Ep. 27 - Lillian is a Glass of Water

This week the merry maidens break out the chocolate and flowers to review ‘A Charming Valentine’ from Great American Family channel. Will these busy businesspeople too busy for love be able to make time for love in the hustle and bustle of Toronto…er…New York City? Listen for spoilers!

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
American culture is at a crossroads.I'm Kira Davison. In my new book,
Drawing Lines, why conservatives must beginto battle fiercely in the arena of
ideas. I challenge conservative Americans tostop retreating from the culture. I hope
you think critically through the pressing culturalissues of our day and offer practical advice
and solutions. It's time for conservativesto make themselves uncomfortable and get engaged,

(00:22):
get inspired, get moving, andget winning. Pick up a copy of
my book, Drawing Lines, availableon Amazon, at faithful text dot com,
or wherever books are sold. Now. This is the FCB Podcast Network.

(00:56):
Hello everybody, Welcome to another episodeof a Very Merry Podcast. I
am your very merry host, KiaraDavis, and I am joined by my
very married co host, Amelia Hamilton. Happy Valentine's Day, Amelia, Happy
Valentine's Day. I'm wearing my myValentine's Day sweater. I'm ready. Oh
that's so cute. Today, Ias I do every Valentine's Day. I

(01:18):
posted the video of um the Presidentof the United States from nine years ago,
Barack Obama issuing an executive order tomy husband to celebrate Valentine's Day.
It's one of my greatest in Americanhistory. Yes, yeah, I think
it's I think it's great for BlackHistory Month too, was a very important

(01:38):
moment in Black history. And yeah, I'm my husband, he's not impressed
with it. Every year I posted, we don't for people who do,
go ahead. I was just gonnasay Obama's point. He was very right.
When mom's happy, everybody's happy.Yep, he was right for people
who don't know. Years ago,almost a decade ago now, I had

(02:00):
the opportunity to participate on a Googlehangout, remember we used to do those
things. It was a Google hangout with President Obama. It was supposed
to resemble like a fireside chat,and they picked five bloggers from across the
country and I was one of thepeople that they chose. Another person on
that call was John Green, whoa lot of you might recognize. He's

(02:23):
a very popular teen Angst author.He wrote The Fault in Our Stars.
He was just sort of on hisway up at that moment, and him
and his brother had a really popularblog at the time, and so two
of us were chose. We gotto ask the president whatever we wanted.
It lasted almost an hour and weyou know, we got to ask him
like political questions. But at theend, because it was Valentine's Day,

(02:49):
we were they picked to Google pickedtwo people to ask like a silly,
lighthearted question, and I was oneof them. So and John Green was
the other. So John and hiswife were having a baby, their first
baby at the time. They askedPresident Obama to name their child. They
were trying to decide between names fortheir kids, and his answer was so

(03:12):
political like it was like basically waslike, well, that's above my pay
grade for that. Yeah, hewouldn't answer it. And then mine was
because my husband's birthday is on Februarythirteenth and we never celebrate Valentine's Day because
of that. Mine was would youissue an executive order? And he was

(03:32):
also getting a lot of crap atthat time because he was sort of doing
a lot of executive orders, andso I just thought it would be funny.
Anyway, it really was funny.He did, you know, he
did. He did tell my husbandcame in and they you know, and
he got on with Obama and hedid tell him, look, you know,
if MoMA's if mama's not happy,nobody's happy. So just do the
right thing, buddy. But itwas a really fun moment in our family

(03:55):
history, and I love it.I love seeing it every year on your
Facebook too. Yes, of coursenow I posted every single year, which
drives my husband further away from celebratingValentine's Day. I think it's like,
you don't have to be so likepersistent about it. Come on, Mark,
But I mean, when the presidentorders you, I'm just you know,

(04:17):
I'm just saying, just saying,Martin came for the president. Well,
anyway, it is Valentine's Day aswe're recording, and so we thought,
well, let's do a Valentine's Dayepisode, and we headed over to
Great American and we agreed to watcha Charming Valentine. Uh, this one

(04:38):
was a real doozy Amelia. Ihad to say, but I picked this
movie. And I have to saythis in the tradition of our podcast,
Traditionally, the movies Amelia picks arebetter she as she always picks the best
movies. I mean, I wasn'tgonna say anything. It's true. Why

(05:00):
we leave it, We leave theschedule really up to her because she has
a she has a flair for this. But I was like, oh,
this sounds great, but it wasnot great. It was definitely wasn't one
of my favorites. But first fiveminutes of the movie like email Amelia,
email me or text me, andshe was like, I already hate this
woman. She was like, notthe actress of the character. Yeah,

(05:24):
yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.So let's get into it. Yeah,
well, first we have this isalso a special episode because we are it's
all about love here at a VeryMerry podcast and for Valentine's Day, and
we are dedicating this episode, eventhough it wasn't our favorite movie to someone
very special. Our friend John recentlylost his mom, Noreen, and they

(05:47):
loved watching these wholesome you know,mostly Christmas but really all the wholesome TV
movies together, So we wanted todedicate this one, this episode to the
memory of Marien Brought Again and wehope that, you know, John is
still enjoying these movies and feeling thegood love from all of us. So

(06:09):
yes, we send our love outto John and his family. And one
of the reasons why we do thispodcast is because these movies they make you
feel some type of way right likethey do. They make you feel cozy
and loved and maybe you are ina situation where love is missing or you're

(06:30):
missing someone like John might be missinghis mom right now. But these movies
are always centered around the concept oflove and finding love and giving love.
And and it is so you usea great word, Amelia, wholesome.
It is so wholesome, and thereis there just feels something. So it's
something so comforting about sitting down andwatching these movies. And that's why we

(06:54):
do it. So it's our pleasureto death. Even when the movies aren't
the best, it's always the besttype of comfort. Like it never they
never fail on that front, evenif we're you know, not jazzed about
one particular film or another. That'sjust the gist of this podcast. But
on the but they never fail tooffer you just this little piece of comfort

(07:18):
and peace. And I mean,how can you go wrong with a love
story in the end, You can't, You can't. So nor and this
one is for you. And itis fitting that this one is for her
because they are New Yorkers. Theylive on they lived on Long Island,
and this one the first scene they'reshowing us they're in New York by way

(07:40):
of Toronto. We know here inNew York. This lady was at one
point, She's like jogging on thestreets. And I have family in Toronto,
as you know, I'm Canadian inToronto many times. And I mean
even my husband and I were watchingit. My husband was like, Uh,
those are Rono houses if I eversaw Eddie, Yeah, And the

(08:03):
snow was so clean like that isnot But it tells us that we're gonna
we're gonna meet a busy businesswoman.Is we know that from the first scene,
and we do. We see Lillian, who is played by Carolina Bartzak,
and we find out that she isworks in a venture capital firm and

(08:26):
she is on top of things.Like the first thing she does, there's
two coffeemakers right next to each other. It's causing a bottle. Next she
moves one, she gets two linesgo, and she is she's on top
of things, and she's very afficient. She is, and she knows she's
doing a good job because she sitsat her desk and she's got one of
those little calendar blotterers on her deskwhich um says, ask for promotion for

(08:48):
today. So she is gonna gofor it. She is going to be
a girl boss. She's going toask for her promotion, and I appreciate
that she has her desk blotter.I thought it was funny that it was
like a dryer race because I wouldjust stick my sleeve in that and erase
all of my notes. That's whatI Yeah, it was literally sitting next
to her a keyboard. I'm like, I guess she's organized enough to know
to keep her elbows in when she'stype. But I also I also love

(09:13):
marker on it all the time.Oh oh, it would have marker on
it. It would have coke stains, like from my glass of coke that
I put there. It would havelike, yeah, everything lipstick on it
Fromia wipe my mouth and then wroteon it like yeah, that her.
She's definitely organized. And we cantell, of course, because yeah,

(09:35):
that coffee line at work was justoutrageous. Now, I can't believe she's
the first person to think about there'stwo pots, there's two coffee dispensers there,
and yet everyone is just standing aroundlike they have to wait for one
person to finish at one coffee dispenserinstead of just walk around. I don't

