2:00

the question on this. What a question that would

2:02

be. That would be brilliant. Do you take Karl

2:04

to be your... I mean, yeah, I mean, it

2:06

was a short answer, presumably either way, but you

2:09

know, that would have been fun. So, you know, we were

2:11

very excited about that, but then radio

2:14

silence. Like a TV show,

2:16

basically, this has sort of been cancelled before its time.

2:18

Karl dropped off the radar and we never found out

2:20

how this story ended. We never found out what happened.

2:22

You know, did they have a massive falling out over,

2:24

I don't know, breeders, you know, had

2:27

Katie stanned season eight Daenerys and Karl decided

2:29

that was a deal breaker. I mean, again,

2:31

possible, I'm saying. Did Karl get caught watching

2:34

the new episode of Doctor Who on his

2:36

own, thereby violating the cardinal rule of couple

2:38

TV watching? Also possible. You know, we didn't

2:40

know. We didn't know anything. Until

2:43

last night. Because last night, so

2:45

fast forward a month from when we originally spoke

2:47

to him, roughly, on something like that. I was

2:50

nearer your ends last night, Boydee. Yes,

2:52

that's right. I was hanging out in Bermondsey. I was

2:54

actually looking for Richard and Judy because I can find

2:56

the best about that. Well, it's just tied up in

2:58

my flat. Well, exactly. I assume they'd be your house.

3:01

Oh my God. That's taking a doctor. So,

3:04

it was there to see Richard and Judy, but we

3:07

ended up, you know, I was looking for a pool

3:09

table, a pool place. So, I ended up in this

3:11

place that had a pool table to play a game

3:13

of pool. And by absolute happenstance, this

3:15

is the place where Karl apparently works. What?

3:18

Oh my God, shut up. And he literally,

3:20

he came up to me, he identified himself

3:22

as the kind of would-be groom who had,

3:24

let's be honest, ghosted all three of us

3:26

at this point. No. Yeah, absolutely true. No,

3:29

I'm not. And it turns out Karl's

3:31

plan to propose to Katie was completely derailed before

3:33

he could get it off the ground, which is

3:35

why we never heard back from him. Do you

3:38

want to hear what happened? Do you want to

3:40

hear the whole solid story? So, you know, basically,

3:42

before he could pop the question, before he could

3:44

via us, we should

3:46

offer this as a new service. We will propose on

3:48

your behalf for a small fee. We will propose to

3:50

your beloved on your behalf. When you told Boyd and

3:52

I about, you know, Karl getting in touch, I was

3:55

delirious. Yes, she was. I was like clapping like a

3:57

seal. I was thinking, oh my God, how can we

3:59

do it? I don't want to

4:01

you know, make light of this but Kate basically became

4:03

your wedding planner at that point She was like, she

4:05

had a file. It was color coded I was planning

4:07

what we're gonna wear to the wedding because presumably would

4:09

get 100% She was planning out,

4:11

you know what the bridesmaids would wear she had like table

4:15

Absolutely, it was all organized. She was putting it all

4:17

together. She had a headset and everything. It was extraordinary

4:20

But that never came to pass because ultimately

4:22

before car could ask Katie to marry him

4:24

Progressive 21st century woman that she is she

4:26

basically got fed up and did in fact

4:28

go full season 8 Daenerys and she No,

4:31

she didn't have a dragon burn him to

4:33

the ground. She instead she proposed to him

4:36

He could get us to propose

4:38

to her. I thought you're gonna say something horrific

4:40

like she left him a minute before Killed

4:45

by a bear, you know, no nothing like

4:47

that. That's a good note So so so

4:49

yes, so Carl and Katie on a happily

4:51

engaged and we didn't even get the chance to fuck

4:53

it up She was not

4:55

there no, she was not there so he works in

4:57

the pub in bermans he works in bermans Yes How

5:01

for tutors that you just happen to walk

5:03

into the bar where Carl works? Yeah, and

5:06

also that so and the question is like was I

5:08

just loudly talking about Taylor Swift and he was like

5:10

hang on this Sounds weirdly familiar. It's

5:12

hard to say. Oh, yeah must have been because we would

5:14

have heard your bellowing voice. Yes He

5:17

has like a bellend alarm behind the bar.

5:19

He's like the bellend alarm has gone off

5:21

Probably working in in a pub like like

5:23

two miles away, but he heard you yeah

5:25

me talking about game of thrones and stuff

5:27

And he came over. Yeah, that is remarkable.

5:29

Isn't it? I'm very very happy for Carl

5:31

and Katie I'm delighted for them, but

5:34

I'm really devastated that we didn't get to ask, you

5:36

know on his behalf Yeah, so excited. We were all

5:38

excited. We thought oh my god. This is a first

5:40

this can be really cool How

5:42

can we weave it into a segment?

5:44

It's interesting those next so this was

5:46

a romantic comedy film You you dismiss

5:48

that the whole idea of you walking

5:50

into the bar randomly where he works

5:58

Today caution

12:00

to the wind. We're like, you know

12:02

what, faggot. We can bring forward. We

12:04

all hail HBO and Sky for not

12:06

heavily embargoed. Yes. Likely embargoed in fact.

12:09

Yes. It is the least heavily embargoed

12:11

show ever. It was made with a

12:13

feather light embargo. Feather light embargo. It

12:15

lifted weeks before it aired. Yeah. Fantastic.

12:17

Bless them. Boy, what have

12:19

you been watching? Well, Kay, I have been

12:21

watching. The show I've been watching is

12:24

absolutely brilliant. And I'm going to, I'm saying it

12:26

might end up being one of the TV shows

12:28

of the year. What? Yeah. I'm throwing down the

12:30

bullet. That is very bold. When I mentioned the

12:32

title of this show in a few

12:34

seconds. If it's Race Across the World, I'm leaving. It's

12:36

not Race Across the World. Say it. But when

12:39

I mentioned, this is a bit pertinent to that.

12:41

When I mentioned the title of this show, it's

12:43

going to send James into some kind of meltdown

12:46

tailspin because he's going to assume he knows what.

12:48

It's unlike, he won't assume anything. But

12:50

the title of the show is kind

12:52

of semi-ironic and very deliberately provocative. Anyway,

12:55

why I'm talking about is the

12:57

Gerard Carmichael reality show is what

12:59

it's called. I don't know what

13:01

that is. I know. I'm about to explain it. Don't

13:03

worry. It's on Sky Comedy slash now. It's a,

13:06

started a couple of weeks ago and funny enough,

13:08

when it arrived in the Sky highlights thing, I

13:10

thought, Oh, maybe I should check that out. Maybe

13:12

might be potential to review, but the

13:15

title slightly put me off because I was like, Oh, I

13:17

have to explain to James this, you know, just a reality

13:19

blah, blah, blah. In fact, what

13:21

it is, is an absolutely unique kind

13:23

of hybrid of comedy,

13:26

documentary, and quotes, reality TV. This sounds

13:28

like it's been engineered in a lab

13:31

to destroy me. Yeah, but

13:33

it's brilliant though. So Gerard

13:36

Carmichael, I've mentioned before he, he's a, he's a

13:38

stand up comedian. Although in fact, he

13:40

sits down during most of his sit down comic.

13:42

Wow. He did a brilliant one

13:47

off HBO comedy show, which

13:49

you can also watch on Sky in

13:52

which he basically revealed his

13:54

sexuality during the show. I

13:56

mentioned it before. I don't know if you

13:58

remember what he came out. Yeah. Effectively in.

14:00

into, you know, whilst doing this sit down

14:02

stand up show to this audience. And,

14:06

you know, it was quite an incredible kind

14:08

of groundbreaking moment. This show, so this

14:10

show is the first thing he's done since

14:12

then. And he's done all kinds of

14:14

things, he's done his own sitcom for a while, I

14:16

think lost to two or three seasons. He's done all

14:19

kinds of different things. He's been in films, he's been

14:21

an actor, etc. But

14:23

this show is described as an

14:26

experiment in radical honesty. And what

14:28

it is, is he's taking all

14:30

of the flaws in

14:32

his life and in his personality,

14:35

and in his, you know, kind of

14:37

his psychological makeup, and

14:40

exposing them to us, the viewer via

14:42

this show. And so I'll

14:44

give you an example. So in the very first episode,

14:47

he talks about how he's got a crush on one

14:49

of his best friends, and who's,

14:52

you know, but

14:54

doesn't really want to, doesn't want to kind of enter into a

14:56

relationship with him in that way. But he just talks about how

14:58

he's got this huge crush, and he wants to come clean about

15:00

it and talk to the friend who's a long term friend and

15:02

say, Oh, by the way, I know we're just friends, but I

15:04

also need to explain to you that I've got a crush on

15:06

you, and blah, blah, blah, blah. And that

15:09

friend turns out to be Tyler the Creator, by the

15:11

way, who's, you know, famous rapper slash,

15:13

you know, but these things are all

15:15

filmed. So, so

15:17

he invites Tyler the Creator to come to his to

15:20

come and see him to can talk about this thing.

15:22

And it's all filmed. And somehow Tyler the Creator agrees

15:24

to be filmed and halfway through, he's like, he's clearly

15:26

regretting it. He kind of, you know, walks off at

15:28

one point. But like, you meet

15:31

his, you meet Gerald Carmichael's assistant, personal

15:33

assistant, who's this brilliant woman, and, you

15:35

know, and he kind of shows what

15:38

what she has to put up with from him that

15:40

he is a bit of a egomaniac. He's a bit

15:42

of a, you know, as often as, you

15:45

know, it's a lot of those kind of stand ups would

15:47

be, he's completely self absorbed in many ways.

15:49

He's got a long term boyfriend, and

15:51

he shows during the show him sleeping

15:54

with guys behind his back. What? Yes.

15:56

Wait, yes. So

16:00

he's got a long-term boyfriend yet

16:02

he's missing his crush on Tyler.

16:04

Yeah. And also sleeping with

16:06

other people. His dad, at one

16:08

point he brings his dad, you know, when he came

16:10

out on that show, on the

16:13

stand-up show he did for HBO,

16:16

which was called Rothaniel, by the way, so I

16:18

didn't mention that it's called Rothaniel, which is his

16:20

real first name and he hated the name because

16:22

it's such a ridiculous... It's ridiculous coming together of

16:24

two different names that his dad came up with.

16:28

So he came out and his mum and dad did

16:30

have issues with it. They didn't, they weren't like, oh

16:32

yeah, great, celebratory at all. They were like, you know,

16:34

their proper old-fashioned kind of religious Southern types. And

16:36

his dad comes, his dad's on the

16:38

show and there's really awkward discussions between

16:40

them about sexuality and stuff. But

16:43

it just... But above and beyond,

16:45

it's an absolutely brilliantly made fascinating,

16:48

it's really kind of, it's very

16:50

stylishly shot. It also cuts

16:52

between, you see excerpts from his stand-up. There's

16:56

one bit where he talks to his therapist, also all of

16:58

this on screen. And it's

17:00

just remarkable, it's really remarkable. And it

17:02

sounds borderline excruciating

17:05

in terms of like, he's being too

17:07

honest and what, you know, but in

17:10

this day and age, it's almost like, it's

17:12

almost groundbreaking. There's still room for a groundbreaking

17:14

thing that is not... It's different

17:16

to being a YouTuber, you know, YouTubers, I'm sure,

17:18

I don't watch many of them, but I'm told.

17:21

And TikTokers, you know, they show their

17:23

lives, you know, for our entertainment. But

17:26

almost the whole thing about those is

17:28

that famously, famously, people

17:30

come up with, you know, they've come up with things

17:32

in their lives and they gloss on it, they put

17:34

a gloss on it and

17:36

there's, you know, all the jokes about, you

17:38

know, the real social media version of

17:41

yourself and the real self. I'm filtered. The whole

17:43

point about this show is that he is absolutely

17:45

exposing his real self and his real flaws. That's

17:47

what it's all about. And it makes for incredible

17:49

viewing. He's also just a really funny, clever, smart

17:51

guy at the end of

17:53

the day. I've got... But it has to be seen to

17:55

be believed. So just watch an episode to

17:58

the listeners. I mean, you know... and

18:00

people in this room. It's just an absolutely brilliant

18:02

show. And I guarantee you it will be in

18:04

a lot of people's top tens of the year. It sounds innovative. Oh,

18:07

it is. It is. But it also sounds

18:09

super fucking cringe. And the

18:11

other thing is, it sounds like that

18:14

he might have had to force conversations or do things

18:16

that he wouldn't necessarily do just to fill the content.

18:18

Do you know what I mean? Yeah, I can see

18:20

where it sounds like that, but it just doesn't come

18:23

across that way at all. Really? Yeah,

18:26

it's in the intelligence and creative

18:28

way that he does this, that

18:31

it doesn't feel like that. It doesn't feel

18:33

fake or that he's forcing... For example, if

18:35

he feels like going to a dating site,

18:40

he will, and hook up with a guy and the guy comes

18:42

around and then he warns the guy that it's being filmed and

18:44

the guy goes, all right, that's fine. Wait, so you see them

18:46

having sex? Not having sex. I

18:48

mean, but just about drawing

18:51

the line there. Certainly getting off with each other,

18:54

yeah, for sure. So they're filming this. Yeah. See,

18:56

it's intriguing, isn't it? You have

18:58

lots of questions. Wait a minute, it's stand

19:00

up. So it's on stage. No, it's not

19:02

a film. No, there's glimpses of his stand

19:05

up. Not much. It's mostly footage of what's

19:07

going on in his life. And then presumably

19:09

the next series we'll find out how the

19:11

boyfriend reacted to see him. Oh, no, you

19:13

see him in this series. Boyfriend's back to

19:15

talking... Boyfriend knows that he's been

19:18

sleeping with other people while he's back. And

19:20

he knows about him declaring his love for his

19:23

best friend. Well, yeah, Crush. I mean, not Mark. Crush, sorry.

