The Beast In Me (PILOT)

The Beast in Me, Netflix’s new character-driven thriller, centers on two powerhouses: Claire Danes as novelist Aggie Wiggs, still reeling from the loss of her son, and Matthew Rhys as Nile Jarvis, the suspiciously famous new neighbor who may or may not have killed his wife. The two form an uneasy frenemy dynamic that quickly spirals into consequences. On the pod, we talk about the show’s long road to screen, key trivia, smart comparisons, what sets this series apart, the pilot’s best moments, the standout secondary characters, and our rating.
Tune in. Welcome to Today’s Episode!

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_01 (00:15):
Welcome to today's episode of the podcast where we
discuss the most recentinstallment of a different
series every show.
It is Monday, November 17th, theday that it is said that Abraham
Lincoln began his first draft ofthe Gettysburg Address.
Do you know what year that was?
1863, right?
That's correct.
How'd you know that?
Because I know it was two yearsbefore he died.
Good.
Cool.
So if we're talking about firstdrafts, it only took him a

(00:38):
couple days before the actualGettysburg Address.
And it was only two minutes, andI think in real life.
That explains it why he didn'twork that hard on it.
Yeah, it just goes down as oneof the most famous addresses in
all of history.
But the beast in me, the firstdraft of that was quite
different than what it ended upbeing.
It ended up taking about five,six years to make.
And Gabe Rodder, the guy whomade it from X-Files but the

(01:00):
Revival series.
Oh, okay.
He wrote the spec script.
He pitched it.
It got picked up by Conan'scompany, the Konako or whatever
it's called.
And they ended up producing it?
Well, no, they were originallysupposed to.
They they still did produce it,but like, you know, an offshoot
when like something goes downdifferent lines of in avenues to
get where it was.
At one point, originally, we hadJody Foster involved to direct.

(01:24):
She's the one who actually gotClaire Danes on attached to the
project.
And then Claire Danes brought inthe showrunner from Homeland.

SPEAKER_00 (01:30):
Right, because Jodie Foster, I know she directed some
Black Mirror episodes.
So I think that's probably wherethe Netflix connection comes
into play.
Also, interesting.

SPEAKER_01 (01:38):
Okay.
And then Niles character, right?
Or Nile, the sort of villain ofthe series, the real estate
mobile.
Yeah, he was written more as aTony Soprano mobster.

SPEAKER_00 (01:48):
Okay.
So that was exactly, I even havehim tied to tied to Tony
Soprano.
That was one of my biggestcomparisons.
Really?
How so?
Well, I only ever saw the firstepisode of The Sopranos, but
from what I remember, uh, likeTony Soprano was going to
therapy, and he was uh likethroughout the episode able to
do things for the therapist,like get her into a busy diner.

SPEAKER_01 (02:09):
So it's about the favors instantly, like he was
connected to this oneindividual.

SPEAKER_00 (02:13):
Yeah, because he kind of owned the town, so he
was able to do so.
I think he was also rich andlike and everyone knows a mob
boss.
And it's very similar with Niallhere, especially when you get to
the end of the episode.

SPEAKER_01 (02:24):
Yeah.
No, that's a good comparison,except that he was more of a
family man.
He had a daughter.
It seemed like he where whileNiall could be a sociopath or a
psychopath because his wife ismissing, his first wife has gone
missing, and everybody thinksthat he did it, but no one can
prove it.
Um they were almost skippedskeptical that Matthew Reese
could play such a sociopath.

(02:45):
They didn't think he was goingto be able to do it.
He had to audition, uh, and theyhad he had to convince them that
he was able to like bring thatdimension to his character
because he's such a likable gooddude.

SPEAKER_00 (02:54):
I mean, it's the Americans.
Yeah, yeah.
No, I mean, yeah, it's a goodthing.
That's probably the first timehe's had to audition in a while.
I would liken him to somethinglike a speak no evil James
McAvoy's character.
I think that's probably who he'smost closely related to.

SPEAKER_01 (03:10):
Before that, would you have guessed that James
McAvoy could play?

