Does 'Task' Do Its Best Yet? What Does 'The Lowdown' Say? Plus, 'Black Rabbit,' Avoid 'The Last Frontier,' and 'Chad Powers' Is Funny

Hey, everyone.

It's Taking it down the TV and streaming podcast, so you know what to watch, where to watch it, if it's for you.

We divide everything into non spoilers so that you can figure out if it's for you and then spoilers if you've watched or don't mind being spoiled on something.

You don't have a lot of time to waste, so we try to help you sort through what may be garbage and what may be worth your time.

This week, we are talking a lot about the lowdown on FX and Hulu, as well as episode five of Task titled Vagrants.

And in the non spoiler section, we briefly mention Black Rabbit on Netflix, Chad Powers on fx, Hulu, and the Apple TV series the Last Frontier.

We'll get Donovan in here and begin our show.

Alabama take projection.

And here he is with me now.

It's Donov on Taking it Down.

Probably the most popular TV podcast in the Southeast.

Southeast.

Northeast, too.

Northeast, too, absolutely.

Ashburn, Virginia as well.

No, but we got a nor' easter bearing down on us, so everyone's inside here.

And you know what they're listening to?

Blaine.

Us taking it down.

Yep.

And the Patriots game.

One thing I managed to finish this week is the propulsive Netflix series Black Rabbit.

It's that which stars Jason Bateman as a brother who always finds trouble in Jude Law as a restaurateur who's often tasked with helping him.

Yeah, I've seen the bear.

Yeah, I've seen Uncut gems.

Yeah, right.

Exactly.

Yeah.

I found it just super engaging, if not very, very predictable.

I do think it relied on New York City in this really cool way for its aesthetics and just as a setting.

You don't see a lot of shows that will attempt it at this level since Scorsese sort of conquered it and said this is how it's done in the late 70s and 80s.

But they did.

It was.

That was a nice quality to it.

Jude Law and Jason Bateman are doing really quality work here.

I thought the storyline is about what you think it's.

It's super engaging and super entertaining, if not a little dark and gritty.

I think that headlines and reviews tend to swing one way or the other.

They think that it's too cliche or not well done, or they say that it's well acted and grittily interesting, I suppose.

Mm.

You know, sometimes I think we talked about this with the lowdown.

Like that strong sense of place can have a substance all of its own, really.

Yeah.

It opens up to New York as the Story keeps going.

Yeah, it's kind of like, you know, you joked about uncut gems, but it really does have that.

Like that.

What is it?

The Diamond District.

The diamond district, yeah.

Yeah.

And it's got a great sense of place there.

Yep.

I'll say this, no, it's not the greatest thing in the world, but I knew every night I was gonna watch an episode.

Yeah, sometimes you just want Jude Law and Jason Bateman.

I get it.

Who wouldn't?

Also, when it comes to family, the CIA and the local sheriff's office, preferably never get along.

And Apple TV's newest drama, the Last Frontier, dropped Friday.

Scott.

Jason Clark is a Fairbanks, Alaska sheriff who just found out that a plane full of criminals crashed in the Alaskan weird wilderness.

It's very conair.

Yes, but I thought.

It's Apple tv.

Plus, let me see.

This thing's bonkers, man.

I cannot believe anyone in a suit saw the first 15 minutes of this show and said, yep, put it on.

I, I do not.

I just can't believe it.

I'll have to.

You know, my brother used to live in Fairbanks.

I'll have to ask him if this is accurate.

It's not worth watching.

Okay.

I respect Apple TV to produce respective television and movies these days, ranking them probably second only to HBO a lot of times, maybe FX, Hulu.

But the first 20 minutes of this show was.

Went from silly to sillier to absurd.

Listeners.

I wish you could see the look on Blaine's face.

He's totally bamboozled.

I was gonna say he, he.

He is on the edge of disgusted with the silliness.

The plane crash is the opening minutes of the show.

You get that?

And it's fantastical how they.

How it happens.

I couldn't, could not believe it how silly it all was.

Come at it from another angle, Blaine.

It may be that this reflects the real Fairbanks, because it is my understanding that the local brewery there has a reindeer.

A real one.

Yeah, you can hang out with it.

Well, that's pretty silly.

Jason Clark's opening scene is of a morning jog.

You know, because he's the local sheriff, you gotta have him open with a coffee and a morning jog.

Yeah, of course.

Of course you do.

And he is running down a very suburban street and there's a moose in the middle of it.

That stops him.

That's real.

So that could be real.

Yeah, no, they got.

When my brother's up there, they used to get moose.

They'd have to keep.

They'd have to keep their dog in the house, you know, because they're so big and dangerous.

Yeah.

It's like you hit them with a car, they walk away.

Yeah, of course.

Yeah.

They're huge.

They're very tall.

Yeah, they're massive.

Clark stares at it, grins until it walks away, and then he just keeps smiling and then jogs away.

I'm telling you, I really cannot believe this got produced.

And I went on to read that it is a.

This is the non spoiler session.

I get it.

So if you're a little worried, you know, skip ahead 30 seconds.

But I went to read that it's kind of a capture Criminal of the week kind of feel to it.

Oh.

Which could be.

No, that could be okay.

But it's.

So notwithstanding the X Files, I use the whatever of the week format.

I've seen enough of it.

You want your TV serialized?

I guess I do now.

And that.

I'm not saying I won't watch the X Files.

I will watch the X Files.

It's got to be just super good if it's procedural.

If it.

