Is 'Bad Monkey' Vince Vaughn's Best Role? Plus, First Episode of 'The Penguin' and 'Agatha All Along'

Hey all.

Welcome to this week's episode of taking it down, the tv podcast for the Alabama take.

We know tv's scattered all around due to streaming.

It's our goal to help you not only decide if something's worth your time, but also give you some analysis on what we thought about a particular episode or two.

I don't have much going at the top here where I'm solo.

I will say that a couple of series have piqued my interest and I might get into them and it might be a part of next week's episode with the co host of mine.

It's social studies on Hulu.

That's a documentary series on these LA teens and what social media has done.

Fascinating topic.

I have been entrenched in that topic for it seems like three or four months.

I've been reading a lot on it.

Seeing it on screen might also be captivating, but maybe even depressing.

And then there's Penelope on Netflix.

I have not seen it advertised hardly at all, if at all.

The description of it is what drew my interest, to paraphrase.

In a way, it's supposed to have this dreamlike quality to it about a coming of age story.

I don't know.

It sounded interesting.

I might watch the trailer and go from there.

We'll see.

That's really all I have right now.

So we got a good episode.

It's full episodes.

We do not spoil anything for several minutes.

Stick around.

Hear us out as always.

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Let's get in the show though.

I love take projection.

Yeah, here we are.

I am happy to have both Donovan and Adam, and in a little bit we're gonna have Natalie back.

Let's begin with our thoughts that won't spoil a thing about any of these shows.

We're gonna be talking.

We have a plethora up and it's.

I'm excited.

It's fun because I don't really necessarily have a ton to say about each one, but I do think we have some depth going on these four.

So I promise to listeners, as always, we don't spoil anything until we say these things.

We gonna get into the shows bad monkey on Apple tv, the penguin on Max or HBO.

Some stuff on the challenge battle of the eras, airing every Wednesday evening on MTV.

And also to wrap, we'll talk Agatha all along on Disney.

Plus, let's begin with bad monkey.

And of course Donovan, I think we've said our piece here, but anything.

I'm not changing my review.

Do you like to laugh a little bit?

Do you like to have an old.

Thing here would be sell it to Adam because he hasn't watched it.

Is it for Adam?

And we'll get very specific with our audience here.

Did you like the movie old school?

Then you might care for this.

Not mostly because Vince Vaughn's in both of them and, like, at the peak of his powers in both, an appeal.

That only someone who lived with me for multiple years could make.

Donovan knows that I will watch old school at the drop of a hat.

You have my attention.

I would dare say it could be one of Vince Vaughn's top two or three roles.

Like aside from wedding crashers and Rudy.

No Rudy here, amigo.

Like move over.

Yeah.

No, no.

I think swingers is just still top notch, if not a little dated.

And I think old school.

Or you could put old slot old school in there.

Or wedding crashers.

I give wedding crashers the nod, though, over old school.

Yes, sir.

Indeed.

Indeed.

It's funny.

I wish I could watch it right now.

In fact, I'll see you guys later.

You can't.

You can transparently.

We record on Sunday.

I'm sure it's on cable somewhere this afternoon.

Bad monkey.

If it's eight episodes deep now, I do believe so.

You can binge them almost, if you wanted.

They go down pretty easy, folks.

There's a little, I think, again, no.

No spoilers.

But just not every episode is as even as every other episode, but, like, taken as a whole.

Taken as a whole, it goes down pretty smooth.

You're right.

There are some dips in quality as far as just the plot line, but my goodness, every episode there is chunks.

You relish, Vince.

It helps that Vince Vaughn seems extremely comfortable in this role.

Like a loose set of clothes or something.

Yeah, he's just hanging out with a.

Shirt, dare I say?

All right, the penguin on Max, we've only seen one episode.

That's it.

Because again, we record on Sunday.

There are two at the moment.

So, Donovan, no spoilers, huh?

Do you like a New Jersey accent?

Yeah.

Oh, well, then it's for you.

That's the person it's for.

So let's back that up.

Do you like a New Jersey accent when Colin Farrell delivers it?

And I'm like, yeah, sure.

Hopefully this is not too much of a shocker.

Right?

This is a follow up to the 2022 Batman movie.

Does that sound right, Blaine?

Where Colin Farrell plays Oswald Cobb.

The penguin in a fat suit and makeup with a sort of a gait.

And with.

Every time he says noise or wise is something, it's amazing.

Does he drink a lot of water?

No.

Does he eat a bagel?

He's not.

He's not from.

He's not from the water part of New Jersey.

Okay.

And remember, we're in the DC universe where New Jersey may not exist.

Right.

It's like, I think Jersey exists in the DC universe.

Did you like it, though?

Did you like this first episode?

Like, I didn't hate it.

That was me.

I think we kind of talked about this last time, right.

Where we hadn't watched it.

Well, just speculating about it.

And I was kind of like, I'm wondering if this is just gonna make me think of, like, better stuff that I liked.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

Like, if I'm watching this, am I gonna be like, boy, I wish I was watching the Sopranos right now?

I'll go so far as to say that it wasn't bad.

Colin Farrell is a good actor.

Shit.

Melody, right?

Kristen.

Yeah.

Thanks.

She's good.

So I'm like.

I'm intrigued enough to say, like, maybe I'd watch a little more of this.

I kind of like the.

Somebody compared Colin Farrell's penguin to acting kind of in a Joe Pesci and goodfellas kind of way.

Also, at the same time, it's like.

It's a little basic cable.

Does that make sense?

It's cable.

Us.

It's weird, isn't it?

It's a little USA drum.

The penguin is the kind of show that could get really good or could just be where it is right now, which.

Exactly.

Kind of weird and kind of interesting.

Exactly.

At best.

