Netflix’s Hit One-Shot Show, ‘Adolescence’: The Surprise of the Year?

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Speaker 3 Hello, welcome to the Prestige TV podcast feed. I'm Joanna Robinson.

Speaker 2 I'm Rob Mahoney.

Speaker 3 We have a very special emergency crash together pod for you here on a Tuesday.

Speaker 3 We're here to talk to you about a Netflix series that dropped over the weekend, Adolescence, four episodes, four one-hour episodes dropped over the weekend. We're going to talk to you about the show.

Speaker 3 We're going to, at the top of this episode, if you haven't seen Adolescence, but we know some of you sickos, click on these episodes and listen to them, even though you haven't seen the thing.

Speaker 3 So if you haven't seen it, at the top, we're going to talk about what it is and whether or not Rob and I recommend that you watch it.

Speaker 3 And then we'll get in, you know, and then maybe you decide to press pause, go watch it, come back and listen for more.

Speaker 3 We're going to do all that very quickly. I want to mention that this is dropping on a Tuesday.
Tomorrow, Wednesday, we will have not only our White Lotus

Speaker 3 episode five coverage, but Rob and I are doing a live QA at noon Pacific lunchtime.

Speaker 2 We sure are. Will we be bobbing for pineapples live on air, Joe? Can you commit to that?

Speaker 3 No, but what if I brought some of the pineapple high chews that they have here at the office? Does that count?

Speaker 2 That's you're not even trying.

Speaker 3 The pineapple high chews are the best, sneaky the best high chews ever. Okay.
So listen,

Speaker 3 severance, noon, pineapple, BYO pineapple.

Speaker 3 We're going to do a severance QA,

Speaker 3 live mailbag, sort of situation. You can send questions in advance to where, Rob Mahoney?

Speaker 2 Coincidentally, to pineapplebobbing at gmail.com or, as always, to prestige TV at Spotify.com.

Speaker 3 But also, we will be answering questions sort of live from the chat inside of this Q ⁇ A, which you can find on YouTube, on the Ringer TV channel at noon on Wednesday.

Speaker 3 And then it also will just be there after that so that you can watch it later. But why not join us for lunch lunch or, I don't know, a 3 p.m.
snack if you're on the East Coast or other

Speaker 3 time zones.

Speaker 3 And then we will have our Severance finale pod up on Thursday night rather than the usual Friday morning.

Speaker 3 But then we will be doing another pod at the top of next week to sort of get gather your reactions to the finale and our look aheads to the future.

Speaker 3 And we might have some extra bonus stuff on that episode as well. Joe.

Speaker 2 That's a lot of pods.

Speaker 3 That's a lot.

Speaker 2 Some stuff. That's some content for your feed.

Speaker 3 That's great. We might also be covering the studio.
Don't worry about it. It's a lot.

Speaker 3 We're doing fine. We're having a great time here and in this

Speaker 3 content nirvana we find ourselves in. So let's talk about adolescents.

Speaker 3 Four episodes on Netflix.

Speaker 3 It's one hour each episode. It's a British show, and the premise is a 13-year-old boy is arrested on suspicion of a very serious crime.
And we sort of follow the investigation over time from there.

Speaker 3 The sort of hook of the show, a reason why it's breaking through in conversation,

Speaker 3 among other things, is the fact that each of these four one-hour episodes are shot as in one shot.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 They're wonners. And as far as I can tell from behind this, like interviews and behind the scenes footage, these are actual oneers, not digitally seamed oneners.

Speaker 3 And we'll sort of talk about the extraordinary process

Speaker 3 of making this show. We can talk about that.

Speaker 3 But this is, this is a show written by Jack Thorne, who has done a bunch of adaptive IP work that is like hit or miss for me, but then a lot of like original work that I find more interesting.

Speaker 3 Like he wrote The Chris Child,

Speaker 3 he wrote the for the His Dark Materials series, but then he's also done like This is England and a bunch of other stuff.

Speaker 3 And then Stephen Graham, who is one of my favorite actors and is really like doing some interesting stuff with his career right now.

Speaker 3 There's Your Venoms, The Last Dances, and then there's also This. But he's he's extraordinary on this show.

Speaker 3 So,

Speaker 3 Rob, what,

Speaker 3 before we got the text from our producer Justin on Sunday being like, hey, do you guys want to crash an adolescence pod? Yes.

Speaker 3 You and I both had heard about this show. Yeah.

Speaker 2 So the word of mouth was exceptionally strong, I would say. Absolutely.

Speaker 3 You and I both were like, yes, we will, because we have heard nothing but excitement around the show. So what had you heard that got you excited about the show that,

Speaker 3 you know, made you side text me being like, I want to do this, do you want to do this, Joe, sort of thing?

Speaker 2 I think it was that it was a surprise, that it caught people off guard, that it just kind of popped up on Netflix without a ton of fanfare, despite it being a pretty extravagant production.

Speaker 2 And so people happen upon this in their feed, try it because maybe they love Stephen Graham, maybe they just are looking for something to watch.

Speaker 2 And I think if you don't know what you're getting into, this show can really knock you out.

Speaker 2 Like it's pretty heavy emotional territory that they're getting getting into, as you might guess from the subject matter.

Speaker 2 Like, anytime a child is involved in some sort of serious, serious crime, we're wading into something pretty deep.

Speaker 2 I think it handles those themes and those ideas about as well as a project like this can. And I don't know, I don't know how you feel overall, Joe, but I would say from this, like

Speaker 2 at a distance, trying to decide should you watch adolescence or not, I would give it basically my strongest possible recommendation if you have the stomach for some more serious, like true true-to-cultural commentary of our real world sorts of themes,

Speaker 3 I think this is a really easy,

Speaker 3 really easy yes, you should watch it recommendation, and also just a really easy show to decide whether or not

Speaker 3 you want to watch. If you watch the first episode and you like it, you'll know that's the show.
You know what I mean? Both sort of like

Speaker 3 stomach-churning aspect, and also just can I hang with the cadence of this hour shot in one continuous

Speaker 3 shot? So we'll talk about all of that. Um,

Speaker 3 so that's yeah, we give it our recommendation. We think you should watch it.
If you haven't, press pause, go watch it.

Speaker 2 Don't just listen to us, listen to everyone else who's watching the show and is driving it up the Netflix charts on a daily basis.

Speaker 3 I got, so I was over at a friend's house on Thursday night, and she said, Have you watched Adolescence? She's, she's in the biz. She's like, Have you watched Adolescence? I was like, No.