I mean, if it.

If it was like, incredibly good, I would give it an exception.

But you do give it to some exceptions.

For some, isn't Doctor who.

It's not serialized.

It's kind of depend.

Depends on who's running it.

Huh.

Also, I haven't watched Doctor who in a good long time.

Oh, I thought you were a fan.

I'm off the wagon.

Well, anyway, speaking of silly, I've continued with the Hulu series.

Chad Powers.

Chad Powers.

Have you watched any of this show?

No, but I'm going to.

I want to.

I want to laugh.

I want to laugh at football.

This is the Glenn Powell show where he's a college quarterback in Demise, so he tries out at another college in disguise.

It's a little rhyme for you.

As goofy as this sounds.

I know it looks goofy.

I know it looks like.

This is rubbish when you look at it on paper or even on the screen as you see the.

The bright yellow poster and the real Glenn Powell looks at the dressed up Glenn Powell across the way.

But it makes genuinely funny jokes.

I'm there for that.

There is one in this latest episode, right?

It might be episode two.

So forgive me, because there are three out.

I think it's a weekly series, but there is a joke, and I'm just dying for either you or Adam.

I know Adam's not with us today to watch, so I can just make this joke.

It's coming.

I like the lull.

Yeah.

Some people would say that this show Is unrealistic.

But Glen Powell and Diego Pavia are the same age.

No, they are not.

Is that really.

No, they're not.

I appreciated that one, though.

Not only is Chad Powers the show funny, but it has actual tension.

I'm not kidding.

Many scenes per episode.

I wonder if he can keep this rubber band stretched without breaking it, because the obvious tension is he's dressed up.

Will they figure it right?

Yeah, you wonder.

But I will say it does have a through line of a couple of nice thematic ideas, and I think it's pretty aware of them.

And it's, you know, what does it take to be a man in the.

In these types of scenarios?

Now, that is an interesting kind of.

Yeah, you can do.

You can do silly, but it kind of like with that little chorus.

Serious.

Pretty.

Pretty well in something like this.

And sports just lends itself to stuff like that.

Right.

Because it's.

Because it's organized.

You've already got kind of that, you know, you've already kind of got the.

Yes.

And they are very aware of the idea of reinvention here.

And I think that they keep that in the forefront of their mind and none of that hinders that it's.

It's fairly decent and kind of funny.

There are some repeated poking fun at fundamentalist Christianity that's present in college football, especially in the South.

How they're in.

Hand in hand.

There is some of that.

Interesting.

That's a bold move.

That is.

Well, it's.

You.

You have to squint sometimes.

But it is there.

It's there.

I'm just saying for something based off of something they did on game day.

Have you seen the game day introduction?

No.

And you and I argued about this last week where we couldn't even decide if it was game day.

I thought it was just espn.

I'm pretty sure it was game day.

But neither of us clearly looked it up.

No, obviously not.

I should.

Because Eli Manning dresses up, tries out for another team, Right?

Yeah.

I don't remember which team.

It's fine.

Yeah.

Okay.

It's more like.

Huh.

So that's what would happen if Eli Manning dressed up, had prosthetics put on his face, and tried out for a college football team.

And what happened in a practice scenario?

A professional winning quarterback looks pretty good to college coaches.

Okay.

You know, like that it was fine.

Like, he's good.

And then they reveal at the end that it's actually Eli Manning and everyone has a good laugh.

If I remember correctly, one.

One coach has a heart attack, they take him to the hospital.

It's kind of sad.

Yeah.

The Urban Meyer story on both this.

Side in non spoilers, and after the break in spoilers, we will continue another FX Hulu series, the Lowdown season.

Hawk, he's a struggling investigative journalist, perhaps truthstorian truth story, and he calls himself.

He's struggling there, and he's perhaps even a worse father.

He has his moments.

Yeah.

We're going to talk about the third and fourth episodes in spoilers, and after that third episode, after watching it, I couldn't decide on what sort of show this is beyond a crime caper with a protagonist who may or may not be in over his head.

There may be a whole lot more than that happening here.

And then in the fourth episode, it's more of that, but it's kind of odd.

I cannot put my finger on this show.

I thought we might have a productive discussion today because this is just my feeling, and I don't expect me to back it up with anything.

But around probably about three fourths of the way through the third episode, I was like, this show is actually fantastic.

What made you think that?

I am completely, I think, okay with a crime drama being kind of shaggy like that.

It's very loose.

I'm complete.

And I'm completely fine with that.

You know, it's just.

It's got such a strong sense of what it is.

I'm not.

I couldn't tell you what it is, but it feels like it has such a strong sense of that.

What it is, that when they're taking weird detours, I'm like, yeah, perfect.

Show me more of what this goober gets up to.

You know, show me how things are.

I'm.

I'm.

I'm here for.

Detours, for sure.

Done so confidently.

I think a couple I've seen, some folks have referenced that this.

You know, this is.

This is more the Big Lebowski than the big Sleep.

And you know what?

The Big Lebowski kind of operates in the same way, too.

Yeah.

Where it just take, you know, silly little detours, and they're going and doing.

And I'm.

I'm fine with that.

It's really taking the spirit of some of these.

Some of these noirs right where they really.

It is.

It is.

You know, the mystery is the least part of it almost.

Right.

It's every.

It's the scenery.

It's the characters in the background.

And when that's done well, it's.

Well, it's done fantastically.

And I think that it allows you to kind of have this Almost this sprawling view of, for lack of a better word, like milieu, like society that it's taking place in.

