BONUS: Revisiting THE LEFTOVERS with Paul Tremblay

TV Watchers, it's very SPECIAL EPISODE time! Ken and Lisa return to their roots with a brand new discussion of the TV series that got them started on their crazy little passion pod project, The Leftovers!! They're joined by special guest, author and special friend to the pod, Paul Tremblay!! (who finally consented to watch the show after much cajoling) Get ready to join the discussion!

Hosts: Lisa Carroll Tremblay and Ken Cornwell 
Producer: Cole T.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_07 0:25

Hello TV heads. Welcome back to TV is awesome. Everyone's favorite show about TV and all the good things about TV. Uh I'm here as always with my partner in crime, Lisa. Hello, Lisa.

SPEAKER_04 0:41

Hi, Ken.

SPEAKER_07 0:43

And we have a very special guest to talk about a very special topic this week. Hey, Paul. Welcome. Hi guys. I live here. I'm Paul. So we are going back to our roots. Roots. The origin of the show. OG is the OG, which is the leftovers. So we're going to have a very special discussion today about the leftovers and all things leftovers. And we'll get to that first in a second. But first, as we always do, we're going to talk about what we're drinking this week. So we'll start with you, Lisa. What's your beverage?

SPEAKER_05 1:23

I was inspired by an amazing um podcast called TV is Awesome. I've been listening to the Leftovers episodes. And in one of the later ones, I had a white Russian.

SPEAKER_08 1:36

Oh.

SPEAKER_05 1:38

Um, this is literally a cut water um cocktail from a long time ago. So I had to Google if it expired and it doesn't. Um, and then I added some peppermint to it. Okay. Jugged it up a little bit. Okay. So we, in my point of view, are going to have a really good podcast.

SPEAKER_07 1:57

Yeah, I'm excited. And Paul, what's your what is your beverage?

SPEAKER_02 2:02

Oh boy, I have notes or I have things to read. So Lisa had bought me a uh what are those calendars called? Advent calendar. Advent calendar of all like scotch whiskeys. So, and they're little. I know no one's watching, but it's like hold it up. How much 10 milliliters or something? So I brought two, both from Spayside, which is you know, I like abalore is my favorite scotch because it's doesn't taste like a mouthful of peat or smoke. Yeah, has to be you know fruitier anyway. So this one, I don't know, what do you think? It's how do you think it's pronounced? Spelt Glen Lossy. Maybe that's how it's pronounced.

SPEAKER_05 2:40

That's how I would say it.

SPEAKER_02 2:41

Yeah. Uh 10-year-old palette malty biscuits. Malty biscuits.

SPEAKER_05 2:47

Also the name of my band.

SPEAKER_02 2:48

With continued apple and pear sweetness, light chocolate. Finish apple pie with a sweet oak and malty aftertaste.

SPEAKER_05 2:54

And that's all a lot. Yeah, you taste fire.

SPEAKER_02 2:58

Fire. And because it's so little, I brought a second one, and this is Linkwood. Eight-year-old, it's a wee lad uh palette bursting with powerful fruit salad and custard cream flavors. Custard cream. Rich complexity. That would be delicious if with more sweetie candy flavors and a fruity aftertaste. We'll see.

SPEAKER_03 3:20

I mean, just lies. Do you taste any of that?

SPEAKER_02 3:25

Well, I'm only drinking the other one. No, I haven't noticed any hints. But it doesn't taste like smoke or peats.

SPEAKER_07 3:33

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:35

And what do you have?

SPEAKER_07 3:36

So we have a weird kismet thing going on because I have a scotch and soda. Which I've never done on the show before. But so I went to see uh a special screening of Vertigo last night at the AFI. Uh and uh Jimmy Stewart is drinking scotch and soda many, many times throughout the throughout the throughout the film, and I thought it looks so refreshing and and delicious and uh 50s, and I thought, well, I'm gonna try it. And so that's what I've got.

SPEAKER_05 4:15

Have you had that before?

SPEAKER_07 4:16

I've never had it before. No, I never had I mean I've had I've had scotch on its own.

SPEAKER_03 4:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 4:23

Uh I've had you know in cocktails, obviously. Uh but I've never had it in soda. Uh so we'll see if it is what kind of soda. Just plain. Just plain club soda.

SPEAKER_05 4:35

Like club soda?

SPEAKER_07 4:36

Club soda. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 4:37

Yeah.

unknown 4:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 4:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 4:39

We're just cheering straight ahead on this one.

SPEAKER_07 4:41

Just cheer.

SPEAKER_05 4:41

Yeah, just cheers.

SPEAKER_07 4:43

Cheers. Cheers. Cheers.

SPEAKER_05 4:51

Oh, I don't know if this is gonna be good for my health later, but custardy.

SPEAKER_07 4:54

I'm getting custard and peach and fruit salad.

SPEAKER_05 4:58

Fruit salad.

SPEAKER_07 4:59

Fruit fruit salad is the next one.

SPEAKER_02 5:00

I'm looking forward to the fruit salad.

SPEAKER_05 5:03

Um can I say some overarching things?

SPEAKER_08 5:07

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 5:08

I feel like we have to level that. I mean, and especially address our OG listeners who have been with us on this journey.

SPEAKER_08 5:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 5:15

Knowing my plight of having watched the whole thing and then started a podcast and re-watched, and no one in my house would do it with me.

SPEAKER_07 5:24

Right.

SPEAKER_05 5:25

And I said back then in 2021, someday.

SPEAKER_07 5:29

Right. It's it was part of our ongoing discussion about how you could not convince your family members to watch the show.

SPEAKER_05 5:38

Well, I would also have a tirade of like, how is it that not more people in general are not watching the show? Yeah. And it would translate into no one in my house is watching this show. I will say Emma gave it a good try. I don't think she wanted to watch it with me. Maybe someday she will. Um, but yes, here we are. Here we are. Do you feel accomplished?

SPEAKER_02 5:59

I do, yes.

SPEAKER_05 6:01

Um, the other big question is I mean, did you like it?

SPEAKER_02 6:06

Uh I loved it. It was great. Yeah. Similar to another favorite show. I mean, there are two different shows, but like there were hurdles with uh the TV show Hannibal, which I love is an all-time favorite. Um I couldn't watch it because I love Manhunter. And in my mind, Will Graham, the movie Will Graham was William Peterson from that you know, crazy Michael Mann movie. Yeah, I even watched like that pilot episode twice, and I was like, ah, this is not, you know. But so many people were saying that they liked it, so I stuck through. And I I can't remember if it was episode two or three. There was a moment early on in in uh Hannibal, I was like, Oh, all right, I'm gonna watch this until the end, and it was amazing. So I had a similar hurdle with the leftovers because I'd read the pirata book. Um I don't know. I just yeah, I I don't seek out adaptations, I guess, is my problem. Like as a you know writer myself. Yeah, I kind of know I always like the book better, so like that was a definite hurdle. Yeah, um, so no, the show is um it definitely surpassed the novel. I mean, obviously, it goes on way past the novel. I think it's pretty cool that Parada was an executive producer and wrote a lot on it. Um, so that must have been a a really cool thing for him to be able to like expand, like take that original story and do all sorts of crazy things with it. So, no, it was it was really, really good. Uh a lot darker than I thought it was gonna be. Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 7:32

Um, also, I just want to say that I think you and I can and we did we had a whole episode about the book after having watched season one.

SPEAKER_08 7:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 7:41

Um, I think the book is just its own thing at this point, but the genius of the show is seeing the potential in the book to make it what it was on TV. Yeah, that's my perspective on that whole thing.

SPEAKER_07 7:54

And I um I don't remember the book well now because it's I mean, it's been many years since we've read it and talked about it, but I feel like the tone of the book is so different than the show ended up being, which is interesting.

SPEAKER_04 8:08

Yes.

SPEAKER_07 8:09

Uh uh, and you know, there was the book was almost like kind of jokey.

SPEAKER_02 8:13

I mean kind of jokey lighter. Yeah, yeah. It's like, oh, I'm reading Election, or you know, one of his other books.

SPEAKER_07 8:18

Yeah, yeah, it was more of a satire. Uh and that's not the that's not the leftovers, the show for sure.

SPEAKER_05 8:25

Right. Um and then another really big high-level question I have that I don't know that you and I have ever discussed, and but it kind of came um into my head recently. Like what kind of genre would you say this is? I I feel like well, I'll let you answer and then we can talk about it. Can you categorize it?

SPEAKER_02 8:48

Sorry, it's not too big a sip of the malted biscuit. Um I don't know. I mean that's um yeah, like I mean, if I were to choose a genre to to describe to somebody else, like I don't know. I mean I mean it'd call it horror adjacent. I don't know, even the individual seasons have different sort of tones to them. Um yeah, I don't know. It's I mean, I'm that I watched it. I was sitting there talking, thinking I'm glad I I watched it COVID as a although it would have been interesting to watch it pre-COVID because I mean that was I was getting really anxious watching the opening episodes. It's like, wow, this feels so much like it was. I can't believe this was not written uh during 2020 or in the days afterwards.

SPEAKER_01 9:37

Right.

SPEAKER_07 9:38

Yeah, I think we talked about that a lot because I mean that was one of the main one of the main reasons we were, I think, chose to re-watch it is because we thought there were so many parallels to what was going on uh at the time in 2020 when we started this little endeavor.

SPEAKER_05 9:54

Our little our little show.

SPEAKER_07 9:56

Our little show.

SPEAKER_05 9:56

Um and then I was reminded because I've been re-listening, right? Because as we were watching again, can third time, still so forget so much and how things connect. Um, the third one is really revealing. But I went back and listened to our podcast, and it seemed like every time we watched an episode, something was happening real time in 2020. I was like, What? I remember like the mailboxes. Remember how mailboxes figured kind of big in season one with him hiding his cigarettes under and um Tommy was like staking out one because there was supposed to be money under what anyway. It was like when mailboxes were being hauled off of streets because it was awful in this terrible times. Yeah, so many things had parallels to what was actually happening, or even just coincidences that um yeah, it is it is crazy. But when you probably said this too. When I watched it originally, I would say to everybody, it's like if something like this happened, this is how realistic it would be, right? Like with cults and then people writing books, and like all these different factions, and how people and then you have a mayor that's like, just put up a statue and we'll move on, you know. Like all the ways that were represented in the show were so realistic to what would happen, and then we kind of lived something through something similar, and it was yeah, yeah, yeah. It was, and it was bad, it was bad, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um it was like the leftovers told us it would be right, right.

SPEAKER_07 11:31

The leftovers knew. Um, so speaking of the book, Paul, I had this thought and question for you. Um, what do you think? You know, the the the first season of the show really covers the whole plot of the book, and then they kind of went off in their own direction. What do you think about where it went in seasons two and three? And uh I mean, did you have a favorite of the three seasons?

SPEAKER_02 12:05

That's a really good question. I don't know. Um, it's not three. I mean, I really like three, and actually, I mean, I love the final episode of three.

SPEAKER_08 12:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:13

Um I mean, it might be season one just because of what it did with the book. You know, I so I had a little bit of knowledge of of where it went, but you know, I definitely appreciate you know, once they decided to move it to miracle and sort of like fully embrace uh the supernatural, or maybe it isn't, I mean, quasi-supernatural, maybe it's just this weird altered, alternate dimension physics thing that yeah is going on too. Um it was it was fun to see like how everything just expanded so quickly with where they would go. I mean, I initially I was and this is my own thing, like a little bit annoyed with the you know, when Kevin dies and goes into I mean it's not quite a dreamscape, but it feels like dreams. So I was able to handle a little bit better because it wasn't dreams. I don't know. I I I get bothered by fiction that uses dreams as crutches, like, oh nothing interesting's happening, so we have to put a dream in. Yeah, but it became a plot point where like no, he's actually dying and going to the hotel or right, you know, later in the season.

