Resentments, Decisions, Guns: 'The White Lotus' and Ending of 'Severance'

Before I do the usual introduction to our podcast, I'd like for you to take a little bit and hear what I have to say.

To begin, the podcasts in our family of podcasts come from the site the Alabama Take, which is a culture site from Alabama or even Alabama adjacent folks with musings and of course, podcasts.

This week, for the first time in our short history, one of our own passed away.

The young lady is Lauren begg.

She was 23.

Although Lauren faced four serious hospital visits already this year, she had beautiful plans for what she called her Jordan Year.

She wrote about those endeavors on the site and even had a regular column on the Alabama Take.

She was as sweet as her writings likely lead you to believe.

I'm going to miss regular emails from Lauren Talk let me know she had another essay or book review ready for the site.

I'd like to dedicate this episode to Lauren, her memory and any avid young reader and writer to those who aren't afraid to put themselves out there.

Second, I offer the warmest of thanks to Ms.

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Ms.

Brenda wrote to us the brief message Please accept this donation in honor of Lauren Beck, who will live on in our hearts forever.

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I like that this lady found appreciation of the site and what the site does to perhaps give a home to young and old writers who may be developing their voices or may have established their voice already, but share it in our communal atmosphere, which is what we hope to present at our website and with our podcast.

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With that, here are Adam and Donovan, Alabama tape projection.

Hey guys.

Hey guys.

I mentioned at the top of the episode before you two came in that our episode today is in memory of Lauren Bett, who loved contributing to the website and her thoughts on books was just a fun thing I always look forward to.

She'd even throw in an occasional football or basketball thought at us.

She'll be definitely missed.

Her emails were always fun.

But as we do with every episode, we're gonna start with ideas that won't spoil TV shows or movies.

But this case it's just two TV shows, no spoilers.

Then more detailed stuff on the back half.

So last week I did bring up the new Apple TV plus show Dope Thief.

Yeah, that's the one starring Brian Tyre Henry and Wagner Mura, who they've gotten themselves in a bit of a pickle.

A quandary if you will.

The third episode.

It's not one we'll run down in a spoiler section, but I just noted it's still high quality series through three.

Some of that most recent episode had some tension that began as kind of manufactured a little, or at least felt that way.

But then the back half had this tautness that was really organic, tightly done in those scenes and just the ones right after Brian Tyree Henry did what seems to come natural to him at this point.

He's got these funny and deeper moments, but at the same time really intense with the tension and fear.

If anybody's interested in that little rundown on it, let's jump into things we've all, well, most of us have seen.

So.

Donovan.

Donovan.

What an introduction.

Just throw him under the bus there.

You know, you make a bed, you lie in it.

He didn't do his homework.

The White Lotus hits its apex to me thus far with the fifth episode, Full Moon Party, I'd say that's in part of the is the variations of vacationers at the White Lotus Resort and Thailand are finally being really mixed and matched and it's like they're put into Saxon's blender of protein shakes.

It's like they all had a full moon fever.

Am I right?

Yeah.

Hey, I wondered about that title.

Yeah, My White plays with all sorts of different personalities and even brings in a little bit more of a surprise.

Full Moon Party had to be very fun to construct and it shows with the actors.

I think you had to pause there.

You said full moon party.

Fever.

Fever's in your head now.

Well, I'm pretty Used to saying full Moon Fever.

Yeah, I thought this was a great episode.

I thought it delivered.

You know, last week I said on the program that we seem to be hitting our stride, and I felt like they just handed the baton off and went off at a good trot.

It was a great episode.

Classic White Lotus episode.

I think we were lukewarm on the start of the season.

And without spoiling anything, I think if we were to watch immediately an episode from season one after seeing the episode that we just saw of season three, it would be shocking how much bigger the show has gotten.

I mean, I think they're now seeing everything play out from Mike White's brain.

I think the ambition is there, you know what I mean?

To not only kind of continue to use this very successful formula, but.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's.

It's paying off.

I wouldn't be surprised if we came back at the end of this season and said that it had some of the best White Lotus episodes overall.

It just floundered in, like, the first episode, maybe a little of the second.

Yeah, I think it was more like maybe they could have been condensed into one.

I think we've said that.

I think that's what you're getting at.

I would be interested, after all is said and done, to rewatch in sequence and see if I feel the same way.

Maybe some of the.

This is one of the first, like, dependably big names of the year to come back.

You know, we kind of had it circled coming into 2025.

White Lotus back in February or early whatever, late January, whatever it was.

Maybe the anticipation.

Yeah.

Got us there.

We had Severance circled as well.

That's where we're going.

Non spoilers.

Don't worry.

It makes its bow for season two.

And, you know, there's not a lot we'll say here.

It's been a great season, well filmed, better acted than its previous season, which was still high.

Interesting ideas.

Go watch both seasons on Apple tv.

Plus, when you do come back here, use our time steps and go straight to the spoiler section.

I would encourage our viewers to write in our listeners to write in to us and tell us why you're getting severed.

Do you want to share?

You want to open the floor?

Oh, I think I'm getting severed so that I don't have to hear another Taylor Swift song again.

Not that I don't like Taylor Swift, but my wife listens to things very deeply and narrowly.

You're getting severed from your wife is what you're telling us when you've heard.

When you've heard bad blood 500,000 times, you get.

You're like, maybe there's other songs in the world.

I don't know.

Think of the hell.

No matter what, I'm putting him in.

Yeah, right.

You.

You only click to life when fill in the blank artist comes in.

Who would that artist.

I mean, Blaine has Bob Dylan.

Who do you have?

Donovan.

That.

That would actually be a.

That.

That would be a pleasure.

A utopia.

It's a good question.

It's a good question.

It's a good question.

There's first two Pixies albums.

Really?

David Bowie.

Oh, I love.

And Surfer Rosa.

Love it.

