(phone ringing) - I need support staff to clear the room. - Stand up and walk now. - Hello, and welcome to the watch. My name is Chris Reijn. I am an editor at theringer.com and joining me in the studio. Guess he has to scrap that Coleman Domingo Rollin' Thunder remake. It's a degree world. - Absolutely, the opposite. No, it's all time. - It's hot right now. - It's the hottest to capacity be. Grimoire, great to see you today on the watch podcast. We are going to talk about the conclusion of a little TV series called Euphoria, which ended last night with an hour and 45-minute series finale as HBO has announced that that was the end. - What a three-month journey it's been for some of us. - Yeah, and so we're gonna talk about Euphoria. We are also gonna talk about one of my favorite new shows that I've seen in a long time. Apple TV's Star City, a spin-off of For All Man kind, but something altogether different and cool to talk about. There's a couple of other things, but I think Euphoria is definitely the headline. First of all, you can head us up to
[email protected]. Instagram is the watch pod underscore. You can watch us on YouTube at thebringer-tv, along with the prestige TV podcast who went live last night to talk about Euphoria. I wonder if Joanna and Rob knew that it was gonna be an hour and 45-minute episode before they signed up for that, but they did a great job. And they had some really great takes on the show. - Do you think the Germans have a word for that feeling you get when you turn on an episode of television and see one colon 45? - How often do we see one colon 45? It's among the longer episodes of TV I can remember. - I have some thoughts on that, yeah. - Yeah, there is, I wonder if there's a German word for that feeling that I had when we had to go live for talk the thrones while the Sixers were still playing the raptors in 2008. - Oh, I didn't have to do that. - I did, yeah. - Wow, what was the word, do you think? - Shite. (laughing) - That's bad, man. - That's bad. - Okay, and then we might touch on like the end of hacks and like where HBO is at right now. - You're taking me on a journey today. I love it. - How was you, you had anything else for your weekend? - No, like we can do that for Watch After Dark. - Okay, we wanna get right into it. Yes, let's talk about how we felt about this finale. - Okay. - I guess I'm gonna start here because you had the more unique viewing experience. These being the only eight episodes of you for it that you've ever seen. Did you leave the finale satisfied? - I found this hour in 45 minutes to be a relatively perfect encapsulation of my three month journey in that I found it by, I won't say exactly equal turns, but certainly some in each camp, I found it exhilarating, hilarious, outrageous, ridiculous, frustrating, bordering on and furiating. That was my journey this year. Before we get into the specifics of that, I think it's important if you don't mind. I think we could just go right at the main story here. - Yeah, and for people who are just taking a little dance with us here, this is gonna spoil the final episode and thus the season of a few for you. - And thus the series. - Yeah. - Which has now been confirmed. I thought that the almost, certainly tragic and the almost undersold death of Rue was artful and deeply upsetting in ways that really highlight the fact that even in my limited engagement with the show, it was very clear that the heartbeat certainly no pun intended of the series is Sam Levinson's relationship to addiction and to his particular worldview on the scourge of drug addiction in contemporary American society. And for it ultimately to take the form of this like beautiful radiant charismatic, surprising, hilarious life-seeking protagonist for her to go out with not even like what we've come to experience in media, hopefully potentially in our actual lives of OD-ing and coming back and struggling, but just the automatic existence life switch that is fentanyl was a gut punch. But I also thought that was really, really. I thought it was a powerful use of his medium to communicate what this drug does. And then it built on, and by building on that, it had the almost land man-esque poly-explanation of what happened and what's happening in America during what appears to be his last. - Very much his last, his last say meeting, yes. - Meeting. We can talk about that. And I have a lot to say about the Coleman-Domingo thing, but I really wanna hear your thoughts on the extinguishing of a character that has meant a lot to you into the series. But I found, and we can talk about the artfulness or however you found it to be of the dual, the choose your own adventure morning that we see a fantasy morning that then spins out quite clearly into a last-moment's death nightmare. But I did find that. If you just scoop that out, I found that effective, but also I found that was a moment when as an audience member, I felt very in tune with what I believe the creator to be intended. - Yeah, I don't think that I necessarily expected it just because. - Ultimately, I thought at Euphoria was rounding into being Rue's story. - Yes. - You know, and I guess it was. And also, this is sort of silly, but I was watching Bill's Instagram over the weekend and as daughter Zoe had a good point on one of his walk-in talks where she was like, "Well, Rue's the narrator." So how would you break that sort of level of storytelling if all of this is being discussed by Rue in some sort of kind of omniscience? - There is a cinematic tradition of posthumous narrators. - Yes, yeah. I mean, she doesn't quite achieve sunset boulevard here, but yeah, there is some of that. I was deeply moved by it. I think that there are other shows that would have broadcast her death much more clearly in so much as there would be like a sacrifice that she needed to make, whether it was for Ali, whether it was for one of her friends, for jewels, whether it was to do the last good thing that she could do. And in her fantasy and in her imagination, I think she is doing that. She's coming through for Fez who came through for her. I think the fact that the actor who played Fez Angus Cloud passed away after a battle with addiction. - But specifically, if I'm not mistaken, he would what ended his life was fentanyl laced. - Yeah, and Sam went on podcasts, The New York Times, pop culture music podcast with John and Joe and talked about how, and he has spoken at length about how like if he were using today, the way in whatever capacity he once did, there's an oligly who he would be dead because there is this silver bullet and bullets out there that like take addicts out in this kind of vengeful, almost way. I just found myself like really all going along on that journey and I thought that the two best actors on the show got an incredible showcase. The Rue and Ali relationship was the most meaningful one to me probably of this series. And in a lot of the ways that Rue kind of fantasizes about what she wants her last day to stand up to, which is being there for Fez, reconnecting with her family, going back home, I think that Ali's final act, which rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. - Yeah, I'm eager to talk about it. - Is in and of itself a fantasy? - Yes. - And I think it, I do think it, quote unquote, happens in the world of Euphoria, but. - But I think that turning into dirty Harry Rolling Thunder taxi driver and even the Rolling Thunder, which is like this very well-loved B-movie from the '70s, I don't know if you can call it a B-movie, but Tommy Lee Jones and William DeVane and about a returning soldier who is, you know, takes vengeance on those who take advantage of his family. That was a very knowing nod. Sam has, when he did his Euphoria Film Festival at the American Cinema Tech in LA, the one that he spoke for was dirty Harry. And so I was like, oh, that's why I guess. - Yeah. - And I think that that is probably honestly a fantasy of the people who have lost their children, their loved ones to fentanyl, is that someone should pay for what is happening. - So I thought I completely agree with you about that. And I think that the most sympathetic is the wrong word, but the most, maybe empathetic, the most attempting to be attuned to the journey of the show and the creative process of the show, take that I can give, is that this entire thing and really make clear the season, which is the one I watch, but you can speak to whether this hangs over the entire series. But this is a, project is a personal labor of love for someone who clearly throughout his life and not just because of his parentage and where he grew up, has found both escape and meaning in art, but specifically in cinema. - Who among us? - And truly, look what we do for a living. And, so we did note throughout this season, particularly, that everything felt a little bit. like kids playing dress up. I mean, these are 23-year-olds supposedly set loose in this, you know, sinful hellscape of modern Los Angeles. And sometimes it struck me as very discordant, and like the other day, and I called it like, you know, bugs him alone