The Prestige TV Podcast - 'Justified: City Primeval' Episode 3 Recap

Episode Date: July 27, 2023

Joanna and Rob return to give us the dance behind the glass and recap the latest episode of 'Justified: City Primeval.' Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Rob Mahoney Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Sean Fennessey. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And together we host The Big Picture, The Ringers Film Podcasts for new releases, career retrospectives, director interviews, movie drafts, top fives, and so much more. Twice a week, we break down the latest releases, argue about whether movies are doomed, and debate our modern film canon. Listen to The Big Picture on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Back to the Prestige TV podcast feed.

I'm Joanna Robinson, and joining me today. He's not bad for a white guy. It is Roma. Tony. Hi, Rob. It's me, Joanna, little Susie homemaker. I'm here. Against so lots, we're here. We're going to be here with you on your journey to justified city primeval. But unlike Paul Simon, really given this is not going to Graceland. He's staying in Detroit. It's a real bummer for his daughter. We're here to talk about season one, episode three, backstabbers. If you want season one, episode one and two, that was, we did that last time,

previously on. You can go check that out. This episode was written by Aisa Davis and Chris Parmenzano. Chris is an old justified writer and an executive producer of this new series and directed by John Avnet. I want to bring up something. I want to start with something that I didn't bring up last week, but one of our listeners tweeted at me, something like that to let me know. They'll find me.

If I forget something, someone will find me. They just wanted to mention, I think it's worth mentioning. We get a glimpse of Detective Raymond Cruz in the show, and this is the character. I think we mentioned that in the book City Prime Evil, Railing Givens is not the main lawman. It's Detective Raymond Cruz. The actor playing Detective Raymond Cruz on City Prime Evil, again, we have not spent much time with him. We might see him again, is Paul Calderon, who played Detective Raymond Cruz in the 1998 film out of sight.

So this is a little bit of the Leonard verse. It's a complicated Leonard verse because, as I know you recall this, Rob, being a justified scholar yourself, Carla Gujino showed up, not Jennifer Lopez, but Carla Gujino showed up to play Karen, quote unquote Goodall, who's essentially Karen Sisko in season three have justified. So if we consider the world that Timothy Oliphant, in which Timothy Oliphon is really Givens. We've got Karen Cisco from the Carinisco TV show

and Detective Raymond Cruz from Out of Sight. Is there anyone else from the Leonardverse that you would like to pull in and see show up in City Prime Evil? There's not a human being. I would like to see more than Karen Sisko pop back up in things. So I'm all for

whoever we need to cast into that although, I mean, that J-Lo performance is iconic for a reason. But out-of-sight is probably about as good as Elmore, Lenore. adaptations get. So as much as we want to pull from that world, I'm down for it. Excellent. First question for you, Rob. Yes. Who are the titular backstabbers in season one, episode three? Great question. Yeah.

I'm counting as many as five backstabbers. I have four. Who are your five? Okay. For one, Raylan, obviously Willa tells us plainly she has backstabbed him. Absolutely. Two, Clement and Sandy. both kind of backstabbing Skender together. Correct. A sweetie who has stashed Clement's gun and is putting wheels in motion to backstab him. And also the girl that Willa punched in the face who has backstabbed in a previous timeline. Who do you have that I don't?

The only one that I had that you don't is Carolyn's terrible ex-husband, Jamal, with the $106,000 lien from the IRS. Is that a backstab, though? I don't know. Is, yeah, good question, good question. Property dead. Maybe the ultimate backstabbing. Maybe in the upcoming episode, jerks, we can count him among that, but maybe not quite a backstabber. But yeah, got a lot of backstabbers.

I love an episode title with an S at the end, so we get to decide who gets to qualify. I want to kick off. We're going to go character by character sort of to break down this episode. But I wanted to start, I was poking around trying to dig up. up some Elmore Leonardese to help us through this podcast. And quite famously, Elmore Leonard printed 10 rules for good writing. So as you were an excellent writer, Rob Mahoney, I wanted to cite these rules to you. And let me know if you think they qualify for sports writing. Probably not. But, you know, I don't know if you have a novel stash somewhere. Rob, are you working on the

Great American basketball novel? Unfortunately, I'm not. But you know what? Life is long. There's time for me to take up an artist residency somewhere to camp out for a couple months and just emerge victorious with like just exactly the kind of book that is eating its own tail and completely full of its own shit. That's what I'm hoping to come out of life with. That sounds like you, Rob. Okay, here we go.

Number one, never open a book with weather. So a dark and stormy night, get it out of here. Yeah, needless to say. Number two, avoid prologs. Why mess up? round. What's ultimately the difference between prologue and chapter one, though? I mean, I feel like usually prologue starts elsewhere or else.

Just a little more throat clearing is the idea, I guess. Yeah, yeah. Fair. Never, never, and number three is a, this is a rule I was taught when I was writing for Vanity Fair. Never use a verb other than said to carry dialogue. This is a contentious writerly debate. Yeah. I think there are people who feel pretty strongly on both sides of the aisle.

say if whatever you're writing, the other verbs outnumber the saids, you're doing that wrong. It's tough. You need to be very selective for sure. Number four on Elmer Leonard's list, never use an adverb to modify the verb said he admonished gravely. So just keep it simple, stupid, basically. Plain and simple dialogue only from our guy Elmore. And this is, I mean, this is true if you read his books there, like, this is the genius of the Elmore. Leonard writing style.

