The Prestige TV Podcast - 'Poker Face' Episodes 1-4 Recap

Episode Date: January 27, 2023

Rob Mahoney joins Joanna Robinson to discuss the opening four-episode run of the intuitive, superpowered detective show created by Rian Johnson, streaming on Peacock. Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Rob Mahoney Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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TV podcast feed. I'm Joanna Robinson. We are covering the first four episodes of poker races today. And I am joined by great Rob Pony. Hi, Rob. How are you? Hi, Joe. I'm good. Thank you for taking time from your other podcast. The seventh season of Murder Girl. I know it's been a big hit. Thank you.

That was, did you recognize Emily Ishida? as the podcast, Osa, Murder Girl. I actually did not. Former TV entertainment journalist, Emily Ishida. As I said, we were talking about four whole episodes of television today on an episode of the Prestige TV podcast.

Poker Face from Ryan Johnson and Natasha Leon dropped on Peacock, ever heard of it. On Thursday, this is coming to you on a Friday. So we gave you a whole 12 hours-ish to watch four episodes of television.

I think it was pretty generous of us. But anyway, if you haven't watched the episodes, you might want to go watch them all. They dropped four at once, and then going forward for the rest of the season is going to be week to week, as will our podcast. So in future weeks, we'll be covering single episodes of this show. But this week, we're doing kind of like a big picture, why we're interested in this show, what the creators are trying to achieve, and then just sort of glancingly running through these four episodes. If you're looking for a deeper dive, that will come in future weeks. Rob, let's just start with your larger big picture take. I heard from Bill that you were really into doing poker face.

Tell me why. I mean, off the top, I am a Ryan Johnson guy. I am a Natasha Leon guy. Yeah. And so, you know, that intersection is very relevant to my interest, but also a procedural with a twist guy. You know, like a straight CSI-N-C-I-S, not really my big. bag, per se, but you turn that into justified, and I'm on board. You turn that into Hannibal. I'm very interested. And so here we have this great conceit of, you know, this human lie detector

element added to the procedural. That's enough to get my attention behind just like the star power involved in making it. That was a very Leonardo DiCaprio meme. You have my attention. A moment for you up. Yeah, I mean, I agree. Like, I'm not a straight procedural person either, like, network. procedures. I've watched my fair share. I've watched a bones here and there. Who among us has not? Who among us has not watched the bones? I have watched, I will say the, and this might surprise people who maybe haven't watched the episodes yet, but the show this most closely reminds me of is actually Syke, which I have bizarrely seen a lot of Syke. Sike is a weird comfort show for me. The classic USA television series,

psych. This is Ryan Johnson, of course, is chasing something a little older than your sikes and your boneses or even your Justifieds or your Hannibals, which is Columbo, Murder She Wrote, Like, you know, Cojack, all these older shows. The idea was, as he has done throughout his career, because I'm also a Ryan Johnson guy, is take a genre we're quite familiar with and do something twisty with it. And as he said in, you know, the many, many interviews he's given around not only Glass Onion, but also Pokerface in the last few weeks and months, is this idea of, like, what he's trying to do with these takes on genre is not like, I don't even know if, like,

subvert is the word that he would use, but it's more he really wants to drill down into the core of what makes this slice of genre. be it the noir of brick or the time travel of Looper or, you know, the fun who done it of the Knives Out series, drill down into what made that so potent as a genre in the first place and try to tap into that, rather than trying to do a surface nostalgia play or a surface sort of pastiche. Rob, what do you think of his endeavors in genre? I mean, overall, I think they're pretty effective. And in part, because, as you're saying, it's just if you are striking at the core of what makes something good or evocative or memorable to us,

you're just going to get a better reaction the next time around when you're twisting it just a little bit, when you're trying to find different invocations of those ideas as opposed to, as you're saying, almost like, cost-playing these big IP franchises or these genres, or in this case, this, again, like very well-worn, well-known format to us. And I don't think that poker phase is the most subversive thing in the world. Certainly, like, it's going to fall into a lot of established tropes and a lot of storytelling patterns that if you've seen a lot of procedural television, you're going to be familiar with. But there's enough kind of, whether it's formula tweaks or just like the particular niche of these characters, especially Natasha Leon, the energy that she is bringing to this is not just like a hardcore gumshoe detective, but a loopy detective who's going to have like a full-on conversation with a racist dog. dog in the middle of the episode. That's enough to kind of keep me

on that particular string. I think people coming in expecting this to be serialized is very much like a case of the week kind of show, even more so than the first season of Justified, which is a very case of the week kind of show. There is a tiny thread running through the season of will Benjamin Brat make a brief cameo in this episode as someone who's chasing her or not?

And, you know, Ryan Johnson is, cheesed that the season might culminate with some sort of bookend with the beginning because we do have a threat of people chasing her. But for the most part, in the in-between spaces, something that Ryan and Natasha have said is that in theory you could watch any of those in-between episodes in any order you like. Which is interesting because what that means is that we're not really watching the progression of character growth in Natasha's character. of Charlie, you know, what both Ryan and Natasha

have said is that like this idea of case of the week or a sitcom is the idea that you want to come and hang.

You want to have a hang with a character you like. And as you said, like Natasha is doing something really special and fun

as she always does like with this character. Do you feel like there's, like I enjoyed these first four episodes,

even though I was surprised by how un-serialized it was. And And, you know, that comes down to the great guest stars that they got and, you know, Natasha doing what she does. But how much are you enjoying it, Robin? Like, do you see a moment where there could be like an expiration date on the charm of that concept?