SPEAKER_07 13:16

Some other universe, maybe yeah, yeah, you know, picks up being uh um an assassin again.

SPEAKER_02 13:24

I'm rambling, but yeah, no, I really yeah that's what we do. So I enjoyed a lot. Actually, one of the things I was thinking last night afterwards was Linda Hoff clearly learned hard lessons from Lost, like why the end failed. Yeah, and it was and learned that it was okay to leave things ambiguous while at the same time leaving enough room and trusting your viewers enough to let them decide like what's really going on, or but also still be okay with the you don't actually know why this happened, yeah. Yeah, um, thank god, because I was so angered by the end of the loss, isn't true. When at least it is too, as you guys probably discussed at some point.

SPEAKER_05 14:00

That is also this pat podcast lore.

SPEAKER_02 14:03

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 14:05

Yeah. Uh I was um it kind of struck me. Well, I was gonna say I rewatched the last two episodes of the series in preparation for this, and it struck me that there's more resolution than I remember. I always think there are so many things that are unresolved, and there really is more resolution to it than than I than I think. Uh, you know, especially in the second the second to last, the the penultimate episode, really kind of without, you know, without without being too um uh without putting too much of a fine point on it, it really does kind of resolve the flood, the the you know, the whether Kevin is is um immortal. Um I feel like those you there are answers to those questions there. Uh and so I appreciate that. I don't know why I always think that that they don't resolve a lot, but I think there are there are answers there if you want to look for them.

SPEAKER_05 15:12

Um I agree, but also you just said it answers whether Kevin is immortal. I feel like that was we had a whole episode of unresolved questions. They weren't like any of the big ones, right? Like they weren't like what's Tommy doing, or it wasn't anything that was clearly defined, but it was right. I think we did still have that question. Like, I mean, he's not immortal, but I mean he kind of was for a while, and then he just decided in that other world he was done with that world, right? By killing his other self.

SPEAKER_07 15:48

I thought that and then we find out that he's has he had a heart problem in the last episode, and that uh I felt like it's sort of you know, backing up what you're saying, when he went to that world and they blew it up, that that was the end of sort of that all of that stuff. Yeah, all of that all of that him dying and going somewhere else and coming back and being revived, and whatever he did there stopped if you believe that there was a big flood coming, and it looked like there was a flood coming, that it kind of resolved all of that stuff, whatever it was that he did.

SPEAKER_05 16:37

Um, so back to being unresolved and ambiguous, the big question, the big S one of the biggest questions is Um, did Nora go through? Is her story true? Or did she not? And then what does it mean?

SPEAKER_02 16:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 16:56

And like what do you think?

SPEAKER_02 16:58

What do I think? I mean, it's hard not to have my own like personal beliefs sort of mixed in. I so I don't think she went through. Um and I think you know, her discussion with uh the nun, you know, when the nun says it was a much talking about the birds, it was a much like there's the truth and there's a much prettier story uh about where the birds were going. So I think Nori gave uh Kevin a much prettier story as to why that they hadn't been together, you know, for the last 20 plus years. I'm still trying to figure out how old they are. I know at that time, but yeah, no, I mean, um yeah, I guess I don't believe her, but I'm glad Kevin said he does. I know, I think that was kind of like the the cool part of it. Like, I mean, it allows you to believe that those two are gonna be up to their same shit. They didn't really, you know, it's still just gonna be them and their really strange, yeah, you know, borderline psychotic relationship that they have. Right? I mean, because he has uh clearly he had I mean mental health stuff going on. I mean, unless we're supposed to believe that him seeing the non-eevee was part of like the other universe encroaching on him. Yeah, right. Uh I mean, they still are pretty two fucked up people. True. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 18:11

Although I didn't never lie except for when they lie.

SPEAKER_07 18:14

Never lie except when they lie. I did like this in this what struck me this time is the how different Kevin is 20 years, 30 years, however long it is, later. Like he's so much lighter as a person that you know, like he's so every the all the other every time we know him as young Kevin, he's so burdened by things. And there's a lightness to him that I thought, oh, maybe he's let some things go over the years while he's been while he's been living his life and searching for Nora.

SPEAKER_02 18:48

Although it felt like the old Kevin when he was telling her what he would actually do. Yeah, yelling at her for to be you know, did a good job pretending to be light Kevin, like, oh, I'm gonna start over and I saw you on a bike.

SPEAKER_05 19:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 19:03

It's funny when so when I watched it this time, I the first time I watched it, I didn't even question the fact, I didn't it didn't even occur to me that she might be lying. And then when I found out that it's a huge debate, and people are like 50, you know, if you if you were to do a poll, be like 50-50, I think. It just shocks me. And then again, when I watched it this time, I had that in my head and I'm watching it and I'm thinking, she's so I mean maybe she's a really good liar, but she's so believable to me that I still think it really happened. So wow, yeah, I really yeah, yeah. I I I mean, when you really think about the links she would have had to go through to get back.

SPEAKER_05 19:52

How plausible is it?

SPEAKER_07 19:53

How plausible is it?

SPEAKER_02 19:54

Yeah, that's a me problem.

SPEAKER_07 19:56

But just her telling of the story feels so honest to me.

SPEAKER_05 20:01

Oh, yeah. In my opinion, it she didn't go through, she stopped it, but she has now had so much time to think through what would have happened had she done it, right? How she would have done it and what that world would have looked like, and how her kids would have looked like she has probably she has already like she's created this story in her head, yeah, because the overwhelming, I think, guilt for her is that she couldn't do it, yeah, right. There's a lot of talk with Kevin about in that other world, like between the twin brothers and all of that, about being a coward and all of this.

SPEAKER_07 20:38

And I feel like Matt says she's the the bravest girl in the world.

SPEAKER_05 20:42

I know that's a lot of pressure, Matt. Um, but I think that ultimately, because I mean I keep saying it's not plausible, then we're not in our world, we're in that world that has already shown us a bunch of shit that really is not explainable. Yeah, so there's a sliver, but I'm like, but it doesn't matter to me because her story is so compelling, and Kevin doesn't fucking hesitate.

SPEAKER_06 21:12

You know what I mean? Right.

SPEAKER_05 21:14

Because he's like, why wouldn't I? Because he already lived through seven purgatories, you know what I mean? Right. So he's like, anything's fucking possible.

SPEAKER_02 21:24

Yeah. Um just occurring to me now because I think one of the things I really appreciate about the show, and maybe this is me being an obnoxious writer person, like the show felt like it approached the characters in a more literary way. It a lot. I mean, not that film can't do that, obviously, but I mean even if she is telling the truth, if she is telling the truth, I think she's lying about what she did over there. Because I don't think Nora would have gone all that way, spent all that time, seen her children, and not shown herself to them. I think at the very least, she would have been like, I'm sorry, my last words, or something like that. I did think, yeah, that is

SPEAKER_08 22:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:00

So I think it would possible that she it's possible that she didn't you know, if she did go over, you know, just didn't wasn't truthful with Kevin. I mean they both have a long history of not being truthful to each other. Right. So right. But I I think that's why I lean more towards the beautiful story. Right.

SPEAKER_06 22:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:18

But do we believe long to come to terms with you know the loss of her children and how she lost them? Right. By the way, I opened up my fruit salad. It definitely does taste very fruity. If you want to try it.

SPEAKER_03 22:29

No, thank you.

SPEAKER_07 22:30

That's that's a big no from Lisa. Uh well, here's a question. Do we believe that Kevin goes to another world when he dies? Or is that a dream? I mean, because if he is going to another world, yeah, why couldn't Nora go?

SPEAKER_05 22:49

I mean to another world. That's kind of right what I'm saying. But yeah, I mean, he is he's definitely dying. The people who are in the real world, let's say, definitely are watching him die and come back multiple times. Yeah. Whether it's being shot, whether it's being buried, drowning multiple, multiple times. Um something's happening there. And I know you and I have had this discussion because I fully was like, oh, he's in a pro he's in another world. He's a he's with a lot of dead people.

SPEAKER_08 23:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 23:25

But I think Ken Yu always maintained um that it was just Kevin's perception because he knew all these people were dead, until we get to until we get to um David Burton, God, right? Right. He meets him several times in that world, but he doesn't know him. So um, so that's one quirk. And then Mary was there and she wasn't really dead. So, like that could be a cabin thing. Who knows?

SPEAKER_07 23:53

It's it's but she was like, did we decide that it was because she was she was in a coma, right? So she was somewhere like hovering between worlds in a sense.

SPEAKER_05 24:05

Yeah, that's what we determined, but again, it could just be Kevin's perception of like what this world is, yeah. But then Virgil, like he knows that the whole Virgil part of it, too, is like, well, we know Virgil said he had that done it, he knew all about it, he was explaining the way, he died with him, yeah, and then die died, didn't come back, died, yeah. That's what gives it some legitimacy, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:28

Um for Nora, I mean, if she died, like her body's vaporized. So, I mean, to me, like it's a little bit easier leap for me to be like, Oh yeah, he's dead, but like comes back to his body, like you know, minutes after he's dead, as opposed to being you know, atomized. That's true, right?

SPEAKER_05 24:44

Because it's not back together and then atomized again, right?

SPEAKER_07 24:48

Because there's something I was thinking her body was just sent to the other world, but there was something left behind, right?

SPEAKER_02 24:55

There was yeah, they wheel out that weird thing. Uh indentation of the yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 25:02

They made a point to say that was a fossil, it was just a shape, right?

SPEAKER_07 25:05

The real body is out there. Yeah. So why couldn't the real body just come back? Oh, it's true. Dual fossils.

SPEAKER_05 25:14

You would think maybe should come back with like an ear in the wrong place or something. I don't know how it works. Science.

SPEAKER_07 25:23

Science, quote unquote. Uh did you mention Oh, go ahead. Go ahead. Well, I know I was gonna, I was gonna, you had mentioned uh Virgil and one of our huge debates Lisa and I had was what is going on with we were so confused about what was gonna going on with Erica, John, and Virgil. Who was whose father, who messed with whom?

SPEAKER_05 25:51

Right. And I think was it clearer on this watch? It was because we had talked about it so much. I feel like it was like do you have any doubt that well for sure it's Erica's father, right? Like Michael says, I went to see your father to Erica.

SPEAKER_07 26:07

You also told me that. Um and then it was very confusing for us probably.

SPEAKER_05 26:11

Because it was confusing in the beginning, yeah. But for sure, the reason John shoots him is because of something Virgil did to John. Like we had gone down, like, well, did they do something to the kids? Did he do something to the kids? Be but you actually um had this great theory, which I think is probably the truth. Erica and John probably just grew up in the town, and Virgil did something to him when he was younger. And he just exacted his revenge maybe when he had kids, right? Right? Yeah, it hit him hard. Um, because they definitely make a big deal about how he shot him in the stomach and then in his penis, basically. So he's like he's like in that place down there, yeah. That's evil or whatever. Um so so I think that was your theory, and I think that's the one that sticks, but it is never explained, so it's very weird, yeah. Yeah, um, because that's the only way it makes sense, right? We had been like, oh, did he do something to the to Michael or Evie? Like time-wise, that would make sense, but yeah, they definitely left out a scene, right?

