From Marvel to Mental Health: 'Agatha All Along' Finale and 'Shrinking' with T.D. Wood

Hello, it's ye old TV podcast, Taking It Down.

Produced by the website the Alabama Take, we're designed to offer up general thoughts so that you, the working man and woman, can decide if what's streaming on the TV is right for you.

Then if you've seen it, well, stick around because me and my crew will dissect the specifics with some occasional flare of Southern banality.

Perhaps that'll help you think of something you didn't know.

We hope.

I'm the host, Blaine.

In a bit, I'll be joined by a special co host.

This week, if you're listening on the morning of release, it's election day.

You're doing it.

You're exercising that right.

Do it, man.

If you're listening to us while you vote, tell me about it.

What was it like?

Do you have a line where you vote?

Is that.

Or have you already voted?

I know a lot of people have already voted.

They send in their ballots.

I think that's great.

It's a good way to do it.

But if not, are you in line?

Is it stressful?

Hope not.

But I do hope you're voting.

Hope you're doing well, too.

I hope you understand how facts are.

Facts and opinions are like assholes.

Voting in Alabama is like going to the store, finding an item that moved to the wrong spot and taking it back to its place.

You know, it doesn't help anything, but you do it because it's the right thing to do.

If you're a fan of Marvel Movies or Marvel Television, you're well aware that Agatha all along wrapped its season this week and just in time for Halloween.

Right before Halloween.

Maybe you viewed it on Halloween.

That.

That would be ideal.

Those last two episodes.

The streamer dropped two episodes to end it, which I suspect has to do with finishing it in time for Halloween.

Nice companion, I think, for that holiday.

A cursory look.

Online fans loved this, and I think a lot of critics.

Critics loved it too.

And I wasn't as sold on it.

It was well done.

Overall, I.

I think some of the set designs were weak.

I thought it had really solid editing, very good camera work.

I thought the acting was stellar.

I thought that the acting managed to do great work despite the story being too similar to what they have done before.

You know, the twist was a twist that we'd seen.

It seemed to rely on reveals and twist, and I'm starting to lose interest in that kind of thing.

It could be a me thing.

The penultimate episode.

I thought that the pacing of it was really slow.

If you watched a couple episodes at all.

You know that almost every episode followed this frame, this framework, perhaps.

And that began to feel tedious.

Each character got their spotlight show.

Some of those were really good.

There were two that were especially outstanding, I would even say.

But, you know, two out of eight or nine, it doesn't make for a good show.

They just don't balance it out.

Some of the writing was smart and took its time in a good way, in a well paced way.

And it made some references throughout its own show that I liked.

Kind of callback related things, planning ahead, knowing when to do what in the writers room.

I like that.

But as a whole, it just relied heavily on reveals.

I think that's why the Internet tends to go crazy.

But the critics seem to like it too.

But Internet goes crazy.

You know, they figured it out, they're rewarded.

They feel like they've done something with the show.

Fan service kind of thing, you know, that's a perfectly fine way to enjoy something.

It's just not enough for me.

I don't think that makes a series great.

I don't think it even makes a series good.

Shows and movies can do both.

I think they can be high quality as well as do some fan service.

I don't know much.

I don't know what the balance can be there.

It's a hard needle to thread.

I'm having trouble thinking of a good example that does that.

It's very fan servicey and also it's just high quality.

Does the Penguin do it?

I don't know that they're doing a lot of fan service, but I think it's high quality.

As for the finale of Agatha, all along it was more of a resolution.

Way more of a resolution.

They took a whole episode to do it, which it needed, I think.

I think that was fine.

It does make me think that the series would have been better had it done what it was doing in the first several minutes of that finale.

That's what I was thinking that the show maybe should have done.

But you can't judge what they should have done.

You got to judge what they did do.

It was great in its own ways here and there.

Overall, a little too much of the same.

A little too much of wait for the reveal and then once you get the reveal, there's one more little reveal.

It's just that kind of thing, you know, Maybe I'm no longer the audience for those things.

Hey, let's get into this week's episode in full.

A little bit more in full.

