Episode 283 - Brad & KJ Valencik talk Justified: City Primeval

Brad & KJ Valencik talk about the FX miniseries Justified: City Primeval.

They apparently think Timothy Olyphant is really cool.

Episode Transcript

(00:17):
From Jappetto Studios in New Freedom,Pennsylvania. Welcome to the Cosmic Jeppetto Podcast,
your home for inclusive, positive geekculture where we talk about movies,
comics, music, books, andwhatever else we feel like. Please welcome
your host. No no, no, leave, leave the glasses go one
is working. Brad Mendenhall. Eightkids. It is episode two eighty three

(00:47):
of the Cosmic Hippetto Podcast. kJValensi makes as long away to return to
the program to talk about the FXminiseries Justified City Prime Evil. Very excited
to get this out before the finalepisode. This is honestly pretty quick turnaround
for us. Any who, let'sjump in. It's been a while.

(01:23):
Returning to the Cosmic Japetto podcast hisdear friend ky Ja Valenci, Hey,
j how you doing. I'm good. How are you, Brad? I'm
real good. I appreciate you comingback. I'm trying to think, oh,
oh, got it. It waswhen we were talking about I think
the last time you were on,we were talking about Josh Whedon. Oh
man, that was a conversation.That was a conversation, and back then

(01:49):
we had no idea where it wasgonna go. And apparently where it went
was Josh Whedon's face should be onthe side of milk Carton's for as much
as he's disappeared, gone gone forgood. I don't know. I don't
even know what he's doing. Ihad a conversation with doctor Correlli, who's
really dialed in excellent guests and agood guy, and he's really sort of

(02:12):
dialed and he has a good senseof how things behind the scenes work.
And I said, it's like,you know what's gonna happen with him.
He's like, Josh Whedon will neverget a chance to direct another big budget
movie or run, you know,run another TV show. He is going
to be a script doctor, whichhe did a lot of. He did

(02:34):
script work on Toy Story, thefirst Toy Story and the first X Men
movie. And his name doesn't reallyget associated with a lot of this stuff.
And they'll just hire him for thatand they can get some work out
of him, and he'll be ableto help pay his bills, but he'll
never They're not bringing him back tothe Marvel Cinematic Universe. Gotcha. Anything

(02:58):
that doesn't come with a credit line, it's the work I'll get. You
can make a good living doing that. I know. Kevin Smith talked about
that. Have you ever seen it? Kevin Smith Q and A? Kevin
Smith not familiar with him, hedirected Clerks. I'm kidding. I'm a
huge nerd. Of course, Iknow who Kevin Smith is. Dude,
it's a little late at night.I don't get sarcasm. Yeah, but

(03:20):
have you ever seen one of hisQ and a's. Yeah, I have,
boy, I'm just gonna have toedit that out so I don't seem
as much of a schmuck. Hetalked about how after Chasing Amy was filmed
but hadn't come out yet, andhe really i think solidified his reputation as
a screenwriter. He got a lotof work just punching up scripts and or

(03:44):
doing another past. And he said, it's like there are people who have
beautiful houses in Hollywood in California thatI've never had a single script they've written
come to screen. But they justkeep punching up other work or passed on
script and they get paid very well. And I know Krrie Fisher Princess Leia,

(04:06):
she was a very successful script doctoras well. It's it's definitely not
what he I'm sure what Joss Whedenwanted and what his fans wanted from him.
But I think that's that's where he'sat. But that's not what we're
talking about today. We're talking aboutJustified City Prime Evil. It is a

(04:28):
FX miniseries that revisits that cut thecharacter Raylan Gibbons from one of my all
time favorite TV shows, Justified thatran on FX. And when you found
out this show was coming back,they Justified was coming back as this miniseries.
What was your reaction. I didn'twatch Justified when it first came out.

(04:51):
I ended up watching it from yourrecommendation, and I love the show.
But it also it ended really nicely, nice little bow. And so
I love Timothy Elephant. I willwatch him play a sheriff all day in
pretty much anything. But I wasn'tsure how I felt about him coming back

(05:15):
in that character. I was goingto watch it no matter what, but
you know, a little cautiously optimistic. Yeah, I agree with you.
I love the show. It's oneof my all time favorites. Timothy Elephant
was put on this planet to playRailing Gibbons, And you're right. He
plays a lot of sheriffs. Heplays a lot of lawman. And but

(05:39):
this the writing gave him a lotof cool stuff to say, a lot
of great one liners. There wasjust a cool cockiness that he was able
to embody in this character. Butyou're right that the last episode, the
last two episodes of the original Justto Fight series it ran from twenty ten

(06:02):
to twenty fifteen, they were perfect. He got to end it on a
shoot and like on a on anold time western style shootout. He was
a quicker draw. And also thatshow was It had a great first season,
a spectacular second season with the wonderfulMargot Martindale playing this patriarch of a

(06:30):
hillbilly crime family, and she wasamazing, fantastic, and season three was
pretty good. You had Neil McDonoughwho's played who's been a bad guy and
almost it feels like every third TVshow or movie. He's so charismatic though,
like that smile, the smile,and you know he has his great

