Celebrating Ten Years and Breaking Down the "Severance" Finale

T Lo mark the 10-year anniversary of the PSO and reflect on their podcasting journey before launching into a deep dive on the season 2 finale of "Severance," unpacking the memes and implications along the way and pointing out the show's shortcomings. PLUS: Tom hates "The White Lotus" but Lorenzo is still holding out hope for it.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:23):
We're Charmel Lorenzo and this is the Pop Style Opinion Fest. Hello,
and welcome back to another edition of the PSO. I
am the Teen, You're Tilo Tom Fitzgerald, and I'm here
with the Low and your Tila Lorenzo because my love us.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Hello.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
Hello. I sometimes mentioned this, but no matter how many
times I've said that opening, sometimes halfway through it, I
completely forget it. I'm like, what's my next? What is it?
It just happened. I was so funny, so getting old
old bloggers. Actually that's a nice leading, but I don't
want to interrupt.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
No, no, just that. That's why I don't think I
could ever be an actor, especially a stage actor. You
have to be remember all those lines. Yeah, I just can't.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
I agree, you couldn't be annected. We have much to
discuss today. I do want to make another return to
you know, we've announced this a couple of times, but
we are going to be in Dallas, Texas on June
twenty fifth. For a second, I had to look it
up because I thought it was the twenty sixth. June

(01:25):
twenty fifth, we will be at Badge of Pride in Dallas.
We will be giving a talk it is ostensibly related
to our book Legendary Children, and you know, if you
sign up for a seat now early enough, you will
get a signed copy of the book for signing up,
and we won't just be talking about the book though

(01:45):
we're taking this moment. We've been very fortunate in having
this book becomes something of a yearly thing where prior
to organizations contact us every June or before every June
to see if we're available to give talks. And I
just love that. It's kind of one of the things
I wanted for that book. And of course we are
in a moment where LGBTQ people are under threat, but

(02:11):
mostly trans people are under threat in this country. So
we have tailor to talk that's going to highlight several
trans women, all of whom have done drag and how
they went on to do much bigger things with their lives,
and so it'll be tied to the book, but it's
also tied to what's going on in this country. We

(02:33):
really wanted to go like deep in the heart of
Texas and start advocating for trans people's and take that moment.
So that's the details are on the front page of
our site. Toime on Lorenzo dot com. It's June twenty
fifth in Dallas at a Badge of Pride. You can
go to Badgepride dot org as well to look up
the details for it. But we would love to see

(02:55):
you there. We're really looking forward to it. And it's
actually like prepared talk that we're giving. We're not just
gonna get up there and ramble about the book. We
have things that we want to say and pictures that
we want to show you and that sort of thing,
so it'll be very exciting.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
No, and I and I think that's one thing we
need to do.

Speaker 1 (03:13):
We need to do.

Speaker 2 (03:14):
We went to a drag brunch yesterday to celebrate your
sister's birthday. Yeah, And my point is that I was
there and the drag queens were doing such a great
job and and I was so emotional because I was like,
this is so awesome, right, and it's local drag, you know,
and it's just support them.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
Support local queen, suppoor.

Speaker 2 (03:32):
Queer, uh, you know, culture and everything. You know. It
just felt great. I felt great to be there and
support local drag.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
I agree, and you should do that if you have
local drag in your community. So, uh, that's the first
announcement off the top of the hour, and the second
announcement is our Instagram got hacked.

Speaker 2 (03:53):
I know, horrible.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
Yeah, and and before it's actually been a very happened.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
And I feel like violated it. And before you say anything, yes,
you can use you know, two factor or whatever, you
can use. All this can add, all this protection, all
these settings and everything, but if sometimes it happens, and
we had all that stuff, but it happens. I mean
we in our case, in our defense, we get tons
of emails every day and sometimes you know, you're busy,

(04:24):
you're not really pay attention to what you're getting, and
we happen to just click on something and we got hacked.
I don't want to get into the details, but all
I want to say is be very aware of anything
you get, taxed emails, anything, because it's a horrible feeling.
And unfortunately Instagram doesn't do much.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
Yeah, we've lost this account permanently.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
Yeah, there's some like very basic guidelines on what to do,
but if the hacker took care of everything, you know,
change all the information, there's nothing you can do. And
we emailed Instagram many many times.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
There's nobody there that's right, that's the thing, there's nobody
at Meta. They don't give a shit. There's no human
being that you can contact, and they don't care about
the user's experience. They simply do not care. And if
I could, I would walk away from social media completely probus.
The last thing I want to do is be giving
you know, Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk any of my

(05:19):
you know, attention or whatever. But how it is an
extremely important factor in our work. In our job, you
cannot be a publication without social media you know accounts.
Every single publication, you know, a magazine, newspaper, website, has
social media accounts to promote their work. It is essential.

(05:39):
One of the things that's been a little annoying personally
about blue Sky, which is you know, a sendant. Blue Sky,
I think is the one that has the most chance
of taking Twitter down. It's growing, it's very big, it's
very active. It has none of the issues that Twitter has.

(06:01):
But one of the issues it does have is that
it's a rather humorless, doom scrolling sort of platform where
the vast majority of people are focused on politics. Because
a lot of people joined Blue Sky in the wake
of Elon buying Twitter, and then in the wake of
the election, there were these mass migrations over so it's
all these frantic, tense liberals and you know, that's fine.

(06:24):
I not even but there hasn't been enough cultural stuff.
There hasn't been enough fun. So we're really trying to
dig in over there and establish a foothold. We've been
there since the beginning. Actually we were one of the first,
like point zero one percent of people to be invited.
So I've been working on it, but it's it's you know,

(06:44):
it's an uphill battle. Like you can't our social media
accounts were all sort of organically created over many, many years.
We just built up our followers, and we built up
our product and our content as much as possible, and
it's exhausting considering that we have to do it over again.
Like I said, I've been working on Blue Sky. It's

(07:04):
slowly happening for us. We have about twelve thousand followers
on blue Sky. We had at one point on Twitter
we had well over two hundred and fifty I think,
and now we're down to like eighty five, and that's distressed.
It is distressing. But long story short, I want to
ask people, if you're on Blue Sky or if you're
looking for a Twitter alternative, come on over to Blue

(07:26):
Sky and then follow us over there where Tom and Lorenzo.
We have a new Instagram account which is Tom and
Lorenzo Official.

Speaker 2 (07:36):
Yes, and it's not verified yet. I'm working on getting verified.
And you know we're right now. There's nothing there, just
a picture of us, but it is us Tame Lorenzo Official.
And I highly recommend that if you follow us on
Tom of Lorenzo, just unfollow us on Tom Lorenzo and
follow us on Ton Lorenzo Official.

Speaker 1 (07:55):
Yeah. I think that was a little confusing. If you
follow Tom and Lorenzo on Instagram, on follow us us right,
and then follow the new account which is Tom and
Lorenzo Official.

Speaker 2 (08:04):
There you go. You're trying to you so much better.

Speaker 1 (08:07):
That's not the point, you whiny bitch anyway, because and
and that's it.

Speaker 2 (08:13):
I and you know, my advice is that just be
very careful, even if you have all the protection that
you should have to begin with, just be very careful
with texts or emails and everything, because nowadays everything looks
so real, it isn't. I mean, the hacker contacted us,
of course.

Speaker 1 (08:31):
And yeah, he wants money.

Speaker 2 (08:32):
He wants money, and we're not going to give money
to anybody in that situation. Absolutely not. I refuse to
spend any money to get that account back, especially.

