'Monster' Bores, 'The Lowdown' with Hidden Purpose, and 'Task' Intensifies

Hello.

Taking it down, one of the Alabama Takes podcasts.

We know you don't have hours to waste, but you want to get around to at least some good TV every now and again.

That's what Taking it down is here to do.

We are the TV and streaming Podcast.

Understand your time and we begin each episode with non spoiler thoughts on a few pieces of television.

And then we use some of those pieces of television to talk about in the spoiler section that you can join if you don't mind spoilers or if you've seen the episode.

This week it's a little more packed on the non spoiler side than usual.

We're going to talk briefly about a few things.

Chad Powers Monster, the Ed Gein Story on Netflix, Black Rabbit on Netflix, very briefly.

And then we're going to get into the lowdown on FX and Hulu a little more in depth though.

Non spoilers and task.

And we'll use the lowdown and task for the spoiler section.

So thanks for joining us.

No Adam this week, he is still a busy guy.

Good luck with Kitchen renovations.

Adam, let's bring in Donovan and get the show going.

An Alabama take projection.

Here he is.

Donovan.

I ventured to my 30 year class reunion last night and I noticed how every conversation was me asking, what do you do?

Oh, you're an ER doctor.

Oh, have you seen the pit on hbo?

Or some classmate was reveling in an old golf story and I interrupt and say, have you watched Dick?

You came up to the guy who's clearly not doing so well, right?

Like maybe he's got a substance use issue or something.

You're like, have you seen It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia?

I could have, but I don't know that I'm not that guy.

So kudos to Soldier in Alabama.

We'll put them on the map.

If you're listening if you're listening in England and we know you are, if you're listening in Virginia, and we know you are, we only see places where people are listening.

So it could be VPN or it could be where you are.

If you're so if you're listening in England or Virginia, which was big this week, Sulligent Alabama, look it up.

I do kind of like the idea of making Sulgen Alabama famous, but only in the United Kingdom.

Like we're gonna send some confused Americans over there.

That would be wonderful.

Sulligent still, it's still quaint.

It's still awesome.

They were very hospitable and it's still a little sad.

It's one of those Springsteenian Melanchampian dying towns.

It's got that little downtown and everything, huh?

Yep.

Brick buildings lining, what, two, three stories?

Lining both sides.

Probably two at the most.

Yeah.

And I know exactly what you're talking about.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

I'll send you a picture later of.

I tried to take a.

Like, the epitome picture.

Yeah.

Of it.

So that's my viewpoint for this show.

It's.

It's certainly soligent, Sulligent, as featured in the Bruce Springsteen song Glory Days and.

My Hometown we can continue, and also.

Streets of Philadelphia and John.

John Mellencamp's pink houses.

And every time someone brings up John Mellencamp, I. I think to myself, I was astonishingly young to know every word.

To Jack and Diane, to be like, seven and be like, yep, life goes on.

That's long after the thrill of living is gone.

And yet, like, I was seven.

You were.

You were young and as was I.

But that's a good lyric.

It is.

Like, just think that lyric, listeners, when.

You'Re seven, you can't wrap your little head around that.

You're like, what are you talking about?

No, you just sang it because it was kind of.

It had a good melody.

Exactly.

It is a catchy tune.

Long after the thrill of living is gone Life goes on.

Wow.

I mean, come on.

I'm also here to report I have watched the Chad Powers series, and I will now field any questions.

I'm so glad that you watched this, because I.

You've seen the original thing.

Like, I remember watching this Game Day bit live when it happened.

Recall.

It was Eli Manning, and I don't know if it was Game Day either.

It was like Eli Manning's.

I could have sworn it was Game Day.

I remember watching it.

It's something.

Yeah.

And they put him up in makeup and have him try out for.

I forget which team it was.

That's right.

For an actual team.

Yeah.

Somebody at the big office was like, well, they made that Ted Lasso after a commercial.

That's exactly what I was about to connect it to.

Very Ted Lasso of them.

So I did watch the first episode, and I thought to myself, oh, this isn't that bad.

This is me not having watched it or not knowing anything much about it, but just from commercials.

I do think they have one thing going for them, and that's Glen Powell.

Well, Glen Powell was like a star.

I like him an awful lot.

I think he's a good actor.

I liked him in everything he's been and he's really versatile.

One of the realizations I had during this was, oh, yeah, Glen Powell is normally in big movies.

Yeah.

At least big for these days.

And he was in Twisters.

He was in Twisters.

He was in Top Gun too.

Yeah.

And he was also in that Richard Linklater film.

I liked him a lot in that Linklater film.

Tell me what the name of it was.

We talked about it on, on I, we did.

And I was sitting here.

There's a bit where he like his, his disguises as the guy trying to hire the hitman.

Oh, it's just called Hitman.

That's too easy.

His disguises as he.

As they get increasingly elaborate as he's like running a sting, you know, or helping the police run stings to get people.

It was just hilarious.

Well, okay, take that Glenn Powell from that movie and put him in a television show and this is what you got.

