The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘Industry’ Season 4, Episode 2: The Commander and the Grey Lady

Episode Date: January 21, 2026

Jo, Rob, and Jodi return to break down the latest episode of' ‘Industry.’ They answer listener mailbag questions, dig into the dynamics between Yas and Henry, explore how class shapes the episode, and, yes, discuss Kit Harington’s butt. Intro (0:00) Listener Mailbag Check-In (2:29) How Does This Episode Stack Up? (14:04) Ghost Dads (17:22) Needle Drop Corner (25:35) Enter Lady Cordelia (31:07) Is Yasmin the Grey Lady? (39:06) Whitney Halberstram vs. Henry Muck (44:45) Harper’s Conversation With Whitney (51:45) The Harper–Yas Relationship Dynamic (55:45) Kit Harington Moments (57:52) Weird sexual tension with Hayley? (01:06:23) Should Yas and Henry have a baby? (01:08:07) Outro (01:10:45) Email us! [e-mail] or [e-mail] Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Rob MahoneyGuest: Jodi WalkerProducer: Devon Renaldo and Ashleigh SmithAdditional Production Support: Justin Sayles Subscribe to the Ringer TV YouTube channel here for full episodes of ‘The Prestige TV Podcast’ and so much more! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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So visit Spectrum.com slash business to learn more. Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas. Hello, welcome back to the Prestige TV podcast feed. I'm Joanna Robinson. I'm Rob Mahoney. I'm Jody Walker. Oh, we're here with industry season four episode two.

I'm extremely excited to talk to you guys about this episode of television, The Grey Lady and the Commander, an absolute banger as far as I'm concerned. So as long as someone remembered to change the locks on the Armory Cabinets, it's Henry's 40th birthday, and we're just going to have a party for him. It's going to be fine. It's going to be low-key. it's going to be great. Don't forget the garage. All going to be very cool. Yes. A lot of deadly items and spaces in the house, it turns out. We did get a lot of emails from folks between the

first and the second episode here. PrestiHTV at Spotify.com always an option. But we have landed on our shared sort of pick for an industry-specific email. Jody, would you care to share with the folks at home what we have landed on here? I guess I want to ask first, Rob and Joe, as to people who frequently create unique, fun and fancy free emails at gmail.com. I feel like we had a hard time landing on this because we were dealing with simply a bounty of options. Is it always this difficult? This is the phrasing, this is the hardest as ever been. Honestly, this is the most difficult one. Phrasing wise, spelling wise.

Oh, I mean, industry just delivers so many lines that you want to, latch on to and how could we possibly refuse these other ones? And yet we have to leave the mountain over to the side to open our little black box. And I think find what is the right email for us, Jody. And I believe that we have landed on harpsichord strap-on at gmail.com. A totally normal email address. Where we would love to be reached. Harpsichordstrap on at e-mail.com. If you're like, hey, how do I spell harpsichord? Don't worry. It's in the show notes. It might flash across the screen if you're watching this on video. Why not? You can always read. H. H. PrestiGTV at Spotify.com if you prefer to not type harpsichord strap on at gmail.m.com into your email. But why wouldn't you? Open your mind.

Live deliciously. Why not? On the mailbag front, in terms of emails that we did get, we got an email asking if we were doing Night of the Seven Kingdom's coverage on this feed. Let me just assure you there are so many places at the Ringar where you can find Night of the Seven Kingdom. Probably too many places. House of Ar is doing it. Talk the Thrones is doing it. The Watch will be. doing it. We are not. We are covering prestige in the pit that industry and the pit. That is what we're doing right now. Our listener, John, wrote in with a screenshot from this episode when Yasmin and Henry are at breakfast, there is just simply a mountain of sausage, which I did consider as an email address, Mountain of Sausage. A general.com. There's like simply, Yasmin wishes, am I right? I know. A girl could only be so lucky. More sausage than an entire feastful of people could possibly eat, piled at the table, just to show us the excess of this English breakfast that they're enjoying here at Muck Manor. Any thoughts on the mountain of sausage or anything else in terms of this?

I mean, it's classic rich people should. But I will say just coming from if we're trying to channel an abundance mindset, there is something very pleasing about a pile of breakfast foods. Normally, like a giant stack of pancakes is more my preference. but if you want a pile of sausage, that's, that's your right. Yeah, I also prefer the Pretty Woman Breakfast

where we eat the pile of pancakes with our bare hands. But I also like, yeah, that representation of the extreme wealth. And there were so many gifts and curses of this episode, but I always enjoy seeing

Yasmin almost outside of her depth. Like, it was hard to imagine when we met her, that anyone could be richer and more prestigious and noble than her. But it is yet another reminder that we are in England. And we are simply proletariat Americans ourselves. And watching her just try so hard amongst such monsters. And then to have her sort of scolded about that she's still learning about the curtain process in the house.

I know. And that the maid knows more than her and that maybe she'll get the hang of this eventually. Yeah. Yasmin is new money in this particular perspective, which is fascinating. Our listener, Michiko, several listeners wrote in to let us know that CESquipidalian, which Rob asked, why did this peak a couple of years ago, that it was a New York Times crossword answer. And that's why a lot of people went to Google's to find out what that was about. So I don't think that was in the mini.

No, no, no. This morning. That's a classic Friday, Friday or Saturday, I think. Or maybe the entire strands puzzle, you know, just really wrap it around the whole board. Wow, strands guy. All right. And then a couple people wrote in to clarify something about the political landscape in the show. I mentioned that the actor Edward Holcroft appeared in the first episode playing a politician that we just saw basically in Parliament.

And our listeners, our UK listeners want to make sure that we understood that he was part of the Reform Party, which is Nigel Farage's party, which is far, far right, quote unquote, anti-woke, that sort of stuff. So we've been, you know, we've been dealing with the way in which the election did not go for Henry, especially at the beginning of the episode. We spend a lot of time slowly zooming in on his paid face as he registers that he lost. his seat, but this presence of the reform party and maybe as a reaction to the way that labor swept the election inside of this world is something to pay attention to. Rob, how did you feel about the election representation that kicks off this episode? Honestly, I thought like this moment is kind of the secret weapon of the entire episode. Like this whole sequence of getting, starting and anchoring us from a place of like actual

war between Henry and Yaz, in response to the election. I thought tethers us to that place, makes us wonder the whole episode, like, how do we get back there? How do these characters get back to this space? And, I mean, in addition, it's just like the way that Kid Harrington is playing that moment, which I agree with you, it's either slow realization or he's trying to play a result that he already understands. Either way, honestly, to read it, I think he plays it brilliantly.

