The Watch - Chris Rock’s Live Special, ‘The Last of Us’ Episode 8, and ‘Daisy Jones & the Six’

Episode Date: March 6, 2023

Chris and Andy talk about Chris Rock’s live stand-up special on Netflix, which aired on Saturday, and discuss whether or not this format worked (1:00). Then they talk about the penultimate episode of ‘The Last of Us’ (11:34) before discussing ‘Daisy Jones & the Six’ and the difficulties of making good music television (39:33). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Tap this ad to learn more about Trimfaya, including important safety information. This episode is brought to you by Brooks. Running connects us to a rush of energy that flows through our world. The cheers of friends that unlock a new gear within us, the intersection of interest that inspires a run crew, the support that gets you over the finish line. Connection is why we move forward and what inspires us to keep going.

Let's run there. Learn more at brooksrunning.com. I need supports to have to clear the run. Stand up and walk now. Hello. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at The Ringer.com.

And joining me in the studio. Waiter, he'll have the stew. It's Andy Greenwald! You know, I like seasonal dishes. I like locavore cuisine. Can I tell you a little bit about our menu? Yeah. Tell you how we do things here.

It's family style. And when I say family style, I mean, we eat families here. Are you familiar with our chef? You'll be eating him tonight. Oh, it's good to see you. It's good to see Kai, and it's good to talk about The Last of Us, the penultimate episode. Wow.

Some people were like, damn, that was a penulton episode. And when I say some people, I mean myself and my wife. When we watched it, it's a beautiful Monday in Los Angeles. And we're going to talk about a bunch of different pieces of popular cultures, namely The Last of Us, which we'll have that it gave much time to. Also, Daisy Jones in the 6th, the first three episodes went up on Amazon Prime. Guess who watched all three episodes? Everyone in this room.

Everybody in this room. And also, we're going to talk a little, Chris Rock. How are you doing? I'm great. I'm great. I saw theater yesterday. Dude, can I tell you something? When you want to turn on the Jets, you can still do it. Okay. Like, I was just chilling this weekend. I watched a lot of sports.

I had some social plans. Every three hours, I feel like you were like, watch another thing, took in another piece of culture, crushed some more tape. And then you were out at the Pasadenae Playhouse watching Seinheim. Yeah. That's just how I do it on the weekends. You just can't keep up. And the truth is, you make it seem like I'm just giving you three-hour updates. not at all. I came out of the theater a moving, really wonderful performance of one of my favorites.

Who stars is a Sunday in the park with George? Sorat? We call him George in this house. He gets Sarat in the first act. Gotcha. And he's a modern First and a guy named George in the second act. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. An actor named Graham Phillips. I think you'd be like Mel Gibson. You know, he really

deserves a second chance. Lovely high tenor. And when I came out of the theater, I had a couple texts from you being like, hey, we we recording the podcast tomorrow. You never confirmed 9 a.m. I like how you like to keep me on edge. I'm always available at 9 a.m. Sure.

And so I was just like, so here's why I've been off grid. I didn't want you to worry about me. I know at a certain point, I mean, you're a caring guy. You probably start to wonder, like, is he okay? Did he really go to the Mel Gibson solo performance? Just to have a conversation. Sunday's in the park with Mel? Just to have a conversation.

It was great. Took my daughter, loved it. I felt like this was. was like a fun weekend of appointment stuff, you know, of like must-see TV or, you know, at least as much as you can get in today's, in today's world where it's like you had the, obviously the last of us. And then you had this, this Chris Rock live show. In the NFL Combine.

And the Combine, because you, yeah. And then great to watch the Celtics yesterday. Oh, terrific. So we do about 20 minutes on the Celtics? Let's do about, I think they're coach great. I'm very pleased with their coach learning on the job. No, let them play. Let them play.

Mozilla just cares about the product. We're going to talk pop culture, but I think that the one thing about the NFL Combine that really worries me is that like it's a headline when it's like, Alabama QB measures at 5 foot 10. Everyone's like, oh, oh no. Bryce is small, yeah. I wouldn't do great at a combine. That's what I'm realizing.

Yeah. Up until this weekend, I thought I would be fine. But what if they were like measuring your takes or measuring your ability to recall like the works of William Thackeray or stuff like that? Then I've definitely declined over 10. time. I think I would have been better coming out of college. Do you worry about that? Because like sometimes when you watch documentaries about like Saul Bello

and stuff and like This is by the way, what an every man comment by you? And they, he was like an American Masters recently on PBS and- Do you have time to watch American Masters on PBS? Dude, why do you act like that's so weird to have the TV on? It's awesome that you do that. Yeah. I watch TV this weekend. I'm done

for the month. Anyway, but Saul Bellow like really started peak in like his mid-50s. Oh, I thought you were going to say something worse. I thought you were going to say mid-40s. No, I mean, I think, I just, it's just like we, we denigrate ourselves all the time, but what if we have our best podcasting and best take having ahead of us? That's beautiful. Yeah.

I hope so. I hope so, too. Because I've been definitely watching and listening to too much sports, and they basically, like, people talk about PJ. 28-year-olds. People talk about PJ Tucker like he's a lane stretch. Like, what a delight to still have this guy around, though he's near death at 37. Now I'm just thinking of PJ Tucker and company.

It would be great. Well, let's talk a little bit about Chris Rock. Sure. I don't really have any interest in adjudicating the content of his thing. Oh, well, because I do. There are like seven or eight things in the world that no matter what I find funny. Yep. And one of them is Chris Rock saying the word fuck.

Yeah. And it's been that way for 20 years or this longer. And it's still the case. So even though I'm a little bit Like you guys are really Really fixated on cancel culture When it comes to like most of our major comedians

I guess I understand why But like at the same time I'm just sort of like There's other funny stuff guys And honestly this isn't that funny Yeah I thought it was like a pretty good special You know

It wasn't my favorite rock special No by any means Here's my thing though How How affected do you think You were by the liveliness of it because he kind of, and I guess there's a spoiler

in case you haven't seen Selective Outrage, the live Chris Rock special on Netflix, kind of blows the end of the show. Well, he made one... He fucked it up, but then it, like, it fucked up the entire joke. It, like, kind of fucked up the entire thing, right?

Yeah. I mean, that was the wrong time to make the mistake. Yeah. Before we talk about what went wrong with the live thing, I would say what went right. Yeah.

