This is the first episode of the second season of our podcast series, “The Podcast for Social Research.” We recorded this episode on Friday, October 23 with an eye towards relevance to the upcoming election, and also to return to film criticism to inaugurate our second season, much as we began our first.  As such, this was recorded long before any of us realized that by this weekend, with a mere 4 days till the election, most of our city’s attention would be focused on displaced people, power outages, destroyed infrastructure, climate change, and the politics of crisis response. However, there is still an election on Tuesday, and there is still a place for discussion even in a crisis. So whether you are stuck at home because of the subways or heading out to Far Rockaway, Staten Island, Red Hook, or any of the other neighborhoods still in critical need, or anywhere else in the world, we hope you enjoy our discussion of political movements and elections and our friendly critique of Paul Thomas Anderson’s “The Master.” As always, please see our Notations section after the jump for some references, asides, and more. Although we have a bibliography in our customary style, our own time constraints to post this before the election will keep this episode’s Notations largely without time stamps. We promise to return to our full, thorough style of Notations for next episode. Until then, share, enjoy, stay safe, and warm.