The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘Euphoria’ Season 3, Episode 4: Fairytale’s Over

Episode Date: May 4, 2026

Jo and Rob go all in to recap ‘Euphoria’ Season 3, Episode 4. (0:00) Intro (6:58) Are the religious elements of this season working? (11:11) Maddy, Cassie, Rue, and Lexi (13:14) Nepo baby roll call (16:35) Let’s talk about Nate (24:17) Return to (visual) form (25:51) Kitty’s tragic introduction (29:21) The poker scene (31:17) Cassie goes Hollywood (39:13) We’ve got a heist! (42:44) Zendaya’s performance Email us! [e-mail] or [e-mail] Follow us on IG and TikTok! Subscribe to the Ringer TV YouTube channel here for full episodes of ‘The Prestige TV Podcast’ and so much more! Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Rob Mahoney Producers: Kai Grady and Devon Renaldo Additional Production Support: Justin Sayles Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, y'all, it's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder what if? Like, what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what if. Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit Wayfair. Wayfair, every style, every home. Hello, welcome back to the Prestige TV podcast feed. I'm Joanna Robinson. I'm Rob Mahoney. It is late at night on a Sunday. I've had a lot of caffeine. I'm feeling dittery, and we're here to do our sort of very instant reaction to episode four of season three of. euphoria.

Yes. Joe, have you ever been to the moon? No. Just wondering. Do you have a photo of me on the moon? Definitely not.

Does I don't tell you I was on the moon? I would say like posing you as one of the fake astronauts in the definitely fake moon landing. I could buy it. I could see that as a future for you.

All right. This episode's called Kitty Likes to Dance written by, directed by and out, the whole show was created by Sam Levinson. I don't know if you've heard. I have heard.

And let me tell you from this episode, I can tell. Okay. We have a lot to talk about. This felt like a very long episode. I just wanted to delight you. I promise you right before we started recording that I just like read a Reddit comment that I wanted to delight you with. And it goes like this. Nate and Jules have the worst plot lines. They should just hook up.

That would be the solution to so many problems. I like kind of agree. Like, you know, as much as we railed against the Nate and Jules shippers, I was like, oh, huh. Do they have a point? Oh, no. The worst person you know is a point. Okay. Overall impressions on this episode. I don't know what the show is. We're kind of all over the place. I think I feel similarly as to previous episodes that the Rue stuff is often the strongest of everything that's happening in a given episode. I do think we got a significant upgrade this week in the Cassie dynamics, just moving her out of the Nate orbit into the Maddie orbit. Cindy, sweetie, I'm sorry.

You were so funny in this episode. Super funny. You were really good in this episode. And it's just as simple as like put her in a place where she gets to bounce off some more interesting side characters with a change of scenery, with like actual life happening around her. and not Nate Jacobs getting his toe cut off. Yeah, yeah, it was great. I mean, but even the Nate stuff with the toe at the beginning of the episode worked, I had the same thought.

I was like, oh, you took Cassie out of the Nate plot line and all of a sudden I'm way more engaged with her. I didn't, like, we were watching it all together here in the studio. Very normal workplace environment. Really normal episode of television for us to all watch at work. And I definitely, I think I laughed the most at Cassie's stuff. Like, it was really good. Her response to the co-kid alone? Yeah.

Wonderful. Really good. It's just me Cassie, and that's my handle. Really great stuff. Belly Button Coke at Gmail.com. Should we have gone with that email, do you think? It was right there for us the whole time. We just didn't know.

We didn't know how good we could have it. Okay. But if folks do want to email us. They should email us for starters all the time. Prestige TV at Spotify.com. Sure. For Euphoria specifically, Maddie's number one boy at gmail.com. We did ask.

You were a guest on House of R. my other podcast last week. What day is it? Thank you for having me. We asked listeners if they wanted us to check in on the Apple show Widows Bay. And we heard from a lot of people. Yeah, they sure do. They want us to cover Widows Bay.

So what is roughly our plan for the rest of this month? Do you want to say it into a microphone right now? I don't. Okay. I think it's still being hashed out slightly. We're going to do some Widows Bay. We are. We're going to do Euphoria.

And we have some other. other ideas as well. Does that work for you? That works for me. And I'm just going to, I'm going to commit us even harder than that, perhaps, Joe, and say, if you want to hear a lot of Widows Bay, listen to the episodes as they come out and invest in the coverage, you know? Like, help us get this off the ground floor. Oh, yeah, exactly. If those episodes do well, we will do more. Yes. We would, look, I would love the excuse to podcast about this show. It is super funny. It's very fun so far. It's really good. Yeah. So if you haven't watched Widows Bay,

Apple did not pay us to do this ad, but no free ads except for Widows Bay, which is a really good show. I also, I liked this episode to you before you. Am I confused by this show? Yes, but I actually had a really good time watching this episode for some reason, except for the parts where I had a really bad time. That's really where we are right now. It does feel ever more like a show that just like cannot get out of its own way. Even when something's like really, really working,

it's like, what if we threw this other thing into the mix just because we can, even if it disrupts the things that are like really fun and engaging and dramatic to watch? I think I agree with the Reddit Shipper. I think the Nate's storyline and especially in this episode, the Jules storyline. Yeah, do you want to start there? Jules is getting raked over the coals on the internet as she should because this is just a baffling thing. I always want to root for Jules. And this, I don't know if what the show is trying to depict is some sort of like young adult entitlement of some kind of like you don't understand the reality.

of a workplace, you know, like, but for jewels to be commissioned to do, I actually thought the painting was very cool, just like wildly inappropriate for the job that she was hired to do. Saratba with Dix? Yeah. I'm interested. I thought it looked great. And, but obviously not a good fit for a nighttime soap opera that pulls in seven million viewers. By the way, seven million million viewers.