in stilettos. And other times you could sort of understand what the fantasy was doing for these characters. So my most generous interpretation of the end without getting into dismissing it is just like subterrentino, almost pasty schlock was that. Which always it kind of was, is that the entire season is a referendum on the fact that in 2026 or whatever the show is set, most addicts do not get second chances. And so Ru's embrace of religion, Ru's embrace of a new life, Ru's constant just being missed by shotgun shells like her constant near misses are not actually a hero story. These are just the last moments of thrashing in the net that's already caught you. Yes. And that if you look at where she was, she hadn't made it very far at all. I mean, she was sort of toggling between these two almost obscenely cartoonish extremes of violence with Nazis and then the cowboy gangsters at the strip club. And all of that being said, what happens in the last 30 minutes or 40 minutes of the show is a character who, you know, on Thursday, I was saying, I wish there was a spin-off that was just Ali doing his work that this character slow show. Well, depends. What's the thing? This previous one that his saying that Ru being the the last straw for him and him's immediately then taking picking up a drink, quitting meetings, sawing off a shotgun and doing what he does that it was in some ways like giving this character who has lost so much and has been burdened by so much the grace to also lose himself in cinema where he becomes dirty. And he can do something on screen that no one in the messy complicated real world can do, which is shoot addiction in the head until it explodes like a B character on the boys. That I think as I'm pitching you on that sharks like do you buy that emotionally? Does that make sense to you? I'm not saying that it worked for me, but I found that or I find that argument that has come into my head more compelling. Yeah, you know, it's funny is that I think that you when we intellectually like get into like the project here and what what this so your description of that second half of the episode and I'm like let's put aside the searchers prayer Kota. I get it back. I do want to talk about that. That that what I found that incredibly moving yeah. The bar the silver slippers sequence with Ali and Alamo I think is like it's one thing in in when you describe it or when you talk about like this is the best possible version of it. And I think the one of the things that it was difficult about this entire season is that I can tell you that but it's also got like eight Brazilian butt lift jokes and us like a runner with a white dog and you know kind of had on a hat with Maddie being there as well. And Super Bowl MVP Martian Lynch getting his dick shot off. Yes, which he was very disappointed not to actually do that stunt as I learned from the after after show. Did you stick around for that? I did. Nice. You do the work. Well, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't getting what was the one that we just like I missed the credit sequence of. Oh, yeah, you hadn't even seen it. It was the pit. The pit. It's one thing to describe it and then it's another thing to experience it. And I think that during that it is set in a strip club and I get it but like there are elements of it that I think are distracting it from its pure power, you know, and that the it kind of diminished the impact that I think it could have had. There's also just like storytelling stuff that I don't think he took care of. I don't think he properly set up Bishop turning on Alamo. That was not set up. I don't think that it's clear what Rue's friends know about Rue's death or what it means to them. And whether like Maddie ever puts together that it was her. I told Alamo that Rue was a DA informant and then days later she's dead. I will jump on one thing with that. And I don't know why I guess everybody is just assuming that Rue overdressed. Yeah, I mean, I'm not I don't want to carry too much water for this because I think that ultimately for me as a storytelling mechanism and an episode of television, it failed. Okay. I was but as we've agreed like we we were moved by and I think I deeply respect the decision to handle the end of the main character the way he handled it. And I think that there's an interesting conversation to be had and we'll continue to have it about whether it is illuminating or ultimately kind of simplistic to have both a director a creator and characters lose themselves in the extremity and artifice of cinema as opposed to actually staying in the uncomfortable place that the show flirted with. But I will say that I the way that so like the way the entire way the season came together again, we're going to choose to use the high-minded version of it, which was this was all a vision as opposed to man, this was what he could string together considering the cast availability of all the budgetary stuff, not budgetary stuff, meaning like he didn't have enough money, but like what it would cost to mount X, Y or Z thing. Well, I just I just don't know whether Hunter Schaefer was available. What I mean is if you look at it that way, you can there's a positive spin and there's a negative spin and when you of course listen to Sam Levinson talk it all seems like the vision came together. I find that hard to believe because Rue is the main character of the show and yet kind of haunted the show in a weird way and the margins existed in a different show and never really crossed paths with anyone else to leave a meaningful mark emotionally that landed on other characters, which is a hallmark of serialized television. That said, you could say and maybe he said in interviews that I haven't seen yet, that was always the point because Rue is the main character when she shows up to, what's her name? Lexie's house, you know, and is sort of going on and on about the DEA from Lexie's perspective. This is someone she knew four or five years ago who she opens the door to but then doesn't think about in the intervening weeks and months. So when you hear about it, it is like you said, it's like a that's a bummer but in a way I've mourned her already. Yes and I think that when Lexie and Maddie are talking about Rue or when I can't remember if it's Lexie or Cassie talking about Rue and Maddie not cruelly says she was a drug addict, you know, it's I think perhaps her friend friend group at that moment is like the phone call we were always expecting finally came and what a tragedy and don't put together that in fact she probably took like one or two per cassettes for the pain of her hand. I think likely one. One and that was because he made a show of taking from a different patch of taking one and giving her one. Yes. Yeah because he took the one which was, you know, that was probably actually like when you look back on that episode I guess it's been it was kind of broadcast that that's what was going to happen Rue. Well also his joy of her being employee of the month and doing a great job. Yes. In the first conversation that I see where to go from here I mean I guess well do you want to talk I'd like to hear your thoughts on both the the violence you know just in terms of that turn for the character volley but then also the turn back in a way of going to the homesteader stuff and I really want to I'm really curious your take on the shows almost old testament interest in the old testament in the sense that it I cannot tell if it is skeptical credulous mocking true believer or if it is just what it seems to be which is a creator or either for his own life or thinking of his characters grasping on to something like you would a life preserver in the middle of the ocean in that it's like you'd never thought about a life preserver before until he were drowning because the way like I thought the weakest scene by far in the episode is Lexi casting I mean I mean the other thing is I don't want to be unkind but like Zendaya and Coleman Domingo and my guy at Wally Akanoi Akbaje who plays Alamo are exceptional actors doing exceptional work on the show even when I don't love the material some of the other cast members particularly the ones we're talking about in the scene are quite weak in my opinion I just don't know that they have a ton to do yeah or they don't know what to make of it and maybe they weren't given sides they didn't know where they were in a story but that scene where she's like you ever read the Bible was tough sledding for me but I'm wondering how you felt about all of that here's I'm gonna make the case for it that the shows interest in and the characters emerging interest in the Bible is in and of itself not all together different than Sam Levinson using these sort of pre-established much beloved cinematic tropes and forms spaghetti westerns b-movie vengeance thrillers Douglas Cirque melodramas Hollywood pictures about Hollywood full of our true you know Antonioni like close ups of people's crying faces you know like these kinds of things that I think as a kid who is largely raised by screens like I identify with the need to work.