It's great.

It makes it feel very alive.

Yes.

I was hoping it would touch more on that.

More, More blatantly.

Yeah.

More pointedly, this ain't Alien Earth plane.

They're not just going to tell you.

Yeah.

They're not going to spout out what it is I'm.

I'm watching.

A lot of what I want to say about episodes three and four would be spoilers.

I'll ask this if you.

Or maybe just say it if you don't.

If you like Coen Brothers quirkiness, if you like your mysteries that aren't centerpieces of the show, you probably going to like this.

Right.

It's going to take you to a lot of places.

I will say I'm going to piggyback on you talking about the Coen's brothers quirk.

Yeah.

Because there is nothing worse to me than a Coen Brothers imitator that is nothing but quirk.

It makes me want to tear my eyeballs out.

It's so horrible.

You know, if you've ever seen something like that where it's like just.

What's an example?

These guys are just kooky.

Honestly, that's not the last frontier on Apple tv.

I was about to say something that's not fair.

Is is season four of Fargo, but you know, but that's kind of season quite a bit.

You want to bring it up.

I know it's the weakest one for me, but I think they were doing some interesting things in the middle of it, which is why it's not fair for me to say that.

But just honestly, this, this isn't a Coen Brothers quirk, but I just remember seeing this kind of indie movie that came out in the wake of like Little Miss Sunshine and it's like.

Oh, it's like it's a quirky R rated indie film.

It was called, I think it was called Sunshine Cleaning and it just sucked.

There was no substance to it.

And if I, if I think longer, I'm sure I can think of Coen Brothers imitators or you see this with like Tarantino imitators who are like, yes.

You know what I mean?

And so because Tarantino is kind of a quirky guy too, in a different way for the Cohen's, I feel like this is really hard to pull off.

It is not just quirk for quirk's sake.

In the lowdown, there's actually a superstructure that this Goes over and is really, really working for me.

I think it's, you know, it's the same kind of work we did.

Kind of see in Reservation Dogs where there was some very silly stuff.

There was some really silly stuff, but really, really good core.

It was pretty loose, too.

Very loose.

Which I'm.

I'm okay with for this, in this case.

Yeah.

I'm curious, is your wife watching the Lowdown with you?

She is.

What's her take on it?

I think she likes it.

Yeah.

Sometimes I quiz her because she's on her phone.

So I'm like, who was that just there?

How dare you?

She's agreed to watch it with me, which is usually a good sign.

And we.

We've gotten some.

The other thing I like about it is it's been making us laugh, so there's.

We've gotten some good chuckles out of it.

It does have its moments.

Sometimes the quirks turns to humor.

I thought in the first two episodes it had a lot more of that.

These were still keeping me.

Keeping me laughing.

I think I need more of it.

And the pacing is very different than what I'm used to, I think.

Yeah.

You think so?

I think it is.

I even.

I even looked up.

This might go in spoiler section, but I even looked up how to pronounce the word dilatory because I think, oh.

Did I say last week?

No, no, no, no, no.

I was.

I was going to say it this week, and I wanted to make sure that I was saying.

Did you say it last week?

Yeah.

You did.

Okay.

Well, that completely blacked out.

So dilatory.

I think that slow pace, episode three, you could say was dilatory.

But I still really liked it, kind of.

And I like.

I like that this show isn't trying to be something it's not.

I think in those first two episodes that dropped, it really said, here's.

Here's what we are.

Take it or leave it.

If you like this, you're gonna like it.

If you don't, there's a lot of other channels on your tv.

Exactly.

And kudos to Sterling Harjad, the creator and primary force behind the show.

The pacing is odd, and what I mean by that is that you could have 10 minutes of really fast scenes and things happening as far as the narrative's concerned, and then you could have 30 minutes of more slowed down storytelling.

You know, I kind of said this last week, and I think the directing is still really confident.

Yeah.

It's not that I loved episode three, but it's like my test case for, like, I can see the criticisms, and I'm still here for it.

It was directed again by Sterling Harjo, as many of them have been, and I thought it worked great.

I was laughing at stuff.

I thought it worked great.

It gave you kind of like the shaggy dog where it's following one character one way when really you're looking at what's really happening is happening on the other hand, so to speak.

Mm.

I'm okay with that.

Interesting.

We'll get into more of that in the spoiler section.

But lastly on our agenda is the ongoing HBO show Task.

Now, this is a show that dares to ask, is God dead?

Yeah.

For real.

We're finished with episode five, a tense one, to say the least for sure, called Vagrants.

Did you think it was bad?

Good.

Great.

What did you think of the episode Tense?

There was a little bit.

We're not spoilers yet.

There was a little bit that was like, yep, that's about what I thought was gonna happen.

But we've got some actor combinations we haven't seen before that I think were very productive.

And I mean, it's.

These ones are hard almost to evaluate on their own, you know, because they don't stand on their own.

The episodes of Task, I mean, these.

Things are happening way earlier than I thought they would have.

I'm fine with that.

Me too.

Because it's.

Because it tells me you've got something.

I'm hope.

Well, okay, let me say I'm hopeful that it tells me that you've got something in mind that I'm not expecting.

Exactly.

I believe this is easily the best episode so far.

I liked it quite a bit, and.

Maybe one of the top five episodes of the year.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, it was tense, well acted, well designed.

I don't want to say too much, but the character interactions made this one very good for me.

Exactly.

So let's hang on to some of these thoughts.

