The Bechdel Cast - A Simple Favor with Cate Young

Episode Date: January 13, 2022

On this episode, Caitlin and Jamie ask a simple favor of their special guest Cate Young, which is to discuss A Simple Favor with them!(This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast.Follow @battymamzelle on Twitter. While you're there, you should also follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante and @jamieloftusHELP Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In California during the summer of 1975, within the span of 17 days and less than 90 miles, two women did something no other woman had done before, try to assassinate the President of the United States. One was the protege of Charles Manson. 26-year-old Lynette Fromm, nickname Squeaky. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer,

this season on the new podcast, Rip Current. Hear episodes of Rip Current early and completely ad free and receive exclusive bonus content by subscribing to iHeartTrue Crime Plus, only on Apple Podcasts. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearths the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. What was that?

That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister, or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the Bechdelcast, the questions asked if movies have women in them. Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands, or do they have individualism? The patriarchy's effin' vast.

Start changing it with the bechdel cast jamie caitlin i have a simple favor to ask of you oh yeah for sure oh yeah for sure yeah uh-huh okay for sure for sure sorry that's my anna kendrick oh for sure. It's really good. Thank you. Will you help me record an episode of the Bechtel cast? Oh, yeah. It's totally fine. I'm happy to do it. And it's actually, I'm going to actually tweet about it right now.

That's totally fine. And I would be thrilled. Do you want to be friends? I haven't had an alcoholic beverage in 45 years. Great. Thank you so much. Because we need to do that so that our listeners will be distracted when I commit murder. Oh, for sure.

Do you want to do karaoke? Yeah, I guess. I had sex with my brother. What a fun movie we're talking about today. I think that intro went went as about as well as it could have yeah and i i don't even know if i was like unintentionally doing a blake lively impression but i feel like i kind of nailed it regardless oh yeah i could like sense your elegant coat across the zoom call her outfits her outfits in this movie good lord so so good good oh truly well welcome to the Bechdel cast uh my name is

Jamie Loftus my name is Caitlin Durante and this is our show what if my name is actually hope or faith which one I don't know charity there's so many charity there's yeah this or it might be Claudia the secret I never know I could yeah there was at some point i'm like this is we gotta pare it down i'm getting confused right but this is our show where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens using the bechdel test as a jumping off point which is a media metric created by queer cartoonist allisonchdel. There are many variations of the test. The one that we are using is the test requires that two people of a marginalized gender must have names and speak to each other about something other than a man for a two-line exchange of dialogue, ideally more than that, and hopefully that exchange is narratively meaningful today we're not going to

have many problems no no we're not no need to get into the weeds which is interesting because we are on a as we were just discussing off mike we're on a bit of a noir kick right now and uh the first noir we covered uh we had a lot of trouble uh finding two women at all and getting in the same room, you know? Right. So, you know, what a difference almost 80 years makes. Yes, yes. So today's movie is A Simple Favor, and we have a magnificent guest joining us to discuss. She is a writer and culture critic.

It's Kate Young. Hi. Hello. Welcome. Thanks for having me. I'm so excited. We're so excited to have you. Oh my gosh. It's been a long time coming. We're thrilled to have you. And we're really excited you brought us this movie.

It's been a long time request since it came out. People have been yammering on about how we need to cover this movie. Sorry, Caitlina hates our listeners i mean i understand why like this is the movie that turned me around on like lively like i really i think i the first time i watched it i think i watched it like a bootleg on my laptop and i was like this is incredible and i've seen it like five million times since then okay so you're i was just we were just about to ask about your relationship with the movie. Yeah.

You're a big fan? Funnily enough, it came out the same year that I started listening to this podcast. And I was going to the New York Film Festival for the first time. And I was staying with a cousin in, I think, like Harlem. And I wasn't doing anything except like going to screenings and like watching TV on my laptop I mean that was like the same year that like the first season of You was on Lifetime and no one was watching I'm cooler than everyone but um um it had come out and I was just like I don't really want to like figure out like a movie that um I like you know secret and all the bootleg sites so I found a a video and I and I watched it because I've been hearing such great

things about it and I was like there's no way like Blake Lively is not a particularly strong actress there's no way this movie is good and I watched it and I was like this is the best thing I've ever seen in my life clearly like someone on her team has like figured out what her sweet spot is and like put her exactly in it like they know how to find her like just that specific kind of like b-movie plot that is going to play to her strengths like it's been a long-standing like pet peeve of mine that like she was a breakout star of Gossip Girl because rude but this I feel like this is the first thing that she's done that's like kind of justified it like I really really love this movie she is 100% the star she completely makes it worth it.

Like, and I don't think that anyone else could have done it the same way that she did. I totally agree. I was, I guess, I guess I never really thought about, I didn't watch Gossip Girl as it was coming out, which I don't know if I regret that or not. Because I started to watch it for the first time over the summer. And I was like, um interesting interesting I got to the Hilary Duff season and then I had to stop that's gnarly no that was a very specific moment in time you had to be 17 to appreciate it oh my god Hilary Duff in like 14 infinity scarves at once I was like this is a lot I need to I need to slow down we're just we're just having threesomes with vanessa well i gotta watch this show i guess it's pretty i mean

if you want to see everything happen then this is the show to see it happen on um but i i always associate her with sisterhood of the traveling pants oh right that is the one other thing i've seen her in i think that that was like maybe her first thing or like close to her first thing. I think so. Yeah. So I always had pleasant associations with her because I was a pants head. I don't know what they were calling that fandom. I was 12.

I liked it. Jamie, had you seen this movie before? What's your relationship with it? I had. I saw it. I didn't see it in theaters. I think I saw it maybe the year after it came out. Someone sat me down and made me watch it. And I really, really enjoyed it, which I was kind of surprised that I enjoyed it because I wasn't a particularly big some degree. And so, but like you're saying, Kate, this movie actually turned me around pretty significantly on both of them because, and also, I mean, I'm always thrilled to see Henry Golding.

And so that was a treat. And then there's also like so many fun comics in this movie too. Like a part in Antrella is in it. Patty Harrison is in it. Like there's a fun supporting cast too. I in this movie too like a part in entrello is in it patty harrison is in it like there's a fun supporting cast too yeah i like this movie and i was really um especially after we had just done a like classic noir i was excited to go into like a very smart and funny modern noir and i mean i've got stuff to talk i mean i think i mostly just have like questions about this movie

but uh i'm excited to talk about it with y'all yeah c i mostly just have like questions about this movie but uh i'm excited to talk about it with y'all yeah caitlin what's your history with this movie i had not seen it oh i remember all the buzz around it when it came out and i had every intention of seeing it but i just like never got around to it and it kept slipping like further and further down my list and then i just never saw it but i like i'm glad that we're doing this episode to like have given me the excuse to have seen it because it was a very interesting and challenging watch for me i don't know what to make of this movie and i'm gonna need both of your help i have a lot of thoughts about yeah i'm very i don't know it was just

i i'm not really sure what the intention of the movie is because it seems like it's asking the audience to empathize with anna kendrick's character by the end but i'm like but i don't so what yeah so what's what yeah no i uh i also resent being asked to relate with anna kendrick i was i was thinking about this today because i was eating a tuna sandwich in public and i'm like anna kendrick wouldn't do this and i'm supposed to relate i'm supposed to relate i can't i i just have theater kid prejudice it's fine i like that brings 110%. It's funny because I didn't get that at all. I mean, I don't dislike her by the end of the movie, but she's not the person that I gravitate towards.

And I did not get the sense that the movie wants us to be on her side or to like her the best at all. I wasn't sure. That's good to hear. Yeah. But certain narrative and cinematic choices that are made makes me think that the movie is sort of asking that of you. But maybe maybe not. Maybe I'm just like misinterpreting the intent.

I don't I don't know. But yeah, I'm excited to talk about that further. Yeah, I guess I wasn't really sure. I guess you would assume that you're trying to connect with Anna Kendrick harder than Blake Lively. But even so, like that didn't take me out of it. I was just like, these women are all over the place oh my god well let's should we get into it yeah let's get into it I will attempt to recap this very complicated movie so we open on Stephanie that's Anna Kendrick recording her vlog which, which is directed at moms. It might even be called like, hi, mom. Yeah. Hi, moms. God, I love I do like the vlogger commentary. I feel

like especially like, I'm sure it'll seem dated very soon and already a little bit. I'm like, this old interface. Interesting. But Anna Kendrick is the perfect I mean, you could so easily see her like pivoting to lifestyle content she's like one flop away from a lifestyle content career at any given moment anyways right and and I say that with love but like she she's got it she's got the cadence also I love that her name and like her character's name is's so great. I did appreciate that. So in her vlog, she mentions the disappearance

of her best friend, Emily, who has at this point been missing for five days. Then we flash back to Stephanie and Emily, played by Blake Lively, meeting for the first time. Their sons go to school together. Stephanie is a stay-at-home mom

her whole thing is that she's this like super mom her vlog is all about like recipes and how to make all these like cool it's lifestyle it's mommy blogging lifestyle yeah clicky crafty foods right and i i think kate i don't know if you have any knowledge on this because I have occasionally gone down the mommy's vlogging from home hole. But I feel like this movie was maybe a little early, like in a good way, early to mommy blogs pivoting to true crime, which has definitely been a thing. I feel like especially in lockdown, so many people pivoted to true crime, which has definitely been a thing. I feel like especially in lockdown, so many people pivoted to true crime. I don't know, just because I'm not a true crime person. So I'm not super tapped into what those people are doing. I have no clue.

As is your right. As is your right. I know. I'm like, just give me podcasts about movies. I don't want to hear about Murder Woman. That's not fun. Same. I went through like a two week phase in lockdown.

I mean, everyone went through 500 two week phases in lockdown. But where I someone someone came into my algorithm and then I just let her hang around for a while. Her name was Stephanie. And she was doing this these really long vlogs called like coffee and true crime. And it was like, Oh, and, and the videos have millions of views. She was basically doing Anna Kendrick cosplay.

