The Prestige TV Podcast - 'Euphoria' Season 2 Finale Recap

Episode Date: February 28, 2022

Joanna is joined by Chris Ryan to talk about the Season 2 finale of 'Euphoria'. They take on the cultural impact of the second season, what characters were left out to dry, and where they see a potential Season 3. Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Chris Ryan Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Presti's TV podcast feed. I'm Jonah Robinson and tonight in the role of Nora Princeati. We've got Chris Ryan. Hi, Chris. I guess this is like Austin Abrams on that show. I can just play any part. Do it all. The number of wigs you currently have stacked behind you, ready to go for whatever I need you to do is... You have no idea. True professional. True professional. The lovely Nora could not join us for this for our breakdown of the Euphoria Season 2 finale. HBO did not give us screeners in advance, this is their want with finale sometimes, and Nora's traveling today.

So Nora wishes she could be here. Chris is here instead. We're so excited to have Chris here to talk about episode eight. Oh, my life. My heart has yearned for a thing I cannot name, which is a divisive euphoria finale, which is what we got. So lucky us.

Before we get into this episode, there are some programming reminders that I want to say. The PrestiHTV podcast feed is just clogged. with a beautiful episodes for you guys. You've got some coverage on Severance, super pumped. Mal and I will be talking about The Marvelouss is Maisel this week. We'll be talking about the dropout this week. We've got a lot going on.

There's a lot of good TV. I couldn't even get 1883 on the docket. I'm going to have to start a Sheridan verse alternate feed. Oh, my God. Please start a Sheridanverse only feed. That's like, that's the culmination of your life's work. I think so. It's where I finally arrive at my demo.

All right. So we want to talk about this episode. There's so much to say I've seen a wide range of reactions, but I want to start as we usually do with the episode title names because Sam Levinson, Bless, likes to pack in a lot of meaning into his episode titles. So the episode title this week, all my life, my heart has yearned for a thing I cannot name is an Andre Breton quote from a book he wrote called Mad Love, which I've been trying in the past to sort of like read at least. some of these books or poems that Sam Levinson is referencing here, but I could not get my hands on a good translation of Madlove. So I instead would like to present to you, Chris. You don't mind. The bad translation? Some Amazon reviews of Mad Love. I've been doing French duolingo lessons.

So if you want me to take a run at it, you know, we could try. Zut al-Laar. Okay, so I just want to read these because Ander-Bitton is. is a master of surrealism. That's his thing. And so these Amazon reviews of the modern library translation of modern love are so all over the map that it just reminded me of the euphoria reaction. So here's one. Impossible to read two stars.

I tried three times to begin this book. I'm interested in Breton. I want to read his works. This book is unreadable. And then Jessica, someone named Jessica said, five stars, a convulsive beauty masterpiece, a work of art written in a surrealist manner. It celebrates love and lovers. It finds beauty in such ordinary things as iron masks, spoons, and trees.

So I think this is a perfect analog for the wide range of euphoria responses. But I think to be ever so slightly more serious about it, to try to take Sam Levinson seriously here, I think that this surrealist approach is sort of the best. solution if you find yourself watching euphoria and being stressed about it. I advocate to listen to Chris Ryan on the wrong. The Watch tell you, don't worry about internal logic at the show. Yeah. Just enjoy the visuals and the vibes. You said that a couple weeks ago and I was just sort of like, oh yeah. Yeah. And it helped me learn to like, you know, stop wearing and love love the bomb that is euphoria. How are you feeling, Chris? You know,

So it's so weird because, like, I feel like what I'm watching say, like, the finale, the season finale of like mayor of Kingstown, everything needs to make sense. Yeah. I was like, this prison riot needs to, like, fit, like, a certain logical step-by-step progression. But when I am watching something about high school, which is something I did experience, I'm just like, let it ride, kids. Like, let's see what happens. You guys want to have something in a play where the conversation didn't happen until after the play took place or was written? fine. I don't care. Do you want to have, you know, like a play breakdown and have like a family meeting taking place during the play?

Fine. I don't care. Like the chronology of the show is off. Actors get older yet play their younger selves. It's all good. I just really, really let this show wash over me. I will say that I found, I have some critiques about like just the lack of kinetic energy I felt. It may be the last two episodes, which was essentially one very long episode of TV. But we can get into that.

But yeah, I just, I leave logic at the door when I check in on Euphoria. And I think that in the past, when so much of the show is taking place inside of Rue's drug-induced experience, that surrealism has been easier for people to swallow because they're like, is this happening? Is this not happening? Well, Rue is high, so how can we know? But in this episode, last two episodes when people are sensibly sober, with exception of Elliot and his long song, which we can talk about, that dream logic remains. You know what I mean? So you can have a high school production, as you say, like devolve into Jerry Springer or the production value on this high school production. Would make Noah Baumback weep?

It does not take place in a reality. So if it doesn't take place in a reality, then I'm not that worried about life. like plot threads dangling. What I, what I needed to feel is emotionally satisfying because I'm emotionally invested in his characters. And I would say some mixed results.

But like when Euphoria nails the visuals and nails the emotions, then I am absolutely here for it. And I think that they're, you know, we'll maybe at the end we'll sort of do a larger season-wide. How do we feel? But there are absolute banger episodes in this season. Oh my gosh.

Yeah. So for all it's mess. And I love a, Sunday night HBO mess. I watched all of True Blood, like, wall to wall. It's a different kind of mess, but I embrace the mess. You know, there is some real artistic value in all of this. Yeah, you know, I think that the key for me in last night's episode on the finale was during

Rue's eulogy for her father, which I think is the third or fourth time that we've seen this eulogy. I haven't memorized at this point. It just keeps getting longer. No offense. She talks a little bit about basically, perceiving herself as a character in a movie. And I thought that that was a really handy way to look at Euphoria,

that all of these characters see themselves in a movie, and that Euphoria's camera eye sees them in movies. And that that is sort of like, it's almost movie logic when you're watching Cassie regard herself in a mirror or, you know, thinking about her relationship with Nate and, like, you know, that's an erotic thriller. And then Rue is in good time. And, you know, these people are in different films

in the same TV show. Yeah. That was very helpful for me. I love that. We're going to get into, you know, something I said at the beginning of the season, DeNora, is that when we meet the character of Lori, that to me felt like,

I'm not going to have a movie comp here, but it felt to me very much like a different show. It felt like an FX era, like, a crime show where here's the new big bad of the season. You know what I mean? Like we called up Neil McDonough and he's going to come. and be a problem for a season. That's not really how Lori shook out,

but that idea of sort of a crime show is where we all ended up in a big way at this episode. Before we get exactly into that, I do want to hit some of these like external questions or surrounding the show. First of all, let's talk about the cultural impact of the show. Nora and I talked about this a little bit last week.

