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Mother's Day. Hello

1:32

everyone and welcome to DecodingTV, a

1:35

podcast about television. I'm David

1:37

Chen. Joining me, usual, he's

1:39

Patrick Klepek. Are

1:42

you feeling the flood of good television that's

1:44

happening right now, man? There is

1:46

just so much stuff to watch it is it is

1:48

hard to keep up every time I go to my Apple

1:50

TV It's like all right here are the

1:52

shows I'm watching and then the shows

1:54

I should be watching but just keep

1:56

moving further back on the queue on

1:59

the queue Yeah, and I think after last

2:01

of us and rehearsal are over It's

2:03

gonna be cut and and or to be

2:05

clear. It's gonna be a little bit of

2:07

a of a desert I'm not exactly sure

2:10

what we're gonna be covering of course if

2:12

you have any suggestions feel free to always

2:14

email us at decoding TV at gmail.com right

2:16

now the candidates we're looking at are like

2:18

murder bot I think is a strong candidate

2:20

murder but murder by the strong candidate which

2:22

is not a Pejorative to I've not seen

2:24

that show it just We have

2:27

an avalanche, you know, of riches at the

2:29

moment, to the point where we're, you know, I'm

2:31

not even covering all of these with you

2:33

because I don't even have the bandwidth for it.

2:35

And then all a sudden, like after this

2:37

certain period, it's like, what's at the top of

2:39

Netflix? What are people watching?

2:41

What's on Apple TV plus? We're going

2:43

to do I hostage review on the

2:45

on the decoding TV anyway. Anyway, well

2:47

all that is for future David and

2:49

Patrick to worry about in the meantime

2:51

today on the podcast We're gonna be

2:54

discussing some stuff that's going on in

2:56

the world of television as usual before

2:58

Diving into the latest episodes of the

3:00

last of us season two and the

3:02

rehearsal season two You can find more

3:04

episodes of this podcast wherever you get

3:06

your podcast or at podcast dot decoding

3:08

TV calm email us at decoding TV

3:11

at gmail.com and also Check

3:13

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3:15

TV want to throw out a shout

3:17

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3:19

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3:21

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3:24

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3:36

calm and actually you know it as

3:38

We're recording right now. I should check

3:40

Patrick Clapik. I think We

3:43

have, oh, no, no, we

3:45

didn't. We are at 4

3:47

,993 subscribers. Oh, come on,

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that. We are acingly close

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So become the 5 ,000

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You can get free recaps

4:01

and reviews. Check it out.

4:03

All right, Patrick, let's

4:05

talk about stuff that's going on in the world television right

4:07

now. And

4:09

it looks like Max is

4:12

preparing to cut down on password

4:14

sharing. Here is the variety

4:16

story. Max starts selling extra

4:18

member accounts as Warner Brothers Discovery

4:20

follows Netflix's lead in cracking down

4:22

on password sharing. According

4:24

to this story, Warner Brothers Discovery is

4:26

looking to scour up additional revenue from

4:29

Max subscribers who have been piggybacking off

4:31

of someone else's account. On

4:33

Tuesday, Max launched the extra member add -on

4:35

feature in the US price that $8 a

4:37

month. that lets a primary account owner

4:39

share their Max account by inviting a friend

4:41

or family member outside of their household

4:43

to create a separate standalone account with an

4:45

adult profile under the same subscription. Max's

4:49

launch of the extra member feature comes

4:51

after WBD execs that they plan to

4:53

notify users of restrictions on sharing streaming

4:55

accounts outside of their household." So Patrick,

4:57

when Netflix has done this is because

4:59

they're cracking down on password sharing, you

5:01

cannot share your password with somebody who

5:03

lives physically outside of your address. Let

5:07

me ask you the personal question, you know, we

5:09

didn't vet this but like are you currently sharing

5:11

your max account with somebody that does not live

5:13

in your home address right now? No,

5:15

because it would be hard for me to

5:17

do so I subscribe through app like I

5:19

pay through a subscription through Apple and at

5:21

that point That is actually an account that

5:23

doesn't doesn't even like share with your family.

5:25

It's actually a huge pain of them I

5:28

need to cancel it and subscribe Every time

5:30

I mean to switch this like my my

5:32

wife wanted to watch A show that was

5:34

on max with my daughter. She's like, how

5:36

do I put it on the TV? It's

5:38

like, I can't. They could just log in.

5:40

I was like, I can't. It's like, I need

5:42

to, and I look up what I'm going

5:45

to cancel. You have the max channel through Apple

5:47

TV is my guess, right? Yeah. Yeah. And

5:49

like, it's fine because 95 % of the

5:51

time we watch it on this one family

5:53

TV, but then the other 5 % of instances.

5:56

It's a giant huge pain in the butt because

5:58

I can't just share a password with somebody

6:00

else. Yeah, I can't even do it in my

6:02

house. This is my problem, David. I share

6:04

it in the house properly. Wow. Well,

6:06

I'm sure this extra member thing is going to help

6:08

you out in some way. No,

6:10

but first of all, Patrick, do you use

6:12

the Apple family plan? Do you do that?

6:14

Max does not. That does not share with

6:16

family. It's an app. What? Yeah, I know.

6:18

I checked. I was like, I don't understand

6:20

why this isn't shared with family. What? And

6:23

it is not listed as one of those

6:25

apps. Very strange. That is very

6:27

strange. Because if you subscribe to most

6:29

other things, your Apple family gets

6:31

the benefits. Correct. I figured I

6:33

was missing something and then I checked

6:35

and it was it's not one of those

6:37

ass. But I, yes, in the past,

6:39

I have like, please, please don't arrest my

6:42

mom. But she is usually the one

6:44

that I am sharing accounts with. And we

6:46

went through this with Netflix where she

6:48

was using mine and then eventually got tired

6:50

of the like authorizing an email to

6:52

get her to log back in again. And

6:54

it was like, you know what, we're

6:56

just going to pay for the extra account.

6:58

had to split my parents off into

7:01

their own Netflix account now uh having probably

7:03

gonna have to split people off into

7:05

their own max accounts now you know i

7:07

mean it's um this is the austerity

7:09

that we are going the state of austerity

7:11

that we are now going to live

7:13

in is uh the question is will they

7:15

do it like how many you know

7:17

when Netflix did this it was a big

7:20

stress test of You know, a very

7:22

loud online like this is no, this is

7:24

it for Netflix. This is when the

7:26

backlash begins and like that Netflix's number is

7:28

stronger than ever. No, yeah Disney did

7:30

the same thing with Disney plus and I

7:32

think Disney plus is a less compelling

7:34

offering then then then Netflix but for the

7:36

people who are paying for Disney plus

7:39

a lot of families It's extremely sticky and

7:41

so I think those are two services

7:43

that We're good candidates for a stress test.

7:45

And I think they both both passed. I

7:48

don't. Yeah, I don't know if

7:50

Max like reaches that that threshold. And

7:52

I, you know, I don't know

7:54

that we something that's noted in an

7:56

earnings report. But my gut tells me that

7:58

I think people would think about whether

8:00

they should sign up for the spin off

8:02

Max account longer than they they thought

8:04

about it or didn't even think about it

8:07

with Netflix and Disney Plus. It's interesting

8:09

that you say that because I feel like

8:11

at times in HBO slash Max's history,

8:13

it wouldn't have even been a question. Like

8:15

this is the must have streaming service. I

8:18

do think that it has lost some of its

8:20

luster over the years, but it still has some

8:22

must watch programming. I would say

8:24

last of us, honestly, is probably up

8:26

there. House of the Dragon probably up

8:28

there. You know, there's the new

8:30

I'm watching Max like at least once

8:32

per week. I just wonder like. The

8:35

time to do this was probably like before

8:37

the premiere of the last season too. And I,

8:39

you know, I got just, it's a curious

8:41

time like as we're going to enter a quiet

8:43

period for, you know, Game of Thrones, you

8:45

know, or House of the Dragons season three is

8:48

not until next year at the early, you

8:50

know, so it's like, it's kind of an odd

8:52

of the seven kingdoms is probably late 2025. And

8:55

that's supposed to be a smaller scale kind

8:57

of spin -off. You know, so it's just

8:59

a, maybe there's spook to do it. and

9:01

incur a backlash if they were doing it

9:03

at, you know, during a last of us

9:05

season two. But it would strike me as

9:07

you'd want to do it when people were

9:09

feeling attention on wanting to keep the service.

9:11

But, yeah, we'll see. You got

9:13

to get people into watch Mountain Head, Patrick

9:16

Klepek. You know what talking about? It's just a

9:18

movie, right? It's a movie. It's a movie, yeah. But

9:20

it's by the who created the suggestion. Maybe

9:23

that might be something we cover on

9:25

the podcast later this in a month

9:27

after Last of Us is over. We'll

9:29

watch it in half an hour chunks

9:31

and then that's basically turning it episodic

9:33

and we'll cover it that way. I'll

9:35

just say I don't I Don't know

9:37

that I would enroll my parents in

9:39

an extra member thing like I probably

9:41

just want to give them their own

9:43

account, right? Like, because I feel like

9:45

the extra member thing comes with its

9:47

own restrictions, like probably, for instance, the

9:49

extra member account can't move anywhere, you

9:51

know, like, you can't go other places.

9:53

So I don't know, like, I have

9:55

not, it feels like I'm supposed to

9:57

be the use case for these extra

9:59

member things on Netflix and Max, and

10:02

I have declined to do them for

10:04

my family because I just feel like

10:06

it's too inconvenient. But if you've

10:08

had a great experience with extra member

10:10

on Netflix or Max, Let

10:12

us know. DecodingTV at gmail.com. All

10:15

right, here's a story that's really interesting. Bill

10:17

Hader to co -write potentially star in

10:20

Jonestown series in development at HBO. Variety

10:23

has learned exclusively that Hader and Daniel

10:25

Zelman are currently developing HBO series centered on

10:27

Jim Jones and the infamous events at

10:29

the People's Temple Agricultural Project, aka Jonestown. According

10:31

to an individual with knowledge of the

10:34

project, Hader is being eyed to potentially star

10:36

on the show as well. Hader is

10:38

co -writing with Zelman with both serving as

10:40

co -showrunners and executive producers. Hader

10:42

would also direct should the project

10:44

move forward. News of the series

10:46

comes not long after a Jonestown movie

10:48

served as a central plot point in an

10:50

episode of the critically acclaimed Apple TV Plus

10:52

series, The Studio. Neither Martin Scorsese

10:54

nor Steve Buschemi are involved in the HBO

10:56

project at this time, I'd quote. But

11:00

they should be the studio. There

11:02

is a the story is basically Martin

11:04

Scorsese wants to make a Jonestown

11:06

movie and Seth Rogen needs to make

11:08

a Kool -Aid movie and they decide

11:10

to make both of them the

11:12

same movie but Minor spoiler alert. It

11:14

doesn't go well for anyone involved. So

11:18

Yeah, this is really interesting

11:20

also with the stuff interest

11:22

interest me about this project

11:25

Patrick is that Bill Hader is directing? I

11:27

think he really flexed his his directing

11:29

muscles during Barry And also this is

11:31

like this seems like it's going to

11:33

be a dramatic role doesn't sound like

11:36

a comedy and Bill Hader has not

11:38

done that much straight straight -up drama

11:40

over the years and so like that

11:42

would be interesting to see as well

11:44

But when you hear about this Jonestown

11:46

movie Patrick Lepic, what comes to mind? Well,

11:49

is it a movie or a series? Do we

11:51

know how they're talking about it? Uh,

11:54

it is serious. I'm sorry serious. I

11:56

apologize. You're right. Yeah. Uh,

11:59

I think, you know, I was a

12:01

little mixed on the final season of Barry,

12:03

but I was overjoyed at how experimental

12:05

it was. Like it's that's a show that

12:07

took big swings. And as you and

12:09

I talked about it when the show was

12:11

airing its final season, even if I

12:14

disagreed with the swing, I like that the

12:16

swings were half. It's just not a

12:18

show that played it. Played it

12:20

safe at all and that kind of

12:22

just seems to be hater in general

12:24

as he's entered this very interesting

12:26

part of his career And he is

12:28

now just a name where I don't

12:30

blink at the pride Bill haters next

12:33

thing like I'm gonna watch it this

12:35

seems like I think there is a

12:37

world where the charismatic nature of like

12:39

there are real large in the life

12:41

characters like in this story where Sure,

12:43

do I expect this to be otherwise

12:45

like a much more serious dramatic

12:47

series and approach? Yes, but I do

12:50

think there will be ways to play

12:52

with the dramatic that would fall in

12:54

line with Hader's work previously. But

12:56

he has shown an ability to

12:58

walk that fine line, and this

13:00

one maybe gets a little bit

13:02

sharper, but it's an interesting pairing

13:04

for Hader. But wherever he is,

13:06

I will show up. Same.

