0:01

This is a HeadGum Podcast.

0:30

Hi! Back in your life!

0:34

For three more epps.

0:39

I'm so excited to be with my friend Kevin and

0:41

his dog is... I'm kind of excited

0:43

as well.

0:46

Don't act like

0:48

you're not. We're back. We're back. We're

0:50

back. It's back, we're back. She's back. He's back.

0:52

They're back together. Oh my God, we're back again.

0:56

So, it's nice to be in the

0:59

room. In all these

1:01

different rooms that we've recorded. Six feet

1:03

away, like I always wanted with you. Hey,

1:05

what

1:05

the hell? Wait

1:07

a minute. Kevin, it's been such a

1:10

long journey that we've been on and now we can

1:12

finally conclude it. Think about it. It's

1:14

been six GD years. I'm happy

1:16

to celebrate the end of our friendship.

1:19

Wait a minute. Hang

1:21

on. Yeah, because after

1:23

this we have no reason to hang out. Well,

1:26

I always just assume you're in Canada, so that's

1:28

why we've been less... I

1:30

hate that about me that people do assume that.

1:33

You're in Canada, right? And it's like, I'm in the

1:35

booth next to you. Terrible thing to

1:37

think. But it's

1:38

the marvelous Mrs. Maiselgoys. For

1:40

one last ride, I'm Kevin. I'm Alice.

1:43

And we're the Maiselgoys. That's right.

1:45

That's right. That's right.

1:46

Our first season together

1:48

IRL since early 2020.

1:51

You remember that? I do. Season one IRL.

1:54

Season two IRL. Season three.

1:56

What's that about Joe Biden? So he was

1:58

running for president. We had just

2:00

won the presidency when we last saw each other together and

2:02

we thought, no, because

2:04

this was early 2020. Remember when you were like, I think we fixed

2:07

it. I was like, I think, I think you can't be, yes,

2:10

I know. No,

2:12

you were up North shooting when

2:15

we did four, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And

2:17

we decided like, hey, maybe we'll cut this in half this

2:19

time. Yeah,

2:20

yeah, yeah. We kind of, we bailed a little bit on

2:22

that. Do you think so? Or did

2:24

we give it all the, really? You gave it

2:26

what happened. I bailed a little bit, but I was too

2:29

busy. And you put in all this extra work

2:31

to make it happen. Oh, that's very lovely of you

2:33

to say. We still had a guest. We had

2:35

our friend Paul on to get

2:37

mad about something that was shy

2:40

Baldwin, I think. Oh, oh

2:42

yeah. Oh, shy. Remember that?

2:44

Yeah.

2:44

Shy, shy, shy. Remember

2:46

when Olivia Wilde saying that in the car?

2:49

Shy, shy, shy. No.

2:52

Do you remember this? What? Okay, last summer.

2:54

Were we together for this? No, but we

2:56

were together on the internet, I would

2:58

say. We were together online when

3:00

the video leaked of Olivia Wilde

3:03

singing Shia LaBeouf's name after

3:05

she did an interview in which she said, I

3:08

have a no toxic people on my set policy.

3:10

So of course shy had to go. And then

3:12

shy was like, who's, you know, no,

3:15

no walk in the park either. I was like, that's

3:17

absolutely not true. Here's your seats. Here's a video she

3:19

sent me of

3:20

her trying to court me. And it started

3:22

with her going, Shia, Shia,

3:25

Shia. Sorry, I

3:28

just got done riding my horse and

3:30

she's riding in her car. Do you not remember this

3:32

at all? This feels like Alice court. I never saw this.

3:34

This feels like a character you would do. Or it feels

3:36

like you. Two things now you've made

3:38

assumptions about me that are untrue. I'm not

3:40

always in Canada. Who's texting? And

3:43

it's Enzo from my baseball league. And

3:45

I don't

3:47

care about Olivia Wilde and the whole

3:49

darling, don't worry darling. But that was fun.

3:53

That was a nice time though. We haven't had

3:55

one of those in a long while. Really? I

3:58

don't think so. I don't think we've had something at that scale since. Mr.

4:00

and Mrs. Smith. No, in the sense of like

4:02

this messy film and then the

4:05

co-star fuckery and like, was this

4:07

person sleeping with this person? And it's all

4:09

so messy on Front Street.

4:11

We haven't had that in decades. I

4:13

don't know what it is about me. I

4:16

just can't, like as Moish

4:18

would say, I can't

4:20

even pretend to

4:21

care. As Moish would say, I literally

4:23

can't even. Yes. I

4:25

literally can't even. I just hate

4:28

any of it. That was

4:30

like the movie, if I'd seen a preview for the movie

4:32

without the drama, I'd be intrigued. And

4:35

yeah, that's right. Turn me up, bitch. Turn

4:37

me up. That's right. And

4:39

because of all the drama surrounding the movie, I

4:42

avoided it. That's fine. And was

4:45

glad to have done so because I found

4:47

out it was a dud. Right, but all

4:49

the buildup to the movie, that was a fun

4:51

time to be on the internet.com. No, what I'm saying

4:54

is it wasn't fun for me. You're saying no.

4:56

What I'm saying. That's invalidating of my

4:58

experience. I've said several

5:00

times for me, personally, I.

5:03

I said, it's a problem with me. Hi,

5:05

I'm the problem. I'm the pussy, it's me. I'm the pussy. Sometimes

5:08

I'll sing that alone in my car. It's

5:10

me. Hi, I'm

5:13

the pussy, it's me. It's

5:15

just really self-defeating. Yeah,

5:17

but I mean, the Taylor Swift drama, that's

5:20

kind of fun for me. Is Lenny Bruce the Maddie

5:22

Healy to Midge's Taylor?

5:24

Now I can get into Taylor because she's dating somebody awesome.

5:28

What if I was like. Oh my God. Oh,

5:30

it's Maisel, guys. We're doing season five.

5:33

We sure are. Do you

5:34

know what's happening today? May 26th as

5:36

we record this. The last episode came

5:38

out of this show. This is perfect then.

5:40

Sure, in some ways for us to. Perfect

5:43

for us to start our, start

5:45

unpacking. Our last ride. So we're doing

5:48

this. There's nine episodes in the last season,

5:50

season five. We're gonna do a trilogy of episodes

5:52

ourself. 501 through 503, 504 through 507. No, 506

5:57

and then 507 through five.

5:59

So there's gonna be... So there's two in the middle. No,

6:02

there's three. Four, five, and six. You're right.

6:05

I can count. Oh, that's okay.

6:06

Always been able to count. We're doing it. Three,

6:09

three, and three. And we thought that'd be a fun way

6:11

so we're not gilding the lily at all. What? That's

6:13

a real phrase. So sexual. It's

6:15

not. Yeah, it's great.

6:16

So we get to breeze on through it. And what

6:19

an interesting time for the show

6:21

to end, just in the sense of you can

6:23

even track from 2017 to 2023, how much TV has changed.

6:28

For this five season long running show,

6:30

just kind of like,

6:31

yeah, it's done now. And she got

6:33

her weekly release schedule like she wanted

6:35

for seasons four and five. Hoping

6:38

for more of the conversation, but it

6:40

is possible with the film industry as well.

6:43

Perhaps what streaming has done to the television industry

6:45

has made it intractably a non-event,

6:48

even for long running,

6:49

Emmy winning, beloved

6:51

in theory shows, where it's just like, oh yeah,

6:53

it's out. Wait, it came out already?

6:56

There's people who might find out that

6:59

season five's even airing

7:00

from this podcast for the first

7:02

time, which is a wild place to be. Which is wild to

7:04

be a subscriber, a listener of the show and

7:07

to be like, oh right.

7:09

I mean, it's amazing. It's not really,

7:11

I don't know if I would put a value

7:13

judgment on it necessarily that it's good or bad.

7:16

I mean, the industry was always going to

7:18

change with the advent of streaming and we're

7:20

seeing that, but it's happening so quickly.

7:24

It's happening so quickly. And in

7:26

a way where it's both like,

7:30

it's frustrating, but it's also funny to watch

7:32

the industry at large,

7:35

like panic and try to adjust

7:37

around it. And some people get

7:39

really nihilistic about it. And it's like,

7:42

I can't help, but have like laugh

7:44

and like not have sympathy for certain people who are like,

7:47

there's just people in the industry who are like, you know, there's

7:49

people, you know, suits who are like Matt

7:51

Bomer, like Matt Bomer, for instance,

7:53

from suits who are like,

7:56

uh, frustrated, you know? And it's like, well,

7:58

yeah, because you were trying to squeeze.

8:00

There's

8:00

so many money people in this industry who are

8:02

like, this is the game we played for years. This is

8:04

how we're going to get rich off these people. And now

8:06

we can't do it the same way anymore. And it's like, well, you shouldn't

8:08

have been in this industry. Sure. It's like very

8:11

parallel

8:11

to the housing, the subprime

8:14

mortgage crisis in 08. It's parallel to

8:16

the dot-com bust and boom.

8:18

And the inflection point being the big Martin Short.

8:21

The big, oh man, that's a sketch

8:23

if I've ever heard one. He's just like, hi,

8:25

I'm really big now. And then

8:27

he does the Germany Glick voice.

8:28

It's not related to any of the big

8:31

short content? No, it's just the big

8:33

Martin Short. Okay. Yeah. Maybe he's

8:35

talking about like, yeah, mortgage rates or

8:37

whatever.

8:37

But the Netflix,

8:39

the Netflix bust from last year where it's

8:41

like, just to give a little TLDR

8:44

and just have an industry talk. I'm not

8:46

talking about the show about stock traders

8:48

on HBO. I'm talking about the capital I

8:50

industry. Although that's a good show too. Have you watched that? No.

8:53

It is a good show. Well, Jon Snow's

8:55

joining it for season three. All I watch is...

8:58

Tell me. The Biggest Catch. Okay. The

9:00

Biggest Catch. Not the Deadliest Catch,

9:02

but the biggest one. Oh, is it the Deadliest Catch?

9:04

I don't know. Yeah. Mine is a different show.

9:07

It's not about the... It's much more...

9:09

It's safe, but it's just big. Like it's guys

9:12

on a lake and you know,

9:14

nobody believes them, but then they catch it. That's

9:16

right. It's big and it's a boot, but it's not a fish,

9:18

but it's okay. So you watch The Biggest Catch. Yeah.

9:22

That's pretty much it for you. Vanderpump

9:24

Loses, which is about the secret

9:26

underbelly of like the Vanderpump

9:28

rules economy and people like who get

9:30

screwed. It's sort of a... It's

9:32

a six part documentary. It's on A&E.biz.

9:37

Okay. And I just

9:39

watched the movie.

9:41

What's that 9-11 movie? I watch that

9:43

a lot. Oh, the 9-11 movie. Extremely

9:46

Loud and Incredibly Close. Uh, no. I'm

9:48

talking about Twister with Helen Hunt. Also

9:51

based on 9-11. Are you excited for Twisters?

9:54

A real sequel that's coming soon. Are

9:56

you serious? That is true. Yeah. Fucking

9:59

A. The gentleman who... who directed Menari,

10:01

which was that movie starring Steven Yoon from a few years

10:03

ago. He's directing it. Oh, that's amazing.

10:05

I'm down to clown a hundred percent.

10:08

This is exciting news. It is. I'm so glad

10:10

to break it to you. I love that pitch meaning like people

10:13

are wondering where we left off. No

10:16

one is wondering. Or it's like,

10:17

do you know the James Cameron

10:20

pitch for aliens story?

10:22

This is a real story. So Alien comes out,

10:24

the Ridley Scott classic horror movie from 1979. And

10:28

James Cameron is pitching the sequel

10:31

to studio execs in the room, 20th Century

10:33

Fox. And he writes the name on the whiteboard,

10:36

Alien.

10:37

And then he adds an S. No. And

10:39

then he draws a line

10:41

through the S and it's a dollar sign. Oh

10:44

my God. Fuck you.

10:47

That's a real, so I have to assume.

10:49

The director for Twisters did much

10:52

of the same. Twister. Yeah, Twisters.

10:54

Dollar sign, dollar sign.

10:55

It got two slashes probably. If

10:58

you're gonna pull the camera. Or whatever the Bitcoin

11:01

symbol is these days. But we're talking

11:03

about streaming. We're talking about how the industry has changed.

11:05

And we're talking about the sort of cultural

11:08

whimper that this show is going out

11:10

on. That the momentum

11:12

got stalled. It was an Emmy's darling.

11:15

Borstein was winning. Brosnahan, Amy

11:18

Sherman, Palliadis nuts was winning all of

11:20

it. Even I think Daniel Dees nuts won

11:23

one or two.

11:23

And now it is one of those

11:25

things.

11:25

Have you seen their announcement they're

11:28

doing a new show for Amazon Prime?

11:30

And? It's a world of ballet. Actually

11:33

I should look this up. So I'm not talking out

11:35

of my butthole, but it's starting, let

11:38

me do this. It's starting one cast member from Maisel.

11:40

Who do you think it is?

11:42

One? I can't, that's two. There's

11:44

like a thousand people in that. Yeah, but someone in the main

11:46

cast and maybe someone who you sincerely

11:49

love watching on the show. I mean,

11:51

one of the parents. Oh no, I'm sorry. It's not

11:53

one of the parents. Joel? I'm sorry. It's not

11:55

Joel. It's Luke Kirby who

11:57

plays Lenny Bruce. Wow. Oh

12:00

wow. So they've given a two season

12:02

order. I have a new crush now, by the way, from this season.

12:05

So why can't we just talk about that? Is he a Gideon Glick who plays

12:07

the magician? He

12:10

doesn't know how to get on an airplane. No, this

12:12

is a show called Etouille?

12:14

Et toil? Et toil?

12:18

Maybe. Is it TOI? TOILE.

