The Worst Idea Of All Time - And Just Like That... Part 4

Episode Date: December 25, 2021

So THIS is Christmas. Guy and Timbo have taken a break from their Yuletide family festivities to watch the gals and report back to you, our sole Libertarian listener. This episode doesn't just feature one King (Brady - obviously) but the Return of A King. A man who enjoys hot streaming java more than Carrie loves shoes and guess what: Our Guy has really come up in the world.The third king, Mattress Pikelet, continues to wrestle with social issues he's barely keeping on top of. Racial complexities, mourning, addiction. Why not throw them all in this 36 minute pot? Runkle rocks, cigs are back and Kim Cattrall's vindication is ultimate.MUSIC CREDIT: Intro - People Need Goals / Outro - ampersandschwa Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

oh my god they're only doing sex in the city again this truly is the worst idea of all time merry christmas my motherfucking brother merry christmas guy montgomery i got you the gift of episode four for and just like that tim the timing couldn't be better i like nothing more than on the 25th of december unwrapping a spanking hot new high definition video of three of my best friends wandering around the town of my fourth best friend new york city and can i say this you didn't fail to deliver there was an episode it was in my stocking

I took it out, I held it up under the light I could see it was authentic and I watched it, I watched it with my eyes and I heard it with my ears and I experienced it with my heart and I'm so grateful to have a friend to talk about it with because

if they didn't release him you know i wouldn't watch him and if i didn't have someone to talk about them with i don't know what i'd do with this feeling inside how are you i'm good guy merry christmas to you um i would first of all i've look i suspect you're going to be on the wavelength here there's kind of a big fucking ticket item hopefully you know what I'm talking about which was in the episode I don't want to lead with it

but I'm very excited about it I'm excited to talk about it, I'm excited about the ramifications of what it means that it was in the episode but before we get to that it was in the episode. But before we get to that, let's cover this sort of more neutral, calm ground.

I would love to get a little bit of colour and context. It is literally Christmas Day in New Zealand. A stonker here in Tamaki Makaurau where I am in Auckland City. Where are you? When did you watch it? How did you watch it? Run me through i'm in a little non-place called lake hayes it's a little lake in the south island between queenstown and arrow town and it is sweltering it's so hot it's so hot today i'm gonna close the studio i'm gonna sweat my dick off by the time we're done today yeah i can't wait for tim to be podcasting like a fucking ken doll on the back end of this

episode takes me i feel like this entire country is sizzling like a sausage on a barbecue because a lot of people will say they're against global warming, but every now and then there'll be a Christmas day that can turn around an entire summer. I have had a wonderful day. I am at my parents' house with my younger sister Annie, and we celebrated Christmas by going for a gorgeous walk. I believe in America, on the West Coast, some would call it a hike.

It was about an hour and a half. It was seven and a half Ks with a lot of uphill, and it was gorgeous. Simply gorgeous. I've been in fine fetal all day. My spirits are high. I received this hat I'm wearing. Great hat. You can see.

It's quite, look, I'll be on. Oh, it says Duff on it, like the bear from The Simpsons The picture I'm getting right now is quite pixelated But I get the idea of the hat and I love it It's a corduroy hat that says can't get enough of that wonderful Duff Who got you that though? That was my sisters They know me, they know me down to the ground Go sisters Montgomery, go.

But no Christmas day would be complete without waking up at 7.30 a.m. and thinking to myself, I don't know what the day has in store, but I do know at 5 o'clock NZT, I'm going to be talking turkey with Tim. Yes. So, why not do my homework first things first so I can have a relaxing and relaxed day in the sun Yes. and I just unfurled this episode straight into my eyes.

Hadn't had a coffee, which was actually a fascinating subplot in the episode. Basically, I just got things started, and then I went through my day looking forward to this. I couldn't concentrate on the walk. I couldn't concentrate on my family. I couldn't concentrate on the gifts, giving or receiving. All I could think about was what will Tim make of this visual feast? And here we are.

Now, before I ask you about your Christmas, there is something. Just to set the table for our listeners in this episode I want to talk about. The episode is called Some of My Best Friends. Episode four of And Just Like That, Some of My Best best friends And some of my best friends are Tim Back But in this episode All of the three remaining gals Carrie, Charlotte and Miranda Go on a fascinating journey

And unique journey To having one friend of colour Yes In their lives. Yes. And it is, I mean, I'm just going to put that out there like a tantalising piece of listener bait before I ask you, Tim. First Christmas as a father.

I don't know if you've been hosting, but I know you're in your home. I know you've got some family in Auckland. Strange sequence of events that you've laid out at the start of this episode. Christmas, gorgeous, lovely stuff. Baby's good. We've been in lockdown, so this is among the first couple of times

that my parents have gotten to meet we, Remy. So it's been very, very nice. My uncle was lovely enough to host us and put on a fantastic spread. All your proteins, all your veggies, all cooked to perfection. Wow. Fantastic stuff. It's a lot of protein and vegetables. All of them?

Yes. Every single one. Can you imagine it? Then it was on the table. Too much food. If you can dream of it. Must have been a pretty long table. It was a long Christmas.

Yeah. But, I mean, my my god so you've already mentioned a couple of big ticket items number one uh one of the early themes look when you when you're writing literature um you're writing for the screen for the cinema for the stage novelizations what have you you've got to have themes and one of the themes of this episode is we're in New York, baby, and we drink coffee. Yeah. It is unmissable.

