Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - So...Heated Rivalry? | Quick Question Ep. 317

Episode Date: January 27, 2026

The Golden Globes have a Best Podcast now, which leads Daniel and Soren down a familiar path: awards, legitimacy, and how culture decides what counts.Along the way, they run headfirst into Heated Rivalry—a show that appears to offer exactly one thing, and yet has somehow escaped its niche and entered polite conversation. Parents are recommending it. Everyone is recommending it. No one is being subtle.Why does some extremely horny media stay contained, while other extremely horny media becomes prestige? And what does that say about taste, awards, and what we’re all suddenly very comfortable talking about?Also: Traitors. A show for people with no hearts.00:54 – Welcome Back / Who’s the Real Host?01:36 – Hypothetical Awards, Hypothetical Fights03:12 – The Golden Globes Now Have a Podcast Category04:41 – How Awards Actually Work (Campaigns, Money, Politics)07:23 – Emmy Swag, Billboards, and the Dropout Problem09:40 – Why American Dad Never Wins Anything11:55 – Quick Question: Are You Watching Heated Rivalry?12:49 – When a Show Breaks Containment14:24 – Expectation vs. Reality: Is It Even About Hockey?16:07 – “It’s Just Sex”: The Erotic Fiction Problem19:22 – Romance Novels and Narrative Foreplay22:00 – Bad Texting, Bad Dialogue, Bad Screens26:14 – Why Is Everyone Publicly This Horny?28:02 – Is This the New Bridgerton?29:00 – Who Is This Show For?31:06 – Hockey Bodies, Old Navy Vibes32:27 – Locker Rooms vs. TV Locker Rooms35:23 – Pivot: What Is Traitors?36:39 – How the Game Actually Works39:26 – Why Normal People Failed Season One40:50 – The Strategy of Being a Traitor44:56 – Board Games, Lying, and Emotional Fallout49:42 – Three-Hour Round Tables (and Crushing Guilt)51:59 – When Banishing a Faithful Feels Correct Anyway53:25 – How to Fix Traitors (Among Us, Live Edition)55:36 – The Conga Line Murder56:24 – Reality TV Pacing Is Still Brutal57:53 – Why Heated Rivalry Can Only Be Sex59:03 – Closing & ThanksThanks to Fabric for sponsoring. Apply today in just minutes at meetfabric.com/QQ. Policies issued by Western-Southern Life Assurance Company. Not available in certain states. Prices subject to underwriting and health questions. Thanks to Mint Mobile for sponsoring. Make the switch! MINTMOBILE.com/QQ Thanks to Shopify for sponsoring. Sign up for a $1/month trial period at shopify.com/qq Thanks to Butcher Box for sponsoring. Go to ButcherBox.com/QQ for $20 off, free shipping always, and choose filet mignon, ny strip or chicken breast in every box for a year, new subscribers only.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

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life, you've around 29,000 days. And those days can be full of what ifs. Like, what if it doesn't work? But what if it does? What if you really went after it? Because life is measured in those moments. So go after everyone. Talk to AIB today and let's see how we can turn your what ifs into what's next. AIB for the life you're after. Al-Harish Bank's PLC is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. Welcome back. It's the podcast. It's a quick question with Soren and Daniel. I'm going to have that podcast, Daniel O'Brien. Soren, Bowie is the main host, Soren, what's up? That's actually a sandbag because, of course I'm not. But also, I am the first name in the podcast by your design. next year when our podcast gets nominated

for a Golden Globe for Best Podcast and they say only one of you is allowed to go up and speak I think we would lead with you I think we put you front and center

of the podcast every chance we get why why? No, I don't think that that's true we would go with you there's no and more

effusive and charming than you you would be the face of it there are so many times on this podcast and just a reminder to everyone listening, I have two jobs. One of them is writing where I'm taking a bunch of material and condensing it into a clear and concise way. And another one is this podcast where I talk professionally. There are so many times in this podcast where I take upwards of four minutes to make a point. And then when I'm done talking because I need a

breath or a sip, you will articulate it so clearly. The point I was trying to make, you will say in about nine words. And it's just like, yeah, no, that's the person. Yeah. I don't have those kind of skills of like articulation and speaking are just not in my skill set. No, it's different. It's different. Coming up with the thought and then reiterating the thought are completely different things. Like, that's everybody can do the second much better than the first. Like the first is, I will sit there. do the same thing. I'm like, how the fuck do I say this? And then as somebody from who just sees it from the outside is like, oh, no, this is what the forest looks like, here you go. This is the shape of it. Like, oh, okay. Yeah, you're right. Here's how you describe an elephant. And it's like, sure. Of course you don't start with the toes. Of course. I know that now. I know that obviously that makes sense. All right. Well, I love that we are hypothetically fighting or we're fighting hypothetically about what we're going to do when we win our big awards. Yeah. And a global. and globe. What a jump that was.

Well, it's, I don't know if you, we watch every award show under the sun, my wife and I, because we're into the industry. And also because, if I've never mentioned my wife's job before, she's an agency director in the fashion and beauty industry. Oh, say more. Say more about what she does, Dan. So it's sort of a mix of Jerry McGuire and the Devil Wears Prada where she is making deals, high-end deals in like the fancy fashion world. And so a lot of the people that you're doing. you're seeing styled on the red carpet and at these award shows,

a good deal of them have been styled by artists that my wife and her agency represent. So we're watching these shows to, like, see everyone. So I've seen in the last couple of years more award shows than I ever used to watch in my life. And the Golden Globes soaring, if you didn't know, this year was the first year where they have a category for Best Podcast. We got to win it. How do we submit? Well, I think the, this is going to sound bitter, and I mean no disrespect to a person who I think is very talented.