We'll return to tasks.

We'll keep everything in the same order.

We're going to come back to the lowdown, but with spoilers after the break and then Task with spoilers after the break.

So let's hit the mid section of our talk.

Hey, everyone, if you enjoy our podcast, if you enjoy our home site, thealabamatake.com I'd like to encourage you to make a donation, big or small, by visiting the Alabama Take.

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So if you'd like to help us out, go to the alabamatake.com click on donate and you can help out that way.

Or we'll put the link in the show notes and we'll try our hand the third and fourth episodes of the FX and Hulu drama the Lowdown.

I say try because this is a show.

It's got plenty going on to hold your attention.

Doesn't slow way down.

But I'm not sure what it is.

Kind of reminds me of the way Charles Portis writes some of his books.

It.

Yeah.

Where it is.

If you ever read the Dog of the South, I don't think that the conclusion is like, quote unquote satisfactory, but it's not the conclusion, it's what happened in between.

That's a great analogy.

I'm gonna have a really hard time talking about and justifying my feelings about this because my feelings are vibes.

And this show, it's got good stuff here.

But what I'm connecting on is partly, I think, the vibes it could be.

Episode 3, Dinosaur Memories continues Harjo's penchants for using Oklahoma singers.

He digs deep in the.

In the rack here as this.

I think it's the opening scene as Alan is cleaning his gun.

We get Lee Hazelwood on the score singing the night before.

Yeah, if you're a crate digger, you're going to appreciate that one.

I think the movie, the movie, the music's been fantastic throughout this one.

Again, really adding to that sense, you know, not to like, speak poorly of Oklahoma, but, like, when was the last time you thought about Oklahoma?

Not that there's anything wrong with Oklahoma.

I just live a very far way away from it.

And so it was really cool to me that Reservation Dogs took place in Oklahoma.

And it's really cool to see.

Tulsa is a city I've never been to.

I don't know how accurate it is, but it feels like, yeah, this is a real place.

Yeah.

Now, folks, we're in spoiler section here, so I got a little bit of advice for you.

If somebody asks you what is your favorite Jim Thompson book, you say population 1280.

That's the correct answer.

Not the alcoholics, not the alcohol.

Nobody likes that one.

It is population 1280.

Unless Jim Thompson is a real author, as we've found out.

I guess this week he is a fantastic crime writer.

The aforementioned population 1280 is my favorite of his books, but he's also written such classics as the Killer Inside Me.

He's written Hell of a Woman.

Those are some of the more famous.

The Grifters.

That's the one I was trying to remember.

Also, Jim Thompson worked for Hollywood.

Hollywood would do screenwriters.

So, for example, I don't.

Can't remember all of his movies, but I think this is accurate.

Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory, Jim Thompson did all the dialogue for that.

So he didn't do the story, but he did the dialogue based around the story.

So he's, you know, he'd done all.

And I think maybe he worked on Kubrick's the Killers, although I might be making that one up.

That's interesting.

Thompson thumbs up.

And I think Thompson, who can be kind of a weird guy and a weird noir crime thriller writer.

I think having stuff.

If, you know, if you've read Jim Thompson, having notes hidden in Jim Thompson, first editions of Jim Thompson is.

Is somewhat signaling to you what this show's influences are and what it wants to be.

It's also a meta.

Oh, for sure.

For sure.

Yeah.

I wonder where all these quirks are pointing to.

Like Lee rattling Lee misses Ethan Hawk's character.

He rattles off great black men who've gone to jail to improve their.

The circumstances that surround them.

And it again plays with this idea of Halt being the white lead and trying to dig into some white supremacist troublemaking, but maybe lacking the gravitas needed to shine the appropriate light on it.

I mean, I do think this is.

We saw it more, too, but I don't think it's, like, right there and up in your face.

But I think the show has asked a little bit, like, can you ironically wear a Confederate flag on your.

You know, have a Confederate flag tattoo?

He does, yeah.

You know, yeah.

And then another quirk, you know, But I love it.

It's Marty's.

He's the private investigator, and he tries to compare as much as possible to things to Shakespeare here.

He likens himself to Hamlet.

Like, he says, I'm bound in a nutshell, yet thinking it's infinity as he delivers news to Betty Jo that Donald wants her out, is going to take her land, basically.

Here's your money, though.

Are these all leading to something, or are they just character traits?

People are weird, right?

And I think shows that, like, do get a little bit into, like, people are just odd.

Like, there's some honesty in that and maybe I'm in for a big disappointment too.

But in the background I see of this, I see it hasn't really come to the foreground, but like with the property development angles and everything, we're talking about land and we're talking about power.

And this may be me completely reading into it, but the thing that I know the most about Oklahoma is that of all the stolen Native American land in the United, it might be the most stolen Native American land in the United States.

Oh, yeah, well, you know, it was for, for example, when the Native Americans for Alabama were marched out on the horrible Trail of Tears, they were sent to Oklahoma.

And Oklahoma, the idea was like they, they, they actually, it was very sad, but the US Government smashed a bunch of different people groups together, dropped them in Oklahoma, but they were like, this is yours forever.

You know, we're going to take all your other land, but at least you've got, you've got Oklahoma.

But then in the late 19th, early 20th, I can't remember, there was like a literal day, like to the minute where like the government was like, oh, we're going to open up land.

And so you had folks literally in like covered wagons and stuff.

The Sooners.

The Sooners, yeah.

Waiting to race and take that land that was now twice stolen from the people.