And that's mainly due to Colin Farrell's performance.

Although there's promise of more things to happen, especially with plot.

This first episode was a.

Was a setup.

You get the feel, you know, tv at this point, right?

You settle in, you're like, okay, they're just setting things up.

Okay, but I think I'm gonna hang out with this.

Or not.

It was oddly better than maybe you would think with Colin.

Feral in a fat suit.

Yeah.

I'm actually kind of astounded by how good he is able to act, even with.

Yeah, perhaps.

Perhaps this is me reading something that is not there.

But I detect a hint of humor in his performance.

No, absolutely.

We're going to get into that.

That's exactly one of the directions we'll go later.

So if you want.

If you've seen the episode or if you don't care to see it, want to know what we think in more depth, then please stick around.

We got a couple more things here.

The challenge battle of the eras, of course, I mean, there's nothing really to say, is there?

Adam, we've preached from this pulpit for years.

I mean, you either you either like the show or you, you don't, you know, the challenge.

You don't think there isn't an in between where you would just be like, yeah, I'll watch this season.

I won't watch the next season.

You don't think there's an in between someone?

I think the challenge is kind of like pizza and that there's very good pizza some seasons, but I'm not going to turn down one slice of mediocre pizza.

And there's great pizza.

Fantastic.

But you're not going to turn down a slice of, you know, just the.

Just okay stuff.

It's still pizza.

You're serving me some domino's.

I'm not crazy about it, but I'm eating it.

Hey, that's Adam's.

Go to Domino's.

Yeah, well, I live in a place with good pizza.

I mean, we're talking chains here.

We're talking deliver it to my door, Braggart.

Yeah, I got, I got that.

And, you know, it's not even a chain.

I mean, Connecticut pizza is very good.

We'll give it to him.

The challenge battle of the era is the 40th season.

You either know about it or you don't.

And you either like it or you don't.

Probably, right.

And if you don't come on in, the waters are fine.

It's a good reset kind of period.

You know, that's a good point that I hadn't thought of.

If you were a rookie viewer, this would be a good one to, you know, you could.

It's kind of like a time machine, right?

Like, you watch this and then you could move back and see the younger, the older folks.

Sorry.

In their younger days.

Or you could just go follow along era four.

Yeah, perfect.

That's a good selling point.

It's.

It's a nice almost at a reset moment.

Something I'm going to talk about with Adam, but that will involve spoiling some things, Agatha, all along from Disney.

Plus, we have a couple of tv shows here this week that I just can't have decide what my opinion is on them.

Agatha all along sometimes feels like a ride at Disney in good and bad ways.

The background, the set sometimes looks like very Disney at theme park.

Disney kind of like, oh, this is haunted mansion.

Oh, I'm in the boat riding down the little stream they've built with.

But I can still see the chains that hold the boat to the ground.

Now, do they have in Agatha the original racist splash mountain or the one that they.

They updated it?

No, it's still racist.

It is a very nice and diverse cast.

It's almost so purposefully nice and diverse that it's obvious.

It's okay.

Adam, where are you?

You've seen two.

I've seen two.

Yeah.

We'll bring in the.

The ringer on this one with Natalie, I'm sure.

But, yes, we will.

You know, it's fun in the way that I found the other marvels of late to get tedious.

This is not doing that.

Maybe it's because they haven't gotten all attempted to be timey wimey yet.

It's a little bit more of a straightforward story so far.

I know there's things happening, but.

And I just like Catherine Hahn and Aubrey Plaza, and I don't think it.

Will get do the time B's stuff.

I don't think it will.

What do I know?

There are parts of Agatha all along that feel very rote.

Feels like painting by numbers.

I don't think they've gotten away from anything.

That's what television can do, and they probably won't.

I have to give them a little bit of leeway on this because of how much I've complained and stopped watching about them trying to do inventive things.

And I just don't think that Marvel is the vehicle to do that, I guess not.

Like, that's not why I want to watch.

Wanda was pretty good, and obviously it was messing with reality.

Quote, air quotes, their reality.

But if they just want to put some good acting talent on screen, tell an okay story, launch it so that it's going to time out very well with spooky season.

Let's go.

I'm very appreciative of how they are doing very small elements of horror, but then sometimes the horror feels like the Disney ride.

I wish they would go full throttle.

I wish they could.

I do know what you mean that they.

They push it to a certain point, and you almost see the Disney bumpers, if you will.

The park bumpers come up, and it's like, okay, you know what?

This could be.

But they're not.

And to me, I'm okay with that, because, again, this is.

It's coming on Disney plus, this isn't an HBO.

Even in the first episode, I think you could argue they're kind of like making a nod to.

Obviously, they're making a nod to HBO.

But don't take this more seriously than we're presenting it.

I mean, I'm in there with it.

A lot of it has to do with just having that vibe during October on the tv.

Yeah.

I mean, that makes you happy?

Yeah, it does.

Donovan, you and I are probably the only two chiming in here.

I believe we've done a fine amount of setup for Apple TV.

The series bad monkey not only airs weekly on Tuesdays, I think, but we're now fully caught up on it.

Can we instantly jump into spoiler territory?

We will.

Yeah, well, we're in spoiler territory now.

It's good news by Bill Lawrence from Ted Lasso and scrubs Vince Vaughn, detective in Key West.

I think it's one of his best roles in years.

Now we're good.

That monkey's not really that bad.

I have not seen the monkey enough.

No, he's been around.

He's a perfectly fine monkey.

I mean, I'm not saying he's a good monkey, but he's a fine monkey.

In the end, it was the monkeys we loved along the way.

I find it amazing how they've used every character.

I know a lot of shows do this.

Books tend to do this.

It's likely a product of the novel, but I'm not going to disregard that.

