The Prestige TV Podcast - 'The Dropout' Finale and Executive Producer Liz Hannah

Episode Date: April 7, 2022

Joanna Robinson and Jodi Walker sit down to discuss the finale and full season of 'The Dropout' on Hulu. They talk about the major themes along with the real-life story of what happened to Elizabeth Holmes after the events of the show. Later, Joanna talks with executive producer Liz Hannah about what it was like bringing this story to life (47:13). Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Jodi Walker Guest Liz Hannah Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Joanna, do you ever wish you could definitively prove that you had the right opinions about movies? Uh, yeah, Neil, because I do have the right opinions about movies and television, right, Dave? No, because I'm more right about those things, and I demand trial by content. Oh, boy, what is trial by content? Each week, we'll take on a huge question. Each of us will bring a choice and combine with listener submissions and your votes, we will come to a decision. It's trial by content every Tuesday on Spotify, the ringer.com, wherever you're listening right now. Don't let Neil win.

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Always wearing the turtleneck. So I don't want this to come off as, like, support of Elizabeth Holmes. It's just, it's just a simple homage to a good classic look. It's true. You know, clean, crisp, scammy. All right. So we are here to wrap up the dropout. Our, like, I think the favorite of the scam shows that are currently scamming on our television right now.

The finale aired on Hulu today, Thursday. We, last we checked in, I think was around episode five. So, you know, episodes six through eight are on the table here. We'll be talking about Iron Sisters, Heroes, and the finale, Lizzie. We've got an interview on this episode, Liz Hanna, who was an executive producer and writer on this show, as well as the creator of the girl from Plainville, another Hulu sort of ripped from the headline show that I'm really enjoying. She also worked on Mind Hunter. She wrote The Post. Like, Liz is an incredible, accomplished, very smart person, so she'll be talking to us at the back half of the show.

And also just some program reminders for the prestige TV podcast feed in general. Chris Ryan and I did like a little tour of the founder scam shows on this feed. Earlier this week, we talked about We Crash, Super Pumped and the Dropout sort of compared and contrast. What we thought about that. Mallory Rubin and I will be covering the Severance finale tomorrow Friday on this feed. And also there's some great coverage of Atlanta going on on this feed. So there's a lot here for you. Joni.

There's no spoilers left to spoil. We are here at the end. We've done it all. The show has caught up with the reality just about. Didn't quite go into the trial, et cetera. But I know it's been too long. I'm I've really, you know, as we've made clear on this show, I've really enjoyed watching the dropout.

Pretty much every performance hands down has been a thrill to watch. And I'm excited to talk about how they close. this up. I was really curious to see how this finale would go down and kind of what the final themes and final message of this show would be and excited to talk about it with you. Let's talk a little bit more broadly

first. Are you watching Super Pump and or We Crash right now? I have watched some of Super Pumped. I've watched a good bit of We Crash, but I haven't finished either. Yeah. Do you have a favorite of the three?

I mean, I think fairly obviously my favorite is the dropout, given that I've, you know, finished it and watched it the whole way through. Whereas, like, with inventing Anna, I kind of backed out halfway through. I just, it did not engage me in a way that made me want to finish it. I'm enjoying We Crash. Again, those are some performances that you're going to want to see. Anne Hathaway is really doing some things that you will marvel at, as well as Jared Letto, always turning in a very accurate, if not entirely artistic performance, in my opinion.

And so I think it's worth watching, but it's a little bit like I don't know, I don't exactly know what they're saying. I don't know where they're going. And sometimes you can make a show just for it to be entertainment and just because it's an interesting story. I think that probably We Crash is suffering from having come out at the same time as all of these other series. I think, like, if any of these series exist in a vacuum,

they're interesting and fun to watch and not really worth like going over and over whether they like bring value to our lives. But because they came out all at the same time, you basically have to question it. But hands down, my favorite is the dropout. Yeah, I mean, my favorite is the dropout. I think most people that I've talked to who are watching multiple of these shows, their favorite is the dropout or I would say I think most people are watching the dropout compared to the other shows.

That's anecdotal evidence. So what do you think it is about this? version of this kind of story that is hitting with people? I think, first of all, the fact that it is occasionally funny and provides levity is really an interesting take, and that is, I can't wait to hear your interview with Liz. I think that is so much due to the show creator, the show writer, the director, the directors. It's just, it's more interesting to take in. And, like, to get a weird occasional laugh, I think is worth it.

The other thing that we've talked about some on this podcast is they're providing so many points of view on the dropout that it just gives, I think, a more nuanced and dynamic look at this situation. It kind of starts as a character study of Elizabeth Holmes, and then it turns into providing context for the world around her. So it's not just about Elizabeth Holmes and what she did. It's about the way that she affected the world and the way that the world affected her. And that's just a much fuller story.

And it also provides the opportunity to, like, watch a lot more interesting performances. And it is so anchored by this Amanda Seyfried performance as well as an Meehan Andrews performance. And so I think that that means a lot as a through line. But what it's saying about corporate greed, what it's saying about Silicon Valley, what it's saying about innovation, they don't too much try to pound those home with exposition. think there are a couple of lines in the finale or, like, you know, Sunny screaming at Elizabeth, that she's a ghost that I think, like, take it a bit too far and make it, like, a bit too straightforward. But in general, I think it's a pretty nuanced story that is, like, applicable

beyond just the very specifics of what it is. I also think it lends itself well that this is a very long story. Like, Theranos went on for a long time. It's not just a moment in time. It's, like, 12 years of the development of Silicon Valley. And as we went from different presidents and as things changed in, you know, in politics and corporate America, that's just more interesting. Or it's, I don't know, maybe there's just more. There's more there. There's more story to tell.

Something that I discovered when I was prepping to talk to Chris about this earlier this week is looking into the story of Uber, which takes, which is a little time shifted from this. Though it's funny that like both Jared Leto and Uber get a little moment in the finale here. Right. Every time someone pulls up an Uber on this show, I'm like, oh, super pumped. Yeah. And then Jared Leto's here and I'm like, oh, we crashed.

Okay. It's all coming together. But the, this idea that for, like Travis Kalanick at Uber and Elizabeth Holmes are both obviously blatantly and in their shows chasing this sort of ghost of Steve Jobs. Like, that is something they're chasing. But one of the main journalists who covered Travis Kalanick was talking about how the social network, the film, the social network coming out, operated not as a cautionary tale, but almost as like this aspirational thing for a lot of these young people coming to Silicon Valley. Similarly, the way that Wall Street, the film Wall Street, when it came out in the 80s was supposed to be a cautionary tale about greed. A lot of people are like, ooh, that looks great to me. That sounds crazy and fun.

And so, like, we've been comparing these shows to the social network thinking about the ways in which you tell this kind of story. But I think it's interesting that the social network itself plays a part in sort of this idea of the cult of the founder and all this sort of way in which we invest in a person rather than in an innovation. I'm investing in Elizabeth Holmes. I'm investing in Travis Kalanick. And I think that's really interesting. For Elizabeth's story, it spans the social network coming out. Like, social network comes out in the middle of her story, and I think that's sort of interesting to think about. It is interesting.

And, you know, I thought a lot about, as I went into this finale before I watched it, is like, is this going to be a cautionary tale? Is that what this show is doing? And a lot of ways, I don't really think it is because it's like, we know about Elizabeth Holmes. Like, we know not to do this. And as is well pointed out by a number of women in the last few episodes, We know not to do this, and it's like, and it's coming back badly on women. It's harder to get investments. It's harder to be a female founder because of what Elizabeth Holmes did.

