The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘Cape Fear’ Episode 3: Who Stalks the Stalkers?

Episode Date: June 12, 2026

Jo and Rob wait out the storm to recap the third episode of ‘Cape Fear.’ (0:00) Intro (3:35) The big reveal (14:14) Witch stuff (18:44) What is the show trying to say? (21:54) Max and Anna’s connection (29:06) Lexi and Tom (38:02) (Bad) Parent Corner (40:09) Cape Fear River (44:12) AngelX (01:02:24) Our very own conspiracy board! Email us! [e-mail] or [e-mail] Follow us on IG and TikTok! Subscribe to the Ringer TV YouTube channel here for full episodes of ‘The Prestige TV Podcast’ and so much more! Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Rob Mahoney Producers: Kai Grady and Devon Renaldo Additional Production Support: Justin Sayles and Jacob Cornett Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, welcome back to the Prestige TV podcast feed. I'm DeWater Robinson. I'm Rob Mahoney. And we're here with episode three of Cape Fear by... Guys, guess what? Popular demand. Yeah, truly. Genuinely popular demand.

What did they know that we didn't? Well, they told us something that we came to on our own. Okay. Which is that we need to really kind of lean in to this particular brand of Apple TV show, which is... I'm calling it Trash to Peace Theater. Bravo. You can call it whatever you want.

We got some suggestions sent to us. But like when we did presumed innocent and we talked about this a little bit, like maybe we would have enjoyed our coverage of disclaimer even more if we just leaned into this particular brand of Apple programming, which is just sort of absolutely insane, kind of pulpy, often campy, dare I say, sometimes bad shows exist. and they've cast incredible actors and sometimes it's great and sometimes it's terrible and you just have to take it all together and wrap your arms around it. And it's summertime.

Yes. I might be wearing a sweater but it is warm and sweltering outside in Los Angeles, California. So like, it reminds me of like watching True Blood on HBO during the summer and you're just like, let's do it.

We know why we're here. I think that was some of the difference with disclaimer, which yes, we might have enjoyed it more all the way through if we knew that's what it was from the jump. I don't know that. Kevin Klein knew that. I don't know that Cape Blanchett knew that.

It's true. Presumed Innocent and Cape Fear, I feel like they have a good feel for how sweaty and, like, low-key, trashy the source material is. So we will be covering this for the foreseeable week-to-week. That is the plan. Rob, can you remind folks where they can email us if they have questions, comments, are concerned? Always at prestige TV at Spotify.com. But especially for Cape Fear, think of a baby carrot at Gmail.com. I don't like saying it. I don't like thinking it. But you. You must type it into your browser to email us. You cannot type toe in a jar at gmail.com. It will not get to us.

No. Think of a baby carrot at eGmail.com. You must think of a baby care at first to even get the toe in the jar. Correct, correct. All right. So this is episode three of the show, Phantom Sensation, speaking of, I guess, missing toes. Written by Alan Page Ariaga and directed by Amanda Marcellus, who, among many of the things, is a long-storied TV directing career.

but did five episodes of The Pit kind of recently, so there's that. Nice. We didn't mention Morton Tildom, who's like, who I know from an infamous Oscar season. But anyway,

director of the imitation game directed the premiere and Headhunters, which is an incredible movie. And then S.J. Clarkson, who's a great TV director, directed episode two. Reed Morano,

who is an incredible TV director is directing episode four. So they got great directors to shoot these dead skunks and backyard panthers and, you know, counter-hopping cats and all the other things that are in the show. I mean, I think there's a lot of fun you can have with it as a director.

The, like, playing they're doing with color, with mood, with tone, with, you know, even just getting the moments of levity from, like, Javier Bardem, getting to cut up a little bit. How can you not have fun directing an episode like this? We've got a couple emails. We'll get to those.

But before we do any of that, we want to start with the thing that happens in episode three that made both of us go, oh holy shit. That's the show we're watching. Right. I texted you, I didn't tell you what it was, and then I was worried that I had overplayed it when I texted it to you,

but then you watched it and you texted me and you said, holy shit. I did. What happened, Rob? Well, let's back up even further than that. First of all, you and I try to rarely or sparsely talk about these episodes before we podcast. We don't do that. We're trying to save the material for this conversation.

Your outsized reaction to this episode, out of character unusual and I can understand the temptation of like oh did I overplay that so then I start watching the episode I'm locked in I'm like I know Joe loves Ethan Embry

but this could not have been about Ethan Embry right I did have a oh my god it's Ethan Embry but I never would have texted you about that pleasantly surprised to see him but it can't be that Francesca Scorsese could it be her

I was like it simply could not be sure enough by the end of the episode Juliet fucking Lewis is here yes I have many questions I'm sure we can get into some of the theories. I have no idea what to do with any of this. It is great and it's silly and I love it. It's very exciting.

Juliet Lewis, who we mentioned is like, I mean, De Niro, but Juliette Lewis is like the 90s Cape Fear movie. She's incredible in it. She was Oscar nominated for it. So here she is. And we should say this is a Cape Fear tradition because Gregory Peck and Robert Mitcham

who were in the 1960s movie show up in the 1990s movie. So they got the two leads of the 1960s movie to show up. So I was going back through, I told you this, I was going back through, like, junk in interviews that the cast gave. And this is the thing that Amy Adams said that both Patrick Wilson and Javier Bernden were like, ooh, well said. She said, there are cameos from the genre throughout the show. So be on the lookout. So by, from the genre, does she mean from the Cape Fair universe?

From the Cape Fear. Is, is Jessica Lang showing up? Did we get, did Scorsese get De Niro? He got his daughter in here on a cell phone. Is De Niro going to show up later this season? The fact that they kept Juliette Lewis under wraps is astonishing to me. And you were saying like you didn't watch Yellow Jackets. So this is like, you haven't seen Juliette Lewis in a while.

In a new thing in a long time. It's not like new, you know, because for people watch Yellow Jackets or people watch the Tonys on Sunday, she was up there on stage because she's in the Rocky Horror Picture Show of Broadway right now. But, you know, Julia Lewis has been around. Like to have her show up here is just so fun. It's really juicy. And she gives like a great deranged Juliette Lewis performance. I had a really fun time because I thought I was 10 steps ahead of the show, but the show was 10 steps ahead of me because I was like, oh, they have to hide her face because those characters know her.

No, they hit her face because we know her. It's Juliette Lewis. My mind was genuinely blown by this. I think it's, it was so exciting. Yeah. Because, yeah, it blows open the possibility of what kind of story this is who could appear in it. I mean, I'm not taking off the table the idea that this is a weird postmodern Cape Fear in which this is literally the same little Bowden girl who has now grown up into a recursive cyclone of terror and fear that she is now participating in in a psychologically damaging and hypnotic capacity. I love that.

To go back really quickly to the Amy Adams from the genre line. I was wondering if she meant like, because Ted Levine, who obviously was in a sentence of the lambs. has already shown up here. So maybe she means of these sort of like 90s horror thriller genre. I can see that. So maybe that's,

Ethan Embry hasn't been in anything like that, but that I can recall unless you think of high school parties as a horror movie. I can't hardly. It's stalkery mildly at minimum. That's true.

Justice for Preston Myers. I don't know. I'll fight you. I'll fight you. Email us. Pressuthty at Spotify.com. Or think of a baby carrier at Gmail.com. If there are other actors, either from Cape Fear.