But the winner of Best Hot podcast in the first year the Golden Globes was doing an award for a genre of content that has been around for a long time was coincidentally, former host of Golden Globes, Amy Polar, with her Spotify podcast, Good Hang with Amy Polar, which has been around almost since the beginning of this episode, I think. Yeah, it is fresh out of the other.

Okay, well, good for her. I think that that's out of the way. Now they can get to the meat of like real good podcasts. Yeah. I think we got a shot. Yeah, that's how awards go. They give it to someone once.

They give a show the award once. Get it out of the way. They just keep forgetting with last week tonight at the Emmy. We got to give it to them. But then after this week, that's it. No more. All right. I had to think about this.

You know, like we've submitted for Emmys before and to give people a peek behind the curtain to. the industry, you've got to submit the episodes that you want. You're talking about American Dad, not our podcast, because Emmys doesn't have a podcast category. I'm talking about American Dad. Yeah. We, we as a show, have submitted.

And so you submit individual episodes, but you've got to be a member of the Academy first. And you then submit, and then there's, like, the campaign. It's not just a bunch of people sitting around being like, you know, it was a good show this year, this one. And everyone else being like, well, let me watch it. Let's see. That's not how it works. There's like a whole campaign.

There's so much money you have to sink into trying to get even nominated. Yeah. I would say for the first time, once the path has been trod, like, I think it's less of a jump for last week tonight. In fact, I'm not sure you guys probably have to do much other than submit. I feel like the spend that we used to have, and I don't have like a bird's eye view of financials or anything, but anecdotally and just by the show. sheer power of observation. It looks like the spend that we used to put towards for your consideration, billboards and banners, at least that has gone down over the last couple of years. I've gone from seeing a billboard outside of the office asking people to vote for last week tonight. From the

first few years I worked here, that that billboard is now for, you know, Raytheon's streaming service or whatever. Raytheon streaming. Whatever our future is. Yeah, the banners that go on, all over L.A., these are like LA is treated like everyone works in the same office because all the bus benches and stuff are all for your consideration bus benches at a certain time of year.

They're like, it's like a reminder that people sleeping on the street. Like, oh yeah, I got to get on that. I got to go vote for slow horses. The bear is back. But yeah, there's billboards. There's everywhere. And then we also used to get these

curated little kits in the mail that would be like, hey, consider vote. voting for marvelous Miss Maisel. And while you're at it, hey, here's some posters from bars that don't exist in 1952. Here's some like coasters. Here's some poker chips.

Like they give you a bunch of stuff to go along with it to kind of sweeten the deal for you. And I don't get any of that stuff anymore. Everybody stopped doing that. Yeah. It's always been fascinating and frustrating. Watching our friends at Dropout. I don't know if they're doing it anymore, but for a couple of years,

they'd campaigned pretty heavily to get one of their shows a nomination in one of the one of the Emmy categories. I think like Dropout might have made it or Game Changer, the show by Dropout might have made it, gotten a nomination in Game Show a couple years ago. And it's that Dropout is such a great company where a lot of our friends work and they produce like high quality entertaining shows and their platform for up-and-coming comedians. there's like a UCB to drop out to Saturday Live pipeline that is thriving. And they're just, just spending money and time and energy for the privilege, for the opportunity to lose to jeopardy in the Emmys.

But it's so, like, it's very frustrated that like the show, it's not just enough that dropout shows are good and successful and people love them. that still does not get them a seat at the table at the Emmys if they don't go through the entire dog and pony show of self-promotion. It's wild. Yeah. And we're in no danger of winning one. But occasionally we'll have an episode where I'm like,

this was a genuinely good episode of television. We should try and do something with this. I feel like occasionally there's an episode called Rabbit Ears, one called Such Great Advancements, that I was like, oh, these are like, what they're doing in this is sort of pioneering that we should submit this and there's just no

chance that these are ever going to get an Emmy which is strange it's I mean it's it's another reason that the Emmys are are not the end all be all arbiters of of taste or quality because of Eric Dad

again is a show that everyone I know knows and loves and like I've never I don't think I've ever been disappointed by an episode of American Death. I don't think I've ever turned one on and been like, that was a dud. I don't know what was going on there. It is always like a reliable, fast-paced joke machine of a show.

And the Emmys can just, I think, get set in their ways sometimes. Thanks, man. Thanks. I appreciate that. And they look at a show like American Dad, and they're like, they don't need an Emmy. Last week tonight. constantly hanging on by a thread.

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That's meetfabric.com slash QQ, M-E-E-T Fabric.com slash QQ. Policies issued by Western Southern Life Assurance Company, not available in certain states. Price is subject to underwriting and health questions. I want to just pivot to another show because we have obviously the segways there. Sure. Quick question, Daniel. Are you watching Heated Rivalry? No, it's one of those inevitable shows because it's gone from, like, I see all of the bubbles.