And, like, I was reading through all these articles about Elmore Leonard. There's tons of beautiful, of course, eulogies for him when he passed away. And, like, everyone from, like, Stephen King to Martin Amos will, like, praise Elmore Leonard's incredibly spare style, that it's very dialogue-driven. And that is going to bring us to a later point. Okay, let me zoom through the rest of these. Number five, keep your... On that point, before we zoom ahead.

I do think, like, that's an interesting differentiation point on the saying said with adverbs on fiction versus nonfiction, right? If it's nonfiction, I think sometimes you have to use the adverbs to clarify intent. If you're writing fiction and feel compelled to put in, you know, said in whatever manner adverbally wise, it's kind of a failure of character, right? You should be able to intuit how they are saying what they're saying based on the situation and the circumstances, what you know of those people. So I can definitely see how he got to that point. And I think also my limited experience with Elmore Leonard's writing is that you can quickly hear the character's voice sort of through the writing. Okay. Number five, keep your exclamation points under control.

You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose. How do you feel about this rule as it relates to emails return to PR professionals? Oh, no. Rob, what a way to call me out. I'm just saying. Yeah, I use a lot of exclamation points in PR emails. That is correct. Sometimes I go back through and delete them out.

You know what I mean? I'll write the email and then I'll go back and be like, that's a few too many, Joanna. All right. Number six, never use the words suddenly or all hell broke loose. My guy just hates adverbs, all of them. And cliches. No dark and story nights. No, hell broke loose.

Okay. Number seven, and this is a really interesting one because I would argue he doesn't follow it. Number seven, use regional dialect patois sparingly. I'm like, my guy is always dropping G's off of the words in his books. I mean, certainly justified does not follow this rule. No, absolutely not. Number eight, avoid detailed descriptions of characters, like physical descriptions. And that's true.

Like, if you look up Real and Givens, I was looking at the book, Pront. I think Pronto is his first appearance. And, like, he's not described. His hat is described. His boots are described and his grin is described. But, like, he as a person is not really described. And I was like, that's interesting. Then he can be whoever you need him to be in your mind.

Who is he as a person, if not his hat, his boots, and his grin? There you go. Exactly. Number nine, don't go into great detail describing places and things. Again, it's just like, he's like, keep it to the dialogue. Let's keep it moving, all right? Number 10, try to leave out the part that the readers tend to skip. Love that.

It would be nice to know. Number 11, which even though this is supposed to be 10 rules, number 11, my most important rule is the one that sums up the 10. If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it. Yeah, this hurts. This hurts. It's very, it's very tempting to write in ways that sounds like writing. Yeah.

And honestly, some of my favorite TV and movie properties definitely sound like writing. So I'm kind of of two minds about it. I think the ultimate point is if it's going to sound like writing, it better be really freaking good. Yeah. You and I, because we saw Oppenheimer last week, we were talking about Sorkin, and you were making a distinction between good Sorkin and bad Sorkin. And I would say, Sorkin always sounds very written. 100%. But good Sorkin, you're like marinating in the delicious language and bad sorkin, you're like critching, right?

So, yeah, I think that's the rule. Beyond the good sorkin side of the line. And sometimes you're not the best judge of that. So float your writing around other people. All right, this has been 10, actually 11 simple rules for writing some more letter. So there you go. Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? Zepbound terseptide may be able to help.

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Taking Zepbound with a sulfonel urea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems. Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-9-9 or visit Zepbounds.lily.com. Where you start with Carolyn? And I already mentioned that we like open, she's listening to Jazz and we open with the lien from the IRS, which will come back a little bit later when she's, filling out the quote-unquote, I mean, online application to become a judge, I guess. Probably everything is an online application these days.

Anything you want to say about the lean before we get to Argyclymintman-Sell showing up in the dead of night? Well, I love it that we get the callback immediately in this episode with that application, right? We're already seeing kind of the ways in which her life has been squeezed before the show even began, based on this relationship with her ex and kind of all of the turmoil that she's sifting through as far as the remnants of that relationship. We saw him kind of still clearing stuff out

of their office. It was implied in a previous episode. So there's just like a lot of wreckage that she's still dealing with as it relates to this. And in this case, as it relates to like the first very clear thing that we understand Carolyn to want, right? I think we have an idea of who she is as a character.

We have a sense of what her principles are. But we see her walk into this courtroom and get up on the dais and allow herself one gavel stroke, which I appreciate the restraint, but it's pretty clear that she sees herself as participating in justice in a pretty different way than she is right now. And I think that we already called out on Genuel. This is like, you know, kind of the lightning rod of the first two episodes for us. And I think that moment with her sitting on the bench and her face and that sort of like naked

want, I found really arresting. And especially in contrast to Raylan, who is like a character who, like, would we say he wants a relationship with his daughter? We see him sort of like longing for it a bit, like sort of pining, like watching her get along with Maureen's kids later in the episode. But like, you know, as I'm hopping ahead a little bit, but as Willow points out to him, like, if you really wanted me here, I mean, it felt a little unfair for her to say if you really wanted me here, you would keep me safe. But like, what does Raylan want? And is it what

Clement said in the previous episode, which is just like the thrill of the chase, the addiction of the job? You know what I mean? This is a really interesting episode as it relates to want. I mean, we get these mirrored lines where Carolyn asked Clement, like, what he's doing, hassling Raylan in the way that he is. And he says, what am I doing? Whatever I want. And shortly after you get Willa telling Raylan that he's, that he's not. He's not really after you get Willa telling Raylan that he gets to do whatever he wants. And I think it all kind of comes back through Carolyn and she lays out to Raylan too.