Which... Cancel culture. Yeah, finally. We got it. him. We did it, Joe. I like the liveliness. It was really fun to be sitting around on a Saturday and thinking, oh, there's something to do. There's something to look forward to. This is a thing. And I, like you, I love Chris Rock. I'm always going to love Chris Rock. I think that one of the things that I find frustrating about the coverage of comedy in general is the sort of pervasive, the

perception that I have from the way comedy seems to be discussed or received by social media is that it's just cranks talking on stage and so you can just turn your audience response style do you agree with this do you approve of this or do not when I think Chris Rock

is one of the great artists of an art form like a legendary one one of the best ever to see him do what he does best is always worth paying attention to and you love seeing him say the word fuck I do as well

there are a few things I find more delightful than when he's just like low like a predator prowling around stage smiling about what he's going to to say next. And when he reaches back for that voice, like an old, old pitcher, you know, cranking up to 100 miles per hour, I love it and it's worthwhile. And when he hits, he hits. And when he misses, he misses. But that's part of what the job is. And so the B side of what you're saying is,

I kind of appreciated at this stage in his career, A, the willingness to try something new. Sure. And then B, this was a very impassioned special. And sometimes for good and sometimes for not so good because the rawness of the Will Smith stuff was really striking. Like, he didn't seem to have processed it. You know, he didn't seem over it. And that made it worthwhile and interesting to me, including the flow. Like, you notice he is flawless at other times. So I kind of thought the whole thing was a worthwhile experiment, and I thought it was pretty fucking funny. But I definitely, and I also thought it was an improvement over, I realize

now this is already over a decade ago. But do you remember the special, I think it was the last HBO special, that it was intercut between three. performances of the same bit between like it was New York and Johannesburg, I think. Uh-huh. That was a... I usually, that's where I usually see comedy. You fly straight there.

Trevor Noah's Private Jet. I felt that one was very almost claustrophobic and clipped, so I kind of appreciated seeing... The rawness of it. Yeah, like this is what he was giving us on this special. This is not necessarily... By the way, that's another thing it's always so evident with Chris Rock. Like, his stand-up

persona, he's not the entirety of this person. We've seen him do dramatic acting. We've seen him do remember top five, the great movie he made with Rosario? It's kind of like, you know, like Woody Allen-esque, like observational. He was just did Fargo. Like, this is not the entirety of him.

It's not, no. And I love, I love this performance, and I'm glad we saw it. I had a great time also. It made for a fun Saturday night. I got to do Parent Corner with you. Okay. What did you think of his whole segment about his daughter that he essentially facilitates her expulsion from a a private school to teach her humility?

Well, first of all, do we believe... That's the first time anyone is hearing that story. No. I mean, you cannot believe that. Two, they are grown. Yeah. So it is a little bit different. I thought you were going to say, because the last time I did an impromptu parent corner,

I talked about how I was watching kunk on earth with my children. And when Kunk said an F word... Did you watch Selective Outread? I thought that's what you were going to ask me. She didn't like the Elon Musk content. Yeah. Yeah. That was a little blue.

I don't feel qualified to weigh in on like the role of the comedian, you know, talking about his personal life. I feel like I feel like that's... You've decided where you stand as a podcaster. Yeah, I don't. Yeah, right. Do it. But the bar where he's like, my wife got half my money and she's not funny.

It was a pretty funny joke. I bet that's not the whole story. No. And would it have been more interesting if the selective outrage after show had been his ex-wife and two daughters just staring at the camera? What was that? I didn't watch it live. It was weird. I mean, I didn't really watch it past.

Was it just a bunch of comedians to be like, man, that was funny? It was the wizened visages of Dana Carvey and David Spade. Okay. Being like, that's a tough one to follow. And then, like, J.B. Smooth was there, too. Okay. It was very odd. And, you know, as veterans.

Were they in Baltimore as well? No, they were all in L.A. Okay. I think they were at the comedy. store as veterans of the after show experience. I felt like, you know, hey, they should have called us. That's right. Can you imagine?

It's kind of, it would have been the same energy. You mean Mal and Concepcio doing a talk to throats reunion, yeah? It would have been the same energy as when we hosted the Atlanta F.C. event for season two. I was like, Brian Tyree Henry, you had an episode about the loss of your mother. Please speak on it. Went great. Let's do last of us.

I can't wait anymore. You don't think talking about us. the Atlanta event was the last of us. Andy. So we got like essentially a raw revenge horror show, movie story, whatever, in this second and the last episode, written by Craig Mason, who took over Judy's. I think Druckman wrote the last one.

It's been, we've been in the winter scape for a while here out in Wyoming and Colorado, Mountain West, they call it. Love the way it looks. Looks great. It's still all Alberta, but that's, okay. And I got to say... I like your new role as the Canadian spokesperson.

I can go through basically a brief plot outline. Like this time I didn't write it down so I'm going to get most of it wrong. But essentially this is an Ellie solo episode because for the most of the episode... Well, it's not quite an Ellie solo episode

because Joel does really revive himself. But Ellie is going out and looking for food supplies, whatever she can for an increasingly dire Joel. in terms of his medical situation. And while she's out, she comes across these two guys, David and James. David, it turns out, is a preacher leading a flock of people who are living in an abandoned ski resort, I think.

Say the name. Do you see where they were from? Silver Lake. They're from Silver Lake. They are monsters from Silver Lake. Did you feel targeted? No, I don't consider myself a Silver Lake resident. Really?

Mm-hmm. Would you take shelter there during an apocalypse and become a Silver Lake resident? No, I would stay in Franklin Hills Get the high round Okay, wow And so basically Not all is what it seems With this group of people

Who seemed just sort of downtrodden And hungry Very hungry But all the sort of When you, if you go back and rewatch the opening scenes And just kind of like How shaken up these people are You then realize that's because they're eating each other

And that they are under the spell Orrush-esque cult leader essentially, who wants to take Ellie as his child bride and second in command. We have to talk about that. And speaking of draft combines, just a really quick assessment by David, like he just sees something and she took the wonder lick

and he was like, you're the number one draft bag. This is literally my thing. We now have two episodes in a row where people, older people, in positions of power, take one look at this snarling teen. Who's like, eat shit. How about that? And they're like, wow. Your leadership potential is off the charts.

Like, I do need someone to talk me through this. I'm not saying she's not a compelling character. No, she is. But it's funny how everybody, like, she's just like, I'm going to fucking throw a paperweight in your head. And then the guy is like, God, you're just an amazing person. Can you imagine if we had acted like that? You're like a young Roosevelt.

Because here's the thing, in my memory, most 14-year-old girls acted like that to me. you know, and like I was very intimidated by them. What if I had been like, you, ma'am, are a future leader of this great country? You know what I mean? Like, what if I had done the judo move where you take the hostility? Yeah. And it would be like, now let's see you perform like in a cover two defense. Like, can you pick apart the safeties?