(06:51):
like crystal blue eyes. Yeah,I don't know what I saw him in
recently that he wasn't a villain,and I was so confused. I kept
waiting for a heel turn that didn'tcome. It's weird when he's because he
was. He was in the firstCaptain America movie. He played dumb Dumb
Duggan, and he was playing likeCaptain America's sword, a portly third sidekick

(07:18):
in that movie. And I waslike, yeah, he's got some makeup,
maybe even some prosthetics in that movie. I forget it's him. Yeah,
well in the mutton chop or thegoofy facial hair. And also he's
so far down the call list ofthat movie that they never he doesn't even
rate a close up. But hewas really good in that movie. In

(07:41):
season three, he was he wasa good bad guy. And they also
introduced I'm going to butcher the namemckeltie Williamson, who probably best known for
playing Bubba in the film Forrest Gump, and he's an excellent actor. Yeah,
and then there was a bit ofa drop off and others. You

(08:01):
know, there were definitely really goodepisodes and really good arcs and seasons four
or five and six, but itfelt like it there was a drop off.
It's hard to be that good forthat, especially the sort of show
this is. So I was like, I just wondered, It's like it
had a great ending quality, wasn'tquite didn't quite hold its peak at the

(08:24):
end. While still a good show, it just you know, felt like
it was sort of running out ofideas. There was a little bit trepidation
because one of the best parts ofthe original run of the show was the
interplay between Timothy Olah Fans as RailingGibbons and the antagonist of the series,
Walton Goggins as Boyd Crowder, andthey they were saying that Boyd Walton Goggins

(08:50):
was not returning it. I waslike, Wow, you are losing a
lot without that dynamic. He's beendoing that Righteous Gemstones thing. Goggins isn't
another guy who He's gotten killed bya lot of people in movies. He's
He's played a lot of bad guys. He's a fantastic Actorhood who was in

(09:11):
the last two hun Raider, hewas in the second ant Man film.
As you said, he was inthe recurring character and Righteous Gemstones. He's
he works a lot. And Iand it's not just him that's missing from
this. We have not aside fromRaylan, we have not seen anyone from

(09:31):
the original show and it doesn't takein and as a character. I'm also
including Harlan County, the town wherethe first show took place, is not
which really felt like a character inthe series. This doesn't take place in
Harlan County, right right, AndI definitely agree with you there. In

(09:52):
fact, since we're talking Justified,I put aside my normal beer I'm having
when we chat, and it saidI've got myself some Kentucky bourbon. Raylan
waxes poetic about bourbon several times duringthe original show. Yeah, it'll make
you a believer. Now correct meif I'm wrong. But City Primeval is

(10:15):
based on a book, but nota Raylan Givens centered story, right correct.
The book by Elmore Leonard focused onthe Oklahoma wild man Clement Mansell,
who in this miniseries is played byBoyd Holbrook. Boyd Holbrook is an excellent

(10:39):
actor, so we still get aBoyd. We still get a Boyd.
He was just in The Indiana Jonesand The Something of Time, the most
recent Indiana Jones movie. He wasalso in Logan, the Final or what
we thought was the final Wolverine movie. He was in the last Predator movie.

(11:01):
He's He's played a lot of badguys. He boy Holbrook is very
good at playing psychopaths, but thebook followed him and they had a different
character, and it had a differentcharacters sort of hunting him down. In
the book. It was Raymond Cruz, who I believe has been in a
handful of Elmore Leonard books. Idon't know how much have you heard of

(11:37):
how how this came to be?None. Elmore Leonard excellent crime fiction writer.
He passed away a few years back. I think he passed away before
the original Justified ended. A bigfan of his was Quentin Tarantino. Quentin
Tarantino actually turned the Elmore Leonard novelRum Punch into Jackie Brown and you there's

(12:00):
a lot of Elmore Leonard influence inQuentin Tarantino's work. And when Tarantino was
directing the Once Upon Time in Hollywood, Timothy Olephant had a small role in
that movie, and apparently Tarantino wastalking up City Primeval to Elephant. It's
like, you know you should turnand basically the story has been Tarantino was

(12:24):
telling him that they should turn thatinto a rail and given story. Ah,
Timothy Elephant, I'm sure he thoughtit was a good idea. Plus,
I'm sure he thought it was likeit was a way for him to
play a fun character and also getpaid. You can wear a cowboy hat.
You can wear a cowboy hat.He wears the hell out of it.
They Timmy's the Olephant is such aninteresting character in Hollywood because he has

(12:52):
had a lot of a lot ofmid tier success and which, by the
way, ninety nine point nine peoplein Hollywood would sacrifice significant parts of their
body for. He's been the leadin a couple of movies. He's had
significant roles in a lot of movies. He's been featured in a lot of
TV shows. He you know,he got to get killed by John McLean

(13:16):
in a die Hard film. Ihe has a ton of charisma. I
always find it interesting you hear otherpeople in Hollywood talk about him and seems
sort of star struck. Really,Yeah, there was oh what was her
name? She's in The Mandalorian.She's Boke Tan. She was Starbuck in

(13:41):
the I Know Who You're Me andMe and her name is is Escaping me
as well, beautiful woman with charismafor days. And she she was on
she was talking about being in TheMandalorian and on a talk show and she's
talk about how she ran into TimothyOlephant while he was wearing his Boba fette

(14:07):
costume with his helmet off, andshe talking about meeting him in that costume.
She was flustered on screen, justtalking about, Oh, he just
looks so great and it was reallyflattering. And I've heard one or two
other people talking about how much personalityand charisma and how he owns the room.

