The Prestige TV Podcast - 'The Better Sister' Review: Your Summer Mystery Binge Drop With Bill Simmons and Joanna Robinson

Episode Date: June 2, 2025

Bill and Joanna visit the Hamptons to recap all eight episodes of ‘The Better Sister,’ the Prime Video thriller starring Elizabeth Banks and Jessica Biel. (0:00) Intro (1:21) Why the limited series works surprisingly well (5:44) The TV whodunit playbook (7:28) Jessica Biel and Elizabeth Banks’s performances (19:54) The ghost conversations (21:36) **SPOILERS** Email us! [e-mail] Subscribe to the Ringer TV YouTube channel here for full episodes of ‘The Prestige TV Podcast’ and so much more! Hosts: Bill Simmons and Joanna Robinson Producers: Kai Grady and Donnie Beacham Jr. Additional Production Support: Justin Sayles Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Correct. On the Prestige TV podcast, but then I started watching over the weekend, and I texted Joanne and Rob, like you guys in on the show? Rob was too cool for school for it. You know, he's a little busy right now, I think. Yeah, he's got basketball, and it didn't pass the shit detector test for him. It did for me.

I talked to you about, what do we do, your friends and neighbors, about looking down and up at the TV. Yeah. Doing stuff on my iPad versus like looking up and following. This was perfect. I was about 50-50 between the TV and the iPad on this one. Where were you? I gave it a little bit more. I would say like 60-40.

And I actually, it's funny that you bring up your friends and neighbors because I couldn't help but compare the two since we were just talking about like a, you know, a murder mystery among the upper class. Craig Gillespie worked on both shows. There are some similarities and some of the alibis and stuff like that. So I was comparing it a lot to your friends and neighbors. And I actually, I liked this better than your friends and neighbors because I think it had a better sense. I think it had a better sense of what it is,

which is like classic airplane book, you know, beach read fodder and is not trying to be capital P prestige, but it's just trying to give you like a good murder mystery with a ton of great actors. That's another thing. Like when we were talking about Apple shows and you were talking about this imbalance between the star power and then invest in the star power and then not in the rest of the cast. This is like a fully fleshed out everyone's delivering cast kind of show. I had a great time with it. I'm really glad that you... You're a great time with it. I had a very good time. I wouldn't say it was a great time, but it was a very good time. No, I mean, like, it's definitely not the best show I've seen this year, but I just like, I like when a show knows exactly what it is and is working on that level,

like, very perfectly. Does that make sense? I thought it was an HBO show after a head injury. Like not quite good enough to be on Sunday night, HBO, but like one level below. On Amazon Prime for the summer and a binge drop. It's perfect for what it is. It's funny you mention your friends and neighbors because both shows started out the exact same way. With a dead body covered in blood and the hero of our show, not understanding what's going on and freaking out, basically. It was identical and it's so funny that Craig Gillespie did both shows. Were you waiting for Jessica Biel to fall into the pool or something like that?

Well, her dress was covered in blood at one point. It looked great. It looked great. Yeah, they did a great job. It just seemed like somebody shot like a hose of blood at her. Yeah, I just feel like everyone's worried about AI coming in and replacing the creative for some of the. And it's like, we're not exactly the most original right now in 2025 anyway, where a lot of these shows, just they have to establish the dead body. Then it's like, I wonder who did it.

Then there's all these other pieces. And then the show moves. And then it's like, I think it's this person. No, it's this person. And we just keep going and going. And it just feels like we're on autopilot with this concept at this point. I still like it. You're expanding a Law & Order episode out across eight episodes of the show.

Oh, that's a good way to put it, yeah, with better actors. Yeah, with better actors. But you still got to be like, wait, was it the doorman? You know what I mean? That's like a classic Law and Order swerve. But I think that you also, when you were texting Rob and me about it, you brought up presumed innocent. Like, where does it stack up against presumed innocent for you?

I thought it was, I think these are all around the same. Okay. From a quality level. Presumed innocent was fun because of Jake Gyllenhaal was, it's just a bigger star than, you know, anyone and your friends and neighbors are better sister. So that part was fun. But that presumed innocent also had a lot of issues. I mean, you know, his marriage and the chemistry he had with the actress who played us with that. That was way off.

The kids, the ending of it was really stupid. Yeah. This didn't have a stupid ending, I thought. This didn't have an annoying kid. I liked the teen kid that they got. He was good. This didn't have a character where I'm like, I can't believe I'm spending more time with this person.

And I would say presumed this and I think had higher highs, to your point, Jake Gyllenhaal. Rob and I love Peter Sarasgard so much on that show. You know, like there were like really higher highs, but it was trying to be very arty. The ending was so stupid. and presumed innocent, the like swerve that they made off of the book and stuff like that. This, again, is just like not trying to be sophisticated.

It's just trying to be, you know, a ham and cheese sandwich. And it's like a really good ham and cheese sandwich. I was ready for a ham and cheese sandwich. We're going to do spoilers much later. So I'm going to keep the first half. We can talk big picture. And then second half we can go into some of this stuff. But it does feel like we have a playbook for these shows at this point.

dead body. Our hero couldn't have done it. Wait. Did she? Could he or she have done it? Yeah. Was it this person? Oh.

Oh, this character, the quirky, kind of crazy sidekick character. Huh, what's going on with them? In this case, Matthew Modin. Ah, there's a cop who doesn't have a lot to work with, but is really playing up some some sort of personality trait and just going for it on that end. Oh, there's a little another sidekick. In this case, Elizabeth Banks, who's the other sister, is kind of the SARS guard in this one. Yeah.

