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Curbrylab Three

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more, 507, 508, 509. How

2:03

do you feel? Is it

2:05

time? Is it time? Is it time?

2:07

I mean, I know that ASP has got

2:09

more in the tank. Yeah. So

2:11

that's one thing, you know, that's kind

2:14

of comforting to me.

2:16

This journey with Midge.

2:19

I thought you were gonna say me. This journey with me. No,

2:23

with me. Oh, you. Oh, you're

2:25

here. Hi. Hey, just

2:27

me and Dexter over here on the couch. I

2:30

just, you know, I don't have a ton

2:32

of feelings about the end

2:34

of Maisel. I think because of what we were talking

2:36

about when we opened this season, which is just

2:38

like, it really got it, Andy. It was

2:40

this huge show and then now it's

2:43

not. Well, it doesn't feel like we're sharing this

2:45

with anyone except people who listen

2:47

to the show. There is no

2:50

sense of community or discourse or

2:52

conversation about this whatsoever, which

2:54

is the overwhelming majority of TV shows. It's

2:56

pretty much any show that doesn't air weekly

3:00

on Sunday nights on HBO. There's

3:02

not really any shared community for it. Unless

3:04

it cracks through accidentally, like

3:07

the bear

3:08

or the first season of Stranger. Or like Resident Alien.

3:10

Or Resident Alien on Sci-Fi, which you can stream

3:12

on Peacock. And in fact, I have watched a

3:15

little bit of it. I just fast forward to the Alice scenes.

3:17

You've watched a little bit of it and you fast forward

3:19

to just my scene. Yeah. Okay.

3:22

Well, I have to say the new season of Resident Alien is gonna

3:24

be really good. So if you ever wanna

3:26

catch up on it, it's all in Peacock

3:29

and you can watch it all. It's all there. Do

3:31

laundry, watch in the background because the

3:33

new season is gonna be fire.

3:35

Straight fire. Straight fire. Do we

3:37

know if there's a season four yet? I can't tell you that. Okay.

3:39

Yeah. But you just said, yeah. I

3:42

didn't say yeah. You said, I can't tell you that,

3:44

Colin. Yeah. No, I

3:46

didn't. I can't tell you that, yeah.

3:49

So you're saying, yeah. Let's roll the tape back. I

3:52

can't tell you that. That's

3:55

you. Clearly you. Yeah.

4:00

I don't really, you know, and

4:02

I hate having feelings. So there's that. No,

4:05

you don't. I do not love. Really?

4:08

It's one of my favorite thing. What is that? A mom thing?

4:10

Is that a mom thing? I don't know the last person. Yeah, kind of,

4:12

I guess.

4:13

Yeah. Cause the last person I talked to that had trouble

4:15

with feelings, it was a mom thing.

4:17

So now I'm just projecting that on

4:18

everybody. Okay. Perfect. You're

4:20

like, this is what I know. You're like an android. Well, the one person

4:22

said one time mom thinks, so is yours a mom thing as well?

4:24

Probably is honestly. We, I

4:27

mean, my mom is a, yeah.

4:29

So I sound

4:31

like Kieran Culkin in his

4:33

role as a, yeah.

4:35

Sure. Whatever. Fuck.

4:38

Whatever. Fuck you. But yeah,

4:41

it's kind of sad. Yeah, of course.

4:43

Yeah, but you don't want to access that feeling right now. And

4:45

I'm an era, you know? Oh, you mean the ending of this podcast.

4:48

Yeah. When will we see each other again?

4:51

You want to come to my baseball game on Saturday? What

4:53

time is it? 1pm. I can't do

4:55

1pm tomorrow. I'm getting lunch with a friend. Okay.

4:57

Well, I guess I don't know then. And

5:00

I don't know either. Well, I guess

5:02

we'll just wait for the next show to come out. I guess so.

5:04

Oh man. Well, you could come back on most of the bands. I

5:07

would love to. That was very fun to have. Yeah. And

5:09

I can get, you know. That was my first experiment having

5:12

a guest and it went so well. It was very

5:14

fun. That's the night I shocked you. Yeah.

5:17

Shocked.

5:18

We're like, here's what's been going

5:20

on. Also, here's the context for our last

5:22

seven years. Also here's things I've been recently

5:24

doing.

5:25

Yeah. Also. I

5:27

don't think you were, but it felt like you were wearing

5:29

a fringe, the leather coat. No,

5:32

I

5:32

was wearing basically this, which is like the square

5:34

outfit you could wear in some ways. It's not what

5:36

it felt like a polo, right? Like studded

5:40

like chaps, you know, you see in

5:42

your life.

5:42

Hey, speaking of Gilmore

5:45

girls, you know, young

5:47

Jess Mariano bears a passing resemblance

5:49

to a young Al Pacino. Did you see

5:51

the Twitter poll?

5:52

A couple of weeks ago, I actually did see this

5:54

is one thing. Heaven often asks me,

5:57

do you know about that? Did you see

5:59

that thing?

5:59

on the internet solved for X

6:02

that Alice at the ripe

6:04

old age of 42 did not see. Because

6:08

I'm barely on Twitter anymore. And

6:10

no, but I did see the Twitter poll.

6:12

The Twitter poll

6:13

was who was hotter in their young

6:15

age, Robert De Niro or Al Pacino. Yeah.

6:18

And where do you fall on that today? I don't really

6:20

want either of them to be

6:22

around

6:23

for much longer. Like a lot. Oh my God.

6:27

What do they do? Well, there's just

6:29

one. One of the things I find egregious

6:32

about Italian Americans is this thing

6:34

where a lot of Italian Americans are doing the here's

6:37

here's the thing. Italian Americans get your

6:39

people because you have some loud

6:41

ones that are going. I'm not white. You're

6:43

Rick Caruso's, et cetera. We got to curtail

6:46

that. Right. Like it's a very bad,

6:49

bad trend that

6:51

we need to make sure goes away.

6:53

So that's got me a little sour

6:55

to the whole Italian American

6:58

pride thing, which I do associate with your Robert

7:00

De Niro, your Al Pacino. You

7:02

know, that said, they're

7:04

both extremely macho figures

7:07

that I find problematic in the industry.

7:10

So neither one of them is like my hero.

7:12

OK. So I had a hard time picking one.

7:15

I'm not saying that you're saying.

7:16

Yeah. OK. It's

7:18

like if I had to, I guess De Niro.

7:20

I guess De Niro. OK. And I guess I go Pacino

7:23

for me. Yeah. See, it's like

7:25

I could. It's hard to get me to care.

7:28

I know. As I've learned in the last six years

7:30

of doing this podcast. Yeah.

7:35

And that's how I want to reflect on things right now,

7:37

too. And listen, we got

7:39

three more episodes to do.

7:41

Five oh seven,

7:43

five oh eight, five oh nine. And then we're

7:45

done. We got Twitter Q&A. We

7:47

got pop around the culture

7:49

to do. But then that's it. And we're closing

7:52

the book on the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

7:54

for now until the 20 year revival of

7:56

the movie when Tony Shalhoub is 93 years

7:59

old.

7:59

with the same area or whatever

8:02

the fuck. Yeah. Yeah. So let's get into it. There's

8:04

a lot to talk about a lot. There's

8:06

a lot. Hey, a lot. There

8:09

is a lot. Okay. Now I have a hard on. Okay.

8:11

Yeah. We have a hard on to get out of here. I

8:13

actually do have kind of a hard on and like two and a half

8:16

hours. So, so

8:18

we'll start dating. Oh, I'm

8:20

dating. I'm dating.

8:21

So we'll start with 507 a house.

8:25

Let's start with the wait. Just kidding. Wait

8:29

in 507, did you rewatch it? Cause you famously.

8:31

Famously. Even though

8:34

we did not talk about it. Did rewatch. Okay.

8:36

Yeah. So this is 507 a house full of extremely

8:39

lame horses. The Amazon synopsis is

8:41

Abe takes midges place. A

8:43

parent teacher day, which leads us to the first

8:46

of three additions of. 12 o'clock.

8:47

Rock. We're going to pop around.

8:50

Culture. Tonight. And we take every

8:52

pop culture reference in the episode and put

8:54

them in a super cut. So here's 507 pop around

8:56

the culture. Gene Tini also wants to do

8:58

TV. You know, Gene Tini, the apartment won the Academy

9:01

award for best picture.

9:02

Benjamin Franklin. Didn't he get laid a lot? Like

9:04

Dickens. If he grew up in Bensonhurst. Dorsay

9:07

doesn't scream Rose Weissman. King

9:09

Kong to Feyre. Bobby gets a boyfriend.

9:11

Ken. I don't think it's going to last. He seems

9:13

a little fake. Kennedy just established the Peace

9:15

Corps. Now boring kids can be popular

9:17

too. That's it's on Rockele. Well, she's Anita Akberg

9:20

and Margaret. You know, Loretta Young. Only from

9:22

temple. You're America. Archie, Sir Walter

9:24

Raleigh, Amelia Earhart. She will have whatever

9:26

Shirley Temple drank right after Judy Garland

9:29

got the Wizard of Oz. I'm in the Twilight

9:31

Zone without Rod Serling here to

9:33

guide me.

9:34

How about the tits on Ursula Andrus, huh? Have

9:36

you ever seen Vladimir Horowitz hold

9:38

a toy in one hand while playing

9:40

Rockman and off with the other? I'll answer for

9:42

you. You have not.

9:45

I didn't get that Shirley Temple joke and told us

9:47

now. That she lost the role of Dorothy in

9:50

the Wizard of Oz. Whatever Shirley Temple drank. Pretty

9:55

hardcore joke. It's really hardcore joke. Very

9:57

heavy on Mr.

9:59

Mancas area in this episode

10:02

who plays a sort of fictional

10:04

television star in a fictional television

10:06

show, co-starring Sutton Foster. And that

10:09

did you clock that as well? That she

10:11

was his TV wife, star of stage

10:13

and screen. Oh, okay. Yes, I did

10:15

clock. I took clock. Yes, I took

10:17

clock. On kajams. On

10:19

kajams?

10:20

You did clock. So

10:23

this is to me the last shenanigans

10:25

episode of the series.

10:27

The last ice cream? Yeah, the last creamy

10:29

little episode going down real smooth

10:32

where the overwhelming majority of it is

10:34

either table setting or just kind of

10:36

running around the table like Ethan's doing

10:39

at his little school. And it's Abe

10:41

showing up and I guess

10:43

starting

10:45

this does connect to the larger thing. It does connect,

10:47

which I was pretty proud of them for. Sure.

10:50

It's like, wow, you actually tied it in. That's weird.

10:52

Weird choice. So Abe

10:54

is a little shocked that Ethan is

10:56

not doing well in music. He's

10:58

not doing well in his studies and he's

11:01

part of the happy table at school.

11:03

This is, by the way, I'm looking at this. This

11:06

is written and directed by Amy Sherman, paladino.

11:08

It fell. Oh, Daniel. When it began,

11:10

are they merging finally? It's

11:12

one super being. Okay.

11:15

Yeah. I felt a little down the mouth, hats

11:18

on the other. And, and he's sort

11:20

of starting to reckon with the idea

11:22

of like, oh, wait, Ethan's not

11:24

Ethan's not the one

11:25

he's not, though he's not the chosen one that

11:28

I was hoping for. And sort

11:30

of table setting with the fact that

11:32

Midge is becoming a hotter property

11:34

and commodity through the lens of this comic,

11:36

Danny Stevens, who played by Hank Azaria,

11:39

who's so impressed with Midge

11:42

for what reason?

11:43

Alice, because she

11:45

says,

11:46

well, don't do jokes on the show. Just talk about

11:48

your life.

11:49

And he says, based on that, I need to

11:51

hire you for my TV show. Cause

11:54

I was so smart of you to say. Yeah.

11:56

And now looking back

11:58

at that premise. There's a lot of

12:00

people on the show who like insultingly

12:03

at the time you're like insult it that they're

12:05

like they're hiring you Cuz you're hot,

12:07

you know Gordon Ford is like it's cuz

12:09

he wants to fuck you and she's like that

12:11

is so insulting And it is insulting but at the same time

12:14

it's like

12:14

but what else would it be? Yeah,

12:20

I mean

12:21

I guess in universe explanation like to have

12:23

somebody speak up a writer in the room

12:25

speak up and say Change your whole strategy

12:28

to a guest like that might be seen

12:30

as helpful and the kind of gumption

12:32

you might want to have around Sure, so that's

12:35

sort of how I justify that so

12:37

Danny Stevens takes the advice he kills

12:39

and crushes it on the talk show noticing

12:41

From my perspective. He's got jokes.

12:44

He's like you're telling jokes He's just doing

12:46

jokes based on the premise of his own life inventing

12:49

the throw to interview

12:52

It's he's inventing the like what

12:54

do they call that in a late night when you have like

12:57

stories? I forget they have a name for it

12:59

when it's like

13:00

you Encapsulate your jokes in

13:02

like anecdotal stories for

13:04

the purposes of doing a couch visit Yeah

13:07

And usually

13:07

the case would be there's a producer

13:09

that they have a little pre-pro interview with what are the

13:11

five things you want to? Talk about on the

13:13

tonight show Scarlett Johansson or her team

13:16

and she didn't they say this and this and this and then

13:18

they give the Questions to Jimmy, so I hear

13:20

your mom is dying or whatever Can

13:23

you imagine if that's

13:24

one and that's like I got so much funny stuff And

13:26

we're gonna do a lip sync battle for your dying

13:29

mom so cool The

13:33

other part of this too in addition to

13:36

being a little bargaining chip for Danny

13:38

Stevens is that there's the jackpot

13:40

of it all and Susie

13:43

gets kind of hooked up via

13:45

I want to get his name right my car your

13:47

new crush Jason Ralph mr. Rachel

13:49

Brosnahan

13:50

It's a

13:52

real name. It's such a like first names.