Speaker 3 She was like, It's, she's like, It's their baby reindeer this year. It's like how she sort of.

Speaker 2 I think that might be disrespectful to the show.

Speaker 3 I agree. But like, in terms of how Netflix is thinking, like, this is how we win the mini-series category at all the award shows.
Like, this is sort of how they're thinking.

Speaker 3 So she's in like publicity. So that's sort of like how she was characterizing it.
I agree. I think this is.

Speaker 3 way better than baby reindeer, but just in terms of like a British phenomena show on Netflix that comes out of nowhere. She was like warning me on the Thursday before it dropped on the Friday.

Speaker 3 And then Friday, I get the text from Chris Ryan who's like, Joanna, adolescence. And I was like, oh, no.
And then I started hearing from a bunch of other people. So

Speaker 3 here we are. So go watch it if you haven't.

Speaker 3 If you've already watched it or you are one of those sickos who want to stay around anyway, I will say this. I want to say, if you're one of our beloved sickos who listens, who likes to listen to us

Speaker 3 natter at each other without having watched a thing, that is great. We welcome you.
I will just want to premise

Speaker 3 the framework of the show for you to help you listen to this. Four episodes takes place over, it's 13 months

Speaker 3 is the time span of

Speaker 3 these

Speaker 3 from arrest to the end of the story. First episode is the arrest and then the sort of booking of the child, Jamie.

Speaker 2 Here's the question. Do we want to tip the hand as to what happens beyond episode one?

Speaker 2 Because I feel like where it goes and how surprising this show is and what it wants to tackle, to me, is part of the thrill of it.

Speaker 3 Well, I'm presuming anyone listening now.

Speaker 2 Oh, we're spoiler gloves off at this point. Oh, in that case, you know what? Let's just jump straight to the end.
Okay.

Speaker 3 So episode one is the arrest.

Speaker 3 Episode two, they go to the school

Speaker 3 basically to try to hunt down where the murder weapon is. Yep.

Speaker 3 And by the end of episode one, we have irrefutable proof that this kid has done a murder episode three is essentially a two-hander with uh this kid and a therapist who was sent in to evaluate him as part of the court case that's i think seven months later you know so it's seven months into the investigation and then 13 months is the final episode and that is um the boy's family um and how everything is sort of impacting them uh about a year later uh is sort of where we leave things um So that's just like the basic framework.

Speaker 3 So there's the police station episode, the school episode, the therapist episode, and the family episode is sort of how I'm kind of reference it as we talk about it.

Speaker 3 I want to talk about a little bit more about some of the talent behind this show. Please.
So Stephen Graham, again, who I love, I was at Pub Trivia on Sunday, and at the end of the game,

Speaker 3 they just put up like a random movie on the screen and it was Snatch, which starts with

Speaker 3 babyface Stephen Graham and Jason Statham. And I got so excited.
I know Stephen Graham, I think, best.

Speaker 3 I think the role that he did that made the biggest impression on me was I was a big Boardwalk Empire fan. He played Al Capone on that.
And

Speaker 3 I think I didn't connect him to some of his

Speaker 3 work that he had done with

Speaker 3 a UK accent. And it was one of those, that actor is an American moment.

Speaker 3 That's sort of how I remember coming to Stephen Graham. But I'm a huge fan of his.

Speaker 3 What's your association with Stephen Graham?

Speaker 2 It's definitely Snatch first and foremost. Although, look, let's put respect on the Venoms' names.

Speaker 3 If we must.

Speaker 2 If we simply must.

Speaker 2 I do think, look, he's had an incredible, wide-ranging career in terms of what he can pull off on screen, but the physical presence that he brings to something and brings to something like Snatch and brings to his whole genre of like gangster and gangster adjacent roles that he's played throughout his career, I think informs a lot of kind of what is priming us to watch him on screen here in adolescence as Eddie, where there is the implication throughout a lot of the stages of the story of, is this character violent?

Speaker 2 Is this an abusive father? Is this someone who does have an anger problem? And we hear a lot more about it than we end up seeing earlier in the stage of the story.

Speaker 2 And so we're filling in a lot of the blanks in our minds as to what that looks like. And it looks like Stephen Graham, a dude who's so jacked, he's about to pop out of his polo shirt.

Speaker 2 It's hard not to infer some things about that just from that character and that actor.

Speaker 3 And they know exactly what they're doing in having having him in this role the polo is popping well and you say they know what exactly what they're doing having him in this role he is the co-creator of this show and something i wanted to highlight about him is that uh and siara was talking to me about this a little bit like what stephen graham has done with he is

Speaker 3 much better known in the uk than he is here he has like an obe like he is he is a fixture in uk film and television and what he has done um and this is siara's point sort of like with his fame and his juice i would say say, in the last few years.

Speaker 3 In 2020, he and his wife, who's also an actress and a producer, Hannah Walters, co-founded a production company. And so they've been making projects alongside your Venomses and your other things.

Speaker 3 And so, and he's sort of started to amass a kind of stable of actors, like Ashley Walters, who plays the lead detective in this, and Aaron Dougherty, who plays the therapist in this, were in A Thousand Blows, this like period boxer project that he did also this year with his wife.

Speaker 3 So, um, and then the director of here we are complaining about recording multiple podcasts.

Speaker 2 Stephen Graham is just like, yeah, multiple extravagant productions in one calendar year, no big. Exactly.

Speaker 3 The director, um, Philip Barantini, who directed all the episodes, uh, is best known for directing a film called Boiling Point, which is a wonner.

Speaker 3 It was based on a short film called Boiling Point, which was a wonner, and then they did a whole feature film, and then a TV series called Boiling Point. That is set in a kitchen.

Speaker 3 Um, You know, so that episode of the bear, but make it longer and probably more agitating.

Speaker 3 But I think, you know, collecting directors that he's worked with before, actors that he likes and works with before, I was watching an interview he gave where he was like, at this point in my career, I just like to surround myself with like people who are good at their jobs and pleasant on set.

Speaker 3 Yeah. And like, that's all I want to do now.

Speaker 3 And so then this is like a passion project of a kind for him. And it was inspired by

Speaker 3 him, the actor Stephen Graham. It's inspired twofold.
One, it's inspired by him, the actor Stephen Graham, having seen a couple news stories about young men doing horrible crimes, violent murders.