And that's why there are so many reservations in Oklahoma, even if it's not necessarily like the, the long term ancestral home of those people, you know, because they were taken from their, you know, their land was taken from them and then they were displaced to Oklahoma and then they were further displaced.

Yeah.

Wow.

How much did you laugh at Lee saying he was Special Agent Cooper?

That was hilarious.

That was hilarious.

As the game warden.

Another thing that made me laugh was when he started just rattling.

He clearly like he have has the beginning of Catcher in the Rye memorized.

Yeah, he does.

Which.

Which made me really laugh as he.

Scouts that off to help.

Help him get out of trouble.

To the guys who are selling fake caviar.

Beluga caviar.

Well, the caviar is real.

The beluga.

It is not.

Well, right.

It's not the, it's not the caviar that they're selling that they're claiming it to be.

Which also hearkens back to, you know, Jim Thompson.

He's a real crime author and he's known for unreliable narrators.

He is.

And then we have these guys selling disingenuous caviar.

You have Tim Blake Nelson as the dead Dale Washburn.

Yes.

Sometimes appearing and narrating part of his story.

His story as he sees it, no less.

I'm curious if this will end up being that he did just kill himself.

Oh, that would be a surprising turn.

Maybe that would be a surprising turn.

I think I did like the guys who were harvesting the.

The caviar.

I think that.

I think that actor was John Doe of the band X. Oh, really?

Yeah.

Legendary punk band.

I think that was him.

Would never.

I gotta look that up.

I did like the Lee there.

And they're like, this is class warfare.

That's what.

Like, it was great.

It was just.

It was very funny.

But it's also.

If we.

Whenever we take apart a part of the United States that is not Los Angeles or New York, part of that, especially for places like Oklahoma or Alabama, is, you know, people from other parts of the country still think everyone there is just an ignorant hick.

And so it's always a very funny subversion where you've got these, you know, these criminals hiding out from Fish and Wildlife, but they're able to tie it into anti capitalist ideology.

Well, it is because they're selling caviar and these people don't know the difference between this particular fish's eggs versus another particular fish's.

Eg, it is.

What difference does it make?

And then it really sent me over the top when they called Lee one of the halves.

Yes, you're one of the halves.

It's like, no, this guy's dirt bore.

You don't know him.

He's spending down the blood money he got the other day.

That's about all he has left.

But he's got a pocket full of it, thank God.

Still, he does.

He keeps it in his boot.

Yeah, but.

And then we go.

Unreliable narrator.

Lee does woo Marlon, who was.

I do think that is John Doe from.

From the band X.

He woos Marlon and his henchmen by quoting that opening of Catcher in the Rye about skipping the childhood stuff because.

His parents would have had all that David Copperfield shit.

Yeah.

It's like nothing in this show is quite real.

Especially when you pair that with Francis being able to see Dale once they read the letters.

Yeah, I kind of.

I like that.

Actually.

I like it too.

I mean, it's sort of a conven.

Maybe convention's not conceit.

Yeah.

Lee is both.

The term you can't bullshit a bullshitter applies to him.

Yeah, but it also applies to everybody who is talking to him.

Yes, it does.

Like, he understands you can't bullshit a bullshitter.

But he does not understand.

He's.

They often have his reed from right away.

Yeah.

Episode four is called Short on Cowboys, and it starts with our dead Dale Washburn doing this wonderful metaphor that a weed is a plant at a place, you know, which is basically saying, I was a closeted gay man in the Washburn family in Oklahoma.

I really dug that.

And I thought that if anything, that could very well be a centerpiece of the show.

You joked with me and said, this is not alien Earth.

This is not going to tell.

That felt like a hint at how to think about the structure and the ongoing story.

Very much worked for me, too, because it is Dale getting to tell his own story and his own point of view.

And immediately Lee switches from that and says how much he hates it.

He's like, you should never compromise for the audience.

But I take all that back.

It really.

I like.

I'm liking the bit where he's narrating what he sees from his own point of view, and Lee is trying to figure that out.

Maybe some of the flowery.

Right.

Some of the flowery stuff that Lee is wishing he could skip is as if you, like you said, a little bit of a clue to us.

Yeah, it is.

And there's a lot.

There's a lot of folks out of place.

There's a lot of.

There's a lot of weeds in this episode.

We got Dale.

What's his.

What's his wife's name?

I'm not.

I can't remember.

His ex wife, Betty Jo.

Oh, you mean Betty.

Oh, Dale's wife.

Yes, Betty Jo.

Betty Joe.

Played by Dre, played by Gene Triplehorn.

She's great.

But you.

Betty Jo says at one point she's what?

What?

She's like, he's the rich boy and I'm the small town slut.

That's never gonna work.

Yeah.

As it turns out, she's.

She's not rich.

She was plucked out of white trash.

Yeah.

She accuses Lee of implying that she's trailer trash.

You know, you've got Lee, who's out of place every single place he goes.

He does not have a.

You know, so.

Except maybe the diner he gets his coffee at.

He had a lovely time at the diner.

They can make you a pancake in the shape of a middle finger.

It's real fun.

To me, it is kind of a funny and interesting contrast for.

You have the somewhat introspective Dale who is saying at least what he believes is true.

And, you know, we have a completely different story from Betty Jo, but the somewhat introspective Dale, you think perhaps you know, he's been labeled as sensitive.

Perhaps he's.

He's a little too aware of these things.

And then you have Lee and you're kind of like, with Lee, you're like, do you have any soft knowledge?

