The Prestige TV Podcast - 'Station Eleven' and Art in the Post-Apocalypse

Episode Date: December 20, 2021

Sean Fennessey and Joanna Robinson return to discus the three-episode premiere of the HBO limited series, 'Station Eleven.' They look at the umbrella themes of the show and its unique approach to tackling them (14:07). They also discuss the show's treatment of art and hope in a post-apocalyptic world (32:28). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Joanna Robinson Producer: Steve Ahlman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Now through May 6th. Exclusion supplies to homedipo.com slash price match for details. Hello and welcome into the Prestige TV podcast feed. I'm Joanna Robinson. Joining me is my former Succession TV co-host. Now a freelancer in the world of Prestige TV. It's Sean Fennessey. Hello, Sean.

How are you? Hello, I'm well reunited and it feels so good. We had a three-day break and we're back. I know, I was bemoaning. I was like, when am I ever going to podcast to Sean again? And then I made you do it immediately. I made you come here to talk to me about Station 11 so that I could force more of my Shakespeare takes on you because I know how much you like those.

No, we're going to be fairly light on the Shakespeare. I promised it on. I'm just excited to be here, excited to be talking with you again about a genuinely great show. I know we just spent a lot of time talking about a genuinely great show. show. And there's a lot of hyperbole in the world of television coverage these days. But boy, this sure feels like a genuinely great TV show, doesn't it? HBO. They make a TV. They know what they're doing. Hot take, hot take. So we're here to talk about episodes one through three, which are currently available on the HBO Max portal. They are dropping in a three, two,

two, two pattern over the holiday, the station 11 episodes, 10 episodes total. We are only going to be talking up through three. I have, as is usually my want, I have seen more, but we'll not be spoiling beyond three. And in fact, we're going to do just a quick segment rapid fire at the top, with no spoilers whatsoever to give you a sense of whether or not you want to watch the show

at all. The episodes that we're going to be talking about, written by Patrick Somerville, who also created the show and Shan Houston, directed by Hero Morai and Jeremy Podeswa. And they, you know, the series is based on a very

popular award-winning 2014 novel by Emily St. John Mandel that was published pre-pandemic, obviously. But it deals with a pandemic-stricken America. And if that sounds like unappealing television to you right now, we're going to make the case that the opposite might be true. Patrick Somerville's known, I know Ambassador's work on Maniac, which was a show that I really, really loved, that dropped on Netflix, that I think got mixed reactions, but I was really, really into it. Were you a maniac? Maniac? Wanted to like it more than I did.

Yeah. Every single person involved in that show, I adore, and I couldn't quite get there with it. But I appreciated its intention, and I see it part of a bigger project that Patrick has been after. You know, there clearly is like a set of interests in terms of relationships and intense situations that I relate to. So I was really happy to see him steering into this. Yes, I love that. I think this does feel like a refined, like an even better version of sort of what he was shooting for with Maniac. And Hiro Morai, who directed episode one in three, and then they went into lockdown, COVID lockdown, and then they shot the rest sort of over the span of COVID.

But Hero really set the sort of the tone and the aesthetic of the show. He's best known to TV fans for his work on Atlanta, but has done, you know, a ton of other stuff, obviously. but if you watch knowing that, you'll notice that the young actress in the show, Mattel de Lawler, who's incredible, does look significantly older in episode two. But time is supposed to have passed, so it makes sense.

It all makes sense. But we're going to get into some nitty-gritty of episodes 1 through 3. We're going to put five minutes on the clock, right at the top here, max five minutes. Okay. To make the case. Chris and Andy covered this on the watch in great length. So if you want a long argument as to why you should watch the show, listen to Chris and Andy.

We're going to do it rapid fire. I'm going to start with you and ask you, Sean, how does this compare to other sort of post-apocalyptic stories that we're maybe more familiar with? Certainly feels a lot more elegant, I think, than a lot of the TV shows. We're obviously in the midst of this rash of TV shows that have been coming out, why the last man, and we had Utopia last year and a handful of other shows are sort of post-apocalyptic. And very few of them, I think, have been able to nail not just the same. sense of dread because I, you know, I think for lack of a better word, that's kind of the easy part. But there is a kind of a somberness and a kind of a feeling of disconnection that clearly something like this provides. We're going through a much smaller scale version of this in our real lives

right now. And this is a show that is willing to take its time and is also willing to challenge its audience to take its time with it. You know, there's not, this isn't a show that has hurtling fireballs crashing into, you know, the faces of the main characters every five seconds. There is a big plane crash as a kind of set piece, but even the plane crash by the standards of disaster movies or disaster TV shows is kind of poetic. You know, there's this, it's a slightly different register of TV show. And so I think fans of, you know, shows like the leftovers and lost in many shows that you've covered really, really well over the years, I think are going to find a lot of connection with the show. But even by those standards, the show is doing

something different in its pacing and the way that it cuts up the chronology that I've never really seen before. And so I felt immediately more curious about the mystery, but not deathly eager to find out the answers to the mystery. Does that make sense? You know, it's slightly different in that respect. Yeah, because maybe it's a world that you don't mind hanging out in. There's a warmth and a joy, despite the fact that a lot of this takes place in freezing snow of Chicago, there's a lot of warmth and joy in this. I guess I should promise it really quickly to say that, you know, the basic premise of the novel is that a pandemic hits on the night of a production of King Lear. And so we follow some of the characters associated with that production sort of through the

first hours of the pandemic. And then we hop forward 20 years to what life is like post a flu that is wiped out all but 1% of the population. Civilization has completely collapsed. and we are following a group of players called The Traveling Symphony, who was a Shakespeare troop slash symphony, as they go around performing for people. And we'll talk a little bit more at the end about some of the differences between the book and the show, without any spoilers, but I think it's a really interesting departure, some of the decisions they've made, but one decision, and you see it a bit in an opening episode, this is not a big deal spoiler, I swear, I'm still in the pitch phase.