Speaker 3 And he was deeply troubled by that and thought that that should be the subject of a show.

Speaker 3 But also

Speaker 3 what it sounds like to me based on some of the interviews that I was looking at was

Speaker 3 he was asked to do a one-er project. So, first came the idea of we're gonna do a project where each episode is one shot.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Then, what is the subject matter that we want to pair with that? So, it's this idea of like what came first. What came first was this idea of like the hook, which is four episodes, one shot.

Speaker 3 And I, I want, I want to talk about the advantages and disadvantages of the of the one or concept

Speaker 3 in a second because I have a lot of complicated thoughts about it. Um,

Speaker 3 but I do think it's interesting in this Netflix content world, this idea that like

Speaker 3 a studio, a streamer comes to you and says, hey, what do you got that you can turn into a project where each episode is a one-shot? It's a, you know, it's a, it's a, a content

Speaker 3 conduit towards storytelling and art. I'm not mad about it necessarily.
It's very pragmatic and practical, but I thought that that was sort of an interesting element of how this was put together.

Speaker 2 I think there's a lot of ways where that could have gone horribly wrong, coloring in the lines that Netflix provides you as far as that kind of structure.

Speaker 2 This construction, and I don't feel this way about a lot of one-shot stuff, which usually can be overly showy, pointless just for the point of extravagance and the point of kind of showing off the cinematography with no actual narrative value.

Speaker 2 I think the one-shot construction for adolescents specifically brings a lot to the table in terms of the story that they're trying to tell and the impact of how it ultimately hits.

Speaker 2 There's a couple of different ways in which I think it really, really pays off. And as you said, we can kind of circle back to some of that stuff.

Speaker 2 But if they were filling a brief, I think mission incredibly accomplished as far as that goes.

Speaker 3 And I think it was really smart to keep it to like four episodes. Yes.
You know, it's not

Speaker 3 a novel idea for the British model to have a four episode series, but it is unusual in American television. Of course.

Speaker 2 I will say this too.

Speaker 2 If you haven't seen, if you've already watched the show and you haven't seen any of the behind the scenes featurettes and footage as far as how they made it, it's remarkable to go back and watch and to read about the process where basically it was like a three-week

Speaker 2 segment into every episode, week one being a rehearsal among just the actors, week two being a rehearsal with the cameras involved, which you have to understand, like are dancing around and moving through people and out windows in a really kinetic way, have to be marked out, have to be staged in their way.

Speaker 2 And then week three is filming two takes a day for five days.

Speaker 2 And so the idea that given the emotional heft of not just like what these actors have to execute in terms of hitting their marks and the very delicate staging and everything interlocking in such an

Speaker 2 integral way to the story you're trying to tell, but also deliver the biggest emotional moment in minute 40 of a take is just a ridiculous ask of this cast.

Speaker 2 And the fact that everyone is so game for it and so good at it,

Speaker 2 look, Stephen Graham has found a hell of a troop. If this is his troop, I think he needs to look no further.

Speaker 3 I mean, especially since the biggest burden is on

Speaker 3 this actor, Owen Cooper, who's

Speaker 3 a good kid who is incredible in the show. And a couple other kids too.

Speaker 3 Like, you know, there's like several young performers who were asked to do some really heavy lifting emotionally in these episodes. The idea that, yeah, if you, and then you fuck up a line and.

Speaker 3 your beautiful reaction you gave. So those behind the scenes sort of featurettes are incredible to watch.
They used,

Speaker 3 it's usually sort of handheld onto certain cranes and that sort of stuff, but there is one drone, the flashiest sort of like thing is the end of episode two drone shot, which I didn't need, but like, but

Speaker 3 let's let's sort of go through like the advantages and disadvantages of damn.

Speaker 2 You're anti-drone. This is a tough corner for you to be on, Joe.

Speaker 3 You hate the

Speaker 3 pro-drone, but that you love a, you love a drone?

Speaker 2 I don't, I don't actually love a drone. I want to be very clear for everyone listening at home.
There's a facetious comment.

Speaker 2 I'm not pro-drone, but

Speaker 3 Sabel loves a drone.

Speaker 2 I'm pro that drone shot. I am pro.

Speaker 3 No, I mean, no, I wasn't anti-that shot. It just was, it was an ambitious bit of flair

Speaker 3 that I didn't need for the episode to be great, but like doesn't not work. Does that make sense?

Speaker 2 That does make sense. I think the fact that you can go from chase scene into character beat into flyaway drone shot into extreme close-up on Stephen Graham in a one-ner format.

Speaker 2 It's just like, I've never seen that before. And so I'm extremely down for that element of that execution.

Speaker 3 It's dazzling or even just watching them like, even inside of the family's home, you know, a mid-size-ish home with a kind of tight staircase, watching the behind the scenes of them handing the camera up the staircase to capture people on the stairs is incredible stuff.

Speaker 2 But yeah, I'm glad you point that out because like the one-ner stuff as it relates to to a drone shot or flying out the window is naturally sort of arresting and dazzling.

Speaker 2 But how you bank corners in a tight English home does not make sense, like geometric sense. I have no idea how they pulled it off.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 I think that

Speaker 3 I don't know. Okay, let's talk about it this way.
So Graham said, and I love this idea. Stephen Graham said it was his note was, I never want the camera to not be following a character.

Speaker 3 I don't want the camera just wandering halls.

Speaker 3 So even when we get to the second episode, the police, no, in the first episode, in the police station, we're wandering all around, but we are given like various sergeants and nurses and stuff like that, or a lawyer that, like, when we go in and out of rooms, we're following that person as they're sort of.

Speaker 3 moving paperwork around or whatever it is they're doing. And so we're always with a human that we like identify as a character that we know in the school.

Speaker 3 There are teachers and students and stuff like that that we're following around.

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 3 here's a one or disadvantage. And this is a me problem.

Speaker 3 My brain can't shut off a running commentary of how did they do that? How did they do that one? How did they get that? How did they achieve that? Yeah.

Speaker 2 Your sense of awe and wonder is overriding your ability to process and enjoy and engage with the show.

Speaker 3 My infamous, yeah, Slackjaw Delight.

Speaker 3 But yeah, just like my puzzle brain is just sort of like, how did they get the camera yeah to do this um

Speaker 3 that was most distracting i would say in episode one and then by episode two even though there's still a lot of movement around the school yeah i was able to kind of let go of it um and then episode three because it is just basically two people in a room for most of that episode then it was just sort of gone um is that something that happens to you that do you get like distracted by sort of thinking about the logistics of how they got the shot or the camera to move that way occasionally i think in some cases it does, though, facilitate the story as they're trying to present it.