How massive the ratings are this season, that it's doubled its ratings. since the first season, how rare you and I talk about this all the time, how rare is something that feels like it's in the monoculture is. And another good example of that is that last night, HBO Max crashed right when the euphoria finale started, which is something I don't think has happened since Thrones.

I don't think. I don't think so. That or maybe Succession had some tough login moments, but I doubt it. But these ratings are, I think, by several millions larger than the succession. Like, it's a bigger show than succession, which is just like, you know,

depending what corners of the internet you frequent, you might be surprised by that, but it's true. It's just like euphoria is massive. So I don't know, like, how does it feel for this to be a show that has captured the monoculture in that way for you? So last night when I was logging on to watch it,

I couldn't. It was like just giving me the three dots going across for like a really long time. Yeah. So I thought that does Tom Holland like walk on stage and do a song from Oklahoma in our life or something? Like what is possibly like sinking HBO Max today? I do think that this show is huge and is the maybe, what's the right word up? Is it a apotheosis?

Apotheosis, yeah. Apotheosis of sometimes when there's a little, that extra break in between seasons. And so many people can discover your show and catch up and become obsessed with it, that then that slingshots into the new season, which I think we saw a lot with Breaking Bad is probably the last time that I remember. I mean, Saul to some extent, but Breaking Bad certainly had that huge boost from being on Netflix. And I think euphoria is just something people have obviously found over the last two years. I don't think that the Christmas specials hurt at all. I also think the fact that Zendaya is one of the most famous people in the world certainly aids this all.

And I do actually think that this is a, for as controversial or racy as the show can be, there's something in it for everybody. Like, you can kind of see any configuration of people or person sitting down and being like, there's something in euphoria that I'm interested in. It's not breaking the mold as much as some people think it is because, like, for whatever envelope it pushes and it does, I mean, honestly, this reminds me of cycles around 90-2-0 or the, or Gossip Girl. Like, you know, these young talented actors who are on the show are forever going to be

identified with these roles with like, you know, a few certain exceptions. The cultural, the like chokehold it has on the cultural, especially like the music aspect of it, which I think is super interesting. Something I discovered over the weekend. Like I knew that it had a, you know, that when the music supervisor on Euphoria puts a track on there, that that that. track then becomes popular and interesting. But I was looking at my guy Jonathan Richman. I was dancing the lesbian bar as a song I really love that was in an episode earlier

this season. It's also in episode four of Mrs. Maisel. And I was, I bopped over to Jonathan Richmond's Spotify. I was dancing the lesbian bar, which was not as of a couple months ago, the top track. Like when you go into Spotify and then you see the top five tracks or whatever. That was not the most known Jonathan Richard's song. Now it has four times the place. It is 12 million compared to his next most popular song, which has three million. That's the power of euphoria. Or if you have something like Donovan Fike's very long song, Eliot's long song that he sings in this episode,

that Zendaya co-wrote with Labyrinth, the guy who does the music for the show, like that's going to be highly, highly streamed. Like, that's a thing. So, like, I don't know, it reminds me of when a band would show up on the O.C. Or when a band would show up at the Peach Pit after dark. Like, it's just cycles of the same. Shout out to Phantom Planet.

it. Time is a flat circle. We're just doing it again. As you were saying that, I was looking over at my couch, and I have a copy, which I didn't know existed, a print copy of the cut for the, you know, the New York magazine site. And the cover is the women of euphoria. Half the people on the cover don't really have any lines this season, but it's okay. But yeah, but yeah, like this, this, just like, even just like contextualizing this as this is a group of people that are important and this is a group of people that are going to kind of have like a, you know, a footprint on culture is pretty unique for TV shows. They don't do that for like justified. You know what I mean? Like it doesn't really happen very often even for for relatively popular shows. So yeah, I don't even think as a person who

basically does like the same thing every day and every week. Like I don't know that I've seen people like dress more or less like Dominic Fike out there. in the world, but it is certainly seems like a huge, huge show. I mean, he's just riding the Pete Davidson's Gumbro wave right now, but I think that, like, that, that cut, that New York Magazine cover, you know, reminds me of like the Women of Twin Peace cover for Rolling Stones. Like, there are these iconic TV covers, like, and then people are going to remember it, I think, if media is even a thing 10 years from now, 10 years from now.

The other conversation outside the finale that I want to talk about is this thing that popped over the weekend. where someone on Twitter discovered, quote, unquote, that Maude Apatow has as an actress mother and a director father. Okay. Someone who skipped all the Judd Apatel movies? This person did not know who Judd Apatel was. Okay. They said, her dad, I guess, is a director and her mom is this actress, who I don't know.

They would know from, like, blockers or something, Leslie Mann. And, you know, and they were like, she's a nepotism baby, which is like this conversation we had around girls and stuff. that. And then a bunch of people responded, like, please don't look up who Sam Levinson's father is. But I mean, it's just, I just thought the, it was this huge conversation over the weekend that I just was really funny. And I just, I just want to say for the record on the nepotism baby front, Chris Ryan is my favorite neptism baby of the Ringer network. But also like that every, you cannot throw a rock and it's just the nature of Hollywood that there's nepotism babies everywhere. And I think I also love the fact that like euphoria leans into it. It's like the writer.

daughter gets to write the big play at the end of the season. I mean, Sam Leffinson, there's like a, there must be a fraternity of that. So it's, I, I don't think this show is unaware of that. Exactly. And as far as Nepotism babies go, uh, I thought Mattapita was just like a real standout this season. I thought she was incredible. Yeah, most improved player by far. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, last thing I want to say before we get into specifics of the episode is I got a bunch of people responding to the discussion we had last week about Nate's sexuality and some, maybe some of the terms that we used around it. And so I just want to say,

I talked to a couple people who know way more about this than I do since. And I think what's fair to say is that Euphoria, the show, has not figured out need sexuality, nor has Nate himself. So my understanding is we could comfortably put that under

a queer questioning umbrella. If people listening disagree, that's fine. But, like, I think that, I think it's just safe to say, it's a question, a question. Yeah. That's, that the show is,

not bothered to answer yet. So we'll see. Nate's working some stuff out. We'll see. I don't know that I want to spend much more time with Nate and all of this, but we'll see. All right,

so let's start with Ash. This, this like a crime show, big shootout finale that, you know, you invoke justified. Feels like a season finale

of justified or breaking bad. I wish. I wish, Justify got this gnarly. Justifies usually people give each other monologues while they stand in front of one another. It's like,

your daddy and my daddy go way bad. We don't. coal together. In this holla. Yeah, but I want to shout out. I want to start by shouting out.

