February 25, 2025 • 66 mins
Blaine begins the week with a welcome and quick summary of the episode this week (0:01).
After getting Adam into the co-host's chair, Blaine begins the non-spoiler section and tries to convince him that 'The Pitt' is one of the best and most different medical dramas on TV, but is Adam sold on it (1:44)? The two also talk about the return of 'The White Lotus' on HBO for its third season (13:49).
For the spoiler section, the hosts unpack all the characters of the new third season of 'The White Lotus' from its first episode (23:39).
After 'The White Lotus,' they continue coverage of 'Severance': what do the pairs of the sixth episode have to hint for the back half of the second season (43:41)?
As always, visit The Alabama Take for more podcasts and writings.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello, this is taking it down.
If you're new to this podcast, welcome.
We are the working class TVand streaming podcast for the Alabama
Take website, which has awhole family of podcasts.
It's been my experience thatworkers of the world want to know
if something's worth watchingbecause they need their time.
(00:22):
That's why we do everythingwith a non spoiler section to begin
and a spoiler section afterthe break.
This week, regular listenersmay note that I'm swapping Donovan
with Adam.
All three of us will return asa crew soon, but today Adam and I
will begin the no spoilersection with a discussion on the
(00:45):
Max medical series the Pit,the return of the HBO series the
White Lotus, and we won't sayvery much about Severance this week
in the non spoiler section onthe spoiler side, we'll talk about
the White Lotus and its firstepisode back for season three and
the sixth episode of Severance.
(01:09):
Alabama take projection.
Okay, as promised, I'm herewith Adam.
But no, Donovan told you thatat the top, Donovan is catching the
big fish.
Donovan's got family, I thinkaffairs happening.
That's fine.
Adam was absent last week withmusical duties, not Sister Ray Davies,
(01:33):
which you should go online andcheck out because that's going to
be a pretty big thing this summer.
Sister Ray Davies, go checkout, especially if you like shoegaze
with a few twists involved.
You'll enjoy it.
Adam, I did this to Donovanlast week and perhaps it's only fair
to do it to you as the socalled host.
I'm gonna give you a show I'vebeen watching and open the floor
(01:54):
in this non spoiler sectionfor you to ask questions or talk
about it because.
You haven't seen it so far asyou know.
Oh, interesting.
This could be.
I have no idea what you'regonna say.
I just wanted to throw awrench in things that would be crazy
if.
You had watched it and I didn't.
Is it Mad Men?
No, I watched Mad Men.
It's this new show.
For some reason, YouTube TVnow has a channel called AMC Stories,
(02:18):
which I assumed was going to,you know, greatest hits the first
weekend.
I believe it started early ona Sunday and I discover it later
that day and Natalie says, oh,so you found the Mad Men channel?
As if she'd been like,dreading me finding out that this
exists.
And they've just been playingit on a loop for like three or four
(02:39):
weeks now.
So it is a Mad Men channel.
In a way, you know, like whatyou said.
I assumed, like Breaking Badwould come next.
The terror could be on there.
The greatest things they've done.
But no, it's just been so.
If you're ready to talk aboutMad Men.
I am.
I'm there with you.
But tell me about this other program.
I'm always ready to talk aboutMad Men.
(03:00):
I know I started watching theMax medical drama.
The Pit stars Noah Wy and alot of other great but I suppose
kind of unknown actors.
It was created by R.
Scott Gimmel who worked on ERon NBC quite a lot.
So this is going to make sense.
It's huge difference, hugecontrast between the two shows though
(03:21):
this one's set in Pittsburgh,it's on Max, which is.
Allows for entirely moregruesome scenarios.
And lastly it covers theiremergency department at an hour at
a time.
I love that the openingepisode starts with the primary character,
Dr.
Michael Robotovich.
I think his name is.
Everybody calls him Dr.
Robbie or just Robbie.
(03:42):
Starts with his shift at 7amthat's the Noah Wiley character.
You strike me as a guy whodoes not dig medical shows.
What.
What makes you think that?
One thing is when I brought itup in our group text, you didn't
really say anything, youdidn't reply, you didn't buy.
So you have evidence.
(04:02):
I thought you were justinferring based on other personality
traits beyond that.
So when I brought it to youand Donovan I assumed that neither
of you are big into it.
My.
And I think it's because thesame thing I am never pulled into
medical dramas before.
It's because I associate themso heavily with er with Grey's Anatomy
(04:24):
which would have been on whenwe were in college.
Those are to me more melodramathan drama.
It in.
In fact I don't know that I'veever watched a medical drama like
ever.
Donovan in his.
In his reply says that hewatched the Nick, which is one I
wanted to watch.
So I think I've alwaysassociated him with this near soap
(04:48):
soap operatic type of writingand acting that's been my.
My read on the medical dramaas like a.
Like how do you avoid it beinga cliche?
It's almost the nicest thingyou can say about one is that it's.
It's not like most medicaldramas because it seems to be the
most closed set genre piecething that you can do.
(05:13):
Like it's almost like oh it'sa western.
Oh, it's a medical drama.
Oh it's a whatever like goingto the doctor.
Why do I want to watch it on tv?
I don't that's funny, Adam.
I don't.
I mean, like the.
The Nick program.
I understood it was muchbuzzed about.
Yeah.
But I.
It was also on Cinemax at atime when nobody really had Cinemax.
(05:35):
I watched solid amount of thefirst season.
You did?
Yeah, I did.
Just because I was curious.
And I like a piece ofhistorical fiction.
Uhhuh.
And it also starred one of myfavorite actors, Clive Owen.
I mean, it was a good show,but one of the things that they're
doing is discovering thingsthat we take for granted now.
(05:58):
They're supposed to be thesegenius doctors who are living in
this brutal world.
This was early 20th century doctors.
Right.
But it's still.
So.
It's just shocking howgruesome it is.
Yeah.
And I don't go in for thegruesome medical stuff.
Okay.
Like, even in.
(06:18):
Even mild stuff.
Like, we may talk about somethis week with one of these shows.
Okay.
I don't.
I don't mind, and I don't.
I can't explain my brain here.
Violence that results insomething gruesome happening, that's
one thing.
But if it is a medicalprocedure being shown not too close
to home.
There were two.
(06:39):
One show that I really enjoyed.
I.
I feel like Millennials.
If you want to startsubdividing us, let's do one sub
generation.
Could be the Scrubs generation.
Okay.
That.
That show was a specific brandof humor and kind of got eclipsed
by its contemporaries and thenlater the derivations of that.
(07:02):
So, like, the Office ends upbeing bigger and then Parks and Rec
and Community, all the stuff.
So Scrubs is not remembered inthe way that I assumed it would be
at the time, but the kind ofoddball humor stuck out at the time.
And there was a.
It was more than just a setting.
You know, there was a medicalcomponent to it that they.
(07:22):
They leaned into some of thetropes occasionally, and I enjoyed
that quite a bit.
And I watched House when Housewas at its peak, just because it
was a fun, like, potato chipkind of show.
Exactly.
And I'm about roughly 10 yearsolder than you.
Maybe just a little more.
Actually.
ER was on my television all ofmy teenage years and into college
(07:45):
era.
It was in that crucialThursday night slot after Seinfeld.
So I bet you remember itpretty well, even as a young guy.
And I can go way back and sayGeneral Hospital, which was a true
soap opera in the middle ofthe day that my grandmother would
watch.
That's what I've alwaysassociated medical dramas with.
Not so much the medical, butthe Drama, and I would even say melodrama
(08:06):
are so soap opera.
So I've avoided it.
I think for those reasons.
I always took it as cheap as flippant.
I do realize ER rose above therest of broadcast TV at the time.
I do acknowledge that.
I think I was just too youngto, to really watch it or sit still
for a whole 45 minutes worthof it.
(08:26):
It just didn't cater to me asan early teenager.
I was out doing other things,watching Seinfeld and then off to
do whatever.
But I'm so glad I gave the pita shot.
That's the show we're talkingabout here on Max.
It is fantastic.
It's not thatmelodramalodramatic at all.
It's just too fast to be dramatic.
(08:49):
It's well acted.
The story happens betweencharacters as they're treating patients
in this trauma center.
So what I mean by that is youhave to be a careful watcher because
you have to read into thelooks they give one another.
Maybe one doctor gives a nurseor a doctor gives another doctor.
And it's not the usual oh,they're in love glance.
(09:09):
It's a glance that they have history.
Maybe this guy doesn't trustanother doctor for this or that reason
and you just don't know yet.
I'm only four episodes in.
There are eight that are streaming.
It's a weekly episode, whichalso appeals to me.
Weekly series.
And if you don't like aspecific scene or story, don't worry.
It changes so suddenly.
The camera kind of follows acouple of doctors around and it is
(09:34):
so fast that a curtain will open.
They'll go in, try to diagnosea patient, talk to that patient,
give those glances you're toread into them, and then they're
off to another patient as theyclose the curtain.
And it's, it's at a neck breakspeed that fits our world quite well,
but it also keeps you frombeing bored.
(09:56):
And, and everything I've readabout it is that it is the most realistic
medical show that's, that'sbeen on.
How gruesome is it?
Oh, there, there are two thatcome to mind right now, and I'm only
four episodes deep in that.
I mean, look, look away fromthe tv.
Gruesome.
Noah Wy is the primarycharacter, as I mentioned, he's just
(10:17):
crushing it.
I know he was on ER as Dr.
John Carter, but there's noway he could have played that character.
This character then he'snearly grizzled.
But as Paul Simon said, he'ssoft in the center.
And I could laud all of theactors, but he's the primary character
and, man, he could carry a show.
(10:37):
I'm ready to see him inanything now.
I don't mention anyone elsebecause most of them are actors who
are.
Who give you the oh, yeah,I've seen them vibe, but no names
will come to mind.
You'll.
You'll use IMDb a lot andappreciate their style and what they
bring.
And here's the thing.
They could be on threeepisodes because they're in there
(10:58):
for three hours, or they mightbe on one episode because they just
got a stitch.
It's kind of a cool thing.
I don't know.
And I'm pray I'm talking about it.
You can tell I'm talking aboutit as a guy who's never watched medical
dramas, because everybody elsewho's listening to this is probably
saying, well, yeah, that'swhat they did on House, or that's
what they did on er.
I mean, Dave Matthews was onan episode of House.
(11:21):
No, he was not.
He was a patient.
That's so funny.
There's some trivia for you.
It does lend itself to, likeyou're saying, bringing.
Bringing folks in and out of frame.
Yeah.
You want to use somebody just.
It's like a Seinfeld girlfriend.
Right.
They're not sticking around.
But then.
But here in this show, they could.
They could.
They could be in there for atrauma that lasts five episodes,
(11:43):
and I think it's going to runabout 12 or 15 episodes.
Like it's an extended piece oftelevision, too.
Just.
That's rare these days.
It is rare.
It's got a more.
It's almost like it's blendingeverything you could possibly say
that's good about broadcastalong with HBO and melding the two,
which is brilliant and whysomeone hasn't done it already.
(12:04):
This may be the most juvenilestatement I've made about a show
on this podcast, but I mean itwhen I assert that this show is about
death way more than any shows are.
That maybe that we've covered.
That may be obvious is why Isay it's juvenile, but maybe not.
I think that series thatpredate the Pit, like Grey's Anatomy
or er, are more interested incharacter interactions and relationships,
(12:26):
whereas this one is about death.
And I'm not talking aboutwhat's it like to die, what's in
the great beyond, but no, thephysical act of dying.
It is very interested in that.
The brutality of it.
Yes, thank you.
Yes.
Or even just that it's notthat brutal.
(12:48):
Yeah, that it's.
It's a thing that's happeningevery day.
That's interesting.
I haven't thought about, youknow, you mentioned Grey's Anatomy
and shows like that being more about.
I don't know, I've neverwatched a complete episode of Grey's
Anatomy but it seems to bemore about who's hooking up with
who and that.
Yeah, that sort of thing.
Yeah, that kind of dramascrubs dealt with death and I mean
(13:10):
there's a few very famousepisodes that are very moving but
they're more.
What you're describing is likethe emotional resonance if not what
happens in the great beyond.
Like how are the people here affected?
How are they sorting out theirown feelings about mortality and
what's important, these sortsof things versus just.
(13:30):
Yeah, that's.
I can't think of the show thatis just matter of fact about it there,
ma'am.
It is very interesting.
Not so much of what happensright after you die, but what happens
right when you lead up to it.
It's.
Yeah, I think it's a reallygood show.
If anyone out there iswatching it, let me know what you
think.
Which is a nice segue for me.
(13:53):
For us to talk about the WhiteLotus in our non spoiler section.
I love it when we get commentson our site or emails.
Our pal Mr.
87 Jetta floored me this week.
He said in an email thattaking it down has been a weekly
staple for me for over half adecade now.
Dang saying.
And he says saying half adecade rather than five years makes
(14:15):
it sound longer.
He says as a joke.
And I thought, wow.
I think the truth is we mighthave actually done this podcast a
little longer than five years.
Well, it's.
It's weird because it's.
The pandemic was just last year.
Right.
2022 is going to be wild whenit comes next year.
Yeah, we started this podcastin 2018, summer.
I think that sounds right.
(14:37):
And he says five years.
So we've been a little longerthan he had picked up on us.
So that's wonderful.
Thank you.
By the way, Mr.
Mr.
Jetta.
So white Lotus is where we'reheaded next.
Non spoilers for to begin.
Just, just in case anybody'swondering, what is this show?
Why is it by talking about it online.
It's an HBO anthology whichresets every season.
(15:00):
Tells a tale as old as time.
Rich mostly white guestsconverge at a high class resort called
the White Lotus and someonegets murdered.
Ain't that all vacations init's funny.
That I just said I don't likethe genre piece that a medical show
usually provides, but usuallywhen I say on this show, oh, it felt
(15:24):
like a play.
It felt like a strong setpiece with defined setting and, you
know, characters running intoeach other.
And I.
That's a positive thing.
I usually love it.
So I realized the hypocrisy here.
But, yeah, I love the show.
