Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - Lethally, Domestically Hot | Ep. 331

Episode Date: May 12, 2026

The guys talk The Running Man specifically, Stephen King broadly, and shows they've noticed that seem to be catering to distracted audiences before diving in to a titular quick question about their favorite portrayls of good marriages in film and TV. Thanks to Mint Mobile. Make the switch! MINTMOBILE.com/QQThanks to Keeper. Get 60% off personal and family plans at Keepersecurity.com/QQ. Follow the guys on Bluesky!https://bsky.app/profile/danielobrien.bsky.socialhttps://bsky.app/profile/sorenbowie.bsky.socialBonus episodes 2x/month at patreon.com/quickquestion OR Apple Podcasts

Question for you all right. What's on your mind? Question for you all right. I'm just glad that we can talk tonight. So what's your favorite? I think you'll have a great time, yeah. Hello America. You know me.

I'm G.O.B. Soren is here with me as always. Soren, say hello. Hey, everybody. Soren, boo, coming at you live from the garage. You know and love mine. I, uh, so I started watching the movie, the running man, the new one.

Yeah. And Coleman Domingo is host. He says, hello, America, you know me. I'm Bobby D. or something like that. Coleman D. Yeah, I'm Coleman D. And I was like, that's a nice way to introduce something. I'm going to try that the next time I go.

All of this is to say that, like, the stage of parenthood I'm in now is I've watched a little of the running man. And I will report back when I watch some of it next. week. Some more. You know, actually, so obviously this is the way I watch movies. I've made that pretty clear. The connoisseurins of the show will know that I watch movies over the course of two weeks.

I think that it's made me a better writer. Oh. And maybe you found this as well, but I'll watch the first act of a movie and then be like, okay, I know what the problem is. Yeah. How do I think, what is going to be their false summit? Like, what is going to be the way that they think they're going to solve it? and it doesn't work, and then what is going to be the actual solution? So I can, I'm not just sitting there, like, letting it wash over me,

and I'm getting from beginning to end being like, not even questioning what might happen. I now get to get, and also get through the second act, and then I'm like, all right, well, what would my resolution be here? And, like, I come up with my own movie, basically. Well, here's the interesting thing about Running Man that I've, that I can say right off the bat from the little that I've seen. This movie, because it's an Edgar Wright movie, is fucking. tight. It is so, it jumps you in so fast. It really, it's, uh, have you seen it? No. The Glenn Powell running man. No. It's, you, it's so efficient. It's, it's almost laughable how efficient it is because in the very beginning, you, you immediately know what kind of guy Glenn Powell is and he gets fired because for being a good

guy and he gets continuously fired for being a good guy in this dystopic future. You get the, the stakes of his family life that he's got a sick daughter and everyone is struggling because they're poor. He pretty immediately is like, I will do anything for money except this show, The Running Man. I'm not going to do The Running Man because that's a bad show that I don't agree with. And by minute 10, he's like signing his name to do The Running Man. And I'm like, this is so fucking tight. It's so efficient. I can't stand it.

It sounds like it's a lot more faithful to the book than the Arnold Schwarzenegger one. I haven't read the book or seen the Arnold Schwarzenegger one. but the things that I have read about this movie when it was coming out is that, yes, you're right about that. And it looks awesome. I'm so I'm so pumped for it. I can't wait to watch a little bit more of it later. There were, I really enjoyed the original one. I liked the original movie a lot as a kid.

It just like was in that right in that sweet spot of when I was young seeing a movie like that. As a result, as an adult, as a result as an adult, when I'm on my way to work. When I'm on my way to work, I, I listened to a lot of books on tape, and I'll find books where I'm like, oh, the Running Man book. I never actually read that. Let's just, let's crank through it. And it's a completely different story. I mean, cannot be more different.

And then the same thing happened with I Robot, too, where I was like, I, you know what, I really liked I Robot. I think I might be the only one, but I enjoyed that movie. And then I read Asimov, I robot. And I'm like, oh, this is not the same story by any means. Is the I Robot book not a fun action movie? It is not a fun action movie. Will Smith, not even in it. Isn't that crazy?

That's such an adaptation choice that I genuinely love so much. When someone writes like a thoughtful book that is a commentary on a thing, which I imagine iRobot book was because that was a lot of what Asimov was doing. And then they're like, yeah, let's make this a movie. I like the parts with robots. Well, but it's the things like that. It's basically it's a bunch of little vignettes or like a bunch of short stories that are all philosophical questions about robotics. But they're all told through this one woman who created the first sentient robot telling a journalist.