SPEAKER_07 27:22

Well, and there was they uh doesn't Erica Michael's spending time with Virgil, yeah, right? And so Erica's uh finds out, yeah, it's like I told you not to go not to go over there. So we were like, well, what you know, what does that mean? And is he dangerous? And right weren't sure.

SPEAKER_05 27:45

Yeah, and like what would John do if he found out that he was doing that?

SPEAKER_07 27:49

Right.

SPEAKER_05 27:50

Um, yeah, that was a big question. I should have gone back and listened to that episode about what those questions were. That was a big one.

SPEAKER_06 27:57

It was a huge question.

SPEAKER_05 27:58

Because it's not explained and it's very debated. Yeah. Um, I'm going to use a quote from Ken from one of our episodes when we had talked for two hours and then we were wrapping up, and then he said, Hey Lisa, what role does God play in all of this?

SPEAKER_07 28:15

Big Dr. Kroll.

SPEAKER_05 28:18

Yeah. I mean, honestly, Dr. Kroll, like life's hard, sweetie. Like, that is like the motto of this whole show. Yeah. But like when they bring in, especially with Matt and that guy, David Burton, and we find we know that David Burton has also died and come back, Kevin being a god, like I have a I have a little bit of an opinion.

SPEAKER_02 28:39

Is Kevin a god? I don't know. That's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_05 28:41

What kind of like, yeah, what are we to take from the show when it's like this guy's a god, this guy's a god? Is there a god in this show?

SPEAKER_07 28:51

Because it's talked about a lot. Yeah, is there a god god religion? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:57

You have an opinion on that.

SPEAKER_02 29:00

Well, what was in the pen penultimate episode? Oh, I'm so bad at character names. What's her name? Red hair. Big deal. She was the Patty. Oh, Patty. Yeah, she says explicitly there's no god.

SPEAKER_03 29:13

Right.

SPEAKER_02 29:14

Um Yeah, I don't know. I mean I like that they sort of leave that. Especially how the story sort of not wraps up but finishes that like, yeah, there's no, you know, there's no Deus Ex Machina moments you know in the story. Like, no one's saved that way. Um, even weirdly, you know, Kevin and Patty sort of destroy the weird purgatory thing that they that that they had been in. Um I found that very upsetting. I hate nuclear war stuff, so it's like, oh yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_07 29:54

Yeah. Um, I know, yeah. Oof.

SPEAKER_02 29:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 29:57

So uh yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 30:01

And again, like it's hard not to bring your own personal beliefs or not beliefs into something. Um, so I like how they have like my initial also inclination was to believe that the physics people were just our lunatics, you know, crystallizing people, etc. Yeah, you know, so that it's fun that you know that Nora does give the story. Yeah, because even if she, you know, she clearly liked to cut out when she's like saying wait or whatever, like while she's in the pod, but would they? I don't know, you know. I mean, so that adds more evidence to maybe that she did actually go, but yeah.

SPEAKER_07 30:33

Although I the subtitles, the subtitles do not don't indicate what she's saying. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 30:41

Interesting.

SPEAKER_07 30:42

Yeah. Just as Nora Nora gasps.

SPEAKER_05 30:45

Yes, and so I think she's saying something, but you could also interpret that as just she's gasping her last birth, right? Like um, I also just feel like in the last the later episodes, these last like two or three, where I mean, first of all, you find out about um the woman who owns the house, the farmhouse in Australia, and what he believed so hard that her kids were raptured that she didn't even think about going to find them.

unknown 31:15

Right.

SPEAKER_05 31:15

Or her husband for that matter, but like she was just like, okay, and then two years later she finds out it's awful.

SPEAKER_06 31:21

It's like awful, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 31:23

It might it might be even a worse story than like Nora's story, you know. I think so. So awful. And then, you know, you know, you have Kevin Sr. who's doing all his bullshit and like he believes it so hard, right? And then like it doesn't happen. Yeah, and then I just and then Matt, this is the the other thing on the re rewatch. Matt with David Burton, who's handing out cards saying, I'm God.

SPEAKER_08 31:50

Right.

SPEAKER_05 31:50

And then Matt is like so mad that he's doing that, but then ends up talking to him like he's God, and then I think something clicks with him. He's like, Well, maybe there is no I feel like Matt comes away from that a change person, he's not so devout anymore, actually, because he's like, I'm sick, and it's just is there a god?

SPEAKER_07 32:08

I don't know, right, right, right. Um, right.

SPEAKER_05 32:11

So, like, even the religious stuff that happened earlier on gets, I feel like, knocked around in that yeah, later episodes. So that's interesting.

SPEAKER_02 32:18

But at the same time, like millions of people just disappeared one day, so it's hard not to be like, There's something I know.

SPEAKER_05 32:26

Right, right.

SPEAKER_07 32:26

Lindelof has a has a I wish I looked it up the quote, but he was talking about the the role of the supernatural quote unquote on the show. And you know, because they really are so ambiguous about all these things, you know, whether it whether these things are happening or not. But he said this is a world where like all these people really did vanish.

unknown 32:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 32:57

So it's like a there's like a per se like a percentage, there's like a 10% possibility that these there really is something supernatural going on because we know it's a world where something has happened.

SPEAKER_06 33:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 33:11

Even in the opening credits, the shift from like, you know, the oh, everyone's be ascending to the sky, and it's like ooh, like very religious coded to them just being pixelated in a picture and yeah, you know, let the mystery be is a shift.

SPEAKER_08 33:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 33:29

Um, but you're right, it's ambiguous the whole way through.

SPEAKER_07 33:32

Yeah. Yeah. Because it's the greatest show ever. It is the greatest show ever. It was funny, you know, related to that. I was thinking about like the the first season uh with the focus on like Holy Wayne and Lily, the baby, like what's up with that. And I do feel like that sort of kind of goes away a little bit. It does go away, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 33:58

Right. And I remember feeling very sure that Holy Wayne, I don't know if he was holy, but he was doing something for people. Like he was doing something for people, yeah. But then, like I even thought he took Nora's pain away, right? But then it turns out no. Well, it came back, but there was a brief when he did, right? And then Lily was supposed to be special.

SPEAKER_07 34:23

Lily was supposed to be special, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 34:25

Or one of his babies was supposed to be special, right? We never met the special, no, right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 34:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 34:38

And then Kevin shot him again in his other world.

SPEAKER_08 34:41

I know.

SPEAKER_05 34:41

On a toilet.

SPEAKER_08 34:42

On a toilet.

SPEAKER_05 34:47

Uh um, do you have any bigger questions? I was thinking that we could just go through some character characters and character arcs.

SPEAKER_07 34:54

Yeah, let's go through the characters. Oh, first I wanna I wanna pause since we're gonna talk about characters and show you that I'm wearing my Lisa Gaines. My my uh Wait, he has to put on his reading glasses. Oh, I'm gonna see what it says. It's my Christopher Sunday t-shirt that Lisa gave me.

SPEAKER_05 35:13

Oh one of the best characters in all of TV. He's in two episodes.

SPEAKER_08 35:19

I know!

SPEAKER_05 35:20

For like less than five minutes each. Yeah, is it incredible? I think it's incredible. Yeah, I love that shirt. Well, I should be wearing mine. I have a I have a I have a miracle shirt too.

unknown 35:32

I forgot.

SPEAKER_07 35:35

Uh yeah, so uh uh Paul, were you a fan of Carrie Kuhn already before you knew I'm assuming you are, of course, a fan now.

SPEAKER_02 35:45

Yeah, yeah. No, for sure. Uh but no, like I don't even I can't think if I'd seen her and anything, or if I had it hadn't registered or be the mark. And what about same for Kevin or uh Justin Thoreau? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 36:00

And also, I mean Carrie Kuhn is really coming into her own now, but did you Google Justin and like what he's doing? Like, why isn't he a super mega star?

SPEAKER_07 36:10

I know he's in, I know he's in a new there's the uh the Kate Hudson sitcom on Netflix uh about basketball, and he's in that. Oh, okay. Yeah, he's also a screenwriter. He's a he's so we I don't know if he's written anything recently, but he's he's um uh been a screenwriter for some movies.

SPEAKER_02 36:29

I saw he was in five episodes of Fallout. Oh, all right, yeah. Okay, which I haven't watched, all right.

SPEAKER_05 36:36

So he's doing it.

SPEAKER_02 36:36

I haven't watched either.

SPEAKER_07 36:37

Yeah, okay, yeah, but he's not a superstar, which is funny.

SPEAKER_05 36:41

I mean, honestly, wouldn't he be great on White Lotus?

SPEAKER_07 36:44

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 36:45

I mean, he would be great on White Lotus, he should be doing that, but um yeah, I mean, obviously, these are two very complex and amazing characters, so you don't really have to say anything about that. Yeah, unless you want to. Um, but we have strong opinions, I think, on other characters. Um, well, first I know you said out loud before the big uh Meg reveal in season two, towards the end of season two, Meg pops up and Paul says, I really don't care for her character, her character arc. Well, the other thing I should mention, like just across the board, is how fucking stoic I was watching these shows. I was like, I can't say a goddamn thing. I started to, and then I'd be like, I can't influence his opinion. I can't like what if I say something and it ruins something that happens in like you I forgot things that happened.

SPEAKER_06 37:38

So yeah, I was like, watching these next two weeks.

SPEAKER_05 37:44

I'm gonna be imbearable. You know that? Oh, sobbing at appropriate parts. Um, but then Meg did Meg things and like how did you feel about that? Like the whole storyline of her going to the psychic. Well, that's another question that we never get answered, which is a good conversation to have. Like, we can talk about Meg Meg in general, her whole arc, but specifically she goes to the psychic that we feel is true, right? Isaac, he wasn't bullshitting people, he was telling people real things. And the last thing he says to her is when people die suddenly, they don't know they're gonna die. So something they say is important because remember, her mom had said, Oh, I want to tell you something important, and she was like, Oh, I'm gonna go to the bathroom and she snorts coke, and then her mom's dead. Um Isaac is like, people get upset because the thing that was so important is not really important. And Meg's been going to psychics and like carrying this thing around, carrying her mom's sweater around. So she goes to Isaac. We never hear, we never hear what he says to her. I believe it's literally sets her off. It's her, it's her super villain origin story. And so we've had this conversation. Well, it's like, is it that her mom told her something so awful, or is it that it was bullshit and it just set like she's like nothing fucking matters?

SPEAKER_02 39:12

She said the scotch tastes like fruit salad.

SPEAKER_05 39:15

You're gonna have to go get a third one.

SPEAKER_02 39:19

Yeah, I mean, it's funny. Lisa mentioned that you've had similar feelings toward um Liv Tyler's like I just yeah, don't like her as an actor.

SPEAKER_07 39:29

Not a fan.

SPEAKER_02 39:30

Um but I I will say, you know, with everything that happened, you know, she made a a good villain. Yeah, there just isn't a lot there. Yeah. Yeah, the range of expression, etc., certainly compared to you know, um, Carrie Kuhn and and Thoreau. Right. You know, and Matt for that matter, too. Yeah. Um yeah, made for like an interesting villain. And um, yeah, I definitely perked or I mean I always say perked up, but like, oh, but she went into the school bus and threw the grenade. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 40:05

I will say that I yeah, agreed. Don't love her as an actor. Uh and this felt like maybe that was they spent a lot of time with her in the first season, but I think they really redeemed it by her villain turn, and she was to me a lot more interesting after the switch.