12:21

TOILE? E-T-O-I-L-E

12:23

and there's an accent on the

12:25

E. It's Y. It's Y. Okay,

12:27

so this is Southern New York City in Paris, the eight episode

12:30

series falls the dancers and artistic staff

12:32

of a two world renowned ballet companies,

12:35

two different ballet companies, as they embark

12:37

on an ambitious gambit to save their storied

12:39

institutions by swapping their most

12:42

talented stars. So she's returning

12:44

back

12:44

to ballet. And what is the

12:46

decade? The decade? It does not

12:49

say. It's modern because

12:51

that's a gamble.

12:52

I don't know if it's a period piece. Yeah, you think.

12:54

Really? I mean, not to be like, I know a period piece is way

12:56

more expensive, but like, Amy, you

12:59

can't do 2023. You don't think she

13:01

can? I don't think she can do it, hon. You know, here.

13:04

It's, I mean, maybe, I

13:06

mean, you'd have to like, it's all

13:08

an imaginary world in whatever decade

13:10

it's based in. So there's going to be a certain element

13:12

of like, this

13:15

is a very stylized version

13:18

of, that's always going to be true. So maybe

13:20

she could, yeah.

13:21

Et toil? I am so curious how

13:23

that one comes out. Cause I was watching

13:27

the opening sequence of I think episode one

13:29

of this new season. And I was like, 80s is

13:31

a great decade for her to do. Oh, sure.

13:34

Yeah. So it would be great to do an 80s. Yeah.

13:37

Keep it on the do. Ballet show. That would be really

13:39

cool. I wonder, this doesn't have any gesture towards

13:41

the idea. No, it probably isn't. If it doesn't say it up

13:43

top.

13:43

Yeah. But I will say I'm a little shocked

13:46

that they are getting a two season

13:48

commitment upfront. I mean, I don't

13:51

know. I just, it's this weird thing where I don't

13:53

understand how much power anybody

13:55

has anymore. Right. Where it's like

13:57

she had a five season show, but, and we learned

13:59

this.

13:59

from Amy Sherman-Palladino's WTF

14:02

interview with Marin that

14:04

came out a few days ago. I didn't have a chance for it. As of recording

14:07

it, it's okay. I have an AI that scrubs

14:09

out Marin from all the... Yeah,

14:12

so Alice Wetterlin. It just makes it like a robot

14:14

voice. Who are you guys? What the fuckers?

14:17

What the fuck next? What the fuck buddies? What

14:19

the fuck buddies? Welcome to the cat ranch. She

14:21

talks

14:21

about in the interview, it was not her decision to

14:24

end the show. Amazon said, you

14:26

get one more season and you're done.

14:28

She said she would have done it for a lot more.

14:30

Interesting. Well, I

14:33

guess we have Amazon to thank. Cause

14:36

it is one of those. She said, yeah,

14:38

they got a lot of orcs to pay for it. That

14:40

was her sassy little retort. Cute.

14:43

Which I don't know. I mean, you're a fancy gal. Have you watched

14:45

a frame

14:46

of rings of power? Oh yeah.

14:48

And? Love it. I can love

14:50

it. You love rings of power? Absolutely.

14:52

Do you love House of Dragon as well?

14:54

No, not really. I mean, it's okay. In

14:57

the end, especially in the end, maybe after season two,

15:00

I wasn't that into Game of Thrones anyway. And

15:04

obviously towards the end of Game of Thrones, I was like, this show is

15:06

garbage. Like it's not good, right? Like

15:08

we all agree, but we were all tuning

15:11

cause it was zeitgeist. And now

15:13

it feels like

15:14

House of Dragon is like, they'll just watch

15:16

it. They'll watch it. And they did. And it's

15:19

a huge hit. Yeah. And it's like for no

15:21

reason, they don't have to try at all. That kind

15:23

of media is like very upsetting

15:25

to me. Like it feels the same with any, any succession

15:28

is the same way where it's like, is this good?

15:30

No, that's so different. I don't

15:33

agree. I don't think it's that good. The

15:35

House of the Dragon thing is IP mining

15:37

fuckery. House of the Dragon has

15:39

more in common with the new little mermaid that's

15:41

coming out this weekend than succession does.

15:44

That's. I think succession little mermaid are

15:46

more similar. Okay, don't speak on that. They both

15:48

have Aquafina wrapping in a black scent.

15:51

That's true. On the soundtrack. Yeah, they do. What

15:53

if that's the needle drop the series in? I

15:56

see a lot of similarities between Aquafina and the little mermaid

15:58

and Logan Roy at. Interesting. Oh, Kendall Roy?

16:00

by the way, Kendall Roy. And you can tell she's a fan by the way

16:02

she knows all. Listen to me,

16:05

I don't care about this. God.

16:08

I know, I just like talking TV with

16:10

you. I do too. Because at the

16:12

end of the day, we're just talking TV. So I was on

16:14

the panel and- Panel four?

16:16

Comedians. Women comedians. Where? In

16:19

West Hollywood. I mean, you just said the

16:21

panel, tell me more. I said a panel. Oh, I

16:23

thought you said the panel. It was a panel.

16:26

And I was just speaking with you. It

16:30

was a panel about doing late night

16:32

and the person who booked me didn't know.

16:35

I was like, she

16:36

was like, so you did Conan, that was your first late night. And I

16:38

was like, yeah, first and only. She

16:40

was like,

16:41

oh, I can't

16:43

get on late night right now. And the talk is

16:45

supposed to be about helping women in the industry

16:48

get on late night. And I'm like, literally why am I here? I

16:50

don't know how to get on late night. But one

16:52

of the things somebody said during the panel was like, so

16:55

when you're in front of important people, when you're in front of important

16:57

people, you're showcasing for important people. And I was

16:59

like, these are not important people.

17:02

We need to, as talent, as

17:04

creatives, we need to keep in mind,

17:07

these people are not inherently important.

17:10

They are the people that happen to be on the other side

17:12

of the gate that which they keep. Happened

17:14

to be. Many, many, many

17:16

of these people have no taste. Some

17:18

of them do. I personally

17:20

feel like my reps do. Like the people that

17:22

I've chosen to work with and have the opportunity

17:25

in terms of representation and production.

17:28

I've worked with people who do have taste and do have

17:30

seemingly like a beating human heart. But

17:32

by and large, there are so many people in this

17:35

industry who have no idea

17:37

what the fuck is going on. They don't know how the

17:39

industry, they don't understand the

17:41

changes that are taking place. They

17:45

don't understand their audience at all.

17:47

You're Zazlov, Shabella Bajarias.

17:49

Well, there's like a billion

17:50

mini Zazlov's, is what people don't understand.

17:52

There's like Zazlov. Wait, there's a billion mini

17:54

Zazlov's? Oh no. Oh

17:57

no. Who are in these offices

17:59

making decisions.

17:59

about content, about casting,

18:02

about, and they don't know anything

18:04

about entertainment or arts or scripts

18:06

or comedy or good art direction. They

18:09

don't know anything about it. Their interest

18:11

is about bottom line. And then there's people

18:14

who come into the industry with one idea of what

18:16

it is and are quickly, I

18:18

don't know. I feel like it's like

18:21

Midge in the writer's room a little bit where it's

18:23

like, oh, this is what,

18:25

I didn't realize this is what it was. I had this idea

18:27

about what this was and this is what it is. You

18:30

said the execs are like Midge in the writer's

18:32

room

18:32

or that the writers in the room.

18:35

The

18:35

execs are like Midge in the writer's room who come

18:37

into this world thinking one

18:39

thing, like having idealisms about

18:42

what it's gonna be like. She moves in and I can't

18:44

wait to shit on Midge. And so this is where it starts.

18:47

Like, this is what it's gonna be like. She

18:49

thinks she's gonna be hanging out with Mel Brooks every

18:52

night, just shooting the shit and everybody's gonna be

18:54

laughing. And then she gets in there and it's a

18:56

different system. And so I think people

18:58

get jaded very quickly and

19:00

then they're just, they're playing their own game and they're learning the

19:02

rules as they go. And it has very little to do

19:04

with what's happening on our screens,

19:07

like what we would like to be happening on our

19:09

screens, what those of us who create content

19:12

would like to be happening or what we came

19:14

into this world to do, you know? And

19:16

so when you say things like, important people

19:19

are here, it's like the important people who

19:21

are here to watch you do standup are the ticket

19:23

paying audience. Those are the important people. Those

19:26

are always gonna be the important people. You and them

19:28

are having a dialogue right now. The industry

19:30

people, fuck them.

19:32

Like, absolutely they're humans. They

19:35

might be into comedy, they might not be, but I despise

19:37

the idea that young people in this

19:39

profession, my profession, standup comedy,

19:42

would idolize people. And I think

19:44

to be fair to them, the industry people

19:47

who I know who are, you know, tastemakers

19:49

or whatever, also feel this way. Like,

19:51

do not put us on this, some pedestal of the

19:53

enemy. You think a lot of people are idolizing Ted Sarandos

19:56

though or Jeff Bezos in terms of tastemaking?

19:59

No, I just think that there's-

19:59

There's an idea, not idolizing, but-

20:02

Esteeming at all, I guess. Esteeming at all. Like

20:04

making this

20:05

value judgment in the moment because of their nerves

20:08

that like, oh, they know what's going on

20:10

behind closed doors. No, behind closed

20:12

doors, it is another fucking fuck

20:14

fest of it's, you know, that's maybe

20:16

one thing that succession

20:18

is good for. You look behind- One

20:20

thing that succession is good for. Yes, the big decisions

20:23

that are being made are being made by-

20:25

Clowns. What Logan Roy would call like

20:27

not serious people.

20:30

People who are like, let's do this. Yeah,

20:32

yeah, and then a billion dollars goes away. Yeah.

20:35

They don't know what's going on. Right, and

20:37

I think- More than you as the creative person.

20:40

As the creative person in the transaction,

20:43

you at least know what your vision is.

20:45

You at least know how you connect with your audience.

20:47

That's one thing that you have that they don't.

20:49

What's in their column that they know? You

20:52

know what I mean? That they were attached to something that

20:54

worked one time. Attached. Is

20:56

usually- Attached too, right? I'm

20:58

not advocating for them. That's my spiel

21:01

on that, right? And I feel like,

21:03

yeah, I feel like I'm turning into ASP,

21:07

which I'm kind of happy about. You just see the hat

21:09

I wore on the way over here. Oh my God, and she

21:11

was decked out. We gotta post that.

21:13

Will that be the- We gotta post that one. Should

21:15

that just be the episode graphics? I've

21:18

been playing Hogwarts Legacy and watching

21:21

Maisel. And so I just had this- You can find Alice at

21:23

Alice Wonderland on Twitter. I just had

21:25

this get up that was just so inspired. Full

21:28

of layers, you know? Full of layers. So

21:31

speaking of layers, let's talk about, is

21:33

that a good segue? Yeah, no, no,

21:35

no, five seasons in, you're finally getting the

21:37

hang of this code. No, I would never.

21:40

I would never flip you off the way

21:41

that, I wanna say Max flips

21:44

off Midge. Is that his name? Mike,

21:46

excuse me, Mike Carr, the Booker and producer

21:49

on

21:49

the Gordon Ford show. We're covering

21:51

three episodes today. I know. We

21:53

just, we're cramming it in, but I feel

21:55

like- That's what she said.

21:57

Hey, Alice. Hey, hang on.

22:00

No, real quick. I'm not kidding right now.

22:03

That kind of talk is okay when it's just you and me. But

22:05

when it's the audience who are the important people

22:08

to us, I feel like

22:10

you need to keep that shit.

22:11

Hold for Christine Baranski laugh. I

22:14

wish. I know, dude. If that was

22:17

an authentic Christine Baranski laugh, I'd have

22:19

to adjust my seat a little

22:21

bit.

22:21

Big

22:24

dick energy? Why can you say that? We're

22:28

talking about 501, 502, and 503.

22:31

The first in our trilogy of season

22:33

five.

22:34

501, go forward. Amazon Prime

22:36

synopsis. Midge worries about her future while

22:38

Suzy has a light bulb moment. 502, it's

22:40

a man, man, man, man world. I'm

22:43

surprised it's not man's, but it's Midge's

22:45

first day at her new job. Anybody know

22:47

the Cassian song? Episode three,

22:49

typos and torsos, Midge's mouth gets her

22:51

in trouble at work and Abe obsesses

22:54

over a mistake and now it's time

22:57

for a segment we do on the show called,

23:01

called Pop Culture.

23:06

It's been so long since I've heard that. And

23:09

in July too, every time, which

23:11

I'm so happy about. So this is all the

23:13

pop culture references in the first three

23:15

episodes of season five. Medina

23:17

was a very tiny man, that's why he fits so easily in

23:19

a box. Was it Spartacus? Maybe.

23:22

Tony Bennett. Larry did Richard

23:24

the third. Larry.

23:26

Olivier. Mike got me an advanced copy of

23:28

the 2000 year old man, that Mel Brooks thing. I gotta go

23:30

say hello to Angie Dickinson. Ben Hur, if

23:32

he's a him, what's with the Hur? Pass, Adam. Some

23:34

sad news, Clark Gable passed away. He's survived

23:37

by his wife, his children and his mustache. Yeah,

23:39

I know Bernstein's tonight, I read the memo. Mel

23:41

was on Caesar with me. I busted Keaton,

23:44

the big old sad floppy clown

23:47

boy. Last

23:49

week marked the Broadway

23:50

debut of Camelot and the off-Broadway

23:52

debut of Camalittle. Chanel, really nice.

