SUMMER LISTENING: A Brutally Honest Review Of Too Much On Netflix

This summer we are curating your Cancelled podcast playlist, bringing you the insanely popular and always funny - Brutally Honest Reviews from our friends on The Spill.

You asked, we delivered. Ever since Lena Dunham’s new Netflix series Too Much dropped, Spillers have been sliding into our DMs dying to hear what Laura and Em think… and today, we’re going deep.

We unpack how the show draws from Lena’s real life, how it stacks up against Girls, and why it’s not really the rom-com it’s being marketed as. From the scenes we loved to the ones that completely wrecked us (yes, one of us cried), it’s a brutally honest review with zero filter.

Whether you loved it or are still unsure what you just watched, this is the post-watch debrief you didn’t know you needed.

LISTEN:
Love our Brutally Honest Reviews? Check out more: 
A Brutally Honest Review Of Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders Season 2

Want more of our thoughts on our favourite TV shows?
Listen to We Have Notes For And Just Like That & Sarah Jessica Parker’s Famous Secret Boyfriend

Finished Too Much and want more suggestions? 
Check out The Best Romantic Comedy TV Shows Of All Time

READ:

Check out Laura's review of Too Much here. 

GET IN TOUCH:
Do you have feedback or a topic you want us to discuss on The Spill? Send us a voice message, or send us an email [e-mail] and we'll come back to you ASAP!

Read all the latest entertainment news on Mamamia... here. 

Are you fighting with someone you love, like a family member or a best friend? Mamamia’s new therapy-based series is looking for a range of pairs who are interested in receiving qualified psychotherapy to help them repair their relationship before it’s too late. Apply Here.

THE END BITS
The Spill podcast is on TikTok here and on Instagram here. 
Read all the latest entertainment news on Mamamia... here.
Subscribe to Mamamia

CREDITS
Hosts: Laura Brodnik and Em Vernem
Executive Producer: Monisha Iswaran
Audio Producer: Scott Stronach

Support the show: https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribe

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:11):
You're listening to a mum of Mea podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Mama Maya acknowledges the traditional owners of Land and Waters
that this podcast is recorded on Hello, it is Jesse here,
and I'm dropping in to tell you that this summer
we are curating a very special podcast playlist for you.
We are bringing you the insanely popular and always funny,
brutally honest reviews from our friends on the Spill, from

(00:38):
the top TV shows of the year, to the biggest
movies of twenty twenty five which.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
You may have only just had the chance to watch.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
And of course some classics. The Spill gives you completely
unfiltered and real takes, as well as easter eggs and
behind the scenes gossip. This is your summer listening sorted
and if you are looking for more to listen to,
if you are just binging podcast this holiday season, every
Muma Mea podcast is curating your summer listening right across

(01:06):
our network. From pop culture to beauty to powerful interviews,
there's something for everyone. There is a link in our show.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
Notes from Mama Maya. Welcome to this bill your daily
pop culture fix.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
I'm m Vernon and I'm Laura Brudnick.

Speaker 4 (01:27):
Okay, I've been waiting for this moment. It's been a week,
but I've been waiting for longer, it feels like.

Speaker 5 (01:33):
But we had to build up longer than a week
because we've been talking about this show since it was
first announced.

Speaker 4 (01:38):
Build up for this show, and I'm so happy that
we watched it. Because we are doing a very special,
brutally honest review of Lena Dunham's Too Much on Netflix.

Speaker 3 (01:50):
Jess, something has shifted with you.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
Josh Hi, how are you girl?

Speaker 5 (01:56):
Are you cold?

Speaker 1 (01:57):
You're unhappy leaving me. It's the worst thing anyone's ever did.

Speaker 5 (02:03):
Change your life.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
Gil to London.

Speaker 5 (02:06):
You love London. You saw a Spice World nine times
and theater. I could do it.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
I could go and find my English dream.

Speaker 3 (02:14):
You know, a state ground starting gardens.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
Good luck with that. Love one of them? Do the
singing guy?

Speaker 4 (02:31):
By the way, you've got like an American accent, right,
let me guess you like one of those love Actually.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
Girls, this is the London I came here for. It's
like out of a movie.

Speaker 3 (02:41):
Yeah, horror movies.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
These people are full of pent up rage and dark secrets.
I know we'd look at the Yellow House.

Speaker 4 (02:48):
So I hope you watched it, because we are diving deep,
and we're not only just talking about the show and
the big themes and what everyone's talking about. We're also
talking about what not everyone is talking about. And we're
also talking about behind the scenes moments, stuff that you
might not have heard but we have.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
Yes.

Speaker 5 (03:04):
So again, I can't stress enough how there'll be spoilers,
behind the scenes facts, and we only did brutally honest reviews.
If you don't across some four the biggest new TV
shows and movies that everyone is talking about, so we
can dive deep, because we all know once you finish
watching a new TV show or a movie and it
takes up your mind, you become obsessed with it the
way we have been obsessed with this show. All you

(03:24):
want to do is talk about it and hear other
people talk about it. And guys, we've gotten all your
messages and your emails and your dms requesting this specific show.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
So here we go.

Speaker 3 (03:33):
Can I actually give our listen there's a bit of
a tip.

Speaker 4 (03:35):
Oh sure, cuz I've just worked out the best way
to listen to our breadly honest review.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
Oh okay, Wow, you get.

Speaker 4 (03:42):
Your friends over after you've all watched the TV show
a movie, and then you play our podcast and then pause,
and then with each other either agree or argue with
what you said, and then press play and then pause
again and then agree and argue. Because what happens is
is whenever you watch a show, and this has happened
with me with too much, with this specific show where

(04:02):
I was at a dinner with four of my friends
and everyone's.

Speaker 3 (04:06):
Like, okay, have you watched it? Have you watched it?

Speaker 4 (04:07):
Have you watched it? One person says, I haven't watched
the last episode. You're standing outside.

Speaker 5 (04:12):
Yeah, because we needed and you'll do it. Your poor
time management cannot stop this conversation.

Speaker 4 (04:18):
You need to have unhealthy habits with cinema and TV
like the rest of us. So you have to watch
all the episodes. Ten episodes. I watched them in a night,
which I don't recommend.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
You were messaging me.

Speaker 3 (04:30):
I did send a lot of photos of my live
reactions to Albi. We should actually.

Speaker 1 (04:34):
Post someone, Oh, we should.

Speaker 5 (04:35):
Emily was crying and she's not a big crier, so
I was quite confronted it.

Speaker 4 (04:39):
But I am very very passionate about this particular Brilli
hones yes.

Speaker 5 (04:44):
Okay, So much to get into so too much the
new show on Netflix. It's not Lena Dunham's return to TV. Obviously,
she was the creator, writer, and star of Girls, which
was one of those TV shows that just really changed
the shape of TV and really set its own tone,
and that has found a whole new audience in recent years,
even though it ended back in twenty seventeen.

Speaker 4 (05:06):
Girls is one of those shows where I wish I
could re watch for the first time.

Speaker 5 (05:10):
Yeah, I know, there's so many people I know who
haven't watched it, and so I said, when they look
disappointed when they say that I haven't watched it, I
was like, no, no, now's your chance.

Speaker 1 (05:17):
And it holds up.

Speaker 5 (05:19):
In fact, maybe now people would even take it in
in the spirit in which it was intended, because it
wasn't meant to be, even though it is very much
about friendship. And that's what I find really interesting about
hearing Lena Dunham talk about the line of Girls to
Too Much, like they're both stories pulled from her real
life experiences. Even though Girls the center is friendship and

(05:39):
too Much the center is romantic love, but both of
them are meant to be like just these characters who
are almost like exasperations of people. They're not meant to
be these kind of cookie cut out lovable TV characters.

Speaker 1 (05:52):
They're very raw, real.

Speaker 5 (05:53):
Yeah, they're to be meant to be half hour comedy,
and I think people are only really a lot of
people only Girls Now, in the spirit of which is intended,
is that Lena Dunham wasn't the joke. She was in
on the joke when when her character says I'm the
voice of a generation, she's tapping into people, she actually
kind of is. She was tapping into people who think
that way at that point in their lives. So even
though since Girls ended, she's done a lot of different

(06:15):
TV and film, but more behind the camera. Yeah, she
made a really strong choice apart from doing like a
few little cameos here and there, liking Once upon.

Speaker 1 (06:24):
A Time in Hollywood. But that's only because she really
wanted to stand.