Yeah. The actor who has the most kind of stuff to do. Jessica Beale is handicapped with the, I have to be the prim, pristine, rich, wealthy wife, who's just looking like this half the time. But Elizabeth Banks, the part is way more fun. Don't you agree? Yeah. And something I love about a show like this is they obviously like cast the show and then they did rewrites to get specific with like the way in which some of the actors look. Like they kept making fun of that one cop for like when he shaved off his mustache and all this other stuff.

And then with Jessica Beal at one point, someone describes her as having like gymnast arms, you know, because her arms are incredible. But like you're also just like looking at them half the time because they're so dazzling. But yeah, yeah, Jessica Beal has a very, but she was way better than I. expected her to be. I'll be honest with you. Like, I don't have high expectations for Jessica Beal and she doesn't have a ton of variation she has to play, but there's

like, you know, when things, when everything unravels at the end again, we're not getting into spoilers, there's some crying jags that I like bought. I, you know, I was like, I'm convinced by what's going on here. I watched the first four episodes with my wife and she said multiple times was just admiring

how toned and awesome Jessica Beal, like, oh man, great arms. Wow, her butt looks awesome. Oh, yeah. The whole thing. Yeah. Like, just like, wow, she really put in the time. Pilates poster girl, Jessica Bale, looks incredible. It was like being at the NFL Draft Combine, watching somebody admire like an offensive lemon. But yeah, I, listen, I didn't have a lot of high hopes for her either as, you know,

and it is interesting to think of as you rise up the ladder of caliber of actresses. Like if Kate Winslet is in this part, or we go, we go. We go like up there. We go Cape Blanchet like five years ago or we go to that level. What else did they have? What more could they have brought to the table? And I'm not sure that was the point of the part. I don't want it.

I don't want that because again, that's trying to be better than this show actually is, you know? Yeah. Like the only person here, I think, who is like possibly a little too good for the show, but the show actually is Elizabeth Banks. But like since she got her start in comedy, she's like a comedy actress in a lot of aspects inside of this drama. And so that all works really well for me.

I think, you know, you mentioned Kate Blanchett or Kate Winslet, you know, we have to think of the Cates. The Cates, the Cates, the various Cates. Mary Beestown, this is, that's the HBO version of this without a head injury, right? Like, that's what that is. And that was a really good show. Great show. Perfect show. Disclaimer, Cape Blanchette, disaster of a show.

And that's another sort of like mystery, Apple. What are we doing here? We're trying to be something really arty and sophisticated. but that show is also based on, like this show is on, based on a beach read book. If you're going to adapt a beach read book, just do,

that's the level that we need from that every time. So, yeah. Yeah, she, you have to look good. I have to believe you were a high society wife who also was running a magazine. You only need to do basically three different acting things. You need to be like kind of agro.

You need to be just completely stunned or you need to cry. Also, you need the haircut, which she and Leslie Bibb both knocked out of the park. Yeah, sure. You need to go backwards. And then Elizabeth Banks, who I think, I thought she dialed it up the first couple episodes and then gradually came down to where it needed to be. There was definitely some send this scene to the Emmy reel kind of acting coming from her.

Like really, really. It was like, all right. Okay. All right, Elizabeth. Maybe one more take. but she was really going for it. And I think she could smell the Emmys from the moment she shows up in this thing. She's out of control.

The character's just like a Hot Mess Express. Like that's the character description. And Hot Mess Express with the Heart of Gold is, you know, is what we're dealing with here. And I think she really delivered on that. And I think the contract, like, I think it's really good casting. Beale and Banks are really believable sisters to me. There's like something in them that feels sisters. But it's just sort of like the road not taken.

Elizabeth Banks is the older sister who has a long history of, you know, abusing drugs and alcohol, et cetera. So that's like hot mess express. And then Jessica Biel is like the version of who just like always did everything. Right, the better sister, you know, to your point. Good title. I got to say that one of the best things about this show. Good title.

Made sense immediately. I was like, I get this. I know who the better sister is. I know who the worst sister is. Well, I mean, or like it was one of challenging. Dubu. And I think that like, Lorraine Toussaint, who plays Catherine,

the sort of like, you know, Jessica Beal's boss, she later in the season says something about like, oh, it's like a Daniel steel novel, isn't it? The two sisters. Well, blah. Exactly. Like, it's juicy. It's soapy. It's like, it's trashy in a really fun way.

It is, I've made this point many times before on this podcast and on my podcast. I've always felt like sisters are the underrated piece of turf for TVs and movies, the dynamic of sisters and all the baggage that comes with it is so fat. And this show did a good job especially in the early episodes because nobody can be meaner than two sisters to one another.

It's the highest, meanest level two human beings can get. It's pretty tough. But there's also this love and affection and there's just all the stuff that makes really compelling TV. Obviously, I'm an only child. I only know the sisters like on my dad's side of the family because my dad had two sisters that were really, really close. So I saw that.

I saw the happy version of it. But this version of it was really cool. And then you bring in like, wait, they were both with our guy, Corey Stoll? Corey stole. Corrie. Perfect. It's available. Oh, he's booked.

He's busy. Poor man's Peter Saras Guard is here. And just like really perfect casting for this role. Like really just like... He's had a nice run. His IMDB is swollen from the last 15 years. No one does like smug asshole

better than Corey Stahl genuinely. Really, really huge fan of his. Yeah, when his character, when we learn, again, I'll give the official, we'll go to a break and we'll be like, all right, it's time for spoilers. When we learn one thing about his character, it's like, of course.

