'Severance' Survives Mystery and Idea Explanations of 'The Brutalist'

The episode begins with brief, non-spoiler thoughts on 'Silo' and its most recent season (0:52). Then the three hosts discuss the acclaimed TV series 'Severance' from Apple TV+ and if it can hold all of the mysteries it is creating (5:14). Also in the non-spoiler section, Adam and Blaine praise the very thing that could make 'The Brutalist' a turn-off to a few (10:23).

After the break, the hosts get into spoilers with discussions on the first three episodes of 'Severance' this season (21:05). Then it's all the big, heavy ideas of 'The Brutalist' and a discussion on if it says something about them all (44:59).

To wrap, Blaine complains about how MTV dropped the ball with 'The Challenge: All Stars' and its fifth season (1:12:59).

As always, find more on The Alabama Take, linked here.

To hear more from the podcast ad Seddy Bimco Part Two The Revenge, visit their website in this link.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hey everyone.
I will be talking with Adamand Donovan like usual about two
things today.
Those two things will beepisodes two and three of Severance's
second season, now streamingon Apple TV plus.
And then we will talk aboutthe film the Brutalist, which is
generating quite a bit of buzzwith Oscars and awards season.

(00:22):
We're a TV and streamingpodcast, yes, but just so happens
Adam and I saw that movie thisweek as both of our local theaters
were showing it.
So we're throwing that intothis week's mix.
Though we don't usually covertheatrical releases, if you're new,
you'll be happy to know thatwe dissect every episode by putting
generalized thoughts up front.
And then we take a break.

(00:42):
Then we detail more ideas withexamples from the shows or movies
that could ruin it for peoplewho haven't seen it.
If you're spoiler averse, youcan always come back to those back
half segments and I encourageyou to do that before I get the other
two in here.
Though, I did get a chance toget caught up on the series Silo,
also on Apple tv.
Plus it's the second season ofit that recently wrapped around mid

(01:05):
January.
The last time we discussed iton this podcast, Adam was questioning
if he took a turn for theworst with its, I think, second or
third episode of this season,particularly with the acting choices
I think he had problems withfrom the cast that isn't named Rebecca
Ferguson.
I'm glad I stuck with it.

(01:25):
I found the episodes buildingvery well on top of what had come
before.
It never had a particularepisode that existed as an episode
of television and to itself,but its conceit is great.
The momentum starts rolling.
I think the story isfascinating stuff.

(01:46):
The mystery on top of othermysteries worked well because it
had this willingness to answersome questions.
It made me enjoy the secondseason, especially the last three
episodes.
I'd say the last two or threeepisodes of this sophomore set was
just really good tv.
Solid stuff.
A little better than yourmediocre kind of television.

(02:06):
I can recommend it.
Let's.
Let's get into this week'sshow though.
We'll talk in this orderSeverance, what's been shown to us
with season two.
And then the brutalist nonspoilers first spoilers After a break,
let's begin.
Let's get the guys in here,Alabama take projection.

(02:31):
I told you they would be with me.
Here they are.
It's Adam, it's Donovan and I.
I feel like I had a properintro thought up for you guys and
let me just See if I canrecall it.
Listeners love this part.
I'm sure they let me just think.
We're back this week aspromised to cover Severinson from
Apple tv.
Plus, nothing specific on ityet, though.

(02:53):
You're in the non spoiler partof our podcast.
This show's likely one ofApple's biggest hits, it seems.
Definitely.
When it's its biggest sinceTED Lasso, I guess, since Pandemic
era Ted Lasso.
I'd agree with that.
Just like cultural impact.
I don't know how they do thenumbers, but I think that's.
That something came outrecently that basically they admitted

(03:14):
to this.
That's hilarious because it'slike a brooding existential piece
of despair and a goldenretriever, you know, like, it makes
sense that TED Lasso is massive.
It's two different eras.
You got to think Adam one, youwere in pandemic and you're worried
just shitless about COVID Youneeded the golden retriever.

(03:35):
Fast forward.
And now everything's greatbecause Trump's president and there
are tariffs and you wantexistentialist despair.
I mean, do the math here, dude.
This is true.
Now that my fruits andvegetables are more expensive, I
finally have the time to relaxand wonder what it all.
Means now that I don't havetime to eat.

(03:55):
Don't have money to eat.
Exactly.
I mean, when you.
If you don't have money toeat, think of how much of your day
that frees up how much of your time.
The implication here is thatyou have stopped paying for food,
yet continue to pay Apple forApple tv.
He's still on that.
Well, can we.
Can we be honest here?
Donovan hits me about churchtime, which I'm not.

(04:17):
I hope I'm not telling talesout of school here.
So he's watching Severance during.
During church services.
I'm willing to bet churchstarts at 9:30.
I was.
You were home.
This was over.
You're home.
Yeah.
Hits me for the password on.
Oh, yeah, I had to change mypassword this morning.
Something.
I got a weird.
It wasn't super weird, but itwas just weird enough.
I was like, I better change my password.

(04:38):
You think it was.
It was probably the Canadiansopening salvo.
Yeah, it was probably Donovan.
But then.
But then he messaged me muchlater, like two or three hours later,
and asked for the password.
I'm like, oh, yeah, I had tochange it.
Do we need to go out of ourway to make sure that semi athletic
Mark Falk continues listeningto the program even as tensions escalate
between our Two nations.

(04:59):
Yeah, I want him as a part ofour audience.
I'm not even sure that we'regoing to be able to mail the dilly
bar.
Not, not across international borders.
Those tariffs also do.
Also.
Do you know how expensivechocolate is now?
Severance, Apple TV plus.
Nothing specific.
Non spoilers.
That's getting harder and harder.
Well, I've got a.
I've got a lead question.

(05:19):
I got a good lead question.
Yeah, I do.
Stars Adam Scott, Zack Cherry,Britt Lauer and John Turturro's office
mates.
Office employees who've had asurgical procedure that separates
their entire consciousness atwork from their lives outside of
the office to the point wherethey're completely different people
and certainly unaware of whatthe other aspect of their own lives

(05:40):
are doing.
Now, we usually in this partwe say, do we recommend it?
Who's it for?
What should we say Broadly?
We obviously like the show.
Here's my question, though.
It's a general thoughtquestion that you can answer without
spoilers.
Have these last two mostrecent episodes.
So we're going to probablytalk episodes one through three really

(06:01):
hardcore.
Focus on three later on.
Have these last two of seasontwo tamp down your concerns that
this was developing into ahigh dollar?
Excellent production of aReddit thread.
I never felt like it wasveering into just pure think piece

(06:22):
fodder.
You know, it always seemedlike kind of above that.
And I do think that it's nowmoving at a clip that feels like
it's doing its own thing, thatit's independent of its.
And it would be almostimpossible for them to be unaware
of how obsessed over this hasbeen, especially with as long as
it took to get to season two.

(06:43):
But it feels like it's movingpretty organically.
To me.
I feel like moving organicallyis the, the anti Reddit think piece
show.
Right?
Like, it feels kind ofnatural, but.
It feels like they have likesome idea of what they're doing,
you know, where they're notjust like coming up with stuff, but
it's like, oh, this, you know,especially with the way the first
two episodes kind of fit together.

(07:04):
There's sort of a, there'ssort of two, two halves of a whole.
It's like, oh, okay, they're direct.
You know, we're, they're.
They put some thought intothis at least.
Yeah, I think they have.
I think that's the story thatthey're telling, is that they're
telling to the media that theyhave a lot of this decided upon.
I think that's good because Ionce read an article about the guy

(07:25):
who was in charge of keepingthe lost Bible together, you know,
like the show lore.
And they showed a picture ofit and, you know, it's like a binder.
It's just full of paperbecause nobody could remember it.
They just kept coming up withthings and throwing it in there.
Mitt Romney's got nothing onthis guy.
Binders of women.
He's got binders of laws.
Wasn't it Mitt Romney with thebinders of women?

(07:47):
Binders full of women.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That was a quote for thoseborn recently.
Anyway, thanks for listening.
First of all, I'm with Adamand Donwan.
Yeah, you both said it.
That it's.
Yeah, especially what Adam said.
I think the pacing, and that'ssomething we'll talk about a little
bit later, is that I reallywas thrilled with the pacing and.