Speaker 2 Like I think episode one is a great example where disorientation is very much a part of that process. And I was so struck in episode one being basically as pure procedural as this show gets, right?

Speaker 2 It is arrest to booking to interrogation, effectively. Like that is the process of the episode.

Speaker 2 But for example, for something as simple as in any other procedural, they're trying to get the code to his phone, to Jamie's phone, to open it, to gather evidence.

Speaker 2 In this, because of the POV kind of laced one-er format, you are following person from room to room as they discover. Like,

Speaker 2 in order to get his phone, you do need the code. In order to get the code, Jamie has to give it to you.

Speaker 2 In order for him to agree, he has to be first assessed by this nurse and like made fit to make that agreement in the first place.

Speaker 2 And in order to be assessed, he has to get his like appropriate adult in the room.

Speaker 2 And for then, he has to decide, is that I want to be his mother or his father or this random person, like the social worker who's been assigned to him.

Speaker 2 And so, you see all of these like very complex systems locking into one another.

Speaker 2 And one thing I thought that Chris and Andy pointed out on the watch that I thought was a great observation about this is you're seeing people at different levels of exposure and like emotional vulnerability all throughout this process, right?

Speaker 2 You have the family that's in a state of complete shock in this elaborate system bumping up against all of these professionals who are mostly trying to do their job competently and I would say for the most part, quite compassionately given the circumstances.

Speaker 3 And not only that, and this is something I do want to come back to, but like

Speaker 3 re-watching that episode, because you watch that whole episode,

Speaker 3 you're pretty sure this kid did it because of, I don't know, the thumbnail art on the Netflix splash page, but also just sort of like, what are we doing here if this kid didn't do it? See,

Speaker 2 I wasn't that sure until the end of episode one.

Speaker 3 Okay. So that, I mean, but that's what they're trying to go for.
And like, I would say

Speaker 3 when you re-watch it, knowing that

Speaker 3 those two cops already have seen this video yep or you know the nurse might even you know like who knows who all these people who are the lawyer certainly and and he says this at some point he's like they wouldn't have entered your home in that manner and done on this unless they had really compelling evidence yes so he is like

Speaker 3 very ready for that video to be you know part of this interrogation he even tries to preempt it and like take a break right before they're about to jump into it knows what's coming right whereas the father is blindsided by it.

Speaker 3 But I think that like

Speaker 3 thinking about those two cops

Speaker 3 who we meet at the beginning

Speaker 3 and

Speaker 3 their very normal everyday conversation that they have going into this, but knowing that they're in for a horrible day because they and have been because this murder happened the night before.

Speaker 3 So they've been probably like, you know, they've been working all night. Totally.
Or the nurse saying,

Speaker 3 I think something like, I hate a juvenile case, me. You know what I mean?

Speaker 3 Like she knows she's being nice, but nice with this like bit of reserve to it of like, I, you wouldn't be here if there wasn't something seriously wrong going on here. Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 I was really struck by that overall in terms of the way that the working professionals and the cops and everyone in the station.

Speaker 2 does talk to Jamie, as you say, knowing in some regard what he's done or what he's most likely done. And it's, it's, even under those circumstances, like Bascom is not trying to throw the book at him.

Speaker 2 He is telling him, when we get in there, you should ask for a solicitor. Like, this is what's going to happen.
You should ask for these things.

Speaker 2 These are not just, not just reading his rights, but explaining him in a more delicate way, since he is a scared child, regardless of what he's done.

Speaker 2 And all the people who are assessing him, it's a lot of like, you're such a smart boy. You're like, you're, you're such a good boy.
It's a lot of mate and love.

Speaker 2 And I understand, and I'm like, we're going to get into it as far as like the handling of that, that character and that character's place in this story.

Speaker 2 And I very much understand the reads on it i think treating that character with a kind of compassion is a really interesting artistic choice yeah and it's happening across the story and it's happening across the story in a way that i think adolescents has something to say about it it has a lot to say about that idea of who these people are and the way that and the way that they're made are you saying there's been pushback on like on the show for treating him too kindly or i'm not even saying there's been any pushback other than to say like I think the show itself engages with this idea in the second episode where the show is basically calling itself out for being fundamentally and structurally a story about Jamie in a lot of different ways.

Speaker 2 And in particular DS Frank, Misha played by Feynman, who I love and I'm

Speaker 2 thrilled to see in this role. I agree.

Speaker 2 You have this kind of point of conflict between her and Bascom, where Bascom is very intent on figuring out the why of why Jamie murdered Katie.

Speaker 2 And I think Frank doesn't think you ever can know why, which is a reasonable point of view to have in a case like this.

Speaker 2 But also it bothers her so much that they're spending so much time trying to get into Jamie's head in a way that probably will render Katie invisible or at least put her aside or at least put her outside the frame.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I think Bascom's counter to that, that figuring out the why is in its way honoring Katie.

Speaker 2 I do find that to be a little bit persuasive, but I honestly very much want to hear what you feel about it, Joe.

Speaker 3 I feel mixed about it. I have, I wanted to talk, and that's in my notes to talk about.
I consider that of my like advantage, disadvantage of a one-ner, and, and I will zoom back to some other things.

Speaker 3 This is under, I have this under mixed because

Speaker 3 long-form storytelling TV

Speaker 3 can take you anywhere inside of a story. And that's an advantage of something like, let's say, Broadchurch,

Speaker 3 where we're inside so many people's homes and so many people's lives, and

Speaker 3 we're at home with,

Speaker 3 you know,

Speaker 3 no spoilers for broad church, but we're at home with the murderers as much as we're at home with the parents who are grieving,

Speaker 3 you know, the child and stuff like that. And so

Speaker 3 a disadvantage to sticking so firmly on

Speaker 3 Jamie and Jamie's family, and something that Stephen Graham said, he was like, we really thought it would be interesting to be with Jamie's family in the final episode,

Speaker 3 it is interesting, and it's interesting in the advantage of the wonder, which is you're there in the claustrophobic silences,

Speaker 3 you're there with Jamie crying in the van ride to the police station,

Speaker 3 you're there with Bryony the therapist as she likes to stand and wait for the hot chocolate machine to you know deposit all the hot chocolate into the cup. You know, like those, those

Speaker 3 narrowing the iris of the story down into this

Speaker 3 one hour of time is interesting and causes a caused a visceral reaction in me that is that I feel positively about.

