“The Humanity of ‘The Bear’ and Potentials of ‘Secret Invasion’”- Episode 162 – Transcript (Edited)
Each week, Taking It Down includes transcript for the audio version of the podcast episode.
Taking It Down | Episode 163
0:00:01 – Blaine:
What to make of all that happens in season 2 of The Bear from Hulu. We’ll get to it on this week’s Taking It Down.
0:00:09 – Voiceover:
An Alabama Take Production
0:00:18 – Blaine:
Hello, thanks for tuning in to Taking It Down. the TV and streaming podcast from the Alabama Take, where we prompt conversations for thoughtful, busy TV devotees, all from us, your irreverent outsiders. I’m Blaine Duncan. I’m the editor-in-chief of the Alabama Take. I always could not help dissecting why I like what I like and why I dislike what I dislike when it comes to TV, movies and more. I have an English degree and a side hustle as an English teacher, so I’ll try my best to offer insight that you can use for conversation with others or even with us, or even just to think about. Luckily, my ideas aren’t the only set of viewpoints on this podcast each week, as with me are the other hosts, Adam Morroes and AeroDot, traveling in a studio musician with a penchant for fine literature. Donovan Reinwald is a media specialist with encyclopedic knowledge on film, television and more. And Natalie Morrow she’s the first person to ask about fantasy, sci-fi, comics, trashy reality TV and she’s a huge Beyonce fan. From us you’ll get the obvious but you’ll get the obscure. We are here for the TV and streaming, obsessed here, just too busy for anything more than the show or movie itself. We’ll give the outside of Hollywood analysis And, like a lot of The Alabama Take productions, it’ll come with zero Southern stereotype.
Alright, happy 4th of July to listeners if they’re with us on the 4th of July. This will be released on the 4th of July, am I right? Am I? Is my calendar, my mental calendar, correct? It’s Tuesday. You’re spot on Thursday 4th of July. Happy, whatever day, if you celebrate. here we are. I know we’ve got all sorts of listeners from around the globe. If you’re listening from England, the 4th of July is. No, I’m not going to do that. It’s a joke. We have an occasional British listener, I think, if I look at my stats correctly, do they get dilly bars.
We’ll figure it out. I knew any of them by name. I just see the stats and sometimes no. If you’re listening to us, of course, thanks for taking a break from the Juvenile Tiny Desk concert.
0:02:31 – Adam:
We’re sure it’s been looping, it’s so funny to be. I was pretty over the Tiny Desk thing. You know Me too. It was cool. For a long time You’ve played it haven’t you?
Adam: Yeah, I have.
0:02:49 – Blaine:
Is that when it jumped the shark for you, probably. I don’t want any club that wants me in. I don’t want to be a part of any club.
0:02:55 – Adam:
That’s exactly right. We played it in 2016. That was still a fun time. There’s obviously ones that are. I still go back and watch the Wilco ones all the time.
0:03:08 – Natalie:
I thought you were going to say you still go back and watch the one you did.
0:03:11 – Blaine:
I did.
0:03:12 – Adam:
I thought you were going to say that too every night before bed As a pep up in the morning. But the form was just kind of like we get it, but man, a juvenile one, it’s kind of good.
0:03:27 – Blaine:
It’s awesome. It’s kind of like And I don’t mean good in a tongue-in-cheek, isn’t as cute. We used to dance to “Back That Azz Up” all the time. I’m not saying it in any kind of ironic way, It’s just good. It’s just straight up good. The arrangement for that song is surprisingly like, Whoa, he worked on this and it’s kind of cool.
0:03:51 – Adam:
And he’s got a stack of incredible New Orleans musicians.
0:03:54 – Blaine:
Yeah, that’s what I’m. Yes, exactly, that’s part of it, anyway. So when I say you’re taking a break from it, you may really be, and I legitimately watched a couple of clips. I really should just sit down and watch the whole thing. I’m not sure how many songs he does. Those are usually what? four songs long, three, four songs. Yeah Well, speaking of Will Cove, our goal today is to unpack the back half of season two of The Bear.