Speaker 1 (08:41):
Yeah, especially since as much as we want to build
up our new Instagram account, it's sort of a necessity.
I'm just not into meta. I'm not into Mark Zuckerberg
or any of that crap. I use it because I
have to, but I'm just not like whatever.

Speaker 2 (08:53):
And I don't want to support that with my money. Yeah, Unfortunately,
we lost it and we're getting a new one. The
new one is Tom and Lorenzo Official.

Speaker 1 (09:02):
And we promise we will post our European vacation picture everything,
post our Christmas ornaments again, We'll post all our cat
pictures again. I mean, that was the thing that actually
made it very upsetting to lose that. And we didn't
lose the pictures. We actually still own have the pictures
on our phone or whatever. But you know, the fun
of unveiling a new ornament every day and seeing everyone's

(09:23):
reaction to it, all that's gone, like tears in the rain,
and that kind of sucks. So yeah, anyway, one of
the you know, the things that we're trying to navigate
One of the many things that we're trying to navigate
in this situation is how to how to be an
independent publisher when there's so much out there, first off,

(09:44):
working against you, and the tools that you need to
use for your publishing are often owned by the worst
people on earth. Like, we have a sub stack and
it was pretty active during lockdown, and we've always wanted
to return to it. We had a pretty healthy subscriber
base to it, but then it came out that substack

(10:05):
was promoting all these Nazis, and then it became like
this thing where you're not supposed to have a substack account,
and we've kind of been locked in, Like, well do
we start all over someplace? These are the constant questions
if you mentioned like Blue Sky is so anti Twitter,
and I get it, I don't like Twitter. But if
you happen to mention that you were on Twitter or
that you still have an account on Twitter, everyone comes

(10:25):
down on you is how can you support you know, Nazis? Nazis.
I'm like, listen, I got a job to do. And
The New York Times is still on Twitter and no
one's yelling at them for being on Twitter. Like we
all got jobs to do anyway. That's my little rant.
You get harder and harder to do what you do.

Speaker 2 (10:41):
It's true, like shopping, like food shopping, like googling, like
anything anything. I mean, what do you do? Where do
you go? Everyone is against you?

Speaker 1 (10:50):
Yeah? All right, that was a little dark. What else
did we want to talk about before we got into severance?
I do want to make suggest Oh okay, go ahead.
Why don't you make your suggestion?

Speaker 2 (11:03):
Yes? I By the way, I got lovely emails about
adolescent people were happy that I recommended that. So now
I'm gonna want to recommend another thing on Netflix. It's
a movie with sirci Aron and I absolutely worship her.
Well watch anything with her. I think she's an amazing actor.

(11:23):
Loved Brooklyn. If you've never watched Brooklyn, watched Brooklyn with her.
I sobbed the entire movie. Anyway. This is called The Outrun.
It's about a woman coming back from completing rehab. And
she lived in London, and she had a very crazy
life in London. She faced rehab and then went back
to her parents, to her father, to you know, to

(11:45):
sort of like recovery and face her troubled times and
all that it's a very interesting story. I think sirci
Nan does a fantastic job as someone recovering from alcohol
and it's very it's a very difficult journey. It's based
on a book, I believe, uh, And it's just she
does a very good job. And I'm gonna be very

(12:07):
honest here that usually when I watch movies about someone
recovering from alcohol abuse or alcohol in general, I just
I'm not very Sometimes I'm like, I react like a
human person. I'm always like, well, try try harder. You know, dude,
you can do a better job. I mean, you know,

(12:27):
because you're not in their head, you're not going through
what they're going through. That's my experience watching these movies.
And for the first time with this movie, I felt
very sorry for her. I understood so much more because
Sushi Rona does such a good job depicting a person
who is really really struggling to recover to you know,

(12:50):
move away, to get away from all that life. So
it's a great movie. I watch it twice. Actually really
really like it, so I highly com in. It's called
The Outrun on netfliites with Susher Bonan fantastic.

Speaker 1 (13:05):
Why don't we take a short break and then come back.
There's actually one more thing I want to discuss before
we get to Severns. We're back, and before we get
back into discussing Severance, because we have much, much much
to say about that finale. I did want to take
a moment and announce that this week, actually I believe

(13:26):
it's March twenty seventh, will be the ten year anniversary
of our first podcast. Yay, we have been podcasting for
ten straight years. Great no pun real, pardon the term
ten gay years. And I went back and when I
realized that we were coming up on the tenth anniversary,
I went back and counted because I wanted to see, well,

(13:47):
how many have we done? And this was a couple
months ago, so I cannot remember what the number was
then and what it is now, but I know it's
not It's not five hundred and twenty because we did
not do one every week for for ten years, but
it's it was an impressively high number. I think it's
something like four hundred and seventy five. Like we did
forty seven podcasts a year for ten every year ten

(14:09):
years and yay us pat ourselves on the back.

Speaker 2 (14:15):
No, I think we've done a great job. We have
interviewed great people, and we want to continue doing a
lot of other things.

Speaker 1 (14:23):
Yeah, we do have to bring in more interview Yeah.

Speaker 2 (14:25):
We want to do more. And I have to say
full disclosure here, I still struggle with it. And I'll
tell you why. Not that I don't enjoy doing it.
It's just that I have a hard time expressing myself
sometimes and I kind of freeze sometimes, and that's not
good for a podcast. Tom is much better expressing himself

(14:46):
and talking than I am. That's the reality. That's the
truth here.

Speaker 1 (14:51):
I would not put it that way, but it is.

Speaker 2 (14:52):
It is. I freeze a lot and sometimes I sound
like an idiot, but that's because I freeze. Anyway, I
just wanted you guys to do That's but I still
love doing this. I appreciate the conversations we have, the
feedback that we get. But anyway, I'm happy we're here
and we're going to continue doing a lot more.

Speaker 1 (15:11):
I agree. It's funny people have complimented us on our podcast.
People have criticized us for our podcasts because that's just
the way it is. We put stuff out there. And
for the people who compliment us, they're like, oh, I
love listening to you. It's so conversational and the love
you have to reach up and he's throwing all of

(15:32):
that and that's listens very sweet. But I always wind
up telling them, do you realize we have a huge
fight at least one out of every six or seven
podcasts just before we flip on the mics, And they're like,
I can never tell. I'm like, oh yeah, we always
always have a screaming match at least I want to
say once a month. I would say, like I said,

(15:53):
once every five or it just gets to us, don't
And I'm going to jump on ads and reiterate with
Lorenzo just said here. We do enjoy this. But if
you think it's effortless for us, well, guess what. I
actually take that as a compliment because we want it
to look effortless, right, But it's not, and it's not

(16:13):
a complaint or anything. It's just listen, if you do
podcasting almost every week for ten straight years, that's work.
It might sound like we just flip on the mics
and you know, spew into them. And to be perfectly fair,
there are plenty of episodes that were just us flipping
on that. There's research involved. Right, we usually have at
least a half hour discussion ahead of time as to

(16:34):
who's going to say what and what word are everything's
going to go in.

Speaker 2 (16:37):
But it's not scripted. You know, it's not. I mean,
we we know it's I mean that's well no, but
I want people to know that's how we want.

Speaker 1 (16:45):
They can tell, but that's how we want it. We're
constantly talking over each other and getting annoyed, so I
think people can tell it.

Speaker 2 (16:51):
But that's how I would.

Speaker 1 (16:53):
Yeah, I mean, we're very married. The whole idea was
all right, let's just give them the te low experience.
I will say that I know that our family members
sometimes listen a lot of them and I'm grateful to that,
and they all say the same thing, that's you sound
like yourself, Like that's what it sounds like to hang
out with the two of us, which again I'm very
happy about that because it might sound like we're just

(17:15):
flipping on the mics, but we're actually trying to go
for a certain vibe, which is this sort of conversational
gay couple of vibess.