It takes courageous to bring back around the dude who owns the tee shop, t shirt shop as part of the russian mob.

Well, he's not part of the russian mob anymore.

He's got connection.

He just does a little on the side, you know?

By the way, Donovan, the soundtrack is streaming with all those petty covers.

There's some good ones on there.

Yeah, you can find it on Spotify.

I think I looked it up.

There's a couple that I'm like, no, but I like the general theme that it's all petty.

I mean, we're covering episodes seven and eight because we are caught up now.

And there will be two more that remain.

Ten episode season seven is where Yancey and Neville meet again and events fall into Yancey gets him to return the favor of tracking down Nick and Eve and Ordos.

We get background on Gracie the dragon queen, and an update on her kidnapping turns into a more of a hiring or co worker.

Yancy gets Mendes jailed.

So that kind of puts a bow on that plotline.

And then we get the gunman outside of Yancy's house.

That ends the episode.

Very mysterious.

Yeah, it was kind of wild thoughts on episode seven.

Yeah, I'll start with.

The only thing I didn't like about it is I'm just still not.

I don't care.

I'm sorry.

Maybe Gracie Dragon Queen.

I don't care as much about you.

It's hard.

She's just one.

Almost like one character too far.

So we got all the flashbacks for her and I'm like, I don't care that much.

There's enough characters between Yancey, Neville Rosa and our two antagonists.

That's fine for me right now.

Like, she is not bad.

The actor is not bad.

It's not poorly written.

I'm just not.

Just not invested one character too many.

Once again, this was an episode that just showed I, how strong they are with picking folks for their scenes because, like, the absolute, like, Rob Delaney absolutely nailed the line.

Who's got one thumb and still can kidnap the shit out of women.

That was good.

The shootout with Menende, again, very strong.

You know, like, there's action.

But it's funny.

Everyone's playing to their strengths.

You get the return of the character with the great haircut.

Love him.

He lost his job.

He's got a good.

I mean, they used everyone.

It's like, if this character is here, you're gonna see them again like that.

Yeah.

If that's the bad, the good is they're using every character.

They're pretty much using them well.

And like, it's.

It's enjoyable.

I don't want to say that this is like breaking my enjoyment or anything.

The actor who plays Gracie is very good.

The stuff between her and her Yaya is actually well acted.

Very, very affecting.

You know that it's good, right?

Like, I'm not just like, oh, God, this again.

It's just.

It's not quite.

It's a little out of the, like, the groove of the rest of the episode for me.

But, like, don't you know, this is almost mount out of immohill stuff, especially considering kind of, like you said, the nature of the show.

Right?

Like, it.

It's turned on a dime before, and that's fine.

I'd say that it adds to another interesting and maybe not for you, but it does add for another intriguing and strong, perhaps might not be the word, but how some of these events affect the ladies.

It's a strong cast of ladies, that's true.

Between Eve and Gracie, Yaya and then Bonnie, who's crazy.

Bonnie and Rosa.

And Rosa, of course, who we all love.

Right?

Episode eight is a little more consequential.

It seems Bonnie blows up the ugly yellow McMansion.

I know listeners are probably so sick of, like, here's what Donovan liked about Vince Vaughn, but just like, him casually being like, you don't have to tell everyone that I gave you the idea for this, that she's being arrested the way she's like, they're going to arrest me now.

He's like, I think they will.

Exactly.

Yancey and Rosa head down to Andros to bring Eve and Nick back to american justice.

Yeah.

Yancey definitely got the message.

The FBI lady was telling him.

Yeah.

That it's such a good scene.

Another great scene.

Just fantastic.

And it could be a high point there where he's, like, doing the wink, but it is so.

It's fun.

No one else could deliver these lines as humorously.

It's funny how, like, laid back he seems in this role, but, like, he's just riffing almost.

Uh huh.

Gracie eventually seems to leave the island, and I, Yancey and Rosa stupidly take a picture with claspers, which Eve will no doubt see.

That wasn't the greatest decision they've ever made.

No, it was not.

But again, using that character to come back around to something.

What role does he play?

Poor claspers.

He just wants to be friends.

Yeah.

And what a.

Again with the exclamation marks being the signal to Yancey that he's just a friend of daddy.

This is the guy.

Yeah.

Both Neville and Yancey, having read the age of innocence, is a small, funny detail.

I think the show does well.

I do think the show, especially maybe episode seven, dipped a slight bit, but it's nothing to change my grade of it.

Same.

Yeah, same.

And I'm with you.

I thought some of the character decisions seemed out of step and that with an overview of all of the episodes, the plot could have eliminated maybe the Bonnie character almost completely or just had that be an ex girlfriend type of role.

When you first meet Yancey.

Yeah, I know you deal with.

Even though I just said I don't care about Gracie, which is not entirely true, I agree with you.

Bonnie is the most superfluous storyline.

It's all good.

Going on the run, seeing Nick's dad.

Yeah, Yancey's dad.

It was fine.

I'd be curious to see the cut.

Right.

Like in another universe, the cut where it's not really in there, and then she comes back and burns the house down.

Probably trims the episode count.

I think so.

It was.

It's fine.

Yeah.

Do we chalk Yancey going out in public on Andros and getting his picture made as out of character.

Dumb, bad writing for whom they've established or good writing to recognize that Yancey is so boisterous, he just can't stay inside.

I think there was a little bit of boisterousness.

Of course, he would offer to take a picture with the guy.

You know, is he that kind of guy?

Right.

And he, as he demonstrated with Rosa.

Right.

Like, he's very good at getting into the role and perhaps that got a little away from him.

Yeah.

They also sort of tried to give a reason for them not being as careful as they could be by saying that even Nick never really leave their compound.

But in the hurricanes, there's a hurricane coming, and we have it set up with the Badlandhouse conch fritters that aren't really kongfritters.