like look at real life and think about what movies I've seen that can explain it. - Yeah, and to mitigate your own emotional. - And it's like a disassociative kind of thing, which frankly is also what drugs are about. Like drugs are a way of pulling down the shade and existing in a completely different world for a while where your brain is moving fast or slow or is feeling no pain or whatever it is. So I get it, your mileage may vary on how you feel about Maude Apatow as a performer. I think her reading of it as I hate to use the ditty and retell ourselves stories in order to live stuff, but that the Old Testament is no different than dirty Harry. - All Spotify podcasts are using the ditty and reference way too much. - That the Old Testament is no different than dirty Harry. It's a story you tell yourself to like understand why bad things happen to people you love. - Yes, and that, yeah, that sex betrayal and violence - It goes all the way back. - All the way back. - Yeah. - When they be begatin' people, left and right back then. - Begats? Bring your begats to the, yeah. - No, do you have like Lexi just being like, man these guys are just begatin' left and right? - This is great. - Yes, this is why I think I have more tenderness towards this completely unwieldy, impossible finale than that I expected or maybe anyone listening expected, is because I don't know, I felt all any of us are doing is trying to tell ourselves a story to keep the scary's away, to get rid of the anxiety or to mitigate the anxiety or delay the anxiety. And he is reaching for primal stuff, the most primal human stuff when he brings the Bible into it, there was a feeling of just like the Texas family as the, wait, this is really what Ruance, this isn't a bit and then know these people are her heaven in a way, was confounding because it was a level of sincerity that in my limited engagement with this show felt quite surprising and untrustworthy. It was revealed to be quite trustworthy at the end. And interestingly, where Ali is at this point, he's martin' again. And he, as he said earlier in the episode, he's been a Christian, he's been a Muslim, he's been a drinker, he's been almost everything. And it's almost as if the horror of everything that he's seen and done has scoured him clean and he arrives like a pilgrim basically to this nothing desert place. And he is not ostensibly religious, but then when he says grace and he's with this family and they're holding hands and he sees Ru, he's a believer again in something. - Yes, I thought that that was the most effective use of a cinematic reference point that this episode had for me, which was framing Ali as Ethan from the searchers multiple times as the outsider who can't come in to this domesticated address, peace palace essentially. And I thought he very knowingly was doing that framing and then to have you get the last image of him outside of the barn and the little girl comes up to him and is like that's actually essentially Ru's spirit reborn three months ago. And it's a miracle that this cow had a baby, but here it is, bringing him in. And then this shows relationship to religion and what religion can and does mean to people. I think sometimes it's fast and loose. I also am not a religious person. So it's not really like my place to speak on what it means to the characters when I don't really have. - No, but a spiritual life, so to speak. But there is something very, if you listen to the words and if the moment is right, there is something very calming and peaceful about prayer. And especially that grace that they say at that table. And that to me was like, this is the baseline. This is what all humans should hope to strive to achieve. And even though those, I believe if I remember correctly, those people had some pretty, some political opinions and maybe that I don't agree with earlier in the season. But the idea that it's like, we basically remember the dead. May their memory be blessed. - That specifically, I made me sit up a little bit because that is traditionally that's a Jewish saying when people pass away. And I appreciated in that moment that if we were talking about-- - Got 'em. - Finally, some representation in Hollywood. - Yes. - No, but that like Martin at this point is a pilgrim who has moved through everything. And when he's praying at that moment, I took that to mean he is now forming a collection of things that are meaningful to him. I also can't help but think that Sam Levinson put that in because the Levinson family probably has said that when they have lost people in their lives. And I found that moving. I found that like interesting and expansive in its engagement with religion. And I think there's a secondary step here that maybe the story of euphoria is that Roo wasn't able because of her addiction, because of her illness, was not able to achieve. But like prayer and religion, this is maybe just getting older. I think it has become more interesting to me too, both because of the ability to like connect to anything bigger than yourself to get out of your own head. But also that like so much of what we talk about and not just us and Los Angeles, but I think there's like a secular religion that is getting better about telling people to practice gratitude, which is essentially saying a prayer, it's just maybe not to anybody. And that there is a certain and actually certainly in Los Angeles, there is a very strong spine of that type of belief out there. And the fact that the show up until the very end maybe existed in a much more Old Testament binary heaven and hell, but you're never gonna see heaven was holding it back. - Yeah, like I don't know, I think that I'm engaged with this finale, there's a plenty that I didn't like and if we could get into it, if we wanted to, but I'm much more engaged with it. And this is a me thing, not a euphoria thing. But there were aspects of this season that really rubbed me the wrong way and activated me in a way that only things that I find to be spectacle driven or cynical do. And there was a sincerity to the main thrust of this episode and to the grace of it was handled despite this silver slipper thing that makes me feel, look, whatever you say about this show and about this guy and whatever he does next and whether you make me watch it on the podcast or not, he believes it, you know what I mean? Like there is no lack of courage of convictions here. So I wanna be, that's another reason why I don't, I'm trying not to be as reactive as I normally might be to things that drive me insane. - Yeah, and I also, I think I have gone back and forth where I was like, you know, in the beginning of the season I was like the thing, my selling point on euphoria is it's never boring. - Yeah. - And the first episode got me because it was like the shot of her teetering on the wall. Like that was cinema, it was awesome. - And they're that cool. - Damning praise because that can't be the only thing that art does is stimulate some, you know, some frontal lobe stuff for you. - The way drugs do. - Yeah, yes. But I didn't think that this episode was boring. I thought it was able to do things where you were like, oh of course, of course this is what had to happen. But also be like, I had no idea that this was going to happen. Like in the back of my mind, I was like, Ollie's gonna try and save her in a shoot out of some kind and his sacrifice is what finally sends her down the right path or something like that. And I should have thought more about the fact that they had kept the FESCO character canonically alive on the show. I should have thought about the sort of plot that they had kept going with him about escaping and that that moment when she's woken up, and he doesn't see the pill bottle that is right in front of her and they're talking about this escape and she goes running out the door that wasn't real and that when she starts seeing images from her own childhood that that was obviously the last moments of her life. But the inclusion we sort of glide past him at the inclusion of FESCO character I've never seen. Yeah. I thought that was really remarkably done and again, a sign of my complicated relationship to the show where when it says like it made escapes via parkour and I was like, this show will do anything to perpetuate itself. Yes. When in fact, what it will do and again in that moment, like there have been in the history of television, there have been sadly multiple tragedies where cast members have passed away or have for whatever reason been unable to continue on with the show or the show has continued on without them. And the show tries to build that into the show world with very mixed results. And I thought this was one of the most touching and human ways that I've ever seen it done. You could see it was like a very personal story to have. It made this show that was canonical. I guess is what I mean to say. What happened to Angus McLeod is the story of the show. And Sam Levinson has said in interviews that it changed his idea of what the ending was going to be. So I thought that that was a pretty powerful tribute. Yeah. And then just to put a bow on the ending, I thought,