Speaker 2 (17:22):
Right, it's a combination of like sort of like not scripted,
kind of kind of like very informal conversation, but at
the same time with some material, because I don't want
people to think that we're not researching anything or not
paying attention to Well, it's it.

Speaker 1 (17:40):
And yeah, when we were we had no real designs
to start a podcast, and even ten years ago, have
you listened to my podcast? Was something of a cliche,
and you know, people would make fun of people who
had podcasts, not as much as they do now, but
they did, so we didn't really want that. But after

(18:00):
our first book tour, which was twenty fourteen, when our
first book Everyone Wants to Be Me Or Do Me
came out, it was our first publicity tour. It was
our first media tour where we were going out in
the world to promote ourselves. It was a very heavy
experience in a lot of ways, it was very fun,
and it turns out that the one thing that we
enjoyed most of all was doing radio. We had done

(18:22):
a lot of serious radio interviews and stuff like that,
and we had done a couple television appearances. And I
am very happy to admit I am not built for television.
I don't enjoy it, I don't look good on it.
It's just not for me. I never wanted it, and
we did a couple TV spots to promote the book,
but I didn't enjoy it, whereas turning on a microphone

(18:44):
and just talking was great. And so in my head
at the time, I was like, you know, it's serious.
Wanted to offer us a show, which I mean, I
wasn't banking on it or anything like that, but I
was like, that's the one thing that I would take
in a minute. You have to remember that eleven twelve
years ago we were on a blogger high where we
actually were fielding not request, but television producers were reaching

(19:11):
out to us, and we actually took a couple of
meetings to see, all right, is this where we want
to take this. We realized we didn't want to. We
wound up doing radio, and then I was like, you
know what, if a radio producer wanted to reach out,
we would do that in a second. And about a
year after that, a podcast producer reached out and it
was part of a network. We were part of a
CVS Radio network of podcasts. And at the time that

(19:34):
I said that, I was like, this was the only
way I was going to do it. I was not
going to launch my own independent podcasts and try and
make it happen. I was waiting for some media to say,
we'd like to offer you a podcast, and so we did.
And you know, no Tino shade against that company. But
it was hard for us because it had been you know,

(19:58):
by then, it had been almost ten since we had
worked for other people. We had been working on our
own for so long, and to constantly have to like
answer emails and remember all the like we had like
zoom meetings and group phone calls with sponsors and everything,
like all that stuff, and we didn't like it. And
eventually it came. There came an opportunity for us to

(20:20):
part ways, and ever since then we have been independent.
We produce it ourselves. All the money that is made
from our ad revenue goes straight to us, and you
know that sort of thing. And I'm happy with that.
It happened exactly how I wanted it to happen. I
wanted to be part of a network when we started,
and then at some point I wanted us to become independent,

(20:40):
and that is what happened. Now, I mean, I think
that's it. I just wanted to use like, ten years
is a long time. It is a lot to do
a podcast, and we're coming up on twenty years as
bloggers like these are significant, significant miles. I don't thank
everyone who reads us, who listens to us, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (21:01):
Thank you, thank you very very much. We never take
any of that.

Speaker 1 (21:04):
Forget going anywhere, and still here's ten years of spewing
it to our mics. Okay, I feel like we need
to jump right into Severance. We'll probably take a break
half bright through our Severance discussion because I got much
that I want to say. I saw your reply, and
then then the we have the White Lotus, but I

(21:26):
have almost nothing to say about that because I literally
at the end of last night's episode, I was like, Okay,
I hate this show and I'm done with.

Speaker 2 (21:32):
It, but I hate it.

Speaker 1 (21:33):
I'm going to toss to you when it comes time
to talk about that. Okay, Severance very interesting finale. I
will say that one thing that that team really knows
how to do is build a finale that is high stakes,
where your heart is in your throat and you don't
know what's going to happen next, and that it ends

(21:55):
on a note that where you're like, oh my god,
I need to know more. They are really really good
at that I will also say that a lot of
my complaints about the show from earlier in the season
have largely faded away or been addressed. Interesting, most of
what I complained about earlier in the season was that

(22:15):
I will have some complaints or criticisms of this phenomenon,
But most of what I complained about earlier in the
season was we were losing the human component. And I'm sorry,
heat just kicked in. I don't know if you're going
to be able to hear it on the mics. We
were losing the human component of these characters, and the
show was getting way too caught up in mysteries and

(22:38):
these weird moments where nobody was acting like a human being,
and that was the part that was bothering me. So
I feel like with this with this episode, they focused
almost entirely on the emotional core of what was happening.
In fact, the entire ending, the ending is a cliffhanger

(23:01):
that ends entirely on an emotional moment. What happens next
comes down to emotion, not some crazy mystery. And for
that reason alone, I feel like okay there that I
feel like they are getting this a little bit more
back on track than before. Now, it did have moments
where I was like, Okay, we're going to do this,

(23:24):
We're coming here again. But but for me, like, for instance,
we're going to unpack the whole episode. Mark and Mark,
Scout and Gemma's reunion was just lovely when they finally, finally,
finally got to see each other face to face as
their husband and wife selves. It was such a payoff

(23:46):
and I was so emotionally invested in the two of them.
And that's something I will say about about Severance is
it's an extremely well constructed show. It picks up like
for it's a real short example, and then I will
toss to you those little handprint things where you have
to stick your hand in to open the door and
it draws some blood. And when that first happened, I

(24:09):
was like, oh, that's why. I was like, are they cloning?
What is this? Why are they taking people's blood? But
it actually paid off brilliantly in this episode, because you know,
there was a whole series of events that happened, and
then Mark gets to that door and of course it
won't open for him, but he's covered in a lumine
employee's blood, and I was like, that's actually really clever. Clever. Yes,
and this is what I mean. They construct it really well.

(24:32):
And before I toss you, I do want to note that, like,
that's a good example, that hand thing. Maybe it will
be something else further down the line. But to me,
that and the goat thing was a just a perfect
answer to should you be paying attention to the mysteries
or not? And the answer is no, not really, because
they're going to come up with answers for these things,

(24:53):
and they're going to be somewhat pragmatic and usually a
little disappointing. So the hand thing isn't Oh, they're not
drawing blood or DNA or anything. It's literally just to
open the door. And the goat thing, no, they're not
putting chips and goats. They're not putting human personalities and goats.
They're just a weird cult who kills goats to as
a funeral practice. And everyone was really disappointed about the

(25:15):
goat thing, and that to me was like, Yeah, don't
wonder why everyone's driving a nineteen eighty car. It's only
because it looks cool. That's it. They do shit because
it looks cool, And you need to separate that from
the emotional component. Of the story, which is clearly where
the story is actually happening. Right.

Speaker 2 (25:32):
I have to say I really enjoyed the episode. There
are some very interesting moments, like the whole the Mark
conversation was incredible. Stuff like that that. There's a lot
that was very beautiful, and I was like, this is
why I like the show. But the goat thing was
to me, was annoying. And there are all the things

(25:54):
that I'm like, why are we doing this? And again,
I've been reading a lot of interview with the creators
and they enjoy that. They enjoy they and they kind
of like, you know, feeding too that the whole everybody
out there has all these theories and and and and
I don't know, just talk about it like every detail,
every little thing has to be over analyzed. And and

(26:16):
they kind of enjoyed that. They they just did a
panel for the Pillyfest and and they they talk about it.
That's the first thing they talked about it. And to
me that was such a turnoff. Oh, you guys know
more than we do. You have all these theories, blah
blah blah, and.