I love White Lotus.
Okay.
I think it's a genius setup.
I can't remember if we talkedabout this on air or in text, but
(15:46):
just.
They would have to dosomething profoundly disappointing
for me to not continue watching.
Yeah, season one was great.
Season two was great.
The inertia and theintelligence of what they're doing,
I feel like is going to carrythem through for a long time.
You know, it's.
And then I think of otheranthologized shows like True Detective.
(16:09):
Steep drop off for season two.
I feel like this.
This knows what it's trying to do.
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, we're gonna get intosome of that a little.
It's.
The series, of course, isknown for two things.
Bringing back a character froma previous season and starting with
a mystery that shows us, like,the first bit of it, and then it'll
back up a week or so touncover how it all came to be.
(16:32):
Mike White is the writer and creator.
And I always had to mentionthis every season because he wrote
and I think maybe even had ahand in directing the ultimate Saturday
afternoon movie, School.
Of Rock, and is in.
And he's in it.
Yes.
Ned Schneebly, he plays him.
This is.
I always picture him in that movie.
When I picture who's writingthis and pulling the strings and
(16:55):
doing.
I mean, I know.
It's funny, isn't it?
20 years has gone by sincethat's a juxtaposition between.
Between what you expect as a.
From this writer and what heactually looks like.
Why.
And his crew go into theseseasons, they know their exact backstory
for each of these characters,is my feeling, to the point that
it's.
(17:15):
I'd say this.
It's almost off putting.
Like, well, I'm watching lastweek's episode, and I'm thinking,
wait, am I supposed to knowwho this is?
Is.
You know, there's a part ofthis story, I'm supposed to know
what I miss.
The answer is usually no.
He just colors the pages wayahead of time, and you don't get
to see what he's done untilhe's ready for you to, you know,
(17:39):
to reveal.
It almost watches like readingRussian literature.
I realize this is like aprofoundly pretentious thing to say,
but when you.
No, no, you read the.
The Russian greats and one.
There's like a million namesfor everybody.
That's tough, you know, so it's.
It's tough to feel you're likewho's talking to who.
And they're all usuallypresenting as well off and important
(18:02):
and wealthy.
But that falls apart undercloser inspection.
A lot of the time I don't.
In the meeting of again, themeeting of characters in, you know,
I think about like Dostoevskyriding like gamblers gathering at
a casino.
You know, like they're not ontheir home turf yet.
They're in a space thatthey're comfortable with that society
(18:22):
has given them.
And the show.
I mean, again, you said it atthe top.
It's almost a cliche.
Rich people gather, thingsfall apart, you know.
But when you were saying thatabout the.
You just know that he has areal depth of knowledge for all of
these characters going in andyou're kind of just expected to.
(18:43):
To keep pace with him rightfrom the word go.
Reminded me of.
It's a very literary show inthat way to also be a very sexy show.
Oh yeah.
It hems closely to theShakespearean definition of tragedy.
You gotta have somebody ofimportance who has this internal
defect of character thatcauses shit to go down.
(19:06):
Yeah.
The series does do a fine jobof ensuring it's all revealed at
once, but not at once.
It kind of doles out juicytidbits of information and it does.
So unlike Shakespeare who willhave a character just stand on stage
and tell you everything.
Maybe an act or two in.
You have to read it on theirfaces in some cases this season.
(19:28):
3.
Pretty heavy on the southernfolk here.
Parker Cozy's laying it onthick as a southern belle.
Yeah, exactly.
You wonder.
It's an ugh thing.
She's a very rich mom fromNorth Carolina and she of course
is a Tar Heel because shekeeps saying it.
Her filthy rich husband is Mr.
Ratliff.
(19:48):
He graduated from Duke.
Their three kids carry theschool rivalries to a point of contention.
And though this episode hintsat some darker things amongst this
five, we can't say too muchbecause we're non spoilers.
More southern flair withWalton Goggins character as Rick,
also in Thailand.
(20:09):
And you know, he's.
He's simmering in a placethat's supposed to be known for relaxing
you.
All we really know is that theWhite Lotus and its purpose of its
first episode have youconstantly determining what's their
issue, what's that guy'sproblem, what's this lady's issue,
what's their defect in.
A more intense way than thefirst two seasons, I think.
(20:32):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And maybe they're playing withour expectations a little bit.
You know, when say season Iassume we're in.
It's okay to spoil season one.
You're trying to kind offigure out who's good, who's bad,
who's going to die.
Yes.
And it's, it's the classicsetup of we know someone we're going
to encounter or someone hasdied and we're going to figure it
(20:53):
out.
This one, you know, thingseroded in that season and we're starting
in a place this time where youimmediately have more questions about
every character, I think.
Yeah, if that makes sense.
It does.
And you're.
I think you're spot on.
They're playing with their own legacy.
I love for shows to go weekfor week, but I'm not so certain
(21:15):
that this particular season ofLotus couldn't have benefited from
a two episode premiere.
It to me you're, you'retalking about how they're.
They might be playing withtheir own history but it felt lacking
to me than previous years.
It felt not as, not as propulsive.
Although interesting.
What, what am I speaking on there?
(21:37):
I don't know if it's.
Are you.
Do you think you bring.
You know, the season one andtwo are like finished pieces in my
mind.
Are you bringing anexpectation of it to do more in one
episode?
I can remember thinking aboutmidway through this episode like
where are you gonna coloroutside the lines of your template.
(21:57):
And I think maybe there's abit of, you know, season two had
more familiar faces come backimmediately continuity of storyline
as well as Aubrey Plaza who'sman pretty major star power immediately.
And I mean there is star powerin this one.
There you know, movie starsare in this but it.
(22:18):
That felt more.
And again I joked aboutSubdivisions of Millennials earlier.
It seemed like she had areally good year last year career
wise and this was like oh,this is part of her.
One of our own ascends back tothe heights here.
Tough to compete against thesizzle between Aubrey Plaza and Theo
(22:41):
James last season.
A note for listeners as weapproach the break that yep, as promised
we're going to talk about SEand its sixth episode but since we
discuss it episode by episodeon a weekly basis I think we'll usually
skip our general feel feelingsabout that Apple TV plus show.
Go watch It.
There's my general feeling.
Yeah.
You know, we're obviously onboard because we're covering it.
(23:03):
Usually if we drop something,we've lost some interest.
So we won't put much in nonspoiler sections for recent episodes
of Severance.
Sometimes we might, sometimeswe won't.
Okay, that takes us to our break.
Yeah.
Give a listen here to apodcast you might enjoy.
Some friends of ours forsports analysis and recaps that don't
(23:27):
require yelling and will admitwhen they're wrong.
It's time for taking on sports.
Look for taking on sports inany podcast app, part of the Alabama
Take family of podcasts.
Okay, we are now in spoiler section.
For those who need that reminder.
We'll kind of go in order.
We won't mention the pit herein spoiler section.
(23:48):
Since only Adam.
Excuse me.
Since only I have watched it.
I'm not sure if I sold Adam onthe pit.
Did I sell you on it?
I don't know if I got thestomach for it.
I look away on those scenes.
Man.
We'll see.
The characters are so real.
I just.
I'm just curious what youwould think.
But we are in the spoiler section.
We're gonna back up to theWhite Lotus and its first episode
(24:11):
titled Same Spirits, Different Forms.
It's a kind of a fitting title.
Directed by the creator MikeWhite, this season has monkeys all
over the place.
My God, are the monkeys.
You know, I talked about atthe very end of the spoil non spoiler
section.
I liked the episode, but Ithought that because of the template
(24:33):
it uses or may be playing withthat this particular cast, or maybe
it's the amount of timebetween seasons.
It's been two and a half years.
I just did not feel asinvested in this one as an opening
episode as I have in the past.
That's not to say I won't bein love with it, you know, in two
weeks.
Didn't hook you.
(24:54):
Not quite.
Again.
It's tough to compete againstAubrey Plaza and Theo James, a goofy
grandfather who can't rememberwho's flirting with everyone because
he can't remember anything.
Exactly.
That was last season.
This set of rich bastards allfelt like they could have been in
any season of the White Lotus.
You know, they got their firstworld problems, some more concerning
(25:16):
than others.
This particular White Lotuscast group of people might be more
into wellness, which is funny.
That's a kind of a trend these days.
Wellness.
Yeah.
That's yourself is.
You think that's part of it.
Perhaps that didn't grab youas much that the first one.
First season, we had no expectations.
And it's these.
Yeah.
Beautiful shots of Hawaii.
(25:37):
Season two, you've got someItalian glamour, I guess, and just
jungle.
Well, it's.
It's beautiful.
It is jungle.
And it's.
We're going to meditate andput our phones in bags.
And I'm into that as a viewer.
(25:58):
Sure, why not?
And we were in spoilers here, right?
Yes, sir.
The intro to this one, thesetup, I think this is the best one
they've done.
Now, that I agree with.
That was horrifying.
Yeah, that's what the word Iwas going to use was this.
You know, it makes season oneseem tame.
It does.
(26:19):
Like, the vague idea someone'sgoing to die is kind of like a polite
murder mystery dinner partyset up versus a mass shooting event.
I mean, this is.
It's almost like season one,you get the whispers of someone's
gotten killed.
Season two, you get a gunshotor two.
And then season three openswith what sounds like a mass shooting.
(26:41):
And that is scary.
Yeah.
And to just follow one personin real time as they experience this
and the juxtaposition of, youknow, later in the episode, you find
out this is the wellness hubfor all of the white lotuses.
This is one of the premierplaces in the.
In the world.
And you have who you figureout as Belinda's son there doing
(27:05):
his meditation.
He doesn't want to recognizethe gunshots.
Finally he says, that's, youknow, we have to move.
And then just all hell breaks loose.
So there's a tension to thewhole thing, you know, like with
the shots of the securityguards that are armed and things
like that that you think, man, things.
It's not just going to be kindof chaotic, like maybe someone overdoses
(27:26):
or maybe something, you know,there's a suicide or something like
that.
There's going to be a violentevent happening.
Yeah.
Huh.
Belinda's the returncharacter, as is often part of the
template.
You know, she's from the firstseason, and she sees that she isn't
the only black lady at theupper crust resort, and she gives
this big noticeable hello tothe other black couple.
(27:48):
And I was questioning, wait,should I know them?
Like, they spent a lot of timehaving her say hello that it took
me a minute to say, oh, she'sjust noticing she's the only lady
of color.
Or she's not the only lady of color.
Right.
As against they're playing allalong with how she has to navigate
(28:09):
a work world.
Like, we all have a workVoice, you know, in a way of conducting
ourselves.
But now she.
We see that break a bit whenshe sees the lizard for the first
time on the.
That was hilarious.
I almost wondered if theydidn't tell the actress that that
was going to be there becauseit seemed so well played by her.
(28:30):
It allowed for her Audi tocome through.
Right.
Right.
But even when they show herwhere she's going to be staying while
she's training and sherealizes I'm living more like a guest
than I am one of the staff.
I thought that was.
It was fun to see someone whohas to be sympathetic.
(28:51):
The most sympathetic characterin season one, kind of have nice
things happen to them.
Yeah.
After you see the bait andswitch of being offered to fund a
wellness center that then getspulled away.
And it's.
You kind of wonder how manytimes has this happened to her.
This is just somethingpositive is going on in her life.
(29:12):
Here you get these characters.
You're used to thinking, allright, what's their problem?
I'll say this.
And I think this is my major complaint.
Which will go away in a fewweeks or should.
The opener worked too hard toget me involved in the intrigue and
not as hard to get me involvedwith the characters.
It was too much mystery andnot enough.
(29:34):
Here's who this person is andwhy you should like or dislike or
be interested.
I think that's fair.
And maybe the.
The drama of it is it's almosttoo much, too early.
It could be.
Yeah.
And then as you start meetingthe characters, there is just not
a lot of sympathetic energy.
(29:56):
That's my.
As well.
Yeah.
Pair that with them.
We get the Ratcliffe's first.
Let's just talk about a few ofthese people.
They seem to be in troublewith some tax issues.
Investigation around suchissues from the Wall Street Journal.
That's.
Now they're the pure assholesof the season.
But they're not even.
I mean, they have the.
The daughter Piper.
(30:17):
Right.
Who.
Who could be decent, seemsdecent and is interested in this.
This Buddhist temple down theroad and.
But then you've got dad, whoseems like a total asshole, and mom,
who is so medicated that shefalls asleep at the.
The public dinner table.
(30:38):
Mom likes the pills.
She's into the pills.
Now Timothy, apparently is the patriarch.
I think that's his name.
Did he drop his Southernaccent a few times?
Do you think it was on purpose?
I couldn't tell.
Their accents were.
This feels like a rare momentfor us to just be complete experts
on something.
Yeah.
They're very Bad.
(31:00):
Yeah.
Parker Posey seems like she'sa better actress than they said.
I'm not so sure.
She's not from New Orleans orsomewhere in the South.
Atlanta.
No, I think she's just a New Yorker.
Right?
That's a good question.
She should know better.
Born in Baltimore, so South.
Ish.
TD Wood would tell you that'sthe South.
But she.
(31:21):
She lived in Laurel,Mississippi, for a time.
Well, that's very south.
That's pretty.
Pretty south down there,almost along the coast.
She never quite loses hers,but it is so damn thick.
It's unrealistic or showy.
You know, it could be thatshe's always on the pills and she's
just.
That's the way she sounds like.
And then their three kidsdon't have one at all, which is.
(31:42):
That's a generational.
That's kind of believable.
Yeah.
I thought that was of thethings that they've done.
The fact, you know, taking herand comparing her to her daughter's
way of speaking is.
Yeah, like you said, thegenerational idea of losing accent
and trying to be more worldlyand blah, blah, blah.
Does your accent thicken whenyou get around your grandparents?
(32:04):
I don't think so, but Iobserved that happen in other people.
Mine does.
When I used to get around mymom or dad or I'd be on the phone
with them.
It was thick.
Another really disturbing moment.
Maybe as much as the gunshotsthat opened the show.