They're like, not everyone gets to do that. You know, not every kind of person gets to do whatever they want. And here we have a case where what she wants, as you're saying, there's a naked ambition that she's showing us on screen. Like she wants to be an associate judge. And she's not able to do it because she's cleaning up other people's bullshit. And that is the kind of thing that, you know, Raylan cleans up after a lot of people.

But at the end of the day, he does a lot of what he wants. And does a lot of causing of the bullshit, the wreckage, the kind of wreckage that, like, you mentioned she's sifting through with her ex-husband. Like, I feel like Winona and Carolyn could have a lovely conversation about their ex-husbands. I do, I want to go back to that speech that she gives railing because I thought it was incredible, but I do just want to mention two things. I think we should be constantly tracking the use of music that, you know, Detroit is a music town,

as we mentioned last week. But I think starting with Carolyn listening, to this very nice jazz and then like we hear the noise pollution of Clement in the driveway like blaring music from his car absolute you know we've talked about how scary he is he has like an almost like horror movie moment later in this episode like and for her to be like you don't get to come in my house like she's an absolute spine of steel badass like oh yeah i cannot imagine standing down someone like this and drawing that line of like stay out of my house, you know?

For her to say that when she knows probably better than anyone else in this story so far, maybe except sweetie, exactly how dangerous Clement is and maybe that's the reason why she has to say it is because she knows exactly how dangerous he is. But I love that stand-up. I mean, already I think we're getting a pretty clear formula for City Primeval, which is if you have any at least two of Raylan and Clement and Carolyn on the screen together, you're really cooking with gas.

And I think a lot of the other scenes are kind of still getting up to temperature and still figuring themselves out and still figuring out the dynamics of what these characters are to each other. But those three, like last week we talked about kind of the collision course between Raylan and Clement in particular, and that's obviously there. But Carolyn is kind of a part of that triangle too. And all of those scenes between any of those three actors and three characters, they just really, really sing right now.

Yeah, they cook, absolutely. And I agree with you about like some of the other. moments or sequences in the episode not feeling like quite on the level. So for that, Willis says the great thing about her dad not being bad for a white guy. Pretty fly for a white guy, in fact, mailing Givens. But Carolyn calls Raylan out, right?

You mentioned this. She says, then prove him, get him the right way. Look, I know that's your kid. You're angry. I get it. I'd be angry too. But everyone doesn't get to be angry the way you do. They love that line.

And like this is, again, we talked about this a little bit last week, but this is like the opportunity that City Primeval has to reckon with the archetype that is Raylan Givens and how Carolyn is the voice of that. While at the same time, she's someone who's calling Raylan out while at the same time has this sort of like somewhat flirtatious like frisson of something relationship with it. So it's like, it's such a good short cut, short hand for the audience of like, we love railing Givens. And we're also like, what the fuck do you think you're allowed to do here, my guy? Like from the start, you know? And one of the Leonard eulogies that I read, I think this one was by Christopher Orr in the Atlantic, talking about the archetypes because Leonard started writing cowboys and then moved to crime fiction.

So Raylan is such like a fun character. because he's like a character ported over from his like western, pulpy western days into his usually said in either Detroit or Miami like crime novel days. And Christopher Orr wrote in The Atlantic, these are stories of men who, even if lawmen exist to some degree outside the law, throwbacks to a more primitive personal sense of justice. So like that's the cowboy way. That's the Raylan way. Carolyn is perhaps a countervallance to that or is she as susceptible as him when push comes to sub? Like we're going to see, right?

Yeah, she's definitely in a tight spot herself. There's no question about that. But I think the result of her tight spot is her defending someone who's reprehensible in a way that legally he still needs to be defended by somebody. I think what's interesting about this exchange with Raylan It's another way of her saying what she wants, which is like, get this fucking guy and don't mess it up.

Like, please do not mess this up because she is as roped in to his scheme as anything. And she wants to get sweetie off the hook. She wants to protect this man who's so important to her. And she's kind of an audience surrogate in that way where it's like, please do not let this murderer who has previously walked on, I think what they say was four murder or manslaughter charges previously from the Oklahoma situation or whatever incident was that they were referring.

to, like Clement has gotten out of these sorts of jams before, and it's because he knows how to play people like Raylan, presumably. I want to go now to the Detroit PD sort of section, and this is, I would say, like, the weaker section so far of the show. It's nothing against these actors because Marin, Ireland, Norbert Leo, Butts, and all of them are, Victor Williams, are all, like, actors I really like, have really liked in other things. It's just not the same as like Rachel

and Tim and art and like that everything that worked in that office setting in justified. Do you have any like thoughts or feelings about why it's not hitting exactly the same way or I think some of it is the slow burn of getting to know

these characters and I mean for one like I mean there's literally do we even have a name for like this extremely cowboy cop who like always wants to kick every door. And like, I don't even, does this, is this even a named character? Yes.

