The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘Station Eleven’ Final Thoughts

Episode Date: January 13, 2022

Joanna Robinson and Sean Fennessy react to the finale of HBO’s ‘Station Eleven’ and the series as a whole. Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Sean Fennessy Production Assistant: Jonathan Kermah Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Derek Thompson, the host of the podcast Plain English. We tackle technology, politics, culture, history, everything that's happening in the world and why it matters. New episodes of Plain English drop every Tuesday and Friday on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. It's time to refresh your yard during spring backyard days at the Home Depot. Get low prices guaranteed on propane grills starting at $179, like the next grill 3-burner gas grill, or get $50 off of it. a select Weber Spirit Grill and bring big flavor to your backyard.

Then set the scene with Hampton Bay string lights that bring it all together. Shop spring backyard days for seven days at the Home Depot. Now through May 6th. Exclusion supplies to homebopo.com slash price match for details. You said this place was steps from the water. We just haven't found the steps yet. How much did we save?

Enough. Enough to get lost. Or you could book a stay with Hilton. Welcome to your oceanfront room. Just steps from the water. The Hilton sale is on now. Book on Hilton.com or the Hilton app and save up to 20% to get the stay you expected.

When you want savings, not surprises. It matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay. Hello and welcome back into the Prestige TV podcast feed. We're here to cover most of Station 11. I'm Mr. Robinson. joining me here on this post-upaclifoc journey. Sean Fetasy, hello, Sean.

Hello, let's go on an excursion. I'm doing well. This is a show that we really, really loved. I don't want to speak for you, Sean, but I think that's true. And, you know, if I had my brothers, we would have covered every single episodes, holidays being what they were. We were only able to check in at the beginning. And here we are at the end of all things, checking in again.

And so, you know, we'll focus, you know, a bit on the finale since that's what everyone just watched, but everything's on the table. Large, thematic, broad strokes of the season are on the table. Our good friends, Chris and Andy, have been covering the show a little bit more over on the watch, and I believe they'll have an interview with the showrunner Patrick Somerville on the show this week, so you might want to check that out as well. But here we go. It's time to talk about Station 11.

This is spoilers for the entire season of Station 11. I've also read the book, and I'll be talking about the book a little. won't get too into detail in case someone wants to pick up the book after they're done with the show. So I won't, you know, go over every single detail. But I just want to, we will be discussing it at the end. So if you want to jump off, that's, that's a place for us to put that. But let's just do broad strokes reactions. Sean Fantasy, Station 11, where is it sitting with you?

More or less where it sat when we last spoke about the show, which is that I think it's a pretty extraordinary achievement in TV storytelling. I think obviously a lot of people have approached this show or not approached this show with some apprehension and some concern given the real world circumstances that were enduring and what this story sets out to tell. That never really affected me. I have a dark and black heart and so, you know, difficult stories are really my bread and butter. But I thought that this was an interesting rollout. You know, I know that you watched the show in a fairly compressed period of time with screeners and I, as usual, did not do that. and getting 10 episodes in the span of a month,

I thought was a fascinating way to take this in. I'm personally a huge fan of the weekly model. This is a little bit of a different spin on that. And I think we'll talk about this, but the way that the multiple episodes were paired together, I thought created a fascinating viewing experience. All in all, I thought it was just a pretty major achievement in a kind of TV storytelling

that potentially more accurately reflects what watching TV may end up being like in the next five or ten years. What do you think about that? Oh, that's so interesting. Well, to the release schedule, I will agree with you. At first, I was a little irked by it because I also like a week-to-week release, and I like a full week to talk about, and there's so much packed into every episode of Station 11. There's so much rich content and visuals and everything that one could break down on a week-to-week basis.

So initially, I wanted it to be 10 weeks. However, you and a few other people have pointed out to me this idea that pairing it this way with an episode set primarily in the past, an episode set primarily in the present, is a good way. I mean, it's an unfair thing to compare it to Book a Boba Fett, but that is a show that is, in my view, struggling a little to balance a past and a present timeline, often cutting between the two in the span of a 30-minute episode. For this, even though it hops around in time very confidently, as we talked about, I think before, it believes this audience is intelligent enough to follow the flashes back and forth. I do think if you watch something in the past and you're anxious about what's going on with Kirsten, is she going to survive this or do that? And having to wait a week, I can understand how that might make people impatient.

So I don't know if it, like, I hope Chris and Annie asked Patrick if it was an intentional, you know, know, artistic choice rather than a corporate choice. Yeah, I'm not sure. I think that the fact that there is so much time jumping going on in this story and not just from episode to episode, but from, you know, segment to segment or moment to moment even in the telling of the story, I think makes this like one of the more unusually kind of dissociative TV watching experiences I've ever had, where it's sort of like it's really trusting its audience to not just have been paying close attention, but to have been

to feel excited about the idea of threading a story. And that also feels different. I don't, I don't think it was necessarily difficult to follow. Yeah. But so much television, and you know this, is like so eager to hold your hand and over-explain and decomplicate all of its story. And this is one that even though I think after watching the first two episodes, you knew that convergence was essentially where this was all going, that these people were going to meet up again or that there was going to be some aspect of reunion around things here. The name of the final episode of this show is Unbroken Circle, so that should tell you all you need to know.

I still felt like it took a lot of risks and it, it disoriented you at times, you know, and it made you feel like, well, why am I with these people? I'll tell you in particular, when I was watching episodes 8 and 9, I was like, gosh, it sure feels like we're a long ways away from wrapping this thing up. Like, where is this going to end? Because it was almost luxuriating in the events that had happened 20 years. earlier. And I found that to be a really fascinating choice. So is that what you mean by more accurately reflects the way that we will be watching TV

five years from now in terms of that release schedule? Or? I think both. I think definitely the idea of like chunks of two and three as the way we get shows feels like something that is going to happen more and more. You know, it's not something that HBO proper does, but it is something that HBO Max is continuing to experiment with. We see Hulu does this frequently. I think particularly for miniseries, it can be effective. You know, we don't necessarily need to drag out certain stories that don't feel. And the other thing, too, is, like, this show ultimately turned out to be not a mystery box show.

You know, I think that there were revelations, but it didn't have that same. This wasn't lost, I guess, was ultimately what I arrived at. Or yellow jackets. Yeah. Or yellow jackets. And, I mean, you know something about both of those shows for sure. It was a much more, you know, a much more. you know, a much more emotionally cogent kind of a experience.