Like, of course he does.

But like Lee, do you understand that you are also the weed?

Yeah, it's still.

I'm still enjoying it.

Well, you keep going down the line.

Dale's daughter is out of place because of her parents.

Her parentage.

Yep.

I was thinking that.

Pearl.

Yes, Pearl.

She's out of place.

She's there, she's crying, she thinks that's her dad.

It's not her dad, as far as we know.

And then there are others who are out of place.

Even Alan Murphy, the white supremacist.

At the very end, he's trying to be a highbrow.

Yep.

You know, land developer, construction guy.

He obviously doesn't fit in well enough because at the very end, I don't want to jump too far ahead, but at the very end, he does get shot.

Well, I was thinking of Alan too, because we get that shot for the first time where we see his tattoos as he's preparing for his, I guess, AA meeting.

Yeah.

And first off, it worked for me because it was a great reminder, as you kind of brought up for the last time, that this kind of veneer of respectability, like the long sleeve shirt, the kind of puffer jacket, you know, the veneer of respectability can.

Can.

Can paper over some really ugly things lying under underneath.

Especially if we're thinking about, you know, the way that land and taking land away from people, not just Native Americans, but, But regular folks.

Yeah.

Can is.

Is used, you know, for a tool of.

Or as a, as a, an avenue of oppression, whether intentional or not.

So I thought, like, that kind of fit really well too, where it's like, he's kind of out of place too.

Definitely.

His pals are blackie and what's his face, you know, but he doesn't.

He wants to be a little bit, like you said, beyond them.

Right.

Better.

He does.

While still maintaining his air of superiority due to his race.

It always kills me when there's a.

A meeting in a television show or movie and the person speaking is some sort of criminal usually.

Because AA is all about openness and honesty.

Like brutal.

They even call it brutal honesty.

And like, for him to really be a member of aaa, he would have to say, I killed two people, you know, and he's like, not going.

Right, right, right, of course, of course.

That's funny.

Yeah.

This is an odd show.

I think on purpose, the narrative itself may not do anything bonkers.

Like we're trying to think something is going to happen that's going to be huge.

Like a big reveal, shocking moment or something that no one could guess.

I don't think it's that kind of show though, which is leaving me interested, certainly.

But like.

Oh, okay, you know, this thoughtful about.

No, it's not really that kind of show.

It's like it's a. Richard Linkletter wrote it and then the Coen brothers directed it, or vice versa.

Yeah, I thought, you know, despite all the quirk, some of what we got, this episode was more snapshots into things you probably figured out on your own.

But you, you know, almost like as Lee does at one point, it's almost like you're looking at other people's photos on the wall where you get.

We get and.

But also like there's.

For me, there's enough tension with like, is Carl Betty Jo?

You know, when Lee finally comes up, before she goes, she takes off her wedding ring right from the beginning, you know.

Yeah, that seems pretty like she.

We don't know yet.

Like she doesn't seem that calculated as they go on to drink 28 tequila shots.

But.

But obviously we're.

We're signaled that she took her ring off right away.

And then Lee, of course, the second he gets a moment to himself, he's gonna snoop.

Uh huh.

So everyone.

Everyone's kind of still playing.

Everyone's playing a game.

My memory is so bad at times.

I was trying to think, okay, if Ethan Hawke's character is kind of a journalist figure, are there stories where he sleeps with the one of the characters who could be a suspect?

And I suppose that happens quite often in the noir.

I think so.

Yeah.

Well, look at.

I mean, it's not quite that, but look at like, you know, the Maltese Falcon or something like that.

Yeah, yeah.

If you like your shows with a taste of oddity but a sense of real place, I think that the lowdown hits the target there.

Let's move on to task on hbo.

It somehow has two more episodes, but Don and I have watched up through the explosive episode five, Vagrants.

We got us a nice cliffhanger here.

Yeah.

Had a lot of good stuff going on.

Yeah, I loved it.

I watched it twice.

Oh really?

I did.

I didn't watch it twice, but I liked it a lot.

Well, to be fair, my wife was out of town and she got a little.

That's right.

You mentioned she Got a little itchy that I had watched it without her.

And I said, well, watch it again, because I thought it was great and I'll watch it again.

Inglesby and the writers, the creators, they're not planning any sort of explanation for Grosso and Jason's connection and how it's.

Grosso being the leak of the task.

Force, which I thought don't seem to be.

I thought, okay, for viewers who don't watch the little five minute segment at the end of this show, that might make them angry, but I'm fine with that.

It gives us another side to Grasso too.

Even though we all kind of knew he was the snitch.

He was the.

He was.

There are signs within the.

Yeah.

Several episodes before the four episodes.

There's some supposed to pick up on.

A couple of things which I never do.

Another aspect that'll be left to viewers is that Perry had no intention of drowning Aaron.

He was just trying to say, shut up, be quiet, there are people up there.

He wanted to take her back to Jason.

You're supposed to read his reactions like, oh, I just killed Aaron.

And his reactions around Jason as.

I can't tell him I killed.

Why.

Hey, buddy.

Bad news today.

Yeah.

Which is, you know, I get that you can't quite come out and say that in the middle of what they're trying to do here, but Perry is over him.

Right.

Perry has.

In the hierarchy of the gang.

Perry could just say, shut the hell up.

I had to do what I had to do, presumably.

Yeah.

You know, obviously Perry is sort of a father figure of sorts for Jason.

Yeah.

