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

This summer we are curating your Lowbrow podcast playlist bringing you the insanely popular and always funny - brutally honest reviews from our friends on The Spill. Enjoy!

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:
Listen to more from The Spill here

READ:
Check out Laura's review of Too Much here. 

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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!

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

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
So you're listening to a Muma Mia podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Mama Mer acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
that this podcast is recorded on HI.

Speaker 3 (00:18):
It's Laura Brodneck here, host of our pop culture and
entertainment podcast The Spill, and this summer we're curating your
lowbrow playlist, bringing you our brutally honest reviews from the
top TV shows of the year, to the biggest movies
of twenty twenty five, and some of the classics that
shaped us. Every episode is giving you the Spills, completely

(00:39):
unfiltered and real takes. So your summer listening is sorted.
And if you're looking for more to listen to, Every
Mumma mea podcast is curating your summer listening right across
our network. From pop culture to beauty to powerful interviews,
there is something for everyone. Just follow the link in
our show notes from Mamma Mia.

Speaker 4 (01:03):
Welcome to The Spill, your daily pop culture fix.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
I'm m Vernam and I'm more Breadnick.

Speaker 4 (01:10):
Okay, I've been waiting for this moment. It's been a week,
but I've been waiting for longer, it feels like.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
But we had the build up longer than a week.

Speaker 3 (01:18):
We've been talking about this show since it was first announces.

Speaker 4 (01:21):
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 2 (01:34):
Jess, something has shifted with you.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
Josh Hi, how are you?

Speaker 2 (01:39):
Girl?

Speaker 3 (01:40):
Are you cold?

Speaker 1 (01:41):
You're unhappy leaving me? It's the worst thing everyone's ever done.

Speaker 3 (01:47):
Change your life.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
Go to London.

Speaker 3 (01:49):
You love London.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
You saw a Spice World nine times in the theater.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
I could do it. I could go and find my
English dream.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
You know, a state ground starting gardens.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
Good luck with love? Who one of them.

Speaker 5 (02:13):
Who?

Speaker 1 (02:13):
They're singing?

Speaker 2 (02:15):
By the way, you've got like an American accent, right,
let me guess you like one of those love Actually girls.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
This is the London I came here for. It's I
got of a movie.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
Yeah, horror movie.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
If these people are full of pent up rage and
dark secrets, I know would look at the Yellow House.

Speaker 4 (02:32):
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 3 (02:47):
Yes, So again, I can't stress enough how there'll be spoilers,
behind the scenes facts, and we only do brutally honest reviews.
If you're got 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

(03:07):
want to do is talk about it, hear other people
talk about it. And guys, we've got all your messages
and your emails and your dms requesting this specific show.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
So here we go.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
Can I actually give our listener's a bit of a tip?

Speaker 4 (03:19):
Oh sure, cuz I've just worked out the best way
to listen to our baldly honest reviews.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
Oh okay, wow.

Speaker 4 (03:26):
You get your friends over after you've all watched the
TV show a movie, and then you play our podcasts
and then pause, and then with each other either agree
or argue with what we 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 I was at a dinner with four

(03:47):
of my friends and everyone's.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
Like, okay, have you watched it?

Speaker 4 (03:50):
Have you watched it? Have you watched it? One person says,
I haven't watched the last episode. You're standing outside, Yeah, because.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
We need we need to do and you'll do it.

Speaker 3 (03:59):
Your poor time management cannot stop this conversation.

Speaker 4 (04:01):
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 (04:11):
Because you were messaging me.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
I did send a lot of photos of my live
reactions to Albi. We should actually.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
Post them much, Oh we should.

Speaker 3 (04:19):
Emily was crying and she's not a big crier, so
I was quite confronted.

Speaker 4 (04:23):
But I am very very passionate about this particular Bradley hones, Yes, Okay.

Speaker 3 (04:28):
So much to get into, so too much the new
show on Netflix. It's not Lena Dunham's return to TV.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
Obviously.

Speaker 3 (04:34):
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 (04:49):
Girls is one of those shows where I wish I
could re watch for the first time.

Speaker 3 (04:53):
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, like I haven't watched it,
I was like, no, no, now's your chance, And it holds
up 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

(05:15):
to Too Much, like they're both stories pulled from her
real life experiences. Even though Girls the center is friendship
and 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 cutter, lovable TV characters.

Speaker 2 (05:36):
They're very raw, real.

Speaker 3 (05:37):
Yeah, they want 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, though she
actually kind of is. She's tapping into people who think
that way at that point in their lives.

Speaker 1 (05:56):
So even though.

Speaker 3 (05:57):
Since Girls ended, she's done a lot of different TV
and film, but more behind the camera, she made a
really strong choice apart from doing like a few little
cameos here and there, like in Once upon a Time
in Hollywood, that's only because she really wanted to stand
across from Brad Pitt's stare at him, and she did.

Speaker 1 (06:13):
And at the end of the day, she's just a girl.

Speaker 4 (06:16):
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. People just
assumed it was like comedy sitcom and it's not that
it's like it can be quite dark.