Could have guessed David Bowie.

I didn't guess that, Adam.

You started it.

You know, the tragedy would be that if.

If this technology just switched on as soon as one of these songs started playing, then you would never get to experience it.

That's right.

You didn't.

Well, you never knew it.

Well, he's having it now.

He has made the decision to specifically sever himself from fill in the blank artist.

And yours is.

I mean, it's got to be between you two and the clientele for the enjoyment, for the utopia.

That's what.

That's what I think.

But what if I never got to drive on a nice spring day and listen to the clientele again?

Well, maybe your Audi does a version of you.

Yeah, that's right.

Too complex for this section.

Let's give everyone a break and then on the other side, we'll do spoilers for the White Lotus and separates, in that order.

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All right, we're back.

Let's start with the spoiler section of the fifth episode of the White Lotus, which is Full Moon Party.

And boy, there's plenty to spoil in this one.

Tim seems to be the guy with the gun.

Gay talk is too milquetoast to demand it back.

The Russians love to party.

It's a big surprise that's the biggest spoiler.

Wait, Russians like to party.

The party on the boat turns into some high reverie.

And most importantly, Rick makes it to Bangkok to hang out with old pal Frank, who's played by the always fun Sam Rockwell.

Let's just run it down a little.

Let's do it.

Okay.

Yeah.

Tim from the podcast Seti Bimko.

Not Tim on the show.

Tim writes to us this week and he.

He had an excellent point.

So good.

I just wanted to kick myself for not seeing it.

He says, I've been enjoying what the show White Lotus has to say.

Yeah, I'm tired of Tim sitting around with a blank face.

But this season's capturing what it's like to get old and pine for a bit of the old days.

Our three girlfriends were out dancing with the young crowd, convincing themselves they could still have fun.

And we have Rick's friend who wishes that maybe he was a young Asian girl.

When.

When Greg's girlfriend tells us she likes getting naked in front of young men because they shake and you can see their little hearts beating, I was like, yes, I remember that.

I remember shaking as well.

Yeah.

Well, that's a good email right there from Tim.

That's pretty good.

You know, he pointed out this.

One of the motifs of this season is aging, you know, and that's a.

I just can't believe I didn't see that one.

As I age myself, it's abounds.

I didn't notice because I am young and will remain young forever.

So keep going.

Yeah, no, no sense bearing the lead here.

This episode exploded for me because, hey, when you need a one on one with Walton Goggins, you gotta, you gotta give him somebody who can duke it out with him line by line.

And you bring in Sam Rockwell.

It's what you do.

He's great.

He's absurdly hilarious in most of his roles and it's what he did here.

I mean, you're going straight to it.

Yeah.

For this one I am, yeah.

Yeah.

I said I was gonna run it down.

This is the Walton Goggins show for you.

Yeah, I'm a fan.

Yeah.

I'm a pretty big fan of his.

Yes.

Straight to the.

You're going straight to dessert here is what you're doing.

Uh huh.

I hate that I did not watch the Amazon prime show about the fallout.

Was it called Fallout Fallout?

Yeah.

He supposedly plays a character who's.

He gets to play him in makeup sometimes and not make up some.

If I understand.

But yeah.

Anyway, I'm a fan.

Are we Going straight to the conversation.

Is it happening?

Let's do it.

I mean, Frank's revelation about himself exposes how nearly everyone on the show has no clue who they really are to their detriment.

Yeah, I think Frank.

Frank asked the tough question.

Once you start staring into the void that is that monologue, everyone else around him, not around him, because he's.

He hasn't met Piper, you know, he doesn't know that she's also going through a.

Would be spiritual awakening or say the women who were trying to reconnect with their youth in a way, in each other and all these things.

And here you have a guy like, really, really doing the work.

You know what I mean?

I mean, it's like asking, could I be an Asian girl?

Running down every indulgent fantasy that every character on the show has indulged in in some way.

Right.

And so there's nothing left.

And then actually changing as a result.

You know, there's no.

Like, the Buddhism of it is not.

Somebody online pointed out, I don't know, that he.

He may have been.

If he had had this crash out in a mostly Christian society or mostly.

Whatever society he may have turned to, whatever religion helped him frame his need to recover.

You know, I think Buddhism fits it the best.

But I don't know.

It was like the work there.

The story is insane and the best bit of the show so far.

But the actual work is not fun, not luxurious, not a hang at the White Lotus.

The ease with which Rockwell delivers.

The ease and friendliness.

Like, this guy gets it and then he just spills all this out.

And then we get Walton Goggins response.

He's not quite weirded out as much as like, shit, I need to process this for a minute.

He just gets that look, you know, I think we can describe his performance there as a GIF factory.

I mean, we are now.

Which one?

Goggins.

We are now just loaded down with reaction gifts for years to come.

Gifts.

Yeah.

No, no, no.

Gif.

I should have said there to highlight the difference.

I loved it.

I'm still.

I'm a little confused.

If we can continue just living in that space that this guy who has had a.

Some sort of spiritual awakening, is still presumably giving his friend a gun.

In a bag.

There's probably more in the bag than just a gun.

We think he only wants the chamomile tea, but, yeah, he'll give you some firearms.

That's fine.

Go kill your.

The guy who killed your father.

What a scene.

I mean, yeah, Rick is his journey Is it feels authentic in a storytelling way.

You know, obviously, he's kind of speed running.

Enlightenment and personal development, maybe.

I mean, we don't know where he's gonna land.

But you don't.

You don't know how fast it is.

Have you ever released a bunch of snakes?

Huh?

Do you not know how that, you know, expedites your spiritualism?

A little gasoline on the fire of the awakening.

But it's.

It does feel.

It's.

It's rare that in a TV show people have, like, a real believable arc and, like, a classical storytelling kind of way.

And we're riding with Rick, for sure.

Yeah.