And frankly, this episode is just like some of the best acting overall that I think he's ever done. I really agree. Jody, any thoughts on that? It's a great point that it is sort of like the heartbeat of the episode, seeing Yasmin's earnest face out there, sort of like toddlers and tiaring, Henry, just almost like coaching him through the right smile to do

as he thinks he might win and then realizes that he loses. And when they're back in the room and he's crying, my memory of him was with that harpsichord from last episode, with the pills crushed on the piano. So I was expecting things to be in this immediately dark place kind of already coming into this episode and to have that brief moment of her truly comforting her, truly saying, like, you don't have to fuck Margaret Thatcher anymore and him saying that he liked it. It was nice to have that, like, one establishing beat before things went, like, fully gothic

romance horror. Yes. Well, I like that it was a moment where Gassman's like, you don't have to. it's not necessarily the power. Yes, his family is offering her protection and that's why she aligned herself with them, protection in the media, all these other things. But, you know, it's not that she needs him to be in this position of power, power.

She needs him to have purpose. She needs him to want to like fuck her. She needs him, you know, to regulate his mood somehow. But I like that when he lost here, she wasn't angry or upset. She was genuinely supportive of him, which I really liked. So, yeah.

Our listener, Aaron, emailed a really interesting, fascinating email about the relic nature of the harpsichord and how it sort of speaks to, not that we didn't understand that this harpsichord that's behind cordon off ropes was sort of an ancient instrument, but the way in which it is so obsolete and the way in which that might represent the potential obsolete nature of, you know, the nobility in the UK. It's sort of holding on, but what do the Whitney's or the other, you know, members of the industry class have to do with the crumbling nobility, the impotent nobility that we're seeing inside of this episode? I mean, he clearly has a purpose in it, right? It's like almost the equivalent of bringing the student tour group around to see the house is like trotting around his new potential CEO to open some doors. Like it's a novelty act of access in a totally different way. Yeah. And also we learn more and more that like this nobility, this family is really just ultimately being supported by media sort of.

I mean, old media, sure, but you know, the way in which the family is mostly being supported by the uncle, the way in which Henry's father was sort of driving it into the ground. Henry's driving it into the ground. And there's that great line from the whispering priest. I think, yeah, he says, we choose to be ruined. rather than change. And like, that's really sort of the through line of a lot of these kinds of families

of a lot of this kind of nobility is like we choose to wither on the vine rather than sort of recognize the times and I don't know, maybe what we can achieve, Henry. I'm not sure that that one really presents an issue. Shout out to the whispering priest, though. Shout out to Count BinFace. A lot of great supporting characters in this show.

Yeah, BinFace, you know, I was like, oh, they're doing like a Lord Buckethead thing. But I guess Lord Buckethead, who is like a real figure who ran for election in the UK, I guess I think he had to rebrand. So I think Binfaces actually the rebranded Lord Bucket Face. Anyway, you love to see him there. The fact, correct me or wrong, because I'm not nobility landed gentry in the UK. But I believe just the fact that the house is open to tours is just a real sign of financial struggle.

and like come down. It's an indignity to sort of open up your house to these kinds of tours. There used to be a little show on Bravo called Ladies of London and one of the ladies was a lady. I believe she was like

the lady of sandwich. And like her was like the Earl sandwich. Wow. I might be getting some of my details confused because this was years ago but I did love that show. And that was... Incontrovertible truth, Jerry.

Of course. These are facts. You can't check it. It's not available on Bravo, And that was like a big storyline is that she married into like this, you know, what seemed like this nobility, this amazing family. But it was like this huge task to keep the family afloat and to keep like these properties afloat. And they were opening up the properties to touring, which was kind of shameful, but also necessary. There's a lot for Lady Muck to be juggling right now.

Absolutely. Last not least. And I thought it was an interesting bit of feedback that I saw around the old internet about this episode. I love this episode. This is by actually by some comfortable margin, my favorite episode of industry. And just because it has it has everything. It has ghosts, it has ghost dads, which I usually hate, but actually works really well in this episode and all those other stuff like that. I absolutely really loved this episode.

I saw some complaints from people saying, hey, man, there were no deals done, no business done. And I'm like, absolutely there were. What show are you watching? Yeah. these are the halls of power where some of the most important deals happen. They don't always happen on the trading floor. Sometimes they happen at Henry's absolutely shit show 40th birthday, you know.

Sometimes they're sealed with a mint. You know, there's different kinds of negotiations. I did. I did kind of have to chuckle at us trying so hard to figure out shorts last episode. And then to be given this as our second episode, which was a nice break given that. Everyone on the internet was ultimately figuring out what shorts are through Katie Perry and her vinal's being a flop in a very viral tweet series. I was told the monoculture was dead.

And yet we were all learning about this together in unison. It was really a beautiful moment. Yeah. If you want to hear a full debrief of the Katie Perry vinyl tweet lore, you can tune in to we're obsessed over on the ring or dish feed where we gave it the full breakdown yet another podcast where I had to talk about. shorting the market. Short selling was by far in a way the most popular email subject that we got from our listeners because they were very eager to educate us. I think we did okay based on what they said. I think I understand it. We will continue to try to understand the money markets as we cover this show. But as I mentioned, I already loved this episode. Jody is someone who's covered the show

sort of more in depth of the seasons and especially watched it transform so much. What did you think about this episode? How does it stack up to sort of a more expected episode of industry for you? When you said it was like your favorite episode by a large margin, I got so nervous to even have to think about my favorite episode of industry and then to know, I think what I keep thinking about this episode is like, this is a generational episode of television. I just, I just, I thought it was so impressive and it gave me, you know, there's like the popular saying, like, oh, I've never had a unique thought in my life. That is simply not the case for Mickey and Conrad.

Like, I've never seen an episode of television like this to even have conceptually thought to like take us through the suicidal ideation of, you know, noble British man who just is like, was kind of a side character and is now the husband of one of our main characters. And to like just give us that detour, I think is such a fascinating creative choice that I so appreciate in this show. I think it can't be my favorite episode because it is not, it's not quintessential industry except that it's quintessential solo episode of industry. I wouldn't know so far as to say it's a bottle episode, but it is very much in that way,

like Rishi's episode, White Christmas. which was so intense, also so unlike anything I've ever seen, that I just like, I really appreciated sort of the courage to like do this, not just do this episode in the season, but do it as the second episode of the season

when we've like barely established time and place. Like we don't know where we are, we don't know who we are, what we are, but we know these people, and we really know Yasmin, and to have that as, the entree point into like this whole other world and to learn more about her through her extremely sad boy husband is,

that is quintessential industry. Sad boy is quintessential industry. Without a single doubt. I think they play it really well too, because there's a version of this episode, any like depression heavy episode can just sort of like languish, right? You're struggling sometimes when you're writing around that subject matter to find momentum. It never feels that way at all throughout this entire run.

It feels weirdly propulsive for a guy who is mucking about stroking his gun, trying to decide if he wants to commit suicide. They find a lot of action in what is ultimately a very interior heavy episode. It's really brilliant. I'm totally with you, Jody, in terms of like the focus of this sort of episode is quintessential industry. I think it's something this show does better than almost any other one. when you think about the solo episodes of the bear, for example, I found them really frustrating the more they did them.