Speaker 2 (06:30):
Comedy at times, exactly.

Speaker 4 (06:32):
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. 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,
and Lena Dunham's comedy is the comedy you watched to
feel something deep.

Speaker 1 (06:51):
Oh my god, Emily, there's venom that is so so
so true.

Speaker 4 (06:54):
My god, I'm gonna quote them PMPM no one's feeler.

Speaker 3 (06:58):
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.

Speaker 1 (07:05):
That was a very conscious choice in her behalf.

Speaker 3 (07:07):
She was also writing and directing so many things that
camping TV show she did, like a few movies and things.
She also did Catherine 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

(07:27):
Peruvian English rocker Indie Musicians, sounds very sexy and it's
not sound so sexy. I'd love someone to introduce me
with all those different descriptors Indie rocker, Peruvian, British, so
so sexy. 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

(07:48):
to the UK by herself, knew no one. She was
fresh off a breakup, not fresh off the Jack Antonoff.

Speaker 2 (07:54):
Breakouphich A lot of people think, yes, which.

Speaker 3 (07:57):
A lot of people have drawn a line between those
those relationships, but it's not quite as clear cut as that.
So Lena 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 (08:17):
Were very obsessed with their relationship.

Speaker 4 (08:20):
Yeah, and the connection with Taylor Swift because she was
Taylor Swift's best friend and he was Taylor Swift's writer.

Speaker 3 (08:25):
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 Antonov,
like she had said stuff on like you know, publicly,
like that she wanted to marry him, and he kind

(08:46):
of made a joke of it. 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 this kind of thing
of when that they their relationship ended, it was kind
of seen 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 2 (09:06):
Was it Lord?

Speaker 5 (09:07):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (09:08):
There is so much there, owes so much background.

Speaker 4 (09:11):
I thought who it was because it was way way
too early for it to be Margaret Quality.

Speaker 3 (09:15):
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 2 (09:30):
Oh, messy, messy.

Speaker 3 (09:31):
So I can see why Lena Dunham hopped on a
plane to the UK. She was like, get me out
of this messy world. And she was over there 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 three of them. And one of these unnamed

(09:52):
straight males not important for this story for him to
have a name.

Speaker 2 (09:54):
It was one of another our friends.

Speaker 1 (09:56):
We're not our friends. I don't know.

Speaker 3 (09:57):
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 (10:05):
I don't know anyone.

Speaker 3 (10:06):
He like put out a call like a burst to
everyone here you 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 saturuch a nice
thing to do for a friend, isn't that so nice?
I mean, I do it for you, Oh I do
it for you to Yeah, no would. I'm just really
bad it I admit I mean to do it. And

(10:26):
then I wouldn't send the message if.

Speaker 2 (10:28):
I went to Brisbane. Would you not message your whole
family and be like, hell.

Speaker 1 (10:30):
Oh do I would do that? Yeah? Yeah girl, No, no, no,
I would. I would get them to look after you.

Speaker 3 (10:36):
Absolutely, And this is why you do nice things for people,
because you might get a husband out of it.

Speaker 1 (10:40):
So yeah.

Speaker 3 (10:40):
So then she got hooked up with Louis Felber, 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 girls situation. He hadn't watch
any of her stuff.

Speaker 4 (10:49):
He didn't genuinely not in like a Simone Biles like,
I don't know my Oh yeah, I know.

Speaker 1 (10:54):
The most famous gymnasts in the world.

Speaker 3 (10:57):
I actually do understand that a indie rocker kind of
guy might not have been a cross girl.

Speaker 2 (11:03):
He's too cool doing drags and having sex and playing.

Speaker 1 (11:06):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (11:06):
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 going to make a TV show about this, because
it feels like it would have been just after they

(11:29):
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
had so much respect for her for this, turned to
this man that she has just but she said she
knew straightaway she was going to marry him first night,

(11:49):
and he later on said he did too. But they
hadn't said that to each other yet.

Speaker 2 (11:52):
Yeah, but I say that to every guy of me.

Speaker 3 (11:54):
No, I know this is I don't recommend that we
do this or anyone else too.

Speaker 1 (11:58):
I would have told like ten guys by now, like
you want to make a show together?

Speaker 2 (12:02):
Okay, this is what I might start writing some notes.

Speaker 3 (12:05):
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, and then they did, and that
show is too much and it's currently everyone Netflix.

Speaker 2 (12:15):
Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (12:17):
That's that incredible. So they made it together. That's the thing.

Speaker 3 (12:20):
Like I know everyone's saying, like Lena Dunnoman, 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.

Speaker 1 (12:37):
Well freaking loosely. They look very That's why Louis was
drawn to him as an actor, and he's like, I
want that guy because.

Speaker 2 (12:44):
I was that really sexy hot man.

Speaker 3 (12:46):
Sexy 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, which I think is very much when
you speed puppy dogs.

Speaker 1 (12:57):
Yeah yeah.

Speaker 3 (12:57):
And when you see photos of Louis Felber, you're like, yeah, yeah, he's.