And so you're getting a bunch of them, but they're all connected in some way. And this story. And I kept waiting. I was like, oh, well, the I robot story I know will surely be one of them. It's not. It's like it's not in there at all. And the fact that they did such a good job making a new one, like a new vignette essentially, for the eye robot. robot out of the i robot book i'm like yeah that one that one easily could have been in there one

one other thing i'm noticing about watching movies and stuff the way that i'm watching now a little bit well there's two ways that i'm watching movies one is is a little bit at a time uh in between baby stuff and another is everyone has gone to sleep and i'm not quite ready to sleep yet um so i will put something on that uh i can potentially fall asleep too and a lot of the times it's west wing because that's a really good show. I always like it. And it's just a whole lot of people in rooms talking and saying numbers,

which is very helpful for falling asleep. And I'm not worried out. I'm missing anything because I've seen it a dozen times. But a thing I'm finding when I'm putting a newer thing on, there's, I don't know if this is true or if I've just made it true because I've been infected by it, but there's been a lot of chit-chat lately that internally at Netflix and some of these other streamers,

the marching orders to their writers and producers of shows is that you need to constantly restate the plot and what's going on because people are on their phones all the time that's like according to Netflix's all knowing all seeing algorithmic data everyone is watching TV and looking at their phones at the same time and so you need to like dumb it down by restating what's happening I heard that a few months ago and I thought that's interesting I'm going to I think I'm going to look out for that because that's a fascinating

if true thing. A trickle-down storytelling thing. And I feel like I have noticed it on the boys because now I'm watching TV very quietly at night while baby and wife are sleeping

and I have captions on and I'm really locked in to what I'm watching if it's not West Wing putting me to sleep. I'm locked in to like the hour of fiction that I get to watch every couple of days. And I don't know if the boys is just stretching out this season or if or if Amazon Prime also got the directive that people are are doing the two screen experience. So you need to say the premise over and over again. But man, this season has it's crazy for a show that has like 18 main characters. It's got like two

agendas. Homelander, the bad guy, is trying to get this special compound V1. Yeah. Because it'll make him immortal. And the good guys are trying to get it first so they can either destroy it or use it for the superheroes they like. And no one for a few episodes is sure where it is. But everyone has that same goal. We need to get this thing and do this thing with it. And and that is not a complicated objective but they say it so many times

they say it to new characters who come in they're like hey you haven't know you didn't know this but but we need to find the V1 V1 has been destroyed we actually don't think it has been destroyed we think this other guy might have it and so we're trying to find someone

to get to him to get to V1 why would you want V1 you weren't here for this we're trying to stop Homeland for being immortal because we have this virus that can kill superheroes and if he gets this, then he'll be immune to the virus. Oh, that's a good reason to get it. Okay.

So now that you are on board, we can go and do this thing. And then a character will say it to a character who already knows it. They'll repeat the same thing. It's just like it really feels like this is for someone who is not paying attention. This is for someone who is not. Daniel at 9.30 at night, locked in and reading this show as it goes along, waiting for another thing to happen. I would like some information that is not the plot of the show that I've been watching.

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Taxes and fees extra. See MintMobile for details. I have run into this in our own show where we are... Our show, quick question where every couple of minutes, we restate the question that we asked at the beginning of the episode, as we always do. We refresh it for the audience, so they don't forget. Which is tough because we don't ask the question until 45 minutes in. That's right. You really got to slam in a lot of them right there at the end. I found that you will write a writer's draft and it will come in.

And then that first round of notes you get from a showrunner is I don't, like, I'm a little lost. I'm a little lost here. And you're just like, you're just putting in these lines that like restate where everyone stands, like where they're like, whatever the crisis is, what it means to each of them, what the stakes are. And you're just like peppering that in. And then you'll get to the color screening or whatever and you'll be watching it. And you see it all at once. And the show and I'll be like, take all this out. Like, yeah, dude.

Yeah. Of course. Because it looks different on the screen than it does on the page. And probably like you read it over the course of like three days instead of all it once. And so we will sometimes it'll slip through and sometimes you get like just a lot of restating of what's going on. I had an episode called The Curious Case of the Old Whole. which was a Wheels and the Legman episode. And man, those two, they state what they're doing

and what the problem is with why Steve is doing it so many times in the episode. We have sort of an opposite problem of last week tonight because we have so much information to say very quickly. So we can't restate the episode premise. We barely even say it once. We just have so many sad stats that we need to read. And you can't watch our show with a two-scrower. screen experience. We rely on you to, in fact, pause our show to read the pull quote that we have in the over the shoulder because there's just no time. Because we've just got, we have more sad facts that we need to get to. If you're doing anything with your second screen experience is we hope that you have printed out the transcript of this episode so you can read it along.

So you can actually follow what's going on. Yeah. This is a thing I've heard as well is that because not only is it the two screen experience, but you're also sometimes. times what a lot of people are consuming your show or whatever show it is cut up or movies even like cut up into little sections that are appearing on reels or whatever so you're getting a vertical screen experience and you're you needs to make it so that the movie is watchable in a vertical screen experience the entire thing because you don't know what's going to get cut up and so there's a lot more scenes where you're just like you're dead on with the actor you're at what is essentially what we are right now. which is just to the crown of your head. And you don't get fun shots. You don't get like two people talking at, if you had two people on either side looking at one another and talking, boy, that's, it's useless. You can't use that on reels.