They want to go somewhere else.

Yeah.

There's an honest and quality attempt at trying to set up everything.

They get it right with the characters, you know, using them all.

They don't get it right with their motivations on occasion.

Yeah.

Not the brightest thing Yancey has ever done.

It's a small island, but, yeah, I'm not, like, throwing stuff at the screen.

I think it's fair also to say that Yancey is incredibly smart at some things and then incredibly.

A bit of a doofus on, like, two or three other things.

Definitely.

Oh, definitely.

Yeah.

Especially with.

With women, it seems, you know, people say, oh, he's gonna bring you down.

He's, you know, hinting that maybe he's a doofus when it comes to relationships.

You could see it too.

Just, you know.

What did he tell?

Oh, you know, I try and do the right thing, but the wrong way.

Oh, yeah.

I really like this show.

I'm glad we covered it.

There are two more.

Let's do this.

Donovan.

Yeah.

Let's bank those two and come back to this two weeks.

Do them together.

Want to do that?

That sounds good to me.

That brings us to the spoiler part of the only episode we've seen of the Penguin.

Episode one.

It's airing on HBO.

And, Max, we brought it up last week because of the headlines, and we were just scratching our heads and wondering if it was really as good as it let on.

Helmed by Lauren Lafranc.

The only thing I saw her name associated with was producing some episodes of agent of S h I e l D back in the day.

Of course, it comes directly from Matt Reeves Batman version of the Batman.

Consider it a spinoff.

Consider it a direct sequel.

I don't think that matters word choice selection there stars Colin Farrell.

Yep, that's him.

And Kristen Miladi.

Excuse me.

And the two primary roles here was my first thought.

Okay, spoilers.

By the way, the opening scene, I thought, oh, okay.

So Nolan's Batman versions were, what if Batman was realistic, grounded, but there's hellish urban decay.

Reeves.

Batman is what if Batman was set in an urban apocalypse?

Let's go beyond just decay and just say everything is shit.

Absolutely.

You know, I was thinking, you know, you, like, if you look too deep into this, that the premise kind of falls apart.

But it's like the folks point out that, like, he's not really solving Gotham's problems by punching the Joker.

You know, it's like when its infrastructure is crumbling.

And obviously, the comics have gotten around this by just, you know, Bruce Wayne is a philanthropist, so he also addresses the social ills because we don't really want to think about that.

The punching the Joker is much more.

That's the fun.

But this is pretty, you know, this.

It's pretty bad because it picks up, like you said, immediately after the film, where the seawall has been breached.

So a bunch of neighborhoods are flooded.

There's FEMA tents up.

It looks rough.

If it was like, if Nolan was.

There was a little bit of being in the bad part of Chicago.

This is the worst part of, I don't know, Jersey City.

Yeah.

Somewhere bad people really need to close their blinds when they're doing something they don't want anyone else to see.

The penguin's opening scene is of him digging up some photos of one of the upper level crime gallery.

It's just a funny little thought, so.

It'S so easy to get them.

I think it's fair to say that you actively see Colin Farrell and the direction they're doing, their thought process saying, so this character's kind of damn silly in its original form.

How do we make this guy goofy but real and dangerous and larger than life, but only in his world of people is he larger than life.

Yeah, that's a fascinating thing to watch.

Does it translate to good television?

I can't say yet.

People who have seen more than one episode of it, the reviewers, I should say, seem to be fairly high on it.

I did kind of like, you know, they are taking, you know, we said it before, but I think, yeah, there is almost a bit of, like, humor in it.

Like, it's like.

It is a little.

Like his accent is a little over the top.

Like when he goes to see his mom.

Yeah.

I was kind of laughing because she's like, you a pussy, boy.

And he's like, no, ma.

Yeah.

Also, when he's in the car and Vic's driving, there are just some.

I wonder who made these choices.

Is it in the script?

Is it in the direction?

Or is it Colin Farrell doing these, where it's like, whoa.

That's quite the quirk.

Kind of like you said, blaine, I don't think I can make a conclusion yet as to, like, does this work?

You said it earlier, too.

Like, we know how tv works.

This is the setup episode.

There was some good stuff.

We're learning our characters.

Is it going to make for interesting or good tv over eight episodes?

I don't know yet.

Was it interesting enough to watch for one?

Yeah, for sure it was.

Colin Farrell's good.

There is a lot of fun watching this and say, and looking for Colin Farrell.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yes.

And that's okay.

Is the character vic necessary for you?

I get that he's an audience surrogate.

He's the audience surrogate.

Did he add much curious.

It's.

You know, that's so funny that you bring that up, Lane.

Cause I was actually kind of, at the end of the episode thinking that my.

And the exact same thing.

Like, almost like I, you know, it was happening in my brain.

So I wasn't laying it out like that, but I had the feeling like, yeah, okay, I get he's our stand in.

You know, he's learning about Oz.

Cobb reveals some of his character.

Right.

Where he sort of takes.

He realizes he's from the same sliver.

Slum, basically.

Sure.

He has some.

He has some pity.

And also maybe.

Maybe we're seeing a little bit of.

He wants to be.

Have a subordinate, a henchman.

He wants to be admired, you know?

Oh, okay.

He wants to be kind of inducting him into this world.

Yeah.

In order to be a boss, you have to have an underling.

Precisely.

Again, it feels like if they pick up those threads that I'm sort of.

Maybe.

Are there, then, yeah.

Okay.

That's gonna work for me.

If he just is kind of another character.

Well, who knows?

We'll see.

Wouldn't be shocked to see him get killed in episode five in order to push Cobb in one direction or the other.

Yeah, sure.

Absolutely.

You know, Cobb seems like he's always been.