All right.

And it's not.

I don't know.

I'm going by the first episode.

There's a lot of sitcom elements to it.

Steve Zahn's the head coach.

Can't be.

Okay.

Can't be.

Yeah.

He has a daughter.

Steve Zahn has a daughter who is a coach on the team.

And having a lady coach is in.

That's fun.

That's interesting.

And just the way that Glenn Powell says his name cracks me up every time.

Because he doesn't say Chad Powers.

He.

He says.

Well, watch it, listeners.

You'll.

You'll find it.

It's like Chad Power Powers.

It's pretty funny.

He's on a.

He's on a South Georgia team.

I think that maybe the name of it, South Georgia.

It's not a real team, but though it does start with a real Oregon, old Georgia playing each other in the national championship.

I saw that because he, he's supposed to be.

He was he in Oregon?

He was.

He's Oregon quarterback.

Yeah, he was a quarterback.

Yeah.

He's like a Bo.

Bo Nix kind of almost said Bo.

Picks because I keep like a reverse Bo Nix where he didn't find success at Oregon, but then he goes to a team down south and.

Right.

Yeah, it's Bo Nix in reverse.

Yeah.

I watched the debut episode pretty late one.

One evening.

I may go back and watch it again.

I think there's some things I missed that I think it might be good or not and I don't know.

It's a week to week show and it's 30 minutes and I like those kinds of things.

Yeah, I think there's One thing that we've made very clear on this podcast is we like something that's just gonna give you a chuckle.

Yes.

And we like weekly.

And we like.

Yeah, short and good.

Yeah.

Everyone has everything going on all the time.

Right.

It's easy to.

It's easy to slot it in.

It's nice that it's there.

Right.

It's nice to laugh, you know?

You know, it's nice to have a chuckle.

And I think Hulu Disney plus dropped two episodes and then another per week.

One of.

Speaking of shows that don't drop weekly, one of two Netflix shows I can talk about in brief Today comes to us from Ryan Murphy, whose ongoing anthology Monster is back on Netflix just in time for Halloween.

This time it's Monster Colon, the Ed Gein Story.

This is after making Monster the Jeffrey Dahmer Story, and Monster the Lyle and Eric Menendez Brothers.

I feel like you voiced an opinion on Ryan Murphy here before.

I don't want to get into a whole thing with him.

But you saved that for J.J. abrams.

I know.

Well, I'm not worried that J.J. abrams will retaliate because he seems like a nice guy.

I'm just kidding.

Ryan Murphy does, too.

I like his stuff selectively, basically.

I didn't care for any of American Horror Story.

Neither did I. I have liked some things that he's done and that he's been part of.

He's obviously very talented.

You can see that he's really good as a producer, and he's obviously creating things that people like to watch.

Some of them are not for me.

That's well put.

He is a good producer.

I really did like the O.J.

Yeah, that one was good.

The one with Cuba Gooding Jr. Is.

Yeah.

Ryan Murphy has an eye for America.

He wants to examine the same part of America through different lenses.

And that's interesting.

Now, the sad part is, I don't think very many of his productions are that good.

I. I did like the OJ One.

That's the thing is.

Yeah.

I almost like, they're clear, they're clearly popular and people like them, but.

And I. I wish I had a better thing to our way to articulate it, but it's just like, it's.

It's like he'll.

Sometimes it'll be like almost like tabloid stuff, but I think you can do it better and.

And more, like, actually, like, say something more.

That's right.

You know, the Watcher.

I think he produced that one on Netflix.

I almost liked it.

I forgot about that.

It went off the Rails.

Anyway, I want to talk about this.

I really do, because I.

We're in non spoilers.

And this may be where people come to get there.

Should I watch it or not?

Opinions?

The first episode of this Ed Gein story, which I watched, is so dilatory that there are scenes you could treat like commercials, advertisements, and get up and go make yourself a snack and come back and not have missed anything.

Cool.

Yeah, it's slow sound.

That does not sound good.

No.

Do you know anything about this, by the way?

I'm curious.

The.

The actual person.

Yeah.

Ed Gein.

Yes.

In fact, readers or listeners, I have a book recommendation for you.

The absolutely fantastic, completely idiosyncratic Eric Powell teamed up with a true crime writer to make a little comment called did you hear what Eddie Gein done?

And I highly recommend it.

But, yeah, Ed Gein.

Not for the faint of heart in.

The premiere, which is as far as I got, and I doubt I'll return.

Everyone had their acting choices up to, like, 11.

Yeah.

Charlie Hunnam is doing a pretty hard eyebrow placement thing, and he's speaking in a register I assume is for dogs to hear.

He's doing well.

But the eyebrow.

The eyebrow thing's interesting and lifelike, but the high voice gets old so quickly.

Despite having Ed Gein having a similar voice, I'm thinking, you know, he was.

Always kind of like his mom would pick on him for.

For his physical characteristics and his voice.

Really?

Yeah.

Well, Ed.

Guy had a terrible child.

Does any serial killer really have a happy childhood?

