‘Your Friends and Neighbors’ Episode 5: High Risk, No Reward

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Hello and welcome to the Prestige TV podcast.

I am Rob Mahoney.

I'm Joanna Robinson.

And we're here to talk about episode five of Your Friends and Neighbors, not to be confused with your family and friends, Joe, because Allie is distinctly neither, we are told.

Absolutely not.

But you know what?

You're both.

How are you doing today, Joe?

A friend and a neighbor or a family and a friend or all of you.

A family and a friend.

I think certainly a neighbor within the Ringer universe.

Certainly, what are me, you, and Kai, if not podcast family?

And absolutely a friend.

So all of the above.

Wow.

What a thrill.

What an honor.

What a joy to be with you here on this Friday.

I'm excited to talk about this episode of television with you, specifically Rob Mahoney, because it starts with an awful lot of Nick.

And everything I know about Nick, I have learned from you.

So I'm excited to get all of your Nick takes as we head into this episode.

We're going to get to that.

I have some revised opinions on who Nick is within the broader NBA ecosystem.

We get...

Some clarity, some swerves.

I'm really mostly confused on that front, but we'll get to it in time.

You and I were both on Bill's podcast this week, and you were talking to him about basketball.

I was talking to him about your friends and neighbors.

So worlds collide.

But I like to think if you, if you played our segment simultaneously, I would like to think it would sound like we're talking to each other.

Oh, that's so nice.

I tried to get Bill to weigh in on the who is Nick in the NBA, and he just like breezed right past it.

So I really, I really tried to get a little bit more info on this, but I leave it up to you, the expert then.

We're trying to do the work here, but a lot going on.

As you said, we're both on the Bill Simmons podcast today.

Joe, what else is going on on the Prestige TV podcast feed right now?

Great question.

You know, so we're covering The Last of Us, of course, week to week with interviews.

There was a great interview with Gabriel Luna that Rob did this week on the podcast.

I really suggest you check it out for all of your Tommy needs.

And then also, Charles and Jodi are covering the rehearsal.

Yeah.

And I know that chiefly because

we get their emails as well as our own emails.

So I'm seeing all the rehearsal emails come pouring in.

So you can email any of us, prestige TV at spotify.com.

We don't have a specific email for this particular show, but you can find us, prestigious TV at spotify.com.

We love your emails.

Thank you so much for sending them.

We certainly do.

And you know what?

What I want to know, first of all, from all of the people emailing in this week and from you specifically, Joe,

we're hitting all of the squares on the midlife crisis bingo card at this stage of this particular season.

Which would be your method of choice?

If you're really working some things out, if you're this wealthy and have these problems, are

jumping on the trampoline of ennui?

Are you at the bottom of a pool?

Maybe screaming, maybe just having a moment of angst.

Are you setting shit on fire or are you getting into a physical altercation with a business partner?

Oh, thank you so much for asking.

I think I want to set something up.

Here's the thing about Barney and that fire.

Yeah.

I was actually kind of excited about that because I was wondering if there was some sort of like insurance he was going to collect.

It kind of seemed like it.

I thought he was trying to start a fire, but then it just turns out he's being a drunken asshole.

And I was like, that's less impressive to be Barney.

But I think the fire, if I have some insurance that I can collect on it.

Yes.

You can't set us up with money problems plus intentional fire and have us not jump to insurance fraud.

I just think that's the natural setup of that scene.

They gave Barney the classic like...

money pit shot when he's like standing over the pit and the camera's looking up at him and I was like Tom Hanks is that you

Rob what about you which which of those are you are you changing?

Oh, I'm definitely bottom of a swimming pool.

That seems, you know, you really got to stream some things out down there.

You have a moment of absolute kind of silence, slash the ambient noise of maybe like the pool cleaner working.

That's, that's where I want to be working out all of my deepest emotional baggage.

Okay, I have two follow-up questions.

Number one, what is pool culture like where you're from in Texas?

Like, does that, do people?

Can you clarify?

Yeah, well, like,

I don't know if like, if you live in Texas, pools are more prevalent because it's so hot and like people have like above-ground pools or whatever they can get in terms of like a water feature in their backyard.

Yeah.

Or if that's not the case,

you know, we in California have to worry about droughts, but we also have the California optics lifestyle to deal with.

I do not have a pool, nor have I ever had a pool.

My grandmother had a pool and she was like, never get a pool because it's a pain in the ass.

It's quite a quagmire.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think there is that.

Like, you know, I grew up in North Texas, which was a huge, booming suburban sprawl at the time when I was growing up there.

And so everything was being built with a pool because of that excessive heat.

And now I think there's a lot of regret about a lot of those pools because those houses are harder to move.

Because, as you said, nobody actually wants to own a pool.

You just want access to a pool that you then don't have to maintain.

You just want a friend with a pool.

My best friend grows

a great pool.

And it's like, that's where you want the pool at your friend's house.

