Netflix’s ‘The Beast in Me' Review

Speaker 1 Hello, welcome back to the Press Siege TV Podcast Speed. I'm Joyna Robinson.

Speaker 2 I'm Rob Mahoney.

Speaker 1 And this is our second of three Press Siege TV episodes this week, Rob. It's a corticopia, pre-Thanksgiving corducopia of television.

Speaker 2 I'm overwhelmed, but honestly, overwhelmed with good television. There's a lot going on.
There's a lot worth checking out, including this one surprised me, Joe.

Speaker 2 The Beast in Me has been a delightful presence in my life.

Speaker 1 Okay, so The Beast in Me,

Speaker 1 which is an eight-episode Netflix binge drop that dropped over the weekend, Rob and I are going to talk about the whole thing.

Speaker 1 Maybe not the whole thing right away, but spoilers are on the table for this. And this is like very much a sort of, you know, if you, if you haven't,

Speaker 1 maybe let's do like a top line recommendation, right? Should we watch it or should you not?

Speaker 1 This is claire danes and uh of claire dane's fame and matthew reese of the americans fame and um claire danes plays a writer and matthew reese plays a a shitty super rich real estate mogul who who moves in next door and he is sort of infamously known for perhaps killing his previous wife his current wife is breaking snow perhaps who's to say who's to say and uh so she is sort of gets drawn into this question of like did he or did he not It is very much in the sort of like,

Speaker 1 not to get too gendered about it, sort of like women's fiction, sort of,

Speaker 1 I would say, ever since Big Little Lies happened, this iteration, we've got.

Speaker 1 kind of uh we've gotten a lot of i would say not tremendously great versions of this this year with like the better sister the girlfriend hunting wise all her fault like there's just like a bunch of iterations of this and then i would say this is like top line creme de la creme of this kind of story.

Speaker 1 Without getting into sort of like major plot beats or major specifics, sort of like, what's your top line? Should people watch this show? Who's going to like this show, Rob?

Speaker 2 I think they definitely should. I mean, if you're at all interested in murder mysteries and you just nailed it, that there are so many bad versions of this kind of show.

Speaker 2 And I think most critically, versions that have two leads who just aren't as compelling as Claire Danes and Matthew Rees are. And so you're getting them.

Speaker 2 You're getting, you know, a show that doesn't look like a generically built Netflix show, but actually has some thought into the way that it's constructed and what they show you on screen.

Speaker 2 And the care behind the camera is like really evident. I think the writing is really fun.
I think the editing is really like snappy.

Speaker 2 There's just like a good visual rhythm to this show that makes it incredibly propulsive.

Speaker 2 So much so that I was honestly shocked that this wasn't a novel because it has that sort of like, right, you know, airport bestseller kind of quality to it.

Speaker 1 Beach Reedy. Girl in the train, et cetera, et cetera.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 the some behind the scenes people. So Gabe Rodder is the creator of this and he is a novelist, but he also worked on the X-Files back in the day.
So he has like some TV pedigree to him.

Speaker 1 And then the showrunner here is Howard Gordon, who worked on 24 and Homeland. And there is a lot of DNA shared between Homeland,

Speaker 1 the good seasons of Homeland and this show.

Speaker 1 This was, once again, an eight episode drop over the weekend. We got what was probably like the most predictable ever text from our boss Bill Simmons of like, I love this show.

Speaker 1 You need to watch the show. This is like right up Bill's alley.

Speaker 2 It was predictable, Joe, but you also like Hank Aaron called this, or sorry, Babe Ruth called this shit.

Speaker 2 Like, you called your shot that, like, Bill will put up the bat signal and we will be obligated to respond to it, heroes that we are, to cover this kind of television.

Speaker 2 And you could not have been more right. This is so up Bill's alley, it's ridiculous.

Speaker 1 And this, but again, this is like the this is the best version of a kind of show that Bill is like loves to watch. Yes.
Bill loves these shows. And then he also loves Claire Danes.

Speaker 1 He loves Holin. I mean, exactly.
And then also

Speaker 1 the first two and the last two episodes are directed by Antonio Campos, who directed, among other things, The Staircase and HBO Mac sort of like, did they do it? Did they not do it?

Speaker 1 Show that Bill and I covered together on this very feed.

Speaker 2 So this is just like all the ingredients were here.

Speaker 1 Bill is not here.

Speaker 1 He is on business in New York. So you have the two of us who have spent the last 48 hours

Speaker 1 consuming this this TV show. We have a lot to say about it.

Speaker 1 So anyway, I would say spoiler alert, spoiler warning.

Speaker 1 Apologies to our producer, Donnie, who only got to watch the first episode. We're about to spoil the hell out of this show, The Beast in Me.

Speaker 2 It is quite binge-friendly, though, we should say. Like, if you've only begun it, you've already gotten a sense of that, like how easy it is to just lock in for the next episode.

Speaker 2 But if you haven't embarked on your Beast in Me journey as of yet, I think you'll find that it goes down very smoothly. It's just one of those shows that you can lock into pretty easily.

Speaker 2 And I think there's a reason it not only appeals to people like Bill and kind of his sensibilities, as you were saying, Joe, but that it is just like wildfire on Netflix right now.

Speaker 2 Like, this is something that is just grabbing wide swaths of people because there is that like mystery element that can pull anybody in.

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Speaker 1 We're going to talk about Claire Danes in a second. I actually want to start with Matthew Reese because I think Claire Danes is playing a character we've seen Claire Danes play many, many times.

Speaker 1 Nobody does it better.

Speaker 2 I think the upset is that she's in a show with a character who who has bipolar disorder and it's not her. Like, that is that is shocking information.

Speaker 1 So, um, but you know, the

Speaker 1 49 minutes in, the chin is wobbling, um, you know, the eyes are wild with suspicion and anxiety and grief and all these other things. Like, everything you want Claire Dane to do, she does.

Speaker 1 She's even got the like my so-called life ginger hair. Like, all the hits are being played here in this

Speaker 1 show. But I want to talk with Matt, start with Matthew Reese, because someone who maybe some people might be less familiar with.

Speaker 1 Because, as much as I love the Americans, I know it wasn't like a super uh,

Speaker 1 you know, hugely watched show.

Speaker 1 Um, Perry Mason sort of ditto, a show for that wound up with like probably a niche audience than they had hoped. I think Matthew Reese is like one of the best actors that exists.

Speaker 1 Wildly talented, so good. And this is not, you know, on the Americans, we had to, we watched him play a spy

Speaker 1 who then plays a billion different roles inside of that role in many wigs, many actors.

Speaker 2 I was about to say, how many, how many wigs and sub-wigs within those roles?

Speaker 1 So I feel like we've seen a lot from him, but I have never seen him do precisely this, which requires

Speaker 1 this character Nile Jarvis is,

Speaker 1 you know, there's like shades of trumpiness there, et cetera, but it has to be,

Speaker 1 especially in this first episode, an

Speaker 1 unapologetic asshole. Yes.

Speaker 1 And also someone who is so sort of compellingly charismatic that you understand why Claire Danes' character, Aggie, gets sort of drawn to him in a way, even as she is repulsed by him.