It is unmistakable. It is yet another breadcrumb on the trail that Mattress Pikelet has left for Timsel and Geitel as they navigate their way to Carrie Bradshaw's gingerbread house. Now, who's the witch? Is Carrie the witch or is Mattress Pike the witch? I think they're in cahoots. But, I mean, this whole episode starts with a bunch of people who are pretty much saying,

hey, don't freaking talk to me till I had my morning coffee. I've got to have my coffee. It is crazy. There's so many mentions of coffee. I don't know why they decided that. Especially, like, have it in the whole show. But just to introduce it into this, it was like they freaked out. And they were like, oh, man, we've got some awkward conversations about race relations coming up soon.

So let's start them off easy. Let's talk Java. Well, you know what I say to them. I always say first coffee and then adulting. That's what I always say. And it's crazy, isn't it? Because everyone's drinking coffee. They're talking coffee.

You're seeing coffee. You can almost smell the coffee through the screen. But we're sitting at home and we're thinking to ourselves, where the fuck is New York City's most famous coffee drinker? And lo and behold, let's not bury the lead any longer. Guy, coffee guy, is fucking back. And he's not just back. He is new and improved.

He is dapper as hell. He's got a three-piece suit. He's wearing a beautiful tie. And this time, his coffee is a little too hot for him so he's got to keep blowing on it and we see him do it a bunch and he's reading a newspaper and he refuses to use the saucer and i was so fucking elated to see him i thought i was going to scream so he brought me that so this scene happens at 15 30 minutes and 15 seconds duration into this episode. If you want to bookmark it and have a look at what we're talking about.

The scene started playing out. I don't even know who the fuck is talking. Is this with Miranda having a coffee with someone? Charlotte. Wait, I'm going to have to. Dude, I have to pause you. Yeah. I didn't see him.

I love it. I didn't see the guy. Unbelievable. I thought, here's what I thought. There's so much coffee at the start of this episode. They're setting up the episode, sure, but mostly they're ordering, they're making, they're drinking coffee. Miranda, famously anti-pot Miranda, who's just had this crazy experience

at one of the worst comedy gigs of her life. She hooked up with Star, kind of. Stoned to the bone in her kitchen, just staring down her coffee machine while it slowly drip feeds coffee into the pot. And Brady and his girlfriend come in and they give her shit for being a stoner. And I fucking love it. But the episode keeps going.

And then Carrie, who's at her old place, gets out her old mocha master and starts trying to make a coffee. I don't remember how. The few nods to the old school as well. She's wearing, I believe, the iconic dress from the original intro, right? From the TV show where she gets sprayed with the bus. Or it's at least like a heavy nod to it.

It's an homage, yes. And she goes back to, I'm assuming, a quite iconic bodega that is at her old apartment, which I assume, I'm guessing guessing plays a big role in the tv series that's right but the the um i'm sorry while i talk to you i'm also just lining up i need to catch up to you in terms of knowing exactly where our guys but the thing is before she goes to bodega she goes because she's in her old apartment she's in her outfit and she's lining up a um a coven she puts her mock master in and this thing's fucking it's like a babbling brook it's bubbling it's troubling it's spewing forth ground down

beans and boiling water all over a countertop and i couldn't help but think to myself is the spirit of coffee guy not trapped in this machine that's what thought. And I watched the episode being like the ghost of coffee guy. He might not be visible, but he's present. And then here I am, ready to talk to you. And you tell me that 30 minutes and 15 seconds into the famous episode, some of my best friends, our hero makes return. So set the table, Tim. I'm going to catch up in real time.

I've got the time stamp literally cafe i could i could tell you everything coffee guy's wearing can't even remember who's talking who the main character is in the conversation i'll tell you i'll tell you who's in conversation it's charlotte and it's terrible actually i don't know her name uh but it's her it's her friend her very powerful and beautiful black friend who she is absolutely in fear of sort of alienating or um or she's basically Charlotte lives in fear of anyone knowing what she's actually like and uh currently this friend is top of the pops she's at the very top of the list of people she doesn't want to see her as she is and they're out at a coffee shop and they're in conversation and tim

you continue to tell me what happens as i actually watch what happens uh well i think i've listed all the main stuff but we have got a upgraded version of coffee guy who is like if the coffee guy that we know from sex in the city 2 has stumbled into not just quite a lot of money, but a whole lot of style. He is elegant, dressed to the nines, and situated center of frame during this conversation, to the point where when this happened on screen, Zoe yelled out at me because the baby was doing something really cute

that she wanted me to see, and fair play to her, Remy was being adorable. said to her well i've got news too coffee guy is back and i'm pretty sure this is a direct attack at guy and i like it is inescapable the distinct possibility that mattress packlet king has listened to the podcast, knows what we're up to, and is throwing these things in for us. Okay. As I said, there are too many breadcrumbs at this point for it to be just a coincidence. I've watched it.

And basically, in terms of development of age and perhaps fortune, everything checks out. This guy, silver fox fox slicked back here three-piece suit business paper in front of him coffee in hand he's calling over the same waitress twice for reasons that we don't know presumably the coffee's not hot enough well hold on before you go any further into like developing these questions i mean, it's sort of, it's begging for a little something, a little ba-da-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba. A squee-da-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba.