Really, we should say, speaking of REM, more REM this season than last season. Anyway, the Bear, it’s been on Hulu for a couple of weeks now. We have wrapped up our watching of it. We’re going to take it from episode five through the end. Don’t listen if you haven’t watched those episodes. We don’t want to spoil anything for you. Just come back or skip to the next segment, which will be about Secret Invasion, episode two, if you’ve seen it, or just, you know, catch up and then come back. All right, I’m going to jump in early here. I know it’s only July. I’m giving this show the line of the year on television, which is I’m not like this because I’m in Van Halen, I’m in Van Halen because I’m like this. It’s great. It killed me. I was like wait, did he? I paused it, backed it up, googled it to make sure that it wasn’t like he wasn’t quoting a book or some weird movie. You know, apparently that’s just straight from the show. Really, I think that’s straight from Richie. I could not find a reference.
0:05:26 – Adam:
I thought it was a quote from somebody. I mean not that I don’t know the source, but I just figured he was.
0:05:31 – Blaine:
I assumed it was I picked up some cultural ephemera but no, the funny thing is you can hear him saying it in the background at the end of the episode to someone totally different. I was like dude, so rich We had a good one. Yeah, which brings me to my point that I think Richie’s my character of the season Really dug watching him on screen. Could not agree more with cousin I.
0:05:54 – Adam:
Could agree less. He kind of annoyed the shit out of me last season. Go ahead, Natalie, what you said.
0:05:59 – Natalie:
I just said I could agree less.
0:06:01 – Blaine:
You’d not. Okay, he’s still annoying to you, or you just have a couple of favorites beyond him.
0:06:08 – Natalie:
I think that Not enough has been done, like. Obviously This is not like a redemption story for him, necessarily, but it kind of was framed that way, especially during his episode. I don’t think he’s done enough yet. He’s not earned my respect yet.
0:06:25 – Adam:
So can we continue giving out superlatives and ask who your character of the season is?
0:06:31 – Natalie:
Marcus.
0:06:34 – Blaine:
Mmm good choice solid. Thank you, sweetheart Marcus. Marcus is the kind of guy you hang out with.
0:06:41 – Natalie:
Yeah, it’s like it’s gotta be like Marcus or Tina. Those are the top two.
0:06:47 – Blaine:
Tina you might hang out with after you get to know each other.
0:06:50 – Natalie:
I wouldn’t hang out with Tina. I just think she’s great and I like that she calls everybody Jeffrey.
0:06:57 – Blaine:
In real life. You might, though, like, if you like, if she were, if these people were real And you worked with Tina, after about three months of working with her, you might buddy up with her. But Marcus, you would. You’d give him rides to work, you would have a drink. Drink with him or coffee with him. You would hang with him for sure. I mean, even calm is a little too neurotic. You plus he never has time. Cousin would drive you crazy. You wouldn’t hang out with him. Sydney, also a little too neurotic. You, she might. You might get on, she might get on your nerves a little bit at work And you might have a little resentment after work. Come on, no Love this season. Let’s take it from Episode six.
I kind of have a mental layout here. Just a few things in each episode. If you want to back up or jump forward, please Let me know. Episode six, the big episode I’m. I’m watching episode six in bed.
A Lot of my television watching is done on my iPad these days. Funnily enough, it’s not the direction I would have seen myself going, but my little girl is five and she wants somebody to be in there with her. She really wants someone to be in there with her all night, but she definitely won’t fall asleep unless you’re, you know, right beside her. So I just flip my iPad open and watch something that she’s fallen asleep in, have my Earbuds in and I’m watching episode six and I’m like, okay, you know blah, blah, blah. We’ll get into the specifics here in a minute. I’m like how long is this episode? I hit pause and I’m like, oh, this is an hour. And it’s like an hour and a minute And of course, we’re talking about the episode. It was the Christmas episode. The flashback, you knew immediately, was a flashback. Nice Camera choice, nice lens choice, to give you that tiny little bit of a grainy Look to it.
I mean as soon as it starts, of course. As soon as it starts, you know, because the character Mikey’s in the frame.