Of course. Yeah. Obviously. Of course he's doing that. So you mentioned how this show from the Apple where Apple just has the two stars and then basically tries to get lucky with everybody else. But this show had Corey Stoll and Kim Dickens,

who I thought was really good as the police sergeant or cop, whatever she was. Yeah. The detective storyline is anchored by Kim Dickens. Matthew Modin is anchoring this shadowy legal case side of the story. It was great to see him. I love Matthew Modin. I'm not positive what he's going for in this show, but...

I think it's just gay. He's like, my character's gay, so I'll wear a lot of Ascotts and like he changed his voice. Exactly. He had a voice like a little like this. And I was like, all right, you've made some choices. Those are the swings that Matthew Modin decided to take. Lorraine Toussaint is like anchoring the media mogul side.

Like every storyline has an actor that I want to spend time with. I don't know if I loved Lorraine, but it was an interesting performance. She was also, I thought she was really going for it. There was that mushroom scene where I was like, wow. Wow, you're going hard here. I love the mushroom scene. And Gloria Rubin, like, you know, as we are in our ER celebration era, after the pit, Gloria Rubin's here and to be the defense attorney.

So that delighted me. Yeah. It was great to see her. It's hard. Every time these ER characters pop up back into our life, now, you know, I'm obviously a little older than some of the people listen to this. But ER was such like a huge, massive show. and you had such an attachment to so many of the people on there.

And I always root for them whenever I see them and anything else. So with her, I was like, oh, exactly. Look at you. And maybe you have a little bit of history with our guy, Jake. Who knows? Let's get a little flirty. Yeah, a little nasty. It was pretty great.

One other thing with Elizabeth Banks, felt like she did a no makeup decision for the first couple episodes to add to the Hot Mess Express. Do you notice that? To me, more than anything. thing. It was the like the bad blonde dye job. This is something that like... She really dumbed. She really

dumbed the look down in a bunch of ways. The, like trying to disguise her inherent hotness. Over on the Netflix show Sirens, Megan Fahey, who we loved in White Lotus Season 2, plays a similar Hot Mess Express sister and has like the exact same

peroxide die job. Like this is the classic My Sisters of Mess. Her roots are grown out. a die job look on these women in an attempt to disguise their absolute smoking hotness. I like how you brought up Sirens. Like there was no chance. I didn't watch all five episodes. Did you enjoy Sirens?

Not really. No, I didn't like it. That was the one I took one for the team for my wife because there's been a lot of NBA playoffs on in my house. So she's Sirens. She's like all in first day. I didn't think it was very good. I hated Sirens, man.

I didn't really understand what the point of it was. And I also thought the lead, like the femme fatale, the Megafahy's sister, I just didn't think it was good. I didn't buy the character. And that show kind of hinged on her being incredible and she wasn't. She was really good on House of the Dragon. She's going to be supergirl. Like she's great, but like not in that role. And that whole thing was just, it's not what I would want from Julian Moore.

It's not what I want from Kevin Bacon. It's not what I want from anyone. And I think that's just like, again, a bad version of what this show does really well. Like that, you know, that's like a ham and chicken. cheese sandwich, but it's all cheese, no ham. You know what's great about that show, though? It did check some boxes. It had an awesome, awesome house. Oh, yeah.

And some weird island that I didn't know anything about. So I'm like, episode two, it's just on. I'm just Googling the island. I'm like, what's going on here? How far is it from New York City? There's a 40-minute deep dive on this place I didn't know existed. Is watching TV, like being on Zillow for you? It's like Zillow.

Google? Yeah, it's just, it's a waste station for me. to just look stuff up or look up stuff on eBay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that show is, I thought, pretty bad. I would give that show, we were doing a grade system. Yeah. That's like a D for me.

Yeah. What is this? I thought this was like a B or a B plus. Yeah, B plus. Somewhere in there, depending on what you wanted. It had the same issues some of these other shows have. It probably should have been six episodes. They stretched it.

It should have been six episodes. Can I take you behind the curtain of what happened this weekend of me watching the show? No, go ahead. You texted us. I had not seen it. Rob had not seen it. Oh, so I got you excited. I went out to lunch with my cousin who had watched the first three episodes.

And I was like, all right, tell me what the show is, what's happening on the show. And she recapped the first three episodes for me. And then it was just like really fun to sit there with her and try to put out all my guesses as to who did it, having not seen a single second of the show. I was just like, let me try to guess. And I was like, I guessed correctly. I mean, I did a bunch of guesses, but one of them was correct. you know, throw enough darts of the wall, you'll hit the bullseye. But it was funny to, like, hear the recap.

And I was like, oh, okay, this is, I know exactly what this show is. And that sort of prepped me for the right expectations going in, which I think is why I had such a good time with it. I think you just came up with like a 15-minute prestige TV podcast idea. Where a show is coming out and we just look at the IMDB and watch the trailer and try to guess exactly what happened. I love it. And everybody gets like a four-minute. Here's what I think.

And then it just goes. And then that's it. And whoever wins wins like a booby prize. I love it. What's the next one we could do for that? I don't know. That's a good question. That wouldn't work for like the bear.

It has to be like one of these. Like a new one-off starry kind of show. Yeah. Where it's like a summer book with some sort of crime. Something gets solved. Somebody's a detective. And then you just kind of guess what happens. Let me tell you something.

Apple, Amazon, or Netflix. We'll have a show for us in the next two months. It's just important, especially during the summer. Summer, yeah. Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, Malibu, Hampton, somebody's getting murdered, a lot of suspects. Let's go. We're all chasing Big Little Lies.

