The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘The Bear’ Season 2, Episodes 5-6 Recap

Episode Date: June 26, 2023

Charles and Van share their thoughts on the fifth and sixth episodes of ‘The Bear’ Season 2. They discuss why “Fishes” is one of the most exciting TV episodes of the year, and the murderers’ row of surprising cameos, Carmy’s love life, and the universal feelings of a chaotic holiday dinner. Along the way, the guys talk about the entertaining family dynamics within the Berzatto family and the intense showdown between Jon Bernthal and Bob Odenkirk’s characters. Hosts: Charles Holmes and Van Lathan Producer: Kai Grady Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Erica Ramirez, founder of Ili and hosts of What About Your Friends? A brand new show on The Ringer Podcast Network dedicated to the many lives of friendship and how it's portrayed in pop culture. Every Wednesday on the Ringer dish feed, I'll be talking with my best friend, Stephen Othello, and your favorites from within the ringer and beyond about friendships on TV and movies, pop culture, and our real lives. So join me every Wednesday on the Ringer dish feed where we try to answer the question TLCS back in the day, what about your friends. Welcome to the Prestige TV podcast, where we're not like this because we're in Van Halen. We're in Van Halen because we're like this. I'm Charles Holmes. He's Van Lathen.

Together we're known as the Midnight Boys. Be-boo! And man, do we have a show for you all today? Because we're here to discuss one of the most anxiety-inducing episodes of the entire year. Van, are you ready for this Christmas dinner? I am so ready for this. man, so ready for this. I mean, at this point,

I know this is like a tired thing to say, but I almost shut the Christmas episode off. Not because it was bad. Interesting. This was one of the best episodes of TV all year. But that shit hit so close to home in terms of like what a holiday dinner in my lifestyle has been.

It's never been that bad, but that feeling where I was just like, yeah, the bear can't keep getting away with this shit, bro. It's, It's getting rough out here. Yeah, so look, I was on edge the entire episode. And it's one of those episodes of television to where an episode is called Fishes. Okay?

Yeah. It's one of those episodes of television to where it was hard for me to get through it because I rewound the episode so many times. It is the perfect combination of chaos, characterization, of heart, of grief, of tumult, all of it. Everybody had their own little thing. It said so much about everybody that is on this show. And in terms of single episode execution, the acting, the pacing, all of it. Like the highest level that you could do.

A masterclass, bro. Yeah, man. A fucking masterclass. And they brought in a murderer's row. Odenk, Berenthal, Poulson, Mulvaney, Jamie Lee, fucking Curtis. If they knew that she was going to win the Academy Award. Oliver Platt, who we see on this show from time to time,

everybody throwing, junk, just straight juice at the plate. Everybody gets their own little clear out. I absolutely loved it. Charles, like, why are we this head over heels about this episode of television? I, man, I don't know, because I don't want to be, like, hyperbolic, but I have to be true with how I felt.

And, like, we'll talk about pop, which is the episode five. I just have to be real. I need Odin Kirk and Bernie. in a movie tomorrow. Like 824, whatever. Like those two and their chemistry is so electric. I am like, I need these two

in everything together. But like before, like we're getting ahead of ourselves. Let's talk about episode five, which is called pop. It's directed by Joanna Callow and written by Sophia Levitsky-Whites. And then we're going to get into Fishies, which is directed and written by Christopher Storer

and also has a writing credit by Callow. Most of our episode is definitely going to be dedicated to fishes, but a little almost boosh, we're going to do a little starter with pop. I think we've been a little toxic than, if I'm going to be real. Give it to me. Is Claire, I haven't watched ahead or anything? Is Claire potentially a good force in Carmi's life? Because one of the things that was so heartbreaking about Pop was the realization,

and I don't know if Carmi was kidding, but I don't think he is, that Karmie's never been to a party in his entire life. Like, this is a 30-year-old man. Can you imagine never being to a party as a 30-year-old? Like, that's how stunted this man is. And I want to ask you, can Karmie become a fully realized artist? Not a chef, but an artist, if he's missing out on some of these rites of passages and very, very human experiences. It depends. First of all, I want to acknowledge something.

Here on this podcast, we did not talk about the fact that Claire gave Carmie the wrong number, which has been pointed out on Twitter by very many people. Excuse me, Carmie gave Claire the wrong number. A lot of people point that out. No, we pointed out in our second episode. We did a whole Kai's corner on whether Kai's ever given a woman the wrong number. A lot of people have come back and they feel like we didn't spend enough time on that. And I want to let you guys know, there's something that you can do.

You can look at somebody's timeline to see if somebody else brought someone. something up. Because we bring up the same shit. It's annoying. Anyway. So look, it's interesting that you would say this, right? Because you need the right, in my opinion, to be a fantastic artist. There's a little mixture that you have to have, which is the right amount of experience and the right amount of solitude.

When you think about guys like Ernest Hemingway, who would be in their own heads for like such a long time. If you ever go down to Key West and kind of you see where he had his little place. It was a place he could hold up and be by himself. But at the same time, these were guys that had fought in wars. These were guys that had boxed. They had lived these

experiences, but they knew how to detach away from them and get into their selves in a way that allows them to intertwine who they are with what they've experienced. And sometimes if you get too much of the people,

then you start tailoring your art for them. Like you go out and you taste a lot of food. It depends on what you're overriding, what you want to say, should I say, what your food narrative is. Because you don't want to cook for everyone, but you want to cook for the people that reflect what you love about cooking. So I think what we're seeing is Karmie understanding that he's missed out on some things.

But even in that episode, she sat behind him and he was always drawing pants. He was always trying to create something. So you don't want too much of party Karmie, but you do want him to have enough understanding, not just that he can create great food for the masses, but he understands how to work with the various personalities that he's going to to have to empower more in his restaurant. Couldn't agree more. And I think another thing that pop as an episode very expertly does, and this is one of the reasons I love the bear, is that a very smart choice that they made in that

in that first season was populating the beef with characters of varying ages at various stages of their life. And seeing Tina and Ibra sore or flail in culinary school, is so heartbreaking almost. Why do you think Tina is doing so well in culinary school while someone like Ibra is so forcefully against it? Which is interesting because if you go back to the first season, Tina was the one who was like, who is this woman, Sydney?

Why are you changing up all of this shit? And now she's almost an agent of like, no, change is good. Like learning new things is good. I want to be a better chef. Why do you think those two chefs are having such different experiences. Is it okay if I tell a little story about my dad? Hell yeah. Okay. So in Louisiana, in order to hunt below a certain age, you have to go and do just like a little certification class. Yeah. Okay. So I got my first shotgun at age seven. My dad got me

a breakdown 410, one shot shotgun. Don't tell Twitter. They're going to kill him. It's fine. whatever. And, you know, I had already started collecting shells. He's from the country. He's a small, like I started shooting young. So I started shooting a shotgun, and by the time I got to 11 or 12, I was an animal with it. I had shot hundreds, thousands of rounds with it.