Diagram that play. Erase the whiteboard and draw it again. What do they say? It is definitely, and there are a couple, there are a couple minutes to pick in this episode. But this is something. Well, broadly the thing about like telling us who she is without showing it is a strange, repeated choice that I guess we'll get us somewhere. Sure. This episode was a real, I was going to say fork in the road, maybe fork in the thigh meat of someone's dead dad.

Just to coin a family-friendly phrase. This was a real, this was a tough one, kind of as gristly as hungry person meat. Because once again, I thought this was. was an exceptionally made episode of television. I continue to marvel at just the nailing of the important decision making. Like, once again, you have a character who needs to make a big impression

in a remarkably compressed amount of time. Scott Sheppard's incredible in this. And they go and get Scott Shepard, who I imagine everyone watching this had a little bit of, oh, that guy. He, low-key, might be one of the best actors in America. I love this guy. Maybe he is, but I.

I love that. That's my take. That's your take. Because of Young Pope. And I love that you. So he basically plays this guy in True Detective season three. But you didn't see him in Gats on Broadway when he reads all of the Great Gatsby on stage for six hours? No, is that that happened?

That's him. Did you see him in Gats on Broadway? Listen, we're not doing this much theater in one episode. But that was his thing. Okay. Yeah. That's fantastic stuff. Yeah.

Well, he's wonderful in this as a total monster. Yeah. He sucks. But, yeah. changes everything when it's that guy. You walk, just the, the little things that Mazin gets right of like, it's really interesting all of a sudden. Why is everyone following this guy who does not seem like the quote, unquote, imposing leader type?

It was the same thing with Melanie Linsky. It's subverting expectations. It's keeping us interested. And drawing me in to a show that in any other hands, honestly, I would be like, this is an amoral failure. Like, this was a gnarly episode that I don't think worked, quote unquote. Right. But I watch it.

I enjoy watching it. And I'm impressed by the details, even though I think we're going to get into it, there's some stuff that doesn't quite add up. Are you talking about Joel's advanced interrogation techniques? Before that, I'm talking about his advanced recuperative abilities. Let's, yeah. Okay. So let's start there.

Okay. For most of this episode, Joel's in a coma. Yeah, with, like, I think, sepsis? Yeah. It's not going great. He's got the handiwork of nurse Ellie, 14-year-old, registered with the Medical Board of Massachusetts. Well, she's a leader.

She who grabbed and did not sterilize a needle and thread out of this house that has a remarkable amount of blankets and pillows. What's cold in Alberta? It's a video game. And she's sewn up this wound that he has. But he's still seemingly dying. So she goes out, she needs to get food because they've only got like a little bit of little jerky left.

And she winds up making this trade. She kills an elk. James and David, who are starving for any kind of meat at this point, are like, can we share it? You want to come back with us and hang out? Like, what do you want to do here? And Ellie's like, you get me penicillin. Yep.

And I will give you half of this elk. Venison. Dear. Even. Yeah. And then she has like a nice long conversation with the sky. Shepard character, which I think is one of the great scenes in this show so far. The dude just brings penicillin back.

And also, it's real penicillin. Yep. Although I wonder whether or not it's pure human growth hormone. That's the thing. Because she plunges it into the wound, which is, I don't think where you put penicillin. Now, I'm no doctor. I have watched a lot of episodes of House MD. Have you even?

Not as many is here. I don't think you need to win. antibiotics. Okay, for example, if my child has strep throat, they can just take the medicine. It will touch their throats, like it will go through their bodies. You don't need to jab it directly into their necks. Sure. I understand her. Would it be if you did do that? Would it be better? Would your child then turn into a CIA black-sighted derivative? It's pretty remarkable. So he takes two vials of this stuff. In a condensed, like, 12-hour period?

And while he's still in, like, a fugue state, she's like, here's a knife, some dudes are coming, long story. If they show up, you're going to want to defend yourself. I'm going to go out and distract them on my horse. Wait, speaking of leadership and QB-1s, this was Torridol, right? This is what they gave Mahomes.

That basement is the blue tent. Quote, quote, high ankle sprain. Because when people, like, when Landon Dickerson leaves the playoff game for the Eagles, with his arm hanging limply at his side. And the Applebee's commercial. was playing on the other. Then he just comes trotting back in from the tents.

To be fair, we've had like a lot of experiences with like, oh God, Jason Peters is gripping the back of his heel. That's the Achilles again. And most times it was. It was like three times. Didn't he tear his Achilles like three times? Sure. How many does he have though?

He's got two. Oh, okay. Anyway, recovery time was quick. Chris, I got the COVID booster shot as a healthy person. And the next day, I was like, could someone get me a gator? right? Please. I wasn't like, I just have enough pep in my step

to jam a knife into a guy's neck. Yeah. I didn't. I wouldn't. I, you know, I have kind of gone in and out on how does this compare to the game and what's, sometimes I'm just like, damn, that's in the game. Like, especially the Franken Bill stuff.

Yeah. And that was at sort of the peak of when I was like, how did the game handle this? Like, what was this? What was this deal? Since then, I have kind of like faded away from reading side-by-side comparisons because I don't know that it's entirely helpful for evaluating the show as the show. But one thing that I do know is that there is a more virulent strand of anti-hero in Joel. Like there is some anti-in-in-him.

Antibodies after that shot. Well, the thing that he's talked about where he's just like, I've done some really bad things. Like, obviously he knows how to get down in his torture of those two guys. My guy treated the other dude's leg like a bottle of Topo Chico. Pop the top. You know what I mean? Is that the scene that you were referring to where you were like,

that was a little bit gnar for me? Or was it the people eating stuff? I'm cool with that. Yeah. You know, I believe in local cuisine. Okay. I like, I don't know people watch the second episode of Party Down, but Zoe Chow's character as a cook is just like,

I think food should be the whole human experience. So that's why she puts camembert inside of a cake bite. Yeah. that you feel like you're dying. Yeah, that's all I'm saying. Yeah, that's similar. No, no, it was the end, and we can get to the end. You're talking about the video game comparisons.

This was the most video game thing that they've done, where he got medicine and then his health bar was fully restored. Tell you. That's a video game. And it's fine. It's fine. I think, though, what I noticed in this episode was... It's a shame case he didn't take our pitch on The Last of Us,

where he was like he gets infinite lives because he found a cheat goat in the back of GameStop magazine. There were a lot of gems in the hour we cut out of that podcast. We were just telling him how he should fix all of his shows. If we ever did get the chance to talk to Craig Mason about the show, the thing that I keep inferring about the thought process is that there is some element of reactivity or reactionariness, not in a conservative sense, but like, and I think it can work really well.

