Sabotage and Horror: 'Beef' and 'Widow's Bay'

Hello, everyone.

Welcome to Taking it down, the TV podcast for the Alabama Take.

This week, Donovan and I are finalizing our thoughts on the back half of Beef from Netflix.

We'll talk about the opening few episodes of the Apple series Widow's Bay while the brief discussion on Half man from hbo, though that won't appear in the spoiler section.

And we'll talk about a couple more things from this weekend.

Tv.

Let me get Donovan in here so we can begin the show.

Alabama take projection.

Yes, indeed.

Joining me, as promised, is Donovan.

Adam is fresh off his tour of the uk, but he should be back next week.

If all goes planned, it's likely he's home and settling into life in Alabama again by doing a lot of British related things.

Watching football, drinking tea, things of that nature.

The man's a fiend for an Earl Grey.

Now, he's quite the Anglophile.

My understanding is that they had to turn him away at the Piggly Wiggly.

He had two armfuls of Earl Grey tea.

We've never had to limit our Earl Grey tea.

Not before.

No more euphoria for us, Donovan.

I'm sure that's exciting.

There's a good reason.

I glanced through a recap and review of the most recent episode and it was disgusting.

Oh, cool.

Yeah, it's morphed into exactly what critics said it was for the first two seasons.

And it makes me question shock value.

For shock value's sake.

Well, I can't believe I'm putting these girls through this.

Yes.

That's it.

That's it.

Much like the Idol got.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Pretty.

Pretty brutally.

Yeah.

I even watched those first couple episodes of the Idol and thought it was okay until it got to the point where it wasn't okay.

So it's just turned into a jazzed up exploitation film.

That's exactly what it is.

Yeah.

That is perfect.

Like, if you eat a sandwich and you're like, this sandwich is made with shit, you could keep eating it and you might, but you will probably find that you have just eaten a sandwich full of shit.

I think the same thing goes with TV shows.

If you watch three episodes and you're like, this TV show sucks.

Yep.

I'm putting it away for now.

Or maybe forever, honestly.

Yeah, it makes me question if that's what it was all along.

I don't think it was.

I don't think it had me fooled.

I think it took a turn for the worse.

It's a.

It's a bad later season that recasts the stuff that you Puts a bad light on the stuff you liked originally.

Yeah.

Just puts a bad taste in your mouth, you know?

Yeah.

You're like.

You almost feel like you wasted your time.

Television can do this.

Movies won't really ruin the whole experience.

In the last five minutes, though you disagree with an ending.

I think endings are hard.

So I did and I do try and do, like, endings are hard for books and films.

I do think you can ruin your movie.

For example, if you end any movie with it was all a dream, you've ruined it.

But, yeah, TV shows almost have, like, a unique ability to do this with their final seasons.

Finales.

Yeah.

Speaking of something, we don't see much in the TV world.

There was a surprise episode, Drop of the Bear, this week, which was written by John Bernthal and Ebon Moss Becker.

Did you happen to catch it or.

Just hear the news?

I haven't watched it yet, but I actually think it might be good.

Usually when Jon Bernthal is in something.

I was reading reviews of the new Daredevil and they were like, highlight is Jon Bernthal.

And I think Eben Mas Bakarak is Bakar.

However you say his last name is really good, too.

Bernthal is easy to watch.

He is.

He was.

I guess he does kind of like macho characters a lot of the time.

You know, like, he was the lead in We Own this City, who's kind of a.

But I do think that there's like a Wayne.

Subtle.

Wasn't his name Wayne?

I think that was.

But there's like a subtlety, right.

Where, like, you see, like, this guy is not a hero.

Or in the turn, in the case of.

Of Richie.

Right.

Like, this guy can be vulnerable.

Mikey, He's Mike.

Yeah, yeah.

Boil.

Mikey as Mikey.

He can be vulnerable.

But you see that there's like a.

Almost like a reserve.

It's keeping him from being fully present with other people to his detriment.

Bernthal's the best cast person for.

When you need macho to be covering up something greater.

Yeah.

This episode, by the way, it's about 55 minutes, I think.

It was so solid, so good.

If you like interiors of characters of the Bear and you like how 70s films look and feel, you're going to love it.

Oh, horny.

Yeah.

Oh, well, look out, folks.

A lot happens here internally and it harkens to what you were talking about with Bernthal.

I like that because I think it's hard to do in a visual medium and it relies so much on really good writing with what is said and what is not said.

And really subtle acting.

I agree with that.

It's a challenge.

I mean, it's a.

If you.

If you.

It's so funny that you're reviewing this episode and you haven't seen it.

Yeah.

The Bear does this pretty well when it's really clicking.

It's a lot more about what's being said than.

Let me rephrase that.

It's a lot more about what's not being said than what is being said.

It's almost like what's being said is absolutely the opposite.

Yeah.

Yep.

And here you get some of that.

It's very solid.

So if you're a fan of the Bear or just John Bernthal, I think it could stand as almost like a standalone.

You'll be a little lost here and there, but the.

It could stand by itself.

Yeah.

A mini movie.

I like it.

It's like a short story.

It is.

Dang.

Yeah.

Good analogy.

Before I get into other shows, we'll discuss vaguely here and there.

To begin, non spoilers.

I wanted to talk briefly about the Lord of the Flies.

I've seen one episode.

I think I'm gonna tee it up for you this week.

Bells above.

Yes.

And we forget to make that connection.

Seems like it could be a good show, but it also feels like Netflix needs to do a better job of knowing what's on their docket.