Speaker 1 What would you make of this?

Speaker 2 The degree of difficulty of what you just described is astronomical. Like there just aren't that many actors who can pull both parts of that off.

Speaker 2 And I would say, in particular, that first meeting you have with Niall, it's just like within 90 seconds, maybe, like he has, you know, told Aggie what to do.

Speaker 2 He's nagged her, he's antagonized her for not publishing another book yet. He's like stuck in a jab about her dead son.
Like the speed with which this show gets you to hate this guy is overwhelming.

Speaker 2 And then it just starts peeling it back with like a little bit of intrigue or like a little bit of truth.

Speaker 2 You know, like, yeah, that book about Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia does sound really boring.

Speaker 2 Like these, some of the jokes are landing, and all of a sudden, it's just like you are eating out of the palm of this guy's hand, even if it's covered in rotisserie chicken juice like there's just something about it that is gross and repelling but also works oh my god i forgot about that scene where he just like devours the rotisserie chicken um really great stuff um

Speaker 1 i was

Speaker 1 i was telling uh our producer donny before we started recording there was something in some of the jobs i've had like in the vanity fair world or uh when i was working uh in san francisco at city arts and lectures there's a couple personalities that i've met that are very similar to this where they say extremely rude, brusque, like, you know, just outrageous shit that is so repulsive or

Speaker 1 personally insulting, but then they also just have this sort of like they can get away with it. And you're sort of baffled as to why.

Speaker 1 But there is just a jequis about them that they've gone through life this far, you know, saying whatever the fuck they want to say, perhaps insulated by money or power or whatever the case may be. And

Speaker 1 the moment inside of the first episode when Aggie winds up going to lunch with him, and then you see sort of Ruth Bader-Ginsburg, Antonin Scalia alike,

Speaker 1 her get sort of drawn into this kinship of a certain kind with him or fascination. And I'm just like, yeah, I feel like I've been at dinners with these people where I am like repulsed.
And

Speaker 1 But like they're never boring.

Speaker 2 No.

Speaker 1 And there's something about that that is just sort of exciting. Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 Especially for a character in Aggie who is bored with so many aspects of her life.

Speaker 2 He's like looking for something to grab on to to interest her again and make her feel alive again after this incredible personal trauma, losing her son, the dissolution of her marriage.

Speaker 2 She's now had like years and years since her last book came out, which was Beloved, but she doesn't know how to follow it up.

Speaker 2 And this guy just like literally moves in next door, like stumbles into her basically. Yeah.
And her want to try to make sense of him is interesting.

Speaker 2 And his, his want to mess with her is also interesting. And especially as a person who has that personality type you described, Joe, but also has read her book and can locate it very precisely.

Speaker 2 Like, this is a woman with daddy issues who is like craving for a kind of approval from somebody.

Speaker 2 And honestly, if you are like overwhelmingly mean to somebody, apparently that's a playbook for that kind of behavior.

Speaker 2 And there's like a weird attachment that forms and a mutual fascination between those two characters as they're trying to get to the bottom of each other.

Speaker 1 Um,

Speaker 1 he, uh,

Speaker 1 so spoilers genuinely for this uh because the crux of this show is did he do, among other things, did he do it, right?

Speaker 2 And uh, and did he do any of like four different things as the show develops?

Speaker 1 Many, many a murder. Um, uh,

Speaker 1 and honestly, even once we saw him do his first murder, I was like, but did he do all the murders?

Speaker 2 This is the thing.

Speaker 2 I kind of, I kind of suspected that, that we would get like, oh, he did some, but not these, those, but not, like, yeah, that that was kind of the, the space the show wants you to be in.

Speaker 1 He did, uh, as it turns out, all the murders. Um, maybe all the murders that have ever been.
Um, and, uh,

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 at towards the end, as Aggie is trying to draw his current wife, Nina, played by Brittany Snow, sort of like in into helping her because she's been backed into

Speaker 1 an impossible corner. Um, she basically says, he doesn't respect you

Speaker 1 because

Speaker 1 you've decided to believe the lie. Right.
And so that sort of like spit, you spin that back around to the top of the season and just sort of Niall Jarvis as this very smart,

Speaker 1 very shittily privileged, whatever guy who like kind of wants someone

Speaker 1 to see him for who he is.

Speaker 1 And his analysis of her as someone who like

Speaker 1 her father was a con artist and all these other things. And he's like, but you, you admired him anyway.
Like, he wants that. He wants someone smart enough to see him for who he is.
Yes.

Speaker 1 And to admire him anyway is something that it seems like he wants from Aggie.

Speaker 2 And I would say ultimately kind of succeeds in getting from Aggie, among other people. And honestly, from the audience, too.
Like, this is a show in which Niall is constantly messing with Aggie.

Speaker 2 Like, he has this little riff in the middle while they're in the, you know, mid-like bender about how killer whales are the only animals that play with their food.

Speaker 2 And it's like he is playing with his food the whole time, and the show is playing with its food the whole time. In terms of like, it's going to wink a little bit.

Speaker 2 It's like the psycho killer is going to put on psycho killer. Like, we're going to have these sort of like dance break, isn't this so funny moments of revelation?

Speaker 2 Uh, but it's also just like constantly teasing you and leading you on down like various alleys of figuring out who did what exactly in a way that is, I think, just really captivating.

Speaker 1 And there is this, so um, I, you know, I had, I had set a prompt for one of the few prompts that we're going to get to inside of our coverage of how do we talk about eight episodes inside of a podcast, one single podcast, we do our best.

Speaker 1 But one of the questions I sort of asked you beforehand was if you had a favorite episode versus a least favorite episode.

Speaker 1 And episode six, which is The Beast and Me, which during which they go on this massive bender together, transcended to me. I just thought this was so good.

Speaker 1 The psycho killer included, like everything that happens.

Speaker 1 And they wind up in, you know, and then he talks about the romance of them, the like, you know, there isn't even a little part of you that wants to like have sex with me, like all this sort of stuff.

Speaker 1 And so I think I want to

Speaker 1 dial in on that because the decision to make Aggie's character gay

Speaker 1 and her ex-wife played by the great Natalie Morales, like, um, you do have this like sick fast, double fascination and this seduction and this draw, but it's not sexual. It's something else.

Speaker 1 And that, you know, that takes it one step to the left from homeland. So we're not just doing homeland again.
We're doing this sort of like

Speaker 1 intellects circling each other, slightly twisted, vengeful psychology circling each other, but not just because we've seen the version of that where then they have like sex during their bender, but they didn't because it's something slightly different, which I thought was smart to do, you know.

Speaker 2 I think it's a really great idea. And you're right that it puts the spotlight squarely on the psychology, right? It turns it from, are these people just going to fuck her what? To like,

Speaker 2 is there something that these two human beings are sharing on like a different kind of chemical level, right? Like a different kind of, you know, imbalance or however you want to describe it.

Speaker 2 Like they're, they are wanting and needing something.

Speaker 2 And is, is Aggie as vulnerable to the sort of bloodlust that she has hinted at and talked about and thrown a brick through a window to try to achieve? Like she's been wanting something for so long.

