Everything Is Content - Freakier Friday, AJLT & Scouting For Girls

Episode Date: August 8, 2025

Happy Friday EICers, this week on the podcast we’re talking about the sequel 20 years in the making, the end of Sex and the City, and the new beginnings for nostalgic music.First up, Freakier Friday, which is out TODAY! We were lucky enough to go to a screening on Monday and we did our best to not discuss the film until the record. 22 years after Freaky Friday, Anna Coleman has become a music producer and manager and has the help of her mother Tess in raising her teenage daughter Harper. At almost 2 hours run time, is it worth it? You'll have to listen to find out!On Friday night Ruchira was on her way to a night out in honour of Charli XCX’s birthday in Hackney when the news hit her… And Just Like That was dead. Showrunner Michael Patrick King said whilst writing the last episode of season 3 “it became clear this might be a wonderful place to stop”. @yoldafister tweeted: 'as someone who has spent 3 seasons trashing this show, i’m devastated'. We weigh in.And lastly, guess who's back? Well, it seems, a lot of people! Specifically bands. From Blue, to Scouting For Girls and Busted vs Mcfly, it's nostalgia city out here, with pop musicians of the past riding a second wave of fame thanks to social media. How has the internet shaped the way we consume music? We so hope you enjoy, as always please do rate, review, and share the podcast, it helps so much!Please also if you would be so kind, do vote for us in The Listener's Choice Awards :)Thank you to Cue for all your help! O, R, B xOenone's rec - A Flat Place, Noreen MasudBeth's rec - Modern Nature, Derek Jarman, Let The Bad Times Roll, Alice SlaterRuchira's rec - Pop Star Academy: KATSEYEHow some of the most derided bands of all time are making a comeback Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When does fast grocery delivery through Instacart matter most? When your famous grainy mustard potato salad isn't so famous without the grainy mustard. When the barbecues lit, but there's nothing to grill. When the in-laws decide that actually they will stay for dinner. Instacart has all your groceries covered this summer. So download the app and get delivery in as fast as 60 minutes. Plus, enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees exclusions and terms apply.

Instacart, groceries that over deliver. I'm Beth, I'm Richerra, and I'm Anoni. And this is Everything is Content, your one-stop shop for culture, celebrity news and topical moments. From red carpets to hair-raising ad campaigns, we've got you covered. We're the fortune teller giving you the vital readings from the palm of content. This week on the podcast, we're talking about the sequel, 20 years of the making, Freakier Friday. end of sex in the city and the new beginnings for nostalgic music. Follow us on Instagram and TikTok at Everything is Content Pod and make sure you hit follow on your

podcast player so you never miss an episode. What have you girlie's been loving this week? Okay, so mine was obvious this week. There was a series on Netflix that I binged, I think, within three days and good listeners will remember that Juno Dawson actually brought this to us in our special interview episode with her. It's Popstar Academy, basically the makings of a K-pop band called Katzai. Do you both remember her talking about this? I do indeed. Yes. Oh my God, I am now obsessed with this group of girls and it's fucking weird because I'm in my 30s and they're all like 18, 16, 17, 19 and my God,

do these girls eat when they are on screen? They are fucking excellent. Every single move they do, every song they sing, it's so good. I'm obsessed with them. them my TikTok algorithm which has been dusty and unused for like two years now keep showing me videos of like fan cams two second videos of them just on screen like each one individually and I've just been consuming it and eating all of it all weekend and you might be able to tell from my voice but I'm sick I'm sick in the head it's so good I need I'm so glad because I've got nothing to watch at the minute and I think my Netflix algorithm is particularly bad I do not get show I would that show would never have come up for me if I didn't search it and I feel

like I'm ready, I'm ready to be inspired by some pop girlies. Does it make you feel old or do they keep you young? It's a bit of both. I went through this very grieving hard process of just thinking, what if I could have been in a girl band, but now I'm too old. And it also made me feel really good because then I thought maybe I could dance like that and I could just actually learn to dance like that and maybe I should just book myself into like, I mean, I don't even know what kind of dances. What kind of dance classes just like women eating on screen dancing really well? Can somebody let me know? When they do it like the classes they do with heels. Yeah. Like what is that? Kind of like hip hop. Is it hip hop? I love watching videos

people doing that. I don't know. I feel like they're like those classes are often like hip hop in heels. I actually got a lot of those on my for you page and in my head I'm like, I could so do that. But the one time I went to Pan Apple Studios with my friend who was a dancer. Yeah. I got so embarrassed at the end when it was like the performance thing you're meant to do in like a group of five that I actually just ran on. Oh, that's terrifying. And it's so funny because I'm not, I don't really get scared that, though. I can't dance. Oh, that is kind of terrifying. See, this is the thing. I'm both socially anxious and my ego is out of control. Like, what do I do with that? I watch shows like this and it kind of reassures me like, no, there was no, obviously I lack the vocal and physical talent to be a pop star. But it also, it hammers home to me.

What I definitely do lack or did lack at like age 1718 was the work ethic. I was not, you know, I just could not have dug deep. And I'm kind of that I didn't have to do that. I think I would have become, as we'll discuss, a real, like, Lindsay Lohan in the 2000s type. I would have been posing with knives. I would have been out of control. It just would not have suited me. So I kind of find these things quite reassuring of like, no, my more quiet life podcast at age 32, figuring it out this, I was meant for this life. I was not meant for the big screen. Can I ask though, do you see the side of like, I guess, teen stardom? Is it like the dark side of that or is it very much like everyone's taken care of. Like what's the vibe of this? Is it like very celebratory? Everything's joyful or is

like, no, this is hard work. We have to take care of these little bitty girls. Yeah. So it's, it's the second one. The label, the record label and the K-pop company that thrives that I think created BTS in Korea is behind this. So it's almost like, you know when S Club did their own mockumentary style thing? It kind of feels like that where they're creating the law around this band to help promote them and shove them into their light. So it's not, there's a lack of authenticity already from the jump. It's, you know, self-made. It has a point.