Speaker 5 (06:27):
Across from Brad Pitt's stare at him, and she did,
and she at the end of the day, she's just
a girl.

Speaker 4 (06:32):
What I love about Lena Dunham's comedy is that because
of who she is as a person, and I feel
like a lot of people made this mistake with Girls
because it was like about friendship and stuff.

Speaker 3 (06:42):
People just assumed it.

Speaker 4 (06:43):
Was like comedy sitcom and it's not that. It's like
it can be quite dark comedy at times exactly. And
when I was talking about Too Much and Girls with
my friends, I noticed, I like, you either loved them
or you hated them. Yeah, And I think that's because
with the comedy, a lot of people watch comedy to
either feel something deeply or to escape from feeling something.

(07:04):
And Lena Dunham's comedy is the comedy you watched to
feel something deep.

Speaker 5 (07:07):
Yes, Oh my god, Emily, there'sman that is so so
so true.

Speaker 4 (07:11):
God, I'm gonnamm no one's feeler.

Speaker 5 (07:14):
So the build up to this show is one of
the best things about it and also one of the
best things from the marketing. So yes, Lena Dunham hasn't
really been in our screens since Girls. That was a
very conscious choice in her behalf. She was also writing
and directing so many things that Camping TV show she did,
like a few movies and things.

Speaker 1 (07:30):
She also did Catherine.

Speaker 5 (07:31):
Called Bertie, which is the very sweet book adaptation that
stars Bella Ramsey. It was actually on that project that
she met the man who made this TV show and
everything else happened. Louis Felber, the Peruvian English rocker indie.

Speaker 3 (07:47):
Musicians sounds very sexy.

Speaker 1 (07:48):
And it's not sound so sexy.

Speaker 5 (07:49):
I'd love someone to introduce me with all those different
descriptors Indie rocker, Peruvian.

Speaker 1 (07:55):
British, so so sexy.

Speaker 5 (07:56):
It was during like a lot of the COVID lockdowns,
but when different productions open back up, you could quarantine
be in a bubble. So Lena Dunham traveled to the
UK by herself, knew no one. She was fresh off
a breakup, not fresh off the Jack Antonov breakout.

Speaker 3 (08:11):
Which a lot of people think, Yes, which.

Speaker 5 (08:13):
A lot of people have drawn a line between those
those relationships, but it's not quite as clear cut as that.
So Elena Dunham had broken up with Jack Antonov in
twenty eighteen. She was with him all the way through
Making Girls and the height of her fame, and he
was this really cool composer, a musician, and she was
like the ultimate cool TV girl and people.

Speaker 1 (08:34):
Were very obsessed with their relationship.

Speaker 4 (08:36):
Yeah, and the connection with Taylor Swift because she was
Taylor Swift's best friend and he was Taylor Swift's writer.

Speaker 5 (08:42):
Yeah, and very like close collaborator. So their relationship ended.
Apparently there was someone in between, some guy who treated
her badly and she just had a bit of a
rocky breakup with this other short fleeing after her very
long relationship with Jack antonoff ended and like with jack Antonoff,
like she had said stuff on like you know, publicly,
like that she wanted to marry him, and he kind

(09:03):
of made.

Speaker 1 (09:03):
A joke of it.

Speaker 5 (09:04):
She said that she had their baby names picked out,
and he kind of laughed it off, Like I know
there's more to the story than that, but it was
kind of thing of when that they their relationship ended.
It was kind of seeing that she was a jilted
one in that and that people thought that he had
hooked up with Lord, who is seen as the ultimate
cool girl.

Speaker 1 (09:22):
Was it Lord? Oh, there is so much, There is
so much background.

Speaker 4 (09:27):
I thought who it was because it was way way
too early for it to be Margaret Quality.

Speaker 5 (09:31):
No, So this will be important later on when we
talk about Emily Radikowski's character, because a lot of people
do think that she is an amalgamation of Lord and
Margaret Quality to an extent. But no, people always thought
that there was crossover with Lord and Jack Antonov and
Lena Dunham.

Speaker 3 (09:46):
Oh messy, messy, So I can see why.

Speaker 5 (09:49):
Lena Dunham hopped on a plane to the UK. She
was like, get me out of this messy world.

Speaker 1 (09:53):
And she was over there.

Speaker 5 (09:54):
And she had to quarantine, so she was by herself,
and then she was feeling really really lonely, and so
she reached out to a bunch of friends. She says,
she has three straight male friends, so she can always
name them easily. There's three of them, and one of
these unnamed straight males not important for this, sorry for
him to have a name.

Speaker 3 (10:11):
It was one of another our friends.

Speaker 1 (10:12):
But we're not our friends. I don't know.

Speaker 5 (10:13):
I can barely remember their own straight male friend names,
so we can't get into that. But she reached out
to this man who had friends in London and said like,
I'm really lonely.

Speaker 1 (10:22):
I don't know anyone, and he.

Speaker 5 (10:23):
Like put out a call like a burst to everyone
he knew in London. And I was like, hey, I've
got a really cool friend who like I'd love someone
to just take her out and show her the sights
and just help her get a footing in this city.
So it wasn't even like a proper.

Speaker 3 (10:34):
Sat A nice thing to do for a friend.

Speaker 1 (10:36):
Isn't that so nice?

Speaker 3 (10:38):
I mean I do it for you?

Speaker 1 (10:39):
Oh I do for you to Yeah? No, I would.
I'm just really bad at admit. I mean to do it.
And then I wouldn't send the message I.

Speaker 3 (10:44):
Went to Brisbane. Would you not message your whole family
and be like hell, oh.

Speaker 1 (10:47):
No, I would do that. Yeah yeah this girl. No, no, no,
I would. I would get them to look after you.

Speaker 5 (10:52):
Absolutely, And this is why you do nice things for people,
because you might get a husband out of it.

Speaker 1 (10:56):
So yeah. So then she got hooked up with Louis Felber.

Speaker 5 (10:58):
This musician who she didn't know anything about him, had
never heard of his music. He also didn't know anything
about her. He wasn't across the whole girl's situation. He
hadn't watch any of her stuff.

Speaker 4 (11:07):
Genuinely, not in like a Simone Biles like, I don't
know Oh yeah, I know the.

Speaker 1 (11:11):
Most famous gymnasts in the world.

Speaker 5 (11:13):
No, I actually do understand that a indie rocker kind
of guy might not have been a cross girl.

Speaker 4 (11:19):
He's too cooling drags and having sex and playing Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 5 (11:23):
So they met one night in London and they just
walked around the streets like their characters doing the TV show,
talking and chatting, and they fell in love, and less
than a year later they got married in a very
chic ceremony. But can I tell you the moment she
pitched this TV show to him, the moment she said
I'm gonna make a TV show about this, because it

(11:43):
feels like it would have been just after they got
married or something like that. It was a month into dating. No,
she has recently confirmed. Yes, they hadn't even walked around
outside holding hands together. They hadn't met each other's friends
and family. They weren't even calling each other boyfriend and girlfriend.
And then Lena Dunham and I have so much respect
for her for this turned to this man that she
has just but she said she knew straightaway she was

(12:05):
going to marry him first night, and he later on
said he did too, but they hadn't said that to
each other yet.

Speaker 3 (12:08):
Yeah, but I'd like that to every regard me.

Speaker 5 (12:10):
No, I know this is I don't recommend that we
do this or anyone else.

Speaker 1 (12:15):
I would have told like ten guys by now, like
you want to make a show together.

Speaker 3 (12:18):
Okay, this is but I might start writing some notes.

Speaker 5 (12:22):
Yeah, So Lena doesn't turn to this man. She's like,
do you want to make a show with me? A
show about our life?

Speaker 1 (12:28):
And then they did and that show is too much
and it's currently everyone Netflix.

Speaker 3 (12:32):
Oh my god, that's that incredible.

Speaker 1 (12:35):
They made it together. That's the thing.

Speaker 5 (12:36):
Like I know everyone's saying, like Lena Dunnaman, yes, she
is like the main writer and the main kind of
creative force behind it. But Louis, her husband, is also
you know, involved in the writing. He picked all the music.
He was the one who really wanted the white load
of style Will Sharp to play Felix in the movie,
who's very loosely based on him, well freaking loosely. They
look very That's why Louie was drawn to him as

(12:58):
an actor.

Speaker 1 (12:58):
And he's like, I want that guy because.

Speaker 3 (13:00):
That really sexy hot man, sexy.