(14:28):
Kevin Smith talked about it. KevinSmith did a movie with Timothy Olyphan
called Catch and Release with Jennifer Garter. They did not get along? Great
who didn't get along? Gread KevinSmith and Timothy Olephant. Smith sort of
implied, and I'm not do winningthe story justice, but sort of implied
that Timothy Olephant was the guy whoowned the room, had all the looks
in the charisma, and he hassort of a biting sense of humor.

(14:52):
Sort of made Kevin Smith feel againlike the uncool fat kid in high school,
and Timothy Elephant was to star athlete. It makes you wonder why someone
like that isn't leading a blockbuster everyyear. I think it goes to show
that there's there's a whole lot ofthings that you need to have that sort
of exisist. You know, goodlooks, talent, charisma, but also

(15:16):
just luck because only fan, andhe's talked about this recently because I think
it's a thing that hosts like tobring up. Is an easy talking point.
He was offered the Dominic Tarretto rolein the first Fast and Furious film.
Really, I don't know. It'svery easy to say that if he

(15:39):
would have gotten the role, thenhe'd be the one doing the movie for
twenty years and be a billion dollarsfranchise, and he'd be the one getting
to fist fights with the rock.That may not be the case. I
can't picture that. It's a differentthing because Timothy, the only fan,
isn't. He's not a big beefydude. It would be more sort of

(16:00):
mirror image. Yeah, he's notan extended fight guy. He's a he's
a have a shootout or throw onewild punch. But I don't see him
in a long fight because who playedBrian in those original films and he passed
away, but the cold lead ofthose movies. It wouldn't be towering Ben
Diesel and this sort of slim athleticguy. It would be two sort of

(16:22):
slim athletic guys. And I getthe idea of playing sort of mirror images
of each other, sort of thesame thing that happened in The Point Break
with Patrick Swayze and Kennon Reeves.It could have worked. You know,
it was obvious that that's where theyconsidered Timothy Olyphan. He was a guy
who, hey, there's a potentialblockbust or franchise, and he keeps just
coming in second or third place inthese moot in the casting. So yeah,

(16:48):
and sadly Olyphant he's not an oldguy, but he I think he's
aged out of those roles. Ohyeah, that's true. He's he's looking
that way though. In Justified CityPrimeval he's fifty five, and you know
he looks fifty five, right Like, it doesn't look old. He just

(17:10):
looks his age. They're not dyingthe gray hair out of his beard.
I mean, a damn good fiftyfive. I hope, I actually,
you know, I can't hope.I'm never gonna look that good. He's
he's definitely doing it well as acareer wise, he knows He's like,
Okay, Nope, Marvel isn't goingto come up to me to star as

(17:34):
Captain Britten in the next ten yearsworth of Marvel movies dancing around us a
little bit, so we had ourtrepidations. We have watched the first four
episodes of six. How are youliking Justified City Primeval? So here's the
thing. I'm really enjoying the show. It's not hitting the bar that Justified

(17:57):
hit for me, but it's stillin joybul show. It doesn't feel like
Justified, Like it doesn't feel likethe same character to me. I agree,
I'm liking it. It feels likea good story that they shoehorned Raylan
into, which is exactly what theydid. Yeah, and I've watched it

(18:18):
and while Timothy Oliphan is doing agood job, but they're not giving him
the ass kicker moments. They're doingan interesting thing with that though. I
mean, it's a different time todaythan it was when Justified came out,
and he's not just breaking the lawnon stop. They're kind of showing there's
repercussions to that type of policing.Well, there was one funny moment where

(18:41):
they're doing a raid in a houseand Raylan ended up being the voice of
reason where there's I actually laughed atthat. It was one of those things
that wasn't supposed to be funny.At least I didn't think it was supposed
to be funny, but him beingthe voice of reason was funny to me.
Yeah, it's a great scene wherehe has a detective. It's a
little bit of a hothead who wasnot going to make it through the end

(19:02):
of this show. No way.That hothead detective kicks a door and knocks
a guy down steps and Raylan justsort of shrugs like, I'm not sure
that was necessary, but there yougo. And it is something that they
played around with a little bit onthe original show where there were times where
Raylan was known as the guy whowould break the rules, would shoot somebody
when they would need to be shot, and then every now and then he

(19:26):
wouldn't be pulling the trigger. Therewas one episode where there was somebody who
was somebody who was in a prisontransfer who ended up was able to sneak
a shive into the locker room andhe had a guard held prisoner, and
everyone kept saying to Raylan's like,hey, he can shoot this guy.
If you need to shoot this guy, and no one's gonna say anything.

