?!

Do you want me to call an ambulance?

Yes! Yes.

Okay, you just tell me when.

Now! Call an ambulance now!

Mr. MacNeil, maybe if you just duck down

and you... you put your head where your shoulder's been,

he'd get it, 'cause he keeps hitting you in the same spot.

No, no! No, no, no, I'm done!

Dad. Dad, no, he's exactly right.

You keep doing what you're doing,

and I will put the apple where the arrows are going.

One more. Only one and one only.

Okay, but please hurry,

'cause I don't think I can hold this position very long.

I'm going faint from loss of blood.

You don't have to do this.

I do have to do it. Thank you, though.

- Forrest. - Yeah.

I love you, son.

I know. Okay, but please hurry.

- You're not a perfect man... - Dad, please hurry.

but you've made a lot of mistakes in your life...

Dad, I cannot hold this position very long!

- Okay, I love you. - I'm going faint

- from the blood loss! - I want you to be proud of me.

I've always been proud of you, kid.

So I'm gonna...

Let's go!

- Aah! - Aah!

[bleep]!

[bleep]! Holy [bleep]!

- Someone call an ambulance! - Call an ambulance!

- [bleep]! - I've been shot!

- Call the ambulance! - This is terrible!

And that's when I had another revelation.

When William Tell's son placed that apple on his head,

he didn't know whether the arrow would pierce the fruit

or his cherubic renaissance-era body.

Either thing could have happened.

What do I do?! How do I fix it?! I'll cuddle you!

So to experience a William Tell,

one only needs to be involved in a father shooting an arrow

at his son.

Where it lands is mostly irrelevant.

Doing a William Tell forces a man

to put the person he feels most compelled to protect

in mortal danger.

So if you're considering attempting this feat,

my advice to you is don't.

Doing a William Tell, two stars.

Oh, and I should add that my executive assistant, Lucille,

is going to be just fine,

but I can't really say any more than that

due to pending litigation.

Let's hope a settlement is reached soon.

Hopefully, this next review won't hurt a bit.

Oh, I hope you're right. Yes.

@StalkHore7 Tweets...

Oh, that is a delightful request.

I'm off to make a wish come true.

It was just MacNeil family luck

that my son, Eric, had a birthday coming up

and was sure to make a wish blowing out his candles.

The party was being thrown by my ex-wife

at the house in San Francisco where she fled

after our marriage failed.

And I came prepared to make a splash

wearing a jacket that I'd had specially designed for parties.

Hey, the fun bus is here! Choo choo!

The prospect of making my son's day

put me in a happy mood,

so much so that I even began to feel that today

might open the door to a new future with Suzanne.

- Hey, Forrest. - Hello. How are you?

- I'm good. - Yeah.

What happened to your arm?

Oh, I got shot with a couple of arrows.

- Yeah. - Sure.

- Nice to see you again. - You, too,

but there's actually somebody I'd love for you to meet.

Okay.

Hey, Eric, honey, where's your best bud?

I think he's in the back signing autographs.

Oh, okay. I'll go get him.

Signing autographs? Oh. How are you?

And then,

Eric's birthday party turned into a surprise party,

a terrible, terrible surprise.

My recent review of catfishing

had allowed me to reconnect with Suzanne

using a false name and a borrowed face.

My favorite writer is Agatha Christie.

And through this deception, she and I fell in love again.

The face belonged to Joe Dale Jr.,

a handsome and dim-witted professional baseball man.

Did you bring a cashier's check?

To prevent Suzanne from finding out the truth,

I paid him to end things via Skype.

Now, this pretty-faced moron was dating Suzanne.

- Hey, Forrest, Joe. - Okay.

It's nice to meet you for the very first time.

- Yeah. - No.

No, you know what it is?

What?

Joe is a professional baseball player,

so if he's familiar to you that might be why.

- Is that why? - Yeah.

'Cause you do look familiar to me.

I mean, I didn't know that when I met him.

- Uh-huh. - Yeah, we met online.

I was using an alias, because, you know.