13:09

Hopefully this thing comes to pass. I'm sure

13:11

he'll have an interesting take on it.

13:13

So looking forward to potentially checking out the

13:16

Jonestown series. All

13:18

right There's one other more

13:20

serious piece of news I wanted

13:22

to mention which is a

13:24

reading here from deadline 60 minutes

13:26

does segment explaining the departure

13:28

of executive producer Bill Owens and

13:30

quote now Patrick, I don't

13:32

know if you're aware of the

13:35

details of this but essentially

13:37

what has happened is Paramount is

13:39

in the process of merging

13:41

with Skydance. There's basically there's this

13:43

big acquisition offer from Skydance

13:45

and The president

13:47

of the United States has

13:49

sued Paramount because of a

13:52

segment on 60 minutes that

13:54

he alleges, I think, was

13:56

unfairly edited in which Kamala

13:58

Harris was interviewed during the

14:00

presidential campaign. Now, I'm

14:03

familiar with the segment

14:05

in question. I think the

14:07

edits that were made

14:09

are extremely basic and standard.

14:13

trying to make it a big deal, and it

14:15

seems like the administration is trying to extract

14:17

some concessions. In the midst of all

14:19

this, one of the

14:21

heads of 60 Minutes, Bill Owens, felt

14:24

like he lost his editorial independence.

14:26

And in this week's episode of 60

14:28

Minutes, Scott Pelley, one of the

14:30

on -air hosts, gave a little tribute

14:32

to Owens. I'm going to play clip

14:34

from that tribute. Bill made

14:36

sure they were accurate and fair. He

14:38

was tough that way. But

14:40

our parent company Paramount is trying

14:42

to complete a merger. The

14:45

Trump administration must approve it. Paramount

14:47

began to supervise our

14:50

content in new ways.

14:53

None of our stories has

14:55

been blocked, but Bill felt

14:57

he lost the independence that

14:59

honest journalism requires. No

15:01

one here is happy about it. But

15:04

in resigning, Bill proved

15:06

one thing. He

15:08

was the right person. to

15:10

lead 60 minutes all along.

15:13

There's a really heartfelt tribute

15:15

and really lit up

15:17

the owners of 60 minutes.

15:20

In particular, it's been widely reported

15:22

that Sherry Redstone has had

15:24

issues with 60 minutes, not a

15:26

fan of the way they've

15:28

covered certain subjects. So a number

15:31

of troubling implications from this

15:33

Patrick Lepic, the loss, I

15:35

think, first of all, like,

15:37

60 minutes I think occupies a

15:39

very sacred space in the

15:41

American journalism imagination imagination I think

15:43

a lot of people like

15:45

review it. It's not imperfect. It's

15:47

had its issues, but I

15:49

think largely it is well respected

15:51

and it's one of the

15:53

few places that's widely what well

15:56

respected and The fact that

15:58

they are in the process of

16:00

losing editorial independence the point

16:02

that one of their heads would

16:04

depart and and kind of explicitly

16:07

say that that's the reason, feels

16:10

like a troubling sign of things to come. Patrick

16:13

Klepek, I know you have also worked in

16:15

newsrooms and I'm curious, when

16:17

you saw this story or hear

16:19

Scott Pelley's thoughts on this, what

16:22

does it sort of bring up

16:24

for you as somebody who may or

16:26

may not have been on the

16:28

receiving end of influence from corporate as

16:30

you've done your work in the

16:32

past? Yeah, mean, I'd say

16:34

like the... in my past like the

16:36

what I usually feel from corporate is

16:38

a general sense of like hitting traffic

16:40

numbers right like where you are trying

16:43

to balance between doing original work and

16:45

getting people to click on that work

16:47

and sometimes just doing good original. Reporting

16:50

will result in people clicking on that

16:52

and you can achieve both things and feel

16:54

good about the process. But that

16:56

is that is that is rarely the case

16:58

that you can rely entirely on that. And so

17:00

like when I worked at Kotaku, for example,

17:02

which is probably the most like like traffic driven

17:04

website that I've been at, you know, I

17:06

mean, I didn't work out of their offices in

17:08

New York, but they they tracked their numbers

17:10

through something called chart beat. And there

17:12

was a television. I don't

17:14

know how long it stayed up there, but

17:16

this it was here for there for

17:18

a long time. There was a television up.

17:20

That showed the numbers for each of

17:22

the different publications, you know kataku deadspin Jezebel

17:24

and like how much how many people

17:26

were viewing their stories right now and it

17:28

became sort of a jockeying between The

17:30

outlets to be like higher on that board

17:32

and that doesn't always it's like sometimes

17:34

like Incentives can be good and and but

17:36

what are the what are the incentives

17:38

for and what are you what are you

17:41

achieving? out of that

17:43

incentive structure At other times

17:45

I when you are working

17:47

on Sensitive

17:49

subjects you know allegations of sexual assault

17:51

things of that nature you often

17:53

end up working with legal departments and

17:55

I have had At least one

17:57

really notable instant in which a story

17:59

I'd reported out that felt very

18:01

confident in my editors felt very confident

18:03

in Essentially was killed by the

18:05

legal department because they said It sounds

18:07

not even worth getting into the

18:09

excuses they gave me it was like

18:11

very clear to me to my

18:13

editors that basically We don't like this

18:15

story. We're going to an event

18:17

an excuse to not be able to

18:19

run it. And if you wrap

18:21

it up in enough legalese, what are you

18:23

supposed to do about it? And so that

18:26

story that I spent months putting together, lots

18:28

of people helped me put it together, sort

18:30

of died on the vine over a legal excuse

18:32

that felt like a pressure from the executives higher

18:34

in the company. pushing on the

18:37

legal department to come up with an excuse to

18:39

kill that story. So that

18:41

stuff also happens and is

18:43

frustrating and unfortunate. But journalism

18:45

is full of many, many

18:47

such compromises. And the thing

18:49

that worries me about a

18:51

story like this is the

18:53

respect that people had for

18:55

this person at 60 minutes. They're

18:58

the they're the wall. They're the firewall

19:00

between like you need people. Respectable

19:02

people to be there to be the

19:05

ones that push back that say no or

19:07

if you are compromising you understand like

19:09

why they're compromising and like this is the

19:11

best deal we could get to like

19:13

make like the work still be good. And

19:15

it's not clear to me that as

19:17

a result of Bill Owens leaving 60 minutes

19:19

changes are going to occur and that

19:21

what might have just happened is they just

19:24

lost a really good guy. Yeah. was

19:26

helping them be as good as they could

19:28

be given challenging circumstances. And

19:30

the person that replaces Bill Owens may

19:32

not be as good at that. And

19:34

so that's that, you know, I understand

19:36

how we arrive at a situation like

19:38

this, but I find myself with mixed

19:40

feelings because I think it leaves 60

19:42

minutes weaker than it was before. And

19:44

especially in times like this, like you

19:46

need rock solid institutions that people can

19:48

trust to do good work and, you

19:50

know, if 60 minutes had its

19:52

own compromises that they were making, but

19:55

did they become a more exploitable

19:57

outlet by paramount by the Trump administration

19:59

as a result of Bill Owens

20:01

leaving? That's the worry I'm

20:03

left with after reading this. I

20:07

do need to reemphasize how

20:09

kind of frivolous this lawsuit is

20:11

against CBS Paramount. It's just

20:13

a bullying tactic. It's just a

20:16

bullying tactic. There's nothing substantive

20:18

there. So it's really sad

20:20

that it's being allowed to influence

20:22

other things. So anyway,

20:24

thanks for sharing that, Patrick. Appreciate it. And this

20:26

is only the first of two times in

20:28

which Paramount is going to get lit up on

20:30

today's episode of the podcast. Bad

20:33

week for Paramount. we

20:36

should say. So anyway, let's move

20:38

on. Let's

20:41

talk about Ted Sarandos saying some

20:43

weird ass stuff that people are going

20:45

to disagree. I don't know, like,

20:47

does this guy have a kink

20:50

for saying stuff that he knows is

20:52

going to get filmed Twitter riled

20:54

up? According to

20:56

Variety.com, Netflix's CEO Ted

20:58

Sarandos says movie theater model

21:00

is outdated. Most of the

21:02

country cannot walk to a multiplex. According

21:06

to a time 100 summit interview

21:08

Editor -in -Chief Sam Jacobs asked Ted

21:10

Sarantos, have you destroyed Hollywood? No,

21:13

we're saving Hollywood the Netflix co

21:15

-CEO replied with a smile And

21:17

you know they talked about other

21:19

things including the the box office

21:21

Netflix is a very consumer -focused company

21:23

Saranto said we really do care

21:25

that we deliver the program to

21:27

you in a way that you

21:29

want to watch it Using the

21:31

struggling global box office as an

21:33

example Saranto said What does

21:35

that say? What is the consumer trying

21:37

to tell us that they'd like to

21:39

watch movies at home? Thank you. The

21:42

studios and the theaters are duking it

21:44

out over trying to preserve this 45

21:46

-day window that is completely out of

21:48

step with the consumer experience of just

21:50

loving a movie." That's what I hear

21:52

about people that watch Netflix movies, Patrick.

21:54

They're just loving a movie. We just

21:57

love in these movies. The electric state.

21:59

I can't. It's even me

22:01

feeling electric because I forgot

22:03

it existed. And

22:05

no one talks about a $350 million

22:07

film made by the Russo Brothers 24 hours

22:09

after it dropped on Netflix. Ask

22:12

specifically if the desire of filmmakers wanting

22:15

to make movies for movie theaters for the

22:17

communal experience is an outmoded idea. Surrounder

22:19

said, I think it is. For most people,

22:21

not for everybody, if you're fortunate to

22:23

live in Manhattan and you can walk to

22:25

a multiplex and see a movie, that's

22:27

fantastic. Most of the country

22:29

cannot end quote. Now look, on

22:32

a technical level, Ted surround is actually right. You know,

22:34

like a lot of people don't see a lot of

22:36

movies per year. For some people, it's hard to get

22:38

to the movie theater. I

22:40

don't doubt that. I think the reason I

22:44

would respond distantly and I assume

22:46

Patrick would as well is because Movies

22:48

are cultural events in ways that

22:51

most Netflix movies and TV shows are

22:53

not like movies that are released

22:55

in theaters That play in theaters for

22:57

weeks or months Are cultural events

22:59

in ways that Netflix movies are often

23:01

not? I mean just look

23:03

at sinners as an example look at

23:06

the Minecraft movie look at barbenheimer

23:08

from a while ago like those

23:10

movies would not be where they

23:12

are in the culture if they

23:14

were not released in movie theaters.

23:16

And the idea that Serranos is

23:18

saying basically Netflix can supplant that,

23:20

I think is pretty silly. I

23:22

understand on some level he's got

23:25

to, you know what? No, actually,

23:27

I'm just going to say this,

23:29

like he is like fundamentally opposed

23:31

to the movie theater experience. And

23:34

that's why there's so much hate

23:36

for these remarks online is because

23:38

the stuff that creates this Culture

23:40

that he purports to love he

23:42

is against the the active movie

23:44

going in a way that actively

23:46

hurts theatrical exhibition and I'm not

23:48

a fan like and the thing

23:51

that sucks is It's possible to

23:53

do both right like it's possible

23:55

to make an amazing movie release

23:57

it in theaters and then have

23:59

it hit Netflix and like Honestly,

24:01

it will probably do better in

24:03

that situation, but for some reason

24:05

They are opposed to that. They

24:08

don't want that to happen. And

24:10

they have continued to hold that line.