So, like, is Nick Nolte on the table? Is Jessica Lang on the table? Is De Niro on the table? Sure. Are there other people here who could show up? We know that Ron Perlman's in the cast. We don't know who he's playing. You know, Buffalo Bill is freaking here.

So, like, who else from a 90s sort of horror thriller could show up? I'm curious. People have thoughts. There's so many options. And what if it's the broader fear of verse? And we get, like, a Richard Gere, or Ned Norton in here somewhere. You know, like, let's just really tie all these things together. Let's create an actual cinematic universe of weird summer slop.

Mark Wahlberg and Reese Witherspoon from the film Fear. Can't wait. And also primal fear and also Cape Fear. I think you've really cracked it here. I think this is it. And what about Fear Street? Is that count? That might be too far.

All right. Anyway, point being, Juliet Lewis is here. So the thing I like about having her hair because the way they used Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum was really fun in the 90s movie because Mitcham was sort of like on the side of law enforcement and Gregory Peck plays this sort of like slimy lawyer who is defending Max Katie. So they kind of flipped their moral codes inside of that. So to have Juliet Lewis who played the teenage girl

who was like stalked and tormented by Max Katie to stalk and torment Max Katie is quite fun. It is quite fun. And it's also kind of raising the idea. This is a season of television. Yeah. A lot of plot to spin through. We got to go down some dead ends and figure out what's what.

But raises the idea that Max Katie is himself a kind of victim. And I think especially with his response to the song, I know we want to get into the dangling of the dog collar, all this stuff, the past trauma. You love the butthole surfers. What am I, if not a butthole surfer? I think that, yeah. Well, that's been here from the jump.

Like, we already had his sort of like, was he guilty when he went into prison? Right. I think yes, but we can debate that. But the show is kind of like daring you to buy into that. It's like, are you sure you want to believe that this guy is innocent of something? Or is he just evil enough that even if he's innocent, he's still a bad dude? Or like, you know, that controversial phrase of like hurt people, hurt people. Like, did he do this horrible thing?

But also was he, you know, he was abused as a child because we have seen flashbacks both in episode two and now here of him in a cage. Like his father was a dog trainer. his father seems to have like dog trained him, put a collar on him and put him in a cage to get him to behave. There's also some like weird religious trauma that was associated with that down at Cape Fair River. The reaction that he has to Juliette Lewis singing the butthole surfers feels almost like Pavlovian. Yeah, winter soldiery activation. Manchering candidate-esque.

Definitely. And so, you know, like he has to, like when he hears the butthole surfers. So to me, it seems like she has to be someone from his childhood, someone who at least knows that. Knows that he has a trigger, a butt-hullsurf or a trigger or is it any, I didn't, I didn't. I didn't write this show. Somebody else wrote this show.

Or is it like any song with the phrase dog collar and it will work or something like that, I don't know. This seems more specific. As soon as she starts singing it, you can see his reaction. He kind of knows what's coming and knows the effect it's about to have on him. As he starts screaming into the void and smashing this TV with a fire poker and every bit of it. Yeah. Also love like a staticy broken VCR.

You have to go analog. Spazzing out Julia Lewis's face as she like cackle sings and also talks at the same time. So good. It was fantastic. Yeah, I mean, theories abound. Very exciting that she's here. I'm not, I'm still not ruling out that his quote unquote dead wife with plastic surgery. Plastic surgery exists.

So I'm just like keeping it on the board. So you think, spoiler alert, in a speed racer-esque capacity, she has undergone extensive plastic surgery. What is Scott Porter if not Matthew Fox persisting? It's very true. This is the kind of show it feels like we're watching, you know, that she could show up with plastic surgery. Because when she's like heard you got out And we are primed from the woman who encounters Max Katie eating ice cream in a very disturbing fashion. Right.

Like railing Gibbons would never eat his ice cream that way. That, okay, there's women all over the shop that are so excited that Max Kitty is out of prison so perhaps they can fuck him. Wendy Wilson, the woman in question. Sure. So like, allegedly, that's the name she gives. But he's like, I don't know, Wendy. Do we know each other? I'm not going to do the accent.

I'm sorry, I started. Okay, so we're primed to think that Juliette Lewis, when she knocks on the door of Anna's room, is just another one of these, like, sex-craved, you know, women. But I don't think at all that's what's going on here. And so my question was, is she, I heard you got out, is it not so that we can have sex? It's like, sorry, follow me down this rabbit hole. If she, if this is his ex, his wife. Yes.

who faked her death to hide her son from him because she was afraid he was going to abuse her son or something like that. She finds out she's pregnant. Yep. She doesn't want her son raised by him or whatever. She fakes her death, blah, blah, blah. She's like, a herd you got out. If he's out, he's like a danger to the son.

Like, that's why she would be upset that he got out. Do you know what I mean? Yes. Are you following me? I'm trying to follow it. Sorry. I'm going to just say right now. No, no, but here's what?

Here's, let me just say one of the things. Please. Is the reason A.I. Slop dead son. exists so that when real sun shows up, we will know what he looks like. What if the whole AI Slop's Sun thing is a misdirect, though? And it's just an assumption that it was a son to begin with. And like, Nevea is his actual biological daughter or something. Or sex change.

Listen. Anything is on the table. Everything's on the table. I just want to apologize blanket in advance. We are going to be very deranged with this show. There's no other way to watch it. It's going to become very clear over the course of this podcast. the extent of our derangement?

We do have a fun treat for the end of the podcast for the video folks. So stick around. Come with us on video on this journey. Yeah. I just don't know how else to engage with it, if not to follow every one of these rabbit holes. I think it can only be fun that way. Okay, so listen, a couple emails we got.

The witch stuff is really intriguing people, obviously. We got several emails about, I hesitated to call it voodoo because I don't know enough about that whole culture to just be like there's a bull. bowl of pomegranate seeds, it must be voodoo. So like... It's a specific word to use in this context. However, we did get an email from Rio who said that some of Max's tattoos, not the eyes, but some of the patterns that are on his pecks, are a voodoo-ve symbol, sacred cosmograms

drawn in the ground in Haitian voodoo and related traditions to represent and invoke specific spirits or deities. So that could be a specific, more specific, tie to, perhaps. We don't know. The problem is, it's like, Javier Bardem is playing a Spanish, half Spanish, half American. So, like, Wudu is not associated with the country of Spain. No. So that's why I'm just sort of confused why Voodoo would be here. He's a man who is of the world. Sure.

He's a man who has spent time in prison. Absolutely. He could have met any number of voodoo CD characters all over the place. We got an email from Marina about this drug called Devil's Breath, also a South American sort of concept. But their accountant's reports of users being coerced into carrying out criminal acts after being spiked with a drug. Invertently, under the, quote, mind control effects of the drug, these victims have been assaulted, convinced to commit violent crimes, empty their bank accounts and even had their organs stolen. So, like, it has this hallucinogenic property that makes people highly impressionable.

This drug, I guess, exists. So this might be actual witch drugs? Right. I mean, this is a question I have. I don't know enough about this. I was asking Chris Ryan. I don't know why I thought Chris Ryan would know, like, what he thinks Patrick Wilson is microdosing.