But he.

He just had kind of.

He had a really terrible life.

But he only killed, like, two people, right?

Yeah.

I mean, he didn't have the.

He killed.

I think it was two or three.

Yeah.

I don't remember.

There's some real Silence of the Lamb stuff going on.

That's right.

He's the.

He's kind of the.

The buffalo.

He's.

Yeah.

He's the prototype for Buffalo Bill.

Bill.

Buffalo Bill.

Sorry.

Buffalo Tom's a band.

Sorry to.

Yeah.

Run your name in the dirt.

But the.

The great Lori Metcalf's here as his mother.

And if you've wondered what's meant by one note acting, then watch this premiere episode.

In her performance.

It's all religious mother scold son constantly.

And it's, you know, two.

Two scenes of that, and you're like, I get it.

And then a whole episode of it.

You'Re thinking, so it's like if.

It's like if Carrie was nothing, but if it had just turned into being Carrie and Her mom the whole.

The whole time.

And you're 45 minutes in and you just switch it off.

Yeah.

I don't know why I do this to myself.

When it comes to Ryan Murphy, if the content's intriguing, I'm drawn to it usually.

And I watch, and then I'm often pissed that I watched it.

He got you again.

Yeah.

Here I was just hoping for some Halloween fun to start October.

Yeah, there's no fun here.

It's.

It's pretty boring.

Looks great.

The acting's dialed crazy up.

The scenes are very long and then disjointed on purpose.

And I don't think there's any attempt to understand what he did.

It's just presentation.

There's a whole other story or long discussion we could have about true crime and the ethics of portraying, you know, people who did these things.

But one of the things that I do like about that book that I just plugged is I feel like it's not really schlocky.

There's a real sympathy with humanity in it, as opposed to.

Look at this horrible thing that happened.

Isn't it horrible?

Aren't you shocked?

Yeah.

There's no humanity in this.

At least from episode one in the articles I've seen.

Yeah.

And then again on Netflix, is something I've taken that you haven't watched.

Is the series Black Rabbit?

Not yet.

Although I like the pairing.

Jude Law and.

And Jason Bateman and.

And you've given it, you know, like, initially, like, hey, this is a fun.

This is a good watch.

Yeah.

Their brother' business in a restaurant in New York City, and one of the two gets in a lot of trouble while the other usually bails him out of antics like gambling debts and then, like, something we're all familiar with.

Yeah.

Sports betting should not be legalized.

What?

But now that it is, I'm gonna pay off my mortgage or die trying.

There's just something about this show that's easy to watch.

It's not really a great show if you tiered Netflix shows.

It's a step above the.

The filler, the.

The Netflix slop.

I'm putting my finger on Jude Law and Justin Bateman playing off one another as being the reason why.

It's.

It's okay.

This.

This group is pretty predictable.

It's a lot of upping the ante.

And, yeah, that was a gambling pun on purpose, but you just can't look away.

I've seen Uncut gems.

Exactly.

Exactly.

A lot of that.

Last week I compared it to another series or I used it to compare, which we'll talk about the Lowdown.

And it's almost like Black Rabbit tries to be the cool kid who doesn't care if you like it, but deep down really, really cares.

While the Lowdown is the weird kid who truly just doesn't give a. Yeah.

That sound.

Based on the two episodes of the Lowdown I've seen.

Yeah.

It is not desperate for you to love it, which is part of its charm.

Yeah.

So let's talk about the Lowdown.

It's good.

Shift to it.

Thumbs up from this guy so far.

Yeah.

Viewers or viewers and listeners.

You know, Blaine and I talked about it last week.

I thought, okay, I'm probably gonna go into this liking it.

Came out of the first two really liking it.

Blaine last week noted the sense of place really strong.

And I think that that holds up.

The acting is like.

The cast of characters is just stacked.

Yeah.

I don't know if this would work if Ethan Hawke wasn't playing the main character.

It's like if he's playing him as, like.

As if he would.

The dad from boyhood was 100% more off the rails.

Yeah.

But he's still.

He's still kind of in that vein of like Ethan Hawk.

You.

You.

You know, he's got issues, but you kind of can't.

He's just a lovable scamp.

You kind of can't help but love him a little bit.

Yeah, there's some of that.

There's a lot of that.

And that's funny.

You.

I probably will.

Will disagree a little and say that my preference is for a little more realistic.

Ethan Hawke, I guess he was just.

Consistently making me laugh, and I think it was.

He was making me laugh in the style.

If.

If Mr. Harjo has not seen more than his fair share of Coen Brothers movies, I would be very surprised.

And I think that the thing with Coen Brothers movies is that they're easy to imitate but hard to.

To mat.

Because if you just like, oh, it's just weird.

People doing weird things.

You get something really bad.

And this.

This one was actually.

This one was making me laugh.

Yeah.

And.

And it.

And it felt like there was a real core at the heart of it.

I'm gonna.

I want to break that down with you in the spoiler side, but just in case anyone's wondering, this is Sterling Harjo created.