SPEAKER_05 40:28

I mean, yeah. And then you've I mean like because I forgot about the hand grenade.

SPEAKER_07 40:33

Ah, it was awful.

SPEAKER_05 40:34

Yeah, the reveal of her having had this relationship and recruited Evie with the I mean, that's an amazing twist the first time you see it, right? She's just been like with her, and um, and then like you think to the point where on the second rewatch, I thought she had blown up the bridge. Like I thought she had blown up the bridge. Um, yeah, but her legacy is that miracle is now open to everyone, right? You know, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:08

So it was kind of a weird reappearance of her in the penultimate episode because it really wasn't her character at all. Yeah. Not that the other ones necessarily were either. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 41:21

I almost wonder, I feel like maybe behind the scenes they thought the show's ending. Let's bring back, you know, we're gonna bring back some of our some of our old standbys. So they found it. That's that's how that's their way of bringing her back, bringing back Liv Tyler. Uh but yeah, as a character, right?

SPEAKER_05 41:43

The other thing is that in that other world version of her, though, she has found God, which is David Burton.

SPEAKER_07 41:52

Right.

SPEAKER_05 41:53

But Haven, very pointedly, is like, fuck all y'all, shoots her, kicks out his ear thing, is like, yeah, I'm done with all this.

SPEAKER_07 42:02

And I think the implication too is that the guilty remnant now controls the government, right? Because they're all beats. Yeah, because they're all yeah, they're all white. So I that I guess like that makes more sense that she's there. True. If you think about it that way.

SPEAKER_05 42:19

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Even though she was her rogue owned they're not re the guilty remnant aren't awful enough. I need to do something even more awful. Like, why are we sitting here? Right. Throwing grenades on buses.

SPEAKER_07 42:32

Right.

SPEAKER_05 42:33

She's bad.

SPEAKER_07 42:34

Right. Oh, and the rape, the the uh the rape Tommy rape scene. That was exactly that was so the on the second watch, totally forgot that was coming. I was like, oh gasp.

SPEAKER_05 42:48

You and I had a very healthy conversation about that too. But like, because I was like, why later is he saying, Why did you fuck me to her? Not why did you rape me? Right. And then um, and we talked about this a little bit too about like, does the show not think that he was raped? Like, I very clearly do, and it was part of this whole humiliation. Like, she was told to get rid of him, right? And then so she did that, doused him in gasoline, they beat the shit out of him, and he's still like, did you like me a little bit? Like, I don't like any of that.

SPEAKER_02 43:25

I know, I know. Um, I don't remember when I never got the sense they knew what to do with Tommy. I mean, if there's one criticism.

SPEAKER_05 43:32

Oh, let's get into it. Tommy's the worst.

SPEAKER_02 43:37

Yeah, it was probably my least favorite of all the character arcs, etc. I mean, I mean, he the actor did a fine job, but like I wasn't into into Wayne in the first season. Yeah. Um so much so like I thought, oh, there's no way Tommy's coming back because it that was just it felt like minor compared to everything else that was happening. Yeah. He did come back, but Kinda yeah.

SPEAKER_05 44:01

The show tries to make you feel bad for him, but he is such a dick to people. You're like, Why are you yelling at poor Christine? She's fucking pregnant. You're gonna leave her by herself in a motel to have a baby in a dirty bathtub. That was Tommy's like, what is happening to me? Um anyway, those are my feelings on Tommy, yeah. Um, but wait, what did you just say? I lost my thought. Um but then because then he's with psycho Lori. Then he's with Psycho Laurie, and you're like, Oh, he's just a pawn in this whole world or whatever, right? But he's also not great, right?

SPEAKER_07 44:38

Right, and then he becomes then he becomes Wayne. Well, fake Wayne, but a fake Wayne version of yeah, right, right. But then doesn't he join the police force? Doesn't he just like they gave they had they changed his. I think you're right when you say that, Paul, because it's like, okay, like what are we gonna do with them now? All right, they kept changing fundamentally who the character was, right, right. Uh but he remained terrible.

SPEAKER_05 45:08

And he never so he's a cop in Miracle with his dad. It's like, okay, but what about all the stuff that happened to you? Like, yeah, this is fine. There's a lot of this is fine happening from the jump from season two to season three, including Lori. Like, it's bonkers to me that in like and it's actually like I I cannot wrap my head around it, but the show is so good that it makes you Lori Lori ends up being the same one, sort of like towards the end, like she's the one like kind of I guess kind of giving everyone advice and blah blah blah. And and you're like, wait, am I wait? Is Laurie's normal one? And then she's but she says the line that I think sums up the whole show, which is Kevin says to her in that episode where like she's drugged everybody, she wanted to talk to him, make sure he was doing it of his own accord, like that kind of thing, and she's just like, All right, we're all she says, he says, Is Nora gone? And she says, We're all gone, right? This is after she gave him the lighter, and you think she's gonna go scuba dive herself off the planet, right?

SPEAKER_02 46:11

Um, yeah, I I think she was a pretty terrible therapist.

SPEAKER_07 46:16

Agreed, yeah, totally agree.

SPEAKER_05 46:21

Because the the show where she's back in Australia and she's in the van with Matt and Nora, and she's like, Oh my, yes, blah blah blah. And she's like being all like therapist Lori. And I'm like, are they telling us that like is she gonna be the sane one in this whole group? And then Nora takes her lighter and doesn't give it back. Immediate classic Lori, ballistic, and I was like, Oh, there she is.

SPEAKER_07 46:46

Right, right. The show knows what I mean. Two things about Lori and related one is yes, all of that, crazy, you think she's you think she's gone scuba diving to her death, right? And then she shows up. I always thought there was such a weird a weird reveal in the final episode that uh no, she's didn't happen. Totally she's back to normal, or she's now she's now sane. She's acting as Nora's therapist across the the ocean. That's right, and she's cradling her grandbaby. That's right, and she's totally fine, she's like Earth Mother now.

SPEAKER_05 47:28

Here, here's something that I just it just dawned on me watching this yesterday. Because Kevin's like, oh yeah, no, John and Lori just live next door, blah blah blah. So Lori has lived next door to Kevin this whole time. This whole time that Kevin is going to Australia every year to find Nora, Lori's gonna set a goddamn thing. Yeah, okay, there's that.

SPEAKER_07 47:49

Then well, because Nora says to him that's typical Lori, Lori knows, and he's like, Lori knows. She's like, Don't be mad at it, don't be mad at her, she's my therapist. She can't say anything.

SPEAKER_05 48:00

But what we don't know, what we don't know for sure, has Kevin been saying to Lori, I'm going to Australia again.

SPEAKER_07 48:08

Oh, I think so. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 48:09

You do think so? I mean, I mean, I I mean they don't say either way, but I just assume. But Lori's like, are you saying Kevin's in Australia? Like, she says it, and I'm like, is she just a really good actress? Maybe.

SPEAKER_07 48:21

Maybe.

SPEAKER_05 48:22

Um, because there is a world where he's not telling anybody he's going to Australia.

SPEAKER_07 48:26

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the other thing about Lori, and I think also, so this is this is odd to me too, is that the switch from John in season two being like so scary that Eric has a go bag, yes, ready to run away.

SPEAKER_03 48:45

Yes.

SPEAKER_07 48:45

And then in season two, he's like wearing glasses and he's married to Lori. Everything's great.

SPEAKER_05 48:52

And everything's great, and they're um taking psychic readings, but you know, it's okay. It's okay to take people's money that they've saved up for to go to Miracle and get this psychic reading in Miracle and then just shred the money. And I'm like, that is somehow so worse. Like it's so worse. Also, how are they making money?

SPEAKER_07 49:13

Yeah. Anyway, we could never could figure that out.

SPEAKER_05 49:16

That that dynamic is crazy, crazy, crazy. But it's it's not crazy for Lori. It is right in her wheelhouse to just be helping people, right? Just helping people in the most fraudulent ways.

SPEAKER_06 49:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 49:30

Um, but what that lays the groundwork for is later when Michael is like, Lori, you have to calm here. And Mike, from Michael's point of view, she did calm him down, or she was the difference that made him calm down.

SPEAKER_08 49:44

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 49:48

When John Furts opens the door and sees Lori, and she's like, I'm Lori Garvey, and he's like, What the hell? When he's like, on a mission to get Kevin, remember, like in season two. There's a moment between them, and I'm like, I can't oh, I can't say anything. I can't say anything.

SPEAKER_02 50:10

Yeah. Yeah, that was kind of what season three for me, like when they were married.

SPEAKER_05 50:19

What do you mean?

SPEAKER_02 50:19

When John and Laura were married, I was like, What?

SPEAKER_05 50:22

Right.

SPEAKER_04 50:23

And Michael's like, everybody's calm.

SPEAKER_02 50:26

Everybody's calm.

SPEAKER_04 50:27

I'm just gonna write this book about Kevin being a god.

SPEAKER_07 50:31

Right, right, right. Uh so can I I'm gonna have a hot take here, but I think Erica is my favorite character. Maybe it's not such a hot take. I think she might be my favorite character in the show.

SPEAKER_05 50:48

Nora?

SPEAKER_07 50:48

No, Erica.

SPEAKER_05 50:50

Oh, Erica. Sorry.

SPEAKER_07 50:51

Nora, of course. But I just love Erica.

SPEAKER_05 50:55

Love Erica.

SPEAKER_02 50:56

She was she there long enough to be a favorite character.

SPEAKER_05 51:00

I mean, she's a whole season.

SPEAKER_02 51:01

I guess. One third?

SPEAKER_07 51:03

I missed her in season season three. I think they should have had more Erica in season three.

SPEAKER_05 51:08

She was only one. Um she's a very powerful character at a time. Like her the relationship between her and Nora, those scenes. Yeah. Those scenes. I mean, it's like it's like they're they're matched, right? Although like Erica doesn't have as much damage, so to speak, as Nora. Nora's coming at it from a different way, right?

SPEAKER_08 51:36

Right, right.

SPEAKER_05 51:37

Um, but yeah, you're right. And like it slowly is unveiled that like Erica has a go bag, but she's been burying birds since the beginning, so she's got a little something going on.

SPEAKER_02 51:46

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it feels like a while ago. It has been, but uh yeah. In the second season, I one of my favorite scenes was the interview with how they shot it. Yeah, I love that scene. Yeah, Noran Erica, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 52:00

So intense. I the camera's like in their eyeball.

SPEAKER_07 52:03

Yeah, right. So we debated their relationship a lot, as I remember. And what is the tension there? I'm not sure I really ever understood it, but then I just saw an interview with or read an interview with Carrie Kuhn recently, and she said that there was some resentment on the part of Nora because she's the one, she's always been the one who had it worst.

SPEAKER_06 52:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 52:34

That's her identity. Like she lost everything, she lost her family. And so when it seems like Evie might be a new, a new, you know, might be have have been departed, uh, she can't handle the competition in a weird way.

SPEAKER_05 52:54

Something like that. And I remember we talked about that, and I was like, I don't even believe it. Now on this watch, I believe it. It comes down to like, why did she throw why did she throw the rock when she did? Because it felt out of the blue.