Speaker 2 long and I think what's so great about the way Niall is portrayed in the show where I mean he's just like a straight up mustache villain sometimes. Like they're shooting him in murderer lighting.

Speaker 2 He's just doing full like SVU perpetrator kind of acting at some points. Like it all really hits in a broad way, but a really successful way.

Speaker 2 So I mean, he has these big, broad portrayals that I think really work, especially for this character.

Speaker 2 But at the same time, it's like the show almost doesn't want you to fully believe that he didn't do these things.

Speaker 2 It's like it's writing, I think, the edge of like plausible deniability, reasonable doubt, right?

Speaker 2 It's like there's just enough gap between the version of the monster you see on screen and the actual proof tying him to any of this stuff that I think there's like there's just enough wiggle room there.

Speaker 1 Absolutely. And there were plenty of times where I was like, maybe he didn't do it.

Speaker 1 Maybe this is, you know, I was asking Donnie before we started recording, like, who had all is spoiled now, but had only watched one episode.

Speaker 1 And I was like, do you, like, do you think it's more interesting if he did it or if he didn't do it? Yes. And I had decided that I would be more interesting if he didn't do it.

Speaker 1 But actually, I like the way it all turns out. And I will say that, like, on this, on this front of like plausible,

Speaker 1 you know, doubt, I guess, about whether or not he did it, we've got

Speaker 1 Jonathan Banks, the great Jonathan Banks from the Gilligan verse, Mike Ermentrad himself as Niles' father, Martin Jarvis.

Speaker 1 And then Tim, I think you pronounce his last name, Guynier Guinea, who plays his uncle Rick.

Speaker 1 And they're both, both of these are like specifically cast to be kind of red herrings of like, did his father have, you know, his wife killed? Did his Uncle Rick do it to shut her up for some reason?

Speaker 1 Like, or did she leave a fake suicide note so that she could like just disappear?

Speaker 2 And absolutely.

Speaker 1 You know, and you've got, and then you've got like actors like Bill Irwin playing her dad, earnestly saying, like,

Speaker 1 it can't have been Niall. So there's all these like, you know, they're, they're carefully seating the cast around him with like shady enough figures.

Speaker 1 And it just turns out that Martin Jarvis, I mean, was he covering up his son's murders? Yes. Of course.
But he's like

Speaker 1 dies, well, dies of suffocation, but basically dies of a broken heart that like he's just not going to, his murderous son is not going to stop. You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 And it's just sort of like, it's, it's great casting to put Jonathan Banks in that.

Speaker 1 Good old, they broke my son, Jonathan Banks in that role.

Speaker 2 There's like just enough stuff happening in the frame, I feel like to backfoot you, just enough to keep the plot moving.

Speaker 2 As you said, these kind of dual heavies that the story has kind of at its disposal could open up any kind of possibilities.

Speaker 2 And I think there's the lingering question, whether it's with Martin or anyone in the story, of not just did Niall do this thing, but who knows and who is, or who is living in the ambiguity of thinking he did, but denying it for whatever personal reason.

Speaker 2 And what I was kind of struck by in watching it is the way ambition is like ruling over this story, right? It's like every single character has something that they're after.

Speaker 2 And sometimes Niall can help them get it. Sometimes they're, you know, their daughter was murdered, but they're over-leveraged financially.
So they have to believe in him.

Speaker 2 You know, it's, or even in, you know, Nina's case, it's like she tried on a certain kind of lifestyle and liked the way it fit and sort of rode that socialite ladder all the way to the top, even if it came at, you know, the expense of living with a murderer.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 1 Telling herself she wasn't living with a murderer. Telling herself she understood who he was, but like really knowing the truth.

Speaker 2 And I think the the fact that that relationship specifically, like Nina is such an interesting character in this story, and you already talked about kind of her ambiguity and the way that character's knowledge or lack of knowledge sort of becomes the main text of what is ultimately like the climactic confrontation between her and Niall, like of, did you believe this?

Speaker 2 Like she's trying to get him on tape confessing to all these murders.

Speaker 2 The fact that the ambiguity for her becomes the point in the way that it has been for all of us all throughout this show, I thought it was just like a really artful way to wrap this thing up.

Speaker 1 On the one hand, yes.

Speaker 2 Did that work for you?

Speaker 1 Well, no, I mean, I really liked this show. I loved episode six.

Speaker 1 Episode seven is like a full flashback episode, which I had some questions about, like, does that feel like we're just pressing the brakes on?

Speaker 1 I don't know, the deployment of flashbacks. I had that was maybe my least favorite episode.

Speaker 2 That was also my least favorite episode. And we really, Joe, you and I personally, we need to get Layla George out of these flashback episodes.

Speaker 2 just like was living in the past on disclaimer, yeah. And here is just like, and I think she's legit good in this part.

Speaker 2 And there are moments specifically with her interaction with Brian Abbott, who plays, who's this FBI agent, yeah, and when he's telling her, like, maybe you need therapeutic help more than you need protection, yeah, and the like unraveling on her face as she is processing like one of her lifelines kind of slipping away from her.

Speaker 2 There's really great stuff, but like, let this woman act in the present tense, please.

Speaker 1 Free Layla George.

Speaker 1 By the time it got to Nina

Speaker 1 and Niall in their bedroom, and she's like, wait, you killed? Like, you know, it was just like so clearly that she was taping him.

Speaker 2 It's telegraphed for sure. But you know what? New York, a one-party consent state, you know, they actually, they got it going on.

Speaker 1 It's true. It's true.

Speaker 1 Okay, I wanted to ask you

Speaker 1 on that sort of like, plausible doubt front. This was like a prompt I had for you of like, are there a I actually love a story like this.
Yes.

Speaker 1 Where we the viewers are constantly asking ourselves, you know, because there's a way in which you can be like too far ahead of the main character or too, or they hide the ball so well that it's just like a last minute reveal and it's not that interesting.

Speaker 1 But this idea of riding the line between like, did he do it? Did he not?

Speaker 1 Or did she do it? Did she not? Etc.

Speaker 1 Especially over eight episodes. Like a lot of the examples that I could come up with were films where you don't have as much time to sort of keep you in that space.
So what were some of the

Speaker 1 similar stories that you came up with that you maybe

Speaker 1 liked? And I guess we're going to spoil all of these stories.

Speaker 2 I mean, we can we can lightly spoil, I think.

Speaker 2 I agree with you that I think TV has a huge problem with this. The shows that try to attempt it, it's just too much time on the tightrope, and you feel it one way or the other.

Speaker 2 And so, it does work better on film. To me, there are two people who are just the absolute masters of this kind of storytelling.
One is Hitchcock, no surprise.

Speaker 2 Like, this is where that guy lives and eats. Vertigo does this as well as any movie or artwork has ever done it.

Speaker 2 Park Chain Wook, I would say, is the other one.

Speaker 2 And specifically, the combo of the handmaiden and decision to leave, I think are just like expert versions of this sort of almost more conman than they are murder mystery of like, how much can I trust this person and the version of events that they are selling me as an audience member and as like a surrogate character from whatever point of view you're being told.