13:54

Yeah, it really feels like witness

13:57

protection or something

13:59

Yeah, he like looked at two things

14:02

in the room. He looks, he's at a bar and he like, he

14:05

was at a hockey game and he saw somebody

14:07

with a hockey mask and then he saw somebody barfing and he's like, I'm Jason Ralph.

14:13

And so he

14:15

hooked Susie up with this sort of showcase,

14:18

showcase show,

14:19

showcase, showcase show to be

14:21

on Jack Parr. But

14:24

what they realized into doing this

14:26

is that this is no earnest showcase.

14:28

It is something that's actually set up unbeknownst

14:31

to Mike or Susie as

14:33

a way to get to Susie's other

14:35

talent, the movie star, or the

14:37

soon to be movie star that she's representing, which

14:40

felt like a weird way to, I wasn't sure

14:42

how booking works on talk

14:44

shows in 1961, but they're

14:47

just doing it so they can finally

14:49

book this actor who's not like a household

14:52

name. He's not a George C. Scott

14:54

or whatever yet. And they're like, okay,

14:56

we're just making Midge do the standup

14:58

set, but actually we just want the other guy. Cause

15:01

that way we'll get Susie there. Just

15:04

get a meeting with Susie. Right. So it feels a little

15:06

biz in team because that probably could have. Yeah. Yes.

15:09

But we had to see Midge

15:12

do her thing again, where

15:14

she kills in a room that seems

15:17

unbelievably dead and she liven

15:19

them up when all these other,

15:23

I guess you're supposed to think season comedians

15:25

can't get a single laugh in

15:28

a room of people. Like it's just, okay.

15:30

All right. That's

15:32

what that is.

15:33

So that's kind of the heartbreak

15:35

for them. And then Midge, you know, cause Susie's

15:37

going to be like, no, fuck you. I'm not going to give

15:39

you my person. The midges like, no, do it.

15:42

Don't

15:42

hurt. You gotta be nice

15:44

to him. And then she goes home and

15:46

break stuff. Yeah. Cause she feels

15:48

disrespected and very sad. Have you been in

15:50

a similar circumstances yourself and

15:53

your standard career where you realize that you got an opportunity

15:56

only as a means to someone else's end?

16:00

I mean, I

16:02

don't entirely,

16:04

there's no way I have of knowing. Like

16:06

you have to really hire

16:08

a private eye from black box

16:11

to figure out the inner workings. Cause

16:13

it's like, I'm almost positive,

16:15

yes. Because of the way that

16:17

my last circumstance worked with my manager

16:19

and her priorities, but

16:22

I can't prove it. So it sort of sucks.

16:24

Whereas in this episode, they're just all out in

16:26

the open. Point blank saying we were just

16:28

using you

16:29

for this other thing. And I'm like, the

16:31

industry got a lot better at fooling people into

16:34

getting them in that position because that is how it works.

16:37

I mean, it's not quite as Byzantine and dumb, but

16:39

it might be sometimes, honestly.

16:41

See, it's not a good word, Byzantine. And you're

16:43

using it now. I'm gonna use it all the time. And you know

16:45

exactly what it means just by the sound

16:47

of it. Yes, I'm just thinking about all the places

16:49

I'm gonna use it. It's gonna be Byzantine. And

16:52

then

16:52

what else is going on, the shenanigans

16:55

at the school, also the flash forward,

16:57

we see in 1973 that Midge

17:00

is trying to support Rose in

17:02

her matchmaking

17:03

business. And it's pretty clear and evident

17:05

that it's not going well. It's actually

17:07

showing Rose in her little flop era.

17:10

She did have some success. Her flop era. Yeah.

17:13

Remember that line she said in 1973, not me

17:15

and my flop era.

17:16

It's like, yeah, it's

17:18

like, I guess the idea is that 1973, this

17:21

isn't really the way people meet anymore. It's

17:23

just sort of an out of fashion way of doing

17:25

this. And so she's got

17:28

no clients, whatever, but Midge

17:30

is still throwing tons of money into it to make

17:32

her feel good as an ego project. And knowing

17:34

even

17:34

a little bit of ASP's own real

17:37

life background, it feels a little bit auto fictional

17:40

in the sense of your mom had this ambition.

17:42

You are far and away the success of

17:45

the family. And then you are

17:47

having to prop up someone who

17:49

took care of you and take care of them in this

17:51

way. And like, okay,

17:52

mom, you can still do the thing. And ASP

17:54

is talking about like, yeah, my mom's writing a book

17:56

or a one woman show right now and I'm trying

17:59

to help her out.

17:59

So that feels like a little bit of that is embedded

18:02

in this relationship as well. It

18:04

feels so abundantly clear across these three

18:07

shows.

18:08

Mom relationship, tricky, dad

18:10

relationship, trended towards good is

18:13

like sort of the grounding POV

18:17

of all these protagonists across the

18:19

shows, which we definitely see in

18:21

the next episode as well. 507 was

18:23

like the least interesting of these three episodes

18:26

for me. In terms of

18:28

it just felt like a lot of table setting for

18:30

what would come next. I will say, I

18:32

had me thinking about what they could have

18:34

done to not the writers, but actually

18:37

Midge in the universe.

18:38

The tax prep could have created

18:41

a 501c charity out

18:43

of Midge's mom's business.

18:46

And then they could have written it off as a donation.

18:49

Just saying, yeah, there's financial

18:51

solutions. They did not consider. So,

18:54

you know, I'm just, I had to point it out. No,

18:58

and we are here to

18:58

punch up these scripts and these stories.

19:02

It's what we're here to do. And sometimes years after

19:04

they were shot. It's what you're here to do. So

19:06

with that, maybe we should transition to 508. That's

19:10

it. I mean, I don't know what

19:12

else there is to say about this one because all

19:14

the juice, all the juice is in these next

19:17

two for me. Well, doesn't

19:19

what confused me is, is he

19:21

offered her a job in this

19:23

episode and I could scrubbing through and I couldn't

19:26

remember. You're talking about Danny Stevens, Hank Azaria's

19:28

character. Yeah. And then it opens

19:30

with,

19:31

I didn't really understand that device, like

19:34

opening and closing with the Danny Stevens

19:36

show. The daughter's going on a date.

19:38

That just felt like we wanted to do this. So

19:40

we're dead. I didn't understand the allegory.

19:43

I don't think it was. And I think

19:45

it was, I think, yeah, think

19:46

about less. We're not take advantage of that in

19:48

some way. I think they were taking advantage of,

19:50

we like Hank Azaria and everyone's

19:52

best friend, son, foster. You could still just

19:54

have that and still use a tie in

19:56

for the plot. Whatever you would think. Okay.

19:59

In 508, the princess and the plea, a royal

20:02

visitor at the Gordon Ford Show gives

20:04

Midge a chance to shine.

20:06

And once again, we're gonna do... 12 o'clock,

20:09

proper going

20:10

to... Cut! I got it! I got it! I got it! Oh,

20:12

call it dark! Alright, this is every

20:15

reference in 508. Petra

20:17

and I played two-wheel-e-dooly nonstop for

20:20

two months in this very room. I

20:22

think you're done. The Andrew sisters? She

20:24

pops up every now and then. The Brigadoon

20:26

wife. Freed Don Quixote in the original

20:29

Spanish? I have a piece by Helen

20:31

Frankenthaler that I think you are going to love. Jane

20:33

Jacobs, what an absolute thrill to meet

20:35

you. Hello, Gordon. Guys, this is the woman

20:37

who single-handedly stopped Robert Moses from running

20:40

a goddamn road through the middle of Washington

20:42

Square

20:42

Park. You went through that whole Coelio-Gebron phase. You

20:44

read the lottery, you see what happens when there are traditions

20:47

for no reason and people get stoned. Kukla

20:49

Fran and Ollie. Which makes her

20:51

Sandra Dease. No one knows what

20:53

being in nothingness is. Sartre doesn't

20:55

even know. I'm married to Barbara Stanwick here.

20:58

Oh, look at

21:00

this very intimate tableau. Oh

21:02

my gosh, Alice is holding my

21:05

little boy with all the grace and

21:07

tenderness in the world. That is so sweet.

21:10

So yeah, I'm married to Barbara Stanwick

21:12

here. Also Jane Jacobs, that was

21:15

a character who was in season

21:17

one.

21:17

Mrs. Maisel stumbled upon her at

21:20

the park doing her thing. So

21:22

finally closed the loop on that character,

21:24

thank God. I know, it's like, oh, loose

21:27

ends everywhere. We got the closure we were looking for.

21:29

So the stuff with the college. Bryn

21:31

Mawr, yeah, she goes back to Bryn Mawr for low reunion

21:33

with her girlies.

21:34

So I was

21:37

all strapped in and ready

21:39

to

21:40

experience Midge doing

21:43

stand-up for the college girls.

21:44

Like just at the table? No, no, no, not

21:47

the friends, the actual students. When they

21:49

went to the dorms, I was like, oh, we're going

21:51

to get... And it's going to be about cancer culture at the campuses

21:54

or something? It's going to be about

21:56

like

21:56

her experience. The kids are just like, you're

21:59

old.

21:59

anything about what you're talking about. And

22:02

the way she's gonna turn that situation is

22:04

that she's gonna do stand up and they're all gonna be like, yeah,

22:06

okay. And I was so ready

22:08

to be mad. Right. And then it did

22:10

not happen. She's vacuumed. Thankfully.

22:13

I thought, and

22:14

again, this is written, directed by Daniel,

22:16

Danny Dees' nuts. Yeah, which is,

22:19

we prefer it. I mean, he's on a little

22:21

roll this season. He's on a bit

22:23

of a stroll. A roll and

22:25

a stroll? He's on a roll to my heart. So

22:28

I

22:29

thought this device was so effective.

22:32

And the fact that there is such a,

22:34

we've seen this in their other shows too.

22:37

There's a little bit of a baked in contempt

22:40

for women not striving for ambition

22:42

as defined by the primary protagonist

22:44

of the show. So if you're a woman who's

22:47

not trying to be a Mrs. Maisel or

22:49

not trying to hunt a dragonfly in, then

22:52

there's sometimes these attitudes that you're lesser

22:54

than, that you're not as important, that

22:57

your sort of maybe personal ambitions

22:59

are a little more pedestrian and don't matter as much

23:02

and not as meaningful. And I thought

23:04

showing the humanity of their relationships

23:06

and showing like, oh, these are the women that she

23:09

saw as a lot of respect for. It feels like, you

23:11

know, they made each other probably at a formative

23:13

time in their life. There's not like a, there's not a built-in

23:15

snobbery or sort of studiness

23:18

of like, oh, you guys are just having kids and being moms.

23:20

Well, I'm taking the world by

23:21

storm. That's not really the case here.

23:24

She's still Midge from the block. And they're

23:26

so nice to her. There's no

23:28

conflict of cattiness. They're just

23:30

a reflection of how far she wishes she

23:32

had come,

23:32

but hasn't. And

23:34

they, I think- And they kind of question her and

23:37

get her to question herself. Like, why are you doing this?

23:39

Because there is a lot at risk

23:41

and, you know, we wonder for

23:44

you and your mental health, you know?

23:46

Sure, as is a conversation I'm

23:48

sure you've had many times in your own

23:50

life. But

23:53

I just thought this was so

23:54

effective. Is that supposed to mean?

23:56

Well, I, yeah, I, because

23:59

people- People talk, you know, and

24:01

the fuck do you say to me?

24:02

So people, I'm just saying like maybe when you're, what

24:05

people talk. Well, I'm sure like

24:06

friends of yours from home or people. You talking about friends at

24:08

home? No, I haven't talked about friends at

24:10

home. No, I would never breach that

24:12

boundary. You talked to Rizzo. Well, Rizzo

24:14

did DM me. I was asking like, so are

24:17

you doing the Q and A or what?

24:19

Rizzo just wanted to submit a Q

24:21

and A for the show. It wasn't anything yet. Tui

24:24

tui. Tui tui. But I thought this was very

24:27

lovingly done. This also continues

24:29

the thread from the last episode, which

24:31

is Abe realizing

24:33

it's not going to be Ethan

24:35

that is, you know, the boy who lived

24:37

or whatever the fuck culturally that he

24:39

wants for that family. It's Esther. His

24:42

legacy. Esther's the one playing piano. Esther's the one that

24:44

in the cold open flash forward of this season

24:47

is solving nuclear warfare

24:50

and talking to her therapist and

24:52

there's a savant in her own right. And it is

24:55

a humbling moment for him that

24:57

he has to contend with. And it almost makes

24:59

me wish this was threaded in more

25:03

into the season, but I thought worked

25:05

pretty fantastically in these three episodes.

25:07

There's this very tender scene

25:10

with him and what's his name, Chris

25:12

Eigenmann's character Gabe from the Village

25:15

Voice and two of their colleagues where they go

25:17

out for wine and steak or dinner.