What's interesting, though, is as you say, that the social network kind of became aspirational, is I feel like that's coming full circle somewhat here in the dropout because the storyline that I really felt the most emotional connection to is Tyler and Erica. And that's almost like an aspirational tale of how to work in Silicon Valley and how to make, like, the right choices and how to actually be the hero is to hold tech and science and medicine accountable and to do the job that you know how to do. And to, you know, it's, so it's kind of like this leaning out and this leaning away from move, fast, break things like we learned in the social network. Yeah, that's so interesting. I want to hear from you,

our legal expert, Jody Walker. Oh, boy. This ends, you know, book ending the whole series has been these deposition moments for Elizabeth Holmes. We obviously get some info in the closing title cards about what's going on with Elizabeth, what's going on with Sunny Balwani in their cases. But I was wondering if you could sort of summarize for us the current legal standings of one Elizabeth Holmes and one Sunny Balwani. I will do my best.

Please, no one take this as any legal countenance. Much like Michaela Watkins' character, I am off the books. I'm no longer being paid. So this is not strictly legally speaking. But so the series, as we see it in the finale, ends about in 2017 with that deposition and with the sort of like shuddering of the Theranos Labs. In June of 2018, Elizabeth Holmes and Sunny Balwani are charged with two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and 10 counts of wire fraud. At the time, they're charged together and would therefore go to trial together. But once it becomes known that Holmes intends to more or less accuse Sunny Balwani of a certain level of abuse and control throughout their relationship, they sever the trials. And so they go, will and have gone to trial separately. So they both of them plead non-guilty, not guilty. Elizabeth's case goes to trial in September of 2021, and she was convicted in January of 2022, so just this year of four federal charges of fraud against investors.

So notably, she had 12 charges against her, and she was only charged with the counts against investors. None of the counts against patients. did the jury think that she could really be, like, proven as directly connected to those? I think I heard one juror say that she had one degree of separation from the patients, and that's kind of, like, what saved her from those charges. But it is such a tough pill to swallow because it's like, you know, I think the thing that this show mounts home is, like, who cares about these investors? Like, it's their ego and their pride and their greed that got them into this situation,

and that's not really worth some, that's not like something worth sort of vindicating. But I guess the other side of that is that, you know, she was charged with fraud and that was proven. And she faces up to 20 years in prison. However, right now she is out on $500,000 bail awaiting her sentencing, which is not scheduled for September because that is when we presume that Sunny Balwani's trial would be finished. So Sunny Balwani's trial, he's charged with the same things, just started in late March of this year. And it's sort of assumed or suspected that perhaps Elizabeth has not received her sentencing yet because she might be testifying in Sunny Balwani's trial and that that would perhaps affect her sentence. There's no way of knowing that yet. but it has been kind of assumed that that's why her sentencing would be put off until after his trial.

Yeah. So that's where we stand. Sunny Babwani is in trial. Elizabeth Holmes' name is getting thrown around just as much in his trial as his was in hers. And it'll be really interesting to see what his charge and sentencing looks like, knowing that whether her going first will kind of affect his own trial negatively or positively. That's so interesting. I think something that we talked about in the first prestige episode that we did covering the show is that the text messages between Elizabeth and Sunny, which were part of, I'm going to use a legal term, but I'm not sure it's the correct one, a sculptory evidence, I think, in this trial. As your legal advisor, I'll allow it. Okay, thank you. Thank you. I think that's something that came out after they had already written the whole season and after they had started.

shooting. So they had to... What's so fascinating? Liz Hannah talked about this a little bit, but like what's so fascinating is that they had to make a judgment call on what the Sunny and Elizabeth the relationship was actually like, because Elizabeth is obviously testifying that it was that he was sort of this manipulative, Sven Ghali sort of figure, and that she was innocent of everything, something we see her sort of formulate in this finale, this strategy. And the show very clearly was like, that's not really what's happening. And the text messages that came out,

backed up the show's stance that they decided to take very luckily for them. You know what I mean? So they went back through and sort of included some of these exchanges into the show after the fact or in the midst of shooting. And I'll let Liz describe how, but like it majorly changed what the finale was. They majorly rewrote the finale once they got these text messages because so much of this finale is about the sunny Elizabeth relationship. and how it all ends.

And I would, for me, the showstopper of this, well, the scream is very good. But the showstopper for this finale is the central scene between Avina Andrews and Amanda Seifred where you see them saying one thing and meeting another. Do you want to just talk about that right now, that scene? Yeah, let's go for it.

I mean, I think, you know, we're here to talk about six through eight, but a lot of, a lot of the most explosive stuff is in the, the finale. And yeah, that scene's a showstopper. When I watch that scene, what I scribbled down in my notes is deepwater wishes, because like that, that was an erotic thriller. Okay, it was not erotic, but it is almost like the most palpable tension you've seen. It's the only thing you've seen ripple between them. There's been no physicality, unless it's bad physicality. There's been, you know, Gary the dancing, right? I would never discount their dancing.

That is the strongest through line of their, and certainly worth mentioning them both dancing together while wearing her face is one of the more alarming things I've ever seen. Like, just pure eyes wide shut nonsense. But, you know, we have seen very little, like, sexual tension between them or sexual anything. It's this, like, weird relationship of control

and mutual respect and also, like, mutual nastiness and the ability to understand that they're both lying without ever having to say it out loud to each other. And in this one moment, they're starting to say it out loud to each other, but they can only do it in the language that they understand, which is by saying almost the opposite of what they mean, but the other one knows it because these are like two cords. You know, these are two people who understand each other to the world's great detriment. I love exactly that that exact aspect of like you've been such a value to the company or like, oh, you've just, you know, all of this stuff when she says, but the moment she says,

how old was I when I met you, barely 18? I mean, incredible moment. Or him saying, I've been going back over old texts and emails. Like, of course I want to remember what our relationship is like. I mean, and then that it culminates with her resting her head on his knee, him clenching his fisting his fist and then stroking your head and then saying, but where will you live? I mean, it's incredibly written, incredibly performed. Like, Naveen Andrews, we know, is fantastic. I don't know that as Sunny, he's been able to play all the notes that are available to him on his instrument

until this scene, which I thought was just really stunning work from him. Yeah, because here he has to play some restraint, right? Like, they're doing this tete-a-tete. And it requires something, different because otherwise he's been this like bullish loose cannon, always on the edge, always fighting. And this scene sort of demands that he holds something back because they're finally having to keep secrets from each other, which before, even if they're not saying it out loud, they're on the same page. And from the moment that she overhears him talking to that lawyer through the door, I love

the moment when she overhears him and he doesn't even look up, but he knows she's there. And then he tells the lawyer, I'll call you back. And then he's like, calls her babe. It is a chill up the spine every time they call each other a pet name. It's so good. And something that we should say about this strategy, if we want to call it that, that Elizabeth has of trying to wriggle out of responsibility by pinning it all on Sunny. Another aspect of her appearance of this trial is that she's pregnant.