Speaker 3 I wasn't sure if that moment, again, I also love Faye Marseille, I was not sure if that moment of calling out this thing, lampshading, essentially what they were doing, was satisfied me enough because the disadvantage of being in the present,

Speaker 3 you know, we talk about this all the time when we talk about murder shows. I know.

Speaker 2 It's which is

Speaker 2 always a woman or in this case, a little girl.

Speaker 3 Like the Laura Palmer wrapped in plastic, this idea of like, uh, or Rosie Larson on the killing. But in the, like, in, in, at least with Laura Palmer,

Speaker 3 we get, you know, firewalk with me, or at least with Rosie Larson and the killing, we get flashbacks, some flashbacks to her. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Speaker 3 And in this case, it's like Katie, we know a little bit through her friend that we meet in episode two at the school, but we don't really know anything about her. I'm not mad about it

Speaker 3 because I think this is a very interesting story to tell. So I'm not like, you know,

Speaker 3 it invalidates it to leave it out. I'm just not sure that lampshading it gets them entirely off the hook for doing it.

Speaker 2 I don't think it does either. And it's something that, even as that conversation is happening in the moment, that was what took me out as much as anything.

Speaker 2 It's like, oh, we have to have this talk about why the show is structured. Yes.
Yeah, exactly. Why the show is structured the way it is.

Speaker 2 To the extent that I give it a little more leeway on that front, I think it's because

Speaker 2 this show is so deeply unsalacious.

Speaker 2 Like it is, it is, it is so uninterested in the glamorization of murder or in this, like, ripped, even like a ripped from the headlines sort of intrigue, and so much more interested in the structural factors that lead to things like this.

Speaker 2 And really, the way that not just Jamie is

Speaker 2 a kid who has gone so far astray and has so many clear, terrifying problems, but the way that like we as a society have failed kids kids and we have failed their ability to be raised in a normal format and to be able to function as normal adult human beings, like everything is going off the railroad tracks so fast.

Speaker 2 And it's like the camera's pointing at the railroad tracks and saying like, why is this happening? As much as it is the murder itself or anything involved.

Speaker 3 I love that. And I love that

Speaker 3 when they talk about the show,

Speaker 3 the line that they've been using in all the interviews is not, this isn't a who done it, but a why done it. Right.

Speaker 3 And like the fact that the show has no easy easy answers to your point about like your preconceived notions around a Stephen Graham type. Yes.

Speaker 3 The answer isn't, oh, he was abused by his father. That's not the answer.
The, the, the story that they wanted to present to you is this actually is a fairly like loving, normal home.

Speaker 3 Um,

Speaker 3 and I think, I think the, you're, all of the you're so bright, you're a smart kid comments was not just, not just them sort of

Speaker 3 making things in the same way, do you want cornflakes, mate, like sort of thing, but also to underline, like, this is a smart kid. Yeah.

Speaker 3 And this is a thing that happened with this smart kid from a loving family.

Speaker 3 I do want to say I agree with you that it's not a salacious, we're not glamorizing murder, we're not doing anything like that. But

Speaker 3 I'm going to like call it one last advantage of the wonder. And this is sort of like where I started with

Speaker 3 the concept as a conduit to story.

Speaker 3 It breaks through the noise of content

Speaker 3 in a way that we talked about a bit with the pit as well, right? Like the pit being the concept is every episode is an hour and one shift. They're not doing oneers in that hospital, but like

Speaker 3 there's a hook.

Speaker 3 And so I don't know that a very well-acted, very well-written, very seriously considered four-episode drama about a kid who did a murder would be the the thing everyone's buzzing about on a weekend, a Netflix drop, were it not for this other part of it.

Speaker 3 And so as much as it like,

Speaker 3 I wish that weren't the case of what we had to do to get really good stories told, like sometimes that is the case. It is.

Speaker 2 And if you're going to do it, at least do it well in this particular way, where it is, yes, technically impressive.

Speaker 2 But overall, I think the one or format, and we can talk about this in the context of any of these episodes, I would say especially episodes three and four have this advantage where it is just ratcheting up the intensity.

Speaker 2 Like every cut, when you think about it, is like a little bit of a pressure release.

Speaker 2 And so the fact that you never get those pressure releases means every emotion on screen has to work itself out organically over time.

Speaker 2 And that can lead to all sorts of fascinating and terrifying and painful places.

Speaker 3 And I mean, even in, even in, even in one and two, to your point, yeah. Even in one and two,

Speaker 3 because we're in such a crowded environment, we're not cutting away for relief, but sometimes we do move into a less stressful room inside of the police station or inside inside of the school, though that school is extremely stressful everywhere.

Speaker 2 It's just genuinely an awful time to be a teenager. Just an awful, awful.

Speaker 3 And a teacher. Like all of it is awesome.
Although, Mr.

Speaker 2 Malik, not winning Teacher of the Year anytime soon.

Speaker 3 And also the woman who was, I forget the name of the woman who was like leading them around, but like her Mrs.

Speaker 2 Fenimore.

Speaker 3 Her completely ineffective sort of unaware attitude was.

Speaker 3 Okay. But I want to talk a bit about the sort of sympathy, no sympathy seesaw for Ryan which I think is sort of meticulously done across this series um

Speaker 3 and no place better I think than episode three um

Speaker 3 but Owen Cooper incredible uh you will see him next as young Heathcliff in the ill-advised Emerald Final Wuthering Heights oh no

Speaker 3 co-starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Alarty is it too late to pull him out of that can we be his agents I think I think we can we can help that drops people are gonna see him and be like, who is that kid?

Speaker 3 He's great if they didn't already see him in this.

Speaker 3 So I think he'll come out fine. I just don't think the project's a good idea.
That's another, that's a problem for another day.

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Speaker 3 The way that it's rolled out in the first episode,

Speaker 3 and then we take a break from Jamie, and then he comes back in episode three. But like, through this whole thing, I was sure that he had done something.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 But I wasn't sh

Speaker 3 not until you see the video are you like, without much provocation at all. No.

Speaker 3 You know,

Speaker 3 we're immediately into

Speaker 3 a violent, though, to your point about salacious, in the distance, slightly grainy stuff.

Speaker 3 In a way that, like,

Speaker 3 we are with his father in that moment of this kid who has been so scared, who has been whimpering, who has been so polite,

Speaker 3 you know, who is, who seems so bright, all this sort of stuff like that.