25:19

And they use maybe the first

25:21

closeup shot that I've seen in a show

25:24

where it just like zooms in really

25:26

tight on Abe's face,

25:28

on Shalhoub's face. And he's realizing

25:31

just kind of gender role fuckery of the

25:33

time and probably being as self-aware

25:36

as you can be within the constraints

25:39

of- Within the constraints. Of the infrastructure

25:41

of 1961. And I think he would be more. And what I liked

25:43

was the other guys at the table kind of pushing

25:45

back, but not, they were trying

25:48

to put

25:48

some intellectual constraints

25:51

on the idea that gender roles are fucked.

25:53

And it was sort of like, well done in the

25:56

sense that it's like, yeah, because they can't even conceive

25:59

of the idea that- like men being the forebearers

26:02

of progress is

26:04

wrong. They can't even conceive of that

26:06

for the most part. They're just like,

26:09

you know, their brains kind of can't imagine it.

26:12

And so their pushbacks aren't like

26:14

rooted in like, this is a dangerous

26:16

idea. It's more just like, and

26:19

it felt, yeah, and it felt very sensitively

26:21

written to,

26:23

you know, there's like, we've talked about before, the

26:25

something Picasso lines like from Titanic,

26:28

like who made that painting? I don't know something Picasso.

26:30

We're supposed to be like,

26:31

we know that is, whereas you

26:33

could write this in a way where it's like, man,

26:36

one day there's gonna be a gender

26:38

revolution. First, second, third-wave

26:40

feminism,

26:40

hashtags of me too

26:43

and times, but they really do write

26:45

it. But her postcards. But,

26:48

Jesus Christ. But

26:50

the way- But her telegrams.

26:51

But her telegrams. But

26:54

they write it from the perspective

26:57

of people who would exist at that

26:59

time, where they're struggling to articulate

27:01

what they even mean. And they're talking

27:03

about, oh yeah, this is kind of unfair

27:06

and really having to grapple with, as

27:08

is always the case with like structural

27:10

and cultural progress, where it starts with a very

27:12

personal relationship. So it's not like Abe

27:15

is gonna get woke or whatever because

27:17

he reads the news and watches

27:19

TV. It's like, oh, my granddaughter

27:21

is more talented than my grandson. And

27:24

my daughter, he says my daughter

27:26

is a remarkable person. I

27:28

don't think I've ever told her that. Which feels

27:30

very, people in the comments and

27:33

people on Reddit were like, that's a very Richard Gilmore

27:35

conception of like, paternal

27:37

or patriarchal affection. It's

27:39

like, I love them because they're so extraordinary.

27:42

But almost that kind of confronting

27:45

them with the inherent native

27:47

humanity and hopefully like

27:49

looking forward to a future of a better egalitarianism.

27:52

But I was just blown away by the scene and

27:55

it moved me to tears in parts

27:57

even.

27:58

I thought- It was really beautiful.

27:59

Shalub. I mean,

28:01

legend. I was lubed up for it. I was lubed

28:04

up. Truly like, I mean,

28:06

I was ready to be reamed by

28:08

the acting. Okay.

28:11

So yeah. And I

28:13

feel like that was the act. All

28:15

was relaxed. Okay.

28:19

I don't know. Do you prefer

28:21

him more in a dramatic gear

28:22

in this show or a comedic?

28:25

I can't being the

28:28

kind of actor who can make both things happen

28:30

to me. Like you have to have all those

28:32

things to be a good actor, in my opinion, in

28:34

my opinion, you have to be able to do the

28:37

climbing and the hanging out with friends.

28:39

The climbing. This is a reference to our discussion. Oh, to

28:41

an off my conversation about it's

28:44

Tom Cruise. Believable. So

28:46

that's what I think. Wait, I want to find just even

28:48

like a little clip of it. My

28:51

parents house had no electricity

28:53

till I was seven. One can't keep up.

28:55

Yes. And it's physiological

28:58

as much as it is psychological. Homo sapiens

29:00

crawled along playing the same roles

29:02

for tens and tens of thousands of years. And

29:05

now suddenly we're forced to adapt to this rapid

29:08

fire change, more change in a

29:10

year than our predecessors experienced

29:12

in a lifetime in a millennium. Think about it. Change

29:15

to our predecessors were sudden exogenous

29:18

events, earthquakes,

29:19

floods, an eclipse, a saber-toothed

29:21

tiger lunging at you out of nowhere.

29:24

They were things to be dealt with in the moment. Then

29:26

things naturally reverted back to the

29:28

norm. But now change

29:31

happens over you. Change itself is the flood. Change

29:33

itself is the saber-toothed. Change itself

29:35

is the norm. My fear though is that

29:38

the world is as it always was. And

29:40

I just didn't see it. That

29:42

a lot of us didn't see it, us men.

29:45

I had a feeling we'd get gender specific. I'm

29:48

serious. We can't blame exogenous

29:51

events. It's too easy. Our

29:52

collective blindness has caused a

29:55

lot of harm. We control

29:57

so much. Metal so much.

29:59

And to what end? That's one man's perception. Exactly.

30:03

And perception is tricky. We all interpret

30:05

through the lens of ourselves, man and woman.

30:08

That's natural. That we must have shared with the hunter-gatherers.

30:12

Menus, gentlemen. Anyway, it

30:14

gets even more tender, but we don't need to play. Tender. Oh,

30:17

that tender. So I got a little emotional

30:19

throughout these last two. When she

30:22

said the thing about Joel leaving

30:24

Midge, and that that was her saber-tooth.

30:27

Yeah, and it made her stronger. For it. Yeah,

30:30

that was really good.

30:32

And even confessing, yeah,

30:34

my daughter owns the apartment. We just told you the story

30:36

that we bought it back because we were embarrassed

30:39

and ashamed and like, yeah. To me,

30:41

this is like a very satisfying and also

30:43

earned arc for him

30:45

as someone who always felt more

30:47

connected to his daughter than Rose,

30:50

than her mother. It felt like

30:52

the great kind of penultimate episode

30:54

of a series payoff.

30:56

Like this is his emotional epiphany.

30:58

The series could have ended there. Just

31:02

like even three randos

31:04

at a table being like, maybe men are bad. I don't know. Cut

31:07

out. Cut to black,

31:09

you know. Also concurrent

31:11

to this is Midge

31:13

getting a little more clout at Gordon Ford. She gets a pay bump.

31:16

And then because Frank

31:18

from succession, not the size actual name, George is his

31:21

name on the show has exited now.

31:25

Okay. Well, does the rule that

31:26

if you work there, you can't be on the show

31:28

still exists. So now she's being lobbied

31:30

for it. She finds out that Hetty knew Susan

31:33

or Susie as we know her now, and

31:36

then not knowing the extent of

31:38

their prior relationship. Lobby's

31:40

really hard for Susie to

31:42

this. This was.

31:43

I want to know, I really desperately

31:46

need to know your opinion on this whole thing. Okay.

31:48

Well, I,

31:50

I was

31:54

really blown away by it. Really?

31:57

Yeah. You thought it was bad. Well,

31:59

I need, tell me more.

31:59

In the sense of,

32:02

again, like we talked about in one of, or

32:04

maybe both of the last two episodes, the

32:06

idea that

32:08

the way that a lot of series stumble and

32:10

fall is when the scope of it gets too

32:12

big, you split your characters out geographically

32:15

too much. There's a universe in which this

32:18

show could have had a final season, which

32:20

it's midget and sues down the road

32:21

and then the parents and the families

32:23

back in New York and all those shenanigans

32:25

and cut across between those two things

32:28

and there's like nine plot lines and you get a little

32:30

bit of that with the flashbacks, I guess, or the flash

32:32

forwards rather,

32:33

but I thought the idea of,

32:35

wait, who is Susie and who

32:37

is Midge? Why do they need each other?

32:39

What are the inherent conflicts and how did they get

32:41

made? And the idea as is revealed

32:44

somewhat later that this relationship

32:47

with Hetty, with Gordon Ford's now current wife, who's

32:49

maybe fluid or maybe a little bit in the closet herself,

32:52

that the relationship and the way that ended with Susie

32:54

in college fucked her up so bad that that's

32:57

kind of what made her as we see

32:59

her at the beginning of the show, at the gaslight

33:02

where she's just kind of working away, hiding

33:04

in the shadows, doing her thing and retreated

33:06

from a life of ambition and love

33:09

and that the thing, the gauntlet

33:11

to pass, to just get Midge a spot

33:14

on the show, not a huge thing,

33:16

not like to get Midge the world tour,

33:19

to get Midge the movie star role in

33:21

this, but it's just like to get her a spot on the

33:23

show that she's working on. It felt just

33:25

so tight and small

33:27

scale and personal

33:29

and the

33:30

kind of heaviness of

33:32

that obstacle of like,

33:33

talk to this person that you know, because

33:35

that's your job as my managers

33:38

to work every angle you can. And

33:40

that the conflict is this person fucked

33:42

me up a little bit in college. It

33:44

also has to do with everything of who I am

33:46

and even how we met together. We're bringing it full

33:48

circle in a way that like good

33:51

storytelling can of like, Midge and

33:53

Susie actually did need each other in some ways

33:55

because Susie wouldn't have become

33:57

the manager that she ends up becoming without

34:01

spotting someone like Midge and identifying

34:03

that at the beginning. And Midge wouldn't

34:05

have been shit without Susie, obviously, and her guidance

34:07

and wisdom. So they actually didn't eat each other. And

34:10

Hetty being this fulcrum

34:11

of it. And this complicated role

34:13

of the boss's wife, but the manager's

34:15

ex,

34:16

I thought was spectacularly

34:18

rendered. And especially the fact that when she's

34:20

lobbying for it, she doesn't know. If it was

34:23

one of those things of like, I don't care what you did in college, just

34:25

fix it, you know, that would have been a different flavor,

34:27

maybe. Whereas revealed in

34:29

the next episode of like, I would not have

34:31

done that. I would not have violated that boundary.

34:34

I mean, she says, who knows? That's

34:35

the thing. Like, I'm like, would

34:37

you have, you know, like

34:39

that kind of like, it felt to

34:42

me like Susie is always

34:45

worked every angle for you. And so if she's not working

34:47

this angle for you, it's not

34:49

because she's just like lazy, you know,

34:51

it's not because she's not dedicated. It's like,

34:55

because she can't

34:57

and there's a reason the woman has told you, I'm not

34:59

going to talk to you about this stuff. Like there's

35:02

never been a time where

35:04

Susie has not come through. Right? Like,

35:06

so just to me, it's just like,

35:08

trust her on this one. But I could

35:10

see bothered me. But as opaque

35:12

as Susie was being with her of like, I don't know, maybe I knew her.

35:15

Who cares? I knew a lot of people

35:16

in college. There wasn't a clarity of like,

35:19

Hey, Mitch, this is a boundary. I don't want to talk to this person. I

35:21

don't want to get into it. So I

35:22

would, she knows her.

35:24

Sure. She knows what she's not saying. She

35:26

even what she's obfuscating. But here's the other

35:28

thing. I also am trigger Roney

35:31

by this because this

35:33

situation is reminiscent of like problems

35:36

that I've had in the past with certain people who were

35:38

supposed to be working on my behalf, who,

35:40

what's his name names real quick. And

35:43

they were like, it

35:44

was Jerry McGuire. They

35:48

had people that they were

35:50

like managing who would do this type of stuff

35:52

that midges doing where it's like, I don't give a fuck what

35:54

the deal is. You do it. It's your job. Right.

35:58

This is on the line right now. Like I guess.

35:59

I need this and you know I need it. And

36:02

I won't get to the next thing if I don't get this. Do

36:04

it, fucking, I don't care. And just like having that

36:06

kind of ruthlessness with another person's life.

36:09

And I would not go there.

36:11

I would not do that to somebody.

36:14

You know what I mean? I have to trust

36:16

the people in my life who work with me to

36:18

have their boundaries intact. And I

36:21

will respect whatever those boundaries are. I don't violate

36:23

that. And

36:24

it makes me look back on decisions I made

36:26

to not do that and go like, was I not doing the right

36:29

thing? Should I have fought like Midge's fighting? It

36:31

was very triggering for me to watch. Cause I was just

36:33

like, fuck. Did I fuck

36:35

up? Because in the end, that

36:37

person that I didn't violate those boundaries with absolutely

36:40

violated my boundaries and fucked me over. So

36:42

like, what am I doing here? I don't think the

36:44

depiction of- I felt like it was soulless of Midge.

36:47

Right, but I don't think that depiction is the

36:49

endorsement of it either. Do you know what I mean? It's

36:51

not like the show saying it was right of Midge to lobby

36:53

so hard.

36:54

Even with

36:55

the ignorance of the ex. Do you know what I mean? Like

36:57

it worked out cause it worked out. And we'll

36:59

get into the finale of like, is any of this an endorsement

37:02

of anything at

37:02

all? Yeah. Cause of the way that it- And

37:04

I have to say like, it is the biggest shot because like at that time,

37:07

Gordon Ford, Jack Parr, like

37:10

the late night spots, the Gordon Ford show

37:12

being the number one show today would

37:15

not be even 10 years ago, doing a late night

37:17

spot would not be. But at that time,

37:19

it was the thing that launched your career.

37:21

If you got invited to the couch, you would work

37:23

as long as you wanted to after that. No question.

37:26

So for sure I get why

37:28

she's singularly obsessed with it.

37:31

We have to say that, I have to say that out loud

37:33

for myself, just because of how late night is not

37:35

a thing anymore. It's like, doesn't, but

37:38

even now 60 years later, there's

37:41

still like a sort of a mystique

37:43

around the idea of late nights. And that's

37:45

because of how, what a big deal it was

37:47

before. Yeah. But anyway,

37:50

yeah, I don't know. I felt like Midge is kind of

37:52

a monster in that scene. I could see that.