You know, there was not as much revelation, I think, as I was initially expecting. And I think you are meant to wonder, you know, when they initially leave the apartment in Chicago at the beginning of the series and you're like, wise and frank with them, and they don't tell you exactly, you know why,

but you don't know the details of why until episode seven. Or when Kirsten shows up half feral, and you're like, oh, no, at some point she got separated from Jesus. in, but how and why, and we get little, little pieces of that until we get the full story in nine. So I agree. It's not mystery box where they're asking you to analyze every frame so that you can figure

it out before the show. It's the show parceling out a story for you in a way that keeps you really, really engaged. And, yeah, even though I think that's so well put that even though there are revelations, it's not a mystery box show. It's not a show that's asking you to enhance and hands and enhance your screen to find a clue. But I think overall, I will say this. I have, I think, maybe developed an unhealthy relationship with this show. You know how Kirsten re-reads and rereads and rereads and rereads Station 11 until it becomes

like crusty and eventually blood soaked and all that sort of stuff like that. That's sort of me with a show in that I keep rewatching it. Part of it is showing it to new people. That's a thing that I get a kick out of is showing something I love to other people. But part of it is also I just find it endlessly rewarding. to rewatch this show. Usually my comfort shows are something like Frazier, but something mindless that you can sort of watch in the background but is enjoyable.

And this is like, I've just fallen in love with studying this show. I think it is really, really beautiful and rich. So I loved it, and I found this finale incredibly satisfying. How did you feel with the finale specifically? I thought it was intriguing, depressurized. I thought it was much more a sort of like a character study,

a series of character studies, and also like basically the final thesis statement about how people use stories to process trauma and how, you know, we rely upon these texts that we've been given over time to like better understand ourselves and better understand the world as opposed to, you know, what we're saying

here, which is like, this isn't a story about a cannibal cult, you know, that's not, that isn't really what's, there may be cannibal cults in this story, but that isn't actually the primary driving force. There were so many different pieces of this story, the bandanas, for example, that, like, you could have just spent way more time trying to, like, unpack that. I've heard, for example, that the prophet is a way more sinister figure in the book than in this show.

And the show just doesn't seem terribly interested in that. What it seemed most interested in, I think, was essentially the final 10 minutes of this series. You know, this reunion that we've been waiting for between Jeevan and Kirsten, which is like just so magically executed. You know, it's just like a real, it was a little chills moment. I thought the last three episodes had two or three like real chills moments.

You know, we're like, oh, God, they really nailed this. And this sort of like this sense of communion amongst people. Those seem to be the big concepts that the show is more invested in as opposed to a big explosion or a shocking death or the things that we sometimes expect in as shows like this tend to turn the corner and their season run or series run. So I thought it was like, it was elegant and emotional and maybe a little softer than I usually like.

But I respected what they were going for is what I'll say. Yeah, I think the stakes of the finale, I mean, knowing that who the prophet is in the book, which as you say is a little bit more or actually much more of a sinister figure, there was, at least for me watching the finale, a danger. You know, there's a couple moments where I think Alex before the play asks Tyler, you know, what are you thinking? And he's like, you know, what are you going to do? And he's like, I'm not sure. She gives him the knife.

There's a very real possibility that we could see a production of Hamlet that ends in a bloodbath on the stage because, you know, that's how the play ends. And that would be sort of a fitting blend. And there was a moment where I was like, oh, that's what they're going to do. They're going to do Hamlet on the stage and everyone's going to die. And is that what I want to see? And then when none of that happened. really the big moment of the episode is a wordless hug, that that's the big climax of this show, felt very fitting.

And I wasn't at all, but I was tense. I was tense up until then. I was like, this could go very wrong at some point. I felt like they, though they had created a lot of sympathy for Tyler slash David slash the prophet, you know, you also had his children minions, though not under his orders, blow up David Cross a few episodes. episodes ago. So danger is here, you know, in this show. Is it going to hit our central characters or not? And the fact that Patrick Somerville saw this book where a lot harsher things happen and decided, no, I'm going to do a story that's set in this world, is interested in this idea of art and how it helps us survive, but has a much more comforting and love forward messaging. Well, in our first conversation, we talked about how this show started its production before. the pandemic.

Yeah. And then it had to halt production and then return eventually, essentially during the pandemic. And one thing, I mean, maybe Chris and Andy will ask Patrick about this too, but one thing I was curious, like, what you think about this concept is, is it possible that they reworked episodes 7, 8, 9, and 10? Is it possible that they did actually strain out some of the more violent or dangerous aspects of the story, especially as we get to the conclusion?

Because, you know, there are moments that feel like they could have been more explosive. I also think of the conclusion of episode eight and the sort of like the final sort of reunion between Tyler and his mother and you know setting the monument ablaze and blowing up the museum and all of that and that felt like

a really violent moment but there were no it didn't really seem like there were like human casualties related to that moment it didn't seem like it was as dangerous as it might have been on a different kind of show and I wonder if just some of those things were re-evaluated or rewritten potentially what do you think I'd be really interested to know that.

I think especially it almost feels like a retcon for what happens at Pingtree, the explosion at Pingtree, and then we find out that Tyler wasn't response. It's what happens when the story gets out of hand when he's sick. You know, and it's almost like washing him clean of something that, you know, would have changed the story. Yeah, I think it's a more interesting story, though, to have Tyler and Kristen as these sort of like twin damaged children center. circling the same text, but going in different directions, circling the same father figure, but going in different directions. I think that's a more interesting story, but I can easily see a version of the story that meets the book's darkness.

And I prefer this story that we got. I think there, I don't know, how did you film the finale? Was there ever a moment in the finale where you're like, Jeevan's going to leave and they're not going to do the reunion? in. Well, they make you wait, right? Yeah. They certainly drag you to the bitter end. I will say, I felt like when we, when we, when Kirsten is being, um,

sort of escorted, I guess, with the young girl, I can't recall her name. What was that young girl's character's name at the end of the episode? Um, who she reads Station 11 too. I know who you mean and I don't remember. Anyhow, as they're sort of like walking along and we see Deborah Cox singing in Midnight train of Georgia and there's a, the crowd is gathered around. I felt like I was almost craning my neck around the TV. to try to spot Jevin in the crowd, you know?

Like, I really, because I was, I guess I was ultimately afraid of what you're saying, that in fact, they wouldn't give us this moment. But, you know, for a show that I think was so heartful through much of its telling, like, it seemed kind of inevitable. I thought the way that they handled it was particularly graceful, you know, the fact that there was not a lot of, again, not a lot of over-explanation. There was just not a lot of over-explanation throughout this entire series. I still don't really know what the flu or virus or pandemic was really,

even about what caused it, when did it end? How did it burn out? What is the science behind it? We didn't get any of that. This is very much not a show about that. And you pointed out the first time we talked about the show that there has been this wave of shows about this sort of story, you know, about the end of the world.

And a lot of those stories, I thought, got quite bogged down, not necessarily in the particulars of the virus, but in like the real world ramifications and the way that like chess pieces move when stuff like this happens. You know, like what is China's response going to be? Things like that. Right, right, right. This show could not have cared less about those things.