Not too shabby in this day and age. Not at all. The Pitt season two finale, 9.5 million viewers. So we're like approaching Pitt season finale territory with LA Nights. Very excited. We have more L.A. Nights thoughts coming up. But Jules, she just does not come off well in this episode. And I don't know if it's to demonstrate that sort of like naive, youthful entitlement,

or if it's to depress her so much about her art career that she's driven even more into this like sugar babydom is my only future sort of thing. I think for me it's like if it was just a young person, and specifically a young artist who has been, like, patronized by her sugar daddy into, like, doing art on her own terms in whatever way she wants for however long. You mean that in, like, the patronage sense. Yes, like, literally patronage. Being put in this corporate environment of, like, art for hire, art for money, and chafing against those strictures. I'm cool with that. I had a bigger problem with, like, do you remember when this show was able to draw this, like, very intricate, detailed personality forward portrait of a trans person?

that wasn't all about being trans all the time. Right. It's like the fact that Jules is like active rebellion or transgression in this episode is like the one thing that the show has been really good about not making it all about with her every scene she's in. Just like super disappointing for a character that I really love. Yeah. Like not just one in the character, just one in the writing. No, I agree. I think this is a really tough Jules episode.

And I had some, you know, I really liked a lot of the visuals of the Jules stuff in episode three. We'll have to stay tuned to that. But this was a really tough Joel's episode. I wanted to circle back to the larger theme of the season, which is the stated theme of like a religious experience, a religious journey. We didn't get to check in.

Well, we did actually do a Bible check in inside of this episode. But they played Ave Maria in the strip club. Yeah, as one does. How did that work for you? We got an email from a listener, Rebecca, a while ago, after episode one. Rebecca wrote, I was struck by the Garden of Eden imagery

during the final scene with Rue and Alamo, his snakeskin boots with a cobra, hood ornaments, the apple on her head, and with Rue's curly hair, it really flashed me to the Renaissance Garden of Eden imagery. I wondered about who Alamo represents. Is it Adam, the devil, et cetera,

and what that means for his relationship to Rue? In general, I think it'll be fun to tie the visual language of the show to biblical allegory. I really agree. I don't know how consistent the show has decided to be with this, but like, we get more snake cam

inside of this episode. There's that snake in the strip club. So, you know, I think that's... There's a snake in the strip club, which email.com? Yeah, absolutely. There's a snake in my food. I think that's interesting to contemplate. I'd be interested to hear from our listeners who have identified more,

who maybe have like an art history background or something like that. But how do you think that's working and is it as simple as putting Ave Maria over a strip club sequence? Is that driving home the religious, the big picture religious theme that we were promised this season? Here's my inner conflicts. Sure, Rob. Ave Maria in a strip club. again, with like some very interesting, like, reverby kind of effects around some of this stuff sometimes, like, really does work for me. Like, those sorts of juxtapositions.

Is that your Catholic boy jumping out? I don't know. Did you feel the same way with the, with the, we forgot to check out on this, is Maddie's number one boy. Yeah. And a former Catholic. How did you feel about the, like, crucifix dangling, like, over the, like, delicate amount of ass cracks she was showing at the wedding last. Well, father's son, holy Maddie, obviously. Yeah.

Yeah. A religious experience for you. How could it? Okay, great. Just making sure. Our queen in all of her splendor, we can do nothing but support her. Okay. No, I think that part of it really works. I mean, as far as the metaphor goes, I am trying to make heads and tails of it as you are.

It feels maybe muddled or maybe just not entirely clear yet. I mean, this is an episode about, I think, if not revelation, like a realization for Rue in particular, right? Like the scene in which she's looking at what, that kitty with the guys in the champagne room on the monitor of the surveillance cam is definitely like a, pit of your stomach like drops sort of I think for Rue it's the understanding like this is not the pole dancing

Wonderland maybe that I've convinced myself that it was or that I was pretending that it was and I've instead been participating in this other bigger thing which is like a kind of a bite of the apple and a waking up into the larger world. There is a way that it was shot where she was like

on her knees sort of face up turned to this like light you know this almost like supplicant sort of thing we definitely get Nate on his knees with like supplication and stuff like that inside of at this episode. But yeah, I thought that was a really interesting moment. I mean, on the one hand, you're like, what exactly do you think is happening in this club, Roo? But on the other hand, for me, the bigger picture theme of this episode seemed to be literalization of cost and price, right? We get all these numbers are rolled at us at this episode. Like, what, Lexi, how much did

you caught? How much did this mistake cost us, right? That was tough. Don't be a net nag, like, on set, right? Nate, how? How much do you owe? Right. What is the price here? It's a brass tax episode. Rue, how many years did you just rack up for yourself in federal prison? Like, all of these numbers are hanging over these characters inside of this episode.

And that is like a reckoning. And it's a way in which this system that's like grinding them all down is causing people to turn on each other in a inside of a system where if they just helped each other. Like the way that magic, there was a Leah character, narcs out Rue. And I'm like, why would you do that when she's asking a fellow dancer if she's okay? You know, I mean, I understand why, but I'm just saying like, workers unite. Like, what are we doing? You're looking for more class solidarity.