He does seem to be the sort of creator who sees the whole game board, who sees forest, not trees. And so some of these casting decisions seem, you know, Again, like taking what could be a disadvantage or something familiar or trope and just spinning it slightly, so we're approaching it from a different angle. We see it differently. Sometimes I wonder if that analogy can be stretched a little bit more broadly. And an episode like this feels intentionally reactive to something like The Walking Dead, which got a lot of, I think, justified criticism, probably some from me, about taking every opportunity for story and then sitting there for 10 episodes. Like every new development, every new settlement, and they always go south eventually.

But first we have to dig in and we meet the characters. Because this episode could have been two episodes. It could have been three episodes. So while I think I admire the thought process behind, like, let's keep this thing going, we are not that sort of show. We don't say zombie on this show. But there are taxes to be paid when you make that decision. Among them, Joel's outrageous recovery. And second among them is...

The gym from the office to John Krasinski and Secret Soldiers of Benghazi move that he makes. Yes, but that took John a decade. Yeah. Not just that, but the real, you know, Anchorman boy, that really escalated quickly. Right. With, what's his name? Is it David? David is the preacher and James is his sidekick.

Right. With David and Ellie. Not Michael Weisman is how I'm referring to him, that guy. The sidekick. Yeah. The sidekick, I believe, is the voice of Joel in the game. Is he? Yeah, I think that was his, that was his, that was.

the way he was cast. Okay. Well, he's good. Good. No, I thought he looked weathered, haunted. You know? But just, so, okay, let's talk about that relationship and the challenges I had with it, because it went from a place that I really enjoyed, which is who is this interesting

character played by this fantastic actor? They have a wonderful conversation at rifle point over the fire to, I would like you to be my child bride and co-leader to seeward, see-word, here's a cleaver. Yeah. That really escalated quickly. Well, that guy rules with an iron fist. Here's a thing about this guy. It's not a player's locker room.

Here's my note. As previously discussed on this podcast, when the world ends, some people are leaders, you, some people are Fedro Stooges, me. But even though...

I'm just a total fucking snitch. Even though I am a big, I still think I would have some of my head on my shoulders. And the thing is, if it's negative 40 and you can't dig a grave because it's so cold slash you're actually going to eat the guy, I get it. And you're not wearing a hat. I'm not following you. Something's off.

You're just talking about this dude not wearing a knit hat. I'm saying from jump. That's why I didn't trust this guy. Does it get that cold in Colorado? Did you see how cold they were? they seemed like weather beaten but I thought Colorado the whole thing is that like the powder is thick

but the temperature is like kind of moderate 30 inches of snow Kai what do you know much about the Mountain West region protect your ears I've only been to the Mountain West in the summertime so that's smart that's a pro move yeah okay alright that's prime grave digging time

summertime yeah I guess you could say that four people went on the trip with her only Kaye came back I understand that for a TV show you want to have the whole face because a lot of acting is done, I guess, with the ears. But when they had that first talk where he's just like, some people aren't trusting me anymore, he's like, we still believe in you, David.

Then he put his hood up, but not David. So that was my first sign that something was amiss with this guy. But wait, but let's really talk through it. Because I think the confusion for me at the heart of this episode was, what are we doing? If it is a multi-episode arc, you play that they're just hungry and David did have a revelation

and is doing his best and then you slow drip the reveal that there's an ear on the ground and they're eating people and maybe he's a lunatic and he's actually just a sex monster nightmare asshole there wasn't the runway for that

sure so we knew immediately yeah so we know immediately that he's not great and then the things start to fall apart a little bit which is just like, go get the real penicillin, but be sure to come back with a gun pointed at her. He does get real penicillin, which again is bizarre.

He could have switched it for motor oil, and then that's the end of Joel. I kind of read that as he walks up on them and hears them talking about, like, this guy, Alec, who I assume is the person at the University of Colorado who stab Joel. That's right. So the real, like, not missed opportunity,

like obviously you're making a certain, kind of show. I found this episode obviously not very uplifting, but I thought entertaining. And as somebody who watches a lot of revenge horror from the 70s and stuff like that, Ellie running around with a meat cleaver was kind of cool. But the thing that was neat about the

Melanie Linsky arc was you could make the argument for her. You can't really make the argument for this is right. This is right. This cult leader guy. But Melanie Linsky was right in her mind. And I think for a lot of the people following her, they weren't following

her because they were like, she rules with an iron fist and we'll get killed. They were like, no, Fedra was like torturing us for decade. And then this woman came along and led a revolution against them. I think that you're right. I think what you're pointing at is that the show ran from the single

most interesting idea that it's presented so far this season. A season I've liked. I'm not saying the other ideas were bad. I know. I know. I know. But The most interesting thing the show flirted with was everybody is the hero of their own story. And in this world, there's no such thing as absolute good or absolutely. Everybody's trying to survive. Joel did what he had to do to protect himself and to protect Ellie. And then there were consequences because the people that they killed also had families and were doing their best.

The show shades it towards a more conventional binary heroism by making the people who Joel, among whose number, Joel, you know, the person Joel killed. their group also are cannibals who are in the sway of a sex predator, cult leader. So now we know who the real good guys are, even though Joel, you know, pops, tops of people's bottom halves. What does cunt call them? Your back legs? They are the lower legs. That was a bummer.

It wasn't, I understand why. It makes sense. This is still a, you know, they are our heroes. Yeah, and maybe it would be a little bit repetitive if you. you basically ran into Melanie Olensky 2 in Colorado. You know, another person who was, you know,

running their town the best that they could under dire circumstances and was trying to make these decisions but also had like, was blinded by certain things. Because to be fair, the thing that I had, I was about to say written down in my notes,

but you guys would laugh at me, that I had noted in my mind. It's like Jay-Z when I watch TV. You know what I mean? Right into the booths. That's right. was that there were no infected in this episode. No.

I was thrilled about that. But it was interesting that David was almost in awe of quarter-ups. Yeah. That was like a protective, loving... He's a big fan. By the way, that was a podcaster's zag. That was great. That was...

That was like, yeah, that was Rissolo being like, Missoula's a good coach. That's what I'm saying. He was just like, he couldn't wait to get that take off. He had been waiting 20 years. Yeah, all these other fucking ninkum poops are like, I don't really get what you're saying. No.