Was the Ratliff son sharing abedroom and the older of the two,
(32:25):
Saxon, does not hide hismasturbatory exercises in front of
his younger brother to thepoint that he hinted.
Or he asks if he wants to join in.
I mean, it's.
Dude, does he ask that?
He's like, what do you prefer?
And he's pulling.
Pulling it up as if to readyhimself on his phone.
(32:45):
I thought he was just makingpolite conversation.
Do the monkeys symbolize incest?
Because I'm getting some bigincest energy from older brother
Saxon.
Every.
Everything that he does is disturbing.
And I mean, he seems like a sociopath.
Just.
Yeah.
I mean, he's maybe the.
He's commented on his sister's looks.
(33:07):
Right.
I'm not so sure that Lachlanwasn't checking out older brother
Saxon when he went to thebathroom to Andrea.
This is immediately.
The Internet says, well, theyoungest brother is gay.
That's fair.
He gives a look to a guy.
The pool.
Apparently that I missed thatpeople noted the less gross read
on the bedroom bathroominteraction is him looking at his
(33:32):
Brother, like, are youseriously doing this right now?
That's how I thought.
That's how I read it.
And then I got to thinkingabout it more and I was like, well,
older brother talks way toofamiliar about his sister being pretty
good looking, should be having sex.
And then younger brother looks.
And I'm trying to piece it all together.
(33:52):
Is that.
Is that all of a piece.
Are those separate things?
Well, just.
Yeah.
In the immediate implicationthat he doesn't imply it, he just
says it.
You shouldn't share a roomwith our sister.
That's not appropriate.
Why would that beinappropriate if something weird
is going on?
And the way that his momreacts when he.
(34:13):
What does he say something about.
He uses like, almost like achildlike term like genitals or something
like that.
And she says, you're notsupposed to say that.
And the way that sheimmediately puts her foot down on
that in this, like, it's likethey're in some sort of weird stuck
in childhood kind of state.
And the whole family seemslike with the accent, like they're
(34:34):
stuck in Civil war era kind ofNorth Carolina.
It makes you ask prettyuncomfortable questions about like,
why is mom drugging herself constantly?
Did she.
Is there some weirdrelationship between one of the parents
and one of the kids?
Is, you know, the sistertrying to get younger brother to
(34:55):
stay with her because she'sthe only sane one and trying to shield
him in some way because sheknows older brother is trouble?
Well, if any of that's true,it is perfect that they went to UNC
and Duke because that's thetobacco road.
And if you've ever readErskine Caldwell's Tobacco Road,
(35:17):
that that vibe's prevalent inthe novel.
Love that they brought theSoutherners on to bring the.
The incest.
Yeah.
Thanks a lot.
Yeah.
Maybe you start with the ideaof we want a.
An older brother to have thehots for his sister, and then you
give him a southern accentafter that.
Like, that form just followsthe function there.
(35:38):
Right.
To be fair, the kids don'thave the accent.
There's a great shot of thethree kids, though, where they're
sitting on a.
On a bench and it mimics theSee no evil, hear no evil, speak
no evil of monkeys.
Yeah.
Continuing to list sex Saxonsmore than.
(35:59):
And you know, that name's soclose to sex there.
Anyway, more than gross issues.
He.
He pays way too much attentionto his sister.
And that is ArnoldSchwarzenegger's son who plays.
And he's pretty good at getting.
Using choices that conveycreepy, spoiled, rich.
He 100% is a frat guy I've raninto in a college town.
(36:24):
Yeah, absolutely.
So well done there.
I mean, he.
As I thought about episodeone, again, he is the main thing
that stuck with me.
Yeah.
I don't love that.
And that's saying a lot whenyou got Walton Goggins in the cast.
Yeah.
Who's one of my favorite actors.
Maybe you're not as into thisone because season one we had Sydney
(36:47):
Sweeney and AlexandriaD'Addario and then Aubrey Plaza.
And now this frat boy iswhat's stuck in your head.
This is quite the downgrade.
Yeah.
Let's switch to Walton Goggins.
I brought him up.
He plays Rick, and he sure waslooking woefully at a picture of
the lady who owns the place.
Former actress and what lookedto be Scott Glenn in.
In a picture with her asprobably her husband.
(37:08):
You have to think that's anestranged father situation.
You think it's an estranged father.
What did you think?
I went obvious.
What do you think?
He kind of alludes to the factthat he can't go back to Australia.
Right.
Goggins does.
Yeah.
Rick.
That perhaps there's acriminal element to whatever he's
(37:30):
doing.
Maybe he's looking to extortsomeone or.
All the way to the extreme end.
He could be a hitman of some sort.
Yeah.
Well, he's not.
He's not pleasant and chill.
To be there.
Being there is annoying him.
Yeah.
Smoke in the Ratliff's face.
He's.
Yeah.
(37:51):
Was kind of hilarious to watchbecause as that scene unfolded, this
is.
This is good storytellingright off the bat.
Great acting.
That.
How did I end up sympatheticwith the person smoking the cigarette?
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
Like, that person's neverright in real life.
Not.
Not when they're blowing thesmoke in the face.
No.
Right, right, right.
(38:11):
You kind of clock the.
The Ratliff family and you'relike, oh, yeah, I'm on the side of
the guy blowing the smokehere, for sure.
Yeah.
He would be more of a fan oftaking it down.
He's our audience.
The Rick guy would be more sothan the Ratliffs.
But if that's Scott Glenn inthe picture.
I do think it is.
That makes two people straightfrom the set of Bad Monkey, because
(38:32):
Michelle Monahan, she's thesomewhat famous American actress
on vacation with two childhoodbesties, she's also from Bad Monkey.
Talk about some first world problems.
Those two had to go from Keywest for a set of a show to Thailand
for their Jobs.
I mean, brutal bra.
Yeah.
Michelle Monaghan.
(38:53):
I think it's Monaghan Monahan.
Her character's Jacqueline,and she's an actress of some renown.
And then the resort owner is aformer actress there in Asia, there's
this motif that White.
Mike White establishes she'spouring on some niceties to her buddy
(39:15):
Kate and her other palace, Lori.
Laurie's played by CarrieCoon, and she's like, you know, oh,
I brought you here.
Don't pay for anything.
I'm treating you.
And the other two are justseething at this idea that she's
successful.
They all hate one another.
That's.
That's the immediate read onit, for sure.
(39:37):
And then it kind of gets alittle more nuanced when you realize
that Carrie Coon's character,Laurie, is the odd man out in the
whole thing.
Yeah.
And she's pissed.
Is she pissed or does.
There's, like, a certainfeeling of desperation and moments
like that when she goes in herroom and sees him and just, like,
(39:58):
loudly yet quietly sobs.
I don't know.
But everyone online feels like that's.
That's the relationships.
Those are the relationshipsthat will break apart at the seams
and create the event.
That seems obvious.
It seems too obvious.
Right.
Goggin's doing something crazy.
(40:19):
Feels.
I mean, there's.
Chekov has a gun strapped toboth of those security guards, you
know.
Yeah.
You know the other thing thatcould happen, A monkey could get
hold of one of those guys.
Dudes.
That was my thought.
The other motif is the monkeys.
What are the odds that thegunshots were just monkeys who've
had enough?
Oh, they got organized.
(40:42):
They're viewing.
You know, we don't get Tanyaand the gays trying to kill her,
but she died anyway.
But we do get her husband, exhusband, whatever he is now widower
Greg.
There he is.
And he's got a new young girlfriend.
Apparently it's a thing forthis resort or even Thailand itself,
(41:02):
to have bald men with hotyoung girlfriends to the point they
have a nickname for them.
I'm not good with rememberingthings with the White Lotus because
of the stretch it takes tofilm these.
But Greg was never fully shownto be active in trying to get Tanya
killed.
Right.
It was just heavily alluded to.
(41:22):
Heavily granted.
Implied.
And you.
You never know if he meets herin season one and it's a crime of
opportunity or if the wholething was orchestrated in some way.
But he's living off her cash,isn't he?
Right now seems to be doing pretty.
Well because they're notstaying at the White Lotus.
They live or have an extendedstay up the hill, right?
(41:46):
Yeah.
And Belinda's gonna recognize him.
She knows him well.
That's been discussed onlinethis week.
This.
This person that she.
Did they meet in season onebeyond, like a.
An interaction that she wouldhave had with guests a hundred times
a week.
But she worked for Tanya.
(42:07):
Did that relationship extendbeyond season one?
That's a good question.
It's one for the Internet.
It does seem like that they'reon a crash course to recognizing
each other and to maybequestions being asked.
We would think that Belindawould have knowledge of what happened
in Italy.
How this resort has continuedto convince people to come visit
(42:31):
based on its.
How's the Better BusinessBureau not been brought in on a White
Lotus?
Well, they're clearly notresearching because they, you know,
TripAdvisor did not convincethe Ratliffs or tell them, you know,
he brags about, I find all thebest spots and they try to take their
cell phones and it does not go well.
Greg's appearance makes himlook a lot more haggard than he seemed
(42:54):
the last time we saw him.
He's.
Is he missing that cowboy hatjust a little too much, or is he
dying?
In Italy, we saw a picture ofyoung Greg, cowboy hat and all.
One read is he could haveactually been sick and that what
he says is going on.
He does say that.
And he coughs a lot.
And then his cough kind ofgoes away.
Two would be that he has beenavoiding law enforcement in some
(43:18):
way for some months.
Hey, he works for the.
For the Bureau of Land Management.
Thank you very much.
Maybe he's been let go.
Elon fired him and he went to.
Went to Thailand.
I can't help but look at himand think he's gonna try to throw
a football over a mountain.
You think that's coming from Napoleon?
(43:40):
His role in Napoleon?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, speaking of monkeyswho've had enough, we'll discuss
the sixth episode of Severancetitled Attila.
If I may, I'll start with an email.
We got an email in and Ithink, what, two emails this week?
Something like that.
Second week in a row we've hadeither two comments or two emails
or both.
(44:00):
This one's from Ben Stiller.
This one's from Ben Stiller.
We must be doing something right.
Then again, emails sometimes can.
You can turn that caps lock off.
Ben.
This is actually from TimHamilton, one of our friends from
SETI Bimco podcast.
He writes.
Enjoyed your talk aboutseverance, episode five.
So he's Going to be addressingsomething that you weren't here for,
(44:21):
Adam.
So we'll blame Donovan.
Okay, that sounds great, hesays, but.
I was talking aloud to thecomputer that you didn't talk too
much about how Mark having sexwith Haley.
Not any.
Not realizing she was AudiHeli would really mess with his head.
It was Irving who figured itout after all.
If this happened to me, I feelit may shatter my self image and
(44:43):
my confidence in my own intelligence.
Does he like Audi Heli better?
Mark's our avatar, maybe ourhero for this first season.
But now I feel like Irving,Heli and Dylan are more so I like
Mark a little less and less.
Well, Mark turned out to be a baddie.
Plus you didn't mention thelast line in episode five.
That line suggests Mark's Audicould kill someone.
(45:04):
I cannot believe that Donovanneglected his duties to such a degree
that this email.
Oh, I forget so much week to week.
I'm so happy.
Happy listeners are patientwith us.
But yeah, those are not gonnahappen on my watch.
Well, I appreciate the emailbecause that those are excellent
points and I do like to usethem here in our podcast.
But I don't know that Mark will.
(45:26):
Will become an antagonist.
That just.
It feels as though Lumenitself has that very well handled.
Will he become a tool of Lumen?
I don't think so.
But there's other ways tobecome a bad for the show.
I think that those.
That was a pretty prescientemail to come before this week.
(45:50):
Yeah, we can go right intothis week because we're in spoiler
section.
So what do you think?
That was one of the centralaction points, right?
That Mark and Helly figuringout how that has affected them.
You know, he finally admitswhat happened.
But you also see Audi Mark notbehaving in like the most stand up
(46:14):
way or the most consistent waywith how he has behaved in the past.
You know, he's kind of a jerk.
To his sister, but he wasunder duress.
He was under duress, but he created.
Here's someone who wants tohelp him and he's keeping her at
arm's length and kind ofacting impulsively.
And I think you see moredarkness in him than has been shown
(46:38):
so far.
You know, season one, itestablishes this is a depressed widower.
Yeah.
But I think there could bemore to it.
And it made me think ofanother Apple show shrinking, where
you're kind of wondering allalong, you know, there's been a driving
accident of some sort, who'sresponsible for what here.
I feel like Mark's darkness,especially in this episode, is just
(47:01):
brought upon by his circumstances.
It's not so much that he'sgoing to become some worse version
of himself.
I mean, he could, but it'sbecause of going through this process
and it's just not.
Yeah, he's scared that hecould die at any minute because that's
what happened to Petey.
(47:22):
I think that there.
There's.
There's folks making all kindsof theory posts and videos out there,
and one that I saw, you know,they're also playing with, with Bert
and Irving, the idea of resets.
And this is something thatHelena also threatens Coble with.
Maybe we need a reset.
(47:42):
Yeah.
Early this season.
Is it possible?
Because they can clearlycontrol brains if you're at Lumen
or not.
Based on the overtimecontingency, could they possibly
be screwing with the Audis aswell in some way?
I think so.
Yeah.
I would think so.
When they have the con.
(48:02):
I know we're really flying allover the place here.
When Helena confronts Mark atthe Chinese restaurant.
Yes.
I feel like there's this.
A series of very intentionalthings that she says.
Okay.
Like saying Hannah as a mistake.
He corrects her to.
(48:23):
These are all things thatthey're gauging.
You have to assume that sheknows everything.
Huh.
And that she's testing him asfar as reactions go to all of this.
She was to see if he was.
Has changed any.
If he has been able to becomehis any.
So by saying Hannah to hisAudi, that's a test, right?
(48:47):
Well, who is Hannah?
It's a test for her to.
For him to correct her.
To say Gemma.
Am I wrong about that?
I think that maybe, you know,some people have said, was his wife
pregnant when she died?
Would Hannah have been.
And Helena even says so young.
(49:07):
You know, she means a.