But in the book, it's not just Shakespeare. There's some others that they do. And in the second episode, we get Bill Pillman's speech from Independence Day as this sort of like, it's not just Shakespeare. It's stories. It's like the stories we've all told each other and what power they have ongoing as civilization collapses. For me, and that reminds me of, have you seen Rain of Fire? The incredible Christian Bale, Mackey McHenheim-Man. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. Love that movie. Gerard Butler. There's a scene in that movie where I think it's Gerard Butler and Christian Bale perform Star Wars to the assembled kids. That's right. And you only realize like halfway through this play that they're doing that they're doing Star Wars. And there's some, you know, if you're a Slings and Arrows fan, there's plenty of Shakespeare performance in here for you. If you love that Canadian Gen that came out several years ago.

But the post-apocalyptic vibe that I think it most captures is seeking a friend for the end of the world, which is a film that I really loved. and this idea of like... Lorraine Scafaria. Yeah, this idea of like connection and what really matters. When everything is stripped away, what really matters about like love and family and connection and all of that? As you say, this shows really fearless about time in a way that Maniac was as well. Like Maniac and both this show and Maniac, he does an incredible job of chopping up the story in a way that really rewards a rewatch. Once you know everything that's going on, when you rewatch, you're like, oh, okay.

I see all these things. But it speaks to a true faith in the audience that they're going to pay attention. I think something you said to me, either you said or Chris said it to me, that you can't second screen this show. You have to, yeah, you have to sit up and pay attention. The thing is, is it's obviously it's based on a novel, but even in the telling, it's quite novelistic, the way it bounces from chapter to chapter. And the fact that it is slicing and dicing in the chronology where sometimes we're seeing, you know, Kirsten at one age and then Kirsten at another age. and then Kirsten at another age. She literally, I think, has three or four timelines

in the first three episodes of this show. And so if you put your head down for a minute, you may move from one timeline that's one year in the future and get a little bit lost in the show. So it's a bit annoying and pretentious to be like pay attention to this show. You really should pay attention to this show. I watched both, I watched only the first three episodes

and I watched them twice. And I found the second watch rewarding because I was a little bit more locked in on what they're trying to do. And also, there's just a lot of literary references. is happening here, not just Shakespeare, but there's something a little bit bolder in terms of what they're trying to tell us about the way that stories help us through hard times. That seems to be the core idea. And it feels like, honestly, the core idea of a lot of the work that you've done, too,

I feel like the shows that you're drawn to. And tell me if I'm wrong about this, but something about the way that these stories can kind of soften the blow sometimes or help us better understand some of our pain and frustration because there's a subgenre here. There's a, there's a, there's They've located something in terms. And I don't know. Why do you think that these stories have become more popular in the last 10 years? I think as we all become more disconnected from each other, I think seeking connection somewhere, even if it is in like a TV show you're watching, someone like that, seeking that emotional resonance

that we maybe used to get from more in-person interactions. And even before the pandemic hit, like our increasingly online life, I think, has made us feel disconnected from our communities, would be my guess. but I didn't prep for that answer, so maybe there's a deeper answer. But thank you for saying that that is something that I'm interested in, because it definitely is. The last thing that I want to ask you about before we go into maybe super specific episode discussion is the casting of this show, which I think is a real coup. What stood out for you in the casting? Broad swath of a certain kind of actor.

And I think the fact that there are a few faces that are undeniably well-known or memorable and a few that I've done. never seen before, or if I have seen them, I've seen them only in flashes, is a very wise choice because we're meant to see this experience of the world ending through a lot of different points of view. And so if we have too much of a relationship with our star, that can sometimes distort, you know, if Tom Cruise was cast in this, we would know inherently that he is going to solve this, that there will be an act of heroism that leads to resolution. And instead, when you put, you know, and McKenzie Davis is known, but I wouldn't say widely known. Himmish Patel, same thing.

I feel like he is known, but even less widely known. Matilda Lawler, I've never seen before you already pointed out. Incredible performance from a young actress. And a few people that I really like that I never, whose names I didn't know, you know, David Wilmot and Daniel Zavado in particular, I feel like I've seen quite a bit in the last 10 years. I didn't really know their name. And then every once in a while, Lori Petty pops up.

She of Point Break and a League of Their Own Fame, And maybe we haven't seen her that much since Tank Girl, but she's been working. Yes, exactly. A post-apocalyptic classic. That's right. She's back in her happy place. And Gail Garcia-Bernal, probably the most well-known person who's in this show. And I guess he's in sort of a guest-starring role.

It doesn't really seem like he is a part of the core cast. Yeah, and we can get into Y as we get into episode-specific stuff. But, yeah, I think, I mean, Ken Z. Davis, incredible in everything she does. and I would follow her into any apocalypse. Mesh Patel has this just really warm quality. I think the role Americans know him best for is in yesterday, a movie that I find very shaggy, but he is really lovely in.

And yeah, Gail Garcia-Bernel is, I think, in my life of all the famous people I've ever met, and this is not a brag because I haven't, like, spent time with him. I just stood near him at Sundays one time, is the most charming person. I think like he just oozes charm. You know, it's just spurting out of him. It's, it's ridiculous. And I think that's really essential for this character.