Merry Christmas. See-ba-dee-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba- Where's he going? What's he going? What's he off to? Where is he? It's coffee guy. Who is this guy? He's back. Yeah. He looks good. You've got to assume he's feeling good.

Oh, yeah. The one complaint he has is this thing isn't scalding hot. Hey, madam, I can still feel my tongue. Fix it. Madam. He's up to his eyeballs in the stock market he's um probably honestly i've been to a cafe to work and uh it doesn't matter what your deadline is it doesn't matter how hard you're trying to concentrate if there are two people having a deeply personal or like what seems to be an intimate or an opening up of emotion and conversation, you know,

you can't concentrate because you just, it's like, you know, we've got these internally calibrated radio stations, which are tuned to internal monologue or what's happening just over there. And, you know, you've got to assume he's trying to work through it, but he can't put his coffee cup down i just watched him the guy literally cannot separate his fingers from the the uh the stem or what's it the handle of the mug it's not a stem i think he's he's not he's blowing on it as a sort of uh cover because he's trying to tune in on what they're talking about and um it is charlotte right in that scene

there's a few there's a lot of conversations in this episode it's hard to keep track i've literally just watched it um yeah by the way um conversation yeah that's currently the fifth friend yes that's correct um charlotte is so like most of this episode honestly most of this episode is charlotte grappling with the fact that she doesn't have a diverse enough friend group. And she freaks out when she is. Is she initially going to host the dinner or she's just going to someone? She's hosting one, I think. Her friend who she's on the school board alongside.

And they get along famously. But she gets invited. No. Yeah. school board alongside and they, they get along famously. Um, but, uh, she gets invited. No. Yeah. Charlotte invites her around for dinner and then has to put on like a big show of it. Cause that's what high society people do.

They don't have enough problems. So they have to invent problems. And these invented problems for high society people are, I must impress my other anxious, rich friends who also don't have real problems with an amazing dinner. And if I fail at this task, my life's over. It sounds trivial to recount it, but you've got to appreciate these problems are as real as any of the problems anyone else in the world faces. Because this is literally all they know.

Because this is literally all they know. They cannot fathom a life in which they have to worry about anything more than having exactly the right balance of friends and exactly the right dinner party. Or this school friend, this friend of a child who attends school alongside Charlotte's kids may remain just that. She might not penetrate the second tier of friendship, which is a friend-friend. And as Charlotte sort of, the friend flippantly says, oh, we've got to hang out outside of this context. I'm actually free in two nights. What about Thursday? And Charlotte says, Thursday's great.

And then we watch her scramble. And the scrambling is so weird because the spanner in the works to the Thursday night dinner is that she's just booked Runkle in for a colonoscopy on Friday morning. Runkle's getting a pretty tidy run in this season. He is. They're not wasting their chance. I wrote down a note for Runkle and that is,

in this episode runkle really displays himself as a man who has learned the value of shutting the hell up just head down doing what he's told keeping everyone happy oh yeah he's like he and you'd have to i mean i look i don't want to um no one knows what goes on inside of another person's relationship. You could look at your friends and you think they're the happiest in the world and you just don't – you know what you see. But no one knows the intimate details. But you've got to imagine to maintain this happy and seemingly functional marriage with Charlotte that Runkle has become an absolute master in grinning and bearing it. Because Charlotte, there are points in this episode

where I'm like, Charlotte is going to drive everyone in her life away from her. She is such, like she's so obsessed with how she's perceived. She's so controlling about the image she broadcasts. It looks like one of the least relaxing ways to live your life imaginable. It's exhausting to be in proximity to even from behind the fourth wall and runkle just fucking ponies up and takes it

and he actually had what has to be the greatest moment not just of this episode but of the season so far so on their way to this dinner party it turns out charlotte can't host the dinner party the friend can't make it on that night for whatever reason. But as a counter, she says, why don't you come to my husband's birthday? We'll have a great time. And Charlotte says, yeah, okay. And she's aware that she's going to a black person's dinner party. And so, you know, that of course means she has to educate herself.

Yeah. It's taken until now of spending an entire adult lifetime living in New York City, working in the art scene for her to go oh fuck african americans exist god damn it i forgot so she has to cram like some sort of physics student that missed all the readings and has a test the next day has to catch up on like 50 years of black history and current literature i i will say this you know that is a that is a lifelong blind spot but to her credit she fucking ponies up and does her work and she even dispatches runkel a couple of articles to just cast an eye over to make sure he's good to go she gives him

the cliff notes version of like okay this this magazine article references all the authors you can name drop so just read this and you'll be okay and he does and they're riding in the elevator up and she said did you read the article and it's like yeah she's okay name three so it's so good it's like he's wearing a band t-shirt which says i read black literature she's like oh yeah you read black literature name three black authors and he says sadie smith and char, no, no, it's Sadie Smith. And he goes, okay, anyway. So we just have that in the back of our mind.

They go into this dinner party. Hold on, because he sets it up in the lift. Because he's like, can't I just say I read Michelle Obama's book? And I have so much time for Runkle's approach to life, which is like, can't i just live my life as myself and face whatever the consequences of that may be like oh honestly the truth shall set you free and the refusal to engage with the idiom is what traps charlotte in this fucking self-made prison of self-flagellation which is not dissimilar to the situation we're in on Christmas Day.