This was very much just about the people who were occupying the world that was left behind. And so it was, I mean, the Kirsten and Jeevan story evolved so much since we last spoke about it that I think if they hadn't paid it off, I would have been kind of pissed if I'm being honest. Yeah, I mean, there was a moment where I was like, they wouldn't, would they? And then I did the same thing, not in that shot, but during the play, they really cleverly shot the audience where you got a sense of the audience, but it never showed you the full audience. was looking around. I was like, is Jeevan still here? He's watching the play. I need him to be here. Yeah, and they have this wordless greeting, this recognition, played beautifully on these two actress faces, even Hamesh Pettel threw his old age makeup and his beard, you know, just like beautiful, teary-eyed reunion. And then what I actually really liked is the end of the episode, which is not

that much time devoted to it, is a series of goodbyes, but done really. quickly and beautifully and efficiently in a way that I don't feel like I'm just, oh, here's another goodbye and here's another goodbye. It's just sort of like Alex's very quick goodbye. I thought it was really beautifully done when Kirsten's like, what now? And then it's just gone, you know? The Clark goodbye with Elizabeth is pretty quick. Saving us for the most important goodbye, which is just Jeevan and Kirsten. And again, that's a beautiful thing. We talked before about how this is a Jeevan Kirsten relationship, which feels like the whole show is show invented. It's not in the book at all.

But they're. That's impossible for me to imagine. I know. I know. It's like it's so much more. And like the book is beautiful and I love the book. But it's so much more plot focus. And this is so much more emotion focused.

And so the fact that they find each other and then let each other go. which has been Kirsten's whole journey of figuring out how to let people go in this way. She lets Alex go and then she and even meet and, you know, they're going to meet again. We feel, we feel confident. They'll meet again again on the wheel. But I just love that letting go and that parting in the woods. How did that sit with you? Yeah, I thought it was beautiful.

I mean, I think it's also an end cap on the concept of acceptance for the two of them, too. You know, that that was like the unfinished symphony of their story. You know what I mean? Like, they just, they couldn't, they couldn't feel settled until they were able to know how, how the other one was doing, you know, because they experienced literally the most traumatic circumstances imaginable together. They walked through the world as the world was ending. And so that's a relationship unlike any other, but they never got a chance to finally

sorted out. In fact, when they last spoke, they were fighting. Yeah. You know, like, he did something foolish and, and selfish. and he was attempting to write that wrong before he was attacked by a wolf in an absolutely extraordinary scene. But, you know, they had a cliffhanger of their own. They had an emotional cliffhanger.

Yeah. And they needed to resolve that either by jumping off or by finding safe harbor and they both were safe. As important as it was for me to see them a hug, it was more important for me that Kirsten knew that he didn't, like, abandon her or didn't die and that he knew that, you know, she was safe. I want to skip forward to something I want to talk about bigger thematically, and I specifically want to talk to you about this as a new dad, is this idea of coming back to this idea of parenthood and what this show has to say about it. I love that a lot of what is going on with Jeevan here

is this sort of insecurity, this idea that like, and I've experienced, like, I'm pretty good with kids, but, you know, sometimes you're around someone who's just like really good with kids, and then you get this, like, weird, squirrely insecure feeling where you're just sort of like, this child doesn't like me as much as they like this other adult. And that's sort of, you know, Jeevin felt his own discomfort with Kirsten, even as he was sort of heroically helping her in the first episode. But once he sees that Frank has a much easier camaraderie with her, it feels to him like he's odd man out of this little like duo that's bonded here in the first 100 days. And then he carries that sort of peevishness and that insecurity with him. And I think it's a really relatable

thing for an adult with a child where you're like, I don't know if I'm doing this correctly and I don't know if this kid likes me at all and then you get kind of angry about it. Does that feel realistic to you? How do you? Not about your baby, obviously. It does. I mean, I'll just, here's how I'll frame it.

With my daughter, now I have realized, one, I am comfortable around any kid in any circumstance and I don't have that anxiety or that insecurity that you're talking about, which I completely related to before. I had a child. You know, I'm now fully in the every baby I see. I'm fascinated by phase of my life,

which I could not have cared less about babies as recently as nine months ago. And now they're a fascination. So I don't think I would necessarily approach, you know, someone else's kids or whatever with apprehension or anything like that. But what it reminds me of is I have a sister who is 20 years younger than me. And my dad got remarried and he had a kid with his new wife.

and she and I are very, very similar, emotionally, temperamentally, in terms of our interests. But, you know, I spent my whole, basically my whole adult life watching her grow up. And so when she was like seven or eight or nine or ten or eleven or twelve, any of those times, and she's very precocious, she's very smart. But sometimes you would just be like, what are we supposed to talk about? Like it would just be she and I hanging out. And we'd be on hour three. and I'm like at a certain point,

even if we're incredibly similar, what am I saying to a nine-year-old? Like, how are we bonding? And Jeevan and Kirsten have a little bit of that, you know, like they're both sort of forced to bend their entire life to this other stranger's point of view, interests, you know, survival skill set

that they're developing together. And there's this unusual tension when you put people in circumstances like that that forces you to adapt. You know, you have to just kind of like, Not that I ever disliked being around my sister. I love my sister. But at a certain point, you kind of have to just bite down and be like, I am here with a nine-year-old.

You know, like she is staying with me for the duration of the day. We have to find something to do at all times to entertain ourselves. And so I found that to be an oddly relatable experience, especially, I guess that was in, was that in episode seven when all of that was taking place? Or maybe it was in episode eight before Jeevan is attacked and we're sort of seeing their life in the cabin. And we saw a glimmer of it, I think, in episode four as well. Yeah, not. I think nine is where we see the biggest chunk of it.

Nine, okay. That's the other thing about this show is it's extremely hard to recap all in one shot because you have no idea when anything happened. But I mean, I liked it. I liked it less so as a father and more so as just like an adult who has a relationship with kids and trying to figure out how to navigate that, which is always a little bit tricky. Something I really do love that I think, you know, the Unbroken Circle being the title of this episode, there are so many cycles of birth and rebirth that we see in this.

And the way in which Kirsten begins to understand Jeevan through her role as Alex's sort of surrogate parent. And the way the show underlines that, not in a heavy-handed way, but just, you know, flashing between the two of them, having them say some of the similar lines, you know, as her anxiety around Alex, mirrors his anxiety. And then she can, but understand it, which leads up to seven. I think eight was maybe a specific episode that you really loved. But seven, which is, you know, the end of Frank's story. I really loved because it was just this beautiful journey of this woman coming back, remembering, looking at her childhood from a different point of view, feeling sympathy and sadness for her childhood self, like in that beautiful sequence

where she's singing First Noel and Kirsten is sort of mourning her own childhood and all of that. But for Jeevan, for understanding Jeevan, now that she has had a taste, of what it's like to be a parent, I thought was really beautiful. And the way in which all of this circles around, all these characters circle around Alex in a really interesting way that's brought together in episode nine when you find out that like Jeevan helped deliver Alex, Kyriston raised her, Tyler was there with her mom while she was pregnant. And like all that sort of stuff I think is, you know, as much as everything centers around this comic book, it also centers around this other character, who is, who represents rebellious youth.

Like, I was watching, rewatching with a friend of mine. She's like, why is Alex so annoying? I was like, I don't find her annoying. I find she's a, she's a teen. I mean, I think she's maybe 20, but she's a, no, she's a teen who has only spent time with pre-pan. She's the only post-pan in her troop. And she's just like, like, like, Jeevan is thirsty for adult interaction in the cabin.