(08:12):
But if I could put it upprobably a little bit more specifically
without giving anything away,is they're answering questions at
a clip.
That makes me happy.
It seems very deliberate,doesn't it, where it's like we're
not just teasing out this one thing.
I mean, obviously we're stillteasing out, but we're also supplying
steps along the way.
And I said something verysimilar in my intro when I was talking

(08:35):
just to the audience that Silodoes the same thing on its back half
of this season.
And I was worried it wasn'tgoing to, but it did.
Not quite as quick.
Not quite as quick.
Not quite as in gripping.
But I, I liked, I did like Silo.
I thought about those shows incomparison to each other as I was
watching Severance havewondered if.

(08:58):
Because the concepts for Siloare really interesting and it's not
only the.
The grand concept ofsomething's happened and forced humanity
underground and what happensin that context, but Severance we'll
get into, they just keepfinding little gut punch ways to
ask questions about our humanity.

(09:18):
But they, like you're sayingthey're answering the questions at
a really good clip, but alsoin a way that tells me we're seeing
the tip of an iceberg and theyknow what the whole thing looks like
because they're not afraid toanswer a question that then creates
more questions.
Yeah, there's always moremystery, you know.
Yeah.
But in a good way and not in akick the can way.

(09:40):
Right.
You said it.
That's.
I said it in a good way.
That's so much better.
Another thing that I think isencouraging, having seen three episodes
of this season and that Ithink makes Severance pretty Good
and worth watching is I thinkthey have a really strong sense of
who these characters arecarrying over from season one.
And I think.

(10:01):
I think that is a really big plus.
Man, that hit me in this thirdepisode where I was like, big time.
These actors know who they're playing.
Yeah, they do.
Fully.
It's.
I.
I think that's very, very good.
Yeah.
It's not 95 like season one.
It's 99.9 and they're in itand I'm in it.
And I'm with you.

(10:21):
Stick with non spoilers.
We make our own rules to breakour own rules.
Like some sort of uglier,Southern shitty James Dean incarnation.
But a couple of us made it tothe movies and not only that, we
both saw the brutalist.
If you're not familiar withthis film is probably one of the

(10:42):
front runners for best picturefor Oscars this year.
It doesn't mean it'll win.
It did win Golden Globe forbest drama.
Very similar category.
It's directed by Brady Corbett.
Am I right?
Brady or Brody Corbett?
Is it Brady, right?
I think so.
It stars Adrien Brody asLaszlo Toth, a newly arrived European
to the United States rightafter World War II and his liberation

(11:05):
from a concentration camp.
Although he and his wife areseparated in the camps, he keeps
in touch with her with letters.
In the meantime, a very richPhiladelphia businessman named Harrison
Van Buren and played by GuyPierce saves him from a life of menial
labor once he finds out he'san architect of some renowned from
Europe.

(11:25):
His days in Europe.
Again, we're general here,especially because Donovan hasn't
seen it.
And here's the thing, and Isaid this right before we started.
Donovan is not spoiler averse.
He's not too worried about spoilers.
But he's gonna duck out whenwe start talking about this with
specifics because I just think it's.

(11:46):
I think everybody shouldprobably do that.
What I told you you couldprobably all figure out in any trailer
or tagline how did we feelabout it in general?
I mean, I.
I love this movie so much.
You did?
Yeah.
And I am just going to speaklovingly about it.
Yeah.
Effusively.
And just gush about itbasically when we get there.

(12:09):
This is my favorite theatergoing experience in recent memory.
That's.
That's interesting.
And I'm curious if that had todo with the movie and its plot and
its elements or the timecommitment you had to give it.
Or both.
Let me.
Did you read theRogerEbert.com review of this?

(12:30):
I haven't read any reviews.
I've gone, I'm shooting fromthe hip on my own ideas today.
He just went in blind man.
And I feel good about it.
I feel like I took somethingaway from this movie.
So.
Yeah, let's roll.
Good.
I feel like I.
Yeah.
The amount of meat on thebone, if you want to use that metaphor
on this one, is just.
Is endless.
It's doing so many differentthings and doing it incredibly well.

(12:55):
But actually in thisRogeribir.com review, I grabbed this
quote because I thought,Blaine, we're gonna speak generally
and I want this to, to go inthat, that spot.
It wasn't Matt Zoller shots,by the way.
Yeah.
Brian Talarico I like, I likehim too.
Me too.
Me too.
So he said some will look atthe 215 minute runtime of the Brutalist

(13:18):
and bring out that dreadedword when it comes to serious long
movies.
Pretentious.
Of course it's pretentious.
You couldn't make this movieeffectively without pretension.
But one person'spretentiousness is another's ambitious.
And I wish we had more moviesthis pretentious, this unapologetic,
this willing to do more withfilm than so many even consider.

(13:39):
And I think that nails it here.
Here, here, here.
Brian Talarico says it right there.
Ambition is.
That summarizes what I thought.
I didn't use that word, but I,I thought that this movie's got so
many ideas under the rocks andit does a pretty damn good job of
turning over those rocks toview them as closely as it can in.
So it warrants that 3 hour and35 minute runtime.

(14:03):
Even though I'm still of themindset that movies should be two
hours or under.
The thing is, when you walkout of a three and a half hour movie,
there is no lukewarm on suchan experience like you either loved
it or you truly hated it.

(14:23):
That's absolutely true.
Yeah.
I did appreciate this movie'sruntime and I did appreciate being
immersed in it.
I was ever really bored.
I did get a little tired of sitting.
That's a different.
That's not bored.
That was just uncomfort for asecond or two.
I was, my brain was turned onthe whole time.
I was, the whole time I wasthinking, okay, so what does, what

(14:45):
does that have?
What would that say about this?
And what is this action, thispiece of dialogue?
So it had me.
I don't know what more I canadd without getting into spoiler
specific stuff, but if you'reat all thinking about going, don't
wait for this to come to streaming.
No, it may seem moreconvenient to like, oh, I'll watch

(15:05):
this at home when I have threeand a half hours or whatever.
You need to go sequesteryourself in a movie theater in a
dark room.
We are not, you know,technically allowed to look at your
phone, you know, by our socialconventions that I really wish people
would stick with, but.
Oh, did you have a phone looker?
No, no, no, not in this one.
I did, but I think you've gotto give yourself over to the experience

(15:29):
of this movie and to theexperience of film.
Like, let it, Let it do whatit's supposed to do.
Enjoy one of these raremoments where things move at the
pace that I think we all longfor them to move in our daily lives.
I'm gonna say something thatmight be surprising.
This movie was not bloated in runtime.
It was bloated with ideas.

(15:51):
I mean, it almost could haveused 15 more minutes.
Wow.
Yeah.
Because so many hefty things going.
And I was like, no, no, gothat, go that route.
It's.
I'm not saying that they wereshallow in any of their decisions.
I'm saying that if they wouldhave spent five more minutes on one
particular topic, it wouldhave been fine.

(16:13):
They could have done a few things.
I don't.
I think if where they chose tostart and stop the story.
Yes.
In terms of years covered, theruntime works for me.
I think, I think, I mean, Iwould have taken 15 more minutes.
Would have been perfectly fineto me.
I think that there's a wholeother life that we could, we can

(16:35):
get into that.
When we get into.
When it comes on streaming,I'm understanding it's going to have
a three day runtime.
You watch three days straight?
Yeah, sounds great.
Like 72 Hour Movie.
No, I think if that soundslike I'm being negative, I really
liked it.
If I could find the time thisweek and could find someone willing
to give, I would go see it again.

(16:56):
That's interesting.
I wanted you to bring that up.
I don't think I would see it again.
I think I got what I neededfrom it.
But I would watch scenes of itmany times over.
Why do, why do you want to seethe whole thing again?
I'm just curious.
Is there something you feellike you missed?
You get what you need from agood meal, but you still want another
good meal, don't you?

(17:16):
Yeah.
I already know what happens inthe Seven Samurai.
If you were like, Donovan,let's turn on the Seven Samurai?
Absolutely.
You're talking to a guy whorarely eats.
I rarely eat.
Now that you can't afford to.
You've already heard that BobDylan record.
Why do you need to listen toit again?