Speaker 5 (13:03):
Hot man to play me exactly. That's what I'd say
if I was casting myself. But he had that sort
of grungy kind of musician but brooding but also like
non threatening, yes, which I think is very much when
you see puppy dogs.

Speaker 1 (13:13):
Yeah, yeah, and when you see photos of Louis Felber.

Speaker 5 (13:15):
You're like, yeah, yeah, he's.

Speaker 1 (13:17):
Like a grungy rocker with hard gold.

Speaker 4 (13:19):
That is insane to me, Like one month in is crazy.
But now that you've said this, the show makes The.

Speaker 1 (13:26):
Show makes so much sense because you can because I'm.

Speaker 4 (13:29):
Like, oh, so the exaggerated the parts I thought were exaggerated.

Speaker 5 (13:32):
True exactly, which makes me think what other parts aren't
true that she hasn't quite let on, But I think
we can figure it out.

Speaker 1 (13:39):
So anyway, we meet our lead.

Speaker 5 (13:40):
Actress in the first episode. It's Jessica. Jessica Salmon. You
know that was her name.

Speaker 1 (13:45):
Yeah, that's her last name.

Speaker 3 (13:47):
Yes, ye.

Speaker 5 (13:49):
Also, Jessica is just so the perfect name because I
sometimes hate when.

Speaker 1 (13:54):
Shows have characters who have these really almost like modern names,
like I know that's.

Speaker 3 (13:59):
What I complete the name of the generation.

Speaker 5 (14:01):
It's like sometimes shows have a name they pick that's
really popular the year the show that comes out, But
then you think that woman's in her mid thirties.

Speaker 1 (14:07):
That wouldn't she wouldn't.

Speaker 3 (14:08):
Have been called that women would not be.

Speaker 5 (14:10):
And can I yeah, exactly, and all these other kind
of shows that have these yeah, very even like with
running pointlan not to call out Mindy Kaling, but like
calling that woman Isler, I'm like, no one was using
that name.

Speaker 1 (14:22):
It was Ela Fisher or no one.

Speaker 5 (14:24):
But Jessica is so perfect because that character in the
TV show and I am roughly the same age, and
Jessica was the biggest name in the world then.

Speaker 1 (14:32):
To the point where I was supposed to be called Jessica.

Speaker 5 (14:34):
But then my mum opened the newspaper that day to
sew the birth amounts and it was just page after
page of Jessica, so she decided not to. But like
that's you look at that character, like that's exactly what
she would be called.

Speaker 1 (14:45):
She is fresh off a very brutal breaker.

Speaker 4 (14:48):
Yes, she breaks up with her partner Zev and you
only find this out later in the show or like
what actually went wrong with their relationship, But I think
that first initial scene of like her breaking into their
house where he's with his current partner Emily Radakowski, which
is like also the best type of person to cast

(15:11):
for your ex's new girlfriend.

Speaker 5 (15:13):
It is the most perfect casting. And this is where
I love em Ra the most when she plays these
characters where you can see that she as a performer
is so in the joke, like she knows that she
is seen publicly as this quintessential, overly sexualized, overly desirable
woman who doesn't really exist. And she also is very
aware of the fact that publicly she's not seen as

(15:33):
a girl's girl. She's seen as kind of like a
man trapper sort of thing. And I think that's why
you cast her in that role, because as soon as
you see her, all that baggage that we have as
women gets projected onto her character. And Jessica also projects
onto her so much. That's why she films all those videos.
But also, interestingly enough, Emma Dakowski is friends with almost
everyone in the entertainment industry women. She's friends with all women,

(15:57):
and friends with all she's friends with, friends with Lena,
She's very close friends with Lena Dunnan, which is how
she got cast. Actually, something to keep in mind as
we talk about all the casting is that this is
a very rare thing that happens in TV and film.
When writers are working on a script, it could be
getting made ten years from when they write it. Yeah,
every so often, like writers write with a particular actor
in mind for a part, but there's no guarantee that

(16:21):
you would ever get that person because of scheduling or
money or their own interest, and again like they could
age out of the character by the.

Speaker 1 (16:27):
Time it gets made.

Speaker 5 (16:29):
Lena Dunham has set gone on the record and said
that in this show, she wrote every character with a
very specific actor in mind of who would play that character,
and every single person said, yes, isn't that wild?

Speaker 3 (16:42):
That is wild? But also personally I find that quite
surprising because Lena Dunham like so so talented, but she's
also quite a controversial person. Yeah in media, and there
were some scenes in Too Much where I just kind
of went She's She.

Speaker 5 (17:00):
Did say again, I've been reading much of interviews with her,
and she has set in multiple interviews that she does
worry so she about putting that out there because she
wrote with very specific actors in mind. It shuld also
be that she wrote mostly with friends in mine, like
pretty much ever in.

Speaker 1 (17:12):
The show is a past coworker or a friend of hers.

Speaker 5 (17:15):
But she does sometimes worry because she's sent things to
people in the past and they've been like, you, why
do you think that I would do this? Like, why
would you think I would do this specific role?

Speaker 1 (17:24):
But it's really.

Speaker 5 (17:25):
Interesting with who she's got in there, and especially I
thought the most interesting kind of casting line that you
can see in there is that Andrew Scott has a very.

Speaker 1 (17:34):
Interesting arc that will get to you later.

Speaker 5 (17:36):
He is very very good friends with Lena Dunham and
when she was first kind of herculating like she was
gonna make this show, she instarted writing it. Yet he
said to her, you need to cast Meghan Statler in
this thing. That is still a thought in your mind,
like you need to cast her. And lind Dunn hadn't
really heard of her. So she went home that night
watched everything she's ever made, all of her comedy videos.
She like watching her in the early years of Hacks,

(17:58):
and then she was like, this is the perfect actress
to play Jessica.

Speaker 1 (18:02):
And so Andrew Scott is responsible for this. What can't
that man do than?

Speaker 4 (18:06):
Because I love Meghan Statler. She's so and what I
really love about her character was she is a plus
sized character, and like throughout this series and I think
this is exactly what Hollywood has done to me and
especially our generation, where you're just waiting for like the
dig on her weight, You're just waiting for it. You're
waiting for it. You're waiting for it, and it never happens,

(18:28):
I know, and you just like have this relief and
there's like breath of fresh air. And this is the
first time I've seen even like in the MINDI project,
I'm like, she's not even plasized and there's so many
digs on her weight.

Speaker 1 (18:39):
Yeah, exactly, women's.

Speaker 4 (18:40):
Way way Hollywood, Like you just always have one comment
at least, And this is the first time I've seen it,
and it's not been like that at all, And I
was just like, I can't believe it, Like I couldn't
believe it.

Speaker 1 (18:50):
Watching her through this show being someone.

Speaker 5 (18:52):
Who yeah, is not that very tradition, especially now with
body diversity on screen has gone so far the other
way that everyone's very waif looking at very conventionally thin.
Seeing a character have this big love story and have
these relationships and fall in love with people, and yes,
people critique her and sometimes the way she dresses, but
no one sort of says to her like.

Speaker 1 (19:11):
Isn't it so nice that this man loves you?

Speaker 5 (19:13):
Kuse you'r plus size? Like that's not even a conversation.
And when the show came out and I wrote a review.
I didn't even put that in my review, and I
didn't even want to say it out loud or mention
it because it's almost like I didn't want this spell
to break of everyone jumping. I know it's important to
have that conversation now, but it's almost like I didn't
even want to say it out loud because I just
wanted it to just happen in past and for it
to become the norm, and I wanted it to be

(19:34):
this thing that wouldn't warrant a headline.

Speaker 4 (19:38):
Yeah, and it also reminded me of season three of Bridgeton. Yes,
Niicola Coughlan gave such a good performance, and all the
commentary I saw was like, yes, the chemistry, and yes,
a lot of the stuff about like pleasuring women and
how that was centered, but also more than her performance,
it was about her weight and like how brave she

(20:00):
was to like have her body on screen, And I
was like, is that the whole conversation we're taking out
from this whole season and which she gave a beautiful
performance for h I'm so glad that we didn't do
the same thing for too.

Speaker 1 (20:12):
Much exactly exactly.