And this is not a Big Little Lies is an A show, at least the first season is. I would say A plus. Yeah, first season. That is like everything I want from one of these shows. Exactly. And then, yeah, this is like the B plus version of a Big Little Lies. Well, that's interesting you mentioned that about,

because that's the Jessica Biel. That would have been the highest version of the, the Jessica Bill character. It was Nicole Kidman like 10 years ago as running a magazine and like, wow, she's doing this show. That's amazing. This isn't a spoiler. I think it's just like a gimmick of the, a gimmick of the show are these like ghosts. You get a lot of flashback stuff.

You also get like strange like sort of ghost conversations. How did you feel about that as like a device? Then it just felt like padding. I thought as again, this was a six episode show. Yeah. And they had to throw in some gimmicks and some red herrings to. just stretch it stretch two more hours out of whatever was happening. Our two main ghosts, we should say, are like, is their dad?

The two girls had this abusive dad. So, like, that character is a ghost who pops up and they have conversations with. And then Corey Stahl, who is the murder victim, you know in the first minute of the show. So that's not a spoiler. So, like, dead husband, dead dad, and then conversations with the living. But it's not really supposed to be a ghost thing. It's almost like a memory therapy thing. Didn't love it.

Yeah, okay. I like Corey Stoll as an actor. I actually thought he was a little too likable in the first two episodes. So when we have a little bit of a turn as it keeps going, I didn't feel like he, I didn't know if I believed the dark side for him. I think for me, I'm always suspicious of Corey Stollah. Yeah, okay. Maybe I just like him more.

I like him a lot, but I think he, always plays characters and I'm like, I don't trust you at all. So. All right. Well, we'll take a, let's take a, let's take a break. So if you're listening to this and you haven't watched the show yet, um, feel free to turn it, turn it off because we're going to hit some, uh, some spoilers because I have some questions about what we watch with this show.

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So it's probably 10, 11, I'm going to say, for one way. Depending on time of day, right, for the Hampton's traffic. Right. But she gets word about, she gets word. So we should say, should we say. Yeah, what's got? We start spoiling it. Elizabeth Banks did it.

Elizabeth Banks did it. And it hinges on, she couldn't have done it. She's in Cleveland. This, okay, spoiler is not just for this show, but I'm just about to spoil the reveal of the murder mystery for your friends and neighbors, which wasn't even like 5% of the plot of that show. But like, I am going to reveal it right now. This is the second show in a row where the cell phone pinging the tower was the like alibi that proved to not be true. And this is exactly what happened. I was at lunch with my cousin.

She's like, I was like, do you think Elizabeth Banks did it? She said, she couldn't have. or cell phone pinged in Cleveland. I was like, they tried to get me with that in your friends and neighbors. Cell phone doesn't work. Just leave that cell phone. Yeah, exactly. Moratorium on cell phone pinging as the...

Yeah, let's take like a year. Yeah, like a year hiatus. Yeah. Well, they show the phone suspiciously in the first episode and it's cracked. Smash, yeah. And they show it. And when you see it in the first episode, you think, oh, they're doing this to show that this lady is, like,

does not have a lot of money. She can't even fix her broken iPhone screen. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's not why they showed it. They showed it for the callback at the end of the season where it's like, remember that phone with the smash screen? Yeah, she left it in Cleveland. That's B plus material, baby.

Yeah, it was pretty good. I was impressed. Yeah. So she zoomed down there. Now, I'm going to start picking Nitz immediately here. Okay. She zooms down there, kills the guy. Her DNA is not on him.

They never think to. What is? But they don't test her. They never think to test her And they just blindly accept Oh, her phone pinged in Cleveland Cross her off She had like an incredible motive

And she was a Hot Best Express Not only that No way she did it But when the like When later they're investigating the doorman And his alibi doesn't check out Because they interview the bartender I was like why did nobody ask the bar

You know if his alibi was like I was at the bar watching the game And they're like okay sounds good And nobody checks it And then later And then later they ask the bartender And they're like, well, it turns out you left the bar. And I was like, why did nobody, you know,

was, is the answer that they got so distracted and enamored by the teen son as a suspect that they just sort of dropped everything else? Who also wasn't a great suspect, the teen son? Like as far as like the show was concerned or as far as like the cops should not have suspected the teen son? What was his motive? Why the teen son? So the reason that he starts going down this road is,

because he feels like he's covering up for his mom, which I actually like that wrinkled. Yeah. I was like, that's good. That's a good son. Brings a gun to school. Why did he bring a gun to school? Because he was worried one of his parents would kill the other with it.

Do you have to bring it to school? Probably not. Maybe you could hide in the backyard and have the same effect. Just putting that out, you're a pretty big house. Probably put that gun somewhere. Not sure you have to bring it to school, which is an automatic. You're getting expelled. But I just feel like the flaw of this show fundamentally is that Elizabeth Bank should have been a much bigger suspect.

Of course. And they should have really checked that out and been like, well, wait a second. Plus, we have cameras everywhere now. And I find it hard to believe first in this. You don't think she has John Ham's Wi-Fi remote from your friends and neighbors where she could just move-up the cameras. I don't feel like this shit exists. But they have this expensive house. They have no ring camera?

Right, exactly. None of the neighbors have a camera that shows the street. This is very 2005. Yeah, we live in a surveillance state. You can't get away with murder anymore. No. Listen, I kick myself every day. I miss my chance to murder people.

