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Cinemablend
Cinemablend
Entertainment
Mick Joest

How Much Effort It Took To Pull Off That Matrix Joke In Stuart Saves The Universe

Stuart pulls a tube out of his mouth after realizing he's in The Matrix. .

Warning! The following contains spoilers from the Stuart Fails To Save The Universe episode, "Spoiler: Stuart Makes A Wallet." Stream the episode with an HBO Max subscription.

Stuart Bloom was institutionalized in the latest episode, and led to believe that everything he experienced in Stuart Fails To Save The Universe was little more than a psychotic break. Fortunately, he broke free of that universe, but things only got more confusing when he and his friends discovered they were trapped in The Matrix.

That didn't make sense, as Bert pointed out, and they soon shifted to another alternate reality. Their time in "The Matrix" was only a moment, but Kevin Sussman exclusively told CinemaBlend a lot of work went into that short scene:

Just doing the bald wig thing, it was several hours, and that shot, which is a brief moment in the show, took all day. It takes a lot of effort, and I mean everyone in the crew did something to make that look as amazing as it did. I feel like that was one of the most impressive moments in the show, in my opinion, because it's just wild.

Recreating the iconic scene from the first movie took a lot of effort, which makes it even funnier that it's only vaguely important to the plot. Bert pointing out there's no way they're in the theatrical universe of The Matrix hints there's something directing their journey, but before they could get to any real answers, they were off to a new location.

Not only was filming that scene to air for the 2026 TV schedule wild, it was also super gross to deal with. The crew of Stuart Fails To Save The Universe made the cast sit in vats of "goo" for the scene, and Kevin Sussman assured me it was no picnic:

The logistics of being in a vat of goo, which the goo was hard. They had to warm the goo, and yet it still was cold…It was disgusting. You had to be really careful getting out of the thing because it was dangerous being all lubed up like that.

When I saw the scene, I guess I assumed the goo was added in post-production or was CGI. It's wild to hear they recreated that with practical effects, and I, too, would be grossed out having to be a party to that. I appreciate that the cast went through it, though, and it makes me love the series even more than I already do.

Kevin Sussman previously told CinemaBlend how surreal it is to star in Stuart Fails To Save The Universe, and how he can't think about it too much. I totally get that after hearing him wrestle with promoting his scene parodying The Matrix, and worrying about the consequences of doing so:

There's actually a promo picture that Warner Brothers sent out, and part of me wants to post it on my Instagram, but then the other part is like, 'I'm all lubed up with the bald thing and the tube. This is gonna be on some crazy fetish site.'

Fortunately, those who watched Stuart Fails To Save The Universe will likely be talking about the latest cameo from The Big Bang Theory cast.

Mayim Bialik Returned As Amy (Sorta) For Stuart Saved The Unvierse

Just one episode after Melissa Rauch played a demon, Mayim Bialik returned as Amy as the head of a behavioral health clinic where Stuart was a resident. Definitely nothing to go wrong in that scenario.

Amy tried to convince Stuart that everything he experienced, including the events of The Big Bang Theory, was all fantasy. It worked for a while, but eventually, Stuart managed to escape and get back on track with saving the universe, I think. Who knows what's up next, or what trauma we'll see befall a former TBBT character.

Stuart Fails To Save The Universe streams new episode on HBO Max on Thursdays at 9:00 p.m. ET. There's plenty of time to catch up for those who haven't yet, and as someone who has seen every episode so far, readers won't be disappointed!

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