It also starts by telling you how many weeks before opening it is 252 or something, and if you do that, it’s four and a half five years. Yeah, thank you man. That episode felt like a Play. There was. I think there was so much improv going on in that episode as far as background. It felt almost like a curb your enthusiasm, but way more hectic, like it felt like they. Here are the plot points We definitely want to have. Here are the things we absolutely have. Has to end with the mother driving the car through the house. Has to have this. You know Mikey throwing forks at Uncle Lee, but in the meantime y’all just go.
0:09:43 – Adam:
Oh, what have you read anything about that to know? If not, am I accurate? I?
0:09:48 – Blaine:
haven’t. No, I’m probably not right.
0:09:52 – Natalie:
No, Well, i was just gonna say a lot of shows that have that many characters, that much stuff going on, but do you have those few plot points that have to be hit seem Improv. But most of the time they are so strictly scripted because they know they have to hit certain parts. So I feel like this one was so chaotic, every single thing had to have been scripted.
0:10:16 – Blaine:
Yeah, but the background.
0:10:20 – Natalie:
Yeah, I mean, I don’t know, but it’s interesting.
0:10:24 – Blaine:
Episode six was what? What did you think? I think that’s a dividing line. Most people who love the bear probably liked it a lot, and we’ve three really like this show. So what did you think about episode six? Is it? Did it add enough? Could it have been 30 minutes? What are you thinking?
0:10:43 – Adam:
I really like this show, obviously one of my favorite shows last year. I’m sure it will be this year as well. I Was not impressed by the episode. It felt a bit Okay. It felt a bit like when shows Now do like this is our tracking shot episode or this is our Whatever episode, and we’re almost.
If you are watching us on YouTube, you know we talked about asteroid cities. We’re almost getting to like the form that overtakes the story a little bit on this one. To me It just felt a bit like they thought that they had this treasure trove of information that they were going to give us. That’s like this is an episode where the fans are going to say, finally, we get to see. We’ve only seen like the remnants of the family or the family like picking up the pieces or that kind of thing. This is the family in full flight, full chaotic flight. They’re going to love it, or that’s going to answer a bunch of questions or something, and it just felt like I was checking my phone and kind of kind of bored by the episode.
0:11:43 – Natalie:
Yeah, I think for the most part I agree with that and I don’t really even think you know, Adam and I kind of talked about this after we were watching it. It didn’t really really give you that insight into that, I think. I think it did, just as for Natalie’s character, like I think it kind of showed a lot about why she is the way that she is. But for everybody else it’s like we are. We kind of already get it that these are some messed up folks with a lot of trauma. I don’t think it was necessary, for it could have been a 30 minute episode.
0:12:18 – Blaine:
Right, that’s where I’m in agreement with you guys. I think it could have been about 35 or 40 minutes and it would have been just as good. But you also got the feeling that they said, goodness, we have this many great actors, we’ve got to just let them go. and they did. I thought that this episode was about the acting, not so much the plot. Like Adam said, you kind of knew most of this or you could have imagined it. One thing I did think about was she, not one. A few things. I think it did show me a ton which might be important.
It was so impressive to me that Carm’s dynamic was very different in this episode. Like he felt like he stepped on little brother and if you can go back to the first couple of episodes, when he first burst into the restaurant, he’s in charge, he’s yelling, do this, call me chef. And he was not like that in this episode. It’s like he’s overshadowed and a little nervous. And baby brother Richie is incredibly different. He seems chill and kind and, you know, relatively normal in comparison to the rest of them.
Bob Odin Kirk is kind of a mean-ass uncle. I like that. And here’s the thing that is most impressive, or at least making me think about this episode the most. John Bernthal’s playing an addict, and you never see him take anything or drink anything, or well, he drinks a beer, but you never see him like in the bathroom, staring at the mirror and with a line of coke in front of him, like, oh no, can I do this? It’s just, it’s almost implied, of course, but Uncle Lee calls him out. You know what are you on? I thought it was a pretty good episode, though. I mean, Jamie Lee Curtis was insane.
0:14:21 – Natalie:
Did you ever think all the guest stars this season were distracting?
0:14:27 – Blaine:
I can see. I think that’s a valid point. They weren’t for me. I think this episode knew that and that’s why it’s an hour long. So maybe, but Olivia Coleman in the next episode or two was just more of a treat. It was more like oh, she’s gonna be on screen for four minutes and she’s gonna tell this amazing little story that she doesn’t even finish. But she is kind of finished for you. I can see that as an argument for sure.