Speaker 5 (20:14):
And it's also hard to because when you say things
like plus size and stuff like that. I think it's
really important to remind people that in the entertainment industry
but also in life, that they see plus size as
above a size twelve. Yeah, so what you're thinking of
is just it's like normal size. So we meet Jessica
in the first episode and she has had a very
intense breakup with Zev. Speaking of casting Michael z Egan,

(20:37):
who love him, but it's just really interesting to me
that he is his Like other really big role is
Joel Mazel in The Marvelousnessus maisl And, in that he
plays a man who does the main character wrong and
they have a big breakup and that pushes her to
go on and have this be huge life and do
things and stuff. And I don't know if that's meant

(20:58):
to be like a complete line to the character, but
I love that something in Lena Dunne's mind was like
that man he does this so well. Yeah, this man
knows how to play a character who you can kind of.

Speaker 1 (21:10):
Hell, you can.

Speaker 5 (21:10):
You can see why the leading lady falls in love
with him and why they have a relationship. But also
he just does it so well when he just lets
her and the audience down so much, and you can
see how it pushes her to start a new life.

Speaker 1 (21:21):
So I love his service too to this industry.

Speaker 4 (21:24):
I think he plays a character so interestingly because it
was one of the characters where like it comes across
as actually quite likable in the first time before you
find out.

Speaker 1 (21:35):
Which I think is needed because I do.

Speaker 5 (21:36):
I get pulled really out of reality sometimes in romcoms
where the leading lady is dating this like completely awful
but uncharismatic guy, and it's so hard. I know we
all date losers, but it's also so much harder to
believe her being in a relationship. So I love more
so when they show that the relationship was great for
a long time and it evolved in even though there
were red flags, it evolved into this awful situation. It's

(21:59):
just much more believable, I.

Speaker 4 (22:01):
Think, and even it makes her character more believable because
you're not like in love with her throughout the whole season,
Like there are times where I genuinely hated her.

Speaker 1 (22:08):
Really yeah, oh okay, well it didn't feel like that.

Speaker 4 (22:10):
Sometimes I'm just like, oh my god, you're so like
you're too much, like you're so annoying, you're too much,
and then there's obviously times that you come around. But
I think that's like where I saw Lena's writing come in,
because that's exactly how I felt about the characters and girls,
Like there were times where I hated them yea, and
times where I like love them, and then times I
was like, no, you don't deserve this.

Speaker 3 (22:31):
I'm like, yes, I do.

Speaker 5 (22:32):
I guess that's the whole point, because that's how you
feel about people in real life. So we meet her,
we get introduced that relationship, and then we see Jessica
in this really kind of well.

Speaker 1 (22:40):
She cause a great garden situations, which just so great.

Speaker 5 (22:42):
She's stuck in her home with her grandmother, her mother,
her sister, and her nephew, and all the casting here
is also really important one.

Speaker 1 (22:50):
Lena Dunham playing.

Speaker 5 (22:51):
Her sister, her older sister, I thought was really lovely
because for a lot of people, like our generation included,
we grew up with Lena Dunham's not just girls, but
like I used to, I've read all her writing, I've
read her book, I've listened to her podcast, and so
much about the content she makes really shaped me as
a young woman and so I think even though we're

(23:12):
like pretty much same age, I still think of her
as a big sister just because she's a tad more
successful than me. But I think also your you would
really see her as a big sister.

Speaker 3 (23:19):
Right, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (23:19):
She her writing was just something I feel like, especially
if you work in the media space or the creative space,
like she is like a muse for so many people,
like her trajectory and her career and her skill set.

Speaker 5 (23:32):
I loved her writing as someone we see as a
big sister, writing herself as the big sister. And she
also said she got asked so many times, did you
ever want to play Jessica? And she said from the
outset no, for a few different reasons. One is that
she said she just doesn't have the capacity at the
moment to be the lead actress and create a show.

Speaker 1 (23:48):
She said some of that is to do with age.

Speaker 5 (23:50):
She's had a lot of health problems over the years
as well, and she says she just didn't have it
in her. But she also said that she wanted to
hire the very best person for the job, and the
best person for the job wasn't her, it was Megan,
So that's understandable and man would never Yeah, a man
would never a man be putting himself in there no
matter what.

Speaker 1 (24:07):
Yeah exactly.

Speaker 5 (24:09):
You don't always have to Italy. You can always puss
them on to someone else. I also thought the casting
of Ria Pelman is her grandmother, was really lovely, so cute.
She is one of the most acclaimed comedic actresses of
you know, all time. She's one of the most nominated
actresses from her when she was on Cheers back in
the day.

Speaker 1 (24:23):
I think a lot of.

Speaker 5 (24:24):
People would know her as the mom from Matilda Matilda's Mom,
but she's on lots of other stuff.

Speaker 1 (24:28):
She was recently in Barbie.

Speaker 5 (24:29):
But I also think that Lena Dunham has always cited
her as her comedic inspiration who she holds up as
the great like Lena Dunham sees her as the greatest
comedic actress she's ever seen. So I loved that, you know,
and she obviously wrote the role for her. Bringing her
in was really love The.

Speaker 3 (24:45):
Whole casting of the family is so good.

Speaker 1 (24:46):
The mum Rita Wilson, Yeah exactly.

Speaker 5 (24:48):
Again, such a huge part of rom comms. And also
not that it not that this matters, but married to
like one of the rom com Kings of the World
Tom Hanks.

Speaker 3 (24:55):
Yeah, really good.

Speaker 4 (24:57):
And I think what I loved about the family dynamic
was that it was so different to what you usually see,
because I feel like with shows like this, it will
be the young girl who doesn't know like her life
is for a party, she doesn't know what's going on,
and she goes back to her perfect family you have
it all together. I'm just like, come on, you can
do it, or like helping you, which is kind of

(25:18):
similar to girls like her parents for a long time,
and girls were like seeing as the perfect couple who
were like, we're cutting you off, like you've been like
taking the piss. We're not gonna give you anyone me
And she was like, I'm the words of my generation
and also.

Speaker 3 (25:30):
Fair, and then she became the words of my generation.

Speaker 4 (25:33):
And what I liked about the women and her family
was that they were all going through it. Yeah, Like
they were all having to live together because all their
relationships didn't work out, and the poor grandma was just
having to keep the house.

Speaker 5 (25:44):
I know, she's like, I've got no one to go.
All my friends are dead. I know, that's just a lot.
And then we see her having this kind of crumbling
moment at work, even though I think it's really important.
They set her up to be like really successful in
a work, a wholly kind of to give her.

Speaker 4 (25:56):
That story was so funny with Jessica Jessica Alba.

Speaker 1 (26:00):
First of all, I freaking love Jessica Albert.

Speaker 5 (26:02):
She she is a great comedic actress.

Speaker 1 (26:04):
She doesn't get her Jews for that because she left Hollywood.

Speaker 5 (26:07):
She left Hollywood after filming The Fantastic four Rise of
Silver Sofa when she was crying because her character was
in distress and the director said, could you cry prettier?

Speaker 1 (26:15):
Could you not cry?

Speaker 5 (26:15):
All the more cg the tears in later and she
went Hollywood not for me, went away fair so and
opened a billion dollar company.

Speaker 1 (26:22):
So she's doing great.

Speaker 5 (26:23):
The specifics of this scene when Jessica comes up, this
is the most perfect writing Jessica. It's like to her,
I love Dark Angel, I wanted to be a bike messenger.
Is the most perfect call for elder millennials because I
don't know because Jessica Albat's first big role where I
fell in love with her was the TV show Dark Angel, right,
and that's a very It only ran for like two
seasons and everyone's forgotten about it. It's a very pivotal

(26:44):
show for my people, for like a very specific group
of elder millennials'.

Speaker 3 (26:48):
Watching this in the cinema. You would have stood up
on clasp.

Speaker 1 (26:50):
I would still have been clapped so much. Yeah, I
love that.

Speaker 5 (26:52):
I just think that tension to detail is so good.
And then obviously Andrew Reynolds is in there as Jessica's
a strange brother.

Speaker 4 (26:59):
In law Elijah, Yes, Elijah from Girls Again.

Speaker 5 (27:02):
Lena Dunham is very close with him, still with Andrew Reynolds,
and wrote that part for him so good.

Speaker 4 (27:07):
And that scene where, which is what the whole Like
Too Much show is, is like you think it's gonna
go somewhere and it does the exact opposite. So the
scene is like we're seeing jess in like her first
Like in her work environment, she's like a TV producer.
Her job is to make sure everything like kind of
works together, that the actors are happy. She works with
like these big A list stars. So Jessica Albert does

(27:29):
play Jessica Alba and Jessica Albert is not happy with
the direction. So she comes up to jess and she's like, hey, girl,
it's your time to shine, like this is girl empowerman.
We can do this, and any other woman.