Yes, we Charlotte. Yes. So they're at the dinner party and there's not a white guest to be seen. Charlotte and Runkle represent the entirety of the white community and they're nervous. And, you know, there's an irony that Charlotte sees or believes in, which is, you know, here she was worrying that there'd be no, you know, other diverse guests at her dinner party,

and yet she represents diversity at the dinner party she's going to. And they're sitting around, they're shooting the breeze. Well, well, I'm sorry to keep it. I really do apologize for interjecting, but I know you watched this this morning. I think it's important to get the details right. It's just this was a moment that gave me, I mean, if I bought a little bit more into the show,

and they're doing a not bad job in this episode with a few aspects of getting buy-in from the old Timbo, but she opens by walking in and bowling up to a random woman and being like, hey, Gwen, I haven't seen you in ages since your son was at school with my daughter. And then she's like, that haven't seen you in ages since your son, you know, was at school with my daughter. And then she's like, that isn't me, but I know who you're talking about. And it just goes back to Charlotte to like show her face. I was like, if we have to stay in this moment, because I kind of, I did feel that a little bit.

I've got what I would describe as like moderate facial blindness. I've been in situations that are sort of walking up to this point in my life where i've mistaken i've i've done it in my life yeah i've mistaken people for other people and like opened up a conversational vein but i know to not trust my memory enough to keep things pretty vague at the outset have a big wide funnel until i can figure out like with confidence that I'm talking to the person I think I am. So she bowls in with a strong offer. It's a swing and a miss. And it's one of those ones that just breaks your heart to see.

It's a classic mistake. And it's, it's a trap that this show and this season continues to set for our heroes, which is, well, when it comes to, you know, the modern matters of race and sexuality and gender, these girls can be clumsy. And, you know, there's nothing more humanizing than that. Yeah, that's true.

Aside from watching them be clumsy in multi-million dollar environments. We're walking down the path to get to your favorite moment with Runkle. Yes. And so she has this moment, and then they're all sitting around the dinner table. And actually, again, Tim, you might need to, I mean, I assume you know what I'm talking about, but you might need to help me set it up,

which is basically the conversation's all flowing, and Runkle is not relaxed. It is said at some point after the dinner that it was observed he sweated through his suit. And to be fair, that's because Charlotte put him so heavily under the pump. He did not have permission to be himself. But basically at one point, there's a moment of familial tension between Charlotte's friend and her domineering mother-in-law, who we've met in a previous episode who who is referenced earlier as being the reason the original dinner couldn't happen because she last minute threw it on her daughter-in-law that she was going to take her to the opera so this is this this cloud is sort of looming in the episode

this mother-in-law of charlotte's friend and uh she what does she say she says she says i i'm actually i actually tim i've just written down the line and i've written down runkle with perfect comedy delivery but i cannot remember precisely do you want the opportunity this i can't remember the opportunity the show serves him to deliver the lead up is okay well i could it's it's kind of long actually so i'll try and keep this as possible but basically the mother-in-law says, it contents onto the fact that Charlotte is somewhat interested or knowledgeable about art.

We know, sort of, from the TV show, and by we I mean Guy and myself, that Charlotte York used to run an art gallery in New York City. Well, I mean, it's referenced in the movie, but we do not regard the TV show as canon. That's true. We don't know for a fact. Apparently. It's been regard the TV show as canon. Yeah, that's true. We don't know for a fact. Apparently. It's been said.

It's not been seen. It's been referenced in what we know to be the key texts, which are Sex and the City, the movie, and Sex and the City 2, the movie. So she says, oh, my favorite art is Art Smith. This is the mother-in-law talking. And that's a bit of a joke because Art Smith is the financial advisor for the family

and and she goes on to say my daughter-in-law has spent more on uh these prints that you see around the wall than my husband and i spent uh on our first home in north carolina and then charlotte says well i cannot speak to the property prices in the Carolinas, but, and then proceeds to go around individually naming all of the fantastic photographers that have taken these amazing shots, their storied careers, referencing that it is a fantastic investment that her daughter-in-law has made. Yeah, she pretty much delivers a bibliography on the art hanging off the walls.

The final piece of which is a photo that has been taken by the person who took the first, I think, White House portrait of Michelle Obama. Painted. Oh, sorry. It's a photo. It painted the first portrait of Michelle Obama. And so everyone...

No, that's actually not the line. But yeah, at that point, there's a painting of the portrait of Michelle Obama and Runkle goes, I love that book! And you feel like elation that he finally gets to experience life in his own skin at the table. But my favorite line was, I think it's before Charlotte sort of parries back and saves her friend's ass.

It's when the mother-in-law sets up some incredible tension, and Runkle, just trying to cut through this moment goes anyone read the new zadie smith book sorry yes right it's perfect he's so out of his element but he's just like following the script he's been given to a t and like you just know if anyone says yes and you know returns conversational service he's absolutely fucked but he doesn't care like he's just a

good guy but god almighty like it's just a joy to see him being given a bit to do because he is and it sounds badly that we're watching in just like that and favouring you know, these ancillary male characters.