19:25

Yeah, he's on time with the character. Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's

19:27

the thing. It's all up front. It's all people... It's

19:30

ongoing and he's being honest, trying to be

19:32

honest with everyone. And so he's telling his

19:34

boyfriend that what he's doing, it's all... Yeah,

19:36

it's absolutely endlessly fascinating. Okay,

19:39

jury's out. I need to watch it. Well, the

19:41

jury isn't out for anyone who's actually watched it. Oh

19:45

my God, boy. It's brilliant. But

19:48

it's interesting with far James's concern,

19:50

because it's not a... It's

19:52

not the Kardashians and it's not... It

19:55

is a reality show. And it's not

19:57

Big Brother. It's more of an extraordinary

19:59

use. of reality TV as a concept.

20:01

It's actually commenting on that concept. But

20:03

isn't this just that classic thing? It's

20:06

like being a knob on

20:08

camera is still just being a knob.

20:10

And I'm not sure the presence of

20:12

cameras in the room makes it particularly

20:14

groundbreaking and audacious. It's just rampant, Belendory

20:17

televised. To some

20:19

extent, yeah, but you're seeing

20:21

everyone's Belendory. It's almost like a drama. I

20:24

compare it more to a fictional, you know, scripted show

20:26

in that sense. It's a bit like, you know, you

20:28

watch Eric. No,

20:31

no, no, I'm comparing it to

20:33

like, I'll compare it to Eric. So

20:35

you're talking, you talk about, you know, Benedict

20:37

Cumberbatch's character, we talked about it, it's horrible.

20:39

A Belend, selfish, all these things. But you

20:41

see why to some extent, you know, you

20:43

meet his dad, right? There's crucial scenes where

20:45

you meet his dad's even worse than he

20:47

is. Well, it's a similar thing in this. So

20:50

in the sense that, you know, if you think of if

20:52

this was a drama, Gerald Carmichael be the center of it,

20:54

and he's being a prick to people. And he's showing that

20:57

and it just how happens is real, it's not scripted. And

20:59

then you meet his dad and you see, Oh, okay, well,

21:01

that's partly why he's being such a Belendore. It's a very

21:03

similar concept. So he's showing, he's exposing different parts

21:05

of his life and you meet it and you're

21:07

getting it's a deep dive into his psyche, if

21:10

you like. And that's what makes it different. It's

21:13

not surface. It's very, it's

21:15

kind of an intricately woven without sounding too

21:17

much like a pompous twat. So it's

21:19

not, yeah, so it's not really for show, it's just

21:21

him living his life and you getting to see why

21:23

he's doing the yeah. And for him, it's cathartic. So

21:25

I listened to an interview he did with

21:28

on another on a podcast. And he explained

21:30

that he finds it cathartic to be on

21:32

camera and exposing this his flaws on camera.

21:34

It just just is the way he is.

21:37

He finds it easier to do things that

21:39

way than you know, kind of

21:41

hiding stuff and being yeah, it's absolutely

21:43

fascinating, honestly. Right,

21:48

give it a go. I challenge James to watch it.

21:50

I look forward to not watching it. That would be

21:52

a fun for me. We

21:55

end up with I mean, technically, it will depend

21:57

very much on what goes on on

21:59

the show. on the particular week that it comes out, won't

22:01

it? Because it feels like it's not hot land asked. Oh, it's

22:03

all out. Oh, it's all out. Oh, we missed it. So we

22:05

won't be reviewing it. This is all out already. It's been on

22:07

Sky Comedy for a couple of weeks. Yeah, it's all there on

22:10

Sky, slash now to watch. Yeah. Doctor

22:12

bullet there. The box set. Sorry,

22:14

yeah, but you should. You should give it a go. Well,

22:16

I'll tell you what. Kay can watch it for me and

22:19

report back on whether or not, on how

22:21

much I will hate it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

22:23

I can do that. I offer that service.

22:26

Thank you. I appreciate it. Okay, fine. Is

22:28

that it? Does that cover off our, okay, good

22:30

stuff. Well, it's signed them for this week's first

22:32

guest and she's a legend in her own right.

22:34

She is a coy of the Dora Melage and

22:36

the biggest bad ass, let's be honest, in all

22:39

of the Walking Dead. It's Dan Iguirreira who returned

22:41

to the zombie apocalypse recently in The Walking Dead,

22:43

the ones who live, which you

22:45

can view now on the sky. And

22:48

we sent a long time pilot listener, some would

22:50

say a pilot TV

22:52

obsessive, Chris Hewitt along to

22:54

speak to her. This is Chris and

22:57

Dan Iguirreira. Pilot TV is Chris Hewitt, I should say.

23:01

Welcome to the pilot TV podcast, Dan Iguirreira.

23:03

How are you? I'm

23:05

well, how are you? I am all right. I am

23:07

all right. I'm very, very glad to be speaking to

23:09

you because it's been a couple of

23:12

months now since the ones who live came

23:14

out and finished its run in

23:17

the States and we've had to

23:19

wait a whole two months for the show

23:21

to come out over here in the UK. Yes, yes,

23:24

yes. Beyond my pay grade, I tell you,

23:26

I would have all happened at

23:28

once for everyone. So there are no spoilers

23:30

out in the world for you guys. Well,

23:33

that's true. But there's all the

23:35

episodes are dropping at the same time, which is

23:37

good so people can binge the show. So

23:40

by the time- If it all happened here, they had to

23:42

wait week to week. I know, what do you prefer? I

23:44

think it was cool to do the week to week. I think

23:47

it was very cool. I

23:49

wish you guys had had that honestly because

23:52

each episode, we've definitely worked hard

23:54

to make the episodes have a

23:56

cliffhanger type of ending. And

23:58

so then people are- then they have this week

24:01

to sort of like mash their

24:03

teeth about what's about to happen next, which is

24:05

great. It was great. It was great for me

24:07

anyway, to watch that with the fans and how

24:09

invested they were and what was what it just

24:11

happened and what's going to happen next. So I

24:13

like the space in between. And while the talking

24:15

of spaces in between, I mean, there's been a

24:17

there's been a hell of a space in between,

24:19

you know, you leaving the mothership show, as I

24:22

know you guys refer to the Walking Dead, and

24:25

and the ones who live. And that space

24:27

in between must have

24:29

been a strange space for you to dwell in

24:32

because you knew the show was going to happen.

24:34

Andrew Lincoln knew the show was going to happen.

24:36

Scott Scott and Gipo knew the show was going

24:38

to happen, but not

24:41

everyone did. So were you getting questions,

24:43

bombarded with questions for people going, When

24:45

is Michonne coming back? When

24:47

are we going to see Rishon again? What's

24:49

going on? Yeah, there were there were definitely

24:51

those questions. And, you know, it just was

24:53

about the right timing and the right format.

24:55

And, you know, I think COVID also slowed

24:57

a lot of things down. And so it

24:59

was, you know, it was a it

25:02

was a it was an interesting period. And I think I

25:04

think we definitely got, you know, we got to the

25:06

point where we got it right. And I think that

25:08

that was we got it in the right format. We

25:10

got, you know, we we co created it, the three

25:12

of us and and and just

25:15

got going on it. And so it just

25:17

felt like, OK, when when when when it

25:19

does come, let's just make sure it was

25:21

worth the wait like that. That was then

25:23

our focus. I

25:26

love the fact that Dan, that you

25:28

and Andrew are co-creators on this as

25:30

well with Scott. And you wrote there's

25:33

an amazing episode, episode four. People

25:35

will obviously be seen over here, like you

25:37

wrote as well. And

25:39

it got me thinking about authorship

25:43

of characters and how

25:45

it's I guess it's really interesting when

25:47

a show develops over many, many years

25:50

as The Walking Dead did. And

25:52

you and Andy must have felt so

25:55

possessive of Michonne and Rick.

25:58

And then you have different directors coming in. I

26:00

mean, I know the likes of Greg Nicotero would

26:02

direct lots of episodes, you know, kind of be,

26:04

you know, based on the show, but

26:06

you would have directors coming in with their

26:08

ideas of what Rick would do or what

26:10

Michonne would do. And over

26:13

time, you develop an

26:16

affinity for the character, six cents for the character.

26:18

How does that, within

26:20

the confines of a weekly show, how does

26:22

that work, that dynamic of I

26:24

know best, because this is my character and

26:26

I've developed her over so many years? I

26:29

think largely the

26:31

directors who came in over those years

26:35

were definitely, they

26:38

definitely had an understanding of

26:41

the fact that they were not going to

26:43

tell us how our characters would be. It

26:46

would be a conversation. At the end of

26:48

the day, the key conversation was with the

26:50

showrunner. It's always with the showrunner. So it

26:52

would be with Gimbal or it would be

26:54

with Angela Kang, in

26:56

terms of the actual, you

27:00

know, in terms of the actual character

27:02

decisions or character arc or the

27:04

story, that would be something that

27:06

would be deeply grappled with the

27:09

showrunner. Because, you know, it's

27:12

coming from them, the ideas, the

27:14

concepts, the character arc. So

27:16

that's kind of, and so, you know, a

27:19

lot of times I think directors came in

27:21

and they understood that. They understood, you know,

27:23

we're bringing our ideas to how this comes

27:25

on the screen, but the story comes from

27:27

the showrunner and the characters, and I respect

27:30

that these actors have been here for years,

27:32

and they're going to, I

27:35

can make suggestions or thoughts or say that I'm getting

27:37

this, but I'm reading that, you know, and

27:39

I love those types of directors who are really deep in

27:41

like, this is what's on the

27:43

page, but that's not what we're doing right

27:45

now. Let's dig in there. I love that

27:48

type of, because maybe I'm a writer, but

27:50

I love digging in through that angle, because

27:52

I know that we're then anchored by the

27:54

same thing, which is the script, which is,

27:57

you know, what we all embrace. So,

27:59

um, So yeah, I think that's

28:01

been, so that's been, you know,

28:03

that was kind of the journey mostly

28:06

when, you know, you definitely have some

28:08

directors you love more than others over

28:10

the years. And that, you know, that

28:12

relationship results in like the episode I wrote, Michael

28:15

Slovis was one of those directors who

28:18

we said, you know, I specifically said like, I

28:21

want Michael to direct the episode I wrote. And he

28:23

said, when I met on the mothership. So

28:25

I knew it, because I knew I could work with

28:27

him very, very intricately. And I show around that

28:29

episode and I knew that him and I could

28:32

really click and get in there and get it

28:34

done the way I wanted it. So

28:37

that can happen from

28:39

those connections you

28:42

make on the set of the mothership.

28:44

That's amazing. That's a lifelong collaborator.

28:48

I'm sure I'll work with him again. Did you

28:50

think about directing it yourself or was that just

28:52

too much? That's too much,

28:54

that's too much. I won't even have been able

28:56

to. I mean, the amount of time while they're

28:58

doing certain prep, I'm shooting. Like

29:02

I'm on set, like me and Addie on

29:04

set all the time and they're

29:06

prepping. So it was a very intense time as I was still

29:08

show running. So I was in charge of all the design and

29:11

I was in charge of like, you know, I

29:13

was setting the tone meetings, I was doing rewrites.

29:15

They're like, oh, we can't afford all those kills.

29:17

So I'd have to go back in and rewrite

29:19

the kills and rewrite the, you know, we can't

29:21

afford that moment. I'd have to go back in.

29:23

So I'm rewriting and then I'm pairing

29:26

for my next, the scene I have to shoot the next

29:28

morning and then, you know, and then I'm

29:30

going into, you know,

29:32

I'm prepping with designers and telling them what the

29:35

space needs to look like. And so I was definitely,

29:38

it was all over the place. I actually really enjoyed

29:40

it. I enjoyed it. I

29:42

love it. That's such a walking dead phrase. We

29:44

can't afford all those kills. I

29:48

mean, I was really deprived of my decaps. Smile

29:52

and talk about it. Oh,

29:56

it's a shame. You can always release storyboards.

29:59

That'll help. Well, no, the

30:01

storyboards are there, but it's about money. Just

30:05

if you do storyboards with sound effects, that'll

30:07

satisfy the urge, I think, to some degree,

30:10

I would say. No, no.

30:12

You're clearly not convinced. That's fine. That's fine.

30:15

Let's say for example... You need your decaps.

30:17

You need your decaps. You need them, you

30:19

know. It's a thing. I know. That's

30:22

my top. Believe me, I need my decaps as well. Nice

30:25

decaps first thing in the morning really sets the day up. It's

30:28

fine. Let's say

30:30

for example, though, you had directed

30:32

that episode. How would you

30:34

have directed Andrew Lincoln? I

30:37

did direct it. He's

30:40

very kind. I'll be like, actually, he's...

30:42

And I told him

30:45

late, I said, I hope I

30:47

wasn't bossy.

30:50

And he's like, no, no, no, you were specific.

30:55

And I was like, oh, you're so nice. You

30:59

were specific. I love that. I love that.

31:02

You were specific. But yeah, I

31:04

was... They were like, okay, what is on this

31:06

page? Because it was a very differently written episode

31:08

from any other episode of the vlog. I

31:11

broke form in that regard. And

31:13

so, you know, I had to

31:15

really be very, very like with him, with the director,

31:17

I had to be very, very clear like this is

31:19

what this felt about, this is what this is about.

31:21

So I had to really get in there with them

31:23

like a director would, you know. So

31:26

yeah, it was definitely... There

31:29

were times I was kind of, you

31:31

know, guiding the story like a director. And

31:33

then, you know, but when I apologized later,

31:36

he just said, I was just being specific.

31:38

Just very clear to

31:40

say. I'm going to use that

31:42

in the future. I'm

31:45

just being very specific, guys. That's

31:48

all it is. But

31:51

it is fascinating, I mean, because I

31:53

want to go back to what you were saying there about that

31:57

discussion we were having about ownership of

31:59

the character. you first really begin to

32:01

feel like Michonne was

32:03

yours? You know, there are moments

32:06

of it, you know, like in the beginning, it

32:08

was tricky. But I knew like in the beginning,

32:10

there was a way that she spoke that was

32:12

so not me. It

32:14

was like her voice was very like low and

32:17

kind of quiet. I remember Melissa McBride saying, Oh,

32:19

she's so like, she's probably catching up on the

32:21

episodes because we didn't act together for a while.