I see like, oh, it's crazy. My whole Blue Sky feed seems to be talking about this show that I didn't see any trailers of. And I didn't read the book and I knew nothing about it. But like everyone on Blue Sky is talking about this and then I'll go and the front page of vulture.com because I still go to websites will be filled with like interviews. with people. It was names I don't know. And my YouTube algorithm will feed me like, here's the star of heated rivalry. Yeah. Being funny on Tonight Show. And here's the other star of heated rivalry, being funny on Seth Myers. And here they are, finally enough, presenting at the

Golden Globes. Were they funny? Were they funny on those shows? They were very funny. They're very funny on the Globes. These nice handsome boys that I'd never heard of. And based on, like, the temperature of the room, most of the people at the Golden Globes also hadn't heard of. Yeah, it was early. But it's... Okay. The penetration is even deeper that, like, I went to... Oh, is it?

Is it? Tell me about the deepness of the penetration for heated rivalry. I will, Soren. I went to the Poconos, a nice little, like, house in the woods with all of my childhood friends. We've been going every year for, like, 25 years at this point. And all of them were talking about heated rivalry. Yeah. So now it's like, it's escaped.

The niche blue sky. the niche New York Intelligentsia blogger circuit. It's now reached normal good salt of the earth Americans. So I got to watch this show. Officially everyone is talking about it. Yeah. I fell into the same thing where it broke containment for me too. And I'm someone who's hard to reach because I only talked to the AI bots on Facebook.

So it was a big surprise when it got to me. other parents at school are like, Are you watching Heated Ravelry? And I was like, no? What is it? And I got basically the history of it before I even stepped into an episode of like how it was a book and stuff. So we decided we were going to watch it. I'm shocked to hear that these guys are genuinely funny in real life.

That's good to hear, I guess. Are they not funny on the show? Is it not a funny show? It is not a funny show. Oh. by any stretch. It's not meant to be funny, to their credit, but it's also not funny.

There's like a shaggy-haired fella, one of the two main boys. He was very funny on the Golden Globes. And for that being the first time I've seen him do anything, I was like, it's a kid's a star. And I'm going to credit myself for noticing that.

This literal television star, I have discovered him. What was his accent in when he did to host him? Don't say normal. American. Okay. Normal. Okay.

And then the other one also normal? Yeah. I mean, I want to be clear. Could be Canadian. Very easily could be Canadian. Okay. So let me just tell you like what I was expecting and what I got. I heard that it was based on some erotic fiction.

And I was like, okay. got that in my mind. But everybody is so enamored with this show that I was like, this is going to be a, what is a good analog for this? Like, Game of Thrones. Game of Thrones is something that has like, there's a lot of sex in it. And there's sex in there on purpose because there's like,

look, we got to satisfy the people who are the horn dogs who are here for a different reason than everybody else. And so I thought there was going to be definitely some gay sex in it. And then the rest of it was going to be this story that is like really compelling. I don't want to spoil this show for you, Dan, but it is just sex. Okay.

There is no story. The story is meandering and shallow and there's not a lot going on to it. If you wanted some hockey, boy, buddy, you're going to be sorely disappointed. Okay. That is interesting because before I knew it was a book,

the thing that I had just gleaned from existing in the world was that it was the gay hockey show. Like if you, if there was a gun to your head and you only had a little bit of time to explain he did rivalry, gay hockey show was, um, was all you could, all you could get out. It is, you are telling me, not a hockey show. Not a hockey.

I mean, hockey is in the periphery. You do hear about hockey occasionally. Like when they'll make the Olympic team and you'll find out that they did that or when they get drafted, stuff like that. But it's all in service of these two blowing each other. And they, listen, I'm not complaining about that aspect. Let me just say that the sex in it, I get it. I get why everybody's like into the show for that specific reason.

Like it's, there's a lot of it and there's a, it is not graphic enough that you're seeing actual shaft or anything like that. But everything else you can imagine you're seeing. You're seeing guys blow each other. You're seeing a lot of like anal sex, but you're seeing like them like really going at it. Like fast anal sex stuff like that. It's not like softcore porn where they're like, well, we can show everything, but there's not a lot to be any thrusting. Everybody just sort of has to stay paused. There's not that.

There's like, oh, those guys are having sex. And it's a show that I think a lot of people use the show to get horned up. Oh. I think is the case. And everything else about it, that I thought was going to be there, has just fallen away. and it really is just a sex show. Like it's, the storylines are rough. It's just about these two guys,

a will they won't, that kind of thing where they keep willing. And they, but they, one of them sort of like ice cold and the other one is, uh, sort of looking for a relationship, but he's new to this.

And they are apart for a while. And then you're like, oh, fuck, that would feel like a really big riff. It seems like they're not coming back. from this. And then the next episode, it's solved with a text in two lines. So like, hey, are you still mad about the thing? No, I'm not mad about anything. Cool. And then they're both like on their

run smiling because everything's back to normal again. And so it's just about two guys. It's not even really much about them trying to keep the relationship secret. That has very little to do with it. It's really just, when these two are in the same town, are they going to have sex or not? Because they're playing for different teams.

And the dialogue, Dan, is just raw. Dude, it is not whip smart. That's why I'm saying I'm surprised at these guys are as funny as they are. It is a lot of like, are you thinking of going back to Russia now that the season is over? Yes, it's home. I have to go.