The only way I knew that this was going into the streamer Netflix is.

I was getting ready to watch Beef and I just saw the little thumbnail for it.

They're so haphazard with their advertising and they're so big now that they are able to.

I know this is a British production, so they have a lot of things that they put their.

Their brand on, but I think they're so big that they're like.

They will equate a prestige drama with, like, just some slop to watch while you're folding laundry.

Because their market is everybody.

And I'll give them benefit of the doubt.

Advertising is hard.

Now.

Where do you advertise?

Where do you put it?

In front of eyes.

For me, only fans.

For me, it's only fans.

Yes.

Thank you.

Yeah.

If I wasn't currently watching a Netflix series, where would I have seen.

Where would I have known to have my eyes on it?

I don't know.

I would have missed it, I think, maybe.

But this show I did watch, the one episode.

I won't talk about it hardly at all.

I think we're going to tee it up for next week.

It's got some potential Jack Thorne, who did last year's Netflix series Adolescence, is behind this to a degree.

I think he wrote it.

I don't think he had a hand in directing or anything else, but he wrote it.

This adaptation.

And Jen Chaney, whom I like to read and who writes for Vulture and Roger Ebert gave it three and a half stars out of four because they do four stars on Ebert.

Skim through her review.

I'm going to carve out some time for this.

Feels in my wheelhouse.

So.

Yeah, and read that review.

Looked a little bit about.

After you mentioned it, I read it.

Looked at the pedigree too with.

With the adolescent writer.

And that gives me a lot of hope because I think adolescent really did do a good job of portraying a fairly realistic, like young, young man, you know, with all the contradictions and everything that that entails.

Yeah, they did a great job.

So let's get into the shows we do want to cover.

At least two out of these three will be in spoilers.

The back half of Netflix series Beef.

We're finally getting around to it.

We had a week off last week.

Well, we didn't quite have a week off.

But you.

You had the week off.

I had a week.

I was at the Cape.

Exactly, exactly.

Widow's Bay type stuff.

Widow's Bay, Yep.

So you had the week off.

I. I decided to hold off on.

Any thoughts, Spoiler thoughts.

Both of these seasons are produced by A24 written and created by Lee Sung Jin, and they're in anthology form.

You really could watch the second season without watching the first.

You could do them in reverse.

Absolutely.

Doesn't matter at all.

New season though, we got Oscar Isaac as Josh, a general manager of a very hearty toddy golf club.

Country club.

And he's married to Lindsay, played by Carrie Mulligan, who thinks of herself as very hoty Toddy.

Oh, man.

They have charge over Ashley, who works at the country club, as well as her fiance Austin, who works there part time.

Now those two are played respectively by Kaylee Spany and Charles Melton.

Listeners may know her from Civil War and him from the film May December.

What do you think about the back half of the season?

Non spoiler wise, did it improve or lower in quality?

The back half of this series dares to ask how do you feel about capitalism?

Boy, doesn't it?

So actually I had seen some stuff like saying that people thought the back half was a little bit of a drop off.

Okay.

Yeah.

Didn't really happen for me.

Didn't really feel.

I felt like it was the show as a whole was like kind of building to something.

Okay.

I was not disappointed.

I was not disappointed.

I thought the quality was really great.

I do think that there were story elements that went sideways.

Sideways.

Not.

Not downward spiral, but definitely sideways.

Yeah.

I do think, like, it wasn't perfect.

And there were some things, I think in the last.

Especially the last episode, you could be like, okay, I didn't think this show would turn into that.

But like the who and this and this is betraying a little bit of knowledge about the anthology.

But having watched the first season of Beef, you know, the whole thing, it's turning up the temperature the whole time on these characters.

Right.

Where do you go when you get to the bowling point.

Exactly.

Or beyond thought.

It was a very propulsive season, much like the last season from a couple of years ago.

I think a lot of people will find this easily digestible.

That pun intended.

I find that one.

I do recommend it, especially if you're forgiving of a series that tries to wrap.

Wrap up our last half of a show and know the endings are kind of hard, but you're still at a high quality of filmmaking.

I think thematically, like, endings are hard.

I think thematically it worked.

And I gotta say, the four core actors here, I think are really great.

Karen Mulligan, Oscar Isaac, and I just love Kaylee Spaney.

I say I love, like, Kaylee Spaeny is great.

Actually.

I almost like.

I almost like them more than Oscar Isaac and Carey Mulligan.

I did too.

Their performances.

Yes, their performances.

Which is not to say that Oscar Isaacs and Carey Mulligans are bad because they're great.

Yeah.

Maybe it's because we've seen Oscar Isaac and Carey Mulligan and we're very aware of what they can do.

And with Caleb Spaeny and Charles Melton, they're still fresh.

Especially both of them just had this sort of, I guess you could almost call it, like, naivete.

They did with quirks.

With that.

It really, really worked for me.

And I would even go so far as say, facial quirks that they added.

To their character, which there's something that Charles.

Charles Melton does where he just kind of looks, like puzzled all the time.

He does.

And it's purposeful.

I agree.

It's so funny.

Yes.

Again, high quality.

Acting's great.

It looks great.

It was.

Yeah.

I'm a. I'm a thumbs up on this.

I think there's some stuff to chew over.

I do think that it is not especially with the end.

It's not necessarily the most subtle show out there sometimes.

You know, I don't know.

Sometimes subtlety is a virtue and sometimes it's not.

I didn't.

It didn't particularly bother me.

I mean, I got to the end and I was like, no, I get it.