It has a purpose. Get more clicks and eyeballs on this band that self-drives money back to the company. But still saying that, it's so obvious how grueling. And I'm going to say it like barbaric. A lot of the kind of process of them becoming famous is. I don't want to ruin it. But there's so many elements to this show. what they put the girls through, which is, I think, so inhumane. And it was leaving me with this

very bad feeling. And I watched so many video essays over the weekend. I don't think it's good that this show feels like crack because everyone I've spoken to has said it feels really addictive to watch. But it's very much at the cost of, you know, as we've said before, reality TV, human emotions. There's so many elements where they really push the girls in ways they don't need to get the most emotion out of them and it is quite cruel and even that excuses the actual element of k-pop training which is rigorous it is intense it is hard it is relentless they are doing i think eight to ten hour days every day for maybe a year and a half slash two years of their lives and only six of them make it they auditioned i think 14,000 girls for this show so that

already tells you it is so ruthless it's you kind of making me think of the toxicity of America's next top model and like what they would put those skulls through but also beth I did want to say I know you said that you can't dance and you can't sing but you have to remember that you're very hot and actually a lot of pop stars are built off the basis of just being very hot so I wouldn't rule it out just yet I might be slightly too wild I guess I could sort of um if I looked like Jennifer Lopez I mean I think at this point at age 32 I could maybe capture a tenth of how the hot she is in her current prime. Is it worth it?

I just don't think it is. I'm sitting here like brawless, no makeup on. I had a very sweet pastry for breakfast. I actually, I'm like which way Western man? And I do feel it's going to be second pastry for me. I think we are getting a bit too down on the dumps about our age. We're talking about Pamela Anderson next week, which put me on a spiral of watching these Pamela Anderson videos.

And one of the ones was the ones, go up in their age. So it's like whatever year, in 1994, she was whatever age. And it got to when she was 32. And she looked exactly the same as she did at 26. And she was also still in full glam. And I was like, God, yeah, we actually are just as young as we project out onto the world. So I think we've got it, because I do it as well all the time. I'm constantly telling people that I'm a granny and I'm old now. And it's like, when I'm actually old, I'm going to look back and go, you freaking idiot. You had full use of your knees, which will also be talking about a bit later on. I feel like I've just monopolised this entire recommendation segment. What the

fuck have you been loving? Well, on a very different tack, I thoroughly enjoyed a memoir by Noreen Massoud called A Flat Place, which is a story about, ostensibly it's about her being obsessed literally with like flat plains and flat lands and going these long walks in Orkness, and the Orkneys and traversing Morecambe Bay. But it's also about her unpacking her complex PTSD, which stems from her childhood in Pakistan where she grew up with her Pakistani father and her British mother, but it was a very unusual upbringing, which she didn't even really realize until she came to the UK in her later teens. And I don't want to tell you too much because the way the story works is we kind of got bits and pieces alongside these

sections of memoir about these sort of long walks she goes on. And it was one of the most beautiful moving pieces of writing that I've read in ages. The way it's the actual like the skill of the writing is incredible. And that examination of trauma and also a lot of it is about flat places act as sort of a metaphor for the flatness of emotion we can feel and the way that we so much talk about highs and lows and very often ignore the secret third thing, which is actually just feeling totally flat and ambivalent towards whatever is happening or going on in your life. And I said in a very recent episode where I was like, I always think fiction's the best. Well, I eat my hat because I think it might be my favorite book I've read this year. Have either of you

heard of it? I've not even heard of this, but I already adore the sound of it. That sounds so great. It was shortlisted for the women's prize and then I think it did with some other prizes, but I'm, it's a prize winner. This is reminding me of a book. One of my favorite books, actually, which is a nonfiction. It's called Modern Nature. It's Derek Jarman's book. And I actually my hand hovered over it in the bookshop so in a minute i'll get to my recommendation which is a book and i bought this brand new book and then i saw modern nature which i must own maybe four copies of because it's a book i constantly lend to people it's by the the filmmaker derrick jarman about kind of about when he bought prospect cottage which is a very famous house

on like dungeness beach i don't know if either of you know dungeness have been to dungeness it's this kind of absolutely unbelievable coastal spot in kent which is where I grew up, not Dungeoness, but elsewhere in Kent. It is the most sort of severe climate. I think it's been, it's not a desert, but it's kind of as close to a desert as we have in the UK, like incredibly dry. The stuff that grows there is like otherworldly that the beach is covered in this like rusted out machinery and it's all under like this looming defunct nuclear power station. It's one of the most incredible places that I've been. And the book is about his garden there and what you can grow there. And it sort of interweaves his politics and his HIV diagnosis, his existence is

like very political, gay artist. And it's very like, it's the kind of book that you, I would have looked at in my early 20s and been like, that is not for me. What am I going to get out of a book that's about place and about like just interweaved place with emotion and climate and feeling and a life and also like a political landscape. And it's so beautiful. I thought maybe I didn't buy that book because I knew that I wouldn't read it because I need to read this book that you recommended because it does I just have such an appetite for this kind of

nonfiction at the moment and I wonder whether it's like getting older deciding where I'm going to live deciding like what it means to have a place and to grow things and be in the world and kind of like adventure or just like step out and be in the world I don't know it sounds like it sort of was made for me it's so funny you said that I had the exact same

thought I was like five to ten years ago this book I would have shut it off to page two and then I started reading it and I was so taken by all of the nature writing and that is something that I would have absolutely avoided and I don't know again maybe maybe we are getting old I'm flip-flopping on this I don't know what we're doing but yeah it was I found it extremely moving in a way that I wasn't expecting to and it made me want to be more observant and be more in and of the worlds I'm going to do let's do a book swap because I'm now going to read your one oh 1,000 percent And I, at M2N, we're listening, do read Modern Nature by Derek Jarman.