And so they're like, they're accommodating to that. They're accommodating to the fact that some people will be watching a good portion of your movie on their phone. It's been such a fun and surprising. evolution of content. One of the side effects of living your life on Instagram as I do is you get fed movie clips and the way

they're presented to you it's not just like A, it's out of context, B, it's those vertical clips. C, there's sometimes like a white bar with text on the top that is just like, whomever posted it just their own little like

their little commentary on it. Like someone will post something he was like, dude had unmatched off the charts Riz. And it's the how you like that Apple's scene from Goodwill Hunting. And I watch that and I'm like, do people not born when I was born? Do they know what's happening that like there's a whole movie around this? That's important. And you'll sometimes get a clip with someone's commentary that was like, dude turned a liability into an asset. And it's a scene from the movie John Tucker Must Die

where someone pranked him by making him wear a thong. And he turned into the skid of wearing that thong and was like, this actually makes me a better basketball player. And then he does like a triple front flip and dunks the ball. And that's the end of the clip. And I feel like I need to jump in to be like, hey, we didn't like this movie. Whoever a 15-year-old is watching this clip now,

this movie came out it was like 2010 maybe it sucked this should not be circulated around as an example

of anything it was just not good don't think that it's good now don't think that we thought it was good we could all just forget about

John Tucker must die I spend a lot of time on those types of clips because I'm watching them on Facebook and I will see the text that appears above it

and a lot of time there's like a grammatical error in the text. Like, it's just like the laziest. They had one thing to do that was going to be a contribution to it, and it's generally wrong. I find this a lot with the show, Peep Show, because like, Peep Show, I'll get served up a lot of vignettes of that because I'll watch it. Your algorithm is tight, brother. You're not getting any of this John Tucker must die stuff.

I do not get it. And so I, but every single time, I don't know if it's unintentional or what, but like from the main peep show Facebook, account, it's always stuff is like grammatically wrong in it. And so I don't end up watching. I would say there's like 45 seconds of it that I just am not going to get because I'm sitting there trying to figure out if I'm in a dream or not and whether this actually makes sense. And then I'll find the missing word and I'll be like, oh, okay, but it's all the time.

So maybe that's intentional. Maybe they want you sticking around just to maybe nobody else is watching peep show. Maybe they're like, we can't get anybody to watch this shit. What if we spell something wrong And they'll spend a little more time on it. Wouldn't that be nice? There's a lot of fun to be had If you wanted to play with the idea of recycling old movie clips

And re-contextualizing them In a funny, detached way. But it's so hard and scary and impossible to do satire on the internet anymore it that it's best to just not try it because if you do an out of context clip from something and ape the voice

of an excited meme sharer with a funny lead in caption to it then I mean your satire it just becomes misinformation now it just goes in with all the other stuff that is just like everything has

funneled into one bucket that it just lies on the internet now that you're not allowed to do the jokes anymore. That feels like a thing that would be right in Cody's wheelhouse. I know. He's not allowed to do it. Cody has to do the news now. Cody's not allowed to do satire anymore.

Which is its own real fun satire. It's Cody, the chief instigator of misinformation, the breeding ground of misinformation. It has to do the news. The guy who resisted every directive to wink, to let, the audience know that he was joking. He refused to do it. And now he's just the news. I'm not going to hold an audience's hand in any way. And now he has to tell him the word fast. Now he has to tell them what the weather is. What a hell. Well, I'm glad you're watching The Running Man. I hope that it's good. I actually really like to watch that too. When it came out, that's why I was excited about reading the book. Reading, reading. I say reading. I don't.

I don't read anymore. I just listen to people tell me stories. So, Daniel, are you, you're not, you're only halfway through it? I am 10 minutes into the running man. I don't think that, I haven't checked runtime, but I don't think that's halfway. I sure hope not. What am I going to do for the next two months? Yeah, I can't wait for this installment of seven episodes where we talk about the running man as you start getting, you start slowly getting through it. The book is very good. You know that Stephen King, nobody knew that Stephen King wrote that for a very long time.

That was one of the Richard Bachman's? Yeah. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. It was the pseudonym. And then he had to come out and say, I'm actually Richard Bachman. Because there were several books. He got through several books as Richard Bachman.

Yeah. And then, and people, there were some people who I think suspected it. But there was, I don't think even at the time, an internet to be like, when I say I don't think there was an internet. I know there wasn't an internet at the time, but there wasn't a place. There wasn't some forum for people to go to. And he finally, I think enough people thought that it might be the case.

And finally he came out and said, yeah, I'm doing this. He felt that his stories, the, there wasn't the same moral system. And he felt like it wouldn't be a Stephen King book, which seems crazy to me. Because his team of Kigs all over the place. It seemed like he was just writing to write. Yeah. You wrote that mean car movie. Yeah.

A freak. I think it was the main character. He was worried that his main character didn't adhere to the same moral system as like the people in the stand and stuff like that. Yeah. And so he didn't want a part of that world. That's so, that's such another level of, uh, of authorship, of good, of good. authorship, good, good talent, Stephen King having those self-imposed rules. And I think about Donald Westlake, it was one of my favorite writers who wrote like the,

the, um, any of those, uh, Parker crime novels, like Parker, who, they, they made a bunch different adaptations of the Parker books. Um, but he's like, the gentleman thief who's, who's, who was, like, the best heist doer ever. And they're very serious and they're very dark. And he got, some ideas for these other crime books that he started writing. And he thought, well, they're not, this is a little too stupid and a little too funny for Parker. So it can't be Parker. I have to create a new character for it. So he created this character Dortmund.

And he also thought, like, this is so kind of funny and stupid that I don't even think I should be the author of it. And he created a pseudonym for these. he eventually like brought him under his own umbrella the way Stephen King has has taken everything in. Just a guy who's like just fearless in how prolific he is. That is just like this, this is not good enough to be under my name. So I'm just going to like give it to a pseudonym. I'm just going to publish all of these things under a pseudonym. And it's like, but what if you die tomorrow?