Speaker 2 Again, that's just as good as it gets for me.

Speaker 1 I also have Hitchcock and Park Turn Woke on my list.

Speaker 1 Hitchcock, there's a Carrie Grant movie, Suspicion,

Speaker 1 where Carrie Grant, it's almost as much, it's like about the storytellers. You mentioned two directors, but also the performance.
Like Carrie Grant as like,

Speaker 1 you know, someone whose new wife is like, is this a murderer? And similarly in the movie, I mean, one is called suspicion, the other is called Shadow of a Doubt.

Speaker 1 In Shadow of a Doubt, Joseph Cotton plays the Uncle Charlie who comes back. And that, that Hitchcock movie, Shadow of a Doubt, which I love, has two modern counterparts.

Speaker 1 There's Stoker, which is Park Jan Wooks. That's basically like a remake of Shadow of a Doubt with Matthew Goode in the Uncle Charlie role.

Speaker 2 Matthew Good is particularly suited to that kind of thing, too. Exactly.
He walks that line very well.

Speaker 1 Matthew Goode and then Dan Stevens and The Guest, which is like also another sort of like, contemporary remake of Shadow of a Doubt, I think are just like really, really good versions of that.

Speaker 2 The guest is almost a different formula, though, because it's almost like, what is this guy capable of more than what has he already done?

Speaker 2 You know, there's like a, there's, there's a wolf in, in the, in the herd, so to speak, and you're just trying to suss out like, how dangerous a situation is this.

Speaker 1 It's just my memory that like that reveal does come earlier than this, but not like at the very beginning.

Speaker 1 And Dan Stevens, who up until that point, had like just played cousin Matthew in Downton Abbey. And so you're like not prepared for him to like

Speaker 1 not not only like walk around in just a towel, but also like

Speaker 1 be super murdery.

Speaker 1 What about Gone Girl and like

Speaker 1 the Amy Rosamond Pike

Speaker 1 of it all? Like if you don't know the twist of that movie, is that sort of like an interesting space to exist in?

Speaker 2 What do you think? I mean, unquestionably effective. I think the only question with that one is the structure and the timing.

Speaker 2 Like, is it coming early enough in the movie to tip the hand in just like a way that makes it a different thing?

Speaker 2 Because ultimately, like, I think what makes the project of something like The Beast in Me so challenging is not making the audience feel either too smart or too dumb.

Speaker 2 Like, you want them to turn their brain off and be along for the ride. And Gone Girl does that really effectively by tipping the hand almost a little earlier than this.
But

Speaker 2 it's hard to string it out over eight hours, and it's hard to string it out even over two or two and a half.

Speaker 1 The last one I have on my list here.

Speaker 1 And actually, this is just, again, this is sort of like Dan Stevens coming off of Downton Abbey.

Speaker 1 Chris Evans and Knives Out.

Speaker 2 Sure.

Speaker 1 Coming off of such a long Captain America run.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 the first Knives Out,

Speaker 1 I don't know about you, but I definitely, there was like a middle of the movie where I was like, maybe he didn't do it. Yeah.
And then it's like,

Speaker 1 he definitely did it. Spoilers for Knives Out, guys.

Speaker 2 But you're locating something, I think, with Chris Evans and Matthew Goode and Dan Stevens. It's like, these are just among the most charming human beings alive.
Exactly.

Speaker 2 And so to your point about Niall Jarvis as a character, it's like there are certain people who can just get away with stuff.

Speaker 2 And the way you create that sort of character is by having that kind of charisma, this like undeniable quality that you can't fake and you can't put on. It's like you either have that or you don't.

Speaker 2 And so I think you have to be really careful in the construction and the casting of these movies that you have the right people.

Speaker 2 And I think Matthew Reese and Claire Dane's unquestionably the right people for this show.

Speaker 1 One last thing about Matthew Reese, since we are talking about Matthew Goode, Matthew Reese and Matthew Goode did

Speaker 1 a wine show that I really recommend.

Speaker 2 Wait, what? Yeah, it's just the two of them going around and getting draft.

Speaker 1 It's like a travel wine drinking show where the two of them go around, drink wine, get absolutely

Speaker 1 trash hammered.

Speaker 2 How did I not know about it? Like these are two of my guys and I just missed it.

Speaker 1 Welcome. Welcome to

Speaker 1 the joys of that.

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Speaker 1 Okay, let's talk about claritaines.

Speaker 2 I mean, one of the queens. And Joe, for you and I, I I mean, I think the first show we ever potted about together was Fleischman is in Trouble.
So a real return to form for you and I. Really?

Speaker 2 With our good friend Claire.

Speaker 1 Who also, spoiler, is

Speaker 1 both unraveling and

Speaker 1 not believed in that show.

Speaker 2 Shocker.

Speaker 1 This is a common theme for Claire.

Speaker 2 Can I ask you a question about the unraveling in this show, though?

Speaker 1 I would really enjoy that if you did. Ask me that question.

Speaker 2 If you lived in a place that had wallpaper that was this busy and this much stuff on the walls, wouldn't you also be unraveling?

Speaker 1 If my house reeked of sewage at all times, would I not be unraveling?

Speaker 2 If the dirt of your past was burbling up through the drains, like could you live with the metaphor?

Speaker 1 What I love is like when Nina comes by with a pie

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 Aggie like apologizes the fact that she's having plumbing issues and the house smells bad. And Nina like somewhat, but like is like, no, your your house is charming.
Like does a really good job.

Speaker 1 And then immediately thereafter, Rick breaks in and is just like, you get the first real sense of how much it absolutely reeks in that house when Rick is like doing a B and E and also can't breathe because it's so disgusting in there.

Speaker 2 But even Nina does like a quick little, once Aggie turns the corner, kind of a little hold her nose hand wave, like, oh my God, this is so bad. I just can't say it out loud.

Speaker 1 And it's just so interesting that like we knew that we saw the sewage, We saw her get like splattered with the sewage. Like we saw it happen.

Speaker 1 But like if it reeks that bad, then like her clothing smells like that. Like when she goes out into the world, all of her beautiful drapey woolen sweaters and coats and stuff like that reek of sewage.

Speaker 1 And that's just like a really interesting detail of this particular story.

Speaker 1 If it were me. And I understand why she lives there.
She lives there because her son

Speaker 1 died while living in that house and she has preserved his room in amber and like can't let go of the house because it means letting go of the dream she had of starting a family with Shelly, her ex and Cooper, her son, and all of that sort of stuff like that.

Speaker 1 But I, like her editor, I was just sort of like screaming through the phone, like, sell, please sell that house.

Speaker 2 Sell the haunted house, please.

Speaker 1 Yeah, sell the haunted. I also love, I mean, that house looked so, I mean, it was so beautiful.