That those are just Some initial thoughts on Agatha all along, I'm going to bring in a special guest.

I'm going to bring in our guy, T.D.

wood from the Alabama Take.

He's here to help me talk about the Apple TV plus show shrinking.

Let's get into that.

Okay.

Joining me, he's a surprise guest.

He's been on here before to talk challenge related stuff.

He's not a stranger, but he is.

It's few and far between because he's a busy guy.

He runs his own podcast himself.

It's the host of Take it on Sports, one of our best buddies, founder of the Alamate, co founder of the Alabama take, Mr.

T.D.

wood.

What's up?

Hey, Just enjoying the Sunday, man.

What's going on?

Good to be back.

Yeah, we record on Sunday.

You record on Sunday.

We're a weekend podcast crew for sure.

I got you on here.

We're gonna talk TV just like normal.

It's.

It's taking it down.

I'm gonna get you to talk about shrinking in a little bit and we'll of course do spoiler section later.

Non spoiler.

To begin.

We won't ruin anything, but this part will not ruin a thing.

Got you on here.

You're.

You're one of our sports folks.

Between you, Greg BOSWORTH and Mallory McCormack, I, we.

I've got things covered.

I know who to go to to talk about games and sports and I mean, the whole gamut's covered, especially with Mallory.

She does a lot of, with the stare down.

She does a lot of WNBA related things.

Much more than that.

I shouldn't just limit that.

But anyway, before we get into our regular TV talk, I do want to ask you about college football.

We're big fans.

We used to talk about it a lot on taking it down, but we kind of cut that a little because you guys do such a good job with it.

But let's just talk about it as it relates to television.

The SEC is now on abc.

Big Tens now on cbs.

Fox has its new game every week.

It's been doing that for a few years.

But it's not like I noticed yesterday, even Peacock's in on the action.

I mean, what, what are your thoughts on this, this conference realignment, everything somewhere else?

First of all, as far as SEC goes, I know we talked about and complained for years that we couldn't wait till it was off CBS and away from Gary Danielson and the shoddy production of CBS in general.

So I'm happy that, you know, for all the problems that abc, ESPN might have as far as there may be over influence on the game itself.

And you mentioned realignment.

You know, let's be honest, a lot of that has to do with how much money ESPN throws around.

And they can deny it all they want, but it was totally.

Yeah, yeah.

Texas and Oklahoma aren't in the sec.

If ESPN doesn't go to someone and say, hey, you can make more money here.

But as far as the product from the viewer standpoint, it's so much better than cbs.

They have better announcers.

They have much.

I mean, their production is top notch.

It's from a viewing standpoint, it's great.

And then if I have ranked them, where would I go?

Because FOX has its own problems.

But I love Gus Johnson, so I, you know, I'll listen to anything with him.

And if anybody listened to, you know, taking on sports last week, they heard Greg rant on the big noon Saturday and how it's terrible to have the flagship game of the week at noon.

And he's right.

Or even, you know, 11:00 Central for us, but it does.

And watch it.

Yesterday we had our son's second birthday party and we had the games on the living room, of course.

And it's.

You have number.

Was.

Was it four?

Number four.

Ohio State versus number three, Penn State.

And it's at 11 o'clock.

Three and two.

Wasn't it three, three and two, maybe.

Yeah.

You might be right.

Either way.

Yeah, that.

Greg's right.

That should be a prime time matchup.

That should be a 7pm 6:30pm Getting dark.

See those white colors in the stands, you know, consistently, golly, it would have been great.

And I don't know that Penn State would have been a little bit more hyped to win.

But that, that stuff for your show, the TV element itself, the even Peacock's in on it is so weird.

As much as we hate cbs, I might rank the NBC Peacock production the last in that list.

Days.

Yeah.

So I guess they have the Big Ten contracts because that's all they show.

And I hate that I can.

Adam Morrow can probably speak on this, too.

As a fellow soccer fan, I hate that everything has a different streaming service now.

And I got to go to Peacock for.

Well, actually, I will say their Premier League coverage is actually pretty top notch.

Their American Football coverage is terrible, at least for college pros.