I could hit a rabbit. I could hit anything. It was the family would get around. This boy could shoot. This boy could shoot. And my dad liked that. Well, I had to go take a car. class. I had to go take a class at the Louisiana, like wildlife and fisheries, like the Office of

Wildlife Management, where you study for it. They teach you about hunting. They teach you about the limit. They teach you about gun safety. You have to shoot. You have to qualify to have like a little hunting license when you're a kid so you can go hunting with your dad or whatever, whatever. You should have brought John Moran there. I should have brought Jomah right there. You're right. They need that class. They need a whole class for John Morant. Okay.

My father had such a hard time with this. Really? Yep. What was it about the class? It was, everything that we did was always by the book and always legal. And knowing that I was now going to be in a situation to where I had grown a little bit and to where when they came,

because whenever we were out there hunting a fishing, the game warden would always come out there. Always. I don't know what it was. about us, come out there, check our shotguns, probably because we were Negroes, but come out there, check our shotguns, make sure they were plugged, right, all of that stuff. So I had a habit, right? But my father, it was so hard for him. It was so hard for him to send me for a place for three days where someone had the opportunity to undo what he felt like was generations of

Lathen men learning how to have a relationship with the land. When he was teaching me how to shoot, he felt like Big Papa, the patriarch of our family. He was actually teaching me how to shoot because my father was taught by Big Papa, who was taught by his dad, who was taught by the first black men that were able to have guns in South Louisiana after slavery. and that meant a lot to him. Did he feel robbed of that? Like was he felt like this like cherished thing

that had to be passed down, part of it was being taken away. Part of it, part, it was being sullied. Right? It was being tainted a little bit. Not only that, but, you know, they taught you about what you should expect from the land.

They talk you about the different stages of a hunter. All of these things were very personal things. So when I watched this episode, it reminded me of him because if, whereas Tina, and as a kid, I was excited to do this. I was excited to compete because you have to shoot ski. I was excited to compete against the other kids in shooting.

I was excited to learn an encyclopedic sort of breakdown of the animals of Louisiana. I was excited to learn all of this stuff. But he looked at as something that was sterile, something that was weird, something that was changing, what he had told me. And it was a threat to the way that he had come to. love what it was that he did. And so when I saw this episode, it reminded me of that, like I was Tina,

someone that was happy to be in a new situation, to be an elevated sort of hunter, to have passed this class, to have gone down there. It was all official. They showed you white-tailed deer. They showed you rabbits. It shows you all the different species.

All of this stuff, my dad was happy to have learned that in the woods. And he was happy to have an emotional relationship with it. And he felt like it was sullen. So when I saw Ibra and the fact that he didn't like this part of it, that he didn't like change, that he didn't like it being clean, that he didn't like the pristine silver cooking tables and the nice knives, sometimes people have a different relationship with something and they're stuck in their ways. And part of them loving something for so long is in what it meant to get to where they were. And if you do it a different way, that's why change is hard for people. If you do it a different way, sometimes you have to confront the fact that maybe your way

isn't the best way, and it feels like you've wasted a lot of time. And when I talk to my dad about it, my dad was just basically like, this means a lot to me. I don't want anybody else telling you how to shoot. I don't want anybody else telling you how to live off the land. I don't want nobody else telling you about fishing. That's my whole life. And I don't want to change it. and I don't want them to change you.

So when I saw that, I immediately thought, well, the reasons why he's not going to excel there is because it scares him after all the time that he's put into this to maybe have to consider a different way. No, I mean, absolutely. And we've been talking this entire season about how this season two of the bear is interrogating what it means to be an artist

and what I love about pop is like, I remember when my, for my whole school and career, white teachers essentially being like, yeah, we don't know if writing is the thing for you. It was very much like even when I got out into the workforce, I would have white bosses. We'd be like, yeah, I don't know for writing is the thing. It's why I didn't go to journalism school. It's why I didn't do any of them because for years. And it took people of color to like stop me and be like, hey man, like, we think you have something. So it was just like watching Ebra, I was just like, yo, I had to learn how to write similar to how your dad learned to hunt. It was by myself.

You know what I'm saying? I had to go learn from other people who looked like me outside of a classroom how to do this thing. So if tomorrow Bill Simmons is like, we want you to go to journalism school, I don't know if I would succeed. Not because I'm not good at my job, but because I have such a personal connection to have. to figure it out on my own to learn the mistakes, to learn what to do and not to do. And when something is regimented in a classroom, your relationship to it changes. It's not better or worse, but your relationship to the art changes. Art to me now is something that I just do operating off like what I have learned from other

people, stuff that's been passed down, especially by black writers. If you told me to look in a book in a classroom and be like, all right, do it like this. I don't know if I would be able to. Yeah. And that's a scary feeling when you've been successful. Like, Ibra's being able to live as a chef, not having a culinary school background. A different standard. What if you get there and they tell you that your way isn't right?

Like, what does that mean? What if I would have gone there and they'd have been like, well, the way your father tells you to shoot is wrong? And then I come back and I tell him, hey, the way you taught me to shoot is wrong. The way you taught me to fill dress a deer is wrong. And he's going to be like, nah, this is what. this is the way ex-slaves did it. You know what I mean? He's going to be like,

no, this is the way William Lathen of South Baton Rouge, Big Papa, but this is the way he did it. So I don't want them to, and so I watched it and it was very meaningful and moving. And it was as meaningful and moving to watch Tina shine there.

Yeah, to soar, to get a chance. Because here's the thing, too. The funny thing about having the opportunity is that for Tina, she probably never thought that she could go to culinary school. This is something that she doesn't

have to pay for. She's getting paid to go. Like, if the bear fails, she will have these skills no matter what. And that to her is like, oh my gosh, I've had that experience too.

Like, where I go to class and I'm like, oh my gosh, like I now have something that no one can take away from me. It's a different way of thinking about learning. And it's just like, and even when, we have a Kai's corner, we have two Kai's corner now.

Ooh. Because we need you on the pod. Tina at the end of this episode does a beautiful rendition of Freddie Fenders before the next tier drop falls. It's at karaoke at Alice's Lounge. I want to know from all three of us. Let's say we're Tina and we're thrust into a new environment and we have to convince everybody that's young, than us, you know, that we're a cool cat. What's the song that you're performing during karaoke to convince everybody?

We'll start with you, then. Where are you going? So they're younger than me and I have to convince them. I'm a cool cat? Yeah. Met Gala, Gucci Man, and Offset. At karaoke? Boom.