Aren't you scared? Scared about what? I don't know. Okay, I'm tired. And then that's the scene. And you're like, what was that? Granted, they're naked in bed drinking vodka while this is happening. Sure.

So what happens in the scene seems to not matter whatsoever. But if you were to try and peel back the layers of sex to see what's underneath, it's sex all the way down. It's very fun for me to watch you go through this because, again, I haven't watched this show. But this is a familiar experience for someone like me who has just started reading romance novels within the last couple of years. Because romance novels are huge and people love them. And they're always turning them into movies, TV shows, and they're always like bestsellers and like Jenna's picks and Oprah's picks and all these things. And I started reading them a couple years ago because I read everything.

And a lot of them are like, have some funny parts, but it's mostly the work is spent creating this lead woman. who you're rooting for and then this lead man who's super hot and this uh ex man who is uh clearly awful but has his hooks in the woman and the entire book is just like flipping pages flipping pages why aren't they fucking yet why aren't they fucking yet what is what is all she's got to do of reading at her library what i don't care it's not good it is for like the couple of bits of really steamy fucking that is so inevitable to readers and like if the characters were real characters it would be inevitable to everyone in their lives like the when she's like oh I'm just hanging out with my roommate the the door man would be like you're you're you're

gonna fuck your roommate right this is insane this is crazy you're like like no two people have ever been more designed to fuck each other than the two leads in every romance book, and it still takes them forever to get there. Yeah, because it's the longing in between. But that's like, that's the point of erotic fiction is that we know that these are all just, for lack of a better word,

we're laying pipe in between the season, in between the fucking to be like, how do we get from one fucking scenario to the next? It's like a kung fu movie where you're like, we gotta get these guys, we gotta get more fighting. How do we get from one fight to another? We have to actually have some story in between

and that sucks for all of us. We get it. We get it. There's that feeling throughout it, where you're like, who they really want these guys. And I think there's the, the longing that you're supposed to feel in between

of like, oh, these guys, they want each other bad, but they've got a hockey game to play first. So they're like texting each other before the game. And the texting, texting sucks so bad. It's so bad. Well, folks, it's January.

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Let me see if I can give you an example. The one who's more experienced texts him. He's playing in Boston, and he texts the other one who was from Montreal. he's like, do you want to come when you're in Boston? But he's Russian. And so the other one's like, your English is not good. And the Russian will be like, read the text again. Like a thing you would have gotten, sure, right off the front.

Right, right off the jump. And so then you watch him. And they linger on that for a while. Like, this doesn't say anything. It's confusing. No, man, read it again. And so you have to like then go back up and read it in the text on the screen where it says, Do you want to come when you're in Boston?

And then both of them do this little smiley thing. And you're like, wow, you're really, you're not going to hold the audience's hand the entire time. Got it. Great. So here's what I'm surprised by with this show. Quick public service announcement. Yeah. Stop putting texts in movies.

It's hard to read. Please. My TV stinks. Lighting on all television stinks now. Just don't have the text. I'm old. I gotta like pause and read it. At least this one's not,

you're not looking at it on the phone. It's showing up on the screen as like a little insert. Even that is too much for me. But there's so much texting. And texting in code in Netflix's The Rip. And I just, I can't, you can't, I can't be required to pause the rip.

So I don't miss any plot. Come on. Also, I only know this because I watch all my shows with subtitles, but I'm watching it with subtitles. And when the text is considerably smaller than the subtitles, I'm like, but you already know. You know how big it has to be for a human to read it. Yeah. Just make it that size.

Okay. So here's the phenomenon that I'm baffled by. Phenomenon. Phenomenon. That's a bad, John Travolta. That's, okay, good. You know. Yeah.

I don't know how to do John Travolta. It turns out. Oh. Hey. Hey, hey. Oh, Mr. Carta. Yeah. Based on our impressions, he has only done welcome back Cotter.

Okay. So the success of this show is something that, like, I don't know that I have a comp or like a comp in the world for, which is everyone so outwardly excited about something that is just. porn. Like it's just softcore porn. And because when it creates a ripple like this that it reaches me, it reaches my distant chores. It's always because the show is offering a lot. Like it's got a lot of different things for different people. This show has one thing that it's offering. And it's very serious about that one thing. But that's all it's going to give you. And everyone around me is like, you got to watch it. It's so good. It's so good. And what I'm hearing from that. The subtext of that to me is, oh, it's going to get you so horny. You got to watch this horny show. It's like if everyone got psyched about the red shoe. diaries or something. Like, I don't understand how it has broken containment given the offering. And I'm amazed that everyone is so openly like, I love how horny this show makes me. This show has changed my life. Because that's the only thing that it's selling.

And so I'm like, unless they're getting something from it that I'm not, I'm like, why is everyone so, I was so interested in talking about sex all of a sudden. kids from like my child's school parents were like leaving line after dropping our kids off and like you've got to watch heated rivalry. Why do the parents think I need to watch heated rivalry? So I don't know if this is the first time this has happened. I'm trying to think of another time where everyone got very excited about something that was purely. I guess maybe 50 shades of gray. It might be more real.

recently it might be Bridgeton I don't know I'm talking Just Sex I'm talking out of my ass but that seems like another show where I can't think

of any justification for it beyond like horniness Okay I'll maybe I'll Give it a shot Because I had seen Bridgeton But I saw one of the main Bridgetons

in the Dungeons and Dragons movie Renee Jean Page Or something like I'm butchering his name But when I saw him in Dungeons and Dragons, I was like, oh, I get it.