And this is what's great. So Norbert Leo Butts, who plays him, which is like one of the greatest actor names of all time. I love that he did not change his name. He's like a Broadway guy. I know him from musicals. The character's name is Norbert. So he just named him the name of the same character as the actor.

Okay. That guy is not a Norbert. I'm sorry. And Marin Island is playing a character named Morin. So the Marin is playing Morin. And Norbert is playing Norbert. And I just feel like we didn't stretch too far. when we came to this.

Not so much. And I appreciate some of the dynamics between the officers. You're getting kind of these counterpoints to how they would react to being in Raylan's position where his daughter is threatened and kind of like how they are thinking about this process or at least how they're kind of debating it out in the open. Yeah.

I will say I'm a little worried about Maureen. I'm starting to get a bad vibe. 100%. In a lot of different ways. And some of it is like there's something to just how outwardly helpful she's been to Raylan that has really gotten me on edge. And maybe that says more about me than it does about her. But there's some small circumstantial things in this episode.

And what really got me is she has this conversation with Raylan when they're on their stakeout together when she's talking about these dreams she's had, her relationship at home. And Raylan asks her like how she's able to kind of lead a healthy, balanced life. And she's like, oh, that's easy. You just pretend. And dear listener, I raised both of my eyebrows. I was very high. I'm like,

it feels like a matter of time before we find out that she's looped into all this mess somehow. I completely agree. And I think, I mean, I think it has to be one of them.

And I think she, based on demeanor, like, what I think they're giving us is like a bit of a red herring in the Norbert character when he says stuff about throwing Clement off a building

or black bag in a cornfield, all this sort of stuff that's like, but it's also, it's also notable that like, even in that exchange, like he's saying kill Clement. Yeah. And she's saying,

whoa, whoa, let's pump the brakes citing police reasons. But maybe she's citing it because she's working with him at some capacity. Or at least he's involved where she has some other interest. Same vibe, absolutely. And I think that like, I think also her telling her weird dream story,

I was trying to figure this out. I haven't cracked it yet. But one of the things that set me down looking up sort of essays about Elmore Lennar's writing style and stuff like that was the use of storytelling in... Because we're going to get later to this whole, you know, Hurricane, mother and a hurricane story.

Yeah. That Clement tells that I am going to need your help, like, breaking down. But in this episode, there's two people who tell stories, and it's like Maureen talking about her dream, and then later Clement talking about this. I was like, that seems like an association sort of thing. Like, I don't know. I just want to keep our eye on Maureen. I completely agree.

Also, I got to say, her husband, Bill... I mean, he's taken strays in this conversation. As far as I can tell, for one, not being Magic Mike, and two, having sleep apnea, which is, look, this is tough for a guy. The real problem. The real problem is letting it fall off. You got to keep the apnea mask on if you're going to have it. He's asleep. I liked, I mean, I think there was a bit of style and a verve to the sequence where each cop is apprehending a different person, right?

We get Sandy, we get Clement, and we get Sweetie all sort of taken in. And then they're like cutting back and forth of the interrogation. It's worth mentioning and all three of these cops lie in the interrogation. And then I think the closest we've gotten to like a Boyd-Crouder-esque turn of phrase is when Marina is interrogating sweetie and she says, tranquil patched therein, which just felt like a very Crowder-esque, like. like, florid turn of phrase to me. I could also see Boyd doing the above the fruited plane a bit that Mansell busts out later in this episode.

Absolutely. I'm putting this in this section, even if maybe it belongs in a later section, but Clement asking for the tape recorder and then singing once again, the white stripes. He loves him. The white stripes. Two things.

Number one, his slow walk towards the two-way mirror towards Reillan straight horror movie stuff. Number two, what I really love about Clement Mansell is he is not very good at singing. And that's sort of the best thing. Talking about wants and dreams and hopes, we talked about his dream to become like a recording artist last week. And I just like, well, I believe Carolyn Wilder, based on very little evidence, is like qualified to sit on the bench. I love that. I love that he just like seems like.

wildly unqualified to be a rock star. You know what I mean? Well, it's amazing how in going from one recording to now a recording and a performance, now we're wondering, is he in a band or is he in a White Stripes tribute band? Because those are very different things. It's true.

And it's clear where his interests lie. But look, I love everything about that scene. And honestly, this is like one of my all-time favorite tropes is when the person being interrogated knows who's behind the mirror. I'm there for it every time. And I think this one is kind of proof to the formula I was referring to earlier is like, Raylan and Clement don't actually interact in this scene.

There is a plate of glass between them. And yet just by them being in the same place and Clement knowing it, incredible things happen. And like the way he just like smushes his face up against the glass mid-song. I mean, there's just, there's so many little acting choices. There's so many big character moments for all of these, all of these three that are kind of swirling around each other right now that I think are just really, really working.