And the more they did them, and they felt like a ploy. This didn't feel that way at all. This felt like quality time spent with characters who were invested in and became more invested in. I think it's brilliant. I think it's like mean and sharp and also kind of soft in all the right places, to be honest with you. The one thing, and Joe, you mentioned this as something that worked for you,

Ghost Dad. Ghost Dad. really, really took me out. I got to say, like, it really bugged me. You know, I hate Ghost. Like, Ghost Dad, like, everyone has a hard-on for Hamlet, and they're always trying to do Ghost Dad, and it really bothers me,

especially when they're trying to, try to fool you with Ghost Dad. They were, though. It tends to really bother me. I know, but, like, since I, since I clocked it right from, like, here's a pro tip for folks. I saw a lot of people were surprised by this. Here's a pro-tip from those of us who lived through the shock and all of seeing the Sixth Sense in the theater.

Here's something I learned. If no one else is talking to a character and only one character is talking to them, it might be a ghost. And so just like be on the lookout for ghosts. Okay, Joe, when did you quite? When did you know, when did you know ghosts? Immediately he comes out of nowhere. He's not in the room. He's not dressed like anyone else.

He shows up. And then no one is like looking at Henry when when they're like sort of jostling each other on the side of the table. So like, I just, I got roasted and fooled so hard by the sixth sense that I was like, they'll never get me again. So I'm always just like on high alert for Ghost Ed. Jody, where do you feel like you figured out Ghost Ed? If any of the listeners would like to be comforted by not being quite as sharp and astute as Joe and Rob, that's why I'm here. And I would say, no, but because I was like, got it. When I got it, I was like, got it.

I see what's happening here. Maybe or maybe is real. I realized, oh, realized in full at the pub. when he sort of insidiously whispers, polish his shoes. Yeah, shine your shoes, boy. And he says that as sort of an instruction to Henry to attack the townsman,

shine his shoes. I said, oh, that's Paul Bettney in a beautiful mind. Like, that's actually, I didn't. And I want to be clear, I didn't clock dad. I said, that's Paul Bettney in a beautiful mind. And I just thought he was some sort of kind of like presence that this, that this Henry has felt throughout his life only to then realize, oh, that's his dad.

Yes. Which I, you know, clocked just a little bit later. Yeah, I feel like the other thing that calling him commander and not giving him. Yeah. Giving a name. I was like, okay. The, but okay, so Rob, but you didn't like ghost dad. Tell me more about your feelings.

I think some of it's not even like, oh, it's so clear. You should have been on to it from the beginning. It's so obvious. I think for me it was more like, this is totally needless. Like, you don't need a ghost to tell us this man is haunted. You're already going to show us the flashback of Child Henry watching his father go off to commit suicide. And so to me it just felt so silly to make the episode in some ways about that moment, right? It felt like it was building and building to this reveal that wasn't silly to me because it was obvious,

but silly because it was completely unnecessary. So I was a little bit like maybe because, because I got on board for Ghost Dad and had kind of the, like, a more traditional experience of figuring it out for myself, like, didn't clock it right from the beginning. I felt like the flashbacks and like little boy, Henry, were a little bit the overkill. I agree with that. So maybe it's kind of like, you know, look at the mirror and take one accessory off before you leave the house. Like, you can do one or the other. I feel like they drew out the reveal, like, once he's like, you know, he's like pulled down the turtleneck or whatever and he's like, you're

like that's a ghost and then we still got the flashback and all this sort of like that. And I was I was wondering if it was like what Matt, Damon and Ben Affleck were talking about in terms of making shows for Netflix where you have to sort of repeat things five times in case people are looking at their phones. So like in case people are watching in their industry and looking at their phones, don't do that. But in case they are, we're going to make it really, really clear this is his dad. Do you get it yet? This is it. Which is interesting and maybe is what struck all of us as a little bit like left of center for the show because they're so. so little handholding in this show typically.

I agree. And this is ultimately a small part of the episode. Like I don't want to over index on it because I love everything so much. It just like, I can't say it left a bad taste in my mouth after this week's episode, but like it kind of left a bad taste in my mouth. I need something. I need closure. I think that, I think Jack Farthing who played the commander was like very good.

And I think there was enough like weird sexual tension between the two of them that just added this like really fun and funky dimension to ghost dad. I do think that's why my mind did not immediately go to ghost dad is when they were jostling around in that, in the dining room, I was titillated. You're just going to kiss. Kiss, kiss, kiss. And it really felt like they would. Like it really, it seemed, and you know, we'd been talking a lot about fraternity and like within, between Henry and Whitney and that is sort of a concept. And to have this very what seemed like fraternity.

figure come in and soothe Henry with like these toxic male views and to assure him sort of that his legacy is important and he can pursue it however he wants and all you really need to do is live the lie that gains you the most. I was like, that makes sense. That's a person. Yep. That's not just a ghost dad. That's a person who I could imagine. entering late into the party. I think another thing that I really liked about Ghost Dad, and you're right, Rob, like we don't need to like spend the whole episode

talking about him because there's so much more else to talk about. But usually Ghost Dad is there to like help a character through something or to moralize or to improve or to boost or something like that. And this is the demon on Henry's shoulder is his Ghost Dad. And that's a little unusual. And so I quite liked that. Yeah, the like, hey, fuck, you know. fuck this woman who works in your house.

Why not? It'll feel good. The class difference feels great, doesn't it? You know, beat the shit of this guy. No one will care. And actually, they don't. You know, like all this other stuff. It's like everything he's saying is true and repulsive at the same time. And it's Henry's like worst angels sort of lingering around him this Christmas.

So, yeah. I saw that the vulture recap compared this episode to a Christmas Carol, which is a story that Jody and I just can't seem to escape somehow. He's popping up in every work of fiction this year. as you'd think. Apparently not. But like this is the dark mirror of it, right? Of being visited by a different kind of ghost that is tempting you into a different place. Whereas you have Yaz multiple times trying to talk sensitive to Henry. You have his uncle like even at gunpoint trying to get him to come out of his fog. You have Whitney making his kind of plea in a way. And I mean also not in addition to

ghost dad, what I can only assume is ghost priest. Like this this priest is also not there, right? No, I think that priest is actually there because he's like he when he's just, The other characters are responding. But they never talk to him. They just kind of like look in his direction in the same way that the people at the dinner party look at the commander. They don't. I think

I think whispering priest is actually there. You're telling me 2.20 somethings are sitting there at the pub at a table with a random priest? It's a country Christmas. Do I just not understand pub culture? It's a country Christmas. You don't understand pub community. I think that much is clear.