I mentioned in the intro, I think Matt White probably had a lot of fun writing that scene, constructing that one.

Oh, that By Monday.

Or maybe it was.

It may have been to use a bit.

I think it was Monday.

There was already merchandise with the full monologue on it.

You told me you're gonna send me one.

I'm still waiting.

Well, they.

They managed to somehow get the entire thing not just on that T shirt, but on a hat.

Oh, it's like, on, like, the main part where the artwork usually is.

And obviously had to spill over to the bill as well, which I.

That's the kind of absurdist merch that I am thankful that the Internet exists for.

Yeah.

All right, well, let's get into some of the other big plot.

Once camera check at the gate ruined my idea that Tim was a red herring.

Seems like he's got the gun.

I mean, not only does he have the gun, but he's debating using it on himself.

Suicide note and all.

You know, it's.

It's a recurring thing that many of these folks want to leave behind what they've done wrong.

I don't know that Saxon and Lachlan have yet.

They may be too naive to have such thoughts.

Well, they're on the.

The beginning of the arc that their dad is reaching the conclusion of.

Right, Right.

Yeah.

They're in the middle of the fun part.

They're not going to regret it yet.

No.

Do you think.

And I have not dove in online.

There may be an actual answer, but when he has the gun to his head, you hear a click.

Is that click him trying to fire it, or is it him pulling it away?

I.

I don't know.

I didn't notice it, nor have I seen anything that would explain.

Okay, just curious.

Piper wants to leave behind her past.

She's not necessarily thinking she's done anything wrong.

The thing is, she's just not Chinese.

I mean, why is she gonna go to live in Taiwan?

Why would she want to stay there in Taiwan?

Did you know Charles Manson and Bill Clinton wrote books?

New information every week on the white Lotus?

That was so good.

Now.

That was good.

It's so funny that we kind of started out like, oh, gosh, she's kind of annoying.

This accent's just too thick.

She's, oh, come on.

Let's dial it down.

But now when she's on screen, I'm just like, I can't wait for her to utter something so stupid in her very white point of view.

Well, we could be arriving.

Oh, I know.

We're arriving at one thing.

We could be arriving at 2.

The one that's the maybe is.

Is this a Lucille Bluth situation?

Has she been pulling the strings all along?

Does she know what's going on with her husband?

Because she clearly, like, can hardly be bothered to give a.

That he's clearly going through something.

She's honestly pulling something that is very realistic for wives to pull.

And I think my wife does it.

It's where she knows you're up to something, but it.

It's not worth talking about.

I think it could be that, but I don't think that she is naive enough to say, you want to stay in Taiwan.

You want.

You know what I mean?

I think she's, like, playing it up for.

The easiest way for her to move through her social space is to kind of be.

To have to play that role, you know, and that there's a smarter human under there that maybe is.

I mean, one read would be she's manipulative.

Another is that she's just trying to survive.

It wouldn't surprise me if nothing comes of this idea or if it turns out that she's been, like, stashing cash away, anticipating his downfall.

They taught her in the sorority at Duke to be.

To play the dumb girl.

Yeah.

I mean, is it not something that we see southern women have to hopefully less and less as time goes on, but that there is a certain expectation there, and then maybe even you can judo that into some form of power.

Oh, just take a lorazepam.

Yeah.

Fabian's back.

He gets something to do, and it's that he's going to remind gaytok he's not at his post and listen, though not heed Belinda's warning of how dangerous Greg probably is.

That situation is the same as kind of wondering, like, how much does Victoria know?

You know, like when Belinda goes to him and says, this could be dangerous.

Yeah, I think I know who this guy is?

Yeah.

Does that imply that they're in on it somehow?

Yeah, that's thought.

That's a good theory.

Plenty of characters, though, who don't listen and don't understand.

So is he fitting a motif?

Is he really that dumb?

Is he oblivious?

Or is he playing along with Greg?

As Greg came to the.

To the desk and said, look, this lady's gonna probably gonna come and ask about me.

Just play dumb.

At some point in the season, they said you have to be a guest to go to the hotel.

You can't just wander in and have dinner or whatever.

Yet Greg is not a guest.

And is there pretty often.

Does this imply that there's some relationship there?

Is he just the.

He's so rich and lives up the hill, just let him in.

Or is there some deeper meaning there?

Greg's palled around with some gay folks.

He may be gay, he may be bisexual.

Fabian might be gay.

I meant more like they're recovering international crimes.

But yeah, it could also scratch my back.

You scratch, you know?

Yeah.

Back scratching.

Going on.

Belinda's hidden predator turns out to be a lizard.

And I don't know what kind of metaphor that is, but one of the.

Scarier ideas so far is that she slept in the same room with that thing for lizard days.

It's not gonna hurt you.

I don't want a lizard in my room.

I have one in my house right now.

I know you send us pictures all the time.

Yeah, he's great.

But when he.

I don't want him running around scurrying about.

That's true.

The ladies, Kate, Jacqueline, and Lori engage the Russian dudes in conversation.

Man, that guy.

What was his.

Vlad cracked me up.

Now this is when the.

The White lotus is cooking.

You know, they're having these normal conversations you might have while partying.

And yet it turns to him, every opportunity he gets, he brings up how horrible his life is in the stereotypical Russian fashion.

My.

My mother died.

You know, everything is like, hey, we're having fun.

Yeah, well, I lived in poverty.

The partying was.

Everything about that was like.

You just.

You felt it, you know, the one friend just being ready to go to bed and trying to shepherd everybody else through the experience.

One person going too far.

And then just the sense of danger, like we're supposed to feel that these women are marks in some way.

You know, something awful is going to happen.

But then kind of zooming out and thinking, well, why would he crime at his place of business?

You know, he's obviously already let him in they're, like, stealing things from the gift shop or whatever.

We're supposed to assume that.

I think he may just hop from country to country or place to place and do this.