He did Reservation Dogs.

It's Ethan Hawke starring ethics Hulu.

It's called the Lowdown.

Hawk plays this ambling reporter, investigative journalist of sorts, and to Tulsa, Oklahoma.

It's a bit big.

Lebowski meets Reservation Dogs.

Yeah, I'd say that.

Which is.

Reservation Dogs is also written and created by Sterling Harjo.

It's very much noir, too, in that it is from the beginning.

It's going to weave a tangled story.

But I think just at least for the first two episodes.

All great noirs.

The plot, the characters drive the plot, not vice versa.

You know, Raymond Chandler in the Big Sleep famously was supposed to be unable to answer the question, who killed the chauffeur?

And he wrote the book.

He couldn't remember.

Huh.

I think this show's pretty excellent.

And I did really like certain seasons of Reservation Dogs.

I just don't normally go for what I think of as kitschy detective stories that are almost flippant.

You hear about these crime writers who have stylistic ways of writing and churn out, like, dozens of books with the same character in the center.

I don't know that those kinds of things offer enough exposure to living and being human that.

That I like.

And that's kind of what's going on here.

Harcho is not basing this off a book.

I think he's just.

It's in that vein.

Interesting because I do think that there was something about his portrayal of just.

He's just kind of a screw up.

Yeah.

And he just kind of can't help himself.

Yeah.

And.

And that feels very, you know, he's like these.

This guy that he should quit digging.

But he.

He does care.

Right.

He.

He comes across.

He truly does care.

He wants to do the right thing.

But also he just kind of can't help himself.

I'll ask two questions about that in.

In spoilers.

A lot of good, good elements here, though.

Hard jobs are excellent at soundtracking or getting someone who very much here.

He's.

He uses a lot of Oklahoma musicians.

Very well directed off of the script.

I forget who wrote the script, and I apologize.

But I thought the.

For I apologize whoever wrote that out there, I've got it pulled up, but I can't look at it fast enough.

But really, I thought for a script that's kind of, you know, convoluted, the directing kept me interested and also pretty constantly reminding who.

Who we were with in our cast of characters.

It does do that well.

I thought it was very.

I thought it was very well directed.

I. I like that.

Hard Joe leans heavily on the breezy J.J. kale, Oklahoma musician a lot.

Yeah.

It fits Lee's character for sure.

The title card is a beautiful throwback Hollywood Sort of title card.

Ethanol's pretty fun to watch.

I do.

Like I said, I do prefer him doing something more emotive.

The super specifics of pretty rural Tulsa.

I mean, there he pulls into a gas station in one scene with its Hunt Brothers pizza sign.

Yeah, yeah, that's real.

That's so funny that you noticed that because I had the exact same thought.

Because I ate a Hunt's Brothers pizza yesterday.

Yeah, exactly.

I'm like, yep, that's.

That looks right to me.

We'll get into it.

We're at the point where the only thing we can say about it would be spoiling it.

So we'll save.

I think so.

We'll save it.

And our other show on spoiler side is Task.

Our thoughts are ongoing with it.

It's a Sunday show.

Hbo, Mark Ruffalo getting a task force to track down a three piece set of robbers who are stealing from the local and dare I say, unfriendly biker gang.

I think.

I think that would not be an incorrect label.

Can I ask, is your biker gang like this?

My biker gang.

I'm a little.

I am actually worried about them.

It's.

It's these.

These 10 year olds.

Yeah.

And they're on bikes and they're always hooting and hollering.

Oh, it's popping wheelies.

Episode four of Task is titled All Roads.

This episode, I think, lets us know it's not merely about family.

We've talked about that a lot.

It's not merely about parenting.

We've talked about that a lot.

But I think it's about this as well.

Families whose stories do not get told, families who don't get to go to the Daddy Daughter Dance.

And I mean that sincerely, that.

That's not a joke.

That could come off as a joke.

I have been going to the Daddy Daughter Dance for four years straight now, or however many.

And I do, honestly, I have had the thought where I looked around and I think, where's so and so's.

Where's my daughter's friend?

So and so, I wonder.

And.

And their dad and Tas does that here.

And I know, I get that we don't know much about the daughter.

I don't know if we can care enough about her.

But it's just that I don't know.

That scene got me.

The show has done enough.

I mean, it's not about necessarily those kids, but it has done enough to establish that, like, they are very insecure because their mother left and very afraid that Maeve might leave too.

And so you do See that there's this kind of like sadness and insecurity and loneliness.

Yeah.

That maybe the kid has trouble articulating.

Well, I think you touched on something there.

It's about childhood from the perspective of parents, I think.

But we'll run down the lowdown and we'll run down task episode four.

Yeah, yeah.

We'll do those in the spoiler section to come.

And here's your break just in case you need it.

We operate our podcast and our website at the Alabama Take with absolutely zero ads.

We hope that encourages you to help make a small donation to help keep the podcast hosted, to help pay for website hosting.

All the small little fees that occur with this type of listening, with this type of media.

We hope you enjoy the show.