Oh goodness. So Stephanie is this super mom. Her son's name is miles. She's also kind of like a goody two shoes, which is in stark contrast to Emily. She has a very high power, high stress job. She's very elegant and high class, but she's also very crass and abrasive. Her son's name is Nicky. Their sons want to have a play date. So Emily reluctantly invites Stephanie and Miles over to her amazing fancy house. They all live in

Connecticut in one of the suburbs of New York City. Ever heard of it? And then like the other parents, including one played by friend of the cast, Aparna Nancherla, they comment on how Stephanie and Emily like have nothing in common. They're like, what are they even going to talk about? But Emily and Stephanie get to know each other. Emily mentions her husband, Sean, who is a writer who wrote a book like 10 years ago. Who is Henry Golding. Yes.

Yeah, he shows up at some point and it's Henry Golding. He's in Paul Feig's movie after this, right? The Christmas movie? Last Christmas? Oh, is that Paul Feig? Yes, but I don't think that's a Paul Feig movie. Yeah. Maybe Paul Feig just produced it or something.

That was one of the worst movies I've ever seen in my entire life, by the way. No, he did direct Last Christmas. He did? Oh. He did. Yeah. I was feeling out of my mind. Yeah, no, he did yeah he drew i i was feeling out of my mind yeah no he he did and it also and that movie

also has a very chaotic series of plot twists that happen very very close together it's just less satisfying in that one but henry golding 500 plot twists in a row paul feig it's a whole genre wow incredible yeah it's it's leo dicaprio being submerged in water in his clothes all over again. Remember that? Yeah. Oh my God. What an exciting day for us when we were, God, I think I was like in a cabin in the middle of the woods and we were just screaming at each other over a poor internet connection, like it's all coming together. What a normal time. Okay. So we meet Sean. he is a writer he wrote a book like 10 years ago that stephanie has read and really liked we learn that stephanie's husband and brother died in a car accident so she's a single mom now then one day emily asks stephanie if she can pick up her son nicky

and look after him until Emily gets home from work. And then she does. They hang out again. They drink martinis. They're loose and they tell each other some secrets. Stephanie reveals that after her father passed away when she was 18 years old, she met her half brother that she never knew that she had. And then she reveals that she had sex with him see this is where i do connect with anna kendrick's character and not in the way that you uh jamie but care to clarify that see here's where i felt like representation mattered no i okay bear with me but no the the whole like the dynamic and it's like obviously very exaggerated because it's a noir and anna kendrick's in the scene so it's inherent

i'm being so mean to her but um but the whole idea of like making a new like friend who's a woman and being really swept up and like take it into a friendship and like immediately oversharing to an absurd degree and then like having that be a problem later i've had this problem before it reminds me of like getting drunk in the park with a new friend and then being like do you want to know the worst thing that's ever happened to me and they're like yes i don't know i love intense friendships but they're scary yes that aspect of her character is relatable yeah i like it others not so much yeah but when emily you mean when emily learns this she's like oh my god you brother fucker which she says a million times throughout the movie. And she seems to revel

in this juicy gossip. Yeah. Not long after this, Emily asks Stephanie to do her another simple favor. She needs Stephanie to pick Nikki up from school again until Emily gets home, except Emily never comes home that night. Stephanie calls Emily's office and learns that Emily is in Miami for a few days. Sean is meanwhile overseas, but he comes back a couple days later. He picks up Nikki, but there's still no word from Emily. So they decide to call the police who start investigating Emily being missing Stephanie also goes to Emily's office to do some digging she finds an unflattering photo of Emily which she then posts around town as a missing persons flyer, which is not nice. Yeah. Which, to be fair to her, it's because she doesn't have any other photos of her because Emily is very secretive about the fact that she is in hiding,

which we don't know yet, but won't let her take her photo. Exactly. Yes. Is that a smart thing to do is have someone in your life that's like, if I ever go missing, please use this picture. Yeah, I'm going to email all my friends be like, I approve this image of me. I historically have very bad. I mean, it seems suspicious to do. It seems like you're about to disappear yourself. But I do think that there I don't know, I think I just historically no one is ever picking the picture of me that I want them to yeah I mean on the upside well I guess

on the downside if you're missing you're probably dead so you won't care true that's true I'll be wringing my hands in the afterlife being like um no wonder they didn't find me I'm much cuter than that I did set my cousin to take over my Facebook account if I die so oh wait is that something you can do yeah yeah oh interesting yeah it's like they like they get access to it and they can like memorialize it and like confirm that you're dead and like get all your passwords and delete all your shit if you need them to huh yeah that's we're in the future aren't we fun morbid talk on the cast today so much for not liking dead women.

Anyway. Okay, so they've posted the flyer. They find out that Emily rented a Kia from an airport that the police are trying to track. And then a fan of Stephanie's vlog thinks she spotted Emily in Michigan. So they have kind of like a lead now also by the way with Emily gone Stephanie and Sean have started to connect a bit more they're getting closer such as like Stephanie is like coming over and like cooking dinner for Sean and the kids. Weird of her. Yeah. She makes a lot of very weird choices. Yeah. She really takes a turn. Then Emily's body is found in a lake in Michigan. Apparently she had drowned and Stephanie and

Sean mourn the loss of Emily. And then immediately after that, they have sex with each other. Oops. We all grieve differently, you know? I was going to say, I was like, there's no wrong way to grieve. And if your grieving involves having sex with Henry Golding,

you could do worse. Maybe you've unlocked a new level of grieving. One day, not long after this detective somerville shows up and informs stephanie that emily had heroin in her system when she died and that sean took out a four million dollar life insurance policy on emily before she disappeared So all of this seems very suspicious. And also, the audience is kind of wondering at this point if Stephanie had something to do with Emily's disappearance, because she's acting a bit erratic. But either way, Stephanie starts to do some more digging. And she and Sean keep getting closer. He asks her to move in with him.

They tell each other that they love each other. But then one day, Nikki mentions that he saw his mom, that she had come around to the playground at school. and there seem to be other hints that maybe Emily isn't actually dead after all right including what appears to be Emily blackmailing Stephanie with the information that Stephanie had sex with her brother and that's why you don't get too drunk on the first friend date and then Emily still being alive is confirmed when she calls Stephanie on the phone. Emily knows that Stephanie and Sean have been having sex and that they're in a relationship. So now Stephanie is suspecting that Emily and Sean are working together to try to fuck over Stephanie somehow. This is also around the time that we get a flashback where stephanie and emily kiss then we learn of a relationship a former relationship that stephanie

had with a woman named diana highland played by linda cartellini who had painted a number of nude portraits of emily except when stephanie goes to her to like get some information, Diana is like, her name isn't Emily. Her name is Claudia. And they had kind of a weird relationship where Emily had like taken a lot of money from Diana. And then also there is this like summer camp sweatshirt that is a clue that Emily might be from Michigan. So then Stephanie goes to Michigan to this summer camp, which leads to Emily's parents' house. We meet Emily's mom, who is played by Jean Smart.

Also around this time, Stephanie learns that Emily had a twin sister and that their real names are Hope and Faith. So Emily reappears and links up with Sean. And he's all like, what the hell? I always find it. I mean, it's fun to watch. But I'm like, the fact that Stephanie continues to vlog through this experience, it feels like we're leaving a lot of evidence. The fact that Stephanie continues to vlog through this experience,

it feels like we're leaving a lot of evidence. I mean, not that people don't do that on their vlogs. They do constantly, but it's just like she's really laying it on thick in the vlogs. I mean, that is one of the, I feel like, stronger, like themes through this movie that modernizes it is that like, Stephanie is genuinely like getting something out of this trauma that is basically unrelated to her. She's like built like, like we've seen, unfortunately, like a lot of creators build themselves up based on the trauma of others. And it's like, right, to some extent, I mean, it is also happening to her. But it's just like, oh, yeah, this is actually something that happens in the world. Yeah, she's like 100% exploiting her friend's disappearance to get more followers.

She's leaning in, girl boss. She's going for it. Well, I mean, they're best friends. I mean, they only met like three times, but they're best friends. How many? Okay. I was trying to figure out what the timeline of this was. Yeah.

How many times have they hung out before Emily disappears? Because it seems like it might have been like four or five times. I think so. Because I think like the first time is, I think, when she tells her about the brother fucking and she meets Henry Golding. There's the flashback scene. I don't know. The two different times yeah yeah those are two different times so that's at least twice the graveyard scene is after she disappears so that doesn't count and there's the one where they kiss so and I think that's a separate time so that's at least three times it's at least three times and that might be it yeah but stephanie keeps being like we're best friends and i'm not sure how much of that is like stephanie not having much self-awareness i think it's a little bit of both because like in the end when they pull this

like big gambit stephanie says something to the fact of like you're not just saying that like you really are best friends because i thought it was just me and then like goes yes of course like i you know i was feeling it too and then she shoots her so it's like i think that that was really fun for me just because it's like in the same way that you guys were like she's doing a lot i feel like that isn't like a feeling that a lot of people have that's like very common to female friendships where it's like am i coming on too strong do i like them enough do they like me enough like is this reciprocated and like how to kind of navigate that especially given the like queer overtones for the whole thing it's really fun yeah it is yeah okay so emily reappears she meets up with sean in a restaurant he's all like what the hell

wearing this little hat yeah she's like very incognito she's wearing sunglasses why was i so in love with her when she was wearing that hat i was like oh she's being so mean and she's wearing a hat i love it sean is like what the hell i thought you were dead. And she's like, well, I faked my death to collect the $4 million. Keep up, John. But Stephanie keeps meddling in this whole situation and tells the insurance people that maybe the body they found is Emily's twin sister that she's discovered that she had um so then suddenly stephanie and emily meet up at emily's gravesite both wearing good outfits yet again and a cane but i'm like how did they i want to know what happened to like arrange this meetup but anyway the vlogs oh was it yeah did she say like i'm going to the gravesite she was like i think there it yeah did she say like i'm going to the grave site she was

like i think there's one where she was like i'm going to go toast in your memory or something like that okay yeah right got it yeah because the vlog slowly just become like it's she's clout chasing but she's also like messages to her yeah yeah just talking to blake lively right yeah right okay so we find out that Hope, which is Emily's real name, and her twin sister Faith had burned down part of their parents' house

and had killed their father when they were teenagers because their father was abusive. And then after that they flee and part ways and they don't see each other for years and years,

the two sisters, until recently when they meet up but emily's sister is an addict she needs money she's trying to blackmail emily so emily drowns her in the lake and that's whose body they find but emily tells stephanie that the drowning was a suicide and that sean was in on this plan from the beginning and that they were just using Stephanie to like take care of their son until they were able to collect the insurance money. What a long con. What a risky long con to be like, oh, we just needed to exploit your labor.