(09:56):
know. Anyway, it doesn't matterbecause we that she's more efficient than everyone
in the office. We do,we do, and we also find out
she has a conversation with her boss, who is a black boss, so
we can check that one off thelist. He kind of he stops by,
and I think we're supposed to feellike he was blowing her off because
she's about to ask her promotion,but he didn't know that, so he's

(10:18):
just stopping by telling her she's doinga good job and says he'd like her
to join the board meeting tomorrow withthe executives, which I think is a
great sign. But she didn't getto ask for her promotion because she was
just kind of grabbing him as youwalk by. But we find out that
she's coming to the board meeting tomorrow, and he's really impressed with the ideas
that she's bringing in for investment potentialinvestments because they're bring she's bringing clients that

(10:41):
are efficient, organized, and innovative, and that's what she was doing with
the coffee pot. She was beinginnovative but efficient and organized, So good
for her. Good for her.She's definitely on brand. That night,
she is at dinner with her friendAnnie, and Annie I thought it was
her husband, but it turns outher boyfriend Phil. Okay. I was

(11:05):
wondering. Okay, I was wonderingthis too, because I thought we were
going to get some kind of proposalat some point with that relationship, since
they already were established, and Ithought the way that they might weave that
into the plot. I actually thoughtat the end, he might give her
like a very special love Oh yeah, a love package that sounds really this

(11:35):
adult episode of a very married podcast. I'm sorry, a very special love
package like that snl skit love ina box, something in a box.
Yes, yeah, oh my god. Anyways, it didn't it didn't pan
out, but I can only imaginethat's because he's a ginger, something to

(11:56):
think about, somebody to think aboutin the dating world. Yeah. So
it's it's Annie's birthday and Phil comesup with this box, and they're kind
of mean to him about like howhe's a terrible gift giver and he comes
up with horrible things. But thegift is really thoughtful. It's a music
box of the song that was playingwhen they had their first kiss, and

(12:18):
a candle with you know that smellslike a special place to them, and
and so it's really thoughtful. Butit turns out that So it turns out
that the reason that it's so goodis because he uses this thing called Love
Subscription, which honestly isn't all thatmuch better than Love Package. I think
love subscription. If there was abox on my porch I said Love Subscription,
I'd want to like explain to themailman that it wasn't. Yeah,

(12:41):
I would think I would think itwas like, um, it should be
wrapped in brown paper, right forprivacy, But it's not. It's just
a subscription box that you can subscribeto and let people know that you're thinking
about them and that you love them. So what's so funny is he's like,
this is from from Love Subscription,and Lillian is like, oh,

(13:01):
what's that? And here's what hesays. I wrote it down word for
word because I feel like he justmemorizes from the website, waiting for someone
to ask him what it was.It's a subscription service that allows customers to
surprise their loved ones with unique andthoughtful gifts while never having to worry about
forgetting that special occasion. Again,yes, that's his casual description over dinner.

(13:24):
So it was at this point Ameliathat. I literally searched love subscription
because I was like, is thisa product placement? Like this might be
blatant product placement. I searched itand then what came up was the movie.
So no, it's not a realthing, but it did read like
product placement for Yeah, yes,I loved it. Good job, Phil.

(13:48):
And so it turns out that Lilianhas his ex fiance Bradley, and
she doesn't really like getting gifts becauseof something that happened with Bradley. We
don't really know what, but shedoesn't like gifts. Okay, just just
leave it alone. And gifts arenot my number one love language either.
But is there anyone who just straightup doesn't like gifts? I mean,

(14:09):
please, everyone listening, feel freeto send me a gift. It's okay,
it's not my number one thing.I don't know. There's weird people
out there, Like my brother didn'tlike popcorn when he was a kid.
He didn't like popcorn, and that'sweird, you know, like how can
you not like popcorns? Like,yeah, so there are weird people out

(14:30):
there like that. I guess Idon't know any and I'm I'm team Amelia
on this one, Like if youwant to send me a gift, that
is fine. Yeah, please pleasego ahead. All right. Next morning,
they're at the meeting, the bigexecutive board meeting, and her boss
asks if anyone has a pitch,and Lillian is the only one who does,

(14:52):
so she pitches love subscription. Shethinks it's going to be a great
investment, something that they need tothink about, and he tells her to
do the research and that she can. She can do, you know,
do the research on this place andwrite up a recommendation. And she says,
well, that seems like a jobfor a senior strategist. Lillian,
you're trying to get promoted to seniors. I know how good you are at

(15:13):
it. I know it was thiswhole movie. Yeah, the beginning of
this movie was totally off, Likeit felt like pieced together because like I
didn't We're going to talk about thistoo, but I just didn't even understand
the personality of this character. Likeshe was complaining about not getting this promotion,
and she was telling her best friend, who was not a black best

(15:37):
friend. She's telling her best friend, Um, you know, my boss
keeps brushing me off for you know, every time I approaching me changes the
topic and I'm my first of all, I didn't see that in their interaction.
I saw her approaching him at veryinconvenient times and then him going him
going, oh, okay, Iyou know I have something else to do,

(15:58):
like not saying hey, can weschedule like a two o'clock for me
to sit down and talk to youabout something? And then the other thing
is like when he offers or thisreally big chance, she's like, oh,
you know, I don't really thinkI'm the right person for this,
Like, aren't you asking for apromotion? This is the job you want?
So him, you can do it. I don't get it. We
don't really get you, Lillian No. And she's always mad about it.

(16:19):
But I don't know. And speakingof Annie, the not black best friend,
she is Asian, so not maybewe're going to change that to non
white black friend, not white black, not white best friend. There we
go, poc poc best friend.It doesn't have the same ring as black
best friend. Now it doesn't.I like the alliteration. Okay, so

(16:41):
she says, you know, butthat's a job for a senior strategist,
and he's like, yeah, dummy, if you do a good job,
if your work is satisfactory. Hetells her, you'll get the promotion.
Okay, she's excited. So she'stalking to Annie the next morning on her
phone about how she's gonna go spenda few days a subscription, find out
how they work, and they're evensending a driver for her. So she's

(17:03):
feeling fancy. So Grant shows up. He is our hero, our protagonist
in the movie, our love interest, and she thinks he's a driver and
is super rude to him. Yeah, very rude, Like, um,
this is the other thing. Okay. She she is not set up from
the start as a rude person.She's set up as somebody we're supposed to

(17:26):
care for. She has this thingthat she wants, right she we start
out seeing her with her friend andher friend's boyfriend maybe fiance, but she
there there to so there's people thatcare about her, is my point.
She's suffered heartbreak, we're supposed tolike her, and then all of a
sudden, she just turns into thisterrible person. Yeah, she's so rude

(17:49):
to him, and it's just it'sone of those things like if you want
to know what somebody's likes, seehow they talk to you know, like
the wait staff that kind of thing. She thinks he's a driver, so
she's kind of mean to them.We're looking at you, James Gordon,
and yes we are. So weget to they get to love subscription.
She realizes he's the CEO. Shefeels super awkward whatever, and she starts

(18:12):
looking around, you know, tokind of get the lay of the land.
And you know how they there's thatthing where like painters, I feel
like it's usually in cartoons they'll likehold up a paintbrush to like get the
perspective on whatever, like size thingsup. He takes a pen and like
holds it out and I'm like,what is she measure? What is she
doing? But I know I sawthat she's like obviously she's supposed to look

(18:34):
like like she's really Yeah, likeyou said, getting to lay in the
land, and yeah, she holdsup her pen Like what what exactly is
is she measuring? Yes? This, I don't know what what the light
does? The lights a little iffyas it hits this pen. They might
need new lighting in hair in theventure capital firm like interested in the drapes.