Yeah, yeah, you can watch this guy's show. I understand why all of my friends are really into this show now. But it's so nakedly, for lack of a better word, like they're so naked about how horny a show makes them in a way where I'm like, I thought we did this in secret. I thought we didn't talk about this kind of stuff. Why is everyone talking about it at once? Why are we talking about in front of children?

Anyway, it was a big surprise to me. Watching the show, there's some really funny elements that, oh, I said this show wasn't funny, but there is one detail. You've now seen both main characters, correct? Yes. A plot line that they really start hard on and then quickly abandon is that one of them is Asian American. They really try to focus on him being like, why that's interesting in hockey, and, like, they really set it up. And then they're like, this is not fun. And they knock down that whole pile of blocks.

It's like not serving our purposes. Let's get rid of it. And so they just destroy it. And the rest of the show, the guy who plays a Russian, that's the mop top one. He's the one that I thought was funny on the Golden Globes

and that I declared was a star. I didn't know his, that's the reason I asked about his accent is that he speaks Russian a lot in the show. And I don't know what Russian is supposed to sound like, but I think he's doing a pretty good job. And I was like, I wonder if this guy's really Russian and looked into it no further than that.

But they also, I can't get a bead on, I get that that guy is hot. I know hot. Sure. And that guy is one of them. And I can't get a beat on whether the other one is because he's got, I think, a pretty good, I think he's got a good body. But I can't get a read on like his face or anything like that or like whether people are into this or they're just like, this is. This is the other thing we have here. This is another guy, and that's fine.

But really, we're here for that first boy. He seemed very handsome to me. He seems a bit like 1980s handsome to me. Like there's something not entirely modern. Yeah. You know, I don't know. I don't know from hunks. He's haircut and everything.

I'm like, I don't think this is what they're doing with Hot these days. Right. But maybe I'm wrong. Also, it's very funny that these guys are hockey players. with the bodies that they have. Like there's a physique that's specific to sports. The two most beautiful live hockey players you've ever seen. Yeah.

Just guys that are getting absolutely fucking bashed into the boards every single game because they weigh under 200 pounds. They are svelte. They're a sveled hockey player. Are all of the other hockey players like that in the show? Or are they more like... No, it's so fun. That's awesome.

They are, they look like they, yeah. And they're, they're all like the gang in a McDonald's commercial. Like, it's that kind of mentality. Like when they're like talking to each other or anything, one of them will have a backwards hat on, but it's like only on the back of their skull. It doesn't come down to their eyebrows by any means. It's like way up above the hairline sitting up there. Everyone's dressed in it for a old Navy commercial. In fact, the way that's how I wore my hat.

high school soren or on the top of my head because I was trying stuff out. And so everybody and the hockey players are the way that they talk to each other and everything. You're like, oh, it's just like watching Ted Lassow in that I don't think that the people writing it have ever been in a locker room in their entire lives. Yeah. It's not what I'm expecting is crass or anything like that. It's just the way the athletes talk to one another is different than what's happening in the show.

Yeah. but it's it's something it's and man is there a lot of sex in it yeah for some of us it's not just the start of the new year it's the start of a new you and for me the start of a new life i've got a baby coming every day it gets closer to that day that baby is gonna drop and so i am rushing to do all of the last minute things i've always wanted to do before becoming a parent the time is now it's the best

time to start that business you've been thinking about. Run that marathon. Whatever the thing is that you want to do. Now is the time to do it. We all have great ideas and skills, but it's taking the first step and finally taking action. It turns your dream into your new future. You may know this podcast, quick question, started as a phone call with me and Soren. And now, six years later, it is a business, a thriving business with Patreon and a YouTube channel and exclusives and multiple shows. We keep growing and growing. We thought we were going to give up after a month. But here we are, however many years later, and we are thriving, growing our business. We love Shopify for helping us grow our business. We could not continue this podcast without Shopify. What I love about Shopify is how big you want to grow, Shopify gives you everything you need to take control and take your business to the next level. Shopify gives you everything you need to sell online and in person. Millions of entrepreneurs have already made this leap from House of sold names to first-time business owners just getting started. Have you ever wondered how

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So, QQ. Go to Shopify.com slash QQ. That's Shopify.com slash QQ. Hear your first to Cheching this new year with Shopify by your side. Well, Soran, I haven't... I don't know that I'm able to watch it right now because, in part, I'm famously watching The Rip a little bit at a time. But another part, the show that I'm up on, that you got to get up on

Soren it's traitors and maybe one day your reality show friend will be on traitors probably not because I think she played her game well

and is and lacks like the the evilness the duplicitousness that traitors requires do you know anything about traitors I know nothing about traitors you know nothing about traitors

no okay I'm new to it but I'm true to it so I will try to give you the clearest and best rundown. It's a reality show that as of now, stars all exclusively pre-famous people, D-list celebrities. A lot of them are reality show royalty.

