“Apple TV+ Has Quality Television and Details of ‘Secret Invasion’”- Episode 164 – Transcript
Each week, Taking It Down includes transcript for the audio version of the podcast episode.
Taking It Down | Episode 164
0:00:00 – Blaine:
Four recent shows that are streaming and we ranked them on the order that we would recommend them And the third episode of Secret Invasion on Disney Plus. all on this episode.
0:00:10 – Voiceover:
An Alabama Take Production.
0:00:19 – 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 I’m 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 Morroze at ArrowDyke, traveling and Studio Musician with a penchant for fine literature. Donovan Ronwald is a media specialist with encyclopedic knowledge on film, television and more. And Natalie Morroze 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. Here’s our official podcast beginnings. If you want more. We talked a lot about social media over on YouTube.
We’re going to do a quick segment where I’m going to talk about four shows, kind of in general, definitely not spoiling anything. I’m going to offer up four shows, all of which I think could have promise, and then we’ll talk a little about which I would pick out of the four that are happening. It’s a lot to do with Apple TV plus kind of being on the roll in the last month and a half. I’m going to start with the most recent one. They started last week or two. It’s called Hijack, starring Idris Elba on a plane, and that’s I mean the title should tell you. I’m not going to say much more about plot. I will say that it is exciting. In that early arts kind of movie thriller used to be. It did make me worry at first if it needs to be a show, but still it’s just the watchability is very high, high as hell. I’ve watched two of the three episodes that are on right now. A new one this week.
0:02:43 – Natalie:
How stressful is it? A little bit A little bit. Scale one to ten. What’s the stress level? On stress, yeah.
0:02:50 – Blaine:
Well, I don’t get that stress watching TV, so Let me for me four and a half five.
0:02:56 – Natalie:
So it’s probably like an eight or nine for me.
0:02:59 – Blaine:
Could be Double it.
0:03:00 – Natalie:
No thanks, double it.
0:03:03 – Blaine:
Oh, I want you to watch it now. My second one to stick with Apple TV Plus for a second is City on Fire. It’s a couple of months old. It is a show that’s classic in a vein where every character is somehow linked to one another and it’s up to you to stick with it to figure out what their relationship is or could be. It’s all a matter of figuring out how. I think That’s part of the allure. It gets a lot more interesting in its second episode, which is where I am. The full season is now all on Apple, so it’s been a couple of months.
Can it get over a couple of characters being especially stupid? That’s what it’s going to amount to. But these characters are 2004, pre-twitter, pre-face, you know, pre-facebook kind of thing. They’re walking around with smartphones. Excuse me, they’re not walking around with smartphones, they’re walking around with flip phones, like Michael Cera.
Adam:
Like Michael Cera today, in 2023.
Michael Cera, it’s 2004, New York, dealing with a fictional New York music scene. Lots of winks and nods, I think to Strokes like music. You know what I mean? I was going to say, do they fictionalize it a little bit? Yeah, they totally fictionalize it, because the music other than the soundtrack, like the background music is a fictional band And it kind of revolves around this fictional band and what some of the things they’re doing, as well as a bit of a Romeo and Juliet kind of love thing. Almost. It’s kind of interesting. It’s got those actors who are young and kind of up and coming and you might have seen them in a small role on HBO, but they’re not hitting their stride yet. Right, I’m going to hang out with it. The book by the same name, City on Fire, caught some flak with readers, but I think it got critical praise. What was the flak?
0:04:57 – Adam:
I think two pretentious Oh OK, Not like problematic flak, just critical flak.
0:05:02 – Blaine:
Good question, no. Third is Silo. This one actually might be for Natalie. It’s a.
0:05:11 – Adam:
It’s about a grain harvest.
Blaine:
Well, it’s not.
Adam:
Dang.
0:05:15 – Blaine:
It’s a dystopian futuristic, perhaps quite a mystery on what that’s going to be, but everyone apparently is living in a silo type environment that seems to be underground, very, very, very deep, like some of the characters talk about. It took me the full day to get down here Spiral stair well, going down. Stars David O’Yellow-O, rashida Jones, Tim Robbins Hmm, the cast is pretty good, the acting’s good, the story I think they kind of messed up with the first episode. It feels like the first episode could have been the first 10 minutes of the second episode. But hang in there, because the second episode did get good. Took the whole first episode to lay out it’s kind of a big idea mission. It was intriguing but it was slow. And David O’Yellow-O’s the sheriff of the silo and no one really knows what’s going on other than they’re in the silo and they never, should ever, leave And it’s been 140 years since anybody tried to make a change. What are you smiling about, nat?