24:12

And I am not a fan of

24:14

A, that happening and B, him

24:16

then kind of speaking out against the

24:19

theatrical experience. Patrick Klepek, any thoughts

24:21

on this? Well,

24:23

it's a defensive slop,

24:25

basically. And

24:27

Netflix, the destruction

24:29

of Hollywood and the

24:31

movie theater model is. hand

24:34

in hand with netflix's preferred end

24:36

game which is that they just become.

24:38

The new hollywood and that they're the

24:41

one app and studios make content

24:43

for them and it all funnels through

24:45

netflix and there's actually very little

24:47

evidence that we're not headed towards some

24:49

version of that or that there's

24:51

a handful of titans but the end

24:53

of the movie theater experience like. Is

24:57

just netflix's game like

24:59

every time hollywood slips.

25:01

It just means that Netflix becomes more

25:03

powerful, which is in many ways Hollywood's

25:05

own fault They all they all chase

25:07

the streaming dragon for for the past

25:09

decade and as a result made themselves

25:12

weaker conditioned audiences for a different way

25:14

of watching things and Netflix is easier

25:16

streaming is easier and then you know

25:18

combine that with fewer reasons Culturally to

25:20

go to the movie theater a poor

25:22

movie theater experience I mean it all

25:24

kind of just it works together to

25:26

create the the spot that we're in

25:28

now, but I take is his comment

25:30

to the grain of salt because like

25:32

It's his preferred outcome that that Holly

25:34

right. He's he's defending his business and

25:36

That's what you would expect from someone

25:38

who defends his business He's not a

25:40

kind of rising tide lifts all boats

25:42

kind of guy, you know, and that's

25:44

and there's a way he could put

25:46

it that way But he chooses not

25:48

to he's you choose I'd say he's

25:51

putting his mouth, but I think he's

25:53

choosing these words on purpose. He's He's

25:55

kind of a dick like he

25:57

like he has been for a while.

25:59

The thing that's so weird though

26:01

is They have spent so many millions

26:04

like they have spent millions and

26:06

millions tens of millions of dollars trying

26:08

to win best picture at the

26:10

Oscars like that's the only thing that's

26:12

weird is that they they seek

26:14

that recognition and respect as well from

26:17

the old school, you know The

26:19

the old Hollywood and they have not

26:21

gotten it. I think because of

26:23

this attitude So it's like tens

26:25

of millions of dollars hundreds of which

26:27

exist in my house by the way because

26:29

they send out like Books, you know

26:31

all these like coffee table, but I have

26:33

I have a really gorgeous coffee table

26:36

book for Roma and the Irishman because they're

26:38

trying to win all the critics awards

26:40

and stuff like that and It just feels

26:42

weird that then Ted Sarantos goes out

26:44

and said this stuff. So, you know, whatever

26:48

I think they gotta they gotta tune

26:50

that and to be fair I

26:52

think that those times are going away

26:55

I don't think they're gonna spend

26:57

as much money in the future on

26:59

these Oscar campaigns probably because they

27:01

realized that it's not gonna be an

27:03

easy path for them but anyway

27:05

some thoughts on Ted Sarandos's silly statements

27:07

from this week speaking of silly

27:10

statements this is just a final addendum

27:12

to this week's TV news segment

27:14

we talked I think it was last

27:16

week about people getting

27:18

cast in Harry Potter and What

27:20

the PR is gonna be like

27:22

and Based on John Lithgow's PR

27:24

campaign it seems like it's going

27:27

extremely badly. I'm just gonna put

27:29

this out there, right? This

27:31

is from variety comm John

27:33

Lithgow says he absolutely didn't expect

27:35

any JK rolling backlash after

27:37

joining HBO's Harry Potter series. Why

27:39

is this a factor? Now

27:42

John Lithgow has previously said that

27:44

it's a big decision for him to

27:46

take on this role

27:49

of Dumbledore in the

27:51

Harry Potter series. Because

27:53

it's probably the last role he's going

27:55

to play. If everything goes okay,

27:57

it's going to consume, you know, eight years of his

28:00

life, ten years of his life. And

28:03

Lithgow added that a very good friend who is

28:05

the mother of a trans child sent him an

28:07

open letter entitled, an open letter to John Lithgow,

28:10

please walk away from Harry Potter after he

28:12

picked up the role. That was

28:14

the canary in the coal mine, he said. Lithgau

28:16

went on to ponder why Rowling's past comments

28:18

should affect the project. I thought, why is this

28:20

a factor at all? I wonder how JK

28:22

Rowling has absorbed it. I suppose at a certain

28:24

point I'll meet her and I'm curious to

28:26

talk to her. When asked if the backlash has

28:28

made him reconsider the role, Lithgau said, oh

28:31

heavens no. I'm

28:35

just gonna say I don't

28:37

feel like this is a good

28:39

response to this question. You

28:41

know, like, just on a pure,

28:43

if your PR objective is

28:45

try to navigate an extremely tricky

28:48

situation between people who are

28:50

troubled by JK Rowling's comments about

28:52

the trans community and also

28:54

appeasing Harry Potter fans. I don't

28:56

feel like the correct balance

28:58

has been struck here, Patrick Lepic.

29:00

What do you think? I

29:02

don't think there's an attempt. I

29:05

mean, I think our boy's gone rogue.

29:09

He pre -announced his pre -announced his

29:11

casting. I think HBO would

29:13

prefer John Lithgow shut the fuck up

29:15

Stop giving interviews John Lithgow, please

29:17

for the love of God I don't

29:19

I mean, I actually think it's

29:21

very enlightening to see these comments because

29:23

I think it gives you a

29:25

pretty clear sense of the Weight that

29:27

Lithgow has given any of this

29:30

which is to say none and and

29:32

he gave it none because he

29:34

wasn't even aware of it. It wasn't

29:36

even part of his decision process,

29:38

his reason to or to not take

29:40

the role. It sounds like he

29:42

wasn't even aware that there was any

29:44

sort of issue with the bigotry

29:46

that comes out of her mouth on

29:48

a daily basis, which Godspeed, you

29:51

live in a better world than I

29:53

do, which is like, you know,

29:55

managing to avoid hearing about these things.

29:57

But I hear about them because

29:59

I care. And I think what people

30:01

are going to read on this

30:03

is like, you're taking on, you know,

30:05

a The Dumbledore, how he was

30:07

portrayed in the books, how he's portrayed in the

30:09

movies was like a very beloved, played by

30:12

many beloved actors, like a very warm, caring role.

30:14

And to have someone like Lithgow come in

30:17

and like his response to like, well,

30:19

how do you feel about the way this

30:21

woman has talked about like to people

30:23

in the trans communities? Like, I don't know.

30:25

I haven't given it much thought. I

30:28

think that speaks volumes about where his head

30:30

is at. You know, I thought a little

30:32

bit more about this, Patrick, because we talked

30:34

about this last week. on the podcast. And,

30:36

and you kind of express a similar

30:38

sentiment that I think is very reasonable.

30:41

And I was thinking to myself, like,

30:43

why don't I feel as strong?

30:45

Like, it's not that I think it's

30:47

this series is okay, or that

30:49

J .K. Rowling statements are okay, but

30:52

I didn't feel quite as strongly as

30:54

you about the actor specifically, right?

30:57

And I think one of the reasons is because

30:59

for a very long time, I did a

31:01

podcast called The Tobolosky Files with an actor named

31:03

Steven Tobolosky. And he's like

31:05

this character actor who's appeared in

31:07

over 200 TV shows and films

31:09

and And he has been in

31:11

some of the best films and

31:13

television shows of all time and

31:15

also the worst And and and

31:17

I guess like in talking to

31:19

like oftentimes he doesn't even watch

31:21

the stuff that he's in right

31:23

like for him it's a job

31:25

that he goes to and he

31:27

punches in and and essentially if

31:29

you're an actor you are basically

31:31

a prop you're like a physical

31:33

prop like somebody you oh you

31:35

look like the the bald guy

31:37

we're looking for uh you know

31:39

you you have the kind of

31:41

look in the voice that we're

31:43

looking for we're gonna place you

31:45

here we're gonna point a camera

31:48

at you now you're done go

31:50

away right um and I

31:52

do think it is reasonable

31:54

Patrick that in this modern era

31:56

where social media, fan sentiment

31:58

is such a huge part of

32:00

how movies get made and

32:02

marketed to expect that actors have

32:04

a deeper understanding of the

32:06

roles that they take on, the

32:08

significance of the culture, and

32:11

the sort of financial business implications

32:13

of supporting someone like a

32:15

JK Rowling, right? Like, I think

32:17

that is a reasonable thing

32:19

to expect. I'm not saying like,

32:21

Patrick, you're not reasonable, but

32:23

I think like, what

32:25

we're seeing is like a clashing of

32:27

the old school and the new school

32:29

where like, John Lithgow probably, it's not

32:31

a JK Rowling thing. John Lithgow probably

32:34

in his entire career. has never considered

32:36

like where the money's coming from because

32:38

actors who've been around as long as

32:40

John Lithgow have have probably needed to

32:42

work with morally reprehensible people for decades.

32:45

Sure. Right. Seriously, like, like he's starred

32:47

in dozens and dozens of films and

32:49

TV shows. I bet some of those people

32:51

were not good people who either finance

32:53

those movies or directed those movies or whatever.

32:55

Right. And it's just like what I

32:57

like that is beyond his scope of what

32:59

he cares about is my guess. But

33:02

what we are now seeing is that that answer

33:04

is probably not going to be good enough. And

33:06

if this is the style of PR campaign

33:08

that continues, I

33:11

sense it's the new Harry Potter

33:13

series in for a very, very

33:15

rocky reception. You know, yeah. And

33:17

it's like this, given that it's the scope,

33:19

the stakes of this project, the I

33:21

mean, there's like genocidal level rhetoric

33:23

coming out of people directed to the

33:25

trans community, the stuff coming out

33:27

of the Trump administration. It's just like,

33:29

I'm not saying. every problematic or

33:31

like Ethically dubious morally dubious person or

33:34

the project like mean like I

33:36

get like you have to work like

33:38

it's just stuff like this is

33:40

going to not just rub people the

33:42

wrong way but like look at

33:44

you with disappointment and disdain like if

33:46

you can't Engage seriously enough with

33:48

like Harry Potter the TV shows being

33:50

made because it's a cultural object

33:52

and then as a result of that

33:54

cultural objects like things orbit around

33:56

it and To me it's not just

33:59

another job you take, especially if

34:01

you're a veteran actor like Lithgow. Well,

34:03

that's the thing. It's least understandable

34:05

coming from John Lithgow, who literally doesn't

34:07

need to work another day in

34:09

his life. But there's other unknown Harry

34:11

Potter actor who's picked Right. Unknown

34:13

Harry Potter actor where it's like their

34:15

family grew up in, you know,

34:17

like, where like getting this role might

34:19

set up their family for life,

34:21

right? Like in terms of finances, right?

34:24

And so I don't know. I

34:26

think I

34:28

agree with you that it's no longer

34:30

acceptable to not pay attention to

34:32

this stuff. But also, I understand

34:34

why John Lithgow was not, quote unquote, with it.

34:36

You know what I mean? Yes. Because

34:38

he's probably never had to be. And now

34:40

he's expected to be. And it's going very

34:42

poorly. So I

34:44

hope that. Can

34:47

you tell us how that conversation went?

34:49

Seems like you're ready for it. He

34:51

seems like he's seems like he has

34:53

all the prep he needs for that

34:55

conversation with JK Rowling. Do you Patrick?

34:57

Do you think she's thought about this?

34:59

I wonder if she's considered the implications

35:01

of these things. The answer is

35:03

of course, yes, and she's doing it anyway.