but in the searchers, the John Wayne character cannot come back inside after what he's done. Like he is kept outdoors and in the wild as America starts to build like it's community and it's towns and it's sense of society, like guys like that get left behind. So to have this end with Ali being brought inside to the dinner table, I thought it was a striking difference in, it's an inversion of what like the imagery suggested initially and it takes a reference point and says like my thing is like this. I loved that. I, the season ended, I think I have seen some discourse about the, the last shot of the American flag blowing and being like that this was somehow like mega coated or that like the end of the, you know, that the end of the episode was like overly conservative. It's not what I got from it, you know, I did not that, you know. - Yeah, to me, the flag is commenting on the transformation. There is a, if there is any optimism and it's certainly streaked with grime, but if there is any optimism in the world view of the show, it is that transformation is perpetually possible. - In both directions. - Yes, I'm interested in his sense of like can people change because the Nate storyline, again, if we're gonna consider this to be a season of television, we need to bring everything in. - Yeah, we need to talk about all of this stuff. - And so if you consider that storyline, I think that the message was no. Like people's demons, if they are evil in the, again, in the binary sense that Ali says in this episode, you're either helping the world or hurting it, then you cannot change, no matter how much you dress up or matter how much good you intend to do with your senior center or whatever. But, you know, whether you are an addict like Ali or you are a, you know, an only fans model, you can change your presentation, you can transform quite easily and not just be accepted, but in the most American form of reward, you can get paid for it. - Yeah, and I also think the dark side of that is that when you're a kid, the world feels more like, even if you're, no matter what, I think, economic strata you come from, the world feels like a playground to some extent. Like you don't make a distinction between work and play. Like it's just existence, you know? - Everything is a hustle. - Yeah, until homework starts getting due and then some of us rise to the occasion and so on still. - You want it? - At this table. But, as you get older, I think you still use the tools of your childhood to give your life shape and to give your life meaning. And another charitable way I could sort of understand Cassie, Lexie, Maddie is, you know, you talked about them playing dress up, you talked about it being like, Bugsie Malone, I think that you could make the argument that that's what life is, is - Sure. - Fake it till you make it. - You basically are doing like this mimicry. You are doing like, I guess what I have to do is take the things that come naturally to me and see if I can make any money off of them. And for Lexie, it's telling stories and for Cassie, it's taking pictures and for Maddie, it's shaping those pictures and shaping like the way people perceive women and for Nate, it was real estate, you know? - It sure was. If only for those zoning boards. - And the zoning boards killed them in the end. - Who do you think he's voting for in the mayor election? - I mean, if he votes, we're gonna have some controversies. - Great point. - Great point. - We could talk a little bit about some of the other plotlines. I think it's really worth noting that Hunter Schaefer does not speak in this episode. I think you could make, look at that and be like, it is a beautiful final moment of wordless communion between two characters who loved one another very deeply and in Jules and Rue, you could also say, Jules' last words to Rue were kind of like, this isn't gonna happen. So knock this fantasy shit off. Like, I'm here, this really works for me. I'm happy, quote, unquote. What did you think of her Medusa painting? - I am not really, I don't feel qualified to comment on the character of the storyline because the character didn't really exist this season and didn't really have a storyline. So that my response to- - I don't even have one scene with any other characters besides Ellis, the plastic surgeon and Rue. - Well, there was the wedding. - That's what I mean the one scene. - Yeah, exactly. - And it was my favorite scene between any non-sendaya characters was the Nate and Jules conversation. - Which again, I think was the, in many ways, one of the most TV scenes in that it paid off something that had occurred over multiple seasons. So I don't feel qualified to comment on the performer, the performance character, really other than to say, I am not a fan of fictional painters expressing their emotion through paintings because inevitably they're not going to, I don't think you're, I don't know if they're gonna get the effect that you wish you could get from that. - They probably should not have done the painting. - Sure. - The painting seemed sort of silly to me as did the sort of, like this is the sort of- - You mentioned of Ellis was like, what the fuck is that? - What are you doing? But like sort of like, there's more power in the silence and the expression of art and the painting was like, you were serious about that? Like that, I didn't get that and it felt, I mean, this is the thing that I think is ultimately, certainly a challenge for me and I would imagine whether it's on your dial, it's more or less or maybe it's not articulated, but like, I think one of the real challenges of the season and I guess it was an unavoidable one, is that it is ultimately a tweener. It was neither here nor there. It was neither committed to being a full-throated continuation of a serialized television show that had a lot of character and emotion equity built into it nor was it able to fully commit to being a, what I responded to in the trailer, which is a fuck you guys, this show is something different now. - I mean, I think it definitely committed to the latter. - It committed to the latter in terms of, in terms of its service to the audience, but the fact that some of these character strands were continually attended to even limited, like what I'm trying to say is either do it or don't. - No, I completely agree with you. - And I understand that you, - Jewels is part of you for you and Hunter Schaefer is part of you for you, but there was no room for that character this season, frankly, regardless of schedule. - You know what, I was kind of, I was watching it and there have been shows that I think we either have a sense of how they were made or what sort of challenges went into making them or we are aware of scheduling mishaps or issues that plagued the show. I think the best possible version is when it comes out, it's like Exile on Main Street and it sounds like everybody's in the room. - You stopped asking the questions. - You know what I mean? It sounds like everyone's playing in a room, but in fact, it's like one guy's in France recording on an answering machine and-- - But the art speaks for itself. - But the art speaks for itself. And I don't know that all the time you for you was not Exile on Main Street. I think that the jewels and neat plot lines specifically felt like they took place in a different working environment than the rest of the show this season. And I think it was to its detriment. I want to talk to you a little bit about the fact that the show makes the choice not to do a bad news relay about Rue and not to do, which is a term we sometimes throw around on the show about-- - It's the broad church. - It came from broad church, but it's basically each character finding out the same terrible news and having an-- - An Emmy real? - An Emmy real for it. I thought that was cool. I think like we talked about, you could make the argument that to Maddie and Lexi, Rue's sort of a crazy character from their past, that is every once in a while will pop up on somebody's couch, but that this wasn't a big shock. But Levinson kind of went through a lot of plot bullshit to get Lexi to tell Maddie that Rue is working for the DA and then Maddie told Alamo, and the only real acknowledgement of that seems to be when Ali says I'm here for Rue, or Rue Bennett sent me, like they get a reaction shot from Maddie, but it's not like, do you realize what happened here? - Yeah, no, it doesn't land. I mean, I think this is-- I think you're articulating an example of what I was trying to say bother, like it's a tweener. It's like you're servicing-- - Certain TV things. - Certain TV things, but then ultimately, you kind of don't care about them. And it makes sense to me, in this I mean, it's a truly, I mean, this is a compliment. Why, when Sam S. Mill used to come on the show, and he was praising Euphoria for its directorial vision and its aesthetic consistency, 'cause like Sam, both Sam's, right and direct everything, you see things on this show, like you did with Mr. Robot or Sam S. Mill's other things, that are contemptuous of some TV tropes. And it allows you to separate and engage with the material and make observations like we're making about, like, well, it may have felt sudden or brutal or cruel to dispatch Rue the way that the show did, but the show is actually telling you something about our engagement with protagonist and how we imbue hope into them when everything about their circumstance is telling you it's hopeless. That's not traditional TV. Traditionally.