0:06:20 – Natalie:
Oh, I’m just going through all the possibilities of what the show could possibly be about and all my views are really stupid.
0:06:26 – Blaine:
I’m just laughing at myself. I won’t yes or no anything, if it’s happened.
0:06:31 – Natalie:
Well, my first thought is this is a show that’s just going to be a giant metaphor for community building and going outside your silo and finding other communities to make yourself stronger. It’s not really a reach on that one. What was the other one?
0:06:46 – Blaine:
That’s actually pretty good. I’m not going to know what’s best for our own lives.
0:06:50 – Natalie:
That’s every like. Why isn’t this business work? Why doesn’t this college work? It’s because we’re siloed. That’s just like a buzzword.
0:06:56 – Adam:
Hmm, really, yeah, I like shows. Before the people leave their happy little ruts, give me an example of one.
0:07:06 – Natalie:
Like, you want the hobbits to stay in the shire.
0:07:09 – Adam:
Yeah, let’s see. Let’s see a two hour film of Frodo and Sam making decisions about when they’re going to plant the spring vegetable garden.
0:07:18 – Blaine:
Is it a PBS veterinary show? That’s just basically that kind of. It’s just so gentle and nice.
0:07:28 – Adam:
Maybe, so, Yeah. I don’t know, I hadn’t seen that one. That sounds like it’s for me though. Yeah, but this is good where Natalie doesn’t like to be stressed while watching stuff and I’ll you know, i’ll watch a hero’s journey. I’m not against it, just you know, maybe some slow TV would be nice to like what? how do they get water to the silo? Let’s have a five episode art.
0:07:50 – Natalie:
I want to watch them dig the well.
0:07:53 – Blaine:
They’re growing plants hydroponically. now, where the water is coming from, don’t know.
All right, it looks to be hydroponically Could be, could be Recycled urine, i didn’t know. At the very bottom of the silo There’s engineering that keeps lights on. That’s. That’s not a big spoiler or anything. You knew something like that had to be taking place. The fourth of my shows Maybe not fair to lump this one in. It’s a HBO staple. At this point At least, the actor is The Righteous Gemstones, as in it’s third fourth season.
Third, this show is good in its first two seasons because it’s such a great balance of actual plot driven but 30 minute comedy, lots of cussing stuff. The first two seasons were so good because of that. This season hasn’t really established what it wants its plot to be and it’s already four episodes deep. That’s causing the balance to be just a little off. If you’ve watched the first two seasons you’re thinking well, what, what do they want to do here? Walton Goggins is on the show and plays an uncle and they held off on on showing him this season until recently. And once he starts showing up, boy, it’s always a good hang and just stupid funny. So I can recommend the first two seasons. Vet thoroughly the first four, the third it probably be fine, but interesting to see if they can figure out what direction they really want to go.
0:09:20 – Adam:
Hmm, so there, there you’re four of the three new ones if you were gonna pick one to have have us watch tonight yeah, which one would you pick?
0:09:29 – Blaine:
hijack was the one that gripped me, natalie’s out.
0:09:33 – Natalie:
I’m not watching him. he’s on a plane he’s on a plane, no thing if I’m getting on a plane within four weeks of watching a thing, i’m not gonna watch a thing about a plane going wrong are you?
0:09:48 – Blaine:
yes so no, thank you my second pick of the four, or, excuse me, the three new ones on Apple TV would be silo. I think silo really gets a lot better with that second episode and it gives you a little bit more mystery but answers a little bit.
0:10:04 – Natalie:
You know it doesn’t do that thing where it’s gonna hold out on everything right, it’s gonna have like an M night Shyamalan twist where they eventually get out of the show they like convinced people to go down there even though it wasn’t necessary the world just passed them by something’s going on.
0:10:22 – Blaine:
Yeah, something’s going on because they’re holding on off on that and city on fire. I think you guys would like. I just I do think you’d like because it’s got a diverse range of characters and that band up to something kind of my interest you a little. The era might be a little interesting, though they don’t see you in the era enough other than everybody having a flip phone.
0:10:44 – Natalie:
I wish they would it’s not like a what was that other show vinyl, it’s much better dear god, that got bad so quickly.
0:10:55 – Blaine:
Yeah, like third episode, boom, I was out. I remember bemoaning that show so badly on Twitter, speaking of our social media talk. Anyway, those one of those three might come up next week in our conversation. If you’re a regular listener, I could recommend the three of those new ones. If you haven’t seen the rash, the righteous gemstones you know, get on board with that one. It’s good, let’s take a break. We’ll come back and talk the most recent episode of secret invasion. Secret invasion probably not a lot for me to say. What about you?