Follow-up question: Other question is: if you are battling your,

you're not yet middle-aged, but you're seeing like someday in the future, middle-age enui,

what preferred needle drop is playing

in your mind as you sit at the bottom of the pool potentially screaming or not?

You know, I think for that moment, you got to go something extremely painfully on point, on the nose.

Like an REM, everybody hurts.

Like, you know, we're just, we're really going straight down the middle for it.

There's no time.

There's no space for anything like a little obtuse.

Okay.

Do you have a take on this?

I just feel like I thought you were going to, when you were like, you have to go on the nose, I was like, should we just go straight to the garden state soundtrack?

Not that that's like

crisis, but like, I don't know.

It doesn't help that Allie in this episode is basically turning into Natalie Portman from Garden State in real time.

I

many questions about what's happening with that character.

Is it?

Well, it's so funny because I did write down Natalie Portman, but it was for Hunter's girlfriend, right?

She pulled the old girl.

Manic Pixies are about.

Yeah, she pulls the old

have you hurt the shins maneuver with this headphones essentially.

She certainly does.

Yeah.

But, you know, so we have Manic Pixie Dream Girls Abound.

We also also have the revelation of what our dead body, who our dead body actually is, Joe.

How did you feel about the reveal of the much slash not really anticipated cold open payoff of who Coop found in cold blood and the fact that it was Sam's ex-husband who we can all agree sucks?

I like that it took me a little bit by surprise.

Like, I think I thought we were going to get that at the end of the season.

So to get it mid-season, I think was a fun moment.

And it wasn't until right before it happened that I realized realized where we were, you know?

So I thought that was fun.

And then it does, it changes the show.

I think we all assumed that Coop was involved in the dead body, whether or not it was an accidental tussle on the stairs or whatever it was.

But he just discovered the body.

So that's interesting.

And then we have this fun, like sort of.

desperate housewives with styria lane mystery of like, you know, who, who killed, you know, did he fall, just tumble down the stairs?

Was it Sam?

Did Sam kill her husband?

And that's why she's, you know, off to see her parents for a while.

Like, what, what, what happened there?

And that's, you know, is

I don't have any other, did Elena do it on a, on a, like, post-cocaine binge?

I have no, I have no idea.

So, um,

I, I like a mystery.

And so I'm glad to have a mystery sort of plunged to the middle here.

I'm also glad to have a mystery.

I mean, there's the mystery of, of what happened to him.

There's the mystery of who may or may not have seen Coop coming or going as he makes quite quite a clamor, you know, coming out of the house, falling into the pool, as we have now seen twice.

Yeah.

So yeah, I think there's a lot of things in play as far as how that could pay off.

And I do appreciate it.

You know, we're getting the escalating stakes of the theft hijinks.

And for someone who, you know, Coop has been on the golf course hearing his peers complain about their watch, their very expensive watches that have gone missing.

And he is completely undeterred.

by the fact that anyone and everyone is noticing the things that he is stealing.

And it's like, you know what?

I should steal paintings.

And you called this, Rob.

You were like, don't get get into art theft.

Don't do it.

You said it and then Lou said it.

And that's how I knew you were right because I believe everything that Lou says on this show.

So

yeah, don't steal art.

It seems like a terrible idea.

And it is a terrible idea.

But we do get to see an old friend of the Prestige TV podcast, do we not, Rob?

We certainly do.

We get the introduction of this character, Christian Thomason, played by our good pal.

Olafer Dari Olufsson.

A welcome presence on the show, Joe.

And I have to say, I don't think this is exactly being telegraphed at this point when he's sort of like accosting Elena in the hall.

And like, he's a very aggressive personality in general.

Feels like our non, our, our big bad that is not just massive debt may have arrived in this season in terms of a physical corporeal foil that may present some danger to Coop.

Well, that's interesting.

So you think he's not just like a one and done,

he ran off.

Like they,

there's a world in which, and we, I haven't watched The Head, so I have no idea.

There's a world in which he's a one episode guest star and he just like, they're just not going to get the Lichtenstein back.

And that's the end of that.

But his,

you know, as we saw in Severance,

this guy's physical presence is, is overwhelming, even to a guy who is sort of tall and built the way that John Hamm is, like, this guy is overwhelming.

And

I thought it was a really interesting role for him because

on the one hand, like he could definitely do eccentric.

I've, you know, I've, but like,

I don't know, there was just something about the way that he was like dancing with the like and he was like, love doing cocaine.

That I was like, do you?

I don't know if this fits to me.

This scene fits to me.

The hallway aggression, though, that was, that felt very

unsettling, obviously, to say the least.

And Elena saying like she had a handle on it.

was like, do you think the pepper spray was just like right out of you and she was going to like bring it out?

Or what do you think her plan was there or was she just sort of posturing to coop that she had a handle on it what do you think i think she had a quote-unquote handle on it in the way that she is playing a game like right she is a part of this she understands that she's going to be put in some positions like this as she tells coop like this isn't my first time being in one of these hallways right and is trying to basically finesse her way out of it because the stakes of this theft are so important for her and so financially crucial for her.