Part of me wonders, like, does he think he might just kill him?

Like if he finds that out?

You know, he.

Yeah, he's comfortable with violence.

Molly's beating Jason with a chain.

So, yes.

One thing the episode vagrants wanted to implement these loud sounds of nature.

I was thinking about that.

I don't want to go too much into my personal preoccupations, but.

And I.

Sorry, folks, I am jumping ahead a little bit.

But it was because something at the end made me wonder.

Especially we see things like Sam playing with the chickens, things like, you know, being outside and things like that.

And there's a bit where Robbie says, like, I have never felt God in my life.

And I think one of the answers to that in this show has been nature.

Yeah.

But also the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams says that, like, you never see God straight on.

You always see God out of the corner of your eye.

You're never going to look and See Deity.

That worked for me.

And then it also worked, like, oh, that's the nature stuff.

And it also kind of worked too, where, like, nature builds these connections between people.

Right.

Like, we both went swimming in the quarry.

And then the way that nature is polluted or turned against what it is by human beings, you know, water is just water.

It doesn't have a purpose necessarily.

Like, we drink it and it's there, and it's part of the world.

But then when you use it to drown someone, you know, it becomes a weapon.

Wow.

The.

The late summer is palpable here.

But absolutely, it serves as a contrast, I think, between nature and man, or if there even is a contrast.

Like, these sounds invade so much that it's just part of it.

Yes.

In the sense that, like, I just.

Maybe I'm way too influenced by that scene with Maeve and Sam, but the way that we often try and pretend that we are something apart from the world.

Yeah.

Before you get the tensest scene of the year, maybe we get one of the damn near as close tensest scenes of the year where Perry visits Maeve.

Yeah.

Of course they would know one another.

You kind of forget that in all the plot.

But he shows up and you remember.

Yeah.

He would have known her, dad.

He would know her.

He knows her very well.

Yeah, he's known her as she grew up.

Pretty scary scene.

There's nothing scarier than, like, the guy with the smile who shows up and, like, Maeve knows right away.

But there's something just so menacing about that.

Yep.

We could jump ahead here.

The Ruffalo and Palfrey scenes, though, those were as full of drama as the writers wanted them to be.

Knock it out of the park, both those guys together.

First up, the scenario is inherently tense, right?

Yes.

But then secondly, the way they're.

I don't want to even say exactly, fencing, but both sort of are trying to humanize themselves to the other person.

Obviously.

Tom, right.

Is trying to make himself seem more human because he doesn't want to die.

If he's gonna die, he would like to talk to his fan, you know, he doesn't want to get shot.

Yeah.

And Robbie's kind of not.

I mean, at least my feeling was.

He's also kind of trying to say, you know, like, not in so many words, but, like, hey, I'm a human being, too.

Like, I've done.

I've got reasons for what I.

You know, like, I'm not.

I'm not an animal.

I'm not a monster.

Yeah.

I can talk with you.

The hubris of wanting to avenge his brother's death is what's led him to this path.

If he just would have tried to rob for the sake of his kids and make extra money that way.

But what's key to this, these scenes, is that I don't think anyone dislikes Robbie.

And then you pair that with this kind of innate sadness of Ruffalo and their conversation just crackles.

I think here's a guy who knows he's at the end in every way and another guy who doubts what the end entails anymore.

Yeah.

And it's just Robbie has to know that his.

His options are narrowing and it's.

He's starting to do a little.

Of course he does, because he start.

He's starting to do a little bit of staring into the abyss.

And that's.

Well, hints.

Every time you see him in the backseat of that car or outside in the woods right after those things, he's got tears in his eyes.

Yes.

His friend is to hold those tears in your eyes like that.

That's some really good acting.

And Tom Pelfrey, I.

You know, I wouldn't be shocked to see him in more roles.

Same they were.

Those things were actually so tight that I was not ever sure Tom was going to live.

I really thought that because it's an HBO one off season show, any character could be expendable to a certain degree.

I didn't think Tom was going to survive the episode.

Yeah.

I wondered what would.

It's done well enough that you truly do wonder.

There's such an aura of desperation about Robbie where it is like you kind.

You know, and he is kind of thinking in a dark place, you know, like.

Yeah, he's kind of alone.

And so you worry.

You worry.

What could he do in his desperation?

You're worried to the point that you're pretty glad that Sam's made it to a hospital.

Thanks to Maeve.

Yes, absolutely.

Because I thought that was the route the show might go.

Maeve, once again being the hero of the show in some ways, you know, able to, despite what she knows, what it'll do, return Sam.

Yeah.

You know, share what she knows.

Kind of the.

It's in contrast to the hubris of.

Of Robbie wanting to.

Not only wanting to avenge his brother's death, but to avenge his brother's death in that way that involved taking money.

Oh, yeah.

When Ruffalo gets that line about being the FBI's top man per Robbie.

Yeah.

No one else could say.

Not even close.

Like he can.

Yeah.

You must be the FBI's top man.

And he says.

He takes a beat and says, not even close.

It instantly takes you back to those opening shots of him setting up a table at a job fair.

And he's probably not supposed to be the agent with a case this intense in his life.

And then you pair that with the near instant conversation he has about his wife not being alive.

And this is almost De Niro and Pacino in heat, but way more poignant.

Yeah.

Yes.

I have nothing to add to that, honestly.

You know, I thought that it was a great.

The whole.

The whole car scenes between Robbie and Tom.

Excellent.

And hopefully had enough bite to him to be.

Still.

