The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘Disclaimer’ Series Premiere: Cate Blanchett and Alfonso Cuarón Are Here for the Prestige Crown

Episode Date: October 11, 2024

Joanna Robinson and Rob Mahoney beware of narrative and form to recap the two-episode premiere of ‘Disclaimer,’ the Apple TV+ miniseries starring Cate Blanchett. They discuss Alfonso Cuarón as a filmmaker, his history of loosely adapting works, and the decision to utilize narration throughout the story (1:29). Along the way, they talk about how the show leans into suspense instead of surprise, as well as its stunning visual style (18:41). Later, they break down how each of the main characters are initially presented to the audience (35:02). Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Rob Mahoney Producer: Kai Grady Additional Production Support: Justin Sayles Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Okay, this is a true story. I have a friend who once faked his own death so he could have more time to watch his favorite TV show. In my new podcast, Truthless, I'm talking to people about the lies they tell, from forging new identities to taking their love of Game of Thrones a little too far. From Spotify and the Ringer podcast network, I'm Brian Phillips.

Listen to Truthless on Spotify or wherever. you get your podcasts, October 15th. This episode is brought to you by Borris Head. What if we told you the taste of deep fried turkey is now available at your local deli? Well, Borershead just did that. Bursting with flavor, perfectly seasoned with that indulgent taste that usually means pointing your whole day around it. Presenting the Friars turkey breast only from Bor's Head.

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Perfect for a picnic or brunch, as is their trending mango, Yuzu, chantilly cake. But if you're on the go, new 365 strawberry pretzels make a great sweet snack. that sounds delicious. Get savings with yellow sale signs storewide and everyday low prices on 365 brand items. Enjoy the fresh flavors of spring. Save at Whole Foods Market. Hello. Welcome back. Once again to the PrestiTV podcast feed. I am still three episodes into this week, Joanna. And I am Rob Mahoney and I'm never leaving this place. I am locked in here, Joe. We live here now. Here is where we live. We're here to talk about a new show, the new show that we're going to be covering for the next few weeks,

it is called Disclaimer Asterisk. And it is on Apple TV Plus. We're on a little bit of an Apple TV Plus run. I will just preview for you, though, that like our planned next show after this is not an Apple show. So just in case you thought that was like, in case you thought that was our Bay Area bias showing. We promise we have other screeners. Other streamers on our radar. But why, Rob Mahoney, why did we pick Discliffe?

Why did we feel like we had to do PrestiGTV run on disclaimer? Kate Blanchett, Afonso Coron, mashed together on television, working together. What more do I really need to say? These are one of my favorite working actors,

one of my favorite working directors. I was in at Jump, Joe. I don't know how you thought. I didn't need to see a single thing. I, like, a couple months ago, I guess. I sent the Prestige team some shows that were coming up. And Rob was like,

Excuse me? What is this disclaimer show? And we have to do it. Okay. So this show, we are going to be talking about the first two episodes because this double premier drop. So I just want to warn you, if you haven't seen the first two episodes of this show, that is what we're talking about today.

It is a show in seven parts. Each episode is, with love and respect to Alfonso Quaron, rather pretentiously labeled with a Roman numeral. So we were talking about part one and part two of seven-part disclaimer series. I really like this show. so far. I've only watched the first two episodes. So anything I say about its pretension, of which it is guilty occasionally, I say with a massive amount of love because I like pretentious things sometimes. So that's where I'm sitting. How about you, Rob? Was it the, was it the Sol Monnier

that gave it away? What was it that tipped off your pretension? Might have been. Might have been. Fed to a cat. The cat, by the way, perhaps the star of the show as far as I'm concerned. I have some cat questions for you. I will say I googled with the quickness. Are cats allowed to eat capers like that? A whole ass pile of capers? I mean, I don't know what that cat's sodium levels are. Are any of us allowed to eat a whole pile of capers? Well, I think we can.

Reasonable. Our digestive systems are very evolved. Apparently, I'm going to say, spoiler alert for episode three, the gastrointestinal situation of this cat is not going to be great. Okay, so listen, what is this show about? Is it about a cat? Is it about a Kate Blanchet? Here's me to tell you, if you haven't watched it,

you should watch it, but if you haven't, I'll just tell you. Disclaimer is based on a book by Renee Knight. Have I read the book? No, not yet. But actually, Rob, I do think I'm going to be reading the book this time. Okay. But I'll probably go, like, section by section, try to, like, keep pace with the show. We got a double premiere.

It's two more episodes next week. And then, you know, only three were weeks after that. Alfonso Coron has adapted this book. I have not read it. As I mentioned, I do want to take a moment to talk about Alfonso Quaron, perhaps our loosest adapter of all time. So I wouldn't worry too much about going line by line with this book because infamously, or famously, if you prefer, when he adapted the P.D. James novel, Children of Men,

he adapted it based off of like a one sheet summary of the book and then decided not to read the book. So if you've read the book, Children of Men, thinking perhaps, oh, I will enjoy the story that I enjoy in the Alfonso Quaron movie. And then you're like, oh, no, why is this so entirely different? And guess what? He made a perfect movie out of it.

It is a perfect movie. And his great expectations is quite a loose adaptation. His Little Princess is a quite a loose adaptation. And quite famously, and for the betterment of the franchise, when he joined Harry Potter, he was like, guess what, Chris Columbus, we don't have to adapt this line by line. We can experiment a little bit when he had deep prisoner of Azkaband. So this is, yes, a book adaptation, but I would argue, you know, a loose, probably inspiration is what we're dealing with here. And this is not Alfonsocoran's first foray in today.

TV, but the first one I've seen, have you watched his previous TV work? No. Okay, he's a film guy. Yes, very familiar with the filmography, but I would say even relative to his previous attempt, that seemed like much more of a networky kind of show, and this is very much in the prestige zone, to the extent of perhaps some occasional pretension, as you alluded to. And again, pretension, welcome. That's what we're here for.