(19:47):
You shoot this guy, and Raylanended up getting him some chicken wings and
some whiskey and was able to talkhim out of it, which was fun.
It was because you would just expecthim to find that the term.
There was a one episode at thebase of the Skulders Apricot, and if
you shoot him in that spot inthe head called the apricot, they would
just fall down and won't hurt anybody. You get, you get waiting for

(20:10):
him to shoot the guy in theapricot. Do you remember that? Yeah?
I do. That's what I likeabout Raylen, though he does the
effective thing, not necessarily the predictablething. I would have been interested to
see, if I'm not saying itwould have necessarily would have worked better.
There's a version of this show inthe multiverse where Timothy Oliphant is a producer

(20:33):
on the show and Raylan shows upin one episode and then there's a whole
there is another charismatic young actor whois chasing Clement man Sell, the Void
Holbrook character. You get to seeRaylan and he gets to say a couple

(20:55):
cool thing and you sort of tellhis story a little bit more compressed.
I bet that show could I betthat show would have been awesome. I
don't know if it would be betteror worse or about the same. But
I would I would have been intriguedby that where instead of this being a
justified show and Raylan is there allsix episodes and we're following him, he
gets a cameo or an extended oneepisode arc. You know, I am

(21:18):
enjoying a little bit of the manout of time, man out of place
type feel to it, though,Like Raylan Givens is very much at home
in eastern Kentucky, but dropping himin Detroit and it doesn't fit, but
in a good way. And Idon't know, I am enjoying that which

(21:41):
she might not have gotten with adifferent character. How did you like the
Willa Gibbons character? Now, shewas on the first three episodes. The
end of the third episode, she'son a plane to Miami. I don't
know if we're going I imagine we'regoing to see her one more time.
I imagine in the last episode Raylancomes home and talks to her or something

(22:02):
like that. I mean, asa dad, I kind of liked the
storyline, but my immediate reaction was, Wow, she's not a good actress.
And then I found out that it'shis real life daughter. Yeah,
I wanted to give the kid thebenefit of the doubt, and it's like,
well, maybe these are directorial choices, or maybe there's a breakthrough that

(22:27):
we have. But then she left. But then she got on that plane.
I was like, oh, no, that's all we're getting. So
now she might be the best actressin the world. And again she's a
young actress. And if that's allthey gave her, then I don't know.
Honestly, I think it would havebeen fine just having her on the

(22:48):
first episode, him dropping her offat the camp she was going to stay
at. Like there wasn't three ifthat's all there is. There wasn't three
episodes of story for her, andI think it could have worked with Okay,
you see her in the first episode, you see that there's some tension
in the relationship. Maybe and maybehave her in the first and last episode,
but her sitting around the hotel orwalking around Detroit or that is,

(23:15):
there wasn't a lot there. Theygave her very little to do. Yeah,
it was a side plot that didn'treally go anywhere. Yes, So
Vivian Oliphant, daughter of Timothy Elephant, here's the thing. Sounds like she
was much more interesting behind the scenes. Really they're in fun way. But
apparently she set up a voting boothfor the cast and crew to vote for

(23:40):
who your favorite member of the Oliphantfamily was, And apparently apparently she won
in a landslide. Well deserved,Well deserved, that's fantastic. Grew up
in a place where they told youwhat to chase, but you had to
run the race. Every move ison the page. But I didn't like
their way to fight and misbehave tofind a way to change, how to

(24:03):
leave, to find a way gotup in a day dream. I being
my mind because everybody want to tellyou bad things they have had. One
of the big subplots is the defenseattorney. She is defending the Oklahoma wild
Man. She also was the defenseattorney on the original case that sort of

(24:27):
brought Raylan to Detroit, Carolyn Wilder, And they are definitely implying an attraction
between her and Raylan, and I'mnot feeling it. She's a good actress,

(24:47):
and I think it's a compelling It'sit's a part that has some juice
to it, But I'm not feelingit. How are you? How is
that character connecting with you? I'mfinding her to be an incredible actress,
and I'm really liking that storyline ofthe lawyer and I want to see where

(25:10):
that goes. There's definitely I feellike there's definitely not seeing the whole story
there yet, like we're kind ofonly seeing half the picture. And that
mystery has got me hooked. Butwhen it comes to the attraction between the
two, especially the cliffhanger at thelast episode where they were leaning towards something,
I wasn't feeling the chemistry. No. They sort of did a similar

(25:32):
plot line in the fourth season ofthe original show with Alicia Witt played she
wasn't a lawyer. She was aparalegal who was part of the Crow family,
and she was the one who hadsome legal common sense. And it
was a very similar plot line whereRaylan was trying knew she was the smart

(25:55):
one and convincing her is like,you're getting dragged down into all the stupidity
and the bloodshed and you're too smartfor this. And it seems like a
similar plot line in that original casewith Alicia Witz character Wendy Crow. They
didn't even they did very little ofthe oh they might end up in bed.