SPEAKER_08 53:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 53:07

Um, but yeah, it's because everyone started saying that the girls departed, and she's so vehemently is like they did not. And like, I mean, she was right, but at the time it was because it was like, well, no one can have like, yeah, it's something along those lines. Like, yeah, nobody could have a worse departed story than me. Yeah, remember back in season one, the guy who wrote the book, and he was like, I had five people, and she was like, What are they like old aunties and stuff? You can't count that. She gets so mad at him, right? He gets so mad at him. Um, so it does track, it does very fully track that she's like, This is her identity now, yeah. Which is so interesting because it's not surface level to me. It's like no, it's like you really it doesn't showcase itself all that often, I guess is what I'm saying. Like, it's not very apparent, like you're like, Oh, that's why she do the rock.

SPEAKER_07 54:04

Right.

SPEAKER_05 54:05

And why and it just doesn't also make sense because I had Erica, she's like just so I'm sitting here in my living room, like you know what I mean? Like, does it've not something she did, yeah. So that's just back to Nora being a little unhinged, right?

SPEAKER_07 54:20

As everyone is on the show.

SPEAKER_05 54:22

I mean, yeah, she was have hiring prostitutes to shoot her, so yeah, and that's what bonds her and Kevin together, right?

SPEAKER_07 54:36

Right. Remember the day we met when we were getting our divorces, and I asked you if you want to run away to Florida.

SPEAKER_05 54:43

Oh my god, though. In the last episode, he was so cute. He was like, Well, that couldn't have happened because I would have gone with you.

unknown 54:50

Right.

SPEAKER_05 54:50

Oh my god, I know lying that he doesn't remember, but yeah, so cute.

SPEAKER_06 54:56

Right.

SPEAKER_05 54:57

Um, the other thing that I always thought was unresolved to your point, Ken, about like things being out there and then being resolved, actually, is that because I always felt the Mary story, which had been so significant, him taking care of her, like it was awful from the very, very first show, the pilot of like what happened to Mary and how dedicated Matt was to her, and going through all this to move to Miracle to blah blah blah, doing all the things, right? And then she's just like, peace out, because you wrote a book. Like she was like, I gotta go. But then you find out in the last episode that she was that he did go back to her and they were together and she gave the eulogy. Well, I actually I'm like making a leap there. She could have just given the eulogy, but I think they did get back together. It seemed, yeah, I thought they because he's a different person now, right?

SPEAKER_07 55:52

I thought just the fact that he went back there indicated that they were together.

SPEAKER_05 56:00

Yeah, I mean, he experienced some stuff on that sex boat. I think he was like, you know what? I went on a sex boat, I was made to be Frasier a little bit. I met God and then I got sick and watched my sister get into a machine, and then I had to go back to Mapleton. That's arc is crazy.

SPEAKER_07 56:27

It is crazy, it is crazy. Uh, that whole episode in season two, where he gets trapped outside with Mary, right? They get trapped outside the gates. I think that's probably the most stressful episode of them all.

SPEAKER_05 56:45

So stressful. Yeah, so stressful. Yeah. Because you just seen how he had to feed her. I was like, why aren't you prepared just to go to the hospital with like her food and her tubes and all the things? Like, I don't know what you need, but like you should have brought it with you.

SPEAKER_08 57:03

Right.

SPEAKER_05 57:03

Even then, you're screaming, no Matt, don't be that person. Harks back to season one. He finally gets his money because the pigeons told him where to go.

SPEAKER_06 57:12

Right.

SPEAKER_05 57:14

Um, and he rolls his window down from yeah, why is that kills that guy?

SPEAKER_02 57:21

I know, I know.

SPEAKER_05 57:24

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 57:26

Didn't he was he was Joby, Jobish? He was Joe Basque. Yeah, Joe Basque. You were talking about Ken. But even that, like the next episode, he's like, Oh, yeah, I'm budget with all these people now, and like he's not up there, like right. I was like, Oh, I I feel like that sort of undercuts a little bit all that stuff that slight letdown, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 57:45

But yeah, doesn't he also just he doesn't he fight with David Burton too? Like, doesn't he like bring an axe down off the boat?

SPEAKER_07 57:55

Like oh yeah, yeah, don't mess with Matt.

SPEAKER_05 57:59

No, no, no, no, and then I we have to talk about Kevin Sr.

SPEAKER_02 58:05

So I guess we have to talk about Larry. Oh when Matt promoted Lori.

SPEAKER_05 58:10

He has a little bit of that, like I'm an English actor trying to have an American accent, and most of the time you don't notice it, but with Larry, yeah, Larry, it's like Larry Saul.

SPEAKER_08 58:20

Larry, yeah, it must be a two-year-old. There's another name he can't really get either.

SPEAKER_05 58:27

Um, I don't think we've talked about this at all, but I mean Kevin Sr. is the greatest.

SPEAKER_02 58:32

Oh yeah. No, he was Kevin Sr. is awesome. I kept thinking he wasn't gonna come back, like oh, he's probably in only season one kind of thing, and then oh, you get some not cameos in season two, but yeah, but then oh, there he was in season three. Yeah, no, he he was great.

SPEAKER_05 58:47

So great. What a what great character work there, and I always think about when he goes to when he's he's also suffering, like in a Joe Besque way, I guess, but like that whole um journey of him making these crazy connections. He's like, Oh, I was all on LSD and I talked to a chicken, and the chicken point packed at my cassette, and it's little Kevin singing It's a Bitsy Spider, so a flood is coming, and you're like, I've got our dots to connect. Um but he's so passionate and like with with Christopher Sunday when he's trying to convince him and he's got this whole monologue, yeah. And he's like he sounds crazy because he's not all like he's a little bit crazy, but he's so he believes it so hard. Yeah, he believes that this is what has to happen. And Christopher Sunday's response to him, I think is one of the reasons I love him too, is that like he's just like listening and listening, and he's like, but my song doesn't do that. He's he's right there with them. It's not like he's like, Oh man, I can't even talk to this guy.

SPEAKER_02 59:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:00

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:02

I wonder, like I make weird connections sometimes, but uh the actor who played Christopher Sunday is a has a big part in Peter Weir's The Last Wave. Um have you ever seen that movie, Ken? No, oh uh yeah, it's an Australian movie about like a coming tsunami. Um yeah, it's very strange and it's you know surrealistic and for sure what's what. Um but you know, part of me thinks for sure that it had to be some sort of nod or reference to that movie.

SPEAKER_07 1:00:33

Well, it must be because I was gonna bring up uh another Peter Weir movie, which I pretty sure that you like. Um, Picnic at Hanging Rock, yeah, which I think has a lot of influence on season two, especially that first episode. Oh, yeah. Oh I feel like there's a lot of a lot of that DNA in there. Uh so yeah, I didn't even mention that to you.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:54

You did, yeah. And I was like, oh, I'm not gonna say anything, but he he also said that right.

SPEAKER_07 1:01:00

Uh so uh yeah, so that they they uh uh they must be Peter Weir fans.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:07

Yeah, I mean, because the part of me is like, how the frick did they end up in Australia? Like, yeah, like why? Like, I mean it's cool, it was cool. Uh yeah, right.

SPEAKER_07 1:01:18

All right, now I I gotta add that to my list. I don't know how I've never seen it.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:24

I know. I'm surprised. Isn't that fun though? We have a new movie to watch.

SPEAKER_07 1:01:28

I know, I love it.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:30

I don't like um, I don't like I still have nightmares about tsunamis though.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:35

Oh, mm. Yeah, from what I come off no, don't say it's oh never mind, don't say no no I mean I can't like the thread of it is remains like mostly off-screen, if not all off-screen. Yeah, it's weird. It's a weird movie. Okay. There's a lot of rain, you know, so the like the flood, etc. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:01:55

Is Christopher Sunday the star?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:57

I don't know if he's the star. I mean is it Richard Chamberlain?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:00

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:02

I mean, Christopher Sunday plays a big role in it. I I I believe. Um, well, the actor would play Christopher Sunday. Um yeah, because I think I did a quick IMDB to look at you know the actor, and oh yeah, first wave. Yeah, I forgot about that. Yeah, yeah. Right on.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:21

Um, I have a very specific question. I can't remember if we talked about it or not, or if I was like, we can't talk about it because I don't want to ruin anything. But um season one, Nora goes to a convention. And I mean, there's some craziness that happens where it's like her ID gets messed up. Well, what's another one where she was like, I'm not just a commoner, like, give me my badge with all my things on it. Anyway, um, like I felt like that was pretty accurate to how conventions would be. Like, again, when you first see it, you're like, this is exactly what would happen. All the different factions would be there, all the different people would be, you know, picketing outside.

SPEAKER_08 1:03:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:06

And then there's the guy who wrote the book. Um, that I know you've been to a million like book conventions and things like that. So I don't know if you had any opinions on exactly how all that went down.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:15

I think I was, you know, fill with it, obviously, but like, ah, you gotta show an ID to get a badge, generally, not all the time, I guess, but I feel like for most of the times I've gone. At least the one in the Boston Boss Cohn that I go to frequently, you know, to get a show for you to get the badge. Did you have to do it in 2015?

SPEAKER_05 1:03:32

So they know 15.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:34

Like when this was true. I don't know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:39

Yeah. Yeah, that and that's crazy. I I actually was very, I think that's a great like episode that how it resolves. Like she was so sure, like that someone was impersonating her, and then you find out that that's true. It like wraps up well. Um, but that is how you because she doesn't get her right badge, that's how she's up there with the people who make the fake bodies.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:05

Right.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:06

We have to talk about that because I've never I've never shut up about that.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:09

I think that was a good way to introduce those. I do remember like from the years of you watching it, like I think I you told me about the scene, or I'd walked in on the dolls being there. So I knew that was coming. That was like one of the few things that I knew that was coming. Um, yeah, it was still horrifying. Yeah, obviously.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:27

Horrifying. And the the signs are all there, like they're all there. I when I first first watched it, I had never been so shocked in my whole life. Then on when we re-watched it, can and then on this rewatch, it's like, oh, it's all there. They lay it all out for you.

SPEAKER_08 1:04:43

Right.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:44

They show the dolls out in the street when Christine and Tommy are on a bus. They show Nora on top of one, and the guy who's like, This is how we make it. You send us videos, pictures, we can get it right down to like the moles and the hairs and the whole thing. Um, so it's like it's there, and then the guilty remnant are going into people's houses taking their pictures, and you're like, Oh, it's just a crazy guilty remnant thing. But no, it's how they got them.

SPEAKER_08 1:05:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:11

And the reason the show was so genius is because when you look at the dolls that are at the at the in the scene, in the scene, they're not perfect. Like they're not so that tells us a bunch of things. They only got one or two pictures when they went broke in, right? So it wasn't like like what someone else would have done and gave a whole bunch of stuff. Yep. So they're working off different pictures, and then they probably got like a discount because they were paying someone under cash. You know what I mean? Like, right. They weren't top of the line once.

SPEAKER_07 1:05:43

And they're not worried about enough. They're not worried about them being perfect. No, they're just it's a it's a symbolic. It's good, yeah, it's good enough, and it's uh uh, you know, it's gonna work for what they their intention.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:57

Yeah, I mean the guilty remnant doing that was a Surprise, like from what I remembered. I was like, Oh, I thought this person was so screwed up, she got dolls to replace her family on purpose. Oh, that's what I was sort of expecting. Yeah. Of Nora. So now it was definitely way more disturbing. Yeah. Um, that the remnant did that. But the point where it's like, yeah, go kick their ass. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:16

Like this really so upsetting. It's the most horrif one of the horrific more horrific things I've ever seen. And that's where I'm like, oh, is this horror? Is this show? It's horrific for sure.