0:14:53 – Adam:
She was the one that worked the best for me, whereas the family episode was just a little too much. And I agree your rundown of you know you’re catching Carm when he has gone into the world improving himself but comes back and realizes he’s the. It doesn’t matter here, you know.
0:15:15 – Blaine:
He’s a low man on a total and Natalie pointed out sugar already being so vulnerable here. Right, and you still see a little of that when she’s running the, when she’s COO of the restaurant, but you really don’t know why or see the background of it.
0:15:32 – Adam:
But Richie, I mean he does. He’s slightly less crusty, I guess, than he was in season one about life, but he’s still like wheeling and dealing and lying to his dim wife about the job and all that stuff and you see.
0:15:50 – Blaine:
Well, this is probably the breaking point for him. You know he asked for the job. He doesn’t get it, obviously, you know, and that might be the point where he becomes the shithee Yeah, possibly. And then episode seven brings to light more about him in episode seven, which our Natalie pointed out, is supposed to be his redemption. In a way, it’s a Cousins episode at the Olivia Coleman restaurant. She’s Chef Terry. We don’t know who Chef Terry is. For the longest.
We find out that the young man in Copenhagen is training Marcus. She’s worked with him, though, and he, the bear does this thing where it’s like we’re going to let, we’re going to drop this piece of information, you’re going to get lost or not even think about it, and then we’ll bring it up later and you know your message board reading will pay off or whatever. Here it’s where the young man in Copenhagen training Marcus was talking about. He was the best chef ever and I was always by his side. It turns out he was talking about Carm, which felt pretty obvious right at the time. It felt obvious, but I just wasn’t thinking when I was watching it. I was just watching him and Marcus and not really trying to, you know, unpack anything at the time. But then when you see the picture together, you think, oh okay, that that’s probably who he was talking about, right? um, what’s that actor’s name? I forget he’s. He plays Adam Warlock in The New Guardians of the Galaxy, and I was forgetting his name.
0:17:21 – Natalie:
I just know where I’m from.
0:17:21 – Blaine:
I forget as well, I forget as well We’re the Millers, and you see his Pete. Yeah, yeah. It’s so funny that everyone’s seeing where the Millers would be like. It’s on TNT all the time. Who would have ever thought that that would have been a very well known movie Not by choice. So Natalie was making an assertion that that wasn’t enough to make Richie do the turn where he comes back in episode eight and is wearing the suit. It is a little nicer and is more structured, Adam was it for you?
0:17:51 – Adam:
This was my favorite of the personal saga’s personal journeys. It’s Manto, maybe, I don’t know why. I mean, like they’re all sent out almost like you’re gonna find courage, you’re gonna find a heart, you’re gonna blah, blah, blah. And his thing of going from bitter and disillusioned with everything to basically just learning how to give a shit was really cool. I mean, how often is that portrayed Like that on TV? not that he usually is more fantastical than that. You know what I mean. Like you see, a lot of people have courage. Marcus kind of grows into like now I’m a confident Chef, you know, you see a lot of those kinds of hero journeys. This was redemption in such an existential nuance kind of way. You know where he isn’t, the purpose that he finds is just like a cog in the wheel and he Learns to take pride again and learns all these things. That and a lesser show almost couldn’t tell that story. Does that make sense?
0:19:05 – Blaine:
mm-hmm. Much as Mikey John Bernthal’s character hovers as a ghost over the entire series, this episode to me had Richie’s daughter Yeah, never really mentioned, but kind of hovering like when he read every second counts to me. I immediately thought, oh, he’s reading that. As a dad, I’ve got to be a better person for my kid and my ex-wife. He does make the phone call to invite her to Taylor Swift and she refuses. What a sad moment. It’s pretty terrible. Turns down. Who turns down Taylor Swift tickets? Well, just change. Just change it barely Natalie. Who turns down Beyonce tickets? you know?
0:19:49 – Natalie:
Beyonce tickets last night.