Character's welcome. Perention welcome. Okay. So we're going to talk about Alfonso Quaron's filmography in a second. But we're Quaron fans. We're Kate Blanchett fans. We're Kevin Klein fans. Oh, yeah.

And this story is about Kate Blanchett, a documentarian who has it all seemingly until Kevin Klein, a Wikipedia says retired, but I will say fired teacher. Furlode. Who is not doing well. who is out to enact his revenge on her via a self-published book written by his dead wife about what happened to his dead son many years ago when he encountered Cape Blanche's character, Catherine, in Italy. So we are not told from the jump, but we are able to conclude pretty quickly that this is a story kind of told in two parts where we're getting the modern day storyline. And then we're getting a story in the past. And I'll talk to you a second about, like, how true we think that story is.

Right. We got a couple teenage or early 20 sons who've got Cody Smith McPhee as perhaps the ultimate fail son and Catherine's son Nicholas. And then we've got Louis Partridge, aka Mr. Olivia Rodriguez, here playing Kevin Klein's son who died in Italy many years ago. go. Anything else you want to say up with the cast? Leslie Minville's here. Sasha Baron Cohen's here. What do you want to say? I mean, it's honestly quite tight so far. I think the sort of parallel structures of these

two families and their sons keeps things pretty lean and gives us a lot of time with all these core characters so far, at least the ones that are still alive. I'm really liking the scope of this right now. Before we get into sort of the cinematography angle, which is actually kind of a big part of what we're going to talk about here today because it is a really interesting approach to the story. I want to talk about Alfonso Coron as a storyteller, as a filmmaker, and some of the things he said about this foray into the world of television and how it differs from how he tells story on films.

So, Rob, just let's start with you. You said he's one of your favorite filmmakers. Do you want to shout out some films you like and sort of what it is about his themes or his style that particularly resonate with you? Yeah, I think he's pretty close to a no-miss. no skip kind of filmmaker. I have not seen great expectations, admittedly. In a 90s way.

In a 90s way, it rules. I mean, it has a lot of my guys in it. I just respectfully, like, Charles Dickens is definitively not one of my guys, so I'm kind of stepping a step back. Let's just not even talk about it. Don't open the door to that. I will not.

Horon, though, is just a, like a stunning filmmaker. I think he regularly makes things that literally make my jaw drop. What's most impressive to me, he's all over the place in terms of the kinds of movies that he's making, and they all wind up being right in my zone somehow. What do you mean by right in your zone? Like, what is that? I think it's the emotionality.

I think it's some of the things that are binding his movies together are not genre, right? Like, you can make gravity and you can make Roma. It's like those movies could not be further apart in terms of the ways that they're structured. But there is a human connection and a desperation between characters and a very painful yearning that is happening all the time that it just works and I find it hits even in the more commercial

gravity is about as roller coaster ride as his stuff gets and even then it gets very very human. I just want to let you know Rob, we've only been podcast together for a little bit now but I do want you to know that in my notes for today I have the word yearning and then in parentheses

Rob loves a year God damn it. Your bingo cards have all been activated unfortunately Rob and yearning, Astoria. So, yearning, yes, I think is a beautiful word to use here. I would say I love almost all of his films. Roma, I will confess, is a film that I admire more than love. Sure.

I think it is technically incredibly proficient. It left me a little cold and a little absent of that great emotionality that you're referencing in his other work. And I don't know what it is. I tried several times to sort of access this. And I know that was a deeply personal story for him. So I don't know why I couldn't connect to it emotionally, but I do admire it sort of on a technical piece of art kind of level, if that makes sense. You're certainly not alone in that. I think it's a movie a lot of people were trying to find the entry point into.

And it kind of works for you or it doesn't. Yeah. I will say one thing it has going for it that a lot of Corroen's best work does is, including disclaimer so far. The way he portrays domesticity is really, really interesting. Like, this is a guy who knows how to make a home come alive. And even, good Lord, the kitchen at Catherine's home, the island. Like, I'm all about it, the natural light. Like, it reminded me a lot of Michael Cain's character's house and Children of Men.

There's just, like, books and bathe the natural light and all of these plants. And it's kind of wild that he would make something like gravity because it's so far divorced from that. But it's telling that even when he makes a post-apocalyptic story like Children of Men, you find yourself in this, like, cozy little countryside home. That's such a good point. The Ravenscroft Kitchen, it's like, what are the stars of the show for me? The cinematography is genuinely like top of the list. And again, we'll talk about that in a second. And then it might go like the cat, the kitchen, and then the incredible actors that we have working here. The kitchen's incredible. The light throughout is incredible. We'll come back to that. But I agree with you in terms of domesticity. I think that's a really good point. And does it? Domesticity as it applies across class, which is, like, you know, of course, very clearly covered in Roma, but is a thread throughout, I mean, is definitely the story of great expectations, but is a thread throughout a lot of his stories that he's interested in, like, domestic drama with a background of something bigger going on. Itumama Tambien is like a really good example of that. One of my favorites of his where it's like a story of Stop Me for.

heard this before as we cover disclaimer, teenage boys in their relationship with a somewhat inappropriately older woman. Yeah. And in just as this one way over their heads, just incalculably swamped by their circumstances. But there's like a massive political movement happening in the background of this sort of smaller story that we're following. And so I think that's something that he's interested in, both the like pull of class inside and especially here in disclaimer, we've got the Ravenscrofts, you've got Catherine's family, and then we've got the Briggs stocks, which is Kevin Klein's family, two very different classes,

especially in episode two when you have Kevin Klein, as Stephen Brickstock, putting on a character, certainly, when he goes vacuum shopping for, you know, to further dupe the easily duped Nicholas Ravenscroft. But, you know, I don't think he's lying when he's talking about being on a pension and being on a budget and all the other concerns that come with that. And I think when you think about something like great expectations

or not to trigger you with other mentions of fiction, like 19th century novels are often about this idea of a lower class being sort of broken up against the upper class. And so this is a question here of like this young teenage boy who has enough money to go on a trip to Italy with his girlfriend, but, you know, is is probably backpacking through Italy. What does his life mean to someone like Catherine Ravenscroft, who is an incredibly privileged woman?