I was not surprised that Faye stayed loyal to Fes because that felt like where this was going. But shout out to her great plan. Honestly, like I think it would have worked. What do you think, Chris? I thought Chloe Cherry actually had the

line reading of this season when she's sort of arguing with Custer about like, didn't you tell me like Lori killed this guy? Yeah. And he's like, no, no, I didn't. And she just takes a beat and goes, yes, you did. That was my favorite line reading.

Yeah, I thought she was fantastic in that scene. And just great, great move with the dropping the glass. Yeah. Slick. All around slick. I think they did a great job of creating tension around that where you're not, because Chloe Cherry spends so much of the season just sort of staring vacantly, you're not expecting her to come through with a plan that will be.

effective. She does is quickly all for not, but like I was really impressed with her for a second. So, I mean, the biggest thing that happens in this episode is a literal child dies. I've seen some people ask whether or not they think

Ash survived that. I don't. I don't think so. I believe it. We didn't see it, but it was a headshot, I believe. This is Stanis Baratian territory. Yeah, no. That was like, that was a headshot is what we saw. my um i we're recording this it's monday morning because there were no screeners we are not able to like read a bunch of interviews with the showrunners of the cast to see sort of the

the larger thinking behind this episode but um here's my tv watching assessment um jvonne walton was 11 when they started shooting euphoria he is now 15 um this is the problem the tv show lost had with character of waltz um and they very clumsily wrote Walt off the show in a way that sort of forever lingers is a problem on that show. Euphoria just decided to kill this kid so that we're not going to have to wonder why he's so tall and everyone is still in high school. He also, does he, the actor has like a burgeoning boxing career? He was discovered as a boxer, I guess.

He was like doing boxing. He's also been cast in Umbrella Academy and in like a sort of undisclosed. So he's going to be working. He's fine. Yeah. He's doing fine. They just like. I think that this was a, uh,

a rare act of tastefulness on the part of euphoria was just to not show this character mowed down. I mean, it was enough to see the, I guess, the toilet get obliterated that we're like, and I guess we know what will happen when this kid get hits. My question, though, for you is, like, was Ash ever actually a character on this show? Or is he, I mean, I'm not, again, I'm not that mad about it. I'm not holding euphoria to a standard where he has to be. But, like, is he really just more of, are we watching something that will impact Fez, who is a character on this show? Yeah, I definitely thought that the, one of the fascinating things between season one and season two is Sam Levinson working the sliders of these characters of who is like a main character versus who is a tertiary character versus who is basically a non-existent character.

And obviously people have pointed out the stuff about McKay and Kat kind of basically vanishing from the show. but Fez, who I thought was really cool on the first season and was almost like a, you know, a real nice, like, pressure release valve, change of pace player in the first season becomes this like not only a main character, but gets seriously integrated into Lexi's emotional life and as Lexi becomes one of the co-stars of the show

over the course of this season, he becomes very important and is like a major plot driver for most of the second season. Whatever happens to him next, whether it's Little House on the Prairie time or not, like, I think Ash probably was a vestige of, like, basically capital O, capital, capital, old fez, you know, like, and wherever they want to take that character,

I don't think you can have a kid with that little impulse control following him around. I don't know, what did you think? Did you think he was sort of, I mean, for somebody who doesn't speak very much, I guess he was underwritten? Whatever emotion I feel about this death, I mean, it's always, like, obviously chilling to watch,

child die and also not just that, but to watch a child who has been brought up in this life in a way that he feels like he needs to crawl into a bathtub with a ton of weapons or needs to stab a guy in the throat or needs to do all the things that we've seen him do. But I think the show is most concerned with how this impact Fez and like, you know, if this were a female character we might talk about like fridging, but since it's not, I mean, I just, I think that the camera is on Fez as an active restraint, but it's also. So, like, Fez and the trampled letter to Lexi and all this sort of stuff like that. Like, we're supposed to be focusing on, like, what does this mean for Fez going forward? And, like, I don't know that I know. I think that Ingus Cloud is such a fan favorite that his cultural relevancy, relevancy, there you go. His cultural relevancy is on the, is so much on the rise that I think there's no way they're

going to sort of, this is why I didn't really think they were going to kill him. That's why I don't think they're going to stick him even in prison. for that long. But I do think we're going to see, again, maybe it's a full errand on a show looking for you to try to think of logically how another show would handle it. But I think that the emotional fallout and trauma of this, and maybe for a character like Fez, that do I even deserve a happy ending of any kind if I couldn't protect this kid that I've been trying to protect since I myself was a kid, you know, something like that.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, he is, he's still got, that's his mom in the bed. briefly when the SWAT team comes in. Yeah, Grandma, you know, it's, it's, uh, he definitely, like, doesn't let go of people, um, which I guess is going to mean that we'll probably continue to see him in Lexi's life when season three finally rolls around. I guess it's like almost part of a larger conversation I eventually wanted to have with you about whether how, how risky Sam Levinson's game of like just burning up runway is. Like, so many plot points on this show kind of, I don't know really what you do next with them, you know?

And that is very exciting, but it's also like just from a sort of detached perspective, you're like, oh, interesting. I wonder what you're going to do with this show next year or whenever you come back with it. Because like you've kind of burned up so much plot with a lot of these people. I stayed clean to the rest of the school year. I wish I could say that was a decision I made. In some ways, it was just easier. I don't know if this feeling will last forever, but I am trying. We can talk about this now, which is just the way that the,

this finale ends with so many maybes. So many will they want days? There's the like, you know, Will Fez be able to connect with Lexi in a meaningful way in a post-traumatic space. Whatever the promise or threat that Maddie gives to Cassie of this isn't like this isn't over, this has only just begun, is that a promise of future beatdowns? Is this a promise of you've only just begun to ride the wave that is Nate's trauma? I thought it was the latter. Yeah. Laurie in the suitcase is a thing that a lot of people brought up of like this feels like a thread that was just dropped.

Is it going to be picked back up in season three? She definitely tried to do human traffic rue and then was like not in the show for the rest of the season. Yeah. Yeah. The will they want their friendship of Elliott and Rue? The will they want their romance of Rue and Jules? Like these are all big maybes that he's put on the table. for next season.

But to answer your question even more specifically, the voiceover at the end of the episode, Rue says, I stay clean for the rest of the year. If we presume this is like spring-ish, it's been a couple months since New Year's. Again, I think I'm trying to apply a timeline. I know.