0:19:51 – Blaine:
Well, it was me. It’s comparable. It’s a comparable situation. By the way, going way back this way, we could have said this last week. But when he tells his little girl, hey, daddy loves you, i just need to break from Taylor Swift guys, that’s every dad in America For me. My girl’s getting really big into Taylor Swift right now.
0:20:16 – Adam:
Yeah, then he drives home after work one night absolutely screaming along to the Romeo and Juliet song Love story.
0:20:25 – Blaine:
Yeah, see, i knew the name, that’s an old one.
0:20:28 – Adam:
It was such a sweet moment. That’s really sweet it really.
0:20:33 – Blaine:
It’s something that Natalie brought up, that it’s kind of a redemption, but maybe, you know, did he earn it kind of thing. Because when I was watching the very next episode, I thought to myself I don’t know if he had enough time for seven days. Yeah.
I mean, maybe all he needed for everything the clique was hey, calm, and other people are pulling for you. Yeah, you know, we know you’re a bit of a shithead, but we want you to do great. And just because you’ve made a couple mistakes doesn’t mean they’re trying to keep you to the curb, maybe that’s all he needed a year.
0:21:06 – Adam:
Yeah, it was seven days in like an almost boot camp kind of environment of these super long days Doing menial tasks over and over again until they suddenly had value too. Um, I’m willing to buy that as a Profound experience. This guy’s probably been doing the same thing for how many years, like any interruption in his However many you said four years, four or five. Yeah he strikes me as like one step removed from working at Patty’s pub, You know oh my god, oh, he could be a Patty’s pub.
0:21:39 – Blaine:
Yeah, regular for sure, Yeah like you.
0:21:43 – Adam:
You find out, much like Charlie, that he’s never left Philadelphia, or Chicago, in this case.
0:21:48 – Blaine:
I could see it easily. But when I was watching it I thought, yeah, maybe if I’m in Roger’s room I’m thinking of one more episode before he becomes a little more dedicated, or or?
0:22:02 – Natalie:
I feel like they should have written in a couple more mistakes like that episode in between his and then the last. It’s like He came out perfect and this was clearly the most imperfect person on the show, like he should have made some mistakes. And then the last episode when they needed him to step up He steps up and accomplishes it. Sure would have bought it, but not just straight out the gate Gotta shit together, yeah.
0:22:26 – Adam:
To me, though, I see some of the stuff that he did, like when he is doing the interviews and he turns the napkin, you know how could they not know it?
There was a bit of like yeah, that was clever. But it’s also kind of overcompensation on his part of Now going to such a high degree on all of this that to me he was played as like a person who’s faking it until they make it on some of this stuff. Yeah, you know, like going through the motions on What they witnessed and hoping that they can rise to that over time and doing it big doing it a little too big Right right and it’ll probably settle back.
That pendulum swung a long way And it may not go all the way back to When you keep calling him a shit heel, and I’ll go all the way back to that, but maybe it’ll settle somewhere in the middle. And him and Karmie did you know? he started at the not to go all the way to the final scene, but He started yelling at him and then he screamed I love you and Karmie’s, yelling all these terrible things back and By the end he’s like I hope you freeze to death and walks away.
0:23:33 – Blaine:
So it’s not the ultimate injustice and calls him his mom. Yeah, who’s really messed up. Yeah, he calls her. He calls him Donna. Yeah, we’ll move on down to the last three episodes. Episode eight One thing I wrote was that I’m so happy. This whole season I’ve been very thrilled that Oliver Platt’s role as Uncle Jimmy, Uncle Jack, is that he’s been a little bit more expanded, just so we see him at least once an episode. He has these line deliveries. That’s a blend of mafia like gravitas, but at the same time whimsy and love. Yeah, I think he’s a really good addition. And When he says to Karm, i don’t want to take the place from you, but I’ll take the place from you, You know, it’s just like damn.
I felt, I felt that yeah. Episode eight kind of ended with a big win with the gas balloon And I thought that was nice to do that in episode eight rather than try to wait for episode 10 To have their big win. That would have been too much like last season when they found the money in the last 15 minutes.
0:24:45 – Adam:
I was also curious how they were going to get the narrative to a place that left another season open, but also they kept hitting all their goals Like how do you, how do you have a successful opening? That opens more questions, And they totally did it. And the way that they paced it out for that test to be the central part of 8 and then 9 to be about preparing for open. You know, 9 and 10 being on the same day was really good.