Speaker 1 (26:30):
They're just like, well, I will say this. I feel
like Dan Dan Erickson in particular, you know it's Dan
Erickson is the creator writer of the show, and Ben
Steller is a producer and director of the show. And
ben Steller naturally is getting a lot more pressed because
he's an actor and he's famous, and he's doing a
lot of press. But sometimes their answers are at odds
with each other. Like ben Stiller is full, he's loving

(26:51):
all the mysteries and all that stuff and all the
but Dan Erickson, in a couple of interviews, has been
saying trying to tone that down a little bit, to
tone down the theorizing and to suggest that it's going
off in directions he never planned on to him. I
think to Dan Erickson in particular, this is not a
puzzle box show. It's not a mystery show. As you noted,

(27:14):
he likes to do things because they look cool or
they look weird. They said that, you know the Ortbo.
The ort bois episode four where they went out to
the park and yeah, and all that. He had said
in interviews afterwards that he did it because he thought
it looked cool to have them outside. Now there's a
lot about that episode that worked and some things that

(27:35):
didn't work. I don't think it's terrible for a creator
to say we did that because it looks cool. In fact,
I would rather they say that than oh, we did
that because we're going for some heavier meaning or whatever,
so that doesn't bother me. On the other hand, there
are certain things like in this episode that I I
loved this episode. Let me just say I loved this episode.

(27:58):
There's twenty minutes in the middle that I absolutely loathed, hated.
I actually had a pause because it was so hard
for me to sit through. I just hated it. And
it was everything with mister Milchick and that animatronic thing,
and then mister Milchick and that marching band the animatronic thing.

(28:19):
I mean, I just there's only so far. Oh well,
there are weird cult there's only so far that's going
to explain certain things. And that scene, I'm like, no,
what we know where the animatronic came from. It came
from that weird display in the further down in the basement,
that care display. Fine, and we've established that mister Milchick

(28:42):
is basically the one that's doing all of these weird
things like you know, watermelon heads and all that, and
dance parties and stuff like that. Because He is typical
middle management. He is stuck between the people above him
who don't value him, and the people below him who
hate him, and he's trying to make everybody happy, and

(29:05):
he's clear. He is one of the most fascinating characters
on the show, and TRAML. Tillman is doing amazing work.
And I absolutely love that the show has openly addressed
the racism that is involved in an organization like that
and the constant microaggressions that are foisted upon him. So
all of that's good stuff. And the whole thing about

(29:27):
him using big words, that's straight up racism because everybody
else in Luman talks that way. Ms Kobell uses big
words and weird phrasing and everything. Mister Drummond talks that way,
Doctor Mauer talks that way. They all talk that way,
but they all criticize the black man for talking that way.
So that's powerful stuff. But then you have it done

(29:49):
in this freaking weird ass scene where the whole time
I'm like, who's talking right now? Who's making that thing talk?

Speaker 2 (30:00):
Lying?

Speaker 1 (30:01):
And nothing talk? Because they were literally interacting with each other.
He was responding. It wasn't pre recorded. Someone's in another
room operating that thing and making it talk, and I'm like,
why why would anybody do this? It's just another one

(30:21):
of the let let It's weird, it's strange, it's you know,
oh it's but I don't love it. I just don't
love it because the whole time I'm sitting there going
why why are we doing this? And then the marching
band came and that's when I paused it because I
had an immediate thought that became as true as true

(30:42):
could be. I paused it and I was like, oh,
I see this is going to go viral in with
a twelve hours and it did. And it's the entire
point of this scene is to create this moment that's
going to go incredibly viral. And it did. It's all
anybody talked about and taken totally on are like, oh
my god, it's so fun. Tremaielle Tillman can dance, and

(31:03):
you know what, he doesn't love a drum line, And
but I did. It took me right out of the
story because the only reason you're doing this is to
create another viral moment that looks cool. And then they
did that thing at the end where they did their
number and they all held up signs that spell I

(31:23):
don't know, congratulations Mark and had to picture market and everything,
and it held the signs up to the ceiling where
there's nobody there. So why are you holding up those signs?
There's nobody looking at those signs. It's not like you're
in a stadium and anyone can see them.

Speaker 2 (31:38):
I see what you mean.

Speaker 1 (31:39):
And Dan Erickson actually said in an interview, He's like,
I love that they held up the signs and there's
nobody up there. See that. Shit just annoys me, it does.
It just annoys me. And the problem is a lot
of the viewers take moments like that and they think
there's some explanation, like, oh, who's watching them from above?
Who saw those? Nobody did. The creator just thought it

(32:02):
looked cool.

Speaker 2 (32:03):
I thought there was a lot of that this season.
There was a lot of that, and it drove me
a little crazy. I hate it. What is the point
of that? I mean, the goat thing. I hated the
goat thing. The whole goat thing was. I hated it.

Speaker 1 (32:14):
Now I hate this episode. I didn't mind it. It
paid everything off. But when they had that scene with
Gwendolyn Christy and all the crazy feral people, and you
know they'd all die from methane exposure because there's no
ventilation down there, and there's twenty shitting goats. I hate
that stuff. I hate it. I hate it. I hate
it it. I get that you have some sort of like, okay,

(32:36):
you're some sort of cult that needs goats to for
your funeral whatever, whatever. Why are you raising them in
the basement of an office building?

Speaker 2 (32:46):
Right?

Speaker 1 (32:46):
You can raise goats literally anywhere. There's nothing mysterious about it.
You don't have to do that, but it quote looks cool,
and the creators do it.

Speaker 2 (32:54):
They do it, they do They create these scenarios or
rooms that you know, the people will talk about it.
They'll talk about those rooms none stop, and they'll they'll
come up with all these theories and things about them,
and just silly. It's silly. It doesn't fit in with
any with the rest of the story. I feel so. Yeah,

(33:15):
some parts of the episode were great. The whole Mark conversation.

Speaker 1 (33:19):
Tarvers is going to pause here, Why don't we take
a break? Well, let me just say this, do you
have any other complaints before we get to the parts
that we love. I think I've handled all about the finale.
That's the stuff I hated.

Speaker 2 (33:33):
No, I want to talk about the finale, but that's
for later because I was horrified with the whole thing.

Speaker 1 (33:37):
Well, no, I mean creative decisions.

Speaker 2 (33:39):
That I a creative decisions. I thought the goat was silly,
No need for that, not really No, And I actually
enjoy the marching band. But I see your point. I
see your point that it didn't belong there. I mean
it was just something too amusingment opinion.

Speaker 1 (33:58):
Why did you enjoy the marching band.

Speaker 2 (34:00):
Because it was so beautifully done, just gorgeous moment if
you take it, you know, as if.

Speaker 1 (34:08):
You don't think about it for longer than thirty seconds.

Speaker 2 (34:10):
I actually enjoyed the whole thing. I love the marching
band thing. I've watched it like a hundred times.

Speaker 1 (34:14):
Why would have a marching band?

Speaker 2 (34:15):
But I agree doesn't belong in the story.

Speaker 1 (34:17):
And they're severed, Dan Erickson said in an interview, Oh no,
they're severed employees. So those are severed people down on
this floor. Why why? And I believe it was Alan Sepinwall,
the Rolling Stone critic who interviewed him and asked him,
is there a reason? Why? Would do you know why?
Luman would have a marching band or did you just

(34:40):
he basically said, or did you just do that because
you think it looked cool? And he said, no, I
actually have a reason for it. So I don't know.
Maybe I do think some of what he's telling people
in the interviews is a little bs.