She's like, where are, where's the youth? I need to be with them. I found all of that stuff really smart, really beautiful. Yeah, she had like, her character had a little bit of a Peter Pan quality to her, you know, like a little bit, not to make a pandemic, Peter Pan pun here, but. I never thought that's what you were doing. But, you know, she's a little bit out of time. And, like, it's difficult for her to grow up because everybody that she's surrounded by

has had such radically different experiences. They've been through something that is really painful, but also we saw early on in the show, like her fascination with cell phone. and the internet and all of these things that could never exist now in the world that they live in, it just made her, it othered her in a very interesting way in terms of telling the story. And that part of, I'm sure that's part of the reason why she felt like she had to strike out on her own and have her own experiences and not necessarily be bound by this crew that had taken care of her to this point.

And probably is one of the reasons why she was so drawn to the profit in the first place, you know, looking for some sort of escape from this collection of people who just were very different from her and who saw the world actually quite. quite differently from her. And also that idea of, you know, Kirsten as a parental figure, but also as an older sister and this idea of being in her older sister's shadow, just wanting, she wants to be, she wants a chance to be the lead of the show, you know, and she's not going to be able to do it around Kirsten, who's just, you know, forcefully grabs the spotlight. The last thing I want to say about this, like, sort of family, and there's so much to say about it, but this sort of family parental, found family thing is I love this echo line of how Jeevan describes Kirsten as, just someone I ended up with. And that's how Rose, Alex's mother describes Tyler as well. It's just someone I ended up with. We need a new vocabulary. Like, are they my family? No, but yes. You know, like what is Jeevan to Kyrison, Kyrgyzna, Jeevan? Trauma bonded, as you say, in a way that like no one else could ever really understand. Really beautiful stuff.

Let's talk about art, shall we, without trying to get too pretentious. But talk about art. I will not spend too long in the Shakespeare I promise, but I do love the way that Hamlet is used three different ways in the show for different characters to work out different, you know, have different catharsis moments, Kirsten and her memories, Alex and her desire to break free to leave, and then Tyler with his mom and with Clark.

I just thought that that was like a really brilliant, nimble use of the play to come back to it again and again in that way without making it feel like that's the only piece of art that we should be interested in because there's so many pieces of art. As someone who's like not, doesn't love it when I like to talk about Shakespeare, like, how do all the Shakespeare stuff work for you? That's not true. Well, there's something going on in our culture, and it's not as if Shakespeare has ever

taken a backseat in our culture, but he's really riding shotgun right now because with this series, which, you know, also speaks directly to. to King Lear literally opens with King Lear. Succession, of course, firmly modeled on King Lear. The tragedy of Macbeth, arriving on Apple TV Plus this weekend, directed by Joel Cohen. Did the Cohen's pay to say that? I love it. He did not say that. I'm supporting my guy, Joel. West Side Story, which of course models on Romeo and Juliet in the culture right now.

Something is a brewing. There's a reason why we're returning to that. And one of the things that I thought of was, you know, one of the first kind of thinking pieces we started to see at the beginning of our pandemic was the great works that Shakespeare wrote during the plate and how that period in history drove him to be more creative. And then that was a challenge to those of us who were theoretically in the creative arts to use this time wisely. I'll say it two years later, I'm not feeling like I've got a king leering me anytime soon. In fact, quite the opposite. But I love the idea of all of this art kind of arriving at almost like the two-year mark and speaking to basically like some of the oldest texts that we have, some of the most resilient stories that we have. This isn't the Bible, but it's close. This is

like modern Western Bible for us is the works of Shakespeare. And so, you know, it sounds like the book, again, which I have not read, really kind of tussles with the text of Shakespeare, maybe a little bit. But I thought the show very carefully used not just the text, but like the thematic concepts behind a lot of that storytelling to tell the story that it wanted to tell, you know, to change Hamlet when it felt like it needed to, to make it work for itself, as opposed to having that sort of like bloody showdown that you were suggesting could have happened here. Yeah.

But I liked it. I'm not out on Shakespeare. I'm just out on an over-reliance on Shakespearean tales told over and over again. That's fair. I think there is a fairly light touch here. We talked before about how Miranda is a character from the, tempest. And so to have our Miranda wind up, you know, back on an island, which is where she was raised and her association with a storm and stuff like that. Like, that's all there, but not, you know,

not smothering you with a pillow with it, you know, and Clark and his relationship to Lear is there. He quotes Lear at some point. He's preoccupied with like knowing that he's loved and all the sort of stuff like that. But again, it's just not, I don't think it's, I don't think not knowing much about that sort of material will get in the way of you understanding what you're watching. And I think that's key to any reference, that it not hinder your understanding of the text itself. And then what I like about the show is that it gives, if not equal, certainly heavy weight to all other kinds of artistic expressions from Frank's incredible. A lot of people are, many people are talking about it. Frank's incredible moment with the excursions,

Triquel Quest sequence in episode seven. That's a big moment for people. As I mentioned, Kiercin singing first Noel. And then just like casual film reference drops that I really like, like, Jeevan trying to talk to Frank about the film Alive with the rugby team or when Miles first meets Clark and Clark's in a hurry to get out of the episode. And Miles just says like, okay, Steve Martin, let me get John Candy, you know, like playing trains and automobiles reference. And it's just the way in which we use these stories to understand our world, be they an 80s

comedy about getting home for Thanksgiving or a Shakespearean text or, you know, a beautiful song or watching Pretty and Pink or whatever it is. Like there's something in every episode that has to do with performance that, um, that I find really beautiful in a way that like Hollywood singing sometimes get up its own ass about being like what we do is the most in story. What's more important than story? Nothing. You know, but part of me really believes that.

And when it's done in a way that doesn't make me my gag. reflex go. I just find it beautiful. You know what it is? It's not, it's not. There's that great moment, of course, when Jeevan is like, it's so pretentious, you know. He's, he's kind of like self-reflexively pointing out, you know, getting ahead of the criticism of the show. Because the show does have an air of pretense about it in terms of that why story really matters with. But the truth is, what I really love about the show is not, it's not the power of story. It's not that, um, that speech. that Dinklage gives at the end of Game of Thrones,

it's culture. And in many ways, it's popular culture. Shakespeare is popular culture. Shakespeare was put on in its day and shared for the masses. A Tribe Call Quest is popular culture. Pretty and Pink is popular culture. These things that the film, that the series is showing us are things that bond us. They're the things that make us feel close to each other.

Because if you like a Tribe Call Quest and I like a Tribe Call Quest, we have the basis for friendship. We can kick it. We can kick it, truly. And the show is so smart about that, you know. And obviously, I am pop culture adult, and so I am more susceptible to this line than most people. But you don't have to be a TV show podcaster to feel like sprinkling these things into a show is going to make you feel closer to the characters in the show. And when Frank starts wrapping excursions, I was like, is this really fucking happening?