It is absolutely stunning. What is your recommendation for this week, what you've been loving? So I have been loving, let the bad times roll by Alice Slater, who, she's the author of Death of a Bookseller. Did we discuss this on the podcast? And have you both read Death of a Bookseller? I have not. Okay, well, this is good because I also think you both would really enjoy this. So Alice Slater is also the, she's like a writer and a podcaster.

She hosts, is it still going? I don't know. What page are you on Pod with Bethany Rutter, who is also a great writer and has the same name as me, but we've both agreed to let each other continue to exist in the world. Really great book. Death of Books Allot was about like a true crime fanatic who works at a bookshop, kind of like goth, very like into like the grisly side of true crime, like the problematic side, who becomes obsessed with a new employee at the shop where they both work, who is basically everything that she's not. Really, really great book. And I was very excited to read this new book, Let the Bad Times Roll, which is about, I've just started it, but it's about the

disappearance of a man called Daniel and sort of what happens post that, I think it's about a year after, his sister organizes this like a very intense dinner party to try and figure out what happened and there's unexpected guests. And it's very good so far, but I'm already getting like, okay, if you loved the first book, then you were like this one. I think she's someone who has a real grasp of like the comic side of crime, true crime, murder, but also has a sensitivity to it. It doesn't feel like it indulges the worst instincts, but it definitely is aware of them and aware of that side of people. It's like, you know, people who read like the Wikipedia entries of like the Morse murders and wants to traffic in that kind of like grisliness. I think she totally gets that.

And I genuinely really enjoying this book so far, but I can't recommend because I haven't finished it, but already am, but also death of the bookseller, if you've not read it already. Oh, it's good. I started reading this and I was like, is it too soon to read, to reread the other one? Like, it's just satisfying a part of me that it's like, I love, like, clever, dark writing. And I like to laugh at these things, but I also don't want to be like one of the problematic ones that that's laughing at the wrong moments, if that makes sense. But yes, that is a little bit correct for me. And if you want to read long, I will update here because we like to close the circle, but I also will put a little review on my Instagram when I'm finished. I just realized when you were talking initially, I thought you were talking about

death of a salesman. I was just feeling really embarrassed. Is that a play? Yeah, that's a play by Arthur Miller. I've read that. Very GCSE coded. Yeah, and I was like, I felt really embarrassed because I knew it's like culturally very important. I was thinking, God, I better say quiet that I haven't read this. And then about halfway through I clicked that you was a different thing you were talking about. But I still also, I'm going to have to add that to my list. So I will be going on our show notes to remember these because I'll forget in about three minutes. Let's kick the show off with something freaky. The Freaky Friday sequel, Freaky Friday, which is out today, a Friday, very clever,

which the three of us went to see earlier this week ahead of the release. We went to The Love of Huns event, which was so fun. We met the Hans, we ate some popcorn, some biscuits, and we watched the film. And the embargo is over now, so we can discuss it. And I'm very excited to get into this film with you both. But first I guess, for anyone that has not seen the first film. I'll do a quick recap. So Freaky Friday was a 2003 fantasy comedy film where a therapist mother and her rebellious teenage daughter, played by Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan, respectively, swap bodies and have to live one another's life until they figure out how to swap back. If you're a millennial woman or man, I think this was like a sleepover mainstay. It had it all. It had iconic music, the outfits, the one-liners, the Chad Michael Murray, who plays the love interest and the heartthrob. It had Lindsay Lohan as this like

punky girl band. Is she the lead singer or is she like the bass player? Like she is just whatever she is, she's just very cool. I mean, it has layered t-shirts. It has chokers galore. It was just great. And two plus decades later, we have received a sequel where lots of the original cast return. So Lindsay Lohan is now apparent herself to a Gen Z teen. And her mom, again played by Jamie Lee Curtis is still this best-selling writer and also has her own therapy podcast. This film, however, does get freakyer and involves a four-way swap, which is only slightly confusing, with Lindsay Lohan, Jamie Lee Curtis, plus Lindsay's teen daughter and her school nemesis and future step-sister, who is British. And in this installment, basically the kids

swap with the older people. I hope I've made that clear. Are you following? If not, sorry. I have been dying to ask you about this since we saw it because we do try and save these discussions for the podcast so we find out at the same time as you listeners what each other thought but like we came out of that and there was an energy I was like I am dying to talk about this so I guess maybe a way in is I will ask did either of you going into the film have like a preconceived

notion of what you thought you would think and then was that fulfilled or were you completely gazunked and bamboozled and was it blown out of the water I was not expecting there to be a four-way swap. So I was so impressed by just that narrative detail, indeed making it freakyer than the original Freaky Friday. And I thought that was really clever. I thought it was very funny. I think having double the kind of age play of the younger actors playing the older actors was hilarious. There was so much ripe comedy in that

and they did such an excellent job. I was guffawing constantly seeing the Jamie D. Curtis and Lindsay Lohan just like thriving, playing up to being older and just kind of having all of the kind of physical comedy. And then the younger actors, having been the older characters in the younger bodies, just thriving, you know, like squatting, just like stretching their limbs out and really enjoying the youthfulness and the physicality of it. It was so funny. And I have to say, I had the lowest expectations going in because reboots, and we'll talk about a very famous reboot very soon and how it wasn't very successful, a lot of them are really

trash. And this has really, I don't know, given me some hope that although I'm not really into the culture of, you know, reviving everything from the noughties and 90s again, this felt like it had enough merit that I'm glad that they did it and I wasn't expecting to feel like that so I yeah I loved it I felt so good I really want a younger generation to watch this film and then have the relationship we had to the original which I know is a reboot as well but our 2003 version yeah I loved it what did you think and only oh my gosh well I had really low expectations especially since but just before we went and we figured out the film was about to be two hours and then I was like oh no we're