If you want to make a donation, you can go to thealabamatake.com click on Donate.

Click on buy me a coffee or we'll put it in the show notes for you.

Thanks everyone.

In our podcast episode today, the lowdown from writer and creator of Reservation Dogs.

I have to be so careful not say Reservoir Dogs.

Oh yeah, and he did that on purpose.

Of course he did.

To all of us.

Yes.

Thank you, Sterling Hard.

The lowdown begins when a wealthy Tuts Tulsa family has a closeted gay family member who's married with a daughter played by none other than Tim Blake Nelson.

Yep, the great, the great Tim Blake Nelson.

He kills himself in the opening minutes.

From there, journalist ne' er do well investigator Ethan Hawkes on the trail of what could have happened since he has recently done a story on that family anyway.

And as he points out as he at one point, in what is not a newspaper, it is a long form.

Magazine that's so funny now.

It made me.

Saying it out loud makes it funny.

There were a bunch of stuff where like Blaine, I, I think we're gonna kind of.

Maybe this is a spoiler for the spoiler.

I think we might feel a little different about Ethan Hawke, but there's so many bits where his character was just making me like the stuff he'd say was just hilarious just make.

Making me laugh.

I think his performance is fine.

I mean it's not over the top.

I think it's, it's well measured.

It's just that when I see Ethan Hawke I often think, oh, I want the gut wrenching, the heartstrings being pulled, you know?

Well, you know, I do think there's a little.

I made that joke in the non spoilers about him being the dad from boyhood and I do think there's some of that here using some of that same ammunition which is with his relationship with his daughter.

That's right.

He does have the daughter and you.

Can see that he, obviously he portrays a certain Persona for everyone in his life.

But then with his daughter you can see that he actually does deeply care about her.

Respect and, or maybe like admiration.

Yeah, maybe that's the right word.

And, and I, I like that because it's, it kind of cuts through the BS and, and you say, oh, okay, that's who this guy is.

Yeah.

It's funny that this 13 year old girl is the one he can be honest with.

Yeah.

She gets him to be honest, but.

And he loves her to death.

The character of Lee played by Ethan hall, he loves her to death, but he still makes stupid decisions even related to her.

Well, he clearly can't help himself about many things and with the best of intentions.

Right.

Like he's truly a crusader.

Yeah.

What motivates him do you think?

You think that's something we're going to get later?

He said it himself, he's a truth historian.

We might get more of that.

I think we might.

We'll see.

When I saw that they were killing off Tim Blake Nelson, though quite famous and oh brother, where art thou?

For listeners, you probably know him thousands more movies.

My first thought was oh, they're going to use him a lot in flashbacks.

Oh, for sure.

You don't, you don't, you don't put him in your show just to kill him off.

And then my next thought was if not flashbacks, that's going to be a hell of a cameo to get for an opening scene like that.

Uh huh.

Well, how do they do that?

That first episode is as packed as an episode can be.

Oh, it's jam packed.

But you mentioned the directing and the script does a fine job of moving you through without really holding your hand, you know.

Yeah, I found it very enjoyable.

It did a great job of kind of a lesser show would kind of tick off the characters that he's meeting like Tick, girl that works at.

Or the woman that works at his bookstore, Tick, the tax attorney next door, Tick.

But they made felt organic to the plot and not only that, it continued to be fun and entertaining.

If you press the right buttons for me, I will admit that I am willing to be taken for a ride and I was willing to go on.

This one because two, they also don't slow down any.

No.

And I, I love that personally.

I do too.

In some shows.

You.

Yes, it works great.

It was so fast.

That first episode I did not even notice that was Kyle McLaughlin playing the governor.

Really?

Oh man.

Honestly didn't notice it.

One of the highlights of this show for me so far has been Kyle McLaughlin's performance of the governor with that accent.

Well, in the second episode you, you see him very much dead center.

Yes, you do.

And he's, he's playing the guy running for governor, the brother to the deceased Dean.

Was his name Washburn?

Yeah, I think so.

That's the Tim Blake Nelson suicide in the opening scene.

Yeah.

Dale.

Dale Washburn.

Yeah.

He's closeted a gay guy.

Could have been killed by his brother who's running for govern.

That's hard to say with the way it was depicted on camera.

Something's going on.

Yeah, we know our truth story knows cuz he's got the bed in his teeth.

Episode one gets.

Shows you all the characters that are going to be there for the most part and and yet doesn't feels like, feel like it's checking boxes.

I'm with you.

Yeah.

I can't help but get excited when I.

When protagonists get their hands on bad guys money and start spending it, I always think if I had that money I'd spend it right now, get rid of it as soon as I could.

That seems to be that.

He seems to have the same, you know, the same thoughts here.

He's got the same ethos, doesn't he?

He's.

He's happy to spend that money.

You know, he spends $1,000 for.

What was it, the hat, the makeup and a tutorial and those sunglasses and.

Some cheap sunglasses that are probably $2.

I can't think of a better way to use the cash than Lee paying his wife though and you know, catching.