32:23

So she was catching up the episodes and she

32:25

was just like, you know, she's so like doing

32:28

all these kills, they saw like, you know, being

32:30

all like, you think she's all scary, but then

32:32

she talks and it's so sort of sweet. And

32:34

I was like, I was like, Yeah, that's not

32:37

me. Like that was very her like in the

32:39

beginning. And then the then her voice as I

32:41

think as she started to like, ground

32:44

herself in relationships and in being

32:46

a part of this group, and

32:49

letting go of all her guardedness,

32:51

her like the vocality changed and

32:53

became a little less held and

32:57

quiet, it became more open. And

33:00

and but yeah, there's moments like that, right? When

33:02

I remember when Melissa said that to me, I

33:05

was like, Oh, yeah, that's true. When I

33:07

always know when in her in her body

33:09

when that voice comes out, because it's not

33:12

mine. So that's when you know, a character

33:14

sort of encroaching on you is

33:16

when it's something that's not you, but it's,

33:18

it's just theirs. And then,

33:20

but then in terms of feeling feeling

33:23

a full ownership of her, that comes

33:25

later, because I'd have to say

33:27

I don't know when that came. I mean, there

33:29

are different moments, I think, I think,

33:31

you know, there was something about season,

33:33

there was something about season three, Episode

33:36

12, when Rick and Michonne and Carl

33:38

go and they find Morgan. It's called

33:40

episodes called clear. It's very, it's very

33:42

popular in fan base here that episode.

33:44

And that that

33:46

when and that was something that I remember Gimple

33:49

wrote that episode. And it was, it was a

33:51

very different it was a he broke form to

33:53

have only three characters in an episode like that

33:55

was very unusual for the show that had been

33:57

very ensemble. And so broke form.

34:00

doing that. And but it

34:02

really did allow my character

34:05

to become a part of Rick,

34:07

like that family was formed in that

34:10

the Rick Carl Michonne family was

34:13

formed in that episode. And there was a way

34:15

that I don't know,

34:17

I was there was something about how

34:20

Gippo like created these moments that I

34:22

just found her in them. And

34:25

by the time her and Carl were

34:27

friends, by the end of the episode,

34:29

I was like, I found her heart

34:32

in her in her hardness. And

34:35

that, I think made me

34:37

feel like, okay, I've got her.

34:41

And did the the way that that

34:43

family developed and the way that relationship

34:45

developed between Rick and Michonne, because it

34:47

didn't really kick in for a couple

34:49

of seasons beyond beyond that. But

34:52

once it did, did that also help

34:54

in a way that did it, it

34:56

gave Michonne something

35:00

to fight for something to live for something to

35:02

love for a center

35:05

in a way, if you will. Yeah, definitely. I

35:08

mean, that from that minute on her and her

35:10

and Carl became besties. And,

35:13

and, and then, and then of course,

35:16

Rick deeply appreciated that because he

35:18

didn't know how to be his

35:20

son's bestie. And

35:23

that's something he expresses to her in season four.

35:26

And when she when they all get scattered from

35:29

the prison, and then she finds them, after

35:31

she was almost gonna like go back her

35:33

own way and just become a loner again,

35:35

and she chooses to change that. And she

35:38

goes and she finds them as

35:40

kind of as a as a cosmic reward. They're

35:43

who she finds. And so they, they, you

35:45

know, that family unit once again, clicks into

35:47

place. So yeah, the family unit is so

35:50

much more than the

35:52

falling in love that happens to Rick and

35:54

Michonne in season six. But it's already the

35:56

footsteps of it are so clear. If you

35:59

look at the if you would be like, oh, they're

36:01

a unit, Rick, Carl, and

36:03

Michonne are like a unit. And then they find

36:05

Judith and then that's the unit, that's family unit.

36:08

And then she's living

36:10

with them in Alexandria. I mean,

36:12

it's just like, uh, duh, this

36:14

is gonna happen obviously. But like,

36:16

you know, it

36:18

did feel, I mean,

36:20

working with Chandler was incredible. I loved working

36:23

with Chandler. And so yeah, I just had

36:25

this very natural ease and chemistry with both

36:27

of them. And so it really was, it

36:31

felt like a very normal, it felt like

36:33

a very organic thing. Absolutely. But yeah, I

36:35

was gonna say, because it wasn't the grand master

36:37

plan. It wasn't like Scott Gimbal

36:39

was going with a trillions of mustache going, ha

36:41

ha ha, I know exactly where this relationship's gonna

36:43

go. I know exactly what I'm doing here. Well,

36:46

who knows with him, but I

36:49

will say that the

36:51

writers would tell me, they were like,

36:54

we just keep writing Rick and Michonne

36:56

scenes because they just work so great.

36:58

So we just keep writing them. So

37:00

they would watch them and go, oh, we wanna

37:03

watch, let's put a Rick and Michonne scene there.

37:05

So they kept building our scenes up, you know,

37:07

because they felt like they just always worked and

37:09

really resonant. So

37:11

that sometimes that builds a thing

37:13

where it's just like, we

37:16

like how these two interact. So let's just keep

37:18

having them interact. And then next thing you know,

37:22

you've led to something that's pretty obvious

37:24

between the characters. Yeah, and of course

37:26

there's something that's explored in the ones

37:28

who live, which by the way, and

37:30

then I've almost called the one to

37:32

love several times. Is

37:35

that, I don't know if that's something

37:38

that you guys intended with the title, why not? No,

37:41

I mean, that's sure, but yes, sure, why

37:43

not? Yes, but like, you know,

37:45

basically they, you know, that's a line that's

37:48

said a lot in the mothership and he said

37:50

it one time and then she says it to

37:53

him. And so it's this kind of ongoing and

37:55

then it's in the coda a lot, but

37:57

we only came down to that title much, very

38:00

end of the pro after we were already in post, but

38:02

it was so obvious that it was should be the title,

38:04

you know, it was very

38:06

obvious. But we only really clicked like, yes,

38:08

of course, and I had made robes for

38:10

everyone saying, you know, we're the ones who

38:12

live on the back and their titles, their

38:15

initials on the front. And we still

38:17

hadn't come up with the fact that that was

38:19

the title, we still weren't there. We finally got

38:21

there at the end of post. Oh, yeah. I

38:24

love it. But in terms of, you know, I guess,

38:26

obviously, people who are listening to this, who may not

38:29

have seen the show at some point,

38:31

we're not going to give too much away. But I

38:33

think it's safe to say that that Rick and Michonne find each

38:35

other. At some point.

38:37

Yeah, that's the premise of the show. Yeah,

38:40

we can say that. And I wonder

38:43

what I think apocalyptic love story.

38:45

Yes, we can. It's

38:47

a beautiful thing. And I wondered what

38:51

you and Andrew and Scott,

38:54

the conversations you had about that

38:56

moment and about making it

39:00

work emotionally, you know,

39:02

for for the characters and the audience as well,

39:04

because you could write that scene a hundred different

39:07

ways, right? Yeah, I mean, I guess we can't

39:09

spoil what it is, but it

39:11

was very much. It's a musical number. We should

39:13

we should tell them people that. Exactly. But

39:15

yeah, I think it was definitely a, you know,

39:19

we want the unexpected. We want the what

39:23

people are. Yeah, people are the unpredictable, the

39:25

unexpected. And we want it to be. Yeah,

39:29

I should probably leave it at that

39:31

in the sense that, you

39:33

know, otherwise they'll give a lot away if people haven't watched

39:35

it yet. They can listen to this and

39:38

watch the show at the same time. Yes.

39:41

So, you know, I don't want to

39:43

give too much away. But I will

39:46

say that it is definitely a

39:50

we definitely wanted the unexpected. We wanted

39:52

it to be a moment for

39:54

both of them. That is unexpected also to them.

39:56

And and yeah, it

39:58

had to be. And so, you

40:00

know, we will catch up with their

40:03

stories and we'll see how the

40:05

audience receives that. Absolutely. So there

40:07

is no point, I'm guessing, tonight,

40:09

in me even asking what

40:12

the future holds, because if I were to ask what

40:14

the future holds, it would imply there is a future

40:16

to be held. No point in

40:19

asking that. In

40:23

that case, I won't ask it. I won't ask

40:25

it. There were to go there, just absolutely nowhere.

40:27

Wouldn't even dream of doing it. But if you

40:29

were to do something else down the line, because

40:31

there's all sorts of things you could do with

40:34

this. And as you say, the fact,

40:36

you know, that the ones who live,

40:38

you can take risks, you can do things that the

40:41

mothership show couldn't do or

40:43

wouldn't do. So you could

40:45

do a musical episode down the line.

40:49

You could do puppets, you could do all kinds of

40:52

things. So if you had absolute carte blanche,

40:57

what would you do with it? I'm waiting for

41:00

the pitch to come for

41:03

The Walking Dead, the musical on Broadway.

41:05

I am waiting

41:08

for that. Of course, I don't sing, so

41:10

I won't be in it. But

41:13

oh my God, it actually

41:15

would work. I think it

41:18

would work. In

41:20

the right hands. And I

41:22

think it could be an absolute hit. Would

41:25

you write the book? Maybe,

41:28

maybe, maybe, but no, I

41:30

mean, there's, you know, gimples right there. We

41:33

did gimple. That guy, that guy's had a

41:35

shot. We want you to write the book

41:37

for this. I mean,

41:39

listen, I think it's a great idea.

41:42

Yeah, I think I think it's a goer. It

41:45

could be a terrible idea. It's

41:48

like terrible. It's like terribly great.

41:52

Listen, I will take great. All I heard in

41:54

a sentence was great. And I do have to

41:56

let you go, but I want to ask you

41:58

can't sing. So you wouldn't be part of this

42:00

or? Would you, Rex Harrison, for example, when he

42:02

played Dr. Doodler in the musical, he just talked

42:05

all the time. You could do that. Oh

42:07

my God, it could be so fun. No,

42:10

I don't sing. I don't want to talk. I

42:12

don't want to be in it. I just, I

42:14

think it could be really fun to do. I

42:17

think Robert Kirkwood is about to come and like

42:19

send the police in here. I'm kidding. We just

42:21

have to be removed. Um,

42:23

but, uh, I mean, let me, uh, I

42:25

don't know. It's kind of, I'm catching my

42:27

brain right now. Well,

42:30

listen, I

42:32

haven't, I haven't eaten anything today.

42:35

Just like low blood sugar right now. That

42:37

sounds like a yes to me. So, uh,

42:41

my people will be in touch with your

42:43

people. Uh, you are now the star and

42:45

co-creator of the musical. I'll

42:47

be behind the scenes behind the scenes. This is

42:49

totally legally binding. No, no, no,

42:52

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

42:54

no. I'll be behind the scenes on this one. It's like the

42:56

young ones do the, do all the deuce. All

42:59

right. Fair enough. Fair enough. Uh, it's been an absolute

43:01

pleasure to talk to you. Thanks so much indeed. Thank

43:03

you. Great to chat with you. That

43:06

was pilot TV's Chris Hewitt and Dan Iguirreira and

43:08

time now for the listener question. Uh, what is

43:10

the listener question? Okay. Interesting. She looks

43:13

faintly panicked. What does that mean? It

43:15

means it's right here. Oh, okay. Good. Good. Forearm

43:17

is forewarned. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Uh,

43:20

this question is from the brilliantly

43:22

named Daffy Newport who says, I

43:24

started watching suits on Netflix and although I'm

43:27

enjoying it as an attorney myself, I think

43:29

it must be one of the most insane

43:31

representations of lowering I've ever seen on TV.

43:33

Well, they never go to trial. They never

43:35

go to trial. This is why I found

43:37

that show absolutely fascinating. It is a legal

43:39

drama that avoids courtrooms at all costs because

43:41

Harvey Specter, he, he, he, he, he negotiates

43:43

settlements. But that's quite realistic. Every single case.

43:45

There's a stat, there's a stat I heard

43:48

recently, sorry, that 70 or 80% of something

43:50

of American disputes don't go to trial. Well, then

43:53

this will be it because how these pictures like

43:55

the master negotiator and he always, everyone, they always

43:57

settle. Yeah. Especially the bigger the, the, uh, conflict,

43:59

whatever the legal case, the more likely is they're

44:02

going to settle. But I've got settling news

44:04

later in the news. I

44:06

doubt that someone is now going to write in and say, I think you'll find

44:08

they go to trial all the time. And I'll just

44:10

be like, I watched it years ago and I completely misremembered it. I

44:13

plugged that 78% completely from the air.

44:15

Okay, anyway, back to Daffy. She

44:17

says, my boyfriend also a lawyer said at one point,

44:19

wow, they really don't want to spend the money on

44:21

a legal consultant. I'm wondering if

44:24

you all have examples of shows like this with

44:26

journalism or other areas of expertise for you. Yes,

44:28

yes. You noticed that on many shows where

44:31

they depict journalism, there's money and a budget

44:33

of some kind, which

44:35

is obviously wild to those of us who work in the profession.

44:37

The bowl type, isn't it? Do you remember the

44:39

bowl type? The bowl

44:41

type? Yeah, yeah. Which

44:44

was the American, it was about like

44:46

magazine journalism. And it was like

44:48

unlike anything you've ever seen, even during the glory days

44:50

of when we've been at magazines. The

44:52

budgets, the money they had, the salaries, the glossiness

44:54

of it all. Yeah,

44:57

it was like a utopia. I do

44:59

think there's a disconnect between American journalism

45:02

and British journalism in that,

45:04

you know, whenever you see these sort of shows

45:06

that depict journalism in the US, like they've had

45:08

these huge buildings and that entire building is whatever

45:10

that publication is. And they've got hundreds of staff

45:13

and assistants and photo editors and sub editors, writers

45:15

and all these sort of things. And it's this

45:17

bustling sort of metropolis of like of newscraft. And

45:19

I remember when when Dan Aykroyd came to do

45:22

a web chat at Empire and he came in,

45:24

he sat down, he went, oh, wow,

45:26

I'm so excited to be at Empire magazine.