All right.

But yeah, you got to go there for Premier League.

You got to go to Paramount plus for Champions League and then.

And the Peacock or the college as far as college football, the games that Peacock Carries.

And no one's there to that part of the pun, I guess, to watch whatever random Notre Dame game they have.

Yeah.

And then they'll throw up the NFL game sometimes.

Yeah.

Peacock, which.

That's a little bit better Sunday night production wise.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

That's part of what we do.

To hear as much as we can is we know it's hard to find what you want to watch.

If you hear somebody talking about this particular show, a lot of times they're not talking about where it is.

So we try to make sure we really emphasize, hey, it's in this area, this spot.

On your streaming service.

This channel.

Yeah.

I will give a credit to ESPN there.

I think it's just their app.

They might have it on their website too, but they actually have now a Where to Watch feature.

Like a little.

You hit the.

Tap the button in the top right corner.

It is.

And it will tell you where everything is playing and not just their games.

You know, they'll tell you if it's on Peacock or cbs.

So that is nice because.

Yeah.

Especially, you know, a college football junkie like myself, I'm like, you know, I'm not afraid to watch a UNLV vs.

Nevada game or something.

Oh, for sure.

Yeah.

So if I find it's on, you know, whatever, CBS Sports Network 2 or whatever.

You know, I saw someone on Threads post that they did not know There was an ESPN8 and it had the little banner ESPN8.

I thought.

I don't know that I did either.

The Ocho.

Oh, yeah.

With their ESPN plus thing.

And that's where it's great too, if you have.

I guess that is where streaming is a good thing about is you.

If you're a fan of a smaller school, ESPN plus and those likes, they do carry all of those smaller games.

So you can still see it on tv as opposed to just having to follow the score online.

Being SEC fans, I do like it on ESPN and abc.

Their.

Their logo.

Even it.

I even liked it.

I started noticing it about the second week they started airing SEC games on the abc.

It had.

It's got that kind of neon look.

It's very.

It's fashionable.

It's kind of a sexy look for the logo in between commercials and whatnot.

They're doing a pretty good job.

Yeah, it's very clean.

It's clean.

It.

Yes.

And, you know, since I've started doing the side and the.

And the podcast and stuff, I am into that.

I guess I notice those kinds of things.

Listen to taking on sports each Monday morning.

They take an occasional break, but they're pretty much there for you.

On Monday morning, TT will be your host and it's my go to to hear about games I miss because I can't get to them all.

I get to about three or four at the most and then what I miss.

TD and Greg take care of me.

And then Mallory on the stare down.

She's set to return.

It's a little plug for our our stuff.

We're going to unpack some thoughts about Apple TV plus and its show Shrinking now.

We won't do that yet.

We'll just give some oversight some general thoughts for those that don't know comedy with huge dashes of drama from writer and producer Bill Lawrence.

That's the man behind Scrubs, Ted Lasso and most recently Bad Monkey.

He had a big hand in it.

More production hand.

The series Shrinking stars Jason Siegel as a psychiatrist in the throes of dealing with a deceased spouse from a car wreck and his 16 year old daughter.

They're both kind of dealing with that.

His co workers in the office are, well, none other than Harrison Ford and Jessica Williams playing fellow psychologist.

I think I called him a psychiatrist.

I think he's just a psychologist.

There's a difference.

I haven't seen him prescribe medicine.

I guess that's the difference, isn't it?

DD.

Sure, if that's what you say.

I have no idea.

He's a therapist.

It's now airing its second season on a weekly basis.

There are four episodes out.

I've seen three of four.

TDs seen all four.

Not sure if we'll get into the fourth one as much.

When we get to spoilers, it's on the Apple streamer.

Apple TV plus td.

This is one that you recommend for us to talk about, do you?

Is this a show you recommend freely, just to friends and acquaintances out and about?

I do.

The best thing about that show beside the casting, as you rattled off that cast list, I mean, it's everyone's Pitch Perfect too.

Harrison Ford is the best grumpy old man we've seen since, you know, Math.

And Lemon and since Grandpa Simpson, probably.