But if you spent as much time with these gals as we did, you would understand this is not gender. I think at this point there's, there's, there's enough, like even by osmosis, just absorbing random headlines of like, you know,

Atlantic articles and think pieces written by Vox. You know that these are bad women and it's okay to know that. I've, I've not engaged with any, like, you know, Atlantic articles and think pieces written by Vox. You know that these are bad women and it's okay to know that. I've not engaged with any, like, I cannot wait until we finish the season to see what people who are a lot smarter than us thought about the whole thing. But all I could think this whole episode was like, how in the, not just like, well, I mean, first of all, like, how did they ever think that a television show built around these sorts of, you know,

conversations and moments could ever, you know, be parlayed into a movie, but then, you know, more than that, how did they make those two movies last five fucking hours? Because it is all,

I mean, and you know, like in the hands of brilliant creators, any tiny moment can be extrapolated. And you know, like in the hands of brilliant creators, any tiny moment can be extrapolated. And, you know, like you could watch a movie which is just one moment in two people's lives. And if it was told correctly or, you know, or effectively or movingly.

Do you know what comes to mind? The Sunset series with Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke. Like that's kind of a conversational, and there's more than one of those movies. I think there's at least one of those movies i think there's at least two maybe three before i think before sunrise at first these two people who meet incidentally and just have this incredible connection they wander the streets and they're just talking getting to know each other and it's truly like it's it's a beautiful piece of

filmmaking and this is just like i mean they've had so many bites of the apple here you know it's it's very American. If there's still money to be made out of a franchise, we do not need to be precious about people's relationship to it or where it stands in the cultural pantheon because I can see, you know, $400 million inside of Carrie Bradshaw. And so it doesn't matter how painful it will be for everyone involved, but I'm going to get it out of here.

So this is the picture that you're painting for me, is it's like we have to smash a piggy bank, which is your heart, to get all the money out. That is what it feels like. I could not have empathized more with Kim Cattrall when watching this episode than being like, I'm so, it's episode four. It's an eight episode season,

I think. I'm so fucking tired of following a grieving Carrie Bradshaw around like this gilded version of New York. I could give a fuck. I could care less. I mean, Carrie's got her own burgeoning friendship

with a person of color to enjoy in this episode. Kim Cattrall, and not Samantha, the character, but Kim Cattrall, and not Samantha the character, but Kim Cattrall the actor, is, for my money, the actual hero of And Just Like That. Because to have the foresight of knowing just how diabolical this was going to be and get offered what I imagine would be

a not insignificant amount of money. And, you know, Kim Cattrall has cemented herself. She's like the Sean Connery of Sex and the City. She's cemented herself so much in this role that really you can't, you know, if she pops up as something else, oh, Samantha from Sex and the City is being this person. And yet she still had the solid enough head on her shoulders to go, not worth it, not doing it.

And she was completely right um yeah can i throw a completely different thing in the mix here guy if i may wish you would what the fuck is going on with paliton because it gets mentioned a lot to the point where i would have put money on the fact that it was a product placement except i'm proliferally aware that i i think there might be some legal action brewing because the first episode big dies on a peloton and their share price went down like by quite a bit and they were very angry about this and how quickly the how quickly the world moves because they then released an ad i think ryan reynolds made that he's because he did so ryan reynolds yeah yeah he is the voiceover artist for it if you notice he does the narration and

ryan reynolds has got like a telecommunications company now called mint mobile he's got his own gin brand called aviation and the dude is actually kind of like an entrepreneurial marketer who's just really good looking and good at acting so i think that i i don't know this but i think that ryan reynolds like got on the phone to a bunch of people because he's he's got enough alice power to just get it done and got chris noth got the ad got it produced got it up did the voicing got it to air um of course what we now know is that like fucking 36 hours later those horrific uh stories started coming out about chris noth from the younger woman so the whole thing has just been an absolute

car crash of a situation yeah well that's the thing is because yeah from peloton's perspective it's like you fucked us yeah and then ryan reynolds comes along he's like okay we can make something out of this all right i've got an idea we'll'll put Chris Knoth in the air and bring him back and heavily associate him in a positive way with your brand. And then you go, you could not have fucked us any worse. And just like that, Ryan Reynolds fucked Peloton. Yeah, and just like that, Peloton is taking legal action against the sex in the city universe, which is so good.

Like, you know, this intersection of worlds. I actually, you know, I just, lots of people say the word Peloton in the episode and then Carrie, her apartment is being done. So she's decided to sell her and Big's apartment because it's too painful. So yeah. Introduce real talk character, Seema,

a woman of Carrie's age who is loudly and proudly single and knows what she wants and does some of the most sensational walking while acting I've seen. She's being shown around Carrie Bradshaw's apartment and every scene it's like watching her rehearse a play. It's like the best episode of the West Wing you'll ever see. It's like they actually needed to get live sports camera people in to film Seamus scenes because of the pace at which

she's moving across the camera and through these rooms the greatest camera operators from the nfl to follow this woman sema which by the way means boundary in hindi which is funny because she doesn't have any her words not mine but yeah so carrie's trying to sell her apartment through sema because she's just decided she's going to park the whole you know my husband died in their experience and move on with her life yeah and as you were saying tim sema is uh walking around it yeah she's like you even played the gorgeous gotta go yeah it's like someone loaded up a saved state of the sims that someone else worked real hard on and just deleted all of the furniture and trappings and pieces inside the house.