Be the antagonist.

Yeah.

And not.

But yet not be hateful.

And to keep those tears in his eyes just signaled for me as a viewer where he's going.

He loves his family, and he regrets every bit of this.

Absolutely.

And, you know, he was the antagonist, but obviously he lets Tom go, which we're glad he did.

But also, you know, in their own faltering way.

And again, they're both trying to, like, humanize each other.

Tom is using what he knows as an FBI agent, but Robbie's even kind of looking for connection from Tom.

You know, he's.

He's lost.

You know, he's.

What can you tell me about these people?

You.

You.

What would you say.

Yeah.

Prayed with while they died.

Yep.

Tell me about, you know, the folks at the end.

Because that.

He's afraid of that.

Tell me about your wife, your family.

Yeah.

A lot of weight and sadness.

And a lot of weight and sadness to the line.

You can still go home.

Which Tom says twice.

Man.

What.

What does Tom believe?

That.

That was great.

I don't.

That's the thing with Tom.

Or is that more metaphorical?

Is he's.

I think it was more metaphor.

Not in the sense that you can literally go home.

Robbie is he.

And he knows he's headed to that undiscovered country.

Right.

One way or the other, he's never going to see his kids again the way things are going.

Are you quoting Shakespeare?

I might be.

All right.

Yeah.

Tom does the classic negotiation where you call the person by their name, remind them they're human.

And you can see.

I like Tom's phrase.

You can still go home, because at least for me, we just got a reminder that he used to be a priest.

Right.

And in the Gospels, we have things like the parable of the prodigal son and things.

And so one of the things about the word repent comes out of a Greek word you can almost translate it as, like, change your mind for the better.

So we have this idea of saying, like, I don't want to go down this road anymore is coming home.

And I think as a priest, he would have understood that, right?

Like, the son who comes home to the father doesn't even have to apologize in the story.

The father runs at.

In the story, I love it, the son in his head says, here's the big apology I'm gonna make to my dad.

Then he's so full of guilt, he.

Never gets to say it.

Because the dad sees the son walking up the road and runs out to meet him.

And I think that there's.

That.

There's that metaphorical and spiritual weight of, like, Robbie, you can still come home.

You can still see your kids again.

Maybe, like, you can still.

You don't.

You don't have to take this burden on.

You can still, for lack of a better word, repent.

You can make that mind change for the better.

Reminds me, too, of the great Elizabeth Cotton song, my favorite of hers.

When I get home.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

She says, all my burdens will be.

Home is such a powerful metaphor for all of us, you know, and it has so many overlapping meanings.

It took me two watches to get this, but Robbie releases Tom and tells him, you'll see it.

It's beautiful.

I wondered a lot about what the antecedent to it was there.

I couldn't.

I thought, okay, well, he's talking about nature.

But what Tom comes upon isn't just nature.

It isn't just a beach.

It isn't just a quarry.

It's a view of a lot of families.

Having families together.

Are natural.

They're part of nature.

This idea of a family and loving is natural.

Yeah.

We get even a little extra camera shot just showing all the people around.

With little kids, which reminds Tom immediately.

It was on the forefront of his mind anyway to call, and he does.

So many of these characters, particularly toward the middle and Ian step out of their car and.

And look at the sky or look at the birds.

Go back and watch it again and watch how many of them walk outside, step by their car, and look straight up and at whatever is chirping and.

Yeah.

What is it that Robbie's story's all about?

You know, that one thing about diving into water that begins the episode, whether it's true or not about the water, I'm not sure about becoming one with nature.

So you don't die once you become one with nature.

You're much more safe if you just.

Say I'm gonna do it all my own way and you jump into that water, your heart is supposedly gonna explode.

Is there?

I don't know if there's any truth to that.

I don't.

I would doubt either.

But I agree with you, Blaine.

Where it is kind of that take a minute and take.

Try at least a little bit.

Take away that.

That power.

You know, there's a powerful remove between us, between our environment, between animals and take a minute to.

To lessen that a tiny bit.

Take a breath.

Get in the moment.

Yeah.

If you're the Buddhist and connect to nature or God or take your pick.

I think that's what's going on here.

I think so.

Because we know that the future is a mental state of ours.

We know that the past is a mental state, but we really only have the moment.

Right.

And so anything that is to be found or encountered is encountered in that moment.

So I think like the take a breath.

You know, like it's.

It's so.

It can seem almost cliche or woo woo.

But when you sit and think about it, you know, you're kind of like, yeah, like this moment is literally all my consciousness has here.

It's probably is a little cliche because he's done it so much, but worked for me.

It works for me too.

Where are you?

You're at the water.

What are you about to do?

Get in the water.

Okay.

First become one with it.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Take away the thing that removes you from it.

Yeah.

That many reasons why I felt like this was an outstanding episode.

It was a hell of a good episode.

Hell of a good episode in my opinion.

A lot to think about.

A lot to think about.

Kudos to Brad Inglesby and his theme of writers.

It was a good episode.

As for us, that is our episode.

That is the end of our episode.

What do we have going on here?

Just a goodbye, I would think.

Right.

We're going to do the lowdown in Task next week.

Yeah.

And I'm going to try to get into.

In some Chad Powers cuz I like to lull.

Yeah.

Get.

Get a couple of those in.

I. I really want you to get to that episode where the, the joke I want to make so funny.

So this is the end for us, for Adam, for Donovan.

I'm Blaine and you know, we hope that you get a chance to walk outside in nature today.