Absolutely. Stick it to Big Eddie. Yeah. Well, someone did. Well, yeah. I was curious how you feel about the plots intersecting. This is something we were asking in a previous episode is like, how will all these plots collide? And we get a scene in this episode with Maddie, Cassie, Rue, and Lexi all, I'll start

in one place. Jules is inside of Lexi's story in this episode. Maddie could become part of Rue's storyline because Rue goes to her for drugs. I don't know if that's the last we'll hear of that. In the preview for Next Weeks episode, which we did watch, Sharon Stone does ask Lexi, like, that's your sister. So is Cassie going to be in Lexi's storyline? And then really that just leaves Nate out on a like a sort of Frankenstein-esque ice flow of his own outside.

the larger intersecting plot of the story. In episode seven, he's going to show up off in the distance on the other side of the ice lake, covered in rags, tattered, you know? He's at a whole time this season. Absolutely, absolutely. The scars are already on his face. Let me tell you, the most baffling thing about that intersection, though,

like, we talked about the Cassie and Maddie stuff. I think most of that is very successful. Yeah. But that one scene you identified, where they're all together by the pool with the leaf blower, with Gideon, I guess, also here. Yeah. did not work for me at all.

It didn't? No. Okay, the Lexi part didn't work for me. Yeah. Lexi is just like being a scold for five minutes. The Rue part, I was a little distracted, once again, trying to figure out if Zendaya and Sidney were actually literally in the same place at the same time. The Cassie stuff did work for me, the way that she was talking while the leafblower was glowing

and no one could hear. The leafblower is the one gag there that does work. That part does work. I got to give it up for the leafblower. Yeah. You mentioned Gideon, who plays a character I believe named Gilly, who shows up, we think, for the first time in this episode. I don't think we've seen her there before.

Gideon did post on her Instagram a photo from episode one, but I don't know, like, of her at the apartment complex. So I don't know if the camera may be panned past her in a previous episode. But Gideon, who's Pamela Adlin's daughter, is Nepo Baby number one in the Nepo Baby Roll Call that we're going to. going to do for Euphoria this season. Okay. So, Ma'A. Patelow has been here, so nothing new. Naturally. Homer Gear, Richard Gier's son, is playing Dylan Reed, the star of L.A. Knights, who we met in a

previous episode. Jeff Walberg shows up in this episode as Brandon, the, like, social media influencer, dude bag. Who's hosting the part. Yeah, dirtbag. Jeff Walberg is Mark and Donnie's nephew of the Boston Walbergs. Of Walbergers. Of Walberger fame. Right. And then, Anna Van Patton, who plays Kitty, the titular kitty, is Grace Van Patton Star, Tell Me Lies, etc, etc. That's her sister. Yeah. So that's my Nepo baby roll call.

Well, I feel like you missed one. You know, we went down before the show, Joe, on a pretty deep rabbit hole on some guy named Smiles. I don't want to talk about smiles? You want to talk about smiles? You want to talk about smiles? You're the one who found out all the info. There's a guy in the party scene who, for a second,

all three people who were in this room watching the show thought was Dominic Fike, who played Elliot in the previous season, Because of the blonde hair. It's strictly a bleaching problem. And the face tattoo. He's involved in the sort of door shenanigans that happen. He's a rapper named Smiles with a Z. And we found out that he is sort of like a sion of...

In fairness, I think a broader musician and singer, maybe sometimes rapper. Sure. Jack Bruno, aka Smiles. Sion of the bedhead hair product family. The Tonian Guy Fortune. The Tony and Guy Fortune. And his hair looks like that. That's my question.

Wow. So, okay. That's going to cut deep. On the naming front. And shout out the Euphoria subreddit where I spent the last hour just like really enjoying the comments rolling in. Someone pointed out that a lot of the people associated with the strip club have the same names as X-Men. Bishop, Magic with the K. Kitty, obviously.

Angel and Kitty. Holy shit. This is House of Art. Welcome. Welcome. You asked last week, after the wedding episode, you asked our listeners to weigh in about whether or not Get Lo was like merely a millennial wedding anthem,

if Gen Z was enjoying it. Yes. Resounding response. We heard from a lot of DJs. They love Get Low at a wedding. A lot of wedding guests. A lot of people who have been wed, all of whom were very excited about Get Low, right? At least so.

It's true. We also got a couple emails in response to my assertion that I thought that Maude Apatow's character Lexi would have cleaned up in college. We got an email from a listener who prefers to remain anonymous. Can't imagine why.

I was in Maud's class at Northwestern. This is all positive, so I wouldn't read this if it was like someone just being like, what a bitch. Talking shit about Mott Apatow. I was in Maud's class at Northwestern. We ran the same social circles until she dropped out to film Euphoria. Can confirm that she was the object of a lot of male attention, even within a small school that had many children of celebrities, Julie Lee Lee

Wood-Rifist, Steve Perel, et cetera, et cetera. She was always kind and down to earth to, surprisingly normal given her upbringing. So, Mon Apatow. Professionally charismatic person. Cleaned up at college. Turns out. Lexi, I think you could have done quite well if you wanted to. No pressure. It's about what she wants. Lexi didn't seem interested. No pressure. You want to talk about Nate? I mean, literally if we have to. Okay, what do you want to say? I just don't understand. Like, I was kind of looking forward to the idea of Nate versus, you know, the board that could finally give him the clearance necessary to commence construction. You love zoning laws. I mean, I genuinely kind of do.