Up on his and every.

It's kind of funny because it ends up not just his wife, it's everybody else that he owes.

Yeah.

So he's going around like his bookstore.

Cyrus has the busted.

And there were enough discussions about the blood that when Deirdre, who's his bookstore clerk, he's like, well, you know, it looks like Bud.

She's like, I don't care.

Yeah, great.

His hands are over the money.

The other character's Kira, quite a bit like the lawyer.

And she does not.

You know, it would be funny.

We haven't watched episode three.

It's out.

Everyone might have seen it.

If you're a listener, I think it would be just a, a really good bit if Deidre's cousin kept bringing people to hire to work there.

My first thought in that Episode was like, well, we'll see how this goes.

And by the end of the second episode, I was like, this is a hilarious bit with this guy.

First off, that he's like, when Lee comes back, he's like, you're a grown ass man.

Throw hands.

You know, he's like, I was kidnapped.

And he's like, I do security in the bookstore.

You know, Killer Mike has a very similar reaction where he's like, I gave you a gun.

How do you get kidnapped with a gun?

Yeah.

And it's funny that it's people of color who are telling him these very, you know, pretty.

Pretty wise things like, dude, just fight back.

Of course, we saw the scene.

He couldn't quite.

Yeah.

Or use the gun.

Fumbled his gun there.

Yeah.

If it's carefully put.

But everyone of color in this show mentions that Lee is a white guy meddling in rich white guy stuff.

Huh.

Which is.

That's why I think there's some motivation, something.

I mean, that's a good point.

Yes.

If the lowdown is saying anything, it's.

It's on something about race, power and uncle and uncovering that underbelly in sort of smaller towns, Middle America.

Because the scene between David Keith's private investigator Marty, and Lee outside of the memorial for the recently suicide Dale, that could be the direction of the season, I think, where they're.

I don't know.

And I'm not trying to predict.

I'm just saying that their conversation was basically, you're a white guy, mentally enriched, scary, powerful, racist white guy business.

And then Lee throws back at him.

You're a black guy hired by them.

Yeah.

It's like those communities of folks of color, they have maybe more of a depth of experience of all the ways that white people can and do pull the levers of power and really harm you.

Whereas Lee possibly has that kind of like white knight.

Like, I can bring him down.

Yeah.

Not exactly with that kind of race thing.

But I do think.

And we'll see what direction it goes.

But I think that's a common thing for noirs too.

Right.

Is like the guy who, you know, walks.

The man who is not mean, who down those mean streets.

Walks.

Sometimes he's cynical because he thinks he can't.

Sometimes he thinks he could make a difference and it just slips away from him in the end.

You know, there's a lot about power and wealth and inevitability in a lot of noirs.

Yeah.

Sterling Harcho decided to make his protagonist a white guy.

Yeah.

And that's obviously a Purposeful thing.

Just look at Reservation Dogs where every character was native.

Yes.

So this is a little bit off that topic or.

No, this is.

This is sort of on that topic.

But more what I like is the show as a whole is.

Is this is a real.

From the.

The assemblage of characters assembled or put together.

I think this is.

This is a show where diversity is really its strength.

I think it's important.

Yeah, it's so sneaky about that too.

Like, that doesn't feel like the front and center thing, but you probably need to watch for it.

Absolutely.

Yeah, he's good.

It doesn't feel like an after school special.

You know, it's like, here's our very important message.

But it's in there.

I mean, even stuff like that.

I had trouble making notes for this show.

Even stuff like, you know, as he's.

He was wearing.

Correct me if I'm wrong, when he gets into the scuffle at the funeral.

He's wearing a clip on tie.

Right.

That just gets pulled off.

I kept looking at it like over and over as a guy who wears a tie many days to work.

I kept thinking, oh, Jesus, he's wearing a clip on.

But as Lee is being dragged out, he's singing John Brown's body.

You know, very interesting choice as he's.

Yelling about what this.

This family has done or may not have done.

And this family, let's get into this.

They very well could be connected to these very racist Aryans who are part of the show.

We have.

They call them skinheads.

They're not.

Neither of them are technically have their skin.

Which I thought was comical.

Skinhead is sort of an ethos.

Yeah, yeah.

Exact.

It's the.

It's what they believe.

But yeah.

So he.

When we talked about his kidnapping, it was by these two skinheads from episode one.

And they end up dead by a.

Another.

I wouldn't call him a skinhead.

What do you call him?

Aryan Brotherhood guy.

Yeah, something like that.

Who's supposedly even scarier.

And well, he took the ladder, so to speak.

He dresses nicely, gets good jobs.

Still Aryan Brotherhood.

I think that too may be a motif or theme.

I. I think there's something in that is.

Is the veneer of respectability.

Yeah.

He has, you know, he comes to the.

Like you said, he's got a jacket with the company logo.

He looks nice.

He has a real business card as opposed to Lee's business card.

That's just a post.

It's a post it note that he.

That he wrote.

Yeah, yeah.

Or Almost like that.