It's kind of what they do.

I think the simplest solution is that they're already getting theirs.

They've already crimed.

Right.

So why not just, like, party and hook up with.

Oh, yeah.

Yes.

That's the simplest solution.

That's.

I like that one.

Yeah.

Vlad.

Everyone, you know, dives in the pool, underwear, except for Lori, who goes topless.

And then Vlad just comes running out butt naked.

He's having a great time.

I mean, he.

He grew up, you know, with a horrible Russian life.

He's ready to party.

Here's what.

What Jacqueline does wrong in.

In that she cheats on her husband and she cheats on her friend Lori, Right?

Because she was encouraging him and her to hook up Valentin and her.

So she sleeps with Valentine to kind of have control.

I'm the head here.

It's not really so much an attraction, though.

She probably thinks that she's deluded herself into probably thinking that.

Well, and they made this pretty clear with the.

The dancing scene where she sees the younger women watching her and she really leans into it, as they say.

I wouldn't be surprised if there's also an element of what was said at the top that this is like an.

Having some agency against aging, you know, like, well, if.

If we were really old, would we be able to party all night and then hook up with these?

You know, it's control over both the friend group and her own mortality, in a way.

Yeah.

Well said.

Which we all try to do one way or another.

Good ways and bad.

You know, episode one, we.

We asked, oh, God, is this an incest family?

Are the Ratliffs incest?

And last week, Adam said no.

The show is a type to go there.

Well, here we have Sax and Lachlan on the dope and then kissing one another a little bit more than they probably should.

You know, it's not just I dare you to kiss peck.

They.

They kind of return to the kiss.

Right.

You know, if we are.

I want to talk about a lot about their partying because there was some really comical things that happened.

Hey, I've set you a pic drive.

To the basket, but I think the kiss is less.

It was uncomfortable to watch.

Right.

Like, as a viewer, you watch these people behave badly for two and a half seasons now.

You're so biased against incestuous people.

Yeah.

This is an okay place to be but watching it, it felt kind of like we were talking about the hookup being like a.

A power thing more than anything.

Which hookup?

Valentin?

Yep.

Whereas this, to me, it feels like Saxon has been like the.

The big brother in charge.

And I mean, Lachlan even tells him early in this episode, like, I can't remember the exact phrasing, but I'm gonna get you one day.

I'm going to rise above you.

And I think this was him, you know, Saxon takes him out and the day starts with him just trying to convince his little brother to have a beer.

And now, many beers later, many drinks later, the drugs appear and go right down the hatch for little bro.

The note and Saxon, Saxon throwing up that X with his arms.

What does he say?

This is a drug free zone.

You know, he's just like, yeah.

And he says, I'm the drug.

I am the drug.

Yeah.

What an idiot.

It was so funny.

It's like those guys you went to college with where you're just like, hey, man, we're going out to the bar.

And he's like, I don't drink.

Weightlifting's my high.

Yeah.

Except he does drink.

Yeah.

Well.

Well, okay.

Well, in this case, it's drugs.

Yes.

Yep.

The drinking, that's.

It's a very southern reaction in a way, you know, Southern frat boy kind of version of that.

The kiss, I think was little brother saying, you.

You thought that you had to show me the ropes on all this stuff, and I am.

You're posturing in a way, and I'm willing to make you very uncomfortable.

Back to that control thing.

Yeah.

Now I have control.

It's a very Freudian assertion of who's taken over the pecking order there.

Literal.

Just a little peck.

Speaking of control, I don't know that Greg's gonna be happy with his girlfriend using his boat, controlling his belt to.

To bond with these kissing and idiotic brothers.

It gives him.

It gives him another reason to be the predator, not the prey, though.

I don't.

I just don't see him holding an automatic weapon.

I can't picture him doing that.

I mean, we'll see.

I think it was.

He'll pay somebody.

It was rightly pointed out that Chloe, you know, we keep talking about Greg Gary as this kind of the apex predator of the show at the moment, but Chloe has manipulated her way somehow into this relationship with him.

She's not as just happens to be there, happen to start dating this rich guy as maybe we should.

We're led to believe in the first Episode now.

Her name's Chloe.

What's her friend's name?

Rick's girlfriend, Chelsea.

Oh, I get that confused.

Chelsea, I think, is like a moral compass on the show.

Yeah.

You know, and her reaction, her reaction to the kiss, before we completely leave the kiss in the rear view mirror.

Donovan, he doesn't want to leave the kissing brothers.

But her, her reaction was hilarious.

So well acted and just like, what the hell is going on here?

Yeah, it's good stuff that, that Rick gets the reaction of the week and as does Chelsea, his girlfriend.

She does.

And she is in a moment where everybody's like kind of doing the party.

We're going to do whatever we want, you know, shed our skin, kind of jump into the, the moral gray area.

She's like, no, I'm, I'm sticking with Rick, you know, even though he's not here.

Whereas Chloe, you have to wonder, like, I don't think it's just I want to hook up with this kid.

It's, there's something more to it, I think.

Oh, okay.

And she presents it as, you know, I'm dating Greg.

He's, he's old.

He's the rich bastard.

You know, it gives me the life I love, but I want the young guys to play with and for sex and stuff.

It could be as simple as that.

I just, yeah, I sense something more devious.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Last week I mentioned that the show asked how many resentments is going to break you?

And this week it seems to be about the, the wrongdoing that develops the resentments.

At least here in this party vote, the reveal of who kills whom feels like it's going to be a bigger shock this season than previous seasons.

And that's kind of what I got at when we be, when we started.

And you know, some of these back half episodes might be even better, at least in terms of shock, than season one or two.

I mean, there's motive all over the place, right?

Yeah.

Good job of setting up motive for.

Everyone if you're willing to, you know, pin the string on the board and start making some connections.

Everybody's only like at most two or three away from an act of violence outside of like Piper.