I would like to know if whispering priest is real. something that I was delighted to discover via Katie Baker's recap is that some of his most profound things that he said he's quoting, he's paraphrasing, Corrin McCarthy, All the Pretty H. Auden's Age of Anxiety. So like this guy is just like bringing, and he's like, he said words that have brought me comfort, but he's basically just like getting his like Bartlett's quotations out and just sort of like dropping wisdom that he read somewhere, which is maybe what a whispering priest is born to do. But I'm willing to entertain ghost whispering priest. I'm willing to entertain, but I don't

think so. But I guess let us know at harpsichordstrap on at gmail.com. If you think this priest is a real corporeal person. Can I take you now to Needle Drop Corner, which is a place that I enjoyed last week and I would like to stay here again with you this week. Please. I'm interested in the music that they're picking because once again, it seems like They picked some music that is trying to teach us about what inspirations they're leaning on for this episode. So we get you and me by Penny in the Quarters playing when Henry's in the bathtub, which is Blue Valentine straight to my heart, like scenes from marriage, want to watch a marriage dissolve. You play You and Me by Penny in the Quarter. A song that is so closely associated with that movie, if you've never seen that movie, Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling, devastating film about marriage.

but, like, Ryan Gossley found that song out of obscurity and brought it forth for the soundtrack for Blue Valentine and, like, made the widow of the guy who wrote it, like, a lot of money off of royalties because they dug this, like, demo out of obscurity. But, like, I was immediately transported to one of the worst experiences I've ever had watching a marriage on screen. Any thoughts about the Blue Valentine influence on this episode? I think overall what you're talking about, Joe, in terms of the subtle, like, just kind of formatting us for these scenes, priming us for some of the emotional beats that we're going to hit.

And, I mean, just the saddest attempted hand job that's ever been committed to film. Like, to make that an emotional moment, to make it weigh as heavy as it does, is quite a feat. And I think ultimately, like, where this episode is so successful is in doing exactly that balance

of being, like, incredibly crude and crass in its way, but also devastating at the same time, And, like, tapping into Blue Valentine is one way to do that and never actually mentioning the words or making direct reference. Like, that's a nice bit of artistry, honestly. It's also like Yasmin, in, you really think about in this episode, especially when she basically says, I'll be the one to kill you. Like, she's so powerful.

And I've just spent four seasons. It's just the shoes, Jody. It's just the shoes that are diminutive. It's just the shoes. She's so powerful and makes such terrible decisions. Like, she never knows how to harness her power. And I am talking about the bathtub handjob. Like, the mere idea that that, that, like, a sad underwater, like, aquatic handjob.

It's a sloshing. The way to revive this sexual union. And this relationship is, like, Yasmin, what are you thinking? This used to be one of your skill, like, not hand jobs, but, like, Revenom. Like, what are, what were you thinking? That is, that is the single saddest thing you can do. She's desperate, you know? What else is one to do?

And when she is back into a corner, that is when she does some of her worst work. Yes. But also some of her best, as we see over the course of these 12 hours. Another, speaking of 12 hours, this is, this takes place all, you know, on a, on a morning into another morning across one night, one crazy night. Is that all there is by Peggy Lee plays a one? one point in the episode. This was used famously in Martin Scorsese's After Hours, which is like one of the, like, best one crazy night films that was ever made. So I feel like that was just sort of shaking us through this like drug-fueled, surreal experience that Henry's having in this episode. And last but not least, in Needle Drop Corner, we have like a follow-up from last week's use of the Clockwork Orange theme because we get jazz suite number two, waltz number two by Shostakov, which is famously used in Issa. wide shut. So we've got like double Kubrick in this episode, not to mention all of the like, very, like, there's something in Hollywood called the Kubrick zoom, which is this like slow zoom into

sort of a static frame. And we get it a lot in this, we got it a lot in the first episode. We get it a lot in this episode. So it's like very clear. And I, and I say this is a compliment. I don't think this is an insult that Conrad and Mickey in writing and directing these first two episodes are like, we're going to get our Kubrick on and we're not going to make it even slightly subtle. This is what we're doing. We're doing Barry Linden. We're doing Clockwork Orange. We're doing Eyes Wide Shut. Another, you know, traumatizing film about marriage. And so I thought, I just think that's really interesting. I would be interested to see what the, you know, the song selection, how intentional that is, or if that's just like me overthinking, which I sometimes do.

I don't think it's you overthinking at all, Jill. Like, if you just told me as a formula, Blue Valentine, plus after hours, plus eyes wide shut. That is literally this episode. So again, it's just, I think structurally speaking, a really smart way to kind of tap into some of these feelings. And also, like, especially in terms of the eyes wide shut element specifically,

once we get into the party proper, there's a version of those scenes that feels very stuffy, that feels very put on in a way that it obviously is. But I love like the handheld style that all of this stuff is shot in. Because it makes, it takes what is ultimately like a bunch of rich people trying to get bliss out of their minds at a costume party and turns it into that, like turns it into like the photo dump at like morning after kind of feeling of what is ultimately like quite quite much ado. I feel like observing your aunt Cordelia giving Otto a blow job is as Fidelio as it can get. Can we talk about Cordelia?

Can we talk about Claire Forlani, please. Lady Cordelia, Jody Rock Walker, what's your favorite Lady Cordelia moment inside of this episode? I'm so scarred by the final moment that I don't actually know if I can think of a single thing. The way that they draw out that sort of betrayal really works because when this woman came in talking about how men will always. murder you, I was like, that's my girl. This gal gets it. Like you telling, telling, telling, telling Yaz that what she has is not

partnership, it's like, yeah. Understandment of this entry, but it's important to say, I mean, she was just like rolling out some bangers that I was like, if I put this into some, you know, graphic design is my passion, artwork and got it on Instagram, to say, it doesn't matter how much a man tells you that he loves you,

you never give them unconditional love because they will weaponize it, they worship us and tell us their secrets, and then they load us up with their insecurities, and fuck all their fears into us, and then they kill us. I didn't see the ending coming after that. Monologue, I thought, like,

okay, here's a source of strongly worded, you know, support mentorship for our, Yasmin and I was wrong. Listen, she had a really bohemian childhood, so it's complicated. No, but I think that's such an interesting sort of generational thing for like, I don't want to paint an entire generation with a certain brush, but I think that there are like some women of a certain generation who will say one thing and then defend the, you know, the bad men that they personally have known.

You know what I mean? Like the bad actors, I'll just, I'll speak personally and say that I have seen women who I can that are like quite feminist, quite progressive, then sort of rally around the men that they know who have been exposed for their like shitty behavior. And I was just like, this actually makes, this doesn't feel contradictory to me. This makes sense to me. That she's like broadly, let me say these things about how men are horrible. And then also let me defend my brother who had sex with me when I was a child. And Rob, I'm interested in what you want to say, but Jody's making a face that makes me want to go to her first.

Please do. Oh, I simply have no idea what my face was doing in that moment. I was just thinking about that what you were saying about. And there's also the aspect of, you know, that monologue that I'm calling the Men will always murder us monologue is it is sort of encouraging Yasmin to want more from her relationship. But it's also sort of, it's not exactly shaming her, but it's having higher expectations of her than this aunt has of herself.