It's the best grumpy old man and.

He'S perfect for it.

And Jessica Williams, I've loved her since, you know, everything she's ever done and she's great in it.

What's her face From Scrubs and Drew Carey Show.

The neighbor.

Yes.

Whom.

Whose name escapes me too, but yes or she.

Pam.

No, Pam's the other neighbor.

Yeah.

That made one appearance.

The Husband, Derek, everything cast.

But as far as the show itself, Recommending.

Yeah, I love it because it's, it deals with such a heavy topic and it makes it really funny and light hearted but at the same time they do capture the, the weight of it and these feelings.

And you do come out of the episodes kind of really caring and really feeling for these characters, but not just emotionally beaten down like some other shows can, you know?

Yeah, yeah.

It has to walk a line and it does a pretty good job of balancing which I want to get into.

Who's this show for?

You think it's a pretty general audience?

I think so, yeah.

I think my wife actually started watching it first one or two episodes last year during the first season or whenever it came out and then was like, hey, you should catch up and we should watch this.

And I did.

And this is a great.

Yeah, you can sit down, watch it with whoever you like to watch your shows with.

And you mentioned, you know, it's a Bill Lawrence show and he's just so great at kind of what we are talking about, capturing like emotionally heavy, emotionally laden subjects but while keeping you, keeping it light, keeping it easy to digest.

Bill Lawrence was probably at the peak of his powers with Ted Lasso and that I'm going to attribute that a lot to Jason Sudeikis and just having that character already established in their minds going into episode one.

They knew who Ted Lasso was.

Yeah.

By the time they started.

But yes, let's draw the spoiler line.

That's our recommendation.

We really do think that most of you guys would get something out of shrinking Apple TV plus.

It's only one one season plus four out of the new one.

So here's your spoiler line.

Yeah.

So shrinking second season Apple TV plus mentioned that it picks up maybe a month or two where it left off.

Jimmy is the therapist, the psychologist, he's the father.

And man, I was impressed with this first episode.

I'll go back a little.

And that first episode, you know, he's, he's doing ecstasy.

All cookers.

Right.

I mean I was like, oh, is this where we're going?

I mean, yeah.

Luckily by the end of episode one in that very first season, he turns it around pretty quickly and realizes now I've got a 16 year old daughter I'm raising.

And with the help of his neighbors and friends and his, one of his patients, Sean.

Sean.

I did not ment in the beginning.

Sean's a huge role and I found it kind of interesting, strange even, dare I say that Sean was this is a big role for someone whom I'd never seen as an actor.

Had you seen him in anything?

No.

I thought he had a familiar face almost, but I couldn't place it.

And now I've since forgotten.

But I looked it up and he might have been like, maybe a bit part in something I'd watched before, you know?

Yeah, but you're right.

And he nails it.

Yeah, He's.

He's going against heavy hitters.

He has scenes with J.

Jason Siegel, who's, you know, he's a heavy hitter enough.

He's done a lot of acting, but he's.

He's got scenes with Harrison Ford.

He's got repeated scenes with Jessica Williams and all these other great cast members.

And he holds his own for the most part.

I do think maybe he's a.

If you had to rank them, which is.

Who wants to do that?

That's a little silly here.

But, yeah, he may be the weakest link, but he's still pretty good.

But it.

It almost works because of how they write his character and what he's doing.

He is the most.

I won't say he's the most messed up of them all, but he's shaky.

He's.

Yeah, he's the one with the least idea of how to fix himself, I'll say that.

That's.

That's for sure.

In that first season, which we're still kind of on right now, this one begins this new season.

Jimmy's former patient hasn't even gone to trial yet for pushing her emotional, emotionally abusive husband off of a cliff.

She.

She boops him.

Boop.

She boops him off a cliff.

She takes that to mean push him off a cliff.

Somehow or another, she's played by an SNL alumni.

Heidi Gardner.

Is it Gardner?

Heidi Gardner, Right.

Yeah, Heidi Gardner from snl.

She hasn't been off SNL very long.

She does really good work here, though.

She's.

She does what she's supposed to do.