I love it. You're definitely going to be Charlie Day and smoking in front of the red, red string soon. That's my constant state, Chris. Yeah. I'm always buying more red yarn. But like the,

uh, Wait a second, is this the senior play? Has Lexi started submitting her essays? Well, a lot of people are like, why aren't they talking about college at all? Because a bunch of these kids are supposed to be seniors. Cassie, Maddie, Nate, and I think Kat are supposed to be seniors. Probably Ethan, too. I mean, he's in Kat's class. Remember when they used to go to class.

And then Rue and Jules and Lexi are supposed to be and Elliot, I would say, are juniors. So if Rue is sober through the rest of the year, is this going to pick up in the summer before her senior year? are any of those kids going to college at all? Going to college, as McKay will tell you, is where, like, a high school show goes to die. You know, there's a million cases for this, Veronica Mars, the aforementioned 902 and O, whatever the case may be, like,

Buffy to a certain extent, like you don't want to go to Sunnydale University. You don't want to go to Euphoria University. Does Euphoria become about Gia? Yeah, exactly, the new class, right? So, like, you know, do you have any thoughts or feelings or is Sam just going to go yada, yada, yada, yada? They were all sophomores this whole time.

Yeah, I mean, I think he, I don't even know how much. So this season starts on New Year's Eve, right, and ends it like spring play. And Rue talks about, like you said, Ruth said that she remains clean for the remainder of the school year. You can get even more Galaxy Brain and start to ask when this voiceover is taking place. That's a big question I have. Yeah. Is it happening like years in the future or months in the future? is this summer, has she, you know, I have a lot of thoughts about, and this was the other major

part of the last few episodes, obviously, but, you know, sometimes things that feel true to life don't always work on TV. And I think that when Rue said those words about, I stay clean for the rest of the school year, my heart sank because I understand that, you know, relapse is really is a part of recovery. And it is pretty realistic that Rue would not just be smooth sailing. out from junior year of high school throughout the rest of her life. Right. But at the same time, it is a TV show. So I was curious, I'm really curious to see, like, how do you make good TV out of something

when it feels like you're doing the same thing over and over again with your main character, Rue? And even for Zendaya, is that, like, an interesting acting challenge to kind of, you know, portray a character who very realistically is probably relapsing, but is also, like, do we go then through the entire emotional catharsis of her getting sober again. You know, it's a really kind of complicated, thorny thing. So many of the things that

this show deals with don't have easy TV answers. I mean, it's similar to some of the discussions you and I had on our respective podcasts about succession, which is like, how many times can we see the Roy kids rise and fall? Like, how many times can we watch them get smacked back down? And like, you know, my, I'm still pretty hungry to see that. But in the midst of the last

last season session, we were like, is this just, are we just back on the, on the merry-go-round? Not to trigger Cassie with the mention of a merry-go-round, but, you know, like, is this just where we are? I don't know. Yeah, and I don't think there are any easy answers. And I think, I think what the logical inconsistencies of euphoria offer Sam Levinson as a creator is the freedom just say, like, don't worry about it, you know? Right.

Right. Don't worry about it. It's just a vibe, you know, and that might be the case. But he, like, if that's how he wants to do this going forward, and I don't think Euphoria is a show that should run for very long, but I feel that about all shows. But like, I wonder if it has one more season. Yeah, one, maybe two, like as many years as there are in high school. Maybe I don't know, but like, I would advise him to stop doing calendar markers like New Year's Eve. That's what I would say.

If you want to fudge the timeline, stop talking about the timeline. That would be my only advice to him. Speaking of Sam Levinson and his approach to all of this, something that Nora and I have talked about and Sam Levison made really clear in his post-episode interviews that went up on HBO is this idea of Sam Levinson as an insert character into his own work. This is something anyone who saw Malcolm and Marie could have told you, like that this is, you know, this is something that Zendaya says all the time. She's like, Rue is Sam, so I know Rue's not going to die. and she's going to be fine because Sam is fine. Like, that's her, I don't know that that's factually true, but that's her belief about this character.

If Sam is fine, Rue is fine. But that this season, we have another audience insert. You already mentioned this. You have another author insert in the shape of Lexi as the playwright. And something that I thought was really interesting that I hadn't really fully understand until I saw Sam talk about this, is like, we watch Rue watch this play. We watch Rue have sort of an emotional breakthrough.

while watching this play. And not to get like too spun out about this, but Sam is basically saying that in making euphoria as Lexi, he as Rue, watching his own life that he's putting into this show has been able to forgive himself for things he did as a child, much the way that Rue was able to look at the Rue on stage and say, oh, I was dealing with a lot.

I don't need to be that ashamed. of the things that I did because I was just a kid trying to figure things out. Does this strike you as satisfying storytelling Chris Ryan? Or does this strike you as someone who should maybe try to balance making TV with intensive therapeutic sessions? I bet he does. I bet he does. Get you a creator who can do both. I found, so I thought that the conversation that Lexi and Rue have in Lexi's bedroom when Roe's like, can I come over.

was the best and worst of this show. So it was two characters having incredibly emotionally sophisticated conversation almost free of their character traits. You know, like, it's like there was very obviously like a dialogue happening in one brain that was being transposed onto two characters. At that same time, I did think that what Rue said to Lexi about almost expressing like a jealousy that Lexi had like an outlet to work through like her her feelings about herself and her feelings about the world and Rue being like, I just don't have something like that.

You know, I don't, I can't draw, I can't sing, I can't write theater. Like I just don't have this like place to put all this shit and figure it out was quite moving, you know? And so that's almost a perfect encapsulation of euphoria right there. It's like, doesn't make any sense, is kind of bullshit and is quite moving. Absolutely. 100%. And the fact that that scene is then in the play in a way that makes no logical sense at all is actually my favorite part of the episode.

Yeah. I actually really loved that. That's why you name your episodes after French Surrealist text, because then you can do anything you want and you be like, sorry, French surrealism. What did I tell you? Take it up with Andre. It's not my fault. Yeah. No, it's, it's, uh, I think that's a.

really good point. And I think as I continue to invoke other teenage dramas, I'm going to bring up one of my favorites, which I've done before on the show, which is my so-called life, which is a show that explores a girl as played, Angela Chase is played by Claire Daines, who wilds out and finds like wild new friends and then returns to like her old childhood safe best friend, Sharon Turski, like as the season goes on. And it's about this sort of like wild rebellion. And then a balance. And I think that's what we see in Rue here, which is why it feels like the show shouldn't have many more seasons. Because where we leave Rue here is on such a good path of like, I see you, Jules, I love you. Maybe I loved you. Maybe I was high. I'm trying to figure that out.