SPEAKER_00 (03:12):
So I guess he had Yeah, like it was split and all
that type of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 (03:16):
Especially when it was in the UK, he was doing a
lot of different types ofprojects.
I have a game for you.
It's kind of around the samething.
It's like all these uh surroundthe show, one of them is not
true.
Okay, this is the first timethat Claire Dan's played a
lesbian on screen.
The second one is Reese preparedfor his audition that we just
talked about by studying clipsof Mark Zuckerberg.
The third is that The Beast inMe is also an upcoming film

(03:39):
starring Russell Crowe and LukeHemsworth.
And the fourth one is this isthe first TV role DeAdre
O'Connell, uh the penguin mom,yeah, has had since the penguin,
the first penguin.

SPEAKER_00 (03:52):
Oh man, all of these seem like they could be true.
Uh you said you said one of themis one no, one of them is false.
One of them is false.
Okay.
Um, I don't think it's the firsttime that Claire Danes has
played a lesbian.

SPEAKER_01 (04:04):
Okay, so that's the one you're saying is false.

SPEAKER_00 (04:05):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (04:06):
Okay.
No, it is.
She was like, This is my firstlesbian.
And it's kind of funny becauselet's talk about uh so Rhea
Seahorn was in Pluribus, andthen you had uh Betty Galpin in
uh Death by Lightning, and thennow you have this show with
Claire Danes.
They all kind of make the sameface when they're sad.
I'm not saying that they're badactresses, but I'm saying they

(04:27):
could almost be cast in eachother's roles, and I wouldn't
have been too far thrown fromyou think you think the main
person of Plairibus could havebeen Rhea Seahorn, right?
Yeah, it could have been Agathahere.
Yeah, Aggie.
I mean, she could have brought aI I think she's similar.
She instead of playing a lawyer,she plays a writer or in that
yeah, no, she plays a writer inPluribus.

(04:47):
Yeah, no, I mean and this is anauthor.
True.
Both working on books.

SPEAKER_00 (04:51):
I see them as different though.
I see I see the playeribusperson, especially after seeing
three episodes, as being moreangry a lot of the time.
It has more energy to them.
Here, Agatha Wiggs is just moredowntrodden.

SPEAKER_01 (05:03):
Angry?
Yes.
Literally, Agatha or Aggie is somad about the person who killed
her son, supposedly, that shealmost says to Niall, like, I
wish he would die.
And Nile goes out and possiblykills him.

SPEAKER_00 (05:17):
That's anger, I think, more from just uh
depression than anything.

SPEAKER_01 (05:21):
Furthermore, Rhea Seahorn in Blurribus has just
lost her uh her not her wife,but her um girlfriend Helen.
And then in this, she's alsolost her wife.
She lost her son in this.
Uh, so they're both dealing withtrauma.
I see those characters as allvery similar.

SPEAKER_00 (05:38):
I guess the shows are so different that I I find
the connection kind of murky.

SPEAKER_01 (05:42):
Hmm.
Uh would you say that this showis more of a uh instead of a
sci-fi series, a neighborthriller?
I was thinking likepsychological thriller.
That's what I think.
Like a psychological thrillerseries where there's a house in
the cover.
Right.
That's what I mean when I sayneighbor thriller.
The woman in the house acrossfrom the street from the girl in
the window, I know that was moreof a comedy series, so was based
on a true story, but that wassort of or The Watcher, another

(06:04):
Netflix show.

SPEAKER_00 (06:05):
Well, it's it's the woman in the house across the
street was also a writer, and Ifind it strange how it's always
a writer in these horror like TVshows or psychological thrills.

SPEAKER_01 (06:13):
Is it because of that, or because when you're a
writer writing a spec script,it's easy to identify with a
character that's also a writerstruggling with a script?

SPEAKER_00 (06:20):
I don't know, but it happens all the time.
Like I know you season four evenhad it Castle Rock, The Haunting
a Hill House, uh Pluribus, likewe mentioned, Shining Vale, and
then you get movies like Misery,The Shining 1408.
It's always just a writer.

SPEAKER_01 (06:34):
And if I should go back to the Rhea Seahorn uh
character in Pluribus, she isstruggling to write her own
biography, or not biography, butlike not the novel that she has
been getting famous with.
The Waitaro series, I believe,was like kind of a pulp series.
I think it was on its fourthbook for fans, and she had a
stable fan base, but she really,really wanted to do something

(06:55):
serious.
Well, in this, she's alsoworking on like her second big
novel.
Her first big novel, uh for forAggie.
What's its what's its name?
I didn't get the name.
It's named Sick Puppy, which isalso the first name of the name
of the episode, yeah.
Episode, yes.
And it's Sick Puppy, A Letter toMy Father.
You read that Disney book, theone with uh the lady from