See, I could see her.

Even if they really wanted to be a really twisty.

Chelsea's about the only one I can't see.

I could see her standing by Rick and some, you know, that's fair.

He gets himself into a pickle and she says, well, I don't know what he's done, but that's my Guy.

So.

Yeah, here we go.

I hope Rick and Chelsea live to see another season.

But.

Yeah, well, when it comes to surprises, we'll wrap up one of the big surprises.

Or I suppose one of the shows was some of the bigger surprises with the finale of Severance.

Here we go.

Spoilers for it.

Cold harbor.

Last episode this season.

So spoilers going forward in case.

In case a listener is unaware that you're in spoiler section.

It's okay.

At the very least, we get it again.

The finale gives us what we all needed, whether we wanted it or not.

It's Milchek dancing for more gifts.

Man, he has the moves.

That guy can dance.

Man, he.

He shimmies.

Little reveal.

I.

I backed it up to watch a few of those movies.

I hit the rewind.

He, he, he does such a good job.

Cuz I can't think of the actor off the top of my head.

I apologize.

ML last name he play.

He's Trman is his name.

Oh, thank you.

Thank you.

He just keeps the same poker face on the entire time, which is what makes it really bad.

Choreography and movement.

Yeah.

And well, speaking of, you know, he's there with.

He's got to act opposite of a animatronic.

Keir Egan.

Kudos for that.

Right?

Man, the spotlight, the fake crowd.

I like that they gave us a couple of those wonderfully surreal touches as we say goodbye to this season.

It's like it's, it's, it's.

It's like a weird corporate retreat.

Two people.

Not to be our stereotypical selves.

But I kept thinking if you take away the reaction shots from Mark and Helly in that scene, that's pure David Lynch.

But the reaction shots kind of bring us a little bit down to less surreal and more like, what the going on here?

Yeah, I have to say that much.

Like with your White Lotus assessment, we are jumping straight into what I consider to the dessert of this episode, which is Tramille Tillman's entire performance.

The dance, so good.

But it's kind of early in the episode, to be fair.

It is, but it's kind of all of a piece, right?

Like he leaves.

He leaves.

Dealing with Dylan reappearing after, you know, Dylan does not any.

Dylan does not expect to come back to life.

And suddenly is confronted with that.

And away he goes, Milchick sprinting down the hallway.

Yeah, but why?

We don't know yet.

And then this variety starts up.

That may be one of the funniest things this show has done for me is when he slides that envelope over for Dylan to read.

He sprints, and you don't know why.

And he's just like, what the fuck?

He's just like, my day's really packed.

Zoom.

Now we are set up to know that the entire company is watching him.

The Cold harbor is, like, one of the biggest days in Lumen history.

Pressure's own.

I got a lot of.

A lot on my plate right now.

That's the energy there.

Like, I can't deal with your paperwork.

I got a lot on my plate right now.

The way he sprints, the.

You're talking about the animatronic.

Can we get in the weeds here?

Was there consciousness in.

Right.

Is it a script or is it response?

Well, Helly looked at it to try to see what you're thinking there.

Yeah.

She definitely gave it the.

The gaze into the eyes.

Like, what's in there?

Well, this sets up what they're trying to accomplish with Cold Harbor.

Right.

Like, is this an early, limited version of them trying to animate Kier's consciousness?

Huh?

Yeah.

It was so weird.

You know, Keir Egan was a CEO until his death.

If you note that plaque on the wall that begins the episode, I don't know how important that was, but they certainly gave it to you.

I think he might have had to pause it to really get the dates correct, and which I might have done.

Mean, he's the.

He's the big man.

Yes.

Kerrigan, how much stock do you put into the opening credits?

Because we don't get John Turo as a literal baby, or do we get him as a figurative one?

Whatever that represents or supposed to be.

Well, and it evolves over the course of the season.

Right.

I'm sure that there's now, like, a super cut of.

You can watch them all back to back, which I should have done before we sat down, but he's.

He's in it a lot.

Animatronic or not, Jay, Megan and Kerrigan are both scary.

I thought it was just a sweet touch to have Haley's dad be even creepier by.

By using a different camera angle than they gave you, I think last week.

Kind of gives you the notion that he's not there.

Or Helly imagined him and, you know, you're thinking, oh, maybe she didn't see him last week.

Nope.

There's the father of the year right there.

He's still there.

He's been watching, saying weird shit.

He likes to watch.

Yes, he does.

I still find it interesting that the Enies think of no longer working as death.

And, you know, we have that word for its termination.

You've been terminated.

It echoes that sentiment.

But it's such a capitalistic idea or late stage capitalism even.

You are your job.

Without it, you're dead.

It seems as if there would be at least one innie that would voice that, well, I do have an Audi.

I'm going to continue even though I won't know it or be a part of it per se.

But I think they've used the two seasons to set up the vast differences in the two.

Yes.

And it's a good job.

I just, I don't know, I just would have suspected at least one of them to maybe briefly mention it.

But yes.

No, it's not because they haven't done a good job of setting all this up.

They earn that a bit with, you know, we have to go back before Mark shows up at work again to the birthing cabin and how great that whole.

The idea of, of the video.

And I love that they use the, what, late 90s, early 2000s technology there of him filming himself.

Yeah.

To highlight all of the Audi coble.

Devin and Mark's attitude about the Ennis slowly gets betrayed in the language that they use.

And that Audi Mark can't even be bothered to get Helly's name right.

You know, in the way that Devin the sister says, there's a moment where any Mark realizes this is going to kill me and she kind of reacts like, yeah, we were hoping you weren't going to notice that, you know, And I think that those two, the name being wrong and that reaction gave him every right to, to say, like, do these people have my best interest?

Yeah.

At heart.

Like, why should I sacrifice myself for them?

Because I have a different autonomy than, than Audi Mark does.

