The Prestige TV Podcast - 'Justified: City Primeval' Episode 6 Recap

Episode Date: August 17, 2023

It's all about a book and so many double-crosses as Joanna and Rob break down 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

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A hot dog is not a sandwich. And also, I'm Joanna Robinson. I'm here with Rob Mahoney. We are here to talk about Justified City Prime Evil season one, episode six. Adios. Rob, did you locate an ice cream truck so we can maybe have a little treat for after? I did, but unfortunately like the kid in this episode, my scoop just ate it. Just dropped it right on the sidewalk.

Devastating stuff. Terrible. What's the best ice cream flavor? A Ninja Turtle. What? The ninja from the ice cream truck. The Ninja Turtle ice cream? Have you never had one before? I don't know what you're talking about. Oh my God. Is this a Texas thing? No, it's not a Texas thing. They got little candy eyes. It's shaped like a ninja turtle.

Clearly, if you're going to an ice cream truck, it is the definitive offering. Okay. As far as ice cream truck offerings go, I'll go with like an Astropop or like a Rocket Pop. or like a rocket pop, whatever you want to call. Well, no, they're different things. Astro Pop. Okay, anyway, we're here to talk about television, not hot dogs or popsicles. Here in this feed, we love talking about television. We love talking about all kinds of television.

Prestige, as I like to say, newly, freshly, is in the eye of the beholder. So whatever you think is prestige, so do we. So we're talking about justified city primeval. We're also covering winning time in this feed. Mallory Rubin and I covered a little bit of Only Murders in the building. subscribe to this feed. What a great time you will have with various mixed and matched hosts

of your favorite ringer pals. Follow us on social, et cetera, et cetera. We would deeply appreciate it, but let's get down to business. Adios. We say goodbye today to sweetie and sweetie's bar. I suspect that is who we were saying goodbye to.

A bunch of people, a few people die in this episode. Quite a lot of audioses to be had. This episode is written by Taylor Elmore and VJ Boyd and directed by Sylvain White, who directed Stomp the Yard. The Very Underrated The Losers, a film I quite like with Idriselba and Zoe Saldana. I've never seen that one. Yeah, it's good.

It's fun. It's like kind of fun. And Slender Man, the 2018 remake. Should we start? I mean, we usually save Raylan and Carolyn for the end, but I kind of want to start with this hotel room. this is an episode that ends with a bar burning down but starts with a smoke detector. Cute.

Literally and metaphorically. Oh, who are we calling the smoke detector in this scenario? I think we are the smoke detector and it's, you know, Carolyn tugging at Raylan's undershirt to get into the room is certain. There's some fire there, if not just smoke. Correct. We are the smoke. That is the right answer.

We are the smoke detector. Both of these smoke shows I do like that Carolyn came to his hotel room so it's not just him like constantly hanging out in her driveway or whatever he drops you good to show that he is listening

and trying to understand her regional culture I love that for Raylan I just have to shout out this exchange when she says I've got something you want and he says that's fair to say Raylan tremendous

Excellent. On top of his game. I mean, Raylan in the undershirt, she looks great too. Everyone's looking great in this hallway of this hotel. But we have it actually substantial conversation here, one that we've been circling throughout the entire run of All of Justified, which is this idea of legality, what is legal versus what is just. Carolyn gives her own, it was justified sort of conversation here.

what did you think of this exchange job? Here's my question. So Carolyn comes here to tell Raylan more about the book and essentially to help him get the book, right? To help him and the authority secure it so that it can be taken out of Clement's hands. She also gives this big speech about like how vulnerable position this is for her, what she wants in terms of going after this judgeship.

But how does Carolyn helping Raylan and the marshals and the DPD get the book? help her get the judgeship. I know it could help squeeze Diane and take her out of the picture, but doesn't Carolyn need the book to also apply pressure to get herself the job? Yeah, so this is how I under the scheme as I understand it. She says, if you go to Diane and use Diane as bait, that will help you get Clement to the park, and you can get him with the book on him and all this sort of stuff and arrest.

him. And what Diane says, even though things go sideway at the park, what Diane says at the end of that is like, I'll never be a judge now. So it takes Diane off the table. And Carolyn saw Diane is her main competition for the judgeship. Does that sound right to you? That part makes sense. I guess I just interpreted the last episode when we had that exchange between Carolyn and Diane. And Diane is saying, like, go make friends with the governor, et cetera, et cetera.