Like, how did that factor into the discussions that happened throughout these two episodes of whose life is worth what? Yeah. What do we think we can get away with if we're in Catherine's position, all that kind of stuff? So that's an interesting theme that I thought was resonant here. Yeah, and we're going across class. I think one of the things Quaron also does very well,

including in the show, is across the age bracket. Like, getting Kevin Klein in this role as Stephen, I think Quaron portrays, like, the life and concern of older characters very, very well. And I think some of the scenes we get that hit me the hardest in these episodes are, like, Stephen putting on his wife's cardigan. And as ridiculous as it is, like, putting her lipstick on his hand and kissing it and sobbing.

Like, there is a grief there that hits. But then that character who's, grieving is also allowed to be fucking weird and walking into offices and being like maybe not unhinged but the hinges are very, very loose, Joe. Yeah. I mean, maybe like

justifiably unhinged. I'm not blaming him. Yeah, it's interesting. Okay, and then visual style, something that, again, we're going to talk about cinematographers in a second. Directors do not make their films in a vacuum.

But having worked with a few different cinematography, in his career, something that is consistent in something that he's interested in, are, like, longer takes. He likes long, almost like documentary style takes to really immerse

you in the world. Well, how else to build the yearning, Joe? What is to simmer if you don't give it time? Okay, I want to talk to you about that because something that he said, he did this great interview with Wired that I want to sort of cherry pick some, some things here, but something that he said about the long takes

that he loves to do is he said, quote, if I hold the shot here when making a TV show, quote, if I hold the shot here, people are going to check their messages. So he's aware that he's making something

that people might second screen and he's trying to sort of curb some of his impulses in a bit to make sure that he doesn't lose people with his, you know, filmic, you know, approach to longer takes. There's still plenty of quite long takes in these episodes,

but I thought that was interesting. And I think what's interesting is that he was talking out in this wide interview when talking about why he wanted to do this project. He's like, I'm a fan of television. I love watching television. He mentions, like, The Bear and Barry later as like a couple. Of course, Alfonso Coran loves the Bear and Barry. But like, but he watches a ton of television, he said.

And something he said is like, sometimes the television, could close your eyes and get as much out of the show as with your eyes open because it's a writer's medium. You know, showrunners for TV are often, you know, the head writer. It's a writer's medium. So you get good dialogue. You get a lot of narrative propulsion. But in many cases, his point is you are missing the cinematic language.

Yeah. That's where the urine comes in. Rob, where there are plenty of the best filmmakers can convey an entire story. in a look, in a linger. And so he wanted to bring that idea of the visual language of cinema, the full bear of occasionally pretentious but always beautiful language of cinema to longer form television storytelling. What do you think about that?

I think that's where the narration style of disclaimer is kind of an interesting bridge. Obviously, it's a story that's circulating around a book. So it makes sense to have a sort of narration getting us into these characters' minds, but it also is allowing the beautiful cinematic flourish from absolute heavyweight actors. And then you also are saying some of the quiet part out loud and reeling some of the intention.

And I think most importantly, some of the history, I think what's been most impressive about these first two episodes, aside from just like the visual style of the show, is how much heft they convey in the history of these characters and the depths of the relationships. We already, two episodes in, have a pretty good snapshot of not just like who Catherine and Robert are, but who they were 20 years ago. When she met Robert, her sexual experience over his, like all of that sort of stuff that we get. I'm curious on the narration front, what you make of this idea that when we hear Kevin Klein narrating Stevens part, it's I.

And when we're hearing the actress Indira Varma narrate Catherine's part, it's a you. So far I'm kind of reading it as Stephen to this point is really like the author of the story and the person driving the action. He's sending this book as a provocation. Whether he wrote me, he obviously didn't write it, but he's claiming to have written it. And so the idea that Catherine is like kind of outside of her own life

and things are happening to her in a way that she is having to reckon with for the first time, I think it grounds the story pretty interestingly in that perspective when you narrate it that way. The other thing that Quaron talked about in this wide interview is one of my favorite things to talk about when we talk about any kind of on-screen storytelling is the old Hitchcock idea of suspense versus surprise. To reiterate it in case people don't know about this, Hitchcock would talk about the idea of you have two options. If you have a bomb and a story, you have two options. You can either just set the bomb off without telling the audience is coming and startle them.

Or you can show them the bomb under the table as it's ticking down. and they have to sit there in the state of suspense as they watch the bomb tick down under the table. For me personally, I prefer suspense over surprise, and I think especially in like a post with love and respect Game of Thrones world, a lot of people chase those big red wedding, shocking moments at the cost sometimes of storytelling.

And so I think with something like disclaimer, again, I don't know how close of an adaptation, but Quaron, likes to keep it loose, the idea that we kind of know, we're not like, who sent the book, we know who sent the book. We're not saying, we don't know everything that happened in Italy,

but we can pretty well surmise. And I think what we're meant to be questioning, and there are some context clues via Kate Blanchett interviews and Quorum interviews is like, what is true in what we're seeing and what is not? And that's going to be, you know, they've basically said many times, this will be a really interesting thing to why,

watch a second time. And I'm like, you give me enough clues. I'll just be, guess what, I'll just be on high alert the first time. I'll just keep my eyes peeled the first time and see what we do. Guess what? We have a podcast to make. We're going to keep these eyes open. We're going to be looking for the clues. I do think as far as this stuff goes into what's true and what's not, and also the slow revealing of some of the information up top, including just like letting us in on what these scenes in Italy are. I think from the jump, you're trying to figure out who are these characters? Who were they going to be in relation to Kate Blanchett and the kind of modern-day cast? I actually think that over these two episodes, it was sort of the perfect amount of time to backfoot us and then solely reveal it.