SPEAKER_08 1:06:28

It's horrific.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:30

Um with a little bit of sci-fi thrown in there. I don't know.

SPEAKER_07 1:06:33

Yeah. Yeah. Did you speak of the guilty remnant, Paul, did you feel like their aims were clear? Because that was one thing that we talked about a lot. I think. Did we know did we really know what they what they wanted? I think we did a lot of like Googling on the side.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:06:55

See what uh you know the speculation was. Because I don't they never like publish a rule book of like this is this is what the I mean they never state out loud, you know, out outright, this is what the guilty remnant is intending to do.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:09

Yeah. Right I mean, I guess they kept saying is that we're supposed to remind you of what happened. Um, so yeah, like I kind of agree. Like I always I try not to think that way. I try to pick things apart. I was like, Yeah, I never saw like the the appeal of joining the guilty remnant, which is probably good. That is good difficult, but yeah, I didn't see like, ah, what are they getting? I mean, I they're sort of getting community, but at the same time, it's not like you can sit around chatting with everybody, you know. Um cigarettes. Um, yeah, but that said, I thought you know they played those group out to a pretty interesting logical extreme. Yeah. You know, that I was never really expecting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:51

Yeah. And like at different times it's more extreme than others, right? But like, because at one point they're you get the sense it's like they don't believe in anything. Like there is no family, we're here to remind you. You could die, you could just be gone any day, like all the like terrible things, right? But then you're like, well, that's every day, though. You could also just die, you know what I mean? Like, you doesn't mean you're gonna get taken. Um, yeah, this whole, but like when you think about, like, for example, Meg's story about how she's she finds out, I guess, that her mom didn't have any kind of big story to tell her, and nothing means anything. So she's like, I'm gonna nothing means anything. Yeah, then there becomes like a structure and a hierarchy, and like just like anything would, like, yeah, you find out in season two that there's a council or whatnot to like reprimand Meg. And it's like, but if you're anarchist and you don't believe in anything, like what's the point?

SPEAKER_07 1:08:48

Yeah, and she doesn't follow any of the rules.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:51

I know, yeah, yeah. Like I mean, she's talking. I was like, why does she keep talking? Like, stop it. Meg. Yeah. She's like, even when Patty would do it too. That's right. But it's like a weird little power play, obviously. Yes. Oh no, we can talk. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:06

Oh, so let's talk about that season one. Like, we should have done this in three parts, but um, like, because one, we have to talk about the pilot, but let's put a pin in that until we talk about Lori did not speak all of season one. Lori did not speak all of season one until the very, very end when she croaks out to Kevin, even when Patty was like, It's okay. Yeah, when they go to the diner and whatnot. Um, so we don't really know what Lori's about, other than she left her family. Um she croaks out to Kevin that, like, um, I mean, I don't know. What do you think about that? I mean, I'm like, that's crazy acting choice. Yeah, there's a role that you're not gonna speak in ever, like this whole year.

SPEAKER_07 1:09:56

Yeah. Well, huge challenge for an actor, right? Right, like a great challenge.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:01

And we talk a lot about how she's really probably one of the most famous people to be on the show at that time, right? Because she'd just come off of judging Amy.

SPEAKER_08 1:10:10

Yep.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:11

So she was like the star.

SPEAKER_08 1:10:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:13

If you think about it that way, she was like the star and she wasn't talking.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:17

Yeah.

unknown 1:10:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:19

No, I mean, it was a good way to establish, like, you know, these are what the guilty rhymes are supposed to do. And that was so when people broke it, you were like, Oh, you know, why are they breaking it?

SPEAKER_06 1:10:29

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:30

Um, yeah, Larry. Good old Larry.

SPEAKER_08 1:10:35

Larry.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:36

Larry.

SPEAKER_08 1:10:37

Larry.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:38

Um, I maintain that the pilot episode of this show is one of the best, if not the best, pilot I've ever seen, because it just literally fucking drops you right in there. Within like five minutes, you're like, what is happening? The screaming baby in the laundromat. I was, of course, like, give that baby a snagger, pass fire, but then poof.

SPEAKER_07 1:11:04

Then poof. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:08

I mean, I think it's one of the best pilots ever as far as like setting this the whole tone of the show.

SPEAKER_07 1:11:16

Yeah, because the first what 10 minutes is before. Is it 10 minutes? I don't remember how long it is. I feel like it's short. And then it cuts to how many years later? Two years?

SPEAKER_05 1:11:33

Three? Oh, it's three.

SPEAKER_07 1:11:35

Okay. And all we get of Nora and the pilot is her speech, right?

SPEAKER_05 1:11:41

Not even, not even in the pilot.

SPEAKER_07 1:11:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:44

I don't even think it's in the pilot. Is she I think she's in the pilot? Is she not in the pilot?

SPEAKER_08 1:11:49

Wow.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:50

Okay. Speech happens in episode two or three.

SPEAKER_08 1:11:53

Wow. Okay.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:56

Right? Yeah. But you do see like all the cars crash. The car that crashes in the background of the woman at the laundromat is Matt and um Mary.

SPEAKER_08 1:12:07

Right.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:08

And so, and you don't even find out about them until like episode four or five.

SPEAKER_08 1:12:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:14

Um, you know who I'm glad didn't come back for anything and was gone was the the friend of Jill.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:23

Oh.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:24

Who is in the book, uh, but super annoying on the show.

SPEAKER_07 1:12:28

Right.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:28

They are a little purpose for me.

SPEAKER_07 1:12:31

They the teen, all the teen stuff, I feel like in the episode is pretty like cliche season season season one teen stuff, like, oh, we're gonna act out and party a lot and fuck around. I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:44

Yes. I remember very clearly being like, I don't know Hollywood just showing that teens are being like so weird during sex parties and stuff. Right, right.

SPEAKER_07 1:12:54

It's like euphoria before euphoria.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:57

Right. Then I was like, but wait, this is a different world.

SPEAKER_07 1:13:02

So I'll give them a that is that is true. That is true.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:05

A lot of them don't give a shit about anything.

SPEAKER_07 1:13:07

I know. I just wish they'd found a more interesting way to show.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:12

That's funny. Okay, I totally forgot about all that stuff. And then there's like the two twin guys who sort of like Yeah. Um what's the phrase? Comedic relief, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:25

I I thought they were fine, I thought they were good, yeah. Um and they are also kind of in the book. There's characters that are like that in the book, too. So I think that you know, they were just trying to be as kind of faithful to the book in a way with those characters. But here's the thing that always surprises me when I remember the show, I'm always like, Yeah, Jill was there, but on the watch, on the watch, like she's doing a lot of heavy lifting without a lot of um, like she has to like just quiet a lot and like absorb a lot, yeah. And she is just bewildered at some point, like at some points, yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah, so she does a lot of heavy lifting that is so quiet that you like you forget, yeah. But when she's on the screen, you're like, God damn, she's doing a great job. Like, yeah, she really is doing a lot of face acting, a lot of crying. Yes, because she has to, like, yeah, her dad's off shooting dogs in the middle of the night, her mom joined the cult. Her kind of bestie is living with her, but like, do they really get along? Like, I don't know. It's like she's just doing the most as a character, and the actress playing her is just like did such a really good job. But I feel like it's Margaret Crawley, yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_07 1:14:44

Who now is now so famous? And this is like her first real role.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:50

I think it was, yeah. I mean, she was like 15, 16, maybe.

SPEAKER_07 1:14:54

She's young, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:56

Um, really good, yeah, really good. And like even now in our conversation, we're talking about characters, and I'm like, oh yeah, Jill.

SPEAKER_07 1:15:05

I know, I know. Well, I think because she drops in season two. She's in season two, yeah, and I always forget she's in more season two than I than I remember. Yeah. Uh but then I mean, she's really is she she's barely she have any scenes in season three at all? Maybe she's on the phone or something. Right. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:29

Um Laurie is talking to her and telling me, and they're like, being so funny, funny siblings, and she's like, Hi, kids.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:36

Oh, are you in Australia too? Right.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:40

She's like, I gotta, I gotta get my scuba in before this big storm comes. Um, I it's so funny, Ken, listening to our older episodes, that I listened to our episode of the season finale of of um season two. And we were sort of like trying to remember exactly what we definitely remembered from season three before we got into it. And I was we were between the two of us, we got it half right. But I was adamant. I was like, I for sure remember a scene with Tommy and Jill like saying goodbye to everybody and then driving off, and it never happens. I mean, she's in season two, yeah. What was my brain trying to connect there? But but we often say, and I don't know if you feel this way, you might feel this way if you ever watch it again. That when you first watch it, so much is coming at you, and your brain is trying to just be in that world and like trying to absorb what's happening that you miss some of the connections that like are important later. Or like your brain is just like, I don't have to remember that, or something.

SPEAKER_07 1:16:50

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:51

Yeah, you get caught up in the plot.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:53

Every show is jam-packed.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:55

Yeah, no, I mean you kept reminding me that the god dude was the Australian guy, or he would been he was the guy on the bridge, and because on the boat it was like, ah, he looks familiar, right? I don't remember who he is, right?

SPEAKER_05 1:17:08

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:09

So I did coach on some of the connections.

SPEAKER_07 1:17:12

You did give him a little help. Yeah, I needed it.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:17

But I was there, I know, because I'm like, well, I forgot all of that.

SPEAKER_08 1:17:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:25

Um I'm I'm looking at my notes. I took notes of questions to ask you. I mean, did we talk about pilot? Do you think it's the best pilot ever?

SPEAKER_07 1:17:36

I think it's one of the I think it's one of the best. It's not really hard to pick. Yeah, it's really good. The best. Right. But it is definitely one of the best. Lost is a great one. I mean, I've just been re-re-watching Veronica Mars. Veronica Mars is an incredible pilot.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:51

Um Walking Dead is an amazing walking dead.

SPEAKER_07 1:17:55

Walking Dead.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:55

I think this is neck and neck with that.

SPEAKER_07 1:17:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:58

For me.

SPEAKER_07 1:17:58

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is certainly one of the ones that comes to mind. Also, you know, is it is it one of the best finales of all time?

SPEAKER_02 1:18:11

I really like the finale. I didn't love the penultimate episode, and part of that just because it was like, oh, I can't totally engage with this because it freaks me out. Right. Um, but also I think I mean it's cool. Like it's sort of explaining the world or maybe explaining why it goes away, but that's always tricky, you know. Yeah. Um, I don't know. I like the last episode. I thought it was like a really sort of quieter approach. Yeah. That remained true to the characters. And like I said, I like the ambiguity part of it. Yeah. Um, you know, particularly with for for a shell, it did a lot of like two people talking to each other where a camera is like over one shoulder and you know, switching back and forth. Like I like that it sort of ended with Nora's book of Nora, as it was titled. Yeah. Yeah. Um yeah, so I like that. Yeah. I mean, it was a little bit of yo, like, you know, I don't want to say service to the to the fans or people who are watching it, because like, oh, you want, even though they're totally fucked up, you want Kevin and Nora to be together. I think they managed to do it in a way that was true to their strange characters.