What do you think? I think it's got pretty good legs on it, to be honest. And I think a lot of it's going to come down to the consistent quality of the guest stars. But starting at where they did, I think, was very smart. You have Adrian Brody, this, like, powerhouse performance as a guest star in the first episode. the guy is just made to wear like vintage suits with slick back hair these days. He's doing great.

He's living his best life. But not only are you showing the audience, like this is kind of what this is going to look like. These are the kinds of performers you can expect to come in on a week-by-week basis. These are the kinds of stories we're going to tell and how we're going to tell them. But you're also telling the acting world,

this is a show where you're going to come in and you're going to get the first 15 to 20 minutes of every episode basically as a lead. Yeah. telling your own story, and you're going to get real red meat. You're going to get juicy monologues. And more importantly, there's going to be someone behind the camera like Ryan Johnson, who knows how to shoot the hell out of them, who knows how to make those scenes really sing.

Yeah, that's a great point. So, like, the fact that you have those things working at once, I think, I think primes us to be a potentially long-running show, as long as the people involved are interested in making it. And, of course, the audience is there. And as long as peacock keeps peacock in. Yeah. This is a platform question.

Though Peacock has this show, which they're doing a lot, they're putting a lot of muscle behind it. They have this show. And then they've got a Damon Lindelof show coming up, Mrs. Davis, in a couple months as well. And so they're really leaning into grabbing some, snapping up some prestige talent. Ryan has talked about the fact that he had a hard time selling this show because of its case of the week. Retro throwback vibe. And nobody really, you know, despite Ryan being this very moment recording on Tuesday, Oscar nominated for for the Knives Out franchise for a second time,

you know, has all this cachet behind him and couldn't easily sell this premise because TV has become so serialized because binge culture is such a thing that, you know, this feels like such an older conceit. And it, like, you get that feeling as you're watching it. Again, I think I was just surprised.

It's not that they tried too high what this is. They have said in every interview what this is. but like I didn't know walking in that how case of the week it was. And I think you make a really good point. I mean, it starts with two episodes directed by Ryan Johnson. And there's just a real obvious flare to Dead Man's Hand and the night shift. We're in a Vegas casino and we're in – they shot in Albuquerque. I don't know if it was supposed to be Albuquerque, like sort of truck stop scenario.

And, but the stylistic flare, even how the opening credits start for both of them. And they're both kind of distinct, too. Because, like, in the opening credits, the first episode, first of all, the look of the credits is like a fun retro thing. But, like, we're following the cart on the carpet of the hotel, the casino. And it just feels different. There's just a flare to it. And this is the kind of thing that Ryan would do on, when he directed Breaking Bad, as he would put the camera in, like, pretty unexpected places.

And then in the next episode, the Night Shift, we start with this incredible montage of all of our characters as like this time lapse sort of thing. And it still feels stylish, but feels different stylistically. So in addition to all these guest stars that we could look forward to, I would love for this to become a showcase for various like directors. Just come and like put their stamp on an episode of poker face. What do you think? I mean, it looks great. And one of the things that you've liked was that this is one of the rare shows that's actually shot on film these days. which is notable, I think especially because of the settings.

Like if you're going to be shooting, you know, Route 66 America, effectively in a lot of these episodes, let me tell you, like, we've seen what that looks like on digital. And I'm talking to you specifically late period supernatural. Like, it doesn't work. You know, it looks bad. It doesn't really fit. Everything feels a little askew. And so, like, the fact that they're able to get such texture and such grain out of the way the show is shot and the way it's staged.

And, like, just the artistry of that part of it, I think is really doing a lot of the heavy lifting for, you know, like, these are well-crafted episodes. I think they're pretty well-written in terms of, like, the tightrope they have to walk, given the fact that, as we probably haven't said enough, the lead character in the show can tell when people are lying, which just puts you in quite a narrative foxhole. And yet, by doing these inventive things with the camera,

by making them look so lived in and creating characters that, again, have that 15 minutes or whatever at the top of the episode to breathe and establish themselves, You can get some really vivid things out of that. I did feel like the two episodes that Ryan didn't direct were not quite as stylish. There wasn't quite as much flair to them. And I think there is a danger if you lose that flare of this feeling more, I don't want to say network as like a bad word or anything like this, but like a little bit more like characters welcome than I think what they're aiming for.

And so again, I just hope there was a really cool moment though in the fourth episode. when Chloe Sevene's character Ruby Ruin, when she hears, when they hear this hitch song that their fuck-up drummer for off Craigslist, but also via Juilliard, has written,

and it's a hit, but the sound drops out, so we don't hear it. We just see their reaction, and then she has this almost like light bulb over the head, lighting moment, sort of similar to an earlier scene

when Charlie feints in a bathroom and there's this like light on her as she faints. And so I just think like more of, I want more and more and more of that oddball visual flare to sort of underscore the, or maybe in a fun way, clash with the cozy comfort of we're going to solve this mystery in under an hour. And not only solve this mystery, but like as, you know, a lot of ink has been spilled about this, this isn't, these aren't whodunits. No, very much not.

I am not a Colombo watcher. I never, I've watched some murder she wrote. I've never watched any Colombo. I did not get into it during the pandemic like a lot of people did. But apparently, according to everything I've read, this is the common construction of a Colombo episode where you see who done it. And it's not about figuring out who killer is. It's how will our sleuth who we care about, be they Peter Fawkes, Colombo or Natasha Leonis Charlie, figure it out. And even more so than that, and this isn't something that they've talked about a lot of interviews.

I think they make a lot of better than the show, though, that because she's not a cop, it's not, and then the cops will arrest someone at the end of the episode. There's usually a much more creative comeuppance or a sense of justice. I mean, in the case of Adrian Brody throws himself out of window. But like, do you know what I mean? Like, that it's not like, and we'll pull everyone into a drawing room and then the cops will show up and escort the killer away in handcuffs. What do you feel, how do you feel about that, like, individual sense of justice and like these different comeuppances that we see in these episodes.