But like, I'm not, I can't be with you right now. Like, that's not what I can do. But I can, what this episode does with Rue, who has been increasingly a hard person to root for. And from the jump we saw her using Lexi, I think in the pilot, using Lexi for clear urine to pass a drug test. Yeah. To watch her be so supportive of Lexi, not just, like, loving the play, but starting to chant for her, like, all this sort of stuff, coming to her, telling her how good everything is. we needed this episode for Rue, I think, to feel really excited about rooting for her. I can find empathy for Hot Mess Express Rue, but I'm so much more emotionally invested when I see that she has something to give to other characters.

What do you think? Yeah, I probably would say that my favorite Rue episodes are the ones where she's right in between those two things, and that would be like the Christmas special, which is basically the two-hander with Ollie when she is like, I am still corrupted by this thing, but I know that there is like something else I want to be.

I just don't know how to articulate what that thing is. You know, there's not, which isn't to say that I was somehow disappointed by her like sober making of amends throughout this episode. I just was, you know, like there is inherently a little bit more drama

when the character is in flux, I think. But yeah, you're right. I mean, I don't really, I don't really know, where he goes from here with Rube because especially the way that the state that she is in

where when she has access to drugs she is essentially incapacitating herself like you don't you don't really that's not like functional after you know I think that that's like where her addiction is is that she's not like functionally able to like get around

and when she is around other people she's basically a wrecking ball as we saw with Cassie and Maddie and everything So I'll be very curious to see whether he is going to take her down their road again. And it's thing that is most enjoyable about Euphoria at its like most bonkers, self-indulgent state, are those elaborate drug trip sequences where I'm thinking about like the season one finale, where's the whole like musical number, I guess, with Zendaya or the church sequence in this season, which I found extremely powerful. in these like rooted emotional vibe moments that don't need to make logical sense. But if he has decided, as he has in these last couple episodes, that he doesn't need the excuse, the thin veneer of an excuse of a drug trip to just, you know, take us to a surrealist place anyway,

then, you know, the sky's the limit, I suppose, of what he can do. I enjoy an author insert character. I think, you know, I love films like Moonlight or Lady Bird, where like a creator has really put their whole. hearted self into something. With Sam Levinson, I do bump up against some issues. Norton, I talked at length about the whole Malcolm and Marie thing and how Sam Levinson treated an LA Times critic who gave him a review that he didn't enjoy and basically spit-roasted her in this film that he made.

That to me is not a useful use of the device. And so when Lexi says something, like, people need to get their feelings hurt sometimes by art. But again, to me, like, I like the sequence when they're talking about art needs to be dangerous. At least the show isn't boring. That sort of stuff is interesting. But people need to get their feelings hurt. Feels to me like Sam Levinson justifying this thing he did with Malcolm and Marie, which is something I still have an issue with. Yeah. I will say that he's not the first person to get into a feud with a critic. It's a pretty, it's a pretty time-honored tradition. Shout out to Pauline Kale and her many admirers.

but you really get turned inside out when you're trying to decide how many of the characters on Euphoria are essentially alter egos for Sam Levinson and who is he arguing with? And is there a Cassie in his life that he has some stuff he needs to work out with? But that's the thing is that I still do enjoy

the mission statement of art should be provocative, art should make you uncomfortable, arch should hurt your feelings, all these things like, I don't necessarily ever feel scandalized by euphoria. I don't know if I ever really feel scandalized. But I don't really feel like too scandalized by euphoria, but I do appreciate its attempts. You know, I really do like that. I mean, to your point about Cassie and Sydney, Sweeney, I do think there are moments in this season where I would personally lock Sam Levinson up in like horny jail.

But other points of provocation I really, really do enjoy about this show. You ask this question of how many people are actually an author insert here. And if all author inserts are arguing with each other, like, who's right? Who does Sam Levinson agree with? That brings me to Nate, which is the most tricky author insert. This is something that Nora and I talked about in terms of it's so fascinating for Sam Levinson. And he and Sunday, I've talked about this, for him to write this deeply autobiographical show, but cast himself as a young woman of color, which just puts him in a completely different

experience than he had growing up the son of a famous film director, a white cis male in Hollywood sort of thing. And so that's where I think Nate comes in as this author insert of toxic white male privilege as another facet. Hopefully Sam has never been innate. But my question is, and this is something that I was talking to Alan Sepp and one with and a bunch of other TV critics of like, what function is Nate actually serving on the show at this point? If he's not a believable character, if he's just pure toxic masculinity, why is he here? Do we want him to continue being here?

What do you think, Chris Ryan? And does Nate still play football or no? I had a lot of tape. I was really like, I was really studying Nate's, like, four, I know I'm asking the important questions. No, I think he goes to as many football practices as these other kids go to class. You know what I mean?

Right. Lexi's the only one with extracurriculars. Nate's an incredible multitasker. I was really impressed that he was able to coordinate a police raid on his father's building on his way out of a play that he didn't know he was going to be leaving prematurely, I don't think, until he saw himself depicted on stage.

Well, for a while, I mean, okay, so you could approach, this whole show as like a case for extreme human empathy and that no one is beyond redemption and that no one is beyond forgiveness and that everything can be resolved

in some way, shape, or form. Nate ostensibly functions as the big bad outside of Lori on this show and is terrifying in almost every scene that he enters. I legit thought he was going to kill everybody and in that building site when he walks in with the gun

revolver. That we watched him load. That actually irritated me. And I made a promise to our producer, Steve, who's listening right now, that I would talk about this scene as like, this is where I really bump up against my relaxed, just let me watch over your vibe,

is like this Nate Cal showdown, as you already mentioned, some logistical questions. But the gun just felt like a cheap fake out, a gun that's never going to be used or really even drawn on someone. Like, he kind of draws on Cal, but not in a meaningful way. The real weapon is the thumb drive. And so why tease us with the gun, if not to just make us afraid that, you know? So you're living here now?

After the moment, yeah. You happy? I'm figuring it out. Sorry. My read of it is that Sam Levinson thinks guns look cool. I don't think he really thinks that much about the consequences of what happened. I mean, not that he's insensitive to it, but like when you think about the Russian roulette scene with Maddie for earlier in the season,

which has, I think, like, it's so fucked up, but is also like probably when you're watching it, you're just like, wow, this is so fucked up. You know what I mean? Like you can get kind of carried away with the Bonnie and Clyde, doomed lover. California thing. And I think when he's walking in on his dad, you know, it's like, he's the hardest character for me to locate in any way, like, what is, what are we watching? Are we watching someone trying to put their life back together? Are we watching someone give into the idea that their father

has stained them irrevocably and that they, the only thing that he takes from his dad is the fact that, as he says, I get off on hurting people. Yeah. And like, if that's the case, like, what does euphoria say about a character like that? Like, is that character still even somebody like that? Is it possible to redeem them? Is it possible for them to find love or something? And, yeah,

it's going to be very strange to see these kids in AP Bio next season if that's what they do. Like, knowing what we know about what they do, I just think it's going to be very odd. Do you think that Nate, like, works on the show now as currently conceived?