I'm going to ask you for a Z. Oh, do it in the beat. Not a, that, da-da-da-da-da-coma-da-coma-ha. trying to get calmer uh and then that's time and that that's it but that came in that mara and they're gonna be like oh my god look at my chicken as big as you oh my tibbutte deem off like an edible uh my god's somebody in the way somebody's ready to fight something in the dama gave her to the fight yi ay ay me good good night like that whole thing like that you know do y'all know that song yes i know like i like to me i would learn all of the words of that because that's such impressive

Offset rapping, man, Offset of Beasts. That's such impressive offset rapping and all of the young kids would be like, She knows the way that we rap because we rap differently than the Nazes and the De La Souls. I mean, speaking of offset,

I almost cried, watching Migos for United at the BETT Awards. That shit had me to take off. I, it was great, but that's the song that I would do. Because really, man, I'll be honest with you, bro. I don't really want to,

impressed Kai in them. I like that. I like that song. And so I would do that. Like, I don't really want to impress kind of them. But I don't know. You already impressed me. It was cool. It was good. There you go. Charles, what's on would you do? Oh, I'm doing Nelly for Tados. I'm like a bird. I feel like- Wait a minute. That's not going to fucking impress Kai. That's a terrible answer. You don't wait. Whoa. God. You don't like Nellies. I'm like a bird. I don't know that song. I'm not going to lie to you. He has no clue what that is. Are you fucking nuts? I'm like a bird. Oh, I do. I will wait.

Yeah, but he doesn't. That's not going to impress him, bro. What the fuck is wrong with you? Like that shit was popping when I was in college. Kyle, everybody loves Nelly Furtado. This is, this is, this is where, what I was doing with that kid?

Kyle, what year were you born? 98? The last, the last day of 98, though, for me. When that, when that song came out, Kyle said, Mommy, I went to watch Static Shock. I don't even know what Static Shock is. I do know what static shock is. So what I'm saying is

That's not going to impress them All right, let me get another I'll give you another My other one Girl, oh my way you're moving Got me in a train DJ's army That's out of

That's too old What are you talking about? How? I'm only 30, man Kai was in elementary school When that song came up That's not true That was at all my middle school

dances I was there Oh my God He was grinding He was grinding middle school To no hands Oh my gosh I'm so fucking I'm wash, bro.

You could do Ariana Grande, and you're in a scene, you could do Ariana Grande side to side, which is a song about how big, whatever. Like, let's put it on Kai. Kai,

my question to you is now flipped. Yeah. If you're trying to impress Van and I at karaoke, at ringer karaoke, what are you playing for the 30 plus set? I got to do, um, headlines by Drake.

That's, that's got to be the good two for me. No. No. Listen, I'm not going to work. Are you niggas, are you niggas crazy?

You mean to tell me I'm 43 years old Kyle, hold on for a second This is all shout out to Drake This is all shout out to Drake Like I'm 43 years old You're telling me That you want to impress me Musically and you would do headlines by Drake

You gotta do New York State of Mind, bro You gotta do If you did, bro If you came through with some silk to shocker Ka If you came through with that Silta Shaka What we got shot to

Okay Okay I missed I misunderstood the question I see I see now Yeah, I feel you All right, we'll let you go one more time. Okay, if I had to impress you all, I'd probably pull out, like, let's go with some, like, Wu-Tang, like cream or something like that. Cream?

Okay. That would impress me. Cream, really? If I spit all the verses in cream, that'd be pretty impressive. Or if you did, or if you did Ghostface, all that I got is you, man. You would touch my soul, Kai. You don't even know that song, Kyle. I don't know that song. Great Kai, Skye.

I'm going to bring you back later this episode. But thank you for that. Snoring, gasping during sleep, feeling fatigue, ask your doctor about Zepbound, terseptite. The first and only FDA-approved prescription medicine for moderate-to-severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and adults with obesity. Zep-bound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet

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Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-9-9 or visit setbound.lily.com. All right. Now we got to get to the main course. Fish is such a risk, man. Because when I knew, when I saw that it was a flashback, immediately I was like, damn, like, I'm not a fan of flashbacks. I'm not a fan of stopping the momentum of a show halfway through.

so I was very, very worried. And did they pull this off? Like, to me, this might be one of the foundational episodes of the bear, no matter how long it runs, because we learned so much about this universe, about what makes karmie tick, about the toxic nature of his family.

I was blown away. When you first put on fishes, what was going through your mind? When I saw John Bernthal, I knew I was in for a treat. He's just, He's a guy that always brings it. I was glad to see them back.

But I was wondering what this would have to do with trying to open a restaurant. And a lot of times in shows, particularly in the network era of shows, right? Because I'm sorry to everyone, but we're out of that era. We need to adapt and we need to figure out how we're going to do it and still pay everybody.

But it's never coming back. The 22 episode, all of that stuff is. Like the only show that I'm, watching like that right now is Superman and Lewis and I keep trying to tell y'all it's one of the best shows on television. Wait, you ain't rocking with Abbott Elementary? I like Albert Elementary, but I don't watch it like, Albert Elementary is fucking

fantastic, but I don't watch it like I watch Superman and Lewis. I mean, Superman and Lewis is a point of viewer, but I watch Abbott Elementary in bunches. Like, I don't watch it every single week when there's a new one. Like, I'll be somewhere and I'll watch like four or five Abbott Elementary's, you know what I mean? Um, but Alabama Elementary is amazing.

Um, in those episodes, there would be these breather episodes where the show would literally just take an episode off what they were doing. Like if you're watching Fringe and the driving narrative of Fringe is,

I don't know if you guys remember that show, but... The J.J. It's the J.B.J. Abrams show about, like, it was like about the multiverse or at least an alternate. Kind of, kind of. So there were two worlds and the main thing was going back and forth the world so that both worlds didn't die. That's what became about,

but it's kind of like an X-Files type of deal. Anyway. So, and then, we would be in that and live and the whole fringe crew would be on that plane talking to them. And then all of a sudden it would be like next on fringe, crazy lizard man, and we have to find him and stop him. And it really wouldn't have very much to do with the overall sort of what the show is driving at for this season. But they want to space it out. They want to give you a break from that and just give you almost like a standalone episode of television.

I always hate that. I always hate that. Really? I always love it. I always hate it when we are marching towards something in a show. And then they just stop and give us some weird episode about a side character or something. It bothers the shit out of me. So you hate, what's the, what's the, what's the episode of Breaking Bad where Jesse and, when Jesse and Walt are stuck in the lab?

You hit that episode? That's fine. that's fine because at least that has to do the fly yeah that's fine because at least that kind of has to do with building out their characters and this is the point that I'm making about fishes fishes takes us back but really this could have been the pilot of the show that's how integral it is to everything really this could have been the pilot of the show if the show was less in benefit if the show was less ambitious

it would have been a pilot because when you come away from this episode you know exactly why Karmie's doing what he's doing. You know exactly who Sugar is. You know exactly who Richie is in a way that you didn't know before. All of these characters, what I

never understood about the first season is why they treated Sugar's husband the way that they do. Completely makes sense now when you look at, he was a little off, but I'm like, why they treat this guy like such an asshole? He is the perpetual asshole that always

fucks up, well-meaning aggravating God, right? The episode is so integral to the entire show that it almost makes you want to know more about that family. Like, they could spin it off and do the bear before the bear. The Bears' autos. The Bears' autos. They could do that show, and that show would be as compelling as the show we're watching right now.