You know, we got some emails about this. Our listener Sharon wrote in and said she thought he was microdosing Tom, that Tom was microdosing LSD, because microdosing acid is sometimes treatment for depression, but juries out on whether or not it works. He was using it a bit more recreationally to like, for he and Lexi to unwind.

I still don't know exactly what's in there. Do you have any further thoughts on that? I don't, and you asking me just makes, it makes you feel like a narc. Like, I feel like you're testing me. Yeah. Dev, call me a narc yesterday. People need to stop calling me a narc. I feel like I've done more drugs than you have.

You just keep going around being like, hey, do you guys know about these drugs? I would just like to know what he's putting on his dog. As would I. I think we need this question answered. Email, I would say me. Don't email Joe. Email me at think of a baby carrot at gmail.com. I'm from the Bay Area, man.

You're from Texas. I don't know what to say. I don't know. I grew up in a suburb that at one point I believe was called the heroin capital of the world. Look that up. Interesting. Okay. We were talking about on the flashback that Patrick Wilson's character Tom has in episode two.

We were trying to examine the posters on the wall to see sort of like when this might be. And a bunch of our listeners wrote in to let us know that you thought you had seen a He Man poster on sort of the interior of the room. Yes, inside the room. But the poster on the outside of the door, our listeners identified as a Talking Heads poster from the album Remain in the Light, a Remain in Light, which came out in 1980. He-Man plus talking heads 1980s. Starting to add up. The problem is the talking heads

are eternal. They are. So it could be any time. I love the talking heads. How can you not? Absolutely. Do you have a favorite talking head song? I mean, I am basic.

So it is going to be something off-stop making sense. It's probably just running down the house. Okay. Truly basic would be psycho-killer, so I'll give you burning out of house. I mean, psycho-killer, like, slaps for a reason, you know? It has gone on into history. Yeah. Well-founded.

Saxon violence is my favorite. Okay. So last but not least, on the email front, I just love this email from our listener, Brandon, who said he's all in for the ride and said, will it be too long? Yes. Will it be messy?

Absolutely. Will the buttons on Patrick Wilson's shirts finally give out and we see his perfectly sculpted body? Only time will tell. Good news, Brandon. It told. Here we are. He's lifting weights.

He's sweating and he's shirtless. Okay. On the sort of what of our, what of our current anxieties does this Cape Fear address? We talked about tech issues and surveillance, and that's even more so here when like the drone takes footage of Natalie in her own backyard. And going back through those sort of junket interviews that the cast were giving, they were asked about this and they said, you know,

a lot of it has you with like anxieties of not feeling safe in your own home of being surveilled inside of your own home. Javier Bardem talked a lot about AI slop and fake news and you can't believe what you see. the way in which Max Kitty might take advantage of you not knowing exactly what is true and what is fake because things are so easily manipulated. And then, you know, we've already been, I don't mean to sound like a narc once again, but we've been talking about drugs aplenty. I was wondering, like, you know, between Bull Zach and Natalie, like being targeted by the same young, alluring drug dealer, is this a euphoria generation anxiety? Are we like really worried about all the various drugs? Not just like weed or whatever the case may be,

but like the entire bag that Nevea has at the diner full of drugs that could come for your children. Yes. And I think in this case clearly once and in with this family, right? Like Nevea, it feels, I guess you could read what she does with Natalie as retribution for Anna confronting her. That's a question I had. And to be fair, Anna's like, Here's a couple hundred bucks.

Let me tell you about some shelters. Fuck you, lady. Like, what do you mean? Fuck you lady? That feels more than a little presumptuous. Okay. Well, on the one hand, maybe. On the other hand, I don't,

Navade does not look like she has a regular place to sleep to me. I wouldn't presume to know. And certainly, if I'm Amy Adams in this case, I wouldn't presume to say. As you and I both know, you got to keep those bangs clean or else they get greasy and clumsy. You know what I mean? So, you know, I thought,

she was, maybe she was being nice in a rich white lady way. She was not being nice. She thought, I think she thought she was being nice. I agree. That's the problem. Okay, fair. All right, fine. I think you could read what Nevea does as, like, lashing out at Anna. Or you could read it as she has some reason to want to be in the Bowden household.

And this one road has dried up, and now she's going to go this other way instead. We got some emails, skip ahead if you don't want to know anything from the trailer, it's nothing major. But we got some emails from people asking if she was perhaps Max Kitty's daughter, because there is... So in this episode, when she feeds the drug to Natalie, that's the classic Max Katie, Juliette Lewis, creepy MTV Kiss moment. Yeah.

In the trailer, she's seen laughing loudly inside of a movie theater, which is another classic Max Katie move from the 90s, the De Niro film. So, like, she is in many ways playing out some of Max Katie's greatest hits. So is she doing so because she's associated with him? Is this coincidental? What's going on? Is this yet another head fake? We don't know.

Is she also Max Katie's daughter? I don't know. I have, I feel like we would know. I don't know. I lied. We do have one more email, and it feeds into this sort of matching of Javier Bardem and Amy Adams that we talked about a little bit last week because we were mentioning the blue eyes on Javier

Bardem. One of our listeners was like, are they both blue or is it just the one on the left side, the same side he was hit? And Javier Bardem did say in an interview that the eyes are. meant to sort of reflect the brain damage. So one is lighter because of that. But they do match Amy Adams' eyes. They also have put some red in his hair and his beard that is not usually there.

He's not like ginger ginger like Amy Adams is. But there's a little Auburn sort of in his hair and his beard. And then... What do you take from that from a color through your perspective? Ginger evil? It's not... No. I love and support ginger.

Just wondering. It's a we're not so different, you and I. Got you. And that's further underlined by my favorite detail in this episode, which is that Amy Adams and Javier Verdeh are wearing the exact same blue linen buttoned down shirt in different parts of the episode.

This was an insane pull by you. I don't know. No, it's saying good. Because I think the ways in which you see them and it's Anna early in the episode when she's at her house going through Zach's cloned phone and all that. And then later in the episode

on the road trip, we see Max have, I mean, what literally could be the same shirt. I think it's the exact same shirt. You think he grabbed? No. Sorry, no. I just think it's the same, same cut, same fabric, same store. I'm going to put three theories on the table.

One, they both shop at L.L. Bean. Two, he literally grabbed this shirt when he was at their house. Three, when they were hypothetically allegedly shacking up, they bought his and hers matching shirts. And he, like, he like kept it when he was in prison. He was just sort of like, I got to come back. Him showing up for the road trip wearing the shirts like, this is me meeting you halfway. This is like two halves of the best friend necklace? I think so.

And he's like beef fry and she's like, S-end? Great. When she walked in and saw him in the kitchen and she's like, what are you doing in my kitchen? I expected her to say, and wearing my shirt. They look very different on them because they have different bodies, but it's the same shirt. Same shirt. And so I do think that like the blue in the eye, the red in the hair and the same shirt, and then just sort of like their appreciation of each other inside of this episode, you know,

like when she is doing her stuff in the boardroom. And he's like, you're a pit bull. And we know how he feels about dogs. He's like, this is the highest compliment I could pay someone. He reminds me of a dog. He's admiring her. They're having this, like, laughing over Tabitha, you know, her sex noises with Dusty the cameraman, et cetera, et cetera. Even earlier in the episode at the gas station.

Oh, yeah, right. Where he's kind of tormenting Tabitha a little bit. And Anna shows up and like the head shake and smile. Oh, you, Max. Super familiar. But also like, Anna, you're a little fucked up. Well, that's what I'm saying. They're not so different.