Speaker 3 (27:42):
Would be like, yes, Jessica alber I can do this.

Speaker 6 (27:44):
Jessica leaves, she runs away so good, and everyone's like
did you run away from Jessica album?

Speaker 5 (27:57):
They're looking like she they're looking for you, Jesse I
was looking for you. She thinks she's in the bathroom.

Speaker 1 (28:01):
She's just like, God, do this.

Speaker 5 (28:02):
It's so funny because this is like overall too much,
very much, And Lena has said this, she really tried
to follow the beat of a traditional rom com and
there's some moments where she subverts it. And that's one
of the moments because in any other kind of rom com,
TV series or movie, that would be the moment where
the girl's like yeah, and she has her moment she's
like you and.

Speaker 1 (28:21):
Me justice, well we're gonna do it.

Speaker 5 (28:22):
And the fact that she's like, I can't do this,
it's like the most relatable thing ever. So then she
gets and this only happens in rom coms or Emily
in Paris. Then her work decides to send her to
Europe for a little break to get her life together.

Speaker 3 (28:36):
Break Get It Together does a big campaign for you
to work on. Yeah, and just come back a new woman.

Speaker 1 (28:41):
Yeah, exactly, you know what could go wrong.

Speaker 5 (28:43):
I love this too because this is also very much
based on Lena Dunham's and again, every every woman I
think who has who has been raised on Jane Austen
novels or like very close quintessential kind of British rom coms,
very Bridgete Jones esque. In fact, that scene where when
Jess first gets to London and there's that shot of
her walking across Tower Bridge is a mirror for mirror

(29:05):
shot of a really famous scene from the first Bridget
Jones movie. It is yeah, yeah, it's there for fans
just to be like, we see you, we know what
you're doing. But also this just the way people romanticize
London of like I'll get there and it's all going
to be like I'm going to live in Pemberley and
I'm going to like walk these beautiful London streets and
I'm going to meet mister Darcy.

Speaker 3 (29:24):
And she thought she was going to live in the state.

Speaker 5 (29:26):
Can I just say everyone I've talked to she was like,
I can't believe she thought in the state was in
the state, And can I just say I'm with Jessica.
I would have had the exact state. Someone tells me,
you're living in a state in London. I'm thinking sprawling
mansion and mister Darcy's inside.

Speaker 4 (29:39):
It was so like funny, and I think like the
little snippets of her imagination going crazy with the pride
and prejudice scenes, and like her dressed up and like going.

Speaker 3 (29:49):
To the bar by herself. Yeah, like dressed up beautifully. Okay,
we have to talk about.

Speaker 1 (29:55):
Okay, the meet cute.

Speaker 5 (29:57):
Now, if you're a fan of any kind of rom com,
you know that the most important moment is the meet cute,
as explained in the quintessential rom com, The Holiday. You
know when Arthur explains to Kate Winsor's character, I meet
cute is the moment. And this is what scriptwriters work on.
How are they going to bring their characters together in
a memorable, lovely way, in a moment where you just

(30:17):
know they're going to fall in love and it's usually
something you know, really cute and sweet each other.

Speaker 3 (30:24):
Then they drop their coffee.

Speaker 5 (30:25):
Yeah, exactly, they see each other across a crowded room
or something like that. This isn't a disgusting pub bathroom. Yeah,
I know she sees someone stage first, but then they
go into the bathroom.

Speaker 3 (30:36):
He doesn't not see her stage.

Speaker 5 (30:38):
And he asked for her for some bog roll, and
I love all the Netflix marketing. They're like, he asked
for some bog roll, and then in captions it and
then in brackets they.

Speaker 1 (30:46):
Have toilet paper.

Speaker 3 (30:46):
Toilet paper.

Speaker 1 (30:47):
I was like, we get it, but thank you, because.

Speaker 4 (30:49):
Even she was confused, She's like, oh, oh this Yeah.
That scene of their meeting was very like oh, I
feel like if you didn't know anything about the show
or the trailer or anything and you're just watching it, yeah,
you'd be like, oh, this.

Speaker 3 (31:02):
Is a nothing moment, like absolutely nothing.

Speaker 4 (31:05):
Like they see each other, they like kind of had
this awkward moment of like passing toilet paper to each other.

Speaker 1 (31:10):
Ye.

Speaker 3 (31:11):
She tries to get.

Speaker 4 (31:12):
To know him more and he's just kind of like bye,
see ya, Yanks, and then he leaves and goes back
on stage.

Speaker 5 (31:17):
Even before she goes in, and she's trying to be
offend people in the bar. I think is also like
a really nice aversion because I think as much as
romcoms lie to us about love, they also lie to
us about friendship, and they lie to us about the
fact that you can move to a new city and
that you'll just go out and it'll be magical and
you'll make all these new friends and you'll fall in
love straight away. Because can I tell you as someone
who has moved, I've moved to so many new cities

(31:38):
completely by myself, and I have done that where you
just go out and you try and meet people because
you have to, and no one wants to talk to
you cause people have their own lives and friends going on.

Speaker 1 (31:47):
That is so true.

Speaker 5 (31:49):
It's just I mean, meaning the boy is also a
bit rom com, but I understand that we had to
get that in there. Yeah, So we had the scence
them walking home, which is the moment from Lena and
Louis's real relationship walking through the streets. He gives her
the jacket. They talk for ages is a recreation of
their real first date.

Speaker 4 (32:08):
Oh okay, of that scene was like felt like something
should happen more. But even in that scene, like they
get home and then he kind of like just like
drops her home and then he's like.

Speaker 3 (32:19):
Out of there.

Speaker 5 (32:20):
Yeah, but he comes back. He comes when she's burnt
herself with a candle.

Speaker 4 (32:23):
Yes, so we find out that Jess has like this
coping mechanism. Yeah, this coping mechanism is to make She
has a private Instagram account and what she does is
she posts video selfie videos of herself talking to her
ex boyfriend's Zev's new girlfriend, em Rata.

Speaker 5 (32:43):
Yes, called Wendy. And it must be said that not
only is she high Wendy.

Speaker 1 (32:47):
Yeah, that's literally exactly.

Speaker 3 (32:49):
And it's like a dear diary, but it's a high Wendy.

Speaker 5 (32:52):
Yeah, exactly high Wendy's how she starts everything. And it
should be said that not only is Wendy a very
well known influencer.

Speaker 3 (32:58):
She's a knitting she's a knitting influencer.

Speaker 1 (33:00):
So important, that detail so.

Speaker 4 (33:02):
Important, and because it's em Rata, it's so believable, like, yes,
of course she's a knitting influencer.

Speaker 3 (33:07):
And of course, now I'm going to buy my own nitwear.
You trying to make it.

Speaker 5 (33:10):
It's any influencer who works on that space is like,
no one wants the ugly knitted hats Wendy slash Emrat.
No one wants the ugly like you're it even, like
Jess points out as she's watching her videos like it's
just because she's a hot woman, and she can go
into her closet and like knit herself a little scarf
where it is a boob chooe. It's like the scarf
is ugly, You're just.

Speaker 1 (33:28):
A hot woman. When everyone's gonna buy the scarf now, So.

Speaker 4 (33:32):
She's doing a high wendy situation and because she's a
big love a girl of pride and prejudice, she kind
of looks like the pride of She's wearing this long
white kind of nighty.

Speaker 3 (33:42):
Yeah, she's also holding.

Speaker 1 (33:46):
It's giving Scrooge. Yeah, it really is.

Speaker 3 (33:49):
Giving the backing gale.

Speaker 4 (33:51):
She's like holding a candle and while she's filming, the
candle kind of like leans into her and she sets
her chest top fire flu.

Speaker 5 (33:59):
On fire, and she has that moment where she's like,
what do I do?

Speaker 1 (34:01):
Stop drop and roll and.

Speaker 5 (34:02):
Then she kind of can't get down, which is again
so relatable because stop drop and roll sounds easy.

Speaker 1 (34:06):
I feel hard in the moment.

Speaker 3 (34:08):
No, yeah, because everyone can stop.

Speaker 1 (34:10):
It's the drug, it's the roles. Would stop me, I
would just go face the fire of my passion cannot
be extinguished.

Speaker 5 (34:20):
Oh my god, job driven roll Stop roll, oh my god.

Speaker 3 (34:29):
And then she can't remember the like number nine, but.