An adult who was still youngish.
Or she could have meant maybean unborn child that they were going
to name Hannah or somethingalong those lines.
I mean, obviously the show isset up to where you can read in a
thousand details like that,but it.
Also tends to answer within aweek or two.
(49:28):
It doesn't.
It allows you to speculate,but it doesn't elongate that speculation
process.
It.
It does also do such a goodjob of burrowing in on what should
be simple ideas.
I mean, the whole premise ofthe show is that you were split in
half and one half goes to workand one half lives on the outside.
(49:49):
So we've had years at thispoint to make peace with this idea,
yet they're still Milking thatfor new emotional terrain.
Yeah, they're doing great.
This episode was all about that.
Right.
Like how many times did theBurton Irving find each other on
the severed floor where theyboth reset at times?
(50:10):
Do they pos.
If they can control Audis too,Do they have some history there?
Dylan is shown again him andhis wife.
Any.
Dylan has more chemistry withhis wife than his Audi self.
Yeah.
And now you have Mark flashingback and forth.
Heli to me is the only onewhen she is fully heli who is not.
(50:32):
You don't question her.
You know, I don't think you dowith Dylan either.
You're just.
You're haunted by the idea oflike this is the best version of
this guy.
Yeah.
In a sad way.
Right.
Helly is completely her.
And she had.
We joked early.
Not joked, but said, you knowwhat happens if you come in with
(50:53):
a hangover?
And then it got a little moreserious before they.
Before the sexual encounter.
What happens if somebody's pregnant?
Yeah.
And you're just suddenly.
You know.
Which is why they would wantto control as much as they can outside
as well.
Right.
But she has a great littlerapid fire of dialogue about how
much she hates her outy selffor getting up every morning and
(51:18):
dressing me like I'm a dolland sending me in here.
Do you remember that?
When did she say that?
It was early on in the episode.
She's talking to Mark.
No.
Just how much she resents thiswoman that he slept with.
Well, okay, let's.
Let's back up and cover someof these in depth.
Yet Mark finally does admit tosleeping with who he thought was
(51:41):
heli.
He says this to Haley and Britt.
Lauer moves from acting thatshows disappointment that it's not
her to creep out to jealousyto pure eyes anger.
And that all happens in a nicefour seconds.
There is.
Is it before that that shementions I'm so pissed at being dressed
(52:02):
like a doll.
It's either then or.
And I should have.
I should have pulled notes for this.
But when she's.
She's walked around and comesback to talk to.
To Mark again.
Yeah.
He's decided he's going to gofind her and she's also coming to
find him.
And they almost run into her.
She walked away and then tookoff her shoes and then sat down.
But the whole shoe thing, Idon't know.
It was very.
(52:23):
I want to put that in there ifyou don't have to.
Yeah.
I don't know.
I don't have to read on the shoes.
Me either.
We get the return of Dylan'swife Gretchen for a visit.
And I failed to mention howgreat an actor Merritt Weaver is
back in her first appearancethis season.
Glad Riders brought her back.
So many opportunities for justendless fascinations between the
(52:47):
two and she's very much morein love with any Dylan than any other
version of her husband.
And he's smitten too and.
But she feels a lot of guiltfor that.
It also brings up the ideathat for Dylan specifically, you
know, there, there is no.
This sounds brutal to sayabout somebody who has a family at
(53:09):
home, but it's just as muchthat his Audi is working s as any.
And I think maybe he'ssuffering more than any of the other
ones because he shows up,seems to pass his wife as she goes
out the door for a nightshift, is responsible for kids all
night long, but has no senseof, you know, he's very good at that
(53:30):
job.
But his Audi self gets none ofthe satisfaction of that, none of
the pride in work.
And so all he does is pass hiswife at the door, take care of kids,
goes in, doesn't remember athing, comes home and does it again.
So his, the monotony of thathome life is, you know, not a bad
(53:52):
thing if you were also gettingpurpose somewhere else.
Yeah, I guess that's the pointthey're trying to make.
Yeah.
The show loves to pair things.
It loves pairs.
This week it paired kisses andit had a hint that it won't end well
for one of the Dylan's.
I suspect his Audi back on thecouch is the one that's going to
(54:13):
get the end of the stick.
But we get the kisses being paired.
It's, it's Dylan and his realwife of course, but it's his any
kissing her and then Mark andHadley kiss and then go on to have
sex one more time.
Which makes you wonder who the.
What circumstance is going toproduce the child that we all think
(54:35):
is going to.
Yeah.
Be born.
You know, it's worth notingthat Gretchen lies about not seeing
any Dylan.
Yeah.
Due to a cancellation.
She lies about that's againfor them to have this idea for so
long to be presented with thesevered concept and still finding
ways to make me go, man, thatis heartbreaking that, you know,
(54:58):
here's somebody who a bit beatdown by life and all of a sudden
you find and get to spend timewith like a youthful, less jaded
version of the person you fellin love with.
Yeah, yeah, man, that's so cruel.
It's cruel to everyone involved.
I talked A few weeks ago abouthow I find it hard to swallow or
(55:19):
wrap my head around thecharacters not feeling some semblance
of connection to their Audi or any.
But here heli.
Well, Brit Lauer I supposesold it to me.
She.
She paints this stark image ofan innie and Audi being vastly different
to the point of being anotherperson when she, she got pissed off
(55:39):
at her Audi.
Like I wanted to be the one tosleep with Mark, to kiss Mark, whatever
it was.
And I'll say that their sexualencounter felt.
Felt less like a tent, morelike the plastic they use for dead
bodies.
It was not to continuallyreturn to Twin Peaks, but that plastic
(56:02):
wrapped in.
Plastic, founder wrapped in plastic.
It's.
It was definitely a contrastto a fire lit tent.
Well, everybody all warmed upand yeah, that was.
Yeah.
Not as sexy.
A far cry from that.
Yeah.
I have a question for you.
You feel as though you'veeradicated from yourself your childish
(56:24):
follies.
That was a great scene.
I loved it.
I mean he, Milchick goes intothat room to work on his evaluation
stuff.
Right.
Like he's putting paperclipson repeatedly.
He eliminates reps in to do it.
Right.
Yeah.
Eliminates the fancy wordssomebody had rightfully pointed out.
(56:49):
You know I don't think theEnnis are the ones informing on him.
You know Mark doesn't tell the board.
Oh he didn't understand allthe words that he said.
It's Ms.
Wong that's telling him.
Yeah.
You know all of this stuff.
Yeah, yeah.
Donovan and I speculated asmuch that it's her.
She's really ratting him.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh yeah.
(57:10):
I thought that it wasfascinating that he is demanding
to the man in the mirror.
There's that duality again togrow up.
Yet he's reverting to simple phrases.
He's reverting to more.
More childlike or easier tounderstand things.
Because they're playing a lotthis season with showing us just
(57:32):
how childlike the Enies are.
That's right.
Someone astutely pointed out.
And when I say someone inthese, I don't mean a reviewer, I
mean somebody on Reddit that Ias I come through they said it's
really clever to have thisteenage girl watching over these
(57:53):
adults who are actuallychildren to drive home, you know,
who do you hire to babysityour kids?
What's the old trope?
You Some, some high school girl.
16 year old high school girl.
That's right.
That's who's watching the kids.
There you go.
Speaking of Bert and IrvGiving them a visit.
Fields is Bert's husband, andhe calls Bert Attila.
(58:16):
That's the title.
But they say they got thatfrom calling one another hun.
You know, it evolved into that.
Field says it came aftermeeting a severed partner of Birch
20 years ago.
But Irv is quick to point outthat the first severed office didn't
open until 12 years ago.
Or it was 12 years ago.
So the timeline there is different.
And Bert unsuccessfully shutsdown Fields from.
(58:38):
From drinking.
Fields unabashedly questionsif they've had sex, unprotected sex,
and even says, any should havelove, they should have this going
on.
Almost impressive.
He talked about it with his pastor.
Yeah.
So weird.
This was the Christian.
(59:00):
Yes.
Bird makes the first mentionof any religion on this show that
I'm aware of on how he got to Lumen.
He split himself so he couldhave a better chance, or one of his
selves would have a betterchance to go to heaven.
And I've been playing with theidea that this is reminiscent of
Scientology, but yet here's areal mention in the show of religion.
(59:26):
It makes it feel even moredystopian that his pastor would be
forced to have an opinion onsuch a thing.
You know, to accept as realitythat human beings may have been able
to split a soul in some way.
Yeah.
Do they.
When you split yourconsciousness like that, does it
split your soul?
(59:46):
I still don't know if you cantake anything said at that dinner
at face value.
When they make Bert out to bethat he is, he has done such bad
things that he needs to hedgehis bets by splitting his soul and
creating a more childlikeversion of himself to act right in
a, you know, contained environment.
(01:00:08):
It's a fun look at nature, nurture.
If you.
Whatever you are, whateverthat every religion has a different
way of understanding the you.
Your consciousness is splitand put into a non worldly place
in a way, a place that's hyper structured.
(01:00:29):
Would you thrive there versuswhatever he's done going through
the temptations of a fallen world.
If he has this Christianworldview and a Lumen worldview.
You know, it's odd thatsomebody that they have basically
turned Lumen into religion,that somebody who is so deeply in
(01:00:50):
their church world would bewhat seems to be like a foundational
part of the Lumen process.
Right.
He's clearly got more to dowith severing than he's letting on.
Right.
That's.
That seems the case.
And I wouldn't be surprised ifBert was falsifying his interest
in chemistry With Irv, becauseI think his name's Drummond.
(01:01:15):
He was in somebody somewhere,as you know, Iceland.
The big guy, he's in Irv'shouse snooping around.
We don't see him break in.
We just get the very quicklook at him looking through some
files that we knows in Irv's house.
So did Burt.
He was watching him.
Did he lure him?
Did he invite him?
Yeah.
Get him out of the house.
(01:01:35):
Get him out of the house.
Go get him out.
Well, we'll definitely findout, I suppose.
Yeah.
I just.
I don't know that you canbelieve anything that was right said
at that dinner.
It all.
It felt weird all along.
And even the way that it waslit, you know.
Yes.
Bert has a very like evilemperor kind of look behind him the
(01:01:56):
whole time.
It's very dark, black behind him.
Discussing heaven and hell infront of the fireplace.
There's that image.
Yeah.
Well.
And we know that Irv has beenreset Right.
At work, that he used to workin other departments but has no memory
of it.
Okay.
Is it possible that him andBert had.
Yeah, yeah.
(01:02:17):
That idea of would, you know,if Mark and Helly were just two severed
co workers and it wasn't theperson who's running the company,
if they bumped into each otheron the street, would there be some
spark?
You know, does ourconsciousness carry over?
And they kind of seem toindicate that it might at that Chinese
(01:02:38):
restaurant.
Even though they're havingthis pretty.
Becomes a pretty intense conversation.
Yeah.
Where they're kind of factfinding on each other.
Before we move on from Irv, I.
Will say I want to.
I do want to circle back to that.
Okay, go ahead.
I'm getting to that.
They still have this moment ofkind of joking around and like easy
chemistry with each otherthat's kind of undeniable.
Even though they being Irv and Bert.
(01:03:00):
They being Helena and Mark atthe Chinese restaurant.
But then to support the ideathat maybe Bert and Irv fell in love
multiple times on the severedfloor and were re set in some way
and that Fields knows this.
Huh.
Again, it's.
It's like a.
A mirror to Dylan and hiswife's situation.
(01:03:23):
Right.
How do you.
How do you deal if this personkeeps finding this guy?
Huh.
In this world that you don'thave access to, what do you make
of that as this person's partner?
Kind of a little comment onsoulmate or something.
Right?
Yeah.
Britt Lauer.
This was her episode, if youask me.
When she does follow Mark tothe Chinese restaurant or appears
(01:03:43):
there she presents herself asthis affable, flirtatious boss and
not a steely head of lumen aswe've seen her in all these other
meetings.
Of course, she it up bycalling Jim a Hannah.
Now, is that a purposeful fuck up?
If so, it could be.
To check on, is this truly his Audi?
(01:04:03):
Has he changed?
Is he doing something at home?
Great dichotomy too, that theset for the Chinese restaurant is
so much in blatant contrastwith the office spaces.
It's so dark in there, youalmost had to lean in to see what
was going on.
And usually when they share aframe, it's just white and, you know,
(01:04:24):
so bright on the screen.
And then you get the Chineserestaurant there and it rattles Mark
enough that he wants to gowhole hog at home with this lady.
And I never remember her name,but I don't think she's a medical
professional.
Before it's over, Mark's onthe floor and he, you know, I'm no
doctor either, but he looks bad.
(01:04:45):
Something, something is notgoing well.
And that's when his sistercomes in.
Yeah.
And we talked about how he's,he's, he's really kind of mean to
her, but he's also goingthrough some shit in that.
But he's moment he's.
To me, he's been mean to herby excluding her from this.
Right.
This is the one person in theworld that you get the sense that
(01:05:05):
they are very close for, evenfor siblings, you know, maybe that
they're.
Some people have inferred sometrauma bonding maybe from their childhood
that they are protective ofeach other.
Are they twins?
Now that would be funny.
Another idea of splitting.
Yeah.
Another compliment of the show.
(01:05:26):
But to exclude this person whois the only one who's consistently
had your best interest at heart.
Right.
I mean, people in tryingcircumstances and not trying circumstances
drive people away who areclose to them, but obviously he's
going through it and thiswould be part of it, but it's still
like, come on, man, she wantsto help.
(01:05:48):
Unless we hear something elsethat it's probably just a matter
of.
She wouldn't let me do this.
She would probably physicallyget involved and hold me, you know,
restrain me and I wouldn'twant to do this.
He knows that he's, he's gonewith this idea.
Yeah.
Well, we'll end here and we'llalso remind you that if you enjoyed
(01:06:09):
this podcast, why not leave acomment on the home side of the Alabama
take?
There's a place for commentsat the bottom.
Real easy.
We read them.
We read them on air.
Or you can send an email tothe alabamatakemail.com I know that's
not taking it down, but that'sour home site.