I have seen it hinted that that's probably a Netflix thing.

You know, the way that Netflix has.

I mean, it's been written about the way that Netflix is like, assuming you're not really paying attention so much.

So I remember, I can't remember what movie it was, but Matt Zoller Zollercides was writing the review and he's like, it's annoying to watch this because like every five minutes or so somebody says out loud what they're doing because they assume you're not watching the tv.

And even the really good ones, like Beef on Netflix, they must have gotten some show notes from someone above.

That said, make sure you spell out what it is this is about.

Yeah.

And if you're forgiving of that is still good.

And I do.

I even think that they did accomplish that in the last episode in a kind of funny and clever way, the way they chose to to.

There's a moment that's really on the nose that made me honestly laugh out loud.

Yeah, yeah, I'm with you.

Let's go over to Apple tv.

We have a series debut for us because we didn't cover the first two episodes when it debuted.

We mentioned it earlier.

It's Widows Bay stars Matthew Reese as the mayor of a New England town with some mysteries.

This is build in a lot of places, pretty much everywhere.

As a comedy horror, it didn't strike me as out and out hilarious, but I thought it had a strong opening episode and a strong sense of some comedy.

I feel like interestingly and, and I think wisely, the show didn't try and be really goofy, super goofy and funny in the first episode, but I think it is comfortable enough to let that kind of build because by the third episode, they were things that were definitely making me laugh out loud.

Okay, I think I'm with you there.

It did have a very good, excellent sense of place and character in the opening.

I don't know if this show is good because I like Matthew Rhys so much and I love hearing Steven Root hooting and hollering like I'm just smiling.

Like there's a bit in the second episode where Steven Root his head characters hanging out a car window yelling.

And it made me laugh out loud like I'm just purely enjoying this it.

Also has Kevin Carroll as the sheriff.

And I think he's really good.

He's really good.

Every time I see him in something, I always think he's great.

Steven Root talked about it.

He's a concerned citizen.

Those two are welcome sights.

Not to mention Matthew Rhys, though.

He's.

I don't know if I've seen him play as skeptical in Skirmish of a Person as he's playing here.

Is there anything he can't do?

I mean, honestly, it makes you say that, right?

He's never been this jumpy.

He never has been.

And it completely works.

And the wonderful thing about a lot of Matthew Rhys is, like, you know, you have the memory of other characters that he's played.

Yeah.

But every time, you know, it still feels very fresh.

Like he's never.

I've never seen him play a character like this.

I agree.

And, man, I mean, when he looks.

At you with those eyes, he hasn't pulled that card.

He hasn't yet, no.

I think the ultimate slight spoilers for the Americans, if any of you haven't haven't read it, or major spoilers.

I think, like, the ultimate Matthew Reese is when he looks at the FBI agent and it goes, you're the best friend I ever had in my whole shitty life.

And he just kind of lingers on him for a second.

It's like he pulled out the big guns there, Matt.

Yeah.

You know, I'm surprised Apple didn't sit on this one until September or October.

It would have fit.

Well, it would have.

I am perfectly happy to watch it now.

Sure.

You know, but I agree with you.

It seems like an odd.

Really.

Although Apple has done similar odd things, like releasing a Christmas episode of Ted Lasso in, like, June.

I don't remember when it actually was, but it wasn't Christmas time that first or second season.

I think it was the second season.

Yeah.

It does remind me a little of recent shows by Mike Flanagan, which have been on Netflix.

Yeah, I see.

I see some of that.

Just the setting, I think, is the most reminiscent.

I actually turned to my wife and said, what's the better Spooky Town, you know, here in Widow's Bay or the Spooky island in Midnight Mass?

Because it's almost.

Almost exactly the same kind of setup.

That is definitely the similar setting.

This is something we won't talk about in spoilers, but I've watched the first three episodes of Half man on hbo.

This is the series from actor and creator Richard Gad, follow up to his Netflix show Baby Reindeer and they're not connected.

It's just that he's sort of in this category of TV alture.

If he keeps working the way that he does in that he creates, writes, acts, even directs some of the episodes.

I think Half Man's other big role goes to Jamie Bell as Niall Richard.

Gad plays Reuben.

They are connected.

They're over in Scotland, a little estranged as the episode opens.

The first episode.

And boy, oh boy, is Gad pushing you to corners.

It'll make you squeamish, but you still want to continue it.

It's.

It's a show that people.

For people who like depth, who like pushing against boundaries.

At times I would even say that it's like Gad.

You can tell Gad doesn't come from a TV writer's room.

Yeah.

Because he comes from the stage world.

Yeah.

Theater.

There are some seriously troubling scenes in this and not that they're graphic, but they allude to some really dark aspects of humanity.

It's going to be really hard to gauge at this point until it's over.

Gad may have slow rolled to an obvious point, which might be.

It gets clearer.

I think either there's a mistake of pacing here or subversion of the surprise field TV world we live in.

So it could be both.

Interesting.

Yeah.

It's commendable though for, for GAD and other UK shows to have characters who are human and barely off the bottom rung of society.

I see this a lot more with UK television than.

These aren't middle class people.

These are people living in what people in the Wire would have been living in.

So you see it occasionally in the States, but not as much.

Yeah, I mean, you know, it's.

It's cliche to say out loud, but, you know, a lot of class differences are much more obvious supposedly to folks from the UK than to Americans, you know, partly all Americans thinking that, you know, they're every.

They're just a temporarily embarrassed millionaire, you know, as John Steinbeck, but.

