Today's Episode
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Today's Episode
Tehran (Season 3)
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Tehran has just completed Season 3, cranking the tension up to another bomb-ticking, messy, 24 Jack Bauer-level finale! The espionage thriller follows Tamar Rabinyan (Niv Sultan), a Mossad hacker-agent embedded in Iran, as she fights to survive while trying to win back the trust of her agency. Hugh Laurie jumps in this season as Eric Peterson, a nuclear inspector with cloudy loyalties.
On this episode, we recap the full Season 3. We are breaking down all the season’s major threads, from the twists, betrayals, and new characters, to the hidden motivations, deus ex machina moments, and all the bullets and Krav Maga. Plus, Tamar and Faraz are back in their classic cat-and-mouse chase and blackmail scenes.
Tune in to hear our thoughts, comparisons, best and worst moments, and our final rating. Welcome to today's episode!
Welcome to today's episode of the podcast where we discuss the most recent installments of a different series every show. It is Tuesday, March 17th, and as we do every year, we celebrate on March 17th the anniversary of the live action Beauty and the Beast starring Emma Watson and Dan Stevens. Haven't seen Dan Stevens in a lot lately, have we? Very true fact about the film though: Gosling was offered the part of The Beast, and he turned it down for La La Land, a decision that he regrets to this day. I know he's on record saying that he regrets it. It doesn't matter if he is or not. We all know the truth.
SPEAKER_02La La Land, it's like nominated for Best Picture.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes, it was. Um, so this was also the 29th movie. Uh uh Beauty and the Beast was in history to make over a billion dollars. Also happens to be our 29th podcast that we've ever done for this show. It's not our 29th, I guess, that we've ever done. I I put that in there to remind me that we are pre-recording this. And I do want to mention that it is not actually March 17th for us. We are we are recording it quite a bit earlier, and we are aware about how like tense things are in Iran and the rest of Iran, and Iran and the world, and Iran and the US. So things could happen worldwide that make this podcast a very weird listen to uh Tehran. So I just wanted to point that out beforehand and say that we pre-recorded this. Now, it's weird because Apple also delayed the release of Tehran quite some time because of Gaza and the ensuing conflicts there.
SPEAKER_02October 7th. In fact, they two uh season three was filmed in the summer of 2023. Right.
SPEAKER_01And they released it, I think, in Israel, like last year. And in April of 2024, that's when um the distributor in Israel, I think, reached back out to Apple and was like trying to persuade them to release the show like they would have otherwise. It's funny, Apple has now shelved the what, like three shows: the savant, the hunt, and and this. And the hunt, I think, is the one that has just gotten uh a new air date.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, they did it in March 4th. I I I put here Apple TV shows, this is nothing different because of real world conflict severance season two, the right carpet premiere was canceled, and then yeah, the savant with the Charlie Kirk thing, and then the hunt. Yeah, now it's going to be released on March 4th because of the whole entire plagiarism allegations.
SPEAKER_01And it's weird also because I compare Tehran to 24 a lot in my head, and 24 faced the same situation with 9-11, where because of the plane explosion in the first episode, they had to cut that out. They cut it out or did they. I thought they changed the date of airing.
SPEAKER_02No, I think that they cut it out when it aired on.
SPEAKER_01That must have made it a very confusing episode, if that's true. Especially when one of the people from the plane shows up in like later episodes, yeah. Right. So Tehran, it follows the plight of Tamar or Tamar, sorry, a young Mossad hacker. Mossad is the agency that kind of is like the CIA of Israel, but like even sneakier. Um, and she's a hacker/slash agent who was born in Iran, but raised in Israel, and then returns to Iran. This is in the first season, on a mission to sabotage Iran's nuclear program, which has like been talked about for the last however many years. Um, how just the proliferation of nuclear arms and also um making a weapon that is actually able to explode properly and and become a nuclear powerhouse in that way. It's like 24 in that it's an action, it's a serial drama, it's uh a crime thriller, a political thriller, an espionage thriller. And the tension that you get watching each eight-episode season is very much like the tink, tink, tink, tink that you get in 24. Whenever they go a commercial breaker at the end of the episode, especially in season three, because there's a bomb that we see counting down in the last 10 minutes of this entire season is the last 10 minutes of the bomb uh counting down as they're trying to disable it.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01So uh in season one, um, I'm not gonna do a recap or anything, but like the most famous person that you got from season one was Naveed Nagabon. And do you know who Naveed Nagabon is? No, he is uh Mal Farouk from Legion. Oh. So when I saw him in season one, I was like, oh, that's cool. They got this guy. But it's so weird watching a show where you don't recognize anyone. It's kind of like the first season of Money Heist was for me, where you kind of get involved in the world and just the locations and everything, and you and you stop thinking, oh, I'm watching just a regular TV show. Yeah, I find it actually helps out.