I thought Carolyn was going to use the book. to squeeze people to get herself into more prime positioning, more so than just like weeding out the competition. Yeah. I mean, but maybe that puts her, like, we're constantly questioning, like, what line will Carolyn Cross to get what she wants? And this feels like a little cleaner than becoming the blackmailer herself, just saying, like, making the cops do it for her, I guess.

Yeah. The line that stuck out to me, though, is when, you know, when she's giving this speech to Raylan, and it's all about, you know, she wants to do things with the book, she says, that don't have a damn thing to do with what's legal, but everything to do with what's just. It feels like she has some plans for the book herself.

But again, maybe that's just me reading too much into that line. My interpretation was just like, it will get me on the bench. And once I'm on the bench, what I will do will be just and therefore this is justified what I'm about to do. We really need some kind of audio ding every time we say justified.

Like, I don't know what it needs to be. I feel like we need the like CSI Miami, like, what sort of thing? Steve, you have one, get it together finale. We're double recording today, so that will be your first opportunity. Thanks so much. David Cross is back in this episode.

Probably this is his last episode, it seems like, because at the end he's like, time to leave, right? He's out of here. Like everyone else, trying to get to a beach. Time to go to the Bahamas. I wish I, not in a, not in this way, but I would like an opportunity once in my left

to just be like to hang up the phone and just go like, time to go to the Bahamas, you know? Like that's a pretty baller thing to say. He shows up at Lonnie's trailer, this guy Lonnie that he hires this episode, a one and done character, Lonnie. When he showed up at a trailer, did it make you miss Win Duffy and his Winnebago from Justified?

Literally anything makes me miss Winfee in his Winnebago sitting around watching Winfrey and his Winnebago. Sitting around watching Winfrey and his Winnebago. Sitting around watching women's tennis all day. So it doesn't take a lot. But this does have a similar vibe, although very different comportment, presentation, different affect than our guy win. I really like this character of Lonnie, who's like here and gone.

Very unfortunate. It's just like a really good henchman, you know, quality justified henchmen. And it's so hard to get good help these days. It's really tough to see him go so quickly. And I got to say, like, what is it that screwed Lonnie in the end is just like, looking too long at Clement as he walked fast him, right? I mean, because he, like, he tucks the knife away very smoothly. Like, you know, he calls it off.

He sees what's happening. He doesn't, you know, it's just, if he had just kept his face pointing the other way, it is possible that he would have made it through this episode. But I really like Lonnie. I love this, like, for no reason whatsoever, the writers decided to give Lonnie and Bert this, like, backstory of, like, Lonnie was stealing from him. And he didn't get a severance and all this sort of stuff like that. I thought David Cross was really fun.

I thought this exchange was super fun. And, yeah, it's just like, it's that that felt like classic justified to me of just sort of like filling in a depth of history between two characters in an episode where like both of them are done with this show now. And we don't see them again, probably, you know, unless we cut to David Cross on a beach, Lonnie has done, you know, shuffled off the mortal coil, etc., etc., etc. I do love to, Bert just, you know, really giving Stanley garlic his due as he's showing Lonnie. This is the painting that was stolen from me. It's beautiful. The brushwork. Can't you admire, you know, like Sandy, I have questions about art.

I want to know the whole Stanley garlic story parable. I want to know his like website bio. I need more Stanley garlic. So maybe that's a big ask for justified at this stage in the season. But let's get a little more backstory. I love when sweetie's like, what the fuck? What did you do? We have this whole plot of like, for a couple episodes now,

Clement has talked about how he only boosts cars with tape deck. That's all to set up the portable tape deck player that comes in at the end, in the bar, etc. That's your move, right? They'll walk around with the boombox, blast your own podcasts, just like House of Our full volume. Yeah, I like that you called it a boom box. Clement called it a ghetto blaster,

which is what my parents used to call it in the 80s and not my favorite terminology there, but that is just casual racism from good old Clement. Yeah, of course. Yeah, well, my podcast, your podcast, you know how I like to keep up to date on what's going on with the NBA. Of course.

So, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. Like, I like to listen to Steve, I'm in addition, and, you know, just like to let everyone in Oakland know what's going on at the ringer at all times. So that is my move. We appreciate it. Um, like, the theme here is Clement cannot be controlled. That's just the thing, right?

Absolutely not. And like, we are not questioning, like, you know, he backs this car up into this, like, mark that they're getting money from. They get 12K instead of 15K. If it were you and me on the job, Rob, I would be happy to take 12K on a 15K job. Do you know what I mean? How would you feel? I would too.

But in fairness, both times that sweet. has tried to handle things. He's wound up with less than he asked for. And so maybe that's just what negotiations look like on this side of the law. But I think Clement has a fair point in terms of them getting pushed around a little bit. Like you do need an enforcer for a reason. But I don't need these people to respect me. This is a one-and-done deal, is it not?

Or are we continuously blackmailing them? I think it's more concern about this rich person telling his rich people friends, like, oh, you can short him 3K? They're not the real deal, right? They're not actually as intimidating as they might seem. I guess, I guess, you know, like Sandy, I thought this was a very short-term grift. And they're not trying to establish themselves as like blackmail kings of Detroit. They're trying to get to 20K and get the fuck out of the country.

Do you know what I mean? So, like, in that case, you're, like, establishing your criminal reputation doesn't seem as important. It's like, how much cash can you amass how quickly without leaving dead body? and crashed in cars like strewn in your wake and calling attention to yourself as you do it. I mean, I didn't love that the guy jumped over the side of the garage, obviously, but... Like a cartoon character? Like a cartoon character is a really funny line, and Boyd delivered it really well. The look on his face, tremendous stuff.

Listen, here's the most suspicious thing about Maureen in all of this. It's a long list at this point. I know she's in charge of the investigation. Yeah. But Raylan is just telling her everything all the time. Just vomiting up information. Every single thing. And yeah, so he's just, you know, giving her.

So she's like, so let me get this to recap all the information that you have given me. Probably a dirty cop in charge of this investigation. Probably my name is in this book. snoring, gasping during sleep, feeling fatigue, ask your doctor about Zepbound, terseptite. The first and only FDA-approved prescription medicine for moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and adults with obesity. Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet

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on.lily.com. Oh, we got to do this and that and that and the other thing. I mean, she's, she's down for the sting. But I mean, like, let's just do the whole sting operation. Yeah. Is your interpretation that Maureen tipped if we believe that she's a dirty cup, right? Which we've been on this theory for, like, since week two, I think. Someone tipped him off something, right?

He did not have any evidence on him that they could hold him for. 100%. Is that something that she really? reached out in advance to tell him don't bring the book or the pages to the park or is it something that went down when she and that other cop pulled him aside.

You know what I mean? I think what's interesting is if Maureen is in on it. Yeah. It kind of behooves her to get the book in some ways because then she could doctor the evidence, she could dispose of it, she could conveniently lose it.

Just rip her own page out. Exactly. Her page is gone, then, you know. So I don't know that she's necessarily being that prescriptive, but she's clearly in over her head or somebody at the DPD is in over their head to the point that, I mean, Clement's clearly being tipped off here. And the fact that Maureen wants to keep this sting in the family, so to speak, with just Wendell and Norbert and Raylan,

and like a couple of uniformed officers she quote unquote trusts. I mean, that's shady as hell. deeply shady. And then when she's like, she, she grabs him, it's just her in that one, like, uniform cop with Clement. And then she's like, don't go after him, Raelyn. That's exactly what he wants. What, do you want me to pick him?

I'll pick him up on anything. Anything you want. I'll pick him up right now. Like, blah, blah, you know. And Raylan is trying to talk to Wendell about it and says, like, I feel like I do when I'm being played a fool and sort of implying, like, putting out feelers of like, do you think there's someone in your department? and he does not,

Wendell does not want to engage with that at all. No. Are you suspecting him at this point or just Maureen or where is your DPD suspicion? I think Maureen is in on it. Yeah. Wendell, like to our, we talked about this last week as well,

but he to me seems more a turn the other way cop, like just checked out halfway to Venice by now. He knows more than he's letting on. He doesn't want to talk about it. He doesn't want to be interviewed by IA. He doesn't want to be, he doesn't want to have to testify against anybody. He just leave him out of it is effectively like the affect he's giving in this episode. I buy it still. Maureen incredibly shady for all the reasons we've outlined, including the fact that as you mentioned, like she's the one with the officer who searches Clement. She's the one calling the shots by her own choice. That part is kind

of a bummer because honestly, like we get a bunch of different Maureen Raylan. scenes in this episode. And they have kind of like a Rachel and Raylan chemistry from original justified. When they're interrogating