She's supposed to be the borderline ditzy, but also troubled a little because of her partner, her boyfriend.

It works well, but she's in jail to begin.

Everyone else is doing what they're supposed to be doing.

Paul's grumpy, but in love this time.

Jimmy tries to parent through his grief still lingering.

Gabby's trying to decide if having Jimmy as a co worker with benefits is a good idea.

Liz and Sean have their food truck up and running.

It is Liz.

We.

We stumbled on her character name earlier, and I like that first episode because I thought y Have a friend you like to chat with.

And that's what Raymond is doing with Paul.

But Paul's got these boundaries.

He's just like, you know, I'm.

I'm your doctor.

You're my patient.

But turns out now they just become buddies.

And we get that guy from Scrubs playing this very small role he was in the first season.

Good example of what they do well on this show, though.

They get the most out out of everyone, which is a Bill Lawrence specialty.

You know, that is Bill Lawrence.

I don't know if you watch Bad Monkey.

Every cast member, if they were on screen for a split second, you thought, I wonder what they're going to do later.

And usually it was something good and interesting and big.

Yeah, that's one that my wife watches.

And again, it's another one.

She's like, no, you need to sit down and watch this.

And I'm always adjacent to the room, and I'll find myself sitting there for 5, 10 minutes just staring at, you know, standing in the doorway watching it.

And then you're going off to do whatever I was doing before.

And, like, I know I do need.

To sit down and watch this Bad Monkey.

We reviewed it quite a few weeks in a row, and it was good stuff.

When it comes to shrinking, I think it's.

I think it's good.

I think it is very solid.

I think it balances things as best it can.

But sometimes I do think it teeters not on bad, but just like, oh, well, that wasn't as good as I'd hoped.

The first one came this season with Gabby's change of emotion for her relationship with Jimmy.

It felt too abrupt.

You know, she got really angry at Jimmy for coming over.

Of course, he was trying to take advantage of her vulnerability and, you know, get a little sex that night.

But it seemed as though that was awfully harsh because, you know, why wouldn't he expect that from her?

That, you know, that's kind of what they'd been doing anyway.

But I suppose she had put her foot down and then she was just gonna be firm.

The anger just felt a big swing of the pendulum.

No, I agree.

I do think if.

Yeah, you're right.

If there's a weak point in the show, it's not necessarily that it has bad moments.

It's almost maybe pacing problems, because that kind of.

Yeah, they kind of just drop that in there without any buildup, really.

And then I think on the, you know, the opposite side of that, I think sometimes there are other storylines we might get to where they kind of are taking too long to kind of get them going, but I do as far as that specific with Gabby and Jimmy and their work, you know, romance or, you know, with benefits.

Yeah.

I will say, though, show it is almost a very good representation of that very tricky problem when you do hook up with a co worker because things can just, you know, in the snap of a fingers, shift and how.

That's how dangerous it can be.

And Jessica Williams is just so great at that, playing that character and all the insults she throws Jimmy's way and.

You know, I'm not so sure that she's not the funniest character on here.

Oh, I think by far.

Yeah.

Her one liners are killer.

Yes.

It's not.

It's not even a contest.

I think second place might be Jimmy's.

I'm just blanking on names and I just watched an episode, the Daughters.

Yeah, Alice.

Alice.

That's it.

She might be second place, but she has her moments.

But it's.

It's a very steep drop.

Jessica Williams, she.

I remember her from the Daily Show.

She was good, good back then.

That's back when I used to watch the Daily Show.

Notley.

I was always excited for her segments.

And did she also do like a season or two on SNL or am I mixing her up?

She didn't do snl.

She and her friend had a HBO show.

It was kind of a comedy skit.

It was good.

I did not.

I didn't watch as many episodes of it.

My wife was kind of into it.

Jessica Williams, though, she's just fantastic.

She's great.

She did have a podcast with this same friend, Robin, I think her name is.

But Robin wrote that book of essays.

No, you can't touch my hair.

Oh, okay.

It was really popular.

Pretty funny.

Yeah.

But, yeah, you're right.

Sometimes this show, I think it's guilty of this in a.