I want to go to Sweetie. Yeah. Sweetie gets his own section here because the way they toss his bar is absolutely like horrible. We know there's a gun, well, it wasn't, but we know in theory there's like a gun stash there. But it was just such a violation to watch them rip open these bar stools and stuff like that. We meet Sweetie's partner with an incredible mustache, it must be said, right? who's like, we don't have to do this, right? And Sweetie says, I've lived a long time in this place and this town.

I can't go back now and I won't. And so I just wanted to like press pause on that line and talk about Detroit as, you know, this place that Elmore Leonard cared a lot about and put at the center of a lot of his stories. It was known as the Dickens of Detroit. meaning was as interested in every single stratosphere of the society, right? So we're like down at the bottom all the way to like Keith David's judge, you know what I mean? Like from the poshist suburbs to the, you know, grittiest back alley. And all of that interests him. And the ways in which the fates of all of those characters are intertwined, that's very, like, all of that stuff is very dickens.

What do you make of Sweeties line here? What do you make of the way in which, like, this, I'm here? I mean, my reading is, is I built this place, this bar, and, like, neither Clement nor the cops are going to drive me away from this place that I built with my sweat and blood and tears, etc. You know? Yeah, this felt very Harlan to me in the ways that we saw from the Bennetts, from Limehouse, from Boyd, like, again, the idea that no one,

can uproot you from the place you have called home, even when every piece of logic says you should get the hell out of town. And those are always interesting characters when you dig your heels in in that way. I think where Sweetie is interesting is it's very clear that he has a germ of a plan, right? He has this idea that he has the gun, the murder weapon, and he wants to do something with it to implicate Clement in a way that it just seems way, way, way too easy for episode three, if I'm being honest. So it's like the comeuppance is around the corner, I feel like, for our guy, Sweetie.

And in particular, to kind of tie these threads together, the fact that, you know, you mentioned all the cops lying in their interrogation styles. Maureen is the cop who's interrogating sweetie. And she tells him we have the murder weapon, which is something he knows to be a lie. Right. And that certainly, like, again, kind of set something off in my head where it's like, is she tipping him off in a way that she can tip him off? again, I'm still trying to untangle all of the threads as far as how that goes. Layers upon layers, okay. But it's clear at this point that Sweetie is trying to unfurl something

doesn't quite have enough familiarity with how the game should be played that he needs to go to Carolyn and basically game it out together as far as like what he can actually do with this gun. Yeah. And that makes me very concerned for his future because this is, these are not people. Like, Clement is not the kind of guy you want to be messing with if you don't know how to play his game. I also think in terms of cinematic language, the way the camera was positioned showing his hand, putting the gun into the jukebox, makes me think that we will have a moment where someone is going to reach in and pull that gun out of the jukebox, right?

Chekhov's gun and Chekhov's jukebox, essentially. All right. Clement and Sandy and our guy Skender is our next section here. We We know where the judge's book is, right? Inside the toaster? Do we know exactly where it is? Oh.

Is it not inside the toast? Okay. That actually makes so much more sense, neither you mentioned it. I kind of assumed the bagel toaster situation was just like a weird fucked up power play. I mean, it was just like... I wouldn't put it past him, but...

We have like, you know, this incredibly, like, toxic but watchable relationship. between those two. I kind of thought he was just messing with her, but now, yeah, it makes a lot of sense that it's just

in the bagel toaster. I wanted to... Skender is such an interesting... Skender is such a... Len Leonard character, a Dewey Crow type of character, right? You know what I mean?

Yeah, I was going to ask, is he the Dewey Crow of Albania or the devil of Albania? He's one of the two, and I'm still piecing it all together. I think he's a Dewey Crow, but I think he's also, in later seasons,

we get this character, season three, we get this character Sammy Tonin, who is related to Theo Tonin, who is like this crime boss. So it's just sort of like these idiots who are in the organization, but like maybe not powerful, we get heavy foreshadowing from Sandy that if something happens to Skender, yeah, the powerful Albanians of Detroit will rain holy hell down on, I mean, I've never heard a heavier vengeance foreshadow than we got from Sandy and her little bagel monologue here. Do you think Clement is just like oblivious to that foreshadowing? Or does he think he's kind of ahead of that in the way he's ahead of a lot of other characters?

Because it's clear he's not really reacting to it. He still is full on messing with and holding up Skender. In a way, I feel like he should be like maybe you shouldn't fuck with the entirety of the Balkans if you're in. Well, he didn't even know where Albania was before today, by the way. Sandy, though. Sandy is plugged in on geopolitics. Yeah, she gets it. But I think that I think it has to go back to Clement in Carolyn's driveway, whatever I want.

Like, he just has some sort of attitude, given the way that he's, like, slipped so many nooses previously in his criminal career, that he's just sort of like, I'm ready for whatever. It is. And, and, you know, this is, like, zipping ahead a little bit, but, like, he's not, like, Clement is, seems like this chaotic, like, psychotic force of nature, but he's not stupid. Like, when the cops are tailing him and he pulls that move at the stoplight, and I was like, oh, this is more than I necessarily thought Clement was capable of. I mean, we should have known because he, like, provoked Raylan to beating his face last week's episode, which is exactly what he wanted to do.