Diana, there's a whole bit with like the David Copperfield's bit or her guessing about Carolyn like very quickly. Immediately. And a little eyebrow raise she gives Raylan

when he says that he has it on the best authority that Diane will fold. There's a lot of little stuff going on between them where it's like, man, I really wish she wasn't a dirty cup. This could be a nice little

thing, nice little band source of banter for this show that they have going. But she is unquestionably dirty, unquestionably in on it. Before we get to what sweetie tries to pull with the handoff in the park situation, when Raylan shows up and Clement says, God damn, Marshall, they're going to think we're in love.

I was like, you can't take Boyd Crowder's stick from him. Like, kind of a little how dare. Like, that's not yours that, belongs to Boy Crowder. Do you know what I mean? Tell me that this whole sting scene, though, is not just foreplay for Clement and Raylan. We've been talking for weeks about really this idea of, you know, the chase between Raylan and Clement being something that's like bigger than and almost separate from who killed Judge Guy. Like there's almost like different threads. And their inevitable showdown,

you know, Clement basically calling it out in this episode, wouldn't it be something if we had ourselves a little shootout? A little shootout. Just a little shootout. Just a little shootout. Just a little shoot out between friends. In the streets. And so I love this as set up for what we ultimately all know is coming. And the idea that they get to see each other, confront each other, they have this exchange in advance of, again, when the bullets are flying, this is good justified shit.

I feel like when he says, to your point, when Clement says, what's it got to do with the judge or some dumb little girl. Like, Tim Olefin's face in that moment, like, Raylan seems thrown by this. He's, like, a little flustered. Like, I can't remember the last time I saw Raylan flustered because even when Boyd would pull this, like, flirty shit with him, really would always just, like, kind of grin back at him and be like,

yep, this is our game. But there's something about Clement that, like, really unsettles him. You know what I mean? And I think it's that sort of, like, primeval, primordial evil. sort of idea that we've been talking about, where it's just sort of like this elemental, evil monster sort of thing that Raylan doesn't quite know how to wrap his arms around

because he's not on his home turf. He's not in Harlan County. He doesn't quite know. This is a Boyd-shaped object, but it's not going to behave like Boyd is, right? Because, like, at the end of the day, Boyd is not going to pull the trigger on Raylan, nor Raylan Boyd, you know, in the way that really matters. And yeah, it's interesting.

It's hard to talk about Boyd Crowder and Boyd-Holbrook and not get confused, but we do our best. We really do. But no, the unpredictability of Clement, I think, is to your point, what separates him from Boyd. The difference in there's so many plot points of the original justified that hinge on Boyd and Raylan knowing each other so deeply from their past, from their childhoods, that Boyd knows exactly where Raylan would go in a moment of trouble, in a moment of crisis, and therefore can go find him and squeeze him

or hold him at gunpoint or whatever he needs to do. Raylan is so clearly out of his depth here in a way that I think we've been out of our depth. We've been asking every week, like, is Clement smart or dumb? Is he a dupist or is he brilliant? And I think this whole subplot over whether he's being tipped off and when

and by whom kind of speaks to that. Because I think at his core, it's a more impulsive character. Yes. But he has a kind of omniscience because of these tips. Impulsive is such a good word for it. I was going to say like childish, childlike. But like, yeah, it is the impulsivity of a child when he feels betrayed by, when he suspects he's been betrayed by sweetie or, you know, earlier when he gets possessive

or jealous around, like his treatment of Sandy feels very like a child with a toy sort of thing. But he's a very dangerous. It's a child with like a gun and no compunction about using it. You know what I mean? Let's go back to when Lonnie shows up at Sweetie's Bar. Excellent episode, by the way, for Trinnell, a sweetie's boyfriend in this episode. I love the attitude that he's throwing at Lonnie, at everyone, honestly, all attitude all the time. I also love that when he's talking to Sweetie on the phone about Lonnie being.

there. Sweetie asked him if he knows Lonnie who's like, Lonnie with a why or Lonnie with an eye? Lonnie with an eye. Lonnie with an eye.