I think it's really wonderful. Like, it's one of my favorite wrinkles to the show, to be honest with you. And it's, you know, we've seen versions of it before of people operating outside the law in a, you know, private investigator capacity or this might be the only TV show or movie on record with an overt burn notice reference in it. And I'm here for it. Like, honestly, to your point, but characters are welcome. Characters are very welcome here.

And there is a through line between like those kinds of storytelling. for these operators who are not necessarily trying to get people arrested. And I think it does a couple of interesting things. One, it dodges some of the thornier questions societally about these police-centric shows, which I think is a very smart thing to do in general. But it also creates some interesting narrative situations where Charlie is like on the clock in almost all these scenarios because she is trying to stay off the grid. She's trying not to get noticed.

She is actively discouraged from going to the police. And as a result of that, she does like some hate. and some sloppy things. And often putting her face to face with people who have either committed murder or other crimes, that leads to a lot of really good narrative tension as a result of those scenes, especially when they know what she can do. Those are the elements that I really like that come out of that situation. You know, it doesn't have to be Scooby-Dood, you know, walking off and handcuffs at the end of it.

Like, take away what it is that they really want. And that can be a more satisfying end in itself. I love the concept of like the people who know what she can do. so they try to dodge her skill by, I don't know, returning a question with another question or telling a lie wrapped in a truth or a truth wrapped in a lie. And, yeah, let's talk about Charlie's special power for a second. So this is, I'm into it and I'm fine with it. But I do have a question about Ryan's tendency to do this.

in the last two Nives Out films, there has been a young woman with like a supernatural, let's say, skill or quirk to her in the first Nives Out film on a Darmus's character, cannot tell a lie or else she will vomit, right? And in Glass Onion, in case people haven't seen Glass Onion, I'll just say there's a character who's just much better at everything she does if she has some alcohol in her, to a degree. that feels slightly supernatural. Why do you feel like Ryan needs to give these people this extra boost of power or twist to them? Well, if he doesn't, this is just literally psych, isn't it? Kind of. You know, like, you would need some extra level of artifice,

like effectively to make it interesting or else it does just become straight case of the weak detective work. Yeah. And I think, like, again, the tightrope of having to write those scenes that you outlined where the villains of the show have to wrap

the truth and a question or the truth and a half truth in order to dodge those are the dynamics that you want out of this premise

and so as long as you can keep manufacturing ways to get those I think like your mileage with treating this as supernatural

may vary but look I get what you're after bringer first Joe like I get that you're trying to carve this out

pull this back onto the feed we see you you know listen it's not just me My pal, Jemaine Leszier, who writes at Gizmodo, asked Ryan, like, is this a superpower? And Ryan gave this big, like, long answer about it. But he likened a lot to Christopher Walkins, skill in the dead zone, if you're talking about the film.

Or I think it's Anthony Michael Hall if you're talking about the TV show. But this idea that there's just like a little, a little extrasensory something going on here. and if it means the people who like superhero show, like, is this a superhero show? Does she have a superpower? Sure. Like, if you want it to be, sure, why not? And I do like that it's not,

I feel like it's hit really hard in the first episode, and then it kind of dial it back a little bit in later episodes where it's not like every single, she's not saying bullshit every five seconds throughout the show. it sort of ramps down. I'm curious of the four. I mean, again, I think the most stylish and sort of the most exciting

to be in this world episode is the pilot. I'm a huge Adrian Brody fan, and I love... My favorite Ryan Johnson film is actually the Brothers Bloom, so I was really excited to see Adrian Brody and Ryan Johnson back together again. They fit perfectly.

I knew I was in good company here. And in fact, I feel like the score of this show sounds a lot like the score from Brothers Bros. Bloom. Not coincidentally because it's done by the same person, but there's a lot of a lot of commonality in terms of like the musical themes between these two. Yeah, I mean, that's a, that's a heist film. And this is like, you know, but there's like heisty elements. Oh, yeah. Both are about people lying and why they're lying, you know, like effectively so. And the episode is like,

this is a card game con is that is what Adrian Brody is trying to run, which is a big part of Brothers Bloom. But, and no. Sagan's here. Noah Sagan being like Ryan Johnson's old friend who's in like every single thing Ryan has ever done. I like I got so excited. When I went to go see Glass Onion with a friend of mine, he didn't know, he like knew about Joseph Gordon Levitt being in a lot of things, but he didn't know about Noah.

And I was like, I was like, wait for it. And Noah just like rolls up as like Cato Cailin and the Glass Onion. And I just love that he's like, he's in both Knives Out films as different characters played by Noah. It doesn't matter. He's going to be there. So he's our inept, if you will, sheriff. in the pilot.

But like, the pilot excited me the most just because of like the surprise and newness of the show. I really liked episode two as well and that might have a lot to do with my kind of current obsession

fascination with the actor Colton Ryan who plays Jed the murderer and I can talk about that in a second. But I'm curious like which of these four episodes jumped out to you and why and what were you looking for? I mean, two definitely saying to me as well. I agree that the first two are probably

a little stronger than three and four. But I have to say, as far as like log lines go, acclaimed Texas pit master is radicalized by Oakja. It's like, that's where I live pretty much. So, you know, certainly the stall, episode three, has a lot going for it. I agree that, you know, in terms of the way the shows are shot, in terms of just how tightly they pull you in,

one and two are probably my favorite. And I would say two is probably actually my favorite of the four, just in terms of the kind of story they're telling. And to your point about, you know, avoiding police interference at the end, or at least that being the end point, I think probably has the most creative punishment in terms of, like, you know,

spoiler alert for these episodes again, so like, please don't listen to these at this point if you haven't seen these already. But basically the twist of the knife being like the disappointment of your adopted father figure being the most tangible negative repercussion for a murderer. Yeah.