35:05

So anyway, I share your disappointment. I just

35:07

wanted to explain kind of like why I

35:09

came at this from a slightly different. But

35:11

I think I think Patrick is right on

35:13

this, you know, like I just want to

35:15

make clear, like I don't think like I

35:18

think given how big of a deal this

35:20

is given the potential controversy around this, I

35:22

think there is attention that needs to be

35:24

paid to this. So I just want to

35:26

make clear, but I was just explaining why

35:28

like, why I might have like

35:30

started from a slightly different position than Patrick.

35:32

So, okay. Anyway, those are

35:34

some thoughts on what's going on in the world

35:36

of TV news this week. Raise

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official florist of Mother's Day. Patrick,

36:44

before we get to what we're going to discuss today

36:46

in terms of actual TV episodes, why don't you let people

36:48

know where they can find more of your work on

36:51

the internet this week? Yeah, you can

36:53

hear me watch me playing talking about

36:55

video games over at remap radio. You

36:57

can sign up at remap radio comm

36:59

and whatever podcasts are available and then

37:01

I run a newsletter about parenting and

37:03

video games called cross play that you

37:05

can sign up for over at crossplay .new

37:07

so we just wrapped up switch to

37:09

pre -order week I had a guide

37:11

over there for folks wanting to pre -order

37:14

a switch to I managed to secure

37:16

two of them myself and we'll see

37:18

if it's canceled between now and now

37:21

in the launch in early June. So

37:23

hopefully you were able to get one yourself

37:25

if you're looking to it. Otherwise, look

37:27

forward to stories like that and more over

37:29

at Crossboy. I

37:31

want to throw a shout out for

37:33

DecodingTV.com. If you're listening to this right

37:36

now, become a free subscriber to DecodingTV.com.

37:38

You'll get recaps and reviews. It's

37:40

free. We got Dan Govazdin, Matt Goldberg

37:42

writing up recaps the last of us

37:44

and Andor. And I'm loving

37:47

reading them. And they're actually really helpful

37:49

for our conversations here on the

37:51

podcast. So again, check it out at

37:53

decodingtv.com. Patrick Leppick, let's talk about

37:55

the last of a season two episode three. He

37:57

saved me a lot of times. Yeah,

37:59

I would think so, but that's not

38:01

wronging someone. It's

38:04

weird. No

38:06

idea what he meant. I

38:09

don't feel

38:11

wronged. Man,

38:13

I wish I could have let him off the hook

38:15

for whatever it was he was talking about. I

38:19

guess I'll have to let myself off

38:22

the hook for that. Well,

38:25

you really are doing good. Shit.

38:29

Everyone wears healthy as you. What would I

38:31

do for weed and booze? I wouldn't worry,

38:34

Gail. There's still a lot of fucked up

38:36

people in this town. Yeah, but not

38:38

you though. Welcome

38:42

to decoding TV's coverage of the last

38:44

of a season 2 episode 3 You can

38:46

always email us at decoding TV at

38:48

g1.com. I'm David Chen here with Patrick Lepic

38:50

Patrick We're gonna dive into what happened

38:52

this episode. Let's you know actually before we

38:54

get into the episode though I want

38:56

to talk about the reaction to last week's

38:59

episode of the podcast and to the

39:01

show We are going to spoil everything that's

39:03

happened in the last of us through

39:05

this week. So like Be prepared right don't

39:07

don't keep listening if you don't be

39:09

spoiled, but Last week,

39:11

obviously, was a huge episode in

39:13

the show. They killed

39:16

off Joel Miller, one of the two

39:18

main leads of The Last of Us, season one. And

39:21

it seems clear this week they are

39:23

shifting the focus of the show and they're

39:25

making it so that Ellie is the

39:27

main character. They're like hoping that she can

39:29

anchor the entire show. And

39:31

we'll talk about whether we feel

39:34

that's effective or not, but... one of

39:36

the things we discussed in our

39:38

bonus episode available for paid decoding TV

39:40

comm subscribers is How they chose

39:42

a different path for Abby in the

39:44

show than they did in the

39:46

game in the game You start playing

39:48

as Abby. You don't know why

39:50

you're playing as her. You don't know

39:53

what her mission is She meets

39:55

Joel and then kills Joel and there's

39:57

no explanation for like why that

39:59

occurs. You only find out later what

40:01

the real reason was which

40:04

honestly feels to be a lot more realistic as

40:06

to how would actually go down. And

40:08

then in the show, you learn

40:10

right from the first minutes of season

40:12

two, episode one, why Abby is there to

40:14

kill, like what she's trying to do. She

40:17

gets a whole monologue where she explains

40:19

to Joel why she's killing him, then she

40:21

kills him. And in

40:23

the bonus episode, Patrick and I

40:25

discussed like, oh, we

40:28

didn't feel like that was... made

40:30

the Abby stuff as effective like

40:32

the Abby stuff felt less effective

40:34

in the show than the game

40:36

now According to the last of

40:38

us official podcast they have explained

40:40

why they gave Abby more characterization

40:42

in the show When the video

40:44

game first came out Joel Miller

40:46

was an extremely beloved character and

40:48

so when last of us part

40:51

two video game forced you to

40:53

play as Abby as a character

40:55

that would then murder Joel it

40:57

Produced some amount of controversy Patrick.

40:59

I think it is fair to

41:01

say yes, I think a lot

41:03

of people Hated that decision. I

41:05

think that's That's a fair statement

41:07

a lot of people did not

41:09

like did not appreciate that they

41:11

had to do that and They

41:13

had so much anger about this

41:15

that they started harassing The actress

41:18

who played the voice of Abby

41:20

mm -hmm in the last of us

41:22

part to the video game Which

41:25

is very very ugly like I don't

41:27

even know why you would ever do

41:29

like that person again to our earlier

41:31

points to the podcast like so these

41:33

people show up They perform a role

41:36

and then they leave and like literally

41:38

they have no influence over a lot

41:40

of what else happens in the project

41:42

I believe a Caitlyn Deaver who you

41:44

know portrays Abby in the in the

41:46

show ended up getting additional like the

41:48

worries over at the toxic behavior from

41:50

some of the worst parts of online

41:53

culture and how they harangued and harassed

41:55

this voice actor, Katelyn Deever, ended up

41:57

having extra security while they were filming

41:59

the show out of an abundance of

42:01

caution that, in

42:03

theory, somebody could take that

42:05

anger and exert it in

42:07

real life to this character,

42:09

now portraying a very controversial, I

42:12

don't think it's controversial, but became a controversial

42:14

figure amongst some of the worst circles on

42:16

the internet. And

42:18

that's apparently one of the reasons why they did it the

42:20

way they did it, too. they

42:23

gave you more of Abby's backstory

42:25

in order to increase the amount of

42:27

sympathy for her and to kind

42:29

of help to make her more understandable

42:31

and theoretically preempt or head off

42:34

some of these death threats. Now, I

42:36

don't, let me

42:38

just say, if that helped to make

42:41

Caitlyn Dever the actress's life easier,

42:43

I fully support, like, great. I

42:45

am angry that that is even necessary,

42:47

you know, like it angers me that

42:49

people do this kind of Bullshit, and

42:51

it really upsets me that any actor

42:53

who like is in a thing like

42:55

this needs to worry about death threats

42:57

like that's not okay But it is

42:59

a in my opinion like a valid

43:01

reason to try to do it I

43:03

don't I don't know that it's effective

43:05

though like to me it doesn't strike

43:07

me as effective But if it was

43:09

great, you know who knows we can't

43:11

really know but I wanted to like

43:13

convey that that was the case Patrick

43:15

any thoughts on this? Yeah,

43:18

I think think I sort of Come

43:20

down to a similar place that I was

43:22

with you before I sort of understand how

43:24

we arrive at this, but I do think

43:26

it undercut The moment I think that moment

43:28

is is more powerful in the game as

43:30

a result of the way the information is

43:32

shared And I again it's still a very

43:34

powerful moment in the show, but one that

43:36

I think Could have taken I mean I

43:38

was I don't know if you have this

43:40

experience, but now that Multiple

43:43

times in the past week when I've been

43:45

around people talking, I was like, Oh, thank

43:47

God, like this part happened in the show so

43:50

I can finally like talk about this big

43:52

moment that was in the game. And I've explained

43:54

to a couple of people like, well, when

43:56

this is what I experienced in 2020 when

43:58

I, when I played the game and like, here's

44:00

why it was different. And like, here's how

44:02

I felt about Abby because of the information

44:04

they didn't have. And multiple people like put their

44:06

hand on their mouth. It was like, I

44:08

cannot fathom having this character come in, kill off

44:11

Joel. and just having no idea why they

44:13

did it for like a dozen hours in

44:15

the game. It was like, yeah, yeah, it sucked.

44:17

Like in a good way, like it was

44:19

it was effective. And maybe

44:21

maybe maybe, you know, maybe it was too

44:23

effective. And like maybe that's one thing

44:25

we'll never quite know. Or maybe maybe it'll

44:27

come out in interviews is again, this

44:30

is not a classic. Adaptation

44:32

like the original creatives are involved

44:34

deeply in this and it makes it

44:36

a unique adaptation as a result

44:38

in which you can view the adaptation

44:40

as a Second chance for Neil

44:42

Druckmann at Naughty Dog with these characters

44:44

with this story and then you

44:46

also Craig Mason who is you know

44:48

deeply involved making lots of choices,

44:50

but it's not It makes it hard

44:52

to pick apart like why why

44:54

was this choice made is this is

44:56

a change of heart from Neil

44:58

Druckmann as a result of several years

45:00

of looking at Net you know

45:02

the feedback to the original game is

45:04

just Craig Mason coming in with

45:06

a different Yeah, don't know. It's a

45:09

it's a mixture. Maybe maybe all

45:11

all of the above but it makes

45:13

her a fascinating conversation and as

45:15

we get into in this episode they

45:17

continue to make Different choices as

45:19

they have have gone along in this

45:21

adaptation There's one other thing I

45:23

want to mention before we move on

45:25

which is I'm very haunted by

45:27

Anna guns Editorial from the

45:29

New York Times for 2013 called I have

45:31

a character issue. I don't know if

45:33

you've read this but Anna Gunn's I remember

45:35

the woman who played Skyler White and

45:37

Breaking Bad wrote about this situation and She

45:39

wrote very powerfully about it about how

45:41

she became the Target of people's online vitriol

45:44

She says quote I'm reading from the

45:46

article at some point on the message boards

45:48

The character of Skyler White seemed to

45:50

drop out of the conversation and people transferred

45:52

their negative feelings directly to me The

45:54

already harsh online comments became

45:57

outright personal attacks. One such

45:59

post read, besides

46:02

being frightened and taking steps to ensure

46:04

my safety, I was also

46:06

astonished. How had disliking a character spiraled

46:08

into homicidal rage at the actress

46:10

playing her? But I finally realized

46:12

that most people's hatred of Skyler had little to do

46:14

with me. and a lot to do with their

46:16

own perception of women and wives. Because

46:19

Skyler didn't conform to a comfortable ideal

46:21

of the archetypal female, she

46:23

had become a kind of

46:25

Rorschach test for society, a

46:27

measure of our attitudes towards

46:29

gender." Anyway, fascinating reading.

46:31

I do think it's relevant to this lens

46:33

of how Abby was perceived in the

46:36

game. It may or may not be relevant

46:38

to how Abby the characters perceived in

46:40

the show. We still have yet

46:42

to really see. There

46:44

is one other thing I want to

46:46

address before we get to the episode Patrick

46:48

and that is we did get a few

46:50

comments from people saying hey Would love to

46:52

would love for you to evaluate this from

46:54

the perspective of a show watcher and not

46:56

a game player Sadly Patrick and I have

46:59

both played the game even Christian Spicer

47:01

who I hosted the first season with he's

47:03

obviously also played the game It

47:06

just didn't work out to get somebody who

47:08

didn't play the game to talk about the show.