(26:19):
They did very, very very littleof that, and I think it
worked better. I didn't see itin this case, and I thought it
was weird where they had one casewhere Raylan and his daughter are at the
same restaurant slash bar that the lawyeris at and their daughter is like,
oh, you should go talk toher, and I don't want you to

(26:41):
be alone, and then she sendsRaylan's daughter sends her a ridiculous drink with
sparklers in it, and I waslike, why is the kid seeing this?
Like, I just didn't see it, And I'm completely with you.
I think she's an excellent actress.She's fantastic. I'd like to story where
she's a lawyer. She's trying todo the right thing. She's up to

(27:03):
her eyeballs in the entire case betweenother characters who are affected, and she's
trying to find a way to geteveryone out, and she has no interest
in Clement going free. I thinkshe'd be perfectly happy with him getting thrown
in a woodchipper because she has tofigure out way to do it without destroying
her career or getting anyone she caresabout. Yeah, there's definitely those selfish

(27:27):
motives, but chemistry between actors isa is a weird thing, right,
Like it almost has nothing to dowith acting abilities. Yeah, it doesn't
help that. If you've watched Justified, you've seen Raylan sort of connect with

(27:48):
why Nona, his ex wife,the mother of his child. That was
really stated is that's the love ofhis life. That's the woman he's supposed
to be with, even though theydon't have them together. It's almost weird
seeing it's it's weird if they're tryingto imply that there's even more than just
a passing interest or passing attraction.I think they're trying to do that.

(28:11):
And it's like, we've seen this, we know where Raylan is, except
we also we know where he's beentoo. You know what, who'll give
the Who'll go for pretty much anywoman that gives him the time of the
day. That's that is his style. There definitely is some truth to that.

(28:33):
You're right, Chemistry between actors isso weird. You just never know
where it's where it'll come up from. And I've seen it throw off shows
the example, and somebody once askedme. I talked about that once with
somebody and somebody said, okay,well, what's the case of where there
were supposed to be chemistry between twocharacters, and it just and it fell

(28:56):
flat or went a different direction.And the best example I can think of
is on the TV show Arrow,where it was very obvious, and especially
if it was based on the GreenArrow character from the DC comics. What
if you read the comics at all, you know that the lowest lane to

(29:17):
Green Arrows Superman is Black Canary.And they had Katie Cassidy cast as the
Black Canary character, and she's avery pretty actress, and you could tell
they were doing the whole will therewon't they kicked but that show attractive woman,
kind of athletics. She was ableto do the physical stuff, and

(29:38):
you could tell they were trying tocreate the will day one day between Stephen
mL and Katie Cassidy, and thechemistry just wasn't quite there. And then
they decided to do a thing withFelicity played by Emily Rickards, and the
chemistry was there. It was there, It just was you ended up where
the fans and I can't get intothe mind of the producers or anything,

(30:03):
but it really did seem like theysaid, oh, screw it, all
right, get get all of herand Felicity together. You know, it
was brilliant though I loved it.It was and it was it was great
because my memory, which might bea little shaky on this was Felicity was
just sort of there as a backgroundcharacter who had one or two lines,
and they just realized they had something. Also, of course, they were

(30:26):
doing the oh, she's not attractive, because there was this stunningly beautiful woman
with her hair pulled up an aponytail, wearing glasses. I was like,
oh my god, that's what Iwas about to say, the classic
take your glasses off, Oh mygoodness. And of course then part way
through the first season they have hergoing to a dinner party or some event

(30:47):
where she gets it dressed up andhave her hair and I was like,
oh my god, your beautiful islike, yeah, we all knew she
was beautiful. I was not fooled. And there's a significant portion of the
audience you say, He's like,no, no, no, leave the
glasses on. Its working right,right, that's all of us nerds are
watching them. We're like, well, that I girl, she's got something.
Now the show and I don't thinkthey're leaning into this enough. It

(31:14):
really the book was the Clement mencell book. It was about the Boyd
Holbrook character, and they're doing someof that. It feels like they could
lean into it even a little bitharder. How are you liking that character
and that performance? I like it. It had to grow on me.
When I first saw it, Iwas like, oh, charismatic bad guy

(31:37):
in the opening episode. Are theyjust trying to make another Boyd Crowder?
But it grew on me and verydifferent character, way more ruthless than Boyd.
Ever was just as selfish, butway more worth ruthless. I enjoy
the unpredictable part of that character.Have you ever read any Elmore Leonard?