They're really not. And I will say, I believe very firmly at the end of the episode, when Tom and Anna are having sex, he's thinking about Lexi from work. And I think she's thinking about Max Kate. I think she came home horny. Yeah. And he was already horned up because he and Lexi were microdosing together and cuddling on the couch. She was, but he was also like, let me tell you about work. Like, you've been on a road trip with potentially the devil.

and let's talk about like pre-ups. No, but I think he was horned up, but he was like, really, his like sort of like really or whatever he said seemed to me that like, they don't have sex that often. So when she's like initiating with him, he's like,

oh, we're doing this. I thought we didn't really do this much anymore. It's not a Thursday. Like, what are we doing? You know what I mean? It's not on the shirt cow. Yeah. So yeah, I just think that they're, you know,

and to go back to the show art for this, it's her face blurred into his face. So, you know, I think if the first two iterations of adopting the book were about, you know, perfect good versus perfect evil, Gregory Peck versus Robert Mitchum, and then flawed good, Nick Nolte versus evil Robert De Niro. And now it's just sort of like, we're both sympathetic in a way if this Max Kitty was tormented as a child. He's got this head injury, all this other stuff.

And then, like, she had a horrible childhood. And she was like, you know, she spoke in very vague terms when they were sharing some coffee or whatever about her state of mind when she was representing him at the trial. The trial broke her, but not a lot of detail as to how and why and what happened. You know, so like, you know, and he's like, we shared interests. Was it weird voodoo drug? I don't know. Could be. Was it just alcohol?

Who's to say? But she, you know, got sober after that. Yes. It was a wake-up call in some way. Yeah. So I think that's what's going on with matching shirts to put a button on it. I love the matching shirts. Can I raise one other thing in the air with this adaptation that is new?

Please, Rob. I think particularly with the Wendy Wilson character, this idea of like we are engaging with the true crime phenomenon overlaid this man who's been released from prison. And we see Anna wield that. in the negotiation. Also very tastefully, I would say the episode mentioning like, oh, it could be HBO or Netflix and not Apple TV. Apple doesn't really do true kind.

They really don't. So they're staying in their lane with the trashed or piece theater. I appreciate it. But this woman who just like basically stalks Max Katie to the ice cream stand coincidentally shows up in like her nice dress and wants to talk to him. And like her first question is, do you think your mistress Amy actually killed your wife? Just one of the most inhuman things that a true crime brings. brained person might actually ask someone like him.

At first, like, it became very clear at the end that she just wanted to like jump his bones. Yeah. Go to Cape Fair River with him. Have a nice brinsey now. She thought she wanted ice cream licked off her face, but she did not want ice cream looked off her face. I don't like that. But at first I was like, oh, is this another fucking podcaster? You know what I mean? They're just everywhere.

They're in all the bushes, you know. I got bad news. They are everywhere. But yeah, we've already seen a true crime podcaster. Yeah, Tabitha, the journalist who's trying to make this true crime documentary. So that's a great point. The celebrity and this sort of, you know, this has existed for a while, but like even more so now, this sort of fanish fascination with these murderers or alleged murderers.

I think especially when you think about what that could do for a story like this. We don't know how true a version of Max Katie this will be to the previous iterations. Maybe this guy is just kind of in the wrong place at the wrong time and constantly being misunderstood. Right. But if he is a stalker, now you have the question of like who stalks the stalkers, right? The podcasters, the true crime obsessed. It's like-the-Juliet Lewis is. The Juliet-Luises.

But like Wendy could conceivably see Max commit a crime, right? She could be in the wrong place at the wrong time if she's following him around or someone like her is. Oh, yeah. Great point. All right. So let's start at the beginning of the episode. It's a little late for it, but let's just circle back. Too bad.

Patron's aide of us podcasting. Margarita Leviva is here. This is her CV off the dome of late. She was in task, memorably. Spoilers died. She's in Daredevil Born Again. Certainly was. Spoiler, Became a Killer.

Also, spoiler, choked, came. Choked and came and conquered. She's the Acolyte. Yep. She's just been around. A lot of shows that I've been covering. She's getting work. And guess what?

All like different networks, different production companies. It's not like she's gotten into the Apple TV silo and she's just popping around. Disney, Disney, HBO Apple. All over the place. Oh, great. So LaViva's here. Viva LaViva. She is here as Lexi.

Yeah. A senior associate, not a paralegal, have you know, who is clearly in a role that's familiar to the story of somebody that Tom works with. Yes. Who he is on the brink of having an affair. with does smooch inside of this episode. I was excited to see her. We knew she was in the cast. We didn't know who she was playing.

And she shows up on the Zoom. I was like, we're doing Liviva. Here she is. What do you think of this Lexi, Tom stuff? I mean, up top, we get, I would say, one of the most true-to-life Zoom calls I've ever seen on screen. No pants. I mean, just all business waste up, all party waist down.

The private messaging on the sidebar. Like, clearly they have a very familiar and maybe overly familiar relationship. And the level they get to by the end of this episode, I am impressed slash shocked by her gall on, like the level, first of all, him inviting her over to the house in front of, like, Zach is right there.

There's a lot of just like shamelessness happening. But the couch lean that Lexi. It's not even a lean. She's like half on his lap. I mean, she's half mounted. I usually, I don't like to like blame the women in these scenarios. usually. He's the married guy, but she is putting the moves. She brought the... She's not gonna take no for an answer. She brought the purse flask. Yep. She's just sort of like, those people look

like they have a lot of sex. Are you having a lot of sex? Who's taking care of you? Tom? Like, Jesus, Christ. Cool your jets, Lexie. But he is also the like, oh, my wife's not coming home. Yeah, you should come over, you know. And she did get the hint as soon as he was like, oh, wait up for you. She's like, got to pack the bag. She knew her cue on that one. This is tough. This purse booze party is over. Yeah.

Lexi. Wow, wow, wow. I don't know if they're going to use her the same way that this archetype has been used previously. Unclear. I learned my lesson from presumed innocent. I will not presume anything. But this is a character we've seen before. And Lviva's here to play it.

You know, it's Patrick Wilson. Who among us would not fling ourselves across the couch at him? Like she wants a squeeze of that dropper, and I think many people would understand. When it wasn't the weightlifting, but later in the sort of end of episode, a marital Congress moment, and he's there in his boxer briefs. And I googled how old is Patrick Wilson? That meant is 52. Unreal.

52. Between that and Coleman Domingo, who's also in his 50s on Euphoria, I'm just like, what are we putting in the droppers? Jesus Christ. I would say it gives me a lot of hope, but let's be real about it. Those guys are on a different level. They're pulling it off in a way that us, Normie, simply never could. The cast was asked sort of like what they did to unwind from such intensive storytelling or whatever.

And Amy Adams is like, I drank a lot of wine. You know, Harvey Obrideon's like, whatever. And Patrick Wilson's like, I work out so much. I work out all the time. And I'm like, we can tell, buddy. We can tell. That's his distra. How did you feel about our first glimpse of agro, Tom?

Him really going to work, pump and iron after, well, maybe we're getting too far ahead. but like after this... After Ethan Emory shows up? Ethan Embry shows up and there is an almost conflict. So we're calling him Ethan Embry because we do not have a character name. We know the young lady who's with him is Trish.