Oh, the 90s. What a time. Yeah, it was a great time. The 70s were the heyday. You could just get in a van and pick up hitchhikers. Nobody knew what was going on. Now it's like your cameras everywhere. What could have been for you, Bill?

I know. Different career entirely. 70. those 70s killers really had it going. So the son, I just feel like, I don't know. I never believed in the motive and he didn't seem like a killer to me. But did you agree with me that he was like not an annoying teen kid? He was good.

I thought he was a good actor. I thought he's really good. I thought all the like jail stuff with him was really good. I think that when they arrest him, I was like, oh, this is, this feels like a kickback. of like the series of murder shows we've seen recently where the teen kid did it. And they're like, we're going to arrest the teen kid first.

And that's going to be. And you know that's not who did it because if they arrest him first. There's always a chance for the double twist and you come back around and it was the kid. But no, he was like a gentle giant. This whole, who had a night costume under his bed. What a sweetie.

Come on House of R. But yeah, it's a... The teen son always, like if I'm murdered, my teen son would be a suspect immediately just because that's how it goes, apparently. But the answer to be, would be Sean Fantasy killed me to take over the rewatchables.

Oh, is that? But they would figure that in episode eight. Yeah. I don't know. Sean feels the kind of person who might get away with murder. That's a good point. Yeah, we never have a season finale.

No. It's just the season finale is just Sean doing like a Wes Anderson month. And I'm just dead. That's how you'll know. That's how you know Sean did it if he celebrates with Wes Anderson month on the rewatchables. What is, Getting away for the spoilers for a second.

You said to your Jessica Beal, I was kind of surprised. I didn't know she had this in her. So you were very pro-Elizabeth Banks before this? Yeah, in general. Are you not pro-Elizabeth Banks? I really liked her in the 2000s in some of the stuff she was doing early on. And I thought, I really thought there was a chance for like a Reese Witherspoon kind of run for her. Like she's in this.

Mark Wahlberg sports movie called Invincible. And she's really good as the, as like the girlfriend. And it's like one of those like classic shitty sports movie parts where the girl, it's like, oh, it's the love interest. And there's like nothing there. But she's awesome in it. And I remember after that thinking like, oh, I, this will just be, she'll move into that Reese Witherspoon, Sandra Boe thing.

And in some ways it happened. And other ways it didn't. But she also did a lot more stuff behind the scenes. Yeah. And her weird way had more success as like a producer. Like a producer director. Yeah. Her pitch perfect run.

She's forever iconically a Hunger Games character. So she will forever be... The Hunger Games was the big thing for her. Yeah. She will forever be someone for generations because of her involvement in Hunger Games. Pitch Perfect is a huge thing for her. And I think that like... Yeah, she did not become the A-lister leading woman in front of the camera that I think,

you know, maybe some of her earliest stuff promised. Almost there. But I think she carved a really interesting path for herself. Yeah. And I'm never unhappy to see her. I think that what she earned with Better Sister now is she now has a five, six year runway for those big little lies type shows. Oh, move over to Colbibb.

Yeah, she's like, it's like sports. There's some people aging out of the demo. And now she's like, I'm moving right in. It's like, my son's in college. And now I'm drinking too much and blah, blah, blah. And oh, my husband's dead. She could have two of those. Here's my knit to pick.

You know, you're on Zillow watch when you're watching these shows. I'm usually on how old is this person actually a watch that's like. I'm on that watch too. I'm on five watches. Okay. You contain multitudes. Janelle Maloney from the West Wing plays the mom of Jessica Beal Elizabeth Banks. Wow.

And she is 12, 10 to 12 years older than them. And I just wanted to put that out there in the world. Interesting. Well, so how old was Gloria Rubens? Glory Rubin is... Oh, Gloria Rubin, sorry. Yeah, Gloria Rubin is 60. Looks phenomenal.

And that guy, Jake, that pretty clear they had some sort of history. Yeah. I'm going to say he's like late 30s. 38, yeah. Yeah, Jake. You know, up and down the Hamptons, I guess. All over the place. Up and down the hamptons.

I have more nitpicks. Okay. So this is probably a me problem. Okay. And not a show problem. But it does get a little complicated. And like with this whole plot with framing and framing Matthew Modin's character. And we have the,

and there's a shadow thing. And then Jake's dead at the end. And there's a lot going on that final episode that if you're not paying full attention, you almost have to go backwards. Like, all right, I got to watch this. 30 minutes again because they just unleashed nine things at me here. And I think that's okay. That might be a me problem, but what did you think?

Well, yeah, that's usually, I think it's just the fact that it's the opposite of the usual final episode of the show. The final episode of the show of these kinds of show, usually you find out who did it. You've usually already figured it out who did it. So you're quite bored by the reveal or it's such a stupid twist, like presumed it's right. So they throw three more things. Yeah.

So this has like, yeah, we find out who done it at the basically the end of the previous episode into the very beginning of the final episode. And so it's not the question at the end of the show is not who done it. It's like, is she going to get away with it? Which I don't know about you, but I was rooting for her to get away with it. You know, she's like starting this new romance with this guy. She meant AA. Always a great idea. You know, she's got a relationship with her kid.

Yeah, what could possibly go wrong? she's got this relationship with her kid. I was like, I want Elizabeth Thanks to thrive, you know, after this. I want her to get away with it. So how are they going to figure this out? And it involves shittily, I guess, exposing Kim Dickens character. And also it's like a double, you know, scheme. The Kim Dickens thing came pretty late.

The her anger management stuff and all of that. It felt like that got thrown in. You should have seated that earlier. I agree. I agree with that. I would have seen, I would have liked to have seen a flash of it too. Yeah, yeah. Like the first couple episodes.