What a great line.

Yeah.

Yes.

But you know, in the States we tend to give these lower class citizens drug addictions or they're on.

They're in a trailer parking on pills.

Sure.

Over there they don't have that extra layer of maybe even bs.

It's just they just happen to live in a housing that's not as great as middle class.

Yeah.

They don't have a drug problem.

It's more.

More precarious.

More precarious living.

So I really do appreciate that they do that.

And Gad does it here and they never mention it.

That's the thing.

It's never like, oh, I don't have any money, poor me, or, oh, I've got to go buy heroin because I'm so sad.

I wonder, you know, you.

You raised a good point, Blaine.

I wonder how much sometimes with.

In tv, if we do, you know, like, you have a drug or a pill problem or whatever.

There's like a moral component to it.

Like, oh, well, that person is poor because they were bad.

Yeah.

You know, like kind of overly simplistically instead of just like some people are poor because of the.

The way the world is organized.

Yeah.

I heard it recently with Congressman Crenshaw.

Yeah.

Basically saying that.

Yeah.

What we'll do, we'll take a break, and on the other side, we'll get into some spoilers about two shows.

We're going to talk, first of all about the back half of Beef, second of all about Widow's Bay's first three episodes.

So we're doing the ending and the beginning of two shows.

Stick with us.

Social media has made it nearly impossible for you to see all that you followed or liked, but that's not the case with Alabama.

Take now you can subscribe to the newsletter, which you'll receive almost weekly and features a quirky story as well as a recap of all that's happened on the site and the podcast.

While you wait for today's podcast episode of Taking it Down to return, hit up the show notes and subscribe to the newsletter.

So now we're in spoilers.

We're going to finalize our thoughts on the season of Beef.

It's second.

And discuss why marriages are often failures if they have enough rage in them, enough compressed rage going on.

Oscar Isaac's Josh, Gary Mulligan's Lindsay.

Kaylee Spaney's Ashley.

She works for Josh and is engaged to Austin, who is Charles Melton's character.

So just to set that up one more time, you guys know this.

If you've watched.

Oh, boy, oh, boy.

You can see Kaylee Spaney and Charles Melton grow into their roles.

Yeah.

She plays a nervous person who's unsure of what to say with twitches and quirks that are so real.

The way that she speaks, very tentative, very uncertain.

You can see her.

She just kind of will like.

And she'll kind of like, brightly say something that's kind of like, kind of inane that I think is really.

It's really great.

She embodies that character quite well.

Josh is a sad character.

It hits you in the Back half just how sad he has no friends.

Yeah, he doesn't have anything.

Poor guy.

Oscar Isaac's performance when it was only Josh and Austin was as good of writing as this show could be.

As and as well performed the.

The joke that like as they're doing stuff like Austin has chat GPT open the whole time and he's like.

He's reading it as he said, like Melton.

Really?

He's like just almost lovably doofus.

Exactly.

I'm not sure if I love him though, because I don't know if I.

Live in the character of Austin.

Yeah, but he played.

Oh, I love all the acting.

And then.

Yeah, I guess if only.

If only Jacob had listened to the last time we talked about this, he would know that the billionaires aren't his friends.

Josh.

That's what I meant.

Josh.

Josh.

I can't keep anyone's name straight.

And I literally.

In my other tabs.

I don't know how I have looked up Beef Season 2 cast and crew.

So I'm looking over on it.

Maybe it's the teacher in me where I've got.

You're pretty good at it.

I get them mixed up.

But yeah, if Josh had only listened to our last podcast, maybe he wouldn't have ended up the way that he ended up.

The ultra millionaires.

The billionaires are not your friend.

They're not your pals.

I get that you might be kind of sort of millionaire.

Ish.

With a lot of debt.

He's wealthy for sure.

Like, he's got money.

But I do think that, that there is like, we sometimes kind of have a trouble conceptually, people who are like, well off.

Yeah.

Versus, like the actually truly rich.

Yeah.

Could he sell that house and his car and downgrade and be very comfortable?

Yeah, he could.

And I think.

No, he were.

And he.

And he works for his living.

Whereas, like a lot of these really ultra rich guys, they don't really have to work.

No, it's their assets.

That is their assets working.

You know, this past year, wealthy or two years, I think wealthy Americans have gotten wealthier and wealthier.

And it's not because they're of their work.

It's their stock market.

They don't have an extra eight hours in the day that they're earning money.

No one can work harder than, you know, you know, like, there's only so hard you can work yet.

The difference in wealth and power is staggering.

And then of course, these millionaires are, you know, they're small fry compared to the chairwoman.

Yeah.

And they're the ones swinging, paying a lot of taxes probably, and still getting a little bit of my blame.

You know, they probably are paying 40% tax versus those billionaires who are paying 2%.

I think the Troy's of the world aren't even paying any.

Any.

You know.

Yeah.

I read it this week that it's totally unrelated to beef, but absolutely related to beef, that working class have time.

That's what they have.

They.

They have their time and they're going to go to work for 8 hours, 9 hours, 10 hours, 12 hours.

Yeah.

But the billionaire class have assets and they don't even have to get out of bed.

Yep.

I think that is actually pretty apt for this show that the.

The concept of debt comes up again, which is you mortgaging your future time.

You know, you're.

You know, in this case, they get a big medical bill.

You're basically promising future work to the hospital.

You know, it's all you have.

Yeah.

And I don't even think Austin and Ashley are in the position to do that.

Yeah, no, they just.

Not really.

I thought it was real funny.