So I've never seen them. They didn't take a breather. They didn't step away from what it is. They went back in time to reinforce to us why we're watching this fucking show. And it was amazing, even with the Claire character. They managed to build on almost everyone that's in the core people in this universe. Of course, except for Sid and the rest of the people that weren't around during that time. But I thought it was brilliant, an amazing top-tier, overwhelmingly successful episodes.

of television. I couldn't have been more pleased with it. I mean, this is not a bottle episode. I'm not going to say that. But what this episode did technically is it

reminded me more of watching a play than it did a TV show. Because it's almost like you're watching a stage where it's like they're stuck in a house. There's the exterior of the house and there's the interior of the house. They don't go anywhere.

It's claustrophobic. It reminded me of like a Eugene O'Neill-type long day's journey into night type play where you are learning the foundations of abuse in this family, of addiction in this family, of ambition, of lost dreams. Absolutely. And it's because it's keeping you, it almost in a weird way, this house is like a symbol for what the beef was, where it's like all of these characters stuck in this simmering

pot and the only thing that they can do is try to drag each other down. Like one thing that I was like, oh, this makes so much sense is how bitter the family is that Carmi left. The family wants him to succeed. They love him. But the mother, a little bit of Michael, everyone. The only person who's like, actually like, we need to get you out of here is the aunt who lives in New York.

She's like, hey, this is not good for you, Carmi. Come live with me. What did you, why do you think Karmie's family was so bitter about him leaving? Because that felt very, very true to what it is to be in a family where it's just like, it's not crabs in a barrel at all. But there is this sense sometimes when you move to another state, when you get a job, when you're in another tax bracket, or you're just mentally and emotionally learning things that maybe the people who raised you haven't. There's that sense of you're almost leaving us behind or you're betraying something. This is very close to home. And you guys know how I love to make all things about me.

Sometimes people think that you don't love them if you won't suffer with them. Yeah. And sometimes people think that if you push through to somewhere different and you find something for yourself, that it means that you're less connected to them. If you don't indulge into everybody's day-to-day mental, if you push past. And I get why they feel that way, particularly in families. When you look at this family, everything is so tense between them.

Beautiful food is coming out of it. but it's a compulsion. The mother seems compelled to cook. Like she's blaming everyone for making her do something that they can't stop her from doing. Everyone offers to help. And she screams on them. She wants love, but in this way,

she doesn't know how to ask for it and she doesn't know how to submit to it. She knows how to tell people that they're not doing it well enough. And then their reaction to that is how she gets her love, right? Oh, mom, no, no, no, no, no. If you don't give her that,

you would almost wonder how she would feel loved. And then families sometimes, when you move away, which I did a long time ago, and you're on your own, they kill trippy. if they see you doing something or they see you somewhere, they'll say, hey, you're too big for us now, or you're this for us now, or you're that for us now.

You forgot where you came from. And nothing makes you feel smaller. Nothing makes you feel smaller than the only people whose opinion that you care about telling you that you don't care about them. It's very hard. And they're doing it because they don't want to feel like they've lost you. And so the only way they can feel connected to you is to make you feel either as bad as they feel because they miss you or as uncertain as you did when you were a child.

Because they don't understand who you might have become since you've gone and how confident you are. They don't get that person. But they remember you as a kid when you didn't know who you were, when you couldn't, when you were awkward and when you needed them to make the world make sense. And so when I looked at Karmie in this episode, I saw somebody that, number one, wanted to be connected to his family because he wanted to work at the restaurant. So it's not him.

It's not him that pushed them away. In a way, they made him go out and find who he wanted. And he doesn't think he's any better than them, but they might feel that way. I mean, Michael is pushing him. Like, Michael, this entire episode is like, there's that thing there's that love of the older brother

who's like he wants him there but he knows that if Karmie stays he's going to be dragged down into this muck you can see it in Michael because Bob Odenkirk's character Uncle Lee he knows what nobody wants to say out loud that Michael is succumbing

to his addiction and it's so interesting and it's heartbreaking seeing Michael be so proud of his brother but knowing that him returning to Chicago does not make sense for him This episode is so deeply moving. All of those characters are real.

You see that Uncle Lee person? I, that guy exists in my family. That guy that just like, yo, nigger, can we eat? Can y'all talk after this? You're going to ruin everything. You know he's struggling. Leave him the fuck alone. Also, Uncle Lee, what's important, he's not Italian.

He hasn't married into the family, but it's almost, basically they're hinting that Uncle Lee has some type of relationship with Donna, their mom. It seems like they're broken up or they're like together and not together. And obviously the kids have never accepted him. But to your point, he's the motherfucker at the Christmas table who he's poking the bear. And you're just like, hey, can we please? Please just eat one Christmas dinner without you bring it up old shit. Just relax.

Like if you want, I'll tell you how many times I've been like, yo, if you want to talk to him about this, can you wait to after we've done and we didn't have some fun before y'all just fuck up everything? And watching it and knowing that everybody knows what's going on, but what they're trying to do is be a family. And the tension just keeps growing and it keeps growing. And you're waiting for the moment that you get in Christmas episodes where the meaning of family and togetherness is given to you either an exposition or some child. which conspicuously absent from this Christmas episode are children. Yeah.

There's a child coming from Ritchie. We also learn a lot more about Ritchie, but conspicuously absent in this episode are children. I mean, doesn't Michael say to sugar, or someone says to sugar essentially don't ever have kids because of their mom? Like, I think that is said. And the thing is, if there were kids, there? There's sometimes

when there are children running around there's, and I'm almost certain that there are no kids in this episode. I could be wrong, but I didn't see any children. No, I didn't see any children in this episode. Okay, so sometimes when they're kids around, there's this need and feeling

to put on airs for them, to lie for them. You make them feel like everything is okay. You don't want them to see each other fighting, mom and daddy fighting, everybody fighting. But when they're not there, and the drinks come out and you haven't been around these people,

the family secrets start flying and it almost never goes well. But in this, you kind of learn that, you know, sugar, what they've been calling her mom all this entire season, right? Yes. She was trying to mother her mom.

Her mom asked her not to, stop checking on me. It doesn't matter when you do it because you do it compulsively. It only matters when people who don't check on me check on me. I've been here. It doesn't matter when

it only matter it doesn't matter when you check on me because you're doing it for yourself. It only matters when everybody else who doesn't check on me checks on me. Everybody's trying to figure out how to get something from the rich uncle. All right?

Two people are the court jesters just in there making everybody feel good. When Mulvaney's character, Stephen, when he looks at Fack and his brother and he goes, I love to see you guys. every year. I'm going to give you the $500 just because I want to know what you guys are going to do with this, right?

There's the boozy aunt played by Sarah Paulson, cousin Michelle, who I think is married to Stevie, who like comes and she's like, she's made it out and she has opinions on the family, but she's just kind of laying in the cut being like, but I think she's bougie, but she's cool. She's cool, though.