And we learn, you know, oh, this isn't, you know, I had the thought, is this a young Kevin Klein? Like, is this that character younger? But then, oh, they're talking about euros. Like, the time doesn't quite add up. That was kind of one of the first tells. And so there's enough stuff like that. And then I'm wondering, is the girl with the pink hair a young Nancy? because we haven't met Nancy yet. We have no idea what she's like at that point in the story until, oh, it's revealed that that's clearly not her.

And so the amount of kind of yo-yoing that I think the narrative is doing is very smart and very calculated. And mercifully, we're kind of relieved of it after an episode or two in terms of some of the... Episode one, I think I get that permission. Yeah. That's not just like dangling over us

in an annoying way. I completely agree. I was doing similar math where I was like, they're very tricky having given him this analog camera. I know. figure out like what time we're in. God damn vintage lifestyles.

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app and save up to 20% to get the stay you expected. When you want savings, not surprises. It matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay. Let's talk about the two different cinematographers that we have on this project. And it's huge news that Alfonso Quaron is doing a television series, that Kevin Klein, who doesn't work that much these days, and we'll talk about that perhaps in a future episode, is here is a big deal.

Kate Blanchett did a television show. I really loved Ms. America. that people should watch Ms. America that people should watch. But she doesn't do a ton of television. She still feels like a movie star, so she's here. That's all a big deal. But the thing that made our colleague Sean Fennessey, like, lose his mind is the cinematographers who are working on this.

And it's Emmanuel Lovsky, aka Chivo, and Bruno Del Bonnell, two of the greatest finest cinematographers that exist are both working on this show. It would be one thing to get Chivo, who has collaborated with Quaron a lot. Many times. They went to film school together. Like, they're pals, okay. To have both of these masters here, and we'll talk about their filmography in a second, is kind of stunning. And I don't think they've made it explicit, explicit in an interview, but if they have, you can email us.

Sidebar, Rob, do we have a, have you come up with a brilliant idea for an email for this show? I'm so glad you asked Joe, this was a tough one to fish out, and I want to run some ideas by you. Thank you. Pile of capers at gmail.com? Honestly, pile of capers is not bad. I think some of the things that would be interesting are difficult maybe for listeners to parse out the exact spellings of.

I was wondering, like, pack of chihuahuas is very evocative to me when Sasha Baron Cohen pops that off. Kai also put the bug in my head about Kevin Klein in a cardigan at gmail.com or some variation thereof about the pink cardigan.

I think there's some room for us to work with. All right. Stay tuned towards the end of this episode and we'll hopefully have a finished answer for email. If you have fished up an interview where they've made it clear, more explicit, who is the cinematographer behind which part of the show, please let us know. Based on style, so Rob has the Mendel from a VF article about this. So what is the VF article to show you? So the VF article doesn't get into detail in the text, but there's a photo of Corone and Chivo

together on location in Italy, which would suggest that maybe he's filming some of that stuff? Okay. So that led Rob to think that Chiva was filming the sort of golden hour Italian stuff that we're getting. I thought it was the reverse based on style. And so a question, a question we're asking ourselves now is if what we're seeing happening in Italy is not actually what happened. And that's sort of the indication here, right? The implication here is that Leslie Mannville's character, you know, this teen's mom, Kevin Klein's wife, has written this book. based on what the role of photographs and other context clues that she has, but what information does she have? And are we watching the truth unfolds in those flashbacks or not? And I think what's especially interesting in these first two episodes is you've got,

you've got the interaction, you've got the meet cute, if you will, between these two characters on the beach, Jonathan and Catherine. But before that, you've got... got Jonathan with his girlfriend on the train and running around and stuff like that. The girlfriend is a character who his mom could have talked to, right? Like, she could have gotten some of that insight from the girlfriend. And I actually think those two, the way he's characterized with his girlfriend versus on the beach. And some of that has to do with, like, the person he's interacting with.

He's fucking cooked. Like, he's just cooked so bad. But I just think that, like, the absolute arrogance of the guy who is, like, a completely piece of shit to the gondolier versus the completely paralyzed version of him on the beach, just indicates some sort of unreliable narrative, just like extremes that indicate an unreliable narrator to me. Yeah. So let's talk about the style.

Let's talk about these two cinematographers and their incredible works. So Bruno Delmonell, and this is why I think it's Bruno in Italy and Chivo in the UK. Bruno did Amelie. So Jean-Bierre-Jano on Amelie. He's worked with Tim Burton, the Coen Brothers, Joe Wright. He did Inside Lewin Davis. He did Tragedy. Another perfect movie.

He did Tragedy of Me. I agree. It's my favorite Coen Brothers movie. He did Tragedy McBeth. He did visually my favorite Harry Potter film, which is the Half Blood Prince. Yeah. You've got some takes on Half Blood Prince. He did across the universe.

This is a, this is a cinematographer who likes, they both like, soft natural light. Yes. But Bruno's approach to lighting is something that he does a lot of color correcting in post. For sure. He does a lot of like filtering through painted muslin

to sort of like make the light as glowy as possible. And so I really feel like this very golden hour Italy sequence feels like something that he would work on color correcting into this sort of like

fantastical almost amelie-esque idea of what happened in Italy. We're watching a fairy tale or like a tragedy of a fairy tale like unfurl in that way. And then we'll talk about Shiva and what his style is, but the way in which they both, they were national light and they both mentioned in like in various interviews that they like dark dark sort of blacks. Like they want to make sure that the blacks are very black in the shadows are very black in the frame and the light is beautiful. So I like these cinematographers.