And I think they just did an incredible job. So we'll get into more details. But yeah, just like an incredible cast. Matilda Lawler is a person that all the people are talking about because they maybe hadn't seen her anything before. I did see her. I didn't realize this until I looked her up. But I did see her in the ferryman, which won the Tony in 2018. This is a Sam Mende's directed play with Patty Considine.

And she played, you know, she was even younger. then she had an incredible Irish accent and was like a real standout in this packed play that had a bunch of other people doing an incredible job in it. So I mean, this is like Sir Sharonin and Atonatomit level like keep your eye on this spot sort of performance. Who's Laura? Laura is my girlfriend. You're going to get married? Probably, yeah. I think so. What kind of job do you have? I'm a I'm a report. like a reporter or a cultural critic slash I had a website. Let's get into some specifics.

We're not going to go beat by beat. Again, Chris and Andy did a really good job of that on the watch. I thought we would do what we do over here, which is, you know, some broader themes, umbrella themes. And I want to start by asking you about this theme of parenthood because you're freshly a dad yourself. being a freshly baked dad compare to Jeevan steering Kirsten through an emergent pandemic in the snow, Sean. Well, it certainly hits on the sense of disorientation, confusion, and am I doing this right feeling that you have every day? I think one thing that they don't tell you about parenthood is that there is literally no book. There are many books that have been published, but none of those books are ultimately going to be helpful.

What's helpful is the experience. And in Jevin, you can see he is, he's looking for an opportunity in this story to not have to take care of this kid, but there's something deep inside him that knows that it's the right thing to do. Now, I don't have that exact same feeling with my daughter, but things get hard. You know, and you're like, I just wish this child would just relax so that I can relax. And that's unfortunately not the way the things are going, at least in my house. And so, you know, it's, it's relatable. I mean, we're obviously not operating in a post-apocalyptic. setting, but I think this show does a very good job of showing the way that disaster makes unusual connections, you know, and I think in some ways Kirsten is teaching Jeevan something too, you know, that this is a little bit of a two-way street in terms of what kind of a person he should be in the way that he's going to evolve. You know, I'm really interested in his character. You've watched this whole series. Have you read the book as well? Yeah. So you've read the book and you've watched the whole series. I've only, I've only seen three episodes. And so the way that

even is portrayed and and and and and characterized and what part he plays in this show long term. I'm fascinated by because he really is to open the show. He is our main character, you know, and that that evolves over time as we watch the first three episodes. But he's, uh, he's doing his best as a dad. You know, we're all doing our best as as as dads and moms out there. I think you mentioned, um, you know, Patrick Somerville worked on leftovers and, and, um, obviously the DNA of law.

is in leftovers, and this idea of an episode pegged to a character is definitely here in the first three episodes. Like, you could call the first episode the Jeevan episode and the second episode, maybe the Kirsten episode, and the third episode, the Miranda episode, you know, if you wanted to do it that way. I don't think the, I'm not ready to make the argument that the rest of the series pans out that way. But initially here, that's absolutely the case. And I think that Jeevan as a POV character through all this, pairing the horrific unrolling of this pandemic news as it spreads with this one quest, this very clear aim that he has, I think is so smart. And the fact that there are a lot of mysteries, again, I'm obviously not going to spoil them for you.

I know how you feel about your spoilers. And, but just keep me safe, you know? I will. You know how to pod with me. I will lock you up in a Chicago penthouse apartment and we will be fine. But what we do know, here's what we do know, is that Jeevan and Kirsten are in that apartment, at least part-time, full-time, who knows, for 80 days. And then Jevan's brother, Frank, who we meet, does not leave the apartment with them.

And then at some point, a year later, Jeevan's not with Kirsten. And we don't know why, and that's a big mystery, like, what happened to these two brothers who have taken in this little girl and have to, like, you know, form a little family with her as the rest of their families are dead. And it's just, it's that warmth and care. Matilda Lawler is such an appealing child actress. Hamesh Mattel is such an appealing adult actor. Even though they're not just sunshine and lollipops the whole time together, they're a little, like, sharp with each other and stuff like that. There's just this connection there that is irresistible and pulls you through. I think Andy was talking about how this is the toughest sit, the first episode, because this is the active pandemic phase.

But what you're not seeing here is what we saw on Why the Last Man. I don't know if you watched all or any of that. I watched the first five episodes and then I had to check out. I mean, the first episode where you just see the horrific death of all these people, Horrific, awful. And I was really pulling for that show and it had some great parts to it, but I think it was a mistake to show us all that carnage.

Yeah, just read the graphic novel, is my advice on that one. Yeah, it's a great thing. Well, can I say something about that really quickly? I thought that this show, and maybe this is where you're headed and I don't mean to cut you off, but I think that a little goes a long way in this show. There's one sequence in particular where we see Jeevan's sister, who I guess is an emergency room doctor of some kind in a hospital. And she's already contacted Jeevan to let him know that this flu is mutating.

And she's walking down a corridor with her colleagues. And they're sort of looking for like an auxiliary exit of some kind. And they find this auxiliary exit and they go outside. And outside there's mayhem. People are sick in the streets. And there's a man holding a little girl, I think, or a little boy who's very, very sick. And he just says, can you help me? Like, where should I go with her?

and one of her colleagues essentially just accepts this sick child and brings her into the hospital. And then we get this crazy overhead shot. And again, this is hero Marai, such a genius, like the way that he is changing scale very quickly on this show. Big images and then intimate images, very quickly switching between those two. We get this big overhead shot of what's happening at the hospital. And it is this clutch of cars stuck in gridlock, all trying to get close to the entrance to this emergency room. And that's it. Like, that's it.