(07:15):
iCarly, right?
Oh, uh I'm glad my mom died orsomething like that.
Yeah, it's a similar vibe, Iwould think, because it was
about her con man dad in thisfictional series, and in that it
was about her mom who kind oflike pushed her into trauma came
with that.
Pushed her into acting.
Pushed her into acting, yeah.
So I and then in that Rick andMorty episode that I guess the

(07:38):
the recent one where like he hasa son and the son got famous by
posting a book out there uhgoing after Morty, right?
Yeah, I yeah, it's just a lot ofkids tearing down.
Is that used as a joke here, oris it like people are supposed
to take her seriously?

SPEAKER_00 (07:53):
No, people are supposed to take her seriously.
This is not a comedy, I think,by any stretch, unless you want
to go with dark comedy justbecause of how ridiculous
Matthew Reese can be at times.

SPEAKER_01 (08:03):
Yeah, I mean, they changed him from being, like we
said, a Tony Soprano type, thenthey wrote him as a rap mogul,
and then they finally kind ofchanged it to real estate in the
same mold of Durst, yeah, RobertDurst, the serial killer, and
Donald Trump, the president.
So it's a mix of those guys.

(08:24):
That's interesting.
Oh, and you never answered whichwas the which was the wrong
thing.

SPEAKER_00 (08:28):
Uh, I do think it's the mom's first role since
Penguin, so I really don't know.

SPEAKER_01 (08:32):
It was the Reese prepared by watching clips of
Mark Zuckerberg.
I thought that would be agiveaway because Zuckerberg
doesn't do sociopathy well.
Like he doesn't make himselfseem understanding or or someone
that you would want to hang outwith because of it.

SPEAKER_00 (08:46):
I thought you always meant like his character.
He was re-watching like theSenate hearings back in like
2017 or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 (08:53):
To prep himself up.
I thought it was believable, butalso like if you thought about
it, Niall, the whole episode, istrying to get on Aggie's good
side, and he is like pretty coldto her at certain points when
he's just or cold is the wrongword.
Would would it not be?
It's I think it's volatile.
That's what I would go with.
Right.
Like he has no normal filterwhere it goes from I'm being

(09:14):
friendly with you to I'm gonnabe brutally honest to a point
where I'm gonna just trash onyour career.

SPEAKER_00 (09:20):
The only sense of reprieve that he ever has is
whenever Agatha brings up herson.
Yeah.
That's the only time that heever does.

SPEAKER_01 (09:28):
Do you think he's actually feeling bad when that
happens?

SPEAKER_00 (09:31):
I think so, because I think in the restaurant scene,
you can see it on his face.
He knew that he fucked up inthat situation.
All right.

SPEAKER_01 (09:37):
So author Aggie Wiggs has receded from public
life since the death of heryoung son, unable to write a
ghost of her former self.
In episode one, she meets thisinfamous new neighbor, Niall,
who may have killed his wife.
The beginning of a beautifulfriendship.
And I I liked how when we werewatching it, you stopped at the
part where you saw his wife showup, and you were like, I thought

(10:01):
I'm confused.
Isn't his wife dead?
And it's like, yes, they cast asecond wife, and the second wife
is played by the girl from thatwe've seen so many times.

SPEAKER_00 (10:10):
Yeah, her name's Nina in the show.
And I I'm obviously I thinkthat's supposed to be like
they're they're they're sosimilar.
That's why I'm saying I feellike his character is so much
like the speak no evil, becauseI feel like he's manipulated her
in such a way where I wouldn'teven be, I'm not even sure her
real name is Nina, right?
Nina and Nile.
You've barely seen her in thisfirst episode.
Yes, but I'm saying that likethere's obviously just something

(10:31):
off about it, and we've seenNile.
I'm assuming he's going to gocrazy by the end of the by the
end of the start.

SPEAKER_01 (10:37):
That's a big assumption.
So, like what we actually see inthe first episode is he by the
end is getting along with Aggie.
They have their uh rough patchesin between, but yeah, once she's
met him and they've uh they'vegone to lunch together, that's
when she comes clean about thefact that her son's death has
really brought this like ominouscloud over her and she hasn't

(10:58):
been able to get over it, andthat there's this one kid
responsible, and she blames him,and then they see that kid.
Teddy, yeah, and we see Nilesstaring at him, and the next
thing you know, the next day,Aggie gets a call, and who's
telling her what?