There's that bit in the middle where Andrew Ronald's like, oh, you took on the nanny position. And she's like, no, we just needed to exploit your labor. Which is like, oh, okay. There's that bit in the middle where Andrew Ronald's like, it's like, oh, you took on the nanny position. And she's like, no, we're friends. And then when she leaves, she goes, she doesn't know she's working for free. Right. Yeah. I love that he, I forgot he was in this movie.

I love him. Yeah. Okay, so Emily reveals all this stuff to Stephanie. But because Stephanie has like meddled in the whole insurance collecting thing now everyone's kind of like at an impasse where they like don't no one really knows what to do so then Stephanie goes to Sean and Emily's house Stephanie fake shoots Sean and in so doing tries to trick Emily into confessing to the murder of her sister.

But Emily won't be so easily duped. And she actually shoots her husband, Sean. But it turns out that Stephanie was secretly live streaming the whole thing on her vlog. On her tiny nanny cam. On her tiny nanny cam. Her vlog has gotten, we've seen it like grow in popularity throughout the movie and so everyone was watching emily shoot her husband uh so she gets arrested then we get some text at the end that says that stephanie's vlog was purchased by like a huge like publishing yeah and she also takes on cold cases so now she's like a private eye kind of

thing sean and his son nicky are doing fine and sean moved to california and is now the head of the lit department at uc berkeley and he wrote a second book And he wrote a second book. Right. He wrote a second book. Called The Oopsie Jar. Yeah. Which is silly. It's funny. And then Emily is serving a 20-year prison sentence and has adjusted to prison life very well. And that is the end of the movie. So let's take a quick break and we'll come back to discuss. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate.

My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free,

subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. were mirrored nearly 50 years ago when President Gerald Ford faced two attempts on his life in less than three weeks. President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today. And these are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate a U.S. president. One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson. I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right-hand woman. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in a violent revolutionary

underground. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer. This is Rip Current, available now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that.

I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. One session. 24 hours. BPM 110. 120. She's terrified.

Should we wake her up? Absolutely not. What was that? You didn't figure it out? I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this?

We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. television iheart radio and realm listen to dream sequence on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or

wherever you get your podcasts and we're back where shall we start here where do we want to start um we should just pick something out of a hat at this point there's so much to do there's truly we've we've we've got some shit to talk about um i mean i feel like we should just like start with the costumes because i feel like that's such a such a big draw um i mean obviously the main focus in terms of like the visually striking costumes are with emily and blake lively and it was definitely a big draw to me i think that was part of what drew me into that character specifically and part of why I don't think we're supposed to like Stephanie that much. Because I feel like it's, like, the same issue that I had with, like,

what is it, Mrs. America on Hulu or whatever that came last year. Like, you don't give me, like, a super fun diva in, like, great costumes and then tell me to root against her. It doesn't work that way. Right. So I loved all of the suits and like how stylish they are and like the way that they were able to kind of construct these like really feminine lines with like traditionally male attire but I I also really liked how they

were able to kind of contrast that with these this like two sections of her life because she's in these suits when she's like dealing with Emily and that's kind of not with Emily, with Stephanie. And that's part of why Stephanie is like so enamored with her and thinks she's so cool and like wants to be her best friend because like, obviously so do I. But,

but like, she's not dressed like that when she like finally meets up with his sister before she kills her. Or like when she meets up with a husband to tell him that she's still alive or even at the very end when they're doing this big gambit like there's such a huge contrast between the suit she wears in the beginning of the film and like this like 50s housewife getup that she has on when she's turned up and like told them that her husband tried to murder her because she's essentially doing like white woman in peril cosplay like very effectively and like the the knowledge that she has of like how to

kind of I'm not sure that manipulate is the right way but to like situate herself in relation to other people like she is nearly always overdressed like in every scene and it still doesn't feel like out of place and I know for me like what I thought was really fun is that I think it's the first time that Stephanie comes over where the boys are there, she's making her a martini and she starts undressing and like pulling the pieces of the suit apart. And you realize that it's not a suit at all, actually. It's just pieces put together to look like a suit.

And so it's like a metaphor for her whole life. It's like this big, fancy, beautiful thing, but it's really just like a trick and so it's like a metaphor for her whole life it's like this big fancy beautiful thing but it's really just like a trick meant to confuse you and I really enjoy that aspect of it a lot because I I felt like she has so much like swagger and I feel like I don't know how to explain it I keep trying to tell people like like I I have decided for myself that like eye contact is gay but there's not actually a ton of it in this movie. But she does have like a very, she does have like a very masculine saga,

which I find very attractive. And that's like aided by the costuming. And the walking stick that she uses for some reason later in the film, which she apparently stole from Paul Feig like on the day of the shoot. Oh, really? Yeah, it's his. I think she's doing some interview and she was like

I just decided I wanted it I asked him for it and he told me fine. And I really love that and I like that it's like something that she's very aware of because I think like

once we get through the plot and we deal with like the Linda Carlini character and everything like it becomes very clear that she's a person who's like reinvented herself a lot

and like this is just the latest iteration of that and this is the the latest iteration of that. And this is the, the, the persona that suits her current life. Yeah, I totally agree. That's like better put than I ever could have done with costume analysis. So thank you. And I also, I mean, I also felt like a lot of, I mean, Blake Lively's costumes specifically,

because I feel like they're really given Anna Kendrick the full target very intentionally for the entire movie until the very end but I like I feel like Blake Lively's wardrobe also reminds you that this is a noir movie all the time because her outfits are definitely like referencing the

40s and 50s I mean especially in that last scene when she's like you know being the devil and wearing a house like a Donna Reed dress and like I I just I don't know I think I'm just like in the noir zone right now but I I really appreciated how that like the references to the genre's origins were made even through the costuming which was um kind of cool and that actually that brought me to I'm I'm wondering if I'm missing anything, but there did seem to be and maybe it's still happening. And I just don't realize it. But there

were three noir movies with with these kind of femme fatale characters, modernized, they came out within five years of each other that just had all these similarities. And I don't know if it's anything, but I was just like, this is so bizarre bizarre where this movie came out in 2018 uh there was a lot made of like oh this belongs to the like of Gone Girl and Girl on the Train and then this is like the comedy flavor of that kind of uh modern femme fatale in A Simple Favor and there's um and I I like A Simple Favor and Gone Girl I didn't like The Girl on the train that's my business but there is like a lot of similarities even in the production of those movies where i feel like part of what makes them different is that they're all adapted from books by women

they're adapted into screenplays by women and they're all directed by kind of like legacy male directors which I don't I don't know it feels like an interesting kind of like half step in the way that we talk about a lot of the time where I was really happy to see that all three of these movies were written by kind of like seasoned female screenwriters and also it's like oh but they all were directed by very famous men which I guess is the only way you can get a movie made still. Right. Because, I mean, we talked about on the recent Double Indemnity episode about how despite some efforts to reclaim the femme fatale character, ultimately that archetype was men think women are scary, whereas these like, you know, neo-noir, way more recent, you know, crime thrillers are, especially the ones that you cited, Jamie, are stories that are crafted by women. So they're taking some tropes of the genre that feel familiar, but subverting them or updating them. Yeah, like less mental gymnastics to get there.

Right. Which makes for far more interesting and nuanced characters, especially the women in the movie. Okay, so for Stephanie and Emily, I mean, there's so much to talk about regarding their friendship. There's so much to talk about regarding them as just like individuals. I don't, I don't even know. Should we just like start with Stephanie and then we'll just go from there? I'm like trying to figure out what the order, like the order of operations is here right yeah so stephanie um thoughts i like don't know what okay let me just pose this question to start did stephanie kill her dad and did stephanie kill her brother and her husband that is what I was

thinking for a large chunk of the movie she did not kill her dad or her brother or her husband okay I was like wait a second are we sure what yes her dad died and he either had a previous son or a secret son that part's unclear but a half-brother who showed up to the funeral or the wake or the whatever. And then she slept with him. And her son is very probably her brother's. Yes. And her husband was like, you guys are too close. It's kind of weird.