Like, is Frank, did I go to high school with Frank? Like, it has an incredible power, you know? It's very, very exciting to see something like that on a TV show. And we talked before about the other means of performance, like the ways in which lies or stories you tell in this, be it a parent figure trying to lie to keep a child feeling safe or, you know, the stories that Tyler tells, which may me are a little bit more damaging, or Jeevan's lie that he's a doctor, that he then, you know, sort of. becomes the lie. I think all of that stuff is really interesting and wrapped up into all of it. Yeah, I mean,

I think that I love, I love Jeevan with half his foot cut off saying so pretentious. Mush Patel, great delivery of that line. But yeah, I think you need that in there. So we don't get too swept up in the, oh, Station 11 is this sacred text. But as a piece of art or pop culture, it's a comic book, right,

that helps Kirsten navigate this world, that helps Tyler navigate this world, that helps all the kids who follow Tyler navigate this world, because it was written by a woman who experienced a massive trauma as a kid, and so you just feel it as you're reading it. As someone who uses books and films and television to understand their world, it really resonated with me for sure. And to cope too, right?

I mean, when I feel like shit, I might put on excursions, You know, that's the sort of thing that it has this, it's this salve on wound. And I don't know. I really thought, I didn't think that was pretentious at all. I thought it was actually like profoundly relatable. I think it could have been. And they did such a good job of threading that needle. And like the last thing that I want to say about that specifically, and this might sound

a little pretentious, but something that I love is there's a section where Frank is pushing Kirsten to give him her interpretation of what happens in Station 11. and she says, well, it cuts off. And he's like, yeah, but not what the author thinks, not what, you know, what do you think? Kirsten asked him if he's mad at her, which is one of my favorite moments. And she asked Jeevan that a lot, too. It's like a very kid thing to ask. But he's like, no, I just want you.

I want you to interpret this text. And we find out when she's talking to Tyler, the interpretation she comes up with is this idea that, like, in the book Station 11, there's Dr. Levin and Lonergan. And then there's, like, the kids and a kid leader of the undersea rebellion. in, and she thinks it's a time loop where the kid is inside the Dr. Eleven suit. And what I think is interesting is Jeevan plays 11 and Kierston's play, and then later Kirsten plays 11 when she and Tyler put on their little play. And like, an element of perfect production design is that Kirsten's in blue PPE with a mask on,

and so she looks very Dr. 11 in a non-Dr. 11 way. But like, and it just connects back to that whole like Kirsten and Jeevan on their loop of being parent and child and figuring out each other and all that sort of stuff and they're connected and they're the same and they're on a cycle and I just think is that pretentious maybe but the but the show is just like this is here if you want this you know this is here and if you just don't want that and you want to watch the speech from independence day that is also here for you and I enjoy both you know yeah it's another that's another great example that I completely forgotten about about the way they've worked that stuff into this show the other thing is like

if you want to watch 28 days later, you can watch that too. You know, if you want to watch the absolutely savage rendition of this, or if you want to watch a rendition like the stand that is slightly more spiritual,

you know, that is, you know, this sort of tangling with God and the devil and morality and sort of like what we deserve as a people, you can watch that too.

There are a lot of different ways to skin this cat, and they've chosen to do it in a way that wouldn't be my first choice, but I'm glad that I got to see, see one this way. I guess that's ultimately kind of what we're circling here is like, I don't think we've ever really seen a

plague story like this, you know, told this way. And that's what, that's, I think, what makes it special to me. Yeah, because you could just, like, I was talking to someone last night who had read the book, but had read the book a while ago, and she hadn't seen the show yet, and I was, you know, predictably recommending the show to her. And we were

talking about the book, and she's like, yeah, it's like, it's like the road. The book is like the road, the road, you know, but, but, put some Shakespeare on it. And that's the sort of darkness that you could, we have those stories. And this is just a different story. And I love it for that.

And I love it for the hug moments and the musical moments and the incredible production design. And the score, I thought Dan Romer's score was really incredible the way it swells. Let's talk a little bit about the finale itself. We talked a little about like sort of the stakes and all that sort of stuff. How do you feel about the way in which it folded Miranda back in to the story at the end? And we get the revelation that she is sort of the reason why the Gitchie Gumi flight did not deplane because she used her logistics to make that happen? My one criticism of the show is that I actually just wanted more Miranda,

that I wanted her to be a more meaningful part of the show. And I think I like the way that her story kind of rounded into she becomes kind of like the God creator figure of this whole story, you know, that she is the one when Arthur kind of acknowledges that she has created something and he's kind of like, what does it like to have had that, to have done that? This is a person who has been the star of many movies and is now starring on stage and he feels no sense of creative authorship in the world. How does it feel to actually accomplish something?

And it's incredible shot too because it's, we see his reflection in the mirror as he says that. It's him reflecting in the mirror a couple times. We don't get a full shot in his face. And there's something about the way that Gail delivered that line where he like looks up, looks down. His eyes are kind of teary. It's just like, it's a very important moment for him. He's grasping at this idea of artistic legitimacy. And Miranda has done it. After he told her he didn't think she was going to finish, she's done it. And it's in such marvelous small scale, too. I mean, how many copies that she ultimately print up of this book? And it was not about commercial pursuit. It was not about it's the funny thing where

a lot of times the legacy of popular things is nil. You know, the Towering Inferno was one of the biggest movies ever made when it was released. No one gives a damn about the towering Inferno anymore. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. But that same year,

a small film, I don't, I don't, gosh, I wish I could conjure a 1974 movie from thin air and say, like, this movie lives on in our heart forever. But there are a lot of examples of that. There are a lot of examples of things that were made on much more personal terms that ultimately, if we look at the legacy of Station 11, the comic,

it's deep and profound for the people that are featured in this story. And so I think it was interesting to make her this sort of like, kind of like birth mother slash god slash creative, inspirational force in the world without necessarily like slipping into any of the tropes.

Like Daniel Deadweiler's performance in this, I thought was fascinatingly reserved. You know, the decision to restrain her and not have her have a series of meltdowns about what she needed. And she had sort of, like, expressions of anger in sort of, like, burning down, you know,

the pool house. And, you know, like, even just the way that she is communicating with some of the characters. But for the most part, she's a person at a sort of, like, creative crisis throughout much of the show, trying to resolve the feelings that she has.

about this lost that she's experienced, how to process it, and how to make something out of it. Obviously, that is also the core theme of the show. I just wanted more time with her, honestly. I think she was a really interesting figure. And I felt like we were going to get more because we see early on in the series

her kind of interviewing for this job. And I thought we were going to be kind of, maybe that was the second episode where we saw her doing that. Third one, yeah. Third episode. And so I thought, I expected to have more flashbacks with her.