SPEAKER_00 (11:12):
Uh that well, Teddy's dead.

SPEAKER_01 (11:14):
Yes, but who told her that?

SPEAKER_00 (11:16):
Uh, was it it was Shelly, right?

SPEAKER_01 (11:18):
I think it was her ex-wife, yes.
Yeah, and you she was like, uh,this has got to be such a big
shock.
And it's more a shock to Aggiebecause she's like, What did he
do?
What did I do by telling himabout when I knew that he could
be a murderer?

SPEAKER_00 (11:31):
I think we need to go back a little bit because
what starts it off, what startsMaggie getting so mad at Niall
is that he's wanting to open upa jogging pathway inside this
forest.
Let's start it off even earlier.
What's the first scene of theshow?
It's like a car crash.
Yeah, and we learned that uhthat's where her son died.

SPEAKER_01 (11:50):
It's the like the only backlash that you get in
the first episode, at least.

SPEAKER_00 (11:53):
And Shelly is coming up to uh Shelly again being, I
am assuming the wife at thetime.
Yeah, like they have a kidtogether.
Yeah, but again, I it's ex-wifelater on.
She goes up to Agathon and islike, where is he?
Where is he?
And and we learn later on, atleast at the gravesite, that the
kid was only like eight yearsold.
Really?

SPEAKER_01 (12:11):
Okay, so what I was led to believe is that she was
driving and the kid was in thebackseat, right?
And then this drunk teenager hadgone into an accident.
However, because he refused totake the uh breathalyzer at the
scene, they had to take hisblood.
And when they finally got theblood results, it was just under

(12:31):
the legal limit, meaning thatshe couldn't press charges and
he couldn't be arrested or foundcompletely negligent for this.
In fact, I think Aggie may havebeen blamed.
She definitely got a restrainingorder slapped on her because of
the way that she was treatingthis teenager.
Uh, and uh, so when they see himoutside hanging out with his

(12:51):
friends at the end there, I'mtalking later on in the show.
That's the thing that Nile likehyper focuses on is like, oh,
look at this asshole just livinghis life, doing his thing.

SPEAKER_00 (13:01):
I mean, it uh it was even before uh Nile saw Teddy
that I was like, I don't thinkTeddy's making it out of this
episode.
Like the second that he was evenat the gravesite with his mom,
because it was the eight-yearanniversary, I think, of uh
Cooper's death.
That's the reason why Agathashows up at the gravesite.

SPEAKER_01 (13:19):
I would think that, yeah, you would try to avoid the
big dates on the if you're gonnavisit and you know that the mom
and you are not on good terms,don't go during the
anniversaries.

SPEAKER_00 (13:29):
You know, that's especially during the middle of
the day when it's like that'sprobably the most well, you
don't go the middle of thenight.

SPEAKER_01 (13:34):
That'd be weird.
But uh yeah, so Niall, he'sintroduced as the neighbor.
You also see that we jump intothe future and Aggie, she is
alone in this big house.
She's getting bills that shecan't pay.
We find out that she's a writerwho's struggling, and she has a
dog named uh Steve.
Steve, yes.
Is it Steven?
I think no, it's just Steve.

(13:55):
Oh, Steve?
Just like Steve, what's up withthat?
Um, and so Niall moves nextdoor, and the first thing that
we really hear about him iswhat?
Uh is that well, he has thesehuge dogs, these huge dogs that
keep here.
His dogs terrorize Aggie'slittle dog.
And I think that that is anoverstatement.

SPEAKER_00 (14:15):
Yeah, because all they are doing is barking
outside.
There's even like a glass panebetween the room.

SPEAKER_01 (14:19):
If you've ever lived in any sort of uh urban,
suburban, like if you've everlived anywhere and you aren't
used to the fact that dogs barkor can get out and can bark
outside your house, like that'snot a reason to call the police.
Well, even the people the firstthing she does, she hears two
German shepherds and sheinstantly picks up the phone and

(14:40):
she says, I'm being attacked bytwo dogs.

SPEAKER_00 (14:43):
Even Niall's cronies or security guards, whatever you
want to call them, that come toget the dogs back, they even
treated it like it was a reallybig deal.

SPEAKER_01 (14:50):
They're so good at their jobs.
Like they were there almostinstantaneously.
That's the but she was still gotthe police call out, which was
crazy to me.
Um, I think that there was amore effective way of being
annoying as a neighbor that alsocould be excusable.
That I think it was just more avision of Aggie's psyche at that

(15:11):
moment that she was so pissedoff over the tiniest little
things.