But he's like, here's the way I see it. Yeah. What if it's good? Yeah. And then all the listeners smash the subscribe button. Um,

so. Did you feel like, uh, no, it's okay. I like the, I see, this is an interesting conversation

structurally about the season. Because you're pointing out something that I think we obviously, like really gravitated towards and or because of its mini, mini arcs that it was doing and these three episode sort of stories that were almost discreet from the entire story. I've appreciated the movement of this show, you know, and I'm glad that there wasn't two or three episodes of cannibal meat cleaver stuff. I think that's an important point to make.

I don't want three episodes of this. I think they made the right decision, but there were challenges in pulling it off. Yeah. And I think I've appreciated the fact that for all the jokes that we made about, like, people just sort of like having one really rude conversation with Ellie and being like, That's Andrew Luck. I appreciate that I can see the growth and the sort of development of the character over the course of the season and not only because of the Riley episode, but also just like what she's been through and how she has learned. And now obviously she's just like really astute with her gun.

And like, you know, I was going to say she's quite a horseback rider, but let me ask you this. If you're a horse, right, and you're a horse actor. Hold on. Now, you know, I did take acting classes in college, and there was something that we had to do called the animal exercise, which is how you find yourself with another 19-year-old prowling around. Is this when you did like lots of cat stuff? You prowl around on their dorm room. And I remember like seeing, oh, she has a lot of pellets of gatorade in her dorm. So maybe her mom sent her that while we're like, I'm a leopard.

This costs like 30 grand a year. Sign me up, Fedra. I've got no skills. Useless. Okay, you're a horse. Okay. I'm here. I'm in it.

And your horse agent. I don't know if it's a horse, too. We're getting into kind of a bojack territory there. Okay. They call and they're like... Oh, the horse agent. Yeah, the agent. Oh, yeah.

He could be a guy. He could be like your agent or he could be another horse who's also an agent. I haven't really sketched that part out there. So Peter and Dan from UTA have fallen on hard times. Yeah. They're now roughing animals. And they're like, hey, secretariat or whatever your name is, you know? Yeah, that's my stage name.

Good news, bad news. Yeah. Good news. got you a great job. Yeah. Get to work out in the outdoors. It's not one of those indoor horse jobs. Yeah.

But, bad news. It's on HBO. Yeah, here's the thing. I hear what you're saying. I take the job because, Chris, when I... Because you love to work. When I graduated from Horse Juilliard. Horse Brown.

A lot of my Brown Horse. A lot of my colleagues and I, you know, we immediately just immersed ourselves in the theater scene of New York City, like Black Box stuff, La Mama and the East Village. Sure. I mean, we wish. You know what I mean? What Willem and Kate were doing there was radical, even for horses to appreciate.

And then a lot of the best horses of my generation went to work on a show called Luck. I know. I know. I mean, a moment of silence. Should we actually do a moment of silence on this podcast? What I'm saying is a lot of opportunities for us dried up then. Yeah. And so I can't, it's a different regime also.

You know, the discovery people have come in. They have reality shows. Maybe they have some, do they own Animal Planet? I don't know. For the sake of this joke, which needs to be put down like a lame horse, let's say that they do. I just am willing to give them a chance. I'm willing to give them a chance. Okay.

I didn't know that horses could have McBain moments, but that horse really did when she's like, here, have this delicious snow. Here's a bucket of treats. for you. My wife looked up and she goes, I hope nothing happens to the horse. I was like, viewer, it did.

Yeah, it sure did. She seemed shocked. Yeah. That the horse was a living, I guess she never saw Game of Thrones, which really taught. I'm sure she's seen Game of Thrones since she's in it. No, no, Ellie didn't see Game of Thrones.

Oh, Ellie did not see Game of Thrones. I mean, I guess the same number of books were written. Shout out George R. Martin, but the HBO show hadn't, didn't exist yet. Anything else on this episode? Any expectations for the next one? Well, no, I just wanted to say, like, that whole, the arc was weird.

Like, the David stuff was just discordant and odd, where he's just like, I've seen your leadership abilities, I can confess to you that we eat people and you can be my, you can be my queen. Like, that was such a wild turn and Scott Shepard did his best with it. And then similarly, like, the entire steakhouse catching on fire and him being like, I'll deal with you in a minute, cataclysmic. fire. I'm too angry about this girl. That is the kind of thing where I did check and it's just like,

that's a cool backdrop for their fight in the video game. Sure. Oh, it is. And they recreated it, I guess. And what happens to all the other people in the cult? They really did not defend their steakhouse. When you say steakhouse, do you mean like Muso and Frank, or is there like another word for

No, they kept cutting to the fact that the establishing shots in this town. It was like Todd's steakhouse. Oh, I must have that. Yeah. Yeah. You were still

mourning the horse. No, I was probably watching Liverpool highlights on my phone. Wow. I'm being

completely honest. Year 11 of this podcast is really. It's okay. So I thought that was kind of interesting that

he did have this flock. I guess they were a little dubious when he kept sending bearded people out

into the world and they kept not coming back. But they didn't really defend their terrain as the entire thing was going

up in smoke. How did you feel, did you want to comment on Joel's enhanced interrogation techniques? I thought, don't worry, I believed him. It was a good exit line. I had never seen the kneecap thing before. Oh. Nor had I seen.

And if anyone had seen it, it would be you. Honestly, probably. Yes. And I had never seen the shove the knife in the guy's mouth and make him point it out and then be like, if your friend doesn't corroborate that, like you're both dead. You never tried that to someone lost on the NJ Turnpike

when you were like, I need a Cinebun? No. You never did that? No, no, no. That would have been fun. I'm trying to think if I had anything else for this. Mostly very curious to see how they end this season. Cliffhanger is it we've now met a new group of people

that we will then get to know in the next season. You know, like the pacing of the entire series is pretty curious to me or very interesting to me because I think it had initially been, floated that it would be two seasons. I think Druckman and Mason have been like, we're definitely not trying to stretch this out unnecessarily. We don't want this to be like an ongoing show. Casey obviously said three seasons on R-Pod.

I know that the second season is supposed to be the second game, but I don't know maybe Druckman's got even more stuff in his bag. Well, also, is there only one episode's worth of game left in the first game? We don't know that. It's really, we should end here because I think so much kind of depends on this last episode. And yet at the same time, not a lot, it's not like I'm sitting back reserving judgment. I think the show is incredibly well made. I've been really enjoying watching it and covering it.