You know, like, that's really as much as we need to understand that the world is going straight to hell almost literally. And rather than this overweening determination to show you how awful it is when everyone's like limbs are falling off and why, this is a little bit of a more elegant telling of that kind of terror. There is a great interview with, with Hero and Patrick. And I think Jeremy Podeswa, who directed episode two in Vulture where they were talking about the intention of putting the camera inside certain vehicles. so you're looking out. So there's one, the closest we get to like a zombie sort of feeling is there's one guy coughing in a in a van sort of like that's spinning its wheels in the snow. And Jeevan goes over to make sure that he doesn't get out of the car and infect them. And you hear him, it sounds like, it sounds like a zombie film. This is like a sound that we're familiar with. You hear him,

you can't really see into the car because the window is fogged. And often the camera's just pointing out of the window at Jeevan. And similarly, when they walk past a bus, 80 days later when they're leaving the apartment and they walk past this bus, you see Jeevan clock that there's a bunch of dead bodies in the bus. We never see them. The camera's pointing out from the bus at them or we never see inside that plane that crashes. You know what I mean? Like, we're just, the camera's intentionally not showing you these things and focusing instead

on these two characters who will survive, you know. I think that's very wise. There's only one other coughing bus moment, which happens in episode three as well, which I think also induces a similar amount of. terror panic yeah the last thing i would kind of want to say i mean there's a lot of found family stuff in this like when kirsten joins the traveling symphony that is obviously another sort of found family moment for her she becomes a parental figure of sorts to this girl alexandra who was born post-pandemic so it doesn't understand how uber works um and a really lovely like or even cell phones

or the internet at all you know and so kirsten sort of explaining it to her was really a great moment. But there's this idea of the theater of being a parent that I want to talk to you about. I think you've probably experienced this, maybe not fully yet because your baby is so young, but like I'm not a parent, but I am an aunt. And as an aunt to nephews, there's just times, even when they were babies where like they're crying and I would just go, you're okay. Like that's what I would just, you know, there's just like this, it's okay. We're okay. Yes, calm be gets calm. This is a thing. Absolutely. That is a way to handle these situations.

My wife and I have to tell each other that as we endure painful nights. Calm be gets calm. So, you know, the various things that Jeevan does and we'll see more, you know, I don't think it's a spoiler say, we'll see more of what happened in that Chicago apartment, you know, as they figure out how to help guide this little girl through this. And like, and I think it's presaged a bit in episode two when Kirsten's giving this sort of pep talk to a new member the troop is going to be playing Gertrude and Hamlet. And she's like, here's the best acting advice that I've ever received.

It's not about you. Focus on the other person. You're Gertrude. I'm your son. Focus on me. That's how you get through it. And I just think that that's like a beautiful reflection of like what Givan does in, you know, he's like, usually I have panic attacks, but I'm not panicking right now because he's just

focusing on Kirsten and getting her through. And I think it's so beautiful in that way. It's really brilliant because there's this sort of like three. three-part parallel structure happening in the telling of the story. There is these core Shakespearean texts that we understand if we care about that sort of thing and we think about the way that some of those stories are told and the way they may reflect. There is this sort of future period. Is it 20 years into the future?

I can't recall. 20 for Kirsten. That also has parallel structure to the Hemish Patel and the young Kirsten story. And there are some aspects of this in Miranda Carroll story as well. But this is very elegant and also novelistic. storytelling. It's very hard to pull this kind of thing off. And this show does it in a fairly effortless way where you almost don't even feel it. I had to think about it a lot and watch it a second time to think about the way. And the way you're drawing conclusions too is even making my brain

kind of activate in the way that they have drawn some of these pieces together. You know, I like a lot of straight ahead TV that is just like beat, beat, beat, plot, plot. I can enjoy that kind of thing. But there's a lot to admire in the way that they have kind of taken apart and recombined a lot of the characters into this story. Is the novel told this way? Is this a similar structure? Kind of. I'll hop ahead to some of the big differences just in these first three episodes. Jeevan meets Kierston at the theater, but he does not walk her home. Like, Jeevan and Kirsten part ways at the theater. And the way that this show was put together is Emily St. John Mendel knew Patrick Somerville from like before they were famous. And she was not involved in the making of,

but just said, go with God, I trust you. And then when she got all the 10 episodes, this is according to an interview, she gave Esquire. When she got all 10 episodes, she was like, wow, I really wish I had thought of that with Kirsten and Jeevan. She's like, I loved it. This is so great. It's a huge departure. And it is like the scaffolding of the show is the Kirsten-German relationship. And that is not in the book at all.

So it's pretty wild. But we do hop ahead in time. We do, you know, check in with various different characters. Miranda, et cetera, that does happen. But that is like a core difference that I find so interesting. We're not jumping back and forth in time so much, but there are memories, obviously. Like, that's how they're portrayed in the novel. I want to get to this next part, which I think it stems from the parenthood question, because there are two things that get Kirsten through this pandemic initially, right? It's Jevin and it's this graphic novel comic book that she got

from Arthur Leander called Station 11. That was written by his ex-wife, Miranda Carroll. The third episode is the Miranda episode, the Miranda Arthur episode, if you want to put it that way. They don't have children together, but I think the show is doing something about this idea of the act of creation and art and how it relates to the act of creation and parenthood.

Because I think I've never gotten up in the middle of the night to feed a baby, but I have gotten up in the middle of the night to you, add something to a story. So it's not the same. But there is something there about this idea of creation and birth and like the way in which Miranda dedicates so much of her time and space and love to this thing that she has struggled for years and years and years to create and raise and grow and nurture and the way in which Arthur is jealous of this comic book that she's been working on. I just think it's a really interesting storyline. What do you think?