Speaker 1 (13:00):
Like a grungy rocker with hard gold.

Speaker 4 (13:03):
That is insane. To me, like one month in is crazy.
But now that you've said this, the show show makes
The show makes.

Speaker 1 (13:10):
So much sense because you can.

Speaker 4 (13:12):
Because I'm like, oh, so the exaggerated the paths I
thought were exaggerated.

Speaker 3 (13:16):
Yeah, 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 (13:22):
So anyway, we meet our lead.

Speaker 3 (13:24):
Actress in the first episode. It's Jessica Jessica Salmon. Do
you know that was her name? Yeah, that's her last name.

Speaker 1 (13:31):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (13:32):
Also, Jessica is just so the perfect name because I
sometimes hate when.

Speaker 1 (13:38):
Shows have characters who have these really almost like modern names,
like I know.

Speaker 2 (13:42):
That's not a completely the name of the generation.

Speaker 3 (13:44):
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. That
wouldn't she wouldn't have been called that women would not
be Maddie and can I Yeah, exactly, and all these
other kind of shows that have these Yeah, very even
like with running pointly not to call out Mindy Kaling,
but like calling that woman isiler.

Speaker 1 (14:03):
I'm like, no one was using that name. It was
Eila Fisher or no One.

Speaker 3 (14:07):
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 to
the point where I was supposed to be called Jessica.
But then my mum opened the newspaper that date to
sell 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

(14:28):
she would be called. She is fresh off a very
brutal breakout.

Speaker 4 (14:32):
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

(14:54):
for your ex's new girlfriend.

Speaker 3 (14:56):
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 if 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

(15:17):
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

(15:40):
women and friends at all.

Speaker 2 (15:41):
She's friends with most words, close friends with Lena.

Speaker 3 (15:43):
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.
Usually when writers are working on a script, it could
be getting made ten years from when they write it.
Every so often, like writers write with a particular actor
in mind for a part, but there's no guarantee that

(16:04):
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 time it gets made.
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 2 (16:25):
That is wild?

Speaker 4 (16:26):
But also personally, I find that quite surprising because Lena
Dunham like so so talented, but she's also quite a
controversial person.

Speaker 1 (16:37):
Yeah, in media, and there.

Speaker 4 (16:39):
Were some scenes in Too Much where I just kind
of went She.

Speaker 3 (16:44):
Did say again, I've been reading much of interviews with her,
and she has sat in multiple interviews that she does
worry so she about putting that out there because she
wrote with very specific actors in mind. It shoud also
be said that she wrote mostly with friends in mine,
like pretty much ever in.

Speaker 1 (16:56):
The show is a past coworker or a friend of hers.

Speaker 3 (16:59):
But she does sometimes worry because she's sent things to
people in the past and they'd been like, why do
you think that I would do this? Like why would
you think I would do this specific role? But it's
really 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 interesting arc that will get to you later.

(17:20):
He is very very good friends with Lena Dunham and
when she was first kind of herculating like she was
going to make this show she instead of 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 Lindad
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,

(17:41):
and then she was like, this is the perfect actress
to play Jessica.

Speaker 1 (17:45):
And so Andrew Scott is responsible for this. What can't
that man do?

Speaker 4 (17:49):
Thank you and Scott, because I love Meghan Statler. She's
so incredible And what I really love about her character
was she is a plus size 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 your way for it.

Speaker 2 (18:09):
You're waiting for.

Speaker 4 (18:10):
It and it never happens, 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 plus
size and there's so many digs on her weight.

Speaker 1 (18:22):
Yeah, exactly women's way way.

Speaker 4 (18:24):
Through Hollywood, like if you just always have one comment
at least yeah, 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 3 (18:33):
Watching her through this show being someone 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 that, 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

(18:53):
of says to her like, isn't it so nice that
this man loves you because you're plus size? Like there'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

(19:15):
in past and for it to become the norm, and
I wanted it to be this thing that wouldn't warrant
a headline.

Speaker 4 (19:21):
Yeah, and it also reminded me of season three of Bridgeton. Yes,
Nicola Coughlan gave such a good performance, and all the
commentary I saw was like, yes, the chemistry, and yes,
a lot of this 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

(19:43):
was to 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
And I'm so glad that we didn't do the same
thing for too.

Speaker 1 (19:56):
Much exactly exactly.

Speaker 3 (19:58):
And it's also hard too, 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 sized. Yeah, so what you're thinking of is.

Speaker 2 (20:12):
Just it's like normal side.

Speaker 3 (20:14):
So we meet Jessica in the first episode and she
has had a very intense breakup with Zev. Speaking of
casting Michael z Egan, 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 Marvelous Missus
masl And in that he plays a man who does
the main character wrong and they have a big breakup

(20:36):
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 to be like a complete
line to the character, but I love that something in
Lena Dunmy's mind was like that man, he does this
so well done. Yeah, this man knows how to play
a character who you can kind of tell, you can
you can see why the leading lady falls in love

(20:56):
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.
So I love his service to this industry.

Speaker 4 (21:08):
I think he plays 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 (21:18):
Which I think is needed because I do.