45:29

So how many is

45:31

this, is this building yours? I

45:33

like being our old of his body. And we were like,

45:35

no, no, no. And

45:37

he was like, oh, right. So just this floor

45:39

again. No, no, no. Just this desk here. This

45:41

is like, this is us. Hi. And

45:43

he's just us on these two magazines. And

45:45

he was genuinely his face. He couldn't get

45:48

his head around it. But you know what?

45:50

Two things come to mind there, funnily enough.

45:52

One is that the New York Times, for

45:54

example, is an a massive, incredible office with

45:56

dozens of floors in the middle of Manhattan.

46:00

and they spent millions, billions on it. And

46:02

the Guardian has a massive building. That

46:05

newspaper's pretty much. But

46:07

then obviously, very in my New York Times, it's a local

46:10

newspaper. So if you went to the Camden New Journal, it

46:12

wouldn't be the same. It definitely wouldn't be the same. Because

46:15

there's afterlife set in the local papers, and

46:17

that's kind of... Probably closer. That's slightly more.

46:19

Slightly closer to reality. The other thing you've just reminded

46:21

me of is... And

46:24

I can't remember if K was... If

46:26

this was pre-K at heat or not,

46:29

is that Jennifer Saunders... Do you know what

46:31

I'm about to say? Jennifer

46:33

Saunders for, I think,

46:35

the last series

46:38

of Ab Fab that she did. Do you remember that Ab

46:40

Fab went away for quite a while. She did loads of

46:42

other stuff, and then she revived it. And that series,

46:45

the most recent series, effectively, was absolutely fabulous. She

46:47

came, she wanted... She got in touch with

46:50

us at heat because she wanted to have more action

46:52

taking place in a magazine

46:54

office. She wanted that to be

46:56

more of an element of... And to some extent,

46:58

it was, of that final series. There were elements

47:00

of bubble, I think. The

47:03

brilliant character of bubble ended up working on

47:05

a magazine. Jay Horrocks. Patsy and Adina kind

47:07

of did more stuff for a magazine. So

47:10

she wanted to see the workings of

47:12

a magazine. So she got in touch, I think probably via

47:15

me, because I'd interviewed her quite a few times. And

47:17

so the publisher said, Can Jennifer have a couple of

47:19

days observing what goes on? That was before me. She

47:22

bloody well did. She just hung out in the office

47:24

for a couple of days. She hung out, and

47:26

I was kind of in charge of looking after her.

47:28

Oh my God, you're her chaperone. She was your working.

47:30

I was going to go chaperone. Jennifer Sanders was your

47:32

working. And look how well she's done since. Yeah, she's

47:34

done all right. I'm still here. 26

47:37

years. And

47:39

she came to meetings and stuff. So we'd have editorial meetings

47:41

where we'd talk about what TV we'd cover, and

47:43

all the celebrity news stories, etc.,

47:46

etc., etc. And it was absolutely...

47:48

And she was brilliant. She was totally like, You

47:51

don't have to involve me, I'm just going to observe.

47:53

And she did mostly observe. She tripped in every now

47:55

and then. And it was absolutely brilliant. Another

47:58

one for my memoir was when... Yeah, when um, when

48:00

you write, where is it? Someone

48:03

committed to me. That's it. Give me

48:05

a massive advance. We've got to do all these details. What

48:07

are you saying about my memory? Yeah, sometimes it's patchy. Yeah.

48:10

So, and yeah, so

48:12

she had the accuracy

48:14

of her depiction of

48:17

journalism was down to us. Wow.

48:19

He magazine. And of course, the recent

48:22

example of an

48:24

absolutely ridiculous depiction of journalists was, do you remember?

48:26

We did this quite recently. My memory is better

48:29

than it was when it comes out to him.

48:31

Bodkin. Remember that she's a, she's a,

48:33

she's a, she's a guardian. She's got a life of

48:35

no reason. In the middle of the night. Just like,

48:37

right at him. You know, about bullshit, basically. Yeah, that

48:39

is true. That was crazy. Carrie

48:42

Bradshaw and her massive apartment on that, you know.

48:45

Oh yeah, always. That was just,

48:47

that's an ongoing gripe of mine. Yeah, that

48:49

was mad. That was mad right from the

48:51

start of the sentence, is it? Press gang,

48:53

clearly the most accurate depiction of journalism. Stephen

48:56

Moffat's press gang, yeah. So what

48:58

else? There's been a lot. There's been, there's been

49:00

the hours for another one, wasn't there? The

49:03

hours was okay, I think. Well, the hour, was it the

49:05

hour or the hours, I forget? I think that was Abby

49:07

Morgan, wasn't it, by the way? Oh, it wasn't? I

49:10

think so, yeah. I can't think of any others, actually. Any

49:12

other magazine journalism type things. Maybe we need to take question

49:14

more in advance, I don't know. I

49:19

didn't think it would be that hard. We said the bold

49:21

type. We've said Carrie from Sex

49:23

and Sissy. You've said, you know, whatever you

49:25

said. And James offered nothing. And I've offered

49:27

nothing, yeah, it's absolutely true. Yeah. It's

49:30

gross. Oh, press gang. He

49:32

said press gang. Yeah, press gang, that was my contribution. His

49:34

very current contribution. Yeah, very, always cutting edge me. Well,

49:37

okay, so if you're going to talk in terms of, but

49:39

getting this newspaper since America again, if you talk about the

49:41

final season of The Wire, which is all about the Baltimore

49:43

Sun, isn't it? And that, I think, is very close to.

49:45

That was, that felt very awesome. Yeah, because it's David Simon,

49:47

this is where he lives, isn't it? So, you know. We've

49:50

had Alaska Daily, actually. I liked that show.

49:52

Oh, yeah, that's a lot. With Hillary's rank.

49:54

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is that realistic,

49:56

though? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. OK,

50:00

well, I don't know if we've answered that question in

50:02

any conceivable way, but let's assume that we have. We've

50:05

tailed off. We've tailed off. We've run out of energy.

50:08

Right. If you would like your question

50:10

answered on this particular podcast, send them,

50:12

send your queries, send your thoughts, send

50:14

your feelings to Kay at Kerbero on

50:16

Twitter or at pilotdbpod also on Twitter

50:18

or on the Instagram. Right.

50:20

It's time for news. What's happened in the world of

50:22

news people? Tony Collette

50:24

has joined the cast of upcoming

50:26

Netflix series, limited series Wayward alongside

50:29

Mae Martin. Apparently the series is

50:31

described as a thriller set in

50:33

a bucolic but sinister town that

50:35

explores the insidious and underbelly of

50:37

the troubled teen industry and the

50:39

eternal struggle between one generation and

50:41

the next. Bucolic but sinister

50:43

is an excellent combination of adjectives. I would

50:45

like that applied to everything from now on.

50:48

It's bucolic but sinister. Those were my words.

50:50

Are they good? They're from the

50:52

British release. I'm less impressed, but nevertheless, that's

50:54

good. Bucolic but sinister

50:57

news. So Marion Cotillard has signed up

50:59

for a role on The Morning Show.

51:01

How do you pronounce the name? Cotillard.

51:04

Cotillard. Yeah. All

51:06

we know about her character is she will star as

51:08

Celine Dumont and

51:12

she is described as a savvy operator

51:14

from a storied European family. She's described

51:16

as a bucolic but sinister. Yeah,

51:19

maybe. What

51:22

else has happened? I know when Three Body Problem

51:24

was essentially green lit and they were really vague

51:26

about what we were getting. There will be additional

51:28

episodes, very non-committal and non-specific. Apparently, they've now come

51:30

back and said, look, fine, we were vague, we'll

51:33

be specific. You're going to get two more seasons.

51:35

So that's good, isn't it? We're getting two more

51:37

seasons. That's a lot more than I thought, right?

51:39

So presumably, one for each book essentially, even though

51:42

they've blurred the line slightly. Yeah, also, when you

51:44

scared that it was going to get canceled, you

51:46

were encouraging everyone to leave it running in the

51:48

background. Yes, I am thrilled to bits

51:51

that our efforts of running it in the background

51:53

paid off and as a result, as a direct

51:55

result of pilot TV's intervention, we are now getting

51:57

season two and season three of The Three Body

51:59

Problem. So it literally will be a three-body problem.

52:02

Whoo-hoo. Yeah. So that's good news. Also, and

52:04

I kind of feel it is film news,

52:06

but it's relevant to our listeners. Will

52:09

they stop confirming the Peaky Blinders movie, please? Because I

52:12

swear to God, this has been confirmed at least five

52:14

times. We knew this is happening. We've officially confirmed. We

52:16

knew it was happening. How is this

52:18

now news? I hate to agree with

52:20

James about these things, but it's absolutely

52:22

true. Yeah, I think Stephen Knight explicitly

52:25

said the film was happening ages ago.

52:28

I think the news of it was that Netflix

52:31

were making it. I feel. Is

52:33

that that was the key? I think it was the. Yeah, it's

52:35

going to be on Netflix. Yeah. So and

52:37

they're financing it effectively. Netflix

52:40

megabucks. Yeah, that's good news. And Kelly Murphy

52:42

is producing, etc. But

52:45

that's all good news, for sure. Some

52:48

other news. Ryan Murphy apparently first offered

52:50

Glee to Jonathan Groff and Lea Michelle.

52:52

But apparently Groff turned it down. Well,

52:54

he did. Apparently he did. I'm just

52:56

going to say, I've seen it. He's

52:58

not in it. So is that

53:02

news? No, but he sort

53:04

of explained that he didn't want to sign

53:06

on to be singing teenager again for another

53:08

seven years. At

53:11

the time he was 23 and he

53:13

just finished a two year run of

53:15

playing a teenager in Broadway's Spring Awakening

53:17

with Lea Michelle. And

53:19

yeah, so apparently Ryan told Lea Michelle and him that

53:21

he'd written the show Glee for the two of them.

53:24

And would they be interested in doing it? But as

53:27

we know, he said no. He did.

53:30

Interesting for Glee fans, maybe. Oh, definitely. I still

53:32

like Glee. I knew what's the first season, though.

53:35

I would not have you down as a Glee fan. You didn't like it

53:38

that much. No, I didn't press on with it. It

53:40

was good. It was really good. It was pretty

53:42

good. He kind of ran out of steam quite

53:45

quickly. Yeah, that was before I developed an aversion

53:47

to Ryan Murphy stuff. But yeah, yeah, it was

53:49

it was massively groundbreaking, innovative at the

53:51

time. So there's

53:53

been some Last of Us news. So you

53:55

will recall the first season of The Last of Us, which

53:57

had a total of nine episodes and covered the whole of

53:59

the film. first game and as we move now into the

54:01

Last of Us Part 2, the second game. Now the second

54:03

season of The Last of Us is only going to have

54:05

seven episodes, it's going to be slightly shorter. People are freaking

54:07

out because there's actually a lot more plot in the second

54:09

game than there is in the first game. So I

54:12

believe... Is it shorter? Well, that's what I'm

54:14

about to tell you. Greg

54:17

Mason and Neil Drummond have addressed this and basically they're

54:19

not telling the whole story in the second season. So

54:21

it's going to be the second game is going to

54:23

be the second and third seasons. So there's going to

54:26

be more of this to come and they've actually said

54:28

that it might even go into the fourth season as

54:30

well. So the second game may spread across... it'll definitely

54:32

spread across two seasons, it might even be spread across

54:34

three. Why? Money's spitter. I

54:37

mean, sure, there's an element of that to it, I'm certain. But

54:39

there is a... again, without spoilers,

54:41

people who know will know, but it's not...

54:43

there's not just a lot of story, but

54:45

there are very significant narrative breaks in the

54:47

story. And I do feel

54:49

like... he's basically... they said they're doing seven episodes for

54:51

Season 2 because that's where a natural break point falls.

54:53

So they can then break it at that point and

54:55

then pick up in the next

54:58

season. That makes perfect sense to me. I

55:00

am fascinated, fascinated, I tell you, by how

55:02

they are going to structure this

55:04

show. Like how they are going

55:07

to address the game narrative in

55:09

the TV show, because it's going

55:11

to be hard. Kay's in agreement. Yeah, Kay's nodding, nodding vigorously. How

55:13

they're going to structure it. How indeed Kay says. That's what she's

55:15

been saying all day. It keeps me up, that's why I'm

55:17

tired. Yeah. Yeah. Why

55:20

is it particularly difficultly structured in

55:22

the... Yes, it is.

55:24

It has an unorthodox structure narratively.

55:27

I mean, everything has an unorthodox structure

55:29

narratively these days. Yes, yes. But I

55:31

think this one in particular, it's

55:33

an unorthodox structure, not just for

55:35

the sake of creativity, it serves

55:38

the emotional content of the

55:41

series. And so you've

55:43

got to be very precise with

55:45

it. Like it requires a very

55:47

deaf touch to recapture the power of

55:49

the narrative that was in the game because of the way

55:51

it plays out. So I have to

55:53

be obviously vague by definition here, but people

55:56

who know what I'm talking about, obviously will be like nodding. Yeah,

55:58

if you know. You know, there's

56:01

a lot of sage nodding. Fascinating.

56:04

Yeah. What other news? Well, you know,

56:06

I like to delve into the stats

56:08

of... Oh, you love a stat boy.

56:11

He loves a stat. This recently, Netflix.

56:13

Netflix basically released data twice a year

56:15

for the previous year. So basically Netflix

56:17

now, they released data for the first

56:19

half of 2023 ages ago, I think January. And then

56:22

just recently they've released data for the rest of that year.

56:25

So now they have like, we know what

56:27

the biggest hits are on Netflix for 2023.

56:29

And the one that I wanted to mention

56:31

is that... Wait, can we guess some of

56:33

them? Yeah, sure. Yeah. Doesn't

56:36

seem so enthused. No, no, go for it. Yeah.

56:38

What do you think is the number one? I

56:40

think the number one show, it's quite confusingly, it's

56:42

quite confusing to work things out as well. But

56:44

I'll tell you what the number one show of

56:46

the year was. You can guess. Yeah, go on.