going to be trapped in the screening for two hours in a film that's awful one of my biggest fears was I have been watching Lindsay Lohan's recent exports that she's done since I've come back like her Christmas films and all of them I have to say without putting too fine a point on it have been abysmal. And so I was a bit nervous. I was absolutely blown away. First of all, I think her acting is incredible in this film. Like she really was just perfect. One of the things that really stood up to me that I loved which I feel like we really lack. in current film, and it felt so naughty's coded, was all of the outfits, the customization of the outfits, the dressing up, the play. That was something I always loved in the kind of movies that we grew up with that doesn't seem to happen as much anymore. So I was obsessed with that. It flew by for being such, like, quite a long film. I was crying. I don't know, did you cry with her? I could see Beth was crying, but I couldn't see if you were crying. I wasn't crying, but I definitely had a lump in my throat, but I wasn't, tears were not shed.

I was shedding some tears and then laughing. And then I just have one more thing to say, which is Mani Jacinto. Oh, the man that he is. Was that, that wasn't your introduction? You obviously, you've seen him in the good place, but was that the moment when you went, oh, no, no, he actually is the sexiest and most beautiful man that we're allowed to see on screen. Yeah, I think maybe I really fancy him in the good place, but I watched the good place how, that was out ages ago, wasn't it? So I'd kind of, he'd gone off my radar and just, I mean, his arms. of the way he was dancing. I honestly, just beautiful, sexy, gorgeous man. And their chemistry is great.

Oh, it's, it's, honestly, I think it's a genuinely really good film. There's one scene, which I know both of you will remember granular detail on, which is a dance scene, and I won't spoil anything about it, but it's a very famous callback to a scene that everyone knows where he is dancing, the exact dance, and my jaw was on the floor and I felt like I was salivating. It was so gross and disgusting for me, but very beautiful for him. He was so hot.

I think I was actually sort of making noises. Yeah, like I was sitting next to you, Anoni. Like I could, I didn't have eyes on you, Ruchera, but the energy was there. I honestly thought Anoni was going to levitate. It was palpable. Like he is such, because he's this sort of like, he is just beautiful, like just, you know, no doubt in anyone's mind that it's a beautiful man. But like, it's very, was very captivating.

It's kind of like this quite slight and sensitive type in the film and just, but just obviously just completely stunning. I'm kind of say, I'm so glad that we went there and we were, we've all been like, yeah, I wasn't 100% on this, was sort of a little bit. I was ready to just think it was like a flop and a waste of time. I was like, I'm going to endure for an hour 51. And there were moments in the setup when I was like,

oh, God, this is going to be a slog. But the minute it settled in, the minute it found its groove, it really stayed there. I thought there was enough nods for, us millennials and millennial culture. But there were also, I think, enough to Gen Z culture. And it didn't, both of them got like a gentle roasting. And also, I guess, um, Gen X, sash boomers as well. But like it also every generation got a chance to kind of make their case of like, this is why it's quite difficult to be us. It was like, take us seriously. This is the generational divide.

But this is why, you know, being a woman at any age is actually so fucking difficult. I think the mother-daughter friction as well was really well executed from like multiple different angles of like the mother, the grandmother, the teen daughter, the daughter without a mother, the stepdaughter. I think it really, it's not a perfect film, but also why would a Freaky Friday follow-up need to be a perfect film? It's just it delivered in all the places that I think it needed to deliver and remembered who it was delivering to. I think I would hope that Jenzies would watch that and get a lot out of it. But also I think as a millennial woman, I was like, thank you. I'm feasting today. So I'm glad that we could be honest. And so our expectations were maybe hovering lower,

but I was completely astounded. Like I did not expect to be saying this today. I expected us to be like, okay, this was a complete train wreck. But I loved it. Although Lindsay Lowen's face, I did take a minute to get used to. Sorry to be problematic, but I was like, okay. I just wanted to quickly say, I do agree about, well, I have to say actually now I just kept whispering to a chair. Oh my God, her face left is so good. It just looked so good. but I just wanted to say because I want to name check them because Julia Butters and Sophia Hammonds

who played the younger girls were impeccable actors and I'm actually really excited I don't think I've seen either of them in anything before but maybe that's just you know they're not in my wheelhouse yet Julia Butters was in once upon a time in Hollywood and she was given her flowers for a scene

I think I was opposite Brad Pitt where she was like they're from like this is the one to watch Does she play the young actor on set in that kind of Western element of the film, maybe? Oh. Well, they honestly, I think that was it. They really elevated the film, I have to say. I think that brought such an interesting great dimension.

We spoke about this piece talking about mid-level films, I think, maybe at the beginning of the year or last year. And there is something so nice about watching something where the message is so accessible and something about these body. body swap films where the obvious message is going to be you just have to walk a mile in somebody else's shoes. You just have to understand what somebody else is thinking. It's so simple, but it's so effective and it's so poignant because when they inevitably get there, it makes you really feel quite emotional and it makes you really reflect on the people in your life. It's like a moral lesson that's so easy to take away. And yeah, these might be silly films, but I don't think we should sleep on those kind of messaging moments that happen in a really

you know, silly, fun film like this because they are really important. And I think they're so nice. The other thing I was going to say is, I do have to say, oh wait, sorry, two things, the kind of clangers of the generational divides. There's a moment, I think, where it's like, there's a poster on the teenage daughter's room and she was like, this is my safe space. It did make me feel a bit cringe. And I don't know if we've got to a good place with generational comedy where anyone trying to take the piss out of Gen Z or millennial culture can do it in a way that doesn't make me cringe. I'm still waiting to see when we can do that

because stuff like that does make me think, oh, you are really just ticking the box of the most obvious jokes here. And then the other thing I was going to say is, did you guys notice the amount of callbacks to Lindsay Lohan's back catalogue and also millennial films that we love? So there's this tinkle in the film