And then he was mad about it and was like let's go handle this like men and then they got into a car accident and died yeah i thought that was just the traumatic backstory for her i'm pretty i'm pretty sure right did i miss something oh i don't think she killed anybody she didn't know yeah she didn't kill them they just died doing men things that's a wild theory though kayla i that's my theory i think that stephanie is not as innocent as she seems and maybe i was just thinking this because i mean she's fucking her brother she's she was fucking her brother famously she was yeah i think i'm showing you and she's loving it oh my gosh there's a chunk of the movie where you aren't sure how culpable or not stephanie is because there's a

little bit where you're kind of it's kind of vague it's open to interpretation you're wondering like wait a minute did she have something to do with the disappearance of her supposed best friend that pretty quickly seems to fizzle out as more information comes out but i think maybe it was just like during that chunk of time where i was like wow she seems really guilty does this mean she also killed all these family members and then i just kind of like ran with it but okay so so i guess stephanie isn't a murderer yeah um yeah give her time um i mean i i liked a lot of the commentary that was being done through stephanie's character where i feel like sometimes it's like she definitely is a type that i feel like most

people who have met a you know a white millennial mom will recognize which is yeah she's a lot she's doing the most there is like she's not coming from a bad place but it is from a very like vibrating insecurity she is extremely online but it's very curated and very fake but also on top of that like i feel like sometimes you'll see that archetype presented and then kind of just be like yeah let's make fun of this person she fucking sucks and this movie doesn't do that this movie gives her background it also says like yeah she is this it almost reminds me of oh god not me quoting a bo burnham song jesus christ but like the like she's a very very like she's a whatever quote-unquote basic woman who has trauma and has like a backstory and has um more to her than meets the eye on this punishingly

boring vlog that she has and i i liked that story choice where it seems like the the writing in this movie it doesn't let her off the hook for um a lot of the i mean and and ultimately especially at the end where i was a little unclear and like, and I guess it's just like open interpretation, but how the movie wants you to feel about her like sinister true crime vlog getting bought out by Condé Nast. I'm like, I don't feel like that's really a win for the culture. But as a girl boss capitalist, you know, really thrilled for her that she gets to exploit people's death on youtube every single day but um i don't know i mean i feel like the movie doesn't let her off the hook but also gives her an appropriate depth so i liked how she was written i didn't like her particularly but i but i don't know like you were saying earlier kate i don't know how much we're

supposed to really like like her, but I was interested. Yeah, I think the thing with Stephanie is that she is like aggressively normie. Yeah, but it read to me like it was very much like a front to cover the brother fucking, which I think is part of why like Emily is so delighted when she admits that because she's like, I thought you were this like super boring housewife and you're way more interesting than that. And it's like a thing that she's ashamed of, obviously, but it's also something that she feels like is maybe more true to who she actually is. And so she has to do this like very aggressive performance of like normativity to hide that side of herself and I think that the thing that connects her and Emily is that she kind of sees that like Emily's very like cards on the table like I'm in debt hate my husband isn't that fun and she like enjoys how much that puts people off because like we don't generally just air our laundry out like that. And I think for her, like getting Stephanie to kind of return the favor almost is like delightful to her because she didn't think that there was anything that.

Yeah, I found the way the two main characters and like how they were written and how they were characterized to be interesting. And I mean, the layers that keep getting peeled back the information you keep learning about each one because stephanie yeah you learn this thing that she committed an act of incest at least once maybe multi it might be suggested that it's like an ongoing thing excuse you it's only half incest it's i was also i mean that's like a gutsy move to involve an incest plot line in like a paul feig movie right it's because i feel like it never really registers as like as potentially gross as it actually is right right feels like the movie kind of downplays it i mean because the brother i don't think like has any lines except maybe like one right before he dies right oh maybe he

doesn't know i think he might just signal to her like it's all good yeah i guess you don't really get to know him yeah not even at all he's like a non-entity yeah i do i mean it's like and and obviously that's a very very serious issue that this movie isn't equipped to handle but i wasn't like particularly upset with how it's like well yeah that's a very, very serious issue that this movie isn't equipped to handle. But I wasn't like particularly upset with how it's like, well, yeah, if you're going to include that in this movie, you got to like skirt around it. Like we don't have room in a movie like this to tackle an issue of that magnitude. Yeah, I feel like it puts it in in in in a way where Emily's reaction is appropriate, where it's like not oh my god that's incest but oh my god you're so dirty that's really fun right right because that's how she would see it yeah which is bizarre it is i don't i mean it's definitely bizarre i i'm also like if if there

were viewers who were like uh that was fucked up i totally understand why they would feel that way also apparently that is like even i and again this is not a podcast we would where we would ever read read a book we've been saying it for half a decade right but apparently in the book that is far more of a an element in in the book and it was actively and intentionally scaled back for this adaptation which i think i wonder why yeah i'm like that's uh i think a smart move if they absolutely had to include that plot point i feel like they handled it about as gracefully as you could but there's no graceful way to handle an incest plot line so right i'm just like what function does this serve exactly besides like giving i guess it gives emily leverage to blackmail stephanie when she needs to and then

it also just like clues the audience in to stephanie not being nearly as innocent as she wants people to believe she is, like this persona that she puts on. I mean, there couldn't be a more extreme example of, yeah. Right? Right. So, yeah, I find that all very fascinating in a way that like a lot of movies wouldn't dare tackle something like that. Right. Just isolating Stephanieie alone like she's such a challenging character to analyze for sure i mean i feel like it definitely is a case of like you can but should you and the answer in this case is yeah i don't know i don't know right but i am always um whatever this is i guess my second and third time seeing this movie but every single time you're like oh right that is and also like an anna kendrick character like it's just so wild yeah

i feel like i can't maybe my brain has an 100 process that they made that choice i've had plenty of time to process it but right it's so fun too because i feel like in this movie she like anna kendrick is playing exactly the type like it's she's the exact this is the exact character that you think that she would be in real life if you were just making shit up like it's so aggressively like they had to get energy like you were saying before like it

doesn't there's nothing new like I feel like all of the wild shit that happens in this movie with her it stops feeling wild because you're like oh yeah of course you would do that and so I guess if you set that precedent you're like oh well this woman you would do that and so i guess if you set that precedent you're like oh well this could do anything at any time it's like yeah i wonder if her character is canonically the character she played in the twilight saga because she was around

so many like like this weird vampire family of like kind of brothers and sisters dating each other so she's just like this is normal right true she's carrying it over from her twilight experience she's like oh i've been around this dynamic and um you live long enough anyways right okay okay but then even after you learn that information about her backstory more and more layers keep being peeled back of like her showing her true colors or like what she's capable of and you know because she's very meddlesome she's very sneaky there's that scene where she talks back to emily's boss and like calls him like a bargain basement tom ford and like calls him tacky and says all these like really bitchy things to him which is are very funny but we're like oh my god

i didn't even you know we didn't know she was capable yeah of that but she like firecracker like one after the next and you wonder like channeling em there, too. I have to do, which again, is just like the the intense friendship element of this movie is so like friendship. And then some like elements of this movie are so appealing to me because you're like, oh, like, like when you're in a new intense friendship, you're like, yeah, I want to be this person. I would like let me see if I can like single white female them in this moment. I feel like it's that classic gay impulse of like, do I want to be with her or to be her, to consume her into my being. Right. And I feel like that dynamic is like fully on display in this film.

Yeah. Right. I love it. I love it so much. Which I'm also curious about your thoughts on that aspect of their relationship specifically, because there's that scene, we get the flashback toward the end of the, you know, it's like quite a ways into the movie where they kiss. And it's after Stephanie has revealed that she feels responsible for the death of both

her husband and her brother you know she's crying and that leads to this kiss between her and emily and then they both kind of like brush it off is like oh i'm embarrassed and then emily's like oh no big deal just another tuesday for me and I thought that was like setting up a different ending for the movie that they would actually like join forces and just exploit maybe like Sean and like because they do kind of like try to yeah send him off to jail but then but then the ending goes where that's under consideration but it lasts about 30 seconds right it's confusing yeah it's because i feel like the movie it's it's very gay and it's sensibility but it's also like

aggressively heterosexual in a lot of ways and it's kind of hard like i'm i feel like they do a good job of balancing those two things because like in my mind this is a gay film but it's not actually all that gay no like if you really think about it and like everyone's endings are very normie and heterosexual although to be fair i'm not sure if they say that stephanie is dating someone from the city or a guy from the city so if it's just somebody then it could be a lady you don't know true but i think in general like it definitely frames these relationships as like transactional romantic heterosexual relationships and that moment between emily and stephanie i'm i'm honestly not even sure what to make of it except for the fact that because like Emily at least we know is like

at least bi-curious because she has this previous relationship with Linda Carlini yeah I think that she I mean and then she also mentions that like she had a relationship with it with a female TA at some point I think she's economically bisexual yeah so there you go so for me and it makes sense that she is kind of like, because I think a lot of what Emily's doing too is like all of her relationships are about like power and the exchange of power, even if they're not actually sexual. And so I think for in that moment, it's very much like, I don't do like hugs and comfort and whatever, but I can do sex. And sex is power. So it's the same thing. Well,

that got me wondering, I think her sexuality is not super clear because even though it's suggested that she had a romantic relate or at least like a sexual relationship with Linda Cardellini's character, I interpreted that as Emily, basically just like using her exploiting that situation for money. Yeah. Because Linda Carnelini is like, yeah,

I paid her way through college. And then, and it seemed like a very one-sided relationship where she's like, I was like, she was the best ex I ever had. And like, she was my muse and I painted her and it was great. And da,

da, da. But then Emily just like bailed and abandoned her. And, but then it's like, Emily does that to men as well. Like it seems like she's an equal opportunity like bailer. Just a chaos bisexual. It's awesome.

Yeah. I don't think that that like precludes her from being bisexual if that she's a shitty girlfriend. True. That makes a stronger case. I wanted to bring up, there was a fun piece I read about this movie on a website called intomore.com called But How Gay is a Simple Favor. It was a fun and useful tool written by a writer named Kevin O'Keefe. And he references a trope that I don't know if we've ever addressed on this show before. He does not make the argument that Emily, he's kind of ambiguous of whether he thinks Emily falls into this trope.

But it's just one that we haven't talked about that I feel like is often pulled into a femme fatale character, which is the depraved bisexual trope. Have we talked about this before, Caitlin? I don't think so. The depraved bisexual trope. Okay, let's get into it um I am thinking wheels are turning this was new to me also I might be into it right and then once you hear the characters that are referenced I'm like okay I understand what is being referenced here it was first brought up by a writer named Devin Price in 2018 the year of the simple favor um that we can link in the

description I was just curious on both of your thoughts on this so quoting from devin price's piece quote a depraved bisexual is a character usually in a work of fiction whose bisexuality is used as an indicator that they are untrustworthy perverse and morally corrupt they are often depicted as impulsive even unstable or mentally ill depraved bisexuals are not merely attracted to some women and some men. They are salacious and undiscriminated, perhaps willing to fuck anything that moves. Their sexuality and the narrative is the source of distraction and corruption. They are often depicted as having explosive emotions and a deep streak of hedonism and other animalistic urges.