Speaker 3 (21:20):
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.

Speaker 1 (21:43):
It's just much more believable, I think.

Speaker 4 (21:44):
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 really yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:53):
Oh okay, it didn't feel like that.

Speaker 4 (21:54):
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 yeah,
and times where I like love them, and then times
I was like, no, you don't deserve this.

Speaker 2 (22:15):
I'm like, yes, I do.

Speaker 3 (22:16):
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 (22:23):
She cause a great garden situations, which just so great.

Speaker 3 (22:26):
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 Lena Dunham playing 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,

(22:47):
I've listened to her podcasts, and so much about the
content she makes really shaped me as a young woman,
and so I think, even though we're like pretty much
same age, I still think of her as a big sister,
just because she's a tad more successful than me.

Speaker 1 (23:00):
But I think also you would really see her as
a big sister.

Speaker 2 (23:02):
Right, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (23:03):
She her writing was just something I feel like, especially
if you work in the media space or the creatives
like she is like a muse for so many people,
like her trajectory and her career and her skill set.

Speaker 3 (23:15):
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.

Speaker 1 (23:31):
Create a show. She said some of that is to
do with age.

Speaker 3 (23:34):
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 Meegan,
So that's understandable.

Speaker 1 (23:46):
And man would never, Yeah, a man would never. A
man be putting himself in there no matter what. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (23:52):
You don't always have to be the lead you can
always pass them on to someone else. I also thought
the casting of Rea Pelman as her grandmother was really lovely.
So 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. I think a lot of people would
know her as the mom from Matilda Matilda's Mom, but
she's on lots of other stuff.

Speaker 1 (24:12):
She was recently in Barbie.

Speaker 3 (24:13):
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.

Speaker 2 (24:28):
The whole casting of the family is so good. The
mum Rita.

Speaker 3 (24:31):
Wilson, yeah, exactly, again, such a huge part of rom
COM's and also not that it not that this matters,
but married to like.

Speaker 1 (24:36):
One of the rom com Kings of the world, Tom Hanks.

Speaker 4 (24:39):
Yeah, really very good. 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 falling apart, she doesn't
know what's going on, and she goes back to her
perfect family, you have it all together.

Speaker 2 (24:59):
I'm just like, come on, you can do it, or
like helping you.

Speaker 4 (25:02):
Which is kind of similar to girls like her parents.
For a long time and girls were like seen as
the perfect copple who were like, we're cutting you off,
like you've been like the piss when giving anyone me.

Speaker 1 (25:11):
And she was like, I'm the voice of my generation
and also fair.

Speaker 2 (25:14):
And then she became the voice of my generation.

Speaker 4 (25:16):
And what I liked about the women and her family
was that they were all going through it.

Speaker 1 (25:21):
Yeah, Like they were.

Speaker 4 (25:22):
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 1 (25:27):
I know, she's like, I've got no what to girl.
All my friends are dead. I know, that's just a lot.

Speaker 3 (25:31):
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 ahoy kind of to give her.

Speaker 4 (25:40):
That that story was so funny with Jessica Jessica Alba.

Speaker 3 (25:43):
First of all, I freaking love Jessica Albert. She is
a great comedic actress. She doesn't get her Jews for
that because she left Hollywood. 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 (25:58):
Could you not cry?

Speaker 3 (25:59):
All the more c jy the tears in later, and
she went Hollywood not for me, went away fair So
and opened a billion dollar company. So she's doing great.
The specifics of this scene when jess comes up, this
is the most perfect writing Whisica. 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 Albert's first big role where I

(26:21):
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.

Speaker 1 (26:27):
It's a very pivotal show for my people, for like
a very specific group of elder millennial We are.

Speaker 2 (26:31):
Watching this in the cinema. You would have stood up
in class, I would.

Speaker 1 (26:34):
Sort have been clapped so much. Yeah, I love that.

Speaker 3 (26:36):
I just think that tension to detail is so good.
And then obviously Andrew Reynolds is in there as Jessica's
a strange brother in law.

Speaker 2 (26:43):
Elijah, Yes, Elijah.

Speaker 1 (26:44):
From Girls Again.

Speaker 3 (26:45):
Lena Dunham is very close with him, still with Andrew Reynolds,
and wrote that part for him so good.

Speaker 4 (26:51):
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 I kind of
works together, that the actors are happy. She works with
like these big A list stars. So Jessica Albert does

(27:13):
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 in power. Man,
we can do this, and any other woman would be like, yes,
Jessica Alber I can do this.

Speaker 5 (27:28):
Jessica leaves, she runs away, so good, and everyone's like,
did you run away from Jessica Alba?

Speaker 1 (27:40):
They're looking like she they're looking for you, Jesse I
was looking for you. She thinks she's in the bathroom.
She's just like, God, do this.

Speaker 3 (27:46):
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's subverts. 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 (28:05):
Me, Jessica, I all we're gonna do it.

Speaker 3 (28:06):
And the fact that she's like, I can't do this,
it's like the most related 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 4 (28:19):
Break get it Together, does a big campaign for you
to work on Yeah, and just come back a new woman.