(32:02):
I have not. I'm I'm nota big crime reader. I've read some
of his stuff. I actually readFire in the Hole, which was a
short story that sort of inspired Justified. I also read Maximum Bob, and
I think one or two others andone thing that Elmore Leonard did. He

(32:25):
doesn't write smart bad guys often thepoint isn't there. They're not these criminal
geniuses and take someone who's even smarterthan them to bring them down. It's
he writes ruthless, stupid and dangerouspeople. I'm lucky, Yeah, very

(32:47):
lucky, and what makes these charactersdangerous is society doesn't know how to deal
with them. Society. In thefirst episode, you had a judge played
by that Keith's Keith David David Keith. There's their two actors with reverse names,
and it's very easy to get them. Keith David Keith. David plays

(33:10):
this judge who's a powerful man inDetroit and sort of goes does what he
wants and he runs into Clement,and it turns out it's like, oh,
you could be as powerful as youwant, you could have as much
influence whatever. It doesn't matter.If you have a crazy guy who's willing
to hit you with his car andwilling to shoot you, there's nothing you

(33:32):
can do. And that's who Clementis. He's he's not a criminal genius.
He's just lucky and ruthless, andhe knows he's not going to I
think there's a part of him thathe knows there's and not pretty end for

(33:52):
him in sight. He's just goingto manipulate and bully and kill and do
whatever he has to get to theend, but often without I thought in
the second episode when he sort ofusing his charm and smarts is able to
kidnap Raylan's daughter without his daughter realizingit. It was a dumb move like

(34:15):
that. There was no endgame toit. He didn't like file charges or
anything. He just got his assbeat and that was it. But he
was just doing it the groups thathe can't. Yeah, I was expecting
that to go somewhere and it didn't. And sorry, I have to interject
for a second. I was notgiving Vivian Oliphant much credit for her acting

(34:38):
earlier when we were chatting, butyou know what when she saw that happening
and had that mixed horror, whatis my dad doing? And then also
the very I can identify with thisso much, but that look your kid
gives you when they realize they've messedup big time. I bought it.

(35:00):
I bought it completely. Yeah,And I think any kid with a gruff
father or a father who isn't refined, which I can relate to I grow
up as a child. I sawmy dad get into a couple of fist
fights because he did not have tolerancefor a lot of bs. And when

(35:21):
you see that, when you seethat side, it's like, oh,
oh, the old man's kind ofdangerous. Then she realized that, like,
oh, my old man is kindof dangerous and it's my fault.
Yeah, that was. It wasa compelling scene, it was, but
it's he's very much an Elmore Leonardcharacter where he's not smart, he's not

(35:45):
he's not cunning aside from just abasic animalistic cunning where he's able to get
be one step ahead of staff,and he doesn't behave the way you think
he was. The episode we justsaw where his girl friend, what's her
Sandy, Sandy's roommate is basically beingheld prisoner by these two mafia guys who

(36:12):
are threatening to pull out her teethif they don't get Sandy to come to
the apartment right away, and ofcourse, you know anyone else, they
call her and it's like she's like, oh, there's flooding and they need
to get here, and Sandy's like, oh, we gotta get their right
away, and instead there's there Heiss like, ah, they didn't cook

(36:35):
my steak raw enough. We're gonnawait until it's done. So the poor
roommate's getting all her teeth pulled out. He doesn't care. And then because
he took all this time and becausehe wasn't in any hurry because he doesn't
care about anyone else than him.Raylan shows up with his partner and ends
up shooting bad guys and arresting people, and he gets away scott free.
He should have been killed. Yeah, that's another place where I'm not sure

(37:00):
if it's cunning or just luck.It's definitely luck. And also they keep
expecting him to behave like he's nota sociopath. Okay, Jay, if
your wife got a call that therewas flooding in your house and her wardrobe
is getting ruined, you would notdecide is like, hey, let's hang

(37:21):
out for an extra hour so itmakes sure mistake is done. Right.
You would be like, let's getit to go and drive there, because
you're not a sociopath, right right. No one can think like him.
And then it becomes a thing wheresooner or later the story will be Raylan
realizes Rayland has an idea what he'sdealing with, because he's dealt with every
sociopath you can. And Raylan's goingto say, it's like, no,

(37:43):
this is what this guy wants,this is what he'll do, and he'll
get one step ahead, which hasbeen sort of them of Raylan all along,
he's had those moments where he's onestep ahead of Dicky Bennett and he
shows up at the house that DickyBennett is going to break into when he
he ends up shooting him, herealizes what the what the bad guy wants

(38:05):
one step ahead, and that's whenhe solves the case. Yeah. Yeah,
that's that's what keeps the keeps thestory engaging, is that he's not
always one step ahead. He justkind of he catches that moment where he's
one step ahead, and I thinkI agree. I think that's what's going
to happen here. There's already beenApparently this is the show is doing well.

(38:45):
If critics have been liking it,Apparently enough people are watching this show.
This is never This has always beena successful show. But it was
never it got some Emmy consideration,it got some buzz, but it it
was never breaking bad, it wasnever better call assault, It was never
one of those top it was neverthe Walking Dead. But it always did

(39:08):
well and it's how the people likethe show really liked the show. There
have been rumors that there there couldbe another season that like basically like there
could be another spin off season,like another mini series with like a completely
different story in setting. Yes,okay, when you hear that, it's

(39:29):
like, okay, we could dothe same thing. Just take Raylan,
drop him in another store, youknow, drop him in another story.
I mean, I can't understate howmuch I just love Timothy Eliphant, Like,
I'll really I'll watch him in anything, you know, I'll watch another
few seasons of him as a realtorwith a zombie wife. I really liked

(39:49):
that show, although it was weirdbecause you get and this is what happens
every time there's an actor who youassociate with being a badass, who then
in the next series isn't a badass, And I was like, huh,
he keeps getting beat up. Therewas a scene in the first season of

(40:15):
Santa Clarita Diet Santa Clarita Diet withhim and Drew Barrymore where a guy punched
him and knocked him out with onepunch and he like did a pratt fall
and he fell down and he wokeup hours later. I was like,
Raylan just he just got glass Jode. But that was a good show and
he had wonderful and he sort ofshowed some comedic timing that he has shown

(40:40):
in the funnier in the lighter momentsof other stuff he did. But he
was really funny in that. AndI actually Santa Clary to Diet was produced.
Was created by the same guy whodid one of my favorite comedies of
all time. It's a not avery well remembered show, Better Off Ted.