You know, we meet briefings. her now husband, Billy Evans, in this episode, played by Garrett Coffey. But she shows up to the trial pregnant. And it's something that

Lori Metcalf's character, Phyllis Gardner, in real life, has been very plain spoken about how she thinks this was a calculated ploy to earn sympathy from the jury,

the pregnancy. I don't know that I'm ready to levy that accusation. That's a really tough accusation to levy. But, like, Phyllis Gardner believes that it's not outside

the wrong possibility. given what we've seen Elizabeth Holmes do. But, I mean, it's just all part of the wild end to this wild tale, you know? Right. It's so interesting to look at the different ways that they both sort of left Theranos. Some of that is addressed in the show. And then one interesting thing I remember from the dropout the podcast is that in one of the final episodes of the podcast, Sonny Balwani's lawyer comes on.

And he says, and it's well after the happenings of this series. series that Sunny Balwani does not intend to throw Elizabeth Holmes under the bus. Like, at that time, they were both pleading not guilty. And that was kind of the story that they were going forward with. And he outright says on the podcast that he doesn't, you know, intend to do anything like that. But Elizabeth Holmes, and I think they depict this in the show, and then it's fairly obvious in real life, is that, like, her machinations are, they're going from the moment that Wall Street Journal article, comes out almost or just a little while after. She's thinking about how she wriggles out of this, about how, as the CEO, she's less responsible than him. And so it's not really until she makes those decisions about her trial. And perhaps the pregnancy plays into that as well that Sonny's own defense sort of changes. And we'll see how that totally goes in the coming months.

But it's interesting to watch that relationship dissolve on two fronts, on the professional front and on the personal front and how those are so intrinsically connected, but also so mentally separated. I mean, this finale is basically all about Elizabeth Holmes like dangerous ability to compartmentalize. And I think watching, you know, Sunny fully expose her and kind of tell her off.

And Michaela Watkins' lawyer character does the same at the end. Like, oh, well, it's all well and good to do that once you're off the payroll. But where was all that recognition of who she is and what she's capable of while you were working for her? And I will say this. Like, we just talked about something that I loved those finale. And there's a lot that I did love about the finale. This, the dual scenes where either Navi and Drews or Michaela Watkins are chasing Amanda Seifred out of a building and yelling at her that she's not a person and that she hurt people, that is the show what is least subtle, I would say. and not my favorite thing that has happened on the series.

I think overall the finale is strong. I think this concept of the lizying of Elizabeth Holmes, the like her transforming herself into whoever she needs to be for her partner or for the next phase in her life, I think is really, really fascinating and well done. But those two, I don't know, how did the chase scenes sit for you? So the chase scene with Sunny in their huge cavernous mansion, she's running out, he's chasing after her.

It gave me like my least favorite part of the finale and then also one of the most defining parts. What he screams after her, or he, as he's yelling at her about how he's loved her, he's loved her for years, and she's just packing boxes and doing nothing, you know, feeling nothing. He starts to say things like, you're a ghost, you're nothing. There's nothing there. And it's like he's having a realization, but he knows this. He's not seeing a new person. This is always who she's been in front of him.

But he says one thing that I find so defining to the series and to understanding the story, which is he screams, I invented you inside my head for 12 years. I've been inventing you. I made you up. And it's so interesting, you know, one of the documentaries about Elizabeth Holmes

is called The Inventor. And it's fascinating to look at her and sort of consider who the inventor is, because early on in the series, we see her and Sunny sort of invent her, invent this character of Elizabeth Holmes, the founder, together. But there are so many people in this series

and in the real-life story who were just projecting something on her, and that's not to take culpability away from her, but it's all of these especially older men who are projecting something onto her or trying to suck something out of her, trying to borrow her youth, trying to borrow that she's a woman,

and that makes her more interesting. And it's interesting to think about that, yeah, it's just, it's in some ways, kind of like a blank slate that people feel like they can invent whatever they need to out of this character. And so then to see her sort of reinvent herself

and become a different character by the end is interesting, but I think what's always pretty hard to, like, reckon with. And that the series, I think, honestly, did a great job within the beginning. It's a little harder towards the end. It's just how are people buying this?

It's just impossible to understand. And the same... And the answer often is that they're not. Yeah. But they're, you know, it's like classic Joan Diddy and we tell ourselves stories in order to live. It's like, they're telling themselves whatever they have to. And the character of George Schultz is, you know,

where we're seeing that the most. And that's such, like, an emotion. emotionally tolling one with his grandson. Yeah, so Sam Watterson's character, George Schultz, has to stand in for all the other members of the board, right, in the story that we're watching here. And I think what's so ingenious about that is that, of course, he then has this tied to Tyler

who's doing the whistleblowing at the same time, but you get to watch one person reckon with the personal cost of their decision to believe in Elizabeth. But then I think it's so interesting that idea of the inventor. It's not just like who is the inventor, but like what is being invented, right? And it's like, Elizabeth Holmes sets out to invent, to innovate this scientific breakthrough, but instead she invents a persona that people buy into, which goes back to the whole founder worship, investing in a person.

Like, that's something that the Travis Kalanick character says a lot on Super Pump. They're not investing in Uber. They're investing in me, right? They're believing in me. And the fact that there's their, like, the difference between Uber and Theranos is there's no there-there-there-with-Deranos at all. Right. Uber has a working product, whether it is exploitative or even fraudulent, they at least have a product.

My friend who has been watching the show and also listening to the podcast after the last one was asked me, like, what makes this? a scam. Like, because she did set out, she did not set out with the intention to harm people or to fraud people. And I think a lot of people have that question of like, at what point does this become a scam and does intention matter? I think kind of like a very obvious red flag for you might be committing or you might be well on your way to starting a scam or committing fraud is the point at which you say, I am the product. Because you're not a product, unless you're not a product, unless you're starting a cult, a person is not a product. And so I think, yeah, and I think more,

I mean, I mean, I think more explicitly once you slap your product's name on top of machines that don't belong to you and send. Right. That is the tangible point at which the Theranos stickers comes out and go over the semen stickers. Yeah. I think the scam alarm went off somewhere in Silicon Valley. Or sending, sending faulty lab results to people, you know, in, in, in, in, you know, in, in some cases with very alarming repercussions. I want to talk about this reinvention thing for a second. I think it's so smart for the show. This idea of Lizzie, I think, is so interesting.

But to give us this interview, which as far as I can tell is not an exact interview that happened. Yeah. I was looking for the real footage of her saying devastating over and over again, and I couldn't find it. So as far as I know, this might be composite of some various interviews. but to give her that moment where she's taking off Elizabeth Holmes, which is taking off her lipstick when she takes down her hair,

when she takes off the turtleneck as part of, like, you know, post-interview changing, but also this big moment for her. And watching Amanda Seifred wrestle the turtleneck over her head and just sort of almost finally be able to breathe when she has it off. Again, the show is always really carefully walked the line between some, ask us to have some form of radical empathy for Elizabeth and this mess she created for herself, while also not letting her off the hook for everything that she did.

But I think that moment where we watch her free herself, you're sort of like, or in, you know, when Michaela Watkins' character is talking to her in the office, and Elizabeth's like, I've got this young boyfriend. And Michaela Watkins's like, in a shitty sarcastic way, kind of like, well, that's new for you. But also it's just sort of like, yeah, she never got to be a young woman.