(17:39):
Hey, I recommend.
Let me give you my rundown onwhy I'm recommending this for people.
And we can get into ourspoiler section.
I got a few reasons.
It'll test your ability inthis age where we need to leave the
world behind sometimes.
And it'll.
It'll give you a reason to dothat for three hours and 35 minutes
and then see it because it'ssaying profound things about a period

(18:01):
we may have started to assumesome things about or taken for granted.
And it's well done with goodacting and good directing and pretty
damn good writing.
You know, I don't want to harpon this too much, and it's a more
broad idea, but I justremember going even, like, through
Donovan when we were incollege and shortly after going to

(18:22):
the theater and walking outand feeling like I had been somewhere
and like the world outsidelooked different when I walked out.
If the movie was good.
Well, it's the opening line ofthe Outsiders.
That's what movies aresupposed to do.
But I'm just not sure thatthey have that effect on me that
often anymore.
No.
Right.
Of course.
And I don't know if that'slike a product of aging and just

(18:42):
you've experienced more thingsso they.
Each one feels a little lessmomentous, or if it's like, I know
that the entire world is in my pocket.
On the phone.
You feel like if you forget toput it on, totally silent.
You feel the notifications.
You feel whatever, like.
Or even when we're able to notlook at something, it's still like

(19:04):
our brains are divided in a way.
And I think a film of thislength, it just, through attrition,
forces you to have thatexperience where you walk out and
you're like, oh, where'd I park?
Where am I?
Yeah, I was just gonna jump in.
I feel like the.
Obviously, I haven't seen thisone, but some of the more impactful

(19:24):
movie experiences I've hadover probably the last five years
have been longer movies.
Like, you know, probably onceI finally saw it, the.
The best movie that came outlast year, Oppenheimer, was long.
It was and.
And.
And demanded the way it was shot.
It demanded your full attention.
It's a lot like setting thetimer for 40 minutes and reading

(19:47):
a book.
You know, just like puttingthe phone or setting an alarm and
just reading for 40 straightminutes without doing anything else.
It's a little like that.
And it's good for you.
It is good for you.
And this movie is good enoughto make that excuse to go to the
movie theater and do it.
Yeah, that's what I.
I was gonna say that.

(20:07):
I'm not saying.
I.
I'm.
It's perfect.
It's not a five star reviewfor me, but I'm saying it's damn
good.
I think Adam might give it thefive stars.
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah.
So let's think it.
Let's take a spoiler.
Yeah, well, let's take a breakfor spoilers.
How about that?
And on the other side, we'lltalk about Severance season two so
far.
Probably really heavy onepisode two and three.

(20:30):
And then we'll talk the broodlist in detail.
I'm George O'Connor, the NewYork Times bestselling author of
the Olympians and Asgardians.
I'm Tim Hamilton, cartoonistfor the New Yorker.
Here at Seti Bimco, we watchmovies of dubious quality and fabricate
revenge sequels for them thatthey never had before.
We also have fun games such asGeorge's current currency.

(20:50):
Kerner diapers in 1960 cost $1.
What do you think they wouldcost today?
Tim?
$4?
Wrong.
Seti Pimco Part 2, the Revenge.
Every Wednesday, any place youlisten to podcasts.
So to begin, I'll say if givena choice.
Luckily we don't have to makethis choice, but if given a choice,
I'd.
I much prefer the Audi storythan the Anyone.

(21:11):
I'm referencing episode two,of course.
And one Episode one, It's allin the Office.
Episode two, it's all whathappened on the outside of the Office
at the end of last season.
We get caught up on both ofthem via the two episodes.
That's probably to neither ofYalls surprise that I prefer the

(21:32):
Audi story.
You probably could haveguessed that I just found the second
episode much better, eventhough I was happy to have the show
back with its first episodeand I thought it's pretty good.
Well, the second episodebrought back the one element that
was really missing and I'dkind of forgotten about, and that's
Rickon.
Fool.
This isn't in the second episode.

(21:53):
I think it's in the third.
But like there's a bit wherehe's like reading his own faux profound
work and it's.
It's so funny.
No, I think that is in thesecond episode.
But is that in the second?
Yeah.
Cause in the Second or third.
In the third, he's just beingconfronted by Natalie about maybe
using his work.
And I don't think.
Oh yeah, no, he was read.
He was reading it to her.

(22:14):
She like read the passageabout like beer doesn't.
He's like, only wine can trulymake you happy.
Which is why the poor are sooften sad or something like that.
It was just a.
Hilarious.
You know what?
Sometimes he'll hit onsomething that's close enough to
profound that I get it.
You know, that's why it's funny.
Yeah.
The little joke that Markloves, you know, kind of can't stand

(22:36):
him in real life, but is any.
This naive guy about the worldloves his.
But that's such a funny.
Like that is a good one.
Obviously severance is doing alot of things and that's just a nice
joke tucked in there, but it's.
It always makes me smile.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Cracks me up.
Like I said, you don't have to choose.
But did you prefer the secondepisode to the first?
Seeing the outside world moreso they.

(22:58):
Were like two halves of a cointo me, really.
It was more.
I didn't prefer one to the other.
They were just doing different things.
Although I.
For me, although I.
Blaine, I've seen some folks, some.
Some critics say the same thing.
You said that without the.
The Audis, that they don'tlike it.
Like the Audis is what is kindof the.
The meat of it, I guess, and moves.

(23:19):
Moves it forward.
It's the emotional heart.
Yeah, that's.
That's what I was gonna.
Although I think this.
So this is what I saidearlier, talking about how well they
know the characters is.
I really liked seeing theactors do all their innies and all
their outies in those back toback episodes because I think that
you sympathize with both sidesof them.

(23:41):
And not only that, I thinkthey're doing a good job of making
you understand that like forthis inner any person to not go back
to work would be non existence.
And maybe you would miss that person.
Maybe he's growing anddeveloping in a slightly different
way from you.
I think that they needed thefirst episode to drive that point
home.
Yes.
And I think that again, I knowI mentioned it when we talked extensively

(24:04):
about the first one, the scenewhere Dylan kind of begs Irving to
stay, you know, because hewould essentially be killing off
his friend.
Yep.
He would never see him.
He would never see him again.
And that's.
I mean, it is kind of like avery, very basic existential question.
Right.
But it's like, what are you?
What are you?
And like, one of the answersis like, you're your memories.

(24:26):
Like if, if you're.
And you're the things you, youknow, like, if those things disappear,
you're.
You're dead.
You might as well not exist.
You're dead.
The you that was you.
Anyway, a lot of haze beingmade about the new and I'll add creepy
as hell intro this season.
Baby John Turturro crawlingaround is giving me some baby Colin
Robinson vibes minus any hilarity.

(24:48):
Love it.
It's just weird.
But it does remind me of ColinRobinson, so I chuckle.
This is, this is just a superaside, but I kind of love it when
shows mix up their opener for,like, season by season.
Yeah, I like that they did that.
I like it.
I don't want all shows doing this.
Sometimes I just want a themesong and credits.

(25:09):
Look, I don't need theSimpsons to do this.
Just give me a.
Give me a new couch gag every week.
You know what?
It can be easy to forget forme that Adam Scott's a pretty damn
good actor because he doesn'thave this full rotunda of leading
man qualities.
But the way he plays theawkwardness between Mark and Haley
as they begin to search forGemma in the third episode with their

(25:34):
flyers in hand.
It's so funny and real.
It's.
Are we gonna kiss?
We're not gonna kiss.
Well, let's go look for Gemma.
It's just.
But he says none of that.
It's just on his face.
I thought, man, he's.
I forgot that he's actually agood actor.
It's.
It's funny because it's real.
You know, that was one of thethings that made me think that they

(25:54):
just have a really good sense.
And I remember saying kind ofa similar thing last season all those
many years ago where I'm like,I kind of forgot how good Adam Scott
is because he's like, he'susually in stuff that's, like, funny,
but it's kind of lightweight.
And here he has to do a bunchof stuff just like with his face,
his mannerisms, his expression.