TV would walk up to that edge, and then maybe like the Hacks Van Halley still give you all of the Gushing emotion that is kind of your reward for watching the show. Before he didn't do that, and it leaves us making references to the searchers and to Jewish prayers, you know, which is cool. We don't usually do that, but I think that the fact that it maybe was an ill-fitting ill-fitting clothing this season, that it was still in the skin of a serialized television show, most people engage with it that way, and I think my senses that people were either quite confused or quite pissed off by some of the storytelling choices. Yeah, I mean, the choice not to show Ruth's mother receiving the news, the choice to not have anybody else finding out about this to see Stormread's characters, the resistor finding out about this to. I mean, I think that that feels like more like that feels like more like something went wrong rather than a choice that was made. Yes, that said, Sam can go on a podcast and say the shit you're misreading the show, it is ultimately about the ways in which addicts in our lives are dead before the corner comes. Yes. You can say that, and I've been carrying water for those arguments in this podcast, but you can't say that as a coming over the top argument ender to people who have engaged with a serialized television show with a certain set of expectations. They're not wrong, just because you can intellectually articulate why you did something does not invalidate the emotionally. Well, this is what I'm kind of trying to work through in this conversation is like, how can I watch something that fundamentally doesn't work on so many levels that I still feel like it worked for me emotionally and intellectually in some ways. I guess it just made me think about things that I usually don't think about when I'm watching television. Including what the fuck are they doing? Yeah, but it made me think about addiction in a lot of different ways and it made me think about the American West in ways that I hadn't really thought about in a while and it made me think about forgiveness and why we go to the movies and all these things and I was like, this is good, man. This is bigger than I thought it was going to be. It was meant more to me than I thought it was going to be. I also felt continually, and I'm not saying this as a negative, but like a writer director in a movie can have his or her one to two dozen hinge points, exclamation points to express scenes, moments, vibes that are crucial to understanding what that vision is. The connective tissue in 90 minutes or two hours isn't really as important as we often think it is unless it's why did Palpatine suddenly return. If it's a personal story, you shouldn't ever watch them as a editor. You watch them being carried along by someone trying to tell you something. I think where the limitations of the auditor model are evident in a show like Euphoria are you can absolutely hang a constellation of these really bright, powerful, shining star moments that moved him and that tell the story that I think clearly wanted to tell. The connective tissue between them was often either convoluted, ignored, underbaked. Yeah, I straight up. Yeah, like the previous episode finished. No, and just to say, that's why people have writers rooms. I am not saying Euphoria would be better with the writers room. It's just irrelevant to make that point. I'm saying and sometimes the conversation creep of a writers room can overthink everything until it's just mid, you know, but like there's a moment in this episode that surprised me in ways that I was really excited by. Like I still don't understand it. I never asked you why Laurie is the way she is and hangs out only with Nazis on a farm. I don't understand that. Her season two kind of like she emerges in season two as like I believe like a local drug deal that Fez is working with. I haven't rewatch season two so some of this is just patching together memories, but her character is more like the layer of drug culture that you experience when like you are getting serious, you know, like all of a sudden this is the person behind. Yeah, and like it's not just dime bags and eight balls. It's like there's somebody who is like I'll give you this if you give me that and like it she her and and Alamo emerging as these two basically satanic figures in the desert. I think I was almost like just it's almost disconnected from who Laurie was in the second second season. All that to say that like the moment when the guy who rodeo ropes rue early in the episode when the scene is built because we've seen all the same movie Sam Levinson is seen that we understand he's going to reach for his gun and go out in a blaze of glory and everything's going to pop off when he doesn't. Worked. That was a moment of that I took I took notice. Another I apparently this show is also about the healing power of dogs like the animals. Yeah, exactly. The dog told him not to do it. But I just was like okay. But like we are also at the point with the show where I was just like that is a that is a decision and a statement that clearly has some significance to the creator and to the larger project and then it goes off the rails. You know she has this dramatic hanging off like there's then it goes crazy to get to the next one of those. I mean there's so much fucking like it's so funny because we're having this kind of like clear ive full hearts conversation about this episode and it like I said plastic surgery but Brazilian butt lift. Lori blows her pants out when she hangs herself. Colostomy bags plastic surgery in Mexico fentanyl scorpions printed on it. And Martian Lynch getting into a threesome before he gets his dick blown off. I mean it is so like clip that coward exploit it is exploit exploitation core. And so it's funny to also be like goddamn like this brought me to tears. It is funny. It's it's just like I guess that's the high and low that he's working with. Yeah. And it really really really pissed people off in some ways. But I even though you're the newcomer to this. Yeah. I just I wasn't mad that Lexi or Nate or Cassie didn't have like three more story beats at the expense of all the Wayne I was say and Lori stuff. I mean like I don't know why he did it necessarily where I think it could have been a little bit more evenly distributed. But yeah I mean I didn't understand what but I also because I didn't know I couldn't I didn't feel I didn't want to spend time with really any of these other stories. But I also that's not for me to say I'm coming in late and maybe that some of those scenes or some of the the continuation of their stories was was important for the viewers. But I also think like the I keep looking because I never want to get his name wrong but out of a while I a Kanoi Akbaje if he wasn't on this show in that role it would have been a catastrophe of historic proportions because the character is preposterous somewhat intentionally preposterous. But to go from Rue's death to have him giving a disquisition on the power of female anatomy and the role it's played in his life was borderline insulting honestly to what the show was and ridiculous digression or maybe not digression for what the character has been. And you know he came on the show like a cartoon and he went out like a cartoon but there was an actor playing him who brought real gravitas and swagger and dark charisma and humanity to it which is maybe the best we can hope for. I think that you know I know this sounds crazy but I feel like I feel like the show got away with even more this season. Yeah. By casting and and Darryl Brakibson too and in part of Bishop who he brought some some gravity and soul to a character that was mostly reaction shots and then suddenly had exposition in the last 15 minutes. You know it it got away. Do you understand why he turned on Alamo? I think because of Maddie. But was it did he seem particularly enamored with Maddie before before she liked his dog? Yeah. Okay. Not that I could tell. I mean he was watching everything. Yeah. But I thought he was mostly focused on Rue and was the one who's like my spidey senses are tingling. Yes. Not that there's something up with this person who's now just all of the sudden empathy for this person. Now that's the other thing. I think ultimately the reaction is one of frustration because maybe Darryl Brakibson will do an interview where he's like oh we shot all these scenes where you know Bishop's sister died of a drug overdose and it triggered him or whatever and she's the one whose dog it was and that's what I was playing but we didn't show it. Or you know you get away with it because he's a cool looking actor who did the fucking thing seen to see. Yeah. And then you get by on again with the sort of surface artist that the show can also skate by on. Either way we'll never know the full answer and we have what we have and I may be the best way to put a bow on it is we're never getting anything like this again. Like we're never getting anything like this again. So that's actually a pretty good segue here. I mean I I hope you people enjoyed our rather unique perspective on this series this this season and you know it was a fun experiment. It was a fun experiment at the beginning and end. I'll also just mention that not unlike when succession and Barry ended on the same night I believe. Wasn't that the same night? I think that's right. I mean you were a kickin' around Europe at the time. I was. Hacks all