Speaker 1 It's beautiful, absolutely beautiful, but also like a little ramshackle, you know, like the paints peeling on the outside and stuff like that so um

Speaker 1 yeah claire danes is great in this guess what surprise claire danes is great in something she's great in this um absolutely iconic um

Speaker 1 date i think this is the best thing i've seen claire danes in

Speaker 1 just like best suited for her

Speaker 2 uh since homeland i would say since the first couple seasons of homeland um she says a lot more to do here because you're right that she does play some version of this sort of freak out basically all the time, but this rounds it out.

Speaker 2 I think where you get the freakouts, you get like, I thought the scene in which she is giving, like, apologizing to Shelly through the crack in the door is just like arresting must-see television.

Speaker 2 And that's she is freaking out there, but it is coming from a different place.

Speaker 2 And it's almost like she was freaking out and she took a second to breathe and she's saying the things that she always wanted to say and still gets the door slammed in her face.

Speaker 2 It's just that's heartbreaking in a way that Claire Dane's then spiraling can only be heartbreaking.

Speaker 1 And I would say that Natalie Morales as Shelly, and I love, I love Natalie. I think she's great.
Her performance in that scene is so good.

Speaker 1 Her absolute devastation of like listening to this, I think on a certain level, believing Aggie

Speaker 1 about certain things, but still not. not being able to offer that hand because sometimes you just like someone's drowning and you and you can't hold on to them anymore.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I thought that was all that stuff was really good. I'm just like, I'm

Speaker 1 happy. Okay, here's my question.
She's so good at this. We've seen her do it again and again.

Speaker 1 But this is not all she's ever done in her life. You know, like, especially earlier in her career, she had

Speaker 1 far more varied

Speaker 1 subjects to deal with. Do you want to see her do more of this than she's the best to ever do this very specific thing? Or would you like to see, I mean, she did,

Speaker 1 I did watch the Apple show. She did call the Essex Serpent.
I didn't, it wasn't particularly great. Um, but like, do you want something else from Claire to be her next project?

Speaker 1 Or are you like, keep on doing what you do, Claire? No one does it like you.

Speaker 2 I would definitely take a wider range. Like, for one, we have enough on tape, again, also in Amber that I can just turn back to any of these performances anytime I want.

Speaker 2 We know she can go back to it and dial it back up if she ever wants to do that again. But there is a range of performance that has eluded her.
I would, I would guess, on a casting level.

Speaker 2 Like, you and I were talking about this, that this is a script that kind of reads, please put a Claire Danes type in this movie, and they just got Claire Daines.

Speaker 2 But where's the script that's like, we want a steely Kate Blanchette type?

Speaker 2 And it's like, Claire Daines isn't Kate Blanchette, but she has a buttoned-up, like very polished kind of performance style that could fill a similar role, right?

Speaker 2 Like, you can even see it in this in like the photo on her book's like dust jacket cover. It's like there's, there's a headshot version of Claire Danes.

Speaker 2 It's like, you know, woman who kind of has it together, but kind of doesn't in a turtleneck. Like that doesn't have to be spiraling and making conspiracy boards.

Speaker 1 I was curious for you, Rob. So

Speaker 1 as we mentioned, the creator of the show is

Speaker 1 a novelist, has written novels. Rob, I know you're, you don't read fiction or write fiction, but

Speaker 1 you are a writer. How did all of the sort of like grappling with the blank page stuff go for you?

Speaker 2 I actually thought it was quite good.

Speaker 2 yeah and i think ultimately the the i think the the risk you run with this kind of story is anytime you have to read the writing out loud it sounds ridiculous i think the parts that they read out loud that are supposed to sound ridiculous do and the rest of it actually does sound fairly compelling to me like i think there's actually some good writing Now, it's not all that way.

Speaker 2 There's one line, especially at the very end when she's doing her reading, where Aggie says, reading from her own book, Niall smelled my bloodlust and midwifed that story into being.

Speaker 2 I mean, fucking gross. That's just disgusting.

Speaker 2 I'm sorry. No, absolutely not.
It's not great.

Speaker 1 It's not great.

Speaker 1 I called her her editor. It's her literary agent, played by Deirdre O'Connell, who's having like such a two years.

Speaker 1 She's unhinged and great in Eddington. She's unhinged and great.
She's like sort of the elder stateswoman of the Claire Dane, sort of like manic energy in the penguin.

Speaker 1 She was so good in the penguin, uh, as Colin Farrell's mom, the penguin's mother.

Speaker 2 Um, and what a juicy part, the penguin's mother. She's really good at it.
She's so did you watch the penguin? I haven't seen it. I don't doubt it.

Speaker 2 There's something about being cast as the penguin's mother that is very indicative of where we are right now.

Speaker 1 Yes, it's very, well, I've been told it was very like live soprano, but you and I don't know that much about live soprano.

Speaker 2 Don't even know that reference, you know?

Speaker 1 Um,

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 I think she's really good in this. And I think the,

Speaker 1 you know, she's, she's not in it that much. She's mostly on the other side of the phone from

Speaker 1 Aggie. But that tension of I've lied to my literary agent about how much of my, I'm like three years past my due date.
I've lied about how much I have. I have nothing.

Speaker 1 I have like a.

Speaker 2 Nothing, Joan, nothing.

Speaker 1 I have like post-its on the wall uh but i have nothing of my scalia uh ginsberg and i'm asking for an another advance on my advance uh that anxiety that pulled out of me of like i'm so past my due date and i have nothing and i have to tell someone that i already told i had something that actually i have nothing that's a i hate it i hate it and i it was very effective yeah i hate it are you're you're like a you're like a meet his deadlines kind of guy though right like

Speaker 2 Oh, okay.

Speaker 2 No comment on that. Okay.
All right.

Speaker 2 Absolutely no comment.

Speaker 1 I will say I am not and never have been. And this is like, this is the

Speaker 1 sort of outside version of like a nightmare space that I've lived in in my life around deadlines for writing work. So

Speaker 1 yeah,

Speaker 1 this produced more anxiety in me than many other murdery aspects of this show.

Speaker 2 I will say,

Speaker 2 the murdery aspects, though, do create some of that too. I think the show is actually really effective, just sort of putting you on edge constantly.

Speaker 2 And some of that is like Matthew Rees will just like pop up in a window behind Claire Dane sometimes. Oh my God.

Speaker 2 Like there are like those sort of jump scare moments, but I could tell the show was having an effect on me because I was just at that like heightened level of awareness and sensitivity when I would turn it off.

Speaker 2 So something in the alchemy of this show, whether it's the writer anxiety or the murder anxiety, was definitely like messing with my system.

Speaker 1 One of the things I loved, you mentioned the FBI agent Brian Abbott, who shows up drunk to Aggie's back door.

Speaker 1 A moment that I loved really early on in the show is he shows up drunk, disheveled, and then she like looks him up. And you see the photo of what he looked like when he started this investigation.

Speaker 1 And it's just sort of like sharp of jaw, clean cut, like the whole world's in front of him sort of thing.

Speaker 1 And this is a man who does not survive the season, but one might say was like already basically dead when

Speaker 1 this show started.

Speaker 1 so, this evidence of no matter whether or not Niall Jarvis killed his wife, early on,

Speaker 1 what seems evident to me is this is what happens to people who try to get close to him.