(26:15):
He has to be essentially twodifferent people who are the same
person.
Right?
It's good.
Blaine, what you were saying,the way he's playing off of his co
workers then to be able toshift some and even without the dialogue
that he's given to his Audi is so.
Yeah, like he has a differentphysical presence.
It's like after seeing himback to back in episode three for

(26:37):
the first Time again.
The season as ne and Audi.
It really.
You know, there's a weight tohim when he's outside.
Obviously, it's filled with.
It's filled with grief.
It's like his eyes droop more.
And I don't know how you dothat physically.
Well, and I was gonna sayoutside he has all this weight, and
then inside, it's like.
Compared to that, the lightsare on but nobody's home kind of

(27:00):
effect.
Like sometimes.
Like, he is obviously smartand trying to piece everything together,
but he's so naive.
He has no experience.
Yeah.
He dumb.
A little.
It was that Jerry's linerating of talking to his wife, his

(27:21):
real wife.
That whole scene was.
It did a lot.
It was note perfect.
Yeah, that was funny.
That was Dylan.
He consistently gets some ofthe funnier lines.
Oh, yeah.
And obviously they play itthat way, but he.
He really has a way of justslinging him home.
He's good.
Yeah, I loved that.
Like, all of them have littlethings where it's like their mannerisms

(27:41):
are just from everything, likethe kind of obvious.
Right.
To like, Helly's hair is backand she is more buttoned up to.
I noticed.
I guess I just never.
Because of the back to back.
It feels like Adam Scott is taking.
Is pausing and taking longerto respond outsource outside, whereas
he's, you know, like inside,you know, And I'm just.

(28:05):
I love.
I think they're doing a great.
I think that's a testament,clearly, to the writers who are writing
lines that.
And stories that mix matchthese characters and the work the
actors have put into it,because they've clearly put a ton
of work into this.
Kudos to the writers thisseason because they've got John Turturro.
They've got the John Turturro.

(28:26):
And it's almost like theyforgot that sometimes in season one.
But this season, for threeepisodes, he's got this genteel look
of care in his eyes, naturally.
And they're just using that.
And that longing for Burt, Idon't think would be as real for
me were it any other actor,for sure.
There's like.

(28:46):
There's just like a.
There's a sweet sadness there.
And he's always had it.
Yeah.
Except for maybe as Jesus inthe Big Lebowski.
That's the Jesus.
I don't know.
Maybe you could find it there.
There's a sadness to Jesus.
He's sad.
There is a sadness to Jesus.
There's a sadness to all of them.
But I.
You know, I don't know ifthat's John Turo.

(29:09):
That's a good point, Blaine,because I hadn't thought about, you
know, when he goes to.
What is it, Archives orcollections or whatever they call
the.
The photos and all the.
The paintings o D or whatever.
Yeah.
There you immediately readhim, by the way that he carries the
character as someone who wouldknow about art, who would know about.

(29:29):
He's a cultured person.
He's a.
But how can he carry that infrom the outside?
You know, we're back to thediscussion of, like, what.
Where are the lines drawn in experience?
You know, like, you're lookingat someone.
The ennie has never seen a Van Gogh.
You know what I mean?
Like, does the Enni know whoMichelangelo is?

(29:50):
But you're kind of likethinking that must be there somewhere
because he has this ability tocome across as cultured.
We get a little bit more of ahint on how it works when at the
end of the episode with thewavelengths connecting.
So there might be something inthis wavelength versus another, and
that's probably too scientificthan the show really wants to deal

(30:14):
with.
And don't.
I don't need it.
I don't need an explanation.
I love that.
It's like they almost use.
You know how, like, Star wars,the original run, the Death Star
was controlled by, like, a TVcontrol panel or something, you know?
Yeah.
Like, when they're firing upall that gear, it's like, no, they're
about to make a.
An analog record.
They're recording the tape.

(30:34):
That's what's happening here.
It does look like that.
They're turning on all thecompressors and everything.
Oh, yeah.
Letting them warm up.
I love the.
Yeah, the tubes have to warm up.
The aesthetic of the whole thing.
We've talked about thatbefore, but, yeah, it's like, why.
Why get bogged down in science?
Here's a great idea.
Here's two waves.
She's going to try to makethem line up.
Yeah.
Have we discussed how thisshow may be Dan Erickson and Ben

(30:57):
Stiller's obvious jab at Scientology?
I don't think so.
I could see it with the waves, too.
Yeah, that's.
Well, go back to Ben Stiller'searlier career in the 90s, and he
was.
He would occasionally pop upat places, award shows and mimic
Tom Cruise to perfection.
And he does a good Bruce Springsteen.

(31:19):
Go look it up.
Why not take the swing?
You know, if you're him.
The stilted verbiage.
Milton's Ascension being thebest example.
It sounds so much like that Scientology.
There are other examples.
Having the one leader who's.
Who's human and not a God or areligious deity or something.

(31:43):
And there are more.
Changing that painting tomatch Milchick's race felt Scientology
in a way.
What did you all make of that?
That was an interesting scenein that, like, because you wondered
the whole time, like, whatrole does.

(32:03):
Like, we're not totally surewhere we are geographically or what
is happening in u.
S.
History, or, you know, like,does religion still exist?
What would a religious.
I mean, for real, like, whatwould a religious leader say about
the severing process and human consciousness?
But also, what.

(32:24):
What are these charactersbringing to work as far as the baggage
of culture?
You know, like, when he seesthat they've airbrushed a black man
into these pictures, like, what.
What does that trigger in him?
Is it.
Is it the same thing for himthat it is for an audience watching
in America in 2025?

(32:45):
Yeah, it seems like itbothered him.
And it could be the spark ofhis distancing from how he feels
about Lumen.
If you go back and watch thatscene, Natalie gives him a look that's
a little.
The camera lingers on for a millisecond.

(33:06):
Yep, Yep.
And her face acting in thatmoment was great because I felt like.
I assume you're talking abouta look where she says there's some
level of, like, empathy and,like, can you believe they do this?
But we can't talk about it.
And then the smile slowly returns.
Yeah.
And, like, the corporate womanis back.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The fake corporate smile.

(33:27):
Donovan, I have a questionjust for you.
Yes?
When you encounter a coworker, you don't know, do they ask
if they've.
If you've come to kill them?
Yeah, usually.
Okay, that's what I was thinking.
Is it because I'm carrying aknife, I'm covered in blood, like,
there are goats.
Yeah, but.
But you know I gotta havelunch, right?

(33:49):
Is the goat subplot too weirdfor its own good?
No, I like it.
You do?
I like.
I like the surreal.
I like just the surreality of it.
Surreality is what the meant.
What I should have said.
I was even, like, kind oflaughing at myself as they're, like,
panning among the goats, andI'm like, oh, they got.
They got black Philip here.
And then it's really the guyand the go.
That's it.

(34:11):
Yeah.
I found myself really likingthe weird contrast of, like, the
goats and the grass with,like, the sterile sky and the.
I liked the question theyasked, like, can we see Your bellies.
Because like, clearly theseare people who are working on it,
who.
Who are essentially newbornsworking on it with technical knowledge,

(34:36):
working on a different project.
And perhaps that's making themthink about human beings in a certain
way that for whatever reasonthey're arguing over whether humans
have pouches or not.
I did actually like it.
And also because it didn'tjust come out of nowhere.
We had the.
We knew about this place where.
We knew that this place existed.

(34:56):
We hadn't been here before.
Although some goatinterpretive dancing too, last season.
Right?
Yeah.
In addition to seeing the baby goats.
It had a really great.
And I mean like, this is justlike push my buttons.
But it had a really great feelof menace.
Like if you took weird folkhorror and brought it into.

(35:17):
Under hospital lights.
Oh yeah.
The green grass and the droptile ceiling and the way that.
I know this is like such adumb thing to think about, but there
was still a vending machine onthe wall, right?
Yeah.
They train a dance and I waswondering like, does someone bring
a weed eater around to liketrim the edge around the vending

(35:39):
machine?
Donovan, what do you think that.
The pouch thing.
So my read on that was they'redoing, you know, they're mammalian
something, right.
Like they're doing some kindof husbandry, biological experiment.
And for some.
Or something.
And so for whatever reason,because the knowledge that they have
is in the air, but it's like.
It's like, you know, they'rebasically like, they're.

(36:00):
They're.
They're total innocence.
They have no experience.
But obviously they have toknow a little something.
Right.
Like we know everyone here canread, people can write.
So you do bring some thingsover with you.
I'm thinking that whateverwork they're doing in the realm of
animal husbandry has.
Has led them to speculateabout what the vast mass of humanity
is like.