(18:55):
I don't know what's going on.Um, he's kind of skeptical of
her intentions because he's afraid that ifthey get this you know, big city
VC money, it's there's going tomake them lose their pizzazz and charm.
And he's very concerned that the companykeeps their pizzas and charm. And during
this conversation, he is wearing ashirt that appears to be padded. It

(19:18):
looked like it was like a quiltedshirt, and between the seems, it
looked like it was a padded shirt. And I couldn't It was all I
could think about. Oh my gosh, I didn't even see that. I
didn't. I did not think aboutthat. That's hilarious. I didn't notice
it. So they kind of,you know, they have their first day
and Lilian goes home and just kindof writes out her first impression does like

(19:41):
a brain dump of things. Again, it's super mean. It's like,
this guy's a loser. I hatethe company gives her terrible I hope they
never get funding. Yeah, thewhole time she was in that office with
him, he is taking her around, showing her the operations, and she
she just has something mean to sayabout everything. It's not And this is

(20:03):
why Amelia texted me. In thefirst five minutes of the movie, She's
like, I hate this person,Like she was so awful. It wasn't
even like cute awful. It wasjust like it was like being mean about
things that you didn't even really needto be mean about. It's a gift
subscription company, you know. Andthen she's like, well, I don't
know, maybe there's too many giftshere and you know, just stuff like

(20:26):
dumb stuff like that, or likewhat's this room for? Or maybe you
know, maybe you need to bemore efficient by doing X or Y or
Z. She she she comes inand she's supposed to be there to get
the lay of the land, butit isn't. At one point she's like
giving him advice in that first scene, and he's like, well, let

(20:48):
me explain to you how we reallydo it. And then she takes that
one single moment of her just literallyjust walking in in there for two minutes,
her going you know what I thinkyou should do X y Z when
she's just there to gather information,and then him going well, actually,
let me explain how my business works, and her going, oh, he's

(21:10):
so stubborn. He's rigid and stubbornand he was, and then nothing seemed
throughout the movie where they talk abouthow stubborn he was. I don't think
he seemed stubborn at all. No, you didn't find stubborn at all,
which is why she was supposed tobe there. I couldn't. And everything
she said, like, I understandthat she was supposed to be there and
like kind of look for the faults. I get that, but everything she

(21:30):
said was so like mean spirited.It was very strange. It was very
strange. It was it was veryit was extremely and it was rude.
And again it was like, Idon't think this is what you're here for.
You're just looking at the operation andseeing how it works. You're not
a consultant, You're a venture capitalist. Right. It was weird. Anyways,

(21:56):
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(22:18):
or wherever you get your podcasts today. So she had dinner with Annie that
night, and she is worried aboutthis place because she thinks it's terrible and
you know, want what she wantsto bring in some business and get her
promotion. And Annie lets her knowthat if it doesn't work out, she
always has a job with Phil ifshe ever needs one, because Phil runs

(22:40):
more like a like a small scaleventure capital sort of firm. So just
right, he's a ginger, sohe can't be too successful. He's not
very successful, but you know,he has a job opening. She can
have it all right. The meanwhile, Grant is working late and his secretary

(23:00):
person, the receptionist there, letshim know that she's heard from every other
venture capital firm that they have triedand they have all dropped out. So
Lilian is literally their last shot.So Grant is like, okay, tomorrow's
a fresh day. We're gonna tryto make this work. But the next
morning, Lilian shows up and it'slike, listen, we're gonna have some

(23:22):
ground rules. You need to listento my input. So the ground rules
was one rule, right, andthen he said, okay, I agree
with that, but if I disagreewith your input, you need to hear
me out and hear my side ofit. So they agree on that whatever,
and then he gets head again notstubborn the way, by the way,

(23:44):
very gracious, because once again she'snot a paid consultant. She's coming
in to see if they can workwith this company. She's not coming in
to fix anything. So the ideathat she will, I would be furious.
I would be stubborn if somebody walkedinto my business and I built from
scratch, it was like you knowwhat, and they were there for a
day, Like, you need tolisten to me when I say, you're

(24:06):
not even offering to give me anymoney, lady, you want me to
change all the stuff that's been workingthis whole time, and you're not.
And I don't even have a guaranteethat you're going to invest in this company,
right because um, even even ifshe was a paid management consultant,
she would have to ask him howhe does things and why before giving an
opinion anyway, Like it makes nosense, it makes no sense, it

(24:27):
doesn't um. And then he likeas a you know, peace offering,
gives her a little present and she'slike, I don't want bribery. He's
like, it's a gift company.I'm just giving you, like, calm
down. And it was something.It wasn't like candy or something like.
It wasn't anything. It was pastries. It was pastries, that's right.
And she's like, he wasn't givingher. He wasn't giving her like courtside

(24:52):
tickets to the Knicks or whatever whateverbasketball teams play in New York. He
wasn't like giving her. He wasn'tgiving her like concert tickets to like bts
at Madison Square Gardens. You know, cissant lady, Just eat the croissant
and go on with your day.It was really strange. So he shows

(25:14):
her in his office. He's gota wall of fame, which is like
different people enjoying their gifts and likenotes as they received from people about you
know, what these gifts meant tothem. So she's starting to kind of
get the idea of, um,you know, what they do and why
it's important to you know, thepeople who work there, why they feel
like it's an important company. Butshe wants to start getting into like the

(25:37):
actual brass tacks. Like she's like, Okay, show me your database,
your customers what they order, andhe's like, we don't have any of
that because we lost her database,but we do have a room of paper
records. And so he opens up, you know, this closet and there's
just like paper falling out everywhere.Everything's terrible. So at this point I
texted Kara and I was like,she's horrible, and I think he's a

(26:00):
moron. You can't tell me thatof all the people working at that company
that there wasn't one single person dedicatedto at least filing the papers. By
the way, everything that you doon paper these days has to go through
a computer in some way, shapeor form. It was probably a form

(26:21):
that was generated on a computer,right and then printed out. So the
fact that you can't eat, youdon't even have a spreadsheet or something.
And then and then the entire closetwas full of these people, like it
was floor to ceiling. But basedon that wall of fame, I don't
know that they've been doing that muchbusiness. It was just it was a

(26:44):
bit much. And yeah, itwas a bit much. It was a
lot. Yeah, it was.So again the after work, she's on
a walk with Annie talking about wait, I'm sorry, wait, well,
she does say, don't you haveanything the cloud? Don't you guys use
the cloud? And he's like andhe and this is where I'm like,

(27:06):
okay, I get this guy becausehe was like, no, I don't
even know where the cloud is,Like I'm not gonna put anything in here.
I don't. I'm like, thankyou, I know where it is
the cloud. Everyone's like, didyou have stuff in the cloud? I
don't know where it is. It'sdefault to being in the cloud, Like
I never intentionally put things in thecloud, but they're there. Again,
I don't know. That was theother thing. At least he could like

(27:27):
that's that's at least the default.If you have computers and if you have
maximum there, you probably stuff is. Something's probably in the cloud. I
do agree. I don't know wherethe cloud is, but I don't know.
Um. So again after work,walking with Annie talking about how gifts
aren't her love language, and she'slike angry about gifts. Um, she's

(27:49):
very bitter about her gifts. Youknow what, I've been given things by
people who have turned out to beawful people many times in my life,
but it's never made me hate thething. You know, Yeah, right,
I love to give me a terriblegift, and I still kind of
like it because I know that itwas given with a nice intention. Her

(28:11):
hatred of gifts is like, it'spapological. It is she needs, she's
a little bit of time to thinkabout that. She needs a love package.
Love packagege. So if we thoughtthat the paper records room was bad,
the next day she asks for astapler, so he takes her the

(28:33):
supply closet, which is again likeoverflowing and nobody can get in. It's
and it reminds her of the coffeepot situation. So she's like, if
we empty out the records room,we can sort out between what is it
is the supply closet and something elseis in there too. The gift from
the station. Well, they're separatingthem out, um, and so again

(29:00):
they were wasting space. She's gettingthem stream. Yeah. I know the
company. Again, not a singleperson at this fairly successful company thought to
have a supply room. Does hehave an office manager at all? I
think that girl, the receptionist adminperson, seems very on the ball,
So I don't know what's going onthere. Yeah, that was just that

(29:23):
was also ridiculous. Um. Yeah, equally ridiculous, but you know,
I guess she does need something toorganize. Yes, And now she starts
trying to tell him again how todo his business, saying that if they
sat down to wrap presents, itwould be faster than standing up. So
he calls everybody around for a rapbattle, but with a w get at