Yeah, she's cool, aunt, right? She's cool, like, she can see it. She can see. She only drops him, probably for this one time, she can see it. She feels it. She gets it. She's like, carmy, you know what's going to happen. And there's just everybody else around. I mean, Stevie John Mulaney's character, he played the person who marries into the family,

like the cool uncle who is like, I know y'all are crazy. I love you. And because he's not of the family, he can say the thing that will calm everybody down. Because when, because there's no children there, Stevie is almost the person where it's just like, all right, man, Stevie's saying something beautiful at the table, bro. We, like, can everybody just relax? I think what's genius actually about this episode is that, to your point, Christmas,

I don't know what it is about Christmas, at least when you come from a big family. I come from a place where sometimes there's 30, 40 motherfuckers at Christmas. It is a time, it's supposed to be a time of bounty, a time of plenty. But for some reason,

I don't know what it brings out in people, at least, the family Christmas I've been, it brings out the worst in people because it's the end of the year. You're seeing people that you may have not seen in a long time. And to your point,

everything that's been bubbling up under the surface, years of tension, years of fights, years of slights, years of everything just coming to the surface. And it's,

I don't know why it is, but watching this episode, that's why it was so difficult because I was just like, no, this is every family. This is every family in America. They are touching, like, a rail of what it means to, like, come together for a holiday and be like, I love y'all people.

But if I stay here, I'm never getting out. Yeah. And also, watching her cook, watching the things that are being balleted about, right? You have tradition, which is the seven fishes. They don't know why they're doing it. Like, they're like, the whole question is they just keep doing it out of habit. They just know that they have to. that's family

sometimes you don't know why you love them you just know that you have to yes right absolutely so so they don't know why they're doing it you have tradition right you have the future which is Richie his job

his baby right you have sibling rivalries slash the problems that we hide from the people closest to us between Karm and and Mikey you have

disapproving older people who always find a reason to disapprove with the youth even when the youth don't give them one. Right? I mean, think about it. Uncle Lee. Uncle Lee is in some type of relationship

with Donna, their mom. He's more concerned about Michael's addiction than he is the woman right in front of... He treats the woman... He's melting down. And he's almost like a lost cause.

He's like, it doesn't matter. I'm going after Mikey. And I'm like, Yo, what is happening? Either that or he blames Mikey and the rest of them for kind of creating that environment that she can do that. That woman, I don't want to get too personal, but that character really resonates with me because sometimes you'll look at your mother and your grandmother and you'll be like, you'll go home and you'll be like, yo, y'all have to do all of this. But to be fair, isn't that what Christmas is also a representation? of like how many times are like the women in your life, the backbone of a family,

they do stuff all year long and they do not get the thanks. They do not get the credit. They do it out of the love. You're like, that's my mom. That's my grandmother. She's just supposed to do that. Even if you don't say that, sometimes you just, their love is so unconditional and overflowing.

You take it for granted. And Christmas is the time where it's like, no, they're cooking all of this because this is a symbol. This is a metaphor for like, we want you guys to know. notice us and notice how much we do for you. You're right. And one of the reasons why you're right is sometimes you feel like you are the present for your mother. Like your mom loves you so much that subconsciously, particularly with mothers, because their father isn't in this episode. Yeah.

Right? He's already gone. But particularly with mothers, we sometimes think that we've made their lives with their purpose. because society tells you that being a mom is the most important job in the world particularly being a mom is the most important job in the world and everything else

should be secondary to that once you're a mom. So sometimes, I'm not going to lie, when you show up for your mom, sometimes it feels like, hey, I'm here, so now you're validated. Like, look, well, it's about me. It's always been about me.

It's been about me when I had a skin knee. It's been about me when I was crying. It's been about me. Take me to see Backman 89. Take me to blockbuster video. Take me, take me, take me, take me, take me. So when you have to pour into your mom, sometimes you don't even fucking know how.

The only thing you know how to do is to help her cook for you. So in this situation, when Donna drives her car through the house at the end, I feel like that was her way of saying, hey, I'm here. Everybody shut the fuck up. Now, like, come here. I can't be denied.

This is the way you guys just won't calm down. She's drunk. She's exhausted. And it's I will destroy something to pull you guys back into the reality of being in this moment. Or she just got lit and she drove through the fucking car. That's never happened in my family. But like I'm saying, all of these things that we're looking at to me in the show, all of these things are ingredients.

the meal that they were cooking wasn't the meal that we were watching. The family was the meal. Yeah. Like when I look at all the different things that we're talking about is the ingredients in a family stew or a family dish

that sometimes tastes good and sometimes tastes bad because there's so much delicious food in this episode. But you never want to eat any of it. It's almost like it hurts. It's like, and what this episode does too is that it shows you're like, oh, the beef never had a chance. The beef is quite literally just this family with people that they are not related to.

And it was so sad realizing, like, Richie has been trying to get out of the beef for years now. Like, he was, he had a family he was trying to do right. Mikey even then was failing. like all of seeing the family, like seeing how much the restaurant is just an outgrowth of this toxic family

and even the food. Like remember, remember how Kami talks about the food when he gets back to the beef in that first season. Of course he doesn't want to eat this food. That,

where did Mikey learn how to make that food? His mom. In the first season, I almost remember them saying this. Doesn't sugar get on Carmi for not calling their mom? I think to Carmi, part of the beef isn't just wrapped up in Mikey. It's wrapped up in his relationship with his mom,

having a mom who is like in the throes of alcoholism. And even watching her, I was thinking, I was just like, does that character, does that Jamie Lee Curtis character even know how to accept love? Because I've noticed this with the older women in my life sometimes. When you grow up and you've raised a son or you've raised a daughter, sometimes it's so difficult to let go and let them love you, to let them take care of you. Like she cannot let Sugar worry about her.

She cannot let Sugar be like, hey, are you okay? That is like it's almost, she feels taken advantage of as a mother, but she doesn't want to give up the reins and be taken care of as a mother, which is so interesting. Like even like that whole episode, Would she have let sugar ever, ever, just take over in the kitchen? I don't know that she trusts sugar. I don't think she trusts sugar because she made the gravy taste like Hawaiian punch.

I'll tell you one thing. Once, though, once as a child. Let me tell you something. The way them women be cooking where I'm from, getting there and fuck something up, you're out. I messed up one pot of rice. I made perfect pots of rice. Whatever, make some rice for me, but baby. I messed up one pot of rice.

Mom, I'll make the rice out of that. No, no. I want to do it again. No, I've never made another pot of rice before ever. I bought her a rice cooker she won't use it. I mean, have you ever had this? When it's like, like, for my family dinner, it's like people, like, everybody's bringing something, like everybody cooks something.

You fuck up one dish ones. Motherfuckers will talk about that dish for decades. Go back to it. It's embarrassing. You'll be like, no, remember when so-so made the collard greens? They fucked it up that year. I'm like, damn, bro. It's embarrassing. Like, that's like, that's a shut up, nigga.