(36:21):
And that might involve pouchesfor some reason.
So your read is that they areall normal.
Any Audi.
Severed workers?
Yes, probably.
I think.
I think everyone there is severed.
But they.
Because I kind of took it to.
To mean that they knowsomething about some project that's

(36:42):
going on and there aremanipulated humans wandering the
corridors.
Sure.
That could be I.
Which could be what Gemma was.
Yeah, yeah, it kind of does.
You know, it could.
I think that I could betotally wrong.
Right.
Like when he says that doesn'tprove anything.
He could be saying thatdoesn't prove anything about the

(37:03):
disagreement we're having orthat doesn't prove that they're not.
Whatever they were Lookingaltered by having some other.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, that's one of the bigtheories floating around, is that
what the team.
What our team is doing issomehow creating consciousness for
something.
Like almost creating analgorithm of a person that could

(37:27):
be reanimating one of the family.
Or it could be Gemma.
Or it could be.
Who knows?
I'm just saying that theybetter hit me with a.
Of course there's a goat farmin the middle of this office building.
Or I'm claiming it to be alittle weird for weird sake, which
is.
That's the worst kind of weird.
The second being is, ofcourse, Eric Trump.

(37:48):
It bothers you.
You think it's weird for weird sake.
I don't, but it gives me.
If they don't have a prettyclear purpose.
It is.
Yeah, but they probably have aclear purpose.
I just hadn't seen it yet.
Yeah.
I feel like they're.
Like they're engineering something.
Yeah.
Or studying something.
I'm still can't shake the ideathat, like, some of those goat workers.

(38:10):
Let's call them.
Yeah, they were a little beat up.
Well, I'm surprised you're notapplauding how they pulled the entire
cast of the original Wickerman for these roles.
Oh, I mean, my heart.
Be still my heart when they'reall standing on the.
The rise above them.
Yeah, yeah.
This.
This is content for me.
This is good.
These are straight out of a1952 British film.

(38:32):
What if you get kicked by agoat and they take you to the elevator
and send you back up and youget out and you're like, what.
What the hell do I do?
What the hell happened?
Why?
What is this?
This mark on my leg?
An even more realisticquestion might be, I forget her name
if it was said, but theBrienne of Tarth, you know, she may
go home with blood splatterson her.

(38:53):
Does she clean?
That's what I'm saying.
She gets in the elevator.
Yeah, yeah.
Because they're all severedexcept for Milchick and maybe his
secretary, Ms.
Huang.
Seems like she might not be.
She might not.
It's hard to say.
I'm not sure.
One of the.
If we want to get into theoryland, I would love to know what y'all
think about this.
Go ahead.
There are people who thinkthat Milchek and Patricia Arquette.

(39:17):
Cobel.
Cobell.
Oh, yeah.
Harmony Cobell.
They think that they aresevered and that their innies have
been given free rein and theAudis decided to essentially be killed.
That makes sense.
I was wondering if they wereChanged in a different way.
But that would be the way.

(39:37):
Yeah.
There's a.
There's three things that I'llpoint to in this episode after somebody.
The most recent episode aftersomebody posited this one, they kind
of teased this with Dylan.
Right.
I'm sure we're going to talkabout him and his wife, but he.
He's clearly a better versionof himself at work.
Yeah.
Than he is the guy at home.
Would you start doing the math?

(39:58):
He's like a guy who can't evencut the tube.
Cookies in the oven.
It's a tube.
Right.
His wife is going off to work,what looks to be security or something.
Night shift.
And he can't even be bothered to.
Also, they can't pay thesesevered people more that she doesn't
have to have that job.
Yeah.
That's what's going on here.

(40:20):
Two, Milchick driving the motorcycle.
People think it seems a littleout of step with what his character
would be.
And it would be a very.
Anything to be like, oh, I betmy Audi rides a motorcycle.
You know what I mean?
Like, that's a very, like,childlike thing to think about.
Three, When Heli out.

(40:40):
Helena.
I guess.
Sure.
Audi.
Heli is talking to Cabell.
She says, I think you need a reset.
That's right.
Very specific wording there.
Yeah.
But I go to that motorcycle there.
There's a lot to be said aboutthe cars in this show.
Not a one of them were madebefore 1999.
No.
But the kind of like anodynebeaten up, like in the back.

(41:02):
You know, they're just likethis kind of like, bland that you.
Yeah, I was.
I was noticing because it.
Which I.
I mean, I.
I assume that's intentional tokind of.
It has to be story in us.
Right.
There's a whole parking lot ofthat time and place.
Yeah.
Just could be another signthat they're not paying these people
that much.
You gotta drive a 1990 Buick.

(41:22):
Hey, did you guys enjoy seeing Iceland?
Love it.
You like when you like when heshowed up?
Loved it.
Yeah.
Oh, episode two, Iceland fromsomebody somewhere.
I thought you just made thelandscape look like.
No, no, no.
Yeah, yeah.
He cleans up great.
He looks.
We got a little.
We got a little.
We got a little treat.
So is he a Egan or one oftheir close workers?
He's the muscle, right?

(41:43):
Yeah.
He seems like.
He seems like the fixer.
Yeah.
I want to see more of his character.
I want to see more Milchick.
I am really enthralled byTillman's acting.
Of course.
He's so good.
He's.
They found a jewel when theyfound him because I'd never heard
of him, but that doesn't mean anything.
But the way he played, youknow, looking at those pictures,

(42:05):
boy, you could read fivedifferent theories just in his expression
and his eyes.
So you know what it kind of.
Reminded me of, And I don'tknow if this is intentional or not,
but two characters they had dosimilar things in recent proximity
to each other is Adam Scott inthe first episode where he kind of

(42:27):
like, has locked eyes with Ms.
Wang, and she's like, hey, I'm.
I have to remind you, youknow, I'm a supervisor, not a friend.
And it stays on him for areally long time, and you can just
kind of see.
And I.
And then I believe he did thesame, and I think he did a great
job, but I believe they did.
I don't know.
I think we're supposed tonotice the parallel there.
Yeah.

(42:48):
And I agree.
Blaine, he's.
He's a fantastic actor.
You can see there in one of.
In his eyes that one of histhoughts was you.
Yeah.
Let's talk about Dylan'smeeting with his wife.
Man, you.
That was so good, man.
Set up some sad stories justfrom that.
Well, they got 18 minutes, butthat wasn't the screen time.

(43:09):
Not least of which is how hewas maybe on the outside before life
got him.
Because she.
She married probably not a guywho was sitting around on the couch
all the time.
Even the way that he says,hey, how did the thing go?
That's like his way ofaddressing it.
That was inside.
Yeah.
I thought, wait, is hesupposed to know about that?

(43:32):
Well, I mean, I sheep.
But it wasn't.
Yeah, it wouldn't matter if heknows or not really.
I mean, everything about thecontrol of the situation that's shown
the whole time.
Like, they're.
They're not really unsupervised.
You know that.
Very creepy.
The way her voice chimes inand says, let's not talk about what
it.
What's the.

(43:54):
They start talking aboutpersonal details.
There you go.
Yeah.
I mean, the obvious crushingmoment is when his wife says, I love
you, and he doesn't reallyknow what to.
Yeah.
Because he doesn't know this person.
He's like, okay, that's nice.
He can't even.
You can see.
I talk about people acting,what's happening on the inside.

(44:14):
You see him kind of cyclethrough his options, you know, like,
do you say this back to aperson that you met 18 minutes ago
who clearly Means something toyou or.
And I don't mean like loveydovey, romantic, like a romantic
about humanity show would say.
Oh, but you know that that'san important person.
Whether you can place it ornot, you still know.

(44:36):
And it's.
No, it's not that.
Bob Dylan said in the completeunknown, I just met you.
So.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Does it weird you out?
Yeah.
Okay, we are going to letDonovan slip away from us for the
week because from onecapitalist romp to another and.

(44:57):
And I hope, remember, pleaseanswer my question.
If the Brutalist was a supervillain, who would he fight?
That's gonna be the first onour list.
Well, he's obviously fightingCaptain America, right?
I would think so.
And his name would be the Brood.
A list.
That's bad.
You get it.
That's bad.

(45:18):
That's so bad.
It's good lot to go with here.
And it's hard not to start atthe end and work my way back or what
I did mentally on the way homefrom the movies.
But.
But hey, that early image ofthe upside down Statue of Liberty
is a perfect directorialchoice once you see the film and
maybe even before you see it.