I also ended this weekend. I'm gonna just say one quick thing. I know you didn't get a chance to see this yet, but I know you've also read about it. So I'm not spoiling anything for you. But this will be spoilers for hacks, which we have not discussed. It was really interesting watching this with an avowed fan of the show, my wife, who I think was quite moved by the ending and was like, that was very satisfying. And I kind of have come in and out, like as hacks has gone on, I have kind of a watching episode, maybe Miss two or three watching episode and feel like I'm on top of what's happening. And in its own way, hacks is not unlike what happened with Euphoria, where it brings in a relatively unexpected, though somewhat broadcast plot turn, where Deborah gets, has cancer, that her amass has returned. And she's decided that it's going to be, she's going to choose to have assisted suicide in Switzerland rather than go through treatment. So her and Ava go on this sort of last lost weekend in Paris, it's actually quite beautiful. Like obviously Paris is just incredibly cinematic and filmable. - Just ran into Amanda Dobbins, she said the same thing. - I bet. And then they're going back and forth making jokes about dying and Deborah has the revelation that she in fact has more jokes to tell, more work to do, and that that is a substitute, that is essentially like standing in for, she also loves the people around her. And it's always the word to be a part of a community and is going to go and try, you know, clinical trials of new drugs for cancer. And, you know, as I was watching it, I was feeling like I was getting a little chewbocked. Like, you explained that because that is still important to us. That was, no, that was the truly odious rise of skywalk. - Yeah, and rise of skywalker, there's like you basically spend five minutes thinking chewbaca has been blown up. And. - But somehow chewbaca has returned. - But somehow chewbaca has returned and I got really mad on a podcast, whereas like you can't manipulate people like this. Like you prepare them for the possibility that characters people die. You take them through that experience and then you tell them actually psych. And you get everything, you hoard, you're like Colin Robinson on what we do in shadows. You're an emotion vampire. You have stolen people's feelings and then said, "JK." - Yeah. So it's interesting to look at the two in comparison. In some ways, Hacks was in much more complete satisfying and watertight finale. But it does, you for it does what Hacks didn't do, which is say, well, what if what we are actually telling you is going to happen happened in a main character and how would people feel about that? I think Hacks killing Debra would be like quite controversial. So I understand why they didn't do that. But it was interesting to see them play with stakes that were so severe. - Yes. - And then decide to back off in the last minute. - I cannot criticize Hacks for that decision from the perspective of someone who has just been advocating for the unspoken covenants between television creators and their audience. I think that there is, and this can hamstring creators creatively over the long term, but I do think shows, you know, I've said this before, teach you about themselves and tell you what they are, even before they've reached the precipice of choosing an ending. And the worst endings tend to be the ones that betray that core belief at the last moment in search of something extra or something else, or in this case of some creators, wanting to play a higher note they've been allowed to play on the keyboard of their show for this many seasons. Hacks, the reason I didn't stay with Hacks is nothing to do with what I believe to be even from a distance, the consistency of Hacks. People like Phoebe and the millions of others people and Emmy voters who love it are like, one of the reasons this show continues is because year in and year out, Debra and Ava are delivering, and the tone of the show is delivering in the stakes of the show are consistent. That's really, really hard to do. What I tapped out when I realized that the show's most provocative ideas about Debra being a monster, about show business being a gaping maw of whatever was always going to be fixed with hugs and understanding before we run it back again. - Sure. - The constant breaking up and bringing it back together, well done artfully, was too much of a yo-yo for me and reminded me of, I mean, Mike sure is an executive producer of Hacks, but he's not his show, you know, Paul Downs and Lucian Yellow and Jen Statsky did the damn thing and ran the shit out of an enormously successful beloved show, but Mike sure is an executive producer of it and there's a tendency that it reminded me up ultimately that he's made some of my favorite shows of all time. Parks and Rec, the good place, particularly unimpeachable, except for the one little thing, which is what I'm trying to articulate, which is every so often the softness and the gentleness and the schmaltiness and the optimism start to like, overwhelm. - The TV-ness too. - Yeah, and that's not a sin. The shows are good because there is a Leslie Nope and there's a Ron Swanson and when they start hugging, that's when it starts to get rid of it. Anyway, so that was my reaction with the thing, but the reason why I walked away, but when you're describing that finale to me, I think I would have been incredibly frustrated by it, but frustrated for the same reasons I'd been frustrated for three seasons and ultimately that was the show. - Sure. - It's also, you know, it's hard to watch when you're just like the bear is just clearly much funnier. - Exactly, exactly. Where are the laughs in comparison? - I was just gonna go through HBO's current sleep, right really quickly. - Okay. - So you've got, I would say these are the sort of ones that are like kind of not propping up, but like are the flagship sort of titles for HBO right now, which is White Lotus returning currently shooting in the South of France task we know is coming back. Night of the Seven Kingdoms, critically, I believe commercially very successful new iteration of Game of Thrones. - Yeah, I actually was gonna reference it when we talk about Star City. Good, Gilded Age, The Pit, Rooster. These are not all shows that we have love or talk about necessarily, but shows that I think are doing well for HBO and are in current production. And obviously, I guess, Dune prophecy, which would Dune three coming and-- - I was just laughing, it's like, I guess, obviously. - Well, they bought it back and it's a Dune show, so I'm kind of like it bears mentioning. Then there are the shows that are winding down or ending. Industry, House of the Dragon, last of us, last of us still may be on the air for a couple more years, but I think they're probably thinking of ways to start bringing the ship back home. - I think they said for it, didn't they? - They did, I don't know how long that's gonna take. And then half-man and DTF, we didn't talk about half-man, DTF we talked about briefly, but those seem like one and done's. - I don't know, I don't have insider knowledge on this, but and I know it wasn't for us and it made people quite frustrated, but it does seem like DTF was a success ratings wise and internally. And so I have no idea about their HBO's relationship with Stephen Conrad or Stephen Conrad's desire to do any, but like you could do DTF Des Moines. Like that could be White Lotus. - Sure, or you could do another Stephen Conrad show, which I think is what I would like to see. And then they have Lanterns and House of the Dragon on the way, imminently, and Harry Potter, obviously, at Christmas time. It's an interesting moment because, you know, like, I think we have-- - Do you want me to talk about if Peeves is in it? - If who? - Peeves, who's ultra-guys? He wasn't in the movies. - Oh. - So that's two ways you haven't ever encountered this character, go on. - We've done state of HBO conversations before. I think a lot of the slate looks very strong. It really doesn't matter because it can't be repeated enough. They have been purchased by Paramount. - You also, I think, left out the most interesting returning show on the HBO network, set in Delaware County about a task force. - I said task. - Do you say task? - Yeah. - Sorry, I was blanking out. - We're having a problem, not you and I, but like, you know, when I was doing the "Berry to Live" thing when it last episode, and I was like, "Hey everybody, like tell me who you think the best "Berry to Live" like mine's definitely killed Bill." And I got 10 million emails that were just like Beatrix Kitto from "Kill Bill." And I'm like, I know I said that. Unless I was having a stroke and didn't say that, but maybe I'm not. - Only a few of the emails from me. - Distant of a no-podcaster. - Yeah. - It's fine. - Anyway, I just thought I would mention that these two shows are ending, that Euphoria, which obviously was a intermittent presence in HBO's lineup and "Hacks," which has been a very consistent presence. - Well, Max has, it's too pit adjacent series coming. There's the police show. - Is that Catalina Island? - No. What is that? - Oh, is that the family show? - No, that's the one about a guy, a sheriff on Catalina. - Is it about him policing the Catalina wine mixer? - I also. (laughing) - No, there's the Milo Ventimilia show. - Yeah, there's a cop show, I don't know. - And then there also is, there's a family drama being led by Ray Romano, yeah. So I guess we just kind of did our best to find the positive in Euphoria, so I don't wanna do any more, what's the term the kids use?