(29:44):
everybody wrap battle. She's gonna sitdown and wrap a present and see how
fast she can do it. Andwhat I loved is that there's one of
those like you see these at stores, you know that offer gift wrapping,
the like giant rolls wrapping paper onthe spool, you know, so you
can just pull some off and cutit, and the scissors are chained to
it. And I'm like, what'sgoing on with this office? And they
have to change the scissors. Butyou know, that's probably the one realistic

(30:11):
thing at an office, is thatthe scissors always go disappearing. It's like
the pens, you know, whenyou need a pen. There's like you
can never find a pen when youneed it because someone walks off with the
pen. And I was at Iwas even I subbed for a radio last
week and I was in the studio, the La Studio and I sat down

(30:34):
at the board and there was noheadphones, and so I'm like walking on.
I'm not I'm not a regular inthe studio, so i don't know
it that well. But I'm likewalking into other studios and like looking for
headphones, and they're all locked in. All the headphones are like tied down
by zip, like you know,the classic ties, and so I can't

(30:55):
take another pair from another studio.So finally I got to go find the
station. Man. I'd be like, I don't have a pair of headphones.
So he's like, yeah, Ishould have a pair in there,
and he set to know, andso he's like, well, we'll go
get one from another studio, andwe went and they're all locked out.
He's like, see, this iswhy we locked down the headphones, because
people with them in the studio.So that was maybe the one realistic thing

(31:17):
about the office that they're like,damn you people, we are chading the
scissors. We trusted with scissors.But it is kind of a light moment.
It turns out that his way wasmore efficient, and they kind of
have a laugh about it. Soand he tells her that he's glad that
things are starting to work again,I don't understand this relationship at all.

(31:38):
I don't understand why they're her job. But anyway, her boss, mister
Waterhouse Um lets her know that eveningthat he needs to report asap. They
want something before the quarter closes.They really needs something, so he needs
to report asap, and she's like, okay, I'm working on it.
Did we talk about how she wrappedthat gift? We didn't know how she

(32:01):
wrapped. We didn't because it wasI'm sorry, but she had way too
much wrapping paper to end up withthe really great job that she did.
There was a little box and thenthe paper was like about a foot longer
than the box and all the sensdon't reach the table. I was like,

(32:23):
is she taped? Is she tapedthe front? Like the top sides
together. I was like, there'sno way she's going to be making corners
with the two like one foot endson each side. Girl, you gotta
cut that paper and then next thingyou know, they cut to it and
it's like perfectly wrapped. It wasI don't know. I resented that this

(32:45):
land magic um sure. So asas Lilian is going through the paperwork,
as she keeps spending time in theoffice, she discovers that Grant has his
own subscription and she wants to knowmore. But she but nobody really knows
anything about it. But this personis subscribed to like everything, and it's
still those are the things we knowwell. And then she again, this

(33:07):
is another thing where she's being areal be about it. She's like,
well, I need to know.It seems like a waste of money for
the for the CEO to be gettinga subscription of his own. I'm like,
no, he's testing his own product. That doesn't seem like a waste
of money at all. He getsto see how it works. I agree.
I agree. And and then thatday, which I think is like

(33:29):
her third or fourth day in theoffice, he shows her the process,
like the person creates a profile,and then from that profile they can put
a gift together, and then there'sa personalization team, so like if they
need a little extra own flight,that's what Phil did when he was making
the present for Annie to be liketheir song that was playing when they had
their first kiss. And I couldn't. I cannot figure out why it's day

(33:49):
four and she's only just learning theprocess, Like that should be the first
thing they did but but it wasn't. Well, she had to organized the
supply clause that took a couple ofdays. So they have a present right
to go. And this is probablya part where she could have spoken up
and been like, this seems reallyinefficient. They deliver them by themselves.

(34:10):
Grant, the CEO of the company, gets in a rickshaw. I don't
know why. It's not like it'slike a little like baby trailer thing on
the back where he could like loadit up with presents and ride his bike
around. You could also just geta bike messenger. But he takes Lilian,
sticks her in the rickshaw holding thepresent, and they go and deliver
the present. The person is delighted, she gets to see how much it

(34:31):
means to someone. Whatever. Butwhat Yeah, everything was wrong with this.
First of all, I guess ifyou're in Toronto, that might work,
but New York City in five boroughs, and like, I don't know
about a rickshaw. Also, it'sdead winter makes me think that, you
know, the script was obviously eitherwritten for a different location or written in

(34:57):
anticipation that, like every other Wintermovie, that this would have been filmed
off season, which it clearly wasn't. It was filmed in the winter time
in what I'm assuming is Toronto,and it looked bitter cold. I can
only imagine that shoot must have beenreally rough. But but yeah, and
then they could barely get around inthe rick show because there's snow and ice

(35:22):
on the ground, like for real, So it's not even like a practical
method of transportation the winter time.Again, not to mention that there was
only one Rick Shaw, Like,it wasn't like there was a fleet of
rickshaws that we're going to deliver allof these gifts. It was one and

(35:43):
apparently the only person who delivers themis the CEO. So the defense of
Lilian that was very inefficient delivering system. Yes, and they did show them
like struggling in the snow and stufflike this is and it appears at every
time a single box is ready,he goes, so yeah, wow,

(36:05):
this was one of my favorite partscoming up. Um, there's an emergency.
This guy wants a graduation box forhis daughter, but he thought graduation
was next week and it's like rightnow and he wants to give it to
war at the party this afternoon.What are they going to do? So
for some reason, they have allof her like field hockey or whatever T
shirts and they decide to make aquilt, like one of those T shirt

(36:25):
quilts like you see people have theybring to college. No her, the
secretary lady says, um, likewhatever, Cassie's father sent over this box
of stuff so we would get abetter idea of the kind of person she
is. And then this is here'sjust a random box full of T shirts.

(36:47):
I'm like, I cannot even imagine. First of all, this is
Cassie's uncle, you know that thatordered the love subscription, and yet the
father is so involved he went tookthe time to collect a box of her
old jerseys, put them in thebox, mail them to the love Subscription
place because I guess he's so thrilledwith the idea of this love subscript,

(37:09):
probably sent a rickshaw to pick themup. How You're right, You're right,
it was weird. But yeah,anyway, Yeah, they have a
box of her jerseys at the soLilian just sits up, sits down at
the sewing machine and like makes aquilt out of them, which I had
a lot of questions about. Firstof all, a quilt takes a long

(37:31):
time. Quilting takes forever. Itshows Grant cutting like the number out of
the back of one of them,and he just cuts. He doesn't even
measure with a quilt. That's ahuge problem. Also, has anyone talked
to Cassie about cutting up all ofher stuff? Maybe she wanted these for
something, right, I don't know, usually in for these. I know,

(37:52):
I thought when I saw the quilt, I was like, oh,
they made copies of it somehow,or like I didn't think they like sliced
up all of her jerseys for thisquilt. Which my grandmother was a quilter,
God rest her soul, and Ispent many a winter days watching her.