Speaker 1 Yeah, they get broken the way that Brian Abbott, uh, you know, and they talked about him being an addict and like all this sort of stuff like that. But, like, was that the case before he started?

Speaker 1 I, you know, I suspected

Speaker 1 based on how like personally he seemed to be taking everything, I suspected like that he was romantically attached to Maddie in some way or another, the dead wife.

Speaker 1 And that goes back to like some of the quote-unquote revelations that happened in the flashback episode where I was like, I feel like we already knew

Speaker 1 more of this than they're expecting us to know.

Speaker 1 And I wonder how much of that is playing into the Netflix or current TV idea of we need to overexplain things for people who are second screening this, et cetera.

Speaker 2 Like, what is this show if that episode just doesn't exist? Like, if you take out episode seven,

Speaker 2 is it just a richer experience having some belief in some of those like plot developments and also some ambiguity around some other ones? Like, did we need all of those gaps filled?

Speaker 2 I don't know that we really did. I agree.

Speaker 1 I actually think you could just cut that entire episode out and it would be okay. I didn't need to know that Maddie was like, you know, informing to the FBI.
I didn't know, need to know.

Speaker 1 I definitely, with love and respect to Hedian Park, who is an actress I really like, all of the Erica Breton stuff didn't work that well for me as the other FBI agent who has been sort of got into by

Speaker 2 Uncle Rick.

Speaker 1 All and like she's got divorce drama going on with her family. It felt like we've talked about this before.

Speaker 1 It's like one extra character too far where I'm just sort of like, I don't have space for this storyline in my heart, I suppose. I don't know.

Speaker 2 What did you think? But it's coming from a good place too, because it's like they have the extra character.

Speaker 2 And so they're trying to explain her motivations as an actual human being and so it's like that's a good instinct yeah but ultimately the fbi stuff i think is among the least successful part of the story period that's true of brian abbot too who i i agree with you like the initial his initial appearance of like who is this guy is he who he says like what is his like what is his situation in deal and seeing that photo is a really striking thing but from that point I just was like always wanting to get back, you know, to get back to Aggie and Niall ultimately.

Speaker 2 Like if they're together, absolutely. If Nina's in the mix, absolutely.
Like, there were just more compelling characters on the board, and those were not the most interesting ones to me.

Speaker 2 But I do think they contribute to this sense of, like, who can you actually trust in this story, period? Because it's shown through the power that the Jarvis family has.

Speaker 2 They can kind of get out of almost anything that's not a straight-up smoking gun to the point that...

Speaker 2 I mean, for one, as far as Erica's concerned, I don't know why she would believe a word that Aggie says.

Speaker 2 Like, she showed up at her boyfriend's, her dead boyfriend's apartment, and there's a random woman in there, like, going through his stuff.

Speaker 2 like why would you believe anything she's saying i don't know

Speaker 2 i also have a question about like

Speaker 2 aggie believes that this suicide note ripped out of the burder journal is a smoking gun and i'm just not sure it's a smoking gun

Speaker 2 like that is circumstantial evidence at absolute best at best it's um

Speaker 1 I feel like it's sort of like, okay, let's say, I don't know, this is a labored metaphor, but like, let's say the, um,

Speaker 1 it's a box, a wooden box has been nailed shut. I feel like you can, you're prying off like one nail if you have this, right?

Speaker 1 You're like, you're just like putting your foot in the door of like, it's plausible. Yes.
And how can we sort of follow this somewhere?

Speaker 2 But it's not, it's not going to open it shut. No, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 2 Like, if there's a world where she just has that evidence and goes to the authorities and thinks it's going to fix everything without the voice note confession from the murderer, she gets absolutely nowhere.

Speaker 2 She's wrong.

Speaker 1 She's wrong. Okay.

Speaker 1 Anything else you want to talk about? Oh, and then there's also this other plot with

Speaker 1 an AOC-esque figure, I would say, and Olivia Benitez,

Speaker 1 who I did like the reveal in the flashback of, you know, there's this Jarvis develop, like building development that they're trying to get passed that has opposition from city government.

Speaker 1 And it turns out they like.

Speaker 1 literally need to build that building because it's literally where the body is buried. Right.

Speaker 1 And they have, like, it's not just our greed, our ambition, our legacy, which is sort of what we've been meant to believe all season, but it's like literally Madeline's body is down there.

Speaker 1 So they have to finish building the building on top of her or else, or else.

Speaker 2 Look, they love to literalize a metaphor in this show, whether that's like, oh, your legacy is your children or your legacy is your big old building or the only way to hide it is by feeding into those things.

Speaker 2 It's not the subtlest

Speaker 2 piece of art I've ever encountered, but I appreciated the tying of the loops.

Speaker 1 As we mentioned, it's 49 minutes into the first episode when the Dane's chin starts wobbling

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 doesn't stop until the end.

Speaker 2 Do you think it's hard for her? Like, is it hard to summon that particular

Speaker 2 thing?

Speaker 2 She can just turn it on and off like nothing.

Speaker 1 She's done it since she was a literal teenager on my so-called life. Like, you know, it's just like, it's, she's so good at it.

Speaker 1 A prompt I had for you was like, which felt very in honor of Bill Simmons. This felt like a very Bill Simmons

Speaker 1 thing to ask. Best on-screen crier.
Is does anyone beat Claire Danes as a best on-screen crier?

Speaker 2 I mean, she's a generational talent in this particular in this particular way, especially, like great across the board, but no one has ever done it like she has.

Speaker 2 And part of that is the longevity you talked about. I think Florence Pugh might be the heir apparent.
I had her. I think she's got a real shot.

Speaker 2 You know, if she, if she keeps sobbing and quivering and screaming into the void, maybe she has a chance.

Speaker 2 Personally, very close to my heart, the Leo Claire Danes cry off in Romeo and Juliet.

Speaker 2 Specifically, the Claire Danes line read, gun to her head, but not so long to speak, I long to die.

Speaker 2 It just doesn't get better than that, as far as emotive criers go.

Speaker 1 I like when we have similar answers. I definitely had Florence Pugh.
And when I think about Florence Pugh

Speaker 1 crying, I think of Midsommar. Like, that's sort of like the vision that's in my head.
But.

Speaker 2 And that's like panic, fear, grief, everything. You know, it's like, it's a lot rolled into it.

Speaker 1 I was thinking about pairings because I also had Leo in Romeo and Juliet, I am Fortune's Fool, like all that sort of stuff. But like the feedback loop of Leo and Claire together.

Speaker 1 And Leo, it should be say earlier in his career, he doesn't do it as much anymore, but like he, you know, basketball diaries, like there's a number of like great young Leo crying performances.

Speaker 2 As Once Upon a Time would tell you, Joe, he still got it. You know, he could see he can still pull it out.

Speaker 1 That's different, though. That's not as like,

Speaker 1 that's like tear, tear in the welling up. And we're talking about like crying.
You're absolutely right. That Claire Leo cry feedback of Romeo and Juliet.

Speaker 1 I was thinking about Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield in We Live in Time. Like that.

Speaker 1 That cry out. Andrew Garfield's a really good crier.
And that sentimentality sort of ping-ponging for them in that movie was extremely good.