There's always a lot of housewives on the show. There are always some survivors. And there are some people who are famous like Michael Rappaport was on this season. Ron Funch is the comedian. and so they're they're it's not strictly reality TV folks it is just like not the most famous people in the world but people who are known quantities exception being the first season which was a mix of reality show people and fucking normal people and the way the game is played you are brought to a castle in scotland that is owned by alan coming he is the host oh cool and it's sort of like the party game mafia. Everyone closes their eyes. And three people or two people, the number changes, are traitors.

And everyone else is a faithful. The traitors know who they are. The faithful have no idea what's going on. Every night, the traitors get together and decide to murder one of the faithful. And they just, like, write the name down. And then the faithful wakes up and see if they were murdered. they don't come back to the castle. Everyone finds out the next morning.

They're all at breakfast and they're like, who's going to come? And that's when they find out. Ah, fuck. In the night, the traitors have killed this person from Love Island. It's werewolf. Okay. It's werewolf. Yeah, it's werewolf for mafia.

They talk about that. Throughout the day, they'll do like a big group challenge every day. And the challenge is like a physical challenge of some kind for the most part. have to row your boat to the center of this lock and get a thing and bring the thing back and do a thing with the thing that you got. The challenges are demanding, but like mostly bullshit narratively. You just need to get the thing and bring the thing to the thing. Yeah, it's the challenge. Yeah. If you, there are things you can win from the challenge. Part of it is, um, you have to collect five coins. If all five coins are collected,

then $50,000 gets added to the pot. And, the pot is like, it starts at $250,000 and you, the challenges allow you to grow the pot throughout the season so that at the end, whomever is left standing, whomever wins, gets to split and have that pot. So it behooves you to do these challenges well, not just because it grows the pot, but also because as you're doing the challenges, you want to establish that you're useful in the challenge because then maybe you won't get murdered. Because the traders are like, we can't banish soren soren is really useful in the challenges

and we need someone who's going to help us win money so that explains some strategy of doing well on the challenge another thing that you could win in the challenge is a shield that protects you from being murdered for one night now I've said that the traders get together and murder someone every night the other thing that happens

at dinner in a round table discussion all of the people get together and they accuse someone of they make their case for why they think someone is one of the traitors. At dinner, are you just hearing a lot of like fork scratching on plates? Just mouth absolutely fucking full of salmon

spilling out of their mouth. Or like Porsche did it. But you build your case whether it's like, I think this person is a traitor because I heard them say XYZ or because you know, whatever, gut feeling. And then everyone makes their cases and then you vote and you vote

someone off and whoever gets voted off, they say their goodbyes and then they say whether or not you got a traitor. That's when they admit okay, you caught me, I'm a traitor. Or guess what guys, you just banished a faithful. Okay. That is the whole

game. Well, okay, then how if that's the case, like what is the conversation at dinner? A very crucial thing about that. That's very funny about the first season. Remember the first season is like half reality stars. Yeah.

And half normal people who were like, I'm so happy to be here. That's this person from housewives. I love her. And when they did the half normal person season, the normal people were like full blown crying. When someone got voted off, very sad. They're not built for this kind of life of betrayal.

It was really like. Yeah, took a piece of their soul. They couldn't bail on the show midseason. But the producers, very smartly after that. I was like, okay, new game. Only freaks. None of these soft-hearted normal people.

Yeah. Well, okay, how would you even, if the only thing that the traders are doing, because it sounds like throughout the, they're not sabotaging challenges. No. They're not like, the only thing they're doing is at night they're killing somebody. How could you ever know who was a traitor?

How could you even make it at a guess at who? is a traitor. They're killing someone and they want to do it strategically. So like if one person, one faithful is very hated and seems like a traitor and gets a lot of votes, but not 100 votes, 100% votes to get banished, then the traitors will have to decide like, well, we're not going to kill him. He is a good. As long as people think he's a traitor, their eyes won't be on us. So we're going to keep him alive. And sometimes the people they kill are just like, We're going to kill someone like Rob's from Survivor because he's really good at, he's really smart, he's really good at playing games. He's going to figure out who we are, so we have to kill him.

And sometimes the person they kill is completely random. Just like, this is going to throw everyone off the scent. There's going to be no pattern to it. So we're just going to kill this random person. The way that people try to figure it out is, it would be very, one trader behaves somewhat suspiciously. by trying to rally other people throughout the day. It was like, you know who, you know what? I think, I think it's Ron.

I think Ron's a traitor. And like, I'm going to whisper to these other people. And you go around and like, you start a whisper campaign against Ron all day that you think is successful. And then once it gets to the roundtable, someone could be like, I think it's pretty fucking shady that you tried to get us all to turn on Ron. I think that's very suspicious. So it's only in the telling of like who you think the traitor is. See, like the point of those games, like, like, secret. Someone, someone, uh, has correctly pointed out that like, hey, I think, I happen to think this housewife is a traitor because I've seen every episode of housewife that she was on. And she is a loud mouth and she's always talking shit and she's insane. And she's been so quiet this whole game just hanging out in the cut watching faithfuls get banished.

I think she'd be talking a whole lot more shit if she wasn't a traitor. So as a traitor, as you're walking around, you just have to do whatever you can to avoid suspicion. And in some cases, that means being allowed now that that's what people expect you to be. Okay. Well, I mean, also, you get portrayed, however, in the edits of a reality. Sure. That shouldn't be your defining characteristic. But I'll say a show or a game like Secret Hitler or even like The Circle, like another show.