Speaker 3 Or in episode three, which is my favorite episode sort of by far. Same.

Speaker 3 The way that

Speaker 3 Aaron Dougherty's character, Bryony, comes in,

Speaker 3 having seen him already for several sessions.

Speaker 2 Yeah. This is their fifth session, I think.

Speaker 3 Liking him. Yeah.
Like comes in with a sandwich for him, with, you know, with banter.

Speaker 3 And she digs into a place that by the end, she can't even touch the sandwich that she brought into him. She's so perturbed by what has happened here.
And watching it, we are meant to.

Speaker 3 This kid is not, I think what's so special about Jamie as a character is it's not like

Speaker 3 spoilers for Primal Fear. It's not like Edward Norton in Primal Fear, where like

Speaker 3 a switch flips and you're like, oh my God, this guy has been playing us. No, no.

Speaker 3 It's like, this is a kid. everything he says is real but if you dig one or two layers under the surface there's something very scary there yeah

Speaker 3 but not disconnected from the nice kid that you are like

Speaker 3 feels so bad that he thinks he's the ugliest kid in class or this that or the other thing you know what i mean

Speaker 2 i think I agree with you on episode three overall being sort of the standout, which is really saying something given the other three episodes, which I think are tremendous in their own way.

Speaker 2 But the sort of

Speaker 2 experience of watching this show pitting your brain against itself, where I like, we have seen on tape that he stabbed this girl. And like, we know it.
It's not something a character said.

Speaker 2 It's not a little, a little thing to put out there that they're going to swerve. And it turns out he's not actually the killer.
And the tape was doctored or whatever. It's like, he is the killer.

Speaker 2 And yet, you can't help. at least I could not help, but be charmed by him at certain points and to see him as that kid.
And it's just like, it is impeccable acting. It is jackpot casting.

Speaker 2 It is, it's really threading the needle in finding someone who can be both the kid who pisses himself when the police show up in like whimpering in his bed and also lording over this therapist who's come to to talk to him and evaluate him and to to be not just angry but like it calculatedly intimidating like there are moments where i agree with you it's not it's not a flip switch it's not a switch flip

Speaker 2 but ultimately he'll have his freakout moments that are kind of pure anger or pure frustration or him like getting out some kind of boyish young energy and anger.

Speaker 2 And then when he comes back from them,

Speaker 2 there is something there that is so dark.

Speaker 2 And it is so like him seizing control of that room and him trying to seize control of their dynamic, his dynamic with yet another woman in his life that he wants so desperately to like him and yet he can't get her to admit it.

Speaker 2 In some cases, because like professionally, she simply cannot yeah

Speaker 3 the

Speaker 3 that episode episode three

Speaker 3 um

Speaker 3 very little happens outside of the room except for this like

Speaker 3 guy at the facility sort of

Speaker 3 hitting on her question mark is that what's happening at least kind of chatting her up yeah chatting her up a bit in a in a way that like is all in the mix of

Speaker 3 the the larger conversation of the show. But I was struck by some of the just like tiny pieces of language.

Speaker 3 And again, Jack Thorne has been like a hit or miss writer for me, but some of the tiny pieces of language inside of that episode when he says in one of his freaks outs, you're little head. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Right.

Speaker 3 And then when he says, when she waves off the guard and he's like, oh, like a queen,

Speaker 3 there is this like

Speaker 3 misogynistic language that is not like all women are sluts or what. It's not big and obvious.
Yes, it's little and caked into the very marrow of

Speaker 3 who this kid has become. Yeah.
Due to the environment that he has sort of found himself in. And I think that, like,

Speaker 3 I think also the kid curiosity, because there's, there's Jamie, who was our perpetrator. There's his friend Ryan who gave him the knife.

Speaker 3 And he and Ryan have these sort of like echo moments of their uh

Speaker 3 interrogation, you know, Jamie with Bryony and Ryan with Baskam both have this moment where Ryan goes, You were popular, right?

Speaker 2 Yeah, he's kind of like he fixes it, fixates it on it really quickly.

Speaker 3 You were popular, right? And and to Bryony, Jamie goes, Oh, you're posh. And so there's this way in which they're identifying these adults as like, There's no way you can understand who I am.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Because you were popular or you're pretty and posh, and you can't understand my plight, and I'm not even going to give you the opportunity to make this connection with me that I thought was really

Speaker 3 stunning and telling.

Speaker 2 I think the way that Jamie locks on to, yes, those sorts of associations, who can understand him and who can't, how people communicate with him, like he's so enamored with this idea of like, oh, that's not what normal people say.

Speaker 2 Like, when I say that I'm ugly, you're supposed to reassure me. When I say that girls would never be interested in me, you're supposed to tell me, of course, that's not true.

Speaker 2 And her unwillingness to participate in that is some of what stokes all of the intensity in that scene and what brings out some of the language you're talking about, like the queen and the little head.

Speaker 2 And even when he's describing, you know, what kind of preempts him murdering Katie is some nude photos of her leak out among the school from Snapchat.

Speaker 2 And he decides that he wants to like take a pass at her in this moment, that she has been embarrassed enough socially

Speaker 2 exactly that he says she's weak and that therefore she might be more susceptible to his advances.

Speaker 2 And like that idea, just like putting it in that way, like we hear it reiterated over and over again in episode three, that it's not about what happened. It's about what he thinks.

Speaker 2 It's about, it's not what is true, it's how he's thinking about things. And one area in which this show, which very much wants to be a show about masculinity.

Speaker 2 and a story about how these boys become these boys and how they become the kind of person that would murder a girl.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 2 It engages very openly in some of the factors that facilitate that, right? Like their depth online and what they're exposed to on the internet, what they're exposed to in these schools.

Speaker 2 We get explicit like Andrew Tate name checks, kind of manosphere mentions overall. I thought it was really interesting that

Speaker 2 they choose to make Jamie not someone who follows all that stuff credulously, but someone who has looked at it and said, Some of this isn't really for me, but also ends up parroting other bits of it almost subconsciously, like accepting it regardless of whether he thinks thinks he's doing it or not.

Speaker 2 I thought, like, that's such a great choice that makes it honestly so much more fucking terrifying.