I mean yeah, not much yeah, i still think it’s okay. It’s an okay show. There’s small things I think the show does well, but it’s only on occasion. Like does really well. The detail about how graphic love sugar in his coffee is just the kind of weird quirky thing.
0:11:54 – Natalie:
I think if you do it and you don’t really have a purpose, it can be kind of just fun it was a little like men in black throwback when the roach guy just keeps asking for sugar in his water.
0:12:11 – Blaine:
Are they trying to play on that?
0:12:12 – Natalie:
I don’t know, but that’s all I can think of.
0:12:16 – Blaine:
I’m really worried they’re gonna use that in the sixth episode to be like some big. Maybe it’s because he’s already a super scroll.
0:12:26 – Natalie:
It’s gotta be like he’s burning so much energy now that he’s got to have this sugar to keep his metabolism going and Kingsley Ben Adir.
0:12:37 – Blaine:
He played it so well, kind of you know. I’m not sure what his direction would have been, but it’s like when Ben Mendelsohn’s character, Talos, asked him about it, he’s like He makes a funny little joke that you hear all the time about.
0:12:50 – Natalie:
Oh, He likes a little espresso and a sugar or something. That’s it.
0:12:53 – Blaine:
That was the joke. Yeah, I like my sugar with coffee. Yeah, it’s an old joke. Why not continue to do things like that Again? I’m working under the assumption that they’re not going to make this some sort of big, huge plot thing. And why not do that with your characters? You’ve got the six hours rather than the two. Give them quirks, give them funny things. Yeah, it’s great, I like that. I know critics aren’t a big fan of this show.
0:13:22 – Natalie:
I mean, I don’t care what the critics say about this show.
0:13:26 – Blaine:
We usually don’t. There are a few whose opinions I will nod along with on occasion and I realize I don’t always agree with them. The very end of this episode, I’ll go all the way to the end. The voice on the phone with Fury’s wife as she’s walking to take some action. It sounded like Don Cheadle’s.
0:13:46 – Natalie:
I can’t remember.
0:13:48 – Blaine:
So she’s walking through an airport or a train station When she’s decided to take it upon herself to take action. We’re not quite sure on which direction she’s going to go, But then she gets a phone call And I think it’s Don Cheadle’s voice, which means it’s Rody. I don’t know. I figured you would be on top of confirming that kind of thing.
0:14:11 – Natalie:
I missed it. I know that I watched this episode, but I don’t remember. For some reason I can’t today place when that was. Must have been Friday night.
0:14:21 – Blaine:
It’s not a very eventful episode, though it wasn’t boring. I love the graphic multiplying That was in the trailer. but when he stands up after he’s being threatened by Talos, there’s suddenly a bunch of him there in the cafeteria.
0:14:41 – Natalie:
Yeah, that was a good effect.
0:14:43 – Blaine:
I thought, The voice on the phone could be Don Cheadle’s. We’ll find out, probably next week. Samuel L Jackson makes the line. no one calls me Nick And I noticed that had a lot of people scrambling to wonder how far back can we go with this? Has anybody ever called him Nick? Did Tony Stark call him Nick?
0:15:05 – Natalie:
Doesn’t he say in Captain America, not Captain America, Captain Marvel in that movie. She calls him Nick when they first meet and he says something like not even my mom calls me Nick.
0:15:20 – Blaine:
Oh really. I think so, Like it’s some just like a throwaway line. At the end of every episode, you get that choice to watch Captain Marvel.
0:15:28 – Natalie:
Yeah, sometimes.
0:15:29 – Blaine:
I think, oh, just watch it. one watch as I drift off to sleep. But Sonya calls him Nicholas, or I don’t think she calls him. that She does reference the owl’s name is going to be Nicholas or something with the little patch. There’s something Sonya drops that some of our listeners might be interested in. She says that these events should put someone’s men on their heels, and that someone is the villain from Black Widow, the Russian guy. I don’t think he had any power, so he was just over the production of those Black Widows.
0:16:06 – Natalie:
Yeah.
0:16:08 – Blaine:
She says. It seems like it, but I’ve seen a message board that they think that was his name. That was mentioned.
0:16:15 – Natalie:
And they’re in.
0:16:17 – Blaine:
Russia. I don’t know If they do that. that is really trying to tie up a bunch of odd threads into one.