23:55

All the Disney characters against me. Dean Lawrence, and

23:58

novelist Ray Radford. Those

24:00

with Bob Hope and their many trips to Vietnam

24:02

were a favorite of the trips. They wanted to send

24:04

a chump, but Jerry Lewis and my producer George

24:07

refused to go. Little

24:08

JFK Jr. It'll be a clean

24:10

transition. White House staff already learned how to change

24:12

diapers with Eisenhower. You must know Madeline Pugh. I

24:15

don't think so. Real for I love Lucy. Funny

24:18

lady. How about Nancy Clark writes for the

24:20

Ann Southern Show? Guest hosting Johnny Carson,

24:22

my cameo in Mad, Mad World. And

24:24

did the dentist, the right menace thing, make it past the censors? Liza

24:27

Minnelli, George Carlin, Barbara Streisand.

24:29

The Unsinkable Molly Brown is a new show on Broadway.

24:32

I'm Miss Nixon. Wasn't even funny when I heard Jack

24:34

Pardew it two weeks ago. Harold Pinter.

24:36

Emily Post died. S. Simon,

24:38

S. Gallibut, hell. S. Sid. Green

24:41

Eyed Monster, Darth Mark, The Meat at Feed Zone.

24:43

Jesus. Shakespeare before noon. You're the

24:45

ones lined up like the offensive line of the Princeton

24:47

Tigers.

24:47

And who'd she bump into but Winston Churchill?

24:50

But that bit would be nothing without Carl Reiner.

24:52

Disney recently released 101 Dalmatians.

24:55

Don't you remember me doing the bandwagon in high

24:57

school? Mel Blanc, the voice of Bugs Bunny,

24:59

was recently in a car accident. He's recovering nicely,

25:02

though authorities are still questioning the voice of

25:04

Elmer Fudd.

25:04

I spelled Carol Channing's

25:06

name wrong. That is when I wasn't consulting

25:09

Cicero for inspiration. The great John

25:11

Coltrane. It was Tracy Hepburn,

25:14

Loyan Powell, Robinson Lamotta. Doris

25:16

Day's ostrich got sick, so. I know Robert

25:18

Goulet. The Kerouac joke. How has working

25:21

with the loneliest bunk? Right now the roads are wetter

25:23

than Richard Nixon during a televised debate.

25:25

But we make our son sleep on the floor of the hallway and suddenly

25:27

Razi and

25:28

Harry. One night I bumped

25:30

Jackie Gleese, and next day he bumped me straight to the moon. I

25:32

booked Truman Capote. Hey, will someone please tell the

25:34

Shurels that yes, I will still

25:36

love them tomorrow?

25:37

Okay, may I make

25:39

a suggestion? To me? Yeah.

25:42

For what? If we're gonna do three episodes

25:44

at a time, do you wanna maybe just separate

25:47

the pop goes to the culture as a way of introducing

25:49

each episode within the show? So

25:51

that, because this, I was like,

25:53

wait, for half the thing, I

25:55

was like, this was all in one. And then

25:57

I realized what was going on. And now.

26:00

We can do that. But we're gonna talk about

26:02

what happened at all of the close of all three

26:04

episodes at once. That's right. Okay,

26:07

well, that is fine. I feel like it bleeds, well, I mean, how would

26:09

you prefer to, would you rather do discrete

26:11

episode to episode stuff? Maybe, just because then we can

26:14

talk about. Organizationally. Maybe? Yeah,

26:16

we can

26:17

do that. Maybe. We can do whatever we want,

26:19

it's our show. Hey, fans, way in in the moments.

26:21

Fans, hey fans, the important people.

26:24

Shut up. What? I can't say anything

26:26

around you. What do you mean? Can you

26:28

have a door slamming sound that you can add in

26:30

later? No, I have a door I could slam though.

26:32

Foley over here. Dave Foley,

26:34

kids in the hall over here. Yes.

26:37

Maybe, maybe. That makes sense. So then

26:39

it's not just

26:41

this morass of like, wait, what happened again?

26:44

And such a good word. This

26:47

quagmire. But for today's episode,

26:49

let's talk about it. Let's see how that goes. Talk about all three

26:51

at once. Sure. Although

26:53

I think to me, in my viewing

26:55

experience, there was one that was significantly

26:57

stronger than the other three in watching

26:59

them. What do you think it was for you?

27:02

Well, it definitely wasn't three. I

27:05

thought it was three. Really? Yes. Oh

27:08

my God. For some reason, that was the

27:10

one I was most locked into as

27:12

like an episode of the show in

27:15

tracking the emotional whatever of

27:17

every character.

27:17

I'm having a really hard time remembering which one's

27:20

which. Well, and such as the case with

27:22

doing it like this. So maybe let's go episode

27:24

to episode. Let's start with 501. And

27:27

the gambit in which the show opens

27:30

is that we're gonna do this in a little

27:33

flashy flashy

27:33

baby, a formalistic departure

27:36

from the show where we're gonna do

27:38

all sorts of timelines all over the place.

27:41

And we're gonna pick it up in the eighties with Esther,

27:43

a young Esther in her shrinks office,

27:46

in her therapist's office. And she's

27:48

also a math genius, wizard. And

27:51

also important to point out an insufferable person.

27:54

Well,

27:54

it depends on how you measure

27:56

insufferability. But I

27:59

mean, there were people. I saw in the comments,

28:01

who were convinced this was

28:04

just Rachel Brosnahan. Yeah. I

28:06

did not.

28:06

and you just

28:08

sat there? I thought you were looking for a pen. Why would

28:10

I be looking for a pen? Because you often look for a pen

28:12

when a thought occurs. She's doing a Midge

28:15

impression, or Brosnahan impression doing Midge. Hundo

28:17

P. Pretty credibly, but

28:19

it is one of the, it was quite jarring

28:22

to watch, and this would

28:24

appear to be the sort of

28:26

rapper and container that the show in season five...

28:28

I can't say anything

28:31

in front of you. You're right, you're right, you're right.

28:33

When you're right, you're right. The structure of the

28:35

show in season five, and you're like, rickety, rickety, rickety.

28:37

Got him. See,

28:41

it's fun to be in person again. I

28:43

know, I just miss my little guy. Oh, I know.

28:45

I'm talking about Dexter, by the way. I miss your little guy, too. And

28:47

I'm not talking about Dexter. Oh, hello. Oh,

28:50

krrr. Oh, krrr. So,

28:52

this is also what I find interesting

28:55

about the show.

28:56

Now, in its fifth and final season,

28:58

and this

28:59

is very informed by the Marin interview I

29:01

listened to with Palladino, which is relevatory. To

29:04

me, she talked about shit she hasn't talked about before.

29:06

I recommend everyone listen to it. She

29:09

talks about

29:09

her true, authentic experiences on

29:12

Roseanne, on Veronica's closet,

29:15

how she would come home crying every day because

29:17

she was miserable doing that job. She

29:19

worked with a serial rapist who's now in

29:21

prison. And one of the things she talked about is

29:23

that the criticisms for the show, broadly, became,

29:27

Midge is a bad mom. Why does she have kids?

29:29

What's the point of the kids if she's gonna be a shitty

29:32

mom? And at first, it was Brosnahan relaying that

29:34

to her via social media. And

29:37

ASP was like, yeah, who gives a shit? I don't

29:39

care about bleep blorp on Twitter.com. And then

29:41

people started from more conventional, mainstream

29:45

publications like the New York Times or

29:48

the New York Times. And then, you know, there

29:50

was a lot of criticism on the New York

29:52

Times or people interviewing Borstein about

29:55

stuff. That would be a primary topic of

29:57

conversation of like, what's with the kids on the show?

29:59

are we doing that? What is this? So

30:02

it feels like to me, based on

30:04

that, and she didn't speak this explicitly

30:07

to it on the show, but based on that, it feels like to

30:09

me, she's folding in. This is something TV can

30:11

do that no other medium can. She's folding

30:13

in the criticisms of the show into the text

30:16

of the show. So it's like,

30:17

oh, y'all think she's a shitty mom? Yeah. Okay.

30:20

Maybe she is a shitty mom. Okay. Here's the consequences

30:22

of like what being a shitty mom would be.

30:24

And you see her children and

30:26

perhaps other people in this future timeline

30:29

in the eighties and whatnot alienated

30:32

from Midge Maisel to various degrees.

30:34

Esther doesn't seem to like her. Ethan's out

30:36

in Israel towing the fields and being

30:39

very annoyed by her doing her helicopter

30:41

crash landing

30:42

in the middle of a

30:44

farm. I've always felt like

30:46

this show does a kind of a nice job.

30:49

Maybe this is not true. I could listen back

30:51

to old episodes. But one thing I really

30:53

like about the show is that I don't know how

30:55

ASP

30:56

feels about Midge. I don't know. And

30:59

I think there's a lot of duality.

31:01

There's a lot of layers of like, this

31:03

is the anti-hero, anti-hero. This person

31:05

is not our special heroine that we all root

31:08

for. She's Carrie Bradshaw. This person

31:10

who constantly is like,

31:12

thank God there's all these other people around to

31:14

drive the story because this person sucks

31:17

at the same time I'm invested. But there's,

31:20

what I read, I know

31:22

that had that had been criticism and I didn't, I

31:24

didn't have, I wasn't privy to the interview and you

31:27

hadn't send it to me. I'm just kidding. You

31:29

did. But I felt like this show is kind of going, yeah,

31:35

like I kind of agree with you a little bit. Like

31:38

the writers are going, yeah, we were thinking about this the

31:40

whole time. We know what happens to kids that

31:42

are an afterthought in an entertainment household,

31:44

but at the same time it bothers me because

31:46

like this is how all parents, this

31:48

is how the mad men was. This is how

31:50

Don Draper was on mad men, but

31:53

we don't, from a public

31:55

criticism standard, it is skewed in

31:57

a totally different way given the gender.

31:59

identity of the protagonist or the anti-hero

32:02

in this context, but also to informing

32:05

so much of this, I really can't recommend this and

32:07

I hope I don't reference it too too much,

32:10

is

32:10

ASP also being a child

32:13

of showbiz people. Her mother being

32:15

a 92 year old woman who's still living

32:17

and with us working on her one woman show and

32:20

looking to publish her memoirs and her

32:22

dad was the stand up. He was the Borscht Belt

32:24

guy that she says is Mitch

32:26

like that's who she put into

32:29

this character amazing for all his like

32:31

faults and failures and frailties and

32:34

good and as well. So it feels

32:36

like for her that part becomes personal.

32:38

So I, you know, you can project as much as

32:40

you want, but you do wonder if it's

32:42

like,

32:43

is she the, is she the

32:45

Esther Ethan slash surrogate

32:48

in that family and even Marin does

32:50

bring up explicitly why don't

32:52

you guys have kids, which is so fucking funny for

32:55

him to bring up to a 57 year old woman.

32:57

Yeah. We're trying. Yeah,

33:01

we're trying to get her. Yeah. We're known like that's her answer.

33:03

Well, we've been trying trying right now

33:06

and she said, I felt like the madness should

33:08

end with me. It

33:09

should just stop with me and that that's all

33:11

we need to do. Wow. Very, very good

33:13

interview. People should listen to it. It's amazing, but

33:15

I like that the show is fucking around with

33:17

it and like putting all the pieces on the board

33:19

at the same time in flashing forward

33:22

to, and we'll get into an episode too,

33:24

but just like the force gumping of her and

33:26

the old footage and what happened,

33:28

what became of her life in,

33:30

in this one in episode one, it's not clear.

33:33

Is she successful? She

33:34

might be successful. We don't know the

33:37

kids lived by some

33:39

miracle and that's all we know for certain,

33:42

but do you feel like overall

33:44

this framing device gives it more

33:46

or less stakes to be flipping back 20

33:49

years into the future and then to the present,

33:52

the, you know, majority present contents of

33:54

the show to 1961.

33:54

I feel like it informs it pretty well.

33:59

episode two at the beginning of the,

34:02

when she has the interview with them.

34:03

60 Minutes. And

34:06

there's the thing about Susie. That

34:08

to me is like, oof, that's the huge,

34:11

that's the stakes. Right, because I think

34:13

for us, the juice of this show for the last couple of seasons

34:15

has been, well, I love everything

34:18

Borsy is doing. I like following Susie.

34:21

Can we just do that more? Yeah, but also like

34:23

that's the central relationship of the show

34:25

and it always has been. And so while

34:27

Midge's success or not success in

34:29

her career like has been a

34:32

freight train

34:33

in many ways, like it's going somewhere.

34:35

It might not be going towards its goal, but

34:38

it's, you know, she's either going to skyrocket to

34:40

success or destroy a small city,

34:42

you know, like something's going to happen. But

34:45

with Susie, it's like, that's always there. And

34:47

you know that that's there. And for them to break

34:50

up is crazy and huge.

34:52

So

34:53

knowing that that's on the line somewhere

34:56

is great stakes, I think. Right, because it infuses

34:58

everything that happens now and

35:00

it's like, oh, I'm going to have some tension. Yes. And

35:03

she gives

35:03

lines of like, I think in this first episode, oh, Susie,

35:05

I'm always going to trust you. Yeah, I'm always

35:07

going to trust you. I'm always going to listen to you and whatever. I'm always

35:10

going to listen to the most important person

35:11

in my life. That's the whole thing. Yeah.

35:13

And the most important person in her life is not

35:16

Joel Maysle,

35:16

who's still kicking around on this

35:18

show, Stephanie Shue, and

35:21

maybe her last episode, her last scene, she's

35:24

pregnant at the end of season four. Her

35:26

and Joel are figuring it out. She's in the ocean

35:28

and she's moving to Chicago. And

35:31

she emphatically says, which may

35:33

be more true as much as the

35:35

tension exists now in the 2020s, how

35:38

much more true in the 1960s for a woman

35:40

of color, she says, I

35:42

cannot have it all. Joel's like,

35:44

well, why don't you just do both and

35:46

fucking you can go anywhere for your residency?

35:48

She's like, if I'm being a doctor, I'm being

35:50

a doctor. I cannot do it all. Also imagine

35:53

how many places we're going to

35:55

hire a woman of color

35:58

for their residency program.