No. But Nate versus the zoning board, okay, there's something. Yeah. We've been building up to this. There's been a lot of conversation over the last couple weeks. And it's just this. It just, like, fell super flat for me in terms of the anticipation. And some of this is just a larger frustration with Nate's general.

plot line. I mean, the one part of this that sticks out is just this, like, his insistence that, like, he needs this to go right to basically, like, do something good. I can't be bad. I can't be bad specifically. I can't be bad. It was a really interesting line, I thought. Very interesting. I mean, certainly maybe we'll get him closer to the Nate we know over the back part of the season. Does that mean, I can't be a failure or does that mean, I can't be, like, more, like, you know, because as he works on his, I mean, he's no Don Draper, but as he works on his pitch for like what this, you know, old folks' home will be and the hospice care and what he's

doing is like, we are doing good for the world. Do you think he believes that or that's just the story he needs to sell to possibly not get more toes clipped off of his feet? I think he believes it just enough to like sleep well at night. Okay. But like in his heart of hearts does he think profiting off of old people and their families is like doing intrinsic good for the universe? No, I don't really think so. And he doesn't give a shit about these flowers. Like, it's not a, it's not an accident. Fuck those flowers. Fuck. I mean, this guy gets up in front of the board, the zoning board of all people, a sacred space. Okay. And it's like, of course you wouldn't sign off on this. He's full of shit to say nothing about whatever environmental studies need to be done. Right. I just, I don't believe

that Nate actually cares about this beyond having money, period, and having enough money to not die. I agree, but I just thought that I can't be bad line was so interesting. It is the most interesting he's been all season. Correct. But that's a low bar. Did you see a really popular theory, which I think is incorrect, but hey, listen, no bad ideas on a brainstorm. A really popular theory off of episode three was that when Nate disappeared the night before the wedding, that he was actually with Maddie. I think there's no evidence that that is the case.

Right. I feel like we would have gotten more from, I mean, I understand that she was like upset at the wedding. but like I don't think that's something they're going to reveal later unless you think this like you know date taunt between Cassie and Maddie in pursuit of money could be blown up I mean it feels like it's going to be blown up by Cassie being

dumb in the very next episode per the trailer but you know I can't wait I also can't wait of all the things happening on this show I need a scene in which Suze finds out about Cassie's I assume fledgling only fan's career like I need that scene I don't even care what she says I don't care what her reaction is. I just want to know what Sue's thinks about it.

In season two, she says she needs an exorcism. That girl needs a fucking exorcism. Hide the knives. She's sitting there with a wine opener. Honestly, one of my favorite moments. On the Jules front, I know we already talked about this storyline, but we just wanted to check in on the Love Island situation. Jules is watching America Love Island.

That's a cry for help. Not UK? Come on. It's the hat specifically. on this episode that really screamed U.S. Love Island. But in season one episode four, Rue, of course, watched 22 hours of Love Island in the episode where she couldn't get out of bed to pee and there's this, like, really disturbing shot of her organ, like swelling and stuff like that.

Love Island seems to be shorthand for not everything's going great with these characters. Is this supposed to tell us that Jules is just not in, like, before getting hired by Lexi, not in a good headspace? What do you think? I mean, here's the thing. At this moment in time, just given everything that's gone on over the last five, 10, 50, a thousand years, I don't know. The state of things currently around the globe, it's like our baseline level is, I need some pacification. Like, I need some love island just to get through the day. So if we're not living and working through a constant state of active depression, like what are we doing? It's a great point. I know that you're a fellow fan of Taskmaster,

of the UK show. Did you see the cast for Celebrity Traders UK this next season? No, who's on it? Okay, sorry, quick sidebar. Hold on. I got to pull this up. As a fellow fan of, like, UK comedians, here's what I'm going to say.

James Aincaster. James Aie Caster's there. Done. Joe Lysitt's there. Rob Beckett is there. Okay. The boys are in town. They really are.

But Michael Sheen is going to be on it. Richard E. Grant is going to be on it. James Blunt, the singer, is going to be on it. Bella Ramsey is going to be on it. My holla from industry is going to be on it. Like this is going to be, like, Miranda Hart's going to be. Like, it's just like one of the, Romesh is going to be on it. Like, this is just like one of the most insane lineups I've ever seen.

So can I bring you over to the dark side? You're not really a reality TV watcher. Not typically. Can I bring you over to the dark side for celebrity UK traders with this line? I've got to be there. Yeah. Frankly, just given that lineup, I'm hearing a lot of prestige. in that line up, Joe. I know. I know. That's what I'm saying. Richard E. Grant? Michael Sheen.

We'll see what we can negotiate over here. But I will definitely be watching. That's for sure. Okay. So let me ask you this, Joe. Well, that's my answer to pacification. I don't watch Love Island, but I will watch the traders. Yes. I do watch Survivor. You know, like, I have my versions of this. But is that an everyday pacification or like the particularly hard day, particularly tough week, I need something to just like zone out, turn my brain off, whatever it is you need. that moment. Is this when you turned to bake off? What is your version of this? No, mine unfortunately is YouTube bushcrafting videos. It's a solitary man or a woman, sometimes with their dog, out in the wilderness, just like chop and wood? What's bush crafting? Oh, I'm so glad you asked. It's literally just like... Is it Australian specifically? No, no, no. It can be anywhere in the world. Okay. But it's just going out into nature and usually like building a shelter of some kind,

that then you sleep in overnight and basically just leave. Crafting in. In the wilderness. In from and of the bush. Okay. Why would you call it bushcrafting if it's not Australian base? I didn't name it, you know? I'm just consuming the content. Would you consume 22 hours of bushcrafting?

I probably have. Would we be worried? It's been a lot, yeah. On the Lexi apartment complex front, I want to applaud Sam Levinson for like the Melrose placification of this apartment complex. So the fact that Cassie is now living there, Roos stays with Lexi sometimes. like they all have reason to be in and out of that apartment complex. And I think that that is great set up for television.

It's quite an elegant solution to the like, how do we not all congregate in the girls' bathroom at the high school? You know? You found a place. And within that, I even think like some of these moments visually, as is often the case with Euphoria, are awesome. Like Lexi's staring out her window or typing by the window as like the camera flashes come from Cassie's apartment.