SPEAKER_02I was gonna say I always find it kind of more real. If the story is good enough, I always enjoy that more.
SPEAKER_01And the funny thing about the story is that it it does have a lot of plot holes. Um, and I'm talking more about just the conveniency of Tamar being able to get out of every situation. It is like watching Jack Bauer continually have ex mocking them moments where things come to save him, he comes to save himself. Can you even just in the last second?
SPEAKER_02I was gonna say, can you even pick the craziest thing that happened in season one that she was able to find her way out of?
SPEAKER_01Nope, because it's been a while. So that's the other thing. Like season one came out in what, 2020? And I remember it was Apple, one of Apple's first shows. I remember the first scene was really, really tense. She's not even in it, Tamar's not in it, but then we have the bad guy that's in it. I'll get into that later. But season two comes along and Glenn Close shows up. Glenn Close is now her like sort of handler. She also works for Mossad. She's also being like a fake therapist in Iran. And so, like, that does take you a little bit out of the show, despite the fact of how talented and uh accolated that Glenn Close's career has been.
SPEAKER_02The only other show that I think she's done a season for, and it was way more rare back in the day, was season four of The Shield. I think back in 2005, I remember that she was there for that season specifically, and then I don't think ever showed up in the show ever again.
SPEAKER_01You're saying I think Glenn Close started her own TV show, right?
SPEAKER_02No, I'm saying that she's done TV shows ever since. I'm saying that for a season, though, for literally just those seasons, I think these are the only two shows she's done that like story arc for.
SPEAKER_01Well, I'm happy they killed her because in the second season they killed Marjan, and then they also killed off the dead weight of the uh love interest character, Tamar's Love Interest, whose name I think was like Malib or something like that. Uh yes, Malad. Malad was his name. And I was so happy when he blew up in that car bomb because he was weighing everything down and really slowing down. Like every episode, we would have to get 10 to 15 minutes of them talking about what they were going to do after they ran off together. And I was just like, we're watching this for you to like infiltrate this whole network and destroy everything.
SPEAKER_02Doesn't Glenn close this character though, Marjan, doesn't she show up in season three? I thought she showed up as a guest.
SPEAKER_01Oh no, she's dead. She's killed off by Faraz's uh she she may show up in a flashback, um, but like she's killed by Faraz's wife, Nahib, who also wants to leave. Like everybody wants to leave Iran right now, except for the people who are in the IRGC, uh, who are who are the military government that is like controlling everything.
SPEAKER_02And the main reason why Hugh Laurie wanted to do this show so much was because he was a fan. I didn't even touch upon Hugh Lori.
SPEAKER_01This is a new season now. So third season, Hugh Lori pops in there, and having just seen the night manager, it's crazy how many international productions that this guy is doing. But here, instead of the night manager, he's presented as a good guy to start off the uh the series.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, right. And then it was one of those things where later on it's like a twist, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that happens later on. Dr. Peterson, he is a nuclear plant inspector, and he said that he used to work in South Africa during the the creation of, I guess, the nukes that Israel ended up taking. But uh the I think he works for the International Atomic Ener Energy Agency, uh uh uh title I had to look up, the IAEA. It's a UN affiliated watchdog. And what they do is they just go in and check to make sure like the nukes are where they need to be at that time. And I I understand that with the things going on in Iran right now, the question is whether or not these people are even going to be able to get in there and check on like certain data to make sure that they see that the levels of uranium or whatever are at the output where it wouldn't be possible for them to create a nuclear weapon yet. However, he tries, Dr. Peterson does, to put a little camera up in the uh restricted area. And uh he gets caught doing that. And so the IRGC take him in and the rest of his company, and uh, and he is like hoarded off to his own specific part of the um uh jail. And and so that's where we were left with his storyline completely separate than Tamar. Tamar is persona non grata. So one thing that is interesting about the show is that even though it is an Israeli production, Masad is not the good guy. Masad is like a cutthroat agency that is looking to get ahead, just like the R IRGC. You can wiggle around it like who's more evil, but like both of them want to destroy each other pretty bad. Who are you? Oh, you're absolutely like leaning towards Tamar's group, which is Masad. But Masad at the beginning of season three is trying to kill her because of they're just trying to cut ties with everything that happened that was bad in season two. So Marjan is dead, Malad is dead, and so they just want to like clear the whole air, get her out of there because they're not sure where she stands at this moment. She's been in Iran longer than she ever was supposed to be, and uh, and and so they send another agent out to get her, and she does her Krabb Magah, and she takes that guy out, and then she heads out and finds safety in a women's shelter.