Basically, he's only risen as far as middle management ever.

And he is also proud and self conscious.

So possibly, if something happens to Vic, possibly a volatile mix.

Self conscious for a reason.

There is a bit of sympathy for him that we haven't gotten in previous iterations with the mangled foot.

That's kind of a sad thing.

He's got, obviously, physical pain.

He's got a disability.

And I don't.

You know, you're always.

It can obviously be as we all.

I mean, we've read enough books and watched enough tv.

Right.

The disabled person is villainous.

Right.

There's the deformity.

But for this, at least to me, I'm not a critical scholar, but it read as more.

You could kind of sit.

Well, this may be just because I like Colin Farrell, but you could kind of see the actual pain he's in as he goes through his day.

It made me feel, you know, like he's a little more human.

It made it clear on the resentments he probably has for, quote, unquote, upper management, as you were saying, and why he'd shoot someone who just laughed at him.

I did think Colin Farrell did that very well.

Where he's like, he knows he really shouldn't have done that, but he's proud.

And, of course, right.

We know in that scene, he's been laughed at his whole life.

No one's taking him seriously.

He's given his whole.

His everything right to his bosses.

And what's he getting in return?

They're gonna shut it down.

Yeah.

Why shouldn't he take what he can get?

I'm gonna love figuring out how much of this characterization of him is all over the map, or it's all funneled into something, you know, is he.

Is he childlike with his taste?

Is he intelligent?

Does he care about people?

Is he only operating out of resentment for his growing up and his mother, who may have some sort of dementia or beginning of Alzheimer's?

And the physical pain, of course, it all felt like a superficial bit of sympathy I'm supposed to garner for him, but it also kind of worked a little.

I think it worked for me, especially with his foot just the way Colin Farrell is moving.

That worked.

But, I mean, you're right, too, though.

I mean, what you laid out, right.

The question is, like, isn't that almost.

First couple episodes of the Sopranos, too, you know, except they actually, you know, except they literally put Tony in therapy so he can talk about or not talk about why he is this way.

Yeah, but there is a little bit of, like, yeah, I saw this show already.

Luckily, it's been so long since I've watched the Sopranos that I'm open for this.

I mean, even up to it, you know, kind of having, like, the.

The mother.

Right?

Uh oh.

Yeah.

I found the scene with his mom to be smart, but cartoonish.

It made me laugh, but it was good.

But it made me laugh just the way it was.

Not cartoonish in a comic book, but in a way that the acting did not feel like it matched the gravitas that it wanted me to have for it.

It felt almost like a.

I don't know if this is gonna make sense, but like a grotesque.

Yeah.

Like a carnival performance.

That's okay.

Well, then that fits the mood.

And she's kind of, you know, she's.

Are you.

Are you my pussy boy?

You know?

You pussy boy.

And.

Yeah, you know, there's.

There's an element of the grotesque in.

It that's so true.

Which kind of puts you at a remove.

I think that's.

That's the way I felt, which is.

The mood of the entire series, perhaps.

Absolutely.

Very well could be.

I think Milani was a bit miscast here.

I don't know.

Really?

Yeah, I quite.

I quite liked her.

I do like her.

I just don't think she.

Sophia never scared me, and she felt a little unassuming to me.

Okay.

Melody looks too much like someone who's trying to act crazy rather than someone who is crazy.

And that might be what she's doing.

She might have an incredible amount.

Her falcon character may have this incredible amount of intelligence that she's just putting on to try to scare the shit out of people, but it's not working for me.

Oz, on the other hand, has tics, eye movement, this palpable sense of lying that seems more insane than.

Than anyone else on the screen.

I actually, you know, that's interesting.

I quite liked the scene where they are having drinks together.

And I thought, I liked the way she is using mostly her eyes to communicate a little aggression edge.

And she's also.

There's showing, like, she's smart.

She kind of has Oz's number, but she's not.

She's willing to let him.

And then Oz, he's not nervous, but you can see that, like, oh, he's lying.

Oh, yeah.

You know what I mean?

It's like, he's not, like, not like there's a difference between him, like, talking to Vic in the car and being like, oh, I don't know where he is.

Right.

What a mirror.

I think it would be very easy to let the grotesque overwhelm your performance instead of having to do things with your eyes and your kind of subtle, more subtle facial movements and body language.

Yeah.

Nothing against this portrayal, but he's not Danny DeVito.

Nope.

No.

Different.

Completely different.

Very, very different.

Very different.

The narrative of him pitting the two sides against one another, the two mobile sides against one another, and then also, maybe it's.

It's up in the air that he's going to be kind of like a double agent kind of figure on both of those sides.

That's going to be.

If that plays out or whatever direction, who's to say?

But, you know, he's going to play both sides, but he doesn't give a shit about either one is.

It's Yojima, right?

Except he's not a hero.

Yeah.

Mine minus no heroism.

But it's.

It's Yojimbo.

He's gonna.

He's gonna get in the middle of these two.

And I prophet himself.

It was not a terrible episode.

I thought I found it scattershot, but.

I'd agree with that, Blaine.

But you and I only have episode one to judge.

We don't get the.

We don't get anything beforehand.

Yeah.

We're judging the part, not the whole.

Yeah.

And you.

And that's what we do.

That is what we do here because of episode to episode.

I said it at the top, but I could see this getting good, so I'm gonna continue.

Yeah, I think there's some potential there.

There was a lot of, like, I'm being reminded of other things, which is fine.

I'm just curious if this gonna be, like, is this good for what it is.

Like, is this good with a big asterisk, or is this, like.

This is an actually good show, and even if you don't really.

You know, even if you're not a comic book fan but you like crime dramas, then you should watch this.

As opposed to, like, it's a cool take on something you already know, which I think is a different sort of recommendation for people.