36:00

and have it not be absolute hell on

36:02

earth for her. When she said, I liked the other

36:04

doctors, it's not just like, oh, we got

36:06

along. It's like, no, I might not be victim

36:08

of a hate crime, you know, like, and

36:11

that's kind of true today. But yeah,

36:13

it was a good outro, I think,

36:15

for her, if she has to leave, that's... Do

36:17

you think if they had

36:18

seen the Everything Everywhere train coming,

36:20

that they would have written her in a little bit more?

36:22

Because I would imagine production probably

36:24

overlapped before... Maybe, but I also feel

36:26

like she could be like, write me out, I got stuff

36:28

to do. Yeah, that might also be the case. I'm

36:30

not hitching my way into this trailer anymore, which is

36:32

going to be, you know, the thing is, it was a huge show and

36:35

now it's not because of the way, like you said,

36:37

the tumultuousness of the industry.

36:39

Right. And yeah, this was her most notable

36:41

thing until she was nominated for an Oscar,

36:44

I guess. So we're picking it up

36:46

with that, and he's got to tell his parents

36:48

that they're getting married and then experience

36:51

the disappointment from them. Moishe

36:53

and Shirley are splitsville, which

36:55

I think all happens off screen in

36:58

between the last episode and this

37:00

episode. It was maybe in

37:02

the end with his heart attack, like as

37:04

in last season, it was like, it

37:06

suggested that he needs to retire from

37:08

his very stressful clothing

37:10

job. And then

37:12

that has been the thing that happened off screen, is

37:14

that the fight over whether or not he should retire.

37:17

Caroline Aaron, who plays Shirley,

37:20

she's the only cast member that follows me on Instagram

37:22

and I don't know why. Oh, that's amazing.

37:24

And I'm like, how do I parlay this in this? Exactly.

37:27

I guess I could ask her to kiss. Well, she's great. Should I just

37:30

slide into her DMs? And especially at the end of the episode

37:32

three,

37:32

she had a little scene list that really got me. Listen.

37:36

Got me in my feels. I know, same. But yes,

37:38

the rest of the plot for 501,

37:40

Susie is bugging Max. Max,

37:43

as played by Jason Ralph, IRL

37:46

husband

37:47

of Rachel Brosnahan.

37:49

So a little daddy ball going on there. Max the Booker.

37:51

Max the Booker slash producer at the

37:53

Gordon Ford Show. That's why they have so much chemistry. Yeah,

37:56

where it's like, wait a minute. Where

37:58

they're talking to each other. It's like, oh. Oh, okay.

38:01

Yeah. God. Okay. Well, that's my

38:03

new crush. Jason Ralph is your new crush.

38:05

So she's berating him.

38:07

Huge fan. Yeah. His whole

38:10

thing. Yeah. His whole thing is working for

38:12

me. Right. In many ways. Okay.

38:15

She's following

38:17

him to the Christmas tree farm. She's

38:19

following him around. Um, and then

38:21

eventually, you know, she's trying to get mid

38:24

something on the show. So like a

38:26

spot. Yeah. But to, to book her like

38:28

an appearance on the show. From what I understand. Right.

38:31

And then it ends up, it just so

38:33

happens Gordon Ford as played by Reed

38:35

Scott, who most people know from VEEP, uh,

38:37

as Danny again, he, I

38:39

know him from Equinox. Is that true?

38:41

I see him all the time. Is he handsome in person?

38:43

No. Oh no. What if, I

38:45

mean, he's fine. Not my type. Like

38:47

a puffy cheek, broad shoulder kind

38:49

of squat.

38:50

A BCBS.

38:52

Let me get some of that. What's that guy's

38:54

name again? Roger Jason

38:56

Ralph Jason, Jason Ralph.

38:59

Love a two first name situation

39:02

there. That's good for me. Yeah. He shows

39:04

up at her strip club

39:07

and sees her again. This

39:10

is our first, this is our first time seeing

39:12

Midge do stand up in this season.

39:15

Yes. And she's very,

39:16

uh,

39:17

conciliatory to Susie

39:20

about the strategy because she blows it all up at the

39:22

end of season four. She's fucking Lenny Bruce.

39:24

She's saying, I'm a headliner. I can't open for anybody.

39:27

Bop, bop, bop, bop, bop. And then at the beginning

39:29

of this season, completely humbled. She's like, I'll

39:31

do whatever. Just get like, I trust

39:33

you. I'll follow you to the end of the

39:35

earth. And so the setup

39:38

is that she's back into the trust and

39:40

good graces of Susie. And

39:42

then she performs her set

39:44

and does an okay job for whatever it's

39:47

worth. Blah, blah, blah.

39:49

Gordon Ford sees it. It's good

39:51

enough. And then Susie is working

39:54

it enough that she gets Midge a writing

39:56

job on the Gordon Ford show.

39:58

I don't want to harp on it too much this season. because

40:00

I know I've done it so much in the last season.

40:03

I know. But

40:04

I wanna say one thing about her standup

40:06

set. The first time we saw, I just

40:08

thought it was really funny, really

40:10

funny. That

40:10

can't be true. No, no, no, no, no. This

40:13

was funny about it. How bad of a host

40:15

Midge is. Sure. Because

40:19

it's so funny to be like,

40:21

do eight minutes and then go, I'm Midge

40:24

Maisel, thank you and good

40:26

night. And then the rest of the show

40:28

happened. Like that's not hosting. You're supposed to be

40:30

like, are you ready to have a good show? Like you're

40:33

warming up the crowd. You're there to transition

40:35

people between things. She just goes

40:37

up there and she's like, goodbye everyone.

40:39

And a guy's

40:40

gotta go up with no intro. Like, hey, I'm Gary.

40:43

I did think I was gonna get an intro. But

40:46

still here. Yeah, it

40:48

was yikes for me, but

40:50

that's all I'll say. I

40:53

know I harp on this. The moratorium

40:55

of speaking about the standup. And

40:58

so yeah, she gets the gig

41:00

based on that. She works Gordon. And

41:02

then of

41:02

course, Susie and Mike's

41:05

little fuck off middle

41:07

finger feud continues. But before

41:09

this happens in the same episode, in

41:11

this first episode, they go to the airport,

41:13

which is that the TWA hotel, the

41:16

themed hotel.

41:17

So like they, that's a

41:19

themed hotel. I think it's called

41:20

the TWA hotel, but it stands in

41:22

for a 1960s TWA airport. And

41:27

it's the like perfect shooting

41:29

location, which is why they had nine characters

41:31

there at the same time, I'm certain, including

41:34

Lenny Bruce. Yes, that's the thing.

41:36

Holy shit. Yeah. God

41:38

damn. I mean, I thought of a nude to

41:40

describe. This

41:42

show is sumptuous. It is sumptuous.

41:45

Colorful, sumptuous. There's

41:48

a musicality to the color palette.

41:50

And she sees Lenny there. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,

41:52

whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,

41:56

whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Oh CCS, get thatgun

41:59

He's gotta get the fuck out of town. They're

42:02

not gonna talk about their little rendezvous,

42:05

but they did have it. And they got tears in their eyes

42:07

in this scene. Does this feel like the

42:09

last time we're gonna see Lenny on the

42:11

show? Is this his farewell?

42:12

To me, it was like, doesn't he die in

42:14

Los Angeles? I believe so. So

42:17

that to me was- Where does he die? That to me

42:19

was the thing where it was like, oh,

42:21

he's gonna go die now. He

42:22

says, Midge, I'm getting on a plane to LA where

42:25

I plan on living a good, long life.

42:27

I think I'll start eating clean. Have

42:30

you heard of Keto Midge? Whoa,

42:33

Lenny Bruce got into Keto? It says

42:35

that on his Wikipedia. He

42:38

was found dead in the bathroom of his Hollywood

42:40

Hills home in 1966. This takes

42:43

place in 1961. So five

42:45

years. Perhaps. I'm gonna die in five years.

42:47

Are you? Are you? Am

42:50

I? Are we? Are we?

42:52

Is this podcast gonna die in three episodes? It is.

42:55

Yeah, does the world end after this podcast

42:58

ends? All important questions I think we

43:00

need to consider. It would be an honor

43:02

if the last episode of a podcast- Honor. An

43:05

honor. If the last episode of

43:07

any podcast that was listened to was 501 through 503.

43:11

This is amazing.

43:12

Or 508 through 507

43:13

through 509. 507 through 509.

43:20

509, not 50. We could never be in a

43:22

high six. We couldn't

43:24

be Esther, but yes, they have their tearful

43:26

little subtextual conversation

43:29

where it's all boiling underneath

43:31

the surface. Luke Kirby's

43:33

like, I gotta go to some ballet show

43:35

for two seasons. And

43:38

he gets the hell out of there.

43:39

They filmed him actually at the airport there

43:41

too. Like, can we get you on the way out?

43:44

Yeah, I think so. I think that's it.

43:47

I don't think they have room for anybody else. Yeah, because

43:49

there's a lot to do. You do wonder

43:51

what the, if ASP had like,

43:54

I want this to go on for eight or nine years, like

43:56

what it was going to be if it wasn't this.

43:58

Cause honestly, structurally, This is a very,

44:01

I think, satisfying way to do the

44:03

show.

44:03

I agree. So then the central tension is,

44:05

is Midge going to make it? It becomes, whoa,

44:08

what happened on her way up to the top?

44:10

Yes, I love that. And what was lost

44:12

on the way there? I love that very much.

44:15

I love that very much. Perhaps it's a good way to transition

44:17

into 502. I think

44:18

so. And talk about, it opens with a 60 Minutes

44:21

interview. That's one of the most extravagantly

44:23

produced little pieces

44:26

that they've had on the show where they do

44:28

the Forrest Gump thing where it's like, what if Midge Maisel

44:30

was with Bob Hove entertaining the troops? What

44:33

if Susie was cheek to cheek with Liza Minnelli?

44:35

Incredible. And it is so funny to think about, because

44:37

they're talking about icons from the 1960s, but

44:41

many of whom are

44:41

still alive. So imagine

44:44

you're Quincy Jones and it's like, yeah,

44:46

on Mrs. Maisel, it turns out you fucked

44:48

Mrs. Maisel. He's like, what?

44:50

I mean, I would have, but okay.

44:54

He's like, yeah, I think I remember that. No, no,

44:56

no, no. It's a fictional character

44:58

cue. It's fiction. Fictional

45:00

to you. Okay. Whatever.

45:04

But this is when it's established that there was some

45:06

sort of falling out

45:07

with Susie and Midge and you get a little

45:10

bit of the interviews with Esther and

45:12

Ethan in this piece. And it's very clear

45:14

that the relationship is bad.

45:16

Weirdly, it reminds me of There

45:18

Will Be Blood. It reminds me of the

45:21

last 20 Minutes of that movie

45:24

in the bowling alley in his big old house where

45:26

it's like, yeah, there

45:28

was a big cost to what you did. Yeah.

45:31

Yeah. And so that kind of sets up

45:33

the stakes for that. And I

45:36

was actually surprised at how tasteful the old

45:38

age makeup was. Yeah. It

45:40

was really effective. Yeah. Really

45:42

effective. Just a little bit of wrinkles and a slightly different

45:44

hair thing. There was something with the jawline. It

45:46

was great. Mm hmm. Really

45:49

good. Old age makeup has really come a long way. Yeah.

45:52

And I'm like, what about the young age makeup? Can we get, okay.

45:55

I'm just saying. I need to talk to you after the

45:57

podcast because. Off mic? What

45:59

we call our off mic. Off mic friendship? We have an off mic friendship

46:02

and the content of it today is gonna be, I

46:04

need a new skincare thing. Routine. Yeah.

46:07

Okay. Yeah, routine.

46:10

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50:13

to.

50:16

So 502 is mostly

50:18

concerned with her first

50:20

day on the job. I believe 502 is

50:23

where we see Milo Ventimiglia

50:26

again in the subway and they got

50:28

that little chase. Silvio

50:31

is his name, I can't believe

50:33

his name is Silvio. And

50:36

he comes back. He was the man at Riverside

50:38

Park in the last season. With the whole

50:41

montage-y sort of vignette.

50:43

He had one speaking line on

50:46

camera. Then his wife came home, she

50:48

caught them in bed. And then what we come

50:51

to understand, it weirdly

50:53

feels like a fan fiction written by someone

50:55

who has a Team Jess tattoo. Clearly

50:57

does, yes. Where it's like, oh actually they were separated

51:00

and he's actually a good guy and he's

51:02

really sweet in the subway. It's total

51:04

Team Jess fanfic. It's r slash Team

51:07

Jess. Isn't that so funny? Yeah,

51:09

Submish. Mod Submish. I'm

51:12

curious to see if he comes back at all. Yes,

51:14

well that's where we're at. What a nice place to be at

51:16

in terms of the men in her life. At the end of episode

51:18

three.

51:19

Because it's like, oh now, and then in the

51:22

interview, the 60 Minutes interview, it's like, and all

51:24

the men. Yeah, and she has

51:26

like four ex-husbands or whatever. Yeah, and there's like so many

51:28

men courting her at once. And I'm

51:30

starting to feel like I really love that,

51:32

I love that piece of the puzzle for Midge. And

51:35

that's one reason it makes kind of sense that

51:37

she's like really attractive and beautiful. Is that like,

51:39

she's like this sort of

51:42

Joan Rivers-y, like never settling

51:44

down, just like marrying a lot of different men. Like

51:46

I love that character and I like that idea.

51:49

And I sort of like the idea of like, ASP

51:52

living vicariously. Just

51:54

like married to Dan, just like, hey,

51:57

what could have been? Oh, who knows?

51:58

Well, who knows? What kind of listen that's

52:01

true. That's true. I don't know here's here's what

52:03

I found especially recently another off mic pod

52:05

Everyone's a fucking freak who knows what the

52:08

deal is or the arrangement situation.