Yeah. But Kim Dickens is doing in this episode, in this show, what, you know, there's that like hardboiled detective character and your friends and neighbors that Rob and I were both like, oh, brother. Kim Dickens is like, let me show you how it's done. This is how you do it. Totally. Totally. Yeah. Actually, she had a couple really good acting moments.

Like, she tells that story about when she was ahead of her, ahead of the other cops and caught the suspect, but it was a bad idea. and she said it was pretty solid. Yeah, yeah. So they throw in this thing at the end where Jake's dead. Yeah. And it feels like the only reason they did that was to set up Amazon might pick us up for season two.

We need like some sort of hook because otherwise... Still, that didn't occur to me. I hate that idea. I'm a cynical person. Otherwise, it made no sense. Why was he dead who killed him? He makes some allusion at some point to. If they find out that it would,

I'm a dead man, but they don't follow it up really, and it just feels very season two-ish. Well, you're really right. It would be a terrible idea, to be clear, Amazon,

if you're listening. Don't do this. It didn't work for big little lies. It won't work for you. But, yeah, there's that, and there's also the rogue FBI agent and all of that stuff.

Jessica Beal, in her wrapping up of everything, she's going to frame Matthew, Modin, but she's also, like, calling in a complaint against the FBI agent. Sort of I was wondering if they were going to try to frame him for something. But sort of, so like there's, there's, that thread is sort of open a bit. And then isn't the implication, though, that Matthew Modine had Jake killed? Because he's on the phone with the gentry group, goons, whoever they are and is like.

The gentry group. Just an evil group. I don't even know what they do. They're just evil. Slave labor, human trafficking. to build stadiums, I forgot. Human, human trafficker,

but they're called the Jensher Group. It sounds like a law firm. But he's like, Jake's no longer a problem. And then, and then Jessica Biel's character like hears something

in the house and goes outside with her gun and then nothing comes of that. I don't know. So, yeah, you're always right about this stuff. Matthew Modine was like, he pulled his ascot.

And he's like, Jake's no longer a problem. His ascot game. First of all, who knew askots were still a thing in 2025? They're not. It's really Mo Dean. Yeah, Modin was trying to bring it back. At one point, his ascot affliction is so severe that at one point he's wearing an

ascot with like a tight polo shirt. Like, you know, and this is the way he'd wear an ascot with like a button down or whatever, or like a sweater. But he's wearing it with over a tight polo. And I was like, happy Pride Month, Matthew Modin, I guess. Here you are. I think he saw an episode of. Scooby-Doon

and was like, you know, Fred's Ascott, I don't, I think that maybe that could add that to my look. You're absolutely right.

Yeah. Fred Core. Yeah. So I didn't, the Jake thing I thought was super weird. One of the things that bothered me

the entire season, which I can't remember they might have established an episode three in the flashback where she has the knife, Jessica Beal, puts it in the glove

compartment of her car. Just keeps it there. like one of the first things anybody is going to search her fingerprints are all over it finds the files in the glove compartment finds the secret gentry group human trafficking files in the safe in her Manhattan apartment

they didn't search the safe of the murder victims they didn't search anything how about this Kim Dickens terrible at her job she's just mangling the investigation all over the place pretty bad at her job check the glove compartment and then Elizabeth Banks opens the thing is like oh there's the gun that our dad gave us once upon a time.

There's blood all over it. I wonder what this is. Yeah. No, the cops not at the top of their game in this show, in this B-plus Amazon Prime show. Yeah, though, Kim Dickens sidekick, mustache,

no more mustache guy. No more mustache guy. So he has a mustache for like this guy doesn't really stand out in any way. He's not funny. He's not really sinister. enough. His big move is he had a mustache and they shaved it and they mentioned it.

Other than that, I don't know why he's here. And this was a classic. Maybe you could have gotten more from this part from somebody else. Yeah, maybe. I was trying to look up if this was like a Henry Cout, like did he have to shave it for another role that he was doing? And then they decided to make like a big deal of it inside of the show. Because there's no other reason to do that.

They had to stop shooting for a month and he had to. And then it had to like felt like the obligated to mention it. I mean, like, you know, feel free to tell me. if anyone's listening and they know the answer to this. But the only other thing I could see on his CV that was right around the same time is the beekeeper. And he's got facial hair in that one. So I was like, I don't know. I don't know what happened that he shaved his mustache and they decided to make a big deal of it.

But they did. Yeah, that was a weird one. Would you think of how they did rich people stuff in this show? Because that's always an essential piece of these shows. I really like, I got to say, I really like their apartment in New York City. You're our correspondent bill on this front. I don't know. I don't know anything about the New York City apartment luxury parts.

But it did feel like a check the last. lot of boxes for things I've seen in other shows. I'll tell you what I know, which is New York Legacy Media. So the way in which they were trying to do, definitely trying to do Vanity Fair with her magazine. And so all the stuff we got, like, down to the font of the logo and stuff like that. And her Anna Wintour-esque Bob, I mean, of course, that's Vogue, but like, you know, she's just trying to run this con in-ass kind of circle. And they got some things right there.

They got some things quite right there. That was another one of my nipicks. You're just going on leave immediately if you're in a giant murder investigation. They're like, hey, they have to do this big scene where her boss is like, hey, we talk to the board and we want you to take a leave of absence. Guess what? The leave of absence is happening when your whole family is in a murder investigation. You're not just going to go to work on a Tuesday and be like, okay, so let's talk about the front of the book. Let's go.