But this episode more than any since the first hour of the show tipped me back into being like, oh, I actually don't like these things generally. I like this show, but it is a tenuous relationship because when it teeters, into this kind of just like, you know, dystopian nightmare porn. I'm like, yeah. It's been interesting to watch this show going back to the thing that Sam

kind of berated us about during our... I'm sorry, which thing? During our year-end podcast about like evaluating something for the choices it makes rather than the choices it didn't make. Right. Yeah. Well, I think that that's what's been interesting about...

I think they've just made almost entirely good choices. Yeah. And that's also why I'm willing to give the things about this episode that didn't work for me a past because I think that they were in the service of a larger good decision. I think that they are more tolerable because you got a one-and-done,

strong performance by an actor that we love, doing something very intense, to your point about it does level up, Ellie, and I don't even mean that in the video game sense, and we're not stuck here. We can do something different for the finale. I think that's really important and smart. So we'll see.

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Don't miss Sol de Janeiro's limited edition perfume mist collection only at Sephora. One of the reasons why I think that I've been thinking so much about the choices it makes, the choices it doesn't make thing is because this has been, you know, This is obviously a very significant adaptation, as is Daisy Jones. So Daisy Jones, like The Last of Us, is something where I don't have a lot of familiarity or really any with the source material other than knowing it's a beloved novel by Taylor Nickens Reed that is in the format of an oral history of a 1970s rock band that kind of burned out instead of faded away.

And it's just a sort of history of this band that's very much modeled off a fluid Mac, but I think makes very intelligent kind of deviations from the Fleetwood Mac story. Yeah. It takes the sort of the central idea, which is a relationship that burned too brightly, but while it existed, made the best album of all time. Right. And so Amazon put together this show. It's adapted by Michael Weber and Scott Noist Daughter, who did 500 Days of Summer. And it's the first couple episodes are directed by James Ponsel, who I like a lot, who did Spectacular Now. And end of tour. It stars Sam Claflin as Billy Dunn, who's the sort of resident genius of this band, but is battling demons. And then Riley Co. Gio is this woman named the titular Daisy Jones,

who's kind of this force of nature who has, like, arrived in Los Angeles or he's from Los Angeles. Sort of a sign of Hollywood privilege who invents herself. But who invents herself as this kind of Stevie Nix-esque songbird. And there's some really great. supporting performances in Suki Waterhouse and Camilla Morone and a bunch of people we can get to. But ultimately, I just wanted to start with something that we kind of touched on

in our preview of this show, which is like, there is a subject matter that television will hit sometimes and it can be anything for anybody. But it may just be in your Venn diagram of interests. And oftentimes, that's enough. Like a TV show that is like really, really good

that's about something you're really, really interested in. And for me, that's 70s rock. Yeah, that's why I watch Midnight Stories Tokyo Diner. Yeah. I love Midnight. I love stories. Do you love Midnight?

Do you see Midnight very often? No, it's the Tokyo and Diner part that I like. So this show has already got like three steps up on me because it's about a 70s rock band. And I feel like they are doing a good job being like, oh, there's a rattle in the mic, or here's the reel to real tape that we're going to do. where I, here's me playing just like when the bass player in the band tries to take over as guitarist

and just does like his take of the song in the garage unaccompanied by anything but else but his guitar and himself. Like there's just little wrinkles there that I really like. That being said, I think the show's really good. I know it's gotten some tepid reviews. I wonder whether or not there's a little bit of like it's not as good as the book stuff or whatever.

But I think that the performances in this are pretty uniformly great. and I don't know I just been a minute since I've like really had like a like a really solid TV drama that doesn't feel like it's

dealing with the weight of the world and I think that the behind the music conceit of this show is awesome and it especially comes to light in the third episode which I think you and I agree is the best one so far they released three on Amazon already so we'll be talking about

everything that happens going up into that there is a moment at least for me in the third episode where Daisy and Billy first set eyes on each other. And sing. And then it cuts to the behind the music version of this where an older Daisy and older Billy are remembering this. And the way that they handle it is like as if it was B-roll

of them actually re-experiencing this moment and they both just kind of slyly smile, which tells you, I mean, for us we don't know, but you can imagine like this is obviously love at first sight to some extent. and it is magical. It is like a really great... It's a awesome moment. I think your point about being drawn to things

that we're automatically going to be drawn to is true. I think the wrinkle on that is when you are particularly passionate about something or knowledgeable about something, the bar gets much, much, much higher. And it's something we've talked about in the context of us watching the wire being like, this is the greatest American television show in history,

and then the last season is about journalism. and we're like, as journalists. It all felt really clunky. And then all of a sudden you're like, wait, did cops watch this and think the whole thing was a hash? So this show is not The Wire, by the way. I'm not saying that. But I say that only to really reinforce how exceptional I actually think this show is. And I want to talk about it on an emotional level.

But I also want to save time to talk about it just on a similar in a way to the way we talk about The Last of Us, on a technical execution decision-making level, I'm kind of in awe. I'm so impressed by the things that the creators and directors did and also the things they didn't do, which would have sunk it. So we can save that for a minute because, man, I loved watching the show. I loved watching the show. I did not read the book.

I care about Fleetwood Mac more than I care about most things. I read everything about that band. I'm a Lindsay partisan. He's been on this podcast. Like, this world matters a lot to me. Yeah. And what I'm so struck by is the fact that Weber and Neustadtar and Ponsol, I think, really understood something crucial that I think would have been so hard to zero in on for almost anyone else, which is you're not going to win if you try to get the details right of the Los Angeles music scene in the 70s. You could look at the show and be like, oh, well, they're not really talking about, Like, why didn't they meet Joni Mitchell?

Why does it feel weirdly hermetically sealed? How come these guys aren't going to see cactus? Why aren't there other bands? Why isn't the larger American story being told? Like, why isn't Vietnam in the newspaper? Any of this? Yeah. Because what matters about this show is the moment when the two people who are meant to create art together,

but doomed to be around each other happens, sparks fly. That's the moment you build to. You build it on an emotional level. And then the music and everything else, the details you'll figure out we need to figure out. but you get so easily lost in the sauce. And I think some of the feedback to the show, I imagine, is related to this observation because people are like, oh, it's soap operatic.

But that's why we like the story of rumors. That is fucking soap opera, but it happened. And also there was a blizzard of cocaine while it was happening. And the songs rule. And so nailing that on the margins, and we should talk about Blake Mills who put together the soundtrack

and all the plausibility of these people somehow being a band and being able to pull it off, maybe you just start there. There aren't shows about music on TV. As someone who first tried to make the transition into screenwriting coming from a CV that basically said Spin Magazine 1999 to Question Mark, like a party invite from the early 2000s,

the only things people talk to me about were music projects. And then the second thing they said was, but it'll never work because no one wants these. No one wants, everyone wants the idea of them, but it ultimately is like the uncanny valley thing where it's like if you make a fictional show about music, A, you lose half the audience who are like, it's just about minutia and people collecting records, and I don't care about that world.