I think that the agonies and confusions of parenting and writing or creating or drawing or whatever it is that you do are not the same, but they are in the same phylum. You know, there is something related to, why can't I figure this out? You know, the idea that like, I'm doing everything that everyone told me to be a good writer or to be a good parent or just caretaker and it doesn't work. and the mysteries of life and the mysteries of creativity are definitely wended together. I think also, you know, Miranda's acts of creation in the same way that raising a child is kind of a lifelong affair feels like something she's been thinking about for a long, long, long time.

You can see, like, in the scope of the way they tell this story that her creation of Station 11 is something, and she talks about this in episode three, that is something that makes her happy and has been inside of her for a long time. And she's been trying to figure out a way to kind of actualize. Burm it into the world. Yes. And so I think you're on to something. I think that there is a similarity here about how we get something out of us, you know,

how we make something real. Everyone's an artist to some degree in this show. But Miranda and her comic, you know, is put up in direct parallel to Arthur and his work. Arthur is a Hollywood star, stars in what seemed like completely dreadful movies. Who is his analog here? Who do we think this is? We didn't do this that much on Succession, but I do wanted to do it with Arthur. Is it like Gerard Butler?

I was thinking Gerard Butler. That's so weird. That's so weird. First of all, I love Gerard Butler. And in the same way that I think I would love Arthur Leander if he were a real, real actor, because he clearly makes primarily like high grade B. B movies, you know, high-end genre crap that I kind of enjoy. Wow, that is so funny.

It's like Olympus has fallen. Like, exactly. Right, exactly. Yeah, the Orion Soldier and Alpha Beta are like the two projects we hear about. The Orion Soldier, so is such a perfect man. It's so real. I can see the Orion Soldier. I love that.

But so Arthur is this kind of person who needs an audience wherever he goes. Like even if they're in a bar, he needs like the guy who owns the bar to like love him. Like that's what he needs. And Miranda is creating this comic book with no one. intention to ever really publish it. That is just art for her. She's like the purest. The art is just for the artist.

Arthur needs that validation until this late in life thing, I think, where he's like, I think it's so interesting. The show doesn't go into it very much. But like, why is he in Chicago? Chicago's where he met Miranda. Why is he doing Shakespeare? That's something that plenty of movie stars will like go do theater to sort of prove them. But I also think it's like him trying to reach back to like her more, you know, pure artistic roots, like trying to make his way back to her somehow. That's my read on it anyway. But I think in the middle of those two is Kirsten, who is someone who strikes me as like a pure, like loves the art, loves the story, but also sees the value in bringing that art to people and how it can like change and transform them. And Miranda never needed anyone to see her.

art, but little does she know that her art has become this sacred text for not just Kirsten, but it seems other people in this post-apocalyptic world. I think it's such an incredible examination of art and its effect and ripples out. I think there's also something interesting about making her a child actor who insists on continuing to act despite the most intense circumstances you could possibly imagine, you know, the way that like that kind of creativity gets inside you and you can't abandon it. Like, it is just essential to your life. And there's something really,

the same way Miranda can't give up on trying to figure out how to tell this story, even after she burns it all down, she needs to start again. And the idea of Kirsten continuing to perform, needing to perform, feeling this determination to express herself, even though, I mean,

I don't know what percentage of the world's population has died here, but it sure seems like a lot. 99. 99. Yeah. The audiences are small, you know? They're passionate, but they're small. Intimate. I don't think the show is this finger wavy about it, but there is a little bit of something in the way in which we see Arthur perform King Lear at the beginning. And we hear the cough in the audience is one of the first sounds we hear, but we also hear the sound of texting. Like people are just texting through this thing. And then when he collapses on stage, people just all these cell phone screens light up as people are just filming him collapse, you know, versus the complete rapt attention of the audiences in the post-pandemendom. world where they're just like this piece of theater is the best thing I've ever seen and I'm going

to give it my full attention. Oh, that's such a great point. I hadn't thought of that. That's so true. And the way that wouldn't it be nice if we could get back there? And I incriminate myself here. I can't get back there. I can't get back to a place. It's why I made that second screen comment to you because I'm just like, I'm so, I'm so distractible. And I'm like, I imagine myself as a purist engaging in these things and I'm still so distractible. I mean same. I'm not going to lie to you. Same. But I like, in my eyes, ideal world. I'm the audience in in the post-pandemic Station 11 world

that is just like, give me more Hamlet all the time. I ask you about those tattoos. What's the symbol? It's for all the people I've killed. Alex, I'm just going to do a quick perimeter suite. The monsters. We're the monsters.

I guess. Where did you hear that? It just came into my head. To go into like this treatment of art in this post-pandemic world. And to close a loop on Arthur, something I really value about his story, first of all, casting someone as charismatic as Gael is so important because the way in which Arthur ripples, the way in which Kirsten hero worships him and the way in which his legacy, you know,

a Gerard Butler-esque legacy, you know, continues on. I think you need someone as, and he does so many terrible things in his relationship with Miranda, the betrayal. It's not cheating on her. It's showing her art that she has carefully guarded to this other woman. That absolute betrayal, I mean, the cheating on her doesn't help. He's a self-regarding shithead. And so you need somebody who you like so that when he does terrible things, you need to care.

Exactly. You need to root for the two of them to get back together, which against all odds I was. Same. Completely. It's a brilliant stroke of casting. Yeah. But this idea of... of the way, I mean, we talked about this idea of like warmth and joy that they find in.

And I think a big part of that is how like in episode two, we get like George Clinton in the parliament funkadelic playing, we've got the funk. Like that's, it's not like a cold gray, dreary post-apocalyptic whatever. We're just like we're happy. We're here. The players are coming to town. Like we're going to have a great time with the soundtrack. And there's just a lot of great music in the show.