Speaker 1 (28:24):
Yeah, exactly, you know what could go wrong?

Speaker 3 (28:27):
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 Bridget 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

(28:48):
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 2 (29:08):
And she thought she was going to live in a
the state.

Speaker 3 (29:10):
Can I just say everyone I've talked to us like,
I can't believe she thought in the state was in
a state, And can I just say, I'm with Jessica.

Speaker 1 (29:15):
I would have had the exact state.

Speaker 3 (29:17):
Someone tells me you're living in a state in London,
I'm thinking sprawling mansion and mister Darcy's inside.

Speaker 4 (29:23):
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.

Speaker 2 (29:32):
Going to the bar by herself.

Speaker 4 (29:34):
Yeah, like dressed up beautifully. Okay, we have to talk
about Okay.

Speaker 1 (29:39):
The meet cute.

Speaker 3 (29:40):
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 Whinsor's character and 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

(30:01):
know they're going to fall in love and it's usually something,
you know, really cute and sweet.

Speaker 2 (30:06):
And how then they drop their coffee?

Speaker 1 (30:09):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (30:10):
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 2 (30:19):
He doesn't not see her on the stage.

Speaker 3 (30:22):
And he asked for her for some bog roll and
I love an all the Netflix marketing, they're like, he
asker for some bog roll, and then in captions it
and then in brackets they have toilet paper toilet and I.

Speaker 1 (30:31):
Was like, we get it, but thank you, because even she.

Speaker 4 (30:33):
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 is a nothing moment, like absolutely nothing.
Like they see each other, they like kind of had
this awkward moment of like passing toilet paper to each other.

Speaker 2 (30:54):
She tries to like get.

Speaker 4 (30:56):
To know him more, and he's just kind of like bye,
see her yanks, and then he leaves and goes back
on stage.

Speaker 3 (31:01):
Even before she goes in and she's trying to prefend
people in the bar. I think it's also like a
really nice aversion because I think as much as rom
coms lie.

Speaker 1 (31:08):
To us about love, also lie to us about friendship.

Speaker 3 (31:10):
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.

Speaker 1 (31:17):
In love straight away.

Speaker 3 (31:18):
Because can I tell you as someone who has moved,
I've moved to so many new cities 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 because people
have their own lives and friends going on.

Speaker 1 (31:30):
That is so true.

Speaker 3 (31:32):
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 scene
they're walking home, which is a 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 (31:51):
Oh okay, because 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 out of.

Speaker 1 (32:03):
There, but he comes back. He comes back when she's
burnt herself with a candle.

Speaker 4 (32:07):
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, yes.

Speaker 1 (32:27):
Called Wendy. And it must be said that not only.

Speaker 2 (32:29):
Is she hi Wendy.

Speaker 1 (32:31):
Yeah, that's literally exactly, and.

Speaker 2 (32:33):
It's like a dear diary, but it's a high Wendy, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (32:35):
Exactly high Wendy's how she starts everything. And it should
be said that not only is Wendy a very well
known influencer, she's.

Speaker 2 (32:42):
A knitting she knitting influencer.

Speaker 1 (32:44):
So important, that detail so.

Speaker 4 (32:46):
Important, and because it's em Rata, it's so believable. Yeah, like, yes,
of course she's a knitting influencer. And of course now
I'm gonna buy my own nitwear.

Speaker 3 (32:53):
And it's any influencer who works on spaces like no
one wants the ugly knitted hats Wendy slash em Rata,
no one wants the ugly like you're and 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
whore is a boob choobe.

Speaker 1 (33:10):
It's like the scarf is ugly, You're just a hot woman.
When she everyone's gonna buy the scarf now.

Speaker 4 (33:15):
So 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 yeah.

Speaker 3 (33:26):
Down.

Speaker 2 (33:27):
She's also holding a cat. It's giving Scrooge.

Speaker 1 (33:32):
Yeah, it really is giving.

Speaker 2 (33:33):
The backing gale.

Speaker 4 (33:35):
She's like holding a candle and while she's filming, the
candle kind of like leans into her and she sets
her chest of fire flew.

Speaker 3 (33:42):
On fire, and she has that moment where she's like,
what do I do?

Speaker 1 (33:45):
Stop dropping roll?

Speaker 3 (33:45):
And then she kind of can't get down, which is
again so relatable because stop drop and roll sounds easy.
I feel hard in the moment.

Speaker 2 (33:51):
No, yeah, because everyone can stop.

Speaker 1 (33:53):
It's the drug. It's the roll. My robe, my booms
would stop me. I would just go face for her.
The fire of my passion cannot be extinguished. Oh my god,
Oh my god, jop driven roll stop and oh my god.

Speaker 2 (34:13):
And then she can't remember the like number nine.

Speaker 1 (34:18):
But also that's what is the emergency number in the UK.

Speaker 4 (34:21):
It doesn't matter because whichever one you call, it automatically
transfer it. Even if she called nine one one, it
will go to the UK police.