37:54

Yeah. Especially given your own experiences. If you're processing

37:56

it through the lens of, should I

37:59

have done that? Yeah. Like Susie's life

38:01

is her life. Don't fucking do this. Like,

38:03

but

38:04

then she did. And it did seem like Susie needed

38:06

to do that. Susie facing

38:09

up to Hedy in that way.

38:11

I think Susie

38:13

needed to go through it personally anyway,

38:16

but that was not for Mitch to say. And that

38:18

scene

38:18

of Hedy and Susie talking

38:20

to each other, I also found to be profoundly

38:23

moving in the sense of that

38:25

actress, Nina Arianda,

38:28

I think is her name.

38:29

Nina Ariana Grande. Her

38:32

name is Nina Arianda. Um,

38:35

she does so much with so little. Yes. And

38:38

to echo it again, all the late additions

38:41

to the cast, they nailed in terms

38:43

of Gordon, in terms of Mike,

38:45

and certainly for Hedy, we're at one point,

38:48

and this is maybe one

38:50

of the more salient

38:52

pieces of the show for me as well.

38:54

She's like, you really believe in her? Or

38:56

is there something more?

38:58

And then it just lies there and there's no follow

39:00

up. And there's just like this, there's this

39:02

inference of like, are you kind of in love

39:04

with her maybe a little bit?

39:07

And it doesn't matter either way. And

39:09

Susie's face in that moment, isn't one

39:11

way or the other of like, she is in love with her. But

39:14

that question and kind of what you're talking

39:16

about the violation of boundaries

39:19

and the amorphousness and the way the person, the professionals

39:21

bleeding over into each other. Like that's that

39:23

on full display in that moment

39:26

and how fucked up and impossibly

39:28

toxic and craving any of these machinations

39:31

are to begin with. The fact that you have to hit up anybody

39:34

that used to sleep with because the person you're kind

39:36

of in love with,

39:37

like whatever the case may be, it was

39:39

just such an effective scene.

39:41

Yes. And yeah, her, her

39:43

Ariande, Ms. Ariande is such

39:46

a choice and like, I fully, the

39:49

perfect casting. Can't say

39:51

enough good things about her. And then

39:53

she does it. She talks to Gordon. Gordon's like,

39:55

okay. She's QAnon though. Is

39:57

she? No. Oh, no. To

40:00

me, she's cute to none. Oh! Okay.

40:04

Now I'm just kidding around. I don't

40:06

have any opinions on the way any of these actors or actresses

40:09

look.

40:09

He really doesn't. Everyone's beautiful.

40:11

Everyone's ugly. He can't see. I

40:15

was having this

40:16

conversation the other day, by the way. Who is

40:18

our ugliest contemporary movie star?

40:20

Because it used to be in the 60s and 70s, they would let

40:23

not very good looking people be movie stars.

40:25

And now you do have to be a model.

40:28

Yeah, we were having this discussion. Everybody's

40:30

hot. And I've been looking at TV

40:32

through that lens and I'm just like, I don't

40:35

see it, man. But it's so subjective.

40:37

I'm saying movie

40:37

star now. I'm not saying character actors

40:40

that they let do their thing. You know, six

40:42

on the call sheet on some Showtime show.

40:44

I'm saying like someone who this

40:47

is the star, this is the person carrying

40:49

this movie. Right.

40:50

Who is the least attractive of these? Because

40:53

they don't really let him anymore.

40:54

Paul Giamatti? Paul Giamatti.

40:56

That was one of my first thoughts. He's a movie star. If

40:58

you saw him in real life, you'd be like, I mean, with all

41:00

of them, with anyone. I am attracted to Paul Giamatti. Yeah, of course.

41:03

But that's the thing. Men can get away with it. You

41:06

know,

41:06

yes, the ugliest people that are movie

41:08

stars are men.

41:09

And what does that say about our culture? Well,

41:12

I can't wait to get into it. I

41:14

say pop goes it.

41:17

Okay. Oh, hey. Oh,

41:20

grr.

41:21

This episode of the podcast is brought to you by

41:23

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44:38

Kevin, go.

44:39

Well, the one thing I was gonna bring up before we wrapped

44:41

up this episode is Hedy's conversation

44:44

with Midge at the bar about taking

44:47

credit. Is that the same thing you were gonna bring

44:48

up? Yes. So they have Princess

44:51

Margaret on the show. They write her a killer

44:53

bit that she nails all the time in

44:55

four perfectly, whatever.

44:57

No, but Princess Margaret

45:00

was an entertainer. I didn't realize

45:02

this about that. Yeah, I mean, she was classically

45:04

like,

45:05

she should have had the throne. She

45:07

was just like naturally, little sister

45:10

syndrome, super gregarious,

45:12

super social, always was begging for

45:14

more time in the spotlight since she was good at it. So,

45:17

makes sense. And she was very popular. She'd

45:19

go on the road all the time. I didn't realize this at all. Watch The

45:21

Crown. I have so

45:22

little understanding and

45:25

awareness of that time in history and the monarchy.

45:28

America loved Princess, everybody loved Princess Margaret.

45:30

So,

45:30

Midge is the only one in the room, in the writers

45:32

room with all the men that actually, much like this

45:34

conversation right now, has any understanding

45:37

of who she is or her brand at

45:39

the time. So she kind of sets

45:41

all this stuff up. She's the one that writes the weather

45:43

report jokes. She sets her up for success and it goes

45:46

really well. Two episodes in a row of like,

45:48

Midge talks to a guest once and then

45:50

the guest crushes

45:51

it. Well, it does, I mean, I hate it,

45:53

but if you think these episodes aren't back

45:55

to back, if you think of it like that, and in time

45:57

there's time between them and we're only seeing

45:59

the one.

45:59

where she helps out this way, but it does lend credence

46:02

to the idea that like, yeah, you do need other

46:04

kinds of diverse opinions in the writer's room because

46:06

you'll have guests on that the writers don't know

46:08

how to write for. So you need to have all those people.

46:11

So they're just showing why that's

46:13

true and I think that was done effectively. So

46:15

in the sort of wrap up at the bar afterwards,

46:18

Hetty's talking to Midge and she's like,

46:20

nice work on the piece on the Princess

46:22

of Mars stuff. And she's like, well, I just set it up and then

46:24

the boys made it funny. And she says, don't do that.

46:28

They take credit for everything. You should take

46:30

credit for the things that people

46:32

ascribe to you. Attribute to you. Yeah, attribute to you

46:35

or whatever the case may be. That's what you wanted

46:37

to talk about. Well, because

46:40

I

46:40

guess you didn't pick up

46:42

on the subtlety of

46:44

when Midge was with the college

46:47

girls and they were pulling out their

46:49

notes that they wrote their time capsule notes

46:51

and Midge's said, don't. And

46:54

so when Hetty said, not

46:56

don't do that, she said don't. It

46:58

was like, don't

47:00

allow other people to take credit for stuff

47:03

that you did type of thing. I was like,

47:05

that's where don't came. Like I knew don't was gonna

47:07

come in at some point. And then when Hetty said it, I was

47:09

like, there it is.

47:10

It was like a spiritual, that's a little

47:12

woo woo for the show though in some ways, right? It

47:15

is, I guess. Yeah, and famously

47:17

like ASP is so grounded

47:20

and gritty realist.

47:21

Yeah. Well, I'm

47:23

saying as far as like spiritual

47:26

coincidence is not really

47:28

part of her thing. I didn't think it was spiritual coincidence. I was just like,

47:30

whatever Midge, it doesn't mean

47:32

the same thing, obviously. That's not what Midge

47:35

meant, but like it came up

47:37

and it was like, I didn't say this.

47:40

And she is saying it now. Why not?

47:43

I get that. Whatever I meant at the time,

47:45

this works now.

47:46

Did that resonate with you as someone who likes

47:48

to steal credit for other people's work a lot?

47:50

Yeah,

47:53

but that's what I wanted to talk

47:56

about. Yeah, then we did. And now

47:58

I think it's time for five.

47:59

The final episode

48:02

of the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, entitled

48:04

Four Minutes. The synopsis is just the very last

48:06

episode of the series. That's all it says

48:09

on Prime.

48:11

And for one last time, my friend Alice

48:13

Wetterlin. 12 o'clock,

48:14

rock we're going to pop. Around. Culture.

48:17

Tonight.

48:17

She's crying, she's crying in the room,

48:19

oh

48:20

my God. We're gonna pop.

48:22

Around the couch. Every

48:25

pop culture reference in. Oh culture,

48:28

my culture. By the way,

48:30

we didn't talk about

48:31

all the kind of flashback structure

48:34

of the last episode, where

48:36

Joel and Midge go to the school and

48:38

they're like, why is Ethan in trouble? They're like, no,

48:40

we hate your father and we're

48:42

kicking him out. And then they keep flashing

48:44

back to the pilot, you know, when he first starts

48:47

his affair with Penny and

48:49

when she first is meeting

48:51

his parents and things like that, which

48:53

I thought were very lovingly and sentimentally

48:55

done. But for now, this

48:57

is 509, pop around the culture.

49:00

Where one day Bob Hope walks up to me at a restaurant

49:02

and says, hi, I'm Bob Hope. You probably don't remember

49:04

meeting me. And I say, of course I do. I'll have the chicken.

49:06

I heard a story about Mary Martin, Broadway

49:09

star.

49:09

They thought they booked Bruce Lee. Cara offered

49:11

her plane. They booted the guy who didn't

49:13

know which character Danny Bonaducci

49:16

played on the Partridge family. Planning to elope

49:18

with Elvis. The time you talked to Albert Grossman.

49:20

It better not be Buddy Hackett's because his team is quick to upset.

49:22

Like Ruby Keeler moved in. Who are you,

49:25

Mae West? Martha Stewart. I'm

49:27

Dick Gregory's manager. I'm Phyllis Diller's manager.

49:29

I'm Eartha Kitt's manager. I'm a lot of people's managers.

49:31

This is not Narnia. Being a coward

49:33

is only cute in the Wizard of Oz. Tell him Yoko's

49:35

complaining. That'll shut him up. Tell

49:38

him Yoko's complaining. That'll shut him up. Four

49:40

minutes, the last

49:42

episode of the show, which opens

49:45

with some sad shit.

49:47

Opens with Lenny Bruce

49:48

struggling through it.

49:51

Super dark. It's 1965. If

49:53

he is strung out out of his mind,

49:56

just reading court documents and stuff, doing

49:58

standup.

49:59

And the Paladinos did talk about

50:02

this in interviews

50:02

about how they wanted to frame it because

50:06

there's a photograph

50:06

of him overdosed in his bathtub.

50:09

That's like Googleable words, like it's this man's

50:12

dead body. And they didn't wanna go as far as

50:14

to show anything like as

50:16

gruesome as like, these are the final moments or this

50:18

is the last conversation that him

50:21

and me, I guess the last conversation is the one that they

50:23

had at the airport at the beginning of the season, but

50:25

it shows them in

50:28

a sort of ego list performance by

50:31

Luke Kirby, just really

50:33

struggling through a stand up set, people coughing.

50:35

I thought the way that the audience was mixed in with

50:38

that word, like he would just say, and there'd

50:40

be some like titters of laughter

50:41

the way that there would be at any show.

50:43

The way that anybody would react to any of Midge's real sets.

50:47

And then Susie talks to him backstage and she's like,

50:50

bro, this sucks. I will

50:52

help you and I will call in favors

50:54

and get you on the right path. And he's like,

50:56

no, use your favors for someone else

50:59

who deserves it more.

51:01

He's like, is Midge here? She says, no, she walks out,

51:03

Midge was there

51:04

and they never see each other, which was

51:06

such a bummer. And

51:09

I'm almost curious as to why they include

51:11

it. It was very lovingly done,

51:13

but I was wondering about the

51:15

importance of

51:16

framing the last episode. He was

51:18

such a, as a small character, he was

51:20

a huge part of the series and he's a huge part

51:22

of comedic history at that time. So I

51:24

think they wanted to at least

51:26

acknowledge the history and

51:29

it was another situation of like

51:32

news, that the SNL

51:34

being on TV during that, remember that

51:36

thing we're talking about where there's like that. Studio 60. Studio 60,

51:38

that SNL also existed. SNL

51:40

also exists, Gordon Ford exists at the same

51:42

time as Johnny Carson. Johnny Carson, yeah, it was

51:44

another one of those things where like Lenny Bruce exists.

51:47

And so I feel like not talking

51:49

about it would be a bit of a cop out, but

51:52

also like this person was instrumental

51:55

in helping Midge get where she was. And

51:58

then she couldn't save him.

51:59

Do you remember in the pilot, the last scene of it where

52:02

he gets a prison and she says

52:04

him, but do you love it? And he shrugs

52:07

his shoulders and she goes, yeah,

52:09

he loves it. And then this, this scene with

52:11

him, his last shot is him kind of shrugging shoulders

52:13

and walking away

52:14

as well. He loves the drug. Well,

52:17

I mean, Suzy says, do you love heroin? Yeah.

52:21

Do you love heroin? That's sad. Uh, and

52:23

then the rest of the episode, it's pretty much a,

52:26

a plot only episode where it's just

52:28

about her spot

52:30

on the Gordon Ford show. Right. And

52:33

all of the obstacles and trials and machinations

52:36

of actually getting there and finally delivering

52:38

on the promise of the whole series that they've talked about

52:41

for years of like, we know this and it ends with her

52:43

on the couch with Carson or whatever the equivalent

52:45

is.