And all of it is uplifting, cozy. joyful, don't think twice is all right, Bob Dylan, like stuff coming through here, you know. Should we talk about the music very quickly? Yeah, please. I'm obviously a huge music nerd and a massive needle drop addict. And so this show is operating on a pretty high degree of greatness. I think that I like when you can sense the taste of the filmmaker. And this is not necessarily like these are,

These are obviously songs and scores, you know, symphonies that are trying to accurately reflect some of the feelings of the characters or counteract the feelings of the characters. But you can sense when someone is picking a song that they have always loved, that they are desperate to get into a show. I think the give up the funk moment is one of those like, if I ever get a chance to make a show that has a moment of exultation, I need to use this song. But also there's a few that are very, very elegant. I thought the Glenn Campbell drop in particular, and I think it's in the first episode, the turnaround look at me, that felt like something that somebody had

in their back pocket for a long time. And it's the first song song that we hear in the show, I believe. And I just, it's like a game recognized game thing. You know, like as somebody who has over 300 playlists on Spotify that is like obsessed

with curating my listening experience all the time, this show is operating at a really, really high level. I was really excited to talk about the music with you. I am trying to feel. figure, I'm trying to remember what the, um, there's this, the song that's playing when, um, Miranda and Arthur meet in the diner was one I didn't recognize, but I thought was, and then I looked it up and then I didn't write it down. But anyway, it is somebody pleased by the vanguard's.

No, it's Lee, Lee, someone. Oh, the Lee Hazelwood song. Yeah, the Lee Hazelwood song. Oh, yes. I love that Lee Hazelwood's, yeah, it's your sweet love. Yes. Beautiful, beautiful. So glad to be talking about this with you because you know so much more than I do. So, you know, honestly, what it reminded me of watching three episodes is what David Chase and Matthew Weiner were able to do on the sopranos and Mad Men. I thought that those two elevated a sense of musical history into their songs. I always loved waiting to hear how Mad Men was going to end its episode, the needle drops at the end of episodes were so, so, so good over the years.

And of course, David Chase obsessed with music and especially the first part of the sort of American rock and roll and crooning period of history. And this show kind of feels like it's operating a slightly different register, but the same sense of taste. So I'm excited to see how they use music through the rest of the series. Excellent. And there's, I've been looking for a play. There's some like incomplete playlist already going on Spotify, but I will be interested in like a final, like season finale playlist. The players themselves, I mean, we talked about Lori Petty.

She plays the conductor, the head of the symphony. But these plays, these post-apocalyptic plays, where they repurpose. everything to create this, the production design on this show as it was with Maniac is just incredible. We'll see more and more of these like costumes that are repurposed from everyday items. It's just like I'm hoping the production designers and the costumers had a feel day with like what can we turn this like pack of gum into or what can we turn this into or how can we use toilet rolls or like what can we do here? You know, and so you see these elaborate costumes that are made out of the detritus of the post-apocalyptic world that they live in. And they're amazing.

They're incredible. But not outside the realm of possibility that a person with the thread of needle could make this. Do you know what I mean? Completely. I think there's a shot early on actually when that parliament song is playing that goes overhead again. And I guess Jeremy Padezwa directed that second episode. And he's kind of matching some of the stylemaking, the filmmaking in the show. And you see these sort of like these handmade, kind of massive tents or little domes that they've also built that they that they live in, I guess, in the circle and the wheel. And that stuff all feels handmade. And you know, everything in this world feels like it was built by humans, that it was not built by machines.

And that's such a, that's an important little touch as we go into the future world. That's incredible. And this idea of like the endurance of art, we already talked about Miranda's art and how it makes its way into this world, but the repeated lines that you'll hear over, and over again from this like one graphic novel. In the book, it's a two volume set, but in here, it's just one pretty slim comic book with very sparse text that has become this sacred object to Kirsten and maybe some other people. But, you know, you hear these lines. I remember damage. You know, I don't want to live the wrong life and die, something she pulled from her ex-husband and put into her comic book. You know, I love that. That's like artists are forever doing that,

scavenging, like, things that they hear. Of course they are. And putting them into their text. Listen to me talking about my baby on this podcast. You know. Scavenging your baby once again. But this idea that like this book, which we will never get the full, you'll never get the full story of Station 11. And I think it's better that way because then it just lives in your imagination as this incredibly profound piece of art.

But the story itself is about a kid processing trauma. So the fact that Kirsten, a kid processing trauma connects to it. And Miranda mentions in episode three, she says, then Hurricane Hugo hit. So, like, it's about Miranda processing the trauma that she experienced through Hurricane Hugo that Kierston is now experiencing in this pandemic, that we are now experiences through COVID watching the show. It's just sort of like echoes out and out now. But I just think that it's, I don't know, it's so interesting. So much hinges on you believing that this comic book could have profound meaning to someone in a post-apocalyptic. Like, what do you think about that?

Or do you think they could have done anything? You know, as somebody who is like quoting Pulp Fiction every other day when I'm not living in a post-apocalyptic world, of course. I mean, of course. If you have a book or a song or a film or something that matters to you, you find a way to make it appear in your life on a regular basis. You find a way to remind yourself what it means to you. And especially when things have been destroyed,

If my phone and all the phones in the world were destroyed, I would cling to those accumulated memories of the stuff I care about but don't have instant access to. And they would probably take on an even bigger part in my life. And so, you know, I remember damage and to the monsters where the monsters, like, of course those things would echo throughout my life. So I totally get it. I think it's one of the genius decisions of the show is to make it clear that no matter what happens to the world, once you've built a relationship with something that isn't a person,

It's going to continue to grow in your mind's eye. This is where I'm going to show my age, but you and I are very similar in age. So hopefully you've had this experience, which is that there was a time growing up where when we didn't have the internet always readily available to us, when we would, like, I would memorize movie quotes. My friends and I would quote movies to each other back and forth all the time. And I don't think that people do that as much. First of all, I don't think people are rewatching things the same way that they used to just because there's too much content. so you're not just, you don't have your, like, tiny VHS collection that you made me rewatching over and again.