And is that even a good guy?

I don't know.

Yeah.

The conversation between Mark work Mark and outside Mark really drives home how different they are.

And I was thinking, okay, is it just the love interest that separates them?

Is that strong enough?

Is any Mark more evil?

Is he more brainwashed by Lumen shit?

I mean, I think you run into the same thing with Dylan.

Right.

Like he writes the letter about I want you to continue existing because you're a version of me that I aspire to.

I think any Mark could.

I don't know that he believes he's a better version than Audi, but he certainly believes that he is a different person.

I was, I was gonna say basically what Adam said, like, I think they've done the work.

So that's.

It's not even that you have to so much be like, oh, like is obviously the.

Like is.

He is like any mark bit more this or that or the other.

But just like they're like.

They're different people and we've been shown that they're different and over and over again, just like Audi not getting Helly's name right.

Like, you literally have nothing in common with me besides our body.

Because we don't share the same experiences.

We don't share memories, we don't share anything.

We just.

We just happen to be accidentally in the same flesh.

Prison at the same time sometimes.

Donovan, how much of you at work is you at home?

Right.

No, I'm asking.

Oh, me probably.

Well, you at work loves Taylor Swift.

I gotta put on a smile on my face for.

For everyone who walks in.

You know.

See, I can do that at home.

Yeah.

I find it hard sometimes some days to.

To have a work Persona.

Huh.

A lot of this episode in particular is about living.

Not like life, but like living and the beliefs of what living are missing.

His friends at work deeply concerns any Mark and deeply concerned Any Dylan too, with.

With Irv.

No.

Any, though Express, unless I'm forgetting, expresses that stopping the job is just a black screen or mentions an afterlife.

I find it something that the workers are so full of uncertainty about what's going to happen to us or just don't want anything to happen to them.

But the Lumen and Egan folks are just zealots.

Like, they have the steel conviction that endangers them and everyone with a contact like the abandoned town and all.

Yeah, I'm not really sure what to.

Follow up on there, but.

But to add to that, you know, with the whole afterlife idea and how no one's mentioned it, we do get both marks talking to one another, presented with ice and fire.

So whether or not they believe in an afternoon afterlife or not, they've certainly watched Game of Thrones.

Yeah, there's a little bit of hints right, from the Lumen people because they're like, you won't be with care now, you know.

Right.

No, they can find cures, right.

In the.

They're zealots, which is a comment on zealotry, I think.

But yeah, it is kind of interesting, right?

Like, you kind of wonder.

I think they've got a job done.

A good job of this was like they give the Innies little hints of what their outies are like.

What's the.

What's the mythology of life outside the severed floor?

I think the Innies also are shown to always question, maybe too Strong a word.

But, you know, there is an ideology there for them.

You know, the zealots are presenting.

These are the ways that you live, the tempers, whatever.

They have a whole area that you can go and pay your respects to the mythology.

But they kind of treat the whole thing like.

Like a corporate presentation, even though they don't have the outside consciousness to know they're doing it.

You know what I mean?

Like, they're like, yeah, we kind of have to look at this because we work here.

But none of them seem like.

Irv seems early on to respect all of that.

And the rest of them are just kind of like, yeah, whatever, I'm just here for the paycheck.

Wouldn't it be fascinating if church was like that, where they gave pie charts and had a presentation?

What church are you going to?

They're not doing that.

None.

Oh, the ones I went to as a kid just basically told me I was going to hell no matter what, so.

Right.

Well.

And then the churches that are definitely involved in tax fraud, those are the churches that.

That have pie charts for their members.

You can see where the righteous gemstones versions of church, I suppose.

Why do they need 25 versions of Gemma?

I mean, 15.

Not enough.

10.

Corporate greed.

We still don't really have a good why for what they're doing.

Right.

They give us a little drip of, oh, it's his war against pain, which is like, okay, well, then the ether makes sense, right?

Like if Kira's.

And then like the.

The baby crib, right.

Has associations with not her severed self, but her whole.

Her.

Her outie self.

But we don't really.

Like.

I don't really.

I didn't see the thread through what all those other.

What they were building with those other personalities.

Except torturing this poor woman.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, are they trying to.

However the data works, however the numbers work, are they somehow creating a consciousness for her?

Like a severed version?

That is.

I mean, it seems simple.

Like, the idea is, let's remove all of that from her brain and then send her out into the world.

But I don't really know how that stops you from having more bad experiences that cause pain.

You know what I mean?

Like, what's the plan for, like, really pain proofing a life Ether.

Ether.

Turns out they had the solution in front of them the whole time.

Yeah.

Stick to the basics.

Huff glue in a van like God wanted you to.

I love the horror movie tone.

When Mark and Haley were back at the.

At the office.

Yeah, it had a lot of those scenes just had pure horror movie.

I loved it.

They did such a good job of both bolstering and undercutting the horror.

Especially like with that, you know, like.

And I think a lot of that goes to, to Milchick.

Let's, let's say, you know, the, the when it switches over to like the marching band and everything, like again, it like undercuts the horror, but at the same time it kind of like weirdly ramps it up because it's like what is happening here?

Yeah, well.

And I thought of when you said horror movie.

You know, there's one thing when Helly sits down with her back to that animatronic here.

There is zero chance I'm putting my back to that.

Yeah, no, I mean I felt that viscerally on like that feeling of I could be stabbed at any time, you know.

But watching Mr.

Milchick kind of snap the whole thing out of the horror movie was comedic.

He's running down the hallway and he.

He literally uses a remote to like put it back to the dull office lighting.

That was so funny.

He did such a good job.

I'm just.

For a guy who spends most of his episode in one place or between two rooms.

He was so.

He was so good.

I mean he spent his entire day after talking to Mark on the phone in the previous episode as a one man party planning committee.

Yes.

And he put all of this together.

Yeah.