Which is another call back to season one when those girls shared a room. and Cassie was taking news for McKay like sort of against her will like under the sheets and you could you just had the like the flash of her taking the nudes and Lexi always the watcher always the observer always the writer sort of taking notice.

I thought like I actually thought there were a lot of incredible visuals inside of this episode. Yeah. The way that the Rue interrogation scene is filmed with like not just the way that the pale blue of her suit sort of just like blends into the wall so she just like seems like

so faded against the wall in that interrogation scene, but also the shot from behind her head where you've got like one interrogator on one side and the other on the other. There's a similarly framed moment at the funeral for Paladin, which you were here. That was my biggest laugh of the episode

was the tiny coffin for Paladin. But you see the cross on Paladin's grave and then you've got the like Nazi chuckle-fucks and Fay framed two on two on like perfectly framed around that. as they craft their very elegant scheme to rob the strip club what could possibly go wrong at the end of the episode. One more I want to shout out to on the visual front. And it's like it's skeefy and it like makes my skin crawl, but the early visual.

The Alamo and Kinney. Yeah, exactly. Like the spreading leg silhouette. And his hat. Yeah. That was really. Yeah. Like that's like back to some like really euphoria arty visual stuff that I really liked about the show.

Yes. So I agree. And I think particularly for that one, thematically, given where we go by the end of the end of, of the episode in terms of Kitty feeling the transactional nature of this so acutely. It's like, you know, again, like this is sort of the original sin bringing her into this world. And very worried for that character, but also she's already living in the shit of it in a lot of ways. Watching, like having Angel's name be scraped, like having Rue. Yes, of all people.

Yes. Rue had to scrape Angel's name off of the locker and then slap the tape on there and just write Kitty. And like, here comes another girl for the meat grinder to watch her. And then, like, to have her, like, she's from Kansas, right? Kitty from Kansas. She likes to dance. And just, like, her very, like, small little girl voice, her, like, do you have any more ketamine to sort of, like, numb this whole situation for me?

Yeah. Like, similar to the one episode, Angel arc, like, I thought this was, you know, obviously deeply disturbing, watching those, like, absolute Chad Brad's, like, you know, gang rape her, essentially. like that was horrifying but this was like I thought a really well seated like the way we check in

with her throughout the episode I thought that was really well done I want to give the show a lot of credit because I feel like whenever you have a break a long break between seasons or a revival of a show of any kind there's always this tension right of like you want to honor your original characters

you want to bring them along you're going to bring them up but you have to introduce something new and I think this show both with Angel with kiddies you said also with Rosalia's character with Magic, like these are interesting new people to add to this world. And they're not given like a ton of screen time,

but it's like very impactful, very well-framed. You get these complete arcs within a single episode. Like, I think that part of the storytelling is actually very well done. Something that we were really hoping to figure out before we recorded was what song Magic was whistling medicingly at Rue when she exited the bathroom.

And we believe it is la Rumba del perdone, which is a Rosalia song. Rosalia was whistling her own song as she exited the bathroom. Incredible. And she, as a performer, I have to say, it seems like she's having a great time. Excellent whistling. Honestly, excellent menacing whistling from Rosalia. And to check back on some prestige lore, perhaps, Joe, in the Rue versus magic fight that's happening now, is this a niche versus a rat?

Is this a rat versus snake? What is happening here? Well, thank you. That's a poker face callback. Thank you so much. Well, we got a hood rat entered the lexicon here. At the minimum, magic is ratting out, Roo. Who is a snitch? Who is a snitch? But is a snitch a snake? Is a snake a mole? Is a snitch a mole? I don't know. Were you thinking about the departed? The departed when Alamo claimed you could smell a rat, always. Well, I was also thinking in this episode, this did feel like in a lot of ways. And I think with Rue looking at the monitors, with her scraping Angel's name off the locker,

we have shifted from the first half of Goodfellas to the second half of Goodfellas. I literally wrote when she said, and that's how I became a snitch. I wrote Goodfellas in parentheses. Let's just call it out. Yeah, let's just call it what it is. Absolutely. And then I think this confirmed, like, Angels tragic disappearance, I think confirms that probably she was, like they removed her organs.

I think that's what people think happens when, you know, those girls go in there that, like, they're still making Alamo some money. Or was trafficked or something. She was disappeared. Yeah, but I think based on context clues, I would say organ, like, because. I thought you're going to say based on my own firsthand experience. I was like, Joe, what have you been doing? No, but like, they're already kind of being sex trafficked in the club, are they not? I think there's always levels.

There is. You're right. You're right. Let's talk about the poker scene. So we've got Bishop and Rue and Marshawn Lynch, aka G. Yeah. And Alamo. Marshawn Lynch is so funny on this show.

He's always a delight, but particularly on this show. Playing poker. I thought that was a really fun scene. I loved it. Adding the tension of the poker hand, especially I would say Bishop feeling so certain that he had the winning hand. He's like, are we going to want to show us that turn? How about the river? Yeah.

Like, let's get a call, I check, like, all this sort of stuff. He's like, let's keep this game going. Let's not forget we're playing a poker hand because I've got a really good hand. Yes. Rue had a better hand. It's very 3-P.O. and Han, like, 3,720 to 1, never tell me the odds. Nice. You know, that is kind of what's happening here.

On the very eve of May 4th, the wrong. We tried to honor ourselves and our histories. But I think, like, yeah, I love for any game within a game in a scene like this is really wonderful. I think the heightening tension and the idea that the old, like, the. Like the side row that deflates all that tension is that it hasn't even occurred to Alamo that would be a snitch. It's just occurred to him that she's an addict and that maybe she slipped on the job in this other way that could potentially be destructive to him.