Again, we'll talk about the difference in their style, but there's enough connecting them that it doesn't look jarring. It doesn't look like we're an entirely different show necessarily when we're in Italy. Before we go to Chiva, what do you want to say about Del Bonnell and his style and what you think of when you think of him? I agree with the compatibility. The light, as you mentioned, is the first and foremost thing. And you only get that because of the contrasts with the darks.

I mean, you also only get it because of the glow. And I'm so glad you described it that way because I was thinking the exact same thing. Like the characters in his movies, no matter where they are, they feel like they're fucking glowing. Yeah. And it's easy. It's a little easier to do, perhaps, if you're on a beach in Golden Hour with a natural aura that the characters are literally talking about. Yeah. But I think it applies to all of those scenes.

And I think overall the feel of something that is fuzzier, like a memory, something that is a little more vignette-based. It's almost like because we're popping in and out of the story as far as what's happening in Italy, it makes it feel like you're reaching for that one detail. Like, oh, I was writing that postcard by the leaning tower that one time. Oh, I was on the beach. And I remember like this weird, like creepy shot of looking at this woman's feet through my camera. Like it's these little tiny things that work. And that I think anchor that perspective as far as is this the truth or not?

I don't know. Is it shot beautifully? I absolutely do know. And I'm loving all the time we're spending there. And I think the idea, if this is a story that we're watching told by his now-deceased mom, Nancy, strung together on photographs and postcards, then like, you know, the selfie that he takes with his girlfriend in the beginning or the shot of Catherine backlit by the sun on the beach. Like these are stories she could invent around each photo. So stay tuned for when we get to the racier ones, I guess. So that misty, dreamy,

like even something like Inside Lewin-Davis, which is washed quite gray, still looks very like misty and dreamy as you're watching it. Again, a perfect film. We both agree. What do you want to say about Chivo? What is Chivo style to you?

I mean, this is where the light factors in as well. And I think a lot of what we were talking about in terms of the domesticity and the natural light and sort of the plants, how alive these settings feel comes down to his style. And his ability to portray those places in a way that it doesn't feel like a set. It's a little more naturalistic. And so, yeah, if you're looking for a heightened, like visual sense for these possible

flashbacks, possible dreams, possible like book scenes, whatever they are, and something that's a little more grounded in the here and now, but also very artful. These are the two guys you go to. Exactly. I think what Chivo's known for is, again, that natural light. So when they're scouting for a kitchen, they want a kitchen with like an entire wall of windows, which is what they have there. When they're scouting for her office, they want an office with all those windows on the side to light her as she's sitting at her desk. Watching for all the times that they put them in front of a huge window when Nancy and Catherine meet in that cafe.

Like we're just constantly in front of huge windows trying to utilize the natural light in a sort of, again, almost documentarian style. which matches Quaron's preference for like this idea of immersion. Trying to show you the thing exactly how it would look, but slightly more beautiful. Slightly glower. And I think also his camera, and this is true in a lot of the sort of present day story, his camera often starts outside the room.

You like follow the camera into the room. And so it's almost like you're walking through the house into the kitchen to encounter this. scene or you're upstairs and you go downstairs inside of this flat or something like that. So I think that I just am obsessed with this opportunity for us as like you know, fledgling film nerds to get to examine two of the grates and compare and contrast their style and just

constantly be, I'm just, I was just watching these of them constantly thinking about like, how did they like that? And who would like it went away? You know, so yeah. I mean, it's just for you and I, Joe, I think the best-looking show that we've had the pleasure to cover on prestige, I say it also probably gives Ripley a run for its money as the best-looking thing that I can remember seeing recently. This, it just looks and feels incredible. To parrot some of Sean's enthusiasm through Ashonism, like, this is the fucking hitter's team right here. They have shown up. Inside all of this, we should talk a little bit about this idea of like what is a movie versus what is the TV? show. I regret to inform you that

that discourse is bad. It hasn't died? When the credits roll on this it says, what does it say? Written and shot for the screen by Alphonsequharon. Is that the title? I didn't even clock this. Look at, you're just eagle-eyed right on it. You're locked in the discourse.

It's similar to that. I don't know that I have it word for word, but it is something that you don't see at the end of a TV show. And it was shown at Venice, and it was shown at Telly Ride, at Telly Right, they screened it in a seven-hour chunk. You know, so like, and we should say episode two doesn't just pick up like loosely, literally where episode one, you know, ends. Episode two picks up.

So I think this is something you could watch in a seven-hour chunk. And while I don't think Alfonso-Coron would ever say, please binge my show, I think he would say, and he has said, the thing that I I kind of hate that people say, which is this is a seven-hour movie, not a TV show, and that drives me crazy. But also, if you told me there was a seven-hour Alfonso Quaron movie coming out, I would go see it. That's fair. That's very fair. But I do think it was very healing for me to watch this wire.

It was a, it was a, I sat it on YouTube. So it was a, like, you know, 10, 15-minute wired interview, really good interview. But he's talking about how much he loves television, right? He's like, the writing's great, the acting's great. Again, though, like, worst case scenario, you can close your eyes and you get the same story. He's like, so I want to play in this field and bring what I can bring to it. So he's not talking, like, a filmmaker who has disdain for television. He loves television, and this is just sort of like his version of it.

Well, so loves television, but how does he feel about television podcasting? Is listening, I'm sure, on his line eye. I'm sure he's having a great time. But I think that, like, I'm of the school of thought that I'm. I like episodes that feel like episodes. I like episodes where you can say the one where this happened. Does this feel enough that way to you? No, not at all.

And I'll be interested to see going forward how it feels. I'm not, I'm delighted to be here. I'm not mad about it. I just, I think this question of like, what is television is one we should always be thinking about. And I never want the art of television to go away in like the binge world, in the streaming world, all of that sort of stuff. I want to make sure we maintain it as an important medium because I love it. Someone must defend the soul of the medium and you Joanna Robinson are here to do it. It's Prestige TV.