What do we have for our last feature? Yeah. What should the letter to the editor be this month? Do you think? Yeah. Well, and then the other thing is, I'm sorry, they don't speed rush murder investigations. These things take forever. Like Karen Reid, which is like the biggest murder thing happening in Massachusetts this decade,

takes forever. And you can't just be like, all right, we'll move that up to April 9th. Like, these go for like two, three years. So by the time this kid actually goes to trial for this murder, it's at least a year after the murder. Okay. Right. He's already like graduated from high.

He's not like, all right, I guess. I guess I'm back in time for my chem exam. Yeah, he's done. He's missed a year and a half of school. They do. A lot of time does pass in a way that you're not really noticing because they'll say like, hey, the trial's six weeks from now and then it'll be in the next scene. So like six weeks pass.

She's there. They're like there's a lot. No trial is six weeks from now. They take six nine months. I agree with you, but I'm just saying like they're also speed running a lot of time in this show. Like this took a place you would think watching it over a couple of weeks. but I think it was months and months and months that this show takes place.

But you're saying it should have been years. And but I'm saying I wouldn't. Yeah, the kid's 20 by the time he's free. I'm telling you, Bill, I would not want to watch years of the life of these people. Well, here's another thing. So we, if we're stretching out to eight episodes, give me the kid in jail for a couple scenes. Is he scared? Does he feel like does he have to fight somebody the first day or else he's going to become

a target for all the other inmates? Is he in solitary? I don't know. Are they calling a murderer? Why did he have the black eye? I feel like I got that from that. He's like, I got beat up. I didn't know what to do.

Now I know what to do. And then later he's like, I've started lifting weights. Okay. Sounds really interesting. Okay. You know. I'm a 17-year-old rich kid. I'm in a maximum security prison.

Where am I? What is the jail like? Is he scared? Is he crying? Nothing. Okay. Season two. Well, it was actually kind of interesting because there are two actors,

Lorraine Tucson and then the guy who plays Artie are Orange and the new black actors. And so I was wondering if there was like DNA crossover between those two shows. But like yeah, so you wanted Orange and the New Black but with this teenage kid in prison. I'm just saying it was sitting there. Okay.

And we went in some... What would you have cut? What plotline would you cut in order to spend time in prison with this teen kid? I thought there was a little too much Banks' Hot Mess Express. AA meetings. You would have cut the AA meetings. Probably would have cut the AA meetings. Okay.

But then we always felt like that's a cheap gimmick. We don't meet hot weathered author guy, you know? Yeah, I'm not sure we needed that guy either. But maybe we would have cut some Jake. Maybe two less ascot scenes. Oh, yeah, yeah. Definitely cut the Asgot montage. I'm not asking for 45 minutes in prison, but give me like the first night in jail.

Give me like he's going to get food and somebody hits him over the head with a tray and he's got to like fight back or he's got some guy on the inside being like, you're going to be a target unless you show them that you got it you're going to stand up for yourself. So now he gets like, just give me like three jail scenes. This is your Oz fan coming out. You always want to go back to us. Easy content. I see. Well, when somebody goes to jail, naturally, you put yourself in the position.

It's everybody's worst case scenario to go to jail. And I kind of want to know what he's thinking. He just seems not damaged enough by the end of this. It's like, oh, let's make some eggs. Do you think that they didn't show him in jail because they want to, to keep you in doubt as whether or not he did it. And if you spent like literally any more time with that kid, you're like,

that kid definitely didn't do this. But I mean, you mentioned it earlier with the law and order template. Like the person who gets arrested in the first 25% of a show like this ends up not being the killer. So it's almost like you cross them off once he gets arrested. It's very true. But the cover up thing was a very good angle that I don't remember a saying before.

That he felt like he had. to do this because he didn't want his mom to go to jail. I feel like we've seen that before, and I could not name for you what it is right now, but a sort of like, I thought you did it. I thought you did it. Yeah, it does feel vaguely familiar, but I did like it. Jessica Beal, you mentioned sort of like all the confusing wheelings and dealings in the last episode, but I think I sat up and paid attention because we had been primed for that

because midway through the season, like in order to get her son free, and out of court, she goes and fucks Jake and sets him up. And I thought that was like a beautiful ice cold move from Jessica Beale's character and then puts on this whole performance in court. And it was just like...

That was the best part of the show. Yeah. So you're like on the lookout for her ability to scheme and manipulate things. And so when she like swings by Matthew Modine's place at the end, presumably with like, I don't know, a collection of ascots for his husband. and then, you know, plants the murder weapon, like, great stuff.

Did you want more trial or less trial? Because presumed innocent and leaned the other way and went big in the trial. No, that was, I thought that was a perfect amount of trial. I didn't need it anymore. It was like two days of testimony. Yeah. Yeah, we had trial montage, multiple witnesses, just banging stuff out. Yeah.

I thought the weakest character, it actually liked the performance more just how they drew it up was the Dorman. Dorman Ardy. Dorman Arty just being. that much of a I don't know an enforcer he's going to talk shit

to Corey Stoll that one didn't totally add up to me I think he was like full of whiskey courage and I did like the side plot

where he was like selling rich people's castoffs on Craigslist like the you know residents of the building who were just dumping their couch every couple years he's just like

making a profit on I think that might be true by the way I hope it's true I think people do that I hope it's true Yeah. All right.

Anything else we have to hit with this show? No, I just, I think. Now that you're coming to grips with the season two, because you know I'm right. I know you're always right. It's disappointing that. Who killed Jake? Could it have been more than what we thought?