SPEAKER_07 1:19:18

Yeah. Yeah. And it gives there's a little it gives you some hope at the end for such a such a dark show. It's funny how each season, for such a dark show, each season ends kind of on an up note of positivity.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:33

It's like, hey, everybody's in the house, we're all happy family again. Family.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:37

Because he's bleeding out or had blood out, but he's like, ah, I'm just gonna walk to my house. Yeah, that's insane.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:45

Yeah, you know, and I kept looking for hints that the the season or the show ender wasn't real. Like, oh, is this but I never got that sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:57

Yeah, like it's someone's vision of what they wanted to happen, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:20:00

Yeah, a dream or uh fantasy.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:03

Kevin's, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:04

Yeah, I mean, there was enough, uh, even though it was mostly Nora's story, there was enough, yeah, some changes of point of view occasionally. Yeah. Somewhat. Oh no, maybe it wasn't all from Nora's point of view.

SPEAKER_07 1:20:14

Well, I guess there's a hint too that uh which doesn't, I mean, maybe uh I mean we see that flash in the first episode season uh where we see old Nora. So um which is not still not to say it's not somebody's fantasy.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:34

No, I think it could be a stretch to argue that it's not sort of what's in that, you know, the reality or whatever universe decided to end up in on that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:45

And do we know for sure uh that they wrote three seasons like all at once?

SPEAKER_07 1:20:51

We I think we know that they did not. I think we know that they didn't know what each season was gonna be until they started it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:00

So that is also genius because here's the thing that David Burton character we hear about in season one. I think it's season one. It's like on TV. It's like we don't we're not paying attention to it because something's happening. Um, and it's on the TV or it's on the radio about this guy in Perth who died in a cave and came back. Like you hear it, that you wouldn't know that ever on the first watch. You would only know it on the re-watch.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:33

I still don't think it happened.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:35

It did at that point, but like that's what I mean by like, and then bringing back like um perfect strangers.

SPEAKER_07 1:21:42

Oh my god, I'm so glad you brought that up because I was just thinking about that. It's one of my favorite, favorite little background plot lines that they bring him back and they use the actor's real they use uh Marklyn Baker's real history, you know, like he really went to Yale and like that was all he was really playing as well. Yeah, twice. Well they they they they reference it in the first season where they're like all four of the perfect of the perfect perfect strangers, all four of the perfect strangers cast uh departed, but then they but then they reveal that he faked his oh okay though that because he didn't want to be left alone. That's really and then they actually bring him on the show playing himself and using his real background as his character. Yeah, that was so smart.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:34

It's just that's why I'm like some of these threads really carry through. Now, yes, can you backtrack and like pull it through? Yes, but like but so like this whole thing, I'm sorry I have to go back to David Burton again, but like that like does that mean there's other so we know David Burton had the same experience that Kevin did. Like that he died and came back, right?

SPEAKER_07 1:22:58

So like or he says that he did, right?

SPEAKER_05 1:23:01

He says that he did. And then I say Kevin sees him in the underworld and doesn't know underworld, otherworld, um doesn't know him unless he heard it, it was in the media.

SPEAKER_08 1:23:17

I don't know, yeah, anyway, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:20

Um but then I'm like, well, so is there just a faction of these people that this is just happening to? Because season one is very much set up like Kevin is not supposed to be there, like that whatever happened happened, and people left, and then there's a few people who maybe should have gone but are staying stayed. Like Kevin is very much like I shouldn't be here, yeah. And maybe that's how they are. Like they're like, Oh, well, we die and we come back. That's just how we are. Yeah, I don't know, but like the fact that the David Burton character exists at all is crazy when what we're doing with Kevin is also crazy, yeah. Maybe we just haven't met the other Davids and Kevins. I you know who doesn't know who dies and doesn't come back is the other Kevin sheriff in Australia. She just kills him deaf dead.

SPEAKER_07 1:24:14

Oh, that's right. He's just dead. But he's not maybe not, he's not a special Kevin.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:18

No, but then they also you know Kevin Sr. whacks a guy that comes to investigate, whacks him with a shovel, like no one ever came to that's right, investigate that part of it too. That's correct. But we tell me things like I don't want to like think too much about because right, right.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:36

But we do see him driving him out somewhere, so yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:24:39

But tell me again, why I don't remember now why you think there are others besides other others others besides Kevin and David Burton who may or may not have died and come back.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:54

I'm just sort of extrapolating that like well didn't uh Erica's dad explain to her.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:59

Erica's dad.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:01

Guy on the stand? Guy on the stand on the stand because Virgil is like, oh, I had to guide him or he guided me.

SPEAKER_07 1:25:11

Oh, that's right. Okay, gotcha.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:13

There's other people.

SPEAKER_07 1:25:14

Yep.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:14

And then all the birds that Erica buried.

SPEAKER_07 1:25:16

And all the birds.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:19

They're also in that world.

SPEAKER_07 1:25:21

Yeah. All right. World's just full of birds. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:24

Three days you keep that bird under there.

SPEAKER_07 1:25:26

Three days.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:28

So it's a great scene.

SPEAKER_07 1:25:31

Yeah. That's a great scene where she takes up the bird.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:34

It is surprising.

SPEAKER_07 1:25:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:36

Because until then, everything's kind of light.

SPEAKER_08 1:25:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:40

Kind of light. Yeah. I mean, we you're gonna you might have to listen to this great podcast, Paul. TV is awesome to like really get all the details where we talk about all this stuff, but we really go into it. I mean, I just think the continuity is great. Like through the three seasons. I would have thought they wrote them all together.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:01

Yeah.

unknown 1:26:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:03

I'll have to ask my editor friend. Some dirt.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:07

Are you dropping names? Dropping names on this podcast?

SPEAKER_02 1:26:10

Oh well, that's all right. Editor friend who worked on the show, editor friend? Yeah, yeah. David Eisenberg. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:16

Dropping names.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:17

Oh, I did not know this. Hi, David.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:19

He'll be our second guest, Ken.

SPEAKER_07 1:26:24

Set that up, Paul.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:25

What'd you I noticed? Um, did you guys talk about or dig into? And I haven't. Mimi Leader did a lot of like the directing of the episodes, especially the later ones. Yeah. I thought she did an amazing job. Like, I it's not a name I've heard, so I don't know. Like what oh no, what has she done? What what am I? Well, she's a big TV director. She's done a lot.

SPEAKER_07 1:26:48

Go ahead.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:48

I was gonna say famously married to Tom Cruise. Right?

SPEAKER_07 1:26:52

No.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:53

Before that's not Mimi Leader.

SPEAKER_07 1:26:55

No, no, that's Mimi Rogers.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:57

Shit.

SPEAKER_07 1:26:58

Sorry, Lisa.

unknown 1:27:00

Damn it.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:02

Getting my Memes mixed up.

SPEAKER_07 1:27:04

Right, right. Uh Mimi Leader. She's done a lot of TV. She did a lot of Game of Thrones episodes after this. She's done a lot of HBO, and she's become known for directing like epic TV episodes. But I think they brought her in as a as an executive producer on Leftovers because she was she was involved, I think like really involved creatively.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:30

Yeah. No, I know I made last night I paid attention, especially to the director for the last two. I mean, it definitely was for the last one. Because to me that like means, oh, this is a big deal if we're doing the last two episodes. Right. Right. Frequently. So yeah, it was probably some sometimes the executive producer, a lot of times the director. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:46

I think she directed in season one, also and two. Like, right? I think so.

SPEAKER_07 1:27:51

I think she was involved from the beginning.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:53

Yeah. Yep. Uh yeah. I feel like You can tell when it's her because of like the very tight close-ups. But I'm almost positive she did that one with Nora and Erica.

SPEAKER_08 1:28:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:08

Um she likes to get right in there.

SPEAKER_08 1:28:11

Yeah. Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:14

Testament to the makeup at the on in the finale, like so tight on their faces, and like that looks like skin. Like, how did they make them look old like that?

SPEAKER_07 1:28:25

I know. I will say, makeup amazing. Hair. Wigs. Wigs. I don't know. Like Lori's wig, uh, Lowry's wig. I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:39

Yeah, I think it was I think our hair was, I think they just teased it to shit. Because she has crazy hair.

SPEAKER_07 1:28:45

But it was all gray. Did they the last episode? Oh, the last episode. No, yeah, yeah. Sorry. Just the the old, the old both um Nora's and Lori's Lowry's hair in the last episode was a little like, yeah, this is what we think old people look like.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:03

Right.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:04

How old are they supposed to be? 60s?

SPEAKER_02 1:29:06

I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:08

I know. Who knows?

SPEAKER_02 1:29:10

What 60s, maybe? 60s. Kevin said Kevin Senior was 91, so he had to be what? Was he 70 or 71?

SPEAKER_06 1:29:16

Oh.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:17

Oh, right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:29:18

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:19

Yeah, so close to 70 people. Wow. Well, they were in their 40s making that, so yeah, they'd be in their 60s. Okay. Okay. I don't think. Yeah. I don't think 70-year-old um uh Nora is riding her bike all over Australia, but 60-year-old, sure.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:37

Maybe. I don't know. You don't know her.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:40

She could be.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:40

She's gonna save goats no matter what age she is.

SPEAKER_07 1:29:43

That's right.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:43

No matter how steep that hill. Did you think they were gonna just sacrifice the goat in the middle of the wedding?

SPEAKER_02 1:29:52

No, I did for a second. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:53

Me too. I'm like, oh no goats.

SPEAKER_07 1:29:55

Right.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:56

We know about goats.

SPEAKER_07 1:29:58

Oh, no more goats.

SPEAKER_05 1:30:00

That was a cute scene though, where she's like, But do you have you ever seen a goat sacrifice? Because that was gonna catch him in the line.

SPEAKER_07 1:30:07

Right, right. I love that whole weird. I love all the wedding, the whole wedding scene, the speeches, how cute the bride and groom are. Uh she's like, when she says that, oh my uh, I have something to confess, I'm pregnant. And I think you're the father. All of it is great.

SPEAKER_05 1:30:29

I did sob through the whole thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:30:31

No surprise.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:32

I didn't notice it was a wedding until Lisa said it was. I was just focused on Nora seeing Kevin for the first time. Right.

SPEAKER_05 1:30:52

Um, any overarching things you want to get off your chest about at all? Are you glad? Are you happy that you did this?

SPEAKER_02 1:31:00

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 1:31:00

Do you feel like a better person because of it?

SPEAKER_02 1:31:04

My upcoming novel, I had put in the acknowledgments that I had promised to watch it. So I've already done that before the books even come out. So too late to take it out.

SPEAKER_06 1:31:13

That's huge.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:14

That was August when I wrote the acknowledgements. Good job. Yeah, I was I was planning, I was building up to it.

SPEAKER_07 1:31:19

Yeah. Um, is that something you always do? Like you put like uh uh self-improvement things in your acknowledgments, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:31:29

I definitely don't. No, no, like so yeah, it was really good. Um I mean very, very good. Uh yeah, you know, like TV show, like in the moment, you're like, ah, but yeah, where do you put it in your like all-time rankings of TV?

SPEAKER_05 1:31:45

Yeah, what are your all-time rankings of TV?

SPEAKER_02 1:31:47

Oh, I don't know. Yeah, sure, top ten.

SPEAKER_05 1:31:51

It holds up, it holds up.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:53

Like, I feel like it has to have subcategories, like we're not, you know, MASH, Simpsons, formative things, like that's gonna be an internet list. Uh you know, and I I guess I don't watch a lot of TV shows, certainly not as many as the co-host of this podcast. Um, too many episodes. I can't, my you know, social media brain is atrophied. I can't watch too many shows. I understand. Yeah. Um, no, it wasn't a lot of movies. Yeah, it was a good number of episodes, three seasons, you know, 130 episodes. That's my sweet spot. So I can't people talk all the time. And I know like breaking bad is supposed to be this genius thing, but like there's no chance I'm watching freaking 70, probably more way more than that episodes.