Speaker 1 Similarly, on the pairing front,

Speaker 1 Carrie Kuhn and Justin Thoreau in the Left Corverse, just very Rob and Joanna core.

Speaker 1 And then perhaps the most Robin Joanna core, Allison Hannigan and Buffy Vampire Slayer.

Speaker 2 When Willie Cries, we cry. It's a classic for a reason.
It's undeniable. I also, I mean, there's a bunch that we've kind of talked around or about as we've been going through other prestige TV stuff.

Speaker 2 Like, Kristen Bell and Veronica Mars is another one that, like, anytime a character is that sort of steely and

Speaker 2 like

Speaker 2 feels like they have it, all they have all the answers or they always have an option. And then it's like, all of a sudden, everything just comes out at once.
That's always really effective.

Speaker 2 Um, I think Phoebe Waller Bridge at the end of Fleabag specifically is

Speaker 2 among the best to ever do it. This is an area where I think TV can hit in the same way a movie can, and maybe even more so because of that time spent.

Speaker 2 Because you're getting to know these characters, whether they're reserved or whether they cry all the time. It's like they can just press these buttons in a totally different way.

Speaker 2 And maybe this is recency bias for me talking, Joe, but like Henry Ian Kusik and Lost.

Speaker 2 And specifically in the constant but I would say maybe that's not him crying but me crying uh there's something happening there as like in a in a again more of a welling up kind of capacity you answered pen penny you answered it's just two people talking on a phone and I'm a mess what's going on

Speaker 1 I will say on the sort of like house of our front we're doing these like Nolan movie rewatches so I would be remiss in not mentioning McConaughey and Interstellar which is an alzheimer uh on-screen cry so good it became a meme like what are you supposed to do with that And then, you know, I don't think he has the widest range in the world, honestly.

Speaker 1 Tom Holland, you know, when he decides to cry, it is tough to watch. So I don't know how much young

Speaker 1 Telemachus will be crying in the Odyssey, but I look forward to finding out.

Speaker 2 Maybe that will be a tearful movie. I mean, some of these, like, I mean, you could just say literally every person in Magnolia basically is kind of in this category.

Speaker 2 Also, Paul Mescal, I think,

Speaker 2 a chance as another. Oh, not up and coming at this point because he's pretty well established, but elite crying.

Speaker 1 Paul and Daisy and normal people as a sort of, once again, dynamic duo.

Speaker 1 My last one is Violet Davis in doubt.

Speaker 1 That is just like a, that's a like, okay.

Speaker 1 So, if you want to talk about what Claire Danes does is she's got the chin wobble, which she can do before even a single tear starts falling, and then her whole face can crumple,

Speaker 1 all of that.

Speaker 1 Violet Davis committed to the sort of like

Speaker 1 not running out of your nose kind of crying, which is just like a different kind of uh, you know, Justin Thoreau does it while singing Simon Garfunkel and the leftovers, like that, just like you're drowning in your own tears, sort of uh

Speaker 1 chills, right?

Speaker 2 I mean, that's how you walk into a movie with Philip Seymour Hoffman in it, with Meryl Streep in it, and you steal it in like eight minutes. Yeah,

Speaker 2 completely rip it out of their hand. Like, Viola Davis is unreal in doubt.

Speaker 1 All right. Anything else you want to say on the crying front?

Speaker 1 And then you had like one more sort of prompt that you wanted to do for this.

Speaker 2 I do. I want to, before we even go to the last prompt, like I want to spend one more beat on Nina and in particular, like...
Britney Snow.

Speaker 2 Britney Snow, also a really great sort of like walking the edge of like, is this lady a total bitch? Is she on my side? It's like,

Speaker 2 is she trying to appeal to me with the pie or the vinegar you know like ultimately she's one of those actors who i think can be really like really interesting in that way and in particular you talked about um you know the the gender dynamics and in particular having claire daines play a character who is gay and these early interactions she has with nina of like tenderly touching her ankle on the trail of like this woman clearly like aggie has not felt the touch of another human being in like five years and the way they sort of play with that but sort of don't i thought was interesting until they just sort of dropped the thread on it.

Speaker 2 I know.

Speaker 1 The idea of hers is kind of because the proximity between her asking Aggie to go for a walk with her and Uncle Rick breaking in, which are, which, as it turns out, unrelated, but seems like she's like the honeypot to draw Aggie out of her house so Uncle Rick can break in.

Speaker 1 That ankle scene. But then also what I loved is that when she then meets Shelly, the artist,

Speaker 1 Natalie Morales' character, I think Shelly was also attracted to her. I mean, she looks like Britney Snow, so that's like, you know, no duh.

Speaker 1 But I like this idea that she's just like walking around and all the gay women of New York are just sort of like, oh, hello to you.

Speaker 1 And I think, you know, that's something,

Speaker 1 you know, whether you're a

Speaker 1 a pitch perfect truther or a hunting wives enthusiast, that is something that Britney Snow has been playing with for a little while. So absolutely.

Speaker 2 And I think ending the show with her, I thought it was a really like her searching her baby's eyes for like whatever it was she saw in Niall.

Speaker 2 I thought it was like a great, like, not like Twilight Zone-esque quite, but like almost to that level of like, we solved the case, the bad guy went to jail, everything is fine. Dot, dot, dot is it.

Speaker 2 Yeah, really good. Okay.
Uh,

Speaker 1 your final prompt for us.

Speaker 2 My final prompt, Joe, I mean, very much inspired by this show. I would say it has taken a very familiar trope, the you are not so different, you and I, and it has modernized it.

Speaker 2 It is, it is Kendrick Lamarted in a, oh, you know what? They're, that guy's not like us. He's not like us.
They're not like us. I think they repeated that like three or four times in this series.

Speaker 2 And so I wanted, I wanted to see your favorite examples or go-to examples for this like, you're not so different you and I, whether a direct conversation or like a thematic conversation in a show or a movie like this.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think it's sort of cheesily done in the first episode when her face face is like superimposed over the like her reflection in her laptop over a photo of his face, right? Right.

Speaker 1 And like he is the beast, like you know, you want the vengeance, the bloodlust, the all this sort of stuff like that. Is she capable of this?

Speaker 1 Him framing her for that, I think, is all works really well.

Speaker 1 Like a lot of the other stuff, and again, as I mentioned, episode six, the sort of like uh drunken debauch uh night, I think that that is a really good sort of we're not so different, you and I uh conversation.

Speaker 1 Um,

Speaker 2 I mean,

Speaker 1 heat is like a go-to, sort of dumb example, but um, not dumb, wildly successful, and the DNA of our entire company.

Speaker 2 So, please be respectful.

Speaker 1 Um, the Devil Wars Parada? Sure. The end of the Devil Wars Parada, you know, uh, Miranda Priestley basically says to uh, to Andy, like,

Speaker 1 you already fucked over Emily Blunt. I don't know if you remember that.
Like, you know, Andy's like, I would never do that. She's like, you already did.
We watched it happen in this movie.