Like, you know, through many faults of her own, but, like, that's something that she never got to experience. I don't know. What do you think about that? Right. I think that every time they're walking that line, the reason that it is often very successful is that they're rooting all of these decisions in, like, understandable and relatable human behavior. So I don't think it really asks us to, like, feel sorry for Elizabeth Holmes.

and what she's done, it just asks us to understand why she's done it. And whether we actually relate to those things or not on like a personal level. I mean, this is just, these are not things I'm ever going to do. First of all, I'm not driven enough. Like, second of all, you know, I mean, there are plenty of reasons. But that scene that you're talking about where she strips off all of her makeup and she takes off her turtleneck, it's right before it comes a scene with her mom where they talk about her sexual assault that was addressed earlier in the series. And that was one of my favorite moments

in the earlier series is when she has this moment with her very waspy mother who clearly kind of doesn't want to talk about it. But she also tells Elizabeth that she loves her and she gives her what she believes is a tool to deal with this situation, which is that you can always just choose to put something away and to not think about it anymore. I mean, if anything, this show is just saying like everyone deserves therapy. And therapy is a human right? And who knows how it could have affected this situation? But what Elizabeth Holmes says to her mom, when her mom tells her at this point that

she is upset with her, she is angry about how this situation has turned out. Elizabeth says, after everything that happened in college, you told me to just put it away and forget it. if you choose to forget certain things, do you think that's lying? And the answer is yes. But we've been watching this one. And I do think, like, who hasn't been there?

Who hasn't told themselves a story or lied to themselves? But it's all about, like, the choices that we make as a result of those lies. And I think that really rooting those elements of Elizabeth. in this sort of like fundamental, behavioral and emotional human characteristics is a much more difficult

but also wiser choice than just making her this like wild caricature that Elizabeth Holmes really was. Like, we've seen it, you know? But that's what we've seen. We already know that. So there's no credit to this show unless they give us more than what we've already seen.

And again, with love and respect to Kate McKinnon, And I feel like that would be the Kate McKinnon performance, and this is the difference of what you get when you cast and Amanda Seifred in this role. Right. Like, right. I mean, who knows? Like, maybe this was going to be Kate McKinn's first, you know, kind of like more serious role. And I haven't watched the Tiger King show.

But, yeah, I do think there's a version of this show that leans even more into the dark comedy than this one does. And that leans into an even more accurate representation of this, of this performance because I think Amanda Seifreed made the very wise choice. And you can read about this on the ringer.com. I made an 21st century accent matrix that Amanda Syfrey's performance is on

and it is semi-accurate, but I think that she's made the wise choice to dull it down a little bit so that she doesn't sound as cartoonish as Elizabeth Holmes really sounded in real life because that would make the performance more distracted.

And instead what she does is kind of affects a version of her own voice. And we really no one has talked enough about like the lower jaw work that she is doing. The woman is like giving herself an underbite. It's a wild physical performance, really. It's really good. So good. Everyone deserves therapy and maybe Amanda Sefer deserves massages because I'm pretty sure like her entire jaw and neck and shoulders are like clenched for most of this performance. Something we talked about early on that we sort of.

promised that that was delivered in episode 6 through 8 is this journalism angle of everything. I just want to talk about this. Briefly, I talked to Liz Hanna about this as well because, you know, she worked on the post, which is like, she wrote the post, which is a great journalism movie if you haven't seen it. But the John Carrieroo and almost especially the Judith Baker, as played by Lisa Gaye Hamilton, incredible performance. I think this is something that people are really responding to.

They're almost like, I would watch this show. I would watch just this news. newsroom and everything that goes on there. How did all the journalism stuff work for you? Yeah, I think those two performances that you just shouted out are so good. And they give that relationship and they give a lot of these relationships in episode six, seven, and eight so much more than they have to. And that benefits the story so much.

I feel like the most commonly used phrase in my notes for episode six through eight were you two, because there are all these like odd couples. You know, there's obviously Phyllis Gardner and Richard Fuse who are like a true odd couple. Like they sort of despise each other, or at least Phyllis despises Richard. And so there's like a lot of moments of comedy in that. But there's also Erica and Tyler who are, you know, put in a similar situation, but they're very different people and they come from very different backgrounds. And I think the screen time and the credit they gave to that and how they're dealing with the same situation, but the context around that situation is so different for them.

That Erica, she doesn't have anything to fall back on. She can't lose her job. She can't put her name on these things. But she is the one who's, you know, like, she just has more to lose. And that doesn't discredit what Tyler did at all. I think they walked that line really carefully with those two. And then the final sort of like a coupling is John Kemp.

Keri Rue, and this editor that I believe is, like, an amalgamation or a composite. Yeah. A composite character. Yeah. Who's just great. And I'm sure for both of us, like, watching that, like, back and forth between writer and editor is really fun. But all of these sort of, like, odd couples that they put together and these duos that they put together, I find it so smart. And I found it really moving, actually, especially in episode seven, which is titled,

heroes, and they start it with the song, We Can Be Heroes, as another great needle drop of many, as Elizabeth Holmes is chugging her green juice and drinking her coffee and going on all her meetings and going on her private jet. And you can tell that she in these moments is coloring herself a hero. She considers herself a hero who's going to be a savior to, you know, the old dinosaur medicine and blood testing industry. And then throughout episode seven and eight, they really unravel who the real heroes of this story are. And I think they do such a good job of portraying what hard work these people had to go through to bring this down.

And I think the results of that, I mean, the results of that are obvious. But if this company had gone on for two months longer, who, knows the kind of physical ramifications it could have had on patience. And I think we're lucky is the wrong word, but there wasn't too much lasting physical harm on the patients that were, in my opinion, defrauded, if not in the court's opinion, because the right people spoke up soon enough. Well, and I think what's so interesting about the finale specifically when John Carrier, the character, the real-life person, John Carrierow is complaining about the lack of stickiness, how, like, Elizabeth Holmes is going to wriggle out

from this because we live in a Trumpian world where, like, you know, Donald Trump can say something and nothing is sticking to him. So there's nothing going to stick to Elizabeth Holmes. And then, like, here comes the bureaucratic institution of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services. It's like getting Al Capone on, like, tax evasions or whatever. That's right. That's what happened.

Right. And so it's like, shout out to Peter James Smith. He's like the perfect bureaucrat. His GPS is still going on his phone as he walked into the office. It's really cute. It's really cute. But it's like these little things, it reminds me of speaking of another journalism movie that I love. Spotlight where there you, Spotlight shows you the sequence where these journalists are just hunched over ledgers going line by line by line by line with a ruler.

And that is just sometimes how you need to take down something as massive as a billion dollar. company or, I don't know, the Catholic Church, you know, there are these, like, it's slow drudgery is sometimes the only answer here. And I just, I like that that's the inverse of, of what Theranos was, which is like this big idea that's based on no facts and no product. It's just based on this, like, idea of a person. And so you could just kind of assume that the way to take it down is going to be the opposite of that, which is, like, hard. dry, boring facts. I love watching, you know, Erica get up the nerve to send that letter and to put her name on it.

Yeah, I was really moved by that relationship between Erica and Tyler. And I know that they're in real life, they're still friends. And I think they've started some initiatives together about ethics in tech. So, you know, I don't know how realistic all of that was. if they were like really side by side during all of that. But to get to see them bounce off of one another was great. Let's wrap up by talking about this final scream moment for Amanda and for Elizabeth. Again, this is like, you know, sort of a big swing drama.

She runs with her dog out of the building. She has to downgrade, I think, from an Uber X to. Tudanah, did you see the moment where like while she's getting her makeup done before she goes on the interview that she's scrolling through pictures of huskies on her phone. She's, like, already plotting this sort of transition. Like, ooh, my life's falling apart around me. My company's a fraud. I've been accused of being a fraud in the Wall Street Journal.