Agreed.

We'll move on.

We'll get Adam to chime in on some things here.

Covering a lot today, I want to pick Adam's brain about the challenge battle of the eras.

It doesn't need a lot of setup if you're in this portion of the podcast episode.

You know, we're spoiling things, but I want to hear Adam's opinions.

Fellow writer on the Alabama take.

Tdem would and I.

We get an opportunity to recap our thoughts on each of these challenge episodes on Thursdays.

On the Alabama take.

That's Thursday evenings.

Plug.

Plug 630 every Thursday.

But I haven't had a chance to talk to Adam, not even in text message form.

So this is fun.

Biggest thing I do want to ask maybe a starting point, and I can, like I said, I say my stuff online, but the biggest thing I want you to answer something I brought up in this week's column.

Did the show flub its concept for its biggest season to date?

Explain the question a little bit.

I think I know what you mean, but I want to make sure dividing.

Them into eras, the entire premise of, you know, every season has this overarching premise, and then tiny, smaller things that can be subverted or changed to keep you on your toes, as well as the players, of course, to keep them in shock.

One of the huge things is they divided it up into eras.

The first ten years of the show, excuse me, seasons of the show, second seasons, you know, and they're all divided up in that way.

They've got a massive, wonderful set of competitors, some of our favorites, if not all of them, but yet it doesn't feel like they're using them the way that they could have.

I think I'll agree with that.

And I think you can look back at, say, like a dirty 30, the way that they did that.

I love that Donovan just laughs at all the terminology that we use while we're talking about this.

By the way, it all said, like, that cracks me up.

And I can also always hear Liz Lemon be like, as I'm exiting my dirty 30.

Adam, you'll have to remind me of what.

Give me a short synopsis of what the dirty thirties premise was.

Well, it's okay.

It's really just that they brought together, you know, they said over and over again, we got 30 of the dirtiest players in the game together.

So anytime that they hit now, like a zero behind every ten seasons.

Right.

They're going to do something special.

I think we can just.

There at 30, it seemed insane that they would do 40, and now it seems insane that they're going to do 50.

But we know they will.

But back then, we'll be there for it, hopefully.

Hell, yeah.

So the.

The cast just felt more expansive at 30 and the.

Obviously there's ten more.

There were ten more people this season to start.

They stuck around a little bit longer.

The way that this is set up, and I think this is what you're getting at, is you're forced to lose potential legends almost every time, both by the nature of the gameplay and by the cats list.

Right.

Like, there's really not a lot of fat to trim.

Theoretically, that's it.

But more so for me as a viewer, I just.

I don't think the era's thing is working for me, although it seems good.

On paper, you know, it does until you remember that.

And I think we said this maybe after the first episode or maybe in something to do with all stars that.

Let's think back to that first daily challenge on All Stars one and how bad they were at that.

It would have been a tough one for the main show, but we all kind of laughed and said, yeah, I mean, I'm sure it's different at 45 on into your fifties if you're mark whoever compared to 25.

And now you're expecting those same people, and some of them in era, too, to compete with people on the current show, which is clearly not going to be.

There's no way to balance that across a whole season.

I guess you're right.

Would you do anything differently?

Do you have ideas?

Have you stolen any from Reddit?

Well, I don't know how you can bring in.

We're deep into spoiler territory here, right?

Yes.

So I can speak freely.

No.

Yeah.

We gave recommendations at the top when.

Emily and Tina were down in the sand, about to have their face off.

I thought I almost said aloud to Natalie, there is not a single competition on the planet physical that Emily loses to Tina.

And then she did.

And guess what?

And guess what?

So, and I.

But I think that that's, you know, you get into.

I don't think it's conspiratorial to say if you ask a bunch of production assistants to drive a bunch of nails into a board that maybe the boards aren't all even and the playing field wasn't even and blah, blah, blah.

How do you make, outside of doing carnival games like that and even game?

And, of course, the challenge is carnival games, and it's not the Olympics.

You know, it is television.

But I don't know how you make something compelling where you have.

Theo was seconds, fractions of a second away from the Olympics, and he's still a relatively young man, and then you look over and like Mark is already gone.

Derek's fallen apart.

I don't know how you make this fair.

Yeah.

Which leads me to my next question.

Are the olds finally too old?

I mean, era one's decimated.

They're completely decimated.

And there's a few things that I think are unfair.

One is that the order that they choose, you know, after the.

After the elimination's over, and they pick who's gonna be the target, the next or the captain, however they phrase that, yes.

Era one always has to go first, which I think sets them up for failure, because then the rest of the house reacts to their choices, and then you end up having the most youthful, theoretically the most dangerous players having the most time to make their strategy.

And, you know, you could argue maybe that, like, people in era two are wily, wily vets that still have a little bit in the tank.

I I'm just not sure that era one really had that.

We'll see.

I mean, I think there's outliers.

I think Rachel can.

Can run with any of the girls.

Rachel could run with any of the guys.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So we'll see what happens there.

I mean, I think Brad kind of laid an egg on his last all star season.

He made a lot of boneheaded mistakes.

But he did okay this season.

He did, but you just.

I mean, he got sent home.

Yeah, but he was less of a liability.

Yeah.

I just don't know how much, you know, Derek.

Derek said, we'll.

We'll find out, I guess, when this comes out, it'll be tomorrow.

Derek has not said anything about his injury online, so.

And they didn't really say anything more about it that day.

But for him to react that strongly in that daily, he's a tough dude.

I mean, he's maybe the toughest guy to ever be on the show.

And for him to scream like that, you're kind of like, are they hiding something that will medically dq him?

And then you wonder, like, why did they have an elimination at all?

How is, you know, obviously the heiress thing is not forever.

