Episode Transcript
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Voyage. Welcome to watch this tonight. I'm your host, Dan Bettimore.
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I'm a producer, writer of filmand television and now a podcast producer.
And despite having every streaming service,I never know what to watch. So
anytime I watch something good, Italk about it on this show. This
way, you'll never have the sameproblem I do. I watched this tonight.
There's always something good to watch.Let's get started. Today on the
show, we are talking about thenew Apple Plus series Platonic. This is
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basically a show about Seth Rogan andRose Byrne as Platonic friends, right,
pretty straightforward what I think is interestingabout it, And I realized that I
was kind of watching this show soSeth Rogen it's probably just a little bit
older than me. And he's justenough older than me that he keeps getting
movies or TV shows made where hedissects a period of life that I'm pretty
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close to. When that thing comesout, So, for example, super
Bad comes out, I was incollege, so I really remembered high school
pretty vividly. Knocked up comes out. You know, I was a twenty
something idiot, So that's like PineappleExpress comes out, you know, again,
twenty something idiot Neighbors comes out,you know, not long after that,
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I end up getting married and becominglike the characterist that he plays in
The Neighbors, How are you kidding? All? And now platonic, And
it's just so funny that, likehe keeps making these things that I'm really
able to relate to in terms ofstage of life. It's almost like I'm
growing up with him in a weirdway, and I think that his great
strength is making stuff that is extremelyrelatable and derives its humor from its just
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total honesty. The most realistic partof the first episode of this show is
rose Byrne, who has three kids. She goes to a party and leaves
almost immediately and then realizes in horrorthat it's ten fifteen at night, which
is a thousand percent something that Iwould do, something that my wife and
I would do. It's just differentlife phases, right. So rose Burne's
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character has kids, seth Rogen's characterdoes not, and they're is strange platonic
friends that sort of come back together. And you clearly see that like stuff
that is I do think is relatableof this phase of life. So if
I have a friend who wants andwe want to see each other. Seeing
me is like you gotta like it'slike booking the time with the president.
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Not that I'm important, just thatI have no time because I'm just you
know, always either dealing with mykids, are working. And then conversely,
if you don't have kids, Ithink you have quite a bit of
time to do stuff like that.So there's there's a you know, you
see repeated the show where he's tryingto connect with her and be like,
let's hang out that, how aboutthis time? How about that time?
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She's like, Nope, you can'tdo it, can't do it, can't
do it. So all that feltjust super relatable to me. I also
really like in the pilot they established, and again it's not a spoiler,
they estoplished the pilot that Seth Rogancheated on his wife essentially out of insecurity,
and I liked that they had theconfidence to indicate to us that pretty
clearly he was the problem, likewe we end up finding out later.
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Again, this is very very minorspoilers, Like, you know, this
is not the kind of show thatyou can really spoil. You find out
later that he when he was married, he would talk to Rose Byrne,
like until four o'clock in the morningon the phone, and it messed up
his marriage, and so he cheatedon his wife. He had a platonic
female friend that he would talk toall the time, even like late at
night, instead of talking to hiswife. You could see where these would
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these things would torpedo a marriage.So I just liked that. You know,
the more obvious choice would be makehis ex wife the worst person in
the world, so that you havesympathy for Seth Rogan, but it's the
opposite. They clearly the show thathe was kind of in the wrong in
a lot of different ways. SoI like that that was to me,
that felt like something that was amore mature storyteller. And you know,
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I should say that this is notThe show was created by Francesca del Blanco.
Francesca del Blanco and Nicholas Stoller.Nicola Stoler obviously very accomplished filmmaker forgetting
Starr Marshall, get him to theGreek the Five Year Engagement neighbors, and
Francesco's novelists and screenwriter. And it'scool that it's a male and a female
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creator because obviously the show sort ofpivots around male and female characters, So
said Rogan and rose Burn reconnect.They end up hanging out all night.
They go to like a Denny's,and you know they've For Rose Byrne,
this would be like the wildest nightshe's had in years. And for Saith,
Rogan's very clear that this is acompletely normal night. And they leave
Denny's at like whatever one o'clock inthe morning or something, and he's like,
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what do you want to do now? When you get Korean barbecue,
She's like, are you out ofyour mind to go home? So again,
I just all that stuff I reallylike. I mean, it's cool.
This is a show that like,if you have kids, if you're
in that phase of your life,you'll be able to relate to it.
If you don't have kids, butyou're a friends of your kids would be
able to relate to it. Ifyou've ever had a platonic friend of the
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opposite sex would be able to relateto it. There's just a lot of
stuff in here that covers a widerange of the human experience in terms of
relatability. There's a moment at theend of the pilot where Seth Rogan and
Roseburn have conflict. They yell ateach other, and so then something happens
where she has I would say whatit is, but it's a Chekhov's gun
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situation involving sex. It's anyway,something happens that it's sort of this funny
thing, and she texts him reallylate at night about it, and he
texts her back and he's like delightedthat she tried it, and then they
just start joking around with each otherover text, even though they just had
a big fight. And it wasa really effective evocation of friendship, because
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that's what friendship is. That somebodywho can talk to about anything. You
can are embarrassing stuff with you can, you enjoy their company. You just
like talking to them. It's funto be around them. And that's also
the fun of the show is it'sjust fun to hang out with Seth Rogan
rose Burn. They had this greatchemistry in Neighbors, and you know that
chemistry hasn't gone away. I watchedthe first three episodes, which are the
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only episodes available as I'm recording this. I'm just going to touch on some
stuff from the three. Again,none of this is spoilers, so it's
not going to impede your enjoyment ofthem, and I think it'll help you
decide if you want to watch themor not. There's a moment in episode
two that was so painfully relatable tome where Rose Burne and her husband are
getting the kids ready for school andone of the kids like, I need
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a beret and a baguette for Frenchclass, and she's like, what the
fuck are you talking? Like,this is the first time hearing about it.