I guess I'll get a dog. Well, like I said... I'm shocked she didn't get bangs. These are all the classic moves of, like, a woman falling apart. That's true. It's true. She really did need some breakup bangs. This is, as I said, Liz Hannah talked about this a lot, but I will say that I, the first thing that I googled was Elizabeth Holmes at Burning Man because I just had to see what it looked like.

There's a great photo out there for Billy at Burning Man. It's everything you would want it to be. The fact that she went to Burning Man August and the company is dissolved in September is, you know, I think maybe all you need to know about Elizabeth Holmes. But the scream, the Lizzie transformation, the like, I'm fine, this is my new life, I'm very happy. How does that feel as like an ending to the story for you, Jody? I think that it's interesting. I think it raises more questions than it answers for me. My thing is I don't know how else you would have ended it.

I was just so curious about how they were going to end this. I don't know if I feel like totally satisfied by seeing her turn into this like, you know, there's like that classic stereotype of like all the scenes from a movie of like a dead wife are her like under the sheets like rolling around in like angelic light. And that's what those scenes looked like to me of Elizabeth or excuse me. Lizzie and Billy is then like angelically lit under this sheet having this conversation that you have with like a guy in bed in college. You know, this is not the conversation.

But that's the point, isn't it? That's the point. I think so. Yeah. The arrested development thing that we've been talking about. Right. And so it's like, can you just rewind like that? I guess that she can.

I did find, I found the moment with the scream. I was not finding it satisfying until the Uber pulls up. And you see her completely recalibrate her face. And then I believe change her voice when the Uber. Yeah. It goes back up to like the normal register. She goes, yeah, I'm Lizzie. Yeah, I'm Lizzie.

And it's like higher than we've ever heard it. It's like it didn't sound like that when she was 18 in Beijing. And so that is, that's, it's fun. You know, I mean, that's, I, I, I, I find that entertaining. I maybe didn't find it as, I don't know, I guess like I've been saying is by the end of this story, I was much more taken with these other characters.

And so I might have liked even a bit more resolution on those other, like, heroic characters that didn't just come in the form of text at the end of the show. But as far as sort of putting some sort of bullet point on Elizabeth Holmes, it does make sense, and it's eerie, right? Like, it's eerie that she's still out here playing a different character. And all that stuff is in the dropout podcast.

You hear from people who used to work for Theranos, who then saw her out in the wild after Theranos went bust, and she just acted like nothing happened. She was just like, hey, how are you? Would love to get a drink sometime. The dog is shouted, the husky is shouted out. There's, like, a rumor that she would say the husky was actually a wolf. Like she's still out here pulling scans and, you know, just lightly lying even when she doesn't have to.

And yeah, I found it interesting. What did you think, Joanna? Yeah, I agree with you. The Scream didn't work for me until the switch. Okay. And I found that so, like, such a great moment for Amanda to show us what she can do on a dime. Yeah, there's a speaking of photos, there's a great, I think it's a Facebook photo of her and Billy and the Husky in the car. And yeah, it's just, it's, it's, to me, it's, obviously she hasn't had her sentencing yet.

She might go to jail. But also what's true of these stories oftentimes is that nothing sticks to the perpetrator. And so it is possible also that she will just live her life as, you know, like, Billy Evans is a, is like a hotel area. Like, she's not going to be financially strapped, you know, she's, she's fine. She's got a kid. She's got a husband. She's got a dog. Like, she seems fine.

And that's sort of the most disturbing thing of all in all of this. It's hard. It's a tough pill to swallow. And I imagine that they made it a tough pill to swallow on purpose. Absolutely. There's no part of this story that we should be comfortable with. I will say that the part that I came out with kind of hopeful from the finale or feeling a little less disturbed, a little less eerie, is weirdly in the scene with George

Schultz and John Kerry, where he is sort of still refusing to take full ownership of what he's done, but he does want to sort of rewrite the wrongs that he's done towards his grandson, even if he won't fully apologize. And he says when John Kerry-Rue asks him if it's just hard to admit that he's wrong, and at first he sort of ignores the question, and he comes back around, and he says that it's not that he couldn't admit that he was wrong, he was just choosing not to see it, which is, I think, the story for so many of these people.

But then what he says next is, isn't it amazing how far decent people will go when they're sure they're right? And I think that's like, he is obviously talking about that he thought he was right and was refusing to see that he was wrong and that caused so much harm. But the other side of that is obviously how far all these other people went to take down Theranos because they were sure that they were right. And it's like if there's going to be any sort of lesson to take away from this, any sort of. any sort of like aspirational Silicon Valley tale, it's that like, if we can head more in that direction of being sure that we're right, of being sure that we're like morally right, than being sure that we can't fail or that opposition is, you know, our worst enemy and that ego is our best friend, then, yeah, I think that's kind of like a hopeful note to take out of this show,

as we also consider that Elizabeth Holmes is still out there, although at least we know that She can legally, this is coming from your ringer legal expert, Jody Walker, legally cannot start another business for 10 years. So I'm not sure what the ticker is on that, but we got a few more years apiece, I guess. Well, thank you to our legal counsel, Jody Walker. Let's go down to our conversation with Liz Hanna. We're thrilled to have Liz Hanna on the podcast today. You may know her from her fantastic screenplay for The Post, a wonderful journalism film about the Washington Post,

the Pentagon Papers, and Catherine Graham, as played by Merrill Strip, who was the publisher of the post at the time. You may also know her from her work on the Netflix series Mind Hunter. You, of course, know her from her work on The Dropout as an executive producer and writer. And she's a new show, The Girl from Plainville, currently airing on Hulu. It is about Michelle Carter and Conrad Roy, two teenagers who got involved in a text-based affair several years ago that had devastating results. It's got an incredible performance from Elle Fanning at the center of it. I really, really recommend it. We're going to talk about that a little bit.

Not in a spoiler way, just sort of how it relates to Liz's work on the dropout. Liz, thanks so much for being here. I wanted to start with this question. Something that I know attracted you to the post in the first place was Catherine Graham's memoir and something that you really liked was that she was able to admit mistakes she's done, reckon with some of her errors. And you said you liked that sort of, I think, messiness. And obviously, messy is a word we could use to apply to varying degrees, tools with homes, to Michelle Carter.

So is there something about the messiness of people or the messiness of women that really attracts you to a story? Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think it goes to an idea that women are just generally messy because humans are messy, right? Like, we just are. And for some reason, we've only shown, I think, polarized vision. of women. You know, we're either very evil or we're very good in media. And we've seen that a lot in the last 10 years. You know, I think we've been revisiting Monica Lewinsky, Britney Spears, obviously all of these figures that were vilified of the media. And now in retrospect,

obviously, at least I personally feel, you know, with Monica Lewinsky in particular, I was a kid when that happened. And I remember how vilified she was in my town. And so I feel, I feel the enormous amount of guilt and feel like I need to do a bit of revisionist or re-understanding, relearning of that and of how we treat women in the media. So yes, I think I think I'm interested in how people are messy because those are real. I'm super messy. So I feel like it's also just putting myself up there in some way. When you're doing something like this, like a show, well, like the post or the dropout or girl from Plainville, there are. are versions of these stories that are just sort of giving us the Wikipedia article with

tremendous performances from great actors. That's not what I've seen you do with these stories. And so I'm wondering how you approach them to try to elevate them beyond the simply, this is what happened. What do you want to say with some of these stories you're telling? It's a great question. I think, and something you said is that you have to have a point of view, right? Because otherwise it is just a Wikipedia article. And for me, it just comes from the characters. I don't really attach to something because of the story. I'm not interested in something because of its drama necessarily.