52:46

And

52:48

the obstacles to getting there is

52:50

Gordon Ford is fucking pissed off.

52:53

And I think because of the, it would seem

52:55

because he's just feeling like people

52:57

encroached on his territory.

52:58

He was manipulated by three women and

53:01

he hates that. People, men hate that in 2023 to say

53:03

nothing in 1961. So

53:05

like to have that be, to

53:07

be strong armed by three women in

53:10

that position where he feels like he's King shit

53:13

on fuck mountain is incredibly

53:16

egregious to him. So there is, I

53:18

find that fully believable if upsetting.

53:21

I find that to be like, yeah, of course he would throw a

53:23

fit.

53:24

He would do the thing, but make it worse than

53:26

anybody could ever imagine because he would throw a fit.

53:28

Yeah, I get that. Yeah. That, that felt believable

53:30

to me. And I like that, like they didn't end

53:33

up having a thing together. It's like the

53:35

woman, the woman he's married to and

53:37

the woman he's romantically attracted to. And

53:39

then the woman who's

53:42

manager of that person who is also

53:44

romantically attracted to her, just

53:45

cucking him left and right on this show.

53:47

So hard. Just

53:49

so funny to think about. So

53:52

yeah, of course he reacted that way.

53:54

Mage finds Susie on a bench

53:56

in central park after she assaults

53:58

some cops, but then she gets off. because she gambles

54:01

with the police commissioner, the police chief, whoever

54:04

it is. And then- Which is like ACAB. Yeah,

54:06

Suzy said ACAB in the Mrs. Maisel

54:09

finale. Uh, and

54:12

then they go to some sort of diner and the place

54:14

with, I forget what this is called, but the thing where

54:16

you can put it- Cakes in the, yeah. In

54:18

the windows. I don't know what this

54:21

is called, where you put in a little quarter of a

54:23

dime and you get a slice of chocolate cake. It's called something?

54:25

Yeah, I think it is. I think it's called Kevin's Kitchen.

54:28

I wish. They be cool? I

54:30

would love that. I haven't baked

54:31

anything in over a week. Oh my God.

54:33

I'm sorry, did not feel like myself anymore.

54:36

When's your birthday again? May,

54:38

honey. Oh fuck. It's over. I

54:40

wish you happy birthday though. Yeah, but

54:42

you could- I didn't make you okay. Make father's days coming

54:44

up. Okay, I'll make you a father's day cake. Okay. Okay,

54:47

great. What's your favorite kind? I'm going on

54:49

a diet though, so you can't really. You don't want

54:51

sugar? Sorry. Okay.

54:54

Sucks. So she finally explains to her like,

54:56

oh, I had this relationship with this woman, so it was a very

54:58

fraught thing to ask her for a favor. And

55:01

that's

55:01

when she says, oh, I wouldn't have done that if you

55:03

had told me.

55:04

And she's like, ah, it's fine and whatever.

55:07

And then they kind of have some sort of understanding.

55:09

And then the rest of the episode is just like a one-track

55:12

goal of like getting Mitch on the show, getting

55:14

her to do stand up,

55:16

and then the rest of her career.

55:17

Again, the way that they set

55:20

this whole season up,

55:21

it's not, is this going to happen? It all happened.

55:23

We know that from the jump. Yeah, that's nice. That

55:26

she made it. So I do appreciate

55:28

with things like that to not rely on fake

55:30

tension, which is like anytime

55:33

you watch a sports drama where it's like, are

55:35

they going to win or not? But rather-

55:36

Lasso. Excuse

55:38

me. Can't talk about that again. But make

55:41

it in not about if or what, but about

55:43

how. So wait,

55:44

how is she going to end up? Wait, Gordon hates

55:46

her. She's encountering resistance in all

55:48

these ways. How do they circumvent and

55:50

navigate

55:51

that? Yeah, well done. Well done for sure.

55:53

It felt good to just engage with it

55:56

on that level. And the sorts of built-in

55:58

sentimentality. of, Hey, let's

56:01

get all these people in the room for one last time.

56:03

Right. Cause that would make sense for them

56:05

to support after this whole journey of them all

56:07

having their reactions, her

56:09

marriage falling apart, her parents

56:12

disowning her, then reowning her and like everything,

56:15

they've all gone through the whole thing and now

56:17

they all support and they're all there. And the thing with

56:20

Rose coming around in the end and not believing

56:22

that Mitch wanted her to be there

56:24

after leaving her phone off the hook for four fucking hours.

56:27

Yes.

56:28

I thought that was really funny and very

56:31

well done how it's busy cause it's off the

56:33

hook and she puts it on immediately rings and like three

56:35

people call in a row. I love that. I

56:37

thought that was cute and really well done. Yeah.

56:39

And, and felt satisfying to her. Like we

56:41

were saying that

56:42

it was a satisfying conclusion for

56:45

if Abe had an arc where he's just like

56:47

very sincerely, I mean,

56:49

this stuff got me emotional weirdly

56:52

watching it where he's just like, this

56:54

is a wonderful thing. Yeah. Midge.

56:55

And just like, that did

56:58

resonate with me as a performer

57:00

people in my life, when I'm

57:02

in the middle of some fucking

57:05

shit, fuck show of like,

57:07

yeah, you got bumped from the third slot

57:09

because, and I needed the third slot because one

57:12

reason or like, yeah, you are going to

57:14

get cast, but since you can't do

57:16

this, you won't get top of show. And it's like some, you

57:18

know, the way that the little ways that

57:21

the industry does, you know, to

57:23

tell you you're worthless, even though they will

57:26

have you there at the party, they won't let you be on

57:28

the red carpet or whatever, some shit, you know,

57:31

and then the people in my life who, where I came from

57:33

going like,

57:35

wow, it's so exciting. You got to be at that party or

57:37

wow. It's so exciting. You got to be on that show, even

57:39

though in my head, I'm like, everybody

57:41

in the industry once again, got together to

57:43

tell Alice Wetterlin, you know, what a fucking

57:46

piece of Fred shit she is. You know what I mean?

57:48

Like from my perspective, I was talking

57:50

to my best friend the other day. Um,

57:52

I don't remember talking to you. Well, this is one

57:54

of my, I say my best friend, but that's because

57:57

secretly you're my room. Anyway. You

58:02

can't see its face, it's legitimately

58:04

satisfied with that. My

58:07

best friend, Braden, who I grew up with,

58:09

who's a child psychologist, she works

58:11

in the Minneapolis school system,

58:13

very far outside the world of entertainment.

58:16

But she understands me, and she understands

58:18

what I go through. I was having this

58:20

thing, this press thing, and I was going

58:22

through it, and it was really hard for me. It was just

58:24

like, it's so hard because from

58:27

our perspective, you're such a big deal.

58:30

You are among everybody that we talk

58:32

to, your whole family, all your friends, the people that

58:34

are here, we're just rooting for you

58:37

and you're such this big deal. But

58:39

for you, you have to go through all these

58:41

fucking trials and tribulations

58:44

and biblical lengths to get

58:46

to feel like you're a big

58:48

deal, and you don't get to feel that.

58:51

But we have it for you. So

58:54

that really resonated with me, to have to go over to

58:56

your family and be like, yeah, it was going to be a big night. And

58:58

they're like, it was going to be.

58:59

Yeah, when Rose says that. Yeah, that

59:01

was really perfect. I thought that was really well done.

59:03

It was like, yeah, only somebody in that position could understand.

59:06

And so it speaks to, I

59:09

don't know what you would even say is the full story

59:11

of the show, start to finish

59:13

in these 43 episodes across five seasons.

59:16

In 17 years. In 17 years. If

59:19

it's

59:20

not the plot, but the story, is

59:22

this story about

59:24

ambition versus love? Is

59:26

it about career versus family?

59:29

Is it about having it all? Because

59:31

ultimately where the show ends up

59:33

is more in a career

59:35

oriented way because of the way the finale

59:38

ends with like, and threaded throughout is

59:40

like, oh, there's a strange man with the children.

59:43

There's distance with everybody, even in one of the most

59:45

fundamental working relationships over

59:47

life. Quite a gap

59:49

of distance for at least years, even

59:52

if there was some sort of reconciliation.

59:54

She can't be with the man she loves because he's

59:56

in prison. Because he took a mafia

59:58

bullet for her and.

59:59

down the charges, but isn't that

1:00:02

nice that she keeps a picture of him on the desk? Yeah.

1:00:05

But

1:00:05

that almost sums up so much of

1:00:08

it's like that moment of the cognitive dissonance

1:00:11

between because the conflict on the shows, Gordon

1:00:13

Ford says, Oh no, you're not doing stand

1:00:15

up. You're going to be a little writer. I'm going to do like

1:00:17

a little human interesting because he's being a petty little bitch.

1:00:20

And she's like, wait, no, I need to do my stand up. And

1:00:23

Dina just got this new dress for me from

1:00:25

the store and all this stuff. And the

1:00:28

sort of,

1:00:29

whether you want to say like shake from the

1:00:31

real world or reality of in people who

1:00:33

do love and care about you being like, this

1:00:35

is great. And you disagree with them and

1:00:38

you feel like an asshole for being like, well, it

1:00:40

was going to be good. And they're just smiling and so

1:00:42

happy and proud of you and almost tears in their eyes

1:00:45

and just feeling that conflict of you

1:00:47

could have done basically what you were doing

1:00:49

in the first episode for the rest of your life. You

1:00:51

could have lived underneath your mom. You could have had

1:00:54

more of a relationship with your kids than

1:00:56

you ended up having because you became

1:00:58

so famous. Everybody loves you except for

1:01:00

the people that you're related to

1:01:02

and maybe should love you the most.

1:01:04

There's that line at Steve Jobs. You get a tried heroin.

1:01:08

Have you seen Steve Jobs, the Sorkin

1:01:10

Fassbender movie? Well,

1:01:13

that movie really grew on me and I was crying

1:01:16

watching it on a plane recently and Kate

1:01:18

Winslet playing, I forget the woman's name,

1:01:21

but she's one of Steve's advisors

1:01:24

and it takes place in three different time periods

1:01:27

like right before one of his talks. And the

1:01:29

third part of it, it's him

1:01:31

reckoning with being a shitty dad or

1:01:34

her trying to get him to reckon with it. And

1:01:36

she says, when your father, the best

1:01:38

things about you should not be the things that you

1:01:40

make

1:01:41

and the things that you accomplish. Being

1:01:44

a father should be the best thing about you and it's

1:01:46

not.

1:01:47

And similarly, this is

1:01:50

a show in which Midge is a mom and

1:01:52

it's very clear from the text of the show that

1:01:54

being a mother, being a daughter

1:01:57

to her parents, being a family member and a

1:01:59

friend.

1:01:59

none of those roles are the best thing about Midge

1:02:02

Maisel. And she doesn't want

1:02:04

them to be. Ultimately, that's not

1:02:06

her priority.

1:02:07

And that comes at a cost, but it's

1:02:09

so interesting to see almost like

1:02:12

the

1:02:13

ellipsis of interpretation that

1:02:15

the show ends on too, of like,

1:02:17

it's sad, or is it kind of sad?

1:02:19

Like her wandering around a huge

1:02:21

empty apartment by herself all alone

1:02:24

in the year 2005? 73 years

1:02:27

old if you're doing the math of how old she actually

1:02:29

is, based on when the show started.

1:02:31

And... Thank you for doing that, because I was like,

1:02:33

is she a hundred? She's a hundred and ninety. I think that's

1:02:36

why they did in 2005, because to do in 2023, you'd be

1:02:38

like, well, it's my hundred and levityth

1:02:40

birthday, like Bilbo or something.

1:02:42

Bilbo. But

1:02:45

to get back to the Gordon Ford before we do the 2005

1:02:47

stuff,

1:02:49

it's a conflict of there's this one

1:02:51

gorgeous tracking shot where

1:02:53

in an echo of the way that the season opens

1:02:56

with Midge going, Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike,

1:02:58

Mike. Susie does the same thing.

1:03:00

I know. And there's this tracking shot

1:03:02

where it goes up into the stairs, into

1:03:06

the thing, into

1:03:07

the studio. There is someone

1:03:09

did a behind the scenes of what it took to actually

1:03:12

do the tracking shot. It

1:03:14

starts on a crane, a Steadicam operator

1:03:16

takes it off a crane, it's followed with these

1:03:18

two guys, they follow them down a hallway, they

1:03:20

put it back onto a crane and then

1:03:22

they float it down. It's like a complicated

1:03:25

dance that looks like crews jumping, doing

1:03:27

the Halo jump and the last mission impossible. It's

1:03:29

like, whoa, like the way they had to choreograph

1:03:32

it and it's like literally every principal

1:03:34

cast member is in this shot and everyone

1:03:36

in the main cast. It was just like very beautiful

1:03:38

to behold. I think people I found it on

1:03:41

Reddit, but I'm sure it's... That's amazing. ...available

1:03:43

for people to...

1:03:44

I love that stuff. This stuff

1:03:46

about... Yeah, you can see it right here. I'm playing it for Alison.

1:03:48

Oh, my God. Incredible. And you can see just

1:03:50

like all the choreography and truly the dance,

1:03:53

as is, you know, the Marvelous

1:03:55

Mrs. Maisel is a musical. It's a musical

1:03:58

show and this is all part of it.

1:03:59

but it's like mesmerizing to watch. And you

1:04:02

don't really appreciate the

1:04:04

sweat and effort

1:04:06

that goes into something like that until

1:04:08

you do see it from a different angle.

1:04:09

Yeah.