We everything gets bundled upinto that.
(01:06:29):
You can always leave a reviewin your podcast app for taking it
down.
Do all three.
Boy howdy.
That would be a great week forAdam and for Donovan, who will be
back with us next week.
This was a lot of fun.
We hope you enjoyed it andwe'll talk to you next week.
Hello, this is taking it down.
If you're new to this podcast, welcome.
We are the working class TVand streaming podcast for the Alabama
Take website, which has awhole family of podcasts.
It's been my experience thatworkers of the world want to know
if something's worth watchingbecause they need their time.
(00:22):
That's why we do everythingwith a non spoiler section to begin
and a spoiler section afterthe break.
This week, regular listenersmay note that I'm swapping Donovan
with Adam.
All three of us will return asa crew soon, but today Adam and I
will begin the no spoilersection with a discussion on the
(00:45):
Max medical series the Pit,the return of the HBO series the
White Lotus, and we won't sayvery much about Severance this week
in the non spoiler section onthe spoiler side, we'll talk about
the White Lotus and its firstepisode back for season three and
the sixth episode of Severance.
(01:09):
Alabama take projection.
Okay, as promised, I'm herewith Adam.
But no, Donovan told you thatat the top, Donovan is catching the
big fish.
Donovan's got family, I thinkaffairs happening.
That's fine.
Adam was absent last week withmusical duties, not Sister Ray Davies,
(01:33):
which you should go online andcheck out because that's going to
be a pretty big thing this summer.
Sister Ray Davies, go checkout, especially if you like shoegaze
with a few twists involved.
You'll enjoy it.
Adam, I did this to Donovanlast week and perhaps it's only fair
to do it to you as the socalled host.
I'm gonna give you a show I'vebeen watching and open the floor
(01:54):
in this non spoiler sectionfor you to ask questions or talk
about it because.
You haven't seen it so far asyou know.
Oh, interesting.
This could be.
I have no idea what you'regonna say.
I just wanted to throw awrench in things that would be crazy
if.
You had watched it and I didn't.
Is it Mad Men?
No, I watched Mad Men.
It's this new show.
For some reason, YouTube TVnow has a channel called AMC Stories,
(02:18):
which I assumed was going to,you know, greatest hits the first
weekend.
I believe it started early ona Sunday and I discover it later
that day and Natalie says, oh,so you found the Mad Men channel?
As if she'd been like,dreading me finding out that this
exists.
And they've just been playingit on a loop for like three or four
(02:39):
weeks now.
So it is a Mad Men channel.
In a way, you know, like whatyou said.
I assumed, like Breaking Badwould come next.
The terror could be on there.
The greatest things they've done.
But no, it's just been so.
If you're ready to talk aboutMad Men.
I am.
I'm there with you.
But tell me about this other program.
I'm always ready to talk aboutMad Men.
(03:00):
I know I started watching theMax medical drama.
The Pit stars Noah Wy and alot of other great but I suppose
kind of unknown actors.
It was created by R.
Scott Gimmel who worked on ERon NBC quite a lot.
So this is going to make sense.
It's huge difference, hugecontrast between the two shows though
(03:21):
this one's set in Pittsburgh,it's on Max, which is.
Allows for entirely moregruesome scenarios.
And lastly it covers theiremergency department at an hour at
a time.
I love that the openingepisode starts with the primary character,
Dr.
Michael Robotovich.
I think his name is.
Everybody calls him Dr.
Robbie or just Robbie.
(03:42):
Starts with his shift at 7amthat's the Noah Wiley character.
You strike me as a guy whodoes not dig medical shows.
What.
What makes you think that?
One thing is when I brought itup in our group text, you didn't
really say anything, youdidn't reply, you didn't buy.
So you have evidence.
(04:02):
I thought you were justinferring based on other personality
traits beyond that.
So when I brought it to youand Donovan I assumed that neither
of you are big into it.
My.
And I think it's because thesame thing I am never pulled into
medical dramas before.
It's because I associate themso heavily with er with Grey's Anatomy
(04:24):
which would have been on whenwe were in college.
Those are to me more melodramathan drama.
It in.
In fact I don't know that I'veever watched a medical drama like
ever.
Donovan in his.
In his reply says that hewatched the Nick, which is one I
wanted to watch.
So I think I've alwaysassociated him with this near soap
(04:48):
soap operatic type of writingand acting that's been my.
My read on the medical dramaas like a.
Like how do you avoid it beinga cliche?
It's almost the nicest thingyou can say about one is that it's.
It's not like most medicaldramas because it seems to be the
most closed set genre piecething that you can do.
(05:13):
Like it's almost like oh it'sa western.
Oh, it's a medical drama.
Oh it's a whatever like goingto the doctor.
Why do I want to watch it on tv?
I don't that's funny, Adam.
I don't.
I mean, like the.
The Nick program.
I understood it was muchbuzzed about.
Yeah.
But I.
It was also on Cinemax at atime when nobody really had Cinemax.
(05:35):
I watched solid amount of thefirst season.
You did?
Yeah, I did.
Just because I was curious.
And I like a piece ofhistorical fiction.
Uhhuh.
And it also starred one of myfavorite actors, Clive Owen.
I mean, it was a good show,but one of the things that they're
doing is discovering thingsthat we take for granted now.
(05:58):
They're supposed to be thesegenius doctors who are living in
this brutal world.
This was early 20th century doctors.
Right.
But it's still.
So.
It's just shocking howgruesome it is.
Yeah.
And I don't go in for thegruesome medical stuff.
Okay.
Like, even in.
(06:18):
Even mild stuff.
Like, we may talk about somethis week with one of these shows.
Okay.
I don't.
I don't mind, and I don't.
I can't explain my brain here.
Violence that results insomething gruesome happening, that's
one thing.
But if it is a medicalprocedure being shown not too close
to home.
There were two.
(06:39):
One show that I really enjoyed.
I.
I feel like Millennials.
If you want to startsubdividing us, let's do one sub
generation.
Could be the Scrubs generation.
Okay.
That.
That show was a specific brandof humor and kind of got eclipsed
by its contemporaries and thenlater the derivations of that.
(07:02):
So, like, the Office ends upbeing bigger and then Parks and Rec
and Community, all the stuff.
So Scrubs is not remembered inthe way that I assumed it would be
at the time, but the kind ofoddball humor stuck out at the time.
And there was a.
It was more than just a setting.
You know, there was a medicalcomponent to it that they.
(07:22):
They leaned into some of thetropes occasionally, and I enjoyed
that quite a bit.
And I watched House when Housewas at its peak, just because it
was a fun, like, potato chipkind of show.
Exactly.
And I'm about roughly 10 yearsolder than you.
Maybe just a little more.
Actually.
ER was on my television all ofmy teenage years and into college
(07:45):
era.
It was in that crucialThursday night slot after Seinfeld.
So I bet you remember itpretty well, even as a young guy.
And I can go way back and sayGeneral Hospital, which was a true
soap opera in the middle ofthe day that my grandmother would
watch.
That's what I've alwaysassociated medical dramas with.
Not so much the medical, butthe Drama, and I would even say melodrama
(08:06):
are so soap opera.
So I've avoided it.
I think for those reasons.
I always took it as cheap as flippant.
I do realize ER rose above therest of broadcast TV at the time.
I do acknowledge that.
I think I was just too youngto, to really watch it or sit still
for a whole 45 minutes worthof it.
(08:26):
It just didn't cater to me asan early teenager.
I was out doing other things,watching Seinfeld and then off to
do whatever.
But I'm so glad I gave the pita shot.
That's the show we're talkingabout here on Max.
It is fantastic.
It's not thatmelodramalodramatic at all.
It's just too fast to be dramatic.
(08:49):
It's well acted.
The story happens betweencharacters as they're treating patients
in this trauma center.
So what I mean by that is youhave to be a careful watcher because
you have to read into thelooks they give one another.
Maybe one doctor gives a nurseor a doctor gives another doctor.
And it's not the usual oh,they're in love glance.
(09:09):
It's a glance that they have history.
Maybe this guy doesn't trustanother doctor for this or that reason
and you just don't know yet.
I'm only four episodes in.
There are eight that are streaming.
It's a weekly episode, whichalso appeals to me.
Weekly series.
And if you don't like aspecific scene or story, don't worry.
It changes so suddenly.
The camera kind of follows acouple of doctors around and it is
(09:34):
so fast that a curtain will open.
They'll go in, try to diagnosea patient, talk to that patient,
give those glances you're toread into them, and then they're
off to another patient as theyclose the curtain.
And it's, it's at a neck breakspeed that fits our world quite well,
but it also keeps you frombeing bored.
(09:56):
And, and everything I've readabout it is that it is the most realistic
medical show that's, that'sbeen on.
How gruesome is it?
Oh, there, there are two thatcome to mind right now, and I'm only
four episodes deep in that.
I mean, look, look away fromthe tv.
Gruesome.
Noah Wy is the primarycharacter, as I mentioned, he's just
(10:17):
crushing it.
I know he was on ER as Dr.
John Carter, but there's noway he could have played that character.
This character then he'snearly grizzled.
But as Paul Simon said, he'ssoft in the center.
And I could laud all of theactors, but he's the primary character
and, man, he could carry a show.
(10:37):
I'm ready to see him inanything now.
I don't mention anyone elsebecause most of them are actors who
are.
Who give you the oh, yeah,I've seen them vibe, but no names
will come to mind.
You'll.
You'll use IMDb a lot andappreciate their style and what they
bring.
And here's the thing.
They could be on threeepisodes because they're in there
(10:58):
for three hours, or they mightbe on one episode because they just
got a stitch.
It's kind of a cool thing.
I don't know.
And I'm pray I'm talking about it.
You can tell I'm talking aboutit as a guy who's never watched medical
dramas, because everybody elsewho's listening to this is probably
saying, well, yeah, that'swhat they did on House, or that's
what they did on er.
I mean, Dave Matthews was onan episode of House.
(11:21):
No, he was not.
He was a patient.
That's so funny.
There's some trivia for you.
It does lend itself to, likeyou're saying, bringing.
Bringing folks in and out of frame.
Yeah.
You want to use somebody just.
It's like a Seinfeld girlfriend.
Right.
They're not sticking around.
But then.
But here in this show, they could.
They could.
They could be in there for atrauma that lasts five episodes,
(11:43):
and I think it's going to runabout 12 or 15 episodes.
Like it's an extended piece oftelevision, too.
Just.
That's rare these days.
It is rare.
It's got a more.
It's almost like it's blendingeverything you could possibly say
that's good about broadcastalong with HBO and melding the two,
which is brilliant and whysomeone hasn't done it already.
(12:04):
This may be the most juvenilestatement I've made about a show
on this podcast, but I mean itwhen I assert that this show is about
death way more than any shows are.
That maybe that we've covered.
That may be obvious is why Isay it's juvenile, but maybe not.
I think that series thatpredate the Pit, like Grey's Anatomy
or er, are more interested incharacter interactions and relationships,
(12:26):
whereas this one is about death.
And I'm not talking aboutwhat's it like to die, what's in
the great beyond, but no, thephysical act of dying.
It is very interested in that.
The brutality of it.
Yes, thank you.
Yes.
Or even just that it's notthat brutal.
(12:48):
Yeah, that it's.
It's a thing that's happeningevery day.
That's interesting.
I haven't thought about, youknow, you mentioned Grey's Anatomy
and shows like that being more about.
I don't know, I've neverwatched a complete episode of Grey's
Anatomy but it seems to bemore about who's hooking up with
who and that.
Yeah, that sort of thing.
Yeah, that kind of dramascrubs dealt with death and I mean
(13:10):
there's a few very famousepisodes that are very moving but
they're more.
What you're describing is likethe emotional resonance if not what
happens in the great beyond.
Like how are the people here affected?
How are they sorting out theirown feelings about mortality and
what's important, these sortsof things versus just.
(13:30):
Yeah, that's.
I can't think of the show thatis just matter of fact about it there,
ma'am.
It is very interesting.
Not so much of what happensright after you die, but what happens
right when you lead up to it.
It's.
Yeah, I think it's a reallygood show.
If anyone out there iswatching it, let me know what you
think.
Which is a nice segue for me.
(13:53):
For us to talk about the WhiteLotus in our non spoiler section.
I love it when we get commentson our site or emails.
Our pal Mr.
87 Jetta floored me this week.
He said in an email thattaking it down has been a weekly
staple for me for over half adecade now.
Dang saying.
And he says saying half adecade rather than five years makes
(14:15):
it sound longer.
He says as a joke.
And I thought, wow.
I think the truth is we mighthave actually done this podcast a
little longer than five years.
Well, it's.
It's weird because it's.
The pandemic was just last year.
Right.
2022 is going to be wild whenit comes next year.
Yeah, we started this podcastin 2018, summer.
I think that sounds right.
(14:37):
And he says five years.
So we've been a little longerthan he had picked up on us.
So that's wonderful.
Thank you.
By the way, Mr.
Mr.
Jetta.
So white Lotus is where we'reheaded next.
Non spoilers for to begin.
Just, just in case anybody'swondering, what is this show?
Why is it by talking about it online.
It's an HBO anthology whichresets every season.
(15:00):
Tells a tale as old as time.
Rich mostly white guestsconverge at a high class resort called
the White Lotus and someonegets murdered.
Ain't that all vacations init's funny.
That I just said I don't likethe genre piece that a medical show
usually provides, but usuallywhen I say on this show, oh, it felt
(15:24):
like a play.
It felt like a strong setpiece with defined setting and, you
know, characters running intoeach other.
And I.
That's a positive thing.
I usually love it.
So I realized the hypocrisy here.
But, yeah, I love the show.
I love White Lotus.
Okay.
I think it's a genius setup.
I can't remember if we talkedabout this on air or in text, but
(15:46):
just.
They would have to dosomething profoundly disappointing
for me to not continue watching.
Yeah, season one was great.
Season two was great.
The inertia and theintelligence of what they're doing,
I feel like is going to carrythem through for a long time.