56:49

Come on, James. It's a

56:51

show I think we did review. I'm pretty sure we

56:53

reviewed. No, because I

56:55

was gonna say Bridgerton, but that's too obvious. Well,

56:57

Queen Charlotte of Bridgerton's story is up there.

57:00

Is it? Number three. Oh, okay. Yeah, there

57:02

you go. So James, I've already beaten you.

57:05

Okay, good. Well done. Oh, he's not

57:07

competitive. Yes,

57:10

I don't care. It's fine. No, I'll tell

57:12

you. Go on. The night agent. Do you

57:14

remember that? Yeah. Okay, steady. She's getting

57:16

all fond of the colour already. Oh,

57:19

God. Sexy night agent. Sexy night agent.

57:22

Yeah. Absolutely huge.

57:24

Was it K? Was K responsible for all of it? Can

57:27

you watch one I've played? Again and again and

57:29

again. Yeah. 118

57:32

times you want that. 118.2 million views

57:34

by K alone. Making

57:36

it Netflix's biggest series last year, which I think

57:38

is a surprise. I'm surprised, yes. Because it wasn't

57:40

very good. But yeah. It was fine. It was

57:43

fine. It was just so generic. It was. But

57:45

it shows you genericness does win out a lot.

57:47

The second biggest show of the year, and I

57:50

did know this was a hit this show, but it's extraordinary

57:52

how big it is. Wednesday. Yeah.

57:55

The. I'm not shocked. Yeah. Was

57:57

it Tim Burton, I think? directed

58:00

to the start of it and that's 98.4 million, then

58:02

Queen Charlotte, the Bridgerton story. And

58:05

the other show that's done really well, but it

58:07

was, it arrived in the second half of the

58:09

year, so it hasn't yet caught up, but is

58:11

potentially on the way to being in that top

58:13

five, is One Piece, which was

58:15

the, yeah, which we didn't review, based on

58:17

the manga. Yeah, based on the manga, yeah.

58:20

And that is absolutely massive, yeah. And I particularly

58:22

like the fact, and James will love this, that

58:24

the biggest film of the year, pretty much, or

58:26

the second biggest film of the year, mother was

58:28

the biggest, which is a J-Lo, also generic bullshit

58:31

film, was Leave the World Behind. I knew you

58:33

were gonna say that. I knew you were gonna

58:35

say that. The famous thing that James hated. I

58:37

didn't hate it, I did not hate

58:39

it. The ending was

58:41

disappointing. With the Friends DVD twist. I liked

58:43

it, yes. Oh, that film, oh, gosh. I

58:45

liked it, I was just disappointed by the

58:48

ending. Yeah, yeah. So yeah,

58:50

I find it absolutely intriguing, the whole

58:52

thing, the Netflix hits.

58:55

Where's the diplomat, that's what I wanna know. Yeah, the

58:57

diplomat's quite, I'll tell you what, the one other thing

58:59

I was gonna mention was, the big disappointment for Netflix,

59:01

I think, so far, is that the final

59:03

season of The Crown did not go out with a

59:05

bang, as it says in the report. It generated a

59:07

modest 25.2 million views, less

59:11

than season one of Young Sheldon. Oh my god. Oh

59:13

my god. Which, bear in mind,

59:15

they're just showing Young Sheldon second rights to

59:17

it, right? It's the ghost of Diana. Yeah.

59:19

So, you know, the massively lavish and expensive

59:21

The Crown. And it did kind of, the

59:23

end, the last season wasn't great, was it?

59:27

I mean, the one episode or two episodes, I think

59:29

I watched two episodes, but then I didn't watch the

59:31

previous seasons either. Fine, yeah, of course you didn't, yeah.

59:33

Yeah, so that's that. The other story I wanted to

59:35

mention, which is a massive, massive

59:37

fascinating story, is did you

59:40

see this whole thing about how Netflix

59:42

and Ava DuVernay settled with the

59:44

woman at the center of the Central Part

59:46

Five series, Linda Feierstein. She was suing them.

59:49

Basically, this is all, this story is fascinating

59:51

because it touches on the whole thing

59:53

about, you know, can you

59:55

say based on a true story, depicting

59:57

real people in dramas based on true life.

1:00:00

incidents. So, Avi DuVernay is

1:00:02

brilliant, which she reviewed when they see

1:00:04

it. Fantastic series about the Central Park

1:00:06

Five and how they were wrongly accused

1:00:08

and treated horrendously. Linda Fierstein,

1:00:10

she was the prosecutor in charge of prosecuting

1:00:12

that case at the time. And

1:00:15

she complained, this is a couple of years

1:00:17

ago when it came out, that she'd been

1:00:19

introduced and

1:00:22

that she was suing them. Well, they settled.

1:00:24

What's interesting about the settlement is that she's depicting

1:00:26

it as a victory for herself because

1:00:29

she has got Netflix to agree to have

1:00:31

a disclaimer, an extended disclaimer at the beginning

1:00:33

of the series now about how

1:00:35

characters have fictionalized elements

1:00:37

of them. That's a massive victory. But,

1:00:40

she didn't win any money. Apart from

1:00:43

a donation to The Innocence

1:00:45

Project, a 1 million donation by Netflix

1:00:47

to The Innocence Project, Fierstein

1:00:49

will not receive any money herself. And then,

1:00:51

and you have to read this whole thing

1:00:54

for yourself, but you'll find it if you

1:00:56

Google it. Ava DuVernay herself put out a

1:00:58

statement, an incredibly brutal

1:01:00

statement about how Linda Fierstein still thinks the

1:01:02

Central Park Five are guilty, even though they've

1:01:05

been completely exonerated using DNA evidence, etc. And

1:01:07

she hasn't, you know, apologized for her role

1:01:09

in the whole case and still saying that

1:01:12

there's no agreement to silence any of the

1:01:14

parties involved in this negotiation. So Ava DuVernay,

1:01:16

she's literally unleashed orange of fury, of righteous

1:01:18

fury about this woman and saying it's not

1:01:21

she hasn't won this case at all. She

1:01:23

wanted to go to get loads of money

1:01:25

from us and she hasn't got any money

1:01:27

from us. And the settlement's totally in their

1:01:30

favor. So it's one of those fascinating, it's

1:01:33

legal implications, it's got TV drama implications. Well,

1:01:35

there's drama about it. I mean, I'd like

1:01:37

to see it, a follow up. Yeah, why

1:01:39

not? But it's fascinating. Yeah, check it out.

1:01:42

Well, right. That's it for news. Let's move on

1:01:44

to this week's second guest. And you'll remember that

1:01:46

we weren't able to review the most recent series

1:01:48

of Fargo on this podcast, but a great many

1:01:50

of you did write in to say how much

1:01:52

you loved it. And while we can't

1:01:54

really go back and review it in retrospect, we can

1:01:57

do you one better and bring the star of the

1:01:59

series, Sam Sproul, on the show to talk about it.

1:02:01

Isn't that right, Boydie? Yes. He's

1:02:04

role in the show is absolutely extraordinary. Yes. And

1:02:06

it was very exciting to speak to him about

1:02:08

it. Okay. Well, there you go.

1:02:10

That's Boydie hyping it up. Does it live

1:02:12

up to the hype? Let's find out. This

1:02:14

is Sam Sproul to the most recent series

1:02:17

of Fargo with Boydie. Hi, Sam. Welcome

1:02:19

to the Pilot TV podcast. Thanks for doing this.

1:02:22

Thank you for inviting me. I have

1:02:24

to say that Fargo season five, loads

1:02:26

and loads of people got

1:02:29

in touch with us about that

1:02:31

particular season this

1:02:33

year on our podcast. Loads of

1:02:35

listeners just loved it so

1:02:37

much. And, you know, I think in general,

1:02:40

it's one of the kind of TV events of the year

1:02:42

for sure. Did it when you were

1:02:44

asked to do it and when you got involved

1:02:46

and when you got the part, did you know

1:02:49

that of the of the TV spinoff of the

1:02:51

film, et cetera? Did you know the whole world?

1:02:53

And had you seen previous series? Yes, I had.

1:02:55

And I knew all about the

1:02:57

TV show. I wasn't

1:02:59

completely up to date with it. But

1:03:04

I had seen the

1:03:07

first two certainly and thought they

1:03:09

were fantastic. And I was kind

1:03:12

of quite clear on the

1:03:15

kind of opportunity offered to kind of

1:03:17

actors to play kind

1:03:19

of these big, juicy

1:03:23

roles that I

1:03:25

don't know that were kind of completely

1:03:28

real and and also

1:03:30

completely outsized as

1:03:32

well. And and

1:03:35

I just you know, it was

1:03:37

certainly if I did

1:03:40

have a bucket list, I think it would

1:03:42

be on it. So yeah. And this role

1:03:45

of Ule Munk, which I think should be, which

1:03:47

is how you pronounce it. Is

1:03:49

that for the monk or

1:03:52

or a monk? Yeah,

1:03:55

exactly. Yeah. I

1:03:57

mean, he must be the most extraordinary role of

1:03:59

your career, right? I mean, you've done

1:04:01

a lot of stuff, but to

1:04:04

have this extraordinarily terrifying, mysterious,

1:04:06

like mythic almost figure, what

1:04:09

did you make of him when you went in? I

1:04:11

mean, when Noah talked to me

1:04:13

about him, I'd never heard

1:04:15

a brief like it. You know, the brief was

1:04:19

he maybe began in Wales. He

1:04:24

then has kind of come

1:04:26

from Scandinavia to the shores of

1:04:28

America. He's 500 years old. He

1:04:32

hasn't spoke for 100 years. He's

1:04:35

lived in America for 200 years and

1:04:38

kind of seen

1:04:40

kind of huge

1:04:43

changes on that

1:04:45

continent. And I just so

1:04:47

it was kind of just so massive.

1:04:52

The size and breadth of

1:04:54

his lived experience, I guess.

1:04:57

And then also

1:05:02

the sin eating scene where

1:05:05

he has to eat the

1:05:07

sins off the

1:05:09

man's chest that have been

1:05:11

breathed onto a plate of food was the

1:05:14

key to unlocking that character, actually. Because

1:05:16

what it meant was that this guy

1:05:19

was trapped in sin. And

1:05:21

I really that was that

1:05:25

felt key to who he was

1:05:27

and how isolated he was, how

1:05:29

unhappy he was and how kind

1:05:31

of trapped in a kind

1:05:33

of certain way of living he was, which was

1:05:36

living in sin. He couldn't see

1:05:38

beyond sin. No one had showed

1:05:40

him any compassion or

1:05:42

love or kindness to

1:05:45

kind of for

1:05:48

him to be able to envisage a life that went

1:05:50

beyond sin. And I

1:05:52

found that in particular

1:05:55

kind of the hook on

1:05:57

which I hung the carriage.

1:06:00

Yeah, yeah. And he's got an incredible look, hasn't

1:06:02

he? The hair, the haircut is extraordinary. Yeah,

1:06:06

and that was my hair. And,

1:06:10

well, I think we just, you know, the

1:06:12

look from the boots to the

1:06:14

kilts, to the kind

1:06:17

of, he was wearing this kind of

1:06:19

all in one Long John kind of

1:06:21

thing. It's

1:06:24

kind of, I suppose it was reflecting the

1:06:27

ages through which he lived a bit. And

1:06:29

then, you know, the hair,

1:06:32

I just, I don't know why. I

1:06:35

started thinking about mods, actually. I went,

1:06:37

I went, I have no idea why

1:06:39

I started thinking about mods. God,

1:06:42

I can't, I can't now, I've drawn a blank,

1:06:44

but I took lots of pictures of mods

1:06:47

and poor Weller and, you know, with

1:06:49

these kind of, kind

1:06:52

of weird hair that looked

1:06:54

like they kind of cut it themselves.

1:06:58

And I showed some pictures of this to

1:07:00

Noah and he was like, great, love it.

1:07:03

And then the hair

1:07:07

stylist on the job, I

1:07:09

think she cut it, kind of, she

1:07:12

did three snips of her scissors. One

1:07:15

at the side, one at the

1:07:17

other side, and one at the fringe. And that was

1:07:19

my haircut for the rest of the six months I

1:07:21

was in Calgary. But yeah, the

1:07:23

look was kind of, you

1:07:25

know, of course, really important to

1:07:27

everyone. I think the kill also with

1:07:31

the kind of conversations with the costume

1:07:33

designer, it was about kind of making

1:07:36

him outside of convention, you know, it

1:07:38

wasn't affected by the society he lived

1:07:40

in at all. He

1:07:43

was completely kind of,

1:07:46

he was completely isolated in that sense.

1:07:49

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, poor Weller has a

1:07:51

variety of interesting haircuts and recent, for

1:07:53

the years. Oh my God, I mean,

1:07:55

it's amazing. But it's all, it's all

1:07:57

stayed within the mod back, hasn't it?

1:07:59

Yes, it has. But yeah, he kind

1:08:01

of, it is extraordinary and

1:08:03

can make him look quite alien. And,

1:08:06

and, and alien is definitely a bit like

1:08:08

your look is definitely. Yeah. And I think

1:08:11

there's always a bit of that kind of

1:08:13

theme, whether it be a kind of supernatural

1:08:16

alien theme that runs through Fargo

1:08:19

as well. Yeah. Yeah.

1:08:22

And he is obviously involved in extraordinary

1:08:24

acts of violence, I mean, throughout the

1:08:26

series, which are vividly shot. What is

1:08:28

it like, you know, kind of taking

1:08:31

part in those things, those big set

1:08:33

piece kind of. Well,

1:08:36

they're kind of exciting,

1:08:38

but they're technical as well, because

1:08:41

you can't kind of have

1:08:44

to, you

1:08:46

have to kind of execute a kind of

1:08:48

action. You have to have to be able to work a machine gun,

1:08:50

you have to look like you can use

1:08:52

a machine gun properly and have some kind of

1:08:54

degree of expertise, but you have to kind of

1:08:56

stay in character as well. There's lots of, you

1:08:59

have to be aware of where the

1:09:01

camera is. It's kind of, you know, there is, it's

1:09:05

just like the craft of

1:09:08

acting, but with

1:09:10

props really. And that can be an

1:09:12

actor's worst nightmare. But, but

1:09:16

I think I've got kind of better

1:09:18

at action sequences as I've, gone

1:09:20

on in my career, it's just

1:09:22

kind of maybe not

1:09:25

worrying too much, but also, also just,

1:09:31

you know, I think it's the only time

1:09:33

I look at the monitor when I'm doing

1:09:35

action sequences, because it's

1:09:38

usually you're not, you're

1:09:41

in kind of one kind of place

1:09:43

with your acting, you're not moving through

1:09:45

the gears through a speech or whatever.