1:04:11

But kind of ratcheting it up in this like beautiful

1:04:13

way where it's like, oh, here, finally, here's the

1:04:15

big opportunity. But there's still these human

1:04:18

obstacles that don't feel bullshitty where it's like,

1:04:20

of course Gordon Ford feels fucked around. Of

1:04:23

course he feels petty that his wife

1:04:25

that he has this very curious relationship with

1:04:27

kind of manipulated

1:04:28

and called- Basically already cucking

1:04:30

him in reality. His life is

1:04:32

cuck city. And his most recent

1:04:35

success as per our last

1:04:37

episode is because of her. So

1:04:39

he must be feeling it, you know? Like

1:04:42

he's super excited, but the postpartum depress

1:04:44

of that moment of having Princess Margaret on is

1:04:47

realizing this was bestowed upon

1:04:49

him by the powers that be being

1:04:52

his woman. So all

1:04:54

the stakes of this and then him trying

1:04:57

to

1:04:57

like sort of humiliate men, John

1:04:59

Eyre. Yeah. Which of course is what

1:05:01

he tries to do after all that cuckery. Right.

1:05:04

It was very effective. And then of course,

1:05:06

you know, after these conversations we're talking

1:05:08

about where everyone's so jacked up, for some reason,

1:05:10

Moisha's not there. And I'm like, did Kevin Paul have

1:05:13

COVID and he couldn't make it?

1:05:15

Cause it's very weird. Everyone is

1:05:17

there. Shirley's there.

1:05:19

Why is Moisha not there? Oh,

1:05:22

he's not. And in interviews they're like- I would love

1:05:24

it if he was like, I don't support her.

1:05:27

The last person. I actually never liked her. She

1:05:30

wasn't for me. I'm sure maybe he'll

1:05:32

talk about one day. Oh, he has a podcast so we can

1:05:34

listen. Yes, that's right. That's

1:05:36

why I said that. He should have us on. He should.

1:05:39

That's weird that he doesn't. I'm

1:05:41

mad at him now. He'll have Josh Gondelman on

1:05:43

who contributed a lot to this season.

1:05:45

Do you know Josh? Oh, I loved, no, of

1:05:47

course he's amazing. It would be weird to meet

1:05:50

someone who didn't love him. But I- It

1:05:52

would be really weird if somebody was like, Matt, fuck that guy. I saw

1:05:54

him recently and he- That's a funny person to hate.

1:05:56

Wait, the guy that's

1:05:59

nice to everyone?

1:05:59

The guy where there's like no gap between

1:06:02

his public and private persona. Fuck

1:06:04

that guy. Yeah, I caught up with him recently

1:06:06

in New York and he was talking about his experience working

1:06:09

on the show and he said it was a really

1:06:11

positive experience for the most part. And

1:06:14

there were so many things that they really that Amy

1:06:16

and Dan really let him keep in

1:06:18

the script

1:06:20

and like little contributions and additions.

1:06:22

And that was his first time working in an hour long

1:06:24

drama format. And he said it was

1:06:26

a really positive experience start to finish. On kajams.

1:06:29

On kajams. On kajosh. So

1:06:32

we were all saying that to say, oh, she goes back

1:06:34

and then she sees the microphone and all

1:06:36

the sound cuts out.

1:06:37

You hear her heels in the footsteps

1:06:40

sound effects of that. And then she

1:06:42

says to Susie, I think I'm going to do something reckless

1:06:44

and they talk about it a little bit. And then they

1:06:46

do the final tits up

1:06:47

and then she pivots and kind of takes control.

1:06:50

And because Gordon Ford, this is where the title

1:06:52

of the episode comes from. He cuts it off early

1:06:55

after she gets her first laughed in the first segment.

1:06:57

Yeah. He's like, uh, we're going to go to commercials. So

1:06:59

cut to commercial. And then they're like, Mike's freaking

1:07:01

out. We have four minutes. And

1:07:04

Mike, I love the way Mike plays this because he's not

1:07:06

like,

1:07:06

come on, man, give her a shot. Give her a shot.

1:07:09

You gotta do it. Like, we're on TV. I'm

1:07:11

making TV and the person

1:07:13

in front of me will not let me make TV. Right.

1:07:16

Because he's being an idiot. But he does some reason he does

1:07:19

reinforce.

1:07:19

She is funny, man. Yeah.

1:07:22

Like you, this is going to be good for the show. Here's the easiest solution to

1:07:24

my problem. Right. And then he's like, come

1:07:26

on, give her a shot. It's like, whatever. Give her a shot.

1:07:29

I guess because she's right there already. Dumbass. Yeah.

1:07:31

And I love how he never was like, all right, now

1:07:33

we're best friends. Yeah. Now

1:07:35

I'm team Mitch. He was just like, come on.

1:07:38

Yeah. And then she takes over the microphone

1:07:40

and does the set of a lifetime that

1:07:42

does, as you pointed out, less more than four

1:07:45

minutes.

1:07:45

I'm going to talk about that at length for

1:07:47

probably longer than four minutes because it, but

1:07:49

go on. And

1:07:52

does her, you know, version of standup

1:07:55

and the Ted talk stuff and kind of

1:07:57

sums up the whole series and how she can't

1:07:59

remember.

1:07:59

for her children's names, which may or may not be

1:08:02

a joke in certain parts and she

1:08:04

kills it, crushes it, nails it, gets

1:08:06

invited to Gordon Ford's couch. And

1:08:08

that is the end of the 1961 era.

1:08:11

Now we can get into the nitty gritty of the stand

1:08:14

up if you want to.

1:08:15

What was your takeaway from it? Well,

1:08:18

a little long for me, a little

1:08:21

long. Did you find it- There were several

1:08:23

problems that I had. And yeah, they're gonna be the same

1:08:25

problems I always have, which is like,

1:08:29

so much of it seems off the cuff related

1:08:32

to the moment you're in, which like,

1:08:34

yeah, one or two lines, but like that much

1:08:36

of your set. And then also I

1:08:37

was already stressed out prior to even

1:08:40

them getting the rug pulled out under them because

1:08:42

they're sitting in fucking makeup

1:08:45

deciding what to put in the set. And yeah, I know

1:08:47

that this was given to her that morning, but

1:08:49

even so that morning, within 15,

1:08:52

20 minutes, you're gonna know what your

1:08:54

set is. You're not gonna be going back

1:08:56

and forth because you're going to be memorizing

1:08:58

your set.

1:08:59

You're not a fucking, you're not Lenny Bruce. You're

1:09:02

not going off the cuff. Like it made me insane

1:09:04

that they were like, what's the order? What's the order?

1:09:06

Holy fuck. You're not gonna be able to remember the order

1:09:08

if you don't have it done three hours ahead of time. Like

1:09:10

your brain has to have a moment to catch up. It

1:09:13

was driving me fucking nuts

1:09:14

because everybody that I know who has ever done

1:09:17

late night, including myself, you have to

1:09:19

get the set submitted weeks

1:09:21

in advance. And they give it back to you with

1:09:23

notes. Like you don't just decide

1:09:26

in the makeup chair what to do. Unless like

1:09:29

the only person I know who's ever done that is Reggie Watts.

1:09:31

Cause like he was on Fallon and they were like, we need your set. And

1:09:34

he's like, well, I'm Reggie Watts. So it's

1:09:37

like, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue. So then

1:09:39

there was that.

1:09:40

Then the whole thing is the whole episode

1:09:42

is called four minutes. And

1:09:44

then she's saying to Susie four minutes. And

1:09:47

I'm going,

1:09:48

wow, okay, you're gonna have to do three minutes,

1:09:51

you know, like, cause you got that much, cause

1:09:54

like, how are you going to transition from the stool bit

1:09:56

to the mic bit? You're going to have to sacrifice

1:09:58

a minute there.

1:09:59

I have three minutes ready to go.

1:10:01

And I'm watching the time click down and I'm watching her

1:10:03

set and the lights change. And I'm like, no. Well,

1:10:07

Tim, no, no, no, no, no. But I'm gonna

1:10:09

push back on that. Please push back. Cause that was driving

1:10:11

me fucking crazy. That's a filmmaking thing.

1:10:14

I don't think that is meant to represent the reality

1:10:16

of what happened. But it is, it's

1:10:18

TV. It's TV. The cameras

1:10:21

are rolling. No,

1:10:22

no, no. But I'm saying the light change was like, you're

1:10:24

entering into her mental space. The way that

1:10:26

like something would change from black and white

1:10:28

and color into a movie. Does that make

1:10:30

sense where it's like, that's what it

1:10:32

felt like. I think it was supposed to be like a thematic

1:10:35

call.

1:10:35

So was she not actually saying all that stuff

1:10:37

on live television that she said? Because that took

1:10:39

longer than four minutes. Her just

1:10:41

getting to the mic, ending her set was longer

1:10:43

than four minutes. And then she goes to the couch

1:10:46

and we're still on TV. There's four minutes left

1:10:48

in the air slot. It made me insane.

1:10:50

It was just like, why? Why call

1:10:52

the episode four minutes? Why

1:10:54

be all about this four minutes when it's

1:10:57

not a four minute set? I'm just

1:10:59

like, I know it's not gonna matter for

1:11:01

most people, but for me, it's

1:11:04

just like, why do it? Why

1:11:06

violate the thing that you,

1:11:09

it just made me so, it made me say, cause it's no, it's

1:11:11

science fiction. There's

1:11:13

a loop in time that exists.

1:11:16

It's just like stupid. It's like, there's all

1:11:18

this pressure to get it into this short

1:11:21

period of time. And you know how in an action movie, it'll

1:11:23

be like, we have 10 seconds until the bomb

1:11:25

goes off. It's like that kind of thing where we see stuff

1:11:27

happen and you have to kind of twist your head

1:11:29

around. It

1:11:30

actually happening in 10 seconds for

1:11:33

the reality of the thing to make sense. But

1:11:35

they're still building in like this

1:11:37

crunch. There wasn't a crunch

1:11:40

in this.

1:11:41

There was no time for her to go to the couch, but she

1:11:43

did go to the couch. So like to me, it was like,

1:11:45

okay, so she's gonna have to do the set, but there's not gonna be

1:11:47

a couch. So that's a sacrifice she's gonna have to make.

1:11:50

And that's the decision the writers are making. No, they're not.

1:11:52

They're just not making that decision.

1:11:53

What? Make the decision.

1:11:56

I loved all the like Gordon Ford

1:11:58

throwing a fit shit to make it.

1:11:59

has to turn it around. But then why put the

1:12:02

artifice of like this, it still could have been like,

1:12:04

there's only 10 minutes left in the show. If there's

1:12:06

only 10 minutes left in the show, you can't go to the couch and

1:12:08

do standup and it's just watch me, okay, make

1:12:10

it happen.

1:12:11

You know what I mean? Like we don't need to know about the four

1:12:13

minutes. That's all I'm saying.

1:12:16

And I rest my case. And I do rest my

1:12:18

case. Because there's other stuff I didn't mention

1:12:20

about that. Like the shower stuff with

1:12:22

Shirley and- More shit falling

1:12:24

on each other. Very ASP. Very

1:12:28

ASP reasoning for why something is happening.

1:12:30

And I fucking loved it. I thought it was so great. We

1:12:32

fell back in love- We talked about it so much.

1:12:34

Because- And he's calling

1:12:36

her in. We can't get up. Yeah. Beautiful,

1:12:39

beautiful. And it felt right. And they looked very tender.

1:12:41

It was very funny to see two people act like that.

1:12:44

I loved you so much. It was wonderful. That didn't,

1:12:46

yeah, people aren't usually blocked that way. Where

1:12:48

they, all right, reconcile your marriage while water's

1:12:51

streaming onto your faces. Oh fantastic. And

1:12:53

you're half naked or in a robe. Fantastic.

1:12:56

Yeah, so much of this episode was just

1:12:59

perfectly well done. And then it's for the content

1:13:01

of the standup. Like

1:13:02

I didn't need her to do that, to

1:13:04

go into like, here's the story

1:13:06

of my life as up till now and now. It's like,

1:13:09

okay. I would

1:13:12

have appreciated more restraint there.

1:13:14

To make it feel a little bit more.

1:13:17

Because

1:13:17

we're gonna watch the whole set.

1:13:19

So what like subtle

1:13:21

things can she put in? Like I love

1:13:23

the whole, like I can't remember my kid's name stuff. I

1:13:26

thought that was great. What could we fit into

1:13:28

a

1:13:29

five minutes that would be like sort

1:13:31

of like, and the other thing was what

1:13:33

turned me off is like, I want to be so famous.

1:13:36

Because I think that's

1:13:38

evil.

1:13:39

You know what I mean? Like I think wanting to be famous,

1:13:41

wanting to be famous for me is the thing

1:13:44

that causes most of the bad

1:13:46

things to happen in my life. You know what I mean?

1:13:48

Like that's the most evil impulse I have. Is

1:13:50

this voice in my head that's like, you need to be more famous.

1:13:53

It's so fucking antithetical to creativity

1:13:56

and art. And like, in my opinion,

1:13:58

it's just like.

1:13:59

the whole thing now, like

1:14:02

the thing she said to the Bryn Maw girls, like people listen to

1:14:04

you, there's connection, like, and then

1:14:06

it's just like, I just wanna be fucking famous.

1:14:08

It's like, ugh, what? Gross.

1:14:11

You have to remind me after we're done recording

1:14:13

to tell you a story about

1:14:15

someone saying I wanna be famous to me.