I get interested because of who these people are, and particularly with true stories. You know, with Catherine Graham, we told the story of her taking over the paper with the backdrop being the Pentagon Papers. And a different movie would have been the story of the Pentagon Papers. But for us, it was just much more interesting to dive into this sort of coming of age story of this 55-year-old woman who had been told for her whole life that she was stupid and that she couldn't do it. And in fact, she was the smartest person in the room and the only person who had the experience in the room.

So it just sort of fundamentally comes from there for me. And so with the dropout, I was really interested in exploring Elizabeth Holmes. And, you know, I think both Elizabeth Holmes and Michelle Carter have similar issues. of identity in terms of a lack of one, you know, who are they? And kind of a perpetual search for that identity and searching for it in the wrong ways. You know, I think with Elizabeth, obviously, a lot of it is, I think, tied up in Sunny, Bolani in that relationship. And with Michelle Carter, I think there's a lot tied up in pop culture and her relationship with two people in her life, in particular romantically. And so I think that's with the two of them that's

connection for me. Obviously, there's sensationalized cases and there's a quote-unquote true crime. I don't actually necessarily consider the girlfriend Plainville true crime, not that there isn't a crime happening throughout or discussed, but that I just think that categorizing is a true crime for me almost is disrespectful to the story that that surrounds it. I don't mean disrespectful to me. I mean that ultimately this is about a young man who died by suicide and by saying that we're going to unravel the mystery of that feels very cold to me. So I find it easier for me to describe or maybe more truthful, at least with the intentionality of how we came to Plainville to describe it as, you know, a character drama and a character study. And I think the dropout is very much, but there is, I think with that there's so much more that people didn't understand of the crime. itself or what crimes were even committed,

that there's a little bit more of an unpacking of that that can happen. Yeah, so, it's so interesting because, you know, especially with this, with the finale of dropout ends with some title cards that are really underlining the true cost of what Elizabeth Holmes did, not just for, you know, the women of Silicon Valley or the people who worked at Theranos, but obviously, like, the people who took these tests home and believed the results that they were given. So there's obviously some very serious matters that play here. Absolutely, of course, with Plainville as well.

But it's funny when looking at the dropout, you know, I think one of the first things all of us heard about this project was that Kate McKinnon was going to be doing it. Obviously, Liz Merrwether has a background in comedy. Michael Showalter has a background in comedy. You've got great comedic actors like Michaela Watkins. Was there originally a version of this show that was going to be much more comedic than it wound up being? or what was the journey there? Shout out to Liz Meriwether. This is,

dropout is her baby and I think it's such a remarkable thing that she's carried and bursted into this world for us. And Liz Maryweather had only done half-hour comedy. And so she was really interested in how do I bring that to a one-hour drama and what is that? And the conversations she and I had

very, very early on before the room started was that this show in particular didn't necessarily need a label because there's so much about Elizabeth Holmes that feels concocted because it's absurd. You know, there are so many things that happened at Farinac, her behavior, things she said in interviews,

that when we would get to them, you know, the truth is stranger than fiction, right? And so the comedy was there. The comedy felt intrinsic to it. Her awkwardness felt both to me comedic, but also, like, deeply sad, because there's obviously somebody there who is just struggling so hard to stand out, to be identified, and doesn't know how to do that or that the way to do that is just by being yourself,

because I don't know that she has an understanding of who that self is. And so we came to, we just had a lot of conversations about finding the comedy naturally and then allowing sort of the humanity to see, through in the characters. You know, I think there's some obviously extremely tragic things that happened in this in this story. Ian Gibbons is, for me, the person that I very much connected to and felt is the ultimate victim of this entire situation. And that, so there wasn't, we didn't have to, I don't think there was any, like, trying to find a square peg in a round hole because, you know, Liz came to it with this perspective of bringing her experience as well.

well as really diving into these characters and finding out how they're you know the relationship between sunny and michelle sunny and what shows um sunny and elizabeth yeah um i mean there's a lot of tragedy in that and so there's i think there it was kind of just presenting it almost as as it happened and there's comedy and drama in it obviously you're in the writer's room um you know it's not exactly one-to-one if your name is on an episode you only touched that episode but the the episode that has your name writing credit on is flower of life, which is the Ian Gibbons, the end of Ian Gibbons's life, and also that incredible reaction from Elizabeth with the finger puppets, the absurdity of that reaction, which is deeply tragic and comedic at the same time.

You're just, you're sort of baffled what is going on here. It's sort of the crux of this character. What are you thinking? What is, where is your humanity in all of this? And I was wondering if you could talk about some of those specific choices. Yeah, a lot of it came from real things and real stories that Elizabeth had done in meetings or things like that. And the finger puppets were something that had happened. And we talked a long time about incorporating the finger puppets into the show. Meriwether felt really strongly that they could be an interesting parallel to Elizabeth Holmes' own insecurities and obviously her own fear in her own history with medical diagnoses or experiences. with doctors and getting her blood drawn.

So it was, you know, it was kind of one of those things where you, like, have on a wall all of these things that happened. And it was a little bit similar with Plainville. It was like we had kind of in the contemporary timeline, we had these beats that had happened and sort of where are they happening and where, when you don't know which conversation happened behind closed doors, you're trying to almost psychologically find where it would have organically happened. So with the finger puppets, you know, as it experienced.

of her humanity. I think it's the best word. I don't want to put any other words in her mouth, but I think it feels very organic as somebody who's so childlike as Elizabeth Holmes. She's so infantilized in many ways by Sonny Balwani, who at the same time is so aware of wanting to be a leader

and not be infantalized. There's this interesting push and full. So that was where it came from, and it came from just genuinely, us in the writer's room, we knew we would have to get to that episode and we knew that Ian's arc was once Ian,

I'll speak to it as about a show and I don't mean to be callous, but just in terms of how we were breaking it, once Ian left the show, that it was a really good chance you were going to hate everyone else in the show. You know, that there's not really a connected tissue to humanity really in any way

once he was gone. And so there was a lot of how we dealt with that and we were really nervous to get to that episode. It was different also than the other episodes we'd written. Poor white guys, the five white guys is such a great episode. And I love Dan LaFrancra at that episode. And it's great. And it was kind of the first POV shift for us of the show.

And so leading us to get to Ian's death was quite an undertaking that we knew we were going to get to. But, yeah, I mean, dealing with it with Elizabeth is, you're just dealing with somebody who doesn't really know who she is. and is also unwilling to take responsibility because she's like a kid. A kid doesn't want to take responsibility for when they break a vase. Imagine how she wants to be when she's confronted with all of this. So that was kind of playing through her mind. I want to, I mean, it's both unfair and then maybe also to the advantage of the dropout

because I think the dropout is sort of clearly a lot of people's favorites, that it's coming out in this sort of crowded field of founder slash scam artist shows. But when trying to compare them all, something that I've noticed, and this goes on that you were just talking about, that I really love about the dropout is the shifting perspectives, because we're with Elizabeth so firmly in those first three. We're with Ian for a bit. And in that episode, Flower of Life, it seems like an almost interesting baton handoff, again, not to sound callous, between Ian leaves and then Tyler Dillimanese character sort of walks into the episode at the end of the episode. And then we're sort of with him and the Schultz

etc. Towards the end of the season. When you were breaking a season like this, was there a version where you were like, we are with Elizabeth the whole time? Or when did you know that you wanted to sort of put these other perspectives around the case? We definitely talked about it

in the early sort of blue sky breaking of the series because, I mean, Elizabeth is a really tough character and she was an incredibly tough character to crack. And Amanda Safre did an incredible job the show. She's just amazing. And I think bring, she offers a warmth that brings you into the character in a way that sitting with writers in a room, you can't manufacture. Yeah. So that, but that was a struggle that we knew we were going to have, which is having her on camera for eight hours as the character, and having her be opaque and also, frankly, the villain of her own story, ultimately.