Speaker 1 (34:27):
Oh guys, that is the most important thing. We're in
the UK.

Speaker 2 (34:30):
And we remember zero zero zero, it will still go
to the police.

Speaker 3 (34:33):
And I feel like we're so americanized, we'd all done.

Speaker 1 (34:38):
Okay. That was such a good fact, Thank you, Emily.

Speaker 4 (34:40):
And then the last scene of the very first episode,
you see her in the bartup two really confused paramedics.

Speaker 2 (34:48):
One just gros her down with the nineties still and.

Speaker 3 (34:53):
He looks so terrified, and 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 on this matter. 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
like looking off the apartment. When she first arrives, he's like,

(35:14):
that's a nice picture of you. She's like, that's the
lady from murder she wrote at Lansbury and then Bartup
when she's like she's not really drunk, but I guess
she's just in stress.

Speaker 1 (35:30):
She where's my dog? If it was my dog, I
where is he? She's like, if it was a child,
you care. You only care about children, not dogs.

Speaker 5 (35:38):
And then then he's fully thinking it was like a suicide.

Speaker 1 (35:43):
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.

Speaker 3 (35:48):
And then Felix comes around the corner holding my favorite
character from the show, the Ugly Little dog ast 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 see her. That is something that Louis did for
Lena in real life. So Lena's had a lot of

(36:10):
different health problems. Sometimes she's had to go into the
emergency room. She was an extreme amount of pain. She
didn't know Louis that well. 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

(36:31):
him going to check her on her in hospital is
also directly pulled from Louis and Lena's love story.

Speaker 4 (36:36):
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 3 (36:45):
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, clearly,
but she's in a unit with.

Speaker 1 (36:50):
Like thaorn Burns Victor.

Speaker 2 (36:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (36:52):
And also up until then he was like in a relationship, yeah, and.

Speaker 1 (36:56):
Still was he's still kind of is.

Speaker 2 (36:57):
Oh, there's a lot of there's a lot of a
lot of cross over there.

Speaker 3 (36:59):
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'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 2 (37:18):
Yeah, See, these are the scenes that.

Speaker 4 (37:20):
Kind of annoyed me because and I think this is
where you see the cleverness behind Lena's writing on like
exactly what she wanted people to feel when they watched
the show. Is that in my head because of every
other type of media we consumed. It's like, girl goes
through breakup, she moves overseas. This is a time where

(37:41):
she has her big single girl era moment, wanting to
succeed in her career, wanting to make all these friends
and be like the main character of her life. But
she moves overseas and immediately gets into a relationship. Yeah,
and it was very like so against what we've learned
and so against of what we're meant to do.

Speaker 3 (38:02):
Yeah, I know it didn't It felt like if maybe
if Lena 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.

Speaker 1 (38:21):
Actually You've Got.

Speaker 3 (38:22):
Mail as kind of like the catalyst for like what
a real film is. 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 (38:38):
But thing is, 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,

(38:59):
I did not feel safe at any point, which is.

Speaker 3 (39:01):
So interesting because lean like I don't personally call too
much a rom com, and I wrote in my review
at the top of my review, is like just a
this it's a wrong comp because for me, it doesn't
have that fluffiness and that safety. So what I loved
about those earlier scenes is that 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

(39:23):
if I even really knew what sex was, So this
is what I thought sex was for a really long time,
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 backed under the cover. Yeah,
and you kind of see that moment, like the camera
never cuts away. And also they're like talking and laughing

(39:43):
through it. It's a little bit awkward. He's worried about
her burn scar. She's like making jokes with him. They
don't have this huge, big where they let they all
got them together at the same moment.

Speaker 1 (39:52):
It's not really that. It's much more realistic.

Speaker 4 (39:54):
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 till 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

(40:18):
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. Yeah, 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 eyed, like like

(40:39):
can't comprehend anything's so so bad at her job, gets
pulled up for it, and still keeps doing it.

Speaker 3 (40:45):
Yeah, it's very much watching just kind of muck up
her own new life for this guy, which again very relatable.
But what I loved about 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 can be watching a
sex scene on TV. It could be very graphic, yeah,

(41:05):
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 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

(41:26):
and realism and like a non glossy way to show
how quickly they were falling in love with each other. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (41:32):
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 night pan out with the time
codes on the clock and stuff, that you quickly realized
how serious there they were becoming together.

Speaker 2 (41:46):
And then you got the Paddington scene.

Speaker 1 (41:48):
Oh my god, Okay, the Paddington scene.

Speaker 2 (41:51):
Look, we need to do a disclaimer here because we've
been robbed.

Speaker 4 (41:54):
Yes, Lena Dunne, she's a big fan of 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 poor where what we've
said about Paddington with the exact lines that were said,
and too much about Paddington exactly.

Speaker 3 (42:16):
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 Dunna because you freaking love the
Paddington movies.

Speaker 1 (42:35):
Yes, as if anyone hasn't.

Speaker 3 (42:37):
Watched them, which I haven't, it's that movie with that
creepy little bear that gets not creepy.