This is something that happens to mywife and I like once a week
where there's something the next day atschool that we didn't know about, and
they're like, we have to rushout, and you know, I'm at
Walmart at like you know, tenthirty at night trying to find like a
pink shirt or something. There's agreat bit that will be recognizable to any
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parent where Seth Rogan goes to Roseburn'shouse, which is a great detail,
and they leave, they don't callattention to it at all, and he's
drinking from this little apple sauce pouch, which is the exact brand of apple
sauce pouch that I have in myhouse at any time. If you break
into my house tonight, you'll findit in there, and I'm sure every
other parent has. I just thoughtthere was a great little detail and funny,
and they love when shows have littledetails like that. But they don't
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make a big thing of it.There's no clothes up of it, nobody
makes a comment on it. It'sjust a funny little visual gag. A
big part of the second episode isthat Roseburne wants to buy this house and
is insisting, insisting that she wantsto buy this house, and it's only
Seth Rogan because he's her friend thatcan be totally honest. They're about it
in a way really that you can'tbe honest even with like family, Like
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there is a thing about your friendswhere it's a little bit removed, so
there's not all that like emotional stuffwhere you have to be very delicate,
like you know, you can insome situations probably be more brutally honest friends
that of you know, the yourimmediate loved one. So I just thought
that that was again they do areally good job of pointing out the things
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that are unique to platonic friends.They also do a good job of pointing
out again differences and where you arein life. So in episode three,
Seth Rogan doesn't want to sell out. He has an opportunity, a business
opportunity. He's a part owner ofa bar, and a business opportunity comes
along and he thinks that if theydo it, it's selling out and he
won't be cool anymore, which istotally idiotic. And again, once you,
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once you have the responsibility of keepingkids alive, you will sell out
immediately. I will sell out tonightif I get an offer from McDonald's the
show would be watch McDonald's tonight,featuring only films with hamburgers. I'll do
it immediately. So you know,yeah, it's just one of the thingson
where you're younger you think about stufflike that. You get older, like
that doesn't matter. Just if youcan get some money, go ahead and
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get that money. Also in episodethree, there's a quick shot of this
guy who's like the owner of thisother business that Seth Rogan has this opportunity
with, and it's the husband ofthe neighbor from Shrinking, and it really
felt like we're in the Marvel cinematicuniverse of Apple shows where Apple has just
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I would love to know there musthave been something they found in their research
or something about audiences where they're like, you know, we're just going to
make a bunch of shows that arejust a sense of just about real people
in like real situations and maybe alittle bit heightened in the concept in some
way. But you know, comfortable, fun easily to watch shows that make
you feel good. And I thinkthat's this show. I think that's shrinking
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in a slightly different way the BigDoor Prize also, so this very comfortably
fits into the Apple brand. Now, I said a lot of nice stuff
about the show. I am sorryto say that I was like all in
and then there was a moment atthe end of the third episode, and
I won't say what happens, butit was a moment where they make a
big choice and the show had socompletely sold on it being real. I'd
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so invested in it as real thatwhen this moment happened, I I literally
had to pause the show cover myface as a blanket because I was so
uncomfortable. And I immediately thought like, this is a disaster, Like this
is gonna this will you might getdivorced over this. This is like a
really big deal that this happened.And they play it off like it's not
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a big deal, which is nottrue. It's not real. It's not
reality what happens at the end ofthe third episode, and I really hope
that they don't just toss it offand we go an episode four like nothing
happened, you know. I hopethat there are consequences from it. It
was the first time in three episodesthat it felt a little strained, and
it felt a little like, oh, we're just going for this gag,
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but then we're not going to actuallyaddress the realistic ramifications of it. So
I hope that that's not what happens. I do feel like that was like
the one moment. It's a shamethat they put it at the end of
the last episode they made available uponthe release of the show, so it
sort of looks a bad taste ofmy mouth. Again, I'm not spoiling
it, but if you've watched Platonic, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about,
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if you've seen the third episode,And I would really love to know
if you felt the same way,or if you thought it was funny or
what. But I was like,the one thing that just kind of threw
me a bit a bar from that, though, this is a delight.
It's so great to see him,you know, and her together again.
And you know, there was alwaysthis criticism of the Jed Apatow movies that
they were too long, right,they were sort of these rambling kind of
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style, but it was it madeyou put you into a world. I
mean, I didn't mind the length, but in television it does feel like,
actually, in some ways a betterfit for this sort of material,
where it can be long, butit's separated by episodes and you're just exploring
these characters. And I would say, as far as the characters, that's
the other thing is the husband ofRose Burne so far is the weak link
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in terms of not feeling one hundredpercent like a real person because he's too
nice, he's too perfect in hiscase. I'm really pretty confid they're going
to subvert that at some point.We're gonna find out something about him that
muddies him up and all that kindof stuff. So I'm interested to see
if that happens as well. Overall, definitely easy to recommend, very enjoyable
show. Slight a little you know, cracks in the armor, I think
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here and there, but you know, definitely overall, I really enjoyed it,
and I think you will too.That is the show for today.
Before I go, I want tothank everybody who sent me really positive feedback
on the Richard Wank episode. Ithink I had probably like six different people
who send me a message or somethingand said they really enjoyed it, and
I did too, So I'm gladyou enjoyed it. I'm really, you
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know, just glad I kept thaton the record. I have a lot
of respect for Richard and when he'saccomplished in his career, so that's pretty
cool. That's it for now untilnext time. Bye bye four