Speaker 2 (34:51):
They that's the thing with those creators for the show specifically,
the thing was happening with Severance is the same thing
that happened with Succession. Know, it gets beyond and beyond.

Speaker 1 (35:03):
Ted Lasso shy. There's a point which you're not allowed
to say anything.

Speaker 2 (35:06):
Anything anymore, and they my god, they will attack you
if you don't even like the show. But my point
is that I think they're making this shit up as
they go, which I understand that's fine, But at the
same time, it's like, all right, well then, I don't know.
I mean, you have to have some sort of like
you know, beginning, middle, and end to anything you create

(35:27):
at some point.

Speaker 1 (35:28):
Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (35:30):
It just feels like they're just going with the reaction,
the public reaction, you know, the viewers, and I don't know,
it just feels like they're just I don't know, we'll
see and but there are more seasons coming. Hopefully we
don't have to wait three years for the next season.

Speaker 1 (35:46):
Yeah, let's take a break here and then I just
want to address one thing. I don't think there's anything
wrong with creators not knowing where something's going. A television
show takes years to write, and you, I just don't
think it's realistic for anyone to expect the entire story
to be written. Novelists start novels that they don't know
how are going to end. Short story writers start short

(36:07):
stories that they don't know how they're going to end.
The thing with the television show on like a movie
is it's a process that's playing out over years, and
we have to wait for that end. So I don't mind,
and I don't think there's anything wrong with creators making
stuff up. And Dan Erickson has been very clear about
that in some interviews that he doesn't know specifically where
certain things are going to go.

Speaker 2 (36:29):
I'll give you an example. I don't believe that they
knew what they were going to do with the goat
when they had the Goat room.

Speaker 1 (36:34):
I don't. I don't know what did they say that
they all know, But my point.

Speaker 2 (36:39):
Is that no, they can't. They came up with that
goat room because they thought it was cool, and then
later they decided, well, we have to do something about
the goats.

Speaker 1 (36:46):
But I don't have a problem with that. I have
a problem with them coming up with things just to
be cool, but I don't have a problem with them
coming up with twists or ideas and stuff like that.
Like I said, the stuff with Miss Cobell being the
inventor of Severn's, I call bullshit on that that. There's
no way last season they knew that. But I don't
think that's terrible. I don't think it's wrong to have
a twist. I don't think it's wrong to reveal something

(37:09):
that you didn't know ahead of time. Anyway, let's take
a break. I keep saying, let's take a break, and
we'll be right back. We're back, and now I want
to be happy Tom and Lorenzo or are going to
talk about the things that we loved in that episode. Okay,
So this conversation between Mark and S and Mark Scout

(37:29):
was brilliant. I actually felt the hairs on the back
of my next stand up when I realized what they
were going for and the conversation started speeding up, and
the editing started speeding up, and it actually looked like
a real conversation.

Speaker 2 (37:39):
It looked fantastic.

Speaker 1 (37:41):
Adam Scott deserves an oscar, I mean an Emmy, because
up until that point I wasn't completely clear on what
the differences were between Marks and Mark Scout. I know
that Mark Scout was more depressed than Mark S. But
what I really got was Mark's Scout. It felt a

(38:03):
lot like a parent talking to a child, because Mark
Scout is forty or whatever and Mark S is two
years old, and so for the first time, like Mark
Scout came off a little cocky, which he hasn't up
until now, and Mark S came off somewhat whiny. And

(38:27):
people got mad at me when I said this, he
acting like a petulant teenager. But you know what, the
creators of the show actually said the exact same thing.
He's in his oppositional stage. He's a child entering his
teenage years. He got laid and now he's getting oppositional.
It's pretty pretty on the surface. I mean, it's not
hard to parse the and the point of saying that

(38:47):
is not to declare which one was right and which
one was wrong. I think the creators are very clearly
setting up a dilemma that cannot be solved satisfactorily for
both of them. And I loved that. I loved how
that scene unfolded, where everything that the story has been
establishing up until that point came out. It came out that,

(39:12):
you know, Mark S is actually in love and doesn't
want to give up his life and Mark scout. You know,
part of the emotional resonance of everything that happened in
this episode it comes down to that episode with Gemma.
You had to be in love with Jema and Mark
as a couple. You had to want to fight for
those two and to make it seem like, oh my god,

(39:33):
that you know, he's got to get Jemma out of there.
But at the same time, they're also setting up Helly
and Mark as this like star Cross lever kind of thing,
I have to say. And part of that was the
piece was with the point of the piece that I
wrote the other day about whether Severn's has fully established
this dilemma. You know, my point is this, I don't

(39:56):
actually have a lot of conflicted thoughts about it. Who is,
like Mark S has agency and has a right to
want to fight for his life, but ultimately he does
not have the right to control that body. He does
not have the right to take control of that body
against Mark Scout's will, which is essentially what he did

(40:16):
at the end. And you could argue that Mark Scout
never had the right to do to create right, but
he didn't know, Like there's a thing here where you know,
Mark Scout went through the severance program because he was
chronically depressed and could not function and keep a job.
He wasn't doing it just to create his own little slave.
There were reasons in the story. I think there's all

(40:37):
of them have reasons. Dylan had reasons for for you know,
he was a failure and his marriage wasn't very happy
and he wanted to, you know, be a success. I
don't know why Irving did it. Literally, the only person
who has gone through sevens who you could say that
person's a monster is Heleny Egan because she knew what
it entails, she knew what her any is going to

(41:00):
go through down there. She did it anyway that that
woman's a monster. But I really don't think Mark is wrong.
He didn't know. I mean, he didn't know, but then
Mark Scout I mean, Mark S. As much as I
feel for him, I do not feel his truncated relationship

(41:21):
with Helena Egan's alternate personality is on the same level
as Mark Scout's relationship with his wife Gemma. I'm not
seeing a dilemma here because I really don't feel that
what Mark S and Helly are are going through is
anything akin to what Mark Scout and.

Speaker 2 (41:39):
Gemma show does. I'm not yeah, yeah, I'm talking a lot,
go ahead. No, that's that's extally what I mean. I mean,
they showed this wonderful relationship between the two of them,
you know, how they met and everything they went through. Uh,
and then he's just gonna throw it all away and
stay with I know, somebody that he just had sex with.

Speaker 1 (42:00):
Let's just put this out there, Helena. I mean, Helly
R might might yeah in it's sand although I don't
I didn't think so at the end of this episode.
But Helena Egan is a monster like Gemma's not a monster.
Mark's not a monster. They deserve a right to be happy.
Helena Egan, I don't really think she deserves anything in

(42:21):
this And you know, I'm where does that leave Helly R.
I don't know Obviously I'm not like, oh fuck them,
switch them all off. But I'm just not feeling the heavy,
heavy ethical or moral dilemma that the show keeps trying
to push. And the thing about that piece that I
read the other day, which was very interesting, was a

(42:42):
lot of people saying they disagreed with me, but then
they basically came down they disagree with me on whether
Mark s has A has A the right, but the
fact that you're coming down hard on one side of
this equation, well, then again this comes down to my
point where I don't think they're making this moral dilemma
equally as weighted and they claim that it is right.

(43:05):
So that is a slight criticis in the show, and
this was supposed to be the happy part. So I'll
I will just say Adam Scott deserves an Emmy for
that scene alone. I thought the editing in that scene
was beautiful all the way it was shot. If you notice,
Mark s is all warm tones because he's inside next
to a fire, and Mark Scout is all blue tones
because he's outside in the cold, and it was very

(43:26):
it was just all it really different people, and they
did look like two different people, all right, Now, uh oh,
the other.

Speaker 2 (43:40):
See.