All right. So we get introduced to Catherine, to Stephen, to Robert, to Nick, to Jonathan, to Nancy. Let's sort of go like case by case. What do you feel we learn about these people as we are interested? Because I think this, what this story is challenging us to think, about is those first impressions. What's the first impression of someone? And what assumptions are you making as you meet them?

So let's start with Catherine, as played in the present by Kate Blanchett and in the past by Layla George. What is your take of how she's presented here? Well, I love a well-placed thesis statement. And so the fact that we get this award show, like, beware of narrative and form warning right out of the gate about the power of the truth to manipulate. And the fact that she is not coincidentally a documentarian, I think gives us a lot to chew on as far as what someone's role would be

as a documentarian in shaping the truth. And I think perhaps some of the way that she could suffer some like real professional consequences by the fact that she has misrepresented her own life, I assume, in lots of different ways. But for now, I think what I'm enjoying most is like, it's quite a thing to watch Kate Blanchett unravel in basically any form that she would like to participate in that. And I don't think that Catherine is like,

quite as tightly coiled as Lydia Tar was. But we're hitting some of the same high society sorts of notes. And I'm very appreciative of it. Oh, my God, Lydia Tar. I miss her. I think what is most fascinating to me in all of this is this is a portrait of a mother who does not like her child. Yeah. Also, not a great mother, it seems.

No, and this is reiterated a couple times. and like Robert thinks it, Robert says it, all this sort of stuff like that. You've driven him away. You chose your career. Yes. There is nothing sort of, there's no faster shortcut to us judging a woman

than presenting her as a not tremendously successful mother. That is just like something that's true and storytelling. And so I think it's really interesting to show us that, to show her as someone who's like struggling with trying. Yeah. But being really, very bad at it. And for someone who is trading professionally

in truth and human emotion, just like completely inaccessible in terms of trying to communicate with her son. One of my favorite line reads, though, in the episode is her assistant, I suppose. Yeah. Who, by the way, just like jumps to pedophile when asked to interview Stephen.

We'll talk about that. But also, I will say, if you're trying to hide like a lifelong dark secret, maybe don't do it at work. Like, don't be like brainstorming candidates at work. Great, great point. But when her assistant goes like, oh, you're terrible, the way she said, aren't I? Yeah.

Was incredible to me. And then later when she's fighting with Robert, these are both in episode two, and he says, you're always the victim, aren't you? And she says, well, yes, I am. Yeah. Which I've never heard anyone say ever. That's not a yes and blind. What?

That's not one you agree with. I can't wait to know more about this. Okay, Stephen Briggsock, as played by Kevin Klein, who I was really grateful when I figured out that we were doing two different time periods because I was like, why does Kevin Klein look like that? And it's because we're good to see him when he's younger, so they aged him up a bit. But Kevin Klein affecting a British accent,

what is your immediate take on Stephen? I think a good entry point for this, Joe, is to bring back the cat discussion because not only do we get the one cat that we have discussed eating the capers in this episode Stephen himself has a cat. And I'm curious, I don't know how much you subscribe to color theory cat psychology,

but Stephen being an orange cat guy and Catherine being a gray cat girl. I don't know what that says about them, but I'm hoping you can decipher it for me. Okay, well, all I know about orange cats is that they're sort of infamously chaotic energy. I mean, that is Stephen. I grew up with a gray cat who was so smart.

He learned how to open the front door and could just let himself out of the house any time he wanted to, and we couldn't fight it. So he just ran that house, essentially. But yeah, orange cats are like notoriously chaotic, and the hinges are quite loose on them as well, I would say. I'm just kind of obsessed with this with the Ravenscroft cat. I know you're a dog guy. Kai is a dog guy. Like, I'm the lone cat person. Even if I wasn't watching the cat get up on the counter as Catherine is preparing dinner is messed up.

It's messed up. I just love how that cat is in almost like every shot. I love when they're like packing stuff into like big Tupperware containers. And the cat like hopped this perfect cat behavior. I don't know how they got this cat to do all of this. I have to imagine it's just like a lot of capers and soul. But like, have you ever heard Oscar Isaac talk about working with cat and inside Lou and David? I actually haven't, but great cat acting, as we know.

I hated that cat. He's like, they had to tie the cat to me. The cat wanted nothing to do with me. He's like, never work with children or cats. Anyway, so I'm, like, impressed with all the cat wrangling. Like, it makes me think that this is like someone's actual cat that's here. It might be. Why is this cat behaving as well as it is?

But, okay. So cats allowed on the counter at the Ravens Croft Home or a horror show for Rob Mahoney. Okay. What do you make about a... Knowing what we do about Catherine, we meet her at this award show, all of this sort of stuff, what do you make about the depiction of her, the younger version of her, which may or may not be anything remotely truthful as we meet her back lit by the sun on the beach? What do you think? I want to say that it feeds the idea of this being a sort of fabricated memory, the fact that she is, like, overwhelming in those scenes.

The fact that Jonathan is, like, so struck so quickly. Yeah. And her whole spiel to him about, like, what are you going to do with the pictures of this aura? It's just, I think, for one, there is a, whether it's fabricated or not, like, there is a straight line between the sort of intimidating figure she is in that moment in a then-positive way to a young Jonathan.

Yeah. To what her relationship ultimately is with Robert and the way it's portrayed as far as, like, how they came together in the first place, him being younger and shy and her being, like, very intimidating to him in a way, fostered a sort of protectiveness and relationship, you could see how a younger version of Catherine,

even more in her power, could be this kind of person. Yeah, it's interesting. I, yeah, the way she shot from below, right, like looming over him. And it's sort of like predatory way, but also in a like sunlit goddess kind of way, her correcting him that it's the scene, not the ocean,

all of that. I thought all of that was, I think it's so fascinating how that shot. So, like, let's pretend that this is a story completely fabricated by, you know, Leslie Manneville's character, Nancy, to depict her son as the victim of this predatory woman. What's so interesting about that beach scene is he's the one ogling her with his camera. Real ugly. Just maybe even crossed the line from Ogle and to Lear. Okay.