1:14:17

Okay, I mean, there's

1:14:19

a glory there, there's a Hollywood-ness, there's

1:14:21

like a sort of like, I wanna be the, I

1:14:23

wanna see myself on, you know, Mr. Jones

1:14:26

kind of crows song, like I wanna see myself on TV

1:14:28

type of stuff. There is like, I

1:14:30

wanna be celebrated,

1:14:32

you know what I mean? I want my ideas to reach far

1:14:34

and wide. There's something about that that is like

1:14:37

human and not gross, but

1:14:39

the fact that she wants Bob Hope to be her underling,

1:14:41

like, I don't know, like it just, it's

1:14:43

maybe gendered and I could examine

1:14:45

my own internalized misogyny about this, but

1:14:48

it is just like off-putting.

1:14:49

You don't have to caveat yourself so hard with

1:14:51

the misogyny. Off-putting and I didn't

1:14:53

feel like I would love for at the end

1:14:55

of this whole journey for Midge, it to not

1:14:57

be about, it to be about like, maybe

1:14:59

people laugh is, you

1:15:02

know, the greatest thing you can do. I

1:15:04

feel because X or Y, why

1:15:06

do we have to become like, I just wanna be fucking

1:15:08

huge? Like it just weird,

1:15:11

weird.

1:15:11

What's your TikTok algorithm these days?

1:15:14

Oh, I'm getting a lot of Zelda, Tears

1:15:20

of the Kingdom live streams, a lot. I

1:15:22

would imagine that. Because I watched one, right?

1:15:24

For too long and

1:15:26

then it's over. Like I can't, it's all

1:15:28

video game stuff. But then, you know,

1:15:30

I get a lot of like,

1:15:32

racial justice stuff.

1:15:34

And I get a lot of body positivity stuff,

1:15:37

like big women celebrating themselves,

1:15:40

men celebrating big, thick, beautiful bodies.

1:15:42

I get a lot of that stuff from a comedy perspective.

1:15:45

And then the rest is cats.

1:15:47

And the rest is cats. The rest is cats. Sometimes

1:15:49

you'll get a squirrel in there, a raccoon.

1:15:52

I was asking because my TikTok

1:15:54

is very dog oriented at the

1:15:56

present. And there was a sportscaster

1:15:58

whose name I forget.

1:16:00

but I was looking it up right now, who

1:16:03

wrote and then

1:16:04

gave a three-minute eulogy for

1:16:08

his dog who passed away on TV.

1:16:11

And it was profoundly well-written.

1:16:14

And the thing that's been rattling in my head

1:16:16

since

1:16:17

I watched it was he said

1:16:20

something to the effect of Otis

1:16:23

loved me and I

1:16:24

loved him.

1:16:26

And

1:16:27

loving someone is the best

1:16:29

thing you can do in this life. That's

1:16:31

actually the best thing that we can

1:16:33

do is to love someone. And

1:16:37

just that idea of like strip

1:16:39

everything away and everything with

1:16:41

like daily distraction and

1:16:43

nonsense and career anxiety and even,

1:16:47

I don't know, mental stuff. And even for

1:16:50

Volody where it's like, what is it actually about?

1:16:52

And to love someone is the greatest thing you

1:16:54

can do. And that has just been, I've

1:16:56

been ruminating on that. And it

1:16:58

stands in such stark contrast to

1:17:01

the idea of like,

1:17:02

I think maybe how

1:17:03

you and I, even though

1:17:05

we have very different kinds of jobs and careers,

1:17:08

how you and I even see the purpose

1:17:10

of laughter and the purpose of comedy

1:17:13

or the value of being funny and to

1:17:15

say specifically sharing laughter with

1:17:18

another person and what that means. And

1:17:20

you even talked on our other podcasts on

1:17:22

GCF, you talked about the

1:17:24

means towards that, towards like empathy

1:17:27

or confrontation in that show that

1:17:29

you were at in Austin, talking about

1:17:32

like abortion in a crowd that maybe

1:17:34

wasn't as comfortable with something like that. And

1:17:37

we certainly talked about it in relationship

1:17:39

stuff and how primary

1:17:41

or I've talked about like, man, I just need a silly

1:17:43

goose sometimes. And that's not just, because

1:17:46

I want someone to play tennis with, but it's like, I

1:17:48

need someone to help grieve with me and be

1:17:50

able to see the world the same way I do. And

1:17:53

it's very personal

1:17:55

to

1:17:56

us in that way. It

1:17:58

feels like in, in disability.

1:17:59

if I'm putting words in your mouth, but

1:18:02

for the idea of like,

1:18:03

it is hopefully

1:18:04

underlined by the ideas

1:18:07

of love and connection.

1:18:09

And that's more or less in the

1:18:11

broadest possible terms, that's what it's for.

1:18:13

And that's what a lot of comedy is for. And

1:18:16

that's what laughter is for. It is love and connection,

1:18:18

and that can manifest in a thousand different

1:18:20

ways. And yes, sometimes

1:18:23

the

1:18:24

underlying MO of the show

1:18:26

and of the mid-mazel

1:18:28

character is not that.

1:18:31

It is not laughter and comedy

1:18:33

and being with an audience and talking

1:18:35

and being great. That is the means

1:18:37

towards the end of further connection. It's not,

1:18:40

it's sometimes just an end unto itself,

1:18:42

which is kind of chilling sometimes,

1:18:45

like you're saying, is like the ambition,

1:18:47

which on its face is not a bad

1:18:49

quality, even though especially gendered wise, it is

1:18:51

given pejorative meaning.

1:18:54

But if it's empty

1:18:56

ambition,

1:18:57

what do you do with that? If it's just like, I wanna

1:18:59

be great cause I wanna be great.

1:19:01

Okay, well, congrats, you will

1:19:03

get your wish. There's almost like a dark monkey's

1:19:06

paw to it. Dark monkey's paw. And a

1:19:08

DMP, the notorious DMP.

1:19:11

And the way that it was shot too,

1:19:13

was almost like,

1:19:15

did she die and she's in heaven?

1:19:18

In terms of the very ethereal lighting,

1:19:21

everyone she's ever loved is there. Her ex-husband

1:19:23

is there, who's like, you can

1:19:25

be mean to me and you're sad. I love you

1:19:27

forever. I'm gonna go to jail for you.

1:19:28

Cuck me. Cuck me. Her

1:19:31

parents and just like looking around and Gordon

1:19:33

Ford. And Gordon's laughing and he's like,

1:19:35

come to the couch, come to the couch. Yeah,

1:19:37

yeah. It felt like Jack and

1:19:39

Rose in the very last shots of Titanic.

1:19:42

Like, yeah, now you're

1:19:44

in heaven, baby. That's what

1:19:46

it felt like.

1:19:47

And so there's almost a read

1:19:50

to it. And I don't wanna project too much in

1:19:52

theme on

1:19:53

the show, but I feel like it's all there. Where

1:19:55

it's like, it does flash forward to 2005.

1:19:58

And

1:20:00

There's the assistant trying to explain

1:20:02

texting to her on a flip phone pre-smartphone

1:20:05

era, which felt very asp-coded

1:20:07

in terms of her reticence towards technology

1:20:09

and Midge

1:20:12

is

1:20:12

well you could take pictures on a flip and you

1:20:14

could send text messages on a flip in 2005 you sure could

1:20:16

so Honestly

1:20:19

to be fair

1:20:20

2005 was around the time text messaging

1:20:22

became

1:20:23

more of an awareness like a thing

1:20:25

we're aware of yeah We're began we're central

1:20:27

to people's daily. Yeah, so I didn't think that was anachronistic Unrealistic

1:20:30

no, I'm saying it was an asp thing To

1:20:33

like express a profound distaste,

1:20:36

so I'm not gonna learn that yeah, yeah, I'm

1:20:38

happy for you either way And

1:20:40

so yes like like we were saying before

1:20:43

Before it gets maybe it's right after

1:20:45

this I forget the order of this

1:20:46

before it gets to that There's a six months earlier

1:20:49

scene of her and Lenny at the Chinese

1:20:51

food restaurant I believe and

1:20:53

he opens a fortune cookie for her that you see

1:20:55

earlier in the episode she puts into her dress before

1:20:58

she goes on on onto the

1:21:00

show and they're having a Conversation

1:21:03

he's like you're gonna be great and the spotlight's

1:21:05

gonna be there for you And it's just him bullshitting about

1:21:07

just like a nonsense Fortune and

1:21:09

I thought that was a very lovely last beat that wasn't

1:21:12

actually literally chronologically their last beat

1:21:14

I was very curious as to the

1:21:16

way that they edited These

1:21:18

final few scenes where it's like you

1:21:20

have the Lenny Midge scene you have the last

1:21:22

you know come to the couch Gordon Ford scene And

1:21:25

then the 2005 stuff which is she

1:21:27

is keeping busy She is anxious about

1:21:29

a rest day that she has Tuesday off.

1:21:31

She's like no fill it. What are you talking about?

1:21:34

She's living in the same building as

1:21:36

Yoko no Whichever one that is the Dakota

1:21:38

or the Astoria Dakota

1:21:40

and then just like wandering the halls

1:21:41

eating dinner alone the fortune

1:21:43

is still on her desk as this is a picture of her

1:21:45

and her ex-husband and

1:21:47

no one's around but wait staff and help

1:21:50

and Then eventually even in

1:21:52

the year 2005 not via DVD

1:21:54

player, but via VCR She

1:21:56

calls up Susie living in Hawaii

1:21:59

fully retired

1:21:59

from the business at this point, I think we're meant

1:22:02

to believe. And they share

1:22:04

a moment of watching Jeopardy together, like

1:22:07

an older couple.

1:22:08

And I don't know if this was meant to evoke this, but

1:22:11

it very much felt Mel Brooks

1:22:13

and Carl Reiner coded in the sense

1:22:15

of, until Carl Reiner's passing a few

1:22:17

years ago, they would apparently

1:22:19

hang out at least on a weekly basis, if not

1:22:21

daily, and they would go to each other's houses

1:22:24

in their 90s or however old they

1:22:26

were at the time.

1:22:28

And it was like, well,

1:22:29

strip away of all this. Like Midge as a character,

1:22:32

you can see from all the rest of the flash forwards is

1:22:35

disliked by her family, not loved

1:22:37

by anyone else, because kind of the story

1:22:39

of this season is, maybe she only loved Joel and

1:22:41

everything else was a distraction. And

1:22:43

Joel's the only one that loved her purely by sacrificing

1:22:46

himself, which is such a funny fate for that character.

1:22:51

But

1:22:52

her and Susie, that meant something, and

1:22:54

that still means something. So after the roast

1:22:56

episode from a few ago, there was some

1:22:59

sort of reconciliation, and they made up, and that was

1:23:01

all off screen. And now they're just

1:23:03

gonna watch Jeopardy every night together and kind

1:23:05

of make their jokes. And the show ends

1:23:07

on them laughing together.

1:23:08

And there's context clues that,

1:23:10

context? Context. About

1:23:13

their involvement in each other's lives to the extent that

1:23:15

they know the layouts of each other's rooms,

1:23:18

they are

1:23:18

extremely involved in each other's

1:23:21

lives, even though there's distance. It's

1:23:23

in the, I know where your glasses are, you

1:23:25

know what I mean? I know who works for you,

1:23:28

and I often talk to them. And

1:23:30

Susie even saying, oh yeah, I'll call

1:23:32

them about that, like still doing her little favors

1:23:34

and stuff. Still involved in her career,

1:23:37

which must be

1:23:38

excruciating for the people that work for her.

1:23:41

So I guess in that way,

1:23:42

to the idea of love and connection, there

1:23:44

is laughter based on that between her and Susie

1:23:48

at the end, but it feels almost accidental.

1:23:50

It almost feels like

1:23:53

they fell into it, or it was incidental

1:23:55

that she connected deeply with someone and

1:23:57

that that's all that it

1:23:58

was. I think they're... comfortable with the ambiguity

1:24:01

of like, yes, there's sacrifices that you make when you

1:24:03

pursue this, and Midge, you know, was she

1:24:05

ready for it? Was she not?

1:24:07

But I do think that

1:24:09

it's a missing element to Midge's

1:24:12

character that there's no reason. Okay,

1:24:14

I keep saying there's no reason. I don't know. I wasn't in the

1:24:16

room. I don't write TV to the extent

1:24:18

that the people who have written TV do. I feel like

1:24:21

my criticisms are often like bombastic,

1:24:23

but

1:24:24

I did miss

1:24:25

the connection and love

1:24:29

piece of Midge's drive

1:24:32

and her whole thing like, I love it.

1:24:34

I love it. And it's like you love the attention.

1:24:37

Okay.

1:24:38

But you love it that much.

1:24:40

Like you love it so much that you'll sacrifice

1:24:42

everything in your life for it. That's kind

1:24:44

of fucked up, dude.

1:24:46

So to me, it's like for my

1:24:48

connection, just like, I feel like the audience

1:24:52

could be, if I was ever in this position to

1:24:54

be that famous, the audience is

1:24:56

a family. It is a friend. And

1:24:58

I have fan relationships where they're

1:25:00

just, they're fans. They're not my friends.

1:25:02

You're talking about me right now, right? But maybe

1:25:05

I didn't even go as far to make a podcast

1:25:07

with them, you know, it's

1:25:09

kind of like a make a wish thing. Yeah. But

1:25:12

no, I have fans that reach out and they're like,

1:25:14

you know, I'm not looking to be friends with you, but I want you

1:25:16

to know that you're meaningful to me, right?