SPEAKER_02Um, and it was it's a lot more action. I only ever saw the the uh finale of this season, but it was a lot more action than I was expecting for a show like this. I thought it was supposed to be like a slow drama or something, or like close to scene.
SPEAKER_01It can have some it can have some slow-paced scenes, but as a whole, it it is trying to collapse like what happens in 24 into eight episodes. And so it does feel very condensed. In season three, there's just a ton of plot.
SPEAKER_02I was gonna say with it with Tamara, every single season, her kind of being on the run, it's supposed to be a little bit like prison breaking.
SPEAKER_01Most of the time she's working with Masad, though. Most of the time she's trying to find a way, and we have to trust at the end that she does a Mr. Robot reveal where it's like actually what we've been witnessing here, I've kind of constructed myself. And that's where it becomes like you got to put yourself into a place of, okay, I'm just gonna believe this, you know? Because the idea that this one 20, late 20s lady is able to like put this all together in her head like a chess game. Speaking of chess, though, because she's on the run and Massad is after her, she finds out because she has a uh a mole in Massad. She has a friend there, and her friend keeps going to the bathroom to tell her what's up by playing chess with her because they have that chat. And it reminds me of like all those other terror stories that we hear about, or even Happy Valley, that TV show that we watched, where the dad, I think, connected through PlayStation game, uh, even though he was on the run. I think Osama bin Laden, like he connected via video games, yeah, while he was hiding.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So what what used to be just like PlayStation video games is now chess on your phone. So that's how they were talking. However, her friend gets caught, we never find out what happens to her. That's why I'm talking about Masad being a little evil, is like we don't just see her pop up at the end of the season, like, oh, she's fine. She could have been, you know, uh killed. I don't know if she was killed, but she's probably stuck in like some highly secure prison for the rest of her life because and and tried for like conspiracy. Anyway, so Tamar, she takes out one of the agents that's coming after her, and then she's caught by this guy named the Owl. And the owl is is a new guy, and he kind of is this like Mandy Batinkin's character from Homeland, Saul, from in his relationship with Carrie. At first, he wants to kill Tamar, but then after talking to her, he agrees to become her new handler and he says to Massad, I'll be taking responsibility for this lady. So they no longer want to kill Tamar. Part of the reason, though, that she has this leverage, that she's able to convince him not to kill her, is that she had broken into Marjan's house, Glenn Close's uh apartment, and she had found the files that Glenn Close had been working on, Marjan had been working on, about the nuke nuke that was being made in Iran. And so that's where this season's storyline starts to fall into place because you've got Dr. Peterson who's been arrested. He's a nuclear scientist, and then you have this warhead that has been uh like transported around that they're finding out in uh in Mossad that uh the Iranians are planning to put together very very soon.
SPEAKER_02It's interesting you bring up Saul, though, from Homeland, because I actually saw I asked Chat GPT who Faraz was like because Faraz and Faraz is the bad guy. I know Faraz is the bad guy, but I think that they compared him to Saul. Just maybe in age.
SPEAKER_01Um he's nothing like an like the adversarial relationship with Faraz and Tamar is more like Tom and Jerry. Um it is a cat and mouse thing where Tamar is Jerry, right? Uh and and uh it does matter like who has the gun on the other person, because that happens several times where she'll black blackmail him. Uh every once in a while, he will make her do something, but then you find out that it was her plan to do it all along.
SPEAKER_02You know, like in this season, so he's never outsmarted her, really.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it was she needed information from some supercomputer or from like Marjon's old computer, which had been taken in, and so he had to go in there and use his credentials. He is the head of investigations and she has his wife hostage. Um, and she's also promising him to get him out of uh Iran um because that's what his wife really wants.
SPEAKER_02I find it funny because the person who played him, Sean Taube, uh, was in the last Airbender film and he played Uncle Iroh, which is like the most wholesome character, at least from that whole story. That is true. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So here it's like almost a complete opposite character.