Right.

Coop is playing, as we've said, leading into this episode several times by a different set of rules with different different repercussions if he gets caught, different repercussions if one theft doesn't work out.

And so he comes in, you know, full of vim and vigor, ready to just like fight somebody.

When I think Elena is just trying to finesse, so I don't think she has a has a hold of it in the sense that like she has the pepper spray on the ready so much as she's been in these sorts of situations before.

And Coop is just like flying off the handle because he doesn't have any experience in this world.

And she felt like she could, yeah, I don't want to like, I support Elena in all of her endeavors.

I'm just curious.

And then like on the Coop front,

how much does it like filter into all of our interpretations?

Him saying in his voiceover, like, having done below for the first time in 10 years.

So, his hallway behavior and

the cold open of the whole series,

he's like, you know, had

one snort of cocaine.

Not that that will like change your life for hours and hours and hours, but you know.

Joe, you and I have proven to be experts in recreational drug use on this podcast.

I mean, I think who would be more qualified than us to say what one bump of cocaine would do to someone like Coop?

Yeah, great, great, great point.

I do want to say,

like, comedy John Hamm has been here around the edges of this show, but not, you know, he's more like dry, dry toast John Hamm than he is comedy.

But his initial rejection of the cocaine,

I think is the funniest thing I've seen on this show.

I thought it was so funny.

Just his facial expressions of like, oh, hmm, I'm good.

Thanks so much.

i thought it was really really good the initial rejection of the cocaine honestly anytime coop and nick interact in a very curt way i appreciate like i think the the coldness of how funny and sharp he can be in some of these exchanges i really enjoy in john ham's performance but what did you make joe of his of his physical acting in this episode and by that i mean his robust collection of dance moves i would say definitively the twirl is his go-to And like many, like many dancers, he goes to it a little too often.

It's the twirl and then an, over, like I'm really glad that the scene was written as Coop Can't Dance because I was just like, John Hamm, we found the one thing you can't do.

Or he was doing a great job at pretending like he couldn't dance.

But like, as we mentioned in an earlier episode, John Hamm was like talking about how he could play golf, he could play tennis, he could do all these things he asked him to do.

But Coop in the club dancing, I was just like, oh, it wasn't just.

the age difference because you could imagine like let's let's imagine a different madman character on the on the the floor there, like Roger Sterling.

Like, Roger Sterling, I feel like, would be completely at home in that club and be fine.

Coop, sore thumb, sticking out like a sore thumb, and Elena really trying to make it work.

And sort of,

she looks great.

She was doing great.

Yeah, I, I, uh, but the twirl, the twirl, uh, you know, some, some panache in the twirl.

What did you think?

It's all about the energy, right?

It's the enthusiasm you bring to it.

And Coop is a bit of a cold fish coming in, but

clearly he and Elena have something going on as the dial turns in the everybody loves Coop arrangement.

It's now Elena's turn to swoon a little bit, to beckon him to the dance floor, to have some like hints of what feels like at least a kind of chemistry, if not outright romance that the show has been circling for a couple weeks.

I guess this is just what the show is going to be.

Like Sam's out of town, Mel is otherwise occupied.

Liv is doing who knows what.

Like, it's just Elena's turn.

It's Elena's week for custody of the crush.

Yeah.

And Sam broke up with him, question mark.

So does that make it cleaner?

I don't know.

I have a lot of questions about what's going on with Sam.

Clearly so.

Yeah, the Elena Coop stuff overall, I don't quite know what to do with.

Like they're actors who I enjoy bouncing off each other on screen.

I just don't have really a feel for what those characters are bringing to this story other than being over-sharing, overly.

close and intimate business partners, which as many people say in this episode is a bad idea.

I also thought that

the scene, okay, so the scene after the club when she's in the street and she's talking about how the stakes are different for her than they are for him.

We had talked about, this is something that I wanted from the show, and you mentioned this last week about the stakes being different for them.

And so, but for her to just say it, I don't know, the way that scene was written, it just felt so on the nose versus like, I would love to

just have this be a running thread and commentary rather than a sort of in-your-face fight that we get, that Coop doesn't really seem like he takes anything out of

as a learning moment for him.

So I don't know.

I will say, at least the show is pretty overt.

You know, if we're going to be saying things up front and just make it all matter of fact, Coop says in his narration in this episode, basically acknowledging how little he knows about basically anything, that he has been caught in this situation because of his lack of knowledge and understanding about the nuances of everything involved.

But what he says, I think it's the voiceover when he's in the hardware store, having a guy show him how to attach canvas to a frame.

Again, something like that.

Great idea before you commit art theft.

Why watch a YouTube tutorial?

Like, why are we out in the world

doing that?

I don't know.

But when we get the voiceover and he says something like, I had no other choice.

I was like, Coop, you have so many choices.

You've chosen to be a person who cannot envision a lifestyle without luxury.

I guess in a Tim Ratliff sort of from White Lotus sense, to a certain degree, you can envision a life in which you're not providing for your wife and your children.