(38:12):
Now she did it by hand,which is a little different. But
even if you use the sewing machine, quilting is a very prespise skill.
Yeah, it takes time. Youhave to do all this measuring you.
I mean, I don't know Iwould have even bought it if that we
had just showed them like cutting outthe squares and just gluing it onto a

(38:35):
quilte that's already as something. Butno, and Lilian herself is at the
sewing machine getting it done. Theyknocked it out and they say, yeah,
yeah, that's the thing. Theysay we only have two hours,
Willie have two hours before the partyis over to do this. So it
wasn't just that they knocked it outin one afternoon. Lilian knocked that thing

(38:58):
out in two hours. Insane,insane. So they deliver it again.
They you know, Lilian gets tosee what a big difference this makes for
people, blah blah blah, andGrant is like, what is your deal
with presence? Why are you soangry? And she says that she's experienced
a lot of gifts with the wrongintention, but she doesn't really want to
talk about it. That's all weknow. She's experienced gifts with the wrong

(39:21):
intention. It's still that doesn't soundthat traumatizing it does You still got a
gift. So they're wandering through NewYork and he takes her to this like
warehouse district, shows her this warehousewhere his grandfather had been had worked in
his career, and it's a reallycool spot. There's a view of the
Statue of Liberty and it's about toget knocked down in just a couple of

(39:44):
weeks because the city is putting ina parking lot. But he wants to
buy it to be like the newheadquarters of the new expanded Love subscription.
So that's why he is in arush to get some funding together. So
now we have a little more contacton what's motivating him, all right here

(40:05):
right and that and obviously that notat all GreenScreen view of Yes, a
lot of very affordable warehouse property witha view of the Statue of Liberty is
my understanding. Yes in New YorkCity, Yeah, yes, And I
understand they are getting Frenchshire Capital investment. But they still made it feel like
this was not a huge reach towant this, like that would have been

(40:25):
turned into super cool bar, lofts, office space whatever by now, but
no, just going to be definitelynot a parking lot. No, no.
These days it seems like everybody's talking, but no one is actually listening
to the things they're saying. Criticalthinking isn't dead, but it's definitely low

(40:47):
on oxygen. Join me Kira Davison Jeff Listen to Yourself every week as
we reason through issues big and small, critique our own ideas, and learn
to draw our talking points all theway out to their logical conclusions. Subscribe
to Just Listen to Yourself with KiaDavis, an FCB radio podcast on Apples,
on Spotify, iHeart or wherever youget your podcasts. All right,

(41:10):
the next morning, this is thatscene you were talking about. She's out
for her run and there's like adetour, you know, the sidewalk is
I don't know, under construction.I don't know what's going on. She's
detoured anyway, and she sees Grantgoing into the address on his Love subscription.
So I think it's kind of funnythat she like knows the address.
But you'd think that, like,if I don't know, maybe I'm just

(41:30):
too small towny. I would justI mean, I'm not going to pretend
that I've like never hidden in JoeAnne fabric or in the grocery store from
someone that I don't really want totalk to you right now. But she
was hiding like she was gonna getcaught, you know, And I'm like,
just go on your run and belike, Hi, I love an
here. Yeah, I live aroundhere. There was a detour sent me

(41:50):
this way. Crazy. We raninto each other, and she said that
when she said that earlier, didn'tshe like because he had said they were
they were going on a walk orsomething earlier on in the movie, and
they did walk by that house,and she said, and he says something
like, oh, this is whereone of our regular subscribers lives. And

(42:12):
she says, Oh, that's socool. I live in this neighborhood.
Yeah, so it wouldn't have beenweird. Yeah, I mean, honestly,
just recently, that same thing happenedto me. I was in Michaels
and one of my school board memberswas in there, and if you recall,
I ran for school board and Ilost. Well, my campaign manager

(42:34):
keeps telling me to not say thatI lost. The union money beat me,
I supposed to say. But oneof the school board members who was
most antagonistic towards me was in Michaelsand she was talking about a case that
was that the school board was dealingwith a student discipline case that I had

(42:54):
been running on, and so Iwas like, I walked around the corner
and I saw her on the phoneand she didn't see me, and I
like jetted to the next al overand then I just like followed her down
the aisle on the other side,just to listen to her entire conversation.
And then I did the thing Idid that you would be so proud of
me. This was so Christmas plandy. But whenever somebody would walk by,

(43:17):
I just like would pick up somerandom thing from the shelf and be like,
what are the ingredients in this packageof glue? So and then she
walked by the end of the aisleand I grabbed like a piece of I
don't know, like a piece offelt or something, and put it in
front of my face, like,oh, this is so interesting. And

(43:37):
I just followed her a ral storelike that until she finished a conversation.
I love it. Yep. Ionce was at Joanne and saw someone going
in that I didn't. I justcouldn't. It was one of the people
where I knew I was gonna getstuck talking to them forever. I sat
in my car listen I saw themcome out. I was like, I

(43:58):
was like, I just it waslike three days before Christmas. I was
like, I can't do it.I just said, there, Oh my
gosh, that is so neurotic.We're crazy. But she's like hiding behind
cars. But I mean she there. She had no reason too. We
had reasons, but anyway, whatever. Again, I think Lilian and Annie
only know each other well, Iguess and Phil they have game. They

(44:22):
have a game night that night,and Annie starts kind of being like,
so is Grant single? What's hisdeal? And she says that she thinks
he's not single because he has alove subscription and she's like, well,
maybe it's like a family member whothey never gets to see. And she's
like, no, it's an addressin town, so I don't know.
Maybe he's got a girlfriend. Wedon't know. I mean, I wouldn't

(44:43):
I wouldn't jump to the girlfriend conclusionat all. It seems to me like
the majority of these love love boxesare going to family members for like mementos
and and stuff like that. Anne, it's been a long time subscription,
but but whatever, and we alsowe don't really care about this guy,
but I guess she does, soshe cares, and Annie cares. Um.

(45:07):
So in the next morning, thenext morning, she's out for her
run, goes by the house again, sees Grant again and hides again.
Um but a horn. She likesteps into the road and the horn honks
and she's totally busted. And Grantis like, hey, do you want
to come meet my grandma? Shelives here, so it's his grandma.

(45:28):
But also also it just proves thatlike there was no reason to hide.
He wasn't going to be like,are you following me? He was just
like, oh, I am awarethat you live in this neighborhood. Right.
Again, it was one of thosethings about the movie that, like,
the script was just all over theplace. I don't know if they
got cut up or maybe it waswritten so generically, because you know,

(45:49):
we do recognize these scripts have tobe generic. That's how you that's part
of the comfort aspect of these movies. But it was so up and down
tonally. I just couldn't get aread. It was it was like are
we It just we were supposed tobe concerned in places that weren't concerning,
and then we're supposed to be happyin places that were concerning. And again,

(46:12):
this was the thing. It didn'tneed to happen. She could have
literally just been running by and beinglike, oh look, it just seemed
like manufactured Yeah, manufactured tension.Yeah it was. We didn't need um.
But the grandma invites her in tomake some cookies so we can check
cooking Montage, Cooking Montage. Sheinvites her into her very Toronto house.

(46:36):
In New York there are brownstones,and in Toronto there's these brick creations that
are still really cool as its ownflavor, but it's definitely not New York.
Yeah. So she talks about howshe really wants to go out for
Italian tonight. There's this place thatshe loves. She's like, Lilian,
why don't you join us? AndLilian kind of tries to wiggle out of
it, but she's like, Okay, sure I'll come, and then,

(47:00):
shocking absolutely no one, Grandma balesso that Grant and Lilian have to have
dinner alone that night, because Grandmakind of knew that Grant and Lilian were
interested in each other, even thoughwe the audience really have no clue because
there is zero chemistry between these twoactors at all. Yeah, then less

(47:21):
in each other. No, webarely even know that they are interested in
each other from the script, Yeah, yeah, yes there is. There
are no clues. So they toastto a fresh start, talk about like
their career. You know. Hetalks about like how love Subscription got started
and how he likes to show peopleyou know that he cares blah blah blah,
and he's like, seriously, Lilian, what is your problem with gifts?

(47:45):
And she finally explains Bradley, herex fiance used to give her empty
gifts instead of investigate investing in theirrelationship. Okay, like I can see
it would be annoying if somebody likeblows you off, don't really care about
you, doesn't treat you well,and then buys you gifts whatever. But
that should make you hate Bradley,that's why you broke up with him.

(48:07):
That doesn't make you hate the gifts. Right, it's not like, um,
you know I don't like the waterbecause I almost drowned when I was
seven. Right, maybe you shouldhate the person who threw you into the
water. It's like it's not evenyeah, there's no, it's not that

(48:29):
traumatizing. Like it's not like thisis a traumatizing thing. But like you
know, I I once when bungeejumping in the cord broke, so I'm
afraid to bungee dump. Now it'snot like that. It's like somebody gave
me a lot of stuff. Yeah, and now I hate gifts and he
turned out to be a jerk.Okay, well you broke up with him.
That was the appropriate response. Hatinggifts isn't what's happening. Um,

(48:54):
So Grant brings her up to theroof because it's one of his favorite places
in town, but he usually justenjoys it by himself, and they have
kind of a little moment blah blahblah out there on the roof, an
imaginary view again, Yes again,because Annie and Lilian spend every waking moment
together. They are walking the nextmorning and Lilian is in like she's supposed

(49:15):
to just be like in a goodmood, but she seems like she's having
a manic episode, Like I hopeshe's okay. And they're walking through the
park and run into Bradley, theex fiance. Bradley has lost his catering
business, but he's starting a foodtruck. Everything's gonna be fine, and
he wants to see her again andshe is like, never, I don't
want to see you. You're aj Yeah, it was so weird.