SPEAKER_01He plays a great bad guy. Like I think the reason they kept him on for three seasons uh is because he's so intimidating. Just hit the look of him, he's so serious, you know? And so yeah, there's there's kind of it's not a will they won't they, but it's definitely a um, you know, like respect towards one another by the third season, to the point where they'll like see each other and um not necessarily go for the weapon because they're like, oh man, they're gonna cause me a lot of problems if I do that. Um, yeah, yeah. So we'll we'll talk about him a little bit more later. But Tamar follows all these leads and she gets closer and closer and closer to the bomb. And then she finds this powerful smuggler named Rameen, who is in his like mid-30s, and he has connections to the underworld of Iran while also getting the respect of the uh IRGC slash like people at the very tippy job. So he doesn't really have to worry as much about uh getting caught as anybody else, right? Rameen Razmi is who you're talking about. And so Tamar gets close to him claiming to be this like sad lady named Sarah who um needs goods for the woman's shelter, and he provides that. It's only until later that he finds out that she's actually playing him. She uses him for information. She and the owl end up finding out that Peterson has been taken to this random air hangar place, and they watch as Peterson is kidnapped, not by the RGC who already has him, but by these this rebel group who hates the RGC because in Iran there's already enough civil war upset that like this rebel group kidnaps Peterson and then they try to um, I guess Ramin decides that he wants to buy uh or or you know, like uh pay for Peterson to escape.
SPEAKER_02Well, it just sounds so much like Hugh Lori's character, like so much that's happening to him from the Night Manager, which is the only other show that he's been in ever since All the Light We Cannot See.
SPEAKER_01I mean, having seen it, no, because like the only thing I would compare the two is that like his identity is so up in question right now because he's been trapped in parts of the world where he shouldn't be. And in the end of season one of the night manager, he is taken by these Egyptian dudes, I think, to like Syria or something like that to like spend the rest of his days and probably kill him. And then in season two, we find out that that didn't exactly happen. But Peterson, right now, he just seems like an innocent English bloke who's been caught up in the middle of everything. He gets kidnapped, but because Tamar has this connection with Ramin, she ends up at the place that he's being held. They take out all the bad guys just before the IRGC comes in there. That's when Ramin realizes that Tamar isn't who she says she is. She's not Sarah, the random lady. Uh, she actually works for some agency. And so she takes Peterson and the owl and the Peterson and Tamar are all hanging out in a safe house. When Peterson reveals that he's actually evil and he smacks Tamar in the face and he escapes just as Faraz is breaking free from wherever he was hanging out. And uh and they go off. So so the way they explain this is Peterson says, um, he's seen so much death and destruction by Israel because of like the nukes that they've got. He wants to create a deterrent, and so his secret plan the whole time was actually to get caught by the RGC. This was all a ruse in order for him to actually work with the RGC to create the nuke that they've been wanting this whole time.
SPEAKER_02So is this the first time that a villain has kind of outsmarted Tamar in the show? Not at all.
SPEAKER_01In the first season, the big, big, big twist was the fact that like one of the main people that she was working with um i in uh via Massad to infiltrate Tehran was actually a tra Tehran, or it was uh yeah, it was actually a Tehran agent.
SPEAKER_02I was well, it sounds like Eric working with Faraz, I think. Yeah, I was gonna say it sounds like Eric is more successful than Faraz has ever been in terms of at least tricking tomorrow.
SPEAKER_01Not really. They have to speed run everything this season. So the relationship with Owl, the Mandy Petinkin thing, like he dies in the penultimate episode. And like the relate just the empathy between the two of them, it really is a testament to the characters that they were able to pull anything from it because they've only had like four episodes together. But it really was sort of a father-daughter thing by then. And and as for Peterson, uh his character, he uh Hugh Laurie does a great job at the very beginning, making him and making him seem sympathetic, but then he quickly has to do this completely 180, and then he has to explain himself from that angle and how he's trying to create a deterrent for Iran so that the rest of the world stops bullying them. And that that's sort of believable. But at the same time, you have Ramin, who's the underground guy, right? He's the one who has connections all over. You'd think that he'd be furious about Tamar, but no, he ends up being a um a CIA or part of like a connection with the CIA. So he now has replaced what is the guy from the first two seasons again? Malad? Okay, yeah, Malad in the fact that he's gonna be like her number two. Um, the owl, uh, after he dies, he's absolutely the number two. And so they're running around Tamar and Ramin, and they realize that there's already a bug on the bomb that Iran is trying to make, that they were able to install a long time ago. Masad was able to install a long time ago. However, they have to do something with it. I forgot exactly what, but they ended up like having to break into some console somewhere to get into a computer to get into the security network and patch into the bomb. At the same time, Peterson is well ahead of it. He's figured out that they have done something to the bomb because he has another informant from uh a previous testing that he had been doing, the wife of that person. Yeah. Uh that's actually the person who ends up killing the owl. So, like, there's it all connects. But Peterson watches as Tamar tells him basically where the bug is in the code.