Because they cannot quote unquote decide on a gender to be attracted to, as the logic goes, they also cannot say no to anything sexual or pleasurable. And he kind of proceeds to break this down character by character. He references Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct. He references Poison Ivy in Batman the Animated Series. I don't know. it was not a trope i had come across before and the writer kevin o'keefe he's not making an argument that emily is a depraved bisexual because i think that there is like more to her than that but it was just not something that i'd encountered before i mean it's describing a trope i feel like depraved is a strong word but i would argue yes only because i feel like the i i am familiar with the the idea

that like bisexual means you can't choose and you'll do anything with anyone and like i don't agree obviously but i i was on i was on the queer quandary podcast a couple weeks back and we talked about um the movie um side effects with runy mara and Catherine Zeta-Jones. And they are also bisexual. It's great. And one of the things I talked about on that show is this idea that, like, it's not, like, great representation of queer people for them to be, like, villains doing, like, bad things.

But also, like, that's the most fun. Like, I'm always on the side of the bisexual doing chaotic things like I'm always on their side I'm always going to choose them like I don't care if you murdered your husband like maybe he deserved it that's not my problem like I and so like I'm leaning towards like yes she falls into that trope I just don't mind because like I just feel like equivalents are always more fun like there's a reason like so many of them have been reclaimed over the years like especially when you put those characters and

other characters that are either explicitly queer or coded queer in the context of like the persecution that they face in the world it's like why wouldn't they go a little hog wild and like do some weird shit to people like they deserve to the world's miserable right and it's

like all of the characters that this trope are attributed to are beloved characters exactly so it's like it is it is complicated but i did i just had never um i guess i'd never like read the a to c of like conflating bisexuality with i mean because the chaotic bisexual walks among us the chaotic everyone walks among us um but but in like in fiction um conflating that and the stereotypes that you know incorrect marginalizing stereotypes associated with bisexual people and how that translates to their to their chaos it was like oh this is new to me and it does seem like emily falls into this trope to some degree but i also yeah really like that character so yeah you know i feel like it's a little cuspy because like she is bisexual and she is chaotic but i also feel like the movie

in general it's not that sexual. Like all of the sex I feel like is implied other than the one sex scene with her brother. But other than that, like it's very much like an implication. Like you're supposed to feel that the characters are sexy as opposed to that they are having sex necessarily. And so I don't get that, like, that there's a direct connection between, like, her desire for or engaging in sex as directly related to the crimes she does. Like, she kills her dad because he's abusive. And then she, like, does a gone girl on herself because they're deeply in debt and need money. Like, she didn't, none of that stuff is, like, because I'm trying to trap a man or trap a woman for that matter like right they're all like practical considerations her like femme fatale motivation

is all based in like class issues and money problems it isn't like you know whatever we just did the double indemnity episode of like i don't like my husband i'd like for him to disappear which is like i don't hate that motivation either but this is like a very like same practical motivation at the end of the day which I thought was kind of cool that this movie doesn't really like whack you over the head with it but they do like address class to some extent at the beginning with Stephanie you know being the I mean like she's they're a middle class target family like they're're OK. But she is talking about, you know, how she has to live off of her her dead husband's life insurance and how there's a lot of budgeting, a lot of money stress associated with maintaining her son's quality of life. And then you learn about all the Blake Lively debt and just I don't know. It's always cool to hear money talked about kind of frankly in a movie, especially like a genre movie.

Yeah. Wait, going back to sex really quickly. Sure, why not? Which is the best transition sentence I've ever said. Come to think of it, the sexually charged moments in the movie that you see like for example when when emily is having sex or implied to want sex from her husband because there's a scene in the airplane after she revealed that she stole his mother's ring chaos and then he's like what the fuck did you like that was a horrible thing for you to do and she's like haha shut up also come into the bathroom and have sex with me so she's like almost using sex is like a distraction yeah uh because

she does it again after she like reappears and is like surprise husband i'm not dead after all and she like pretends to shoot him with like a gun that isn't loaded and then she's like teehee i'll be in the bathroom coming in 20 seconds if you want to have sex with me. I honestly was like rooting for her in that moment. I was like, what?

Give me the confidence to do that for one minute. Because how could you not? I know. Like you do want to like in those moments, I'm like, I want to be her in that moment.

I want to be the person that steals a ring and then is like, don't worry, just have sex with me and you'll forget all about it you know well compare those moments where she's like clearly using sex as like a manipulation tactic compare that to the kiss that she shares with stephanie which feels at least it felt to me like it was way more authentic and tender you could make the argument that it's also manipulative on sure Emily's part maybe also Stephanie's part hard to say because

both of these characters are very complicated and sneaky and they're both like different degrees of femme fatale which is kind of fun to have like yeah right right yeah they're just like opposites of each other in a lot of ways I feel like so maybe i'm going back on what i like because i wasn't sure the authenticity to emily's bisexuality but now i'm like wait maybe she is perhaps even more attracted to women because of that scene versus again like when we see her having sex with her husband it's always like to trick him or like distract him I mean I can't speak to her Kinsey scale but I do think she's definitely bisexual yeah I think right but I I agree I think that the I think that that moment

that she has with Stephanie is sincere I mean when I was watching it again for to prep for this podcast one of the things that I noticed is that, one, this is a lot longer than, like, just a moment, and two, they both, like, move their hands up to each other's heads to, like, engage further, and it's Stephanie that pulls away. Like, they're both, like, into it, and I think that that's part of the fun of the movie is that in another scenario,

if, like, Emily hadn't pulled this off or tried to pull the scam, like, they probably would have been very close I think that they each saw each something in the other that like spoke to the side of them they weren't comfortable showing the rest of the world and in that moment now that they kind of like had each other's secrets it was it allowed them to like have this closeness that wasn't available to them before like sure stephanie was fucking her brother but like she also talked about the fact that like after they had died like

she hadn't slept with anyone she hadn't been dating she was too intimidated to go into the city or something like she she's alone and she is finally opening up about this like presumably like very shameful thing in her past to this woman that she just met and that kind of like forced intimacy I think like really did bond them and I think though that Emily would not have come after Stephanie if Stephanie had just stopped meddling right right but then I also am like but maybe Emily like I don't know I ultimately it's like I you can't really Emily is it's really hard to know who if Emily has a genuine feeling for really anybody except for her son like that's really the only person that you can guarantee like she really loved her son and would not uh

kill him but anyone else like she could kill anyone else in her life except for her son who loves to say fuck um yeah her son says fucking every scene uh very cute kid um i forget where this is going oh oh that line from stephanie that like broke my heart and i feel like justifies not justifies i guess contextualizes a lot of her behavior and why she goes so like has I think you know very outsized reaction to the things that are happening to her sometimes where it's just like uh sometimes with Stephanie you're like just do nothing just go home you know like why just go home but she says that thing where she says like I think loneliness probably kills more people than cancer and you're like oh my god like she her motivation is to some extent to have an

honest connection with someone and so it's like when she feels that she has that with Emily and then is betrayed and then feels like she has that with Sean which is like well what did you think was going to happen and then is betrayed it's like of course that's gonna like spin her way the fuck out because her like core motivation is to make a meaningful connection with someone that she can trust and is clearly not dealing with her grief in a meaningful way and has like been through so much and i don't know i mean it like i don't know i stephanie's such a weird character, but that line really got me good. I was like, God, she's just really unhappy.

She's really, really unhappy. And so at the end, when she starts a, like, true crime empire, I'm like, but has she grieved? Like, has she, you know, I hope that she's, like, got a good therapist now that she's got that Condé Nast money because she could be headed down a dark road it's funny you say that about connection though because I think that that is something that she's getting from the true crime empire because like especially now that we've like the way that it kind of has metastasized online like through TikTok now especially like people aren't just being like oh isn't that like an interesting story like did you

hear about it it's like now like we are the sleuths we will solve it even though these are people like that you've never met you don't you're not involved in the case you're like five million states away but I think people feel not just connected but like this like very not good impulse to like get involved in stories in a certain way yeah and and i think that you're right that she's like ahead of that in the sense that that's exactly what she does in this film like there was multiple times in this movie where she could have simply said like this is kind of where i think i'm gonna like bounce and she just like doesn't because she like has to have answers she has to go through the thing like she dips her kids off with like whom whomever the fuck and like

parna she goes across the country They're like bye she just fucks off to go Like investigate at some camp like no One sent you there yeah No one sent you but she's like Spending the money that she can't afford really Because her husband's insurance money is running out To like rent cars and go across the country

To like figure out what's happening Like sneaking into her parents house To figure out what happened to her And into her parents house to figure out what happened to her and her sister i know she's sneaking into gene smart's house yes it doesn't have anything to do with her yeah it is i mean it is fucked and i feel like something that they're also engaging with and and i maybe someone mentioned this earlier is she's like majorly capitalizing on as is you know gone girl and i think girl on Train. I don't really remember that movie very well. But like capitalizing on missing white woman syndrome and getting people very involved with this like traditionally beautiful missing white lady and like capitalizing on it and building an audience based on it.

And I don't like it's I wish I kind of wish that the movie said that a little more explicitly. But I mean, that's like definitely what is happening. I don't. Yeah. Stephanie is very complicated. Like ultimately, I'm not rooting for her. But like what a wounded what a wounded soul. My God.