that they've clearly riffed off the devil wears Prada, which Lindsay Lohan is not in, by the way. and you'll know which one I mean. It's like the da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And it's like this kind of moment of transition in the Devil Wears Prada. They'd riffed on that and changed it slightly

so one of the notes is a bit different and they had that peppered in this film. And then also they bring back characters who I'm not going to ruin for anyone from the kind of Lohan universe, multiverse. And there are lines like the wedding that Lindsay Lohan's character

is moving towards is October 3rd. Obviously, October 3rd is a big moment in the mean girl's world. It's the date that she turns over to Aaron Samuels, big meme moment, but things like that, it felt like a checklist of all these Easter eggs if you are a fan of either her or the rom-com millennial universe. And at first it was fun, but then as Moore kept piling up, I was just thinking, are we that easy to gamify? And is it just like we are as simple as all you have to do in a film is pepper all of these nostalgic moments and we'll just like eat the bait and just like go crazy over it and i think we'll probably see more of this with the reboot of bend it like beckham what are the

other ones there's so many coming up devil wears prada is we're getting a sequel to that exactly legally blonde 55 at this point there are so many and i wonder if as an audience a millennial audience we are just we're so easy to gamify with this reboot cycle that we're in and we're going to see more of these very obvious nods to make us feel really excited. I thought the exact same thing as you with the sign on the door, because one of the signs on the door said, no triggering please, which doesn't even really kind of make sense.

But what's funny is later on in the film, they do this bit when there's been the body swap where someone reads to one of the younger character who's now in the older person's character's bodies, all of these lines that they've written, and then they're like, who wrote this? And they're like, you did. So there's a nod to the fact that, you know, older generations

are really, they get the words, but can never quite implement them correctly. Like, they can't quite grab a hold of the language that they use. So it was funny that they had that on the door because I thought the exact same thing. I was like, that doesn't, no one's ever, no one's ever said that. I quite liked. I think there were enough of those little millennial moments. I mean, I guess, yeah, people making films are like, okay, who is not currently, who is

a depressed generation, who is not currently paying a mortgage and is not raising children? Well, it's us. We've, you know, we've got a few pennies and we are more than willing to spend them on a little bit of nostalgia. I thought that was quite good. And for all of my talk and all of our talk about how tired we are, how worn down we are by this glut of revivals, this lack of IP and this like downtreting new ideas, like every time I hear about a revival of a film that I loved, my ears perk up, my nipples perk up. Every time we get a new still from The Devil Wears Prada, I'm like, I'm so sad. I am so sad. I just, you know, I don't like that the media landscape looks like this because it does

feel like very cash grabby and like we're forgetting to prize innovation yada yada but then also they will have my money i will give my money like i i'm very aware that i may be a hypocrite but i do think in this case i think with the the director is uh nisha ganatra and she she said an interview that she had spoken to the producers of the film when she signed on about like the harmful Asian stereotypes in the first film and i guessed and and and does correct that like for all the harking back that the film does it does not fall into those same problematic 2003 traps. I think that is a good way to do it. And I think that is, I don't think anyone's cancelling Freaky Friday, but it would have been unfathomable to

have picked up the thread that they do in the first one of how they make the swap. I just think it was, it was smartly updated and also it felt like it was written. They had pictures of us three in there. It was like, how can we trap these three women specifically into promoting this film? And they nailed it. On Friday night, I was on my way to a night out in honour of Charlie XX's birthday in Hackney when the news hit me. And just like that, was dead. Showrunner Michael Patrick King said whilst writing the last episode of season three, quote, it became clear this might be a wonderful place to stop, end quote.

So now we're officially going to get a two-part final extra episode to round off the entire premise, the reboot of Sex and the City. I don't think many of us realize this day would ever come. I knew literally from the minute that I saw that post that we had to use this podcast to pay some final respect and disrespect, of course, to the year's most controversial show. A reboot often labeled the most hate-watched HBO series on TV. So first, I wanted to kick off this memorial by reading some choice paragraphs from an incredible vulture piece written by Rachel Handler, titled, And Just Like That is Dead. On August 1st, 2025, in the middle of an innocent workday, HBO murdered and just like that, without warning. The show, only three years old,

though also in some ways, 27 years old, though also ageless, in that it will live on forever as a staggering snapshot of whatever happened to the collective consciousness post-2020, remained a fascinating object for every moment of its brief and wonderful life. To judge it on a spectrum of good to bad would have missed the point in time. entirely. And just like that was a state of mind. And that mind was in a coma. It was a place to go for 44 minutes a week, a windowless white room filled with nitrous oxide. It was a safe and necessary container for our wild and dangerous national id, which will now roam unchecked and destroy us all. Okay, so we might laugh and joke, but on a personal level, I've got to say

it's a bitter sweet moment, as especially the last episode that we just saw, the one called Better than sex was, in my opinion, the closest and just like that had ever gotten to capturing some of the beauty and the magic of the original show. So it feels sad that we're going out like this. We saw a big moment with Carrie Bradshaw finally having casual sex and being fun. We had some huge drama in the Brady Hobbs family and we had an iconic Carrie Bradshaw outfit where she was wearing a corset and a giant fucking trench coat and doing what can only be described as a stomp across New York City. I think it might be good to kind of do a temperature check in the room of what we're all thinking. How are we feeling? Are we grieving? Are we celebrating? What do you both think?

