Without spoiling the twist, I question whether it’s “over the top.” The specific kind of anxiety alluded to by Conclave about popes is almost a thousand years old and has resurged several times.
The guy is actually way too unspecific about the details there to make much sense of the canonical relevance, which renders the resulting anxiety rather comical.
This spoiler-dogeing (pun intended) makes this comment too unspecific to respond to unfortunately, as it's not clear what you found unspecific. It's understood enough by the person he's telling it to, and it makes sense to be beating-around-bush about a topic that could get the person who's telling it in trouble.