I love that deflation. I love, you know, the kind of gradual reveal of perspective play on like who has what hand there and like who is actually winning and who is actually in control. Yeah. I just think it's super well done. I thought it was really well done. There are a lot of theories flying around about there being another informant inside the organization.

Do you have any theories on that front? Well, it's not Paladin. A lot of people think it might be Bishop, that Bishop might be an informant or an undercover DEA agent. Yeah. He strikes me as very pragmatic. Yeah.

So I could see it in some track for that. I would be most excited if it were Bishop because it would mean more screen time for Bishop. Yeah. And we both agree who's a real standout this season. But I think we're going to get more screen time regardless, whether he is another informant or someone chasing down the informants, right?

All right, let's go back to Cassie and Maddie. Yeah. I really like the juxtaposition of Maddie crafting Cassie's look at the same time as Jules is making her painting. So it's like these two artists, you know, shaping something. We get two of those with Cassie, too, because then later in the episode, we get Cassie and Kitty sort of juxtaposed in a similar editing way, right? Absolutely. And I think very interestingly, as Maddie tells Cassie basically like, do not sleep with this influencer guy, Brandon, because as soon as you do, you're basically like surrendering your power. Yeah.

And then we see Katie, like, do a version of that exact thing in the now transactional part of her job. It's like, again, there's so many things as far as the constructionist episode I really, really like. And then I'm just like left wondering and grasping at so many other things. I mean, like, want to take a, like, a sanitizing shower. I need like the Gattaca, like scrape all my skin flakes off shower. Like, I want no trace of the person I was while I was watching this episode. Again, we watched it work. Yeah, Cassie, and what I like about this episode is I was so certain that Cassie was going to fuck that up.

Like she, you know, just like going to a second location with him. Like, I was like, she's going to fuck this up. She's pretended she's done Coke before. And then she clearly hasn't. And she's just like, woo! And like all of that. But then she crushes it. Completely.

She knocks the other girl out of rotation. And then when the camera shows up, she drops the at. She did it. This Pomeranian's got a bite, you know? Yeah. Not just the yips. But is there a worse place on earth that you think than this particular influencer party in which everyone is attending in attendance is jockeying for the attention of this guy with his like fucking gimbal walking around the party looking for two girls making out? You don't have a gimbal at your parties?

I'm not a gamble guy. I'm sorry. At your parties? No. Okay. Gimble free zones. At the famed Mahoney. That's not a thing. No.

Absolutely not. Yeah. And the way he was like on high and they. were sort of shot from below, sort of beseechingly looking up, really good. Do you think we can, you know, like, we can't let Brandon win. He has 20 million followers.

I think we should implore the people to go to Instagram right now, follow Prestige TV pod on Instagram. We got to get above Brandon. This guy sucks. Yeah, this guy sucks. Right? Do you want him to outrank us?

That would be cruel and ridiculous. At Presti TV Pod. You should. To go back to the beginning, when Cassie is leaving Nate with her matching luggage. Thrown off the... Yeah, thrown off the balcony.

Over the railing. Over the railing. The roller bag on the shag carpet. Great physical comedy. But Maddie rolling up to this like swooning Han Zimmer, this like romantic this is like the love of your life.

Here's your night and shining armor here to rescue you, Cassie. And then the like extremely sad cut to the little blonde girl and the little brunette girl across the street who were not there in the wide shot. And so I was like, I mean, obviously they're meant to represent like a young Cassie and a young Maddie, but like are we meant to think they weren't even actually there? And it was just like literally their childhood selves across the street.

I don't know. But they're not there in the wide shot, which I thought was interesting. Well, it's a metaphor, Joe. Like a toe or the scar? Unclear. Again, toes, scars, children. It could be any of the above. Maddie knocking again on the door like she did famously in season two.

Did you enjoy it? I enjoy all the callbacks. I enjoyed Maddie and driving gloves, scarf on her head, of course. She knows how to make an impression in every possible way. Something that I raised to you before we started recording is that something that Cassie's like hyper blonde, tan, let's like enhance all of the enhancements. The head to toe leopard, the pink of her apartment really invoked this figure from this famous Los Angeles figure from the 80s, which is, Angeline spelled A-N-G-E-L-Y-N-E. If you're not, if folks listening to this or watching this are not aware,

she was this person who in the 80s, like sort of before Paracelton, Kim Kardashian, sort of became famous for being famous. She came to town. She, I believe she put herself up on all of these billboards around town and used to drive around town and a pink corvette. And just those things made her famous. Yeah. Should I do that as a recent L.A. transplant myself?

I thought you already did that. I had not. Was I supposed to do that? With the gibbles at your Mahoney functions. I didn't know that was supposed to be before you move. I thought you get here first. Yeah. Scout out the locations.

Put up the billboards. No, no, no. You got a billboard first. Well, I fucked that up. Yeah, you really did. Here's a quote from a THR article about Angeline. Quote, Angeline had single-handedly created and then inhabited a modern myth of L.A., the platinum blonde bombshell in the bright pink corvette, forever circumnavigating the city,

seeking to enchant by dent of her sheer superficial glamour. It had the aesthetic. power and emotional resonance of a genuine performance art. Marina Abramovich by way of John Waters, particularly as she kept on rambling around the city over the decades while she aged. So, like, this, all of this visual language for Cassie as she leaves the suburbs, comes to L.A., drives past the Cinerama Dome. Is anyone going to tell her that they're not showing movies at the Cinerama Dome anymore?