But I do think what you described is actually a best case scenario, I think, in terms of industry position of a network that has a very, very steady floor. Yes. And it's a very different floor than HBO had 10 years ago, certainly 20 years ago, in the sense that it is built on more mainstream facing stuff that works like Game of Thrones stuff. And DC stuff, and Bill Lawrence comedy rooster, and then also all of this broadcast-minded, all of this things that are maxed. The optimist case for that is Paramount, or whatever in the end, but probably Paramount, is buying something pretty solid, and that there is room to iterate on top of it. And there's room for Casey to say to all of the elephants, perhaps in some sort of like, remember when on righteous gemstones, when the gemstone siblings would receive people sitting on their three thrones, I imagine- That's how the elephants do it. That's what it will be like, where it's like Larry Ellison and the young Ellison. Megan? No, not Megan. What's our guy? David Ellison, and maybe Scott Besent, or whatever, being like, actually, it's a good sign for the economy that everyone's poor. In any way, Casey could be like, there's actually room here for me to take a little money off the top for like three more somebody somewheres or a bigger artistic splash. But do you feel like it's an end of an era in a different way? No, I mean, I think it's an end of an era because of the corporate machinations. I think if anything, the end of succession in Barry should show us that we shouldn't do this kind of like, what's HBO going to do now that hacks has gone? We just did it. I know. You think we shouldn't do the thing we just did? No, I think that the reason to be like, I wonder what's going to happen next for HBO is because they are going to be part of a different corporate parent. Not because they continuously, you know, and they morph. They changed. There's there's always going to be these like HBO 2027 is not going to look like HBO 2021. But, you know, we always wind up kind of coming back home. Did you mention Harry Potter in the list? I did, man. Yeah. Is that where peeps? Beaves, yeah. Yeah, peeps are beaves. Are you doing the rest of the development? Beads. Bees. Beaves, man. Let's talk about a show before we get out of here that I fucking love. And I knew I was going to like it. I didn't think I was going to be blown away by it the way I was. We're talking about star city. This is a, I guess it's a spin off. There are characters in star city that appear in for all mankind. They're played by different actors, I think different actors. It's it's set in the 60s in Russia, then the Soviet Union. This comes from Matt Walpert, Ben Davidi and Ronald Moore, who are also in charge of a from my kind, although I believe Walpert and Davidi basically do the front of that. Yes, they are the showrunners of both of these projects. And I'm going to say this and I don't really have a way of making this statement true, but it's how I feel. Okay. Is this the andor of for all mankind, Star Wars? Wow. Okay. Sure. They Chernobyl this. This is a hundred. It's rare to see a project of such deep, deep influence, but also kind of get away with it. Yeah. So it is Russian characters speaking in English accents portrayed by English speaking performers for the most part, I believe. It starts resiphons as the chief designer of the Soviet space program. Anna Maxwell Martin as Ludmilla Ruskova, a KGB intelligence officer who oversees the security of that space program. And then it's got a bunch of performers that I am either now fans of or never seen before. So we have Agnes O'Kasey playing arena who will turn up on for all mankind eventually. And she is, uh, let Ruskova's new protégé at the KGB. Oh, so this character is on the reason it's a different actor is because it's an older version of the character on for all mankind. Apparently, I think that they showed up on she shows up in season four. Alice Engler, who plays on Estazia, Belakova, the first woman in space. First woman on the moon, dog. And on the moon. Adam Negatus and Salim Klaud, they play Valya and Sasha respectively who to an atom. We know because he was one of the fire fired fired buddies on Chernobyl. That's right. And there are some Chernobyl faces on this show. The, uh, I mean, this is not really like a piece of cultural criticism. I like watching trained English Irish Welsh and otherwise actors, imbuing scripts with just incredibly lived in performances. Immediately. This feels like a 70s conspiracy thriller with a sci-fi, a plausible realistic sci-fi bent. It's an alternative history of the Spaceries for all mankind is told from the US perspective. This is told from the Soviet perspective. And what you get in the first episode is essentially, um, Ruskova is leading a Mulhunt inside of the star city. Um, and when the perspective first woman on the moon is thought to be a spy for the Americans. She's replaced by Anastasia Belakova played by Angler and, uh, because it's thought that Anastasia will be more. It's more, more, more, more pliant to the party's needs. Um, and meanwhile, so that that whole like going up to the moon with a woman is, is happening. And it's quite tense and well shot and it is gorgeous. Nick Murphy directed this first two batch, this two episode batch that went up. Um, and then the second episode, which I don't want to get too far into because you have an added chance to see it, uh, is about Anastasia's victory and promoter. And, um, the ways in which they are using her to sort of, as a propaganda piece. But deepening the Mulhunt and Irina's, um, being pulled into the dark side of security work for the KGB. I don't know if there is a light side of security work for the KGB. Yeah. Who's on, who's like the Luke Skywalker of the KGB? I guess we're going to find out. Um, the show is fucking awesome. It uses, uh, in much the same way Chernobyl does the brutalist decaying textures of Lithuania. They shot in Lithuania. Hell yeah. Shout out Lithuania. To just give everything this kind of like light cigarette smoked on moldy decaying the lights don't always work feel. And yet at the same time, you know, you're watching, um, this moment of great optimism and idealism. And to see it sort of broadcast in this different way and both two different ways. One, if the Soviets made it to the moon first, but two, in this way in which like every victory is also a thing that needs to be controlled. Yes. A thing that needs to be interrogated. A thing that needs to be buttoned up. Whereas on the US side, everything is sort of this expression of a new kind of American exceptionalism and American imperialism. I mean, it's beautifully characterized in the scene in which the chief designer is rewarded for his is absolutely outrageous victory, but it's in an empty room and you have the metal back. Yeah. Um, Paul sprigs is the name of the production designer who previously worked on sex education, which is a very different palette. Yeah. So Bravo production designers, unsung heroes of all television. So for as much as this is, first of all, I just want to get your general thoughts on the episode you watched. Well, I kind of want, I loved it and I can't wait to watch more. I, it's this may seem counterintuitive, but my reference point for watching the show was actually spider noir, which we talked about last one, which is to say, I no longer understand what gets green lit and what doesn't. Something makes sense to me anymore for all mankind, which is a sturdy show in terms of its, I believe it's performance and the engagement that it gets for apple is not a hit show. I think by any metric, even within apples own, you know, not many people have apple, despite its ubiquity and its unlimited budgets. So the fact that that series is getting a Russian centered spin-off back in the 60s, in many ways, telling the B side to a story that was the story of the first season, the for all mankind, which was eight years ago. It's fucking crazy. Like spin-offs spin-offs in their best case also retain the full audience of the mothership with re-siphons and animal Maxwell Martin leading it leading it without any attempt to make this. It's not like Russell Crowley's playing this guy. You know what I mean? It's like they didn't know. There seems to be an understanding that this is going to be mostly an artistic, frankly, project in the shadow of a show that hasn't set the world on fire. Now maybe this will be a