And so it was definitely a conversation that we had really early on of switching perspectives, The Walgreens episode was, you know, again, this is one of those things where truth is stranger than friction. So much of that is exactly what happened and how these guys spoke to each other and who these guys were. And, you know, we had amazing researchers involved in the show who would find us tidbits about these people that would find its way into the show and help us, help us crack that. So that was, you know, that was very much a conversation. And then, you know, going to Ian, Ian was really the heart of the series, I think, for me, in a lot of ways, through the first few episodes, you know, or once he subsequently introduced. And we knew that we had to give him his due and really also offer the perspective. Because I think up at that point, you kind of are with Elizabeth.

You're kind of like, who cares if she's tricking these old white guys? Like, it's okay, fine, it's going to work. Like, nobody gives a shit. It's fine. But in the background is Ian. And in the background, Ian is suffering. And suffering, obviously, not just because of Theranos and Elizabeth. He had a number of mental health.

He dealt with mental health. And so I don't want to put full blame on anybody. But I think that was something that was definitely floating around. So in terms of it was, yes, there's always a POV shift. And there's also a tonal shift. I think that was always going to happen in that episode. And having it back to back with episode four and Walgreen. I think allowed us the ability to, for me, it was exciting because it was almost whiplash for an audience,

is that you have sort of like a sketch for 60 minutes of Walgreens and then you go into a drama. And so it was exciting to be able to play with those and keep everybody on their toes. You mentioned this a couple times. There's just a wealth of information. You know, with the girl from Plainville, you've got reams of text messages, you know, to go off of here. And as far as I can tell almost all, if not all of the text messages that you show and your show are actually exchanges that happen.

It's incredible. And then I know that in making the dropout, you had already sort of left to go work on Blaineville, but while they were shooting, these text messages come out as part of the case, the legal case. And, you know, what Liz Maryweather and Amanda Seiford have said

is that they sort of had to sift them back into the show some of this new information. What can you tell me about how much... Do you ever feel hemmed in by having so much information that you can't sort of experimented? And at any point are you... Do you ever want to or feel the need to let go of being exactly precisely beholden to this information you have?

Any time in my experience that I have veered off the course of truth or of the information, I find myself at a dead end. And I find myself painted into a corner that I can't get out of without returning to the truth. And then ultimately, you just kind of go back and again, the truth is you're guiding light in this and the reality of it.

But the Sunny and Elizabeth text messages that came out, it was something, their relationship was obviously a huge conversation in the room. and what we didn't know about their relationship was a huge conversation in the room. There were things that we had assumed and things that we had put into the show that we felt were accurate to an accurate depiction of them that we were able to get through interviews and we were able to get through interviews with other people that knew them, even things that Elizabeth or Sunny would say in their depositions, how they would speak about each other, how people would speak about them. You know, those were things that we were able to infer. And then obviously during production, they came out and I wasn't there, but I know Maryweather was sifting through them psychotically to get them in the show.

But I think in a lot of ways they justified what we, what our interpretation was. And that they very much backed up what we knew. So, or what we had assumed. So I think with that, it was really helpful. again, not having been there, but I would imagine that it would feel like a justification at that point and that you would feel like you can also flesh out these characters now, because a lot of things with the two of them, we couldn't legally put in the show because we couldn't make assumptions without having anything sourced.

And so having those text messages really was, they were able to do some things that we hadn't been able to do that we talked about. It's really underlined in the finale of the dropout, this idea. The finale is it exists now. Sonny says things like, I invented you. all this sort of stuff, which is similar to a lot of what's going on with the girl from Plainville. You were saying before we started recording that, the original idea for the finale was different before you had access to all of this information about the nature of Sunny and Elizabeth's

relationship. Can you speak to what the finale originally looked like? Yeah, so I had left when we had broken an idea for what the finale would be and had start, I think we'd outlined it when I left to go to Plainville and it is not what the finale is and I think this finale is very accurate to what was a theme that

Meriwether is really looking at throughout the series and so this was a fun episode for me to watch because I wasn't in the weeds on it. Originally it was supposed to be Burning Man like half of the whole episode it was like half the episode was Burning Man and half the episode was the deposition

and the reality of everything coming down. And I just, I mean, anybody can look it up. Like, the idea of Elizabeth Holmes going to Burning Man is just, is so wacky. And it was something we talked about really earlier on the show. It was something Maryweather was really sort of interested in. And I was, well, I won't speak for her. I'll speak for myself. I was fascinated by it because I was like,

it kind of summed up who this girl was, this woman was. or is, and I think goes to the title of the episode, Lizzie, is that she changed who she was for whomever she was with. And so with Sunny, she was very much this powerful, important CEO and trying to be. And then with Billy was going to Burning Man because he loved Burning Man. And so it spoke to, and I do think you see that in her screaming at the end of the series, and then like turning on the smile and looking at the Uber driver. Again, Amanda is absolutely, incredible and there's not a lot of people who can change on time like that. So, but yeah, Burning Man was talked about a lot.

And we have, we had a lot of fun, RIP to the Burning Man episode. We had a lot of fun talking about it in the room. I was, this is, this is a little silly question. But I'm wondering if like the fact that all you Lizzes were on this production, if this idea of an Elizabeth changing to a Lizzie is a concept that you guys, because Elizabeth's have to make this choice in their life, they're going to be a Liz, Elizabeth, a Lizzie, Elisa, whatever, Beth, there are all these options.

Does that, is that, do you think that's true that the Liz is on this? Well, we talked about it. It's definitely true. I mean, Lizzie is like really specific. Like, I mean, Liz, Liz, Beth, Elizabeth, like, Elizabeth is one of those names that's you can be anything. And, like, I've never been in Elizabeth. And when people call me Elizabeth, I get very uncomfortable.

And I'm like, I'm, that's that, you know, that just isn't me. And it's also really funny that like of myself and Marriweather and Heldins, we all go by Liz. It's not, you know, and I feel very sorry for her driver's room for that. But I definitely think there is that openness of identity and you can change your name to be whoever you want to be. And, you know, the idea that she goes by Lizzie now with Billy is so fascinating to me because going from Elizabeth to Lizzie is extreme. A part, an aspect that I really responded to and then I was gratified to see a lot of people respond. wanted to at the tail end of the dropout is what I'm calling a journalism thrill. I don't even know if you want to call it a thriller, but the newsroom aspect.