Not necessarily a bad way.

Certainly guilty of it.

Is it bad?

Is it good?

You be the decider.

Is it realistic?

Yeah, but it does this.

Two steps up, one step back, or even one step up, two steps back on certain plot lines.

Like.

Like the Jimmy and Gabby relationship.

That seems to be.

That's going to be a two steps up, one step back, which is a realistic thing.

People do that.

They make a mistake, fix it, and then they come back and make a very similar mistake.

Had to fix that.

And that's okay.

I want to see a certain amount of realism in most of what I watch.

Yeah, you, you, you don't want Jimmy to continually be stuck In a rot.

I wish they would have played out him kind of being like still doing ecstasy for a few episodes and being like, oh, I really gotta get this together.

But yeah, hey, they established it early.

It's fine.

I felt Brian got too angry with Jimmy for not knowing that he and Gabby were sleeping together.

I was like, this is just both of these characters.

Gabby and Brian were like, where's this anger coming from?

Y'all are so usually easy going, gentle.

You go with the flow for the most part, make jokes.

Well, why are y'all so angry?

It felt abrupt.

As we mentioned, it's a surprise coming from like a Bill Lawrence led show where was specifically with Brian because after the fact they kind of, you know, he even said, you know, I'm narcissist, of course, I want to know everything, blah, blah, blah.

It's like, well, why didn't we drop those hints before now?

That's right, to let us know that.

Like, oh, okay.

Like that's why he's reacting like that.

Co MVP of this season so far in the three that I've seen is Derek.

Yes.

He, he.

They ramped up his role this season and he's great.

I know you didn't.

You haven't watched this latest episode, but he gets even a little more of a spotlight to use the, you know, to use a sports metaphor.

He gets a little kind of ISO ball.

They kind of give him the ball at the top of the key and let him work for a little bit this episode and it's great.

He does so much with so little.

Exactly.

He.

That's Ted McGinley.

And I bet TD and I will definitely know this.

And people of a certain age know that he's the smarmy 80s antagonist.

Literally that was his role for five, six, seven, eight movies there in the 80s.

Yeah.

And he was the, the frat boy antagonist.

Perfect hair, perfect smile and he just pissed you off.

Here he's the middle aged guy with perfect hair, perfect smile who just cracks you up.

Always cheery, Ride or die that.

You know that memeable clip from the first season where they are talking to the neighbor, Was it Pam or whatever.

And he rolls up and goes, hey, Sean.

You know, hey go hey Pam.

And Liz goes, no, no, no, we're not hanging Pam fingers.

Eat a dick, Pam.

Yeah, I saw that everyone online, you know, meme that was like, this is what a ride or die really is.

And that's his character in the show.

He's just this jolly, happy guy.

His interactions with his son are great.

Too.

Yes.

Yeah.

He wants to hire one of the girls to have sex with his son and.

Or, excuse me, Liz wants to do that.

And Derek's basically like, no, that would be prostitution.

We can't do that.

Good response.

He's a good foil for her.

Yeah.

Her.

Her little craziness.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because she's crazy.

She can get a little wacky, a little negative at times.

And he's just.

Again, the realism.

I.

I think it's quite realistic to have a guy in his 50s, you know, he's.

He's.

He's earned his money, he's made his money, and life's fun.

Life's okay.

There are people who are like that, and it's okay to show them.

Yeah.

And he.

He's a good.

You talk about a foil.

He's also just a flip side of Jimmy, where Jimmy can be in and out of depression.

But.

But Derek's just, you know, things are okay now.

To the series detriment and to the series benefit.

It never lets a scene linger.

Have you noticed how quick these scenes shift?

Oh, no, that's great in that.

In terms of that.

Yeah.

Quick to the point, for sure.

Sometimes I do think it could benefit to let me think about what it is they're trying to convey with a little bit longer scene.

But, hey, it's.

Most of this is comedy anyway, so.

Yeah, they're trying to.

I think.

I wonder if that's intentional, if they're trying not to let you get too much in your head, but, you know, funny for a show about, you know, a bunch of shrinks.