Like another show that's been on television is that there's two ways to win. One is to stay hidden the entire time. The other way is to sabotage the group. Like there's some sort of mission that everybody is working towards and you are slowly sabotaging that mission. So you can effectively out yourself if you're not careful. This is missing that entire other element. I thought so too. I thought like wouldn't it like add some more danger.

Make it easier for traders to slip up by giving them an extra incentive to sabotage things. but they're not going to do that it's just who's going around at night secretly killing everybody yeah and because it's the easiest game in the world to win if you're a traitor then i feel like because all you have to do is try and win the fucking challenges like everybody else it's pretty stacked for being a traitor but like you especially as they uh kill more faithfuls as it goes on you can see people noticing like there does seem to be kind of a pattern like this person said this person seemed pretty suspicious of Rob

from Love Island and now they're dead that's something it's there you know you there is there are ways to be perceptive and thoughtful and suss out the traitors these aren't skills that I think

reality TV stars they're not Not detectives. Not necessarily excel at. We play games like this board game nights because we have a great neighborhood, as I've talked about previously on the show. But we'll have just like neighbors over. The kids will fuck off somewhere and we'll play a game like this. And the last time that we did it, I was the worst.

We played Secret Hitler and I was Hitler and got elected Chancellor unanimously, which is like a. That's a real coup for me. That's great. And then afterwards, there's the post-mortem where everyone's like talking about the game, but we're doing it on this thread. And everyone was like, that game makes me think Soren might be a serial killer. And I was like, oh, that's turned. I liked a better when everyone was like, that was amazing.

That was cool how you did that. But instead, they're like, I think that you're emotionally dead. And that was very easy for you. I'm like, ah, this is less fun. You looked me in the eyes and you swore. You weren't secret Hitler. Yeah, because I understand what it means to lie right. But, and I didn't enjoy that part.

I do really, I always really like it when you play a game like that, that the people who are the good guys by the end end up feeling terrible about themselves no matter what. Yeah. They're like, because they will have had suspicions about somebody they shouldn't have. And when you have like that hindsight, you're like, fuck, I feel terrible. Especially when we would play these games at night or like at a dinner party. And you see like different women all turn on each other. And then afterwards, the like broader context of like supporting other women where they suddenly start to slot it into their actual real lives.

And they're like, I was so mean to you. Yeah. Like and we were the only ones who those guys. Those guys tore us apart. Don't you hate it when it's dinner time and you look in that fridge and what's it full of? Nothing but question marks, right? Well, Butcher Box has your back. Start the year strong with high quality protein delivered right to your door,

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That's butcherbox.com slash QQ. Don't forget to use our link so they know we sent you. We're getting into more spoiler territory for the current season of traders. That's fine. Spoil it for me. One of the behind the scenes things that I learned from my friend Jamie is these like roundtable discussions when they go around, they're like, I'm going to lay out my evidence for why I think Portrait.

as a traitor and why I am a faithful. In real life, they last about three hours. It's three hours of these people in a room talking to each other, which is like, sometimes when you're playing these mafia games, it's sometimes the most fun and sometimes the worst. When I have to like, when you're not in a roundtable and I have to go up to Abe

and him be like, look me in the eyes and tell me you're a faithful. And I'm like, I don't want to talk to you anymore. I'm having not fun at the party. I want to go. But they're doing it for three hours. which is an insane thing to do. And the other little bits of information from this season is, to your point, they had someone that everyone went around saying, like,

I really think it's this person. I think it's you because you said X, Y, Z. And I was like, that evidence is pretty compelling. And she's like, that evidence is nothing. I just misspoke. I know I said, we killed this person. I meant we, the show. I didn't mean we.

I'm a traitor. Why would I say that? And there's like, I don't know. it's pretty damn you said we killed this person and she's crying at the table and everyone's like we got we got a traitor let's let's banish this person and they vote to banish her and

the reveal of whether or not someone is a traitor it's always very dramatic and compelling so when she says bad news you fucking idiots I was a faithful and you just banished me everyone is like crushed Ron who was leading the charge is like

I made a mistake and they they play the drama so well they do talk about someone getting murdered and dying as if we're never going to see them again. And Ron is like, I send an innocent woman away. And I have to live with that burden for the rest of my life. And it's so heavy and devastating when they banish one of their own. And then a few episodes later, they,

spoiler alert, they banished Michael Rapaport, who was just... an unpleasant person to be around. Like from jump. Oh, weird. Yeah. In this particular show, he was unpleasant to be around? Yeah.

You would banish him from the castle of your home if you could have done that too. And when he had his reveal, after all the votes are tallied and they're banishing him. And he's like, guess what, guys, I'm the dopest fucking most faithful, faithful. You banished a faithful. Everyone at the table is just like, oh, okay. I mean, we were pretty sure you. were in the tent. I'm still not completely convinced you're not.

That's not why we voted you out. I think we did a good thing. It's for the good of the group. There is a toned down version of this that I'll play with kids that my brother's wife, my sister-in-law, is her family is so good at games. And they created like a live-action version of Among Us, which I don't know if you're played among us. No.