And it's interesting to see how the journalism thread has come through in a lot of these founders shows because without these investigative journalists, you know, these scams might be ongoing. This bad behavior might be continuing. You know, given your experience with the post, how much does that inform your interest? your interest in that angle of the story? I mean, I think when I first talked to Merriweather about it, I was like, are we going to do the dual timelines

and have it be a paper chase of Carrie Rue finding out everything? And you introduced Tyler and Erica and the pilot and all of that while we're seeing how it started. And she felt very strongly about going in a linear way and that that was the way to identify the character. And I think she was absolutely right. And, and, and I think, and I think with Carrie Rue and with the journal, you know, it's interesting because at the same time, I personally can't get away from the fact that, and I'm not justifying or saying anything that Elizabeth did was okay or, or forgivable. But it is interesting to me of what she got caught for and what other people didn't get caught for.

and that she is, you know, she, and also, let's be honest, how much she got away with because she's a beautiful blonde white woman. You know, I don't think we can ignore the fact that her privilege allowed her to enter a number of those rooms she would have been able to walk into and to get away with it as long as she did. And so there's, those aspects of that to me are fascinating and then to have a journalist really target her. And obviously he's right, but there's something, there's an interesting conversation to me to be had that I don't. think is what the show is about in any way, but that are very underlying conversations in the show. And I think, you know, we can't ignore. And similarly, you can ignore the attention that Michelle Carter got for this case and she's on the cover of People magazine. There are other, there are other women who have been involved in scenarios like this, who are not white women,

who and their stories have not been exposed as much. So I think you can't ignore privilege in this conversation. It would be ignorant, too. Well, yeah, and I think, I don't know if it comes through as much in the Garryoo plotline, but in William H. Macy's character's fascination with her, like, we've been talking about a lot on the podcast, the, the, the creepy, you could be right and also creepy at the same time, you know what I mean? Unfortunately.

And then I think Lori Metcalfe's character is a great line about that where she's was like, why am I sad, why are you, my partner in this crusade? I'm not, I'm not happy about it. I think that's interesting. Can I ask you something? In both of these shows, there are scenes of characters sort of hyping themselves up

and practicing in the mirror to go to a party. Is this something that you, Liz Hannah, do? Or why is this in both of your shows? I have no idea. I don't do it. I hate going to parties.

So maybe that is part of it. You know, it's funny. In Plainville, it happens at episode three, which was written by Ashley Michael Hoban. When she pitched shit, I was like, I think we did that in the dropout. I'm pretty sure there's also,

there's a character hyping themselves up. I don't know. What I think is interesting about it is how I've seen the reaction of that, if so many people feel that way. I'm like, oh, I do that, or always said that. So I don't know, I think it's a really, which also goes to these characters,

which is like they're super unique, right? The events of these people's lives are extremely unique and not something I've ever personally experienced necessarily, but the way they feel is extremely universal. I think both Elizabeth and Michelle and Conrad and Lynn, I've experienced a number of those aspects of their emotions, you know, of feeling left out, of being depressed, of feeling grief, of wanting to be something I'm never going to be,

you know, all of those things. And so that's, I don't know, maybe that's just we're all, again, we're all messy people. So it all shows up that way. My last question for you, I'm going to do a shoddy impersonation. of your pal Andy Greenwald and ask you an industry question, which is to ask you,

you know, what do you make of this, I don't know if you want to call it rip from the headlines or whatever you want to say, sort of trend of television that we're in, is it something in the industry that is responding to this? Or do you feel like it's a, or something in the audience, the audience's desire,

or is it just a massive coincidence of the, of the proliferation that we're seeing right now? You know, I really, I don't know. I find it's so bizarre that three shows about founders came out within a month of each other. And the dropout was written in 2019 and was supposed to shoot in 2020 and got shut down. So that has existed and was ready to go. And it just so happened that all of these shows come out at the same time. You know, I think there is, look, we elected a reality star and that went great.

So I do think there is a bit of a referendum on people in power and privileged people in power and, you know, this idolization we have of them and making sure maybe that doesn't happen again or I don't know. I think there's something interesting to me about that of stripping that away and looking at it from that perspective. In true crime, I don't know, like every time it happens, you know, cereal was huge and, you know, mine hunter in some ways is true crime. And I think there's always an interest in it. Look, to say that IP isn't important in this industry is the biggest lie I could tell. So the other thing is that IP is extremely important. And I would say that I've actually never found it more difficult to do original material than I have right now in this industry. People are really afraid of taking risks and really afraid of telling original stories.

So when you have IP, there's at least something that they can back it up with. So there's that. So I think that trend is not going away. unfortunately, you know, we're seeing everything everywhere all at once. It's like the only movie that people are talking about, which is the most original thing that I think anyone has seen. And weirdly, like, is a referendum on IP and kind of our infatuation with it. So that feels interesting, but is that going to break through? I hope it does. And so I feel like we have to support more original takes. I would love to do more original things.

I also am somebody who's made a career in doing true stories or adaptations. So I'm part of the problem. I'm not doing that. But I think there is, it is a fear. Everyone is afraid in this industry, more afraid than they've been in a long time. There were just some wacky things we got away with doing on that show that I don't know that we would have gotten away with how we'd not have the support we had, including having Elle be an executive producer and backing us.

up that we wanted to have her do a four-minute sequence singing, make you feel my love, or, you know, doing it with two other musical sequences in the show. You know, like, there were things within it that... I've heard from Chris and Andy over on the watch that they want to have you on to talk about Plainville. So if folks want to hear you say even more about the show that I absolutely love, I hope that they'll hear you over there on that show.

All right, I know I said I was going to ask you my last question already, but I lied. I have one more for you, which is I, you just told me. that you just rewatch Lost. Yes, I did. What is it like for you? Is it as hard for you as it is for me to watch Navine Andrews play Sunny Bolani after watching him play St. Jara on Lost?

Do you have any thoughts or feeling about that? Yeah, I'm just like happy for Neveen because I feel like I haven't seen him in a while, you know, which by the way, I'm sure Lost was exhausting. It's in the era of doing 22 episodes for, you know, a sundry of seasons. I was just talking to somebody else about this other day. My husband did, I think, on the last season of the first show he was on, they did 26 episodes for the last season. And we call it the year in the cave because I just didn't see him.

They started in January. They ended in March of the next year. So I'm sure he needed a break. But so I'm excited for David and it's so different for him. But it is, it's very weird because I literally just rewatch lost. So it is strange to hear him yelling at. at Elizabeth Holmes when I'm like, Said, we love you.

Sayid would never. Say it would never. But rewatch was great. It was a real, I recommended if nobody's done it. That's a show that's so fascinating me to talk about in like an episodic drop way, a weekly drop way compared to a binge. And would we have forgiven more of that show,

had it been bingeable? Would it have stayed in the zeitgeist as long? You know, or even like would they have been allowed to do what they did because it was such a huge network show versus, you know, being on cable or streaming. So I don't know. It's sort of like

sociologically fascinating to me because it was kind of the last time that it happened and they shot a pilot that was more expensive than most movies. So bless. Bless.

Bless and got to me to a different era of television. All right. Well, thank you so much, Liz. I really appreciate the conversation. I will never call you, Lizzie. I promise. And I'm excited for people

to watch more of Plainville because I think it's really extraordinary. Thank you so much, Joanna. All right, that does it for us and the dropout. Jody, thank you so much for coming to Scam Town with me. Anytime, Joanna. Although, let's maybe hope we're kind of through with scam shows for a little while. Yeah, yeah. As I was telling Chris on Monday, I think we're headed into mentally unwell April.

So that's a... Well, happy to meet you there as well. That'll be fun. We will repeat our therapy for all advice. This episode was produced by the great Steve Olin and check out the rest of the prestige feed. And I will be back on Friday with Mallory Rubin to talk about severance and I'll see you then.

Bye.