But I guess ultimately, the truth is that she didn't make it to present day. You know, she didn't make it to this, you know, this conclusive moment. And so we don't have that opportunity. But I thought like pretty brilliant performance from someone who, if you read the trades is a person who's going to be in a lot of stuff in the future. You know, it seems like she has a big career in front of her, Danielle Deadweiler. Between this and The Heart of They Fall, which is a film that I really liked that is

packed with a lot of great actors giving great big performances. is she really stood out in that movie. As someone, she was, you know, of course I had seen her in Watchman, but I hadn't seen her in a way that made me really sit up and take notice. And Harder They Fall is sort of the first time. And then this came right on its heels. And I'm just like, wow. Yeah, please do put her in everything.

There's a film coming out next year, or I guess it's this year. This is 2022 when we're talking right now. Wow. Yeah. Called Till that is about the story of Emmett Till and his murder, directed by Chennai, who made a movie called Clemeny in 2019. and Daniel plays Emmettill's mother in the film. So expect to see her a lot more.

Incredible. This idea that when she put this story of Station 11 together, that she herself was sort of a pop culture vulture in doing it, that's how every story works. But the fact that she puts things that her ex-husband said to her or things that other people have said to her in the book, the fact that she put part of his shitty speech from, one of the bad sci-fi movies that he was in in the book,

and that's something that Clark recognizes and remembers. That's what I, and I love that, Miranda is the author of this book, obviously, but, you know, Arthur is in his own way, a co-author of the book. And then Clark, too, that's a revelation I really love in the finale, where Clark is talking about the phone, he says, yeah, I was talking to Arthur,

and I was trying to help him understand what you did better. And she said, yeah, he called me, and then I finished the book two days later. later. So I don't think if Clark doesn't have that conversation, Clark is messy as he is, if he doesn't have that conversation with Arthur and Arthur doesn't call Miranda, does Station 11 get finished at all? So I'm going to give Clark a co-author credit on the book. You know, it all, like, takes a village to get a podcast made or a comic book written. And I just, I think that's a really beautiful look at the way in which these legacies sort of ripple out and ripple down

in ways they can ever imagine, that Arthur did create something, you know, because this this text becomes almost a religious text. Tyler becomes a religious figure when he goes out back into the wilderness with his flock and his, you know, it's Jesus and Mary going out with their flock back into the wilderness. He's a religious figure in the book that's a sinister thing. Here, not so much.

And Sash 11 is the sacred text of his, movement or whatever you want to call it. Can we talk about Clark a little bit? Please. Hit me. David Wilmot, one of those actors who I feel like I've seen in a hundred things. I can't think of one other thing I'd seen him in previously, and I'm not going to look back to know what he was in previously. But he is someone who really emerges in the second half of the series as one of the most significant figures.

And it's not easy to play old. And he and Jeevan and Himish Patel both have to and Caitlin Fitzgerald as well. They all have to credibly play old. Yeah. Elizabeth feels like she was giving herself a lot of spa treatments in that airport. I was going, I don't want to cast dispersions, but I don't think that she did it quite as well as David Wilma did it. And maybe that's just because he's just going to look like that in 15 or 20 years. And so the hair and the makeup and everything just worked a little bit more effectively. I think it's also, in some cases, easier to age men up than it is to age women up from a makeup perspective, prosthetics, et cetera.

but his meltdown in Arthur's home, his kind of spin-out incredible series of events that you don't necessarily expect when you first meet this character, he's not the fuck-up. He's the loyal and noble friend. And that sort of like that trapdoor of it being like him having this sort of meltdown and then that leading to him coping with and trying to reckon with what his personal legacy is going to be.

And then also I think, you know, as somebody who was like perhaps a little too kind of like self-aware or self-analysing for their own good, his character's constant state of, am I doing the right thing? Was this worth it? Did I do anything good? Please affirm me in the present day when we see him at the Museum of Civilization. That struck a chord with me, you know, like making that character constantly in dialogue with himself about whether or not like anything he did matters. Is it just one more question about, like, art and legacy and what you've put into the world and what's being taken out of it that I thought was just such an awesome piece of storytelling as well? The episode five's Seven City Airport, where we see sort of Clark rise in this position of leadership

through a monologue, a performance that he gives, the performance of his lifetime, is, I think a really beautiful example. And what happens with Elizabeth? too. When you first meet Elizabeth, you don't expect that she's going to be so central in the back half. But I think what we learn about Clark in terms of his relationship to shame, just a hot shame coursing through him at all times. And the way in which this is a very, the TV show lost idea of when you crash land on an island, you have an opportunity to reinvent yourself. Whatever happened before doesn't matter. You can beat, but it does.

And it always follows you. But you can try to reinvent yourself on the island to be a different kind of person. That's something we see a lot in this show of like Jeevan becoming a doctor or, you know, Clark is the main character. He's now center stage. And the fact that I think his relationship with Tyler is so interesting and messy because Tyler reminds him of one of his most shameful moments, the moment we see in episode eight. And so I think that's part of his whole like Tyler has to go because when Tyler looks at him, Clark has to remember who he was in that moment and who he still is in many ways. And so that idea of like the people from before reminding you of a before you want to forget. Tyler is that great moment in episode eight. An episode I rewatched after you told me how much you liked it where he talks about there was a before. It was just terrible. You know, like there was a before. It's not there was no before. There was no before. There was. Is it before it was terrible? And I'm choosing to rename myself as David and like, you know, become this other person because I don't want to be that person.

I just think that's a really powerful idea. So to piggyback on your concept about if you were to land on an island, like, do you have a name picked out? Like, would you change your name? Oh, wow. What interesting. I mean, are you asking me because you have your? No, I don't. I don't.

Your secret name? I've come to accept my name, which has 900 vowels and 40, 100 letters. But for many years, I hated my name. Do you have a, like, a complicated middle name? Sure, my full name is Sean Edward James Fennacy. That's including my confirmation name. I am confirmed by the Catholic Church, though I have also decried their actions many times over the years. And, yeah, that's very Irish.

I'm very Irish. I'm Joanna Welland-Robinson, the Well-in-Robinson, well in like the full Welsh way with all the L's. Oh, wow. very Welsh-Anglesaxon name as well. I don't know. I like my name a lot. I'll think about it, though.

Miranda's a good name for being on an island. It is a good name. The Gishigumi is something I want to shout out. This is like a really interesting name. I didn't look back up in the book to see if it was from the book. But every time they said it, I, the poem Hiawatha is one that I memorized as a young child

and starts with by the shores of Gitchie Gumi by the Shining Deep Sea Water. And every time they say, said it, like the cadence of that poem came into my head. And in the finale, you know, Miranda's hapless partner mentions the Gitchie Gumi is Big Sea Water. And so I was just like, I don't know if that was an intentionally drop there just because it felt like great lakey because Lake Superior is Gichi Gigi or if it was an intentional trying to make me think about a long fellow poem. It did every time. So I don't know. Yeah, just one more arrow in the quiver. of cultural suggestions

laced throughout this show. What did you think about just that actual revelation and that phone call between Miranda and the pilot in the finale? I just thought it was like a really beautiful

unexpected connection. I love all the ways that everyone feels loosely connection like finding out that Javan delivered Alex, just all these ways in which they're circling