SPEAKER_02So now he can just basically delete it, right?
SPEAKER_01And then Peterson deletes the bug and he's like, all right, I have the bomb here. It's ready to go. Now let me do. And then they say, Shut up. We're gonna take this bomb now. The IRGC is like, we don't care about you anymore. We're you can go back to prison and we'll send you back to England or whatever. His cover has been blown because he showed himself his true colors to Tamar. So Massad knows who he is, and so he can't just go home. Uh, even though that that's not public information, they would just like sell some send someone to kill him or something like that. Like, he's not gonna have a normal life anymore. He realizes this. He also realizes that his whole plan of like what he wanted to do with the bomb, which was like, I guess, keep it down in that bunker, was not gonna happen. So the IRGC authorities at this point are saying we're gonna transport this thing, and that's where he realizes he needs to contact Massad. And we have to be like, what? Why?
SPEAKER_02So would you say that like his plan was almost kind of like the penguin, where if you remember the penguin of like the later part of the twists in the penguin? And he had the bomb underneath the city, and he was just thinking that that was going to be where they kept it. Right.
SPEAKER_01So he explains his plan in the last episode because that's where it gets really interesting. He has been calling his daughter the entire time that he has been in Tehran, whether be before or after he got arrested. And like we never hear from her, and the fact that he asks about her all the time makes me think that there's like a big twist coming where she's either dead or that like there's there's something he doesn't have a daughter, and that this. But he calls his daughter with like this uh cell phone that he had snuck in, and uh he knows that Masad is listening, and so he tells them where he's gonna be. And so Tamar, once again, with Ramin now, are able to intercept that van that's taking him back to the prison. And he tells them at that point, I've created this bomb and it has an explosive on it that's going to set it to go off in like 15 minutes. No, at like 12 o'clock. So, like they have an hour to find the bomb. And the problem was he was expecting it to go off in the bunker, which would stop the re radioactive effects as much as it would be as if it were on top of land. And he said he basically it was a greater good argument where it was like, once the people see what they are creating in the rest of the world, then they will never try to do it again, you know? And so, and and Tamar at that point has to be the human in the group and be like, Are you kidding me? You're gonna kill off all these people that are in Tehran.
SPEAKER_02What is it with Hugh Lori season finales and bombs always going off?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I can tell you. I mean, so he he's not necessarily as bad a guy as we originally assume, where he's actually wanting to create a bomb. For the purposes of being used against someone. However, he did want to let it go off. So the like last-minute redemption arc is a little bit of a problem. Um so it didn't work for you where he like kind of sacrifices himself. It's just I'm still trying to figure out where the pieces land for him, but they have to end up kidnapping Faraz. And Faraz's storyline has taken a whole detour this season. At one point, it was looking like he was striking a deal with Tamar to get into Israel, and his wife believed that. He had been part of the security detail that had watched one of the commanders get blown up. And so he had heat on him as far as people thinking he might be uh working for Mossad, anyways. And so he has this detective who all season's been like on his back and even trying to get his wife to come out and tell him information about her husband. The wife, in the previous episode, uh, Tamar had made a promise to her to help her escape from Tehran. And so she supplied her with a passport and sent her to the same woman's shelter that she had found comfort in earlier in the season. Oh, I think I saw the previously for that thing you know we're talking about.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So Faraz really wants to talk to his wife. And Tamar rolls up and she's like, Hey, you want to talk to your wife again? Well, get in the can in the car. We got to go get this bomb because he's one of the few people who knows where the actual bomb location is, which is in a van, which he then calls the van and says, Hey, go to this random mountain where there's a cave. And so that's where ultimately all this ends up is that they're in the cave, there's a shootout going on, eventually Peterson and Tamar, who remember is a hacker as well as being a like a Swiss army knife of and she's been shot, so she should be like weaker, but it doesn't seem to affect her too much.
SPEAKER_02We saw her again, like so many shootouts in the like 40 minutes that this finale was. Then 24.
SPEAKER_01It's like you've seen Keith uh Kiefer Sutherland like go through everything.
SPEAKER_02It felt like, yeah, just plot armor.