Speaker 1 (43:40):
I come down on the side that the innis are
not They're not They're not as separate from their alleys
as as you want to think they are. And the
show has actually been dropping little hints of this. For
one thing, Irving and Bert last week, I didn't I
don't know that I brought this up, but they actually

(44:01):
quoted or or paraphrased things that their innis had said
to each other downstairs, and they were like touching heads
and it was something their innis had done when they
were in love down on that floor. And I remember
thinking at the time, I was like, I think the
show was saying that there's really not as big a
separation from these two things as you say. In a way,
it's to you, that's my point. And then when Dylan

(44:26):
Dylan's Audi, well, Dylan's inny tried to quit, and then
Dylan's Audi wrote him a letter and sent him back
in to make him read it. And I actually loved
that letter because it established that Dylan's Audi is not
a dick.

Speaker 2 (44:41):
It's not as bad as no.

Speaker 1 (44:43):
And he does love his wife.

Speaker 2 (44:45):
Troubled loser maybe, but he.

Speaker 1 (44:47):
Loves his wife, and he actually admires his inny for being,
you know, a bit more of a badass than he is,
and I thought that was actually really heartwarming and healthy,
because I think if you're looking at this show from
a psychological perspective, which I do think is important, it's
about integrating your whole, it's not about separating yourself out.

(45:07):
And in that moment, Dylan was about as integrated as
any person could be, having gone through severance. His any
and his Alley were communicating, they respected each other, and
it was clear that they kind of like each other
like they support each other.

Speaker 2 (45:21):
Yes, and they're contruity in a way to each other.

Speaker 1 (45:23):
That's a very healthy psychological and I do think that's
what the show is heading towards, which is why I
think that ending is horrifying. It's not romantic to me,
and I'm saying to me, if it's romantic to you,
then fine. As I said, I believe the creators want that.

Speaker 2 (45:41):
Maybe maybe they'll have a solution for all that next season.
But I was horrified. I felt so bad for him.

Speaker 1 (45:48):
And for Mark. Yeah yeah, Mark, I mean Mark Scout,
because let's game this out. Mark is covered in blood
and has killed a lumine employee. He doesn't get out
of this situation alive. Literally right, you're I mean your

(46:09):
whole thing was I don't want to give up my life.
But by running away and not escaping Lumen, you have
now basically said that you don't give a shit about
Mark Scout's life either. That's the part about it that
I found really disturbing. I was like, well, I don't
I don't know what we're supposed to think, but me personally,
I am not rooting for Marcs and I'm not even

(46:30):
rooting for helly Are because I think she's going to
break bad. But go ahead, you go.

Speaker 2 (46:34):
No, I'm just curious to see what comes next because well,
clearly the project didn't work whatever they had in mind. Yeah,
I have thought, go ahead that they fucked that up,
and the employers supposed to just let it go. I mean,
they're going to punish these people. How How so you're
not going to get away with You're not going to

(46:55):
get away. You're inside a building that belongs to somebody
else who makes all the decision. I mean, like, you're
still right, you know, an employee, so you can't get
away with that. They're clearly met at you. You as
you said, he's.

Speaker 1 (47:08):
Covered in blood. You killed some there's a dead body.

Speaker 2 (47:11):
Yeah, So I don't know. I mean, happy andy for you,
for you both. I right now, I don't see it.

Speaker 1 (47:17):
No, I don't. I mean it's a tragedy. That's the thing.
Those final scenes were tragic and horrifying to me. They weren't.
Now Dan and Ben in their interviews have said, and
I get this, and it's it's actually, you know, sort
of like the Graduate. There's a little bit of Logan's
run in there. There's a little bit of Thelman Louise
where they're kind of just trying to live for the

(47:38):
next minute, you know, like just one more minute together.
And that's what that scene. And it was. It was romantic,
the red lights following them down the hallway and everything. Fantastic,
h fantastic filmmaking. But I do not. I can't say
that I'm rooting for these two. Now. I want to
unpack a few things that I think is likely to
happen next season. For one, Gemma has made it out

(47:59):
of the severnth floor, but she hasn't made it out
of the building.

Speaker 2 (48:01):
The building and people are questioning that did.

Speaker 1 (48:03):
You make it? But there's no way Mark and Devin,
We're just like, all right, Mark go to work and
we'll see what happens. Devon's got to be waiting outside.
Miss co Bell's got to be waiting right side. There's
just no way Mark went to work that. I have
to admit. I'm sorry. I thought we were done the criticisms,
but I don't like how conversations happened off screen and

(48:24):
we never saw them. So I understand, like there was
that moment where Mark said, the next thing I better see,
I see better be the inside of the lumin elevator,
and they cut to the lumin elevator. But we missed
a lot there, right, Fine, okay, but when Devin and
Miss Cobell were talking to Mark in that cabin, it
was very very clear that Devin had learned all this

(48:46):
stuff off camera, and I was like, you know, I
think we needed to learn that. And then when Mark
Scout says, oh, hey, I heard you had a little
romance down there Helena Egan, I was like, no, no, no, no.
Mark Scout was completely freaked out by Helln Egan coming
up to him in that Chinese restaurant. I needed to
see the scene where he found out that he had
slept with her, like I needed to see that. Why

(49:07):
wouldn't you show me that? That is a problem. I'm
sorry we're back to criticizing. I actually loved this episode,
and I did like this season a lot. But gaming
out next season? Okay, So let's say she gets out
of the building. Gemma, I do think she gets out
of I don't think they're going to start off next season,
but kidnapped and brought back to the floor. So she

(49:29):
gets out of the building and now she's outside and
Mark stuck inside it. Right now, the idea is like, well,
what can they do? They can't stay there forever. They
might because I'd point to Jamee Egan going to see
Helle are downstairs and saying, you know you have the
spark of caring you and I never liked my daughter.
He's going to keep his daughter completely switched off. He's

(49:52):
keeping Helly as his daughter, Helly knowing this was going
to have some leverage, and she's going to keep them
from killing Mark.

Speaker 2 (50:00):
Right, that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (50:01):
So they get to exist as Helly R and Mark
s because she has leverage. What they do after that,
I don't know. Right now. Luman can't just let Jemma
out in the world they need. Well, first off, she
can She's been dead for two years and all she
has to do is show up at a Soccurio office.

(50:21):
She gets the ball rolling on that story and she
can tell her story, and they clearly don't want that
to happen. So they also want the chip in her head.
They've invested two years into that, and that was the
whole point of killing her, was to extract that chip.
Everything they've been trying to do with Cold Harbor is
in Jemma's head. So they don't want Jemma to go

(50:42):
to the police or whatever or the press. But they
also don't want to kill her until they've had they've
had a chance to get that thing out of her head.
So I think they're going to keep Mark and Helly
you go the roll that uh huh, and hold that
over her.

Speaker 2 (50:58):
I also didn't like that they didn't really explain why
Jimma went through all the stuff that she went through.

Speaker 1 (51:05):
I mean, emotionally, I think they did. She I don't
love explanations that come down to she was so heartbroken
that she couldn't have a child, that she lost all
sight by herself. But whatever.

Speaker 2 (51:14):
But we didn't get any anything. We just get her
doing her thing, I know the building.

Speaker 1 (51:19):
Yeah, I mean yeah. I guess they're going to explain
that at some.

Speaker 2 (51:24):
Point, maybe maybe some flashback next season.