Speaker 1 (34:34):
Also that's what is the emergency number in the UK.

Speaker 4 (34:37):
It doesn't matter because whichever one you call it automatically transparent.
So even if she called nine one one, it will
go to the UK police.

Speaker 1 (34:43):
Oh guys, that is the most important thing. We're in
the UK.

Speaker 3 (34:47):
And we remember zero zero zero, it will still go
to the police.

Speaker 5 (34:50):
And I feel like we're so americanized, we'd all done.

Speaker 1 (34:54):
Okay, that was such a good fact, Thank you, Emily.

Speaker 4 (34:56):
And then the last scene of the very first episode,
you see her in the bartup two really confused paramedics,
one just crocing her down with the nineties.

Speaker 5 (35:08):
Still he looks so terrified, and you just like this
and this bit. There's so many I mean, the thing
is the dialogue in this show. I know there's some
haters out there and people like it's not this mat
The dialogue in the show is so funny and so
much of the I think the actual best dialogue comes
between the character of Jessica and her weird like landlord,
the guy who's like looking at the apartment when she

(35:29):
first arrives. He's like, that's a nice picture of you.
She's like, that's the lady from Murder.

Speaker 1 (35:33):
She wrote the actual lands broke in the bartup when
she's like, she's not really drunk, but.

Speaker 5 (35:45):
I guess she's just in stress. She's where's my dog?
If it was my dog? If where is he? She's like,
if it was a.

Speaker 1 (35:51):
Child, you care. You only care about children, not dogs.
And then then he's.

Speaker 3 (35:56):
Fully thinking it was like a suicide.

Speaker 5 (36:00):
And he's like, you're going to make some medical decisions.
I'll do that, and she's like, I don't even know you.
And then Felix comes around the corner holding my favorite
character from the show, the ugly little dog. Yes, and
oh my god. Also, this is really cute. Is that
you know how that night like Felix and Jessica have
just met. Yes, and he goes to the hospital to

(36:22):
see her. That is something that Louis did for Lena
in real life. So Lena's had a lot of different
health problems, though sometimes she's had to go into the
emergency room.

Speaker 1 (36:30):
She was an extreme amount of pain. She didn't know
Louis that well.

Speaker 5 (36:32):
He found out that she was there and he went
to the hospital and later on he said like that
was one of the moments I knew I wanted to
be with you because I the thought of you being
in hospital alone was too much and I never wanted
you to be in that situation again where you I
wasn't there for you. So him going to check on
her in hospital is also directly pulled from Louis and
Lena's love story.

Speaker 4 (36:53):
I did not expect Felix to visit her in hospital,
not even visit her, but like bring her dog and
then break her out, Yeah, exactly, and drive her home.

Speaker 5 (37:01):
It's also like it's just a small moment, but she's
clearly like she's got a burd but she's clearly fine.

Speaker 1 (37:06):
But she's in a unit. Was like thaorn Burns Victor.

Speaker 3 (37:08):
Yeah. And also up until then he was like in
a relationship.

Speaker 1 (37:11):
Yeah, and still was he still kind of is. There's
a lot of there's a lot of cross a lot
of crossover there.

Speaker 5 (37:16):
And as we see them getting into like their dating,
their courtship, if you will, that's when we get like
we obviously have we have their first sex scene, and
then we just see that we see that moment that
happens when you first meet someone you like, where you
you're so being so intimate because you're obviously having a
lot of sex, but you're also with each other twenty
four or seven.

Speaker 3 (37:34):
Yeah, See, these are the scenes that.

Speaker 4 (37:36):
Kind of annoyed me because and I think this is
where you see the cleverness behind Lena's writing on like
exactly what what she wanted people to feel when they
watched the show.

Speaker 3 (37:48):
Is that in my head.

Speaker 4 (37:51):
Because of every other type of media we consumed, it's like,
girl goes through breakup, she moves overseas. This is a
time where she has her big single girl era moment,
wanting to succeed in her career, wanting to like make
all these friends and be like the main character of
her life.

Speaker 3 (38:08):
But she moves over seas and immediately gets into a relationship.

Speaker 4 (38:12):
Yeah, and it was very like, so against what we've
learned and so against of what we're meant to do.

Speaker 1 (38:18):
Yeah, I know it didn't.

Speaker 5 (38:20):
It felt like if maybe Felena was writing something that
was maybe a bit more girls adjacent, she would have
written that type of story. But I think this is
so much She's talked about the fact that, even though
she knows that some of her work doesn't present that way,
that she was really raised on rom coms, again, she
know the same age, so we were really raised on
like notting Hill Love Actually You've Got Mail as kind
of like the catalyst for like what a real film is.

(38:42):
And as much as she's kind of she grew up
in a house where her parents were really against that
type of media. She loves rom coms, and so she
still leans into rom com tropes more than anything else,
like by her own design.

Speaker 4 (38:54):
But things it's like, this isn't a rom com, which
is why I got confused because if I felt the
rom com element earlier on the scenes of them getting
together and then also seeing that he's not really sure
about her, but her being fully in didn't really sit
like because a rom com for me, when I see it,
I feel immediately safe. Yeah, And with this courtship, I

(39:16):
did not feel safe at no point, which.

Speaker 5 (39:18):
Is so interesting because lean like I don't personally call
too much a rom com, And I wrote in my
review the top of my review is like just awarding
this is a wrong com because for me, it doesn't
have that fluffiness and that safety.

Speaker 1 (39:29):
So what I loved about those earlier scenes is that.

Speaker 5 (39:31):
They come back from the Burns unit and they have
sex and it's very not like rom com sex, because
rom com sex is a very specific thing, and I
was watching these movies if I even really knew what
sex was.

Speaker 1 (39:41):
So this is what I thought sex was for a
really long time.

Speaker 5 (39:43):
Is that it's two people kissing and then you lie
back on the bed and then the camera pans down
to like your hands clasped, and then the camera comes
back later when everyone's like clothes but back under the covers. Yeah,
and you kind of see that moment, like the camera
never cuts away. And also they're like talking and laughing
through it. It's a little bit awkward. He's worried about
her burn scar. She's like making jokes with him. They

(40:05):
don't have this huge, big where let they all gather
them together at the same moment.

Speaker 1 (40:08):
It's not really that's much more real estic.

Speaker 4 (40:11):
Yeah, it's a very real like reflects reality and those
like initial relationships and exactly what you're saying, like spending
so much time together, Like she has a full time
job that she's not really good at because she's spending
like from eight pm to like five am awake with
him and like watching movies and having sex like in
between and not sleeping and what's true to reality is

(40:35):
that when you're in like those fresh relationships where you're
just all in one person compromises on everything and the
other person just gets what they want. And he initially
just gets everything he wants right, Like he can afford
to stay up so late because he only works during
the evening, so he sleeps throughout the day. Whereas like
she goes into work like red Eye, like so like

(40:55):
can't comprehend anything's so so bad at her job, gets
pulled up for it, and still keeps doing it.

Speaker 5 (41:01):
Yeah, it's very much watching just kind of muck up
her own new life for this guy, which again very relatable.

Speaker 1 (41:07):
But what I loved about.

Speaker 5 (41:08):
Those scenes is that it was a way to show
true intimacy in a way that I felt was very relatable,
because as you know, like you can be having sex
with someone and it can be not be intimate. You
could be watching a sex scene on TV. It could
be very graphic, yeah, and it could not feel intimate.
It could still feel very Hollywood. Whereas I thought, like
the different sex scenes paired with those moments of them

(41:29):
just lying on the bed talking or like lying over
each other or like massaging each other and like laughing
like in a really silly way, brushing their teeth together.
All of those things was just like a very a
level of true intimacy and realism and like a non
glossy way to show how quickly they were falling in
love with each other.

Speaker 4 (41:48):
Yeah, yeah, I think you're exactly right. And I think
it's because you were seeing like no breaks, like you
were seeing like the full nightpan out with the time
codes on the clock and stuff, that you quickly realized
how serious there they were becoming together.

Speaker 3 (42:02):
Yeah, and then you got the Paddington scene.

Speaker 1 (42:05):
Oh my god, Okay, the Paddington scene.

Speaker 3 (42:07):
Look, we need to do a disclaimer here because we robbed.

Speaker 1 (42:11):
Yes, Lena dunno, she's a big fan of.

Speaker 4 (42:14):
The spill, clearly because she witnessed an episode of US,
which if you're a long time listener, you also would
have witnessed that we have a bit of a dynamic
when it comes to talking about Paddington, to the point
where what we said about Paddington with the exact lines
that were said, and too much about Paddington exactly.