It's like a piece of card.

But.

But yeah, there's this like the facade, like the facade ability.

I love that.

And I did have a hard time making notes for this show because I kept thinking it's just detective and fast paced and fun and good acting and, and everybody can see that.

They don't need me to tell them anything.

But no, I think we're, I think we're getting somewhere.

So what we'll do is we'll watch episode three, as some of you may have already done, and we'll watch episode four and come back to this because I do think we're onto something.

I will say for continuing something that he did in Reservation Dogs, you know, he had the two native folks who want to be rappers.

And now we see in this one with that the rap has continued and that, that bit actually made me really laugh when they set the car on fire and yeah, these, these goons are hilarious.

Gonna come back and bite him in the ass.

Putting it on YouTube.

Absolutely.

He said get rid of the car and they eventually do it, but on YouTube.

Well, speaking of other pretty racist people, we've got.

I was also gonna say, speaking of other people who aren't criminal masterminds.

That too.

Our HBO Sundays just get more bleak and bleak.

We're in spoilers for the Mark Ruffalo and Tom Pelfrey cast task, but maybe it's Emilia Jones as the 21 year old niece Maeve who's stealing the show.

I love her now.

Yeah, I mean like I, I always liked her, but the fir in the first episode, you know, she's just kind of there as part of the problem, but then she really quickly start taking like a lot of aid.

Not the problem, but you know, like the situation.

She's part of the situation, but very, very quickly starts showing you who she is, asserting herself.

And really it turns out as we talked about last week, is this really is kind of like has a wisdom about her.

Yeah, yeah, we mentioned it last week.

Is this wisdom that was probably forced via circumstance, not by someone I've been.

Thinking about with that is, you know, part of the sadness and scariness of this for me, for her is she could probably get out of there.

You know, if seems like she's got the wisdom and the self reliance, she's learned she could go and do something else, but she's choosing to stay and help take care of the kids and you know, all that and that's, that's, that kind of family responsibility is so sad.

It's sad, man.

You gotta love her for it.

Emilia Jones is the actress.

She's doing great.

Absolutely.

And Maeve, she's holding a family together by a bare thread.

Yeah.

Robbie's not.

Robbie's.

We.

He's a nice guy, sincere.

I'm sure he.

He does truly love his kids.

He's not there for them and he's making things worse.

Way too busy trying to fix his mistakes.

Yep.

Let's stay with the ladies for a while.

What do you make of Stover and Allison Oliver?

Who plays her?

That's a good question, Blaine.

Well, first off, I, I.

There's not a character in this show that I dislike in the sense of, like, I don't think any of them are bad at acting or anything like that.

You know, there's some that are, you know, like, you're meant to dislike them, but as part of the, you know, as part of the show.

But Stover's not one of them.

And I'm kind of curious.

She seems almost like I have enough respect for the way this show has been going that I think it'll tie in, but she seems like the closest thing to a B plot that they have where she's kind of like, she's not super good at her job.

She's obviously going through a divorce or recently divorced.

She's kind of.

She's a little.

She's a little aimless.

And then Grasso is.

Grossanova.

Grasso is attracted to her.

She's kind of been a foil for some of the other characters more often than not now she's kind of.

She's more on her own.

But it's still with.

With Grasso, as we find out, he doesn't want to defile the marriage bed.

Yeah.

What purpose do you think it serves to have Grosso back out of sex?

Because it's the bed of her and her ex husband.

He mentioned he was raised religious at one point, so I'm wondering if it would tie in with something about religion.

I don't know.

That was just my stray thought there.

Were certain camera pans in that scene, and I think we're supposed to see something maybe that he saw.

He saw.

Didn't he see a picture?

I'm trying to remember what he saw.

Maybe that wasn't it, but I thought he saw a picture.

He saw something, and, and I'm with you.

I can't put my finger on what it was.

Can't remember.

Yeah.

I don't have a great answer to what's going on with that plot.

Honestly.

I Mean, it's.

It's fine.

I don't think it's bad.

I trust that it's the end, you know, maybe that's all it is.

But I don't think I could say.

It'S bad until I see what they're doing with it.

That's what I mean, confusing.

One of the ladies on the list in conversation is Martha Plimpton's Kathleen.

She's.

They want us to think she's the leak for the task force.

Absolutely.

It seems a little too convenient, you know, like they're not going to give us that.

You know, obviously they want us to think that, but maybe they'll surprise us by not surprising us.

But it seems a little too.

Is she linked up with the.

With the bikers?

I don't know.

It's that.

That an FBI agent.

That would be hard to say, but yes.

Keeping with the motif of the ladies of the show, Emily gets a little more screen time as she goes to therapy, tries to sort out her thoughts very believably.

Goes to a party that evening, comes home drunk to yell at Tom.

Yeah.

And then his biological daughter Sarah comes out of her bedroom in worry.

That was probably coming.

Yeah.

For Tom.

Yeah.

It was another example with her of, you hope you're not in that scenario.