Sure.

But,

but I don't have this email in front of me, but one of our emailers is like, sell the car.

Like there's things you can do that he hasn't done that he hasn't even tried to do.

So yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, I think it goes to, you know, the show has been trying to engage with this idea of like the illusions that you create.

that you have a certain amount of wealth so that you can hide behind it with your very expensive home renovation projects and secretly be draining all your bank accounts.

And clearly, Coop is caught and Barney is caught and many of these characters are caught in a version of that kind of prison of their own making.

I just don't necessarily buy it as like the most pressing stakes-driving dramatic device, even when, you know, we have those stakes are amped up a little bit in this episode by all of Hunter's antics.

You know, he has met this girl, the one girl he knows at school, who is now talking to him.

He is passing out his Adderall to anyone who will take him into the back room of a theater department.

She's like, I love the Smiths.

I love the Smiths.

I want to say the smash cut from this girl taking Hunter by the hand and leading him down the hall to Hunter's dad and Sam having an intense chemistry lesson is nasty business, and I don't appreciate it.

Like, that is uncalled for.

But that's not what Hunter is off to do.

Hunter is off to distribute his Adderall to the theater kids, question mark.

I see, are they theater kids or are they just kind of infiltrating the theater, like the backstage backstage area i have to say i think at least she is a theater kid i think she's makeup work theater tech at least top tier top tier ziggy star dust i i i have to say actually my

i think that mel is the best opportunity we have in the show and allie to undercut coop which i think the show needs at all times right and so when he's like I didn't know you were into Bowie.

And she's like, now is not the time for your cool dad shit, Coop.

Absolutely.

And then he's like, good luck, buddy.

I was just like, Coop, you suck.

Like, dear God.

Anyway.

You just committed to paying $200,000 or whatever to keep this kid in school, to bribe this kid's way back into school.

Yeah.

You know, I will say, Chris and Andy have flagged this early, this idea of like some of the reference points in terms of music for these types of shows being very, you know, like.

Gen X or millennial or even boomer oriented and so like writer's room oriented when they're writing for teenagers.

Are the kids into Bowie?

I say this all the time.

Actually, like, I promise you, I had this exact conversation with Bill on his podcast today when I was talking about how teenagers and the, and the writer's room references that they put on teenage kids.

Cause Bill was talking about how.

He's like, this show gets teenagers wrong.

All shows get teenagers wrong.

And he was like talking about his firsthand experience watching, you know, his kids' friends like come through the house and stuff like that.

And I was, I was talking about exactly this.

This is before I had watched this episode and saw that he was like, had Ziggy Stardust makeup on.

Just straight up.

That's what he asked for.

Like he's a kid getting his face painted at a carnival like i want the ziggy stardust yeah give me the the full ziggy stardust yeah um

i know that we have already established our our bona fides as uh recreational drug users but like what did you think ramoni of of the of the kids crushing and snorting at her all uh backstage at school it certainly checks out i mean for one here's the thing it doesn't even need to be this sophisticated kids will find things to snuff like to sniff and huff regardless of whether they actually work as recreational drugs.

Um, but in this case, yeah, look, it's it's clearly very effective to snort speed if that's what you want to do.

Yeah, the way you get the label and it's like amphetamine.

And uh, I forget, I wrote down the other one, but it's just sort of like, okay, Adderall.

Yeah.

Um,

if you're hunter, yeah,

are you trading your Adderall

for to impress this girl for cool points or whatever?

Or are you selling your Adderall for money?

Is it start with trading?

And then you're like, first one's first taste is free.

Come and find me later.

He's a very nice kid.

He's a very nice drug distributing kid.

He's a very nice kid.

I'm rooting for it.

Possession with intent, whatever.

Not a big deal.

No, I mean, clearly the show is kind of setting up with the Coop stuff.

You know, he gets called into the parent meeting and it's clear that he has not been present for the many preliminary meetings that have led to this point in terms of Hunter being out of class or whatever.

Like Koopa's been inattentive.

But beyond that, he's also someone who is regularly breaking the law.

And so I don't know that even if that character was predisposed to give a shit about any of this in the first place, he doesn't seem super bothered beyond, oh, now I need to go steal more stuff.

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You know, as a counterpoint to this,

clearly Coop and Mel do not have the most functional relationship in the world, hence their separation, hence their their pending divorce.

Or are they officially divorced?

I think so.

Yeah.

Whatever they said.

They said divorce.

Yeah, yeah.

They're divorced.

Yeah.

We see Nick and Mel do something in this episode that it seems like maybe Coop and Mel have never done, which is have a very straightforward conversation about their feelings.

And they do it where everyone does it, you know, off to the side of a luxury presentation of a $30,000 toilet.

Because what better place to really air things out, Joe?

Our infomercial moment of the episode is the Liechtenstein.

But the toilet commercial that we get to start the episode

was genuinely a high point in this entire series.

I thought it was really, really fun.

Really good.

And

Nick's whole demeanor, all of that was really good.