What if that's your last idea? What do you mean? Yeah, what if you, I have a question, what if you stop being a good writer all of a sudden? What if it leaves you? Aren't you terrified of that all the time? When I was a kid, I had zero passwords. Then I got email and I had one password. Now, as an adult, 25 to 40-ish, I have something like 600,000 passwords.

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slash QQ. The offer is only for podcast listeners. that's Keeperssecurity.com slash QQ for 60% off family and personal plans. Make sure you use our link so they know we sent you. Keepersecurity.com slash QQ. Do it. The Stephen King of it all is very funny to me because he had like three or four movie adaptations in the last year. Stephen King right now.

The guy who's, they've been making Stephen King things forever. And my mom and I were just talking about this because my wife and I are watching Widows Bay. That's the thing I can watch in the daytime. It's written by Katie Dippold, hilarious Freehold New Jersey native Katie Dippold. Three episodes so far, it's like spooky and comedy. And it's so Stephen King coded. And even when the title comes on screen,

it's like the font that they use in Stephen King things. And my mom and I were talking about it. I guess he just doesn't sue anyone for anything. Because I think Stephen King just, belongs to the world at this point. I think he's done so much that like a scary clown shows up in Widows Bay and it's like, well, you can't own that. No, but I'm Stephen King.

I understand. But you can't. But we own you understand. You gave all of this to us. Yeah. No one has more clearly like given their work to the audience. It said that like you finish your piece of, like it moved up for your book and then it belongs to them.

But like, no, that's never been clear for anyone other than. than Stephen King. Stranger Things. Stranger Things is just rip-up after rip-off from Stephen King. He has to just kind of sit there and take it. Because what's he going to do? Walk down to the patent office? You can't. You can't patent salt. You can't be mad when people put salt in their recipes. Yeah. Yeah. Even if you're the first one who did it. Well, this is actually helpful, Daniel, because I have a quick question for you. you. Shoot. Speaking of New Jersey

Natives, I was watching the movie Jersey girl. Jersey girl. Jersey boys. No. Jersey boys. I was watching the movie

called, God, I'm wanting to call it Paddington right now. What the fuck is? Patterson. Thank you. You're watching Patterson. Daniel, I was watching the movie Patterson.

And it, first of all, it's a very, if you know, haven't seen it, I recommend it highly to you because it's about basically a man who is his own city, like a city represented in one man because his name is also Patterson. He lives in Patterson in New Jersey, as you know, and he is a bus driver. So it's about like the artistry and beauty you can find in structure and being specifically a transit worker. Sure.

So I thought, oh, this is right for, this is just perfect for Daniel. Hell yeah. It's Jim Jermuch. So it's very slow and very strange. And also, I would say nothing actually happens. It's based around the poems of William Carlos Williams, who did write a whole book, I think, about that section of New Jersey. I don't know if he was born there, if he just lived there briefly.

But it's very slow, but it's really, really comfy. Like it's a comfy movie to sit in and watch. But it's not one you can predict a single thing about. the thing that's most comfortable or most cool, I would say, about this movie, is the relationship between him and his wife. So much so, so great is this relationship that I thought surely the twist was going to be that she's dead. This whole time he's just been coming home to an empty house and been imagining the whole thing. What's Patterson's wife's name, Elizabeth Cranford?

So if you're driving up the parkway, one of the exits is Elizabeth Cranford. It's like exit. 142, something like that. It's not a bad joke. Is Elizabeth Town also in New Jersey? No. Oh. Maybe.

Few. Okay. Anyway. Yeah, that's the thing. Nobody knows the other fucking... What do you call them? Burroughs. What do you call them?

Townships? No. No. No. There's something... There's something like 20 or 25 counties in New Jersey. What? Yeah.

The... Anyway, it doesn't matter. It doesn't fucking matter. You okay? Well, I was just thinking back to this guy was a, he used to do a radio show in New Jersey. No, where he would have people call in, but he was all the voices. Oh, Tom Sharpling? Tom Sharpling.

What was the show called? Not the really big show. The great show? The best show. Okay. So, obviously Tom Sharpley. Obviously Tom Sharpley, who could forget that name? He did the show, the best show, where he would have people call in from

different boroughs and we just make up a borough or I don't know if borough is the right word township in New Jersey and no one and I mean the show's only accessible in New Jersey so everyone from New Jersey are the ones listening they don't know that they're made up because there's so many of them in New Jersey that everyone's just like yeah sure Bridgetown sounds right so let's get back to my movie that I can ever remember the name of Paddington Paddington too the relationship with his wife is so good it's so endearing and beautiful and I'll just give you like a little snippet of it. She is an artist, but like not a working artist.

She is a, she's just inspired, constantly inspired. So she's painting their house, she's painting their curtains. She's painting her clothes while they're on her a lot. She's making cupcakes for the, for the farmer's market throughout the whole thing. And no matter what he, she buys a guitar in the middle of it and starts trying to learn a song, he comes home each day from his bus driving route and she's done some other bullshit in the house, some other like crazy thing has happened in the house. And he's just like so genuinely supportive of her.