Speaker 5 (42:33):
And look, Lena and Louis want to say they wrote
this show years ago and they filmed it over a
year ago lies because recent conversations from the Spill, which
before this show had been made available so we hadn't
seen it, have been lifted and put on this Netflix
TV show by Lena Dunne. Because you freaking love the
Paddington movies. Yes, if anyone hasn't watched them, which I haven't,

(42:54):
it's that movie with that creepy little.

Speaker 1 (42:55):
Bear that gets it. It's not creepy.

Speaker 3 (42:57):
He's just trying to find his home and nothing creepy.

Speaker 1 (43:01):
Wait, get again. So in the scene, there is a
scene where they're watching Paddington.

Speaker 5 (43:06):
And the Felix character is having a very very emotional
response to it, and he is so even though he's
he's seen the movie a thousand times, which Emily also has.
He's stressed every single time about what's going to happen
to the bear. And then the Jessica character, which is
me in this way it's been based off me, cannot
understand how like she's like, oh, it's a cute movie,

(43:28):
like she she says that, which I've also said too,
but cannot understand how grow an adult is so caught
up in the Paddington movies and also so terrified of
the outcome when they've watched the movie already.

Speaker 3 (43:39):
It's just so stressful, so sad, and he just wants
to find his family.

Speaker 1 (43:44):
He just wants to worry. We're not getting into this again,
but just this is just a place. Anyway. I loved
us having a cameo in this show.

Speaker 3 (43:50):
I was a cameo.

Speaker 4 (43:51):
But besides the copyright element of us in that scene,
what I found really interesting in that scene is that
you're constantly reminded of like the pool that she has
to her ex partner Xave and his new relationship with Wendy,
because she's not only is she constantly talking to Wendy
into a phone like a coping mechanism, but she has

(44:13):
like visions of Zave like with her, Like she sees
him when she's out, and she also sees him when
things are really good for her, like she's got like
her dream man lying on her lap, crying over Paddington them.
And all she's doing is just checking Wendy's and zave
socials to see what they're doing.

Speaker 5 (44:28):
And that's such a big thing as we see their relationship,
as we see them move out of the honeymoon period
and we see them move into being in a full
blown relationship, which a lot of happens because he has
to move in with her. And that's the thing, like
she's stalling in her career because she's self sabotaging, but
he's stalling his career because he's in his mid thirties
in his music career has ever really taken off, and
his sobriety has become his focus.

Speaker 1 (44:50):
And as we see more.

Speaker 5 (44:51):
Of Felix's backstory, like that, that was to me the
serious elements of the show where we see the codependency
he's had on previous partners, but most of it comes
from the fact where we meet his family.

Speaker 4 (45:02):
Yeah, that scene was so weird, like that rutal lip
and I think I've took up majority of the episode
was him going back to see his family. So he's
two parents and his sister who's in her forties, all
lived together.

Speaker 3 (45:14):
They lived in this big.

Speaker 4 (45:15):
Mansion and then you find out that his dad is
in the best with money and I think has a
bit of a gambling They were alluding to a bit
of a gambling problem and had like bad investment strategy,
so they had to move to a smaller house. But
his mom and this is one of the scenes where
I was like, oh, Lena, where she made the mom
a bad driver, the Asian mom a bad driver. I was,

(45:35):
we didn't really need like, but you see Felix go
into his old house because it's vacant, it's completely empty,
and it's like this massive mansion, so you can have
a feeling of how he's been brought up, like as
a private schoolboy and like everything he got. And then
you like see him having these flashbacks of interactions with
his parents, how his dad was very stern with him

(45:56):
about school and grades, and how his mom was like
this creative person who loved him but also wanted to
make sure that she was on her own, like individual park.
And then like his sister really loved him, I wanted
to like hang out with him. And then he had
a very serious situation with a really awful person who

(46:16):
was then nanny.

Speaker 5 (46:17):
Yeah, and then nanny is sexually abusing him as a child,
which is a horrific storyline, and I think when you
realize what's happening, the enormity of that hits you in
such a huge way, and it kind of goes on
to show how it's really shaped Felix's character in terms
of like the trauma, the unresolved trauma he still has
from going through that situation. And again, that's a scene

(46:39):
of true intimacy when he tells Jessica that, because you
do get the vibe that he just hasn't really said
that to anyone, Like she's really the first person that
he's shared this awful thing with.

Speaker 3 (46:51):
When she was like, I think I've also been molested.

Speaker 1 (46:54):
Oh no, I like not now, not now.

Speaker 4 (46:58):
But that beautiful scene where he was like trying to
explain like his emotions around what happened to him, and
he was like, well, my parents never tucked me in
when I was a kid, and she was like, you've
never been tucked in, And then she tucks him in
and he.

Speaker 3 (47:11):
Tells her I love you for the first time.

Speaker 5 (47:14):
That was really beautiful. And then I know you cried
because you sent me a photo of yourself crying.

Speaker 3 (47:20):
I did send a photo of myself crying. Oh my god.

Speaker 4 (47:23):
Like that scene just absolutely destroyed me. Yeah, and that
was a scene where I was like, Okay, I feel
safe in this relationship now.

Speaker 3 (47:32):
Oh she hasn't.

Speaker 1 (47:34):
It goes to hell quickly.

Speaker 4 (47:36):
One of the most iconic episodes was where jess gets
invited to her boss's dinner party, and like all her
coworkers are there, she brings Felix as a date, even
though they haven't really like cemented what exactly they are
to each other, Like they haven't called each other boys.

Speaker 5 (47:52):
Yeah, and her coworkers are very quick to point that out,
being like, how long you know this diet?

Speaker 1 (47:56):
A couple of days?

Speaker 5 (47:57):
And it's so important that it takes place in notting Hill. Well,
first of all, the romanticization of notting Hill and the
doors and everything is something that was really born. Yeah,
It's something I feel like a lot of American and
a Strange Girl have of like really romanticizing that neighborhood,
especially after the movie notting Hill came out to the
point where residents of notting Hill now will like, get

(48:18):
these tourists away from our front doors. And so I
think that's very kind of very wrong com girl coded
of her to go and pose in front of the
doors and be really swept up in that rom com life,
and for him to be really like thinking it's ridiculous
as someone who's been raised in London.

Speaker 4 (48:34):
Yeah, and you find out we find out why Felix
hates it, because he's had a lot of history with,
especially the family that they're going to see.

Speaker 3 (48:41):
So we get there, Naomi whatts opens the door.

Speaker 4 (48:44):
Yeah, She's like, come on in, so important, She's so important,
And it is the best type of party. I feel
like this is the type of party that I only
ever want to have.

Speaker 3 (48:54):
It is crazy.

Speaker 4 (48:55):
It's full of people that I absolutely hate. It's full
of people who are so up themselves, who are so
like specific in their personalities.

Speaker 3 (49:03):
The costumes are insane.

Speaker 4 (49:05):
They do a lot of drugs, a lot of alcohol,
and we find out that, like this is one of
the big reasons where Felix struggles in being sober, because like,
you have to be sober with all these people who
are in your face doing like racks of cocaine, like
in front of you, and everyone's dancing crazy and getting
very intimate with each other, and you're just kind of

(49:26):
standing there as the only sober one in the corner.

Speaker 1 (49:29):
Kind of watching all that unfold.

Speaker 5 (49:30):
And I also think it's so telling because we know
Lena Dunham wrote all these characters with specific actors in mind,
so when she wrote that part for Nami Watts, the
character starts talking about like menopause and no one talks
about it and all these sorts of things along with all
her crazy rich lady stuff. And I think that's such
an interesting line to Nami Wats his real life because
she went through menopause very early in her life and

(49:51):
she's been very outspoken about it, to the fact that
she's released a whole book about it, she's done so
many interviews about it. So it's that thing of like
peppering a few of their real life details through the show.

Speaker 4 (50:00):
You see Jessica and Anne, who's played by Naomi Watts,
like strike this friendship which is so specific to every
woman in their twenties who meets an older woman that
she becomes obsessed with it. Yeah, Like, there are women
in my life who are like now probably like we
laugh about it now, but when they first came into
my life and they weren't related to me, they're just

(50:22):
I just met them out at work or in the open,
who are like older, and by older I mean like
in their like mid forties, early fifteen. Yeah, I was
like you who I just latched on, And I'm like, yeah,
you are the most ethereal being.