SPEAKER_00 (15:15):
But like even the alert system that went off on
the middle of the night, Ithought was better than and like
I understood that more.

SPEAKER_01 (15:21):
Huge house and it's a really loud alarm.
And so to complain about that,now the next day he was he's
putting wine in front of herhouse, and that's also very
similar to Fluribus, where thethe aliens of such, you know,
the humans are giving her gifts,and in this case it's Niall
giving her the gifts.

SPEAKER_00 (15:40):
Can I just be honest though?
Agatha was so unlikable, andthat wine scene, she she just
came off as very hostile anddismissive because they're
giving her wine, she brings itback over to the house.
That's where she meets Nina atfirst.
And even after Nina says thatshe is a huge fan of Agatha,
Agatha is just like not evenwanting to talk to her.
She's wanting to give the wineback, and then Nina came up with

(16:03):
like the actual idea of like,well, why don't you throw a
house party or just keep it?
And she's like, No, no, no, Idon't want this wine at all.

SPEAKER_01 (16:09):
Because she knows that it's like a given to her by
someone who could be a killer,which is, I guess, hard to
swallow that.
Like, how do you put that up onthe shelf and someone comes in
and it's like, hey, guess whogave me this gift?
Um, the other thing is thatshe's being coerced into giving,
that's how she feels about it,into giving this permission for
this jogging thing, which shecould not care less about, but

(16:32):
just being kind of likecontinually bugged about it when
you've got all this other stuffgoing on in your life that
you're usually traumatized by.
It just I can understand why shewould not feel good taking that
gift.

SPEAKER_00 (16:46):
It's just between that and between the dogs, her
acting like that was a biggerdeal than it was, and being just
very intrusive andconfrontational, fixated on
blaming.
I mean, I understood she was madwhen Teddy was there, but
telling him you should have beenthe one that died in that crash
and the throwing the flowers offthe grave, it just seemed like I
couldn't get behind her.
Did you ever see Homeland?

SPEAKER_01 (17:05):
No.
Okay.
Her character is kind of similarin that.
She has bipolarism in that.
Um, so it's a little bit moreexcusable, but her going off the
deep end or her like screaming,it like always it's like Claire
Danes is uh she she lives inthat, but then she also like
does smart things with hercharacters and they'll like have
sporadic moments of genius.

SPEAKER_00 (17:25):
She has some sympathy with her son dying.
I'm just saying, after multipleacts of wrongdoing in the first
episode, it was hard for me toreally root for her character.

SPEAKER_01 (17:35):
Were you rooting for other characters?
So like Brittany's uh BrittanySnow has had a crazy year this
year.
Um, she was in the HuntingWives, she started in that.
She was in Murdoch, uh Death inthe Family, and now she's in The
Beast in Me.
I think each one has droppedlike month, month, month.
And uh they even asked her aboutit, and she was just like, Yeah,
sometimes you win.

(17:55):
Sometimes Hollywood's not thatgreat.
The year 2025 is just her.
Yeah, no, no, no.
Um, but between her, JonathanBanks, you saw a picture of him.
Yes, she we see a picture ofhim.
He's not actually in the show.

SPEAKER_00 (18:08):
Is it your favorite character?
Probably, yeah.
Okay, no, uh seeing him pop upat the very end, just uh just
walking right next to Niall ispretty funny.

SPEAKER_01 (18:16):
It's almost like Apple in that it has a very
small cast.
Yes, yeah, but like a Netflixseries.

SPEAKER_00 (18:21):
But I think it does a good job of tricking people
into thinking that the show isactually bigger than it really
is.
Right.

SPEAKER_01 (18:27):
And so they have this lunch, and let's describe
the lunch a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 (18:31):
Okay, so it's the most uncomfortable scene of
2025.
It was a long scene because uhMatthew Reese just you're never
sure what he's going to say touh Agatha because they're having
this lunch um because he feelslike they've gone off on the
wrong foot.
At least that's how he puts himwhen he's at the house.
Really, it's just a plea for himto try and put this jogging park

(18:52):
in play.
And uh, and they're talking andtalking, and he's uh trying to
kind of learn more about herlife.
She's talking about how she hadan abusive father growing up,
and then he starts asking herwhat she did with the money
after she wanted to kill hisfather.