Um, but I think what's really interesting is when sweetie sits down with Lonnie in the bar. Yeah. And talking about his motivation, his long reputation in the neighborhood. This is a perfect time to like marinate in that right before we say goodbye to him.

So like his reputation Lonnie's like, I've heard about you for years, all these things. And what I think is so interesting about Sweetie in this exchange is I feel like it's a blend of some of the stuff that we've been hearing from Carolyn of like, I'm kind of tired of people putting their shoe on my neck, foot on my neck, probably is what she said, not shoe. I, you know, like I'm tired of doing favors. I'm tired of being the one that people rely on. I want to get mine.

So that sort of Carolyn vibe. Plus the whole rail in like when he says, maybe I miss sitting across and something. someone like you, that's sort of like addicted to the game kind of thing. And that's something we haven't really seen people talk about with Sweetie yet, right? He's this generous man. He's a pillar of the community as they lay out here. He'll help anyone who needs help, who needs a ride, whatever. We haven't really seen him portrayed as the guy for whom the action is the juice.

And I think, you know, as justified fans, it certainly is for us too. Like, this show is two often guys sitting across a table with questionable intentions, questionable motivations, who knows how they are parsing each other. Like, that's where the draw of the show has always been. And it clearly is kind of for sweetie in those moments, too. I think there's a lot of truth in him putting a voice to that. Right. Him saying, like, and it's a dangerous game, obviously, that he's playing,

because part, that has to be part of the reason why he got into business with, you know, with Clement in the first place, like he was sort of explaining his way through it to Carolyn, but he wasn't mentioning this part. No. And for all of them, it feels like, as you mentioned,

everyone's talking about getting out of town. Sandy wants to go, et cetera. Everyone wants to go. Get the fuck out of Detroit. Well, you can, right? Not a brochure for Detroit,

this show. But no one is getting out of town in time. I mean, maybe Bert did. But, like, nobody is getting out of town in time. And that's sort of the recurring theme of like going back for that one last thing, going back for, you know, comment going back for the garlic painting. Like, you know, like you just can't resist one more job. Raylan is not going to go back to, you know, hang out with his daughter, like he said in last week's episode.

He's just got to like, you know, I'll say one more day and I'll figure this case out or I'll do one more job and get a little bit more money. And then it just sucks you down and sucks you in. and then you wind up, you know, losing everything as Sweetie does in this episode. I have a very important unrelated question for you. Thank you, Rob. Please ask it. How do you make bootleg fresca? Because Trinnell whips up a fresca substitute for Lonnie in this episode.

I know. What is this? The bear? Like, he's just making sodas behind the bar. He's the first to tell you. He's not a bartender. He doesn't work here. He just knows how to whip up.

a fresca on command. And I think what's concerning for me is this bootleg fresca comes out. Water clear. Like maybe some carbonation in there, but my thought was it's got to have grapefruit juice in it. But clearly this does not. I just looked

up the ingredients of fresca and it's a disturbing cocktail of non-organic substance. Yellow 5 and red fours. Potassium fenzuate. It's not great. Esther of Rosen. Okay. But yeah, great point.

Unless he has, like, grapefruit essential oil behind the bar. Just a couple drops. Essence of grapefruit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Like, grapefruit essential oil. No, I have no idea how one would boot, like. I don't understand how one would boot, like, any kind of soda. But we saw Carmi on the bear make a seven-up, like, in a Tupperware in his mom's

cat, cat, a kitchen. And now Trinnell's, you know, making fresco behind the bar. Like, is this a fundamental? life skill, Rob, that you and I have missed out on. Should we know how to bootleg our favorite sodas? I think when you have a mustache like Trunel's, it just comes with the package. That's such a good point. You buy the mustache oil and it's just like right there on the pack. Like here, by the way, here's how you make bootleg sodas. Here's how I know that, well, actually, I don't want a mansplain mustachees to you because you probably, hopefully you know more about

them than I do. I don't know if you've ever supported a mustache, but doesn't Trinnell seem like a wax guy? Like wax is involved in what he's doing, right? You're absolutely right. It's very waxy. The defying gravity can only be achieved through wax. Yeah, exactly. I think this brings us to the final showdown of the episode. I have a question about this.

