Pop Culture Happy Hour - Étoile

Episode Date: April 28, 2025

Étoile is the latest series from Amy Sherman-Palladino, the creator of Gilmore Girls and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. It's about the wacky goings-on between two prestigious but struggling ballet companies, one in New York, and one in Paris. You'll see some of your favorite actors from the Gilmore and Maisel universes all speaking that signature rapid-fire, joke-dense patter. But can a comedy set in the rarified world of professional ballet find its audience – and be funny? Étoile is streaming on Prime Video.To access bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening for Pop Culture Happy Hour, subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour+ at plus.npr.org/happy. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Etois is the latest series from the creator of Gilmore Girls and the marvelous Mrs. Maisel. It's about the wacky goings on between two prestigious but struggling ballet companies, one in New York and one in Paris. You'll see some of your favorite actors from the Gilmore and Maisel universes all speaking that signature rapid-fire joke-dense patter. But can a comedy, set in the rarefied world, a professional ballet, find its audience, and be funny? I'm Glenn Weldon, and we're talking about Etois on this episode of

Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. Joining me today is the co-host of Slate's ICYMI podcast and former Pop Culture Happy Hour producer Candice Lim come crawling back. I knew you would. Welcome back, Candice. Hi, Candice, good to see you. Also joining us as NPR producer Corey Antonio. Welcome back to the show, Corey Antonio.

Thank you for having me. Always great to have you. It's only been two years since the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel ended its five-season run. Now Amy Sherman Palladino, ASP, tour fans, is back with Etois. which she co-created with her husband Daniel. It's her second series set in and around the world of ballet, but where bunheads revolved around a ballet school, etoile stakes are higher,

as it's about two professional dance companies. There's one in New York run by Jack, played by Luke Kirby, and there's one in Paris run by Jean-Viev, played by Charlotte Gainsburg. Both are dealing with plumbeting ticket sales, and amid much hand-wringing about the need to save ballet itself as an art form.

The two companies decide to swap, but their most valuable members for one season. Launch a massive transatlantic marketing campaign to bring the audience back to us. Get people interested in dance again. Put fresh faces out there. Maybe do a documentary or a reality show about the swap. New York acquires the brilliant but belligerent.

No kidding. She is a profoundly unpleasant person. A star dancer named Cheyenne. She's played by Ludo Lodge. And Paris acquires the, let's just call them, quirky, choreographer named Tobias, played by Gideon Glick. Etois is streaming now on Prime Video. We should mention that Amazon supports NPR and pays to distribute some of our content.

Corey Antonio, kick us off. What you think. Oh, wow. What a watch. I don't think that it is, you know, in the land of theater procedurals, I don't think it lives up to maybe the legacy of a smash or a glee. But it is a great watch if you are a real fan of ASP. work of that style of dialogue.

And I think that it does make some gestures at some of the biggest problems that are facing the theater industry today. Gestures. Ah, I see. We'll come back to that. How about you, Candice? So, first off, I've never had better posture in my life. The show is very inspiring. But it's tough.

I like this show because I will watch anything ASP makes. I was Gilmore Girls indoctrinated at 12. I did watch Bunheads that will come up later. But my thing is I have this feeling. Some people are going to find this boring because all of ASP shows are very athletic. And the question is, where is the sport? I think in her most critically acclaimed shows, Gilmore Girls, Marvel's Mrs. Maisel.

The sports and the dialogue. And Maisel was literally stand-up comedy. The thing about Bunheads is that, like, it was about the dance. There were so many dialogue less scenes. and I think some people kind of faded out. I started to have that when I was watching this show, and I was kind of like, ah, like I keep in because I want to know what happens, and I love ASP, and I love her perspective.

There's just a lot of ways that this show is really slow. One of that might be the fact that they bounce between French and English. Right. But at the end of the day, the reason I watch a show is because I love Luke Kirby. Luke Kirby was my favorite person on Maisel, and he is a star. I locked in for him. Okay. We'll talk about those ballet sequences.

There's a lot of them. I mean, ASP, you know, we've talked about this. She's got a style. She's got a vibe. She's got a series of very specific ticks. And they are ticking away. Those ticks are ticking away like a time bomb here. And they are in evidence.

And while I don't think this is her at her height, particularly the beginning and at the end. But in the beginning, you can feel the actors trying to get into this very complicated and syncopated rhythm of dialogue. You can also feel the writing struggling too, especially in the early going. here is a moment where you can tell that the show just isn't on its game yet. Here is Charlotte Gainsburg as Jean-Viev. Face the facts, Jack. A lot of our dancers have abandoned

toeshoes for TikTok. Okay. I kept watching after that because I, that's how selfless I am. That is very rightly writing that if everything is working wouldn't stand out, it wouldn't land with a thud the way it does.

But I want to be clear here what I'm about to say, it could come off as agist, but ASP is just a couple years older than me. So it's not ageist when I say, that is not how you write about young people. That's not even how you write middle-aged people talking about young people. That is just writing that's calling more attention to itself than what it's attempting to convey, which again, that's our thing, right?

