Episode 240: Z (1969)

The opposition leader is dead, clubbed in the city square for all to see – and the ruling dictatorship does everything it can, which is literally everything, to deny responsibility. Z is a fictional account of the real, state-conducted assassination of a Greek leftist politician, but its satire achieves a degree of incisiveness rarely seen in the modern political thriller. By showing the audience the planning, execution, and cover-up, Z is less about the mystery and more about the mechanics of dictatorial hegemony: With the crime plain as day, the plot follows the denial, coercion, censorship, retaliation, and suppression they leverage to pretend their power is still in the shadows. Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/trylovepodcast and email us at [email protected] to get in touch! Buy tickets and support the Trylon at https://www.trylon.org/. Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters. Outro music: "Main Title (O Andonis)" by Mikis Theodorakis from the Z soundtrack. Timestamps 0:00 - Episode 240: Z (1969) 3:32 - The Patented Aaron Grossman Summary 7:26 - Cynicism and the edge political thrillers have lost since Z 21:22 - How the plot lulls the audience into believing everything’s gonna be okay 30:57 - The dictatorship’s rhetoric 43:23 - An opposition party defined as much by what they don’t do as what they do 45:32 - The ending 51:00 - The Junk Drawer 57:18 - Good Grief, Give Me a GIF!