The internet's always there, so you don't have to, like, well, it's that quote again. You can just, like, look it up or watch the clip on YouTube or whatever. You don't have to, like, I love when Jeevan asked Kirsten, do you have your parents' number memorized? And she goes, yeah, in my phone. Yeah, I mean, that is, that's our brain now, unfortunately. I think, of course, I did the same thing. I think it reminds me of times that felt simpler,

and I don't know if they were simpler, but felt simpler, like taping songs off the radio or going to Blockbuster and hoping that there was still a copy of something available, you know, the sense of elusiveness around the culture that you care about.

I think some of the culture that we're seeing that the characters in this world are exploring and recreating is a little bit more high-minded than that. You know, it's Hamlet. So, but it's all kind of related. But it's also Independence Day. That's true.

That's true. And who among us has not memorized the Bill Pullman speech from Independence Day. So I like that aspect of it too. I've thought about that with the baby as well when I'll have to explain to her like what my culture consumption was like when I was 9, 10, 11 years old and how desperate I was to get the thing I wanted, hoping it would be available to me and how radically it has changed in our life now. So I'm with you 100%. And that was Alex's whole reaction to like, oh, just every play ever on this phone. And you could dial up whoever you want. into the world on your phone and talk to them? Like, what is this culture that you didn't value that you had before? Yeah, it reminds me of the cousin Greg, you know, different time. Better time? Like that question? Not for all.

Not for all. And then I want to, okay, so Chris made a big swing on the watch when he compared episode three to the constant, one of the most famous, famously romantic episodes of television, this episode of Lost. A show that we called the number one. an episode of TV of the 21st century on the ringer a few years ago. You quibble with that?

I might agree. I actually have lost episodes I prefer to the constant, but if I were making that ranking for like general consumption, I might put the constant at the top of it. Now that you're here at the ringer, which thank God,

I would love for you to kind of pull apart and look at that list because you've obviously been covering the landscape the same way that we have. So there's a little, And we have a few more shows on deck now. I think that was 2017 when we did that, maybe 2018. And we've gotten a few good ones since then.

Oh, yeah, there's just been one or two shows since that, you know, totally the culture. But this idea of love and fate, and it's not just romantic love. It's romantic love with Arthur and Miranda, but this idea of, like, fate, when Arthur and Miranda meet, you know, and he says, we know each other. And then she says, you do look familiar. And I think we figure out later that maybe they knew each other as kids on this island that her dad would take her to and he would spend time on. And so they did meet as kids. And there's this thing that she says at the end of her episode where she was like, you know, I've met you before. I'll meet you again.

You know, I'll find you. I was later. You were early. You're my yesterday. Like all these very beautiful time traveling, we'll meet again, we'll meet again, we'll meet again. And the idea that Kirsten's on this wheel that travels around this lake. And every year they come back to this. same spot and they come back again and again and again.

It's just this like, and that all these characters are located in a pretty, like, you know, Miranda's across the sea, but other than that, the other characters we're going to mean are all concentrated in this one area because without massive travel, you're just where you can walk. It's why The Walking Dead was circling Atlanta for the entire time, you know, that it was airing. Yeah, interesting, that's the first time that the show, that show has really come up because this is the non-dour version of The Walking Dead. many ways. Someone was asking me, they're like, is it the walking

down? I was like, it's not. And I'm, you know, with love and respect to people who love the show and I covered that show for years, like, I was never, that show was never in my heart. And I think it was just because it was just this bleak. And I just didn't feel like it was doing the deeper stuff that I wanted to do, which I think that this show does. I think it wanted to and it tried to sometimes

and sometimes effectively. But like, for the most part, that felt, uh, anyway, I don't need to sit here and trash the walking Dead, a very popular show. Well, no, I mean, I was saying before that, like, I do like plot, plot, plot shows. And that was really a plot, plot, plot show for me. I didn't really feel like it was that psychologically, as psychologically deep as I wanted it to me and maybe as I thought it was at times, I dug the first two seasons and I kind of lost interest.

I think this show is pursuing something different, for sure. There's this thing that I, every time I've watched episode three, which has been a couple times, which is called Hurricane, that episode. There's this thing where constantly Miranda's saying she needs to go, and Arthur keeps going, okay, and he just like kind of lets her go every time. And then she goes. She goes this last time, and then she says, but I'll come back.

And then, of course, they never meet again. He dies. It's like gutting and beautiful. But I just love that. that sort of cyclical also this I think it's making some sort of comment on a relationship on this idea

of this fear of asking for too much this fear of asking someone to stay this fear of settling down with someone I just think it's all sort of baked into this really short span of time we spend with these lovers I think it's really interesting

I promised I wouldn't go to Shakespeare but I do have to point out Miranda's name is a Shakespearean name. Miranda's the name of Praspera's daughter who is Washashore because of a tempest. So this idea of like the hurricane and Miranda and all of that I think is one of many touches that

Emily St. John Mendel puts in her book that she doesn't lean too heavily on but it's there if you want it. Kirsten, as far as I know, is not a Shakespeare name. But I like this idea that she's like Kiki before the pandemic. You see that on her Instagram profile. Yeah, yeah. And then she's

Kirst or Kirsten after. You know, the before and the after is like a really interesting. And I, it's so interesting that this show is coming out. I know we need to wrap up really quickly. But like, it's so interesting to me that the show is coming out now because it was a complete accident that's coming out post-pandemic. It was started, you know, in production before the pandemic hit. But I don't know if you say this to your near and dear ones, but I'm constantly saying like the before times to people. It's a thing that I casually say and they just say the before.