Yeah.

And the Mel, I mean,

we got a long email from a listener that I don't agree with about like how Mel is the villain of the show with love and respect to that person.

And I

just, I really like her.

I like her showing up and saying, I was an asshole, yeah, you know, like, and I do wish that Nick had said, I'm sorry, I threw you a party you didn't ask for.

He kind of, he kind of gets said, That's the last time I throw you a party or something like that, not I'm sorry, you didn't ask for this, you know.

Yeah, the apology doesn't quite get there, but he does come through with a like, well, it's not like you didn't warn me that this isn't what you wanted, basically, right?

Right, right, yeah.

So, like, I

really like

I liked that exchange a lot.

I really did.

Yeah.

I did too.

I feel like clearly they have something that is functional in a relationship sense, even if it's also clear that Mel is not actually that invested in it.

Like, I think they have a communication style that works.

It's just like Nick feels like a guy who means well, but ultimately does not do a lot for her in a lasting relationship.

He's just, he's the wrong guy, but she wants to make it work and she wants to do it in a healthier way than she has done in the past.

I like Nick.

I do want to ask him, what does he think he's playing at when he tries to get Hunter to have a smoothie instead of flaming hot Cheetos?

This is a teenage.

He's trying to encourage healthy habits.

I understand.

He owns a gym.

And I understand a smoothie is a better snack than a Cheetos, but this is like a 15, 16 year old kid.

Like, what are we talking about here?

That's true.

On the on the like writer's room, writers imposing their tastes on teenage kids, right?

Did you, Freeze Fray Mahoney,

look at the posters on Hunter's wall behind his bed?

You know what?

I did not really go through and clock them.

Did you see any in particular that jumped out at you?

There's the Killers,

which, again, just feels like a little old.

A little old.

For Hunter.

And then I think it's the Roots.

It said phrenology on it, which is a Roots album, but it didn't match the album cover.

So it might have been like a concert tour or poster.

But again, it just feels like

we're watching Hunter, budding musician,

you know,

doing his art.

And I was like, who are his influences behind him?

And I was like, the killers in the roots.

Brandon Flowers, naturally, the touch point for all Gen Z and Gen Alpha kids.

That's not right.

So, yeah, it's interesting.

Yeah, like that seems so much more like the music of a much older sibling or cousin or maybe even a younger parent or aunt or uncle, like not quite of his generation.

Yeah, maybe it's Allie's influence or something like that, but it's not even like his dad's music.

Like that, like if it were his dad's music, he'd be like, oh, these are concerts he went to or his mom's music, like, but it's a little too young for them and a little too old for him.

So I was like, who showed him this music?

Who gave you this?

I guess the children have access to the internet.

Well, he didn't learn it from watching them.

I think that's the important thing.

He found it on his own.

He came by it honestly.

And maybe he is a huge Bowies fan.

Like, who's really to say?

But I can't get us out of this toilet-oriented segment without two things, Joe.

One, please.

Like, whoever, whichever copywriter/slash via person in the writer's room for this show wrote the tagline, the next movement as the selling point for this toilet is just inspired work.

Those, that person and by proxy, the copywriter within the world of the show both deserve raises.

But this is where I was really thrown for a loop on the who is Nick in NBA terms conversation, Joe.

Three time.

Is it the three-time championship thing?

So we know he's a three-time all-star.

We know he's a champion.

All the introduction stuff is fine.

But when he's coming off and having this heart-to-heart with Mel, one thing he says is, as he's talking about kind of overcompensating for his insecurities and why he threw this big party for her, that's what happens when you fall to the second round of the draft.

Okay.

Okay.

Uh-oh.

First thought.

Yeah.

That's good.

That's good writing.

I love this idea of a second round draft pick having to overcompensate for so much.

These are like maniacal competitors who absolutely obsess to the day they die over where they were drafted.

That tracks for me.

Second thought.

This isn't Richard Jefferson anymore.

And now we have a problem.

Okay.

The other detail, kind of in conjunction with that, that really muddled things is as you're going into this like home shopping network setup for the toilet, they scan the audience and we see a bunch of Nick fans in the audience, all wearing Spurs jerseys with his number 79, which we talked about last week.

And we had someone email in wondering if maybe that's his birth year, hence why he could be number 79, which absolutely fair point, fair play, makes sense to me.

This is a home shopping network-esque setup filmed outside of New York City.

And we know that Nick played for the Knicks.

There is not a single Knicks jersey.

Everyone is wearing Spurs jersey.

Do you know how famous a Spur you would have to be to wipe out all of the Knicks allegiance and only be Spurs in that audience, Joe?

It's like incomprehensible.

Who's the most famous Spur that ever was?

Probably Tim Duncan.

I would say is the most famous Spur.

But so here's where we get into problems.

Like, Nick is not successful enough nor reclusive enough to be Tim Duncan.

He is not French enough to be Tony Parker.

He's not Argentinian enough to be Manu Ginobli.

He's not, he's like too verbose to be Kawhi Leonard.