You've seen it. It's these little guys. with no arms in hazmat suits or like space suits and they're cartoonish. So among us is a game like this that's a game you play online

with a bunch of other people. You have like jobs you have to do on a spaceship and then it requires you to go from room to room. And then within that group there's somebody who is there to kill everybody else.

And they got to get people alone and then kill them. I mean, there's a live action kind of version you can play where you deal out playing cards at the beginning. Anyone who has a red card

versus a black card, they're going to be the killers. They're going to know who the other killer is. And then you just have people go to different rooms where they're like, now you have to go, you have to move from room to room and you do like 10 jumping jacks in this room. You do push-ups in this room or whatever, like just something active. And if you get touched on the shoulder during that time, you then wait 10 seconds and then you die. You fall down on the ground and then everybody finds that body and then they reconvene and they talk about what happened and who was in that room and stuff. It feels like that's the missing element of this show.

which is not that you're running around at night, killing people in their sleep. You should have to, during these challenges, find a way to let somebody know that they're dead and do it in surreptitiously. Like, do it in a, my cat is going wild. The cat is running around if you're hearing that. They have done that on the show. Every once in a while, the traders get a challenge where it's like, tonight you have to kill someone in plain sight. And sometimes in past seasons that has been like, tap a person or like make them drink something and then it will turn out the next day that that we had them drink poison.

This season, uh, they had to murder someone in plain sight. They didn't need to tap someone. They needed to, the traders needed to first find a bunch of playing cards, one of which had the, the, the, each of the players' names. And then they needed to take the card with the name of the person they wanted to kill and throw it in a fire all while, while not being seen. And like the cards are in one of the rooms of this house where they're all hanging out. They're behind a picture frame in this room. And so the traders are like, we need to get, we need to get everybody out of the room. How are we going to get everyone out of the room? And one of the reality, one of the real housewives, it's like, I got an idea.

I know what this means. I'm like, I can't wait to see what her strategy is. And she stands up and says, I know what we need to do. Kanga! And she starts a conga line with no music. And I was like, that's a cartoon distraction. There's no fucking way this is going to work. Everybody gets up and starts congaing and then

conga around the house long enough for one of the other traders to get the cards and pick the card and throw the card in the fireplace. And it worked? She's been safe for days. No one when they're all like, when all these when all these fucking world class

morons put on their Sherlock homesets and they're like, methinks when Portia sniffed in the morning that was her tell that she is a traitor and no one is like hey doesn't anyone think it's weird

that Candace made us conga in the middle of the night and then someone died that doesn't bump anyone as a strange thing that's wonderful that they're like if we hadn't been congaing we probably could have seen who did it oh curse our love

of the conga That's great. Okay, maybe I'll give this show a shot. It's really fun. I feel bad that I spoiled some of it, but no, it's fine. The fact that there, I've watched reality television shows where there is some challenge element. And man in my board by reality telly TV in general. But having you watched my daughter's speech therapist on it, I was like, okay, well, let's give this a shot.

And it was such a slog that I think. She was on again and I couldn't watch it. The pacing of a single episode of reality television remains absolute dog shit. Yeah. And it's even more pronounced if you're watching it on Peacock TV, which is where Traders is, and you don't have commercials to, like, get up and change your life a little bit. So you still get, like, where a commercial brig would be, which means a scene ends with some kind of of forest drama, then it cuts to black for a second.

Then we're quote unquote back from commercial. And it's the same scene again. It's a recap of the thing you just saw. So it's an added pain point of watching this show because I just, there's like, there's a murder and a banishment and a couple of really funny standalone things that happen in every single episode. And then there's just so much fucking noise and nonsense that you have to sit there. Yeah.

To all the filler. Well, if you want to show, it moves a little faster, Dan. He to rivalry starts in 2008. I'm three episodes in. It's 2017. Whoa. That's part of the reason that this show can't be anything other than sex is because you need the time to develop something and you just fly past all of it.

They will have sex. And then the next day, they're like, I'll see you again when I see you. And then you get an icon on the screen that it'll be like four years later. It'll be, now it's December of 2014. And you're like, oh, my God. Whoa. We just flew right past it. I kept thinking it would settle down.

There would be like this cat and mouse at the beginning. And they would kind of like, would see if maybe they'd start to get together. And then it's about the relationship. No, man, we just keep flying through it. We get through all of a sudden, like a season is starting. And then all of a sudden one team, one guy is injured and out of the playoffs. And the other one is playing in the playoffs. And they're texting each other about that.

And you're like, okay. Let me just catch my breath. From Obama to Trump, this show persists. And this is three episodes. I have no idea where it goes. There's not enough years left for this show to continue. Man. Yeah, it's wild.

All right, everybody. Well, thank you for listening to Quick Question with Soren and Daniel. If you like this episode, you can watch it on YouTube. You can see Daniel and I, we have sort of a. similar color palette going on today. He and I, unintentionally. And that might sweeten the deal for you. I don't know. If you like this music at the beginning of our episode, that's called a theme song. And that's by me Rex.

If you want more of this podcast, you can always subscribe to our Patreon. We do every other week a little extra episode for our loyal followers. And in general, as I always do, I want to say thank you. Gabe Harder, who is the glue to this show. He is the one who keeps it going and keeps the lights on. Thank you, Gabe. Bye. Bye.

There's an answer they're going to find it. I think you'll have a great time here. I think you'll have a great time here.