And I don't know if this is a product of the first season, how much the rage plays out as sabotage.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Last season it felt as though it was more.

The rage was just rage and reactions like, I'll trash your garbage can or whatever.

Right.

He's constantly raising the bar.

Cause you're.

But here it was like, I'm gonna sabotage.

I'm gonna put my hand in blood and put it in your orange juice.

I'm going, whatever you got set up to work for you.

I'm going to put a stop to that.

Yes.

In this.

And I think especially between Josh and Lindsay, it had curdled in a way.

The rage has become familiar, you know,.

Was this a grosser season than last season?

Yeah.

Yeah, I thought so too.

I. I mean, yeah, it was gross.

I mean, it wasn't like, horrible, but yeah, it was grosser.

I.

Some.

Some of the revenge was a little scene.

I say that.

That's exactly what I was thinking of.

Not to get too far ahead of ourselves.

Episode 7.

What a great way to show me and not tell me that Spaeny, who plays Ashley, she may have jumped a level in society because her clothes and hairstyle suddenly look different, if not better.

She's been under Lindsay's wing.

Yes.

She's learning a little bit about, you know, Lindsay.

Lindsey is kind of helping her camouflage.

Right.

So that she can move amongst the ultra wealthy at the club.

Look, the part and then you can be the part.

Exactly.

And I think that.

I think that Spaeny.

Kaely.

Spaeny did really good too, where, like, she looks very professional, but sometimes she'll say stuff that just shows you how clueless she is.

Oh, absolutely.

Which is really good.

Austin and Ashley really are characters who don't know what they don't know.

Yes, that's true.

I thought that that penultimate episode where the dangers become internationally scaled, I thought that did feel a little off.

That's the part I was calling sideways.

And I didn't think it was a horrible misstep, but it was just a sidestep that I think it could have been.

I think he could have used another episode, maybe.

I do think it was baked in there.

I could.

While I was watching, and I was like, okay.

I could see some people being like, okay, this is where, like, it just got too zany for me, you know, too.

But I think it kind of worked.

The zaniness.

I really didn't mind.

It was, we're talking about Korean and world politics now.

I thought, wow, that's.

That's a big step.

Yeah.

I mean, they had kind of put it in where they, you know, the.

The Korean government is monitoring, you know, this.

This.

These shell companies and everything more tightly than before, so they've got to move the money through the club.

So I did think that was kind of set up in the second or third episode.

I forget now.

And I talked in the non spoilers.

I. I still think it's quality.

So much of the second season worked well in unison with the other components.

Absolutely.

And.

And still managed to be like.

I mean, there was some gross stuff, but really funny.

Like, it was consistently funny.

And I'll definitely, You know, kudos to the actors, I think, for playing their characters the way they did.

Yeah.

I was thinking of the sounds.

The soundscape of the show.

There's this really disconnected song playing when Josh finds out that Lindsay's remarried.

Yeah.

He's in prison.

The use of the same camera that I mentioned from episode one ends the episode with it's attached to the door that Austin shuts.

And Austin's become the Lindsay, Ashley's become the Josh.

I thought it was a great reminder of that without being disappointed.

It worked for me because with the kind of.

The ending which I think alludes, you know, things being kind of, like, cyclical.

And I think that worked for me because, you know, the two groups of couples really were kind of foils for each other as the show goes on.

And I was like, okay, I could.

I think.

I think this works.

Speaking of working, what did you make of the character of Eunice seemingly being important and then dropping off the face of the show at the end?

Oh, yeah.

I mean, I think that was very intentional.

I think she's dead, basically.

I think when Austin went back to Ashley, which, or we assume he went back to Ashley, I think something bad happened to Eunice.

She's not in the picture anymore.

Right.

So you.

You don't attribute that to a misstep of riding or anything?

No, I think that was very intentional.

I gotcha.

Kind of give you, like this kind of lingering unease hanging over.

You know, there's some lingering unease hanging over this domestic scene.

Right.

Because we know.

We don't know.

I felt like that was the point of it.

We don't know what happened to Eunice.

Probably nothing good.

You know, we already saw Dr. Kim get shot in the head, and Chairwoman park is not particularly sad about it.

You know, Woosh was killed.

Did you mourn Dr. Kim?

A little.

Because I love.

I'm gonna look at his real name now.

I love Song Kang Ho.

And the way he had that, like, impassioned speech about capitalism and about relationships under capitalism, and he's just nailing it.

Marriages and first wife and second wife.

And then Austin's like, okay, I know he said soup.

And then so the way he has to go from this, like, really great monologue to just be like, how do I tell these bozos we need to go to the police?

Is hilarious.

He's so good.

You let on your Korean was much better.

Yes.

Korean's a hard language.

He.

He is truly.

He's truly a great actor.

Just because so many of his roles that I've seen him have, you know, shades of absurdity and pathos to them that are.

And he's the star of Parasite, right?

He's the star of Parasite.

He's also the star.

Well, one of the father in the host.

There's a really, really hilarious.

Like, I think one of the funniest scenes in any Bong Joon Ho movie is there's a bit where he's like in a quarantine bag and he's being dragged out by government workers and he's just screaming the whole time.

It's hilarious.

Like, he pulls it off.

I don't know how he does it.

It's so good here.

He was a little dim witted at times, too.

He was a little dim witted.

Yes.

I like that.

Which park is the most intelligent person in the Frame at any given moment.

Cherubin Park.

Yes.

You're not gonna outfox her.

She had to state the thesis pretty blatantly.