SPEAKER_01Um, so they get into where the bomb is in the back of the in the back of the truck, and Peterson starts to disable the uh the actual thing, and then Faroz goes out, and the guy who has been tailing him, the one who wants to like skewer him, you know, he ends up uh putting them up to gunpoint, and that's where Fraz is forced to kill him. This isn't the first time that Faraz has had to kill one of his like secondary people who were getting too close. That happened in the previous season. How many times can he do this? He's on at the same time, tomorrow's letting him talk to his wife. He has kind of an interesting conversation, probably one of the best conversations of the entire series, where he makes it very clear, like in his mind, he's always thought himself the good guy. And uh the Iranian people are always presented as like just people, you know, just humans going about their days, doing their things, innocence. Well, civilians, yeah. Yeah, civilians. Well, the same thing goes for their government, where they are just the assholes. Though they're the people that uh everybody considers responsible for all the travesty that's occurring around them. And he hasn't always seen it that way. He's seen himself as the ledger that's like kept things stable. Oh, no, he kind of like the middleman. And he doesn't want, no, not the middleman. He sees himself as one of the top guys, but just like he's supporting the system to so that they are safe, so that he's safe, so that his wife's safe. He doesn't really feel the need to ever leave. He doesn't want to leave. And so that's what his wife is trying to communicate to him. And he's like, But I love you. How can you ask me to do this? And it's kind of left at an impasse where she just hears the shootout happen, and then he goes back into the van now that he has a gun, and he's like, get out. Uh have you done it yet? And um, Peterson forces him to let Tamar go.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01So Tamar gets out of there, and then Peterson and him have this last-minute chat, which is another great moment in the series where Peterson's sort of explaining his point of view, and Faraz is explaining his point of view, and that's where it becomes dawns on Faraz that the bomb hasn't been disabled, that he hasn't been working to disable the bomb. And at that point, I'm like, that's insane because Tamar could have been given 30 minutes chance to escape, and she still wouldn't, she would still be in the proximity of the radiation, she'd be dead.
SPEAKER_02Right, because the bomb, yeah, like while this is going on, you can just see the timer in the back of the room.
SPEAKER_01Everything is happening at the same time. The IRGC is heading towards the cave because they realize something crazy is happening. Massad is looking to blow up the nuke in Tehran because they're like, I'd rather it happen here than anywhere else. So that's why I'm talking about Massad being sketchy as an agency as it's itself. And Tamar is really the only one, and I guess Peterson with a heart, because what they choose to do is blow up the incendiary device or the part that's supposed to blow up the nuke that caused the uh actual the chemical reaction, right? But it ends up just being a regular bomb. So it takes out a ton of the IRGC guys, it takes out Peterson, it takes out Peterson, and it also takes out Faraz, which I wasn't expecting. I wasn't expecting them to kill off the main villain of the series, uh, but it worked. I thought it was a very like well done death for this guy. He definitely deserved after all of this, and his wife ends up being free. So it is sort of a feel-good moment.
SPEAKER_02Well, it makes you wonder, especially because it's been renewed for season four, that like where do they go with it now that the big bad is gone?
SPEAKER_01Well, season three had new writers, anyways. Right. So yeah, so like I I guess that they they already know what they're doing. So I'll just trust them on that. Tomorrow, obviously, she runs off. She has a backpack. From the backpack, she takes out the nuke, the actual core of the nuke. That's the thing that they had been working on so much in the back of the van. Was so that this was just a normal explosion. It wasn't a nuclear explosion, and so it only affected that mountain area. So it was still bad, but not nearly as bad as it had to be. And so she takes it out of her backpack, and then Ramin sees in, they're like, Oh, great, we we got the nuke. And then they they start running out of the forest or the desert as the helicopters or whatever, the drones are like chasing them, you know?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you get you get the upwards.
SPEAKER_01That's the prison break connection. If you go to like season one, that's where they're running away as as danger follows them, pursues them. A lot of pros for the season, just like every season, they have tons of languages. I like how they interweave the Hebrew with the Farsi with the uh English, and they just do it all these characters way better than anybody speaks English in Squid Game.
SPEAKER_02The locations they shoot in Athens, Athens, Greece, and they're able to make it look exactly like Tehran.
SPEAKER_01It's got the pistache of like uh of an Apple TV show, even though it wasn't created by them, because it feels fancy. If Apple thought this was not up to par for us, they could have redone it. But I think part of it is the fact that they cast so well, part because they filmed um with with these uh with these different languages within it. And then um finally, because of yeah, the location is just you can't tell the difference, but I've never been to Tehran, so I wouldn't know what I was looking for. Sarah Tamar in this episode is the best part of the show, has always been. She's like Tokyo from Money Heist, yeah. If Tokyo was sane, you realize how much more of a threat that is, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I know it'd be it'd be scarier because she actually, like, there's a message.