So it's just this beige, wall-to-wall beige experience so that potential buyers can come in and put their own vision on the place. But then it's kind of fucking crazy. Walk opens the closet door and the only item that's in there is just a palaton front and center which is the thing that killed big and i like this is after the word palaton which is trademarked as i understand it there was half a dozen times there was a conversation between them when they're walking around and sema's like okay i love what you've done with this room it's got to go love you done with this room. It's got to go. Love what you've done with this room. Got to go. You know, buyers are like dogs.

They're fucking idiots. They need to see something empty so they can transpose their life on top of it. Carrie's like, oh, it seems pretty tricky, but okay. And signs off. And they're walking around. And they walk into the wardrobe bathroom area, which is famous from Sex and the City 2. And, like, you know, the wardrobe and bathroom that is uh an en suite to big and carrie's bedroom is like it's the size of basically any normal apartment maybe larger than any normal apartment in new york city is absurd and seymour says this is the first place

i think i've ever had where i could take a photo of the bathroom and it would sell the apartment and she's looking and she's looking carrie's obviously gotten rid of the Peloton because of all the awful memories it brings back. And Seema says, do you know what would really pull focus in this room? A Peloton. And it's like no one in their right mind would think, no, like the last thing the room is missing is a fucking exercise bike.

Yeah, it's out of nowhere. It doesn't look good. It looks like shit and it ruins the room is missing is a fucking exercise bike yeah it's out of nowhere it doesn't look good it looks like shit and it ruins the room but seemer this realtor is like you know what this needs copyright protected intellectual property yeah there exactly it was like the the suzanne summers book in the um second movie it's just like why does it keep fucking talking about this how much what is the relationship what is the relationship it's a hard thing to try and get in the second movie. It's just like, why does Rick keep fucking talking about this? How much money has changed? What is the relationship? It's a hard thing to try and get our head around. But at any rate,

so it gets mentioned a bunch and then Carrie's like, I don't know about a Peloton. And then later on, she's on the phone to Miranda walking around her now completely deleted apartment. And she's like, I got to go.

There's a fucking Peloton here. I'm going to bounce. And she takes Big, who was cremated which i thought was interesting not buried i guess more people are doing that now um and then bounces what will you do probably get cremated what will you do i get cremated before before or after the service that's a good questionn't thought about that one Might suss out my will now that I've got a kid Been thinking about that

I want to go open casket I want to get roasted by Tim Batt And then I want my ass to get burned Yeah that's pretty sick, that's a good sequence of events We can all pay our last respects to your Sort of earthly I want the walkout music at my funeral To be

I heard somebody say burn, baby, burn. Disco inferno, burn, baby, burn. Oh, man. We really do talk about our own death a lot on different podcast projects, don't we? What does it say about our project? I don't know. Stanford Blatch is gone, baby.

Which is sad because he died in real life after this was wrapped. The episode is dedicated to Willie Garson, who famously played Stanford Blatch across the span of the show. And it is just another example. And, in fact, we could dedicate this podcast to Willie Garson because he seems like a fantastic guy. This one does go to Willie. But it's just a further

example of and just like that's like it's crazy well hold on let me let me tell everyone what happened so yes please carrie stumbles upon a note that i think is in her old apartment that stanford left for her um and it says hey i've gone to japan And then she rings Anthony up and she's like, what the fuck's going on? And then he comes over. And Stanford in the show now has just bounced, gone to Japan to manage a TikTok star? TikTok star. Okay.

I didn't even realize he was a talent agent at any point. And he's asked for a divorce from Anthony. I mean, he's a bit of a handful, but I do love every scene we spend with Anthony at his hot fella's bakery. He's awesome, man. Anthony's like, because we got no Steve in this episode. We didn't get a goddamn lick of Steve in this episode. Very grateful for Brady up top and very grateful for Anthony.

We do keep getting a bit of Runkle. That's true. Basically, Stanford writes a note that says, hey, introduces several new things at once. It's like, hey, I've gone to Tokyo to manage this TikTok star. Also, TikTok exists in this universe and I'm a talent agent. This show does not have to address the absence of its actors. It's the same way they did Samanthaantha dirty it's just like and i

understand that they would have been like this would have been a shock to everyone involved in the production it would have been devastating like you know they lost one of their one of their core players during production and i don't know how you incorporate that into a season-long story arc more specifically into an episode where you might have had, you know, uh, things, things to do, which, you know, dictated what would happen. But surely you can do better than just a guy writing a note that says, I'm in Japan. See you never.

Like it's fucking crazy. Can I ask you a question though, as a person uniquely positioned, perhaps the only other person on earth who could, um, have the requisite experience to go with me on this carrie reads the letter and then says to anthony who does he think he is with this note the lost bronte sister hasn't that joke been used in one of the movies it has and haven't they got the

you're like haven't they as actors got the knowledge that we have as audience members which are there's a reason that that Stanford is not in this episode, and that's because his actor has died. No, no, no, no, you're wrong. That's not the case. The whole season had wrapped, and then Willie died. What? This is coincidence.

I'm pretty sure, Because he died very recently. He died really recently. I don't think they were still shooting. I mean, it's a great question for the Trainspotters because it felt so abrupt. Oh, no, maybe you're right. I'm just looking at some Hollywood reporter headlines. To me, it absolutely reeks of having to incorporate

a death of a performer into the rest of a season. Oh, this is awful. Yeah, it's an absolute balls up. And to recycle the same Bronte sister joke, and, like, you know, the thing is that when they're recording this and when we're watching it, they know that we know the reason that the character has gone to Japan is because the actor has died. Yeah.