52:10

I mean everyone do them It's all

52:12

good

52:13

as long as everyone's happy with

52:15

it, but it in safe and buddy

52:17

didn't say safe I did right, but we agree

52:19

that it's safe here. Here's one of my

52:22

Alice esque little nitpicks I have

52:25

for this episode Studio

52:28

six on the sunset strip

52:30

I think that's come up a lot on this

52:32

show Aaron Sorkin's. Yeah one

52:34

season Disaster flame out of

52:36

a TV show. Yeah taking place. So studio 60 is

52:39

essentially Saturday Night Live, you know It's

52:41

a sketch comedy show taking place

52:44

on Saturday night I believe it the show is

52:46

live a lot like it's that world's equivalent of

52:48

it the prop one of the many problems

52:50

of studio 60 Was that one or

52:52

two episodes in it established that

52:54

Saturday Night Live also exists

52:57

in the universe?

52:57

My god, if you remember that

52:59

and they like reference Lauren Michaels, so it's like oh Okay,

53:03

so yeah, I'd be like 30 Rock was like

53:06

said that yeah Yeah If there was also an SNL

53:08

or something at 30 Rock on the other floor

53:10

I believe in the same way and

53:13

it's like a little toss-off and they probably didn't

53:15

obviously pay too much mind to it But she

53:17

says like real quick and it's in the supercut.

53:20

Oh, yeah, this friend when I guess hosted Carson

53:22

and to me I was completely

53:25

convinced Carson Gordon Ford equals

53:27

Carson. I was totally fine with that

53:30

kind of massage of Realistic

53:33

fiction one possibility is

53:36

that as is sort of true now Late

53:39

night shows have a run of being number one

53:42

for maybe a

53:43

handful of years So maybe Gordon

53:45

Ford moves on to daytime in the

53:47

70s He becomes the

53:49

Ellen of the 19th right like well I'm saying

53:52

like it's possible that Gordon Ford transitions

53:54

into a different type of career. Maybe he becomes

53:56

a movie star Maybe he whatever his priorities

53:59

change

53:59

and then Carson was a 70s fixture

54:02

also. So it's not like it's necessarily-

54:05

They don't cancel each other out. And there's certainly more, yes, you're

54:08

right. Like late night talk show hosts and there are

54:10

sketch comedy shows. I could stretch to that.

54:13

But it does feel like

54:15

it's the Carson of

54:17

the world. So it's like, oh, you got Carson? So who

54:19

cares about this Gordon Ford thing? Yeah, and

54:21

that's why, because I feel like very early on

54:24

Amy was very clear about, yeah, the

54:26

sins with her getting the couch on Carson, essentially.

54:29

And so in my head, when she's like joining the writers

54:32

staff and doing this, it's like, this season

54:34

will end in some capacity. I've

54:36

only seen these first three episodes, I don't know.

54:39

But it felt like, oh, this is gonna end with her doing

54:41

Ford as a guest on the

54:43

show and rising to that

54:45

stature.

54:46

Wait, so Susie mentions Carson at the beginning?

54:48

Midge mentions it in the 60 Minutes piece when

54:51

she's going through all her old wardrobe. Oh, but it wasn't mentioned

54:53

at the beginning of the series. No. Because I was

54:55

like, if Carson already existed at that point, then that would be really

54:57

bad. No, no, no, Amy did like interviews.

55:00

Yeah, I know, yeah. I still think it works. So

55:02

that's all happening.

55:03

There's the plot with the writers

55:05

and whatnot. In the background of this is

55:08

what's called Lucy Preble, a

55:10

writer for Succession, was talking in an interview

55:12

and she was talking about things that do not advance

55:14

the plot in the writers room for

55:16

that show, the nickname for things

55:19

that they just wanna take a little time with, even

55:21

though it has no momentum or stakes

55:23

one way or the other. They call it the ice cream.

55:26

It's the ice cream in the show. And she was specifically referring

55:28

to a storyline in episode two

55:30

of season four of Succession, which is like a

55:33

character named Carrie, Logan's girlfriend

55:35

at the time is auditioning to be a broadcaster

55:38

for ATN. And she's like, oh,

55:41

that's the ice cream. That's something where it's like, it doesn't really

55:43

matter, but we just get amused by it. And

55:45

so that's what we wanna do. This show

55:48

is the fucking Baskin

55:50

Robbins factory. It's 41 flavors. It

55:53

is all of it, it's 91 flavors. And

55:56

there is a bit of ice cream in this episode

55:58

of Ape.

55:59

kind of getting reverse me too'd

56:02

by a

56:03

theater lady. And

56:05

she- That scene was one of

56:07

my top scenes of the first three episodes. I mean,

56:10

just cause he's so amazing.

56:13

And he reminded me of watching

56:15

Kevin

56:15

just gestured to

56:18

himself with a hopeful look on his face. It broke

56:20

my, shattered my heart into a million

56:22

pieces. He reminded me of watching

56:24

Alan

56:25

in my show. Like Alan is- Alan

56:28

Tudyk from Resident Alien. Can be a

56:30

delight to watch in the same way, where it's like, if

56:32

he gets in his mode, where he's just in

56:34

it, and he's sort of like, it's

56:38

very fun to watch. So

56:41

I loved this scene with Abe. I thought he was not

56:44

he, but the

56:45

man who plays him, his name, I remember.

56:48

But in case anyone doesn't at

56:50

home. Yeah,

56:52

I thought it was amazing. Do you have a clip?

56:54

I could bring up a clip, sure. Abraham,

56:57

I'll leave you with this. Harold Pinter,

57:00

I'm bringing the birthday party here in spring and I want

57:02

you to see it.

57:03

I'd love to. He's not for everybody,

57:05

but I think he's a mad genius. And he's

57:07

only 30, such a young, virile

57:10

age. The Nobel is in his

57:11

future. I'll be there. Music to my ears.

57:14

Oh dear, it's so much later than I thought. But

57:17

this is on the voice? So kind.

57:21

I should bring my wife here. She'd

57:23

love this place. She's such a Francophile.

57:25

My husband is French. They should

57:27

meet. Now I'm so sorry, I have to

57:29

dash. I'm a freaking French. More youtre

57:32

tout pour moi? If I had known I'd be

57:34

dining with such a charming man, I'd have scheduled

57:36

time to linger. Next time, I

57:38

won't make that mistake.

57:40

Miss,

57:44

this is Wallach. I'm

57:47

so old. I really

57:49

need to change the doubt.

57:52

Trying to remember how old

57:55

it is, maybe seven, eight years.

57:57

You don't think just change your wallet

57:59

to your...

57:59

You get one as a gift, but if you don't get one as

58:02

a gift, you never change your wallet.

58:04

How are you liking it? Liking what? The

58:08

zilf. Ah,

58:12

very good, very fine. Here, here. Merci.

58:15

You are silly. At times, yes,

58:18

but at other times, I'm more

58:21

dramatic, like Olivia,

58:23

or not Olivia.

58:25

That's so good. Liking what? It's

58:28

so good. All of the business with The Village

58:30

Voice, I was like, I would hang out here a little bit more.

58:33

The editor who's gay, Chris Iageman running

58:35

around. It's all good ice cream. It feels

58:38

fun. That's some Van Llewyn right there. Oh, that's some

58:40

freaking Jenny's strawberry buttermilk I'll say.

58:42

I gotta stick with Van Llewyn, because they are a friend of mine.

58:44

Are they actually? I'm friends with Pete Van Llewyn.

58:47

Is that true? Yes.

58:48

I wish that was true. He's on my baseball

58:50

team. Is that true? I wish

58:52

that was true. That's a fun joke you're doing.

58:55

What a fun, see, and this is why- It's fun for me

58:57

because- Whenever

59:00

you say you're friends with someone, I'm like, oh, that's

59:02

a fun, silly bit. I

59:05

make all your friendships bits with

59:08

somebody else. They're not even famous.

59:12

The parallel story with Rose is

59:14

that the matchmaking wars have escalated,

59:17

they've burned down a tearoom. It

59:20

is escalated to acts of terrorism

59:22

in New York City. Yeah. And

59:25

it only goes on from here.

59:27

And I loved all of this, because it

59:29

was, and one of the reasons too, that

59:32

maybe the brevity is the gift to

59:34

this show is that they had to cram, I

59:36

mean, they had to be more choosy about how much

59:38

to include. And it's like, one of the reasons

59:40

I love this stuff with Rose is that it's just like, you

59:43

get in, bam, bam, bam, you

59:45

know, punchline, punchline, punchline, and then get out. It's

59:48

not like

59:49

we don't have to see her actually go

59:51

through this horrifying- There was a child in there. We

59:54

don't have to watch her kind of like, because there's

59:56

been times in this show where when it knew it

59:58

had a lot of time, when it was like,

59:59

like, wait, what am I supposed to be feeling right

1:00:02

now? You know what I mean? And there's this like,

1:00:04

clearly what's going on, is this comedy,

1:00:06

comedy, comedy. I think, yeah,

1:00:09

and I

1:00:09

think it's borne out by so much of

1:00:12

recent modern prestige TV,

1:00:14

and especially with shows where it's like, ooh, I could

1:00:16

have used one more season of that. That's the feeling

1:00:18

you want when

1:00:19

you leave, rather than, oh, that went on like one

1:00:22

or two seasons, too long. And the same

1:00:24

with this, to give them a finish line that they're

1:00:26

bolting to. So the May stuff,

1:00:28

that might have played out totally differently if

1:00:30

there's a seven season show. May, she

1:00:33

has the baby, and then she leaves or whatever. But

1:00:35

Stephanie Shue at the beginning, I'm out of here. And then

1:00:38

by episode three of this, this seems to

1:00:40

be wrapped

1:00:41

up to some degree after, but we'll get

1:00:43

into that. Could have done without some of Joel's bender.

1:00:46

Yes. That was really uncomfortable

1:00:48

when he starts like, throwing tables in the

1:00:50

Chinese own establishment. Yes, the Joel

1:00:52

of it all. Even though they beat the shit out of him, I was like,

1:00:55

yikes. Don't do

1:00:57

this, Joel.

1:00:58

Unfortunately, I know. There's no

1:01:00

juice with the Joel stuff for me right

1:01:02

now. No, no Joel juice. It's an old lime. That

1:01:04

lime is dry. Yeah, it's yucky, yucky. But

1:01:08

most of this episode is concerned

1:01:10

with,

1:01:11

how does Midge integrate

1:01:13

herself into this world, the writers

1:01:16

room of the Gordon Ford Show,

1:01:18

the boys club. And it is

1:01:20

like, here's a real stat for real, for real. To

1:01:23

this day, the Tonight Show has had

1:01:25

six women on the writing

1:01:27

staff. But they've only had four men.

1:01:30

So it's kind of crazy. Yeah, and they're

1:01:32

just four really old men because they have to overlap

1:01:35

with each other. Well, they're like wizards. Yeah.

1:01:37

So yeah, I mean, first

1:01:40

things first, like. Ollie, your brains. Like

1:01:42

you get this out of the way. The comparison

1:01:44

between, or the similarities

1:01:47

between Midge's experience

1:01:49

on her first couple of days in the writers room, her first

1:01:51

day in the writers room. And my experience

1:01:53

in Silicon Valley was that the

1:01:56

writers were much nicer to Midge

1:01:59

and less cartoon.

1:01:59

cartoonishly evil towards her.

1:02:02

Like I was just like, whoop, this is triggering.

1:02:04

Cause I was like

1:02:05

that thing where she's like, they're talking over her

1:02:08

and she's like trying to, that would happen,

1:02:10

but they like just never addressed me at all

1:02:12

in any way. And I'd be in a room. So he'd be like, go sit in this

1:02:14

room with this other group of actors. And I'd be like,

1:02:16

so what's the, and it was just like, boom, boom,

1:02:18

boom, boom, boom, like, you know, I was like, wow, okay.

1:02:21

And that just made me think back at like how cartoonish

1:02:24

it was, what was happening.

1:02:26

So yeah, I'm just talking about it once

1:02:28

again publicly but not to a newspaper

1:02:31

reporter because I want people to know that

1:02:35

Koomale sucks, you know, and I

1:02:37

just

1:02:38

want people to know, but I don't

1:02:41

want to become the person who, cause

1:02:43

the first time I tweeted about it, it was like, Oh, they

1:02:46

give you Google me. Sometimes there's still a picture of

1:02:48

me next to TJ Miller. You know what I mean? Like,

1:02:50

so yeah, I can't have my career

1:02:52

because to that, the first Google image

1:02:54

that comes up for me is this side by side

1:02:56

of me

1:02:56

and Alan. God damn it. I fuck you. Yes,

1:02:59

exactly. And he just, yeah, you want to do your

1:03:01

own thing, live your own life. And so I

1:03:03

don't talk about it to newspapers or anybody like that,

1:03:05

but here the Maisel Goys listenership

1:03:08

is sacred and special. And

1:03:10

there's no journalists that listen to the show. We shed all

1:03:12

them in season two. And

1:03:14

so yeah, thankfully we've

1:03:16

shed them and I just

1:03:18

wanted to, that's what the initial impression

1:03:21

for me was of watching, watching that scene

1:03:24

was a little trigger oni. So it felt

1:03:26

emotionally resonant and it sounds like, again,

1:03:29

based on this fucking

1:03:29

WTF interview, that was the case

1:03:32

with a lot of ASPs experiences

1:03:34

in sitcom writing rooms in

1:03:36

the nineties, in the mid nineties, not

1:03:39

famously progressive places. And obviously,

1:03:41

and of course to this day as well, the

1:03:44

how much even more so 30 years ago, where

1:03:46

that is, it's somewhat

1:03:49

of an exaggerated version, but kind

1:03:50

of not really at all. Exactly.

1:03:53

Yeah. Like it was

1:03:54

pretty dead on and it was, but it was still like

1:03:56

very fast paced and funny and cartoony

1:03:59

at the same time, but I was like,

1:03:59

but it's also very dead on.