He's too old to be either Lamarcus Aldridge or DeJounte Murray.

And so we're left in this zone of like, he can't possibly be any real life Spur who fits more or less this mold of person.

So I am at a loss at this point.

I've got no idea who this is supposed to be.

Rob, I mean, would it help you sleep at night if we just called him a composite character?

Or is that too simple for you?

He clearly is a composite character and i appreciate that but something about the spurs jerseys in new york i'm like you lost

this guy is a three-time all-star and is projecting as if he is a hall of fame player in new york city they just regulated you so badly that you did not even look at the music posters on hunters wall which is your go-to i know this is how messed up i was yeah

There's just a look, there's a lot happening this week.

We have the introductions of new characters.

We have these clear variables in terms of Nick's characterization that I don't know how to deal with.

Yeah.

We also have the expansion of Barney's story from, oh, we're going to tell you that he has money problems to, I guess, we're going to show you that he has money problems.

Like, what did you make of this expanding plot line with his in-laws?

I mean, I really enjoyed

the actress who plays his mother-in-law.

I thought that was done really well.

I thought the scene where she comes in and writes him a check and says, like, my daughter is not a client and all that sort of stuff was just like really, really good stuff.

But it just seems like it feels like the show keeps expanding and expanding and expanding in a way that I'm just sort of like, at what point have we lost control of what our main storyline is?

Because now we have like the Barney expansion.

Then we also go home with Sam and meet her parents briefly, but like we're meeting her parents.

And I'm like, how many, how many families am I tracking inside of the show?

It seems like a lot.

So like Barney, the actor who plays Barney is also, I think,

a producer and exec producer on the show.

So like, you know, if he's like, hey, I'm here for comic relief, but I also want my own like interesting story in line.

Like, I kind of understand that.

But I feel like I need to focus in on something.

I feel like I'm just constantly pinging around and I'm losing track of like who has the answers to the SATs in their desk drawer and like

who had the Liechtenstein in the first place and all this other stuff like that.

So

yeah, I just, I just need tighter control in the neighborhood, I think, is what I'm asking for.

What about you?

I think we do need that.

It feels like they're going for that sort of big ensemble feel.

And I wonder, practically speaking, Joe, if that's just kind of an intentional setup to help in the making of the show going forward, where, you know, if John Hamm is going to be the anchor character, John Hamm has to be on set all the time.

But if you make characters like Barney really important, then you can film things at other times.

If you make Sam her own self-standing character who's not in a relationship with Coop, like, can you film the stuff with Olivia Munn separately?

Like, I kind of wonder if it's practical as much as it is, like, characters pushing for a balanced kind of ensemble performance.

You understand some things, right?

You understand that, like, Barney married Rich, that like his

he is a rich guy in this neighborhood, but his

in-laws don't respect him.

They think their daughter married beneath her, all this sort of stuff like that.

And so

we already got indications of this, but if Barney gets looped into the criminal enterprise,

I wonder if this is setting the stage for us understanding why he would be backed into that corner.

These are the personal stakes on this for him.

So, yeah.

It really feels like we're headed that way, right?

When you're setting up these characters with money troubles in this world, it's just kind of a matter of time before they get looped into the bling ring.

I don't know what Barney's role in it would be.

Yeah.

But, you know, maybe he'll need a different layer of protection or a different kind of like way.

If, you know, wash the money somehow.

So

there's got to be some element of that.

I think what I'm feeling about it right now is the criminal enterprise is expanding, right?

We're getting into art theft.

Barney may or may not be involved at a future date.

Thomason is being pulled into this world.

Just the degree to which Coop is like very upfront in

what I imagine is like a convenient expository way in talking to Lou about exactly the crimes that he's about to commit in a building that is wired for video and sound seems like a really bad idea.

All of his ideas are bad ideas.

But it runs in the family, right?

Because can we talk about Allie and

her re-engaging in her stalking behavior?

Like just when you think things are going well for Allie, she's got a like consistent gig at the tap room.

Then she, because she's clearly at the gym because she knows Bruce goes to absolutely.

That is why she's there.

She is straight up stalking this guy, who we've seen her stalk earlier in the season.

Yeah.

Just back to stalking.

Light to medium stalking in this case.

Like nothing insidious, but she's here, you know, taking a class, hitting the bike or the elliptical.

I can't remember what she's on.

It's just so.

I really like the Allie character.

I really like her interactions with Coop.

I loved her making fun of like Sam's comical sex noises.

She's eating a peanut butter banana sandwich.

She's protein loading.

Love that for her.

Yeah.

The way she sort of like rolls herself over the back of the couch to sit down and watch TCM with Coop and make fun of like

his taste in old movies.

And I also really like John Hans or something, like when she's like, Can we watch something that was made after I was born?

And he just like sits there for a while.

Then he just goes, No, it was really good.

But now Allie, I mean,

this is what Allie does.

This is why Allie needs Coop's care care and stuff like that.