And so to, like, offhandedly dismiss it as like who does he think he is the lost bronte sister geez i hope no one wanted sex in the city too recently and he'd be like he's in japan but also not only not only i hope no one's watched the movie recently i hope no one's a fan of that character or actor who's portrayed him for 25 years because it's so disrespectful to offhandedly do that and then have the fucking gall the temerity to dedicate the entire episode to willie i mean and look to be fair i don't want to doubt the love that everyone involved in the production has for willie garson because you know he did a great job but i just think total fucking balls up we've had so much fun discussing this

tim we haven't left ourselves much rum runway to discuss a few things that are important to me that i think should be addressed before we get out of here uh namely i mean this ties in pretty neatly with um my favorite and least favorite characters for the episode my favorite this episode miranda it's good to have her back full force she goes out for a meal with her law professor nia wallace we know they got off to a rocky start uh and she really really advertises her wares as a friend and a listener she doesn't put any of her own stuff forward she just just sits there and like, honestly, it was inspiring. It was a real model, like one of the few models and bastions of friendship that we've seen in the show so far.

Nia is talking about her experience with IVF and the fears she's having as a woman who doesn't know necessarily whether she wants to be a mum or to have a child while she's going through all of the rigmarole of trying to ensure that it happens. And Miranda just sits back. She does some incredible listening. She doesn't offer advice.

She crushes it completely. On a scale of Carrie Bradshaw to George Lazenby, how good is the listening? She's one peg down from Lazenby. It's a masterclass. And you cannot see her boner in a single one of the frames. It is honestly incredible. And that actually dovetails in with my least favorite character.

And this is petty, but what are you going to do? You can be petty. It's the Miranda and Nia go to this restaurant and they're waiting. There's a scene of them waiting to eat and as they're standing there in front of the front desk with the maitre d standing behind it looking at an ipad they're waiting and two people leave and miranda's like that guy with the straw hat those people came in after that guy in the straw hat leaving with the doggy bag they arrived after us and i'm watching that and i'm like this is fucking crazy who would arrive at a restaurant

and wait for so long that another person's entire dining experience could take place like not just wait for that long but wait for that long without any information and that leads me to my least favorite person which is the maitre d who is admittedly near wallace she made the booking but she made it for the corresponding restaurant in San Francisco. So their mistake is on her. But the refusal to engage with their issue at all on arrival and then in the 40 minutes that follow it, while they just patiently stand in front of his table

or his service station and be like, what is going on here? Are we going to get to eat? I just thought that's just you know and a lot of these hip eateries you know people and it's it's you know i've worked in hospitality i understand it's their right to feel about the customers however they do but i just thought it was it was bad it was there was a bad attitude it was a bad customer service experience and it's what stayed with me didn't like it least favorite character in the universe for this

episode good on you guy i think that. Least favorite character in the universe for this episode. Good on you, Guy. I think that speaks volumes about your experience in the hospitality industry and also your commitment to customer service and making sure that everyone's having a good time around you. I do love that. I would say least favorite,

because I don't know who that is. Let me figure this out. Probably already named Carrie. I think I i did or maybe the first one it's tricky it's tricky it's trick oh okay well fuck it i'll bestow this honor upon him that fucking guy fieri looking dude who's i wrote down guy fury light as well do you know it's not his apartment? He's just a very wealthy, recently divorced guy looking for something to buy. Okay, this guy, pretty cool, but I'll give him worst character award for this episode.

He was a dog. He was a dog. He's a dirty dog. He's gross. He tries to seduce Carrie at an open home by saying, shall we check out the bedroom? And he's got a really dark energy. You're right, you're right yeah he definitely deserves worst uh worst character award but i

mean like it's just it's good to have a fun confident villain in some of this so i couldn't agree more and i he was on the he was on the line for me he could have easily been favorite character because he's a fucking deplorable guy but i'm like at least he's living honestly he's a fucking deplorable guy, but I'm like, at least he's living honestly. He's fun. That's what it's about, isn't it? He's true to himself. My favorite character is Herbert. Who's Herbert, I hear you ask? Well, that is the husband of Lisa,

who is Charlotte's black friend who is hosting the dinner, and Herbert is just like this. He strikes me as an intensely conciliatory man who can get any group of people together and whatever beef may be above the surface or bubbling away under the surface he can just get a group of people to gel and have a good time together i watched him i liked what he was doing on screen and i thought to myself that guy looks so familiar. Is he in Hamilton? And then I thought to myself, have I just done the same thing that Charlotte did and totally misremembered who he is and gotten confused with someone? And then I looked him up and I'm happy to report that Herbert, portrayed by Christopher Jackson, is indeed George Washington from the original Broadway run Of Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton

So a fantastic singer And actor in musical theatre And a great character in this show Herbert, we salute ye Yet another breadcrumb In Mattress Pikelet's fucking Breadcrumb trail for the boys Who is, you know

Who are we vaguely affiliated Who was in Sex and the City 2? Lin-Manuel. I've just got, before we go, I've got a few bullet points to get through. Look, I just want to say this, though. Coffee Guy is in a realm of his own. Obviously, he's my favorite character, but that's a whole other universe. I mean, the evidence is stacking up beyond belief that he knows we're out here.