0:25:15 – Blaine:
I thought You messaged me if I had watched how many episodes I’d watched, and I was like I wouldn’t have watched them all. and now you see why because 9 and 10 are just like they could have been one episode. if you totally have another one, yeah, it’s episode 10, let’s jump right in to the last one. Being trapped in a cold box is a very apt visual metaphor for calm. Right, I am trapped in a box of colds. Outside is the triumph that I have helped make and inside is me being cold and wondering what I’ve done. I mean, that’s just like a nice little visual metaphor of him being trapped in his own head or trapped by grief or, you know, hindered by being emotionally unavailable sometimes.
0:25:57 – Adam:
And he goes right back to. He uses the definition of fun or whatever it was that they talked about early in the season. How, what was it? Like I don’t provide entertainment, or whatever it was Like it’s clearly been thinking about. Why am I a miserable person? How do I fit into society at large?
0:26:18 – Blaine:
Another one of my favorite moments of the entire season is the reaction of Sydney to Josh smoking crack in the alley. You know, Marcus comes and tells her the guy’s smoking crack and her reaction shot is so good. She’s a funny actress anyway and an incredible writer, from what I understand. Just another example of all the actors just doing amazing stuff would be Oliver Platt is only allowed like four seconds of reaction time to a chocolate covered banana, but it really, you know, gave me a little heartwarming moment and all they did was lay a banana in front of him and he reacted to that and it’s just very good. Of course it was built upon from episode six, but I don’t know if it played well.
0:27:05 – Adam:
He’s an arrested development guy. That’s why that’s it. Just a blue- banana laid out there got to him.
0:27:12 – Blaine:
Maybe They did a cool little thing as far as the form of the show. The longshots, the long at least seeming one shots for the smoothness of how the night’s kind of going, and then the quick choppy edits for calm, getting trapped in the freezer and things start to unravel. I thought those were nice ideas.
0:27:35 – Adam:
The sound design between the front of the house and the back of the house was also really nice. The way that you could feel that door open. You know both the visual and especially the audio where it goes from this kind of like sterile chaos to front of house where it’s ha, there’s people here having a good time feels good, yet always with that sleek window between them.
0:27:59 – Blaine:
Yeah, that was a sleek window. Having Claire speak the voicemail rather than you just hear it from his phone gives you, gives you that that moment where, when he drops the phone at the end of the voicemail and it really felt like he was dropping her, you know what I mean, it was just a nice visual rather than him, you know, holding it, and then all you do is see him hold it and then drop it. It’s a switch from her speaking it to him dropping it. It was, I don’t know. I just noticed tiny things like that that were visually striking. Lots of heartbreak, admit among victory there, and, i think, the saddest of them all. And it was so short.
But Marcus’s mother probably died that night, right, or at least something bad happened. Sure, it seems that way, because when it said mom’s nurse, it took me a full couple of seconds to think mom’s nurse, who’s mom? and then I thought, yeah, that was the opening scene of the season. Yeah, yeah, that was tough. Give me both of you, give me your opinion on Sydney. Is she becoming a little less likable? Is that understandable? Is she too pushy? Does she deserve to be?
0:29:19 – Natalie:
I think she’s doing the job that she has to do. I don’t see that as being pushy. I see that as being assertive and taking leadership in a space that needs that kind of leadership.
0:29:33 – Blaine:
You can read it as being jealous of Claire.
0:29:36 – Natalie:
I don’t at all.
0:29:38 – Blaine:
You didn’t. Okay, that’s what I was wondering. She’s definitely more likable with her dad, the character of Sydney. She’s more vulnerable, it’s.
0:29:49 – Natalie:
Well, isn’t everybody? and I think for the most part, other than maybe the other family. But you’re typically different around your family than you are, and whether that means you have to be more protective of yourself or you can be. That’s your safe place.
0:30:05 – Blaine:
They have a very sweet relationship with very little screen time together. That’s, I think it’s great.