wonderful outcome for everyone where what we felt about the first episode or two episodes will be born out by the rest of it, and then it'll have a sudden surge and may become incredibly popular in its own right. And we'll do our best to make that happen. But it's wild to me. And secondarily, I think we should say for people listening, you do not need to. Watch for all mankind. I think to engage. Yeah, I watched the first two and a half seasons of for all I watch the first two seasons I was talking to my daughters about it on the way to school Because they asked what we were talking about on the podcast and then they asked me to tell them everything that happened at the end of you For yet, and how did you do that? I mostly focused on the laxatives that Wayne took Because that kind of humor is always sells especially on the way to school. Okay The premise of for all mankind remains elite and so cool and so compelling and such a great use of Television to be like no, let's do this and let's really really try it, but I found it too big and too ambitious And I just didn't enjoy the watching of it as much as I admired it I don't think you need to have watched it to watch this or to appreciate it I just spent half this episode being like how are we getting this? This is wild But I should not question it. I'm glad they're spending their money on this the There was something kind of like And I don't I don't mean this is a blanket criticism of a show that I have watched in a couple of seasons I've kept up with what's kind of happening on all my own kind, but I so for all mankind for I understand every season is a decade Leap forward into this There in the 90s, I think now or or the into the 2000s and now there is a full colony on Mars Yes, because the idea of for all mankind the fundamental like rupture in our space and time is that the Russian one Which is what we see happen in the opening moments beautifully and brilliantly I mean pilots are hard the opening moments of the show Are so excellent at bringing you into everything that this show is gonna be about and also making you understand something if you are a fan of the other show That you're gonna be seeing it from the other side Yes, and it's like the paranoia and terror that then mixes with a moment of triumph is is really really excellent and the domestic versus the Just a completely different perspective on it. It's so so so well done But that the idea that in for all mankind this loss of the space rays led to an American obsession of catching up Which led to a completely transformed second half of the century into the new century in which spaces everything? Yes as opposed to something we did and we won and we moved on from There are these character moments and I you know I want you to watch the second one and then we could talk about it in more detail, but what I will say is that I'm sure if I did like a forensic Scouring of what's happened on for all mankind. I could come up with like a pretty Solid synopsis of what's going to happen on star city But there are these character beats that I find enchanting Enchanting in a way that like kind of reminds me of the Battlestar Ronald Moore's Battlestar Galactica of like you start out and you think this is gonna be the mechanic. I get it And you're like, oh my god. I had no idea like this is where we were gonna wind up and even Some of the cosmonauts are being given character depth that you just didn't you know You would not necessarily need to imbue the seventh guy on the show with this like this is what I want And but this is who I am and this is the frustration that comes along with it It's it's really really top-notch TV and I'm really excited to keep watching it I think you're gonna adore the second episode even more. Oh, I think so. Yeah and If I had a critique of all from mankind even though I you know, I'd like Gentlemen as a performer. I'd like a lot of the people who are on it there was a certain kind of like It's not like a falseness. There was a naked. Oh, it was always aware that I was watching people on a TV show Okay And it felt like dress up and this doesn't even though there is a complete Artifice to the fact that all of these people are Russians speaking English. The least generous take on that is that They found the Chernobyl filter that works. It's a filter on this show the way they speak Accented English as Russian the way Russian sounds in English, you know referring to people as chief designer Which actually is more common in Russian than it would be in English But we under we we speak this fictional language now. Yes, and they they're doing a great job of Doing a show in that language. It's not Just mimicry. Yeah We got a couple things on the cast couple of small notes. Sure one happy to see Elliott salt she plays the other Listening person remember she was on slow horses In like two seasons ago Damn, that's a this lady recognized her immediately from that love seeing these people. That's a good work I'm in close attention partly because as you know, I'm constantly on NEPO watch Ever since we started this podcast and I've looked across at you. You know, it's NEPO watch and as I stand on the shoulder of giants I mean Who amongst I mean what other critics were willing to shit on godfather too, you know in a way like you imagine you would have killed on a podcast um So I think we we have to talk about the facts that Alice Engler is clearly The daughter of you have to defend this. No, I don't I don't have this thing. It's actually fun for me No, she is the daughter of Jane Campion who's the great director. She was in top of the lake her mom's TV show She's awesome. I don't actually have a take on this. It was just funny to see that it is As it was funny to see that Tanya Miranova who's one of the cosmonauts wife who's keeping up a little something on the side is Andy circus's daughter I did not know that yeah Ruby circus didn't give it away the the character who I think is is has been the the one that has blossomed for me the most is is Alice Engler. It's on the sides of your character She is a I the the NEPO thing is a joke, especially when we're talking about a dedicated art artistic Person like Jane Campion in her family like I'm not really worried about the benefits of the leg up She got in the kiwi film industry, but It's actually when she's like at additions are like top of the lake must be nice No, the piano, huh when germam show you that yeah No, I think that as an actor she is surprising In her presentation in her line readings in what she brings to it and this is just through one episode That like you notice yeah, and it's and that's especially noteworthy casting I think in a show in which the aesthetic is Primary that everything is kind of brutalist and gray and there's snow and you can't do pops of color to distinct Oh, well that character wears a saucy scarf. That's telling us something. No, they can't do that So casting becomes even more important. Yeah, and the contrast that the show does between her and the cosmonaut that she replaces within the episode is Expertly done. Yes. Uh, we will continue to talk about this the third episode goes up on Fridays and maybe Maybe we'll talk a little bit about episode two on Thursday But I think we'll probably consistently chat about this show throughout its season if I had to guess yeah, and then we're gonna hit Maximum pleasure. We're gonna stay in the apple Apple's just got us we do nothing but serve Our big brother team apple Yeah, so when it was bay on Thursday top chef on Thursday maybe a little bit more star city Chris Kristen said this is her favorite episode of top chef this season. Okay, did you know that I did not know that that's good to know I also heard This is just now we're just into reddit stuff, but like A PA who worked on the show said this said that the edit actually helped seeker because it was much worse The edit of how of his behavior during the jury or who's at the edit of like his cooking no No, the jury like his crash out and if they were like let's be decent about this Release the seeker cut. Okay. That's that's my health seeker stands hit us up about your man tell us Just just tell us about what it's like eating melted chicken rice. Thank you for watching you for you with me Thank you for podcasting with me today. Thank you for inviting me We're gonna be back on Thursday and everybody have a good week. Okay
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