I mean, I think you do need, villains or agents of chaos in any teen drama. Though that's something that Cassie volunteered for in this episode. So I'd be happier to have Cassie be our villainous in the next season if that's something that we want. But Nate, I agree with you. And maybe that messiness is just part and parcel with euphoria. But I think with a character like Cal, we understand what the show is doing with Cal and with Eric Dane in this season in terms of like giving him this really beautiful backstory episode, giving him. giving him his like

fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, you're cool, fuck you, I'm out, like exit of his family. That is asking us to practice radical empathy for a character, watching how he was hurt and how that resulted in him hurting others. With Nate, maybe we're just too far in the middle of it, in the middle of an arc to see the shape of it. But as it is right now,

I mean, you're right. I get, I get stressed out anytime. Jacob El Dority is just like a huge human being. He just towers over everyone and he's so powerful and it's terrifying. And especially when he surrounds himself with these tiny women who he's constantly, like, physically threatening. I guess, I guess the negative result of this is it makes me frustrated with a Maddie who is such a baddie and like, don't mess with her. she's going to let him come into her bedroom and threaten her like that and terrify her in that way and I'm not victim blaming here

but like I want to see Maddie enact like a massive revenge on Nate. The people that we saw enact revenge on Nate this season were Fez at the beginning of the season who gave him the beatdown that he deserves and Lexi who destroyed him with her art you know what I mean? Like those are the two baddies really

but I'd like to see maybe I'd just like to see everyone united in a massive Nate take down conspiracy. you know? Yeah, the United Colors of Benetton against Nate. That's right. Okay, speaking of which, we do need to address this bizarre party that Cal is throwing for himself. Yeah.

The Motley crew assembled here, they were drinking Natty Ice, which makes no sense in the context of this, like, gay Fantasia that he has created for himself. I'm baffled by all of the choices. So I don't... I've seen a couple of people be like, how could he... Was it Natty Ice or was it Natty?

I don't even know. Oh, it might have been Natty Light. Yeah. I mean, I don't know that it makes that big of a difference for the context of what we're talking about. My favorite character was the guy wearing a robe in briefs who was seemed disappointed that he didn't get to see the end of that conversation. Yeah. I was like, all right. And Len leaves.

I also was shout out to the person cracking the beer in the middle of Nate and Cal's big, big moment. Yeah. what did you think of that? I think probably like... And what is Cal going down for everything? He says... I mean, so... So the thing with Jules,

that's sex with a minor, right? Mm-hmm. Do we believe Nate... Again, I feel like I have the cork board with the red string out again. But like, do we believe Nate when he told Jules, this is the only copy

and you have it and I don't have it? But maybe... I think she asks him, is this the only copy? And he says, as far as I know. Is that right? Yeah, he says something like that. But, like, he would know if it was on, like, my, my sense is that he gave the disc to Jules and every other disc that was in this drawer is now on the thumb drive.

And possible, probable that Jules is not the only underaged person that Cal had sex with. And that that is what Cal is quote unquote going down for. But it's all, again, to your point earlier, it feels like a different show. What, you know, would you agree? Yeah. I would like to think just for the I don't know why

I'm looking for like a feel good version of euphoria I'd like to think that Nate kept his word to Jules and that that was not part of like Cal's wide ranging sexual crimes docket but I would be fine with

I think Eric Dane got his like his moment in the sun so to speak and I would just be fine if Nate's dad's in jail and that's it you know and we put a cork in this one Yeah, if Eric Dane's off the show, that's fine with me. I think something that he said, you know, we talked to Eric Dane earlier in the season,

and something he said about the finale confrontation was he was like, I just hope that Nate finds the parent that he needs. And I'm like, I don't know that I saw Cal being the parent that needed in that scene necessarily. And certainly he's not getting it from his mom. His mom's got some work to do as well. Certainly not getting it from his mom. So, and then I really want to quickly address, you know, Euphoria is a show that has inspired a lot of conspiracy theories as does any monoculture show.

And one was, you know, when Nate was flashing to various things, he flashed to like himself in Jules' position on the model bed. And a lot of people were wondering if maybe Nate himself was sexually abused. I think my read on this scene is that that's not the case, that he's just that what we saw were dreams that he had of inserting himself into these videos that he's watching with his dad. bad. You know, I'm not going to take that off the table entirely, but I think you would have mentioned it in what feels like a final confrontation between the father and son here. And I thought it spoke as much to the impressionability of people at that very young age when they see things or when they're, when they are exposed to like, whether it's behavior of their parents or visual images that they don't quite understand is like your ability to like

almost transpose yourself into the scenes. Like, you know, that's how I read it. If it's not that, I guess. We will see. We'll see and we'll see how delicately they handle that. Oh, euphoria. Yeah, euphoria. Okay.

Well, that makes me a villain. Then so fucking be it. I can play the fucking villain. Yeah, do it. All right, you talked about the sliders going up and down on various characters. We're going to talk about the people who are slid down. But I think in terms of the slide up, it's Fez and Lexi and then in a big way, Cassie. Like, this is a big Sidney-Sweeney-Cassie season. Watching this all play out this season, I was like, whatever is

happening here, which is a hypersexualization and fatal attractionization of this character, I'm going to wait to see where it lands before I decide how I feel about it. because this could go either way, really. I don't feel like the Jerry Springer beat down onstage meltdown stuff really feels like it ripples back through the season in a way that I feel is extremely satisfying. How do you feel about what was going out of Cassie this season? So from the last moment of the previous episode

with Cassie fogging up the doorway window. Yeah. I knew that it was going to be a carry moment. You know, Cassie to carry, very, very easy to switch those letters. Her carry moment rather than blood is drama, I guess, both like literally and figuratively. I think it kind of gets to the issue I have with the play being the crux of this season. I thought it was like a really cool mechanism for one episode. I think putting it over two episodes, it just exposes you to all.

lot of like, are we sure Lexi's good at writing plays? Like, you're just sort of like, because all of backstage people are just like, you're a fucking genius, Lexi. And it's like, I guess. I mean, she's really got a great production designer. When basically we're asked to believe that all of these people go to Lexi's play and don't know what Lexi's play is about and then sit through what seems like a three hour play about themselves and then don't move when Cassie interrelated.

the play and starts screaming and threatening to kill Lexi and then gets in a fight with Maddie that goes offstage that everybody is just like, we're just going to stay seated. They're like, well, we have to see how the play ends. We certainly don't want to follow this fight into the hallway. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but like Cassie's rage at Lexi, this is the show in such a nutshell, I thought that was completely kind of like unexamined.