Speaker 1 (51:27):
Yeah. I mean, I think there are big questions that
they have to answer, But I have never I don't
give a shit about the keears or any of that.
I have never given a shit. I think all of
that comes down to weird cult, and the only answer
they're ever going to give you is weird cult. But
let me see, do I have anything else I want
to I mean, that's it. I think what's going to

(51:50):
happen is Helly and Mark are now going to become
a little bit lumin faithful because their existence relies on
doing whatever Luman asks of them. And I honestly feel
like Marcus and Helly R are breaking bad. I think
they are basically the villains of their audies as opposed

(52:13):
to someone like Dylan, who is is the good guy
because he and his audiy get along. It'll be very
interesting to see. The one final question that I want
to theorize about is who Irving was calling on the phone,
because they didn't answer that question, but they did make
a point of saying of showing you miss Cobell's face.

(52:34):
When she found out that Irving knew about the Black Hallway,
she didn't know that he knew, which rules her out
as the person that he's been calling. She was the
number one suspect of who is Irvin calling on the outside?
So who is Irvin calling on the outside if we're
going by the people that we've already know he's calling.
Mister Miltchick. Huh, Mister Miltchick is clearly clearly torn. I

(53:00):
think he's lumin faithful, but I also think he's he's
breaking away from it, and he clearly thinks what's happening
to the Innies is right, is terrible.

Speaker 2 (53:10):
You can see by when he is inside the bathroom
and he's so kind of like confused, and then there's
one point when Mark is talking to everybody around them
and then he kind of peeks out and then he's confused.
You can tell that that he, Yeah, he's confused.

Speaker 1 (53:27):
So I think he might be who Irving was talking
to on the outside. And I think that's what we're
going to find out eventually. There's a lot about mister Milchick.
I think he's the one that we're going to find
out about in season three, like what's your story? We
basically found out Miss Kobel.

Speaker 2 (53:42):
We don't know a lot about it.

Speaker 1 (53:43):
I don't know a thing about him. And actually I've
heard several people refer to him as someone who isn't severed,
and I'm like, do we know that, right? Do we
know that he's not severed? I mean, I know that
we saw him outside as mister Milchick, but we've also
seen Mark S outside as Mark S. That's the other thing,
kind of a little criticism. The whole conflict hinges on

(54:05):
Mark S wanting to remain whole somehow. He and the
conflict is he doesn't feel that he can ever turn
against Lumen or try and destroy Lumen because Luman is
what keeps him alive. And he's having this conversation with
Mark Scout, his Audie and also with Miss Cobell, both
of whom know that you can't exist outside of Lumen

(54:28):
because Miss Cobell created the Glasgow Block and the overtime contingency,
and Mark Scout has been outside, like I mean, Mark S.
Mark S has been right. He went to the party
and met his sister and then he went to the
ort bow and got to see the sky in the outside,
and now he's in a birthing cabin and the whole

(54:48):
time and they're in a birthing cabin saying, how can
I exist outside of lumen? And I'm sitting there going
you are right now? I mean, I know that's a
lumin cabin, but theoretically there is away from Mark as
to still have his own consciousness outside of Bloomen. And
I don't understand why nobody brought that up to him
or why he doesn't understand that since he experienced it. Anyway,

(55:11):
Are we done with this? Yeah, all right, let's take
a break, come back, and I'm shutting up because I
hate the White Lotus. We'll be right back where back
and now we're going to talk about the White Lotus.
You know where Lorenzo go. Because I just have said
so much about Seference, so.

Speaker 2 (55:29):
White Loatus the latest episode I have to see. Every
time I finished an episode, I'm always like, we saw
nothing happening. It's very true to what happened. People are
having a good time at this beautiful place somewhere traveling,
But I don't think it works for a show that

(55:49):
you're just showing people waking up, having breakfast walking, you know,
having a conversation he and there, and not a lot happening,
or the plot is not developing or moving. You know,
you're stuck with these moments that they mean nothing. And
I get it. It's beautiful. These actors are amazing, and
if we didn't have great actors then it would be

(56:11):
even worse. But these people are doing a fantastic job.
Locations are beautiful. That's why I enjoyed the show and
I'll keep watching. And that's why I watched every episode
several times because I find it beautiful. But in terms
of blot in terms of story, when you think about it,
how many episodes so far now seven six? When you

(56:32):
think about it, nothing is we're stuck with, you know,
with the same information that we had in the beginning
pretty much pretty much. There's nothing else new about any
one of them.

Speaker 1 (56:44):
Not really, Like I how much can we watch Jason
Isaac's pop pills and be strong and fantasized about killing
himself over and over and over? And I'm like, Okay,
the point has been made many many many means, right
right right right right, my like this episode that I
got so frustrated because last episode was just all people
partying and hooking up, right, And as I said at

(57:07):
the time, that's interesting or fun to watch for about
I don't know. Ten minutes after that, I get really
bored by it. And then this episode, after an entire
episode of people partying, it was like forty minutes of
people with hangovers, literally forty minutes of people with hangovers,
and I'm like, what the fuck, like, is there any
I'm sorry, I just I agree that location stunningly beautiful. Yeah,

(57:30):
that's why I agree that cast. I could watch any
of them do their work. Well. Yeah, I mean, I
don't mind Patrick Schwarzninger, but I'm not remotely interested in
any story that's happening right now. I do not care
except for maybe Belinda, and I'm pretty sure she's getting
a happy ending. I don't give a shit. I don't

(57:51):
give a shit about the Ratlett family. I don't give
a shit.

Speaker 2 (57:54):
The whole gun thing, what was the point of that.

Speaker 1 (57:56):
I am so annoyed by that.

Speaker 2 (57:58):
Yeah, I mean, we spent all that time about the gun,
and then the gun.

Speaker 1 (58:01):
He found it. He opened the right door. He just
happened to open the right doorer on the first round,
I'm like, come on, end of story.

Speaker 2 (58:07):
So I was like, we wasted all this time with
the gun. I hate the fact that you know, you
know Timothy the character the father, you know, we're we're
seeing all those things that are going through his head,
like killing his wife and all that. I find that
so lame. I do tell that you were exposed to
viewers to that several times. I'm like, this is just lame.

Speaker 1 (58:27):
Yeah, you can do it once, but you do it
twice in the same embry.

Speaker 2 (58:30):
I mean, he's just confusing me for no reason. Is
this lame? Uh, you really don't want to you know,
he's not going to do it, but you just want
me to believe for a second. It's just, yeah, it's lame.

Speaker 1 (58:41):
I don't like it at all.

Speaker 2 (58:42):
The only thing that I like very much and I
still enjoy.

Speaker 1 (58:45):
Is the three ladies. And actually that storyline, yah, did
get a little bit better. It is getting better close,
but it's it's still the three of them being passive
aggressive to each other. But at least, uh, there's a
little bit of movement, emotional movement, and never thing we've
seen Leslieibb's character and Michelle Monahan's character make some rather

(59:09):
dismissive comments about Kyrie Kohon and you kind of felt like, oh,
she's the one, you know, they're the more glamorous ones
or whatever. And then this was the episode where you
kind of want to root for her character, but she's
taking it too far and she was being nasty to
both of those women. At one point she said to
Leslie Bibb, I'm not like you. I have to be

(59:29):
I have to tell the truth, and like it was
just nasty stuff. And I mean, this is all where
that was going, and I'm kind of looking forward to
that confrontation actually happening.

Speaker 2 (59:39):
But again, it's taking you a long time. And the
only reason why we enjoyed, let's face it, because these
women are amazing.

Speaker 1 (59:45):
Right that story isn't that any now It's just three
old friends who don't really like each other anymore.