Swank's gone, man.

He's on his own.

He's got to do it.

I did see one interesting tidbit online in a.

An interview with Tramell Tillman.

He's saying that the, you know, the marching band moved like a HBCU marching band.

Yes.

Huh.

And he said that that is to be read as Milchick asserting his independence.

Whoa.

Yeah.

But there one read on it would be they're kind of getting him to like, oh, let's make the black guy dance.

You know what I mean?

Right.

Yes.

A gross racist history.

And instead he's taking that and asserting his own agency, which I thought was very interesting.

That is good.

That's.

I like that because I feel like there was more of the kind of like.

I mean it's, it's interesting you brought that up because like in the interactions between like the kiraton automaton and Mr.

Belichick, there seemed to be, you know, like it got increasingly frosty, you know, and it seemed to be overtones that like you're getting above your station, you know, like you're getting to, you know, know your place.

Yes.

And his Reaction is definitely somebody who is not backed away from the edge of, you know, telling his superior to eat shit.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

He's still got the same energy.

He's.

He's riding that high.

Yeah, yeah.

It's interesting because he also buys into the Lumen, Egan religion, whatever you want to call it.

And I think we have to question at this point how much he does, you know, him.

And, you know, episode one, season one, he's all in.

Yeah, he has changed from that episode, but I do think we can say he, at least so far, faithfully discharges his duties.

And is there a day when that will not happen?

But I think for right now, despite whatever he feels inside, he's still gonna.

He's still.

He's still a company man.

Some people have posted the picture of, you know, like a door with the security latch, but it's.

It's a Cheeto instead of like an actual secure system.

Like, what security on the severed floor has just been non existent.

It's the same security guy letting them in every day.

And I guess because of the nature of.

They think of them as little children that can be easily controlled.

Like, how much oversight is Milchek really undergoing?

Like, he has to go in for his performance review, but he's really just been ratted out by his assistant.

Right.

And like, Kobel clearly had a lot of irons in the fire and was kind of out of control from Lumen.

So I think Milchek has the possibility to dominate season three, kind of acting as like a rogue independent force.

You stole my next sentence.

Which was the good news is we're going to probably get a lot of Milchick next season.

That seems to be the promise.

He seems to be the one because he is whole in both places.

Right.

He's the only one that's the go between between any and Audi and has a clear picture of what's going on and seems to be jumping off the train.

Mm.

Cobalt, you're still like, what?

You still have some evil intention?

Yeah.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

There's no doubt about that.

Good balance of horror.

And then into action.

I saw.

I felt no jolt or jarring of going from one to the other, though they do have a lot in common.

Oh, I.

I have a question, though.

A little shift here from us.

Is Dylan the type.

Audi.

Dylan, I suppose the type to use the word indecorous.

That did not fit.

Really.

I thought that was kind of like again with his, like, little sugar, you know, it's like first you.

Your behavior with my Wife.

Right.

But Audi Dillon can't even bake cookies.

That doesn't mean he doesn't know a word.

That's true.

He doesn't want to bake cookies.

He doesn't want to do the effort to bake cookies.

But.

Well, no, he sat down and wrote.

This letter because he's mad.

Yeah, I'll.

I applaud Erickson, writer, creator, Stiller, all of them, on upending the status quo.

You know, there's just no way things are going to remain the same.

And it's even more so than the first season.

In the first season's ending, it's.

They've upended to where you just can't have certain things reset.

There's no going back.

Yeah, I really respect shows that do that, are able to do that.

It reminded me of, like, I was reading an interview with Alan Moore when he took over Swamp Thing, and he completely changed kind of what.

What was going on in the comic.

And he's like, the reason I did it is because, like, you know, characters, if the character's goals are ever fulfilled, then the comic ends, right?

Then he has no.

Nothing to do.

And so, you know, the audience kind of kind of knows that it's.

It's a tease, right?

Like, oh, he's never gonna accomplish it.

And I.

And then taking and taking it in a new direction lets you do new things and also lets the audience know that, like, hey, now, this character may actually be going somewhere.

And so I really respect.

You know, it's kind of like the Fugitive, right?

Like, if he solves the mystery, the show is over.

But for.

For the show, I think Mad Men did it.

I think Breaking Bad did it.

I think a lot of good shows do it.

They're willing to flip the table and.

And so you, you know, and so we're not stuck in the, like.

Well, I know it's never going to happen because if they do that, then this show that they make money off of is going to end.

Yeah.

We get any.

Mark getting one of his desires fulfilled, he runs off with Heli in the end.

I mean, that was subversive to the point of almost sad or disappointing.

You know, he chooses heli.

And it's so nicely set up in the Gemma episode that we kind of have.

We love her in a way and we care about her now.

I do wish we would have had one more big emotional reminder about Mark and Gemma.

But as it was, it was really good still that he chooses Heli.

It was just.

It was a lightning bolt.

It was a.

It was a strike.

You could just see him looking out that door at Gemma and hearing Bobby Hill in his head going, I don't know you, you really good.

Somebody made a gif where he is looking at her through the door, through the glass.

And then he looks back at Helly and over.

Helly is in post season three and he walks toward.

That was the only moment where that is a great scene.

But it's like, well, of course he has to deal with her because I already know that season three is going to happen.

So this is the way to achieve maximum conflict there.

Although everything leading up to that, I still think we're back at like Orpheus here.

You know, he goes down into hell and grabs Gemma and as Audi Mark down there.

And if you really clock how many different versions of him it takes to pull this off, it's fantastic.

And how many permutations of Mark and Gemma are together just in the brief time they are.

Yeah.

It's a lot of math.

Wow.

You know, you said, I wish I'd made that connection.

That is fantastic.

You said, Blaine, that you wish there'd been one more emotional something to.

Yeah.

To really grab onto with Mark and Gemma.