But Allie's showing up

when he approaches her and she's like, oh, fancy meeting you here and takes her sweaty hair out of the like hair tie and starts to like roll her

like her spandex, her leggings down.

And I was just like, Allie, I was so upset.

I was just like, find some stability.

Like, like, chase your bliss.

Like, she's someone who can check in with Hunter.

He's not doing well and he could really use you, but please stay away from Bruce and his.

but also like is Bruce complicit like if Bruce shows up at the tap room, which I could see him doing because there was a part of him that like

seemed a little sparked by her being there.

You know what I mean?

They clearly have such history together.

I think it would be impossible for him not to care about her and be worried about her in a sense.

But yeah, like there is, of course, if he starts showing up and they start having a relationship, then we're shifting from stalking into something that's a little bit more mutual.

Well, that's what I, that's what I'm saying.

It's like, I think at first we we were like, oh, God, this poor man was like, can you get this woman off my lawn, you know, sort of thing.

And now, and he, he had Coop's number.

Her parents seemed to know about him, all this sort of stuff like that.

So this is like a long-term X,

but there was just like a little sparky, flirtatious interest from him, not like a deeply uncomfortable, what the fuck are you doing here vibe from him that made me

worried that he's going to show up at the tap room and I don't want him to, you know?

That seems very realistic.

I got the like, maybe maybe I'll go to the check you out of the tap room sometime as more, I'm saying this so I can get out of here, like pleasantry than earnest thing.

It was, it was an interesting cocktail.

I could see it going a number of ways.

Yeah.

For legal reasons, the Prestige TV podcast does not recommend that you stalk your ex until they come see your live music performance.

Like, we cannot endorse that strategy.

We can't, but if you want to

clock into the gym and then give Nick shit about

breaking up your brother's marriage.

Feel free to do that.

That sounds like a great plan to me.

What is Nick doing in this moment?

Like, you can't just let her go.

But also, just like supervise?

How often is Nick even at the gym?

It's a great point.

On location, I assume there's like multiple brands.

Right, it's a franchise.

It's a franchise affair.

He's on the ground at the one location Allie happens to go to the business.

And no one's buzzing that this huge NBA superstar is at the gym.

Apparently not.

Okay.

Joe, I have another investigative deep dive for you okay um you mentioned coop's taste in movies we've remarked upon it before people have been emailing us specifically about coop wearing a criterion collection hat right earlier in this season which we love a cinephile yeah

i worry that hat and this presentation as guy who loves old movies i worry that it might be stolen valor i i worry that this may be that ultimately coop may be the movie equivalent of the lichtenstein loving posers that he's mocking throughout this episode oh my god

Coop had such a, I'm not like other girls moment in his voiceover when he was like,

they don't appreciate the Lichtenstein at the end.

He's like, I always kind of liked, you know, too bad.

I always really enjoyed Lichtenstein.

I was like, come on, Coop, give me a fucking break.

I think Coop can hang in a conversation about classic cinema.

And I think he does actually like

a TCM Marathon.

Do I want to watch his Criterion Closet video the way that I want to watch Chris's Criterion Closet video?

No.

But we're waiting with bated breath.

A piece of content has never been more anticipated for me than Sean and Chris in the closet.

But Coop, pass, pass for me, and Coop in the Criterion Closet.

Hard pass.

I will say, especially this.

Like to me, so we get this other moment of voiceover from Coop right before he's about to decide to break into Sam's house, in which he discovers the dead body.

All-time terrible decision under any circumstances, but especially these.

And he's saying, I could drink too much and fall asleep watching the Criterion Collection in my house.

That line to me, it felt like a real like German three kind of moment.

I see what you mean.

So

you could fall asleep watching the Criterion channel at your house.

Sure.

That's a thing you could do.

You could fall asleep watching something from the Criterion Collection at your house.

Yeah.

Would you ever say, fall asleep to the Criterion Collection if you actually knew your shit?

I kind of say you wouldn't.

I wouldn't.

As someone with a subscription to the Criterion channel,

but no, no, I don't own any actually Criterion Collection DVDs.

You're not a, you're not that kind of physical media, bro.

I'm just like a budding physical.

I was like, I had my era, which was, I think, before the Criterion Collection.

So I like most of my physical media

going for a while.

I know, but I,

yeah.

Maybe, maybe I need to step up my game.

Maybe I, like Coop, possess stolen valor, but I think that, yeah, you're right.

That's a good shout.

But this is the difference, is you're open about that.

Coop is, he's hiding behind it as if, you know, this is just the life he leads.

I mean, all of his voiceovers, again, I don't know if I'm supposed to say, What a cool guy he likes old movies and Liechtenstein, or if I'm to say, What an asshole and an idiot he's robbing Sam's house.

Yeah, he is an asshole.

Like, what are we, what are we doing here?

Robbing his like neighbors who seem to deeply suck, fine, but Sam,

who you are in some kind of relationship, who you tucked her son in the other night.

Like, what are we doing,

Coop?

I would like to think that that's the cocaine talking, but I agree with you.