She gets named up several times. We do not know who Ethan Embry is playing as of the recording of this podcast. What if he's playing... What if he's reprising his role as the bass player from that thing you do? Oh my God.

That would be great. This could be what happens to him. Someone texted me that the actor who plays shades in that thing you do is playing L. Woods' father in the L. show that's on Amazon. So listen, if the

wonders want to stay employed, who among us would stop them? Ethan Embry is here, looking as Ethan Embry has in the past decade or so. Why do you think he's here? I have a theory, but I'm curious why you think he's here. I don't know. Okay.

I think the purpose of this scene is one, so we do see a hint of like a more confrontational imposing Tom, right, who is putting his foot down, who's saying, like, you've got to get out of here immediately. And crucially, for plot purposes, we see the gun safe and see him pull the guns out of it, our introduction to like, okay, there are guns in the house. Right.

But how did he get here? Who was he invited by? I think that requires a level of, like, umbrella theorizing that I just don't even know where to start anymore. Guess what? I'm ready. Okay, please. So invited by Tommy, the owner of the house, right?

So someone posing as him or someone who's, like, trying to fuck with him. So, like, my first instinct was, like, it's Max. Max, like, went and found a rando and was like, hey, because he doesn't seem like he really did not seem like he knew Tom in any way. Tom didn't certainly know him, but he really did not seem like he was directing this tour song. He did see and wave to Natalie, which I did not like. I'm wondering if it's Ted Levine, Anna's father, who is bipolar. Oh. Doesn't he just seem like the kind of guy who would have met Trish and Ethan Embry?

somewhere and have been like, you know, my son-in-law Tommy owns a pool, like come by. Maybe, but his, like, their relationship is already so strained. And he does seem earnestly like he does, at least part of him, want to connect with Anna again. But I also think he's mentally unwell. So I don't know, like, what's going on there. That's my, that's, if I were to draw a line. You think that's the clearest possibility.

That's my guess. I can't think of, like, someone either did this purely by accident or specifically to provoke and make the Bodens feel even more unsettled than they already are. I have to say, like, the face of true terror to me is not necessarily like a couple of people coming over to use your pool. I understand that it's your property, it's your backyard, it's a whole thing. Well, there's an ongoing, like, fucking with, right? So it's like also, I mean, I definitely think Max is a one who let his dog shit in the yard would be my guess. Yeah, that seems, that one does line up pretty nicely.

So, like, we're just chipping away at his sanity. That's the thing. You just need to go back to the dropper more and more frequently. It's an accumulation. It's the death by a thousand cuts over and over and over. And one of those cuts is Ethan Embry. Apparently so. But I think what makes me hesitate that it would be Brandon and his dad is specifically the line we get from Ethan Embry about like, oh, this pool is just here and you're not even using it.

That's little selfish, isn't it? And it's like that seems more provocative. That seems more like a direct challenge in a way that's meant to needle Tom. Class solidarity with Ethan Embry. Use your pool or lose your pool. I think that's right. Squatters rights even in a pool. Yeah.

Stand your ground in a pool. Yeah. Gosh, Tom. You don't strike me as a violent. I mean, I want Ethan Ember to come back. I thought his energy was really fun. He simply must. Yeah.

Check off's gun safe. We're definitely going to see that gun safe again. And then this is the image we get over the opening credits. This is an ongoing thing this season where, like, you get a provocative image in this case is Patrick Wilson standing behind the bars of the closed gate. And then you get the font of like cape feet. year coming over him. In episode one, it was the blood spatter of Amy Brancato's second attempt at blowing her brains out. That's what happened. And then in episode two, it was Max Kitty on the ground getting arrested. So I was just sort of wanting to track, like, what are the images

that we're putting this opening title over? Peanut Butter the Cat, who I'm very worried about, we see Peanut Butter sort of like ringing around Natalie's ankles as it kind of seems like it's Natalie's cat more than of all the people in the family, she's been the one interacting with the cat the most. So like, you know, usually there's like one person in the family who is like most closely the cat's favorite. Wow. That's just true. Are you your cat's favorite? Yes.

I just want to make sure. Do you, does your dog play favorites? Not really. Dogs don't play favorites, but cats do. I think the possessiveness of a cat is very different than the possessiveness of a dog unless you have a chihuahua type like lap dog fixated on one person. A purse dog. Yeah. Ray and Anna, seen in the car.

Anything you want to say about this? You get the mirrored phone, a second, second phone. Zach already has a second phone. He does. Now there's a phone mirroring his primary phone. So there's phone A, Zach's phone. Yeah. Phone A1, which is the clone of Zach's phone.

Yeah. And phone B, which is the burner. Yes. I just think Anna and Tom have a lot going on. They are, though, terrible parents. Really, really bad parents. Tom's behavior with Zach in the house of just like, yeah, let me invite over my kind of work maybe girlfriend and we're just going to

microdose together. Insane. While my son is up. My son who already resents me is upstairs. We already had a conversation in which he straight up lied to me about meeting with Max and talking to him. Okay, that's one thing. Anna wanting to clone this phone in the first place and Ray's like, here's a crazy idea.

Have you thought about having a conversation with your son? She's like, I simply couldn't. Yeah. But this is how we drive plot. This is how we get through 10 episodes. the parents have to make really bad decisions. There was a moment when she was sort of messing on the phone and then Natalie came in with a blue dress,

which we'll talk about a second. And then she hides it in the couch cushions. I was like, if Anna fucking leaves that phone in the couch cushion. She's going to. Oh, my God. She's going to leave the phone in the couch cushions. Also, when you give the phone back to your son who you do not trust and you have cloned his phone,

do not say, we love you and we trust you. That is a comment that will haunt you. There's a lot of trust building inside of this episode. Yeah. attempted trust building. Okay. Anything else you want to say about Ray, who has at least some good parenting advice? We already talked about Tom lifting. I just want to note that, like, you know, as is the case with other places in the house, like, the gym is under slate construction.

But I do think the, like, Dexter-esque, like, plastic sheeting that's in Tom's home gym is, like, is something going to happen? Are we going to need that sheeting to, like, roll up a body at some point? I'm already conditioned to think that any time there's a bench press or a weight bar of any kind, someone's head might be smashed on it. Fair enough. Fair enough. On the Wendy Wilson conversation, which we've already talked about, and we've already alluded to this, but we should note that they are marking the Cape Fear as a river,

or at least a river associated with a Cape. Possibly among other things. Right. Could just be Cape Fear River. It could be a river around the actual Cape Fear. I don't know that we're ever going to go there necessarily. I definitely think we're going to go there. Are we going to go to the river?

I 100% think the climax of this show is on the river Cape Fear. I could see it. But are we going to catch a fish with our bare hands and cook it up very modestly? Oil and garlic. Did you, Rob Mahoney, foodie, relate to Max Cady's description of how we prepare this fish? It sounded lovely. It is the way to prepare fish. Here's my question for you.

You're not so different, you in my team. We're certainly not. The tomato slicing sandwich scene we get with Max and Zach. as Anna stumbles into the kitchen and finds them. Pinch it at the base? Pinch it at the base. I can't decide whether it makes him more or less believable as a chef. We're told canonically he owned a restaurant.