Speaker 5 (50:36):
Yeah, there's so many catalysts then in the Felix and
Jessica relationship of like them living together, the dinner party,
when they go to the wedding together, at.

Speaker 3 (50:44):
The breakup and she like falls off the balcony.

Speaker 5 (50:47):
It's so good, so good goes back and like nothing happened.
That leads to this breakup. Also Felix hooking up with
an older woman, and the most important moment of the
show the death of Astrod.

Speaker 3 (50:58):
There she irap I was really moment of silence.

Speaker 5 (51:01):
And all of this culminates in building up to the finale.
And this is what's really interesting is that this is
where Lena Dunham has always said that she really wanted
to follow the blueprint of a traditional rom com. So
she wanted the catalyst for the female character to change
her life and have an adventure. She wanted the meet cute,
she wanted, then the intimate relationship, and then something that

(51:24):
brings the characters apart, and then the biggest moment in
a rom com is always when the characters decide no,
we are going to be together. Even then it resolve
any of their issues, which leads us to the protest moment.

Speaker 4 (51:35):
Okay, so you see the scene and you see Felix's parents,
and you see Jess's mum and a sister, and you
see like her coworkers, and you're like, oh, are they
hosting like a dinner party? Like are they like having
the friends together. They're all friends and they're like meeting
each other's families.

Speaker 3 (51:51):
No, you find out it's their wedding exactly.

Speaker 5 (51:56):
So they have the protest scene, and again this is
what Lena Dunnomo has said, this was her classic like
run through the airport, or like Matthew McConaughey on the
motorbike chasing Kate Hudson through the streets of New York
and How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days or
any of those moments. All romcoms have that moment where
someone or like Hugh Grant going to the press conference
and standing up and like, you know, telling Julia robertson

(52:17):
this way that he loves her. Like it's so Tom
hankson Men Ryan being in the park in You've Got Mail,
Like there's this moment where one character makes a big
gesture and they just put aside all their differences because
they're in love.

Speaker 1 (52:28):
So we had that the protest.

Speaker 3 (52:29):
Yeah, when she's the only one getting arrested.

Speaker 1 (52:32):
Now, What did you think of the wedding scene when
you saw it?

Speaker 3 (52:36):
Okay, initially I was like, what the damn hell?

Speaker 4 (52:41):
Why would they do this? They just ruined this whole show.

Speaker 3 (52:45):
Everything is done. I never want to talk about it,
No one to talk about the show.

Speaker 1 (52:49):
It is such angry. I don't know you were that anger.

Speaker 4 (52:51):
I was so angry because it was so sudden, and
up until that point, even after the protest and the
big moment, it felt like these characters should definitely not
be together, or even if they are together, they're still
like very rocky and like things are still going wrong
and he's still scared to hold her hand in public
and say I love you yeah, and like call her girlfriend,

(53:12):
and it just seemed like there's just so much things
I were left unsaid, and yet they still got married.
And there was like the specific scene where she was
like you're not gonna leave, right or something like that,
and he was just like maybe and like taking a joke,
but like you're like, is it a joke?

Speaker 1 (53:26):
That is the point.

Speaker 5 (53:27):
I have the same thought when I was watching Well,
first of all, I thought I'd missed it episode. I
was like, wait, I know, we just had like a
rogue proposal. But are we seriously jumping from the rogue
proposal in the middle of the road for two people
who clearly are not in a good spot together? Are
we jumping from that tall wedding? And there's two reasons
that that happened. One is that again Lena Dunaman loves
a rom com and she knows that a rom com
ends at a wedding, no matter how many problems the

(53:49):
characters are having. So Lena Dunham wanted that moment where
she wanted the audience to see that was a finality
to what they were doing, that we're gonna be together.
But also, and this is Lena Dunham's like secret shame,
is that she always wanted to be a bride and
she always wanted the big wedding, and that again shouldn't
be shameful, but she sort of has acknowledged that she

(54:09):
is scene as this kind of like a woman who
champions like, you know, friendship above romance, independence, all these things.
And also she said she was raised in her house
where her mother who even though her mother was married
with kids, was also like it's not the most important thing,
Like we don't aspire to be brides. We aspire to
create art, we aspire to be business women, like that's
what we do. And Lena was like outwardly, yeah, okay,

(54:32):
but inside she wanted to wear the white dress and
she wanted the big party.

Speaker 3 (54:35):
She did do that exactly.

Speaker 1 (54:36):
I can just do that.

Speaker 5 (54:37):
No, That's why when Lena got married to Louis. That's
why they had the big wedding that was in vogue,
with Taylor Sitch as the bridesmaid and her wearing like
the frothy dresses. It's like she wanted to lean into
this sea and though she knew she shouldn't, and so
she wanted to give Jess that. But this is the
weird thing. It's like she wanted to give Jess that.
But then she says, I also wanted the audience to
feel uneasy when the show finished, which which we did,

(55:00):
just Telena Dunham, the whole point of a rom com
is that the audience feels happy and safe at the end.

Speaker 1 (55:05):
But she wanted to give us that safety. These are
her own words.

Speaker 5 (55:08):
She wanted to give us the safety and then take
it away, and that is why in that moment, he
says to her, you didn't We'll say together, Philly suggests,
and they kind of laugh and look worried, and their
family looks worried. And it's because Lena Dunham wanted us
to end this show feeling unsettled and feeling worried about
their futures and feeling like there's a huge possibility that
they broke up a month later. Well, mission accomplished, Yeah, exactly,

(55:31):
because I did leave feeling unsettled. Yeah, but I have
like gone back because I was like, oh, this is
really smart storytelling on her behalf, because that is the
last scene that she ended it on. Is the scene
that will like young women in schools are going to
be writing essays on, Like everyone's going to be talking about.
It's going to be in our cultural like zygeist for
like the next year at least.

Speaker 1 (55:52):
Yeah. Absolutely so. I guess I felt a bit better.

Speaker 5 (55:56):
When I had Lina's reasoning, which is why I wanted
to share that with the spillerstars. Because I finished and
the screen went to black and Netflix is like, do
you want to watch this next? I was like, hang
on a second, Flix, Netflix, I'm still dealing with this.

Speaker 3 (56:07):
I'm all ready for Brooklyn n.

Speaker 5 (56:09):
Yeah, I just have to watch Gilmore girls again. I
will in a minute, but just give me a second,
because I just devoted ten hours of my life to
this show and it has and I thought I was
eating I actually thought that they were going to decide
not to be together, but that was going to just
be some beautiful thing that happened to her in London.
It was going to be this like bittersweet moment. That's
what I thought was gonna It would have been like
a ten years later or even they just kissed at

(56:32):
the end, and then it's not the promise of a wedding.
It's just like, oh they kissed, You're.

Speaker 3 (56:35):
Like, and they've just been back in with each other
and something happened.

Speaker 5 (56:38):
The wedding was so final and also so daunting because
you just knew as a viewer it was going to
end really badly. And so I just want everyone who
finished this show thinking.

Speaker 1 (56:48):
I feel oddly upset. Yeah, you were meant to.

Speaker 5 (56:53):
That's that overall, though Too Much on Netflix by Lena Dunham.

Speaker 1 (56:57):
An incredible show.

Speaker 4 (56:58):
Great show, such good storytelling. Definitely one to make sure
all your friends watch because you want to just dissect
this with everyone in your life.

Speaker 5 (57:06):
Yeah, exactly, And I hope it comes back from a
season two, which that's still up in the air.

Speaker 1 (57:11):
I mean, I would love to see this out.

Speaker 5 (57:13):
I actually just want a Wendy spinoff because that scene
between Wendy and Jessica was so incredible where you find
out that behind it all, at the end of the day,
Wendy is just a girl's girl and they both suffered
from this man and they find common ground. Just outstanding television,
and I just I want to come back for a
season two.

Speaker 3 (57:31):
Yes, we're putting it out there.

Speaker 4 (57:33):
I mean you you're already stolen from us, Ter Dunham,
so you may as well do this.

Speaker 1 (57:37):
Yeah, write us more directly this time into.

Speaker 4 (57:39):
The Show'll give you some more content for you to
rip off. Thank you so much for listening to The
Spill today. Make sure you follow us on TikTok and
Instagram at The Spill podcast. The Spill is produced by
Manitias Warren, resound production by Scott's Tronnik, and we'll be
back here on your podcast feed at three pm on Monday.

Speaker 1 (57:56):
Bye bye.