- Yeah. - Dad.

- Interesting. - Joe is the first person

to hit a walk-off home run in both games of a doubleheader.

That's great. I don't even know what a doubleheader is

to be honest with you.

To me, it sounds like a two-faced monster.

He's not much of a sports guy.

Like a monster that presents itself to people one way

- and then the other way... - I'm so sorry.

It's cake o'clock. I gotta hit it.

other people are saying a different thing.

Maybe he doesn't even seem like a monster on this side,

but on this side, you know he's a monster.

- Okay. - Right?

Shh. I know. I know, man. I...

This is real weird.

Yes, it's weirder than weird.

It just happened. We were up here playing the Giants.

I was craving a MILF, and I looked her up

because I thought it was a pretty easy way to get laid.

What is a MILF?

MILF, it's like an old lady I'd like to

[bleep].

Oh, my God.

Now, Eric's grandmother usually makes vanilla,

but Joe, this time, said it has to be chocolate.

Joe was a terrible person.

What a stark contrast with me,

a man who had come here to do something wonderful.

I'd like to have a word with the birthday boy.

Can you young men go away, please?

Thanks.

What did you just wish for when you blew out the candles?

Nah, I don't think you're gonna like it.

Whatever you wished for, whatever it was,

I am going to make that wish come true.

Eric was understandably hesitant

to share a secret wish,

but to make it come true, I'd have to know what it was.

- What I wished for... - Yeah?

was for mom and me to move back to L.A...

Well...

And to move in with Joe Dale Jr.

Can you really make that wish come true?

Could I?

I did not know,

but this review meant I would have to try.

That's what you want?

You don't want a go-kart or anything like that?

Joe says he has five go-karts at his house.

Oh, Joe's got five go-karts.

Oh, my God.

This was a devastating,

punishing, miserable request.

I came here prepared to build a go-kart,

which would have been hard enough.

Instead, I would have to try and convince

the former love of my life

to move in with a jerk.

Wow, I was just thinking about Joe in there.

He's fantastic.

What a... what a great guy.

Yeah, he is great. I-I really like him.

- Yeah. You do, huh? - Yeah.

So do I.

I didn't know if it was gonna be hard for you

and I was even gonna tell you beforehand,

but you were out getting shot or whatever.

- Did you know this? - What?

Okay, so whatever, he's sweet, he's funny, he's handsome.

He's handsome, of course, but he loves Agatha Christie.

How cool is that?

- Unbelievably cool. - Yeah.

Incredibly enough,

my wise and thoughtful ex-wife was genuinely smitten

with a man who is capable of craving a MILF.

But she was still too sensible to pick up and move

without an invitation.

For that, I would need to convince my betrayer.

You guys are basically like my favorite couple I've ever seen.

I like her, man.

Ever since I started dating her,

whenever I get a little something on the side,

I feel pretty bad about it.

Did you say that you have already cheated on Suzanne?

Yeah, but I'm gonna try not to.

Yeah, yeah. No, that would be great.

Joe did not strike me as a family man,

but I could not give up.

You should ask her to move in with you.

Mm, I gotta tell you.

I like to throw freaky parties, you know?

Like, good-looking women at the house in the pool.

Yeah, I'm glad you're saying that,

because that's how these guys are as well.

They love to throw down

with good-look... good-looking women in the pool.

It'll just be the same old Joe Dale Jr.,

just with a loving partner to come home to

and a little guy hanging around

who just thinks the world of you.

- Whoo! - I can tell you,

I had that, you know.

You could really literally just

walk down there and go get it.

Cheers, man.

Who's ready to play?

I had tried my best to make a wish come true,

but I doubted that a shallow man like Joe Dale Jr.

would make this sort of commitment to a woman

no matter how great she is.

But a week later, I got the call that Suzanne and Eric

were moving in with him in Los Angeles.

- I got it. I got it. - Are you sure?

I got it. I got it. Oh!

- Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. - I got it.

- You got it? - Yeah, I got it.