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Exclusion supplies to homedipo.com slash price match for details. I want to talk a little bit about episode two specifically because I think of all the murders we see because we see in episode four, by the way, John Darniel, the Mount Goats being in episode four. This is maybe my favorite, like, surprise John Darniel's here. But like, do you prefer his overly literal divorce dad song or his overly literal murder confession song? I think it's, sorry we killed someone. I think that's it. We electrocuted them.

We're going to literal hell wherever it is. That's the one. Though I feel like there's some alimony rhymes in the divorce song that are pretty solid. But, you know, a band kills for a song. That's a good idea, right?

Like, Pitmaster's brother and his wife killed, these are both like to keep the business going, right? And in episode one, it's also still to keep the business going. It's money, right? They need to keep the secret to keep the high roller on the hook. It's money.

Money is, of course, involved in episode two because we're talking about a literal scratcher. But there's something much deeper going on because that whole sequence on the roof between Jed and his victim, Damien, where, like, Jed has this freak out and Damien talks him down, right? This moment where you're like, pretty sure Jed's going to kill Damien because he's screaming and he's doing the whole thing. And then Damien talks him down and they talk it out and they're talking. And then like, and then Damien finds out he's won the lot. won the scratcher, and Jed just pushes him impulsively, just and casually almost. And there was something about that contrast that was so, like, meaty and good because it was just like it's about luck, it's about deserve.

Colton Ryan's playing Jed as like one of those guys who like thinks they're smarter than everyone else, so thinks they deserve something. But you also, because I think Colton Ryan is such a good performer, and again, like I've seen him, I'm like really obsessed with this guy. in terms of like a performer. He's like, I've seen him a couple shows on stage. I think he's incredible. That he,

that you wind up feeling sorry for him, even though it's a piece of shit, or at least I did? How did you feel about it? No, I felt similar. I thought it was a really effective performance. And some of it's just like the little micro things in what he's doing to make you feel, as you're saying,

clearly put off and a little freaked out by this guy, but also pulling you in with a little bit of sympathy. There's just enough like in-cell weirdness going on. there. Even with like, you know, Natasha Leone is treating his leg wound and he has to like take a deep breath because it feels like he's never been this close to a woman before maybe. Yeah, not great. You know, there's a lot

of weird stuff going on with the performance. I think it just makes it so effectively rendered. And that's a great showcase episode in such a limited time, we get like four or five fully fleshed out characters before Natasha Leon even shows up. And so then when she finally does

and then you have like Hong Chow for her to bounce off of two and all of these different elements colliding, it makes it really effective, but there's no question. Like, Colton Ryan is at the center of that thing. He has to be convincing to make it work, and it works. I want to talk about Hong Chow again. We're recording this on a Tuesday, freshly Oscar-nominated Hong Chow. There's this great moment in the pilot where, you know, Charlie's squaring off with

Adrian Brody's character, good old Sterling Jr., right? And he's saying, like, look at you. Look at who you are, right? You're a burnout. You're a loser. Who's going to care? Who's going to care about your story? And that sets up the whole promise of the show,

which is the person who's on the hook in episode two, it's not Damien. Damien's dead. She liked him. Like, he was a friendly guy who made her a Subway sandwich. She liked him fine. There's a sense of justice in her around what happened here. But the bigger issue is that the person who's been framed for the murder

is this character of Marge. who is such an oddball that even an awe bill like Charlie is like initially put off by her. She's initially like, okay, thank you, no thank you, right? They have this encounter in the bathroom and she's like, I'm good. Like I don't. And then she faints, Marge takes care of her and then they bond a bit more of her drinks and all this sort of stuff. But Marge is the kind of person who no one's going to care. She's like a loner out on the road.

she talks about, she has this great moment where she's talking about how she feels vulnerable and sort of soft when she's out in the world, but when she's in her truck, she's protected and she's big and she's powerful. But she gets framed when she's out there vulnerable in the world. And like Charlie's going through this cross-country road trip as this knight in shining armor, this Galahad, protecting all these people who other people might overlook or not care about. How successful is that? How interesting is that to you? Well, do you feel like Marge when you're podcasting? Like, you're just behind 80,000 pounds of pure steel, hurtling through people's eardrums? Yes, always. Of course. I think what I love about, you know, obviously caring for people on the fringes of society is a good message. I think it's a good, it makes for good storytelling.

But also, I think they do really creative things with the other side of it, which is the people around those stories, around the crimes, they also don't really care. They're just like doing their jobs. And so it's like, I guess you can come look at the security footage from my rest stop across the street. Like they don't really have any reason to stop Natasha Leon from poking around. And frankly, they just can't really be bothered. Or they're on the other side of it where it's like clearly these people are very bored. And so, yeah, the idea of playing a guessing game with this strange woman in this roadhouse who's trying to remember like what four-legged animal she saw on the side of a semi-truck. That's like the most exciting thing that happened in their day.

So I love the way those things intersect of coming to the defense of people who society broadly may not care about or may not treat with a lot of respect and doing it by harnessing the communities around them who also don't really care, but have enough resources at the disposal to help. That if anyone just cared enough to take like another 24 hours literally to think about this. I think it's really, really interesting the way that this is, this is. is also a road trip show. And something that Ryan said in one of the interviews I read was that in the pitching process for the episodes, the way that they're breaking them, again, because we're not following Charlie on any kind of character progression. So we don't need to plot out a character arc. We just need to decide if we're going to pay Benjamin Bratt for this episode or not, and that's about it. So the way that they pitch these episode is like based on the location, right?