But she should have just gone home at some point. Yeah. I like the like Gone Girl comparison just because i mean i feel like that's kind of like the epitome of that genre or like that little mini genre that was happening at that time but yeah it like to me stephanie is i think her name is casey wilson in gone girl the next door neighbor who's like we were best friends i know what happened to her her husband killed her you have to listen to me. Like Stephanie is that character, except that this movie is from her perspective. And so it's like

two ends of the same, the same story, but we're, we're getting the like meddlesome neighbor who's fucking it up instead of the one who's trying to scam the money. And I think that's really fun just because in both situations, like they're all they're both white women and they're both people like I think some it's something that like Sarah Marshall says a lot and you're wrong about that like the justice system is like constructed to protect her or like white women in general right ostensibly even though it really isn't. But, and so like, in the same way that Emily is leveraging her white womanhood to kind of build this story that she is in danger and that someone has harmed her and to mobilize people to save her, Stephanie's doing the same thing.

It's just from a different part of the story like it's not just that she is looking for her friend and her friend is a white person because i don't think that if emma that if stephanie was not a white woman that her vlog would blow up in the same way totally i think that it's because she is also a white woman who is domestic and serene and, you know, lovely and feminine. Vaguely religious. Yes. There's even that part where, like, Linda Cardellini is like, oh, I could paint you.

You seem so pure, like a saint. And, you know, she's, like, talking about her perceived innocence that, like, clearly people are latching on to because by the end of the movie her blog her vlog has over a million subscribers precisely and because all of these people who are watching these vlogs like they don't know emily they've probably never seen a photo of her except for that one raggedy one that she pulled out from god knows where like they don't know this person they only know her there she's the one that they're connecting to and it's precisely for those same reasons i didn't even think that like yeah you don't even have a picture of Emily so you have to fully rely

on Stephanie's own like persona in order to to buy into and she is like she's fully playing a character in those videos like I mean the way that any of us do to some extent but like she's really she's I mean she's really going for it yeah

it's it's so and I did think it was like an interesting detail that her audience becomes engaged enough that that is what takes her to michigan in the first place because that is also something we see all the time is like the online detectives getting way too involved and then you're like this seems dark this is fucked up and then they solve something and you're like oh my god what yeah no you're breaking my brain um i don't know yeah it's i just that's how i feel about free britney yeah yeah you're just like i mean and there was in the gabby petito case as well recently where it was like yeah tiktok made a breakthrough and you're like guys stop you're

confusing me like yeah i think it is inherently like it comes from a good place but it's but there's there's some darkness there and it's I don't know what's confusing. Yeah, it's like I mean, I know we had there was that like week when everyone was like parasocial relationships and they're whining about it. But like, I think in some way, like this true crime thing is an extension of that because it's not just like, oh, there's a mystery and we're gonna solve it even though we're like some random person on tiktok it's like there's a mystery and we're gonna solve it and we're gonna ascribe motives to the players in the story that we do not know and do not have information about right based on what are very likely to be like raced and classed assumptions about people to fit what is likely to be a very set true crime frame like i think they even say like in the film

in the movie there's a video she does where she's like oh no i know you guys think that it's like always the husband but it's not he's very nice like we're best friends and it's like yeah that's because it usually is the husband but it obviously wasn't it wasn't in this case but if we were going strictly on like what is the framework of a true crime story it would be him because it's always the intimate partner. For sure. And I think that, like, when we are dealing with, like, real life stories, it's, like, we are not good at separating, like, the general likelihood based on statistics and, like, the specific information. And, like, I personally, like, didn't follow the Gal Pettito case because

I was, like, I'm uncomfortable with, with like how much speculation is happening based on very little information. But like, you can't, you can't say that you can't be like, sure, this guy seems sketched, but that's not proof of anything. Because then you all of a sudden you're like, and you know, you're on the side of a murder. And it's like, I don't know that he murdered anyone. I don't know anything about this case. It's Yeah, it's extremely, extremely complicated. And just because it is like, maybe statistically likely doesn't mean that you should automatically default to ruining someone's life over it before you have enough information and yeah i mean it's i mean we don't have to talk anymore about the gabby petito case in particular but it's it is like we haven't figured it out that's for fucking sure and it is like it makes me uncomfortable to um engage in it because of what you're saying

Kate it's like because people are making yeah it's real people and the internet at large and people at large are always going to default to very race and uh class-based assumptions about people that can truly like destroy someone's life yeah and also a lot of women are killed by their intimate partners it's just like so complicated. And this movie makes it funny. Let's take another quick break and then we will come right back. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks.

Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. This summer, the nation watched as the Republican nominee for president was the target of two assassination attempts, separated by two months. These events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago when President Gerald Ford faced two attempts on his life in less than three weeks.

President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today. And these are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate a U.S. president. One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson. I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right-hand woman. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in a violent revolutionary underground. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer. This is Rip Current.

Available now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I have a thinking about you I want you back in my life it's too late for that I have a proposal for you come up here and document my project all you need to do is record everything like you always do one session

24 hours BPM 110 120 she's terrified should we wake her up? absolutely not what was that? you didn't figure it out? 1.20, she's terrified. Should we wake her up? Absolutely not. What was that?

You didn't figure it out? I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing.

They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. Can we talk about Henry Golding's character? Because he was also very complicated of a character in terms of like... He's messy.

Yeah, there's like suggestions that he's maybe having an affair. We see him more or less gaslighting Stephanie when she's like, it seems like maybe Emily is alive. And he's like, let me just call the psychology department because you seem cuckoo bananas. Yeah. You know, there's these different things. But then also he does really seem to love his wife and like want the best for her. But he's also, to me, he feels like an unreliable narrator who's not the narrator.

I guess just he's an unreliable character because I'm like, how much does he know? How much is he involved in this scheme? Like, whose side is he on? Is he on anybody's side? There's like a lot. I almost wish we understood better what his situation was because i just left with a bunch of questions about him i don't know i mean i feel like he's hard to read and like now that i've seen it a couple times it's more obvious to me that he isn't involved and genuinely doesn't know anything

but if you're watching it for the first time like it's very easy to think that he's in on it and gaslighting her because the thing of the one thing that i will say in defense of him is that i don't think that he was gaslighting stephanie only because he genuinely believed his wife was dead and so he was wrong but he wasn't trying to trick her it wasn't intentionally okay yeah yeah so that that's the one thing i was in defense of him on the other hand i think that it is very suspicious and I think the movie plays on that, that he is just real, real happy about moving on. Like, it does not take him two seconds.

He's like, let's move in. Like, I want to be with you. You're the person that makes me the man that I want to be. And I'm like, girl, your wife just died. Maybe chill down. Like, slow down for two seconds. Like, he is very sketch. I also feel like that's not very considerate of her either of like yeah yeah and like on the one hand it's like men do that they're very bad at being alone but on the other hand she's literally her best friend

maybe chill for two seconds because like i don't know what the timeline is on this movie, but it does seem very fast. Right. It does. Yeah. And again, that's what makes it all the wilder that it's like, oh, it does seem like Stephanie is sharing all of these details with her vlog audience that real like, if I whatever, we're all there. But if I were like, moving in with my quote unquote unquote best friend who I've only met five times, by the way, but it was really intense.

Five, five hangouts. But like if you're moving into I would not tell anybody. I would not tell anyone, much less anyone who wanted to know. Because at one point she does her vlog from Emily and Sean's kitchen. And anyone who's like paying attention would be like, whose kitchen are you in? Like what, why?

But, um, yeah, that they both needed to just simmer down a bit, but, um, but then it also is like, and again,

I don't want to, but it's like, Stephanie is so motivated by being deeply lonely that I feel like it's also like Sean. And I couldn't tell. I was like, does Sean know her well enough to know that he's kind of like triggering something in her by pushing this relationship forward so quickly? It doesn't seem like he does know. And I feel like he just doesn't know enough information about anyone. He doesn't.

I feel like he doesn't. He doesn't know her any better than Emily did. Right. She just took care of his kid a couple times. Like, that's it. And he's like, I love you.

They don't know each other and they have that, yeah, they have that, like, one hot moment and then they sleep together and, like, that's great but that's not enough to, like, upend your life

and move your kid out of his house. And I understand, like, her motivation because you're right, like, she's lonely but that doesn't explain his behavior. Right, no, it doesn't. I feel like he just moves so fast. Yeah. And I think, like, her motivation, because you're right, like, she's lonely, but that doesn't explain his behavior.

Right, no, it doesn't. I feel like he just moves so fast. Yeah. And I think that the movie does, like, use that as a way to kind of, like, raise suspicion about him and, like, kind of, you know, misdirect the audience. But he's so, like, like, even when Emily finally comes back comes back and like reveals himself to him and then when the detectives find out about it after she like comes back on purpose he asked him like well so you knew that she was alive and you didn't like say anything and i'm like yeah that's suspicious why didn't you say anything right like i don't know why would you not mention that especially

given that he spent the last couple of weeks. Yeah. Of like of Stephanie being like, she's alive. I promise she's alive. And him being like, no, she's definitely dead. You now know that she was right. So why wouldn't you say anything? Right.