SPEAKER_01She's not crazy, she didn't actually plot stuff out, but at the same time, she's just always she's she's a badass. And so killing off her, that would have like, you know, PTSD'd most characters from every TV show if their love life had just destroyed in one episode, you know. And and for her, it was like, okay, well, moving on. Uh shout out to the old guys because you got the owl who was played by a 78-year-old dude, um, and for Oz, who's 68 years old, and they carry the show as they're great.
SPEAKER_02Um, and so yeah, I mean, again, Faroz probably not anymore.
SPEAKER_01Hugh Lori, I think, is probably neither they both died in this season. Yeah. I'm saying that for this season, season three, they were great, but they were action heroes at 78 and 68. Mandy Batinkin only wishes he's like, I think five years younger than uh like I think he's in his uh like 73 or something. Like I was saying, Hugh Laurie is 66, so right, but like he wasn't doing the action stuff. Like the owl literally went off or out in a uh field of gunfire. It was pretty cool. And then uh yeah, the cons of the show, at one point they had put Faraz, this was when Tamar and the Owl had made a deal with Faraz to get him out of Iran, and they stuck him in this ramshackle shack with like one zip tie around his hands. And everybody online, because I I could not believe it myself, was like just like, what are you doing? Like one zip tie, like that like he's not gonna be able to make his way out of it. Yeah, like he wouldn't be able to just get his way out of it. Shack that wasn't even like fully they put one lock on it and then he had one zip tie behind his they could have at least like tied him up just a little bit more. It was crazy. He was out of there in two seconds. Um, Ramin, the fact that he finds out that Tamar is uh Masad isn't angry at all that she killed one of his best friends, and then also is like represents himself as part of the CIA while having still connections everywhere in the city, and yet no one tries to reach out to him like, hey man, where are you? Like you have tons of work to be doing right now. Well, he suddenly becomes Tamar's like second in hand, you know? Um, that was weird. Uh all the ex-Makina moments. Peterson's plan, if you really think about it, is is pretty wonky because like he wanted to get caught, he wanted to set off this bomb because he thought that that was going to automatically make the rest of the world turn on Iran or something. Very curious. Uh, and then I still don't know what's going on with his daughter. Like Do you think you're ever going to be? At the very end, he says, please explain to my daughter what happened. So we're just led to believe that she was actually receiving these messages, but she never checked her phone.
SPEAKER_02But but do you think that we're ever actually going to figure out though?
SPEAKER_01Because with his story, it means that's what I mean by like it's just kind of a con, because I think they just left that out. Um, for Oz, I said already, he killed all his colleagues, so it's not like anybody's really gonna know what happened. Um there, I do want to throw out a mention, this isn't a con or anything, but like in Iran, apparently, uh, some of the military they wear these giant billed hats. Like they're normal baseball caps, but they have huge bills like goofy from Disneyland. You know, when you with the big they look so goofy, but like I guess these guys are really like you don't want to mess with them, but but they're so funny looking.
SPEAKER_02I I did not expect you to compare uh that those Iranian.
SPEAKER_01And the last thing I could say is I did cringe when Tamar took the bomb out of her backpack and was just holding it in her hand. It's this orb that might as well be glowing because it's filled with like possible radiation. I just was thinking, like, how many years did you just take off your life? I guess if it's stable, then you can handle it.
SPEAKER_02But like I would imagine it would be hot too, though, right?
SPEAKER_01No, like it I think it'd be inert to the point, but I think like actual just like the elements radioactively would be still like their isotopes would be still fucking you up at the same time. So I I don't know why she was just she's gotta put that somewhere safe really, really soon. Uh ultimate rating for me is probably an eight out of ten for the season.
SPEAKER_02And what did you think uh compared to the other two seasons? Because like you said, it was season two sucked.
SPEAKER_01Season two is forgettable. What about season one? Season one's really you're pretty good. It's not on the level. Well, I I guess season one or season three, whichever's your favorite, one of those is.
SPEAKER_02I was interested because they got they've had the same director for every single episode. Even in season three? Yeah, even in season three, Daniel Sirkin. But as you stated, Mashe Zonder and Amri Shannar, who are also credited for creating the series, and I think also like still had their hands in season three, did not write it this time. So I was wondering if there was any differences that you could tell just like starkly between uh all three.
SPEAKER_01Nope. Uh not not really. It's it moves at a pace where you're just like usually in a type of show where a character keeps on getting away by the skin of their teeth, you would get exhausted from it. But because of her character, you're rooting for her no matter what, and it's just relentless, and uh you always feel the tension, despite the fact it just doesn't get old, which is very curious. Like, I don't even understand it myself, like why it doesn't feel like I shouldn't be, you know, your body should just get used to it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Season three has actually been the most critically acclaimed season, it even has a higher onset score with 94% than season two or season one. Because Malad's dead.