(45:38):
That's so good.
I mean, I really don't knowhow to start unpacking this.
Let's listen, let's try to gobackward if at all.
Okay.
We'll go reverse chronological of.
Of how it's presented.
Well, and that.
That works too, because thefilm also does that.
Wait, it does.
There's that shot of the firstinterview at the very end with his

(46:02):
niece.
They show her again in thatinterview room with the Soviets.
Oh.
Oh, it's so brief.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
It's so brief that I almostdidn't consider it.
So I would say that we havebeen invited to analyze the film
this way.
Yeah.
Well, it ends in 1980 and he'sway more renowned than I mentioned.

(46:26):
At the top, he's a famousarchitect of your Frank Lloyd Wright
type of figure.
And there he is in awheelchair, old.
His wife has passed away atthis point and Laszlo is being celebrated
for his work.
And is that his niece or hisgreat niece would be.

(46:48):
His great niece.
His great niece.
That is his niece's child.
Right.
And his.
Well, that is his niece speaking.
But his niece is.
His great niece is beingplayed by the actress who has played
his niece the whole time inthat scene.
Oh, okay, okay.
Why?
I don't know.
Resemblance.

(47:08):
I mean, it has to mean something.
Well, there maybe, but thisalso was made on.
On the cheap for a movie ofits stature.
It's $10 million or so andthat's apparently really cheap for
a big movie.
I think the director, Corbett,kind of had to scrap some funds together.

(47:30):
That's.
That is honestly my.
My one bigger complaint isthat I can see that.
Not that it's a cheap movie,but I could A lot of times these
period pieces movie, youreally feel like you're there.
As far as, other thancostuming, I didn't quite feel like

(47:50):
I was ever in the time period.
Maybe that's not here nor there.
I.
I completely felt like I was there.
Yeah, you were in Pennsylvaniain 1952.
I, I think they did a fewclever things and I'm going to start
from the beginning.
I know we wanted to start fromthe end, but that, I think it sets
the mood when you have thisyoung woman, who we're not sure who
she is, being interviewed in alanguage that we don't want to meet

(48:13):
as Americans immediately recognize.
Oh yeah.
And then it flashes to him inthis very confusing scene, right.
It's dark, very dark.
Very.
Cameras moving everywhere.
You have no idea.
I thought it was aconcentration camp scene.
I thought that given that shewas being interviewed and it seemed
to be like a post warsituation, that he was perhaps somewhere

(48:37):
in Europe.
And we're going to start thereabout how, you know, he's been liberated
from a camp and now he's gonesomewhere else.
And the general chaos of wheredo you put all these displaced people?
He's in the cogs of that machine.
But that's slow reveal of themgoing in to New York and you see

(49:00):
the Statue of Liberty and Imean, what an immigrant coming to
America, it being an immigrant story.
You know that when you sitdown in the theater and them opening
with the Statue of Liberty andthen somehow not feeling cliche is
as I'm saying it out loud, I'mbecoming more impressed by the fact
that they pulled that off.
Oh yeah.
It's disorienting on purpose.

(49:21):
It's very good.
And I think the, the way thatthey showed that disorientation and
that chaos and you just, youimmediately are ready to feel a lot
of things that aren't said out loud.
Huh?
You know, even when they'regoing through, I assume, Ellis island
and the guy's speaking andit's also being repeated in another

(49:43):
language and they say if youhave somewhere to go, you go to this
place.
If you don't, if you're movingon and here's a bunch of humans wearing
those large numbers aroundtheir neck in this very.
Like, how many times can he be dehumanized?
Obviously, this is better thanbeing tattooed in a concentration
camp with a number.
But this massive governmentbody is still processing you in some

(50:07):
way.
And you already have a sensethat he is.
That there's a lot under thesurface with him.
You know, he carries.
It wasn't shocking to me whenit's revealed, and not just because,
you know, that's what themovie's about, but when it finally
comes out just how renowned hehad been before the war.
This is not surprising.
It's funny that it doesn'tfeel dehumanizing until you reflect

(50:31):
back.
Like you see the numbers onhim and you.
I think, oh, thank you.
Okay, we're gonna start in America.
You know, the rough stuff'sover for him.
Maybe.
Of course there's gonna beconflict or there's not a movie.
But movie runs in a hefty 3hours, 35 minutes.
And I'm not so sure thatbesides some obvious themes.
We'll talk about that.

(50:52):
It's also kind of aboutattention and attention spans.
It's almost like the filmtouches on where we put our attention
while it challenges our veryattention spans at the same time.
You know, the primary exampleis that he spends his entire, most
of his adult life bridging thegap between he and his wife that'll

(51:13):
never be recovered despitethem being reunited.
And it's like that's hisattention, that's his focus, and
he jumps on it any chance he gets.
Despite having to deal withVan Buren.
The fact that it's 3 hours, 35minutes I think is a choice beyond
just.
I gotta tell the whole story.

(51:35):
Yeah, yeah, I think so too.
And I think it.
It is naturally doing thingsthat make us ask these questions.
And, you know, I read there'sa great.
On Rogeribert.com interviewwith the director where he is asked
a question that's not about money.
But by like the thirdparagraph of his answer, he's talking

(51:57):
about how hard it is to be an artist.
Yeah.
And having to depend onessentially industrialists to survive.
He said, I know people who areup for best picture who struggle
to pay their rent, you know,those sorts of things.
So I.
How many things is this about?
You know, there's thatpostmodern, like, it's so self referential

(52:22):
and like what you're saying.
And it's.
It's about art.
Right?
It's a piece of art about art.
That's where I was going to gowith this.
Yes.
But it's also about.
It's asking questions ofattention span.
And, you know, he even pointedout that by the time it was printed
to 70 millimeter film, whenthat's delivered to a theater, that's
26 reels of film for this movie.

(52:45):
It.
It's heavy.
It is literally heavy.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's a lot about capitalism.
Capitalism and how art existsin a strict, burgeoning capitalist
land where at first glancethere's only hopes fulfilled and
dreams achieved and everybodygets the golden ticket.

(53:05):
If you just think about it cursory.
Cursorily.
I was turned off about viewingthis initially because the mode of
artistic expression here is architecture.
Because I guess because I justdon't know a lot about architecture.
I can't speak on it.
And it's not the most excitingif you're from our realm, which I

(53:29):
dabbled in music.
You are a musician.
I've done some writing.
You do a lot of writing.
If you do those, architecturecan feel forward and maybe even stiff
and boring.
So when I first found out hewas an architect, I was like, well,
don't want to watch a movieabout an architect.
But it fits perfectly becausein the end, you know, of that replica,

(53:53):
he kind of built builds tojoin his.
He and his wife's confinementsin their concentration camps.
You don't like architecture?
Nah, it doesn't interest me at all.
You know.
What's the other thing thatdoesn't interest me?
Oh, food.
Food is art.
I'm not interested in that.

(54:14):
See, I think architectureappeals to me because it's.
I mean, this.
This sounds trite, but it'slike the manipulation of space and
the creation of somethinginspiring or comforting or.
That makes me think that's.
That's like turning air intosound for music.
I was with it.
I get that.

(54:35):
With that same idea.
It can turn me off because I'mthinking, just give me a place to
put my bed, you know, and my tv.
Well, it's a bit like fashionin that, like you.
You have to have money toparticipate in this as art.
Yeah.
Which can be a turn off for sure.
Yes.
You know, you made me think of something.

(54:57):
This movie.
I don't think it's wrong toread this movie as a comment on streaming
culture and getting things for free.
Who.
Of course, it's about ownership.
Capitalism, art and ownership.
Was it inspired indirectly by.
I can stream this and don'ttake it away.

(55:19):
I don't have to pay for it.
But don't you dare take itdown off of YouTube.
You can't make a three and ahalf hour movie in this day and age
without it being eveninadvertently a middle finger to
streaming culture.
Right?
Yeah, well, maybe specificallymusic streaming where no one buys
the album, they just stream it.

(55:41):
And if it's not on YouTube, itdoesn't exist to me.
Well, and I would say theconcerns of the film world are very
similar in that, like, if.
If it's an.
An HBO owned thing and thenHBO decides they don't want it on
whatever HBO Go is called now.
It just doesn't exist, you know?
Can't believe you still callit that.
It's Max.
What's a HBO Max?