He found Willa, like, pretty quickly. Like, he's smart, but also stupid. And that's, but Skender is, you know, what Israel said? He's loaded. He's in love, and he ain't so bright. He really ain't. Good old Skender. I mean, speaking of characters who are not picking up things,

I mean, Skender is not picking up the most pointed line of questioning. And I know that he's probably half-blasted for that exchange in the bar, but like, I won't give you my blessing to marry my fake sister until you show me your luxury panic room. Your gold bars. Come on. Cougarins? What do you got?

Good Lord, Skender. Before we get to the 151 proof, which, by the way, I have not had since college and probably shouldn't have had that. Probably, like, killed some brain cells when I had it. We have to talk about Raylan's conversation with Skender and the age of, you know, and the age of question, is a hot dog a sandwich? Rob Mahoney. Is a hot dog a sandwich?

Of course it is. Of course it is. Of course it is. But we don't even get anyone on the show weighing in on. I guess we can get Skender's opinion. Skinder is against, firmly against. Steve, are you, are you, here are you available, our producer, Steve Allman?

Because I say it's firmly not. So Steve, who is from Chicago? Hot Dog Capital of the World is a hot dog a sandwich. I will say it is a sandwich Okay, that's absolutely bullshit Thank you All right

What makes it a sandwich Why is it a sandwich It's on bread It's meat meat And vegetables between bread I don't know how else to describe A sandwich than that Hotog bun is so specifically

You can't No, I guess you can do like a crab roll You could put a crab roll On a hot dog bun All right, all right I still don't think it's really a sandwich Please weigh in We don't have an email

Associated with this podcast But you can fight us $27,000 ring. Skender's pulling, you know. Whatever it is that the businesses that's backing the hot dog Emporium, it's working. Oh, you don't think it's that hot dog, that yellow painted hot dog stand

in the middle of like a parking lot, no? I somehow don't, but maybe I'm underestimating it. Like maybe that is just like legit the best like greasy spoon hot dog pickup joint in the greater Detroit area. Maybe there's one on every corner. All right. The Hurricane Mama story.

Curious. You know what it struck me as? Very, very, you want to know how I got these scars? Very joker to me. I'm like, him telling the story is one thing. Them deciding to show it to us? Shooting it. Yeah.

This is very interesting to me. And that's like a not a nothing budget thing to shoot. So like, I mean, is this coming back? What does this tell you about his character? Do you think it's true? Like, what do you think? I don't think it's true. Yeah.

I really hope it comes back because I will say the things that I am bumping on in the show so far are weird little execution things like that. I think there's a lot of weird stuff with the way,

you refer to the way the pop music elements are being used in the show, specifically the Detroit-based ones, which all makes sense. But there's some weird score stuff happening in this season that's like a little handholdy

when Sweetie shows up in Carolyn's office and says, like, I might have a murder weapon. And immediately like a dramatic beat drops. We don't need that in the same way that with this scene, if you want Clement telling this story, give me the slow ominous zoom in on Clement's face as he is telling this story and not like cut away to, I'm gonna say like not the best tornado CGI I've ever seen.

And it's just like weird, again, like weird ominous shots of like a broken swing blowing in the wind. I just don't really like I get. what they're trying to do in terms of him like setting the stage for this story and creating an image of it but it did not work for me in a way that if it does not come back in some other fashion, I'm going to be

a little weirded out by it. It has to come back but like I'll be very curious to see how. I mean like if we hear again like if in the vein of you want to know I got these scars we hear him tell that story again but it's different yeah that's cool and interesting I don't know that I need to see it though

in order for that to work. Absolutely not. I want to talk about comedy characters. Okay, because I like the Skender character and I like this portrayal of him. It's a little, maybe it's even a little extra cartoonery than, and maybe it's the accent, maybe it's the bro, and maybe it makes you think of the track suit mafia from Hawkeye, but like, um.

On that note, how many times do you think Skender said bro in this episode? I have a count for you. We're going to see how close you can get to the point. To your bro count? Oh, no. 15? Only nine bros, but you know what? It really felt like 15.

It felt like 15. Okay, nine bros. A lot of bro in there. A lot of bro. Especially like so quickly off the, I don't know. Maybe the overlap between the audience for Hawkeye and the audience for this are not the same. But maybe think a lot of the track suit mafia. I just love that he died how he lived, which is his literal last word in this show is bro.

So shout out to Skender for that. Have you ever read any Carl Huyaheuf? in crime novels? I have not. So his are set, I mean, I believe mostly in Florida or at least Everglade adjacent sort of areas.

And they're very, like, funny. They're very, like, wacky and funny. And then you get someone like Dennis Lehane or James Ellery, like James Elroy, like much grittier. And Elmore Leonard was this, like, very odd tight wire act between the two. where there was like the wacky comedic in with the violent, hard-boiled, you know,

Raolin has shot a lot of people, et cetera, sort of thing. Boy, has he. And I would say I think, like, Dewey Crow fits, Dickie Bennett fits. Skender feels like a little, like 10% percent. I need 10% off the top from Skender. Well, I guess it's too late. R-A-P. But so there's this quote from Amor Leonard talking to Barry Sondfeld about the use of humor in specifically the film Get Shorty, but in any adaptation, he says, I told Barry before he started shooting, when someone delivers the funny line, I hope you don't cut to another actor to get a reaction like a grin or a laugh or something, because these people are serious. And I just kind of love that that like, you know, if you think of characters in Get Shorty, like Dennis Farina's character, James Gannelfield.