She did a Netflix maneuver.

We have to think, I don't know,.

Maybe we overvalue subtlety sometimes.

I was like, that's not what I would do.

Especially I feel like Dr. Kim actually already kind of stated the thesis in his monologue that they don't understand.

He did.

In a much more subtle way.

Yeah, exactly.

So I felt like it was kind of unnecessary, but, you know, park essentially just out and out says, I have an Ayn Randian view of the world.

You know, there's no cooperation.

It's all selfishness.

I think the last two episodes were a little rushed, and I was surprised that I could.

I could see.

I could see that.

I could.

I could see that being a fair.

Yeah, that was the side that.

Being fair.

Yeah.

Troy and Ava, knowing about the money embezzlement could have used a scene or two to explain.

To show that.

Because he was suddenly on the phone with the sheriff.

I know that's supposed to be a surprise, but it was such a surprise that it left me thinking, well, how would he know that?

Or why would he know that?

It actually worked so well for me.

Just because of, like, Troy is not really your friend.

Right, Exactly.

You know, you're going to turn on him any second.

So it works so well on that that I didn't even think about how he knows.

Because you're right.

When you sit down and think about it, you're like, how does.

How would Troy know?

I don't think you would need Josh in the room for that to happen.

You could.

And again, I don't like to do this speculating or what should they have done kind of thing, but I'm doing it.

Having him find that stuff and saying, you know, showing us the viewers.

Yeah, I'm going to use this against him.

Or, I can't wait to get him.

The show really doesn't.

At least so far, really doesn't like to have scenes without the four main characters.

And then Chairwoman park pretty much, they're all.

They don't hop into, like, and a little bit with Eunice, you can get some of hers, but everyone else is.

They don't really show, like, other people at the club.

Whoosh.

Anyone like that.

The show did have plenty more nuance, though.

Some insight for those who wanted to know more about the final shot of park talking at the grave.

The camera goes overhead.

That's a Buddhist mandala.

Yeah.

Of several things.

And I've understood it as a cycle of selfishness that stems from ignorance, causes more suffering.

And that circle just keeps going this.

And when the suffering causes more desires in order to create some diversion, then more selfishness.

I'm leaving a lot of depth out, but I think that's the gist of it.

I think there's a universe where you're like, okay, but I actually really liked the final shot.

Oh, I did too.

I actually, I liked the way that it was set and I liked the way.

I like the way that it ended with park saying, I have become an old woman filled with regret.

And then it pulls out and everyone's caught in the cycle of life and death.

Right.

Nobody has broken free.

Right?

Nobody has.

Yeah.

Nobody has broken free from this, from.

Their suffering, from their.

And there's no.

And then I think you're.

I think you're right too.

Is.

Is.

There's a massive lack of self insight that is really interesting.

Especially added up with Ashley saying to Austin, we actually already know the worst things about each other, so that's why our marriage is going to last.

But it seems like these.

These characters in many ways do not know themselves.

Perhaps.

Perhaps Josh has received maybe a little release from the wheel.

Maybe.

It's hard.

I mean, it's open to speculation, I.

Hope, because if when you have a character you kind of sort of like a little who goes to jail when they get out of jail, you hope.

Oh, don't.

Don't repeat the same thing.

You just gotta love Oscar Isaac.

He's, you know, even with like, he's hard not to like.

He's just.

He's got.

He's got charisma.

Same with Carey Mulligan too.

Like, she was maybe the worst person in this show, which was.

Which was hard to contest.

She was hard to like.

But I enjoyed.

I enjoyed Carey Mulligan's performance of her, you know, again.

And I think her too, not.

Not a lot of self knowledge.

She's.

While being very knowing.

Yeah.

And manipulative.

Like she knows how to manipulate the other women at the club.

Has.

Has parts of herself she can't see into.

So I thought Carey Mulligan did an excellent job and good writing and directing too.

But Carey Mulligan did a great job of playing that.

Lindsay and Josh could definitely use some therapy.

Yes.

And some other things.

No, everyone there, there is I think like a sort of sad joke in here that like there's a lot, like a lot of people in here could use some kind of help.

But In America in 2026, there's not a lot of help to be had, especially not for have nots.

Yeah.

And the.

The one who are in the illusion that they have.

Yes.

During the halves.

Yes, exactly.

Well, a show.

It doesn't really have anything to do with haves and have nots.

Quiet.

Let's swim back into the waters of Widow's Bay.

It's the island town on Apple TV's show Widow's Bay.

It's a place with the distinctly 80s font for a title sequence.

I loved it.

I love that it felt almost like the Salem's Lot font.

It did.

Which, I mean, if you're setting something spooky in New England.

Right.

You have to at least tip your hat to Stephen King at some point.

Right.

Or the Anonymityville Horror or something.

Yeah.

The opening scene has a man at sea surrounded by fog and subsequently disappearing for a little over a day.

Long enough to make some townspeople, notably Wick, played by Stephen Root, get very worried.

Yes.

I'm sure you know this is directed by Hiro Mirai.

Yes.

You have comments on him.

I like his style.

Yeah, I do, too.

He's noted for a lot of Atlanta.

He directed.

Yeah.

He's directed episodes of the Bear and Barry.

He keeps stuff moving at such a good clip, too.

I think it's.

I think every episode has actually been really well paced.

That's something I want to talk about.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

This.

No, I agree.

But this series is one of the few.

This series and Half man are one of the few shows on TV right now, maybe even the last year, that gives two or three extra beats to every character and let them breathe or give us everything they've got.