And then I thought Cassie's. Massey's moment in the bathroom with her frizzed up hair with Maddie perfectly icing her ankle with a Coke. And Maddie being like, it's just begun, was like a perfect moment and was so, it was so interesting and was so well done. So it's always best of times, worse of times with this show.

I do think of all, you know, we've seen so many scream cry reactions from Sidney's Sweeney this season. But I do think the moment that the Cassie double comes out on the Marrying a round horse and she just shrieks and you're like yeah I mean Lexi you're an asshole for that my god yeah the

the sequence it's what makes the Rue Elliott sequence and let's talk about this for a second all the more confusing because we press pause on this drama to cut away to Rue making amends with Elliot and then a lengthy musical sequence. Like, I don't hate this song. I think it's a sweet little song,

and I get that, like, Dominique is a singer. Stop little. Yeah, yeah, okay. But it just kept going in a way that, like, doesn't, and it was just, like, one verse four times. And I, and I, and then he had the audacity to end with, like, I'm working on it. I'm like, then end it sooner, my guy. Real flashbacks to, like, college dorms, somebody's got a guitar.

And you're like, oh, you're going to play all of Bob Dylan's Desolation Row, huh? All nine verses. Like he really said anyway, here's Wonderwall. Like that really happened on the show. So like the fact that all of that happens in a pocket where I was so confused, I was almost like, did Levinson do this out of order? Because the kids were all still sitting there. And I'm like, why would you still be sitting here after the whole play is like disvolved

into shambles? Why is everyone just like placidly sitting here and giving rude time to like reminisce about this? Anyway, logic is not something. I should try to cling to. But that was... See, it's like a daily affirmation. You just have to keep saying it to yourself throughout this podcast.

Don't ask for logic. Don't ask for logic. Did it work on an emotional level? Sometimes. What always works is every single choice that Alana Youbach has made the entire season, Assues Howard. Incredible, incredible. Great job.

You know, I think not since Peter Gallagher. Great makeup, great hair. Great everything. Not since Peter Gallagher and his bagels on the OCEM, we've seen a parent on a teen show make this kind of impact on me. Great stuff. Yeah, Cassie, I don't know. I don't know that at the end of the day,

I feel like this is quite exactly whatever it was that Sam Levinson was going for. Did it give Cindy's video a lot of opportunities to cry and scream? It did. And that in of itself is TV that we watched. So let's talk about the sliders that slid down. Because we've been talking about Kat and McKay. McKay most meaningfully, Kat related to maybe some of Barbies behind the scenes,

conflicts with Sam and her questions around her character, The Daily Beast. We talk about rumors. The Daily Beast has a reported piece about this where they talk to folks who confirmed this story. So that, you know, Kat's character was cut out of a lot of the season because of Barbie's creative differences, shall we say, in classic Hollywood speak with Sam Levinson.

And I thought Katz, arc this season was the thing that makes me most nervous about euphoria going forward because you can be so invested in and interested in what's going on with someone and not necessarily need something to happen it's basically the danger of making people happy on this show

right so she meets a person who loves her for who she is and seems almost like angelic in his acceptance of everything about her and then and I guess realistically is like, you know, I don't know how to love myself so I can't let somebody else love me kind of stuff. Like I understand why we kind of arrive where we do at the diner, where she sets it up and basically gets this guy to break up with her

and then get mad at him, although there's really no resolution to that scene whatsoever or for Cat as a character. But I worry about a couple of these characters being put in positions where they've seemingly, I guess, Rue's addiction being the number one thing, but in a variety of ways, like, given false happy endings just to have them torn down for the sake

of drama screaming and crying yeah characters can't be happy that that's that sprouts from like Joss Whedon you know what I mean like as soon as a character's happy

somebody's gonna die or something like that on his shows but like you know a happy character is a boring character according to some people I don't think that's the case I would say I would argue Ben and Leslie in Parks of Recreation is a good argument against that whole thing

like you can just have people to get together yeah Taylor super fine Yep. Coach. Anyway, so, like, it's, it's fine. I think what hits me the wrong way in all of this is, like, that relationship blows up. But, like, the character of Ethan still gets, like, a huge great moment in the sun at the close of this season.

And Cat is relegated to whatever she's relegated to. And that's, that's frustrating when behind the scenes drama really likes her slows up. like barb levels. Like, I almost think that like, that BV had like more lines maybe in this episode than Kat did if we're not counting onstage cat. I think so. The stealth, you know, person who got put on the back burner, though, I think is Jules. This back half of the season, the last four episodes, she's barely in it.

You know, Hunter Schaefer got some good reaction, like shots off in the audience. Zendaya and Alana Yovac queen of the reactions, but, but Hunter Schaefer did did a pretty good job. And then, you know, there's that lovely, you know, parting of the ways for now with with Rue and Jules. But like Jules felt like she had a whole story outside of Rue last season. And that doesn't really feel like the case this season. And I don't mind an Eben Flo. I think that's an interesting way. You know, I don't mind that we got bumped up time with Fez and time with Lexi, et cetera.

I think that was done really well. But I don't think we needed Jules to disappear quite as much as she did. What do you think? So there's a lot of stuff in that Daily Beast article that I thought was interesting purely from like a show running perspective of like obviously this is one of the rare things where the first three title cards after an episode ends are all the same person. So it's always written by, directed by, created by, executive produced by Sam Levinson. And the suggestion in the Daily Beast story that Sam, let's just say, like doesn't always come to set with an agenda. You know, he doesn't have a shot list. And to have something that looks this way without a shot list, just. just suggests a lot of like, A, an amazing director of photography,

B, an amazing director. I mean, Sam is obviously, like, just absolutely visually gifted. But I do wonder how much of this show is kind of like assembled and the get it or maybe not made up as it goes along, but like kind of like on the fly. And if that happens, even someone like Hunter who I think has like creative equity in this show to some extent, and she wrote her own, her special episode, it's just like kind of, I wonder if this is how these things happen. It's just like Hunter doesn't really have a lot to do in the second half of this season. There's this amazing scene where, you know, Jules and Elia basically confront, they take part

in Ruse's intervention. But other than that, and that really breathtaking scene with Nate in the truck, there's not really not much to the whole character arc. So I hope that they find something for Hunter to do next time. Listening to various actors give interviews, because that daily beast article is really illuminating, but listening to the various actors give interviews about the party sequence that opened this season. And how they, like, shot for weeks and stuff. Forever.