47:10

What I can promise is that

47:13

I'm very vigilant about spoilers for

47:15

future game stuff. We do not

47:17

spoil anything from the future of

47:19

the game. If there's anything even

47:21

close to it, I will delete

47:23

it from the podcast to protect

47:25

people. But yeah, I'm

47:27

sorry that we cannot

47:29

provide an unfettered show -only

47:31

perspective. That's it. If

47:34

you do have a reaction that you want

47:36

to share to Joel being killed in the show

47:38

and you have not played the game Feel

47:40

free to send us a voicemail at decodingTVGMA.com would

47:42

love to kind of hear what people's reactions

47:44

have been Were you upset by it? Did you

47:46

see it coming? You know just like let

47:49

us know What you thought of and are you

47:51

gonna keep watching the show or does this

47:53

like kill your interest in the show? Feel

47:55

free to record a little voicemail send it

47:57

to us at decodingTVGMA.com if we get a few

47:59

I'll play them on the air. All right I

48:02

wanted to address those things before we get to

48:04

this week's episode of The Last of Us. Patrick

48:07

Klepek, let's talk about The Last of Us Season 2

48:09

Episode 3. What did you think of

48:11

the episode? It's

48:14

interesting. Like, immediately I'm going to

48:16

talk about the video game, but

48:18

I don't... This is more of

48:20

an emotional... It's very difficult for

48:22

video games to make me cry.

48:24

There is something about video games

48:26

and my... way I engage with

48:28

them, the way I have a

48:30

control in my hand. Even if

48:32

a story is being told, that

48:35

would be the kind of thing

48:37

where I should. It's

48:39

very easy for me to cry. It

48:41

just doesn't really happen in video games.

48:43

Like I can count it on half

48:45

a hand, like when that has happened.

48:47

And that's true of me as well.

48:49

I think I think that's right. Yeah.

48:51

And the only time it really happened

48:53

was like when I was most emotionally

48:55

raw in like the wake of my

48:57

father passing 10 years ago. And. like

49:00

that. I needed to like claw open

49:02

my heart. And then like one thing

49:04

a game called Papa EO like got

49:06

me was a game for the PlayStation

49:08

3 many years ago. It just

49:10

doesn't happen. I can be shocked. I can

49:12

be thrilled. I can be odd. I can

49:14

be sad. just I

49:16

have trouble breaking that barrier emotionally.

49:18

And so I found this

49:20

episode to be like very cathartic,

49:22

emotionally moving. I found myself

49:24

like, you know, brought to tears

49:26

multiple times, like re -experiencing things

49:29

that I played those similar

49:31

moments in the video game like

49:33

a week ago and I

49:35

just passed right through. And

49:37

here I found myself like really,

49:40

really taken. So I found it to

49:42

be a very emotionally powerful episode.

49:44

And this is not something we're going

49:46

to talk about in this segment.

49:48

This will be in the bonus, especially

49:50

because I want to be cognizant

49:52

of how people are perceiving our conversations.

49:55

I think fans are going to be very upset with

49:57

some choices that were made in this episode, different

49:59

from the game. I can allude to

50:01

that when we get into some of the

50:03

conversations, but I will leave the specifics of that

50:05

to the to the bonus. But if you

50:08

know, you know, and I'm curious how they're going

50:10

to play out that part of the storyline

50:12

going forward. But I find it to be a

50:14

very emotionally powerful episode, a like really kind

50:16

of wonderful. I don't think it's the last we

50:18

see of Joel. I suspect that Pedro Pescal

50:20

is going to come back and some sort of

50:22

flashback at some point. I don't know that

50:25

for a fact, but it feels like we'll see

50:27

him again. But if we don't, I think

50:29

it's safe to assume based on what we have

50:31

seen in the trailers. OK, OK.

50:33

There are scenes in the trailers that

50:35

have not appeared in the show yet. OK,

50:37

all right. But if that wasn't the

50:39

case, I found this to

50:41

be like a very fitting and

50:43

powerful way to say goodbye to

50:45

a character that meant a lot

50:47

to people and to Ellie. Yeah.

50:53

I was not as big a fan

50:55

as you, but I do appreciate

50:57

what you're saying because there is a

50:59

scene in, again, really trying not,

51:01

like this is praising the show actually,

51:03

right? But there's a

51:05

scene, many of the scenes in this

51:08

episode are very similar to how they are

51:10

in the game. And there's a scene

51:12

in the game and the show where LA

51:14

Ghost Joel's closet and like kind of

51:16

like embraces his old jacket. Right. His car

51:18

heart jacket. Yeah, that's what got me.

51:20

That was the idea. And in

51:22

the game, it's like press

51:24

X to smell Joel's jacket.

51:26

It's not very effective. And

51:29

in the show, it's like

51:31

Bella Ramsey is actually having

51:33

a moment that's very, very

51:35

powerful and potent. And

51:37

I was like, wow, yeah, this does

51:40

hit differently than the game. So anyway,

51:42

all that stuff, I think, is very

51:44

effective. Bella

51:46

Ramsey and Tommy's the character Tommy

51:48

morning Joel. I did appreciate that this

51:50

episode is really just Setting up

51:52

pieces for future up. It's like a

51:55

transition area episode and in that

51:57

regard I think it's does a pretty

51:59

good job, but like It's not

52:01

much happens. Yeah, not much happens. It's

52:03

okay. I mean You know

52:05

stuff happens, but it's just like not

52:07

much notable. It's just like Literally we're

52:09

moving characters from one place to the

52:11

next so that more interesting events can

52:13

occur. It's a chess piece and like

52:16

emotional like Beat for for are they

52:18

all the characters involved, but yes there

52:20

it does feel like we're we almost

52:22

experienced I Know we're not halfway through

52:24

this. I mean I guess we're like

52:26

but it felt like the first two

52:28

episodes were One part of the season

52:30

and now this episode is setting up

52:32

Like the meat like what is actually

52:34

happening this like we had the instigating

52:36

event with the death of Joel a

52:39

moment to process it and now setting

52:41

up what this season is actually about

52:43

and and as a result not too

52:45

much happens here because we need to

52:47

get our characters from From this from

52:49

one location to the next All right,

52:51

let's talk about some of the stuff

52:53

that happens this episode in the cold

52:55

open Uh, we see Tommy say

52:57

goodbye to Joel Joel's bodies on the table. I

52:59

guess, uh, Pedro Pascal didn't want to work

53:01

that day. So I don't think we actually see

53:04

his face. It's just like a body double. Um,

53:06

like he's used to this, you know, on

53:08

the Mandalorian, you know, most the time he's

53:10

not underneath that suit, you know, I will

53:12

just say the whole time I was watching

53:14

this, I was just like, Pedro Pascal, that

53:16

is not Pedro Pascal's body. That is, that

53:19

is some person whose body double of Pedro

53:21

Pascal that looks like him kind of, uh,

53:23

I could not shake that fact. But anyway,

53:25

Tommy says goodbye to Joel. It's pretty emotional.

53:27

Ellie has a PTSD flashback of

53:29

watching Joel die, and then

53:32

cut to the opening credits, and

53:34

then it's three months later. Ellie

53:37

is seeing a doctor. She meets up

53:39

with Gale. She mocks Gale's efforts to

53:41

care for her. Then she goes home and looks

53:44

over some of Joel's things. She sees a

53:46

red box in the bed that has the watch

53:48

that Joel got in the very first episode

53:50

of the series, plus Joel's gun. You

53:52

see it's the duality of

53:54

man, Patrick. Love and also brutality.

53:57

Dina arrives and brings some baked goods as

53:59

a peace offering because she knows that Ellie

54:02

will be pissed when she reveals that she

54:04

knows most of the names of the people

54:06

that killed Joel and where they're heading. The

54:08

people are Manny, Owen, Nora,

54:10

and Abby, part of the Washington

54:12

Liberation Front, a small regional

54:14

group trying to fight Fedra. Ellie

54:17

tries to convince Tommy to go with

54:19

her and kill these WLF people. And

54:21

Tommy says to do a posse right, which

54:24

apparently involves sending 16 people out there, they'll

54:26

have to bring it up at the council

54:28

meeting. At the council

54:30

meeting, people share differing thoughts, but one of

54:32

the people who really is in favor of

54:34

Ellie's plan is Seth, the bigot who called

54:36

Ellie a bad word a few episodes ago. Ellie

54:39

pleads for justice, not revenge, but

54:41

by a vote of eight to three,

54:43

the proposal is rejected. Alright,

54:45

let's pause here for a moment, Patrick. This

54:48

stuff with the council, it's all like new

54:50

stuff. None of this is in the game.

54:52

I'm curious, like, as a show watcher, watching

54:54

the show, like, did you think this

54:56

is effective? Did you buy this whole council scene? What

54:58

did you think of Ellie's speech? Any thoughts? I

55:01

actually thought this stuff

55:03

worked really well. The,

55:06

you know, the game,

55:08

things happen pretty quickly from

55:10

the death of Joel

55:12

to to Ellie seeking her

55:14

revenge here. I

55:16

think it's the advantage of what you

55:19

can tell me shows like is

55:21

like feeling the weight of Ellie's frustration

55:23

like trying to do things the

55:25

right way like Like trying to talk

55:27

to a therapist like trying to

55:29

go to the council like doing like

55:32

how do I achieve? It's a

55:34

question like how do you achieve justice

55:36

and what form does it arrive

55:38

and how does your desire for justice?

55:41

affect those around you

55:43

and his episode Is

55:46

is a way of sitting with those emotions

55:48

so that by the time? Ellie

55:50

actually gets on a horse and leaves with

55:52

Dina to go to Seattle I Think you're

55:54

kind of you know like yeah, like you

55:56

tried like get your ass out there and

55:59

go do it yourself like I think it's

56:01

meant to sort of experience some of the

56:03

the frustrations that Ellie would naturally have in

56:05

this moment and kind of slow walks her

56:07

process of getting out of there I thought

56:09

it worked pretty well and speaks to The

56:13

game doesn't spend much time fleshing out

56:15

Jackson as a character this show is obviously

56:17

much more interested in fleshing out Jackson

56:19

like the city as a character And I

56:21

appreciate that I like that. I like

56:23

seeing more of how does this society? operate

56:26

itself and you know, I sort

56:28

of end up kind of agreeing

56:30

with everybody at the end I

56:32

think it's probably unreasonable to send

56:34

16 people from the community after

56:37

everything that just happened and yet

56:39

also Go

56:41

get justice for your man, you

56:43

know, like I get that too. So

56:45

I think I think it was

56:47

effective at sort of establishing stakes and

56:49

rationales for a lot of the

56:51

different people involved in this community. Yeah,

56:54

some cool things about this scene.

56:56

One of them is you get competing

56:58

visions of justice from different people

57:00

and it seems like the show is

57:02

outlining like. Here are

57:04

like the big ideas that we are

57:06

gonna be dealing with this season is

57:08

like what is justice? What is mercy?

57:10

What is revenge? And I like that

57:13

there's a kind of dialogue between these

57:15

things. I also like in the show

57:17

that you really feel again I'm really

57:19

trying hard to not compare this to

57:21

the game like I am actively Attempting

57:23

it, but it's it's hard sometimes and

57:25

so hopefully when I praise the show

57:28

it doesn't come off as merely in

57:30

relation to the game But one of

57:32

the things that the show does that

57:34

the game does not do is you

57:36

really feel like, oh, to send 16

57:38

guys, or even one or two people

57:40

out there, is using a ton of

57:43

resources that need to be extremely carefully

57:45

allocated in the post -apocalypse. And for

57:47

what? Right? Like, it's not... It's not

57:49

that, you know, we have no sense

57:51

from the senseless killing of Joel that

57:53

there are immediate consequences to be... Tell

57:55

like other than the loss of John

57:58

what he brought to the community But

58:00

it is not as though like hey

58:02

if we don't strike back like those

58:04

raiders are gonna come Attack Jackson again

58:06

like this feels very much like a

58:08

one -and -done. It's a tragedy But you're

58:10

only inviting more violence and more loss

58:13

by seeking the revenge that's in your

58:15

heart and I think they do I

58:17

think you're right. They do a good

58:19

job of Unpacking like as heated as

58:21

you feel Why do does everyone have

58:23

to share that burden with you or

58:25

is that? for you to bear, given

58:28

that this is a, this a

58:30

community that was having a housing crisis. Maybe

58:32

they're not having that now as a result

58:34

of the attack, but they'll rebuild that. And

58:36

like that kind of stuff is going to

58:38

be more top of mind than what do

58:40

you get by killing? They're resource constrained now

58:42

because of the whole zombie attack last episode.