And what she's working on. He's like, it does really make the house look more unique that it's all completely black and white now. And he's just so genuinely in love with her. And he really does appreciate that she's her artistry or like her creative endeavors. And she in turn, he is a poet during it. And so when he's on his bus routes, you can see him. You get a lot of him just like thinking of the first line of a poem. and like slowly getting the second line

and she's a lot of repeating. And then he sits in front of this waterfall and just writes a poem each day. And she loves the shit out of his poems. And they are so, so supportive of one another in a way that's like, it's beautiful. And they don't, they are not, there are things that happen in the movie where I would have lost my temper.

Sure. Or somebody would have yelled or somebody who'd been like, what? Why would you fucking do that? Neither one of them do that. They're both really understanding. They try to understand the other person's side. It's beautiful.

And I say all this to ask you, Daniel, have you ever seen in movies or television a marriage that's presented as cool? What do you mean presented as cool? Like, do you think that's the one in Patterson is cool? I think it's very cool. Okay, good. I think they have a very cool relationship. I think that in general, I think that marriage is presented as like this, oh, the old ball and shame, this thing that you got to deal with.

Or it's presented as let's test it. It's like you have made an, and which makes sense. Narratively, anything in your life where you make an oath, essentially, or a vow, now the next job is to test that vow or to test that oath. Or in a movie, it's the end game. It's the thing that you like get to. And movies, romantic comedies, they do a fantastic job of making courtships seem really cool and fun. Making dating and, like, fighting with and then getting to know someone and falling in love. They make that look very cool.

And then they fuck right out of town when it's time to make marriage cool. Sitcoms don't have a ton of great examples, I think, because... Probably the worst. Because they have... Well, like, you're married with children's sitcoms and you're... And those things where it's like hot wife, dumb husband kind of dynamic, especially they do a poor job. But even like the buddy sitcoms, the hangout sitcoms, because they're juggling a lot of characters and they want different like different pairings and different combos, it's almost always the best friend relationship is cooler and more likable than whatever the married relationship is. How I met your mother.

How about your mother? It's like the buddies do the cool adventures. Lillian Marshall. There's some admirable couple goals with them, but it's still like, if Marshall's going to do like the most fun thing, it's going to be with one of the boys. Like Scrubs is very guilty of this where it's like Turk and JD are clearly the love story at the center of this thing.

And then there are the sometimes relationships and wives that are like. And I also am, and I'm married to someone that I, that I also, like, not quite as much as my best friend, but, but like, it's pretty good. It's close. I'll say, I have several for this. Oh, great. The quickest and closest one, it sounds like to Patterson, and I feel like you would probably jump to this one also, is Fargo, Francis McDormant and John Carroll Lynch. We don't get a ton of their relationship, but every. bit that we do is so cozy and warm and wonderful.

And she is the pregnant cop who is solving the murder. And he's just always kind of at home. He's busying himself with his, he's entering a painting into a competition to turn his painting into a stamp with the post office. And his painting doesn't even come in first. He gets the three-scent stamp and some other fucks get the 29-cent stamp. but it's still just like she supports him

in his weird little thing he supports her there's so much chaos around her except when she comes home and has like incredibly lived in happy marriage and they've got a kid on the way and it's and it's

her relationship is tested at some point when some like high school guy asks her to dinner and has some like strange confessions of love for her and his life is falling apart and he's he's by all accounts like a handsome and seemingly successful guy but you just you can't you're throwing pebbles at a tank when you're coming up against the domestic bliss of john carroll lynch painting for his stamp competition you just

you couldn't bring enough guns to that fight them sleeping in their little full bed every night Yeah, that's actually a really great one. I do love that. I don't know that it's presented as like the moral center or like the anchor of that movie. But I don't know that it's cool to me. It might not be cool and there's still a sense that like the most exciting stuff for Marge is happening outside of her marriage. So my, because I have another one that's similar to that, but my counter to that. And that'll be almost done with all of mine.

Seth Rogen and Roseburn in Neighbors was like, was so fun and so exciting. After a sea of romantic comedies where the couples kind of hate each other and they like, the conflict is like, can we decide to love each other again? It's so nice to watch neighbors to see a couple having fun together because I have fun with my wife all for. the time. And it's one of my biggest pet peeves in a movie or TV show where you're supposed to believe that two people are in love with each other is that you don't see them having fun ever. And like that's most of what your relationship is going to be. It's just like being stupid and fun. And I think about the idea that I would have a neighbor with whom I was feuding, the idea that my wife would not be involved in that is insane to me. So it's nice seeing neighbor.

where it's like the two of them are in lockstep with everything. They're on the same page. He's not, I want to be in a frat. And she's like, but we have a baby now. They're both like, we are young and cool. Let's party with this frat. And then they were like, this frat is destroying our lives. Let's destroy this frat from the inside so we can, we can, we can thwart them.

And they just, they just fucking love each other. And there's such good partners and supportive teammates. And they're just like, yeah, marriage seems cool. Yeah. That's fun. Like that's the thing is like once you actually do get married, you are like, you realize like, oh, this is way more fun than I was led to believe. Like we are on the same team and all of this stuff. Even when we're scheming together, we're on the same team. Yeah.

And it's like it's really nice to always have somebody there who's like going to do whatever crazy thing you want to do with you. And they believe in it just as hard because you found each other. Like, this is it. This one is, I think, I think that's such a good one. That's, because I was thinking about that. I was like, what's like a good comedy where you have a, you have these couple that's lockstep and they're making bad decisions, but they're making them together. Right. It's such a great remedy to so many romantic flavored comedies.

