Jen dives into the post–World War II Red Scare in Hollywood, framing it as a true-crime-like witch hunt driven by fear rather than evidence. Beginning with HUAC's October 20, 1947 investigation, they explain how subpoenas, the question "Are you now, or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?", and pressure to "name names" split witnesses into "friendly" and "unfriendly," leading to the Hollywood 10's contempt convictions and prison sentences. They describe the Waldorf Statement and the unofficial blacklist's career-destroying power, highlighting affected figures including Lee Grant, Dorothy Comingore, Lillian Hellman, Orson Welles, John Garfield, Paul Robeson, and Charlie Chaplin, while noting Lucille Ball was cleared. They cover cooperators like Elia Kazan, Ronald Reagan, and Walt Disney, McCarthy's later rise and censure, Arthur Miller's The Crucible as allegory, and how Dalton Trumbo's credits on Spartacus/Exodus helped crack the blacklist.

00:00 Listener Warning and Intro

00:42 Cold Open Banter

01:30 Back to 1947 Setup

04:46 HUAC Targets Hollywood

11:02 What the Red Scare Was

22:31 Hollywood 10 Explained

27:26 Waldorf Statement Blacklist

33:15 Who Got Hit Hardest

34:15 Women Blacklisted Stories

38:23 Orson Welles Under Fire

41:50 Blacklist Tragedies Garfield Robeson

46:48 Chaplin Exiled Lucy Survives

51:45 Lucy Beats the Blacklist

54:31 Friendly Witnesses Exposed

54:46 Kazan Names Names

56:23 Reagan and Red Scare

57:33 Disney Testifies Too

01:02:31 McCarthy Takes the Stage

01:07:36 Army Hearings Collapse

01:09:54 Arthur Miller Strikes Back

01:13:17 Trumbo Writes in Secret

01:16:18 Spartacus Breaks the Ban

01:18:21 Real Crimes and Echoes

01:22:11 Final Thoughts and Signoff