1:09:48

And so the visual

1:09:50

is really important. And

1:09:52

so I, I often

1:09:55

look at the monitor doing action just to make

1:09:57

sure I'm getting what the director wants. And fair

1:09:59

enough. Yeah, is there a scene that felt the

1:10:01

most challenging for you in a way in the

1:10:03

whole in the whole series? anything,

1:10:06

um, I mean, it's um It

1:10:10

was all challenging. I remember really

1:10:13

arriving to set Nervous

1:10:16

most days I was filming, you

1:10:18

know, but I think I think

1:10:21

I we began um,

1:10:23

I was first up with john ham and

1:10:25

joe o'kiri in a scene that's in the

1:10:28

second episode where he monk

1:10:31

has to go back to John

1:10:35

ham's character and say, you know,

1:10:37

she's a tiger this one that

1:10:39

you've um wanted me to catch

1:10:41

and um She beat

1:10:43

me and my guys up, you know, and

1:10:45

that was a big scene And

1:10:48

it was the first day of filming of

1:10:50

the whole shoot as well. So there would

1:10:52

be no rehearsals Um

1:10:54

up until that point noah hawley who's

1:10:56

the showrunner just said surprise me um

1:11:00

after kind of extensive discussion but Surprised

1:11:03

me and I think you know, he kept

1:11:05

up to date with how costume things were

1:11:07

going or or how? Yeah

1:11:11

I have a kind of obviously a really particular accent

1:11:13

in it and so I was working with the voice

1:11:15

coach I'm sure he spoke to her to see

1:11:17

how that was going But yeah, I

1:11:19

think that was the most challenging because I

1:11:22

was arriving with this creation that I had

1:11:25

kind of was honing um

1:11:27

on my own and then that suddenly I had to

1:11:29

kind of um, you know

1:11:32

give it in a scene and uh,

1:11:34

I really You

1:11:38

know There was a certain amount we experimented

1:11:40

a bit within the scene as we filmed

1:11:43

it We do it faster or slower kind

1:11:45

of louder or quieter more menacing, you know

1:11:47

Just kind of small adjustments um

1:11:50

or where I was looking or kind

1:11:53

of more insular or more confrontational We

1:11:55

really did kind of play around with

1:11:57

it and that helped me and I

1:11:59

I think Noah find

1:12:01

the character just in that morning, but

1:12:04

still you're still putting down something

1:12:06

in front of camera. And that was utterly

1:12:09

terrifying the first day and

1:12:12

something that, you know, and also you're

1:12:14

working with your fellow actors. So you're

1:12:17

kind of also trying

1:12:19

to feel them out and trying to feel

1:12:22

out their characters and trying to kind of

1:12:25

get a sense of who they are as well and

1:12:28

how they work as people, as actors.

1:12:31

And so, yeah,

1:12:33

that was challenging, but we didn't

1:12:35

reshoot it kind of two months

1:12:38

later, having kind of done more.

1:12:40

We, it made the edit and

1:12:42

I was proud of that scene

1:12:44

actually. Yeah, it's a great scene.

1:12:46

Yeah, yeah. And you're playing, you're working with your

1:12:48

play of Jon Hamm, you know, a

1:12:50

legend. Yeah, and also, and

1:12:52

like, and what's interesting about

1:12:55

Jon Hamm is kind of

1:12:57

complete pro and he was

1:12:59

big for that show and

1:13:02

he was intimidating and he has a kind of,

1:13:06

a relaxed kind of aura

1:13:08

anyway, which

1:13:12

is actually intimidating in itself, you know?

1:13:14

Of course, it puts people at

1:13:17

ease, but I thought, God,

1:13:19

he's really on top of things.

1:13:21

He's just, he's very

1:13:23

chilled out and I wasn't

1:13:26

feeling that at all, but

1:13:29

actually he was great to work with.

1:13:33

Really straightforward. We work in quite

1:13:35

different ways actually. I think we

1:13:37

approach work differently, but when

1:13:39

we came together, that almost worked better

1:13:43

for the scenes, you know, where

1:13:45

it's just, you could feel, the

1:13:48

difference in energies was tangible. And

1:13:51

some of that came from just who

1:13:53

we are. And those Pierce

1:13:56

Nipple's were terrifying, I have to

1:13:58

say. Oh, I mean, just a

1:14:00

Pierce Nipple. is terrifying at the

1:14:02

best of times, but on a

1:14:04

character like that, it's completely frightening.

1:14:06

And also such a tiny kind

1:14:08

of symbol of what lies

1:14:10

beneath with that character. And

1:14:13

that's a kind of stroke of

1:14:15

genius on those parts. Yeah, completely,

1:14:18

completely. And the other thing, and

1:14:20

this is a spoiler really, but I'll warn our

1:14:22

listeners if they haven't seen it. People

1:14:24

discover these shows, don't they, whenever, even

1:14:26

though it finished months ago.

1:14:29

But the finale, I have to

1:14:31

ask you about that, because that scene with

1:14:34

you and you know, where he

1:14:36

suddenly is confronted by nice domestic

1:14:38

people. It's

1:14:40

so powerful, it's so interesting. Such a brilliant way

1:14:42

of finishing the series, I thought. When you read

1:14:44

that on the script, and

1:14:46

also a puget acting challenge, because you have to

1:14:48

kind of change quite a lot. We're watching you

1:14:51

almost evolve, aren't we, in front of our eyes.

1:14:53

What did you make of that whole sequence? When

1:14:57

I read the script, because obviously we

1:15:00

began shooting the show with

1:15:02

some scripts in place, but

1:15:04

the ending wasn't written. I

1:15:07

think, you know, Noah certainly

1:15:09

wanted to get maybe through the first six

1:15:13

episodes before we started formulating

1:15:16

the ending, see how, you

1:15:18

know, characters fall into

1:15:21

place, sorry, and how

1:15:23

they kind of form,

1:15:25

and how they inspire

1:15:27

him or whatever. And so when

1:15:31

he sent the ending through,

1:15:33

I just thought, oh, this is brilliant. I

1:15:36

was thrilled kind of by, kind

1:15:39

of for the arc that it gave on Munch.

1:15:43

And also for

1:15:46

the hope that it, I

1:15:49

think was aiming to give to the audience. And

1:15:52

also, yeah, a kind of

1:15:55

optimism in

1:15:58

the face of kind of such kind of, The

1:16:02

show explores quite a lot of barbarism

1:16:04

and cruelty, you know, and so

1:16:06

this was kind of a moment

1:16:08

where the

1:16:11

cycle of living in sin that

1:16:14

had kind of that had

1:16:17

been experienced by a munch. This

1:16:20

was when it was properly challenged and

1:16:23

I thought that was extraordinary that it

1:16:25

should be challenged, you know, by compassion

1:16:28

and kindness and love and

1:16:31

a kind of it

1:16:34

was a kind of also his

1:16:36

force meeting the force of Juno's

1:16:38

character, you know, Dots

1:16:43

had a kind of code herself.

1:16:45

He's got a code, which is

1:16:47

a kind of Old Testament eye

1:16:49

for an eye and she goes, why

1:16:53

can't we forget the debt?

1:16:55

And he just finds

1:16:58

it so difficult. Noah described it

1:17:00

as a kind of itch

1:17:02

on the inside of his skull that he just

1:17:05

needs to scratch, but she somehow through

1:17:07

kind of compassion manages to turn him

1:17:09

around and bring him to the end.

1:17:21

And so he just kind of has a kind of a break his cycle and I

1:17:24

just thought it was kind of, yeah,

1:17:26

I was really pleased and it was

1:17:28

we shot that we shot that scene,

1:17:30

the last scene of the show on

1:17:32

the last day in the last hour. And,

1:17:36

and I think we had kind

1:17:38

of been practicing for six months

1:17:41

to do that scene as

1:17:43

characters, me, Juno and David.

1:17:46

And I think, yeah, I think it

1:17:48

came together well. And the last shot

1:17:50

is you, you know, isn't it? It's

1:17:52

like, you know, yeah, well, it is,

1:17:54

it is. And, and also the funny

1:17:56

thing is I've had quite a lot

1:17:58

of people, you know, I

1:18:01

asked me if those were my own teeth. And

1:18:03

unfortunately, the answer is yes. But

1:18:07

they were, they do have a lot of

1:18:09

makeup kind of painted onto

1:18:14

them, but yeah, they're not the best

1:18:16

advert for British dentistry. I

1:18:19

can confirm you're absolutely fine teeth

1:18:21

wise in this away from the

1:18:23

character. Okay, all right, that's

1:18:25

very good. Yeah, I have to

1:18:27

adjust about the whole visual of the show. I

1:18:30

mean, when you're in the middle of a show like this and you

1:18:33

know, no, it's show running in every different

1:18:35

directors are working on it, but just every

1:18:37

shot almost is like a work

1:18:39

of art, isn't it? And when you watch it

1:18:41

back, you must think, Oh my God, they've really

1:18:43

done a good job on this. Yeah, I think,

1:18:45

oh, listen, it's a mixture of everything. It's the

1:18:47

way the show is shot by

1:18:51

Dana and also also

1:18:55

just costume and set design.

1:18:59

And, you know, these things go

1:19:01

through kind of huge consultations.

1:19:04

So like the Roy Tillman's

1:19:06

house that he lives in

1:19:08

the ranch, that

1:19:12

was painted, they've discovered, they found the

1:19:14

location and I know I'm almost

1:19:17

certain it was painted a

1:19:19

really specific gray that

1:19:21

there was, and there was a whole sample

1:19:24

chart of grays that it was going to

1:19:26

be painted, you know, and

1:19:28

the color of cars and,

1:19:30

you know, everything is really

1:19:34

thought about. So, and the same, you

1:19:36

know, the color of my costume was

1:19:38

not just less, they

1:19:41

didn't just find it and make it that,

1:19:43

you know, it's really, there are samples everywhere

1:19:45

that so everything has a kind

1:19:48

of cohesive look. And

1:19:50

then, you know, then

1:19:52

it really, yes, things

1:19:55

kind of generate, I don't

1:19:58

know, they're just, become

1:20:00

then through the force

1:20:02

of all those things, you know,

1:20:04

and the writing and the acting,

1:20:08

they kind of create

1:20:10

this cohesive, unique kind

1:20:12

of creation that really,

1:20:17

I don't know, I don't know how things

1:20:20

kind of come together. I

1:20:22

think Noah would be a better person

1:20:24

to ask that, but it really kind

1:20:26

of, I'm

1:20:28

always bowled over by something that is

1:20:31

where all the elements, visual,

1:20:34

script writing, acting come together. It's

1:20:36

almost like a miracle because there

1:20:38

are so many things to wrangle

1:20:41

that when

1:20:44

they do come together, it just

1:20:46

feels incredible and the whole kind of

1:20:49

thing levitates, you know. Yeah, that's the

1:20:51

right word for it. Yeah. I have

1:20:53

to ask you about your Doctor Who

1:20:55

role, because I'm a big Doctor Who

1:20:57

fan. Oh, great. Yeah. Was that fun?

1:20:59

I mean, that's a lot, there was

1:21:02

a lot of makeup and I guess

1:21:04

prosthetics to deal with. Oh my God.

1:21:06

Yeah, and big gold teeth, bigger than

1:21:08

my Norman teeth. Yeah, it was great

1:21:10

fun. I mean, I loved working

1:21:13

with Rescenda

1:21:16

Sandal who played my sister in

1:21:18

it. She's right. A lot of

1:21:20

makeup. Yeah, she's right. We had

1:21:22

worked together before on something completely

1:21:24

different, small acts directed

1:21:26

by Steve McQueen. But

1:21:29

yeah, it was, you know, I mean,

1:21:31

it's an institution, isn't it? And I

1:21:34

felt very lucky to be asked and

1:21:36

kind of, I usually kind of, I

1:21:38

always feel like, and maybe most actors

1:21:41

feel like I operate on the outside

1:21:43

of these kind of stalwarts of British

1:21:45

entertainment, if you like, you know, or

1:21:47

a bit more kind of underground and

1:21:50

lo-fi, but it was kind of, it

1:21:53

just felt amazing

1:21:55

to be a part of it. And I

1:21:58

suppose I love it. loved

1:22:00

the character. I loved

1:22:03

how evil and camp

1:22:06

he was and his sexuality

1:22:09

as well. And actually quite a lot of

1:22:11

sexuality in Doctor Who, you know, and if

1:22:14

you meet the fans, it's a

1:22:17

kind of feels like a kind of safe

1:22:19

haven for kind of all

1:22:23

shapes and sizes and all

1:22:25

sexualities. You know, I just

1:22:27

I think it's a world

1:22:29

that is rich is what

1:22:31

I'm saying. And if

1:22:33

you embrace that, I think you can really create

1:22:36

some pretty good characters. And I

1:22:39

hope we did that with Swarm.