SPEAKER_07 1:32:40

Yeah. Um, I know. Well, then once you watch Breaking Bad, then you have to watch Better Call Saul, and there's seven seasons of that.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:48

Well, like I said, I I appreciated very much sort of the character building. Uh and it did feel like different than other shows in terms of that approach. Again, maybe because I said like Parade stuck in my head, um, just in how they approach the characters and how I like that they didn't explain everyone's motivation every time. Like we were you were talking earlier about like, you know, why did North chuck the rock through the you know, through Erica's window with with her there was so shocking. You know, I feel like other shows would delve into like why did she do that? And you know, I have to spoon feed you an explanation. Um and I enjoyed sort of like the cinematography, the director of photography in the direction. Like it they look very different, but you know, I mean I referenced Hannibal before, that was something that drew me into that too, was sort of the look and the feel. Yeah was the same throughout. But I mean ultimately it comes down to really Kevin and Nora carrying the whole thing.

SPEAKER_05 1:33:46

I mean, one of the things we talk about a lot, or at least I do, but I think Ken agrees, is that when a show can put you in the world where you're just in it and you just you kind of understand, you might not understand everything that's happening, but like you're like, okay, well, this is the feel and the like you kind of understand the rules or the parameters like right away, and you're just in it, and it stays true to it, and you're like, this is how it would be. Um, Walking Dead in the beginning was kind of like that. Um Game of Thrones a little bit like too. You're like, this is this crazy ass world, but um, like that's kind of the mark of a good show. And if you can continue that through seasons, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:25

I mean, I guess sort of similar to severance is a really cool concept, but like you've got the I'm not gonna remember the two main characters or the or the three of them, but like uh yeah similar, like you need some characters to latch on to. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:34:40

That's funny. I never I I don't know if we ever talked about that when we when we did severance, but there's a lot there is some there's there are echoes of the leftovers in Severance.

SPEAKER_05 1:34:53

Oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_07 1:34:55

I never really thought about it until you just said that, Paul. That's interesting, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:35:00

Like in what way? Give me an example. Like what do you mean? Well characters, characters, characters.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:07

I mean, I guess I mean the world world, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:35:10

The vibe of it, the vibe of it feels similar somehow to me.

SPEAKER_05 1:35:15

Right, like you might be because overarching is just how desperate and sad and like hard this world is, yeah, right? Like people are really desperate, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:35:26

Um slightly dystopian, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:35:30

And like how like sad. Well, at least from the main character in Severance, right? Um, Adam Scott's character, that like he's so desperate that he's gonna go get his brain severed, so he doesn't just to give his brain a break, so he doesn't have to think that part of his brain doesn't have to think about it, yeah, or something. Um it's not everyone's motivation to do it, but yeah, like you get in that world that's like you're gonna go sever your brain.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:55

Yeah, which is not everything, not everything is explained. It's a group of adults, yep, yeah, adults, and they don't spoon feed you explanations. I'm gonna quote uh our friend Sarah Langan, it's not a novelization of a people magazine or or like a TV show of a people magazine, you know, right?

SPEAKER_05 1:36:15

Yeah, yeah, and they're so those characters are drastic, also so relatable, yeah, like believable. You believe that in this world these people all exist.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:26

Yeah, yeah. Well done. Does this mean the podcast is over now? I meant like the whole podcast. This is the end. Oh no, we've oh no, I know it's just uh a recall to the OG days. Yeah. Well, if you go back and watch Hannibal, I'll come back on to talk about Hannibal. I could that's what we could probably do.

SPEAKER_07 1:36:50

Yeah. Although I have watched it, so oh you have? Oh it would break our format. I did, I really liked it. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:36:58

How many seasons are there?

SPEAKER_07 1:37:00

Three.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:00

Oh, short, right? Yeah, yeah. Okay, if that similarly season two is the best season, I think. Um but it's all good.

SPEAKER_05 1:37:10

Yeah, I mean what I watched every other Hannibal or I read a Hannibal thing. I I mean I've watched I I know about the universe, so yeah. Um, I could do that maybe potentially.

unknown 1:37:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:20

It's a side thing.

SPEAKER_05 1:37:21

And I'll watch it for the first time and you'll re-watch it.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:24

Uh-huh. I've never really watched, well, other than like I mentioned like Mash and Simpsons and stuff like that. I don't really re-watch shows. Sometimes it's fun. Yeah, sometimes it's fun.

SPEAKER_07 1:37:35

Yeah. You definitely, if it's a good show, you pick up things that you you didn't see the first time.

SPEAKER_05 1:37:41

I think this show, for sure. Even on the third.

SPEAKER_07 1:37:45

A dance, complicated show like this, you yeah, you get so much out of it, I think. It's like reading a good book again sometimes, which I don't do, I don't do that very often, but I imagine Severance is the same way.

SPEAKER_05 1:37:58

I've been hearing about people re-watching it, going, Oh, yeah, this makes so much more sense now, kind of thing. Because you are just trying to like figure out the world in the beginning.

SPEAKER_08 1:38:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:38:08

Um other TV shows that you want us to watch?

SPEAKER_02 1:38:12

Oh, no.

unknown 1:38:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:16

I haven't been watching anything like lately. Um I'm interested in Pluribus, but I haven't started or we haven't started.

SPEAKER_05 1:38:22

I know. That's our next. Now that we finish the leftovers, we're gonna start. We're gonna do that.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:25

Yay! I can't wait to talk about that.

SPEAKER_05 1:38:28

Um is there anything you would like to plug before we end?

SPEAKER_02 1:38:33

Um well, I got to read a novel that's not gonna be out till this to the fall, but it was really wild. Um oh my god, it's public access. I have to look it up uh because I don't want to butcher butcher names. Talk to amongst yourself. Books.

SPEAKER_05 1:38:52

What are books?

SPEAKER_02 1:38:53

Books?

SPEAKER_05 1:38:53

He's gonna recommend a book.

SPEAKER_07 1:38:55

This is a TV podcast, Paul.

SPEAKER_05 1:38:58

I know when is it gonna be turned on?

SPEAKER_07 1:39:00

Well, it relates to television now.

SPEAKER_05 1:39:02

Okay, now we're interested.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:03

Okay, okay uh okay. I just remembered that so it's called Public Access Afterworld by Jane Schoenbrunn. Okay, oh they directed uh I saw the TV Glow. Yes, I saw that a movie coming out this summer with Jillian Anderson, so it's their first novel. Um Public Access Access Public Access Afterworld. After World. Um and I kind of feel like there's connection, I feel like there's connections too. I saw the TV glow. I mean, they're definitely obsessed with uh you know analog television. I mean, part of the conceit, I mean, there's so much that happens in this book, but part of the conceit is that the I forget the date, like in 2007 or 8 where analog TV cuts off finally, switches over to digital. There's these two teens are obsessed, like this is a huge moment in human history, and in the fuzz, they feel uh one of them feels like they can hear um they hear something going on. So then there's people that get obsessed with and rumors about this other sort of TV world called public access afterworld. The idea was that like part of the idea is like everyone has like a TV show that they could have made or been in. I don't want to say too much about it, but is it about me? I mean, it gets very strange. Uh it's a very strange, you know, novel. It's a pretty epic, uh large one, too. It's like 660 pages. But wow, yeah, for you know, JV, it's um that's really good. I mean, I like shoulder novels, yeah, yeah. But it was, you know, it's a nice reminder of the pleasure of being lost in a long book for you know weeks at a time.

SPEAKER_07 1:40:40

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I really liked I Saw the TV Glow. Yeah, it was a really interesting film. Definitely.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:47

Yeah, their first movie was something about the World's Fair. I'm butchering the title that I want to see. Yeah, same. Um, it looks like their third movie's getting a pretty big push. Yeah, it's like Teen Sex and Murder or Teen Sex and Death. I guess I said, uh it's a river saying it's like a weird remake of an old slasher in a way, but um, I don't know of what. Um, but Jillian Anderson stars in it. It looks like a lot of fun. Okay.

SPEAKER_05 1:41:15

Ken's best friend Jillian. He's gonna go see her next weekend.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:18

My best friend, I'm gonna see her along with probably hundreds of other people. She oh well, you know, you saw the show. She's in the third season of Hannibal.

SPEAKER_05 1:41:27

Oh, yeah. Did she have a British accent?

SPEAKER_02 1:41:30

No.

SPEAKER_07 1:41:31

Oh no, she's old Gillian. She's being American is she originally British?

SPEAKER_05 1:41:37

No, you never know.

SPEAKER_07 1:41:38

Well, there's a back and forth. Sometimes she's British, sometimes she's American. Depends on who's what interview she's she who's she's who is interviewing her.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:47

Who's interviewing? X-Files is well, I don't know, I've complicated, you know, talking about favorite TV shows. Maybe like to a certain point, X-Files is one of my favorite TV shows. Right. Yeah. Certainly after the company left, no. Right. Um, right. But even then, like the the sort of interconnected episodes I was much less interested in than like the monsters of the week kind of episodes. Yeah, yeah. Speaking of this house, I have a screenplay of the episode Home designed by the smoking man. Whoa, really? Wow. Yeah, because I went to a like uh X-Files Expo like in the mid-90s, somewhere like in Braintree or something. Wow, and Mary. That's awesome. Wow.

SPEAKER_07 1:42:27

All right, so there's more TV. Speaking of uh X-File X-Files, X-Files, uh Ryan Kugler, that's his next project, is an X-Files movie.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:37

A movie, not a show.

SPEAKER_07 1:42:39

I think it's a movie.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:40

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_07 1:42:40

Well, maybe I'm wrong. I thought it was a movie, but it is and it has new characters, but I think that it's in the world of the original X-Files, and so I think at least Gillian Anderson is making an appearance.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:54

Oh interesting, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:42:56

Don't quote me though, because I have not fact checked.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:59

No, I I haven't seen Google or Next Files like Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:03

Movie, huh?

SPEAKER_07 1:43:05

Movie.

SPEAKER_05 1:43:06

Interesting. Okay, I think we did it. I think you did it.

SPEAKER_07 1:43:11

I think we did it.

SPEAKER_05 1:43:12

Better than we ever could have imagined.

SPEAKER_07 1:43:13

It was amazing. Thank you, Paul. I didn't have to go to the bathroom. Amazing HP. I traded it. I haven't either, but I will.

SPEAKER_05 1:43:21

I mean, that's kind of a good podcast.

SPEAKER_07 1:43:24

Right.

unknown 1:43:24

Right.

SPEAKER_07 1:43:25

Uh please come back and talk to us again, Paul, about some other amazing television show. Uh so this this is fun. Uh and uh well, I'm gonna say it because I don't know when the last time it was that we said it, but uh, you know, rate. Rate the show five stars. Subscribe on all the places where you subscribe, pods. Uh, and uh, you know, if you want to buy a t-shirt, go buy a t-shirt at our spreadshop. And details are in our uh show notes. And uh until next time, bye.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:02

Bye.

unknown 1:44:09

What's it's called?

SPEAKER_01 1:44:12

My god! Okay, it's happening. Wait, what's the procedure? What's the procedure?

SPEAKER_00 1:44:20

Say my name. You're goddamn right.