SPEAKER_01 (19:11):
But he got rich on his back.
Like that is so like, wouldn'tyou rather be in the position
where you are now, given likeyou that that experience made
you who you are rather than nothave it at all?

SPEAKER_00 (19:25):
But you're making it seem like in the show, Matthew
Reese, I feel like is the saviorof the series because he's the
one thing that the story hasgoing for it that's different.
You never know if he how he'sgoing to react, if it's just
going to be with a slight remarkor if he's just going to blow up
like uh in the scene.
It looks like he's always onestep away from, as you put
earlier with Agatha, going offthe deep end.

(19:46):
And we even see that by the endof that uh restaurant
conversation.

SPEAKER_01 (19:50):
I think he knows the limits, but he's not afraid to
go to the limit.
For instance, he knows that ifhe sees someone take a picture
of him, and it's funny becausehe's not like a celebrity where
they're Hollywood, whereeverybody would know who he is,
but it seems like they'retreating him that way because
the person who ended up takingthe the picture was just some
mom and her daughter.

SPEAKER_00 (20:06):
Because he because he ends up going over there,
asks her to delete it, the momrefuses.

SPEAKER_01 (20:10):
Well, it was like she was taking it for paparazzi,
almost and he didn't like that,but he destroyed her phone,
knowing that his security wouldcome in and make it right.
Now I am curious, what if themom had like been like, no, I'm
still gonna press charges?
Like, would he just have to dealwith it?

SPEAKER_00 (20:23):
I was a little curious why.
I mean, that was such obviouslya huge thing to take, why Agatha
was just kind of okay with it.
I get that she understands he'spowerful and has connections.

SPEAKER_01 (20:34):
It's not that she respects him or that she's
necessarily okay with it.
I think she just like sort ofunderstands him.
She's fed up with life, she'supset that no one understands
her pain the same way, that noone wants to see this kid get
justice.
She feels like it's been amiscarriage of justice.
So she could give two shitsabout anything but herself.

(20:54):
She's in a very selfish moment.
And she, I think, identifiesthat with Niall, who's also a
very selfish person.
And I think that they see thatwithin themselves.
And so that's where this showdiffers, then from what your
regular like murder mystery uhneighbor show is, where like
you're looking suspiciously atyour neighbor and wondering
what's going on.
I think that where it's headingis sort of that you have Aggie's

(21:17):
character lining up with, notteaming up with, but like almost
sympathizing with the person whocould be a murderer.

SPEAKER_00 (21:24):
That's that's a very interesting way to go about it.
I do think that one of my prosfor the show is that I don't
know where it's going.
Matthew Reese obviously has someconnection to Teddy uh and how
he died.
So I want to see What do youmean by obviously?
Because that's kind of the wholeditty.
They show you, uh they show youthe part.
Well, I mean, like uh he waslooking at him and coincidence

(21:46):
is a menacingly, menacingly asthey were outside the.

SPEAKER_01 (21:48):
Coincidence that his wife is missing, coincidence
that Teddy shows up dead thesecond that he asks her,
coincidence that you got astrange FBI guy popping in there
being like, don't trust thisguy.

SPEAKER_00 (21:58):
Brian Abbott, why is he so cryptic in his warning?
He was drunk, he was drunk, butthat still doesn't explain.
If he has information and he'sgoing so far as to knock on her
door at the middle of the night,why wouldn't he just be like,
This is the problem with Niall?
This is what he's doing.

SPEAKER_01 (22:13):
Okay, this is my guess, and this is just based on
absolutely nothing.
But I think Brian was having anaffair with Niles Nile with
Nile, his name is so weird.
It's Nile Jarvis, yes, withNiall Jarvis's wife.
And I think that I haveabsolutely nothing to base that
off of, but I think he was putin charge of the investigation
to find out.

SPEAKER_00 (22:31):
Oh, are you saying his wife that guy that that uh
that's like gone missing?

SPEAKER_01 (22:35):
Yes, that's who that's why the FBI was
investigating.
So not Nina, yeah.
And so I think that she, yes,not Nina.
Uh, I think that when theycalled off the investigation,
maybe he fell in love with hervia the investigation.
He never actually had theaffair.
Maybe it was an emotional affairthat just by reading her case
file.
And so he got so invested intoit that when they let this guy

(22:57):
go, he followed him to this newtown and he's still trying to
get him, you know?
And then he sees this other ladyfalling into the same traps as
everyone else who's just likeput over by this guy's
personality because he's got aconfidence, a vibrato to him.