(41:00):
Oh, I loved that show.I didn't know that connection. If
you know that ahead of time,which or if you find a Victor Fresco
is the name of the guy whocreated the show, And if you know
it ahead of time, you cansort of hear it in some of the

(41:20):
some of these sides, there's acertain cadence to his writing with some of
the jokes, and you can sortof hear it and it's like, oh,
okay, yeah, that sounds right. Yeah. Victor Fresco. He
created Better Off Ted, which wasa wonderful workplace comedy. He also did
Andy Richter Controls the Universe, whichwas a really funny show that didn't get

(41:43):
the love it deserved. There wasa period of time where Andy Richter,
the sidekick from the Conan O'Brien show. He left the original Conan O'Brien Late
Late Show or whatever it was andthey were trying to turn him into a
TV star and any Richard controls.The Universe was the first of those attempts,

(42:05):
and it was very good. Itwas really weird. It's a sort
of show that would do well nowif you put it on Hulu or Netflix
or Amazon. The Amazon Prime seemsto do well with these sort of really
quirky, high concept comedies. Butthen it was like on and it was

(42:25):
on NBC and it was a itwas too weird. Yeah, no,
I agree with you. I wouldlove to see Timothy Elan. I'm always
up for a Timothy Elephant doing somethingdifferent. I would love to see him.
And at the end of the BobaFetch show he played was it cobb

(42:47):
yep, And they definitely were implyingthat, you know, his character would
could was going to come back.He thought he was dead and then it
turns out he's not dead. Yeah, they definitely his Vanth is coming back.
He wasn't in the second he wasn'tin the last season of Mandalorian.

(43:08):
So I want and I don't thinkthere's going to be another season of Boba
Fett. I'm okay with that.Yeah, one season of that was fine,
but I would love. I wouldlove to see them find a way
to bring you know, the advancedcop character, because he's, you know,
a Western in space and he's donea Western Western. He's done a

(43:30):
Western in a modern times in Westernin space, so that there's more places
where you can put Yeah, I'llwatch more Cobb vanth I don't know.
I didn't love Boba Fett in thatshow, like I don't know some of
the some of the other characters i'dwatch full shows in like put ming Na
when in anything, and I'll watchher. She's amazing. I wanted more
of her in that show. Thatwas the one redeeming factor of it.

(43:52):
And I'm not the first person topoint out I think it's telling that in
an eight episode show or however episodemany episodes were of that, like one
in three quarters were just Mandalorian.True. You know, Boba Fette is
a beloved character because he has acold design. But that's what they messed

(44:15):
up in that show. There weretoo many Mandalorians. Like the coolness of
the character design loses something when there'sthirty of them. Yeah, yeah,
you have him. Yeah, theydefinitely do have a lot of Mandalorians,
and they also do the same thing, and they end up being weirdly nerved

(44:38):
half the time. The best momentthat Boba Fette has had in the new
series was when he finally gets hisarmor back and there's a big fight and
then he shows up and he kickseverybody's ass. It's a great scene.

(44:59):
And and and then he was neverthat cool again. He was never that
competent. He was never that muchof a badass. And it's like,
okay, and then there was soflashback heavy, and I was like,
this feels like an episode of Highlander. All right, so kjuh, we're

(45:21):
enjoying this before I let you goget get something else that you're enjoying,
something else that you're you're really digging. It's it's tough because we're in the
Hollywood still in knowdd of the writerstrike, so there's a lot less entertainment
than there usually is. Yeah,we're also recording this during summer, when
there's a little bit of a gaphere. I don't know. I I

(45:46):
binged the first two seasons of RighteousGemstones, which was fine, it's a
show. I don't really have anythingof note right now that I was just
like, you know, actually,the last thing I watched that. Everything
is brilliant and I will probably watchit all again. Is never have I

(46:07):
ever? I agree with you.I'm righteous Gemstones. I watched a bit
of it. It has a reallygood cast. I think that show works
better as clips on YouTube where theyhave some one inspired bit where Walton Goggins
and the lead singer from Sugartown doa song together and it was really fun.

(46:32):
And you know Walton Goggins, whowas not a great singer or dancer
or anything like that, but he'sjust this spray tanned, giant, white
toothed which is his thing. Carney, and I think it's Nettles, Jennifer
Nettles, who I saw in concertabout six months before sugar lamb blew Up.