58:45

I do think that it's a little bit

58:47

less clear, Patrick, than what you're making

58:49

out of. that it's a one -and -done thing

58:52

because I think the only person that

58:54

might know that is Dina and I think

58:56

she was incapacitated before they really explained.

58:58

Yeah. So it's not like maybe they will

59:00

come back if you know maybe this

59:02

was a test who knows like it does

59:04

appear by all accounts that this is

59:06

a one -and -done attack but they don't know

59:08

and that that uncertainty is made clear

59:11

in the episode so anyway. I

59:13

have a question how do you

59:15

feel about them giving an

59:17

arc to The bigotty character

59:19

that says something like it's it's

59:21

the show is like again, this

59:23

isn't in the game. It's like

59:25

they're choosing to make that character

59:28

though like the one who like

59:30

steps up and like Empathizes with

59:32

Ellie and and this revenge plate.

59:34

I did that work for you.

59:36

I was kind of it didn't

59:38

really work for me as a

59:40

choice. I

59:43

think it worked for me because

59:45

I I don't know I don't

59:47

know, but I think the implication

59:49

is going to be maybe if

59:51

the hardcore bigot character is the

59:53

one that's on your side, your

59:55

side might not be the correct

59:57

one. We don't know where Ellie's

59:59

going to end up character -wise,

1:00:01

how she's going to perceive her

1:00:03

actions. If

1:00:06

that is where it ends up then

1:00:08

that could be like hey the hardcore

1:00:10

bigot. He's the one that's rooting for

1:00:12

me No, thanks. I'm gonna change my

1:00:14

position on this right like maybe that

1:00:16

is a valid point of view so

1:00:18

My answer to your question is TBD.

1:00:20

We'll see how it all ends up

1:00:22

anyway By a vote of eight to

1:00:25

three the proposals rejected very sad There

1:00:27

is a scene where Tommy and Gale

1:00:29

talk while watching a baseball game. Tommy

1:00:31

says about Ellie, I don't want her

1:00:33

to go down the same path that

1:00:35

Joel did. But Gale says, some people

1:00:37

just can't be saved. Thanks, Gale. Patrick,

1:00:40

going to put this out there. I

1:00:42

think Gale is kind of a

1:00:44

useless character so far, and also

1:00:46

not the only psychologist character that

1:00:48

we've seen in a show we've

1:00:51

reviewed here on DecodingTV. The agency

1:00:53

also had a very similar character,

1:00:55

who I also thought sucked. It's

1:00:57

it feels like everyone saw the Sopranos

1:00:59

do it which was extremely well done and

1:01:02

Now they're like we should have a

1:01:04

psychologist character to say what people are thinking

1:01:06

and it has not gone well and

1:01:08

Who knows maybe they'll bring the whole gale

1:01:10

thing back around but so far I'm

1:01:12

not impressed. What do you think Patrick? I

1:01:15

think it's mostly just carried by Catherine

1:01:17

O 'Hara being an incredible performer and

1:01:19

I think this role in the hands

1:01:21

of anyone lesser I think it would

1:01:23

stick out much more like a sore

1:01:25

thumb. It would be even worse than

1:01:27

it is yourself. How do we get

1:01:29

the inner voice of a character out? We'll

1:01:32

just get someone with a role that has to

1:01:34

ask them questions that then they have to answer.

1:01:37

And that's kind of all they've used

1:01:39

her for here. And so I

1:01:41

think she does a wonderful job. She's

1:01:44

really fun to watch on screen.

1:01:46

I'm never going to turn down a

1:01:48

scene with Catherine O 'Hara, but in

1:01:50

terms of what is functioning, the

1:01:52

plot, it feels... Like it's not accomplishing

1:01:54

very much or it's being used

1:01:56

as a crutch in a way that

1:01:58

Is unnecessary like I I liked

1:02:00

the Joel scene with her that made

1:02:02

sense like that made sense to

1:02:04

me But now it's like now she's

1:02:06

just being like thrown around as

1:02:08

a you know a convenient conversational device

1:02:10

with a bunch of different characters

1:02:12

in the world and I don't know

1:02:14

it doesn't feel very naturalistic. It

1:02:17

feels a little forced Dina

1:02:20

visits Ellie to find that she's already

1:02:23

planning to leave, but Dina seems much

1:02:25

better prepared and has an extremely intricate

1:02:27

plan ready. In the middle of the night,

1:02:29

they meet Seth, the bigot character who

1:02:31

supplies them with a bunch of what

1:02:33

they need to make it across state

1:02:35

lines and into Seattle. Ellie visits

1:02:37

Joel's grave before setting off, and

1:02:39

later they take shelter in a tent

1:02:41

when Dina reveals she and Jesse have gotten

1:02:44

back together. So these are some the

1:02:46

things that happen as they're setting out. There

1:02:49

might be some questions from

1:02:51

the audience about what was going

1:02:53

on with the coffee beans

1:02:55

that Ellie left at Joel's grave

1:02:57

If you will recall in

1:02:59

season one There there was a

1:03:02

bonding scene between Ellie and

1:03:04

Joel where Joel describes his love

1:03:06

of coffee coffee is really

1:03:08

difficult to get in the post

1:03:10

apocalypse and so Yeah, just

1:03:12

wanted to call out that in

1:03:14

in season one episode four Joel

1:03:17

is brewing coffee in a

1:03:19

camping kettle and and it

1:03:21

has some significance to them

1:03:23

based on that scene alone.

1:03:26

So anyway We should point

1:03:28

out that at one point

1:03:30

in the episode they cut

1:03:32

to Seattle and there's a

1:03:34

group of people dressed in

1:03:36

robes walking through the forest

1:03:38

now in the after the

1:03:40

show like Promote

1:03:44

promo like they do this like behind

1:03:46

the seat behind the episode Craig Mason

1:03:48

does reveal that the names of these

1:03:50

characters are the seraphites It's the same

1:03:52

as the name that they had same

1:03:54

name as they had in the in

1:03:56

the game All these characters have scars

1:03:58

and they whistle to communicate And

1:04:01

they also talk about someone called the

1:04:03

prophet whose teachings they follow but who's

1:04:05

been dead for around 10 years One

1:04:07

of their conversations is cut short when

1:04:09

they are attacked by not demons but

1:04:11

quote -unquote wolves Which the show heavily

1:04:13

implies to be the WLF based on

1:04:15

the cutaway that happens the character says

1:04:17

wolves and then it cuts to a

1:04:19

WLF logo Perhaps they are the same

1:04:21

thing Anyway, later when Dean and Ellie

1:04:24

wake up they continue towards Seattle only

1:04:26

to find that all the people from

1:04:28

earlier all these seraphites have been murdered They

1:04:30

arrive in Seattle Manny from earlier is

1:04:32

in the Space Needle as a lookout

1:04:34

a WLF tank roams through the streets

1:04:36

and we see dozens of WLF people

1:04:38

behind them This is not a small

1:04:40

faction anymore. The show seems to be

1:04:42

saying it's not just like this splinter

1:04:44

group these people have a lot of

1:04:47

resources and a lot of people to

1:04:49

act them out and Potentially they are

1:04:51

monstrous as well and that's when the

1:04:53

episode comes to an end so a

1:04:55

lot of intriguing possibilities Patrick any other

1:04:57

thoughts on the episode Yeah,

1:05:01

I will save the specifics because it is

1:05:03

clear that there are things happening here

1:05:05

where if we were to talk, like many

1:05:07

times when we've sort of alluded to

1:05:09

or just talked directly to differences in the

1:05:11

game and the show, it's like, hey,

1:05:14

we're not spoiling anything more, but here's a

1:05:16

different way they handled it. the

1:05:19

Dina and Ellie relationship, I am

1:05:21

fascinated to see how that evolves.

1:05:23

There is a different tact being

1:05:26

taken so far. I expect it

1:05:28

to be very divisive in the

1:05:30

fandom, is what I'll say. In

1:05:33

the show, it's shaping up to be

1:05:35

a meaningful friendship so far is what

1:05:37

it looks like. Yeah, they shared a

1:05:39

kiss and she said, you know, the

1:05:42

line that I expect to get riled

1:05:44

up was something to the effect of

1:05:46

like, you're gay, I'm not. How was

1:05:48

it as they're talking about? Right. Rating

1:05:50

rating the kiss and the fact that

1:05:52

she got to back to back other

1:05:54

got back together with Jesse Whether officially

1:05:57

or a fling who's who's to say

1:05:59

but I think it's clear the evolution

1:06:01

their relationship is going to be a

1:06:03

core part of This season because essentially

1:06:05

the show needs to establish Like can

1:06:07

you replace or will it try to

1:06:10

replace Joel right because is is Dia

1:06:12

going to be Dina gonna be The

1:06:14

Joel character so to speak and

1:06:16

like continue to have the show be

1:06:19

a pairing and I am I'm

1:06:21

curious to see how that works both

1:06:23

those actors like play off each

1:06:25

other really really well like they sell

1:06:27

I think Ellie's confusion and frustration

1:06:29

like like your heart Like just goes

1:06:31

to her in that moment where

1:06:33

they talk about the kiss where she

1:06:35

She it's clear. She allowed for

1:06:38

a moment to to think about the

1:06:40

possibility that this This woman who

1:06:42

clearly she's like very attracted to she

1:06:44

doesn't think of herself in the

1:06:46

same way like oh my god like

1:06:48

could this be happening and like

1:06:50

you see in that moment like the

1:06:52

possibilities seem to extinguish between the

1:06:54

the two of them and I don't

1:06:57

think she finds the banter over

1:06:59

the kiss to be as fun as

1:07:01

Dina is making it out right

1:07:03

Dina is the one that has all

1:07:05

the the power in this yeah,

1:07:07

like she like D. Ellie's the one

1:07:09

that wants to be accepted romantically

1:07:11

and There's not much indication right

1:07:13

now that it's going to be more

1:07:16

than a drunken kiss at the dance,

1:07:18

and that seems to have hurt her,

1:07:20

and I can't blame Ellie for feeling

1:07:22

that way. You can't blame her for

1:07:24

feeling hurt in that situation. I agree.

1:07:27

I think what's cool about the

1:07:29

episode is it feels as

1:07:31

though Ellie and Dean are going

1:07:33

west to solve this one

1:07:35

problem, which is let's kill these

1:07:38

four people that have obviously

1:07:40

hurt them in a profound way.

1:07:42

But what we see in

1:07:44

this episode is basically they are

1:07:46

brushing up against forces that

1:07:48

are much larger. Deeply miscalculated. Much

1:07:51

larger and more broader and more

1:07:53

powerful than they can possibly imagine.

1:07:56

And so I'm interested to see how that

1:07:58

dynamic plays out in the show. But

1:08:01

yeah, so far, all the show has

1:08:03

done is set it up. It hasn't

1:08:05

actually done anything with it. But it

1:08:07

is fascinating. Like, oh, hey, the WLF.

1:08:09

is freaking huge. Like, it's

1:08:11

not just eight people in,

1:08:14

you know, with, uh, uh,

1:08:16

holsters on their legs. It's like

1:08:18

they have freaking tanks and shit. Like,

1:08:20

this is, Ali was gonna, you

1:08:23

know, uh, she was gonna come up

1:08:25

in her converse, you know? I mean,

1:08:27

like, this is somebody who is not...