SPEAKER_00 (23:12):
He reminds me a little bit, a little bit of the
uh day of the jackal villain.
He's also a billionaire, also asociopath.

SPEAKER_01 (23:19):
Um, and so yeah, so he's trying to get ahead of it
and he gets drunk, and so hecan't straight up say, Hey, I'm
following this guy, and Itechnically shouldn't be doing
this, but he does feel like hehas to warn her.
And so he shows up like thevillain in Scream, just pounding
on her door in the middle of astorm, saying, I gotta avoid the
censors, um, and and then givesher this warning.

(23:41):
Now she doesn't take it verywell.

SPEAKER_00 (23:42):
Well, of course she wouldn't take it well because he
doesn't explain anything.
I didn't like how Brian Abbott,again, I feel like if he is he
was very adamant that there'ssomething wrong with Niles.
If he has any information, heNile, yes.
If he has any information, heshould have just been, even if
it like incriminated himsomewhat, he could have taken
that part out of the story andjust been like, here's the

(24:03):
problem with Niall.
He's drunk, here's how crazy isit's hard to explain things when
you're drunk.
I should know.

SPEAKER_01 (24:08):
I do this podcast drunk all the time.
No.
Um it's uh he uh he also usesthe um Kendrick Lamar line, not
like us.
Nial, not like us.

SPEAKER_00 (24:19):
That was not the first thing I thought of when I
heard that line, though.

SPEAKER_01 (24:22):
Okay.
Uh what did you think of NatalieMorales?
That is Shelly.
Like, she clearly doesn't wantlike to be in Aggie's life
anymore.
Yeah.
But at the same time, did yourecognize her?

SPEAKER_00 (24:33):
No, I didn't.
From Stuber?
Would not have been able to putthat together, but you're
talking about the daughter, Ithink.
Um yeah, I know.
But the thing about Shelly isthat after the whole entire
Teddy meltdown at the gravesite, she does they do bond a
little bit.
Like uh, I know that Agatha istelling her she's working on her
anger, and and Shelly's likeglad to hear it.

SPEAKER_01 (24:53):
Reminds me a lot of Pleurubus when she's bonding
with the uh humans that havelike embraced the um personality
of her her previous uhgirlfriend, you know?
You keep on going to Fluribus.
I do, because the second yousaid it's not like it, I was
like, it actually is very muchalike.
Um a little more prestigiousthan a Harlan Coben mystery, is

(25:14):
how it's been said to in the inthe reviews.
Do you want to go into yoursfirst?

SPEAKER_00 (25:20):
Yeah, yeah.
So uh again, I think MatthewReese, he is the one character
you think of even while he's noton screen.
I think that his acting is good.
I think the restaurant scene wasagain probably the best out of
the whole show, which is sayingsomething because it was
probably the longest scene outof the series.

SPEAKER_01 (25:32):
I just like watching the guy since I've seen The
Americans.

SPEAKER_00 (25:35):
I had a visceral reaction and I put it down as a
pro because uh it's exactly whatthe show wanted me to feel
whenever it showed the sludge inthe drains.

SPEAKER_01 (25:43):
Like oh, that's right.
I didn't even remember the show.

SPEAKER_00 (25:45):
So so much so like it's just backing up, so gross.
Yeah.
And then where does the show gonow?
It's also very straightforward.
I feel like there's not a lot ofsubtext, which is good for a
series like this.
However, it's predictable.
I feel like Agatha is toounlikable.
Don't really like Brian Abbott.
How many characters do we need?
There's also some terrible linesearly on.
Agatha is talking to a neighborabout Niall's putting in the

(26:08):
pathway to the forest.
And the neighbor is like, hey,you might, you might, yeah,
Niall.
He's like, you might want to becareful with what you do.
And then she says, What's hegonna do?
Murder me?
Right.
I thought I thought that was aterrible foreshadowing line.
So I'm going to give the seriesa five out of ten.

SPEAKER_01 (26:22):
That was the joke.
She was saying, I know this guy.
Like, it's like if you live nextto OJ.

SPEAKER_00 (26:26):
It's it's five out of ten.
It's a it's junk foodentertainment.
I just don't expect anythingamazing from the show.