1:22:42

Yeah, you absolutely did. Yeah. Now it's a

1:22:44

show of different people who consider themselves outsiders,

1:22:47

I think particularly drawn to aren't they? Yeah,

1:22:49

absolutely. And I love that aspect. And I

1:22:51

didn't really know about that until

1:22:53

I got involved in Doctor

1:22:55

Who. And I really like

1:22:57

how that how the show

1:23:00

has evolved in that

1:23:02

way. Thank you so much, Sam. Great

1:23:04

to talk to you. Congratulations on all your stuff, but

1:23:06

physically, yeah. Fargot, Super Five, what

1:23:08

a thing. That's

1:23:10

really kind, Boyd. Thanks so much. Now,

1:23:13

Sam Sproul, time now for

1:23:15

this week's reviews. And first up

1:23:17

this week is the second installment in Apple

1:23:19

TV's Harrison Ford reboot, following

1:23:21

on from Mosquito Coast with another parser. His 1990 courtroom

1:23:25

thriller, Presumed Innocent, this time swapping out

1:23:27

Harrison's pointy finger for that of Jake

1:23:29

Gyllenhaal, as a prosecutor who

1:23:31

finds himself in the dark accused of

1:23:33

a colleague's murder, presumably after some kind

1:23:36

of breeders based altercation. Now, Boyd, as

1:23:38

someone who has likewise come very close

1:23:40

to murdering his colleague for similar reasons,

1:23:43

and we know how much you do love a courtroom

1:23:45

drama, what is your verdict on Presumed Innocent? I do

1:23:47

love a courtroom drama. I only this have been on

1:23:49

a plane as well. Oh, I know. It would have

1:23:51

been a dream scenario. Convenes.

1:24:00

Air Force One. Yeah, yeah, that could

1:24:02

work. Well, I famously, the last week,

1:24:04

because you've

1:24:06

been watching this thing, you've been banging on about this

1:24:08

show as soon as it arrived. As soon as it

1:24:10

dropped on Apple, I watched the entire thing. It said

1:24:12

not the entire thing, because I still haven't seen the

1:24:14

finale. As soon as it dropped on Apple's screeners. Oh,

1:24:16

yes. Not for actual people. Not for actual people on

1:24:18

the ground. Not for the normies. You've

1:24:23

been in the privileged position, have been able to

1:24:25

watch almost all of it for weeks now. And

1:24:28

what intrigued me is when you

1:24:30

started watching it, you said how you'd, even though

1:24:33

you'd seen the original film version. Can't remember anything

1:24:35

about it. You can't remember anything about it. Whereas

1:24:37

I completely, vividly remember what the ending. Do not

1:24:39

in any way spoil that. I'm not going to

1:24:41

spoil anything. Oh my God, Boyd, do not. I'm

1:24:43

not going to. I'm not an insane monster.

1:24:47

But I'm intrigued to see the last step, because

1:24:50

I've also caught up now in the seven of

1:24:52

the eighth episodes. I've devoured seven of the eight

1:24:54

episodes equally. And can't wait to see whether

1:24:56

they stick with the original or change it. Maybe they

1:24:58

could change it. James, can you not remember the

1:25:00

ending? I have no idea how the film

1:25:02

ends. No idea. I haven't 100% seen the

1:25:04

film, but I saw it basically when it

1:25:06

came out, which was a while ago. What's

1:25:10

interesting is they've taken a two hour, you know, a

1:25:12

two hour film, the film version, we saw Harrison Ford

1:25:14

in that version. And this is an

1:25:16

eight hour epic, you know, more or less streaming,

1:25:18

peak TV, whatever you want to call it, more

1:25:20

or less version of the

1:25:22

same story. And I think actually, it's much

1:25:25

as I love the film, I do really like the film, it's

1:25:28

really entertaining, it really keeps you on your toes.

1:25:30

This is even more a

1:25:34

joy to behold, because it takes all the different strands, I

1:25:36

think, from the original novel. There are various

1:25:39

things in the novel that had to ditch

1:25:41

to turn into a two hour, a lean

1:25:43

two hour film, whereas they really mind the

1:25:45

book and all the different characters and all

1:25:47

the twists and turns and

1:25:49

revealing all the different layers of story

1:25:51

and character in a really

1:25:53

brilliant way. And this is created by

1:25:55

David E. Kelly, who's incredibly prolific,

1:25:58

who did Big Little Lies and I mean. just

1:26:00

dozens of other brilliant shows. But I think David E.

1:26:02

Kelly shows are very variable. Like, so you got the

1:26:04

one time you've got Big Little Large, which is definitely

1:26:06

one of the best things he's ever done. And then

1:26:08

you've got some fairly banal, run of

1:26:10

the mill things that he's also done. But he's,

1:26:12

I think he's really working at the top of

1:26:14

his game for this because it's like an object

1:26:16

lesson how to adapt, you know, a complex novel

1:26:19

and turn into a brilliant eight

1:26:21

hour show. And I

1:26:23

think it's, it's brilliantly

1:26:25

cast. So it's clearly like, I think there's

1:26:27

reason Jake Gyllenhaal, you know, this is his

1:26:29

first big TV drama. He's

1:26:32

exec producing it. And he's playing

1:26:34

this incredibly persuasive, charming,

1:26:36

fascinating, deeply flawed man, brilliantly called

1:26:38

Rusty Sabich. Fantastic name. And part

1:26:41

of what he has to do

1:26:43

all the way through is as

1:26:46

so the whole story is that he's

1:26:48

a top lawyer, as the show starts,

1:26:51

he is helping to campaign

1:26:53

for his boss, played by the brilliant Bill Camp,

1:26:55

who's absolutely phenomenal in the night of and many

1:26:57

other shows as attorney general

1:27:00

in Chicago. And he's like, he's

1:27:02

kind of like, you know, number two or

1:27:04

three or whatever, but high level in the

1:27:06

thing. And they're like a team, a duo,

1:27:08

but they're about to be challenged heavily by

1:27:10

a rival politician, played by Otifo Benle, Nico

1:27:13

della Guardia, I think it's called. And

1:27:15

his kind of deputies, this

1:27:17

is number two is Peter Sarsgaard's character

1:27:19

Tony Molto. So you've got this kind

1:27:21

of political challenge going on where there's,

1:27:24

they're beginning to win because in America,

1:27:26

these votes on on, you know, D8

1:27:28

district attorneys and things, they're big deals,

1:27:30

you know, it's like, you know, it's

1:27:32

very politicized. It's very political and politicized

1:27:34

in America. So you've got that. And

1:27:36

in the middle of that kind of

1:27:38

fraught political legal campaign situation, a colleague

1:27:42

of Rust is object general's character, Caroline

1:27:45

Palimas is brutally murdered. And she's played by

1:27:47

Renata Reince V. Reince V, is that you

1:27:49

pronounce it? James, do you know? I do

1:27:51

not know. Okay. Why didn't you ask me?

1:27:54

Was that how you pronounce it? Okay, tell us how is

1:27:56

it pronounced? Reince V. Reince V. Okay. She's in the worst

1:27:58

person in the world. I don't know if you saw that

1:28:00

brilliant. film. She started on that. And there's a lot of

1:28:03

flashbacks to her. So even though hers is the

1:28:06

killing of her is the central mystery

1:28:08

of the story who did it, you also see

1:28:10

a lot of her situation in flashbacks. It's a

1:28:12

good role for her as well. A whole thing

1:28:14

is a brilliant cartoon. Ruth Neger, as Jake Gyllenhaal's

1:28:16

character, his wife is fantastic. The

1:28:19

teenage characters are brilliantly done, I thought.

1:28:21

But it's inherently intriguing. So

1:28:23

you've got these kind of battle

1:28:26

drawn between these two opposing people

1:28:28

trying to get their candidate voted

1:28:30

in for DA. You've got this

1:28:32

actual case, which then heavily

1:28:34

embroils, shall we say. Now at this point, I'm

1:28:37

like, do we have to give away the fact?

1:28:39

Well, do we? Yeah. I don't know. I mean,

1:28:42

I think you have to get, you

1:28:44

have to say he gets accused of murder.

1:28:46

In the first episode. Yeah. It

1:28:48

is at the end of the first episode, but it

1:28:51

is the setup of the entire story. It is exactly.

1:28:53

It is, as we often say, the premise. Yes. Not

1:28:55

a spoiler. So and also, by the way, it's also

1:28:57

mentioned in Apple's press release. Yeah. First episode as well.

1:28:59

So and I think in the trailer and everything. So

1:29:01

the whole thing is, oh, yeah, this

1:29:04

legal hotshot who's embroiled in a complex

1:29:06

situation politically is also then accused of

1:29:08

murdering his for his colleague. And it

1:29:10

picks up and it takes off from

1:29:13

there. And there are loads of twists,

1:29:15

turns, developments, you don't know about things

1:29:17

cropping up with some

1:29:19

characters trying not to spoil

1:29:21

anything. It's absolutely riveting. And

1:29:24

each episode, the way that I was actually I was about

1:29:26

to say each episode kind of pursues

1:29:28

a different line. And it doesn't,

1:29:30

but there are a few that do. But it's interesting

1:29:32

that it leads you down the garden path in a

1:29:35

number of different directions at various points. Yes. And,

1:29:38

and I think this is always the the trick with these

1:29:40

legal things, isn't it? It's like, if you ask if you

1:29:42

were to ask a viewer what

1:29:45

they thought actually happened, it will differ from

1:29:47

episode to episode, because you're constantly switching your

1:29:49

theories as to what happened. It is it

1:29:51

is really gripping. Yeah. So but what was

1:29:53

the wise the thing that I was going

1:29:56

to say about Jack General's performances, what was

1:29:58

the two things that they're great about it

1:30:00

are first that the script that the

1:30:02

David E Kelly's and I think he's written the whole

1:30:04

thing. He does

1:30:07

that thing where big family

1:30:09

confrontations after big confrontations with

1:30:11

people kind of having these

1:30:13

heartbreaking situations, but

1:30:15

he attacks them full on

1:30:17

he really goes for it. So a lot

1:30:19

of shows would possibly you know, you'd have

1:30:21

a bit of that confrontation then you'd see

1:30:24

off screen or things could happen off screen,

1:30:26

but he completely interrogates the nightmare situation that

1:30:28

Jack Donnell's character is in the middle of

1:30:30

in a fascinating way and Jake delivers like

1:30:32

his performance having to deal with what's gone

1:30:34

on in his life is brilliantly

1:30:36

drawn. So I just think it's a fantastic vehicle

1:30:39

for him. I know. Yeah. Yeah. I think he,

1:30:41

he like his casting is a kind of a

1:30:43

master stroke in this. Obviously we want to judge

1:30:45

on who we know he's capable of all

1:30:47

too well. But, but he, but

1:30:50

the thing with the thing with Jake Gyllenhaal is

1:30:52

he gives superb bellend,

1:30:55

which I think it's crucial

1:30:57

to this show that you're all

1:30:59

the way through. Not sure.

1:31:01

Yeah. Could he have done it? Yeah, because he's a bit

1:31:03

of a dick. I think you might've

1:31:05

done like you don't know and you go backwards and forwards

1:31:07

on that all the way through it. And I think he

1:31:09

plays that role to perfection because on the one hand, suddenly

1:31:12

you think, oh, this is a really principle guy and he's

1:31:14

actually he's a bit of a bellend. And then yeah.

1:31:16

And you go backwards and forwards and he

1:31:18

does. Oh, I mean, yeah,

1:31:21

pretty much from the get go. There's elements of

1:31:23

it. You've become immune to the bellendry because of it hanging

1:31:25

out with you. That's right. It's true. You

1:31:27

say you're, you're inured against it. Wow.

1:31:31

No, but he is like, he, he's quite, uh, his

1:31:33

douchebaggery becomes quite extreme later on. So you're like, okay.

1:31:35

So yeah, I think it's, I think it's really well

1:31:37

played. I enjoyed it. What did you, what did you

1:31:39

think? Jake Gyllenhaal, my friend, of course, do

1:31:41

you remember when I interviewed him and I

1:31:44

thought we were going to have a joint 30th birthday

1:31:46

party. He seemed to agree to it, but never turned

1:31:48

up. So he showed his bellend streak there. Okay.

1:31:51

But, uh, yeah, I think he's brilliantly cast.

1:31:53

He's like, he just, he's got this intensity

1:31:55

to him, right? So you get so sucked

1:31:57

into the drama of like his situation and

1:31:59

you're like wondering. Is he

1:32:01

guilty? Is he not? I chose

1:32:03

to believe him like he was innocent in that first

1:32:06

episode because I didn't see the bellend as

1:32:08

much as you guys did. But I think it was just... Oh,

1:32:11

my God! No! He literally did

1:32:13

not see Jokes' bellend. Because she didn't see the

1:32:15

bellend as well. I'll be honest, Kay, you need Bridgerton

1:32:17

for that kind of thing. You won't be finding it

1:32:20

in for you, Vincent. I'm trying. I'm trying. I

1:32:23

think Jokes' done the odd forefrontal, so... I

1:32:25

think so. Was it Love, Sex and Other Drugs? That

1:32:28

was the film I interviewed him for. No, because

1:32:30

I interviewed him for that. That's why I remembered it. I believe it's

1:32:32

just Love and Other Drugs. But yes,

1:32:34

that's with Anne Hathaway. I do not

1:32:36

believe Jokes' bellend makes an appearance in Love and Other Drugs. I didn't mean to

1:32:38

say that... Right, anyway. I'm sure you

1:32:40

freeze-framed it and you know better than I do, but... Oh, please. Yeah,

1:32:44

I just thought it was really thrilling. And

1:32:46

so many aspects to it, as this boy highlighted, and

1:32:48

shining a light on the... I

1:32:51

thought it was interesting, the real threat facing prosecutors,

1:32:53

which they bring up, the fact that they're very

1:32:55

much, you know, at risk

1:32:57

of being... At

1:32:59

risk from being murdered by the people they

1:33:01

are essentially locking up and highlighting that, because

1:33:04

at the beginning of this case, they

1:33:06

kind of look at people who might have committed

1:33:08

this crime and then look at her back catalogue.

1:33:10

Yeah, we should say that, yeah, the way she's

1:33:13

murdered, the way the body is discovered, has

1:33:16

parallels with another case that she was... That's in the

1:33:18

first episode. That's not a spoiler. Yeah, it

1:33:20

is. You're looking at me like I'm spoiling it.

1:33:23

I've got the look on my face, because it's...