Show everything you're feeling.

They do.

Especially multiple times in Widow's Bay with Matthew Rhys's character, which I think everything he has, which is just.

It's like.

And this is like.

I do think Matthew Rhys is actually doing something fairly subtle with his face.

Yes.

He runs a gamut of emotions and the emotions a man like he could have in that scene as a reaction.

He gives them all to you right there and.

But he gets that extra beat to do it.

I mean, honestly, there's stuff in.

And again, like I said before, like, I don't think I can yet accurately assess the show unless it gets really off the rails and really bad.

But there's stuff in here that's also like, it's better than it needs to be.

Like, it does.

It doesn't.

You say.

Well, even just like, the.

The Giving that extra second to Matthew Rhys and letting him just breathe for three or four seconds, which is a long time in camera time.

They don't have to do that.

It probably adds a minute or two to each episode, but they don't care.

They don't care.

Or they want it to be, I suppose.

Not only is the director familiar to us, Steven Roots, well known to us in this podcast, but Jeff Heller's back on TV again.

I was so good to see him.

And he's funny, too.

He's the friend in somebody somewhere from hbo.

Good to see him on our screens again.

He's stretch.

Stretching his acting muscles.

He is.

And I was not seeing him.

And you know, as part of the kind of cadre of eccentric locals that, that work for the town government, he's.

He's pretty funny.

I can't wait to see what his eccentricities truly are, because he's mainly been kind of a little bit more of a button down type office worker here.

Yeah.

So let's get into some of these, some more of the first three episodes.

Okay.

I'll tell you right now, the scariest thing in these first three episodes is that bit where he swims in the Atlantic Ocean.

Because do you know how cold the Atlantic Ocean is around Memorial Day?

It's freezing.

If you've never been in there.

Like, I won't go in an ocean that's not Gulf of Mexico.

It's.

Well, any water to me is pretty cold.

I get.

Okay.

I get cold really easy.

You would.

You would.

You would die.

Were you.

Were you swimming 40 miles offshore?

I'm gonna disagree about the scariest.

I'm gonna disagree with you slightly.

The scariest, to me, I don't know if I would label it as scary.

I don't know if I would label any particular thing in here as truly, truly scary.

Yeah, well, there was maybe one with the hat.

There was some good stuff.

But the hag chasing him in the car was pretty.

That was good.

I like it.

Tense and scary.

But I do think that the creepiest thing was the video he watched in the hotel.

He turned on the tv.

Yeah, that was good.

It's an old video of welcome to Widow's Bay.

And the guy just walks off camera or he just walks away from the camera and that's it for minutes on minutes.

That creeped me out.

And it's.

That was.

That was good.

I think the series has a lot of potential to be interesting to look at.

Belonging, acceptance, who belongs and who doesn't.

It could go there if it Wanted.

I think even.

Even what we've seen so far with the.

The Mayor really being, like, on one side, like, very curmudgeonly and like, trying to be, you know, like the leader, the figurehead, and then the other side of him, who is kind of a scared little kid still, you know, I thought that was so great, because isn't that, like, there's that part of all of us, right, that, like, in the dark or whatever, you kind of.

You're never the.

As adult as you feel.

I think there's something good there.

It's in episode two, which was released as a pair.

Yes.

Wisely so.

Probably Apple does that a lot.

Hulu does.

They do that.

I think they worked for this one.

It gave me kind of a. I. I think if I just watched the first one, I'd be like, I'm not sure yet.

And I did.

It took me a day or two to watch the second one, and I was like that.

I was thinking, it's okay.

It's quite good.

And it looked good.

So I'll go back.

Of course.

I'll go back.

Second episode, though, does give you those moments where Tom, the Mayor, reveals that he had a troubled childhood.

And I think that's needed.

I think so, too.

And I think it's important to show that that troubled childhood is also bound up in the place that he is, you know, Widow's Bay.

You know, it's part of that.

Yeah.

He has one foot in the town and one foot out.

He does.

And, you know, as we learn more about what it seems Widow's Bay has taken from him or meant to him, you almost wonder why he's still there.

And of course, it's his son.

Right.

He can't leave.

Maybe.

Well, I meant Tom can't leave his son behind, is what I meant to say.

Maybe because there's this rumor pulling about the people who are born in Widow's Bay can't leave it right.

Die soon after.

You know, even first episode, not super duper funny, but even.

There was some great Matthew Reese moments where, like, there's a bit where he's shown the reporter around and they're looking at an old newspaper, and it's like it didn't instantly turn to cannibalism.

And he takes a minute, he's reading the paper, and he's like.

Took, like, four days.

Four days.

Like, something about the beats of that were very funny.

It was well played.

That was.

It was good.

It gets a lot of details right.

I think one of my favorites was during Ship's disappearance.

Another harbor guy named Lonnie's watching an ancient episode of Family Feud.

And it was so reminiscent for me of what my grandparents had for a few years after I was born.

That kind of TV and black and white with the static.

The first episode gave me a lot of reminders of the Chevy Chase movie Funny Farm.

Oh, I've never.

I've never seen that movie.

Yeah, there's a lot of that plot here.

He's being run out of town by the locals who don't want him there.

There's some of that happening in episode one.

Widow's Bay acknowledges a lot of what it's borrowing, though, from horror movies, particularly like John.

Oh, there's some.

There's some winks here.

Yes.

John Carpenter's the Fog's very obvious.

I think there's even an allusion to Halloween in a line.

It's all done well, but it is.