0:30:11 – Adam:
Them being the opposite of the Bayer family, you know, not both in number and in timbre of relationship, is pretty interesting. I mean, I guess it’s an easy writing device, but it’s just unconditional support and he mostly cares about her well-being. Early on in the season it’s like why don’t you just know a good steady job is not a bad thing You ever heard?
0:30:37 – Blaine:
That line, Adam, I mean he’s not wrong. Man, the Coach K thing. We gotta bring it up. That book was referenced way more than I would have imagined. Are you gonna go read that book now?
0:30:52 – Adam:
I mean it was partially funny, because these are decidedly not sports people for the most part At least not Sydney Right. Sydney? definitely not, and don’t really get the feeling that Karmie cares all that much, like he has like a passing knowledge probably. Yeah, but for her to not only, and she’s like watching clips at different points on her phone.
0:31:17 – Blaine:
Toward the end. Yeah, she’s watching the Duke comeback. That was referenced a couple times.
0:31:23 – Adam:
She’s all that. Maybe we’ll go watch that again.
0:31:26 – Blaine:
Yeah, I don’t think I’ve seen it since it happened.
0:31:29 – Adam:
I feel like this season was not unlike The Beatles doc and that, like you, when you watch this You can see you have been each of these people. It’s at different times in your life. Yes, what she is likable. Mm-hmm, she’s kind of the Paul of This situation. Maybe some people resent her, maybe she feels like a busy body or neurotic or whatever, but she’s just trying to keep everything Together, like anytime that she seems to annoy me . It’s because he’s a little more than he’s. Then she’s annoying or he’s in love, yeah, but yes, but surely it could be better handled.
0:32:17 – Natalie:
Being in love is not an excuse to drop your responsibilities, like take care of your shit.
0:32:22 – Blaine:
I hear here, here, here.
0:32:24 – Adam:
I think. But they use this season to blame you know. Early on you said car me comes in season one. Here’s the level of professionalism that we need. I’m in control. Blah, blah, blah. They use this season to pull him closer to his brother and Richie and say like Ultimately, you are Still one of these dudes. You know you’re not, but you, you still have the same potential shortcomings.
0:32:50 – Blaine:
Mm-hmm, the show did a good job of balancing. You could go 50-50. You could say he’s in love, he deserves it, he’s been. Season one was a train wreck mentally for him because he’s so focused and neurotic again. And Then the other 50% could say what an athlete just said no, you got responsibilities. You are in this job to Get a star. You promised Sydney all this. You are in it money-wise, with Uncle Jimmy. Get this shit done. You get all these people you may not have to. You get all these people depending on. You may not have Time for a relationship. You can just tell her look, I’ll see you in two weeks.
0:33:29 – Natalie:
I’ll say it doesn’t have to be one or the other, though It could be both.
0:33:33 – Blaine:
That’s true.
0:33:33 – Natalie:
Like, granted, we’re not dealing with like a well-centered human, but most people Can juggle two things and they can have a conversation and say, hey, i’m gonna be busy for the next couple weeks, be back exactly.
0:33:49 – Blaine:
I kept wanting that conversation to happen, especially when they were standing there in his kitchen and she came out wearing his t-shirt. I thought surely he was gonna say Yeah, you know, you may not see me for about three weeks and I’m sorry. I just kept thinking that would happen, but of course he’s not the kind of person to recognize that and we wouldn’t have a TV show.
0:34:07 – Natalie:
She’s also a doctor, so she would get it.
0:34:10 – Blaine:
Right. Oh yeah, she’s an emergency room doctor. They chose that.
0:34:14 – Adam:
This is Oh yeah, like should attract, like here, like they should understand the chaos. Natalie, I almost asked you after we finished 10, but I wanted to say that here you, at least in our little circle, famously don’t like curbs because You think no one would actually say all these things out loud. You know, like the joke, every joke is based on miscommunication, him taking it one step too far saying the thing in his head.
Does this show not bother you too? because all of the emotions, it’s like the dramatic version of that, you know, like all the conflict is because they say the one thing that we all think, but then tell ourselves, you know what? I’m just not gonna say that if I’m still mad about it in five minutes, maybe I’ll say it then, and they just let it fly.