1:04:01

And at the same time though, I thought,

1:04:05

oh, I do like watching Midge be in situations

1:04:07

where she's humbled. So that made me think, I'm

1:04:10

sort of like Midge in that way where I do constantly

1:04:12

need to be humbled. So even

1:04:14

though I wouldn't want this context to happen and

1:04:16

it was gendered and fucked up, that is something

1:04:18

that I did enjoy about watching this scene. I feel like,

1:04:21

yeah, bitch, you're not the fucking- That's her eating shit. Yeah, her

1:04:23

eating shit is great. And her being still sure

1:04:25

of her jokes.

1:04:26

You know what I mean? The fact that she's still sure

1:04:29

of her instinct, even

1:04:31

though this is happening, sort of confirms

1:04:35

the character, you know?

1:04:36

Yeah, well- There's

1:04:38

not a lot that will shake her. And

1:04:40

the whole button for this episode

1:04:43

is confirmation of her

1:04:46

all knowing, unique,

1:04:47

God-given comedy abilities

1:04:49

where she pitches a joke

1:04:51

that they say, no, it's not funny, the JFK

1:04:54

Jr. is gonna be a baby in the White House,

1:04:56

but they've gotten experience- Diaper

1:04:58

practice with Eisenhower. With Eisenhower. And

1:05:01

the guys in the room, the writers in the room say, no,

1:05:03

that's not funny, that's not good, no thanks. And

1:05:06

then the very last line of the show

1:05:08

is she does at the strip club to up Rory's

1:05:10

laughter. It's zooming

1:05:12

on her. All the sound goes away

1:05:15

and she goes, it was funny. Like, I

1:05:17

knew it was funny. I knew it was funny, excuse me. Yeah,

1:05:19

I mean, it's nice to watch her be so

1:05:22

sure of herself despite what's going

1:05:24

on. I feel like that resonates

1:05:27

with me. That's how I feel a lot of the time. And there

1:05:29

are things I think that have shaken her idea of

1:05:31

her own instinct, which is normal for any

1:05:34

artist, but it's nice to watch her not

1:05:36

wither and die under that kind of experience.

1:05:38

Cause it would be unfunny and also

1:05:40

not true to the character. There's this

1:05:42

interesting character that they've introduced in

1:05:44

the season, George.

1:05:45

The producer of the show is played by

1:05:47

Peter Friedman,

1:05:48

who most people would know from Succession as

1:05:51

Frank. And he kind

1:05:53

of functions as the, my

1:05:55

first point of reference was as Gelman

1:05:57

on Regis and Kelly, where Regis would be like, What

1:06:00

do you think, Gelman? You know, he would always throw over

1:06:02

to the guy at the podium. I'm sure

1:06:04

there was like a six-season, seven-season quilt. Gelman,

1:06:06

right. What do you think? Yeah, or like the

1:06:09

guy with the little glasses, the bald guy in

1:06:11

Letterman, Shapiro.

1:06:14

Ben Shapiro? Ben

1:06:16

Shapiro. If you watch in 94. Is

1:06:18

that Paul Shafer? Paul Shafer, yeah. Where

1:06:20

you go, ah, when you would laugh at

1:06:23

a joke. So

1:06:24

George is set up, at

1:06:26

least by Mike, on the show is like, you

1:06:28

don't wanna fuck around with him, he's

1:06:31

a misogynist, he's sexist, he will

1:06:33

harass you sexually. He's also very

1:06:35

stupid. And it's unclear, at least in

1:06:37

these three episodes, is he? Like

1:06:39

you

1:06:39

get little glimpses of it here and there.

1:06:42

This was probably one of my favorite jokes

1:06:44

of all three, was when Mike said that thing

1:06:47

about, and I'm sure this is gonna be annoying

1:06:49

to pull up, so don't pull it off. But except that there

1:06:52

is this way he delivers it, like him and Midge

1:06:54

are having a conversation about something else. Like that's

1:06:56

this guy, he's a head

1:06:57

producer on the thing. So, you know,

1:07:00

big wig around here. And she's like, oh,

1:07:02

maybe you could, and he goes, I want him to die. And

1:07:04

he like, it's so good. And you

1:07:06

see how this guy who does everything

1:07:09

at the show, which is Max's character, is

1:07:12

under the thumb of this, like, you

1:07:14

know, this suit, this old white guy who's

1:07:16

got, you know, who's attached to a success

1:07:19

by proxy, who now has all the power

1:07:21

and control, takes all the credit for everything that gets

1:07:23

done. And Max is actually the one who does

1:07:25

it. And he just fucking hates him so much. And

1:07:27

it's,

1:07:27

to me, that was so true about industry

1:07:29

stuff. It feels resonant. We're of

1:07:32

like anything that is meritocracy

1:07:34

has to function underneath the structure.

1:07:37

And I love someone meeting someone, and

1:07:39

he's known Midge for like four seconds. And then he

1:07:41

says about another person they work with, I

1:07:44

want him to die. This is so funny.

1:07:46

And so ASP, yeah. So

1:07:49

they go through the rounds of

1:07:50

like, oh, we need 20 in one, 20

1:07:53

jokes in one hour, which blows

1:07:56

Midge's mind. In a way where she's

1:07:58

like, what do you mean you need?

1:07:59

be to write 20 jokes

1:08:02

in an hour. Yeah. Right jokes.

1:08:05

Yeah. And she has to call Susie and go on

1:08:07

the phone with mommy essentially and be like,

1:08:09

how do I, what do I, how am I gonna?

1:08:11

How is this possible? Yes. And then they, I'm

1:08:13

pretty. Yeah. Don't they know that

1:08:15

I'm pretty? And then

1:08:17

it ends up being fine. She does not get a joke on

1:08:20

in this episode. Read Scott as

1:08:22

Gordon Ford, I think

1:08:23

is a really phenomenal, phenomenal,

1:08:26

phenomenal, absolutely phenomenal

1:08:29

as a, as an addition to the late night

1:08:31

host. He's so good. He's so

1:08:33

good at being that guy. He's so good cause he

1:08:35

rides that like,

1:08:36

he has a little worked out persona of who he is

1:08:39

to the audience and then who he is

1:08:41

the rest of the time. And it's good. And weirdly

1:08:43

this character

1:08:43

to me made more sense than almost his character

1:08:45

in Veep did in the sense of like, Oh,

1:08:48

there is such like a inherent

1:08:50

handsomeness and charm that is just

1:08:52

absolutely corroded with this outline

1:08:54

of slime to

1:08:56

him as well. That is pervasive.

1:08:58

And then you see more glimpses of it in

1:09:01

the next episode. Two is a paladin

1:09:03

Daniel episode. The first one was an Amy

1:09:05

episode. And I felt

1:09:07

like I could feel the Daniel of it all when that subway

1:09:09

chase, which was lavish and sumptuous to

1:09:12

use your word lasted about three more beats

1:09:14

than I wanted to. And even

1:09:16

the joke of her going, Mike, Mike, Mike,

1:09:18

Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike,

1:09:20

Mike,

1:09:21

Mike. It's called it's a Mike,

1:09:23

Mike, Mike, Mike world. I think that's

1:09:25

why the title, no, that doesn't make sense. I

1:09:27

think it doesn't make sense. Okay.

1:09:30

I'm looking in a mirror right now. Hey, that's my Alice. Hey,

1:09:33

that's my friend. You're talking to get it together. Hey,

1:09:35

hey, hey, hey, everything's okay. No,

1:09:37

oh no. That's my friend.

1:09:40

Stop slapping yourself on the ass to turn yourself

1:09:42

on. I got to get turned

1:09:45

on.

1:09:45

Daniel up. So

1:09:50

then maybe we can transition into episode

1:09:52

three, not

1:09:53

directed by either of them, directed by Daisy

1:09:55

von Schurler mayor. Wow.

1:09:59

Wait, how about that?

1:09:59

What episode was the Thanksgiving episode? The

1:10:02

Thanksgiving episode. The Thanksgiving episode was the

1:10:04

first one. Oh, my God. Jesus, all bleeds

1:10:06

together. I know. Well, the

1:10:08

other succession,

1:10:10

can't be what we get. Oh, we're talking about Justine Lupin. Is

1:10:12

when we get Justine Lupi as... Justine

1:10:15

Lupi, who plays frickin'...

1:10:19

Which

1:10:19

I love watching her and she's so... Astrid,

1:10:22

midriscists, your mom. ...effervescent as Astrid. Married

1:10:24

to no one. And the baby, and the baby-crazed

1:10:26

mom. Mm-hmm. ...I love... Like,

1:10:29

again, I like when they take shots at

1:10:32

different styles of parenting that are not

1:10:34

completely ignoring your kids at all times. Yeah.

1:10:37

You know? And, like, they give her this, like, new mom craziness,

1:10:39

but then she also is, like, absolutely going

1:10:41

insane from sleep deprivation. I think she does

1:10:43

it so well. What if her line says, How often do you

1:10:45

cry to the other mom? Oh, look, it's pointing.

1:10:48

Oh, look, look. How often do you cry? And

1:10:51

also, I felt

1:10:52

in my chest the

1:10:56

part when Jess...

1:10:59

I'm just gonna call him Jess. Sure. Silvio

1:11:02

is, like, on the subway and he runs through

1:11:04

the pack of people shoulder to shoulder. Like,

1:11:07

that felt like such a Daniel, or

1:11:09

maybe ASP, but, like, a thing that you got

1:11:11

to get in your show, which is that people

1:11:14

will do that and then they get mad

1:11:16

at you for breaking through them and then, you know what I mean? Like,

1:11:18

it's like a weird cultural thing that happens. And

1:11:20

I felt it in my chest when he yelled

1:11:22

at them, like, I'm being rude. You guys

1:11:25

are for no reason walking shoulder

1:11:27

to shoulder up the stairs. Like, I

1:11:29

loved

1:11:29

that so much. Made me really happy. That

1:11:31

was... Yeah. Remember Appetetic

1:11:34

Cop? Who he... She's away like, Okay,

1:11:37

everything's fine. All of that stuff.

1:11:39

Justin Lupe's range, you see

1:11:41

it. You see it in the show.

1:11:44

She's so reserved on Succession.

1:11:46

It is funny to just be like, I

1:11:48

guess Amy and Dan watch Succession and Veeb. Which

1:11:52

I guess is just like, if you were a TV

1:11:54

creator of any sort of powerful status, you'd

1:11:56

be like, yeah, I want this person. I'm not gonna make them read. I know

1:11:58

they're good.

1:11:59

for it and

1:12:01

we'll just offer. I hope she watches Resident Alien.

1:12:03

I hope so too. For her next show about

1:12:05

ballet because obviously I have a dancer's body,

1:12:08

nobody's arguing with that but at the same

1:12:10

time I have this comedic range that she might

1:12:12

want to take advantage of at some point. She has the range

1:12:14

and she should take advantage of it. 503 typos

1:12:17

and torsos. This

1:12:20

is when we get, listen

1:12:23

I'm just telling you the name of the episode

1:12:25

brother. Yeah. I get

1:12:27

the flash forward scene in which Ethan

1:12:30

is farming in Tel

1:12:32

Aviv in Israel and

1:12:34

Midge descends

1:12:35

in a helicopter and

1:12:37

he's like, oh my fucking mom, I can't believe

1:12:40

this. He's engaged to a young woman there to

1:12:42

be married

1:12:43

and it just feels like it's underlining, underlining

1:12:46

the alienation and the interesting

1:12:48

part in this episode is that it

1:12:50

is concurrently happening with a 1961 storyline

1:12:53

in which it's very clear that these kids are getting

1:12:56

fucked up. They're making the children

1:12:58

sleep in the hallway.

1:12:59

Abe

1:13:02

is telling him stories

1:13:04

of planes collide, which

1:13:07

is a real story. The story that

1:13:09

Abe tells him about two planes that

1:13:11

just collided into each other and then rained

1:13:13

hell over New York City. That's

1:13:15

a true story in Park Slope.

1:13:18

Yes. That really happened. Torsos.

1:13:21

So they're

1:13:21

trying. It's not like they're like sleep in

1:13:23

the hallway kid because I hate you or because

1:13:26

I don't care about you. They're trying

1:13:28

things. So it's not like

1:13:31

I don't see them as being neglectful parents.

1:13:33

I just believe that that was the way that

1:13:36

people parented at the time to a degree, but then

1:13:38

there's

1:13:38

also a certain neglect that the show is

1:13:40

underlining

1:13:41

when Zelda's bald boyfriend

1:13:45

is the one who's like, I thought about Yannish.

1:13:49

I would die for Yannish. Zelda,

1:13:52

Abe and Rose's housekeeper

1:13:54

of many seasons happens to have

1:13:56

a boyfriend of some sort and they're taking care

1:13:58

of the children. Well, Zelda trusts

1:14:00

him. Yeah. It's Zelda. She's

1:14:03

part of the family. Hey,

1:14:05

yeah, I got no beef with Janus, believe

1:14:07

you me. I just feel like I'm super

1:14:10

anti-helicopter parent, super

1:14:12

anti-attachment parent. Like I was not parent. Super

1:14:14

anti-helicopter and Israel parent as well. I was very

1:14:17

not parented that way. And

1:14:19

I'm, I guess for that reason, like I'm really uncomfortable

1:14:21

when people are just like only about their

1:14:23

kids. You know what I mean? To me, my

1:14:25

life was enriched greatly by

1:14:28

having a parent, at least one parent

1:14:30

who had their own career, their own life, their

1:14:32

own friendship. Sure. That was, had nothing

1:14:35

to do with me in a way. You know what I mean?

1:14:37

Like that to me was like a

1:14:40

great childhood. And I feel like

1:14:42

to me, it's like there's times when

1:14:44

it's underlying that they're, they're like, wait, where's

1:14:47

the kids type of stuff. But I mean,

1:14:49

was Kevin's mom on home alone, a bad parent?