Enie's character. Like, they're saying this, like, wild shit, but they're very serious about it. And, like, obviously, Skender is very serious. But when Skender says something like, are you pulling my shit? I'm like, that feels a little, like, borat to me and not quite Elmore Leonard. Do you know what I mean? So. I feel like what it's missing is maybe the context of the rest of his family or the rest of

the kind of larger crime family. Like, that's why Dewey works, right? Is you see Dewey in relation to Boyd. And you see how the pieces fit together. And in what cases do, he's being ridiculous in which he's like admonished by his own group or kind of punished by his own group. We're just seeing Skender kind of on an island by himself. And he's just talking about like big butts and playstations. And it's just like, this guy does feel tonally a little disparate from the rest of the show right now.

We needed that moment where like his dad hears about some dumb thing he did and gets really frustrated. And we get a sense of kind of this larger world because he, he, no one gets. to roll their eyes at him other than the people who are trying to kill him. And that's kind of a tough cell narrative. It's a really good point. I love that. That's a great point. I will say him talking about the art in his loft

paintings that's powerful and look good behind the couch. Yeah. And then we cut to these like really garish like naked lady paintings and like, okay. And then yeah, I thought the line who was panicking I have PlayStation was pretty solid. It's pretty good stuff.

He's really got some good lines. I really enjoy the two sides of the apple metaphor he's going with with Sandy. I like a lot of what's happening there. It's just his time on the show is so short, at least appears to be so short. We're led to believe that he's killed. We don't actually see him be killed, so maybe he's not. But it seems that way, certainly. And for like this to be our only real impression of the character, there's not a lot of there.

Certainly we're going to see more from the Albanians. Oh, certainly. That brings us to Willa and Raylan. This is exit stage right for Timothy Elephant's real-life daughter. I'm not sad to see her go. I have to say, I like this concept a lot of Willa and Raylan, especially given that the ending of the series justified was all about Raylan finally deciding to be a father.

and then we find out in the intervening years was he really a father though he was physically there in Florida but was he and so for her to like I like this character I just don't with love and respect I don't know that I love the performance but like the sit down the conversation at the diner

the insistence that they have a real breakfast and a real diner her saying Harlan Public School a million years ago like all this sort of stuff and then the exchange of like you are he says you are my life and she says, are you even in it? And he says, how do you think it feels

to ask? And she's like, you know, he's like, how do you think that's horrible? And she's like, how do you think it feels to ask? I have to ask you that. That's a great exchange. I don't know. Is the performance was the performance wholly working for you? How do you feel about it? You know what?

It did not bother me in the first two episodes of Vivian Oliphant's performance as Willa. Yeah. Because I think her role in those episodes was mostly just to ego check Raylan every once in a while. this one, like, they really hang a lot of emotional heft for this episode on her and her relationship to her dad. And that's a lot to ask. And I would argue too much to ask given some of these scenes. And in particular, that breakfast scene, which is, I think, respectfully, just pretty rough.

And the way that the cutting works where it's like you see Tim Aliphon and it's like, this side of this conversation is working. And this other side, it's, again, it's not something I want to harp on because I think we know how this stuff goes. with younger actors, especially inexperienced actors in shows like this sometimes and kind of like the hate they get as a result. I don't think that these scenes were really holding up. I do think some of the stuff plays better later, right? Like, I think their goodbye plays a little better

than the opening conversation. And when she's like begging him to go to Graceland rather than get on this plane, like there's some exchanges like that that work for me more effectively, but overall, it feels like this is probably time for that character to go. And I think it's interesting that you mentioned the score earlier in the episode because I actually wrote my notes.

Plaintiff, Plucky Banjo plays as Raylon watches Willa and registers what a failure he is. And I, like, yeah, I didn't know why I was taking note of the score, but I was. And so you're right. It's like the score is, like, Elmore Leonard is so iconic for showing, not telling. And the score is kind of trying to tell. You know what I mean? We would rather just show. But yeah, I mean, I don't, I have no need to harp on, on Vivian Oliphon.

She, like, and especially, like, she's gone. Three episodes in. She's gone, presumably, for the rest of the series. Maybe she'll go back to the finale. But, like, she's not in Detroit anymore. It's a moot point. I am bummed that we're getting kind of, like, the end of what could have been a recurring feature for us, which is just, like, Raylan Bad Dad Watch.

Because this is some real bad dadding in this episode overall. He even gives her the, like, I'll do better. and then basically ships her off at the first opportunity. Like, very rough parenting episode for Raylan in a way that I guess we're just going to be kind of done with that subplot for now. But I guess it, like, harsh is the cool of Raylan, like, crime, you know, crime hunter to be a dad. You had asked me before we started recording what the thing he gives to her before they, like, put her luggage in the car, et cetera, her pink away roller bag.