You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? But no, and she doesn't just not trust sugar, in my opinion, because of that. But she also doesn't trust that sugar isn't concerned because it's in sugar's personality to be concerned. Like, she wants, she wants Karmie in there because Karmie's probably the better cook, even though I'm sure, but we know sugar can cook. It's almost like she doesn't trust Karmie because she knows, like, will he need me now that he's a better chef than I am.

Right, but she does, though, she probably wants Carmi around because Carmi's attention maybe means more to her than sugar's attention, right? You know what I mean? And when you get to that point, you know, this conversation about mothers, talk to my mom and my mom,

and I asked my mom, my mom told me one day, unprompted that she has these fantasies where she never had kids. I didn't ask for this, by the way. This was deeply, deeply interesting to hear this from. She'll have these fantasies where I never had kids. I was like, all right, well,

and this deep, hurt came over me, right? This deep, like, gulf of hurt, right, came over me. And then I stopped. And I was like, let's for one time in your life not make it about you. Yeah. And I said, Mom, what happens in this fantasy? And my God, she gave me an entire different life. It almost makes me want to cry, brus. She was in Paris and she was in Japan. And, you know, she was hanging out and she had spent time living here and she had spent time living there. And I'm like, yo, did I fucking cost this lady this ridiculous dream of gallivanting all over the world? And as she's doing this and she goes, I'll have this.

And then she goes, and then I'll look at you. And I'm like, how to fuck does somebody do that? Like how do you love somebody? How do you take care of somebody like that? And this entire episode, I'm watching them, right? And it's obvious they don't know how to take care of their mom. It's obvious. They're trying to manage her rather than take care of her.

They're hiding bottles. They're trying to help her. You bring the other fishes in. And it freaks Carmi out that scene where Sarah Paulson goes. It's like, he brought the tune to me. He's like, what, what? And she goes, don't tell them. Because she knew that Carmi would freak out.

they're trying to manage her. They don't really know how to take care of it. They don't really know how to take care of it. They're trying to manage her. And all of that's happening as Mikey is hiding the fact that his life is in shambles. Richie is trying to start a new life. All of this stuff is going on. And when the episode goes off, the first thing that pops is you get it.

I understand why Mikey committed suicide. I don't understand what he was going through. I get where he was. I get where Karmie is. And why Karmie is really, like, he has a social anxiety disorder, right? I mean, think about what, think about what Claire says to him. I think in the previous episode, she's like, yeah, I know that you're good. She says something to the fact I know that you're good communicating with drunk people or taking care of drunk people.

And like the next episode, you see him like, oh, Karmie's role in this family. was, to your point, I think to their mom, Carmis care for her means more than sugars, means more than Mickeys, because Carmi has this thing in him that I think it's harder to pin him down. And by the way, I do want to apologize to the audience real quick.

I know it's about the show, but this was really very, like, this really is my family. Yes, that, no, here's this is why you don't have to. This is why you don't have to. apologize because shout out one of my favorite colleagues, one of our smartest colleagues here, Joanna Robinson. She tweeted

something to the effect of like, yeah, this is why some people don't go to home for Christmas. And it's just like, it's hard not to talk about this episode without talking about your personal experiences because I think it's a mark of great art that they can say something that is this universal. This is an Italian

white family in Chicago. And I was literally being like, this could have been my family. Even to the point where the brothers come in and they go, yo, I seen that girl from down the street. Yes. Like, bro, even to the point to where I'm like, yo, man, I know how to be with girls, bro. Like, nah, bro, I know how to be with girls.

But like, stop, bro. Like, dog, you like her. You've been liking her. Go outside, talk to her, or we're going to go tell her to come in here. Like, I'm like, bro, it's like, bang, you know you like her. Go outside and talk to her or we're going to go get her. And they're like, bro, you got until the food ready, bro. Or she's going to be having Christmas in her.

Because I'll go get her. Like, I'll go get it. I'll go get it. I'm like, bro, chill, bro. Like you, man, bro, how long are you going to wait? How long are you going to wait? So even that part, the whole thing. That part, here's a thing.

Being among the younger people, do you know? I just stopped bringing girlfriends around to Christmas dinner. Because what will happen if you break up with her and you bring a new girl, they'll be like, oh, yo, where's the other girl you brought? You know what the one you said you loved? And I'm like, tall, all right, man. I'm never telling y'all. Especially if they like one.

And that's the thing with Stevie. Stevie's character is important here because they've accepted Stevie. They've accepted him. Yeah, they've accepted Stevie. So if that don't work out between her and Stevie and they bring somebody else in there, it's going to be hard for that guy. They didn't accept Uncle Lee, which is interesting. They accepted Stevie. They're still like, fuck Uncle Lee.

They didn't accept Sugar's guy either. Yeah. Right. So, like, it's like, it's a hard crew to get into. and when you watch this, you both desperately want to be one of them and also not at all. We're almost skipping over what I think is like

the best scene in the entire episode, which is John Bernthal, Bob Odenk, showdown with the fork. I have never watched something. Yeah. So tense. Yeah. But so brilliantly acting.

acted because John Bernthal, I think sometimes he gets a typecast in these roles where he's just like this brute, he's this natural force of masculinity and violence, all of that. And seeing him break down when Uncle Lee, when Odenkirk is basically like, yo, you're a nobody. You waste money. You're a drug addict. Like you are less than nothing. What Bernthal does in his face, I've never been, like, I was so heartbroken for him. Because you can tell him, like, this is the moment, which makes it even worse, where I'm like, you can tell why everything happened to him after this. This is a man that has such low self-esteem, which is wild when you think about, everybody

talks about him like he's Michael Jordan. Everybody talks about him like he's the guy. He's been the coolest. He's always been the person you want to hang out with. And just seeing Mikey be broken down in that scene. it was like, all he can do is be a child. All he can do is throw a fourth. Because that's all, the fork is quite literally all he has left.

That's the last shred of dignity and power that he has left. What did you think of that scene between Bernthal and Odiger? I couldn't decide whether or not I wanted him to throw the fork or not. And that's how you know the scene was brilliant. Oh, I wanted him to throw the fork. I hated Uncle Lee with a passion. I hated Uncle Lee, but in situations like that, I didn't know whether I wanted him to be

because here's the thing about the throwing of the fork. If he throws the fork, it's an admission that he can't not throw it. So if he throws the fork, it's because he can't stop himself from throwing the fork. He's a child essentially. Right. And not being able to stop himself from throwing the fork says so much about him. it almost makes what Lee is saying correct when he throws the fork. At the same time, you want Lee to feel pain.

In that situation, what you want is for somebody to bail Mikey out. You want Karmie to throw a fork, or you want Karmie to hit him, or you want somebody to dead it. But if he throws it, then it's like, hey, you are such a man child that you can't take care of your business you can't run the restaurant. The only thing you can do is throw forks at people at dinner.