I don't know. I don't want to be the one to break it to her. But, like, this sort of, like, girl comes to the... the big bad city, uh, a la kitty, everything is probably going to go terribly for her, would be my guess. Is anything going to go well for anyone this season? Well, I mean, that's kind of what the show is, unfortunately.

Right. But I do think there are installations, right? And within the structure of this season, there's kind of a tiered approach to versions of the same like selling yourself idea, right? Like there's the people who are at the Silver Slipper, who are in more desperate circumstances, kind of on the edge of being angled out, into nothingness and never heard from again.

A couple steps up, there's this, like, influencer culture of people like Cassie who are so desperate. Or Caitlin, Maddie's former client. Exactly. Desperate to grab and hold attention or doing, like, whatever they have to do to do that. And then a step above that, there's, like, the L.A. Knightses and kind of like the actual Hollywood apparatus.

And you're starting to see, like, for some people, those lines are porous enough because they get famous enough to kind of, like, jump into the next tier of selling yourself effectively. but if you're already at the bottom or you're close enough to it, you can get kicked out the side door really, really fast. Yeah, I'll be interested to see

which direction this all goes. Cassie landing on LA nights before the season is over? Do you think that's possible? Seems likely. And then we were discussing this idea before we started recording. Could the finale

or maybe the penultimate just be an episode of LA nights written by Lexi herself? What do you think? I want that to be the case. Is this fucking nighttime soap about us? It's about us, starring Cassie. You didn't like the play stuff from season two.

That's why I want another crack at it. Okay, I really liked it, so I would love to see this. But here's the difference. Like, I am somewhat repelled by theater kid energy. Oh. Present Company excluded. Sure. Tough for me.

But TV person energy, clearly it has a kind of appeal and hold for me. So, yeah, the idea of doing the TV pastiche, I think, would be much more interesting. Let me just say. There are, as you say, levels to these things. There are. There are porous gradations of theater kid energy. And I just want to say for myself, I'm not the kind of theater kid who would like break out into rent at a party or something like that. There are levels to these things.

And that's just not me. I think if the two part is this play about us had been more people spontaneously breaking out into rent, it might have been an improvement. It was somehow more theater kid than that. Right. You were like, give me glee or give me death. So the only time I've ever thought it. Heist, heist. Heist.

We get a heist, but not like this, man. I didn't want it to be the Nazis. Not the Nazis. I thought it was going to be cool girl crime. You should have specified. That monkey's paw. Really killing you in this moment. This is what I wanted.

We got the safe in Big Eddie's office. Yeah. Got broken into. There's still another safe out there ready to be broken into. Fay and her Nazi boyfriend and his chuckle-fuck brother, cousins. I don't know. They all seem imbred and related. In Obama masks.

Yep. Come and rob the strip club. Dare to hope. Faye's telltale lips. You know, get them caught in, not 4K, I would say, but on the surveillance camera. But you don't need 4K. When you have the most recognizable lips in greater Los Angeles. I thought that was a great reveal.

I was very good. I was like, what are we going to see on this grainy footage? Then it's just like the lips, they're unavoidable. How do you feel about Rue? I mean, like, Bishop, could have identified her too. He met her as well. But, like, how do you feel about Rood just, like, giving it up?

I mean, she was held a gunpoint. Like, there was a gun to her head. I think all bets are off at this point. Giving up Faye, though? I mean, she was the driver. She was an accomplice in this whole thing. I know they have a history. I know they've been friends for a long time.

I certainly don't want anything to happen to Faye. But, I mean, I think things have changed. Tough, tough. Very tough. I want to shout out. So, Big Eddie, who may not, I mean, he's not. dead dead by the end of this episode, but... Bishop was not very concerned about keeping him alive.

Seemed very close. Yeah. I felt like we heard air come out. I was like, let's take him to the pit. They got to fix this. But Khadim Hardison, who's playing baguette. As I mentioned in a previous episode, famous for playing the character Dwayne Wayne on a different world,

famously had on that show a pair of glasses where the shades part sort of like flipped up. That was like his signature move. So they had him do it in this episode before they gutshot him. So do you remember what was the line or the moment? I remember he flipped him, but I can't remember what it was in response to. I don't know, but I was just like, there he is. Swayne Wade himself. Here he is.

This whole setup, though, this is kind of what I was so energized by and then somewhat frustrated by it was the setup of ruin Magic and Big Eddie in the room with the ringing phone from mom. I was loving everything that was happening. And so then when we get to like, oh, what if we stack? a cluster fuck on top of this shit show by having the robbery happen at the same time. I kind of just wanted to spend another couple

minutes to like, you don't have to play that scene out to its ultimate conclusion and like out anybody, but let us sit in the tension for a little longer. Did you think he was going to put it on speaker? I really did. Yeah, me too. I think the great tension creating devices that they've instilled at this point,

the fact that anytime mom calls, like if you throw it on speaker, it could be a huge problem. Also, anytime anyone does a line of Coke, there's like the implication. in the moment of like, oh, is this also going to have fentanyl in it? Is this also, is this person going to OD? Is this, you know, this other woman that Cassie is competing with just going to drop dead

right there on the bed? Or is Cassie going to drop dead because, you know, like, it happened to anybody at any time. Like, there was a ticking time bomb with all of the drugs in this show. And Brandon, like, calling it out and saying, like, do you know where this cocaine is from? I don't want to die. And so that I was, like, worried about that scene. And even Caitlin, the other influencer when she was just, like, coughing and then vomited. But I was like, is she about, like.

Straight up. Is that what the gimbal's going to catch? I'm a murder. I did want to go back to the beginning of this episode because it really rests on Zendaya holding down the whole thing, which, you know, because the first, I didn't put a timer on it, but like many minutes at the beginning of the episode has just ruined that interrogation scene.