(56:02):
No, just Max.
Max.
Paw Paw.
It's Max.
But you know what I mean, it'spossible for things to just be lost
now.
And like, in the era when youwould think that we have infinite
amounts of space for things,you can't even go down to like the

(56:23):
local film store and talk tothe nerd behind the counter who knows
how to get the movie you wantto watch.
Like, there are streamingthings that were created and never
printed on anything that nowjust don't exist.
Yeah.
Young people, I can comment onthis because I'm around them a lot.
Young people, if it's not onYouTube or Netflix, it's like it

(56:47):
doesn't exist.
You tell them about somethingand they go, oh, is that on Netflix?
No.
Oh, and you can just see theirinterest drain.
I couldn't watch HBO when Iwas in high school because we didn't
have hbo.
Okay.
So like.
And that was, to me, that wasalmost like a.
Being a kid and notunderstanding that HBO was only like,
not that much more a month.

(57:08):
It was almost like asocioeconomic thing.
It's like.
Well, like when I would hearpeople talk about watching the Sopranos,
it was like, oh, their parentshave money.
You know, it's like, Netflixis cable.
Yeah.
And if, if it's not on Netflix.
Yeah.
Right.
Let's get in the specifics ofthe movie.
Then.
Laszlo recreates and createswith his own ideas.

(57:33):
He also kind of gets thisopportunity to reclaim what religion,
or maybe ideology and religionthat aren't his can mean to him.
He's building this veryProtestant type community center.
And in the end, it might verywell be more about his time at a

(57:55):
concentration camp and hiswife's time.
Well, I think the, the endingis much debated about.
Yes, it is, online and amongst critics.
And I don't really want totalk extensively about this because
it just seems completelyloaded with landmines of when you

(58:19):
start Talking about Zionism,it's like, oh, yeah, you know what
that means?
And yes, in 2025.
But it's interesting that hisniece only starts talking when she
says they do that flashforward and suddenly she's married
and pregnant and telling them,I'm going to Israel.
Yep.
Only time she.
Yeah, you're right.
And then she delivers a speechwhere she's gone from someone who

(58:42):
refuses to talk to someone whocan give an authoritative, very well
done speech to a large groupof people.
For her uncle, who apparentlycannot speak for himself at that
moment.
Yeah.
People thought that the.
The ending, if you take it atface value, you know, you go from

(59:03):
this, like, incredibly nuancedworld building thing to a very tidy
summary of like.
And then he did this, this andthis, and it all kind of worked out.
You know, he talks multipletimes when he's asked about architecture
and he said, well, the bestway to describe a cube is how a cube
is built.

(59:24):
Something like that.
And says over and over thathe's astounded that his buildings
survived the war.
He thinks that they work asart because they're not eroded by
moments in time and the wavesof politics or the waves of war.
All these things.
To then have his Zionist niecesay this is about the Holocaust was

(59:49):
interesting.
It can be interpreted that howshe wants to see it.
Right.
That's kind of what I'mgetting at is like, I think that
they're.
I think it's very moving.
If that is, if we, if we takeit at face value.
If we take it.
And you don't have to.
Because.
Because what you were sayingabout him and his wife's relationship
in the.

(01:00:10):
They just did such a good job.
I mean, Adrien Brody in this,if he doesn't win all of the awards,
I don't.
I don't understand why we have awards.
Him and Felicity Jones, Right.
Who plays his wife, the waythat they go through this traumatic
period and reunion and then tosay the building's about it, all
this.
I mean, it's.
It's so moving for it to bereduced at the end.

(01:00:35):
The niece says it's alwaysabout the destination, not the journey.
And it's such a pop psychologything to like, wrap up all of that
nuance and subtlety.
Yeah.
If what she said is true andit's not just how she wants to interpret
it and present it in 2025 or,excuse me, 1980 when she's talking

(01:00:55):
about it.
You're right.
It's a beautiful, deep,resonant structure that's that's
going to go well beyond.
But if it's not, then there'salso this notion of how do we interpret
art?
And is that your ownership ofthe art is your interpretation?

(01:01:17):
Harrison Van Buren may own orpay for the structure or have a large
chunk of it, but he's got noreal input into its art, its structure,
its layout, its design or its interpretation.
Especially as the years go onand, you know, who exerts power over
art.
There's a lot of that, Ithink, happening here.

(01:01:37):
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think, you know, I'm not.
I don't want to diminish herspeech at the end if it is to be
taken at face value, because,again, I do think it's very moving
and does work as a tidyexplanation of what you just watched.
You know, it's nice to seethat he went on to, you know, when
they do those flash frames oflike, he worked on this church, he

(01:02:00):
worked on the synagogue, hedid all of this.
That's a life well lived.
You know, that he moved notonly past the horrors of the Holocaust,
but I think it wasinteresting, the director said, what
do you say here?
This is about a character whoflees fascism only to encounter capitalism.
And he.
He still seems to continue to.

(01:02:22):
To thrive in spite of it.
I don't.
This.
As we talk more about it, justmore and more doors open.
He thrives eventually, but thepart we see is not a pleasant type
of thriving.
Well, then the question is, Ithink he is set up as a character
for whom he may not say thatthe destination is more important
than the journey, but he wouldsay the art is more important than

(01:02:44):
the artist, or the art isworth suffering for because it will
outlast the individual.
For him, all the things thathe did would mean that he was thriving.
Yeah.
The scene where Van Burenrapes Lazlo was not.

(01:03:06):
It was not graphic.
Almost to the point where Iquestioned what I saw.
The verbal abuse in the scenewas apparent and sick.
So I was shocked at howblatant his wife was when she confronts
Harrison at his home at the dinner.
And I appreciated it that shejust used the word, the exact words,
you're a rapist.

(01:03:27):
And I thought all that was hershowing up.
Yeah.
For that very first meal where he.
Then Buren throws the coin at him.
Yeah.
Yes.
And that this may play againinto the idea that he's willing to
take all of that.
Laszlo is.
In order to accomplish thisgoal of building this building, whatever
this building means to him.

(01:03:48):
But his wife has a muchstronger sense of it's.
Not a sense of self and it'snot pride, but it's like, why are
you taking this from this guy?
She was never charmed by thewhole thing.
And to see her, I loved theway that all of that played out,
that she was his champion.
Went in, yelled at him, andthen the guy retreats.

(01:04:09):
And as people have saidonline, he ends up lost in a piece
of art that he could nevercomprehend or fully own.
If it had ended there, I.
I would have loved it still.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
I'm not so sure if I wouldn'thave loved it even more, because
I really dig a certain kind of ambiguity.

(01:04:30):
There's still that.
There's still a ambiguity towhat Zofia's daughter had said at
the end in 1980.
A very important character, ina way that signifies where this movie
wants our thoughts to go, isthat of Harry Jr.
He's like his dad, but worse.
He.
He wants to cheat Laszlo outof Pavement.

(01:04:51):
He wants to do more with less.
He's the first to sexuallyassault someone in the movie.
His character really givesthis view that if you don't think
the older generation ofAmerica is full of rotten, like the
wife says, wait until you seewhat's coming next.
And in that, there's a bit ofDonald and Fred Trump even.

(01:05:11):
Yeah.
I mean, in the.
His.
His dad is a self made man.
Right.
And the son's a little spoiled.
Right.
So he has all of the badqualities on that.
That exponential growth orgrowth or devil.
Right, right.
Growth into.
Into being a shithead.

(01:05:31):
Everything was played wellwith that because he.
In some ways, he could havebeen so much worse.
But then he ends.
There are moments where youthink like, oh, they could really
have leaned into this clicheof the little shit son.
Yeah, they could have.
It was.
Yeah, it was.
But then by the end, when hedrags a crippled woman out of the

(01:05:52):
room, you're like, oh, this.
This dude is a monster.
Yeah.
Because he played it fairlysubtly and it's written fairly subtly
up up to the end.
Suddenly is not quite theadjective or adverb.
It's.
It's a step up above subtle.
Like you could probably getthe read on him.
But then of course, he does the.
The horrendous thing ofdragging her lot to unpack here,

(01:06:16):
least of all the racism and nationalism.
I don't want to be always theAmerica's Got Problems guy, but interesting
to set the movie right after atime when we're so glorious, just
after beating the bad guys,you know, we were so Wonderful.
And yet how did we treat those?
We just helped in some cases.