You know, it's.
And then I think of otheranthologized shows like True Detective.
(16:09):
Steep drop off for season two.
I feel like this.
This knows what it's trying to do.
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, we're gonna get intosome of that a little.
It's.
The series, of course, isknown for two things.
Bringing back a character froma previous season and starting with
a mystery that shows us, like,the first bit of it, and then it'll
back up a week or so touncover how it all came to be.
(16:32):
Mike White is the writer and creator.
And I always had to mentionthis every season because he wrote
and I think maybe even had ahand in directing the ultimate Saturday
afternoon movie, School.
Of Rock, and is in.
And he's in it.
Yes.
Ned Schneebly, he plays him.
This is.
I always picture him in that movie.
When I picture who's writingthis and pulling the strings and
(16:55):
doing.
I mean, I know.
It's funny, isn't it?
20 years has gone by sincethat's a juxtaposition between.
Between what you expect as a.
From this writer and what heactually looks like.
Why.
And his crew go into theseseasons, they know their exact backstory
for each of these characters,is my feeling, to the point that
it's.
(17:15):
I'd say this.
It's almost off putting.
Like, well, I'm watching lastweek's episode, and I'm thinking,
wait, am I supposed to knowwho this is?
Is.
You know, there's a part ofthis story, I'm supposed to know
what I miss.
The answer is usually no.
He just colors the pages wayahead of time, and you don't get
to see what he's done untilhe's ready for you to, you know,
(17:39):
to reveal.
It almost watches like readingRussian literature.
I realize this is like aprofoundly pretentious thing to say,
but when you.
No, no, you read the.
The Russian greats and one.
There's like a million namesfor everybody.
That's tough, you know, so it's.
It's tough to feel you're likewho's talking to who.
And they're all usuallypresenting as well off and important
(18:02):
and wealthy.
But that falls apart undercloser inspection.
A lot of the time I don't.
In the meeting of again, themeeting of characters in, you know,
I think about like Dostoevskyriding like gamblers gathering at
a casino.
You know, like they're not ontheir home turf yet.
They're in a space thatthey're comfortable with that society
(18:22):
has given them.
And the show.
I mean, again, you said it atthe top.
It's almost a cliche.
Rich people gather, thingsfall apart, you know.
But when you were saying thatabout the.
You just know that he has areal depth of knowledge for all of
these characters going in andyou're kind of just expected to.
(18:43):
To keep pace with him rightfrom the word go.
Reminded me of.
It's a very literary show inthat way to also be a very sexy show.
Oh yeah.
It hems closely to theShakespearean definition of tragedy.
You gotta have somebody ofimportance who has this internal
defect of character thatcauses shit to go down.
(19:06):
Yeah.
The series does do a fine jobof ensuring it's all revealed at
once, but not at once.
It kind of doles out juicytidbits of information and it does.
So unlike Shakespeare who willhave a character just stand on stage
and tell you everything.
Maybe an act or two in.
You have to read it on theirfaces in some cases this season.
(19:28):
3.
Pretty heavy on the southernfolk here.
Parker Cozy's laying it onthick as a southern belle.
Yeah, exactly.
You wonder.
It's an ugh thing.
She's a very rich mom fromNorth Carolina and she of course
is a Tar Heel because shekeeps saying it.
Her filthy rich husband is Mr.
Ratliff.
(19:48):
He graduated from Duke.
Their three kids carry theschool rivalries to a point of contention.
And though this episode hintsat some darker things amongst this
five, we can't say too muchbecause we're non spoilers.
More southern flair withWalton Goggins character as Rick,
also in Thailand.
(20:09):
And you know, he's.
He's simmering in a placethat's supposed to be known for relaxing
you.
All we really know is that theWhite Lotus and its purpose of its
first episode have youconstantly determining what's their
issue, what's that guy'sproblem, what's this lady's issue,
what's their defect in.
A more intense way than thefirst two seasons, I think.
(20:32):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And maybe they're playing withour expectations a little bit.
You know, when say season Iassume we're in.
It's okay to spoil season one.
You're trying to kind offigure out who's good, who's bad,
who's going to die.
Yes.
And it's, it's the classicsetup of we know someone we're going
to encounter or someone hasdied and we're going to figure it
(20:53):
out.
This one, you know, thingseroded in that season and we're starting
in a place this time where youimmediately have more questions about
every character, I think.
Yeah, if that makes sense.
It does.
And you're.
I think you're spot on.
They're playing with their own legacy.
I love for shows to go weekfor week, but I'm not so certain
(21:15):
that this particular season ofLotus couldn't have benefited from
a two episode premiere.
It to me you're, you'retalking about how they're.
They might be playing withtheir own history but it felt lacking
to me than previous years.
It felt not as, not as propulsive.
Although interesting.
What, what am I speaking on there?
(21:37):
I don't know if it's.
Are you.
Do you think you bring.
You know, the season one andtwo are like finished pieces in my
mind.
Are you bringing anexpectation of it to do more in one
episode?
I can remember thinking aboutmidway through this episode like
where are you gonna coloroutside the lines of your template.
(21:57):
And I think maybe there's abit of, you know, season two had
more familiar faces come backimmediately continuity of storyline
as well as Aubrey Plaza who'sman pretty major star power immediately.
And I mean there is star powerin this one.
There you know, movie starsare in this but it.
(22:18):
That felt more.
And again I joked aboutSubdivisions of Millennials earlier.
It seemed like she had areally good year last year career
wise and this was like oh,this is part of her.
One of our own ascends back tothe heights here.
Tough to compete against thesizzle between Aubrey Plaza and Theo
(22:41):
James last season.
A note for listeners as weapproach the break that yep, as promised
we're going to talk about SEand its sixth episode but since we
discuss it episode by episodeon a weekly basis I think we'll usually
skip our general feel feelingsabout that Apple TV plus show.
Go watch It.
There's my general feeling.
Yeah.
You know, we're obviously onboard because we're covering it.
(23:03):
Usually if we drop something,we've lost some interest.
So we won't put much in nonspoiler sections for recent episodes
of Severance.
Sometimes we might, sometimeswe won't.
Okay, that takes us to our break.
Yeah.
Give a listen here to apodcast you might enjoy.
Some friends of ours forsports analysis and recaps that don't
(23:27):
require yelling and will admitwhen they're wrong.
It's time for taking on sports.
Look for taking on sports inany podcast app, part of the Alabama
Take family of podcasts.
Okay, we are now in spoiler section.
For those who need that reminder.
We'll kind of go in order.
We won't mention the pit herein spoiler section.
(23:48):
Since only Adam.
Excuse me.
Since only I have watched it.
I'm not sure if I sold Adam onthe pit.
Did I sell you on it?
I don't know if I got thestomach for it.
I look away on those scenes.
Man.
We'll see.
The characters are so real.
I just.
I'm just curious what youwould think.
But we are in the spoiler section.
We're gonna back up to theWhite Lotus and its first episode
(24:11):
titled Same Spirits, Different Forms.
It's a kind of a fitting title.
Directed by the creator MikeWhite, this season has monkeys all
over the place.
My God, are the monkeys.
You know, I talked about atthe very end of the spoil non spoiler
section.
I liked the episode, but Ithought that because of the template
(24:33):
it uses or may be playing withthat this particular cast, or maybe
it's the amount of timebetween seasons.
It's been two and a half years.
I just did not feel asinvested in this one as an opening
episode as I have in the past.
That's not to say I won't bein love with it, you know, in two
weeks.
Didn't hook you.
(24:54):
Not quite.
Again.
It's tough to compete againstAubrey Plaza and Theo James, a goofy
grandfather who can't rememberwho's flirting with everyone because
he can't remember anything.
Exactly.
That was last season.
This set of rich bastards allfelt like they could have been in
any season of the White Lotus.
You know, they got their firstworld problems, some more concerning
(25:16):
than others.
This particular White Lotuscast group of people might be more
into wellness, which is funny.
That's a kind of a trend these days.
Wellness.
Yeah.
That's yourself is.
You think that's part of it.
Perhaps that didn't grab youas much that the first one.
First season, we had no expectations.
And it's these.
Yeah.
Beautiful shots of Hawaii.
(25:37):
Season two, you've got someItalian glamour, I guess, and just
jungle.
Well, it's.
It's beautiful.
It is jungle.
And it's.
We're going to meditate andput our phones in bags.
And I'm into that as a viewer.
(25:58):
Sure, why not?
And we were in spoilers here, right?
Yes, sir.
The intro to this one, thesetup, I think this is the best one
they've done.
Now, that I agree with.
That was horrifying.
Yeah, that's what the word Iwas going to use was this.
You know, it makes season oneseem tame.
It does.
(26:19):
Like, the vague idea someone'sgoing to die is kind of like a polite
murder mystery dinner partyset up versus a mass shooting event.
I mean, this is.
It's almost like season one,you get the whispers of someone's
gotten killed.
Season two, you get a gunshotor two.
And then season three openswith what sounds like a mass shooting.
(26:41):
And that is scary.
Yeah.
And to just follow one personin real time as they experience this
and the juxtaposition of, youknow, later in the episode, you find
out this is the wellness hubfor all of the white lotuses.
This is one of the premierplaces in the.
In the world.
And you have who you figureout as Belinda's son there doing
(27:05):
his meditation.
He doesn't want to recognizethe gunshots.
Finally he says, that's, youknow, we have to move.
And then just all hell breaks loose.
So there's a tension to thewhole thing, you know, like with
the shots of the securityguards that are armed and things
like that that you think, man, things.
It's not just going to be kindof chaotic, like maybe someone overdoses
(27:26):
or maybe something, you know,there's a suicide or something like
that.
There's going to be a violentevent happening.
Yeah.
Huh.
Belinda's the returncharacter, as is often part of the
template.
You know, she's from the firstseason, and she sees that she isn't
the only black lady at theupper crust resort, and she gives
this big noticeable hello tothe other black couple.
(27:48):
And I was questioning, wait,should I know them?
Like, they spent a lot of timehaving her say hello that it took
me a minute to say, oh, she'sjust noticing she's the only lady
of color.
Or she's not the only lady of color.
Right.
As against they're playing allalong with how she has to navigate
(28:09):
a work world.
Like, we all have a workVoice, you know, in a way of conducting
ourselves.
But now she.
We see that break a bit whenshe sees the lizard for the first
time on the.
That was hilarious.
I almost wondered if theydidn't tell the actress that that
was going to be there becauseit seemed so well played by her.
(28:30):
It allowed for her Audi tocome through.
Right.
Right.
But even when they show herwhere she's going to be staying while
she's training and sherealizes I'm living more like a guest
than I am one of the staff.
I thought that was.
It was fun to see someone whohas to be sympathetic.
(28:51):
The most sympathetic characterin season one, kind of have nice
things happen to them.
Yeah.
After you see the bait andswitch of being offered to fund a
wellness center that then getspulled away.
And it's.
You kind of wonder how manytimes has this happened to her.
This is just somethingpositive is going on in her life.
(29:12):
Here you get these characters.
You're used to thinking, allright, what's their problem?
I'll say this.
And I think this is my major complaint.
Which will go away in a fewweeks or should.
The opener worked too hard toget me involved in the intrigue and
not as hard to get me involvedwith the characters.
It was too much mystery andnot enough.
(29:34):
Here's who this person is andwhy you should like or dislike or
be interested.
I think that's fair.
And maybe the.
The drama of it is it's almosttoo much, too early.
It could be.
Yeah.
And then as you start meetingthe characters, there is just not
a lot of sympathetic energy.
(29:56):
That's my.
As well.
Yeah.
Pair that with them.
We get the Ratcliffe's first.
Let's just talk about a few ofthese people.
They seem to be in troublewith some tax issues.
Investigation around suchissues from the Wall Street Journal.
That's.
Now they're the pure assholesof the season.
But they're not even.
I mean, they have the.
The daughter Piper.
(30:17):
Right.
Who.
Who could be decent, seemsdecent and is interested in this.
This Buddhist temple down theroad and.
But then you've got dad, whoseems like a total asshole, and mom,
who is so medicated that shefalls asleep at the.
The public dinner table.
(30:38):
Mom likes the pills.
She's into the pills.
Now Timothy, apparently is the patriarch.
I think that's his name.
Did he drop his Southernaccent a few times?
Do you think it was on purpose?
I couldn't tell.
Their accents were.
This feels like a rare momentfor us to just be complete experts
on something.
Yeah.
They're very Bad.
(31:00):
Yeah.
Parker Posey seems like she'sa better actress than they said.
I'm not so sure.
She's not from New Orleans orsomewhere in the South.
Atlanta.
No, I think she's just a New Yorker.
Right?
That's a good question.
She should know better.
Born in Baltimore, so South.
Ish.
TD Wood would tell you that'sthe South.
But she.
(31:21):
She lived in Laurel,Mississippi, for a time.
Well, that's very south.
That's pretty.
Pretty south down there,almost along the coast.
She never quite loses hers,but it is so damn thick.
It's unrealistic or showy.
You know, it could be thatshe's always on the pills and she's
just.
That's the way she sounds like.
And then their three kidsdon't have one at all, which is.
(31:42):
That's a generational.
That's kind of believable.
Yeah.
I thought that was of thethings that they've done.
The fact, you know, taking herand comparing her to her daughter's
way of speaking is.
Yeah, like you said, thegenerational idea of losing accent
and trying to be more worldlyand blah, blah, blah.
Does your accent thicken whenyou get around your grandparents?
(32:04):
I don't think so, but Iobserved that happen in other people.
Mine does.
When I used to get around mymom or dad or I'd be on the phone
with them.
It was thick.
Another really disturbing moment.
Maybe as much as the gunshotsthat opened the show.
Was the Ratliff son sharing abedroom and the older of the two,
(32:25):
Saxon, does not hide hismasturbatory exercises in front of
his younger brother to thepoint that he hinted.
Or he asks if he wants to join in.
I mean, it's.
Dude, does he ask that?
He's like, what do you prefer?
And he's pulling.
Pulling it up as if to readyhimself on his phone.