I guess that's not a romantic comedy, but so many comedies where the wife is the obstacle or a casualty of the. demands fun. Yeah. Okay. So one I have, the first one I have, obviously, Walter and Schuyler. No, I'm kidding. The first one I like to think of ourselves as Tom and Shiv.

My first one is, I think this is maybe in the first time I really recognized it in a show. But Friday Night Lights. Oh, yeah. they are such a cool, fun couple. And they come home at the end of the day. And you're desperate for that in your own life when you see it because they unload to each other. It has sort of that same moral center feel to it as Fargo.

But it seems, they just seem like a cooler couple. They're like, they're really cool. And the way that they interact with the world, that's always like, they're thinking of them, of their family first. Every encounter, even when the other member is not there. And then, like, they're just coming back together, decompressing, doing their post-mortem of the day, and really trying to figure out, like, how are we going to raise this girl who wants to fuck? Yeah. Like, what, should we just let her? Yeah, I think we have to.

And, like, them coming to decisions together is so fun to watch. Even when Coach Taylor fucks up, like, forgets to tell Tammy that they're hosting all the boosters or something. Yeah. And she has to throw together a party at the last minute. You could tell it's upsetting, but it's also, like, I'm going to throw a hell of a party for you. And we're going to talk about it a little bit. And he's like very apologetic.

He's like, this is a thing that I forgot to do. And I appreciate you. And, you know, she's not going to drag her feet or embarrass him. They're going to talk about it because they're adults. But it's still like she understands family first. And this is what they apparently signed up for. I love them so much. They're wonderful.

And it's when they do, there are a couple of times in the, the first. five years of that show where they do, they do have fights and like, they're real fights. And it's upsetting to me as if you were just like, oh, I hope they work this out. Yeah, we're like, yeah. And they have like a legitimate fight.

It's really hard to watch because you're like, you want them to be, it's so much more fun to just see them be like, I'm on your team. I'm back. How is your day? And because that show is so good, you know that even when they, they get, when they eventually reconcile post-fight, they will have evolved with the new scars

from that fight. It's like, like the bad fights. I'm just like, things are going to be different now. And I know they'll heal together, but it's still, that, that, that door's not closing. They're constantly rebuilding and growing. Rebuilding and growing. It's great. It's really fun to watch. In fact, they put it in every single episode because it's so compelling. It's like, this couple's really fun to watch them. It's really fun to just watch them hold each other. Like make sure that the other one is held up. There's something that happens. I think it's in the first season.

They eventually come to make a joke about how Buddy Garrity, who is like the leader of the boosters, there's a lot of this Friday Night Live show that I loved that I don't entirely understand the communal hierarchy of what everyone's, like, I don't think Buddy Garrity is the mayor, but he seems to wield a tremendous amount of power influence in the town.

And he is the richest guy in the town. Comically showing up at the doorstep of the Taylor family throughout the entire run of that show unannounced. And there's something in the first season where Coach Taylor comes home and Buddy is already in the home. And Tammy, who is hosting All Smiles, says to coach Buddy's here. And it's a perfect subtextual. silent conversation that I don't know it's just an amazing marriage

of writing, directing, and performance where there was, where, because the dialogue has to just be buddies here and then the stage directions has to be a silent conversation takes place between Tammy and Coach Taylor about how she is unhappy that Buddy is here

and it is impacted her day and he's been here a while and coach has got a this. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Another one that I don't see in sitcoms anymore, and I think that we're worse off for it,

is Roseanne. In the first seasons of Roseanne, they, Dan and Roseanne take shots at each other. They say kind of hurtful things as jokes, but everyone is treated, so much grace between them. Like, they allow so much grace between them that there's, everyone's very, that treats it all very lightheartedly. So that when you, somebody, when Dan like makes a joke

about Roseanne, she will then sit with it for a second and then like make another joke back at him. And they're funny jokes. It's a show that is willing to not have everything be said in earnest, which is so much easier, especially when you're telling jokes,

if somebody's saying something crazy in earnest. They are actually joking with one another. What they're saying is supposed to be funny to the other person. And that's a real hard. thing to do in a sitcom. It's like, you think about Chandler Bing. Those aren't supposed to be jokes to anyone but us. He's just being mean to his friends.

He's just, yeah. Just a lot to be around. Because they're not sitting with that and laughing at his jokes. Like, he's just supposed to be a guy that's funny to anyone who happened to be watching, which would be an intolerable friend. But these two are doing it for one another. Like, it's, I've got something for you. And they're doing jokes with one another. And it's, they're genuinely good jokes.