Speaker 2 (59:50):
But the actors are fantastic. So that's why, I mean,
the whole thing on the boat. And then of course
Patrick Schwartzen and gave several interviews. You know, when he's
shown naked, you know, his brother's see his button, all
that stuff in the bathroom, he actually said that, oh
there's more coming, So we all knew there was more

(01:00:10):
stuff coming. At least I knew because I watched all
these interviews. So and then it's the scene with them,
you know, the two of them having sex with with Chloe,
Greg's girlfriend, and of course it's gonna be weird and
all that, and you know, but I think that's the
whole point is just to make it weird so people
can talk about it, the two brothers having sex with

(01:00:32):
her and all that, and then all these interviews Apparently
I don't know if it's true, but there's an interview
with Charlotte Lebon Lebon, the actress who plays Chloe, saying
that Patrick Patrick Patrick as Fan Seneger, apparently was very
put off by the whole scene and then he almost
threw up and because you know, he didn't want to

(01:00:52):
do it. And I'm like, you're aren't you an actor?
Didn't you go once? You complaining that you spent all
these year studying to become an actor and you complaining
about the same The whole thing was gross to me.
And I hate that kind of discussion, right, I really do,
because then it's all about you know, two men kissing
or brother kissing or whatever.

Speaker 1 (01:01:13):
Stop and say you know, HBO has been featuring intel
storylines on Game of Thrones and the House of the
Dragon for over a decade now, when everyone was titillated
by them.

Speaker 2 (01:01:23):
So if that really happened, if he was, you know,
so disturbed by playing that character and kissing the other actor,
I just find it gross and I, you know, one
more reason to not like him. But but again, it's
just the whole conversation about that, and I think we
go back and now I just saw an article about
bad taste and television that you know, people complaining about

(01:01:45):
that we were just creating these moments on television just
so that we be you know, shocked by it and right,
And I don't know is that true. I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:01:52):
Maybe whatever, I find the whole thing, the whole storyline
with those time, I'm just whatever. I have a gay brother,
and I know that he and I have had to
field those sorts of questions our entire lives, and I
hated it and so did he. And we had to
feel it from gay people and we had to field

(01:02:13):
it from straight people.

Speaker 2 (01:02:14):
That's all.

Speaker 1 (01:02:15):
So I don't find titillation surrounding this. I'm not a fan,
I believe me not offended even to any little bit.
I just A'm like, I'm not whatever. I've had to
deal with that shit my whole life, and I hated it.
I always hate it. Like when people would oh, did
you two ever fool around? I'm like, did you do
you ever ask a brother and a sister that question?
Have you ever even thought to ask a brother and

(01:02:35):
a sister that question? That's my point. So I'm not
titillated by it. I'm not grossed out by it. I
don't give a shit. I just I don't think it's
very interesting. Maybe it'll go somewhere. I also do not
think Piper and her Buddhism or whatever is very interesting,
all of that stuff. I'm like, what is the point
of view? What is the point of this? I do
think it was kind of interesting that her father had

(01:02:58):
this sort of spiritual moment at a time time when
he is clearly drowning. And I wonder if the point
is that he winds up staying. You know, Oh, I
think so to avoid going home. He probably a Buddhist monetary.

Speaker 2 (01:03:10):
I think so. I don't think the daughter is staying.
I think somebody else daying, maybe the brother or maybe
the father.

Speaker 1 (01:03:15):
Yeah, like I know, I mean, that would actually be
pretty funny, that would be not entirely believable, but pretty funny.

Speaker 2 (01:03:22):
I don't know. I think the story is very weak.
I was expecting more for all of the stories. Lisa's
character Mook, I was expecting more. She's just you know,
it's just cute. And then Walking needs to write she.

Speaker 1 (01:03:34):
Needs to tell that boy the truth. Like it's clear
that he's not getting the message, so you need to
be you need to come right out.

Speaker 2 (01:03:40):
Yeah, I mean, same thing with Natasha Rothwell, you know, Belinda,
same thing. It's just not my I think the stories
this time especially, I actually enjoyed season two.

Speaker 1 (01:03:50):
It's a lot more going on.

Speaker 2 (01:03:52):
It's actually my favorite. Yeah, and I think this one
is very weak too. It's extremely weak. And someone I
can't remember which review pointed out that the cast has
exploded in size, and when you look at the first
season and the each season, there's more and more people.
And I think there's something like twenty seven characters in
this There's too much and none of the storylines. I

(01:04:13):
am not interested in how any storyline resolves, not one.
I just don't care.

Speaker 1 (01:04:21):
I'm finishing it out because you know, we're going to
talk about it on the podcast, But I really simply
do not care what happens to any of these people.

Speaker 2 (01:04:28):
The thing is that season one and season two had
a much more interesting story and kept developing and changing.
You know, this one is just them getting up, having
breakfast and staying by the pool. Nothing. I mean, now,
Greg is going to have a party in.

Speaker 1 (01:04:40):
Right dinner, and Walton Goggins is going to kill his
father in Bangkok, which is.

Speaker 2 (01:04:44):
Not in hasn't happened?

Speaker 1 (01:04:46):
Well, not only that, it's not the white loaded like
the oh right. He keeps having to take people out
of the resort to tell his story, and I'm like, well,
then what's the point, right, shouldn't she just isn't the
point to be in these resorts with these people.

Speaker 2 (01:05:01):
It's like, at this point we have we know nothing
and we and we there's no I don't even know
who's getting killed, who's gonna.

Speaker 1 (01:05:08):
Kill Well you're not supposed to know, I know, but
there's no.

Speaker 2 (01:05:11):
Engagement in terms of trying to find out.

Speaker 1 (01:05:13):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:05:13):
I agree anyway, But again I keep watching because the
actors are great, it's beautiful, the location is beautiful, and
I actually posted in the lounge an article about how
everyone wants to be on the show. All these actors
now are like finding to be on the show because
everyone talks about the show. But I mean, but it

(01:05:34):
kept getting weaker and weaker. I mean at this point,
I mean, next season, what can we expect? Next season
the same thing? You know, another hotel and white people, troubled,
white family again, rich family. I don't know, it gets old,
it's getting old. But it was a great idea. I
have to say, it's a great idea. And every now
and then you have a moment, you have a frame

(01:05:58):
a performance that you got like, wow, this is really
funny and great. Yeah, but as a whole that's a
you know, as the whole season is just it's not there.

Speaker 1 (01:06:05):
As much as I love Parker Posi in this role,
at least she's a poor substitute for Jennifer Coolidge, right,
I mean, she's just not making me laugh or it's
I mean every you know, she's Parker Posy. She's not
hard to look at, she's not hard to watch. Underused,
happily legally underused. Why would you cast Parker Posy and

(01:06:27):
have to wander around vaguely all the time it's just
not working. I agree, nothing, And you know it's weird.
Like I saw comments last night where people were like,
oh my god, that was the most tense hour of
my life. I couldn't even sit there, and I'm like,
what are you talking about? What was tense about that?
What were you waiting to happen? I mean, I don't know.
No one's getting killed until the final episode, because that's

(01:06:48):
how the show works. So no, I'm not sitting through
any scenes thinking someone's going to die, because they're going
to die in the final episode. Anyway. Done, Yeah, all right,
well let's let's wrap this up. We've had a lot
to say. Once again, thank you for listening, you so much,
and for those of you who have been listening for
ten years, thank you, thank you, thank you, and go
follow us on Tom and Lorenzo O Fish on Instagram.

(01:07:13):
And I hate the way that sounds official, but it
was the only way to keep our name. But back
next week with whatever crosses our eyes, which won't be severance,
and we'll come up with something other than the white
lotus to talk about. I promise whatever across our eyes
across our desks until then, take care of yourselves. Love,
you mean it.

Speaker 2 (01:07:30):
Bye bye,