I'm like, obviously, there's a lot that I love about this interaction between Clement, Lonnie, and Sweetie in the bar. The way that Lonnie goes out, time to go to the bar. Mama's for Bert, et cetera. The tape deck comments a whole weird thing about his music. It's great. Sandy, you know, sweetie, like, standing up to him refusing to, like, you know, in the shitty, I got to go out listening to your honky chicken fat cover song, bullshit. It's a tough way to go.

Wonderful. We get some more fucking white stripes, like, all this sort of stuff like that. All of that is really satisfying to me. I don't know that I, like, love the gun and the gun. the jukebox like payoff. I don't know. Like I know we knew that this had to come, right? Because like we, they made such a clear shot of putting the gun in the jukebox.

We don't know exactly what happened to it, but Carolyn was talking to Tronell about the gun at one point. You know what I mean? Right. So about moving it specifically. About moving it. So like that's probably what happened. What would have happened if sweetie had, if the gun had been there, would he have been able to draw down on, on, Clement fast enough.

I don't know. I don't know. How did you feel about the payoff for the jukebox siding place? I actually liked that it paid off at least a little differently than I thought. I thought the gun at some point would be there and would be used by somebody.

So the idea of reaching for it and it's not there, I think it's a nice little spin on that. And in particular, you have to wonder, given that conversation between Trinnell and Carolyn, if sweetie is kind of the victim of good intentions here. I mean, either, he would have gotten to the gun

and used it to defend himself. Or I think there's the other possibility here which is like this bar is going up in flames and exploding. Would that gun just have been smelted down if it was in there to begin with and thus not usable in any kind of investigation

the marshals and the DPD are trying to accomplish? That's a fair point. I think I think that's an interesting question to ask about Carolyn because I would not, I'm not going to blame her obviously, but there's a way in which like, so she's running one game, which is like, let's get Clement arrested.

Oh, yeah. And sweetie's running another, which is like, let's get Clement dead, right? There's like a whole winding thing going on here where it's Raylan and the DPD with their sting. Yeah. Are playing Diane. Yes. Wait, hold on. My brain is in knots.

Are using Diana's bait for... To play. to play Clement, who's also being played by Sweetie, but Clement is at the same time playing Raylan, who is certainly being played by some part of the DPD. Right. And the only reason he knows what, like, Lonnie and Sweetie are up to is because Lonnie looked kind of suss as he walked past him.

And Clement, as much as he is an impulsive child, has very good survival instincts. You know what I mean? Like, I feel like he can smell a double cross and sometimes in a paranoid way, it smells a double cross, it's not there. You know what I mean? But I understand all of that,

but I'm just saying, so there's a way in which, Carolyn, thinking she's doing a good thing for Sweetie is actually part of what sets Sweetie up to get got by the end of the episode. Yeah. Just because he didn't have all the information or whatever. You know what I mean?

Like her big plan, which is brilliant in his way, I think she had just told Sweetie, I mean, Clement wouldn't have gotten arrested, anyway because of Marines involvement, but like if she had just told Sweetie her plan earlier, he wouldn't have put the hit out. Or maybe if Lonnie had picked up his fucking phone in the park, you know what I mean? Like something like that. First of all, let's talk about that phone call. Just at free advice for anyone listening to our podcast, if you hire a hitman to kill, in particular, another dangerous person, don't then leave a voicemail on the hitman's phone

saying literally anything. Like I'm shocked that this did not come back to bite sweetie in the sense that Clement ended up with Lonnie's phone or the police ended up with Lonnie's phone and like maybe something like that'll still happen that'll connect dots. But when that when Sweetie makes that phone call, it just feels like such a boneheaded, like again, do not put your voice on record connecting you to a potential murderer. We are not your lawyers. That was not free legal advice. It was free advice, but not free legal advice.

Yeah, exactly. Also, don't text any of your criminal. activity plans. No. It's a no voicemail, no text situation. It is like, you know, because they can read your text in court and they will, right? Very simple rules. Have a conversation with someone.