That's what they say on the show. I'm just like, it's real the before. It's a real thing. Yeah, of course it is. I mean, I wonder, I'm so reluctant to draw too many similarities to our moment. You know, obviously many people have lost their lives and it's been just so destructive to our existence over the last two years, but it's not 99% of the population. I find it fascinating how optimistic and spirited this show is.

You know, I think that to your point at the top of this conversation, This is just not a doom and gloom show. There are scary moments, but some of the scary moments are about one-to-one interactions and fear of danger from single people, not from a virus. And there is something about that that I think is exciting and interesting and is much more, you know, for lack of a better phrase, it's a real human condition show, trying to figure out how people operate inside of a world despite the circumstances. Yeah, and I mean, I haven't talked much about David, the prophet, he calls himself David. who comes in in episode two and that she stabs, and he survives, but that she stabs sort of viciously,

played by Daniel Zavato, who is another very compelling, compelling actor. I can't talk about him that much without talking about other things, so that's sort of why, but his own theater that he's putting on, that idea of like the theater of liars, the theater of all of that,

that's an interesting thing to hold in your heart and your brains are thinking about all of this. really quick, just want to buzz through some other departures from the book. I think the main one is this idea of Jeevan in the book he's training to be an EMT. So the fact that he hops up is like it's his training. I love that he's not in this because what it just means instead is that Jeevan is the most observant and perhaps empathetic person in the room. And you see it again right away when he's the only one who noticed Kirsten standing right there.

So it's just this moment of like, no, he has no qualifications. to do this. But he was the only one who was paying attention. And no one says that. No one says, oh, what a kind act or what a moment of empathy you've shown for this person? Like, we have to draw that conclusion. It's a show that doesn't necessarily tell you how to feel. And that's an exact moment there too, where they could have said, oh, Jivan, of course, you did that. You're such a kind soul. Your sister is a doctor. And you feel a connectedness to the human, you know, to humanity. That's not what's going on. There's something else going on there. And I appreciate that the show doesn't hold our hand to every emotion.

I also didn't talk about Frank much because we haven't seen much of him yet. But Naban Rizwan, who's, I'm familiar actually with his brother's work. They look like they have these beautiful eyes, both of them. So I was like, have I seen him in something before? No, it was his brother. But he's incredible in this show. It's very, very good. Yeah, I feel like he was in 1917, right?

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. That's right. That's right. That's right. The last thing I want to talk to you really quickly about, and then we had to go, is this really weird, weird as a judgey term, odd thing that I

that was revealed to me in this vulture interview with Kiro Moray and Patrick Somerville, which is this idea that they have decided that Dr. Eleven, the main character from Station 11 in the comic book, is the POV character of their show. And you talked about those overhead shots.

At the very end of episode one, we pull all the way back to Dr. Eleven in his like spaceship space station. Those overhead shots are meant to be his POV according to them and that they think of him as a very empathetic, like, detached but emotionally engaged POV character in their show. I'm curious, if you watch the rest of the show, I'm curious if you think this is a conceit,

they ultimately kind of abandoned because I think it's really only in, really in Hero Mirai's episodes, which are just episode one, episode three. And I don't know if Hero Moray was supposed to direct the whole series and because of the pandemic you didn't or whatever. but we see the space man come to Miranda at the end of her episode. I don't think we see much more of him. And so I think it's maybe a really high-minded concept that they abandoned. And it's something that I didn't get at all until I read this interview.

And then I rewatch it. And I was like, okay. Is that reflected in the book at all? No. No. Okay. Yeah. So, I mean, what it felt like to me was it was either going to go one of two ways.

It was either a very hero is of course best known for directing Atlanta. And it felt like sometimes Atlanta would have a flight of fancy in its filmmaking. And it felt like that. But I thought perhaps maybe that this show is a little bit more magically real, you know, that there is a magical realism aspect to the storytelling that would integrate Dr. 11 somehow into the story or that he was some sort of like omniscient figure or godlike figure or somebody who was moving chess pieces or something that I couldn't quite put my finger on. I would not like it if that would. I wouldn't want that to be the case. I actually like

the real world impact of this story so far. So the fact that you're insinuating that maybe it's not that is kind of a relief to me. I think it's abandoned, but I, you know, maybe I miss stuff and I'll have to rewatch the whole thing. But that's, I was, I was just kind of shocked. Not in a bad way. I was just sort of like, oh, that didn't occur to me at all. Anyway, that's station 11, 1 through 3 as far as we can, We can say it. Chris and Andy, I think are going to be covering it more on the watch. Chris even intimated that maybe we should Voltron and talk about it all together. That sounds fun.

Yeah, I'm into that. The Roy kids together, less making their own pile. Boy, I feel like I'm Connor in that scenario, honestly. No, no, no. I'm not the TV overlord that you three are. Not at all, not at all. So, you know, if you want to get more coverage, you can definitely hear Chris and Andy talk about more episodes on the watch. I really recommend the show.

If you listen to all of this and without watching it, why? That's crazy. Hopefully you are going to watch it or continue to watch it. And we will see you probably after the holiday. So happy holidays, Sean. Happy holidays to you, Joanna. Thanks for having me. Happy holidays to our producer, Steve Allman, who's the best, as always.

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