I actually feel slightly vindicated because I haven't watched this later season yet. And it's like I've been storing it up. And now that I know it's ending, I'm going to watch it with such pure intentions and enjoy it without any sort of anger or vitriol towards what the writers have done in the sequel. But the thing I saw was Carrie Bradshaw's post. In fact, I'd just been with my own Carrie Bradshaw, Livy, who's so Carrie, I can't even explain. And as I left her, she posted it on her story, this amazing, like, five-minute long reel that Sarah Jessica Parker did with just saying like words over the top with pictures of Carrie. And I kind of stopped in my tracks. And I felt, I did feel something. Grief is too much of a big one.

word but definitely a sense of like wow I can't believe that it's really coming to an end which is funny because I guess we never knew that it hadn't ended before alt j came back but now it's just sort of like a little thing exists safely within my periphery that universe those women they're still plodding on it was nice to have them like a comfort blanket but the idea that you know that door's closed there's feelings it's so funny when we discuss this for the first time probably when it first aired or no actually we weren't recording there but like shortly after we

this podcast became I thought okay I've not seen this actually I mean I watched the first episode just to kind of see what it's about I saw the great Peloton event of 2021 but then I like I hung it up and I was like well we've discussed it now no one's going to know that I'm not watching this we have since discussed it so many times

and every time I'm like fuck I've not seen this but it turns out it doesn't matter because via cultural osmosis it sort of feels like I have kept so abreast of this. I know characters. I know scenes. So reading that piece that you quote at the top, Ruchera, the Rachel Handler piece, that more than anything else has convinced me that I need to watch this show, because it's such a funny piece. And it's like such an adorable and adoring skewering of the show. And I think it does not pull punches, but everything is made

fun of in such a way that I'm like, oh, I would actually love this. And the quotes that you read. And also when she's like, she says that she rags on it in the way that you drag on a beloved younger sibling with a minor head injury that was going to improve with time lightly lovingly trying not to let them fall asleep mid-sentence while apparently the head injury was not so minor after all and now that sibling is dead any show that can inspire that kind of writing is sort of a show that I would like to watch and seeing the and we'll get into like the social media response which has been just as funny I think any show that can align its fans in such a way whether like we can hate it but we are having the time of our life hating it this is our train wreck

really makes me want to become quite loyal to it, which is such a me thing to do in its death throes. I'm like, I'm going to give this a little well. I'm going to see what the fuss is about four years late. I'm kind of excited now to watch it. Yeah, it is, I can't think of anything like it in recent history where everyone has unanimously agreed it is a terrible show. It's offensive to the original show.

All of the characters, you have to separate any kind of memory, short-term, long-term, medium-term memory you have of what Miranda Hobbs is like, what Charlotte is like, what Harry Bradshaw is like, because these are different women. But at the same time, they look the same. They're like clones, but more boring and kind of more foolish. But at the same time, there was something, yeah, I don't know. It feels like a limb of mine has now gone. What am I going to do every Sunday morning? What am I going to, you know, feel aggrieved over at the same time, reliant on? It's a very difficult grief to process because it's not, I'm not sad, but I almost feel like some part of my life has to change without my consent and I don't feel good about that. And also, it is, it is this feeling of maybe they could have done better with time and now we'll never know. So it is, it's a very complex feeling and I'm sure many of the fans feel similarly. I wrote down some tweets and I think it would be sage of us to read one each. I'll start with at Yolanda Fister, which is a great name. They tweeted, as someone who has spent the last three seasons trashing this show, I'm devastated.

And I really understand that, Yelanda Fister. That is how I feel. At E.J. Dixon wrote, I feel unbadened, lighter, freer. Is this what it feels like to be happy? And I've got at the Kempire, this season of, and just like that, is like a toxic boyfriend. how dare these episodes start to get better at the end when we are ready to break up with them? It's just beautiful writing about a show which I've not seen a purely good review of this and I do want to ask actually Bruchera

having, like you're up today, what have we got like one or two episodes left? Do you think, like are you primed for disappointment, bit of a flop like that second or third film or do you think this could actually end in a way that is satisfying to you or are the fans aligned of like this is going to be a car crash till the sweet and bitter end?

with this series especially within the episode that has just gone they opened up a massive can of worms narratively with a character and their family so I am not convinced that this ending and wrapping up of the show was planned I think HBO sent the text sent the email and said guys we have to wrap this up yesterday things are not going like we planned do it do it now and I think they've retrospectively had to figure it all out. When you watch this series, you'll understand, there is just no way that you would introduce something so bizarre, so wild, so unexpected,

and then just say, oh, by the way, guys, we're finishing in two episodes. So I don't know how they're going to wrap this up. It's going to be interesting. I've seen some theories online, such as Carrie Bradshaw repeating a similar mistake and running across the world for a man she barely knows. and I've seen other suggestions, more comic, more dark. I've seen so many theories.

I just, I don't understand how they're going to do it. But we have two episodes to go. Let's see. I wonder if some of our kind of maybe misplaced grief from this is what actually came with unjust like that. Wasn't Justin and just like that, but you said, Beth, but by osmosis, it just brought back the whole of sex and the city into culture.

It influenced fashion. It influenced younger, then starting to watch the show, the references were abundant. It created a whole narrative at a time when I needed it as a 31 year old single woman that perhaps was missing for a bit. I mean, we're always talking about sex and city. It's never truly gone away. But it was like everyone's best friend the minute the show came back. And I think what we have to remember is we can still indulge and keep carrying the girls alive in our hearts. Can you imagine if they just did like a spin-off, but just with Samantha, like, whatever she's been up to. That would

be my dream. This is what people want. I don't know if either of you went to Kim Cottrell's Instagram. Of course I did. And her Instagram comments were like flooded with people being like, we need a Samantha Jones spin-off. You're still the most fab. Like you've not been forgotten. And I honestly, I bet she reads that. And she's like, gullies, you need to get a fucking life. It's like that meme of the guy who's like dancing vigorously in front of the camera, all the lights were on and the captions like, the party ended four hours going. He's still here. Like, the fans are still so, they're not going to go away. And I think. like waiting for Kim see to return it's like it's over girls and gays it is truly done on a

personal level that's my favorite meme I love that meme so much he is dancing with absolute gusto I love him oh he ate he ate I don't think I've seen it I'll send it to you after actually I don't know how I'll find it I'll find it you know what I would want to see I would want um carry to get with my favorite ever of her prospects which was like the politician guy who just want he just All he wanted was her to pee on him a little bit. Piss guy, yeah. Like, played by, what's that man's name, John Slattery or something, Flattery. Like, the husband of the internet, he's looked basically 60 for his entire life, Eiji, gorgeous.