And I think that when she leaves the cold harbor severed area and her face changes and they're reunited.

Yeah.

I mean that was so, so good.

That was as good as any.

Mark's heart wrenching decision on the.

The floor above.

You know that when you really.

I think especially if you had binged the show as people will do in the future and you know that this guy starts thinking his wife is dead and all of a sudden it's not just her body but like she's back right in front of him.

That's a really overwhelming emotional moment.

Somebody's come back from the dead and they embrace and it's like, okay, now.

Oh, we gotta run.

Yeah.

And then he has to.

To usher her through.

I think it's also proof that any Mark is a good guy.

Right.

Like he told them that he would get Gemma through the severed floor and to the fire escape.

He doesn't say that he's coming with her.

Yeah.

You know, well, I, I question how much of any Mark choosing hilly was a big fuck you to Audi Mark.

Because of their argument.

That's totally what it is.

But it's also some love or attraction to Helly.

Sure.

You know, he was promised that he could have those memories.

Yep.

You know, once the procedure's done and all of that.

But you know, he even pushes back against that like, am I gonna Be you for part of the day and me for part of the.

You know, how does that even work?

It's an awfully cruel way to spite.

It's very cruel.

And I thought that Helly is the most selfless person in the episode.

Yeah.

You know, she sends Mark to get Gemma.

She says, you have to go, essentially.

And she says something like, I'm me, or I'm her or I'm her.

And so the question that I.

When I first watched it, I thought, well, she's saying, no matter what, I am tied to Lumen, you know, there's nothing I can do to escape whatever's gonna play out later.

But other people read it as her saying, I'm her.

I am Audi.

Mark feels about this woman the way that you feel about me, and you have to go help her and help him.

But they're already introducing the fact that Helly cannot get away from Helena by her dad showing up and saying, this is the real version of the Egan that we want.

He even says the creepy stuff about he has other kids right in the shadows.

Yeah.

Which I think is tied to what?

The cobalt interaction with the security guard at the birthing cabins in the previous episode where she says, oh, we're going to the specific.

Whatever.

Super happy they didn't kill the goat.

Cute goat.

I like goat.

I do too.

I don't want that worked out.

Worked out as good as it could.

Poor Iceland.

Oh, Drummond.

Did we really feel bad for Iceland?

Yeah.

Didn't you see the nice things that he said in somebody somewhere?

I assume that he just.

That this is the severed version of the nice guy we saw in somebody somewhere.

That's how acting works.

Right?

So Sam is like waiting in the park.

Yeah, exactly.

He's never coming back.

Somebody who's never coming back.

Hey, he's a fine actor.

He can give us a big lovable teddy bear and he can give us menacing drumming.

Yeah.

I mean, if you can literally do two completely opposite things and then I'm watching you within a couple months of each other and it feels.

It's like you might be good at your job.

I don't know.

They also really let kudos to everybody involved for letting him beat the ever loving out of Mark.

You know, when you see they're in this enclosed space and like maybe.

I mean, Mark's smaller, you know, he runs kind of goofy, but maybe he can get away from him.

And then you just see that big hand come out and throw him into the wall.

It's like, this isn't gonna go well.

For us, poor Mark's fallen out of shape in the last two years from drinking and grieving over his wife.

Thank God Gwendoline Christie was there to save the day.

Even in this last episode, which I think leaned more to the drama.

They just have these great episodes of comedy, like, where that fight in the hall was very well shot.

I would go so far as to say that it felt brutal.

Right.

You're right there when he hit the wall.

Oh, yeah.

But so, like.

And it's like.

Oh, like it's.

It's visceral, but also like, it all gets kicked off with.

He opens the door and Mark's, like, trying to climb the.

It's so funny.

Yeah, it's so.

And.

And.

And I.

I just like this episode especially.

Did such a good job with that, like, those two underlying tensions of, like, the humor and then, like, the.

The.

The.

Which, like, they.

They kind of both undercut each other, but done well.

They work together and create something new.

You got to give it to Adam Scott.

He went right back to his comedy roots for a second with that look he gives.

Absolutely.

This gave a more satisfying ending to a season than season one.

It did.

I mean, season kudos to them for season one because we couldn't wait for this one to start again.

I can live for however long it takes for them to make season three now.

I think they've built such a world that there's a lot to chew on.

Right.

Part of that is, in season one, you can't really answer questions because you're posing the questions.

And they did a wonderful job of satisfying viewers while at the same time giving us a couple of new things to still ponder for next season.

Taking the season as a whole.

One of my.

And we.

I talked about.

We talked about this a bunch, but I think I just loved how much it wasn't a tease.

Like, yeah, there are some mysteries out there, but, like, I didn't just feel like I was getting jerked around, you know, and then they're like, wait for season three.

You know, they really.

Actually, I think they did a good job of having, like, the individual episodes work as individual episodes because we care about the characters and also propelling the story meaningfully forward.

And it does a lot to, you know, y'all talked about.

They're unafraid to knock down.

What would be the guidelines for another show, you know, like, once you.

But it also.

Two scenes jump out at me.

One, when they kill.

When Mark kills Drummond.

Right.

Like a sudden explosion of violence.

Yeah.

And happens.

And it's like, oh, this is.

Yeah, people are dying.

You know, it's not just like, what if the secret of.

Of mistreating workers gets out?

Now there is a dead body involved and goat sacrifice before that that has the chance of leaking out.

And now we have a whole marching band standing between Milch and his escape and Dylan.

Don't look at Dylan, man.

Dylan.

Well, Dylan held the.

Held the door there.

But.

But the ability of heli to.

And maybe this is.

Her dad was right in some weird way.

She rallies this room full of people.

I mean, revolution is underfoot, right?

Best show of the year so far.

Our short year so far.

Yeah.

For best show I've seen this year.

Yeah.

I think it taken as a whole so far, it's number one.

Yeah.

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