(32:45):
I thought he was just makingpolite conversation.
Do the monkeys symbolize incest?
Because I'm getting some bigincest energy from older brother
Saxon.
Every.
Everything that he does is disturbing.
And I mean, he seems like a sociopath.
Just.
Yeah.
I mean, he's maybe the.
He's commented on his sister's looks.
(33:07):
Right.
I'm not so sure that Lachlanwasn't checking out older brother
Saxon when he went to thebathroom to Andrea.
This is immediately.
The Internet says, well, theyoungest brother is gay.
That's fair.
He gives a look to a guy.
The pool.
Apparently that I missed thatpeople noted the less gross read
on the bedroom bathroominteraction is him looking at his
(33:32):
Brother, like, are youseriously doing this right now?
That's how I thought.
That's how I read it.
And then I got to thinkingabout it more and I was like, well,
older brother talks way toofamiliar about his sister being pretty
good looking, should be having sex.
And then younger brother looks.
And I'm trying to piece it all together.
(33:52):
Is that.
Is that all of a piece.
Are those separate things?
Well, just.
Yeah.
In the immediate implicationthat he doesn't imply it, he just
says it.
You shouldn't share a roomwith our sister.
That's not appropriate.
Why would that beinappropriate if something weird
is going on?
And the way that his momreacts when he.
(34:13):
What does he say something about.
He uses like, almost like achildlike term like genitals or something
like that.
And she says, you're notsupposed to say that.
And the way that sheimmediately puts her foot down on
that in this, like, it's likethey're in some sort of weird stuck
in childhood kind of state.
And the whole family seemslike with the accent, like they're
(34:34):
stuck in Civil war era kind ofNorth Carolina.
It makes you ask prettyuncomfortable questions about like,
why is mom drugging herself constantly?
Did she.
Is there some weirdrelationship between one of the parents
and one of the kids?
Is, you know, the sistertrying to get younger brother to
(34:55):
stay with her because she'sthe only sane one and trying to shield
him in some way because sheknows older brother is trouble?
Well, if any of that's true,it is perfect that they went to UNC
and Duke because that's thetobacco road.
And if you've ever readErskine Caldwell's Tobacco Road,
(35:17):
that that vibe's prevalent inthe novel.
Love that they brought theSoutherners on to bring the.
The incest.
Yeah.
Thanks a lot.
Yeah.
Maybe you start with the ideaof we want a.
An older brother to have thehots for his sister, and then you
give him a southern accentafter that.
Like, that form just followsthe function there.
(35:38):
Right.
To be fair, the kids don'thave the accent.
There's a great shot of thethree kids, though, where they're
sitting on a.
On a bench and it mimics theSee no evil, hear no evil, speak
no evil of monkeys.
Yeah.
Continuing to list sex Saxonsmore than.
(35:59):
And you know, that name's soclose to sex there.
Anyway, more than gross issues.
He.
He pays way too much attentionto his sister.
And that is ArnoldSchwarzenegger's son who plays.
And he's pretty good at getting.
Using choices that conveycreepy, spoiled, rich.
He 100% is a frat guy I've raninto in a college town.
(36:24):
Yeah, absolutely.
So well done there.
I mean, he.
As I thought about episodeone, again, he is the main thing
that stuck with me.
Yeah.
I don't love that.
And that's saying a lot whenyou got Walton Goggins in the cast.
Yeah.
Who's one of my favorite actors.
Maybe you're not as into thisone because season one we had Sydney
(36:47):
Sweeney and AlexandriaD'Addario and then Aubrey Plaza.
And now this frat boy iswhat's stuck in your head.
This is quite the downgrade.
Yeah.
Let's switch to Walton Goggins.
I brought him up.
He plays Rick, and he sure waslooking woefully at a picture of
the lady who owns the place.
Former actress and what lookedto be Scott Glenn in.
In a picture with her asprobably her husband.
(37:08):
You have to think that's anestranged father situation.
You think it's an estranged father.
What did you think?
I went obvious.
What do you think?
He kind of alludes to the factthat he can't go back to Australia.
Right.
Goggins does.
Yeah.
Rick.
That perhaps there's acriminal element to whatever he's
(37:30):
doing.
Maybe he's looking to extortsomeone or.
All the way to the extreme end.
He could be a hitman of some sort.
Yeah.
Well, he's not.
He's not pleasant and chill.
To be there.
Being there is annoying him.
Yeah.
Smoke in the Ratliff's face.
He's.
Yeah.
(37:51):
Was kind of hilarious to watchbecause as that scene unfolded, this
is.
This is good storytellingright off the bat.
Great acting.
That.
How did I end up sympatheticwith the person smoking the cigarette?
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
Like, that person's neverright in real life.
Not.
Not when they're blowing thesmoke in the face.
No.
Right, right, right.
(38:11):
You kind of clock the.
The Ratliff family and you'relike, oh, yeah, I'm on the side of
the guy blowing the smokehere, for sure.
Yeah.
He would be more of a fan oftaking it down.
He's our audience.
The Rick guy would be more sothan the Ratliffs.
But if that's Scott Glenn inthe picture.
I do think it is.
That makes two people straightfrom the set of Bad Monkey, because
(38:32):
Michelle Monahan, she's thesomewhat famous American actress
on vacation with two childhoodbesties, she's also from Bad Monkey.
Talk about some first world problems.
Those two had to go from Keywest for a set of a show to Thailand
for their Jobs.
I mean, brutal bra.
Yeah.
Michelle Monaghan.
(38:53):
I think it's Monaghan Monahan.
Her character's Jacqueline,and she's an actress of some renown.
And then the resort owner is aformer actress there in Asia, there's
this motif that White.
Mike White establishes she'spouring on some niceties to her buddy
(39:15):
Kate and her other palace, Lori.
Laurie's played by CarrieCoon, and she's like, you know, oh,
I brought you here.
Don't pay for anything.
I'm treating you.
And the other two are justseething at this idea that she's
successful.
They all hate one another.
That's.
That's the immediate read onit, for sure.
(39:37):
And then it kind of gets alittle more nuanced when you realize
that Carrie Coon's character,Laurie, is the odd man out in the
whole thing.
Yeah.
And she's pissed.
Is she pissed or does.
There's, like, a certainfeeling of desperation and moments
like that when she goes in herroom and sees him and just, like,
(39:58):
loudly yet quietly sobs.
I don't know.
But everyone online feels like that's.
That's the relationships.
Those are the relationshipsthat will break apart at the seams
and create the event.
That seems obvious.
It seems too obvious.
Right.
Goggin's doing something crazy.
(40:19):
Feels.
I mean, there's.
Chekov has a gun strapped toboth of those security guards, you
know.
Yeah.
You know the other thing thatcould happen, A monkey could get
hold of one of those guys.
Dudes.
That was my thought.
The other motif is the monkeys.
What are the odds that thegunshots were just monkeys who've
had enough?
Oh, they got organized.
(40:42):
They're viewing.
You know, we don't get Tanyaand the gays trying to kill her,
but she died anyway.
But we do get her husband, exhusband, whatever he is now widower
Greg.
There he is.
And he's got a new young girlfriend.
Apparently it's a thing forthis resort or even Thailand itself,
(41:02):
to have bald men with hotyoung girlfriends to the point they
have a nickname for them.
I'm not good with rememberingthings with the White Lotus because
of the stretch it takes tofilm these.
But Greg was never fully shownto be active in trying to get Tanya
killed.
Right.
It was just heavily alluded to.
(41:22):
Heavily granted.
Implied.
And you.
You never know if he meets herin season one and it's a crime of
opportunity or if the wholething was orchestrated in some way.
But he's living off her cash,isn't he?
Right now seems to be doing pretty.
Well because they're notstaying at the White Lotus.
They live or have an extendedstay up the hill, right?
(41:46):
Yeah.
And Belinda's gonna recognize him.
She knows him well.
That's been discussed onlinethis week.
This.
This person that she.
Did they meet in season onebeyond, like a.
An interaction that she wouldhave had with guests a hundred times
a week.
But she worked for Tanya.
(42:07):
Did that relationship extendbeyond season one?
That's a good question.
It's one for the Internet.
It does seem like that they'reon a crash course to recognizing
each other and to maybequestions being asked.
We would think that Belindawould have knowledge of what happened
in Italy.
How this resort has continuedto convince people to come visit
(42:31):
based on its.
How's the Better BusinessBureau not been brought in on a White
Lotus?
Well, they're clearly notresearching because they, you know,
TripAdvisor did not convincethe Ratliffs or tell them, you know,
he brags about, I find all thebest spots and they try to take their
cell phones and it does not go well.
Greg's appearance makes himlook a lot more haggard than he seemed
(42:54):
the last time we saw him.
He's.
Is he missing that cowboy hatjust a little too much, or is he
dying?
In Italy, we saw a picture ofyoung Greg, cowboy hat and all.
One read is he could haveactually been sick and that what
he says is going on.
He does say that.
And he coughs a lot.
And then his cough kind ofgoes away.
Two would be that he has beenavoiding law enforcement in some
(43:18):
way for some months.
Hey, he works for the.
For the Bureau of Land Management.
Thank you very much.
Maybe he's been let go.
Elon fired him and he went to.
Went to Thailand.
I can't help but look at himand think he's gonna try to throw
a football over a mountain.
You think that's coming from Napoleon?
(43:40):
His role in Napoleon?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, speaking of monkeyswho've had enough, we'll discuss
the sixth episode of Severancetitled Attila.
If I may, I'll start with an email.
We got an email in and Ithink, what, two emails this week?
Something like that.
Second week in a row we've hadeither two comments or two emails
or both.
(44:00):
This one's from Ben Stiller.
This one's from Ben Stiller.
We must be doing something right.
Then again, emails sometimes can.
You can turn that caps lock off.
Ben.
This is actually from TimHamilton, one of our friends from
SETI Bimco podcast.
He writes.
Enjoyed your talk aboutseverance, episode five.
So he's Going to be addressingsomething that you weren't here for,
(44:21):
Adam.
So we'll blame Donovan.
Okay, that sounds great, hesays, but.
I was talking aloud to thecomputer that you didn't talk too
much about how Mark having sexwith Haley.
Not any.
Not realizing she was AudiHeli would really mess with his head.
It was Irving who figured itout after all.
If this happened to me, I feelit may shatter my self image and
(44:43):
my confidence in my own intelligence.
Does he like Audi Heli better?
Mark's our avatar, maybe ourhero for this first season.
But now I feel like Irving,Heli and Dylan are more so I like
Mark a little less and less.
Well, Mark turned out to be a baddie.
Plus you didn't mention thelast line in episode five.
That line suggests Mark's Audicould kill someone.
(45:04):
I cannot believe that Donovanneglected his duties to such a degree
that this email.
Oh, I forget so much week to week.
I'm so happy.
Happy listeners are patientwith us.
But yeah, those are not gonnahappen on my watch.
Well, I appreciate the emailbecause that those are excellent
points and I do like to usethem here in our podcast.
But I don't know that Mark will.
(45:26):
Will become an antagonist.
That just.
It feels as though Lumenitself has that very well handled.
Will he become a tool of Lumen?
I don't think so.
But there's other ways tobecome a bad for the show.
I think that those.
That was a pretty prescientemail to come before this week.
(45:50):
Yeah, we can go right intothis week because we're in spoiler
section.
So what do you think?
That was one of the centralaction points, right?
That Mark and Helly figuringout how that has affected them.
You know, he finally admitswhat happened.
But you also see Audi Mark notbehaving in like the most stand up
(46:14):
way or the most consistent waywith how he has behaved in the past.
You know, he's kind of a jerk.
To his sister, but he wasunder duress.
He was under duress, but he created.
Here's someone who wants tohelp him and he's keeping her at
arm's length and kind ofacting impulsively.
And I think you see moredarkness in him than has been shown
(46:38):
so far.
You know, season one, itestablishes this is a depressed widower.
Yeah.
But I think there could bemore to it.
And it made me think ofanother Apple show shrinking, where
you're kind of wondering allalong, you know, there's been a driving
accident of some sort, who'sresponsible for what here.
I feel like Mark's darkness,especially in this episode, is just
(47:01):
brought upon by his circumstances.
It's not so much that he'sgoing to become some worse version
of himself.
I mean, he could, but it'sbecause of going through this process
and it's just not.
Yeah, he's scared that hecould die at any minute because that's
what happened to Petey.
(47:22):
I think that there.
There's.
There's folks making all kindsof theory posts and videos out there,
and one that I saw, you know,they're also playing with, with Bert
and Irving, the idea of resets.
And this is something thatHelena also threatens Coble with.
Maybe we need a reset.
(47:42):
Yeah.
Early this season.
Is it possible?
Because they can clearlycontrol brains if you're at Lumen
or not.
Based on the overtimecontingency, could they possibly
be screwing with the Audis aswell in some way?
I think so.
Yeah.
I would think so.
When they have the con.
(48:02):
I know we're really flying allover the place here.
When Helena confronts Mark atthe Chinese restaurant.
Yes.
I feel like there's this.
A series of very intentionalthings that she says.
Okay.
Like saying Hannah as a mistake.
He corrects her to.
(48:23):
These are all things thatthey're gauging.
You have to assume that sheknows everything.
Huh.
And that she's testing him asfar as reactions go to all of this.
She was to see if he was.
Has changed any.
If he has been able to becomehis any.
So by saying Hannah to hisAudi, that's a test, right?
(48:47):
Well, who is Hannah?
It's a test for her to.
For him to correct her.
To say Gemma.
Am I wrong about that?
I think that maybe, you know,some people have said, was his wife
pregnant when she died?
Would Hannah have been.
And Helena even says so young.
(49:07):
You know, she means a.
An adult who was still youngish.
Or she could have meant maybean unborn child that they were going
to name Hannah or somethingalong those lines.
I mean, obviously the show isset up to where you can read in a
thousand details like that,but it.
Also tends to answer within aweek or two.
(49:28):
It doesn't.
It allows you to speculate,but it doesn't elongate that speculation
process.
It.