And I've heard various actors say, well, I shot this and it didn't make it in. There was this whole scene that, you know, so basically he shot hours and hours and hours and hours of work worth of party stuff and then edit it down to whatever it was. He felt he needed to tell the story that he needed. this is similar, this is a very lofty comparison, but it's similar to the way that Terrence Malick works where he just shoots so much footage. And then he's like, I'm going to carve it out on the edit. I don't know what the story is,

but Richard Gear looks great in this field of grass and I'll figure it out later, you know what I mean? But it's such a fascinating thing with like the, I mean, I was just reading a Danny McBride interview in Vulture where he was talking about the writing process for gemstones and how sometimes they'll come out of like breaking a season. And he'll take something that's supposed to take place over eight episodes and crush it into one.

And he'll be like, I want this whole thing to happen in one episode. And I almost feel like that's what Sam did a lot. Maybe a little bit to their detriment on this show because the Elliott-Jules Rue triangle was intoxicating, you know, not to put too fine a point on it. I thought it was like a really, really interesting relationship. And Sam kind of burned through it. Like, I don't really know how you reset those dominoes up. next season or you want to go back to that. But this idea that, you know, everything is fluid and,

like, Elliot's bad for Roo, but good for Jules, but Jules is bad for Roo. And it's like this kind of amazing, like, movement of, of impulsive control and everything else with that relationship. And they, it kind of blew it. I mean, it's over now, right? Like, I mean, they can reconstruct it. I hope they don't reconstruct it just to have the same result. But sometimes I wonder whether or not the almost like hyper-energized nature of storytelling on this show is like bad for the show's longevity. But and what's also true and is odd, but like Sean and I were just having this conversation on the big pick about the Oscars.

Like when you talk about the current approach of the Academy has the Oscars where they're going to shunt a bunch of technical awards in a pre-show fashion, what that means then is that every single thing that they include in the bar. broadcast itself, you're watching and you're judging, was this worth making it so that Hans Zimmer has to, you know, accept his first Oscar not live on television? Was this bit? Was this montage? Was this whatever? So the question is, were all the montages of Sidney-orgasoming or whatever worth cutting whatever we might have for Kat or Hunter Schaefer or whatever? You know, like every other decision then becomes weighted in the balance of it all. And that's, that's when in a

approach like that becomes tricky because I think there is something really interesting about taking a block of marble and carving out the human underneath, like if that's how he wants to make television. But, you know, it means that when we look at it and judge it, we have a metric to judge it by. We have a metric to judge these decisions by. All right. We're almost at a time. Let's just do like a quick sort of season overview wrap up. You mentioned some, I think you bring up some really smart concerns about like burning through storyline.

or loops in a storyline, how long does this work? This was a very controversial and divisive season. Nora, I think, is probably still unconvinced whether or not she likes this show at all. And so, how are you feeling at the end of it all? I love this show. Yeah. There's nothing like this on television.

I really do, you know? I mean, like, I was talking to you a little bit on Slack the other day about this, but I've been really, like, struggling to find the comparison that works. I mean, some people have been like, it's like Boogie Nights or that it's like the Safftees or it's like this, but it's so cinematic. And I was trying to, but I was like, what movie does this kind of remind me of or what filmmakers work? And it's not actually the usual comparisons or maybe even one that Sam Levinson would make himself. But this season really reminded me of this Tony Scott movie called Domino, which is about Kieran Knightley as a bounty hunter, as an heiress who becomes a bounty hunter. And every shot in Domino is framed. and lit to basically you could start a tumbler about it. Like every shot you could start a blog about. And the movie makes no sense and is so tonally mismatched throughout, it's like the story.

And is, but is one of the most beautiful and exciting and weird things you can watch. And the fact that that kind of filmmaking is being made about high schoolers, doing drugs and riding bikes, and it's on every Sunday. And it's the biggest show on TV or one of the biggest shows on TV outside of Montana. That's pretty, that's pretty amazing. And so I just, I found myself honestly, honestly, looking forward to Sunday nights. I didn't really even watch ahead because I enjoyed the ritual of

like getting pizza and then watching Euphoria with my wife and just be like, wow, Sam. You did it. You're wild for this one, Sam. Yeah. I mean, I think, I think again, taking your counsel and your lead and just being like, oh, stop trying to make sense of it and just sort of like ride with it. We do that for so many shows. Like, we're going to be trying to make sense of severance for 10 weeks, you know? Like, let's just let the euphoria wash over us. And

like, again, to, I like having a thing like this that has such a wide-ranging cultural impact that we're not going to be able to see until we're far removed from it. Musically, visually, the way that

young men and women are doing their makeup or the way that is impacting the way that people think about, like, sexuality and gender fluidity and, like, all that sort of stuff, or the, or the radical empathy that it asks us to exercise for some of these monsters. People naming their kids ashtray. Who knows? Oh, my God.

They can join the Dineris and just to ride their young lives out. Ashtray might age better than Dineris. I think so. All right. Well, that's you for you. A show that is a hot mess that Chris and I really enjoyed watching. I loved it. I really, so did you, do you feel like actually at the end of this?

Like, do you feel like I have to go have a buy myself meeting and figure out like what my priorities are? Or were you like, I, I unabashedly liked it? Again, the last few weeks, ever since I took your advice, I was just like, I was like, I, you know, our producer Steve, who's listening right now. And I already mentioned that, Jomey, who does our social, like, texts me every Sunday. They were trying really hard to convince me that this is a bad show. And I was like, I can't, I can't hang with that opinion, guys. Sorry, dog. Everything you're saying is correct.

Yeah. And yet, I had a great time. So that's where I am at the end of the day. It's all that matters. Chris Ryan, where can folks to hear more of your thoughts and opinions? I'm on the watch podcast twice a week talking about TV and pop culture with Andy Greenwald. And I'm frequently on the rewatchables. and I'm on The Answer podcast on Fridays on the Ring of NBRIA show.

And Chris and I both will be back on The Big Pick later this week to talk about The Batman. The Batman. Which I'm really excited at a movie that I loved. And I'll be back here on the prestige feed talking about any number of shows. Yeah, I think I'm talking about super pumped soon. Oh, nice, nice. Yeah. All right.

Thanks to senior producer, Steve Allman for his work on this show. We will see you all. Bye. Spring just slid into your DMs. Grab that boho look for that rooftop dinner, those sandals that can keep up with you, and hang some string lights to give your patio a glow up. Springs Calling. Ross, work your magic.