Which is like my first feeling in particular. I was like, oh, this guy is like guilty as fuck. Like, why? I still don't quite get. Sean eludes me. He eludes me at every time. I I I think that um he's just very very silly what a goofy guy they're like yeah like I do think that's fun like he is kind of the element that he's kind of this like one hit wonder kind of guy where like he wrote a book what presumably in his like early 20s and now he's like in his mid 30s like i'm really getting around to it you know any second now it's like oh i know

that guy i know that i am that guy i feel like sometimes you are that guy um uh well let's talk a little bit about Emily and her background. Because there is, in the back half of this movie, holy shit, there's a lot that comes up. Yeah. So there's a bunch of twists and turns as it pertains to Emily. I think one of the first things we learn about Emily that is never explicitly stated. It is explicitly stated about her twin but not her is that she has substance abuse issues she is constantly drunk during the day it's clearly had an effect on her

marriage she seems to be aware of this she also seems to be aware that it's had an effect on her parenting but it also like i thought it was interesting the way that's presented because it is referenced constantly that it is like a detriment to her family um but in the same way it's also presented as like part of what makes her a cool femme fatale character right which i just think is i guess i don't really know like many things in this movie i i don't know which which way to really fall on how i feel about that i do think it's interesting that both sides of that coin are presented to the viewer of like yeah yeah you know she's drinking a handle of vodka a day but doesn't she look good doing it and you're like well yes but also her like i mean that moment like after she quote unquote dies but

doesn't where sean like has a moment where he's angry about it and he's like oh you missed your mom like that lady who got drunk in the middle of the day all the time and you're like yikes this is like this family is like was truly affected but it's not really it's it's weird because it's presented as a genuine substance abuse issue with her mother and her twin sister who also had issues with abusing drugs um and drug addiction but when it comes to emily it's cool question mark that was one thing that was like one thing i was like i agree actually yeah it's funny because like it wasn't until you just said that that i was like oh yeah she was like fully an alcoholic yeah like it just dawned on me which is like not a judgment statement but it's like it seems to be inherent to that character yeah yeah i wonder if this is commentary or not let

me know what you think but i wonder if it's like a because of the class component people perceive substance abuse differently depending on your class it reminds me of a joke from 30 rock yeah well that's for yeah that's for sure true so i don't know if the way it's being presented in this movie is commentary on that or not if it's just sort of like leaning into that without really commenting on it but it reminds me of this joke in 30 rock and i'm gonna butcher it because i don't remember it exactly but it's something like ale Alec Baldwin is like, oh, it's just like being business drunk and it's like legal to drive when you're the implication being if you're wealthy enough, you can be drunk and drive or do whatever. And you won't face any repercussions because of your like elevated privilege and class and stuff like that. Right. So because Emily has this like high power job and she's drinking fancy martinis and like doing them in a very fancy way, it's like not as easy to perceive her as, you know,

someone who's struggling with substance abuse issues versus her twin sister, who has clearly been like down on her luck for several years and is uh you know financially struggling and uh her substance abuse is much more apparent because of that so yeah i don't know yeah i don't know what the movie is like saying about it if anything and gene smart's character as well who we see drinking and who we're told explicitly on screen like oh she shouldn't be drinking so i did think it was interesting that they went and this again it's like this is not a universal truth but it is certainly something that happens of you know substance abuse being a hereditary issue and so i thought it was interesting that you saw that her mother

is clearly struggling with uh something similar but again it's just like to what end it doesn't really play out in emily's character at all you're sort of you sort of assume that if she didn't go to prison she would continue day drinking indefinitely and it would always be really sexy yeah i think for me i i think dean smart is the reason why i would say that i don't think that it's meant to be class commentary. Only because for me, what made it obvious that the sister and the mom are struggling with substance abuse versus Emily is that Emily is always in control of her faculties. Right. Like when we meet Faith, she looks strung out. She looks like she's been using drugs.

She's emaciated. Her hair is a mess. And similar to Jean Smart's character, the mom, she is, you know, she's like in a tizzy. She's flying around the house. She looks like she is under the influence, as opposed to Emily, who's just like sexily doing sexy things with a martini glass. Right. And it makes me think of Olivia Pope from Scandal, who like also drank exorbitant amounts of wine yes the most high-functioning alcoholic of all time right and she but like she's always in control like that's that's her thing right and so that was another show where i it like didn't

occur to me that like she literally only eats popcorn and drinks wine like she is an alcoholic but it doesn't it doesn doesn't register because she's always in control. She's never having accidents or getting back out drunk or throwing up everywhere or missing meetings. The one time that she ever spilled

wine on her white couch is because she was kidnapped by the deep state. I forgot about that. Because kidnapped by the deep state like it like so you never it like because of that i think that it's the it's the the depiction of those characters as like fully in control of their faculties that like makes the difference in whether or not you perceive them as having a substance abuse problem because like blake levy's tall carrie washington is like smaller but like not a very tall person like the volumes of alcohol that she was allegedly consuming should have her flat on her back right yes yes and it's i i mean i think that that is like a like whatever fictional signaling that that play i mean at least

in the case of scandal i mean it for sure just plays into like this is the trope rich people can drink forever and uh still be the greatest people in the world. And I don't know, I'm like, you know what, fine, whatever. I'm gonna keep watching it. I'm gonna keep watching it before I go to bed. So it's above reproach. But, but yeah, I mean, in this case, it's just I, with Scandal, it makes more sense to me because it's not like there are a lot of clear foils to that logic like it's just like oh this is olivia pope this is like the in this world you can drink wine all day and still be the most high functioning amazing person on the planet and that is just true here where we are but in this movie it's like both things are true you can like i don't know again i just like i just thought it was interesting when they went and it wasn't until like they went as far as to show you that her mother also seems to be a alcoholic maybe a recovering alcoholic to some extent it's just weird and and she says over and over that it's like she's a bad

mother and that's another thing about emily's character that i mean emily like that scene where she looks so beautiful like but she shows up like the scene where anna kendrick takes her picture and she says all these like casually like brutal things about herself in a very like casual way where she's just like the best thing i can do for my son is to blow my brains out and like don't denigrate your good parenting to make up for my shitty parenting like she's saying like i'm a bad parent like saying all like really really gnarly stuff so it's like she knows i don't know i don't know it's just weird i like it i like it but it's weird yeah i think because at that point in the movie we don't know. It's just weird. I like it. I like it, but it's weird. Yeah, I think because at that point in the movie, we don't know any of the backstory.

And I think it's supposed to be part of her charm that she's like, no, parenting is hard. Like, I'm bad at it. And like, it's supposed to be like, I'm telling the truth, things that like no one wants to say, as opposed to like, no, I'm actually a neglectful person to my child. Right. And we don't like know that until later because even even Stephanie's like no I think you're a great mom but that's also part of just like social graces right like you don't someone says something shitty about themselves you don't affirm it it's not true yeah I can see that yeah I agree with you yeah I guess you are are really late so so i'm not i i feel like i think you're right that like she does know but

i think that that's that's also part of like the fun that emily has like saying the true things out loud and like making people squirm the first few lines of dialogue out of her mouth and then like a couple scenes beyond that she's saying like i was laughing she's like i can't have a play date with you boring mommy lady i have a play date with the symphony of antidepressants and then her son's like you never let me do anything fun and emily's like that's not true i let you rip my labia when i pushed you out of my body you know like all this yeah you're just like wow I deliciously grass be my best friend or be my wife doesn't matter uh she should she should be the writer in this family not Sean right that is always fun when a writer has like a way more

interesting partner and I'm like well I guess I know where you're getting all this shit from you just have a factory of material with you emily's everybody's muse she has she's some people just walk in the light like that um and i guess that that that also does like that also ties into her whole like stop apologizing her annoyance with which is like already it's weird 2021 when we're recording this it already does feel like a very 2018 thing to like girls stop apologizing but but in the in the world of this movie uh i think it works and the way that emily presents it and then the way that stephanie takes it to such an extreme that at the end she puts her best friend in jail and is like oh i'm i'm not sorry like i thought that there was like a good amount of commentary there on like yeah yes women like women are socially conditioned to apologize a lot but but sometimes you know

sometimes you do something fucked up you have to apologize right because emily says to stephanie don't apologize it's a fucked up female habit you don't need to be sorry for anything ever and it's like well that's not that part isn true. Like sometimes you like probably should apologize. You should be sorry. But not if you're a chaotic bisexual. No. No. Yeah.

Oh man. This whole conversation is making me like the movie even more. What else we got? What else we got? I find it interesting. And maybe this comment isn't even totally fair but this is a movie about female friendship more or less but it's basically a movie where if two women try to be friends look what happens it's a cautionary tale. Which wouldn't be that big of a deal, but there are so many movies like this

that hinge on a narrative of like two women meeting and then ending up hating each other or ending up like trying to screw each other over. Usually those stories are written by men because men don't understand things. But... Yeah. I guess that's why it doesn't bother me as much here because yeah I understand why they don't like I mean that's really all I mean and I do

think that there should be more move you know media in general where it's just like women being friends and connecting with each other I just recorded something about little women where you're just like oh yeah like watching women meaningfully connect with each other. I just recorded something about little women where you're just like, oh yeah. Like watching women meaningfully connect with each other and occasionally have conflict is like, ooh, it is such a good corner of the world to live in. But I do feel like in the case of this movie, I don't know, all I want,

like if there are women in conflict, amazing. I just want to like be able to wrap my head around why. And I think sometimes with the way that men write conflict between women, are women in conflict amazing i just want to like be able to wrap my head around why like and i sometimes with the men with the way that men write conflict between women it just you're like this doesn't you don't understand like that's that it's very underdeveloped or like dissonant but in this case yeah i don't even feel like they're in conflict so much as that that they're at cross purposes like it's less that stephanie is like against emily or vice versa it's less that Stephanie is like against Emily or vice versa. It's more that like one is trying to achieve something specific. The other is also trying to achieve something

specific and they both can't achieve the same thing or achieve their thing if the other person wins. So it's not that they're against each other. It's that they're trying to accomplish their goals and their goals are contradictory. Right. That's a, that's a perfect way to put it. I don't know. Yeah. It didn't ping for me in this movie in particular, but I do. I mean,

that's still obviously like a thing that still happens too frequently. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Does anyone have any other thoughts? I feel like we've just scratched the surface of this. I did want to just mention, I noticed that i mean there

is a fair amount of diversity in this cast but it i mean obviously is this like you know battle of wits between these two white ladies and they're like the queer characters and people of color with the exception of henry golding are kept on the comedic margins of the movie there's like and there's so many good players that it's like i wish that you know like a partner nanchola is there and use them more i mean andrew reynolds does get to hit blake lively with a car so and then he gets out and he says america's hybrids silent but deadly and i'm like that was pretty good like i love any time that they're on screen I just always am like okay give them more to do then

you know but you know you get to see them smoking a bong you get to see Andrew Reynolds hit like lively with a Prius you know you do get some stuff but yeah I just felt like that was worth mentioning sure I would like to mention that instead of a clothes trying on montage

there is a getting rid of clothes montage wow but then that also confused me because we see that that montage where stephanie is getting she has moved into emily's house she clears out her closet but then like she comes in whatever the next day or something like that and all of of Emily's stuff is back where it was. Is that to suggest that Emily like snuck in during the night and like put all of her clothes and shoes back? I hope so. I think so. Right.