And then B, the made-up band is never going to be as good as a real band. Yes. So you're out. Which is why, like, that thing you do is, in some ways, like, the only good music movie. Yeah. Or almost famous. Those are probably, those are the examples. But I would argue that, personally, I like the song, that thing you do more than fever dog or whatever.

And I agree with that wholeheartedly. The genius of that thing you do is you're going to have to hear that song 16 to 20 times. And the late Adam Schlesinger wrote that song. And it's like, oh, like, not only that, like, I would hear that song 500 times, which is why people rewatch that thing you do all the time. Do you remember when that movie was coming out? And I remember reading this on like Sonic Net or Addicted to Noise on the dial-up, that they were doing an open casting call for the song.

And one of the people who they asked to submit was Bob Pollard from Guided by Voices. Did he? I think, I'm sure, can you imagine? There's like a 47 second song called that thing that you do with your marvelous flying machine. And they were just like, dude. A ticket acid on the garage. Yeah. Nope.

Does Honeycomb hit the highs of that thing you do? I mean, the version of it that's in the third episode, which is a snippet, more or less, it's pretty fucking good. Is it as good as Silver Spring by Fleetwood Mac? Maybe not. But will I definitely listen to Honeycomb on Spotify? Yeah. Yeah, it's real good.

Yeah. It's real good. So yeah, Blake Mills, who's a music producer, worked with, like, Phoebe Bridgers and Marcus Mumford on the music. By the show, yeah, that was my note. I was like, my only weird thing about the show is so Daisy Jones invented Phoebe Bridgers, then it's like, Google, Google. Oh, Phoebe Bridgers wrote her songs.

Well, the other thing that's really cool about this is that they use a lot of, they do, they have like a lot of obviously, like, very like, can performance stuff. But then there's a lot of diagetic music where the demo that Billy writes of Honeycomb is like playing in the background, but it's almost inaudible. So you're having these people be like, oh, it's a good song, and that's a good song. And it kind of speaks to the sketching to painting version

of what art is and how it's not always, like, it doesn't come out as a finished product. It comes out as like, here's an idea, I think this is good, and would this be enough for you to give me some money for me to work on it some more? And I really like that, like, when Daisy hears Honeycomb,

or whatever for the first time and she's sitting with Teddy and she's talking about something else and then she's like, what is this song? That is like not a finished version of it and you can't really hear it. You just have to go on Riley saying, boy, I really like this,

like what is this? And him being like, what would you do to it? It gets the best thing, I think, about the creation of music, which is that it is not a finished product until suddenly someone decides that it is and that it is a really bumpy and sometimes circuitous road towards a goal that often is hard to understand.

Like, is your goal to sell it to make money? Is your goal for it to be the best possible version of it? Or is your goal to be validated that you're back and you're sober and you're writing a song again and everyone celebrating you for it? How far can you push something? That idea of like how much bigger can this get, how open can we be with it in terms of collaboration,

letting other people paint on this canvas. This show, especially the third episode, gets that right in a really exciting way. I mean, that was a really exciting episode of television to watch. The Blake Mills thing, one of those people, like a zealig of the LA music scene, I guess, he was in the band Dawes, and then he's now become the guy who you call when you want Ben Montench to come down to the stude, just to lay down some keys. Like, he kind of connects the dots between whatever a younger generation of songwriters

are, like, I guess, Phoebe Bridgers being chief among them. And then the older generation of studio hands and Laurel Canyon hangers on and survived. survivors that are still here. So of course he gets this in a way that is, I guess, natural. And so there is, we should say, there is a whole album that's out. You can listen to it now. And it's credited to the band and the band the actors play the music and sing. There's a lot of stuff in the press about how the pandemic delays caused them to actually like, a little, this is a little bit PR canny, but, you know, they became a real band because they played together and hung out. Right. So, but do you want to talk about the way the show, at least in

these first three episodes sort of comes, like how they built, how they built this, right? Like which threads of American rock and roll mythos they choose to play with, the casting, the path,

because they have the version of it, the band where it's just Billy's band, and it's called the Six, and they are barnstorming doing... It's called the Dun Brothers. Yeah, and they're doing dances and any gig they can get. In Pittsburgh.

And driving around like that area. Then Karen, who is half session hand half musical genius, whatever she's doing. Half cipher. She has no point of view

other than she likes sex through three episodes. She joins this band. And once they start to actually get some momentum, Billy is fall victim to addiction. In the middle there,

they move to Los Angeles. Right. Where they go because they were told once by Timothy Oliphon. More by his wig. Timothy Olavon that they should move out to L.A.

and take it By the way, I can't believe they trusted a narc. I mean, he's a U.S. Marshal in disguise as a roadie. Yeah. They don't wonder he was shocked to see them. He's been working a case. I love how he lives in like one of those Hollywood apartment complexes, but seems to be the mayor of the entire complex. It's very interesting.

Yeah. I mean, I was happy to see him. So, and then, yeah, like on the parallel track, we get sort of Daisy's origin story when she's named Margaret, her decision to sort of. reinvent herself to be drawn into this, heard getting drawn into this music scene and then just relentlessly pursuing it. And I think low-key, one of the things the show does really, really well is just run right at something that was absolutely not talked about in mainstream coverage of the scene as it happened, which is the treatment of female artists. And her horrific and traumatic I don't even know what to say, the event that happens to her when she's like, the music is pure

and it's beautiful to love things and I love things. And, of course, her fandom is taken advantage of and misunderstood as, you know, sexual availability. And then from that point on, her feelings about herself, her feelings about her gift, and her songwriting, and her voice changes. Yeah.

And I love that. I mean, there's some scenes, there's some aspects of this show that feel cobbled together for a contemporary audience, which is fine because it's a contemporary show. The scene where, like, her, Nebishi boyfriend at the 101

Cafe is just like, you're my muse, isn't that great? She beats the shit out of him. Like that stuff felt really earned and good for a show like this. And natural to this character and who she is when Teddy meets her, when she joins the band, etc. By the way, just want to say shout out to Tom Wright, who

plays Teddy. Yeah, wait, I want to talk about Teddy, but before we do that, I just want to say you just sketched out, they don't meet until the third episode. Yeah, it's like an old school, like we're taking our time to get there. And I loved it. Yeah. So often recently we've talked about these things that are stretched. I don't know. I mean, there's seven hours of the show to go. I'm looking forward to them. But so far, I really loved the slow buildup.