You know, I mentioned that pacing problem.

That's more with the story lines and not so much because, yeah, they do whip through those scenes.

Yeah.

And they're trying to cover a lot.

You know, they've got all these webs intertangled now as they introduce.

Not.

Not necessarily introduce more characters, but they get deeper into the characters we already know.

I guess the one they did introduce was Roy.

Oh, was Brett Gro.

Brett Goldstein.

We do figure out who the drunk driver is.

He gets a face.

It's Brett Goldstein.

As they mentioned his name very briefly, they're starting to talk about who he actually is.

And in the most recent one I watch, which is episode three, Alice goes to confront him, and it upsets her.

His.

Something about his fumbling of the unapology and his sincerity drives her out of the coffee shop where he works.

And he's such a great actor, too, that he.

Even in his short, short time on screen, he conveys almost without words.

How even before he does speak about how he is extremely broken from what he did and he knows how terrible it was, and he's still trying to fix his life, which I think is what the show's about, is everyone's just trying to.

Everyone deserves to be happy, I guess.

Or everyone deserves to fix their problems.

Yeah.

Even someone like the latest episode two, without spoiling it.

But they do start to expand on a couple of those things a little bit more.

It's basically just.

I'm sure there's another big event at the end of episode three.

We'll get to in a minute.

They just keep things going from there.

And he gets a little bit.

He gets one more.

One or two more scenes that start to flesh him out, too.

That's exciting.

When I saw him at the end of episode one, I got really excited.

I did not know.

Oh, I was surprised.

Didn't know.

Great.

Yeah, Great.

When you see his face, you're like, oh, man.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And when you see his face, you think that, oh, Roy Kent.

But holy.

He is not playing Roy Kent here.

Just that dogged sadness.

He carried it well.

So, yeah.

Better actor than I had realized or knew about.

So much of the show is our two characters talking to each other and.

And you got to have good actors for that because it's acting.

And, you know, the old cliche is acting is reacting well.

They have to say something, and then you get the reaction of the other.

And that happens a lot here, too.

To high quality.

And I do think the show does an incredibly good job of having these characters make human, realistic mistakes.

You know, when Alice kisses the neighbor Connor at the end of episode three, that's real.

I can't tell you how many times stuff like that's happened.

Right.

Like, that was a dumb mistake, but you were hurting, and you're trying to fix your hurt.

Jimmy sleeping with Gabby, you hurt.

You're trying to fix your hurt.

That was your best friend's.

Your wife's best friend.

Excuse me.

Those realistic human mistakes and then having to fix them, like you talked about, I think is really what the show does well, as well as some jokes.

Yeah.

And that's how they.

They get you through it.

That's how they almost make it more realistic, is because we're all trying to hide our pain in a way.

You know, people do that.

And I think that was one of the great thing about Gabby's character is that she's so, you know, witty and cuts like a knife with her jokes and all that, but it very Rarely in the first season.

Let her show that.

Yeah, she's still hurting because that was her best friend as well.

And that little, very short scene, was it episode three?

It might have been two, where she's playing with the headband that she borrowed from the Jimmy's not deceased wife, and it's on her lamp or whatever that she stole from her.

And they had that flashback scene where she always steals scrunchies from her.

And just that short.

I thought that was just great, that television.

It was five seconds of her just looking.

You saw the flashback scene.

And then in five seconds of her looking at the scrunchie that's, you know, looped around the.

The base of her lamp.

And then that's it.

And all you need.

And that's all you needed was that five seconds.

And she did a great job with her face.

And you're like, oh, yeah, that's right.

Even though she is witty and she's funny and like, you know, she's a great character, she's still hurting too.

Yeah.

Sometimes I wish they'd dive a little deeper, but that might be inching too much into drama versus some of the comedy they want to maintain.

But, yeah, you're right.

Doing it that way allows them to do both.

Can the show improve upon its overall tone?

Maybe sometimes it does get too flippant and then into the overly dramatic, but I'm okay with it.

The overly dramatic can be a little saccharine.

Saccharine for me, but I'm also a sucker for that.

Yeah.