But it feels very emotionally believable, especially once we've seen what she's been through when she's being asked to do with her victim statement or possibly is able to do.

And the way she's seen, you know, Tom has kind of.

Well, actually, I don't think it's a kind of.

About her.

He's let her down.

He's withdrawn every night to drink his vodka.

He's not giving her.

I mean, he's there in the sense that, like, you know, he's not a horrible dad or anything like that.

He obviously loves her.

He's letting her down as bad as she's ever been let down by somebody.

Probably because she needs.

Wouldn't we all need someone?

She's by herself.

Your therapist is good, you know, like, we should all go to therapy.

That is good.

But your therapist isn't your dad, you know, it's not your family.

Are they balancing the characters out enough for you or do you feel like a.

Like, do you feel like a focus on one or two of them would make a clearer, more thematic statement?

Possibly.

I think that Mayor of.

I was just kind of expecting this because Mayor, while it was focused on Mayor, had kind of a widespread of characters, and I thought that's.

That's just his style.

And that's the way it seems to me.

I mean, we do.

You know, we're more focused.

We are somewhat.

Despite.

Except for Grosso and Stover, we are somewhat focused on or have the three focuses of the task force.

Robbie's family, Tom's family, and those kind.

And the way, you know, and sometimes they intersect and the bikers.

And sometimes they intersect and sometimes they don't.

I guess he has to be careful and ensure he's not making Tom of task force, you know.

Right.

Mayor of Easttown, too.

Tom of task force.

Right.

I was a little confused on how they thought the FBI had Cliff in the park, yet it was the biker gang who had him cornered.

Well, somebody, if I understood it correctly, I'm not 100% sure that I did.

Right.

But someone who was able to enter, basically intercept the phone and give him an incorrect location to me.

Right.

So it's obviously somebody who had access to that phone at some point.

Really?

Am I mistaken on that?

No, I don't know.

That's what I thought it was because the bikers were able to set up the drop masquerading as.

Or the pickup masquerading as the guy whose phone it was.

I can't remember think of his name.

Just like the FBI had tried to do, huh?

Yeah, I could.

I could use a rewatch on.

Maybe I'm mistaken.

I should look that up.

I don't mind the storyline going there.

It was just only in hindsight that I realized I wasn't sure how Tom and his force didn't understand that they were incorrect.

Yeah, they'd been.

I mean, my understanding is that it was a setup which goes with the leak.

And then, of course, if we're being asked to think right now that.

That Kathleen FBI director, FBI head or whatever, if she's being dangled in front of us as the likely suspect.

You know, it kind of makes sense because someone would have to probably be pretty highly placed to be able to get that phone and do that.

I don't know.

I might be incorrect.

Maybe she's being blackmailed or something.

We don't know.

We don't know it.

Like we said, it does seem a little.

Or like I said, I mean, it seems a little easy, but who knows?

Yeah, it's a good show.

I will say it's a little questionable that it took the dark hearts this long to figure out there's a connection to brother Robbie staking and robbing them because they killed his brother.

It may be worth noting that I Think in the show's chronology, it's only four days at this point.

Yeah.

It hasn't been, like, a week.

Packed four days.

Yeah.

Especially for Robbie, who seems to have not slept.

When would he have time?

I know he.

Robbie's a man maybe not on the edge right now, but he's.

He's in a tough place, obviously.

Emotionally, he's in a jam.

He doesn't know.

He's got this kind of, you know, almost like magic fix, which is that we're gonna run away to Canada and live and be safe.

And obviously, he's getting a little raw as the days go on.

And, you know, he's.

He's clearly not a master criminal, as I've.

As I've said before.

And now that Cliff is dead, it's only him and his family that would run off to Canada.

It's all on him.

And they're the only people that can get hurt now too, because everyone else is dead.

Brutal killing of Cliff.

Yeah, well, yeah, it was.

You know, we'd been kind of primed for it by knowing that this was how Billy was killed.

Poor old.

Poor old Cliff.

As brutal as we seem, though, you probably should suspect it from this gang.

Yeah.

With.

It's.

It's made.

Been made pretty clear that they're not nice folks.

And, yeah.

They demonstrate that Perry even punishes Jason.

Jason.

For not telling him the full story of why he beat Bobby to death.

Yeah.

Holding the information.

Yep.

All right, well, that.

It's.

That's it for us, I think.

Task.

If they get all of these things to intersect, if Brad Ingalls be the creator, gets that to happen, it could be really great.

I'm curious.

We're through the halfway point for this show because it's only seven, so four is over half.

And I'm here to say, or I think at this point, that if the next three episodes are just okay, obviously I would like for it to be good, but if it was just okay, I think it's done enough that I would be like, okay, that was not a complete waste of my time.

And then, of course, I'm hopeful that, like you said, if it really.

If it really all starts clicking, seems like there's a lot of cards on the table right now.

And they got some time.

They got three episodes.

Yeah.

Well, that's the end of us for Adam and Donovan.

I'm Blaine, and we Hope that your YouTube videos don't get you in a lot of trouble.