It does also do such a goodjob of burrowing in on what should
be simple ideas.
I mean, the whole premise ofthe show is that you were split in
half and one half goes to workand one half lives on the outside.
(49:49):
So we've had years at thispoint to make peace with this idea,
yet they're still Milking thatfor new emotional terrain.
Yeah, they're doing great.
This episode was all about that.
Right.
Like how many times did theBurton Irving find each other on
the severed floor where theyboth reset at times?
(50:10):
Do they pos.
If they can control Audis too,Do they have some history there?
Dylan is shown again him andhis wife.
Any.
Dylan has more chemistry withhis wife than his Audi self.
Yeah.
And now you have Mark flashingback and forth.
Heli to me is the only onewhen she is fully heli who is not.
(50:32):
You don't question her.
You know, I don't think you dowith Dylan either.
You're just.
You're haunted by the idea oflike this is the best version of
this guy.
Yeah.
In a sad way.
Right.
Helly is completely her.
And she had.
We joked early.
Not joked, but said, you knowwhat happens if you come in with
(50:53):
a hangover?
And then it got a little moreserious before they.
Before the sexual encounter.
What happens if somebody's pregnant?
Yeah.
And you're just suddenly.
You know.
Which is why they would wantto control as much as they can outside
as well.
Right.
But she has a great littlerapid fire of dialogue about how
much she hates her outy selffor getting up every morning and
(51:18):
dressing me like I'm a dolland sending me in here.
Do you remember that?
When did she say that?
It was early on in the episode.
She's talking to Mark.
No.
Just how much she resents thiswoman that he slept with.
Well, okay, let's.
Let's back up and cover someof these in depth.
Yet Mark finally does admit tosleeping with who he thought was
(51:41):
heli.
He says this to Haley and Britt.
Lauer moves from acting thatshows disappointment that it's not
her to creep out to jealousyto pure eyes anger.
And that all happens in a nicefour seconds.
There is.
Is it before that that shementions I'm so pissed at being dressed
(52:02):
like a doll.
It's either then or.
And I should have.
I should have pulled notes for this.
But when she's.
She's walked around and comesback to talk to.
To Mark again.
Yeah.
He's decided he's going to gofind her and she's also coming to
find him.
And they almost run into her.
She walked away and then tookoff her shoes and then sat down.
But the whole shoe thing, Idon't know.
It was very.
(52:23):
I want to put that in there ifyou don't have to.
Yeah.
I don't know.
I don't have to read on the shoes.
Me either.
We get the return of Dylan'swife Gretchen for a visit.
And I failed to mention howgreat an actor Merritt Weaver is
back in her first appearancethis season.
Glad Riders brought her back.
So many opportunities for justendless fascinations between the
(52:47):
two and she's very much morein love with any Dylan than any other
version of her husband.
And he's smitten too and.
But she feels a lot of guiltfor that.
It also brings up the ideathat for Dylan specifically, you
know, there, there is no.
This sounds brutal to sayabout somebody who has a family at
(53:09):
home, but it's just as muchthat his Audi is working s as any.
And I think maybe he'ssuffering more than any of the other
ones because he shows up,seems to pass his wife as she goes
out the door for a nightshift, is responsible for kids all
night long, but has no senseof, you know, he's very good at that
(53:30):
job.
But his Audi self gets none ofthe satisfaction of that, none of
the pride in work.
And so all he does is pass hiswife at the door, take care of kids,
goes in, doesn't remember athing, comes home and does it again.
So his, the monotony of thathome life is, you know, not a bad
(53:52):
thing if you were also gettingpurpose somewhere else.
Yeah, I guess that's the pointthey're trying to make.
Yeah.
The show loves to pair things.
It loves pairs.
This week it paired kisses andit had a hint that it won't end well
for one of the Dylan's.
I suspect his Audi back on thecouch is the one that's going to
(54:13):
get the end of the stick.
But we get the kisses being paired.
It's, it's Dylan and his realwife of course, but it's his any
kissing her and then Mark andHadley kiss and then go on to have
sex one more time.
Which makes you wonder who the.
What circumstance is going toproduce the child that we all think
(54:35):
is going to.
Yeah.
Be born.
You know, it's worth notingthat Gretchen lies about not seeing
any Dylan.
Yeah.
Due to a cancellation.
She lies about that's againfor them to have this idea for so
long to be presented with thesevered concept and still finding
ways to make me go, man, thatis heartbreaking that, you know,
(54:58):
here's somebody who a bit beatdown by life and all of a sudden
you find and get to spend timewith like a youthful, less jaded
version of the person you fellin love with.
Yeah, yeah, man, that's so cruel.
It's cruel to everyone involved.
I talked A few weeks ago abouthow I find it hard to swallow or
(55:19):
wrap my head around thecharacters not feeling some semblance
of connection to their Audi or any.
But here heli.
Well, Brit Lauer I supposesold it to me.
She.
She paints this stark image ofan innie and Audi being vastly different
to the point of being anotherperson when she, she got pissed off
(55:39):
at her Audi.
Like I wanted to be the one tosleep with Mark, to kiss Mark, whatever
it was.
And I'll say that their sexualencounter felt.
Felt less like a tent, morelike the plastic they use for dead
bodies.
It was not to continuallyreturn to Twin Peaks, but that plastic
(56:02):
wrapped in.
Plastic, founder wrapped in plastic.
It's.
It was definitely a contrastto a fire lit tent.
Well, everybody all warmed upand yeah, that was.
Yeah.
Not as sexy.
A far cry from that.
Yeah.
I have a question for you.
You feel as though you'veeradicated from yourself your childish
(56:24):
follies.
That was a great scene.
I loved it.
I mean he, Milchick goes intothat room to work on his evaluation
stuff.
Right.
Like he's putting paperclipson repeatedly.
He eliminates reps in to do it.
Right.
Yeah.
Eliminates the fancy wordssomebody had rightfully pointed out.
(56:49):
You know I don't think theEnnis are the ones informing on him.
You know Mark doesn't tell the board.
Oh he didn't understand allthe words that he said.
It's Ms.
Wong that's telling him.
Yeah.
You know all of this stuff.
Yeah, yeah.
Donovan and I speculated asmuch that it's her.
She's really ratting him.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh yeah.
(57:10):
I thought that it wasfascinating that he is demanding
to the man in the mirror.
There's that duality again togrow up.
Yet he's reverting to simple phrases.
He's reverting to more.
More childlike or easier tounderstand things.
Because they're playing a lotthis season with showing us just
(57:32):
how childlike the Enies are.
That's right.
Someone astutely pointed out.
And when I say someone inthese, I don't mean a reviewer, I
mean somebody on Reddit that Ias I come through they said it's
really clever to have thisteenage girl watching over these
(57:53):
adults who are actuallychildren to drive home, you know,
who do you hire to babysityour kids?
What's the old trope?
You Some, some high school girl.
16 year old high school girl.
That's right.
That's who's watching the kids.
There you go.
Speaking of Bert and IrvGiving them a visit.
Fields is Bert's husband, andhe calls Bert Attila.
(58:16):
That's the title.
But they say they got thatfrom calling one another hun.
You know, it evolved into that.
Field says it came aftermeeting a severed partner of Birch
20 years ago.
But Irv is quick to point outthat the first severed office didn't
open until 12 years ago.
Or it was 12 years ago.
So the timeline there is different.
And Bert unsuccessfully shutsdown Fields from.
(58:38):
From drinking.
Fields unabashedly questionsif they've had sex, unprotected sex,
and even says, any should havelove, they should have this going
on.
Almost impressive.
He talked about it with his pastor.
Yeah.
So weird.
This was the Christian.
(59:00):
Yes.
Bird makes the first mentionof any religion on this show that
I'm aware of on how he got to Lumen.
He split himself so he couldhave a better chance, or one of his
selves would have a betterchance to go to heaven.
And I've been playing with theidea that this is reminiscent of
Scientology, but yet here's areal mention in the show of religion.
(59:26):
It makes it feel even moredystopian that his pastor would be
forced to have an opinion onsuch a thing.
You know, to accept as realitythat human beings may have been able
to split a soul in some way.
Yeah.
Do they.
When you split yourconsciousness like that, does it
split your soul?
(59:46):
I still don't know if you cantake anything said at that dinner
at face value.
When they make Bert out to bethat he is, he has done such bad
things that he needs to hedgehis bets by splitting his soul and
creating a more childlikeversion of himself to act right in
a, you know, contained environment.
(01:00:08):
It's a fun look at nature, nurture.
If you.
Whatever you are, whateverthat every religion has a different
way of understanding the you.
Your consciousness is splitand put into a non worldly place
in a way, a place that's hyper structured.
(01:00:29):
Would you thrive there versuswhatever he's done going through
the temptations of a fallen world.
If he has this Christianworldview and a Lumen worldview.
You know, it's odd thatsomebody that they have basically
turned Lumen into religion,that somebody who is so deeply in
(01:00:50):
their church world would bewhat seems to be like a foundational
part of the Lumen process.
Right.
He's clearly got more to dowith severing than he's letting on.
Right.
That's.
That seems the case.
And I wouldn't be surprised ifBert was falsifying his interest
in chemistry With Irv, becauseI think his name's Drummond.
(01:01:15):
He was in somebody somewhere,as you know, Iceland.
The big guy, he's in Irv'shouse snooping around.
We don't see him break in.
We just get the very quicklook at him looking through some
files that we knows in Irv's house.
So did Burt.
He was watching him.
Did he lure him?
Did he invite him?
Yeah.
Get him out of the house.
(01:01:35):
Get him out of the house.
Go get him out.
Well, we'll definitely findout, I suppose.
Yeah.
I just.
I don't know that you canbelieve anything that was right said
at that dinner.
It all.
It felt weird all along.
And even the way that it waslit, you know.
Yes.
Bert has a very like evilemperor kind of look behind him the
(01:01:56):
whole time.
It's very dark, black behind him.
Discussing heaven and hell infront of the fireplace.
There's that image.
Yeah.
Well.
And we know that Irv has beenreset Right.
At work, that he used to workin other departments but has no memory
of it.
Okay.
Is it possible that him andBert had.
Yeah, yeah.
(01:02:17):
That idea of would, you know,if Mark and Helly were just two severed
co workers and it wasn't theperson who's running the company,
if they bumped into each otheron the street, would there be some
spark?
You know, does ourconsciousness carry over?
And they kind of seem toindicate that it might at that Chinese
(01:02:38):
restaurant.
Even though they're havingthis pretty.
Becomes a pretty intense conversation.
Yeah.
Where they're kind of factfinding on each other.
Before we move on from Irv, I.
Will say I want to.
I do want to circle back to that.
Okay, go ahead.
I'm getting to that.
They still have this moment ofkind of joking around and like easy
chemistry with each otherthat's kind of undeniable.
Even though they being Irv and Bert.
(01:03:00):
They being Helena and Mark atthe Chinese restaurant.
But then to support the ideathat maybe Bert and Irv fell in love
multiple times on the severedfloor and were re set in some way
and that Fields knows this.
Huh.
Again, it's.
It's like a.
A mirror to Dylan and hiswife's situation.
(01:03:23):
Right.
How do you.
How do you deal if this personkeeps finding this guy?
Huh.
In this world that you don'thave access to, what do you make
of that as this person's partner?
Kind of a little comment onsoulmate or something.
Right?
Yeah.
Britt Lauer.
This was her episode, if youask me.
When she does follow Mark tothe Chinese restaurant or appears
(01:03:43):
there she presents herself asthis affable, flirtatious boss and
not a steely head of lumen aswe've seen her in all these other
meetings.
Of course, she it up bycalling Jim a Hannah.
Now, is that a purposeful fuck up?
If so, it could be.
To check on, is this truly his Audi?
(01:04:03):
Has he changed?
Is he doing something at home?
Great dichotomy too, that theset for the Chinese restaurant is
so much in blatant contrastwith the office spaces.
It's so dark in there, youalmost had to lean in to see what
was going on.
And usually when they share aframe, it's just white and, you know,
(01:04:24):
so bright on the screen.
And then you get the Chineserestaurant there and it rattles Mark
enough that he wants to gowhole hog at home with this lady.
And I never remember her name,but I don't think she's a medical
professional.
Before it's over, Mark's onthe floor and he, you know, I'm no
doctor either, but he looks bad.
(01:04:45):
Something, something is notgoing well.
And that's when his sistercomes in.
Yeah.
And we talked about how he's,he's, he's really kind of mean to
her, but he's also goingthrough some shit in that.
But he's moment he's.
To me, he's been mean to herby excluding her from this.
Right.
This is the one person in theworld that you get the sense that
(01:05:05):
they are very close for, evenfor siblings, you know, maybe that
they're.
Some people have inferred sometrauma bonding maybe from their childhood
that they are protective ofeach other.
Are they twins?
Now that would be funny.
Another idea of splitting.
Yeah.
Another compliment of the show.
(01:05:26):
But to exclude this person whois the only one who's consistently
had your best interest at heart.
Right.
I mean, people in tryingcircumstances and not trying circumstances
drive people away who areclose to them, but obviously he's
going through it and thiswould be part of it, but it's still
like, come on, man, she wantsto help.
(01:05:48):
Unless we hear something elsethat it's probably just a matter
of.
She wouldn't let me do this.
She would probably physicallyget involved and hold me, you know,
restrain me and I wouldn'twant to do this.
He knows that he's, he's gonewith this idea.
Yeah.
Well, we'll end here and we'llalso remind you that if you enjoyed
(01:06:09):
this podcast, why not leave acomment on the home side of the Alabama
take?
There's a place for commentsat the bottom.
Real easy.
We read them.
We read them on air.
Or you can send an email tothe alabamatakemail.com I know that's
not taking it down, but that'sour home site.
We everything gets bundled upinto that.
(01:06:29):
You can always leave a reviewin your podcast app for taking it
down.
Do all three.
Boy howdy.
That would be a great week forAdam and for Donovan, who will be
back with us next week.
This was a lot of fun.
We hope you enjoyed it andwe'll talk to you next week.
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