(49:39):
It was weird. They're walking throughthis park. The cutaways make make it
seem like they're walking through Central Park, like the cutaways when you into they
spent a lot of time walking throughthis park. We are supposed to believe
it's Central Park, but it's clearlya Bronto park, like just a park

(49:59):
at the end of the street.I feel like I've been there before and
they're walking down the same path everytime. And I don't understand why they
chose to film so much of thisin that park. It was freezing.
Now I understand, like we usedto complain a lot about, like why
do they film off season? Whydon't you film in the winter and give

(50:19):
us like more wintry But that's hardto do. You realize when you see
a film that's shot in the winter, like and you can only imagine the
challenges of like being out there allday, all of the equipment, things
freezing over, your actor's freezing.But I but it's still every now and
then, it's nice to see realwinter. But I was flummixed by how

(50:42):
much time they spent in this park. This Bradley scene could have been a
scene at a store or a mallor a hot chocolate stand like some It
didn't need to be outside. Itwas just so weird that it was outside.
I was already uncomfortable that they wereso cold and that it was so
cold outside, and then oh,we just happened to be walking in this

(51:02):
one section of quote Central Park.Oh my gosh, there's Bradley. And
by the way, only Bradley.No one else is in the park.
It's just them. Anyway, Ifound again just added to the tonal strangeness
of this movie. Yeah yeah,So she Bradley kind of wants to get

(51:24):
back together. She's not having it. Is there a wait? Is there?
Like? Is somebody snow blowing atyour house? Somebody is leaf blowing
at my house? Oh? Leafblow? And I was like, I
really hope that that Everyone can't hearthat, but apparently you can. So
that's exciting. That's why. AndI have a neighbor who has two,

(51:44):
not one leaf blower, but twoleaf blowers. And occasionally he is a
friend and I can do this.Occasionally I have to yell at him out
my window. I'm on TV.Ryan. I don't know why he bought
two about one and he got toone day. I walked by his garage.
His wife's in the garage, waslike, Katie, why does Ryan

(52:07):
have two leaf blowers? She's like, Kira, I just picked my battles.
Anyways, so I feel you're paid, So anyway, go on,
um okay. So she gets towork and she tells um Grant all about
she ran to Bradley. Oh mygoodness, it was so awkward. Blah

(52:28):
blah blah. And he's like,okay, cool whatever. I think it
was supposed to be a moment forthem, but I don't know. I
wasn't feeling again. Yeah, there'sno chemistry, I guess. Yeah,
this is supposed to be another bondingmoment. Yeah, I wasn't feeling it.
Um. So he tells her thatthe employees have been working really,

(52:49):
really hard and he wants to throwthem a surprise party to thank them.
And she says, let's call itProject give Back and it's like an undercover
project, and like, I'll helpyou. We're going to do a huge
surprise for them. Yeah. AndI was like, and again I was
like, this is not your company, this is not your job. Don't
tell him what they call his party. Yeah. So, but he's into

(53:12):
it whatever. Later they're walking it'scold, well he's cold, but she's
not. So she gives him herscarf, which was an interesting twist on
a classic in his scarf but okay. They talk about how they've learned so
much from each other. You know, while she's been there for three days,
four days, I don't know howmany days at this point maybe two

(53:34):
let's say it's been two weeks.I don't know, but still they've learned
so much from each other. Andthen, you know, they say they're
goodbyes, and he heads over tohis grandma's house and his grandma is like,
listen, you two, mesh,and you need to tell her how
you feel because you obviously, likethe sexual chemistry here is off the charts,
even though it's not right. Sohe's like, listen, I forgot

(53:55):
to give her back her scarf,so I'm going to go over to her
house to give her back her scarf. But then while I'm there, I'm
gonna tell her how I feels.And she's like, okay, but you
didn't you skipped over the part wherehe takes her to the market, and
they isn't that's where they see Bradleybecause the day before, when they're planning
the party, he says, youknow, um, we could go to

(54:19):
a regular party supply store, butI'm gonna take you to my favorite spot.
And he goes to this market,which I thought was cool, Like
obviously his ideas like I go tothis market and it's it's got local vendors
in it, so it's one ofthose big market like you would see in
London, where there's all kinds ofstalls, vendor stalls, and and so
you know, he meets the onewoman who is like she she makes candles,

(54:44):
and Willian smells one candle. She'slike, oh, this smells like
the beach and the and the ladywas like, that's exactly what I This
is a sassy like lady. Ofcourse, that's exactly what I was going
for a girl. She was like, it's I was like, and I'm
like, you know what, Igrew up on an island. I have
smelled the beach every day and itis not a scent that I would light.

(55:07):
No, No, so I grewup I'm like Michigan, same thing.
Yeah. So it feels like deadfish, like what yeah, seeweed,
watch algae. Sometimes it's not.I mean it's a it's a fun
smell when you're at the beach,like the salt water, the sand,
but it's not like, oh thisis such a wonderful fragrance. Yeah yeah.

(55:30):
No, and then m and thenof course she mistakes them for a
couple, even though there's absolutely nochemistry at always no indication that they are
together at all. In fact,when Lillian and Grant roll up on that
vendorstall, she's standing like three feetbehind him, and she's like, oh,
how long have you guys been together, which is definitely not a question

(55:52):
you should ask a total stranger whenthey just show up, like how long
have you guys been together? Liketogether? But he takes her around to
all the vendor stalls. He said, I get my supplies from here,
and that way the boxes have likea more personalized flare and it supports local
business, which of course we love. And then they run into Bradley.

(56:14):
Also, his food truck is likehas a vendor stall there as well,
so they have met. So thenthe next yeah, so we need to
know that as we set up himbringing her her starf back. Yeah.
Um, all right, So whileGrant is talking to his grandma, Lilian
is talking to Annie because she alwaysdoes that, and she finally admits that

(56:36):
she likes Grant. So okay,we'll take your word for it. Yeah,
we'll take both yell's word for it. You're you're desperately in love.
Um. So Lilian is outside ofher house, she's getting home. M
Bradley is like walks up and he'stalking about how he has changed and he's
going to continue to change, andhe wants her back, and she's like,

(56:58):
it's too late, bro, becausethere's somebody else. But I wish
you all the best. And theyhave a hug and Grant shows up,
sees them hugging, sees her huggingher ex and he gives her back the
scarf and bolts. I thought itwas actually I thought there was more sincerity
between her and Bradley than there wasbetween her and Grant. Like I actually

(57:20):
bought his apology. And again,in the great tradition of christmasland Xes never
go away angry. You know,he wasn't that bad of a guy.
And he told her, you know, I learned I understand now that I
was. He actually gave a betterexplanation of why she had problems with the
gifts than she did. He actuallysaid, I realized now that I was

(57:44):
buying you things to prove my lovefor you and what you wanted with sincerity
and affection. And I'm sorry,yo, but I've really learned my lesson
and you know, and he seemedlike he did. So we can rest
assured that Bradley will go on tofind a nice relationship because he's learned from
Lilian. Um, it was ait was a sweet exchange. Like,

(58:04):
Okay, this guy like figured itout. He learned something. Yeah,
he's getting there. Um. Andbut meanwhile she's telling Bradley that she met
someone else, you know, allthat stuff. So so she goes home
writes this glowing recommendation to mister Waterhouse, her boss, saying they need to

(58:24):
invest in love subscription. It isthe best investment opportunity ever in the world.
And um and then as she hitssent, she spills her water.
It's a mess, It's everywhere.Ah, this is this is the messiest
and most disorganized she has been thewhole time she spilled. First of all,