If you try to make me sad sometimes I actually am okay with it.

Kind of like that kind of television sometimes.

I would say.

Yeah, we're both big, you know, sad country music fans.

So, you know.

Yeah, there's a certain, you know, we're the type of people where it strikes a certain nerve.

That works.

But, you know, yeah, you're right.

Sometimes they go over, you know, with the whole getting back to Heidi Gardner's character.

Yeah.

And when, you know, her going back to the boyfriend for that split second and coming, was that necessary?

Maybe not.

Like, maybe there was a better way to get her to realize that, yeah, she should move back with her sister or something.

In the end, it worked.

So, yeah.

The Grayson Donnie subplot could be a good representation of the show's very mild weakness of going back and forth a few too many times.

Even though Donnie's unrealistic, over the top aggression is hilarious.

Like, no one's that cruel, I hope.

Maybe one or two people in the world, but it's so funny in comparison to Jimmy having to react to him.

I just think it's.

I, I do.

I think the subplot should probably end.

But I also hate that Jimmy and.

And Brian aren't going to go talk to him anymore.

Probably.

I, I would love to see like if he.

How that guy.

If that he auditioned and just was channeled every bully he'd ever had in life or every he'd ever known.

Because you're right, he's got it turned up to 200.

Yeah.

He's got the amp up to 11, as they say.

The show, strong performances and letting these plot lines revolve around repeated mistakes reminds me a little of.

Of Mad Men.

Were you a fan of Mad Men?

Remind me of.

You know, that is one of the show that I.

That's on my catch up list.

You know, we mentioned that you texted me if I'm watching anything new and that's what, that's what I do these days.

I try to catch up on all this stuff.

I have seen a bunch of random episodes and know it.

So I can remember being the first time I watched Mad Men.

I was thinking, shouldn't they be overdoing some of these mistakes?

You know, that's human nature.

That's our psychology.

We will continue to touch the flame until our hand is completely burned.

Yeah, right.

It's just.

And if it works so well in the context of this being psychology related.

Yeah.

When the waiter brings out your hot fajitas plate or whatever and says hot and you touch the plate anyway.

Which I have never eaten pizza and not burned the roof of my mouth.

It's never happened.

So there you go.

Is this show realistic there?

Yeah, it is.

I don't know if we said enough about Harrison Ford.

We both love him, we both adore him.

Childhood hero.

Yeah, for sure.

What can you say?

He's just, he's nailing it.

Grumpy, but with signs of compassion.

Especially when it comes to Alice.

When it comes to someone who he knows is kind of like a daughter figure, he's much more benign and gentle.

Yeah.

And I thought that was another one of these little things the show does great is Alice, you know, the relationship between her and her father, Jimmy is strained because he was admittedly, he admittedly he was a terrible father.

And that his fear and loathing in whatever California suburb they're in or whatever period where he wasn't being a good father and helping his daughter recover.

And she has that big blow up on him about how like, hey, it hurt me too.

I'm trying to figure this out, too.

And so for that little subplot where she goes and see his boss, you know.

Yeah, it's for her, therapy almost works.

And then she gives him just, you know, the appropriate amount of hell, too, and she pushes him toward having his relationship with the doctor.

That's a good point.

Yeah.

It's a good show.

Obviously, if you've gone this far, you know that it's a good show and you've stuck around with us to hear what we thought.

We are at the end of this week's episode for the podcast, if you're a listener to us that we have more podcasts in our podcast network.

We got taken on sports, got the stare down, which should be returning fairly soon.

We are a star War.

It's fairly intermittent but always enjoyable when you get to hear some Star War talk.

I think that's it.

I think that's what we got.

If you listen to us.

Thanks so much.

Hit follow and go to the alabamatake.com and see what else is going on because there's writings, essays, thoughts, and if you listen to us while you're in line to vote.

Cool, thanks.

Let us know how it went, hit us up on social and say, yeah, long line, short line.

Tell us for td, I'm Blaine.

For Adam and Donovan, I'm also Blaine.

How about next Tuesday morning, we'll do it all again.

Thanks, everyone.