And she is, like, funny when she does her Lori impersonation, all that sort of stuff like that. And then there's a part where she knows she's caught. Yeah. And she looks so young all of the sudden. And just I think, as we mentioned before, I think Zendaya is extraordinary on this show. But I think the range of Roo, the, like, charming Roo.

And then, like, so watching her both in that moment and then later when she's watching what's happening to Kitty, like, contrasting that with the cavalier gun dealer sort of schick that she was doing in the previous episode is just sort of like the fuck around and the find out. Yeah. And here we are. episode four of an eight episode season. We're in the find out.

So how far does this find out take us? Where do we go from here? I especially love, you know, later in the episode, you almost get the inverse of the interrogation room transformation, where when she's first being pressed about the phone and kind of like where she's been and what she's been up to and like magic is putting her on the spot as far as like trying to actually show some concern for Kitty and wonder why is it that she's here, she's like so caught off guard and so nervous and so anxious and kind of like fumbling

and mumbling her way through. as soon as she gets the call from the DEA that's like, magic is on to you, it is you or her, you have to sell her out right now or else everything's going to go south. She turns into a totally different person. Hood rat. That's when the hood rats come out.

And it's like, I love that Zendaya can just flip that in either of those moments in any possible direction because it just unlocks so much of the story as far as like where you can take things emotionally. Anything we didn't hit that you want to make sure we hit. I do have a couple things, Joe. As a green apple advocate, yourself. How did you feel about Big Eddie joining your ranks?

I was really happy to have him. I just wanted to make sure. You saw that I had a green apple early. You literally did as we were watching. Yeah. I felt great about it. Welcome. Do you think that's the last apple we're going to get in our, I'm sure, twisted an extended biblical metaphor? It's a second green apple moment of the season at least. What was the first one? The apple on Roo's head. I know because I took a photo of it and I sent it to Mallory Rubin and I said, welcome to Teen Greens and Dea. So yeah. Does new people by the day. And Joe, one of the thing that I needed to clarify with you, because this was news to me, I was not aware until recently that Faye the character's last name is Valentine, a la Faye Valentine

of Cowboy Bebop. Did you know this and does this mean literally anything to you? I mean, I know I have watched all of Cowboy Bebop. So like, I am aware, both the live action and the animated. John Joe, I support you and all your endeavors. Maybe not that endeavor. Not his fault. Even that endeavor. What does that mean to you? It's complicated. Okay. I don't know how to feel about it. I don't know how to feel about it. it because it's both an incredible honor. And I love this Faye. I don't see any similarity between these characters whatsoever.

I don't know how it happened. But it's also like, it would be like if you named a character Indiana Jones. Like I don't know how you back that up. I don't know how you're supposed to be the second Indiana Jones. Something I want to mention, I believe for the rest of the season, we are going to be filming these episodes about Euphoria on Sunday nights. We're going to be here watching this totally normal show to watch at work with your colleagues. and then hopping on to shoot these totally not unhinged,

over-caffeinated episodes of a podcast. You, if in between the time that the episode drops, East Coast Time, 6 p.m. Pacific, and when we record, let's say, 839 Pacific, something like that, you can email us. Yeah, we would encourage it. We will read them. We just got an email in.

Do you want to hear it? I would love to. This is from our listener, Mitch. And he wrote to Joe and Maddie's number one boy. I reached a point in euphoria where the plot is the only thing keeping me going and that plot is Maddie's screen time

and once she enters our TV I glean with joy Rob and the rest of us witnessing her greatness if Rob has a million fans then I am one of them if Rob has 10 fans then I am one of them

if Rob has only one fan it's me if Rob has no longer on the earth if the world is against Rob then I am against the world XOXO Maddie's number one

boy's number one fan Mitch Holy shit yeah so Mitch loves you and he just wanted to let you know and I just want to let you know live, it's not live, on camera. I genuinely don't know what to do with this information. Absorb it.

I'm on it, I'm flat and I'm trying to absorb it. I mean, look, again, all do credit to Maddie. We all are following her plot lines in this way. She managed to make, there is a significant portion of this episode where the primary driver of plot is like, we have to create content. And I'm like, this is cinema. Yeah. So I don't know how she does it.

I don't know how Sam Levinson does it with all due credit. It's incredible. One thing I will say is that in that. party sequence, which had many moments, but I would say, like, Maddie,

having lost track of Cassie, like hunting in the crowd, that's when I really could have used some labyrinth music, I will say. Like, I really was missing it, especially,

I think. And Cassie up on the table sort of, like, beseechingly, sort of, like, reaching up. That could have used some labyrinth

sort of grandiosity to it. So many moments could. I think that's one of the ones where it's like textually just makes so much sense. Zimmer's barely zimmering. in this episode. It's definitely not Zimmer.

It's definitely like a third string. Yeah, I'm saying. It's an underling Zimmer. Yeah. Zim Jr. Not great. I'm very concerned. Who should we thank?

Who helped us in this episode here late at night? We should thank Guy Grady. Absolutely. I don't know how we dragged him into this. I don't know. We should thank Devere Naldo. Also, I don't know how we dragged Dev into this.

Absolutely. Jack Wilson. Yes, of course. Who is here? Chris Wallers. Yeah. Just like the whole Sick and Work crew here on a Sunday night to help us out.

Joe, thank you. Thank you. Thank all the caffeine you consume to get through the day. That was a lot. I don't know. Thank you to... We can just be done with the podcast.

Okay. Thank you to the DA. That's it for now. We'll be back with Widows Bay, with some other special projects that we have set for this month and for every Sunday night, ill-advisedly instant reactions to you for it. We'll see you soon.

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