Let's do a Vegas casino episode. Let's do a barbecue joint episode. Let's do... Quick correction. That was an extremely Reno casino, right? Oh, sorry. Reno, yes.

That's the vibe I'm getting. I mean, Natasha Leona's very, like, Reno Casino Waitress vibe in that episode, definitely. You're very right. I've never... I just revealed that I've never been to Vegas or Reno, because I have, like, a... You're better off.

An allergy. But the... So, Reno Casino, that's even better. Reno Casino, truck stop in Albuquerque, let's say, you know, barbecue pit in Texas. and where we wind up on the road with the band. That is such a fun way to think about a show.

They've mentioned that they're going to do like a dinner theater episode, that there's like a car racing episode. Rob, like, where would you pitch your episode of Pokerface? Oh, my God. This is a great question. Why does my brain go underwater? Why do I want to see a submarine bottle episode?

I don't know how to Tachel Lian gets on the submarine? Jim Cameron, Jim Cameron to give you Avatar poker face. If anyone has the resources, you know? Or are you talking about like the life aquatic but make it poker face? Get West Anderson in. I mean, that sounds wonderful too. Yeah, it does. I mean, this is the thing.

It's like no disrespect to the other directors that they got. And again, they're on like a budget. They can't, blah, blah, well. But I would just love for the show to become something that other directors are just like, let me just go make an episode of poker face. The way that Ryan would be like, let me go make an episode of Breakers. Bad. You know what I mean? And all of a sudden you get excited because you're like, oh my God, it's a Ryan Johnson episode of Breaking

Bad. This is so exciting. Well, Jesse, you're just going to be trapped in a lap the whole time, but it's going to be really fun, you know? Well, that's the untapped resource, right? If you're looking at why this show had such a hard time getting off the ground to begin with and the fact that we are so obsessed with serialized storytelling.

The flip side of that is, like, if you do the comfort food approach, you can pull in that talent. You can pull in the acting talent, you can pull in the directing talent to come in, to parachute in, to do the one episode exactly the way you want to do it in the location of your dreams, exactly that genre,

that subgenre of storytelling you've been waiting to do, it could be there for you. And as on the viewing side, then you get that kind of an addictive quality in a different way. It's not the cliffhanger at the end. It's just like I'm reaching back into the potato chip bag

because I like the way this makes me feel quality. I love that. Yeah, and I think that, like, you know, Ryan has obviously already established this with the Knives Out French. of like, come have a lot of fun with us. We're going to do something really fun.

Like, do you want to go to a Greek island cast of Glacinion and just, like, sort of hang out? Work really hard. It's COVID. We're working. But, like, still, like, we get to go to Greece, you know? Or like, and I know that people are clamoring to be in a Knives Out film. Oh, sure. I mean, like, not the least of which is that people actually watch the Nives Out films,

which is like the modern miracle of the Nyes Out films is like no one can get anyone to watch anything but people are watching the Nives Out movies. It's great. Love that for us. Is there, oh, okay, first of all, I want to circle back to the pilot and say two jokes back to back that absolutely killed me.

Number one is Charlie trying to get the info out about what's going on and she emails Oprah at over.com after like FBI at FBI. at FBI.com and stuff like that, right? Like that whole thing. So you get shit done in this country, Joe. It's really funny. But then the visual gag of like what her inbox on her phone looks like, which is just, she is, first of all, five unread messages.

How many unread messages do you have in your inbox, Rob? Zero. I'm always on zero. Got to be. Oh, no. Got to be. Do you want me to, like, give you a mild heart attack? Why would you do this?

2,534. And that's just in one. 686 in the other and 757 in the other. I'm taking deep breaths. Okay. Pain is attachment. I need the Buddhism for beginner CD right now. Maybe you can teach me how to keep on top of this stuff.

But she's got five on red and all the emails that we see are about like ways to get free drinks or like, you know, they're just like all spam drink emails. So that's the sad life of Charlie. But it's only we learn from Charlie in that opening almost exposition interaction that she has with Adrienne Brody's character. We get her backstory and her, you know, how she knows his dad. And we'll talk about that in a second. But also this conversation about like, do you need to be rich? What is rich? What is happy?

What is going on? And I'm just curious, like, what you think of, you know, she seems actually, despite the fact that Benjamin Brad is very sexually chasing her across the country. She seems great. He looks great. She seems pretty content to just, like, live in her car and vibe and meet people. What do you think about that as, like, as a level of character want a desire for her? Like, what she wants to achieve in life, you know? I mean, she seems incredibly chill for someone who's ostensibly running for their life.

Right. You know, not to say that she's not careful in her own way, but as far as someone who's, like, living on the fringes of society, not because she actively chose it, but because in the first episode, she's threatened with death. That part, I'm still trying to square, like, the Natasha Leone corkiness with her situation. It does seem like a little bit incongruent sometimes, but it's certainly a great premise to get her on the road. It's certainly, like, a great way to get her out there meeting all these people and bouncing off of lots of different characters and lots of different actors. But yeah, like, the financial aspect is front and center in so many of these episodes.

You're right. Like, every episode is in its own way about money. Every episode is pretty overtly political at times, and I'm curious to see, like, where all these threads end up going in the end. And sometimes that plays out as, you know, in, like, explicit lines of dialogue. Sometimes it plays out in someone basically, like, cosplay conservative radio just for kicks. So, you know, there's lots of different ways these things are coming to the four. But everyone is driven by money.