Anything else we want to say? I mean, this is devastating. I actually, I mean, like, I'm sad that Sweetie has died this way, trying to play the game and failing. But I was even more devastated by the bar burning down because that just felt like we had already watched the bar get destroyed this season. it felt like an added level I mean, that's Clement, he's always extra, but it just felt like an added level of unnecessary

of like, I'm not only going to take you out of this world, but I'm going to burn the thing you built your dream to the ground as part of it. You know what I mean? And it's a way to clean the crime scene, I suppose, but it's just like it feels unnecessarily vindictive, which is a weird thing to say about a guy who just has killed a bunch of people, but it just feels like, you know.

And I think that really comes. comes through in the fact that we see, we see it through Chanel's eyes. You know what I mean? Like, he knows Sweetie's in there and that's the horror, but also like, and to see him in his house,

like apartment across the street and to see the flames at the window sort of before he does, I thought that was like, I mean, the special effects aren't the best we've ever, that's not the best CG fire I've ever seen, but like, I thought its execution was like extra agonizing for us to watch. Yeah, it's not a building burning.

It's showing us a building burning through the eyes of someone who cares about it and cares about the man who built it and the fact that what he knows to be true, which is if this bar is burning, sweetie is probably in it. And I think we get so many different threads paying off character-wise in this episode. To your point about Carolyn and her like trying to engineer her own version of this plan, like there is like a Greek tragedy, tragic flaw like of best intentions with her. And as you mentioned with Clement, like him burning the, bar and killing Sweet, him going back for the one more thing, to get the painting, to burn down

the bar as a way of just the cherry on top of what is already his revenge, that feels like the kind of thing that's ultimately going to hoist him, that's ultimately going to cost him. I mean, Lonnie's dead, births in the Bahamas. Like, is there going to be more to do with the garlic painting, or is that, you know, but. But if not for the painting, Lonnie isn't there. The suspicion around Lonnie doesn't exist. when Clement comes back to the bar to meet Sweetie, he would never see Lonnie there

and thus wouldn't necessarily have a reason to kill Sweetie. He just would have had this innocuous run in with the police like the other ones he's had. I kind of feel like him stealing the painting, there's a line from that to him killing Sweetie because of kind of the comedy of errors thing happening here. It is, I like that sort of idea of Greek tragedy and it feels like all the tragic Greek threads

are sort of nodding together, at the center as we only have two more episodes to go after this. So everything is sort of becoming all snarled up. Anything else you want to say about this episode? Adios. Just poor Clement because even when he's threatening Sandy or has a gun pointed at sweetie, like no one will tell this guy he has a good singing voice. And I like that in this episode we see kind of a needier side of Clement. And genuinely, I think there's different ways you could read Clement.

holding Sweetie at gunpoint demanding that he listened to his tape and maybe it's just like a weird character quirk maybe it's kind of a torturous thing in its own right like a power play but given what we've seen between those two and previous episode it seems like he actually does want Sweetie's approval a little bit

yeah I mean you know what do you hear with those big years of years like calling back to the Miles Davis conversation sort of thing and like the that goes back to the childlike thing where he's just sort of like maybe I was too nervous to play this for you before but I guess doesn't matter now, about to kill you.

But I think from the start that this whole singing career thread has been really brilliant, a really brilliant way to show us the underbelly of like a really scary guy that, you know, let me play you my music. And then it's just like, it's just so aggressively fine and sometimes actively bad. And that's what's even better about it.

So yeah. great stuff. All right, we will be back next week with episode seven, smoking gun. Only two more episodes to go. I can't believe it. As I mentioned before, we're recording these episodes a little bit in advance because Rob is heading to the Bahamas. Nope, headed somewhere else out of the country, though.

Coconut. He's going to make it out of the Bay Area. And so if you have corrections, comments, or concerns, we won't get to them to the finale. But you can always tweet at us. MLS, we do like it. Oh, yeah, speaking of, Tatee tune for next week's episode because Rob has a really fun tidbit that someone sent him about a cast member of this show. So we will talk about that next week when we talk about episode seven.

This episode is produced by Steve Albany. Anything else you want to say before we go, Rob Mahoney? I got nothing, Joe. We got a lot of things to unspool. We got no Albanians in this episode. I'm furious about it. I'm eager to see how these threads wrap up. As you said, the snarl of the Greek tragedy is in full effect.

Okay. No Albanians, absolutely curious. We'll see if we get any of the next week. Bye.