If we've learned anything from challenges past, they're going to split up into pairs or individual or something.

You did honestly make me think of something, and shame on me for not being a little bit more prepared.

It's the targets thing, I think that has to.

Should not have been a part of it somehow or another.

Or maybe I meant, I said in the column maybe only for a week or two, and something should have shifted there.

It just seems you have way too many opportunities for players to say, well, I'm not a target this week, I'm cool.

But it does introduce a level of gamesmanship within a team that I think is interesting.

You know, Laurel was kind of not a great teammate last week.

And then, I mean, that we're just talking about game, not about horrific behavior towards Kara, but then Kara choosing not to.

Not to go take the low road to be a good team player.

You know, I think era four is like, we're all in it together.

And when somebody kind of went against that, they, I don't know, it's just interesting to see who's playing the game in certain ways.

I think it's a good wrinkle.

Maybe it shouldn't be there every time.

Like you're saying, further opinion on Cara Maria and Laurel.

Cause you haven't had the opportunity to come on the column and say, I have.

I've waxed poetic on this feud.

It gets into a lot of he said, she said about what actually went down.

I just know that there was a pretty strong jump cut from the beginning of a very long argument to Kara, not just starting to cry, but clearly having done so for a long time, in that you hear people say, well, it takes two people to have an argument, but Laurel has been so toxic this season.

One of the remarkable things about this show, I think, and kind of what we said at the top of, like, this is a good moment to get to know a lot of legends.

And if you want to go back and watch old seasons, you know, you can see some of these people be 22 years old and just little.

Little shits, you know?

And now they're, like, have grown so much and are adults and have families and are solid people.

And then you meet somebody like Laurel, who just has not seemed to change.

Or if it has, it's not for the better.

Not for the better.

My final say on the car, Maria versus Laurel, for now, until I'm proven otherwise, is Cara Maria, of course, has issues and does not help matters.

But Laurel's response to that is painfully horrible.

At her best, she's Don telling Ginsburg, I don't think of you at all.

You know, and then silently stewing over his talent for episodes and episodes and episodes.

Like, she's clearly bothered and threatened, and sometimes she'll admit it and say, like, well, I don't want Kara in the final because that's competition.

But this is so far beyond that.

I mean, it's just emotional abuse.

One thing I've found out that Laurel does is sing a song during some of the arguments, because you can't use that footage because of copyright.

That was also a 30 rock episode.

I've heard of that with reality people.

That's.

That's pretty great.

Fascinating.

You know, they used to air a lot of anti smoking stuff around the challenge back in the day, like commercials and such.

It would be like, the first thing that you saw after.

When they went to commercial break or the last before they came back and you knew something awesome was about to happen when you saw somebody on the show holding a cigarette because.

Yeah.

Cause they can it's clearly against the.

Not only on a few levels, it's against what they're trying to accomplish, but something, a fight or something's about to go down that's so great that they had to include it.

And for years it was like Devin walking around just ripping skigs and like berating people and.

Fantastic.

Of those left, are you rooting for any particular somebody?

I mean, there's so many left.

Yeah, yeah.

It's hard to pick a few.

I've got a few.

It's hard to pick against anybody and everybody's pretty good at playing the game.

And so when you see somebody like John a who's kind of caught between and she's really in no man's land, was in no man's land.

She didn't do enough seasons at the right time to have enough allies to really make it happen.

But she's obviously a very good competitor based on all stars.

So you're kind of like, oh, maybe there's like an underdog, dark horse kind of competitor, but she's gone.

And now you wonder like, would do we want to see bananas win one last one?

That was my question.

I think I might.

But I also would not mind.

Even though he's being a little mean this season, I wouldn't mind Jordan sort of solidifying his status as one of those that could be as good as CT and bananas.

I think that Jordan is already proven he is the biggest threat in the game.

As long as he's there, it's his to lose.

The only thing that's going to take him out is something like when they made him pole wrestle fessy, you know, dude has one hand and is outweighed by I don't know how much a significant number.

But as long as he's there and if he wins this one, his batting average, like the number of seasons that he's been in compared to how many he's won is, I would think, far better than CT and bananas.

Yeah.

My wishes right now, my wish list would be for the guys derailed to get one more because he's not going to be around much longer.

Second place, I would want bananas just because that's insane to get that many.

And then third, I would say Jordan because I think he'll probably come back and get another one.

He's got more chances.

He does have more time for the ladies.

I really am just pulling for Cara Maria, just to say an f you to Laurel.

Oh, I also like Kyland.

If he won, I would not be upset at all.

Definitely not.

I do.

Maybe one of the things that I hope the most is that Laurel has to face, and I don't care.

It could be next week, or it could be, you know, racing to the top of the mountain has to face a Rachel, a jenny, or car, somebody like that to, or Tori, you know, some.

Some other strong woman who she hasn't had to really fight against before.

I would love it if Ginny won simply because of the talk of she's not as good as Casey.

Last week, I was like, what are you talking about?

How could that possibly, of course, is good.

Ginny won a individual season.

Yeah, she's crushing.

She's better than Casey.

This is not a conversation.

Right.

Okay, well, you know what we're gonna do?

We're gonna bring in Natalie because it's been a while, and she's the go to for anything.

MCU.

Especially MCU.

Hey, friends.

Howdy.

It's been a while.

I know.

Frequent co host Natalie's back.

It's been a while.

Like she said, gonna get her opinions and thoughts on the Disney plus show.

Agatha, all along, we talked about it at the top, so now we're gonna spoil.

If you haven't seen the first three, which are out, just be forewarned.

I'll make a quick statement, and then, natalie, you can just tell me anything you want about the show.

I think there's two ways of licking Agatha all along, and one is that it is a bit of child's play or young person.

Young kid, even scary.