I think what we understand is that she is still married to Yasmin's uncle or to her husband, even though she's having this affair with this 29-year-old and even though she's, you know, blowing auto in the parlor with the candlestick, like even though she's not living the life that she's saying that she expects of Yasmin. and I think a lot of times we want better for younger generations

without providing them the world in which they can be better. Like, Yasmin's made a lot of choices that have landed her where she is, and we've seen her often, often turn down the more noble choice in the other sense of the word nobility. And choose this life and try to keep her head above water, within it, but we also are always being shown the reasons that she makes those choices, because the people around her,

the people who raised her, convinced her that they were her only protection when really they were the people put her constantly in peril. And it seems to be becoming clearer and clearer the more specific ways that her father may have been harming her and how she, and how he can, I mean, talk, talking about ghost dad. I mean, about how he continues

to harm her and put her in harm's way from the grave. Like, this man will not die and she continues to be betrayed by her own family. Where the hell is her mom? She has this aunt who is like, you know,

it seems like she thought of as at least someone to sort of look up to someone who feels safe. She invited her to this house for this 40th birthday party, that she was scared of how it was going to go. She invited the aunt only to realize the ways in which the aunt has not protected her throughout her life,

known the kind of harm that she, the kind of harm she could be exposed to through her father. And she chose the easiest thing, which was to do nothing. Yeah. I mean, Cordelia definitely has, like, cool ant energy in that way. Which is why I loved her so much. That is like my main goal in life.

It's a noble aspiration for all of us. And I agree with everything that both you guys are saying. Especially in terms of the moral authority that she's kind of projecting and giving this sage advice, ultimately being undercut by everything that she is and does. The hypocrisy is like, that's present through every character in industry pretty much. All of these people are talking out of both sides of their mouth, are making moral compromises, are trying to believe in one thing and selling themselves short and making deals they should make in order to continue chasing whatever it is they need to chase.

And I think her speech, honestly, hits me even harder because of that, because I think there's a part of her that believes all of these things. And yet there is also clearly a part of her that is, whether it's pragmatic or otherwise, making these concessions to Otto, making these concessions to her husband. It's like, it's the acid-dipped version of like the America Ferreira speech in Barbie. And it hits in like a really, really visceral way that, I mean, it's just incredible writing. and frankly, I didn't know that Claire Furlani had this in her in terms of performance. I've never seen her do anything like this before.

Wow, this is Meet Joe Black erasure. I'm just kidding. Meet Joe Black, for the record. Terrible movie. Very, very bad. What a scorching hot take from? What a how brave of you to come for Meet Joe Black? It has its defenders.

And I don't know where those people are coming from. No. Oh, they're in Harpsichord strap on at Gmail.com. I can't wait. I encourage. If you have a full. throated defense of me, Joe Black. I would genuinely love to hear it. But Claire Furlani

comes in just like with a ton of energy. Again, changes the course of this entire episode and throws like Yaz in particular, a character that I can't help but roof for no matter what decision she makes. Like I'm invested in her story and her journey.

And I think Cordelia's what kind of spins her around the most in this episode weirdly enough. This podcast is brought to you by Carvana. Selling your car should feel like one less thing on your list. Not one more. With Carvana, it is.

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historically, men will murder us. This is a historical truth. And then Yaz, at the end of this episode, telling Henry, like, hey, you do this again, I will kill you. I will fucking kill you. So are we being primed for one muck or another to kill someone inside of this season? And then what do we make of the, amongst the various shitty descriptions of Yasmin in this episode? One of them says she's floating around the house all sad and angry, which is very gray lady.

Like, is she the titular gray lady? Of course, we hear about the gray lady in the tour. The gray lady is like a common castle manner kind of ghost. But is Yasmin in her own way like the gray lady of this episode, the ghost already. Yeah. I really hope not. I hope this isn't what awaits Yaz. I don't think she's going to die.

I don't, you know, like what is the show without her? I don't think she's going to die. But like, could you see her killing Henry? Is he just going to kill himself? If I were, Mickey and Conrad, I would not want to get rid of Kit Harrington on my show because he's freaking phenomenal. But I don't know, any thoughts on those little breadcrumbs?

Well, I think that, like, what the show often asks us to think about and what this episode, like, quite literally says is, like, well, at what point do we die? Do we die when we stop breathing? or is this man already dead? Did he die when his father died? Like, how do we affect the generations below us? And no, I don't think that Yaz or Henry probably

are going to die within this season, but as intense as it is when Yasmin says and it's sort of like compelling and moving as it is when Yasmin says, you know, if you're going to die, I'll kill you myself. it's Yasmin. And we know Yasmin. And we also know Cordelia now.

And that's Yasmin in, you know, 30 years. And like, it's a lot of talk and it's no change. It's she is in no better spot than when we found her. She's in a worse spot. I keep thinking about that line from the priest. And I don't know if this comes from one of the source materials that you mentioned, Joe, but when he says we choose to be ruined rather than change, that is what I'm always thinking about these characters in industry

is I'm obsessed with them. They are compelling. I can't stop watching. They never change. They do not learn lessons. And if they do, they leave the show. It's like we had a great storyline in Rob and Rob, and Rob let the show.

Love you, Gus. Miss you. I bet you're doing better. stick with people who do not change. And I think, like you said about Cordelia, she can believe, she really can believe those things. I think she believed those things that she told to Yasmin, but we will always betray ourselves. And generally, when we betray ourselves, we betray others as well. And how many times have we seen Yasmin do that exact same cycle to the curtain closing maid or the woman that she hired who heard the end of last season.

Yeah. Yeah. Get rid of her. Yeah. The stewardess from the yacht. Like the, oh, now her name leaves me, but the young woman who worked at, at Pierpoint. Who. Like, Nisha.

Yeah. Yeah. Who. Benisha. Yes. Who, yeah. Who's like, I don't think I should be getting salads. And yes.

Like, that's just what I did. So you have to do it, you know? So you do it. And if you don't, if you don't, a lot of times it's like if you aren't harmed in the ways that I was harmed, if you stand up to the shit that I tried to stand up to, but you actually get somewhere with it, that's a betrayal to me. And I'm reeling the ladder right back up. Absolutely.

Reassembling the glass ceiling. And I don't know. to paint that storyline, tell that story, paint that picture in this episode, I think is pretty wild, like what they were able to do in the Henry Muck, not really a bottle, but sort of a bottle episode, like everything else that we're learning and observing. I think it's really interesting that you bring up Rob and Gus because another sort of fast of this episode that I want to eat. You guys are, you're lashing on to this idea of like, we'd rather, like, ruin ourselves than change. I think Whitney coming in and saying you're just telling the wrong story was like a real thesis statement for me inside of this episode, inside of the show.

Because, like, that is what Eric has been telling Harper from the very beginning, which is like what the market is. The market is telling a story. The market reflects the anxieties of the people with the money and all that sort of stuff like that. So how can you spin them a yarn that gets them to do what you. need them to do inside of the market. But to expand that inside of this big sort of like America versus UK idea that we've been working with since Harper, you know, showed up the very beginning. Harper shows up writing her own story. She pretends she graduated when she didn't. Like she's, she's come across the pond and writing her own story. Even though she gets exposed, she's still

written her own stories to success versus the way in which inside of the UK, you know, these things, the entrenched class warfare just follows you. Rob looks the part, but he has the wrong accent, right? Gus has the right accent. Like, there are, you know, there are just ways in which these people are just coded and hardwired in a way that Americans, at least in the UK, are free of. And that wasn't necessarily the argument that Whitney was making. He's like, I don't know if there are second acts in America, but there are in the UK. But he's just like spinning a yarn for Henry.