each other's lives in a way that feels believable because it all sort of the wellspring is Arthur and all their connections to Arthur. I find that so strong to have this character who dies not from the pandemic, but from something unrelated, dies at the beginning, but we're following all these branches out from him. So the fact that they all kind of circle each other in that way, it's the part

that feels like maybe the least believable. That's silly to say about a post-apocalyptic show, but the least believable, but it's the kind of coincidence, the kind of lost-ean coincidence that doesn't bother me. What did you think? Yeah, I liked it too. I thought it was it was like a grace note, I felt like. A lot of the moments in the final episode felt like grace notes on things that we were sort of like, if there isn't a loose thread here, like let's tie it. And they kept tying them. I want to ask you stylistically, you know, something that the show does,

we talked about how it jumps around in time. But a lot of that is represented by these sort of memory flashes that are meant to put us right inside the point of view of certain characters. And so they're everywhere and they're really quick. And I, you know, like, Kirsten walking towards Tyler as he's wearing station, as he's reading Station 11 in episode seven, and then it cuts to Elizabeth walking towards him in the airport. You know, it's just like these tiny little memory cuts or Jeevan saying like having just one person, we know he's talking about Kirsten, but it's still like beautiful the way it just sort of blips essentially to a memory of Kirsten and then back to him talking to Miles in the finale. I loved all this stuff. How did it, how did it go for you?

I thought it worked really well. I thought it was, I was thinking about, you know, I was just talking about licorice pizza on the, on the big picture this week. And,

uh, a movie I liked quite a bit. Um, there's a, there's a similar storytelling trick at the end of that movie here, where we see these kinds of flashes. And I think in some cases, that can be a little bit overweening and a little bit annoying.

In this case, in particular, with such an expansive story, that literally crosses 25 years and a plague and life, death, the whole nine. Yeah. It feels worthy of using that style. So I liked it. The other, the ways in which both those flashes, those blips and various lines from the book that come up over and over again,

we talked about this in the first episode, how the way they're repeated almost feels like a litany, Like it's a religious text, but also when we hear them again, oftentimes they take on new meeting. To the monsters where the monsters. Like, that's a very, like, I think about that line as it relates to Clark and this whole, like, he's being defensive of his pack. But in doing so, it's putting him in this position, you know, like the wolf that maims, um, even in the woods. He's, he's, like, he's just defending his pack. But to other people, you know, he's a mad king and he's a monster. So it's, you know, to the monsters were the monsters.

It's a really interesting thing. I remember damage, all kinds of damage, emotional damage, physical damage, all of this running through this show. I just, I feel very strongly about it. Let me ask you about one last sort of like really kind of sappy thing, which is this idea of like soulmates and connected pairs, which I think the show believes in. not it's not other than arthur and miranda i would not call this a hugely romantic show um and it's not even you know it's not a very like sexual show either i think that's really

interesting is that kirsten has like several bedfellows that are just like random members of the troop and it doesn't it's not really something that you know um bad as to her that might change you know she sheds all her knives and she gets rid of her books so she's like shedding off layers so that might change she might be able to connect with people a little bit more professional in that sense if she wants to. But I just think this idea of like, I found you because I know you and I know you because we are the same, this line from the book and it's just like,

it's Arthur and Miranda, it's Kirsten and Tyler, it's Kirsten and Jeevan, like all these sort of like, I'm going to circle you, I'm going to circle you, and I'm going to find you, we're going to reconnect. That's a very romantic notion. I don't know. What do you think about that? I think it's romantic in the, in the Keats sense of, of the word. You know, it's not, it's not necessarily romantic in the desire sort of sense of the

word. And it feels fitting, I think, given someone like the cultural landmarks that we're talking about to kind of create these, these never-ending pairings, these like necessary reunions between people who are elementally bonded. I think, like, the complexity of parental figures and soulmates, too, is also an interesting mix. Like, a lot of time, like, you, I don't, I don't know if this is going to end up being true in my family, but like, I know my mom and my sister, for example,

like they were soulmates. They were, like, made for each other. They were, like, very, they were so close and so bonded to each other, eternally, and had such an unspoken connection.

They didn't need to, like, unpack it. You know, it was just there. And, like, it felt like these relationships are very similar. You know,

like, Kirsten and Jeevan, it's hard won. It's through one of the worst possible things that could ever happen. But what they have at the end of it, what we have at the end of the show is, their words are not are not necessary. And at a certain point, Kirsten and Tyler,

even when Tyler is sort of like, why are you being nice to me? We understand that they understand each other and that there's something about being lost and finding those who are lost and then bonding over those things. Again, I thought like a very graceful way of telling this story.

And then letting them go. What I think is fascinating about the finale is that we don't get a goodbye between Kirsten and Tyler. Their last scene together is like midway through the episode when she sort of comes and tells him he's going to play Hamlet in his jail cell. That's the last time we see them together. She watches him in the play, but they don't talk to each other. Yeah, I think her seeing him off on stage is like the

final moment between them, right? Yeah. And it's just like that's... That's life. That's life. But it's all part of Kirsten's journey to sort of hold things less tightly. The use of Lori Petty and the show, I just want to say, I think Lori Petty is incredible and I think this show just really knew exactly how to use the Lori Petty. And I found her death really beautiful and Jeevan being there for her. And again, it's just like an all connected thing. She took care of Kirsten. When Kirsten left Jeevan, Sarah took care of him, Laurie Petty's character.

And then he sort of helps her to the afterlife, if you believe in that in this episode. Again, the circle. It's unbroken. All right. I want to talk to you about something that you know much more about than I do, which is the needle drops in the show. We've talked about a few of them, but I just wanted to give you a chance to go full music head. Full nerd. You know, I don't know if I've ever seen a show do this better, honestly.

I don't know if I've ever seen a show more carefully and impressively work the music cues into it. its storytelling and make them feel like a fundamental part. And this is very specifically something that a book cannot do. A book cannot, a book could give you the lyrics to excursions as the frank character recited them, but it could not give you the vivacity of that sequence. And in the same way that, the reason that I loved episode 8 so much, the variety of reasons, but it concluding with Bill Callahan's voice, who's one of my favorite living, artists, a person who like in 2015, I think, I drove to the middle of like Texas Hill country

by myself to stay at like a weird like resort of some kind, like Airbnb situation, just because Bill Callahan was going to be playing like on a lawn for a hundred people. And like, basically abandoned my wife for three days because I was like, it's very important that I see Bill Callahan in this setting. And it was, it was worth it. And he played almost the entirety of this album Apocalypse that the song One Fine Morning, which appears in the show, appears on. And this is what plays as Tyler lights the sort of plain monument on fire. Exactly. Yeah.