1:33:25

I would say that it's... I mean, it doesn't

1:33:27

matter about... The visuals are quite... Oh, yeah, yeah,

1:33:29

yeah. Yeah, it's very strong. Yeah, I meant to

1:33:31

mention that, because I think this is one of

1:33:33

those shows where I think people will complain. Some

1:33:36

people will think... I

1:33:38

think women will think it is one of those things where

1:33:41

you gratuitous, slightly gratuitous, you see naked

1:33:43

dead woman situation, which is often complained

1:33:45

about. It is a bit of a

1:33:47

trope. Yes, very much so.

1:33:51

But I think it's fine. I think it has to...

1:33:54

It's a bit of a crux of the story, isn't it, Paulie? So

1:33:56

I think that is justified, because it is... A

1:33:58

key part of the story is, is it or is... and this are kind

1:34:00

of committed by the same person who committed

1:34:02

this other violent horrendous violent act

1:34:04

so I think it's valid but yeah people will complain

1:34:06

I think about that. The other thing I would just

1:34:09

say is as much as he is a bellend the

1:34:12

the rival his political rivals are even more bigger

1:34:14

bellend so Peter Sarsgaard is a gigantic bellend. That's

1:34:16

the key isn't it like you can have a

1:34:18

character who's a bellend this is what is how

1:34:21

you work so brilliantly isn't it you can have

1:34:23

a central character who's a bellend as long as

1:34:25

they're surrounded by bigger bellend but that's the key

1:34:27

to it and a hundred percent here because Otifag

1:34:29

Benley massive bellend he is Sarsgaard's spectacular bellend. I

1:34:32

love Oti right he's absolutely brilliant I've been seeing

1:34:34

him a few times but he is really sinks

1:34:36

his teeth in this guy. First of all he's

1:34:38

got kind of a weird way of talking to

1:34:40

us. Didn't you find it a bit odd? He's

1:34:42

very mannered. He's the rival. He's

1:34:47

one of the other lawyers. Peter Sarsgaard's

1:34:49

boss who he's working for yeah and

1:34:51

he's very sweet. He's supposed to be

1:34:53

I guess very slick. He's kind of

1:34:56

suave and a bit shitty and grim.

1:34:59

But he really dives into it. He's having a

1:35:01

great time. I think also aside

1:35:03

from being this like thrilling whodunit I

1:35:05

really like the domestic side of things. The

1:35:07

exploration of the relationship and the marriage and

1:35:10

what happens when you settle down very young

1:35:12

and have children and the complications

1:35:14

you know like from being together for so long

1:35:16

and how do you cope with infidelity and like

1:35:18

stuff like that I thought I was really really

1:35:20

well done. Yeah the thing is it's just really

1:35:22

gripping like and this is the thing that I

1:35:24

ploughed through all of them was having the best

1:35:26

time ever until until the final

1:35:28

episode was not made available and I was

1:35:31

very upset. If they don't make

1:35:33

it available to start with does that mean they

1:35:35

never make it available in time? I

1:35:37

have asked the question and been told

1:35:39

there is no definitive answer so I

1:35:41

don't I would suspect one of

1:35:43

two things to happen either we will literally have

1:35:45

to wait until it airs which is fucking ages

1:35:48

away or it might just materialize in a

1:35:50

few weeks time. Didn't this happen with you with Shogun

1:35:52

as well? No with Shogun the

1:35:55

last two episodes weren't finished when I saw

1:35:57

the screen quite early. finished.

1:36:00

You've watched them early. You do not

1:36:02

know how to mention that. With subtitles. I think

1:36:04

I mentioned the subtitles. Do not bring up the

1:36:06

S word. Is this dropping in one go? No.

1:36:09

Oh yes, let's do this as a spoiler

1:36:12

special. A spoiler thingy. Except me and Boydie

1:36:14

have already watched all but the last episode.

1:36:16

Can I just say something right? You

1:36:18

can say what you like. On behalf of the

1:36:20

listeners, this is really fucking irritating. Oh wow. Yes.

1:36:23

I'm saying it not them. Because this

1:36:25

would have been a perfect one. We could still do it. We've

1:36:27

done it before. I've done it before. We did it at the

1:36:29

end of the world. But we can't speculate then because we could

1:36:31

have speculated on who done it. No, no, no. You have to

1:36:33

just make clear. You have to make an effort. I mean, it's

1:36:35

time consuming. You just have to make sure you know what

1:36:38

info has been passed all down. You have to remind yourself of

1:36:40

each episode. That's what I have to do. It would have been

1:36:42

fun for us to speculate and not know. Oh, I see. So

1:36:45

basically you've ruined it. We've ruined it. Yeah, basically. Okay,

1:36:48

so send your complaints to your app. That's James E.

1:36:50

Dyer. So everyone's

1:36:52

doing things wrong.

1:36:55

Literally. Literally. Absolutely

1:36:57

true. But the other

1:36:59

thing is, is an example of, is a

1:37:02

classic example of the show of Gourmet

1:37:04

Burger. Oh yeah. No, I don't think this is

1:37:06

Gourmet. I think this is just. This is just

1:37:09

Gourmet. Yeah. Is this a burger? It's a, yeah,

1:37:11

it's a. I don't know. This

1:37:13

is a Gourmet Burger. I Jack is a Gourmet

1:37:15

Burger. This is. This has, I

1:37:17

think this has a bit more of a prestige

1:37:19

theme to it. I agree. Don't make me agree

1:37:21

with James. Yeah. This is part of the whole,

1:37:24

it's the Gourmet element. No, this isn't, this isn't

1:37:26

my chicken cottage. Like this is, I don't know

1:37:28

what this is. This is not even Nando's. You're

1:37:30

forgetting the whole cuisine, the Gourmet element of the

1:37:32

Gourmet Burger. That's the key thing. You think? Yeah.

1:37:35

I don't. I mean, this feels like a called

1:37:37

Ramsay burger to me. Oh my God. This is,

1:37:39

this is hijack. I'm just so annoyed. No, this

1:37:41

is not hijack. Hijack is Gourmet Burger. This is

1:37:43

just prestige. Prestige drama. That's right. I don't agree.

1:37:45

This is, this is a steak with a nice

1:37:48

sauce. This is a steak. No, no, no,

1:37:50

no. This book is a classic airport novel. This is the

1:37:52

novel you buy at the airport when you're going on and

1:37:54

you finish the whole thing on one long flight. Boy, there

1:37:56

are sometimes nice restaurants at airports. You just have to pay

1:37:58

a little bit more for them. Okay,

1:38:01

right. When this drops, we need to do a poll.

1:38:03

Is this gourmet burger or is this prime steak? Yeah, is it prime steak? Okay. Gourmet

1:38:06

burger or a Fino side at Nando's. I'm glad I brought that up as well. Because

1:38:09

they normally drop a couple, don't they? On Wednesday, and I think it is the first

1:38:11

two. Okay. Okay. So, I

1:38:13

think it's the first two. Okay. Okay.

1:38:16

Okay. Okay. Okay.

1:38:19

Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

1:38:23

Okay. Okay. Okay.

1:38:26

Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah.

1:38:30

Okay. Because it's the first two. Okay.

1:38:33

Yeah. And then it's week by week by

1:38:35

week. All right. Fun times. Fun

1:38:37

times. in

1:38:39

the U.S. on Hulu, and we stars Riley Keough

1:38:41

and Lily Gladstone. And this is a

1:38:43

group of feral teenagers accused of a murder.

1:38:47

Kay. We don't want to feel

1:38:49

the way we did that day. Take

1:38:52

us to the place we love. Take us all the way. Oh,

1:38:54

God. Wow. Oh.

1:38:58

Yeah. So interestingly, this starts very clearly

1:39:00

with the disclaimer. Based on actual events,

1:39:02

certain elements have been fictionalized or invented

1:39:04

for dramatic purposes. Brackets, please

1:39:06

don't sue us. Yes. You know, it

1:39:08

took up a lot of space. Top disclaimer action. Yeah, it

1:39:11

was. It really was. So I think as you just

1:39:13

said, this is based on a, you know, a

1:39:15

true story of a young 14-year-old girl

1:39:17

called Rena Verk who was murdered

1:39:21

in Canada. So

1:39:24

this centers around Rena who's

1:39:26

played by Ritika Gupta. And

1:39:30

she kind of rebels

1:39:32

against her strict Indian Canadian family

1:39:34

who are Jehovah's Witnesses.

1:39:37

And she forms this friendship with a clique of

1:39:40

teens who are troubled, to

1:39:42

say the least. They idolize gangsters. They

1:39:44

call themselves the CMC standing for Crips

1:39:46

Mafia Cartel. And

1:39:49

the ringleader is Josephine Bell,

1:39:51

played by Chloe Guidry, who

1:39:54

bullies Rena. Rena tries to fit in.

1:39:57

She really wants to be part of the crew, part of

1:39:59

the gang. She tries to do everything she

1:40:01

can and they just belittle her at every turn. Sometimes

1:40:03

they kind of accept her in the group, but it

1:40:05

seems like they're toying cat and mouse with her. It's

1:40:08

kind of uncomfortable to watch. And

1:40:10

so she finally has had enough and

1:40:13

she steals Josephine's address book

1:40:15

and then phones all the contacts

1:40:17

and starts slagging her off anonymously,

1:40:19

which I'm laughing, but

1:40:21

actually has really horrific consequences because

1:40:23

Josephine points out and takes...

1:40:27

Well, has her revenge, we think.

1:40:29

So basically, Reena goes missing. And

1:40:31

because she's gone missing before, the

1:40:33

police don't take it seriously. The

1:40:36

police led by... Billy

1:40:38

Gladstone. Yes, yeah. In fact,

1:40:41

yeah. And... In

1:40:43

fact, yes. In fact, yes, you're correct. And

1:40:46

yeah, they don't take it seriously. And

1:40:49

there's the suggestion also, it's

1:40:51

because of maybe the fact that

1:40:53

she's like of Indian origin. You know, like they're not

1:40:55

taking it that seriously when the family report it. The

1:40:59

strand of this also is that there's a

1:41:01

character called Rebecca Godfrey, played by Riley, as

1:41:04

you say, who returns to British Columbia after

1:41:06

10 years in New York. And she wants

1:41:08

to write a book about the troubled teens

1:41:10

who all live, particularly in Seven Oaks Youth

1:41:12

Home, which is where these girls live. And

1:41:15

so she meets with Josephine and she

1:41:18

wants to tell their story. And especially when she finds

1:41:20

out that Reena's gone missing, she starts to investigate. It

1:41:24

is... It is good. Like

1:41:26

it was very gripping. It's distressing. I found

1:41:28

it distressing because it's like it's tackling bullying.

1:41:30

And apparently I was reading up on this,

1:41:34

apparently a pair of Canadian sociologists have

1:41:36

described the case as a watershed moment

1:41:38

for moral panic over girl violence

1:41:40

by the Canadian public in the late 1990s. And

1:41:43

you could like... It's horrifying when you

1:41:45

see like the length of... At one point there's a

1:41:47

scene, I don't know if you remember it, where she's

1:41:50

done this, you know, she's phoned

1:41:52

the address book and she's detonated this bomb. And

1:41:55

they invite her out, you know, seemingly like the

1:41:57

leader of the gang is seemingly forgiven. invite her

1:41:59

out to a party and you think, don't go,

1:42:01

don't go. And she goes and then they set

1:42:05

upon her. It, I, right. You know, when you see

1:42:07

the Fox hunt horrific, like these

1:42:09

pack of girls just set

1:42:11

upon it, you know, like chase her down and it's

1:42:14

awful. But yeah, I, I

1:42:16

found it really

1:42:19

gripping and horrifying and equal

1:42:21

measure. And the fact that it's based on a true

1:42:23

story on the book written by essentially the

1:42:26

real person at Riley Keogh plays in

1:42:28

the show. I mean, it's like sharp

1:42:30

objects, which if you remember, it's where

1:42:32

the main character was a journalist coming

1:42:34

back to a hometown and reporting on

1:42:37

terrible stuff that young women had perpetrated

1:42:40

allegedly. Sharp objects, which I showed that

1:42:42

I cannot emphasize enough. You do not

1:42:44

understand the ending to unless you stay

1:42:46

for the post credits sting in the

1:42:48

final episode. Famously madness. One

1:42:50

of the greatest post credits sting

1:42:52

in TV and it sent your

1:42:54

stem. Yeah. Yeah. So I

1:42:56

thought this was kind of weird. I think that

1:42:59

was a weird element of the thing that you've

1:43:01

got this quiet kind

1:43:03

of, I would say semi unlikable

1:43:05

character of the journalist played by

1:43:08

Riley Keogh. And yet based

1:43:10

on the woman who has written this book, so

1:43:12

she's clearly fine with it. And

1:43:15

you know, kind of, kind of, it's almost

1:43:17

like you can think of it going, you

1:43:19

initially see the way she goes back to

1:43:21

the parental home, she's directing with her parents,

1:43:23

she's being a bit like snippy with them.

1:43:25

You're like, oh, you're a bit annoying. And

1:43:27

it's so weird that they've taken that

1:43:29

creative decision to turn

1:43:32

her into a kind of quite a

1:43:34

flawed character. She then goes off and

1:43:36

takes out some explicitly some of these

1:43:38

girls, you know, she's quite unprofessional. That's

1:43:40

what I'm saying. She's about to

1:43:43

write this book about these girls

1:43:45

and their world, etc. And she stumbles upon,

1:43:47

handily this crime that happens at the time. So

1:43:49

it's quite, that is the most interesting thing

1:43:51

for me about the series is the fact

1:43:53

that this character of the journalist is

1:43:55

turned into quite a vivid slash

1:43:57

flaw character who is actually, you podcasts

2:08:00

and leave us a bucolic, bassinister

2:08:02

star rating. What

2:08:05

are we going to be doing next week? We don't even

2:08:07

know. We should be brought forwards. Oh, you

2:08:09

do know. We

2:08:13

were the lucky ones on Disney Plus. Peacock,

2:08:16

probably the aforementioned. Remember that's why I cut Shortcase

2:08:18

a review of it earlier because we're doing it

2:08:20

properly. And something else.

2:08:22

And something else. Yeah, to be determined. Exciting.

2:08:26

Well, until then, pilot

2:08:29

out.