Oh, I'd love that. I'm assuming he's not in the spinoff and he's not going to be the man she ends up with. No, because all they do is bring these miserable men into the series. They never bring the fun ones back. Wouldn't be cancelled if she just pissed on him. In a piece for The Spectator last year, Michael Hahn wrote, The fate of the pop musician, at least the pop musician below the top tier of stardom, has historically been to fall from fashion.

At some point in their rise, they will be of the moment, the spirit of the age, and then they won't be. At best, they'll have a slow but perfectly lucrative fade as their fan-based windles to the zealots. At worst, they'll become a punchline, a raised eyebrow. What were we thinking? Every hit, every sold-out show is just another step closer to irrelevance. But in the piece, which is from last year, he goes on to say how a combination of the pandemic

and the way that trending music works on platforms like TikTok, the bands that would have disappeared into oblivion are now being given a second chance. And this has never felt truer than right now. My explore page the other day informed me that scouting for girls are going on tour, as well as blue. And then, of course, there's Oasis, probably the most infamous sort of, reunion tour of our age. Five are going back on tour, the stereophonics, busted versus McFly. It is nostalgia sitting out here. So off the back of this, I wanted to ask you two very simple

questions, she says. One, which bands would you love to see making a comeback? I'll go first because for me it's the cooks, obsessed. And then the second slightly more social question is how do you think social media impacts younger generations' relationship to the music that they choose to listen to because they do maybe have a bit more of an eclectic taste than we would have done and I do kind of love it when you go on TikTok and there are Gensie really cool kids listening to songs that maybe we even thought were a bit cringe at the time. There's something quite hopeful about it. So I would love to see Blue back again. I think that they seem like a group of nice boys and I know they're not boys anymore but I think they seemed good and they had

some absolute hits behind their belts. So I'm happy with blue being back in the limelight. And in terms of eclectic music taste, I definitely had, I had this realization. I think it was earlier this year. I was just walking through a local park. And there were what looked to be 13 year olds, I can't presume their age, riding their bikes, young boys, teenage boys, and they were listening to MGMT kids. And I had this visceral like slap across the face. And I was like how do they know this song? Where have they heard that song? Because I've not listened to that song for probably like a decade plus. And to me now, if I heard somebody, you know, putting that on at a house party, that would feel nostalgic and that would feel like a blast from the past. I'm not,

you know, I'm not hearing that in adverts. I'm not seeing it across the culture. So yeah, it was very interesting and felt like this very obvious hit across my face moment of just thinking, oh shit this must be just like a different way of consuming music that I just have no idea about and I think my sister says this all the time she is firmly genzy and is eight years younger than me she listens to naughty's music all the time she said she barely listens to current music and whether it's garage whether it's um you know like r and b she goes to naughty's nights all the time. And it's so, it's so interesting because she wasn't alive for any of those songs to come out. So it is purely from TikTok. It is purely from people using that music again. I remember

Jay Sean, getting like a boost in the culture recently. And Jay Sean is great. I will not hear a word against it, but purely because of TikTok. And in a way, it is really fascinating. And I really love that these people are getting a second, third, fourth chance at being able to come back on tour and there is no concept of dying a quick death in that way. But also at the same time, I do think if you're a new artist trying to break into the industry, it must be fucking mad. It must be insane to try and get your music listened to you. It is just kind of, you're playing the lottery all the time, hoping or kind of curating a song that is designed to go viral on TikTok. It has nothing to do with you. And the fact that we don't listen to charts,

we don't listen to the radio in the same way. The odds are so scattered in different directions. It feels like music has hit so hard by TikTok even existing. I love this for the older artists, but I also feel quite sad for new artists. I know Chapel Vernon has been doing this for like 10 years and she got her break last fucking year. It just proves it is the stakes are so high and the hoops are so high for entry to like get yourself heard now.

So yeah, that's what I think. What do you think, Beth? That was such an excellent point that I need to pin for a second because the minute you mentioned Blue, my millennial brain started working. I would also love to see Blue reform. I was obsessed with Duncan James. I, as of this summer, have gotten really, really obsessed with one of Simon Webb's solo songs, which is called, I mean, you'll know this.

I made you listen to this. I made everyone listen to this at my 30-second birthday, maybe seven or eight times. His song, No Worries, which I think is such a fine song. song. Me and my best friend just got quite drunk just for my birthday party. And we were DMing, like, celebrities on Instagram trying to get them to acknowledge that Simon Webb's song, No worries is song in the summer. I emailed Elton John, Harry Stiles, Al-Lavine. I tried to email all the take that boys, but a lot of them have their DMs off. I got really, really obsessed with it. And then I got to thinking just now, while you were making

like, smartest point that I've ever heard, I was like, do either of you remember or not? You probably wouldn't have remembered at the time. But in 2001, just after the September 11 attacks, Lee, like Learine and Blue were in an interview. They were trying to break America. And basically, Lee Ryan completely put his foot in it and, like, kiboshed their whole attempt to break America because he made a really offensive comment about 9-11. Do either if you remember this? It's one of my favorite dark pop culture stories. No. What did you say? It was awful. So basically, they had an interview. I think it was with The Sun and Lee Ryan claimed that the attacks were like blown out of all proportion. He basically said, who gives a fuck about New York when elephants are being