Which is this sort of like, you know, the whole album is sort of like humorous. I would say Callahan's singing style is almost bemused by what's become of our country and our world and our individual lives. And, you know, he has this deep, profound singing voice. But he often sings with a kind of like laconic, almost like, can you, can you fucking believe this shit kind of quality. Yeah. And I just thought that that was such an amazing counterpoint to, like, the authentic apocalypse happening inside of Tyler to this community, this explosion that is imminent, this reunion

between this mother and this long-lost son. It's just like a very small example that we see over and over again. I think we talked about a couple of the needle drops in the first few episodes that showed us, like, the Lee Hazelwood song, for example. It was like, this show is kind of operating on another level here. Like, it's just got a facility with the history of popular music and the way that it can be deployed in storytelling. I'm a huge fan of that in filmmaking in general, and I feel like TV has been lagging behind it for a long time. What you often get in TV is one great choice at the

end of the last episode of a series that we remember, you know, like the end of six feet under. That's like a well-known needle drop in TV history. Yeah. But this show had a dance sequence in a maternity ward set to TLC's creep. You know what I mean? Like it was incredible. It was so routinely kind of like heartwarming or jaw-dropping or hilarious or aiding the storytelling or revealing something about its characters and

what songs mean to its characters or just doing the general threading that sometimes a song can do as you're going through a story. And you mentioned Dan Romer's score too as well. I think particularly in the last episode there are a handful of moments where that score is so, so powerful in the final 20 minutes. But I

I just, I thought it was like as good as a show has ever done at fusing music and the meaning of the story that it's trying to tell. So I loved it. Yeah, I think, I think that use of creep is pretty, I don't know, there's something about that episode that's so interesting, episode nine, because so many terrible things happens, but then it's got that like Pretty and Pink and then it ends with if you leave from the Pretty and Pink soundtrack. Pared with a Breakfast Club reference, which is a little John Hughesy in the soup, but there's something, I don't know, there's something like teen 80s romance about it, and it's just about

like how Jeevan met his wife, you know, it's something that I really, I really love. Unexpected moments like that. Ending on this Elton John song, sort of somewhat, I mean, at least to me, obscure Elton John song, I thought was just powerful, smart use of culture and all that.

I want to just talk a little bit about the book. Nothing major. I just want to shout out of, that a lot of the big stuff, that we think is really powerful. Like everything that happens at Pingtree or all of the Kirsten-Jvind stuff, which is the background of the show, specifically episode seven where they do the play, all of that, or, you know, Jeevan's whole episode in this big box, abandoned big box store

with all the pregnant women. That is all show invention. There's so much show-invention here that is so additive to this beautiful world that Emily St. John Mendel created. Like, I didn't want, I don't want to take anything away from her. She has the core idea of how art and pop culture helps us navigate, like, the after-civilization life. Like, that is, that core concept is her.

And this is really important. She created these characters, Arthur and Kirsten and Jeevan. But the way in which Patrick Somerville and his crew, all of whom are, you know, Patrick Somerville worked on, he comes from the Lindeloffverse. He worked on leftovers. He made Made for Love, which I think was an under. appreciated HBO Mac show that came out. And all of his writers are people from either the Lindelof crew or Made for Love. So he's developing, and he also did Maniac, which I talked about

before, he's developing sort of this core group of writers that's following him around. And I'm so eager to see whatever they do next. Like, they've really won my admiration here. And one small book reference I want to say is that Delano Island, which is where Jeven says he lives with his wife. In the book, that's where Arthur and Miranda are from there, from the same like tiny island in in i think it's off nova scotia or something like that and uh and so that's what connects them is this like tiny island that they came from um and they just dropped into the finale uh as a nice little book moment i really liked but yeah i mean are you interested in in reading the book at all now that you've seen this or you're like i think i think i did it

well if i'm being totally honest i have to be very particular with book choice these days so So in a way, my time being compressed as it is with our jobs and the challenges of the pandemic and the baby and all the other things that are happening right now, it's tough because I feel like I got a great version of this story. Do I need another one? It's a question that I ask myself all the time when I watch something that's based on a novel. I used to be a person who would read the novel before watching the thing. And I've cycled completely out of that now, in part because I just care about. filmmaking more. And that maybe that wasn't true when I was 16, but it is true now. And so I don't, I don't feel like I need it. And frankly, I don't know if I want to be in a more severe world over a long period of time in a book, you know, whereas on a film or a TV series, I know that it is restricted to a period of time with a book. I don't know. Sometimes it takes me a week to read a book. Sometimes it takes me six months. And so the idea of spending six months inside of Station 11 is less appealing to me than knocking out this show in three weeks. So we'll see. That's my answer.

I really respect your answer. I see how many movies you watch, so I know how many hours you have in the day. But, you know, if people are wondering if they should read the book. I mean, I think it's worth a read if you want to spend more time in this world. Also, if you're interested in those adapted choices, I think it's a really instructive in that way. One last, and I would also, not that anyone has a ton of time to do this, but I would also recommend rewatching this show because at least once, because there's so much that will come through on your second watch. My favorite is that, my favorite tiny detail, I will say, is that in the second episode, when they arrive in this place called St. Deborah by the water and you see the statue of a woman holding a baby,

that's Deborah, who we meet in episode nine, who taught Jeevan how to be a doctor, right? And the town is named after her. She died in a chemical fire, someone mentions, right? And there's a statue to her. We see it in episode two. We don't get the full payoff of it until episode nine. Um, that, that character, by the way, Terry slash Deborah, Tara, Tara, Nicodimo is the actress. Definitely feels like it was a part written for Jane Adams, but Tara Nicodemo did like an

incredible, right? Such a great call. Incredible call. That's not a Jane Austro, but Tara did an incredible job with that. But that's just like, that's just one of a million tiny details where if you watch it again, you're like, oh, that's the person we meet in episode nine. I didn't pick up on that at all. Great call.

Well, I mean, there's no way to unless you rewatch it. I think that's just the nature of the show. It's there for you if you want to spend more time in it. Anything else you want to say, Sean, about our journey through Station 11? I'm glad we got to close out with a silent hug. I feel like we needed to put an end cap on this one, so I'm glad we did. It's true. Now we will part ways in the forest.

You go one way and I'll go another and we'll meet again on the wheel someday. Yeah, something tells me it will converge. All right. Well, this episode was produced by Jonathan Cameron. Thank you so much for listening. There's a lot going on in the Prestige TV feed. I talked to Bill and Chris earlier this week about Yellow Jackets. We've got Nora Princeati and I are doing regular coverage of Euphoria.

Van Lathan and I will be doing some Ozark coverage. There's just so much TV to watch and talk about. The Joe Robinson Takeover. Sean, what will you be talking about? Where can folks find you? I am one of the co-hosts of the Big Picture podcast. You can find that really wherever you get your podcast. Going to be talking about a little Bradley Cooper at the end of this week on the show. Just the shape of Coup's career. Did you know Cooper has eight Academy Award nominations already?

I did know that. Well, I should have known you knew. What is he going to win for? What is it going to take if it's not a star is born? I don't know. My guy got a surprise SAG Award nomination for his work in Lickrish Pizza this morning. He's great in that movie. So he is delightful in that film. Do I think he'll win? win for that probably not, but who knows? The campaign starts now. Okay. Well, get out your lacy 70s shirts and your best wigs and campaign for Bradley Cooper and we will see you somewhere on the ringer network in the future. Bye.