1:14:51

Okay. I'm glad you said on home alone. Cause

1:14:54

I did not want to get into my trauma. Oh

1:14:56

no. I think of your life story as home alone.

1:14:58

Oh. That's what I call

1:15:00

it. Now I realize it's also a movie title.

1:15:03

Listen, she made her mistakes and she was

1:15:05

human. But at the end of the day, I know she loved me. I

1:15:08

know for a fact that she loved me.

1:15:10

They just made a mistake three times. Hey,

1:15:13

wait a minute. So where

1:15:16

does this episode pick up? It's more,

1:15:18

you know, slice of working life,

1:15:21

Gordon Ford stuff, some of the trouble

1:15:23

happening with the kids. And then we do get

1:15:25

a little bit of

1:15:28

what seems at least for now to be a resolution

1:15:31

of the matchmaker war saga,

1:15:34

which is that Rose goes to Susie

1:15:37

to buy a gun, which of

1:15:39

course Susie has some amount

1:15:41

of access to, given

1:15:43

Frank and Nikki are in her office. Yeah. The

1:15:46

monsters that was like, felt like such shenanigans

1:15:49

in season one or two, whatever it was when they kidnapped

1:15:51

her. And now are an integral part

1:15:53

of her business. And I would,

1:15:55

I would hope and almost

1:15:58

guarantee that there will be some sort of.

1:15:59

flash forward of like, yeah, and then they worked

1:16:02

and became executives and retire with it. Cause

1:16:05

she is built an imp... What's clear from episode two, she has built a

1:16:07

management empire

1:16:09

from nothing, from this little

1:16:11

office. Yeah. And I hope they...

1:16:14

And she's training in Diane. Yes. And

1:16:16

so that's great. Diane, you got Julie Clouser

1:16:18

across the street. She knows how to

1:16:20

run somehow magically, maybe just

1:16:22

from being too Z. She knows how

1:16:25

to run a real management company

1:16:27

at this point, weirdly enough. Well,

1:16:29

she did go to college. That's

1:16:31

like a little breadcrumb

1:16:32

detail. I feel

1:16:34

like may come back into play later

1:16:37

in this season.

1:16:39

Cause yeah, there's some joke about she like went

1:16:41

to law school at some point. So she's

1:16:43

not like just this street rat

1:16:45

little, even though she dresses and presents

1:16:47

as such. No. And

1:16:50

I think that it's her power of observation more

1:16:52

than anything else that would make her. So

1:16:54

yeah.

1:16:55

So then she enlists these former

1:16:57

mobsters or current mobsters to intimidate

1:16:59

the women. Well, she doesn't enlist them. They

1:17:02

kind of volunteer on their own. Like she tries

1:17:04

to tell them, please do not get involved. And

1:17:06

then they absolutely get the most

1:17:09

involved. Do the most. Yeah.

1:17:10

They scare one woman literally to death

1:17:13

and she passes away. One

1:17:16

of them is AWOL. And then Kelly

1:17:18

Bishop comes back as Benedetta.

1:17:21

Benedetta. In prison. And

1:17:24

I'll just play a little part of this. 78 years

1:17:27

young.

1:17:36

I

1:17:53

did not commit. Oh, that gift. You're

1:17:56

welcome, miss. Molly is dead. Who's

1:17:59

Molly? My Irene.

1:17:59

She got the same call, had a heart attack,

1:18:02

dropped dead in the kitchen. Jesus.

1:18:05

Our Jewish friend is on a plane to Argentina. Miss

1:18:07

M is AWOL. Who the fuck are those good

1:18:09

people? What do you mean, who are we?

1:18:12

Didn't Rose Weissman send you? Yes.

1:18:15

Rose sent me. Are you sure? Well,

1:18:18

who can be sure of anything in life, right?

1:18:21

This is bullshit, by the way. Framing

1:18:23

me for a ridiculous tea room fire, it's

1:18:25

not gonna work. Hang on a second, that was

1:18:27

you?

1:18:28

You can't burn down the greatest fucking tea room in the history

1:18:31

of tea rooms. Never mind the tea, have you ever had

1:18:33

that whipped cream? What? I don't know what

1:18:35

they did to it, whether it's extra cream or extra sugar

1:18:37

or a combination of bowls. Maybe it's the

1:18:39

pinch of nutmeg. God knows I have tried to make it

1:18:41

at home and failed miserably, but there is something

1:18:44

about that whipped cream. I

1:18:46

hope you get the fucking chair. Don't

1:18:48

you realize Rose Weissman had protection? Well,

1:18:50

she does. And a gun. And she'll

1:18:52

use it, she's not just gonna wave it around or something. Okay,

1:18:55

fine.

1:18:55

You got me. Can

1:18:58

we just get down to this, please? Down

1:19:01

to what? Rose

1:19:05

Weissman can keep the Upper West Side. She just

1:19:07

can't go above 125th or below 60th. Now

1:19:10

that Molly's dead, she can take Hell's Kitchen if she wants,

1:19:13

but she better bone up on limericks and the potato

1:19:15

famine. What, not good

1:19:17

enough? Hey, I'm just the muscle.

1:19:20

I'll take it to Rose, see what she says. Female muscle,

1:19:23

shit, I should have thought of that. Man, they

1:19:25

never see you coming. Well, not you. Well, it's been

1:19:27

a delight. I don't

1:19:30

know if it suits you, by the way. Someone in your age

1:19:32

just looks silly in stripes. Tell Rose

1:19:34

Weissman this is a good deal. Hey, if they

1:19:36

just booked you, why are you here? Why aren't you in the county

1:19:38

jail? I have priors.

1:19:42

I love it. I love,

1:19:44

I have priors. Oh, Kelly Bishop.

1:19:48

You know, people can watch

1:19:51

her on this show. They can

1:19:52

also watch her on a show

1:19:54

called The Watchful Eye. Yeah. Only

1:19:57

on free form. Which I did do a sponsored

1:19:59

post. on

1:20:02

my grid a couple of months ago. If you

1:20:04

have the ability to tap into Kevin's

1:20:06

dreams,

1:20:07

if that technology exists, you can also watch her there in

1:20:10

Kevin's dreams at night. I

1:20:12

feel like this is gonna be a really funny burn and now I'm

1:20:14

just like,

1:20:15

yeah. It's like, yeah, I dream about her

1:20:17

at night. What? But yes, so it

1:20:19

seems like there's at least a detente

1:20:22

as far as the matchmaking

1:20:24

wars go.

1:20:25

The little detail of Susie

1:20:28

being obsessed with the whipped cream in particular.

1:20:30

Love it. I was gonna invest. It's something

1:20:32

that resonates with me as someone who's never been

1:20:34

able to make whipped cream quite as delicious

1:20:37

as the whipped cream at Starbucks.

1:20:40

I find it to be really good and

1:20:42

it is different and I've made a lot of different

1:20:44

kinds of whipped cream. It's so waxy to me.

1:20:46

Really? Yes. Oh, I like it. It's

1:20:49

like from a can to me. They make

1:20:51

it fresh in the store. We

1:20:53

gotta take a trip to Starbucks. I make

1:20:55

whipped cream frequently at

1:20:56

my home. Yeah. What I do is,

1:20:59

yeah. What do you do? Do you have music background

1:21:01

you can play for this? Yes, I do.

1:21:05

What I do is if I'm running low

1:21:07

on time and I wanna make whipped cream, I

1:21:10

chill a bowl ahead of time. Now this does take a

1:21:12

little bit of foresight. You might wanna put a bowl

1:21:15

either in the fridge or the freezer. I put

1:21:17

it in the freezer because it just whips up a little bit faster.

1:21:19

If you have a hand mixer, that's a really good way to go.

1:21:22

So you take a bit of your cream to

1:21:24

whip, put it in the

1:21:26

frozen bowl, and then right away

1:21:28

you're gonna put your hand mixer on it. And that point

1:21:30

you've already mixed in your sweetener. Now for a

1:21:33

sweetener, I do not use a liquid. I

1:21:35

actually use a monk fruit sweetener in powdered

1:21:37

form. That mixes in really fast.

1:21:40

And honestly, I can't taste the difference

1:21:42

because I don't like my whipped cream over

1:21:44

sweet. I don't like it to be too much sugar

1:21:47

in it anyway. So just a little bit of monk

1:21:49

fruit sweetener, or you can use Stevia.

1:21:52

And then you whip it right up and it

1:21:54

comes out pretty, not as quite as fluffy

1:21:57

as your Starbucks, but I like kind of a little denser

1:21:59

whipped cream.

1:21:59

So you can do that. Frozen bowl

1:22:02

though is key. Wow. I

1:22:05

feel like I learned a lot. Thank you. No problem. I've

1:22:07

never made whipped cream without a liquid sweetener.

1:22:09

And now I'm curious to do it with less

1:22:12

some of the powder stuff. Powdered sugar than you think.

1:22:14

Yeah. Interesting. Okay.

1:22:17

Well, we got a new project later. I got a

1:22:19

few pies to bake. Yeah. You got pies going. What

1:22:21

kind of pies? One of them is going to be a

1:22:23

lavender honey ice cream pie. Nice.

1:22:26

And one

1:22:26

of them is going to be a coconut cream pie. And

1:22:28

one of them is going to be an Oreo cream pie. Oreo

1:22:30

cream. Interesting. Like cookies and cream.

1:22:32

Yeah.

1:22:34

I don't know how. It's like, but that's also frozen. Yeah.

1:22:36

That's so cool. Yeah. It'll be good. So you're mashing

1:22:38

up the ice cream. How are you? What do you, how are you putting

1:22:40

it into the pie? Well, I guess. Okay.

1:22:42

It's become a cooking show. I could tell you. Okay. Here we

1:22:45

go.

1:22:45

So using the Cuisinart ice 100, I

1:22:47

make my ice cream. Now

1:22:52

the base I like to use is

1:22:53

the Ben and Jerry's base. I can recite

1:22:56

the recipe for it off the top of my head. Three

1:22:58

quarters cup of sugar. Two eggs.

1:23:01

That makes a custard. Then you put in one cup

1:23:03

of milk, two cups of cream, and then you can

1:23:05

go hog wad with whatever you want to for the

1:23:07

cookies and cream I make. I use

1:23:09

two teaspoons of vanilla extract

1:23:12

as well as a cup, maybe

1:23:14

a cup and an eight of chopped

1:23:17

crushed Oreos. Here we go. So

1:23:19

then what I do is once the pie crust

1:23:21

is completely chilled and baked, I do a little

1:23:24

blind bake in the oven

1:23:26

of just like chopped up food process

1:23:28

Oreos. Then I put melted butter in, bake

1:23:31

it in the oven for 15 minutes. It's going to shrink a

1:23:33

little bit, but that's okay. Let it completely

1:23:35

cool and chill. And then as

1:23:37

soon as your cookies and cream ice cream is done

1:23:39

churning and you're Cuisinart, scoop

1:23:41

that bad boy into

1:23:43

the pie crust immediately.

1:23:45

Right. Let it freeze. Let it sit for a couple

1:23:48

hours. Then you add a whip topping. Then

1:23:50

what you can do as well is a few little

1:23:53

crumbs of Oreo on top for some texture

1:23:55

and aesthetic beauty. Now, Kevin, are

1:23:57

you this ice cream is soft when it comes

1:23:59

right?

1:23:59

out of the... It's soft but it gets firm.

1:24:02

So you're gonna spoon it kind of spoon by

1:24:04

spoon onto the pie crust and then you're gonna pitamp

1:24:06

it down that way? No I let it I let it

1:24:08

kind

1:24:09

of go out as much as it needs to

1:24:11

like cuz sometimes it is a little bit tall but that's

1:24:13

okay because it doesn't flood over and usually

1:24:15

it's it's that liquid at

1:24:17

that point. Yeah yeah it's like the consistency

1:24:20

of soft serve at that point.

1:24:22

Oh okay. So it's not like... And it'll harden up when you put

1:24:24

it back in the... 100% always does. Oh that's wonderful.

1:24:27

Okay well take that recipe to your 4th

1:24:29

of July picnics to your work parties

1:24:31

it's great if you have a if you have a freezer at work.

1:24:34

Absolutely. Anything like that will do and nobody nobody

1:24:36

hates an ice cream cookie pie

1:24:39

except for my neighbor Ron. All

1:24:42

right we're back. And we're back

1:24:45

gracious. Now if I had

1:24:49

brought an ice cream pie to the old gas

1:24:51

light which I guess we're not gonna see again. They

1:24:53

lost the rights to the

1:24:55

set. Except for Casserole. Well I think it's just

1:24:57

no longer it's no

1:24:59

longer a standing set. Yeah yeah. For

1:25:01

them. So unfortunately it's one of

1:25:04

those things where Gordon Ford is standing set the strip

1:25:06

club is a standing set the apartments

1:25:08

and whatnot. I love the pastel curtains

1:25:10

of the Gordon Ford show and I am happy to

1:25:12

be there. Sumptuous. Yeah very beautiful.

1:25:14

Very sumptuous. So sumptuous.

1:25:18

And delightful. The other things we can talk about in this show.

1:25:20

Oh she finally gets her joke on. They have a little

1:25:22

tally mark right list in

1:25:24

the writer's room. This writer got on

1:25:26

five jokes. This one four. Midge has gotten zero

1:25:28

on for the however

1:25:29

long she's been there. A month I think they

1:25:31

say in this episode. And then she finally

1:25:33

gets accepted the joke we heard

1:25:36

in the supercut which is the voice of Bugs Bunny

1:25:38

was in a car wreck. The voice of Elmer Fudd

1:25:40

is

1:25:41

looking to be found responsible. Yeah okay

1:25:43

now I kind of get the joke and it's sort of whatever.

1:25:45

Like she's like why did that make it? It's fine. Yeah

1:25:48

it's

1:25:49

she's she knows she's pitched way better jokes

1:25:51

than that and for some reason that one makes it. So

1:25:53

Gordon when he delivers it says

1:25:56

Felmer. Yeah he does a little spoonerism

1:25:59

on accident.