0:16:24 – Natalie:
It’s like they’re just setting up for the Thunderbolts or whatever, when two Black Widows, basically, are coming back.
0:16:34 – Blaine:
Which two.
0:16:35 – Natalie:
What’s her name? Florence Pugh’s character and the daughter, the main, the bad guy’s daughter. That was the robot. Okay, I don’t remember their names.
0:16:47 – Blaine:
Yeah, some of this is starting to blur together. If Marvel is going to insist on using tiny names like that, I wish they’d put them in the recap at the beginning.
0:16:57 – Natalie:
We need a pop-up video version of these shows.
0:17:01 – Blaine:
That’s what we should do. I don’t have the time for that, but that would be really interesting. Last note, and I made it earlier, I just think Kingsley Ben Adir is doing really good as Gravick. He’s a villain that I like to watch on screen. His reactions are you know, I said it the first episode they’re kind of like an asshole reaction, especially when he’s talking to Gaia. She’ll say something and he’ll look at her like I’m smarter than you.
0:17:26 – Natalie:
Yeah, I think overall the acting this, this, this for this series, has been far and away better than the other. Well, there are a couple standouts and some other shows, but overall I think this is the best cast.
0:17:40 – Blaine:
And that’s Marvel’s huge Bonus. As they got, they got the money to get really good actors. It’s Like Ben Mendelsohn, he’s just you really feel like, okay, he means what he’s saying and, like you’ve said before, that’s what they’re paid to do, but still top-notch. Kingsley Ben Adir is a little younger than the rest of the cast, so it’s kind of he and Amelia Clark are probably a Good bit older than him. Even though she just is a young-looking woman.
0:18:08 – Natalie:
I Do think this episode and I think we’ve talked about this in other shows But it’s kind of nice when a show will like there’s the good guys, there’s the bad guys, and then there’s the people that are caught in between that Have opinions about things but aren’t like yeah, a lot of the scrolls aren’t happy With their lot in life. They want a home, they want a place where they feel like they can be themselves and belong. That doesn’t make them bad guys, though, because they’re not there. Those also aren’t the extremists, so it’s kind of.
I like it when these shows Give us that third point of view.
0:18:48 – Blaine:
It’s a dam of me. I think this episode did that Yeah. Yeah, yeah, fury’s wife. You know she’s married to a human. She’s not wanting to wipe out the human population just to have a place to live, but at the same time she’s Got friends, family, whatever that are scrolls. It makes sense. Donovan pointed out a while back that this is kind of a thought exercise on refugees. They haven’t really tried to drill that home. I guess that’s probably for the good.
0:19:15 – Natalie:
Yeah, i think maybe they they had to pick and they picked let’s push on, let’s push the Russia, and maybe that could be our one thing.
0:19:23 – Blaine:
The spy kind of thing. Yeah, although I don’t think they’re hitting their points with being a spy thriller, i just think it’s relatively entertaining. And yeah, when it comes out on Wednesday, i watch it on Wednesday, so that’s always a bluz. I don’t put anything in front of it almost ever.
0:19:41 – Natalie:
That’s good. That’s my weekend watch, but is it your week? Okay, yeah, just cuz Adam doesn’t watch it Yeah. I just wait till He’s out or he’s asleep.
0:19:50 – Blaine:
So I’m always appreciative too of a nice little compact 45 minute episode of something I’ve gotten yeah, and there hasn’t been, like the gotta wait for the mid credits.
0:20:03 – Natalie:
Whatever the hell that’s been yeah. They avoid that with their shows almost always, i think there was a few that they were doing it, and then there was a couple of episodes in a series were like they would just do it in like one or two episodes, so you would never really know if you missed one or not and that’s just stupid.
0:20:21 – Blaine:
That was she hope. Yeah, I think yeah, still kind of sort of enjoying secret invasion. I mean it I. It’s not the greatest thing, but it I don’t think it’s. Disney plus is worst Marvel show ever, by long shot.
0:20:36 – Natalie:
I think it’s a very entertaining way to spend 45 minutes.
0:20:39 – Blaine:
Yeah, it’s kind of a kind of a comfort type watch, but more on the entertainment level of comfort then than like look at somebody somewhere, kind of comfort.
0:20:50 – Natalie:
Right.
0:20:50 – Blaine:
All right. Well, that’s it for us this week. Talk to us online. We’re all over social media for now, until one or two of them fall off the face of the earth. So See everybody next week if you’re on YouTube, and we’ll just talk to you if you’re listening to us in a podcast app. Thanks,
Transcribed by https://podium.page
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