Like, they're making fun. of each other and they're making fun of their kids and stuff like that, but they're not doing it. It's all, none of it feels mean-spirited. Yeah. It feels like, this is for you. Like, I want to, like, we're laughing together and that relationship is

real fun to watch. I think that they're very cool. It's very cool, Midwest family. Yeah. It's, it's, I guess they don't joke about each other as much on Bob's burgers, but that relationship is really nice, too. Because they laugh at each other's jokes.

that they, which, uh, Saurin, you must know coming from animation, that it's more work to make, to animate someone laughing than to animate them not laughing. And I appreciate the show is taking the time to make them laugh just to cue the audience that like, hey, they really like each other. They, you don't, it's, it's, we,

we want you to know that, that they're, they're having fun together and that's why they're married. Even if he's an idiot and he screws up and even if she's insane and extra. Look, laughing with each other. You get this couple. You like them. Yeah. There was a moment in early family guy when that was an

important show to me, like a seminal show in college, where I can't remember Peter's digging a hole for a pool or whatever he's doing. He's like, I got to do this hole. It's my duty. And he goes, duty. And then Lois comes up. And he's like, hey, Lois, duty. And she goes, Peter,

please. I'm carrying ice tea. Yeah. Peter, please. I'm carrying ice tea. I'm like, oh, oh, you're allowed to make marriage fun. They're married. They like each other's jokes. Like, you finally see why they're together. That's maybe the craziest part about most sitcoms is that we're just, we take it at face value that they're together because the show told you they're fucking together.

But when you see two people together and you realize why they're together, it's like, oh. It's so nice. This is much better. The other one I had, and this one might actually bite me in the ass because I haven't seen this movie in a while. Lilith and Frasier. I might be wrong about it. The Maitlands in Beetlejuice. I think about Alec Baldwin and Gina Davis, who are first of all like,

yeah, lethally, domestically hot in that movie. It's just insane how, like, perfectly rural suburban and also, like, smokeshow hot they are in that, in the, in that movie. In their little life that is like Norm and Margie in Fargo it's weird. It's weird and very domestic and quiet and like he's got his little

hobbies of building the house stuff and she's into it and they're just at peace in their home and then they die and then they're a dead team together. They're figuring everything out together and they're like more

more movies and TV shows need to show couples solving puzzles together and piecing things together together because a lot of marriage is solving puzzles and the two of them trying to figure out what it means that they're dead and so much of that movie is not Beetlejuice

so much of it is just them like touring the underworld and learning about the new rules of their existence and then it's seeing these horrible people come in to fuck up their nice house it's very neighbors coded now that I'm talking about it and they're like, how do we stop the new people in the name?

neighborhood from destroying this nice thing that we built. And they're like, they like, I don't think they fight once in that movie. I don't think they disagree on anything. I don't think even the big decision of summoning Beetlejuice is a joint decision. They're like, this is a thing that we have tried everything else, and now we have to do this thing. It's not Alec Baldwin saying, I'm, I'm going rogue and I'm doing a crazy impulsive thing. They're just like, well, we got to try this. And, and, and they hate Beetlejuice the same. And they get split up because Beetlejuice is trying to marry Gina Davis and he sends Alec Baldwin into the little town.

And Alec Baldwin is immediately driving a tiny car around and raising hell. And just the two of them are just so, again, lockstep on the same team, having fun, having the same like reactions to things, which is so helpful and heartwarming. It's wonderful. It's so nice to see. I totally agree. Beal's just is a great example where they are dealing with the situations as they arise together. They're not fighting about it or they're not disagreeing about like how to deal with it.

They're like, you have an idea? Oh, I have one too. Let's see if like we can figure out how to put these two things together. I'm going to make my face like this and I'm going to put my eyeballs in my mouth. What's your thing? Like, they're just figuring it out. It's really cool. That's a great one.

Does he put his eyeballs in his mouth? I think he does. He pulls his head. I think he puts eyeballs on his fingers. She opens her jaw and puts eyeballs on her tongue. That's right. Yeah. Yeah.

The eyeballs really freaked me out as a kid. Yeah. Well, anyway, I'm saying this because I'd like to see more of it. I'd like to see more of this of couples being cool together. Because I don't think they get enough credit. I don't think marriage gets enough credit in movies. That might also be because, and TV shows, because writers in general are unhappy people.

They didn't know how to do relationships. And so they're like, no, everyone's better off alone. That should be the moral of everything. The other one that I want to see more of and that I have, I put in specifically in my pilot because I think I've never seen it is conspirators working together who are a mom and son. I love that. I love that about your pilot. I've never seen it before in anything.

Doing fun stuff together. and really enjoying one another's company. An adult man and his mom. And maybe, and like, yeah, to see also the mom not be the moral center. To see the mom be the one who's like instigating things a little bit is really a fun idea that I would like to see more of. It's so much more fun when your TV friends are working together for something. Oh, man, isn't it? There's an episode of West Wing Soren.

that's another great president and and Dr. Abby Bartlett is another like fun, horny couple that has hijinks together. But there's an episode where he's going to do a photo up with a guy who has taken photos with a bunch of other presidents and it's like this guy, a very old guy who's like mentioned his life, is like, I want to, I'm going to be the guy who's gotten photos with six presidents or whatever. And President Bartlett who was like, kind of like an absent-minded professor type of, of kooky, sometimes superstitious guy.

He's talking to his very serious young aide, Charlie Young. And he's talking about how, like, yeah, this guy is taking pictures with presidents. And I don't think it matters, but he took a picture with this president who gives a shit. And then the next day the market collapsed. And then he took a president picture with this president. And the next day, there was this big storm. You get the idea. However many presidents he took pictures with something.

thing, some disaster happened immediately after them. And President Bartlett was talking to Charlie and it's like, and you know, I mean, I'll take this picture with him. And then later we have this very important vote or something. I'm, I'm sure I'm just being superstitious about taking a picture with this guy. I'll just take the picture with this guy. I'm sure taking a picture won't like destroy the vote or something. And Charlie goes, I think you're insane.