Speaker 3 The nuance of episode three of him saying it's fucked up that someone shared these photos of her,

Speaker 3 but also it put her in a weak position. So I thought that maybe she would go out with me.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 To the point where, after his like

Speaker 3 final freak out in episode three,

Speaker 3 to the point where when we get to episode four

Speaker 3 and we're considering

Speaker 3 it it came to be the moment when he's on the phone he calls his dad it's his dad's 50th birthday he calls his dad and his dad has him on the speakerphone because his mom and his sister are in the car and he's talked to him for a while and then he's like your mom and your sister are here and he's like oh i thought i was just on the phone with you

Speaker 3 And it like made me go back to like when he picks his adult, he picks his dad and his mom is like, why didn't he pick me? Or then later his dad is like, it should have been you.

Speaker 3 But like this idea that he's like,

Speaker 3 only my dad will understand me.

Speaker 3 Like, and you know, that's, that's a human, that can be like a human thing, but it also felt like slightly gendered of like, I didn't know the women in my family were on this call.

Speaker 3 I thought I was just talking to my dad sort of thing. And that was like,

Speaker 3 it just slightly creaked me out in a way that like, and then I feel, I feel, you know, at the same time, the show just threads the needle really well because I really do feel for this kid.

Speaker 3 And when he like draws a card for his dad and just sort of like, man,

Speaker 3 it had me googling like

Speaker 3 juvenile murder sentencing UK. Like, what, you know, what's the future like totally for this kid? Because he's done this horrific thing.
And I'm still like,

Speaker 3 can we come back from this in some way? Is there a future of any kind for this kid? Like, what do we do here? So

Speaker 2 I have to say, coming out of this, it makes me really feel for every parent out there who has a teenager or a near teenager who's having to deal with this.

Speaker 2 Because I mean, one of the ideas that's kind of throughout adolescence, I would say, especially in the back half, is this idea that his parents are reckoning with at the end in like, how, how did we make this monster effectively?

Speaker 2 And yet a monster that we are still claiming as our own. They're not disowning him.
They're not pushing him away. Like he is still their son.

Speaker 2 And one of the things they talk about is like they thought he was safe because he was in his room.

Speaker 2 And this idea that the danger has transcended the boundaries of your home, that it is infiltrating, that there really is no way to keep it out other than to try to be more present in their lives, to try to put them on these kind of more constructive paths.

Speaker 2 And I think that's where you get ultimately like the Bascum parallel with his son Adam, who also is a kid at school who is bullied, who also is kind of a bit of a social outcast.

Speaker 3 We hear from the first, the very first episode at the beginning is trying to get out of going to school

Speaker 3 because he gets bullied all the time.

Speaker 2 And you see it in action. Like you see the kids picking on him and it sucks and it's terrible.
And ultimately, there are a lot of kind of minor parallels between Bascom and Eddie, right?

Speaker 2 They're both like working men who have long hours, who come back late, who aren't as present in their kids' life as they may want to be.

Speaker 2 And yet Adam is on this one path and Jamie is on this other path. And it's such a fine line between them that

Speaker 2 like drawing up any specific causality would be a failure of judgment. It is, it's so complex and it's so difficult to assess like why this happens to one kid and not the other.

Speaker 2 And I appreciate this show trying to at least wrestle with that idea.

Speaker 3 Yeah,

Speaker 3 I think ending episode two

Speaker 3 with Bascom connecting with his kid

Speaker 3 in a way that they're not, the show's not saying this will fix it or like everything's fine now, but it's sort of like, I mean, it depends on how good the chips are.

Speaker 2 If the chips are great, then maybe

Speaker 2 we're on the road.

Speaker 3 A move in the right direction. Yes.
And then the next thing we see as we're doing our fancy drone shot is a bunch of isolated kids down their phone. You know what I mean?

Speaker 3 And Katie's friend in particular, like

Speaker 3 there's no happy ending of that episode for her, you know? And so I think that like

Speaker 3 all that stuff is really finely tuned.

Speaker 3 Something that I like that they made sure to do is that all of the Andrew Tate sort of specific codified insult stuff, they only had the adults say. Yes.

Speaker 2 And I think it's good characterization for Bascom, too, that this is a guy who's very smart and very good at his job and a good investigator.

Speaker 2 And he's in totally over his head when it comes to anything related to the internet.

Speaker 3 I loved the scene with his son where his son's like, this is what these fucking emojis mean. You're embarrassing.

Speaker 2 You're embarrassing yourself and me.

Speaker 3 But then also, I think that,

Speaker 3 yeah, so to have this like, there's a language you don't understand. Your kid's not safe at night in his room and there's an entire language.

Speaker 3 And not to be like, not to be all a father, as a father of daughters about it, but like my nephew, who I love, adore is like exactly this age. And I was just like thinking about him so much.

Speaker 3 And he's like so sweet and like all this, you know, like yards away from anything like this as far as I know. But like, but like.

Speaker 3 Yeah, it gave me a real, I was like, oh no, not the father of daughters moment for you, Joanna, in terms of like empathy and fear. Yeah.

Speaker 3 In terms of watching it and thinking about him going into high school and what that's going to be like and all of this sort of stuff is just like really terrifying.

Speaker 3 And they've been kids, I don't want to talk about them too much because I don't think my sister would want me to, but like they've been kids who have been raised without devices.

Speaker 3 And that was like a strong parenting choice she made. And in some regards, that is going to change their lives.
But like, I don't think you can keep. all of this out forever.

Speaker 3 And that's just like something to think about.

Speaker 2 I think episode two does a good job of illustrating some of that too.

Speaker 2 Just like the way in which not just teenagers or teenagers, but this particular generation of teenagers and the way they respond to things and the way that like even Katie's death is something that's kind of being snickered about by some of the kids in the school.

Speaker 2 And that's, look, that is a tale as old as time. Like teenagers trying to cope with tragedy and not knowing how to do it and making ridiculous and terrible jokes.
That's always been a thing.

Speaker 2 But the ways in which some of the information, ultimately some of the worldview that we're talking about that Jamie gets a hold of or really gets a hold of him, that's stuff that can course through a school as fast as it can through comments on his Instagram, right?

Speaker 3 We don't come here to bury the pit in order to praise adolescents. That's not, we love the pit.

Speaker 3 Still in the running for best show of the year for me so far. Love the pit.
However, you and I were just sort of making fun of this line from the pit that Noah Wiley's character, Dr.

Speaker 3 Robbie, says, we are failing young men because we don't teach them how to express their emotions. We just tell them to man up and then we let them get their lessons in manhood from toxic podcasts.