Speaker 2 (42:41):
He's just trying to find his home and nothing creepy.

Speaker 1 (42:44):
But what do I get again?

Speaker 3 (42:46):
So in the scene, there is a scene where they're
watching Paddington and the Felix character is having a very
very emotional response to it, and he is so even
though 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 men.

Speaker 1 (43:09):
Understand how like she's like, oh, it's a cute movie.

Speaker 3 (43:11):
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 at
the outcome when they've watched the movie already.

Speaker 2 (43:22):
It's just so stressful. I'm so sad, and he just
wants to find his family movie. He's just wants to worry.

Speaker 3 (43:28):
We're not getting into this again, but it's just a
place to anyway. I loved us having a cameo in
this show.

Speaker 2 (43:34):
When I was a cameo.

Speaker 4 (43:35):
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 Zave and his new relationship with Wendy,
because she's not only is she constantly talking to Wendy
into her phone as like a coping mechanism, but she

(43:56):
has 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.

Speaker 2 (44:05):
On her lap, crying over Paddington be And all.

Speaker 4 (44:07):
She's doing is just checking Wendy's and Dave socials to
see what they're doing.

Speaker 3 (44:12):
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 in 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. And as we

(44:34):
see more of Felix's backstory, like that, that was for
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 (44:45):
Yeah, that scene was so weird, like that brutal lip
that I think I like 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. They lived in this big mansion and
then you find out that his dad isn't the best
with money and I think has a bit of a
gambling They were alluding to a bit of a gambling

(45:06):
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.

Speaker 2 (45:18):
I was, we didn't really need.

Speaker 4 (45:22):
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 about school and grades, and how
his mom was like this creative person who loved him

(45:46):
but also wanted to make sure that she was on
her own like individual park. And then like his sister
really loved him and wanted to like hang out with him.
And then he had a very serious situation with a
really awful person who was their nanny.

Speaker 3 (46:01):
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, 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.

(46:22):
And again that's a scene 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 2 (46:35):
When she was like, I think I've also been molested.

Speaker 1 (46:38):
Oh no, I like not now, not now.

Speaker 4 (46:42):
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 tells her I love you for the first time.

Speaker 1 (46:58):
That was really beautiful.

Speaker 3 (46:59):
And then I know you cried because you sent me
a photo of yourself crying.

Speaker 2 (47:04):
I did send a photo of myself crying. Oh my god.

Speaker 4 (47:06):
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, oh shen't have.

Speaker 1 (47:17):
That goes to hell quickly.

Speaker 4 (47:20):
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 3 (47:36):
Yeah, and her coworkers are very quick to point that out,
being like, how long you know this diet?

Speaker 1 (47:40):
A couple of days?

Speaker 3 (47:41):
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
Australian girls 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 these

(48:01):
tourists away from our front doors. And so I think
that's very kind of very wrong Coom girl coded of
her to go and pose in front of the doors
and be really swept up in that rom coom life,
and for him to be really like thinking it's ridiculous
as someone who's like been raised in London.

Speaker 4 (48:18):
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 2 (48:24):
So we get there. Naomi whats opens the door. Yeah,
She's like, come on in.

Speaker 1 (48:29):
So important.

Speaker 2 (48:30):
She's just so important, And.

Speaker 4 (48:31):
It is the best type of party. I feel like
this is the type of party that I only ever
want to have.

Speaker 2 (48:37):
It is crazy.

Speaker 4 (48:38):
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 2 (48:46):
The costumes are insane.

Speaker 4 (48:48):
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. We were just kind of

(49:09):
standing there as the only sober one, yeah, in the corner.

Speaker 1 (49:12):
Kind of watching all that unfold.

Speaker 3 (49:14):
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 Naomi Watt's, the
character starts talking about like menopause and no one talks
about 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 Wat's his real life because
she went through menopause very early in her life and

(49:35):
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 was a thing of
like peppering a few of their real life details.

Speaker 1 (49:43):
Through the show.

Speaker 4 (49:44):
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.

Speaker 1 (49:57):
Yeah, Like, there are.

Speaker 4 (49:58):
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 I just met them out at work or in
the open, who are like older. By older, I mean
like in their like mid forties, early fifteen.

Speaker 2 (50:13):
Oh yeah, I was like you who I just latched on.

Speaker 4 (50:16):
And I'm like, yeah, you are the most ethereal being.

Speaker 3 (50:19):
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 2 (50:27):
The breakup and she like falls off the balcony.

Speaker 3 (50:31):
It's so good, so good goes back and like nothing happened.
That leads to this breakup. Also Felix looking up with
an older woman, and the most important moment of the
show the death of Astrod.

Speaker 2 (50:41):
Where she rap that was really moment of silence.

Speaker 3 (50:45):
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.

Speaker 1 (50:57):
Of a traditional rom com.

Speaker 3 (50:58):
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 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 though
they resolve any of their issues, which leads us to
the protest moment.

Speaker 4 (51:19):
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 co workers 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. No, you find out it's their
wedding exactly.