(01:06:38):
The idea that people can justfall through the cracks, you know,
even in that post war boom.
Even the way that he is Van Buren.
Didn't they say early on thathe made a lot of his fortune during
the war by he did somethingwith like building ships or something
like that?
I think Attila the cousintells Lazlo that pretty early on

(01:07:02):
that's where the family moneyis, is coming from.
Attila the cousin Attila.
Yeah, I know that with the wayyou said that hit me again.
Another idea.
Yeah.
And you could.
Everybody could probably tellwhat the idea was.
There's these two men on.
Placed in different stationsin life.
One profiting on the thingthat destroyed the other.
No, it's just.

(01:07:23):
I mean it's right there on thesurface, you know.
Yeah.
I was shocked by the rapescene and the rape.
But I also didn't see it beingan addict story.
Didn't know that going in.
Or wouldn't have guessed.
No, I wouldn't.
And again, it's like how manythings is this movie doing?
It.
It's heavy.
It's almost.
I said earlier, I think it.

(01:07:44):
It looks at each of those rocks.
It.
It looks under all the rockswell enough.
But it does make perfect sensethat he's an addict.
There's.
That's not that I didn't expect.
It doesn't make it not perfect.
It.
His bifurcation from his wifedoesn't stop his love.
But when he finally sees heragain and her changes, he can't replicate

(01:08:06):
that love hardly.
It's not that it's gone.
He just can't do it.
And instead he creates.
He maybe creates this centerin honor of her in a way, but also
tries to rewrite history.
And that is a much addicts story.
Yeah.
So Corbett, the director, he.
He doesn't include any WorldWar II moments.

(01:08:28):
Leaves everything from theconcentration camps and the war,
even Laszlo's trip to America.
All that's unseen.
Boy, that's a big choice for amovie of this size.
Could have been a monetarychoice, but it's a.
Still a big choice.
I think it works really well.
You know, apropos of nothinggoing on in the world at large, I

(01:08:49):
am interested in the idea thatwe have a more complete picture of
World War II than we wouldhave had.
We lived through it in some ways.
Like you couldn't have knowneverything that was going on at every
moment as it happened.
And so like at that dinnerthat he has where he meets the Lawyer

(01:09:10):
who's finally going to helphim to get his wife out of Europe.
They are asking thesequestions like they vaguely know
something horrible happened,you know, but do you really know
the depths of it?
Yeah.
And the way that he neverreally talks about it.
Like, Attila doesn't reallywant to talk about it.

(01:09:31):
Right.
When he first gets there to the.
Point where he's not evenEuropean, he's an American.
Right.
He's.
He's Catholic.
We're Catholic.
That's right.
That's right.
That's what he says.
That had a.
Not to derail in thisdirection here, but in talking about,
obviously it's a film aboutcapitalism, but it's also about America
in the same way Mad Men isabout America.

(01:09:52):
Agreed.
Attila saying, I am Catholic.
Miller and sons.
There is no Miller, there areno sons.
It's saying, you can dowhatever you want here.
Huh?
Yeah, you can do.
Be whoever you want to be.
Listeners are going to hate mefor constantly doing this.
But that's.
That's what Bob Dylan said Inhis famous 2004 interview in 60 Minutes,

(01:10:15):
you know, when they said, whydid you change your name?
He said, because it's America.
You can be anybody you want.
Yeah.
I love that notion, though.
This is presented in a sad waymost of the time.
The complaints I've seen aboutthe movie, I think are very fair.
I can see them.
I think they make good points.
I don't even know if I fullyagree or disagree.

(01:10:38):
Some of them have been thatLaszlo's design would have had more
impact had they been shownthat and not told that or maybe just
ending it, you know, withoutthe epilogue.
That's a fair complaint.
You know, should.
Should there be more showingand less telling?
And even if you want herspeech to be dissected in two or

(01:11:03):
three.
Different ways, and I'm gonnasay it for the third time, the idea
that she says is very, very moving.
After you've just watched thisfilm about people trying to put a
marriage back together afterthis just unfathomable tragedy.
But it's also about, like, whogets to write history at any given
moment.
And the way that it's likekind of curtly explained, kind of

(01:11:25):
goes hand in hand with like.
Like all the newsreel footagethat they use and almost like a cut
up kind of thing.
Yeah, they do.
Pennsylvania.
Yeah.
When there's this wholesection about Pennsylvania is the
heart of civilization, youknow, like put together by the Pennsylvania
Chamber of Commerce orwhatever about.
That's a sentence I neverthought I'd.
Hear you say, but they want tomake you believe that.

(01:11:47):
Yeah, they did.
Whoever made that clip.
Of course, we know now thatthat's like a Rust Belt idea that
has just fallen by the waysideas the 20th century ended.
But if you.
If the war had just ended andyou're, like, working at a steel
plant, I mean, you're drivingWestern civilization, you know, and
people really believe the summation.

(01:12:09):
But have you ever.
Does a kid ever encounter thatidea now in America?
No.
So who has the authority tosay what about whatever, whether
it be a state or a work ofart, it's like, who gets to talk
about it at what time mattersmore than the thing itself.
Yeah.
And what you say and thinkabout it is your ownership.
Your interpretation is your ownership.

(01:12:30):
Yeah, Right.
And it's even presented in thesame way that a lot of that footage
was that it looked of its time.
I thought the aesthetic of theepilogue was genius, the way that
it looked like it was shot on VHS.
Part of it.
And, like, very, very 1980s.
Yeah.
It was doing the same thingthat those newsreels did earlier.
We could keep going, but we could.

(01:12:51):
Talk about this for three and a.
Half hours or longer.
I'm trying to be better aboutputting some chatter at the end.
You want to mention how MTVscrewed the pooch with the Challenge
All Stars 5.
Do we want to put ourcomplaints here?
What a shift of gears to.
I mean, from the brutalist tothe challenge.

(01:13:12):
Wow.
This is.
This is.
We don't have anythingdefinite to say about it because
we haven't seen it.
It's a challenge All Stars 5,MTV US on it.
It is ironic that they aretrying to make it more accessible,
and then.
They didn't make it.
Us people who watch everyseason have missed out on the first
episode.
Yeah, yeah.
None of us have watched it.
None of us or our usual crew.

(01:13:33):
I don't.
I don't.
I haven't talked to td.
I don't know if he's.
You want some.
Some challenge news?
Sure.
Today.
Today is Sunday.
Yes, it is Sunday.
The second.
Groundhog Day.
Groundhog Day.
So the scuttlebutt Today isbananas is teasing an announcement
which will have been made bythe time this podcast is out, but

(01:13:54):
it seems to hint fairlyheavily that he might have a meme
coin on the way.
Oh, Jesus Christ.
So I was hoping it was betterthan that.
A fucking meme coin.
Would you invest?
And how much would you investin a Bananas meme coin?
Well, seeing how I usually toethe line right around broke is zero.
They got banks to give you a loan.

(01:14:16):
I think.
I think Trump maybe stoppedthe loans there for a minute.
Can I still get one?
What a hilarious.
You think it's a.
A non sequitur to go frombrutalist to the challenge until
you find out that it is justcapitalism run amok all over again.
I know, but yeah, Yes.
I love that we were able totalk about the capitalism in the

(01:14:39):
brutalist, but there's.
There's more.
It's capitalism and art andownership and interpretation and
nationalism.
Yeah.
That's it for today.
We're on social media.
Of course we are.
But to be honest, the best wayto reach us is the email us at the
home side.
If you want to stay privatewith conversations, that's the best
way.
But if you just want to chat,you can leave comments on the site.

(01:15:04):
You can go and even listen tothe podcast on the site.
And 87 Jetta does that quite a bit.
One of our regular listeners,he goes in comments actually on the
site.
So you can just jump in there.
It's through discuss.
I think that's the account.
I mean, it takes a second to create.
There's nothing to it, but youdo that and then you can just leave
all kinds of comments acrossthe site as well as different sites

(01:15:25):
like vulture.com uses it as well.
We see those, we respond, wewelcome them.
We welcome them and we love it.
We love y'all.
So let us know what you're watching.
Let us know what we should watch.
If you have ideas for apodcast of your very own or thoughts
you want to share in writing,email us at the alabama take gmail.com.

(01:15:46):
you can find it on thealabamatake.com too.
Pitch us some ideas.
We'll be back next Tuesday.
Sorry for the absence, just alittle hiccup last week, but we should
be up and running.
Talk to everybody later.