But when every quirky character we meet on this show is, like Tobias, the choreographer, is quirky not in the way that people are quirky in real life, but quirky the way people are on an Amy Sherman Palladino show. It's a metaphor from the jump. There's a running gag where people make puns that the theater is named after a family call. called fish. That's just sweaty. But here's the thing that I want to talk to you guys about. Even when an Amy Sherman Palladino show is not working, it's still pizza, right? It's still recognizably pizza. Pizza famously, even bad pizza is still delicious. And even at her worst, and I think we'll talk about this too. But in the final episode this season, a cascade of things happen that would never ever happen in real life because the people in the real world don't

do the things that Amy Sherman Palladuna requires of her characters to do. You see all the ticks, all the mannerisms, all the self-indulgences, but I kept watching with a big smile on my face. I think I get what you're saying because something that people don't really talk about enough is that ASB technically is an auteur of television and of comedy, right? She is in the lane of Mindy Kaling and Shonda Rhyme. She just doesn't get thrown into that conversation a lot. But I think what you're talking about is like if you're geared into ASP, it's because all of her shows do have a through line and there's a thread. And I think one of them is eccentricity. Sure.

The one thing about this show I notice is that all of these people who are eccentric, so we're talking Tobias Bell, my favorite, the choreographer played by Gideon Glick, Luke Kirby, all these characters, they are eccentric, but I actually wondered if the issue is that they're too famous. Like in this show, both companies, they have this public presence. They have to represent ballet. They have to represent the next generation of, you know, their cities and what art means and arts threaten it. It's on me to fix it. And I kind of wondered if part of that was the issue. or at least for me the barrier between like understanding them as people. Because to me I was kind of like I feel so outside of this world that feels conservative,

almost kind of like in an academic space that like I just want to know who you are, but you won't let me in. And I don't know whose fault that is. I think the actors are trying. I think the characters are just maybe kind of like in two different spaces, literally. I think that there's a little bit of truth to what she's trying to do. And then I think it might go a little bit of a step too far. I think about the through line between Maisel, Bunheads, and Itual, and what I think about is this sort of, she's in conversation with industry a lot, or she thinks heavily about industry, entertainment industry, theater, industry, ballet, what have you. You know, you do meet a lot of larger-than-life personalities. And I saw her playing with the archetype of, like, the theater administrator who understands that the theater is supposed to be a progressive space, but actually doesn't have those.

tenants. I think she just got really at home in that space. And for people who aren't in the theater space, I feel like they get left behind or there's a little bit of like an insider speech where we know what that personality feels like. And so it's less of a jump. But then if you're not in theater, you're like, okay, I wouldn't last two seconds in this rehearsal room or I would have called my union rep on the first day, what have you. That's true. And then I also think gets compounded by the fact that Bunheads, when they were talking crazy to each other, it was also within the confines of this school that was kind of in the middle of nowhere. Exactly.

This is like quasi New York. We kind of know these people. We kind of don't. There's just a lot going on. And the personalities just add to it. Yeah, that's a great point. Because ASP comes from a showbiz background. Her dad was a working comedian.

He wrote gags for Joey Bishop. Her mom was a dancer on Broadway. But she's always had this fascination with this world. of old money and erudition and class, the class in America, right? And so Gilmore Girls, you had Richard and Emily. Maisel was basically diving headfirst back into the world of showbiz that she basically grew up in. But here we're back in that world of class and wealth. And what is a very rarefied, high-minded, I mean, you might consider it elite.

You might consider it elitist art form of ballet, which she is passionate about. Clearly, she is trained as a dancer. It's important to her. But there are all these dance sequence. that start to feel to me, an uncultured Joe lunch pail, they start to feel like homework. I get the feeling that the show wants to bring ballet to the unwashed masses like me, sitting on my couch, you know, wiping funyon dust on my pants. They're there to lift us up and transport us and to make us, you know, something revelatory and life-changing.

And I think she really believes that. I really think that that's what those sequences are trying to do. And there's that scene in Always Sunny where Denny DeVito's character, is watching Rob McElanee's character dance and his like metaphor for his coming out process. And then at the end, Danny DeVito character says, I get it now. And that's supposed to be me. That's the moment she wants me to have. But Philistine Me just sits there and I don't get it.

And I'm just distracted by really basic things. Like how much money Amazon is throwing at this show. They are filming on location in Lincoln Center in Central Park in Paris. And that's not what I should be thinking about. I should be thinking about. these sequences. How did all of those sequences land on you guys? Oh, wow, my heart breaks because maybe I'm the sap. I really thought that the show was really good. You're Danny DeVito. Oh, wow. I mean, I thought that the show was really good at capturing some moments of the magic of

theater. I thought that that scene in between Cheyenne and Susu. The young girl. Yes. The young girl who, you know, sort of sneaks into the ballet studio at night and does these classes on her mom's phone, they have this sort of moment right before the Nutcracker, where they're saying this prayer to another ballet artist. And it's just a sweet moment. Watch over me tonight and guide my dancing spirit. For you were the prima of all ballerinas. For you were the prima of all ballerinas. Inspiring women with your grace and beauty. Inspiring women with your grace and beauty. And lighting a fire in the of men.