And the president's like, yeah, yeah, I know. I was like, no, I think you're insane that he's even in the white house with you. I think you need to get that guy out of her. I'm like, yeah, they're on the same team. All right. Two crazy people. It's always better. We run into this on our show all the time where like when you have the family all

working together, it's so fun. It's so funny when they're all in the same page. There's a great episode where... Especially if they're wrong, especially if it's something stupid. Yeah. There's a great episode written by Jeff Kaufman where Francine has a dream that she had sex with. Jeff. And she treats it like a very funny thing. She's not embarrassed about it. She's just like during breakfast. She's realizing it again. She's like, I get this dream where I had sex with Jeff. And everyone, I mean, is like laughing. And they're like, that's amazing. And Jeff's like, it was this little thing. They're all laughing about it. And it's so wonderful to see the family all on the same page with anything. And like to see them making each of.

cracking each other up to the point where we put that into episodes where the family is like working together and there's always a concern. I mean, early on where they're like, no, the show is about just like every sitcom, you have a family, one member of that family does something shitty to another member. Right. Then they have to deal with it. Liberal daughter, conservative dad, nerd son. Mom type mom.

The crisis is always internal. It's like you mess up something and you mess it up with someone. else in the family or two people don't agree on a thing. They mess it up. And then you got to fix it. And everybody comes out better for it. But when you can come up with an episode where everybody is doing a thing together and like, and it's a little bit crazy or weird, but they're all working together, it's so

fun to watch. Even when they're like, well, what's the crisis? Like, what's the problem? Nothing, man. They're just like, it's fun. They're working on a thing. And we can all write good jokes that go in there. There doesn't need to be that same arc in everything.

There is one moment in all of succession where Tom and Shiv seem genuinely on the same page. And, like, we get bits and pieces of why each individually is a good person and why they're a terrible person and why they might be right for each other. They don't spend a lot of time on them being right for each other. We never see them meet. They're already together at the start of the show. There's allusions to, like, her being in a bad place when they met. But for the most part, they are each other's obstacles in a lot of things. She never seems to take him seriously.

There is one moment in the second to last season when they're in Italy for the wedding. And cousin Greg has just started dating Comfrey, a young woman who is out of his league. And he goes over to Tom and Shiv. And they are, like, proud of him and also making fun of him. because they know that he's dating way out of his league. And they're telling him about how it's, this could be good for him because, like, no matter what, he could use this as, like, a stepping stone date.

Like, he could date someone of an even higher league after this because Comfrey is so above his weight class that, and they're, like, teaching him this basic rule of dating hierarchies that he doesn't know. And they're like, no, it doesn't matter. if you, if you, if it's going well with this person, this is, this is, this is, this is, this let other women know that there must be something okay about you if you're dating this person. So you could use this as like a jumping off point to someone better. And they're like, they're kind of catty with

him and they're, they're taking so much joy in teaching him about this and like helping him in a way that is also mocking him. And it's the tiniest glimpse of what, the two of them are like when neither of their egos are involved and when the company is not involved and when there's no threat of backstabbing and it's like, oh, when it's just the two of you at lunch, you're catty bitches with each other and that's what's fun about you. And we never get to see it, but it's just like them bonding over making fun of someone else's class status is like clearly that's what they do on their dates. Clearly this is the kind of fun they have that we never get to see.

And just like, oh, I guess when the show is not on, they're nice. I guess I can kind of see why they're together because they're so like, they're so on the same page with this one thing that we get to see. I would be into that. I would be into a show where even if it's like a Burbs type of show where there's a couple that's just, they're bullies together. Yeah. Like, they are mean, genuinely mean.

Everyone in the town knows it. No one really likes them. But they are definitely on the same page. And, like, they found each other. So often, Shiv is partnered with Tom when there is someone else who is a higher status than Tom. So she has to bully down to him. When they get involved with just those two and Greg, it's like, oh, oh, how nice. Oh, how warm.

They can use both of their powers externally. Yeah. You take away that need. for to advance because there's no possible way to do it that scenario. And all of a sudden you're like, oh, okay, I buy you two as a couple. Yeah, that makes sense. All right. Well, everybody, thank you for listening to this episode of the podcast where we try to come up with.

Cool marriages. Let us know in the comments. If your marriage is like any of the ones we've described, let us know if it's not divorce. Say goodbye. It's not good. Pull the trigger. Thank you for listening. If you liked our theme song, that's by me, Rex.

If you like this podcast enough to watch it, you can do that on YouTube. If you like this podcast so much, you want more versions of it. We do bonus content through our Patreon. You can become a subscriber for very little money. If you like this podcast in general, and you're like, hey, I want to know who put this together.

Where's the glue? Who makes the sausage? That's our friend Gabe Harder. There's a lot of glue in that sausage. There's a lot of glue. We put glue in all our sausages. Goodbye. A quick question for you all right

What's on your mind? A quick question for you all right The answer's not important I'm just glad that we could talk tonight So what's your favorite? Who did you get? Where would I be? Two best friends and comedy writers

If there's an answer, they're gonna find it. I think you'll have a great time, yeah. I think you'll have a great time.