I know, bro. And I hope he's watching along. I'd like to say the following things. I really like, there's a classy touch, Todd Rundgren, who big references his favorite musician, and is played on their record player in episode one. There is a new instrumental arrangement of the song. It's important to me that you know you're free.

I can't remember the name. Fuck, I can't remember the name. But there's an instrumental version of that song playing in the apartment when Carrie first walks through it again in this episode. Also, I don't remember if I said this, but that song is sampled in an Erykah Badu song, and Erykah Badu is playing insects in the city when they're having the osso bucco dinner big cooks like the tomatoes all it all fucking it all

connects up uh what else have i got here i've got carrie wore a hat that rivals her ridiculous uh hades queen of darkness hat to the big gay wedding at lunch after she sees the murderous peloton it was absurd, it's a flat hat, it's not quite a beret it looks like the biggest bird in the world has taken a massive shit

on the middle of her head and she's just rolled with it, it was a disaster While we're rattling things off and it looks like maybe you've got one or two other points to make, I'll just throw this in. Love that Smoking Sigs is back. There's no getting around this. Crushing a dart just looks cool on screen.

Sorry, everybody. It just does. It's an inescapable truth. Seam is on the darts and Carrie's on the darts too, and there's nothing not to love about that. Rocco, Seam's's driver appears to be played by jeremy strong yes aka thank you thank you thanks from succession saw it thought it saw him again thought it again so happy to hear you say it uncredited role uh either like it's hard

to say whether or not this is my favorite or least favorite person in the show but in mattress pikelet sort of um desperate diversity casting attempts in this season of sex in the city he has cast a social media manager at the podcast that carrie works in a wheelchair who just like she's got one scene which is basically fucking putting everyone in front of her on blast. Yeah. Well, she keeps telling Carrie that her social media is a dead body, a corpse. It is lifeless. And everyone else is like, Bobby Lee's like, call it with the recently deceased chat.

But it's a very, very clearly throwaway ancillary character who they've cast the net wide and either hats off or nose tip to match his pike lip. I guess engaging with the modern world on his terms. Charlotte's off the deep end. I've got... Miranda's still on the source, unabated. Yeah, Miranda's still on the source, unabated. Yeah, Miranda's still on the source. No, I mean, do you know what?

We've pretty much got it all. Seema and Carrie, there's a beautiful moment at the end where Carrie accuses Seema of being insensitive, and I'd say Carrie's pretty out of line when she does it, and Seema's like, okay, I made a mistake. I'm sorry, but also you are insensitive. And Carrie, we get to see a rare moment of self-reflection from carrie where it actually connects with her as a person which is

pretty incredible there's one i don't want to like yeah we're closing off here but there's a couple moments and i think i think they all involve sema where carrie brach was put on the back foot that's where this character should live all the time it's where she is her most charming is when she has equipped to disarm a situation that is sort of gotten away from her like when she's walking around sema is this um super confident very efficient real estate agent who's like that's gotta go that's gotta go that's gotta go This is pretty heartbreaking stuff for a recent widow that like, you know, all of this memorabilia of her life has to go with, you know, her recently departed husband. And she just throws these, I can't even remember what she says, but these little, oh, she says, don't take,

she says, Seema, stop. I have something important to say. Don't touch any of my shoes and then semy looks at her and says i totally get it i named all my bags this is lorraine and carrie goes nice to meet you and it's just those little moments which i feel like is tv show carrie bradshaw and i'm like yeah that's the fucking writer that's the the put on the back foot like the world's a little bit against her carrie that's what they've given her no fun. So what? That's what she should be. They've given her no fun to have in the series. Like it's very difficult. None of the characters appear to be having any fun in the series.

There's hope for Miranda because she is discovering her pot. Bisexuality. Possibly bisexuality. And like, you know, there's an opportunity for that to be an enjoyable plot. But basically all of these these we're just watching you know these i'm not saying that we're being widowed is not a genuine problem or alcoholism isn't a genuine problem but like we're watching like manufactured problems at the very top of an ivory tower and it's it's not what you want as an audience member the thing i wanted to say the

final thing i had written down which which I just wanted to say, was when Charlotte's rattling off potential dinner guests to round out their group because she's nervously hosting this dinner party. She's naming random black people she knows from her building. Before she even gets to random black people, she's naming just friends who they could have over, and Runkle suggests a couple, and Charlotte's like, they're too vanilla.

And I was just like, can you imagine being described as vanilla by Charlotte Goldenblatt? Like, fuck me. You have got to be some white bread, crust cut off, boring ass motherfucker for Charlotte to be like, that conversation is too bland for my taste. I know one man who could never be accused of falling into that trap, and that is Coffee Guy.

He will be in my mind and in my heart until this next watch, and I hope I get to see him again. But it's been a pleasure spending part of my Christmas day with the gals and with Guy Montgomery. Aren't we some silly, silly boys? I'll just wish everybody happy holidays, whatever you celebrate, your Kwanzaas, your Hanukkahs, your Christmases, your non-denominational celebration,

your atheist refusal to engage with the season, your anti-consumerist buy-nothing day, whatever you've got. Hey, drink up, baby. Get that java down ya yeah get energized get anxious go and make some

big swings on the stock market we'll see you next time as we watch these women navigate the challenges of life

inside the 1% Thank you.