We're straight past yearn, straight past Ogle to Lear, okay? was no time to yearn. There was no yearning happening. We're camera leering and then he's the one who follows her and she doesn't even bait him into doing that at all. Like he's the one who decides to follow her and be incredibly charming with a small child. If anything, it seems like in this portrayal, she's kind of playing a game and leaving. Yeah. Like she's taking her ball and going home. She's done. Yeah. And he's like, no, I have more in me. Okay. No, I will literally never forget you for as long as I live. Which is not that much longer. Okay. So, sorry.

So we get that, but where of narrative and form, their power can bring us closer to the truth. They can also be a weapon with great power to manipulate from Christian Amampur. Thank you so much. We also get the disclaimer

inside of the book itself, right? Any resemblance between fiction, in fact, is intentional. And no matter how embellished or from a certain point of view the Italian story might be, it's true enough that Catherine recognizes herself in it. Completely.

So there's some foundation there. I've talked about Robert a bit. The shit with him in the wine in episode one is just like, and also I'm not the huge just Sasha Baron Cohen fan, but like I think he's really great in this role. You're telling me he could just be like an excellent normal-ass actor anytime he wants. That's just the thing he can do.

And he does all that other stuff instead? Okay. Our guy Nikki, Nicholas Ravenscroft, the ultimate fail son. He could start at Small Ford for the Memphis Grizzlies right now. Oh, okay. I'm just saying, like, the length on this kid, I think he's got a real future if he were to dedicate himself to the athletic arts.

The gangle. All right. Well, he's instead decided to just be constantly stoned and sell vacuum cleaners and live in, like, absolute squalor. Yeah. Was his flat deeply recognizable to you? Because I have to say,

not mine personally, but I have known guys who live exactly that way. Yeah, I had a friend in my early 20s who lived at a house called the Heatherton and all of our parties were there because it was pre-trashed. So you could just do whatever you wanted to that house because it was just like, that's how they lived, you know? So no must, no fuss, no cleanup required.

It's just like that all the time. But no, I have never lived in such conditions myself personally. What do you want to say about Nick? I mean, Cody Smith-Fee, who's a tremendous actor and is capable of being quite appealing, is turning on the anti-charms. as much as possible in this show. And it makes us, I mean, like,

when Nancy says something like, you know, I wish your son had died instead of buying or he shouldn't have saved. And Catherine's like, I agree. I was just like, holy shit. But also, when we're asking, when we meet Jonathan, who has his own things that bother me?

But we have to consider a life for, you know, if he died saving Nicholas, and this is what Nick is doing with his life. That is, you know, especially when Stephen goes to visit him in the vacuum sales department, it has to be like, this is who my son died for this kid. Cauls him a complete waste of space. Not wrong. Which is strong, but there's some accuracy in there, you know?

He's a tough hang. He seems like a total weirdo. I am intrigued by the- I love a weirdo, though. This is like beyond weirdo, I think, you know? This is not the good weirdo. No, no. This is tough.

This is the pudding on his socks very slowly kind of weirdo. You can wait for me outside, Dad. Who has the time? When there's, what was it, like a pork cheek croquettes to have or something like that? That would fucking hit. I could go for a pork cheek croquette right now. Wow, it's a croquette heavy week on Presti. But I am intrigued by the, how much does Nicholas then four years old, potentially, actually remember about that Italy trip?

Right. Does he have any flashes of memory? himself, which Robert is clearly trying to mind to try to learn more about what happened. Very subtly. Oh, you should take her to Italy. Speaking of Italy, do you remember anything where you were the night of blah?

He cranes the interrogation light in front of his son. And then Chivo's like, we only use natural light. We don't use it. No, absolutely not. Definitely not. But I think in the vein of what could look and feel different on second watch, the sort of initial impressions

that Nicholas has from reading the book about what happens to the main woman in the story and like she was a manipulative cow, like how much of that is him reading a book and talking about it and how much of it is, oh, I see something familiar here that I can needle my mom with who I don't seem to like very much.

At first I thought it was that. It was like more intentional. And now I think, I don't know. It didn't strike me that he really remembered that much or it might just feel like subconsciously. I don't know. It's going to be interesting to find out. And then like let's talk about Jonathan.

And as we mentioned, we don't know how much of a reliable version we're getting of him. But I'm just kind of obsessed with this introduction. We meet him with his girlfriend, Sasha, on the train. They're having sex on the train. She's like, don't come, don't come.com. He's like, sorry. The train's coming, one way or another. And then the conductor comes in for the ticket.

And it's just sort of like, I don't know, I was, I was, parsing that scene is like a really fun scene in terms of like, joyous youth, sex backpacking. like all this sort of stuff. Like, I'm along for this ride, and it's an interesting counterbalance to the, like, dreariness often of the present storyline that we have to return to. But I was like, what are we meant to think of Jonathan here as he, like, wrenches the blanket off of his girlfriend in order to, like, cover himself and grab the ticket? Or as their complete touristy assholes to the gondolier guy.

But then he writes this like, I don't know, lonely boy postcard to his mom. So like what's your, what picture is this painting of youth for you? I think the youth is the key part. And especially the youth as contrasted to Nicholas, who is living this fail son type life, working in the electronics department, like does not have his shit together. And here is a freer, looser kind of existence for someone who's more or less about his age. And the idea that, you know, even though Nicholas isn't taking the fullest, advantage of the life that Jonathan might have saved.