And I believe this is, we think it's a Pontiac symbol from like the front grill of a Pontiac that she picked up after she like wandered through the murder tunnel into the Glashard factory. And like maybe. And maybe if she wasn't wandering through murder tunnels and Glashard factories, like he wouldn't be so inclined to ship her back to Florida. Like I don't, we didn't talk about this. But like what was that little wander that she took through Detroit? It was like the most dangerous wander a teen child has ever taken through a city, an unknown city, you know? So conspicuously dangerous, I was waiting for the callback. I was like, okay, she's going to pick up this Pontiac logo.

It's going to lead them back to like, oh, she accidentally walked through like a pop-up chop shop, basically, in which they're like turning over cars that's somehow going to lead to like something happening in the case. But it doesn't really seem like that's going to be true. And she's just out of town. all those kind of loose ends we had with Willa now seem like only loose ends. So I don't really know what to make of all that. Again, it's not a plot line that I was against from the get-go

in terms of this dynamic between Raylan and Willa, but it just didn't really lead us anywhere beyond apparently Raylan plotting for this entire episode how to get rid of his daughter to the point that even like other cops know that he's been trying to figure out how to do this. That thing with your daughter. Yeah, yeah.

That thing with your daughter. And it's just like, this is what, that thing was, was just like putting her on the plane and the way that you always get the people you care about away from you in every other episode of Justified? My only guess about the whole Pontiac symbol thing is that it is, you know, a way to reflect the evolution of Detroit from booming, you know, Motor City to, you know, what it is, you know, there's a reason why a whole bunch of horror films have been shot in. Detroit in the last, you know.

This was the barbarian moment, is what you're saying of Justified. I was going to say that it follows moment. There's a lot of examples of great horror films shot in Detroit. But like, as an example of like this crumbling, you know, blue-collar American sort of industry town,

similar to Harlan, a coal mining town, you know, sort of thing. So that's the only thing I can think of, but otherwise, perhaps Chekhov's Ponny X-simble will come back the way the gun and the jukebox surely will. Anything else you want to say? I mean, we have our criticisms, but as you say, when our three leads, and I feel comfortable calling them our three leads, when our three leads are on screen with each other

in any combination, we are cooking with gas, so there are still plenty here that I am really, really enjoying. Anything else you want to say about backstabbers? I mean, I will say, like, even absent those scenes, like, I think it's okay that you feel that tension, right? Like, when Raylan and Clement aren't on the screen together, we want them to be. Like, that's important to the propulsive feel of the show.

Yeah. And I'm into Maureen and Wendell and Sweetie and all these other characters enough. They're, like, I'm more than happy to spend time with them and see what they're about and see where these plot lines go. So I think the balance of those things can still be really effective. I think the key is not getting caught down, like, the Skender side streets too frequently, right? Like if we can kind of keep it at least to the, like keep the cast and the storytelling

condensed enough that we maintain that momentum. I'm all for it. But I will say, like even in the Skender scenes, even I think it would, like maybe the least effective scenes in this episode, we're always learning something about these characters. Like we are learning things about Raylan in the Willa Seeds. We are learning things about Clement, for example, in the Skender scenes. I did think it was notable that like Clement kind of had a hard time keeping his cool with Schender at a certain point.

Like, he started really breaking on this grift. Like, he started losing his temper. He started getting frustrated toward the end of it. And really, I think what the demarcation point was, he pulls up in his car and Skender basically has his tongue down Sandy's throat. And from that point on, like, his whole demeanor is different in a way that, like, I think we're learning something about him as this, like, again, this loose canon, wildcard force of chaos in this universe.

There are times where he can't even really check himself. Right. And you're right to point out Sandy because we have evidence that her admiration for Raylan is the reason, like, why he went so hard against Raylan, right? So, like, Sandy is, like, perhaps his weak point for him. But I should say, I actually think we learned the most about Sandy and all of that because she was, like, we do not. Like, she's, like, poor Skender, essentially. Like, it doesn't have to go down, like, you know, like, she didn't stop him. But she was wildly uncomfortable.

And, like, we've seen her be uncomfortable, like, when he was, like, grinding on her. And it was actually a gun in his underwear, totally normal, very cool stuff. But, like, she's... Her discomfort has popped up. But I think this idea of, like, her idea of a fun crime time and his idea of a fun crime time are not the same. So when is that going to be too much for Sandy? You know what I mean? I love the look on her face when Skender busts out the $27,000 engagement.

ring. Like, she's legitimately overcome and moved by this, like, gesture from the... Again, a guy who's, like, very dumb, but very sweet. Like, he is legitimately sweet to her in ways that Clemon is not. And you're right. Like, the way that that relationship is going to

eventually kind of like, those two will grate on each other, we'll pull apart, we'll pull back together. I love their dynamic, too. It really is kind of like the fucked up relationship we need on television right now. And with that grand proclamation from Ramahoni,

about romance on television of 2020. We are done here. Thank you so much to our producer, Steve Allman, for a terrible ruling on the hot dog question, but great production work on this episode. And elsewhere in the feed,

you may have noticed we're doing this little mini the OC rewatch. We'll have the great Alan Seppinwall on this week, who's got an OC oral history book coming out, so we'll have some insight from him. And then coming up, We've got like only merge in the building is starting and winning time is coming back and all this sort of stuff. So stay tuned and we'll see you soon.

Bye.