1:08:29

Right. I mean, Ali and Joel share

1:08:31

this with one another, in which they

1:08:33

are very impulsive characters. Like, being impulsive

1:08:35

is what... I mean, we've got Joel

1:08:37

killed. Um, eventually his impulsiveness... up to

1:08:39

him and there was a situation he

1:08:41

could not get himself out of he

1:08:43

couldn't MacGyver his way out of it

1:08:45

and Ellie shares that attribute with Joel

1:08:47

and like she was ready to Hop

1:08:49

on a horse with like no food

1:08:52

no supplies and just I'll just figure

1:08:54

it out and she would have gotten

1:08:56

herself killed like along the way and

1:08:58

Even though Dina and Christopher McCandless into

1:09:01

the wild type yes Yes, and

1:09:03

even though she's more prepared than she

1:09:05

was and Dina has got a

1:09:07

good at you know head on her

1:09:09

shoulders like I Think you're right

1:09:11

like these factions. They're coming across the

1:09:13

scale of these factions suggest Their

1:09:15

plan is already out the window. I

1:09:17

like you know and no good

1:09:20

can come of stepping foot into Seattle

1:09:22

and all that can happen. That's

1:09:24

what I keep crying to tell everyone

1:09:26

about that. All

1:09:28

that's going to happen as they press

1:09:30

forward is they're going to invite an

1:09:32

opportunity for them to get hurt, for

1:09:34

them to disproportionately hurt others. And

1:09:37

was Jackson ever going to be

1:09:39

under any threat if they never touched

1:09:41

Seattle? I think it's pretty clear

1:09:44

now. No, but

1:09:46

now that they're about to step foot in

1:09:48

there, have they raised the possibility that

1:09:50

it's not just a backlash for them? It's

1:09:52

a bad class for everybody back home.

1:09:54

Yeah, like they're tangling with forces that could

1:09:56

really hurt them as a community. Yes,

1:09:58

if they wanted to go take Jackson, sure

1:10:01

seems like they have the firepower to,

1:10:03

if not take it, to do a whole

1:10:05

lot of damage along the way. Troubling.

1:10:09

Troubling. Well, we'll see

1:10:11

what happens as the show goes on, but those

1:10:13

are our thoughts on season two, episode three

1:10:15

of The Last of Us. Race

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do at Mint mobile.com. All

1:11:21

right, Patrick, let's

1:11:24

talk about the rehearsal, season

1:11:26

two, episode two. It's not a

1:11:28

singing TV show, it's actually a singing

1:11:30

competition as part of another TV

1:11:33

show that has nothing to do with

1:11:35

singing. Oh, cool. Is

1:11:37

there like a price at the end or

1:11:39

kind of what's the setup up with

1:11:41

it? Okay, so the winner will get to

1:11:43

sing a song of our choice on

1:11:45

national television with a full backing band in

1:11:47

a partial recreation of the Houston airport. Wow,

1:11:51

that was amazing. Welcome

1:11:54

to decoding TV's coverage of

1:11:56

the rehearsal season two episode two

1:11:59

star potential In this episode

1:12:01

Nathan fielder stage is a fictional

1:12:03

reality show audition called wings

1:12:05

of voice an aviation themed singing

1:12:07

competition The idea is that

1:12:09

by having co -pilots reject various

1:12:11

auditioners from the competition They may

1:12:13

they might learn how to

1:12:15

actually break bad news to people

1:12:17

Patrick Lepic. I am curious What

1:12:21

did you think of this episode

1:12:23

of the show? And you know what?

1:12:25

I'm actually gonna start by saying

1:12:28

This episode is clearly made for a

1:12:30

hardcore Nathan fielder fans like he

1:12:32

is he is alluding to Nathan fielder

1:12:34

lore from like a long time

1:12:36

ago that like that's a huge part

1:12:38

of the episode is like old

1:12:40

Nathan for you stuff that you as

1:12:42

somebody who has never watched Nathan

1:12:44

for you don't even Aren't even aware

1:12:47

of so I'm curious like as

1:12:49

a relatively new coming person

1:12:51

to the Nathan Fielder, Ovrah, did

1:12:53

this episode work for you? No,

1:12:56

it did. I think it actually

1:12:58

speaks to the strengths of the concept

1:13:00

of the show that I thought

1:13:02

I was getting in season one. And

1:13:04

then where it went in season

1:13:06

one didn't work for a variety of

1:13:08

reasons that I outlined when we

1:13:10

talked about the first episode of the

1:13:12

rehearsal. But here, I

1:13:14

mean, this is the good shit. I

1:13:17

really, really liked this. I

1:13:19

feel you know, it's it's walking the

1:13:21

tricky line that I Is this oh is

1:13:23

it is Nathan field? Is this the

1:13:26

real Nathan fielder? I don't I think we're

1:13:28

closer to like I feel like we're

1:13:30

closer to the real Nathan fielder in much

1:13:32

of this episode then we haven't in

1:13:34

the past but I think the stuff that

1:13:36

you saw and enjoy in his work

1:13:38

and got out of season one that I

1:13:40

just couldn't because of the subject matter

1:13:42

and the approach that the show took I'm

1:13:45

able to do this season and found the

1:13:47

audacious nature of the spectacle

1:13:49

and what Fielder is attempting to

1:13:52

do here, like

1:13:54

really fascinatingly transgressive. Like, everything that

1:13:56

happens in the back half

1:13:58

of this episode, I don't know

1:14:00

how you can't have your

1:14:02

jaw on the floor at the

1:14:05

audacity of it. Because

1:14:07

it's trying to shock you,

1:14:09

and it does. And I

1:14:11

think it's really effective at

1:14:13

making Many

1:14:15

points throughout throughout the episode. I

1:14:17

mean this episode is classic

1:14:19

Nathan fielder It is very similar

1:14:21

in style and approach to Nathan

1:14:23

for you his coffee central series

1:14:26

Where he'll set up this like

1:14:28

extremely elaborate Fictional thing that

1:14:30

people believe is this other thing

1:14:32

that's happening with this singing competition

1:14:34

called wings of voice and

1:14:36

And it makes me deeply uncomfortable

1:14:38

in the way that Nathan for

1:14:40

you made me deeply uncomfortable like

1:14:42

for instance You have all

1:14:45

these people, apparently hundreds of people turn up

1:14:47

to audition for Wings of Voice. And

1:14:49

in my opinion, they

1:14:52

are made objects of ridicule, like in

1:14:54

my opinion. Now people might disagree with that,

1:14:56

but like, you know, there's

1:14:58

a fairly heartbreaking moment where

1:15:00

one of the girls auditions and

1:15:02

then like the pilot says, Very

1:15:05

clunkily like I'm sorry. I can't help I

1:15:07

can't help you like you're you're you're not

1:15:09

moving on and then she goes outside and

1:15:11

like her dad tells her she's proud She

1:15:13

starts crying her death and it's like I

1:15:15

think a lot of people will like laugh

1:15:18

at that, you know, because there is something

1:15:20

kind of funny about that but also Probably

1:15:22

that's a person having a real moment, right?

1:15:24

And here's the thing we don't know like

1:15:26

this is a thing that's so wild about

1:15:28

the show is we don't Is

1:15:30

that a real person having a real

1:15:32

one? Did Nathan Fielder hire an actor

1:15:35

to pretend to have a break? We

1:15:37

literally don't know. And

1:15:39

that not knowing is a

1:15:41

key part of the Nathan Fielder

1:15:43

experience. But it also makes

1:15:45

me deeply uncomfortable, because if that is a real

1:15:47

person, we should not be laughing at them. And

1:15:50

it's not cool. But the show kind

1:15:52

of - mean, the show wants you

1:15:54

to - I think if you take the

1:15:56

show - which obviously is the difficult

1:15:58

show to take at face value. That

1:16:00

said, I do think in many times

1:16:03

you end up learning, like, enough

1:16:05

about what the reality or unreality is that

1:16:07

you can make some sort of judgment calls

1:16:09

on, like, how you're supposed to respond to

1:16:11

a scene. And so I guess, yeah,

1:16:13

I guess you have to leave open the possibility

1:16:15

that that was fake or will be revealed to

1:16:17

be fake later and, like, the show will kind of

1:16:19

go, aha. If you have seen

1:16:21

Nathan for you and if you have

1:16:24

studied... for you as I have then you

1:16:26

will know that there's many times when

1:16:28

like stuff is set up as though it

1:16:30

is real but like everyone is in

1:16:32

on it or they know what's going to

1:16:34

happen If that's not what happened here

1:16:36

though, but if you take the show ad

1:16:38

face value of like correct there meant

1:16:40

like there are many parts of the unreality

1:16:42

that we're aware of and this one

1:16:44

is a real person that showed up to

1:16:46

a singing competition that they thought was

1:16:48

real and then has a moment where it's

1:16:50

all an exercise for other people to

1:16:52

work out their issues at the expense of

1:16:54

this person having a moment that they

1:16:56

didn't understand Right with the context was like

1:16:59

that's like that's the stuff of season

1:17:01

one of the rehearsal that Like I don't

1:17:03

I did not find right like funny

1:17:05

and like I essentially could not engage with

1:17:07

the show on the level that I

1:17:09

think many other people were because I found

1:17:11

it like repugnant morally uncomfortable morally uncomfortable

1:17:13

and like this isn't It's one moment and

1:17:15

like I did you know, I it's

1:17:17

hard to not chuckle at the giant context

1:17:19

of it, but I'm with you like

1:17:21

those are the moments where I

1:17:24

feel the show like slipping from me when

1:17:26

the stuff like that yeah, it's not just

1:17:28

that one person. There's multiple people that are

1:17:30

like rejected. Like all these people in theory,

1:17:32

this happened to hundreds of people all day.

1:17:35

Right, right. And all these, and like,

1:17:37

I think the show wants you to

1:17:39

laugh at their earnestness of like, ha

1:17:41

ha, these people who are tricked into

1:17:43

doing this like silly reality show that

1:17:45

doesn't exist. But it's like, you put

1:17:47

them their show, you know. Well, I

1:17:49

think, but because the end of, there's,

1:17:51

I wish I had meant to write

1:17:53

down the line that Fielder - at the

1:17:55

end about the notion of being earnest,

1:17:57

like that, you know, I

1:18:00

don't know if that's Nathan Field of

1:18:02

the character, Nathan Field of the person

1:18:04

or the mixture of the two. But

1:18:06

essentially, like he has an inability to

1:18:08

be authentic because he can't perform it.

1:18:10

And he's like, he's jealous of other

1:18:12

people that can perform earnestness and authenticity.

1:18:14

Right. And he can't. Again, that's part

1:18:16

of the Nathan Field of characters. So

1:18:18

blank or mute. But

1:18:20

Yes, that's taking advantage

1:18:23

of other people because

1:18:25

they are earnest. That's

1:18:28

not a place where I like to spend my free

1:18:31

time. It's there emotionally.

1:18:33

Right. It's some variation of

1:18:35

the phrase, the key to success and sincerity,

1:18:37

if you can fake that, you've got it

1:18:39

made. I know that's not what the exact

1:18:41

quote was, but it was something along those

1:18:43

lines. So all

1:18:45

that singing stuff, the Canadian

1:18:47

Idol... it's very amusing and it's

1:18:49

also again classic Nathan for

1:18:51

you of like this is such

1:18:53

a preposterous situation that he

1:18:56

would That that a he would

1:18:58

hold this competition be people

1:19:00

believe in it and perform like

1:19:02

he will go to these

1:19:04

outrageous lengths So that people can

1:19:06

like rehearse this interaction. I

1:19:08

really enjoyed that one woman who

1:19:10

like kept Passing everyone like

1:19:13

she couldn't reject any of the

1:19:15

singers and it's also hilarious

1:19:17

that they use all royalty -free

1:19:19

songs So they don't need to

1:19:21

pay for the royalty so

1:19:23

it's all like amazing grace and

1:19:25

the star -spangled banner basically That

1:19:27

people are singing so there's

1:19:29

lots of like really funny touches

1:19:32

to it But okay There

1:19:34

is a massive digression in the

1:19:36

middle of the episode where

1:19:38

he talks about how

1:19:42

he himself, Nathan Fielder,

1:19:44

had to break bad

1:19:46

news to someone or

1:19:48

speak in an uncomfortable

1:19:50

fashion to a superior.

1:19:53

When there was an episode of Nathan For

1:19:55

You, I think it's season three, episode

1:19:57

two, that had been

1:19:59

removed from the Paramount Plus app.