This isn't a character that we're supposed to love, and we're

obviously not supposed to love all his decisions.

Right.

He and Sam's relationship, as much as like, I would like to see some version of it work, does not seem like it's headed in that direction.

It doesn't work, but like.

Have some respect for the woman that you've been like hooking up with.

And

who just told you she was leaving town and then you're texting her you up like within 24 you up and she's like I'm out of town remember I was so upset when I saw that I told you two things I'm out of town and we're broken up and somehow you've forgotten both of them within the span of a day it's it's really tough stuff and then what does he do he thumbs up he thumbs up like right

coop

gross coop sucks most of the characters in the show kind of suck but have some redeeming qualities and like i i do appreciate that from an alley perspective that they're trying to make that character in some ways challenging and unlikable and give her things to do that are not super straightforward.

Let me roll over the back of your couch and be the kind of like very appealing and inviting charismatic sister.

Like they're, they're trying to do things with these characters.

I just, I don't know, Joe.

It is too spread out.

You're absolutely right about that.

Do you want to like zero in on the murder mystery?

Like where, what like thread are you most interested in following for the rest of the season?

I do think we're going to zero in on the murder mystery, whether we would like to or not.

And we did get an email from Emily who was answering our prompt about what's going to happen with Chekhov's trunk.

We've seen Coop's trunk pop open repeatedly over the course of the season so far.

We guessed either there's going to be stolen goods back there, maybe the dead body will be back there if Coop tries to smuggle it out.

What Emily suggested is, what if Coop himself?

is put by maybe Thomas and maybe somebody else into his own trunk and is able to escape because of that latch.

What do you think about that idea?

On the one hand, I really love that idea.

I do.

I think that's really clever.

On the other hand, I really think think it needs to be something that screws Coop over because he has just neglected it all season.

It's just another symbol, like another example of something he's neglected.

Being a dad, being a husband, figuring out literally anything to do that doesn't require ripping off your friends and neighbors, etc.

I would love this to bite him in the ass a bit, actually.

But I don't know.

I really, I know what you're saying.

You're agreeing with me when you're like, Coop is not likable.

I just don't know that the show agrees with me.

You don't think so?

No, I don't know.

I genuinely don't know.

Yeah.

I think the show show is like, you love John Hamm, don't you?

And I'm like, I do.

They're like, you let Don Draper get away with a lot of shit, didn't you?

And I was like, I did.

I really did.

So

Don was more charismatic than Coop, ultimately.

Like, there is a, there is a venue, like, it may be a veneer, but there is a veneer there that is more appealing and is a better sell than whatever Coop is doing.

Yeah, Don definitely knows how to sell himself.

And I also think that, like, when it comes to self-reflection,

I don't think Don Draper really,

or he didn't fool himself in such an overtly clumsy way.

Like the way in which Don was kidding himself about himself

was

slower to unravel and stuff like that, versus like when we hear Coop say shit and I'm like,

that's wrong.

Or you're not paying attention or what the fuck are you doing?

It's just, it's different.

Don Draper, problematic Fae forever.

Coop,

you got work to do.

It's hard with a dramedy when the lead of your show is both kind of unlikable and also quite dumb.

Like they need a certain kind of competency to win you over, or else if you're both, then it's like, it's always sunny in Philadelphia.

Like we're veering into a farce really, really quickly.

Yeah, that's a good point.

Like I can get swept when Don Draper's on the pitch, I can get just like swept away by how good he is at that.

Or when he, and so then when he like

does right by Peggy, I'm like, that's all.

And then I forget all the ways in which he's an absolute, or when he is a terror, I'm just sort of like, is this this the price you pay for genius?

Or that's the question you have to ask yourself.

But like for Coop, it's like, is this the price you pay for buffoonery?

I was like, what are we, what are we after here?

So, yeah.

Well, Joanna Robinson, midlife aspiring pyro,

preventative car maintenance enthusiast.

Are there any other things you want to hit before we get out of here?

No, I think we got to all of it.

Thank you so much for hitting the Ziggy Startup stuff like, especially.

Oh, I did like, here's the last thing I'll say.

I like, this is like a little thing that I like in shows.

Allie calls Coop Andy, which I don't think anyone else does.

And I just really like that.

Like the little names you have that like, you know, your sister you grew up with would call you, but no one else would.

I thought that was a really cute little moment.

Also explains why I think before this point, the only other character to do it was Allie's therapist.

And so now it's like, okay, now I understand why the therapist calls him Andy.

This finally makes sense.

But thank you to you, Joe.

Thank you to Ali's therapist.

Thank you to Kai Grady, who's producing for us today.

Thank you to everyone who's listening and emailing us at prestigeetv at spotify.com.

And please do email us about your midlife crises.

I would love to know whether you're more of a fire or pool kind of person.

And we will, we'll see you for The Last of Us.

We'll see you for more, your friends and neighbors.

We'll see you for the rehearsal.

At least Jodi and Charles will.

We'll see you next time.

Bye.