Yes. And what's really true is that Whitney has. showed up in like a barber jacket as if he's like Queen Elizabeth going to Balmoral. Like he has costumed himself in like nobility on the countryside. And he is, you know, telling Harper about how he in a very creepy way used like sort of people's anxiety around the death of loved ones to make his fortune and all this sort of stuff like that. But that idea of like the American self-made man versus what is mobility.

inside of the UK versus Yasmin being you know called lower class with a northern accent and other things that I don't even want to repeat into a microphone like that she is as as rich and posh as she is to Jody's point at the beginning, she's on the back foot here. So I just think this idea of like

what story can you write for yourself and then what are you even allowed to write inside of the UK class system for Henry Muck who has this genetic inheritance of depression and no bless oblige and all these other things that come with being cemented into a spot from birth inside of the UK versus how the Americans can be a bit more nimble inside of this narrative. Yes.

Do either of you any thoughts about that? I mean, many. And I think the show does, which is part of what makes it buzz throughout this episode in the fashion that it does, like, managing the tension of like what, which of these problems are actually real and which of them are imaginary in the way. you're talking about Joe, and the way that the market is imaginary, and the way that it all is mood and humor and, like, the impressions that people have versus that genetic inheritance, right, versus something you are literally inheriting from your parents versus whatever expectations

you had impressed upon you, that you can, in fact, over time, shed yourself of if you work hard enough to do it. If you separate yourself from your dad's suicide, like, you may not be able to fully cleanse yourself of the depression that I actually think this episode is like, like some really smart things to say about the way you incorporate that sort of like mental pain into your life, right? That it is not about trying to bury it. It's not about even trying to process it necessarily. It's about understanding what it is and putting it in a place where it is workable for you. Coexisting with it. Yeah. Exactly. And getting yourself out of the forest and out of the fog in that particular way. And clearly there are parts of this that are just all storytelling. And I think

especially for wealthy people in any country, that can cover up a lot. It can explain a lot. But then when you get into that next stratified tier as you're talking about, Joe, there's just a different story you have to tell. And there's a bunch of other storytellers who know exactly what you've been doing and know exactly what it took to get here. And they see through your bullshit in a totally different way because they are mired in it. Well, and it's story telling, but it's also sales,

which is like always spin the story of industry. And, I mean, it is notable. Joe, as you were talking about it, that I was kind of thinking like, Eric, Harper, now Whitney, the people that we are sort of told and see be these really electric salespeople, all American, all sort of bringing that different facet of, we tell these stories about ourselves, and then we sell them to someone who will believe them.

like when Whitney draws the parallel in Henry's, you know, outrageous family estate as they're looking at like the romance art. And he says, Nichi killed God. Factory started burning coal. It was game over for community, but just the beginning for men like us. And Henry has to wear with all to be like men like us. You ever had a sword, hit your shoulders, babe.

But he says, you want something you don't have. I want everything you have already. That's all the fraternity we need. And finding the, you know, the strivers in our industry community, Eric, Harper, Whitney, finding the bits and pieces of fraternity that they can pull on. And I remember Otto said that to Harper at some point within last season about why he liked her. He basically said, we're the same.

Like, we're, now I can't remember quite the word that he said. But even that in retrospect, Jody, was just another story, right? That's just him telling her what he thought she wanted to hear so she can be the face of his fun, basically. Right. And this is something that the show is done from the beginning, like thinking about how Yasmin and. Harper first meet is in the bathroom where Harper is listening to Yasmin and another woman that they work with talk about how Harper has the quote unquote best story because she is like a young American non-white nose ring like all the you know they're just like how do we compete with this narrative around Harper like how do we compete with that and they see the things that she feels like she is working against as an advantage because there's just this great narrative behind her and I just think that's like

Rob, you alluded to this great quote that Jennifer Bevin, who is our politician at the table, who gets accosted by Henry, says to his uncle the Viscount, she says, economics is a question of public humor and moods, and it's a question of tone, right? What story are you, the media spinning, and how is that impacting and creating a recession by creating panic and all these other things? Yeah. And I mean, Jennifer Bevin is part of this conversation. too about these sort of like interlopers, right, who are at this party.

I really think it's Harper, it's Whitney and Jennifer Bevan, three people who probably don't even know on some level why they're here and yet they're all after something. And they come in presentationally very different. Whitney is like playing the part, putting on the costume, wanting to ingratiate himself to this world. I think Harper not dressing up or, I mean, look, she's in cloaks and like, full season anyway. She's dressed up. She's dressed up.

Yes, she looks amazing. Amazing. Completely. Amazing. And that's a flex in its own way, right? Like, for her, I think it's an expression of power. And for Jennifer Bevin, it's like a half measure, right? It's like, I'm here.

I'm here to not quite kiss the ring. I'm wearing a blouse. Yeah. Until you'll be getting it. That's all you get. I'm here to flatter your impressions of the world and your perspective, but, you know, we're not going to go, I'm not going to bend the knee to ultimately, like, the old media.

And these are also three people that you see doing a lot of eye acting. Like, they're the only, like, we, we flashed that hand, that steady cam flashes every once in a while to one of those three people to be like, we're seeing it too. I would love to know both of your thoughts on when Harper and Whitney are discussing the aforementioned. This is what I want to talk about, yeah. You know, really only in America to really profit off of the funeral industrial complex in the way that Whitney did via venture capital.

What are we seeing in Harper's face? I would say the ick. That's what I got. that. Is that not what you got, Jody? What did you get? I was concerned. I, maybe it was the ick, but I almost felt like she was being one over. I think I've had this feeling since she met Whitney that she in some way saw him as an equal. And I think that's very unusual for her. We've seen her mostly be very kind of demeaning to to the men that. that she deigns to sleep with.

And this was a different, more intimate situation kind of immediately. And also that she would have seen him as an equal and then he asked her to peg him, I think would have quite done something for continuing to see him in a unique and interesting way. And so I felt like she was kind of, maybe not charmed by the story,

but I felt like she was playing coy in a way I've never really seen her do. And then she was mad at herself when he walked away. That's what convinced me was the little like, was the, when he walked away like, why am I feeling this? We've seen her feel so few feelings, certainly not any positive ones.

I thought her, like, rejection of him was like a clear, like, I've gone off of him, but you're saying she's playing the game. Oh, no, you know, when you're serious about someone, you know, you got at least wait till the third date, post-peg so that they know you're serious. So it's Peg and then three dates after.

Peg Foundation, three dates, then sleep together again. Three stories in the building on top of the Peg Foundation. Which is a strong, you know, in an episode about partnership, it's a strong foundation. This is the real girl math as far as I'm concerned. I've heard this formula before. Rob, I have a question for you. And I don't want to get too personal. But my memory is that like you're, the Mahoney family business is connected.

to like the funeral process. What did you make of this, of Whitney's sort of mercenary approach to this? I mean, look, I can't support the bare bonesing, if you'll allow it, of the entire business, of the model, of taking all of the personality and care out of ultimately, like saying goodbye to someone's loved ones. You're not doing the Uber for funerals.