Speaker 3 (51:39):
So they have the protest scene, and again, this is
what Lena Dunham 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 rom coms have that moment
where someone or like Hugh Grant going to the press
conference and.

Speaker 1 (51:58):
Standing up and like, you know, telling Julia Robertson in
this way that he loves her.

Speaker 3 (52:01):
Like it's so Tom Hanks and Me and Ryan meeting
in the park and 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 (52:12):
So we had that the protest.

Speaker 2 (52:13):
Yeah, where she's the only one getting arrested.

Speaker 1 (52:16):
Now, what did you think of the wedding scene when
you saw it?

Speaker 4 (52:20):
Okay, initially I was like, what the damn hell, why
would they do this? They just ruined this whole show.
Everything is done. I never want to talk about it.
No one to talk about the show. It is such
a angry were that angry. I was so angry because
it was so sudden, and up until that point, even

(52:40):
after the protest and the big moment, it felt like
these characters should definitely not be together, yeah, 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 and like call her his girlfriend, and it just
seemed like there's just so much things that were left unsaid,
and yet they still got married. And there was like

(53:02):
that 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 the joke?

Speaker 1 (53:10):
That is the point?

Speaker 3 (53:10):
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 and the middle of the road for two people
who clearly are not in a good spot together, are
we jumping from that tall wedding?

Speaker 1 (53:24):
And there's two reasons that that happened.

Speaker 3 (53:26):
One is that again Lena Dunnaman loves a rom com
and she knows that a rom com ends in a wedding,
no matter how many problems the 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.

Speaker 1 (53:39):
Then we're going to be together.

Speaker 3 (53:40):
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
is seen this is kind of like a woman who
champions like, you know, friendship above romance, independence, all these things.

(54:01):
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 were to create art.
We aspire to be business women, like that's what we do.
And Lina was like, outwardly, yeah, okay, but inside she
wanted to wear the white dress and she wanted the
big party.

Speaker 1 (54:19):
She did do that exactly.

Speaker 2 (54:20):
I can just do that.

Speaker 3 (54:21):
No, That's why when Lena got married to Louis, that's
why they had the big wedding that was in vogue,
with Taylor Switch as the bridesmaid and her wearing like
the frothy dresses. It's like she wanted to lean into
this theme 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

(54:41):
when the show finished, which which we did, just Telena Dunham,
The whole point of a rom com is that the
audience feels happy and safe at the end. But she
wanted to give us that safety. These her own words,
she wanted to give us the safety and then take
it away. And that is why in that moment, he
says to her, didn't we'll say together, Felix suggests, and
they kind of laugh and look worried, and their family
looks worried. And it's because Lena Dunham wanted us to

(55:04):
end this show feeling unsettled and feeling worried about their
futures and like there's a huge possibility that they broke
up a month later.

Speaker 2 (55:13):
Well, mission accomplished, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (55:14):
Exactly, because I did leave feeling unsettled.

Speaker 4 (55:17):
Yeah, but I have like gone back because I was like, oh,
this is really smart storytelling on her behalf, because that is.

Speaker 2 (55:23):
The last scene that she ended it on.

Speaker 4 (55:25):
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 zigeist for like the next year at least.

Speaker 1 (55:36):
Yeah. Absolutely, so I felt I guess I felt a
bit better.

Speaker 3 (55:39):
When I had Lena's reasoning, which is why I wanted
to share that with the spill listeners. 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, Like Netflix, I'm still dealing with this.

Speaker 2 (55:51):
I'm ready for Brooklyn nine.

Speaker 1 (55:53):
Yeah, I just watch Gilmore Girls again.

Speaker 3 (55:54):
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 bittersweet moment. That's what
I thought was gonna It would have been like a
ten years later or even they just kissed at the end,

(56:16):
and then it's not the promise of a wedding. It's
just like, oh they kissed, You're like.

Speaker 2 (56:19):
And they've just been back in with each other.

Speaker 1 (56:21):
Something happened.

Speaker 3 (56:22):
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, I feel oddly upset. Yeah, you
were meant to. That's that overall, though Too Much on
Netflix by Lena Dunham. An incredible show.

Speaker 4 (56:41):
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 1 (56:50):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (56:50):
And I hope it comes back from a season two,
which that's still up in the air.

Speaker 1 (56:55):
I mean, I would love to see to see this out.

Speaker 3 (56:57):
I actually just want a Wendy spinoff, and rather because
that scene between Wendy and Jessica was so incredible where
you find out that behind it all, at the end
of day, Wendy is just a girl's girl and they
both suffered from this man and they find home and ground.
Just outstanding television, and I just I want to come
back for a season two.

Speaker 2 (57:15):
Yes, we're putting it out there.

Speaker 4 (57:16):
I mean you, you're already stolen from us, Dunham, so
you may as well do this.

Speaker 1 (57:20):
Yeah, write us more directly into the show.

Speaker 4 (57:23):
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 Minitias Warren,
resound production by Scott's Stronik, and we'll be back here
on your podcast feed at three pm on Monday.

Speaker 5 (57:40):
Bye.

Speaker 1 (57:40):
Byelan It