But I think that maybe a Matthew Modin dies in prison, Epstein style. No, you don't know if you're going to want a whole three-episode art. of Matthew Modain in prison. Well, no, but maybe it's a quote unquote, he killed himself, but did he? Do you think he can wear- The cameras got shut down for a half hour when he was in sale? Can you wear an ascot with an orange jumpsuit? Is that something that you can do?

Well, how he gets out of jail and they give him his stuff back and it's like a wallet and seven escots? It's all ass-cots all the time. You know, MoDine's my guy, right? Oh, I love Matthew Modin. Because Vision Quest is like important. 80s movie for me. We're in a rewatchable. Yeah. He's a great run by him.

Pacific Heights, which we have not done on the rewatchables yet, but is one of my favorites. No, I'm a big, I'm a big Modine fan. I really like his, the modenaissance of like, he's in a, he's in a Chris Hernel and Batman movie. He's in Stranger Things. He's, you know, he's around, he's working. That makes me really happy. The Ascot choice is just, and surely it was not his choice,

but it was a really interesting thing. I think more shows should aim to be B plus. I think we would have a better society if more shows were just delivering solid B plus and not shooting for A when they don't have the ability to get there. I'd rather a solid B plus show than like a show that's really trying to get to A and winds up in the C territory as a result, you know?

I agree with you. And I'll give you my score of looking up versus looking down that we talked about, which is our version of a sport. sports metric of how engrossed you were in the show. I was probably 45% looking up at the TV during this entire show. It really did the job. At the start of the of this episode, you said 50-50. You just downgraded it 5%. I think I downgraded it 5%. The more I'm thinking about it. It's because they didn't have prison scenes and you were like, if you would put those

prisons and you would have gotten those five-per-sets. The trial I was up. Yeah. But yeah, there was some some other. And, you know, the sisters- Dad. You're not here for Ghost Dad. Did the sisters hate each other or not? That was another one where all of a sudden they're making eggs in the kitchen together. And it's like, I thought you guys didn't talk for 10 years. I thought they jumped fast on that.

That's the point of sisterhood. They're like constantly in and out with each other. Like Jessica Beale is in with her and then she. Yeah. No, I get it. Then she rats her out to the to the journalist at the party. You know what I mean? Like it's just it's constantly swinging.

Should she have been more white trashy and more annoying than she was? Do you want like an accent? Would you prefer she had been from the South? I don't know. I felt like cigarettes were a must, to be honest. I don't know why she wasn't chain smoking. She was smoking. That's how Kim Dickens got the DNA off of her.

She dropped her cigarette. I'm saying cigarette in the kitchen. Cigarette in every season. Jessica Bill getting mad about you're really going to keep smoking my house. I just would have ramp that up. Fucking the cater waiter at the fancy Hempton's party is not trashy enough for you. You need more. That was pretty good.

Yeah, that was. I needed like three more. That's three more of those. That was pretty good. Okay. The mom, you like the mom too? I really like that actor. She was in The Penguin, and I think she's really, really good.

You didn't like her. I liked her. I felt like she was going for it. She delivered most of the ham and the ham sandwich, and I thought it was delicious. I thought it was great. All right, better sister. I'm going B. It sounds like you're a B plus.

I'm going a happy B though. It's not like, I'm not dissing the show. It's like a very positive B. B plus the plus you earn for knowing exactly what you are and I appreciate that about the show. And your friends and neighbors, where did you, where'd you end up that B minus C plus? That's a B minus C plus for me.

Yeah. Where are you with that? That was a B plus for me. Okay. All right. Yeah, it's because there's more homes for you to look up on Zillow. No,

I'd really like the college episode. I thought I had such a good time that one episode. It bumped the grade up for me. It just like had you coasting through the rest of the season. It was just like remembering. I did spend at least one. one episode trying to figure out where they were filming it, which was somewhere past the Connecticut border in New York and that whole,

like Westchester, so I did the deep dive on that. That was the zillowiest show that we've watched a long time. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, there was some really fun houses to look at. But I'll tell you, Sirens, it was the one redeeming quality of Sirens. I had no idea that whole world. I was deep diving that one.

I was really mad at myself for finishing that show, for having watched the whole thing. Really mad at myself. We'll say, though, our guy Kevin Bacon was really good. He looked great. He looks phenomenal. Megan Fahy also, as handsome as ever. Megan Fahy also quite good, I thought.

Of all the people in that show, I thought she was quite good. But it's not what I want. I understand why that's where she went after White Lotus, but it's not, she deserves better. What are you and Rob? What do you have coming up on Prestige? Anything? We're doing Stick, the Owen Wilson show and the golf show. And I, Rob had never seen Tin Cups.

So he's watching Tin Cup for the first time. And I had never seen Happy Gilmore. So I'm watching Happy Gilmore for the first time. So we're going to do a little like. Maybe this will lead to the Sopranos finally. Loser Guys Play Golf is, you know, something we're going to check in on. All right. Good to see you, Joanna.

Thanks to Kai and John as well. You can check out the prestige TV podcast as a video podcast. If you didn't know that on Spotify. And we have, what is it, Ringer Dash TV is the YouTube channel? Yeah. All right. Thanks, Joanna. Good to see you.

Thanks, Bill. Bye. Hey, Mama. Thanks for making all my favorite recipes. Hi Ma, thanks for your unfiltered advice. Hi, Mom. Thanks for always being by the phone. Hey, Mom. Happy Mother's Day. When you ship UPS Air at the UPS Store, your items arrive on time or your money back.

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