(58:47):
I would think a woman like Lilianwouldn't have water near her computer.
I know, at least it wouldbe in some kind of like a spillproof
something, right, not just emptylike an open glass of water, not
empty opens. Also, I dobelieve that Lilian is boring enough to be
drinking just a glass of water nextto her computer. I mean, not

(59:07):
a cup of coffee. You know, this is Christmas Land, and I
do expect when people are drinking something, I expect it to be hot cocoa
or coffee or tea or cider.Yeah, you're right, but Lilian is
a glass of water, so itmakes sense. You're right, You're right,
it makes more of makes sense.Did Paul Revere really say the British

(59:32):
are coming? And how is GeorgeWashington chosen to leave the First American Army?
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(59:57):
So she gets to work the nextmorning, excited to tell Grant that she,
you know, suggested that they actuallydo invest but he's already gotten a
denial letter for mister Waterhouse, andhe's like, I thought you changed,
and she's like, I thought youchanged, and then they get in a
fight. She she goes to talkto mister Waterhouse and she figures out that
what happened was when she was likewiping off her computer after the whole thing,

(01:00:22):
she somehow, I don't know how, because this seems like really hard
to do. Accidentally, she sentthat initial like brain dump that she did
talking about a horrible it was andhow she hated everybody and everything and also
gifts, and so she's like,listen, I did not mean to send
that that. It's not how Ifeel. Those were just my first impressions.
And then I learned more about it, and I learned more about Grant

(01:00:43):
and his management, and he's like, those are your first impressions though,
and like, we're gonna go withyour gun on this and we're not gonna
take it. We're not going toinvest in this. But that was like,
that was the thing she sent onhour one of day one. Oh,
I don't think she sent it though. I think she just wrote it.
Oh, she just wrote it.You're right, but yeah, before

(01:01:05):
you go on with what um,mister boss says. But Grant did say
when they're having that misunderstanding, thatcould be cleared up with just a simple
conversation. Uh, Gret does tellher. He says, I thought you
changed, which I don't know thatthere was any indication based on what I
don't know. But then she waslike, I thought you changed, And

(01:01:30):
it's like, but from what thechanged from what from Like, he is
the same person that he was thesecond you walked in, which, by
the way, it seems like aperfectly nice person, not a bad person
at all. Right, yeah,I didn't get that. Um So,
mister Waterhouse is like, we're gonnastick with your first impressions, and but

(01:01:51):
you did a really good job withthis research, which this was her first
day, like notes, so Ifind it hard to believe that that passes
for really great research in the world. But okay, so he offers her
the promotion and she turns it down. She doesn't want it anymore, so
she just quits. Okay, wow, you know what, I'm filing this
one under white people problems, WhiteLily white Lilian white people problems. That

(01:02:19):
is white privilege. Yeah, lilywhite Lilian. Guess get Not only does
she whine in the beginning about notgetting the promotion, then she tries to
talk her boss out of giving herthe opportunity to nab the promotion, and
then when he does give her thepromotion, she's like, oh no,
I don't want it anymore. Iwant it also, I quit completely.

(01:02:39):
It was so okay. Now she'sunemployed. Um grant is hanging out with
his grandma again, and she's like, listen, um, you've always loved
Lilian, but she doesn't share yourlove of gift giving and explains love languages
to Grant, And I feel likehe would already know about that, because

(01:03:00):
he seems like a guy who wouldknow about that. But also his whole
premise is like, my love languageis gifts, so you'd think he would
have heard of that. Whatever.And he says, that's not her thing,
so you have to show her,show her how you feel instead of
just giving her gift. Okay,okay, so he so Grant goes to
stare despondently at the warehouse that's goingto get torn down to be made into

(01:03:22):
a parking lot, and the adminreceptionist lady calls him and it's like,
there's an emergency. You have toget back to headquarters. It's not a
big deal though, like nothing's wrong, but you have to get back right
now. That made me laugh.She's like You've got to come right away.
He's like, what's wrong, it'snot a big deal, right up,

(01:03:44):
drop everything, you get here rightnow. Well he gets there and
Lilian has completely brown up, blownup a project give back it is no
longer an event to thank the employees. It's a surprise party to thank Grant,
which is the opposite of what hewanted. So she's right ruined everything.
She lets him know that Phil isgoing to be his new investor,

(01:04:09):
and then Phil hires Lilian, andI felt like it was weird that there
was tension because Lilian was acting like, I don't know what I'm gonna do
next. I just quit my jobbecause it didn't feel right, but I'm
sure something will turn up. Halfan hour ago, Annie offered you a
job with Phil you knew you had, did you forget? I don't,
okay, whatever, So it's justwhite privilege. Also not oldly did she

(01:04:32):
hijack hijack that the party to flipit around for the CEO. She in
the process of doing so, sherobbed the hard working employees of their gift
right, that was their gifts,so they're still giftless. And the guy,
the rich guy who owns the companynow they she figured out a way

(01:04:57):
to make the party about the richwhite guy who owns the company. Uh.
Just incredible. I'm starting to thinkthat Lilian is a real Karen,
could be, could be um Okay, so Lilian gets hired by phil Um
Lilian and what's his name Grant kissand everyone cheers the end. Again,

(01:05:25):
was everyone invested in this romance?I this movie was it was maybe one
of the It wasn't even it wasn'tfun bad. We love a good bad
movie, yea. And Great Americanhas put out a few of those over
the Christmas season that were super funto watch. It was like, maybe
the scripts were a little lacking andthe settings were a little lacking that it

(01:05:47):
was really fun to go through it. But this was just lacking something.
I the script fell off. TheThe actors were perfectly fine, you know,
as far as their skills, butthere wasn't chemistry between them. Um,
and the plot seemed I hate tosay this about Christmas Land, but

(01:06:12):
convoluted. That's I mean, thatis the plot of every movie in the
Christmas Universe is convoluted. But itjust was it. It had to stretch
so far for the tension. Ijust didn't have fun with this one.
No, but that's I mean,you know, they're not all our favorite
movie. We still love you,Great American, but no, this was

(01:06:34):
not our favorite. Um. I'venever stopped making these movies. We should
I alway, I feel I feellike we should start and end every podcast
with that assertion, like we needto make sure that this is not like
a crap a crap posting podcast.We never want you to stop making good
movies, bad movies, any movies. Weeks in the end, we love

(01:06:57):
them all. This is just youknow, the premise of our podcast is
talking about them and breaking them down. But I wouldn't say I wouldn't recommend
that there's some we've done where I'mlike, yeah, goo, watch this.
This is not one of them.Yeah, oh well um yeah,
but we love them and like yousaid, we hope they just keep making
them forever. Yeah, never stop. Let's go down the list really quick

(01:07:18):
of tropes, which you know,what I need to add to our tropes
is blatant product placement. We havea list going because we have another project
we're working on. But you mightwant to put that on their Amelia.
Blatant product placement yea, not onthere. Um okay, So busy business
person, too busy for love,yes, precocious child nope. No black

(01:07:45):
best friend or POC best friend,yes, a deadline of some sort.
If it's if this was at Christmastime, we would say there would be
a Christmas Eve deadline? Is therea deadline or some sort she had she
had to get the thing done.I guess like this quarter or whatever it
was, but not like a Idon't know, it didn't feel quite the

(01:08:06):
same. But yeah, but notlike this has to be done by Valentine's
Day or something. Yeah, someonefalling off a ladder, Nope, or
falling down. No, a bakingscene, yes, we got that food
fight or flower on someone's nose orface. Didn't she wipe some office face

(01:08:30):
at one point? I think shedid. Oh, I must have missed
that part. I mean I watcheda lot of these, could have been
a different one, but I'm prettysure she didn't. All Right, a
tree lighting ceremony or something equivalent forValenti's Day. No, no tree decorating
or something equivalent decorating. I guess, well, kind of like we got

(01:08:53):
decorations for that party, but wedidn't get like a nice montage. Yeah,
black mirror, no black boss,black boss. I think we can
safely call the black boss to standhim for the black mare. Yeah,
I think so too. Black personin forty Yes, because once, because
once you leave the Once you leaveChristmas season in Christmas Land, you have

(01:09:17):
fewer opportunities for like a town wideyou know event that would you know,
need the presence of the mayor.Yeah, yeah, all right, I'm
misunderstanding that could easily be resolved withone conversation. Um, I mean kind
of with like this her sending thewrong email. But they did sort of

(01:09:38):
clear it up with one conversation,So they could have cleared up that whole
little thing. They had that littleargument they had at the end where she
was like, I thought you changedand he was like, I thought you
change. They could have cleared thatup with him going why did you send
this bad review? And her going, you know, why are you being
like this, I just sent agreat review of your business. Right.