1:20:02

Now, I went back and rewatched that episode. And

1:20:05

essentially, I will

1:20:07

tell you that it is, I purchased Nathan

1:20:09

for you on Digible and that episode

1:20:11

is still available. So apparently it's not streaming

1:20:13

on Paramount Plus, but it is streaming

1:20:15

on Max. So if you

1:20:17

want to check it out, apparently

1:20:20

you can see it on Max,

1:20:22

but not Paramount Plus. Interesting. Well, it's

1:20:24

not even one of the main

1:20:26

plot lines of that episode. It's like

1:20:28

a subplot. But essentially Nathan Fielder

1:20:30

realizes that the windbreaker that he loves

1:20:32

wearing It's by

1:20:35

a company called Tiger.

1:20:37

I think I don't

1:20:39

know if you're familiar

1:20:41

with them but Which

1:20:44

is like it's unclear

1:20:46

how real of a

1:20:48

brand that is but

1:20:51

suffice to say Tiger

1:20:53

apparently in the context

1:20:55

of the episode had

1:20:57

Made a tribute to

1:21:00

a Holocaust denier uh,

1:21:02

and like he wore this

1:21:04

windbreaker that said taiga for like

1:21:06

every episode of the show

1:21:08

and That brand made a tribute

1:21:10

to a guy who is

1:21:12

a holocaust nair and so he's

1:21:14

like I need to have

1:21:16

a like I want to make

1:21:18

my own winter brand That

1:21:20

actually is about holocaust awareness. So

1:21:22

he created a winter apparel

1:21:24

company called summit ice Whose tagline

1:21:26

was deny nothing and it

1:21:29

was about Holocaust awareness. And

1:21:31

it was like a very amusing

1:21:33

episode about that topic. But yeah,

1:21:35

it was largely about like promoting

1:21:37

awareness of the Holocaust. It was

1:21:39

not anti -Semitic in any regard,

1:21:41

right? And apparently Paramount

1:21:43

Plus banned this episode from

1:21:45

its service. And

1:21:47

so Nathan Fielder undergoes

1:21:50

this huge psychological process

1:21:52

where he like has

1:21:54

an actor play himself. Writing

1:21:56

the email to Paramount Plus and getting

1:21:58

the email and thinking through all the

1:22:01

stuff and there's all these absurd visuals

1:22:03

of him watching his actor self -shower

1:22:05

and doing all this weird ass shit

1:22:07

And it's highly amusing and then he

1:22:09

goes to this recreation of a Paramount

1:22:11

Plus office that's done up to look

1:22:13

like You know the third Reich with

1:22:15

Hitler And

1:22:19

He may have learned some things about himself

1:22:21

during that process Patrick But yeah, like as

1:22:23

somebody who didn't know about those like I

1:22:25

literally have summit ice gear in my house

1:22:27

So as somebody who didn't know anything about

1:22:29

summit ice like this all played like you

1:22:31

understood it all you know Like it all

1:22:33

made sense. Yeah, you're like Holocaust awareness, of

1:22:35

course a pair of but yeah, that all

1:22:37

adds up like that makes sense to something

1:22:39

you would do so, yeah But

1:22:42

yeah, really, the

1:22:44

thing that is funny is he

1:22:46

alludes to the fact that Paramount

1:22:48

is airing his show called The

1:22:50

Curse, which we have actually reviewed

1:22:52

on the episode by episode basis

1:22:54

here on DecodingTV. And

1:22:56

he says, but the problem is it

1:22:58

has not been reviewed yet for a

1:23:01

season two. Well, no spoilers for The Curse,

1:23:03

but suffice it to say... I don't

1:23:05

think that show is ever gonna get

1:23:07

a season two. There are shows that

1:23:09

leave open storytelling possibilities for season two, but

1:23:11

that show is not one of them. At the

1:23:13

end of that show, we're like, well, there's no

1:23:15

way they're gonna ever make a season two. It makes

1:23:17

no sense. Which is why they should at some

1:23:19

point. Just to prove us wrong. But

1:23:23

it's just hilarious that he implies that season two might

1:23:25

still be on the table. You know I mean? Moments

1:23:28

into the first episode of that show is like, oh,

1:23:30

I don't even know why they let him make this

1:23:32

show. And it's a show I liked quite a bit.

1:23:35

Yeah, that is awesome. I it. It's

1:23:37

not trying to appeal to

1:23:39

the masses. Nothing about that

1:23:41

show is attempting to cultivate

1:23:43

an audience. With anything, it's

1:23:45

sort of rejecting the notion

1:23:47

of an audience. It's

1:23:50

a very fascinating show. There

1:23:53

is this subplot where again one of

1:23:55

these one of the people in the aviation

1:23:57

competition Mara D gets super high scores

1:23:59

for her rejection So he's like studying her

1:24:01

to see like how can I reject

1:24:03

people like her? You know, he's using her

1:24:05

words He's using her like phrases and

1:24:07

he's trying to like reverse engineer how to

1:24:09

be a nice human which is very

1:24:11

difficult to do But then he gets introduced

1:24:13

to this pilot who Apparently has been

1:24:15

banned from every single dating app and then

1:24:17

he puts him together with Mara D

1:24:19

And again, this is a part the show

1:24:21

where I'm like there's no

1:24:23

way this guy is a real

1:24:25

guy like you know like that's

1:24:27

part of my reaction is like

1:24:29

there's no way that guy is

1:24:31

real we're like let me put

1:24:33

it differently Patrick I hope that

1:24:35

guy is not a real guy

1:24:37

unfortunately I think they're more I

1:24:39

think it's more common than you

1:24:41

think for sure for sure but

1:24:43

like You know, there's all these

1:24:45

like absurdities like really that guy

1:24:47

also he's he's like a pilot

1:24:49

that has power over people Also,

1:24:51

he's willing to like explain his

1:24:53

deficiencies on national television You know,

1:24:56

like there's all these like in

1:24:58

possibilities that that caused me to

1:25:00

question whether that is a guy

1:25:02

like a real person or an

1:25:04

actor, you know Portraying like a

1:25:06

morally reprehensible dude And

1:25:08

I like that the show makes

1:25:10

me question that like that's that's

1:25:12

what I really enjoy about the

1:25:14

show But Patrick any thoughts on

1:25:16

like that whole subplot with Mara

1:25:18

D and the the sort of

1:25:21

body pilot Well, I think this

1:25:23

is where the ambiguity on fielder

1:25:25

as a performer is like really

1:25:27

fun and interesting because I don't

1:25:29

you don't you know part of

1:25:31

Nathan fielder's whole trick is you

1:25:33

don't you never really know Who

1:25:37

you're talking to like what part

1:25:39

is you know avant -garde performance art

1:25:41

and what part is the actual Nathan

1:25:43

fielder and you don't know a

1:25:45

real boy trying to be a real

1:25:47

boy like what part of it

1:25:49

is actually doing it right and like

1:25:51

part like it's what makes his

1:25:53

Act and his performance like gained strength

1:25:55

over time because you just get

1:25:58

a longer body of work to be

1:26:00

confused and have ambiguity with it's

1:26:02

like And but regardless he whether it's

1:26:04

him a mixture of him and

1:26:06

a character or the character What you

1:26:08

see on screen is somebody who

1:26:10

has trouble expressing emotions and articulating how

1:26:12

they feel and. I think

1:26:14

that speaks to a lot of people who probably have

1:26:16

difficult like to do you know, kind of thing where

1:26:18

a person walks into a room and they're naturally charismatic

1:26:20

and the spotlight opens to them and a lot of

1:26:22

people struggle to like. Art to

1:26:25

you know to to do that part

1:26:27

of being alive and like social

1:26:29

like being in social situations and Nathan

1:26:31

field or the character or person

1:26:33

or some mixture of all those like

1:26:35

is exploring that idea. Here of

1:26:37

like what is the performance of life?

1:26:39

And what is that? How does

1:26:41

that intersect with the true self or

1:26:43

whatever you consider your true self?

1:26:45

And that's just I mean, that's really

1:26:47

fascinating I find that to be

1:26:49

like really interesting material and so that's

1:26:51

why so far like The veers

1:26:53

off into the to the odd have

1:26:55

been have really worked for me

1:26:57

so far into I Also just really

1:26:59

liked the through line of he's

1:27:01

trying to get his score up His

1:27:04

his rating score up and it goes

1:27:06

from I think two to four to

1:27:08

six by the end or or a

1:27:10

nine or a nine How did she

1:27:12

put it in? You know, we don't

1:27:14

we don't know she didn't underscore she

1:27:17

didn't underline But I thought that was

1:27:19

like a beautiful moment and it kind

1:27:21

of One of the amazing things about

1:27:23

Nathan for you is like each one

1:27:25

of these stories felt like they had

1:27:27

a Plot arc like a satisfying like

1:27:29

three -act structure. Mm -hmm But it was

1:27:31

fear like ostensibly it's reality and that's

1:27:34

what's great about this episode is like

1:27:36

Oh Was he really getting these ratings

1:27:38

and taking them seriously like because it's

1:27:40

such a perfect place to end that

1:27:42

story, you know Was he really getting

1:27:44

these ratings did it really go from

1:27:46

246 like we assume it did, you

1:27:48

know I mean these episodes of writers,

1:27:51

you know, I mean like we don't

1:27:53

know what quote writing means on this

1:27:55

show And any behind -the -scenes stuff they

1:27:57

showed you unfortunately the the premise of

1:27:59

the show would mean that you would

1:28:01

not be able to take seriously like

1:28:03

a behind the scenes feature at on

1:28:05

the rehearsal because we feel like it

1:28:08

was part of. There's no way

1:28:10

to trust it. But you know,

1:28:12

like these shut these episodes, you know, they

1:28:14

have to assign writers and directors, but

1:28:16

it's directed by Nathan Fielder. And then the

1:28:18

writers like often share, I think like

1:28:20

this episode had four writers, including Fielder. And

1:28:22

so, you know, that is there are

1:28:24

people who are thinking about this, you know,

1:28:26

is this something they figure out? After

1:28:28

shooting a lot and they figure out the

1:28:30

arcs they want to you know, who's

1:28:32

who's to say who's to know? But

1:28:35

there is like you said there's

1:28:37

there's thought going into How this all

1:28:39

this stuff plays out that includes

1:28:41

other creatives than even just fielder Yeah,

1:28:43

yeah for sure for sure and

1:28:45

it's just like oh wow that's what

1:28:47

a perfect way to the episode

1:28:49

perfect ending be like Profound and like

1:28:51

beautiful way to the episode and

1:28:53

it's like and did it all happen

1:28:55

in real life because if so

1:28:57

that's incredible, right? So anyway, these

1:28:59

are the feelings I get when I

1:29:01

watch Nathan for you and also this episode

1:29:03

of the rehearsal. So any of the

1:29:05

thoughts, Patrick, I should we wrap it up there? No,

1:29:08

I'm like, I'm much more on board with

1:29:10

this season so far. But then again, I

1:29:12

was also on board for the first two

1:29:14

episodes of the first season. So I mean,

1:29:16

I strongly I strongly suspect

1:29:18

it's not going to suddenly

1:29:21

become like a drama about.

1:29:23

Nathan fielder like dealing with a bunch

1:29:25

of Children that make me uncomfortable. So

1:29:28

I sort of think if we if

1:29:30

this is sort of where we're going

1:29:32

the rest of the season I'm fully

1:29:34

on board. It's it's I cannot believe

1:29:36

The HBO allows him to do this.

1:29:38

Yeah I don't think this

1:29:40

is going to be a rehearsal season

1:29:42

three. It seems like he's active.

1:29:44

Like many times watching the curse, watching

1:29:46

this, it feels like Nathan Field

1:29:48

are daring. You shouldn't

1:29:50

let me do this, but you did. give

1:29:52

me any more money, please. But

1:29:54

they keep doing it anyway. We

1:29:57

will have more thoughts on The Last

1:29:59

of Us and also the rehearsal next week

1:30:01

here on Decoding TV. Until then,

1:30:03

he's Patrick Klepek. I'm David Chen. We'll see you

1:30:05

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