You know, my question is that that's been done a lot.

Where's the new here?

And I think they're getting to it.

But when you do that so much, I wonder, but what is it you're doing or saying?

Yes.

And sometimes you kind of wonder.

Are the horror elements just basically like window dressing and you're not really interested?

You know, are they just there to be, like, for the plot, or is there a reason for them?

Mm, I'm with you.

And we'll find out.

I think we haven't quite figured that out.

We haven't felt that yet.

I feel like I do have three episodes in.

I'm enjoying it, but I also have, like, a little fear in the back of my head that this could just.

It could go off the rails, either trying to do too much or just being Monster of the Week, which.

I think I've seen enough Buffy episodes for one lifetime.

Not that Buffy's not great.

Not an X Files fan, are you?

I do like the X Files, but, you know, I feel like those kind.

Like, I've.

You got to be really good to do Monster of the Week because you're.

You're batting, you know, who you're.

You're playing against these shows that have already done it really, really well.

Yeah.

Something that seemed important to me was that the.

The historical lady mentioned that there was a lot of teeth on the island.

Yeah.

Didn't you get the board game?

And there's maybe one more reference to teeth.

I'm not sure how much of a board game player you are, Donovan, but have you ever had an evening indoors with Daddy's home every Time I'm by.

Myself,.

You know, it flew by me upon first watch.

I had to rewind it in the moment, I should say.

But Wick tells Tom and this other and the other city hall workers that they're our steps.

When the fog gets you.

And step one, step two, both sound creepy.

And then he gets to step three, and he's like, you lose your erection.

And he just keeps going really quick.

And I'm like, wait, did he say erection?

And I think the city hall worker comments.

Something about the way Steven Root can deliver this stuff is just so funny.

Yeah, he believes it.

He believes it.

And there is something sexual and misogynistic about many of their horror stories, as Tom rightly points out.

For sure.

But Tom's flawed, too.

Tom is not.

He's not a perfect person.

He's not completely lovable.

He's not.

He's.

He's kind of a crank.

And you can see he's annoyed with the people around him more than.

More than not.

You know, like, he.

He kind of doesn't want to be there.

You could see both sides.

You want him to be more gentle.

And you want the townspeople to quit being weird when they're not, when they shouldn't be.

I'll mention Jen Chaney again, second time this episode.

She wrote a review of the third episode where the hag attacks Tom.

Wick rescues him.

When Tom asks why it's happening, Rick Wick replies, I don't know.

You just survive.

She points out that that's quite the motto for 2026.

Or I would say, maybe even the last couple of years.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's a good.

Don't know why any of this is happening to us, but you just survive.

And that's a good moment between the two of them.

I'm glad that they are possibly more on the same side.

I think that needed to get out of the way.

Them working together is a much more interesting concept than them butting heads constantly.

Yeah, I agree.

And I also think sometimes when I read.

I've read, like, anthologies of horror stories, and many of them have the stage where, like, the person doesn't believe what's happening.

And if you read that 30 times in a row, it actually gets kind of tired.

You're almost like, just skip to the part where the monster comes, you know, like, it's the same steps for everybody.

So I think that kind of is getting that to this point.

Yeah, you gotta find that balance where you don't have readers or viewers saying, well, that's why didn't they question it?

You know that's real.

And then.

But yet we've seen them all not believe in question for so long.

But yeah.

How irritated does Tom get at these townsfolk?

It's hilarious.

His level of rage is that of beef almost.

I was going to say he's, he's lucky and like he like definitely clearly is in the role or at least believes himself to be in the role of like the only competent person.

Oh yeah.

Amongst you know.

Which is part of his character flaw.

Definitely.

And it also, it leads to some really funny moments where like he thinks he knows but like he's talking to the sheriff and he's like I want you to set up a perimeter on the island.

And he's like, there is a perimeter on the island.

The ocean.

Ocean.

The sheriff's notes on the hag was.

That was really funny.

Runs faster.

Maybe she should maybe damp.

Yeah.

I'm for Wick and Tom attempting to confront these mysteries.

I think that's going to be a really good show having.

Yeah, I'm, I'm hopeful.

I, I, I had fun watching these episodes.

There's a lot to be said for having fun.

I also appreciate it that they're playing it fair with me.

There's spooky stuff, but I have no jump scares because I can't.

My, my heart leaves my body every time I'm startled.

The hag chasing his Jeep didn't get you as a.

No.

That wasn't too bad.

Okay.

There were there.

Look, I'm a.

There are many mo.

As somebody who dreads a jump scare, there are many, many moments in there that they could have just destroyed me.

Was the divorcee the hag or not?

I don't think so because she left in the taxi.

I think, I think.

And she says that.

And she says, well, that was humiliating.

And she leaves in the taxi.

She was being pretty forward.

Oh, she forward.

But the, the hag, you know, it came from inside the house in the guise of his wife, not from outdoors.

Good point.

It was already in.

Yeah.

So he blew it.

Having Tom be in the antagonistic center works as pure sitcom comedy.

But here I think he needs to ingratiate himself some more into the culture, at least a member or two.

And maybe that's what he's doing with Wick.

Yes, I think so.

Finalizes my thoughts.

That's the end of our podcast this week.

I'm appreciative of Donovan's time and yours for listening.

For Adam and Donovan, I'm Blaine, and we hope you have a great time playing Daddy's home with some ghosts this week.

I say I I'll add to this that if you pitch up, pick up any hitchhikers, I hope they are age appropriate.

Always.

Have a nice week, everyone.