I was not. I was excited for it. Well, it really feels earned when she's in there. And she's like, you guys want to sing or fight? I can do either. Of course, it's also notable that. And get me milk and a whiskey. But it's notable that Amazon did the boys thing with this. Yeah. Where they gave us the three out. It was important to get them together all at once. I think that's true. I may, I may have felt differently if it was if it was once a week. I think that if they hadn't had the behind the music aspect, it would have felt like a little bit like, come on, let's do this. Also, real shout out to the people in charge of making them look like they're 20 years older in the 90s. Yeah.

With like the high collars, the one earring, the frosted tips, especially Sam Claflin in the 90s. The feathered hair, yeah. He really looks like Joe Perry in the behind the music. Or Kenny Loggins. It's amazing work. Okay, so let's talk about the Teddy thing. It's an interesting character. So Teddy Price played by Tom Wright. who's an actor who's been around for a long time,

a lot of stage work, not particularly familiar with him. I'm sure I've seen him dozens of times, but wasn't like, oh, that guy plays a kind of, in one of the shows references to the real world, he says, you want to be with Lou Adler. So I guess he's kind of a super producer to a degree, but a little bit only for those in the know,

like they knew him as a musician or whatever. It's interesting because there are two black characters in the main cast, sort of adjacent to the band in ways that I found sort of interesting. The Teddy Price character, he's their producer, very quickly becomes Billy's father figure, which is one of those kind of illusions

that didn't totally work for me. Well, I kind of got the feeling that he was supposed to be a little bit of a Tom Wilson figure. So Tom Wilson was one of Bob Dylan's early producers and helped shape his career and that he's had these big moments in his career, but is kind of now like puttering, around Los Angeles and helping out at this label and looking for the next thing.

Right. And that this is like his last guess. I think that the character and the show itself was done a huge favor by the scene when he brings in Billy's demo of Honeycomb to the label. And we see what the label is. And the label is a lot of older white guys in suits who think they're hip listening to tapes being like, no, that's not it. That's not it.

And you realize that this person who is Billy's god just to see on the street and the get to success does not have that power. Right. I thought that was really well done. I don't know. I mean, it also, the character works really well in episode three when it's just like he just had a hunch. He's paying for this and he made it. He made magic, you know, and not to buy into the Rick Rubin mythos, which is just like his ears are so pure. He can hear what you want before you think it. God, there's such a great moment in that, the recording of Honeycomb

when she's messing around. Billy's having a tantrum and she's messing around in the vocal booth and she's making jokes about Tobias, who is the engineer. And Billy's like, what the fuck is Tobias? And Tobias is like, I'm Tobias. Yeah, like you didn't even bother to learn my name. That part is great. And I think that the show has a really smart handle on the fact that the genius myth is both a little bit true, but also totally overrated, that songs are built, that people work

on things, that mistakes are pointed out and corrections can come from suggestions can come from anyone. And that you can be as talented as either of these two people are. but it takes someone to see the whole game board. And I did love that. I love that scene. I love his face in that scene while he's smoking and he realizes that he was right.

Yeah. You know, that whiskey and milk do go great together. Other performances and things that you're... The bass player, who's like wants to be the guitar player. He wants to be the singer. And he also wants to be Camilla Morone's boyfriend.

Josh Whitehouse, who plays the bass player, I thought was quite good. Let's talk about... So Camila Maron, completely unfamiliar. familiar with her. I guess because I don't listen to the Tea Time podcast. No, I, you know, I saw her in a movie a few years ago at South by Southwest that didn't really pop, but I thought was excellent called Mickey and the Bear, uh, which was her and James Badgedale. It's this really gritty drama set in Montana, I think. And she hasn't really done a ton since then.

Were you shown that movie as part of the James Badgedale shareholders quarterly report where you have to see all of James Badgedale's content? Yeah, that's right. Just to see how you're is performing. It's really steady. It's a steady stock. It's a shower. I hadn't seen her since then, and she's great in this. So I had no idea who she was.

I was like, I thought she was really good. And in an interest, again, like this is, I guess the credit goes to Taylor Jenkins Reed, whose book I haven't read, but really interesting subversion of the sort of the girlfriend trope. She plays the character who is Billy's girlfriend from back home, who jumps in the van, leaves her more traditional family to go to L.A. with him, not for him, as she points out later in the series, becomes pregnant and then sticks around.

They try to repair their relationship. She is the sixth of the six. And I loved her inclusion in that. And also that feeling of you could ding the show for not showing like Laurel Canyon life, where David Crosby is like, oh, I got a pack of smokes. Like, I'm going to go sleep with the next 30 people or whatever.

Or you could be like what made that scene what it was was the sort of extended family. Not just of a band, but of a community. And so that was their community. That was their little pocket of Pittsburgh in this town. I really like that. I really liked her performance. Riley Keo was sort of waiting for this, right?

This is it. This is it. Riley Keo, who was in the last movie I saw in theaters before the pandemic, the Lodge. And I'm a huge fan of hers. I really have always found her very, like, kind of just sort of mesmerizing. Like, she has a kind of blank affect, but this is, I feel like her charm is off the charts in this show. All I could think of when I was watching this was how she must have felt when this part became available.

I don't mean to her, but maybe she tracked it or her agent called and said, you know, they're seeing people or they're considering people. Well, she's somebody who's just like always had the vibe of like, seems like you could be a 70s rock star. I'm saying. It's like, oh yeah, I guess you can be. This is it. Yeah. This is the part she wants.

This is everything. and she has a lot of strength. She's a really good singer. There's something like Drew Barrymore-esque about her at times in terms of her kind of like sort of cockyed appeal. I don't know. I find it charming and I think it's really,

I don't know, I just, we're running out of ways to say we're in on the show. No, I am. And I think also just, it's cool to know that this is just going to be on for seven more weeks. So it's nice to have, you know, just this kind of like this experience of this show.

So it comes out Fridays, so we'll talk about it, you know, when we can on Mondays. We can wrap up there. How worried are you about the show's depiction of disco culture, which does feel, which is coming, which is coming? You know, as a big disco guy, you know, I'll defend it until I'm dead. Thanks to Kaya for producing, as always. I hope people check out Daisy Jones if they haven't already.

And we'll be back on Thursday. Yeah. I think it's a pretty special episode. Oh. I think we have a special guest on Thursday. So I'm looking forward to that. Everybody have a good week. Talk to you soon.