He ran a restaurant. Name for his wife. So is it just called the Amanda? Do you think? Maybe just Amanda. Okay. But the use of a non-serrated knife, which is clearly the best way to cut a tomato.

They go straight knife instead. But it's a very clean cut. And he's very smooth with it. Your knives have to be very sharp. Well, clearly. But this isn't even his. knife. This is Anna's. This is a Bowden knife. Are we adding that to the list of,

so we've got nail gun, gun safe, and can slice through a tomato with ease sharp kitchen knives in the house? I want to say somebody did grab that knife in the first two episodes to go out in the backyard. Maybe Tom did, you know, one of the backyard spookings of... Ted Levine sort of moment, yeah.

All I'm saying is, I think I'm coming down on the side of this guy is so good with a knife that he could even convincingly and non-smushingly slice a tomato. You use a serrated knife? to cut a tomato? Definitely. I'm not going to question you

because you know more about cooking than I do. That would never occur to me. It's the best way to me to not get your tomato totally compressed as you hold it. Will not tear up the skin? Shockingly not.

Interesting. Try it. Okay. Francesco Scorsese cameo, which we already mentioned. This to me was another of a lineage too, though. You mentioned the ways in which

we are calling back and hearkening back to these previous projects with some of the casting. but like one of Scorsese's other daughters, Domenica, is in his version of Cape Fear as one of Julia Lewis's classamy. So we are continuing that tradition too.

Great catch. What do you make of Anna calling Natalie a truffle pig for rooting around in her closet? The charm was not lost on me. Okay. Here's my note for the costume department. I lived in the 90s. That's an 80s.

dress. At best a like 91-92 dress. But that's not like Amy Adams' teenager dress. I don't think if the math is right. What should they have used instead? Oh, like a baby doll dress. I could see it. Yeah, yeah.

And that reads more as convincingly vintage in a way that a teen would actually want to wear today. Yeah, because that dress is ugly. And when Callie, who sucks? Yeah. Says, how old Navy have you? I'm like, yeah. She's both right, but that's also maybe the most evil thing.

that happens in this episode. Brutal. I mean, no shade if you shop at Old Navy. But, like, that dress was, like, that dress was ugly. Not in, like, if, not even in, like, a, well, you could wear that dress if you were going to, like, a party, like, an 80s theme party or a 90s theme, if you actually believe that's from the 90s, like, whatever. I've seen, like, excessively ruffled 80s dresses styled out well, whatever. As a cover-up for your bathing suit at a pool party? I don't see it.

Absolutely. Yeah. No. And the fact that Anna, like, let Natalie walk. And also, why is Anna holding on to that dress? The fact that, like, she let Natalie walk out the door and that is also a bad parent. As bad as cloning your son's phone, I would say. The evidence is piling up.

Yeah. Okay. The Angel X encounter at the diner. Detective Anna on the case. Oh, yeah. Based on one mere duck on the plate, she finds the diner. She knows the plateware of every diner in the broader Savannah area. Is there a diner that you could identify by the plateware?

Not a single chance. No, because I feel like usually. Like something clearly marked with the name? I think usually it's like that like plain white ceramic with the brown ring or at it. Exactly. But they all use it. Yeah, they all use it. The duck is. I guess it is singular.

Follow question. Orange soda with breakfast for dinner. I googled this to see if it was a thing and I could not find anything. I was like, is this a southern thing? But I couldn't find this. And so I guess I understand if you're like, we drink orange juice with breakfast, but it's breakfast for dinner. So let's try an orange soda.

But like that sounds demented to me. I don't know how you feel about it. Well, I am someone who will drink a Diet Coke at any hour of the day, including with breakfast. That's a true fact I know about you. I'm fine with that part of it. Orange soda is just like sugary and intense in a totally different way. I would almost prefer, like, I've been to places in diners that offer a sort of like orange juice and either sparkling water or sprite, kind of like almost an orangina kind of vibe, but non-alcoholic. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That absolutely. A little sparkle with your juice. Yes, a sprits. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Orange soda, which I think is much more of a thing in the South than it is. where I'm from. But like,

you just have to be in a very specific mood for orange soda. Yeah, as being 13 years old. That's the mood. I feel like

once every three years I want an orange soda and I get a fanta and then I'm sated for another three years. Once every three years we're all spiritually 13. You have to tap

into your younger self. All right, you already noted that you think Anna was being a piece of shit and giving this girl money and offering her place to stay. Anything else you want to say? What do you make of this girl's vibe?

Like, how do you feel better? She's allegedly 16 years old. Yeah, I don't know. believe that. That actress is 25 years old. That is a tough sell for me, honestly. But I mean, clearly very suspicious. You're meant to ask questions about every aspect of their interaction. What is her real name? What is her goal here? I really have no idea. I did laugh, though,

a lot at RIP little homie about the toe. Great texting work. So her texting work continues to be great. What did you make of Anna's impression of her teenage son via texting? Poor. Too much punctuation. Oh, the LOL and then a period. after it. Are you kidding me? Yeah. That's like that's a German three smoking gun if I've ever seen one wouldn't believe it for a second. Yeah.

Anything else you want to say about that scene? I do something kind of about the scene, but really more broadly about the Zach storyline here. Because Anna is kind of questioning like, what did you do? Like how are you involved potentially with this stuff that has been happening with my son, with the toe? Yeah. I know Zach is doing disaffected teenage boy very convincingly. That kid is as unlawful. unbothered by the fact that he may have bitten off and ingested his own toe, as I think any human being could conceivably be.

Why is he being so chill about all this? Based on interviews that this actor gave, he's described, he's like, the things I have to do this season are wild. So I think he's like, the actor is calibrating of what he has to like build up to. Yeah. He's like, I have to eat my whole hand later. So, you know. I really, really hope not. Yeah, and they have.

Like, we don't know what her, like, her motive. is if it's actually targeted and personal to the boat ins. If Zach was just a good customer and she's pissed, so she'll, like, turn their nice preppy soccer star daughter against them or what's going on. I did think they're conversational. I mean, there's a lot of questionable writing in the show. But I thought the conversation of, like, that she has later with Natalie where it's like everything you have is on loan and your debt and the only way to pay is with good grades and soccer and all the sorts of like that. Like, I thought that was like a really good scene, really well written.

Agreed. And the kind of thing that would prod Natalie in just the right way into acting a little bit out. As far as the theory of is Nevea actually related to Max in any way? I think we're probably going to come down on no. I would say it doesn't dissuade me the fact that she looks at a picture of this man and was like, yeah, I'd definitely fuck him because that is what kind of show this is. True. But she really, she did not seem to me to know, not just like I'm acting like I don't know him. like she genuinely seemed to not know him. I don't think she knew him. I also think we've given notes to Anna the mother. Anna, the detective.

If you're going to show a picture of somebody to someone and ask if they're familiar, don't pull up the Google image result that says like Max, Katie, in text right under the photo. I just think she could have done a slightly better, a slightly better job of not leading the witness. You know what you're right. Okay. Max shows up, cuts a tomato, cuts up in the kitchen. and like really great stuff from Javier Bardem in the scene. When he's like eating the sandwich and he's like,

we knocked on the door, your son answered the door. Like all of it I thought was really, really good. This is like, this is why we're here. This is it. This is why we're here. This is the vibe. This is the exact energy I wore from Javier Bardam all season. And also I've just never been more convinced that that cat's going to die

as when he feeds it a little piece of turkey. We've been worried about peanut butter from the start. But when he dropped a little piece of turkey, now you were wondering if that piece of turkey was poison. I think it's just him ingratiating himself to the cat. Not since, but when he's a little bit of the turkey from. But when you first saw it hit the counter. It was a flickering thought of like, is the cat going to die right now while they're on the road trip?