1:25:19

And your work is meaningful to me. And that

1:25:21

type of stuff keeps me going. And

1:25:23

the moments that I have a connection with a crowd are

1:25:26

that

1:25:27

type of magical fulfilling

1:25:30

moment where it's like, in

1:25:32

this moment in time,

1:25:34

we're together enjoying this idea

1:25:37

that I have given you as a gift, not

1:25:39

you giving me your eyeballs, like your

1:25:42

attention, which is also love. Like I

1:25:44

think attention, giving attention is love and that's fine.

1:25:47

But like, I'm also giving something back

1:25:50

and she doesn't seem to care

1:25:52

about that. And in the end, I think there was room

1:25:54

for her to say like, it's you to

1:25:56

Susie to the crowd.

1:26:00

my mom's here, my dad's here, but it's really

1:26:02

all of you together who have made

1:26:04

this

1:26:05

so worthwhile and are gonna continue

1:26:07

to make it worthwhile. And I just, that's, because

1:26:10

we see people in entertainment

1:26:13

express that, like

1:26:14

their undying love for their fans. It's like,

1:26:16

yeah, it's like, this has been the greatest

1:26:19

love of my life

1:26:20

is like this connection that I have with this giant

1:26:22

group of people.

1:26:23

And the fact that it's a group and it can't be, lacks

1:26:26

the intimacy of one-on-one, well, well, you know,

1:26:29

there's something to be said there, but like still there's

1:26:31

love.

1:26:32

And like, Midge doesn't seem to have that.

1:26:35

And it's just like,

1:26:36

that was missing to me, I'll say. I wanna

1:26:38

read. And at the end when she's

1:26:40

in her house

1:26:42

and nothing, there's nothing bothering her, it's like,

1:26:44

you still have your fans, you know what I mean?

1:26:46

You still have that connection. And so it wouldn't

1:26:48

feel as empty to me if she'd had a moment to

1:26:51

express that. Go ahead. It's just sad that too,

1:26:53

cause you see the fortune on her desk even in 2005.

1:26:56

Yeah. I was gonna say, Lou Kirby's

1:26:58

thing about her is like, you're gonna be so famous, you're

1:27:00

gonna be so huge. And it's like,

1:27:03

no room in there for him to say something like

1:27:05

you're gonna make stuff that you can't believe

1:27:07

or you're gonna like be able to,

1:27:10

like people laugh when there's darkness,

1:27:12

you know what I mean? Like there's nothing like that, that

1:27:14

Luke, like that actual

1:27:17

Lenny Bruce might actually care about.

1:27:19

You're gonna be able to bring light to dark, you know what

1:27:21

I mean? Like that's what Lenny Bruce was interested in. Yeah, you're

1:27:23

gonna tell him the truth. Lenny Bruce was, if anybody

1:27:26

in comedy is a true artist, Lenny

1:27:28

Bruce was interested in that. So like, why

1:27:30

is he just like, you're gonna be so fucking famous.

1:27:33

It's gonna be so fucking great how famous you

1:27:35

are. It's like, he wasn't really about that

1:27:37

life, you know? So like,

1:27:39

why is he feeding her this? It's weird.

1:27:41

I think it's just a limited understanding of

1:27:43

why someone would do something like

1:27:45

that. And so fundamentally it

1:27:46

does feel like, you

1:27:48

know, people do this all the time where they

1:27:51

write a TV show or a movie or a novel,

1:27:53

and then they give the protagonist

1:27:55

an occupation or vocation that's

1:27:57

not writer or screenwriter.

1:28:00

but

1:28:00

something adjacent or analogous

1:28:02

enough to it. I mean, I guess they literally make

1:28:04

her TV writer in this season, but

1:28:06

something where it's like,

1:28:07

okay, you might be putting a little of yourself

1:28:10

here in it. So this might actually be

1:28:12

illuminating of your

1:28:14

worldview as far as like professional

1:28:16

ambition goes and what you believe and

1:28:18

care about. But being somebody who tells stories

1:28:21

for a living and creates characters

1:28:23

and creates beloved characters, like

1:28:27

I don't think for ASP, it's about the fans, but

1:28:29

it is about the characters. You know what I mean? She

1:28:31

pours into those characters. She has a real

1:28:33

love for them, right? She has a love

1:28:35

for these stories, these worlds that she makes. And

1:28:38

so I don't see that mapping allegorically

1:28:40

onto Midge, is all I'm saying. That love

1:28:43

for the thing, the love for the art. Yeah,

1:28:45

yeah, yeah, I think you're right. And I

1:28:47

was thinking about... It's just like, make the art, make the art,

1:28:49

make the art, so I can get the thing,

1:28:51

kind of thing. Whereas

1:28:53

I think that's why it's so easy to lock into the

1:28:55

character of Susie, because there is so much more vulnerability

1:28:58

with her, because it's like, maybe she was in

1:29:00

love with Midge. I mean,

1:29:02

she loved her as a friend, obviously,

1:29:04

but

1:29:05

the shot where they show her

1:29:07

on the couch, and she looks at Susie

1:29:09

and she puts her hand over her heart, she's

1:29:12

got tears in her eyes.

1:29:12

That was

1:29:15

so, so moving and

1:29:17

really did a number on me. And

1:29:19

you do wish... Yeah, me too. That...

1:29:22

Because I feel like even with as little as you

1:29:24

got, you got so much interiority into

1:29:27

Susie's character of like, oh, yeah, I know why

1:29:29

you're so... This is huge for you and this is the

1:29:31

rest of your life. And this was an act of love,

1:29:34

whereas with Midge, it didn't feel as

1:29:36

much in reciprocation to Susie.

1:29:39

Yeah. And there's

1:29:41

a quote that I want to read from this

1:29:43

Entertainment Weekly interview that the Paladinos

1:29:46

did about the 2005 stuff, which

1:29:48

the interviewer says, by 2005... Midge

1:29:51

tells us in the set that she wants to be so famous that everyone loves

1:29:53

her. By 2005, that does seem to be the case.

1:29:56

She's busy, she's successful, but she's also alone.

1:29:58

In your opinion and in your eyes...

1:29:59

Was all this worth it or was

1:30:02

it a cautionary tale?

1:30:03

So she's asking Amy and Dan this

1:30:05

Dan says that's up to the viewer. It doesn't

1:30:08

look fun for her at the end She's

1:30:10

so Susie, but she's even 3,000 miles

1:30:12

away. Amy says our only point is

1:30:15

with every decision comes consequences That's

1:30:17

the bottom line You

1:30:18

can look back on your life and think

1:30:20

boy if I'd really gone left and stuff

1:30:22

right I would have had this this and this but then you wouldn't have

1:30:24

had this this and this

1:30:25

that's what life is life is a Game it's a game of choices

1:30:28

and decisions and breaks and windows opening

1:30:30

and deciding to pay attention to it or turn your back

1:30:32

on it It's up to other people to

1:30:34

decide whether or not it was worth it If you shot

1:30:37

midget with sodium pentathol and said was it worth

1:30:39

it? I think she would say yes Because

1:30:41

that discovery about herself and that ambition and

1:30:43

the journey that she and Susie set out on if

1:30:46

she had turned back from that She would have not followed

1:30:48

through with it. She would have regretted that for the rest of

1:30:50

her life She would have sat there and thought why the

1:30:52

fuck didn't I go? I was there the kids were

1:30:54

already

1:30:55

gonna be fucked up Why don't I just go forward? You're

1:30:57

almost never gonna have it a hundred percent Yeah,

1:30:59

but what's going to make you look back the most and

1:31:01

go? Ah shit

1:31:02

And Dan says I remember early on one of

1:31:04

the questions Rachel Brosnan had that we talked

1:31:07

about Is there ever a time midge is gonna look back

1:31:09

on her life before the breakup and think I was just wasting

1:31:11

my time And

1:31:12

we said oh no never

1:31:13

you're never gonna think that and she goes. Oh good. Thank God I

1:31:15

never want to play this character someone who looks back and says oh

1:31:18

the whole thing with the brisket. That's terrible I want to love

1:31:20

that and then move forward in the very end

1:31:23

when she's looking at her board of triumphs Carnegie Hall

1:31:25

and all Those tours realizing well that is

1:31:27

something bigger and more ambitious than making a brisket

1:31:29

and going to the butcher But I still think she equates

1:31:32

them at the happiness level and

1:31:34

Amy says as you look back on your life You start

1:31:36

to think well. I had that she can say she married the

1:31:38

love of her life She had two great kids

1:31:40

and she had this beautiful apartment. She lived the life She

1:31:43

had always planned for herself She just didn't

1:31:45

live it until the end of her life her

1:31:47

life Shifted and she had all these other things

1:31:50

if you put your life on a board There's always gonna

1:31:52

be something wistful and something you miss and

1:31:54

something you wish you could have done differently But to have

1:31:56

those experiences and now you checked a lot

1:31:58

of boxes that should give you

1:31:59

some comfort, which is interesting.

1:32:02

But they kind of fall right

1:32:04

in the middle of, it

1:32:06

is a little dark, right? It is a little dark, but it's not

1:32:08

all dark. I actually felt that that

1:32:10

was very successfully portrayed. It's

1:32:12

like, oh yeah, she doesn't have anyone

1:32:15

around. She's anyone wandering around their

1:32:17

house by themselves, but like the Quentin Tarantino

1:32:19

gift. Just

1:32:22

looking around. But

1:32:25

at

1:32:26

the same time, she seems

1:32:28

happy eating. I love being alone.

1:32:31

You do? I fucking love being alone. I

1:32:33

need to learn to love being alone more. I love it.

1:32:36

Oh, I will go in a room without my cats sometimes.

1:32:38

Not without your cats. I will.

1:32:41

I just love being alone. So I mean, for me, it's

1:32:43

not that,

1:32:44

that's not the part that is like, no one in their life. It's

1:32:46

more just like,

1:32:47

the

1:32:48

need to not have a day off is sort

1:32:51

of dark.

1:32:52

You know, that's sort of like,

1:32:54

why?

1:32:55

And it would all get explained if she had

1:32:57

that connection with the audience. It's like, whoever

1:32:59

still wants to come see me, I

1:33:01

got to see them

1:33:03

for as long as I'm here. You know what I mean? That's

1:33:05

one way of doing that. We didn't do that. Put

1:33:07

a St. Louis date

1:33:08

on my calendar. They always love me in St.

1:33:10

Louis. Yeah, put a St. Louis date. Oh, I haven't

1:33:12

played the, you know, the jingle

1:33:14

bell in so long. Is that person

1:33:17

still there? That's the other thing. Like other comics. Sophie

1:33:19

is a super fan that always shows up. Other comics.

1:33:22

Yeah, and other comics, like being around other comics

1:33:24

is a huge thing. Like the two

1:33:26

main reasons, like the two biggest joys for

1:33:28

me of standup are A,

1:33:30

doing

1:33:31

stuff, like having unexpected moments

1:33:33

of connection with the standup crowd and

1:33:36

hanging out with other comics and seeing us

1:33:38

like, and those two compete for like best. Like

1:33:40

you could kill and have a great time, but like

1:33:42

watching your friend bomb is so

1:33:45

fun. Like, you know what I mean? Or talking

1:33:47

about standup after a show with people like,

1:33:50

or just anything with other comics, there's this incredible

1:33:52

camaraderie that you cannot get with anything else,

1:33:55

you know? And like that kind of connection is really,

1:33:57

would never leave your side. If you're,

1:34:00

stand up. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, 100%

1:34:02

unless you're Joan Rivers and like you make so

1:34:04

many enemies, but which I wonder if that's like

1:34:06

the mold that they kind of cast her. But the thing is like

1:34:08

they seem to model her on Joan Rivers, but Joan Rivers

1:34:10

had a great relationship with her daughter. Yeah, she loved

1:34:13

her daughter so much. Really wonderful relationship

1:34:15

right till the end. So like, it's not really that allegorical

1:34:18

and Joan was that she was like, I don't want everyone

1:34:20

not want to be working. She was, you know, ruthless.

1:34:23

I thought overall,

1:34:25

the end of this show and the end of the season

1:34:28

was pretty

1:34:28

masterfully done. Even with all

1:34:30

this, like all these nitpicks and all

1:34:32

these like, Oh yeah, I don't know if this flash

1:34:34

forward paid off entirely. My criticism is

1:34:36

a nitpick. I think it's foundational to like

1:34:39

this show, but I think it's something that like only

1:34:42

I can see and provide. And so you

1:34:44

have to hire me to get these perspectives. You

1:34:46

have to hire me to hire. You have to hire me to

1:34:48

consult. You have to hire me to work. You have to hire me to act to get

1:34:51

these perspectives. And if you don't, you're not going to have them. And

1:34:53

so I get it. I get why it's not there.

1:34:54

Which do you think was better season one or season

1:34:56

five? Because in my head I'm like, maybe

1:34:58

a season five season. It was amazing. Yeah.

1:35:01

A slightly better than season one. I mean, yeah,

1:35:03

given the perspective hindsight,

1:35:06

I think the tightness of it too. And yeah, it

1:35:08

was Toyota. Yeah, it was Toyota.

1:35:10

I mean, I think Susie is one of my favorite

1:35:12

characters I've seen in a TV show now too. Like

1:35:14

that is just such a special

1:35:16

performance that I'll just

1:35:19

always remember for the rest

1:35:20

of my life. Her in particular

1:35:22

and just her little

1:35:23

moments of tenderness and empathy and

1:35:25

the thing I texted you before the show,

1:35:27

I texted you something