Everyone is driven by, like, trying to keep their thing going. And she's the one person who's just, like, kind of fallen through the cracks of those things and wading between all these different characters in a way that makes for pretty good structure. Right. Like that she's unlikely to ever find herself in the position that all these people find themselves in because she says,

I've been rich, it's easier than being broke, harder than doing just fine, right? So she's like, she's had money. It didn't, it didn't like make her life that much better. So why should that be something that drives her? But for all these other people, I mean, again,

I don't know that we're going to stick truly in the lane of money. and I would say probably episode two is not purely about that lot of scratcher, but like these are the classic hallmarks of motivation for the murder. Follow the money, obviously, clear, who done it. Line, but also love, right? Or jealousy or something in that.

Obsession. There's a few core qualities of what would drive someone beyond that breaking point. And I think I do want to circle back to your politics point, But before that, I want to say, like, going back to this idea that Charlie is just someone who, like, loves people, the premise is you say, like, puts her in a position where she has to take all these jobs for cash. That's something that the character of Marge in episode two sort of tells her. You want to find side hustles, right? So be it picking up a gig at a barbecue joint or becoming merch girl for an episode, you know, she's like picking up these cash gigs, gives, like, puts our character in a really good position to meet a bunch of different people and, like, just sort of. sort of bounce around. But her interest in people is what really strikes me because that's a classic

hallmark of Agatha Christie's main sluice, like Poirot or Marple. These are people who care deeply about the people that they meet involved in these murders. They're like amateur students of psychology. So they're interested in people psychologically. But they always wind up really caring about people. And oftentimes, I mean, we meet Charlie usually always in an episode after the murder has happened, right? But then we get to see how she cares about that person, you know, like, specifically I'm thinking of like the drummer, an episode four. And we get just, like, see her spend time with him before he dies. We get to understand the victim a bit better from, through her eyes is a, like, a really fun quirk of the show. But I think that that is

Ryan really honoring something that's core. Again, to get back to that thing that he does, the genre where he drills down into like a core truth. A truth about Poirot, Agatha Christie, the kinds of mysteries that he is clearly, you know, mining for Knives Out is Poirro really cares. You know what I mean? And he's like quippy and he's smart and like all this sort of stuff like that. But he really, really cares. And so she, Charlie is someone who really, really cares.

I love the Dascha Polanco who plays her friend who gets killed in the first episode, called her Paddington Bear, right? She's not Colombo, she's Paddington Bear. And like, there's just something oddly, despite the fact that we're seeing murder after murder after murder, there's something very oddly sweet and human about this show and the, like, her desire to connect, you know? Yeah, I mean, especially when you're playing her off of these villains,

who, as you mentioned, are just, like, driven by their desperation, and she's going so far out of her way. Not really desperate to help them, but if anything, desperate to save herself, and yet is still finding ways to change these people's lives or to get them some kind of justice. And that's kind of her, like, to the extent that there is an arc, it's coming out of that first episode, right?

It's going from the person in the passenger seat of the car who's tweeting about bad news. Right. Hashtag the UFOs are real. Hashtag the truth is out there. Right. And going from that to the person who's actively doing things to help people. And so the fact that you have that,

the fact that you can create those bonds so quickly with people you meet on the road is a really heartening idea. Though I have to say, the most improbable thing in the show to me and this is a show as we mentioned has a superpower at its core you know you have to make some logical jumps to go along with it

like hell is a barbecue pit master gonna hire someone for one day's work and teach them all of their secrets about how to make barbecue it's just not going to happen Joe it's like I am I am it's beyond the pale

to the point that I simply I simply cannot abide that episode. I can't do it. You cannot, you don't think someone would like take pity on you, Rob, if you were keeping up being with a racist dog and teach you how to taste the wood.

They might teach you how to taste the wood, but they're not going to show you what's in the rub. They're not going to walk you through the entire low and slow process. Like, it's just too granular. And it's, even for someone who is getting out of the game and trying to move to California

and become a vegan, it's just, I just can't buy it. Yeah, you probably wouldn't learn about the stall. You definitely wouldn't learn about the rub. No. The rub is proprietary information. But would you get to chew on some wood? I think you would.

And I think I love that episode because we start on this Pitmaster character, and he is crying. And George, played by Larry Brown, he's crying. And, I mean, like, the I'm a murderer thing is like a little cheesy of like a bait-and-switch. But the fact that we later find out that he's crying because he watched Okja is one of my, one of the most film Twitter jokes that Ryan Johnson has ever put in something in his life. We have built a temple of carnage, Joe. All right.

So let's go back to the politics thing because this is like a really interesting aspect of, again, I'm a Ryan Johnson fan, you know, from Jump, from brick. Like, but the Knives Out franchise he has specifically used as a. way to dig into politics power, skewering certain strata of society. And that's something, like, that's something that's built into that sort of gentleman sleuth genre, because in a gentleman sleuth story like the Benoit Blanc stories, you have someone who is not of the class invited into these like upper echelons of society.

Benoit Blanc would not be invited to this house or invited to this private island, were it not for, you know, the mystery that's afoot. And so then can use that circumstance to sort of take an outside looking in at ridiculous privileged people. Politics in an Elon Musk way are, you know, is on his mind in Glass Onion. Politics in a very Trumpy way is on his mind in the first nice out film. And I just, I do not think it's an accident that the first people, person we see get killed in the show says, we ain't voting, like right before he gets shot by Benjamin Bratt, right? Not no one's home or we don't want any or anything like that.