(46:55):
Really I sort of love this story. My parents were fans of Vonda
Shepherd, who best known for beingthe house act for the TV show Alan
McBeal and she Vonda Shepherd performed atthe Ram's Head in Annapolis, which is

(47:16):
this little sit down theater that probablyholds maybe a hundred people, and I
got tickets from my parents to ceVonda Shepherd and my wife and I went
as well, and the opening actwith sugar Land so there they were the
three of it was a three personband at that time, So there they
were on this tiny stage trying towarm the crowd for Vonda Shepherd and they

(47:38):
were really good. Afterwards, webought the CD and got their autograph.
I chatted with the guitars of theband for a little bit, and you
know, they were very approachable.And then I want to say six to
nine months after that was when Nettlesdid that song with bon Jovi that was

(48:00):
a weird late career hit for bonJovi, and all of a sudden,
everybody was really into sugar Land andI was like, wow, we just
caught them at the last possible momentbefore they blew up. That's a good
time. It was. It was. I think it's the only time that's
ever happened where I've seen an openingact that wasn't already established that so definitively

(48:21):
eclipsed the act they were opening fourright, like Righteous Gemstones. I think
it has bits at work really well, but in the whole episode, I
think it's my problem is everyone's sounlikable and who cares. Yeah, uh,
everyone is very unlikable. But that'sthat's the show. That's the show

(48:43):
and I don't know. I thinkAdam Adam Devine is that right? Is
hilarious? Yeah, everyone's talented.It's just yeah. But one show I
just watched the first episode of onthe Peacock channel, Oh my gosh,

(49:04):
and I'm completely blanking on it usSpace on the video game Sweet Tooth is
the bad Guy Twisted Metal? TwistedMetal? Yes, Twisted Metal starring the
Falcon now Captain America. Another caseof I was mentioned this before. Who
is you know a badass in theMarvel films? And in Twisted Metal he's

(49:30):
very dangerous when he's behind an armoredcar with machine guns, but then when
it comes time to get into afist fight, he's uh. And they
sort of address this, He's like, oh, you're not so tough when
you're not a car. It's like, yeah, I really want to get
in the car. Sort of afun, ridiculous, over the top kind
of Mad Max but played for laughs, which I'm all about. So that
if if, if you have thePeacock network, which nobody does, worth

(49:53):
checking out. Okay, kJ plugyour plugables, NA, you were not
prepared for this, so I'm reallythrowing one out. I got nothing you
got nothing. Well, you arein a band, so you know you
can plug that. Yeah, I'mI'm in a band. We have some
fun. We like to drink beerand our singer Hash has a PA system

(50:17):
in his basement. Full head ofhair and not that full anymore gorgeous human
being. Yes, and people cancheck that out on Facebook at Mendenhall the
Band. Yeah, that's been fun. We're going to finally have a practice
again relatively soon, are we?Are? We all done vacations for five
seconds? I got one coming upMonday, but I think we're set to

(50:44):
meet up on the thirteenth, Arethat Sunday? Because we'll finally folks,
the four of us. We're alldads with jobs and vacations and stuff.
And we had a very fun forformans at a at basically a barbecue,

(51:04):
which was a lot of fun,and we got paid and we were so
excited because it's the first time we'vegotten paid as a band. And then
we have not all four I don'thave the four of us gotten together since
then. No, we've had twopractices with just the three out of four
different different three out of four eachtime. It'll be good to get the
four of us together and we shouldprobably plug our drummer, Eric Baine's he's

(51:25):
got something coming up. He's gothis game show. Right. Did you
guessed on that? I did?I did? It was a lot of
fun. You did not? Idid not? Okay? It's called What's
What Coming This Fall on YouTube hostedby Eric Baine and his brother and what's

(51:49):
his brother's name, Mark Mark?Hosted by Eric and Mark Baine. I
will be I am a contestant.It was fun and some of the stuff
was right up my eye, soI won't spoil what happened, but when
they do ask, it's like,okay, is it was? It?
It was? It? Was itBritish or magic? Because you have to

(52:12):
figure out if a term is eitherBritish slang or a magic spell from Harry
Potter. Man. It's like,my whole life was building up to this
because I have watched way a wholelot of Harry Potter with my kids.
All Right, well, kJ,this has been awesome, Thank you so
much, thanks for having me.It was. It was a lot of
fun. That Raps episode two eightythree. Big thanks to kJ Balenci.

(52:54):
He is awesome and a hell ofa guitarist. Time on the Cosmic Japetto
podcast, Sarah Black is back totalk about music that's shaped us till then
and the words of jar Party seeingthe funny pages. Subscribe to the Cosmic

(53:22):
Japeo podcast on iTunes, Stitcher,or wherever quality podcasts can be found.
Rate and review us while there.Follow us on Twitter at cosmic geepot and
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Like us on Facebook at Facebook dotcom, forward slash cosmic Shappetto. We

(53:42):
love hearing your ideas for upcoming episodes. Email us at cosmic Shapetto at Comcast
dot net. Kevin Smith not familiarwith him, don't yow you couldn