And in that, because Mikey's sitting at the head of the table, right? He's on the end of the table. He's trying to be a father figure to this family. He is. Their dad is gone. He's sitting at the head of the table, which is very important

to notice. He's at the head of the table. He is in this entire thing, someone who's loomed large, and this entire show, shall I say someone who's loomed large over the narrative of the show. But in that moment, he's so small. He dictates kind of where people are able to jump in and jump out, but he's so small. And it's obvious that he's not quite ready, and maybe he'll never be ready, to be where he needs to be for his family. Lee sees that, and he's daring him to do something, even when he says if you, um,

I know we're going along, guys, but even when he says, if you throw it, you're going to get rocked. No one would ever threaten my father at his table. Nobody. Like, no one would ever threaten me at my table. Like, it, and so even that, he's sunning him. And so I wondered in that scene,

what was the way to show that Mikey wasn't who Lee thought he was? And I couldn't figure my way out of it. Well, because, but here's the thing. I think Uncle Mikey has something that Uncle Lee will never get. Uncle Lee, it's interesting. He's never sat at the head of the table,

which to him is probably emasculating because for him, he's just like, Mikey's younger than me. Mikey's a fuck up. Mikey says the same stories. Like, here's the thing. That's how you can tell he's the father figure of this family.

Because that's what they do. When a dad says the same exact story, nobody interrupts him. You're just like, we're going to play along and we're going to laugh. That is such a great point, Charles. Because I'm like, go ahead, cook. No, no, no, cook, cook.

Cook, Cook is like, I thought that it might. That is universal. Because that's what they do. They get around and they tell the same story every single time. And then we all laugh and go, okay, here we go. But you love and laugh that. We love them. It's because.

And we laugh and we know God damn well that nobody's going to. interrupt this story. So the moment brilliant. So the moment that Lee does that, he is fucking emasculating him. He is cutting him off at the knees and saying, we don't need

to hear what you. We've heard this before. Nobody else was having a problem with it. Of course they've had it before. That's what dads, they do with those situations. And nobody's going to stop them from doing that. But Lee does it because he doesn't respect Mikey's

station in the family. He doesn't think it's been earned, and he thinks Mikey's a fuck-up. I mean, and the one thing I want to talk about before we go to our final Kai's corner and, like, wrap everything up, the thing that I think is very interesting about this episode is that,

and the season is that they're relying heavily on famous actors that we know, whether it's Will Poulter, Bob Odenkirk, Jamie Curtis, Malaney, just a bunch of actors. Do you think that it's working. And what I mean by that is, like, I think we both agree that this is a fantastic episode. But did you prefer the first season of the bear? That is introducing us to lesser

known actors, putting them on the stage, putting them on our radar, doing what TV does best, which is saying, like, no, these are the stars of the future. You know what I'm saying? Like a madman or a breaking bad being like, nah, y'all need to know Aaron Paul. You need to know John Hamm. Or do you think it's fine that season? Reason two is very much like, hey, we can finally get these people to come play in our sandbox. If you can get Bob Odinkirk

against Bernthal, that's what you do. If you can get a Jamie Lee Curtis to play the mom, that's what you do. Which one do you prefer more? Because I've seen some people complaining that it's a little celebrity heavy. So there's a meta-commentary on this and then that's the commentary

that exists inside the show. The meta-commentary is that a show is flexing this muscle when it does stuff like that. The show is saying, hey, everybody, fucks with us. Everybody loves us. We can get whoever we want to come on the show. We can get them all in the same episode if we want.

And there's something in the back of our minds that response to that. We know that that's what they're doing and we know that they can do that. And so we go, oh, the bear's a big deal. Yeah. Like the bears a big deal because they were able to get Sarah Paul saying

and all of these other people that we see to come in and Bob Oden Kirk. And we know that the bear is a big deal, right? And can I ask you this? As somebody in the industry, I get the, I get the sense, and I might be wrong. It's not like the bear, like the bear is a hit, but it is not, like, it's still, it's growing. No, the actors want to do it. That's what I was saying.

I'm like, I think a lot of these actors are doing it for the love. Yeah. I would be surprised if this is even their full rate. I think a lot of them will be like, hey, you need me at all. Just call me. I'll come in for, you know, a day or two and just whatever. Do you think that they were even like charging, charging the bear the full rate? I think that they wanted to do this

because they wanted a chance of getting characters, man. Actors want to act. We don't get, like, people don't understand when a Robert Downey Jr. went, you know, I don't want to play Iron Man anymore. And he wants to do other stuff. Or Chris Evans doesn't want to be Captain America and he wants to be like a villain in the Greyman.

And people are like, what the fuck? Like, you want to wear the knives elsewhere and you don't want to be Captain America. Actors want to act. And so in a situation like this, where it is like a play, like you said before, where you get to really like show off, they love that type of thing.

I don't have a problem with it at all because I think pretending like I don't like shows that pretend like they're not television shows. The only show that ever pretended like it wasn't a television show that I really fucked with was The Wire. The Wire just didn't think

it was a television show. It didn't. And sometimes when you saw actors that you recognize on the Wire, like the fantastic, amazing Windle Pierce, you almost had to be like, oh, well,

it's Wendell Pierce, but he's really bunk. I don't look at Wendell Pierce on the wire as Wendell, he's bunk. Like, those characters all seemed real. I mean, a lot of the actors on the wire have said it was a gift and a curse because it's like, let's say you were playing like a drug dealer or whatever. You were playing somebody from the streets. A lot of them were like, yo, people believed,

because they did get some people who are from Baltimore, but a lot of them were actors. They were just like, yo, for years, people would just think that like I was just a normal, like that was me. they didn't think of me as an actor. Like that's how realistic the wire was. Right. And to your point, I don't mind it in The Bear

because I'm just like, no, this is the show saying like, nah, like we're in a different stratosphere now. And I'm just like, dog, if you can get Jamie Lee Curtis and fucking like Bob Odenk and John Mullaney in the same episode, why wouldn't you? But even in the last episode, you know, John Bernthal was a big deal. He popped up for like one episode.

You know what I'm saying? So it's not like Oliver Platt is the face that I've seen for years and years and years. He's from all kinds of different movies and stuff like that. So, you know, I get people's criticism of that. It doesn't bother me. I think that this episode needed the execution at the level that it executed at. And I think you want to make sure that, you know, you have really, really A plus talent in it. And they did it.

And I don't think, you know, we can nitpick about everything. But I personally don't see an issue with it. I don't think the bear is a guest star show. I think some of the most moving episodes this season have been doubling down on the characters that were around last season. I think they have a perfect, perfect mix of giving us more about the characters we've already been in touch with and about giving us some new things. think about. I mean, even if you think of like Lionel Boyce on Honeydew, Lionel Boyce now being a black young actor being next to Will Poulter, I look at him differently now. Like, I knew he was talented, but just by like steel sharp and steel, now I'm like, oh, he didn't get blown out of the

water. In fact, he held his own. And like, I'm just like, that's what this season is doing. I know we got to wrap up really, really quick. Kai come back. This is the most important question of the day. We're going to start with you, Van. Then we're going to go to Kai. I'll finish it on. what white people food is automatically getting someone thrown out of your dinner party? The tuna cassero was a nut, was a non-starting.