0:35:03 – Natalie:
This show at least builds characters That you know from our experience or have experienced a lot of trauma. So there is at least some reason and you are Invested in that reason, and so you’re kind of along for the ride with them. Curb It’s just Larry David being an asshole and Overreacting. And then the real problem with curb is that you have this character Who just does these terrible things and then other people react to him in the exact same way, which is not how humans work. There’s not just a crowd of Larry David’s responding to each other.
0:35:43 – Adam:
You don’t think Larry David is like a flaw that has some trauma.
0:35:48 – Natalie:
I’ve made him the way that he is of course there is, but we but that’s not part of the story. There’s no reason for me to care about that, other than this guy just seems so entitled to Sharing his opinion.
0:35:59 – Blaine:
He’s got a little rich white privilege happening. He’s Jewish, but you know, the idea is there.
0:36:07 – Adam:
Yeah, I don’t. I just thought it was interesting that, because you know, all of the drama of The big Christmas dinner was that everybody had to say exactly what they were thinking the whole time.
0:36:18 – Blaine:
And I realized that we.
0:36:20 – Adam:
You know I don’t want to speak for both of you all. Natalie comes from a large Italian family, so I Really saw one side. So maybe this wouldn’t have been true if you had grown up more around them. But, like you know, most just good old sub-inners who are gonna Be polite through dinner, just get through it.
0:36:37 – Blaine:
You know sugar sugar would fit right in in the southern family. She tamp it down. She just sat there looking Worried.
0:36:45 – Adam:
Yeah and I was saying Instead of yeah, like having to declare everything.
0:36:53 – Blaine:
I do want you to make Some last comments on Donna, the mom, Jamie Lee Curtis, but not necessarily her performance. I think we’d all agree It was something. It’s crazy. But What do you think of this?
0:37:06 – Adam:
the character of Donna Natalie’s laughing, because I didn’t like the character and I didn’t really like the performance.
0:37:13 – Blaine:
Oh See, i thought she played crazy like, like in a real like. She played to me a version of crazy where you can’t really get her Hospitalized but at the same time she probably needs to be. She’s on the precipice.
I mean, I know that these people exist, but it was just kind of hard to watch, she was also playing an alcoholic, just straight up alcoholic, which is, yeah, that, that too fits. So maybe she’s not legitimately crazy and saying but she, she was alcoholic, hundred percent right, and that You can see in some households, you know, if you know where to look. No comments on Donna, though Natalie you did. You find her more realistic than Adam or something.
0:38:00 – Natalie:
In some ways, like I’ve definitely seen, like the, you know I’m gonna overburden myself and then get really upset when nobody’s helping. Like that kind of like gas lighting and family. Does that happen during the holidays?
0:38:14 – Blaine:
Always at Christmas too. Yes, and I’ll go back to –
0:38:18 – Natalie:
You know, I think the most important thing that episode did was to show any show or movie where there is like mother-daughter trauma. I think it is really effective if you are a mother or a daughter or have one of the others. Sorry guys, but it’s different. Like mother-daughter trauma is weird.
0:38:38 – Blaine:
And I thought that was it always goes.
0:38:40 – Natalie:
But everything else.
0:38:41 – Blaine:
That reminds me of him always doing the dad, dad, daughter thing. I always bring that up. So yeah, jump in here with this perspective.
0:38:47 – Natalie:
I mean it’s just I don’t know that you can explain it unless you Were in a mother-daughter relationship. Whether you’ve had trauma or not, you still are aware of the potential of it And it’s really easy to see like, oh, I could push that button and it could get really bad really fast, but I’m not going to. But if you’re dealing with somebody who’s going to, it could get really bad, really fast, great insight.
0:39:10 – Blaine:
The bear season two. I Mean. We got a nice 38 minutes out of it, or however many. Here’s what we’re gonna do. That’s gonna be the end of our show this week. If you’re an audio listener, if you are a YouTube Video person, or if you’re curious where this conversation goes, go to the Alamama shakes YouTube channel, go ahead and subscribe to it, and what you can do is watch the video version of this, where we’re gonna talk about the second episode of secret invasion. Thanks for listening, though if you’re an audio listener in a podcast app, you are awesome, and we’ll talk to you next week.
Transcribed by https://podium.page
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