No. They're not investing in that. Not quite my MO. But clearly there is a market for it, right? There is a certain percentage the population for whom it's just like, can we get this over with? Whitney identified it. He is gross for doing it. And I think that's why like ultimately as far as Harper's reaction, I kind of, I kind of do come down more on the excite of things. I do think, I mean, look,

as the commander puts it, like there is a nexus of arousal and disgust that is probably tapping into both of these feelings for her in some way or another. But even for a character who I would say Harper is mostly like pretty amoral. Like she is exceedingly practical and like goal-oriented, whatever it takes. Something about Whitney in this moment seemed to be a little beyond some kind of pale. And I just don't even know what it is. Especially when she has or is on the verge

of getting more information from Jonathan Byers of Stranger Things about like Tender and what's going on there. I'm wondering if, if Yasmin has established Henry at Tender, and this is very important to her in terms of like his productivity or something, you know, it is desperately important to Yasmin that Henry succeeded tender, so she is a stake

pro tender. Mm-hmm. And if Harper is on the lookout to short tender, does that put Harper and Yaz's at cross-purposes this season? Joe, when are they not across-purposes? Well, sometimes they aren't. Sometimes they aren't. And I'm wondering, I'm actually furthermore wondering if they're going to be at cross-purposes

and then United in taking down Whitney, you know what I mean, to save Henry and also to make Harper or profit. This is always me just wanting people to work together. I did this all through succession. It is foolish of me, but it's something I always want to have happen. Very endearing. But if we are talking about Harper and Yaz, we have to talk about just the brief scene of them, you know,

doing a few lines to get through the day. And the absolute nerve, but also sort of endearing of Yaz, with cocaine on her nose, Amadeus wig on her head. head to after Harper says, just kind of gestures around. And it's like, I just feel like all of this stuff is not going to get you the respect that you deserve and the nerve of her in that outfit, in that state to say, why would you say something like that? You know, that'll hurt my feelings. She's like, you know, it's totally normal that I like to dress up as Princess Diana and

Marie Antoinette when I do costumes, right? Those are totally cool, fine. Why would you say I'm not going to get the respect I deserve? Totally fine. Maybe it's the husband who was just pantless in this very room baffing those exact lines a couple of moments ago. But yeah,

something tells me it's not all going to work out okay for yes. How dare you suggest that I deserve more than I have, which I also know is less than I deserve. And in the proposal of my marriage of convenience, I said,

Henry, I deserve everything. You did. And then things, and then I had the best sex of my life on the wedding night, and then things immediately. went off the rails. How dare you

closest thing to a best friend I've ever had? Say I deserve more than this. How dare you know me this well? How dare I be perceived? That is like literally actually Yasmin's tagline. It's like how dare I be perceived. How dare you see me? I want to, I just have a couple more things I want to talk about before we go. We've already sort of danced around this idea that Kid Harrington is fantastic in this episode. And as a long-term Game of Thrones enthusiast, I have a couple questions for y'all if you'll indulge me.

Absolutely. First of all, our listener, Cole wrote in to say, I find it absolutely hilarious that while Henry is on at least heroin and pills for what seems to be months now, Kit Harrington in the bathtub is still more ripped than 99.9% of the world will ever be.

And honestly, I don't care. That's television baby. So if you'll indulge me, on the throne's front, what made you think most of John Snow? Was it Well, let me stop you there, Joe. It was spring is coming.

How could it not? Was it winter's coming versus spring is coming? That's one option. Was it Kit Harrington showing you the hard work that he's done on his glutes, which he liked to do as John Snow as well? Or was it him hitting a person in the face, like shoveling someone's face in, as John Snow did famously in the Battle of the Bastards? Like, which was it violence?

Was it sex? Or was it the tagline of Spring is coming? versus winter is coming. Jody Walker. I'll tell you right now, it was that butt. He did rivalry's impact. It was when he stood up out of that tub,

globes glistening. I was like, that's John Snow. And then he put like demure hands sort of like tucked behind the bum. Oh, yeah. Like, don't look too long. Yes. The hands behind the back is just a beautiful moment.

Like, just physical acting. Great job from kid. That really was like the only time actually that I thought of it. I think like this performance is so different, even though it's like sad boy all over again, you know, but it's totally different. I think of John Snow very little during it, except like there was something about that,

which wasn't very performance-based, which was just so like took me right back. I had a similar moment in season three when he and Yasmin were in the like hotel swimming pool and it was steaming and it was very like... Yes. Johnny Greta in the cave. And then he like got out and once again showed us that butt. to respect Kit Harrington, I want to say.

I think his performance here is incredible. I think I don't know how much of this is something that the, you know, the creators have leaned into, but Kit Harrington has been very transparent about his like battles with depression and battles with substances as as they pertain to sort of his fame and the pressures of that. And so the way in which this had the opportunity to be an incredibly personal performance for him. And I just think he really delivered. Henry is the kind of person I root for against my will, but I am oddly rooting for him. I did not want him to end himself in that garage.

And I'm not foolish enough to think he's going to succeed, but I don't know why, but I wish him well. And that's down to kids' performance, I think. I mean, that's the whole show, right? Like, none of these are people I want to be friends with. But even more so, Henry, would you say more? say more so than anyone else. But they're all on paths of self-destruction in different ways.

It's just like whose fuse is shortest. And it looked like his fuse might be quite short, right? It might be within this episode following in his father's footsteps. He finds a kind of rebirth in the same way that Yaz does in the same way that they do within their marriage. But the result of that is him pitching, oh, maybe we should have a kid and maybe start the cycle all over again. Doesn't that sound great for everyone involved?

But God help me, when Yasman's voice saying his name is that. the thing that brought him out of, you know, the garage filling with gas and sent him into the circular driveway screaming her name and then he fucked her against a car while his uncle watched and she watched the uncle watch. I thought this is romance. They're alive. Romance is alive. And that was another one of my 2026 trend predictions. Romance is alive and well in 2026. And it is kind of like eat your heart out weathering heights. Like this is modern Gothic romance.