I had fulfilled my son's wish,

and aside from the truly awful feelings

associated with delivering my family

into the hands of a habitually unfaithful fraud,

I can report that it was satisfying

to see the wish recipient so happy.

Dad. What are you doing here?

Suzanne invited me to stay

in one of Joe Dale Jr.'s guesthouses.

Sleeping on the floor in your office

is just doing a number on my back.

Yeah, Dad, I don't think that's a good idea.

He's got a pool, son.

- Enjoy it. Beautiful house. - Yeah.

The idea that making someone else's wish come true

would involve any sacrifice on my part

had, honestly, not occurred to me at all.

At many points in this review

I felt nostalgic for the day when all I had to worry about

was being shot in the heart with an arrow.

The power of wish is a heavy burden

that no man should have to bear.

Making someone's wish come true,

half a star.

The next review comes from Elliot

in Homa Hills, Wyoming.

Homa Hills.

Hey, Forrest, what's it like to be alone in a rowboat?

- Hey, man... - Oh, my God.

A.J. I know our review selection process is totally random,

but this one feels like the hand of God

I need it so bad!

Ahh.

Some alone time in a rowboat, yes, okay, let's do that.

This experience will be documented by

a mounted onboard camera.

Total solitude.

The terrible arrow injuries I received to my left shoulder

are making it more difficult to row,

but I'm not about to let that ruin this relaxing sojourn

across a peaceful bay.

I took a few extra painkillers

and I gotta try to limit my range of motion.

Let's follow that bird.

I don't know if it's the cool breeze

or the sound of lapping water

or the double dose of OxyContin

or the crisp salt air,

but I feel at peace in a way that I haven't felt

in a long, long time.

Think I'm just gonna lie back and enjoy it.

But perhaps I had allowed myself to feel too peaceful.

I've been asleep for six hours.

I think I must have drifted out of the bay

and into the open ocean.

All right, well, I guess I just gotta row back to shore

as fast as...

Oh, no, no, no.

Oh, where are the oars?!

Where are the oars?!

Oars!

Hello, here's my situation.

I have brought along no food and no water

and no method for signaling anyone,

and my cell phone here doesn't get any service.

I am considering using one of my shoelaces here

as a fishing line

and pieces of my wallet as bait.

And I only pray that I am rescued

before that begins to seem like a viable survival plan.

Jesus Christ.

Fish don't eat wallets.

My review of making a wish come true

had left me metaphorically lost at sea.

Being literally lost at sea was even worse.

There is a flashing red light on the camera now,

which I assume means that the battery is running low.

I would like to say something to the love of my life,

my... my ex-wife, Suzanne.

Suzanne, I...

I'm pretty sure I'm gonna die out here.

Hello.

I do not know how many days I have been at sea.

I had been at sea for 96 days.

It is difficult to look at this footage now,

but the mere fact of my survival

is a beautiful, glorious miracle.

I've been swept into some kind of a floating trash vortex

in the middle of the ocean.

I have been killing and eating the sea birds

that perch on top of the garbage.

I've been strangling them and snapping their necks

with my hands.

And it's not a bad diet.

One of the things that I have been blessed to find here

in this garbage island

is a battery that works in this camera

so that I can continue to talk to you

because I have had important experiences

to share with you about rowboats.

They are...

Wow.

You were lost at sea for a long time.

Yep.

I want to thank anybody who has ever contributed

to the great Mid-Pacific trash flotilla.

If you don't properly dispose of your garbage,

you saved my life.

I would also like to thank the gruesome practice

of illegal whale hunting.

For it was a group of renegade Japanese whalers

who ultimately found me and brought me to safety.

Arigatou gozaimasu.

Spending time alone on a rowboat

is a horrifying, desperate struggle for survival

that cuts a man off from his life and his loved ones

frequently causing him to pray for death.

Spending time on a rowboat,

half a star.

Sync and corrections by explosiveskull www.addic7ed.com

The ocean is a force of nature

that must be taken seriously at all times,

and it's not something to be trifled with

or toyed with or... or enjoyed for fun.

I am sorry that I disrespected the sea!