There was a path here to live this kind of free way, and it has its faults, clearly. Like, it doesn't seem like the most steadfast person that I've ever seen depicted on screen. And I don't know exactly what his relationship with Sasha is, but look, I will say this to his credit. They were trading a lot of I Love Yous and, like, Sasha will be crushed when she finds out that he, like, immediately turned his camera on Catherine. I agree. And they say romance is dead, but I watched two young.

people parting, tearfully holding some underwear together. I mean, charming. Incredibly charming. I think that is ultimately my takeaway from the Jonathan scene so far is when he is with Sasha, incredibly charming. When he is meeting Catherine, overwhelmed. Overwhelmed, but then slips back into charm mode when he's talking to Nick. Yeah. But not to her. Yeah.

You know, I think it's telling that we have yet to see him kind of figure out how to even communicate with her. Yeah. Louis Partridge, who I know solely from the Annola Holmes films, which I will not necessarily recommend as, like, incredible pieces of cinema, but are a fun, fine time in the Netflix binge. Are they? Yeah. Like, in a completely opposite of Alfonso Quaron comes to television kind of way, in a completely brainless sort of way, yes. And he's just very endlessly charming in this. That's just what he does.

So, like, I think this is really good casting. And I'll be interested to see what dimensionality he's capable of beyond the charm facade. And we should say charming, but also at this point in the story, a little bit alone. Like, after Sasha leaves, he's trying to make friends with other tourists. He's, like, walking around these sites by himself. You can tell the air is out of his balloon a little bit. The Tower Pizza moment. So sad.

Stuff. Anything else you want to say? St. fucking Catherine, anything else you want to say about these characters that we've met here? Oh, do we want to talk about Nancy at all? I think it was interesting to me that she and Catherine had an actual relationship before the time of this story. If you want to call it that. Yeah, we're dealing now with like a third timeline, right? Yes. And also, why did she lie about her husband being dead? Or did she? I think what I'm less clear on is what is the timeline of when Stephen came into her life? And along those lines, is Stephen actually Jonathan's biological?

father or not. Oh, that didn't occur to me. I thought maybe he could have married her after her first husband had passed away, potentially. I will say it kind of... Is there info that I missed on that? Or you're just basing that based on her saying her husband's dead? Based on her saying her husband's dead. And I think some of the ways in which she responded after Jonathan's death, which is to say, lock herself in Jonathan's room and refuse to leave and not even let Stephen in. Right? It's like, like this is her space. And now a grieving mother could very well do that even to the biological father.

I'm not saying that's impossible. But I'm just leaving the option open as far as the twisty half-truths of the show go that maybe Stephen is not his father. Keep your eyes open always. I love that for you. Okay. That's a good question.

I mean, I definitely think she did say he was dead, whether or not Stephen is your point. But, like, Catherine is genuinely shocked when she finds out that Stephen is. alive. Well, she had made a very useful flow chart at work of all the people who could possibly know about this entire fucking episode. With like dead

circled... Question mark? Underlined? Oh my God. I love a flowchart. Okay. I think that's it for volumes one and two, Roman numeral style of this show. I guess I'll close out by this. This is something we talked about

briefly before we started recording. I thought let's revisit it. Because sometimes we talk about the bigger picture of like television as a whole, do you think this is a show people are going to watch? There's like so much prestige here, obviously. There's so much delicious highbrow content for us here. But, and this is basically, basically, this is an incredibly artistic, much, much better version of the, like, Nicole Kidman TV genre, essentially. I watched a really, I've watched like three bad versions of those. And I'm not talking about season one, a big little last.

because I actually thinks he's one of big little eyes is phenomenal. But some of the choices she's made thereafter to do, quote, unquote, like, women's fiction with, like, you know, an elevated director or something like that is just, like, not hitting for me. But those versions were perhaps soapier than what we're watching here. Even though, like, the soap is here, quote, wrong, doesn't seem interested in, like, sudsing it up for people. So, like, what do you think of all of that?

But he's not washing away the suds either. I don't think. He's not propagating them. And I think honestly, I think that's going to be a big part of it is can this show get to like the gone girl zone? Right. There is a certain kind of beach read hook

to what's going on here. And yeah, it has some darkness and some heavy emotion and it seems like some violence of some kind coming in the near future. But the fundamental mystery and how kind of gnarled and twisted the characters are underneath

is so fascinating. People just kind of keep coming back to it in a page turning, I think what's most important for a TV show, getting people talking about it capacity. Like, is this, will this be the kind of mystery you tell your friend to catch up on? So far, I would say there's a lot of promising signs,

but we haven't gotten to the big hook yet. We have off mic, gone back and forth, and we have come up with Rob, would you like to say it for our listeners? I think you should share this one, Joe. It was really, I feel like you really refined it. This is like a crowdsource. Kai was involved.

Like, it's all of us working together. We're going with grief cardigan at gmail.com. Not to be confused with who, Rob Mahoney? With good old Griefcarga. From the Mandalorian. It's Grief Cardigan at Gmail.com. I hope you know how to spell those words. But anyway, we tried to keep it a little easier than ours time the Pope at Gmail.com this time for you.

Not that much easier, to be honest. What did we want to know from our listeners this week? We had a couple of questions for them along the way. If we missed an interview where they clarified who was shooting which storyline, I think we're right, but we'll see. Also, what happens to your cat if it eats capers? Also, what's going on with the foxes in these episodes? I have a lot of questions. The boxes.

This made me feel like we were in the flea bag universe. The flea bag. Straight in the flea bag zone. All right, yeah, color theory on cats. Please send your thoughts on that. Your Solmagné recipes, if you care to. Your opinions on Robert's opinions on wines, if you care to. And your travel trips for when your girlfriend

has left you all alone in Italy. We will be back next week. We're going to be doing Monday drops for these going forward. So we're dropping this one on the Friday, but we'll be doing Monday drops going forward for disclaimer. Griefcardigan at gmail.com. Thank you, as always, to the tireless Kai Grady for all of his prestigious TV work this week.

Unbelievable. Just real great stuff from Kai this week. Thank you to Rob Mahoney for being the best, always. Thank you, Joe. Oh, thanks. And thanks to Justin Sales for his work generally on the feed. We will see you next time. Bye.