Then, what is the one white people food? You're like, if you bring this to my dinner party, if you bring this to Christmas dinner, we're going to yell at you, we're going to tell you get the fuck out. Chicken fried steak. Really? It ain't Kentucky, nigger. It ain't Kentucky, nigga.

You know what I'm saying? It's like, it's not. I know that some people love it. I have such a big problem with it. Like, people, one time, it happened. So I brought a bunch of chicken fried steak and some chicken fried steaks brought them to the thing, had them sitting there to heating them up. And a friend of mine was like,

yo, you're going to eat the chicken fried steak. It's like, you're in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Okay? You're in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. We're not eating that shit, bro. Sit down, like, sit down and enjoy the food that masters of culture are going to make for you. You know what we can do with the chicken fried steak? This happened.

We can go back there and give them to the beagles, the hunting dolls we had in the back. And they will love it. Hey, bro, they loved it. God, damn. And we went back there and they loved it. Like, give a shout out to Rock and boy and all of my beagles. We have 10 hunting dolls that we will use to hunt rabbits. We go out there and give them the chicken fried state.

They loved it. And it's like, that actually happened. But don't bring food in that. don't bring food in that genre to what we got going on because what we got going on is a mixture of Cajun cooking and black soul food.

We got gumbo and collard greens, nigger. We got oxtails and herky. We're doing it. Okay? All right. Don't fuck with us the goddamn chicken fry steak.

Kai? That's a good one. I got to first start with an apology to Tyler Crater and ASEP Rock. but potato salad is it's a no for me. Why would you mean

bring potato salad to Christmas though? That's more of, that's like, that's a summer food. I think you just said white people food. Yeah, but like it's,

but like, why people food is, first of all, hold on, whoa. Potato salad is not white people's food. Maybe I'm the wrong person to ask about food.

What about macaroni salad? Mac and cheese? I don't know. Macaroni salad. Maconie salad is not white people's food. Maconie salad is definitely white people's food. Okay, maybe that's what I'm thinking.

Kai, I love you. This is not a great episode Guy. This is not, Kai. Can take it on the chin. I'm here. Potato salad and macaroni cheese being white people's food

is some wild shit to say. It's really bad, man. Potato salad? I don't like either of them at all. Now you're going to say yams are white people food. No, I would say that. Do you like yams? Kai, what's your favorite food?

Yeah, do you like yams, Kai? Yeah. What's your? You know, whoa. Wait. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of it. Do you like sweet potato pie?

Next question. Kai. Okay. Of all the Christmas foods, you have to like one. We're beating the dead horse now. But of all the Christmas foods, I like cornbread. Okay. I like cornbread.

I can respect that. I like turkey. I like ham. I like the rolls. Wait, so you've never mixed the cornbread with the yams, with the collard greens. Get like a mash? Absolutely, no, no. You ain't living, bro.

It's a miss for me. Potato salad is nasty. I don't know. Maybe I was just trying to get an agenda off. I don't know. I don't tell you. Two foods I can never do. I don't like casseroles.

I'm just like I am anti-casserol in just most of my life. But the big one I'll say is don't bring a meatloaf. Don't bring a meatloaf. Yeah, it's not like that big of a deal. Like the meatloaf. Lazzania? I don't like lasagna. Does that count?

I like lasagna, but that's never coming to like Christmas though. It depends. If we're doing an Italian Christmas, of course, like bring the panay, bring the lasagna, bring everything. If it's like a black Christmas, No, don't bring, don't bring the lasagna, bro. Okay, Kai. What's up?

Question. Yeah. How much do you love your family? I love my family more than anything. Okay, okay. This is why I'm asking. Where do you, where do you, what are your family, what does your family celebrate the holidays? Where?

Yeah, where? Texas. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Ooh, this is close. What part of Texas? I'm from Arlington. So Arlington, Mansfield, DFW, that kind of area.

Allenton, Mansfield, DFW. Okay, so listen, I have a proposition. Mm-hmm. My family celebrates the holidays Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I need one day. I'm serious about this. I'm serious.

I need one day. I'll push our, like, we'll do Thanksgiving on Friday. It's crazy. I'm serious, bro. Because I think that's the day of the LSU game anyway. Well, no, they made the movie back to Saturday, whatever. We'll do Thanksgiving on Friday.

I don't want to take away for your family for Christmas. But we'll do Thanksgiving on Friday. Friday, if you can come in just for a couple of hours and eat with us. I can change you. Kai, this is happening. I can fix you. Oh, that's the energy. Hold on.

Hold on. Kyle, Kai, that's an hour flight. You and your lady are invited. Right after this, you can fly right back. It's an hour flight. Ooh, this could be an episode of Ringer Food. You and your lady are invited. So come to Thanksgiving.

We'll do Thanksgiving on a Friday so you can spend Thanksgiving with your family. We'll do the feast on a Friday. so that you can come and eat with us. And the only thing is, is you can't, we ain't got no, we ain't got no chitlins and nothing like that, but you got to try the stuff that we put in front.

I got to try it. Okay. You got to try it. Okay. You got to try it. What's up? Before we go, what is the number one dish that Kai will eat that you're like,

can't miss? I know he's a picky eater, but he will eat this and it can't miss. The gumba. The gumba? He's got, I can fuck up for gumbo, he's the,

there's no way. I would bet every dollar to my name, you're going to love her gumbo and you're going to want more because there's nothing overpowering about it. It is flavorful. What's in the gumbo? What type of gumbo?

So it's a seafood gumbo. Hell. I like seafood. There'll be chicken. There'll be chicken. They'll be sausage. I'm okay with both those things. There'll be chicken sausage

and then they'll be shrimp. And then they'll be crab. And then they'll be crawfish. Okay. Those are all, we're in a good place. So, and here's a deal. Even the crab, I don't like it in the gumbo as much because it takes up too much space and there's nothing you can really do with it.

So you can take the crab out. But I'm telling you, Drew takes a long time. You will like her gumbo. You will like it. Now, there's also be backstrap there, some venison, all of that stuff. That stuff is really good, but. Well, scary. Oh, I need some backstrap.

I need to. Oh, my God. It's the fucking best part of the deer, bro. Shout out to animals. I love y'all. But like, it's like, Why did you invited the Midnight Boys out for a Thanksgiving feast? Like, we should make this a whole like midnight boys and everybody.

Well, everybody can come. The thing is, if you guys come, it'll be easier to get her here. The only problem is that, look, see what I'm doing? See what I'm doing? I'm putting her to work again. Like, let's, let's end the podcast. We got to wrap up the podcast. Yo, shout out Vans mom.

Shout out Kai behind the boards. Not his greatest Kai corner. But he will be back for him. I'll be back next week. He's going to be back. You know what I'm saying? He had it off. It's fine.

Yo, I'm Charles Holmes. He's Van Lathen. We'll see you soon to talk about the bear more. Out.