(01:10:02):
They could have cleared that up byjust saying that a makeover or address reveal
no we didn't, we didn't,and blatant product placement. We hope,
but no it was not. Yeah, you know, and maybe that is
part of the charm that was missingfrom this movie. A lot of those

(01:10:27):
tropes were not there in some formof another, So maybe that's another thing
that fell off to us. Ido think that you know that scriptwriters for
Great Americans should get our list oftropes, so you know, yes,
and also they should listen to seasonone, where we have tons of great

(01:10:47):
suggestions for actors neckresses. That's right, Season one. We did go through
our list of of of ideas forfuture stars in the Hallmark Universe at that
point. But you know a lotof these people are switching back and forth.
Now, well, all right,I would not recommend this movie.
It wasn't my favorite Great American movieso far, but it was Valentine's Day

(01:11:11):
offering and it was still fun tosit down and watch, like they all
are at the end of the day. So thank you Great American for this
film. It was a charming Valentine. You can write us and tell us
how you felt about it. Youcan write to a Very Married podcast at
gmail dot com and let us knowwhat you think. And Amelia, we

(01:11:35):
got a letter from a superfan andit was regarding our conversation that we had
a few episodes ago about why we'vesort of matriculated from Hallmark to Great American
and why we felt that shift wasnecessary for us as fans of the Christmas

(01:11:55):
Universe. Yeah, movie thing,and so I thought it would be fun
if you read that for us,I will so yes. We after that
episode, which was actually last month. I feel like this past month has
gone really quickly. But anyway,we heard from Kelsey. Are our superfan,
Kelsey, and I'm going to readyou the email subject line preach y'all.

(01:12:16):
Alright, ladies, the latest episodeon Hallmark's new direction was spot freaking
on. I caught myself saying amenthroughout the episode. The haul out the
holly kerfuffle is what broke me thisseason, and that's kind of you know
where you and I Kara also lost, But as soon as I saw the
first five minutes, I was typingup a panicked email to you guys.
There were signs in other movies thatthey were straying from the tropes of the

(01:12:38):
formula, but it wasn't so overthat it bothered me, or it didn't
bother me enough that I couldn't finisha movie or thought about going to another
network. But I gotta be honest, I feel a little betrayed by Lacy
Shabet over this one. She's beenone of the Hallmark Christmas Queens for years,
and her movies have always been reliablyenjoyable and full of the tropes,
but from her recent interviews read theCandice Camera Beret traditional marriage remarks, she

(01:12:58):
seems to be on board with hallaren't going in a new creative direction and
abandoning the tropes. If we've lostLacy, have we lost it all?
I tried explaining Hallmark's weird new directionto my brother's girlfriend on Christmas Eve.
She doesn't watch the movies but wasaware of the drama. I think you
both explained it perfectly in this podcast. It's not about the new diversity,
but by the way, is Asianassistant the new black best Friend? So
maybe that's something you and I needto watch for Kier. It's about Hallmark

(01:13:21):
stra ain't straying from their tried andtrue formula, and that is just hugely
disappointing. If I want a lowbudget Christmas movie with a crappy plot and
a PG plus rating, I cango to literally any network. Lifetime,
Netflix, Amazon, etc. Haveloads of subpart Christmas movies to fill that
void. But that's not what Iwant all the time, and Hallmark stood
out as offering something different. Theydo still offer a few of those kinds

(01:13:43):
of movies, but it seems likethey're fewer and farther between. Gotta still
plug Christmas Cookie Catastrophe as the unsunghero of the twenty twenty two Christmas lineup.
So, Kia, you and Ididn't watch that, but I think
it starts hot Sassafras. Anyway,I'm glad you both recommended to me the
Great American Family Lineup. I gaveit a chance and have liked their offerings
so far. Lots of familiar facesand cliche storylines. It's perfect. I'm

(01:14:04):
still making my way through the recordings, but I'm loving everything I've seen.
I can't wait to join you whileI watching the Next Day of Movie this
weekend, and look forward to moreepisodes of the podcast's best to Kelsey.
Thank you, Kelsey. I reallythat was I'm really glad that. I'm
really glad to hear that someone elsegets us, because that was a r

(01:14:27):
that was a tough decision for usto make, to make that switch.
We discussed it for a while,you know, and we were both flirting
with Great American without telling the other, like I don't want to tell Amelia
that I've been watching Great American movies, but it was it did feel like
like even we did the Lindsay Lohanmovie, and even when we were doing

(01:14:48):
that movie, they it seemed likeeven Netflix understood the what was so appealing
about the Hallmark movies, And yetHallmark is movie being off of that formula,
but all the other streaming services arebeginning to pick up that formula like
they're getting it. And so theNetflix movie would have been a place to

(01:15:11):
be a little more edgy or what, but it wasn't. It really wasn't
pretty wholesome and like we expected anHallmark And it's just been so disappointing to
see Hallmark deliberately shifting away. AndI think the more I read about the
leadership over there, and the moreI read about the strategy over there,
I think that the leadership thinks they'rebeing clever about it, and I don't

(01:15:35):
think they are. I think theyI don't think they understand that we understand
exactly what we're watching. We're not. The Hallwork audience is not a bunch
of idiots that don't understand what goodfilmmaking is, or that's not what it
is at all. Most of theHallmark audience are people who have varied tastes
and also just enjoyed this genre thatis the Hallmark for all intense purposes.

(01:16:00):
It's a genre now and they enjoythat genre of movie and that's what they
want to see when they tune in, and I'd be very I haven't read
any ratings breakdowns of what Hallmark howthey've done this season, but I'll be
very interesting to hear. Yeah,yeah, we'll have to keep an eye
out for those. But we knowthat Great American is growing by leaps and

(01:16:25):
bounds, and it's easy to seewhy they are nailing it. They really
are. Candice cameram Beret has beenwinning what she has won an award for
her movie On a Christmas Present,which was one of the big movies of
the season. It was a faithbased movie over there, she want to

(01:16:45):
it was some kind of Christian award. I think it's funny when Christians give
each other awards for being Christian.But nonetheless, it's an award CCB,
and we love CCB, so we'rehappy that we're into it. Yeah,
we're into it. We're into it. But yeah, I'm I'm glad that
Great American has been there to catchus since we yes, exactly exactly,

(01:17:08):
would have been despondent and I don'tknow, because we love that. This
is a happy podcast too. Youknow, we don't want to watch you
know, we don't enjoy watching movieswe don't like and then talking about how
we didn't like them, like that'snot fun. We like loving movies.
So yeah, right, exactly.And I just want to point out that

(01:17:29):
I just made a reference to fallingoff something and being caught, and that's
what Great American did. They caughtit fell. We fell off the virtual
ladder of Christmas movie podcasts and fellinto the arms of Great Americans. We
were welcome, and then they threwa bunch of flower on our faces.
Right, yes, that's exactly whathappened. We almost kissed, but we

(01:17:53):
were interrupted. It was beautiful.Well. I had a great time today,
Amelia, and another fun you know, I mean, I know we
this wasn't our favorite, but it'salways fun to be in Christmas Land with
you. So Amelia, it's timeto go. But until we meet again,

(01:18:13):
I wish you days filled with gifts, all kinds of gifts from whoever
you want. I wish you theability to quit your job over nothing and
immediately get re hired by something better. Oh thanks, Amelia. A Merry
Christmas. Merry Christmas. This hasbeen a presentation of the FCP podcast Network,

(01:18:45):
where real talk lifts. Visit usonline at FCB podcasts dot com.