He's just like, we ain't voting. And then he gets shot in the head. So, like, how far is too far with politics? Are you down when they, like, how do you feel about it around? I'm cool with it. I do want to see how it pays off, like how it comes together, what the ultimate through lines of those things are. Because right now it is kind of like,

overly generalized. It is like a, the politics of more, you know, as we're alluding to, was just kind of like the greed. And like a lot of these people are people who have had some level of success with a couple exceptions. But it's, you know, it's like it's a metal band who had one hit and are haunted by it and want to get back to that point and more. It's a middle manager in Adrian Brody who's like trying to make something of his own and claw his way up from basically failing upward to that point. And so like the way you can play off of those ideas into political themes I get. It's just like,

what is, what is the overall picture of that going to be within the context of the show and the narrative it's trying to tell? Because like, right now it's not

a political story, but it is political on pretty much every fringe of the show that you care to look at. That's really interesting. I do want to keep our eye on like that idea

of social mobility of like working your way up because like even in the second episode before we get to the scratcher, we've got a guy who's in the army who's working at Subway who is like has a burgeoning

TikTok career, right? Like he's just trying to spread positivity one sandwich at a time. It's becoming a sandwich influencer. I want to talk about that actually about the mention of TikTok in the second episode because when you're watching the very opening of the first episode

and you get those like crackly mustard yellow opening credit titles over the retro Reno casino carpet you know and the references

are Columbo and Murder She Roads. there are ways in which this show is leaning into a retro vibe, right? Like her car, all this sort of stuff. Like the way she dresses, there is like a little bit of like a what time period am I in? But then there's also just a lot of technology like the Dick Cloud in the first episode or TikTok in the second episode, you know, or like the various means of capture or podcast, you know, in episode four, like that this is both modern. and retro together at the same time.

Is that successful to you? Like this show that kind of feels out of time. Like, I think of the show sex education all the time with this, which, like, I could not tell you when sex education takes place. If you watch that show, that is like a bizarre. Is this now or is it's the 70s? I'm not sure. But anyway, in terms of this show,

is that time period magic working for you? I think it's working in the sense that they do manage to dodge a lot of the questions as far as, like, if she had a cell phone, couldn't she be tracked? Okay, she's getting rid of her cell phone in the first episode. And then the way social media is portrayed is interesting. I think the TikTok example, case and point,

maybe the most positive portrayal of TikTok I've ever seen on, or TikTok about I've ever seen on film, Ticktack. You know, there's a meme subplot in the fourth episode that's, like, critical to the unraveling of the mystery and her, like, ability to leverage her newfound meme popularity from basically like accidentally taking part in a prank video in these ways that like I think are usually portrayed as pretty positive and I think it's you know maybe that's Ryan Johnson really subverting our expectations

in the making of this show the ultimate subversion is telling us that what if social media is actually good I mean the fact that Ryan hasn't quit Twitter is a miracle of our time given the way that the Star Wars fan boys come after him no matter what he ever tweets. What happened with Star Wars? I didn't hear about that. Oh, did you know

that he made a Star Wars film? First you're hearing of it? It's first time hearing of it. Wow, yeah. For the record, a film that I love. Okay, so... It's great. I do want to talk

really quickly about podcasts and episode four, though, because I just want to shout out that Ryan's wonderful wife, Karina Longworth, who makes a fantastic podcast, got a really cute Easter egg. And, like,

there's just one shot where it's showing, like, the top five podcast or whatever. Murder Girl, hosted again by a character named Elsie, played by Emily Ishida, is number one, but you must remember this is also in the top five. I thought that was really cute.

And so was four guys in a cellar, which I think is on the Ringer podcast network. What are they talking about in that cellar? I have questions. Any other, like, little moments or appearances or anything that really struck you at all of this? I mean, I want to give a shout out in episode four to the line from the our newly recruited

Craigslist drummer, where he talks about dreaming of playing with this metal band he's been listening to since he was a little dumb as fuck baby. And it was just the line that made me laugh so hard. I honestly, I think the fourth episode, while not as strong overall, does have a lot of really great little moments. Something as similar is like, there's a great dig at like Christopher Cross in the middle of the episode, in which they preface you by literally opening the episode with the Christopher Cross song. There's just like all of these little layered on layered on layered jokes. And really that's one of the strengths of the show overall is like everything that's on screen, everything that they put in your ears, whether it's a music cue, whether it's a random throwaway line,

the payoffs are constant and they're profound. And honestly, most of them are involved in like the central matter of solving the mystery. And Matt's a fun, Ryan Johnson and Natasha Leon are people who like a puzzle, like a cross-or puzzle, right? They're puzzle-brain people. And so there's a really fun aspect of these. episodes, even though we see who does the murder. There's, first of all, trying to figure out how is Charlie involved in the case this week, right? So, like, if you rewatch episode four, you know, there's like a literal song about the merch girl before you see the merch girl and it's her, you know, like, that's fun.

Was that song a little salacious or did I mishear that? What is, like, what are some of the lyrics that struck you as salacious? I don't know that I'm allowed to repeat them on this podcast, but maybe I was mistaken. We'll go back and check the tape. I mean, if I were Chloe 7-Yeh, I might write a salacious song about Natasha Leon's Smurrish Girl, right? You know, so like, so you're like, okay, how's Charlie going to wind up messed up in this case this week, right? So that's like a fun little thing for your brain to work on. And then as the little clues drop, as the little references drop, then you're trying to like trying to beat Charlie to the like putting it together, or at least that's how my brain was working through it.