And men like you too. And it's one of those things where if you've done a show, if you've been that young artist with that austere teacher who you're so unsure, like, how did this lady get this way? Those moments, scenes like that, they really hit for me. Now, there were some times where I was like, oh, that's a stunt double. And I think that's part of the reason why it takes us out. Yeah. Yeah, I just want to mention that Susu, the little girl you're mentioning, is played.

She's got a great deadpan. that actor. It's LeMay Zhang and she's pretty great. Yeah, I mean, this is interesting because unfortunately I am kind of on the couch with Glenn where like, is this an issue about showing versus tell? Because I like ASB because she does a lot of tell. Luke told Laura like exactly what he wanted on that porch and they made it happen. Whereas this show and Bunheads, it's a lot of show, which makes sense. It's about ballet.

But the part that you're loving, Cori Antonio, is the part that I also love when like mentorship. happens and I know a lot of people kind of see mentorship either as something super corny or something that like is kind of like forced but I do think that Cheyenne if we can talk about like just characters for a second

I like her I think she is absolutely going to be a pain in my ass one day probably but the thing is at first I was like is she the main character is she Lorelai and I was like no no no she's Jess that's why I hate her she is Jess

from Gilmore Girls Season 2, because in the first episode, when she jumps off that plane and she goes right to Lincoln Center, she has this huge military green knapsack and combat boots. And I went, that's exactly what Jess brought to Stars Hollow. So I love her because I love Jess. Yes. So there's a character on the show we haven't talked about yet. That's Mishi. She's one of the dancers traded to Paris from New York. She's played by Taise Vanu.

I understand you have some thoughts, Corey, Antonio. You know, as a fan of Bunheads, I was so glad to see. another black person getting the chance to step into those ballet shoes. That was something I really did miss on Bunheads. And I thought that the actress who played Mishi, Tice Finolo, did a really wonderful job of sort of crossing that threshold of maturity where you kind of really have to finally confront a lot of the things that happened as a child between you and your parents and cut that cord.

And I thought she did a wonderful job. So throughout the show, there is a plot against us. her. And one of the undertones definitely feels to me, it's explained in the show as they think she's untalented. But when you have this character who is the only black character whose interiority we are allowed to really glimpse into, you cannot really ignore the fact that this entire company of people of not even students now, full grown adults, have conspired to kick this lady out of her job, this young woman away from her job, and not address. the fact that she's also the only, I guess she's not technically the only black woman in the company,

and that's why it's not a dress, because we do see some background characters. You might see someone standing out a locker or tying their ballet flats. I don't know. We just don't get enough of what an American audience is going to see as an obvious undertone of something like that. It's true. I felt like there were so many things that the show tried to gesture to here and there, but instead of really making an interesting show by diving deep into how a theater company, how a ballet company would actually try to get butts in the chairs, they kind of hung it all of those things on this one premise of,

we're just going to switch the dancers. And then, you know, what happens at the end sort of happens at the end. And it's like, oh, but how did we, they didn't learn any lesson. They didn't do any work. Yeah. And I think that a much more interesting path for me,

or something that could probably be more interesting for somebody who doesn't necessarily care as much about the ballet of it all is how is a failing company going to succeed. Right. I'm glad you mentioned that because, like, you mentioned something at the top about how it was making gestures towards something without addressing it. That's a great point. I see what you're saying. I think that's a function of that this isn't the world of ballet. It's the world of Amy Sherman Palladino's head. She has a writer's room.

It's a small one, but it's a real one. And, you know, her husband, Daniel, is a co-creator. and a co-show runner of the show. It's not just her voice, but it is that sensibility. It's all filtered through this very singular, very recognizable sensibility. That is fascinated by certain things

and not interested in other things. And a lot of the other things are kind of left vaporous on this show, just kind of hanging in the air. Like why this girl is the only black girl in her company with lines? For example. Either company with lines. That's true. That's true.

I'd say this show is something like Willie Wonka Meath Smash. I will say one thing I do appreciate about ASP is that she does require a certain level of attention that I don't think a lot of shows ask for these days. I think to various degrees we're all kind of still grappling with this series. I think we all agree it's worth checking out, though, right? Yeah. If you would buy tickets to Aaliyon Tour, then give the second episode a try. Yes, definitely get to the second episode. At least. We want to know what you think about Etois. Find us at Facebook.com slash PCH. That brings us to the end of our show.

Candace Lim, Corey Antonio Rose, thank you for helping me figure out this show as I wasn't figuring it out when we started talking. Thank you very much. Thank you. And just a reminder that signing up for Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus is a great way to support our show and public radio. And you get to listen to all of our episodes sponsor-free. So please go find out more at plus.npr.org slash happy Happy Hour or visit the link in our show notes. This episode was produced by Huff Sefathema and edited by Jessica Reedy and Mike Katzav and Alokim and provides our theme music. Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Glenn Weldon and we'll see you all tomorrow.