1:25:59

And she goes, oh, in

1:26:02

the room. And I, I

1:26:04

don't usually have a visceral

1:26:05

reaction to it. I was just, I, I, I

1:26:08

really winced at that moment. And

1:26:11

of course there are a little bit of consequences

1:26:13

to it. She does

1:26:15

try to apologize and make amends at the bar, but

1:26:17

then digs it even deeper

1:26:18

in a conflict that felt like a little

1:26:21

thin. It's like, you need there to be a conflict here. It's funny.

1:26:24

And he's like, I didn't make a mistake. It's

1:26:26

like, right. Laugh. I hated

1:26:28

that. I'm like, I'm not doing this wrong. I'm like blah, blah,

1:26:30

blah. It doesn't matter. But anyway, it's all, but assumed

1:26:33

actually she should be like, Hey, I'm sorry.

1:26:35

Be I'm amazed by you. You recovered

1:26:38

from the disaster I made for you. It

1:26:40

wasn't a good joke in the first place. And then you look,

1:26:42

why is she defending this joke? Like it's the,

1:26:44

one of the best. She knows it's not that good or

1:26:46

see here's the other thing. And this is maybe

1:26:49

something a law of writers have gone through, which is that

1:26:51

one of the primary

1:26:53

skill sets to learn when you're a television writer

1:26:55

and when you're working in a writer's room, that you are

1:26:57

not running, that you are not the creative primary

1:26:59

vision of the show is that you learn to

1:27:01

write in other people's voices. So everyone

1:27:03

who wrote on Buffy had to learn how to sound

1:27:05

like Joss Whedon or Marty

1:27:08

Knox and or Jane Espenson, whoever the case may

1:27:10

be. Everyone who wrote on Gilmore obviously

1:27:12

had

1:27:12

to write in the SP voice increase

1:27:14

that word cone quite a bit. And

1:27:18

for this, it's like, yeah, you know what?

1:27:20

Conan likes this kind of joke. Conan doesn't. Yeah.

1:27:23

Letterman does well with this kind of punchline. The whole thing

1:27:25

is like, yeah, okay. What kind of punchline

1:27:27

like what's your rhythm

1:27:30

that would actually be more fitting

1:27:32

and suited? Like, do you feel like you tripped up on this?

1:27:34

Whereas there's this, this

1:27:37

is where I kind of get in your territory too,

1:27:39

with like kind of the creakiness of the show,

1:27:41

the sort of

1:27:43

almost like religious reference for

1:27:45

funny. It's funny and we are

1:27:47

steaming these things as funny and they become objective,

1:27:50

absolute truths and it is

1:27:52

fanatical. Yes. Yeah.

1:27:55

As opposed to like show don't tell kind of like this show

1:27:57

is about because like I'm of that

1:27:59

type of.

1:27:59

I very much, I would be amenable

1:28:02

to that type of viewpoint

1:28:04

from a heroine or a show

1:28:06

for sure of anybody. Cause I'm like, fuck

1:28:08

yeah. Like when I came up and stand up,

1:28:11

it was New York stand up style was all

1:28:13

about the writing. LA was more performance.

1:28:15

So you get to LA and people were like, now it's flipped

1:28:18

I think. Yeah, pop probably is, but like,

1:28:20

it was so irreverent and goofy

1:28:22

and like, you know, clowning and stuff like that.

1:28:25

And I was like, okay, but where's the fucking punchline?

1:28:27

Like, you know what I mean? You can't write a punchline then don't get,

1:28:29

you know, it's just very, very defensive.

1:28:31

And so I'm very steeped in

1:28:33

the idea that like, you have to have the foundation

1:28:35

of funny. And there's like, I've

1:28:38

come a long way on being super judgmental about

1:28:40

that, but I still like am amenable to that

1:28:42

idea. But the show is fucking fanatical

1:28:44

about it. And it has to be like, put it in all these places

1:28:47

where it doesn't belong. You know what I mean? It's

1:28:49

just like, funny is funny, but humans are humans. So like,

1:28:51

you can't just, just cause you're a funny person

1:28:54

doesn't mean you're infallible. Right.

1:28:56

And that's why the Susie presence in

1:28:58

the show is the one that's always the

1:29:00

more interesting part of it because it is the practical

1:29:03

realities of it. It is sort

1:29:05

of a deconstruction of the myth

1:29:08

of meritocracy

1:29:09

of like, talented people make it, untalted

1:29:11

people don't, people are funny, people are not funny.

1:29:13

And

1:29:15

Susie's talent exists on a spectrum

1:29:17

of

1:29:18

savvy and navigating

1:29:21

sticky situations and politicking

1:29:24

and deal-making and things that require a lot

1:29:26

of thought that are part and parcel

1:29:29

with creative life and creative process, but

1:29:32

are much,

1:29:33

I think in some ways, both more

1:29:36

and less interesting to portray, you

1:29:38

know, on screen. I mean, the whole thing

1:29:40

about Midge being attractive and

1:29:42

that being a huge part of her success story

1:29:45

is only ever pointed out by

1:29:47

Susie. Susie's always there to be like,

1:29:49

look at her, put her on TV, look at her. She's got a fucking tits

1:29:52

for days, look, whatever. You know, and like Midge

1:29:54

is like always like, I'm only

1:29:56

here because I'm the funniest one. And it's like, babe.

1:29:59

It's super, it's

1:30:01

hard to watch for people. You know what I

1:30:03

mean? That's a part of her, that's very, the Carrie Bradshaw-ing

1:30:05

of her personality. Unself-awareness.

1:30:08

And you know this too,

1:30:09

but whenever you stand up

1:30:11

starts, everyone has, I know what you're thinking,

1:30:14

I look like a blah, blah, blah, blah. And the reason

1:30:16

you do that is to demonstrate you

1:30:18

are with them and self-aware about who you

1:30:20

are. It's like, it's kind of, it's hacking

1:30:23

the sense that it's like, it's such a

1:30:25

fucking run-through way of demonstrating your

1:30:27

own self-awareness and like who you

1:30:29

are as opposed to,

1:30:30

you know, because what you're really saying is like, I know

1:30:33

your judgments are this, and then the

1:30:35

punch line comes, bum.

1:30:37

And then the whole point is you open the door

1:30:39

again to be like, but I'm a person and

1:30:41

I have ideas. So

1:30:43

I feel like

1:30:45

her being a standup who is absolutely

1:30:48

unaware of how she comes across in the world

1:30:50

is like very, again, I'm harping

1:30:52

on standup, but it's a bit dissonant for

1:30:54

the old Wetterland Hound over here,

1:30:57

which is, by the way, a new nickname. The Wetterland

1:30:59

Hound? Can we do that? No. Sounds

1:31:01

like a strange breed of dog.

1:31:03

Protracted, the

1:31:05

Wetterland Hound. Oh,

1:31:07

that would be amazing to have a dog breed named after

1:31:10

you. The only Abe storyline

1:31:12

in this one is that he is stressed

1:31:15

out of his mind for misspelling Carol Channing.

1:31:18

That's pretty much the beginning and it- Well, he also talks

1:31:20

to Ethan about the planes.

1:31:23

And he has the sexual harassment thing. Yeah, but

1:31:25

that was the previous episode. I heard out though

1:31:27

that sexual harassment thing in a way that I didn't- Maybe I'll

1:31:29

come back. Well, I liked when he said like Rose

1:31:32

will know because when he comes home,

1:31:35

he's like, hello. Like

1:31:37

he can't, you know, it's so funny.

1:31:39

Talk to your Shalub. I like this television show

1:31:42

that we watch. Shalub,

1:31:42

I mean, he's probably,

1:31:45

I mean, by far, he's the one in the cast with the most

1:31:47

TV experience from wings

1:31:50

to then monk

1:31:52

to then this show. I wonder if he's anything else. People

1:31:54

can check him out in the movie Flamin' Hot

1:31:57

starring Eva or not starring, directed by Eva

1:31:59

Longoria.

1:31:59

that is an origin story about

1:32:02

the flavor of Flamin' Hot Cheetos. Ooh.

1:32:05

Which is... That's really amazing. It's

1:32:07

part of this really great trend right

1:32:10

now in filmmaking, which is

1:32:11

air,

1:32:13

Tetris, Blackberry.

1:32:16

They announced today that Will Ferrell's been

1:32:18

cast in the Madden movie about

1:32:21

the creation of the NFL video

1:32:24

games. So we got more of those to look

1:32:26

forward

1:32:26

to. That's a jumping up the shark. Barbie,

1:32:28

Lego movie. But Barbie's

1:32:30

not about the end, like the making of Barbie. No.

1:32:33

No, but no. And it'll be the best,

1:32:36

highest form of whatever

1:32:38

this shit is, but it's still this shit. That's

1:32:41

the thing, right? Even

1:32:42

the self-referential pop culture. Yeah.

1:32:44

But yeah, I guess we're talking about like docufiction of like, hey,

1:32:47

this product's great. You want to know how we made

1:32:49

it? Although I hear Blackberry's really good. I

1:32:51

hear that one's good. What?

1:32:54

Hey, this product's really good. Want to know how we

1:32:56

made it? Is it? Did you see

1:32:58

air? No, I haven't seen it. I got a

1:33:00

thing

1:33:00

on air again. I got to take it off mic. Oh

1:33:02

man. I have to go

1:33:04

at some point. Are we going to be here for

1:33:06

these off mic conversations? I'm starting to pile

1:33:09

up. Well, listen, we're going to be doing this

1:33:11

for the next couple of weeks. I would love

1:33:13

that. I wanted that for

1:33:14

a birthday party a couple of years ago.

1:33:16

I couldn't coordinate it where it's like the rule is

1:33:19

everyone has to sleep in the same room. I

1:33:21

love it. Like sleeping

1:33:22

bags and stuff. That's cute. Wouldn't that

1:33:24

be fun? I mean, I would bring my own. I would have

1:33:26

to do it as an inflatable. Yeah. All

1:33:28

right. What? I was listening

1:33:30

to you. I just like the way that conversation

1:33:32

petered out. My sleeping bag also has

1:33:35

its own features as well. We could talk about that

1:33:37

all day,

1:33:38

but I guess we can

1:33:40

wrap up this episode by saying she is

1:33:43

assuming that Gordon Ford is

1:33:45

going to fire her ass. The confrontation, the bar

1:33:47

makes it to the papers. So all the more

1:33:49

reason he's been humiliated by this like,

1:33:51

you know, comparably nobody person.

1:33:54

And then turns out, boom, he's the number one

1:33:56

show in America. Not

1:33:58

because he fucked up the job.

1:33:59

but just it just so happens. Yeah. And so

1:34:02

they all get drunk and skate at 30 rocks,

1:34:05

which

1:34:05

ice cream. Yeah. A lot

1:34:07

of ice cream. A lot of ice cream. And it turns out Brosnahan

1:34:09

and Borsin can really skate. Yeah.

1:34:11

Can you skate? Do you like ice skating or roller skating?

1:34:14

I can roller skate. Okay. Ice skating

1:34:16

is, I can also do Minnesota

1:34:19

being where I grew up, but the skates,

1:34:22

the thing about ice skates is like you have to buy

1:34:25

specific like molded skates for

1:34:27

your feet. I've never tried hockey skates. They'll probably be

1:34:29

better, but I've got really wide feet and all

1:34:31

ice skates are like two inches too narrow.

1:34:34

So I can only really

1:34:35

escape for like 30 minutes until

1:34:37

I have debilitating foot pain. So I just don't

1:34:39

do it. I skated in many years,

1:34:42

but

1:34:42

roller skating, I really got into especially

1:34:44

doing that. That's right. Yeah. We

1:34:46

both didn't, do we ever roller skate together? No,

1:34:49

but I would next, next conversation, next pod

1:34:51

we're going to do

1:34:53

on skates. Yeah. And we'll like record it.

1:34:55

We have like portables and things. Yeah.

1:34:57

Cause like somebody could have a boom mic or

1:35:00

like, you know, follow us around. So

1:35:02

she's assuming Gordon's going to fire her and

1:35:04

he doesn't. And he says, no, that was

1:35:06

great. We're sparring partners like Hepburn and Tracy,

1:35:09

but then, and this was sort of the

1:35:11

shoe

1:35:11

I was waiting to drop. Yeah. Was like,

1:35:14

wait a minute, 1960s talk

1:35:16

show television. Cool. There

1:35:17

was like a lot of sexual harassment back then.

1:35:19

Right. And then he tries to kiss her. He falls

1:35:21

down the ice and then she tries to help him up.

1:35:23

He like makes a pass at her and

1:35:26

she says, you're married.

1:35:27

And he's like, well, I'm not that

1:35:28

kind of married. And the writer's

1:35:31

assumption in one of the previous episodes of like, Oh,

1:35:33

Gordon's coming to this bar now that he

1:35:36

never came to before. Yeah. That's cause he

1:35:38

wants to have sex with you. He's trying to sleep with

1:35:40

you.

1:35:40

And she's like, I'm not the, whatever the

1:35:42

thing was. Right. So

1:35:45

they are setting forward up maybe to be

1:35:47

a sort of antagonistic force

1:35:49

and maybe replace what Sophie Lennon

1:35:51

served in the past, et cetera, or someone where it's

1:35:53

like, just like the age

1:35:56

old question for women in comedy and women

1:35:58

in television of like, How do you succeed

1:36:01

within a completely failed and broken

1:36:03

system, including people who

1:36:06

want those

1:36:06

things to happen? How do you come across

1:36:08

as innocent and fun-loving when your body's

1:36:10

not your own? Next week on

1:36:13

Maize La Coise. Although

1:36:16

the weird button with this is that

1:36:18

Susie goes into the office, has

1:36:20

a little talk with Max, the booker,