SPEAKER_01 (26:31):
Do you think that the stuff coming out of the
drain is sort of like a Macbeththing where like she can't rid
herself of because it's likebloody.
Yeah.
And it's like her son's death,and she blames herself, even if
she says that it's Teddy's.

SPEAKER_00 (26:42):
I was thinking like the fly kind of with Breaking
Bad, where really like it's allin his mind.

SPEAKER_01 (26:47):
Yeah.
Yeah.
There's a couple things I wantto say about the show right
before getting into the reviews,is that a Beast and Me.
Uh, that's that Johnny Cashsong, the famous one.
And the showrunner, it'sinteresting because, like I
said, he did Homeland.
He actually did 24 before that.
He's talked about bringingKiefer Sutherland back for
another season to close up thestoryline.

SPEAKER_00 (27:07):
Oh my god, haven't they made like 10 of those
already?

SPEAKER_01 (27:09):
10 seasons worth.
Uh, yeah, but again, they openedit up again and then they never
closed the door.
He said that whether it's MonicaLewinsky or Amanda Knox or Niall
Jarvis or whatever, sometimes weare quick to make assumptions,
but when we are forced to lookat it from a different angle, do
we have the same or do we havethe humility and compassion to
listen and to revise thenarrative?

(27:32):
That makes it seem like if I'vebeen giving Niall a pass, it's
because of that quote.
Monica Lewinsky and Amanda Knoxare seen as victims of the
media.
Had he said something likeElizabeth Holmes, Bell Gibson
from Apple Cider Vinegar, um, orMartin Scarelli, the guy who
served prison for you know thedrugs that he like hiked the
prices of, he didn't.

SPEAKER_00 (27:52):
He used two victims of the media, making so you're
saying Agatha is really the one,but like that's maybe
subconsciously being evil.

SPEAKER_01 (28:01):
No, I I think it's like how Aggie sees her, because
that's supposed to be how theaudience sees him.
Uh whether or not she becomescomplicit in what he's possibly
doing.
But it's like if he ends upactually being the murderer,
then it won't make sense, thenthis quote won't make any sense.
No, it would have beengaslighting.

SPEAKER_00 (28:18):
I understand that, but my thing, my problem with
that is that it happened so andI get it.

SPEAKER_01 (28:24):
That might be the joke of the series.
Is like it happens.
And that Niall is just a dick.

SPEAKER_00 (28:36):
But it would just be so coincidental in that way.
I'm not gonna say the thoughtdidn't cross my mind, but like
it just doesn't make sense.

SPEAKER_01 (28:43):
It's something you don't usually see ever, because
usually it's always like there'sa reason for being
conspiratorial or when you'rewatching TV and movies and
stuff.

SPEAKER_00 (28:51):
There are reasons to believe that she's an unreliable
narrator.
So yeah, there's that too.

SPEAKER_01 (28:55):
Um, it's got a four.
Uh Vulture gave it a four out offive for its premiere.
Uh, it has a 7.2 on IMDB.
The Rotten Tomatoes score, bothcritic and uh audience are are
in the 70s and 80s.
So it's been reviewed ratherwell.
I don't they they saidoriginally the script was just
way too fat and uh like they hadeverything they possibly could

(29:18):
chuck into it, and this is itwhittled down to like its core.
It's not like it's not obscenelylong, but it is like a 50-minute
pilot.
And they also brought in AntonioCampos, who did a docuseries,
The Staircase, the one withColin Farrell, got pretty good
reviews.
It seems like they really didwant to separate this.
They were like, we're gonna getsome higher talent than we
normally do.

(29:39):
We're also gonna bring in a hightalent director, a homeland guy.
We're gonna have uh originallyJody Foster attached.
The Conan O'Brien one doesn'tadd up to me.
Well, I know that's the weirdone.
He he's been drifting intoserious stuff.
He's into drama.
Yeah.
So this one's five years ago.
This and the only other thingI've done.
He's been doing it for a longtime.
No, no, but he's been doing likefour Final space.

(30:01):
That was what he was teaming upwith back in the day.
Like those are comedies andanimated comedies.
Like this is this is somethingdifferent.
What would you give it out of10?
I don't know.
I I think I'll reserve my answeron that one since it's
technically your your pick forthis one.
So five out of 10, right?
Thanks for listening.
We'll see you on the nextepisode.
Hope you enjoyed this one.
Bye.

SPEAKER_00 (30:18):
Bye.