SPEAKER_01Milod was my least favorite character. He brought the show so down. Like he was introduced in season one as another hacker, uh, who who I understand how they have like that connection because they're both in the same mindset, but he was so sappy. You know, he would just sit there and be like, I want to go run off with you doing that. It's like we get it, Malad. Maybe it's season five.
SPEAKER_02The New York Times said that uh Tamar, they agreed with you. They said that she was the best part of the series because she gives a sympathetic vulnerability to the character.
SPEAKER_01She's super talented. Again, I read that she did Craig Maga and setup for this. She um uh she obviously speaks three languages.
SPEAKER_02She's she ever since Tehran, which has been 2020, has been the lead roller series regular in six shows, including this. But in Israel, Israeli shows.
SPEAKER_01Right, but she hasn't made the leap into America.
SPEAKER_02Still, and then with Hugh Laurie, like I said, he was such a big fan of the series. I think he really liked season two so much because he kept on bringing up how great Glenn Close was in it that when his agent asked what he wanted to do, he was like, get me on this TV show, and he was able to do so.
SPEAKER_01What's nuts is he's also a huge fan of the night manager, like he was the reason part of why Richard Roper came back and stuff like that. So my thing was like, what if midway through the season when he really didn't know anything, I was gonna like, what if he's the same character? What if somehow this is like the in-between of the night manager? Because he is world traveling, like you said, and that would be just the most crazy crossover that would never actually happen.
SPEAKER_02I did want to ask because it seems like every single season, even though I know season four is being filmed right now, uh, is going to have a major actor. I wanted, I have a list here, and I want to see if you could give your thoughts on who you think if they would work in season four as being like the villain or whatever. So Helen Miren was my first one. I know you liked her in Mobland.
SPEAKER_01Feels like she's done this that role too much, though.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so all right. Daniel Sirkin did episode five and six of Mobland. So that's basically the reason she was there. Bobby Canival, he has range, he's on a lot of different uh TV shows, kind of like it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but I feel like he would need to speak a different language. He looks too much like some of the characters. I'm thinking of his character from Mr. Robot with the mustache. There are so many mustached people in this show where it's like if he's not going if he's just gonna be speaking English, it's gonna be kind of odd.
SPEAKER_02What about Shore Agdashlu? That's the expanse lady, the old lady from uh the penguin, also.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, she would fit in. And then what like I think she's I don't is she Iranian? I don't think so.
SPEAKER_02Um, no, I think she is too. No, she she she's Iranian and American. She's Iranian? No, perfect. Yeah, cast her. Get her in there. And then uh my last one was Reez Ahmed from the night of would he work? I'm I'd be kind of upset if I saw him in it. I'd be like, nah, get out of here, Reez. I know he's British. He's British. Yeah, no, he is. Um and I and the last two uh comparisons that we have that we didn't really bring up, A House of Dynamite, like that was the Netflix uh movie that came out last year about kind of like the uh the Don't remember it well now in the world. Okay, and then the agency also.
SPEAKER_01Uh the agency, oh yeah, no, for sure. So like as an espionage thriller, the agency was slower paced as far as like he doesn't run around shooting people every episode. Right, Michael Fazman. Tamar is like on the loose anytime she should be caught. Um, so if you didn't like the agency because it was boring, check out Tehran. And I I I know there was been um again, the like really sad story about like one of the show's producers or whatever died for the season four before February, yeah, while they were filming it. Right. And so uh it's but I don't think that had any impact on the actual show's writing or or anything like that.
SPEAKER_02What was the cause of the show? That that didn't. Uh how the Gaza War turns out, I know Daniel Sirkin says that will uh play a bit.
SPEAKER_01They said that they had to do rewrites for season four because of how similar it ended up being. That's gotta suck. No, really. It's it is incredible that they're able to create a show that I feel like if anybody hears Israeli show that is from the point of view of uh an agent going into Tehran and doing stuff, people are just gonna say it's propaganda. But while you're watching it, it's really like they do not present Mossad in a nice way. And t Tamar is like the main character of the show. You could just call it the Tamar show. Like she is she's representative of the ethics here, and she is not one way or the other. Her heart is in uh I Iran, like she says numerous times in the show. Anyways, so thanks for listening. We'll see you on the next episode. Hope you enjoyed this one. Bye.
SPEAKER_02Bye.