Speaker 3 It was just like a little

Speaker 3 obvious on the nose

Speaker 2 tell versus show, ultimately.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 the pit does so many things so well.

Speaker 3 So like, again, I'm not here to like tear down the pit, but I was just sort of like what they thought they were doing with that line is like what this show is doing in a much, because it's the whole premise of this show, is in a much more complex way.

Speaker 3 Again, there are no clear answers to

Speaker 3 how did this happen?

Speaker 3 And there's no clear answer on how do we stop it.

Speaker 3 The show is not interested in solving this problem. The show is interested in just holding it up for you to look at

Speaker 3 and think about.

Speaker 3 Something I love also in terms of the writing process in the arduous three-week sort of shooting of each episode process

Speaker 3 is that they let the kids rewrite some of the lines. Yeah.
Because they're like, you know, we're men in our 50s. And like, what do we know about the way in which like teenagers now are talking? And so

Speaker 3 I'm not

Speaker 3 a young teen, so, but, but, like,

Speaker 3 like, is this a show that's going to connect with young teens? Uh, you know, I'm curious to know. I don't know.

Speaker 2 I suspect more so adults.

Speaker 3 Oh, more so adults for sure.

Speaker 2 But, like, I think the effect that you described of if you are a certain age, you immediately think to everyone you know who is in that tween to teen bracket and how something, how they may tangentially be involved in these sorts of worlds, whether they know it or like it or not.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 That's something that's, I think, so much easier to do as an adult looking down in age versus for teens looking across themselves.

Speaker 3 Definitely. But I do remember being a kid and I remember there are like TVs and shows you can watch where you're like, that's not how

Speaker 3 a human teen talks. Of course.

Speaker 3 And then there are shows you can watch where you're like, like my so-called life lingers because my so-called life really got it right in terms of the way in which actual teenagers talk versus, I mean, Dawson Creeks lingers for a different reason, but no human teen has ever said any of those words.

Speaker 3 So like, if they got the way that the kids talk

Speaker 3 right,

Speaker 3 there's a better chance that a teen could watch this and say,

Speaker 3 you know, not scoff at like

Speaker 3 older men trying to tackle the problem of

Speaker 3 adolescence in the modern world. Anything else you want to say about the show, Rob Mahoney?

Speaker 2 I just want to, I want to say one,

Speaker 2 I want to clear out one final moment for episode four in particular. And I will say, like, to me, the biggest payoff of the one-er style, a lot of it is in episode three.

Speaker 2 I think that's an incredible piece of work. But what we get from Stephen Graham and Christine Tremarco in episode four,

Speaker 2 as they are processing as parents, and they've been through a day that I imagine is like many of their days where they try to pretend some things are normal and everything just comes crashing down.

Speaker 2 Like the idea of normalcy is not available to these people at this time.

Speaker 2 And the way it becomes fractured and the way that they start falling apart and the way that they start diagnosing and questioning, like, was it this thing that I did?

Speaker 2 Was it my temper that led him down this particular path?

Speaker 2 I think is just a remarkable piece of acting, among other things. And in particular, Stephen Graham and his character Eddie going into Jamie's room at the end of the finale.
Holy fuck.

Speaker 2 I mean, just sitting on his son's bed. tucking in his teddy bear, sobbing and apologizing to his son that can't be there.
It just fucking laid me out, man.

Speaker 2 And I think the power of this show is if I ever listen to the song that is playing during that sequence for the rest of my life, that's Aurora's Through the Eyes of a Child,

Speaker 2 I'm just going to be wrecked. And it's going to take me right back to that moment.

Speaker 2 And it's like, for everything that we said about the pit, like to me, adolescence, it also has its moments of like, let me say this part out loud really quickly before we move on.

Speaker 2 But then it lands it with this. And so that to me is why everything feels so different in the show as far as messaging within television is concerned.

Speaker 3 I feel like we've had a real week talking about being TV criers, Rob. But like, yeah, I mean, I think that

Speaker 3 that Aurora song,

Speaker 3 it's just a job incredibly well done. But the show ends with a very sentimental,

Speaker 3 extremely sentimental. song.
Sentimental in like a very specific sort of like UK kind of that sort of like UK

Speaker 3 extra layer of schmaltz that I think that they are like capable of, I say with absolute adoration.

Speaker 3 And this extreme performance from Stephen Grant. But like what I love about that, and it all lands, and I am also laid out, but like I'm the kind of person where like

Speaker 3 if they hadn't done it right, that would feel all too much for me. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 You know what I mean? Well, especially when he is crying over the murderer of a teenage girl. Yes.

Speaker 2 And so it is, to me, it's the magic of this show that Jamie in scenes can make you forget for a second that he's a murderer and that his parents can make you forget that what you are feeling and what you're crying about and what you're experiencing is sympathy and pity and regret over, if not a murderer, then the tragedy that made this kid a murderer.

Speaker 2 And that's like a wider societal tragedy as much as anything.

Speaker 3 But I think watching, going back and sort of rewatching episode one,

Speaker 3 and I didn't watch it all back through, but I like sort of spot-watched some things. And like,

Speaker 3 I remembered registering this at the time that Stephen Graham, he's giving a like

Speaker 3 they break into the home he's like what are you doing you know this is my home you're wrecking the place all this other stuff like this but he is like often quite contained and stoic in that episode and until the end obviously but I remember watching it I'm like they're giving us this because I know he has to go somewhere you know so they're starting us here so that Stephen Graham who's like every cut to his face I was like captivated by I just think he's incredible in this um

Speaker 3 but yeah i i i i thought it all built up to an incredible um conclusion and and climax and christine chamarco who's whose work i'm not as familiar with yeah uh i thought was wonderful stephen graham has said that they've those two actors have known each other since they were children and there is this sort of like baked in this is what i'm talking about like like We've been talking about Chris for guest films, like creating your stable of actors that you just feel comfortable and familiar with, and you can go build from there.

Speaker 3 We're incredibly lucky to get to see it.

Speaker 3 Anything else you want to say about this tough to watch, but very incredible show?

Speaker 2 I really hope if you're listening this far, you've already seen this show. And if you somehow haven't, even after everything you've heard, I would encourage you to watch it.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 Thank you to Justin Sales.

Speaker 3 Thank you to John Richter. Thank you to Donnie Beacham.
And we will be back for Severance, More White Lotus, and all other kinds of things here on the Prestige feed. And we'll see you soon.
Bye.