We have seven more episodes to go. Rob, you got to face these things out. Yeah. But that cat, I am quite worried about the cat. Just toast. Okay. Anna is excited to sit down with these private prison folks make them eat shit. Yeah.

I did want to shout out Patrick Wilson. Okay, we've gotten a lot of emails about Amy Adams' accent on this show. We are eternally. Amy Adams Defenders. We are. I don't mind the accent, personally. But I do want to admire

when Patrick Wilson's delivery of like, he doesn't know anything, like he did a really good job with a done know. Yeah. He doesn't know anything. I find honestly with all the actors,

there are moments where they have the accent. Yeah. Margaret in Loviva, like dropping her G's left and right in a way that like drinking ain't having an affair basically. Little moments of her,

okay, this is kind of fun. And then it's just like, we'll disappear. For all of these actors, it just abandoned. Without a trace. Someone sat a room and wrote down Drinking ain't happened.

All right, Natalie gets droned while she's doing yoga. Drones, here's, I'm out on any drones at all whatsoever. I think all drones should be banned.

That's how I feel. A bold stance. What about the war ones? Do you think those are good? Hilarious. War especially. But I'm just saying like it is absolutely insane

that people are allowed to put a camera on a thing. and just send it anywhere. Just the thing you can do. We used to, I haven't had it happen in LA, but when I lived in Oakland, people would just, like, hover drones outside your windows, like, all the time. And you're just like, what the fuck? Why are you allowed to do that?

Like, how is that in itself not stalking? Right, exactly. Terrifying. I'm glad we're tapping into some of the technological terror with this version of Cape Fear. Because, yeah, there's just a lot of parts of modern life that I'm not down for. I just don't think there's, like, I've not seen a use for drones that is enough to justify their existence. Nope.

dumb shots and movies that we used to accomplish with helicopters. I don't know. More choppers. Yeah, bring back the choppers. We love those gas ghostling choppers. Screw in the environment. All right. Anything you want to say about, well, what about the station wagon?

So we see Juliet Lewis in the station wagon before we see anything else. And Max seems to, she's like, Anna's like, do you recognize that car? Max's like, no. You don't think we should take his word for it? He's being so honest about everything else. Can we carbonate that card? That looks like a 1980s car to me. It does look very 1980.

I mean, honestly, could predate even that, though. It's one of the few things we actually do know about Juliette Lewis's character at this point. Don't know who she is. Don't know what she's after. Clearly has enough familiarity with Maxx to know the whole butthole surfer, dog collar situation, and drives a station wagon. Butthole surfer, dog collar situation at d-mail.com. So when they're in the conference room and Anna is doing her luring thing and there's a literal storm of Bruin,

outside in Atlanta. What did you think of all of that of the setup? I think most, I mean, clearly it's meant to bog them down to have more time to spend together as they have to huddle up in the motel. And really, I think, just setting up Tabitha for extremely convincing 60-40, this woman is either having the ride of her life

or being murdered. And so we're getting a lot of like... Do you think Dusty is capable of the ride of your life kind of stuff? We've really seen him do a lot. We know that he speaks when spoken to. He's kept in his cage most of the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He knows how to take an order. I assume there's a recent tabith that keeps him around. Okay. And I don't know that his camera work is it, but maybe it is. I think for motel sex on the road, Dusty can come through for you. He can do the job. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. But yeah, this storm is a Bruin.

I thought the look that he gives her when she touches him was like, I think they were in love. I do. They got a little charge for sure. they were like in love. Yeah. And he is not only like angry at the way she betrayed him legally.

But like, okay, when they have their coffee conversation, he's like, you know, when you first saw me and you believed in me and you were defending me and then something changed. Something shifted. What do you think that thing is? I have no idea.

Like maybe it is that she found out a certain truth about him relative to the murder or not and her whole opinion of him changed. But that's not really how she's acting right now. You don't think it's a positive pregnancy test? I mean, it could be the positive pregnancy test, but would that alone be enough to

completely shift her mood around him? Yeah, well, I think it could be enough to insert some doubt of just sort of like, it's one thing to defend someone, it's another thing to have a child with someone that you think might have done something like this. Yes. Well, also someone who even if the best case scenario of this plea goes down is like the father of your child is going to prison for 20 plus years. Right.

Not exactly convenient for a mother in her position. So like maybe there's enough reason to want to create a buffer and kind of kind of like negotiate that as best she can under the circumstances. Clearly not super well, though. Do you think if she was pregnant with his child and that's who Natalie is, do you think he knows? We have not seen him like barely even look at Natalie. Yeah. Sub question, do you think Tom knows?

I don't think Tom knows. I think that's the main secret Anna's keeping from Tom. But, okay, so Anna's keeping a secret from Tom. Tom and Anna are keeping a secret together from Max. And they address that briefly in the sense of like... Legal collusion of some sort. Some kind of collusion or something else related to it. Yeah, I kind of think he does not know that Natalie is his child.

I don't know how he would unless he just put together the timetable. Yeah, I think he's going to find out before the season is over. Clearly. Okay, great. Anything else you want to say about Tabitha, her purse booze, the right of her life, her not wanting to be doing social media when she's in her 40s? That was a great line delivery from the Baryshnikov offspring. I'm enjoying her.

She's just trying to make it in a dying industry. I found her very relatable in this episode. I'm enjoying her industry. She's just trying to make it happen. Everyone's wearing blue in the show. It's not just Amy Adams and Javier Verdem, who are wearing literally the exact same shirt. Oh, also, Rob and I are thinking of entering our linen button down era.

Do you think we could pull them off? I told Robb, I thought he might look to country lawyer. I might look to like soccer mom. I'm not sure. I think you could definitely pull it off. I have many concerns, lawyer and otherwise, about my job. about my general linen appeal. If you do think we could pull off linen button downs,

where should we procure them? I don't know that LLBin is the root. How do we make them look not rumpled? I'm still trying to figure it out. Help us out. But Tabitha's wearing, like, what I would describe as like a Best Buy blue polo for this trip, and I'm like, we can do better.

But everyone's wearing blue. Like once you start looking for the blue, it's like when we did True Detective, Teal Watch is off the charts in the show. I just think putting Tabith on the Geek Squad is incredibly rude. Put herself in the case. She's trying to dress semi-professionally to get this documentary series off the ground. May I interest her in a linen button down?

Maybe so. Okay. I did love, though, in the coffee conversation, the way that Max flips even this $4.2 million settlement into something against Anna. It's like, yeah, you got me all this money, but if we worked it out year by year, and also we took the fees and the taxes, like, you still owe me, kind of being the subtext of that for me. and I love the way that Javier Bardem can kind of inject and invert

those sorts of conversations as an actor. I think that's right. We had a connection. I mean, do you ship it? I'm unclear. Look, at this point, what do we actually know about Max Katie? It's been released from prison exonerated.