I didn't even get that it was a different day because I was like, how did you do that that fast? That's weird. Yeah, I thought it was in the face of that. I thought you just went downstairs. Me too. I know. And I'm like, was this like a dream sequence? Like I was so confused by the whole thing.

But anyway, we do see a getting rid of clothes montage. And I was like, hey, that's different. That's kind of funny too. Because we just had this like huge femme fatale tropes discussion and how they're like sometimes perceived as being like kind of witchy characters that have magic. I think i just bought into that trope in that moment i'm like yeah blake lively scrambled upstairs and put everything out of course she did yeah that's that's her character makes sense to me i wow wow i got fem fatal pilled in that moment wow yeah does anyone have anything else they want to talk about? We talked about a lot. I don't know.

I'm satisfied. I'm satisfied as well. And this movie, I mean, gang, does this movie pass the Bechdel test? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It super does. I would say more often than not, maybe, possibly. Yeah.

Kind of a rare example of a movie yeah that more conversations pass than don't i mean i haven't done the math the hard math on that so don't quote me on it this is not a math podcast it's not a math podcast it's not a book podcast so relax but it's just the girls uh circling up and no i'm i'm bisexual i don't do math but you do understand chaos theory because of how chaotic bisexuals are it's just in me yeah you are a scientist you just don't do math um yes definitely does pass the bechdel test as As far as our nipple scale, zero to five nipples based on examining the movie through an intersectional feminist lens. Oh, wow. I simply don't know about a simple favor.

Wow. A movie where two women are the main players is like such a complicated and challenging and interesting movie that generates such an interesting discussion. That alone makes me want to give it like three and a half or four nipples, maybe. Because even though I still don't quite know what to make of it I do kind of part of me wanted the movie to end differently where like the two women realize wow we actually are best friends and um we would stand a better chance if we just like team up and get rid of this goofball husband guy who will just apparently have sex with any woman nearby so let's screw him over and then uh team up and whatever just like collect that four million dollars and have a ball and keep kissing each other um that might have been like too silly and like to like girl power of an ending

but that is kind of what i was hoping for um the heart wants what the heart wants i know even so it's it was uh a challenging interesting movie i appreciate a lot of what it was doing as far as like commentary on like you know middle class upper middle class white lady being a girl boss like because i mean we don't really see stephanie like have any karen moments but she strikes me as like such a karen i feel like talking to the boss was the karen moment that's true it's true yeah discount or was it low rent Tom Ford that was that was her time to shine so yeah I don't know the commentary on that that's that's all interesting to me I wish there were more movies just that celebrate

female friendship and um don't suggest that they're kind of doomed but uh you know even so this is a fun movie i'll give it three and a half nipples i'll give one to henry golding not his character but just him as an actor because i love him uh i'll give one to a parna nonchalant i will give one to the prius that runs over blake lively at the end and i'll give my half nipple to um i think they were the two little boys were playing with teenage mutant ninja turtle toys at some point hell yeah so i'll give my half nipple to turtle toys. To the Ninja Turtles? Yeah. Okay. Because I'm like, when are we going to cover a Ninja Turtles movie? You've never asked.

We should do it. I will. Secret of the years, baby. There's a new one coming out next year, I think. That's our time to shine. Anyway, so yeah, that's my nipple distribution. Okay. I'm tempted to go four here.

I mean, and maybe it's just because I had such a delightful time. And I think it also, because I think I am going to go for partially because we, and maybe I wouldn't have if we hadn't just covered a different noir. And it was really interesting to see how, whatever, 70 plus years of this genre kind of built and evolved the way that femme fatales can be presented and the amount of depth that they can have and and even like comparing this movie to the 1940s noir that we covered like how just replacing a motivation being inherently connected to a man and changing it to like this very complicated fucked up relationship with the women in her life like on the whole if we're viewing emily as the protagonist she has a fucked up relationship with stephanie she has a really complicated relationship with her sister she has a really complicated relationship with her mom and that seems to be more what drives her to

behave the way she does versus her relationship with men but she's still very much a femme fatale which I just I don't know I think it's really interesting and then I also think that the the the modern you know the kind of mommy vlogger criticism while also giving her depth that you can kind of like or dislike was really strong I at the end of the day this is still a movie that hinges on the lives of two white women who have access to everything they need they're not um you know i think it's good that they discuss money and that they are having i don't think it's good that they're having money but you know what I mean but ultimately like this is the kind of movie that's like it's subverting some things and then others it's sort of not but

it's a but I like it oh it's hard I like we contain multitudes we contain multitudes and and I do and again it's this is the kind of like very very very specific subgenre that I hope continues to develop. Maybe not like right away, but down the line, I would like to see more movies like this. And maybe, you know, start women of color, maybe a little bit less of the completely depraved bisexual trope. Perhaps a woman could direct question mark. I mean, let's really shoot for the stars here. But I do. I mean, in terms of like half step and progress I think it's cool that you know all three of these movies that we were kind of referencing throughout this episode were based on stories by women and were adapted by women which you

certainly weren't getting earlier in the genre and it seems to show um I like this movie uh maybe maybe I'm taking an L by giving it four nipples but I'm gonna go for it I'm gonna give one to Blake and give one to Blake's twin oh no sorry I'm gonna give three to the triplets uh and then I'll give and I'll give my last one to Aparna and that's what I'm gonna do uh Kate so I love this movie as I've already said I mean like uh I think I mentioned it before we got on the mics but I have the poster for this film like framed and up in my apartment but I I love this movie it forced me to stop calling like lively plantation Barbie and I just I I feel like it's one of those, like, media prophecies that has, like, enough of, like, a queer sensibility that it's, like, it's almost like gaydar.

Like, the movie is, like, signaling to you in ways that are not necessarily apparent, but are obvious if you know what you're looking for. And I love stuff like that. And I had known long before now that like I always like the character that's like a little bitchy like Blair was my favorite on Gossip Girl like I I love the mean character I love the character who is like quick with a sharp word and I just feel like I got so much of that out of this film that I really enjoyed plus I love a mystery I love a good twist there's it's so rare rare that a movie surprises me anymore, even if I really enjoy them. And this is one of the few in the last couple of years that I didn't know what was going to happen next. And I really enjoyed that ride.

Yeah. So as for my nipples, I'm going to do slightly differently. I'm going to dock a nipple for Emily not winning in the end, because I think that the equivalent should always win. And I'm going to dock a half nipple for the black cop trope because I hate that. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yes. Yeah, and then as for my other three and a half,

I'm going to give one to Emily Suits. I'm going to give another one to paul feig's walking cane um i'm gonna give one to the cussing kid uh nikki yeah because a kid's swearing is always hilarious yeah and my other half nipple i will give to blake lively's line reading of Brotherfucker. Yeah. Which one? I like it. I like it. The movie has a catchphrase. It's fun. It should have been on the poster.

But Kate, thank you so much for being here. What a treat. Thank you for having me. This is so fun. Thanks for doing us the favor, the simple favor of being a guest on the show you're very welcome and now we're gonna disappear for a long time and i know i promise not to try to murder you for four million dollars thank you so much yeah look i would understand just please use

the correct photo when i'm killed that's all i ask yeah we'll email you the photos that we approve of where can people follow you on social media check out your writing check out anything that you'd like to plug sure you can find me on various social media platforms

at Bati Mamzal B-A-T-T-Y-M-A-M-Z-E-L-L-E. If you can't find me, I'm not there. And my website, which is kate-young.com. And more frequently, I publish a weekly newsletter with my friend Zosia called 30 Flirty and Fine. It's on Substack. And film. Oh, my God, why did I say that wrong? 30 Flirty and Film at Substack. And every week we publish two film reviews that we write in 30 minutes or less, probably more, but we don't tell you because it's ours

and we can make whatever rules we want. Wow, you're full of secrets. Yeah, we're just lying. But that's really fun and our last issue was uh the i reviewed uh benedetta which just came out that's the lesbian nun movie it's super fun yeah um and so shit covered um i forget what was called um the the nun documentary oh my god i forget what it's about oh is that they're like kick-ass nuns i'm not sure but it's like they're like kick-ass nuns who like protest and shit and i'm like yeah more

catholic nuns need to say fuck you to the pope but it's really fun we have a lot of fun doing it um i like to pretend like it's not stressful because i enjoy making work for myself relatable relatable content yeah uh you can follow us on twitter and instagram at bechtel cast you can check out our matreon that's at patreon.com slash bechtel cast it gets you two bonus episodes every month plus the whole back catalog of bonus episodes, and it's $5 per month. Wow. You can also fulfill all your merchandising needs at tpublic.com slash thebechtelcast. And with that, do you want to jump in the lake? Nothing weird going on.

Just let's go for a swim, you know, work out our differences. Sounds like a plan to me. Okay. Only if I get a fancy diamond ring. Okay, it's a deal. Bye-bye. Bye. Bye.

In California during the summer of 1975, within the span of 17 days and less than 90 miles, two women did something no other woman had done before. Tried to assassinate the president of the United States. One was the protege of Charles Manson. 26-year-old Lynette Fromm, nicknamed Squeaky. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer, this season on the new podcast, Rip Current. Hear episodes of Rip Current early and completely ad-free and receive exclusive bonus content by subscribing to iHeartTrue Crime Plus

only on Apple Podcasts. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was assassinated. Crooks everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state.

Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. What was that?

That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister, or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.