Yeah. And for me, that felt like really, a couple of things felt really cemented by this strange. Was it the blood smear on her mouth that was giving? First, speaking of saltburn,

saltburn for you, or like, how did you feel that it? First, it was when he touched her hair off of her face with his blood covered hand. And I thought this is Gothic romance. I did not,

expect that to then escalate to her kissing his other hand where the blood is fresher, smearing her lips with blood and not wiping it off. And just that, that's part, that's actually partnership. Cornelia doesn't know about that, but that's partnership. And I just thought, like, I never would have expected in the first episode of this show to be watching a Gothic romance in industry season four. And I think that's so cool. And it also has sort of also opened up

the other part of the show to me in that way as well. Like there are a lot of parts of industry that are a ghost story. There are a lot of parts of industry that are a Gothic romance and that are sort of like extremely traditional

in some of their tellings and extremely modern in other ways. And so I'm almost like I walk out of this episode. episode, like, really excited to watch the rest of the season. On the ghost story front, I will just say the way in which, like, Bill Adler is haunting Eric, this season is interesting to me. And then the way in which it all started with Harry's death in the very first episode,

in the way in which that was just sort of hovering over all of his classmates, if you want to call them that, as the story progressed. Rob, what did you want to say about that? I just think in terms of, for one, turning these not just from ghost stories, but like twinning the daddy issues between this couple and these two characters and kind of driving them in parallel. I thought like specifically the hammer lines, we have not mentioned yet, the Cordelia line about how your father told me he was going to terminate the pregnancy until he found out you were a girl

kind of paired off with Henry himself saying, like, do you know what would have been a more loving gesture for my father of a septomy? Right. It's like they are, they're weirdly in similar places. They're weirdly kind of cursed in their ways that they're trying to get out from under. I don't know how successful they're going to be, but I love this sort of interrogation of those ideas. I love the idea of those as being like a driving force

that's bringing these two fucked up people together within their fucked up relationship. And you're right, Jody, the idea that we're getting into it so early in the season I think is part of the magic of it. This is not an eight-episode season where episode seven, guess what? We're going to swerve and we're going to tell this sandalone story that you're never going to expect,

as we've seen in every other prestige show to date. Right. It is table setting, right? It's understanding these people as we reshuffle the deck as we as we change everything about what this season is going to be about as every season of industry does, this is where these two critical characters are. It puts really important emotional stakes on Henry's success or failure at Tender, right? Because like if they just brought Henry on board after seeing what happened when he was in charge of a company last season,

we would just be like, here we go again. Why do we, why should we care? He's just going to fail again, as he says inside of this episode. But now I can't, I don't want Tender to succeed. It's going to make me sort of root against myself. I don't want tender to succeed because I don't trust Whitney at all. I don't know what's going on. There's deep, shady secrets going on here. I want Harper to succeed. And if Harper's success

requires tender to fail, that's interesting to me. But I also want Yaz to be happy and Henry to succeed. So, I mean, no one's going to get where they want this season or ever. They're not. Rob, you paralleling those lines is, well, as you

well, as you well know, men are obsessed with legacy and women are obsessed with not being murdered. And I think, like, the absolute controlled insanity of having an hour before said, the kindest thing my father could have done was get a vasectomy. And then to have ever so briefly come out of his sort of manic, depressive haze and said, I think we should have a baby. Well, he's not out of the haze.

That's the manic part. That's true. I want to get to that in a second. Before we wrap up with that, I just want to beat on the Yaz and Haley scene because Karen Chipka is in this episode in a Northwestern sweatshirt. Yeah.

What do we make of that exchange? They're reminding us that this character exists. Okay. Jody? Anything? Yeah, I didn't draw a lot from this, to be honest with you. I'm curious if the infidelity clause counts if you sleep with a woman

who you could not get pregnant, you know, or could not get pregnant by it. Yeah. Because that's usually why an infidelity clause is in, well, I don't know about nepotism. those in general, but in terms of like nobility, it's usually to preserve the line. How plugged in our

are you, Joe, on nobility law? Like, you know, marriage law specifically. You know, it's not my... That was your minor in college. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So a little. Yeah, I mean, my main takeaway was that they were just establishing some sort of confusing sexual tension, maybe, like Yasmin

inviting her into the bed and the sort of, but it also felt a little bit akin to the relationship that Yasmin had with her former boss sort of mentor, that international woman of mystery, is like, okay, is Yasmin actually, oh, Celeste, is Yasmin actually, you know, wanting to maybe like have this girl in her bed or is she just challenging her? Like, is she just challenging and sort of pushing and sort of pushing and confusing, like, yet another young woman. It did seem like a challenge.

It also seemed like girls got needs. And, you know, Henry hasn't quite come around yet. He's off in a garage somewhere. Come around, great phrasing. Okay, so listen, Katie Baker, the great Katie Baker, did interview Marissa Bella about the final moment when Henry's like, should we have a baby? And this is when Marissa Abella, who plays, yeah,

said that she used the word delusional. mania and said, quote, she's never going to be safe with this man again. So if that's not the ick, I don't know what is. This was a hard no from Yaz, with the blood smear still in her face. So cue the pet shop boys. It's a bad time.

There's huge, are you fucking kidding me vibes in that moment, right? Like after everything these two characters have been through, for that to be his revelation, embarrassing, frankly, for Henry. But, you know, who's to say? we come out of our long crazy nights with. We just have to like, you know, men are just going to fuck their fears into women and continue the tradition.

Anything you want to say, Jody? I mean, you know, the thing about me is that I could never let Yasmin off the hook either, though. And it's like, yeah, Henry came out of the garage and immediately said, I should procreate. Yasmin, you know, got laid on the car and immediately was like, well, guess things are all better. I think I made the right choice here. I think when I created this marriage. convenience. I actually made the right choice. And so I'm going to strap on my headscarf. I'm going to

kiss my husband's bloody knuckles and everything's going to be fine. And like two seconds later, she is just always re-realizing I made a huge mistake. It is an incredible gift of that character. All right, Jody Walker, can you remind folks where they can reach us with their thoughts on, you know, ghost dads? harpsichord, strap-ons, anything else that they might want to talk to us about here. We would just love for you to email us at harpsichord strap-on at gmail.com.

If you need the spelling, you can tune into YouTube or Spotify to see that on video right now or you can Google it, or maybe it'll be in the New York Times crossword this week. One can dream. I do want to know, just for people who are listeners only, strap-on no hyphen in strap-on.

Just harpsichord strap-on straight up as his customer. We're here. And if you did not watch this episode on video, what you missed towards the very beginning was Jody silently miming the way in which Lady Cordelia spit the mint out of her mouth in Yaz's direction.

It was an incredible piece of podcasting. And Jody, we're so grateful to be doing this. I'm sorry, I'm making this space again. I'm thinking of what she said again. Everybody was talking about taste way too much. Oh, yeah. Thank you to Rob. Mahoney.

Thank you, Joe. And on that note. To Otto for always packing mints. Yeah. For the tastemakers, really. That's who I hope dies. If we're laying down who's going to die, I hope it's auto.

Yeah. We dare to dream. Well, he's already got DeKenzhenzy and ghost rid and all over room. Unless I can kill Charles Tanani again, and in which case I will choose that. Thank you to Ashley Smith and Devin Ronaldo for the work of this episode. Thank you to Justin Sales for his work on the speed in general. And we will be back with more industry next week.

The episode's a little late this week just because Monday was a holiday, but usually we were aiming to have these out on Mondays. And then we'll also have an episode, of course, about the next episode of the pit out later this week. And that is what is happening on the prestige feed. And we'll see you soon. Bye. You're here. But are you here here? You go to Hawaii in your head all the time.

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