Single-handedly grabbing the private prison industrial complex by the balls. I gotta say we're pro Beat up some Nazis We love that Beat up some Nazis Yeah

Has he done anything wrong That we have actually seen Yeah great question Cut the tomato with the wrong knife I guess is as deep as you go Or one that is so wrong it's right Licks that lady's face Yeah

That one wasn't great But she also didn't seem great You know Wendy Wilson did not seem great Didn't like her vibe Not saying you should lick ice cream off her face Or threatened to strangle her but she didn't seem great.

Anything else you want to say about Natalie at the party? I have many things to say about Natalie at the party. I just think on the drone front, the only thing worse than stalking someone via drone is stalking someone via drone, hacking their phone, and then pretending that they themselves orchestrated an entire drone photo shoot of their ass doing yoga

to post for themselves online as a thirst trap. Natalie, great form on your downward dog. It's not your fault. But this is evil. This is a work of true evil. This is really tough. Did you interpret that Nevea slash Angel X? She's shown herself to be, and I would like to say, we got some emails of people being like, and you were questioning me, you're like, how much can Max Kitty accomplish in like World of Warcraft expertise and all his other stuff from the internet time he has in prison?

Yeah. And Anna was like said the same thing I did, which is there's internet in prison. There is, but there's like a dial-up modem in there. We were both wrong, and it's fine. But given that there is some kind of tech-savvy person behind a lot of what's going on here, Nevea seems like a good candidate for that. I'm glad you brought that up because, yeah, she seems like she could be tech-savvy. She also seems, I mean, she has access to a lot of drugs.

Could have been drugging Zach, definitely is offering Natalie some stuff. If you're just keeping track at home, this is now she has done. Maybe toe stuff with Zach definitely thumb stuff with Natalie. I don't like where this is going personally. but I raise to you as we negotiate the possibility of witch drugs, as we're saying if she is our hacker, potentially you could have gotten into Natalie's Instagram account, is she a techno pagan?

Is that something we should consider? Does she dangle it? Great question. I would love if she was a techno pagan. Would you have to give up your witch possum theory if she is a techno pagan? I would have to put the witch possum to rest unless somehow a techno pagan is capable of resurrecting a possum to do its will. I mean, every good techno-pagan needs a familiar. That is true.

Okay, listen. Love that you've introduced this concept to me. I weirdly believe her when she says the toe stuff didn't happen on my watch. Okay. I think she's out here seducing teens and feeding them drugs, perhaps to directly fuck with a Bowden family or just to have good business. I don't think the toe stuff was her. But how is it good business? Is she just getting free samples and hoping that they get hooked on thunds?

Because I think Zach, on Thumbchon. I do think that Zach was like paying for the drugs eventually, don't you think? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. But yeah, first thumbs free. The first thumb is free.

I also got a huge kick out of if this is indeed Nevea has set up the drone, hacked Natalie's account, positioned herself at the party to opportunistically throw someone's phone into the pool. If all that is true. Yeah. And walk by angrily, not acknowledged Natalie at all. Oh. A great hug. Hey, what's your name?

Dramatic pause. Swelling, angry strings. Amber. What's yours? Amber's the color of your energy. Amber. That's a survivor reference with you make it. That's funny.

It's not. Anything else you want to say? I did think to wrap up the scene, pool side bisexual lighting. That was a new one for me. And that, to me, is innovation. Seeing Amber and Natalie together during their thumb-sucking smooch session.

Was the blue, like, reflecting off the pool? Exactly. And then sort of like the pink lavender was coming from elsewhere. It immediately was more red than pink. Okay. So maybe I'm straining the actual definition. But I think if you're getting a red-blue contrast, warm and cold, you're at least in the ballpark. It's June.

Happy pride to bisexual pool. Yeah. All right. Cali sucks. I did like that it was Sophia's brother who was like, hey, did you send this to everyone. Relishing. You know, everyone gets a little like shading inside of their shitty behavior. So he's like, didn't your brother, what do you say?

Bite his own dick off? What did he say? Yeah, have a meltdown and bite his own dick off. Great, great stuff. The rumor mill has been very active. Anything else you want to say? I think this was just a phenomenally something episode of TV. I don't know what it is, but boy do I love talking about it.

We're not just going to talk about it. Here on the Prestige TV podcast feed, we have decided to enter our. unhinged theory board era. So if you're watching this on video, on Spotify, on YouTube, wherever you want to, we'll be back right after this with a special visual segment

of this podcast. All right, so you can listen to if you want to, but it is a very visual-based segment. We have composed, what would you call this, Rob? A conspiracy board?

A conspiracy board for Cape Fear of all shows. Cape Fear. It's a show that we're watching. And we have procured a cork board and we've got character names and important facts, and we've purchased red string,

and it will be red stringed before all this is said. It will be strung. Many strings. Which area do you think most captures your inner derangement? It's like the combo of blue linen shirts.

Clearly. And creepy tattoos. Creepy tattoos is very good. Yeah. We should know, this is really your vision, your penmanship in particular, just immaculate.

I did do this. you did contribute some suggestions, of course. This is how we've decided to format it. We've got main characters up here, persons of interest over there. Julia Lewis, if she ever gets a character name, we will put the character name over there. Miscellaneous. And then these are just some key things that are happening that everything will probably be, like, routed and connected to.

In case fear standards, these are themes. This is the best we got. How about you? Do you have like a favorite section of this board? I mean, I told you earlier, but when you said kind of a preview of what the board might look like. The little sad face on No Friends under Sack,

it did really get to me. But also, we got a lot of our favorites over here. We have Savannah coffee roasters represented. Yeah, yeah. We have the witch stuff

and the dog stuff and the butthole surfers and the possum. Yeah, it's a lot going on. It's hard not to gravitate toward miscellaneous. There's a few things that we haven't put on

that sort of occurred to us while we were recording this episode, like the kitchen knife, Chekhov's nail gun. You know, so there's a few things that are missing here,

but we want to ask our listeners. Please. Please write Think of a baby carrot at gmail.com or prestige TV at Spotify.com. If you have a suggestion for an item that should go on here, we're not taking input on how this is laid out because this is the finish. We're not doing this again. What about yarn color? You know, like we were thinking red.

Do we want to take input from, I mean, the real conspiracy borders out there? Well, I was wondering if maybe we should do like a teal blue because it's such a teal blue show. It is a very teal show. You know. Or maybe green. Red is so classic. Red is classic. But to me, when I think conspiracy board, I always think.

You think of Carrie Mathes. I think of Carrie Madison. I think of my kingdom for a green pen. Well, we need a lot of highlighters if we're going to do that. Without a doubt. Okay. So is it Carrie Matheson? Is it Charlie from It's Always Sunny?

Is it True Detective? What kind of conspiracy board are we doing? I think somehow by the end of this season, all of those people are going to seem healthier than you do. Email us. Help us fill out the board. We'll be back with the board. stringed up version of this next week. This is a real thing we're doing. We are professional adults and that's fine. Yep. This is work. Anything else you want to say? I just could not be happier

that this show is kicking into a gear that we were hoping, but I don't know that I fully expected and I'm so glad we're here. Ethan Embree's here. That's very important to me personally. Thank you to Kai Grady, DeVernaldo, Jacob Cornett, Office Depot. Certainly, basically a sponsor of this show at this point, even though we're giving them money. Rob's tomato cutting tips, linen button downs. Trufflepigs. And Rob Mahoney.

Thank you, Joe. Thanks. We'll see you soon. Bye.