You know, like scary in quotation marks.

Like I mentioned at the top.

It's kind of like a ride at Disney World.

It's painted to look scary, but it's not going to be that scary.

And the other thing I think you could do is that it's just fun and a bit goofy and nothing to get too wrapped up about if you are enjoying it.

Do you hate this show?

No, I don't hate it.

I just think.

I just kind of wish they were able to.

I get that.

It's.

This is Disney plus.

I guess I wish they were able to go all in on horror.

Oh, I disagree.

I think that it is like.

I think you're right.

It's like Disney scary, where it's not gonna be horror, but it'll have some elements.

It'll be like, oh, it's.

You know, there's smoke.

The smoke machine has been turned on, you know, but it is at least adult sexy.

It is.

We'll get to that.

Okay, so here's the thing, and I think this might have make my claim more valid.

You know, the monsters in the first episode that come crawling down the stairwell?

Yeah.

Like, that's.

I couldn't show that to my daughter.

You know, she's seven.

I couldn't show that to her because she would.

It'd be a little freaky.

It was scare do more of that because, you know, obviously you can because you did it once.

Like, where's that?

Where's the darkness?

But Disney World, Halloween scary can still be fun and having on the tv during October.

So that's my thing, I guess I don't.

To me, that, like, those scenes where they really ramped it up, it was almost like, as a non horror fan, to me, it was almost.

It wasn't enough.

So when I.

When I saw, like, the.

The one where she was crawling down the stairs and, like, doing the weird body contortion, whatever, like, it was, like, it wasn't enough for it to be effective.

It just came off to me as, like they're trying to do a thing and it's not quite there.

Yeah, but it is adult sexy.

You mentioned it's very adult sexy.

I told Adam I think this might be the sexiest of the marvel outings, and he disagreed, but he's wrong, and he's not here to defend himself.

So I'm the gayest, right?

For sure.

Very gay.

I mean, it's just eye candy everywhere, depending on what you're into.

I guess it wasn't for Adam, but I guess that's not his thing.

Yeah, it's not a slog.

I wouldn't, you know, it's definitely not.

And I'm not trying to damn it with faint praise.

I think that sometimes they do a couple of obvious tv tropes.

The most recent episode to be the example, which is we have to figure out what everybody's solution to their problem is in order for them to become a full bodied witch.

And next episode will be this character's, you know, this character's episode two shine.

And I don't know, it just felt tropey like.

But do you think that.

And I know this is probably not the case, but it almost seems like to me, because it is still, to an extent, not as.

Not as on the nose, as, like, how Wandavision threw back to all the different, like, tv things.

This is still doing it a little bit.

Obviously, the first episode was straight up.

It was the mayor of East Tone knockoff.

But then episode three, there was definitely the big little lies part to me.

I'm willing to give it those this is an obvious tv trope because it feels like it's kind of making fun of itself.

It's continuing to do that that WandaVision did, you're saying.

Mm hmm.

Not as.

Not as like.

Exactly.

But I think it's still in there.

Yeah, I can see that.

No, it's still a Disney show, guys.

It is.

It is.

That's not for.

I guess.

Yeah, that's the thing.

But, hey, you can also watch Deadpool on Disney plus, which, you know, you can do something.

They showed a but.

Yeah, there was nudity we love.

They showed a but.

They showed a but.

It's kind of with a, I guess, d list Marvel character feels like you could really go insane because you're not obligated to do something that 95% of the people would already know.

Yeah, true.

And I think they are kind of doing a few things with some of their characters.

Like, their kind of.

Some of the characters, I think, are gonna end up being, like an amalgamation of a few different obscure Marvel characters.

So they're doing a few things that they want to do.

Who cares?

Katherine Hahn can do whatever she wants, and I'm gonna watch it.

Catherine Hahn's pretty cool, for sure.

I have never seen an actress.

Like I told Adam we were watching episode two.

It's like she can change the way that I perceive her to look just by, like, a simple acting choice.

It is bizarre.

Like, that woman is a chameleon.

She's really good at that.

That's a good point.

Do you have any thoughts on teen.

I guess that's all he's called now.

Teen, teen.

Thoughts on teen.

Oh, I know.

Have you seen the spoilers about who teen is that have basically been confirmed?

No.

That's kind of why I wanted you to come tell me.

Yeah, I mean, do you want to know?

Yeah, sure.

Why not?

By the way, if you're a listener and you don't want to know, you might want to skip ahead and stay.

Off the Internet because Funko pops have spoiled it.

Oh, well, then they've done that before.

It's okay.

Yeah, they've done that before.

They have spoiled both teen and Aubrey Plaza's character.

Damn.

So teen is Wiccan, who is Billy, who is Wanda's son.

Okay, I suspect that and Aubrey Plaza's character, Rio Vidal or whatever, she's actually going to be the character of death, which is like a Marvel character, not just like death.

You know, big picture death.

Did not know that the Aubrey Plaza.

I didn't know the teen being Billy.

I suspected.

Does that mean anything on a grander scale or just some fun with this show?

I mean, you would hope that it does, but I think we have to temper our expectations because we always hope that bigger things are happening.

And then Disney.

Disney's.

So I've heard it argued that this show should be absolutely contained or part of the big picture.

It needs to be one or the other, not a little of both.

Yeah, well, there was talk about it becoming part of the young Avengers, introducing Billy as Wiccan, and he would go and join Miss Marvel and all the other young Avengers, and that being a thing.

But I don't know.

I know Marvel overall has had to really reevaluate their next steps.

So I don't know if that's come off the table or not.

I'm pretty sure Robert Downey Junior is supposed to be in this one, too.

Right, Robert?

Thanks, Natalie.

That's it for our episode.

And if you want more from us, find us online.

Thanks for listening.