You know what I mean? So, like, you're like, why is Gavin a 20-something-year-old watching Benson? And why does it matter that we see him watching Benson? Or, like, in the first episode, it's insane, like, the way in which the little references of, like, the metal detector, the, like, you know, the cloud, like, all the dick cloud. Like, all this stuff happens in the first, like, few minutes of, of, like, Charlie being in the episode. We get so, you know, or, like, talking to her neighbor about B&E. or like anything. Like every little,

there's like no wasted part of, of the buffalo and all of this, right? So like, it's fun to sort of sit here and be like, okay, why is this important? Why is it important that I know that John Darneal's character

like to put this thing on eBay? Put things on eBay. You know what I mean? Like, what does that matter? So even though we're not trying to solve whodun it, there is still like some puzzling

and solving that we get to do in these episodes, which is like, it's fun, you know? Well, it's almost like flooding your senses in that respect. Like all the pieces They show you all the puzzle pieces as you go through the episode,

but you just kind of forget that some of them are there. Like the Benson one is a great example. I completely forgot. I thought maybe that's just a throwaway. Like, let's rag on 80s and 90s opening TV themes for a second. Let's have a little fun. And then yet, it comes back to be a critical part of the episode and the unraveling the real poker face justice, TM,

that they're dishing out there. Yeah. The consequence is losing your contract brought to you by, two twerpy YouTubers Love that and a podcaster Love that

Anything else you want to talk about Whether it's Your favorite Part of Brothers Bloom Or That's a whole other Podcast

I have to admit Oh we should say So there's something That Rob and I We're texting about a little bit Is there's like a voice On the phone at the end Of the first episode

Sterling Senior Adrian Brody's father Who scares the shit out of everyone in that episode Like, we don't see him, but everyone including Benjamin Brad is scared of him. And Benjamin Brad is scary. So, like, that's scary.

Very smoky voice on the end of the line, not credited anywhere. Looking at the long list of people who are scheduled to appear in this season that's on Wikipedia, we have identified Ron Perlman. And our producer, Steve, is like, I knew it was Ron Perlman. So, like, we have identified that we think Ron Perlman is the voice on the other line there. Real Alan Arkin and justified energy here. And so I'm hoping he shows up, like. for the finale or something like that.

Anything you want to say about that? Do we not think Ron Perlman could just be like another Reno Casino Waitress? Do we not think that that's in the cards for him? He's kind of on Wikipedia as like casino enforcer. I was like, I don't think so. That's not the kind of casting you do for an enforcer. Scary, scary, scary mob bus. That's what I'm getting off of Ron Perlman here.

And what a fun, like, what fun casting for like a main really scary but somewhat an unvuncular, like, antagonist, right? Because he calls her kid. Like, it's just sort of scary warm. That's something around from does really well, scary warm. That's a really good brand for him. And in the meantime, as you alluded to, we get Benjamin Bratt as like a great medium-sized bad chasing Natasha Leon around the country, showing up.

I'm happy for him. Every episode he pops up in, no matter how long. Hopefully we get, like, you know, at least a longer takeout for him in this upcoming set. I would love more than like three minutes and then she figures out how to run away. Or max. Like usually it's like a minute. And then she just like eludes him. But again, if Benjamin Bride is collecting his paychecks for this episode, like I would have regret to him.

Looking at the upcoming, the other actors that we haven't seen yet, I think I'm most excited for Tim Blake Nelson, my guy. I love a Tim Blake Nelson appearance. Killer or victim, Tim Blake Nelson. Killer. That's what I'm going to say. I'm going to say, Killer Tim Blake Nelson. But he's in the sweet spot of killer,

but you might want to be sympathetic to him for a little while. Yeah, the old Colton Ryan slut. The old Colton Ryan. Anyone coming up that you're interested in? Let me pull up the list real quick. I forgot about John Hodgman. That was a great bit, too. Okay, I definitely have one.

Okay. I am thrilled to see Tim Meadows pop up in this show. And maybe that's just because the last thing I remember seeing him in was popping up in Brooklyn 9-9 as a recurring cannibal. And so I would love to see some kind of reprisal on that. Like, let's get a people eater in here. I love the Cannibal episode of Poker Face. I would love to see it.

All right. Well, that I think does it. Anything else you want to say about this sweet little show? I'm happy it exists. I'm glad it's here. And I'm glad that Ryan, Johnson and Natasha Leon get to make this thing that is like does not fit in the current TV landscape at all, but it's just something that they were excited to do

and are doing well and stylishly. And, you know, we get to enjoy it. So thanks Peak TV and Peacock for being willing to go there. The cup overflow us to the point that, you know, sometimes the best shows are the ones you don't even know you need. And that's kind of what this has turned out to be for me. I think a lot of people are going to like spending time with it. All right.

We'll be back next week with, episode five. Who knows where Charlie will be working next week. We'll find out. We don't have an email associated with the show, but let me tell you, if you email Hobbits and Dragons at Gmail.com, the old ringerverse email, I will,

and want to talk about Pokerface? I'll forward them to Rob. I will do that. Pokerface is not a ringer versus show. No matter how many times you say it or try to pull it in. But like it kind of is. But like a little bit. But like a little bit. A little bit.

Van and Charles be back on Monday to do their Last of Us instant reaction Mallory and I will be back to do Last of Us

Deep dive also Van and I will be somewhere on the network talking about the Apple TV Plus show Shrinking

starring Jason Segal and Harrison Ford so there's a lot going on it's the end of January TV's ramping up

again and we will cover it most of it some of it all of it here on the press TV feed

thanks of course for our wonderful producer Steve Allman and we'll be back Relax and let Ralph's delivery handle your grocery shopping this week. We start with only the freshest items, then review your list and carefully choose each one. Then we pack it all up and deliver it in as little as 30 minutes so you can feel confident it's what you ordered. Fresh groceries, your way with Ralph's delivery and pickup.

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