Speaker 1 So I don't know who you think you are.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 also, I would say,

Speaker 1 so that's like a very like

Speaker 1 chicklet core.

Speaker 1 And I will say on the sort of house of our sci-fi core, I will give you one of my favorite episodes of Doctor Who, which is Dalek, where Chris Reccleston's doctor, the ninth doctor, has this sort of like a very literal,

Speaker 1 we're not the same. And the Dalek being like, I don't know, you did a genocide.
I don't know if you remember that.

Speaker 2 You killed untold billions of people and beings. Like, look, the doctor's hands are not clean, to say the least.
I don't know. But it is certainly all over sci-fi.

Speaker 2 It's all, I think it's in almost every superhero franchise at this point. This is, uh, I would say maybe most famous for Spider-Man, Green Goblin.

Speaker 2 Like, Willem Dafoe has like this exact sort of exchange. Yes.

Speaker 2 Daredevil might take it to new heights by having the dueling, Daredevil Punisher, and Daredevil Kingpin versions of this conversation just running in the background all the time.

Speaker 2 But just to make this conversation extra Buffy, Joe, it's also like a Buffy Spike and Buffy Faith thing happening. Buffy faith for sure.
Absolutely so.

Speaker 2 But I think my favorite version all time might be Skyfall. Like it might be Bond and Silva, like the Javier Bardem, dark fallen MI6 agent version of that.
It works for me.

Speaker 2 I mean, Javier Bardem works for me.

Speaker 1 We've never talked about Bond.

Speaker 1 Are you like a huge Bond enthusiast? Where are you on Bond?

Speaker 2 Middle. I think the movies are more bad than good, but the good ones are really good.
And is Skyfall your favorite Bond movie? It's got to be up there. I love, I love Skyfall for sure.

Speaker 2 I will, I will write, you know, maybe if the hottest take comes back, I'm going to come back with my Tim Dalton was actually a good Bond.

Speaker 2 Uh, so, you know, I have my personal favorites in there for sure. I'm not going to defend like 80-year-old Roger Roger Moore with like an 18-year-old girl.
That's not going to happen.

Speaker 2 But look, it's a, it's a complicated franchise that I have very mixed feelings about.

Speaker 1 I was really excited for your like Quantum of Solace was great, actually, take.

Speaker 2 No, it's a lot of mid in there.

Speaker 1 Uh, yeah, I mean, like,

Speaker 1 it's, it's, as you, as you said, it's, it's, um,

Speaker 1 it's a well-worn trope. Yes.

Speaker 2 I mean, it's basically all of Dexter. It's all of Dexter.
It's the whole show.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 And I think, I think anyone who has like multiple, any superhero or any like Indiana Jones or anyone who has like a, you know, multiple nemeses in in a row they're usually some sort of dark mirror of the of course of the hero this

Speaker 2 um

Speaker 1 this am i capable of murder yeah idea inside of this show feels not not different from anything we've seen before but like slightly distinct of just sort of like when aggie gets framed when he turns her son's room into a murder room

Speaker 1 Which is a great moment when she opens the door.

Speaker 2 That's such a great reveal.

Speaker 1 And you're just like, holy shit.

Speaker 1 How did he do that?

Speaker 2 There was so much set deck he had to do in order to make this happen. A lot of arts and crafts needed to be done to make this possible.

Speaker 1 But you're like, it's like one of those, one of those satisfying moments in movie or TV where you're like, yeah, there's no reason for most people in Aggie's life to not believe that she like didn't do this.

Speaker 1 They were like, that was like a quadruple negative. But like, she's so primed for this frame job.
It's pretty impressive. So, yeah.

Speaker 2 It's, I mean, all the signs are there pointing back to her in a way that makes it not only is that reveal super fun, but it creates the how on earth is this character possibly gonna get out of this conundrum?

Speaker 2 And it quickly becomes clear that Nina is sort of her only and last option.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 2 But I think part of the reason the show is so successful is because there is that seed of something, not just that other people would believe it, but there's

Speaker 2 something in Aggie that wants vengeance. And there is, and to the point that she has like terrorized this kid who is responsible one way or another, drunk or not, for the death of her son.

Speaker 2 And what Niall represents to me in this story for her and for almost everybody is like, what happens if your intrusive thoughts win?

Speaker 2 Like that little voice in the back of your head, whether it's telling you to hurl yourself off the building, whether it's telling you to take vengeance for your dead kid, like, what if you listen to that part all the time?

Speaker 2 Because Niall seems to listen to it all the time and get away with it.

Speaker 1 Please hang with me on this comparison.

Speaker 1 A friend of mine likes to talk about Taylor Swift as a permission slip to be your Niall Jarvis.

Speaker 1 I was really hoping you would say the Niles Jarvis of the pop world.

Speaker 1 Permission slip to be your most

Speaker 1 histrionically sentimental self, right? You know, this idea for like, like, especially her young female fans of like, it's okay. Like emotion's okay.
Like being

Speaker 1 this is okay. And so yeah, Niall Jarvis is this like demented sort of like that bloodlust you feel.
I get it. Like,

Speaker 1 is your understanding then

Speaker 1 that he kidnapped, eventually killed, but kidnapped this kid to have as leverage to potentially frame her eventually at the end of the day or just because it was like a fun thing for him to do or as a favorite?

Speaker 1 Like, I almost, initially, I was like, was this like a demented, like, I'm doing you a solid

Speaker 1 sort of gesture? What do you think?

Speaker 2 I think it was closer to that or like the cat who brings you the dead bird as a gift. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Oh, you didn't want this? This is what you wanted? No, it seemed like this is what you wanted. I don't know what to tell you.

Speaker 2 Especially at that point in the story, like you talked about earlier, their relationship is not exactly sexual, but there is this weird psychological link between them.

Speaker 2 And at that point, it's very much this flirtation, right? It's they are feeling each other out. They're just kind of getting to know each other.
Right.

Speaker 2 And she has expressed this wish, and he makes it happen whether she meant it or not and it's on one hand like an a-b test are you really like me or not yeah and on the other hand it's like this gesture that i think he thought would deepen their weird sick bond that he either was real or imagined and ultimately aggie's like yeah maybe this is a little too far maybe i wasn't quite into the murdery parts of what you got going on she's like i'll let you order me some chicken pomodoro but i'm not sure i'm gonna let you murder someone for me Thanks so much.

Speaker 1 Anything else you want to say about the Beast of Me?

Speaker 2 I have one final question for you, Joe. Please.
If you were a birder, like Maddie, and you were sitting out on your New York balcony and a pigeon landed,

Speaker 2 would you sketch the pigeon?

Speaker 1 If I didn't have a pigeon in my little bird a day book, I would to complete the set, you know?

Speaker 2 But is it, but is it a set for the most basic-ass bird in existence, basically?

Speaker 2 Like,

Speaker 2 again, not no shots fired at the pigeon community, but it's like, do you really need to sketch the pigeon?

Speaker 1 Can I share with with you one of my favorite Mallory Rubin stories,

Speaker 1 which we have talked about on House of Our.

Speaker 1 But she and I were in Chicago and we were walking to a theater and there was like