killed? They're ignoring animals that are more important. Animals need saving and that's more important. This New York thing is being blown out of all proportion and in the interview like there's a there's a transcript of it and the other boys are like, shut the fuck up, shut the fuck up, shut the fuck up. And he did apologize. But it was such an incredible gaffe. Like how awful is that? He basically apologize and was like, I'm really sorry, we will donate all the royalties from our next single to the Twin Towers Fund. But just one of those pop culture moments, you kind of can't believe is real. But if they reformed, I think all is forgiven. I would go and see them. I would also go and see Shotcarra one direction. Guys, quickly, blue are on, blue are on tour right now. Did you not look at

right? No, I thought they were getting back together. I did hear that. I did hear that, which is why I said it was great that they're back. Yeah, I know, because initially when you were talking, like, I'd love to see Blue. And I was like, Girlie Wally's, I told you that along with Scouting for Girls Blue, yeah, because there was actually quite a cringy video, what I thought was cringy, of Milakunis and Ashton Coucher dancing. I thought quite performatively at a Blue concert this week. But yeah, they're back. And they're all over my for you page. So, Beth, can you come up with a different band that you'd love to see Reform, please? Well, one direction would be my, I would 1,000% go and see them, obviously, Shotka. I mean, I wasn't whatever they're called, a directioner,

directioner, but I would, even if this happens in like 50 years, I will fight a teenager to go and see one direction, obviously. I was also thinking like a band like the Proclaimers, but apparently they're still together as well and still touring. You know, they're like the Scottish band from the 80s? Yeah. Weren't they on at Glastonbury? Yeah, they are, apparently they have never stopped touring. They just had an album out a couple of years ago. I don't really, it turns out I'm not a real music fan. I don't know anything. But yeah, I'm just on the ticket muster now. Blue are performing next year as well. So we could go to Norwich, Henley on Thames.

They're performing a lot in Henley on Thames, I'll tell you that much. I also used to love Bastille, but they could well still be going. I don't really know. I think they might be. I got invited to an event where Bastille are playing, so I'll forward you the email babes. Go see them. Oh my God.

Love Bastille. I think I do. I agree completely with what you both said, and especially what you said, Ruchera, about like, this is for younger artists. And I think in the spectator piece, there's a lot made of like the approach for older artists who are coming back is actually not. TikTok based. It's about like, okay, where are your fans located? Do you have an email list? How do we tap into this? And I do wonder, for like longevity's sake, this approach to virality, you know, TikTok is such

a tool. I think record heads are like, just do this dance, just go viral, just hammer this sound home and people will listen to it. And yeah, in the short time, they will. But in terms of like longevity, what is in place for them in like 20, 30 years to stay relevant or to become relevant And again, like, when you locate such a lot of importance on momentary virality, it's like, I don't think someone will be like, oh, I remember that dance. I'm going to get lowly young tickets or whoever is big now, but perhaps might have need a little bit of resurgence down the road. Like, TikTok might not even exist then.

So it does feel like a lot is being located on, like, the ephemera of it. And I wonder how that would affect the kind of future revivals of people that are currently huge. But we know, like, all of today's big acts will not remain that way. and it does just feel very short-sighted. And, I mean, TikTok sounds as well. It is a shortcut to make me hate a song to force me to listen to 15 seconds of it

when I'm just trying to brain rot. It really, it drives me nuts. And I think it sort of encourages people to consume songs and music in a way that's actually quite hollow and shallow. I don't know if you saw CMAT, the Irish singer musician, recently had a big success on TikTok

with one of her songs, which is Take a Sexy Picture of me, which is a really, really good song, sort of about sexuality and how we prize youth and how as women we sort of feel like we are over the hill at like 27 and there was a viral dance associated with that which did such good work I think in getting that song to as many years as possible but then there was this so there's a line in it's like of all the things that she did it was like I did the butcher I did the baker I did the home and the family maker I did school girl fantasies and there was initially people getting

the song and being like great I'm going to do the dance but then there was this little backlash not a full backlash but people going well that's disgusting school go fantasies that's problematic that's disgusting it's like well if you listen to the song that's what it's about it's a catchy pop song with also a lot of weight and a lot of like a lot of brains behind it and I just think it's

it leaves room for basis outrage and encourages people to consume in a way that is quite shallow and his very one note and I think that's just the whole machine for me I just don't feel very hopeful in it for younger artists agree with everything you both said but because on the one hand I kind of love that scouting for girls

are having their time again. I think they're such a good example of the kind of band that you probably wouldn't expect to reform. On the flip side of that, as someone that does have to do social media for work, when I don't use a trending song, it does impact my views and likes and engagement on my post, which drives me insane because I also find it absolutely infuriating if you do go on the real sing and everyone's using the same song over and over again. And I always find it really interesting when someone posts a song that I haven't heard for ages or a song that I've never heard of before, because that's what would be better if people were just sharing music that you'd actually never heard from random bands that you'd never heard of ever.

But it's frustrating that it's gamified in that way again because sometimes I think that. And I used to do it when I used to do my morning stories of me making a coffee, I'd always pick a different random song from my very eclectic taste. And people are like, oh my God, I love the song, I've got the song, but I actually don't on general post because it negatively affects them. And so that is what's annoying is everyone kind of has to play up. to the parameters of the algorithms.

So what's that saying a thing of two halves and a dozen of each or whatever? I think I've just bastardised two phrases together. I was like a bird in the hand is bush in the bush? Something else. It's a bit of this and it's a bit of that and then it's a bit of nothing as well. Silence.

Can we end on that? Yeah, I think you absolutely can. Thank you so much for listening this week. And thank you to Q Podcast for this production. Before we go, just checking that you've listened to our latest Everything in Conversation episode, which came out on Wednesday, where we looked at the controversial American Eagle ad featuring Sidney Sweeney. If you enjoy listening to us, then please do leave us a rating and a review on your podcast player app.

Could you also please please, please follow us on Instagram and TikTok at Everything is ContentPod. See you next week. Bye. Bye. Thank you.